"Southside Of Heaven" (AU, Adam/Kris, NC-17, 1 of 2)
Title: "Southside Of Heaven" (1 of 2)
Author: asouthernthing
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Kris Allen
Warnings: Sex, serious non-experimental drug use, needles/syringes, language
Word Count: 18,288
Summary: AU about addiction, love, and a coffee shop called the Magic Bean.
Notes: Beta by milliejupiter, who is awesome in every way and saw what I was trying to do without even having to ask. Please read the expanded author's notes if you have further questions or concerns about the warnings, or if you'd like to see my playlist for writing this story. And check out the amazeballs movie poster that katekat1010 made here!.
- - - - -
“I'll quit soon," Adam says. It's a promise that Kris hears all too often.
He hears it first thing in the morning when he comes to Adam's door with coffee and a cream cheese Danish that Adam only picks at. “I'll quit soon," he says when Kris comes to pick him up for a movie or wakes him up when he's flaked out on Kris's couch. “I'm tired of being sick," he says when Kris catches him in the middle of a high, throwing his guts up when both of them know good and fucking well that Adam isn't sick, has never been sick a day in his life that he hasn't caused on his own.
“So when are you going to finally shut up talking about it and actually do it?" Kris asks one day at lunch, Adam grazing on a salad as if he needs to do anything other than eat a steak and gain a pound or ten.
Adam looks down into the plate of romaine and drops his fork. “It's not that goddamn easy, you know," he snaps. “It's hard to really want to quit something that makes you feel…"
“Feel what?" There are lots of things that make Kris feel good - back rubs and Twizzlers and the occasional beer, but none of them are worth dying over, which is exactly the road Adam is going down if he doesn't put down the needle.
“Nothing," Adam says simply. “It makes me feel nothing."
Kris doesn't know what to say to that.
- - - - -
He doesn't know when he fell in love with Adam, though the moment it hits him comes hard and entirely inappropriately. Kris teaches guitar at this tiny studio at the corner of third and San Vicente, but he spends most of his time getting his daily dose of caffeine at the coffee shop across the street. Adam works at the Magic Bean for a while, serving caramel macchiatos and passion fruit teas, and back then Kris couldn't see the track marks. He didn't know to look for them.
It starts the day he gets his business cards. Kris isn't good with people, doesn't really understand how to sell himself or his talent very well. The best way to start out, he decides, is to ask Matt if he can sit some business cards out at the register and go from there.
Matt owns the Magic Bean, and he's pretty much the best friend Kris has ever had. He's the first friend Kris made when he moved to Los Angeles, and once they went on a date, which was kind of weird and neither of them wants to repeat the experience.
Kris comes in with a stack of his cards, and Matt is behind the counter, training someone new on how to use the register. “Anything can be fixed. Well, except murder. You didn't slip antifreeze into someone's coffee, did you? Then don't sweat it," Matt tells the new guy.
They both glance up as Kris approaches the counter; Matt's new employee fixes a smile on his face that is so, so obviously fake, but at least he's trying, and Kris can't fault him there. Anything beats Matt's last employee, who had fuchsia hair and had a bad habit of greeting customers by calling them fucksticks on a regular basis, which wasn't exactly popular with Matt or the clientele. Kris returns the grin as he leans over the counter. “What are you doing to this one, Matt? Trying to make him quit before he's even gotten started?"
“Not a chance," the new guy says. “It's better than working fast food. Or prostitution."
Matt looks horrified, but Kris cracks up, and then all three of them are laughing, and Matt finishes fixing whatever went wrong on the computer. “This is Kris," Matt introduces them. “Kris is either our best customer or the most annoying one, take your pick."
“Hey, I resent that," Kris says with a snort. “You get more than your fair share of my hard earned money. I might as well pay rent here."
“I'm Adam," and Matt's new employee sticks out one ring-laden hand for Kris to shake, nails bitten ragged and covered in black polish. His grip is strong and his hands are big and warm and Kris likes him already.
Matt and Kris sit down at one of the back tables while Adam waits on the next customer. “So, new guy," Kris begins, but Matt cuts him off before he even gets started.
“I don't even know why I hired him," Matt says, and shakes his head. “He's catching on pretty fast, but he looked like a hobo when I first interviewed him. Maybe I felt sorry for him, I don't know."
“I think you hired him because he's hot," Kris teases. Adam is hot - pale faced and freckled, clear eyes ringed with eyeliner and incredible lashes, dark, shaggy hair hanging into his eyes. Kris thinks hot is too tame a word, now that he's evaluated the situation thoroughly.
“Okay, maybe a little," Matt says, and they both burst into laughter.
“Here," Kris says, and pulls out a handful of business cards from his messenger bag. “I'm diversifying."
Matt takes the cards and looks at them. “Do you even know what kind of people come in here? This is not the customer base you want, man. Everyone who takes this card from the counter is going to be a weirdo. You know why? Because every weirdo on earth wants to be that sensitive dude who plays guitar. They don't wash their hair and they wear hoodies in the summer and dollar store eyeliner so that chicks think they're cool or some shit. And they all start out by lurking in coffee shops. All of them."
“Do you even know what my bank account looks like? I'm willing to take the chance that I'll have to teach some greasy posers if it means I can eat less Ramen," Kris insists.
“Fine. It's your time and your brain cells on the line, I guess," Matt says. Kris walks with him over to the counter where Adam is wiping down a glass case filled with pastries, and Matt places the business cards on a little rack next to the register.
Adam picks up one of the cards and looks it over. “Kris Allen, guitar instructor," he reads out loud, and then looks up at Kris with a grin. “Are you looking for serious future guitar players, or do you take lost causes as well?"
"I take everything but Visa and Mastercard these days," Kris says.
- - - - -
Adam shows up at his apartment the next night, and Kris doesn't even question why he's there, only wonders how Adam found the address. “Google is your friend," Adam says when Kris asks, looking around Kris's living room, his eyes landing on the tall shelves that line two walls. “That is a fuck of a lot of music."
Kris doesn't have much, but he has music, and always will, even if it breaks him. He has around two thousand CDs and maybe one hundred albums on vinyl, though those just sort of fall into his hands and aren't anything he looks for specifically. He's not a serious collector yet, at least by his standards. Adam seems to disagree.
“About those guitar lessons," Adam starts, and Kris holds up a hand, starts to tell him to give him a call tomorrow before he starts teaching, but Adam barrels on anyway. “I'd kind of like to test them out before we set up a time. I can pay you now," he insists when Kris starts to open his mouth. “I just don't want to waste your time or mine."
As it turns out, it kind of is a waste of time, because Adam never becomes any good at playing. After five weeks of lessons (they never actually make it into the studio - Kris sees Adam twice a week at his apartment and neither of them ever really question the arrangement), Kris hands Adam back the cash he's been putting back every time Adam pays him.
“My work comes with a guarantee," Kris says when Adam insists on trying to give it back. “If you don't get it, then I don't get it. Simple as that."
So Adam never becomes a guitar virtuoso, but Kris grows to like him anyway. Thursday comes, one of their scheduled lesson days, and Adam shows up at Kris's apartment just the same. “I was thinking," Adam says. “See, I kind of like you, and I don't have a lot of friends these days, so maybe we could actually hang out."
It becomes a routine: Adam has Monday afternoons off, so Kris rearranges his schedule to match. Mondays are museum days, park days, or sometimes they get into Kris's car and Adam takes the wheel; they drive through the hills and look at the gaudy houses, the ones that belong to people that aren't quite rich enough to live in a compound.
On Thursday nights, they pool their resources and try to do something fun - sometimes they go to the movies and Adam almost always falls asleep halfway through. Or they split a pizza and watch syndicated reruns until infomercials start. Adam brings the liquor and Kris picks out the dessert.
One Thursday, Adam takes him to a club that he says he used to frequent back in the good old days, and he says it sarcastically, like the good old days were nothing to write home about.
When they walk into the club, there are at least a dozen people that seem to know Adam, but he ignores most of them and excuses himself as soon as they make it through the doorway. Kris waits at the bar, because people watching is something that he loves and there's a lot to see here.
But then there's this guy who may as well be an elf or something that approaches Kris. He's tiny, covered in glitter, and wearing airy dragonfly wings that droop and nearly touch the ground. “So you're the new one," he says to Kris, and it's not a question. “Good luck on that."
“Do I need luck?" Kris asks.
“All of it you can manage to find. I'm Brad, by the way," the guy says. “I used to be you."
Kris pictures himself in glitter and dragonfly wings and stifles a laugh. “How so?"
Brad shakes his head. “Adam brought you here, so you're either spending a lot of time together or he wants you to spend a lot of time together. He sucks you into his world and you can't get out. You'll think he's the best friend you've ever fucking had, and the best goddamn lay in the galaxy if you get that far, but when you're driving him around town at three in the morning so he can get what he needs, the magic is gone. The magic gets up and flies out of the goddamn room." He's in a full-fledged rant, face twisted and angry, by the time Adam comes back from the bathroom.
“I see you've met Brad. That's nice, really," he says with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “Come on, let's move away from the negativity." He takes Kris's hand and pulls him out onto the dance floor before Kris even has a chance to protest that he doesn't dance.
Adam becomes something else out there, something strange and frenzied as he makes Kris dance with him. He's got Kris's back pressed against his front, and the music is pounding, bleeding through the skin and making Kris's heart race. Or maybe the feel of Adam's lips on his neck is what makes his pulse pound.
“You're gorgeous," Adam says in his ear. “I've thought so ever since the day I first saw you in the coffee shop."
Kris leans his head back, gets close to Adam's ear. “You're the gorgeous one," he says, practically shouting, and their faces are so close that Kris can feel the smile that comes across Adam's face.
"I want to take you home with me." And to prove his point, he dips one hand down below the waistband of Kris's jeans, between the denim and his boxers, then rubs the fabric over Kris's cock. “Say you'll come home with me. Say yes."
Kris doesn't know what else to say - one touch and he's half-hard and wondering why he didn't think of this before. “Okay, yeah," he finally says, and just like that Adam's hand is out of his pants and curled around Kris's wrist as he practically drags him to the door.
They take a cab back to Adam's place; Kris wants to jump in Adam's lap and kiss him until he can't feel his face anymore, but for the sake of the cab driver he settles for holding Adam's hand. Except with Adam, handholding isn't just handholding; it's kissing Kris's knuckles and biting on the ends of his fingers and sucking on his inner wrist. His eyes are wide open and staring at Kris every time he runs his mouth over the thin, pale skin, and he smiles when Kris has to bite his own lip to stop all noise from escaping.
They practically fall out of the cab when they get to Adam's building; his apartment is small but clean, bare walls and nothing in the fridge other than ingredients for mixed drinks and bottled water. “I haven't lived here long," Adam says, almost apologetically. “Do you want something? Or can we get straight to the part where I fuck you until neither of us can move?" He grins at Kris and brushes hair out of his face, and Kris thinks about how unfair it is that one person can be so beautiful.
“Bathroom first," Kris says, and it's mostly the urge to calm his nerves for a second before doing this thing, instead of having to actually go.
Adam points to a closed door at the end of the hallway. “Hurry back," he says, and crushes his mouth to Kris's briefly. It's a brief kiss, barely open-mouthed, and later Kris thinks it may be the best kiss of his life.
The bathroom is tiny, no bathtub but a shower stall with a glass door, and the lighting is clear and bright. Kris looks in the mirror, turns on the cold water and splashes some on his face. “You can do this," he pep-talks himself like it's a championship game instead of being the moment when his sexual desires are about to become fact instead of theory. “You want it. Go for it."
He turns out the light and steps out into the hallway slowly, but he doesn't see Adam. “Where'd you go?" he calls out, and he can see that the light from the other room is on now.
Adam is sprawled out on the bed, shoes and shirt off, pants unbuttoned but still on. Kris can see a couple of condoms on the bedside table and a candle burning on the dresser.
The only thing missing is Adam being conscious. His head is tilted back and he's smiling a little even though he's obviously out like a light, snoring softly.
Kris thinks for a second about trying to wake him up, but Adam looks too peaceful to disturb. He blows out the candle and turns out the overhead light, but Adam doesn't stir.
He's looking for a spare set of keys when he finds the kit.
It's almost falling out of Adam's messenger bag, flat leather case with a metal latch on it. Kris doesn't know why he opens it, because he knows he's not going to find a key in there, but the bag has this pull that says open me, look at what's inside that Kris can't resist. He knows he's violating Adam's privacy, but he does it anyway.
Inside the case, wrapped in a thin piece of an old T-shirt, there's a spoon. There are also cotton balls, a couple of syringes in their own packaging, several of alcohol swabs and a thin piece of latex, like the kind of thing they wrap around Kris's arm on the rare occasion that he gets blood drawn at the doctor's office. And there's a lighter, too, and a small baggie with a hard brown substance sticking to its sides.
“Oh," Kris says, and drops the leather case on the floor. “Oh." The spoon and one of the syringes fall out of the case and scatter somewhere underneath the loveseat.
This is bad, he thinks, reaching for the missing items absently. This is really bad. He puts the case away carefully, back into Adam's bag, partially hanging out just the way he found it.
On the way home Kris tries to remember if he's seen the case before, or if Adam had it with him when they went out to the club. He can't recall for sure, but he'll always wonder if he missed something beforehand.
- - - - -
Kris has always had a thing for lost causes. Once, when he was a kid, he bottle fed an abandoned baby squirrel for three weeks until he woke up one morning and it was gone. His mom told him that the squirrel had died in the night, but Kris didn't believe her for weeks after. Giving up wasn't an option then, and it isn't an option now.
He decides to make Adam his project, and Kris is kind of single-minded when he gets stuck on something. The next morning is the first day he shows up with breakfast.
Adam answers the door in nothing but his underwear, hair sticking up from his head in every possible direction; it's then that Kris notices for the first time how thin Adam is.
“Coffee and sugar? You're my hero," Adam says as he reaches into the bag and pulls out the pastries that Kris picked up from the Magic Bean.
Kris figures that now's as good a time as any to bring up what happened last night, and what he saw. “Listen, we need to talk," he starts, but Adam waves the hand holding his pastry in the air, scattering crumbs everywhere.
“Yeah, about that," he says. “I'm sorry. I get like that sometimes. Totally inappropriate. Never happen again, I swear." He gives Kris a bright smile, one so real it makes Adam look like a kid. And even though it's not what Kris means, and he knows good and damn well that they have to talk about what he found in Adam's bag, he lets it go and gives his best smile back.
- - - - -
The problem is that Kris kind of wants it to happen again, except without the uncertainty - was it the drugs Adam was on that night, or was it Kris himself that turned him on?
Kris can't say for sure, and it stops him from pursuing the subject any further. It doesn't make him any less attracted to Adam, though. Maybe it makes him want Adam even more.
Brad was right about one thing, Kris thinks a few weeks later. He does think Adam's the best friend he ever had. Kris gets a job teaching music to junior high kids; suddenly his days have things like structure and planning and an actual bedtime. Adam takes a morning shift at the Magic Bean so they can see each other in the mornings, and when Adam doesn't have to work Kris goes by the coffee shop and gets takeout breakfast for two.
At the end of the first week of classes, Kris comes home and realizes that Adam's found the spare key he keeps taped to the top of the light fixture outside his front door.
Something coming from the kitchen smells fantastic, like real food that Kris never has time to eat anymore. Adam drifts through the kitchen doorway, slotted spoon in one hand and beer bottle in the other. “Here," he says as he hands Kris the drink, “I figured you'd need this after this week."
“You figured right," Kris says, and looks past Adam into the kitchen. “I didn't know you cooked."
"Very carefully," Adam jokes. “It's okay if I burn down my own kitchen, but not yours. Go sit down somewhere. Relax while I finish this up."
Kris takes one of the stools at the bar in the kitchen and watches as Adam finishes cooking and scoops pasta and sauce onto two plates. They eat at the small café table in Kris's living room, and it's good - the last time Kris had anything this good was something his mom made, and he can't even remember what it was now. “Is it okay?" Adam asks after Kris takes a few bites.
“It's great, really great," Kris assures him, and he doesn't just mean the food.
- - - - -
Every memory at the forefront of Kris's mind involves Adam in some elemental way. In October, Adam invites Kris to a Halloween party with his friends, and the theme is opposites and it's kind of hilarious what Adam comes up with. He wears a plaid shirt and leaves it halfway unbuttoned, paired with the tightest pair of jeans he finds in his own closet, and takes off all his jewelry. He's wearing no makeup and his hair is product-free and soft and it makes him look so innocent that he looks like jailbait. Kris bursts out laughing when he sees him.
Adam dresses Kris, of course, because Kris hasn't thought about Halloween costumes since he was twelve or so. He puts Kris in the tiniest pair of white shorts that could ever possibly exist, and he's is pretty sure his ass is hanging out of them but Adam won't let him go look in the bedroom mirror to be sure. There's a ripped white tank top involved, and lots of something Adam calls surf paste goes into his hair.
Adam lines Kris's lids with black eyeliner first, then grabs a fine-tipped tube of something green and glittery. “Shut your eyes this time," he instructs, and Kris obeys. He can feel Adam's hand against his face, tracing his eyelid with the makeup pen from inner corner all the way out. “Okay, now open up so I can get your lower lids." Kris complies, and when he opens up Adam's face is just a few inches from his own.
“Your eyes are perfect," Adam says quietly. He's so close now that Kris can feel the warmth of Adam's breath on his face. “Totally perfect."
Kris gets hard without even thinking about it. He grabs a hand towel from the rack beside him and throws it in his lap. “Don't wanna get the shorts dirty," he explains when Adam gives him a weird look.
“Looking the way you do, if you're not absolutely filthy from head to toe by the end of the night, I'll be so ashamed I'll have to leave town," Adam teases. “Look in the mirror now."
Kris does as he's told and what he sees looking back at him isn't him at all, but something foreign, and also kind of hot. He's never worn makeup before, never been covered with glitter except on the occasions when Adam stops by at three in the morning after staying out all night and wants to hug him. It's different, and Kris needs different right now.
“I like it," he decides. “It's totally not me at all, though."
"That's the point," Adam says, and kisses him carefully on the forehead.
- - - - -
Kris decides to take Adam home with him for Thanksgiving. He knows Adam doesn't have any plans - “does eating ramen while watching Charlie Brown count?" and Kris's answer was emphatically hell no, it does not - and somehow they convince Matt that Adam needs the half-day before and the day after Thanksgiving off work, and everything falls into place when he also agrees to drive them to the airport.
“You owe me, Kris," Matt says as Adam throws his apron in the laundry bin in the back room. “If both of you weren't cute, I'd be super pissed that you guys talked me into this and I'd want to ban you from the store or something."
Kris grins as he waits for Adam to get his jacket. “Come on, you know you love us."
"Either that or I'm desperately hoping one of you plans on sleeping with me in return for all these favors," Matt says. He drops them off at the terminal, looking ridiculous in this fedora he's suddenly started wearing over the last few weeks, but he's still Kris's closest friend, and he loves him even when he's being completely bizarre.
They get to Arkansas late on the night before Thanksgiving Day; Kris's brother picks them up and drops them off at their parents' house. Everyone's already in bed, though it's obvious his mom started cooking that afternoon by the scent that greets them. The smell of pecan pie and the homemade bread that she always starts making the night before
permeate the house, and he wonders why the hell he ever moved to California in the first place. “Smells like home," he says, and Adam smiles.
"My mom's house does that to me, too," he tells him, looking a little wistful. “Her house smells like cinnamon and ginger, though." Adam rarely ever brings up his family - Kris knows he has a younger brother and they talk every now and then, but nothing else - but this means something, the fact that he's talking about his family, though Kris doesn't quite know the significance yet and maybe never will.
Kris's childhood bedroom has a queen-sized bed now instead of the twin he grew up with, but otherwise everything is still the same - same painted wooden dresser, same blue carpet. The posters he had as a kid are gone, but most of his school awards and pictures are still hanging around on the bookshelf and side table.
“Look at you," Adam says, picking up a picture of Kris from first grade, complete with cowlick and missing front tooth. “You were an incredibly cute kid."
“I was kind of hoping for incredibly cute adult."
“That too," Adam grins.
Kris hasn't slept in the same bed with anyone in ages, but Adam doesn't seem to have a problem. As soon as he comes out he's stripping down to his underwear and crawling into bed. “Bathroom's yours," he says to Kris, who can't really do anything but stare. Sleeping in the same bed with a mostly-naked Adam might be too much to handle.
“I'm going," he finally chokes out. “I'm going."
When he comes out of the bathroom, the lights are out and Adam looks like he's already asleep. Kris slowly settles into bed, careful to keep what little space he can make between them, but then Adam opens his eyes.
"Thank you for asking me to come with you," he says softly, and reaches across the bed for Kris's hand. He laces their fingers together and Kris sees his smile with the help of the faint light coming through the window above them.
“Thank you for actually coming with me," Kris tells him. And he could have gone home by himself - he's done it plenty of times before, and he'll eventually do it again, he's sure - but this year the idea seemed wrong, like he'd be leaving behind a limb if Adam stayed in Los Angeles while Kris went home.
And Kris knows then; the reason why becomes as clear as blue sky and running water. He loves Adam, and it's possible that he always has and he's just been so damn stupid this whole time not to see it. Maybe seeing each other every morning and every night will be enough for the rest of his life, but Kris isn't sure that he wants that. Or, just possibly, he might want to roll over and see Adam in the middle of the night, too, just like now - in his bed, looking sleepy and sweet and stripped down to what's elemental. Or maybe he wants Adam's mouth instead of coffee in the morning, and maybe movie nights on the couch aren't really complete unless they both end up in Kris's bed at the end of the night instead of Adam drifting home at some insanely early hour like he always does.
He doesn't even know how to say it; there's no easy way to tell your best friend that you're suddenly and inexplicably obsessed with the idea that the two of you belong together. He's saved when Adam cuts him off, kisses the corner of his mouth and whispers a foggy “goodnight" before rolling over to face the wall.
- - - - -
Kris's parents love Adam, they love him almost instantly and listen to his crazy California stories - the toned down ones, of course; Kris shoots him a warning look when he starts to launch into something that needs to be cut down to at least an R-rated tale - like he's their kid too.
“Did you bring him home so you can get our blessing?" Kris's mom teases as he washes up a dirty mixing bowl and some spoons. Adam hangs out in the living room, listening intently as Kris's dad shows him school pictures and home videos and tells him about every embarrassing thing that's ever happened to Kris since birth. “Because if you did, I definitely approve. I can't speak for your father, but Adam is actually listening to his proud-dad stories instead of looking bored or tuning him out, so that works in your favor."
“Mom, no," Kris protests; he can feel a blush creeping up the back of his neck. “It's not like that." Except he kind of wonders, later, if it is like that, and maybe part of him wanted to know if his parents see what he sees in Adam, too.
“I think it might be," Kim says, swatting him playfully with a dishtowel. “Or it will be, at least. Have some patience, and a little faith. I give it ‘til next Thanksgiving."
- - - - -
They make it through dinner before Kris realizes something is wrong, and by the time the rest of the house is in bed Adam is shaking. He can't hold still, can't settle down; he walks the floor of Kris's small bedroom, back and forth from bedroom door to bathroom door. Kris finally recognizes it for what it is (withdrawal, this is what withdrawal is like, and if he gives it up for good just imagine how much worse it's going to be, he thinks), but he has no clue what to do.
He's in the bathroom, rifling through the medicine cabinet when Adam calls his name. He turns around and looks through the open doorway, and Adam is sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over and his skin is paler than Kris has ever seen. “I have to tell you something," Adam says.
Kris realizes it's the first time he's ever seen him scared or afraid, and he never wants to see that look on Adam's face again. He wants to do everything he can to wipe it away for good. “It's okay," he says, coming back into the bedroom and sitting on the bed next to Adam. “I already know."
Adam raises his head and stares at Kris. “How long?"
“A long time," Kris admits.
Adam lets out a breath. “Oh," he says, and his voice sounds small and far away. “It's taking me over, Kris. I have to quit this thing," he says, and then he starts to cry silently - and then, just as quickly, he's running to the bathroom. Kris is wholly unprepared for this, doesn't know how to handle crying or vomiting when it comes to grown men, but he sits in the bathroom floor all night with Adam, holding his hair and stopping him from scratching himself until he bleeds.
Adam finally falls asleep about an hour before they have to leave for the airport. Kris throws all their belongings into suitcases, not caring if his stuff goes into Adam's or vice versa, because it doesn't matter anymore; they're going home together whether Adam wants to stay with him or not.
Before he wakes Adam, he rifles through his mom's medicine cabinet. Kris finds a leftover painkiller from her knee surgery earlier in the year, and a prescription for Xanax that surprises the hell out of him and makes him question how well he knows his mom after all. He swipes two of them and puts them in his pocket.
When he gets Adam up, he practically feeds him the painkiller before he even climbs out of bed. Adam swallows it dry, ignoring the glass of water Kris has in hand. “Where'd you get this?" he asks.
“Don't worry about it." Kris frowns. I'm an enabler now, as well as a thief, he thinks as he hands Adam a piece of toast and forces him to eat.
- - - - -
They make it home without issue; the pain pill relaxes Adam all the way to the airport and Kris gives him a Xanax right before they go through security. Kris takes the other one. Something tells him he's going to need it. Adam dozes for most of the flight, but he's got Kris's hand in a death grip and Kris is feeling pretty mellow himself, so he leans his seat back a little and tries to nap.
Matt picks them up at the airport and does a double take when he looks at Adam. “What the hell did you do to each other?" he asks. “Is there some kind of weird sexual mating ritual that goes on in Arkansas that makes people look like shit or something?"
“He's sick," Kris says, and it's a lie, but not really a lie at all. “And I'm exhausted. He's not coming in to work tomorrow, either, and if you're that hard up for help I'll come over and do what I can."
“I'm not that hard up for employees, but thanks," Matt says.
They make it back to Kris's apartment in time for Adam to get sick all over again.
When he's done, Kris walks him to the couch and goes to clean up the wrecked bathroom. “This has to be love," he says out loud. Nothing short of love would make Kris be okay with cleaning up a vomit-stained bathroom straight after getting off an airplane. The trouble is that he doesn't know what to do with it.
Kris has never been in love before, though he thought he was a time or two, and back then his instinct was to run. His instinct now is to move Adam into his apartment, force him off of this shit that's got hold of him, and protect him from whatever got him on this path in the first place.
The sound of his front door opening and closing breaks him out of his thoughts. Kris jumps up from the bathroom floor, stepping over the dirty towels he's already used to clean up the mess. There's no Adam on the couch and he's not in the bedroom or kitchen, either; Kris can see the whole apartment from this angle. There's no Adam anywhere.
- - - - -
He doesn't see Adam again for two weeks, even when he knocks on his door the next morning with breakfast; there's no answer. Adam doesn't pick up his phone and he doesn't call Kris back. After three days, Kris gets a message each time he calls that says Adam's inbox is full.
“I have to replace him," Matt says one morning.
Kris hasn't gone by Adam's apartment for a while now; since the first five days were a miss, it seems kind of pointless. Instead, he has coffee with Matt at the back table of the Magic Bean every morning. “He hasn't called or shown up for work, and Kris," and Matt gets serious here, which is bizarre because Kris rarely sees Matt legitimately serious, “I think he's on drugs. I really think you should think about that possibility, too. I've seen some weird behavior from him, and he's way, way too tired for someone who swears he gets plenty of sleep. I've never seen, like, powder on his nose or illegal substances falling out of his pocket or anything, but I can't shake that feeling that he's messed up a lot. I like him, I really do, but I'm not comfortable with him working here anymore, especially since he can't be bothered to call in or show up."
“I'm assuming you're talking about me," Adam says, and Kris and Matt both jump; neither saw or heard him coming into the store or walking over to their table. “I don't need the job anymore, Matt, but thanks for giving me a chance." He leaves as quietly, and as suddenly, as he came.
Kris jumps up from the table, spilling the remainder of his coffee everywhere. He catches up with Adam on the corner as he's about to cross the street. “Where the hell have you been?" Kris demands. “You scared the shit out of me, Adam. I came by your house, I called constantly, and you never even bothered getting back with me."
Adam doesn't look at him, only at the blinking light that indicates he's only got a few moments to cross the street. “You're so much better than this, Kris," he says. “You've been my friend for months, and you took me home to meet your insanely nice family, and you treated me better than anyone I've ever known. And all I could think about was when I could get home and get high again."
Kris doesn't even know how to respond to that. “That doesn't explain where you've been, Adam. Just tell me. I can't fix this unless you tell me."
“You can't fix me," Adam says sadly. “Don't even try. Why would you think you can, anyway? It's not your job, and I'm not looking for someone to come save me like I'm some damsel in distress, Kris. That's not what this is at all."
Kris can only stare, because Adam never talks like this - he sounds defeated, used up, no purpose at all. “At least tell me where you've been. Did you like, go to visit family or something? Are you working somewhere else? Dropping off the face of the earth isn't cool. You freaked me out, Adam."
Adam looks at him then, really looks at him, and the hard expression on his face makes Kris's stomach turn. “I haven't talked to my family in months, Kris. You can probably figure out why. Where do you think I was for the last two weeks?"
Kris can't comprehend spending two entire weeks doing nothing but getting high. “The whole time?"
Adam gives him one of his fake smiles. “More often than not. I was either high, getting high, coming down off a high, or making money to get high. It used to be once every other day when I first met you, or sometimes once a day if things were really tough, but this… I'm not made for all this reality shit you've got going on, Kris." The light changes again, and Adam crosses the street without looking back.
- - - - -
Kris mopes and writes a couple of tuneless, bitter songs, but it doesn't make Adam come back and it doesn't fix the rift between them, so he's pretty much useless for a while.
His students start looking at him like he's grown a second head because he assigns busywork, and one even offers to fix him up with her mom. He doesn't laugh at her, but he comes damn close.
It's two days before Christmas when Matt calls and asks Kris to meet him at the Magic Bean at closing. “Unless you're having an emergency coffee sale, I kind of want to go to bed," Kris complains, but Matt insists and Kris puts on real clothes and meets him down there.
“I found something last night you'll want to see," Matt tells him. He practically drags Kris into the tiny back parking lot and into his car. “It's at this bar on the other side of town, and you're seriously not going to believe what I saw. “
“Wait, you went to a bar? Since when do you drink? I thought you lived on coffee alone," Kris says dryly.
“If you really have to know," Matt says, “I had a date."
Kris can't help it; he cracks up, ignoring the glare that Matt gives him. “You had a date? You didn't like, call the papers or send out a flier or anything?"
“This isn't about me!" Matt insists, and flips Kris off. “This is about Adam. Listen, we went to this club last night and Adam was…" He trails off and Kris is impatient for him to finish.
“Adam was what?" he asked. Kris is afraid he's gonna say something like Adam was totally over-the-edge high in public or something along those lines.
Matt shakes his head. “You'll just have to experience it yourself, man. No explanation will be believable until you do."
It turns out that this isn't a bar so much as small club with tiny tables surrounding a stage. There's a bar, too, and Matt heads straight over and starts ordering tequila shots. “You might need to get drunk for this, I promise you," Matt tells Kris when he protests. “Like, this will be so mindblowing that tequila is the only thing that'll take the edge off."
They sit at the bar and watch as a couple of young girls in black clothes and dark makeup take the stage and sing something that sounds more like a dirge than anything else. “You were right," Kris says to Matt. “I did need to get drunk for this."
“Shut up and wait," Matt says. “Wrong part. It shouldn't be too much longer."
Another fifteen minutes and two equally lame acts pass by, and then a familiar, dark-haired, too-skinny boy in a black jacket and T-shirt takes the stage. Kris has to take a deep breath and actually think for a second; wandering toward the stage would be entirely too embarrassing. He grips his glass a little harder as Adam takes the microphone from its stand and sits on the piano.
Kris has never heard Adam sing before, not even when he was trying to teach him how to play guitar - but Adam does more than sing, it's like he's channeling something that Kris doesn't quite understand. And this thing he can do with his voice is amazing; that's the only word that Kris has to describe: amazing. He forgets about the drugs and the fear and the worry and the only thing left is the love and Kris knows, he knows he needs more of it, that Adam is as essential to his life as breathing and sleeping. It's the most surreal thing that Kris has ever heard in his life.
Adam sees him standing there halfway through his first song. Kris sees a look of confusion on his face, then his eyes go to Matt standing to the right and Adam shakes his head. He spends the rest of the song, as well as the next two, completely distracted, his eyes never leaving Kris's for more than a second or two. But Adam can work the stage even when his focus is broken, and for a moment he even steps off the stage and into the crowd. He has them exactly where he wants them.
When he sets the microphone on top of the piano at the close of his set, the room bursts into applause and everyone's on their feet; there's no possible way that Adam can see them from his angle now. Kris figures that it's the perfect time to get the hell out there, and he practically bursts out the club doors, dragging Matt behind him.
"Are you not even planning on talking to him?" Matt wants to know once they've made it back to his car. “I think that the fact that he's been hiding that he sings like that is worth talking about, at least."
“I have to think, Matt," Kris says. “I really just need to think about it."
- - - - -
Kris spends the next day trying not to think about it, actually, because as exhilarating as Adam's talent may be and as much as he wants to say fuck it and force Adam back into his life, it's not that simple. Adam is an addict, and he doesn't want to give up his addiction, and that deflates the amazing feeling that he got when Matt dragged him out to hear Adam sing. He hasn't shown any signs of wanting Kris back in his life, so why bother?
He decides to sit back and wait for a sign.
The first year he lived in Los Angeles, Kris flew home for Christmas, and it was so depressing that he's vowed never to do it again. Thanksgiving is bad enough. Kris ended up spending every holiday after that at the Magic Bean, where Matt hosts holiday poetry slams for all the sad, depressing people in the neighborhood. This seems like a reasonable enough plan to repeat.
The sign comes when Matt's friend Danny gets up to read some truly horrendous poetry about personal pain and circumstance, and Kris has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. “Even I can't tolerate his pretentious crap tonight," Matt says, trying to keep a straight face. “Stay here. I'm going to get the Kahlúa I keep in the bottom of the filing cabinet in the office. I think we might need it today."
Kris is alone for maybe a few seconds when he hears the café door open. The room is pretty dark, with only the tiny oil lanterns on each café table providing light, as well as the small spotlight on Danny as he blathers on about the torment of his earthly being. Even in the dim room, Kris recognizes Adam in the doorway. He thinks he might recognize him anywhere.
He meets Adam somewhere between the table and the door just as Matt comes out of the back with the Kahlúa. “Oh, hell no," Matt says. “You're not leaving me here with this morbid shit and an entire bottle of Kahlúa by myself."
“Hell yes, he is," Adam says, and his eyes never leave Kris's face. “I'm taking him out of here Officer and a Gentleman-style to save him from this place. I've been here all of thirty seconds and even I can tell that this guy's poetry sucks balls. Besides, I told you not to tell Kris about me singing, and you went and brought him to see it anyway. Fucker." There's no malice in his voice, though, and even in the dark Kris can see that his shoulders are shaking from laughter.
Matt looks from Kris to Adam and then over to where Danny has pulled off his glasses and is staring intently at the audience as he whispers the last few lines of his poetry. “This is the last holiday I'm hosting this, I swear. I don't care how fucking bored people are on Christmas Eve. Fuck Valentine's Day, too, they're even worse then."
Adam leads the way and they get the hell out of there before Danny decides to start a new poem. They walk the two blocks to Kris's apartment in silence. “What happened to sweeping me off of my feet and taking me out of there, Officer And a Gentleman-style?" Kris jokes as they walk through the front door.
“I decided I liked this idea better," Adam says, and pins Kris to the doorway with two strong hands on his shoulders.
Kris takes back what he thought about his first kiss with Adam. This is way better; this is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to him. Kris can feel fingernails digging into the skin on his shoulders and Adam's tongue running over his lips and a hard cock not his own pressing into his hip. He finally remembers to keep breathing and pushes back, the movement creating friction that makes him hard, friction that makes Adam frantic. He breathes into Kris's mouth, making tiny noises that Kris absorbs and pulls inside and pushes back out from his own voice.
The kiss feels incredible and Adam feels amazing pressed against him and Kris wants to take it further, as far as Adam's willing to go. Except Kris is tired of being an optimist - if he lets it go, if he thinks that things can be happy and magical when Adam spends most of his time high, then he's not an optimist. Then he's delusional.
Kris breaks the kiss, not because he wants to, but because he has to. Adam pulls back and looks at him. “You don't want this?" he asks. “I guess I misread…"
“You didn't misread anything," Kris says. “I want this," and he brushes his lips across Adam's lightly, “and I want this." Kris reaches down and runs his palm over Adam's still-hard dick, and they both shiver a little. “But most importantly, I want this," Kris tells him, and places both hands on the side of Adam's head. “And you can't give me that as long as you're so messed up. I don't want it unless I can have the whole thing."
Kris pretty much feels like a wimp after making what he thinks amounts to an incredibly cheesy speech, but Adam is silent. He doesn't laugh or speak or even move for a second, and finally, after the longest moment of Kris's life, he nods.
“I'll quit. I can… I can do this," he tells Kris. “I need your help, though. I can't do it by myself."
Kris nods. “I know," he says. “I'll be here every step of the way."
He makes his mom's recipe for hot chocolate while Adam changes into a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt that Kris keeps in his dresser drawer for the occasional nights when Adam didn't want to go home. “It's not Christmas without my mom's hot chocolate," Kris explains when he hands Adam a steaming mug. “I don't care if I lived in the desert. It's a Christmas tradition."
Adam takes a sip and smiles. His face is so thin when he smiles that Kris wonders when it was that Adam last had a meal. Kris sits down on the floor and rests his back on the couch, facing the small white Christmas tree that twinkles and glows on his hallway table. He pats the carpet next to him and Adam folds to the floor. They sit shoulder to shoulder and stare at the lights in silence for a long moment before Adam speaks.
“You didn't want to go home for Christmas?" he asks quietly. “I thought you'd be somebody who spends every holiday back home, baking with your mom. That type of stuff."
“I did that my first year here," Kris tells him. “Every important holiday and I was there. My parents kept buying me plane tickets and I kept taking them, but every time I went back it depressed me."
"Why is that?" Adam asks, sliding his left arm around Kris's waist. “Your family is awesome."
“I guess I felt like something was missing out there, like the grass was greener out here. And I wanted to be like, a rock star or something. I gave up on that dream pretty fast when I got here." Kris laughs and Adam shakes his head. “But even though I thought this was where I was supposed to be, something was still missing out here for a long time. Every time I went home, I wondered if I'd made a mistake."
Kris can feel Adam's breath on his neck before he feels his lips. “And what about now? Did it change when you stopped going home all the time?" he whispers, leaving tiny kisses on Kris's jawline between breaths.
“No," Kris says quietly. “I was miserable last year too, even though I stayed here and found the Magic Bean and met Matt and started making a little money teaching." He pulls back a little from Adam because if he keeps doing that thing that he's doing then Kris is going to lose every ounce of his resolve and beg Adam to fuck him right there on the floor. “I met you. And things changed."
He turns his face so he can look Adam in the eye and smiles. “I don't want to talk about it, though. I want to know why you came to see me tonight."
Adam smiles back and pulls Kris closer to him yet again, though this time he mercifully keeps his lips to himself. “Easy. Because you came to see me the other night. And even though I told Matt to keep his big fat mouth shut, and even though I've been a total asshole, you still ended up there anyway. It meant a lot to me. You didn't run out the door when you saw me on stage, which is probably what I would have done if it were the other way around - though afterward is a total different story. Why didn't you stick around? We could have had this reunion a lot sooner."
“I was scared," Kris says. “I'm still scared, if you want the truth." Kris doesn't say what he's scared of - the fact that Adam's the only guy he's ever actually wanted to be with on a higher level, or that he wonders if he has some sort of savior complex, or that Adam's talent is kind of overwhelming for someone like Kris. That he was terrified before, and still is, that Adam is going to disappear off his couch again in search of drugs, and this time he'll never come back.
“We're gonna change that," Adam declares, and kisses Kris softly. “I promise. I'll get better and you'll believe in me, Kris. I don't want you to give up on me."
(continue on to part 2)
Author: asouthernthing
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Adam Lambert/Kris Allen
Warnings: Sex, serious non-experimental drug use, needles/syringes, language
Word Count: 18,288
Summary: AU about addiction, love, and a coffee shop called the Magic Bean.
Notes: Beta by milliejupiter, who is awesome in every way and saw what I was trying to do without even having to ask. Please read the expanded author's notes if you have further questions or concerns about the warnings, or if you'd like to see my playlist for writing this story. And check out the amazeballs movie poster that katekat1010 made here!.
- - - - -
“I'll quit soon," Adam says. It's a promise that Kris hears all too often.
He hears it first thing in the morning when he comes to Adam's door with coffee and a cream cheese Danish that Adam only picks at. “I'll quit soon," he says when Kris comes to pick him up for a movie or wakes him up when he's flaked out on Kris's couch. “I'm tired of being sick," he says when Kris catches him in the middle of a high, throwing his guts up when both of them know good and fucking well that Adam isn't sick, has never been sick a day in his life that he hasn't caused on his own.
“So when are you going to finally shut up talking about it and actually do it?" Kris asks one day at lunch, Adam grazing on a salad as if he needs to do anything other than eat a steak and gain a pound or ten.
Adam looks down into the plate of romaine and drops his fork. “It's not that goddamn easy, you know," he snaps. “It's hard to really want to quit something that makes you feel…"
“Feel what?" There are lots of things that make Kris feel good - back rubs and Twizzlers and the occasional beer, but none of them are worth dying over, which is exactly the road Adam is going down if he doesn't put down the needle.
“Nothing," Adam says simply. “It makes me feel nothing."
Kris doesn't know what to say to that.
- - - - -
He doesn't know when he fell in love with Adam, though the moment it hits him comes hard and entirely inappropriately. Kris teaches guitar at this tiny studio at the corner of third and San Vicente, but he spends most of his time getting his daily dose of caffeine at the coffee shop across the street. Adam works at the Magic Bean for a while, serving caramel macchiatos and passion fruit teas, and back then Kris couldn't see the track marks. He didn't know to look for them.
It starts the day he gets his business cards. Kris isn't good with people, doesn't really understand how to sell himself or his talent very well. The best way to start out, he decides, is to ask Matt if he can sit some business cards out at the register and go from there.
Matt owns the Magic Bean, and he's pretty much the best friend Kris has ever had. He's the first friend Kris made when he moved to Los Angeles, and once they went on a date, which was kind of weird and neither of them wants to repeat the experience.
Kris comes in with a stack of his cards, and Matt is behind the counter, training someone new on how to use the register. “Anything can be fixed. Well, except murder. You didn't slip antifreeze into someone's coffee, did you? Then don't sweat it," Matt tells the new guy.
They both glance up as Kris approaches the counter; Matt's new employee fixes a smile on his face that is so, so obviously fake, but at least he's trying, and Kris can't fault him there. Anything beats Matt's last employee, who had fuchsia hair and had a bad habit of greeting customers by calling them fucksticks on a regular basis, which wasn't exactly popular with Matt or the clientele. Kris returns the grin as he leans over the counter. “What are you doing to this one, Matt? Trying to make him quit before he's even gotten started?"
“Not a chance," the new guy says. “It's better than working fast food. Or prostitution."
Matt looks horrified, but Kris cracks up, and then all three of them are laughing, and Matt finishes fixing whatever went wrong on the computer. “This is Kris," Matt introduces them. “Kris is either our best customer or the most annoying one, take your pick."
“Hey, I resent that," Kris says with a snort. “You get more than your fair share of my hard earned money. I might as well pay rent here."
“I'm Adam," and Matt's new employee sticks out one ring-laden hand for Kris to shake, nails bitten ragged and covered in black polish. His grip is strong and his hands are big and warm and Kris likes him already.
Matt and Kris sit down at one of the back tables while Adam waits on the next customer. “So, new guy," Kris begins, but Matt cuts him off before he even gets started.
“I don't even know why I hired him," Matt says, and shakes his head. “He's catching on pretty fast, but he looked like a hobo when I first interviewed him. Maybe I felt sorry for him, I don't know."
“I think you hired him because he's hot," Kris teases. Adam is hot - pale faced and freckled, clear eyes ringed with eyeliner and incredible lashes, dark, shaggy hair hanging into his eyes. Kris thinks hot is too tame a word, now that he's evaluated the situation thoroughly.
“Okay, maybe a little," Matt says, and they both burst into laughter.
“Here," Kris says, and pulls out a handful of business cards from his messenger bag. “I'm diversifying."
Matt takes the cards and looks at them. “Do you even know what kind of people come in here? This is not the customer base you want, man. Everyone who takes this card from the counter is going to be a weirdo. You know why? Because every weirdo on earth wants to be that sensitive dude who plays guitar. They don't wash their hair and they wear hoodies in the summer and dollar store eyeliner so that chicks think they're cool or some shit. And they all start out by lurking in coffee shops. All of them."
“Do you even know what my bank account looks like? I'm willing to take the chance that I'll have to teach some greasy posers if it means I can eat less Ramen," Kris insists.
“Fine. It's your time and your brain cells on the line, I guess," Matt says. Kris walks with him over to the counter where Adam is wiping down a glass case filled with pastries, and Matt places the business cards on a little rack next to the register.
Adam picks up one of the cards and looks it over. “Kris Allen, guitar instructor," he reads out loud, and then looks up at Kris with a grin. “Are you looking for serious future guitar players, or do you take lost causes as well?"
"I take everything but Visa and Mastercard these days," Kris says.
- - - - -
Adam shows up at his apartment the next night, and Kris doesn't even question why he's there, only wonders how Adam found the address. “Google is your friend," Adam says when Kris asks, looking around Kris's living room, his eyes landing on the tall shelves that line two walls. “That is a fuck of a lot of music."
Kris doesn't have much, but he has music, and always will, even if it breaks him. He has around two thousand CDs and maybe one hundred albums on vinyl, though those just sort of fall into his hands and aren't anything he looks for specifically. He's not a serious collector yet, at least by his standards. Adam seems to disagree.
“About those guitar lessons," Adam starts, and Kris holds up a hand, starts to tell him to give him a call tomorrow before he starts teaching, but Adam barrels on anyway. “I'd kind of like to test them out before we set up a time. I can pay you now," he insists when Kris starts to open his mouth. “I just don't want to waste your time or mine."
As it turns out, it kind of is a waste of time, because Adam never becomes any good at playing. After five weeks of lessons (they never actually make it into the studio - Kris sees Adam twice a week at his apartment and neither of them ever really question the arrangement), Kris hands Adam back the cash he's been putting back every time Adam pays him.
“My work comes with a guarantee," Kris says when Adam insists on trying to give it back. “If you don't get it, then I don't get it. Simple as that."
So Adam never becomes a guitar virtuoso, but Kris grows to like him anyway. Thursday comes, one of their scheduled lesson days, and Adam shows up at Kris's apartment just the same. “I was thinking," Adam says. “See, I kind of like you, and I don't have a lot of friends these days, so maybe we could actually hang out."
It becomes a routine: Adam has Monday afternoons off, so Kris rearranges his schedule to match. Mondays are museum days, park days, or sometimes they get into Kris's car and Adam takes the wheel; they drive through the hills and look at the gaudy houses, the ones that belong to people that aren't quite rich enough to live in a compound.
On Thursday nights, they pool their resources and try to do something fun - sometimes they go to the movies and Adam almost always falls asleep halfway through. Or they split a pizza and watch syndicated reruns until infomercials start. Adam brings the liquor and Kris picks out the dessert.
One Thursday, Adam takes him to a club that he says he used to frequent back in the good old days, and he says it sarcastically, like the good old days were nothing to write home about.
When they walk into the club, there are at least a dozen people that seem to know Adam, but he ignores most of them and excuses himself as soon as they make it through the doorway. Kris waits at the bar, because people watching is something that he loves and there's a lot to see here.
But then there's this guy who may as well be an elf or something that approaches Kris. He's tiny, covered in glitter, and wearing airy dragonfly wings that droop and nearly touch the ground. “So you're the new one," he says to Kris, and it's not a question. “Good luck on that."
“Do I need luck?" Kris asks.
“All of it you can manage to find. I'm Brad, by the way," the guy says. “I used to be you."
Kris pictures himself in glitter and dragonfly wings and stifles a laugh. “How so?"
Brad shakes his head. “Adam brought you here, so you're either spending a lot of time together or he wants you to spend a lot of time together. He sucks you into his world and you can't get out. You'll think he's the best friend you've ever fucking had, and the best goddamn lay in the galaxy if you get that far, but when you're driving him around town at three in the morning so he can get what he needs, the magic is gone. The magic gets up and flies out of the goddamn room." He's in a full-fledged rant, face twisted and angry, by the time Adam comes back from the bathroom.
“I see you've met Brad. That's nice, really," he says with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “Come on, let's move away from the negativity." He takes Kris's hand and pulls him out onto the dance floor before Kris even has a chance to protest that he doesn't dance.
Adam becomes something else out there, something strange and frenzied as he makes Kris dance with him. He's got Kris's back pressed against his front, and the music is pounding, bleeding through the skin and making Kris's heart race. Or maybe the feel of Adam's lips on his neck is what makes his pulse pound.
“You're gorgeous," Adam says in his ear. “I've thought so ever since the day I first saw you in the coffee shop."
Kris leans his head back, gets close to Adam's ear. “You're the gorgeous one," he says, practically shouting, and their faces are so close that Kris can feel the smile that comes across Adam's face.
"I want to take you home with me." And to prove his point, he dips one hand down below the waistband of Kris's jeans, between the denim and his boxers, then rubs the fabric over Kris's cock. “Say you'll come home with me. Say yes."
Kris doesn't know what else to say - one touch and he's half-hard and wondering why he didn't think of this before. “Okay, yeah," he finally says, and just like that Adam's hand is out of his pants and curled around Kris's wrist as he practically drags him to the door.
They take a cab back to Adam's place; Kris wants to jump in Adam's lap and kiss him until he can't feel his face anymore, but for the sake of the cab driver he settles for holding Adam's hand. Except with Adam, handholding isn't just handholding; it's kissing Kris's knuckles and biting on the ends of his fingers and sucking on his inner wrist. His eyes are wide open and staring at Kris every time he runs his mouth over the thin, pale skin, and he smiles when Kris has to bite his own lip to stop all noise from escaping.
They practically fall out of the cab when they get to Adam's building; his apartment is small but clean, bare walls and nothing in the fridge other than ingredients for mixed drinks and bottled water. “I haven't lived here long," Adam says, almost apologetically. “Do you want something? Or can we get straight to the part where I fuck you until neither of us can move?" He grins at Kris and brushes hair out of his face, and Kris thinks about how unfair it is that one person can be so beautiful.
“Bathroom first," Kris says, and it's mostly the urge to calm his nerves for a second before doing this thing, instead of having to actually go.
Adam points to a closed door at the end of the hallway. “Hurry back," he says, and crushes his mouth to Kris's briefly. It's a brief kiss, barely open-mouthed, and later Kris thinks it may be the best kiss of his life.
The bathroom is tiny, no bathtub but a shower stall with a glass door, and the lighting is clear and bright. Kris looks in the mirror, turns on the cold water and splashes some on his face. “You can do this," he pep-talks himself like it's a championship game instead of being the moment when his sexual desires are about to become fact instead of theory. “You want it. Go for it."
He turns out the light and steps out into the hallway slowly, but he doesn't see Adam. “Where'd you go?" he calls out, and he can see that the light from the other room is on now.
Adam is sprawled out on the bed, shoes and shirt off, pants unbuttoned but still on. Kris can see a couple of condoms on the bedside table and a candle burning on the dresser.
The only thing missing is Adam being conscious. His head is tilted back and he's smiling a little even though he's obviously out like a light, snoring softly.
Kris thinks for a second about trying to wake him up, but Adam looks too peaceful to disturb. He blows out the candle and turns out the overhead light, but Adam doesn't stir.
He's looking for a spare set of keys when he finds the kit.
It's almost falling out of Adam's messenger bag, flat leather case with a metal latch on it. Kris doesn't know why he opens it, because he knows he's not going to find a key in there, but the bag has this pull that says open me, look at what's inside that Kris can't resist. He knows he's violating Adam's privacy, but he does it anyway.
Inside the case, wrapped in a thin piece of an old T-shirt, there's a spoon. There are also cotton balls, a couple of syringes in their own packaging, several of alcohol swabs and a thin piece of latex, like the kind of thing they wrap around Kris's arm on the rare occasion that he gets blood drawn at the doctor's office. And there's a lighter, too, and a small baggie with a hard brown substance sticking to its sides.
“Oh," Kris says, and drops the leather case on the floor. “Oh." The spoon and one of the syringes fall out of the case and scatter somewhere underneath the loveseat.
This is bad, he thinks, reaching for the missing items absently. This is really bad. He puts the case away carefully, back into Adam's bag, partially hanging out just the way he found it.
On the way home Kris tries to remember if he's seen the case before, or if Adam had it with him when they went out to the club. He can't recall for sure, but he'll always wonder if he missed something beforehand.
- - - - -
Kris has always had a thing for lost causes. Once, when he was a kid, he bottle fed an abandoned baby squirrel for three weeks until he woke up one morning and it was gone. His mom told him that the squirrel had died in the night, but Kris didn't believe her for weeks after. Giving up wasn't an option then, and it isn't an option now.
He decides to make Adam his project, and Kris is kind of single-minded when he gets stuck on something. The next morning is the first day he shows up with breakfast.
Adam answers the door in nothing but his underwear, hair sticking up from his head in every possible direction; it's then that Kris notices for the first time how thin Adam is.
“Coffee and sugar? You're my hero," Adam says as he reaches into the bag and pulls out the pastries that Kris picked up from the Magic Bean.
Kris figures that now's as good a time as any to bring up what happened last night, and what he saw. “Listen, we need to talk," he starts, but Adam waves the hand holding his pastry in the air, scattering crumbs everywhere.
“Yeah, about that," he says. “I'm sorry. I get like that sometimes. Totally inappropriate. Never happen again, I swear." He gives Kris a bright smile, one so real it makes Adam look like a kid. And even though it's not what Kris means, and he knows good and damn well that they have to talk about what he found in Adam's bag, he lets it go and gives his best smile back.
- - - - -
The problem is that Kris kind of wants it to happen again, except without the uncertainty - was it the drugs Adam was on that night, or was it Kris himself that turned him on?
Kris can't say for sure, and it stops him from pursuing the subject any further. It doesn't make him any less attracted to Adam, though. Maybe it makes him want Adam even more.
Brad was right about one thing, Kris thinks a few weeks later. He does think Adam's the best friend he ever had. Kris gets a job teaching music to junior high kids; suddenly his days have things like structure and planning and an actual bedtime. Adam takes a morning shift at the Magic Bean so they can see each other in the mornings, and when Adam doesn't have to work Kris goes by the coffee shop and gets takeout breakfast for two.
At the end of the first week of classes, Kris comes home and realizes that Adam's found the spare key he keeps taped to the top of the light fixture outside his front door.
Something coming from the kitchen smells fantastic, like real food that Kris never has time to eat anymore. Adam drifts through the kitchen doorway, slotted spoon in one hand and beer bottle in the other. “Here," he says as he hands Kris the drink, “I figured you'd need this after this week."
“You figured right," Kris says, and looks past Adam into the kitchen. “I didn't know you cooked."
"Very carefully," Adam jokes. “It's okay if I burn down my own kitchen, but not yours. Go sit down somewhere. Relax while I finish this up."
Kris takes one of the stools at the bar in the kitchen and watches as Adam finishes cooking and scoops pasta and sauce onto two plates. They eat at the small café table in Kris's living room, and it's good - the last time Kris had anything this good was something his mom made, and he can't even remember what it was now. “Is it okay?" Adam asks after Kris takes a few bites.
“It's great, really great," Kris assures him, and he doesn't just mean the food.
- - - - -
Every memory at the forefront of Kris's mind involves Adam in some elemental way. In October, Adam invites Kris to a Halloween party with his friends, and the theme is opposites and it's kind of hilarious what Adam comes up with. He wears a plaid shirt and leaves it halfway unbuttoned, paired with the tightest pair of jeans he finds in his own closet, and takes off all his jewelry. He's wearing no makeup and his hair is product-free and soft and it makes him look so innocent that he looks like jailbait. Kris bursts out laughing when he sees him.
Adam dresses Kris, of course, because Kris hasn't thought about Halloween costumes since he was twelve or so. He puts Kris in the tiniest pair of white shorts that could ever possibly exist, and he's is pretty sure his ass is hanging out of them but Adam won't let him go look in the bedroom mirror to be sure. There's a ripped white tank top involved, and lots of something Adam calls surf paste goes into his hair.
Adam lines Kris's lids with black eyeliner first, then grabs a fine-tipped tube of something green and glittery. “Shut your eyes this time," he instructs, and Kris obeys. He can feel Adam's hand against his face, tracing his eyelid with the makeup pen from inner corner all the way out. “Okay, now open up so I can get your lower lids." Kris complies, and when he opens up Adam's face is just a few inches from his own.
“Your eyes are perfect," Adam says quietly. He's so close now that Kris can feel the warmth of Adam's breath on his face. “Totally perfect."
Kris gets hard without even thinking about it. He grabs a hand towel from the rack beside him and throws it in his lap. “Don't wanna get the shorts dirty," he explains when Adam gives him a weird look.
“Looking the way you do, if you're not absolutely filthy from head to toe by the end of the night, I'll be so ashamed I'll have to leave town," Adam teases. “Look in the mirror now."
Kris does as he's told and what he sees looking back at him isn't him at all, but something foreign, and also kind of hot. He's never worn makeup before, never been covered with glitter except on the occasions when Adam stops by at three in the morning after staying out all night and wants to hug him. It's different, and Kris needs different right now.
“I like it," he decides. “It's totally not me at all, though."
"That's the point," Adam says, and kisses him carefully on the forehead.
- - - - -
Kris decides to take Adam home with him for Thanksgiving. He knows Adam doesn't have any plans - “does eating ramen while watching Charlie Brown count?" and Kris's answer was emphatically hell no, it does not - and somehow they convince Matt that Adam needs the half-day before and the day after Thanksgiving off work, and everything falls into place when he also agrees to drive them to the airport.
“You owe me, Kris," Matt says as Adam throws his apron in the laundry bin in the back room. “If both of you weren't cute, I'd be super pissed that you guys talked me into this and I'd want to ban you from the store or something."
Kris grins as he waits for Adam to get his jacket. “Come on, you know you love us."
"Either that or I'm desperately hoping one of you plans on sleeping with me in return for all these favors," Matt says. He drops them off at the terminal, looking ridiculous in this fedora he's suddenly started wearing over the last few weeks, but he's still Kris's closest friend, and he loves him even when he's being completely bizarre.
They get to Arkansas late on the night before Thanksgiving Day; Kris's brother picks them up and drops them off at their parents' house. Everyone's already in bed, though it's obvious his mom started cooking that afternoon by the scent that greets them. The smell of pecan pie and the homemade bread that she always starts making the night before
permeate the house, and he wonders why the hell he ever moved to California in the first place. “Smells like home," he says, and Adam smiles.
"My mom's house does that to me, too," he tells him, looking a little wistful. “Her house smells like cinnamon and ginger, though." Adam rarely ever brings up his family - Kris knows he has a younger brother and they talk every now and then, but nothing else - but this means something, the fact that he's talking about his family, though Kris doesn't quite know the significance yet and maybe never will.
Kris's childhood bedroom has a queen-sized bed now instead of the twin he grew up with, but otherwise everything is still the same - same painted wooden dresser, same blue carpet. The posters he had as a kid are gone, but most of his school awards and pictures are still hanging around on the bookshelf and side table.
“Look at you," Adam says, picking up a picture of Kris from first grade, complete with cowlick and missing front tooth. “You were an incredibly cute kid."
“I was kind of hoping for incredibly cute adult."
“That too," Adam grins.
Kris hasn't slept in the same bed with anyone in ages, but Adam doesn't seem to have a problem. As soon as he comes out he's stripping down to his underwear and crawling into bed. “Bathroom's yours," he says to Kris, who can't really do anything but stare. Sleeping in the same bed with a mostly-naked Adam might be too much to handle.
“I'm going," he finally chokes out. “I'm going."
When he comes out of the bathroom, the lights are out and Adam looks like he's already asleep. Kris slowly settles into bed, careful to keep what little space he can make between them, but then Adam opens his eyes.
"Thank you for asking me to come with you," he says softly, and reaches across the bed for Kris's hand. He laces their fingers together and Kris sees his smile with the help of the faint light coming through the window above them.
“Thank you for actually coming with me," Kris tells him. And he could have gone home by himself - he's done it plenty of times before, and he'll eventually do it again, he's sure - but this year the idea seemed wrong, like he'd be leaving behind a limb if Adam stayed in Los Angeles while Kris went home.
And Kris knows then; the reason why becomes as clear as blue sky and running water. He loves Adam, and it's possible that he always has and he's just been so damn stupid this whole time not to see it. Maybe seeing each other every morning and every night will be enough for the rest of his life, but Kris isn't sure that he wants that. Or, just possibly, he might want to roll over and see Adam in the middle of the night, too, just like now - in his bed, looking sleepy and sweet and stripped down to what's elemental. Or maybe he wants Adam's mouth instead of coffee in the morning, and maybe movie nights on the couch aren't really complete unless they both end up in Kris's bed at the end of the night instead of Adam drifting home at some insanely early hour like he always does.
He doesn't even know how to say it; there's no easy way to tell your best friend that you're suddenly and inexplicably obsessed with the idea that the two of you belong together. He's saved when Adam cuts him off, kisses the corner of his mouth and whispers a foggy “goodnight" before rolling over to face the wall.
- - - - -
Kris's parents love Adam, they love him almost instantly and listen to his crazy California stories - the toned down ones, of course; Kris shoots him a warning look when he starts to launch into something that needs to be cut down to at least an R-rated tale - like he's their kid too.
“Did you bring him home so you can get our blessing?" Kris's mom teases as he washes up a dirty mixing bowl and some spoons. Adam hangs out in the living room, listening intently as Kris's dad shows him school pictures and home videos and tells him about every embarrassing thing that's ever happened to Kris since birth. “Because if you did, I definitely approve. I can't speak for your father, but Adam is actually listening to his proud-dad stories instead of looking bored or tuning him out, so that works in your favor."
“Mom, no," Kris protests; he can feel a blush creeping up the back of his neck. “It's not like that." Except he kind of wonders, later, if it is like that, and maybe part of him wanted to know if his parents see what he sees in Adam, too.
“I think it might be," Kim says, swatting him playfully with a dishtowel. “Or it will be, at least. Have some patience, and a little faith. I give it ‘til next Thanksgiving."
- - - - -
They make it through dinner before Kris realizes something is wrong, and by the time the rest of the house is in bed Adam is shaking. He can't hold still, can't settle down; he walks the floor of Kris's small bedroom, back and forth from bedroom door to bathroom door. Kris finally recognizes it for what it is (withdrawal, this is what withdrawal is like, and if he gives it up for good just imagine how much worse it's going to be, he thinks), but he has no clue what to do.
He's in the bathroom, rifling through the medicine cabinet when Adam calls his name. He turns around and looks through the open doorway, and Adam is sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched over and his skin is paler than Kris has ever seen. “I have to tell you something," Adam says.
Kris realizes it's the first time he's ever seen him scared or afraid, and he never wants to see that look on Adam's face again. He wants to do everything he can to wipe it away for good. “It's okay," he says, coming back into the bedroom and sitting on the bed next to Adam. “I already know."
Adam raises his head and stares at Kris. “How long?"
“A long time," Kris admits.
Adam lets out a breath. “Oh," he says, and his voice sounds small and far away. “It's taking me over, Kris. I have to quit this thing," he says, and then he starts to cry silently - and then, just as quickly, he's running to the bathroom. Kris is wholly unprepared for this, doesn't know how to handle crying or vomiting when it comes to grown men, but he sits in the bathroom floor all night with Adam, holding his hair and stopping him from scratching himself until he bleeds.
Adam finally falls asleep about an hour before they have to leave for the airport. Kris throws all their belongings into suitcases, not caring if his stuff goes into Adam's or vice versa, because it doesn't matter anymore; they're going home together whether Adam wants to stay with him or not.
Before he wakes Adam, he rifles through his mom's medicine cabinet. Kris finds a leftover painkiller from her knee surgery earlier in the year, and a prescription for Xanax that surprises the hell out of him and makes him question how well he knows his mom after all. He swipes two of them and puts them in his pocket.
When he gets Adam up, he practically feeds him the painkiller before he even climbs out of bed. Adam swallows it dry, ignoring the glass of water Kris has in hand. “Where'd you get this?" he asks.
“Don't worry about it." Kris frowns. I'm an enabler now, as well as a thief, he thinks as he hands Adam a piece of toast and forces him to eat.
- - - - -
They make it home without issue; the pain pill relaxes Adam all the way to the airport and Kris gives him a Xanax right before they go through security. Kris takes the other one. Something tells him he's going to need it. Adam dozes for most of the flight, but he's got Kris's hand in a death grip and Kris is feeling pretty mellow himself, so he leans his seat back a little and tries to nap.
Matt picks them up at the airport and does a double take when he looks at Adam. “What the hell did you do to each other?" he asks. “Is there some kind of weird sexual mating ritual that goes on in Arkansas that makes people look like shit or something?"
“He's sick," Kris says, and it's a lie, but not really a lie at all. “And I'm exhausted. He's not coming in to work tomorrow, either, and if you're that hard up for help I'll come over and do what I can."
“I'm not that hard up for employees, but thanks," Matt says.
They make it back to Kris's apartment in time for Adam to get sick all over again.
When he's done, Kris walks him to the couch and goes to clean up the wrecked bathroom. “This has to be love," he says out loud. Nothing short of love would make Kris be okay with cleaning up a vomit-stained bathroom straight after getting off an airplane. The trouble is that he doesn't know what to do with it.
Kris has never been in love before, though he thought he was a time or two, and back then his instinct was to run. His instinct now is to move Adam into his apartment, force him off of this shit that's got hold of him, and protect him from whatever got him on this path in the first place.
The sound of his front door opening and closing breaks him out of his thoughts. Kris jumps up from the bathroom floor, stepping over the dirty towels he's already used to clean up the mess. There's no Adam on the couch and he's not in the bedroom or kitchen, either; Kris can see the whole apartment from this angle. There's no Adam anywhere.
- - - - -
He doesn't see Adam again for two weeks, even when he knocks on his door the next morning with breakfast; there's no answer. Adam doesn't pick up his phone and he doesn't call Kris back. After three days, Kris gets a message each time he calls that says Adam's inbox is full.
“I have to replace him," Matt says one morning.
Kris hasn't gone by Adam's apartment for a while now; since the first five days were a miss, it seems kind of pointless. Instead, he has coffee with Matt at the back table of the Magic Bean every morning. “He hasn't called or shown up for work, and Kris," and Matt gets serious here, which is bizarre because Kris rarely sees Matt legitimately serious, “I think he's on drugs. I really think you should think about that possibility, too. I've seen some weird behavior from him, and he's way, way too tired for someone who swears he gets plenty of sleep. I've never seen, like, powder on his nose or illegal substances falling out of his pocket or anything, but I can't shake that feeling that he's messed up a lot. I like him, I really do, but I'm not comfortable with him working here anymore, especially since he can't be bothered to call in or show up."
“I'm assuming you're talking about me," Adam says, and Kris and Matt both jump; neither saw or heard him coming into the store or walking over to their table. “I don't need the job anymore, Matt, but thanks for giving me a chance." He leaves as quietly, and as suddenly, as he came.
Kris jumps up from the table, spilling the remainder of his coffee everywhere. He catches up with Adam on the corner as he's about to cross the street. “Where the hell have you been?" Kris demands. “You scared the shit out of me, Adam. I came by your house, I called constantly, and you never even bothered getting back with me."
Adam doesn't look at him, only at the blinking light that indicates he's only got a few moments to cross the street. “You're so much better than this, Kris," he says. “You've been my friend for months, and you took me home to meet your insanely nice family, and you treated me better than anyone I've ever known. And all I could think about was when I could get home and get high again."
Kris doesn't even know how to respond to that. “That doesn't explain where you've been, Adam. Just tell me. I can't fix this unless you tell me."
“You can't fix me," Adam says sadly. “Don't even try. Why would you think you can, anyway? It's not your job, and I'm not looking for someone to come save me like I'm some damsel in distress, Kris. That's not what this is at all."
Kris can only stare, because Adam never talks like this - he sounds defeated, used up, no purpose at all. “At least tell me where you've been. Did you like, go to visit family or something? Are you working somewhere else? Dropping off the face of the earth isn't cool. You freaked me out, Adam."
Adam looks at him then, really looks at him, and the hard expression on his face makes Kris's stomach turn. “I haven't talked to my family in months, Kris. You can probably figure out why. Where do you think I was for the last two weeks?"
Kris can't comprehend spending two entire weeks doing nothing but getting high. “The whole time?"
Adam gives him one of his fake smiles. “More often than not. I was either high, getting high, coming down off a high, or making money to get high. It used to be once every other day when I first met you, or sometimes once a day if things were really tough, but this… I'm not made for all this reality shit you've got going on, Kris." The light changes again, and Adam crosses the street without looking back.
- - - - -
Kris mopes and writes a couple of tuneless, bitter songs, but it doesn't make Adam come back and it doesn't fix the rift between them, so he's pretty much useless for a while.
His students start looking at him like he's grown a second head because he assigns busywork, and one even offers to fix him up with her mom. He doesn't laugh at her, but he comes damn close.
It's two days before Christmas when Matt calls and asks Kris to meet him at the Magic Bean at closing. “Unless you're having an emergency coffee sale, I kind of want to go to bed," Kris complains, but Matt insists and Kris puts on real clothes and meets him down there.
“I found something last night you'll want to see," Matt tells him. He practically drags Kris into the tiny back parking lot and into his car. “It's at this bar on the other side of town, and you're seriously not going to believe what I saw. “
“Wait, you went to a bar? Since when do you drink? I thought you lived on coffee alone," Kris says dryly.
“If you really have to know," Matt says, “I had a date."
Kris can't help it; he cracks up, ignoring the glare that Matt gives him. “You had a date? You didn't like, call the papers or send out a flier or anything?"
“This isn't about me!" Matt insists, and flips Kris off. “This is about Adam. Listen, we went to this club last night and Adam was…" He trails off and Kris is impatient for him to finish.
“Adam was what?" he asked. Kris is afraid he's gonna say something like Adam was totally over-the-edge high in public or something along those lines.
Matt shakes his head. “You'll just have to experience it yourself, man. No explanation will be believable until you do."
It turns out that this isn't a bar so much as small club with tiny tables surrounding a stage. There's a bar, too, and Matt heads straight over and starts ordering tequila shots. “You might need to get drunk for this, I promise you," Matt tells Kris when he protests. “Like, this will be so mindblowing that tequila is the only thing that'll take the edge off."
They sit at the bar and watch as a couple of young girls in black clothes and dark makeup take the stage and sing something that sounds more like a dirge than anything else. “You were right," Kris says to Matt. “I did need to get drunk for this."
“Shut up and wait," Matt says. “Wrong part. It shouldn't be too much longer."
Another fifteen minutes and two equally lame acts pass by, and then a familiar, dark-haired, too-skinny boy in a black jacket and T-shirt takes the stage. Kris has to take a deep breath and actually think for a second; wandering toward the stage would be entirely too embarrassing. He grips his glass a little harder as Adam takes the microphone from its stand and sits on the piano.
Kris has never heard Adam sing before, not even when he was trying to teach him how to play guitar - but Adam does more than sing, it's like he's channeling something that Kris doesn't quite understand. And this thing he can do with his voice is amazing; that's the only word that Kris has to describe: amazing. He forgets about the drugs and the fear and the worry and the only thing left is the love and Kris knows, he knows he needs more of it, that Adam is as essential to his life as breathing and sleeping. It's the most surreal thing that Kris has ever heard in his life.
Adam sees him standing there halfway through his first song. Kris sees a look of confusion on his face, then his eyes go to Matt standing to the right and Adam shakes his head. He spends the rest of the song, as well as the next two, completely distracted, his eyes never leaving Kris's for more than a second or two. But Adam can work the stage even when his focus is broken, and for a moment he even steps off the stage and into the crowd. He has them exactly where he wants them.
When he sets the microphone on top of the piano at the close of his set, the room bursts into applause and everyone's on their feet; there's no possible way that Adam can see them from his angle now. Kris figures that it's the perfect time to get the hell out there, and he practically bursts out the club doors, dragging Matt behind him.
"Are you not even planning on talking to him?" Matt wants to know once they've made it back to his car. “I think that the fact that he's been hiding that he sings like that is worth talking about, at least."
“I have to think, Matt," Kris says. “I really just need to think about it."
- - - - -
Kris spends the next day trying not to think about it, actually, because as exhilarating as Adam's talent may be and as much as he wants to say fuck it and force Adam back into his life, it's not that simple. Adam is an addict, and he doesn't want to give up his addiction, and that deflates the amazing feeling that he got when Matt dragged him out to hear Adam sing. He hasn't shown any signs of wanting Kris back in his life, so why bother?
He decides to sit back and wait for a sign.
The first year he lived in Los Angeles, Kris flew home for Christmas, and it was so depressing that he's vowed never to do it again. Thanksgiving is bad enough. Kris ended up spending every holiday after that at the Magic Bean, where Matt hosts holiday poetry slams for all the sad, depressing people in the neighborhood. This seems like a reasonable enough plan to repeat.
The sign comes when Matt's friend Danny gets up to read some truly horrendous poetry about personal pain and circumstance, and Kris has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. “Even I can't tolerate his pretentious crap tonight," Matt says, trying to keep a straight face. “Stay here. I'm going to get the Kahlúa I keep in the bottom of the filing cabinet in the office. I think we might need it today."
Kris is alone for maybe a few seconds when he hears the café door open. The room is pretty dark, with only the tiny oil lanterns on each café table providing light, as well as the small spotlight on Danny as he blathers on about the torment of his earthly being. Even in the dim room, Kris recognizes Adam in the doorway. He thinks he might recognize him anywhere.
He meets Adam somewhere between the table and the door just as Matt comes out of the back with the Kahlúa. “Oh, hell no," Matt says. “You're not leaving me here with this morbid shit and an entire bottle of Kahlúa by myself."
“Hell yes, he is," Adam says, and his eyes never leave Kris's face. “I'm taking him out of here Officer and a Gentleman-style to save him from this place. I've been here all of thirty seconds and even I can tell that this guy's poetry sucks balls. Besides, I told you not to tell Kris about me singing, and you went and brought him to see it anyway. Fucker." There's no malice in his voice, though, and even in the dark Kris can see that his shoulders are shaking from laughter.
Matt looks from Kris to Adam and then over to where Danny has pulled off his glasses and is staring intently at the audience as he whispers the last few lines of his poetry. “This is the last holiday I'm hosting this, I swear. I don't care how fucking bored people are on Christmas Eve. Fuck Valentine's Day, too, they're even worse then."
Adam leads the way and they get the hell out of there before Danny decides to start a new poem. They walk the two blocks to Kris's apartment in silence. “What happened to sweeping me off of my feet and taking me out of there, Officer And a Gentleman-style?" Kris jokes as they walk through the front door.
“I decided I liked this idea better," Adam says, and pins Kris to the doorway with two strong hands on his shoulders.
Kris takes back what he thought about his first kiss with Adam. This is way better; this is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to him. Kris can feel fingernails digging into the skin on his shoulders and Adam's tongue running over his lips and a hard cock not his own pressing into his hip. He finally remembers to keep breathing and pushes back, the movement creating friction that makes him hard, friction that makes Adam frantic. He breathes into Kris's mouth, making tiny noises that Kris absorbs and pulls inside and pushes back out from his own voice.
The kiss feels incredible and Adam feels amazing pressed against him and Kris wants to take it further, as far as Adam's willing to go. Except Kris is tired of being an optimist - if he lets it go, if he thinks that things can be happy and magical when Adam spends most of his time high, then he's not an optimist. Then he's delusional.
Kris breaks the kiss, not because he wants to, but because he has to. Adam pulls back and looks at him. “You don't want this?" he asks. “I guess I misread…"
“You didn't misread anything," Kris says. “I want this," and he brushes his lips across Adam's lightly, “and I want this." Kris reaches down and runs his palm over Adam's still-hard dick, and they both shiver a little. “But most importantly, I want this," Kris tells him, and places both hands on the side of Adam's head. “And you can't give me that as long as you're so messed up. I don't want it unless I can have the whole thing."
Kris pretty much feels like a wimp after making what he thinks amounts to an incredibly cheesy speech, but Adam is silent. He doesn't laugh or speak or even move for a second, and finally, after the longest moment of Kris's life, he nods.
“I'll quit. I can… I can do this," he tells Kris. “I need your help, though. I can't do it by myself."
Kris nods. “I know," he says. “I'll be here every step of the way."
He makes his mom's recipe for hot chocolate while Adam changes into a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt that Kris keeps in his dresser drawer for the occasional nights when Adam didn't want to go home. “It's not Christmas without my mom's hot chocolate," Kris explains when he hands Adam a steaming mug. “I don't care if I lived in the desert. It's a Christmas tradition."
Adam takes a sip and smiles. His face is so thin when he smiles that Kris wonders when it was that Adam last had a meal. Kris sits down on the floor and rests his back on the couch, facing the small white Christmas tree that twinkles and glows on his hallway table. He pats the carpet next to him and Adam folds to the floor. They sit shoulder to shoulder and stare at the lights in silence for a long moment before Adam speaks.
“You didn't want to go home for Christmas?" he asks quietly. “I thought you'd be somebody who spends every holiday back home, baking with your mom. That type of stuff."
“I did that my first year here," Kris tells him. “Every important holiday and I was there. My parents kept buying me plane tickets and I kept taking them, but every time I went back it depressed me."
"Why is that?" Adam asks, sliding his left arm around Kris's waist. “Your family is awesome."
“I guess I felt like something was missing out there, like the grass was greener out here. And I wanted to be like, a rock star or something. I gave up on that dream pretty fast when I got here." Kris laughs and Adam shakes his head. “But even though I thought this was where I was supposed to be, something was still missing out here for a long time. Every time I went home, I wondered if I'd made a mistake."
Kris can feel Adam's breath on his neck before he feels his lips. “And what about now? Did it change when you stopped going home all the time?" he whispers, leaving tiny kisses on Kris's jawline between breaths.
“No," Kris says quietly. “I was miserable last year too, even though I stayed here and found the Magic Bean and met Matt and started making a little money teaching." He pulls back a little from Adam because if he keeps doing that thing that he's doing then Kris is going to lose every ounce of his resolve and beg Adam to fuck him right there on the floor. “I met you. And things changed."
He turns his face so he can look Adam in the eye and smiles. “I don't want to talk about it, though. I want to know why you came to see me tonight."
Adam smiles back and pulls Kris closer to him yet again, though this time he mercifully keeps his lips to himself. “Easy. Because you came to see me the other night. And even though I told Matt to keep his big fat mouth shut, and even though I've been a total asshole, you still ended up there anyway. It meant a lot to me. You didn't run out the door when you saw me on stage, which is probably what I would have done if it were the other way around - though afterward is a total different story. Why didn't you stick around? We could have had this reunion a lot sooner."
“I was scared," Kris says. “I'm still scared, if you want the truth." Kris doesn't say what he's scared of - the fact that Adam's the only guy he's ever actually wanted to be with on a higher level, or that he wonders if he has some sort of savior complex, or that Adam's talent is kind of overwhelming for someone like Kris. That he was terrified before, and still is, that Adam is going to disappear off his couch again in search of drugs, and this time he'll never come back.
“We're gonna change that," Adam declares, and kisses Kris softly. “I promise. I'll get better and you'll believe in me, Kris. I don't want you to give up on me."
(continue on to part 2)