And Both Shall Row
FANDOM: American Idol
PAIRING: Adam Kris
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 7,259
WARNINGS: Cheating, high levels of intoxication, what some might term angst, blatant disregard for any known facts surrounding the tour stop in New York that might be inconvenient, hipsters.
DISCLAIMER: nothing described is real.
SUMMARY: In New York on tour, Kris needs cheering up, Adam knows of a party, judgment becomes compromised, and barriers start to waver.
NOTES: Charity fic for pennilesspoet17 for the Houston Area Women's Center drive. Title from the traditional song "The Water Is Wide," which is the song Adam sings; one version of the full lyrics here, and my favorite recording of the song here. Special thanks to the various forms of alcohol that led to the incident that inspired one of the major plot points in the fic.
SNIPPET:
Adam had wanted to extend this brief sanctuary they had found in this city of millions where even the people who recognized them didn't give a shit about who they were. This temporary pocket of privacy and friendship they had stumbled into - it wasn't bad, Adam reasons, that he had wanted them to stay in it a little longer, because he loves Kris, almost entirely in the ways he's supposed to love him, and he doesn't know if, after tonight, he'll ever get to have Kris to himself again. It's selfish, but not bad. Not so bad.
And Both Shall Row
Four weeks of tiny bunks, thin mattresses, interrupted sleep, zero privacy, severely limited wardrobe, constant noise, pothole-induced back pain, cramped legs, spilled nail polish, and the pervasive unmistakable odor of guy, and a night in a hotel room seems like a trip to Valhalla.
Anoop had scoffed at this. "You have to die in battle to go to Valhalla."
"Hey," Adam laughed, "between the would-be stalkers and the fight against technical mishaps, the tour is kind of like a battle."
"Yeah, maybe if you're a total pansy."
"You're just jealous because Kris and I get a real bed tonight and you don't." He smiled indulgently as Anoop rolled his eyes like a pro - Adam has never met anyone, save maybe Brad, who could convey scorn quite like Anoop - because hey, he'd be jealous too, if Anoop were the one bounding down the steps of the bus, overnight bag in hand, and he were the one wishing again he'd been warned to pack earplugs in preemptive defense against Danny's snoring. But he wasn't, so he'd blown a kiss and jumped onto the street, where Kris was shaking his head and waiting.
The room is everything Adam was craving: climate-controlled, clean, and all his. The bed is a little stiff, but after the bus it may as well be a cloud, and good thing, too; waking up in time to make Good Morning America would have been way harder without the deep sleep the bed had afforded him, and much less tolerable without the promise of its soft pillows and clean sheets to come back to for a long afternoon nap.
He's awake now, and perfecting his eyeliner in the bathroom mirror (which - miracle of miracles - is in a real bathroom, with a real shower and great water pressure and a bathmat on the white-tiled floor) when he hears someone knocking.
"One sec!" he calls, doing one last check to make sure his eyes are symmetrical before screwing shut the tube and opening the door. "Kris, hey! What's up?"
Kris shrugs. "Just saying hi."
"Hi, yourself." There's a pause as Adam takes in Kris's half-smile, the way he's rocking slightly on his heels, his hands tucked into his back pockets, and tries to decide whether to call him out for lying. He opts for the indirect route; Kris, though an almost comically terrible liar, is also frustratingly stubborn about sticking to his story even when it's fooling no one. "You enjoying New York so far?"
"I really enjoyed the nap I took earlier, if that's what you mean," Kris says, and Adam hums in agreement. "I kinda wish I was getting to see more of the city, but…" He holds his palms out in a what can you do gesture.
"Yeah, I'm hoping to get some of that in tonight. Not your normal sightseeing, but - " Adam laughs. "Who needs normal, right?"
"You're going out?"
Adam thinks it's almost cute, really, that Kris thinks he's capable of feigning nonchalance. "Yeah, nothing too exciting - my friend's play is closing tonight, and after that I might hit up the cast party, depending on how I'm feeling. We'll see." Something clicks in his mind. "Weren't you and Katy having dinner tonight?"
Kris winces, and Adam feels bad but also thinks: Ah. "We kind of." He scratches the back of his neck, looking at his sneakers. "I don't know. I was tired, and she… I think she's kind of worn out, from all of… this whole thing, and, I don't know, we said some stuff. Not like a, a fight, exactly. Just… I don't know. Anyway, so we kind of weren't really in the mood for dinner, so she called some friends, and I'm… here."
Adam nods slowly, fighting the instinct to say I'm sorry, because he doesn't want to set off a wave of it's okay no big deal it doesn't I'm not or anything; he's learned to be patient when Kris needs time to let himself unload whatever's weighing on him. Patience isn't his strong suit, but for Kris, it's worth the wait. "Do you want to talk about it?" he ventures, even though he suspects he knows the answer.
Kris gives a rueful laugh. "Not really, no."
"Got it," Adam says, because it's one of their unspoken rules: they don't push each other, because when pressure is coming at you from a dozen directions at once, sometimes what you need is someone you can trust to give you space. And if sometimes Kris unknowingly pushes him, just a little, by taking his joking flirtations a hair too far, leaning in an inch too close, giving Adam a fake sexy look that is actually legitimately fucking sexy - well, Adam isn't going to push him back, because Kris is dealing with more stress than he is already, and because he wants to be a good friend to Kris more than he wants things about Kris that he's not allowed to want, and because what good could come of it, anyway. "Do you want to just hang out around here?"
"No, man, if you're going out I don't want you to like, cancel on your friend because of me," Kris says, like the idea is borderline offensive.
"Are you sure? It's no big deal, I'm sure I'll get to see him again. We could have a - a boys' night in? Is that what straight people call it?"
Kris cocks an eyebrow. "You mean a guys' night?"
"Yeah, that!" He claps his hands together. "We can watch drink beer! And watch the game!"
Kris is smiling. "The game, huh? And what game is this?"
Adam rolls his eyes. "The game, duh! And talk about chiiiicks, bro," he adds in his best frat boy voice - which, admittedly, kind of sucks.
Kris cracks up at that, and Adam feels the same warm flutter of accomplishment he does every time he gets one of those deep full laughs out of him, with his head tipped back and his nose scrunched up in a way Adam couldn't possibly be asked not to find adorable, because really. "And have steaks, right?" His mouth quirks mischievously. "You like eating meat, don't you?"
"Very much, but I didn't know you did," Adam shoots right back.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me," and there it is, the slightest accidental split-second - push.
"So how about it? Guys' night, beer, game, and steak optional."
Kris shakes his head. "I'd feel really bad taking you away from your friend."
"So come with me," Adam says, because he wants to keep Kris like this, not let him go back to how he was when he knocked on the door. "My friend told me apparently they've set up the theater so that it doesn't have chairs, some kind of concept thing, I'm sure you can get in. We can check out that party later, or do whatever. Come on. It'll be fun." He grins. "I mean, we're in New York, it would be kind of criminal not to have a little fun."
Kris tilts his head like he's considering it, but Adam can see by the slow broadening of his smile that he has him already. "Alright. Let's go have some fun."
***
It's not that Adam isn't over Brad, exactly - it's just that every now and then an old sadness washes over him, emotional debris that hasn't been fully cleared, sticking in his throat like smoke, and he can't call his family because he'll have to either lie or tell them what's wrong, and he can't call Danielle who'll know what's wrong and want him to talk about it, and he can't call anyone who doesn't know him well enough to tell he's not okay, and it's probably for the best that there's a no-weed-in-the-mansion rule but it sure as fuck doesn't feel that way now, so after dinner he quietly excuses himself to go sit on his bed, make a sad playlist on his iPod, and try to let the music do his thinking for him.
Except that Kris shows up halfway through the first track and Adam has to force a smile on his face, because Kris strikes him as the kind of well-meaning nice guy who could get really intent on getting Adam to cry on his shoulder. "Nothing fun happening downstairs?"
Kris shrugs. "Kind of wanted a quiet night. Maybe try to figure out a decent song that came out in 1985." He sits on his bed, leaning against the headboard. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, why do you ask?" Adam asks, furrowing his brows and tilting his head in an attempt to look puzzled.
"You seemed a little down at dinner. Not your usual…" Kris seems to search for an appropriate adjective before giving up and -
"Are you making jazz hands at me?"
"These aren't jazz hands, they're, like, glitter hands, or… whatever. I just thought maybe something was wrong, and I was worried."
Kris tosses it off like it's just true, like he just cares about Adam being okay and not about finding out what's wrong, and Adam was going to say he just had a headache but instead he says, "It's just… oh, God, this is embarrassing, but I was just kind of missing my ex. Or not missing him, so much, we're still friends, but - missing what we had, I guess. Even though, I mean, there was a reason - a lot of reasons - it ended." He shakes his head. "Anyway. It's stupid, just. On my mind tonight, I guess, for whatever reason."
Kris gives him a sympathetic look, and Adam steels himself for some platitude about how he'll be okay and things happen for a reason and other things he believes but doesn't want to hear, but Kris just says, "It's not stupid, man," and Adam is caught off guard by how grateful he is.
"Thanks. That's - nice, to hear."
"Do you want to, like - " Kris sits up. "I mean I could leave, if you want to be alone or something, it's really no big deal."
And Adam is surprised to hear himself say, "No, no, stay," and more surprised by how much he means it.
***
Five hours later and they are having fun, they are having a lot of fun, and they've been having fun, and their entire world is like a sparkling perpetual motion ferris wheel of fun, and it turns out Brooklyn is the most fun place in the world and some girl named Adriana's apartment is the most fun place in Brooklyn, like the fucking epicenter of fun on the planet we call Earth, and it's getting progressively harder to imagine that there exists in the world such a concept as not-fun, because isn't life like an ocean where fun is the water and we are the fish breathing it in, and also Adam and Kris are really, really drunk.
They didn't mean to get drunk. Well, Adam concedes, they didn't mean to get this drunk. Some drinking was in the cards from the moment Natasha thanked him for coming and told him the cast party was going to be awesome, and Adam said yes because it sounded like a good time, and he thought both he and Kris could use a good time.
And, if he's facing up to the veritas he has found in vino, or in vodka if he's being precise, because he wanted to keep Kris with him a little longer. He and Kris had spent the subway ride to the theater cracking jokes and making affectionate fun of their tourmates, trading stories of obnoxious cruise guests in unhappy marriages and playing guitar for irresistibly sweet children in Mozambique, carrying on imagined diva fits with hypothetical label staff ("I said hand-embroidered feather pillows for my dressing room, do I look like some kind of barbarian?" "How the hell am I supposed play after applying the wrong brand of hand moisturizer?"), avoiding, by mutual tacit agreement, anything about their real, soon to be concrete future, and Adam had wanted to extend this brief sanctuary they had found in this city of millions where even the people who recognized them didn't give a shit about who they were. This temporary pocket of privacy and friendship they had stumbled into - it wasn't bad, Adam reasons, that he had wanted them to stay in it a little longer, because he loves Kris, almost entirely in the ways he's supposed to love him, and he doesn't know if, after tonight, he'll ever get to have Kris to himself again. It's selfish, but not bad. Not so bad.
They had started with, and planned to stick to, PBR. "Looks like we got those beers after all," Kris had said, and Adam smacked his lips and drawled, "My favorite. It's the next best thing to actual watered-down piss." There had been one beer, and a lot of boys in girl jeans, and good music in the background of charming conversations about theater and city living and the joys of terrible movies. Adam let himself sink into the social game like he hadn't since January. Kris mostly hung back but was enjoying himself too, piping in every now and then with the sly snarky streak that catches people by surprise if they're expecting to find in him a boy scout out of a 50s sitcom. Then there had been another beer, and a third, and dimming lights and laughter getting louder, and then someone by the drinks table had called out, "Hey, Kris Allen! Come over here, I wanna be able to say I've done a shot with the American fucking Idol!"
Adam nudged Kris with his shoulder. "Your adoring public awaits."
Kris snorted. "I bet you none of these people even watch the stupid show." He grabbed a fistful of Adam's shirt and leaned in to say, "Come on, dude, I may be the American fucking Idol, but you are Adam fucking Lambert, and if I'm doing this, you're doing it with me."
So there had been a shot.
Then there had been another shot.
After that Adam sort of lost count, but he figures it's okay, because literally everything in the world is okay, right now. Kris is touching him too much, but that's okay because Kris touches everyone too much, especially when he's drunk, and he wants to touch Kris too much, but that's okay too, because it is.
People have started dancing now, real dancing and not just ironic hipster dancing, and the speakers are blasting M. I. A., and the combination of sick beats and alcohol is one Adam's body has never been able to resist so he's dancing too, and isn't this everything he needs? Sweat and movement and bodies pushing against his and not caring and skinny boys with stupid facial hair and music, music, music, and all he wants to do is pow pow pow pow and ka-ching! and take your money, and where the fuck is Kris, because no way is he allowed to miss this tonight. No fucking way is Adam going to let go of Kris, of this way they've been and soon will never be again, without getting Kris to dance his unjustly hot ass off at least once. "Fuck that noise," he says out loud, semi-accidentally.
Adam extricates himself from the dance floor to look for Kris, or he assumes that's what happened between now and that time a while ago he said "Fuck that noise" and some girl yelled "With a dildo," because now he has found Kris, in a corner touching a girl with blue-streaked pigtails too much, but not in the sex way, just in the drunk Kris way, which is a lot closer to the sex way than you would expect from a married man, but that's Kris.
Kris, that adorable lush, spots him and spreads his arms wide, almost knocking the girl's red cup out of her hand. "Adam! Adam motherfucking Lambert! The fucking love of my life!"
And even that is hilarious right now, so Adam laughs and clasps Kris's shoulders. "Come on, bitch, we're going dancing."
"But Adam," Kris whines with a sloppy grin, "I dance like a person who can't dance."
"Lucky for both of us, I don't give a shit. You're dancing with me and you'll fucking like it." He hooks a finger in Kris's belt loop and starts dragging him away from the wall and towards the dancing. "Here, have a jello shot," he says as they pass the drinks table, swiping one for each of them.
Kris takes his obediently, and swipes another two for them, and then they're dancing, and Adam doesn't know if it's stress or knowing he'll never see these people again or just the right number of drinks, but Kris makes the transition from cuddly, inappropriately handsy drunk to… Adam knows he's not actually going to make out with anyone but even so, slutty drunk is the only way to describe it. His hips move like maybe he thinks he's actually having sex right now, which is an image Adam has spent six months trying to block, and it would be unbearable if everything weren't wonderful right now. But everything is wonderful, so he watches Kris twist his body in ways Adam has never seen it twisting, and grind up on everybody, girls, boys, both at once, Adam.
Somehow Kris is grinding against Adam, Adam is grinding against Kris. Somehow they are touching too much and laughing, their hands are all over each other, Adam smacks Kris's ass and Kris retaliates doing the same. Somehow Adam is touching Kris's neck, Kris's hands are running up and down Adam's sides, Adam's hands are at Kris's waist. Somehow it's all okay, somehow Kris's hands are cupping Adam's face and bringing it close to his, somehow it's not okay anymore because Adam feels they are teetering at the edge of something dangerous and neither of them can balance well enough to pull them back.
Then Don't Stop Believing comes on, because it's the drunken singalong portion of the evening, and Kris and Adam collapse into giggles, clinging to each other stay upright, because it's just too fucking funny, and somehow it's okay again.
They're dancing, they're stumbling, they're hugging people they've never met, they're thanking Adriana for a totally awesome fucking time.
They're on the street, Kris is falling on his ass down the steps to the 59th Street station, Adam is helping him up, neither of them can stop laughing, some guy in a tight Beavis and Butthead shirt is asking them if they aren't the guys from that show with the British guy, Adam is saying, "No, but we get that all the time."
They're struggling with the subway map, they're stepping onto what they're pretty sure is the N train, which they're pretty sure is Queens-bound which they're pretty sure is how they're supposed to get to get to Manhattan, where maybe they should just hail a cab back to the hotel, because seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Seeeriously. Serious. Lee. They are laughing way too hard about this.
They're sitting close on a nearly empty car, Kris is taking Adam's hand and leaning his head against Adam's shoulder, Adam is leaning back against him, feeling Kris's hair against his cheek, closing his eyes because holding them open seems really hard all of a sudden, Adam likes Kris too much or in the wrong ways, and it's all okay, because it is, and because it has to be.
***
A week into tour and the novelty hasn't worn off, they still come back on the bus every night wide-eyed and flushed with the constant amazed realization that this truly is their lives, but sleeping on a bus is getting old already. Adam is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling like it can hypnotize him into unconsciousness, and envying Kris's ability to sleep through an earthquake until he hears something stirring in the bottom bunk.
It could be Kris turning in his sleep, but if Kris is out Adam knows it would take far more than a simple question to wake him, so he whispers over the edge of the bunk, "Hey. You awake?"
A soft answer comes back. "Unfortunately."
Adam smiles to himself. "Bumpy road finally get to you?"
"Nah. Just wired." Another shift. "Wanna come down?"
Adam doesn't respond, just climbs down to where Kris is sitting against the wall with his knees against his chest and settles in next to him. "So, is this good wired or bad wired?"
"Mostly good wired."
"Mostly?"
Kris shrugs. "I don't know, It's just… hard. Missing people. Missing home. Not having a home, really, right now. It's like - I know I'm not giving up anything that's like, a bigger deal than what I'm getting, and I'm totally grateful, and I wouldn't change it for anything, but sometimes…" He shrugs, then smiles wistfully. "Sometimes you're on a tour bus in the middle of wherever, and it's night and you can't sleep, and instead of thinking about, you know, the fans, and the music, and how lucky you are, you think about that stuff you're giving up."
Adam thinks about wearing a pink dress and fishnets, and those rare times anonymity felt like solitude, and the night Brad called him slurring that he guessed with this American Idol thing it was really over forever for them, and how that hurt even though it had been true before Idol. He thinks about the pictures Bill O'Reilly has seen, and how he might never make pictures quite like that again. "Yeah. I feel that."
They sit in silence. Adam doesn't know how long it is before his eyes shut of their own accord and beside him Kris's breathing steadies, but the next thing either of them is aware of is Matt standing in front of them with a smirk and an iPhone, asking Anoop how much he thinks the tabloids would pay for a shot of this.
***
Adam wakes up with a sore shoulder, an acrid taste in his mouth, and the unsettling sense that something has gone wrong. He opens his eyes to see gray plastic seats, doors opening into darkness, and across from him a light-up display listing destinations.
The subway. They're on the subway, because they fell asleep on the subway like wasted college kids, and now it's not moving because they're in - Adam squints, willing the world to stay still long enough for him to put the yellow lights together to form letters.
"Shit. Kris. Kris, wake up." He nudges Kris, still nestled against his shoulder. "Come on, Kris, you have to get up. Kris. Fuck, Kris, wake up now."
Kris uncurls himself and opens his eyes, blinking against the brightness of the subway lights. "What." He frowns. "What? Adam, where are we?"
"We're in Coney Island, Kris, Coney fucking Island."
"Coney Island?" Kris repeats like it's a foreign language. "Why are we in Coney Island?"
"I don't…" Adam shakes his head. He's still drunk, and nothing is staying still or coming together. "We must have fallen asleep, and… and I guess this is the end of the line." The light board hanging across the ceiling flickers from CONEY ISLAND to 4:53 AM. "Shit. We must have passed out for, what, like two hours? And gone all the way to Queens and back. Jesus."
Kris nods, still looking half asleep. "I think I'm still kind of drunk."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Wow." Kris laughs disbelievingly. "Wow. This is not American Idol approved behavior."
"No, no it certainly is not."
"So what do we do now?"
"Now? I guess we wait for the train to start going again, and try to actually get off this time."
"That's what she said," Kris mumbles. "Okay then."
"Okay." They're silent for a few minutes. The heat from outside mixes with the cool of the air conditioned subway car. Kris is sitting up but still pressed against Adam's side. "Hey, what time are we supposed to leave the hotel again tomorrow? Or I guess it's today, by now."
"Noon, I think? We'll definitely make it back in time."
"Yeah, I know." Adam turns to Kris, who's staring at a piece of chewing gum on the floor. "What if we just. Kind of hung out here, for a while?"
"What do you mean, hang out here?"
"Like. I don't know. Coney Island has a beach, right? We could maybe go out, sit on the sand. Watch the sunrise. And then head back. I mean, why not? It's not like we're ever going to get to do this again." He raises his eyes and in them Adam sees mirrored back at him his own reluctance to let go of this night and its comforting familiarity, suddenly fragile in the face of their impending separation.
It's bittersweet, realizing Kris isn't any more ready than he is to leave this behind.
"Okay," he says, and feels a thrill dance down his spine. "Let's do it."
"Yeah?" Even drowsy as he is, Kris's face lights up at this.
"Yeah." He gets up. "Come on."
"Alright." Kris stands and winds up teetering against Adam. "Whoa there."
Adam's eyebrows knit in concern. "You okay?"
Kris laughs. "Yeah, just more still drunk than I thought I was."
Adam smiles. "Well, don't worry. I've got you."
"I know." Kris slips an arm around Adam's waist, and Adam stretches his own across Kris's shoulders, and together they walk into the thick August air.
The night is humid and hot enough that they're both sweating by the time they've stumbled past closed restaurants and tacky shops to the boardwalk. Once they hit the beach they make it a few yards before succumbing to the unevenness of the sand and collapsing to the ground, doubled over in laughter. The water is nearly invisible in the darkness, just a stretch of black littered with the reflections of stars, not even as bright as the neon spokes of the Wonder Wheel, glowing and otherworldly in the distance. It makes Adam think of L. A., and nights coming home covered in body paint and glitter, his own shimmer and the haze of weed and the taste of Brad's mouth against his making him feel far from the world and present in his skin. This isn't one of those nights, but it has that kind of distance, and that same immediacy of his own body. He stretches his legs out and leans back, digging his palms into the sand.
Next to him Kris says, "Fuck it," and lifts his shirt off. "Too hot for that." He brings his knees up, arms wrapped around his legs, and Adam is reminded of how much he likes Kris's boyish carelessness. "What water is that?"
"The Atlantic, I think? We're on the east coast, so."
"Makes sense." The ocean murmurs its rhythmic hiss. "That's so crazy, to think that like, after this there's just like… Europe. You know? There's just so much of it, and it's so big, and it's just… crazy."
"Mm. Yeah. And there's so much about it we don't know."
"Yeah, and that we'll like, never know, because it's too deep and there's just too much stuff there."
The water is wide, Adam thinks, and the song bubbles up in his mind: and I can't cross over; and neither have I wings to fly…. Only when he sees Kris's face turned to him does Adam notice he's started singing, and he keeps going because Kris's face has taken on the kind of reverent expression Adam lives to see in his audiences. To see it on Kris is so sweet it stings, so he closes his eyes and imagines his voice skipping like a stone across the Atlantic.
He goes through as many verses as he remembers and when he's done Kris says, "That was nice."
"I'm glad you liked it," says Adam.
"I always like it when you sing." Kris gives his arm a playful shove. "You know that, man."
Adam shoves him back. "Man, yourself." It doesn't make sense. He's drunk and the ocean is vast. Kris is beautiful, undeniably, and too close and too far. Adam loves him more than he wants him, which has been his secret salvation: it's almost easy to ignore the things he shouldn't think when the things he should are so worth preserving.
"Can I ask you something?" Kris asks, abruptly serious.
"Of course." Adam wonders if this is what Kris came into his room to do.
"When you and Brad broke up… how did you know it was like. Time. Like, how did you know it was over?"
The air suddenly feels still and breakable as glass. There isn't a right answer, Adam is pretty sure, but he doesn't know if there's a wrong one. "How did I know it was over? Well. I didn't, we kind of both did. And I think." He breathes deep. "I think we realized that - we weren't giving each other anything anymore. We weren't learning from each other, we weren't growing, we had just kind of - stagnated, I guess, and - and we were hurting each other more than we were making each other happy. And we weren't going to be able to fix that. So… we ended things."
Kris opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "How did you know you weren't going to be able to fix it?"
Because Brad didn't seem to want to anymore, because Adam didn't have the energy anymore, because every time they tried they just wound up more fucked up than before. Because after a certain point you reach a point where you know one more disappointment will break your heart in a way that will take too much of your life to mend. "We just… knew, I guess."
Kris doesn't react to this, just looks at the sea. Adam bites his lip to keep from saying Why do you ask and waits for Kris to say something about Katy, about what happened between the two of them tonight, about why Kris is on a beach in Brooklyn with a man he met six months ago instead of in bed with his wife. He wonders if he wants to know what's wrong more than if Kris is okay, and he hopes he's better than that.
He wonders if there is a shameful part of him that wants to hear Kris tell him why he chose Adam over Katy tonight, and hopes he's better than that, too.
There is so little here it's unsettling: sand, stars, the blackness of the sea, and Kris beside him, beautiful and untouchable and unreachable, so that Adam is alone with himself. Pictures of his life swirl like seaweed in his mind. The first boy he kissed. Holding hands with Brad on their way to a play one of their friends was in. The first time he sang for an audience. Morning press rounds with Kris and Allison after the semifinals. All rendered meaningless through the booze or the hour or the fact that there are too many of them.
Then Kris says "There've been days it felt like you were all I had," and the wall between them turns papery and weak.
Tread carefully, Adam thinks. "I've been really glad to have you through this, too."
"No, I mean - I never thought I'd need to say that, again. I thought - after you get married, you don't…" Kris swallows. Adam tries not to notice the elegance of his neck. "And I can't stop thinking - maybe you're not supposed to, and maybe we - maybe I've fucked something up."
"Kris." Kris moves too close to him. "That's not - everyone needs something else, sometimes. That's one of the things Brad taught me the hard way."
"And you guys broke up."
"Kris." Adam tries for a light laugh. It comes out slightly manic. "You and Katy are way, way, way healthier as a couple than Brad and I were. I mean, you're a lot better adjusted than I was at your age, and you guys have a lot more practice at this than either of us did, and - you're going to be fine."
"I know that," Kris says, "but I don't know it."
"What do you mean?" Adam's mouth is dry.
Kris is tracing circles in the sand. "There was this time, a couple years ago, when like - I couldn't feel God anymore. And I was really… scared, because I thought - maybe I had really fucked something up, because I knew I believed in God, and I never stopped believing in God, but it was like - he wasn't there. Like I had done something to drive him away from me."
"But you, you believe in God now, so - you worked through that, and it was okay." When Kris doesn't say anything, Adam presses, "Right?"
"I know we're going to be fine," Kris says.
"Of course."
"I'm really glad it was you with me at the end."
The wall between them is suddenly translucent. Nothing changes, but Adam has learned to trust his instincts enough not to discount the nervous heat in his stomach and the pounding of his heart. They are pushing against each other. The space between them is disappearing.
"Well, yeah, I mean can you imagine doing all that press with Danny?" Adam says, grateful that his laugh sounds real this time.
For a second Kris looks so much like he's been slapped that Adam wants to touch his face gently to reassure him, but the moment passes and his face collapses into something like a sad relief. "Yeah. That would have sucked."
"No kidding."
Something has ripped, but not broken. Adam breathes. When they sober up and get some sleep and get back on the bus, it will stitch itself back together. They'll be okay.
They don't say anything after that. Adam thinks it's a shame to spend their last few hours together without speaking, and then he thinks they can talk in the future but they might never get to sit in silence together again. Kris is almost statue-still. The sky lightens, then the colors of sunrise bleed across it, and then it's day and the water is an unimpressive gray.
"We should probably get back," Kris says.
Adam nods. "Yeah. We should."
***
Six weeks into the competition and Adam can't believe he pegged Kris as too nice to the point of sanctimony. Kris is so relaxed almost nothing phases him, and funny, as nice as he seems but less nicey-nice than people expect. Adam gets along with him almost too well, considering that Kris hits every one of his weaknesses. He takes to asking Kris about Katy a lot, because he cares and, on some nights when loneliness seeps in, to remind himself of why Kris is off-limits.
One such night they're splitting leftover pie in the kitchen when everyone's in bed and Adam asks, "How did you know that Katy was definitely The One?"
The smile that lights up Kris's face is so broad and easy Adam thinks, this is what love looks like. "I mean, I'd been thinking about it for a while. We'd like, broken up for a while when I went to college, and the whole being broken up thing didn't really work out for us. So when we got back together it was like, okay, maybe this is like, forever. And there was this one day when her parents were having a barbecue or something, and I was just watching her, you know, talking to people about whatever, and laughing, and it was like - yeah. Yeah, this is forever. That moment, I just knew."
Adam understands knowing you're in love, but he can't picture knowing anything is forever. He says, "That's beautiful."
Kris looks down, embarrassed. "I mean, it's just the way it was."
Adam doesn't say so, but he thinks that makes it more beautiful.
***
By the time they get back to the hotel it occurs to Adam only in the most remote way that Kris is following him into his room. They chose, maybe earlier than either of them realized, that this night was to be spent together, and even though it's morning and Adam is so tired he feels like his skin is vibrating and his thoughts have stopped making sentences, he still feels they're bound together somehow.
They sit shoulder to shoulder on Adam's bed, his clean soft bed he hasn't seen since yesterday. The world exists in senses: the white of the walls, the clinical smell of the hotel room, hours-old alcohol on his tongue, the warmth of Kris behind him and the sound of their breathing.
Kris says, "Adam."
Adam looks at him, brain too slow to figure out what to ask.
Kris says, "I. You're all I."
Something switches. They are pushing against each other. Adam knows the look Kris is giving him, but he's never seen it on Kris's face before, and he's trying to place where he has seen it when Kris kisses him.
Kris kisses him, hard and messy, and Adam responds on autopilot, his body functioning separately from his stalled mind, hands reaching to Kris's waist, legs entwining with Kris's. Kris kisses him like violence, hands on Adam's face, fingers in Adam's hair pulling like the space between them has disappeared and that still isn't enough for him. The world exists in senses: the slight taste of blood where their teeth hit each other's lips, the smell of sweat and ocean air on Kris's skin, Kris's back smooth under his palms, the groan in the back of Kris's throat when Adam's hands slip down to his ass, the desperation in Kris's eyes when he breaks the kiss.
Adam says, "We shouldn't be doing this," truthfully and without conviction.
Kris says, "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, we just - "
Kris kisses Adam's neck, swings his legs around to straddle Adam, hands reaching experimentally up Adam's shirt, across his chest, warm and welcome and far away. This isn't happening. Adam sits up with Kris's legs around him, running his hands along Kris's thighs, pressing against Kris's chest because the space is gone but he still can't feel Kris. Kris kisses the side of Adam's face, breathes hot into his ear, kisses him again with no grace. Adam drags his teeth along Kris's jaw and hears Kris suck his breath in through his teeth. This is happening. Kris says "Adam" and digs his nails into Adam's back. His fingers are strong. They kiss and kiss and kiss. Adam's hips start moving against Kris's, and Kris responds.
This isn't about sex. It's about exhaustion, and a pull as inevitable as the tides, and the erosion of a wall as if by centuries of storms. It's about their bodies, and about their hearts, and the two are acting wholly separately.
Adam watches his mouth suck gently at Kris's neck. The noise Kris makes is heard by Adam's hips and stomach. Kris is beautiful in the cold way of a sculpture. This is a scene in a movie. In a moment they will wake up and this will never have happened. Adam is dizzy and clumsy and his body holds Kris like it's trying to attach itself to him so they'll never have to let go, and his mind says stop stop stop stop stop, and Kris says, "Adam," and Adam doesn't say anything because this isn't happening.
The phone rings.
Kris's face is unreadable, one part lust and one part guilt and too many other parts to count. He rocks back to let Adam get away, reach for the phone, answer it. "This is the wake-up call requested for room five oh three."
Adam says, "Thank you." The phone clicks back into its cradle
Kris is hunched over, thumb nail digging into cuticle in a way Adam suspects is meant to hurt. "I should go."
"You should."
Kris slides off the bed and walks across the door. Everything is happening in slow motion and none of it is real. At the door he turns and his eyes are stricken, haunted. Tired. His mouth hangs open silently.
There is more pressure on Kris, because he's the one with a wife and he's the one who doesn't know what it's like to lose love forever and he's the one who's scared. Adam loves Kris more than he wants him, and that has always been true. "Hey, look. You'll go back to your room, I'll stay here, we'll shower, pack, get a chance to detox from this whole evening, and then when we meet up to get out of here, nothing happened." Something close to heartbreak crosses Kris's features, and it hurts but there's nothing Adam can do because this is the only way. "It'll be okay. It'll be a little weird at first, but we'll get back to touring, and doing shows, and it'll be the same as it ever was, because I mean, come on. We're us, and it's just - we were drunk and tired and that's it. No big deal. Happens all the time, to lots of people who are bad ideas for each other, and - and just go, and it'll be okay."
Kris closes his mouth, opens it, closes it, leaves the room. The door swings back into place and the night is over.
Adam sits on his bed and listens to the words he just said. It'll be okay. It'll be okay because the world barely exists for him so this barely happened, and when he sleeps and wakes up again it won't have happened. It'll be okay because it has to be.
His hands are trembling and sadness washes over him like a wave.
It'll be okay he said because he loves Kris more than he wants him and sometimes you have to lie to the people you love.
***
Backstage at the Nokia Theater, Kris is bouncing the way he does when adrenaline hits him, and Adam is shifting his weight from foot to foot, and then they catch each other's eyes and start laughing.
"We made it, man," Kris says, his voice sounding like joy.
"We really fucking did." Adam can't keep the grin off his face. "You and me. I'm really glad it worked out that way."
"Me too."
Onstage Debbie is talking something over with Ryan. "You nervous?" Adam asks.
"Nah," Kris says. His mouth quirks. "A little, maybe. But I mean. It doesn't really matter, you know?"
"Totally," Adam says, meaning it more than he would have expected two months ago, because there's no one he'd rather lose to than Kris, and because neither of them is losing tonight anyway. "I mean, whatever happens, we're both going to do what we love after this, and we're going to be awesome at it."
Kris laughs. "Yeah. We're pretty awesome, it is true."
Adam gives Kris's hand a squeeze. "We're in this together, not against each other."
"Always, man." And it's true: somehow it's stopped feeling like a competition, and somehow his certainty in the fact that nothing will change what they've become to each other has become one of the best things about this bizarre journey they've undertaken.
Debbie calls places, and Adam and Kris walk together to begin the prelude to the rest of their lives.
PAIRING: Adam Kris
RATING: PG-13
WORD COUNT: 7,259
WARNINGS: Cheating, high levels of intoxication, what some might term angst, blatant disregard for any known facts surrounding the tour stop in New York that might be inconvenient, hipsters.
DISCLAIMER: nothing described is real.
SUMMARY: In New York on tour, Kris needs cheering up, Adam knows of a party, judgment becomes compromised, and barriers start to waver.
NOTES: Charity fic for pennilesspoet17 for the Houston Area Women's Center drive. Title from the traditional song "The Water Is Wide," which is the song Adam sings; one version of the full lyrics here, and my favorite recording of the song here. Special thanks to the various forms of alcohol that led to the incident that inspired one of the major plot points in the fic.
SNIPPET:
Adam had wanted to extend this brief sanctuary they had found in this city of millions where even the people who recognized them didn't give a shit about who they were. This temporary pocket of privacy and friendship they had stumbled into - it wasn't bad, Adam reasons, that he had wanted them to stay in it a little longer, because he loves Kris, almost entirely in the ways he's supposed to love him, and he doesn't know if, after tonight, he'll ever get to have Kris to himself again. It's selfish, but not bad. Not so bad.
And Both Shall Row
Four weeks of tiny bunks, thin mattresses, interrupted sleep, zero privacy, severely limited wardrobe, constant noise, pothole-induced back pain, cramped legs, spilled nail polish, and the pervasive unmistakable odor of guy, and a night in a hotel room seems like a trip to Valhalla.
Anoop had scoffed at this. "You have to die in battle to go to Valhalla."
"Hey," Adam laughed, "between the would-be stalkers and the fight against technical mishaps, the tour is kind of like a battle."
"Yeah, maybe if you're a total pansy."
"You're just jealous because Kris and I get a real bed tonight and you don't." He smiled indulgently as Anoop rolled his eyes like a pro - Adam has never met anyone, save maybe Brad, who could convey scorn quite like Anoop - because hey, he'd be jealous too, if Anoop were the one bounding down the steps of the bus, overnight bag in hand, and he were the one wishing again he'd been warned to pack earplugs in preemptive defense against Danny's snoring. But he wasn't, so he'd blown a kiss and jumped onto the street, where Kris was shaking his head and waiting.
The room is everything Adam was craving: climate-controlled, clean, and all his. The bed is a little stiff, but after the bus it may as well be a cloud, and good thing, too; waking up in time to make Good Morning America would have been way harder without the deep sleep the bed had afforded him, and much less tolerable without the promise of its soft pillows and clean sheets to come back to for a long afternoon nap.
He's awake now, and perfecting his eyeliner in the bathroom mirror (which - miracle of miracles - is in a real bathroom, with a real shower and great water pressure and a bathmat on the white-tiled floor) when he hears someone knocking.
"One sec!" he calls, doing one last check to make sure his eyes are symmetrical before screwing shut the tube and opening the door. "Kris, hey! What's up?"
Kris shrugs. "Just saying hi."
"Hi, yourself." There's a pause as Adam takes in Kris's half-smile, the way he's rocking slightly on his heels, his hands tucked into his back pockets, and tries to decide whether to call him out for lying. He opts for the indirect route; Kris, though an almost comically terrible liar, is also frustratingly stubborn about sticking to his story even when it's fooling no one. "You enjoying New York so far?"
"I really enjoyed the nap I took earlier, if that's what you mean," Kris says, and Adam hums in agreement. "I kinda wish I was getting to see more of the city, but…" He holds his palms out in a what can you do gesture.
"Yeah, I'm hoping to get some of that in tonight. Not your normal sightseeing, but - " Adam laughs. "Who needs normal, right?"
"You're going out?"
Adam thinks it's almost cute, really, that Kris thinks he's capable of feigning nonchalance. "Yeah, nothing too exciting - my friend's play is closing tonight, and after that I might hit up the cast party, depending on how I'm feeling. We'll see." Something clicks in his mind. "Weren't you and Katy having dinner tonight?"
Kris winces, and Adam feels bad but also thinks: Ah. "We kind of." He scratches the back of his neck, looking at his sneakers. "I don't know. I was tired, and she… I think she's kind of worn out, from all of… this whole thing, and, I don't know, we said some stuff. Not like a, a fight, exactly. Just… I don't know. Anyway, so we kind of weren't really in the mood for dinner, so she called some friends, and I'm… here."
Adam nods slowly, fighting the instinct to say I'm sorry, because he doesn't want to set off a wave of it's okay no big deal it doesn't I'm not or anything; he's learned to be patient when Kris needs time to let himself unload whatever's weighing on him. Patience isn't his strong suit, but for Kris, it's worth the wait. "Do you want to talk about it?" he ventures, even though he suspects he knows the answer.
Kris gives a rueful laugh. "Not really, no."
"Got it," Adam says, because it's one of their unspoken rules: they don't push each other, because when pressure is coming at you from a dozen directions at once, sometimes what you need is someone you can trust to give you space. And if sometimes Kris unknowingly pushes him, just a little, by taking his joking flirtations a hair too far, leaning in an inch too close, giving Adam a fake sexy look that is actually legitimately fucking sexy - well, Adam isn't going to push him back, because Kris is dealing with more stress than he is already, and because he wants to be a good friend to Kris more than he wants things about Kris that he's not allowed to want, and because what good could come of it, anyway. "Do you want to just hang out around here?"
"No, man, if you're going out I don't want you to like, cancel on your friend because of me," Kris says, like the idea is borderline offensive.
"Are you sure? It's no big deal, I'm sure I'll get to see him again. We could have a - a boys' night in? Is that what straight people call it?"
Kris cocks an eyebrow. "You mean a guys' night?"
"Yeah, that!" He claps his hands together. "We can watch drink beer! And watch the game!"
Kris is smiling. "The game, huh? And what game is this?"
Adam rolls his eyes. "The game, duh! And talk about chiiiicks, bro," he adds in his best frat boy voice - which, admittedly, kind of sucks.
Kris cracks up at that, and Adam feels the same warm flutter of accomplishment he does every time he gets one of those deep full laughs out of him, with his head tipped back and his nose scrunched up in a way Adam couldn't possibly be asked not to find adorable, because really. "And have steaks, right?" His mouth quirks mischievously. "You like eating meat, don't you?"
"Very much, but I didn't know you did," Adam shoots right back.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me," and there it is, the slightest accidental split-second - push.
"So how about it? Guys' night, beer, game, and steak optional."
Kris shakes his head. "I'd feel really bad taking you away from your friend."
"So come with me," Adam says, because he wants to keep Kris like this, not let him go back to how he was when he knocked on the door. "My friend told me apparently they've set up the theater so that it doesn't have chairs, some kind of concept thing, I'm sure you can get in. We can check out that party later, or do whatever. Come on. It'll be fun." He grins. "I mean, we're in New York, it would be kind of criminal not to have a little fun."
Kris tilts his head like he's considering it, but Adam can see by the slow broadening of his smile that he has him already. "Alright. Let's go have some fun."
***
It's not that Adam isn't over Brad, exactly - it's just that every now and then an old sadness washes over him, emotional debris that hasn't been fully cleared, sticking in his throat like smoke, and he can't call his family because he'll have to either lie or tell them what's wrong, and he can't call Danielle who'll know what's wrong and want him to talk about it, and he can't call anyone who doesn't know him well enough to tell he's not okay, and it's probably for the best that there's a no-weed-in-the-mansion rule but it sure as fuck doesn't feel that way now, so after dinner he quietly excuses himself to go sit on his bed, make a sad playlist on his iPod, and try to let the music do his thinking for him.
Except that Kris shows up halfway through the first track and Adam has to force a smile on his face, because Kris strikes him as the kind of well-meaning nice guy who could get really intent on getting Adam to cry on his shoulder. "Nothing fun happening downstairs?"
Kris shrugs. "Kind of wanted a quiet night. Maybe try to figure out a decent song that came out in 1985." He sits on his bed, leaning against the headboard. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, why do you ask?" Adam asks, furrowing his brows and tilting his head in an attempt to look puzzled.
"You seemed a little down at dinner. Not your usual…" Kris seems to search for an appropriate adjective before giving up and -
"Are you making jazz hands at me?"
"These aren't jazz hands, they're, like, glitter hands, or… whatever. I just thought maybe something was wrong, and I was worried."
Kris tosses it off like it's just true, like he just cares about Adam being okay and not about finding out what's wrong, and Adam was going to say he just had a headache but instead he says, "It's just… oh, God, this is embarrassing, but I was just kind of missing my ex. Or not missing him, so much, we're still friends, but - missing what we had, I guess. Even though, I mean, there was a reason - a lot of reasons - it ended." He shakes his head. "Anyway. It's stupid, just. On my mind tonight, I guess, for whatever reason."
Kris gives him a sympathetic look, and Adam steels himself for some platitude about how he'll be okay and things happen for a reason and other things he believes but doesn't want to hear, but Kris just says, "It's not stupid, man," and Adam is caught off guard by how grateful he is.
"Thanks. That's - nice, to hear."
"Do you want to, like - " Kris sits up. "I mean I could leave, if you want to be alone or something, it's really no big deal."
And Adam is surprised to hear himself say, "No, no, stay," and more surprised by how much he means it.
***
Five hours later and they are having fun, they are having a lot of fun, and they've been having fun, and their entire world is like a sparkling perpetual motion ferris wheel of fun, and it turns out Brooklyn is the most fun place in the world and some girl named Adriana's apartment is the most fun place in Brooklyn, like the fucking epicenter of fun on the planet we call Earth, and it's getting progressively harder to imagine that there exists in the world such a concept as not-fun, because isn't life like an ocean where fun is the water and we are the fish breathing it in, and also Adam and Kris are really, really drunk.
They didn't mean to get drunk. Well, Adam concedes, they didn't mean to get this drunk. Some drinking was in the cards from the moment Natasha thanked him for coming and told him the cast party was going to be awesome, and Adam said yes because it sounded like a good time, and he thought both he and Kris could use a good time.
And, if he's facing up to the veritas he has found in vino, or in vodka if he's being precise, because he wanted to keep Kris with him a little longer. He and Kris had spent the subway ride to the theater cracking jokes and making affectionate fun of their tourmates, trading stories of obnoxious cruise guests in unhappy marriages and playing guitar for irresistibly sweet children in Mozambique, carrying on imagined diva fits with hypothetical label staff ("I said hand-embroidered feather pillows for my dressing room, do I look like some kind of barbarian?" "How the hell am I supposed play after applying the wrong brand of hand moisturizer?"), avoiding, by mutual tacit agreement, anything about their real, soon to be concrete future, and Adam had wanted to extend this brief sanctuary they had found in this city of millions where even the people who recognized them didn't give a shit about who they were. This temporary pocket of privacy and friendship they had stumbled into - it wasn't bad, Adam reasons, that he had wanted them to stay in it a little longer, because he loves Kris, almost entirely in the ways he's supposed to love him, and he doesn't know if, after tonight, he'll ever get to have Kris to himself again. It's selfish, but not bad. Not so bad.
They had started with, and planned to stick to, PBR. "Looks like we got those beers after all," Kris had said, and Adam smacked his lips and drawled, "My favorite. It's the next best thing to actual watered-down piss." There had been one beer, and a lot of boys in girl jeans, and good music in the background of charming conversations about theater and city living and the joys of terrible movies. Adam let himself sink into the social game like he hadn't since January. Kris mostly hung back but was enjoying himself too, piping in every now and then with the sly snarky streak that catches people by surprise if they're expecting to find in him a boy scout out of a 50s sitcom. Then there had been another beer, and a third, and dimming lights and laughter getting louder, and then someone by the drinks table had called out, "Hey, Kris Allen! Come over here, I wanna be able to say I've done a shot with the American fucking Idol!"
Adam nudged Kris with his shoulder. "Your adoring public awaits."
Kris snorted. "I bet you none of these people even watch the stupid show." He grabbed a fistful of Adam's shirt and leaned in to say, "Come on, dude, I may be the American fucking Idol, but you are Adam fucking Lambert, and if I'm doing this, you're doing it with me."
So there had been a shot.
Then there had been another shot.
After that Adam sort of lost count, but he figures it's okay, because literally everything in the world is okay, right now. Kris is touching him too much, but that's okay because Kris touches everyone too much, especially when he's drunk, and he wants to touch Kris too much, but that's okay too, because it is.
People have started dancing now, real dancing and not just ironic hipster dancing, and the speakers are blasting M. I. A., and the combination of sick beats and alcohol is one Adam's body has never been able to resist so he's dancing too, and isn't this everything he needs? Sweat and movement and bodies pushing against his and not caring and skinny boys with stupid facial hair and music, music, music, and all he wants to do is pow pow pow pow and ka-ching! and take your money, and where the fuck is Kris, because no way is he allowed to miss this tonight. No fucking way is Adam going to let go of Kris, of this way they've been and soon will never be again, without getting Kris to dance his unjustly hot ass off at least once. "Fuck that noise," he says out loud, semi-accidentally.
Adam extricates himself from the dance floor to look for Kris, or he assumes that's what happened between now and that time a while ago he said "Fuck that noise" and some girl yelled "With a dildo," because now he has found Kris, in a corner touching a girl with blue-streaked pigtails too much, but not in the sex way, just in the drunk Kris way, which is a lot closer to the sex way than you would expect from a married man, but that's Kris.
Kris, that adorable lush, spots him and spreads his arms wide, almost knocking the girl's red cup out of her hand. "Adam! Adam motherfucking Lambert! The fucking love of my life!"
And even that is hilarious right now, so Adam laughs and clasps Kris's shoulders. "Come on, bitch, we're going dancing."
"But Adam," Kris whines with a sloppy grin, "I dance like a person who can't dance."
"Lucky for both of us, I don't give a shit. You're dancing with me and you'll fucking like it." He hooks a finger in Kris's belt loop and starts dragging him away from the wall and towards the dancing. "Here, have a jello shot," he says as they pass the drinks table, swiping one for each of them.
Kris takes his obediently, and swipes another two for them, and then they're dancing, and Adam doesn't know if it's stress or knowing he'll never see these people again or just the right number of drinks, but Kris makes the transition from cuddly, inappropriately handsy drunk to… Adam knows he's not actually going to make out with anyone but even so, slutty drunk is the only way to describe it. His hips move like maybe he thinks he's actually having sex right now, which is an image Adam has spent six months trying to block, and it would be unbearable if everything weren't wonderful right now. But everything is wonderful, so he watches Kris twist his body in ways Adam has never seen it twisting, and grind up on everybody, girls, boys, both at once, Adam.
Somehow Kris is grinding against Adam, Adam is grinding against Kris. Somehow they are touching too much and laughing, their hands are all over each other, Adam smacks Kris's ass and Kris retaliates doing the same. Somehow Adam is touching Kris's neck, Kris's hands are running up and down Adam's sides, Adam's hands are at Kris's waist. Somehow it's all okay, somehow Kris's hands are cupping Adam's face and bringing it close to his, somehow it's not okay anymore because Adam feels they are teetering at the edge of something dangerous and neither of them can balance well enough to pull them back.
Then Don't Stop Believing comes on, because it's the drunken singalong portion of the evening, and Kris and Adam collapse into giggles, clinging to each other stay upright, because it's just too fucking funny, and somehow it's okay again.
They're dancing, they're stumbling, they're hugging people they've never met, they're thanking Adriana for a totally awesome fucking time.
They're on the street, Kris is falling on his ass down the steps to the 59th Street station, Adam is helping him up, neither of them can stop laughing, some guy in a tight Beavis and Butthead shirt is asking them if they aren't the guys from that show with the British guy, Adam is saying, "No, but we get that all the time."
They're struggling with the subway map, they're stepping onto what they're pretty sure is the N train, which they're pretty sure is Queens-bound which they're pretty sure is how they're supposed to get to get to Manhattan, where maybe they should just hail a cab back to the hotel, because seriously. Seriously. Seriously. Seeeriously. Serious. Lee. They are laughing way too hard about this.
They're sitting close on a nearly empty car, Kris is taking Adam's hand and leaning his head against Adam's shoulder, Adam is leaning back against him, feeling Kris's hair against his cheek, closing his eyes because holding them open seems really hard all of a sudden, Adam likes Kris too much or in the wrong ways, and it's all okay, because it is, and because it has to be.
***
A week into tour and the novelty hasn't worn off, they still come back on the bus every night wide-eyed and flushed with the constant amazed realization that this truly is their lives, but sleeping on a bus is getting old already. Adam is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling like it can hypnotize him into unconsciousness, and envying Kris's ability to sleep through an earthquake until he hears something stirring in the bottom bunk.
It could be Kris turning in his sleep, but if Kris is out Adam knows it would take far more than a simple question to wake him, so he whispers over the edge of the bunk, "Hey. You awake?"
A soft answer comes back. "Unfortunately."
Adam smiles to himself. "Bumpy road finally get to you?"
"Nah. Just wired." Another shift. "Wanna come down?"
Adam doesn't respond, just climbs down to where Kris is sitting against the wall with his knees against his chest and settles in next to him. "So, is this good wired or bad wired?"
"Mostly good wired."
"Mostly?"
Kris shrugs. "I don't know, It's just… hard. Missing people. Missing home. Not having a home, really, right now. It's like - I know I'm not giving up anything that's like, a bigger deal than what I'm getting, and I'm totally grateful, and I wouldn't change it for anything, but sometimes…" He shrugs, then smiles wistfully. "Sometimes you're on a tour bus in the middle of wherever, and it's night and you can't sleep, and instead of thinking about, you know, the fans, and the music, and how lucky you are, you think about that stuff you're giving up."
Adam thinks about wearing a pink dress and fishnets, and those rare times anonymity felt like solitude, and the night Brad called him slurring that he guessed with this American Idol thing it was really over forever for them, and how that hurt even though it had been true before Idol. He thinks about the pictures Bill O'Reilly has seen, and how he might never make pictures quite like that again. "Yeah. I feel that."
They sit in silence. Adam doesn't know how long it is before his eyes shut of their own accord and beside him Kris's breathing steadies, but the next thing either of them is aware of is Matt standing in front of them with a smirk and an iPhone, asking Anoop how much he thinks the tabloids would pay for a shot of this.
***
Adam wakes up with a sore shoulder, an acrid taste in his mouth, and the unsettling sense that something has gone wrong. He opens his eyes to see gray plastic seats, doors opening into darkness, and across from him a light-up display listing destinations.
The subway. They're on the subway, because they fell asleep on the subway like wasted college kids, and now it's not moving because they're in - Adam squints, willing the world to stay still long enough for him to put the yellow lights together to form letters.
"Shit. Kris. Kris, wake up." He nudges Kris, still nestled against his shoulder. "Come on, Kris, you have to get up. Kris. Fuck, Kris, wake up now."
Kris uncurls himself and opens his eyes, blinking against the brightness of the subway lights. "What." He frowns. "What? Adam, where are we?"
"We're in Coney Island, Kris, Coney fucking Island."
"Coney Island?" Kris repeats like it's a foreign language. "Why are we in Coney Island?"
"I don't…" Adam shakes his head. He's still drunk, and nothing is staying still or coming together. "We must have fallen asleep, and… and I guess this is the end of the line." The light board hanging across the ceiling flickers from CONEY ISLAND to 4:53 AM. "Shit. We must have passed out for, what, like two hours? And gone all the way to Queens and back. Jesus."
Kris nods, still looking half asleep. "I think I'm still kind of drunk."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Wow." Kris laughs disbelievingly. "Wow. This is not American Idol approved behavior."
"No, no it certainly is not."
"So what do we do now?"
"Now? I guess we wait for the train to start going again, and try to actually get off this time."
"That's what she said," Kris mumbles. "Okay then."
"Okay." They're silent for a few minutes. The heat from outside mixes with the cool of the air conditioned subway car. Kris is sitting up but still pressed against Adam's side. "Hey, what time are we supposed to leave the hotel again tomorrow? Or I guess it's today, by now."
"Noon, I think? We'll definitely make it back in time."
"Yeah, I know." Adam turns to Kris, who's staring at a piece of chewing gum on the floor. "What if we just. Kind of hung out here, for a while?"
"What do you mean, hang out here?"
"Like. I don't know. Coney Island has a beach, right? We could maybe go out, sit on the sand. Watch the sunrise. And then head back. I mean, why not? It's not like we're ever going to get to do this again." He raises his eyes and in them Adam sees mirrored back at him his own reluctance to let go of this night and its comforting familiarity, suddenly fragile in the face of their impending separation.
It's bittersweet, realizing Kris isn't any more ready than he is to leave this behind.
"Okay," he says, and feels a thrill dance down his spine. "Let's do it."
"Yeah?" Even drowsy as he is, Kris's face lights up at this.
"Yeah." He gets up. "Come on."
"Alright." Kris stands and winds up teetering against Adam. "Whoa there."
Adam's eyebrows knit in concern. "You okay?"
Kris laughs. "Yeah, just more still drunk than I thought I was."
Adam smiles. "Well, don't worry. I've got you."
"I know." Kris slips an arm around Adam's waist, and Adam stretches his own across Kris's shoulders, and together they walk into the thick August air.
The night is humid and hot enough that they're both sweating by the time they've stumbled past closed restaurants and tacky shops to the boardwalk. Once they hit the beach they make it a few yards before succumbing to the unevenness of the sand and collapsing to the ground, doubled over in laughter. The water is nearly invisible in the darkness, just a stretch of black littered with the reflections of stars, not even as bright as the neon spokes of the Wonder Wheel, glowing and otherworldly in the distance. It makes Adam think of L. A., and nights coming home covered in body paint and glitter, his own shimmer and the haze of weed and the taste of Brad's mouth against his making him feel far from the world and present in his skin. This isn't one of those nights, but it has that kind of distance, and that same immediacy of his own body. He stretches his legs out and leans back, digging his palms into the sand.
Next to him Kris says, "Fuck it," and lifts his shirt off. "Too hot for that." He brings his knees up, arms wrapped around his legs, and Adam is reminded of how much he likes Kris's boyish carelessness. "What water is that?"
"The Atlantic, I think? We're on the east coast, so."
"Makes sense." The ocean murmurs its rhythmic hiss. "That's so crazy, to think that like, after this there's just like… Europe. You know? There's just so much of it, and it's so big, and it's just… crazy."
"Mm. Yeah. And there's so much about it we don't know."
"Yeah, and that we'll like, never know, because it's too deep and there's just too much stuff there."
The water is wide, Adam thinks, and the song bubbles up in his mind: and I can't cross over; and neither have I wings to fly…. Only when he sees Kris's face turned to him does Adam notice he's started singing, and he keeps going because Kris's face has taken on the kind of reverent expression Adam lives to see in his audiences. To see it on Kris is so sweet it stings, so he closes his eyes and imagines his voice skipping like a stone across the Atlantic.
He goes through as many verses as he remembers and when he's done Kris says, "That was nice."
"I'm glad you liked it," says Adam.
"I always like it when you sing." Kris gives his arm a playful shove. "You know that, man."
Adam shoves him back. "Man, yourself." It doesn't make sense. He's drunk and the ocean is vast. Kris is beautiful, undeniably, and too close and too far. Adam loves him more than he wants him, which has been his secret salvation: it's almost easy to ignore the things he shouldn't think when the things he should are so worth preserving.
"Can I ask you something?" Kris asks, abruptly serious.
"Of course." Adam wonders if this is what Kris came into his room to do.
"When you and Brad broke up… how did you know it was like. Time. Like, how did you know it was over?"
The air suddenly feels still and breakable as glass. There isn't a right answer, Adam is pretty sure, but he doesn't know if there's a wrong one. "How did I know it was over? Well. I didn't, we kind of both did. And I think." He breathes deep. "I think we realized that - we weren't giving each other anything anymore. We weren't learning from each other, we weren't growing, we had just kind of - stagnated, I guess, and - and we were hurting each other more than we were making each other happy. And we weren't going to be able to fix that. So… we ended things."
Kris opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. "How did you know you weren't going to be able to fix it?"
Because Brad didn't seem to want to anymore, because Adam didn't have the energy anymore, because every time they tried they just wound up more fucked up than before. Because after a certain point you reach a point where you know one more disappointment will break your heart in a way that will take too much of your life to mend. "We just… knew, I guess."
Kris doesn't react to this, just looks at the sea. Adam bites his lip to keep from saying Why do you ask and waits for Kris to say something about Katy, about what happened between the two of them tonight, about why Kris is on a beach in Brooklyn with a man he met six months ago instead of in bed with his wife. He wonders if he wants to know what's wrong more than if Kris is okay, and he hopes he's better than that.
He wonders if there is a shameful part of him that wants to hear Kris tell him why he chose Adam over Katy tonight, and hopes he's better than that, too.
There is so little here it's unsettling: sand, stars, the blackness of the sea, and Kris beside him, beautiful and untouchable and unreachable, so that Adam is alone with himself. Pictures of his life swirl like seaweed in his mind. The first boy he kissed. Holding hands with Brad on their way to a play one of their friends was in. The first time he sang for an audience. Morning press rounds with Kris and Allison after the semifinals. All rendered meaningless through the booze or the hour or the fact that there are too many of them.
Then Kris says "There've been days it felt like you were all I had," and the wall between them turns papery and weak.
Tread carefully, Adam thinks. "I've been really glad to have you through this, too."
"No, I mean - I never thought I'd need to say that, again. I thought - after you get married, you don't…" Kris swallows. Adam tries not to notice the elegance of his neck. "And I can't stop thinking - maybe you're not supposed to, and maybe we - maybe I've fucked something up."
"Kris." Kris moves too close to him. "That's not - everyone needs something else, sometimes. That's one of the things Brad taught me the hard way."
"And you guys broke up."
"Kris." Adam tries for a light laugh. It comes out slightly manic. "You and Katy are way, way, way healthier as a couple than Brad and I were. I mean, you're a lot better adjusted than I was at your age, and you guys have a lot more practice at this than either of us did, and - you're going to be fine."
"I know that," Kris says, "but I don't know it."
"What do you mean?" Adam's mouth is dry.
Kris is tracing circles in the sand. "There was this time, a couple years ago, when like - I couldn't feel God anymore. And I was really… scared, because I thought - maybe I had really fucked something up, because I knew I believed in God, and I never stopped believing in God, but it was like - he wasn't there. Like I had done something to drive him away from me."
"But you, you believe in God now, so - you worked through that, and it was okay." When Kris doesn't say anything, Adam presses, "Right?"
"I know we're going to be fine," Kris says.
"Of course."
"I'm really glad it was you with me at the end."
The wall between them is suddenly translucent. Nothing changes, but Adam has learned to trust his instincts enough not to discount the nervous heat in his stomach and the pounding of his heart. They are pushing against each other. The space between them is disappearing.
"Well, yeah, I mean can you imagine doing all that press with Danny?" Adam says, grateful that his laugh sounds real this time.
For a second Kris looks so much like he's been slapped that Adam wants to touch his face gently to reassure him, but the moment passes and his face collapses into something like a sad relief. "Yeah. That would have sucked."
"No kidding."
Something has ripped, but not broken. Adam breathes. When they sober up and get some sleep and get back on the bus, it will stitch itself back together. They'll be okay.
They don't say anything after that. Adam thinks it's a shame to spend their last few hours together without speaking, and then he thinks they can talk in the future but they might never get to sit in silence together again. Kris is almost statue-still. The sky lightens, then the colors of sunrise bleed across it, and then it's day and the water is an unimpressive gray.
"We should probably get back," Kris says.
Adam nods. "Yeah. We should."
***
Six weeks into the competition and Adam can't believe he pegged Kris as too nice to the point of sanctimony. Kris is so relaxed almost nothing phases him, and funny, as nice as he seems but less nicey-nice than people expect. Adam gets along with him almost too well, considering that Kris hits every one of his weaknesses. He takes to asking Kris about Katy a lot, because he cares and, on some nights when loneliness seeps in, to remind himself of why Kris is off-limits.
One such night they're splitting leftover pie in the kitchen when everyone's in bed and Adam asks, "How did you know that Katy was definitely The One?"
The smile that lights up Kris's face is so broad and easy Adam thinks, this is what love looks like. "I mean, I'd been thinking about it for a while. We'd like, broken up for a while when I went to college, and the whole being broken up thing didn't really work out for us. So when we got back together it was like, okay, maybe this is like, forever. And there was this one day when her parents were having a barbecue or something, and I was just watching her, you know, talking to people about whatever, and laughing, and it was like - yeah. Yeah, this is forever. That moment, I just knew."
Adam understands knowing you're in love, but he can't picture knowing anything is forever. He says, "That's beautiful."
Kris looks down, embarrassed. "I mean, it's just the way it was."
Adam doesn't say so, but he thinks that makes it more beautiful.
***
By the time they get back to the hotel it occurs to Adam only in the most remote way that Kris is following him into his room. They chose, maybe earlier than either of them realized, that this night was to be spent together, and even though it's morning and Adam is so tired he feels like his skin is vibrating and his thoughts have stopped making sentences, he still feels they're bound together somehow.
They sit shoulder to shoulder on Adam's bed, his clean soft bed he hasn't seen since yesterday. The world exists in senses: the white of the walls, the clinical smell of the hotel room, hours-old alcohol on his tongue, the warmth of Kris behind him and the sound of their breathing.
Kris says, "Adam."
Adam looks at him, brain too slow to figure out what to ask.
Kris says, "I. You're all I."
Something switches. They are pushing against each other. Adam knows the look Kris is giving him, but he's never seen it on Kris's face before, and he's trying to place where he has seen it when Kris kisses him.
Kris kisses him, hard and messy, and Adam responds on autopilot, his body functioning separately from his stalled mind, hands reaching to Kris's waist, legs entwining with Kris's. Kris kisses him like violence, hands on Adam's face, fingers in Adam's hair pulling like the space between them has disappeared and that still isn't enough for him. The world exists in senses: the slight taste of blood where their teeth hit each other's lips, the smell of sweat and ocean air on Kris's skin, Kris's back smooth under his palms, the groan in the back of Kris's throat when Adam's hands slip down to his ass, the desperation in Kris's eyes when he breaks the kiss.
Adam says, "We shouldn't be doing this," truthfully and without conviction.
Kris says, "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, we just - "
Kris kisses Adam's neck, swings his legs around to straddle Adam, hands reaching experimentally up Adam's shirt, across his chest, warm and welcome and far away. This isn't happening. Adam sits up with Kris's legs around him, running his hands along Kris's thighs, pressing against Kris's chest because the space is gone but he still can't feel Kris. Kris kisses the side of Adam's face, breathes hot into his ear, kisses him again with no grace. Adam drags his teeth along Kris's jaw and hears Kris suck his breath in through his teeth. This is happening. Kris says "Adam" and digs his nails into Adam's back. His fingers are strong. They kiss and kiss and kiss. Adam's hips start moving against Kris's, and Kris responds.
This isn't about sex. It's about exhaustion, and a pull as inevitable as the tides, and the erosion of a wall as if by centuries of storms. It's about their bodies, and about their hearts, and the two are acting wholly separately.
Adam watches his mouth suck gently at Kris's neck. The noise Kris makes is heard by Adam's hips and stomach. Kris is beautiful in the cold way of a sculpture. This is a scene in a movie. In a moment they will wake up and this will never have happened. Adam is dizzy and clumsy and his body holds Kris like it's trying to attach itself to him so they'll never have to let go, and his mind says stop stop stop stop stop, and Kris says, "Adam," and Adam doesn't say anything because this isn't happening.
The phone rings.
Kris's face is unreadable, one part lust and one part guilt and too many other parts to count. He rocks back to let Adam get away, reach for the phone, answer it. "This is the wake-up call requested for room five oh three."
Adam says, "Thank you." The phone clicks back into its cradle
Kris is hunched over, thumb nail digging into cuticle in a way Adam suspects is meant to hurt. "I should go."
"You should."
Kris slides off the bed and walks across the door. Everything is happening in slow motion and none of it is real. At the door he turns and his eyes are stricken, haunted. Tired. His mouth hangs open silently.
There is more pressure on Kris, because he's the one with a wife and he's the one who doesn't know what it's like to lose love forever and he's the one who's scared. Adam loves Kris more than he wants him, and that has always been true. "Hey, look. You'll go back to your room, I'll stay here, we'll shower, pack, get a chance to detox from this whole evening, and then when we meet up to get out of here, nothing happened." Something close to heartbreak crosses Kris's features, and it hurts but there's nothing Adam can do because this is the only way. "It'll be okay. It'll be a little weird at first, but we'll get back to touring, and doing shows, and it'll be the same as it ever was, because I mean, come on. We're us, and it's just - we were drunk and tired and that's it. No big deal. Happens all the time, to lots of people who are bad ideas for each other, and - and just go, and it'll be okay."
Kris closes his mouth, opens it, closes it, leaves the room. The door swings back into place and the night is over.
Adam sits on his bed and listens to the words he just said. It'll be okay. It'll be okay because the world barely exists for him so this barely happened, and when he sleeps and wakes up again it won't have happened. It'll be okay because it has to be.
His hands are trembling and sadness washes over him like a wave.
It'll be okay he said because he loves Kris more than he wants him and sometimes you have to lie to the people you love.
***
Backstage at the Nokia Theater, Kris is bouncing the way he does when adrenaline hits him, and Adam is shifting his weight from foot to foot, and then they catch each other's eyes and start laughing.
"We made it, man," Kris says, his voice sounding like joy.
"We really fucking did." Adam can't keep the grin off his face. "You and me. I'm really glad it worked out that way."
"Me too."
Onstage Debbie is talking something over with Ryan. "You nervous?" Adam asks.
"Nah," Kris says. His mouth quirks. "A little, maybe. But I mean. It doesn't really matter, you know?"
"Totally," Adam says, meaning it more than he would have expected two months ago, because there's no one he'd rather lose to than Kris, and because neither of them is losing tonight anyway. "I mean, whatever happens, we're both going to do what we love after this, and we're going to be awesome at it."
Kris laughs. "Yeah. We're pretty awesome, it is true."
Adam gives Kris's hand a squeeze. "We're in this together, not against each other."
"Always, man." And it's true: somehow it's stopped feeling like a competition, and somehow his certainty in the fact that nothing will change what they've become to each other has become one of the best things about this bizarre journey they've undertaken.
Debbie calls places, and Adam and Kris walk together to begin the prelude to the rest of their lives.