the truth is sexy [kris allen/adam lambert] 1/2
Title: the truth is sexy
Author: moirariordan
Fandom: american idol
Pairings/Characters: kris allen/adam lambert, lady gaga, brad bell.
Rating: pg-13, or something, who even knows anymore.
Summary: Now listen. I know you don’t think of yourself as a famous person, but news flash, non-famous people don’t get invited to things by Lady Gaga, so do me a favor and pretend you’re a normal celebrity, just for tonight, okay?
Exactly one year - to the day - that Kris’s divorce is finalized, he gets an invitation in the mail.
His assistant interrupts a meeting with his tour manager to hand it to him, her eyes wide, jittering around the room like she can hardly contain herself.
“It’s from Gaga,” she hisses at him, slapping him on the shoulder as he opens it. “Gaga!”
“That is ridiculous,” Kris replies, scoffing. “Why would Lady Gaga send me - oh.”
It’s an embossed invitation to dinner, stamped with the Haus of Gaga logo, outlined in what Kris suspects is real gold. On the back is a silhouette of a woman’s profile, flashes of green shocked through the lines of the hair.
“Tomorrow night!” Carli shrieks. “I’ll clear your schedule!”
“Wait,” Kris says, because this makes no sense. “This has to be a mistake, I’ve never even met her before, why would she - “
“Who the fuck cares,” Carli interrupts. “It’s Gaga, now go find something to wear.” Then she stops, phone halfway to her ear. “On second thought, don’t, I’ll pick out your clothes. You just go home and wait.”
“Um,” says Kris.
“I will call your mother,” Carli threatens.
Kris glares at her as hard as he can, but she’s already on the phone, so it’s kind of like he’s not even there.
The sensation is not new.
--
Kris has many, many questions. Number one on his mind is, what the fuck is happening, but nobody pays any attention when he asks that so he gives up eventually.
“What should I call her?” is the next one. “Lady? Miss Gaga?”
“Her real name is Stefani,” Carli tells him. “But don’t call her that unless she gives you permission. Actually, you probably shouldn’t address her by name until you’re sure it’s okay.”
“It’s like I’m meeting the pope,” Kris grumbles.
“The pope would be easier. Stop fussing!” Carli slaps his hand. “You look hot, so don’t fuck it up by pulling at your clothes like a fourth grader.”
“It itches!”
“Cry me a river.” Carli glares at him fiercely, waving one manicured finger in his face. “Now listen. I know you don’t think of yourself as a famous person, but news flash, non-famous people don’t get invited to things by Lady Gaga, so do me a favor and pretend you’re a normal celebrity, just for tonight, okay?” Huffing, she slaps his hands away from his face. “And don’t mess with your hair. The hair is perfect, okay? And she’s sending a limo for you, so for the love of God, don’t do the thing where you offer to pay for gas. That’s so incredibly - ugh. Just don’t.”
“Gas is expensive,” Kris protests.
“She won like, a billion Grammys last year,” Carli retorts. “I think she can afford it.”
Kris thinks, that doesn’t mean that offering isn’t polite, but refrains from saying it. She’s got her crazy eyes on - he’s not stupid.
A large, large man knocks on the door at quarter to seven exactly. His arm muscles bulge through his uniform, and he introduces himself as Mr. Lucy.
“Mr. Allen,” he greets. “The limo is right outside.”
Carli, hiding in the coat room in the foyer, gestures at him excitedly. “It’s purple!” she mouths, eyebrows disappearing into her hair.
What is, Kris wonders, and steps outside. Oh, the limo. Of course, why didn’t he think of that.
The interior is made entirely out of black leather - the seats, the ceiling, the floor, the wet bar stocked with every brand of liquor imaginable - everything. Kris sits gingerly on the seat and blinks stupidly at the tiny gemstones lining the window controls. Are those real, he thinks, and swallows to hold back a hysterical giggle.
He wants to call Adam, so badly. He can imagine his reaction, can imagine how he wouldn’t believe it at first, Kris would have to take a picture of the male/female symbols engraved on the skylight to convince him. Then he’d freak out, and demand details, and probably rant about why it wasn’t him who got the invitation, and basically distract Kris from the most surreal experience of his entire life, which considering that in the last five years he has not only won the most popular reality show in the country but also attended a party hosted by Brad Bell, that’s pretty fucking surreal.
He and Adam aren’t speaking, though. Not since the incident, but Kris isn’t allowed to mope about that tonight. Carli told him so.
Fine, Kris thinks, and pours himself a fifth of vodka. Let’s be a celebrity, and leans back to enjoy the ride.
--
Gaga’s house, which isn’t really a house but more like a mansion or an estate, or not even that, but some other kind of word that hasn’t been invented yet, is set back on the very outskirts of LA, with a long winding driveway that takes fifteen minutes to drive down.
Kris is ushered through the gigantic front doors and led into a foyer that kind of reminds him of a tour of Versailles he went on with Katy once. Only - colorful, because everywhere he looks there’s something clamoring for his attention: a twisted metal statue next to the front door that looks a bit like a naked woman, maybe, or possibly a giraffe, an abstract painting on the wall that probably cost millions of dollars, glittery light fixtures that look like the spiky bomb things on Mario Brothers, a rug with spiral patterns sewn in with silver thread.
The living room - or, what Kris thinks is the living room, because there are…couch-like objects in it - has a white vinyl player sitting on a low, marble table. Sign ‘o the Times is playing on low, and Kris grins a little, feeling slightly more comfortable, for some reason.
The player itself is like none Kris has ever seen before - the base of it is curved, so it looks like a flattened U, but the bottom is straight so that it sits flatly on the table. The turntable is off-center, and the needle lifts out of the base at a slightly crooked angle. There’s a speaker attached that looks a bit like an old, horn-type phonograph speaker, with little tendrils of black that filter down the side.
“I designed that myself,” Kris hears. “Do you like it?”
Kris turns, and there she is. She’s wearing a grey dress and her hair is curled slightly, pulled into a twist on the back of her head. She looks relatively tame compared to what he’d been expecting.
“Yes,” he replies, and clears his throat reflexively. “It’s…really fantastic, actually.”
She smiles, and walks over slowly, hands tucked behind her back almost demurely. “I love vinyl,” she says dreamily. “There’s just something about the process that’s different from a CD or an iPod.” She stops the needle and flips the record off of the turntable, slipping it into a plastic cover. “Every once in awhile it’s nice to indulge.”
“I…know exactly what you mean,” Kris replies. “Everyone tells me I’m crazy to go to all the trouble.”
She grins, turning to face him. “Well, you and I know better. Eh?”
“Yeah.” Rubbing at the back of his neck, Kris suddenly feels incredibly out of place again. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you. By the way.”
Her grin widens and she reaches out with both hands, taking a hold of his wrist. “Likewise,” she says. “Kris Allen. I like your new album a lot.”
“Thank you,” Kris replies, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
“You didn’t think I would?” She shrugs before he can answer. “I did. You’re very talented.”
“Thank you,” he repeats, a little shell-shocked. “That’s - yeah. Thank you.”
She shrugs again, tilting her face downward slightly. “Are you hungry?” she asks suddenly. “I ordered Chinese, I hope that’s okay.”
“You…ordered Chinese?”
“Oh, I don’t cook,” she says, pulling him along, still holding him by the wrist. “And I have this girl who sometimes makes stuff for me, but she’s visiting her parents in Toronto. And my sister’s in Miami right now.”
“Chinese is fine,” Kris says dumbly.
“Good. I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen. The dining room is being renovated.” She gestures with her chin, peering at him over one bare shoulder. “Is that okay? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Kris says automatically. “It’s really okay, though.” He laughs suddenly, the sound echoing off the walls. “Oh my God, it’s okay.”
She grins. “Wonderful,” she replies, bright and cheerful. “Follow me.”
--
The surreal feeling manages to subside slightly, as Kris sits at a wooden table in the corner of the gigantic kitchen, working his way through a carton of chow mein as Gaga sits cross-legged in the chair beside him, nibbling on her third egg roll.
“It’s so bad,” she tells him. “These are my favorite thing in the world to eat. Oh, you have to stop me, I have no willpower.”
Kris nudges the carton away with his chopsticks, grinning. “I’m the same way with that crab and lobster dip they sell at D’Agastino’s. I can eat the whole thing in one sitting.”
“Tour food,” she says, gesturing with her egg roll and nodding. “I go through like ten boxes of Triscuits a week.”
Kris laughs delightedly. “Ritz with cheese. I used to eat M&Ms but there’s the whole staying thin thing now.”
She reaches for a carton of cashew chicken, looking over at him sideways. “I think you look fine just the way you are.”
Kris swallows a little thickly. “Uh, thanks?”
She grins a little. “Do you always look so surprised, all the time? Or is it because of me?”
“Well.” He debates for half a second before answering. “You. Honestly.”
She laughs loudly, throwing her head back. “Am I that scary?”
“No!” Kris takes a bite and chews, considering. “This isn’t exactly…what I was expecting,” he replies thoughtfully, after a few moments. “I’ve never met you before, I’ve only seen pictures and your music videos, so I was sort of thinking - “
“Girls in rhinestone leotards and half-naked male models?” Gaga grins predatorily. “Oh, that was last weekend.”
Kris laughs abruptly, nearly choking on a mouthful of noodles. “Oh, of course.”
Gaga shrugs again, poking at the pile of food on her plate. She almost looks shy, if Kris could ever believe that she could be shy about anything. “I just thought you were cute, you know. And I’ve only ever heard good things about you. I figured it’d be nice to meet you, and - well, I didn’t think you’d mind low-key.”
“I don’t mind,” Kris says quickly. “Definitely not.”
“Well that’s good,” she replies. “So you want a tour, after we finish? My house is ridiculous and you will either love it to death or faint in horror.”
“Bring it on,” Kris says.
--
The house is ridiculous. There are two rooms for all her shoes.
“I have a lot of shoes,” she says in defense. Kris just grins and promises himself to never tease Adam about his closet ever again.
The thought of Adam makes him falter a little bit, enough that Gaga notices.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “It’s just - Adam would die if he could see me right now.”
She doesn’t reply, just nods and smiles at him a little mysteriously.
They sip on vodka and walk through the rooms leisurely, chatting as she explains who designed this and who made that. The names are all meaningless to Kris, but she doesn’t seem to mind all that much if he doesn’t keep up.
She’s very easy to talk to, yet another thing to add to his list of surprises. She’s funny, too, in a kind of understated way, and incredibly sharp. She gives him advice about how to handle the handlers from Jive, and talks easily about her own record deal. Her understanding of the business is more in-depth than any other artist Kris has ever dealt with before.
By the time they make it through the entire house the sky outside is dark, and when Kris checks his phone, he isn’t surprised to see a billion texts from Carli, along with a bunch of missed calls.
“Curfew?” she asks.
“My own,” he replies. “I should get going, I don’t wanna take up any more of your time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and smiles prettily. “I invited you, remember?”
She makes him take the Chinese leftovers, and at the door, she gives him a hug and snaps a picture of them with her phone.
“To new friends,” she murmurs, and kisses him on the cheek.
“Absolutely,” he says back, and means it.
On the limo ride back, Kris collapses on the leather and laughs hysterically for fifteen minutes straight. Then he lowers the partition and asks Mr. Lucy to turn on some music, and they sing along to the radio the entire way home.
--
“So,” Carli says, the next morning. “You’re dating her.”
“No, I’m not,” Kris replies, though it hadn’t been a question exactly.
“No, I know that,” she says impatiently, and flips on his television. “I mean, you’re dating her. Apparently.”
A snapshot of Gaga’s Twitter page is on E! News, and Kris drops his toast on the floor. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and Carli sighs dramatically.
“Go check,” she says tiredly, and starts tapping on her phone maniacally.
Kris logs onto his laptop with a mixed sense of both dread and anticipation, and sighs at the sight of his overflowing inbox.
He skips it and goes straight to Twitter, loading Gaga’s page before daring to tackle his @ replies. There are two from the night before - one, the picture she’d snapped of them with her phone with the caption, southern boys do it better, and then one directly to him:
@KrisAllen thanks for the company, we should do it again
He laughs loudly, then sneaks a look back into the kitchen and hits reply.
@ladygaga definitely. Thanks for the egg rolls.
He waits one minute, then two, and then he hears, “God fucking damn you, Kris! I will chop you up and feed you to my dogs!”
Kris laughs and goes to tackle his inbox. That should last him all day.
--
Over the course of the next five hours, Kris is called by, pretty much, every single person he has ever met in his life.
He spends a full hour on the phone calming down his publicist, who sounds torn between undying hatred for springing this on her with no warning and hysterical glee.
“Could you maybe do this again a little closer to your tour, possibly?” she asks, and he sighs loudly. “Okay, never mind, never mind. Just don’t tweet again until I say it’s okay. I mean it!”
Katy leaves him a voicemail - they haven’t quite worked their way up to live conversations yet - sputtering something nonsensical and asking six or seven questions that never quite get finished because she’s talking so fast. She ends with a frantic “text me!” but sounds amused and excited rather than angry or hurt, so that’s a relief. And his mother calls to ask him to get her an autograph.
He doesn’t hear from Adam - not that he was expecting to, in all reality, but he can’t deny that his first thought upon seeing Gaga’s tweets - and the ensuing assumptions and gravity-defying leaps to conclusions made by the esteemed anchors of E! News - was a reaction, at the very least. Jealousy is too much to hope for, but a text maybe?
He does hear from Adam’s friends, though. Even friends he’s never met. Hell, he gets an email from one of his ex-boyfriends who, Kris is fairly sure, Adam hasn’t heard from in years.
Brad actually has his number though, and wasn’t that a little bit of a mistake.
“I cannot believe this, Kris Allen, you are absolutely unreal.”
“Hello, Brad, been awhile, Brad, I’m fine, how are you, Brad,” Kris says dryly.
“Shut the hell up. This conversation will be on my terms, thank you.” Kris hears a crash on the other end of the line, and Brad curses loudly. “Fucking whatever, okay, okay. Tell me everything immediately and if you leave anything out I will never speak to you again.”
“Well,” Kris starts slowly. “I went to her place, and we had Chinese.”
“Shut up, no, you didn’t! Okay, what else?”
“She gave me a tour. And…we talked.”
“You talked,” Brad repeated flatly.
“She’s nice.”
“Nice.” Brad huffs loudly. “How did I know I would get this from you?”
Kris chuckles. “What were you expecting, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know, awed excitement, hysterical amazement, incoherent babbling? You’re such a guy.”
“I think you say that to me every time we talk.”
“Well.” Brad makes a dismissive noise and moves on. “What was she wearing?”
“Uh, a grey dress. And sandals, and this metal bracelet that laced up her arm like boot laces.” Kris shrugs. “And…that’s it. She looked pretty normal, actually.”
“Oh man,” moans Brad. “This would happen to you. And it would happen like this. Jesus.”
“Sorry.”
“Whatev. Are you really dating now? That’s what everyone’s saying.”
“No,” Kris says patiently. “You should really stop reading Oh No They Didn’t.”
“Oh, it’s in the Enquirer, too,” Brad informs him. “On the website, anyway. And who knows where else by tomorrow. Congrats, Kris, you’ve officially become bigger than Rihanna’s new boyfriend.”
“Lucky me.” Kris swallows, and takes a deep breath. “So, have you heard from…”
“Adam?” Brad’s voice is very gentle, which makes Kris wince rather spectacularly. “Uh - well.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“He was the one who told me about it, actually.” Brad pauses hesitantly. “He’s…kind of pissed.”
“Not pissed enough to actually talk to me, or anything,” Kris says immediately.
“Have you tried calling him?”
“Yeah, about a million times in the last month,” Kris says bitterly. “I got the hint, eventually.”
“He does this thing, hon,” Brad says insistently, “where he gets all wrapped up in his own head and loses sight of reality a little bit. And he festers. Like a rotten egg. You have to snap him out of it.”
“How am I supposed to do that when he won’t even take my calls?” Brad hums sympathetically. “Look, I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t want to put you in the middle.”
“In the middle of you and Adam…” Brad trails off dreamily. “Gosh, that sounds…swell.”
“Well, you’re welcome, I guess.”
“Mm. Listen, I’ll see what I can do with him. You, on the other hand, should enjoy the Gaga, because that shit is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, let me tell you.”
--
Once in a lifetime, though, seems to be a little off the mark. He gets another invitation about a week later, this time to a party.
“Is this going to be a trend?” Carli asks excitedly. “Oh, man, we’re gonna have to tell your publicist this time. If we don’t she’ll probably have a stroke, or something.”
Kris shrugs helplessly; it’s all on her, he still hasn’t got his phone back since it was confiscated the day before when he tweeted Bad Romance lyrics when Carli wasn’t looking.
Carli makes some calls and within the hour he has three different stylists rifling through his closet.
They give him outfit options. That depend on what type of activities he will be participating in.
Kris grabs a pair of leather pants with a zipper that zips open all the way to the back side of the waist band. “What exactly do you think I’ll be doing?”
One of the stylists shrugs, while another says something in French and points at the pants and his crotch in rapid succession. Kris drops them like they’re on fire.
He manages to talk them down to a mildly less horrifying version of the outfits they’d put together, mostly by repeating “no sex! No sexe! Comprends?” until they leave him alone.
Mr. Lucy picks him up again, greeting him with a slap on the back that sends him lurching forward. He has company in the limo this time, however - a glossed, sunglassed woman who sits curled up in the corner, drinking something bright orange and staring out the window in sullen silence, and a set of twins who introduce themselves as Robbie and Bobbie, dressed in matching tuxedoes. Kris tries to keep them straight but he suspects that they’re fucking with him because unless they keep switching seats when he’s not looking, there’s no way he’s mixing them up.
“You’re Kris Allen,” the one on the right says reverently, halfway through a glass of bourbon. “Are you really dating Gaga?”
“No.” Kris gestures with his own glass. “I’m just a friend.”
The other one smirks and leans in, gesturing towards the silent woman in the corner. “So was she, and then we found her and Gaga in the - “ The woman reaches out with one dangerously sharp high heel and kicks him, cutting off the sentence, before returning to her vigil at the window. “Motherfucker!”
The other twin starts giggling, collapsing sideways into Kris’s shoulder. He has to dodge out of the way to keep from getting splashed by the glass that upends on the black leather floor.
They hear the music before they see the house, and as Mr. Lucy opens the door for them, a nearly deafening wave of sound rushes in. Kris winces as he emerges and has a short moment of incredulity before Robbie and Bobbie rush him into the house, speaking over each other rapidly, both monologues completely lost beneath the crushing bass line of the music.
Kris has lived in LA for quite awhile, and has been famous for quite awhile as well, and so parties like this one are nothing new to him. The sweaty crush of the crowd, the acrid smell of smoke and perfume, the head-rattling sound of the music and people yelling and laughing - the atmosphere is alike to a million other college parties and, later, industry functions that Kris has attended. But this party is slightly different in that there’s something a little off, everywhere he looks - and if he looks close enough, he finds things that are somehow both truly insane and incredibly charming at the same time.
Like the DJ, whose arms are covered in solid tattoos, dressed in chains and biker leather and, Kris discovers, a pair of hot pink high heels. And the man who hands Kris a drink, who is wearing a shirt made out of Vogue magazine covers. Or a woman Kris chats with for twenty minutes as she pets a monkey that sleeps peacefully inside her purse.
It’s insane, and kind of wonderful, and Adam would love it, is all Kris can think, though he hates himself a little bit.
There are a bunch of people Kris recognizes though - executives and agents, the kind of people that everyone meets and deals with on a regular basis no matter which studio you’re with. He recognizes some other musicians, too - this kid from the punk band who won a Grammy the year before, Kris can never remember his name, and Jordin Sparks, who gives him a hug, and Ke$ha, who yells something incoherent and loops a glow stick around his neck. He has a nonsensical conversation about The Supremes with a trashed John Mayer, and he spots Butch Walker standing on the stairs, talking to a drag queen with a huge yellow hat with fruit on top.
Kris has a nice buzz going, standing in the kitchen with a bunch of Beyonce’s back up dancers when he gets pulled away abruptly by a half-naked Mr. Lucy, who leads him up a flight of stairs and into a room that Kris vaguely recognizes from his tour. Kris blinks and walks inside, unsurprised to see the lady of the house standing on a balcony.
She looks positively otherworldly, wrapped in something that looks like a toga, almost, with long bell sleeves and shimmering layers of fabric draped around her shoulders artfully. Lavender flowers trail through her hair, which hangs to her waist in a glossy wave of blonde and purple.
She turns around and smiles at him a little loopily, beckoning to him with one manicured hand. “Kris! You made it.”
“Yeah.” He takes the hand she offers and lets her lead him out onto the balcony, the noise of the party floating up to greet them. “You’re up here by yourself while everyone else has fun downstairs? That’s very Gatsby of you.”
Gaga throws her head back and laughs. “That’s the coolest thing anyone’s said to me all night,” she says.
“I try.”
She smiles and sets her martini glass down on the balcony railing, turning to face him. “I just wanted to say hello.”
Kris grins. “Hello.”
“Hello.” She takes his other hand. “Plus, the hot new couple needs some alone time, don’t you think?”
Kris narrows his eyes and puts it together, rather quickly considering how drunk he is. “You did that on purpose.” She widens her eyes innocently, a glittery, purple-tinged little girl. “You did!”
“You didn’t think it’s funny? Me? And you, of all people?” She shakes his hands slightly. “No offense.”
Kris hums, faking deep thought. “I may have caused some Twitter shenanigans the last couple days.”
Gaga laughs. “I noticed that.” She drops one of his hands and grabs her martini, handing it to him delicately. “Ah, don’t worry, there’s no harm in it. Plus, my madness always has a method, remember.”
Kris studies her for a moment as she gestures for him to finish the drink, waving her nails at him impatiently. “What method, exactly?”
“That, Kris Allen, is a secret.” She winks at him and waits, eyes wide, as he finishes her drink, before taking the glass from him and tossing it carelessly into the room. “Now, come take a walk with me. If I’m Gatsby, then you’ll be Nick, and we’ll stroll around the grounds and greet the guests.”
Kris laughs, utterly charmed, as she loops her arm through his, leading him a little crookedly back down towards the party. “Gatsby had a doomed romance,” he reminds her. “Do you have a Daisy hidden somewhere?”
“My romances are never doomed,” she proclaims, before turning and looking up at him, a little slyly. “Maybe you’re more of a Gatsby then me.”
He has no time to dissect that statement before the party overwhelms him again, enveloping them both in a cloud of noise and heat. Allowing the thought to float away, Kris simply takes a deep breath and allows himself to be led into the crowd.
--
Kris doesn’t make it home until two o’clock the next afternoon. He does his best to clean the spilled vodka - and…lipstick? God, he hopes it’s lipstick - off his phone and sees fourteen texts from Carli. She’s like an overbearing mother, sometimes. Who curses a lot.
He texts her to let her know he’s alive, and immediately receives back, YOU CAD! HOW WAS THE PARTY?!?!?!?!
I woke up in a blue feather bed with space cowboy, he texts, which he thinks sums up the night quite nicely.
!!!!!!!! is all he gets back. He hopes she’s taking deep breaths.
He takes a shower and takes about half a bottle of aspirin, signs some tour stuff couriered over by Carli, eats a muffin. Calls his agent and makes lunch plans for next week, and emails his brother back. Talks to his publicist for an hour while she gushes about how he’s the best client ever, true fact, because not only is he squeaky scandal clean but he also does awesome things like hug orphans in Haiti and party with Lady Gaga, and she’s sending him a fruit basket the first thing in the morning, for real. He thinks she might be close to tears at a few points, but he gracefully doesn’t call her on it.
He eventually passes out halfway through a rerun of The Office and wakes up four hours later with a crick in his neck and his phone blinking at him angrily from the coffee table.
He’s trudging upstairs, dreaming of his non-feathery, cowboy-less bed when his phone rings merrily in his hand, the electronic ringtone stopping him mid-step.
It’s Adam’s ringtone. Kris looks at the screen and confirms; Big Fat Douchebag! yells the display, which is what Carli has changed Adam’s name in his contact list to somewhere between last month and now, and Kris proceeds to have a mini panic attack.
Answer it? He hasn’t heard from Adam in a month. They desperately need to talk. He’s been waiting for this moment with way too much anticipation. He misses the sound of Adam’s voice in an incredibly pathetic way.
Ignore it? It’s two am. He’s tired. He can make him work for it. He’s a big fat douchebag.
Kris swallows his pride and hits ‘answer.’
“Hello?” Silence. “Hello?”
Some shuffling, then, Adam’s voice. “Kris?”
“Adam.” Kris swallows and reaches out to grip the banister. “Are you there?”
“Kris.” Adam’s voice sounds muffled, almost. He mumbles something else incoherent, and Kris hears a violent tinkle of glass breaking.
“Adam. Are you drunk?”
“Psssht. No. I’m not drunk dialing you, Kristopher. That would be pathetic.”
“Right,” Kris replies dryly. “You’re just really, really tired.”
“Kris,” Adam moans, as if Kris hadn’t even spoken. “Kris, I miss you. I miss you so fucking much.”
Kris’s breath catches, and he slides down to sit on the stair he’s been frozen on. “Adam.” He has to swallow a few times to regain his composure. “I - I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Yes you have,” Adam whines. “You’re off - you’re not here. Kris, you’re not here,” he babbles. “I don’t - what?” Kris blinks as Adam’s voice becomes even more muffled, as if Adam’s head is turned away. “Fuck you. No, fuck you!”
“Adam. Adam!”
“What? Fuck, what?”
“Where are you?” Kris asks patiently. “Is somebody there with you?”
“Yeah, Brad’s here. And this guy Joe, but he’s not - Kris, he’s not anything. I didn’t do anything with him, I swear. I just met him, and he’s cute, but he’s not - you know.”
Kris takes a deep breath, thinking, my life. “It’s okay. Adam - “
“Okay, we made out a little. But that’s it!” Adam sounds vaguely panicked, and Kris gulps down an incredulous laugh, something hot and hysterical rising in his chest.
“It’s okay, Adam. I need you to listen to me, though. Okay?”
“Okay,” says Adam, voice small.
“I need you to go to bed now, okay? Go to sleep. And in the morning, you call me back and we can talk. Okay?” Kris clenches his fist, nails digging into his palm harshly. “And you better fucking remember that part, okay? Write it down if you have to.”
“Um - “ Kris hears some shuffling, and a low voice that sounds vaguely like Brad’s. “Okay! Writing it down. See? It’s right here on my arm.”
“Uh, sure.”
“Good, good. Okay. I’m going to bed. Hey, I’m going to bed!” Adam suddenly yells, supposedly to Brad and…uh, Joe, and Kris jerks the phone away from his ear, wincing. “Fuckers.”
“Adam…” Kris trails off tiredly, about to comment with something snarky and thinking better of it.
“What? What,” Adam slurs. “I’m going to bed now. Just like you said, even though you’ve ruined Gaga for me. Ruined. Forever.” Kris hears some more shuffling, and Adam’s voice continuing, phasing in and out intermittently as Adam moves around, forgetting to keep the phone up to his face. “…blonde girls. I don’t - I hate you. Just - ugh. Really.”
“Goodnight, Adam,” Kris says firmly, unamused. “Call me tomorrow. Asshole.”
“You’re the asshole,” Adam says petulantly. “Why can’t you just - “
Kris hangs up on him and throws the phone down the stairs, standing up abruptly and stomping up the stairs to his bedroom.
Ten minutes later, he walks back down and grabs his phone, sighing in resignation.
“I am a loser,” he tells it, and sets it on the highest volume setting. “Don’t look at me like that.” The phone stares at him apathetically. “Yeah, thought so.”
--
Adam doesn’t call back.
Kris wakes up to Carli’s ringtone (Material Girl, which he hopes she never, ever discovers - but how would she, unless she called him from the same room? …on second thought, he wouldn’t put it past her) and he mutters his way through a conversation about the various meetings he’ll be dragging himself to today, paying as little attention to her as he possibly can.
He argues with himself throughout the day, telling himself that Adam’s probably not awake yet, he’s hungover, he doesn’t remember calling, he hasn’t looked at his call history yet. But by evening, Adam hasn’t called back, and Kris isn’t doing so hot at the self-delusion thing anymore.
Carli notices his dark mood and takes him out - forces him out - for Italian.
“Look, you might as well tell me,” she tells him, fork darting out and snagging a piece of his ravioli. “I’m just gonna find out anyway, eventually. One way or another.”
Kris stares at her a little incredulously, grabbing at his breadsticks protectively. “I think,” he announces, watching as she casually sips at his iced tea, “that we spend too much time together.”
Carli freezes, tilts her head, and shrugs. “My therapist thinks you’ve been using me as an emotional crutch since your wife left you.”
“You’re in therapy?” Kris asks dumbly. “And you talk about me?”
“Of course I’m in therapy, who isn’t in therapy?”
“I’m not.” Kris blinks. “And she didn’t leave me, it was a mutual decision.”
“Whatever you say.” Carli makes a waving motion with her hand, as if shooing away the subject. “Does this have anything to do with Adam?” Kris attempts to keep his face neutral, but that never works. “Ah.”
“He drunk dialed me last night.”
Carli’s mouth falls open, and she makes a somewhat unattractive sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “I didn’t think people actually did that anymore.”
“It was so unbelievably…” Kris trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m still trying.”
“Well cuz you’re warm for his form, duh,” says Carli, and Kris chokes slightly. “You’re right though, this isn’t healthy. When’s the last time you even flirted with anyone?”
“Um,” says Kris.
“Exactly! You’ve been all celibate and monk-like for the past what, six months? That’s not healthy.”
“I went to a Gaga party this weekend,” Kris says defensively. “How is that monk-like?”
“I meant aside from that.” Carli pins him with her evil eyes, one eyebrow raised threateningly. “It’s not even about how much actual sex you’re having, anyway. You could be slutting it up all over LA and still thinking about Adam the whole time, which is actually worse. In a way.”
He can’t really argue with that. “I can’t just snap my fingers and get over it.”
“No, but you can make the conscious decision to start moving on,” Carli says pointedly. “Like this. He drunk called you, and I bet you were gonna try calling him back tonight when you got home. Right?”
“Maybe.” Kris fidgets. “If there was nothing good on…TV, or…anything.”
Carli stops mid-motion and stares at him. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
He sighs. “Thank you.”
“Look, I’m only gonna say this once, because you know how I am with, like, feelings and shit.” Carli scrunches up her nose in disgust. “I like you a lot. You’re an awesome boss and a really good friend, and, um, Icareaboutyoualot.” She sighs, rolling her eyes. “And, whatever, okay, you’ve had a rough couple of years and the last thing you need to be doing is mooning over a guy who slept with you and then dumped you the next day.” She huffs, picking up her fork and avoiding his gaze. “There. We’re not discussing it any further.”
Kris grins, oddly touched. “Do we hug now?”
“Don’t push it.”
--
part two
Author: moirariordan
Fandom: american idol
Pairings/Characters: kris allen/adam lambert, lady gaga, brad bell.
Rating: pg-13, or something, who even knows anymore.
Summary: Now listen. I know you don’t think of yourself as a famous person, but news flash, non-famous people don’t get invited to things by Lady Gaga, so do me a favor and pretend you’re a normal celebrity, just for tonight, okay?
Exactly one year - to the day - that Kris’s divorce is finalized, he gets an invitation in the mail.
His assistant interrupts a meeting with his tour manager to hand it to him, her eyes wide, jittering around the room like she can hardly contain herself.
“It’s from Gaga,” she hisses at him, slapping him on the shoulder as he opens it. “Gaga!”
“That is ridiculous,” Kris replies, scoffing. “Why would Lady Gaga send me - oh.”
It’s an embossed invitation to dinner, stamped with the Haus of Gaga logo, outlined in what Kris suspects is real gold. On the back is a silhouette of a woman’s profile, flashes of green shocked through the lines of the hair.
“Tomorrow night!” Carli shrieks. “I’ll clear your schedule!”
“Wait,” Kris says, because this makes no sense. “This has to be a mistake, I’ve never even met her before, why would she - “
“Who the fuck cares,” Carli interrupts. “It’s Gaga, now go find something to wear.” Then she stops, phone halfway to her ear. “On second thought, don’t, I’ll pick out your clothes. You just go home and wait.”
“Um,” says Kris.
“I will call your mother,” Carli threatens.
Kris glares at her as hard as he can, but she’s already on the phone, so it’s kind of like he’s not even there.
The sensation is not new.
--
Kris has many, many questions. Number one on his mind is, what the fuck is happening, but nobody pays any attention when he asks that so he gives up eventually.
“What should I call her?” is the next one. “Lady? Miss Gaga?”
“Her real name is Stefani,” Carli tells him. “But don’t call her that unless she gives you permission. Actually, you probably shouldn’t address her by name until you’re sure it’s okay.”
“It’s like I’m meeting the pope,” Kris grumbles.
“The pope would be easier. Stop fussing!” Carli slaps his hand. “You look hot, so don’t fuck it up by pulling at your clothes like a fourth grader.”
“It itches!”
“Cry me a river.” Carli glares at him fiercely, waving one manicured finger in his face. “Now listen. I know you don’t think of yourself as a famous person, but news flash, non-famous people don’t get invited to things by Lady Gaga, so do me a favor and pretend you’re a normal celebrity, just for tonight, okay?” Huffing, she slaps his hands away from his face. “And don’t mess with your hair. The hair is perfect, okay? And she’s sending a limo for you, so for the love of God, don’t do the thing where you offer to pay for gas. That’s so incredibly - ugh. Just don’t.”
“Gas is expensive,” Kris protests.
“She won like, a billion Grammys last year,” Carli retorts. “I think she can afford it.”
Kris thinks, that doesn’t mean that offering isn’t polite, but refrains from saying it. She’s got her crazy eyes on - he’s not stupid.
A large, large man knocks on the door at quarter to seven exactly. His arm muscles bulge through his uniform, and he introduces himself as Mr. Lucy.
“Mr. Allen,” he greets. “The limo is right outside.”
Carli, hiding in the coat room in the foyer, gestures at him excitedly. “It’s purple!” she mouths, eyebrows disappearing into her hair.
What is, Kris wonders, and steps outside. Oh, the limo. Of course, why didn’t he think of that.
The interior is made entirely out of black leather - the seats, the ceiling, the floor, the wet bar stocked with every brand of liquor imaginable - everything. Kris sits gingerly on the seat and blinks stupidly at the tiny gemstones lining the window controls. Are those real, he thinks, and swallows to hold back a hysterical giggle.
He wants to call Adam, so badly. He can imagine his reaction, can imagine how he wouldn’t believe it at first, Kris would have to take a picture of the male/female symbols engraved on the skylight to convince him. Then he’d freak out, and demand details, and probably rant about why it wasn’t him who got the invitation, and basically distract Kris from the most surreal experience of his entire life, which considering that in the last five years he has not only won the most popular reality show in the country but also attended a party hosted by Brad Bell, that’s pretty fucking surreal.
He and Adam aren’t speaking, though. Not since the incident, but Kris isn’t allowed to mope about that tonight. Carli told him so.
Fine, Kris thinks, and pours himself a fifth of vodka. Let’s be a celebrity, and leans back to enjoy the ride.
--
Gaga’s house, which isn’t really a house but more like a mansion or an estate, or not even that, but some other kind of word that hasn’t been invented yet, is set back on the very outskirts of LA, with a long winding driveway that takes fifteen minutes to drive down.
Kris is ushered through the gigantic front doors and led into a foyer that kind of reminds him of a tour of Versailles he went on with Katy once. Only - colorful, because everywhere he looks there’s something clamoring for his attention: a twisted metal statue next to the front door that looks a bit like a naked woman, maybe, or possibly a giraffe, an abstract painting on the wall that probably cost millions of dollars, glittery light fixtures that look like the spiky bomb things on Mario Brothers, a rug with spiral patterns sewn in with silver thread.
The living room - or, what Kris thinks is the living room, because there are…couch-like objects in it - has a white vinyl player sitting on a low, marble table. Sign ‘o the Times is playing on low, and Kris grins a little, feeling slightly more comfortable, for some reason.
The player itself is like none Kris has ever seen before - the base of it is curved, so it looks like a flattened U, but the bottom is straight so that it sits flatly on the table. The turntable is off-center, and the needle lifts out of the base at a slightly crooked angle. There’s a speaker attached that looks a bit like an old, horn-type phonograph speaker, with little tendrils of black that filter down the side.
“I designed that myself,” Kris hears. “Do you like it?”
Kris turns, and there she is. She’s wearing a grey dress and her hair is curled slightly, pulled into a twist on the back of her head. She looks relatively tame compared to what he’d been expecting.
“Yes,” he replies, and clears his throat reflexively. “It’s…really fantastic, actually.”
She smiles, and walks over slowly, hands tucked behind her back almost demurely. “I love vinyl,” she says dreamily. “There’s just something about the process that’s different from a CD or an iPod.” She stops the needle and flips the record off of the turntable, slipping it into a plastic cover. “Every once in awhile it’s nice to indulge.”
“I…know exactly what you mean,” Kris replies. “Everyone tells me I’m crazy to go to all the trouble.”
She grins, turning to face him. “Well, you and I know better. Eh?”
“Yeah.” Rubbing at the back of his neck, Kris suddenly feels incredibly out of place again. “It’s, uh, nice to meet you. By the way.”
Her grin widens and she reaches out with both hands, taking a hold of his wrist. “Likewise,” she says. “Kris Allen. I like your new album a lot.”
“Thank you,” Kris replies, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
“You didn’t think I would?” She shrugs before he can answer. “I did. You’re very talented.”
“Thank you,” he repeats, a little shell-shocked. “That’s - yeah. Thank you.”
She shrugs again, tilting her face downward slightly. “Are you hungry?” she asks suddenly. “I ordered Chinese, I hope that’s okay.”
“You…ordered Chinese?”
“Oh, I don’t cook,” she says, pulling him along, still holding him by the wrist. “And I have this girl who sometimes makes stuff for me, but she’s visiting her parents in Toronto. And my sister’s in Miami right now.”
“Chinese is fine,” Kris says dumbly.
“Good. I hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen. The dining room is being renovated.” She gestures with her chin, peering at him over one bare shoulder. “Is that okay? I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Kris says automatically. “It’s really okay, though.” He laughs suddenly, the sound echoing off the walls. “Oh my God, it’s okay.”
She grins. “Wonderful,” she replies, bright and cheerful. “Follow me.”
--
The surreal feeling manages to subside slightly, as Kris sits at a wooden table in the corner of the gigantic kitchen, working his way through a carton of chow mein as Gaga sits cross-legged in the chair beside him, nibbling on her third egg roll.
“It’s so bad,” she tells him. “These are my favorite thing in the world to eat. Oh, you have to stop me, I have no willpower.”
Kris nudges the carton away with his chopsticks, grinning. “I’m the same way with that crab and lobster dip they sell at D’Agastino’s. I can eat the whole thing in one sitting.”
“Tour food,” she says, gesturing with her egg roll and nodding. “I go through like ten boxes of Triscuits a week.”
Kris laughs delightedly. “Ritz with cheese. I used to eat M&Ms but there’s the whole staying thin thing now.”
She reaches for a carton of cashew chicken, looking over at him sideways. “I think you look fine just the way you are.”
Kris swallows a little thickly. “Uh, thanks?”
She grins a little. “Do you always look so surprised, all the time? Or is it because of me?”
“Well.” He debates for half a second before answering. “You. Honestly.”
She laughs loudly, throwing her head back. “Am I that scary?”
“No!” Kris takes a bite and chews, considering. “This isn’t exactly…what I was expecting,” he replies thoughtfully, after a few moments. “I’ve never met you before, I’ve only seen pictures and your music videos, so I was sort of thinking - “
“Girls in rhinestone leotards and half-naked male models?” Gaga grins predatorily. “Oh, that was last weekend.”
Kris laughs abruptly, nearly choking on a mouthful of noodles. “Oh, of course.”
Gaga shrugs again, poking at the pile of food on her plate. She almost looks shy, if Kris could ever believe that she could be shy about anything. “I just thought you were cute, you know. And I’ve only ever heard good things about you. I figured it’d be nice to meet you, and - well, I didn’t think you’d mind low-key.”
“I don’t mind,” Kris says quickly. “Definitely not.”
“Well that’s good,” she replies. “So you want a tour, after we finish? My house is ridiculous and you will either love it to death or faint in horror.”
“Bring it on,” Kris says.
--
The house is ridiculous. There are two rooms for all her shoes.
“I have a lot of shoes,” she says in defense. Kris just grins and promises himself to never tease Adam about his closet ever again.
The thought of Adam makes him falter a little bit, enough that Gaga notices.
“It’s nothing,” he says. “It’s just - Adam would die if he could see me right now.”
She doesn’t reply, just nods and smiles at him a little mysteriously.
They sip on vodka and walk through the rooms leisurely, chatting as she explains who designed this and who made that. The names are all meaningless to Kris, but she doesn’t seem to mind all that much if he doesn’t keep up.
She’s very easy to talk to, yet another thing to add to his list of surprises. She’s funny, too, in a kind of understated way, and incredibly sharp. She gives him advice about how to handle the handlers from Jive, and talks easily about her own record deal. Her understanding of the business is more in-depth than any other artist Kris has ever dealt with before.
By the time they make it through the entire house the sky outside is dark, and when Kris checks his phone, he isn’t surprised to see a billion texts from Carli, along with a bunch of missed calls.
“Curfew?” she asks.
“My own,” he replies. “I should get going, I don’t wanna take up any more of your time.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, and smiles prettily. “I invited you, remember?”
She makes him take the Chinese leftovers, and at the door, she gives him a hug and snaps a picture of them with her phone.
“To new friends,” she murmurs, and kisses him on the cheek.
“Absolutely,” he says back, and means it.
On the limo ride back, Kris collapses on the leather and laughs hysterically for fifteen minutes straight. Then he lowers the partition and asks Mr. Lucy to turn on some music, and they sing along to the radio the entire way home.
--
“So,” Carli says, the next morning. “You’re dating her.”
“No, I’m not,” Kris replies, though it hadn’t been a question exactly.
“No, I know that,” she says impatiently, and flips on his television. “I mean, you’re dating her. Apparently.”
A snapshot of Gaga’s Twitter page is on E! News, and Kris drops his toast on the floor. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and Carli sighs dramatically.
“Go check,” she says tiredly, and starts tapping on her phone maniacally.
Kris logs onto his laptop with a mixed sense of both dread and anticipation, and sighs at the sight of his overflowing inbox.
He skips it and goes straight to Twitter, loading Gaga’s page before daring to tackle his @ replies. There are two from the night before - one, the picture she’d snapped of them with her phone with the caption, southern boys do it better, and then one directly to him:
@KrisAllen thanks for the company, we should do it again
He laughs loudly, then sneaks a look back into the kitchen and hits reply.
@ladygaga definitely. Thanks for the egg rolls.
He waits one minute, then two, and then he hears, “God fucking damn you, Kris! I will chop you up and feed you to my dogs!”
Kris laughs and goes to tackle his inbox. That should last him all day.
--
Over the course of the next five hours, Kris is called by, pretty much, every single person he has ever met in his life.
He spends a full hour on the phone calming down his publicist, who sounds torn between undying hatred for springing this on her with no warning and hysterical glee.
“Could you maybe do this again a little closer to your tour, possibly?” she asks, and he sighs loudly. “Okay, never mind, never mind. Just don’t tweet again until I say it’s okay. I mean it!”
Katy leaves him a voicemail - they haven’t quite worked their way up to live conversations yet - sputtering something nonsensical and asking six or seven questions that never quite get finished because she’s talking so fast. She ends with a frantic “text me!” but sounds amused and excited rather than angry or hurt, so that’s a relief. And his mother calls to ask him to get her an autograph.
He doesn’t hear from Adam - not that he was expecting to, in all reality, but he can’t deny that his first thought upon seeing Gaga’s tweets - and the ensuing assumptions and gravity-defying leaps to conclusions made by the esteemed anchors of E! News - was a reaction, at the very least. Jealousy is too much to hope for, but a text maybe?
He does hear from Adam’s friends, though. Even friends he’s never met. Hell, he gets an email from one of his ex-boyfriends who, Kris is fairly sure, Adam hasn’t heard from in years.
Brad actually has his number though, and wasn’t that a little bit of a mistake.
“I cannot believe this, Kris Allen, you are absolutely unreal.”
“Hello, Brad, been awhile, Brad, I’m fine, how are you, Brad,” Kris says dryly.
“Shut the hell up. This conversation will be on my terms, thank you.” Kris hears a crash on the other end of the line, and Brad curses loudly. “Fucking whatever, okay, okay. Tell me everything immediately and if you leave anything out I will never speak to you again.”
“Well,” Kris starts slowly. “I went to her place, and we had Chinese.”
“Shut up, no, you didn’t! Okay, what else?”
“She gave me a tour. And…we talked.”
“You talked,” Brad repeated flatly.
“She’s nice.”
“Nice.” Brad huffs loudly. “How did I know I would get this from you?”
Kris chuckles. “What were you expecting, exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know, awed excitement, hysterical amazement, incoherent babbling? You’re such a guy.”
“I think you say that to me every time we talk.”
“Well.” Brad makes a dismissive noise and moves on. “What was she wearing?”
“Uh, a grey dress. And sandals, and this metal bracelet that laced up her arm like boot laces.” Kris shrugs. “And…that’s it. She looked pretty normal, actually.”
“Oh man,” moans Brad. “This would happen to you. And it would happen like this. Jesus.”
“Sorry.”
“Whatev. Are you really dating now? That’s what everyone’s saying.”
“No,” Kris says patiently. “You should really stop reading Oh No They Didn’t.”
“Oh, it’s in the Enquirer, too,” Brad informs him. “On the website, anyway. And who knows where else by tomorrow. Congrats, Kris, you’ve officially become bigger than Rihanna’s new boyfriend.”
“Lucky me.” Kris swallows, and takes a deep breath. “So, have you heard from…”
“Adam?” Brad’s voice is very gentle, which makes Kris wince rather spectacularly. “Uh - well.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“He was the one who told me about it, actually.” Brad pauses hesitantly. “He’s…kind of pissed.”
“Not pissed enough to actually talk to me, or anything,” Kris says immediately.
“Have you tried calling him?”
“Yeah, about a million times in the last month,” Kris says bitterly. “I got the hint, eventually.”
“He does this thing, hon,” Brad says insistently, “where he gets all wrapped up in his own head and loses sight of reality a little bit. And he festers. Like a rotten egg. You have to snap him out of it.”
“How am I supposed to do that when he won’t even take my calls?” Brad hums sympathetically. “Look, I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t want to put you in the middle.”
“In the middle of you and Adam…” Brad trails off dreamily. “Gosh, that sounds…swell.”
“Well, you’re welcome, I guess.”
“Mm. Listen, I’ll see what I can do with him. You, on the other hand, should enjoy the Gaga, because that shit is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, let me tell you.”
--
Once in a lifetime, though, seems to be a little off the mark. He gets another invitation about a week later, this time to a party.
“Is this going to be a trend?” Carli asks excitedly. “Oh, man, we’re gonna have to tell your publicist this time. If we don’t she’ll probably have a stroke, or something.”
Kris shrugs helplessly; it’s all on her, he still hasn’t got his phone back since it was confiscated the day before when he tweeted Bad Romance lyrics when Carli wasn’t looking.
Carli makes some calls and within the hour he has three different stylists rifling through his closet.
They give him outfit options. That depend on what type of activities he will be participating in.
Kris grabs a pair of leather pants with a zipper that zips open all the way to the back side of the waist band. “What exactly do you think I’ll be doing?”
One of the stylists shrugs, while another says something in French and points at the pants and his crotch in rapid succession. Kris drops them like they’re on fire.
He manages to talk them down to a mildly less horrifying version of the outfits they’d put together, mostly by repeating “no sex! No sexe! Comprends?” until they leave him alone.
Mr. Lucy picks him up again, greeting him with a slap on the back that sends him lurching forward. He has company in the limo this time, however - a glossed, sunglassed woman who sits curled up in the corner, drinking something bright orange and staring out the window in sullen silence, and a set of twins who introduce themselves as Robbie and Bobbie, dressed in matching tuxedoes. Kris tries to keep them straight but he suspects that they’re fucking with him because unless they keep switching seats when he’s not looking, there’s no way he’s mixing them up.
“You’re Kris Allen,” the one on the right says reverently, halfway through a glass of bourbon. “Are you really dating Gaga?”
“No.” Kris gestures with his own glass. “I’m just a friend.”
The other one smirks and leans in, gesturing towards the silent woman in the corner. “So was she, and then we found her and Gaga in the - “ The woman reaches out with one dangerously sharp high heel and kicks him, cutting off the sentence, before returning to her vigil at the window. “Motherfucker!”
The other twin starts giggling, collapsing sideways into Kris’s shoulder. He has to dodge out of the way to keep from getting splashed by the glass that upends on the black leather floor.
They hear the music before they see the house, and as Mr. Lucy opens the door for them, a nearly deafening wave of sound rushes in. Kris winces as he emerges and has a short moment of incredulity before Robbie and Bobbie rush him into the house, speaking over each other rapidly, both monologues completely lost beneath the crushing bass line of the music.
Kris has lived in LA for quite awhile, and has been famous for quite awhile as well, and so parties like this one are nothing new to him. The sweaty crush of the crowd, the acrid smell of smoke and perfume, the head-rattling sound of the music and people yelling and laughing - the atmosphere is alike to a million other college parties and, later, industry functions that Kris has attended. But this party is slightly different in that there’s something a little off, everywhere he looks - and if he looks close enough, he finds things that are somehow both truly insane and incredibly charming at the same time.
Like the DJ, whose arms are covered in solid tattoos, dressed in chains and biker leather and, Kris discovers, a pair of hot pink high heels. And the man who hands Kris a drink, who is wearing a shirt made out of Vogue magazine covers. Or a woman Kris chats with for twenty minutes as she pets a monkey that sleeps peacefully inside her purse.
It’s insane, and kind of wonderful, and Adam would love it, is all Kris can think, though he hates himself a little bit.
There are a bunch of people Kris recognizes though - executives and agents, the kind of people that everyone meets and deals with on a regular basis no matter which studio you’re with. He recognizes some other musicians, too - this kid from the punk band who won a Grammy the year before, Kris can never remember his name, and Jordin Sparks, who gives him a hug, and Ke$ha, who yells something incoherent and loops a glow stick around his neck. He has a nonsensical conversation about The Supremes with a trashed John Mayer, and he spots Butch Walker standing on the stairs, talking to a drag queen with a huge yellow hat with fruit on top.
Kris has a nice buzz going, standing in the kitchen with a bunch of Beyonce’s back up dancers when he gets pulled away abruptly by a half-naked Mr. Lucy, who leads him up a flight of stairs and into a room that Kris vaguely recognizes from his tour. Kris blinks and walks inside, unsurprised to see the lady of the house standing on a balcony.
She looks positively otherworldly, wrapped in something that looks like a toga, almost, with long bell sleeves and shimmering layers of fabric draped around her shoulders artfully. Lavender flowers trail through her hair, which hangs to her waist in a glossy wave of blonde and purple.
She turns around and smiles at him a little loopily, beckoning to him with one manicured hand. “Kris! You made it.”
“Yeah.” He takes the hand she offers and lets her lead him out onto the balcony, the noise of the party floating up to greet them. “You’re up here by yourself while everyone else has fun downstairs? That’s very Gatsby of you.”
Gaga throws her head back and laughs. “That’s the coolest thing anyone’s said to me all night,” she says.
“I try.”
She smiles and sets her martini glass down on the balcony railing, turning to face him. “I just wanted to say hello.”
Kris grins. “Hello.”
“Hello.” She takes his other hand. “Plus, the hot new couple needs some alone time, don’t you think?”
Kris narrows his eyes and puts it together, rather quickly considering how drunk he is. “You did that on purpose.” She widens her eyes innocently, a glittery, purple-tinged little girl. “You did!”
“You didn’t think it’s funny? Me? And you, of all people?” She shakes his hands slightly. “No offense.”
Kris hums, faking deep thought. “I may have caused some Twitter shenanigans the last couple days.”
Gaga laughs. “I noticed that.” She drops one of his hands and grabs her martini, handing it to him delicately. “Ah, don’t worry, there’s no harm in it. Plus, my madness always has a method, remember.”
Kris studies her for a moment as she gestures for him to finish the drink, waving her nails at him impatiently. “What method, exactly?”
“That, Kris Allen, is a secret.” She winks at him and waits, eyes wide, as he finishes her drink, before taking the glass from him and tossing it carelessly into the room. “Now, come take a walk with me. If I’m Gatsby, then you’ll be Nick, and we’ll stroll around the grounds and greet the guests.”
Kris laughs, utterly charmed, as she loops her arm through his, leading him a little crookedly back down towards the party. “Gatsby had a doomed romance,” he reminds her. “Do you have a Daisy hidden somewhere?”
“My romances are never doomed,” she proclaims, before turning and looking up at him, a little slyly. “Maybe you’re more of a Gatsby then me.”
He has no time to dissect that statement before the party overwhelms him again, enveloping them both in a cloud of noise and heat. Allowing the thought to float away, Kris simply takes a deep breath and allows himself to be led into the crowd.
--
Kris doesn’t make it home until two o’clock the next afternoon. He does his best to clean the spilled vodka - and…lipstick? God, he hopes it’s lipstick - off his phone and sees fourteen texts from Carli. She’s like an overbearing mother, sometimes. Who curses a lot.
He texts her to let her know he’s alive, and immediately receives back, YOU CAD! HOW WAS THE PARTY?!?!?!?!
I woke up in a blue feather bed with space cowboy, he texts, which he thinks sums up the night quite nicely.
!!!!!!!! is all he gets back. He hopes she’s taking deep breaths.
He takes a shower and takes about half a bottle of aspirin, signs some tour stuff couriered over by Carli, eats a muffin. Calls his agent and makes lunch plans for next week, and emails his brother back. Talks to his publicist for an hour while she gushes about how he’s the best client ever, true fact, because not only is he squeaky scandal clean but he also does awesome things like hug orphans in Haiti and party with Lady Gaga, and she’s sending him a fruit basket the first thing in the morning, for real. He thinks she might be close to tears at a few points, but he gracefully doesn’t call her on it.
He eventually passes out halfway through a rerun of The Office and wakes up four hours later with a crick in his neck and his phone blinking at him angrily from the coffee table.
He’s trudging upstairs, dreaming of his non-feathery, cowboy-less bed when his phone rings merrily in his hand, the electronic ringtone stopping him mid-step.
It’s Adam’s ringtone. Kris looks at the screen and confirms; Big Fat Douchebag! yells the display, which is what Carli has changed Adam’s name in his contact list to somewhere between last month and now, and Kris proceeds to have a mini panic attack.
Answer it? He hasn’t heard from Adam in a month. They desperately need to talk. He’s been waiting for this moment with way too much anticipation. He misses the sound of Adam’s voice in an incredibly pathetic way.
Ignore it? It’s two am. He’s tired. He can make him work for it. He’s a big fat douchebag.
Kris swallows his pride and hits ‘answer.’
“Hello?” Silence. “Hello?”
Some shuffling, then, Adam’s voice. “Kris?”
“Adam.” Kris swallows and reaches out to grip the banister. “Are you there?”
“Kris.” Adam’s voice sounds muffled, almost. He mumbles something else incoherent, and Kris hears a violent tinkle of glass breaking.
“Adam. Are you drunk?”
“Psssht. No. I’m not drunk dialing you, Kristopher. That would be pathetic.”
“Right,” Kris replies dryly. “You’re just really, really tired.”
“Kris,” Adam moans, as if Kris hadn’t even spoken. “Kris, I miss you. I miss you so fucking much.”
Kris’s breath catches, and he slides down to sit on the stair he’s been frozen on. “Adam.” He has to swallow a few times to regain his composure. “I - I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Yes you have,” Adam whines. “You’re off - you’re not here. Kris, you’re not here,” he babbles. “I don’t - what?” Kris blinks as Adam’s voice becomes even more muffled, as if Adam’s head is turned away. “Fuck you. No, fuck you!”
“Adam. Adam!”
“What? Fuck, what?”
“Where are you?” Kris asks patiently. “Is somebody there with you?”
“Yeah, Brad’s here. And this guy Joe, but he’s not - Kris, he’s not anything. I didn’t do anything with him, I swear. I just met him, and he’s cute, but he’s not - you know.”
Kris takes a deep breath, thinking, my life. “It’s okay. Adam - “
“Okay, we made out a little. But that’s it!” Adam sounds vaguely panicked, and Kris gulps down an incredulous laugh, something hot and hysterical rising in his chest.
“It’s okay, Adam. I need you to listen to me, though. Okay?”
“Okay,” says Adam, voice small.
“I need you to go to bed now, okay? Go to sleep. And in the morning, you call me back and we can talk. Okay?” Kris clenches his fist, nails digging into his palm harshly. “And you better fucking remember that part, okay? Write it down if you have to.”
“Um - “ Kris hears some shuffling, and a low voice that sounds vaguely like Brad’s. “Okay! Writing it down. See? It’s right here on my arm.”
“Uh, sure.”
“Good, good. Okay. I’m going to bed. Hey, I’m going to bed!” Adam suddenly yells, supposedly to Brad and…uh, Joe, and Kris jerks the phone away from his ear, wincing. “Fuckers.”
“Adam…” Kris trails off tiredly, about to comment with something snarky and thinking better of it.
“What? What,” Adam slurs. “I’m going to bed now. Just like you said, even though you’ve ruined Gaga for me. Ruined. Forever.” Kris hears some more shuffling, and Adam’s voice continuing, phasing in and out intermittently as Adam moves around, forgetting to keep the phone up to his face. “…blonde girls. I don’t - I hate you. Just - ugh. Really.”
“Goodnight, Adam,” Kris says firmly, unamused. “Call me tomorrow. Asshole.”
“You’re the asshole,” Adam says petulantly. “Why can’t you just - “
Kris hangs up on him and throws the phone down the stairs, standing up abruptly and stomping up the stairs to his bedroom.
Ten minutes later, he walks back down and grabs his phone, sighing in resignation.
“I am a loser,” he tells it, and sets it on the highest volume setting. “Don’t look at me like that.” The phone stares at him apathetically. “Yeah, thought so.”
--
Adam doesn’t call back.
Kris wakes up to Carli’s ringtone (Material Girl, which he hopes she never, ever discovers - but how would she, unless she called him from the same room? …on second thought, he wouldn’t put it past her) and he mutters his way through a conversation about the various meetings he’ll be dragging himself to today, paying as little attention to her as he possibly can.
He argues with himself throughout the day, telling himself that Adam’s probably not awake yet, he’s hungover, he doesn’t remember calling, he hasn’t looked at his call history yet. But by evening, Adam hasn’t called back, and Kris isn’t doing so hot at the self-delusion thing anymore.
Carli notices his dark mood and takes him out - forces him out - for Italian.
“Look, you might as well tell me,” she tells him, fork darting out and snagging a piece of his ravioli. “I’m just gonna find out anyway, eventually. One way or another.”
Kris stares at her a little incredulously, grabbing at his breadsticks protectively. “I think,” he announces, watching as she casually sips at his iced tea, “that we spend too much time together.”
Carli freezes, tilts her head, and shrugs. “My therapist thinks you’ve been using me as an emotional crutch since your wife left you.”
“You’re in therapy?” Kris asks dumbly. “And you talk about me?”
“Of course I’m in therapy, who isn’t in therapy?”
“I’m not.” Kris blinks. “And she didn’t leave me, it was a mutual decision.”
“Whatever you say.” Carli makes a waving motion with her hand, as if shooing away the subject. “Does this have anything to do with Adam?” Kris attempts to keep his face neutral, but that never works. “Ah.”
“He drunk dialed me last night.”
Carli’s mouth falls open, and she makes a somewhat unattractive sound halfway between a laugh and a snort. “I didn’t think people actually did that anymore.”
“It was so unbelievably…” Kris trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m still trying.”
“Well cuz you’re warm for his form, duh,” says Carli, and Kris chokes slightly. “You’re right though, this isn’t healthy. When’s the last time you even flirted with anyone?”
“Um,” says Kris.
“Exactly! You’ve been all celibate and monk-like for the past what, six months? That’s not healthy.”
“I went to a Gaga party this weekend,” Kris says defensively. “How is that monk-like?”
“I meant aside from that.” Carli pins him with her evil eyes, one eyebrow raised threateningly. “It’s not even about how much actual sex you’re having, anyway. You could be slutting it up all over LA and still thinking about Adam the whole time, which is actually worse. In a way.”
He can’t really argue with that. “I can’t just snap my fingers and get over it.”
“No, but you can make the conscious decision to start moving on,” Carli says pointedly. “Like this. He drunk called you, and I bet you were gonna try calling him back tonight when you got home. Right?”
“Maybe.” Kris fidgets. “If there was nothing good on…TV, or…anything.”
Carli stops mid-motion and stares at him. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
He sighs. “Thank you.”
“Look, I’m only gonna say this once, because you know how I am with, like, feelings and shit.” Carli scrunches up her nose in disgust. “I like you a lot. You’re an awesome boss and a really good friend, and, um, Icareaboutyoualot.” She sighs, rolling her eyes. “And, whatever, okay, you’ve had a rough couple of years and the last thing you need to be doing is mooning over a guy who slept with you and then dumped you the next day.” She huffs, picking up her fork and avoiding his gaze. “There. We’re not discussing it any further.”
Kris grins, oddly touched. “Do we hug now?”
“Don’t push it.”
--
part two