rivers_bend

Title: Don't look back on yesterday
Fandom/Pairing: Adam Lambert, Adam/Kris (UST)
Rating: Teen
Words: 2100
The Obvious: I do not know any of the people whose personas are mentioned in this story and neither believe nor mean to imply that this is fact.
A/N: This is a time stamp in my Fucking is fun 'verse (specifically from Snake Eyes and Déjà Vu) but reads totally independently. This is not a verse that is a slave to "canon" timelines.
Summary: Adam is actually capable of being friends with a guy without falling in love. Mostly.



When it first becomes clear that everyone thinks Adam is going to fall in love with the pretty straight boy he’s sharing a room with on Idol, he's determined to just grin and bear it. It's the same old, same old—god forbid queers have any discretion, any self-control—though he supposes it's at least better than flat-out preaching about God forbidding his whole existence. And Kris Allen is adorable, and better than people assuming he'd like to get into Sarver's pants or, ugh, Seacrest's.

It's not like it bothers him that much, really. It would be so much worse if he were the type to go the pretending route, and people were teasing him about the way Allison climbs all over him and keeps sitting on his lap. Better that people think he's indiscriminately cock-hungry than a hebephile. (Though he can imagine a world where he doesn't have to choose either, and the world is called West Hollywood. It feels about a million miles away right now.)

Adam and Kris make it all the way to the final night together, which the fans and the press are eating up with a spoon, but being in the mansion buffers them somewhat from everything happening outside. Then it's over, and the Rolling Stone article comes out, and they go on tour, and it gets a thousand times worse, because it’s not just the other idols, it’s every gossip blogger and magazine interviewer and a million fans. Sometimes he wants to scream at them all that he's a) perfectly happy with Drake, thanks, and b) not Sally Albright and can be friends with a man without wanting to pepper his paprikash. Only maybe some less 80s reference, one that doesn't remind him of the time Brad faked an orgasm in a diner out on the 5 and almost got them kicked out before they'd even eaten anything. Adam wanted to die of embarrassment and Brad wouldn't stop laughing until Adam finally cracked up too. It was the last time he gave in to demands they have a chick-flick movie night.

Adam manages to resist flipping out, however, because screaming at the fans is not the best way to keep them coming to the shows, and Adam isn't really that guy anyway. For about five seconds he’s worried about Kris, who’s getting a lot of questions in interviews too, but Kris just seems flattered, and it doesn't bother Katy, who has a whole collection of pictures on her phone of Adam and Kris hugging, and no one is out-and-out calling Adam a whore—so he just lets it go.

But then when he and Drake break up, Adam starts hearing whispers about how it's all Kris's fault, and he decides it's the perfect time to take a stand. He even composes a whole little speech in his head about how it’s none of anyone’s business, but what happened was nothing at all to do with Kris Allen or anyone other than Adam and Drake, and Adam is perfectly capable of being single without latching onto the first warm body he’s sharing close quarters with, and could interviewer XYZ please kindly fuck off. It’s even a pretty good speech, he thinks, only there has to be a way to say it without swearing.

But before Adam gets a chance to use it, Kris comes and finds him at a particularly low moment, when Adam’s just picked up his phone to text Drake and realized that isn’t something he can just do anymore. Kris takes one look at him and without a word he holds on until Adam breaks down and starts crying into his hair. Kris pets him and tucks his head under Adam’s chin, sitting with his legs across Adam’s lap, letting Adam just cling. When he's stopped crying and is just sitting listening to Kris hum a Cold Play song into his chest, Adam starts to think his speech makes it sound like Kris doesn’t matter at all, which just isn’t true. Besides, the whole Kradam thing is getting them press, and all press is good press, so he scraps the taking-a-stand idea and goes back to nodding and smiling.

Touring is a blast, if a little exhausting, and Adam is insanely busy every hour of every day, and it’s not like he and Drake had that much time together to begin with, so that one breakdown with Kris aside, he’s actually kind of okay with the whole being single thing. He’s not sure Kris gets the memo about that, though. He seems to be taking comfort to a whole new—weird—level.

Adam first notices on a bus night. He’s sitting on one of the couches, leaning against the arm, reading a magazine with his feet up, and Kris comes over and wriggles underneath them—which isn’t that unusual—talking to Adam about something his brother said in an email. Normally Adam would pay attention to whatever Kris was saying, because he cares about Kris and therefore cares about the things and people Kris cares about. But Kris isn’t just sitting with Adam’s legs across his lap. He’s got one hand curled under Adam’s near thigh, high up, so that his fingers are a quarter of an inch from Adam’s balls, and the other hand tucked in the ankle hole of Adam’s pants, hot on Adam’s skin, even hotter where he’s rubbing and rubbing Adam’s shin with his thumb.

"Mm hmm," Adam manages when Kris pauses and clearly expects some kind of response. It's all Adam can do to keep the whimper out of it, because, seriously. His balls are right. there. And Kris has started kind of caressing with that hand too now.

Kris doesn't seem to notice anything is wrong, though—thank god for the magazine in Adam's lap—and then Anoop comes in and wants to know if either of them want to play Wii, and Adam says, "Sure, just let me take a leak first," out of sheer desperation.

Somehow Adam gets up without looking too much like he's holding People over his crotch, and Kris and Anoop start the game while Adam goes to splash some water on his face. He's not sure if he needs to do more jerking off or less, but he should do something, because that was Kris, who is not someone Adam's dick should be interested in.

He loses shamefully at Mario Party, or it would be shameful if he gave a damn, but the three of them laugh a lot, and it's not awkward, and Adam pretty much forgets about Kris feeling him up.

Until two days later when they're in a hotel and Kris calls and asks if Adam wants to watch some TV, so he goes up to Kris's room and Kris answers the door wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. And sure, they've seen each other change lots of times, and it's not a big deal, until Kris doesn't actually put any more clothes on, just gets a beer out of the ice bucket on the desk and hands it to Adam and asks if he wants to watch TV or a DVD.

Adam drinks half the beer in one go and says, "Sorry I interrupted you."

"What?" Kris asks and sits on the edge of the bed, putting one foot up and hugging his knee to his chest, looking at Adam, still waiting for an answer to the TV question.

Adam considers finishing his thought and mentioning the fact that he clearly arrived too early, didn't give Kris enough time to get dressed, but he doesn't want Kris thinking he's made Adam uncomfortable, or that it's a big deal that he's wearing nothing but his underwear, so he asks what DVDs Kris has instead.

They're about half way through Rattle and Hum, which a fan gave him at their last show, when Kris gets up to get another beer. Instead of sitting down again, he stops behind Adam's chair and starts rubbing his shoulders. Under Adam's shirt.

"Um," Adam says.

"You look all stressed out." Kris's thumbs are digging in just right, and his fingers feel amazing at the nape of Adam's neck.

Adam grunts something that's supposed to be, "I'm fine," but comes out more like "Mfffff."

"So, Katy called earlier, and she—"

There's more, lots more, but all Adam can hear is the buzzing in his ears as all the blood leaves his brain.

The massage lasts about twenty minutes, and Adam thinks he hears Kris singing along with the movie at one point, but he's concentrating on not popping wood since he's sadly lacking in anything to cover it this time, so he's not certain. With a final squeeze and a brief pressing of his forehead to the back of Adam's skull, Kris sits down and drinks some more beer, seemingly engrossed in the movie again.

After that the Kradam questions become more awkward, partly because Adam feels like he's become the stereotype he was so resentful of being painted, but mostly because he can't help watching Kris closely for any change in his reaction to them. He seems just the same. Even after the under-the-shirt massages become a regular thing, and he takes to kissing the back of Adam's head when he's done.

And it's just not fair. Because Adam has no trouble not falling for straight boys, even when they are pretty and sweet and talented. But Kris isn't really acting very straight, and Adam's resistance is being sorely tested.

Unfortunately, Kris isn't acting entirely gay either, and Adam can't figure out if he's the cruelest or the sweetest cock tease in the history of the universe.

The tour ends, and the most action Adam has gotten is Kris's hand up the back of his shirt. Approximately twenty-three times, but still. And there's nothing more once they're back in LA, either. Some texts saying how much Kris misses him, and an invitation to come to dinner with Katy and Kim. Kim is the first to kiss Adam hello, then Katy, and Adam is convinced that Kris's kiss is going to feel the same as theirs, comfortable and comforting, wonderful to see him again, but nothing to put in the spank bank. He's wrong. Kris's arms go around him, clinging tight, his hips glue themselves to Adam's thigh, and the press of his lips at the corner of Adam's mouth isn't comforting at all. Unless you're someone who's comforted by an almost irresistible desire to press your friend against the nearest hard surface, shove your tongue in his mouth, and jerk him off frantically in front of his wife and his mother.

Adam's not sure he'd want to meet anyone who would be comforted by that.

On the plus side, being back in LA means Adam has his friends around, and plenty of extremely gay boys willing to distract him if he wants, and a band to get together so he can be Adam Lambert, Pop Star, instead of Adam Lambert, runner up on American Idol. And, since Adam can be dramatic but he's not a total masochist, it pretty much works.

After the first month or so Adam only has occasional twinges. Like when he gets an email from the woman screening his fan mail that says he's had thirty-seven letters in one week from women who claim their husbands or boyfriends have decided they would go gay for Adam, and it's hard not to wonder why Katy isn't one of the letter writers. Or he's at a party and the guy he's flirting with starts talking about the massive crush he has on his brother's best friend, and how it's wildly inappropriate, because the guy isn't into boys, and his brother would kill him anyway, and Adam bitterly thinks, Tell me about it, instead of looking at it as an opportunity to show the guy a good time, make him feel better.

Then, seemingly overnight, Adam Lambert, Pop Star becomes Adam Lambert, Pop Sensation, and life moves on. He and Kris are still friends, but the other stuff becomes just a story Adam can trot out—names changed to protect the innocent—when the moment is right. Those are always private moments though, and Kris doesn't make it into Adam's new speech about how just because a guy is gay it doesn't mean he's going to fall in love with every boy who crosses his path. The speech is better than the original. It's different every time so it sounds spontaneous, but he always manages to get in the important stuff about connection and compatibility, love, and friendship, and romance, and how everyone is allowed to have a "type" and his is significantly more specific than male. His smiling and nodding days are over. And for that, Adam is grateful. It's only just occasionally, in the soul-searching dark of night, that he'd still go back to offensive assumptions and stupid questions for one night with Kris Allen.