Written for the amazing queenbitchfest challenge! \o/
Stardust
by astolat
The huge billboard for the Planet Fierce tour went up two nights before outside the Little Rock arena, in pieces, but Kris recognized Adam from the first long horizontal stripe with the eyes: blue-purple and full of stars, fringed with turquoise glitter. By the time he drove back from his lunch, the whole thing was up: a galaxy painted in swirls of sparkling lights over Adam's cheekbones, his hand stretched out holding a handful of holographic planets that turned and shifted, and there was a fedex package sitting on Kris's stoop with the all-access pass and a handwritten note that was all exclamation points.
It was already going nuts backstage half an hour before the end of the show, even though Adam was still out front singing his head off. Kris had wanted to stay to the end, but Adam had said, "If you wait, they'll get me in the meet and greet and I won't even get thirty seconds to hug you for hours!" so after Music Again was over, he slipped out of the box and went back to try and track down the handler Adam had told him about—
"Linda," she said, blueish circles under her eyes and a clump of glitter stuck to one side of her head; Kris was trying to decide whether it was on purpose or if he should mention it, because it didn't really go with the clipboard and the trendy little sweater vest. "I'm sorry I'm so nuts, I have three local tv stations that just showed up with no advance, and the venue messed up virtually every last thing in the rider—"
"Hey," Kris said, because she looked like she might be ready to cry. "It's okay, I don't need the VIP treatment. Just stick me somewhere I can hang out of the way until you're ready."
"I can—" she started saying, and then an even more wild-eyed guy, tall and black and rail-skinny with purple hair, skidded to a stop next to her. "We need more fucking security!" he said. "Someone just caught the fucking eye tattoo lady backstage, and she was trying to get into the control booth."
"Why don't I just—" Kris started, jerking a thumb towards the dressing room hallway.
"Okay, but—Pike, give me a second—look, please, find Wes and get him to let you into a room—" Linda called back, already being dragged away.
Wes was only a little less harried, running around the huge dressing room setting up candles and burning incense somewhere that smelled a lot like a joint. Then Kris revised that: actually, it was a joint. If any stuff was missing, Kris couldn't tell what it was: there was a velvet daybed along one wall with a couple of blankets thrown on it, a table loaded up with sushi and salad and tea and bottled water on the other, an ipod stereo playing low trance music.
"Uh, hey," Kris said. "Linda sent me to you—"
Wes whirled around and stared at him and said, "Oh, perfect, thank you, sit here," and he grabbed Kris by the arm and towed him over to the daybed and pushed him down on it, next to a little table covered with more candles and a sandalwood box and small dishes of aromatherapy oils. Kris let himself get placed, half-grinning as Wes backed up to the door and stood there with his hands raised, looking the whole room over. "Okay," Wes said, "okay, we're good. We're good." He patted his own cheeks.
"Can I move?" Kris said.
"What? Oh, oh my God, yes," Wes said. "I just needed to make sure everything was in place. Help yourself, can I get you something else to drink? Other snacks? Some X? He's totally down on coke, though, so I'm sorry if—"
"No, I'm good," Kris said, trying not to crack up. He'd been in plenty of rooms like this of his own, those three crazy post-Idol touring years, but he'd never seen the backstage part of setting one up before. Although Adam was higher maintenance than Kris had ever been. By a factor of about a million.
"Excellent, fabulous, wonderful," Wes said. "I'm just going to duck out, then—oh—" he swiveled around halfway out the door and swung back into the room. "I forgot to check, did Linda tell you...? "
"Linda seemed to be having a pretty crazy day," Kris said.
"We've been on the road three months, every day is crazy," Wes said darkly. "Okay, just so you know, he won't talk for like—ten minutes. It's so not you, don't worry about it."
"Adam can't talk after he gets off stage?" Kris said. "Is his voice giving him—"
"No, no, no, he's just too—" Wes said, waving his hands wildly, "—too wound up. He needs to come down from the high, let go a little bit. Just roll with it and all that crazy adrenaline will melt away and then he will be the biggest sweetheart in the world, I swear. Good?"
Kris shook his head, laughing inside some more. "Yeah, it's good," he said, grinning. Not talking for ten minutes. Wow, was he going to give Adam shit for that.
Wes left. Then he came back in again, dimmed the lights all the way down, gave Kris one more wide smile, and closed the door behind him as he vanished for good.
Kris picked at some of the sushi—awesome sushi—and had some water, and then he stretched out on the daybed and checked his phone, tapping his foot idly to the thumping backbeat coming through the walls. No new messages, only the old one from Katy two days ago, just saying she'd landed in Peru. He flipped to his email: some notes from his agent about the two songs he'd sold last week to Polyglot, his mom writing to ask him whether he'd be over for dinner Sunday.
He sent back a yes and lowered the phone as the drums got louder, making the candle-flames jump, and the wail of the electric guitars came piercing through the wall. It made his fingers itch. He'd thought he was ready to be done with it—three years was enough for anybody to ride the wave if they weren't crazy-ass fuckers like Adam. He loved Adam to pieces, loved watching every new stunt Adam pulled and cheering him on around the world, but that wasn't him, right? Time to come home and be a grown-up songwriter with a normal life, take that cash in the bank and build the house and start on the two or three kids, except he'd left it too late.
He couldn't complain: Katy had stuck it out while he was getting plastered all over the magazines and spending less than one day in ten at home, racing from one end of the country to the other. She'd asked and she'd waited, and then she'd quit waiting and scored her gig with the Discovery Channel, and all of a sudden she was the one halfway around the world. So now he had a rented condo and a separation and other people playing his music, and if he wanted to be honest, that last part was the one he really minded.
He got up and paced the room, restless, while the music wound up with a roll like thunder. The weed smoke was starting to get to him, not enough to mellow him out, just enough to make him feel weird. Maybe he needed to call up a couple of clubs in town, set up some gigs after all. Screw it.
He'd just sat himself down again when the door banged open and Adam came in. Kris folded his mouth up over the huge grin that wanted to break out: Adam was in fishnets and glitter and peacock feathers and not a lot else. It was ridiculous and awesome. Adam took the headdress off and put it on the stand, tipped back the waiting opened bottle of water, picked up the burning joint and took a long drag, then a second.
He was breathing hard, and with the smoke winding around his hand and his head he looked exactly like all the alien-glam-god promo shots from the tour posters. Kris watched him in the mirror, half fascinated. Adam really wasn't talking. It was too dark to make him out beyond outlines, but the candlelight was shining on his skin and his feathers and when Adam looked back at Kris in the mirror, the flames gleamed reflected in his eyes, and the green and purple around them. Kris wanted to grin at him, but somehow it had skidded off his face. Adam looked too far away.
Adam took another drag, and then he put down the joint and turned around and came over to the daybed. Kris stood up to hug him, Adam's arms sliding around him and pulling him in close, and Kris pressed his face into Adam's feathers and held on, unwinding; he didn't need Adam to talk as long as they had this. Adam could be as freaked-out as he wanted.
Then Adam was leaning him back, way back. Kris grabbed at his shoulders for balance, his fingers skidding on feathers and leather underneath. Adam was laying him out on the daybed, flat, and Adam's mouth was at the hollow of his throat, tugging the shirt collar low with his teeth.
"Uhh," Kris said, and Adam's hand slid between his legs, cupped him and rolled on up the seam, and Kris's whole body followed his hand, curving into him like a bow. "Fuck," Kris said, his voice cracking high, and Adam was kissing him, open-mouthed, pulling the breath out of him in harsh, noisy gulps while he unbuttoned Kris's jeans.
There wasn't any time to think about it. Everything happened fast and easy. Adam didn't strip him, just pushed Kris's jeans and boxer-briefs down to his thighs. Adam's hands slid back up to grip his bare hips, fingers denting in softly and flexing, like he was enjoying the squeeze, and then he was manhandling Kris over onto his stomach. The daybed was huge and soft, there were condoms in the sandalwood box, the oil wasn't for freaking aromatherapy; everything was laid out in place, including him, and Adam was on him, fitting himself to Kris's back, nuzzling in.
"Beautiful," Adam whispered to him, sounding drowsy and fresh-from-the-stage husky in his ear, and Kris felt beautiful, part of something beautiful, like being in the middle of a great riff with the music rocking through him, picking up the rhythm easy from Adam's hips. He reached back and grabbed on to Adam's thigh, held on tight while Adam worked into him, slick and careful, and they started moving together slow, Adam kissing the back of his neck dreamily, wide kisses, brushing his nose just into the hairline.
"Adam," Kris groaned, raw.
"Kris," Adam murmured into his hair, and then he stopped and held still a moment and said again, differently, "Kris," and suddenly Adam was just going nuts on him, saying, "Kris, Kris," over and over, kissing him crazily, sliding out to push him over. Propped up over him, Adam was wide-eyed, stunned, his mouth open and wet: still a mess of glitter and feathers and candlelight, but he was all there again, and then he was kissing Kris again and wrestling the jeans off him while Kris tore at the leather harness, getting the feathers out of the way.
They knocked over half the candles and the table, and if the floor hadn't been concrete they probably would've burned to death, because they weren't stopping; Adam pushed Kris's legs apart and was back in him; they were in a different key and moving fast. Adam was working him so hard, each stroke so good, nothing even close to this but the roar of ten thousand people, and Kris rode the wave of it all the way home, feeling Adam come apart with him, in his arms.
Adam crumpled down on him still saying, "Kris," almost hiccupy like he didn't believe it, kissing his throat and under his ear, the tip of his nose, his cheeks.
"Yeah," Kris said wobbly, his hand clenched in Adam's hair. He managed to get his fingers loose enough to stroke Adam's head instead. "You, uh. That—" He trailed off. It didn't really matter. Adam was kissing him. He felt satisfied down to his bones.
There was someone knocking a little on the door, quietly but very hurried, tap-tap-tapping—
Adam lifted his head. "Not even a chance!" he yelled, and it stopped.
Outside the door, Kris could hear raised voices—"That was the American Idol, you idiot, not the twink of the day!" and "How was I supposed to know, he said you sent him!"—and laughed a little. "So, uh, I guess your people didn't notice the twink of the day looked a whole lot like me?"
Adam giggled a little against his collarbone and said muffled, "Kris, they're supposed to look a whole lot like you."
"Oh," Kris said, and thought about that. "Uh, in a damn, that Kris Allen's hot way, or in a damn, cute short boys are hot way—"
Adam pushed himself up and loomed up over Kris, his eyes heavy-lidded in glitter and shadow, predatory and smiling. "In a damn I want to fuck that Kris Allen blind way."
"That works," Kris said, clearing his throat. "How—how long have we got?" he asked, sliding his hand up Adam's bare side.
"Forever," Adam said, bending low and nipping at his jaw.
Kris let his head fall back. "I think—uh—I think you've got a show in Tulsa tomorrow."
"You're coming with me," Adam said, his fingers scraping lightly up the underside of Kris's thigh, his tongue doing crazy things behind Kris's ear.
"As the, uh—the—oh—twink of the—" Kris cracked up as Adam's fingers caught him in a spot right on the side of his knee, squirming helplessly, and Adam made a hilarious little growly noise and was all over him all over again, pulling Kris's leg up and over his waist, rocking into him, hands going everywhere. "Yeah, all right," Kris panted. "Yes. Awesome."
Adam stretched over to the oil and dipped his fingers into it, brought them out slick again, gleaming in the candles. Kris watched them drip oil on his belly and thigh, and then he let his head fall back.
"We're going to make an album," Adam said. His fingers were sliding in, thick and hot, moving easy. Kris was a little sore, but they felt so good, rubbing the oil into him. "I want to go unplugged for the next one. Just voices and acoustic guitar. We'll write every night."
He kept stroking in and out while he talked, moving deep, his fingers curling a little. Kris held on to him and panted for breath. "Yeah?" he said. "Before or after?"
"During," Adam whispered in his ear, and Kris heard the music starting up again.
= End =
With many thanks to Merry for beta! <3
All feedback much appreciated! |