Third Time's the Glam

Somewhere in the middle, of a lyric or a beat or a bass line, (he wouldn’t have been able to tell if there was a noose around his neck like some real-life Hangman) he gets lost. That’s all there is to it, there’s no why or how or whatever. He’s tired, he’s sleepy, he’s excused, that’s what he is, but really, he’s no Adam who can triple-threat at the same time.

It’s that part where they’re supposed to harmonize, freaking We Are the Champions—it’s his fault, he insisted it be the finale song for every show because he wanted to share the pimp spot with the other winner, and it’s only right and he wouldn’t let up ‘til they agreed—and he forgets whether he should go high or low.

The bum note resounds, and no words come after that. The band keeps playing, the crowd keeps screaming, and over at stage left Adam’s mouth keeps moving, though he doesn’t look so triumphant anymore. It’s now three seconds later, and he refuses to believe that Adam wasn’t athletic in high school because how did he fucking get here so fast?

His hand coils like tree rings around his mike, and suddenly the hand isn’t his anymore, Adam’s taken hold of it in leather-clad fingers, and grasping so tight and it means nothing it means nothing but he hopes that maybe, just maybe, Adam dreads the moment he’d have to let go too.

“Hey, Kris?”

Adam isn’t holding the mike to his mouth, has it at level with his stomach, and the concern on his face is so frightening it wipes another streak of chords from his memory.

Kris shudders, bows his head and doesn’t know what’s going on, with him or Adam or the audience, only that it’s struck him that this was the last time, the very last time; the tour date at the bottom of the list and the glance to his side with Adam singing next to him, and shit, oh shit—

“I won’t finish it.”

A flutter of brow, foundation mingling with sweat and trickling from Adam’s forehead, and it’s understood that he heard the won’t, why it wasn’t can’t almost instantly. Kris shakes his head, affirms the realization, and Adam’s expression in front of him breaks a little bit more and no, oh God no, he won’t end this for all the trophies in history.

“It’s over.” Oh so painful to be reminded of it, that he’d built his days on something that was so close to becoming nothing at all. It wasn’t like before, with months of riding around in a bus looming ahead, with the laughter that wanna be bunkmates? promised them. No more Idol, no more infinite group numbers and rehearsals on Sundays (working on the Sabbath, as if he wasn’t damned enough) and Adam an unpainted thumbnail or an embrace away, and he can’t take this. What was there to look forward to, what was he supposed to do with the rest of his time?

Oh, right, make an album, have a career, live like a rock star and be without Adam…

The pause takes long enough that the band notices and stalls, a few more riffs than necessary thrown in, some of the crew giving away merch to distract the fans, and they’re all counting on Adam to snap him out of whatever weirdo fundie mode he’s gone into, and maybe save the Queen song he’s currently choking to death.

“It’s over, yeah,” Adam’s voice has gone soft, maybe so the static won’t pick it up, and maybe it’s his agreement that melts Kris’ sneakers and freezes him to the spot.

He breathes, filters sobs through his nostrils, but Adam’s not done, because he smirks, like he was getting paid for every curl of lip or flash of teeth , and maybe it’s appropriate that if the movie Kris calls Life halted on that frame, he wouldn’t have complained.

“It’s the last time I’ll get to sing this with you,” Adam murmurs, and Kris doesn’t know if he’s expected to be happy or sad or happysad happysad can’t he take both, going once, twice, sold to the guy in snakeskin boots…?

“We better fucking kill it.”

And Adam wants to. That was the only thing that matters. Adam wants, and Kris raises his mike to his lips right on cue for—

“We are the champions, my friends…”

—because if it’s the last thing Adam wants, it’s what he’s going to get, because he deserves it, deserves everything from the sun and the stars and the miles of heaven in between, and Kris would toil at every diamond mine to find one that matches Adam’s smile, and oh…

That smile, his smile Adam’s smile it’s on right now, Mom turn the TV on or you’ll miss it, that smile around a swear, “and we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end.

“We are the champions, we are the champions…”

Adam waves his arm and beckons the others, faceless in the lights, and they join in chorus, and Kris is amazed, he really is, how does he do that? in resilient awe as the next line booms, “no time for losers, ‘cause we are the champions…”

Ghosts shimmer over his skin, every flicker of hair standing to attention, paying respects to every legend whose voices have sung the same damn song, once before, forevers ago, and it shatters full-circle now, and this is it, this is it, they’re alive in the same damn clockstrike, they could be heroes…

“Of the world.”

They don’t extend the glory note, and maybe it’s not important now, and this is, because when Adam offers his hand Kris steals a hug instead, all tiptoes and summer sweat, and when he pulls back their faces collide a little too close, their lips several kisses apart, and Kris shivers when they barely touch…

“Thank you, America!” Someone who sounds like Matt shouts to what seems like the entire world, and they’re closing the show, tearing it all down and Kris steals bravado from the darkness—

And he nearly stumbles as he exhales into Adam’s mouth and takes another breath for keeps, and it’s like breathing in sunlight, breathing in life, if only life smelled of faint cologne and powder spice and warmth. He closes his eyes, bows slightly and tucks himself into Adam’s neck, cheeks burning like a sunset for something he didn’t do.

“Doesn’t seem like it’s over, yeah?”

Kris shakes his head, even if he’s barely heard the question as they’re bathed in hysterical cheers, in fading backdrops and the swiveling hurricanes that are their companions, but they stay like that for a while, crystal figurines in the music box that spins around them.

“That’s because it’s not.” But Kris isn’t so sure since they are separated right after that.

He’s been walking dizzy-tired during the aftermath, and before he could prevent someone from seeing his underwear his luggage has already been packed for him, and suddenly people are saving their numbers in his phone and hugging him goodbye, and to all those promises to 'keep in touch' he says 'yes' even if he’s not certain he will.

And it’s almost like it didn’t happen, that almost-something? nothing? that could have just been named adrenaline, and Kris almost thinks his brain’s toying with him, and—oh god, that really shouldn’t have happened, what if what if, what if someone caught it on camera, what if Katy saw? And it was innocent enough, mistaken enough, but the media is harsh and really, what kind of moron was he to think he could get away with…?

“You.”

It’s a customary greeting for Adam, who currently has several suitcases behind him and a glittery duffel bag slung on his shoulder, and their rides are waiting for them, waiting to leave, waiting to take them a couple hundred miles apart, and how can he ever hope to say ciao farewell adios sayonara goodbyegoodbyegoodbye all at once?

“I-I guess I’ll see you soon?” He’s having a hard time thinking of something that could have been lamer than that. Pathetic, cliché, contrite, stupid, ah, fuck—

“You honestly think you can keep me away that long?”

There seems to be a hummingbird in Kris’ chest, flapping its wings against his ribs, and it hurts, it’s supposed to, and it’s stripping away tendrils of his heart just so he’d cry, come on, you idiot, he’s worth it, but he doesn’t cry. Not yet, not today.

His agent tugs at his wrist, and Adam’s being led away too, so he settles for, “Come visit me in Arkansas!” before he can take it back.

Adam balances his sunglasses at the tip of his nose (at night, no less), and grins just as he’s practically pushed into the limo, the door slammed hastily. Tinted glass lowers three seconds after, and the sunglasses and the grin and Adam, limbo personified, are still intact.

“I’m already there.”

He waves, periwinkle eyes set against his charcoal hair set against a new moon sky, and even when the car speeds off his hand’s still stuck out the window, and the hummingbird flutters a reply beside his heart.

And he should have said it then.