Fuck My Life pt. 1 RPF Big Bang
Oct. 22nd, 2010 12:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acquiescenceFifteen hundred miles: it took them three days to make the trip, and by the time they actually made it up to Boston Kris was pretty sure he'd happily murder his brother if he ever had to sit in the car with him for any length of time again. But they made it, along with all his things, and that was the important part. And soon he'd send Daniel and his mom and dad right back to Conway.
"Oh my god, I didn't think we were ever going to make it." Daniel complained as they pulled up to the residence hall; it was bigger than Kris remembered. He and his mother had visited the campus a few months ago, gotten the grand tour and everything, but it was different now. It wasn't just some vague possibility anymore; he'd gotten the letter in the mail.
Congratulations, you've been accepted to the Berklee College of Music.
And now he was there, it was actually happening. He'd applied on a whim, never thinking for even a second that he'd actually get in. Oh he was a good musician, plenty of people told him that - but you had to be great to get into Berklee - so many people wanted to go there, and Kris… well he was just a kid from Arkansas, and now here he was in Boston, Massachusetts.
Even looking up at the residence hall, feet firmly planted on the concrete, it was still a bit surreal. Kris wiggled his toes inside his converse, getting the feeling back in his legs, he just wasn't cut out for hours and hours of driving; he didn't like being cooped up for that long, but everything was going to change now, and he couldn't wait.
"I'll just go in and get registered real quick and then we can start bringing things up." Kris said, the rest of his family still twisting and stretching themselves back into shape after the car ride, it was the perfect opportunity for him to slip away and get things settled inside without his mother hovering over his shoulder the entire time.
"I don't think so Kristopher Neil Allen." Busted - Kris stopped making toward the building turning slowly at the sound of his full name. "We are all going in; I want to make sure this gets done right." He should have known better than to think he'd even get the opportunity to go in without his entire family in tow, but then Kris had always been overly optimistic, even when it came to his mother. And really he should have known better when it came to her after a particularly traumatic event in the third grade, but Kris liked to forget about that.
"Mom." And thankfully Daniel kept his mouth shut about just how mature and grown up Kris sounded when he drew her name out like that, or Kris might have slugged him, and that wouldn't help matters, even if it would make Kris feel better for a few minutes.
"We just drove three days to get you here, Kristopher, and in a few hours we're going to leave you here on the other side of the country all by yourself, humor your mother just a while longer, alright?" It was his father who spoke then, calm and easy as always. The only answer Kris could come up with to that was to sigh and nod, really it wasn't fair when they tag teamed him like this.
"Yeah fine, alright." He stuffed his hands into his pockets, grumbling quietly to himself as he started off toward the building without checking to make sure the rest of them were following - if they were coming in they would, whether or not he checked.
The inside of the building was much like he remembered, though there were more people there now - other new students checking in, getting their room numbers and mailbox keys, and of course the RAs. Thankfully they'd managed to arrive late enough in the day that there seemed to be a bit of a lull in the lobby, so things were too terribly crowded. Nothing like Kris had imagined it would be, thankfully. He might have had a few nightmares over the last few months, not that he would admit anything.
It looked kinda cool in the movies, students dancing or singing, or even playing musical instruments in the hallways, and maybe that went on during the school year, but Kris had told himself he was turning around and going to the community college back in Conway if he had walked in on that today. He loved music of course, but he wasn't ready for that sort of existence. Thankfully, Berklee was looking like it would end up being absolutely nothing like Fame. Thank God.
There were a few characters inside of course, but they seemed harmless enough for the time being, so Kris wasn't in a hurry to run screaming from the building just yet.
"Over here Kristopher." His mother waved him over, leave it to Kim Allen to have caught up with Kris after he'd stomped into the building and find out what they were supposed to be doing now that they were there, and go one step further and announce to the entire room that he needed his mother to help him figure things out on his first day. Things were getting off to a great start.
"We'll just need you to fill these out when you get upstairs to your room." The RA was already explaining things to his mother when Kris made it over, starting without him as usual, but he listened as a list of things he needed to do were rattled off. "It shouldn't take too long, don't look so depressed, it's your first day after all."
Kris startled then, looking up when he realized that he was actually being addressed during this conversation and not just his mother. The RA who was helping them seemed like everything Kris wasn't. Tall, dark hair, confident, he managed to smile easily while talking to his mother, all things that Kris had never really been able to pull off.
"I suppose so." Kris said when his mother actually stopped going through the papers she had collected to look at Kris to see if there was something wrong with him - he was making one hell of a first impression, and he was starting to rethink his plan of going back to Conway, if it didn't mean three days with Daniel in the backseat of the family car again. Maybe they could leave Daniel here and take Kris back – the idea deserved a second thought at the very least.
"I'm Adam." The RA held out his hand and grinned at him. Kris smiled and shook his hand a bit tentatively; Adam probably did the same thing for all the new students. "Kris." Adam grinned, like he was amused and nodded. "I know, your mother has been telling me all about you - long drive from Arkansas isn't it?"
Kris groaned, of course his mother was sharing too much already, he could only hope she hadn't started talking about embarrassing childhood stories yet - how she managed to give out so much information just five minutes after meeting someone was a skill Kris has never been able to wrap his mind around.
"Yeah it really was." Kris nodded giving his mother a pointed glare before looking back at Adam again, he seemed nice enough, but then that was his job being an RA and all that.
"Well you're up on the 5th floor, I've given your mom the information." Kris only just managed to hold in another groan at that bit of news. "Here is your key, just make sure you fill all that out and bring it back to me and I'll give you your mailbox information then." Kris took the key and pushed it into his pocket and nodded - maybe he could convince the rest of his family to stay upstairs while he came back for his mailbox information. Unlikely, but Kris couldn't help from thinking about the possibility.
"We're losing daylight people." And there was his father, ready to sweep in as soon as things needed to get done. "Come on you've got a lot of stuff and we don't have all day." Adam laughed, and Kris cast his eyes skyward and lamented the insanity of his family one more time that afternoon before following them back out to the car.
One good thing to be said of Massachusetts was the temperature - Kris had nearly passed out thanks to the heat back in Arkansas as he arranged everything in the back of the car in a careful Tetris pattern to make sure it all fit - but here Kris felt like he could probably stand more than a few minutes outside without melting. Not that the temperature difference kept Daniel from complaining as they piled another load of boxes and things into the elevator to go up to the 5th floor.
"Did you pack enough? I swear Katy didn't even pack this much and she's a girl." Kris rolled his eyes as his brother complained - it was like a constant state of being for Daniel and Kris had learned how to deal with this sort of thing from him.
"Yeah and Katy is going to school 2 hours away from home." He reminded his brother. "She didn't have to bring everything she needed from now until the end of the semester." It was going to be difficult, with Katy going to school so far away, it might as well have been the other side of the country for all the time Kris would get to spend with her, but they had agreed Kris should go to Berklee; it was a great opportunity and one that would help get him closer to his goal of being a real musician, not just the sort that played at local open mic nights the way he had been up to that point.
It would be hard, but they would make it work - it was part of their plan. She would go to school back in Arkansas and she'd get a degree in business and Kris would come out here to Berklee and he would learn what he needed to about music and performance and when they both graduated they'd move to LA together and put it all together. It was perfect, or it was in the way all plans made by 18-year-olds were perfect.
"Yeah well she still packed less than you." Daniel grumbled as the elevator doors slid open as they reached the 5th floor.
Kris just rolled his eyes and hefted up the boxes he'd brought up with him and left the elevator walking down the hall to his room, it was crazy thinking that he'd have his own room here - well not really he'd be sharing with someone, but it was almost like his own room, in that there were no parents here. So pretty much the same thing in Kris' mind.
They had left Kim in his room, going through the boxes as they brought them up, unpacking what she could while Kris, his brother, and father brought up the heavy things. "There you are, I was starting to wonder if you two got lost." She smiled as they both walked through the door Daniel dropping the laundry basket he'd been carrying sullenly.
"I wish."
"And then what? You'd be carrying around that basket forever until we figured out where we were going, how does that make any sense?"
"Shut up, assh-"
"Language!"
"Sorry, Mom."
Kris snickered behind his mother's back and Daniel flipped him off when she started folding towels - maybe Kris would miss him a little bit, not that he would tell anyone, of course. He and Daniel used to have some pretty spectacular fights when they were growing up - they'd gotten better about it over the last few years, even managing to go whole days without punching one another. It left Kris hopeful for the future.
With the three of them bringing things up, it didn't take too long to unload the car and with his mother unpacking from the start it took even less time for Kris to put his room in order before Neil declared it was time for dinner.
They drove around Boston for a while, until they found a place that looked nice, it was the last good meal Kris would have for a while Neil reminded him with a teasing laugh while Kim swatted at her husband's arm assuring Kris it wouldn't be that bad. Though Kris was sure to eat just a bit more than he would have normally at dinner - what? If he was going to put on the freshman fifteen he might as well do it with good food and not whatever it was they served in the cafeteria.
So maybe his nightmares had been about more than just what he could have walked in on at the dorms – it was totally normal.
They stopped by a market not far from the school and got Kris few essentials for his dorm as well - milk and sodas, cereal, and cookies and a few other things his mother insisted he'd want later, though why exactly he was going to need 12 pads of post-it notes he wasn't really sure, but he didn't argue.
Kris put up with his entire family coming up to his room for a second time after they got back to the dorm, he figured this was the last time and he could go on and forget this day had ever happened once they were all loaded into the car in a few minutes.
Of course his roommate was there when they came back - Kris was never going to live down his family, it was his curse. But Cale was nice enough and his mother promised to send extra cookies for him in the care packages she sent for Kris if Cale kept an eye out for him.
"Oh just kill me now."
"Don't worry Mrs. Allen, I'll be happy to keep an eye out for Kris." Cale promised, grinning over her shoulder at Kris, who just wanted to die. The day could not get any worse really - he just knew it.
"You're just so sweet, thank you." Kim was patting Cale's cheek - she was patting his cheek! Like she actually knew him or something, how could this be Kris' life? He didn't even know, but obviously it was and he was just going to be known as the guy with the crazy mother and surly brother for his entire college career - perfect.
Katy always said he needed a thing, maybe this could be it. Though this was probably not what she had in mind.
"You take care, Cale. It was very nice to meet you; you have my phone number if you ever need to get a hold of me." Kris practically squawked as his mother let that bit of information slip. Some how Kim had managed to give her phone number to Kris' roommate, like that was perfectly normal. God.
"Come on Kris, walk us down and we'll get out of your hair." Kris was only too happy to start herding his family out of his room so he could put this humiliation as far behind him as humanly possible.
"Bye Mrs. Allen." Cale grinned and waved, and Kris shot him a glare over his shoulder as he got his family out of the room and into the elevator.
"Well, he seemed like a very nice young man." Kris just pressed his forehead to the cool metal of the elevator doors, listening to the hum of the machinery working as they passed each floor down to the lobby. "Really Kristopher you're quite lucky to have someone like Cale, you could have gotten someone insane, a murderer or something."
"I once had a roommate who sat awake all night watching me sleep." Adam chimed up, somehow catching the tail end of their conversation as they passed through the lobby. "It was pretty creepy."
Kris just gaped, open mouthed at him, how was this real life? Someone needed to explain it to him, because as far as Kris was concerned he had left real life behind the moment they stepped into the lobby that afternoon.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much though, if you have any problems at all with your roommate or anything else you just come find me. I'm in 521." He told Kris and grinned first at Kris and then at his parents who stood behind him. "That's what we're here for after all, to watch out for you guys and make sure everything is alright."
"You hear that Kris?" Kim was practically beside herself, like she'd been worried to death about insane roommates and no one there to look after Kris this whole time. "Really you are so sweet, thank you." She told Adam too, and Kris wouldn't have put it past her to have somehow slipped him her phone number as well.
"Yes it's very sweet, thank you I don't know how I'll ever repay you." Kris grumbled in Adam's direction, before continuing to herd his family out of the building and down to the car - while Adam just sat there behind the desk in the lobby looking far too amused with the situation to just be someone simply offering to help.
"Now you know can call us as often as you want." His mother reminded him for the fifteenth time that day.
"Yes, mom, I remember." Kris pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and showed it to her just to remind her that he knew he could call. "I'll be alright, I promise. It's not the other side of the world." He patted her arm awkwardly.
"I know Kris, I know." God she was going to cry, Kris could see it - this day just couldn't possibly be complete without this. "I just worry about you, you'll always be my baby" She wiped at her eyes shaking her head. "I want you to call any time you want, and we'll send you care packages pretty often." She promised him.
"Thanks, mom." Kris sighed and hugged her; it was the only way this was going to end after all. "You guys drive safe, okay? And call me when you get home."
"You take care of yourself." It was his father's turn now, and he clapped a hand on Kris' shoulder giving him a pretty firm squeeze before he let go. "We're proud of you." And with that he turned to start up the car. Kris was never more thankful that his father was the normal one in the family than he was right at that moment.
"Don't flunk out your first semester." Kris rolled his eyes, leave it to his brother to make his goodbye an insult.
"Yeah, I'll try not to." Kris smirked.
And thankfully, finally, blessedly, his family was all settled into the car and they were headed back toward Arkansas. Thank fuck.
Adam was still smirking when Kris entered the building again, and Kris narrowed his eyes at him as he passed him heading for the elevator. "Don't worry, it's always like that." Adam called as the elevator doors slid shut.
Things didn't seem nearly so bad when Kris made it back to his room, he toed off his shoes and sprawled out on his bed (which is mother had made earlier in the day) and sighed closing his eyes. Maybe it hadn't been as bad as Kris had imagined it to be, maybe his family was totally normal and they wouldn't have to be his thing.
Of course that was the moment Cale decided to speak up and ruin that one bit of remaining hope.
"Your mom gave me her number."
Kris groaned pulled his pillow over his face and sighed. "Fuck my life."
Thankfully the insanity of his first day on campus didn't follow him around too much. Oh, Cale still reminded him from time to time that he had his mother's number, and he stole cookies from his care packages, no matter how many times Kris insisted they were all for him.
"Dude, your mom told me she'd send me cookies, these are obviously half mine." Spoken with one of the stolen cookies shoved into his mouth for maximum effect.
After the first few days Kris had learned how to live with Cale, not that it stopped him from wanting to punch him in the face from time to time, but that was pretty normal he felt. So he didn't let himself feel too badly about those occasional punchy feelings.
Especially since the most of the time Kris actually really liked Cale - he was funny and easy to get along with, and didn't mind Kris playing his guitar in their room (not that he had much room to complain since he did the same thing), oh and did Kris mention Cale played the guitar as well? It was kind of awesome, and maybe just a little bit cliché, the two of them playing together in their room, working out harmonies and tricky chords. Even if Kris hadn't been taking classes that made him practice all the time, just playing with Cale was enough to make sure that he was getting better.
"Come on man, she only sent a dozen this time." Kris smacked Cale's hand away from the package he'd gotten in the mail that afternoon, all ready four of the cookies had disappeared into Cale's never ending stomach.
"So you owe me two more." Cale said patiently, licking crumbs from his fingers. "Don't make me call her and tell her you're not sharing." He warned Kris. "Or I might just let slip that you haven't been sleeping eight hours every night and you haven't done your laundry in three weeks."
Kris threw his pillow at Cale and grumbled. "You're kind of a dick, I hope you know that."
"And you love me." Cale grinned unrepentant, and took the last two cookies he'd claimed from Kris' package.
"No I just know that they don't look kindly on murdering your roommate, I don't want to lose my scholarship."
Cale clutched his chest in mock horror. "That's all I am to you?"
"And a pain in my ass."
"Oh well in that case." Cale brightened up considerably.
"Asshole."
Cale was right at least about the laundry, Kris was running dangerously low, and it would be a good way to keep his cookies out of harms reach if he left the room for a while. Who knew what would happen to them if Kris just left them there. Cale did seem to have a bottomless pit where his stomach should have been.
So Kris stuffed the cookies into his laundry basket, along with a note book, and his ipod, and detergent. Might as well save himself from further harassment by Cale and get something productive done that afternoon Kris decided as he left the room.
Katy called on his way down to the laundromat, and he balanced the phone against his shoulder as he pushed open the heavy door into the room.
"Hey babe," He could feel himself grinning as he answered her call.
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Laundry, Cale threatened to call mom if I didn't give him half of my cookies so I thought it would be best to take away just a little bit of his ammunition against me."
Katy laughed, the sound was clean and bright across the phone line and Kris smiled - he had always liked hearing her laugh and it was no exception now, in fact he might even like it more now. "So that's what that sound is."
Kris nodded and then rolled his eyes at himself, "Yeah," a few machines whirled and filled the room with what Kris thought was a rather pleasant hum, though it probably lost that nice quality over the phone. Kris liked to sit down here while he waited for his laundry - partially because he didn't trust someone not to mess with his clothes, and partially because it was a great place to work.
And it seemed like he wasn't the only person who had that idea that afternoon. Another student sat on one of the folding tables, his legs pulled up under him while he scribbled in a notebook humming to himself - he didn't look up when Kris came in.
"Should I call back later?" Katy's voice reminded him that he was still on the phone - maybe Daniel was right - he was a bit of a blonde sometimes.
"Oh, yeah, sorry. I'll call you when I'm done you'll probably hear me better." Kris told himself he didn't hear a disappointed sigh from the other end of the line.
"Okay, I'll talk to you later."
"Yeah, later." Kris echoed before he ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket.
Thankfully, unlike Cale, his mother had taken the time to show him how to do his laundry properly before sending him to college, and Kris never had to deal with the embarrassment of running around campus in pink shirts that had at one point been white. And so he stood now in front of two machines sorting through his laundry, the different colors going into different machines. Occasionally he'd look up to watch the other guy while he worked - the song he was humming wasn't familiar, but Kris liked the sound of it - and he wondered if it was original or not. It was pretty likely when you considered the possibilities.
Once Kris caught him returning the looks he'd been giving and realized he actually knew the guy; it was his RA, Adam, and Kris silently cursed his luck - of course he would end up alone in the laundry room with Adam of all people. He could only hope the embarrassment of his first day was replaced with perhaps one of the many embarrassing situations he'd found himself in since his family left. Kris thought the embarrassment of dumping the contents of his backpack in the middle of the quad was certainly enough to make anyone forget about his mother.
It didn't take Kris long to get everything sorted and start the machines and he jumped up on the nearest folding table in much the same position as Adam, opened his own notebook, and put in his headphones determined to come up with some lyrics for the song he had been working on for the last few weeks.
There were times when the words came first, and he'd have to scribble as quickly as he could to get them all down before they slipped from his mind, and then there were times when the music seemed to write itself - this had been one of those times, and Kris listened to the song he'd recorded on his ipod. It was nice, but it needed lyrics to go with it. He could almost hear the song that it should be, but he hadn't been able to get it down on paper yet, much to his ever increasing frustration.
The song on repeat Kris tried to lose himself in it and just let the words come the way they sometimes did, but the longer he sat there the less he felt like he was getting anywhere and instead he looked down at the blank page his pen had been poised over for the last fifteen minutes without anything being added.
"Whatcha working on, Arkansas?" Kris startled, and looked up to see Adam watching him while he sat there glaring at his notebook. He sighed and pulled one of his headphones out and let it drop into his lap.
"Just trying to figure out some lyrics." Kris shrugged, it was strange going to Berklee - back in Conway he would have never been able to just tell anyone that he was working on lyrics, people wouldn't know he was into music, or if they did they wouldn't know that he tried to write his own songs and there would just be a whole lot more to explain than Kris felt up to every time someone asked what he was doing at times like this. But here, he was free to say he was working on lyrics and no one really thought twice about it.
"What a crazy random happenstance." Kris frowned, wasn't that a line from How I Met Your Mother or something? He was pretty sure it wasn't something Adam had come up with on his own, in any case. "I'm working on some lyrics too - never was much good at them though."
"What do you have so far?" Kris asked curiously, he couldn't help it really. Even knowing that he'd never show off his own lyrics before he was finished with a song, and even then it always felt a bit too naked to show off the lyrics without the music to go along with them - that's what transformed them from just words into music after all.
Adam grinned and shook his head. "Sorry, I'm a bit too private for that." Adam told Kris, but he didn't seem put out by the question. "Besides I wouldn't want you laughing at me."
"I wouldn't laugh." Kris insisted, though maybe Adam deserved it for just how weird he was that first day, but Kris wasn't that mean, no matter how much he might like to be.
"Maybe when I'm finished." Adam said after a few minutes, carefully tucking the notebook away in the bag that lay open beside him. "So how are you getting on so far?" Kris was honestly surprised that Adam remembered him at all - Berklee wasn't exactly tiny as far as universities went and there were plenty of other people around to notice, but maybe Adam was just good at his job.
"It's been good so far." Kris smiled, capping his pen and closing his own notebook around it. "It's all still a bit strange, but I like it, you know?"
"Yeah, I remember my freshman year, I came from LA actually - so probably not the same sort of culture shock you're having, but Boston has really grown on me."
"LA, really? Why would you come all the way out here to go to school, aren't there a lot of great schools out there?" Kris asked, more than a little surprised. It made sense for him to want to go to Berklee they didn't have anything like this back in Conway, and Kris thought it would help to have something to build on later - but LA was filled with ways to do that, there wasn't really a reason to come all the way out to Massachusetts.
"There's too much going on back home." Adam admitted. "It's too easy to get distracted with all the parties, and boys, and shows, and just all of it - there is no way I would have been able to make it through four years of school without dropping out."
Kris laughed and nodded. "I suppose I can understand that." Truthfully Kris thought LA might have been too overwhelming if he'd gone straight there, Boston was a stepping stone.
"Besides, I don't know if you know this but Berklee is one of the best performing arts schools in the country."
Kris snorted. "No way!"
"Way." Adam nodded sagely.
"You want a cookie?" Kris asked suddenly, remembering he had brought them with him, and maybe he had fought to make sure he'd get these six for himself instead of letting Cale have any, but Kris had always been the generous type. "My mom sent them."
"Oh, cookies from home." Adam perked up and clapped his hands gleefully at the idea, and the contrast between the authoritative look Adam had been trying to give him before to the goofy grin he had on his face now was enough to have Kris laughing as he handed over the bag of cookies letting Adam take two. "I am going to have to call your mom, just to let her know how great these are." Adam groaned as he finished off his first cookie and Kris looked horrified.
"She gave you her number too?" Of course she did, why did Kris ever think that his mother wouldn't have given her number to his RA it was really just too much to hope for.
"Well yeah." Adam shrugged, sucking cookie crumbs from his fingertips like mothers gave him their phone numbers all the time. Kris was struck for a moment with the mental image of Adam's room, and a wall full of numbers from various student's mothers – and well that was a little creepy if Kris was being honest so he pushed that thought away quickly, stuffing it in a box in the very back of his mind and kicking some dirt over it for good measure. "I haven't called her or anything, I mean that was kind of weird - but sweet too." He hastened to add. "Very sweet, in a weird ... Arkansas mom kind of way." He was laughing when he finished, one hand pressed over his mouth. Okay so maybe mothers didn't give Adam their phone numbers all the time, maybe it was just Kris and his crazy mother. His thing.
"I hate you."
"No you don't."
"I might."
"You don't know me well enough to hate me."
"I don't know Hitler and I hate him." It was a stupid conversation, but Kris thought he might be having a good time.
"Yeah well, everyone knows Hitler was a douche, it's not the same."
"Fine, I dislike you."
"I still don't think you know me well enough for that either." Kris sighed melodramatically. "See, you like me. Or at the very least you find me amusing." Adam gave Kris a smug grin, like Kris' sigh had made his point.
"You ought to tell me something about you so I can dislike you properly." Kris complained.
"I'm Adam." Adam smirked. "I'm a junior, and I'm from LA."
Kris narrowed his eyes at Adam and frowned. "I'm pretty sure I knew all of that already."
"Maybe I just don't want you to dislike me." Adam suggested.
"Mmhmm." Kris gave Adam a doubtful look.
"When I was eleven I decided I was going to cut my own hair before I went to school one day, so I got it wet and then cut it exactly how I wanted it - but no one ever tells an eleven year old about the way hair shortens some when you dry it so my hair ended up getting hacked to bits when I tried to fix what I'd done, and my mom still made me go to school even though I looked like some birds thought it would be a good idea to make their nest in my hair." Adam grinned when he finished his story. "And that's why I always go to a professional to get my hair cut now."
"What ... was that?" Kris didn't even know what to make of the story; it was so completely random that he was sure it wasn't actually something Adam had meant to say out loud.
"Now you know something about me that most people don't, which means you're one step closer to being able to dislike me properly."
Kris tilted his head and considered Adam, really he thought he got all the insanity his life needed from Cale, but apparently someone in the universe disagreed if this was going to be the sort of interaction he had with Adam.
"Thanks ... I guess."
Adam just grinned. "Now you tell me something about you."
"What?"
"It's only fair; if you can dislike me properly I should have the chance to do the same to you."
"Umm... I had a dog once, her name was Sadie. Mom said she had to go live on a farm one day out of the blue, and I cried for weeks, but eventually I started to think it was kind of cool that she got to live on a farm, and I thought there were probably a bunch of other dogs around for her to play with – and it was probably a lot more fun than being our dog and having Daniel pull her tail all the time. I didn't figure out what really happened until I was fourteen."
Adam grinned.
And it was as easy as that. They started trading stupid stories about childhood (Adam had never climbed a tree until he was seventeen and then he fell out of it on the first try) and about their families (Kris' aunt still likes to send Daniel and Kris little holiday themed socks for every holiday). Despite his teasing earlier, Kris decided Adam had probably been right, he didn't hate him - and he probably didn't even dislike him either, which was unfortunate since he knew so much about Adam now that he could justifiably dislike him if he actually had a reason for it.
"So you're a performance major?" Kris wasn't actually surprised to hear that - Adam seemed very much like the sort who would be most interested in that.
"Yeah, well I started out doing song writing, but I am just not cut out for that." He admitted with a low chuckle, he was pulling some of his clothes out of one of the dryers before he started to fold them while he and Kris continued to talk. "It's too much pressure to have to do that all the time - I mean I'm much better being spontaneous, so I decided I'd focus on performance. Since I'll be getting a lot of use out of that in the future."
Kris grinned, he liked that Adam was so sure of what he was going to do with himself, he had his plan and he was going to make it work for him.
"I kind of like it." Kris said after a moment watching Adam fight to turn a shirt right side out. "Normally it's pretty relaxing - writing songs," the song he'd attempted to work on that afternoon not withstanding, "Everything else just kind of leaves my mind and the words just sort of come to me."
"It was more like pulling teeth for me."
"Maybe I'll write you a song some day then." Kris teased, but Adam's grin widened and he couldn't help but be pleased that the idea of it seemed to make Adam so happy.
They spent the rest of the time waiting for their laundry talking and teasing one another and Kris thought maybe it wasn't such a terrible thing that his mother was a crazy person giving her phone number out to pretty much everyone she had come in contact with that first day, if it meant that he could talk for ages about music, and song writing and not feel like he was boring the other person completely to death.
It was nice.
The thing no one ever tells you about long distance relationships is that they suck, they suck more than anything Kris could ever imagine sucking, you know if people actually said things like that and they made sense.
They made it work the first year, Kris called Katy every other day, and she called him just as often - they talked for hours, with Cale pretending to gag himself while he listened in half the time. But it had all been part of their plan, Kris coming out here, Katy staying back in Arkansas - it was the plan.
It had been good to see her over the summer, to spend days just laying in bed together talking in person - without the inevitable crick in his neck that hours on the phone gave him, going swimming together, going to the movies - doing all the things they missed out on during the school year. It was good, better than Kris remembered it being, if he was being honest.
So when Katy called him two months into the first semester of his sophomore year and told him she didn't think it was going to work Kris didn't know what to think.
"What's not going to work?" He didn't even make the connection despite the distant tone of her voice.
"This, you being there, me being here." Her voice quavered and that was what did it, when he realized she wasn't talking about her hotpot or the mix CD he'd sent her just last week. She meant their plan.
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened, Kris it's just this ... it's too hard." Kris had missed Katy more since he'd come back from Arkansas, seeing her over the summer was just a reminder that they wouldn't see each other during the school year, but it hadn't gotten to the point where he was ready to just throw in the towel - he was pretty sure he loved Katy, and that meant you put up with things like this, you stuck to the plan and you made it work.
"We talked about this though, I mean, we knew it would be hard, but we can do this I'm coming home for Thanksgiving we'll see each other then and we can talk about this." Kris had scrambled for something to make this work - to keep Katy from telling him it wasn't going to work out, but the sound of her hitched breath, and the way her voice trembled across the line was enough confirmation for Kris to know she had already made up her mind.
The thing they didn't tell you about long distance relationships was when they were over - you usually got dumped over the phone. Which he supposed was marginally better than being dumped by text message, but not by much. Being dumped over the phone was right there up there on scale with things like going to class without your pants on, and falling off a tree branch and landing on your tender parts. Except Kris thought it probably hurt more, not that he was planning on trying either of those things for comparison's sake.
"Are you comin' tonight?" Cale asked later that night, he'd been giving Kris a wide berth most of the afternoon and into the evening, but he seemed to have made it his mission to keep Kris from staying in and moping the rest of the night.
"I dunno." Kris muttered from beneath his pillow.
"Look man, I know this sucks but you should get out - it might be good for you." Cale said pulling the pillow away from Kris' face so he could look at him. It was annoying when Cale was always in his things, stealing his cookies , and threatening to call his mother, but this Cale looking at him like he was worried - Kris thought that might just be worse. "Besides you wear way too much plaid to ever pull of becoming an emo song writer."
And that was the Cale Kris had come to know and love, or at the very least know and put up with. Cale was right though, Kris could never pull off emo - and anything he wrote now would surely be shit. It might be good to get out.
"Fine."
"Don't sound too excited."
"I'll try." Kris deadpanned.
Cale's idea of getting out involved a house party, one that Kris was pretty sure everyone had been invited to. Or at least it seemed that way as people pressed in on him at all sides and it wasn't long after they arrive that he'd lost Cale. Not that it mattered though, Kris would have likely ditched Cale at the first available moment anyway, he liked Cale just fine - enough to request him for a roommate for a second year and everything, but the dude couldn't dance, like he was worse than Kris, and Kris had been sure that was a physical impossibility until he'd seen Cale dancing at a party they'd gone to during the first few months of their freshman year.
And that wouldn't be such a terrible thing, Kris knew he was a terrible dancer too - but he had accepted that fact about himself. Cale? He imagined himself to be some kind of dance legend for all the dancing he did at parties. In reality it was just safer for Kris to ditch his friend at some point during the night so he wasn't hit by a flailing appendage.
Wonder of wonders though, his premature separation from Cale found Kris right in line for the keg - and he gladly accepted a red plastic cup that was pushed into his hand after a few minutes wait. He'd never been a fan of beer, especially the kind of stuff they tried to pass off as beer at house parties, he was nearly positive half the time it was something else entirely, but he never let himself think about it for too long and instead closed his eyes and took a long pull from his cup.
Yes, just as gross as he remembered, and yet entirely welcome at the same time. Though even more welcome was the punch he found later, it was sweet and he couldn't even taste the alcohol in it - Kris told himself there wasn't any in it, how could something that tasted this good be alcoholic?
It was an impossibility.
Which is what he told himself as he had one cup and then another, and another, he lost count after four but there was probably at least another two in there at some point. There was no way that was alcoholic. The room was just spinning because it was a neat party trick or something. Kris wished they would stop it though, it was making it hard to walk and he didn't really want to end up on the floor, it didn't look very comfortable. Especially with all the people there, someone would totally crush him if he ended up on the floor.
Fuck.
Kris got handed another cup and sipped at it carefully, there was no way this was alcoholic - it really was too good, but oh my god the world should not be spinning like this. Kris didn't know what kind of party this was but he didn't appreciate the spinning, it was rude and he didn't understand why everyone wasn't falling over because of the spinning either.
"There you are!" Oh god Cale was screaming at him, why was he screaming at him? "You disappeared!"
"No I didn'." Kris insisted voice slurred.
"What?"
"'didn'." Why was that so very hard to understand? Of course Kris couldn't hear the way he was slurring the words together into something that came out as sort of a grunting moan.
"How many of these have you had?" Cale laughed reaching for Kris' cup, which he promptly moved out of Cale's reach.
"Iun-o, s'jus jews." He was not letting Cale take his cup away from him; his cup had been good to him. And though it was cliché – at the moment Kris felt like his cup was his only friend in the world. He'd call himself an idiot for that one later.
"Of course it is."
"Whyzit spinning?" Kris was very concerned about that, and the fact that no one else seemed to care about it at all.
"How about you go outside for a bit, yeah?" Cale suggested, and Kris thought that was actually a amazing idea, he held his cup close though and followed the hall with a hand on the wall until he reached the back door carefully getting outside and onto the steps down into the yard before he collapsed.
At least the spinning had stopped; it must have been something going on in the house.
"Didjuo know s'spinnig in there?" Kris asked turning to look at Cale, only Cale wasn't there it was ... Adam, why was Adam always around? It didn't make any sense.
"Is it?" Kris watched as Adam exhaled a slow stream of smoke, watching it curl and twist its way to the sky; it made him feel a bit queasy if he was being perfectly honest.
"Yes." He said pulling his attention away from his twisting stomach and back to the fact that Adam was sitting beside him and not Cale - wasn't Cale coming outside with him? Or had he just made that up? He couldn't remember. Cale probably got distracted with dancing on his way out - that dick.
"Guess it's a good thing we're out here then, I never was much of a fan of spinning." Kris licked his lips and watched the way Adam brought the blunt to his lips and breathed in slowly. Kris frowned and lifted his cup to his mouth and drained what ever was left in it,
"Tha jews predy good."
"Juice?" Adam exhaled as he asked the question.
"Mmm." Kris hummed his affirmation. "Teh one in cups."
"Oh that juice." Adam snorted. "No wonder it was spinning in there."
"S'not very fun." Kris pouted, peering into his cup to see for certain that he had actually finished his drink. That was too bad, he could go for another actually, and he ran his tongue over his lip slowly thinking about getting up - but it was so much work to stand up, and it would mean going back into the spinning house and Kris just didn't have it in him right then. If Cale was out there he'd make him go back in and get him one, Cale totally owed him another juice for all the cookies he'd stolen since they started living together.
"No, I don't imagine it would be." Adam was watching Kris while he examined his cup, and Kris frowned, why was Adam watching him? He didn't have any more juice so really he didn't know.
"My girlfriend broke up with me." Kris said finally, something needed to be said, otherwise he'd just keep watching Adam watch him and it would just go back and forth for the rest of the night, he knew it and Kris just knew that would make him sick. So really it was just an attempt to keep himself from being sick, though thinking about the call Katy had made didn't really do anything to ease the churning of his stomach.
"That sucks." Adam said and Kris nodded.
"She called tonight, told me it wouldn't work." The sudden dose of reality, made his voice more clear, it kept him from slurring quite as much as he had been. He didn't know why he was telling Adam of all people - except Adam had told him he was willing to talk if Kris ever needed it, and tonight seemed to be one of those nights when he really needed it.
Adam stayed quiet, and Kris thought he like that, because he didn't really know what he'd want Adam to say - he just needed to tell someone what happened. Cale knew of course, he'd been in the room and heard Kris' part in the conversation, and judging by the looks Cale had been giving him it had been just as painful to listen to as it had been to have. If that was even possible, and Kris was pretty sure it wasn't – no way was half a conversation worse than the whole thing.
"We had a plan, man." Kris almost wished he was still slurring, it would save him future embarrassment, and it would also explain why Adam was remaining silent on the subject for the time being - it's kind of hard to have an opinion of something you couldn't even understand. "She was going to school at home and I was going out here and then we'd go to LA together, and we were going to make this work."
Kris paused, thinking about their plan and then he felt ill all over again. "I have to tell my mom, she's gonna be so upset - we were gonna get married." He sighed pressing his face into his hands.
"You were engaged? And she broke up with you over the phone?" Adam spoke up then, watching Kris' face as he exhaled again, the circle of his lips was hard to look away from.
"No, no, no no." Kris shook his head, but then groaned, no that was a bad idea. "We weren't engaged, but I would have asked her … sometime."
Adam snorted, and Kris glared at him, only to see Adam covering his mouth with his hand and very obviously trying hard not to laugh at something that was apparently very funny. "I'm sorry, really, I am." Kris just kept on glaring he didn't like Adam very much right then, and thankfully after that afternoon spent in the laundry room during his freshman year Kris knew him well enough to dislike him. Though a small part of his brain told him that he only disliked him when he was drunk, though Kris reminded himself that he wasn't drunk. He'd only had one beer and then the juice.
"I don't think you should beat yourself up over it." Adam told him after a moment, a grin still tugging at the corner of his mouth Kris noticed and sighed. "Things happen, people change - especially when you go to college. It's probably better that it happened like this." And Kris opened his mouth to disagree but Adam stopped him with a look. "You don't want to go years thinking that you'll get married, and then find out you spent all this time devoted to this plan that didn't work out. It's better to find out now while you still have time to figure something else out and make it work for you."
Kris sighed, Adam had a point and he hated him for it. Things were supposed to work out with Katy - they were good together, everyone said so. Even Daniel had admitted that he liked Katy. So what was he supposed to do now that their plan wasn't going to work out? He had to come up with a whole new plan. Would he still go to LA? Could he even go to LA on his own? Just the thought of it right then felt more than a little crazy and scary and oh god Kris was going to be sick.
"I guess so."
Adam nodded decisively and grinned. "Good."
"I think I dislike you."
"Okay."
"Do you want to get me some more juice?"
"No, I'm good right here."
"I know I dislike you know."
Adam laughed then, and Kris felt himself smiling despite himself, and when he looked at Adam again he had moved much closer. They had both been on opposite sides of the steps, but now Adam was much closer to Kris' side of the middle than his own. And how had he moved without Kris knowing it? Probably some freaky power or something, his mind suggested.
"Are you like Spiderman or something?"
"What?"
"Well I mean, you move quiet… but I guess you could be like the Flash or something, but you're kind of slow for the Flash - at least what I've seen, but I wouldn't have actually seen you moving quickly if you were the Flash so it's still a possibility, there are some others that might fit too bu-"
Kris was stopped mid-ramble when Adam kissed him quite suddenly, and Kris didn't know what to do and instead of pulling away he leaned into it sighing softly at the feeling of Adam's lips warm against him. They quickly passed the point that would have been acceptable for a drunken kiss, and Kris opened his mouth to Adam when his tongue slid insistently across his lips, and then pressed forward sweeping through his mouth and Kris hummed. Adam tasted warm and spicy and smoky all at the same time.
When Adam pulled away Kris was left hanging leaning toward Adam and panting slightly.
"Aren't you my RA?" It was the first thing that came to Kris' mind, and he wanted to take it back as soon as he'd said it, he didn't even know if there were rules about that sort of thing - but probably not. It wasn't like Adam was his boss or something. God he needed to stop watching so much Law & Order - that show was crap anyway, or that's what Cale said, Kris kinda liked it.
Adam laughed and nodded. "Yeah I am."
And Kris nodded, maybe there wasn't a problem with this, but there was because Adam had just kissed him! He was telling Adam about how Katy had dumped him and Adam kissed him, how had that even happened? Kris didn't know and he wasn't sure he would be able to put the pieces together any better later. His head was a swirling mess and oh god he was going to be sick this time.
His stomach hadn't lied, Kris only had enough time to move his face to the side and so rather than getting sick in Adam's lap he was sick all over Adam's shoes. He groaned pressing his forehead against Adam's knees - who was, admittedly being a great sport about all of this - considering Kris had just ruined his shoes no doubt.
"That good huh?" Kris heard the smile in Adam's voice without looking up to see it.
"I hate you."
"I know."
"Kill me."
"Maybe later."
Maybe the juice really did have alcohol in it. Stupid sweet deceptive juice.
The killer hang over he had the next morning was enough to confirm his suspicions.