Acacia
secret love, hope
from a slightly alternate timeline to the eventual story of 'Bouquet'
"Let Daddy talk to Lance again now, honey." Joey relieved his daughter of the phone and she skipped back to the TV. "Hey, Lance. Thought you might need rescuing." Lance laughed but did not actually deny it. "So tell me, how is it going with Adam?"
Oh, it's great. Yeah.
"You don't sound like you mean it."
No, I do. It's just. You know.
"C'mon, spill. You know you want to."
Lance sighed. It's great, but he—he wants someone to have fantastic sex with.
"That's not a problem, is it?" said Joey, promptly. "Fantastic sex is good, right?"
No, but. You know me. I just want someone to love me.
"Ah." Oh, Lance.
Yeah.
"Just hang in there, okay?"
Oh, I'm hanging in there. I mean, you never know, right? Could happen. Lance didn't sound like his normal, optimistic self, but Joey had nothing better to offer. And he's so perfect for me, exactly what I want, I thought we were too different but it really works—anyway. I'm hanging in there.
* * *
"So, how's the thing with Lance?"
It's good, it's good. Adam sounded just a little bit doubtful about that.
Kris smiled. "Y'all are so cute together."
Hey! There was muttering, presumably because Adam didn't care to be called cute. Even though he was.
"You get to see much of him , now you're touring?"
Not so much, but we talk a lot. He has the best voice for phone sex.
Kris burst out laughing. "I so did not need to know that!"
Just broadening your horizons, baby.
"It's sorta dating by phone, then?"
I guess. And it's good, it is, except. I don't know—I don't think he takes me seriously. He's always ready to talk, and stuff, and he's funny, you know, he's funny and he's really smart and he's great, but I think he just sees our, our relationship as something to pass the time. There's this... distance, always.
"And you want it to be serious."
It is serious. I'm serious. He just doesn't know it yet.
"Okay," said Kris. "You just hang in there. I mean, what chance has he got? He'll have to see how irresistible you are."
Yeah, said Adam. He will. I'm gonna—yeah. I'm hanging in there.
Pink Hyacinth
play
this one overlaps the last few days of 'Bouquet' and continues immediately afterwards.
"I was wondering," Adam said, schooling his features carefully, "if you'd... wear a gorilla suit for me one night. When I get back to LA, I mean." He watched with secret glee as astonishment, horror, doubt, indecision and finally resignation chased across Lance's face.
"If you... really want me to," Lance said, "sure." He eyed Adam warily. "Do you?"
"A world of no," said Adam, and began to quake.
"Uh huh." Lance was blushing furiously. Then he pounced. Adam was laughing so hard he couldn't resist as Lance pinned him to the bed, licked his ears, and demanded sexual favors in return for mercy.
Later, almost asleep, the memory of Lance's expression flashed back into Adam's mind and he started to vibrate with laughter. He couldn't stop. He wheezed with joy. Tears trickled down onto the pillow. The bed shook.
"You are so, so dead," Lance promised.
Adam just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
***
The following afternoon, after the fans were ushered out after the meet and greet session, a gorilla showed up. It carried a single daffodil, lumbered up to Adam and offered him the flower. He took it, trying not to grin, trying not to laugh, trying not to blush. Lance had powers. How had he gotten hold of a gorilla suit when they hadn't even been in Buffalo yesterday? "You can take off the mask, now, Lance," he suggested.
"Me? I'm right here!" Adam jumped and stared, then burst out laughing. Lance was behind him, smiling very sweetly at him, and not wearing the gorilla suit at all. Lance took out his billfold and handed something to the guy in the suit with thanks, and smirked. Adam was already laughing too much to upbraid him.
***
Lance was wearing his Adam Lambert tour T-shirt, and looking ridiculously good. Adam stared at the screen. Damn it, why was Lance on the West coast while he was here on the East? The interviewer was asking him about the T-shirt now, and Lance was confessing to having caught the show and that he thought Adam Lambert was awesome.
Adam couldn't stop the smile that spread across his face.
"And I understand you got up on stage there with him last night?"
"Oh! Hey, news travels fast. Yes, I was in Boston last night, he asked me to do Flower so I thought, you know, why not. I had to Google the lyrics, I'm terrible at remembering the words, so. But yeah, we did the song."
"What a great surprise for the audience there in Boston, MA. How'd it feel? Been a while since you were on stage, right?"
"Well, singing, yeah, I mean, I was touring with Dancing with the Stars last year so I've been in front of an audience, but it's been more'n two years since I sang in front of people, when I did Hairspray."
"I'm guessing this wasn't quite the same experience as being in a Broadway theater?"
"That is true."
"So did it feel good being up there again? All those screaming fans?"
"Yeah, sure, it was fun, but you know, I think they were screaming for Adam, not me."
"And what did you think of the rest of the show?"
"Absolutely incredible." Lance nodded wisely. "I love Adam Lambert," he said, right into the camera.
Adam was still smiling as he went to sleep.
***
If you were going to open your bus door anywhere to find a man in a gorilla suit and a bow tie with a gigantic basket of red roses waiting to greet you, Adam thought ruefully, then New York was the place it'd happen. There wasn't a card with the flowers, but it wasn't like he needed one.
He was snickering as he closed the door. Really, the memory of Lance's face... it was never going to grow old.
He managed—mostly—not to laugh as he thanked Lance for the flowers in their phone call that night. Tentatively he suggested that Lance might be able to come out to Florida for the final show of the tour, but Lance didn't seem at all sure he could make it.
***
He'd be glad to be done with the meet and greets, Adam thought. Most of the fans were cool but there were usually a handful who were so hyper they were a little hard to take. Still, fans, he certainly wasn't blasé enough to think they didn't matter, so he smiled and signed and posed and was as charming as he could be. One more of these tomorrow, and he could head back home for a rest.
There was a wave of giggling, and he looked up in surprise to see... Lance Bass, you are relentless, he thought, as the gorilla loped towards him and offered him a single red rose. This gorilla was a bit more of a showman than the last one, it posed with him and the fans took pictures and giggled more.
Naturally Adam had no money on him, but he persuaded one of the PR girls to lend him a twenty, and pressed it into the gorilla's paw—paw? Hand? The gorilla hopped and bowed excitedly, but as Adam turned away, it tapped him on the shoulder. He turned back, and it pointed hopefully to its cheek, and tilted its hairy head. Oh boy. So he bestowed a kiss on its rubber face—there were going to be some very, very silly photos on the internet this week*—and it posed and clutched its heart and hammed it up until all the fans were hysterical, then loped off to where Maurice was standing by the door laughing like a loon, and disappeared.
"Looks like everybody's an Adam Lambert fan," said the next woman in line, and winked at him.
"I'm just that irresistible," he replied, and winked back.
About twenty minutes later he headed back to his bus for his quiet time. He'd call Lance. Possibly promise him a spanking, which he so very definitely deserved. He swung himself aboard, shucked off his shoes and headed for the sleeping section to find his cellphone.
Lance, naked Lance, was lying on the bed grinning at him.
Adam gaped for an astonished moment, then leapt. Lance huffed as most of Adam landed on him, but being breathless didn't seem to bother him when they kissed as though they hadn't seen one another in almost two weeks.
Eventually Adam drew back and leaned on his elbows. "You are such a liar. You told me you wouldn't make it!"
"I said I wouldn't be able to fly out tomorrow," Lance corrected him. "You think I'd miss your last show?"
"Man, it's good to see you," Adam said, suddenly serious. "Really good." He dipped down for another kiss, and stroked Lance's hair. "Why is your hair all wet?"
"Had to shower," Lance said. "It's really ripe inside a gorilla suit." He leaned over and plucked a twenty dollar bill from the bedside locker. "Earned this, too," he said.
* He was right. Two days later, Kris Allen found some, and nearly died laughing.
On to Switch