Glamberts Big Bang Chapter 05

[writefiction]

Title/Chapter: Kiss Away the Pain (05/16+Epilogue)
Author: amanda: jaclyn’s twin sister
Beta: mindchnger 
Artists: peculiar_mind / gargoyles42 /
Fandom: American Idol
Pairing: Adam Lambert / OFC [Luxe]
Rating: R (to be safe)
P.O.V.: First Person, OFC: Luxe
Warning: rape & abuse are discussed. Read at your own risk.
Word Count: 2,704
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Summary: Luxe and Adam have been best friends since Hollywood Week, but now that tour rehearsals have begun, Adam is finding out things he'd never know about his friend. Things that no one should have to go through. Can Adam be her Knight in Shining Armor? Or will he be the support Luxe needs to overcome her fears and help herself?

After a long day of rehearsal it’s back to the hotel for a shower and some room service. We plan to meet up in an hour with Kris and Allison back at our room for dinner, giving us all time to take showers and get rid of the stink of sweat on our bodies.

An hour later finds my three best friends and myself arguing over what we’re going to order for dinner. We’ve decided we don’t really want room service, so it’s takeout for us… if we can decide on something.

I sigh. “Why don’t we just order a little bit of everything?” I suggest. “That way we’re all happy.”

Adam leans over and kisses me on the cheek. “I’m willing to compromise and get Chinese if that’s what you and Alli really want,” he says. Alli and I give him matching grins.

“Thanks,” I reply quietly.

“What about you?” Adam asks looking at Kris. “Think you can compromise for our girls tonight?”

Kris makes a face. “I guess so,” he answers. “But we get to choose next time.”

“It’s a deal,” I tell him.

It takes us less than ten minutes to pick out the food we want and I’m sure we’re ordering enough for a small army. Adam calls Chen Lang Li to place our order and they tell him it’ll be twenty minutes for them to deliver. I’m so glad the hotel picked the closest Chinese restaurant to have takeout menus in their rooms. Especially when it arrives a few minutes early.

We eat in silence, the only sound is of us munching on our food or one of us mumbling to pass an egg roll. When I’m full to the brim with Chinese, I lean back against a fluffy pillow and put my hands over my bloated stomach. “I am stuffed!” I announce.

Allison throws down her chopsticks and declares, “Me too. That was soooooo good though!”

“I know,” I agree. “I mean, it must be, none of us said a word the entire time!” Alli and I giggle. When the boys finish eating, we move all our empty cartons to the trash and then clamber back up on the bed, arranging ourselves in comfortable positions, Alli and I situated between the two boys.

“I can’t believe we ate all of that,” I mutter as Kris searches through the movies on pay-per-view.

“All that rehearsing is torturous,” Adam replies. “It’s no wonder we’re so starving afterwards. Imagine what’ll it’ll be like on tour.”

“It’ll be better,” Allison speaks up. “I mean, we won’t be doing it for that many hours and definitely not every day. We’ll have at least twenty-four hours between performances. It won’t be so hard.” She shrugs.

“The wisdom you show sometimes makes me forget you’re only seventeen,” I tell her. She gives me a great big Allison grin.

“And sometimes you’re such a dork I don’t know how you got so many fans.” She sticks her tongue out at me and I hit her with a pillow.

“Shut it,” I tell her. “I may be a dork but that’s part of my charm.”

“It certainly is,” Adam murmurs, leaning down to kiss me on the cheek.

“Aw!” Allison coos. I feel myself blush and hide my face in Adam’s t-shirt. “Ha ha!” Alli laughs. “She’s too cute when she’s embarrassed.” Then she turns to Kris. “So, Krissy, have you found anything to watch yet?”

“No, not really,” he sighs. “The only thing remotely interesting is Grease.”

“Grease!” Allison and I squeal in unison.

“That’s been my favorite movie since I was, like, five!” I exclaim. “We are so watching it!” Allison nods vigorously in agreement.

“Aw, do we have to?” Kris whines like a four year old. “We already compromised on the food.”

Alli turns to him and pouts with her puppy dog eyes. “Oh god no!” Kris exclaims covering his face with a pillow. “Not the puppy dog eyes! You know no one can resist them!” The teen and I high-five and she grabs the remote, ordering the movie we want without another word from Kris.

Allison and I have so much fun singing along to all the songs. Even Kris and Adam sing along to the guys’ parts. We’re all having a blast, but then the sleepover comes on and Sandy gets her paper doused with perfume. She goes outside and begins to sing Hopelessly Devoted to You. While Allison belts it out like we’ve been doing during the entire movie, I just sit there, mouthing the words, no sound leaving my lips.

Before I can help myself, a tear trickles down my cheek. Luckily it’s on the side of my face that’s facing Adam. I feel him reach up and wipe gently at the lone tear. Then he wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me in to his side. He kisses the top of my head while I snuggle in close and his arm tightens around me.

I’m not able to get back in to the movie the way I was before. Allison definitely notices the change but doesn’t say anything. Hopefully she thinks I just suddenly got tired. I stay curled against Adam trying to take in the safety I feel in his presence; the safety that his arms always envelope me in. By the time the movie is over, Allison is stumbling she’s so sleepy. Kris promises he’ll get her back to her room safe and sound, which is a good thing because I don’t think she could find her room on her own right about now.

I sigh from my place on the bed as Adam shuts the door behind our guests and turns around to look at me. “Tired?” he asks. I nod, my eyes sliding shut. I hear my roommate make his way over to the bed I’m laying on and then feel the mattress sink beside me. I feel Adam gently brush my hair away from my face. “Can I ask you something?” he asks quietly. I nod. “Why did you cry during that song? I thought it was your favorite movie.”

I sigh and roll on to my side facing away from him, staying silent for a moment. “Luxe?” Adam murmurs.

I sigh again. “It’s just… that song…” I shake my head. “It reminds me of how ‘hopelessly devoted’ I was to Jackson. He was my world. I’m not sure I would have broken up with him if he hadn’t been found guilty of assaulting me and had a restraining order put on him.” My eyes begin to tear up. “I just… I just feel so stupid sometimes. So ashamed. Sometimes, sometimes I wonder if he had waited till we got back to a private place to beat me that day if I’d still be with him. And if I was, would I have gone on Idol? Would I have made it to the Top Four? Would I be here in this hotel right now with you? Would we have even met?”

Adam shifts and then his body is wrapping around mine from behind, his large frame spooning my smaller one. “I can’t imagine never having met you,” he murmurs. “And seriously, babe, that is just too much weight to be carrying on your shoulders. You need to let go of all the ‘what if’s’ and just breathe.” I take a deep calming breath but all that does is make the tears flow.

“It’s just… If that judge hadn’t taken him from me, I don’t think I could have let him go. I wasn’t strong enough,” I explain. “He didn’t just beat me down physically, it was emotional too.”

I feel Adam nod. “It usually is,” he murmurs, stroking my arm.

“He always told me that if I left him no one would ever love me like he did,” I tell him. “No one would ever even want me. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t skinny enough, I wasn’t good enough in bed, I didn’t know how to please a man. I was stupid and in love and I believed every word of it. I’m so ashamed of it now, completely and utterly ashamed. And embarrassed. How could I have been so stupid? It’s so hard even now not to believe everything he told me. I mean, he told me the same thing over and over and over again for so many years, ya know?”

Adam nods again and we’re silent for a moment as the tears slip down my cheeks. “How… How long were you two together? I mean, like, when did it start? How did it start?” he asks.

I sigh and wipe at my eyes. “Um, well, I knew him since we were kids. We were five when we met,” I explain, a watery smile coming over my face at the memory. It kills me to smile over such an asshole, but it’s such a good memory, before everything went to hell. “It was the first day of kindergarten and my mom made me wear a dress,” I recall. “When we went out to recess there was this bully and when I was on the monkey bars he looked under my dress. I hopped down and told him off for it. He got mad and lifted my skirt over my head. The next thing I knew, Jackson comes running over and punches this kid right in the face. That should have been my first clue at his rage, but I was five.”

I sigh. “So anyway, he shared his crayons with me and protected me from this bully all the time. He was a real creeper. I wouldn’t be surprised if he grew up to be some kind of sex offender or something. But ever since then Jackson and I were really good friends. We were even in the same class until middle school. But then we started doing the whole changing rooms for each class. We were in the same pod, which is the same group of kids placed with a certain set of teachers, so we still saw each other a lot.”

“When we were about fourteen we started dating. I mean, it wasn’t real dating. We liked each other and we both knew it. We’d have study dates and go to dances together and hold hands. But nothing really passed that,” I continue. “When we were fifteen he kissed me for the first time. I guess that’s when you can really say we became boyfriend and girlfriend. He was really very sweet and I’d been in love with him since the first time he looked in my eyes and told me he thought I was the prettiest girl in the entire school.”

I sigh and roll on to my back, staring up at the ceiling dreamily. “He was so loving and kind and I think it all started to go wrong on his sixteenth birthday. We lost our virginity to each other that night. After that…” I shrug and look down at my tightly clasped hands. “Things went to hell in a hand basket. It started slowly, just comments about what I was wearing or the way I did my makeup. He’d get very jealous of the boys that talked to me in school which he’d never had a problem with before. I was a tomboy most my life, like right up until high school, and had a lot of guy friends. Most of them just thought of me as one of the guys, ya know?”

Adam nods and stays silent, his arm slung around my waist. I can’t bear to look at him right now. I’m too ashamed. “Needless to say the verbal abuse and jealousy continued for a year before he started hitting me. It took him another year to get up the nerve to actually start raping me.” Tears begin to fall rapidly from my eyes, seemingly swallowing up my face. “We didn’t get to court until I was, like, nineteen years old.”

“So essentially it was three years of abuse?” Adam asks.

I nod. “I probably would have stayed with him until he killed me,” I whisper. “I’m sure he would have killed me at some point. By the time I was eighteen he put me in the hospital once or twice. I know, for a fact, that I never would have left until he put me six feet under.” When I realize how absolutely true my last statement is, I begin to sob, the tears coming hard and fast.

Adam gathers me up in his strong arms, murmuring quietly to me. “Shh,” he whispers. “Shh, it’s okay. You got out. It doesn’t matter how, but you got out of it. And he was wrong. He was dead wrong.”

The raven-haired singer holds me tightly, rocking me gently as I sob in to his chest. After I’ve calmed enough to find my voice I ask, “What was he so wrong about?”

“Everything,” Adam answers. “He was wrong about everything because first of all, someone does want you and I’m that someone. I want you, Luxe, I want all of you. You are so beautiful and kind and caring. You’re funny and sweet and one hell of a singer. You can play the piano in a way that my brother only wishes he could play.” I laugh lightly having heard the amazing talent that actually exists in Neil’s fingers.

“You’re not just beautiful on the outside either,” Adam says quietly. “Your face, your body, it’s all gorgeous, but the most beautiful part of you is your heart and your soul. The way you get so passionate about things, especially your music and your friends, the people you care about the most.”

He strokes my hair silently for a moment. “There is one thing Jackson was right about though,” he whispers.

My body tenses instantly, fearful for what he’s about to say, but not having the ability to stop myself from asking. “What? What was he right about?” I whisper.

“No one will ever love you the way he did,” Adam answers. I pull back enough to look in to those bright blue eyes. “No one could ever ‘love’ you the way he did, because he didn’t. He didn’t love you, Luxe, trust me on this one. I mean, maybe in his own perverse way he thought he did, but no one would ever treat someone they love the way he treated you.”

Adam’s face goes all soft and he touches my face gently. “I’m the one who’s going to love you the right way. I’m going to love you the way you’ve always deserved to be loved. I’m going to treat you like a princess because that’s what you are. You’re like Sleeping Beauty and I’m the prince that comes to kiss you awake and it’s only my kiss that can wake you.”

Then he leans in, gently capturing my lips with his own. I sigh through my nose, letting my lips convey my gratitude. When we pull away I look him in the eye. “What if that one kiss doesn’t wake the sleeping princess?” I ask. “Then what?”

Adam smiles softly. “Then the dragon-slaying prince will just keep kissing his sleeping beauty until he gets it right,” he answers.

“Promise?” I whisper.

The blue-eyed dragon-slaying prince in front of me nods. “I promise.”

I sigh quietly, grateful for his promise. Then I reach under my shirt to undo my bra, pull it off and throw it aside. I shimmy out of my pants and they find the same fate as my bra. Adam’s jeans and t-shirt wind up on the floor on the opposite side of the bed. He pulls the blankets back and we both hunker down under the covers. I lay on my side and wiggle myself backwards until I bump in to Adam’s chest and his strong arms embrace me. I feel safe and content like this, letting my eyelids drop down over my green orbs.

Adam kisses the back of my neck gently. “I love you,” he murmurs. I can’t help the smile that comes over my face as I whisper the sentiment back. Soon enough I’m fast asleep.