Title: Call and Answer
Author: Leela (leela_cat)
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Tommy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 5x100
Content/Warning(s): AU
Author's notes: Written for glam_100, prompt #056: Communication Breakdown. Many thanks to aislinntlc for the preread.

This continues from last week's drabble-set, Call Waiting.


Ringing. Phone.

The sudden connection sends Tommy stumbling out of his dream. He fumbles for his phone, desperate to keep it from going to voice mail. He almost sends the phone flying as he yanks it free from the blanket.

"H'lo." He blinks and wets his lips with his tongue before adding, "This is Tommy," in an attempt to sound vaguely professional.

"Tommy Ratliff?" The man's voice oozes so much suspicion that Tommy's heart starts pounding, his stomach twists, and he has to sit up.

Leo mumbles a protest, and he puts his hand over her mouth.

"Yep, that's me."

.o0O0o.

"You left me a message about the audition?"

"Yeah, I got a card from this dude today, telling me to call."

"From AML?"

Hope splinters inside Tommy. He should have fucking known. None of the good shit ever comes his way. He blinks again, swipes a hand over the sudden burning in his eyes. And when the guy doesn't say anything further, he swallows and says, "That's how he signed the card."

The guy exhales loudly. "Damn it."

Words tumble through Tommy's mind, but he can't fucking say a single one of them to this guy. He bites his lip.

.o0O0o.

"Look, kid—"

Tommy's heart plummets into his gut.

"—I'm really sorry—"

His lungs seize, trapping the air inside them.

"—but these auditions are closed."

"Yeah, okay." The words sound sane enough, or at least Tommy hopes they do. He wants to slam down the phone. Or, even better, scream and yell at the guy with every single curse he learned at Catholic school. But he doesn't.

The guy's in the biz and he has Tommy's name and phone number, and Tommy can't afford to fuck things up with someone who runs auditions that matter. "It's okay. I totally get it."

.o0O0o.

But the guy doesn't fucking take the hint and shut up. "It's not that Adam wouldn't pull something like that, but he'd call me."

Adam. The name catches in Tommy's chest and sends everything slamming down into reality. His brain spins through the buttload of singers he knows with that name, but there's no one with those initials.

"Anyway, I'm really sorry you got caught up in some asshole's idea of a joke," the guy says. "I'd offer to bring you in, but..."

"Yeah, I know," Tommy pushes the words past the lump in his throat, "the auditions are closed."

.o0O0o.

Tommy flips his phone closed and clutches it to his chest. He starts curling into himself and sliding under the blanket. Fuck his fucking shit ass luck anyway.

"I'm sorry, baby." Leo is so gentle with him, holding him, that he wants to kick her.

"Just fuck it, you know?"

"I know," she says. "People suck, and not in a good way."

He pokes her. "What the hell do you know about sucking?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Putting on a strange accent, she intones, "My past is littered with strange and mysterious events that would make grown men cry."

.o0O0o.

Leo's goofing around doesn't work its usual magic. It seems to make everything worse, leaving Tommy half-convinced that this is it. That it doesn't matter how good he is. That he'll only ever hook up with bands that are going nowhere fast, be offered occasional session gigs for no-name studios that don't pay for shit.

What the fuck is he supposed to do now?

Biting his lip, he pushes his forehead into Leo's shoulder, wraps an arm around her, and hugs her hard. His other arm is trapped between them, and his phone digs into the skin over his heart.

Promises in Purple Ink continues in Bar Snacks.


.