labyrinth2015

Title: Pride (In the Name of Love)
Pairing: David/David
Wordcount: ~2,300, unbetaed
Rating: PG-13, mature themes
Summary: High school AU. Cook hates labels and grand coming-out gestures, but Arch wants to go to the ball. Featuring Disney references and a possibly too-appropriate use of the likeness of Jason Mraz.

Dedication: Happy belated birthday to

withoutmywingsx and

tristantrakand, who were born on 11 Oct, World Coming Out Day – here’s a small coming-out story for you, with my love and bestest belated birthday wishes; sorry it’s so late! It seems HS AU is Kim’s favourite thing (although it is totally not my genre!), and Tristan wanted a coming-out story featuring protective Cook (I hope I did justice to this theme, bb). I hope you both will enjoy.

Not for profit work of fiction. Will remove upon receipt of valid cease and desist letter. Fair use of U2 and Disney ™ references; title taken from amazing and apropos U2 song by the same name.

Pride (in the Name of Love)

He's in love with a boy. That's what it comes down to, in the end. He's in love with a boy whose eyes aren't grey, aren't green, whose smile is silver and gold like a U2 song.

The boy's name is David as well; he's older, though that shouldn't matter, tall and strongly built, auburn beard framing his face. When David kisses him, he has to reach up.

The other David's a college student, teaches music on the side. He subbed for Mr Robens' music class that spring, and asked the class to call him Cook (because, he said, when people asked for "Mr. Cook" he looked around for his dad, no offence to the old man).

Cook's classical piano leaves something to be desired - David knows he can play better, he's had twelve years of classical training - but Cook has his music theory down and communicates it well to the class, and knows his way around the guitar and drumset, which obviously makes him the most popular sub in the school.

And when he sings, his voice is stuff of dreams, and listening to him, David feels as if his heart’s going to burst out of his body and take flight.

His experience with emotional things comes from appropriately-rated Disney movies, but he knows the moment when he falls in love with David Cook.

It happens in class. The students are asked to write a piece of music, and though there's some talent among his classmates, he knows he's going to be outstanding at this project. He puts in a lot of effort, hours on the piano, at home - he doesn't admit it to himself, but he kind of wants to impress the charming sub.

He submits his piece, which is an original song. Cook looks it over once and then really stares at it, and asks him to come over to the piano and sing it for them right then and there.

Ordinarily he'd be a little shy about doing this in front of the whole class, but that day something fills him with a shining confidence, and he walks over to the piano and he sings to Cook's rather uninspired accompaniment. After the first few bars Cook beckons him over with a tilt of his head, and he slides in beside Cook on the piano bench and takes over, and the words of his song pour out of him as if he's never heard of vocal cord paralysis.

And then, it happens: Cook takes up the chords of David's melody, winding a perfect cadence into it with his own strong voice, his larger hands warm beside David's on the keys.

They sing together, making something effortless and bright out of his crummy little song, and, as surely as the twittering of bluebirds in Sleeping Beauty, he falls head over heels in love.

He doesn't get to see Cook after Mr Robens comes back, of course, and David's fighting his feelings, trying not to pine stupidly like someone out of his literature text.

Until the day, a week or so later, he sees Cook hanging around outside the school gates, rangy in jeans and a leather jacket that makes David shiver with an emotion he's not yet familiar with.

He thinks Cook must be waiting for one of the cheerleaders or the TAs, but, no, Cook is waiting for him.

"I heard about your voice, and I think I can help," Cook says. "Also. Now I'm not subbing for your class anymore, would you like to have coffee with me?"

The thing is this: he's always known he liked boys romantically. He doesn't know that he likes the label that comes with; he's not big on labels in general. Of course his family and the Mormon church aren't big on this label at all, let alone on having it apply to him, but that doesn't change who he is. He tried to tell his mom, fairly early on, but she'd brushed it off and said it was just a phase, and he hasn't brought it up since.

It's not something he consciously hides, or has ever really had to, anyway, since he's never had a boyfriend, and has only been kissed once, in the seventh grade, by Jonathan Durran, a serious boy who had an obvious unrequieted crush on the star quarterback. The kiss wasn't all that enjoyable for either of them, and wasn't repeated.

As a result of this, before meeting Cook, he'd figured he isn't actually that sexual a person, although that isn't a label he likes either.

After meeting Cook (and endless afternoons pressed up against each other, fast breath and tongues and skin against skin), this theory goes out of the window: he's never felt more sexual in his life, never more alive, than in this boy's arms.

Of course, such happiness doesn't go unnoticed for long. One day he's teased by some classmates, and another a girl calls him a name.

And then there's an unpleasant incident in the Starbucks across town, where a couple of guys make some crack about their holding hands, and before he can stop him Cook has walked over to them and has gotten all up in the bigger guy's face, and David has to drag him away before Cook does something they’ll all regret - it's not easy, because Cook is very angry, and David can feel the adrenaline shivering through Cook's body.

"It's nothing," he tells Cook later, holding him, trying to calm him.

Cook mutters, "Not nothing, damn it," and shudders like he's going to come apart, and David has to kiss his rage away.

Cook's label is slightly different. He'd dated a lot, guys as well as girls. He'd first had sex (with an older girlfriend) when he was 16; he's pretty comfortable with his sexuality.

"Love is love," he'd told David, shrugging, when David raised the issue of labels.

David closes his eyes: he wishes they lived in a world where labels didn’t exist.

Of course, it's the first label which David hears (behind his back, indistinctly) when the class discusses their senior prom.

It makes him pretty mad, actually, and he understands then how Cook got so angry with the guys in Starbucks, because he has to sit down for a while in his chair and breathe deeply until the redness goes away.

Then he gets this idea, of course. He's in love, he should be in a position to bring the boy he loves to his senior prom.

"Baby, I am not sure you want to come out at senior prom," is what Cook says, when David tells him his plan.

David glares at his boyfriend, sprawled loose-limbed and graceful across the long sofa. Cook lives alone in a small and surprisingly well-kept bachelor apartment near the college (surprisingly, because David kind of expected Cook to not be picky about housekeeping, but Cook is actually reasonably neat). Of course, even though David is no longer a minor, he still lives with his parents.

"I thought you'd jump at the chance to be Prince Charming at the ball," says David, a little snippily, because he does kind of have this vision of Cook in a designer tuxedo and a wrist corsage, and he's somewhat hurt that Cook isn't more enthusiastic about this.

"Never thought I was dating Cinderella," Cook says, carelessly, and this makes David so cross he storms out of the apartment.

He spends the next day thinking about labels, and not responding to Cook's text messages.

That evening, he heads over to Cook's apartment and waits for Cook to get back from class.

"Holy crap," says Cook, when he comes back and finds David sitting somewhat forlornly on the doorstep of the apartment block. Cook drops his bag, puts his arms around him and holds on tight. "Don't ever do that again, okay? You scared me so much."

"I'm sorry, it was a stupid idea, and I shouldn't have gotten so mad," David mutters into Cook's shoulder. Cook rubs his fingers up and down David's spine as if it's something rare, traces infinite circles into his back.

"No, I'm sorry. It wasn't a stupid idea. I just didn't think we needed to do this, but I should've realized how important it is to you. I love you," and there's Cook's smile, silver and gold, and David suddenly forgets about labels and Prince Charming and prom: there's nothing in the world except for Cook.

And the world doesn't return fully in the days that follow. The afternoons blur into each other in a watercolor of greens and greys, and the red of their kisses. The nights filled with whispers, with small glowing screens of love and electrons, with dreams of longing and release.

Everything else fades away, save for the feel of Cook’s hand in his when they’re together, the sound of Cook’s voice in his ear when they’re apart, and Cook's love, around him always.

David’s forgotten about his idea, which is why, when Cook shows up at the Archuleta house the evening of senior prom, David is completely taken by surprise.

"It's Mr. Cook, from the school!" his mom calls, and David nearly breaks his neck in his rush to get downstairs. Cook is standing in their living room, wearing a black tux and a pressed white shirt, a bow tie slung around his neck.

David's speechless. Cook looks like a modern-day Prince Charming, so effortlessly handsome he can hardly look at him.

Lupe says, "Mr Cook brought your suit for the senior prom, he said you decided you were going to go, after all!"

As David's jaw drops, Cook raises an eyebrow at him, holding out a suit bag on a hanger, and David snatches the hanger from him with hands that are suddenly shaking: "Oh my gosh, come upstairs and help me!"

When the door to his room is shut behind them, David pushes Cook up against his life-sized poster of Jason Mraz, and kisses him until they both can't breathe.

"You're crazy," David pants, when they break apart for air. "What are you even doing here?"

"What does it look like? David Archuleta, you will go to the ball! I did my best with the suit, but the little mice don't work for me, and I couldn't find a pumpkin, so there is no nice carriage, okay," and Cook leans back on the door and laughs breathlessly while David flails.

David has some difficulty getting into the sharp black suit, because Cook insists on helping him, and it is kind of difficult to put on pants this tight with the biggest hard-on this side of Utah.

But when he's fully dressed, at last, Cook looks at him with suspiciously bright eyes, and says, "Perfect. Ugly stepsisters beware."

David grins, and feels the blush rise to his hairline.

Cook reaches into his pocket and pulls out orchids. "The mice brought you this, too," he says, and David can't believe his boyfriend actually bought him an over-the-top Cinderella-like wrist corsage.

To say thank you, and to stop himself from crying, he pushes Cook back against the door (and Jason) again, and does his darndest to kiss Cook's face right off.

"Don't you look nice," says Lupe, when David and Cook eventually make their way downstairs.

David realizes from her bright company manner that she thinks Cook has come on school business or something, to chaperone David to the prom since David has no date tonight.

And Cook is of course going along with this, because he's not a fan of labels or grand outing gestures, but David is tired of having to pretend. He's in love with this boy, and he wants everyone to know it, even (especially) the family he's so much a part of.

So he takes Cook's hand, long calloused fingers winding so familiarly between his, and watches as shock and disbelief war with the expression of unconditional love on his mom's face.

Holding Cook by the hand, he leans in to kiss her cheek, and she closes her eyes.

"I love you," he whispers in her ear. "Nothing's changed."

She nods helplessly, can't look at him.

"I'll have him back by his curfew, Mrs. Archuleta," Cook says softly.

He hears her whisper after them, "Go with God," very quietly, and his mom’s benediction surrounds them both as they walk hand in hand out into the night.

They don't say much to each other as they drive along the tree-lined streets in Cook's old Accord. The school's lit up in the distance like a fairy-tale castle. David's heart is pounding.

"We don't have to do this, babe." Cook says, finally. "Just say the word, I'll aim this car at the border. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone."

"I know I don't." David’s voice is soft; in his head, he hears love is love. "But I want to do this. I don't care about labels, or explaining, or making a stand, even. It’s just - I'm in love with you, and I want to take you to my prom."

"Okay, Cinderella," Cook murmurs, and pulls into the school car park. "You lead, I'll follow."

The corridors of the school look different at night, hung with streamers and balloons. Like a whole different country. He knows his palm is sweating a little against Cook's, but he holds on like it's the one true thing in the world.

They come to a halt outside the double doors leading into the converted gymnasium. A sparkly Disneyland-like banner hangs over them. Mr Robens, the music master, is on chaperone duty at the door. He smiles a little to see their joined fingers.

A U2 song drifts from the impromptu ballroom: the Edge's jangly guitar, Bono's evocative voice, diamonds and a ring of gold, like all he'll ever want is Cook.

"Are we ready to do this?" Cook asks, softly, at his side.

David takes a deep breath.

In his mind, he sees the confetti falling, knows love is what matters. Knows that his teachers and classmates should see this at the last, and even if they don't, that doesn’t change anything, it doesn't change love.

"With you? Always," he says, and Cook smiles.

It happens this way: David steps through the doors proudly, holding his boy by the hand.

-> Sequel: The Promises We Make