labyrinth2015 | Romance Fic 5: Prequel

labyrinth2015

From Avalanche, You Can Chapter One: “[Cook] remembers, too, as if it were yesterday, the single kiss they'd shared, in the darkness beyond the stage lights, still pumped up from the adrenaline, chaste and almost brotherly, and full of love.”

Title: Zero Gravity, Hero

Pairing: David/David
Rating: PG-13

Summary: The boys in Manila, at the Concert of Epic.

Note: This is a prequel to Avalanche, You Can.

Disclaimer: Not-for-profit absolute work of fiction; fair use of any copyright material; no assertions or imputations as to the actual, real-world characters or inclinations of any living individuals intended. Picture, if you will, said individuals as mere actors in this fic. Will remove this without prejudice if a cease and desist notice is issued.

Preamble: This is for the delectable and ridiculously talented duo,epicflailer and hopefulgenius. I'd already linked to Meg's wonderful Palahniuk-esque concert fic, which echoes you will find in here, and Nat's EPIC concert recap to end all recaps, which totally inspired this. Naturally, all errors remain mine.

[I've also taken some liberties with song chronology - initially, the Cook song I picked was in fact Life on the Moon, which was further down Cook's set list; but thought Heroes was totally a better match for ZeroG (they use the same imagery, and many of the same key words - gravity, fly, clouds, etc).]

Prequel: Zero Gravity, Hero

"...It's zero gravity/And I'm not going to come down..."

They've had the best time in the Philippines, but it's been a long haul - Cook has had what seems like an endless string of interviews and appearances - although the fans have been amazing and warm and consummately polite; even those who'd stalked his band members around the hotel had done so so sweetly and courteously that even Neal had nothing but the nicest things to say about them.

And all the activity in these past few days has finally come down to this single place, this one-night-only performance on the massive stage in the Mall of Asia, in front of 43,000 people, and where he stands in the wings of the stage, they're making so much noise he can hardly hear himself think -- making noise for David Archuleta, whose set was going full steam ahead like a rocket or a shooting star, to mix a couple of metaphors, and who was in such phenomenal voice as had to be heard to be believed.

Cook doesn’t believe how much sheer fun he's had hanging out with Archuleta again, this past week - he hadn't spent much time with Archie since Idol last year and then the US tour, and it has been beyond great. The fucking promoters made no sense whatsoever; for some reason they were fine with the Davids doing joint press and interviews for Manila, but they weren't supposed to sing duets at the concert; it was insane. His management seemed to agree, though, and he supposes Archie's people did, too; or maybe it was their management's idea, whatever, but it was so not his and if he had been less fuzzy from jet-lag when he'd gotten off the airplane he would have tried to speak to the promoters' reps to give them a piece of his mind.

Well, jet-lagged, and somewhat too busy catching up with Archuleta to do much else, anyway. Cook had been right there when Archie had blossomed from the wide-eyed boy wonder to the confident young man that had stood shoulder to shoulder with him on that Idol final stage; and Archie had been the first person he'd touched, after Ryan had called his name and his life had changed inextricably and forever. Archie would always be part of him, thanks to those shared weeks, and the months on tour beyond, and it was beyond amazing to see the little changes and the big ones --

-- "You've grown!" Cook had said, and opened his arms, and Archie had dropped his bag and stepped into his embrace.

"You've...gotten thinner?" Archie responded, grimacing when Cook hugged him fiercely (but kind of hugging back).

"You're just being nice," Cook had snorted, while their reps had all totally snickered, the assholes, and Archie had made a face and said, “But it’s true!” --

…And Archie hadn’t lost his adorable habit of rambling during interviews either, but he was substantially more assured now, and really quite articulate, and had given this awesome radio interview where someone had asked him to do a David Cook impression, and he had actually sung two lines of Light On, and Cook had almost fallen over, that’s how good Archie had sounded, singing Cook’s song about love, and yearning, and holding out a light so that a lover could find his way home in the darkness.

And tonight, on this stage, Cook can’t even believe his eyes, because apparently, this is David Archuleta: this amazing, assured young man who had bounded straight into his set, and swaggered as if he owned the stage, and the audience is going crazy, and there's a sheer wall of sound that batters them all, and Archie’s lush, effortless vocals soar above the noise and go crashing into the night sky, and the stars, and the luster of a million flashlights and mobile phones recording this incredible performance.

Archie’s on fire tonight, and it's a real eye-opener because Cook has never seen him like this; lean body working a ridiculously alluring combination of blue shirt, skinny black tie and tight black trousers, he’s a blur of constant motion, rivulets of sweat running off him, the sheer, gorgeous sound of his voice pouring out of him like relentless waves of light. He’s holding his hand out to the screaming girls in the front row, pointing to the ones in the back, and some of them are crying and some need to be held up by their friends, and damn if Cook isn’t completely floored by how suddenly, preposterously hot the kid is, and it's not just the muggy heat in this country so many miles from home.

And he doesn't even want to think about how amazing and light he’s felt this entire week, as if Archie had turned all his lows to highs; how natural it was, to have Archie by his side again, after such a long time away.

So Archie finishes Touch My Hand and then My Hands, and Cook belatedly realises he's been dancing like a complete idiot and hopes nobody’s managed to get video of him making an ass of himself because Cook clearly can't dance to save his life, and Archie giggles and tells the crowd hello and that he loves them again, which makes them shriek with glee, and then he says, "I'd, um, like to do this song that’s not on my album, but we might make it our next single, you know, if you guys like it."

The Archuleta band start to play this pulsing riff, and Archie continues, "So, this song, it's about how things are when you're with someone you love."

And then, he starts to sing, and just like that, Cook feels the ground shift under his feet.

"Tell me what you did to me,
Just there beneath my feet.
Didn't even notice we were miles above the ground.
I'm not afraid of heights,
We crashed into the sky,
Didn't know that I could feel the way that I do now.
I'm not asking for an explanation,
All I know is that you take me away,
And you show me how to fly."

Cook's heard this song before, obviously; Archie’s done it in concerts before and he thinks Archie sent it to him earlier this year in an iTunes download. But he's never heard Archie sing it before like this, suddenly all grown-up and yearning, and like someone who had been disillusioned in the lists of love, but who has suddenly discovered what it was like to be totally and utterly swept off his feet, and to be taught to fly.

And then, rather than singing and pointing into the crowd, Archie is looking sideways, and Cook could have sworn he's singing to him, as intimately as if he'd been whispering anything at all, as if there had just been the two of them on that stage:

"Nothing brings me down,
When you're around.
It's like zero gravity.
The world just disappears when you're here,
It's zero gravity."

Cook can't look away from Archie's mouth, and feels himself blushing like a teenager (and it’s actually kind of ridiculous, as he doesn't think he'd ever done much blushing even as a teenager, and, apropos of nothing, he wonders whether this is how Archie's young teenage fanbase, who is so adorably screaming and crying now, feels around him all the time).

He doesn't understand what it is about Archuleta tonight, of all nights; how it is that he improbably feels light on his feet, as if he's left the ground with Archie and they're flying above the crowd and this stage and this night, the edges of reality fading away.

"When things get messed up,
You lift my head up,
I get lost in the clouds.
There's no sense of time with you and I,
It's zero gravity."

Cook's throat is dry, and it's not because of the humidity. He feels giddy and it's not due to fatigue. It's pure Archuleta, and he's becoming lightheaded, inhaling David's atmosphere. There are suddenly no shades of grey, on this wide stage: there's something barrelling towards him like a bullet, and everything is in sharp focus, all white and black, and Archie is singing, "Not gonna analyze and try to fight it, Don't even care if it makes no sense at all, Cause with you I can fly."

Something's coming. Hard and fast, and it's the only way Cook knows how to fall.

*

David drinks a bottle of water and does his vocal exercises and cooling-down routine, but everywhere backstage is shaking with the sound of Cook's set, and after a while he wanders back to the wings of the stage to watch.

Cook is, well, incredible, as always, with his voice and velvet growl, bantering with the crowd in a black T and jeans, and his somewhat scary but cool band members are in terrific form, and between them they make it so easy for Archie to just drift away on the music they played: from The World I Know (which David knows from Idol, of course), then Mr Sensitive (which David totally adores so much), and then Life on the Moon (which he's always thought was kind of about him and Cook, but he has obviously never said this to Cook, because it would be sort of, he doesn’t know, like “Hey, Cook, isn’t this song about us?”, gosh, how rude, right?).

Anyway, he can't imagine being here without Cook, of course; it was so beyond amazing to be with him here in Manila, and now to be on this stage watching him, and all of them, doing their thing, was just so awesome, and the audience tonight was completely in tune with everyone, and making just the most noise imaginable, oh my gosh!

Archie admires Cook's easy, charming way with the crowd, the backward slant of him, rocking out with his white guitar at first, then pressing his body up against the mic stand in his best lady-killing stance, oh my gosh; he'd forgotten how tight Cook liked to wear his jeans, but clearly Cook's fans had not forgotten, ha ha.

"So," says Cook, eventually, after totally killing everyone with Always Be My Baby, "I guess you guys enjoyed Archie's set just now; and, you know, I also thought it was just phenomenal."

David blushes, and the crowd screams his name, obligingly: he thinks he hears a particularly noisy bunch of girls on the left of the front row squeal that they want to marry him; he hopes Cook doesn't think his fans are embarrassing (although, come to think of it, Cook's fans sometimes shriek even more embarrassing things about Cook). Cook laughs at the "Marry me, Archie!", tilts his head to look over at Archie where he's standing at the side of the stage, and gives him his trademark David Cook smirk.

"And so I got to thinking, Archie and I, we've spent so much time together on Idol, it stands to reason that some of our songs mirror each other," Cook shrugs, grinning. "It's never struck me until tonight, but I actually also have a song about learning to fly."

Everyone starts shrieking their faces off, of course, and Cook's band throws down, guitars screaming, drums going crazy, and Cook's powerful, gravelly vocals rise up out of the noise:

"As the sun goes down in front of me
It reminds of me of where I want to be
With you and you alone..."

And it's kind of weird, but Cook keeps looking sidelong at him; although Cook's body is facing the audience, his head is cocked to one side and his dark gaze is kind of fixed on Arch's, and rather than Cook's eyes telling him, "Hey, see how my song is totally like your song!", they seem to actually be saying this, directly to him:

"Hold me in like you were made for me
I’m losing faith in gravity
I just need to let you know
And I just need to let you know..."

And then Cook swings back around and the band launch full throttle into the chorus, and Neal steps up to the mic and his evocative voice blends with Cook's:

"I’m not going to come down
Down off of these clouds
All these heroes come and go
But you’re still standing
You teach me to rise up
To open my eyes up
All these heroes come and go
But you’re still standing..."

Archie finds himself drawn to the edge of Neal and Cook's shared spotlight. There is the weirdest sensation in his stomach, as if his feet have suddenly, actually, left the ground. Cook is obviously looking at Neal when he sings, because, um, duet, but when Neal takes a step back after the chorus, and Cook heads into the next verse, he sings, "I know you’ll make it right, You’re all I need tonight", and his face scrunches up when he hits that glory note on the end of that line, and he inclines his head towards where Archie's standing, and, yes, the dizzying, airy feeling in Archie's stomach is definitely nothing he's ever felt before.

Then Cook opens his arms wide, and his voice opens up as well, and he's flying so high: "I believe that you can save me, And you’ll never let me fall..."

And he opens his eyes after the high note and looks over at Archie, the merest glance, but just like that, DArch feels like he belongs up in the clouds with Cook, and he'll never get down again.

*

Cook is sweating profusely, his heart is pounding, and there's that fresh grief, that ache, that he feels like a physical pain throughout his body, interlacing dry and bittersweet with the adrenaline and the earth-shaking, ecstatic connection with the audience, and he can still almost see the single small kiss he'd sent up to the heavens, glowing in the night sky. But he's got it together, he's holding himself together, and his bandmates are holding him up with the music that's pouring out of their instruments and filling the stage with love and with pulsating, throbbing light.

Finally, they reach the anthemic chant at the end, and that's the cue for that one brief duet that he was permitted with Arch, and he lifts his hand and hollers, "Give it up for David Archuleta! He's my best friend!"

And Archie takes to the stage in two bounds, to stand by his side, and Cook can feel his friend's small strong body waving to the singing chant, and hear Archie's lush, gorgeous voice twining with his and then lifting in breathy runs above the melody, above the wall of sound.

And then Cook stops singing and turns the mic to the crowd, and, oh God, 40,000 people are singing his song at the top of their lungs, and Cook's heart is filled to brimming with sudden, blinding light, and his throat closes, and he's sinking to his knees in the overwhelming rush, too full of this moment for words.

Finally, he gathers himself, wipes his eyes with his hands, and climbs to his feet. And David's beside him, his smile like a beacon under the stage lights, and Cook catches his friend in his arms as if he means for them both to take flight, as if he never means to let Archie go, although, of course, eventually he does.

The crowd is screaming so loudly now the entire stage feels like it's going to come apart, and all Cook's body is filled with the sound, from his flesh down to his very bones; he's never felt this alive, this connected to all the ecstasy and aching bittersweet pain and the love of tens of thousands of people. Finally, they're leaving the stage, high on adrenaline, caught up in a relentless wave of pure noise and that sheer, pulsing love; he hooks an arm around Archie's shoulders as he walks, Arch's bright, excited chatter in his ear, and with his friend in his arms he feels as if he's walking on air.

Which is why, when they take a sudden wrong turn together backstage on the way to their dressing rooms, and blunder into a dark corner, where there is a lot of large equipment and not a lot of light, and Archie bumps into him, giggling a little at their shared directional stupidity, and turns his smiling face up to Cook's, there's nothing in the world to be done except to draw Arch closer and kiss him on the mouth, as sweetly and as naturally as breathing.

And they stand there beyond the stage lights, and Arch is kissing him back, so gently, and it's as if they've achieved final lift-off, the dark and the night wind rushing around them, buffeting them and catching in their hair and clothes, and Cook doesn't ever want to come down from this moment, where it seems they've managed at long last to defy the laws of gravity.

Eventually, though, the sounds around them get louder: equipment being moved moved from the stage, of the techs and roadies and the guys from both their bands clomping around backstage somewhere, and Cook and Archie step away from this first and final kiss.

Archie is smiling again, brightly enough to light their way home; he's so calm and beautiful that Cook can hardly look at him. "Um, what was that for?" he murmurs, and Cook, whose brain has only just moved into the realm of what the fuck are we doing?, just can't stop laughing.

"Archuleta, you're going to be the death of me." He strokes the back of Archie's neck, his shoulders, breathes in the pure, heady smell of his friend's skin. "This, tonight, was all just so incredible, I can't even begin to say. And you, you're my hero, you know? Always. Thank you so much for being here."

"Cook, that..." Archie struggles for the words, and finally settles on, "You're my hero, too. You always have been, gosh, always."

And for once Cook stays silent, and holds this moment to his heart, and as the world begins to turn again and to draw them back into its inexorable gravitational pull (Archie's manager and Andy find them almost at the same time and everyone is suddenly talking at once, "There you two are, they're waiting for you in the press room!" and "Archie, geez, we thought you must've walked him into a wall!").

And though he allows them to shepherd Arch and him back out to the lights and the flashing cameras and the bright shiny interviewers' faces, he feels as though his feet never quite touch the ground.

The End (for now...)

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OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH. OH MY GOSH. OKAY, FIRST OF ALL, NEW CHAPTER ASDLIWKENDFEWIRGJKNREGJK. SECOND OF ALL, DEDICATION!!!!!!11111 HOW - IDEK, YOU GUYS, YOU'RE JUST SO RIDICULOUSLY SWEET AND ASOFJSRGER, STEPPING OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW BUT I WILL BE BACK TO READ AND FLAIL LATER!!!

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...though we share the same city, and feel the same sun...

Romance Fic 5: Prequel

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