Future Unknown: All The Different Ways
[Pre-slash] [American Idol] [David Archuleta/David Cook] [PG-13]
So I am just going to steal what my brilliant wife, hopefulgenius, said to summarize this 'verse: this is something Nat and I -- sort of stumbled upon, really, I can't even remember how. It was the idea to put the Davids in a television show, so. We did. She wrote the first (magnificently breathtakingly amazing) part, which can be found here, and I kind of adore it so much I want to hand the reins of the whole AU over to her. But, um, before I do, I promised her a reward for, like, FINISHING HER FINALS (\o/ \o/ \o/) and also getting an award for English (fuck, baby, you are totally a genius, idc what you say) so this is a continuation of sorts. ILU, BABY. FOREVER AND ALWAYS. ♥ ♥ ♥
Future Unknown: All The Different Ways
PREVIOUSLY:
David is a lot of things, but 'reality TV fan' isn't one of them. Which, yeah, he knows, big surprise.
He'd probably gotten a dozen calls from his mom alone the night before they'd moved into the apartment. "Honey," she'd sighed, "America loves you, but I don't know if they love you enough for this."
David's pretty sure that's code for try not to embarrass your mother on national TV, which he was more or less confident of handling at first. See, David hadn't expected to be in the apartment long. He'd only agreed to the whole thing for two reasons: one, Archie (and David makes no secret of the fact that if 19E had pitched anyone else as his roommate, he would've flat-out refused to do it, regardless of whether or not term number six hundred and fifty-four c - or any other term - in his contact allowed him that right), and two, he'd figured the show was going to be a complete flop (because twenty-five minutes of ex-Idol contestants interacting in a confined space isn't exactly the Discovery Channel).
"I give it two episodes, tops," David says to Archie in a stage whisper, while they're having lunch the day before they're slated to start filming.
"Two?" Archie says, faintly, wearing his usual caught-in-the-headlights expression. David doesn't realize how much he's missed till it's gone again, and Archie says, "I, um, kind of hope no one watches it so we can go home."
David laughs so hard he can barely breathe, but then the ratings for their first episode come in, and David nearly does away with breathing altogether. "Fuck," David says.
Archie's eyes are wide as he leans into whisper, one hand clamped over his mic so the crew doesn't pick it up, "I think I heard them talking about, um, about a season 2?"
THIS WEEK:
"All right," someone - it sounds like Jared, unit one cameraman - shouts, above the opening chords to Crazy Train, which is blasting out of their TV speakers. "I think that's a wrap, guys."
Archie looks up from his guitar
("One of these days, I'm gonna get you on that mic," David had said, threateningly, as Archie set the controllers up, and Archie had said, "oh my gosh, no, you laughed at me forever last time, no," and David had almost fallen off his seat again, laughing at the memory, because Archie scrambling for breath during the first verse of No Sleep Till Brooklyn was easily the funniest thing he's ever heard.)
and David hits 'pause' and sticks a drumstick behind his ear. "Already?" he asks, aiming a sideways grin in Archie's direction. "You're going to miss Archie's favorite song. Again."
"Oh my gosh, Cook!" Archie protests. His ears are practically glowing as David stifles a grin. "This song is totally hard! And, whatever, we've only failed twice anyway!"
"Yeah, well, keep practicing," Jared says, grinning, as he starts to pack up his equipment. "Or, if you want your victory on camera, wait till tomorrow night to kick ass."
David pauses to catch his drumstick mid-twirl, and raises an eyebrow. "Tomorrow night?" he asks, above Archie's, "Is it, um, oh my gosh, are we going camping?"
"Your managers didn't tell you?" Jared says. "We're setting up night cameras in the house."
"Even in the bedrooms?" David asks, and Jared nods. "Jesus."
There's a second of silence, and then Archie says, "...um, but - why?"
David meets Jared's eye over the equipment, and, despite the fact that the whole situation is starting to make him feel like he's going to have to take up monkhood to survive, he grins. "They're onto you, man," he says. "It's time to capture evidence of you singing in your sleep."
"Oh," Archie says, and blushes furiously. "That's, um, that's inconvenient."
Jared nearly knocks over his camera laughing, and it takes serious restraint for David not to do the same.
"Oh my gosh!" Archie objects. "I just said - what is so funny?"
It takes about forty-five minutes for the crew to completely vacate the apartment. David slouches in his seat after they're gone, still twirling one of his drumsticks. "This feels sacrilegious," he announces, after a second, and Archie looks up. "We should do something to commemorate our last night of freedom."
"Um," Archie says, turning to the TV set kind of hopefully, "We could pass Crazy Train?"
David looks around the house - the empty, camera-less house, and strokes his chin thoughtfully. "We could do that," he agrees, watching as Archie breaks into a grin, before adding, "But only if we do this the Tom Cruise way."
"The what?" Archie says. "How do you know if Tom Cruise - oh my - wait, Cook, why are you taking your pants off, oh my heck--"
David totally takes them off, and he tackles Archie to the ground after that, already tugging at his jeans. Archie goes down with a yelp of protest, limbs flailing every which way, and all David takes is an elbow to the cheek before he's got Archie's jeans yanked down to his knees.
"Dangit!" Archie wheezes, winded, as he tries to squirm his way out of David's grip. "Oh my gosh, Cook, stop!"
"So you can put your jeans on again?" David pants. "Yeah, no."
It takes another couple of minutes of roughhousing (Archie's hands are everywhere, his hair, his t-shirt, his chest - Jesus, the kid's a scrappy fighter) for David to find just the right angle to slip Archie's jeans off the rest of the way. "Aha!" he trills, and tosses the jeans over into a corner of the room.
"Oh my gosh!" Archie moans, and throws one arm over his eyes. "Cook! This is totally embarrassing!"
"Hey," David grins. "Nothing America hasn't already seen, right?"
David can practically see the blush work its way up Archie's neck. "That was way different!" Archie protests, but David doesn't let up, and finally, Archie sighs and lets his arm drop. "Fine," he says. "But, like, you are so not telling anyone about this!"
Archie's hair is tousled, and his eyes are so bright, the color dusting his cheeks with a gentle glow. David's thigh brushes up against Archie's when he shifts, and David feels his laugh catch in his throat. He blinks; it takes more strength than he knew he possessed to tear himself away. Fuck.
"You've got yourself a deal, Archuleta," he hears himself say, finally, as he pushes to his feet. It doesn't come out strangled at all. "Now let's kick some Osbourne butt."
They take, like, thirteen tries to pass the song - David laughs at Archie the first four times they run through it, and then stops when he has to concentrate on getting his arms to stop fucking protesting the workout - and David is exhausted, after. He's actually perspiring, his t-shirt clinging to him uncomfortably, and he peels it off before the next song starts.
"We are never doing that song again," he tells Archie, as he wipes his face with his shirt and tosses it over his shoulder. He taps absently at the yellow drum as the first notes to Eye of the Tiger begin to roll out onscreen. Suddenly the crowd is booing at them, and it takes a second for David to realize that Archie isn't playing.
"Arch?" David says.
"What?" Archie says, sounding distracted, and then adds, "Oh my gosh!"
Suddenly the guitar kicks into life -- except it's whining, screeching in protest, because Archie isn't hitting any of the notes.
When David turns around, Archie's flushing, hard, head bent low as he fiddles with the guitar. He's still missing all his notes. David watches him for a second, and when he hears the telltale roar of failure, raises an eyebrow and says, "You okay?"
"Um," Archie says. He's still looking at his guitar. "Yeah. Yes. I think so?"
"Uh," David echoes. "Okay."
"Okay," Archie repeats. And then he says, brightly, "It's totally getting cold so I should, um - I'll get you a shirt!" He aims a smile in David's general direction, and practically flees into his room.
David stares after him, for a second, and then totally cracks up.
He collapses onto the couch, still laughing, and falls asleep waiting for Archie to come back with a clean shirt.
David wakes up the next morning to the smell of coffee and frying bacon. He groans as he sits up and scrubs a hand over his face. The room is all packed up, guitar hero kit stored neatly away, his discarded clothing nowhere in sight.
Archie appears around the kitchen doorway. "Morning, Cook!" he says, beaming as he comes over to set a cup of coffee down on the living room table. "The crew's going to be here soon."
"Yes, Mother," David says, taking the coffee with a grateful sigh. He reaches up to ruffle Archie's hair when Archie smiles fondly down at him, grinning when Archie ducks away with a squawk. "Are you making toast and eggs, too?"
"Oh my gosh, do I look like Carly?" Archie protests, as he marches back into the kitchen. David hides his smile in his mug. A moment later, Archie peeks his head back out. "Um, do you want your eggs scrambled?"
David laughs, again, and for a second, it feels a lot like it used to on Idol, back when the music was more important than the games and the publicity. When his life wasn't this constant whirlwind of movement.
It's pretty perfect.
They spend a couple of hours noodling on their guitars when the crew comes in, confined to their living room while Bill, the on-site supervisor, directs the installation of the cameras in their bedroom. Then David devotes the rest of his day to a conference call with someone from Singapore, while Archie wanders off around the house to inspect the new cameras. Occasionally, David's distracted from his meeting by the sound of Dean, unit 2 cameraman, laughing at something Archie says, too indistinct to make out.
It's a bit of a relief to realize how much more relaxed Archie is with the idea of being on a reality TV show now.
"The life of a celebrity," David says, to Jared's camera, with a grin. "If we're not practicing our craft, we're crunching numbers with accountants and financial advisers. Pretty glamorous, huh?"
The call runs so long that David's pretty sure any material they use from today's shoot will have to be Archie-centric, and it's so late by the time he's done that the crew's already left, and Archie's already come over to mouth, "Goodnight, don't work too late," at him, and disappeared into his bedroom.
David checks on him before he heads to bed himself. Archie's curled up on his side, one arm pillowed under his head, taking up barely a fraction of the bed, which looks like it could swallow him whole. David stands in the doorway for another moment, thinking tomorrow is another day--
And then Archie starts to sing.
David breathes out a laugh, and creeps closer. He catches something about boiled eggs and the night, a little sigh-hum of melody, and he's grinning as tip-toes up to the camera. He's done enough V-logs that he knows to stand to a side when he points over his shoulder at Archie, and whispers, "He's totally singing. Your evidence, ladies and gentlemen."
He glances briefly over at Archie, then looks back at the camera with a shake of the head. "Figures he's pitch-perfect even when he's asleep."
Which, fuck, David thinks, with a resigned grin, he wishes he was even a little bit surprised.
EPISODE RECAP: HERE.
So I am just going to steal what my brilliant wife, hopefulgenius, said to summarize this 'verse: this is something Nat and I -- sort of stumbled upon, really, I can't even remember how. It was the idea to put the Davids in a television show, so. We did. She wrote the first (magnificently breathtakingly amazing) part, which can be found here, and I kind of adore it so much I want to hand the reins of the whole AU over to her. But, um, before I do, I promised her a reward for, like, FINISHING HER FINALS (\o/ \o/ \o/) and also getting an award for English (fuck, baby, you are totally a genius, idc what you say) so this is a continuation of sorts. ILU, BABY. FOREVER AND ALWAYS. ♥ ♥ ♥
Future Unknown: All The Different Ways
PREVIOUSLY:
David is a lot of things, but 'reality TV fan' isn't one of them. Which, yeah, he knows, big surprise.
He'd probably gotten a dozen calls from his mom alone the night before they'd moved into the apartment. "Honey," she'd sighed, "America loves you, but I don't know if they love you enough for this."
David's pretty sure that's code for try not to embarrass your mother on national TV, which he was more or less confident of handling at first. See, David hadn't expected to be in the apartment long. He'd only agreed to the whole thing for two reasons: one, Archie (and David makes no secret of the fact that if 19E had pitched anyone else as his roommate, he would've flat-out refused to do it, regardless of whether or not term number six hundred and fifty-four c - or any other term - in his contact allowed him that right), and two, he'd figured the show was going to be a complete flop (because twenty-five minutes of ex-Idol contestants interacting in a confined space isn't exactly the Discovery Channel).
"I give it two episodes, tops," David says to Archie in a stage whisper, while they're having lunch the day before they're slated to start filming.
"Two?" Archie says, faintly, wearing his usual caught-in-the-headlights expression. David doesn't realize how much he's missed till it's gone again, and Archie says, "I, um, kind of hope no one watches it so we can go home."
David laughs so hard he can barely breathe, but then the ratings for their first episode come in, and David nearly does away with breathing altogether. "Fuck," David says.
Archie's eyes are wide as he leans into whisper, one hand clamped over his mic so the crew doesn't pick it up, "I think I heard them talking about, um, about a season 2?"
THIS WEEK:
"All right," someone - it sounds like Jared, unit one cameraman - shouts, above the opening chords to Crazy Train, which is blasting out of their TV speakers. "I think that's a wrap, guys."
Archie looks up from his guitar
("One of these days, I'm gonna get you on that mic," David had said, threateningly, as Archie set the controllers up, and Archie had said, "oh my gosh, no, you laughed at me forever last time, no," and David had almost fallen off his seat again, laughing at the memory, because Archie scrambling for breath during the first verse of No Sleep Till Brooklyn was easily the funniest thing he's ever heard.)
and David hits 'pause' and sticks a drumstick behind his ear. "Already?" he asks, aiming a sideways grin in Archie's direction. "You're going to miss Archie's favorite song. Again."
"Oh my gosh, Cook!" Archie protests. His ears are practically glowing as David stifles a grin. "This song is totally hard! And, whatever, we've only failed twice anyway!"
"Yeah, well, keep practicing," Jared says, grinning, as he starts to pack up his equipment. "Or, if you want your victory on camera, wait till tomorrow night to kick ass."
David pauses to catch his drumstick mid-twirl, and raises an eyebrow. "Tomorrow night?" he asks, above Archie's, "Is it, um, oh my gosh, are we going camping?"
"Your managers didn't tell you?" Jared says. "We're setting up night cameras in the house."
"Even in the bedrooms?" David asks, and Jared nods. "Jesus."
There's a second of silence, and then Archie says, "...um, but - why?"
David meets Jared's eye over the equipment, and, despite the fact that the whole situation is starting to make him feel like he's going to have to take up monkhood to survive, he grins. "They're onto you, man," he says. "It's time to capture evidence of you singing in your sleep."
"Oh," Archie says, and blushes furiously. "That's, um, that's inconvenient."
Jared nearly knocks over his camera laughing, and it takes serious restraint for David not to do the same.
"Oh my gosh!" Archie objects. "I just said - what is so funny?"
It takes about forty-five minutes for the crew to completely vacate the apartment. David slouches in his seat after they're gone, still twirling one of his drumsticks. "This feels sacrilegious," he announces, after a second, and Archie looks up. "We should do something to commemorate our last night of freedom."
"Um," Archie says, turning to the TV set kind of hopefully, "We could pass Crazy Train?"
David looks around the house - the empty, camera-less house, and strokes his chin thoughtfully. "We could do that," he agrees, watching as Archie breaks into a grin, before adding, "But only if we do this the Tom Cruise way."
"The what?" Archie says. "How do you know if Tom Cruise - oh my - wait, Cook, why are you taking your pants off, oh my heck--"
David totally takes them off, and he tackles Archie to the ground after that, already tugging at his jeans. Archie goes down with a yelp of protest, limbs flailing every which way, and all David takes is an elbow to the cheek before he's got Archie's jeans yanked down to his knees.
"Dangit!" Archie wheezes, winded, as he tries to squirm his way out of David's grip. "Oh my gosh, Cook, stop!"
"So you can put your jeans on again?" David pants. "Yeah, no."
It takes another couple of minutes of roughhousing (Archie's hands are everywhere, his hair, his t-shirt, his chest - Jesus, the kid's a scrappy fighter) for David to find just the right angle to slip Archie's jeans off the rest of the way. "Aha!" he trills, and tosses the jeans over into a corner of the room.
"Oh my gosh!" Archie moans, and throws one arm over his eyes. "Cook! This is totally embarrassing!"
"Hey," David grins. "Nothing America hasn't already seen, right?"
David can practically see the blush work its way up Archie's neck. "That was way different!" Archie protests, but David doesn't let up, and finally, Archie sighs and lets his arm drop. "Fine," he says. "But, like, you are so not telling anyone about this!"
Archie's hair is tousled, and his eyes are so bright, the color dusting his cheeks with a gentle glow. David's thigh brushes up against Archie's when he shifts, and David feels his laugh catch in his throat. He blinks; it takes more strength than he knew he possessed to tear himself away. Fuck.
"You've got yourself a deal, Archuleta," he hears himself say, finally, as he pushes to his feet. It doesn't come out strangled at all. "Now let's kick some Osbourne butt."
They take, like, thirteen tries to pass the song - David laughs at Archie the first four times they run through it, and then stops when he has to concentrate on getting his arms to stop fucking protesting the workout - and David is exhausted, after. He's actually perspiring, his t-shirt clinging to him uncomfortably, and he peels it off before the next song starts.
"We are never doing that song again," he tells Archie, as he wipes his face with his shirt and tosses it over his shoulder. He taps absently at the yellow drum as the first notes to Eye of the Tiger begin to roll out onscreen. Suddenly the crowd is booing at them, and it takes a second for David to realize that Archie isn't playing.
"Arch?" David says.
"What?" Archie says, sounding distracted, and then adds, "Oh my gosh!"
Suddenly the guitar kicks into life -- except it's whining, screeching in protest, because Archie isn't hitting any of the notes.
When David turns around, Archie's flushing, hard, head bent low as he fiddles with the guitar. He's still missing all his notes. David watches him for a second, and when he hears the telltale roar of failure, raises an eyebrow and says, "You okay?"
"Um," Archie says. He's still looking at his guitar. "Yeah. Yes. I think so?"
"Uh," David echoes. "Okay."
"Okay," Archie repeats. And then he says, brightly, "It's totally getting cold so I should, um - I'll get you a shirt!" He aims a smile in David's general direction, and practically flees into his room.
David stares after him, for a second, and then totally cracks up.
He collapses onto the couch, still laughing, and falls asleep waiting for Archie to come back with a clean shirt.
David wakes up the next morning to the smell of coffee and frying bacon. He groans as he sits up and scrubs a hand over his face. The room is all packed up, guitar hero kit stored neatly away, his discarded clothing nowhere in sight.
Archie appears around the kitchen doorway. "Morning, Cook!" he says, beaming as he comes over to set a cup of coffee down on the living room table. "The crew's going to be here soon."
"Yes, Mother," David says, taking the coffee with a grateful sigh. He reaches up to ruffle Archie's hair when Archie smiles fondly down at him, grinning when Archie ducks away with a squawk. "Are you making toast and eggs, too?"
"Oh my gosh, do I look like Carly?" Archie protests, as he marches back into the kitchen. David hides his smile in his mug. A moment later, Archie peeks his head back out. "Um, do you want your eggs scrambled?"
David laughs, again, and for a second, it feels a lot like it used to on Idol, back when the music was more important than the games and the publicity. When his life wasn't this constant whirlwind of movement.
It's pretty perfect.
They spend a couple of hours noodling on their guitars when the crew comes in, confined to their living room while Bill, the on-site supervisor, directs the installation of the cameras in their bedroom. Then David devotes the rest of his day to a conference call with someone from Singapore, while Archie wanders off around the house to inspect the new cameras. Occasionally, David's distracted from his meeting by the sound of Dean, unit 2 cameraman, laughing at something Archie says, too indistinct to make out.
It's a bit of a relief to realize how much more relaxed Archie is with the idea of being on a reality TV show now.
"The life of a celebrity," David says, to Jared's camera, with a grin. "If we're not practicing our craft, we're crunching numbers with accountants and financial advisers. Pretty glamorous, huh?"
The call runs so long that David's pretty sure any material they use from today's shoot will have to be Archie-centric, and it's so late by the time he's done that the crew's already left, and Archie's already come over to mouth, "Goodnight, don't work too late," at him, and disappeared into his bedroom.
David checks on him before he heads to bed himself. Archie's curled up on his side, one arm pillowed under his head, taking up barely a fraction of the bed, which looks like it could swallow him whole. David stands in the doorway for another moment, thinking tomorrow is another day--
And then Archie starts to sing.
David breathes out a laugh, and creeps closer. He catches something about boiled eggs and the night, a little sigh-hum of melody, and he's grinning as tip-toes up to the camera. He's done enough V-logs that he knows to stand to a side when he points over his shoulder at Archie, and whispers, "He's totally singing. Your evidence, ladies and gentlemen."
He glances briefly over at Archie, then looks back at the camera with a shake of the head. "Figures he's pitch-perfect even when he's asleep."
Which, fuck, David thinks, with a resigned grin, he wishes he was even a little bit surprised.
EPISODE RECAP: HERE.