Fic:: Cook/Archuleta "Teach them to Fly"
Title: Teach them to Fly
Pairing: Cook/Archuleta
Rating: PG 13
Summary: “You should do it,” Cook said with unrelenting conviction. “It is only a month, and it sounds like a great opportunity.” kid!verse
Author's Notes: It's probably not a good sign that four days in to the Big Bang I already needed to take a break, but what can you do? Written from a request by mausi who also cleaned up my silly mistakes. :) She asked for happy kid fic and I gave her kind of cheesy and angsty so um. Yes. Title is from Dave Matthews Band's new song "You & Me" that instantly made me think of our boys. ♥
One of their rules from early on was that their careers came second to their family. By the time Addy was born they had each more or less surpassed even their wildest dreams when it came to their careers. Archie had set up a small record label that he was ready to make his full focus and Cook had more or less taken a step back from the public eye. Beyond a few guest appearances every once in a while they just settled into the domestic nine to five life.
A few months after Connor came home, though, Archie got a phone call from his manager (who he actually kind of forgot he still was signed with, not that he would tell her that… she was scary) telling him that he had been offered an obscene amount of money to do an abbreviated tour in Asia. He almost turned it down without giving it a second thought but couldn’t help but think how much fun it would be to be on stage again.
“You should do it,” Cook said with unrelenting conviction. “It’s only a month, and it sounds like a great opportunity.”
Archie bit his lower lip. “You could come, the three of you. It could be a family thing?”
“Do you really want to travel with a six month old and a 3 year old? Come on, it would be miserable.”
And no, he didn’t really want to have to drag the kids around, more because he knew it would be hard on them… it was just that he didn’t want to leave them for a whole month. That was a fifth of Connor’s life, and thinking about it made his heart hurt.
Cook frowned at him. “I’m not going to tell you what to do here, Arch, but I do think you should go. Though in the end, it’s up to you.”
By the time his agent called three days later he had made up his mind, he was going to go. Cook made sure that he had the entire month off, even planned to take the kids to his mom’s for a week. (“See, you get out of seeing your dreaded Mother in Law.” “Cook! You know I love your mother.” “I know, that is just wrong.”) Archie recorded his voice singing all of the lullabies he could think of, reading all of Addy’s favorite books. He fretted over the smallest details down to the very last moment.
When he got on the plane in LA he relaxed into his seat and tried to convince himself that it would be nice to have uninterrupted sleep for a whole month. By the time he landed in Japan he almost believed it.
His manager met him at his hotel to do a quick run down of the tour and to make sure he was aware of the schedule. He lost track of when the last time he had slept, but by the time the meeting was done he was pretty sure it had to have been a few centuries at least. He was almost in his bed before he remembered that he hadn’t called to say he landed yet.
They had set up both computers to have Skype, it was cheaper and it was face to face, so he set up his laptop on his desk and sent Cook an email of, “SKYPE ME!” It was just after seven in the morning in LA (dear lord, how long had he been up?) and a minute later the Skype told him he had a call coming in.
As soon as he pressed the button to answer it Cook and Addy’s face splashed onto his screen.
“PAPI?” Addy squealed, which caused Cook to flinch and lean away from her. Archie smiled.
“Hey baby,” he waved and she waved back. “How are you doing?”
Cook gave a slightly sarcastic smile, “We have been up since five thirty, when she decided that our bed was far more appealing than hers.”
Archie flinched in sympathy. Addy had a knack for kicking at the least opportune moments and hitting the least desired spots. “I am safe in Tokyo.”
“You look like the walking dead,” Cook observed.
Before Archie could respond Addy interrupted. “Papi! Dora on! Dora and Boots and Swipa, Papi!”
“Really? Swiper no swiping, right?” the lump in his throat caught him off guard, and he had to lift his hand to wipe an unexpected tear.
Addy ducked out of the screen, most likely remembering the TV was far more important to her. He heard her call out in the background, “SWIPA NO SWIPA!”
“Hey,” Cook leaned towards the camera. “You okay?”
He nodded, even though he knew that neither of them thought it was true.
“When is the first show?”
Archie had to look over to the sheet he had been given to find that out and he frowned down at it. “The fifteenth? Wait, what day is it?”
“It’s the fourteenth where you are,” Cook said, his voice laced with worry. “Get some sleep. Email me when you wake up, I will probably be up with Connor and even if I’m not I’ll answer.”
Archie nodded again, another tear making its way down his face. “Love you.”
“I love you, too,” Cook smiled. “Wait, wait… Addy, come here.” A second later Addy’s head popped into frame. “Tell Papi goodbye, okay?”
Addy leaned forward until all he could see was the bottom half of her face. “BYE PAPI!”
“Bye mija,” he said, and waited until Cook clicked out of the screen before he would let himself close the computer. He made his way over to the bed and curled up on top of the comforter, his head barely making contact with the pillow before he fell asleep.
*
The tour really was pretty awesome, his opening act was a new up and comer and almost reminded him of Cook, only a little less easy going and a whole lot younger. The shows are pretty much just how he remembered them, full of people pressed together like sardines singing his words back to him. (That is the one part of his job he had never gotten over, people knew his words and sang along and that just totally floored him.)
He called home at least once a day, and true to his word Cook always found a way to answer. It made him feel kind of bad that he was bothering them but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Addy would spend varying amount of time (depending on her patience level) telling him incoherent stories, Connor would giggle at the screen when he made faces and Cook would catch him up on the day to day things that he was missing.
In the middle, somewhere in what he was pretty sure was Thailand, he made a decision about his future. He didn’t talk about it with Cook, which was pretty unusual for them. He just didn’t want to bring it up over Skype even if they were alone. He wanted to be holding his hand while he explained it all.
He was supposed to fly out the afternoon after the last show but he called the airlines and pleaded to get on the red eye. He didn’t have to plead half as hard as he had planned to do and he almost cried gratefully to the poor guy in customer relations. He gave it his all and then some for the last show and then ran to the car in back as fast as his legs could take him.
During a layover in Hawaii he opened his phone and called home to tell them about the flight change, and for the first time all month they didn’t answer. He didn’t let himself dwell on it, sure that anxiety was the last thing he wanted to spend his plane ride doing. The six hours from Honolulu to Los Angeles were somehow immeasurably longer than the entire flight from LA to Japan, and Archie’s consistent checking of his watch didn’t help the matter at all.
Customs ended up being blessedly quicker than it tended to be at LAX and he had every intention to hug the guy behind the counter when he all but waved him through. He didn’t want to test his luck when it came to security guys though so instead he smiled and thanked him like he had just given him a kidney or something. The baggage area was the opposite of helpful but it gave him a chance to pick up his phone and try home again. This time when no one picked up he really did begin to worry.
“Landed, where are you?” he typed into his phone.
A moment later he got a reply, “Where are you?”
He frowned at the phone and typed back, “ LAX, baggage claim. Why?”
The carousel beeped before it jerked to a start and he focused on the conveyor belt. He had sent most of his stuff back through the mail, not willing to drag 8 bags back, but had checked the bag with his gifts for various people and his toiletries. The bags went around once, and then again, and just when he was beginning to think that they had lost his bag somewhere over the Pacific Ocean he caught sight of the bright green ribbon his mom had insisted he tie on his handle forever ago. (He would have to thank her later, even if she was going to say ‘I told you so’.)
He went to grab his phone again, hopefully to get a hold of Cook and tell him that he was on his way home but just as his hand found it in his pocket he heard a peel of familiar laughter.
“ADELAIDE, WAIT!”
A blur of color and just enough time to kneel down and then his arms were full of a giggly three year old. He squeezed her and stood up to swing her back and forth.
“PAPI!!!” she squealed. “Papi, Papi, PAAAAPIIII!”
He felt like he might never stop smiling, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let her go. Cook walked up with Connor in a sling, he gave a sheepish smile to Archie.
“She kind of missed you,” he laughed. Archie pushed in for an awkward one-armed hug, leaned in to kiss Cook and then pressed his lips to the top of Connor’s head. “All right, maybe I missed you, too.”
Archie blinked back tears, but smiled. He knew he should probably try and say something about just how much he missed them all but as soon as he opened his mouth he found that the only thing he could say was, “Never, ever, ever again.”
Cook, who had already been smiling, beamed back at him. “I will not fight you on that one.”
“Good,” Archie kissed him again. He smiled at Addy who was talking a mile a minute even if neither of her parents were paying attention. “I missed you, Adelaide.”
She paused in the middle of a silly song to nestle his shoulder. “Miss you, Papi.”
“What do you say about taking Papi home?” Cook asked Adelaide.
Archie answered for her, “Yes, please.”
Pairing: Cook/Archuleta
Rating: PG 13
Summary: “You should do it,” Cook said with unrelenting conviction. “It is only a month, and it sounds like a great opportunity.” kid!verse
Author's Notes: It's probably not a good sign that four days in to the Big Bang I already needed to take a break, but what can you do? Written from a request by mausi who also cleaned up my silly mistakes. :) She asked for happy kid fic and I gave her kind of cheesy and angsty so um. Yes. Title is from Dave Matthews Band's new song "You & Me" that instantly made me think of our boys. ♥
One of their rules from early on was that their careers came second to their family. By the time Addy was born they had each more or less surpassed even their wildest dreams when it came to their careers. Archie had set up a small record label that he was ready to make his full focus and Cook had more or less taken a step back from the public eye. Beyond a few guest appearances every once in a while they just settled into the domestic nine to five life.
A few months after Connor came home, though, Archie got a phone call from his manager (who he actually kind of forgot he still was signed with, not that he would tell her that… she was scary) telling him that he had been offered an obscene amount of money to do an abbreviated tour in Asia. He almost turned it down without giving it a second thought but couldn’t help but think how much fun it would be to be on stage again.
“You should do it,” Cook said with unrelenting conviction. “It’s only a month, and it sounds like a great opportunity.”
Archie bit his lower lip. “You could come, the three of you. It could be a family thing?”
“Do you really want to travel with a six month old and a 3 year old? Come on, it would be miserable.”
And no, he didn’t really want to have to drag the kids around, more because he knew it would be hard on them… it was just that he didn’t want to leave them for a whole month. That was a fifth of Connor’s life, and thinking about it made his heart hurt.
Cook frowned at him. “I’m not going to tell you what to do here, Arch, but I do think you should go. Though in the end, it’s up to you.”
By the time his agent called three days later he had made up his mind, he was going to go. Cook made sure that he had the entire month off, even planned to take the kids to his mom’s for a week. (“See, you get out of seeing your dreaded Mother in Law.” “Cook! You know I love your mother.” “I know, that is just wrong.”) Archie recorded his voice singing all of the lullabies he could think of, reading all of Addy’s favorite books. He fretted over the smallest details down to the very last moment.
When he got on the plane in LA he relaxed into his seat and tried to convince himself that it would be nice to have uninterrupted sleep for a whole month. By the time he landed in Japan he almost believed it.
His manager met him at his hotel to do a quick run down of the tour and to make sure he was aware of the schedule. He lost track of when the last time he had slept, but by the time the meeting was done he was pretty sure it had to have been a few centuries at least. He was almost in his bed before he remembered that he hadn’t called to say he landed yet.
They had set up both computers to have Skype, it was cheaper and it was face to face, so he set up his laptop on his desk and sent Cook an email of, “SKYPE ME!” It was just after seven in the morning in LA (dear lord, how long had he been up?) and a minute later the Skype told him he had a call coming in.
As soon as he pressed the button to answer it Cook and Addy’s face splashed onto his screen.
“PAPI?” Addy squealed, which caused Cook to flinch and lean away from her. Archie smiled.
“Hey baby,” he waved and she waved back. “How are you doing?”
Cook gave a slightly sarcastic smile, “We have been up since five thirty, when she decided that our bed was far more appealing than hers.”
Archie flinched in sympathy. Addy had a knack for kicking at the least opportune moments and hitting the least desired spots. “I am safe in Tokyo.”
“You look like the walking dead,” Cook observed.
Before Archie could respond Addy interrupted. “Papi! Dora on! Dora and Boots and Swipa, Papi!”
“Really? Swiper no swiping, right?” the lump in his throat caught him off guard, and he had to lift his hand to wipe an unexpected tear.
Addy ducked out of the screen, most likely remembering the TV was far more important to her. He heard her call out in the background, “SWIPA NO SWIPA!”
“Hey,” Cook leaned towards the camera. “You okay?”
He nodded, even though he knew that neither of them thought it was true.
“When is the first show?”
Archie had to look over to the sheet he had been given to find that out and he frowned down at it. “The fifteenth? Wait, what day is it?”
“It’s the fourteenth where you are,” Cook said, his voice laced with worry. “Get some sleep. Email me when you wake up, I will probably be up with Connor and even if I’m not I’ll answer.”
Archie nodded again, another tear making its way down his face. “Love you.”
“I love you, too,” Cook smiled. “Wait, wait… Addy, come here.” A second later Addy’s head popped into frame. “Tell Papi goodbye, okay?”
Addy leaned forward until all he could see was the bottom half of her face. “BYE PAPI!”
“Bye mija,” he said, and waited until Cook clicked out of the screen before he would let himself close the computer. He made his way over to the bed and curled up on top of the comforter, his head barely making contact with the pillow before he fell asleep.
*
The tour really was pretty awesome, his opening act was a new up and comer and almost reminded him of Cook, only a little less easy going and a whole lot younger. The shows are pretty much just how he remembered them, full of people pressed together like sardines singing his words back to him. (That is the one part of his job he had never gotten over, people knew his words and sang along and that just totally floored him.)
He called home at least once a day, and true to his word Cook always found a way to answer. It made him feel kind of bad that he was bothering them but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Addy would spend varying amount of time (depending on her patience level) telling him incoherent stories, Connor would giggle at the screen when he made faces and Cook would catch him up on the day to day things that he was missing.
In the middle, somewhere in what he was pretty sure was Thailand, he made a decision about his future. He didn’t talk about it with Cook, which was pretty unusual for them. He just didn’t want to bring it up over Skype even if they were alone. He wanted to be holding his hand while he explained it all.
He was supposed to fly out the afternoon after the last show but he called the airlines and pleaded to get on the red eye. He didn’t have to plead half as hard as he had planned to do and he almost cried gratefully to the poor guy in customer relations. He gave it his all and then some for the last show and then ran to the car in back as fast as his legs could take him.
During a layover in Hawaii he opened his phone and called home to tell them about the flight change, and for the first time all month they didn’t answer. He didn’t let himself dwell on it, sure that anxiety was the last thing he wanted to spend his plane ride doing. The six hours from Honolulu to Los Angeles were somehow immeasurably longer than the entire flight from LA to Japan, and Archie’s consistent checking of his watch didn’t help the matter at all.
Customs ended up being blessedly quicker than it tended to be at LAX and he had every intention to hug the guy behind the counter when he all but waved him through. He didn’t want to test his luck when it came to security guys though so instead he smiled and thanked him like he had just given him a kidney or something. The baggage area was the opposite of helpful but it gave him a chance to pick up his phone and try home again. This time when no one picked up he really did begin to worry.
“Landed, where are you?” he typed into his phone.
A moment later he got a reply, “Where are you?”
He frowned at the phone and typed back, “ LAX, baggage claim. Why?”
The carousel beeped before it jerked to a start and he focused on the conveyor belt. He had sent most of his stuff back through the mail, not willing to drag 8 bags back, but had checked the bag with his gifts for various people and his toiletries. The bags went around once, and then again, and just when he was beginning to think that they had lost his bag somewhere over the Pacific Ocean he caught sight of the bright green ribbon his mom had insisted he tie on his handle forever ago. (He would have to thank her later, even if she was going to say ‘I told you so’.)
He went to grab his phone again, hopefully to get a hold of Cook and tell him that he was on his way home but just as his hand found it in his pocket he heard a peel of familiar laughter.
“ADELAIDE, WAIT!”
A blur of color and just enough time to kneel down and then his arms were full of a giggly three year old. He squeezed her and stood up to swing her back and forth.
“PAPI!!!” she squealed. “Papi, Papi, PAAAAPIIII!”
He felt like he might never stop smiling, he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to let her go. Cook walked up with Connor in a sling, he gave a sheepish smile to Archie.
“She kind of missed you,” he laughed. Archie pushed in for an awkward one-armed hug, leaned in to kiss Cook and then pressed his lips to the top of Connor’s head. “All right, maybe I missed you, too.”
Archie blinked back tears, but smiled. He knew he should probably try and say something about just how much he missed them all but as soon as he opened his mouth he found that the only thing he could say was, “Never, ever, ever again.”
Cook, who had already been smiling, beamed back at him. “I will not fight you on that one.”
“Good,” Archie kissed him again. He smiled at Addy who was talking a mile a minute even if neither of her parents were paying attention. “I missed you, Adelaide.”
She paused in the middle of a silly song to nestle his shoulder. “Miss you, Papi.”
“What do you say about taking Papi home?” Cook asked Adelaide.
Archie answered for her, “Yes, please.”