Happy birthday, musicboxgirl!
Author: jehane18
Recipient: musicboxgirl
Betas: sophie48 and x_heterophobic
Title: lower than the angels
Pairing(s): David Cook/David Archuleta; David Archuleta/male character
Word Count: 7,900+
Summary: David knew angels watched over him. One angel, in particular. Wingfic.
Rating: [NC-17], for themes.
Disclaimer: We are in no way officially affiliated with David Cook, David Archuleta or their representation. Everything about them is completely fiction, and any similarity with reality is a mere coincidence. No copyright infringement is intended. Lyrics taken from traditional Christian hymns. Fair use asserted.
Warning(s): Angst, homophobia, religious themes, supporting character death.
Author's Notes: This is the religious, gay-themed story I’ve been too afraid to write, so thank you for your awesome request! It may be a darker and more serious story than you had in mind, bb, but I hope you’ll like it anyway. Happy holidays!
lower than the angels
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. ~ Psalm 8:3
There was a bridge in Murray made of stone and sorrow and something else that began with s.
It wasn't called that by the town officials, of course. It lay on the edge of the city, leading the back road out to Highway 89. Every year seniors came here after finals or prom to mess around and maybe drink contraband smuggled in from out of town, and flirt with what life might be like if they left Utah behind.
And every other year, some kid who was headed out of town for real, maybe with his life in a backpack and a heart running on empty, would stand here and decide it might be easier to take flight this way instead.
David wondered exactly how many of them had stood where he was standing now - on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the sheer drop into black.
He was shivering. His coat wasn't thick enough, the cold rose through the soles of his boots. The night buses weren't running on Christmas Eve, and he'd had to walk here for two miles from the last bus stop, the ground slippery hard with ice and snow.
He couldn't feel his fingers. His tears had long become a frozen layer on his cheeks.
The air was like a knife. It was too cold to be snowing tonight. The night sky was clear. Somewhere out there, church bells were ringing, to welcome the faithful to Christmas service.
Above him he could see the stars in all their glory. Below him was darkness.
He wondered if everything he'd been taught was true. Maybe hell and damnation and the devil waited to welcome his soul, or maybe they were wrong about this too. Maybe he'd smash apart and there'd be nothing at all.
The stars were singing to him, he heard their song.
On thee, at the creation, The light first had its birth;
On thee, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth;
On thee our Lord victorious The Spirit sent from heaven;
And thus on thee most glorious, a triple light was given.
David wondered what would happen if the light that had been given him were to be put out. If it hurt enough for him to let go, to find out.
*
David had always heard the song of the heavens.
His mom loved to tell the story at family gatherings: how he'd started singing before he could talk, how as a toddler he'd loved to look up at the night sky and say he heard the stars.
"Then David would say, 'Singing, Mama!' And I'd ask him, 'Is it an angel, mijo?' And he'd say, 'It's coming from up there!' And that's how I knew my boy was gifted by God."
Lupe would ruffle his hair, and David would blush and duck his head at the clucking of well-meaning relatives and church members.
The thought had comforted him throughout his childhood: that he could hear the songs of heaven, that he knew angels were watching over him. One angel, in particular.
He remembered a vision he'd had when he was little. He must've been no more than five or six, because he hadn't been able to reach the Christmas ornaments on their family mantel.
It had been late, sometime after dinner. He'd wandered out into the open field next door because he wanted to check up on the snowman which his dad and brother and he had made that afternoon. He remembered he'd been excited because it would be Christmas soon and then his birthday after.
It was hard to walk through the snow, and took a while to find the snowman. He’d had to fix the snowman because its nose had melted off even though it was very cold that night.
Afterwards, he walked around for a bit. Everything was so still and pretty, and the stars were very bright above him.
And then he heard them sing, cold and rushing like beating wings:
Earth and all stars, Loud rushing planets,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
O victory, loud shouting army,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things:
I, too, will praise Him with a new song!
Hail, wind and rain, Loud blowing snow storms,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
It was so peaceful, he felt sleepy and happy and not cold anymore. He lay down in the snow, and turned his face to the sky to listen.
The snowflakes danced down around him.
And then someone spoke to him. "Hey. David. You need to get up, buddy."
The stars had never talked before. David sat up curiously.
Kneeling beside him in the snow was a man in white.
David couldn't see the man's face very well, because it was shining. The man’s red hair was long like a woman's. His eyes were green and kind.
"How d'you know my name?"
"Because," said the man, "it's the same as mine."
"Oh," said David. He squinted at the man, trying to work out if he had wings or not. "Are you an angel?"
"Maybe," said the man. He held out his hand, and David took it and they both got up. The man's hand felt rough, rougher than his dad's hand. His fingers were warm.
"You don't feel like an angel," David said, dubiously.
The man's mouth twitched. "Really?" He asked. "Have you ever met an angel?"
"No," said David, hotly, "but I know how they sound!"
"Ah! Like this?" asked the man, and held up one finger, and then struck a pose like Mrs Abdul had taught them to do before they said the Pledge of Allegiance.
”God, who stretched the spangled heavens
Infinite in time and place,
Flung the suns in burning radiance
Through the silent fields of space,
We, Thy children, in Thy likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee
Great Creator, still creating,
Teach us what we yet may be.”
The man's voice was familiar, and the most beautiful thing David had heard in his whole life. He could have stood there with the snowflakes dancing around them and listened to it forever.
The man stopped singing after a while, though, and murmured something like, "Satisfied?"
"Okay," David said. He felt like he should say something else, after that awesome song. "Thank you."
The man did the thing with his mouth again. "You're welcome. Now, let's get you back home, okay?"
When they got back to David's back porch, David's house was a blaze of lights: people were standing on the porch steps in puffy coats and flashlights. David could see Mr. Graham from next door, and Mr. and Mrs. Castro from across the street.
Someone let out a high pitched cry, and David recognized his mom's voice.
"Mijo, where have you been, we've been looking everywhere!"
She flung her arms around him and held him so tightly he could hardly breathe.
"I was talking to an angel," David tried to say. He knew the man would be gone when he turned around, though, and it was true, he'd disappeared; like angels did.
*
After that, David would sometimes see the red-haired angel in his dreams.
He'd show up when David was being chased by ponies, or walking around in a palace made of Lego blocks and glitter glue, or swimming like fish at the bottom of the ocean. He'd be wearing white, and David could now see the wings that stretched behind him.
Sometimes the angel would just pop into the dream and out again, and David would wake up barely remembering the dream and unsure of whether he'd seen him after all.
Other times the angel would speak to David, and call him buddy like he did that Christmas Eve, and that's how David could be sure it had been a real vision that night and it hadn’t been just his mind playing tricks on him.
And when he heard the voices of the stars, the voice that sang to him the most often was the angel's, and when he heard it he knew God loved him.
*
His parents and church elders told him God loved him, too. They told him he had a gift.
When David was six and a half years old he sang before the elders of the whole ward of his state, and when he was seven and a half he had sung “America the Beautiful” on national television. By the time he was nine he'd released an album of gospel songs, and recorded a single with Christian music star Gary Allan.
People from outside his church asked him about his faith, and he tried his best to explain it to them: God made the whole world, God knew them, and He loved them, every one.
People from his church kept telling him what a blessing he was. How his gifts were special and how he needed to use them to further God's kingdom. His ward bishop, Bishop Miller, told him his life's work was the mission field, and how God would use his life mightily to bring glory to Him.
David took for granted that he'd keep making music as he went to school, and that after college he'd go on the mission of his life. He couldn't wait. He loved his life in Murray, loved his family and his church, but he knew that he was meant to travel further, to different needs and mission fields all over America.
"Do the stars sound different in New York?" asked Brian, when David got back from a praise concert with The Brett Family in the Union Square Stake. Brian had been David’s best friend since the first grade, and had seen David leave Murray so many times, whenever the need took him.
"They sound the same," David said, and they had - from his hotel room window, from the streets of Manhattan. "I think they sound the same everywhere, you know?"
"That's great!" said Brian. "Then when we head out on mission, you'll always have their song with you."
David smiled. Brian had always understood him, had always felt the same about God and their calling as David had. He'd sit with David on David's back porch in winter and lie with him in the grass in summer. They'd pray, and watch the stars together, and David would sing him snatches of the stars' song.
They'd started planning to go to mission training center together from as early as the sixth grade, even though they knew they probably wouldn’t get to serve together.
Bishop Miller approved of the early mission planning, as did his dad, of course, and Brian's dad, Mr. Mclean, who served as an usher in the ward’s meetinghouse as well. The bishop took a personal interest in David's career, often giving his measured views of what concerts David should do and which groups or singers David should work with, so that outside influences wouldn't distract him from his Godly focus.
David had felt lucky he had strong circle of friends to keep him focused. They'd all been together since grade school: Brian, Tom and Keith, Grace and Hannah. Their parents all knew each other and of course were members of the church. Hannah Cyrus lived down the street and in the sixth grade when they all started taking the public buses after school, David would say goodbye to Brian at the corner of Sennet and Main and then he'd walk Hannah home.
Hannah was a slender girl with an angelic voice, the best alto singer in their choir. She was smart and kind, she liked horses, and David's parents liked her very much. In the seventh grade David's mom started inviting Hannah over without her sisters, to bake cookies and to help in the garden.
In the eighth grade Hannah talked David into signing up for drama club. Despite his performing schedule David made the time for a role in The Tempest, and liked it so much he persuaded Brian to take part too.
"What do the stars sing to you?" Hannah asked one evening on the way back from rehearsal.
David shrugged. "All kinds of things. Sometimes there are no words. Other times --" He put his head back and, okay, so he was showing off a little, and sang:
”We, Thy children, in Thy likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee
Great Creator, still creating,
Teach us what we yet may be.”
He came to a halt when he realized Hannah was staring, her mouth in a round O. Above them, a couple of the early stars had come out.
David flushed. He wasn't sure why he'd chosen to sing that song -- he hadn't thought about it in years, hadn't seen the red-haired angel in his dreams in longer.
"Um," he said, and she took his hand and pushed her mouth against his.
She tasted like bubblegum and sweetness, and David felt absolutely nothing.
"We shouldn't," he told her gently. He could feel the shape of her body, her curving breasts and thighs, under her loose clothes. He put his hands on her waist and held her away from him.
He knew from a hundred lectures in school and home and from the church's teen group that a young woman's body was a forbidden land before marriage, that it was a powerful lure, and an encouragement to sin.
He felt surprised that after all that, he didn't feel the temptation that he was supposed to. Surprised and a little happy, he guessed, that God wasn't testing him in this way.
She'd closed her eyes to kiss him, and now she opened them again. She was flushed a deep pink, she was breathing quickly. "Oh," she said, a little miserably. "Sorry. I... you're such a good person, David. I couldn't help it. I've loved you for such a long time."
David squeezed her hand. "Don't be sorry. I love you, too."
"Not the same way I love you," she whispered sadly, and walked the rest of the way home by herself.
They never spoke about it again. And then, before the summer vacation Brian came over to his back yard and told him he'd heard Hannah had started dating Tom.
"That's nice," David said absently. He was lying in the grass, waiting for the stars to come out. Lately their songs had been soft, just music and words that he couldn't make out.
Brian dropped into a squat beside him.
"You're okay with it?" he asked. "I know she really liked you, and I thought you liked her too. And it was, like, your folks and the bishop all kind of hoped you guys would get together."
David frowned, and stared up at Brian, who for some reason wasn't looking at him. "Hey," he said. "I do like her. I love her. But she said I didn't love her in the same way, and, you know, I think she was right."
At this, Brian looked down at him at last. David was fascinated despite himself - he'd never realized how long Brian's lashes were, even longer than David's, how his hazel eyes were flecked with gold.
"You don't love her?" Brian said, slowly. "I didn't know."
"I didn't know, either," David said.
Brian took David's hand and squeezed. It was the sort of thing best friends did, but something fluttered in the pit of David's stomach.
David blinked. Suddenly, he was a little dizzy. He felt white wings brush against his shoulder and saw a flash of someone’s bright green eyes.
*
After that, things were different. Brian had always been there, of course; project work and choir practice, church and mission. Now school was out there was even more to do, sleepovers and camp and David's summer performance schedule.
Before this summer, David had never noticed how Brian's voice shaded around his when they sang in choir, how Brian's taller shoulder fit perfectly against his side when they walked together. How Brian always seemed to understand David's rambling speeches and his silences, and how the right thing to say would come out of his perfectly-shaped mouth.
They still lay side by side on Brian's bedroom floor, and on the grass in David's back yard, but it was different now. They were older, becoming men, there wasn't Hannah between them anymore.
And their faith didn't prepare them for the lure of a young man's body..
When Brian rolled over to him one night at summer's end and kissed him, David felt the stars and beating wings sweep through his whole body, from his forehead to his heels to his pulsing erection.
There was no temptation or holding back, just music, just sheer love.
The song of the stars filled them both, swept them up, took them panting and gasping over the edge. They fell, they flew, held fast in each other's arms.
*
David's parents assumed David needed a shoulder to cry on about Hannah. His mom hinted about needing to give him space and left him alone, to be with Brian.
The weeks stretched into months, and before they knew it they'd spent a year together, holding hands under tables and stealing kisses in doorways, held as one by music and beating wings.
"We need to confirm our plans for mission training, like, this month," David said. They were lying on his bed, tangled in each other's arms. "My dad wants me to work performing into the MTC schedule and then to make a solo album later. But Principal Flutie thinks I should actually go to college first."
"You should go," Brian said, rubbing his shoulder. "BYU or to New York, even. You're so smart."
"Come with me," David said absently.
"Not smart enough," Brian said, awkwardly. "Besides, my dad wants me to stay here and help in the garage before MTC."
David frowned. "I don't want to be without you," he said. “Forget college, then. I’ll talk to the principal and my dad some more.”
Brian said, not looking at him, “David. It would be wrong for you not to go.”
David said firmly, “We'll sort something out."
The stars sang, but that night they ignored them.
*
When he went to bed, David dreamed of the red-haired angel. He was dressed in white, as usual, and his white wings spread out across the night sky. He wasn’t smiling for once, though, his shining face unusually somber.
“What is it?” David asked. They were standing on a cloud in a starry sky, the ground beneath their feet like cotton candy.
The angel sat down on a puff of white and sighed. “You know God loves you, David.”
David said, “I do, I know that.”
The angel nodded. His eyes were very green and filled with sadness. “And He wants to keep you safe. I want to keep you safe. But you’re not a child any more, you’re a man, and childish things are ending. Change is going to come, you need to be ready.”
“What kind of change?” David asked, but the angel didn’t reply; he rose up into the sky, spreading his wings over them both.
*
In the end Principal Flutie managed to convince the bishop. David would try a term at BYU first before heading out to MTC. Brian stayed in Murray; he said he’d wait to see if David liked BYU too, and in the meantime his dad needed him in the garage.
David enjoyed college. He expected it to be a little lonely, and it was, because he was going from a small class where everyone knew him to a big campus. The kids and teachers all knew he was a recording artist, and they were friendly, but there was something between them, like a barrier, that David wasn’t used to.
He wasn’t used to being away from Brian, too. When he called Brian after class Brian sounded kind of distant. David understood - they’d seen each other every day since they were six - he expected it was going to be hard.
He dreamed of the red-haired angel once: fighting an epic battle in the heavens, wielding a fiery sword that blazed like the sun. Later, he’d realize it had been the last dream he’d have of him.
“Brian misses you,” his mom said when they visited in October. “His mom says he wants to give up choir, because you're not there anymore.”
David looked warily at his mom. He wondered if she knew about Brian and him. He wasn’t going to lie to her, either, or to anyone. He knew that what he and Brian was doing wasn’t wrong, knew God loved him anyway, but he also knew what his stake thought about it, what his family would think.
His mom didn’t say anything more, though. Then.
*
David went home for Thanksgiving. He hugged his brothers and sisters and traded stories with his dad and ate his mom’s turkey.
And he saw Brian, and they hugged and kissed each other and promised each other they’d be together forever.
Then David went home for Christmas, and everything changed.
*
It was cold: David had forgotten how cold it got in Murray. The snow banks were a foot and a half high.
His Aunt Maria came to pick him from the Greyhound bus station, and David knew straight away that something was wrong.
“I can’t say what it is, David, but your father wants to talk to you.”
David felt the chill stab straight through him. He twisted his hands together, and prayed for help.
You’re not a child any more, you’re a man, and childish things are ending.
When he got to his house his mom and siblings weren’t there. Only his dad sat in the living room, and David was struck by how old and tired he looked.
“I know what you’ve been doing with Brian McLean,” his dad said, without preamble. “Joe nearly took a tire iron to that boy, and you know, I don’t blame him.”
David could barely hear his dad over the roaring of blood in his ears. He had to sit down. “Is he okay?”
“You worry about yourself, son,” his dad said softly. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
David felt the full weight of the tire iron. “I never lied to you,” he said. “And I’m not, I’m not gonna start now. I love him, and I’m not going to stop.”
His dad shook his head. “Son, you know this isn’t God’s plan. It’s God’s plan for you to have a wife and children, an eternal family, not this. You know it’s a mortal sin. Both of you are risking your souls if you don’t repent.”
David said, “How do you know what God’s plan is? The Bible talks about fornication outside marriage, we don’t do that. The Bible talks about love, too, and I love him, and I’m not going to be sorry for who I am.”
His dad stood up. “Then you can’t stay under my roof, David. I’m sorry, but I can’t have you around your brother and sisters any more.”
David tried to stand as well; it took him a couple of tries. “Please don’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m the same person. God loves me, why can’t you do that too?”
His dad closed his eyes, and David could see tears welling up under the lids. “I’ll always love you, son, but you need to leave. Before…” his voice caught, and David realized it was from barely suppressed rage and grief. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”
David staggered and nearly fell; he knocked over the chair as he stumbled out of the door.
Backpack, jacket, then out. David knew what a bad idea it was, but he headed to Brian’s house anyway.
He was half expecting Mr. McLean and the tire iron, and was so relieved to see Brian on the back porch instead, not wearing a coat in the cold, but looking more or less unharmed.
“Thank God you’re okay!” David tried to fling his arms around him, but Brian pushed him away.
“David, you shouldn’t have come here.” He’d never seen Brian look this despairing, this defeated.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Brian looked away, as if he had breaks and bruises on his body which David couldn’t see. “I’m saying we can't see each other any more. It’s wrong, what we did was wrong, we just can’t.”
For the second time in an hour, David’s legs couldn’t hold him up. The wood of the porch floor was freezing and it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart.
“But, I love you. I said, you said…”
“It isn’t love,” Brian said. “The bishop explained it to me. The elders said, said it’s a lie, said we’re going to burn forever. And my dad says he’ll kill me if I see you again.”
Somehow, David managed to get to his feet, and to speak calmly and certainly. “We don’t have to do this, Brian. You can get your things and come with me. We’ll figure something out.”
Brian shook his head. “I can’t. It’s wrong, David. You have to leave.” The long-lashed eyes that David loved so much looked already dead.
David didn’t realize he was crying until he tasted salt on his lips. He reached out one more time.
And then the back door banged open, and Mr. McLean was there, shouting, his face the color of blood. He had something in his hand. Brian flung himself at his father, shouting as well.
And David ran.
*
The Greyhound back to BYU had already left. The sky was darkening, and it was getting even colder.
When it got too cold to walk the streets David rode on one bus and then another, round and round the small town. He rode past shops that were shut early for Christmas, homes with fairy lights strung across windows and fires in hearths and families fellowshipping with each other.
His eyes and nose stopped running after a while.
What he couldn’t stop was the empty, rushing feeling in his heart. He’d always felt God’s love inside him. His love for his family, for Brian, had filled him in the same way. Now, there was nothing.
Finally, he took the last bus out to the edge of Highway 89. He got off, and followed the road to the bridge.
*
It was easier to look at the stars above him. Easier than to look into the dark water below, anyway. David figured that would be the way to do it, if he was really going to - he’d keep looking up, and that’d make it easier.
He looked up into the clear night sky and took a deep breath. Then he squinted.
It looked like it was snowing after all.
Thick flakes of snow fell out of nowhere. They spun down from the heavens in a dizzying dance. The snow caught on his eyelashes, his frozen nose, his too-thin jacket.
David put out a hand automatically to catch the falling white.
And then he stared, because it wasn't snow.
It was a white feather, singed around the edges.
David looked up, and there were feathers, falling around him, filling the sky.
There was a rushing sound, something very bright falling as well, faster and faster, headed straight toward him. There was no time to get away.
And then there was white, and brightness, and it wasn't cold anymore.
*
When David opened his eyes again, he was lying on the bank of the river. The bridge loomed high above him in the distance.
Beside him lay the red-haired man. His white clothes were dirty and damp from the snow. He no longer had wings. Blackened feathers surrounded him like a blanket.
David couldn’t say a single thing.
After a while, the angel opened his green eyes. He sat up stiffly, as if he’d fallen from a great height.
“Are you okay?” he asked David, in the voice David remembered from his dreams.
Finally, David found his voice. “I… you… What have you done?” he asked, in a voice that didn’t sound like his.
The angel grimaced. “I wasn't sure that would work. Well, there's a first time for everything.” He cracked his neck to the side experimentally. “There was a battle; there’s always a battle out here, especially at Christmas. And you were going to jump.”
“I was going to jump?” David repeated. The words sounded unbelievable to him, as if it had been a lifetime ago that he’d stood on the edge of the bridge with emptiness in his heart.
The angel just looked at him, and he stammered, “I, I wasn’t really going to. I was just… I wanted to see what it would feel like. I wouldn't have jumped.”
The angel rubbed his temples with his filthy hands. “You would’ve slipped,” he said evenly. “You were freezing, and tired, and Brian’s dad came at you with a wrench from his garage. And you ran away out here, which wasn't the smartest thing to do. It wouldn’t have made a difference that you didn’t mean to jump at the end, that it would’ve been an accident - you’d still be at the bottom of this river.”
David thought about this for a while. Then he said, in a very small voice, “It made a difference to you, though.”
The angel sighed. “Yes. Yes, it made a difference. You made the right choice, David.”
Something about the way the angel said it, exhausted and resigned... David realized the feathers were from the angel’s wings, or at least the wings the angel used to have.
David said, very slowly, “How about you? Did you make the right choice?”
There was a streak of grime on the angel’s cheek. It made him look even more beautiful.
“It was the right choice for you,” the angel said, shrugging his wingless shoulders. “I told you I wanted to keep you safe.”
David realized he could feel parts of his face again. He put a hand up: fresh tears were leaking from his eyes and running hotly down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t’ve done that for me.”
“My choice,” said the fallen angel. He reached out and wiped David’s tears away.
The touch of his calloused fingers felt achingly familiar. David remembered how the angel had held his hand when he’d been a little boy, and had led him home.
The angel continued, “Anyway, this is the first thing in a long line of many. You’ve got a long road ahead, David, and it looks like I can’t walk it with you anymore.”
He got to his feet, and winced - he wasn’t wearing shoes, and his toenails looked like they were turning transparent, like he was going to fade into thin air.
David sat in the snow for a moment longer. The pain was still there, of course - he’d just lost everything he loved. And because of him, the angel had maybe lost everything, too, and was going to leave him after eighteen years of watching over him.
He thought he’d be scared, and he was, he was really scared. He was all alone now. But there was a feeling of determination as well, the sort of strong, peaceful feeling he got when he was about to perform, or waiting to hear the stars.
He believed in God, believed that God loved him. And he believed in himself.
Deep inside himself, David heard the first notes of a song that might be all his own.
The angel held out his hand. “Time to put aside childhood things,” he said.
David nodded firmly, and let the angel help him rise.
*
2028:
It had been an unusually cold Christmas season. The Salt Lake City streets had three-foot drifts that the new hovercars couldn’t make a dent in, and the city had had to break out the old-fashioned snowploughs so that vehicles could get into the city center.
Luckily, this afternoon it was so cold it had stopped snowing, and the light rail system was running smoothly again.
David Archuleta rode the trains anonymously to Union Plaza station. He crossed the street to the crisis center, slipped in through the staff entrance, and smiled at the girl at the desk. "Nice hat, Kerry!"
The bobble hat matched the rubies in her nose ring. "Thanks. Thought I'd get into the spirit! Is it cold out?"
"Not too bad," said David, shrugging out of his scarf and jacket. "How are our guys today? Christmas is always a tough time."
"Yeah, more calls than usual," Kerry said. "There are a couple of walk-ins at the shelter, and we had one of your fans show up and ask for your autographed Christmas CD."
David grinned. “Hope you told them donations still go to the shelter charity?”
“Yeah,” said Kerry. “He gave us fifty dollars! Said your music really helped him when he was struggling and now he’s doing good, he’s got a job, he just married his boyfriend, the whole nine yards.”
“That’s so great,” David said, choking up a little. It never got old, no matter how many heartwarming stories of hope and change he heard. “Did you get his name? I’ll get Louisa to send him a wedding present.”
Kerry rolled her eyes and handed over a slip of paper. “You’re such a soft touch, David.”
“Kids like him is why I do what I do,” David said, honestly. He paused, then asked, “Anyone need an extra hand today?”
Kerry said, “Team Two’s a man short.”
“Gotcha,” said David, and pushed through to the front office of the crisis center, where the action was.
Periodically, the director of the crisis center would suggest renaming it the Archuleta Center, but David always vetoed it. He didn’t want his name and modest celebrity status to overshadow the work they did with LGBT teens in crisis - the kids should be the main focus here, not David Archuleta, Christian pop music icon. So the Center for Hope it remained.
Besides, he didn’t know if centers were named after people who actually worked there? His tour and performance schedule was crazier than it had ever been, but when he was in town, he tried to spend a couple of afternoons a week working with the crisis team.
When he got there, the Team Two crisis room was full of clients.
In one of the cubicles near the door, Brooke, one of the team leaders, was talking to a thin, dark-haired girl who couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. She looked up as David came in, and her eyes went wide.
“David Archuleta,” she said, and David took a seat beside Brooke.
“That’s me!”
“You’re, like, my hero,” the girl said, and burst into tears. Brooke handed her a tissue, and David patted her shoulder as she cried.
Brooke said to David, “This is Leah. She’s from Bexar County in Texas. Her girlfriend killed herself last month, and she’s, you know, she’s having a hard time.”
“Her dad thinks it’s my fault,” Leah sobbed. “And I kinda think it is. I went away to school, and I wasn’t there for her, y’know?”
“Honey, there was nothing you could’ve done,” Brooke said. Leah cried harder, and David took her hand.
“I’m gonna tell you my story,” he said, a little awkwardly. Eighteen years on and it still hurt, but if it helped one person, he’d tell it forever.
“Eighteen years ago I fell in love with my best friend. We lived in Murray, where things were even more difficult for LGBT teens then than they are now. My dad threw me out of the house when he found out. My friend’s dad made him break up with me. And then…”
David paused. He’d told this story a dozen times, and he’d never be used to it.
“My friend couldn’t live with himself,” he said. “He just couldn’t change who he was. I did my best to reach out to him, but he refused to see me. I’d gone back to BYU, the label wasn’t too sure about my whole coming-out thing, so I had to take another job to help with tuition. My parents wouldn’t talk to me or let me come home that year, either. And so I wasn’t there the day my friend shut himself in his dad’s garage and turned all the engines on.”
Leah stared at him, open-mouthed. He saw Brooke dab surreptitiously at her eyes.
“I couldn’t help him, Leah, but I knew I could help other kids like him. Other kids like me.” David felt the memory of that Christmas Eve fill him with cold. “Because I nearly did the same thing, the night we broke up.”
David squeezed her hand, and continued, “But an angel saved me that night, and told me God loved me. He led me to a shelter. There wasn’t anywhere in Murray for kids like me to get help, but when I got to Salt Lake City there were people who were kind enough to reach out. And I knew that God could use me, if only I was brave enough. So I set up this shelter, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Leah clung to his hand like it was a lifeline. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough,” she said, hesitantly.
David said, his heart full, “We’re all braver than we know.”
*
Three hours later, the crowd had thinned out. David got up and stretched. It was time to leave; he was supposed to be at his label’s Christmas Eve party, where his friend and last year’s American Idol Reboot winner Kris Allen was making an appearance.
“And Katy has a great guy she wants to introduce you to, so she might kill you if you don’t come,” Kris had said, warningly.
David had sighed. He’d been blessed in so many ways over the years, but less so, it seemed, in the love department. He hadn’t had a boyfriend in years; the chastity thing seemed to put off even the most conservative of Christian guys.
It didn’t deter his friends from setting him up, though. Even his mom did it - he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a surprise date at her Christmas Day lunch tomorrow.
His dad would disapprove, of course, but after the divorce he was lucky to have been invited to lunch at all, and David had long forgiven him, anyway. He knew better than most that some people couldn’t change who they were.
“Fine, anything for Katy,” he’d told Kris.
He remembered Kris had said to wear something nice. David looked down at his shirt and jeans and wondered if he had time to head home and change.
Kerry caught him mid-self-survey. “Hey, pop star, if you’re done checking yourself out, we have a new walk-in. He’s eighteen, he’s come a long way. Jason’s with him now, but I wondered if you wanted to help out.”
Duty calls, thought David, with some relief. He’d make it up to Katy Allen later.
*
The rooms on the ground floor were reserved for the individual cases in the most need. David looked through the glass slats for Jason’s dreadlocked head and went in when he found him.
Jason was sitting with a skinny teenager wearing a too-thin pullover and torn jeans. At his feet was a coat, a duffel bag and a white guitar case.
The teenager’s red hair was long like a woman’s. His eyes were green and too-old and strangely familiar.
David stared. Impossibly, he knew the boy.
“Oh my God,” the kid said, in a voice which David had last heard under a bridge one Christmas Eve, eighteen years ago.
David heard the frantic beating of wings, or maybe it was the beating of his own heart.
The red-haired boy got to his feet, swaying a little. He was tall, taller than David himself. He touched David’s face with cold, shaking fingers; David remembered the calloused touch like it was yesterday.
Remembered the angel’s name had been the same as his.
“David?”
“Dave,” the boy said. “I remember - the bridge, falling, Christmas Eve -” and David took his hands.
“You saved my life. And then you left. Do you remember that?”
“Yes. Yes, everything: the Heavenly City, the battles, so many lost souls. You, lost in the snow. Oh my God.”
His knees couldn’t hold him; David had to lift him up. Jason was staring, clearly wondering whether he needed to call paramedics and the drug team, then deciding that coffee was more in order.
“God loves you,” David whispered into the thin pullover.
Dave said, “I remember that now, too.”
David held him until the tears stopped, then made him drink two mugs of coffee which warmed him up a little. He couldn’t take his eyes off the skinny, gorgeous kid his angel had become.
“Where have you been for eighteen years?” he asked, finally.
Dave said, “Growing up in Missouri. Going to school, fighting with my folks, singing in a band. Wondering why life was this empty. Wondering if I’d ever find someone to love.” He shifted restlessly in his chair. “Not remembering you until today.”
“You had no idea?”
“Think that’s how this reboot thing’s supposed to work,” Dave said, shrugging. “I had a feeling, though. Which is why I packed up a couple days ago and hitch-hiked across states to Salt Lake City.”
“You came to find me,” said David. It was hard to get the words out, his heart was that full. “I’m so sorry, Dave. If I’d known you’d been born into the world that night, I’d have done anything, moved heaven and earth, to find you and keep you safe.”
“It’s okay,” Dave said, smiling a little. “I’m here now.”
“Yeah,” David said. His hand curled around Dave’s. “You are.”
Jason must have figured the sensitive thing might be to give them some space, because he got up to leave.
After he was gone, Dave asked, “And you? What’ve you been up to, after I stopped watching over you?”
“Me?” David had to think back. “I went back to BYU and switched my major to psych. I made my third record while I was doing my degree, and with the money I had this center set up. We’ve been helping kids from Salt Lake and all over the US for the last ten years.”
“And the music stuff?”
David shrugged. “I’m not doing too badly. I have a new Christmas album out? My manager says I’m even more bankable in my thirties, I don’t even know.” He tried to focus. “The thing is, I can pay for anything you need.”
Dave looked down. Then he said, softly, “What happens now?”
“Whatever you want,” David said. “You could stay here at the shelter tonight. You’re an adult, in this body anyway, so we don’t need parental notification - though you should call your mom, if you left without telling her. If you want to stay in Salt Lake City, we can find you something more permanent; the center has longer term lodging. And if you want to go back to school, I’ll help - I’ll pay for you to go to college here, or anywhere. Anything you need, Dave.”
Dave sat and waited until David’s words ran out, and then he said, “What I need is to be with you.”
David felt himself flush, heard the fierce beating of wings in his ears. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. It’s, it’s really soon.”
Dave tightened his grip on David’s fingers. “It’s not soon enough. I’ve waited for you for eighteen years without knowing it. I’ve missed you so much.”
David knew how it would look if word got out that he’d picked an eighteen-year-old runaway off the streets and installed the kid in his penthouse downtown. He knew he couldn’t afford to be that reckless. He didn’t really care, though. “I’ve missed you too.”
Dave smiled. “You probably had someone else awesome watching over you. Far as I knew, the big guy had special plans for you. And what you’ve done in the last eighteen years, it seems he was right.”
Out of all the incredible events of this day, that was the one that made David’s eyes fill with tears.
It was Dave’s turn to hold his hand until David got himself under control. Then Dave continued, sensibly, “So, you’re probably right about this too, we should take this slowly. I should probably go back to school. I’ve had enough of theater studies, but I always liked graphic design.”
Then he grinned. “But there’s no way you’re not taking me home tonight, David. Not after we’ve found each other again.”
David couldn’t think of a single objection to this, and Dave took this as a signal to slide over and cup David’s face in his hands and kiss him on the mouth for the first time.
David held him so tightly he could feel the thunder of Dave’s fierce heartbeat, could feel the beating of wings through both their bodies. He kissed Dave back, and at last tasted their future together.
David said like it was a promise, “It’s my turn now to take care of you, okay? For the next eighteen years, and forever.”
Dave wound his fingers around David’s. “I can’t wait.”
*
There was a building in Salt Lake City made of concrete and care, and a hope that shone through the cracks of its old facade.
Two men walked out of the building into the cold Christmas night. They stood hand in hand on the sidewalk, looking up at the stars, listening to their song.
Then - “It’s snowing,” David said, wonderingly, and they watched the flurries of snowflakes spinning down from the heavens.
Dave closed his eyes for an instant. Limned in the snowfall, he looked for a moment like the beautiful, ageless creature he’d been, before he’d given up his wings to save a frightened teenager who had been about to lose his way.
Then he opened his eyes and grinned, cocky and eighteen years old again, and David had to hold his breath. He could see the future so clearly: how he’d watch that the skinny young frame fill out and grow broad and strong, how the missing parts of his life would be complete now Dave was here.
How, eighteen years later this Christmas, they’d been given this unlooked for, infinitely precious gift.
“Let’s get inside,” Dave said, and they crossed the road together.
High above them, white feathers stretched across the night sky.
Brian unfurled his wings and took off after them, to watch and defend, like guardian angels did.
/the beginning/
Recipient: musicboxgirl
Betas: sophie48 and x_heterophobic
Title: lower than the angels
Pairing(s): David Cook/David Archuleta; David Archuleta/male character
Word Count: 7,900+
Summary: David knew angels watched over him. One angel, in particular. Wingfic.
Rating: [NC-17], for themes.
Disclaimer: We are in no way officially affiliated with David Cook, David Archuleta or their representation. Everything about them is completely fiction, and any similarity with reality is a mere coincidence. No copyright infringement is intended. Lyrics taken from traditional Christian hymns. Fair use asserted.
Warning(s): Angst, homophobia, religious themes, supporting character death.
Author's Notes: This is the religious, gay-themed story I’ve been too afraid to write, so thank you for your awesome request! It may be a darker and more serious story than you had in mind, bb, but I hope you’ll like it anyway. Happy holidays!
lower than the angels
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. ~ Psalm 8:3
There was a bridge in Murray made of stone and sorrow and something else that began with s.
It wasn't called that by the town officials, of course. It lay on the edge of the city, leading the back road out to Highway 89. Every year seniors came here after finals or prom to mess around and maybe drink contraband smuggled in from out of town, and flirt with what life might be like if they left Utah behind.
And every other year, some kid who was headed out of town for real, maybe with his life in a backpack and a heart running on empty, would stand here and decide it might be easier to take flight this way instead.
David wondered exactly how many of them had stood where he was standing now - on the edge of the bridge, looking down at the sheer drop into black.
He was shivering. His coat wasn't thick enough, the cold rose through the soles of his boots. The night buses weren't running on Christmas Eve, and he'd had to walk here for two miles from the last bus stop, the ground slippery hard with ice and snow.
He couldn't feel his fingers. His tears had long become a frozen layer on his cheeks.
The air was like a knife. It was too cold to be snowing tonight. The night sky was clear. Somewhere out there, church bells were ringing, to welcome the faithful to Christmas service.
Above him he could see the stars in all their glory. Below him was darkness.
He wondered if everything he'd been taught was true. Maybe hell and damnation and the devil waited to welcome his soul, or maybe they were wrong about this too. Maybe he'd smash apart and there'd be nothing at all.
The stars were singing to him, he heard their song.
On thee, at the creation, The light first had its birth;
On thee, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth;
On thee our Lord victorious The Spirit sent from heaven;
And thus on thee most glorious, a triple light was given.
David wondered what would happen if the light that had been given him were to be put out. If it hurt enough for him to let go, to find out.
*
David had always heard the song of the heavens.
His mom loved to tell the story at family gatherings: how he'd started singing before he could talk, how as a toddler he'd loved to look up at the night sky and say he heard the stars.
"Then David would say, 'Singing, Mama!' And I'd ask him, 'Is it an angel, mijo?' And he'd say, 'It's coming from up there!' And that's how I knew my boy was gifted by God."
Lupe would ruffle his hair, and David would blush and duck his head at the clucking of well-meaning relatives and church members.
The thought had comforted him throughout his childhood: that he could hear the songs of heaven, that he knew angels were watching over him. One angel, in particular.
He remembered a vision he'd had when he was little. He must've been no more than five or six, because he hadn't been able to reach the Christmas ornaments on their family mantel.
It had been late, sometime after dinner. He'd wandered out into the open field next door because he wanted to check up on the snowman which his dad and brother and he had made that afternoon. He remembered he'd been excited because it would be Christmas soon and then his birthday after.
It was hard to walk through the snow, and took a while to find the snowman. He’d had to fix the snowman because its nose had melted off even though it was very cold that night.
Afterwards, he walked around for a bit. Everything was so still and pretty, and the stars were very bright above him.
And then he heard them sing, cold and rushing like beating wings:
Earth and all stars, Loud rushing planets,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
O victory, loud shouting army,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
He has done marvelous things:
I, too, will praise Him with a new song!
Hail, wind and rain, Loud blowing snow storms,
Sing to the Lord a new song!
It was so peaceful, he felt sleepy and happy and not cold anymore. He lay down in the snow, and turned his face to the sky to listen.
The snowflakes danced down around him.
And then someone spoke to him. "Hey. David. You need to get up, buddy."
The stars had never talked before. David sat up curiously.
Kneeling beside him in the snow was a man in white.
David couldn't see the man's face very well, because it was shining. The man’s red hair was long like a woman's. His eyes were green and kind.
"How d'you know my name?"
"Because," said the man, "it's the same as mine."
"Oh," said David. He squinted at the man, trying to work out if he had wings or not. "Are you an angel?"
"Maybe," said the man. He held out his hand, and David took it and they both got up. The man's hand felt rough, rougher than his dad's hand. His fingers were warm.
"You don't feel like an angel," David said, dubiously.
The man's mouth twitched. "Really?" He asked. "Have you ever met an angel?"
"No," said David, hotly, "but I know how they sound!"
"Ah! Like this?" asked the man, and held up one finger, and then struck a pose like Mrs Abdul had taught them to do before they said the Pledge of Allegiance.
”God, who stretched the spangled heavens
Infinite in time and place,
Flung the suns in burning radiance
Through the silent fields of space,
We, Thy children, in Thy likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee
Great Creator, still creating,
Teach us what we yet may be.”
The man's voice was familiar, and the most beautiful thing David had heard in his whole life. He could have stood there with the snowflakes dancing around them and listened to it forever.
The man stopped singing after a while, though, and murmured something like, "Satisfied?"
"Okay," David said. He felt like he should say something else, after that awesome song. "Thank you."
The man did the thing with his mouth again. "You're welcome. Now, let's get you back home, okay?"
When they got back to David's back porch, David's house was a blaze of lights: people were standing on the porch steps in puffy coats and flashlights. David could see Mr. Graham from next door, and Mr. and Mrs. Castro from across the street.
Someone let out a high pitched cry, and David recognized his mom's voice.
"Mijo, where have you been, we've been looking everywhere!"
She flung her arms around him and held him so tightly he could hardly breathe.
"I was talking to an angel," David tried to say. He knew the man would be gone when he turned around, though, and it was true, he'd disappeared; like angels did.
*
After that, David would sometimes see the red-haired angel in his dreams.
He'd show up when David was being chased by ponies, or walking around in a palace made of Lego blocks and glitter glue, or swimming like fish at the bottom of the ocean. He'd be wearing white, and David could now see the wings that stretched behind him.
Sometimes the angel would just pop into the dream and out again, and David would wake up barely remembering the dream and unsure of whether he'd seen him after all.
Other times the angel would speak to David, and call him buddy like he did that Christmas Eve, and that's how David could be sure it had been a real vision that night and it hadn’t been just his mind playing tricks on him.
And when he heard the voices of the stars, the voice that sang to him the most often was the angel's, and when he heard it he knew God loved him.
*
His parents and church elders told him God loved him, too. They told him he had a gift.
When David was six and a half years old he sang before the elders of the whole ward of his state, and when he was seven and a half he had sung “America the Beautiful” on national television. By the time he was nine he'd released an album of gospel songs, and recorded a single with Christian music star Gary Allan.
People from outside his church asked him about his faith, and he tried his best to explain it to them: God made the whole world, God knew them, and He loved them, every one.
People from his church kept telling him what a blessing he was. How his gifts were special and how he needed to use them to further God's kingdom. His ward bishop, Bishop Miller, told him his life's work was the mission field, and how God would use his life mightily to bring glory to Him.
David took for granted that he'd keep making music as he went to school, and that after college he'd go on the mission of his life. He couldn't wait. He loved his life in Murray, loved his family and his church, but he knew that he was meant to travel further, to different needs and mission fields all over America.
"Do the stars sound different in New York?" asked Brian, when David got back from a praise concert with The Brett Family in the Union Square Stake. Brian had been David’s best friend since the first grade, and had seen David leave Murray so many times, whenever the need took him.
"They sound the same," David said, and they had - from his hotel room window, from the streets of Manhattan. "I think they sound the same everywhere, you know?"
"That's great!" said Brian. "Then when we head out on mission, you'll always have their song with you."
David smiled. Brian had always understood him, had always felt the same about God and their calling as David had. He'd sit with David on David's back porch in winter and lie with him in the grass in summer. They'd pray, and watch the stars together, and David would sing him snatches of the stars' song.
They'd started planning to go to mission training center together from as early as the sixth grade, even though they knew they probably wouldn’t get to serve together.
Bishop Miller approved of the early mission planning, as did his dad, of course, and Brian's dad, Mr. Mclean, who served as an usher in the ward’s meetinghouse as well. The bishop took a personal interest in David's career, often giving his measured views of what concerts David should do and which groups or singers David should work with, so that outside influences wouldn't distract him from his Godly focus.
David had felt lucky he had strong circle of friends to keep him focused. They'd all been together since grade school: Brian, Tom and Keith, Grace and Hannah. Their parents all knew each other and of course were members of the church. Hannah Cyrus lived down the street and in the sixth grade when they all started taking the public buses after school, David would say goodbye to Brian at the corner of Sennet and Main and then he'd walk Hannah home.
Hannah was a slender girl with an angelic voice, the best alto singer in their choir. She was smart and kind, she liked horses, and David's parents liked her very much. In the seventh grade David's mom started inviting Hannah over without her sisters, to bake cookies and to help in the garden.
In the eighth grade Hannah talked David into signing up for drama club. Despite his performing schedule David made the time for a role in The Tempest, and liked it so much he persuaded Brian to take part too.
"What do the stars sing to you?" Hannah asked one evening on the way back from rehearsal.
David shrugged. "All kinds of things. Sometimes there are no words. Other times --" He put his head back and, okay, so he was showing off a little, and sang:
”We, Thy children, in Thy likeness,
Share inventive powers with Thee
Great Creator, still creating,
Teach us what we yet may be.”
He came to a halt when he realized Hannah was staring, her mouth in a round O. Above them, a couple of the early stars had come out.
David flushed. He wasn't sure why he'd chosen to sing that song -- he hadn't thought about it in years, hadn't seen the red-haired angel in his dreams in longer.
"Um," he said, and she took his hand and pushed her mouth against his.
She tasted like bubblegum and sweetness, and David felt absolutely nothing.
"We shouldn't," he told her gently. He could feel the shape of her body, her curving breasts and thighs, under her loose clothes. He put his hands on her waist and held her away from him.
He knew from a hundred lectures in school and home and from the church's teen group that a young woman's body was a forbidden land before marriage, that it was a powerful lure, and an encouragement to sin.
He felt surprised that after all that, he didn't feel the temptation that he was supposed to. Surprised and a little happy, he guessed, that God wasn't testing him in this way.
She'd closed her eyes to kiss him, and now she opened them again. She was flushed a deep pink, she was breathing quickly. "Oh," she said, a little miserably. "Sorry. I... you're such a good person, David. I couldn't help it. I've loved you for such a long time."
David squeezed her hand. "Don't be sorry. I love you, too."
"Not the same way I love you," she whispered sadly, and walked the rest of the way home by herself.
They never spoke about it again. And then, before the summer vacation Brian came over to his back yard and told him he'd heard Hannah had started dating Tom.
"That's nice," David said absently. He was lying in the grass, waiting for the stars to come out. Lately their songs had been soft, just music and words that he couldn't make out.
Brian dropped into a squat beside him.
"You're okay with it?" he asked. "I know she really liked you, and I thought you liked her too. And it was, like, your folks and the bishop all kind of hoped you guys would get together."
David frowned, and stared up at Brian, who for some reason wasn't looking at him. "Hey," he said. "I do like her. I love her. But she said I didn't love her in the same way, and, you know, I think she was right."
At this, Brian looked down at him at last. David was fascinated despite himself - he'd never realized how long Brian's lashes were, even longer than David's, how his hazel eyes were flecked with gold.
"You don't love her?" Brian said, slowly. "I didn't know."
"I didn't know, either," David said.
Brian took David's hand and squeezed. It was the sort of thing best friends did, but something fluttered in the pit of David's stomach.
David blinked. Suddenly, he was a little dizzy. He felt white wings brush against his shoulder and saw a flash of someone’s bright green eyes.
*
After that, things were different. Brian had always been there, of course; project work and choir practice, church and mission. Now school was out there was even more to do, sleepovers and camp and David's summer performance schedule.
Before this summer, David had never noticed how Brian's voice shaded around his when they sang in choir, how Brian's taller shoulder fit perfectly against his side when they walked together. How Brian always seemed to understand David's rambling speeches and his silences, and how the right thing to say would come out of his perfectly-shaped mouth.
They still lay side by side on Brian's bedroom floor, and on the grass in David's back yard, but it was different now. They were older, becoming men, there wasn't Hannah between them anymore.
And their faith didn't prepare them for the lure of a young man's body..
When Brian rolled over to him one night at summer's end and kissed him, David felt the stars and beating wings sweep through his whole body, from his forehead to his heels to his pulsing erection.
There was no temptation or holding back, just music, just sheer love.
The song of the stars filled them both, swept them up, took them panting and gasping over the edge. They fell, they flew, held fast in each other's arms.
*
David's parents assumed David needed a shoulder to cry on about Hannah. His mom hinted about needing to give him space and left him alone, to be with Brian.
The weeks stretched into months, and before they knew it they'd spent a year together, holding hands under tables and stealing kisses in doorways, held as one by music and beating wings.
"We need to confirm our plans for mission training, like, this month," David said. They were lying on his bed, tangled in each other's arms. "My dad wants me to work performing into the MTC schedule and then to make a solo album later. But Principal Flutie thinks I should actually go to college first."
"You should go," Brian said, rubbing his shoulder. "BYU or to New York, even. You're so smart."
"Come with me," David said absently.
"Not smart enough," Brian said, awkwardly. "Besides, my dad wants me to stay here and help in the garage before MTC."
David frowned. "I don't want to be without you," he said. “Forget college, then. I’ll talk to the principal and my dad some more.”
Brian said, not looking at him, “David. It would be wrong for you not to go.”
David said firmly, “We'll sort something out."
The stars sang, but that night they ignored them.
*
When he went to bed, David dreamed of the red-haired angel. He was dressed in white, as usual, and his white wings spread out across the night sky. He wasn’t smiling for once, though, his shining face unusually somber.
“What is it?” David asked. They were standing on a cloud in a starry sky, the ground beneath their feet like cotton candy.
The angel sat down on a puff of white and sighed. “You know God loves you, David.”
David said, “I do, I know that.”
The angel nodded. His eyes were very green and filled with sadness. “And He wants to keep you safe. I want to keep you safe. But you’re not a child any more, you’re a man, and childish things are ending. Change is going to come, you need to be ready.”
“What kind of change?” David asked, but the angel didn’t reply; he rose up into the sky, spreading his wings over them both.
*
In the end Principal Flutie managed to convince the bishop. David would try a term at BYU first before heading out to MTC. Brian stayed in Murray; he said he’d wait to see if David liked BYU too, and in the meantime his dad needed him in the garage.
David enjoyed college. He expected it to be a little lonely, and it was, because he was going from a small class where everyone knew him to a big campus. The kids and teachers all knew he was a recording artist, and they were friendly, but there was something between them, like a barrier, that David wasn’t used to.
He wasn’t used to being away from Brian, too. When he called Brian after class Brian sounded kind of distant. David understood - they’d seen each other every day since they were six - he expected it was going to be hard.
He dreamed of the red-haired angel once: fighting an epic battle in the heavens, wielding a fiery sword that blazed like the sun. Later, he’d realize it had been the last dream he’d have of him.
“Brian misses you,” his mom said when they visited in October. “His mom says he wants to give up choir, because you're not there anymore.”
David looked warily at his mom. He wondered if she knew about Brian and him. He wasn’t going to lie to her, either, or to anyone. He knew that what he and Brian was doing wasn’t wrong, knew God loved him anyway, but he also knew what his stake thought about it, what his family would think.
His mom didn’t say anything more, though. Then.
*
David went home for Thanksgiving. He hugged his brothers and sisters and traded stories with his dad and ate his mom’s turkey.
And he saw Brian, and they hugged and kissed each other and promised each other they’d be together forever.
Then David went home for Christmas, and everything changed.
*
It was cold: David had forgotten how cold it got in Murray. The snow banks were a foot and a half high.
His Aunt Maria came to pick him from the Greyhound bus station, and David knew straight away that something was wrong.
“I can’t say what it is, David, but your father wants to talk to you.”
David felt the chill stab straight through him. He twisted his hands together, and prayed for help.
You’re not a child any more, you’re a man, and childish things are ending.
When he got to his house his mom and siblings weren’t there. Only his dad sat in the living room, and David was struck by how old and tired he looked.
“I know what you’ve been doing with Brian McLean,” his dad said, without preamble. “Joe nearly took a tire iron to that boy, and you know, I don’t blame him.”
David could barely hear his dad over the roaring of blood in his ears. He had to sit down. “Is he okay?”
“You worry about yourself, son,” his dad said softly. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
David felt the full weight of the tire iron. “I never lied to you,” he said. “And I’m not, I’m not gonna start now. I love him, and I’m not going to stop.”
His dad shook his head. “Son, you know this isn’t God’s plan. It’s God’s plan for you to have a wife and children, an eternal family, not this. You know it’s a mortal sin. Both of you are risking your souls if you don’t repent.”
David said, “How do you know what God’s plan is? The Bible talks about fornication outside marriage, we don’t do that. The Bible talks about love, too, and I love him, and I’m not going to be sorry for who I am.”
His dad stood up. “Then you can’t stay under my roof, David. I’m sorry, but I can’t have you around your brother and sisters any more.”
David tried to stand as well; it took him a couple of tries. “Please don’t do this,” he whispered. “I’m the same person. God loves me, why can’t you do that too?”
His dad closed his eyes, and David could see tears welling up under the lids. “I’ll always love you, son, but you need to leave. Before…” his voice caught, and David realized it was from barely suppressed rage and grief. “Before I do something I’ll regret.”
David staggered and nearly fell; he knocked over the chair as he stumbled out of the door.
Backpack, jacket, then out. David knew what a bad idea it was, but he headed to Brian’s house anyway.
He was half expecting Mr. McLean and the tire iron, and was so relieved to see Brian on the back porch instead, not wearing a coat in the cold, but looking more or less unharmed.
“Thank God you’re okay!” David tried to fling his arms around him, but Brian pushed him away.
“David, you shouldn’t have come here.” He’d never seen Brian look this despairing, this defeated.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Brian looked away, as if he had breaks and bruises on his body which David couldn’t see. “I’m saying we can't see each other any more. It’s wrong, what we did was wrong, we just can’t.”
For the second time in an hour, David’s legs couldn’t hold him up. The wood of the porch floor was freezing and it wasn’t nearly as cold as his heart.
“But, I love you. I said, you said…”
“It isn’t love,” Brian said. “The bishop explained it to me. The elders said, said it’s a lie, said we’re going to burn forever. And my dad says he’ll kill me if I see you again.”
Somehow, David managed to get to his feet, and to speak calmly and certainly. “We don’t have to do this, Brian. You can get your things and come with me. We’ll figure something out.”
Brian shook his head. “I can’t. It’s wrong, David. You have to leave.” The long-lashed eyes that David loved so much looked already dead.
David didn’t realize he was crying until he tasted salt on his lips. He reached out one more time.
And then the back door banged open, and Mr. McLean was there, shouting, his face the color of blood. He had something in his hand. Brian flung himself at his father, shouting as well.
And David ran.
*
The Greyhound back to BYU had already left. The sky was darkening, and it was getting even colder.
When it got too cold to walk the streets David rode on one bus and then another, round and round the small town. He rode past shops that were shut early for Christmas, homes with fairy lights strung across windows and fires in hearths and families fellowshipping with each other.
His eyes and nose stopped running after a while.
What he couldn’t stop was the empty, rushing feeling in his heart. He’d always felt God’s love inside him. His love for his family, for Brian, had filled him in the same way. Now, there was nothing.
Finally, he took the last bus out to the edge of Highway 89. He got off, and followed the road to the bridge.
*
It was easier to look at the stars above him. Easier than to look into the dark water below, anyway. David figured that would be the way to do it, if he was really going to - he’d keep looking up, and that’d make it easier.
He looked up into the clear night sky and took a deep breath. Then he squinted.
It looked like it was snowing after all.
Thick flakes of snow fell out of nowhere. They spun down from the heavens in a dizzying dance. The snow caught on his eyelashes, his frozen nose, his too-thin jacket.
David put out a hand automatically to catch the falling white.
And then he stared, because it wasn't snow.
It was a white feather, singed around the edges.
David looked up, and there were feathers, falling around him, filling the sky.
There was a rushing sound, something very bright falling as well, faster and faster, headed straight toward him. There was no time to get away.
And then there was white, and brightness, and it wasn't cold anymore.
*
When David opened his eyes again, he was lying on the bank of the river. The bridge loomed high above him in the distance.
Beside him lay the red-haired man. His white clothes were dirty and damp from the snow. He no longer had wings. Blackened feathers surrounded him like a blanket.
David couldn’t say a single thing.
After a while, the angel opened his green eyes. He sat up stiffly, as if he’d fallen from a great height.
“Are you okay?” he asked David, in the voice David remembered from his dreams.
Finally, David found his voice. “I… you… What have you done?” he asked, in a voice that didn’t sound like his.
The angel grimaced. “I wasn't sure that would work. Well, there's a first time for everything.” He cracked his neck to the side experimentally. “There was a battle; there’s always a battle out here, especially at Christmas. And you were going to jump.”
“I was going to jump?” David repeated. The words sounded unbelievable to him, as if it had been a lifetime ago that he’d stood on the edge of the bridge with emptiness in his heart.
The angel just looked at him, and he stammered, “I, I wasn’t really going to. I was just… I wanted to see what it would feel like. I wouldn't have jumped.”
The angel rubbed his temples with his filthy hands. “You would’ve slipped,” he said evenly. “You were freezing, and tired, and Brian’s dad came at you with a wrench from his garage. And you ran away out here, which wasn't the smartest thing to do. It wouldn’t have made a difference that you didn’t mean to jump at the end, that it would’ve been an accident - you’d still be at the bottom of this river.”
David thought about this for a while. Then he said, in a very small voice, “It made a difference to you, though.”
The angel sighed. “Yes. Yes, it made a difference. You made the right choice, David.”
Something about the way the angel said it, exhausted and resigned... David realized the feathers were from the angel’s wings, or at least the wings the angel used to have.
David said, very slowly, “How about you? Did you make the right choice?”
There was a streak of grime on the angel’s cheek. It made him look even more beautiful.
“It was the right choice for you,” the angel said, shrugging his wingless shoulders. “I told you I wanted to keep you safe.”
David realized he could feel parts of his face again. He put a hand up: fresh tears were leaking from his eyes and running hotly down his cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “You shouldn’t’ve done that for me.”
“My choice,” said the fallen angel. He reached out and wiped David’s tears away.
The touch of his calloused fingers felt achingly familiar. David remembered how the angel had held his hand when he’d been a little boy, and had led him home.
The angel continued, “Anyway, this is the first thing in a long line of many. You’ve got a long road ahead, David, and it looks like I can’t walk it with you anymore.”
He got to his feet, and winced - he wasn’t wearing shoes, and his toenails looked like they were turning transparent, like he was going to fade into thin air.
David sat in the snow for a moment longer. The pain was still there, of course - he’d just lost everything he loved. And because of him, the angel had maybe lost everything, too, and was going to leave him after eighteen years of watching over him.
He thought he’d be scared, and he was, he was really scared. He was all alone now. But there was a feeling of determination as well, the sort of strong, peaceful feeling he got when he was about to perform, or waiting to hear the stars.
He believed in God, believed that God loved him. And he believed in himself.
Deep inside himself, David heard the first notes of a song that might be all his own.
The angel held out his hand. “Time to put aside childhood things,” he said.
David nodded firmly, and let the angel help him rise.
*
2028:
It had been an unusually cold Christmas season. The Salt Lake City streets had three-foot drifts that the new hovercars couldn’t make a dent in, and the city had had to break out the old-fashioned snowploughs so that vehicles could get into the city center.
Luckily, this afternoon it was so cold it had stopped snowing, and the light rail system was running smoothly again.
David Archuleta rode the trains anonymously to Union Plaza station. He crossed the street to the crisis center, slipped in through the staff entrance, and smiled at the girl at the desk. "Nice hat, Kerry!"
The bobble hat matched the rubies in her nose ring. "Thanks. Thought I'd get into the spirit! Is it cold out?"
"Not too bad," said David, shrugging out of his scarf and jacket. "How are our guys today? Christmas is always a tough time."
"Yeah, more calls than usual," Kerry said. "There are a couple of walk-ins at the shelter, and we had one of your fans show up and ask for your autographed Christmas CD."
David grinned. “Hope you told them donations still go to the shelter charity?”
“Yeah,” said Kerry. “He gave us fifty dollars! Said your music really helped him when he was struggling and now he’s doing good, he’s got a job, he just married his boyfriend, the whole nine yards.”
“That’s so great,” David said, choking up a little. It never got old, no matter how many heartwarming stories of hope and change he heard. “Did you get his name? I’ll get Louisa to send him a wedding present.”
Kerry rolled her eyes and handed over a slip of paper. “You’re such a soft touch, David.”
“Kids like him is why I do what I do,” David said, honestly. He paused, then asked, “Anyone need an extra hand today?”
Kerry said, “Team Two’s a man short.”
“Gotcha,” said David, and pushed through to the front office of the crisis center, where the action was.
Periodically, the director of the crisis center would suggest renaming it the Archuleta Center, but David always vetoed it. He didn’t want his name and modest celebrity status to overshadow the work they did with LGBT teens in crisis - the kids should be the main focus here, not David Archuleta, Christian pop music icon. So the Center for Hope it remained.
Besides, he didn’t know if centers were named after people who actually worked there? His tour and performance schedule was crazier than it had ever been, but when he was in town, he tried to spend a couple of afternoons a week working with the crisis team.
When he got there, the Team Two crisis room was full of clients.
In one of the cubicles near the door, Brooke, one of the team leaders, was talking to a thin, dark-haired girl who couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. She looked up as David came in, and her eyes went wide.
“David Archuleta,” she said, and David took a seat beside Brooke.
“That’s me!”
“You’re, like, my hero,” the girl said, and burst into tears. Brooke handed her a tissue, and David patted her shoulder as she cried.
Brooke said to David, “This is Leah. She’s from Bexar County in Texas. Her girlfriend killed herself last month, and she’s, you know, she’s having a hard time.”
“Her dad thinks it’s my fault,” Leah sobbed. “And I kinda think it is. I went away to school, and I wasn’t there for her, y’know?”
“Honey, there was nothing you could’ve done,” Brooke said. Leah cried harder, and David took her hand.
“I’m gonna tell you my story,” he said, a little awkwardly. Eighteen years on and it still hurt, but if it helped one person, he’d tell it forever.
“Eighteen years ago I fell in love with my best friend. We lived in Murray, where things were even more difficult for LGBT teens then than they are now. My dad threw me out of the house when he found out. My friend’s dad made him break up with me. And then…”
David paused. He’d told this story a dozen times, and he’d never be used to it.
“My friend couldn’t live with himself,” he said. “He just couldn’t change who he was. I did my best to reach out to him, but he refused to see me. I’d gone back to BYU, the label wasn’t too sure about my whole coming-out thing, so I had to take another job to help with tuition. My parents wouldn’t talk to me or let me come home that year, either. And so I wasn’t there the day my friend shut himself in his dad’s garage and turned all the engines on.”
Leah stared at him, open-mouthed. He saw Brooke dab surreptitiously at her eyes.
“I couldn’t help him, Leah, but I knew I could help other kids like him. Other kids like me.” David felt the memory of that Christmas Eve fill him with cold. “Because I nearly did the same thing, the night we broke up.”
David squeezed her hand, and continued, “But an angel saved me that night, and told me God loved me. He led me to a shelter. There wasn’t anywhere in Murray for kids like me to get help, but when I got to Salt Lake City there were people who were kind enough to reach out. And I knew that God could use me, if only I was brave enough. So I set up this shelter, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Leah clung to his hand like it was a lifeline. “I don’t know if I’m brave enough,” she said, hesitantly.
David said, his heart full, “We’re all braver than we know.”
*
Three hours later, the crowd had thinned out. David got up and stretched. It was time to leave; he was supposed to be at his label’s Christmas Eve party, where his friend and last year’s American Idol Reboot winner Kris Allen was making an appearance.
“And Katy has a great guy she wants to introduce you to, so she might kill you if you don’t come,” Kris had said, warningly.
David had sighed. He’d been blessed in so many ways over the years, but less so, it seemed, in the love department. He hadn’t had a boyfriend in years; the chastity thing seemed to put off even the most conservative of Christian guys.
It didn’t deter his friends from setting him up, though. Even his mom did it - he wouldn’t be surprised if there was a surprise date at her Christmas Day lunch tomorrow.
His dad would disapprove, of course, but after the divorce he was lucky to have been invited to lunch at all, and David had long forgiven him, anyway. He knew better than most that some people couldn’t change who they were.
“Fine, anything for Katy,” he’d told Kris.
He remembered Kris had said to wear something nice. David looked down at his shirt and jeans and wondered if he had time to head home and change.
Kerry caught him mid-self-survey. “Hey, pop star, if you’re done checking yourself out, we have a new walk-in. He’s eighteen, he’s come a long way. Jason’s with him now, but I wondered if you wanted to help out.”
Duty calls, thought David, with some relief. He’d make it up to Katy Allen later.
*
The rooms on the ground floor were reserved for the individual cases in the most need. David looked through the glass slats for Jason’s dreadlocked head and went in when he found him.
Jason was sitting with a skinny teenager wearing a too-thin pullover and torn jeans. At his feet was a coat, a duffel bag and a white guitar case.
The teenager’s red hair was long like a woman’s. His eyes were green and too-old and strangely familiar.
David stared. Impossibly, he knew the boy.
“Oh my God,” the kid said, in a voice which David had last heard under a bridge one Christmas Eve, eighteen years ago.
David heard the frantic beating of wings, or maybe it was the beating of his own heart.
The red-haired boy got to his feet, swaying a little. He was tall, taller than David himself. He touched David’s face with cold, shaking fingers; David remembered the calloused touch like it was yesterday.
Remembered the angel’s name had been the same as his.
“David?”
“Dave,” the boy said. “I remember - the bridge, falling, Christmas Eve -” and David took his hands.
“You saved my life. And then you left. Do you remember that?”
“Yes. Yes, everything: the Heavenly City, the battles, so many lost souls. You, lost in the snow. Oh my God.”
His knees couldn’t hold him; David had to lift him up. Jason was staring, clearly wondering whether he needed to call paramedics and the drug team, then deciding that coffee was more in order.
“God loves you,” David whispered into the thin pullover.
Dave said, “I remember that now, too.”
David held him until the tears stopped, then made him drink two mugs of coffee which warmed him up a little. He couldn’t take his eyes off the skinny, gorgeous kid his angel had become.
“Where have you been for eighteen years?” he asked, finally.
Dave said, “Growing up in Missouri. Going to school, fighting with my folks, singing in a band. Wondering why life was this empty. Wondering if I’d ever find someone to love.” He shifted restlessly in his chair. “Not remembering you until today.”
“You had no idea?”
“Think that’s how this reboot thing’s supposed to work,” Dave said, shrugging. “I had a feeling, though. Which is why I packed up a couple days ago and hitch-hiked across states to Salt Lake City.”
“You came to find me,” said David. It was hard to get the words out, his heart was that full. “I’m so sorry, Dave. If I’d known you’d been born into the world that night, I’d have done anything, moved heaven and earth, to find you and keep you safe.”
“It’s okay,” Dave said, smiling a little. “I’m here now.”
“Yeah,” David said. His hand curled around Dave’s. “You are.”
Jason must have figured the sensitive thing might be to give them some space, because he got up to leave.
After he was gone, Dave asked, “And you? What’ve you been up to, after I stopped watching over you?”
“Me?” David had to think back. “I went back to BYU and switched my major to psych. I made my third record while I was doing my degree, and with the money I had this center set up. We’ve been helping kids from Salt Lake and all over the US for the last ten years.”
“And the music stuff?”
David shrugged. “I’m not doing too badly. I have a new Christmas album out? My manager says I’m even more bankable in my thirties, I don’t even know.” He tried to focus. “The thing is, I can pay for anything you need.”
Dave looked down. Then he said, softly, “What happens now?”
“Whatever you want,” David said. “You could stay here at the shelter tonight. You’re an adult, in this body anyway, so we don’t need parental notification - though you should call your mom, if you left without telling her. If you want to stay in Salt Lake City, we can find you something more permanent; the center has longer term lodging. And if you want to go back to school, I’ll help - I’ll pay for you to go to college here, or anywhere. Anything you need, Dave.”
Dave sat and waited until David’s words ran out, and then he said, “What I need is to be with you.”
David felt himself flush, heard the fierce beating of wings in his ears. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea. It’s, it’s really soon.”
Dave tightened his grip on David’s fingers. “It’s not soon enough. I’ve waited for you for eighteen years without knowing it. I’ve missed you so much.”
David knew how it would look if word got out that he’d picked an eighteen-year-old runaway off the streets and installed the kid in his penthouse downtown. He knew he couldn’t afford to be that reckless. He didn’t really care, though. “I’ve missed you too.”
Dave smiled. “You probably had someone else awesome watching over you. Far as I knew, the big guy had special plans for you. And what you’ve done in the last eighteen years, it seems he was right.”
Out of all the incredible events of this day, that was the one that made David’s eyes fill with tears.
It was Dave’s turn to hold his hand until David got himself under control. Then Dave continued, sensibly, “So, you’re probably right about this too, we should take this slowly. I should probably go back to school. I’ve had enough of theater studies, but I always liked graphic design.”
Then he grinned. “But there’s no way you’re not taking me home tonight, David. Not after we’ve found each other again.”
David couldn’t think of a single objection to this, and Dave took this as a signal to slide over and cup David’s face in his hands and kiss him on the mouth for the first time.
David held him so tightly he could feel the thunder of Dave’s fierce heartbeat, could feel the beating of wings through both their bodies. He kissed Dave back, and at last tasted their future together.
David said like it was a promise, “It’s my turn now to take care of you, okay? For the next eighteen years, and forever.”
Dave wound his fingers around David’s. “I can’t wait.”
*
There was a building in Salt Lake City made of concrete and care, and a hope that shone through the cracks of its old facade.
Two men walked out of the building into the cold Christmas night. They stood hand in hand on the sidewalk, looking up at the stars, listening to their song.
Then - “It’s snowing,” David said, wonderingly, and they watched the flurries of snowflakes spinning down from the heavens.
Dave closed his eyes for an instant. Limned in the snowfall, he looked for a moment like the beautiful, ageless creature he’d been, before he’d given up his wings to save a frightened teenager who had been about to lose his way.
Then he opened his eyes and grinned, cocky and eighteen years old again, and David had to hold his breath. He could see the future so clearly: how he’d watch that the skinny young frame fill out and grow broad and strong, how the missing parts of his life would be complete now Dave was here.
How, eighteen years later this Christmas, they’d been given this unlooked for, infinitely precious gift.
“Let’s get inside,” Dave said, and they crossed the road together.
High above them, white feathers stretched across the night sky.
Brian unfurled his wings and took off after them, to watch and defend, like guardian angels did.
/the beginning/