Happy Holidays, maerhys! [Part 1]
Author: Mrs Claus
Title: This Loud Christmas Carol
Recipient: maerhys
Pairing(s): David Cook/David Archuleta
Word Count: 12,000+
Summary: Three ghosts visit Dave in the run-up to Christmas Day.
Rating: R for recreational drug use, language, various ghosts, one zombie, time traveling, religious angst and sexual content.
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 ever intended.
A/N: Dearest maerhys, in my pinch-hit attempt I tried to make you the canonest non-AU canon Christmas story you wanted, that had an Idol summer tour scene, multiple outsider points of view including a Michael Johns Idol tour POV, copious amounts of time-travel, a terror/horror scene, the inclusion of family, friends, and bandmates as side characters, some press speculation after they reveal what was said after Cook was announced the winner, general angst with a happy ending, true love/soulmate tropes, and Jeff Archuleta as an obstacle to Cookleta. As well as Recent Important Canon Events.
I hope you enjoy, and happy holidays!
Dave isn't usually up for the sex and hard drugs part of rock 'n roll. No reports of Jim Morrison orgies, no drunken or semi-naked photos apart from the one wardrobe malfunction earlier on this tour, whenever there's hotel furniture damage he leaves a large tip for housekeeping, that's just the way he is.
Neal and the other guys give him shit about 19E's world-peace kool-aid, but what the hell, this millennium even metalheads are into microfinance for third world debt and reducing their carbon footprints and safe sex.
However, he's not above smoking up some shit occasionally, he's only human. Today's baggie is courtesy of Neal: a peace offering that says sorry for moving out of Dave's house and in with Kira and leaving the Anthemic (though he's not sorry for wanting to do his own thing, come hell or Highwater); also Merry Christmas, Maybe See You on New Year's Eve. It's a lot of coded messaging for such a small bag. Dave has lots of friends, he's the kind of guy that has lots of friends, but Neal is one of his best; they go back a long way, long enough that he doesn't need to apologise to Dave for wanting to take a break from being the American Idol's sidekick. And he's a big boy, doesn't mind his own company, he's not gonna cry when people have their own lives to lead.
Besides, this is really good shit. He kicks back on the sofa, smokes a couple of joints down to the quick, chases it with pizza and Coors. Soon enough, his empty house is filled with the citrusy smell of pure sunshine. Thank God he can now afford to live far enough away from his neighbors; time was, there'd be banging on the ceiling or the door and threats to call the cops or demands for an invitation to come share, sometimes one hot on the heels of the other.
After a while, he's pleasantly numb, THC and lassitude curling through his limbs, half-hard under his sweats but too comfortable to do something about it at least for now. The blinking lights of his Christmas tree blur into a vast, galactic map; Johnny Cash's re-mastered Christmas album on stereo sounds like the symphony to life, the universe and every fucking thing.
Around about the time of "The Christmas Song", the tree lights start looking less like a map of the universe and more like the face and form of his old buddy Michael Johns.
Which is kind of bizarre, because for one, he hasn't spoken to Mike in a while, he thinks Mike is probably still in Vegas on that part-time gig at the Wynn, so he isn't sure why Mike's the person his subconscious has chosen to summon, and also, those lights look goddamn lifelike, more Next Generation-holodeck than Star Wars hologram; it seems the thing is actually moving towards him.
"Hey," the not-hologram says in Mike's voice. Fuck, what is in this bag, Dave has never had an auditory hallucination on White Widow, or, come to think of it, ever.
"Hey, David Cook," and Mike doesn't usually call him that, either, "are you paying attention? You should listen up. It's your lucky night."
Dave mutters, "Mikey, if you were really here instead of this shit-for-Picard version of you that lives in my head, you'd know my idea of a lucky night involves a couple’a blondes and a crate of the Opus One Reserve you don't appreciate."
The vision of Mike makes a very Mike-like snorting sound. "Too many blondes, mate, not good for the soul, and not what you really need. Which is what Mike's too chickenshit to tell you. So it's lucky for you I'm not really him."
"Huh," says Dave. This is officially the most off-the-chain trip in the universe, and he's gonna have to have words with Neal if the fucker in fact shows for New Year's. "Okay, Dr. Dave's Id, I will bite. Who do I really think you are?"
Mike grins devilishly. "Don't know what your id thinks, Dave, but I'm really the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I've come to fuck your shit up."
Dave thinks the sound he makes is something like, "Fffffyeah."
"Happens all the time," sighs the guy whom Dave’s stoned-out brain insists on calling Mike. "You'd've thought I'd be in a higher salary bracket since I'm the one doing all the heavy lifting, paving the way for the other two, taking the hit of people's initial shock and disbelief. But no, the big guy's all about equality."
"No shit," says Dave, rubbing his eyes. It doesn't work: there's still Michael Johns, in the black fedora and string vest and illegally-tight jeans he'd worn to attempt not to stop the music on the Idols Season 7 tour, charming grin and Antipodean speech patterns and no one else, especially not some ghost straight out of A Christmas Carol. Clearly his id's more fucked up than he gave it credit for. "So this is the deal? My life's about to head off a cliff this Christmas, you and your two buddies show me my future to set me straight?"
"The big guy did expect you to be familiar with the classics," Mike says, approvingly. "But I see you're having some problem suspending the disbelief."
"You think?"
"The smart ones are always the toughest sell," comments Mike. Carefully, he takes off the fedora and hangs it on top of Dave's tree, covering the star of Bethlehem tree topper, and runs a hand through his dark hair. His voice changes, becomes higher, smoother. "I've found what tends to work is taking another form, the form of someone beloved that's not alive."
Dave doesn't believe he's hearing this, doesn't believe he's seeing Mike's face and body blur into nothing like the Star Trek teleporter effect, can't believe his id hates him enough to actually do this, to summon the dead he loves...
... The shapeless thing skinnies Mike's broad form down; solidifies into a slender, female figure. Dave experiences an acute sense of relief -- thank God, it's not him -- and then, oh fuck no, fuck --
"Been awhile, Dave," Vee says. She looks as dark-eyed hungry as he remembers, her hair the same color as the fire that one night rained down on their stage. She's wearing her usual black T-shirt and black jeans and bare feet.
Only, her white skin's slack and hanging off her body and filled with maggots, eaten away in patches by worms and other things that have lived in the ground for more time than Dave wants to think about. Three years since Neal wrote that goddamn song, anyway. Which is crazy, he must be going crazy, if this was truly her she'd be bone by now, permanently-grinning, not smiling with these purple lips.
She has -- had -- a tattoo on the side of her neck, the Roman numeral III. Dave had loved to trace the numbers with his tongue. He knew Neal’d also loved it, had taken her to the ink parlor to put it there when he and she had been seventeen and stupid, had told him so when Dave had come into their lives those years later.
The tattoo's faded but it's still visible against the mottled flesh. Dave hears himself make a choking noise, his heart's pounding in his ears, his head is trying to override the artificial calm of the THC, screaming oh fuck, run, run --
"Thought this form would be effective enough," Ghost Vee says, calmly. "We don't lead off with this unless it's really necessary, it's usually upsetting for people. And I don't want to upset you more than I have to. Heartthrob."
The sound of that name, from those dead lips -- Dave takes belated hold of the nameless terror. He's faced down Simon fucking Cowell, for God's sake; no ghost masquerading as this Walking Dead ex-girlfriend could be scarier than that.
"Jesus, look, you, like, couldn't pick someone else? I mean, I also love Janis Joplin and Martin Luther King."
Ghost Vee shrugs what once were shapely shoulders. "This shape’s not irrelevant to the process, David. You loved her, she left, and there was nothing you or Neal or Andy could do to save her from herself." She moves in closer. "Gotta say, though, that Neal and Andy didn't spend the rest of their lives dating undemanding blondes who might have less brain cells than this one damaged redhead."
Dave suppresses the shudder, the need to puke until he turns inside out. Best defense, always a good offense. "Fuck you, Vee, I tried my best with you, but you were the craziest in a line of crazy ex-girlfriends. Crazier than the band ex-boyfriend, too, and he used to throw his shoes at my head when I didn't buy the type of cereal he liked."
"I know you tried with her," the Ghost says, and thank fucking Christ, changes from dead Vera back to wry, smiling Mike Johns. "My point, mate, is that at some point you stopped trying."
Dave staggers to his feet, puts out a hand to the thing wearing Mike's face. Its arm feels warm, solid, exactly how Mike had felt the last time he'd bro-hugged Dave goodbye.
Dave's so relieved Vee's gone that he could cry. His legs shake, he's distressingly sober. Some time in the course of the conversation he'd come to believe this is almost happening. He wishes he doesn't, wishes he could cut and run, could smoke himself into oblivion and wake up tomorrow and everything would be as it was.
Ghost Mike looks expectantly at him, and with some effort Dave says, "Let's cut to the chase. You're here because I haven't been a very good boyfriend? That actually doesn't sound too bad, it's not like I'm gonna shoot all the Mondays down, or make the Cratchett children orphans this Christmas."
Mike drawls, "Well, mate, it's true you really haven't been a very good boyfriend. You're grinning big like you got it made, such a colossal fake? Your backbone stuck inside your purse? But as with these things, it's not so simple. So. Three nights with me and my brethren, we show you three things, and after that you get one shot this Christmas to get your life back on track."
He cracks his neck, shakes his limbs out like he's getting ready to hit the treadmill. "Ready to come see?"
Dave doesn't think the Ghost will take no for an answer. "Why the hell not."
"Right you are," and Ghost Mike takes his hand.
There's a rushing sound and the world becomes a blur around him. He has the sensation of speed, either like they're travelling very fast without running, or like everything else is shooting around them. Lights and shadow and cloudy human outlines zoom past them above and below and alongside, and reflexively he clings to Mike so he doesn't throw up or fall over.
Abruptly, a ball of light shoots out of the darkness, comes to a halt right under Dave's nose. It spins around once and expands, peeling open in fingers of brightness, and Dave feels his stomach fall away as he sees a mirror image of himself and Mike, sitting on a cheap leather sofa that could only belong to the boys' bus on the Idol 2008 tour.
"Oh, crap," Dave says weakly. Looks like one of those late post-concert nights on the bus, Mike and him shooting the shit after everyone else'd gone to bed.
"Watch," not-Mike offers.
In the bubble of light, Mike's true self takes a long swig of beer and says, "Kim and you, man, I wish it made more sense."
Dave watches 2008-him shrug. "Not everyone can make as much sense as you and Stacey. Kim's cool, and she's not looking for her soul-mate, which makes her A++ in the Book of David."
Mike snorts in exactly the way Ghost Mike'd snorted earlier. "Could you sound any less all-American frat boy? I know what your mushy romantic soul's like. Deep down all of us are looking for our soul-mate."
2008-Dave rubs his designer stubble. His hair looks more perfect then than it's ever looked since, the Idol stylists really were the best in the business. "Look, Mr. I-married-the-perfect-woman, even if that's true, it's not true for me right now. I want to focus on my career, and to occasionally get laid while doing that, and I know this isn't gonna fuck up Kim's life. How's that for mushy and romantic?"
"Jesus H.," Mike says, "that's about as mature as David Archuleta. No, wait, I take it back. Archie is way more mature than you."
Dave watches his younger self glance over at the back of the bus, where the curtains over Archie's bunk are drawn closed. "You got me there, Archie is actually totally more mature than me. And he's sworn off girls until marriage, which is maybe a good thing."
"Kid didn't say anything about swearing off love," Mike says, and, okay, Dave remembers this conversation now.
Which means he remembers what he said next in 2008, and can see now he'd actually blushed a little when he said it. "Your point being?"
Mike rolls his eyes. "Look, I'm not a complete idiot. I see the way you look at him when you think nobody's looking."
"Whoa, I don't know if I'm ready to have this conversation," says young Dave, too loudly; he glances back at Arch's bunk again, nervously. "This isn't like you, dude. Where's it coming from?"
"It's because I know and care about you, mate. Don't rub it in my face, okay? Also, I see the way Archie looks back at you. I don't think girls are a big option for him."
Younger Dave pinches the bridge of his nose. "Arch is still a kid. He's not gonna know who he wants right now, whether it's love or girls or soul-mates. So maybe I look at him sometimes, you'd have to be made of stone not to. But that's all it is, I swear."
Mike leans forward earnestly. "You don't know everything about him, Cook. He's a really great kid, they don't make 'em like that anymore. You guys have a lot in common, totally more than you and Kim. And he's not gonna be a kid for much longer."
Younger Dave shakes his head. "It's precisely because he's great that I don't want to mess him up. I know enough about him to know that. He deserves better than me. And, so, I really don't wanna talk about this, man. Not now, not ever."
"Fine. Sorry I said anything. Consider the subject closed from now on." 2008-Mike gets up from the couch abruptly and leaves Dave sitting there by himself.
"And he kept his word, didn't he?" Ghost-Mike whispers in Dave's ear. "Didn't say anything when you broke up with Kim, when you ignored Archie in Manila. Not a word about you seeing Janine or hooking up with Ryan Star or fucking that groupie whose name you can't remember."
Dave jerks away. "Fuck you, I didn't ignore Arch. Also, I did not screw Ryan, he just likes to fool around a little is all, his wife's cool with it. And, you know, I'm done justifying myself to you."
"Not sure you could keep that up, David, you've always had a total guilt complex." The Ghost smirks, then nods back to the ball of light. "And, of course, at the end of tour, this happened."
A flash in not-Mike's eyes, and Dave knows what's coming.
"Fuck, I don't need to see this," he whispers, because he really doesn't need the Ghost of Christmas Past and his fucking window into the past to remind him of what happened here; he still thinks about it himself, dreams about it sometimes in the dead of night when there's no one there.
The last concert of the tour, the hug he'd given Archie after their last song. The way Arch embraced him back, hungry and urgent, not at all like the diffident, self-conscious way Archie had previously returned his other hugs.
The platform descends into darkness with Arch's arms still locked tight around him. The kid feels good, too good, all lean muscle under his clothes, nothing feminine about him, and for some reason this inflames Dave even more. He shouldn't be this aroused, it's dangerous to think of Archie this way, but with the kid in his arms it seems his self-control has evaporated into thin air.
Then Arch raises his face to his, and it seems they are kissing.
Arch's lips are soft, wider than a woman's lips would be, as lush as Dave hadn't dared dream they'd be. He kisses Dave with the ardor of a young man's first kiss, fervent and untutored, and, God help him, Dave kisses back.
Arch opens his mouth, gives in to Dave's tongue and the pressure of Dave's lips, makes small sounds as he kisses Dave like he's drowning, everything Dave's ever wanted right here under his hands.
Dave is so hard he can't see straight. His senses are filled up with Archie. He wants to punch through a wall, wants to take the kid's hand and start running, away from the tabs and 19E and the fucking Idol machine, wants to tear Arch's clothes off and fuck him against the wall until all backstage falls down around them.
Instead, what he does is pull away, manages somehow to steer them both into a nearby dressing room.
In the low lights Arch's face is flushed, his eyes heavy-lidded, his mouth slick and swollen. He's panting like he's just run a marathon, has to lean against Dave for support. Dave knows he's in no better shape; the damn lace-up pants of his costume were not made for erections, though he'd be damned if his painfully hard dick isn't actually getting the message.
This needs to be shut down fast. "Are you okay?"
"Yes?" murmurs Archie, his shoulders heaving, sounding almost sex-drunk.
Dave tries to set him back on his feet. "Arch, we can't do this. People will find us. We have to get out to the meet-and-greet and the last VIP party."
"I don't care if people find us," Archie says. "I want to be with you. I've been wanting to do this for months, Cook. Haven't you ever felt the feeling like you were meant to do something? I feel it, and it's like you feel it too. I don't care about anything else."
Dave swallows. "You don't mean that. This is your career, you have your whole life ahead of you. We can't do this."
Arch's eyes get wider; he looks as if Dave's punched him in the stomach. For an instant he's speechless. Then, "I love you," he says. "And I'm not scared."
"I love you too," Dave says, helplessly, knowing it was true, he'd told Archie that the day they'd stood on the final Idol stage together, confetti falling around them. "Which is why I'm scared for you. Why I want you to not mess your life up with me right now. Please, Arch, this isn't the right time."
Arch closes his eyes. Dave fights the urge to run his thumb across Arch's perfect cheekbone, to pull him close again and kiss him senseless. Finally, Arch says, his voice tight and closed off, "Maybe you're scared you'll mess up your life with me, too. Is that right?"
"Jeez, Archie, no." Dave reaches out after all, can't stand to see the hurt in Archie's face, pulls him forward so their foreheads lean against each other's. "I don't care about people either. But I care about your family, and about our careers, and what the press and Idol and Jive will say. And you're still seventeen. We can't do this now."
He's so close to Arch he can count the eyelashes on Arch's face, see the hectic color rise and fall in his cheeks. Arch swallows as if he's going to protest, and then decides the better of it. What he finally goes with is, despairingly, "I'm not sure I can do all this, and love you and not be with you at the same time."
"Yes you can. I'll help you, I'll always be with you, I promise. I'll always love you," and Dave puts his arms around Arch, trying to give him strength to face their future, trying to convince himself.
They're still clinging to each other when the knock comes and a 19E staffer puts her head around the door. "Mr. Cook, Mr. Archuleta, they're waiting for you at the VIP holding area. Bus leaves in ten."
"We'll be right out," says Dave, and in his arms Archie makes a small noise that could mean anything at all.
"Not your finest hour," the Ghost says, dryly, as the images fade into brightness.
Dave says, "No, I did the right thing by Archie! Anyone could see that. He was too young then."
Ghost Mike says, "He was right, though. You were scared for yourself too."
"Of being arrested! Of his dad cutting my dick off!"
The Ghost raises Mike's shaggy eyebrows. "If you really loved him, you'd’ve waited till he turned eighteen, and then his dad couldn't have called the cops on you."
"It's not just the age thing. I mean, kid believes in God, believes in soul-mates. I don't think I believe in anything anymore, not since we lost ..." Dave rubs his eyes. "My point. I wouldn't be good for him, and I did the right thing."
"Maybe it wasn't the right thing for you, Dave."
"And what kind of asshole would I be, if I let myself get in the way of what's good for Archie? No." Dave is abruptly sick of this, doesn't even care if the Ghost transforms himself back into Zombie Vera and digs his brains out with her bare hands. "I'm done with this. With you. Take me the fuck home."
"Funny how the first night always ends this way. Okay, Dave, so long," says the Ghost, and his eyes glow like stars. Shining and horrible, he lets go of Dave's hand.
Dave falls, falls backwards into the dark, and knows nothing else.
*
Dave struggles to the surface of consciousness, trying to get back, to get back to something he knows is crucially important but he just can't grasp hold of ...
... and all at once there's sunlight streaming through an open window; the stereo switched to some loud altrock channel making it a very loud morning indeed.
Dave's head is pounding, his mouth tastes like something died in it, and oh, oh fucking Mary, Jesus, Joseph, that did not just happen to him last night.
Maybe he can chalk it down to some very bad no good White Widow trip. He's definitely got the morning-after headache, he's still in last night's sweats, he must've passed out on the couch and had the weirdest hallucination ever.
Only, only there's Michael John's fedora on the top of his Christmas tree.
Jesus Christ, Dave can't handle this. He staggers to the guest bathroom head-first and pukes till nothing more comes up.
Eventually, he comes back and plucks the hat off his tree, refusing to admit that his hands are shaking. It feels as real as it looks; even smells of Mike.
Dave resists the temptation to flee the house and never look back. Maybe he should head to his mom's place in Blue Springs a day early before the Second Ghost comes calling: he really wants to see Drew and their nephews and nieces, and their mom will make everything better.
No, he just needs to get a grip. Dave makes himself choke down some toast and OJ, though it's closer to lunch now. As he eats, he wonders what Mike would say if he called and told him he'd just been paid a visit by the Ghost of Christmas Past wearing Mike's own face.
There's no creepy-coincidence message on his iPhone from Mike, but there is an email from David Archuleta to his Idol buddies, including Dave, with details of his upcoming two year mission for the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Dave has been trying hard not to think about Archie all morning, so the email is a blow right to the solar plexus.
He'd seen the congratulatory tweets that followed Archie's mission announcement at that last concert in Salt Lake, but he hadn't known what to think about Arch going on mission to India and putting romance and his career on hold for two years, let alone what to say to him about it. And thusly he hadn't mentioned it when he'd responded to Arch's happy birthday DM, and doesn't know how to reply to this present email.
So happy for you sounds condescending, and a lie besides. What are you running away from? is totally rude, Arch would never speak to him again. What Dave really wants to say is Please don't go, and he knows he definitely doesn't have the right to say that.
So he doesn't respond to Archie. Instead, he gets his running shoes and exercises till his legs are like rubber. He tries half-heartedly to jack off in the shower, but he's too shaky and still vaguely nauseated to manage it; instead he towels off and gets himself some lunch. He's scheduled for an afternoon business meeting and then dinner with his agent, neither of which he blows off. He doesn't call any of his friends to ask them to come by because he's too afraid to be by himself, which is really what he wants to do.
Dinner with Roger is at Spago's. Dave has a Caesar salad and a bottle of Perrier. This happens to be a regrettable choice: the salad is bland and cold and unfulfilling, and it prompts a raised eyebrow and a neutral comment from his agent about how you can never lose enough weight.
Worst of all, it doesn't work, because when Dave comes back home, hungry and stone cold sober, there's someone who looks like Steve Van Zandt sitting on his living room sofa.
"What the actual fuck," says Dave, and Stevie says, "Sorry, kid, you know this ain't really me here, right?"
"I don't know anything anymore," Dave says truthfully.
The facsimile of his friend Stevie pats the sofa cushion beside him welcomingly, and Dave figures he can't do worse than to go sit down.
"Why you, Stevie?"
Steve says, "We take the form which the big guy thinks might be comforting. You see Van Zandt as some kinda mentor and spirit guide, don'tcha, I gotta say that works for what we're gonna do today."
Dave rubs his forehead. Damn it, he should've had the cheeseburger and fries and Coors anyway if he knew it wasn't going to make a difference. "Okay, so why me, then?" he asks.
Not-Stevie says, kindly, "It sounds like you could use some help."
"Me? I'm a mess," says Dave; he knows it's true the moment he says it, despite the Idol win, despite the new record, despite everything. "But you don't go round helping everyone whose lives are a mess; I mean, scaring the shit outta them, that is."
"Who knows, man? We just go where we're sent. Ordinary folks who need their life to change, mostly, sometimes minor celebs like you." Not-Steve shrugs. "Before you ask how come this hasn't hit the press before, I'm not real sure either. But in my experience, people don't tend to broadcast their time with the Christmas ghosts. That Mister Dickens was an exception."
Dave sighs. "So this is my second night? The Ghost of Christmas Present? One more and then we're done with this?"
"Yep. Don't count your chickens, though, son. You gotta see this first."
"Fine. Whatever. Hit me with that ball of light," Dave says, and holds out his hand.
"I never knew that about the Book," the real Steve Van Zandt is saying to David Archuleta.
The six of them are crammed into a booth in a tiny restaurant beside the Czech consulate, a couple of blocks down from Ronald McDonald House. Steve had said it was casual, the food was authentic, and the owner brewed his own dark beer onsite, which was music to Dave's ears.
The restaurant's pretty crowded, even at this late hour. Diplomats and hip East Siders dig into their steak tartare and give their celebrity fellow diners the New York cold shoulder.
"You're actually really well informed," Archie says to Steve. "Lots of people still think the Book and the Bible are incompatible, and that the Book insists on polygamy, when, you know, it doesn't at all!"
"Well, the same way the Bible doesn't prohibit eating shellfish these days or prescribes stoning as punishment for adultery," Steve says.
Maureen nudges her husband. "Hey! I had no idea I was sittin' next to a religious scholar."
Steve smirks. "Lotsa things you still don't know about me, babe. Anyway, you don't have to be a scholar to know and care about the things of God," and he nods meaningfully at Archie.
In return, Arch gives him a real smile, not the awkward public ones he makes when he's with people he doesn't know. Dave remembers when Arch would always smile at him like this -- open and unguarded, like he's thrilled to just be alive. Now he thinks about it, he sees it less and less from Arch these days, and, out of all the things that happened that evening, this affects him the most.
Dave has been on edge all night, hopped up on post-performance adrenaline and on being in Arch's presence again. He'd barely had a week to absorb the unexpected pleasure of 19E arranging for him to share a stage with Archie and fellow Idol alum Constantine at the RMH Kids for Cancer charity concert. He'd played eight days' worth of This Loud Tour dates after getting the news, trying not to imagine how Archie would look in person, after almost a year of not seeing him; they'd missed each other on Idol this year, their paths had almost crossed in Vietnam of all places, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Arch had been ignoring him lately.
And Arch has been acting weird all night. Dave figures it's only with him; Arch’d otherwise been totally professional with the RMH donors, and his old sweet self with the kids, and he sounded amazing during his set - older, more confident, his voice even mellower with age. He was looking amazing too, taller and broader than he'd been a year ago, the angles of his face more defined: a man, now, in every sense of the word. He'd hugged Dave awkwardly, and Dave had made some stupid crack about the P90X workout really working for him, and had wanted to smack himself in the head.
Coming off his set Arch had looked bright, sweaty and energized, like the music had set him on fire: the way he always looked after he'd performed, only, somehow, more. Dave could hardly look at him. "You were terrific. So good, I quit," Dave had said, only half-jokingly.
Arch had turned to him, looking for a moment as if he might say something to this, then he'd ducked his head and said, awkwardly, "Aw, you'd never quit, Cook," and patted him on the arm and disappeared backstage.
Things between them thawed after Dave's set; Arch had told him the new music sounded great with real enthusiasm, and had blushed like his old self when Dave had told their VIP usher, "I really love this guy!"
They took many, many photos with the kids and donors, and then Dave had, too-casually, asked Archie to join their party for a birthday dinner for Maureen Van Zandt. "Some place Alexis and the Van Zandts like," he'd said, and held his breath.
Arch gave him a guarded look, then said, "Sure, Cook, I'd like that. Let me just let my dad know."
Dave bit back the stab of annoyance; he hadn't seen Jeff here in New York and frankly that didn't disappoint him at all. "Your dad still managing you?" he asked, trying to sound casual. "Thought that was kind of an interim thing, to tide you over after your split with WEG."
"Sure." Arch had his phone out and was texting rapidly. "I know you said you don't think it's a good idea, being managed by family, but my dad has done a lot for me, and I know he has my real interests at heart."
"Arch, I never meant --" Dave said, and then stopped short, because what he really thought was that Jeff was an unprofessional asshole who'd treated Lupe like crap and who had his own agenda.
When it'd been apparent Dave had nothing else to say, Archie shrugged and turned away to square things with his people.
And now Arch's crammed into the booth beside Dave, so close his denim-covered thigh is pressed warmly against his, and talking earnestly to the Van Zandts about the Book of Mormon, and Dave's feeling like his skin is going to come off from frustration and desire.
On Dave's other side Alexis Skib is packing away her roast pork and discussing diamond engagement rings with her brother. "I know Jennie's the type of girl who'd be happy with a beer pull ring, kiddo, but the rule of thumb is two months' salary minimum," Alexis says, and Andy says, "Jeez, like Dave pays me anything near enough as it is!"
"Oh please, like MWK paid me anything at all!" Dave snorts back, which is when Arch excuses himself and leaves the table.
Maureen leans over the table to say to Dave, "Your Archie is such a sweetheart! So glad you brought him to dinner, I really like him."
"He is a sweetheart," Dave agrees, then wonders if by your Archie she means ... "Uh, you know we're just friends, right?"
"Right, right," says Maureen, too quickly. "Of course. You have your career, he has his."
"Don't think that's what Dave means, babe," Stevie says, putting his hand over hers, and Dave feels himself flush like Archie always does.
"Yeah, really, they're just friends, nothing romantic!" Alexis says, grinning. "Though Archie has had the biggest crush on David since Idol. Looks like he's finally gotten over it, though," she adds.
She says it matter-of-factly, no Skib has a mean bone in their body, and still it hits like a kick in the balls.
"I did notice that. Did you guys fight or something?" Andy asks, frowning.
"No! Nothing like that. That is," Dave swallows, not wanting to talk about this, "Archie left his management company earlier this year and didn't renew his contract with Jive, and I told him I wasn't sure that was the right decision."
"He's now being managed by Archudad, right? Can't blame you," says Andy, quietly.
"Yeah, well, I thought I stayed respectful, and that we were fine, but after that he started, I don't know, kind of freezing me out, didn't reach out after This Loud Morning dropped, that kind of thing." Dave realizes he sounds a little whiny. "You know, it's probably nothing. He's busy, I'm busy, that's how it is."
"Well, he's really grown up since Idol," says Alexis. "You can't expect him to look up to you forever, David. These teenage things don't usually last."
And this hurts, too. "Never expected anything from him," Dave says, though he knows that isn't entirely true. "Anyway, if that's so, it's probably for the best."
"He's coming back," Andy says, and this thankfully puts an end to the conversation.
They linger too late over blueberry dumplings and birthday cake and coffee (which Arch still doesn't drink), and Steve and Maureen's driver has to circle the block twice before the Van Zandts are ready to leave. Stevie kisses everyone The Sopranos-style, tells Arch, "Email me those links, my man!", and Maureen holds Dave close.
"Maybe you guys have never dated, but you definitely give off this lovers' spat vibe," she murmurs in his ear. "Go fix things with him, okay? He's a good, sweet, smart kid."
Her warmth thaws a cold knot inside him that he doesn't realize is there. "I'll try," he tells her. "Stevie is a lucky man, by the way."
She smiles and tosses her blonde hair a little. "Save the charm for someone closer to your age, loverboy. You mind what I say now."
Andy is spending the night in Alexis' spare room for some sibling bonding; tomorrow she'll take him to Tiffany’s. 19E has booked Dave and Archie (and Constantine) into the St. Regis, and Dave hails a yellow cab to take Archie and him to Fifth Avenue.
Arch is quiet, huddled into his pea coat and scarf. The street lights flash neon and chrome across his angular cheekbones, turn his eyelashes to gold.
"So dinner was okay?" Dave asks him, tentatively.
"Yeah. Steve and Maureen are so great," and it's great Archie is enthusiastic about something, even if it's not Dave.
"That they are. I'm glad you got to know them, they're good people."
"It was good to see Andy again, too," Arch says, after a while. "Doesn't Neal usually travel with you, though?"
Dave swallows. "Well, this month Neal's touring with another band. He's not gonna make it out to This Loud Tour."
Arch thinks about this, then says, "I'm sorry about that. I know how much Neal's a part of your band, and what a good friend he is to you," and suddenly Dave feels a wave of emotion that makes his throat tighten.
"Yeah, he was, and he is." Nobody but Arch had told him that they were sorry about Neal; Dave didn't want to admit it to himself. Damn, Archie still got him, after all this time. "I didn't want to make too big a deal about it, I mean, what kind of as-- jerk would I be, right, if I got upset about my friend doing his own thing?"
"You're not a jerk, Cook," Archie says softly. "You can't help how you feel about things. You just have to figure out how to handle it, that's all."
Dave's throat is dry, he knows Arch isn't only talking about Neal. And he's an adult, come on, playing games are for teenagers. "Archie, can I ask you something?"
Arch's eyes are dark and remote, like another country. "Sure."
"Why have you been freezing me out? It's been months since we talked, man." Dave wonders if he should reach out, whether Arch would shrug him away. Goes with it anyway: "I miss you."
Arch smiles, quickly and then it's gone. "Not freezing you out, Cook, at least I didn't mean it that way. I guess I wasn't sure what to say. You've moved on with your life, you're doing great with your album, I wasn't sure you had the time for me anymore."
"You weren't sure ..." Dave tries not to let this get to him. "Look, I called, I kept calling, I called after the gay club thing last year and you were the one who didn't have time to talk. We hung out in LA last November with my brother and Hodges. And this year you've been touring, and I've been busy with the record."
"It's a great record," Archie says, "and if you were going to say goodbye to me, that song was an awesome way to do it."
"That song? Arch, that song isn't ..." But that isn't entirely true, either. We were everything that's right at the wrong time.
Archie smiles again, sadly. Dave belatedly realizes the taxi has come to a halt, that they've reached the hotel, and any moment now doormen will open the cab door to help them out, and still he somehow has no words.
Archie says, "I miss you too. I can't help how I feel about you, Cook. I just have to figure out how to handle it, that's all."
He leans over and presses his lips to Dave's for a too-short second, then the cab door opens and he's gone.
Dave's flung back into his skin, back into the night before Christmas Eve. A second ago he'd been sitting helplessly in a taxi recently vacated by David Archuleta on a cold November night; now, he's sitting on his living room sofa, holding the hand of the Ghost of Christmas Present, his skin still buzzing from Arch's nearness.
"That was ..." Dave shivers. "With Mike -- with the Ghost of Christmas Past -- we started out just seeing stuff that happened, and then I was right back there with Archie at the end of tour. And this, it was like reliving that night all over again."
Ghost Steve says, gently, "It's easier with more recent events to put you back in the moment."
"Well, I can remember without you showing me," says Dave. His mouth tastes like ash and bitterness. "Damn it, why don't you show me something I don't know, something helpful for a change?"
"I thought I was being helpful." Stevie stretches out his hand to summon the window of light again. "Okay, kid, how about this?"
It's freezing cold, but on a stage in Salt Lake City, on the final stretch of the My Kind of Christmas tour, everything's warm.
Archie is haloed in white light, wearing a scarf and jacket and black jeans, so gorgeous he looks unreal. The home crowd is cheering for him, little girls crying, teenage girls and boys screaming, it's a real hero's welcome for the hometown star.
Arch cups the mic in his hands. He looks determined, the light reflecting from his eyes like stars. "I can't tell you how special it's been being able to come back here," he tells the audience. "There's no place like home. I always say that... While I'm home in front of you guys here tonight, I would like to make a special announcement." He pauses. "I want to tell you guys that I've chosen to serve a full-time mission."
The crowd erupts into cheers, and Arch breaks down, covering his face with his hand.
"It's not because someone told me that I was supposed to do it," he says when he gets his composure back. "Not because I no longer want to do music anymore, but it's because it's the feeling that I felt that I need to do next in my life."
He sniffs, licks his lips, struggles to say this through his tears. "It's the same feeling that I've always followed and tried to follow in my life... I've learned to trust that feeling, and I've learned that I need to answer when it calls."
There are more cheers, more shouts of encouragement, and Arch turns his wet face to the light again.
"I'd like to do a last song, that really sums up what Christmas is about," he asks, and launches into a version of 'O Holy Night' that makes everyone scream.
Dave feels dampness on his own cheeks, feels physically sick. He wants to strangle Jeff Archuleta and his own damn self, to kiss Archie's tears away and never let him go. "Damn it, don't tell me that has anything to do with me."
"Not telling you anything, man." Stevie shrugs. "You saw it for yourself: you said you loved him, and at the same time you decided for him that you guys couldn't be together. And when he really needed you, after his thing with the label and his dad coming back into his life, you weren't there. So now, well, he has this."
Dave wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands. "You saying I was the one who froze him out, not him? That this is all on me?"
"What I'm saying, David, is that maybe you meant to do the right thing, started out doing it, even, but that you didn't keep doing it, and that his dad and his church helped him in ways that you were too scared or too busy to."
"You're full of shit," Dave whispers. "I tried to be as supportive as I could. When I tried to say something to Archie about the label, about Jeff, he stopped talking to me. If he's doing this because of Jeff, not because he really wants to, it's not my goddamn fault. I want you to stop wearing the face of my friend and leave me alone."
"Whatever you say, kid," Not-Stevie says, and snaps his fingers.
For the second night, Dave falls, I'm closing my eyes cause once the sun rises it's out of my hands, and the darkness closes over his head.
*
On to part 2!
Title: This Loud Christmas Carol
Recipient: maerhys
Pairing(s): David Cook/David Archuleta
Word Count: 12,000+
Summary: Three ghosts visit Dave in the run-up to Christmas Day.
Rating: R for recreational drug use, language, various ghosts, one zombie, time traveling, religious angst and sexual content.
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 ever intended.
A/N: Dearest maerhys, in my pinch-hit attempt I tried to make you the canonest non-AU canon Christmas story you wanted, that had an Idol summer tour scene, multiple outsider points of view including a Michael Johns Idol tour POV, copious amounts of time-travel, a terror/horror scene, the inclusion of family, friends, and bandmates as side characters, some press speculation after they reveal what was said after Cook was announced the winner, general angst with a happy ending, true love/soulmate tropes, and Jeff Archuleta as an obstacle to Cookleta. As well as Recent Important Canon Events.
I hope you enjoy, and happy holidays!
Dave isn't usually up for the sex and hard drugs part of rock 'n roll. No reports of Jim Morrison orgies, no drunken or semi-naked photos apart from the one wardrobe malfunction earlier on this tour, whenever there's hotel furniture damage he leaves a large tip for housekeeping, that's just the way he is.
Neal and the other guys give him shit about 19E's world-peace kool-aid, but what the hell, this millennium even metalheads are into microfinance for third world debt and reducing their carbon footprints and safe sex.
However, he's not above smoking up some shit occasionally, he's only human. Today's baggie is courtesy of Neal: a peace offering that says sorry for moving out of Dave's house and in with Kira and leaving the Anthemic (though he's not sorry for wanting to do his own thing, come hell or Highwater); also Merry Christmas, Maybe See You on New Year's Eve. It's a lot of coded messaging for such a small bag. Dave has lots of friends, he's the kind of guy that has lots of friends, but Neal is one of his best; they go back a long way, long enough that he doesn't need to apologise to Dave for wanting to take a break from being the American Idol's sidekick. And he's a big boy, doesn't mind his own company, he's not gonna cry when people have their own lives to lead.
Besides, this is really good shit. He kicks back on the sofa, smokes a couple of joints down to the quick, chases it with pizza and Coors. Soon enough, his empty house is filled with the citrusy smell of pure sunshine. Thank God he can now afford to live far enough away from his neighbors; time was, there'd be banging on the ceiling or the door and threats to call the cops or demands for an invitation to come share, sometimes one hot on the heels of the other.
After a while, he's pleasantly numb, THC and lassitude curling through his limbs, half-hard under his sweats but too comfortable to do something about it at least for now. The blinking lights of his Christmas tree blur into a vast, galactic map; Johnny Cash's re-mastered Christmas album on stereo sounds like the symphony to life, the universe and every fucking thing.
Around about the time of "The Christmas Song", the tree lights start looking less like a map of the universe and more like the face and form of his old buddy Michael Johns.
Which is kind of bizarre, because for one, he hasn't spoken to Mike in a while, he thinks Mike is probably still in Vegas on that part-time gig at the Wynn, so he isn't sure why Mike's the person his subconscious has chosen to summon, and also, those lights look goddamn lifelike, more Next Generation-holodeck than Star Wars hologram; it seems the thing is actually moving towards him.
"Hey," the not-hologram says in Mike's voice. Fuck, what is in this bag, Dave has never had an auditory hallucination on White Widow, or, come to think of it, ever.
"Hey, David Cook," and Mike doesn't usually call him that, either, "are you paying attention? You should listen up. It's your lucky night."
Dave mutters, "Mikey, if you were really here instead of this shit-for-Picard version of you that lives in my head, you'd know my idea of a lucky night involves a couple’a blondes and a crate of the Opus One Reserve you don't appreciate."
The vision of Mike makes a very Mike-like snorting sound. "Too many blondes, mate, not good for the soul, and not what you really need. Which is what Mike's too chickenshit to tell you. So it's lucky for you I'm not really him."
"Huh," says Dave. This is officially the most off-the-chain trip in the universe, and he's gonna have to have words with Neal if the fucker in fact shows for New Year's. "Okay, Dr. Dave's Id, I will bite. Who do I really think you are?"
Mike grins devilishly. "Don't know what your id thinks, Dave, but I'm really the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I've come to fuck your shit up."
Dave thinks the sound he makes is something like, "Fffffyeah."
"Happens all the time," sighs the guy whom Dave’s stoned-out brain insists on calling Mike. "You'd've thought I'd be in a higher salary bracket since I'm the one doing all the heavy lifting, paving the way for the other two, taking the hit of people's initial shock and disbelief. But no, the big guy's all about equality."
"No shit," says Dave, rubbing his eyes. It doesn't work: there's still Michael Johns, in the black fedora and string vest and illegally-tight jeans he'd worn to attempt not to stop the music on the Idols Season 7 tour, charming grin and Antipodean speech patterns and no one else, especially not some ghost straight out of A Christmas Carol. Clearly his id's more fucked up than he gave it credit for. "So this is the deal? My life's about to head off a cliff this Christmas, you and your two buddies show me my future to set me straight?"
"The big guy did expect you to be familiar with the classics," Mike says, approvingly. "But I see you're having some problem suspending the disbelief."
"You think?"
"The smart ones are always the toughest sell," comments Mike. Carefully, he takes off the fedora and hangs it on top of Dave's tree, covering the star of Bethlehem tree topper, and runs a hand through his dark hair. His voice changes, becomes higher, smoother. "I've found what tends to work is taking another form, the form of someone beloved that's not alive."
Dave doesn't believe he's hearing this, doesn't believe he's seeing Mike's face and body blur into nothing like the Star Trek teleporter effect, can't believe his id hates him enough to actually do this, to summon the dead he loves...
... The shapeless thing skinnies Mike's broad form down; solidifies into a slender, female figure. Dave experiences an acute sense of relief -- thank God, it's not him -- and then, oh fuck no, fuck --
"Been awhile, Dave," Vee says. She looks as dark-eyed hungry as he remembers, her hair the same color as the fire that one night rained down on their stage. She's wearing her usual black T-shirt and black jeans and bare feet.
Only, her white skin's slack and hanging off her body and filled with maggots, eaten away in patches by worms and other things that have lived in the ground for more time than Dave wants to think about. Three years since Neal wrote that goddamn song, anyway. Which is crazy, he must be going crazy, if this was truly her she'd be bone by now, permanently-grinning, not smiling with these purple lips.
She has -- had -- a tattoo on the side of her neck, the Roman numeral III. Dave had loved to trace the numbers with his tongue. He knew Neal’d also loved it, had taken her to the ink parlor to put it there when he and she had been seventeen and stupid, had told him so when Dave had come into their lives those years later.
The tattoo's faded but it's still visible against the mottled flesh. Dave hears himself make a choking noise, his heart's pounding in his ears, his head is trying to override the artificial calm of the THC, screaming oh fuck, run, run --
"Thought this form would be effective enough," Ghost Vee says, calmly. "We don't lead off with this unless it's really necessary, it's usually upsetting for people. And I don't want to upset you more than I have to. Heartthrob."
The sound of that name, from those dead lips -- Dave takes belated hold of the nameless terror. He's faced down Simon fucking Cowell, for God's sake; no ghost masquerading as this Walking Dead ex-girlfriend could be scarier than that.
"Jesus, look, you, like, couldn't pick someone else? I mean, I also love Janis Joplin and Martin Luther King."
Ghost Vee shrugs what once were shapely shoulders. "This shape’s not irrelevant to the process, David. You loved her, she left, and there was nothing you or Neal or Andy could do to save her from herself." She moves in closer. "Gotta say, though, that Neal and Andy didn't spend the rest of their lives dating undemanding blondes who might have less brain cells than this one damaged redhead."
Dave suppresses the shudder, the need to puke until he turns inside out. Best defense, always a good offense. "Fuck you, Vee, I tried my best with you, but you were the craziest in a line of crazy ex-girlfriends. Crazier than the band ex-boyfriend, too, and he used to throw his shoes at my head when I didn't buy the type of cereal he liked."
"I know you tried with her," the Ghost says, and thank fucking Christ, changes from dead Vera back to wry, smiling Mike Johns. "My point, mate, is that at some point you stopped trying."
Dave staggers to his feet, puts out a hand to the thing wearing Mike's face. Its arm feels warm, solid, exactly how Mike had felt the last time he'd bro-hugged Dave goodbye.
Dave's so relieved Vee's gone that he could cry. His legs shake, he's distressingly sober. Some time in the course of the conversation he'd come to believe this is almost happening. He wishes he doesn't, wishes he could cut and run, could smoke himself into oblivion and wake up tomorrow and everything would be as it was.
Ghost Mike looks expectantly at him, and with some effort Dave says, "Let's cut to the chase. You're here because I haven't been a very good boyfriend? That actually doesn't sound too bad, it's not like I'm gonna shoot all the Mondays down, or make the Cratchett children orphans this Christmas."
Mike drawls, "Well, mate, it's true you really haven't been a very good boyfriend. You're grinning big like you got it made, such a colossal fake? Your backbone stuck inside your purse? But as with these things, it's not so simple. So. Three nights with me and my brethren, we show you three things, and after that you get one shot this Christmas to get your life back on track."
He cracks his neck, shakes his limbs out like he's getting ready to hit the treadmill. "Ready to come see?"
Dave doesn't think the Ghost will take no for an answer. "Why the hell not."
"Right you are," and Ghost Mike takes his hand.
There's a rushing sound and the world becomes a blur around him. He has the sensation of speed, either like they're travelling very fast without running, or like everything else is shooting around them. Lights and shadow and cloudy human outlines zoom past them above and below and alongside, and reflexively he clings to Mike so he doesn't throw up or fall over.
Abruptly, a ball of light shoots out of the darkness, comes to a halt right under Dave's nose. It spins around once and expands, peeling open in fingers of brightness, and Dave feels his stomach fall away as he sees a mirror image of himself and Mike, sitting on a cheap leather sofa that could only belong to the boys' bus on the Idol 2008 tour.
"Oh, crap," Dave says weakly. Looks like one of those late post-concert nights on the bus, Mike and him shooting the shit after everyone else'd gone to bed.
"Watch," not-Mike offers.
In the bubble of light, Mike's true self takes a long swig of beer and says, "Kim and you, man, I wish it made more sense."
Dave watches 2008-him shrug. "Not everyone can make as much sense as you and Stacey. Kim's cool, and she's not looking for her soul-mate, which makes her A++ in the Book of David."
Mike snorts in exactly the way Ghost Mike'd snorted earlier. "Could you sound any less all-American frat boy? I know what your mushy romantic soul's like. Deep down all of us are looking for our soul-mate."
2008-Dave rubs his designer stubble. His hair looks more perfect then than it's ever looked since, the Idol stylists really were the best in the business. "Look, Mr. I-married-the-perfect-woman, even if that's true, it's not true for me right now. I want to focus on my career, and to occasionally get laid while doing that, and I know this isn't gonna fuck up Kim's life. How's that for mushy and romantic?"
"Jesus H.," Mike says, "that's about as mature as David Archuleta. No, wait, I take it back. Archie is way more mature than you."
Dave watches his younger self glance over at the back of the bus, where the curtains over Archie's bunk are drawn closed. "You got me there, Archie is actually totally more mature than me. And he's sworn off girls until marriage, which is maybe a good thing."
"Kid didn't say anything about swearing off love," Mike says, and, okay, Dave remembers this conversation now.
Which means he remembers what he said next in 2008, and can see now he'd actually blushed a little when he said it. "Your point being?"
Mike rolls his eyes. "Look, I'm not a complete idiot. I see the way you look at him when you think nobody's looking."
"Whoa, I don't know if I'm ready to have this conversation," says young Dave, too loudly; he glances back at Arch's bunk again, nervously. "This isn't like you, dude. Where's it coming from?"
"It's because I know and care about you, mate. Don't rub it in my face, okay? Also, I see the way Archie looks back at you. I don't think girls are a big option for him."
Younger Dave pinches the bridge of his nose. "Arch is still a kid. He's not gonna know who he wants right now, whether it's love or girls or soul-mates. So maybe I look at him sometimes, you'd have to be made of stone not to. But that's all it is, I swear."
Mike leans forward earnestly. "You don't know everything about him, Cook. He's a really great kid, they don't make 'em like that anymore. You guys have a lot in common, totally more than you and Kim. And he's not gonna be a kid for much longer."
Younger Dave shakes his head. "It's precisely because he's great that I don't want to mess him up. I know enough about him to know that. He deserves better than me. And, so, I really don't wanna talk about this, man. Not now, not ever."
"Fine. Sorry I said anything. Consider the subject closed from now on." 2008-Mike gets up from the couch abruptly and leaves Dave sitting there by himself.
"And he kept his word, didn't he?" Ghost-Mike whispers in Dave's ear. "Didn't say anything when you broke up with Kim, when you ignored Archie in Manila. Not a word about you seeing Janine or hooking up with Ryan Star or fucking that groupie whose name you can't remember."
Dave jerks away. "Fuck you, I didn't ignore Arch. Also, I did not screw Ryan, he just likes to fool around a little is all, his wife's cool with it. And, you know, I'm done justifying myself to you."
"Not sure you could keep that up, David, you've always had a total guilt complex." The Ghost smirks, then nods back to the ball of light. "And, of course, at the end of tour, this happened."
A flash in not-Mike's eyes, and Dave knows what's coming.
"Fuck, I don't need to see this," he whispers, because he really doesn't need the Ghost of Christmas Past and his fucking window into the past to remind him of what happened here; he still thinks about it himself, dreams about it sometimes in the dead of night when there's no one there.
The last concert of the tour, the hug he'd given Archie after their last song. The way Arch embraced him back, hungry and urgent, not at all like the diffident, self-conscious way Archie had previously returned his other hugs.
The platform descends into darkness with Arch's arms still locked tight around him. The kid feels good, too good, all lean muscle under his clothes, nothing feminine about him, and for some reason this inflames Dave even more. He shouldn't be this aroused, it's dangerous to think of Archie this way, but with the kid in his arms it seems his self-control has evaporated into thin air.
Then Arch raises his face to his, and it seems they are kissing.
Arch's lips are soft, wider than a woman's lips would be, as lush as Dave hadn't dared dream they'd be. He kisses Dave with the ardor of a young man's first kiss, fervent and untutored, and, God help him, Dave kisses back.
Arch opens his mouth, gives in to Dave's tongue and the pressure of Dave's lips, makes small sounds as he kisses Dave like he's drowning, everything Dave's ever wanted right here under his hands.
Dave is so hard he can't see straight. His senses are filled up with Archie. He wants to punch through a wall, wants to take the kid's hand and start running, away from the tabs and 19E and the fucking Idol machine, wants to tear Arch's clothes off and fuck him against the wall until all backstage falls down around them.
Instead, what he does is pull away, manages somehow to steer them both into a nearby dressing room.
In the low lights Arch's face is flushed, his eyes heavy-lidded, his mouth slick and swollen. He's panting like he's just run a marathon, has to lean against Dave for support. Dave knows he's in no better shape; the damn lace-up pants of his costume were not made for erections, though he'd be damned if his painfully hard dick isn't actually getting the message.
This needs to be shut down fast. "Are you okay?"
"Yes?" murmurs Archie, his shoulders heaving, sounding almost sex-drunk.
Dave tries to set him back on his feet. "Arch, we can't do this. People will find us. We have to get out to the meet-and-greet and the last VIP party."
"I don't care if people find us," Archie says. "I want to be with you. I've been wanting to do this for months, Cook. Haven't you ever felt the feeling like you were meant to do something? I feel it, and it's like you feel it too. I don't care about anything else."
Dave swallows. "You don't mean that. This is your career, you have your whole life ahead of you. We can't do this."
Arch's eyes get wider; he looks as if Dave's punched him in the stomach. For an instant he's speechless. Then, "I love you," he says. "And I'm not scared."
"I love you too," Dave says, helplessly, knowing it was true, he'd told Archie that the day they'd stood on the final Idol stage together, confetti falling around them. "Which is why I'm scared for you. Why I want you to not mess your life up with me right now. Please, Arch, this isn't the right time."
Arch closes his eyes. Dave fights the urge to run his thumb across Arch's perfect cheekbone, to pull him close again and kiss him senseless. Finally, Arch says, his voice tight and closed off, "Maybe you're scared you'll mess up your life with me, too. Is that right?"
"Jeez, Archie, no." Dave reaches out after all, can't stand to see the hurt in Archie's face, pulls him forward so their foreheads lean against each other's. "I don't care about people either. But I care about your family, and about our careers, and what the press and Idol and Jive will say. And you're still seventeen. We can't do this now."
He's so close to Arch he can count the eyelashes on Arch's face, see the hectic color rise and fall in his cheeks. Arch swallows as if he's going to protest, and then decides the better of it. What he finally goes with is, despairingly, "I'm not sure I can do all this, and love you and not be with you at the same time."
"Yes you can. I'll help you, I'll always be with you, I promise. I'll always love you," and Dave puts his arms around Arch, trying to give him strength to face their future, trying to convince himself.
They're still clinging to each other when the knock comes and a 19E staffer puts her head around the door. "Mr. Cook, Mr. Archuleta, they're waiting for you at the VIP holding area. Bus leaves in ten."
"We'll be right out," says Dave, and in his arms Archie makes a small noise that could mean anything at all.
"Not your finest hour," the Ghost says, dryly, as the images fade into brightness.
Dave says, "No, I did the right thing by Archie! Anyone could see that. He was too young then."
Ghost Mike says, "He was right, though. You were scared for yourself too."
"Of being arrested! Of his dad cutting my dick off!"
The Ghost raises Mike's shaggy eyebrows. "If you really loved him, you'd’ve waited till he turned eighteen, and then his dad couldn't have called the cops on you."
"It's not just the age thing. I mean, kid believes in God, believes in soul-mates. I don't think I believe in anything anymore, not since we lost ..." Dave rubs his eyes. "My point. I wouldn't be good for him, and I did the right thing."
"Maybe it wasn't the right thing for you, Dave."
"And what kind of asshole would I be, if I let myself get in the way of what's good for Archie? No." Dave is abruptly sick of this, doesn't even care if the Ghost transforms himself back into Zombie Vera and digs his brains out with her bare hands. "I'm done with this. With you. Take me the fuck home."
"Funny how the first night always ends this way. Okay, Dave, so long," says the Ghost, and his eyes glow like stars. Shining and horrible, he lets go of Dave's hand.
Dave falls, falls backwards into the dark, and knows nothing else.
*
Dave struggles to the surface of consciousness, trying to get back, to get back to something he knows is crucially important but he just can't grasp hold of ...
... and all at once there's sunlight streaming through an open window; the stereo switched to some loud altrock channel making it a very loud morning indeed.
Dave's head is pounding, his mouth tastes like something died in it, and oh, oh fucking Mary, Jesus, Joseph, that did not just happen to him last night.
Maybe he can chalk it down to some very bad no good White Widow trip. He's definitely got the morning-after headache, he's still in last night's sweats, he must've passed out on the couch and had the weirdest hallucination ever.
Only, only there's Michael John's fedora on the top of his Christmas tree.
Jesus Christ, Dave can't handle this. He staggers to the guest bathroom head-first and pukes till nothing more comes up.
Eventually, he comes back and plucks the hat off his tree, refusing to admit that his hands are shaking. It feels as real as it looks; even smells of Mike.
Dave resists the temptation to flee the house and never look back. Maybe he should head to his mom's place in Blue Springs a day early before the Second Ghost comes calling: he really wants to see Drew and their nephews and nieces, and their mom will make everything better.
No, he just needs to get a grip. Dave makes himself choke down some toast and OJ, though it's closer to lunch now. As he eats, he wonders what Mike would say if he called and told him he'd just been paid a visit by the Ghost of Christmas Past wearing Mike's own face.
There's no creepy-coincidence message on his iPhone from Mike, but there is an email from David Archuleta to his Idol buddies, including Dave, with details of his upcoming two year mission for the Church of the Latter Day Saints.
Dave has been trying hard not to think about Archie all morning, so the email is a blow right to the solar plexus.
He'd seen the congratulatory tweets that followed Archie's mission announcement at that last concert in Salt Lake, but he hadn't known what to think about Arch going on mission to India and putting romance and his career on hold for two years, let alone what to say to him about it. And thusly he hadn't mentioned it when he'd responded to Arch's happy birthday DM, and doesn't know how to reply to this present email.
So happy for you sounds condescending, and a lie besides. What are you running away from? is totally rude, Arch would never speak to him again. What Dave really wants to say is Please don't go, and he knows he definitely doesn't have the right to say that.
So he doesn't respond to Archie. Instead, he gets his running shoes and exercises till his legs are like rubber. He tries half-heartedly to jack off in the shower, but he's too shaky and still vaguely nauseated to manage it; instead he towels off and gets himself some lunch. He's scheduled for an afternoon business meeting and then dinner with his agent, neither of which he blows off. He doesn't call any of his friends to ask them to come by because he's too afraid to be by himself, which is really what he wants to do.
Dinner with Roger is at Spago's. Dave has a Caesar salad and a bottle of Perrier. This happens to be a regrettable choice: the salad is bland and cold and unfulfilling, and it prompts a raised eyebrow and a neutral comment from his agent about how you can never lose enough weight.
Worst of all, it doesn't work, because when Dave comes back home, hungry and stone cold sober, there's someone who looks like Steve Van Zandt sitting on his living room sofa.
"What the actual fuck," says Dave, and Stevie says, "Sorry, kid, you know this ain't really me here, right?"
"I don't know anything anymore," Dave says truthfully.
The facsimile of his friend Stevie pats the sofa cushion beside him welcomingly, and Dave figures he can't do worse than to go sit down.
"Why you, Stevie?"
Steve says, "We take the form which the big guy thinks might be comforting. You see Van Zandt as some kinda mentor and spirit guide, don'tcha, I gotta say that works for what we're gonna do today."
Dave rubs his forehead. Damn it, he should've had the cheeseburger and fries and Coors anyway if he knew it wasn't going to make a difference. "Okay, so why me, then?" he asks.
Not-Stevie says, kindly, "It sounds like you could use some help."
"Me? I'm a mess," says Dave; he knows it's true the moment he says it, despite the Idol win, despite the new record, despite everything. "But you don't go round helping everyone whose lives are a mess; I mean, scaring the shit outta them, that is."
"Who knows, man? We just go where we're sent. Ordinary folks who need their life to change, mostly, sometimes minor celebs like you." Not-Steve shrugs. "Before you ask how come this hasn't hit the press before, I'm not real sure either. But in my experience, people don't tend to broadcast their time with the Christmas ghosts. That Mister Dickens was an exception."
Dave sighs. "So this is my second night? The Ghost of Christmas Present? One more and then we're done with this?"
"Yep. Don't count your chickens, though, son. You gotta see this first."
"Fine. Whatever. Hit me with that ball of light," Dave says, and holds out his hand.
"I never knew that about the Book," the real Steve Van Zandt is saying to David Archuleta.
The six of them are crammed into a booth in a tiny restaurant beside the Czech consulate, a couple of blocks down from Ronald McDonald House. Steve had said it was casual, the food was authentic, and the owner brewed his own dark beer onsite, which was music to Dave's ears.
The restaurant's pretty crowded, even at this late hour. Diplomats and hip East Siders dig into their steak tartare and give their celebrity fellow diners the New York cold shoulder.
"You're actually really well informed," Archie says to Steve. "Lots of people still think the Book and the Bible are incompatible, and that the Book insists on polygamy, when, you know, it doesn't at all!"
"Well, the same way the Bible doesn't prohibit eating shellfish these days or prescribes stoning as punishment for adultery," Steve says.
Maureen nudges her husband. "Hey! I had no idea I was sittin' next to a religious scholar."
Steve smirks. "Lotsa things you still don't know about me, babe. Anyway, you don't have to be a scholar to know and care about the things of God," and he nods meaningfully at Archie.
In return, Arch gives him a real smile, not the awkward public ones he makes when he's with people he doesn't know. Dave remembers when Arch would always smile at him like this -- open and unguarded, like he's thrilled to just be alive. Now he thinks about it, he sees it less and less from Arch these days, and, out of all the things that happened that evening, this affects him the most.
Dave has been on edge all night, hopped up on post-performance adrenaline and on being in Arch's presence again. He'd barely had a week to absorb the unexpected pleasure of 19E arranging for him to share a stage with Archie and fellow Idol alum Constantine at the RMH Kids for Cancer charity concert. He'd played eight days' worth of This Loud Tour dates after getting the news, trying not to imagine how Archie would look in person, after almost a year of not seeing him; they'd missed each other on Idol this year, their paths had almost crossed in Vietnam of all places, and he couldn't shake the feeling that Arch had been ignoring him lately.
And Arch has been acting weird all night. Dave figures it's only with him; Arch’d otherwise been totally professional with the RMH donors, and his old sweet self with the kids, and he sounded amazing during his set - older, more confident, his voice even mellower with age. He was looking amazing too, taller and broader than he'd been a year ago, the angles of his face more defined: a man, now, in every sense of the word. He'd hugged Dave awkwardly, and Dave had made some stupid crack about the P90X workout really working for him, and had wanted to smack himself in the head.
Coming off his set Arch had looked bright, sweaty and energized, like the music had set him on fire: the way he always looked after he'd performed, only, somehow, more. Dave could hardly look at him. "You were terrific. So good, I quit," Dave had said, only half-jokingly.
Arch had turned to him, looking for a moment as if he might say something to this, then he'd ducked his head and said, awkwardly, "Aw, you'd never quit, Cook," and patted him on the arm and disappeared backstage.
Things between them thawed after Dave's set; Arch had told him the new music sounded great with real enthusiasm, and had blushed like his old self when Dave had told their VIP usher, "I really love this guy!"
They took many, many photos with the kids and donors, and then Dave had, too-casually, asked Archie to join their party for a birthday dinner for Maureen Van Zandt. "Some place Alexis and the Van Zandts like," he'd said, and held his breath.
Arch gave him a guarded look, then said, "Sure, Cook, I'd like that. Let me just let my dad know."
Dave bit back the stab of annoyance; he hadn't seen Jeff here in New York and frankly that didn't disappoint him at all. "Your dad still managing you?" he asked, trying to sound casual. "Thought that was kind of an interim thing, to tide you over after your split with WEG."
"Sure." Arch had his phone out and was texting rapidly. "I know you said you don't think it's a good idea, being managed by family, but my dad has done a lot for me, and I know he has my real interests at heart."
"Arch, I never meant --" Dave said, and then stopped short, because what he really thought was that Jeff was an unprofessional asshole who'd treated Lupe like crap and who had his own agenda.
When it'd been apparent Dave had nothing else to say, Archie shrugged and turned away to square things with his people.
And now Arch's crammed into the booth beside Dave, so close his denim-covered thigh is pressed warmly against his, and talking earnestly to the Van Zandts about the Book of Mormon, and Dave's feeling like his skin is going to come off from frustration and desire.
On Dave's other side Alexis Skib is packing away her roast pork and discussing diamond engagement rings with her brother. "I know Jennie's the type of girl who'd be happy with a beer pull ring, kiddo, but the rule of thumb is two months' salary minimum," Alexis says, and Andy says, "Jeez, like Dave pays me anything near enough as it is!"
"Oh please, like MWK paid me anything at all!" Dave snorts back, which is when Arch excuses himself and leaves the table.
Maureen leans over the table to say to Dave, "Your Archie is such a sweetheart! So glad you brought him to dinner, I really like him."
"He is a sweetheart," Dave agrees, then wonders if by your Archie she means ... "Uh, you know we're just friends, right?"
"Right, right," says Maureen, too quickly. "Of course. You have your career, he has his."
"Don't think that's what Dave means, babe," Stevie says, putting his hand over hers, and Dave feels himself flush like Archie always does.
"Yeah, really, they're just friends, nothing romantic!" Alexis says, grinning. "Though Archie has had the biggest crush on David since Idol. Looks like he's finally gotten over it, though," she adds.
She says it matter-of-factly, no Skib has a mean bone in their body, and still it hits like a kick in the balls.
"I did notice that. Did you guys fight or something?" Andy asks, frowning.
"No! Nothing like that. That is," Dave swallows, not wanting to talk about this, "Archie left his management company earlier this year and didn't renew his contract with Jive, and I told him I wasn't sure that was the right decision."
"He's now being managed by Archudad, right? Can't blame you," says Andy, quietly.
"Yeah, well, I thought I stayed respectful, and that we were fine, but after that he started, I don't know, kind of freezing me out, didn't reach out after This Loud Morning dropped, that kind of thing." Dave realizes he sounds a little whiny. "You know, it's probably nothing. He's busy, I'm busy, that's how it is."
"Well, he's really grown up since Idol," says Alexis. "You can't expect him to look up to you forever, David. These teenage things don't usually last."
And this hurts, too. "Never expected anything from him," Dave says, though he knows that isn't entirely true. "Anyway, if that's so, it's probably for the best."
"He's coming back," Andy says, and this thankfully puts an end to the conversation.
They linger too late over blueberry dumplings and birthday cake and coffee (which Arch still doesn't drink), and Steve and Maureen's driver has to circle the block twice before the Van Zandts are ready to leave. Stevie kisses everyone The Sopranos-style, tells Arch, "Email me those links, my man!", and Maureen holds Dave close.
"Maybe you guys have never dated, but you definitely give off this lovers' spat vibe," she murmurs in his ear. "Go fix things with him, okay? He's a good, sweet, smart kid."
Her warmth thaws a cold knot inside him that he doesn't realize is there. "I'll try," he tells her. "Stevie is a lucky man, by the way."
She smiles and tosses her blonde hair a little. "Save the charm for someone closer to your age, loverboy. You mind what I say now."
Andy is spending the night in Alexis' spare room for some sibling bonding; tomorrow she'll take him to Tiffany’s. 19E has booked Dave and Archie (and Constantine) into the St. Regis, and Dave hails a yellow cab to take Archie and him to Fifth Avenue.
Arch is quiet, huddled into his pea coat and scarf. The street lights flash neon and chrome across his angular cheekbones, turn his eyelashes to gold.
"So dinner was okay?" Dave asks him, tentatively.
"Yeah. Steve and Maureen are so great," and it's great Archie is enthusiastic about something, even if it's not Dave.
"That they are. I'm glad you got to know them, they're good people."
"It was good to see Andy again, too," Arch says, after a while. "Doesn't Neal usually travel with you, though?"
Dave swallows. "Well, this month Neal's touring with another band. He's not gonna make it out to This Loud Tour."
Arch thinks about this, then says, "I'm sorry about that. I know how much Neal's a part of your band, and what a good friend he is to you," and suddenly Dave feels a wave of emotion that makes his throat tighten.
"Yeah, he was, and he is." Nobody but Arch had told him that they were sorry about Neal; Dave didn't want to admit it to himself. Damn, Archie still got him, after all this time. "I didn't want to make too big a deal about it, I mean, what kind of as-- jerk would I be, right, if I got upset about my friend doing his own thing?"
"You're not a jerk, Cook," Archie says softly. "You can't help how you feel about things. You just have to figure out how to handle it, that's all."
Dave's throat is dry, he knows Arch isn't only talking about Neal. And he's an adult, come on, playing games are for teenagers. "Archie, can I ask you something?"
Arch's eyes are dark and remote, like another country. "Sure."
"Why have you been freezing me out? It's been months since we talked, man." Dave wonders if he should reach out, whether Arch would shrug him away. Goes with it anyway: "I miss you."
Arch smiles, quickly and then it's gone. "Not freezing you out, Cook, at least I didn't mean it that way. I guess I wasn't sure what to say. You've moved on with your life, you're doing great with your album, I wasn't sure you had the time for me anymore."
"You weren't sure ..." Dave tries not to let this get to him. "Look, I called, I kept calling, I called after the gay club thing last year and you were the one who didn't have time to talk. We hung out in LA last November with my brother and Hodges. And this year you've been touring, and I've been busy with the record."
"It's a great record," Archie says, "and if you were going to say goodbye to me, that song was an awesome way to do it."
"That song? Arch, that song isn't ..." But that isn't entirely true, either. We were everything that's right at the wrong time.
Archie smiles again, sadly. Dave belatedly realizes the taxi has come to a halt, that they've reached the hotel, and any moment now doormen will open the cab door to help them out, and still he somehow has no words.
Archie says, "I miss you too. I can't help how I feel about you, Cook. I just have to figure out how to handle it, that's all."
He leans over and presses his lips to Dave's for a too-short second, then the cab door opens and he's gone.
Dave's flung back into his skin, back into the night before Christmas Eve. A second ago he'd been sitting helplessly in a taxi recently vacated by David Archuleta on a cold November night; now, he's sitting on his living room sofa, holding the hand of the Ghost of Christmas Present, his skin still buzzing from Arch's nearness.
"That was ..." Dave shivers. "With Mike -- with the Ghost of Christmas Past -- we started out just seeing stuff that happened, and then I was right back there with Archie at the end of tour. And this, it was like reliving that night all over again."
Ghost Steve says, gently, "It's easier with more recent events to put you back in the moment."
"Well, I can remember without you showing me," says Dave. His mouth tastes like ash and bitterness. "Damn it, why don't you show me something I don't know, something helpful for a change?"
"I thought I was being helpful." Stevie stretches out his hand to summon the window of light again. "Okay, kid, how about this?"
It's freezing cold, but on a stage in Salt Lake City, on the final stretch of the My Kind of Christmas tour, everything's warm.
Archie is haloed in white light, wearing a scarf and jacket and black jeans, so gorgeous he looks unreal. The home crowd is cheering for him, little girls crying, teenage girls and boys screaming, it's a real hero's welcome for the hometown star.
Arch cups the mic in his hands. He looks determined, the light reflecting from his eyes like stars. "I can't tell you how special it's been being able to come back here," he tells the audience. "There's no place like home. I always say that... While I'm home in front of you guys here tonight, I would like to make a special announcement." He pauses. "I want to tell you guys that I've chosen to serve a full-time mission."
The crowd erupts into cheers, and Arch breaks down, covering his face with his hand.
"It's not because someone told me that I was supposed to do it," he says when he gets his composure back. "Not because I no longer want to do music anymore, but it's because it's the feeling that I felt that I need to do next in my life."
He sniffs, licks his lips, struggles to say this through his tears. "It's the same feeling that I've always followed and tried to follow in my life... I've learned to trust that feeling, and I've learned that I need to answer when it calls."
There are more cheers, more shouts of encouragement, and Arch turns his wet face to the light again.
"I'd like to do a last song, that really sums up what Christmas is about," he asks, and launches into a version of 'O Holy Night' that makes everyone scream.
Dave feels dampness on his own cheeks, feels physically sick. He wants to strangle Jeff Archuleta and his own damn self, to kiss Archie's tears away and never let him go. "Damn it, don't tell me that has anything to do with me."
"Not telling you anything, man." Stevie shrugs. "You saw it for yourself: you said you loved him, and at the same time you decided for him that you guys couldn't be together. And when he really needed you, after his thing with the label and his dad coming back into his life, you weren't there. So now, well, he has this."
Dave wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands. "You saying I was the one who froze him out, not him? That this is all on me?"
"What I'm saying, David, is that maybe you meant to do the right thing, started out doing it, even, but that you didn't keep doing it, and that his dad and his church helped him in ways that you were too scared or too busy to."
"You're full of shit," Dave whispers. "I tried to be as supportive as I could. When I tried to say something to Archie about the label, about Jeff, he stopped talking to me. If he's doing this because of Jeff, not because he really wants to, it's not my goddamn fault. I want you to stop wearing the face of my friend and leave me alone."
"Whatever you say, kid," Not-Stevie says, and snaps his fingers.
For the second night, Dave falls, I'm closing my eyes cause once the sun rises it's out of my hands, and the darkness closes over his head.
*
On to part 2!