Future Fic 13: All I Really Need is You, Part 11
Title:All I Really Need Is You
Chapter: Eleven - When Someone Asks for Me
Pairing: David/David
Betas:fakeplasticsnow and frackin_sweet
Rating: This part is R for angst and references to substance abuse, therapy.
Summary: Cook and Archie meet again at the 2018 Grammys. IT’S 2018, AND QUINTAIN FINALLY TAKES TO THE STAGE.
Of relevance would be a quick reminder of the last time Cook sang “All I Really Need”.
Dedications:
* For fakeplasticsnow: “Sick Cycle Carousel”? Hands down the most amazing, inventive Kradam fic (finding your way from joyless fucking, sickness and numbness to believing in love again) in A.I.-verse. You rule, bb.
* The triumvirate of stories ( “Insobriety”, ”Thirst”, “All the Different Colours”) with titles that sound like they reference substance abuse? Tributes to my darlings rajkumari905, clionona and maimiejay.
* For slasher48 - cherie, thank you for your lush and beautiful "Misty", and your love.
* And frackin_sweet - "Patron Saints", your masterpiece of lost causes and rediscovery, which has redefined this fandom for me, owns me. Won't you be my downfall, this and every other night?
Thank you all for letting me populate Quintain’s album with songs based on your awesome stories.
Legal Disclaimer: Not-for-profit absolute work of fiction; fair use of any copyright material; no assertions or imputations as to the actual, real-world characters or inclinations of any living individuals, or actual events, intended. Picture, if you will, said individuals as mere actors in this fic. Will remove this without prejudice if a cease and desist notice is issued.
All I Really Need Is You
Part One: All These Years
Part Two: All These Tears
Part Three: Once Upon A Starry Night
Part Four: A Chance in the World
Part Five: Close To Losing
Part Six: Tie Your Life To Mine
Part Seven: Trying But in Vain
Part Eight: Spent So Many Nights
Part Nine: We'd Have Ended Here
Part Ten: Knowing How I've Tried
Part Eleven: When Someone Asks for Me
2018: Quintain's hit the sound check cleanly, and it's time for the spotlights to come on and the cameras to start rolling as the five of them finally take to the stage in their glammed-up formal wear.
"We're live in five," the sound stage manager says to Cook.
The cameras swivel and point in their direction, waiting, for the band to launch into the performance of their careers.
Cook makes the affirmative hand signal, and looks over at his boys: Kyle hovering above them, on his elevated drum-set, Neal and Joey flanking him, Andy to the far left. The five of them, together again, like they were always meant to be.
Seacrest's babble sweeps over Cook as the five of them gear up, instruments at the ready.
Cook looks to his right - his tattooed lead guitarist, his best friend, the good Doctor Tiemann, the rock on which their band had always stood.
To his left, the curly blond head of his bass guitarist, whom he'd almost lost, through the drugs and ambition and his own stupidity, who had come back to him, to all of them, through no restitution or doing of his own.
Joey grins when he sees Cook glance at him, and Cook grins back, remembering the tentative way Joey had looked at him when they'd finally been face to face again after the Alex Band tour. Joey is back where he belongs, and they’re both glad.
*
It had been winter in LA in 2016, Christmas music on repeat. Cook hadn’t fallen apart, after that conversation with David in New York; he’d actually managed to catch his plane and head back to L.A., although it hadn't been a good flight. Still, he’d survived that conversation without falling off the wagon, so this one ought to be fairly straight-forward.
The three Midwest Kings sat in matching plaid shirts on one side of the table in the Four Seasons restaurant. The paparazzi ignored their group - this was L.A., washed up rock stars and B-list actors were a dime a dozen.
Joey and Cook eyed each other across the other side of the table.
They made small talk, at first, and then Cook broached the topic of the Alex Band tour.
"How was touring? I read your fans are up to all kinds of things on Facebook and Twitter."
Joey's grin became more relaxed. "It was great. You know me, Dave, I can’t not tour. And Alex is so chill, the nicest guy."
Cook tried not to hear that as a criticism of his own behaviour, though it wasn't easy to shut out the drug-addled paranoia that had been so much a part of him before. "That's great," he managed, and was pleased at how positive he sounded. He was genuinely happy that Joey had enjoyed himself so much in these last three years, on his own.
"Thanks," said Joey, looking like he meant it. "I caught up with Selena Gomez on the road, too, it was pretty cool."
“Joey is so dating Selena’s drummer!” crowed Kyle, and Joey waved his hand, blushing, “Aw, we’re just hanging out, not sure where we’ll take it. I’m shy, you guys, shut up.”
Cook thought, now or never, and reached out.
"Look, Joey, you know how sorry I am, right? I was an asshole. You know I was crazy and coked out, in those days, but I’m better now, I promise. You guys’ll keep me on the straight and narrow.”
He held his breath, as Joey looked down, and then looked back up at him.
Around the table, the other guys looked like they were holding their breaths, too.
Joey brushed his hair to one side, exhaled slowly. “It’s okay, Dave. I wouldn’t be here if I didn't wanna forgive you, even though you were a coked out asshole,” he said, awkwardly, and everyone burst into relieved laughter.
Cook considered putting his arms around Joey and hugging him, but he still wasn’t sure of his reception, and confined himself to saying, "Thanks, man. You don’t know how much it means."
“So, Joey,” said Andy, softly, from the other side of the table, “You know we want to get back together, but we need you. Are you in?”
Joey reached over to bump fists with him: “Yeah, why not. I’m up for anything.”
Andy rolled his eyes at Cook: “We’ll make sure our front-man doesn't slug you this time, okay?” and Cook made a face at him.
“I totally trust you, Skib, don’t let me down,” said Joey, and Cook said, “Hey! I resent that,” but he was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt - God, had he missed this, the guys horsing around, the easy trust and affection between them. What they’d had before apparently had not been lost for good.
"I," said Neal, "have come up with our new name."
Four pairs of eyes fixed on their taciturn lead guitarist, who paused dramatically.
Cook said, "Dude, out with it."
"It's 'Quintain'." Neal grinned, put his hand on Kyle's arm, and spelled it out, slowly.
Andy said, "Dude, I knew how to spell it!" although he kind of looked gratified for Neal's clarification, as well.
Cook felt tightness in his throat: his best friend was a genius, sometimes. "’Quintain’, it's perfect. Because there are five of us," he said, to Neal, but he looked at Joey, and took his hand.
Joey squeezed back. “Yes, there are,” he said, and Cook felt, for the first time this entire year, as if he could smell the air above the pit, on his long climb up.
*
Cook's vision of the top of the pit could have been a mirage, but it wasn't.
There were bad days, of course, plagued by the elusive shards of memory that cut his fingers to ribbons when he reached out to them, when he felt the climb was endless. When he remembered the taste of addiction, of corruption, and toyed with letting go of the sheer side of the abyss, free-falling into the dark.
Of course, times like that, he dug deep, reached for the restitution he needed to make, in lieu of strength. Remembered the forgiveness he'd received from David that he didn't deserve. He certainly didn't deserve to take the simplistic exit, when there was still so much hard work he needed to do, so much to atone for.
And there were many good days: his birthday and the Christmas season, for instance, spent in his mom's house, surrounded by family. The household was plunged in preparations for his brother's wedding. Beth and Claire, Andrew's bride-to-be, were visiting wedding registries and picking out flowers for the tables, and Cook and Andrew struggled to respond constructively to questions about colour schemes and scalloped lace and invitation cards.
The time he spent with the band, for another; Cook couldn't believe how much he'd missed them. He'd forgotten how it could be with Neal and Andy, guitar and piano and sheets of paper, where they all wrote like extensions of one another. The music flowed so seamlessly out of each other it was impossible to tell where one Tiemann line ended and a Skib line began, overlaid with Cook's lyrical melodies of love and the journey, the open road beyond.
And, in the summer of 2017, the new and reinvented Quintain burst onto the music scene with their comeback album Edge of Forever.
It was an album that circled back to the guys' rock roots, nods to the old Midwest Kings numbers, to rocking, anthemic "Declaration", to the darkness of Amalgam’s longing and anguished loss. But Edge of Forever had a different vibe to Amalgam: it was far from cheerful or uplifting, but its songs spoke of a clear-eyed look to the future, a sense of the continued journey down life's highway, courage and friendship travelling alongside, towards an unknown but not unwelcoming horizon.
Songs like "Carousel", which Andy had co-written, all lovely piano rhythms and chords, about finding your way from sickness and numbness to believing in love again, like "Insobriety", "Thirst" and “All the Different Colours”, unflinching looks at different types of addiction, like "Misty", a lush, romantic paean to secret love in a rainstorm. There was "Patron Saints", Neal's masterpiece, a song of lost causes and rediscovery, which Quintain loved to attack full throttle and Cook loved, even more, to sing.
And, since the band was also about the covers, Cook had included a cover of "All I Really Need is You", the Neil Diamond song which he'd sung in 2008, ten years ago, on the Idol stage and his own cusp of forever.
The first time they'd gone to the studios to record it, Cook hadn't been able to get to the end, although he had tried, unsuccessfully, to sing through his tears.
He knew all he really needed, knew who it was he needed, if someone were to ask for him, but wasn't able to risk taking those final, fatal steps again - not when he could feel the surface and the sky above his head.
Being able to cover the Diamond song, of course, was facilitated by moving back to RCA Records, which maintained the relationship with big Neil D, and which welcomed Quintain with open arms and did not mention the temporary insanity of Cook's defection to A&M.
The move paid off handsomely for Cook's old label, as well as for 19E; with Delano gone Cook and Lynn needed the old hands back on deck, and the savvy marketing gurus spun the romantic story of the boys who might have lost their way amongst the neon and needles and other temptations of Hollywood Boulevard, but who had emerged from the maelstrom into the clear afternoon light, and had found each other again.
Cook's fans remembered him, remembered the cadences and chemistry of the band now known as Quintain. Their comeback story resonated with the audiences old and new. The album rocketed to the top of the charts and went platinum in a matter of months.
The critics had also been kind. Leno and Larry King were effusive when Quintain hit the publicity circuit. Blitz and GQ did a couple of spreads of the band, older and wiser, and looking even better in their generous thirties than in their callow youth. Rolling Stone, grudgingly, said, "We wouldn’t have expected it, but with this fifth album, and his band in its fifth incarnation, David Cook has finally come of age".
And in the fall, Quintain heard they'd been nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy.
They'd been on tour when they heard the news - true to their back to basics approach, they'd rolled out the 2017 Carousel tour to America's small venues and university campuses again, eschewing the stadium concerts of the White Gold tour, although security was more problematic these days.
Embraced by his friends, Kyle clinging to his neck, Cook felt able to celebrate with a moderate half glass of champagne, and not have Neal or Andy glare at him as if he was going to fall off the wagon. Everyone else was ecstatic, whooping it up, but Cook's chief emotion was, actually, relief - he felt as if, finally, he'd managed to drag his exhausted body out of the pit, and was lying on his back, sweaty and filthy and dog-tired, face to the sun.
*
And here they are now, in 2018, at the pinnacle of their career, on the wide Grammy stage, in front of millions of viewers, the biggest audience in the Western world.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your final nominee in the Album of the Year category - the newly reformed Quintain!”
The hotness of the stage lights descends, and the roaring of the crowd in the Nokia-Citibank theatre rises, and Andy‘s shimmering keyboards lead the opening bars of "All I Really Need is You".
Kyle joins in, with the subtle, syncopated drumming which he's famed for, the youngest and the most natural talent out of the five of them. Joey follows with the snaking bass line, and then they cut away, making a space for Cook's vocals and guitar to enter the flowing stream of music.
And Cook's voice, sounding strong and solid to his own ears, singing the nuanced, cadenced song he had first sung ten years ago, when he'd known nothing about love, and loss, and needing.
"After all these years
After all these tears between us
Still I couldn't find
Someone half as right as you."
He's looking out into the audience, white faces turned up to his, recognises so many of them - sees his old friend Raine Maida, his contemporaries from Nickelback and Coldplay, glances past the new faces and young starlets, at the blonde girl whom he is almost sure now is Ashley, and smiles in the direction of Chris Pine's electric blue gaze.
But there's one face he's specially looking for, the face he'd know in a darkened room, can pick out unerringly in the darkness of this theatre beyond the stage, and when he sings that last line, he meets the knowing eyes of David Archuleta.
"And each time I stop to think
What it is I really need
Here's what I conclude
All I really need is you."
Cook remembers the last time he'd sung this, to David, nine years ago, after David’s “Zero Gravity” win at the Teen Choice Awards. When he'd gotten on his knees and presented David with the keys to his house, with such confident fanfare.
He remembers David kissing him, their tears mingling and falling. Does David remember that, too?
Cook continues to sing, and as he does, he has the sense that he's reaching out to David with his voice, as if he could build a bridge across the years, to the place in the past where he and David had lived with, and loved, each other.
"Just say what you want to say
You don't have a chance in the world
Can I, knowing how I've tried
Still come close to losing you..."
He remembers Amsterdam, and the sunny streets of Paris, this song playing in the background, David holding his hand. The cobblestones of Montmartre, hard under his knees.
He remembers tying a brown ribbon on David's ring finger, as if this could have served as a talisman against losing the one love of his life.
He remembers David saying no, in tears: the hinge on which this life rested.
Remembers losing David, despite everything he’d tried, to hold on to their love. And eventually, losing himself, as well, falling into a spiral that only ended when he realised there might be a chance in the world for redemption.
"Have I spent so many nights
Trying but in vain to tell you
Don't you know it's true
All I really need is you.”
So many nights, so many mornings, spent in pleasure with David, spent in pain alone. He should have told David so many things, while he’d had the chance.
Quintain crashes into the second verse, and Neal’s phenomenal lead guitar line slides into the song like heartbreak:
"How was I to know
We'd have ended here
Where we finally did..."
Cook can't look away, can't do anything other than sing like his life depends on it.
And the memories are coming faster, in a cascade of pain, of love. Their love ending, in a hotel room in Paris, in a ballroom in L.A. with David in his arms; his David, so pale and courageous, first dancing with the Goblin King, and then, walking away, Cook sending him away, in defeat.
"You tied your life to mine
Once upon a starry night..."
There had been so many starry nights to remember: Christmas Eve in Jackson, in the snow and the winter night; saying their goodbyes, the night Cook left for the Heroes tour, on their doorstep in the dark.
Falling asleep together, under the same stars that shone on London and L.A., linked by a sparkling, transparent bridge of electrons and love.
David might remember these nights, too; the nights he tied his life to Cook’s, the one night he untied it, like he untied the brown ribbon on his finger and left on the bedside table, in goodbye.
"And when someone asks for me
What it is that I believe
Say, I believe it's true
All I really need is you."
Cook's caught up in the memories, can't look away. Staring out into the dark, at the one face which has held him through ten long years, which holds him now, he knows David sees the memories too.
Sees the back seat of a limo, hears, "I've never stopped loving you."
He remembers the warmth of David in his arms again, of satiation, after so many years of thirst.
Remember what it felt like, finally coming home to the man he once knew, in David’s familiar embrace. He knows nothing will ever feel as pure or infinite as that again.
"I’ll never leave you again.” He’d believed in that, at the time, with all his heart; knows David did, as well. The good faith he'd displayed, the courage which David had shown; it wasn’t either of their faults that it hadn't been enough, then, because his illness, the pills and the cocaine, had followed them home.
Now he’s surfaced from addiction, could he even consider it finally working, between them? Cook doesn’t want to go there, and risk the fatal plunge again: in any case, he believes it’s true, that he would never in fact be well enough; he’d never be the same man that had almost lost David to the Labyrinth.
Of course, David doesn't know this. Sitting in the darkness, he’s staring up at Cook, as if he’s caught in the past as well - as if he hears Cook’s song, as if he might be remembering, with Cook, the years they spent loving and losing each other.
"Just say what you want to say
You don't have a chance in the world
Can I, knowing how I've tried
Still come close to losing you
When you are my world.”
Cook sings and sees Sonoma, in the last days of the summer. He remembers walking amidst the vineyards, holding David by the hand, in the quiet calm before the perfect storm.
Knowing how unwell he was, and despite this, still so in love with David, knowing David was his entire world.
He still sees David’s eyes, full of such transparent love and courage.
Hears, “I'm yours, no matter what happens. I've always been yours.”
And, oh God, he thinks David remembers, too, remembers the purple and green of the grape fields, the sunlight slanting down on them through the canopy of leaves.
Remembers: “You’re mine, always. I'll always need you; I can’t live without you.” He’d meant it then, still means it now, with all his heart.
"Have I spent so many nights
Trying but in vain to tell you
Feelings come and go
Me, I'm never gonna ever let you go."
Cook has always had trouble with this verse, with hitting the high C on in vain without his voice breaking, knowing how hard he’d tried, and it’s immeasurably harder tonight, singing in front of millions, and the one man he would always love.
Cook remembers how he’d been stupid enough to let David leave the first time, addled by pain and addiction and desperate pride. How, the second time, he’d found the clarity to let David go, a final act of love before the fall to the bottom.
He doesn’t think he’s strong enough to do it again.
He remembers the last time he’d seen David, in New York. Remembers David leaning over to kiss him, like a promise of forgiveness, and of something more.
"Come find me, when you're well again."
And Cook had been too afraid to take David’s hand, lest he drag him into the darkness once more. (I don’t deserve you, I never did; “I'm never going to be well enough.")
But now, despite this, every inch of Cook’s skin is yearning towards David, where he’s sitting in the dark. Despite everything, he wants to fling himself at David’s feet, to fall into David’s atmosphere, and never let him go.
"Promise you
I'm gonna always love you so
Cause all I really need is you."
It’s amazing that Cook actually makes it to the climax of his song without the tears coming, because with these lines, the lines he can almost never get through, he’s back in their old house in Cedar Lane, the first night David moved in with him, remembering beer and karaoke, and his love asleep in his arms.
The promise he’d made that night, to a force more powerful than the both of them: that he would take care of David always.
The promise he hadn’t managed to keep.
And, it seems as if Cook has in fact been trying, with this song, to build a bridge across the years: to the place in the past where he’d first made this promise - and to a place in the future, perhaps, where they could find forgiveness, if not love, once again.
Cook’s fingers find the last guitar note, and he swings away from the mic as Quintain come together in the final explosive chord, and then the stage lights flash off abruptly and darkness falls over them.
When Cook turns back to the crowd, feeling their applause rise around him, David’s eyes are there to meet his. He can’t read that dark and clouded gaze.
Has he reached David, with his song? Has he managed to reach far enough, to the past, and the future?
He’s not sure it’s given to him to know. All he knows, in this moment, is that he’s going to need David for the rest of his life.
*
Andy puts his arm around Cook as the roadies take their instruments, and they leave the sound stage. “Dave, how’re you holding up?”
Cook can’t answer: his collar feels constricting, suddenly, and he tugs the top button free, pulling the draped bow tie askew, feeling the chain of his necklaces tight around his neck.
His throat hurts, and he feels drained - he’s sung the need of his entire life out onstage, to David Archuleta, in possibly the most foolhardy move of his career.
His old selves would have dissembled: all bravado or, subsequently, coked-out paranoia. This Cook doesn’t, not anymore. “No,” he tells Andy, honestly. “It’s been a long day, and it’s gonna just get longer.”
Andy frowns. “You do look like you need some rest. Why don’t you come backstage? You don’t have to sit in that VIP seat and look pretty for the rest of the evening. We can send Kyle to go sit with Neal and pretend to be David Cook.”
Cook laughs, kind of weakly. “I’m sure he’ll do a good job. You know, tonight, I feel like I’m pretending to be David Cook.”
Andy hands Cook off to Jill, who’s consulting with one of the stage managers - it seems he can actually squeeze in another nap before he needs to be in his seat when they announce the winners of his category.
This is in fact what Cook is looking to do in the corner of the green room, with Missy Elliott and Maroon 5 heading into sound check, when he comes face to face with Sony Zurich’s Julia Gravenhorst.
“Oh my God,” says Cook, but he lets her kiss him on both cheeks in the European way. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a transfer this month, to L.A. I’m tired of Zurich, I need a change of scene.” She smiles, the smile he remembers. “Congratulations, by the way! The label is really happy you’ve come back. And how are you?”
He looks into her blue eyes, more lined than he remembers, from eight or so years ago. He remembers a club in Amsterdam, flying high on red, the feeling of her long, cool body against his, not pulling away.
And since honesty seems to have found him, in his new incarnation, he tells her, “I’m a mess.”
He watches her face slacken in surprise - the years have been kind to her, otherwise. “Oh,” she murmurs, trying to deal with this. Thinking hard. “I’m sorry. Is there anything I …? I remember reading that you and David broke up, a year after we all met each other.”
It stood to reason that Julia can still read him: she always could. Not Carrie, not LeeAnn, not Chris, or Cam, or Natasha. It’s David whom she thinks about, and of course, she’s right.
Cook decides it’s pointless dissembling with her. “Yeah, and things were never the same, since.”
She glances away briefly, then looks back at him. “I know you loved him so much,” she whispers, finally, her eyes swimming and blue. “You know, I was a little in love with you, back then. But I knew I would never be able to compete with him, Cook.”
Cook considers her declaration, less surprised at it than he otherwise might have been; remembers the conflicted feelings he’d had towards her, as well. “How about that,” he says, articulately, and then, for the first time, giving those emotions voice, “I may have felt those things for you too, Jules. But you were right, that I loved David more. You were right, too, when you told me I didn’t deserve him.”
Julia shook her head. “Did I ever tell you that? My goodness, the things we forget.” She peers more closely at his face. “And, forgive me for being frank, but it looks like you’re still in love with him, after all these years.”
“It doesn’t matter if I am.” Cook shivers, tightness in his throat, tries to focus. “Still don’t deserve him. Nothing’s changed.”
Julia put her fingers on the lapels of his jacket. “Look,” she says, fiercely, “if I thought I stood a chance with you, if I thought we could be good together, I would be asking you out to dinner with me. I’m not. I think you need to find him, David.”
God, honestly, he doesn't know what it is with everyone tonight. A storm’s building in his eyes. “Seriously, Jules, you don’t understand. He’s moved on, he doesn’t need this.”
“You let him be the judge of that, okay?” Her smile is so sad: he’s vaguely familiar with her story, remembers there being love, a career, a divorce. “If he turns you away, come look for me. But I’m betting he won’t.”
She kisses him gently on the mouth, for the first and last time, and he watches her walk away.
*
You let him be the judge of that. That was kind of the message he’d received, also, last year in 2017, when he’d set foot in church again after nine long years.
It hadn't really been his idea, nor had it been avoidable. Beth Cook had been determined to throw the biggest summer wedding Blue Springs had ever seen, for the first son she'd managed to see successfully married off.
This entailed a massive Episcopalian church ceremony, which meant Andrew’s best man was required to stand in the church sanctuary, awaiting the arrival of the bride at the groom's side, and assist him in the exchange of rings and vows.
It would have been an excommunicable offence, in Beth's eyes, for Cook to have declined to be present in the church at any time during the ceremony; he'd had a hard enough time as it was explaining to his mom why he couldn't make it to the rehearsal dinner, and why he hadn't brought a date to the wedding.
Beth had accepted both excuses, though, eventually, because Cook had good ones. For the latter, he'd only just started, very cautiously, seeing Natasha, and he wasn't sure they were ready for this step; anyway, she had a European tour to launch, she’d be away for months.
For the former, he'd just come off the set of Ishiguro's Nocturnes, in his comeback role as Steve Fayden, the guitar player who needed a new face. Nocturnes was a small budget artistic movie, produced by independent studio Merchant Ivory, and Lynn had thought that it was an ideal supporting role, low-pressure and zero-expectation, perfect for Cook to ease back into the serious business of making movies.
Cook hadn't been that keen to start acting again; but the filming window had coincided with the end of the studio recording for Forever, and the start of the Carousel tour. The screenplay had been adapted from the novel by Ishiguro himself, with Hugh Jackman signed to the lead role, and despite himself, Cook had become invested in the project. Before he knew it, he'd slipped back into that uniquely fluid actor's headspace, and was actually enjoying being before the cameras again.
Cook had considered bringing his acting game to the ceremony, in order to deal with the whole church issue, but it was beyond shitty to deliberately detach at his little brother's wedding - it was just the sort of thing his old self would do.
And so, he got dressed for the wedding without the help of stylists, staring grimly at his reflection in the mirror as he tied his lavender tie. He'd let his hair and highlights grow out for his serious role as Fayden, it was shaggy and auburn now. Well, he'd consider it part of his present to Andrew, that he wasn't going to outshine his little brother on his wedding way.
C'mon, don't freak out. Cook had attended this church as a teenager, vaguely remembered the hymns and prayers. It wasn't going to be a repeat of the fire-and-brimstone-Pentecostal which had been unwelcoming to David, and filled him with images of Adam in purgatory.
Enough. Cook shook himself, put his hand in the drawer to pull out his necklaces and wristbands. Lately, he'd taken to wearing a steel wine bottle pendant engraved with the words from his new single, "Thirst", he'd been looking for that, when what he pulled out was a small cross, studded with diamonds.
Cook held the cross in the palm of his hand. He'd worn this the last time he'd been in church, in Jackson, David at his side. A coincidence, of course.
Eventually, Cook put the cross around his neck. The diamonds were cold under his shirt, against his skin.
Would God judge him, for wearing David's gift like a talisman, and stepping onto hallowed ground? Would David? If the universe was trying to send him a sign, it wasn't a very subtle one.
Cook saw David's eyes again, hopeful and so full of innocence when he'd given him the cross (Open it, Cook).
The same eyes, so many years later, full of the complex love and pain which Cook had given him in return.
(I pray for you every day.)
Cook took a deep breath, and shouldered his resolve. Maybe there'd be judging there, in God's house, but there might also be forgiveness. He wouldn't leap to any conclusions or judgments himself, about either.
*
2018: The legendary Sting is onstage, being eloquently British about the nominees for this year’s Album of the Year. He’s also poking fun at Seacrest, in a wry and ironic way, but Sunshine Ryan, everyone’s easiest target, is either too oblivious or too much of an egoist to realize this.
Cook’s swaying a little with exhaustion and emotion; he doesn’t believe he needs to be sitting here in the public eye without even the luxury of a nap to shore him up.
It’s just his luck he’s chosen as his date tonight the one band member who wouldn’t hold his hand. Damn it, now he really wishes his mom was here.
Neal looks back at Cook, and frowns, mouthing something at him over Seacrest’s and Sting’s banter.
“Sorry, what?” The music on-stage is loud, as well; it sounds like they are playing the Police’s greatest hits.
“I said, are you okay? Geez, Dave, have you even taken your meds?”
Cook grimaces. “I’ll take them later. Not dead yet. Oh come on,” he adds, off Neal’s spectacular scowl, “I didn't bring you here so you could be Dr. House!”
“You don't need a doctor, you need a fucking babysitter,” Neal snaps at him, and Cook gears up to snap something back; which is why neither of them are prepared for the strains of “All I Really Need is You” suddenly blaring from the loudspeakers, and for every single camera in the place to pan over to them, all at once.
There’s a moment where the Nokia-Bank of America theatre goes dead quiet and still. The second seems to crystallize around Cook, slowing time, narrowing his focus - he’s very aware of the space his body fills in his seat, in the world, his hand digging into the armrest, Neal’s look of surprise beside him, the eternal notes of that damn song filling everyone in the hall.
Then Sting says, again, in his lovely storyteller’s voice, “Quintain, Edge of Forever,” and the resounding applause starts around Cook, buffeting him as if it’s a physical, tangible thing, and Cook hauls himself to his feet, game faces boys and leads his band down the red carpet.
People are sticking their hands out as the five of them race past, pumping the flesh, patting them on the back. The cameras overhead pan quickly over to the plastered-on smiles of the other nominees, applauding politely in their seats. Then, as Cook reaches the stage, the cameras cut across in quick succession to wives Jennie Skib and Nichole Peek, and, for some reason, David Archuleta (that fucking Brangelina-Aniston thing again), and Cook nearly stumbles and falls, at the look of inexpressible pride on David’s magnified face across the overhead screen.
Sting puts out a hand, and the veteran rocker holds Cook up.
Cook’s voice over the speakers cuts off mid-verse as the Quintain boys finally make it onstage, collecting their infamous gramophone statuettes and kisses from the Grammy babes. Sting doesn’t offer to kiss them, although he grins, bassist to bassist, at Joey.
Cook needs a moment to collect himself, so he waves the other guys to the mic first, and then fights back tears anyway at Andy's lengthy paean to Jennie, at Kyle's shy shout-out to Hayden and Marie, at the simple dedication (“Love to my girls, be with you soon”) Neal makes for his wife and baby daughter.
After Joey thanks his family and Alex Band, "and this bunch of guys with me onstage, the brothers I never had," it's Cook's turn, and he needs to man up and deliver an appropriate lead-singer speech.
"Why I decided to do this without cue cards, I'll never know. Us wannabe actors need our teleprompters, so I apologise in advance to those people I missed out," he murmurs into the mic, and there's appreciative snickering from the crowd.
"I need to thank our label, okay?" The heavy lifting is always the front-man's job."Everyone from RCA, who worked on this record, everybody at 19E, you guys are true professionals. Rob C - always a pleasure, you've been there from “Light On”, I hope “Saints” goes platinum for you in half the time." Julia Gravenhorst from Sony Zurich, you know why. "All the guys from the Carousel tour: Zac, you're the best; Linda, if you weren't married to Neal I would marry you myself."
Neal rolls his eyes at this, but Cook is warming to his topic. "My fantastic agent, Lynn Siegel. My assistant, Jill Harrison - I'm sorry for all the challenges in the last ten years, and hope you'll stay with me for twenty more. Raine Maida, who showed me the ropes when I first joined the industry, and who lets me beat him at golf - thanks, my friend, and thanks to all the musicians who've made this possible, including the other nominees tonight - it’s an honour to be nominated with you."
Man, the tearing up's beginning: "And, of course, these four other guys - I couldn't have done this without you. I don’t believe you’ve stuck with me, despite my bullshit. I love you more than I can say."
Deep breath - this is the home stretch now, the music starting to play. "I'd like to thank my dad and my mom. Andrew and Claire - my family couldn't be here tonight, little brother, because you guys are having a baby." Dry-swallows: "Also, I'd like to thank Adam, who couldn't be here either. We miss you, and think about you every day."
Cook pauses. Looks into the audience, and, from the better vantage point of the main stage, has a close, uninterrupted view of the one man's pale, upturned face, listening silently, waiting to hear what Cook has to say.
And what Cook says, surprising himself, is, "Lastly, I want to dedicate this award to David. You were the best thing in my life. It's taken me so many years to realise that you were all I really needed."
Cook lifts the gramophone in a salute; his arm's trembling a little, he's not sure why he feels suddenly so weak, the words of his song, which the producers are playing in order to get him off the stage, ringing in his ears.
His heart's beating quickly, and, all at once, it's becoming difficult to breathe, because, in the seat beyond the stage, David Archuleta looks like he's crying.
Not everyone understands the significance of Cook's declaration, most of them likely wondering whether he'd meant Cameron, or Natasha. Cook can't tell if the cameras have zeroed on David because his back is to the big screens. The photographers seem to be concentrating their firepower on him, a million flashbulbs going off at once, making it difficult for him to see. The music, the applause, is deafening.
Tears, from David, which he hadn't shed leaving the Hollywood ballroom in 2015, leaving a hotel room in New York a year later.
Andy's gripping Cook's arm, shouting something in his ear, trying to pull him gently away from the podium. Cook comes off, swaying a little on his feet - the adrenaline is making him giddy, and his head is suddenly spinning and full of cotton wool.
God, I've become such a lightweight, he thinks to himself, punch-drunk on his feet from sheer need and emotion: his universe narrowed to David's face, the tears in those dark eyes.
He thinks he does a reasonable job of holding it together, but when he tries to make it off-stage, the stairs shiver and tilt in front of him like a Dali painting.
He's seeing nothing but David in front of him, behind his eyelids, as his legs give way, and he folds sideways into Neal's arms, into the dark.
-> Chapter Twelve: What It Is That I Believe
Chapter: Eleven - When Someone Asks for Me
Pairing: David/David
Betas:fakeplasticsnow and frackin_sweet
Rating: This part is R for angst and references to substance abuse, therapy.
Summary: Cook and Archie meet again at the 2018 Grammys. IT’S 2018, AND QUINTAIN FINALLY TAKES TO THE STAGE.
Of relevance would be a quick reminder of the last time Cook sang “All I Really Need”.
Click to viewDedications:
* For fakeplasticsnow: “Sick Cycle Carousel”? Hands down the most amazing, inventive Kradam fic (finding your way from joyless fucking, sickness and numbness to believing in love again) in A.I.-verse. You rule, bb.
* The triumvirate of stories ( “Insobriety”, ”Thirst”, “All the Different Colours”) with titles that sound like they reference substance abuse? Tributes to my darlings rajkumari905, clionona and maimiejay.
* For slasher48 - cherie, thank you for your lush and beautiful "Misty", and your love.
* And frackin_sweet - "Patron Saints", your masterpiece of lost causes and rediscovery, which has redefined this fandom for me, owns me. Won't you be my downfall, this and every other night?
Thank you all for letting me populate Quintain’s album with songs based on your awesome stories.
Legal Disclaimer: Not-for-profit absolute work of fiction; fair use of any copyright material; no assertions or imputations as to the actual, real-world characters or inclinations of any living individuals, or actual events, intended. Picture, if you will, said individuals as mere actors in this fic. Will remove this without prejudice if a cease and desist notice is issued.
All I Really Need Is You
Part One: All These Years
Part Two: All These Tears
Part Three: Once Upon A Starry Night
Part Four: A Chance in the World
Part Five: Close To Losing
Part Six: Tie Your Life To Mine
Part Seven: Trying But in Vain
Part Eight: Spent So Many Nights
Part Nine: We'd Have Ended Here
Part Ten: Knowing How I've Tried
Part Eleven: When Someone Asks for Me
2018: Quintain's hit the sound check cleanly, and it's time for the spotlights to come on and the cameras to start rolling as the five of them finally take to the stage in their glammed-up formal wear.
"We're live in five," the sound stage manager says to Cook.
The cameras swivel and point in their direction, waiting, for the band to launch into the performance of their careers.
Cook makes the affirmative hand signal, and looks over at his boys: Kyle hovering above them, on his elevated drum-set, Neal and Joey flanking him, Andy to the far left. The five of them, together again, like they were always meant to be.
Seacrest's babble sweeps over Cook as the five of them gear up, instruments at the ready.
Cook looks to his right - his tattooed lead guitarist, his best friend, the good Doctor Tiemann, the rock on which their band had always stood.
To his left, the curly blond head of his bass guitarist, whom he'd almost lost, through the drugs and ambition and his own stupidity, who had come back to him, to all of them, through no restitution or doing of his own.
Joey grins when he sees Cook glance at him, and Cook grins back, remembering the tentative way Joey had looked at him when they'd finally been face to face again after the Alex Band tour. Joey is back where he belongs, and they’re both glad.
*
It had been winter in LA in 2016, Christmas music on repeat. Cook hadn’t fallen apart, after that conversation with David in New York; he’d actually managed to catch his plane and head back to L.A., although it hadn't been a good flight. Still, he’d survived that conversation without falling off the wagon, so this one ought to be fairly straight-forward.
The three Midwest Kings sat in matching plaid shirts on one side of the table in the Four Seasons restaurant. The paparazzi ignored their group - this was L.A., washed up rock stars and B-list actors were a dime a dozen.
Joey and Cook eyed each other across the other side of the table.
They made small talk, at first, and then Cook broached the topic of the Alex Band tour.
"How was touring? I read your fans are up to all kinds of things on Facebook and Twitter."
Joey's grin became more relaxed. "It was great. You know me, Dave, I can’t not tour. And Alex is so chill, the nicest guy."
Cook tried not to hear that as a criticism of his own behaviour, though it wasn't easy to shut out the drug-addled paranoia that had been so much a part of him before. "That's great," he managed, and was pleased at how positive he sounded. He was genuinely happy that Joey had enjoyed himself so much in these last three years, on his own.
"Thanks," said Joey, looking like he meant it. "I caught up with Selena Gomez on the road, too, it was pretty cool."
“Joey is so dating Selena’s drummer!” crowed Kyle, and Joey waved his hand, blushing, “Aw, we’re just hanging out, not sure where we’ll take it. I’m shy, you guys, shut up.”
Cook thought, now or never, and reached out.
"Look, Joey, you know how sorry I am, right? I was an asshole. You know I was crazy and coked out, in those days, but I’m better now, I promise. You guys’ll keep me on the straight and narrow.”
He held his breath, as Joey looked down, and then looked back up at him.
Around the table, the other guys looked like they were holding their breaths, too.
Joey brushed his hair to one side, exhaled slowly. “It’s okay, Dave. I wouldn’t be here if I didn't wanna forgive you, even though you were a coked out asshole,” he said, awkwardly, and everyone burst into relieved laughter.
Cook considered putting his arms around Joey and hugging him, but he still wasn’t sure of his reception, and confined himself to saying, "Thanks, man. You don’t know how much it means."
“So, Joey,” said Andy, softly, from the other side of the table, “You know we want to get back together, but we need you. Are you in?”
Joey reached over to bump fists with him: “Yeah, why not. I’m up for anything.”
Andy rolled his eyes at Cook: “We’ll make sure our front-man doesn't slug you this time, okay?” and Cook made a face at him.
“I totally trust you, Skib, don’t let me down,” said Joey, and Cook said, “Hey! I resent that,” but he was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt - God, had he missed this, the guys horsing around, the easy trust and affection between them. What they’d had before apparently had not been lost for good.
"I," said Neal, "have come up with our new name."
Four pairs of eyes fixed on their taciturn lead guitarist, who paused dramatically.
Cook said, "Dude, out with it."
"It's 'Quintain'." Neal grinned, put his hand on Kyle's arm, and spelled it out, slowly.
Andy said, "Dude, I knew how to spell it!" although he kind of looked gratified for Neal's clarification, as well.
Cook felt tightness in his throat: his best friend was a genius, sometimes. "’Quintain’, it's perfect. Because there are five of us," he said, to Neal, but he looked at Joey, and took his hand.
Joey squeezed back. “Yes, there are,” he said, and Cook felt, for the first time this entire year, as if he could smell the air above the pit, on his long climb up.
*
Cook's vision of the top of the pit could have been a mirage, but it wasn't.
There were bad days, of course, plagued by the elusive shards of memory that cut his fingers to ribbons when he reached out to them, when he felt the climb was endless. When he remembered the taste of addiction, of corruption, and toyed with letting go of the sheer side of the abyss, free-falling into the dark.
Of course, times like that, he dug deep, reached for the restitution he needed to make, in lieu of strength. Remembered the forgiveness he'd received from David that he didn't deserve. He certainly didn't deserve to take the simplistic exit, when there was still so much hard work he needed to do, so much to atone for.
And there were many good days: his birthday and the Christmas season, for instance, spent in his mom's house, surrounded by family. The household was plunged in preparations for his brother's wedding. Beth and Claire, Andrew's bride-to-be, were visiting wedding registries and picking out flowers for the tables, and Cook and Andrew struggled to respond constructively to questions about colour schemes and scalloped lace and invitation cards.
The time he spent with the band, for another; Cook couldn't believe how much he'd missed them. He'd forgotten how it could be with Neal and Andy, guitar and piano and sheets of paper, where they all wrote like extensions of one another. The music flowed so seamlessly out of each other it was impossible to tell where one Tiemann line ended and a Skib line began, overlaid with Cook's lyrical melodies of love and the journey, the open road beyond.
And, in the summer of 2017, the new and reinvented Quintain burst onto the music scene with their comeback album Edge of Forever.
It was an album that circled back to the guys' rock roots, nods to the old Midwest Kings numbers, to rocking, anthemic "Declaration", to the darkness of Amalgam’s longing and anguished loss. But Edge of Forever had a different vibe to Amalgam: it was far from cheerful or uplifting, but its songs spoke of a clear-eyed look to the future, a sense of the continued journey down life's highway, courage and friendship travelling alongside, towards an unknown but not unwelcoming horizon.
Songs like "Carousel", which Andy had co-written, all lovely piano rhythms and chords, about finding your way from sickness and numbness to believing in love again, like "Insobriety", "Thirst" and “All the Different Colours”, unflinching looks at different types of addiction, like "Misty", a lush, romantic paean to secret love in a rainstorm. There was "Patron Saints", Neal's masterpiece, a song of lost causes and rediscovery, which Quintain loved to attack full throttle and Cook loved, even more, to sing.
And, since the band was also about the covers, Cook had included a cover of "All I Really Need is You", the Neil Diamond song which he'd sung in 2008, ten years ago, on the Idol stage and his own cusp of forever.
The first time they'd gone to the studios to record it, Cook hadn't been able to get to the end, although he had tried, unsuccessfully, to sing through his tears.
He knew all he really needed, knew who it was he needed, if someone were to ask for him, but wasn't able to risk taking those final, fatal steps again - not when he could feel the surface and the sky above his head.
Being able to cover the Diamond song, of course, was facilitated by moving back to RCA Records, which maintained the relationship with big Neil D, and which welcomed Quintain with open arms and did not mention the temporary insanity of Cook's defection to A&M.
The move paid off handsomely for Cook's old label, as well as for 19E; with Delano gone Cook and Lynn needed the old hands back on deck, and the savvy marketing gurus spun the romantic story of the boys who might have lost their way amongst the neon and needles and other temptations of Hollywood Boulevard, but who had emerged from the maelstrom into the clear afternoon light, and had found each other again.
Cook's fans remembered him, remembered the cadences and chemistry of the band now known as Quintain. Their comeback story resonated with the audiences old and new. The album rocketed to the top of the charts and went platinum in a matter of months.
The critics had also been kind. Leno and Larry King were effusive when Quintain hit the publicity circuit. Blitz and GQ did a couple of spreads of the band, older and wiser, and looking even better in their generous thirties than in their callow youth. Rolling Stone, grudgingly, said, "We wouldn’t have expected it, but with this fifth album, and his band in its fifth incarnation, David Cook has finally come of age".
And in the fall, Quintain heard they'd been nominated for an Album of the Year Grammy.
They'd been on tour when they heard the news - true to their back to basics approach, they'd rolled out the 2017 Carousel tour to America's small venues and university campuses again, eschewing the stadium concerts of the White Gold tour, although security was more problematic these days.
Embraced by his friends, Kyle clinging to his neck, Cook felt able to celebrate with a moderate half glass of champagne, and not have Neal or Andy glare at him as if he was going to fall off the wagon. Everyone else was ecstatic, whooping it up, but Cook's chief emotion was, actually, relief - he felt as if, finally, he'd managed to drag his exhausted body out of the pit, and was lying on his back, sweaty and filthy and dog-tired, face to the sun.
*
And here they are now, in 2018, at the pinnacle of their career, on the wide Grammy stage, in front of millions of viewers, the biggest audience in the Western world.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your final nominee in the Album of the Year category - the newly reformed Quintain!”
The hotness of the stage lights descends, and the roaring of the crowd in the Nokia-Citibank theatre rises, and Andy‘s shimmering keyboards lead the opening bars of "All I Really Need is You".
Kyle joins in, with the subtle, syncopated drumming which he's famed for, the youngest and the most natural talent out of the five of them. Joey follows with the snaking bass line, and then they cut away, making a space for Cook's vocals and guitar to enter the flowing stream of music.
And Cook's voice, sounding strong and solid to his own ears, singing the nuanced, cadenced song he had first sung ten years ago, when he'd known nothing about love, and loss, and needing.
"After all these years
After all these tears between us
Still I couldn't find
Someone half as right as you."
He's looking out into the audience, white faces turned up to his, recognises so many of them - sees his old friend Raine Maida, his contemporaries from Nickelback and Coldplay, glances past the new faces and young starlets, at the blonde girl whom he is almost sure now is Ashley, and smiles in the direction of Chris Pine's electric blue gaze.
But there's one face he's specially looking for, the face he'd know in a darkened room, can pick out unerringly in the darkness of this theatre beyond the stage, and when he sings that last line, he meets the knowing eyes of David Archuleta.
"And each time I stop to think
What it is I really need
Here's what I conclude
All I really need is you."
Cook remembers the last time he'd sung this, to David, nine years ago, after David’s “Zero Gravity” win at the Teen Choice Awards. When he'd gotten on his knees and presented David with the keys to his house, with such confident fanfare.
He remembers David kissing him, their tears mingling and falling. Does David remember that, too?
Cook continues to sing, and as he does, he has the sense that he's reaching out to David with his voice, as if he could build a bridge across the years, to the place in the past where he and David had lived with, and loved, each other.
"Just say what you want to say
You don't have a chance in the world
Can I, knowing how I've tried
Still come close to losing you..."
He remembers Amsterdam, and the sunny streets of Paris, this song playing in the background, David holding his hand. The cobblestones of Montmartre, hard under his knees.
He remembers tying a brown ribbon on David's ring finger, as if this could have served as a talisman against losing the one love of his life.
He remembers David saying no, in tears: the hinge on which this life rested.
Remembers losing David, despite everything he’d tried, to hold on to their love. And eventually, losing himself, as well, falling into a spiral that only ended when he realised there might be a chance in the world for redemption.
"Have I spent so many nights
Trying but in vain to tell you
Don't you know it's true
All I really need is you.”
So many nights, so many mornings, spent in pleasure with David, spent in pain alone. He should have told David so many things, while he’d had the chance.
Quintain crashes into the second verse, and Neal’s phenomenal lead guitar line slides into the song like heartbreak:
"How was I to know
We'd have ended here
Where we finally did..."
Cook can't look away, can't do anything other than sing like his life depends on it.
And the memories are coming faster, in a cascade of pain, of love. Their love ending, in a hotel room in Paris, in a ballroom in L.A. with David in his arms; his David, so pale and courageous, first dancing with the Goblin King, and then, walking away, Cook sending him away, in defeat.
"You tied your life to mine
Once upon a starry night..."
There had been so many starry nights to remember: Christmas Eve in Jackson, in the snow and the winter night; saying their goodbyes, the night Cook left for the Heroes tour, on their doorstep in the dark.
Falling asleep together, under the same stars that shone on London and L.A., linked by a sparkling, transparent bridge of electrons and love.
David might remember these nights, too; the nights he tied his life to Cook’s, the one night he untied it, like he untied the brown ribbon on his finger and left on the bedside table, in goodbye.
"And when someone asks for me
What it is that I believe
Say, I believe it's true
All I really need is you."
Cook's caught up in the memories, can't look away. Staring out into the dark, at the one face which has held him through ten long years, which holds him now, he knows David sees the memories too.
Sees the back seat of a limo, hears, "I've never stopped loving you."
He remembers the warmth of David in his arms again, of satiation, after so many years of thirst.
Remember what it felt like, finally coming home to the man he once knew, in David’s familiar embrace. He knows nothing will ever feel as pure or infinite as that again.
"I’ll never leave you again.” He’d believed in that, at the time, with all his heart; knows David did, as well. The good faith he'd displayed, the courage which David had shown; it wasn’t either of their faults that it hadn't been enough, then, because his illness, the pills and the cocaine, had followed them home.
Now he’s surfaced from addiction, could he even consider it finally working, between them? Cook doesn’t want to go there, and risk the fatal plunge again: in any case, he believes it’s true, that he would never in fact be well enough; he’d never be the same man that had almost lost David to the Labyrinth.
Of course, David doesn't know this. Sitting in the darkness, he’s staring up at Cook, as if he’s caught in the past as well - as if he hears Cook’s song, as if he might be remembering, with Cook, the years they spent loving and losing each other.
"Just say what you want to say
You don't have a chance in the world
Can I, knowing how I've tried
Still come close to losing you
When you are my world.”
Cook sings and sees Sonoma, in the last days of the summer. He remembers walking amidst the vineyards, holding David by the hand, in the quiet calm before the perfect storm.
Knowing how unwell he was, and despite this, still so in love with David, knowing David was his entire world.
He still sees David’s eyes, full of such transparent love and courage.
Hears, “I'm yours, no matter what happens. I've always been yours.”
And, oh God, he thinks David remembers, too, remembers the purple and green of the grape fields, the sunlight slanting down on them through the canopy of leaves.
Remembers: “You’re mine, always. I'll always need you; I can’t live without you.” He’d meant it then, still means it now, with all his heart.
"Have I spent so many nights
Trying but in vain to tell you
Feelings come and go
Me, I'm never gonna ever let you go."
Cook has always had trouble with this verse, with hitting the high C on in vain without his voice breaking, knowing how hard he’d tried, and it’s immeasurably harder tonight, singing in front of millions, and the one man he would always love.
Cook remembers how he’d been stupid enough to let David leave the first time, addled by pain and addiction and desperate pride. How, the second time, he’d found the clarity to let David go, a final act of love before the fall to the bottom.
He doesn’t think he’s strong enough to do it again.
He remembers the last time he’d seen David, in New York. Remembers David leaning over to kiss him, like a promise of forgiveness, and of something more.
"Come find me, when you're well again."
And Cook had been too afraid to take David’s hand, lest he drag him into the darkness once more. (I don’t deserve you, I never did; “I'm never going to be well enough.")
But now, despite this, every inch of Cook’s skin is yearning towards David, where he’s sitting in the dark. Despite everything, he wants to fling himself at David’s feet, to fall into David’s atmosphere, and never let him go.
"Promise you
I'm gonna always love you so
Cause all I really need is you."
It’s amazing that Cook actually makes it to the climax of his song without the tears coming, because with these lines, the lines he can almost never get through, he’s back in their old house in Cedar Lane, the first night David moved in with him, remembering beer and karaoke, and his love asleep in his arms.
The promise he’d made that night, to a force more powerful than the both of them: that he would take care of David always.
The promise he hadn’t managed to keep.
And, it seems as if Cook has in fact been trying, with this song, to build a bridge across the years: to the place in the past where he’d first made this promise - and to a place in the future, perhaps, where they could find forgiveness, if not love, once again.
Cook’s fingers find the last guitar note, and he swings away from the mic as Quintain come together in the final explosive chord, and then the stage lights flash off abruptly and darkness falls over them.
When Cook turns back to the crowd, feeling their applause rise around him, David’s eyes are there to meet his. He can’t read that dark and clouded gaze.
Has he reached David, with his song? Has he managed to reach far enough, to the past, and the future?
He’s not sure it’s given to him to know. All he knows, in this moment, is that he’s going to need David for the rest of his life.
*
Andy puts his arm around Cook as the roadies take their instruments, and they leave the sound stage. “Dave, how’re you holding up?”
Cook can’t answer: his collar feels constricting, suddenly, and he tugs the top button free, pulling the draped bow tie askew, feeling the chain of his necklaces tight around his neck.
His throat hurts, and he feels drained - he’s sung the need of his entire life out onstage, to David Archuleta, in possibly the most foolhardy move of his career.
His old selves would have dissembled: all bravado or, subsequently, coked-out paranoia. This Cook doesn’t, not anymore. “No,” he tells Andy, honestly. “It’s been a long day, and it’s gonna just get longer.”
Andy frowns. “You do look like you need some rest. Why don’t you come backstage? You don’t have to sit in that VIP seat and look pretty for the rest of the evening. We can send Kyle to go sit with Neal and pretend to be David Cook.”
Cook laughs, kind of weakly. “I’m sure he’ll do a good job. You know, tonight, I feel like I’m pretending to be David Cook.”
Andy hands Cook off to Jill, who’s consulting with one of the stage managers - it seems he can actually squeeze in another nap before he needs to be in his seat when they announce the winners of his category.
This is in fact what Cook is looking to do in the corner of the green room, with Missy Elliott and Maroon 5 heading into sound check, when he comes face to face with Sony Zurich’s Julia Gravenhorst.
“Oh my God,” says Cook, but he lets her kiss him on both cheeks in the European way. “What are you doing here?”
“I had a transfer this month, to L.A. I’m tired of Zurich, I need a change of scene.” She smiles, the smile he remembers. “Congratulations, by the way! The label is really happy you’ve come back. And how are you?”
He looks into her blue eyes, more lined than he remembers, from eight or so years ago. He remembers a club in Amsterdam, flying high on red, the feeling of her long, cool body against his, not pulling away.
And since honesty seems to have found him, in his new incarnation, he tells her, “I’m a mess.”
He watches her face slacken in surprise - the years have been kind to her, otherwise. “Oh,” she murmurs, trying to deal with this. Thinking hard. “I’m sorry. Is there anything I …? I remember reading that you and David broke up, a year after we all met each other.”
It stood to reason that Julia can still read him: she always could. Not Carrie, not LeeAnn, not Chris, or Cam, or Natasha. It’s David whom she thinks about, and of course, she’s right.
Cook decides it’s pointless dissembling with her. “Yeah, and things were never the same, since.”
She glances away briefly, then looks back at him. “I know you loved him so much,” she whispers, finally, her eyes swimming and blue. “You know, I was a little in love with you, back then. But I knew I would never be able to compete with him, Cook.”
Cook considers her declaration, less surprised at it than he otherwise might have been; remembers the conflicted feelings he’d had towards her, as well. “How about that,” he says, articulately, and then, for the first time, giving those emotions voice, “I may have felt those things for you too, Jules. But you were right, that I loved David more. You were right, too, when you told me I didn’t deserve him.”
Julia shook her head. “Did I ever tell you that? My goodness, the things we forget.” She peers more closely at his face. “And, forgive me for being frank, but it looks like you’re still in love with him, after all these years.”
“It doesn’t matter if I am.” Cook shivers, tightness in his throat, tries to focus. “Still don’t deserve him. Nothing’s changed.”
Julia put her fingers on the lapels of his jacket. “Look,” she says, fiercely, “if I thought I stood a chance with you, if I thought we could be good together, I would be asking you out to dinner with me. I’m not. I think you need to find him, David.”
God, honestly, he doesn't know what it is with everyone tonight. A storm’s building in his eyes. “Seriously, Jules, you don’t understand. He’s moved on, he doesn’t need this.”
“You let him be the judge of that, okay?” Her smile is so sad: he’s vaguely familiar with her story, remembers there being love, a career, a divorce. “If he turns you away, come look for me. But I’m betting he won’t.”
She kisses him gently on the mouth, for the first and last time, and he watches her walk away.
*
You let him be the judge of that. That was kind of the message he’d received, also, last year in 2017, when he’d set foot in church again after nine long years.
It hadn't really been his idea, nor had it been avoidable. Beth Cook had been determined to throw the biggest summer wedding Blue Springs had ever seen, for the first son she'd managed to see successfully married off.
This entailed a massive Episcopalian church ceremony, which meant Andrew’s best man was required to stand in the church sanctuary, awaiting the arrival of the bride at the groom's side, and assist him in the exchange of rings and vows.
It would have been an excommunicable offence, in Beth's eyes, for Cook to have declined to be present in the church at any time during the ceremony; he'd had a hard enough time as it was explaining to his mom why he couldn't make it to the rehearsal dinner, and why he hadn't brought a date to the wedding.
Beth had accepted both excuses, though, eventually, because Cook had good ones. For the latter, he'd only just started, very cautiously, seeing Natasha, and he wasn't sure they were ready for this step; anyway, she had a European tour to launch, she’d be away for months.
For the former, he'd just come off the set of Ishiguro's Nocturnes, in his comeback role as Steve Fayden, the guitar player who needed a new face. Nocturnes was a small budget artistic movie, produced by independent studio Merchant Ivory, and Lynn had thought that it was an ideal supporting role, low-pressure and zero-expectation, perfect for Cook to ease back into the serious business of making movies.
Cook hadn't been that keen to start acting again; but the filming window had coincided with the end of the studio recording for Forever, and the start of the Carousel tour. The screenplay had been adapted from the novel by Ishiguro himself, with Hugh Jackman signed to the lead role, and despite himself, Cook had become invested in the project. Before he knew it, he'd slipped back into that uniquely fluid actor's headspace, and was actually enjoying being before the cameras again.
Cook had considered bringing his acting game to the ceremony, in order to deal with the whole church issue, but it was beyond shitty to deliberately detach at his little brother's wedding - it was just the sort of thing his old self would do.
And so, he got dressed for the wedding without the help of stylists, staring grimly at his reflection in the mirror as he tied his lavender tie. He'd let his hair and highlights grow out for his serious role as Fayden, it was shaggy and auburn now. Well, he'd consider it part of his present to Andrew, that he wasn't going to outshine his little brother on his wedding way.
C'mon, don't freak out. Cook had attended this church as a teenager, vaguely remembered the hymns and prayers. It wasn't going to be a repeat of the fire-and-brimstone-Pentecostal which had been unwelcoming to David, and filled him with images of Adam in purgatory.
Enough. Cook shook himself, put his hand in the drawer to pull out his necklaces and wristbands. Lately, he'd taken to wearing a steel wine bottle pendant engraved with the words from his new single, "Thirst", he'd been looking for that, when what he pulled out was a small cross, studded with diamonds.
Cook held the cross in the palm of his hand. He'd worn this the last time he'd been in church, in Jackson, David at his side. A coincidence, of course.
Eventually, Cook put the cross around his neck. The diamonds were cold under his shirt, against his skin.
Would God judge him, for wearing David's gift like a talisman, and stepping onto hallowed ground? Would David? If the universe was trying to send him a sign, it wasn't a very subtle one.
Cook saw David's eyes again, hopeful and so full of innocence when he'd given him the cross (Open it, Cook).
The same eyes, so many years later, full of the complex love and pain which Cook had given him in return.
(I pray for you every day.)
Cook took a deep breath, and shouldered his resolve. Maybe there'd be judging there, in God's house, but there might also be forgiveness. He wouldn't leap to any conclusions or judgments himself, about either.
*
2018: The legendary Sting is onstage, being eloquently British about the nominees for this year’s Album of the Year. He’s also poking fun at Seacrest, in a wry and ironic way, but Sunshine Ryan, everyone’s easiest target, is either too oblivious or too much of an egoist to realize this.
Cook’s swaying a little with exhaustion and emotion; he doesn’t believe he needs to be sitting here in the public eye without even the luxury of a nap to shore him up.
It’s just his luck he’s chosen as his date tonight the one band member who wouldn’t hold his hand. Damn it, now he really wishes his mom was here.
Neal looks back at Cook, and frowns, mouthing something at him over Seacrest’s and Sting’s banter.
“Sorry, what?” The music on-stage is loud, as well; it sounds like they are playing the Police’s greatest hits.
“I said, are you okay? Geez, Dave, have you even taken your meds?”
Cook grimaces. “I’ll take them later. Not dead yet. Oh come on,” he adds, off Neal’s spectacular scowl, “I didn't bring you here so you could be Dr. House!”
“You don't need a doctor, you need a fucking babysitter,” Neal snaps at him, and Cook gears up to snap something back; which is why neither of them are prepared for the strains of “All I Really Need is You” suddenly blaring from the loudspeakers, and for every single camera in the place to pan over to them, all at once.
There’s a moment where the Nokia-Bank of America theatre goes dead quiet and still. The second seems to crystallize around Cook, slowing time, narrowing his focus - he’s very aware of the space his body fills in his seat, in the world, his hand digging into the armrest, Neal’s look of surprise beside him, the eternal notes of that damn song filling everyone in the hall.
Then Sting says, again, in his lovely storyteller’s voice, “Quintain, Edge of Forever,” and the resounding applause starts around Cook, buffeting him as if it’s a physical, tangible thing, and Cook hauls himself to his feet, game faces boys and leads his band down the red carpet.
People are sticking their hands out as the five of them race past, pumping the flesh, patting them on the back. The cameras overhead pan quickly over to the plastered-on smiles of the other nominees, applauding politely in their seats. Then, as Cook reaches the stage, the cameras cut across in quick succession to wives Jennie Skib and Nichole Peek, and, for some reason, David Archuleta (that fucking Brangelina-Aniston thing again), and Cook nearly stumbles and falls, at the look of inexpressible pride on David’s magnified face across the overhead screen.
Sting puts out a hand, and the veteran rocker holds Cook up.
Cook’s voice over the speakers cuts off mid-verse as the Quintain boys finally make it onstage, collecting their infamous gramophone statuettes and kisses from the Grammy babes. Sting doesn’t offer to kiss them, although he grins, bassist to bassist, at Joey.
Cook needs a moment to collect himself, so he waves the other guys to the mic first, and then fights back tears anyway at Andy's lengthy paean to Jennie, at Kyle's shy shout-out to Hayden and Marie, at the simple dedication (“Love to my girls, be with you soon”) Neal makes for his wife and baby daughter.
After Joey thanks his family and Alex Band, "and this bunch of guys with me onstage, the brothers I never had," it's Cook's turn, and he needs to man up and deliver an appropriate lead-singer speech.
"Why I decided to do this without cue cards, I'll never know. Us wannabe actors need our teleprompters, so I apologise in advance to those people I missed out," he murmurs into the mic, and there's appreciative snickering from the crowd.
"I need to thank our label, okay?" The heavy lifting is always the front-man's job."Everyone from RCA, who worked on this record, everybody at 19E, you guys are true professionals. Rob C - always a pleasure, you've been there from “Light On”, I hope “Saints” goes platinum for you in half the time." Julia Gravenhorst from Sony Zurich, you know why. "All the guys from the Carousel tour: Zac, you're the best; Linda, if you weren't married to Neal I would marry you myself."
Neal rolls his eyes at this, but Cook is warming to his topic. "My fantastic agent, Lynn Siegel. My assistant, Jill Harrison - I'm sorry for all the challenges in the last ten years, and hope you'll stay with me for twenty more. Raine Maida, who showed me the ropes when I first joined the industry, and who lets me beat him at golf - thanks, my friend, and thanks to all the musicians who've made this possible, including the other nominees tonight - it’s an honour to be nominated with you."
Man, the tearing up's beginning: "And, of course, these four other guys - I couldn't have done this without you. I don’t believe you’ve stuck with me, despite my bullshit. I love you more than I can say."
Deep breath - this is the home stretch now, the music starting to play. "I'd like to thank my dad and my mom. Andrew and Claire - my family couldn't be here tonight, little brother, because you guys are having a baby." Dry-swallows: "Also, I'd like to thank Adam, who couldn't be here either. We miss you, and think about you every day."
Cook pauses. Looks into the audience, and, from the better vantage point of the main stage, has a close, uninterrupted view of the one man's pale, upturned face, listening silently, waiting to hear what Cook has to say.
And what Cook says, surprising himself, is, "Lastly, I want to dedicate this award to David. You were the best thing in my life. It's taken me so many years to realise that you were all I really needed."
Cook lifts the gramophone in a salute; his arm's trembling a little, he's not sure why he feels suddenly so weak, the words of his song, which the producers are playing in order to get him off the stage, ringing in his ears.
His heart's beating quickly, and, all at once, it's becoming difficult to breathe, because, in the seat beyond the stage, David Archuleta looks like he's crying.
Not everyone understands the significance of Cook's declaration, most of them likely wondering whether he'd meant Cameron, or Natasha. Cook can't tell if the cameras have zeroed on David because his back is to the big screens. The photographers seem to be concentrating their firepower on him, a million flashbulbs going off at once, making it difficult for him to see. The music, the applause, is deafening.
Tears, from David, which he hadn't shed leaving the Hollywood ballroom in 2015, leaving a hotel room in New York a year later.
Andy's gripping Cook's arm, shouting something in his ear, trying to pull him gently away from the podium. Cook comes off, swaying a little on his feet - the adrenaline is making him giddy, and his head is suddenly spinning and full of cotton wool.
God, I've become such a lightweight, he thinks to himself, punch-drunk on his feet from sheer need and emotion: his universe narrowed to David's face, the tears in those dark eyes.
He thinks he does a reasonable job of holding it together, but when he tries to make it off-stage, the stairs shiver and tilt in front of him like a Dali painting.
He's seeing nothing but David in front of him, behind his eyelids, as his legs give way, and he folds sideways into Neal's arms, into the dark.
-> Chapter Twelve: What It Is That I Believe