As a Sure Thing: Part 1
Title: As a Sure Thing
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Cookmann (some Cook/Kim and some Neal/Kira)
Word Count: 15,318
Summary: The first time Neal ever sees Dave, they're at some house party in Warrensburg, Missouri. Neal doesn't really know what's going on; he's still a little tired from the set that he just played, and he's had enough to drink that his head is a little fuzzy and he kind of just wants to sit down for a few minutes.
A/N: Started off as a drabble for odi_et_amo53. I don't know what happened, but it grew from there. So, anyways, this is for you, bb!
A/N 2: I don't know anything about time line or "factual happenings" or anything like that, so be warned.
The first time Neal ever sees Dave, they’re at some house party in Warrensburg, Missouri. Neal doesn’t really know what’s going on; he’s still a little tired from the set that he just played, and he’s had enough to drink that his head is a little fuzzy and he kind of just wants to sit down for a few minutes.
There’s a lot of smoke in the house, though, so Neal doesn’t feel too bad when he takes out his pack and lights a cigarette. He looks around and it’s a pretty normal house, nothing of any note, not really, and although there’s still a lot of booze left, Neal’s kind of ready to head out.
“You alright?” Andy asks. He’s holding a can of some cheap-ass beer and yelling over the music, and Neal entertains the thought that mindreading is Andy’s sixth sense.
“I guess.” Neal shrugs and he can feel the collar of his denim jacket slide up and down his neck. “Kind of tired.” Kind of really fucking tired, he thinks, and if the cigarette between his fingers wasn’t anchoring him to the ground, he’s not entirely sure he wouldn’t just float away.
Andy laughs. “Kind of drunk, more like.”
And then some kid that Neal doesn’t know is leaning forward, pointing at him and saying, “This is him drunk? Whoa, did not see that coming,” and Neal gets that a lot. He’s a mellow drunk for the most part, he knows that, and maybe he should respond, but all he can focus on is how the kid stressed did as if that one word held more meaning than anything else he said.
Later, after he’s finished his first cigarette and is making his way through his second, Neal looks around at how all the furniture is pushed up against the walls. Sitting sounds nice to him, but Neal doubts he’ll find an open seat on the couch. It’s packed, and everyone over there’s laughing real loud.
“Hey, Andy,” he says, nudging Andy in the side. “Who’s that?” He points to one of the kids on the couch, the one who’s by the armrest and who’s throwing his head back.
“Him?” Andy asks. “I dunno, some Axium kid, I think. Daniel, maybe? No, no-David, it’s David.”
Neal watches as the guy pushes his bangs out of his eyes and then shakes his head. Something must’ve been real funny. Neal thinks, Axium, huh?
Andy laughs, says to him, “Come on, loverboy, let’s find you somewhere to pass out,” and then leads Neal through the house and out the door, one hand on his elbow. Neal thinks, Loverboy? and he doesn’t get it, not at all, but then Andy’s opening the door to their tour van and no one’s there, so the biggest bench seat is free, and Neal thinks maybe he’s in heaven.
It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.
Neal doesn’t see David again, not for a long time, and truth be told, Neal doesn’t spare him a second thought. Things are real busy for the Kings, so Neal barely even has time to himself, time where he doesn’t need to be writing or recording or planning tours or figuring out where his band gets to sleep that night.
It’s one of their only free nights for the next two weeks and Andy says to him, “Hey, want to hit up a bar with me tonight?” Neal doesn’t, really doesn’t, but when Andy sees him hesitate, he says, “Oh, come on, man. Just for a little while.”
So Neal ends up at the Blank Slate on a Tuesday night, and the bar’s pretty much dead. Andy’s not there yet, but Neal doesn’t bother to wait and instead goes to order a beer.
“Can I get a Stroh’s?” Neal asks, and he’s already searching in his wallet for a ten.
“Sure thing,” the bartender says, and as he’s sliding the bottle along the countertop, Neal sees that it’s the kid from the party all those months ago.
He thinks for a second about maybe saying something, about asking how Axium’s doing or why he’s in Tulsa, but then Neal remembers that he doesn’t know the guy, not at all, and so he doesn’t say anything.
Turns out it doesn’t matter, because David’s looking at him and saying, “Hey, I know you-do I know you?”
Neal takes a pull of his beer and says, real nonchalantly, “Maybe, maybe. I’m Neal.”
“David,” David says, and Neal has to bite back the I know that threatens to leave his mouth. “You’re-what?” David asks. “Midwest Kings?”
Neal nods. “Yeah.”
“How’s that going?”
“You know,” Neal says, and it’s only something that would make sense to someone else that’s played in bands before, someone who’s wanted to make it big. “It’s going.”
“Right on, right on,” David says. He’s wiping down the countertop and lining up some clean glasses.
“You still play?” Neal asks, and it might be awkward because David never told him that he played in the first place, but Neal doesn’t care, not really.
“Of course,” David says. “Always. I’m actually working on a solo album right now, which is wild. I’m in way over my head.” He smiles and Neal thinks that he’s got a great one.
“What happened to your band?” Neal asks. “Axium, right?”
David pulls a face and then motions an explosion with his hands, adding in sound effects and making it sound real gruesome.
“Bad, huh?”
“Nah,” David says. “Not really. Just… didn’t work out.”
“Those things happen,” Neal says, and David says, “Yeah,” and then the conversation kind of dies. Neal hangs around for a while longer, finishes his beer, and then comes to accept the fact that Andy’s flaking on him.
“Hey, thanks for the beer, man,” Neal says. “If you ever need help on your album or anything, hit me up.”
David smiles, says, “Alright, yeah,” and Neal says, “Yeah,” and then leaves. He forgets to give David his number but figures, fuck it. They run in the same circle, anyways; they’ll meet up eventually.
To make up for bailing on him, Andy buys Neal and him tickets to some local show and they both go to check it out. They don’t really know the band, but that’s not the point, so it doesn’t really matter.
“So?” Skib asks. “They’re alright, right?”
Neal shrugs, barely able to hear him over the music, and yells back, “Yeah, I guess.” And so they stand there for a while, drinking their beers and paying half-attention to the guys on stage, and really, all Neal wants is a smoke. He tells Andy as much.
“Hey,” he shouts. “I’m gonna step out and have a cigarette.” He motions smoking a cigarette in case Andy didn’t make out what he had said.
He sees rather than hears Andy laugh.
“What?” Neal asks.
Andy doesn’t answer and then someone comes up behind Neal and throws his arm around his shoulders. It’s David. He’s wearing a t-shirt, something old and faded and that stretches across his chest.
“Hey,” David says, and it’s right in his ear so Neal hears it no problem, feels David’s breath on his cheek. “I was looking for you.”
“Hey, man,” Neal yells, and his voice is steady.
“I wanted to ask you something,” David shouts. Someone behind Neal pushes him as the crowd shifts and he careens forward, bumping into David. David reaches a hand out to steady him, his fingers curled tightly around Neal’s bicep. “Any chance you want to,” David’s yelling, but then he gets lost in the noise of everyone around them and Neal can’t hear what David asks.
Neal motions a hand towards his ear and shouts, “I can’t hear you.”
Dave says something again, but Neal doesn’t get anything from it, just sees David’s lips move. Neal shakes his head again, then nods to the door. David follows him outside and then says, “Shit, that was loud in there.”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Really fucking loud.”
“Hey, though,” David says. “Wanna get something to eat? There’s a diner around the corner.” And Neal considers it because he’s hungry and he wants some fries.
“Alright,” he says, and so they set off walking. David falls in step beside him, and the air is cool and crisp and Neal’s glad he has his jacket. “Mind if I smoke?” he asks.
“Nah, go for it,” David says, and Neal lights one up a moment later, smoking as they walk and talk.
At the diner, they sit across from one another in a booth and they both order burgers. Neal pulls the rings on his lip in and out of his teeth and watches as David continually pushes his hair out from in front of his eyes.
“You should get that cut or something,” he says.
“Yeah, I know,” David says. “Just too lazy.”
Neal says, “Well hey; I’ve got a pair of scissors, if you need them.”
“I would probably poke my fucking eye out,” David says, and Neal smiles, something warm settling in the pit of his stomach.
“But hey,” David says after they eat. “Listen. Did you mean it when you said you’d help me out on my album if I needed it?”
Neal says, “Of course, man, yeah.”
“Alright,” David tells him. “Well, I need it.”
The studio is small, real small, and the day Neal goes in, David doesn’t have it booked for all that long, so they get to working pretty much right away. David plays him some of the rough demos just so that Neal knows what sound he’s going for, and then afterwards David tells him where his problem is.
“It’s just right here,” David says. “I know I need to do something here, because it just doesn’t sound right? But everything I try just sounds… I don’t know.”
So Neal listens to the track-tentatively titled Let Go-about a dozen times, and his fingers fly along the fret board of the guitar in his hands as he tries to figure out what could work.
“What about,” Neal says, and then he plays a little lick, just something real short that could be the start of a solo. “Right there, after the chorus.”
“What, like a solo?”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Why not? Then you can transition into the next bit easier, or do a double chorus or something.”
David sits back in his chair and says, “Shit. That’s a good idea. Play it again?”
And Neal does, again and again, and each time either he or David adds something to the end, and while they don’t get much done, at the end of the day they have the full solo recorded, and the song sounds almost done.
“Hey,” David says outside the studio. It’s cold and Neal’s smoking, but David just sticks around to keep him company. “Thanks for your help. I mean it.”
Neal shrugs. “No problem, man,” he says. “Anytime.”
“The best part about them,” Dave tells him the next time they hang out, “is that they’re good, good for you, and you can eat like twelve of them in a row before you start feeling sick.” He’s talking about the granola bars that he and Neal just ate, the green Nature Valley ones.
They’re sitting on Dave’s couch and it’s a little old-Neal thinks he sees a cigarette burn on the armrest-but it’s comfortable as shit and they’re watching Die Hard and eating granola and Neal thinks this is probably the healthiest he’s been in a long time.
Dave says, “That’s pretty sad, man,” and Neal agrees.
“Hey,” he says. “My friend Kyle’s having this barbecue on Saturday. Want to come?”
David smiles, big and wide, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
David talks about his family a lot. Neal gets that they’re real close, and that makes him a little jealous.
“My brother Adam,” Dave says when Neal mentions it, “he has brain cancer. They just found it and stuff, but that brought us all back together. I guess we’re real lucky like that, to have each other.”
Neal thinks, Your brother has brain cancer; what’s lucky about that? He doesn’t understand how Dave can be taking this all so well. Maybe he breaks down privately, Neal doesn’t know.
“What about your other brother?” Neal asks.
“Who? Andrew? Oh, he’s just a little shit. You’ll learn that when you meet him.”
Neal notices that it’s just assumed that he will.
So Neal hangs out with Dave a lot over the next few weeks, getting to see his album come along real well until finally Dave decides it’s done. Neal’s a little jealous, yeah, because his own band is going over a few bumps in the road, and then one day he wakes up and they no longer have a bassist.
So they have an emergency meeting, just him and Andy and Kyle, and they try to figure out what to do because the Kings can’t die, not now, not when they’ve got a tour coming up and when they’ve still got so much left in them.
“What about Dave?” Kyle says. “He plays bass, right?” And Neal doesn’t know what it is about that, but something there makes him uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” he says, “but he’s doing his own thing right now. He just released his solo.”
“So?” Andy says. “He’d still do it, if you asked.”
And Neal doesn’t see any way out of it, doesn’t know why he’s even looking for one, so he asks Dave and Dave says, “Of course, yeah, of course,” and that’s that.
So they go on tour and everything goes off without a hitch. Dave learns the bass lines to their songs in only a few days, and it’s great getting to be with him on stage-he brings a whole different kind of energy to everything, one that Neal hasn’t ever felt before.
They’re all still crammed into their little tour van and it sucks, but this time around they have a small trailer for all their equipment and so they make it work, somehow. Neal very quickly learns what gas station food Dave likes and what he doesn’t, realizing that that’s something you only ever really know about people you tour with.
He’s tired-he’s always tired when he’s touring-but Neal keeps on and even though sometimes he wakes up with Kyle’s feet in his face or with a soda can digging into the small of his back, he wouldn’t change it for the world. Getting to crash on some more floors would be nice, yeah, but even if he could only ever sleep in the van, touring is still second to none.
“We’re stopping for a few minutes,” Dave says, shaking him awake. “Water or coffee? Soda?”
Neal thinks on it sleepily for a minute. “Water,” he says. “My wallet’s, um…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dave says. “You can get me back later. Go back to sleep.”
And Neal doesn’t need telling twice, but when he wakes up an hour and a half later, Dave’s bought him a bottle of water and two honey buns. He opens one up and goes to offer some of it to David, but David’s asleep next to him, his head lolling back and his mouth slightly open.
Kyle’s driving, and he looks back at Neal in the rearview mirror. “You know,” he says, “those things are like five hundred calories and a guaranteed heart attack in your old age.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Neal says, and just for that he shoves over half of the pastry into his mouth.
“Yeah,” Andy says. He’s in the passenger seat and has a map spread out across his lap. “Besides, Dave bought it for him.”
Neal narrows his eyes and says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Andy just says, “Nothing,” and Neal doesn’t pursue it.
After most of the shows, they go out and get drunk, taking turns on who has to be the designated driver. It’s kind of lame that they can’t all just drink together, but they’ve got a schedule that they need to stay on and none of them are willing to risk it. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, they’ll find a house party or something with free beer, but if not, they hit up bars and David assesses the bartenders’ skills and they all just get kind of rowdy.
During the party that they find after their third show, Neal and Dave get into an argument with these other guys about the merits of Gibson guitars. Dave’s real into them because they make lefties, and while Neal doesn’t really care either way, he argues Dave’s side for the hell of it.
Afterwards, as they’re all lying on some girl’s basement floor trying to sleep, David says, “Those guys from tonight were assholes.”
“Why?” Andy asks. “Cause they don’t like Gibsons?”
“Yeah,” he says, and then repeats, “Those guys were assholes.”
Kyle laughs and says, “I think maybe you had too much to drink tonight, D.”
“No, man, no,” David says. “Ask Neal; he knows.”
They all look at Neal and he just shrugs. “Assholes,” he confirms. “But they did introduce us to someone who ended up letting us crash at their place.”
“Then they can’t have been that bad,” Andy says, and that’s pretty much how it goes.
Kyle wakes them up in the morning and they all stumble blearily to the van, throwing themselves inside before they pass out again. Neal doesn’t wake up until the next venue.
They’ve got a show in southeast Nebraska; it’s as far away from home as they’re getting this tour, and so when the show goes off perfectly, they’re all ecstatic. On top of that, they scheduled an extra travel day in-one that they don’t really need-so all four of them can go out and drink and not have to worry about making it to their next show on time.
They all hit up a bar that they heard about from some chick at the show, and it’s smoky and loud and there’s a jukebox and twelve different tvs, and it’s exactly what Neal wants. David tries to culture him and Kyle in the many ways of the alcoholic beverage, and so they’re all drinking these crazy drinks that they never would’ve ordered normally and laughing at Andy, who’s fairing pretty well with some blonde in the back corner.
At around one, Neal’s smoked more cigarettes than he probably should have and his mouth feels kind of gross and he has a splitting headache.
“Hey, hey,” he says, grabbing Kyle’s shoulder. “I’m gonna head back-back to the van.” He doesn’t wait for Kyle’s response, doesn’t even know if Kyle is going to give one, and makes his way into the parking lot. The cold air feels nice on his face, and when he gets to the van, he just lies down in the back and throws an arm over his eyes.
Sometime later, he wakes up to the sound of the door sliding open and someone climbing in. He can tell it’s Dave because he’s doing his drunk breathing, really loud in and out through the nose.
“Hey,” Dave whispers. “You asleep?”
Neal grunts.
“Oh, okay,” Dave says. “Sorry.”
Neal half expects Dave to leave, but the van door shuts and then Dave is laying himself out alongside Neal, close enough that Neal can feel the heat from Dave’s body melt into his.
“Dave?” Neal asks. He lifts his head up and looks at David. He’s on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the roof of the car. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Neal asks, “What’s wrong?”
David doesn’t say anything, but he looks at Neal for a long time and then just reaches over and wraps his fingers around Neal’s wrist.
“Dave?” Neal asks.
David licks his lips and says, “Yeah,” and then he’s leaning over, kissing Neal and Neal’s kissing back. Neal never expected this, never really even thought about it, but then he’s reaching over and grabbing onto David’s belt and pulling him close. Dave’s fingers are biting into his hips and Neal grinds up against David-or maybe David grinds up against him, he’s not sure-and Neal doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, not at all.
David says, “Fuck, Neal,” and his voice just sounds wrecked.
Neal thinks, I did that, and there’s some sort of sick satisfaction there because he didn’t know he could do that to Dave, never thought that in a million years he’d ever hear Dave sound like that.
David reaches down and palms Neal’s cock through his jeans, and suddenly Neal is hard, harder than he’s ever been in his life. He pulls David’s hips closer by the belt loops, and then they’re kissing again, and there’s a lot of tongue-almost too much-and David bites down on Neal’s bottom lip. Neal likes that; he likes that a lot.
But then Andy’s yelling from somewhere in the parking lot, “Dave? Dave!” and David pulls back and shoots up. His hair is all over the place and his lips are red and he just looks at Neal all wide-eyed and breathing heavily. He says, “Shit. Shit, shit, sorry, shit,” and bolts out the door and back to the bar.
Neal lies there alone for a few minutes before he even fully realizes what had happened. He was fucking grinding up on David, his bassist, and he’s still hard but there’s his band to worry about, too, and Neal doesn’t know where this leaves him and David and everything.
“Fuck!” he says, and punches the back of the seat ahead of him.
Later, everyone else piles back into the van and Neal pretends to be asleep. Andy’s next to him, and Neal can’t help but notice that David is as far away as he can get.
The next morning, Neal tries to track David down when they’re stopped at a gas station. David runs in to buy something to drink, and so Neal follows him all the way to the juices. There aren’t many to choose from.
“Hey,” he says. “Listen, David-”
But then David’s yelling over the aisle, “Kyle, you want orange, right?” and then walking away, like Neal wasn’t even there.
Neal thinks, Fuck you, because two can play that game.
They go through three days without talking. Neal doesn’t know how they play shows like that, but somehow they do.
“Hey,” Andy corners him one day. “Everything alright with you and David?”
And Neal just says, “Yeah, of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” Andy suggests, but Neal’s not having any of that.
“Everything’s fine,” he insists. “Butterflies and rainbows and shit.”
His shoulders are straight and rigid as he walks away, and he pulls his collar up higher on his neck so he has something to do with his hands.
Sometimes Neal looks over at David, but David’s never looking over at Neal. Neal fucking hates to be the one pining. He’s over this shit.
He pushes the next girl he meets that seems interested up against a wall in the back of the venue and holds her there with his hips. They don’t get very far because the entire time Neal’s comparing everything she does to how David did it, and when he walks away, he ignores Andy’s catcalls and Kyle’s whistles and David’s not caring and heads to the van.
And the problem with getting into fights with your best friend-because somewhere along the way, that’s what David became-is that sometimes you make plans with them ahead of time, and sometimes you can’t cancel those plans without seeming like a huge, gigantic asshole when you’re mad at them later on.
They’re in Missouri, pretty close to where David used to live, and one of the local radio stations had set up a whole to-do with him, an interview and a small acoustic set. Neal had agreed to play backing guitar for him since he knew all the songs already, anyways, and now all he can think of is how badly he doesn’t want to do it and how that means he’ll have to be there, with David sitting next to him on a little stool.
Neal almost doesn’t go. He skips the interview, which both Kyle and Andy go to, and he only makes it to the acoustic session with seconds to spare.
As someone’s passing Neal his guitar, Dave looks at him and says flatly, “I half expected you to bail.”
Neal says, “Well then you obviously don’t know me very fucking well,” and it feels victorious except for how, in all honestly, David knows him better than anyone.
It’s pretty crowded-apparently Dave holds some sort of sway in this neck of the woods-and he and Dave are set up so close that Neal’s arm brushes against David’s sometimes, and that when he shifts in his seat, his knee brushes against Dave’s leg. If Neal looks at David-which he does sometimes-he can see the bags under Dave’s eyes and how his tongue darts out to lick his lips every now and then and, if he really strains, he can make out the individual hairs of scruff on David’s neck. Neal thinks he looks beautiful-tired, but beautiful-although he’d never admit to it, not in a million years, not to anyone.
Afterwards, David says, “Thanks,” and Neal says, “Any time,” but it’s stressed on both ends and they’re still exactly where they started off.
That night, Neal, Kyle, and Andy all hit up an arcade, and Neal blows a fuck ton of money on Time Crisis 2. Part of him wishes that Dave had decided to come instead of opting out to do whatever it is that he is doing because he and Neal make an unbeatable team, but then he remembers that he’s not really talking to Dave and shakes that thought from his head.
So he switches out when he dies and Kyle takes over his gun, and he and Andy are just screaming the most ridiculous things at the screen, like, “Choke on it, cocksucker!” and “How do you like the taste of steeeeel?” It starts out funny, but then Neal begins to feel like the third wheel or some shit, so he heads out to the van to grab his cigarettes.
When he slides open the door, he sees Dave just sitting on the bench seat, all the way over to the left and leaning against the window.
Neal says, “Oh. Sorry,” and goes to close the door, but Dave stops him.
“Hey, wait,” he says. “I don’t like-can we not do this?”
And Neal looks at him incredulously and says, “You’re the one who told me to wait! I just wanted to grab my fucking smokes.”
David shakes his head. “No, no, I mean, can we not fight? I fucking hate it.”
Neal fucking hates it, too, and Dave knows as much, has to know as much. He shrugs. Then, “Dude. David. Were you crying?” And upon closer inspection, Dave’s eyes are a little glassy and his nose is a little red.
“Maybe,” David says. “I tend to do that from time to time.”
“I fucking know,” Neal says. “You’re like a twelve-year-old girl.” And then just like that, Dave’s laughing and he’s laughing and everything’s almost back to normal.
“Hey,” David says. “I’m really fucking sorry, you know? I shouldn’t have.”
“Not a problem,” Neal says, but he’s pissed because David’s fucking sorry? Who the fuck says that? Who the fuck apologizes for kissing someone?
“No, I mean,” Dave says. “I mean, you were really drunk, and I was too, but not that much, and I just kind of, like, I don’t know, just came on to you, and I think maybe I might have-”
“Shut up,” Neal says. “Just-shut the fuck up. I didn’t mind, okay?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Neal confirms, and then David’s looking at him long and hard and it’s making Neal a little uncomfortable.
“Hey. C’mere,” David finally says.
So Neal climbs inside and slides the door shut to keep the cold nighttime air out. He sits down and he rubs his hands along the front of his thighs and breathes out pretty loudly. He looks at David. Neal doesn’t know when he started thinking of his friend as more than just his friend, doesn’t know if maybe a little of it was before the kiss or if all of it was after the kiss, but looking at David in the car, Neal can’t help but think that he’s breathtaking.
“I want to-” David says. “I mean, I’m going to-”
“Just fucking do it, then,” Neal says, and he’s known David for long enough, knows him well enough, that he knows what’s coming and that forces his heart rate through the roof. “Just don’t freak out on me afterwards.”
Dave smiles and says, “Fuck,” and, “I’m sorry,” and then he’s leaning over and kissing Neal again, only this time neither of them are drunk. David reaches up a hand behind Neal’s neck and he threads his fingers through the hair at the base of Neal’s skull, and he tugs a bit. Neal groans and then he’s surging forward, pushing himself hard against David and the window of the car.
Then Neal’s kissing his way down David’s neck, dragging his lip rings down the skin as he moves, and when he finally settles for sucking at David’s collarbone, David’s saying, “Neal. Neal, fuck, Neal,” and Neal’s never loved the sound of his own name more.
And suddenly David’s pushing back, shoving Neal’s shirt up to his armpits and kissing Neal’s chest and running his fingers over Neal’s nipples.
David says, “Been wanting to do this for a long time,” and he pinches one of Neal’s nipples and Neal groans loud enough that he should be embarrassed.
“Too much clothing,” Neal says. “Fuck, too much, too much,” and he’s reaching for David’s belt. He’s aware, somewhere in his mind, that the second he undoes the belt buckle, he’ll be crossing a line that he can’t uncross. He reaches for it anyways.
“Wait, no, wait,” David says, and Neal’s stomach drops through the floor as David pulls his hips away. But then he’s saying, “You first, come on, please,” and grabbing at the front of Neal’s jeans, and Neal can’t say no, not to David.
David makes quick work of the belt and of the front button, and when David’s fingers wrap around Neal, Neal’s head falls back and his hips stutter.
Neal says, “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck,” and he hears David laugh breathily in his ear and say, “You like it rough, huh, Tiemann?” David stretches his body out along Neal’s, and Neal can feel David rock his hips against Neal’s side. It shouldn’t be as hot to him as it is.
And then David’s sucking a huge hickey on his neck and Neal can’t focus because David’s hand is wrapped around his cock and David’s lips and tongue and teeth are on his skin. Neal can’t focus because it’s David-fuck, it’s David.
He doesn’t last long. A few more twists of David’s hand and then Neal’s coming, hard, and he’s sure his face is beet red upon realizing how fast it was. Only then he reaches over towards David’s jeans and David backs away, says, “Hey, no, you don’t have to do that.”
“Shut it, fucker,” Neal says. “Fair is fair. Plus, I want to.”
David blushes and Neal likes how that looks, likes how he can see it spread down past his stretched-out collar.
“No, I mean, I-um, already,” Dave says.
Neal smiles against David’s cheek and that gesture in and of itself feels oddly more intimate than anything they just did. “Next time, then,” he says. “I want to watch your face as you come.”
David says, “Who says there’s gonna be a next time?”
And Neal knows that Dave’s just fucking with him-he better be, anyways-and so he doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he rolls over and he and David kiss lazily and with far too much tongue until they hear the guys come back.
Neal offers to drive the last leg of the trip because he knows that he’ll never sleep, not after that, not with his mind moving a thousand miles an hour thinking about David and the band and what this means.
David tells the guys that he’ll co-pilot, and then he just talks to Neal for the rest of the ride like nothing has changed, and Neal thinks everything is pretty fucking top notch for him.
When they get home, Neal goes to Dave’s place and they have sex. It’s nothing special, nothing magical or any of that bullshit, but it’s good, really good, and that’s all Neal can ask for.
He gets up to leave-Dave must want to be alone for five fucking minutes after that tour-but Dave just says, “What, are you crazy? You’ve been in the van all day. Just sleep here, dude. I’ve got extra toothbrushes.”
And he makes it sound so simple, and it doesn’t seem like he means anything by that other than exactly what he said, so Neal lies down and makes himself comfortable and just says, “Thanks, man.”
Dave says, “Anytime,” and Neal knows that he means it.
They work really well, he and David-none of the guys seem to care, and nothing’s really changed much except for how Neal and David have sex now, whereas before they didn’t. Neal thinks that’s the ideal situation, being able to get off on a pretty regular basis but not having to deal with any of that flowers and dinner bullshit.
It’s a little weird at first, though, just when they’re trying to figure out the boundaries of their relationship and everything. One time, when they’re at some club, David tries to hold Neal’s hand and Neal has to explain how he doesn’t like that, how it isn’t his thing, and later, Neal has to learn that so long as Mr. Sixx is in the room, he is never going to have sex because that weirds David out.
Andy and Kyle, though-they never really seem to get that Neal and David are just fucking, that’s it, and Neal gets that a little. If Andy and Kyle suddenly announced that they were shacking up, Neal would come to the same conclusions-no way it’s just sex, not when you’re already close friends.
The thing is, though, it is just sex for him, and once that little seed of doubt is planted in his mind, Neal freaks out a little bit. What if David thinks there is something more to this than just great sex? What if he’s expecting to go home with Neal and meet the parents and buy a house together one day?
But then they’re at a diner, just the four of them, and David keeps stealing fries off of Neal’s plate because he made the fatal error of ordering potato chips instead.
“Hey,” Neal said, swatting at Dave’s hand. “Quit fucking taking my fries. I said you could have one.”
“Oh, come on,” Andy says, and Neal knows just by the tone in his voice that Andy’s going to be poking fun at him. “Let your boyfriend have a fry. What’s yours is his and all that shit, right?”
Only then Neal says, “He’s not my boyfriend,” and everything goes silent. Kyle and Andy stop moving and Neal sees them both swing their eyes over to Dave, as if they expect him to throw a tantrum or something.
“What?” Dave asks as he steals a pickle off of Neal’s plate. “We’re not like, dating or anything. It’s just sex.”
“Great sex,” Neal adds.
Then Kyle’s holding up his hands and saying, “I don’t want to know,” and that’s pretty much the end of that.
“I’m going home for the weekend, I think,” David says to him as he puts his jeans back on. They’re in Neal’s room and the air smells like sex and sweat and Neal absolutely loves it.
“Yeah?” he says. “Alright. See you when you get back?”
“Sure,” David says. “I’ll try to call or something, maybe. Andrew’s trying out for American Idol, so that should be hilarious.” Neal throws his head back and laughs and he can see Dave’s eyes follow the line of his neck.
“That little fucker,” Neal says. “Tell him I say hi.”
And then David’s leaving, showing himself out, and Neal stretches out on the bed, a huge-ass smile on his face, and he thinks, American Idol. What a joke.
He’s in a bar when he gets the news.
“No!” Kyle’s yelling over half a dozen empty glasses. “Bullshit! I call bullshit on that!”
“No, no, really!” Andy’s saying. “I swear to God-it was fucking Kurt Cobain, back from the dead.”
The whole place is really fucking loud, but Neal’s phone is on vibrate and so he feels it ring in his pocket.
“Alright,” Neal says as he’s fishing his phone out. “They guy looked like Cobain, I’ll give you that-hello?”
“Hey,” he hears David say over the line. “Got a minute?” Neal has to cover his other ear just to hear him, bending down a little instinctively as if hunching his shoulders will change the volume of his phone, or of the bar.
“Yeah, of course,” Neal yells. “So give it to me straight-is the kid gonna be my next American Idol or what?”
“No,” Dave says, and there’s a pause, a long one, and Neal can’t tell if that’s because Dave’s not saying anything, or if it’s because Neal just can’t hear him. “But I might be?”
Neal says, “What?”
“I tried out. They want me to go to Hollywood.”
And that’s-unexpected. Suddenly it feels like everything’s shifting and Neal’s not sure he likes it.
“Well, right the fuck on, man,” Neal says. “Congratulations.”
Andy and Kyle are looking at him, wondering what he’s talking about. His excitement for David sound forced to his own ears, and he knows it probably sounds the same way to David.
Part 2
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Cookmann (some Cook/Kim and some Neal/Kira)
Word Count: 15,318
Summary: The first time Neal ever sees Dave, they're at some house party in Warrensburg, Missouri. Neal doesn't really know what's going on; he's still a little tired from the set that he just played, and he's had enough to drink that his head is a little fuzzy and he kind of just wants to sit down for a few minutes.
A/N: Started off as a drabble for odi_et_amo53. I don't know what happened, but it grew from there. So, anyways, this is for you, bb!
A/N 2: I don't know anything about time line or "factual happenings" or anything like that, so be warned.
The first time Neal ever sees Dave, they’re at some house party in Warrensburg, Missouri. Neal doesn’t really know what’s going on; he’s still a little tired from the set that he just played, and he’s had enough to drink that his head is a little fuzzy and he kind of just wants to sit down for a few minutes.
There’s a lot of smoke in the house, though, so Neal doesn’t feel too bad when he takes out his pack and lights a cigarette. He looks around and it’s a pretty normal house, nothing of any note, not really, and although there’s still a lot of booze left, Neal’s kind of ready to head out.
“You alright?” Andy asks. He’s holding a can of some cheap-ass beer and yelling over the music, and Neal entertains the thought that mindreading is Andy’s sixth sense.
“I guess.” Neal shrugs and he can feel the collar of his denim jacket slide up and down his neck. “Kind of tired.” Kind of really fucking tired, he thinks, and if the cigarette between his fingers wasn’t anchoring him to the ground, he’s not entirely sure he wouldn’t just float away.
Andy laughs. “Kind of drunk, more like.”
And then some kid that Neal doesn’t know is leaning forward, pointing at him and saying, “This is him drunk? Whoa, did not see that coming,” and Neal gets that a lot. He’s a mellow drunk for the most part, he knows that, and maybe he should respond, but all he can focus on is how the kid stressed did as if that one word held more meaning than anything else he said.
Later, after he’s finished his first cigarette and is making his way through his second, Neal looks around at how all the furniture is pushed up against the walls. Sitting sounds nice to him, but Neal doubts he’ll find an open seat on the couch. It’s packed, and everyone over there’s laughing real loud.
“Hey, Andy,” he says, nudging Andy in the side. “Who’s that?” He points to one of the kids on the couch, the one who’s by the armrest and who’s throwing his head back.
“Him?” Andy asks. “I dunno, some Axium kid, I think. Daniel, maybe? No, no-David, it’s David.”
Neal watches as the guy pushes his bangs out of his eyes and then shakes his head. Something must’ve been real funny. Neal thinks, Axium, huh?
Andy laughs, says to him, “Come on, loverboy, let’s find you somewhere to pass out,” and then leads Neal through the house and out the door, one hand on his elbow. Neal thinks, Loverboy? and he doesn’t get it, not at all, but then Andy’s opening the door to their tour van and no one’s there, so the biggest bench seat is free, and Neal thinks maybe he’s in heaven.
It doesn’t take long for him to fall asleep.
Neal doesn’t see David again, not for a long time, and truth be told, Neal doesn’t spare him a second thought. Things are real busy for the Kings, so Neal barely even has time to himself, time where he doesn’t need to be writing or recording or planning tours or figuring out where his band gets to sleep that night.
It’s one of their only free nights for the next two weeks and Andy says to him, “Hey, want to hit up a bar with me tonight?” Neal doesn’t, really doesn’t, but when Andy sees him hesitate, he says, “Oh, come on, man. Just for a little while.”
So Neal ends up at the Blank Slate on a Tuesday night, and the bar’s pretty much dead. Andy’s not there yet, but Neal doesn’t bother to wait and instead goes to order a beer.
“Can I get a Stroh’s?” Neal asks, and he’s already searching in his wallet for a ten.
“Sure thing,” the bartender says, and as he’s sliding the bottle along the countertop, Neal sees that it’s the kid from the party all those months ago.
He thinks for a second about maybe saying something, about asking how Axium’s doing or why he’s in Tulsa, but then Neal remembers that he doesn’t know the guy, not at all, and so he doesn’t say anything.
Turns out it doesn’t matter, because David’s looking at him and saying, “Hey, I know you-do I know you?”
Neal takes a pull of his beer and says, real nonchalantly, “Maybe, maybe. I’m Neal.”
“David,” David says, and Neal has to bite back the I know that threatens to leave his mouth. “You’re-what?” David asks. “Midwest Kings?”
Neal nods. “Yeah.”
“How’s that going?”
“You know,” Neal says, and it’s only something that would make sense to someone else that’s played in bands before, someone who’s wanted to make it big. “It’s going.”
“Right on, right on,” David says. He’s wiping down the countertop and lining up some clean glasses.
“You still play?” Neal asks, and it might be awkward because David never told him that he played in the first place, but Neal doesn’t care, not really.
“Of course,” David says. “Always. I’m actually working on a solo album right now, which is wild. I’m in way over my head.” He smiles and Neal thinks that he’s got a great one.
“What happened to your band?” Neal asks. “Axium, right?”
David pulls a face and then motions an explosion with his hands, adding in sound effects and making it sound real gruesome.
“Bad, huh?”
“Nah,” David says. “Not really. Just… didn’t work out.”
“Those things happen,” Neal says, and David says, “Yeah,” and then the conversation kind of dies. Neal hangs around for a while longer, finishes his beer, and then comes to accept the fact that Andy’s flaking on him.
“Hey, thanks for the beer, man,” Neal says. “If you ever need help on your album or anything, hit me up.”
David smiles, says, “Alright, yeah,” and Neal says, “Yeah,” and then leaves. He forgets to give David his number but figures, fuck it. They run in the same circle, anyways; they’ll meet up eventually.
To make up for bailing on him, Andy buys Neal and him tickets to some local show and they both go to check it out. They don’t really know the band, but that’s not the point, so it doesn’t really matter.
“So?” Skib asks. “They’re alright, right?”
Neal shrugs, barely able to hear him over the music, and yells back, “Yeah, I guess.” And so they stand there for a while, drinking their beers and paying half-attention to the guys on stage, and really, all Neal wants is a smoke. He tells Andy as much.
“Hey,” he shouts. “I’m gonna step out and have a cigarette.” He motions smoking a cigarette in case Andy didn’t make out what he had said.
He sees rather than hears Andy laugh.
“What?” Neal asks.
Andy doesn’t answer and then someone comes up behind Neal and throws his arm around his shoulders. It’s David. He’s wearing a t-shirt, something old and faded and that stretches across his chest.
“Hey,” David says, and it’s right in his ear so Neal hears it no problem, feels David’s breath on his cheek. “I was looking for you.”
“Hey, man,” Neal yells, and his voice is steady.
“I wanted to ask you something,” David shouts. Someone behind Neal pushes him as the crowd shifts and he careens forward, bumping into David. David reaches a hand out to steady him, his fingers curled tightly around Neal’s bicep. “Any chance you want to,” David’s yelling, but then he gets lost in the noise of everyone around them and Neal can’t hear what David asks.
Neal motions a hand towards his ear and shouts, “I can’t hear you.”
Dave says something again, but Neal doesn’t get anything from it, just sees David’s lips move. Neal shakes his head again, then nods to the door. David follows him outside and then says, “Shit, that was loud in there.”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Really fucking loud.”
“Hey, though,” David says. “Wanna get something to eat? There’s a diner around the corner.” And Neal considers it because he’s hungry and he wants some fries.
“Alright,” he says, and so they set off walking. David falls in step beside him, and the air is cool and crisp and Neal’s glad he has his jacket. “Mind if I smoke?” he asks.
“Nah, go for it,” David says, and Neal lights one up a moment later, smoking as they walk and talk.
At the diner, they sit across from one another in a booth and they both order burgers. Neal pulls the rings on his lip in and out of his teeth and watches as David continually pushes his hair out from in front of his eyes.
“You should get that cut or something,” he says.
“Yeah, I know,” David says. “Just too lazy.”
Neal says, “Well hey; I’ve got a pair of scissors, if you need them.”
“I would probably poke my fucking eye out,” David says, and Neal smiles, something warm settling in the pit of his stomach.
“But hey,” David says after they eat. “Listen. Did you mean it when you said you’d help me out on my album if I needed it?”
Neal says, “Of course, man, yeah.”
“Alright,” David tells him. “Well, I need it.”
The studio is small, real small, and the day Neal goes in, David doesn’t have it booked for all that long, so they get to working pretty much right away. David plays him some of the rough demos just so that Neal knows what sound he’s going for, and then afterwards David tells him where his problem is.
“It’s just right here,” David says. “I know I need to do something here, because it just doesn’t sound right? But everything I try just sounds… I don’t know.”
So Neal listens to the track-tentatively titled Let Go-about a dozen times, and his fingers fly along the fret board of the guitar in his hands as he tries to figure out what could work.
“What about,” Neal says, and then he plays a little lick, just something real short that could be the start of a solo. “Right there, after the chorus.”
“What, like a solo?”
“Yeah,” Neal says. “Why not? Then you can transition into the next bit easier, or do a double chorus or something.”
David sits back in his chair and says, “Shit. That’s a good idea. Play it again?”
And Neal does, again and again, and each time either he or David adds something to the end, and while they don’t get much done, at the end of the day they have the full solo recorded, and the song sounds almost done.
“Hey,” David says outside the studio. It’s cold and Neal’s smoking, but David just sticks around to keep him company. “Thanks for your help. I mean it.”
Neal shrugs. “No problem, man,” he says. “Anytime.”
“The best part about them,” Dave tells him the next time they hang out, “is that they’re good, good for you, and you can eat like twelve of them in a row before you start feeling sick.” He’s talking about the granola bars that he and Neal just ate, the green Nature Valley ones.
They’re sitting on Dave’s couch and it’s a little old-Neal thinks he sees a cigarette burn on the armrest-but it’s comfortable as shit and they’re watching Die Hard and eating granola and Neal thinks this is probably the healthiest he’s been in a long time.
Dave says, “That’s pretty sad, man,” and Neal agrees.
“Hey,” he says. “My friend Kyle’s having this barbecue on Saturday. Want to come?”
David smiles, big and wide, and says, “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
David talks about his family a lot. Neal gets that they’re real close, and that makes him a little jealous.
“My brother Adam,” Dave says when Neal mentions it, “he has brain cancer. They just found it and stuff, but that brought us all back together. I guess we’re real lucky like that, to have each other.”
Neal thinks, Your brother has brain cancer; what’s lucky about that? He doesn’t understand how Dave can be taking this all so well. Maybe he breaks down privately, Neal doesn’t know.
“What about your other brother?” Neal asks.
“Who? Andrew? Oh, he’s just a little shit. You’ll learn that when you meet him.”
Neal notices that it’s just assumed that he will.
So Neal hangs out with Dave a lot over the next few weeks, getting to see his album come along real well until finally Dave decides it’s done. Neal’s a little jealous, yeah, because his own band is going over a few bumps in the road, and then one day he wakes up and they no longer have a bassist.
So they have an emergency meeting, just him and Andy and Kyle, and they try to figure out what to do because the Kings can’t die, not now, not when they’ve got a tour coming up and when they’ve still got so much left in them.
“What about Dave?” Kyle says. “He plays bass, right?” And Neal doesn’t know what it is about that, but something there makes him uncomfortable.
“Yeah,” he says, “but he’s doing his own thing right now. He just released his solo.”
“So?” Andy says. “He’d still do it, if you asked.”
And Neal doesn’t see any way out of it, doesn’t know why he’s even looking for one, so he asks Dave and Dave says, “Of course, yeah, of course,” and that’s that.
So they go on tour and everything goes off without a hitch. Dave learns the bass lines to their songs in only a few days, and it’s great getting to be with him on stage-he brings a whole different kind of energy to everything, one that Neal hasn’t ever felt before.
They’re all still crammed into their little tour van and it sucks, but this time around they have a small trailer for all their equipment and so they make it work, somehow. Neal very quickly learns what gas station food Dave likes and what he doesn’t, realizing that that’s something you only ever really know about people you tour with.
He’s tired-he’s always tired when he’s touring-but Neal keeps on and even though sometimes he wakes up with Kyle’s feet in his face or with a soda can digging into the small of his back, he wouldn’t change it for the world. Getting to crash on some more floors would be nice, yeah, but even if he could only ever sleep in the van, touring is still second to none.
“We’re stopping for a few minutes,” Dave says, shaking him awake. “Water or coffee? Soda?”
Neal thinks on it sleepily for a minute. “Water,” he says. “My wallet’s, um…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Dave says. “You can get me back later. Go back to sleep.”
And Neal doesn’t need telling twice, but when he wakes up an hour and a half later, Dave’s bought him a bottle of water and two honey buns. He opens one up and goes to offer some of it to David, but David’s asleep next to him, his head lolling back and his mouth slightly open.
Kyle’s driving, and he looks back at Neal in the rearview mirror. “You know,” he says, “those things are like five hundred calories and a guaranteed heart attack in your old age.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Neal says, and just for that he shoves over half of the pastry into his mouth.
“Yeah,” Andy says. He’s in the passenger seat and has a map spread out across his lap. “Besides, Dave bought it for him.”
Neal narrows his eyes and says, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Andy just says, “Nothing,” and Neal doesn’t pursue it.
After most of the shows, they go out and get drunk, taking turns on who has to be the designated driver. It’s kind of lame that they can’t all just drink together, but they’ve got a schedule that they need to stay on and none of them are willing to risk it. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, they’ll find a house party or something with free beer, but if not, they hit up bars and David assesses the bartenders’ skills and they all just get kind of rowdy.
During the party that they find after their third show, Neal and Dave get into an argument with these other guys about the merits of Gibson guitars. Dave’s real into them because they make lefties, and while Neal doesn’t really care either way, he argues Dave’s side for the hell of it.
Afterwards, as they’re all lying on some girl’s basement floor trying to sleep, David says, “Those guys from tonight were assholes.”
“Why?” Andy asks. “Cause they don’t like Gibsons?”
“Yeah,” he says, and then repeats, “Those guys were assholes.”
Kyle laughs and says, “I think maybe you had too much to drink tonight, D.”
“No, man, no,” David says. “Ask Neal; he knows.”
They all look at Neal and he just shrugs. “Assholes,” he confirms. “But they did introduce us to someone who ended up letting us crash at their place.”
“Then they can’t have been that bad,” Andy says, and that’s pretty much how it goes.
Kyle wakes them up in the morning and they all stumble blearily to the van, throwing themselves inside before they pass out again. Neal doesn’t wake up until the next venue.
They’ve got a show in southeast Nebraska; it’s as far away from home as they’re getting this tour, and so when the show goes off perfectly, they’re all ecstatic. On top of that, they scheduled an extra travel day in-one that they don’t really need-so all four of them can go out and drink and not have to worry about making it to their next show on time.
They all hit up a bar that they heard about from some chick at the show, and it’s smoky and loud and there’s a jukebox and twelve different tvs, and it’s exactly what Neal wants. David tries to culture him and Kyle in the many ways of the alcoholic beverage, and so they’re all drinking these crazy drinks that they never would’ve ordered normally and laughing at Andy, who’s fairing pretty well with some blonde in the back corner.
At around one, Neal’s smoked more cigarettes than he probably should have and his mouth feels kind of gross and he has a splitting headache.
“Hey, hey,” he says, grabbing Kyle’s shoulder. “I’m gonna head back-back to the van.” He doesn’t wait for Kyle’s response, doesn’t even know if Kyle is going to give one, and makes his way into the parking lot. The cold air feels nice on his face, and when he gets to the van, he just lies down in the back and throws an arm over his eyes.
Sometime later, he wakes up to the sound of the door sliding open and someone climbing in. He can tell it’s Dave because he’s doing his drunk breathing, really loud in and out through the nose.
“Hey,” Dave whispers. “You asleep?”
Neal grunts.
“Oh, okay,” Dave says. “Sorry.”
Neal half expects Dave to leave, but the van door shuts and then Dave is laying himself out alongside Neal, close enough that Neal can feel the heat from Dave’s body melt into his.
“Dave?” Neal asks. He lifts his head up and looks at David. He’s on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the roof of the car. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he says. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Neal asks, “What’s wrong?”
David doesn’t say anything, but he looks at Neal for a long time and then just reaches over and wraps his fingers around Neal’s wrist.
“Dave?” Neal asks.
David licks his lips and says, “Yeah,” and then he’s leaning over, kissing Neal and Neal’s kissing back. Neal never expected this, never really even thought about it, but then he’s reaching over and grabbing onto David’s belt and pulling him close. Dave’s fingers are biting into his hips and Neal grinds up against David-or maybe David grinds up against him, he’s not sure-and Neal doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, not at all.
David says, “Fuck, Neal,” and his voice just sounds wrecked.
Neal thinks, I did that, and there’s some sort of sick satisfaction there because he didn’t know he could do that to Dave, never thought that in a million years he’d ever hear Dave sound like that.
David reaches down and palms Neal’s cock through his jeans, and suddenly Neal is hard, harder than he’s ever been in his life. He pulls David’s hips closer by the belt loops, and then they’re kissing again, and there’s a lot of tongue-almost too much-and David bites down on Neal’s bottom lip. Neal likes that; he likes that a lot.
But then Andy’s yelling from somewhere in the parking lot, “Dave? Dave!” and David pulls back and shoots up. His hair is all over the place and his lips are red and he just looks at Neal all wide-eyed and breathing heavily. He says, “Shit. Shit, shit, sorry, shit,” and bolts out the door and back to the bar.
Neal lies there alone for a few minutes before he even fully realizes what had happened. He was fucking grinding up on David, his bassist, and he’s still hard but there’s his band to worry about, too, and Neal doesn’t know where this leaves him and David and everything.
“Fuck!” he says, and punches the back of the seat ahead of him.
Later, everyone else piles back into the van and Neal pretends to be asleep. Andy’s next to him, and Neal can’t help but notice that David is as far away as he can get.
The next morning, Neal tries to track David down when they’re stopped at a gas station. David runs in to buy something to drink, and so Neal follows him all the way to the juices. There aren’t many to choose from.
“Hey,” he says. “Listen, David-”
But then David’s yelling over the aisle, “Kyle, you want orange, right?” and then walking away, like Neal wasn’t even there.
Neal thinks, Fuck you, because two can play that game.
They go through three days without talking. Neal doesn’t know how they play shows like that, but somehow they do.
“Hey,” Andy corners him one day. “Everything alright with you and David?”
And Neal just says, “Yeah, of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” Andy suggests, but Neal’s not having any of that.
“Everything’s fine,” he insists. “Butterflies and rainbows and shit.”
His shoulders are straight and rigid as he walks away, and he pulls his collar up higher on his neck so he has something to do with his hands.
Sometimes Neal looks over at David, but David’s never looking over at Neal. Neal fucking hates to be the one pining. He’s over this shit.
He pushes the next girl he meets that seems interested up against a wall in the back of the venue and holds her there with his hips. They don’t get very far because the entire time Neal’s comparing everything she does to how David did it, and when he walks away, he ignores Andy’s catcalls and Kyle’s whistles and David’s not caring and heads to the van.
And the problem with getting into fights with your best friend-because somewhere along the way, that’s what David became-is that sometimes you make plans with them ahead of time, and sometimes you can’t cancel those plans without seeming like a huge, gigantic asshole when you’re mad at them later on.
They’re in Missouri, pretty close to where David used to live, and one of the local radio stations had set up a whole to-do with him, an interview and a small acoustic set. Neal had agreed to play backing guitar for him since he knew all the songs already, anyways, and now all he can think of is how badly he doesn’t want to do it and how that means he’ll have to be there, with David sitting next to him on a little stool.
Neal almost doesn’t go. He skips the interview, which both Kyle and Andy go to, and he only makes it to the acoustic session with seconds to spare.
As someone’s passing Neal his guitar, Dave looks at him and says flatly, “I half expected you to bail.”
Neal says, “Well then you obviously don’t know me very fucking well,” and it feels victorious except for how, in all honestly, David knows him better than anyone.
It’s pretty crowded-apparently Dave holds some sort of sway in this neck of the woods-and he and Dave are set up so close that Neal’s arm brushes against David’s sometimes, and that when he shifts in his seat, his knee brushes against Dave’s leg. If Neal looks at David-which he does sometimes-he can see the bags under Dave’s eyes and how his tongue darts out to lick his lips every now and then and, if he really strains, he can make out the individual hairs of scruff on David’s neck. Neal thinks he looks beautiful-tired, but beautiful-although he’d never admit to it, not in a million years, not to anyone.
Afterwards, David says, “Thanks,” and Neal says, “Any time,” but it’s stressed on both ends and they’re still exactly where they started off.
That night, Neal, Kyle, and Andy all hit up an arcade, and Neal blows a fuck ton of money on Time Crisis 2. Part of him wishes that Dave had decided to come instead of opting out to do whatever it is that he is doing because he and Neal make an unbeatable team, but then he remembers that he’s not really talking to Dave and shakes that thought from his head.
So he switches out when he dies and Kyle takes over his gun, and he and Andy are just screaming the most ridiculous things at the screen, like, “Choke on it, cocksucker!” and “How do you like the taste of steeeeel?” It starts out funny, but then Neal begins to feel like the third wheel or some shit, so he heads out to the van to grab his cigarettes.
When he slides open the door, he sees Dave just sitting on the bench seat, all the way over to the left and leaning against the window.
Neal says, “Oh. Sorry,” and goes to close the door, but Dave stops him.
“Hey, wait,” he says. “I don’t like-can we not do this?”
And Neal looks at him incredulously and says, “You’re the one who told me to wait! I just wanted to grab my fucking smokes.”
David shakes his head. “No, no, I mean, can we not fight? I fucking hate it.”
Neal fucking hates it, too, and Dave knows as much, has to know as much. He shrugs. Then, “Dude. David. Were you crying?” And upon closer inspection, Dave’s eyes are a little glassy and his nose is a little red.
“Maybe,” David says. “I tend to do that from time to time.”
“I fucking know,” Neal says. “You’re like a twelve-year-old girl.” And then just like that, Dave’s laughing and he’s laughing and everything’s almost back to normal.
“Hey,” David says. “I’m really fucking sorry, you know? I shouldn’t have.”
“Not a problem,” Neal says, but he’s pissed because David’s fucking sorry? Who the fuck says that? Who the fuck apologizes for kissing someone?
“No, I mean,” Dave says. “I mean, you were really drunk, and I was too, but not that much, and I just kind of, like, I don’t know, just came on to you, and I think maybe I might have-”
“Shut up,” Neal says. “Just-shut the fuck up. I didn’t mind, okay?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Neal confirms, and then David’s looking at him long and hard and it’s making Neal a little uncomfortable.
“Hey. C’mere,” David finally says.
So Neal climbs inside and slides the door shut to keep the cold nighttime air out. He sits down and he rubs his hands along the front of his thighs and breathes out pretty loudly. He looks at David. Neal doesn’t know when he started thinking of his friend as more than just his friend, doesn’t know if maybe a little of it was before the kiss or if all of it was after the kiss, but looking at David in the car, Neal can’t help but think that he’s breathtaking.
“I want to-” David says. “I mean, I’m going to-”
“Just fucking do it, then,” Neal says, and he’s known David for long enough, knows him well enough, that he knows what’s coming and that forces his heart rate through the roof. “Just don’t freak out on me afterwards.”
Dave smiles and says, “Fuck,” and, “I’m sorry,” and then he’s leaning over and kissing Neal again, only this time neither of them are drunk. David reaches up a hand behind Neal’s neck and he threads his fingers through the hair at the base of Neal’s skull, and he tugs a bit. Neal groans and then he’s surging forward, pushing himself hard against David and the window of the car.
Then Neal’s kissing his way down David’s neck, dragging his lip rings down the skin as he moves, and when he finally settles for sucking at David’s collarbone, David’s saying, “Neal. Neal, fuck, Neal,” and Neal’s never loved the sound of his own name more.
And suddenly David’s pushing back, shoving Neal’s shirt up to his armpits and kissing Neal’s chest and running his fingers over Neal’s nipples.
David says, “Been wanting to do this for a long time,” and he pinches one of Neal’s nipples and Neal groans loud enough that he should be embarrassed.
“Too much clothing,” Neal says. “Fuck, too much, too much,” and he’s reaching for David’s belt. He’s aware, somewhere in his mind, that the second he undoes the belt buckle, he’ll be crossing a line that he can’t uncross. He reaches for it anyways.
“Wait, no, wait,” David says, and Neal’s stomach drops through the floor as David pulls his hips away. But then he’s saying, “You first, come on, please,” and grabbing at the front of Neal’s jeans, and Neal can’t say no, not to David.
David makes quick work of the belt and of the front button, and when David’s fingers wrap around Neal, Neal’s head falls back and his hips stutter.
Neal says, “Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck,” and he hears David laugh breathily in his ear and say, “You like it rough, huh, Tiemann?” David stretches his body out along Neal’s, and Neal can feel David rock his hips against Neal’s side. It shouldn’t be as hot to him as it is.
And then David’s sucking a huge hickey on his neck and Neal can’t focus because David’s hand is wrapped around his cock and David’s lips and tongue and teeth are on his skin. Neal can’t focus because it’s David-fuck, it’s David.
He doesn’t last long. A few more twists of David’s hand and then Neal’s coming, hard, and he’s sure his face is beet red upon realizing how fast it was. Only then he reaches over towards David’s jeans and David backs away, says, “Hey, no, you don’t have to do that.”
“Shut it, fucker,” Neal says. “Fair is fair. Plus, I want to.”
David blushes and Neal likes how that looks, likes how he can see it spread down past his stretched-out collar.
“No, I mean, I-um, already,” Dave says.
Neal smiles against David’s cheek and that gesture in and of itself feels oddly more intimate than anything they just did. “Next time, then,” he says. “I want to watch your face as you come.”
David says, “Who says there’s gonna be a next time?”
And Neal knows that Dave’s just fucking with him-he better be, anyways-and so he doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he rolls over and he and David kiss lazily and with far too much tongue until they hear the guys come back.
Neal offers to drive the last leg of the trip because he knows that he’ll never sleep, not after that, not with his mind moving a thousand miles an hour thinking about David and the band and what this means.
David tells the guys that he’ll co-pilot, and then he just talks to Neal for the rest of the ride like nothing has changed, and Neal thinks everything is pretty fucking top notch for him.
When they get home, Neal goes to Dave’s place and they have sex. It’s nothing special, nothing magical or any of that bullshit, but it’s good, really good, and that’s all Neal can ask for.
He gets up to leave-Dave must want to be alone for five fucking minutes after that tour-but Dave just says, “What, are you crazy? You’ve been in the van all day. Just sleep here, dude. I’ve got extra toothbrushes.”
And he makes it sound so simple, and it doesn’t seem like he means anything by that other than exactly what he said, so Neal lies down and makes himself comfortable and just says, “Thanks, man.”
Dave says, “Anytime,” and Neal knows that he means it.
They work really well, he and David-none of the guys seem to care, and nothing’s really changed much except for how Neal and David have sex now, whereas before they didn’t. Neal thinks that’s the ideal situation, being able to get off on a pretty regular basis but not having to deal with any of that flowers and dinner bullshit.
It’s a little weird at first, though, just when they’re trying to figure out the boundaries of their relationship and everything. One time, when they’re at some club, David tries to hold Neal’s hand and Neal has to explain how he doesn’t like that, how it isn’t his thing, and later, Neal has to learn that so long as Mr. Sixx is in the room, he is never going to have sex because that weirds David out.
Andy and Kyle, though-they never really seem to get that Neal and David are just fucking, that’s it, and Neal gets that a little. If Andy and Kyle suddenly announced that they were shacking up, Neal would come to the same conclusions-no way it’s just sex, not when you’re already close friends.
The thing is, though, it is just sex for him, and once that little seed of doubt is planted in his mind, Neal freaks out a little bit. What if David thinks there is something more to this than just great sex? What if he’s expecting to go home with Neal and meet the parents and buy a house together one day?
But then they’re at a diner, just the four of them, and David keeps stealing fries off of Neal’s plate because he made the fatal error of ordering potato chips instead.
“Hey,” Neal said, swatting at Dave’s hand. “Quit fucking taking my fries. I said you could have one.”
“Oh, come on,” Andy says, and Neal knows just by the tone in his voice that Andy’s going to be poking fun at him. “Let your boyfriend have a fry. What’s yours is his and all that shit, right?”
Only then Neal says, “He’s not my boyfriend,” and everything goes silent. Kyle and Andy stop moving and Neal sees them both swing their eyes over to Dave, as if they expect him to throw a tantrum or something.
“What?” Dave asks as he steals a pickle off of Neal’s plate. “We’re not like, dating or anything. It’s just sex.”
“Great sex,” Neal adds.
Then Kyle’s holding up his hands and saying, “I don’t want to know,” and that’s pretty much the end of that.
“I’m going home for the weekend, I think,” David says to him as he puts his jeans back on. They’re in Neal’s room and the air smells like sex and sweat and Neal absolutely loves it.
“Yeah?” he says. “Alright. See you when you get back?”
“Sure,” David says. “I’ll try to call or something, maybe. Andrew’s trying out for American Idol, so that should be hilarious.” Neal throws his head back and laughs and he can see Dave’s eyes follow the line of his neck.
“That little fucker,” Neal says. “Tell him I say hi.”
And then David’s leaving, showing himself out, and Neal stretches out on the bed, a huge-ass smile on his face, and he thinks, American Idol. What a joke.
He’s in a bar when he gets the news.
“No!” Kyle’s yelling over half a dozen empty glasses. “Bullshit! I call bullshit on that!”
“No, no, really!” Andy’s saying. “I swear to God-it was fucking Kurt Cobain, back from the dead.”
The whole place is really fucking loud, but Neal’s phone is on vibrate and so he feels it ring in his pocket.
“Alright,” Neal says as he’s fishing his phone out. “They guy looked like Cobain, I’ll give you that-hello?”
“Hey,” he hears David say over the line. “Got a minute?” Neal has to cover his other ear just to hear him, bending down a little instinctively as if hunching his shoulders will change the volume of his phone, or of the bar.
“Yeah, of course,” Neal yells. “So give it to me straight-is the kid gonna be my next American Idol or what?”
“No,” Dave says, and there’s a pause, a long one, and Neal can’t tell if that’s because Dave’s not saying anything, or if it’s because Neal just can’t hear him. “But I might be?”
Neal says, “What?”
“I tried out. They want me to go to Hollywood.”
And that’s-unexpected. Suddenly it feels like everything’s shifting and Neal’s not sure he likes it.
“Well, right the fuck on, man,” Neal says. “Congratulations.”
Andy and Kyle are looking at him, wondering what he’s talking about. His excitement for David sound forced to his own ears, and he knows it probably sounds the same way to David.
Part 2