D. Archuleta/D. Cook, (you'll remember me) when the west wind moves
He dies instantly and he’s kind of grateful for that, actually. One moment, there’s a flash of light that blinds him and the next, he’s opening his eyes to a dark place. He feels weightless and it’s like floating in water. It’s weird and David isn’t sure if he’s walking or swimming or whatever.
David knows he’s dead, though. Something like that split-second sensation of every bone in his body breaking can’t be imagined. He wishes it’s a nightmare but it’s not.
It’s weird because he’s not freaking out or anything. David thinks, well, everybody thinks about how they die at one point in their lives and David is no exception. It’s just, in his imagination? He’s always in denial or in shock or in pain because oh my gosh, he’s dead, but David doesn’t feel those things, though. Here, in this dark place, he’s kind of detached.
“You’re in limbo,” a voice tells him and David turns around which, okay, so he’s definitely not in water. There’s a little boy in front of him and he’s sitting cross-legged on nothing, right fist cradling the side of his face.
“Um, what?”
The boy doesn’t bat an eyelash. “You’re in limbo, that’s why you can’t feel anything. Actually, you are in shock. It takes a while before your emotions catch up.”
David isn’t sure of what to say and huh, isn’t that funny. Even in death, he’s still as socially awkward as ever.
“Right, let me rephrase that,” the boy says after David can only stare at him and his tone is mocking, oh my gosh. David decides this boy can’t be an angel. “Ever watched Casper? Yes? Good. It means you still have some unfinished businesses, some unrequited feelings, et cetera, which means you can’t cross over. Wait, no, that’s a lame way of saying that. You can’t pass on.”
“Oh.” David swallows and he thinks he’s maybe starting to panic a little because, what the heck? “Are you…are you going to be my guide?”
“Me?” The boy lets out a laugh and it sounds way too cynical for someone so young. It occurs to David that maybe the boy really isn’t a boy at all. “Oh god, no. I’m just like you, I’m still in limbo.”
David hesitates and he licks his lips. “For…for how long?”
The boy’s eyes go flat. “That’s none of your business.”
“Oh, okay.”
David looks down at the only other person there and the words get lodged in his throat. Tears fill his eyes and oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, he’s dead.
David whirls around and he clamps both hands over his mouth. His body trembles as he shuts his eyes but the tears still escape anyway. They run down David’s cheeks, a never-ending river of sorrow, and he thinks of that sad Greek Mythology figure, a mother turned into stone with her tears falling forever in grief for her dead children.
Only, David is grieving for himself and when he thinks of his family and friends, the pain becomes so unbearable he can’t even support himself anymore. He falls to his knees, breathing in sharp gasps, and for one wild moment he wonders what will happen if he just stops breathing but oh, oh my gosh, he’s dead and it shouldn’t, that’s, there’s no more life in him that can die.
The boy watches him, unmoved.
“Hey, you have to calm down,” the boy tells David, sounding almost bored. “Look, see, it’s starting.”
David doesn’t, he can’t, but it’s like there’s this invisible force that pulls his head up and through the blur of tears, he sees a round glow of light.
It’s when, that’s when David hears the voices and he pushes his fingers over his ears because no, no, no, dang no, he doesn’t, he can’t listen to those voices.
Gentle hands pull away David’s fingers and the sounds wash over him.
“You have to face them,” the boy says and this time, there’s a thread of compassion in his tone. “If you don’t, you will be stuck here forever and if that happens, there is no second chance. You will be in this place from now until eternity, wasting away but not really, tormented over and over again.”
The boy helps David up and gives him a push towards the light.
“Go.”
David’s eyes are streaming as he stumbles forward and gets engulfed by reality.
-
David doesn’t know where he is, exactly.
He’s in a house he doesn’t recognize and it’s a wintry evening. A woman enters the living room, carrying a glass of milk and a thick book. David flattens himself against the wall, oh my gosh, what if she sees him and thinks he’s a, a pervert or something?
But she just passes him by and settles down on the couch.
David’s heart jolts. Oh, right, he’s dead, she can’t see him.
It’s strange how the encompassing sorrow recedes a little but David thinks it’s just his defense mechanism kicking in. He’s thankful if it is because now he can think of his situation.
He wonders how much time has passed since his death. He looks around for a calendar, a tell tale sign, anything, but there is nothing.
‘…unfinished businesses, some unrequited feelings…’
A chill crawls up his spine and sinks its claws there. David’s read ‘The Five People You Meet In Heaven’ and okay, he cried over it, like a lot, and he’s terrified that this is sort of like that. Only in reverse, or something. More like, um, ‘The Five People You Meet In Earth.”
But if David’s hunch is right (and it really sucks that the only time his instinct is right is when he’s dead), then who is this woman?
She grabs the remote on the coffee table and turns on the TV, flipping through channels with her book on her lap. David moves from the wall cautiously, like any minute she’ll turn her head and see him (he’s, um, he’s kind of hoping that oh my gosh, yes, please let her see him, please don’t let him be - ), and starts to wander around the small room for any clues.
He’s really unobservant so David’s not sure what he’ll find but even he can’t be this clueless when he reaches the stereo system at the corner and catches a glimpse of the names on the CD rack.
David Archuleta
David Archuleta Christmas From The Heart
Not just single copies but multiple ones, there in the slots.
“Late breaking news. We’ve just received reports that season 7 American Idol runner up David Archuleta has been in a hit and run accident earlier tonight. Witnesses say that the truck came out of nowhere and hit Archuleta as he was crossing the street. He was pronounced dead on arrival - ”
David whirls around just in time to see the woman drop her glass, milk and splinters spreading everywhere. Her expression is stunned as she puts a hand over her heart.
David licks his lips.
Her face scrunches up, twists, melts into tears as she presses obsessively on the remote and the TV volume goes up and up and up.
David knows her. He, he doesn’t know her personally but she’s, David thinks she represents every fan he has, every person who’s voted, supported, loved him and oh my gosh, this is just, David can’t imagine how much she must have, can’t even dare to dream of how much he must have meant to her for her to break down likes this. It’s too, too, dang it.
If David closes his eyes now, he can feel like he’s on stage and singing, singing, singing to the bright faces looking up at him and they’ve always, always meant so much, all of them, the ones he’s met, the ones he hasn’t met, the ones he will never meet. They were there for David and he can’t even put that amazing feeling to words.
David wants to reach out somehow, someway, but the world is spinning and he’s gone again.
-
Brooke, David thinks when he opens his eyes and sees the cloud of golden hair. He doesn’t even notice where he is because all he can see is Brooke White, slim shoulders shaking as she sobs in her husband’s arms. They’re sitting on a bed, facing the TV, and David flinches when he sees the same news on a different channel.
David takes a step forward. “B-Brooke…”
“No, he can’t, not David,” Brooke weeps and she’s clutching a cordless phone in her hands. She shakily brings it to her ear. “C-Carly, Carly, our baby, don’t, Carly, not David, no, he’s so young and he’s s-so sweet and he’s so David.”
Her husband murmurs into Brooke’s hair, his own eyes wet, and holds her even tighter. It makes David feel so cold, watching them.
This is really cruel. Why is this happening? Is this David’s unfinished business because he can’t, he’s dead, not stupid and if this continues, he knows where he’ll go next and David isn’t sure, no, David is sure he’s not strong enough for it.
What is this supposed to accomplish?
It’s not like he receives an answer when everything slips into darkness.
-
Jazzy’s room smells like he remembers. Fresh, clean and that pine scent that their mom loves to use all throughout the house. David finds himself rooted to his spot. He can’t move, he doesn’t want to move, ever.
Posters neatly line up on the pale pink walls, pop stars, movie stars and hey, there’s David’s own face right between Leonardo DiCaprio and Edward Cullen. David feels proud and it hurts so much.
The house is eerily silent. It’s missing the usual sounds of Claudia talking loudly on the phone, of Jazzy and Amber arguing, of Daniel’s iTunes blaring out songs, of his mother humming as she cooks or his dad’s puttering.
That’s when he hears it, the soft murmurs from downstairs. The familiar words echo loudly in David’s head and he finally moves only to curl on Jazzy’s bed.
He’s breathing so hard that it hurts, okay, why does it still hurt like this? David bites at his knuckle, hoping to push down some of that oppressive feeling and hey, where did his defense mechanism go?
When he pulls himself together, just a little bit, David spends an inordinate amount of time telling himself to move.
David does, okay, one feet over the other, step, step, step, down the stairs, down the hallway and into the living room and no, he can’t go any further because he just can’t when he sees all of them there, holding tightly to each other’s hands, tears unrestrained, and it’s only because David knows what they’re doing that he can recognize the chocked words they’re saying.
It’s a prayer for him, for his soul, and it’s a prayer for them, for their pain.
And there’s nothing more natural than for David to swallow his grief and join them, the unseen son, and say a prayer for all of them.
-
He spends days with his family. It’s like being home and at the same time, it hurts so badly that David almost wishes he can go just to leave it behind. Almost.
The media crowds around their house, shouting questions day and night, but his family says nothing. Jive is handling the press; they don’t have to say anything.
His brother and sisters don’t go to school. They stay in the house with them as friends and family file through the door, offer comforting words, and then file out again.
It takes David a while to realize that his body is already buried when he came to them and he’s grateful because, it would be, it’s something he doesn’t want to go through with his family. It’s almost funny but it’s agonizing how um, no, it’s not.
While there, David takes the opportunity to savor the last moments with every single one of them.
He starts with Claudia first, his best friend, the one who shouts at him to shut up at night when he’s still singing and when David just continues, she gives up and joins him in his room, telling him to sing this or that for her. The sister who knows if he's in pain when he doesn’t even say anything. The first one to tell him to audition for American Idol, the one who first placed the audition form in his hand.
She stays holed up in her room, head phones on, crying into her pillow. David lies next to her on the bed, whispers secrets and memories they share into her ear while she sleeps.
Daniel, Daniel is complicated. There’s no doubt that his brother loves him but David also knows there is resentment there, for always singing better, for getting better grades, for being nicer, for being more popular. It’s nothing deep, not really, and besides, Daniel is strong, has always been strong. Angry too, yes, but so strong that David can’t be any prouder.
He just sits with Daniel when the younger boy gets out his guitar and starts strumming randomly at first, but then gradually the songs take definite shape and form, melody and arrangement and they are all so beautiful, shaped by loss and sorrow and the hope of moving on but never forgetting that David is assured Daniel is going to be all right.
Daniel is like David, he’s got music too.
His little sisters are quiet, which is really weird, and they stick to each other constantly. That’s not a surprise because even if they fight, Amber and Jazzy are so close and are each others' pillar. David remembers holding them when they were babies, pink-faced and really loud, and he’d been scared to drop them. He hadn’t but they kept on crying anyway and he’d done the only thing he could, he sang to them. Um, that hadn’t worked but still, David always asked his mom if he could carry them.
They’re growing up so fast and David’s heart clenches when he thinks that he won’t be there when they start high school, begin dating and oh my gosh, Daniel better make sure no one breaks their little sisters’ hearts or, or he’s seriously going to come back as a ghost and haunt those jerks or something.
It’s the girls who take out his CDs and play them over and over, singing along to the lyrics and trying not to cry. David is with them when they do this, sings along and cries.
David’s dad stays in the music room and he keeps walking around in it, touching all the instruments there but keeping away from the piano. Jeff keeps on sneaking looks at it but immediately tears his eyes away, as if it hurts to just see it.
David loves his dad so much, he can’t ask for a better dad, but sometimes, in the treachery of David’s head, he thinks that Jeff is so unfair to his mom. He can’t understand why is dad would do all those things, how he’s broken their family with the divorce (when now, in truth, it’s David who’s effectively shattered them) and how he can’t forgive his dad because he’s caused Lupe so much pain and, and, and he got David thinking that it’s all his fault, somehow, the affairs and the divorce.
The words spill from David’s lips and it’s a torrential flow, it won’t stop and it’s not like his dad can hear him but David still feels horrible, his cheeks heating up in embarrassment, because it feels kind of freeing too. He’s breathing hard with emotion by the time he finishes, suddenly worn out, and it’s like Jeff has been listening all along because he suddenly sits down in front of the piano and pulls open the lid. David bites his lip and if he could hug his dad, he would.
“I love you,” David whispers. “I’m sorry and, and I forgive you too.”
Jeff closes his eyes and presses his forehead on the ivory keys, causing a disjointed racket, and starts to cry.
But it’s Lupe who David dreads the most and the one he wants to spend eternity with.
His mom hasn’t been the same. The gentle smile is gone from her face and she looks as if she’s aged decades. David’s random singing comes from her but she doesn’t do that anymore. She stays in her bedroom, curled on the bed and hugging Totoro to her chest. Her eyes are dry but they’re too dark, too empty.
David climbs into bed with her and hugs her from behind. It feels like he’s holding her but Lupe gives no sign that she feels him, too.
“M-Mama,” he whispers into her ear, so full of his love that surely she must be able to hear it. “I’m not, I could never be me if it weren’t for you. You, You gave me everything and you’ve, you always held me up through all those painful times. I-I’m sorry for being gone and I don’t, please don’t stay this way. They need you, too. I want you to go on, okay? I’m always asking things f-from you even if I never said the words and just, I’m asking this last thing. Please.” David pauses because he’s crying so hard the words aren’t clear anymore. He clears his throat and tries to crack a smile. “L-Listen to me, trying to be eloquent and everything. Cook would - ”
No, not yet, David thinks and buries his face against his mother’s back. The smell of her is familiar, comforting, fading.
The door cracks open and it’s Jeff by the doorway. He stands there for a moment, watching Lupe, before he’s tentatively walking forward.
“Lupe,” he calls out gently. He sits at the edge of the bed and runs his hand through her hair.
Lupe blinks and looks at him. “Jeff.”
David leaves them, then.
-
David Archuleta is in love with David Cook.
He’s always known it, ever since the older man threw those undergarments at him during the Idol tour and that must have been, like, the weirdest time to have a revelation, ever, but that’s when it happened.
Oh my gosh, he just threw, Cook just, oh my gosh, David had thought as he made that scandalized face and flailed his arms. He hadn’t been angry or hurt, just mortified, and that’s when he knew.
Only for Cook.
The thing is, David is in love with Cook but it’s never been the other way around.
It was really tough to try and forget his feelings when Cook was always there. When he wasn’t there physically, the man kept sending him text messages, emails, kept on calling and it wasn’t like David actively tried to stay away. More like, didn’t even try. In the end, David stopped trying and just, he just started loving Cook secretly.
It was hard to keep it a secret too, when the emotion just wanted to burst out of him in a song, or something embarrassing like that, like this pressure in his chest that wanted to be loose. But when he was with Cook? Oh gosh, the pressure eased and he felt so, just so right and so comfortable and it was only when David thought about it that there was a new kind of pain, right below his heart, because Cook would never feel the same way.
So it’s not a surprise that the last person David visits (he’s pretty sure it’s the last) is David Cook.
David thinks he’s ready for it. After his family, how could he not?
He’s sorely mistaken because the moment he sees Cook, beard untrimmed, hair messy, face haggard and eyes hollow, it’s like something unravels inside David, that last piece keeping him sane.
David sinks to his knees in front of Cook, who’s sitting on the bed with one hand pressed over the cover of David’s debut album, and wails like a child.
He will never feel Cook’s embrace, or hear him laugh, or see his eyes crinkle when he’s particularly amused at something David says that is not funny at all. Even if there had been no chance, David still regrets that he will never know the taste of Cook’s lips, or the touch of his rough hands, or experience the wave of his love drowning David under.
David will never sing, will never meet another fan, will never see the world, will never be with his friends, will never spend another Christmas with his family, will never, never, never.
It’s just too much.
-
It’s been two weeks since David’s death, he finds out with Cook.
Cook actually has it marked on his calendar, which is morbid, and David stares at the mutilated number for a long time.
Cook doesn’t answer any of his calls and he’s canceled shows and appearances many times. He wanders his house in this haunted state that sinks David’s stomach and he’s, he’s never seen Cook this way. It alarms him because he remembers Cook after Adam died and that had been horrible but this is, this is nothing like that at all.
“Cook, wake up!” David yells right into his face, frustrated and tearful and scared. “What are you doing, this isn’t you! Cook, Cook!”
He can’t hear David, of course, and it makes David so mad because oh my heck, just this once, please.
At night, Cook spreads out his beer bottles on the coffee table and opens them all. He never drinks them. He just stares at them for hours until he brings them to the kitchen and pours all of it into the sink.
Cook often brings out his guitar, starts to play songs and yes, that’s right, music will help Cook; but moments later, the older man would stop playing and clench his hand so tight around the strings that he nearly cuts his fingers.
David tries to pry them open but although he can feel him (oh, oh, Cook is so warm and he’s so far away) it makes no difference. “Don’t, Cook,” he pleads and places his forehead on top of the guitar.
-
Cook doesn’t say anything and it’s, it’s unnerving.
The older man is so talkative that this sudden silence makes David tremble.
So David is the one who fills the quiet with his mindless chatter.
“Hey, remember that time when you nearly drowned me in the pool because I totally wouldn’t go with you guys. I t-told you I couldn’t swim.”
“Oh my gosh, I still haven’t forgiven you for, um, for that Halloween prank you and Johns pulled on me. You made Barney scary.”
“We never sang a duet again, after Manila. I, I wanted, it’s, but it’s not happening now, huh?”
“Hey, why couldn’t the p-pirate go and see the movie? It was…it was rated arrrggh.”
“Dang it, say something, David!”
“Cook, I love you.”
-
For some reason, David doesn’t sleep so he’s instantly by Cook’s side when the older man has a nightmare.
Cook thrashes on the bed, face twisted in agony, and his moaning plunges the dagger deeper into David’s heart.
He knows it’s useless but he can’t help himself. David bends down and smooths back Cook’s hair (it stays exactly the same) and because no one will ever know, and because David is selfish, he steals a kiss across the older man’s cheek.
“It’s going to be okay,” David says achingly. “It’s just a bad dream, Cook.”
Just like that, Cook calms down.
David blinks.
Cook lets out a sigh and his eyelashes flutter and open a little. His eyes are hazy through the slits.
“David,” Cook murmurs and it’s, David can’t help crying. The first thing he hears Cook say and it’s his name. “David, I love you.”
David is dead but he’s certain that his heart dies all over again.
“Oh,” is his pained gasp. “I, no, Cook, you, you, why now, why didn’t…”
David swallows his words because there is no time for regrets now. There is only time to be grateful that at least, now he knows. There is only time to be infinitely sad, because he hadn’t known.
Cook’s eyes closes and he’s asleep again, snoring softly. For the first time, the wrinkles on his forehead are gone.
David’s eyes blur as he rests his forehead against Cook’s, taking in the older man’s easy breaths.
“I love you free,” David sings, for the last time. “I l-love you freely.”
A moment later, he’s gone from Cook’s side, too.
-
The boy waits for him and his face is surprisingly anxious.
“You were right,” David murmurs. “I had to go even if I don’t quite understand or it’ll, it will never seem fair. It feels like I did the right thing.”
The boy nods and there are tears coursing down his cheeks. “I was too scared, you know. I wasn’t, I’m not brave like you. I was scared that nobody would care that I was gone.”
David gives him a hug and it’s like, he’s giving a hug to everyone he’s ever met, he’s ever loved.
“It’s all right, I’m sure you were,” David tells him.
It's weird, David is getting rather sleepy. He yawns as he pulls away, barely remembering to cover it with his hand. The boy looks at him sadly.
“You were really, really, really loved,” the boy says.
David has to smile at that because oh my gosh, nothing’s ever been truer. “I know. I loved them so much too.”
-
the end