(no subject)
I have no idea how this happened. I started writing comment fic about a puppy and it derailed. Derailed spectacularly. This is for astolat, who is responsible for everything, and wanted David/David. <3. I borrowed really heavily from her fantastic Time of Your Life as a, uh, reference, since I am totally not in this fandom and have seen zero episodes of American Idol, but any ridiculous mistakes are mine (and google's).
I'm using the cutest icon I have, because David Archuleta is about as adorable as this hedgehog.
Transition, Cook/Archuleta, PG-15, 3300 words.
Strictly speaking, it started with a broken arm, a case of the stomach flu, and an indeterminate number of tequila shots. Less strictly speaking, David was pretty sure the entire thing had a lot to do with the fact that David Cook was impossible. But mostly, it was probably the tequila.
A month into the tour, David’s mom fell off a ladder and broke her wrist. David wasn’t exactly freaking out about it - his mom said the ER gave her a cool purple cast, and his aunt had already sent over three casseroles and a pan of Weight Watchers' vegetarian lasagna - but his dad had another view entirely and caught the first flight back from Cincinnati.
David felt a little weird about suddenly being alone on tour, and it was a lot harder not to be homesick when both his parents were at home and he wasn’t, but his dad sent him emails twice a day. A lot of them were, admittedly, cautionary tales about people who got involved in drunken games of spin the bottle on the tour bus or watched R rated action movies or didn’t match their socks as soon as the laundry came out of the dryer, but David knew he meant well, and anyway, it wasn’t like he was doing his own laundry. And spin the bottle was a little outdated - now everyone had an iPhone app.
Mostly, it was exactly the same, at least until twenty miles outside of Philadelphia, when Michael abruptly went pale in the middle of a game of Texas Hold ‘Em - David figured it wasn’t gambling if there wasn’t any money involved, and somehow already had four times as many M&Ms as Cook - and disappeared into the back of the bus. When he still hadn’t come back twenty minutes later, Cook left David in charge of the cards and candy and came back looking vaguely impressed.
“Man, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen someone projectile vomit before,” he said, sliding back in across from David to steal all the green M&Ms.
Since the reservations at hotels had all been made months in advance, David still usually had a two person room even though he wasn’t actually sharing with anyone, but since his dad wasn’t around, it wasn’t exactly a big deal that the hotel had messed up their reservations and given him a king instead of two queens. It was probably a lot more annoying that they’d screwed up all the rooms, and David felt kind of sorry for the concierge, who was currently being yelled at by three managers and Carly. He got his key before they’d even managed to figure out how the reservation had gone wrong and was half way through unpacking when someone knocked on his door. It was Cook.
“Uh,” Cook said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand, kind of awkwardly. “They’re full because of the show. And Michael’s still puking. And our room still only has one bed.”
David wasn’t totally sure why Cook had bothered to come up an entire floor to give him an update, but maybe he was trying to be nice. Cook had been spending a lot of time with him since his dad had left, and even if David wasn’t totally sure why, it was still nice of him. Cook was, actually, a pretty decent guy, despite the lectures his dad kept giving him about negative influences. “I think I might have some pepto-bismol?” he offered, and Cook laughed suddenly and dropped his hand.
“I’m asking if I can share with you, dumbass,” Cook said.
“Oh,” David said. “Uh, sure.” His room had a couch, which he figured they could flip for or something, but Cook tossed his suitcase vaguely in the direction of the closet and fell down on the bed to turn on the TV.
“Thanks, Dave,” he said. “You’re awesome.”
David played two games of Tetris on his laptop and then wandered downstairs to find a vending machine. They had at least a few hours to kill before the show, and even if he’d learned the hard way that eating dinner before getting up on stage in front of a couple thousand people was never the best idea, snacks were allowed. The hotel was mostly empty, since it was so early; a couple teenage girls in the lobby all whispered to each other when he walked by, but at least nobody was actively trying to harass him, which happened sometimes. It was embarassing; David couldn’t really get used to the idea that people wanted his autograph. When he got back to the room with his sprite and a bag of Doritos - he felt a little guilty, but it wasn’t like his dad was going to know - Cook was in the shower.
David totally meant to watch Planet Earth, but halfway through flipping through the channel guide to find Discovery, he turned on the TV and realized that Cook definitely hadn’t been watching the news. It took David about twenty seconds to figure out what, exactly, that was a close up of, and then he fumbled for the remote a little desperately and tried to turn it off. The only problem was, David somehow couldn’t make himself look away - his dad had probably been right, porn really was capable of destroying your mind - and frantically hitting the volume up button by accident didn’t exactly have the desired effect of making it stop.
“Oh, god, baby, yes,” the woman on the television moaned.
Someone pounded on the wall next door and David started wondering if it was possible to actually die of embarrassment. According to the hotel, he was the only one in here, and what if someone complained or they had recording devices to find out that he’d watched porn instead of something normal and they told his dad -
David finally managed to turn it off, but calming himself down was harder. It wasn’t like he’d never seen porn before - Michael’s laptop background usually had a lot of naked women, and Cook left magazines lying around that David knew better than to look at closely, but the fact that people actually liked watching two girls was weird, and that one of them had put her tongue - well. Mostly he didn’t actually want to think about it too much, especially not the idea of the people next door thinking that he was watching it on purpose, or worse, that maybe he’d been having sex in his hotel room -
“Dude, did you run all the way back upstairs or something?” Cook said from behind him. “You’re bright red,” and David was about to deny everything when Cook stepped out into the bedroom in just a towel.
It wasn’t wrapped all the way around, and David could see an entire line of skin, over Cook’s hip bone and all the way down his thigh, and something weird happened to his stomach. Cook was holding it up one handed, rummaging through his bag, and when he leaned over, it slipped down a little. David choked and suddenly found himself falling off the bed, trying to grab onto the wall, and when he could actually think again, Cook was leaning over, looking like he was trying not to laugh.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I think I’m stuck,” David managed, finally, and decided that whatever virus Michael had was probably infecting him too. It was the only rational explanation.
The show wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible, and after, Cook and Carly dragged everyone to some famous tavern with live music and someone ordered David a hamburger. He had to send back his soda twice because someone kept adding alcohol to it, but it was fun, mostly, even if he was still feeling weird.
“Hey,” Cook said, after the last set, “we’re going to another bar, but why don’t you meet us back at the hotel?” He settled a hand on David’s shoulder. “No offense, you look kind of exhausted.”
“I think I’m coming down with something,” David mumbled, ducking out from under Cook’s hand - his stomach was doing that weird thing again - and Carly backed up rapidly.
“You puke on me, I’m not speaking to you for the rest of the tour,” she said, and Cook rolled his eyes and called David a cab.
David left the light on in the bathroom and just went to bed. He was pretty sure that nothing else ridiculously embarrassing was going to happen to him - there had to be some sort of balance in the world - so David seriously felt that it was incredibly unfair when he woke up at a little past one to Cook tripping over a chair. David knew, objectively, that getting up to help his drunk friend was probably the charitable thing to do, but it was one in the morning and his day had been unbelievably stupid, so he figured that pretending to be asleep probably wasn’t going to kill anyone, which turned out to be an unbelievably big mistake when Cook tripped his way across the room and crawled into bed with him.
“Hey,” he said, “feeling better?” and wrapped one hand around David’s shoulder, pulling him back, while he slid the other down, into David’s pajamas, and then leaned in and kissed him.
“Uh,” David squeaked.
There was a really long pause.
“Oh shit,” Cook said, and took his hand out of - David definitely, definitely wasn’t thinking about where his hand had been.
"Uh," David said, again, finally, and hesitantly turned on a light to find Cook staring at him.
"I'm sorry," Cook said. "Uh. I forgot that I wasn't -"
David realized kind of abruptly that Cook had thought he was Michael, and he really wasn't sure what the worst part was: whether it was that Cook and Michael were probably having sex, or that Cook had gotten them mixed up, or that someone had touched him like that and maybe for the five seconds it had lasted that he'd liked it, or that Cook had kissed him. David wondered for a second if it counted as an official first kiss if the other person thought you were someone else. Probably not.
"But he's married," wasn't really what he'd been intending to say, but it was mostly what came out.
"Yeah, uh," Cook said. "It's just - you know, a thing. One of those things. It doesn't really - I mean, it's not like it's a big deal."
David figured he could keep going, but Cook looked miserable and tired. David had once overheard Carly telling some guy that friends with benefits only worked if there wasn't anyone you were actually interested in. He'd always assumed that Cook liked the fans who all wanted to sleep with him, but maybe he'd been wrong.
"I'll get you some water," he said, finally, and by the time he got back from the sink, Cook had a blanket and the second pillow and was on the couch.
"Thanks," he said. "Sorry I - uh."
"Groped me?" David said, a little daring, and Cook choked and laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "Groped you."
"It's okay," David said, and decided that ending the conversation as rapidly as possible was probably the best bet. "Night."
"Night," Cook said, finally, and David turned out the light.
He didn't say anything about it the next morning, even though he wanted to, which David figured meant Cook totally owed him, and he didn't say anything for the entire next day of riding in the bus, and he managed not to say anything through the performance and dinner and two pay per view movies in Carly and Brooke's room, which was seriously an accomplishment, and he even managed not to say anything while Cook was in the shower - Michael was still infectious, but at least there were two beds this time - and he let Cook beat him twice at Mario on the hotel's PSP until he finally decided that he'd been really patient and now he needed to know.
"Did it count?" he said, and Cook put down his diet pepsi and blinked at him.
"Uh, the win?" he said. "Because I'm pretty sure I just kicked your ass, Archuleta."
"No," David said. He was pretty sure his cheeks were bright red. "Last night."
Cook groaned. "I knew you weren't going to let that go."
"Sorry," David said. "I just -"
"What do you mean, did it count?" Cook said. "If this is about your dad -"
"No," David said, rubbing his hands on his jeans; they were too warm. "You know that Seventeen interview?"
"Uh, there were like four," Cook said.
"No, I mean," David said. "They asked who my first kiss was, and I said I hadn't kissed anyone, and now every single reporter asks me if I have yet, so can I just say yes even if you - I mean, if you didn't mean it? It's not a big deal, right?"
There was another really long pause, and when David looked over, Cook had a hand over his mouth, which was when David realized he was trying not to laugh.
"Sorry," David said, god, he hadn't actually thought it was possible to be this embarrassed, but of course David Cook, who had had like thirty girlfriends (and maybe boyfriends), would think he was stupid for asking. "It was stupid -"
"No, no," Cook said, finally, and sat down on the floor next to David's bed. "You know, you could just lie to Seventeen."
"No, I can't," David said, a little miserably. "What if I meet someone and she wants to - you know, and I said I did and I haven't, then she'll know, and -"
"Hey, relax," Cook said. "It's not like it's a big deal."
"Yeah, until you have headlines about it," David said, and it wasn't that he was trying to feel sorry for himself, seriously, it just kind of wasn't all that great.
"It was an accident," Cook said. "I mean, your first kiss is supposed to be a disaster, but I'm pretty sure it has to be deliberate."
"Yeah," David said, a little miserably - it had been stupid, anyway. Maybe Seventeen would move back to asking him about his favorite brand of jeans.
"I could, uh," Cook said, doing that thing with his hand against the back of his neck that David was pretty sure meant that he wasn't totally sure about what he was saying. "I mean, what the hell, we've already hit third base. If you want me to kiss you, I will." He slid back up onto the bed, grinning. "No guarantees that it's going to give Seventeen any journalistic integrity or anything, though."
David was pretty sure he shouldn't actually have been considering it, but it meant he didn't have to lie, and Cook probably wouldn't mock him about it if it was awful. At least, not much. "Yeah, okay," he said, and Cook shifted sideways and cupped David's jaw with his palm, pulling him down.
It was warm and a little messy and almost nothing like David was expecting. He wasn't expecting it to feel good, or that his pulse would pick up, and when he finally got brave enough to try kissing back, Cook made a soft, encouraging noise against his mouth and let his eyes close. David figured Cook would probably want it to be fast, but he didn't back off, just leaned in a little closer until their noses bumped, and licked across David's lower lip, then pulled back abruptly, staring.
"Uh," Cook said.
"Uh, thanks," David said, finally, since that was probably the polite thing to do, and Cook stared for a second longer then slid back to the floor, fast.
"You want to try Guitar Hero?" he said, finally, and David nodded gratefully.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, Guitar Hero would be awesome."
Cook didn't bring any of it up for a week, and when David ended up getting interviewed in Houston, it was sort of painless to slip it in, even if he had to dodge another seven questions about whether or not he had a girlfriend now, but it made him feel sort of guilty, like he was using Cook for stupid publicity stunts, and that almost made him worse than all the girls who liked him just because he was on American Idol and famous, or Michael, who was probably just using him for sex.
It took David another two days to decide how to make up for it and another two to make himself do it, mostly because kissing him for a magazine article meant something completely different than just kissing him. It was worse because Cook kept spending time with him, and they were still sharing a room, and David's stomach did that thing every time he got too close, again, and Cook had this stupid habit of not wearing shirts and coming out in towels. David tried to get him to go back to the other suite, once, and Cook claimed Michael snored while looking actually worried that David might kick him out, but David hadn't exactly missed the fact that Cook and Michael were barely speaking, which made the whole stomach thing a few thousand times worse, because he really, really didn't want anything to end badly. But David could only take so much of Cook's singing in the shower and mismatched socks before he started feeling really guilty about everything and decided that he just had to get it over with.
"I think we should make out," he managed, finally, and belatedly realized that he probably should've waited until Cook wasn't in the middle of drinking coffee.
"Jesus, what?" Cook said, staring, when he wasn't choking anymore, and David blushed.
"I wasn't just using you for Seventeen," he says, "and you should get to kiss somebody because they want to, not because you got like fifty million votes in the finale or because it's convenient or something, or because of some stupid magazine article."
Cook stepped forward, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I seriously have no idea what you just said," he said, finally. "But I didn't think you were - uh, using me. It was just a favor."
"I liked it," David said, finally. "We could - I mean, if you want to."
"What?" Cook said, again, and David gave up and grabbed his stupid coffee covered t-shirt and pulled him in.
"I think you should kiss somebody who wants to kiss you," he said, "and I want to -" and then abruptly gave up because, apparently, Cook was a lot better about not being confused when you just gave up and showed him.
"Oh," Cook said, finally, when David finally pulled back, wrapping his hand in David's shirt like he wasn't entirely aware that he was doing it, and David shifted a little closer, trying not to be embarrassed and nervous all at once.
"I'm really bad at casual - uh, hook ups," Cook said, abruptly, and David seriously wondered how he managed to communicate at all, because he'd said it at least three times. "So if -"
"I like you," he said, just to make it slightly more obvious, and Cook paused
"Are you, uh," he said. "Asking me out?"
"Maybe," David said, because it turned out that maybe his incredibly genius plan about making up for the first kiss had some slight flaws after all. David suddenly noticed that maybe he wouldn't be making things better, that maybe Cook would hate him permanently, but Cook just grinned, finally, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, again.
"Uh, yeah, okay," he said.
"Oh," David said, "thank goodness," he said, and when Cook started laughing, he leaned in to kiss him again and watched his hand fall.
I'm using the cutest icon I have, because David Archuleta is about as adorable as this hedgehog.
Transition, Cook/Archuleta, PG-15, 3300 words.
Strictly speaking, it started with a broken arm, a case of the stomach flu, and an indeterminate number of tequila shots. Less strictly speaking, David was pretty sure the entire thing had a lot to do with the fact that David Cook was impossible. But mostly, it was probably the tequila.
A month into the tour, David’s mom fell off a ladder and broke her wrist. David wasn’t exactly freaking out about it - his mom said the ER gave her a cool purple cast, and his aunt had already sent over three casseroles and a pan of Weight Watchers' vegetarian lasagna - but his dad had another view entirely and caught the first flight back from Cincinnati.
David felt a little weird about suddenly being alone on tour, and it was a lot harder not to be homesick when both his parents were at home and he wasn’t, but his dad sent him emails twice a day. A lot of them were, admittedly, cautionary tales about people who got involved in drunken games of spin the bottle on the tour bus or watched R rated action movies or didn’t match their socks as soon as the laundry came out of the dryer, but David knew he meant well, and anyway, it wasn’t like he was doing his own laundry. And spin the bottle was a little outdated - now everyone had an iPhone app.
Mostly, it was exactly the same, at least until twenty miles outside of Philadelphia, when Michael abruptly went pale in the middle of a game of Texas Hold ‘Em - David figured it wasn’t gambling if there wasn’t any money involved, and somehow already had four times as many M&Ms as Cook - and disappeared into the back of the bus. When he still hadn’t come back twenty minutes later, Cook left David in charge of the cards and candy and came back looking vaguely impressed.
“Man, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen someone projectile vomit before,” he said, sliding back in across from David to steal all the green M&Ms.
Since the reservations at hotels had all been made months in advance, David still usually had a two person room even though he wasn’t actually sharing with anyone, but since his dad wasn’t around, it wasn’t exactly a big deal that the hotel had messed up their reservations and given him a king instead of two queens. It was probably a lot more annoying that they’d screwed up all the rooms, and David felt kind of sorry for the concierge, who was currently being yelled at by three managers and Carly. He got his key before they’d even managed to figure out how the reservation had gone wrong and was half way through unpacking when someone knocked on his door. It was Cook.
“Uh,” Cook said, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand, kind of awkwardly. “They’re full because of the show. And Michael’s still puking. And our room still only has one bed.”
David wasn’t totally sure why Cook had bothered to come up an entire floor to give him an update, but maybe he was trying to be nice. Cook had been spending a lot of time with him since his dad had left, and even if David wasn’t totally sure why, it was still nice of him. Cook was, actually, a pretty decent guy, despite the lectures his dad kept giving him about negative influences. “I think I might have some pepto-bismol?” he offered, and Cook laughed suddenly and dropped his hand.
“I’m asking if I can share with you, dumbass,” Cook said.
“Oh,” David said. “Uh, sure.” His room had a couch, which he figured they could flip for or something, but Cook tossed his suitcase vaguely in the direction of the closet and fell down on the bed to turn on the TV.
“Thanks, Dave,” he said. “You’re awesome.”
David played two games of Tetris on his laptop and then wandered downstairs to find a vending machine. They had at least a few hours to kill before the show, and even if he’d learned the hard way that eating dinner before getting up on stage in front of a couple thousand people was never the best idea, snacks were allowed. The hotel was mostly empty, since it was so early; a couple teenage girls in the lobby all whispered to each other when he walked by, but at least nobody was actively trying to harass him, which happened sometimes. It was embarassing; David couldn’t really get used to the idea that people wanted his autograph. When he got back to the room with his sprite and a bag of Doritos - he felt a little guilty, but it wasn’t like his dad was going to know - Cook was in the shower.
David totally meant to watch Planet Earth, but halfway through flipping through the channel guide to find Discovery, he turned on the TV and realized that Cook definitely hadn’t been watching the news. It took David about twenty seconds to figure out what, exactly, that was a close up of, and then he fumbled for the remote a little desperately and tried to turn it off. The only problem was, David somehow couldn’t make himself look away - his dad had probably been right, porn really was capable of destroying your mind - and frantically hitting the volume up button by accident didn’t exactly have the desired effect of making it stop.
“Oh, god, baby, yes,” the woman on the television moaned.
Someone pounded on the wall next door and David started wondering if it was possible to actually die of embarrassment. According to the hotel, he was the only one in here, and what if someone complained or they had recording devices to find out that he’d watched porn instead of something normal and they told his dad -
David finally managed to turn it off, but calming himself down was harder. It wasn’t like he’d never seen porn before - Michael’s laptop background usually had a lot of naked women, and Cook left magazines lying around that David knew better than to look at closely, but the fact that people actually liked watching two girls was weird, and that one of them had put her tongue - well. Mostly he didn’t actually want to think about it too much, especially not the idea of the people next door thinking that he was watching it on purpose, or worse, that maybe he’d been having sex in his hotel room -
“Dude, did you run all the way back upstairs or something?” Cook said from behind him. “You’re bright red,” and David was about to deny everything when Cook stepped out into the bedroom in just a towel.
It wasn’t wrapped all the way around, and David could see an entire line of skin, over Cook’s hip bone and all the way down his thigh, and something weird happened to his stomach. Cook was holding it up one handed, rummaging through his bag, and when he leaned over, it slipped down a little. David choked and suddenly found himself falling off the bed, trying to grab onto the wall, and when he could actually think again, Cook was leaning over, looking like he was trying not to laugh.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I think I’m stuck,” David managed, finally, and decided that whatever virus Michael had was probably infecting him too. It was the only rational explanation.
The show wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible, and after, Cook and Carly dragged everyone to some famous tavern with live music and someone ordered David a hamburger. He had to send back his soda twice because someone kept adding alcohol to it, but it was fun, mostly, even if he was still feeling weird.
“Hey,” Cook said, after the last set, “we’re going to another bar, but why don’t you meet us back at the hotel?” He settled a hand on David’s shoulder. “No offense, you look kind of exhausted.”
“I think I’m coming down with something,” David mumbled, ducking out from under Cook’s hand - his stomach was doing that weird thing again - and Carly backed up rapidly.
“You puke on me, I’m not speaking to you for the rest of the tour,” she said, and Cook rolled his eyes and called David a cab.
David left the light on in the bathroom and just went to bed. He was pretty sure that nothing else ridiculously embarrassing was going to happen to him - there had to be some sort of balance in the world - so David seriously felt that it was incredibly unfair when he woke up at a little past one to Cook tripping over a chair. David knew, objectively, that getting up to help his drunk friend was probably the charitable thing to do, but it was one in the morning and his day had been unbelievably stupid, so he figured that pretending to be asleep probably wasn’t going to kill anyone, which turned out to be an unbelievably big mistake when Cook tripped his way across the room and crawled into bed with him.
“Hey,” he said, “feeling better?” and wrapped one hand around David’s shoulder, pulling him back, while he slid the other down, into David’s pajamas, and then leaned in and kissed him.
“Uh,” David squeaked.
There was a really long pause.
“Oh shit,” Cook said, and took his hand out of - David definitely, definitely wasn’t thinking about where his hand had been.
"Uh," David said, again, finally, and hesitantly turned on a light to find Cook staring at him.
"I'm sorry," Cook said. "Uh. I forgot that I wasn't -"
David realized kind of abruptly that Cook had thought he was Michael, and he really wasn't sure what the worst part was: whether it was that Cook and Michael were probably having sex, or that Cook had gotten them mixed up, or that someone had touched him like that and maybe for the five seconds it had lasted that he'd liked it, or that Cook had kissed him. David wondered for a second if it counted as an official first kiss if the other person thought you were someone else. Probably not.
"But he's married," wasn't really what he'd been intending to say, but it was mostly what came out.
"Yeah, uh," Cook said. "It's just - you know, a thing. One of those things. It doesn't really - I mean, it's not like it's a big deal."
David figured he could keep going, but Cook looked miserable and tired. David had once overheard Carly telling some guy that friends with benefits only worked if there wasn't anyone you were actually interested in. He'd always assumed that Cook liked the fans who all wanted to sleep with him, but maybe he'd been wrong.
"I'll get you some water," he said, finally, and by the time he got back from the sink, Cook had a blanket and the second pillow and was on the couch.
"Thanks," he said. "Sorry I - uh."
"Groped me?" David said, a little daring, and Cook choked and laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "Groped you."
"It's okay," David said, and decided that ending the conversation as rapidly as possible was probably the best bet. "Night."
"Night," Cook said, finally, and David turned out the light.
He didn't say anything about it the next morning, even though he wanted to, which David figured meant Cook totally owed him, and he didn't say anything for the entire next day of riding in the bus, and he managed not to say anything through the performance and dinner and two pay per view movies in Carly and Brooke's room, which was seriously an accomplishment, and he even managed not to say anything while Cook was in the shower - Michael was still infectious, but at least there were two beds this time - and he let Cook beat him twice at Mario on the hotel's PSP until he finally decided that he'd been really patient and now he needed to know.
"Did it count?" he said, and Cook put down his diet pepsi and blinked at him.
"Uh, the win?" he said. "Because I'm pretty sure I just kicked your ass, Archuleta."
"No," David said. He was pretty sure his cheeks were bright red. "Last night."
Cook groaned. "I knew you weren't going to let that go."
"Sorry," David said. "I just -"
"What do you mean, did it count?" Cook said. "If this is about your dad -"
"No," David said, rubbing his hands on his jeans; they were too warm. "You know that Seventeen interview?"
"Uh, there were like four," Cook said.
"No, I mean," David said. "They asked who my first kiss was, and I said I hadn't kissed anyone, and now every single reporter asks me if I have yet, so can I just say yes even if you - I mean, if you didn't mean it? It's not a big deal, right?"
There was another really long pause, and when David looked over, Cook had a hand over his mouth, which was when David realized he was trying not to laugh.
"Sorry," David said, god, he hadn't actually thought it was possible to be this embarrassed, but of course David Cook, who had had like thirty girlfriends (and maybe boyfriends), would think he was stupid for asking. "It was stupid -"
"No, no," Cook said, finally, and sat down on the floor next to David's bed. "You know, you could just lie to Seventeen."
"No, I can't," David said, a little miserably. "What if I meet someone and she wants to - you know, and I said I did and I haven't, then she'll know, and -"
"Hey, relax," Cook said. "It's not like it's a big deal."
"Yeah, until you have headlines about it," David said, and it wasn't that he was trying to feel sorry for himself, seriously, it just kind of wasn't all that great.
"It was an accident," Cook said. "I mean, your first kiss is supposed to be a disaster, but I'm pretty sure it has to be deliberate."
"Yeah," David said, a little miserably - it had been stupid, anyway. Maybe Seventeen would move back to asking him about his favorite brand of jeans.
"I could, uh," Cook said, doing that thing with his hand against the back of his neck that David was pretty sure meant that he wasn't totally sure about what he was saying. "I mean, what the hell, we've already hit third base. If you want me to kiss you, I will." He slid back up onto the bed, grinning. "No guarantees that it's going to give Seventeen any journalistic integrity or anything, though."
David was pretty sure he shouldn't actually have been considering it, but it meant he didn't have to lie, and Cook probably wouldn't mock him about it if it was awful. At least, not much. "Yeah, okay," he said, and Cook shifted sideways and cupped David's jaw with his palm, pulling him down.
It was warm and a little messy and almost nothing like David was expecting. He wasn't expecting it to feel good, or that his pulse would pick up, and when he finally got brave enough to try kissing back, Cook made a soft, encouraging noise against his mouth and let his eyes close. David figured Cook would probably want it to be fast, but he didn't back off, just leaned in a little closer until their noses bumped, and licked across David's lower lip, then pulled back abruptly, staring.
"Uh," Cook said.
"Uh, thanks," David said, finally, since that was probably the polite thing to do, and Cook stared for a second longer then slid back to the floor, fast.
"You want to try Guitar Hero?" he said, finally, and David nodded gratefully.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, Guitar Hero would be awesome."
Cook didn't bring any of it up for a week, and when David ended up getting interviewed in Houston, it was sort of painless to slip it in, even if he had to dodge another seven questions about whether or not he had a girlfriend now, but it made him feel sort of guilty, like he was using Cook for stupid publicity stunts, and that almost made him worse than all the girls who liked him just because he was on American Idol and famous, or Michael, who was probably just using him for sex.
It took David another two days to decide how to make up for it and another two to make himself do it, mostly because kissing him for a magazine article meant something completely different than just kissing him. It was worse because Cook kept spending time with him, and they were still sharing a room, and David's stomach did that thing every time he got too close, again, and Cook had this stupid habit of not wearing shirts and coming out in towels. David tried to get him to go back to the other suite, once, and Cook claimed Michael snored while looking actually worried that David might kick him out, but David hadn't exactly missed the fact that Cook and Michael were barely speaking, which made the whole stomach thing a few thousand times worse, because he really, really didn't want anything to end badly. But David could only take so much of Cook's singing in the shower and mismatched socks before he started feeling really guilty about everything and decided that he just had to get it over with.
"I think we should make out," he managed, finally, and belatedly realized that he probably should've waited until Cook wasn't in the middle of drinking coffee.
"Jesus, what?" Cook said, staring, when he wasn't choking anymore, and David blushed.
"I wasn't just using you for Seventeen," he says, "and you should get to kiss somebody because they want to, not because you got like fifty million votes in the finale or because it's convenient or something, or because of some stupid magazine article."
Cook stepped forward, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I seriously have no idea what you just said," he said, finally. "But I didn't think you were - uh, using me. It was just a favor."
"I liked it," David said, finally. "We could - I mean, if you want to."
"What?" Cook said, again, and David gave up and grabbed his stupid coffee covered t-shirt and pulled him in.
"I think you should kiss somebody who wants to kiss you," he said, "and I want to -" and then abruptly gave up because, apparently, Cook was a lot better about not being confused when you just gave up and showed him.
"Oh," Cook said, finally, when David finally pulled back, wrapping his hand in David's shirt like he wasn't entirely aware that he was doing it, and David shifted a little closer, trying not to be embarrassed and nervous all at once.
"I'm really bad at casual - uh, hook ups," Cook said, abruptly, and David seriously wondered how he managed to communicate at all, because he'd said it at least three times. "So if -"
"I like you," he said, just to make it slightly more obvious, and Cook paused
"Are you, uh," he said. "Asking me out?"
"Maybe," David said, because it turned out that maybe his incredibly genius plan about making up for the first kiss had some slight flaws after all. David suddenly noticed that maybe he wouldn't be making things better, that maybe Cook would hate him permanently, but Cook just grinned, finally, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck, again.
"Uh, yeah, okay," he said.
"Oh," David said, "thank goodness," he said, and when Cook started laughing, he leaned in to kiss him again and watched his hand fall.