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laniew1Part one of three, the next part will be posted next Saturday and then the last the following Saturday.
Also this is crack and completely unrealistic (the time travel should be your first clue), some suspension of disbelief is required.
He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.
TITLE: Time After Time
FANDOM: American Idol
RATING: PG13 (for language)
PAIRING: David/David
AUTHOR: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Hit the back button if you recognize your own name, also I don’t own anybody, and this never happened.
Time After Time – Part 1
He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.
He’d fallen asleep as the fight moved off and when he woke up he was in his backyard and his mother was screaming his name.
When it happens again he braces himself and goes out.
There’s blood and bodies and evidence of a pretty fierce battle.
There’s a guy on horseback, and when he sees David standing there he draws his sword and David runs away.
The guy is waiting the next time David ventures out. He’s built a fire and he silently offers David a metal cup. There’s a stew in it of some kind.
David has been pretty scared the guy was going to hunt him down and kill him, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep so he could go back home, so he’s starving.
He stops short of licking the bowl clean, the guy laughs and takes the cup from David’s hands and scoops more of the stew into it.
“Eat,” he says when he hands it back.
He sounds British; David has seen enough of those movies that his mom completely loves to recognize the accent.
“Abraham,” the man says, gesturing to himself.
“David,” he says between mouthfuls of stew. “David Cook.” It’s awesome; the stew his mom makes doesn’t taste anything like this.
When he finally relaxes enough to go to sleep, he goes home, his parents have called the cops and he’s been listed as a runaway.
He’s been gone two days.
His mother cries and clings to him. His father looks like he can’t decide between hugging him or throttling him.
With the cops there it’s an easy decision; he just stands there, hands at his sides.
David doesn’t do it again. Not for a couple of years.
******************************************************************************
It takes him a while to control it. To figure out how to wake up in his own bed so his parents don’t think he’s runaway. To figure out how to force himself to go or to stay.
He can only do it when he’s asleep; pretty much it’s a crapshoot half the time whether he goes or not anyway.
He does get the whole waking up in his own bed thing down though, so he counts it a win.
******************************************************************************
He’s got a band and a career; they’re pretty successful in their little neck of the woods.
David wants to be bigger; the guys want to be bigger as well.
He does American Idol because what the hell. It’ll give him (and by default the rest of the band) some exposure. If he does well, he might even get a deal out of it.
He makes friends with a couple of the others. Carly and Michael are his closest. It helps to have allies in the house.
He doesn’t expect to make it very far though, there’s a lot of talent on the stage each night. Every elimination he expects to be at the bottom and going home.
It doesn’t ever happen. He ends up in the top three, then the top two and then he’s singing on that stage by himself.
He can see his parents and Carly and Michael and all the others and he sings for them and any guy out there watching that had a dream they thought was pretty impossible.
The interviews take forever and when they finally let him go back to the hotel (‘take a couple of days David, relax’) he thinks he falls asleep before his head even hits the pillow.
He wakes up to metal and swords and the sound of someone yelling.
He’s on his feet and moving, he should be running away, he has no weapons; instead he’s running toward the noise.
He sees the man that had fed him, protected him so many years ago. Abraham is fighting with another. Behind him is a kid, a young boy that looks completely and utterly terrified.
He sees David first and his eyes widen, his mouth opens like he’s going to yell and David makes a gesture that he hopes says stop.
The kid takes a step back, then another, back pressed to a tree. David sees that he has a knife in his hand; if Abraham falls that knife isn’t going to protect him though.
There’s wood all around, fallen tree branches and cut pieces that must have been for a fire that had not yet been started.
He grabs one and descends.
He’s pretty sure that Abraham sees him, but he makes no movement that betrays him and it allows David a clean shot.
The guy falls and Abraham stands there, chest heaving, sword in hand. David looks away when he kills the guy, looks instead at the kid who still looks terrified.
“You okay?” he asks, Abraham glances over at him then back at David.
The boy nods slowly, eyes skittering back and forth between them and the dead body at Abraham’s feet.
“I’m…” the boy falters, bites his lip instead and looks over at Abraham.
“He’s fine,” Abraham says gruffly.
The boy nods again and puts his knife away.
“I’m fine,” he parrots. He doesn’t sound British like Abraham does. He sounds like an American and David doesn’t know how that’s possible but he doesn’t question it too closely.
Abraham drags the body into the trees and the boy collects the pieces of wood that must have been for their fire and arranges them. He stares at it helplessly when he’s done.
“This is Lord Cook,” Abraham says when he comes back, he squats in front of the pile of wood, shifts a few pieces and does something with his hands that seconds later have a small fire going.
The boy jerks his head but doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t look at David either. Just watches the flames of the fire like they’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.
“This is Archie,” Abraham says. “He’s my ward… for the time being anyway.”
Abraham looks over at the boy thoughtfully. “He seems to attract trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Archie sputters defensively. “I was getting wood, just like you said and he…” he gestures his hands in circles. “He came out of nowhere and there was a sword and he was telling me to take my clothes off and, and…”
“See, attracts trouble,” Abraham grins toothily at David.
“You are being mean, Abraham,” Archie says sulkily. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“He’s going to the castle to start his training.”
“I’m going to be horrible at it, I can’t even hold a sword right, I’m going to die a painful and messy death, my parents will blame you of course,” Archie says sadly.
“He wants to be a minstrel instead or maybe the court Jester, can never tell with the boy.”
“You are still being mean,” Archie says pointedly.
“Painful and messy?” David asks. The kid doesn’t look big enough to be a page or a knight, or to actually be away from his parents.
“He’s actually going into training to be a steward, the king is in want of new one,” Abraham says.
“That’s because the old one ran off with one of the queen’s maids and half of the gold that the king left in his possession.”
“They got the gold back.”
“But not the maid,” Archie says heatedly.
“She didn’t want to come back, they gave her the choice.”
David grins watching the two of them banter back and forth; he wonders where the kid came from, how he came to be traveling with Abraham.
“Where are you headed Lord Cook?” Archie asks politely, he’s picking at piece of bread that Abraham had torn off and handed him. David waves the bread away when offered.
Abraham has just killed someone and dragged his body off into the woods, David is pretty sure he hadn’t washed his hands or anything since then. God only knows what he could catch.
Besides he can’t stay, not really. The label may have given him some time off to catch his breath but his family and Carly and Michael most certainly have not.
They’re expecting him for breakfast. He’ll probably be late if he hangs out much longer. But he’s having fun listening to the two of them.
“You can call me David,” he says.
“No I can’t,” Archie says looking completely scandalized.
“I heard the sounds of a fight, I thought I would offer my assistance,” he offers. It sounds lame, but both of them seem to buy it.
“Well we thank you regardless,” Abraham says, Archie smiles at him, looking innocent and demure.
David stands and offers his hand to Abraham when he stands as well. Archie comes to his feet and bows slowly; David offers him a smirk and a wink with his return bow.
******************************************************************************
He wakes in his own bed and his phone is ringing.
“Where the hell are you?” Michael is asking on the other end.
“Sleeping,” David mutters.
“Still?” Michael asks incredulously. “You’re turning into a complete layabout now that you’re a big rock star.”
“Were you in interviews until 2 am, I didn’t think so,” David states. “Give me five minutes to wash my face and not look like I’ve only had,” he glances at the clock, “four hours of sleep.”
He drops the phone and runs a hand over his face. He’d always liked Abraham, he really likes Archie.
He’ll be going back, maybe he’ll take a couple of days and make a trip of it, make a trip to this castle that Abraham and Archie were talking about.
He grins.
******************************************************************************
The label keeps him busy, pushing him into the studio, pushing him out on the road, pushing him to perform with the other idols.
He doesn’t get a chance to make any more then a couple of hour visits and that’s not nearly enough time to get to the castle.
He doesn’t see Archie again, though he does see Abraham who is quick to assure him that Archie is settling in fine and has not managed to die a painful and messy death as Archie had predicted.
“He’ll end up married before he ends up dead,” Abraham says. When David looks at him questioningly he shrugs. “He’s got a lot of suitors and they’re doing their best to be the one to dishonor him to force his hand.”
“He got money or something?” David asks. The boy was traveling with Abraham; he would have thought that anyone with any amount of money would have had more then one armed guard.
“He’s got the ear of the queen, that’s all he needs. If it comes to it she’ll pay his marriage fee from her own pocket.”
David fingers the metal cup in his hands, stares into the fire.
He doesn’t like the thought of Archie married off with practically no choice in the matter.
******************************************************************************
He takes a break. He’s about five seconds away from killing everyone and anyone that associates with him through his music. He needs five minutes to himself.
He rents a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, he tells Michael where’s he going and no one else. Michael promises to keep the wolves at bay and David leaves.
He doesn’t even unpack, just locks the doors and windows and lies down on the bed.
******************************************************************************
Abraham had drawn him a crude map on how to get to the castle. It’s about a days walk and he wonders why Abraham and Archie had stopped the first time that he’d met them when they were so close.
When he gets there it’s a flurry of activity and horses and people he doesn’t know.
He sees Archie in the courtyard and he’s walking slowly beside a young woman who must have some position of power since everyone else gives them a wide berth and bows when they approach her.
He waits for her to become engaged in conversation and slides up next to Archie when he stops to wait.
“I see you haven’t died a painful and messy death as of yet,” David says.
When Archie turns to look at him he’s smiling.
“Abraham said that he’d run into you a time or two,” Archie looks pleased, he looks like he’s blushing and he glances over at where the young woman is still deep in conversation like that might disguise it.
“Never had time enough to make it this far,” David says. “But I had a couple of days to kill, so…”
“Archie introduce me to your friend,” the young woman slides her hand into the curve of Archie’s elbow.
“Lord David Cook this is Her Royal Highness…”
“Archie you know better,” she scolds, interrupting him with an impish grin on her face. “I am Emilie, when we are not in the castle proper. You must be the David that Archie speaks of with such…”
“Your highness,” Archie’s scandalized voice makes an appearance. David wonders how long it took for Archie to be able to call this young woman Emilie instead of by her title.
He’s pretty sure that it’s an argument they’re still having.
“We’re having a ball this evening, visiting diplomats, it will most likely be long and boring. You should come and make sure that Archie dances like he’s supposed to.”
“I didn’t really bring anything like that to wear,” or at all, David thinks.
“I have four left feet, I don’t dance,” Archie states.
“We will find you something, my husband will be about your size I believe,” she snaps her fingers and guards appear from thin air surrounding them. “I believe we’re ready to return to the castle proper,” she says.
David doesn’t think he imagines the look of relief on the guards faces.
******************************************************************************
The queen is a force to be reckoned with.
Despite his protests she puts him up in a room and the king does turn out to be about his size so she has Archie deliver clothes for him to wear.
Archie blushes when he shows up at his door and blushes even more when David invites him in; he stammers some excuse and bolts.
It takes David nine years to figure out how to get one of the outfits together, he scrubs at his boots until they don’t look like he spent the day walking through the woods and when the knock comes at his door he follows the guard assigned to him to the ballroom.
Archie is dressed in blue and silver and he once more blushes when he sees David.
Emilie grins when she sees him.
******************************************************************************
Archie has a crush, and apparently everyone knows about it.
“He talked about you pretty much non-stop when he got here,” the king (call me William) is saying. “He said that you saved his life.”
“I didn’t really do anything, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Still, his mother is an old school friend of Emilie’s. We are indebted to you for making sure that he made it here safely.”
David wonders why, if Archie is the son of an old friend, he’d had only Abraham to protect him on his journey.
David looks out at where Archie had been tasked to dance with one of the queen’s nieces. He really can’t dance.
“We’re hoping to get him married off to someone of his choosing before it gets taken out of his hands,” the king looks at him with raised eyebrows and a knowing expression on his face.
David has no clue what the hell he’s talking about so he just nods in agreement.
“He’s turned everyone who has offered down, eventually one of them is just to going to take what they want and we’ll have to force the issue, he’s said that he’ll only say yes to one person, and though he’s not exactly identified that person I think we all know of who he speaks.”
“Well he should definitely have a choice in the matter at the very least, it’s his life after all,” David says. “That only seems fair, and I don’t think he would make a bad choice.”
The king nods emphatically.
“Emilie will be pleased to hear you say that,” William says. “She loves planning parties, and weddings are her most favorite event, unless it’s hers.”
“Did I hear something about a wedding?” Emilie asks, she appears at the kings’ side and David disguises a laugh with a cough when the king jumps.
“Lord Cook was just saying that Archie should of course have a choice in the matter of who he decides to give his hand to,” the king says.
Emilie grins; it’s a wild psychotic grin that David is pretty sure that he’s seen on Carly’s face when she’s scheming.
He doesn’t like it at all. It scares him a little. He doesn’t take a step back but only because it would look like he was getting ready to run away.
“That’s just wonderful, I should talk to Archie, we’ll want to do it as soon as possible,” Emilie has a vacant look in her face, like her mind is already a million miles away. David wonders if someone is going to tell him what the hell is going on.
“You said that you were only going to be here for the week?” Emilie says.
David nods slowly, unsure of what the correct answer is to that question. Not sure why it’s important.
Possibly coming to the castle had been a bad idea.
“We’ll have to make it a small wedding then, just those that already here,” Emilie twirls away heading in Archie’s direction.
The king is grinning and David has no clue what’s going on, he’s pretty sure that nothing he said could be construed as a marriage proposal and shouldn’t he have been asking Archie anyway?
He scratches his head and the king pats him on the back.
“Congratulations,” he says.
David just looks at him blankly. “Thanks?”
******************************************************************************
“What did you do?!” Archie is standing at his door; he doesn’t look scandalized at seeing David half-undressed. He’s too busy looking absolutely infuriated.
“I have no clue,” David says honestly.
“She thinks we’re getting married,” Archie says. His eyes are wide and look like they’re about to fall out of his head.
“I just said that you should have a choice in the matter,” David says.
“She hears what she wants to hear, so does he… I don’t want to get married, I can’t,” Archie cries.
David hears doors opening and grabs Archie’s arm and drags him into the room. He closes the door behind them and leans against it.
Archie paces a short distance, back again. He looks completely and utterly frazzled. He’s the most adorable thing David has ever seen, he sort of wants to fold him up and keep him in his pocket for luck.
“It’s not like I want to either,” David says. “Look I’m only here for a couple more days, can’t we just put them off until…”
“Until when, until you return and she can have had even more time to plan a bigger, lavisher spectacle where I can make a complete fool of myself?!”
“It’s not like I’m even going to be here that much, why do they think this is even the solution?”
“Because the thought is if I’m married then people will stop trying to drag me into the closets or stable to have their way with me.”
“I don’t think that’ll stop even if you’re married,” David says thoughtfully. “I mean you are kind of adorable.”
“Oh my gosh, you are completely not helping figure out a way for us to get out of it.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen whether we’re helping or not,” David says.
Emilie strikes him as the type to barrel full steam ahead regardless of her opposition.
******************************************************************************
The wedding happens two days later.
David is pretty sure that Archie had tried unsuccessfully a half dozen times to talk her off her wedding induced steam-roller. When that hadn’t worked he’d tried to bolt, David had walked in on one of the kings knights pulling a resisting Archie into a stable stall during his attempt and he might have saw red and hit him.
The knight not Archie.
Archie was engaged, you didn’t try to force yourself on someone who was promised to someone else even if neither one of them knew how they’d ended up promised or even wanted to be in the first place.
That was just not cool.
David is standing at the front of the chapel, the king had somehow ended up his best man and the queen is walking down the aisle right in front of Archie. She’s grinning and looking pleased with the entire world.
This completely can’t be real. Or happening. His mom will kill him if she finds out he got married and she wasn’t even at the wedding.
Abraham has got a death grip on Archie’s arm and if Archie gets any whiter he might manage to turn into a ghost at any possible second.
The women in attendance are already sobbing into their handkerchiefs, daintily brushing away tears. The men already look bored.
The wedding is long and David only realizes about halfway through that Archie isn’t really Archie’s first name. They have the same first name, which is kind of odd but whatever.
David-something-something-something-Archuleta is spoken by the priest and he’ll always be Archie to him so David just lets it go.
At the end of it rings are handed over to them to put on each others fingers. Archie’s hands are shaking and cold, his voice wavers when he says his vows. When David is given permission to kiss him he keeps it gentle and chaste.
He doesn’t think Archie can take much more, and he holds his hand as they walk back down the aisle.
He’s got a wedding night and then he’s supposed to leave the next day.
He’d delay leaving if he could, but Michael will completely flip out if he’s not back when he’s supposed to be.
******************************************************************************
The wedding night is simple, they have a party that is just shy of sixty people (kept small because Archie threatened mutiny if it was any bigger) and when darkness falls they’re pushed off to David’s room.
David is as gentle as possible, he’d thought about just letting Archie sleep but they’ll all know if they go down in the morning and haven’t consummated their marriage.
He doesn’t try anything fancy, he’s never really been in this position before and he lets Archie set his own pace, then takes over when he realizes that Archie will spend the whole night just kissing if David lets him.
When David is pretty sure that no one is going to think Archie a virgin when they walk down those stairs in the morning for Archie to say goodbye to him he lets Archie curl up on his side and cuddles up behind him.
He has a possessive hand lying on Archie’s hip, the room is still too warm for even sheets, though Archie keeps trying to protect his modesty by pulling them up. David is sweating; he pushes them back off again in short order.
He can see his wedding ring in the moonlight, shining against Archie’s skin.
He wonders if this is something that he should tell his parents about, he decides against it pretty quickly, it’s not like they’re ever going to get the opportunity to meet Archie after all.
******************************************************************************
Michael is there when he wakes up.
Michael scares the hell out of him when he wakes up, he rolls over his own bed and then falls off it when he hears the scream.
David will call it a scream, Michael will call it a manly yell. They will agree to disagree about it and there are only a few instances where David will bring it up and Michael will mutter under his breath about David appearing out of thin air.
David doesn’t bring it up very often. He doesn’t want to have to explain and Michael hadn’t believed him anyway, he’d given him some half-assed excuse that Michael was desperate to believe.
******************************************************************************
It takes him a day to notice the ring, and really Michael only drops the whole ‘appearing out of thin air’ thing because he’s worried that David managed to get himself hitched in the time he was gone.
“It’s a long story,” David says, he twists the ring on his hand; he should take it off before people that aren’t Michael see it and start asking questions.
“Does it have something to do with…” Michael waves his hand in the air and David shrugs.
“You’re sure a newly minted Mrs. David Cook isn’t going to be holding a press conference in a couple of days?” Michael asks.
“Highly unlikely,” David says. Archie would be a couple hundred years old, David’s pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem.
******************************************************************************
It takes him a month to go back. He’d almost wondered if he wasn’t going to, but he has two days off in a row and he puts the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door and he when he opens his eyes he’s there.
It only takes him a couple of hours to get there and there’s the usual bustle of people in the courtyard. The guards recognize him and take him to the queen almost immediately.
“Lord Cook,” she sounds surprised to see him and he narrows his eyes, but not in a way that could be construed as threatening. He’s slightly bothered by the fact that Archie isn’t hovering around her elbow looking pleased to see him.
“Archie said that he sent a letter off to you,” she says. She still sounds confused.
“A letter?” he asks. He doesn’t like where this is headed. He’d given Archie only the vaguest of ideas as to where his actual home was. He really hopes that he wasn’t silly enough to try and make a trip there on his own.
“His father took ill, Abraham took him home to be with his family several days after you left,” Emilie says.
“He did not say when he’d return, we’ve not received any letters from him since he left which has been troubling.”
“You’re sure he got there? I mean you know Archie, he pretty much attracts trouble.”
“I’m sure Abraham would have told us if they’d encountered difficulties,” Emilie says, though she doesn’t sound sure of that.
David shifts on his feet, something about this isn’t sitting completely right with him. He doesn’t like it at all.
******************************************************************************
There are several day trips after that where David tries to figure out where Archie has run off to.
Emilie has said that he returned home but David isn’t so sure.
He’s getting completely irritated and worried. There’s no sign of Abraham or Archie, none of the letters from the court are being returned but they’re not being answered either.
David is pretty sure that he’s dead; he takes the ring off and hides it in a box in the back of his dresser and tried to push Archie to the far recesses of his mind.
He only partially succeeds.
******************************************************************************
“Who signed us up for the Disney thing?” David asks.
It’s a joint project, the Idols and the kids from the very newest incarnation of MMC.
David finds it hilarious that these kids have their own shows and bounce all over the rest of their MMC counterparts shows, they have recording contracts and TV contracts and they probably make more in a year then David has in his entire life
Yet they have to do a joint concert with the Idols.
“I think it’s just one of those things,” Carly says, she’s flipping through a binder that the Disney group sent over.
It contains headshots and information on all the kids from MMC. David wonders if the MMC kids got the same information about them.
He doubts they care.
Carly tosses the binder in his lap and rubs a hand over his head. He bats her hand away and she laughs at him.
He doesn’t even intend to open the binder, it’s not like any of these kids are going to interact with them. He does just because, he’s bored, Carly and Michael are wrestling for the TV remote.
He should probably know at least what these kids look like.
In the cast photo they’re all amazingly young. They’ve got the requisite Mouse ears on and the old style sweaters with their names printed across them, he flips to the next page because he wants to see if they use the same cheesy sweaters in the individual headshots and drops the book.
Carly and Michael are both staring at him, he knows that. He’s staring at the very first picture in the binder.
His name is across his chest; his smile is innocent and happy and oh-so-familiar
He’s most definitely not a couple of hundred years old and David thinks suddenly about a wedding band hidden now in a box in the bottom of his suitcase.
******************************************************************************
Also this is crack and completely unrealistic (the time travel should be your first clue), some suspension of disbelief is required.
He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.
TITLE: Time After Time
FANDOM: American Idol
RATING: PG13 (for language)
PAIRING: David/David
AUTHOR: Melanie
DISCLAIMER: Hit the back button if you recognize your own name, also I don’t own anybody, and this never happened.
Time After Time – Part 1
He figures it out pretty early on. He’s a kid the first time it happens, eleven years old and he’d been so scared by the riders on horseback and the clang of metal hitting metal that he’d huddled in the middle of tall bushes.
He’d fallen asleep as the fight moved off and when he woke up he was in his backyard and his mother was screaming his name.
When it happens again he braces himself and goes out.
There’s blood and bodies and evidence of a pretty fierce battle.
There’s a guy on horseback, and when he sees David standing there he draws his sword and David runs away.
The guy is waiting the next time David ventures out. He’s built a fire and he silently offers David a metal cup. There’s a stew in it of some kind.
David has been pretty scared the guy was going to hunt him down and kill him, he hadn’t been able to fall asleep so he could go back home, so he’s starving.
He stops short of licking the bowl clean, the guy laughs and takes the cup from David’s hands and scoops more of the stew into it.
“Eat,” he says when he hands it back.
He sounds British; David has seen enough of those movies that his mom completely loves to recognize the accent.
“Abraham,” the man says, gesturing to himself.
“David,” he says between mouthfuls of stew. “David Cook.” It’s awesome; the stew his mom makes doesn’t taste anything like this.
When he finally relaxes enough to go to sleep, he goes home, his parents have called the cops and he’s been listed as a runaway.
He’s been gone two days.
His mother cries and clings to him. His father looks like he can’t decide between hugging him or throttling him.
With the cops there it’s an easy decision; he just stands there, hands at his sides.
David doesn’t do it again. Not for a couple of years.
It takes him a while to control it. To figure out how to wake up in his own bed so his parents don’t think he’s runaway. To figure out how to force himself to go or to stay.
He can only do it when he’s asleep; pretty much it’s a crapshoot half the time whether he goes or not anyway.
He does get the whole waking up in his own bed thing down though, so he counts it a win.
He’s got a band and a career; they’re pretty successful in their little neck of the woods.
David wants to be bigger; the guys want to be bigger as well.
He does American Idol because what the hell. It’ll give him (and by default the rest of the band) some exposure. If he does well, he might even get a deal out of it.
He makes friends with a couple of the others. Carly and Michael are his closest. It helps to have allies in the house.
He doesn’t expect to make it very far though, there’s a lot of talent on the stage each night. Every elimination he expects to be at the bottom and going home.
It doesn’t ever happen. He ends up in the top three, then the top two and then he’s singing on that stage by himself.
He can see his parents and Carly and Michael and all the others and he sings for them and any guy out there watching that had a dream they thought was pretty impossible.
The interviews take forever and when they finally let him go back to the hotel (‘take a couple of days David, relax’) he thinks he falls asleep before his head even hits the pillow.
He wakes up to metal and swords and the sound of someone yelling.
He’s on his feet and moving, he should be running away, he has no weapons; instead he’s running toward the noise.
He sees the man that had fed him, protected him so many years ago. Abraham is fighting with another. Behind him is a kid, a young boy that looks completely and utterly terrified.
He sees David first and his eyes widen, his mouth opens like he’s going to yell and David makes a gesture that he hopes says stop.
The kid takes a step back, then another, back pressed to a tree. David sees that he has a knife in his hand; if Abraham falls that knife isn’t going to protect him though.
There’s wood all around, fallen tree branches and cut pieces that must have been for a fire that had not yet been started.
He grabs one and descends.
He’s pretty sure that Abraham sees him, but he makes no movement that betrays him and it allows David a clean shot.
The guy falls and Abraham stands there, chest heaving, sword in hand. David looks away when he kills the guy, looks instead at the kid who still looks terrified.
“You okay?” he asks, Abraham glances over at him then back at David.
The boy nods slowly, eyes skittering back and forth between them and the dead body at Abraham’s feet.
“I’m…” the boy falters, bites his lip instead and looks over at Abraham.
“He’s fine,” Abraham says gruffly.
The boy nods again and puts his knife away.
“I’m fine,” he parrots. He doesn’t sound British like Abraham does. He sounds like an American and David doesn’t know how that’s possible but he doesn’t question it too closely.
Abraham drags the body into the trees and the boy collects the pieces of wood that must have been for their fire and arranges them. He stares at it helplessly when he’s done.
“This is Lord Cook,” Abraham says when he comes back, he squats in front of the pile of wood, shifts a few pieces and does something with his hands that seconds later have a small fire going.
The boy jerks his head but doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t look at David either. Just watches the flames of the fire like they’re the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen.
“This is Archie,” Abraham says. “He’s my ward… for the time being anyway.”
Abraham looks over at the boy thoughtfully. “He seems to attract trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Archie sputters defensively. “I was getting wood, just like you said and he…” he gestures his hands in circles. “He came out of nowhere and there was a sword and he was telling me to take my clothes off and, and…”
“See, attracts trouble,” Abraham grins toothily at David.
“You are being mean, Abraham,” Archie says sulkily. He crosses his arms over his chest.
“He’s going to the castle to start his training.”
“I’m going to be horrible at it, I can’t even hold a sword right, I’m going to die a painful and messy death, my parents will blame you of course,” Archie says sadly.
“He wants to be a minstrel instead or maybe the court Jester, can never tell with the boy.”
“You are still being mean,” Archie says pointedly.
“Painful and messy?” David asks. The kid doesn’t look big enough to be a page or a knight, or to actually be away from his parents.
“He’s actually going into training to be a steward, the king is in want of new one,” Abraham says.
“That’s because the old one ran off with one of the queen’s maids and half of the gold that the king left in his possession.”
“They got the gold back.”
“But not the maid,” Archie says heatedly.
“She didn’t want to come back, they gave her the choice.”
David grins watching the two of them banter back and forth; he wonders where the kid came from, how he came to be traveling with Abraham.
“Where are you headed Lord Cook?” Archie asks politely, he’s picking at piece of bread that Abraham had torn off and handed him. David waves the bread away when offered.
Abraham has just killed someone and dragged his body off into the woods, David is pretty sure he hadn’t washed his hands or anything since then. God only knows what he could catch.
Besides he can’t stay, not really. The label may have given him some time off to catch his breath but his family and Carly and Michael most certainly have not.
They’re expecting him for breakfast. He’ll probably be late if he hangs out much longer. But he’s having fun listening to the two of them.
“You can call me David,” he says.
“No I can’t,” Archie says looking completely scandalized.
“I heard the sounds of a fight, I thought I would offer my assistance,” he offers. It sounds lame, but both of them seem to buy it.
“Well we thank you regardless,” Abraham says, Archie smiles at him, looking innocent and demure.
David stands and offers his hand to Abraham when he stands as well. Archie comes to his feet and bows slowly; David offers him a smirk and a wink with his return bow.
He wakes in his own bed and his phone is ringing.
“Where the hell are you?” Michael is asking on the other end.
“Sleeping,” David mutters.
“Still?” Michael asks incredulously. “You’re turning into a complete layabout now that you’re a big rock star.”
“Were you in interviews until 2 am, I didn’t think so,” David states. “Give me five minutes to wash my face and not look like I’ve only had,” he glances at the clock, “four hours of sleep.”
He drops the phone and runs a hand over his face. He’d always liked Abraham, he really likes Archie.
He’ll be going back, maybe he’ll take a couple of days and make a trip of it, make a trip to this castle that Abraham and Archie were talking about.
He grins.
The label keeps him busy, pushing him into the studio, pushing him out on the road, pushing him to perform with the other idols.
He doesn’t get a chance to make any more then a couple of hour visits and that’s not nearly enough time to get to the castle.
He doesn’t see Archie again, though he does see Abraham who is quick to assure him that Archie is settling in fine and has not managed to die a painful and messy death as Archie had predicted.
“He’ll end up married before he ends up dead,” Abraham says. When David looks at him questioningly he shrugs. “He’s got a lot of suitors and they’re doing their best to be the one to dishonor him to force his hand.”
“He got money or something?” David asks. The boy was traveling with Abraham; he would have thought that anyone with any amount of money would have had more then one armed guard.
“He’s got the ear of the queen, that’s all he needs. If it comes to it she’ll pay his marriage fee from her own pocket.”
David fingers the metal cup in his hands, stares into the fire.
He doesn’t like the thought of Archie married off with practically no choice in the matter.
He takes a break. He’s about five seconds away from killing everyone and anyone that associates with him through his music. He needs five minutes to himself.
He rents a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, he tells Michael where’s he going and no one else. Michael promises to keep the wolves at bay and David leaves.
He doesn’t even unpack, just locks the doors and windows and lies down on the bed.
Abraham had drawn him a crude map on how to get to the castle. It’s about a days walk and he wonders why Abraham and Archie had stopped the first time that he’d met them when they were so close.
When he gets there it’s a flurry of activity and horses and people he doesn’t know.
He sees Archie in the courtyard and he’s walking slowly beside a young woman who must have some position of power since everyone else gives them a wide berth and bows when they approach her.
He waits for her to become engaged in conversation and slides up next to Archie when he stops to wait.
“I see you haven’t died a painful and messy death as of yet,” David says.
When Archie turns to look at him he’s smiling.
“Abraham said that he’d run into you a time or two,” Archie looks pleased, he looks like he’s blushing and he glances over at where the young woman is still deep in conversation like that might disguise it.
“Never had time enough to make it this far,” David says. “But I had a couple of days to kill, so…”
“Archie introduce me to your friend,” the young woman slides her hand into the curve of Archie’s elbow.
“Lord David Cook this is Her Royal Highness…”
“Archie you know better,” she scolds, interrupting him with an impish grin on her face. “I am Emilie, when we are not in the castle proper. You must be the David that Archie speaks of with such…”
“Your highness,” Archie’s scandalized voice makes an appearance. David wonders how long it took for Archie to be able to call this young woman Emilie instead of by her title.
He’s pretty sure that it’s an argument they’re still having.
“We’re having a ball this evening, visiting diplomats, it will most likely be long and boring. You should come and make sure that Archie dances like he’s supposed to.”
“I didn’t really bring anything like that to wear,” or at all, David thinks.
“I have four left feet, I don’t dance,” Archie states.
“We will find you something, my husband will be about your size I believe,” she snaps her fingers and guards appear from thin air surrounding them. “I believe we’re ready to return to the castle proper,” she says.
David doesn’t think he imagines the look of relief on the guards faces.
The queen is a force to be reckoned with.
Despite his protests she puts him up in a room and the king does turn out to be about his size so she has Archie deliver clothes for him to wear.
Archie blushes when he shows up at his door and blushes even more when David invites him in; he stammers some excuse and bolts.
It takes David nine years to figure out how to get one of the outfits together, he scrubs at his boots until they don’t look like he spent the day walking through the woods and when the knock comes at his door he follows the guard assigned to him to the ballroom.
Archie is dressed in blue and silver and he once more blushes when he sees David.
Emilie grins when she sees him.
Archie has a crush, and apparently everyone knows about it.
“He talked about you pretty much non-stop when he got here,” the king (call me William) is saying. “He said that you saved his life.”
“I didn’t really do anything, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
“Still, his mother is an old school friend of Emilie’s. We are indebted to you for making sure that he made it here safely.”
David wonders why, if Archie is the son of an old friend, he’d had only Abraham to protect him on his journey.
David looks out at where Archie had been tasked to dance with one of the queen’s nieces. He really can’t dance.
“We’re hoping to get him married off to someone of his choosing before it gets taken out of his hands,” the king looks at him with raised eyebrows and a knowing expression on his face.
David has no clue what the hell he’s talking about so he just nods in agreement.
“He’s turned everyone who has offered down, eventually one of them is just to going to take what they want and we’ll have to force the issue, he’s said that he’ll only say yes to one person, and though he’s not exactly identified that person I think we all know of who he speaks.”
“Well he should definitely have a choice in the matter at the very least, it’s his life after all,” David says. “That only seems fair, and I don’t think he would make a bad choice.”
The king nods emphatically.
“Emilie will be pleased to hear you say that,” William says. “She loves planning parties, and weddings are her most favorite event, unless it’s hers.”
“Did I hear something about a wedding?” Emilie asks, she appears at the kings’ side and David disguises a laugh with a cough when the king jumps.
“Lord Cook was just saying that Archie should of course have a choice in the matter of who he decides to give his hand to,” the king says.
Emilie grins; it’s a wild psychotic grin that David is pretty sure that he’s seen on Carly’s face when she’s scheming.
He doesn’t like it at all. It scares him a little. He doesn’t take a step back but only because it would look like he was getting ready to run away.
“That’s just wonderful, I should talk to Archie, we’ll want to do it as soon as possible,” Emilie has a vacant look in her face, like her mind is already a million miles away. David wonders if someone is going to tell him what the hell is going on.
“You said that you were only going to be here for the week?” Emilie says.
David nods slowly, unsure of what the correct answer is to that question. Not sure why it’s important.
Possibly coming to the castle had been a bad idea.
“We’ll have to make it a small wedding then, just those that already here,” Emilie twirls away heading in Archie’s direction.
The king is grinning and David has no clue what’s going on, he’s pretty sure that nothing he said could be construed as a marriage proposal and shouldn’t he have been asking Archie anyway?
He scratches his head and the king pats him on the back.
“Congratulations,” he says.
David just looks at him blankly. “Thanks?”
“What did you do?!” Archie is standing at his door; he doesn’t look scandalized at seeing David half-undressed. He’s too busy looking absolutely infuriated.
“I have no clue,” David says honestly.
“She thinks we’re getting married,” Archie says. His eyes are wide and look like they’re about to fall out of his head.
“I just said that you should have a choice in the matter,” David says.
“She hears what she wants to hear, so does he… I don’t want to get married, I can’t,” Archie cries.
David hears doors opening and grabs Archie’s arm and drags him into the room. He closes the door behind them and leans against it.
Archie paces a short distance, back again. He looks completely and utterly frazzled. He’s the most adorable thing David has ever seen, he sort of wants to fold him up and keep him in his pocket for luck.
“It’s not like I want to either,” David says. “Look I’m only here for a couple more days, can’t we just put them off until…”
“Until when, until you return and she can have had even more time to plan a bigger, lavisher spectacle where I can make a complete fool of myself?!”
“It’s not like I’m even going to be here that much, why do they think this is even the solution?”
“Because the thought is if I’m married then people will stop trying to drag me into the closets or stable to have their way with me.”
“I don’t think that’ll stop even if you’re married,” David says thoughtfully. “I mean you are kind of adorable.”
“Oh my gosh, you are completely not helping figure out a way for us to get out of it.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen whether we’re helping or not,” David says.
Emilie strikes him as the type to barrel full steam ahead regardless of her opposition.
The wedding happens two days later.
David is pretty sure that Archie had tried unsuccessfully a half dozen times to talk her off her wedding induced steam-roller. When that hadn’t worked he’d tried to bolt, David had walked in on one of the kings knights pulling a resisting Archie into a stable stall during his attempt and he might have saw red and hit him.
The knight not Archie.
Archie was engaged, you didn’t try to force yourself on someone who was promised to someone else even if neither one of them knew how they’d ended up promised or even wanted to be in the first place.
That was just not cool.
David is standing at the front of the chapel, the king had somehow ended up his best man and the queen is walking down the aisle right in front of Archie. She’s grinning and looking pleased with the entire world.
This completely can’t be real. Or happening. His mom will kill him if she finds out he got married and she wasn’t even at the wedding.
Abraham has got a death grip on Archie’s arm and if Archie gets any whiter he might manage to turn into a ghost at any possible second.
The women in attendance are already sobbing into their handkerchiefs, daintily brushing away tears. The men already look bored.
The wedding is long and David only realizes about halfway through that Archie isn’t really Archie’s first name. They have the same first name, which is kind of odd but whatever.
David-something-something-something-Archuleta is spoken by the priest and he’ll always be Archie to him so David just lets it go.
At the end of it rings are handed over to them to put on each others fingers. Archie’s hands are shaking and cold, his voice wavers when he says his vows. When David is given permission to kiss him he keeps it gentle and chaste.
He doesn’t think Archie can take much more, and he holds his hand as they walk back down the aisle.
He’s got a wedding night and then he’s supposed to leave the next day.
He’d delay leaving if he could, but Michael will completely flip out if he’s not back when he’s supposed to be.
The wedding night is simple, they have a party that is just shy of sixty people (kept small because Archie threatened mutiny if it was any bigger) and when darkness falls they’re pushed off to David’s room.
David is as gentle as possible, he’d thought about just letting Archie sleep but they’ll all know if they go down in the morning and haven’t consummated their marriage.
He doesn’t try anything fancy, he’s never really been in this position before and he lets Archie set his own pace, then takes over when he realizes that Archie will spend the whole night just kissing if David lets him.
When David is pretty sure that no one is going to think Archie a virgin when they walk down those stairs in the morning for Archie to say goodbye to him he lets Archie curl up on his side and cuddles up behind him.
He has a possessive hand lying on Archie’s hip, the room is still too warm for even sheets, though Archie keeps trying to protect his modesty by pulling them up. David is sweating; he pushes them back off again in short order.
He can see his wedding ring in the moonlight, shining against Archie’s skin.
He wonders if this is something that he should tell his parents about, he decides against it pretty quickly, it’s not like they’re ever going to get the opportunity to meet Archie after all.
Michael is there when he wakes up.
Michael scares the hell out of him when he wakes up, he rolls over his own bed and then falls off it when he hears the scream.
David will call it a scream, Michael will call it a manly yell. They will agree to disagree about it and there are only a few instances where David will bring it up and Michael will mutter under his breath about David appearing out of thin air.
David doesn’t bring it up very often. He doesn’t want to have to explain and Michael hadn’t believed him anyway, he’d given him some half-assed excuse that Michael was desperate to believe.
It takes him a day to notice the ring, and really Michael only drops the whole ‘appearing out of thin air’ thing because he’s worried that David managed to get himself hitched in the time he was gone.
“It’s a long story,” David says, he twists the ring on his hand; he should take it off before people that aren’t Michael see it and start asking questions.
“Does it have something to do with…” Michael waves his hand in the air and David shrugs.
“You’re sure a newly minted Mrs. David Cook isn’t going to be holding a press conference in a couple of days?” Michael asks.
“Highly unlikely,” David says. Archie would be a couple hundred years old, David’s pretty sure that’s not going to be a problem.
It takes him a month to go back. He’d almost wondered if he wasn’t going to, but he has two days off in a row and he puts the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on his door and he when he opens his eyes he’s there.
It only takes him a couple of hours to get there and there’s the usual bustle of people in the courtyard. The guards recognize him and take him to the queen almost immediately.
“Lord Cook,” she sounds surprised to see him and he narrows his eyes, but not in a way that could be construed as threatening. He’s slightly bothered by the fact that Archie isn’t hovering around her elbow looking pleased to see him.
“Archie said that he sent a letter off to you,” she says. She still sounds confused.
“A letter?” he asks. He doesn’t like where this is headed. He’d given Archie only the vaguest of ideas as to where his actual home was. He really hopes that he wasn’t silly enough to try and make a trip there on his own.
“His father took ill, Abraham took him home to be with his family several days after you left,” Emilie says.
“He did not say when he’d return, we’ve not received any letters from him since he left which has been troubling.”
“You’re sure he got there? I mean you know Archie, he pretty much attracts trouble.”
“I’m sure Abraham would have told us if they’d encountered difficulties,” Emilie says, though she doesn’t sound sure of that.
David shifts on his feet, something about this isn’t sitting completely right with him. He doesn’t like it at all.
There are several day trips after that where David tries to figure out where Archie has run off to.
Emilie has said that he returned home but David isn’t so sure.
He’s getting completely irritated and worried. There’s no sign of Abraham or Archie, none of the letters from the court are being returned but they’re not being answered either.
David is pretty sure that he’s dead; he takes the ring off and hides it in a box in the back of his dresser and tried to push Archie to the far recesses of his mind.
He only partially succeeds.
“Who signed us up for the Disney thing?” David asks.
It’s a joint project, the Idols and the kids from the very newest incarnation of MMC.
David finds it hilarious that these kids have their own shows and bounce all over the rest of their MMC counterparts shows, they have recording contracts and TV contracts and they probably make more in a year then David has in his entire life
Yet they have to do a joint concert with the Idols.
“I think it’s just one of those things,” Carly says, she’s flipping through a binder that the Disney group sent over.
It contains headshots and information on all the kids from MMC. David wonders if the MMC kids got the same information about them.
He doubts they care.
Carly tosses the binder in his lap and rubs a hand over his head. He bats her hand away and she laughs at him.
He doesn’t even intend to open the binder, it’s not like any of these kids are going to interact with them. He does just because, he’s bored, Carly and Michael are wrestling for the TV remote.
He should probably know at least what these kids look like.
In the cast photo they’re all amazingly young. They’ve got the requisite Mouse ears on and the old style sweaters with their names printed across them, he flips to the next page because he wants to see if they use the same cheesy sweaters in the individual headshots and drops the book.
Carly and Michael are both staring at him, he knows that. He’s staring at the very first picture in the binder.
His name is across his chest; his smile is innocent and happy and oh-so-familiar
He’s most definitely not a couple of hundred years old and David thinks suddenly about a wedding band hidden now in a box in the bottom of his suitcase.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 11:00 pm (UTC)I will most likely post over to Cookleta once all three parts are up.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-15 07:39 pm (UTC)