Not With A Bang
[American Idol/Supernatural] [David Archuleta/David Cook] [R]
Finally, finally done with one of Musicboxgirl's charity auction fics, though this is nothing like what she asked for, because I suck. /o\ Still, a small token to show everyone I owe fic to that I am working on their stuff, I promise!
Also, this might not make sense unless you've seen / know of Supernatural. I apologize in advance.
Not With A Bang
The earthquake hits twelve minutes after the news goes live.
Cook's on the phone with his mom, saying, "Yeah, well, I clearly got all the good genes in the family, so don't blame Andrew for his awesome spelling--" when the first tremors strike.
The clock jerks, and Cook swears when it crashes at his feet.
He hears the same thing, echoed over the line, and then a clash of piano keys, this desperate burst of noise. His mom's stopped laughing. "Dave--" she says. There's the same thread of heady fear in her voice that he's been listening to for the past five minutes.
"I'm here," Cook says.
"Oh my god," his mom says. Then he hears Andrew's voice in the background, slow and calm, and Jesus fuck, he's never been more thankful his kid brother has a good head on his shoulders. There's the sound of breaking glass, then, and his mom chokes back a sob. Cook's fingers curl bloodless around his phone.
"Hey," he says, fiercely. The lights flicker. "Hey, Mom. Ma, listen to me, it's gonna be okay. You hear me? It's gonna be fine. Andrew, get her out of there, and call me when--Andrew? Mom? Hello?"
Then the lights go out completely, and his mom is nothing but dead air, ringing in his ear.
"Fuck," Cook snarls. "Motherfucking--"
He hurls the phone across the room just as the second round of tremors surge in, more fiercely than the first. Something else crashes, and Cook flinches away. It's nine in the morning, and outside, the world's been consumed by darkness. Lightning streaks overhead like hellfire, too bright, and the sky spits hailstones, faster than any semi-automatic. The wind is howling, uprooting trees, cars, buildings, but even that's not enough to drown out the people, the screamingsobbingsuffering, all jumbled in this muted, endless sound wave.
The ground shifts beneath his feet, shudders and groans, and Cook jerks back, plasters himself against the wall when his TV set shatters, bleeding glass onto his carpet. The roof creaks, terrifyingly, and, oh god, let it hold, please let it hold--
Then, for a miraculous, cruel second, everything stops.
Cook lets out a shaky breath, lungs burning. He can still hear the destruction going on outside, windows cracking as hailstones hurtle against his house, but inside, it's so, so still.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing. Just -- there's no such thing as the fucking apocalypse, Jesus Christ. It's like being back at the hospital ward all over again, like Adam, like waiting for someone to spring out of the woodwork with Happy April Fools'! in the middle of October, put on a little bureaucratic song and dance, and ain't it amazing where your tax money goes?
Then Cook's window motherfucking explodes above him, showers him in splinters even as he hisses and rolls out, away. There's ice beating down on him, splitting skin like knives, and he can't--this isn't April fucking Fools' anymore. The screaming is so loud now, pulsing in the room, in his head. Cook staggers to his feet against the ambush of hysteria. This is insane.
Another window shatters, and Cook drops to his knees again, clenches his jaw. He's not going down like this; not going to be killed by a fucking window.
Cook stumbles to his feet again, makes a break for his bedroom. Inside, he yanks the covers onto the floor, taking it with him as he sweeps his bedside table clean. He can't see a damn thing as he does it, but there's no time to think about that. He drops everything into it, what feels like empty bottles, picture frames, maybe his ipod. He goes through the house methodically, the bathroom, the kitchen, the makeshift studio, takes down all the breakables he can find and shoves them into the growing pile at his feet. He goes back to the living room after he's done, stays as far away from the windows as he can, and shoves at his dark, oak-paneled bookcase till it tips and falls over, spread-eagle on top of his blanket.
He doesn't think about how he's just destroyed all but everything he's ever owned.
He sees a silhouette in his driveway, then, before he can move on to the next cabinet. When the lightning heats up the sky, Cook realizes it's a girl -- eighteen, maybe nineteen -- standing next to his Prius, fumbling with the door on the driver's side. Her mouth is moving, a litany of words Cook can't hear, and her face is streaked with blood and mud and tears.
Cook fumbles for his keys, yells out to her, "Hey!" and tosses them over. He turns away before he gets a response.
Fuck the apocalypse; she deserves a chance.
Cook gets back to work, groping his way around in the dark, the shouting and crying reverberating in his ears the whole time. It weighs him down, and he feels sluggish and awkward, when the third tremor hits so suddenly it slams him across the room, back into a wall. "Fuck," he swears. He thinks he sees stars, and when he presses his hand to his head, it comes away damp and sticky.
He swallows the nausea, and keeps at it, pushing down cabinets and bookcases, anything heavy, all of it, till there's nothing left standing but him.
Then he breaks out the salt, lines each door and window, quick and clean.
It's pitch black when the next tremors come, and Cook sinks to his knees in the middle of the room, a fire poker clasped between his hands.
He thinks about Archie.
He jerks at the knock on the door. His eyelids are heavy -- maybe he dozed off, he can't tell, no sense of time, or place; it could be months since the news, days, minutes. It's still dark out, and there's still screaming ringing in his ears, like the dial tone on the other end of the line, like his mom's muffled sob, or the stuttery hitch in Archie's voice as he whispered--
"Cook?"
Cook forgets how to breathe.
"Cook? Are you in there? Oh my gosh, I'm -- please, please don't be dead? Cook?"
Cook rises to his feet, clumsily, heart sledgehammering in his chest as he lunges for the door, wrenches it open.
Archie's slumped against it, and he falls into Cook when he startles. Cook's pulse staccatos, a painful jerk beneath his skin.
Out on the streets, beyond them, people are still fumbling their way through the dark like ghosts, cries stuck in their throats. There are bodies everywhere. A bolt of lightning flashes, once.
Archie looks up, then, eyes dark with tears and terror both, exhaustion bruising even darker beneath them. His skin is damp and splotchy, jaw as tense as his clenched fists. He looks terrible.
He's alive.
"Oh my gosh," Archie blurts, his fingers tightening in Cook's shirt. "Oh my gosh, Cook! You're not, I - the car wasn't here, and I've been knocking for so long, I -- I thought," Archie's voice dips, unsteadily, "I didn't think we'd--"
Cook's heart is in his throat as he swallows the rest of those words, grabs Archie's face in his hands and yanks him close, closer, still not close enough, goddammit, crushes their mouths together like this is the answer to everything, all of it. "Arch--" Cook breathes.
Archie whimpers, low and quiet, and surges up before Cook can finish, kissing back like he wants to give Cook everything, all the oxygen in the world and then some. Cook's stomach twists, hot and sweet, and when he slips his hands around Archie and hoists him up, Archie doesn't protest.
They stumble back into the house, and Cook can't wait anymore, doesn't want to, just shoves Archie back against the door to shut it. Archie's already struggling with his belt, his jeans, and they make quick work of it, shucking their clothes aside, and even without sight, it's easy.
He's mapped Archie's body a thousand times, with his hands, his mouth, his skin. He knows it - how it feels, how they fit - could recognize it in his sleep, and Archie leans into his touch like an addict, like always, digs his fingers into Cook's shoulderblades and lifts his hips, wanting.
And Cook gives in, listens to Archie's sharp inhale as he slams him back against the door. Feels Archie's pulse skip a beat when he does it again, once, twice. Cook's skin is on fire, his veins are burning, and he's already shaking with it, with need and want and more, more, Arch, god.
If it has to end, fuck, if it's going to end--
At least it ends like this.
"I love you," Cook whispers, into the curve of Archie's neck, and has to blink, hard and fast, when Archie starts trembling against him.
They're tangled up on the floor, later, when the next tremor hits. The ceiling sputters, raining dust and granite, and Cook grips Archie's wrist and listens to him pray till the world stops spinning out from under him.
He must doze off again, during, because when he opens his eyes next, the house is still, and Archie's half on top of him, one hand in his hair, the other curled across his chest. His mouth feels like cotton. "Arch?"
"You're bleeding. You didn't - I didn't know."
Cook winces, and waits for Archie's hand to fall. The next streak of lightning catches the horror on Archie's face. "It's okay," Cook murmurs. "I'm okay. It was an accident. I'm fine."
"Don't go back to sleep," Archie says. His voice sways, uncertain. "Okay?"
"Slavedriver," Cook says. Archie doesn't laugh. Cook gropes for Archie's hand in the dark, slowly, and doesn't ask how long he was out. "Yeah. Okay."
There's silence for a second, complete silence, and Cook suddenly realizes--the screaming's stopped. The screaming, and the chanting, and the crying-- "Hey," he says (ignores how his voice feels like it's echoing, because they can't be - the people out there--) "How'd you get here anyway?"
Archie swallows, hard, and Cook can practically feel the effort it takes for him to relax. "I wanted - I tried calling you," Archie says quietly, eventually. "But the lines were--and then the roads were all closed, so I, um, I walked."
"You walked?"
"It wasn't so bad?" Archie ventures. "It was only a couple of miles. But everyone was going the opposite direction, and my phone ran out of battery on the way here, so it got kind of creepy. But I made it, so."
"You made it," Cook repeats, incredulously. "Jesus Christ, Archuleta. It's dark as hell out there."
"Oh my gosh, what was I supposed to do?" Archie says, defensively. "Not come?"
Cook raises an eyebrow. "You realize you could've been killed on the way over, right?"
"Um, whatever, you almost got killed in your own house," Archie retorts, his free hand slipping back into Cook's hair almost absently. "You're totally not allowed to judge right now."
Despite himself, Cook grins.
"It's not funny," Archie adds, a second later, fingers twitching.
"No, it's not," Cook agrees, smile softening. "I'm glad you're here, Arch."
There's a loud sigh from outside one of the windows, then, and Cook can practically hear the eyeroll that comes with it. "That's great, guys, I'm happy for you. But if you two lovebirds are done exchanging your eternal vows, I'm thinking it's time we get the hell out of Apocalypse City."
It takes a second to register the voice, but then Cook pushes himself up on an elbow and turns towards the source. "Holy shit."
"Not quite," Dean says, but he's grinning as he lowers his flashlight.
Sam's smile is a little wan, but it's there. "Hey, Dave."
"Um," Archie says.
"Jesus," Cook says, drinking them in. "Get the hell in here."
It takes a while for the boys to explain how they found their new Angel sidekick ("Castiel's a little fuzzy on the concept of personal space, but we're working on it."), and even longer to lay out the whole Angels-and-Demons-are-warring-for-control-over-the-world thing ("It's messy, man, like Noah's Ark without the ark."), which would be nerve-wracking enough without Archie silent and plastered against his side, and Sam pacing the room wall-to-wall as Dean talks.
"Uh," Cook says, when it's over.
"I know," Dean says. "Trust me, I know. The whole thing's screwed nine ways from Sunday. But we don't have time for questions, man. I don't even know how you're still breathing when the rest of the town is six feet under, but I'd kinda like to keep it that way."
"Um," Archie says. "That would be awesome."
"Right?" Dean says. He tilts his head in Sam's direction, pitching his voice (unnecessarily) louder. "And sitting around waiting to get caught in another round of angel-demon crossfire while Cas checks out his new lead on God doesn't seem like the best game plan."
"Dean," Sam says. Cook doesn't need any light to recognize the pinched expression he's wearing. "Can I talk to you for a second? In private?"
Cook turns to Archie when they disappear outside, Dean grumbling under his breath the entire time. "You okay?"
"Um," Archie says, faintly. "I don't know yet?" But he still has one hand, warm and firm, on the base of Cook's neck, and for the first time, Cook thinks this might turn out okay.
"Okay," he says, when the Winchesters trudge back inside a couple of seconds later, clearly having made some sort of uneasy truce. "What do we do now?"
"Well," Dean says, exchanging a look with Sam. "First we gotta get that head stitched up. Then we can talk about how to kick some Angel ass."
"Oh my gosh," Archie says.
Cook grins, mirthlessly. "We're in."
Finally, finally done with one of Musicboxgirl's charity auction fics, though this is nothing like what she asked for, because I suck. /o\ Still, a small token to show everyone I owe fic to that I am working on their stuff, I promise!
Also, this might not make sense unless you've seen / know of Supernatural. I apologize in advance.
Not With A Bang
The earthquake hits twelve minutes after the news goes live.
Cook's on the phone with his mom, saying, "Yeah, well, I clearly got all the good genes in the family, so don't blame Andrew for his awesome spelling--" when the first tremors strike.
The clock jerks, and Cook swears when it crashes at his feet.
He hears the same thing, echoed over the line, and then a clash of piano keys, this desperate burst of noise. His mom's stopped laughing. "Dave--" she says. There's the same thread of heady fear in her voice that he's been listening to for the past five minutes.
"I'm here," Cook says.
"Oh my god," his mom says. Then he hears Andrew's voice in the background, slow and calm, and Jesus fuck, he's never been more thankful his kid brother has a good head on his shoulders. There's the sound of breaking glass, then, and his mom chokes back a sob. Cook's fingers curl bloodless around his phone.
"Hey," he says, fiercely. The lights flicker. "Hey, Mom. Ma, listen to me, it's gonna be okay. You hear me? It's gonna be fine. Andrew, get her out of there, and call me when--Andrew? Mom? Hello?"
Then the lights go out completely, and his mom is nothing but dead air, ringing in his ear.
"Fuck," Cook snarls. "Motherfucking--"
He hurls the phone across the room just as the second round of tremors surge in, more fiercely than the first. Something else crashes, and Cook flinches away. It's nine in the morning, and outside, the world's been consumed by darkness. Lightning streaks overhead like hellfire, too bright, and the sky spits hailstones, faster than any semi-automatic. The wind is howling, uprooting trees, cars, buildings, but even that's not enough to drown out the people, the screamingsobbingsuffering, all jumbled in this muted, endless sound wave.
The ground shifts beneath his feet, shudders and groans, and Cook jerks back, plasters himself against the wall when his TV set shatters, bleeding glass onto his carpet. The roof creaks, terrifyingly, and, oh god, let it hold, please let it hold--
Then, for a miraculous, cruel second, everything stops.
Cook lets out a shaky breath, lungs burning. He can still hear the destruction going on outside, windows cracking as hailstones hurtle against his house, but inside, it's so, so still.
Nothing makes sense. Nothing. Just -- there's no such thing as the fucking apocalypse, Jesus Christ. It's like being back at the hospital ward all over again, like Adam, like waiting for someone to spring out of the woodwork with Happy April Fools'! in the middle of October, put on a little bureaucratic song and dance, and ain't it amazing where your tax money goes?
Then Cook's window motherfucking explodes above him, showers him in splinters even as he hisses and rolls out, away. There's ice beating down on him, splitting skin like knives, and he can't--this isn't April fucking Fools' anymore. The screaming is so loud now, pulsing in the room, in his head. Cook staggers to his feet against the ambush of hysteria. This is insane.
Another window shatters, and Cook drops to his knees again, clenches his jaw. He's not going down like this; not going to be killed by a fucking window.
Cook stumbles to his feet again, makes a break for his bedroom. Inside, he yanks the covers onto the floor, taking it with him as he sweeps his bedside table clean. He can't see a damn thing as he does it, but there's no time to think about that. He drops everything into it, what feels like empty bottles, picture frames, maybe his ipod. He goes through the house methodically, the bathroom, the kitchen, the makeshift studio, takes down all the breakables he can find and shoves them into the growing pile at his feet. He goes back to the living room after he's done, stays as far away from the windows as he can, and shoves at his dark, oak-paneled bookcase till it tips and falls over, spread-eagle on top of his blanket.
He doesn't think about how he's just destroyed all but everything he's ever owned.
He sees a silhouette in his driveway, then, before he can move on to the next cabinet. When the lightning heats up the sky, Cook realizes it's a girl -- eighteen, maybe nineteen -- standing next to his Prius, fumbling with the door on the driver's side. Her mouth is moving, a litany of words Cook can't hear, and her face is streaked with blood and mud and tears.
Cook fumbles for his keys, yells out to her, "Hey!" and tosses them over. He turns away before he gets a response.
Fuck the apocalypse; she deserves a chance.
Cook gets back to work, groping his way around in the dark, the shouting and crying reverberating in his ears the whole time. It weighs him down, and he feels sluggish and awkward, when the third tremor hits so suddenly it slams him across the room, back into a wall. "Fuck," he swears. He thinks he sees stars, and when he presses his hand to his head, it comes away damp and sticky.
He swallows the nausea, and keeps at it, pushing down cabinets and bookcases, anything heavy, all of it, till there's nothing left standing but him.
Then he breaks out the salt, lines each door and window, quick and clean.
It's pitch black when the next tremors come, and Cook sinks to his knees in the middle of the room, a fire poker clasped between his hands.
He thinks about Archie.
He jerks at the knock on the door. His eyelids are heavy -- maybe he dozed off, he can't tell, no sense of time, or place; it could be months since the news, days, minutes. It's still dark out, and there's still screaming ringing in his ears, like the dial tone on the other end of the line, like his mom's muffled sob, or the stuttery hitch in Archie's voice as he whispered--
"Cook?"
Cook forgets how to breathe.
"Cook? Are you in there? Oh my gosh, I'm -- please, please don't be dead? Cook?"
Cook rises to his feet, clumsily, heart sledgehammering in his chest as he lunges for the door, wrenches it open.
Archie's slumped against it, and he falls into Cook when he startles. Cook's pulse staccatos, a painful jerk beneath his skin.
Out on the streets, beyond them, people are still fumbling their way through the dark like ghosts, cries stuck in their throats. There are bodies everywhere. A bolt of lightning flashes, once.
Archie looks up, then, eyes dark with tears and terror both, exhaustion bruising even darker beneath them. His skin is damp and splotchy, jaw as tense as his clenched fists. He looks terrible.
He's alive.
"Oh my gosh," Archie blurts, his fingers tightening in Cook's shirt. "Oh my gosh, Cook! You're not, I - the car wasn't here, and I've been knocking for so long, I -- I thought," Archie's voice dips, unsteadily, "I didn't think we'd--"
Cook's heart is in his throat as he swallows the rest of those words, grabs Archie's face in his hands and yanks him close, closer, still not close enough, goddammit, crushes their mouths together like this is the answer to everything, all of it. "Arch--" Cook breathes.
Archie whimpers, low and quiet, and surges up before Cook can finish, kissing back like he wants to give Cook everything, all the oxygen in the world and then some. Cook's stomach twists, hot and sweet, and when he slips his hands around Archie and hoists him up, Archie doesn't protest.
They stumble back into the house, and Cook can't wait anymore, doesn't want to, just shoves Archie back against the door to shut it. Archie's already struggling with his belt, his jeans, and they make quick work of it, shucking their clothes aside, and even without sight, it's easy.
He's mapped Archie's body a thousand times, with his hands, his mouth, his skin. He knows it - how it feels, how they fit - could recognize it in his sleep, and Archie leans into his touch like an addict, like always, digs his fingers into Cook's shoulderblades and lifts his hips, wanting.
And Cook gives in, listens to Archie's sharp inhale as he slams him back against the door. Feels Archie's pulse skip a beat when he does it again, once, twice. Cook's skin is on fire, his veins are burning, and he's already shaking with it, with need and want and more, more, Arch, god.
If it has to end, fuck, if it's going to end--
At least it ends like this.
"I love you," Cook whispers, into the curve of Archie's neck, and has to blink, hard and fast, when Archie starts trembling against him.
They're tangled up on the floor, later, when the next tremor hits. The ceiling sputters, raining dust and granite, and Cook grips Archie's wrist and listens to him pray till the world stops spinning out from under him.
He must doze off again, during, because when he opens his eyes next, the house is still, and Archie's half on top of him, one hand in his hair, the other curled across his chest. His mouth feels like cotton. "Arch?"
"You're bleeding. You didn't - I didn't know."
Cook winces, and waits for Archie's hand to fall. The next streak of lightning catches the horror on Archie's face. "It's okay," Cook murmurs. "I'm okay. It was an accident. I'm fine."
"Don't go back to sleep," Archie says. His voice sways, uncertain. "Okay?"
"Slavedriver," Cook says. Archie doesn't laugh. Cook gropes for Archie's hand in the dark, slowly, and doesn't ask how long he was out. "Yeah. Okay."
There's silence for a second, complete silence, and Cook suddenly realizes--the screaming's stopped. The screaming, and the chanting, and the crying-- "Hey," he says (ignores how his voice feels like it's echoing, because they can't be - the people out there--) "How'd you get here anyway?"
Archie swallows, hard, and Cook can practically feel the effort it takes for him to relax. "I wanted - I tried calling you," Archie says quietly, eventually. "But the lines were--and then the roads were all closed, so I, um, I walked."
"You walked?"
"It wasn't so bad?" Archie ventures. "It was only a couple of miles. But everyone was going the opposite direction, and my phone ran out of battery on the way here, so it got kind of creepy. But I made it, so."
"You made it," Cook repeats, incredulously. "Jesus Christ, Archuleta. It's dark as hell out there."
"Oh my gosh, what was I supposed to do?" Archie says, defensively. "Not come?"
Cook raises an eyebrow. "You realize you could've been killed on the way over, right?"
"Um, whatever, you almost got killed in your own house," Archie retorts, his free hand slipping back into Cook's hair almost absently. "You're totally not allowed to judge right now."
Despite himself, Cook grins.
"It's not funny," Archie adds, a second later, fingers twitching.
"No, it's not," Cook agrees, smile softening. "I'm glad you're here, Arch."
There's a loud sigh from outside one of the windows, then, and Cook can practically hear the eyeroll that comes with it. "That's great, guys, I'm happy for you. But if you two lovebirds are done exchanging your eternal vows, I'm thinking it's time we get the hell out of Apocalypse City."
It takes a second to register the voice, but then Cook pushes himself up on an elbow and turns towards the source. "Holy shit."
"Not quite," Dean says, but he's grinning as he lowers his flashlight.
Sam's smile is a little wan, but it's there. "Hey, Dave."
"Um," Archie says.
"Jesus," Cook says, drinking them in. "Get the hell in here."
It takes a while for the boys to explain how they found their new Angel sidekick ("Castiel's a little fuzzy on the concept of personal space, but we're working on it."), and even longer to lay out the whole Angels-and-Demons-are-warring-for-control-over-the-world thing ("It's messy, man, like Noah's Ark without the ark."), which would be nerve-wracking enough without Archie silent and plastered against his side, and Sam pacing the room wall-to-wall as Dean talks.
"Uh," Cook says, when it's over.
"I know," Dean says. "Trust me, I know. The whole thing's screwed nine ways from Sunday. But we don't have time for questions, man. I don't even know how you're still breathing when the rest of the town is six feet under, but I'd kinda like to keep it that way."
"Um," Archie says. "That would be awesome."
"Right?" Dean says. He tilts his head in Sam's direction, pitching his voice (unnecessarily) louder. "And sitting around waiting to get caught in another round of angel-demon crossfire while Cas checks out his new lead on God doesn't seem like the best game plan."
"Dean," Sam says. Cook doesn't need any light to recognize the pinched expression he's wearing. "Can I talk to you for a second? In private?"
Cook turns to Archie when they disappear outside, Dean grumbling under his breath the entire time. "You okay?"
"Um," Archie says, faintly. "I don't know yet?" But he still has one hand, warm and firm, on the base of Cook's neck, and for the first time, Cook thinks this might turn out okay.
"Okay," he says, when the Winchesters trudge back inside a couple of seconds later, clearly having made some sort of uneasy truce. "What do we do now?"
"Well," Dean says, exchanging a look with Sam. "First we gotta get that head stitched up. Then we can talk about how to kick some Angel ass."
"Oh my gosh," Archie says.
Cook grins, mirthlessly. "We're in."