ANTIQUE--PART 2 (AMERICAN IDOL AU)
Antique (PART 2/?)
AU. "The good news was that he wasn't late for the meeting yet. The bad news was that the meeting was supposed to start in two minutes."
Rating: T (language, use of alcohol, character death)
Pairings: admiration!Kradam, Kraty, friendship!Kris/David C.
Notes: The initial idea was inspired by the antique shop in "Whispers of the Heart" (which if you haven't seen, you should, cause it's probably one of the best Studio Ghibli movies ever), but that's where the similarities end
Warnings: When I say this is alternate universe, I MEAN alternate universe. For example, David Cook is an old man in this story. Yup, I'm serious. If that is any indication to you of how alternate this universe is and you are weirded out by it, then don't read this. TYFYT.
2a. MID-SEPTEMBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (FIRST VISIT)
Kris slumped back into his seat on the bus, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he gazed out at the campus disappearing behind him. Today was his first day as a volunteer with the community outreach group at school and he didn't want to be late. He had been assigned to socialize with a needy elderly man about ten minutes away from his dorm, and if Kris had ever learned anything in the past, it was that angry elderly men were some of the most terrifying beings that one could ever encounter in their lifetime. After a day of studying and rushing homework for tonight's advanced accounting class, the last thing Kris needed was to face an angry elderly man.
His cell phone rang in his pocket and he quickly picked it up to see who was calling. Kris smiled when he saw Katy's name on the caller I.D. Had it been anyone else, he probably would not have been in the mood to pick up the phone at this point, but for Katy he would definitely make an exception.
"Hey, Kris, I just wanted to say hi before I went out of town," she said.
Kris could hear her smile even through the phone. It was one of the many things he loved that about her. It always cheered him up, even on crummy days like these.
"Have a good time with your family," he replied, covering his mouth and the phone receiver with his hand.
"I'll be sure to. And Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't stress out over your English essay, okay?"
Kris's smile dropped. He had completely forgotten about that essay.
"I won't."
"I've got to go. Mum's here. Bye, Kris. I love you."
"I love you too, Katy."
Both of them promptly hung up, and for Kris it couldn't have come at a better time. He remembered all of the progress he had done on the English essay as he shoved his phone back into his pocket:
None.
He seriously had too much on his mind at the moment, and it wasn't even a full month into the school year yet. Everything was pissing him off today: algebra, the fact that it was ninety degrees in the middle of September, his non-existent English essay. Hell, even this visit to a stranger was kind of pissing him off. He had so much to do right now, yet he signed up to be part of the outreach program on the first week of school thinking he'd actually have time to do it.
He knew he shouldn't have let Danny Gokey pressure him into signing up at the Extra Curricular Fair.
Soon enough, Kris's stop came. He practically sprinted off the bus, nearly tripping as he hit the sidewalk. It wasn't a particularly cozy place in the city, but it was far from the worst. Kris was able to ignore the pitiful faces of the three homeless folks sitting at the corner with a hat holding pocket change.
As the student began to walk farther up the street, it seemed that some of the more posh people lived on this street, contrary to the introduction of the homeless folks at the beginning. There were granite entryways and lush flowers in front of nearly every single house. Some of them even had black fences protecting their homes from the outside. It was making Kris seriously begin to wonder about who exactly he was going to visit and how needy they really were.
He pulled out the small slip of paper he had written the address on, squinting his eyes as he struggled to decipher his own scribbles.
"186 Skyline Avenue..."
He suddenly stopped, realizing he had already passed the building about a block ago. As he was running back, he checked his cell phone. The good news was that he wasn't late for the meeting yet. The bad news was that the meeting was supposed to start in two minutes. Kris sprinted desperately up the street, ignoring the strange looks people gave him as he passed them all by in a flurry.
Thankfully, he made it to the man's house, and by some miracle he managed it without tripping up the stairs. He shyly knocked on the door. Once, then twice. When no response came, he tried the doorbell. Nothing seemed to work, but when he went to open the door, the worn knob began to creak and turn mysteriously. Kris swallowed what pride he had left as the door began to swing open.
"So you survived. I thought for sure you had died or something."
Kris sighed as he looked at the old man in front of him. "You must be Mr. Cook."
"I hate fancy fucking monikers. Just call me David."
They both entered the house. David was astoundingly quick for an eighty-something year old man, slamming the front door behind them with little effort. Kris couldn't fit in much time to take in his surroundings because of the older man's fast pace, but from what he could figure out, David definitely must have earned a high amount of money in his life at one point or another. There were a couple of Modern style paintings on the walls and there were a couple of plaques at the end of the hall. The student could have also sworn that he spotted a dog around here somewhere, but it was just as quick as David.
"So you're the volunteer?" David absentmindedly asked as he led him into the kitchen.
"Yes, I am, sir." The older man gestured towards a stool at the counter, which Kris climbed up into. "I'm Kris Allen."
"Wait, please pardon me," Cook pleaded, adjusting a hearing aid. "Did you say your name was Raz Sallen?"
"NO, SIR, MY NAME IS KRIS. ALLEN. WITH A 'K'," the student repeated loudly, extending each syllable as if he were about to spit. He took note of the hearing aids in Cook's ears for future consideration.
"You want a beer, Kris?" Cook produced two beer bottles from his refrigerator, raising them in the air as if they were the next Holy Grail.
"I really shouldn't, David..."
Cook's eyebrows were arched as a wide smile spread across his face. "I guess that's more for me then!"
"Are you sure you should be having all that?" Kris was standing on the bottom support beams for the granite counter, leaning over on his elbows as he watched David chug a third of the first beer in five seconds flat.
"Don't worry about me, kid. I can take care of myself." Cook rolled his eyes as he polished off the first bottle, putting it in the sink and opening the next one. "Stupid kids, thinking I need help just because I'm eighty-eight years young. Why did they even send you here anyway?"
Kris's eyebrows shot up. There were a lot of things he didn't expect, but that question was way out of left field. "To be honest, I don't know myself. You seem pretty capable to me."
"Damn right, I'm capable! Two Grammy awards back in 1971 and some other awards and shit and the adoration of stalkers and real fans alike. If I didn't die from those stalkers who kept sneaking onto my tour bus back in '82, then I can survive anything." Kris watched both in amusement and horror as David finished the second beer and pulled a third one out of the refrigerator. He was tempted to cut in and mention that he was experimenting with the guitar, but then the old man continued his tirade in between gulps of his drink. "Oh, and then there was that time my groupies tried fighting the security guards in '85 on one of my last concerts."
"They tried fighting the security guards?"
"Tried and failed, kid. Tried and failed." There went the third empty bottle into the sink. "They might have been belligerent, those old stalkers, but my security was more belligerent. Ended up getting those cows black and blue. I was surprised that they didn't break anything."
"Didn't you feel sorry for them though?"
"I'm not going to lie, I didn't feel bad then. Those stalkers had been following me for nearly the entire tour. They had been ruining the concerts for other fans. They screamed obscenities in the mics backstage. They started fights with other fans when they tried taking their spots. They even sat outside for hours on end before the concert just so they could get front row."
"Why didn't you do something about them earlier though?"
"Because I was too sympathetic. I felt sorry for them." The fourth beer was halfway gone already. "Maybe if I had done something earlier though, things wouldn't have played out the way they did."
Kris shook his head, yanking the fifth beer bottle from Cook's hand. "You've had enough of those."
David stared at the student with bloodshot eyes, his brows burrowing together. Kris almost ran away, because the old man's face was monstrous when contorted in anger. It was as if his face was buried in wrinkles and his paper-like hands were covered in veins and vessels. His bottom lip stuck out just slightly in an almost childish pout as he slumped over the sink.
"Maybe I really am getting old."
"You're just getting better with age, just like wine," Kris offered, placing a hand on David's bony shoulder.
"...I hate wine."
2b. LATE-OCTOBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (EIGHTH VISIT)
Kris wasn't sure if he should really go back to David Cook's residence after his disastrous first visit. It was the sort of things that Hollywood writers would parody in their films: David, after continuing to ramble about how his fans ruined the end of his career and how he felt so old and decrepit and how he didn't really want that blasted kid there in his house, passed out after having one too many on the kitchen floor. Kris had just gone to grab something from the living room for David while the old man snuck a fifth beer behind his back. After Cook passed out, Kris had dragged him onto the couch in the living room, sat him upright, and then took all the alcohol he found and poured it down the sink.
It wasn't like the old man needed to go to the hospital or anything drastic like that, but the travesty didn't go over so well with Danny Gokey when Kris explained the situation. Gokey didn't fire him from the volunteer work, but Kris knew he was on a thin line now. Even after taking a week's break from visiting Cook at Gokey's request, there was still that risk of getting fired.
Ever since that first visit, David had apologized for getting drunk, noting that he was nervous about having a stranger in his house and that he hoped that he hadn't really scared off Kris yet. The student, being as easygoing as he was, simply laughed it off and they simply started anew again. They quickly became good friends, with the student even coming to visit the old man when it wasn't time to do volunteer work.
They told each other nearly everything--Kris about Katy, his life before he started college and the two mission trips he had been on, David went on about the glory times of his music career, his trips around the world on tour and his love of puzzles. However, one thing that Kris hadn't gotten David to open up about yet was his family and why he had stopped playing the guitar. Every time there was even a mere mention of them, David would pull beer out of nowhere and start drinking again. Sometimes Kris would even walk in on David drinking and going on a tirade about nothing.
That was why on this particular visit Kris was relieved to find David sitting in an armchair poring over a crossword puzzle.. Upon further inspection, he also spotted a Sudoku booklet sitting on the small table next to him and a pen with a chewed cap.
"Having any luck with your puzzle?" Kris asked, standing over David's shoulder. He tried making out some of the writing, but between Cook's age and his already messy handwriting, he couldn't read any of it.
"I'm doing just fine. I've been doing these things since I was your age."
"Really?"
"Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but you get my point." Cook folded up the newspaper and put it on the table with the Sudoku puzzle in a neat little pile. He closed his eyes and leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes as he pointed towards the closet across the room with a gnarled finger. "My guitar should be in there. Could you go fetch it?"
Without another word, Kris practically dived into the closet and rummaged through it, pushing jackets out of the way. There were some cardboard boxes that he had to push through as well, but there in the back was a guitar case. The student brushed the dust off of it as he grabbed it and placed the guitar on the couch. Both him and David stood over it, simply marveling at the awkward beauty of the worn exterior of the case. The old man slowly, slowly reached towards the clasps, unlocking the case and revealing the guitar.
"I haven't played this thing in years," he admitted, pulling the guitar out of the case and stroking the strings. "I didn't want to after she died a couple of years back."
"She?"
"She who was Mrs. Cook," David simply said, adjusting the guitar strings, strumming them quietly to tune them. "It's not like we were close after I went into music, but she was my wife for awhile and I can't deny that." Kris stared at David, arching a brow.
"How couldn't you be close? You two were married. There must have been something going on?"
There was a brief pause as David adjusted the strings. It lasted so long that Kris didn't think he would get some sort of answer, but the old man spoke up soon enough.
"Of course there was." The D-string needed dire tightening. "We were married for a good twenty or thirty years before she got sick of me." Now the D-string was way too tight. "We got married in May 1938 and things were fantastic. By the time I hit my early fifties though, I wasn't feeling like I was in the right place anymore. You could easily say I had a mid-life crisis."
"A mid-life crisis? You mean...you went into music when you were in your fifties? Isn't that a bit old?"
"Nobody is too old for a mid-life crisis. And a lot of people say it's never too late to start dreaming. I have to admit, I never was into the whole Elvis craze back then, but his music did interest me...but I didn't think that Mrs. Cook would want me dabbling in music, so I kept my job as a salesman."
Kris couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't quite imagine David as a salesman. He just didn't seem like the type who would enjoy going up to people's doors and asking them to buy random crap. "So you were a salesman? When did you pick up the guitar?"
"Well, the guitar I'd been playing before then. I ended up not getting drafted into the war, so I guess the guitar was the next best thing when my friends were gone. Gave me plenty of time to practice and when they did come back, I could show off for them."
The student sighed quietly. He wasn't the type to show off the guitar to his friends that often, even when they asked him to. He had grown up a lot from that shy little boy who danced to Michael Jackson in secret, but he still choked up occasionally if he was singing anything really personal. Why couldn't he be more like Mr. Cook, showing off for his friends at every opportune moment?
"Back then, the wife was okay with the guitar playing. She actually found it nice. But then 1968 rolled around...my brother, Adam, had been struggling with cancer for the last five or six years...If there was anything I learned from his death, it was that I needed to start living life to the fullest."
"But weren't you already living life to the fullest? You had a wife...you must have had kids." David scoffed as he strummed the strings on the guitar he had been adjusting, finally satisfied with the sound that they were producing.
"I don't talk to them anymore. They sided with their mother on everything and the divorce was no different." David handed the guitar over to Kris, eyes hopeful. "Do you play?" Kris's eyes lit up he let the weight of the guitar fall into his hands. His left hand felt along the weathered wood of the guitar, drifting up towards the strings.
"I started teaching myself when I was younger," he announced with a childish grin, playing a series of chords.
"I'll be damned. I got a kid who can play guitar," David noted with a chuckle, handing a guitar pick to Kris. "Anyway, though, long story short, I realized that the only way I could live life to the fullest was if I quit my salesman job and went into the music business."
"And then your wife broke up with you."
Cook half-smiled bitterly.
"Exactly."
There was another pause as Kris played more chords on the guitar, humming as his fingers traveled higher along the frets. At that moment after hearing about David's mid-life crisis, he couldn't help but remember the piece of advice he received from that shopkeeper when he was younger:
"If you want to fit in, then that is all you will ever accomplish in life...You never learn anything by fitting in...'" Kris trailed off, biting his lip as he closed his eyes thinking. He hated thinking because usually it either caused him to lose part of his mind, make a change he really wasn't ready for or all of the above. He tried to block it out, try to start singing along to the guitar, but David placed a heavy palm on the strings, stopping the half-baked melody that Kris had been trying to create.
"Where did you hear that?"
The student swallowed, putting down the guitar. "A shopkeeper I met when I was younger...I can't remember his name though." The old man reclined, his eyebrows going back to normal.
"Well, that's good advice. Follow it."
The two of them stopped talking for awhile, trading the guitar back and forth and playing for each other. Kris would try to teach David some chords for some more modern songs while David would critique Kris on his technique, adjust his fingers to produce the right sound. Time just seemed to fly by, each hour feeling like a mere minute. By the time Kris checked his watch, he realized that he was supposed to leave ten minutes ago. He even almost stood up to leave, but then he saw Cook's eyes grow depressingly distant. He almost couldn't bear to leave the old man behind yet.
"You don't really have to go, do you, Kris? This is the most fun I've had in awhile." David's eyes darted around the room, as if he was trying to come up with some sort of excuse for Kris to stay.
"I can stay for a bit longer." Kris sat back down cross-legged on the floor, and listened to David strum his guitar with a vigor that he had never seen anyone play with before.
"I'm glad you're around, Kris," David admitted, finishing this chord with a flourish. "I usually can't tell anyone about my family and..." David trailed off, looking down at the wooden floor and unable to quite finish his sentence.
"Yeah?"
The old man looked back up, gazing at Kris right in the eye for the first time since they had first met.
"It's not like I've had volunteers before, but they were never friends. Thank you for being a friend...Hell, thank you for being like the son I never had.."
That sentimental feeling hit Kris too, which was unusual for the socially jaded student.
"I should thank you too."
2c. DECEMBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (SEVENTEENH VISIT)
David had slowed down so much within the months that Kris knew him. It's not like he had to go on oxygen yet, but things definitely took him longer now. His gait and his step were more sluggish, slower. He would zone out at random intervals, causing Kris to have to repeat things to him. Their jam sessions on the guitar grew shorter, as David's arms would tire out quicker.
Kris was scared.
He brought in some black coffee for the old man, who was comfortably wrapped up in a blanket in the armchair. Kris had ended up doing some chores around the house for David, sweeping and doing the dishes, because the old man would tire out from all of those too.
Kris almost wanted to cry into Katy's shoulder, because this old man who was like his second father was failing. He could tell that David wasn't faking it, because David was the sort who wouldn't fake something like this. He didn't want other people helping him. The fact that David was now asking for help for simple everyday things...it made Kris worried.
"Stop frowning, Kris, you get to do plenty of that when you're older," David ordered, a sly smile on his face. "Wouldn't want to ruin that comely face of yours with wrinkles this early in life." The student chuckled at this remark as the old man set the mug down on the table.
"Anything else you need me to do around here?"
David hummed, placing a hand on his chin and scratching his grey facial hair in thought. "Why don't you dust around here? The dust has been bothering me lately and it hasn't been done in at least three weeks."
"Sounds good to me."
Kris gathered a dust rag and some cleaner and set to work, starting with the shelves and the tables around the house. As a child, he liked trying to analyze people by what they had in their homes and this was no different. Noticing everything around the house made him realize that he really had missed out on a lot when he first met David, such as the lack of family photos around and the dictionary tucked away next to the television. Kris even finally spotted the dog that he thought he had seen on his first visit hiding in a guest bedroom and curled up under the bed.
What Kris couldn't believe, however, was David's bedroom.
The bed, as he had predicted, as unmade. He fluffed the pillows and straightened out the sky blue sheets and the cream colored comforter. He wiped down the walnut bed frame and was about to start the dresser when he noticed something out of place in the ex-musician's home:
Knick-knacks.
They weren't just knick-knacks like the plaques that hung on his walls in the hallway nor were they like the two lone Grammy status on his shelf next to the bookshelf. These were older looking knick-knacks, as if they'd been passed down in the family. There was a chipped bowl that had carved swans on it to the left. In the middle, there was an obsidian colored jewelry box.
Kris opened the lid as quietly as he could and perused the contents.
There was a pearl necklace in one corner with a black and white photo next to it. In the photo there was a petite blonde woman dangling off the arm of a well-built man in wedding attire. Kris could only assume that this couple had been Mr. and Mrs. Cook back in their hey-day. He couldn't help but notice the smiles on their faces as they were being sprinkled with rice, and how they could have drifted apart so terribly. Secretly, the young man hoped that the same thing wasn't happening to him and Katy.
Alongside the photo and there pearl necklace, there was a broach with a gem missing. Next to it was a cigar and a ticket of some kind--most presumably from a theater show that David and his wife had attended back in the 1950s. Lastly, there was a copper coat button tucked into the corner. Kris held it up to the light and noticed that it was beginning to go green around the edges...it was starting to grow old...He shook his head as he put it back and closed the jewelry box, shifting his attention to the knick-knack on the right.
Kris's eyes widened in recognition at the third knick-knack.
"Adam..." he trailed off, picking up his old friend once more. "It's me. It's Kris. Do you remember me?" He whispered right into the figurine's ear, kissing it on the forehead.
The last time he picked up Adam, he was a nine year old boy in the old antique shop in one of the smaller towns over from Conway. He couldn't always remember every single detail from that day, but time could never smudge the memory of the feeling he had when he first held Adam in his small hands. The feeling was washing over him in a tidal wave now, that loving feeling of familiarity and nostalgia.
Kris walked over to the window, pulling aside the curtain and gazing at Adam in the light. Thankfully he was still in the same condition he was when he saw him all those years ago. His sapphire eyes were just as brilliant in the light now as they were then, if not more so. Kris caressed the wooden face with his thumb, pondering how someone on Earth could have created something so beautiful, that God must have had something to do with Adam's conception.
The student looked over at the door, clutching Adam to his chest as he contemplated going out and asking David about Adam. Part of him was against it because he didn't want David to think that he was some kind of snoop who poked around where he wasn't wanted. On the other hand, he kind of wanted to learn how David had obtained Adam and if he had taken care of him. What would David want with a figurine like Adam anyway?
"That doll is nice, isn't it?" David asked from the doorway, causing Kris to perk up. "Don't look so scared. You were bound to see some of my stuff eventually since you were cleaning."
"It's not that I'm scared that you're going to get mad at me, David. It's that I've seen this doll before," Kris murmured as if he was just telling the figurine this.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah...I saw Adam the first time when I was just a kid...I was...I had run away from my mom because I was mad at her. I ended up finding Adam next to a viola." The mention of the memory made Kris feel like he was being wrapped under a cozy quilt and David could see that all over his face.
Cook stepped closer to Kris and Adam, taking a closer look at the gems on the figurine. "Weird, he looks kind of happy right now."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at his eyes--it's like he missed you or something."
Kris smiled back, the corners of his eyes crinkling in contentment. "Adam...When I was a kid, I used to think that you were so awesome...I guess some things don't change." There was a pause as David nudged Adam out of Kris's grip and analyzed the carving of the figurine.
"Adam, huh? I didn't realize he had a name."
"That's not the name he came with...I remember the shopkeeper saying something about his name being Bradley." Cook's eyebrows shot up, then he squinted, shoving his weathered face closer to Adam's. He did a double-take and squinted the exact same way again, then switched his gaze from Adam to Kris, wearing a perplexed expression. "What's the matter, David?"
"That's so bizarre...When you said the name Bradley..." David squinted again, double checking Adam. "I don't know if it's my eyes going or what, but it's almost like..." The old man handed Adam back over to the student, pursing his lips. "Don't you think he looks kind of upset now?"
"He told me he didn't like the name Bradley."
"...What?"
Kris's eyes shot open when he realized that the dream he had was coming back to him too.
"No, it's nothing. It doesn't matter." Before he got distracted any more, Kris placed Adam back in his rightful place on the dresser. "I don't know why you would have bought him though. You don't strike me as the doll type."
David laughed heartily as he patted Kris on the shoulder. "I didn't buy him! My granddaughter did. She gave him to me thinking we could patch things up with my children. I used to be into looking at antiques, so I guess she thought I'd like to own one too...It was a nice try, but it did nothing for my kids and I."
"So she was the one who bought Adam..."
"I guess she was. I mean, I've been told that he's completely unique."
The two of them exited the room with the dusting equipment Kris originally went in, David shutting the door tightly.
"Kris?"
Kris stopped walking as he realized that David was still in the middle of the hallway, but he couldn't be bothered to turn around. He didn't want to see the pained look that was spreading across the old man's face at this moment. He didn't want to listen to the internal agony that was coming out in his voice. Kris hated to see anyone in his life suffer and Mr. Cook was no exception.
"Kris, could you wait for me?"
"Of course I will," Kris answered, holding out his hand towards David. "And I'll watch your back until you're ready to let go."
David grabbed Kris's hand, his leathery, rough palm wrapping around the younger man's firm skin.
"They usually say that the elderly are the most knowledgeable people in our lifetime, that everyone is supposed to learn from them."
"I think that's true, David."
"It's all a lie, Kris. Every single bit of it. I used to think that way too, but now I'm beginning to think that it's the younger generation who knows better. Us older people, we forget what we learned in the first place. How could we ever teach anyone knowledge that we forgot long ago? How could we ever teach anyone when we forgot that it was okay to open up to people?"
"But you can't tell everyone everything. That's how people die young."
The two of them entered the living room and sat themselves down in the armchair and the couch. David coughed for a moment, covering his mouth. Kris simply averted his eyes, even as David stopped coughing and continued to talk.
"You're such an old soul, Kris. Whatever luggage you're carrying around, you need to let it go."
"I don't have any luggage." Kris covered his face, his fingers following the contours of his nose and his cheeks, almost like a mask.
"Are you happy at school right now? Do you really want that business major?"
Kris's fingers tightened their grip on his face, as if he wanted to claw his face off at the moment.
"I don't even know anymore."
"Don't make the same mistake I did," David warned, prying Kris's fingers off his face. "Are you listening, Kris? Don't make the same mistake I did, because nobody ever wins in the end."
"I know, but..." The student's fingers curled around the end of the couch, attempting to dig into the fabric.
"Have you told Katy yet?"
Kris could only shake his head in response as his brow furrowed under the stress of the thought of actually having to say what was really on his mind for once.
2d. MID-FEBRUARY 2006, CONWAY, ARKANSAS
Katy held his hand as they stood up at the funeral and started to get in line for the viewing of the body that bleak Saturday morning. Everything felt monotone to the young couple as they lined up behind yet another sea of black and ash grey clothed people. They couldn't help but feel like they stuck out amongst the sea of darker colors in their brightly colored outfits.
It's not that Kris didn't respect the traditions that came with funerals. It was that he didn't think David would have wanted him to wear black or grey. Black was a color a person wore when they were giving a loved one up completely. If they wore color, that meant that they were there to celebrate the life of the dearly departed. Kris was most certainly the latter, and Katy simply dressed that way to support him, despite the strange looks they received from the minister and the various relatives from David's family.
The couple made it over to the open coffin, and like others before them, stopped to gaze inside the satin lined cradle. Katy bowed her head in reverence, respecting Kris's moment of thought and memory. The young man couldn't help but notice how at peace David looked. It was stereotypical to say, but for once the stereotypes were true, and they fit. It was if nothing had ever happened to David in his life--no divorce, no mid-life crisis, no crazy fans stalking him on tour.
But then it was as if Kris had never met him.
He had wished that he had spent more time with David before he passed away. His visits with his old friend had grown less and less frequent between classwork and not being let into David's home on multiple occasions by a zealous hospice worker. At the same time though, Kris realized there was only so much he could do...but there was also a difference between not being able to do anything and not doing enough when you could, and that's what he despised about the situation the most.
"You did everything you were able to," Katy whispered, pulling a shuddering Kris away from the coffin. "He would have been glad that you came, and you know he was grateful for what you did for him,"
"What did I do but pick away at emotional scabs that had weren't fully healed?" The tone in Kris's voice was cold, so unlike him, that Katy jerked away, unable to differentiate this Kris and the Kris she knew a few months ago. She didn't even bat an eye when a dirty blonde woman around their age walked up to her boyfriend.
"Are you Kris Allen?" the dirty blonde asked, holding out her hand. Kris reluctantly shook it, carefully not to be poked by the woman's false nails.
"That's me."
The dirty blonde sighed in relief, letting go of his hand quickly. "Thank God I found you."
"Any reason you need to talk to him?" Katy wondered. "He's been better."
The other woman nodded, pulling a tissue out of her purse and wiping her eyes. "I know, honey. We've all been better." She looked as if she wanted to say more, but she paused and restrained herself, putting the tissue into her coat pocket before she continued. "Kris, Mr. Cook had something for you. If you could please drop by his old house later today, he would have appreciated it...I'd appreciate it."
"Of course I can." Kris would have done anything for David.
"...Thank you."
The woman pivoted quickly on her heel, her stilettos clicking on the pavement as she walked away from the young couple. Kris stood there, dumbfounded, wondering why this mysterious woman would simply walk up to him at a funeral and tell him to go to the house of a ghost. Katy seemed to share his confusion as she pulled at his sleeve, pursing her lips in thought.
"What do you think she wants?"
"I'm not sure that I want to know, Katy."
The bells tolled their announcement of noon at the church up ahead. The couple watched as a small flock of crows flew above their heads and the clouds started fading away to reveal the cyan colored sky. Kris could hear the sound of David's guitar strumming away in his head just like old times, and he couldn't help but hum to the tune in his head.
"...I love you, Kris."
It was then he knew that everything was going to be okay.
AU. "The good news was that he wasn't late for the meeting yet. The bad news was that the meeting was supposed to start in two minutes."
Rating: T (language, use of alcohol, character death)
Pairings: admiration!Kradam, Kraty, friendship!Kris/David C.
Notes: The initial idea was inspired by the antique shop in "Whispers of the Heart" (which if you haven't seen, you should, cause it's probably one of the best Studio Ghibli movies ever), but that's where the similarities end
Warnings: When I say this is alternate universe, I MEAN alternate universe. For example, David Cook is an old man in this story. Yup, I'm serious. If that is any indication to you of how alternate this universe is and you are weirded out by it, then don't read this. TYFYT.
2a. MID-SEPTEMBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (FIRST VISIT)
Kris slumped back into his seat on the bus, wiping the sweat off his forehead as he gazed out at the campus disappearing behind him. Today was his first day as a volunteer with the community outreach group at school and he didn't want to be late. He had been assigned to socialize with a needy elderly man about ten minutes away from his dorm, and if Kris had ever learned anything in the past, it was that angry elderly men were some of the most terrifying beings that one could ever encounter in their lifetime. After a day of studying and rushing homework for tonight's advanced accounting class, the last thing Kris needed was to face an angry elderly man.
His cell phone rang in his pocket and he quickly picked it up to see who was calling. Kris smiled when he saw Katy's name on the caller I.D. Had it been anyone else, he probably would not have been in the mood to pick up the phone at this point, but for Katy he would definitely make an exception.
"Hey, Kris, I just wanted to say hi before I went out of town," she said.
Kris could hear her smile even through the phone. It was one of the many things he loved that about her. It always cheered him up, even on crummy days like these.
"Have a good time with your family," he replied, covering his mouth and the phone receiver with his hand.
"I'll be sure to. And Kris?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't stress out over your English essay, okay?"
Kris's smile dropped. He had completely forgotten about that essay.
"I won't."
"I've got to go. Mum's here. Bye, Kris. I love you."
"I love you too, Katy."
Both of them promptly hung up, and for Kris it couldn't have come at a better time. He remembered all of the progress he had done on the English essay as he shoved his phone back into his pocket:
None.
He seriously had too much on his mind at the moment, and it wasn't even a full month into the school year yet. Everything was pissing him off today: algebra, the fact that it was ninety degrees in the middle of September, his non-existent English essay. Hell, even this visit to a stranger was kind of pissing him off. He had so much to do right now, yet he signed up to be part of the outreach program on the first week of school thinking he'd actually have time to do it.
He knew he shouldn't have let Danny Gokey pressure him into signing up at the Extra Curricular Fair.
Soon enough, Kris's stop came. He practically sprinted off the bus, nearly tripping as he hit the sidewalk. It wasn't a particularly cozy place in the city, but it was far from the worst. Kris was able to ignore the pitiful faces of the three homeless folks sitting at the corner with a hat holding pocket change.
As the student began to walk farther up the street, it seemed that some of the more posh people lived on this street, contrary to the introduction of the homeless folks at the beginning. There were granite entryways and lush flowers in front of nearly every single house. Some of them even had black fences protecting their homes from the outside. It was making Kris seriously begin to wonder about who exactly he was going to visit and how needy they really were.
He pulled out the small slip of paper he had written the address on, squinting his eyes as he struggled to decipher his own scribbles.
"186 Skyline Avenue..."
He suddenly stopped, realizing he had already passed the building about a block ago. As he was running back, he checked his cell phone. The good news was that he wasn't late for the meeting yet. The bad news was that the meeting was supposed to start in two minutes. Kris sprinted desperately up the street, ignoring the strange looks people gave him as he passed them all by in a flurry.
Thankfully, he made it to the man's house, and by some miracle he managed it without tripping up the stairs. He shyly knocked on the door. Once, then twice. When no response came, he tried the doorbell. Nothing seemed to work, but when he went to open the door, the worn knob began to creak and turn mysteriously. Kris swallowed what pride he had left as the door began to swing open.
"So you survived. I thought for sure you had died or something."
Kris sighed as he looked at the old man in front of him. "You must be Mr. Cook."
"I hate fancy fucking monikers. Just call me David."
They both entered the house. David was astoundingly quick for an eighty-something year old man, slamming the front door behind them with little effort. Kris couldn't fit in much time to take in his surroundings because of the older man's fast pace, but from what he could figure out, David definitely must have earned a high amount of money in his life at one point or another. There were a couple of Modern style paintings on the walls and there were a couple of plaques at the end of the hall. The student could have also sworn that he spotted a dog around here somewhere, but it was just as quick as David.
"So you're the volunteer?" David absentmindedly asked as he led him into the kitchen.
"Yes, I am, sir." The older man gestured towards a stool at the counter, which Kris climbed up into. "I'm Kris Allen."
"Wait, please pardon me," Cook pleaded, adjusting a hearing aid. "Did you say your name was Raz Sallen?"
"NO, SIR, MY NAME IS KRIS. ALLEN. WITH A 'K'," the student repeated loudly, extending each syllable as if he were about to spit. He took note of the hearing aids in Cook's ears for future consideration.
"You want a beer, Kris?" Cook produced two beer bottles from his refrigerator, raising them in the air as if they were the next Holy Grail.
"I really shouldn't, David..."
Cook's eyebrows were arched as a wide smile spread across his face. "I guess that's more for me then!"
"Are you sure you should be having all that?" Kris was standing on the bottom support beams for the granite counter, leaning over on his elbows as he watched David chug a third of the first beer in five seconds flat.
"Don't worry about me, kid. I can take care of myself." Cook rolled his eyes as he polished off the first bottle, putting it in the sink and opening the next one. "Stupid kids, thinking I need help just because I'm eighty-eight years young. Why did they even send you here anyway?"
Kris's eyebrows shot up. There were a lot of things he didn't expect, but that question was way out of left field. "To be honest, I don't know myself. You seem pretty capable to me."
"Damn right, I'm capable! Two Grammy awards back in 1971 and some other awards and shit and the adoration of stalkers and real fans alike. If I didn't die from those stalkers who kept sneaking onto my tour bus back in '82, then I can survive anything." Kris watched both in amusement and horror as David finished the second beer and pulled a third one out of the refrigerator. He was tempted to cut in and mention that he was experimenting with the guitar, but then the old man continued his tirade in between gulps of his drink. "Oh, and then there was that time my groupies tried fighting the security guards in '85 on one of my last concerts."
"They tried fighting the security guards?"
"Tried and failed, kid. Tried and failed." There went the third empty bottle into the sink. "They might have been belligerent, those old stalkers, but my security was more belligerent. Ended up getting those cows black and blue. I was surprised that they didn't break anything."
"Didn't you feel sorry for them though?"
"I'm not going to lie, I didn't feel bad then. Those stalkers had been following me for nearly the entire tour. They had been ruining the concerts for other fans. They screamed obscenities in the mics backstage. They started fights with other fans when they tried taking their spots. They even sat outside for hours on end before the concert just so they could get front row."
"Why didn't you do something about them earlier though?"
"Because I was too sympathetic. I felt sorry for them." The fourth beer was halfway gone already. "Maybe if I had done something earlier though, things wouldn't have played out the way they did."
Kris shook his head, yanking the fifth beer bottle from Cook's hand. "You've had enough of those."
David stared at the student with bloodshot eyes, his brows burrowing together. Kris almost ran away, because the old man's face was monstrous when contorted in anger. It was as if his face was buried in wrinkles and his paper-like hands were covered in veins and vessels. His bottom lip stuck out just slightly in an almost childish pout as he slumped over the sink.
"Maybe I really am getting old."
"You're just getting better with age, just like wine," Kris offered, placing a hand on David's bony shoulder.
"...I hate wine."
2b. LATE-OCTOBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (EIGHTH VISIT)
Kris wasn't sure if he should really go back to David Cook's residence after his disastrous first visit. It was the sort of things that Hollywood writers would parody in their films: David, after continuing to ramble about how his fans ruined the end of his career and how he felt so old and decrepit and how he didn't really want that blasted kid there in his house, passed out after having one too many on the kitchen floor. Kris had just gone to grab something from the living room for David while the old man snuck a fifth beer behind his back. After Cook passed out, Kris had dragged him onto the couch in the living room, sat him upright, and then took all the alcohol he found and poured it down the sink.
It wasn't like the old man needed to go to the hospital or anything drastic like that, but the travesty didn't go over so well with Danny Gokey when Kris explained the situation. Gokey didn't fire him from the volunteer work, but Kris knew he was on a thin line now. Even after taking a week's break from visiting Cook at Gokey's request, there was still that risk of getting fired.
Ever since that first visit, David had apologized for getting drunk, noting that he was nervous about having a stranger in his house and that he hoped that he hadn't really scared off Kris yet. The student, being as easygoing as he was, simply laughed it off and they simply started anew again. They quickly became good friends, with the student even coming to visit the old man when it wasn't time to do volunteer work.
They told each other nearly everything--Kris about Katy, his life before he started college and the two mission trips he had been on, David went on about the glory times of his music career, his trips around the world on tour and his love of puzzles. However, one thing that Kris hadn't gotten David to open up about yet was his family and why he had stopped playing the guitar. Every time there was even a mere mention of them, David would pull beer out of nowhere and start drinking again. Sometimes Kris would even walk in on David drinking and going on a tirade about nothing.
That was why on this particular visit Kris was relieved to find David sitting in an armchair poring over a crossword puzzle.. Upon further inspection, he also spotted a Sudoku booklet sitting on the small table next to him and a pen with a chewed cap.
"Having any luck with your puzzle?" Kris asked, standing over David's shoulder. He tried making out some of the writing, but between Cook's age and his already messy handwriting, he couldn't read any of it.
"I'm doing just fine. I've been doing these things since I was your age."
"Really?"
"Okay, I might be exaggerating a little, but you get my point." Cook folded up the newspaper and put it on the table with the Sudoku puzzle in a neat little pile. He closed his eyes and leaned back, rubbing his tired eyes as he pointed towards the closet across the room with a gnarled finger. "My guitar should be in there. Could you go fetch it?"
Without another word, Kris practically dived into the closet and rummaged through it, pushing jackets out of the way. There were some cardboard boxes that he had to push through as well, but there in the back was a guitar case. The student brushed the dust off of it as he grabbed it and placed the guitar on the couch. Both him and David stood over it, simply marveling at the awkward beauty of the worn exterior of the case. The old man slowly, slowly reached towards the clasps, unlocking the case and revealing the guitar.
"I haven't played this thing in years," he admitted, pulling the guitar out of the case and stroking the strings. "I didn't want to after she died a couple of years back."
"She?"
"She who was Mrs. Cook," David simply said, adjusting the guitar strings, strumming them quietly to tune them. "It's not like we were close after I went into music, but she was my wife for awhile and I can't deny that." Kris stared at David, arching a brow.
"How couldn't you be close? You two were married. There must have been something going on?"
There was a brief pause as David adjusted the strings. It lasted so long that Kris didn't think he would get some sort of answer, but the old man spoke up soon enough.
"Of course there was." The D-string needed dire tightening. "We were married for a good twenty or thirty years before she got sick of me." Now the D-string was way too tight. "We got married in May 1938 and things were fantastic. By the time I hit my early fifties though, I wasn't feeling like I was in the right place anymore. You could easily say I had a mid-life crisis."
"A mid-life crisis? You mean...you went into music when you were in your fifties? Isn't that a bit old?"
"Nobody is too old for a mid-life crisis. And a lot of people say it's never too late to start dreaming. I have to admit, I never was into the whole Elvis craze back then, but his music did interest me...but I didn't think that Mrs. Cook would want me dabbling in music, so I kept my job as a salesman."
Kris couldn't help but laugh. He couldn't quite imagine David as a salesman. He just didn't seem like the type who would enjoy going up to people's doors and asking them to buy random crap. "So you were a salesman? When did you pick up the guitar?"
"Well, the guitar I'd been playing before then. I ended up not getting drafted into the war, so I guess the guitar was the next best thing when my friends were gone. Gave me plenty of time to practice and when they did come back, I could show off for them."
The student sighed quietly. He wasn't the type to show off the guitar to his friends that often, even when they asked him to. He had grown up a lot from that shy little boy who danced to Michael Jackson in secret, but he still choked up occasionally if he was singing anything really personal. Why couldn't he be more like Mr. Cook, showing off for his friends at every opportune moment?
"Back then, the wife was okay with the guitar playing. She actually found it nice. But then 1968 rolled around...my brother, Adam, had been struggling with cancer for the last five or six years...If there was anything I learned from his death, it was that I needed to start living life to the fullest."
"But weren't you already living life to the fullest? You had a wife...you must have had kids." David scoffed as he strummed the strings on the guitar he had been adjusting, finally satisfied with the sound that they were producing.
"I don't talk to them anymore. They sided with their mother on everything and the divorce was no different." David handed the guitar over to Kris, eyes hopeful. "Do you play?" Kris's eyes lit up he let the weight of the guitar fall into his hands. His left hand felt along the weathered wood of the guitar, drifting up towards the strings.
"I started teaching myself when I was younger," he announced with a childish grin, playing a series of chords.
"I'll be damned. I got a kid who can play guitar," David noted with a chuckle, handing a guitar pick to Kris. "Anyway, though, long story short, I realized that the only way I could live life to the fullest was if I quit my salesman job and went into the music business."
"And then your wife broke up with you."
Cook half-smiled bitterly.
"Exactly."
There was another pause as Kris played more chords on the guitar, humming as his fingers traveled higher along the frets. At that moment after hearing about David's mid-life crisis, he couldn't help but remember the piece of advice he received from that shopkeeper when he was younger:
"If you want to fit in, then that is all you will ever accomplish in life...You never learn anything by fitting in...'" Kris trailed off, biting his lip as he closed his eyes thinking. He hated thinking because usually it either caused him to lose part of his mind, make a change he really wasn't ready for or all of the above. He tried to block it out, try to start singing along to the guitar, but David placed a heavy palm on the strings, stopping the half-baked melody that Kris had been trying to create.
"Where did you hear that?"
The student swallowed, putting down the guitar. "A shopkeeper I met when I was younger...I can't remember his name though." The old man reclined, his eyebrows going back to normal.
"Well, that's good advice. Follow it."
The two of them stopped talking for awhile, trading the guitar back and forth and playing for each other. Kris would try to teach David some chords for some more modern songs while David would critique Kris on his technique, adjust his fingers to produce the right sound. Time just seemed to fly by, each hour feeling like a mere minute. By the time Kris checked his watch, he realized that he was supposed to leave ten minutes ago. He even almost stood up to leave, but then he saw Cook's eyes grow depressingly distant. He almost couldn't bear to leave the old man behind yet.
"You don't really have to go, do you, Kris? This is the most fun I've had in awhile." David's eyes darted around the room, as if he was trying to come up with some sort of excuse for Kris to stay.
"I can stay for a bit longer." Kris sat back down cross-legged on the floor, and listened to David strum his guitar with a vigor that he had never seen anyone play with before.
"I'm glad you're around, Kris," David admitted, finishing this chord with a flourish. "I usually can't tell anyone about my family and..." David trailed off, looking down at the wooden floor and unable to quite finish his sentence.
"Yeah?"
The old man looked back up, gazing at Kris right in the eye for the first time since they had first met.
"It's not like I've had volunteers before, but they were never friends. Thank you for being a friend...Hell, thank you for being like the son I never had.."
That sentimental feeling hit Kris too, which was unusual for the socially jaded student.
"I should thank you too."
2c. DECEMBER 2005, CONWAY, ARKANSAS (SEVENTEENH VISIT)
David had slowed down so much within the months that Kris knew him. It's not like he had to go on oxygen yet, but things definitely took him longer now. His gait and his step were more sluggish, slower. He would zone out at random intervals, causing Kris to have to repeat things to him. Their jam sessions on the guitar grew shorter, as David's arms would tire out quicker.
Kris was scared.
He brought in some black coffee for the old man, who was comfortably wrapped up in a blanket in the armchair. Kris had ended up doing some chores around the house for David, sweeping and doing the dishes, because the old man would tire out from all of those too.
Kris almost wanted to cry into Katy's shoulder, because this old man who was like his second father was failing. He could tell that David wasn't faking it, because David was the sort who wouldn't fake something like this. He didn't want other people helping him. The fact that David was now asking for help for simple everyday things...it made Kris worried.
"Stop frowning, Kris, you get to do plenty of that when you're older," David ordered, a sly smile on his face. "Wouldn't want to ruin that comely face of yours with wrinkles this early in life." The student chuckled at this remark as the old man set the mug down on the table.
"Anything else you need me to do around here?"
David hummed, placing a hand on his chin and scratching his grey facial hair in thought. "Why don't you dust around here? The dust has been bothering me lately and it hasn't been done in at least three weeks."
"Sounds good to me."
Kris gathered a dust rag and some cleaner and set to work, starting with the shelves and the tables around the house. As a child, he liked trying to analyze people by what they had in their homes and this was no different. Noticing everything around the house made him realize that he really had missed out on a lot when he first met David, such as the lack of family photos around and the dictionary tucked away next to the television. Kris even finally spotted the dog that he thought he had seen on his first visit hiding in a guest bedroom and curled up under the bed.
What Kris couldn't believe, however, was David's bedroom.
The bed, as he had predicted, as unmade. He fluffed the pillows and straightened out the sky blue sheets and the cream colored comforter. He wiped down the walnut bed frame and was about to start the dresser when he noticed something out of place in the ex-musician's home:
Knick-knacks.
They weren't just knick-knacks like the plaques that hung on his walls in the hallway nor were they like the two lone Grammy status on his shelf next to the bookshelf. These were older looking knick-knacks, as if they'd been passed down in the family. There was a chipped bowl that had carved swans on it to the left. In the middle, there was an obsidian colored jewelry box.
Kris opened the lid as quietly as he could and perused the contents.
There was a pearl necklace in one corner with a black and white photo next to it. In the photo there was a petite blonde woman dangling off the arm of a well-built man in wedding attire. Kris could only assume that this couple had been Mr. and Mrs. Cook back in their hey-day. He couldn't help but notice the smiles on their faces as they were being sprinkled with rice, and how they could have drifted apart so terribly. Secretly, the young man hoped that the same thing wasn't happening to him and Katy.
Alongside the photo and there pearl necklace, there was a broach with a gem missing. Next to it was a cigar and a ticket of some kind--most presumably from a theater show that David and his wife had attended back in the 1950s. Lastly, there was a copper coat button tucked into the corner. Kris held it up to the light and noticed that it was beginning to go green around the edges...it was starting to grow old...He shook his head as he put it back and closed the jewelry box, shifting his attention to the knick-knack on the right.
Kris's eyes widened in recognition at the third knick-knack.
"Adam..." he trailed off, picking up his old friend once more. "It's me. It's Kris. Do you remember me?" He whispered right into the figurine's ear, kissing it on the forehead.
The last time he picked up Adam, he was a nine year old boy in the old antique shop in one of the smaller towns over from Conway. He couldn't always remember every single detail from that day, but time could never smudge the memory of the feeling he had when he first held Adam in his small hands. The feeling was washing over him in a tidal wave now, that loving feeling of familiarity and nostalgia.
Kris walked over to the window, pulling aside the curtain and gazing at Adam in the light. Thankfully he was still in the same condition he was when he saw him all those years ago. His sapphire eyes were just as brilliant in the light now as they were then, if not more so. Kris caressed the wooden face with his thumb, pondering how someone on Earth could have created something so beautiful, that God must have had something to do with Adam's conception.
The student looked over at the door, clutching Adam to his chest as he contemplated going out and asking David about Adam. Part of him was against it because he didn't want David to think that he was some kind of snoop who poked around where he wasn't wanted. On the other hand, he kind of wanted to learn how David had obtained Adam and if he had taken care of him. What would David want with a figurine like Adam anyway?
"That doll is nice, isn't it?" David asked from the doorway, causing Kris to perk up. "Don't look so scared. You were bound to see some of my stuff eventually since you were cleaning."
"It's not that I'm scared that you're going to get mad at me, David. It's that I've seen this doll before," Kris murmured as if he was just telling the figurine this.
"Is that so?"
"Yeah...I saw Adam the first time when I was just a kid...I was...I had run away from my mom because I was mad at her. I ended up finding Adam next to a viola." The mention of the memory made Kris feel like he was being wrapped under a cozy quilt and David could see that all over his face.
Cook stepped closer to Kris and Adam, taking a closer look at the gems on the figurine. "Weird, he looks kind of happy right now."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at his eyes--it's like he missed you or something."
Kris smiled back, the corners of his eyes crinkling in contentment. "Adam...When I was a kid, I used to think that you were so awesome...I guess some things don't change." There was a pause as David nudged Adam out of Kris's grip and analyzed the carving of the figurine.
"Adam, huh? I didn't realize he had a name."
"That's not the name he came with...I remember the shopkeeper saying something about his name being Bradley." Cook's eyebrows shot up, then he squinted, shoving his weathered face closer to Adam's. He did a double-take and squinted the exact same way again, then switched his gaze from Adam to Kris, wearing a perplexed expression. "What's the matter, David?"
"That's so bizarre...When you said the name Bradley..." David squinted again, double checking Adam. "I don't know if it's my eyes going or what, but it's almost like..." The old man handed Adam back over to the student, pursing his lips. "Don't you think he looks kind of upset now?"
"He told me he didn't like the name Bradley."
"...What?"
Kris's eyes shot open when he realized that the dream he had was coming back to him too.
"No, it's nothing. It doesn't matter." Before he got distracted any more, Kris placed Adam back in his rightful place on the dresser. "I don't know why you would have bought him though. You don't strike me as the doll type."
David laughed heartily as he patted Kris on the shoulder. "I didn't buy him! My granddaughter did. She gave him to me thinking we could patch things up with my children. I used to be into looking at antiques, so I guess she thought I'd like to own one too...It was a nice try, but it did nothing for my kids and I."
"So she was the one who bought Adam..."
"I guess she was. I mean, I've been told that he's completely unique."
The two of them exited the room with the dusting equipment Kris originally went in, David shutting the door tightly.
"Kris?"
Kris stopped walking as he realized that David was still in the middle of the hallway, but he couldn't be bothered to turn around. He didn't want to see the pained look that was spreading across the old man's face at this moment. He didn't want to listen to the internal agony that was coming out in his voice. Kris hated to see anyone in his life suffer and Mr. Cook was no exception.
"Kris, could you wait for me?"
"Of course I will," Kris answered, holding out his hand towards David. "And I'll watch your back until you're ready to let go."
David grabbed Kris's hand, his leathery, rough palm wrapping around the younger man's firm skin.
"They usually say that the elderly are the most knowledgeable people in our lifetime, that everyone is supposed to learn from them."
"I think that's true, David."
"It's all a lie, Kris. Every single bit of it. I used to think that way too, but now I'm beginning to think that it's the younger generation who knows better. Us older people, we forget what we learned in the first place. How could we ever teach anyone knowledge that we forgot long ago? How could we ever teach anyone when we forgot that it was okay to open up to people?"
"But you can't tell everyone everything. That's how people die young."
The two of them entered the living room and sat themselves down in the armchair and the couch. David coughed for a moment, covering his mouth. Kris simply averted his eyes, even as David stopped coughing and continued to talk.
"You're such an old soul, Kris. Whatever luggage you're carrying around, you need to let it go."
"I don't have any luggage." Kris covered his face, his fingers following the contours of his nose and his cheeks, almost like a mask.
"Are you happy at school right now? Do you really want that business major?"
Kris's fingers tightened their grip on his face, as if he wanted to claw his face off at the moment.
"I don't even know anymore."
"Don't make the same mistake I did," David warned, prying Kris's fingers off his face. "Are you listening, Kris? Don't make the same mistake I did, because nobody ever wins in the end."
"I know, but..." The student's fingers curled around the end of the couch, attempting to dig into the fabric.
"Have you told Katy yet?"
Kris could only shake his head in response as his brow furrowed under the stress of the thought of actually having to say what was really on his mind for once.
2d. MID-FEBRUARY 2006, CONWAY, ARKANSAS
Katy held his hand as they stood up at the funeral and started to get in line for the viewing of the body that bleak Saturday morning. Everything felt monotone to the young couple as they lined up behind yet another sea of black and ash grey clothed people. They couldn't help but feel like they stuck out amongst the sea of darker colors in their brightly colored outfits.
It's not that Kris didn't respect the traditions that came with funerals. It was that he didn't think David would have wanted him to wear black or grey. Black was a color a person wore when they were giving a loved one up completely. If they wore color, that meant that they were there to celebrate the life of the dearly departed. Kris was most certainly the latter, and Katy simply dressed that way to support him, despite the strange looks they received from the minister and the various relatives from David's family.
The couple made it over to the open coffin, and like others before them, stopped to gaze inside the satin lined cradle. Katy bowed her head in reverence, respecting Kris's moment of thought and memory. The young man couldn't help but notice how at peace David looked. It was stereotypical to say, but for once the stereotypes were true, and they fit. It was if nothing had ever happened to David in his life--no divorce, no mid-life crisis, no crazy fans stalking him on tour.
But then it was as if Kris had never met him.
He had wished that he had spent more time with David before he passed away. His visits with his old friend had grown less and less frequent between classwork and not being let into David's home on multiple occasions by a zealous hospice worker. At the same time though, Kris realized there was only so much he could do...but there was also a difference between not being able to do anything and not doing enough when you could, and that's what he despised about the situation the most.
"You did everything you were able to," Katy whispered, pulling a shuddering Kris away from the coffin. "He would have been glad that you came, and you know he was grateful for what you did for him,"
"What did I do but pick away at emotional scabs that had weren't fully healed?" The tone in Kris's voice was cold, so unlike him, that Katy jerked away, unable to differentiate this Kris and the Kris she knew a few months ago. She didn't even bat an eye when a dirty blonde woman around their age walked up to her boyfriend.
"Are you Kris Allen?" the dirty blonde asked, holding out her hand. Kris reluctantly shook it, carefully not to be poked by the woman's false nails.
"That's me."
The dirty blonde sighed in relief, letting go of his hand quickly. "Thank God I found you."
"Any reason you need to talk to him?" Katy wondered. "He's been better."
The other woman nodded, pulling a tissue out of her purse and wiping her eyes. "I know, honey. We've all been better." She looked as if she wanted to say more, but she paused and restrained herself, putting the tissue into her coat pocket before she continued. "Kris, Mr. Cook had something for you. If you could please drop by his old house later today, he would have appreciated it...I'd appreciate it."
"Of course I can." Kris would have done anything for David.
"...Thank you."
The woman pivoted quickly on her heel, her stilettos clicking on the pavement as she walked away from the young couple. Kris stood there, dumbfounded, wondering why this mysterious woman would simply walk up to him at a funeral and tell him to go to the house of a ghost. Katy seemed to share his confusion as she pulled at his sleeve, pursing her lips in thought.
"What do you think she wants?"
"I'm not sure that I want to know, Katy."
The bells tolled their announcement of noon at the church up ahead. The couple watched as a small flock of crows flew above their heads and the clouds started fading away to reveal the cyan colored sky. Kris could hear the sound of David's guitar strumming away in his head just like old times, and he couldn't help but hum to the tune in his head.
"...I love you, Kris."
It was then he knew that everything was going to be okay.