Work Text:
David stares at the sign above the door, tries to steer clear of the haggard shoppers bustling around him. It looks innocent enough, blue curling font against a plain white background announcing the salon's name. Brooke's. He's never been to this particular salon before, usually never even has to worry about his hair at all but, well. It's getting kind of, unruly? And long, falling into his eyes and curling against his ears. He hadn't meant to neglect it or anything, had been planning to get a haircut for a while now, actually. He'd just always sort of forgotten about it, let other things get in the way.
Today, though? Today he has all the time in the world (and his mother had sort of pushed him out the door and wouldn't let him back in until he got this done, so).
He makes his way into the salon, breathes a sigh of relief as he finally escapes the crowd (so many people around him, running and laughing and generally being kind of suffocating leaves him a bit nervous).
Inside, the salon is a bustle of activity. Almost every chair is full, music blaring through the speakers (a rock song, by the sound of it). There's this wall of noise, laughter and voices and David can even hear people singing. He's definitely stepped out of one crowd and fallen face-first into another, but this one is much... nicer, he thinks, less hectic, and David feels himself smile as one girl having her hair colored rocks out to the music, fingers plucking at invisible guitar strings.
"Hey there!" A dark-haired woman gestures him over to the front desk, smile wide and friendly. Pinned to her shirt is a name tag. Carly Smithson. "Welcome to Brooke's, kid. What can we do for you?" Her voice is low and warm, tinged with an Irish accent, and David smiles at her.
"Oh, um, just a trim, I think?" He runs his hands through his own dark hair, shifting the worse of it out of his eyes. "It's kind of gotten out of control, haha."
Carly laughs. "I can see that," she says (and yeah, that's kind of embarrassing). "Let's see..." She opens a large, leather-bound folder, eyes skimming the pages. She pops the cap off of a nearby pen, scribbling down something David can't see. "Could you give me your name, kid?"
"Oh, it's David. David Archuleta."
Carly grins. "Ok then, David. Lucky for you, someone cancelled on us earlier this morning. There's one seat open right now. Good for you?"
David nods, inwardly cheering. With this crowd he had sort of resigned himself to waiting. "That's great."
"Good." Carly closes the folder with a snap. "Cook!" Her voice booms across the entire salon (making more than a few people jump, David notices, himself included). "You've got a client waiting so get your ass out here!" She turns to David (who instinctively flinches, thinking he's about to be screamed at). "You," she says, her voice thankfully lowered to a less startling volume, "are in that chair right there." She points to a chair on the end of the row, next to a man with rather impressive dread locks styling another man's hair into an equally impressive mohawk (David wonders for a moment what he has gotten himself into).
"O-okay." He makes his way over to his appointed seat, careful not to get in anyone's way (which is kind of hard with everybody tapping their feet and sort of dancing to the music, gosh, even the stylists are doing little twists and turns, using their combs or their spray bottles as microphones).
Thankfully he reaches his seat unscathed (which wasn't easy, a girl with fiery red hair had nearly taken his eye out with her hair dryer). He settles his feet on the bar, can't stop himself from singing along to the song playing through the speakers (Tommy used to work on the docks. Union's been on strike, he's down on his luck, it's tough), and tapping his fingers to the beat against the armrest. He sees the guy with dreads (his name tag reads Jason Castro) smiling at him, amused, and he blushes (tends to get caught up in music, doesn't always notice when he has an audience).
"Gina works the diner all day. Working for her man, she brings home her pay for love. Nice voice, kid."
David jumps, a full body jerk that nearly sends him to the floor (oh gosh, he's so lame). There's a man staring at him in the mirror, David hadn't even noticed him approaching and he's right there, oh my heck, reaching over his shoulder for one of the slips laying on the counter. David can't help but notice how, um, attractive the man is, with his bright eyes and warm grin (though his hair is kind of strange, auburn with crazy red streaks and sort of sticking up in the back).
"Why'd you stop?" The man (David peeks at his name tag. David Cook, and wow, that's weird) throws the slip around David's shoulders with a flourish, callused fingers sliding against the skin of his neck (David shivers, can't help it, flushes when he catches the other David's eyes in the mirror).
"Um, well." And this is the best time for him to get tongue-tied, really.
"You should keep going," Cook (too strange to think of him as David) says, reaching for a comb from the wide selection spread out on the table. "C'mon, I'll help. She says we've got to hold on to what we've got, it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. Don't leave me hanging here."
David feels his lips curl into a smile (kind of impossible not to, around this guy). He glances at the other people around the salon, sees the stylists and the clients alike singing along and laughing (and what could it hurt?).
"We've got each other and that's a lot. For love - we'll give it a shot." And Cook smiles at him in the mirror, runs his hands through David's hair (to judge the length of his hair, to decided where to cut first, David knows. Doesn't stop this little spark of something from shooting down his spine, making his cheeks burn).
"That's it," Cook says, the gentle snip-snip-snip of his scissors reaching David's ears. He shivers at the tendrils that brush his ears, watching with more attention than completely necessary at the way Cook works, the bend of his elbows, the motions of his arms as they move within the confines of his t-shirt (some sort of band shirt, though David doesn't recognize the name).
They slip into the chorus together (Oh, we're half way there. Oh, livin' on a prayer) and it's weird, how well their voices seem to mesh. David doesn't usually listen to rock music, doesn't really think his voice is cut out for it. Cook's voice, though? Cook's voice seems made for it, low and rumbling and David shivers whenever Cook moves close, can hear his voice almost against the shell of his ear.
David barely even notices as one song bleeds into the next, sings along with Cook and the others with surprising ease (he refuses to sing Please Don't Stop the Music, though, but he does crack up at Cook's increasingly hilarious attempts to change his mind).
He can't help but feel this huge crushing wave of disappointment when Cook steps back and grins at him in the mirror, slipping his comb and scissors into his front pocket. "All done," he says, runs his hands through David's hair to shake loose any remaining strands (and David knows that's what the comb is for, notices that no one else seems to be using their hands quite as much as Cook does, but yeah, he doesn't say anything).
"Thank you." He lifts his head so that he can meet Cook's eyes head on, smiles. "You're um, you're very good."
Cook laughs (and it's a lovely laugh, David thinks, full and deep and infectious). "Thanks, kid," he says, and David frowns.
"David," he says. Cook blinks at him and he smiles. "My name."
"Well," Cook says, pulling the slip off of David's shoulders. "Thank you, David." He spins the chair around, hands landing on the armrests (caging David in) and just, um, looking. "So." When he speaks his voice is even lower than before, almost intimately low (and David's not an idiot, he gets what this is, what he hopes this is). "You'll be coming back, right? In six weeks?"
And, gosh, six weeks? He wonders if there's some way to will his hair to grow longer faster (knows that's what he'll do, once he leaves). "Maybe, um. Maybe sooner?" And gosh, he has no idea where this is coming from, this sudden burst of daring (David doesn't, he doesn't flirt, ok, he sits there and fidgets and blushes and is generally a dork, so this is just, kind of surprising).
Cook grins (kind of um, darkly, and maybe David's doing something right after all?). "Yeah. Maybe sooner. Remember to ask for me."
"I will." And maybe there's a little bounce in his step as he leaves the salon, waving goodbye to Carly and catching Cook's eyes before he turns the corner and is out of sight. He'd made sure to schedule a return appointment in six weeks (though he has a feeling he'll be seeing Cook before that), and glances over his shoulder one last time at the curling Brooke's above the door.
Yeah, he'll be coming back.