InsaneJournal

Current mood:	cheerful
Entry tags:	ai, american idol, american idol: fic

American Idol Fic: Black Bird Singing 2/13
TITLE: Black Bird Singing
AUTHOR: Mari
RATING: NC-17 eventually
SPOILERS: Uh. This is AU. This is deeply, deeply AU. No one has wings, that’s about as much contact with “canon” as it actually has.
PAIRING: Michael Johns/David Cook.
SUMMARY: Somewhere, Michael’s life went wrong, and he’s not entirely sure where.

Part One



Part Two

The streets of Los Angeles were a wonder at night, Michael had always thought. He always felt more alive after the sun had set, more certain that there was a purpose to what he was doing. Even after he had let go of the idea that he was going to be playing for packed arenas until well after midnight, it was much easier to swallow his new career after the sun had fallen beneath the horizon.

The street lights were little more than blurs past his window as Michael forced his foot down on the accelerator and urged his car faster, faster. It had been built for speed when muscle cars had been the norm and not a sign of unconscionable selfishness, and it responded with a roar that almost sounded happy. He wove in and out of traffic with a mixture of skill and recklessness that earned him more than a few honked horns and abrupt hand gestures, every one of which he answered with a laugh. The pack was ahead of him for now, but that was just fine. He was catching up, and then he would surpass them altogether, and they would see who was the best at what they did then.

Michael saw the last car in the trail whipping around a street corner and barely had time to brake before had to execute the same maneuver himself. He pulled his lips back from his teeth as his first moment of awareness when it came to how small and breakable his body actually was entered his mind. His car shuddered onto two wheels and made him think that maybe had finally pushed it too far and was going to turn Levine into a prophet before it settled back down and he raced on.

Bulletproof, baby, Michael thought. He saw the lines of taillights like the eyes of animals ahead of him as they entered a residential area filled with the homes of the rich, the famous, and the both. Pop star was trying to go to ground. Oh, it must be something good, then.

Michael had finally bridged enough of the distance to see it when it happened, when someone’s car got too close and clipped the back of the pop star’s. It was barely a love tap, worth a broken taillight and a few furious words with the insurance company if they had been going at low speed, but when the gas pedal was pushed down to the floor it was catastrophic. The pop star’s car jerked with the impact and then weaved wildly from side to side in the center of the street. For a few seconds it looked as if his driver was going to triumph and get the vehicle back under control before, moving to Michael’s stunned eye with an almost graceful slowness, it all went to hell.

The pop star’s driver braked too fast, and the car spun around, off of the street, and straight into someone’s stone privacy wall. It didn’t look too bad until the paparazzo behind them who had caused the entire mess also lost control, twirled his car around in the same way (Michael’s dazed, horrified brain thought that the whirling flash of paint looked like a child’s pinwheel), and slammed into the pop star’s car from behind. It looked like an accordion. It had taken less than five seconds from start to finish.

“Mary and Joseph,” Michael muttered an oath from a long-forgotten trip to church as he slammed on his own brakes. Too fast; his reflexes were not what they should have been, and he could not turn his wheel in time to avoid striking another car that had turned around sideways to avoid the wreck itself. Michael was hurled forward hard against his steering wheel, unhampered by his seat belt. There was a cracking noise; his chest exploded in pain. Michael forgot all about that a split-second later. His thoughts, once sluggish and pleasant like taffy, were moving with a whip-crack speed now, and he knew exactly what the cold kiss against his forehead was before inertia abruptly threw him back again. I came two millimeters away from going through my motherfucking windshield, Michael thought as he slumped back against his seat and watched smoke rising outside of the miraculously untouched glass. Had he been driving a new, modern vehicle and not his selfish tank, he would probably be eating his hood ornament right now, too.

God bless American solipsism and American engineering. It might have been funny on any other occasion. Michael fought back the cobwebs that wanted to eat his mind and focused instead on the pop star’s vehicle. The paparazzo behind it was emerging on shaky legs; he made it two steps out of his driver’s door before he had to sit down on the asphalt. No one was emerging from the pop star’s car at all.

Michael beat at his driver’s side door until it reluctantly opened for him, squawking all the way. Jesus, he had to have warped the entire frame. That was the only thought that Michael spared towards his own vehicle as he limped rapidly towards the pop star’s. His entire chest felt as if it had been hit with a bag of bricks, especially when he drew a breath, and Michael could feel blood running from his lower lip. He didn’t even remember striking his face on anything.

Everyone was standing around taking pictures, of him, of the car, of the reactions of the few residents who were poking their heads out of their doors to see what the noise had been. No one was approaching the car itself. Michael’s own camera was somewhere beneath his passenger seat, having been hurled there when the car had come to its creative stop. He had not given it so much as a thought before he had lunged out, and he wanted to strangle every one of the goddamned vultures with the straps of their own now.

“Will one of you stop feeding and call a fucking ambulance?” he yelled at them all, or tried to. It was too much; he fell into a fit of coughing as he tried to draw the breath and thought, You might have finally trashed yourself but good on this one, mate.

Levine had his cellular phone out and was speaking rapidly into it. If he was talking to his editor, then friend or not, Michael swore that he was going to kill him. Levine hung up the phone and jogged quickly over as Michael approached the car. “Police and ambulances are coming,” he said. Good man.

Michael tried to clap Levine on the shoulder and hissed as raising his arm too high proved to be a deeply stupid idea. “Help me,” he said instead.

Levine looked dubious. “I don’t know if we should move them, man,” he said. “That looks bad. They could have internal injuries--”

Michael made an angry hissing sound from between his teeth that was half pain. Levine’s words brought him abruptly back down to earth, made him see just how badly twisted the car was. It would be a miracle if no one inside was seriously harmed. We did this, Michael thought, and only the realization that his ribs were probably broken and he might wind up eating shards of bone kept him from doubling over and vomiting there. “Fine,” he snapped at Levine. His guilt made him sound angrier than he intended; his friend flinched back hard. “Let them bleed to death in there.”

Michael could hear the wail of sirens coming towards them as he dashed over the remaining few steps separating him from the car, but even the incipient arrival of the professionals was not enough to stop him. He needed to see. He needed to see what he and his kind had done. Michael grabbed at the rear door and tugged hard, unsurprised to feel it fighting him. The whole frame had to be warped; there was no way that the vehicle wasn’t a total loss. Michael grunted and pulled back harder. His ribs were almost a relief in comparison. We did this.

Michael had heard stories of people lifting cars, helicopters, shit like that, in order to save their children or even perfect strangers who were trapped underneath. It was part of the adrenaline surge that came with being in a crisis, making people capable of doing things that they never would have been able to do otherwise. It made them heroes. Michael knew damned well that heroism was not in him, and was thus unsurprised when the door stubbornly refused to budge beneath his very human strength, but, God, was it maddening.

“Fuck!” Michael exploded, and only just managed to avoid driving his fist into the shiny black paint. Levine was still running his mouth behind him, and it a was all that Michael could do not to drive his fist into him, too.

“Michael, come on, you have to calm down. The ambulance is almost here, and you’re hurt, too.” Levine’s voice was now low and calm, the way that he would speak to an animal which was hurting itself in its struggles.

Michael dragged his hand across his chin to swipe away the blood that was still trickling from his lower lip and ignored Levine altogether. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. His voice was shaking; he had not heard it shake like that in years. He didn’t even know who he was pleading with. “Please.”

From within the car, there suddenly came the loud pounding noise of someone striking the door hard. Michael let out a joyous whoop that was nearly a scream. “Hang on, hang on!” he shouted, and began to yank even harder on the door. “We’re coming for you!” They all shared the blame for tragedy; Michael could not imagine taking the sole credit for rescue, either. His ribs sent warning flares up and down his body, telling him that he was rapidly reaching the point where they were going to write him off altogether, and Michael ignored them each and every one. He pulled his lips back from his teeth and kept yanking harder, harder, harder, imagining that he was pulling the entire door off of its hinges if he could.

He didn’t make it quite that far. With a loud popping sound, the door suddenly sprang up. It was so fast and with so little fanfare that Michael was nearly struck in the face with it as he stumbled backwards, and then again with the foot that flew out afterwards. The pop star followed less than a second afterwards. He had been kicking at the door rather than pushing; Michael realized why only a moment later. There was no other way to interpret the angle that the pop star’s right wrist was hanging at.

“Jesus Christ,” Michael muttered.

The pop star only glanced at him for a moment, blinked for a second in what looked like recognition, and then turned back to the car. “Yeah.” He reached in with his good arm and helped the woman who had been in the club with him to exit. They were both brunette, but hers was so dark that it bordered upon the black, while the pop star’s was a middle ground that reminded Michael of good chocolate. They were both pale; the pop star entirely bloodless, the woman with a dark gash at her hairline that was pouring red down her face and making her look like a refugee from a horror movie. She was crying. She sank down to the pavement as soon as she was safely out of the vehicle; her legs were shaking so badly that Michael was amazed that she had even made it that far.

The pop star gave Michael a swift, assessing glance. “Give me your shirt,” he commanded.

Michael began to obey without thinking, only to stop when his ribs abruptly told him that, nope, this was the moment that they had warned him about, the point when the rebellion began. “I can’t,” he gritted.

The pop star made a horrible barking sound that in no universe could ever be called a laugh. “What, will she make a better fucking picture if she bleeds to death?” he snapped.

“He’s hurt, he can’t lift his arms,” Levine broke in smoothly. He had the voice of a natural peacekeeper, and Michael stared at him. He never would have guessed, having only seen Levine with his face behind a camera and happily recording chaos without making any effort to halt it. “Use mine.” Levine shucked off his shirt and handed it to the pop star amidst a further flurry of lights flashing all around them. They had been recording the event for posterity all along. Michael swallowed back the scream that rose in his throat, unsure if it would be angry or simply the point at which he gave up altogether.

The pop star accepted the shirt and knelt down beside the woman so that he could press it against her head with his uninjured hand. “Here, Carly, use this.”

Carly took the shirt from him and pushed it against her head wound as hard as she was able, wincing. “I think there’s glass,” she gasped. She had an Irish accent; the lilt was destroyed by the pain and fear in her voice.

“It’ll be all right,” Michael said automatically, and didn’t realize how ridiculous it was for him to play the voice of comfort until the pop star looked at him. “What about your driver?”

The pop star shook his head and seemed to lose even more blood from his face as he looked towards the ruined front of the car. “I don’t know. We had the privacy glass up. It didn’t break, and there’s nothing working in the car right now. We can’t get it down.”

Michael swore an oath and moved to yank on the driver’s door in the same way that he had pulled on the rear one, only to be stopped by Levine grabbing his arm and pulling him back. He nearly wheeled around and punched his friend in the mouth until he felt someone yanking at his other arm and realized that the pop star was doing the same.

“Come on, Hero,” Levine muttered to him. “You’ve done enough for now. Settle down before you hurt yourself.”

“If you ever call me that again,” Michael panted at him, “we are done, do you understand? I won’t speak to you again for the rest of your life.” His voice was jagged and verging upon panic; he wasn’t joking. The pop star made note of all of this with quiet, impassive eyes. He said nothing.

“Whatever you want.” Levine seemed to realize that something was happening to Michael that went beyond the mere lashing out of someone in a great deal of physical pain, but neither did he seem inclined to press. He guided Michael quickly over to sit beside Carly as the ambulance, finally, screamed to a halt beside the ruined car. The paparazzi still taking photos were slow to move out of the way, and Michael imagined them being scattered like bowling pins. He put his head between his knees so that he would not get sick or pass out.

“Hi,” Michael said to Carly when his head felt clear enough to raise it. It seemed the least gesture that he could make, when the driver of their car might very well be dead because of his profession.

“Hello.” Her lips were white beneath her lipstick, and trembling. They pressed shoulder to shoulder with one another even though the night was still quite warm. Shock, Michael guessed, and knew that the chivalrous thing to do would have been to give her his jacket. He probably would have done it, too, if his entire torso was not telling him that every movement was going to be severely punished from here on out.

“You, too,” Levine was saying to the pop star, who only shook his head.

“I’m all right,” he insisted, even though he was clearly about as all right as Michael himself was. He waved off the first of the EMTs and pointed to the driver’s door instead. “There’s still someone in there.”

The EMT took quick stock of the situation and turned to yell to the driver of the ambulance, “Fire and rescue coming?”

“Thirty seconds behind,” the driver answered. She was already climbing down from the vehicle. “And another ambulance thirty behind that.”

“We’re going to need them both, I can’t pop that bitch without help.” He looked at the three obviously injured people in front of him. As if they were being choreographed, the pop star and Michael both pointed at Carly in unison.

“All right, sweetheart, don’t stand just yet, I’ll help you here.” The EMT knelt down in front of her and gently helped her to peel the shirt away from her head.

“I’m David Cook,” the pop star announced without warning. Michael jerked and stared at him. While he had been staring in fascination at Carly’s head, unable to stop himself even as he realized that this impulse to document other people’s tragedies was probably the sickest one he had, David was unable to look at the blood at all. His adrenaline must be starting to fade.

“Michael Johns,” Michael echoed. He started to lean back against the car and winced when that was not comfortable, either. David was not the only one whose adrenaline was wearing off and leaving them stranded.

After determining that Carly was not going to turn into a paraplegic or explode if she stood up, the EMT announced, “All right, everyone away from the car, we don’t know what the gas tanks are going to do.”

At the thought of the vehicle exploding while one person in unknown condition was still trapped inside, Michael could feel what little blood was left in his face draining away. He was freezing cold even in his jacket, he was starting to shiver. That hurt, too. The second EMT started to help him to his feet and felt the movement. She eyed him with concern. “Are you injured, as well, sir?” she asked.

“He was in the second wreck,” Levine said, and pointed. Michael’s wince had more to do with his poor car than it did anything else, but he could feel the EMT tightening her grip around his elbow all the same. The man that he had hit was out and talking on his cellular phone, and had come nowhere near David Cook’s ruined car during the entire experience.

“I’m fine,” Michael protested. He ruined his moment by doubling over and vomiting, finally, even as it made his ribs scream. It was tinged with red when he straightened.

The female EMT saw the red immediately. It turned her face into the flat, no-nonsense visage of a general. “Sir, if you have internal injuries, you are most certainly not fine.” Michael found himself being led over to the ambulance where Carly was already being made comfortable. He was hooked up to machines monitoring his breathing and heart rate and was being pushed to lie flat before he quite knew what was happening. The EMT looked at David with the same expression.

“I have a broken wrist, I’m not trying to hide it,” David said in order to ward her off. He looked back at his car. A fire truck had arrived; there was more machinery than Michael would have thought possible working to get the door open. The second ambulance had turned its siren off upon arrival, but the pattern of the lights was still making Michael queasy. He closed his eyes and heard David ask, “What about my driver?”

“We won’t know until we get in there, sir,” the female EMT answered immediately.

“He’s a good guy,” David answered distantly, and Michael shut his eyes even tighter. He didn’t realize that anything had changed until he heard the ambulance doors being shut at his feet.

“What about David?” Carly asked. She had gauze on her head, but she was still trying to twist up and around.

“He’s being taken care of at the other ambulance, they’ll follow us soon.” The male EMT patted at her shoulder in a paint-by-numbers gesture of comfort. Carly looked at him, then at Michael. For a second, they were caught in a shared thought that Michael could have laughed, if he hadn’t known that his ribs would immediately make him think better of it. He was really not the person that she needed to be having her moments of empathy with.

“Wait, wait!” Michael called out as the ambulance began to move.

“What’s wrong?” the male EMT asked him immediately. No doubt he had images of Michael’s ribcage suddenly tearing loose dancing through his head.

“Stick your head out and tell the shirtless guy to grab my camera bag from the front seat of my car,” Michael told him.

The EMT’s expression changed. It was subtle, but it was there, and Michael was almost glad to see it. Enough people had been forgetting tonight as it was. “I don’t think that that should be your primary concern right now.”

“There’s fifteen grand in equipment in that bag, I don’t want it left there,” Michael snapped. “Just ask him, please.” Levine was the only person out there that Michael even halfway trusted. If there ever came a day when Levine screwed him over, Michael could at least have faith that Levine would do it to his face.

The EMT sighed, but Michael could dimly hear the message being relayed. And then they were flying. He had never had the dubious pleasure of an ambulance ride before. Whenever he had injured himself as a child, he had been ferried to the ER by one parent or another, being shushed over the entire way. He had never cried. It had always alarmed his parents a little bit, how he had never cried.

Michael tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and focused on finding out which types of breaths hurt less, short shallow ones-less pain, but more frequent-or the deep kinds that made agony radiate from his navel to his throat, but didn’t have to be performed as often. The data was not encouraging for either kind, actually.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” the female EMT warned him.

“That won’t be a problem,” Michael answered in a tight voice. The ambulance drove on, wailing like a banshee the entire way, and Michael listened hard for the sound of the second one fallowing them.

End Part Two

Go to Part Three