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Entry tags:	ai, american idol, american idol: fic

American Idol Fic: Black Bird Singing 5/13
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
Part Three
Part Four



Part Five

Michael could think of many far less pleasant ways to spend his day other than lying around his apartment and doing his best imitation of a slug. Granted, he would have loved it far more if he had not been stoned on painkillers-well, maybe that part was not so terrible-and unable to exercise the full range of his body’s movements. Remembering what the doctor in the Emergency Room had told him the night before, Michael realized sourly that he could not even look forward to getting laid before this was over. David surely wasn’t going to be in the frame of mind to grant sexual favors once it was over.

And maybe it’s the fact that you keep having thoughts like that that gets you into trouble. Nor would that voice shut up. Michael was going to have to get hammeringly drunk tonight, he could tell. He just hoped that David liked that in a man.

Getting ready took him three times as long as usual. Michael was ordinarily fairly low-key in his grooming; a tee shirt and jeans with a jacket thrown over it if it was an occasion, a brush through his hair, and if everything smelled all right he called it good. Fifteen minutes at the most. Michael took an extra pill and a shot of Jack before he even got started, knowing that it was going to be bad, and was still not even remotely ready for the actual experience of it. He could hardly raise his arms any higher than he had been able to the night before, and even that increase in freedom cost him dearly. He leaned over his sink so that he could swear for several minutes through clenched teeth, thinking seriously about calling it off. It would be better for David; it would probably be better for Michael, too. He could deal with Beth’s ire.

And it shocked Michael, suddenly, to realize that he was not going to call this off, and it had nothing to do with the check that Beth was going to cut him. He wanted to see David again. He wanted to see David again a lot. These flickerings of human feeling that he could not seem to cut out of him with any finality were going to kill him before it was all over.

Michael snorted and straightened. So the universe had dealt him a bum hand. It had happened to thousands of people before him, and it would doubtless happen to thousands more after him. He could bitch, or he could cope. Or, he could go back to his favored third option, which had always been bitching and coping all at once.

You’re going to be seeing a musician, you do realize that, right? That voice again. Michael was on the verge of taking a knife to his own skull in order to cut it out. You really think that you’re up to that, stud?

He had been photographing the vices of musicians for the past several years. He would make himself deal with it, goddamnit.

Michael gave an interior “fuck it” and chose a button-down shirt in the end; there was no way that he was going to be able to pull a regular tee shirt over his head unless he took so many painkillers first that he was rendered completely insensible for the date itself and was completely helpless to David having his wicked way with him.

Somewhere, Michael decided as his cock stirred, that thought had gone horribly wrong, and he was not entirely sure where.

He scrubbed at his hair and decided that brushing was out of the question, given how much dressing itself had cost him, and that was when the buzzer rang downstairs.

Michael hesitated, stared into his mirror. He could still back out. He could give David one excuse, and Beth another. He had been lying to everyone who knew him for years; he could hurdle over this one with ease. He could make that one tiny sacrifice in order to salve what was left of his conscience.

But at the end of the night, he hardly knew David and was already convincing himself that he didn’t owe him anything, and he had a car that needed replacing. Michael hit the button beside his door and all but purred, “I’ve been waiting all day.”

There was a notable pause, and then a clipped voice on the other end said, “I’ve scarcely been waiting for thirty seconds, sir.”

Michael leapt back from the button, as much as he was capable of it in his current condition, and felt blood running upwards and into his cheeks. David had sent a driver. He could almost laugh, except that he got the vague feeling that there was some kind of cock-waving contest going on that he had not been invited to quite yet. “Sorry,” he muttered into the receiver. “I’ll be right down.”

The only thing that Michael could say about David’s choice of cars was that he had not chosen a limo. Michael threw back his head and laughed when he saw the sleek black town car that, from the looks of it, might have been driven off the showroom floor just for this occasion. The immediate protest coming from his ribs was even worth it. “David likes to make an impression, doesn’t he?” Michael asked the startled driver, ignoring the thought that would not go away: David had made the strongest impression that he ever could have hoped to cause in a different car, the night before. We caused this. He would force what was left of his conscience into extinction through nothing more than sheer force of temper, if that was what it took.

The driver cut Michael a sideways glance, as if he was not quite sure what to make of Michael quite yet. “He does have a sense of the theatrical that we have not been able to wean him from, sir.” The driver even held the door open for Michael so that he could slide inside. It was a silent ride; Michael had the feeling that he was being laughed at without quite being able to say why.

After twenty minutes, they had arrived in the same neighborhood that had thrown Michael’s job so violently off course the night before. Michael stared out the window, fully aware that what he was doing for Beth was completely unconscionable, that he would blame her for it when it was over, and that the excuse would be complete horseshit when he did. It was a nice neighborhood; they had even cleaned the glass out of the street already.

David Cook lived in a gated home that was, from Michael’s estimation it from the outside as he and the driver waited for the gate to open, at least four times as large as Michael’s own apartment, and Michael was not living in a closet. It was still modest when compared to some of his neighbors. “Jesus Christ,” Michael muttered softly. He came very close to thinking that he was clearly in the wrong line of work before he was able to shut the thought down out of long practice. The driver heard something in Michael’s voice and glanced into the rearview mirror; a scowl on Michael’s part kept him from doing it again. They pulled up to the front of the house so that Michael could get out and the driver could take the car and disappear so quietly and discreetly that it was almost thirty seconds before Michael had even realized that he was gone.

Granted, a lot of that could have been David.

David must have been standing right by the front door and listening for the car, because he stepped out onto the porch and watched as Michael exited the vehicle. Somehow, a move that should have had Michael mocking David endlessly within his own mind and making the task before him that much easier was made endearing through an alchemy that Michael didn’t understand. The way that David was looking at him might have had something to do with it. It had been a long time since Michael could remember being looked at like that, and he shivered, half in discomfort and half in appreciation, when David let the moment go on for just a shade longer before he glanced away.

“Nice,” Michael said. “You know, I’m a cheap date. The car really wasn’t necessary.”

David grinned at him. “Maybe not,” he agreed. “But, hell, you came here expecting a rock star, didn’t you? Come on inside.” He pushed the door open so that Michael could enter the house ahead of him.

Scratch that. The house had clearly been designed to look smaller than it actually was from the outside; it was at least five, nearly six times as large as Michael’s own residence. He felt his jaw falling open slightly before he could control himself, and did not need to turn his head to know that David was laughing silently behind him.

“Thought you chased this around for a living,” David teased him as he moved ahead of him through the foyer, across a living room that was big enough to play sports in and had been decorated with clear money and taste, and towards what Michael presumed would be the kitchen, provided that they didn’t get lost in a maze first. He smelled food. If David could cook, too, then Michael was going to have to call Beth and tell her that she needed to find another photographer, he was clearly not cut out for this work.

“They generally don’t let me get this close,” Michael said in a dry tone as he followed David. “Crossing the gate leads to a night in jail, assault charges, all kinds of messy things.”

David threw an amused glance over his shoulder. “Your life is so hard.” There was an edge to his voice for the first time. Michael made a mental note to keep all further mentions of his work down to a minimum.

More than you realize. Michael bit it back just before he said it out loud, fully aware that he was going to sound like the very whiniest of industry failures, usually just before he took a picture of them doing coke off of the proverbial (and sometimes literal) hooker’s ass. He worked his mouth into a crooked smile instead, and hoped that it was convincing. David didn’t want to know who Michael really was. He might thought that he did, but he was wrong, and he was going to find out soon enough, anyway.

“You know,” Michael said. “It has its perks. We can’t all be rock stars.”

Too much, David stopped and looked back at him. Michael fought hard to keep his face neutral as David’s eyes roamed across his expression, looking for clues, and wondered if this would only be the first of many times that he wound up wishing that David was an idiot. “World would be a boring place, I guess,” David said, his voice trailing off at the end. Michael could see the thoughts racing around in that mind, and for a few seconds wished that David had caught a head injury the night before instead of just a broken wrist.

Speaking of. Michael gestured towards David’s wrist, where the black brace of the night before had been replaced with a neat white cast. “How are you doing?”

“I’m on medication that I can’t even pronounce,” David said, “so I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered.” Another of those backwards glances. David’s eyes were a clear, sharp hazel, and Michael was already wishing that they would find something else to look at. It had been too long, he was nowhere near the man that he had been when he had first come to Los Angeles, and David saw too much. “Can I say the same thing about you?”

Michael laughed and then put his hand against his ribs, effectively proving both of David’s points. “Flying high, brother,” he said. “I’ve been warned away from sex, though, in case you were expecting a happy ending to tonight.”

“I’m a gentleman. I’ll have you know, I’ve never pressured anyone into sex in my life.” They reached the kitchen, which was as spacious and tastefully decorated as the rest of the house. David stopped and put his hands against either side of the doorway, blocking Michael where he stood. He leaned in close; he threw off heat. “I’m shy. I like to be the one asked.”

Shy, my ass. Michael scarcely had time to draw a breath, let alone say it aloud, before David was turning away again. There was a flush that Michael could see crawling up the back of David’s neck, as if he was shocked by his own audacity. Michael suddenly had issues with blood running to an entirely different place and did not answer.

“I hope that you’re hungry,” David said, gesturing to the oven.

“Starving.” Michael drifted further into the kitchen. He muttered under his breath, “And I think that I might need to use your phone.”

“What?” David turned halfway with a furrowing brow. Damned if that didn’t look good on him, too. So you’re going to be getting a big, fat bonus check and a big, fat orgasm before this is over, Michael told himself. Get over it. It was one more step on the road towards becoming an actual prostitute, but fuck. He had been on it for so long that it was surely hypocritical of him to start whining about it now.

“Nothing.” Michael cleared his throat. “I didn’t figure you for the cooking type, is all.”

“I’m not.” David took a quick peek into a pot on the stove and proved the truth of his words by adopting an entirely confused expression. “I mean, I can handle your basic bachelor foods, I had to eat something before I hit it big, but this is all catered. Heat and eat.” He leaned forward so that he could peer into the pot at a closer distance. “I think that this needs to be heated longer. I’m not sure.”

Michael stepped closer so that he could peer over David’s shoulder and into the pot himself. “About fifteen more minutes,” he decided.

“Wouldn’t have figured you for the cooking type, either,” David said. “Man of many talents.” And he even managed to refer to Michael’s skills in chasing people around the city and taking pictures of them as a talent without allowing even a hint of irony to enter his voice. Maybe he hadn’t been lying on the phone earlier when he had said that he didn’t date often, as much as Michael was struggling to imagine that a good-looking pop star with no shortage of zeroes at the end of his bank account would ever find himself running out of people willing to sleep with him.

Michael shrugged; it hurt more than he expected, and in more ways than one. “I was married for a while,” he said. “She taught me how to cook.” There was an edge to his voice that he could not catch and call back in time.

David heard it, too. “Married, huh?” he asked. “What happened?” He looked at Michael’s face and added, in a tone that would have been deferential if Michael was not convinced that David was the sort of personality that treated every piece of forbidden knowledge as his own personal mission. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Another shrug. “Didn’t work out.” It was a hell of a lot more than the first tinge of an edge that crossed his voice now, and David would be wise to drop the subject.

David was not stupid. “That happens,” he said, in the tones of someone trying to defuse a situation that he had wandered into without meaning to. “You want a drink while we wait?”

God, did he ever. Michael blew out a long stream of air through his nose. “Got any wine?” he asked. It was probably dangerous to ask, given that David had walked in on him about two steps away from a drunk driving charge the night before, but fuck if Michael could bring himself to care. When all of this was over, Michael did not want David to be able to say that there had not been any warning signs.

“Not to be too much of a cliche here, but hell yeah, I do.” David leaned into one cabinet and produced two wine glasses, a bottle of expensive-looking red from the other. “The second album meant that my days of two-buck chuck were over.” He had uncorked the bottle and was pouring two glasses before Michael could even offer to help. The man was capable of doing a lot more with only one functioning hand than Michael would have thought possible.

It really had been a year since Stacey had left him and his opportunities for sex had become few and far between, Michael reflected, if a thought like that was all that it took to turn his mind straight to pornography. He coughed into his hand.

David cast him a strange look, but, whatever it was that he was thinking, he decided to let it pass. “I’ll give you the tour,” he said as he handed Michael his glass. Michael swore that the way that David allowed their fingers to brush against each other was deliberate. Michael took a deep swallow of the wine as David turned his back on him. It wasn’t as strong as what he normally drank, but he’d get through.

Upon walking back through the living room, Michael noticed for the first time that David had at least three different crossword puzzles scattered across his living room table, each one with its own pen tucked inside to keep David’s place. He raised his eyebrow at David’s back and felt a smile flicking across his face.

David glanced back and saw where Michael’s gaze was pointed. He laughed, a little nervously. “You figured out my deep, dark secret. I’m a geek.”

“I don’t mind,” Michael said, though he could not help but look David up and down as he said it, never mind that David was cataloguing every move. How anyone could look at this man and think that he was a geek was beyond Michael.

“Anyway, the cool stuff is upstairs,” David answered as he turned away again. Michael saw that flush on the back of his neck again, and was already wondering what it would look like if it spread across the rest of his body. He took another drink of wine, felt blood crawling up his own face. A good merlot couldn’t begin to touch the tolerance that he had built up at this point, but he hadn’t eaten all day, and the painkillers that were running through his system were no joke. Already Michael could feel himself growing loose-limbed and happier. “All this crap is just because it’s what they expect of me.”

“I’m so glad that you can decorate your house based upon what a rock star is expected to buy,” Michael said dryly.

David’s grin looked even better when Michael was feeling the slow effects of beginning intoxication. “Crosses to bear,” he said simply, and cocked an eyebrow upwards. They reached David’s stairs.

Michael cleared his throat and remembered, abruptly, that he had a job to do here. “So, don’t get me wrong or anything, but you and Carly seem to be a hot thing in the tabloids.” David paused a few steps above Michael and looked down. Without warning, his face was blank again. “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life, but I’d hate to think that I’m here with someone who’s already taken.”

David’s face relaxed, just a touch. He still looked wary to Michael, who wondered if David was not far more aware of the game that was really being played here than he was willing to let on. “Carly’s a friend,” he said. Was that a certain tightness in his voice, a pause before he spoke as if he was weighing each word to see how it would play to someone of Michael’s profession? Michael thought that it was.

“Oh.” If Beth had thrown him into this expecting him to do the work of James Bond, then she was going to be sorely disappointed by the results. Michael took another sip of wine. He was going to need a refill soon, at the rate that he was going. “The way that the two of you left that club--”

“Are we on the record here?” David interrupted. With the lights behind him, Michael could not fully see his eyes, was making most of his guesses based upon David’s voice alone. It was taut, wary; Michael thought that he was being issued a challenge here, and that the way he responded to it would decide then and there whether or not he stayed or went.

Lucky him, there had been a point in his life when he had been certain that his destiny was to play for crowded stadiums under blisteringly hot lights. A little pressure was nothing. Michael smiled a crooked smile, and it was easy, convincing, he could tell without even needing to look at himself. David’s shoulders loosened a notch. Poor goddamned idiot. It occurred to Michael to wonder how he had gotten this way, how his reactions had become so fundamentally twisted, before he took a breath and pushed forward again.

“My cameras are in the shop with my car,” Michael said. “There are very few lines that I haven’t crossed already, David, and I don’t--” He had never had any ambitions towards being an actor. Maybe that had been a mistake. The shake that entered his voice certainly sounded real. “Look, I don’t want to cross any with you, all right?”

David’s shoulders relaxed further. “I’ll let you know when you start steering wrong,” he assured Michael. Even the shadows thrown over his face could not hide the sudden, delighted glitter of his grin. “Since you look like you could use some help there.”

Michael snorted, and given a stern talking-to by his ribs immediately. He put his hand against his side. “Cute.”

“I saw your ride for about half a second before you drove it into things--excellent automotive strategy, by the way.” David turned to go up the stairs again. “It looked bad-ass. What kind of ride was that?”

“1970 Chevelle.”

“Nice.” David sounded appreciative. He liked crossword puzzles and muscle cars. Michael was starting to think the man was a magpie, picking up everything that interested him along the way. “It must kick your ass in gas, though.”

Michael shrugged. “I can afford it.” He turned up the corners of his mouth and was aware that this one was not quite as smooth and effortless as the ones past. “Doesn’t pay quite as well as making multi-platinum albums, but I do all right.” He pictured the way that David’s limo had looked as it had abruptly crumpled into a shape that the metal had never been meant to take and sucked in his breath. “Hell, in anything smaller I probably would still be in the hospital.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” David said, but his voice was taut. Michael wondered if he was thinking, as Michael was, of the driver who was still there.

Michael felt awkward and thrown off of his center the entire time that David was standing above him, and was glad when they reached the top of the stairs. “Here,” David said, opening the door to a room just a few yards down. Like everything else in the house, it was much larger than Michael would have guessed from the outside.

And it was filled with music.

Michael took a deep breath and very nearly backed right out again, purely on instinct, before he was able to stop himself. There was an electric guitar with the letters ‘AC’ inscribed upon its panel in a place of honor in the center of the room. An acoustic was sitting in a similar stand in one corner. There was a keyboard in another, dozens of music posters scattered about the walls, and even two gold records sitting above the fireplace. None of the instruments had the look of neglected vanity pieces to Michael’s mind; it was clear that David picked all of them up regularly.

It was a large, spacious room, like every other in the house, but out of nowhere it was suddenly much too small for Michael to breathe. He took a deep, shuddering breath and staggered back out into the hallway.

David had barely been half a step ahead of Michael, into the room, and it took him even less time to follow Michael back out again. “Are you okay, man?” he asked, reaching out to put his hand on Michael’s arm. Michael shook him off before he even had time to realize what he was doing, like an animal, and took another step back. “Look, we can go back downstairs--”

Michael took another breath, steadier than the rest, and for a few seconds saw himself as he must look from the outside. Wild-eyed and panting, his face flushed with drink, nearly coming out of his skin because David Cook had a few musical trinkets in a room in his house. Beth would be kicking his ass if she could see him here. Hell, if Michael had been in his right mind and capable of it, he would have kicked his own ass.

“I’m okay,” he said. David stared at him, frank disbelief written across his face. “No, really, it’s all right. I just...I just have some triggers.”

“Yeah,” David answered softly. “I guess that I can see that.” He gestured towards the door. It had swung partway closed as David had exited, but not entirely; Michael could still see the legs of the guitar stand. “Do you still want to check it out, or we could grab another glass of wine--?”

Yeah, Michael was just betting that that was what he needed to do right now, drink up David’s exquisite wine until the inside of that room stopped making his skin crawl with what might have been. He was sure that David would be unfailingly polite about it, too, because David was a nice man and that was what he did. Maybe they would even make out a little bit-Michael had discovered that he could not conceive of anyone being quite that nice, not anymore-and David would never call Michael again afterwards. There would be no money. There would be no...

It had been way too long since he had gotten laid, Michael told himself viciously, cutting off the line of thought before it could become anything more than the very unsteadiest of blooms. That was all; he just needed sex.

Then hire a hooker. If that was what was left of his conscience, then it was no surprise that he was in trouble.

“I want to go in,” Michael said firmly. He clenched his free hand into a fist by his side and then tucked it slightly behind his body, so that it would not be as easy for David to see. The hand holding the wineglass, he noted, was still white-knuckled. “Please.”

David spent another long moment staring at him, making Michael painfully aware all over again that he was not facing a stupid man. “Sure,” he answered finally, ducking his head in the direction of the doorway. He still hesitated long enough to make Michael the one to push the door open himself.

It was a big room. It was a lovely room. Michael hated every second that he was in it. He stepped carefully into the center of the room and touched his fingers to the smooth, well-cared for electric guitar. There was not a speck of dust on it.

“Do you play?” David asked from behind him. Michael was not doing anything more than touching his fingers lightly to the surface of the guitar, but maybe he was doing even that as a person who had held one of these things before. He pulled his fingers back as if he had been burned.

“A little bit,” Michael said. His voice was hoarser than he had anticipated, in spite of all of his best efforts to keep it under his control. He cleared his throat and then drained the last of his wine in one long gulp, bitter dregs and all. “It was a long time ago, though.”

“I don’t get the chance to play nearly as often as I want to any more,” David said. He picked up the guitar from its stand, hefted it with the same easy grace as a long-time parent, and then slipped it over his head. His fingers plucked out a few notes; even with the instrument unplugged, Michael could see the mark of skill. “I’m in the studio, I’m on a tour, you know...whatever.”

Michael let out a short laugh. “I can totally empathize.”

David looked up at Michael from beneath his lashes. Even though his mind was still busily and obviously whirring away, there was a mischievous crook to his mouth that made it difficult for Michael to stay where he was. “Whatever, dude,” David said, and laughed. It was a wondrous sound. “You’re knee-deep in this Hollywood shit, don’t pretend that you’re shiny-clean.”

“No worries there,” Michael muttered. He could not stop his fingers from stretching forward and touching at the surface of the guitar again, even though he knew that it would pain him. It was like having a rotten tooth that he could not stop tonguing.

David shifted to take the guitar off suddenly, Michael would later think with a certain amount of premeditation, so that his hand collided solidly with Michael’s own. It was a perfect opportunity for their fingers to curl around one another. “You sure you don’t want to hold it?”

“I’m good,” Michael said; a little too quickly, he could tell a second later. He wondered what he must look like to David right now, because his heart was beating too quickly, and in spite of the warmth that the wine should have been bringing him he felt cold. He had tried to cut all of this out of his life when it had become clear that he was going to be chasing a dream fruitlessly, and he thought that he had done a pretty good job. Like a surgeon removing a cancer, he had told himself, quick and clean. Looked like he had missed some.

David set the guitar back onto its stand without comment. Michael’s strange reactions were probably testing his sense of tact to its farthest limit. “I miss it sometimes, you know?” he said. He stroked at the guitar’s sleek surface himself, making Michael wonder if David was not talking half to himself. “Just being able to tear off and play whenever I want. I didn’t realize how much winning that damned show would eat up my time.” He turned and flashed his teeth at Michael in that huge smile of his. “Not that I’m bitching about all of the rest of it, mind you.”

“Show?” Michael asked, feeling as if this was something that he ought to already know. He should have put together a dossier on all of David’s habits and studied it in the hours before getting ready; James Bond, he was certainly proving not to be.

David stared at him for a second without speaking and then burst out with a startled, delighted laugh. “Oh, you’re kidding me!” he exclaimed. “Really?”

Michael held up his hands in a defensive gesture and felt a smile curling about the edges of his own mouth. “Mock not the Aussie,” he said. “Our ways are strange even to ourselves.”

“Clearly.” David kept flashing Michael sideways looks and grinning for a few moments before he answered. “This show, American Idol? Juggernaut of the modern age? Biggest show in television history? Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“It’s crossed my path a time or two,” Michael answered dryly.

“I won it about three years ago.” David shrugged. “Magic wand in this industry, if you can get it. I’d been beating my head against the door, trying to get them to open it for me, for years. I was about to give up.”

Michael felt cold again, but he thought that he kept it under better control this time. “I’m glad that you didn’t,” he said, and meant it.

David heard the burr in his voice, looked over. “Me, too,” he answered. “Somehow, I don’t see this happening if you met me because I was trying to sell you a laptop in Omaha.”

It felt good to laugh, even if it did hurt his ribs. “Maybe I would have surprised you,” Michael said.

“You’re surprising me now,” David said. He jumped forward before Michael could pause too long to wonder about what that statement could possibly mean, his words tumbling over each other. Michael thought that he had the look of a soldier going to into battle, aware that he was probably going to get shot at. “So what’s your story? There’s a shortage of paparazzi in Australia? You’re running from a dark family secret? You have another family and you’re terrified that your own people are going to make it into a headline?” Michael threw David a sour look and got only that effervescent grin in response. “Whatever, man, like you haven’t made up a hell of a lot worse to sell papers. I read a lot, you don’t want my imagination running away with me.”

“You’d have me battling a secret addiction and the tragic victim of my own failed ambitions by the end of the week.”

“You underestimate my ability to call people out on their own bullshit.” David was so cheerful, so offhand, that Michael was sure he hadn’t heard anything in Michael’s voice to convince him that it was anything other than a glib, off the cuff remark in a verbal sparring match, but he looked at him sideways all the same. “Come on, tell me. No offense, bro, but it’s making me kind of nervous to be the only one baring my heart here.”

Michael shrugged. If David asked him why his face had suddenly become tight, he was going to say that it was only because he had jogged his ribs wrong. “Came to the states when I was eighteen,” he said. “You know, kicking around. One thing led to another, I borrowed someone’s camera and got a few good pictures to make some quick money, and then after I found out that I’m good at it it became a permanent gig.”

“That’s it?” David sounded aggrieved. Michael was sure that he had been expecting something with a little more dramatic resonance. “You came all the way from Australia and just decided, hey, I’d like to chase people around and take pictures of them in their underwear?”

“You don’t remember being a teenager at all, do you?”

David held up a finger. “One, not finished, and two: you keep that up and I’m going to think that you really wanted to be a standup comedian. But, seriously. You never wanted to be anything other than a paparazzo? As far as ambitions go, that’s pretty sparse.”

Michael coughed into his hand and wished that they had brought the bottle upstairs with them. “I was eighteen,” he said. “You know how that goes. You think that you have all of the answers and that you’re going to live out Kerouac, and then you realize that there are bills that have to be paid.” He tried to grin. “We can’t all have big, dramatic rags to riches stories.”

David’s expression was dubious. “Rock star rags are pretty damned expensive,” he said, but other than that seemed willing to let the conversation drop. He cocked his head to one side and said suddenly, “Shit, I think the food’s ready.”

The food was more than ready, it was bordering on burned. David apologized for it until Michael told him to stop, laughing more in the span of half an hour than he thought he had in the previous six months combined. They ate, and they drank. Michael kept a watch on himself and knew that he was drinking fairly heavily at the same time that he also knew he would have had a lot more if he had been by himself. David was funny and witty, and he was an expert at deflecting any question of Michael’s that he did not want to answer at the same time that he didn’t ask Michael any direct questions himself. Apparently Michael had mapped out all of his minefields with bright enough markers in the room upstairs.

Michael more than once thought that he should be pushing harder at David to find out whatever it was that had happened at Hyde to bring the police screaming to their door and David and Carly running out like animals before a forest fire, but always there was an interior force that stopped him before he could quite get the words out of his mouth. He was not naive enough to think that it was his conscience, this time around; drink was always able to put that vestigial outgrowth to rest for the night. He thought that it was fear. Michael was enjoying David’s company more than he could remember enjoying anything else in a very long time, and every moment that he actually remembered Beth’s assignment and did his job was one less moment that he was going to have here.

It was well past midnight when Michael stood to go, a little wobbly on his feet, but not bad. It took him a few seconds to remember that he had not driven himself here, and that neither had he made any plans as to how he was going to get back. “Guess I’m at your mercy,” he said.

David’s grin, sudden and wolfish, made Michael wonder if that would really be such a terrible thing. The master bedroom had been one of the few corners of the house that they had not explored on the tour. “You have no idea how much you’re tempting my virtue there,” he said before he heaved a big, regretful sigh. “But I have a policy of never taking advantage of the intoxicated. It’s a thing.”

“Push your luck,” Michael wanted to say, only to bite it back just in time. It would not be the first time that he had been comparable to a whore, and he was nowhere near naive enough to think that it would be the last, but it suddenly pained him how much he did not want that to be the case, not this one time. He grinned a crooked grin instead and asked, “Does it ever get on your nerves, being that good a person?”

“Constantly.” David snorted. “I keep telling myself that the cost-benefit analysis of not being a douchebag is worth it in the end, though.” He stood, and the only evidence that he had been drinking at all that night was a light flush along the tops of his cheekbones. Michael recalled that he had only had a few glasses and had switched to iced tea well over two hours before, letting Michael plow forward unaided. “I’ll drive you.”

“Both of our records suck in that department right now, you know.”

“No, your record sucks in that department,” David corrected. “I was merely the helpless victim trapped in the backseat.” He led Michael out to the garage, where a shiny Lexus ISF was waiting for them. There as little dust on its traffic light red paint as there had been on David’s guitar upstairs. Michael let out a low whistle. “From one lover of cars with machismo to another, I take that as high praise.”

“Damn right.” Michael opened the passenger door and got inside, only to discover that the inside was every bit as nice as the outside. When David started it up and drove them out of the garage, the engine purred like a well-satisfied animal.

It didn’t take them nearly long enough to get back to Michael’s place, even with Michael deliberately giving David directions that took them on the most circuitous route possible. He thought that David knew this, too, for he did not comment on Michael’s creative reinventions and even suggested a few of them himself, effectively doubling their time. When they finally had no choice but to pull to a halt in front of Michael’s building, Michael could not make his fingers find the door handle.

He cleared his throat. “I had fun,” he said, and winced a second later when he realized how much he sounded like a cliche.

David did not seem to mind. “Me, too,” he answered softly, and then, without any warning beforehand, leaned over the center console so that he could kiss Michael.

They had touched each other surprisingly little after leaving the music room, making Michael wonder more than once if David had not decided that Michael might snap altogether if someone put their hand on his arm without giving him at least two weeks advance warning, and he knew that he jumped hard when David’s mouth found his. David didn’t pull away, though, and Michael did not ask him to. He made a low sound from the back of his throat that he was horrified to discover could actually be classified as desperate and answered David’s kiss with his own. David put his good hand into Michael’s hair, holding him still, while his tongue entered Michael’s mouth and every second of it made Michael’s heart beat fast and his skin tingle. He could not remember the last time that he had been touched like this, and he already knew that he didn’t want it to stop. He grabbed at David’s jacket it order to push it down and off of his shoulders.

David stopped abruptly and rested his forehead against Michael’s. “Easy, easy,” he said, breathing hard. “We’re good here.”

“Are you kidding me?” Michael nearly exploded. It had taken less than thirty seconds of contact to make him hornier than he could remember being before in his life.

David’s laugh was soft and muted. “Told you,” he murmured as he pulled away. “I have a policy of not taking advantage of drunk people.”

“This drunk person would really not mind, trust me.”

David went on as if Michael had not spoken. “And I like to leave them wanting more,” he said. “See you soon, Michael.”

“You’re a right bastard,” Michael said, but he was smiling a little as he exited the car. The air outside was downright cool compared to the atmosphere inside the car and, as Michael watched David drive away, it did next to nothing to bring him back to the reality of what he was going to do.

End Part Five

Go to Part Six