American Idol Fic: Black Bird Singing 8/13
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
Part Six
Part Seven



Part Eight

Even though Michael did not drink another drop that night, he still woke up with a pounding headache and a deep and inescapable sense that something had gone wrong without his knowledge. It took him several seconds to place it: the apartment was too quiet. He had not called Beth with a status report, even though a quick rolling over to look at the clock informed him that it was past eleven and she should have started her game with the telephone by now. Maybe she was letting him sleep out of some neglected sense of compassion. Maybe she had adopted a whole bunch of starving babies and they were taking up all of her attention. Michael considered both of those options before he decided that, no, he was fucked over in some way that he could yet put his finger on.

It was with a deep sense of foreboding that he rose from his bed, nearly stumbled over the guitar case that he had not been able to bring himself to move again before falling into sleep, and dressed quickly. There were bright fingers of sunlight coming through his windows, but Michael could not shake the feeling that some great storm was looming at him from just over his shoulder. He walked into his living room feeling as if he was going to his own firing squad.

The phone rang just as Michael’s fingers brushed the plastic. He picked it up without looking at the Caller ID, somehow knowing without needing to look who it was going to be. “Hello?”

“In the interest of fairness, I still intend to give you that bonus.”

This was how gollums felt, Michael thought, solid, heavy clay that somehow still had the ability to move. Around a tight throat, Michael said, “But I didn’t do anything. I’ve decided not to push David about what happened at Hyde.”

Beth could sound like she was doing someone a favor even as she was ripping their heart from their chest and showing it to them. “I know that, Michael. I realized after your tantrum yesterday that you never intended to, either.” She sighed. Michael wanted to know where she got off, sounding as if she was the one who had cause to be so disappointed in him, but it was becoming more difficult to breathe by the moment. “So I had to get flexible.”

“What did you do, Beth.” Michael could barely manage to push his voice into a whisper, let alone an actual question. “For God’s sake, what did you do.”

“I told you that I didn’t care where you put your masculine bits,” Beth told him, and Michael felt the world waver around him. “I want you to know that that’s still true. This wasn’t personal.”

Michael tried to form words and couldn’t. He hung up the phone without saying a further word. Beth would be angry about that, but she, she---there were not words for what she could do to herself right now, as far as Michael was concerned. It was probably lucky for her that she was not standing in front of him.

The paper had a website, where anyone so inclined could view that day’s headlines for free. Michael dashed back down his hallway as fast as he was able and threw himself down into his office chair, powered up his computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard, and then he was glad that he had not had the chance to eat anything that morning.

IDOL ALUM ENGAGES IN KINKY TRYST WITH CAMERA MAN. There was a picture beneath the headline of David entering his apartment building, and another of him leaving. Time-stamps had been helpfully provided for those who wanted to be absolutely sure that he had not been there to drop off a borrowed cup of sugar.

Michael put his hands over his face and leaned back in his chair. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, oh, fuck.” It was nearly a moan. Conspicuously, he noticed that Beth was not calling him back to ream him out for hanging up on her. Even worse, there was another person who was not calling him and asking him what the hell was going on. If there was any hope left, even if he only wanted to scream at Michael for doing such a dumb and selfish fucking thing in the first place, then surely David would contact him.

Michael kept a phone in his office. He reached for it and with shaking fingers punched in David’s number. It rang and rang, without anyone picking up, long after Michael would have thought that it would have switched over to David’s answering machine. Finally, the phone was picked up, only to be followed by the distinct clicking sound of it being hung right back up again.

Michael pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He couldn’t say that he had not deserved that response; he could not say that it even surprised him.

You knew that this was going to happen.

Yeah, but that did not mean that he had wanted it, not by any means, and for it to happen immediately after he had tried to man the fuck up and do the right thing for the first time...for the first time in years, at least, and maybe karma still owed a smack or two for that. But he had tried, goddamnit, and there was a selfish part of Michael’s mind that could not believe that this was happening. He had tried, didn’t the fact that he had tried mean that there should be a moratorium on this kind of shit?

So make it right.

That voice did not appear as if it was going to go away any time soon, especially not now that he was willing to acknowledge it as his conscience and realize that it was not going to go anywhere any time soon, so he might as well give up on all of the little games that he had been playing with it for the last three years.

“I won’t even get past the front gate,” Michael muttered to himself. He rubbed his hands over his face again. There were burns on his cheeks where David’s stubble had rubbed against him.

So make it right.

Michael swore and dialed David’s number again. The same result: several rings, followed by someone clearly recognizing the number and hanging up on him. Michael barely got the click before he was letting out his loudest and most violent obscenity of all and hurling his phone against the opposite wall. Plastic rained down against the carpet; Michael put his hand against his side and nearly screamed. He rested his forehead against his desk, breathing hard, and wondered if this was going to be the situation that the doctor had warned him about. When he could still breathe and felt no urge to cough up blood several minutes later, Michael raised his head again. There seemed to be only one thing left for him to do, at this point.

In the time that it took for the cab to arrive at his apartment, Michael dressed quickly and brushed his teeth. He could not help but stare at himself in the mirror as he did so; it did not look as if he had slept. How Kate had told him that he sounded happier, Michael could not imagine, because he thought that he looked like death. That was fitting enough, considering that he very well might be going to his own firing squad.

David left Michael sitting outside of his gate for nearly five minutes before he made up his mind. Michael sat in the back seat and fought the urge to fidget as the cabbie glanced back at him in his rearview mirror. He was convinced that David was going to give him the same treatment that he had given him over the phone before the gate finally, slowly swung open without a word of explanation.

“It’s like going into a haunted mansion,” the cabbie muttered. Michael didn’t think that he was meant to have heard.

He snorted. “Could be my ghost floating around that place before too much longer. You mind waiting out here?”

The cabbie shrugged. “It’s your money.” He looked far more interested than his casual words would have suggested. Michael wondered if he was a big reader of the tabloids.

Michael knocked on David’s front door and wondered if it would be another situation like the one at the gate, where David had left him there just to fuck with him, or if they would pull the bandaid off of this one right away. It was the latter, though the look on David’s face was such that Michael almost wished that it would have been the former. That way he might have had time to brace himself.

“Do you want to come in?” David asked without any preamble. Michael searched David’s face desperately for clues before he gave his answer and could not find any. David did not look angry; David did not even look hurt. David looked like a mannequin standing up and performing all of the requisite actions without anyone resting behind the eyes.

Michael nodded without speaking and stepped ahead of David into the house. The force with which David slammed the door after him told him right then and there how this conversation was going to go. “David--” he started.

“The only reason that I let you through that front door is because I am not about to have this fight out in the yard,” David interrupted him in a low, growling voice. Michael had never heard him that angry before; he never would have thought it even possible that David could become this angry. It seemed against everything that David was about. “I don’t want to become another headline.” A tight, glittering smile. Michael thought that it was more befitting to a wild animal to a man. “Assuming, of course, that you don’t run right off and give your boss the full scoop the second that you’re out of here.”

Michael felt color rising into his cheeks. “David, as hard as it might be for you to believe me, I had nothing to do with this.” His lies rose up in his throat, sour and burning, and forced him to continue. “I mean, I was going to, but I changed my mind--” It was a pitiful, weak excuse, and Michael honestly did not know if it was better or worse that he should even try.

David let out a short, barking laugh which let Michael know immediately what David’s opinion was on the matter. “You changed your mind?” he asked disbelievingly. “You changed your mind? Even if that was true--”

“It is true--” Michael tried to insist.

“There’s a motherfucking quote from you inside!” David roared. He took a step towards Michael, his casted fist raised, and Michael really thought for a few seconds that he was about to get his face rearranged for him. David realized what he was doing a second later and lowered his arm, but the expression on his face did not soften. Low and toneless, he continued, “What are you even doing here, Michael? What do you want, a soundbite? Go fuck yourself.”

“Just listen to me,” Michael pleaded. He could not remember the last time that he had sounded so desperate, and neither could he bring himself to care. “David, I swear, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.” David shook his head and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling, as if he could not believe that Michael was really going to waste both of their times with this cliche. “Yeah. Yeah, I was going to use you.” David’s eyes were all pupil, glittering with rage, hurt, and the first beginnings of hate. “I changed my mind, though, David, I swear that I did. I couldn’t go through with it.”

David grabbed the tabloid in question from his coffee table and hurled it so that it bounced off of Michael’s chest and fell to the floor. Glossy pages fluttered open, revealing glossy lives with all of their cracks showing for public consumption and judgment. Michael could not look at it.

“That says otherwise,” David said coldly.

“I already told you,” Michael started, feeling his first flush of real anger. In his head, this was not how this had gone. In his head, no matter how much he had pretended to understand what he really had coming his way, David had somehow found a way to forgive him, anyway, and everything had been all right. Michael wished that he could stop that small part of him that stubbornly continued to be an idealist from popping up over and over again, as it only got kicked in the teeth each time. “That’s a lie, I never helped Beth with that. My job was to find out what was going on at Hyde--” That was a mistake. Michael knew it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. David’s eyes, the hazel that had so captivated Michael before he had even known who David was, were darker and flatter than Michael ever would have thought possible. “Look, my boss threatened me, okay?” Surely one more lie could serve to get him out of this, when the truth was failing so resoundingly. “I didn’t have a choice.”

David made a choked sound and stepped backwards, deliberately putting the coffee table between the two of them. It took Michael several seconds to realize that David was doing it so that he would not have to fight so hard against the urge to strike him. “You are unbelievable, Michael Johns,” he said. He was so angry that his voice was barely rising above a whisper. “I don’t think that I have ever met a person so singularly full of shit as you are.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Michael demanded.

David made an expansive gesture meant to include Michael from the top of his head down to his feet. “You. All of it. The cynical photographer thing, the poor little victim who couldn’t hack it, so he decided to sell his soul instead. It’s pathetic, and it’s a load of bullshit besides. I’m not buying it.”

A roaring sound filled Michael’s ears. He stepped forward without quite realizing what he was doing, until the coffee table really was the only thing that was keeping the two of them separated from one another. “And it’s so easy for you to tell me how to live my life, isn’t it?” he snarled at David, who held his gaze without flinching and who had a disdainful sneer twisting his mouth. “Tell me how bad you got it, big Mr. Rock Star, tell me all about the kinds of sacrifices you’re making right now. Why don’t you shut the fuck up until you know what an actual sacrifice is.”

David stepped forward himself. His shins collided against the coffee table, and he still leaned forward until he was on the verge of unbalancing himself. “I’m here because I actually goddamned fought for what I wanted, for years, and had the stones to talk myself out of it every time that I thought about giving up,” he snarled at Michael. “You have that option, too, and if you can’t handle it, then you don’t have any right trying to make it my fault. I don’t care if you felt bad about what you were doing, Michael, you still fucking did it. You don’t get to be the goddamned victim now.” David leaned back finally and made another one of those hoarse sounds that was supposed to be a laugh but had something horribly wrong with it all the same.

“You don’t think that I was warned about you, Michael?” David finished. All the words stricken from him, there was nothing else that Michael could do but listen. “Yeah. Carly warned me that I could only trust you so far, but I just had a feeling. I had a feeling that somewhere in there you wanted to be different.” The last word was delivered in a disgusted sneer; Michael had a feeling that a lot of it was directed towards David himself. “And people tell me that I overthink things. Would have done me some good this time. Get the fuck out of my house, Michael.”

With that, there really wasn’t anything else to say. Michael could still feel the blood rushing through his ears, rage making his entire body feel hot and electric, but there was nowhere for it to go, nothing for him to do with it except allow it to build and build until eventually it would blow him apart. He wasn’t going to come back from this one, he knew. Every part of Michael which had thought, the night before, that he could come back to decency by wishing it hard enough had been burned away after no more than a second’s exposure to the nuclear fire of David’s fury. He nodded once, jerkily, and turned towards the door.

“Hey, Michael?” David’s voice sounded as if he was just barely keeping it under his control. When Michael looked back, David was staring at the floor. “I thought that you might want to know, for the sake of professional curiosity and all?” David looked up. “Lindsay Lohan had a bad trip at Hyde. That was all that happened. Carly and I rushed out of there because she’s going through a divorce right now, and I was taking her out for the night to help her get her mind off of it. She didn’t want to be made into a tabloid spectacle, so we ran.” David treated Michael to another glittering view of that terrifying smile. “And I’m telling you all this because the Star got there first. You can’t get a headline out of it, so I’m sure that you really don’t care.” It had been for nothing. The entire goddamned charade had been for nothing at all, and Michael didn’t think that it was his ribs that was keeping him from being able to draw a full breath.

Michael stared at David and tried to work up enough moisture in his mouth to respond that he did care, he did, so much so that it staggered him and more than he had cared about anything else in years, but everything that he said at this point was only going to ring tinny and false. He nodded one more time, and left. His ears were ringing, and his entire body was tingling with mixed fight or flight signals. It took Michael only a few seconds to recognize the sensation as panic. He hadn’t felt any this strong since the day that he had put the guitar under the bed and acknowledged that it was time to call it quits altogether.

“Get me out of here,” Michael muttered to the cabbie as he slid into the backseat. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror; his face was white. The cabbie did not bother to ask for a destination before he put the car in gear and took them back down the long driveway. A sleek white convertible was pulling up to the gate just as they were exiting. The brunette at the wheel had on a pair of large, dark sunglasses that obscured most of her face, but Michael still recognized her by the white bandage at her hairline. She slammed on her brakes hard enough to make them squeal as she recognized Michael in the backseat and then made an impatient gesture to indicate that he should roll down his window. Against his better judgment, Michael did.

“You’re a son of a bitch,” Carly told him. Rage made her voice shake and her accent even thicker.

“That seems to be the going opinion, yeah.” Michael rubbed his hand over his face. “Carly--”

“I prefer Miss Smithson to people that I only know on a professional level,” Carly snapped back at him. “If you want to call this professional.” She shook her head and made a disgusted sound. “You know, David was so convinced that there was someone actually in there that I was starting to to believe him, too. He doesn’t let people in easily. Congratulations, asshole, I don’t know when the next time he’ll try again is, either.”

“You were starting to think that I was a decent person, too?” Michael snarled at her. “That’s great. That’s three of us who were fooled.” He rolled his window back up as Carly glared at him and then peeled up David’s driveway hard enough to leave long streaks of rubber behind her. The cabbie was still staring at him, so Michael snarled, “Are you actually fucking charging me for this, or are we actually going to go somewhere?”

“You gotta tell me where to go, buddy,” the cabbie answered back without so much as a flicker of his eyebrow.

Michael leaned back in his seat and scarcely had to think about it for a second before he answered grimly, “I know where I need to go.”

End Part Eight

Continue to Part Nine