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American Idol Fic: Black Bird Singing 10/13
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
Part Nine



Part Ten

Michael had never been arrested before. He knew before he even arrived at the station that it was not an experience that he cared to repeat. There was the humiliating experience of waiting to be booked, among prostitutes, thugs, and, worst of all, people who looked like himself, like they had been snatched off of the street with no idea what they were doing there. We caused this.

After his picture had been taken and his fingerprints inked, after they were certain that he was not wanted for any other more serious crimes elsewhere, it was a holding cell overcrowded with people who smelled as if they could have used a shower and a toothbrush days ago. Michael used his height and his foul mood to secure a seat against the wall without being molested too much, and he banged his head against the cement softly when he was there. It had all gone wrong, it had all gone so terribly wrong, and the hell of it was that Michael could barely even pin down when the wrong had started, let alone what he could do to fix it. It hadn’t started when he had taken the job to spy upon David, that had been a part of his job. It had not started when Stacey had left him, that had been the result of the job, too, and the moods that it put him in; she hadn’t been able to handle sharing space any longer with someone when she could not tell from one moment to the next whether he was going to be her husband or a hostile stranger. It was so easy to pinpoint the job as the moment when it had all started to slide sideways on him, but Michael knew better. He had needed the job because he had needed to pay the rent, and he had needed to pay the rent because this was a town where even one strike could put you out of the game permanently, let alone three.

Michael banged his head against the wall harder, once, but enough to make his neighbors look at him as if they wished that the cell had room to give him a more cautious berth. If he could just find it, find that moment, he became irrationally convinced that he would be able to then fix it. The worst part of it all was that Michael could not even blame this bout of crazy hope on the scotch, as that had burned out of his system at least an hour before.

“Michael Johns.”

He jerked, looked up. The officer at the door might have seen his little bout of self-injury, but she had doubtless seen much worse here, too, and her face didn’t register it. “You can have your phone call now,” she said, and jerked her hand to indicate that he should get to his feet. Michael was all too glad to do so and leave the crush of bodies and their smell behind him for now. She took him down the hall and to a phone and then stood back against the wall, clearly not intending to go far. The only grace that Michael could see in the situation was that, doubtless having had murderers, rapists, and child molesters traveling through here en route to more permanent destinations, one drunk driver was not disgusting enough to make her do much more than flicker her eyelash, much less fall into a full curl of her lip.

Angling his shoulder towards her in order to give himself as much privacy as he possibly could under the circumstances, Michael hovered with his fingers over the buttons as he considered his options. In the end, there was only one person he could think of.

*
Nearly three hours later, the same officer came back and informed him that someone had posted his bail. As it was not a small one, even for a first offense, Michael knew that he owed the person standing on the opposite end of all of the locked doors an enormous boon, and one that that person would absolutely not hesitate to call him on. Michael was amazed that he had shown up at all.

Levine stood with his jacket in hand, looking around him at the bustle of the station with interest. For all that he made his living from documenting activities of dubious legality, Michael doubted that Levine had even gotten so much as a speeding ticket before. He looked about as at home there as a girl in a prom dress, but Michael was willing to bet that the station had seen even a few of them before. He looked up at Michael as the officer went to process Michael’s personal effects back out to him; Michael looked back down at the floor again immediately.

Levine sighed and came over to him. He ignored the look that Michael threw him and bumped his shoulder against Michael’s own. “When are you going to start listening to me?” he asked in a soft voice. “I told you very clearly, ‘Bad Aussie. No more booze.’ Having a head like a rock isn’t an attractive quality in a grown man.”

“You said no more free booze,” Michael pointed out. His things were brought back to him; he collected them without saying thanks. “And I also told you that I was going to hurt you if you turned it into an after school special on me.”

“I’ll take the risk.” Levine didn’t look as if he was going to back off any time soon. He maintained eye contact with Michael for a few seconds longer, sighed, and bumped his shoulder one more time. “Come on. Have you eaten anything?”

“Not since last night.”

“Jesus, now wonder you got pulled over. You’ve got to be running on fumes.” Levine started out of the station and did not look around to see if Michael was going to follow him. The son of a bitch knew that Michael didn’t have any other options. “You are definitely going to be paying me back for bail, kiddo, so I might as well spring for dinner.”

Michael didn’t even realize how late it was until the two of them were outside in the early summer air; it was full dark. He gave Levine’s car a speculative look that made Levine laugh. “If you think that you’re going anywhere near my keys after what you got caught doing, then you’re still drunk. Passenger seat, hot stuff.”

“I don’t want a lecture,” Michael warned Levine as he obeyed and Levine started the engine.

Levine started out his his dashboard for several seconds without speaking. “I’m only agreeing to that because you can still run away before the car starts moving,” he said as he put his key into the ignition. “So take it or leave it.”

Michael sighed and put his seatbelt on. Levine pulled away from the curb and took them on a circuitous route that ended at a small diner Michael had never seen before. It was the opposite of all of the swank watering holes that Michael took his pictures around; it looked like even the coffee was served with grease. Michael didn’t realize how good that actually sounded until his stomach began to growl.

“I’m warning you now that if you order anything alcoholic, I’m going to drown you in the deep fryer,” Levine murmured to him as they entered and the waitress showed them to a booth.

“Relax, man. I think that a white wine spritzer could do me in right now.” Michael looked at the menu to avoid Levine’s gaze, but his friend was stubborn. Finally, Michael looked up and sighed. “Look, man, just get it over with, all right? I know that you’ve been building to this for hours--”

“I’ll have a cheeseburger, fries, and a strawberry shake,” Levine interrupted him brightly. Michael realized that he was speaking to the waitress, who had shown up just in time to hear the tail end of Michael’s rant. She was staring at him with big eyes. Levine made sure to flash Michael a big smile, the bastard. “You?”

“The same,” Michael grunted. “Just make the shake chocolate, thanks.” He handed the menu back to the waitress and waited until she had left before he threw Levine a glare. “You’re a son of a bitch.”

Levine looked back at him without flinching. “Oh, don’t start, asshole. You got all of that coming and more.” Michael looked away. “Yeah, it should be hard to make eye contact. Do you have any fucking clue what you did? You could have fucking killed somene!” Levine’s voice rose. Luckily for them, it was close enough to midnight that the diner was mostly deserted, and the people who were left did not look like the sort to let a little profanity bother then unduly.

Michael felt enough anger slide through him, and enough shame, to turn him back around and throw a vicious glare Levine’s way. We caused this. “Don’t you dare start acting like my widowed grandmother on me now, bro,” he ordered Levine. “Who drinks with me on jobs? Who brings the fucking booze half the time?”

Levine leaned over the table and glared at him. “When was the last time that we drank together?” he asked him.

“Three nights ago,” Michael answered without hesitating. Like he was ever going to forget any detail of that night. It was going to burned into his brain for the rest of his life.

“And you could have knocked me over with a fucking feather then.” Their food arrived. Levine shoved one fry into his mouth and took the opportunity to gesture with another. “Before that. When was the last time that we drank together before that?”

Michael’s cheeseburger was dripping with grease and should have been gone within moments, but Michael’s appetite had fled every bit as suddenly as it had returned. He drew a sketch through some spilled salt with the tip of his finger and avoided Levine’s eyes. “I’ve been busy.”

“You haven’t been any goddamned busier than you have at any other point in the last three years, and you know it.” Levine dug into his food with gusto. It took Michael a few moments to realize that Levine was paying so much attention to his food so that he would not have to make eye contact with Michael, that this was as uncomfortable for him as it was for Michael himself. “You ever notice how different we are when we’re drinking on the job, Michael? You ever notice the difference in the amount? Jesus, you can put away a flask that’ll last me three nights faster than anyone else that I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Michael folded his arms over his chest and stared stonily out the diner window. The lights inside were too bright; all that he could see was his one face. “Why have you stuck around if I’m such an alcoholic asshole?” he asked in a tight voice. When he really thought back, Levine was the only one who had stuck around.

“You still have your moments,” Levine said. “But you used to have a hell of a lot more of them.” He moved a pickle around his plate for several seconds without speaking. “I don’t know, man, you think I’m good at speeches like this? We do a crappy job, a lot of the time. I’ll admit that. Some people can deal with it, some can’t. And you...you started out as one of the ones who could deal with it, so I hung with you, but I’m starting to think that that was a mistake.” Michael looked up quickly, and Levine held up his hand. “Don’t get me wrong. Being a paparazzo has been wearing you down for the past three years. Maybe it was subtle at first, but it sure as hell ain’t subtle now.”

And suddenly, the window was just that fascinating again. “I’m dealing with it,” Michael answered in a tight voice.

“No, you’re not,” Levine insisted. “You haven’t been dealing with it for a long time, and I didn’t say anything about the drinking because you had it under control, but you...it’s pretty obvious that you don’t have it under control any more, Michael.”

Michael continued to stare out the diner window until his own reflection became too much and he was forced to look back at Levine. “Do you ever get the feeling that you were meant for something else than what you’re doing right now?” he asked.

Levine paused and stared at Michael, clearly wondering if Michael was not somehow drunk right at this moment. “Sure,” he answered finally, uneasily. “Everyone does. Welcome to the human condition.”

Michael shook his head and poked at the congealing puddle of grease beneath his fries. However long it had been since he had eaten last, the very thought of doing so now made his stomach churn. “No,” he insisted. “I mean really. Not idle daydreaming, but really thinking that you were meant to be somewhere else...” Michael paused and gathered himself before he was able to force on. “That you were meant to be someone else, but something went horribly wrong and you don’t know how to make it right again.”

Levine leaned back in his booth and folded his arms over his chest. “Do you remember when you first started working for Beth?” he asked.

Michael snorted and rolled his eyes. “I try to block it out.” Outside of that first, terrifying interview in which he had somehow convinced Beth that there was more to him than met the eye, his full first six months had been a blur of convincing himself that he could do this, one picture that he hated at a time, that it would get easier if he put his mind to it. The hell of it was that eventually it had.

“You used to say things like that all the time,” Levine answered him. “I used to think that it was creepy. Then you stopped, and that was pretty damned creepy, too.”

“I’m just full of non-surprises,” Michael muttered. He had such a shitty track record of rising above his better instincts that he guessed it should not have stunned him to such extent when the universe had found ways to so thoroughly mock his one final attempt. He saw in Levine’s eyes that he was about to start lecturing him on the drinking again, and Michael thought that he would run right out the door and into the street if that happened. You used to have it under control, but it’s pretty obvious that you don’t have it under control now. Levine had no concept whatsoever of what out of control could really mean. Michael wanted to deal with the DUI and all of the mess that it was going to imply in the courts and probably in the trashy papers, too, since he was now a subject worthy of spectacle, by going out and getting ragingly drunk. For the first time, he thought that maybe something was happening with him, to him, that a saner person would be afraid of. To hold Levine off for a few more moments, Michael said, “I quit my job today.”

That surprised Levine, Michael could tell. He leaned back further in his seat. “Really.” Levine pursed his lips and played with the straw on his milkshake for a moment. “I’ll be honest, Michael, I never thought I’d see that actually happen.”

“Well, I quit seconds before I was going to be fired, anyway, but I’m still claiming the moral victory.” Michael grinned, bitter and sharp. “I called Beth a cunt.” He had the most satisfying experience of watching Levine’s eyes nearly bug out of his head.

“And yet you’re not limping,” Levine observed. “I’m impressed, bro. She’s taken out much stronger men than you.”

“Do you know why I did it?” Michael asked softly. He couldn’t look at himself in the window and he couldn’t look at Levine, so he stared down at the greasy tabletop instead.

“I saw the pictures,” Levine said. “Hell of a story to follow that car crash up with. Bet your sales went through the roof.”

“If there’s one thing that Beth’s good at, it’s self-promotion.” Michael shook his head. “It’s not true.” Levine raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, David was at my house, but the quotes, the story, the...filth of it, that’s not how it happened. That’s all made up.”

“Shit, half of the stuff that we do falls under that category,” Levine said. Michael looked at him, and Levine sucked in his breath. “But you meant it this time.”

“It all spun so out of control,” Michael muttered. “It all got so fucking out of control, and I don’t know how to bring it back again.” He wasn’t even talking entirely about David, was the hell of it. Michael heard his voice crack upon the final word and realized that he was on the verge of crying.

Levine reached across the table and put his hand onto Michael’s arm, kept it there for as long as Michael would possibly accept comfort before he pulled away. “I can give you a ride home,” he said, and that’s when Michael realized that, friend though Levine might be, he wasn’t going to be the one who fixed this. Michael wasn’t sure that he was going to be the one to fix it, either. He shook his head, fixed his gaze out the window again.

“I don’t want to go home just yet. I think that I’ll walk around for a while.” And Levine’s gaze was still so fucking compassionate even as it became sharp and knowing; realizing that Levine was probably the last real friend that he had left on this earth didn’t stop Michael from wanting to put his fist right into Levine’s face, anything to stop that look.

“You’re going to find a bar,” Levine stated flatly.

Michael’s hands were shaking. They had been doing that all day, but now he couldn’t manage to stop staring at them. “I know what I am, Justin,” he said, and watched Levine’s eyes widen. Over the course of their entire friendship, he could probably count on both hands the number of times that he had actually referred to Levine by his first name. “I know the things that I’ve done. Maybe you should figure it out, too, yeah? And then you can stop trying to be a fucking hero.”

“Michael--” Levine started. The first flush of anger was rising in his cheeks. Michael saw him swallow it back, likely telling himself that Michael was only lashing out because he was well and truly cornered for the first time, that he didn’t really mean it.

Fuck him.

Michael pulled out his wallet and quickly threw down enough money to cover the food that he had barely touched. He needed to get away from that look; as raw as he was, it would not take more than a few good taps to make him lose whatever pretenses of self control that he had left. “Don’t want to be beholden,” he said shortly before he grabbed his jacket and strode quickly towards the door. He heard a banging noise behind him and wondered if that was not Levine pounding his fist against the booth’s cheap Formica top. Michael didn’t turn around to look, didn’t even pause. The warm air of early summer greeted him as he strode outside to, just as Levine had predicted, find a bar.

I know what I am, Michael told himself. Oh, yes, he did, and he was going to do everything that he had to in order to convince himself that there was a comfort in that, even if it killed him in the process.

End Part Ten

Continue to Part Eleven