Title: Flowers are for the Living
Author: Opie
Disclaimer: The idea of Moulin Rouge! belongs to the incredible Baz Luhrmann and his staff. The bit at the beginning is from the Foo Fighter's song, "Doll". The bit at the end is from T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men".
Warnings: One crude word...pretty good for me, eh?
Author's Notes: Just popped into my head. Here you go. My first Moulin Rouge! fic.
***
He stared at the pages, neat and type-written, as they clung to the wall. The wind blew the flimsy curtains and the rain in. The curtains were white and they whipped inward violently, missing his head on its pillow by mere inches; the rain was more of a danger as it hit the edges of the papers closest to the window. Nearly a thousand pages were pasted to the walls of his small room. The hole in the ceiling was still there, the chunks of plaster on the floor from where the Argentinean had fallen that day.
He stared at the chunks of plaster, starting to dissolve as water hit them, with hatred. It glowed through his eyes and out his gaze like fire, like he could combust the plaster if he stared hard enough. The plaster melted slowly, as if sinking into submission under his angry stare, and soon it was no more than a white spot on the floor. He got up, slowly as an old man, to clean it up with a rag that had once been his shirt. He cleaned the plaster at a pace that compared to molasses, then tossed the rag out the window as if it were no more to him than what it was. He stopped, leaning on the damp windowframe and stared out at Paris.
The city had been so beautiful when he arrived, all golden and shimmering in the dark. Now, few of the lights were on, and next door, the Moulin Rouge was still closed. He knew it would come back eventually; people still had to earn a living, and Zidler couldn't stop business just because his finest jewel was gone. No, more accurately, Zidler wouldn't stop business because his finest jewel was gone, he realized bitterly. Paris was gray now, gray and brown, like muddy snow. November had come and with it had come the chilly temperatures, so he backed away from the cold windowsill, finally having caught his breath.
He gazed at the walls, his eyes taking too long to register the tale there. It was his story; his and Satine's. He backed until he could sit slowly on his creaking bed, and gazed at all those neatly typed pages, some wet as if with tears. He re-read his description of her in his mind. He ran his mental hands over the soft white skin of her arms. She'd always been so pale...the fall of burgundy hair over her shoulders was warm and inviting, always scented faintly of cinnamon. The blue of her eyes like spring, and the chilly feel of her skin against his own. He remembered slowly the hours they'd made love in his room high above the city, and the hours they'd kissed in the back of the Moulin Rouge. Their lips meeting and parting and tongues intertwined, all warm and sweet like chocolate and cinnamon. And all the while...
He sank back against the wall, his bed creaking in protest. He removed a delicate package from under the soft pillow, wrapped in faded muslin that had once been her underclothes-it still smelled faintly of cinnamon, but now there was sick in the smell too. He unwrapped it, letting the fragment of muslin drop to the floor. It was a piece of jewelry.
Valuable, diamonds. He could have pawned it. With the money, he could have done anything, including a visit to a cure cottage. He could have sold it, could have-if he could part with it.
She'd died with it in her hair. It was silver and gold and shimmery, like a thousand butterflies taking flight in the early morning sunbeams. A lock her of perfect hair was there, too, a dull red now from age, with a pale ribbon tied around it so the strands wouldn't float off.
Her funeral had been small. The Diamond Dogs had attended, and Zidler and Madame. He had been there, of course. Toulouse, the Argentinean...the whole group had been there. A few of her gentlemen had been there, but most of them hadn't cared for more than her beauty, and with her death it was gone.
The Duke sent his regards but nothing more.
He was glad.
The casket had been mahogany. The best Zidler could afford for her. She was buried in a red gown-the one he'd first seen her in, the one he'd nearly torn from her body the first time they made love. It was laced as tightly in death as it had been in life. Madame wept.
They all brought flowers for her. All except him, and the flowers were roses and lillies and orchids. They were vibrant colors, reds and oranges and violent purples that hurt the eyes. "Flowers," he'd told them when they asked why he came without them. "Are for the living."
They tossed their bouquets on the coffin, and the priest spoke. He couldn't take his eyes off the dark box as it descended into oblivion. The headstone was simple, just pale grey stone with her name and dates of life in it. At the bottom, it had a simple inscription. "The Sparkling Diamond that burned too bright and was left as coal dust."
He'd written it.
He stroked the hairpiece gently, wondering what it was like to die. She'd done it so quickly, so easily, like slipping between moods. It seemed easier to die than to change her dress, with all its laces and buttons. He wondered how she felt when it happened-had she closed her eyes and been somewhere else?
Did she miss him?
Did she miss him as he missed her?
He wrapped the jewel back up and placed it back under the pillow. It had been a year and a bit more since she had died. He hadn't been able to get his story published.
Time is running out.
It was the first real, lucid thought that he'd had all day. The first one he'd had in weeks, really. Nothing made sense anymore.
He coughed into a hankerchief. The blood spilled bright and red on the starched white of the linen. Three drops.
He marveled at it. How she must have been naive, he thought. Not to know it was coming. To think that it wouldn't end her like this. How she must have ached to force herself to think that. How silly she must have been.
How could she not know? Consumption was everywhere, and she'd loved him. They'd shared a bed and a heart and it had all broken apart when she died. Even when he'd hated her, when he'd tried to pay her for being his whore, he'd loved her. The aching of telling her she was nothing to him had vibrated through every part of his being. He'd wanted to hang himself afterwards. But if he'd only known the legacy she'd left him...
He crawled out of the bed.
Consumption, he scrawled on the last piece of paper on his desk. It's a killer.
And it's gotten me, he realized. He didn't want to die like this.
If she'd lived, I might have made it too. But she died. And I can't go on. Not in this tiny little hole, this garrett. Not here, with my darkness and my cold. The cold was inside him now, and the fever. His forehead was too hot and his feet were about to fall off from frostbite. And all the time, his father's voice in his head.
He could just hear it if he went back now.
He wandered over to the bed. He removed the package and tucked it into his shirt. He would take her with him. It was all he needed for it. She might not have known; she wouldn't have killed him, they were in love. They were in love, dammit, they had to be together, even now. She couldn't deny him now...not this.
He stood at the windowsill, looking down at the street below. Four flights. It was dizzying in the night. The Moulin Rouge was lit up tonight; Zidler had reopened. And yet somehow, it lacked the opulence it had had. The elephant seemed cheap, the fine mahogany doors seemed cheap, the golden leaf seemed cheap; the whole thing seemed cheap without Satine in it.
A woman's scream from below.
The windowsill was empty.