Disclaimer: It's embarassing how little I own.
A/N: This is a special fic for me on many counts: First Moulin Rouge fic, first ever movie fic, and (trumpets please) twentieth fic!! Please review.
Placement Note: This is a canon fic taking place after Satine tells Christian she has chosen the Duke. Angst abounds!
Inspiration:
Is there a reason why a broken dream can never fly?
Is there a reason you believe and then you close your eyes?
Give me a reason why you hide away so much inside…
If there's a reason, I don't know why…
-Enya, "Someone Said Goodbye"
Fantasies and Fallen Angels
Love lifts us up where we belong… and brings us crashing down.
And from heaven to hell is a long way to fall. There was, Christian realized, an entire world to fall through. He had only to look around, to open his eyes, to see that what he had sought was not only unattainable, but nonexistent.
Love? Love was a forgotten thing, an idea that existed only in the minds of dreamers and fools. Love is dead. And no amount of Bohemian romanticizing could change that.
Why did men pay whores, after all? Because real, reciprocated affection is too fragile a thing for the modern world. Because people had learned to place hard gemstones and cold metal in the stead of a beating human heart.
What did you expect, you damned fool? Offer your heart and it will be broken. Such a thing has no price, and therefore, is worthless.
Something Satine had said occurred to him… "Love makes us act like we are fools."
What kind of fool was he, to fall in love with a courtesan? In a world where love was an indulgence, a mere game?
Who was he to think, for a moment, that he could ever contend with the Duke? At the thought of him, Christian's hand curled almost unconsciously into a fist. Damned bastard! How could she go back to him? After all he had done? After all he had tried to do?
Because she's a Diamond Dog, Christian, a whore. Jewels and coins are worth a few bruises, and besides, if she gives him what he wants, he won't need to take it… and he'll give her everything she ever dreamed of.
What was a penniless poet compared to all that?
Why me? Why did she choose my life to ruin anyway?
The answer was as painful as the question. Because you asked her to. Because you asked for one night and wanted forever.
His voice seemed to echo from the past, distorted and mocking… "Love, love is like oxygen. Love lifts us up where we belong! All you need is love…"
He had found that love was not akin to oxygen. Lack of it did not kill; it was not that merciful. Love was like a limb; loss allowed him to survive, crippled and bleeding, with a cavernous empty space to be filled by his own blood.
Love was a cruel, taunting siren, calling out to him… and deserting him in a mess of shattered illusions and broken dreams.
Christian rolled over stemming the flow of thought, and finally, letting the tears come.
-oOo-
"Things are exactly as they seem!"
Toulouse sighed as he shut the door softly. The human heart is a terribly sharp thing when shattered, and woe to he who tries to pick up the pieces. Christian would have to do that himself.
But love is not a dead thing. The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. If there is no love, then what else is there?
A/N: Perhaps you know the answer?