Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or anything recognizable. I also don't own any of the songs used, which shall be listed at the end.
Author's note: This is my first song fic for Moulin Rouge. I felt that I should write one, since the movie uses so much music from so many sources. My small amount of sources pale in comparison, and no full songs are used, but the lyrics that are used convey ideas and emotions, much like they would in the movie. Hopefully you all enjoy it.
1.
Christian glared at the picture of Satine that had been left by his bedside by some well-meaning person while he had been sleeping. He felt that the picture was not well-meaning at all. It only served to bring him more pain.
The other bohemians would watch with grim expressions as Christian despaired. He would sing that song that he and Satine had used to express their love. Sometimes he would mutter words under his breath that had a rather poetic quality; other times he would sing them to himself. No one knew whether or not it brought him comfort. Toulouse thought that some of these things Christian said and sung in his more creative moments should be written down. He considered them art. But Christian was usually drunk and everything was forgotten by the next day.
A few months after Satine's death Christian had been through the worst of human emotions, over and over again. When Toulouse and the Argentinean went to check on him, they found him angry and glaring at Satine's portrait.
"You, you had the face for fashion, for style in the place of passion," he lamented, "a rose in the garden." Toulouse took a step back, noticing the bitter edge lacing Christian's words.
"Should we go forward?" the Argentinean asked.
"He would not notice us if we did," Toulouse muttered. He was right; even now, as they stood in the doorway, Christian took no notice of them.
"And you," he continued, "you looked like you really meant it, twisting the knife in my chest, stamping on what's left."
"I think we should intervene," the Argentinean murmured as Christian became more impassioned. "You know that things are bad when he gets angry at Satine."
At this point Christian noticed the two standing in his doorway. He glared at them. "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing?" the Argentinean countered. "Do you not remember what Satine told you?"
"It was all easy for her to say," Christian said. "She left me!"
"It wasn't her fault!" Toulouse cried. "Christian, you are ruining your life! You have so much potential…"
"Get out!" Christian snapped. "Get out! I don't want to hear this any longer!"
He was furious. Toulouse and the Argentinean both exchanged somber looks, and then they left Christian in the room alone, left to his own devises.
2.
The night cooled Christian's anger, but he still sought something with Satine. He found it easy to talk to her if he stared at her portrait.
"If I touch you, you won't feel a thing," he murmured softly, the words flowing into something like a broken song. He took the photograph into his hands. "Satine…" He closed his eyes. "If I could stay, then the night would give you up…" He thought about what Toulouse had said, about wasting his life away. "Stay, and the day would keep its trust." He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. There was still that hole there. Christian seemed to just become aware of it again. He wondered if Toulouse could hear him. "Stay, and the night would be enough…"
He looked back down at the photograph in his hands. He seemed to hear, quite unexpectedly, Satine's voice in his head. "Write our story." He shook his head. Then, clearer, "Why won't you write our story?"
Christian shook his head. "You're not real," he whispered. No, it was a figment of his drunken imagination.
"Christian…"
"No!" He shook his head again.
"What happened to the charming, talented young man I fell in love with?"
"You took him with you." He sighed. "You don't understand." Then, feeling the need to show her what he meant, he found himself searching for words that he wanted to say to her. "You're all I want, you're all I need." He took a deep breath. "You're everything!" This last cry echoed throughout the garret.
"Oh, Christian…" Satine's voice sounded laden with tears. He called out to her once more, but all he received in return was silence.
The next morning he woke up sober. Strangely, he remembered the night before, but he now knew what he couldn't quite bring himself to believe then—that it had been an illusion brought on by the alcohol.
But the previous night had planted the idea in his head to write his and Satine's story. Nothing thus far had given him any relief, but perhaps this last thing would save him. He slowly stood and made his way over to his long-forgotten typewriter.
The keys were ready, waiting for him. They looked familiar. Christian sat down and began typing.
As the first page came to a close he looked up at the sky and murmured, "My gift is my song…and this one's for you."
3.
The story came to an end with two simple words. And Christian stared and stared at that last page for what must have been a few hours before he could bring himself to move.
He had believed, going into this, that the story would bring him some closure, that by writing it he could finally bring himself some peace and move on. It seemed that perhaps that had been Satine's purpose in telling him to write it.
The story did none of those things. The terrible despair remained. That wonderful comfort he so craved belonged to somebody else, certainly not himself. Satine had been wrong if she had been thinking that the story would save him.
It had taken hours for him to comprehend this. There was something terrible about last hopes being dashed, and quite suddenly it made him angry. He pushed the typewriter to the floor so that it fell with a bang and then he fell to his knees and uttered a cry so terrible that one would have thought he was dying a painful death.
He wasn't, but he wished he was.
Something occurred to him as he fantasized about dying and being with Satine at last. He stood up and stumbled into the bathroom where he found the object he had been searching for, the razor he used to shave. He turned around and came back out of the room, fed a piece of paper into the typewriter, and began typing.
It only took a few minutes. He ripped the paper out, hands shaking with the anticipation and gravity of what he was about to do. "I'll be with you soon, darling," he told the photograph of Satine as he passed it by, on his way back into the bathroom.
There, he took a look at himself in the mirror. His face was gaunt, pale, the face of someone who should have died long ago but was kept alive despite this. Staring at himself, he realised how hard the past months had been on him. He smiled.
The smile, which ordinarily would have made him look charming, now gave his expression something chilling. Perhaps it was his imagination, perhaps because he knew why he was smiling. He laughed for the first time in months, although it was only a hollow laugh, and said, "I'm going to see Satine soon."
Christian savored the words as he said them. It made them more real.
Then he glanced down at the razor in his hands, positioned it carefully, and before he could even think of doing otherwise, drew it swiftly down the vein of one arm. Then, before pain or weakness could set in, he did the same to the second arm. Blood flowed freely.
There is something, Christian thought as he fell, that is strangely beautiful about that blood. The last thing he saw was red. Like Satine's hair.
Toulouse found him dead the next morning. The sight of Christian's body had been horrifying. There was a note that he found, later, next to Christian's typewriter, lying atop a huge stack of papers.
I'm already gone, it read, felt that way all along…I'll be up with the sun. I'm not coming down." Toulouse found his eyes watering, so much so that he nearly missed the postscript at the bottom of the page, right above the part where Christian had signed his name.
So the hands that build can also pull down…The hands of love.
Note on the music: Here are the songs used, in order of occurrence.
Early Winter by Keane (It is by Gwen Stefani, but I used Keane's version, which has the original lyrics by band-member Tim Rice-Oxley)
Stay (Far Away, So Close) by U2 (From one of U2's most underrated albums.)
Everything by Lifehouse (There is a wonderful skit on YouTube to this song. It's very moving and fits the song perfectly. I highly recommend you search for it, if you like.)
Your Song by Elton John
Gone by U2 (Which, strangely enough, really is a song about death.)
Exit by U2 (I find this song to be extremely powerful, despite the small amount of lyrics. And this song, too, is actually about death.)
The title "Somebody Else's Song" is the title of a Lifehouse song, although no lyrics from the song are used here.