Title: River Of Night's Dreaming
Fandoms: Rocky Horror Picture Show / Velvet Goldmine
Pairing: Riff Raff/Jack Fairy
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Richard O'Brien is god. As is Todd Haynes.
Notes: this crossover was written for a small-scale fic challenge involving a random pairing lottery. And it could have been much prettier, and maybe even hot, if someone else had written it. Alas, as written by me it's just angsty and weird. But I hope my obsessive love for both of these characters helps make up for it. :P
River Of Night's Dreaming
This is London on New Year's Eve, 1980. It's raining heavily, and most of the night's celebration is happening indoors. Still, at the stroke of midnight, a few enthusiastic souls are out trying to ignite their fireworks in the steady downpour. And then there are those who have their very own private display of fireworks inside their head. For them the city is a special fairyland tonight. They don't mind the rain.Because this is London, and New Year's Eve, the flying saucer goes mostly unnoticed. It glimmers as it slides across the sky, a softly glowing golden disc. Then its light begins to falter, and only a trail of fiery sparks shows where it spins wildly for the last time and crashes into the icy-dark Thames.
For one wanderer in the night this event carries special meaning, but he doesn't know it yet.
He is a wreck, but a graceful one. He has glamour that's completely unnatural and strange, and yet it seems to be his very basest nature. He never speaks these days. He doesn't need to. He has touched the stars.
But ever since he lost his magical jewel of style and fortune, his own star has been in decline. And so life has left him here: in London growing weary with the city and the decade, in a rundown flat in the suburbs, with none of his disciples left to court him.
He is called Jack Fairy. That is what he was. What he is now is little more than a Jack-in-the-box, a Jack-of-the-lantern – a hidden treasure, a ghostly light of days long gone.
And tonight he is greeted by an unexpected, though hardly uncommon sight, when he arrives at his apartment door.
A thin creature, emaciated and grim, is curled up at the doorstep. He doesn't respond to the sound of Jack's boots, a click clack of high heels that approaches and then stops. Jack, as impossibly frail as he is, easily lifts up the unconscious man and helps him through the door.
He would do it, in any case. He often takes in strays. But he knows this man. Jack is so cool and aloof, rarely showing any true emotion. The party elite of London would be surprised to see the gentle, worried way he handles his ragged visitor. But as it is, no one is there to see his worry, or the joyful smile that's hiding at the corners of his mouth.
When the strange little man has been stripped of his wet, muddy clothes, his wounds cleaned and bandaged, he is laid down on the sofa under thick, soft blankets. Only then he finally begins to come to.
"..Jack. So I did come to the right door. I wasn't sure. Had to rest. It's.. good that it was you. Who found me."
His voice is little more than a faint whisper, but in the quiet of the night Jack doesn't have to keen to hear it. And he's familiar with this voice, with all it's frequencies and tones. It fills him with warmth that he hasn't felt in a long, long time.
But this is not the same man that once left him ..no, that's not it, this still is Riff Raff. Space invader. Time traveler. Decadent extraordinaire. But he is not what he once was, self-possessed and style-obsessed. He has come back broken and bitter.
And what has he come back for? Not for love. Maybe not even for refuge, although by the state of him it's clear that he has been running away from something.
His eyes are black pools full of night. He has come here for confession. And then for retribution against himself, or for forgiveness? Who knows. All he wants is for Jack to listen, Jack who always did listen, Jack who of all beings in the universe knows him as he is.
And Jack knows this, he knows his role. He listens, and Riff Raff speaks.
"I .. usurped my master's rule. No, I killed him. That's all it was, in the end. Not a revolution, just murder. My biggest temper tantrum."
He breaks into wheezing laughter that dies away quickly, his fevered mind still pleading for confession time.
"But what else could I do? I felt so alone, even with my sweet sister there with me. Our master didn't care for us. Nobody cared for us! And we came from a very old respected family, unlike all those.. upstarts!"
Jack thinks on this. Yes, the old rule was over, in most of the known universe. Bold upstarts were taking over, without a war, by sheer numbers and charisma. Jack had always had far more patience for them than Riff Raff. He knew when to give up. He had gone down without a fight, but Riff Raff – yes, what else could he have done? His whole being insisted upon counter-revolution.
"Our world plunged into civil war then. I didn't mean that to happen. But the new ways.. all that flashy outrageousness.. I wanted things to be like in the good old times. Dark glamour. And intoxication. Sweet slow things. You know."
Jack only nods again. He knows. That is what he is, his essence.
"As it turned out, quite a few Transylvanians wanted to support my cause. But in the end we weren't many enough. We had to retreat. In the final battle on the edges of the galaxy, most of my allies were killed. My sister.. she was the last. The last casualty. Of a war I started in my madness."
"It really does take its toll, doesn't it." His voice breaks. Blinking, he leans back to look at Jack, who moves closer and places his hand on Riff Raff's shoulder, caressing it soothingly.
"I fled. I've been on the run ever since. I was beginning to wonder why I even bothered.. and then they caught up with me near Sol. The fates really have it in for me, that they should let me end up here, of all places."
Jack smiles. He has been waiting, for a long time. As an Earthling he had known Riff Raff wouldn't stay with him, this strange being with his longing for a home and his constant fear of rejection, all twisted into a tight knot inside. But Jack had also known that one day he would return. To him. Only to him, of all the people on Earth.
"Oscar would have been proud of you, Jack. A great mind.. but in the end I think he fared far worse than me.. or you." Suddenly his hand reaches out to grip Jack's arm, painfully hard. Jack only looks back, with the great tranquility afforded by a very few in this world. "How do you bear it? You had all the greatest blessings and you lost them. We all lose them, in the end. It's a terrible price to pay."
Jack shrugs, a wavelike movement that ripples through him. He doesn't mind. Life has never been easy for him. But as he finally shifts to release his arm, the other man hangs to it like a lifeline, unwilling to let go. It is then that Jack knows with certainty that this trembling thing is broken, beyond repair.
At least by any ordinary means.
Jack gets up and walks to an old cabinet of worn, dark wood with equally worn and dim gilding. Nobody but Jack knows that it's worth a fortune, and it matters little to him. His old lover is following his movements as he opens the cabinet and takes out a tall, thin bottle. The label reads "Eau de Lethe" in curiously slanted silver letters.
Jack pours out what's left at the bottom of the bottle and holds out the glass to his guest. The other man takes it carefully, almost reverently. The aquamarine liquid has a strange oily quality to it, and if you looked into the heart of it from up close, something would seem to shimmer, like tiny stars in an incomprehensible distance.
"Where did you get this?"
Where indeed? How did things come to Jack? By providence? If he believed in something such. By accident? But he doesn't believe in those either. When their eyes meet, they know it doesn't really matter at all.
"Ah. Oblivion. Almost like forgiveness." Closing his eyes, Riff Raff drains the glass to the last drop and lets his head sink on Jack's lap. There he is slowly cradled to sleep, covered in feathery touches and kisses that are the only boon his host has to give, anymore.
Outside the whole world is forgetting, for now. And in here forgetting is forever.
It's not the same as being at peace, but it's close enough.