SUMMARY: "Music created such wonderful new tastes." The former pop sensations languish in their tasty heaven, wondering why life after life is the way it is. Like dadaism, the work, in and of itself, holds all meaning and thus, none.
WARNINGS: Rated teen for subject matter, and for the fact that you've pretty much got to be a teen to have seen the film. A little bad language, a bit of boys kissing, the usual, you know.
DISCLAIMER: Velvet Goldmine is not mine, though I wish it was. Glorious film, glorious actors. But I make no money off of their characters. I just write to amuse my aesthetic self.
Fairy Flavors
Sweetest surprise you're my cream-colored killer fairy
Rocking with passion the waves of white light
Rocking with glory the blue waves tonight
Maxwell stopped, tasting the words on his tongue delicately. The flavor was cream; soft, whipped, delicious. He picked up a ripe red strawberry and dipped it into the bowl hovering in front of him, delicately covering the fruit before popping into his mouth and chewing softly, tongue caressing the seeds. Music created such wonderful new tastes.
He hummed around the juice, cheeks puffing with the effort. A laugh burst from above him, and he looked up, eyes crossing, swallowing the rest of the juice with a heady gulp and coughing wildly. There was another laugh, meaner this time, harsher. Maxwell grabbed the cream bowl and tossed it upward, and listened with satisfaction to the wet splat.
The Fairy drifted down, iridescent wings fluttering in annoyance and changing colours constantly; blue, green, pink, orange rainbows shimmering. His face was strongly cut and angled, eyes traced with thick, black eyeliner and lips ruby-red. Traces of blush sat on his high cheekbones, and dark maroon hair covered one eye. The other half of his face was dripping with peach cream, which he wiped away in disgust, painted fingernails sparkling.
"I don't much approve of your actions, Demon." His voice was calm, smooth, not a bit like the snickers of mean laughter from above. The cream he'd been rubbing from his face shimmered and disappeared as he sat, dark velvet robes puddling around his crossed legs.
Maxwell Demon looked The Fairy square in the eye. "I don't much give a fuck if you approve, Fairy." His voice was melodious but louder; a roguish British tone that was rougher than Fairy's own English lord. He shook his head, and watched with amusement as glitter flew from his blue hair, some catching in his black feather collar, more falling onto his green-blue pantsuit and dark heels. He waved at it idly.
"Never have, Demon. You never have." The disapproval was there in Fairy's voice, but it was overlaid by amusement. He had a weakness for glitter, he admitted it. Catching some in one loosely fisted hand, he trailed it down his half-velveteen, half-leather suit. Some caught on his left breast and turned into rhinestones, forming a pattern like a starburst over the area where his heart had once beaten, back long ago, when he was human. The wings beat restlessly, bringing in a gentle breeze and the faint scent of nail polish.
"It's what makes me special." There was a trace of bitterness in Maxwell's voice as he continued. "Not caring is what makes me special. I never had a heart." His eyelids, smothered in silvery-blue paint, fell heavily onto his eyes as he looked to the ground. His lips pursed, as if he wanted to whistle, but no sound was emitted. They looked delectable, The Fairy decided, all done up in aqua and outlined in the same blue of his hair.
"You had a heart," The Fairy said finally, after the moments of silence stretched long. He hated silence. "But it withered and died. It turned white and crumbled away." He said it as kindly as was possible for him, which was to say, in a neutral tone. He knew the truth, the Demon knew the truth, and there was no glossing it over. "Sing," Fairy commanded. Maxwell whispered out the next words.
Spilling the blood of the musical ancientsTelling the story of lust long ago
Written in velvety stars up above
Nothing I say completes your music
But a sacrifice of virtue, a parting of love
The words were haunting, special. Maxwell forced himself to look up, brushing blue bangs out of his eyes. The sky above him and around him was blue-black and dancing with stars of aquamarine and gold and silver and ruby. They twinkled more brightly, hearing his song. He allowed a small smile, and The Fairy was glad. To be around Maxwell Demon in a bad mood was to dodge miniature supernovas with blinding white heat, duck under the streams of burning coal comets. The musical flavors turned sour in his anger.
It was unfair to live in such a place with Maxwell Demon in a bad mood. Considering, however, the thoughts of his life and the threats that such perversions as himself would end up smoking in hell, The Fairy knew he'd choose the Demon over the devil Himself. So he tried softly to soothe, and watched from the corner of his eye to see if the Demon's wings would retract. They did, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
"No hearts crumble away completely, Demon," Fairy said hesitantly, when he noticed the smoky gray teardrops, twins, traveling down his cheeks done in blue rouge. "We remember, we keep it alive."
Maxwell looked up. "Keep what alive, Fairy?" The malice was gone from his voice. He sounded as young as he looked, twentysomething for all eternity. Blessings and curses are heaven's traits.
"Love."
The word is so simple, even if the world around it isn't. They are both children of romance, of art, of glitter – and of love. That is why they are here, though they do not know it. Here is their creation, their paradise, and their haven. Here the music becomes alive, becomes scents, sights, sounds – flavors.
Maxwell stood, stretching. As he did, his blue hair melted into silver and spiked and his clothes became matching tank, flared skirt and platforms. Then he yawned, and the silver became black hair tucked behind the ears, and a long crimson and violet frock. His eyes settled on some far distant star, and for a moment his hair was impossibly long and braided, and he wore all black with a golden cross. Finally he sat back down, and the shifting settled on cotton-candy pink styled hair, a green velour jacket, lavender breeches and suede violet platforms. The Fairy watched all this in idle amusement, until the Demon asked The Question.
"Is art eternal?"
Fairy reflected on how to answer The Question. The Demon had said "art" but he really meant love, and he was asking if love was eternal. His music was his art and it surrounded him, so he knew that to be eternal. His love, however – his love was not here, and so he wondered if that was eternal. He decided to answer honestly. "I don't know, Demon. I think so, though."
Maxwell breathed slowly out. "If it is, then why isn't he here?" Of course, The Fairy didn't have to ask whom Maxwell meant by this, because everybody and everything – in life and here – knew about them, about the thing that had once been whole and then had shattered. The glass was stuck in everyone close to them, making everyone bleed for their wounds.
Curt Wild.
The Fairy felt something like anger stir in him, and why shouldn't it? Wasn't he alone here with a morose demon? Music or no music, what gave him the right to complain? What gave any of them the right? He sucked in air, and was not surprised to feel the acrid taste of citrus burn his tongue. Bitter, bitter. If only The Demon would invent another flavor, finish the song. Then maybe they could go – wherever they were meant to be. Anywhere but alone here together.
"He's not here because you pushed him away," Fairy snapped. Maxwell winced, looking hurt. "He's not here because you gave up on love. He's not here because… because…" suddenly there was a flash. Was it inspiration, insight? Seeing the past or the future? He knew not. All he knew was thus: "Because the pin has not shattered." Maxwell blinked at him. The pin?
The Pin. The blue-green golden thing, the one belonging to the one and only God of glam rock, the first pop star and aesthetic queen, Oscar Wilde. The pin had to be – shattered? It had to be. The insight then hit Maxwell.
"When the pin shatters, we shall all, our souls, be free." He chanted this in a singsong voice, punctuated by a sharp howl from somewhere in the blue-black night. The two creatures of the aesthetic found themselves huddling together, terrified. Then came another howl, the howl of a ravaging wolf, a creature of the North and darkness.
With the third howl came Curt. The two could have sworn his form was that of a wolf that became a man the closer he came to them, and when he stopped, he was in full form. He was as they remembered in life, yet still changed in death. Bleach-blonde hair hung in strings to his shoulders, eyes lined in kohl, fingernails black and chest bare, with only heart-stoppingly tight leather pants and boots. And – a wolf's tail?
One of The Fairy's delicately lined eyebrows lifted at the gray tail that wagged briefly into and out of existence. Curt smiled, revealing sharp canines, almost like a vampyre's. More like a wolf's. Maxwell was standing in an instant, staring.
"This is revelation?" he asked, his eyes worshipping the form of Curt Wild – no, Curt Wilde. He was Wilde, now. Curt merely grinned, took a step back, and sang.
The world is your trashcan, take hold of your martyrs
And dump them in dirty to sweeten them up
Kitten, you're sexy beyond simple wording
Only thing that I can say is goddamn
The Fairy and Maxwell laughed aloud, as did Curt. The world they inhabited was snowing, but it was snowing overlarge, patterned snowflakes and clumps of frozen yogurt. The flavor was sharp, fruit, ice. Curt opened his mouth wide, and let a gob of orange yogurt roll in, which he swallowed with a grin. Maxwell grinned too, and then he was running, running, running into Curt's arms and kissing big, sloppy rainbow kisses. The Fairy watched. It was love. Yet they were still here. The duet didn't seem to care, as they added in yet another stanza.
Do you taste sugar alight on my stomach
Snowing a blizzard of rust-flavored death
Flutter your wings to bring earthquakes to China
And scream out your lungs for a special surprise
Fairy took a deep breath. The song was almost complete. "Does the pin near its end, Wilde?" he asked sharply, as soon as the two had separated long enough to take a breath (did the dead need to breathe?).
"The kid will know what to do with it." He said this vaguely, still staring into the deep blue eyes of The Demon. "The kid got it, he'll know what to do. Until then, we wait, right?" His strange American accent made the words sound less serious than they were. Who was the kid? Why would he know?
Leaving the lovers to their games, The Fairy made his way to the edge of their stardust universe. He sat on a cloud ledge, idling kicking his feet in the air, muttering softly to himself, "here's looking at you kid, celebrate years…" A million dancing sparkles like the lights of a chandelier wove past him slowly. A spaceship. The world was such a strange place, made stranger after life ended. He was now alone, The Demon and Curt Wilde were together, and they still stayed here until "the kid" shattered the pin. Who would shatter a priceless pin? Fairy knew not. He could only hope, and until then, taste the flavors of his strange universe and remember glam. He sang again, this time louder, at the stars.
Needle and thread to take hold of the living
Puppeteers running up their holy veins
Gold is downpouring
We're drinking and whoring
And life is mixture of bloody new love
The goldmine is velvet,
The art is forever,
The party begins
And the pin brightly bursts.
Meanwhile, down below, in that ever-changing Earth and that slippery Time, a kid who is only now becoming a man stares down at the pin in his hand, entranced by teal, staring at it and remembering. He knows he must do something important, but when it comes to him in a haze of frothy beer, he can't quite understand. Still, as he walks alone down the street, he pulls the pin from his pocket and sets it upon the ground.
"Death of glitter, death of glam. Birth of a new flavor." The words make no sense. Still, without bothering to hesitate lest he lose his nerve, he steps down upon the pin and feels the give as the glass shatters into a thousand pieces. He looks up into the sky, unknowing of the tears, three, that slide down his face. "Be free. Taste it." He thinks he hears laughter and thanks and the wet sound of kisses and, perhaps, a concert where the magic of his youth never ended – except it is coming from the sky. He looks up, thinks he sees a floating chandelier, but then it is gone. Also unbeknownst to him, the pin disappears – almost as if the ship took it away. After a moment, the laughter and the party sounds fade, like they're crossing over into Heaven. Drinking brings such strange thoughts, like "the goldmine is velvet, the art is forever…" He sings a little off-tune, trying to remember where he's heard the song before. He cannot. He needs to go home, to his life. To let the past go.
Shaking his head, he walks away into the night. Of course, up above, the party of flavor has just begun.