Title: Reversal
Author: mao
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters/likenesses/plotlines/etc. of Velvet Goldmine. I never claimed to, and never will. That honor goes to the fabulous Todd Haynes and Michael Stipe. If I did, well...would I bother with this?
Author's Notes: This popped into my head in the shower this morning. It's not fabulous, but it's here. Deal.
***
"Please. No."
His face is pale with shock, puppy-dog pleading eyes. His lips are stuck out, pouting, the charm turned on like a switch. She turns, looks at him slowly, taking in the track marks on his arms, the ethereal whiteness of his skin. His hair glows on top, blue like mold - no longer the pale color of the sky - and all the extreme colors of him make her blink.
She takes a drag on her cigarette.
"Please wait."
He's pleading, something he's rarely done with her. Not pleading - begging. She relishes it for a moment, then feels the bile rise up within her at her toying with him. She blows out the smoke from her fag slowly, the white-grey of the smoke obscuring his features only momentarily.
"Why?"
One word, but he suddenly looks lost, his eyes slitted again, brow furrowed in deep concentration. He doesn't know, it strikes her, and she casually taps her cigarette, watching the smoky ash fall to the plush carpeting, where it leaves a pale streak on the thick red carpet.
"Because I love you."
It is the most absurd thing he's ever said to her. If he'd said anything else, she might have hesitated, might have considered waiting, hearing him out, perhaps even staying though with his body ravaged by the coke and his mind by fame, she found it rather unlikely.
But this she could never believe.
"No, Brian. You only love yourself."
And then she's gone, the last one he'll ever see go out the door. She rushes down the hall, out of the hotel, bursting into the sunlight and the pavement, nearly running to get away, but even so she can hear him call ("Please! Shannon!") after her, crying out for all that he'd had and rejected. She hears it, but no tears come to her face; she's past them.
