called : all died blonde [a velvet goldmine fanfic]
by : spyre [egotantrum@yahoo.com]
rated as : R
ingredients : het, slash, drug use, poor grammar and swearing
note this : no beta was utilized at any point in production
dedicated to : loryn
created : 01.20.02
revised : 05.16.03
Assume a pose
The lights blinked out and there was nothing at first but a few floating red dots indicating the location and number of the smokers in the immediate vicinity. Voices grumbled while some called in surprise. A foreign hand met her neck and she growled. The hand only paused a split second before sliding around and taking hold of her with a firm grip. She moved away as best she could, hitting a door. "Back off," she hissed. There was no reply to her warning.
The energy to break into a brawl was on the edges of her muscles just as she felt a body press against her, halting that idea temporarily. The energy released abruptly, and the power momentarily overtook the man's form. He had her under control, though, within the second. It was a natural law that he'd be able to handle her attack.
This party had been absolutely against anything remotely natural, however.
It seemed that the darkness cancelled that out now.
The heat from the other person's body began to intoxicate her. Jane was already half baked anyway. A sound came from her throat that was more aggressive animal lust than it was anything else. This only aroused the stranger all the more, moving minutely up her form, shifting clothes across her skin. It'd been so long since she'd felt a man. It'd been years. It'd been a decade.
"The lights won't be out forever, ya know." She didn't know why she'd said it. Was it a threat or a taunt?
With that statement, her newest acquaintance smirked in the blackness and sent out a breathed huff of amusement.
Then came his sex laden voice on breath that smelled like a liquored up ashtray, "Is that a promise?"
Her heart beat faster than she liked. She couldn't control it.
Her typically spinning mind spiraled downward into oblivion.
She liked being out of whack, but only on her own terms.
He couldn't really place why he felt her temperature rise so suddenly. The women in this place were accustomed to such attentions.
Strong hands found his back, though. It was Richie.
Danger, Curt Wild. Danger!
He let go the female and spun to take hold of his lover, sweeping him away and into a lengthy, swallowing kiss more out of impulse than to save a scene. Richie returned the favor with ardor, unsuspecting. Curt was coming at him and in him like a tornado, moving them among bodies as they bumped and shuffled through the people, away from Curt's object of a wicked little teasing sort.
The lights flickered on and there was applause and cheering.
The mic in the huge den tinkered on and whistled as the speakers and the feedback adjusted.
She'd quickly assumed an unruffled demeanor. These things happened, she supposed.
And off she went toward the makeshift "stage" which really was just an oriental rug flung down atop extensive beige carpeting.
The sound check over and done with, she jumped in for the silver mic just as Jill, Phoebe and Tiff were plugged in and ready to go.
"One, two, baby, go…"
And power slithered through the walls with a looming and slinking bass and guitar candy cane.
Tiff timed it all on the ride. Then it was Jane's turn.
Untamed, real and startling timbre tore through the speakers.
She never stopped moving as the lyrics poured over chapped lips.
"She got a feel on a doorway goodbye, doesn't mean that much to her no more."
She jumped up and down, shook her ragged, raven hair as she screamed and guttered out words, rocking her pelvis and rolling her limbs around like an all-joints doll.
"She's caught in the tramway all down in a position to please me. Lady Baby, you've got to hate me!"
Curt's brain swam as Richie's hands sought out burning places. Richie could do that to him. It was funny how his beauty shown even when Curt kept his eyes closed at times. He wanted that kind of beauty. He'd sought it out ever since Brian. They were in the hall, groping and sucking without thought to whoever might see. Groans melted with moans blanketed by the punk music raging through the massive house that host such a post concert soiree.
As she screamed out and bounced around, her studded choker pressed ever against her throat, reminding her briefly of the possibilities the audience held. She gave a wicked smile to herself. It was Phoebe's solo and Jane decided to make out with the girl just to grate her.
People shouted and hollered support and whistled delight at the show. It was hard for the guitarist to resist. It wasn't the looks, it was the raw fiber issuing from sultry brown eyes and tortured words from the heart written months ago. The rhythm called the singer back, though. It was another verse. She jumped to the mic stand, mouth now wet, gripping the microphone tightly.
"Lady. Maybe. Take me. Show me. Lady. Baby. Make me. She's got her wrist on backward and her soul on high."
A glitter of the gaze and a flicker of the tongue, wrapping an ankle around the base of the stand, leather clad calf rubbing the pole. Leaning a hip there, tilting suggestively and with a raunchy moan she continued with a sandpaper lilt backed by a quieted drum and a languid guitar break that carried the lyrics. The bass of Jill thrummed on.
"The child's got a favor inside, bat an eye at me as she's leaving the sidewalk for the last time."
The crowd cheered, swayed. It seemed the concert wasn't enough. The smell of sweat, cologne, liquor and sex permeated the air. Jane's face glistened at the exertion, her breath came across the speakers erratic and coaxing. Boots stomped the floor as she jumped up and down, flaying hands, kicking out.
The back of this particular room opened to the outside by way of a series of french doors. On the deck outside people watched and drank, made out and whispered. It was a cold, clear night. The breeze came in, picked up all those scents and brought them into her nostrils and she puffed on it like it was the cannabis from heaven.
"Lady Baby, she's out of her mind while I'm leaving her face behind!"
And a mean guitar riff called it the end of that song. There were raucous cheers. She jerked up a bottle of water and guzzled it, pouring it over her head, thoughtless of dousing the carpet. Phoebe, Jill and Tiff drank deeply as well. The show had the energy of outstanding things.
Black magic
[One Week Later]
Kilter, as the band was called, lived with an assortment of people. It was Jane's job to collect rent from the "tenants". She was merciless with that pickle jar of hers, making the rounds with a wave of the change filled container.
She popped the lid to the orange bottle, a drug prescribed to patients for serious pain. One pill could completely numb a full grown man for four hours straight. She downed three, adding over the counter tranqs to the mix.
She was amused to no end at the fact that no matter what she did, she couldn't manage to raise her pulse. Time went by so much faster when she floated away like this.
It was a party and she'd stumbled into the bathroom. The reflection in the mirror only spurred her frustration, a frustration and angst that lingered just under her skin. Perhaps if they'd spent wisely, held fewer parties and stayed sober more often, Jane wouldn't have to be the "bad ass rent bitch".
It wasn't difficult to live up to, either. It came hard and natural.
She'd been okay albeit odd right up until her mother began to slack on her attempts to hide the truth, when the strange men that had once just been phantom voices on the phone and behind closed doors changed to moans vibrating the walls, thumping, screaming, yelling, the rustle of grubby money from grimy hands.
Her mom drowned in drugs, cried for forgiveness some times, but mostly passed out. Jane supposed those kind of things happened. She was the unfortunate minority. It was the past, though, and she strove to forget the pain. Her songs more than echoed its once torturing existence.
The kiss was dirty and hasty, but two fires met and spat embers, spun in arcs as Curt's hands found young curves against him. An arching back offered an animalistic growl and two warm mounds of flesh beneath a thin t-shirt clinging to her form. She bit his lip neatly. Blood trickled and he pressed harder against her in retaliation, forcing her bittersweet breath from her lungs.
Lithe but strong, unfamiliar hands traversed up his back, on his neck, grasping a hunk of fake platinum hair, twining touch to his jawline that moved as he swallowed her and guttered approval in his throat. Pain wracked her body and she cried out involuntarily as a jagged nail from his hands snagged supple skin on a journey under her flimsy top. She squirmed artfully and stumbled from his hungry grasp, nearly collapsing over a side table. The lamp toppled.
Her heart raced erratically as slurred images rippled in and out of the folds of her mind. The room spun. His arms were around her within a moment, bringing her back against him, her tensed ass against his erection. He laughed amusedly with a hot perfume in her ear. Those hands, the hands of a man, resumed their searching over new territory: the give, the sloping and the dips all humming warm with her scalding blood just beneath milky white skin. Hips rocked back and against him in some sick instinct.
She wanted him, but she wanted control.
She wanted to dominate as she'd always done before.
It was her spirit and her sexuality that drove her body to writhe with his.
Her deep, sharp inhalations and his occasional moaning exhalations as those two flames inside began flickering in time, slowing and building all in one bonfire that mesmerized. And a rhythm came between them as she hissed each time he moved with her, moved out of sync just to catch that friction. She reached upward and backward over her shoulders, touching stringy blonde shocks, tracing strands with her fingers to his scruffy chin. Music filled both their ears, looming and threatening.
It was black magic.
When hell is heaven
[Six Days Later]
A phone call and they'd found her. She'd turned eighteen two weeks ago and they'd finally caught up with her. Only what they wanted was not what she expected.
She sat in that sanitary room in her cheap clothes looking rough. She could still feel Curt inside her, his tongue over her body. It clung to her like some secret needle in her veins. She had the look of annoyance and breeding anger in those stormy eyes.
"And in her last will and testament, she left to you a savings account by which a sum of five-hundred and thirty-two dollars is entrusted," the man droned on, trying to sound sympathetic, though she knew his eyes were on her breasts. God, she hated men.
That's why she preferred Curt. Oh, he was a man, but he was also irrevocably feral. He was wounded just like her… and she wanted him between her legs again. An image of him on his back on the stolid table before her flashed through her mind. This cheered her up, if cheer could be defined as slightly moister underwear, a delicate squirm and hungry eyes.
She waited for him to finish.
The man was lucky she was in a good mood. He owed all his thanks to the aching pain of slickened, newly stretched muscle under her jeans. "And a letter addressed to you, only to be given to you when you are legally recognized as an adult." He slid the manila envelope over.
She took it with mild interest, "Is that all?"
"Sign here under this list saying you've received all of these items." She did. The man nodded, "And that's all. The paper work for your account is in that envelope along with the letter."
She stood and simply walked out of that empty business room. As she strolled along the sidewalk, the feel of rain crept into the gray air around her. It was in the afternoon, but the sky and the breeze suggested darkness would fall soon.
She pulled out the second envelope enclosed in the first and opened it, seeing her mother's handwriting for the first time in forever. She stripped it open and tucked the manila folder under an arm as she unfolded three documents. Two were printouts of some kind and one was a short blurb from her "dearest mother".
But thunder rolled rather appropriately over Jane's head. The world slowed as did her footsteps – to a stop… An official-looking document, a copy of a mind shattering picture… and those words…
She opened the door to the flat. Curt was there with two other people. It was a blur to her.
Curt's face burned in her memory as he tossed a look her way, a greeting. He was smiling. It was beautiful the way it cast the sparse room into a more welcoming light.
She walked over to him, the manila envelope limp at her side in her left hand. She stood beside the couch as he straightened and knelt before her, leaning forward on the plush arm of the sofa.
His arms went around her, pulling her to him. "We have a show. It's big. [a pause] You okay?" came that crushed velvet voice, those sea foam eyes tilted up to her.
The universe was syrup. She was spiraling down, around, twisting.
And in a frozen moment… she decided. She'd make herself forget.
With a cool breath, she leaned down and flickered her tongue over his lips. Without question, he opened his mouth and accepted her attentions. His hands ran down to stroke her ass. Fingertips brushed over his cheek, into that tangle of blonde, fingernails scratching his ear.
He gave a gasp, but she caught it… draining his lungs of air. He growled that growl of his, low in his throat and pulled her over the arm of the couch as he fell back with her on top of his body.
She dropped the envelope in the same motion as she moaned ravenous, helpless approval, crawling up to straddle him.
The others in the room only grinned, whispered and continued to blabber on about the show, about drugs. Thighs holding him, hands worked under his shirt, scraping, kneading… His heart skipped. Her heart writhed.
She'd burn the proof. She'd burn the knowledge right from her head.
Her entire self strained for him. She whispered huskily and deviously as she pressed herself into him, "I want to swallow you, Curt Wild. I want to feel you bleed and I need to hear you scream my name," Two hot, raspy, moan laced breaths in his ear.
Then: "Are you scared?" -- Curt felt his entire form condense and strain toward the girl atop him.
He groaned wantonly underneath his words, "Terrified, kid. Just don't hold back."
A corner of her mouth turned up wickedly as she felt him rock upward, that sound of supernatural lust itching her tone, "Remember you said that…"
And he caught her lips, crushing her close, draining and sucking her with a signature need he possessed.
Deliverance
[Two Months Later]
She sat on the tiled floor, back against the tub. She tightened the strap around her bicep, giving it that extra tug with the help of her teeth. She didn't even hesitate as she brought the syringe to the crook of her arm. She slid the needle in. It would be her first time. It would be painless. It'd be over by tonight if she knew what she was doing. She was pretty sure. Curt would be back day after tomorrow. That would give her time enough.
[The Next Day / 0800PM]
Curt was at the hospital in a shaking fit of rage. They wouldn't let him see her.
"This is so fucking wrong! Get the fuck out of my way or I'll hurt you! I swear to god..."
Two hours and a hand of fingernails later, the doctor came out. Curt watched her approach from his seat, "Well?" came his demand for some sort of news.
"She's in critical condition, but she's stable. That's a very good sign. I'm afraid, though, that she's lost the baby."
Eternity wavers
Curt stared at the wall in his apartment, going over his one-sided conversation with Jane for the millionth time.
"Hey," he stepped to the bedside, grabbed her emaciated hand with his own hand that was scabbing over from an unnamed abuse he'd put it through only minutes before. She stared at him, empty like a corpse. Her other hand was cuffed to the bed rail. "Doctors say you'll be fine by next Thursday."
She watched him blankly, but her expression was changing slowly, subtly. He caressed her fingers and kissed her knuckles. The warmth of his lips kindled something straddling complete depression and complete relief.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Her blood went cold.
Eternity passed too soon.
"Was it mine?" His voice was rough with emotion.
She couldn't move.
Her silence grated him. He looked out of the window for patience, "Well, either way, I'm sorry, Janey."
She wasn't sorry for the same reason he was. That one word from him spoke volumes more than anything the world could ever hold for her. She returned his clasp on her hand weakly.
He moved his gaze to her. Something there was so much more giving than she anticipated, "Doctor's asked me for some of my blood."
The lights of the universe flickered inside of her mind. Every muscle across her tired body tensed.
"But I told them where to go."
He was lying.
Oh, Curt. No.
Was he crying?! She saw no tears, but she knew Curt. She knew him.
He heard her breath become erratic. He understood then that she knew he was lying. She saw right through him. She was the closest anyone ever came to understanding him. And he knew why.
-- And he knew why.
The wall in his apartment refused to say anything appropriate and so he just sat there, ran hands through his hair. The bail and rehab classes insured that she'd get out of the hospital and not have to face jail time. He wondered if he should be the one to be put in a nut house. Memory flashed back like the bitch it was:
"Blood tests show that, not only are you and Miss Todd a perfect match, but you are related," The doctor looked just as surprised as he, "Did you know this?"
"Related how?" he asked in a graveled tone.
"The tests are very close. Either you're her brother or her father."
His parents had been dead too long to make her his sister.
What the fuck?! What the fuck?! He was actually trying to figure it out?! Did it fucking matter?!
"No, you're wrong. It can't be. That's wrong. Your tests are wrong," his voice was so definite and so strong that it seemed somehow he could will it not to be true.
"There is room for error, Mister Wild. I can do some more tests, and…"
The rest was just mush in his brain.
"Fuck."
He had a screaming migraine.
"Well, you can see her now in any case," the doctor's voice broke in echoes through his thoughts.
Waking to damnation
[Twelve Days Later]
Curt had barely made it to the bed. He lay strewn across it, still in his jacket and rumpled pants. The night had lasted till past dawn. The daylight snickered through the heavy drapery. She hadn't called. He called twice. After that, he gave up. She'd do whatever the hell she'd want.
Yeah, but damn that girl. She should at least pick up her fucking phone.
They had two shows booked for the end of this month. What the fuck was he supposed to do then? Fuck women.
He snored loudly, away in slushy blackness, a hand hanging off the mattress.
She walked in through the open doorway. Her entire body was nothing but skin and bones. Dark circles accentuated her deep, sad brown eyes. They seemed so huge as she stared at the figure on the bed. She had a skinny hand on the doorknob, looked behind her for no reason… She stooped to the floor beside the bed and began to unlace his boots. She did it methodically. No thoughts dared to tread across her brain. She didn't let them and they complied more than willingly.
She'd stayed away to realize, to think. She had believed she knew what she was going to do, but now that he was alive and genuine in front of her eyes, the ideas blinked out of existence to leave but residue of a reluctant will.
After this task was complete, she crept to the other side of the room where she entered the bed carefully, sandals discarded. The white v-neck t-shirt was loose and those gray sweats around her legs were forgiving. She didn't bother to cover up. She just curled close, laying a hand atop his and closing her eyes. A few tears threatened and one or two managed to trickle down her pale face. She'd been on Mars for the past week and a half.
She'd been on the verge of insanity. What a familiar thing that verge was.
Somehow she fell asleep to his rocky, familiar breathing.
There was singing: gruff voice lilting over simple words.
She blinked open her eyes reflexively, didn't know where she was at first. There was that voice… and then the stroking of her hair, her cheek, shoulder and side. She slammed her eyes shut, as if having them do this would somehow keep her dream real. She listened silently.
Curt was propped up against the headboard, his body relaxed and his eyes rather intense in a far away manner.
"Missed you…" he said finally. He almost looked mad. He was hurt. That furrow was there.
She breathed shallow, grasped his hand just as it stopped on her shoulder, "How are you…"
He felt drained, but how else should he feel, "Other than a headache, I'm fine."
She couldn't help a smirk. She pet the top of his hand for a moment. Everything was quiet. The sound of the other tenants strained through the walls.
He asked it first. She never would have thought he'd be the one, but then again -- that was Curt.
"So, what's this mean?"
She felt the very tissue of her body quiver and shrink at the question. Somehow, it allowed her to breathe. It took a pause, a string of seconds before she sat up. Their eyes met.
She crawled up to him, placed both hands to either side of his face. The bristles of that unkempt jawline scratched her skin. Thumbs slid in sync over the bridge of his nose. She watched those silver and black flecks in his eyes. She could have sworn they meant something, they stood for something in some dark, forgotten language.
"I want to be with you more than anything else, but -- Curt -- could you still want me?"
Curt and she had been together for relatively a long while, it was true.
They weren't completely "faithful", though. It wasn't that kind of relationship anyway.
Without even thinking why, she'd turned away any other man during the time they'd been together. She'd slept around with -- she couldn't remember how many -- women.
There was no telling how many guys Curt had done.
And so, without question, the child had been his.
In her torn mind, heroin had been the quickest out. She knew the entire truth and discovering what she had been told, would have driven anyone bonkers anyhow, let alone what it would do to a sort like Jane.
There was one of those moments where everything mutes itself in tangled silence and threaded expectation, wavering just behind the veils of the future, and of the words she wanted, and of the words she dreaded to come.
He clasped her wrists, holding them with a frequented pressure. He thought and mulled this over in some sluggish, stupid way.
Perhaps he already knew the answer, but also knew that the answer was borne on everything that'd ever gotten him further and further in the dirty heaven and hell that had become his life.
Where we end
Slowly and tragically came those words: "We need to stop."
Her face fell as did her hands, and her body sagged visibly. Time stretched at the seams, bulging and groaning hideously inside her skull. She could only give half a nod. He was right.
He was right…
She was only able to watch that fatal gaze for so long before she looked down, but his touch stopped her, pulled her expression back from its hiding. Why would he want to see her now? It was over. Everything inside splintered.
He could almost hear his marrow turn to powder and blow away. Fingers turned to puddles of water as they slid up her starving albeit welcome visage.
All died blonde
And he planted a soft kiss to her forehead. She swallowed the lump in her throat as he did so.
And met her eyes; his own were odd and keen. She watched him and in the breadth of a moment their lips met and her insides could have turned to ash. A sound of half whimper, half moan met her ears. But something unexpected happened. Lips parted and he swallowed her in one drawn breath, leaning forward and pulling her to him in that same act.
She was caught off guard as that flood of singular passion cut through the middle of her. She didn't question it. She wouldn't let herself, and she didn't want to break the spell. One of his hands found her leg and guided it around him. She groaned helplessly and couldn't stop the swarm she let loose, wrapping herself and burying herself into him. She could have cried. He was pure impulse because when was the last time he stopped something that felt so right? Never.
He broke the kiss, locked with her gaze and a smile melted into a laugh. This was a quintessential Curt Wild situation. On some levels, he really wasn't surprised at himself.
She wondered what the fuck was goin' through his head, but the thing was infectious. Laughter coughed past her lips and she shook her head, lowering it to kiss his chin and trailing those attentions down his neck. The laughing simmered down to a pleasurable moan from him as he ran hands up the back of her shirt, feeling how much softness had given way to endless days of malnutrition. It seemed appropriate.
It all seemed so sickly and perfectly fitting.
Clothes tossed and flesh pressed to wanting flesh…
Jane supposed these sort of things happened.
Aw, fuck. Who the hell was she kidding?!
This was a once in a life time opportunity.
Besides, in the end, everyone died in some kind of a lie.
All died blonde.
So...
Why deny the purity of such a twisted thing?
Why avoid dirty miracles?