COPING

By emmasnape99

As the sun set that evening, a flaming golden orb against a crimson sky, Christian could think of nothing but his lover dying. He could still hear her heavy breathing, her rhythmic gasping, her silent heart, pressed against his ear, as he held her in his arms, tears seeping out of his eyes as he desperately wailed into the night. Down in the rest of Paris, there were people partying, getting drunk, picking up women. A little while ago, Christian wouldn't have been able to understand why on earth they would put a few hours of rampant sex before the glories of true love. But now … now he felt nothing inside. He felt empty. He felt disheartened. He felt … different. Like he'd never felt before. He felt that he wanted to go out and join the party-goers, the miscreants, the people he'd always so pitied before for not knowing how to love. After all, he had always been ridiculously obsessed with love.

Ridiculously.

He'd been fascinated by infatuations, but he was infatuated with love. He was infatuated … with infatuations. He had a frightening fixation with all things fanatical. He'd never been able to see love for what it was. A con. A cheat.

Especially when one fell head-over-heels in love with somebody like the woman he'd fallen for … a woman who could never fall in love, because it would cause her to lose her job.

And, eventually, she had lost her life.

And now, Christian didn't know what to do. He didn't know much at all right now, except that Satine was dead, there were people in Paris just looking for a good time, and he wanted to join them.

He knew where the clubs were. Satine had always known them well, being in the line of work she was in. A lot of the time, the owners had known her, and after a few flirtatious winks and sexy pouts, the entire management crew had fallen for her, and Christian had had to break several arms before anyone would let his lover go.

He would go there now. They would remember him. They always did. When anybody that had been there that night passed him on the streets of the city of love, they would shout their bonjours and their saluts at him. To put it crudely, they knew him as the one who got with a tart.

And so he made his way there, through the fog, through the rain, through the storm. It was dark and damp tonight, and the usual hustle and bustle of Paris was gone. All the horses were locked up in their stables – nobody in their right mind would try to take a journey in this weather.

When he got there, he was greeted with shouts and jeers. Unable to give a damn, he stuck his middle finger up at them all and went straight over to the bar, where a black-clad woman, whom he knew from the Moulin Rouge, but couldn't quite place, was perched upon a stool. She grinned at him widely and batted her thick black eyelashes. Christian tried to ignore her as she watched him order a drink.

No sooner had he been given something to quench his thirst than he downed it. It was only in a small shot glass, and he wanted to be absolutely smashed by the time he returned to his 'home' – a pathetic place if ever there was one. He rapidly ordered another drink, and just as rapidly gulped it down. As soon as he had finished one drink, he would ask for another. This went on for so long that soon the drinks were being brought to him before he'd ordered them.

And all the time he was doing this, Christian was trying to ignore the woman sitting next to him.

Finally, he turned to her and tried to focus his eyes on her form. She raised one perfect eyebrow as he drawled, "what do you want?"

"What?" she asked snidely. "I ain't allowed to sit 'ere?"

"I don't like you staring at me!" he shouted irritably, slamming his latest shot glass down hard on the wooden surface he was leaning on.

"I weren't," she said calmly, unaffected by his rage, "not you. I was staring at a complete stranger, because, Christian, darling, this ain't you."

In his drunken state, Christian had no idea what she was talking about, and he told her so.

"This ain't the Christian what came to our Moulin Rouge all them months ago to write the script for 'Spectacular, Spectacular'," she told him, "and this ain't the same Christian what fell in love with that 'sparkling diamond', like they all do." She rolled her eyes. "You can't throw your life away 'cos she ain't 'ere any more."

"Dunno what you're talking about," Christian mumbled, pouring the alcoholic contents of yet another drink straight down his already burning throat. "Dunno what you mean …"

"You ain't really gonna get all depressed over 'er, are you?" the woman asked, wrinkling her nose as if revolted. Christian finally managed to focus his eyes on her and realised with a start that she was the woman he had struck after she had made a vicious comment about Satine and the Duke. "She 'ad a good life, didn't she? Everyone liked her. Well … most did. Mostly blokes. Few women, I s'pose." It was easy to tell from her tone that she was one of the women that hadn't like Satine. "Satine weren't the most down-to-earth of girls, Christian. You could've done a lot better." She wasn't suggesting herself, albeit it may have seemed so to anybody else that she'd been talking to. However, Christian could understand the way Harold Zidler's 'Diamond Dogs' spoke. They could flirt with everybody, and they did. They could make you believe anything, and so Christian knew, even when drunk, to always believe the opposite of what they said. They could get whoever they wanted, but they never did, because they would lose their jobs if they fell in love.

The closest a Diamond Dog could get to love was a hot, steamy night in bed.

And Christian found himself wondering if Satine was the only one of Zidler's women to lose herself in love. Maybe this woman had done the same thing in the past. Maybe she knew other women that had. Maybe she had lost somebody like he had. Maybe her lover had been taken by the cruel, callous hands of Death.

"Have you ever been in love?" he asked before he realised what he was saying. But, as he said it, she smirked.

"I can't fall in love with anybody."

And he remembered his Satine saying the exact same thing. Was it true? It hadn't been true for Satine because she had fallen for him. It had seemed her infatuation had waned, of course, at one point, but then … she had sang those words to him, those painful, gut-wrenching words … and he had looked into her eyes, and she had looked into his, and he had fallen in love with her all over again.

Her words … her expression … her tone …

They had broken his heart.

Then Christian had run back to the stage and they had sung together … and even the Duke's attempts to spoil it hadn't worked, thanks to Harold Zidler.

"But you must have felt for someone," Christian pressed. She smiled.

"That sounds more like the Christian I know," she said, grinning. "'Love is like oxygen! Love is a many splendoured thing! All you need is love!'"

The corners of Christian's mouth turned up involuntarily.

"I think you're a great writer," she said suddenly, a sincere look in her eyes. Christian looked at her. She was gazing at him.

"I think you're brilliant," she said quietly. "In fact, I think you should write a book."

111

'The Moulin Rouge,' Christian typed furiously.

It was just the beginning of his book. To write it meant he would have to remember every detail of what had happened between him and Satine as their relationship developed, remember things he'd rather forget, but it would all be worth it in the end, when the story was finished.

After all … the greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.