"Fame, puts you there where things are hollow"
A/N: Okay, this is the result of my spending way too much time reading fanfiction while listening to David Bowie, and also of my incessant wanting to write a glitterfic every since I read Mieko Belle's (now Thieving Gypsy's) Fairy Boys. Alright, I know terribly bad form to start a fanfiction with a chapter featuring no Harry Potter characters, but trust me... I think this is a really good mood-setter.And it's not a real chapter, anyway... it's a prologue.
For everyone reading A Perfect Day to Elope: I'm not abandoning it, I've just had this lying around in my computer for some time, and I really feel the need to post it right now.
Where Things Are Hollow
Prologue: Modern Love
The sign read:
Tonight: The Dirty Jane Tour,
featuring Rock Starr and the Feathered Boas
It hung, ten heads above the average passersby, in bold black letters across the front of the Strange Luck Theatre, inviting passersby to wonder at the group of glittery-eyed, finger-licking, platform-booted teens forming a sparkly, feathered, leopard-printed queue outside said theatre. In approximately two hours the imposing French doors would be flung open by a tentative usher named Harvey and the consequent tornado of shimmering squeals would pour into every corner of the mist-filled arena.
For now, Rock Starr watched the scene from his hotel room across the street, eye-level with his own, vast image dangling above the crowd. He brushed a strand of shoulder-length, dark-blonde hair from his eyes and squinted at the larger-than-life poster. He couldn't remember that picture, it melded so with every other photo shoot. Posters melted into magazines melted into album covers, each stroke of blush blending lines until the last five years simply dissolved into one long photo shoot. He turned away from the poster…he'd always hated pictures of himself anyway. They never seemed to capture all of him, always leaving some bit of him behind. Each profile caught chiseled cheekbones and abnormally long eyelashes, each flash washed over Vaseline-plumped lips, but something… something was always missing… something normal. Pictures caught a marble statue, freezing his eyes in hollow stares, but normalcy always lurked just outside the lens. He walked over to his vanity. Well, it wasn't really his vanity, it was the hotel's vanity. They were simply letting him borrow it for a day or two. Tomorrow he'd have a new vanity, and then he'd spread his make-up over that one. He might make a mess, like the one laid out before him now, but Jane would always fix the mess, organizing the colors in even rainbows as she was doing just then.
"And don't even say I don't have to do this," she snapped. "God knows you'd end up without any makeup at all."
"Alright then…" he yawned. "Dirty Jane, I order you to organize my makeup, wench!"
"Shut up, Rock." She laid out an even row of red lipsticks. "Sit down." He obeyed, lowering himself onto the plush, spinning stool. "Alright, close your eyes.
"God knows where you'd be without me."
"God knows, indeed."
He felt soft bristles rubbing up and down his cheekbones and the side of his face. Her fingers, gently forceful as they spread cold, liquid glitter over his lids, ran to smear eyeliner under his lashes. He heard a soft click as she flicked open a mystery lipstick and then she was rubbing color into his lips. He had once thought there was something sensual about her fingers. There was no doubt that he loved her, he knew that he did. She knew that he did. Somehow, however, the romance of her fingers, rubbing first on the vibrant lipsticks and then against his lips, had lost its sensuality. He playfully licked her fingers as she daubed gloss onto his lower lip, like he always did. She playfully pressed his lips shut, like she always did. Somewhere along the line it had stopped being playful. Somewhere, playfulness had become routine.
He felt her place the ritual kiss on his lips and his eyes fluttered open. She turned him back to the mirror and he smiled half-heartedly. He didn't even bother checking that she'd done well. She always did.
He stood and turned back to her, his magenta-red haired darling, the Queen of the Groupies. He snaked a protective arm around her hips.
Rock Starr had discovered Dirty Jane and the Rio Trio almost seven years ago, when Jane, Fox, and Jim were all seventeen and fresh off the streets. She'd been a brunette at the time.
"We have to go." Rock was ripped from his musings by a commanding hand entwined in his. Jane had somehow managed to untangle herself from his hips and she was dragging him behind her, through their bedroom, his fur-lined closet (he paused to finger his favorite mink), their bathroom, their living room, their other living room, their chandelier-filled dining hall, their entry hall, their elevator. She pushed some buttons and, with an easy click, the doors slid shut and the elevator started down. The comfortable silence was punctuated by an electric humming as the they continued down…down… down…
"You're ready." It wasn't a question, she knew he could perform… he always could.
"Yes." He answered anyway.
"You're not worried."
"No."
"You're going to be amazing."
"Yes."
She chewed on her lower lip, as though debating if she should…
I love you. She said; but she never spoke a word, and kept chewing on her lip.
I know. He said, and he leaned onto her shoulder, though she was only as tall as his.
She let him go as his lips left hers and the elevator doors slid open.
"Bye" she mouthed. He didn't hear, but he knew.
He smiled and, flanked by an entourage of bodyguards, crossed to the theatre.