Title: Dance of the Damned
Rating: T
Summary: "You know, I think I liked you better as the poor, naïve filmmaker."
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Step one-two, step one-two, dip, turn, smile, laugh. Glitter like a made-up doll, shine like a true star.

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Mimi had never fully recovered her strength from her long days out in the cold, shivering through illness. She withered away like an old-woman until she could barely lift her head to give Roger her usual reassuring smile. She died with that smile on her lips, and Roger's broken voice in her ear.

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Twirl the jewel hanging off his shoulder and she sparkles with smiles and white, dangerous teeth. Her breath is a warm puff against his neck and he thinks he can feel the poison seeping into his skin with every exhalation.

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Something in Roger snapped and broke when Mimi finally let go. He walked out of the hospital dazed and trembling, and nobody dared go after him. At the loft, he sat, slept, sat, slept, sat some more, and slept some more. Though nobody dared admit it, the emptiness in his eyes scared them. He sat and slept right through the funeral, and when the group returned to the loft, he and his guitar were gone. They never heard from him again.

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Mechanically, he draws her closer, seeking comfort in her harshly angled warmth. She laughs in his ear, a beautiful laugh, but to him it is the sound of failure.

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Benny gave the rest a charity gift of one thousand dollars before he left their lives for good. His high-life was one of mirrored office buildings, beautiful secretaries, a rich wife and a richer father-in-law. Time was money, after all, and they were worth less to him than the bright-shining future he imagined for himself. Years later, they'd found out he'd lost his marriage to a quick fuck and his money to Wall Street. The obituary said he'd fallen from that building, but everybody knew he'd really just jumped.

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Blood-red nails trail down his suit-pants, gouging deep folds in the black material. A burn of icy pain follows it, and against his will he presses even closer. His breath catches in his throat, and he can't decide who he hates more – her, or himself.

---

Collins was a survivor above all else, but even he could not have predicted nor survived the mugging which finally did him in. He died quietly, alone, in pain, but brave. So very brave. Later, they all agreed that it was good that he and Angel were together. None of them admitted how lost they felt without his calming presence.

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Skin against skin against skin, and he doesn't even know who's who anymore. He wishes he could fuck her right here in the middle of the ballroom, but he knows he's not the one in control here.

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Joanne and Maureen were blown away with the coming of winter. They'd been cold for too long, and the promise of a new job at a law firm in Florida beckoned. The rest of them – which was him, and him alone, by now – envied them their ability to escape. They sniffled and wailed and swore they'd call every other night, but nothing ever goes as planned and their calls became less and less frequent until he only ever heard from them on holidays – and sometimes not even then. They had separate lives now; he knew that – he just wished he didn't have to accept it.

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And now look at him, living his dreams, the golden boy of the television world. Dancing 'round and 'round like a planet getting drawn into the sun. She licks her lips then he licks them for her; hot, wet, insistent. She smiles at him like she would a prize dog, then laughs deep in her throat – the hairs on his arm stand at attention and he shivers even as he's lowering his mouth to her neck.

"Now, now, Marky, we don't want to shock the producers, do we?"

He mumbles into the spot below her ear before giving it a quick nip. "I hate you, you know that?"

"I know."

Her voice is serious and there is no laugh to accompany the sentence. This is strange, he thinks. But he appreciates her honesty because it's so rare as to be non-existent. He waits for something else, a continuation, an explanation, but gets nothing.

Nothing but empty air as she pulls away, leaving him cool, vulnerable, and bereft. He stumbles as the beat-beat-beat of synchronicity is completely and utterly destroyed.

"You know, I think I liked you better as the poor, naïve filmmaker."

So did I. So did I.