Title: Fallen
Author: SP
Rating: M
Pairing: Curt/Brian, Brian/anyone who pays him
Disclaimer: Todd Haynes. Not me. sigh "Ladytron" is by Bryan Ferry, not me either.
Summary: Rock and roll is a prostitute. AU, one from "Alterations", though you needn't read that first.
A/N: I really like the idea of Brian as someone's little sex toy. shrugs Not quite sure about this one...whether to go on or not. Eh.
It had been many years since the fake shooting incident, and Brian Slade had nothing. Everyone had abandoned him by now, and he found that he didn't do well on his own. He had had schooling up to Year 12 of course, but he really didn't know much about the Real World. He had been so deeply immersed in the world of fame, and even before that he had been immersed in the world of performing, that he didn't know how to live. Even the simplest of things eluded him.
When you're not a star, you can't live like one. Brian understood that. He'd grown up that way, although there had been summers in London where everything was different. Really, he had reflected, if he hadn't accidentally happened upon his uncle in a compromising position with the theatre owner, he might not have become the way he was. Well, it didn't matter now.
What did matter was finding a way to stay off the streets and make enough to get by on. He'd fallen from grace after the shooting, and one by one, his "henchmen" as Curt had so rightly termed them, had left. Jerry was first, dropping him within two weeks of the shooting. Then, in a steady trickle, all of the people involved with studio work, wardrobe and publicity. Mandy left at some point, though Brian wasn't quite sure when and besides, she'd really been gone for a long time before that. The last to leave was Shannon, who had stuck around until the very end, when Brian had had no choice but to leave the life he was so desperately trying to cling to.
Cocaine had quite efficiently sucked up any money he might have had left, and he was only off it now because he couldn't afford it. He was glad, actually. Though it was harder to bear, it was easier to operate in a world without a cocaine-induced haze surrounding it. And Brian needed all of his wits about him if he wasn't simply going to starve to death on the streets.
What was he good at--well, besides singing? Brian couldn't think of anything. Singing and performing had always been all he'd done. Well, and manipulating and lying to people, but you could hardly do that for a living. Brian had done at good job at manipulating and lying to people for a living though, he realised. First had been Mandy, who he had gotten to marry him. He hadn't totally lied to her, he did like her, but he mostly wanted to marry her to get his own foot in the door. She owned a club, people performed at clubs, talent agents went to clubs to see people perform. Simple as that. The second person had been Jack Fairy. He hadn't said a word to Jack, just kissed him. But he really had no feelings whatsoever for him. He just wanted to distract him long enough to steal his pin, which he was wearing as an earring at the time. After that, Brian had lost track. Curt, most of the youth of Britain, Cecil, his "henchmen"…the list went on and on. And before all of them, there had been the people before that, the ones he had lied to and manipulated to get objects, not money or fame. Like that schoolboy he'd fucked for a pocket wa….
Oh. Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? Sex.
Brian felt vaguely dirty for doing this, but it wasn't really that much different from the massive orgies that used to occur on an almost nightly basis. It was still sex with anyone even marginally willing. And Brian had always done that…just not for money.
There were other things he could be doing, rather than this (though what they were still escaped him), but Brian had a nice body and a name that everyone still recognized, and he was going to use them. Fallen from grace as he was, people would still gloat in secret, "Ha, I shagged Brian Slade!" (or "Brian Slade shagged me!" depending on gender and/or personal likes).
There had also been a few people who had been extreme fans who paid for sex just to hurt him, punish him for lying to them all. Brian didn't mind so much, because he could handle a day or two of soreness as long as there was money gained. Besides, he knew he had lied to them and maybe he really deserved it all in the end.
Brian never had sex because he wanted to; it was always for the money. Besides, there was only one person he really wanted to fuck now, and there was no chance of it ever happening again. Curt hated him too. Everyone he ever even looked at hated him for something eventually. It was just in Brian's nature to be an utter bastard sometimes, and likewise in his nature never to apologize, even when he knew he was in the wrong.
As a matter of fact, he was in the wrong right now. There was one woman, a repeat customer as it were, who had arranged to meet weekly, always at the same time and place, a rundown ramshackle building that Brian was quite sure was basically a drug-den. Brian was late. He might apologize this time, but he wouldn't mean it and it was just so the woman would continue to meet him. She didn't pay spectacular amounts of money like some people did, but it was steady and Brian could rely on it.
He slipped in the back door the woman had showed him the first night and hurried inside and up the back staircase. He ran into someone halfway up.
"Watch where the fuck you're going, man!" the other person snapped at him, and then continued down the stairs. Brian shrugged and continued up.
Brian opened the door and found the woman sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette. "You're late," she commented.
"I was delayed," Brian said simply.
The woman grinned at him, rather predatorily, Brian thought. "You're lucky you're worth the wait."
"Am I?" Brian replied. "Worth the wait?"
"Of course. You're Maxwell Demon." She grinned at him again.
"No, I'm not. Maxwell Demon is dead."
She shrugged. "So are you."
Brian eyed her suspiciously. "Are you high?"
She shook her head. "Nope. I've been clean four months. I've found something better than drugs," she added, with a predatory look at him.
Brian stepped forward and slowly began unbuttoning his shirt. The woman giggled and ground out her cigarette on the bedside table.
Brian fucked the woman with an aloofness he had perfected long before taking up this career. Only with one person had he let his real feelings surface during sex. He could put on any act he wanted. Aloofness, passion, anger--all of them believable. For this, he had decided aloofness was best. He'd stuck to that, even during more agonizing experiences. He only wished he could be aloof. Instead, he was painfully aware.
When it was over, they both dressed immediately, as always, she offered Brian a cigarette, as always, and Brian refused, as always. Unlike always however, he didn't leave right away. "I need a place to sleep for the night," he admitted reluctantly. He'd been unable to pay the rent for last month on the small flat he had been living in, and so he had been evicted.
"And?"
Brian gave her a look. "Well, obviously I'm asking if I can sleep here."
"Oh! Well, you'll have to ask someone downstairs, I don't actually live here. I used to. Just tell them Marie sent you, it'll be fine. Here, I'll even come with you." She walked to the door and held it open for him.
Brian shrugged, followed her. She led him down the stairs he had come up less than half an hour before, then to the right, away from the front door. Brian had never seen this part of the building before.
The hallway turned out to lead to a sitting room. There were five men seated in a rough circle on cushions on the floor, passing around what Brian assumed was marijuana or something. There was one other man perched on the arm of a chair, half-hidden in shadow, also smoking, but Brian could tell from the smell of the smoke that wafted over to them that he was smoking an ordinary cigarette.
"Hey, fellas," the woman greeted the room at large. "You'll do an old friend a favour, right?"
One of the men looked up at her and grinned. "For you, Marie, anything. What is it you want, heroin? Coke?"
"No. I just want you to give my friend here a place to sleep for awhile."
The man studied him. "You look kind of familiar. Do I know you?"
"Probably not personally," Brian replied. "I'm sure you know of me."
Now he looked confused. "What, are you some big-time dealer or something?"
An exasperated sigh came from the man in the shadows. "Mark, you fuckin' idiot, that's Brian Slade." Brian realised that the man in shadow was the one he'd bumped into earlier.
Mark's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh yeah, you're that woofter who faked your own death."
The other four men made understanding noises.
"Don't pay him any mind," Marie whispered to Brian, pressing some money into his hand.
"I've been called worse," Brian replied.
"Same time next week?" Marie asked.
Brian didn't think about it before he answered, "No."
"Oh…" She sounded disappointed. "Why not?"
"That's my business," Brian replied. The truth was that he didn't know either.
Marie winked at him. "Oh, I see. Well, goodnight boys!" she called, including the room at large in her farewell.
"You can sleep with him," Mark said to Brian, gesturing to the man in shadow. "He's got the most room out of us."
"All right," Brian replied. The man didn't make any protest, so Brian assumed it was okay with him too.
"So, sit down," Mark continued. "Pick your poison. You want it, we probably got it. Cocaine, heroin, marijuana--only thing is, if you want opium, you have to go to Jim."
Brian shook his head, feeling just a little proud of himself. "Um, no. I'm trying to stay clean."
"Cigarette?" Mark offered, almost in desperation.
"Thanks." Mark handed him the cigarette and a lighter, and Brian inhaled the smoke deeply, exhaling slowly through his nose.
"How long you been clean?" one of the other men asked him.
Brian didn't answer. The man shrugged.
"I'm going to bed," the man in the shadows announced. "If you're sleeping in with me, you'd better come now."
Brian put out his cigarette and followed the man. He led Brian down the hall, and then to the right. He opened the door at the end of the hall, stalked in as though Brian had somehow done him a great injustice, flicked on the light, then whirled to face him as soon as Brian shut the door.
"Where the fuck," he said, "do you get off coming back into my life to fuck me over again?"
And it was Curt, as Brian had known in the back of his mind since they bumped into one another on the stairs. Brian closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. The uncharacteristic gesture of weakness was so surprising that Curt just stared at him. "I didn't know you were here," Brian muttered. "I didn't even recognise you earlier tonight."
"Yeah, well."
"I don't have to stay here," Brian said, still not opening his eyes. "I can…find somewhere."
"Are you saying you don't have anywhere to go?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm not fuckin' sending you out to the streets. No one deserves that, not in this neighbourhood."
Brian opened his eyes at last and looked up at Curt. "Not even me?"
Curt shook his head, bleached hair swirling around his face. "Not even you. So, I take it you're clean out of necessity?"
"Yes," Brian admitted.
"Do you have anything left?"
"No."
"A fucking job?" Curt persisted.
Brian smiled bitterly. "A job, fucking."
Curt stared at him.
Brian shrugged. "What else could I do? I figured it out. I'm good at singing and performing, lying, and fucking. I already tried singing, you can't make a living out of lying, so that left fucking. I've been able to make a fairly decent go of it so far."
Curt muttered something that sounded like, "And I thought I was having a shitty time." He sighed. "Look Brian, I don't like you, you know. I don't enjoy being fucked around. If I could do it again, I'd choose the heroin."
"You were 'getting your act together' when I approached you," Brian corrected quietly.
Curt made a dismissive noise. "I tried to get my act together at least three times. I got sick of the fucking methadone and cravings and everything and went back to the heroin every time. But anyway Brian, I'm not letting some ex-celebrity who doesn't know how to live in the real world go back to the streets and sell himself. Unlike some people, I have a conscience. You're staying here."
"I couldn't," Brian said. "Besides, I'm a bit low on willpower. It wouldn't be a good idea for me to live in a drug-den."
"I can do it, and I'm just a 'junkie side-act.' You can certainly manage." Curt was scathing now.
Brian sighed. "I owe you an apology."
Curt shook his head. "You don't fuckin' get it. Here, you sleep on the bed, I'll take the floor. Protest and I'll shove my foot up your ass--not that I won't anyway. But don't tempt me."
Brian sat on the edge of the bed, very confused. Perhaps a return customer was a disadvantage, rather than an advantage. Once was fine, but start returning to a place and you find out things you didn't want to know. Things like the fact that Curt Wild lived there.
And what did Curt mean, anyway? "You don't fuckin' get it," was not the usual response to a prelude to an apology. The only thing Brian could immediately think of was that Curt meant he didn't want Brian's apology, because there was no way he would forgive him. That seemed very possible. Brian wouldn't forgive himself either. In fact, he admitted ruefully, he hadn't.
Brian, in all honesty, hadn't even thought about protesting. He knew now that he should have at least thought of it. It only reinforced the idea that he was an utter bastard. He didn't need anyone to tell him that--he already knew it, a bit too well.
He sighed and curled into the foetal position. Perhaps even more mystifying than Curt's odd answer was the fact that he didn't just kick him out onto the streets. "No one deserves that…not even you," Curt had said. And yet Curt had also said he didn't like Brian. Brian knew that he would have no hesitation in sending someone he didn't like out onto the streets. Then he felt sick. Curt had always been a better person than he, and he had always known it. Why had he ever tried to convince himself (and the world) that he was superior? Brian drifted off into an uneasy sleep without realising it. His thoughts turned to nightmares, the same old ones that had always plagued him.
Curt, on the other hand, was still awake, lying on the floor and contemplating the ceiling. He reached into his pocket a lit a cigarette, the red ember the only point of light in the room.
Brian was jolted abruptly into consciousness by the sound of a door slamming. For a moment, he was confused, unsure of where he was. Then he remembered. The woman, the drug-den, Curt. Right, he was in Curt's bed. He sat up and looked over at Curt. Curt was standing at the window, looking out onto the street below.
"What time is it?" Brian asked.
Curt spun around to look at him. "Seven-thirty," he informed him coolly.
"Oh. I should leave."
"I told you, I'm not letting you out onto the streets to sell yourself. I'm uncaring, not unkind."
"What's the difference?"
Curt shrugged. "Nothing, I guess."
Brian inwardly sighed. "You could. You don't owe me anything. I was horrible to you; I deserve whatever you want to throw at me."
"Yes," Curt agreed, "But unlike you, I can't do horrible things with a fucking cold indifference."
Brian sighed again, audibly this time. "Neither can I," he admitted. "I just act the part amazingly well."
"You 'act the part'?" Curt repeated incredulously. "Were you ever, just once in your fucking life, honest with one fucking person about a fucking thing?"
"Yes," Brian said quietly.
"Really? I don't--" Curt stopped talking. "I don't want to fight with you," he said in a forced-calm voice. "You deserve it. But I'm not going to do it. Then you won't have the satisfaction."
"Satisfaction? Of what, precisely?"
Curt snorted. "I know how you think, Brian. You're thinking that as soon as I fucking yell at you or something, your fucking second of suffering will have made up for everything you did to me."
Brian flushed, because he knew that once, Curt would have been right. "You know how I used to think," Brian countered. "Not anymore. I've offered an apology, and you obviously don't want it. There's obviously no way I can make up for it."
Curt shook his head. "Typical. You say that I don't know how you think anymore, but that response was just so fucking typical."
Brian shrugged. "Maybe it was. I really don't know anymore. Don't know myself."
"Did you ever?" Curt asked, and it wasn't a snide comment, it was honestly curious.
"I don't know. Isn't that pathetic?"
"A little," Curt replied, and it almost seemed he was hiding a smile.
"Why are you doing this?" Brian asked. "Making me stay when you obviously don't want me to stay?" He was suddenly aware that at some point, Curt had come closer to the bed.
Now he sat on it. "I told you," he said, "I can't let you go back the fucking streets and still look at myself in the fucking mirror. I don't like you; that doesn't mean I want to see you starving or something. Or--" he stopped.
"Or what?"
"Look man, I've fuckin' seen some of the whores who work this neighbourhood."
"I wouldn't say I'm a whore," Brian said, stung. "I don't--"
Curt impatiently interrupted. "If you have sex with anyone who'll pay you for it, you're a whore."
Brian didn't reply.
"Now, if I may continue? I've seen some of the whores in this neighbourhood. This is not a nice place, in case you didn't fucking notice. It's bad for me. It's worse for the junkies down there. It's even worse than that for the whores. People take out their frustrations on them, I've seen it."
"Have you done it?" Brian asked boldly.
"What the fuck? NO!" Curt exclaimed angrily. "I have never purposely hurt anyone during sex!" He quieted. "And you know why," he added.
"I'm sorry," Brian said softly. "I do know."
After a moment, Curt spoke again. "And I never said I didn't want an apology."
"I would assume that saying 'you don't fucking get it' after someone says 'I owe you an apology' speaks for itself," Brian replied.
Curt shook his head. "You still don't get it. Look, apologising is great, really. But it doesn't automatically fix what you fucked up. Angry words have still been said, are still etched into the memories of both the person who said them and the person they were said to. Punches were still thrown, their pain still felt by their recipients. Apologies don't really do a fucking thing."
"They show that there is regret," Brian offered.
Curt smiled cynically. "I try not to regret much."
"And I regret almost everything I've ever done," Brian said. "Put us together and we've reached a happy medium."
"It doesn't work that way," Curt replied.
"Curt…maybe it doesn't fix anything, but I am sorry for everything I did to hurt you. Everything I said, everything."
"Good. You should be."
"I know. There are so many people I've hurt in my life, Curt."
"Including yourself?" Curt asked shrewdly.
"Yes. But I've deserved it."
"And maybe that's why you decided to sell yourself?"
"Since when are you a psychologist? No. I'm just not good at anything else."
"Mm. If you really think that Brian, then you're even more fucked up than I am, and that's saying a lot."
Brian laughed, suddenly, loudly, and inappropriately. "I guess I am, then," he managed.
Curt sighed. "I guess I forgive you."
"Why?" Brian asked.
Curt shrugged. "I loved you. Then I hated you."
"And now?"
"I don't know. I thought I hated you. Now I'm not sure."
"I never stopped loving you," Brian whispered. "I was just so caught up in the fame and the fans…"
Curt smiled sadly. "And love always came second to your career."
"That's not it. I was only in love once in my life. I always used people, Curt. I even sang 'Ladytron' to Mandy when we first met." Curt made a questioning sound, and Brian sang softly, "I'll use you and I'll confuse you/And then I'll lose you."
"Story of your life, right?" Curt asked.
"More or less," Brian admitted. "It applies to Mandy, to you, to the fans, to--"
Curt interrupted him again. "That's enough. You're better than self-pity."
"Am I? Why do you think I turned to cocaine in the first place? To this?" Brian pushed up his sleeve and held out his arm to Curt. A few cuts marred the otherwise smooth, pale skin.
Curt sighed. "Don't," he said quietly. "Don't do that to yourself. It doesn't help."
"How do you know?"
Curt gave him a look. "I know."
"If you say so."
"Do you want to know something?" Curt said to him. "I think I'm falling in love with you all over again. I don't know if I want to."
"Probably not," Brian replied. "But humans have the unfortunate habit of wanting exactly the worst thing for them."
"I have to agree."
"Curt--"
"Let's try being friends. We'll see where it goes from there."
Brian was shocked. "But--you hated me last night. What have I done to deserve this?"
"See, I never really hated you. I wanted to, but just…couldn't. And as for deserving--well, everyone deserves to be loved."
"Even me?"
"Even you."
TBC(?)
Word count: 3798 (longest VG fic to date!)