"Rise To Fall"
By Silk
RATING: PG
Author's note: Just a little snippet that I came up with. First person. Brian's POV. What he might have been thinking or feeling while he watched Curt from the sidelines. I have a couple of different takes on this particular scene. This is the first one I've completed.
No sex in this
one, just one bad word, hence the PG rating. Oh, and the title and the line Rise
to Fall aren't mine. They came from a song by Edgar Winter, circa 1970. Which
struck me as strangely appropriate.
Things had gone badly for me for such a long time, I didn't know where to turn.
I suppose that was how I ended up here. In the last place I should have been.
I'm not the kind of man who says he's sorry to those he hurts. That's what
losers do. Not me. I wanted to win. Always.
Even at the expense of the people I loved.
But success, if that's what it was, turned out to be hollow. I couldn't have
what I really wanted.
Him.
He was the love of my life. Screwed up, but blindingly brilliant.
Self-destructive, but only after I pushed him away. Whatever he was. Whatever
*I* was. I loved him.
I still did.
That never faded. The ache in my chest whenever I thought of him.
I had to be here. I had to see him one more time. But I couldn't let him see me.
So I lurked in the shadows, hiking the collar of my coat around my face. Staying
hidden. It's what I do best.
Fuck. I've gotten so lost, I don't know who I am anymore. But I know who *he*
is. That's what drew me here.
The music was so loud. The bass throbbed like a bad tooth. When he took the
stage, his presence filled the room, filled *me*, only it could never be like it
was.
I closed my eyes and listened. His voice was ragged, the result of too much
alcohol and too much emotion. "Gimme danger..."
He craved release. Whether it came with sex or death, I think at this point, it
didn't really matter. His harsh rasp washed over me, making my whole body
shiver. "I want to feel it..."
God, after he left...after I forced him to leave...I wanted to kill myself. I
couldn't get out of my contract. Jerry was adamant. I had to finish the tour as
Maxwell Demon.
Instead I finished Maxwell Demon.
I faked my own death. Jerry didn't fight me. He thought it would be great
publicity. But it wasn't. I got exactly what I deserved. The press crucified me.
My fans fled. I was alone.
Alone with my thoughts of him.
I wanted to cry. I *did* cry. I screamed and shouted and threw things. I slept
with meaningless people and I woke up angry and desperate.
But in the end, I came back here. Because I had nothing. Nothing but memories.
I wanted to forget. I wanted to remember.
"I want to fucking feel it..."
I wanted to feel again. Feel something more than this uncomfortable numbness
that had taken over my body after he'd left.
I could have gone to him. I felt his pain as if it were mine. It *was* mine. It
was the only way I had left to be with him.
But he couldn't know. I couldn't bear to destroy him all over again. And I did.
I know I did. That wounded soul lying on his back, exhorting God to give him
back what he'd lost...I understood at last what I'd done.
I had to go. I couldn't stay. He was bleeding just as surely as if I'd stabbed
him through the heart. He was dying, too.
I got that.
Now it was time to turn my back on the only man I ever truly loved. Again.
I would have prayed for forgiveness, but God no longer answered me. If He
had...He would have found a way to give him back to me.
"Rise to fall. No hope. Only glory," I whispered, a single tear tracing its way
down my cheek.
I stared at him from across the room, my eyes stinging from the cigarette smoke.
Or so I told myself.
There was only one way out. So I took it.