A/N: okay I don't like how this begins but I like the ending. **smirk** so you could read the end, and then the beginning if you want. This is Curt's POV and it flips between when he and Brian are breaking up to when he finds out Brian's dead.

Raw

        He is chewing on his nails- a habit he picked up from me.

        A thin layer of glass separates us and he can't stop chewing on his goddamned nails.

        I can't hear him, but it's pretty obvious what he's saying. He's pacing back and forth, gnawing on those nails which still have flecks of nailpolish on them, and muttering to himself.

        Then he pauses, and hisses one soft word that I know is echoing off the walls in his room, bouncing off the chairs, slamming into his ears.

        "Fuck."

         He presses his hand against the glass, his palm and his fingertips spreading, white, against the surface. His nails gone, he gnaws on his lip, which is already dry and cracked from 36 hours of continually licking his lips nervously- a habit he picked up from Mandy.

        "Curt." He whispers, and there's something in his eyes- something that no one ever sees, not in Brian Slade's eyes. They see the arrogance, the way he laughs at the world, at it's stupidity, but they don't see this.

        Vulnerability.

        His hand is shaking, I can see his wrist trembling as he waits for me to respond, waits for the childish gesture we used to use when we first met.

        Slowly, I reach up, press my hand against the glass.

        The door unlocks- or maybe it was already unlocked, and I didn't notice- and swings open. He steps into the small studio, waits nervously, anxiously by the door.

        "Don't fuck with me like that, Brian." I mumble, and brush past him.

        The silence behind me is deafening.

~*~*~

        If I could have said something to him. If I could have given him something more, something more than addiction and hairspray and music.

        If I could have changed his life like he changed mine.

        If I could have- if I could have done something for him, something to show him the world, something to make him see that they don't matter, that they don't mean shit.

        But I didn't.

        I looked into his nailpolish eyes and saw the grit, saw the rawness of his fucking soul and I saw the tears that he'd never allowed himself to cry.

        And I bolted.

        And the bleeding ink leaves stains on my fingers as the newspaper slips from my grasp and lands in the puddle of rainwater at my feet.

        And the world is numb.

~*~*~

        "Don't do this." His voice is bitter, painful. "Don't fucking do this."

        I notice, as I always do, that he carefully avoids adding those extra two words, the words that carry the weight of guilt and ring in my ears with the echoes of a parent's disapproving voice. "Don't do what, Brian?"

        "Curt." His gloss eyes are wide. "You're not serious. You can't be."

        "Serious about fucking what?"

        He grabs my shoulder, flings me around with the strength no one knew was hidden in those wiry arms. "Don't fucking leave me like this!" He screams and his voice sounds like blood and glass, shattering in my mind and my heart.

        And we're broken.

~*~*~

        The smell of nailpolish lingers in the air and I watch as the black liquid slides across the table, slowly oozing towards the edge, dripping off and landing on the wooden floor.

        Vinyl.

        His favorite color, glowing blue in the light, gleaming black.

        It pools around the broken glass and my blood joins it, red and blue and black, just as he must have been.

        On that stage.

        When he died.

        The bottle of nailpolish was not smashed on accident.

~*~*~

        He doesn't understand.

        Doesn't see that I need to do this, need to stop this world from spinning out of control.

        I can't hold on any longer.

        "I'm sorry."

        He backs off at these words, his long fingers unclenching from my skin and leaving spidery red marks. "No, you're not." He says carefully and his lips, his glamour lips are red from the blood.

        I would tell him anything to ease the pain, the anger, but I know it isn't any use now.

        "Goodbye."

        Rage sparkles like icicles and ice cream in his eyes. "Did you ever care, Curt? Did I ever mean anything more to you than a fuck and a paying job? Or was it all a lie. Like everything else you say, like everything else you live."

        "Fuck you."

        His voice is pitiful behind me as I leave the room.

        "Don't do this to me."

~*~*~

        He was an addiction.

        He was the world.

        He was. He was. He was.

        He is never again.

~*~*~

        I can hear something shatter in the studio behind me, and as I push open the door, stalk onto the street, I can hear his scream.

        And it is full of pain and rage and broken love.

        Mandy waits and her eyes are sad but her lips are twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. She has what she wants now, but it came at too high a price?

        Too fucking late.

        The window slams open.

        "Piss off! Go on then! Back to your wolves! Your junkie twerps! Your bloody shock treatment! And fuck you too!"

~*~*~

        If I died it wouldn't be half so painful as this.

        Emptiness.

        He was the music, the glitter, the life.

        And now.

        And now.

        Give me time, and I'll be fine. Tomorrow is another day.

        But there is something missing.