AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a scene from a many-movie (Velvet Goldmine, Newsies, Beatles, Labyrinth) RPG that kinda got stuck in my head and I decided to fluff up a little. Thus, some of the ideas do belong to my lovely RPG partner, who plays Curt, and some to me, respectively.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Velvet Goldmine, its characters, etc. I just love it a lot.

I lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling through the darkness, tracing the shadows of textures with my eyes and nonetheless what occupied my mind was the vacant place in bed beside me- still warm, but empty.

He's at it again.

I roll over onto my side and can see the haze of light beneath the bathroom door. The water's running, but it's of no consequence- it's fake, because I can still hear the sound it's supposed to hide: a faint scrape of razorblades on mirrors, dragging perfect pure white dust into perfect straight white lines. I flinch with every slight chink of metal on glass that reaches my ears.

The light switches off now, and the door softly opens and I see him move across the room toward me, a velvet gray silhouette against gray surroundings, silent, lean, graceful. The vacant place is filled as he comes to lie beside me; it never had a chance to get cold. He thinks I'm asleep and I let him, lying still as he huddles up against me, draping an arm across my waist and twining long fingers in my hair. He falls asleep like this quickly, although it's beyond me how when he's on a high.

I can't sleep. I'm too angry.

Twenty, thirty minutes of my blood boiling later, it became too much to bear to stay there smothered by that demon's presence. I wrestled myself from his grip and took my pack of cigarettes outside on the balcony to fume and let the smoke curl about my ears.

"You could be my main man."

The memory assaulted me, not for the first time that night, and I took another infuriated drag before grinding out my cigarette and stalking over to the balcony rail. The floodgates open and all the things I'd been trying to ignore, all those little leaks that had sprung came rushing out full-force.

His winning smile. His utter confidence. The jump off the methadone, quitting it altogether. The pain. The agony. The torture. His devotion. The ripping hurt. The screaming, burning, shrieking, twisting sickness. Promises. Held hands. Kisses. Exhaustion. Recovery.

He'd look on through all the withdrawals with sympathetic eyes. He stayed with me, knew the pain I was going through, and still wouldn't let me back down. He pushed me harder instead, telling me how much better it would be, how little I would have to worry about if I'd just kick the heroin habit.

And when this wasn't going on he was seducing me. Feeding my addiction through a different outlet: kisses, touches, moans, caresses, beckoning eyes. Sex to make you beg for more and mercy at the same time. Endless lust and energy just itching every moment to dominate the caring exterior. Though this two-sided barrage he made me fall in love with him, if I hadn't been already, filling the void that tearing the heroin out of my life had created. And he was insistent that he should be the only one in this place, vicious about warning me never to touch the drugs again once he knew he had me. He was deadly serious in his threats of the consequences my doing so would bring, defending his new territory with a rampant fury.

That's not to say I wasn't tempted. Withdrawal and its good buddy relapse lurked around every corner. I wanted the high. Often so bad it hurt. It's impossible to describe the terror when I'd come out of a haze and discovered I had syringe in hand again, about to poison myself and ruin all the good things that were supposed to come to me. Impossible to describe how hard it is despite that fear to just throw the stuff away. I wanted the high. I just wanted him more.

Then came his fame. And the coke… or rather, I found out about the coke. It had been there all along; everyone had known, even as he fed me bullshit about me quitting and I went through hell and back to clean up my act for him. All the while he was snorting cocaine like it was air, riding on a nice little high while I puked until I couldn't see. I had done it for him, but he only did things for himself.

The "secret" came out after he had an overdose. A massive one. God only knows how he survived, but there are some things even I still don't know about him. After that, I begged him to give it up, afraid that next time, one line too many really would be one line too many. His heart had stopped; mine had seized up in fear. But he'd agreed.

He agreed but he lied.

I went through hell for him and he didn't care enough to return the favor.

By this time the sun was rising, spreading a golden yellow-orange across the city, but I wasn't looking at it. I found myself staring at the pavement stories below the balcony railing, wondering how far it was to the bottom, leaning over, wondering how much it would take to-

"Curt?? What are you doing?!"

It was him, his voice, a mixture of sleepy and alarmed that almost made me forgive him. Except I'd done that way too many times.

"How's that coke been treating you, Brian?" I questioned coldly over my shoulder before turning to face him.

His concern instantly turned to a guarded look, demanding angrily, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about!" I shrieked at him, momentarily unable to control my tone of voice. "The cocaine you've been shoving up your nose like you're trying to overdose!"

"I'm not doing-"

I cut off his protest softly. "Yes, you are." I turned back to stare at the sidewalk below, he tried to switch tactics.

"I've been trying to quit, Curt, but it's just-"

"Stop it, Brian. Stop. You're not trying to quit. If you were, you'd be in as much pain as I was," I swallowed, the anger in my voice was scratching at my throat and threatening to become tears, "And every time you lie to me, it makes me wonder just how far down that pavement is."

He was silent for a while, whether out of respect for my voiced suicide wish or for his own scheming I don't know. And then he came closer, grabbing my hand on the railing, forcing me to look at him, speaking slowly and deliberately.

"Curt. It's not that bad, darling. I have it under control. I'm barely even using- I'm not even addicted anymore! Nothing's going to happen."

I ripped my hand away from his angrily, whirling to face him fully.

"How do you know, Brian?!" I snapped, "That's not the point anyway! You lied to me! You're still lying to me!"

He stared back at me in sullen silence, his flawless face wrought carefully with anger, and I have him the choice, wishing my voice hadn't sounded so desperate.

"So you have to choose, Bri… me or the coke. You can't have both."

Instantly I watched his collected mask of anger shatter and become desperation, panic. So much for 'I'm not even addicted anymore,' although honestly I can say I wasn't expecting that emotion- or much of any- in his reaction.

"That's not fair, Curt!" he whined, "I never made you choose! I never gave you an… an… ultimatum!"

"I never lied to you, though. What makes you think you're special, huh? Why do I have to get clean and suffer for you and you can't do the same for me? So choose. You don't want to pick, you can get out of my house."

I was cold, but that's how I'd grown- resenting him, this great cold blank emptiness growing inside me.

Brian was going to extreme dramatic lengths trying to escape punishment, turning on the waterworks and dashing into the penthouse again to fling himself heartbroken onto the bed and bury himself among the pillows and sob. At least I hoped it was an act. There was this twinge of fear and guilt that I may actually have hurt him. But I couldn't give in now, so I tried to maintain my stern tone as I went in after him.

"Brian."

He quieted his sobbing into sniffling for long enough to make it seem as if he were listening, but still kept his face hidden.

"Choose, Brian."

His crying rose in volume again, but I heard him choke out something I couldn't understand into the pillows, so I repeated my question, no more patiently than before, taunting him really.

"What did you say, Brian? I can't hear you. You wanna say that again?"

"I said YOU, you sodding wanker!!" he screamed at me fiercely, his accent breaking free as if he could no longer keep his real self together. He had raised his face long enough for that outburst, and for me to see his cheeks were streaked with tears like invisible war paint and that he was angry and scared but he'd meant it, before he'd sought refuge in the bedclothes again, crying all the harder. That was all I needed, and about all the humiliating him I could tolerate.

"All right, Brian…"

I sat down on the bed beside him, quietly reaching out to touch his shaking shoulder, but he twisted away, keeping himself hidden. I knew then that he was hurting already. That the moment you give up the drugs for real, that's when you want another hit, another line, whatever… that's when you need it most. And it hurt. And I knew Brian had found that pain, and would be going through hell for weeks to come. I didn't wish that on him. I just couldn't watch him kill himself anymore. Not if I couldn't numb myself with heroin along with him. Not if I wasn't killing myself beside him.

"Come on, Bri…"

I pulled his shivering body into my lap, into my arms, and this time he didn't resist. He curled up against me and cried, and I could feel how thin he'd gotten. How sick he really was from the drugs. I hadn't even really truly known until then, until I was really thinking about how it felt to hold this fragile body against me. He clung to me and I rubbed his back until I couldn't hear him crying anymore and he only shook a little from fear and sniffling. I lifted his head with a hand under his chin and gave him a kiss, watching his pale eyes, still somewhat drowned and blurry.

"It'll be alright, babe. We'll get through this, okay, Bri? Just like we did with me."

He only nodded at me in a miserable silence, still tearful. I couldn't blame him for not finding comfort in my words. He knew what lay ahead for him; he had been there with me.

"Come on, Bri," I said, trying to encourage him to cheer up. I smiled, "Think about it… all the outfits you could buy when you're not spending your money on coke…"

And finally, he smiled faintly at that, moving closer in a way that was now more cuddling than clinging. I pulled him down against the pillows, his head on my chest, running fingers through the neon blue of his hair as he melted against me in the apparent exhaustion from his emotional outburst, cradling his head as he closed his eyes.

"I love you, Curt…" he mumbled, sleepy, and suddenly it seemed as if those voids- the empty place in bed, my jealousy- all those empty spaces were full again.