Well, me and some other people think it's a shame that this community is no longer active. Been building up the strength to post something.
Title: Dancing Along The Needle
Rating: Uh, R
Pairings: Keith Richards/Mick Jagger
Word Count: 2310
Disclaimer: This only happened in my mind. Pure fiction.
This could possibly be at the height of Keith's drug days. Say, like, '76.
Keith lied on the floor of his hotel room. The smell of his recent activities were clinging to the air, the left over scents wafting from the outside door to the inside of his room. The curtains were closed shut and blocking the outside world from gazing inside his little room. He hadn’t gone outside for a while. He hadn’t had fresh oxygen for a while, just air drug stained air. The stale taste of Jack Daniels was on his thin lips.
His fingers were tapping, but decided them after a while. The echoes of some feet were vibrating in through the floor. His foot tapped on the post of the bed frame. His thin, almost bony fingers tapped on his stomach, feeling his chipped fingernails grazing the flesh.
He sat up. He felt his stomach heave a little, but it did not bother him. He brushed o the non-existent dirt from his long velvet like pants. His muscles ached a bit seeing as that he had barely moved from that spot for a while, only moving to really inject some drug into his already littered with marks arms.
There were not a lot of visitors that came by his room. There was the occasionally knock from room service, wondering when they could be allowed in, but Keith just scoffed at them for whatever reason. Keith was just looking at the bare walls of his room, still partially in a daze.
“Keith,” a familiar voice had called out, “open the fucking door up!”
Keith sat on the floor, the voice on the other side becoming louder with demands, but he did not feel like moving. Nothing could really convince him to move a muscle form that spot he was so fond of. His eyes felt weak, his body a pile of useless nothingness. His arms were so lax feeling that nothing mattered in the world to him. Tears were dry and cracked in his eyes and on his face.
It felt as though things were sliding out of his fingers. He cast a dreadful look at the needle beside him. Keith’s smoldering stare willed it to burst into flames, but nothing ever came form it. God, Mick would not stop banging, demanding that he better not be injecting that shit Keith had bee so fond of. If only Mick knew how he felt right now. He did not want to deal with Mick’s princess demands.
“I’ll break this fucking door down if you don’t open up!” Mick had shouted through the solid, yet vulnerable walls.
Keith looked at the door. He only wished that Mick could leave. If only he knew how fucking useless and terrible Keith felt, then he would have been gone. His love affair with the needle was driving him slowly insane. His twisted and sick affair that ate and hollowed him out. It left its grimy finger nails anchored to his flesh. An invisible weight was bound to his back.
He wished Mick could feel like this. To see how wasted his life could feel. If only he and Mick could do this eternal dance of death and destruction. That they would bind together. Forever suck in this deliciously dangerous place. How the raw pleasure could kill them both, too much for their human bodies to take.
Mick had started to quell, his knocks becoming less frequent than Keith’s heartbeats. He looked up, seeing the door. The surface was beginning to beg for him. Coax him into opening its stationary structure.
“Keith,” came Mick’s sullen voice, “just… Answer me if you’re there. Y’know, I’m not gonna do anything.”
Keith’s eyes were steady. A hawk-like gaze. The heroin that was laced around his veins had wavered. It’s vice grip reseeding from its usual hangout. It was wearing thin and Keith felt - no, wanted it back. It gave him the best highs in his short life, and he would sacrifice everything for it. O feel himself spiral down into this feeling, devouring his body in a sheath of pure ecstasy.
The knocks had all together stopped. Its presence no longer known nor wanted.
“Just… make sure you’re okay in there. The boys were a bit worried.”
Some friends Keith had. He snorted a bitter laugh. It was truly disgusting how they would not care, as long as it was not his little addiction. They would heave relief off as long as Keith was not becoming friendly with the needle again. Shooting up the golden poison that swallowed his veins.
Deciding against the screaming morals in his ever so addled brain, he rose up on sinewy legs. They carried, no, dragged him across his grimy floor to the foreign like door. He did not bother to unlock the chain, just rather peaking out.
“Mick, are you there,” his scratchy and cracked voice had called out. No one was here. Mick had given up. He snorted. Everyone gave up on him. They all stopped caring for him, seeing that they could not stop his addiction to the sweet and painless substance.
--
Mick came back to Keith’s door. He stood outside the object. He hesitated, waiting for a signal. For what he did not know, he wanted a sign. He needed to feel some type of reassurance, to be back on solid ground. He lightly knocked on the foundation, a cold echo coming back with empty hands. It bit into him, for he was not sure what would happen. Fear of the unknown.
Pressing delicate fingertips to the cold, yet unbearably warm surface. The door finally budged, exposing a warm and yet unwelcome air. It was tense, thick and deceitful. The air felt used in his lungs, much too destroyed for his own taste. Its own battered edges could affect him. To lure him down with Keith.
“Keith,” came his light voice into the dark room, “are you here?”
He could not see in to deeply. The darkness called with an ominous tone. Its grubby cracked fingers waiting for him. To reach out and swallow his soul and never to give back. It was… not a great feeling to have thickly pooling into his stomach, coating the walls in a murky, hazy coating.
“Shut the door,” a voice spilled out from the nothingness. Mick’s body did not move, only his heart beating to tell him that he was still alive. Still breathing in this unholy air.
Keith was not sure whether he was high or just depressingly drunk. He became, no his boy, became used to it. He spent so much time being wasted. Elegantly wasted, he chortled in his thoughts. He had found a bag of heroin under his bed, lying forlornly in a forgotten mass of mussed sheets. It was coursing through him, but that was only a few hours ago.
Soon he would need a fix, just only feeding his pathetic junkie inside him that would beg for it. Bring him down on a self-loathing mood. He could feel it. The desolate and lonely feelings coming back, borrowing out of the cocoon it incubated in his mind.
“Are you,” Mick’s voice wavered in nervousness, “alright Keith?”
Keith blinked. His eyelashes moved a tad reverently.
“For what Mick?” Keith’s voice had dropped to a small whisper.
“I’m just so worried about you. You’re just so… distant.” Mick slowly slid down to his knees, folding his legs into a crouch. His knees cracked, sounding too loud in Mick’s ears. His body scooted closer, a magnetism drifting towards him. Beckoning his to come closer.
“Oh, are you?” He was curious of this. Mick seemed to never care. At least not about Keith. Fucking selfish cunt.
On the other hand, so did the bitter, angry junkie inside told him so.
“Did I do something to you to make you so bitter? Why must you be alone?”
Keith closed his eyes, Mick’s words wafting into his ears. It rand into him. It burned into his ears, and eventually his brain.
“No Mick. It’s not your fault. Besides,” he tipped his back to the lonely ceiling, “I seem to just… belong alone.”
Mick leaned in. His brows knotted together, a look of disbelief curled on his broad face. Minutes based by, only ever making an appearance by the unnerving clock perched on these white viscous walls. There were no hot white lights to crunchiness them. Nothing to judge them. Except these toothy smiling walls.
“No Keith,” Mick put a and on Keith’s, “you don’t. What about Marlon? Angela? They need you and so do we. Most of all, I need you.”
“Nah, you don’t, sweetheart. Like they need a fucking doped up, junkie worth of a father,” Keith scoffed, “and the band only needs name to write. As long as I’m writing, they don’t give a fuck what happens to Keith the fucking junkie Richards.”
Mick flinched. Keith’s words tore into him acidly. It burned him to the core.
“Do you know how it fucking feels? To feel this beautiful, fucking euphoric thing? To only know that it’s slowly eating you, destroying your very soul? It’s like a beautiful dance with death.”
Keith wasn’t sure whom he was talking from. The junkie or himself. The lines were blurring, everything disintegrating. Mick wasn’t sure, he just hated seeing Keith. So down and out, just ready to do the pact.
“Then if it’s so bad, show me how you feel.”
Keith’s gaze slowly drifted up the contours of Mick’s face.
“Only then could I feel your pain.” Mick had now leaned into Keith, resting his head on the curve of Keith’s neck and shoulder.
“You’re willing,” Keith whispered lightly, warm air scraping against his Mick’s ear, “to join me? To walk this path of ecstasy and turmoil? You might not come back.”
“It’s alright Keith. I’m willing to just… be with you.”
Keith nodded and slowly separated from Mick. He felt long, soft, brown hair drift across his neck. Keith slowly got to his feet, venturing over to his bed. His fingers grasped at a suitcase. The ‘click’ of it signaled he was half way there. His heart beat in his chest, supplying the only feeling of humanity left in his very own tainted soul.
Mick had tried it before, but it scared him. It felt good, too good for his own tastes. Feeling in his own self that he could become hooked to it and it did not appeal. However, Keith took off with it, making it a large and now life threatening habit. But he did not want to abandon Keith, not like everyone else had. He was Keith’s best friend and he would go with him wherever he roamed.
If this meant feeling his pain, then Mick would follow him down into the serpent’s belly. A collusion with the devil himself. Perhaps this could reunite them with Brian. Maybe he’s waiting for them in the dead lounge, welcoming them into his arms and that light smile on his face. Maybe this could bring back the old days of lazing about, just being with each other, laughing. Then they could forever play together, nothing separating them again.
Keith fell back into the spot he was previously occupying. He held a smile on his face; eyes alight with a tinge that Mick would not recognize. Keith had also put in a record. The slow notes of Robert Johnson’s “Love In Vain echoed into the lightless room. Keith tilted his head, hair falling into his face.
Keith attentively, but softly took Mick’s thin arm and tenderly moved the sleeve from his arm. The soft china doll skin reflected into Keith eyes. It begged in his mind to be abused. He loaded the needle with the golden brown soul eater. It shone in the holster ad Keith’s eyes were fixated as he pressed the needle to Mick’s skin. It pierced the skin, a thin line of crimson had surfaced, but Keith did not budge the injector.
It looked so beautiful. Seeing the needle enter Mick’s skin nearly sent shivers up his spine. Finally. Someone who will feel his pain, to spiral downwards into a world of darkness with him. To be forever entwined.
Mick grimaced. He had brief second thoughts about this. Was Mick really willing to make this pact? He closed his eyes, waiting for the demon to invade his veins. Mick would give anything to take away Keith’s pain. Salty liquid built up at the corner of his eyes.
“Come with me Mick. Be with me,” Keith whispered, “forever.”
He slowly pushed in the drug. It emptied out its contents into his body. The demon was immediately coursing, devouring his soul. He let in a deep, but slow breath, feeling the effects almost immediately. Keith was already injecting himself with it, a smile still on his cracked lips.
He felt sick. This feeling was unbearable. He wanted to curl up and cry. Only then did the serpent spread out its beautiful, but deadly seed into his body. T felt so… beautiful. Keith then enclosed his fingers with Mick’s own, lacing them like needle and thread. They both sank to the ground, both still embraced, a bond that was fragile, yet strong.
“I feel it Keith. I feel it.” Mick whispered, a mixture of sadness, and yet beauty laced into his voice.
“I know Mick. It’s the best thing that you can feel.”
Eventually they both stopped. The sounds were extinguished from their throats. Their limbs lay like fallen toy soldiers, as heavy as the sea. Only forever encircled by the poisonous bond that had formed. They were band mates, best friends, and lovers. Both leaned on each other. They both were twins. Glimmer Twins. They were to be forever bound, whether in hate or love. As they spiraled down Mick had inaudibly whispered to Keith’s ear.
“Till death do us part... Till death…”