Lights flashed over the club, lasers slicing the heated darkness like swords. Music beat against the senses with an almost physical presence, but it only seemed to drive the writhing mass of humanity that moved on the floor of the club. On the stage before the crowd, Sidney James shone like a small sun at the center of a hurricane.
Eyes closed, she swung side to side before the controls of her deck, one hand moving across the keys while the other waved above her head, fingers splayed. She didn't need to see to feel the music... it curled and moved around her like a great, liquid cat and as she stroked her fingers through its fur, color spread outwards in rippling rings. The cat roared as it coiled around her, jaws gaping around pearl fangs. Sid laughed as she rocked from side to side, unafraid. She was the lion tamer, the ringer master. She was the Technicolor Butterfly and her wings spread rainbow light out and over the crowd to rain down drops of gold on them. The music swelled and dipped and swirled, heaving like an ocean on fire as she danced through it, trailing ribbons of vapor behind her.
At the bar between sets, someone handed her a cup of gold and she drank it down without thought, feeling the molten metal burn its way down her throat and into her veins, spreading warm all the way to her toes and the ends of her electric hair. She could hear it crackling and snapping when she tossed her head to smile back at the Cheshire man that had come to join her. He was tall and dark, like an obelisk on All Hallows Eve. And hard. He felt like stone under her hands when she slid them down his chest and stomach to catch in his leather belt. Stone under velvet maybe... She couldn't stop stroking him and that part of her that wasn't lost in Wonderland had enough presence of mind to take him in the back before they found bliss together. Sid didn't even know what his name was when they parted ways, but then, she didn't even know what name he knew for hers. Jessica or Sherry or Amanda or Chou... it didn't matter. Neither of them were looking for more than a moment of Nirvana in the pulsing darkness of the equipment room anyway. He'd smudged her dark plum lipstick with his ravenous mouth, but she never even noticed. It was unlikely anyone noticed either when she burst back onto stage in an explosion of light and sound, the rainbow light surging from her pores and dripping from her fingertips.
Time didn't exist for her or for them. It never did, on club nights. They danced and drank and lived an eternity of lifetimes there in the dark, finding love and losing it just as quickly as one dance partner was exchanged for another. Bodies coming together and breaking apart and all of it she controlled with the sweep of her fingers across keys, through the fur of the Beast. Music exploded in her mind and before her eyes, splashing color like paint across the world and with it came such a feeling of joy and rightness that nothing else could ever be as right as this was, right here and right now. She wanted to share it with the bright and shining souls she danced for. Tear her skin open and release the flames beating against the cage of her ribs like bird's wings.
Sidney James wasn't sure how she got home that night. Logically, she knew she had stumbled onto a bus and paid the fare to sit in a seat until her stop came. That was always the plan, because driving after a night at work was just plain out. But that didn't stop her from remembering her body going liquid and pouring down the ravine the streets had become until she flowed through the front door of the house she shared with Rob, leaving glowing neon fingerprints on everything as she made her way up to bed. She would have to scrub to get her make up off the next morning, but that was okay. That was normal. It was better than risking her face melting off her skull to leave her eyes glowing from bone sockets.
Her rainbow wings were tattered as she climbed onto the rumpled nest that was the 0, 0 point of her world. Someone had taken a scissors to them, she was sure, as she left the club. Maybe that mermaid who'd sung to her on her smoke break had carved holes into them with the glowing end of her cigarette while she wasn't watching... she'd never felt the pain of it. Maybe next time she'd kiss the siren instead and then she wouldn't feel so jealous of her light that she had to rip off pieces of it for herself. Maybe next time she'd bring Ice with, her dark and beautiful specter. He'd keep them from carving her up to lick the honey from her wounds. He was always good about that... he knew how to put the pieces back together when she fell apart, because he was good at puzzles.
Sid reached across the bed with searching fingers, her face buried in softness that smelled faintly of pine. There was nothing but barren wasteland as far as she could feel. Ice must have gotten up to use the bathroom, or get her a bottle of water and some aspirin. There was a faint pounding behind her eyes, like her brain was playing the drums. He knew the water soothed her throat and the meds soothed her mind. He'd be back in a few minutes if she was patient and then she'd drink her water, take her pills, and wrap him in her shining arms. Curl her light into the safety of his dark and let sleep dissolve her into nothingness.
She just... had to wait a little while... longer...
Word count: 1003
