This is the twenty-second story in the Rewriting History series, and it follows Singing Songs In Exile. This part is all Brian, and as I mentioned in my previous post, he's more than sad. He goes a little mad here, but he's not psychotic, not really. Apologies for any resemblance to Mr. Steerpike. ;) And Jerry gets off light, too. Grrr. But he might not be so lucky next time. ;)

Warnings: m/m, major angst, AU, bad language, spoilers for the movie.

~Silk

*****

Bittersweet Applause

By Silk

The recording studio. The one place Brian never wanted to go back to. Jerry was pushing him to finish the damned record.

"What with Curt gone and all, we need to put this whole thing behind us and move on. The tour is what's important, Brian. Curt was just an add-on, a bit player in the overall scheme of things that is your rightful destiny."

Brian shut his eyes and shut out the sound of Jerry's voice. He didn't understand. The thought of going back to what he'd had before Curt was inconceivable.

But Jerry was nothing if not persistent. Like a dog with a bone, Jerry gnawed at Brian until he relented and entered the room that held nothing but ugly memories.

Well, all right, dammit, he would sing. But he'd sing on his own terms. He'd sing for *Curt*. It didn't matter that he couldn't hear him. It was the only way he had left of reaching him.

The studio and the booth itself were dark. It was Brian's one demand and Jerry's one concession to him. The atmosphere was chill, but Brian's voice ached, the last verse an ode to the tenderness he could never quite express.

"And now...as you turn to me, you try to force a smile, as if to compensate, then you bre-ak down...and cry."

Brian never opened his eyes until the final notes of the song faded. He turned, stirring as if from a long, deep sleep. That was when Mandy saw it. The lone tear that traced a silvery path down his right cheek.

Oh, my God, Mandy thought with an unwilling pang to her heart. Brian truly loved Curt, and the death of that love was slowly killing him.

*****

Brian stared at his reflection in the mirror. He wasn't sleeping. His naturally fair complexion was pale, and Shannon complained that there wasn't enough make-up in the known world to disguise the heartbreak in his eyes. Only she didn't put it quite so nicely.

"I knew Curt was going to bring you down, Brian. I wanted to warn you, but *Mandy* wouldn't let me. I think your wife rather likes seeing you this way."

"Shut up," Brian said quietly, but it carried all the weight of a threat. The shrillness of Shannon's voice cut right through him, and he hated the artful touch of her fingers in his hair. Mandy wasn't the one who was gloating over Curt's abrupt departure from his life. It was *Shannon*.

"You should let me dye your hair for you, Brian. It would be a lot easier than spraying this blue gunk all over you every show."

"Get out."

"I'm not done yet, Brian."

"Get the fuck out!" Brian screamed, giving her a wild-eyed look that meant he was fed up with her handling in more ways than one.

Shannon put down the spray can and stepped back from Brian's dressing table. She walked slowly to the door, her eyes never leaving his, an implicit command in them that Brian refused to acknowledge. Yet. "I'm the only friend you've got now, Brian. There *is* no one else."

Brian glared at her with wounded blue eyes. "I don't need anyone."

Shannon nodded slightly. "You keep telling yourself that, Brian. Maybe you can make yourself believe it."

"Fuck you, " Brian said, but it was a barely audible whisper. He didn't have a shred of energy to spare, and he was caught in the undertow of a death spiral. All he wanted now was peace, but he was denied at every turn.

*****

After Shannon left, Brian studied his reflection again. It was the face of Maxwell Demon who looked back at him now. "This is *your* fault," Brian told his mirror image. "You're the one who made Curt...go away," he murmured. "You have to pay for what you've done. It's the only way."

The bleak look in Brian's eyes intensified. "The *only* way."

*****

Tormented by images of himself and Curt, laughing and crying and sighing in the aftermath of love, Brian couldn't even close his eyes, however briefly. He had to keep his enemy in full sight at all times. The Demon. That was what Brian called him.

The Demon had ruined everything.

The Demon had to die.

*****

Jerry should have known that something was very wrong. When Brian acquiesced to resume the Maxwell Demon tour, Jerry was so overwhelmingly grateful that he ignored his sixth sense.

The only thing that mattered was keeping Brian Slade going. The creature that was Maxwell Demon was like a fucking alien parasite that grew and grew and could no longer be cheerfully contained within its plastic prison. It wanted *out*.

But what Jerry didn't know was that *Brian* did, too.

He was on the phone when Brian entered, head down, chewing his fingernails to the quick as was his wont these days. "I need to talk to you."

"I'm busy, Brian. Come back later. There's a good boy."

"Don't fucking patronize me, Jerry!" Brian shouted, his lip curling back in a sneer that was all Demon and not at all Brian Slade.

"Brian, what you fail to understand is that there are other people in the world besides yourself."

"There *is* no one else in the world for me, Jerry. *No one*. Because of you and *him*."

"This is getting old, Brian. You lost Curt. Get over it. It's so fucking yesterday."

Jerry realized that he had inadvertently overstepped his bounds when Brian leaned over him, his eyes glittering like pieces of sapphire shot through with gold. "I could kill you for that," Brian whispered.

For a moment, Jerry knew real fear. This wasn't an actor speaking carefully-rehearsed lines. This wasn't the puppet he had made, the puppet who repeatedly twisted and tangled the strings of his maker. This was Maxwell *fucking* Demon. In the flesh.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name. But what's troubling you is the nature of my game. The chorus of the Stones' Sympathy for the Devil ran through Jerry's feverish brain like a surrealistic nursery rhyme. Fuck.

"But I won't," Brian added with a sly grin.

Jerry couldn't quell the throb of relief he felt at those words. But it rapidly dissipated when Brian continued. "I'd much rather kill your fucking creation."

"Wh-what?"

"The Demon. Don't you think it's about time he paid for his sins?"

Jerry couldn't tell if Brian was *mad* or just fucking *brilliant*. The publicity generated by the death of a rock icon was incalculable. It was priceless.

And Brian had literally dropped it in his fucking lap.

"What did you have in mind, Master Demon?"

A wintry smile that didn't reach his eyes crossed Brian's lips. The Demon would die at last, and Curt would see it for the act of love it really was.

*****

Brian took a drag on his ever-present cigarette, waving away Shannon's fussing with his free hand. A head popped through the door. "Brian, it's time."

Brian stood and allowed Shannon to fluff his feathers. The tight blue satin felt cool against his skin, and he briefly spared a thought for its imminent destruction. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the end of all this.

He strutted through the wings, still smoking, barely registering the introduction. Shannon literally plucked the offending cigarette from his mouth and disposed of it as Brian began to make his way on stage.

The crowd roared its approval, and for a second, he felt nostalgic for the adulation that came with his fame. It would disappear. Along with The Demon. But that didn't seem like too high a price to pay. Not to *him*.

He struck a pose, his arms outstretched, legs spread wide apart. The swell of the opening chords to The Ballad of Maxwell Demon began. Brian grasped the mike in his right hand, but he seemed to be holding his breath, anticipating something that no one else could see or hear.

Then it happened. Shock rippled through the crowd as an unknown sniper took aim and fired at Brian. His aim was true. Brian fell back and hit the stage with a resounding crash. The dark red stain in the center of his body grew, his life's blood ebbing away with painful slowness.

Still beyond belief, Brian felt a curious lassitude taking him over.

The Demon was dead.

Long live Brian Slade.

End