Work Text:
Brooke loved this feeling the most. More than sex, more than cigarettes, more than winning, well, almost more than winning. The feeling of being on stage. The feeling of too harsh bar lights and smoke on her skin. The crowd cheering so loud it was electric. She swears by everything she has ever loved that nothing compares to the feeling of being loved by people that don’t matter.
It is addicting, and Brooke was never good at saying no.
The times Brooke feels the most alive are when she is actively killing herself. That’s why she took up smoking. That’s why she took up drag. That’s why she took up loving someone who could never love her back.
It’s simple.
So damn simple in her mind.
Perfection is the only goal.
She learned early on that perfection was impossible. Perfection is in the eye of the audience, so it didn’t matter is she fucked up her ballonné, as long as the audience believed she hadn’t.
She learned early on to hate herself. She learned early on to make herself believe she didn’t.
She learned early on that learning so early on was not a good set up to life.
Sooner, much sooner than she’d like, she is ushered offstage. Meaningless scraps of paper that apparently hold some value in this plane of existence are left on the stage.
She doesn’t mind them. The payment she gets that count are from merch sales anyway. Not that it matters much. But Henry and Apollo might want food in the future.
Brooke goes through the next twenty minutes in a haze. She never could quite explain the feeling after a performance. It was equal parts satisfying and electrifying. The adrenaline and the booze haven’t quite worn off yet, and she knows they won’t for at least an hour, but Brooke still feels that pang of sadness at what she knows to be the ‘coming sadness.’ Just knowing that the feeling, the indescribably amazing feeling, will run out makes her itch for a cigarette.
She smokes the box.
She’s about to open up another when someone, club promoter or owner or bartender (not that it matters), escorts her back inside to grab her stuff.
She knew realistically that she couldn’t stay in this world forever. That one day, everything she loved about her life would be taken from her. Which is why she had left everything in the first place.
Most of all she didn’t want to be bored. She didn’t want to be boring. She didn’t want to be sad anymore. She wanted everything.
How could anyone expect her to stay?
When the world was so wide?
And the night was so alive?
And her heart still beat?