Written for Vareneoa for the 2008 xmas_rocks exchange
| This story is a work of fiction and therefore completely untrue. No harm or libel is meant or implied about any of the individuals named within this work and it was written without their involvement or permission. No profit is being made. |
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"The show," King says, and Pete is supposed to call him by his real name, but all he can think is "This is King Diamond, I will call him The King", because Diamond sounds ridiculous and the King, also sounds ridiculous, but Pete wants to anyway. In his head, he's already on his back, going, "You're a king, King!" and Elvis is dead and Michael Jackson is too strange nowadays even for him, so this is about the closest he'll probably get to it. Besides, the man is a legend, and Pete's all about respecting legends. "The show," Diamond says, and Diamond works too, come to think of it, as bling always does. "Some people like to think it doesn't matter. But it does. Fuck everyone who doesn't." He pauses, and perhaps they're both a bit drunk at this point. "I miss Melissa," he continues morosely, and Pete murmurs in sympathy. To be honest though, Pete wants to be called King more than anything else. Not King of something in particular, as if he wants to rule a nation, although a small island would be nice, but just The King. He tried to get Ryan to do it once, but Ryan just laughed and then said "No," flatly, even though Pete begged quite a bit, and then Ryan stopped wanting to sleep with him anymore. But in any case: King Diamond. Who spends an hour with Pete, talking about these things in order: existentialism and theatrics in music, the album as a fully fleshed concept and religion and faith in the modern world. "Don't you think," Pete says at some point, "that music was better in the old days?" Diamond stares blankly at him. "Are you messing with me or are you just an idiot?" "Mostly I'm messing with you." "That's good to know. Music is only better in the old days for the old, and I-" "Am not old?" "Oh no, I'm fucking old. But I'm not dead, and that's the key."
Pete has a list of things he wants to do before he dies or reaches forty, whichever comes first. Mostly the list exists in his head, but he has a good memory for these things. They range from random, like "find out what really happens when you throw in a red sock with your girlfriend's whites"(1), to really important, like "become famous" and "seduce Patrick!!!"(2) One of those things, scribbled down in some corner of his mental diary is, "Sleep with someone whose idea of theatrics is face-makeup and a circus show." He'd thought he'd crossed that one out by sleeping with half of Panic, but King Diamond, that's the Original Fried Chicken, incredibly loud and up close and personal and in Pete's space. And someone once told him, it might've been Jesus but perhaps it was just Jesse Lacey, the original is always the best.
"So, uh, I'm thinking we should have sex," Pete says brightly, because Diamond is still staring at him, and that person also told him that he should seize opportunities whenever they presented themselves to him and not wait for the opportunities to seize him, and again, Pete's certain it was Jesus, but then Jesse Lacey(3) was always a kinky fuck with a strangely hypnotizing Messiah Complex, and Pete likes to believe, once in a while. "Jesus," he says, and Diamond sighs. "Tell me you're not a Christian." "I met Jesus once, does that count?" "Did you just offer sex? "Yes." "Then no." Pete says "Jesus" a lot that night, or moans and sighs and whispers it, but Diamond doesn't seem to mind. There is, unfortunately, no face-makeup involved, but Pete figures they'll just save that for next time. Perhaps he'll even ask if he can wear the warpaint.
The problem with having lists, he thinks later, even mental ones, is that you sort of feel obligated to yourself to fulfill them, and then you do, and sometimes that act of fulfilling that one item brings to mind more things that you want to add, creating a never-ending cycle of Things I Want To Do Before I'm Forty Or Dead Whichever Comes First. Take, for example, him wanting to sleep with someone exactly like King Diamond. Done, done and done, and now part of him wants to cross that off, and part of him, the other part, the part that's always running and never stops, thinks: hey, we're both musicians here, we should totally work- "...together?" And King Diamond, he licks his lips, and he says, "Maybe." --- 1) The answer to that was obvious: they had a huge fight, she broke up with him, and he's kept a spare red sock with him for emergencies ever since.(4) 2) This for the most part, tops the list of things Pete wants to do, although he's not entirely quite sure how it would work out, to be honest. Patrick seems convinced that they wouldn't be a good couple "we like each other too much, Pete", and mostly Pete can't disagree. Although on occasion Pete likes to think that they are, in fact, made for each other. But those occasions are rare nowadays, and mostly now Pete wants Patrick to be his best man at his wedding, and vice versa. Perhaps they would have sex as one last fling, but that would be it. 3) Pete is also not exactly sure when or if he ever met Jesse Lacey, but somehow he knows the name and he knows the guy, and he's certain that they had sex with each other at some point, although it might have been with someone else. It might even have been Jesus, although Pete doubts that for some reason. 4) But of course, Ashlee discovered that one red sock of his, smiled sweetly at him and then said, "Put this in my white laundry Pete, and I will hide all your remotes and release those pictures you sent me to the internet. Sweetie." That, Pete thinks, was the exact moment that he fell in love with Ashlee Simpson.
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