You're The Top
Title: You're The Top
Author: PokerKitten
Setting: 1935/1880-1900
Companion piece - Take What You Want
Disclaimer: Joss, ME, Fox yadayada own the characters; I'm just messin'.
You're The Top
If he had a soul, it would have been laid bare! And by a stupid little song. Well, maybe not so very stupid. That Cole Porter had a way with words, wrapping them in light, frothy melodies, but somehow managing to get a deeper message across. At least to him, and at least tonight.
Funny how these things hit you when you least expected it. His pen would never stop scratching the paper, devouring the sheets with words of love and dark desire for his woman, but he'd never been able to express his complex feelings for him. Not in words; never in poetry. The very idea was ridiculous.
You're the Tow'r of Pisa
A throw-away line, a contrivance to set up the Mona Lisa rhyme, that's all. That's all it was. So why had his scalp begun to prickle, his mouth turned dry? After all these years? He hadn't thought about it, fantasised about it, relived it, not even once; not for thirty years or more. That first time where the roles had been reversed, Angelus on the receiving end, his grandsire taunting and needling him into giving him what he'd inexplicably craved that night. Something he had never permitted before...
But if baby I'm the bottom you're the top!
See, in truth, that's how it had been so many, many times when they were alone together. Fulfilling each other's needs, rewarding each other's desires. Subduing his own will, curbing his fierce instincts for mayhem, for the fight. Freely giving up the power that had grown stronger within him with every passing day, every glorious kill. Submitting to the games, to the ropes, to the whips, to any and all of the other instruments of pain and exquisite pleasure that Angelus had cared to use on him. Soothed by the soft murmurings, the tender strokings of his hair, that had sometimes followed. And yet always eager for the next unspeakable indignity. Keeping their counsel, their sordid secrets and shared perversions binding them closer than chains and manacles alone ever could. Their twisted love and need for each other expressed more eloquently with their bodies than any poet, no matter how skilled and insightful, could have hoped to achieve with clever words and fine verse.
Lost in time, motionless on the sidewalk outside the Alvin Theatre, the Broadway crowds noisy and bustling around him, their vitality and excitedly pumping blood leaving him indifferent, impassive. How could he miss him so very much and yet never acknowledge it, never admit it to himself until now? How could he have buried this gnawing, desperate yearning so deep; and yet so near the surface that a tiny scratch from a frivolous Broadway musical could expose that raw need?
A cool hand slipped into his, squeezing tightly, dragging him back to the here and now. His beautiful, precious, wicked darling.
"So many lovely ladies" she whispered in his ear. "But I've chosen the ones to dance for us tonight."
He smiled indulgently, wrapped an arm around her tiny waist, held her close. "Whoever and whatever you want, baby"
Following her gaze, he spied her chosen ones, inhaled deeply and picked up their pretty scent. Taking the lead, he drew her through the crowds, closing in on their prey. It was 1935, they were footloose and fancy free in an exciting city full of wild possibilities and promise despite the Depression, skyscrapers pointing the way to a future of unimaginable delights. No time to be dwelling on what once had been. And she had been the one to give birth to his brave new world, afterall, not Angelus. She was his present and his future.
"Good evening ladies."
His charm and seductive smile very rarely failed, their blushes and gentle laughter were testimony to that.
…you're Inferno's Dante
NO! Those days were long gone, Angelus was long gone, who knew where...
"We were hoping to catch a bite of supper. Maybe you'd care to join us?"
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop!
But if baby I'm the bottom, you're the top!
But still, he had to be out there, somewhere…
***
You're The Top - Cole Porter (for Anything Goes)
At words poetic I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best
Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
To let 'em rest - unexpressed.
I hate parading my serenading,
As I'll probably miss a bar,
But if this ditty is not so pretty,
At least it'll tell you how great you are.
You're the top! you're the Collosseum,
You're the top! you're the Louvre Museum,
You're the melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare Sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse!
You're the Nile! You're the Tow'r of Pisa,
You're the smile, of the Mona Lisa!
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop!
But if baby I'm the bottom,
You're the top!
You're the top, you're Mahatma Gandhi,
You're the top! you're Napoleon brandy,
You're the purple light, of a summer night in Spain,
You're the National Gallery, you're Garbo's salary,
You're cellophane!
You're sublime, you're a turkey dinner,
You're the time, of the Derby Winner,
I'm a toy balloon that's fated soon to pop;
But if baby I'm the bottom you're the top!
You're the top, you're a Waldorf salad
You're the top, you're a Berlin ballad
You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
You're an O'Neill drama, you're Whistler's mama,
you're camembert
You're a rose, you're Inferno's Dante
You're the nose, on the great Durante
I'm a mazy lout who is just about to stop
But if baby I'm the bottom,
You're the top!
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