Hello darlings! Last night at three in the morning I decided to write this story. Why? Because I've always liked this song a lot, and actually, it always reminded me of a friend of mine: Jaime.

I don't know what took me so long to write this, but I'd like to make a short dedication: to my red fellow, the precious J'aime, Hope she enjoys, and you all!

I don't own Johnny Depp, who's just a property of God, neither this song that belongs to Billy Idol, but this story is mine.

PG-13 rated.



Rebel Yell.

I am standing before a huge white desk, framed in a white wall. Behind me, a line of white armchairs where I have been sitting for what seemed an eternity, before the gentle and patient man at the desk called my name.
"Now, Mr. Depp," the man smiles politely at me, "I might ask you to be patient just for another minute? We're checking your data, but…" he smiles a conspiratorial grin, "our personnel aren't actually natural born hackers."

"It's okay," I reassure him, "I have plenty of time."

So, I begin to tap my fingers on the immaculate surface of the desk, willingly loosing myself in my own thoughts to ignore the minutes that are passing, too think grains of sand in the glass hour.
"Nervous?" the man asks in a light tone, and I sense my lips curve in a denying smile, but I can hardly see him: odd enough, the memory that surfaced inside my head is not the most logical to me, at least, not the one you'd expect a man in my position to wipe off his subconscious… or maybe, it's actually the most fitting I've got.

Six months ago, it was my last autumn in Paris, and I remember it well, the cold and clear air, scented of dead leaves and city taints. When I think about Paris, it is always in autumn, maybe because I know I will never see it again, and those last days seared with delicious pain into my brain.

I had come to the club on my own, the typical movie star who tries to escape the negligible problems of a perfect life by hiding in one of the extravagant havens that our specimen dig so much. Under normal circumstances I should have provided an invitation, but people, being Johnny Depp pays off in a lot of ways.

I remember sitting on my own in a corner, watching absent-mindedly the mob of dancers, gingerly ignoring any face who looked even remotely familiar, and after a while, I realized my eyes refused to leave a shape, that among all the others had caught my attention.

There was a girl dancing before me, not someone I knew, and there was nothing in the way she moved that was alarmingly appealing or wrong: just a pretty girl, among countless ones. And yet, there seemed to be a sort of strange aura around her that refrained me from shifting my stare away; she was dancing, young and graceful, so hidden in the smoking light that I could read almost nothing of her traits.
My fingers were twitching on my knees, like small helpless animals on a leash, eager to stretch, to touch something, but pinned down by the weight of my palms, and I found out to my own curiosity and dismay that, for odd it could seem, those nasty fingers of mine were yelling at me to dive them into the smoldering cascade of ginger hair that was tossing before my eyes.

Last night a little dancer came dancin' to my door
Last night a little angel came pumpin’ ‘cross my floor
She said "Come on baby I got a licence for love
And if it expires pray help from above"

Oh, yes, she had copper hair, my mysterious dancer, and a shapely body that kept on shaking like a puppet, hanging to the wire of music.
Suddenly, like pierced by my persistent stare, she turned over, and her eyes found mine. She froze, before I could do anything, smile or bend my head or mimic any sort of greeting gesture.
She tilted her head aside, standing among the beating dancers, and reached a hand to brush her hair off her face. A laser ray hit her cheek, searing her profile against the darkness, and I caught my breath.
Before I could react, my hand moved on its own to beckon her closer, and she obeyed, like pushed by an invisible leash.
I was beguiled, when she covered the short distance to come and sit by my side. She folded her body on the chair and pulled her feet up, holding her ankles in her hands.

"Hi," she said simply. I shook my head to set myself free from my odd stupor, and I smiled at her back. I wrecked my brain for some decent introducing line, but the look in her eye stopped me: she was holding on me a cunning expression, like she had a secret that I ignored.
"Do I know you?" I asked, trying to identify the reason of that smirk.

She scrolled her head.
"Of course not; but of course I know you."

I smiled. For once it didn't bother me to be recognized. I leaned in on the small table, to catch a better look of her face without being noticed: her eyes were of a weird color, that the majority of people call simply "cerulean", a polite way not to mess up with all those beautiful nuances of green, blue and grey that when melt, create an always-rippling ocean that never for a second ceases to change.

"What's you name?" I asked. I didn't know why, but she oddly didn't seem to belong to those place: that was, after all, a very exclusive club, not the kind of place a seemingly genuine and young creature would sneak in, without a bodyguard, a boyfriend or a primp.

"Jay." she giggled at the sound of it.

"Jay like J-a-y, or J like J.?" I inquired, lost in the way the grey in her eyes merged the blue, swallowed it, and imploded again.

"Jay like Jay," she played with the words, "Like Jessica, or Jaime, or Juliet, or jeopardy. Jay, like Johnny." and again, she giggled and the crazy need to bite at her lips made my head spin.

"And what are you doing here, pretty Jay?" I seconded her light tone to point out I didn't mean to drill her; for a moment she seemed to ponder her answer, and I felt the urge to explain that I usually didn't bother and pick up all the pretty girls that dance off before my face, that I am a family man, but she was different, and given the fact we change as it changes our connection to other people, she made of me a different man.

"I dance," came her belated answer, "I talk to you."

"What more?" I went on, stubbornly, "What about you?"

"More?" she laughed openly, jumping on her feet. Her teeth shone in the dim light when she spread her arms open and she spun around, "there's no more! More, more!"

In the midnight hour she cried- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell she cried- "more, more, more"
In the midnight hour babe- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell- "more, more, more"
More, more, more.

She lost her grip and fell against the table, and I reached a hand, alarmed, to steady her. She was soft against my arm, and I found myself on my feet and holding her and if I were asked, I'd be honestly unable to say how.

She was short, my little dancer, so pleasantly short to make me bend down to fold all around her in shelter, and when she tilted her head on me, her breath tickled my face.
"There's nothing more." a merry smile parted her lips, "there could have been my life, my life of dreams of fame, but there's not. There could have been a future so long to suffocate any need to do something as crazy as to approach you this way, but there's not."

I frowned, tightening my grip around her arms that looked so strong, and yet so fragile, flexible muscles of a true ballerina and tender flesh.
"I wanted to become a great actress," she whispered against my face, reaching a hand to playfully touch the tip of my nose, "I worked so hard for it. I dreamt that someday I would have shown up in Hollywood or Cannes, and you, my favorite actor, would have complimented me first."

"But…" I asked, wondering why she was talking in the past tense.

She ran her arms around my shoulders, stretching her soft body to glue to mine, and she was not a child, not yet a woman, but a sort of magical hybrid vibrating against my flesh,
"When you run out of time, you get mad at Fate," she went on like she was talking to herself, and yet her eyes were lucid and coherent, stubbornly pinned into my own, "I was so mad at Fate! So mad it was spoiling all of my plans. So mad I did the only thing I could do, as a girl with no fortune, no powerful friends, no money."

"Jay, what are you talking about?" I asked, a cold shiver running down my spine. For unbelievable it may sound, I never for a moment doubted the total sanity of her words: she was creepy, frantic and scary, but I never thought she was only the umpteenth high weirdo I had stumbled across.

"Do you see that man over there?" hiding her face in the crook of my neck, she slightly made me turn until I spotted a man leaning in a corner: a common face, like you see a hundred every day, a bit familiar and totally unknown.
"He's my legal provider," she chuckled at the term, like before when she had told me her name, "he's here to take me away when the time comes."

"To where?" I croaked, and Jay's eyes pierced mine, pure and bare of any scrap of craziness.

"To Hell." she stated simply; it was not a joke, I knew it. I knew it from the way her body was slightly shaking, and in the luminous clarity of her stare. I had known it since I first saw her dancing, when I read magic in the way I felt so attracted to her.

"You sold your soul!" my words came out in a blur, and she nodded her head.
"But why?!" I forcefully gripped her arms. I was mad at her, like she had just crashed an inestimable piece of art that, in some odd way, belonged to me.
I felt betrayed like a lover, and robbed like a child.

"Because I am dying." oxygen and sound slapped my ears, "I am dying, and my dreams, they will never come true. As I told you, I'm just a girl with no fortune, and I could not let go the only dream I still had time to make happen."

"And what is that?" I asked, somehow fearing the answer, but already knowing it; I read it in her eyes, in the scorching touch of her hands.
"It's you," she said, almost ashamed, tilting her head down, "It's now."
her hands reached my face and covered it.
I closed my eyes and felt her fingers on my eyelids, feverish, but delicate, and guilt and shame growled inside me, because I could not believe it, that a girl could choose me as her last wish… that a girl could sell her own very soul just to be standing before me with her hands on my face, when Fate had robbed her of the opportunity to make it without giving something back.

She don't like slavery, she won't sit and beg
But when I'm tired and lonely she sees me to bed
What set you free and brought you to be me babe
What set you free I need you here by me
Because

"You could have asked so many things…" I whispered, my voice shaking, "you could have asked to see your dreams fulfilled, your career… you could have asked some more time."

"I don't want time." she scrolled her head, retrieving her hands, and the suffocating air suddenly felt cold, "I pondered carefully my decision, don't doubt it. And don't feel bad because I chose you over an Oscar or Worldwide Peace." she gave ringing to a small laughter. "I'm sorry you don't know me enough to understand that."

I opened my mouth as to speak, when in the corner of my eye I saw the man - or the demon, I don't know, move into our direction. Jay saw him too, and for an instant, her eyes filled with stubborn terror. For a moment her adult resignation was wiped away, and I saw the girl she must have been, a fierce fighter through life, brave and able to raise her voice to Heaven and ask for more, for more.

In the midnight hour she cried- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell she cried- "more, more, more"
In the midnight hour babe- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell- "more, more, more"

"Goodbye." she whispered, and a lonely tear poked from her eye and fell to taint her velvet cheek. She made as to turn, but I gripped her face with both hands and I kissed her, forcefully, like she was my wife and like I could have kissed her on the ending sequence of the movie of my life, the one we should have shot together. I kissed her to thank her for her choice, and to scold her for it, for laying on the shoulders of a man like me the weight of her eternal damnation.

He lives in his own heaven
Collects it to go from the seven eleven
Well he's out all night to collect a fare
Just so long, just so long it don't mess up his hair.

"Here we are," the voice of the man before me drags me out of my memories. I blink, trying to focus on the words that are now coming out his lips.
"I need to recollect your personal objects." he repeats, without losing his kind composure.
I nod. I had emptied my pockets before, keeping one last thing that I wanted to have with me as long as possible. Now, I take it out my pocket and I give it to him, trying not to let any kind of emotion spread on my face.

"A picture of my family." my fingers retrieve from the cold desk as my eyes scan the image. Vanessa, our children. I wonder how they are now, if they miss me; I wonder how their lives will be, now that I am gone.

The man shows a parchment before my eyes.
"There's one last thing, Mr. Depp: we need your final signature, here."

I quickly scrabble my name at the bottom of the parchment, and the man begins to read it aloud, in a sort of official resume.
"You, Mister Johnny Depp, signed this contract by your own free will with our Agency, on June the six, 1989. In change of your soul, you asked for a successful career, a wedding to a fine woman, and two children. As result of these accomplished requests, today in the day of your death, the Agency reserves the right to claim your soul as agreed."

I nod.
"That's fine." I state simply.
There's no point in protesting or opposing resistance: I had it coming, and it paid off. I've always been saying that being Johnny Depp brings a lot of advantages, but everyone must pay his dues, sooner or later. I hoped I had more time, but Fate has something in store for all of us.

I walked the ward with you, babe
A thousand miles with you
I dried your tears of pain, babe
A million times for you

"How's that, inside?" I point at the white door behind me, "Fire and smoke and screaming people?"

The man scrolls his head, smiling.
"That is the regular station for the damned, but technically, you deserve no punishment. We have new trade union rules… you know those white shirts: they made us create a new spot for those like you. It's always Hell, but a bit better."

No fire, no torture… I guess it will be only plainly boring. Ditto, boring like Hell.

"Don't be nervous," the sympathetic man repeats.

I turn to face the door.
I am not nervous. The faces of my wife and children flicker before my eyes, and then disappear. I know that not a second will pass that won't bear the thought of them, and the helpless pain along. But this is Hell, and missing my family is the least I could get.
But there is something else, something that now is helping to lift my heavy soul up to the Heavens I cannot aspire to, the daring hope that there could be someone else, up to now, for good.

Someone who maybe could help me to make this eternity bearable; someone to whom I owe a big something, a whole life of wasted dreams that, if she allows me to, I'll try to repay with my own eternity.

I'd sell my soul for you babe
For money to burn with you
I'd give you all, and have none, babe
Just, just, justa, justa to have you here by me
Because

The door shuffles open, and closes immediately behind me. They say Heaven, like Hell, changes with people, and I widen my eyes for the stupor: Paris, in autumn, folds around me, but empty of cars and tourists, and colored only in black and white.

Under the gray sky, among the cement buildings and the white grass, the souls of the payers walk, dragging their feet inside the toneless postcard, and I cannot but wonder how it looks like, to their eyes.

And then, I spot her, her blazing ginger hair flying in the still air when she runs to dive into my arms, curling up against my body, and I hold her tight, never to let her go, past all centuries and mistakes and choices we both made and lost.

In the midnight hour she cried- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell she cried- "more, more, more"
In the midnight hour babe- "more, more, more"
With a rebel yell she cried "more, more, more"
More, more, more.

"Jay," I murmur, her forever young face into my hands, and a smile curves my lips, "now you'll tell me, what does that Jay stand for?"

She nods, apparently too overwhelmed to speak, and I squeeze her hand hard, aware that it was the thought of her that kept me sane, during the past six months until my sudden death. The thought that, even if I had to leave my loved ones behind, there was someone else waiting for me, in a day, or in fifty years.
A girl who had made of me her last wish in life, and who has become my first wish in death...

Oh yeah little baby
she want more
More, more, more, more, more.

A girl who had such little time and chances, but she wanted more, more, more.

Oh yeah little baby
she want more
More, more, more, more.

And she got it all.



Psst... remember I wrote this at 3 AM! :hug:

Wooooow Anna
*jaw drops and hits the floor*
I am speechless and overwhelmed.

This is so beautifull in a sad way.
I don't know what to say about it...but I love it.
I adored every second of it!
What a twist!
Omg

How I love this image.
Fall, autumn...the last beautiful days before winter, before death.
Winter before spring when everything is starting new again.
Damn hopw fitting it is for this story.
That beautiful brain of yours really can conjure up the most thoughtprovoking, mind dazzeling ideas and metaphors.

Such thought provoking descriptions.
Aren't we all on a leash, dying to do the things we shouldn't. Hold back because of the weight we feel. Weight of responsibilities, expectations and demands. Dying to break free.

So sad *sighs*
Don't we all have that. Dreams and things that we want and wish for and never get.
I guess it says something about never taking the future for granted.

I am feeling ripped apart.
It is breaking my heart and healing me at the same time because it is so sweet.
It is like bittersweet pain!

One perfect moment......maybe it is more than most people ever get.

BANG!
Here comes the twist.
Girl I never saw that coming.
Definitly very evOl of you!

:wub:
I am totally stunned.
Woman you write beautiful and with such genius.
Love it from the first till the last letter!

:cry: :cry:
Awww, Dana!! I can always count on you, and your replies always give me the impression I am writing something good!

Someday, I am writing a story for each one of my ladies... ;)

Thanks for always being here for me, babe.
:love:

Oh my God, that was awesome!!!

Of course I knew that there was inevitably a twist coming, but of course I could never quite figure out what, and man, that was awesome!! I'm ashamed to admit that I've never heard that song, but the lyrics are cool, and they fit this fic. And I love how you painted me as that little free-spirit...and I love how you never revealed what Jay stood for. And I loved how I danced and...okay, I'm gonna quote

Just one mention of Paris is all it takes to get me drooling.

I can't even tell you how much I love that description! *dies*

So I just re-read the entire thing looking for quotes, and realised that even though there's so much that I love, I can't think of anything to say to them. You stole all the words again!! lol

But thank you sooooooooo much for writing this, I love it so much, and I love YOU my darling sister, for your talent never ceases to amaze me! *kiss*

Jay.

wow this is fantastic Anna I love the twist at the end its absolutly fantastic. Thanks for sharring

ehehe! I love Rebel Yell! And, I love your shorties...always leave me thinking. Don't know how you can come up with such creative twists time and again.

Very interesting of Jay to have her last wish be Johnny....and then, pretty ironic that he had sold his soul to the devil, as well. I really liked the ending, how they found each other there.

That was my favorite line, it described the scene so well. Toneless postcard=brilliance!

Loved it!

Don't reprimend yourself, Anna. Your writing is amazing even at three AM!

This story was just... just... gah! No words for it. I can't believe its taken me this long to get my lazy ass into this thread and actually read it. Ridiculous, I am. I know.

The descriptions tickled all my senses, I'm telling you.

If that's heaven...I can't wait.

That twist was amazing. No wonder he was so understanding and didn't laugh at her, although that would bring to light a more shallow and ignorant character, wouldn't it?

I am now trying to download Rebel Yell as I'm young and stupid and don't have it... :)

It was beautiful.

Awwwwwwww!! Thank yu Sammi for reading this! ou're not much around on this board lately, and I miss you. :blush:

Thank you all, ladies, I'd be lost without you.

Eeep! How on earth did I miss this little gem?

First of all, I love Billy Idol. Seriously, lip curl and all. When I was younger (I'm dating myself here...) I totally wanted to marry him. Oh yes. Indeed.

Anyway, moving on.

The descriptions in this little shorty are like heaven. No lie. Simply amazing.

This is by far one of my favorite quotes and examples of your pure brilliance in this shorty.

As usual, love the little tricky twists you always throw in your stories. Definitely keeps me on my toes.

Wow, this was beautiful! I think I've said it before, but you have such a brilliant imagination! :bow:

So, so good. :love: