Rent: Tempted (Roger/Mimi)

[lexie-b.livejournal.com]

Title: Tempted
Author: lexie_b
Feedback: is beloved if you feel inclined.
Pairing: Roger/Mimi implied, past Roger/April
Word Count: 564
Rating: PG - M
Genre: Angst
Summary: Roger remembers euphoria, energy, an overwhelming feeling of just being. Why junkies become junkies, the thrill of sensation. He remembers how it’s done, how easy it could be for him and Mimi now. The easy way.
Spoilers: Movie and musical
Warnings: Language
Disclaimer: property of the Jonathan Larson estate.

He sits up during the night, strumming his guitar and scrawling songs into his dog-eared notebook. Sometimes Mark leaves the projector out, and a film reel ready to be played, and Roger will watch the flickering images on the not-quite-white sheet hung up in the loft.

He doesn’t recognize himself in the early movies, with bright eyes and his wide grins. He watches this past incarnation of himself, just as much the drama queen as Maureen. He sees April, standing on the old metal table, reciting something with so much passion, he feels like he could get up and go and talk to her.

Roger watches the people on the sheet, full of life and passion. It’s easy to ignore the blurry track marks on the film, to focus on Collins or Maureen as the ghost like figures shoot up in the background. Dancing, singing, boundless energy; somehow, without the harsh light of day, the grey-skinned junkies don’t look quite so far gone. They look happy and without any problems – like they really believe that mantra, ‘no day but today’.

He dumps his guitar on the couch and leaves the loft before that particular movie flicks to April’s gravestone; the movie was made for in her memory.

Mimi’s not home, but the door is unlocked. He slips into the much smaller apartment, switching on a small ceramic light and gazing around. Make up and clothes cover multiple services, a few cups dotted around the small kitchen. He wanders through her apartment aimlessly because going into the bathroom to splash some water on his face.

The sink is low and a rust-encrusted blue. Roger bends over and splashes cold water everywhere, but something catches his eye. A slim, old pencil case; flat and as long as a tissue box is jammed behind the toilet. He knows what it is before he even opens it – some syringes and several baggies of heroin, harsh white against the silver.

He closes his eyes and his traitorous mind flicks back to the movie, like a devil sitting on his shoulder. How easy that stranger made it all seem, how much life was still in those people. Hit stop before the image flicks to a grave yard, keep the images of a good life in his head, haunting him until the day he dies.

Roger remembers euphoria, energy, an overwhelming feeling of just being. Why junkies become junkies, the thrill of sensation. He remembers how it’s done, how easy it could be for him and Mimi now. The easy way.

He empties the baggies of heroin down the toilet and throws the tin at the wall, storming back upstairs to the loft, and Mimi will be quiet and guilty for days, thinking his rage is because he discovered her stash – thinking mistakenly that his rage is at her.

It’s not. His fury is directed to himself for being so weak minded, so god-damned aware of everything that can and cannot be, and that smack is the easy route to feeling alive while his disease ravages his body at the speed of light. The right choice is the one that comes with feeling both good and bad, the one that doesn’t involve white powder.

He’s pissed at himself for even thinking about how good it would feel to feel good again. This way is better, is right, even though it hurts.