RENT: Paved With Good Intentions
Title: Paved With Good Intentions
Feedback: Would make my day.
Characters/Pairing: Roger/April
Word Count: 400
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He was only trying to help her, but everything he does just brings her down.
Notes: Written for speed_rent challenge #177. Set in my April Showers verse ( In the Eyes of a Young Girl).
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, Rent is not mine, and we've been over this before.
It was the first time he'd ever seen April cry, and it scared him more than he cared to admit. It scared him to see her falling apart at the seams, his brilliant girl who was all smiles and teasing laughter for as long as he'd known her, sobbing, clinging to him and he'd have done anything to help her, but he couldn't find the words, couldn't fix it however he tried. And even after the tears went away, she'd changed, her smiles less genuine, so when she finally asked for the needle, perfectly calm, he gave it to her.
It was supposed to help, fix her somehow, return her to the person she'd been before. The exact logic of that escapes him now, but at the time it had made sense, at the time he'd been certain it was the right thing. A little of the drug, and it would numb the pain for her, for a little while, and when she came back, when she came down, maybe she'd be herself again. And it was always him, sliding the needle into her arm and whispering that it would all be okay, that he'd protect her, he'd help her...
And then there were the track marks on her pale arms, and after a while he began to notice as they were joined by those tiny precise cuts that turned into old, ugly scars over time and the sinking realization that he couldn't help her any more than he could help himself, and he had to fix it but everything he did only brought her down a little further, shining perfect angel spiralling out of control, away from grace or salvation, tangled up in pain and addiction and him, and who was he to catch her or slow her fall?
Gasping for breath as he wakes up from another nightmare, loud enough that it wakes Mark and he rushes to Roger's room. "What's wrong?"
Shaking, not just from needing the drug but needing her, and muttering through his tears almost frantically, "I swear I didn't mean to kill her. I just wanted to help her."
Avoiding his best friend's eyes as he balls his hands up in the sheets and whispers apologies, not to Mark but to a dead girl, and Mark just sits there because he can find nothing to say, because there is nothing to say.
Feedback: Would make my day.
Characters/Pairing: Roger/April
Word Count: 400
Rating: PG-13
Summary: He was only trying to help her, but everything he does just brings her down.
Notes: Written for speed_rent challenge #177. Set in my April Showers verse ( In the Eyes of a Young Girl).
Disclaimer: Characters aren't mine, Rent is not mine, and we've been over this before.
It was the first time he'd ever seen April cry, and it scared him more than he cared to admit. It scared him to see her falling apart at the seams, his brilliant girl who was all smiles and teasing laughter for as long as he'd known her, sobbing, clinging to him and he'd have done anything to help her, but he couldn't find the words, couldn't fix it however he tried. And even after the tears went away, she'd changed, her smiles less genuine, so when she finally asked for the needle, perfectly calm, he gave it to her.
It was supposed to help, fix her somehow, return her to the person she'd been before. The exact logic of that escapes him now, but at the time it had made sense, at the time he'd been certain it was the right thing. A little of the drug, and it would numb the pain for her, for a little while, and when she came back, when she came down, maybe she'd be herself again. And it was always him, sliding the needle into her arm and whispering that it would all be okay, that he'd protect her, he'd help her...
And then there were the track marks on her pale arms, and after a while he began to notice as they were joined by those tiny precise cuts that turned into old, ugly scars over time and the sinking realization that he couldn't help her any more than he could help himself, and he had to fix it but everything he did only brought her down a little further, shining perfect angel spiralling out of control, away from grace or salvation, tangled up in pain and addiction and him, and who was he to catch her or slow her fall?
Gasping for breath as he wakes up from another nightmare, loud enough that it wakes Mark and he rushes to Roger's room. "What's wrong?"
Shaking, not just from needing the drug but needing her, and muttering through his tears almost frantically, "I swear I didn't mean to kill her. I just wanted to help her."
Avoiding his best friend's eyes as he balls his hands up in the sheets and whispers apologies, not to Mark but to a dead girl, and Mark just sits there because he can find nothing to say, because there is nothing to say.