Title: Chasing Highs
Author: dropsofjupiter
Feedback: yes, please!
Pairing: A little bit of Roger/April, Roger/Mark friendship
Word Count: 1312
Rating: T for language, drug use, suicide
Genre: Drama
Summary: There is more than one way to be an addict.
Notes: It's a little awkward in some places, but I've been working on it a while and thought it was time to drop it. So, here it is :)
Disclaimer: They're all Jon's.
---
Roger has always been prone to addiction. It's the way he is – hardwired to crave excess, to take everything too far.
He likes to have fun and drink too much and self-medicate, and he lives as fast and as hard as he can. He'll do a few lines of coke with his band mates, when he can afford it. He's smoked dope and ice, dropped acid and X in some futile, endless pursuit of a bigger and better high.
The truth is, the easiest existence he knows is a hedonistic one. Roger's been through reality, and it isn't pretty. He'd rather chase thrills with cheap vodka and live his life onstage with the bass pounding in his ears.
His first sip of alcohol came at fourteen, his first fuck at fifteen. His first love was a used Fender he picked up when he was sixteen. Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll – the Holy Trinity of the rock star.
There is more than one way to be an addict.
---
Let other kids go to shrinks – Roger had figured out early on that a few shots of Absolut and Leno's monologue were better than any prescription. Usually, he'd wake up in the morning with nothing more than a pounding headache. He never meant for it to happen, the first time he blacked out.
That night, he was lonely and bored and looking to forget, and because Roger doesn't know the meaning of moderation, the bottom of the bottle came faster than he'd intended. He regained consciousness over the toilet, gagging and choking as his older brother pounded on his back.
"Do me a favor, Rog, and don't be such a fucking moron next time. Jesus."
He left Roger slumped over in the bathroom, wiping his mouth.
But Roger likes to feel good, and not even a near-death experience, or two, or three is enough to scare him straight. If anything, they make excellent battle scars. He tells his war stories with a touch of pride. The night Roger Davis cheated death.
It was no surprise to anyone when he outgrew alcohol.
Other druggies have a substance of choice, but Roger's not picky. He'll take any hit. Try anything at least once.
Someone offers him a high, and he can't say no – it's more of a compulsion than anything else.
---
When he turned eighteen, Roger packed his guitar and his vices and moved to the city to become a musician.
He'd dropped thirty bucks for that Fender at a pawnshop in town a couple of years back. Broken strings, tarnished tuning keys – the thing was a piece of crap. A friend restrung it for him that night, and Roger stayed up practicing chords until dawn.
He could play for hours at a time. Some days, it was the only thing he did. He'd sit in his room, picking out random notes and humming under his breath, new melodies, the beginnings of songs. The familiar weight of the Fender on his leg, the feeling of the strings beneath his callused fingertips, became a comfort.
Once upon a time, his guitar might even have become his saving grace.
Instead, Roger learned to party like a rock star. He embraced his new life. Performing in front of a crowd was almost as good as any drug-induced haze. He loved the lights and the crowd and the adrenaline coursing through his veins.
But his passion for music is undeniable. Even after the gig is over, when he's alone in his room with his guitar, it's still the same solace he found as a kid. The feeling that he never wants to stop playing, because he doesn't want that reassurance to slip away.
Sometimes, though, he thinks it's something even deeper than love that keeps him up late at night, strumming and picking and perfecting every note and pitch and rhythm. Roger's music is an obsession, and he couldn't stop if he tried.
---
The tall, beautiful woman had been to three gigs before Roger finally got up the nerve to approach her. She had sexy, catlike gray eyes and an incredible body, and her red hair shone like a bright flame, so that he always knew by a quick scan of the crowd where she stood.
Her name was April.
The first night they met, they sat at the bar sharing cigarettes and talking for hours. He'd chain-smoked nearly half a pack before she invited him back to her apartment.
He brought April backstage at his next show. She stopped him as he was about to do a line of coke with the guys before their last set.
She knelt on the floor and leaned into him, and the warmth of her breath on his cheek drove him a little crazy. "I promise you an even better time, after this is over." Roger looked at her and noticed, for the first time, the track marks on her arms. He nodded wordlessly.
That night, April led him into the alley behind the club and handed him a needle, and Roger shot up for the first time.
She held his hand under the glow of the streetlamp and watched his face closely, whispered in his ear. "Is it as good as you imagined?" He could only smile.
Roger loves a good lay, a random fuck – but he's never been in love until this bewitching, intoxicating woman, who showed him a high he'd never experienced before.
---
Roger remembers the night he fell from grace. The bathroom floor, covered in blood; Mark's hands on his chest, pushing him away.
"Let me in!"
"No!"
"You fuck!"
"Roger, please – don't. She's dead, Roger."
They passed needles and stashes, harboring their weaknesses together. They shared beds and soft touches and rough kisses, and she always left him wanting more.
She is Roger's addiction, and he doesn't think he can handle the withdrawal.
The night they found her body, Roger took Mark's sleeping pills from the cabinet and stayed up until morning, staring at the orange prescription bottle in front of him. He poured out a handful of tablets and wondered if it would be enough to make him forget about his beautiful, dead girlfriend. But he won't allow himself to put Mark through that. The thought of Mark finding another body on the floor of the loft is the only thing that stops him, in the end.
It is Mark, after all, who's been cleaning the bathroom obsessively since it happened, splashing water around and scrubbing at bloodstains in the tub. It's Mark who catches Roger by the window, about to shoot up after the first cramps and chills of withdrawal set in.
"Roger? What's going on?"
Before Roger can think of an answer, Mark wrestles his last stash away and throws it, as hard as he can, through the open window and into the night.
"Rog – don't. What are you doing? What are you doing?"
Roger swears he can hear the sound of the baggie dropping five stories onto the concrete below.
"Please, you can't – you're not going to end up like her, I swear to God. I won't let that happen."
He's been chasing highs since longer than he can remember, and Mark's voice, frantic and fierce and protective all at once, is the only thing to finally bring him down.
There is more than one reason to choose redemption.