A/N: This is a short story I did for part of my final in Creative Writing. It is Benny/Maureen, if you didn't already gather that. It's just Benny telling Maureen about marrying Allison and how she takes it. Disclaimer: I don't own RENT, just soundtracks and the movie, but nothing too special. All the credit goes to the wonderful Jonathan Larson.
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Telling the One
Benny didn't really love Allison, but she loved him and it was nice to be needed that way. He had asked her to marry him and she had accepted, causing her to want to tell everyone. Accomplishing the task of telling most of his friends, except the one whom his heart really yearned for. Maureen.
"Hey Mo, can I talk to you for a second?" Benny asked her, taking the chance now that they were alone.
"Sure Babe, what's up?" Maureen asked in her usual perky way.
Benny got up and started pacing the room, searching for the right words to come out of his mouth. Struggling to come up with the proper wording, Benny knew that he had to be careful. Maureen hated Allison with a passion, although he never knew why. Benny was so deep in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice Maureen's worried eyes searching his face.
"Benny?"
He turned to meet her gaze, but quickly looking away, not able to maintain eye contact with her.
"Well," he slowly let out a deep sigh, "I don't really know how to put this."
Maureen went up to him and forced him to look at her in the eyes, "Benny, what's going on?"
Deciding that it was now or never, he blurted it all out at once, "I'm marrying Allison."
"What?" Maureen asked in disbelief.
Benny could feel Maureen's icy stares on his body and he shivered at the contact.
"I asked Allison to marry me and she said yes," he repeated, glancing at Maureen.
Her face filled with anger, jealously, and a hint of sadness.
"Why? You don't love her, you never have," Maureen asked, going and sitting on the chair before she fell over.
"I know, but she loves me and that's all that matters right?" he replied.
"No it's not!" she yelled at him, mixed emotions trying to tell her different things.
"No? Well, then tell me why you're still with Mark?"
The question caught her off guard, and she stared at Benny, speechless.
"That's different Benny," she finally said.
"How?"
"It just is!"
"No, I want to know how it's different," Benny insisted, trying to break down her barrier.
"Well, first, I'm not marrying Mark, and," Maureen started, but stopped, deciding not to fully expose herself.
"And what?"
"Nothing, it's nothing," she stammered.
"Tell me," he demanded, his voice rising.
"I'm staying with him so I can be close to you!" she yelled, falling to the ground in a pool of emotions.
Benny was taken aback by what she just told him, and he had no idea what to do. Seeing Maureen on the floor sobbing in her hands, he instinctively went over to her and crouched beside her.
"You can't marry her Benny, you just can't," she let out between sobs.
He just took her in his arms and held her until she calmed down enough to talk.
"Are you being serious when you said that?" he asked her, knowing the answer but he wanted to hear it from her.
"Yes. Why do you think I accepted so readily when Mark asked me to move in?"
He looked at the graffiti stained wall in front of them before answering," I don't know. I just thought maybe you were into Mark that much, but then I noticed that when you did move in, you lost interest really quickly."
"Is it that obvious?" she wondered, situating herself to be more comfortable in his arms.
"Yeah, it is a little, and I think Mark is starting to catch on," he told her, seeing her face scrunch up in thought.
"I guess that I should be honest with him, it's not fair," Maureen said, looking up to see his beautiful brown eyes staring back at her.
"Mark deserves to be with someone who feels that same way that he does," he told more to the air than to Maureen in particular.
"What about Allison?" she whispered, barely audible.
" I guess I should probably break it off and tell her the truth, she deserves something more," Benny replied, playing with their intertwined fingers. "Since when did you care about Allison, I thought you hated her?"
"I only hated her because she was with you," she told him, her voice getting lower and softer as she continued the sentence.
He smiled at her, as she stared down at their contrasting hands.
"I need to find Mark" Maureen whispered, deeply inhaled, trying to control all of her emotions.
"And I need to go get Allison," he said, getting up off the ground, dragging her with him.
"I don't know what to say to him," she told Benny as she walked toward the kitchen.
Benny followed her and grabbed her by the waist, pulling her back into his embrace.
"You'll figure out something, you always do," he whispered into her ear.
Maureen turned to face him, meeting his eyes that held so much within them. They could feel each others breath on their lips and following their hearts, they closed that small space. As their lips met, the new uncovered feeling exploded between them and both knew that this was the start of something eternal. Benny broke the kiss and just stared into Maureen's emerald pools, reading her like a book.
"We really need to go tell them," he told her, searching her eyes for answers to unasked questions.
"I know."
Maureen reluctantly pulled out of his embrace and headed toward the door.
"Hey, wait," Benny said, catching her before she headed out.
She turned around to have Benny grab her by the waist and lift her off the ground. He stole a kiss that she wasn't prepared for, but didn't protest against it either.
"Thank you for making me realize what I was doing wasn't right," he told her genuinely.
She just gave him a peck on the lips as response, which was all he really needed.
They both slowly shuffled out the door, nervously contemplating how to tell the ones that cared about them the most that they had found love somewhere else.
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