Title: Come Home
Author: AC
Feedback: Loved and Adored. 3
Prompt: For Good. The Song. :D. From Wicked.
Pairing: past Roger/Mimi, Benny/Mimi... not really, though.
Rating: Rated PG-13 for graphic mauling of a beeper.
Notes: Okay, so at first I was like, "HEY, TIME FOR MARK AND ROGER FRIENDSHIP FLUFF!", because that's totally what this prompt calls for and I got so excited. But, everyone was going to write that, and I hate it when everyone writes the same thing for one prompt. It just bugs me. Plus, speedrent, you're predictable. I love you all, but you are. :D. So, then I got all down for writing some Maureen/Collins good-ness, but I couldn't get anything to work. So here we are, Angel/Mimi-goodiness-friendful-...angst. Yes. I'm on a slight angst roll. A Mimi angst roll. Yay me? But it's Angst with a happy ending. :3. And not that much angst, but drabble.
Disclaimer: I don't own RENT. If I did... you would know about it. I'd wear a, "I OWN RENT," t-shirt and everyone would be jealous of me. But I don't, so I can't.
It's the coldest it's ever been in Mimi's life.
The tips of her fingers burn. As she rubs them together, they're numb, empty. There's nothing there but the vague, vague impression of pain that might of appeared if she cared. She doesn't though. She doesn't care anymore.
The snow has kisses her cheeks and left them red, scarlet- not even pink- a deep red. She knows because Mark pointed them out to her with a distant, empty sort of concern. Mimi had never noticed before. She had never seen the way he tipped his head away and merely pointed it out, as if there was a wall between him that he dare not cross. She knows because Benny came a bit later, laid the back of her hand on them. She had never realized how rough they were and how gently Roger's touch was in contrast.
Come home, they say. It's too be cold to be sitting on a bench. It's too late. You haven't eaten, Mimi. Come home.
It doesn't feel like home anymore. It's too cold to be home. It could of never been that cold.
She brings her hands to her lap and rubs her palms together slowly, not even fast enough to even be classified as a futile attempt to make heat, and pushes a steady stream of hot mist from her lips and into them before laying them back down.
Come home, they say. It's too cold. It's too late. You'll get sick.
Just go and add her too the fucking list then. We can make a fucking list. A big long list of people who died and people who are sick and yet to die and the people we have to wait around until they get sick so that we can fucking watch them die.
As if on cue, the AZT beeper shrieks. From inside her coat pocket, it screams, and out of frustration her hand dives right there- it's so cold even inside- and pulls it out, sending it out and over into the pavement. A black chip flings off upon contact, and it skitters it's way into the snow until Mimi can't see it anymore. It continues to beep for a moment, before shutting off.
She doesn't care. She doesn't want to think about that now.
She blows another set into her hand and watches as the cloud almost shudders as she does.
Come home, they say. You're too young to be sick. You're too young to be die.
So was Angel.
Her hands find their way to her temples, and her head suddenly feels so hot in comparison. The cold against her head only makes her feel worse.
Angel always used to make hot chocolate. Warm hot chocolate in quirky coffee cups that burned her hands and always managed to make her feel better.
Angel was always associated with warm. Not hot. Hot was uncomfortable. Hot was running around in only your underwear with the shades drawn with a fan a few inches from your face. Angel was warm- not too cold, not too hot, but leaning more in that direction. Safe.
That may be that, to Mimi, a world with out Angel was just a little bit colder.
A world with out Angel is just a little bit more open. A little less sheltered.
Maureen is hurting Joanne. Mark's detaching. Roger's running and Collins is falling apart and there's no warm sort of smile and no one to rub her hands and suddenly make everything warm.
It's there. Roger doesn't love her and neither does Benny and suddenly that's up in her face and there's nothing she can do about it.
All of the sudden, there's no one and it's coldest it's ever been.
She wonders, idly, how long it takes for the heat to disappear before everything freezes back up again. Apparently, not long. It's as if everything has drifted back into it's first position, stiff and rough and cold.
Come home, they say. Come back. Go back to how she changed you, and how she made you better. It's too cold. You're too young. It's too wrong.
Mimi pulls her knees to her chest and slowly lays her head down, holding her shoulders completely square and herself completely tight. It's the best way to stay warm when it's like this.
In retrospect, she knew she would come home eventually. It just too cold to stay like this forever.