Whee! Okay, sorry, I'm hyper (this happens often; just wait until I break out the Mountain Dew). Anyway. I wrote this about three weeks after getting into Rent, because I was bored and I had some Roger-loving friends.
I'd love reviews, but please, if you hate April, don't take it out on me. Personally, I enjoy experimenting with her character (I play April on my pre-RENT board and two AU ones).
This is a oneshot, and I'm not going to take it any further than that, but I have other pre-Rent ideas floating around that may include April as well.
- Divine Sally Bowles
"April Fools"
Roger Davis hated the month of April. He always had. He always would. To him, April was just in the way of May and June, the start of summer. Summer meant the beach. The beach meant girls. Roger liked girls. A lot. The beach was one of the best places to pick up girls, even if they were the clingy groupie type. Roger dabbled in surfing, and the combination of his muscles and great surfing skills made it a good chick magnet. His guitar helped too.
Roger sighed and wiped down the bar in front of him. It was nearing midnight. The graveyard shift wasn't especially wise for a college student. Then again, neither was playing gigs at less-than-savory bars while trying to pick up a recording contract. The clubs who would take Roger and his band were pretty much the hangouts of drunks and junkies. Roger had managed to convince his bandmates to take the gigs as they came.
"Keep it up, kid."
A dishcloth twapped Roger in the face as he looked up. Vic, the lead bartender, was smiling slightly. "This is the cleanest this bar has been in years."
"That's because your lazy ass didn't bother to pick up a broom before I came," Roger mumbled as he passed behind Vic.
"What was that?" Vic called after him.
"Nothing," Roger hollered back, though he couldn't help a sly grin. Roger had always been one for wisecracks. It had gotten him into a lot of trouble in Scarsdale.
Roger had hated the sterility, the remoteness, of Scarsdale, and when he'd been given an opportunity to go to college in the city, he'd jumped on it. Roger kind of liked the harshness of the city. Besides, what rock star came from the suburbs?
Roger's hands itched for his guitar. It was a Friday, and he really hadn't wanted to work. He'd rather be playing a gig in some seedy downtown bar. (Hell, he was already in one.) And what better way to get rid of his first-of-April frustrations than with music?
Roger grabbed his leather jacket from the hook and ducked under the bar, pulling on his jacket and smoothing his hand through his short, spiky hair. He'd been toying with the idea of growing it out. But for now it helped cultivate the whole rocker thing.
Without waiting for Vic to clear it, Roger headed out into the still-freezing April air. He'd gone out the side way, entering into an alley.
"C'mon, girl. You can't pay up; you die."
Roger's ears, trained so well from years of music study, caught on to a frantic conversation between what sounded like a junkie and her dealer. Normally he wouldn't think twice—he despised junkies. But something in the girl's voice made him turn.
Roger's eyes, almost as good as his ears, caught a faint shimmer. The flash of metal. He heard the sound of a gun being cocked, saw it being held on the girl.
Roger dove for the dealer, his brain registering mid-flight that that gun could just as easily be trained on him.
Damn. Should've thought of that.
Roger tackled the dealer, knocking the gun from his hands. The dealer swore and tried to kick Roger off. Startled, the girl looked down at him. She couldn't be older than twenty. Her hair was light brown, wavy, and she looked good, if not strung out on drugs. She was torn between shock and fear.
"Go!" Roger yelled. "I have him! Go! Run!"
"You won't get far!" the dealer yelled as the girl obeyed Roger's orders. He struggled against Roger, but Roger threw his full weight down. "You can't last without the drugs!"
"You'd be surprised," Roger hissed, resisting the urge to inflict serious damage. "Now I'm just going to call the cops and have them arrest your sorry ass…"
A week later, Roger's hands slid along the smooth wood of his Fender, a loving caress. It had been too long between gigs. Somehow, playing on his own didn't give him as much satisfaction as it did when he played with his friends for a crowd of screaming people.
Roger gave the guitar a quick tune-up and looked over to his bandmates. "Ready?"
The gig went well. They'd been getting more of a crowd lately, and Roger was pleased. Maybe soon they'd have enough money and star power to play in a better venue, to land a record deal.
However, one thing during the show did throw him. Looking out over the crowd as he played a solo, Roger recognized one of the girls. The junkie from the alley last weekend. From the look on her face, she recognized him too.
After the show, Roger dropped his guitar in the back room and headed back out in front of the stage. The girl was still there, standing at the bar.
"It is you," she murmured quietly. "T—thanks for what you did. I'd have been dead if it weren't for you."
"Ah, no problem. No one gets away with that on my turf," Roger said, giving her his charming smile as he ran his hands through his hair.
The girl smiled. "Never caught your name."
"Roger Davis," he said, offering his hand.
She shook it. "I'm April."
"April, huh?" Roger paused, then smiled again. "I like it."
Okay, so maybe he did have some reasons to like the month of April…