Notes: ok, people, this is my first RENT fic. To be honest, I've never actually seen RENT, but I DO have the soundtrack! So please forgive me if I did anything wrong. This is slash, like always. Mark's POV. Tell me, should I even bother to continue this? I think it works well as a one-shot, but I might add chapters, if you people want me to. Ok, on with the fic!
Roger is playing again.
I had been out taking a walk before dark. The twilight streets of New York City have a certain beauty, the shadows of the buildings draping the frantic city in a soft darkness. I don't like the nightlife, all neon signs and flashing lights. And the daytime can be just as bad, with the burning sun baking the life out of the trees in Central Park. Dusk is when I walk the streets, when all is quiet and peaceful and painless.
I had come home when the night started to draw to near, the moon become too apparent behind the haze of fog. I entered our building, and was walking down the hallway to my door when I heard it. The cutting sounds of Roger playing the guitar drifted through the walls. I hadn't heard him play since April died, two months ago. I stopped outside our door, savoring the sound.
I love to hear Roger on the guitar. He doesn't simply play the music. He rips into it. He tears the notes out one by one and leaves them hanging in the air, as if they were some other shimmering element. He lives the music, letting it roll through him and into the world.
The notes rose out of the guitar with such clarity and sadness that they seemed to cleave through the light and sky, as if they would climb to the very heavens. The sound of it, the long pure notes and full-throated chords, seemed to throb with a translucent light.
Yet, as the melody deepened, it became darker, the very essence of despair. The endless, liquid notes cried out in anguish, and the chilling harmonies tore out of the guitar with such force it seemed the instrument would break under the pressure. The music seemed to go beyond Roger, as if her were merely a vessel for the terrifying and impossible beauty of the music.
The song grew richer and darker, and it became more than despair. It throbbed and pulsed till my heart seemed to beat in time with each exquisitely painful note. The music rang with the sorrow, the vast loneliness of unending grief. It was building, building up towards the soul- shattering climax.
And I knew, in that very instant, the song was telling of everything that happened to Roger. It was the darknessexploded, the darkness liquid and molten. It was beautiful like the shimmer of coals; just enough light to show how much darkness there really was. I could feel the music surrounding me, drowning me with its wild, untamed emotion—chaos and anguish and savage beauty all blending into one.
The music spired into an impossibly high finish, flying to the stars. I could hear the song speaking through Roger, asking the ancient and painful question.
Why?
Why did April kill herself? Why didn't we guess what she was going to do? Why didn't our love last? Why didn't she try to live?
Why was there no happy ending?
All these questions were interwoven with his music, telling me without words how much April's suicide had wounded him, how alone he felt in the world right now. Roger had cared her with all his being, his soul. And she had deserted him.
Roger played the last note, the final tear in his mourning of April. The sound hung in the still air, glimmering with sorrow and the unnamable emotion. I knew what he was saying through his music, what he was trying to tell her even after she was gone forever.
He still loved her.
He loved her as much as he ever had. She was his whole world, the only one he could bring himself to care about. Roger was walking a thin line between living and giving up. April was pulling Roger toward the eternal embrace, taking him away this world. And he would do it, he loved her so. She had been his reason to go on.
Even in death she was his life.
He would leave this place, this apartment, this earth. He would leave me for her, his beautiful April, the springtime of his life. How could I ever compare with her, she who light up the dark corners of his soul with pure and blinding light. I was merely his friend, a quiet person in the background. No more than that.
God, it tore at my heart.
I wanted to be more to him, I wanted him to love me. I wanted him to hold me like there was no one else in the world. I wanted to run my hands through his blonde hair, to stare into his eyes forever and ever. I wanted him to be to me what April was to him. My love, my life, my reason for living.
My soulmate.
I know it's hopeless. He still loves her, still cares about her more than life itself. She is locked in a glass box in his heart, untarnished by the shadow of death. And I will always be his best friend, the second best thing. Never the first. I haven't been the first in my whole life.
The silence reigns. I wait for a few minutes, trying to control myself before I go in. With a start I realize I'm crying. Tears for the love I will never have. Roger cries for April, and I cry for Roger.
Will anyone ever cry for me?