Disclaimer: RENT is not owned by me. The song I Can't Make You Love Me is not mine either. Get off my back!
Uh, plot bunny that had to be written. Mark/Mimi, Mimi/Roger one shot. Enjoy!
Turn down the lights
Turn down the bed
I turned the lights off in the room that we shared together. I wished I had convinced her to spend the night at her apartment, but she had insisted on coming to mine.
Turn down these voices
Inside my head
I had pretended I didn't know why she'd insisted on here. But then again, I wasn't stupid. Even if they liked to pretend I was.
I could hear Mark tossing in his bed next door.
Lay
down with me
Tell me no lies
"I love you," I whispered desperately in her ear, hoping that for once, just once she would say it back.
"I know," she said quietly. "Believe me baby, I know."
Of course she knew. I had made my love less of a secret than she'd made hers.
Just
hold me close
Don't patronize
Don't patronize me
I guess it was better that she hadn't lied to me. I didn't need her pity and I didn't think I would've been able to take anymore lying. About the drugs, about her feelings, about him.
'Cause
I can't make you love me if you don't
And you can't make
your heart feel something it won't
It wasn't her fault really, I knew it wasn't and that's what killed me. It could've happened to either of us, it was bound to happen to one of us…it had just happened to her first.
I just hadn't expected it to hurt as much as it did.
Here
in the dark
For these final hours
I will lay down
I'll
feel the power
But you won't, no you won't
I couldn't take it anymore though.
It was like we were both holding on to what used to be what, could have been. We were holding onto our ideal so hard it was hard to tell when it had just died.
I'll
close my eyes
Then I won't see
The love you don't feel
When
you're holding me
I couldn't help thinking of the song I had written for her, the one about her eyes. I couldn't even bring myself to look at those eyes anymore.
Every time I tried to, I felt sick.
There was nothing in them for me anymore…
When they weren't so glazed from being high, they were just empty…
Unless he was around.
Part of me preferred when she was high, just so I wouldn't have to see the love she didn't feel for me.
That's when I realized I must've not loved her as much as I thought.
Morning
will come
And I'll do what's right
It's over, I thought sadly. But it had been over for a long time, it was much too late to mourn now.
Mark rolled over in bed again, I could hear him and it made me sick. I wanted to go in there, rip out his throat and make her watch.
But I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed, to pull back the covers, to tell her she was free of me.
Just
give me till then
To give up this fight
And I will give up this
fight
I just wanted one more night of her, one more night of my Mimi. The way she smelled underneath the scents of cheap booze and cigarette smoke, the way her hair fell across my pillow, the way her arms felt around me…
I would give it up in the morning.
I wouldn't even cringe when she went running into Mark's diminutive arms.
In the morning I would stop being so selfish.
I couldn't help but think of what Mimi had said she liked about me.
Not loved, liked.
She liked that I made it seem like I could do anything…within reason.
But I couldn't.
'Cause
I can't make you love me
If you don't
