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find_rightbrainTitle: If You Open Your Eyes
Feedback: Will make me love you muchly.
Characters/Pairing: Roger, Dr. Madden
Word Count: 2144
Rating: PG
Summary: Roger finally lets his friends talk him into seeing a therapist, but is... less than cooperative.
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
speed_rent challenge #22. Part of my "Surviving" series - Too Far From Grace and The One to Survive.
Disclaimer: I do not own Rent, and I'm extremely unlikely ever to. Shiny?
"So." Roger said after what seemed like at least five minutes of silence in the little room. He couldn't help but grow uncomfortable in that absolute silence, and he had to break it with something. If only the doctor would say something instead of just watching him and waiting for him to speak.
"So." Dr. Madden watched Roger from behind his glasses for a moment longer, with a penetrating look that somehow reminded Roger of the look Mark used to give him when he knew Roger was being willfully stubborn. Roger couldn't meet his eyes for more than a few moments before looking away. "Have you ever been to therapy before?"
Automatically, Roger gave a derisive snort. "Not counting rehab?"
The question didn't make the doctor so much as bat an eye. "Well, yes."
"No." Roger looked down, his expression carefully neutral, just like it always was when he spoke of Mark. "Mark… wanted me to once. I didn't go."
"Why not?"
"Because it was stupid," Roger snapped, more harshly than he meant. He paused a moment, and added more softly, "It was a couple months after Mimi died. I didn't want to talk about it."
Dr. Madden wrote something on the pad of paper he held in one hand, and Roger resisted the compulsion to snap at him through the simple fact that he had written something somehow bothered Roger, made him uncomfortable. As if he hadn't been already.
"So if you thought it was stupid then, what changed your mind? Why are you here now?" Roger wished the doctor would stop looking at him like that. His eyes were blue like Mark's, almost the exact shade, and if he had to sit here for an hour and see those eyes… Roger found himself wishing he hadn't come.
"My friends," Roger admitted, and after a moment added bitterly, "the ones that are left." Benny, Maureen and Joanne. Barely there, but at least the three of them cared enough to pressure him into therapy. He never told them that the only reason he'd agreed was because he thought Mark would want him to go. He flinched almost imperceptibly as he doctor started writing on his pad again, unaccountably bothered by it.
"You mentioned rehab," Dr. Madden said, glancing up as he finished writing. "Would you mind telling me what that was for?"
"Heroin," Roger said bluntly, watching Dr. Madden for some sign of surprise or discomfort. He didn't get the response he'd been looking for, nothing more than a faint nod of acknowledgement. Roger fought down the urge to snap at him just for being so calm and collected, never showing the slightest bit of surprise… Later, he was going to have to kill Benny for talking him into this, Roger decided.
"And how long were you doing heroin?"
"A couple years," Roger said, his voice sharpening a little. He never could think about that period of his life without April leaping to the forefront, and he wouldn't speak about that, not to a stranger. He'd already decided that, before he stepped into this room.
"You stopped because…?"
Because my girlfriend slit her wrists in the bathroom five fucking minutes before I got home.
"Because I got AIDS." He narrowed his eyes slightly and watched Dr. Madden, just daring him to comment.
"Well, that's… unfortunate." He tapped his pen idly against his pad of paper, staring at whatever he had written, and then glanced back up. Roger met his eyes with a challenging smirk, pleased to get some sort of reaction out of him, even as minor as that. "How long ago was that?"
Roger sighed and shifted in his chair, his eyes sliding across the room as he tried to avoid looking at the doctor for the time being. He glanced away from the doctor in his leather swivel chair, across the room to the print of some painting with hills and mountains, all in light and muted colors, probably supposed to be soothing or something… His eyes lingered on the door for a minute as he silently wished he could just leave, and then on the window. Finally, he looked back to Dr. Madden, sighing again with a belabored expression. "Several years ago."
And in those years… so many things he'd really rather not think about. Losing Angel and Mimi and Collins, the awkward year or two in the loft with Mark when there had been weeks at a time when he'd scarcely look at Mark, speak to him, let alone touch him, and losing Mark a year and a half ago… None of them experiences he cared to rehash with this man he'd never spoken to before, and many of them things he would prefer not to remember at all. Finally, he looked back up at Dr. Madden, his jaw tight.
"Look, I really don't want to be here," he said frankly. "I'm here because it's the only way to get Benny off my back and keep Maureen and Joanne from worrying about me. This whole thing is… pointless, just so you know."
Dr. Madden didn't say anything for a moment or two, just watching him, and finally said calmly, "Well, it's certainly going to be pointless if you won't give it a shot. You have to be willing to talk for this to do any good."
Roger blinked at the doctor's easy acceptance of his comment. "So what are we doing here, then?"
He shrugged. "You tell me."
"I already did tell you," Roger snapped, irritated that they seemed to be going in circles with this. Why hadn't he walked out yet, damn it? Because he's got eyes just like Mark's and I don't want to leave yet… He shoved that thought away quickly, determined to ignore both the thought and the piercing look Dr. Madden was giving him. He really should leave.
"Right…" Dr. Madden said slowly, still watching Roger as if trying to divine what he was thinking merely by watching him. "Well, as long as we're here, why don't you tell me something about yourself? Anything you like."
Roger just gave the man a level look. Right. As if the doctor didn't already have him pegged as a bitter ex-junkie who deserved to be dying, as if talking would change that impression. "Like what? You want me to tell you all about my life as a junkie? About how many of my friends I've watched die? About my troubled childhood? In case you were wondering about that, by the way, it wasn't. Troubled, I mean. It was actually more normal than a lot of my friends'. If you're looking for me to bare my soul, Doctor, it's not happening."
"Well, I wasn't particularly expecting you to." Dr. Madden shifted back in his chair, resting his ankle on his knee. "But unless you decide to open up, nothing's going to change. You're not going to change."
"You're kidding me, right? No, I'm not going to change. And you know why?" Roger leaned forward in his own chair, his expression icy. "What makes you think I need to change? Do you actually think it matters, or did you somehow miss the fact that I'm dying?"
"Your friends seem to think it matters," the doctor pointed out. "Why do you think that is?"
The question made Roger hesitate and lean back a little, his cold expression faltering. "I don't know. They're…" He paused thoughtfully, and finally added with a smirk, "Well, they're stupid. I… I have no idea what they're thinking, actually."
"You've got to have some idea."
Though it irritated Roger that the doctor kept pressing, the smirk faded after a second as Roger soberly considered the question, forcing himself to actually think about it rather than simply brush it off with a snide comment. What had they been thinking, talking him into this?
"I don't know," he said quietly. Dr. Madden heard the doubt in his voice, and raised his eyebrow questioningly. Roger sighed and winced, looking down at his hands. He did know, and Dr. Madden could see it.
"We used to be… like… a family," he said at last, the words coming slowly. It almost hurt him to say as much to this man, but with Dr. Madden just watching him… Why the hell does he have to look so much like Mark? he wondered silently. "That was a long time ago. And since then… They were always going to be the ones who'd still be around when the rest of us were gone. Except for Mark… he shouldn't have…" Roger remembered himself and shook his head, his expression slipping back to that careful neutrality, his voice cold. "They've had to deal with five of us dying. I'm the last one, and the other three aren't sick. I guess they feel like they owe it to me to look out for me." He drummed his fingers on his leg, staring out the window for a moment before he added quietly, "Or maybe not. Maybe they just feel like they owe it to Mark."
"Who's Mark?"
Roger glanced over at the doctor and sighed, responding simply, "A friend. He died." He said the same thing about all three of them when questioned, April and Mimi and Mark. Simpler than explaining what had happened, what they'd meant to him, all the pieces of himself he'd lost when he lost them.
"How'd he die?" Dr. Madden asked. He had the pen poised over the pad of paper again, ready to write… Roger glowered at him for a moment, tempted to snap at him to put down the damn pen. He didn't say it, just studied him a moment longer and looked back out the window once more.
"Some asshole hit our car. Mark was driving." He was surprised at himself, that he'd said that much. Most people who asked about Mark never got more out of him than a glare. He was still drumming his fingers on his leg in a regular rhythm, not paying any particular attention to it, but the soft sound was enough to break the silence while neither of them spoke, Dr. Madden watching Roger, Roger pointedly avoiding looking at this doctor who looked too much like Mark. "Wish he'd hit my side."
"You wish you'd died?"
Roger gave him a sardonic smile as his eyes flickered back to the doctor. "Well, let's face it, I'm going to die anyway. Better me than Mark. He could've… He could've done a lot, if he hadn't… if he were still here." He smiled faintly despite himself, just a quick smile that vanished in a heartbeat, almost too quick to see had the doctor not been watching him. "He was a filmmaker. Brilliant. And hell, he made better use of his time than I ever did. Or will, for that matter." At least Mark had always kept trying… Roger hadn't written a song for so long, almost never touched his guitar anymore. He'd given up, and didn't even care, because what did it matter?
Dr. Madden didn't speak, and after almost a minute of silence, Roger added more quietly, "But yes, I wish I'd died. For Mark, or with him. Either way…"
"Will you tell me about him? Mark? How long you knew him, what he was like…"
Roger met Dr. Madden's eyes and just watched him for a moment, searching his face, then sighed and shook his head. "No. I won't." He looked at the clock on the opposite wall and got to his feet, grabbing his coat off the back of the chair as he did. "And if you don't mind, Doctor," he said, almost sneering the title, "I think I'll go. Our time's up." He nodded to the clock.
"Will you be back next week?" Roger's hostility hadn't put the doctor off, it seemed… or else he simply didn't care as long as he got Roger's money. Well, Benny's money, since he was the one paying for this, but… that was irrelevant. "I can keep this slot for you every week, this time."
Roger hesitated just inside the doorway, his hand already on the doorknob, and watched the doctor for a second or two. "I don't think so," he said at last, frankly.
He stepped outside and closed the door quickly on Dr. Madden's apparently friendly farewell of, "Well, it was nice to—" Roger doubted he'd be able to go through another session of that, let alone once a week. He'd much prefer to deal on his own with the black and empty holes in his soul Mark and Mimi and April had once filled. One more session with the doctor prodding and poking and prying it out of him with those too-perceptive eyes, and he feared what he might say. He feared what he might admit that he hadn't even yet admitted to himself.
Feedback: Will make me love you muchly.
Characters/Pairing: Roger, Dr. Madden
Word Count: 2144
Rating: PG
Summary: Roger finally lets his friends talk him into seeing a therapist, but is... less than cooperative.
Notes: Written for
speed_rent challenge #22. Part of my "Surviving" series - Too Far From Grace and The One to Survive.Disclaimer: I do not own Rent, and I'm extremely unlikely ever to. Shiny?
"So." Roger said after what seemed like at least five minutes of silence in the little room. He couldn't help but grow uncomfortable in that absolute silence, and he had to break it with something. If only the doctor would say something instead of just watching him and waiting for him to speak.
"So." Dr. Madden watched Roger from behind his glasses for a moment longer, with a penetrating look that somehow reminded Roger of the look Mark used to give him when he knew Roger was being willfully stubborn. Roger couldn't meet his eyes for more than a few moments before looking away. "Have you ever been to therapy before?"
Automatically, Roger gave a derisive snort. "Not counting rehab?"
The question didn't make the doctor so much as bat an eye. "Well, yes."
"No." Roger looked down, his expression carefully neutral, just like it always was when he spoke of Mark. "Mark… wanted me to once. I didn't go."
"Why not?"
"Because it was stupid," Roger snapped, more harshly than he meant. He paused a moment, and added more softly, "It was a couple months after Mimi died. I didn't want to talk about it."
Dr. Madden wrote something on the pad of paper he held in one hand, and Roger resisted the compulsion to snap at him through the simple fact that he had written something somehow bothered Roger, made him uncomfortable. As if he hadn't been already.
"So if you thought it was stupid then, what changed your mind? Why are you here now?" Roger wished the doctor would stop looking at him like that. His eyes were blue like Mark's, almost the exact shade, and if he had to sit here for an hour and see those eyes… Roger found himself wishing he hadn't come.
"My friends," Roger admitted, and after a moment added bitterly, "the ones that are left." Benny, Maureen and Joanne. Barely there, but at least the three of them cared enough to pressure him into therapy. He never told them that the only reason he'd agreed was because he thought Mark would want him to go. He flinched almost imperceptibly as he doctor started writing on his pad again, unaccountably bothered by it.
"You mentioned rehab," Dr. Madden said, glancing up as he finished writing. "Would you mind telling me what that was for?"
"Heroin," Roger said bluntly, watching Dr. Madden for some sign of surprise or discomfort. He didn't get the response he'd been looking for, nothing more than a faint nod of acknowledgement. Roger fought down the urge to snap at him just for being so calm and collected, never showing the slightest bit of surprise… Later, he was going to have to kill Benny for talking him into this, Roger decided.
"And how long were you doing heroin?"
"A couple years," Roger said, his voice sharpening a little. He never could think about that period of his life without April leaping to the forefront, and he wouldn't speak about that, not to a stranger. He'd already decided that, before he stepped into this room.
"You stopped because…?"
Because my girlfriend slit her wrists in the bathroom five fucking minutes before I got home.
"Because I got AIDS." He narrowed his eyes slightly and watched Dr. Madden, just daring him to comment.
"Well, that's… unfortunate." He tapped his pen idly against his pad of paper, staring at whatever he had written, and then glanced back up. Roger met his eyes with a challenging smirk, pleased to get some sort of reaction out of him, even as minor as that. "How long ago was that?"
Roger sighed and shifted in his chair, his eyes sliding across the room as he tried to avoid looking at the doctor for the time being. He glanced away from the doctor in his leather swivel chair, across the room to the print of some painting with hills and mountains, all in light and muted colors, probably supposed to be soothing or something… His eyes lingered on the door for a minute as he silently wished he could just leave, and then on the window. Finally, he looked back to Dr. Madden, sighing again with a belabored expression. "Several years ago."
And in those years… so many things he'd really rather not think about. Losing Angel and Mimi and Collins, the awkward year or two in the loft with Mark when there had been weeks at a time when he'd scarcely look at Mark, speak to him, let alone touch him, and losing Mark a year and a half ago… None of them experiences he cared to rehash with this man he'd never spoken to before, and many of them things he would prefer not to remember at all. Finally, he looked back up at Dr. Madden, his jaw tight.
"Look, I really don't want to be here," he said frankly. "I'm here because it's the only way to get Benny off my back and keep Maureen and Joanne from worrying about me. This whole thing is… pointless, just so you know."
Dr. Madden didn't say anything for a moment or two, just watching him, and finally said calmly, "Well, it's certainly going to be pointless if you won't give it a shot. You have to be willing to talk for this to do any good."
Roger blinked at the doctor's easy acceptance of his comment. "So what are we doing here, then?"
He shrugged. "You tell me."
"I already did tell you," Roger snapped, irritated that they seemed to be going in circles with this. Why hadn't he walked out yet, damn it? Because he's got eyes just like Mark's and I don't want to leave yet… He shoved that thought away quickly, determined to ignore both the thought and the piercing look Dr. Madden was giving him. He really should leave.
"Right…" Dr. Madden said slowly, still watching Roger as if trying to divine what he was thinking merely by watching him. "Well, as long as we're here, why don't you tell me something about yourself? Anything you like."
Roger just gave the man a level look. Right. As if the doctor didn't already have him pegged as a bitter ex-junkie who deserved to be dying, as if talking would change that impression. "Like what? You want me to tell you all about my life as a junkie? About how many of my friends I've watched die? About my troubled childhood? In case you were wondering about that, by the way, it wasn't. Troubled, I mean. It was actually more normal than a lot of my friends'. If you're looking for me to bare my soul, Doctor, it's not happening."
"Well, I wasn't particularly expecting you to." Dr. Madden shifted back in his chair, resting his ankle on his knee. "But unless you decide to open up, nothing's going to change. You're not going to change."
"You're kidding me, right? No, I'm not going to change. And you know why?" Roger leaned forward in his own chair, his expression icy. "What makes you think I need to change? Do you actually think it matters, or did you somehow miss the fact that I'm dying?"
"Your friends seem to think it matters," the doctor pointed out. "Why do you think that is?"
The question made Roger hesitate and lean back a little, his cold expression faltering. "I don't know. They're…" He paused thoughtfully, and finally added with a smirk, "Well, they're stupid. I… I have no idea what they're thinking, actually."
"You've got to have some idea."
Though it irritated Roger that the doctor kept pressing, the smirk faded after a second as Roger soberly considered the question, forcing himself to actually think about it rather than simply brush it off with a snide comment. What had they been thinking, talking him into this?
"I don't know," he said quietly. Dr. Madden heard the doubt in his voice, and raised his eyebrow questioningly. Roger sighed and winced, looking down at his hands. He did know, and Dr. Madden could see it.
"We used to be… like… a family," he said at last, the words coming slowly. It almost hurt him to say as much to this man, but with Dr. Madden just watching him… Why the hell does he have to look so much like Mark? he wondered silently. "That was a long time ago. And since then… They were always going to be the ones who'd still be around when the rest of us were gone. Except for Mark… he shouldn't have…" Roger remembered himself and shook his head, his expression slipping back to that careful neutrality, his voice cold. "They've had to deal with five of us dying. I'm the last one, and the other three aren't sick. I guess they feel like they owe it to me to look out for me." He drummed his fingers on his leg, staring out the window for a moment before he added quietly, "Or maybe not. Maybe they just feel like they owe it to Mark."
"Who's Mark?"
Roger glanced over at the doctor and sighed, responding simply, "A friend. He died." He said the same thing about all three of them when questioned, April and Mimi and Mark. Simpler than explaining what had happened, what they'd meant to him, all the pieces of himself he'd lost when he lost them.
"How'd he die?" Dr. Madden asked. He had the pen poised over the pad of paper again, ready to write… Roger glowered at him for a moment, tempted to snap at him to put down the damn pen. He didn't say it, just studied him a moment longer and looked back out the window once more.
"Some asshole hit our car. Mark was driving." He was surprised at himself, that he'd said that much. Most people who asked about Mark never got more out of him than a glare. He was still drumming his fingers on his leg in a regular rhythm, not paying any particular attention to it, but the soft sound was enough to break the silence while neither of them spoke, Dr. Madden watching Roger, Roger pointedly avoiding looking at this doctor who looked too much like Mark. "Wish he'd hit my side."
"You wish you'd died?"
Roger gave him a sardonic smile as his eyes flickered back to the doctor. "Well, let's face it, I'm going to die anyway. Better me than Mark. He could've… He could've done a lot, if he hadn't… if he were still here." He smiled faintly despite himself, just a quick smile that vanished in a heartbeat, almost too quick to see had the doctor not been watching him. "He was a filmmaker. Brilliant. And hell, he made better use of his time than I ever did. Or will, for that matter." At least Mark had always kept trying… Roger hadn't written a song for so long, almost never touched his guitar anymore. He'd given up, and didn't even care, because what did it matter?
Dr. Madden didn't speak, and after almost a minute of silence, Roger added more quietly, "But yes, I wish I'd died. For Mark, or with him. Either way…"
"Will you tell me about him? Mark? How long you knew him, what he was like…"
Roger met Dr. Madden's eyes and just watched him for a moment, searching his face, then sighed and shook his head. "No. I won't." He looked at the clock on the opposite wall and got to his feet, grabbing his coat off the back of the chair as he did. "And if you don't mind, Doctor," he said, almost sneering the title, "I think I'll go. Our time's up." He nodded to the clock.
"Will you be back next week?" Roger's hostility hadn't put the doctor off, it seemed… or else he simply didn't care as long as he got Roger's money. Well, Benny's money, since he was the one paying for this, but… that was irrelevant. "I can keep this slot for you every week, this time."
Roger hesitated just inside the doorway, his hand already on the doorknob, and watched the doctor for a second or two. "I don't think so," he said at last, frankly.
He stepped outside and closed the door quickly on Dr. Madden's apparently friendly farewell of, "Well, it was nice to—" Roger doubted he'd be able to go through another session of that, let alone once a week. He'd much prefer to deal on his own with the black and empty holes in his soul Mark and Mimi and April had once filled. One more session with the doctor prodding and poking and prying it out of him with those too-perceptive eyes, and he feared what he might say. He feared what he might admit that he hadn't even yet admitted to himself.