#i eish i had the talent and dedication to write long aus like this but alas

[lightfiltersin]

so idk if this has been done before, sorry if it has (I have awful memory) but I've been listening to the rent soundtrack a lot recently and

the old guard rent au

where booker is roger, nile is mimi, joe is collins, nicky is angel, andy is maureen, quynh is joanne, and I guess copley can be benny but I won't talk about him much (or at all)

ok and this might be kinda ooc to fit the rent universe but whatever. cw for talk of the HIV crisis and rent spoilers

so booker and joe are roommates. booker is a recovering addict. he and his wife were both heroin addicts at one point and they both got HIV. his wife dies of HIV. after that booker gives up music (let's say he's a musician/song writer)

booker and joe meet in a bar, after booker's wife's funeral and he goes to drown his sorrows. joe helps booker get clean, takes him to an HIV clinic, pushes him to go to NA and all that jazz

joe is an art teacher by day, artist by night. one day on his way home from school, he gets jumped and mugged. he gets the shit beaten out of him and he's left alone in an alley

nicky finds him there, patches him up

nicky is a street drummer. he also has HIV, but he doesn't let it hold him back. he's used it as a sign to live and love freely

from this moment on joe and nicky are inseparable. they fall in love, they talk about leaving New York and starting a restaurant in Santa Fe (alexa play I'll cover you)

andy is an activist, the can't be tamed type. she's gorgeous and bisexual, attracting the attention of all men and women. she used to date joe before he realized he was into men, but now they're just really good friends. she's now dating quynh, a lawyer for some good cause (my brain isn't working enough to come up with a cause but there is one)

so nile has recently moved to new york, she lives the floor above joe and booker. she stops by one day because the building's electricity got cut off and she needs someone to light her candle

nile is confident and flirty, leaving booker fairly speechless. she's 19 and working as a stripper to pay her way through community college

booker struggles with his attraction to her, not wanting to put his baggage onto her. so he shuts her out and keeps her at an arm's length

it's Christmas and they're celebrating andy's most recent protest. nicky got a huge tip for his drumming and uses the money to treat the group out to dinner

nile confronts booker for ignoring her and pushing her away when they both leave the restaurant at the same time. booker has been nervous about telling nile he has HIV, but it turns out that she also has it. they find out since they both left to take their AZT medication. so they talk it out, booker is honest about his past and how he feels and nile accepts it all

andy proposes to quynh, and everything seems happy until it rapidly starts going downhill

at their engagement party, quynh catches andy flirting with multiple waiters and waitresses and they have an explosive break up

booker really can't see why nile wants him and continues to push her away. he doesn't want to hold her back

nicky suddenly starts getting sicker and sicker (angel is supposed to die and killing off nicky makes me sad) but let's say nicky dies

joe is heartbroken and sets up a small funeral, paints a dozen portraits of nicky. the group is somewhat fragmented, but he asks them all to be there for nicky

of course that's not how things go and there is arguing

joe confronts booker telling him to get his shit together. that nile loves him but she's getting sicker

booker goes to find nile and finds her on the floor after she collapsed. they take her to an HIV clinic

eventually nile does get better, and while she was recovering booker picked up his guitar for the first time in years and writes her a song

yeah idk how to end it anymore. i don't have the time or energy or skill to flesh this out but this au lives rent free (haha) in my mind