Melodrama To Spread [Roger]

[Deleted]

Helena huffed as she sat on the bench. This was hopeless. That Westley fellow had been nice, but not particularly helpful. She was, once again, on her own. She hated it. She wished she'd never left Athens! She hated it here! It was loud and busy and impossible to find what you were looking for. She had been trying to find someone to help her figure out what exactly had happened to her, and instead landed in some kind of grassy field. At least this place had somewhere to sit, which was exactly what she was doing.

Helena couldn't help but mutter to herself as she kicked around some grass with her bare foot, "I hate it here." She did. She didn't know a soul as far as she knew, and this place was nothing like home. She simply wanted to go home, and win back Demetrius. That was her goal. After him, Lysander and Hermia had played that cruel joke on her though she wasn't totally sure she ever wanted to see any of them ever again. As she played with the grass with her feet she pushed her leg to far forward and fell over, her face planting firmly on the ground. She grumbled about the gods having cursed her as she tried to get up.

[rogerrabbit]

It was very strange, what was going on with Roger right now. He just wasn’t feeling like his normal self, not finding the joy in a good gag, or a well placed fall, and while he certainly liked the sound of other people laughing, he couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to actually, y’know, think about how he could cause that laughter. Instead, what he had been doing lately was wandering around with a handkerchief that was worthy of a magician’s act, tears in his eyes and if he still had his ears, they would have been drooping like crazy right now.

There was no other way to explain, even though Roger had tried his best to deny it for the past couple of weeks, just as the truth kept eating away at his little rabbit heart, until he found himself in the park today, somehow (he wasn’t really paying attention to where he went, even if he had managed to get cursed at by a bunch of angry drivers earlier), and he muttered it to himself.
“I’m depressed.”

And now he felt like a failure as a Toon to top it off, because Toons didn’t get truly depressed. They made a show of being upset when a script or even a real life situation called for it, but usually within an hour, they were as bouncy (or in Baby Herman’s case, grumpy and inappropriate) as always. But depressed? Gosh, how could this have happened? Roger never got depressed before! What was he supposed to do --?

Then he noticed a pretty blonde girl who had fallen all over herself and was currently pulling herself up, looking perhaps just as upset as he was feeling lately. In spite of the depression, his natural Toony instincts kicked him and before he knew it, he was helping her the rest of the way up. “Hey…there ya go, good as new,” he assured her once he was sure she was on steady footing. He even tried to give her a little smile, but it came out looking rather pathetic…oh what was the world coming to?

[Deleted]

Helena sighed as she tried to get up, feeling like the entire situation was hopeless when she suddenly felt herself being pulled up, she looked at him, and was surprised. She didn't expect to be helped, but it was a relief, and she even giggled when he said she was as good as new. Or at least, she did until she saw the grass stain on her dress. She supposed it wouldn't be too bad, after all, she could find something else.

"Thank you." She figured the least she could do was thank him fr helping her. Then she noticed his sad face that mirrored her own. "What happened?" She figured something had to have happened to him. Maybe he had something similar to happen to him. She sighed just thinking about the horrible thing they did to her.

[rogerrabbit]

And there it was. The girl had giggled at a simple statement that he hadn’t even had to put much thought or energy into. That did make his smile a bit bigger, he would admit, but…he couldn’t put his finger on it, but it just wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. Gosh, this depression stuff just stunk like Pepe le Pew (no offense to the skunk, of course. Even though they never officially worked together, he and his dad were old pals and Roger liked him plenty, ‘specially when he was wearing a nose plug). He was gonna have to get out of it, somehow…but….but how could he? He couldn’t even imagine what he was gonna do without his Snowflake, especially when they were gonna have a long, happy life together with their baby, and he was so gonna give her the big fairytale wedding she deserved, and he would even ban his own hand buzzers if that would make her happy for him to not use them on the guests…gosh, that was bringing the tears into his eyes even more.

So he guessed it made sense that the pretty girl decided to ask him what was wrong. Well, at least she was a nice girl, sometimes the pretty girls were so nice…he had learned that about Jessica and just…couldn’t believe that about Snow. He just couldn’t. Snow had been the most perfectest, kindest, smartest, most beautifulest girl he had ever met, why else would he have wanted to spend the rest of his life (and he was a Toon, that was gonna be a while) with her? But yeah…the girl he had helped was nice.

“I…I….I just feel so alo-oh-owwwwwwwn,” he wound up sobbing and he blew his nose noisily in his handkerchief, sniffling for good measure. “Oh gosh, I’m sorry, I swear I’m not usually like this, I’m just depressed, which really stinks, ‘cause I’m a Toon and Toons are supposed to make people laugh and…oh-ho-ho, I miss my Snowflaaaaaaaaaaaaake!”

Clearly, he was doing such a fantastic job of beating his depression.

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Helena didn't know what had happened to him, but whatever it was it seemed to hurt him as much as what had happened to her hurt. She frowned quite a bit at this. How could anyone hurt him? He was a sweet guy! He was no Demitrius, at least not looks wise, but he was a kind person. "I'm sorry for that." She had no idea what had happened to this "Snowflake" which she thought was a bit of an odd name herself, but he clearly cared a lot about her.

Helena took him and led him over to the bench. She thought perhaps it might be easier to talk if they were sitting down, she wasn't sure. "The man I love played a horrible joke on me, along with the girl he thought he loved, and her bethrothed, so I ran off." She looked down thinking about it, a few tears falling. Oh how she missed Demitrius!

[rogerrabbit]

Even in his depressed state, Roger could definitely appreciate the fact that the pretty girl was proving her niceness by apologizing for how positively miserable he was looking. She didn’t seem to even mind that he was failing as a Toon quite miserably right now, but that might’ve just been ‘cause he was in his human form right now. Maybe if he were his normal bunny self she would’ve been disappointed, who knew? He was just glad she wasn’t disappointed, ‘cause that would’ve just made this whole thing worse. She’d be unhappy, he’d be unhappy…it’d be a fate worse than Dip.

Maybe he would’ve smiled a bit at the kindness she was showing by leading him to a bench, since walking around when you were in a fit of sobs was just really difficult and horribly impractical (and that was coming from the guy who could get run over by cars without any damage being inflicted on him, mind you), but again, he was in a fit of sobs. And using his handkerchief quite often. Really, it was a miracle that he could hear what the girl was saying at all, but hey, he used to be a rabbit, remember? They had exceptional hearing, so when she brought up her own past love, he froze, eyes bugging out and stopped sobbing for a minute, although he was still certainly upset with VERY wet eyes.

“Wait, wait, wait…he played a mean joke on you?” he exclaimed. Now here was the thing: Roger loved a good joke. Even a joke that sometimes annoyed some people, because at least there were those who found it to be hysterical and loved it. However, there was one kind of joke that he would never, ever, ever, ever, ever tolerate, and that was the joke that was meant to deliberately hurt someone’s heart. That was a way to use what Roger believed in the most, laughter, for the forces of evil!

Still sniffling, he fished in his pocket and handed her an extra handkerchief, his eyes still wide. “Oh you poor thing…gosh, we’re both miserabl-ull-ulllllll,” and there he went again with the sobs, and now he had the added motivation of sympathy for this poor pretty girl. “Who could ever hurt you? You’re so pretty and sweeeeeeet, not like Snowflake, but still! No one should hurt you-hoo-hoooooo.”

Anyone passing by this scene (and there were a few), couldn’t help but stare and wonder if they should be laughing or crying at the rather pathetic scene before them, and Roger, the born performer, didn’t even notice. That was the ultimate sign of just how depressing this whole situation really was for him.

[Deleted]

Helena was too busy feeling bad for him along with herself to realize he had called himself a toon, and even she had caught it, she wouldn't have known what it was anyway. What she did know was that he was a very sweet boy who was very depressed. She wished she could fix his, but she didn't even know how to fix her own love issues. It seemed the two of them were in quite the situation.

She looked up as she thought about Demitrius and Lysander and tears came down from her own eyes. She saw him hand her the tissue. "Thank you." She couldn't help but wipe her eyes, even though the tears continued to fall. Demitrius had taken her heart and ripped it out, but she would happily give it back to him, if only she knew where he was.

"Yes, they played a horrible joke on me! Two horrible boys, one of them I loved, pretended to be in love with me, but everyone, me included, knew they loved Hermia." She cried again talking about it. Helena couldn't see the people watching them through her own tears or she'd probably be even more self conscious than usual.

[rogerrabbit]

Gosh, hearing the poor girl’s story was getting Roger really steamed up to top it all off. You just didn’t mess with a girl’s, or anyone’s emotions for that matter, by making a joke out of them! There were certain things you didn’t joke about! There were rules, even in cartoons! Why else would they have been trying to censor Speedy Gonzalez for all those years (Roger was very glad to report, thankfully, that he was back with the Looney Tunes’ gang: turned out that the Spanish people loved ‘im, go figure)! But the fact was that it was way, way, way, waaaaaay worse to pretend you were in love with someone. That was just a line that you didn’t cross. People and Toons all had breakable hearts and you just didn’t mess with them for a joke!

“Gosh, that’s just terrible!” he remarked, wiping his eyes some more, seeing as this whole conversation was actually making him cry even more, but hey, he had someone to cry with, that was good…he thought. Maybe. This depression thing still sucked. “You poor thing, I…I wish I could make it better…” He sniffled some more, because it seemed like there was absolutely nothing else he could do in this parade of pity. “But I can’t even keep Snow White with me, apparently, so I guess there’s really nothin’ I can dooooo…” In came a new flood of tears, and if he weren’t in such pain, it would probably grate on people’s nerves. Hell, perhaps it was already.

“Where did I go wronnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng? I loved ‘er, she was gonna have a baby, and I woulda married her as soon as possible, I swear, but she left anyways…maybe I waited too long…I musta done something wrong, ‘cause this isn’t the first time, it’s gotta be me, it’s just gotta…I’m a TERRIBLE BOYFRIEN-EN-ENNNNND!” The handkerchief was becoming useless.

[Deleted]

Helena certainly didn't want to make him feel worse, though he was making her feel worse (Not that it was hard to do), but it was still horrible. They clearly both had it bad. Love was horrible. She was starting to really hate love. It was only hurting her, and it was hurting him.

Him, she just realized neither of them knew each other's name! She was able to take her mind off of Demitrius for a moment and look at him. She sniffled though as she said this. "I'm Helena. What's your name?" She figured this sweet boy was helping her, she thought she should be nice to him.

[rogerrabbit]

It was really a shame that Roger was feeling as depressed as he was, considering the fact that if he had been in the state of mind to notice, he would have realized just how hilarious this whole exchange was on a level that didn’t even involve schadenfreude. The fact was that the two of them were being just a LITTLE ridiculous, even to the most empathetic, because all of this crying at each other wasn’t really going to do much to help, now was it? For whatever reason, that hit Roger now…sure, he still had some tears rolling down his face, but…she…she was really gone. Even Plum couldn’t bring her back and if Plum couldn’t find her and bring his Snowflake back, why would crying like a baby do anything to fix it?

Wiping his eyes (hopefully) for the last time, however, wasn’t going to be a cure all, because even as the lump in his throat subsided, he still kind of felt like someone had tried to punch their way out of his chest, kind of like in that one movie he caught a glimpse of one Halloween…that thing gave him nightmares like you would not believe. And now here he was, depressed, not crying, not at all sure of what to do, especially since he realized that he still had to help the pretty girl and didn’t know how…

But at least she had the sense to introduce herself. Managing a flicker of a smile, he stuck out his hand. “Name’s Roger…Roger Rabbit…” All right, fine, one last sniffle…oh, and he made sure it was the hand that wasn’t holding his handkerchief, even he had a sense of hygiene, and besides, Toon germs were certainly different from human germs. He didn’t really wanna know how the eye popping sneezes would affect a human. Uggh…”It’s, uh…nice to meetcha Helena…”

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Helena had always been a mess when it came to love. She was obsessive to a fault. She had cried in her room for hours straight when Hermia got engaged to Demitrius, so none of this was a surprise for her. She was just that way, she always had been. So the fact that she was sobbing with a perfect stranger in a park over love wasn't too much of a shock for her. This was the norm for her.

"It's good to meet you Roger. Perhaps it would have been better under better circumstances, but, it's a pleasure anyway." Roger was being a good man, listening to her whine about things he had no knowladge of, and most certainly did not care about. "You seem like a decent person. At least with how you're listening to me." She shook his hand back. If he was polite to her, it was only right she be polite back.

[rogerrabbit]

…him? A decent person? Now, it wasn’t like he thought he was a bad person, but still, being himself, it was just always a pleasant surprise, hearing that sort of thing, and if he had his bunny ears, they probably would have been turning pink. Instead, he just gave her a sheepish smile. “Well gosh Helena, I don’t know what to say…oh yeah, thank you.” Then he managed…wow. He hadn’t really laughed since he realized Snow wasn’t coming back, had even realized that if he didn’t laugh soon, he was probably better off Dipped, except there really wasn’t that much Dip around these parts…but this pretty girl had been really kind.

“You’re a really decent person too…and pretty. Really pretty, and those darn boys weren’t worth it, obviously…not that I’m the right person to talk,” he noted…and perhaps for the first time, he was realizing something that everyone, from RK Maroon to Eddie to…well, just about everyone, really, except maybe that one Westley guy. That was a guy who seemed to understand being lovelorn towards someone who acted like they didn’t give two cents about him. “I…I seem to make lots of bad choices…” Could it be? Could it be that Roger was making a breakthrough about his love life?

“’Cause otherwise, why would they ever leave me?” Nevermind. He was still blaming himself. Surely, somewhere in Hollywood, Eddie Valiant was finding himself getting a headache without quite knowing why. “But you…you deserve way better. You’re way too nice and pretty and nice and pretty girls always deserve to have really, really, really good boyfriends…I mean, that’s what I thought I was for Jessica and Snow, but obviously I wasn’t.” It didn’t really occur to him that he hadn’t mentioned Jessica to Helena before, too busy thinking that he needed to figure out what he always seemed to do wrong. Letting out a sigh, he said, “But yeah…you’re gonna find someone who will never ever ever play mean tricks like that, and will always buy you flowers on your birthday and have pillow and flour fights with you and just…” He sniffled, just sniffled, thankfully. It seemed that he was running out of tears, finally. “Love you. Trust me.”

Roger didn’t really want to think about what his fate was, ‘cause how was he supposed to get it right if he didn’t even know what he did wrong?