A/N—Disclaimer: I don't own RENT.
Summary: Mark and Roger centric. Pre-RENT, but it may continue on into the events of RENT.
Notes: This is rated T for descriptive violence, vivid imagery, and possible triggers. Please be warned. :) Thanks! Also, it's friendship only.
Please read/review!
Moments
The night April killed herself was the longest, loneliest night that the battered loft had witnessed in all the years that it had housed the poor and destitute, the lonely and quiet, the deprived and gasping.
Roger grabbed his guitar and spun about the room once, scanning it for paper and pen, which he grabbed from the table and shoved into the open hole of his guitar. The strings rang discordantly, rubbing at his heart uncomfortably. The screenplay that Mark had set aside before going to make a cup of tea—now spilled across the kitchen floor soaking the floor, the trash, and the shattered porcelain that seemed so symbolic of their life—went careening through the air, spiral upon spiral of carefully typed up paper, off-screens and on-screens, voiceovers and dialogue, camera pans and zooms all scattered across the page like the pages were upon the floor. The only sign that Mark gave of his dissent to Roger's treatment of the screenplay was a wince unaccompanied by any sound. His face had an odd expression that was not grief, which was enough to incite Roger's rage.
"It was crap anyway," he spat at the filmmaker, and then actually directed a spit at the papers. He choked on grief halfway through and missed the screenplay, but he didn't have the heart to try again. Instead he spun once more, twanging the strings, even though it hurt his head, just to see Mark wince again out of his peripheral vision. There was more pain on Mark's face for the noise than there was for April.
He stormed out.
The room went alternately cold and hot, his sweater not heavy enough one moment and too heavy the next, itchy and weighty and oppressive. His eyes got tight behind his glasses, and pain throbbed in his head and ears. The ends of his toes and fingertips went cold and numb, spreading up through his limbs. It reached his middle, and he collapsed onto the couch, massaging his knuckles.
Beneath Mark's feet his screenplay rustled. The words crumpled in on themselves, and a sorrowful death scene popped out, with the hero clutching the heroine, waling to a blood-red sky. He recoiled from his own work.
April…
There had been nothing wrong with April, save for the fact that she had moved into their flat and insisted that Mark ought to move out. He'd let it slide, and hadn't said a word to Roger about the blistering fights they'd have when he was gone, both of them standing on opposite sides of the room, April screaming every horrible word in her vocabulary, Mark waiting until she'd stop for breath to slip in a particularly biting phrase. By the end he was always screaming too. April hated him. He disliked her, but took relief in the reprieve from his numb façade that April gave him. She never told Roger that they fought; for fear that he might lose his temper and kick her out. Mark never told because he couldn't bring himself to admit to Roger that his girlfriend wouldn't be happy until his roommate was gone.
Roger adored April. When he found her, that first night after his show, he came home and sang the praises of the beautiful girl who saw in him the glorious talent Roger was always certain he possessed. He loved her, he said, and when Mark asked if it was possible for him to love her after only knowing her for a few hours, Roger glared at him, then went and got high. When he brought her home a few days later, she smiled at Mark for about half a second before her eyes narrowed and she noticed the wide variety of stuff in the room—guitar mingling with camera, leather jackets and random scarves all tossed together in the dirty hamper even though they were relatively clean and they didn't have the money to do any washing.
"Cool stuff, Roger," she said, nodding her head. "Didn't take you for a scarf kind of man, but whatever."
"That's Mark's stuff," Roger explained, kicking aside a film canister that Mark had used and discarded, and which they kept to kick around when they got mad (normally when they tripped on it and blamed each other for having the bright idea of keeping it around anyway.)
Her eyes narrowed further, and it was clear to Mark that she had always known to whom the scarves, the camera, the film canisters, and all things non-Roger belonged. She'd only been scoping out her home, and she'd figured out that she was sharing.
But she remained nonchalant. "How much stuff you gotta bring, Mark?" she joked, smiling again and patting his arm. "Do you like moving in and out every day?"
"April, Mark lives here. Uhhhh…that room." It took Roger a few minutes to locate the door, which was a large reason why Mark had chosen it. If Roger couldn't find his room, then he couldn't mess with the stuff in it. "And he doesn't like visitors, so don't go in there. And he likes there to be a clean path to the bathroom in the morning, and he likes the bathroom to be clean. So don't make it dirty without cleaning it up. OH! And whatever you do, don't touch the camera, his scarves, his screenplays, his shoes, his bike, his—"
"I don't care what you touch," Mark intervened. "I really don't. It's only when Roger touches it that I mind."
April smiled that one last time, and then the scowl on her face when she looked at Mark became permanent.
Roger banged on the strings in a manner that he never would have used if he had been sober, sane, and not high. But he was drunk on the cheap beer that Mark had bought, tasted, and shoved on the roof as a free gift for whoever wanted beer bad enough to drink beer that crappy. He was insane with anger and grief and fear. He was high on the same old junk that April had introduced him too, a few days after she moved into the loft.
"You're so stressed…it really does help, you know."
He gave in without fighting. The gigs were becoming too much, what with playing several each night to keep up with his share of the rent. His voice was hoarse, his throat was raw, his fingers were blistered, and his hands were so cramped that he hadn't been able to open his door that morning and had been forced to hammer on the door and scream (with his already ruined voice) for twenty minutes until Mark came in from early morning filming, opened the door, and extorted an excuse from April, who, obviously on a high, managed to slur that she "had been taking a nap because Mark's editing had kept her up."
"Yeah, no more of that, by the way," Roger said. "It's irritating."
"It never bothered you before." Mark was half out of it as he started setting up his stuff in the middle of the floor. April had taken it down, but he hadn't said anything, so Roger assumed he didn't mind.
"It bothers April, though."
"Oh." A pause. "Alright…I'll do it in my room."
"Why don't you just leave?" She came in, shivering with the cold and the withdrawal from a fix that had fallen through. "Educated boy like yourself…you could get so much better…and get out of our hair."
Mark ignored her.
Not long after Roger's gigs increased, and April stayed at the loft more, she began her campaign to convince Mark to leave. Her tactic was simple—tell Mark he ought to go, and hope that he would feel guilt ridden enough to do so.
His throat started to burn. It was amazing that he could talk anymore, what with all the damage he had done his voice attempting to keep from crying after all of their fights. Mark swallowed, fighting back the mix of bile and tears.
"I mean—"
The door opened, and Roger entered.
"If you got that on film I'll break your camera."
Mark looked up at Roger. He shook his head, swallowing again.
"Good. All you ever do is catch stuff on that stupid camera. It drove April crazy."
"A—" Mark bit back the angry retort (A lot of stuff drove April crazy. I drove April crazy.)
Roger buried his head in his hands. He was shaking. "I need a fix," he whispered.
Mark shook his head, like he always did. "No you don't. You want one."
"You didn't let me finish!" Roger snapped at him.
Mark recoiled. "Fine. Finish."
"I said I need a fix…but I'm not having one."
"You're not?"
"No. These drugs…if I hadn't been so addicted, then…then…then there's a fifty percent chance I could have avoided getting this. AIDS."
Roger's shaking increased, and his voice broke. "AIDS…AIDS, Mark. April had AIDs. I have AIDS."
Mark bit back his own tears and put a hand on Roger's arm. "If you take your medicine you'll be fine."
Roger glared at him. "I didn't ask for your opinion! You're always butting in, telling us what to do. No wonder you drove April up the wall."
Mark looked at the ground. "Let's not talk about April, Roger. Sh—she's gone, and we can't bring her back."
Roger choked. "I know she's gone. Why do you think we're sitting here trying to face the fact that she went and killed herself?"
"Roger, I'm not trying to hurt you, and I never tried to hurt her! Why are you so mad at me?"
"Are you sad for her death, Mark? The TRUTH! Does the fact that she's gone upset you? Or are you just upset that your little life's all messed up now, what with me having AIDS and everything?"
"I—Roger—"
"You didn't like her."
Mark turned around and grabbed his camera. He knew he was acting like Roger just had, getting angry, running away, but he had to go. He had to get out.
"Where are you going?"
"Out." He dashed out the door. Just a few minutes. If he could stay on the roof for just a few minutes then Roger would leave. He'd run and break his resolution about getting off the drug. He'd go get a fix and sit in the bar, high. And then Mark could go back and get his stuff.
He didn't make it that far.
The moment that the door to the roof closed behind him he sank to his knees and burst into tears.
Huge, choking tears that shook his so hard that he became physically sick. He vomited on the ground, again and again, crying and moaning and whimpering, clutching his stomach and rocking back and forth.
He cried like he had never cried before, and like he hoped desperately that he would never cry again.
The loft was oppressive. It made Roger feel nauseous, and he staggered to the door and stumbled down the stairs. His feet slammed against the sidewalk, sending jarring pain up and down his legs. It didn't match the pain in his chest.
Dying. He was dying.
As he walked down the street, tears pouring down his face, he heard the sound of someone crying.
