Title: Right Where They Belong
Author: Kayla
Feedback: Would be nice. :)
Pairing: Well...many are mentioned. It's MOSTLY a Mark/Roger story, but the other mentioned pairings are, April/Roger, Mark/Maureen, Mimi/Roger, and one-sided April/Mark. I think that's all.
Word Count: 3,495
Rating: PG
Genre: Hmm…romance and a tiny bit of drama. Well, okay, more than a tiny bit.
Summary: A different take on how Mark and Roger came to be, from Mimi's point of view. Pre-PostRent.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything….well, nothing in this story, anyways.
Warnings: None.
Notes: This idea struck me a couple of weeks ago. A lot of the stories I've been reading where Mimi is still alive have her hating Mark for being with Roger. Don't get me wrong, I've read some REALLY great ones, but I wanted to show a different side to the story. I don't think this story is all that great, but I had to write it down because it was slowly driving me crazy. Also, I'm my own beta, so if there are any mistakes, I apologize. I've read this story over and over, so hopefully I didn't miss anything, but if I did, I'm sorry.
I believe we're all put here for a reason. We all have a destiny to fulfill. I believe I've fulfilled mine, and now it's time to tell the story, because once you fulfill your destiny, what's left, really? It's not like I had all that much time to begin with, but I imagine the end will come fast for me, and this story has to be told before the time comes.
I guess the best place to start would be the beginning. Now let me just remind you, this is the beginning as it was told to me, by Collins. Maybe all my facts aren't correct, but I can't see how they would be that obscure, seeing how Collins told me this, and Collins knows everything.
I went to Collins with questions, lots of questions. Ever since I came into Roger's life, I've always tried to get him to tell me the story of how he met April and Mark. All I could get from him was that he met April in a club when he was performing one night, and that I didn't need to know anymore. It was odd that he wouldn't tell me how he met Mark. Mark did the same thing when I tried to ask him, but he wasn't quite as rude about it. I had always assumed it was some story about the rock star kid, and the geeky filmmaker, being the outcasts in junior high and being best friends forever from that point forward. But when I went to Collins, he told me my theory was all wrong. The story goes something like this:
It was true; Mark was the geeky filmmaker outcast. But it wasn't Roger he bonded with. It was a pretty girl, with flaming red hair and eyes lined in charcoal liner. The boys were afraid of her, and the girls hated her. She wore bracelets covering both of her wrists and played the drums. She was the outcast that sat alone at the lunch table. Mark stumbled into the junior high lunchroom, alone with his camera, and noticed the lonely girl right away. He asked if he could take a seat next to her, and that's where their journey began. We'd all thought that Mark and Roger had been friends first, but no, that's not how it went at all. It was Mark and April against the world before Roger ever came into their lives.
Collins said that the years passed, and not much changed. After high school, April and Mark got into college. His father forced him into pre-med, and April followed behind him, promising that he wouldn't have to do it alone, and to think of all the lives they could save someday. Mark hated college. You wouldn't think so, just looking at him. I always wondered why he wasn't going to film school somewhere, but I never bothered to ask him. He didn't talk much about the past, and by the time I met him, college was a distant memory. One day, right after the end of their freshman year, Mark persuaded April into dropping out of college and running away with him to the city.
They came into the city with a hundred dollars, two suitcases, and no place to stay. April suggested they look up Benny, the junior they met just a few months before, who dropped out of school as a late rebellion against his father, who was making him go to law school against his will. From what I understand, they found him living happily in the loft with Collins and Maureen, but it's really hard to imagine Benny and Maureen ever living together in peace. Collins said there was a time when Benny wasn't such a jackass, but that's pretty hard to imagine, too.
It was just a few months after they moved into the city that April met Roger. Maureen had dragged her and Mark to a club one night. April sat at the bar, with a drink in her hand, despite being underage at the time, and she spent the night there, avoiding her roommates. Mark and Maureen had been getting close. It was quite obvious that Mark was infatuated with Maureen, although I suppose that will always be quite obvious. He loves her. He's always loved her. It's not hard to see why. She's got a pretty smile that could make anyone melt, and once you get past the protesting diva, you get to see her heart, and Maureen has a good heart, even if it's not always in the right place. I understand this, but from what Collins told me, April did not. April loved Mark. April loved Mark in the big, devastating, fallen-for-your-best-friend-and-scared-shitless-of-it, kind of way. So that night, April set out to drink her problems away. She just wanted to forget for one night that she loved Mark. She wanted to forget for one night, just how much it killed her to see Maureen being the one making him so happy. Her eyes flickered to the band on stage at some point during the night and settled on Roger. When she looked into his emerald green eyes, he was looking right back. I suppose the magic of the moment was lost on Collins and me, having not been there to witness it. After the show, Roger found April, and it was the beginning of something beautiful, and in the end, quite tragic.
So this part is where everything really begins. Two weeks after they began dating, April brought Roger back to the loft to introduce him to the people she called her family. This is almost my favourite part of the story. Collins said he was sitting at the "table" in the loft, eating a bowl of cereal when this happened. Mark was on the couch, fidgeting with his camera, of course. Roger was being dragged into the loft by April. Mark looked up from his camera, his blue eyes meeting with Roger's green ones, and Collins swears to me that Roger seemed as though the wind had been knocked out of him. He could do nothing but stare into Mark's blue eyes, until finally Collins spoke up, asking who April's friend was. When I look into Mark's eyes, I can understand how they would take someone's breath away. Collins laughed at me when I told him this, and said something similar happened when he met Mark, but that I probably shouldn't tell Angel if I happen to reach her before he does.
The day April brought Roger to the loft was the beginning of Mark and Roger. Collins said Roger quickly became a permanent fixture in the loft, and he fit in well, as if he'd always been a part of their small but happy family. The only person he really had a problem with was Maureen, but from the stories I've heard over the past two years, it was mutual.
When Roger came into their lives, he was clean. The only drug he'd ever touched was pot, and that seems completely harmless compared to the drug he later became addicted to. Collins told me that it didn't happen right away. April would be high every now and then, but that was to be expected from a nearly-twenty-year-old girl like April in a city like New York. It wasn't until around the six month of their relationship, that Roger began to realize April had a problem. He warned her that he would tell Mark, but they would fight, and she would cry. Collins told me he heard this late at night. Sometimes he would hear them quietly fighting in the other room, other times they would be shouting at each other on the street. She never wanted Mark to know about her problem because she didn't want him to be disappointed in her. You would have thought Roger wouldn't have been sucked in to her world of drug induced happiness, because it scared him so much to watch her shoot up when she thought he wasn't looking, and to see her walk around so high she could barely remember the way home after Roger's gigs, but something happened that turned everything around.
Roger was coming home from band practice one night. April was working on this particular night. He walked into the loft, fully prepared to spend the evening with his best friend, playing the guitar while Mark filmed him. He walked into the loft with a smile on his face, that I would imagine quickly faded as he opened the door. He found Maureen and Mark "going at it" on the couch. Collins told me that Roger once said something inside him broke at that moment. He didn't know why. It's not like he hadn't witnessed Maureen and Mark kissing or inappropriately groping each other from time to time, but he said this was different. So Roger went to The Life Café, where April was working, waited until her shift was over, and asked her to take him to The Man. At first she wouldn't take him. She didn't want him following in her path. When Roger explained the story to Collins, he told him that there was some kind of understanding that crossed over April's face in the midst of his begging. That somehow she just knew what Roger had witnessed, and that there was nothing she could do for him then, except lead him to the only thing in the world that could take his pain away.
For a while, everyone was blind to the growing addiction right under their noses. But as it began to get to the point where Roger and April were high nearly every night, Mark started to worry. He tried to talk to them. If they were high they would laugh at him and shrug it off, or fight with him on the bad nights. Collins said he tried as well. He tried to talk to them when they were sober, but those times became fewer and farther between as time wore on.
It was near the end of December, just a few days before Christmas, when Mark opened the door to the bathroom and found April. Collins said he heard the strangled cry from Mark that morning. He rushed out of his room, knowing that something terrible had happened from the eerie silence in the loft. He explained to me that it wasn't the silence he heard when he was the only one in the loft, but it was the silence of death.
When he reached Mark, he was on his knees in the doorway to the bathroom. He wasn't crying, but he was shaking and gasping for air. Collins said that he looked into the bathroom, and felt sick right away. He kneeled down next to Mark, wanting to give him some kind of comfort, but Mark shrugged him off and told him that he had to go get Roger.
Mark returned only a few minutes later, pushing a half-asleep Roger towards the bathroom, never once removing his hands from Roger's body as they stood in the doorway. Collins told me that there were a few terrifying seconds where Roger did nothing. No emotion crossed his face, he didn't move, all he did was stare at the body of the broken girl in the bathroom. It wasn't until he turned his head to look at the note April left on the mirror, announcing they had AIDS that Roger finally turned his body towards Mark, wrapped himself around the filmmaker, and began sobbing. Collins said that he watched as they fell to the floor, still holding one another, before leaving to call an ambulance.
I remember seeing the paramedics bringing April's body out of the loft. I was on my way to work when they passed me in the hall. I'd only seen April in the hallway a few times, but I just had a sick feeling that it was her body being carried out of the building. Every time we passed each other, she would smile and wave to me. I always thought maybe we would get along well, and promised myself that one day, when neither of us seemed to be in a hurry, I would stop and talk to her. I never got the chance.
I didn't go to Collins completely unaware of everything that had happened before I met Roger. I can remember the sounds I would hear coming from the loft above my own. I remember hearing the crying, the screaming, and the sounds of objects flying towards walls that were barely standing as it was.
But my experience was nothing compared to Mark's. He's got the scars to prove it. Collins said that Roger would become violent, and he wasn't always there to protect Mark from the flying fists. These are times even Collins has trouble talking about, so he left a lot of things out. He did tell me about one particular fight between Mark and Roger during the withdrawal. He was sitting with Mark in the living room when Roger came out of his bedroom. Mark was quickly on his feet, ready to do whatever it was Roger needed. When Mark asked Roger if he could do anything, Roger replied harshly, telling him that he'd done enough. Collins said the glare Roger was giving Mark was enough to make any man want to turn around and run, but Mark was never smart enough to run from Roger. Mark had reached out for Roger, only to have his hand quickly slapped away, and an angry Roger shouting that he didn't want Mark to touch him. Roger began yelling, and I'm sure even I heard him this night, from the way Collins explained it. He screamed at Mark that this was all his fault. That if he'd just realized April was in love with him, instead of chasing after Maureen, April would still be alive. He told Mark that it was his fault April turned to drugs. That she would do anything to just numb the pain of seeing Mark with Maureen. Collins told me that he could see the guilt written all over Mark's face, but that didn't stop Mark from shooting back, asking Roger what his excuse was. Collins watched in awe, as Roger's sad eyes met Mark's, before he turned around and went back into his room. Mark didn't understand at the time, but Collins did. He knew that Roger turned to the drugs for the very same reason April had.
The months wore on, and I remember the fighting had mostly stopped. Collins told me that he left for a few months before he met Angel, when he was sure Roger was doing well enough that Mark could handle him on his own. Sometime in the midst of all this chaos, Benny eloped with Alison, and Maureen, who had been neglected the moment Mark lost April, turned to Joanne for comfort.
So I guess this leads us up to the night I met Roger, and well, everyone knows what happened in the year following that. But on that Christmas night, just barely over a year ago, when I nearly lost my life, everything seemed to change.
Yes, I loved Roger. I still love Roger. I will always love Roger. But my candle blew out long ago. The passion died, and when the passion died, everything we had died. This was before I truly understood that we were never really meant to be. I was just a player in a much bigger game, which had been set into motion the day April met Mark.
Roger and I weren't together long after that night. We only lasted until the spring. We didn't seem to be as happy with one another at that point. By then, I began noticing things. Things that I should have noticed months before, but had never really paid any attention to. It was a look Roger would give Mark every now and then. A smile they would share when they thought no one was watching. It was Mark, always nagging Roger to take his AZT. It was Roger, smiling so much I was surprised his cheeks never hurt when he was around Mark. There was happiness between them that I couldn't provide for Roger, but I quickly began to realize that it wasn't my place.
It was late summer when I finally approached Roger. I remember I told him that I thought it was strange that Mark and April were the ones that had been friends since they were kids. I remember he looked up from his guitar at me, and he asked me how I knew about that. I confessed that Collins told me everything I wanted to know. He began to get angry for a moment, but I told him that I had to find out somewhere, and I could never get the answers out of him or Mark. I took a seat next to him on the couch and asked him how long he'd been in love with Mark. He tried to tell me he wasn't, but I told him I knew better. I told him when he wrote "Your Eyes", it wasn't my eyes that he was thinking of. He didn't deny it, and I felt like it should hurt a little, but it didn't bother me at all. It actually brought a smile to my face. So I asked him again, and this time he answered with a shrug. He fell silent, and I almost thought that he wasn't going to tell me. I began to get up from the couch, but his voice stopped me. He told me that he was pretty sure he'd been in love with Mark from the first day he met him. He recounted that day for me. It was interesting to hear it from his perspective instead of Collins'. The story was nearly the same though. Mark's blue eyes had taken Roger's breath away, and he'd known at that moment that he never wanted to be anywhere but at Mark's side for the rest of his life. I asked him then, about April. He assured me that he loved her too. She brought him happiness he'd never known, before their drugs and their death sentence ripped it away.
I asked him why he was sitting there alone with his guitar, instead of going after Mark. He told me it would never work out. I rolled my eyes at him, something I'd gotten used to over the past year and a half. I told him that Mark loved him. He argued that it wasn't possible. There was too much baggage between the two of them. He told me he was too selfish. That Mark gave and gave to him, but he never gave anything in return. He told me that he didn't even give Mark the time to grieve for his best friend after her unexpected death. I explained to Roger that I knew he felt guilty for everything Mark had been through with him, but I also knew that Mark wouldn't have stuck by his side if he didn't love Roger just as much as Roger loved him. I reminded him that we're not like other people. We don't have all the time in the world, and it was crazy to be spending the time we do have without someone to love.
Lucky for me, Mark walked into the loft before Roger had a chance to answer. I stood up and made my way to the door, but not without turning to Roger and telling him to talk to Mark. The last thing I heard before closing the door was Mark asking what Roger needed to talk to him about. They've been together since that day.
The others, Angel, Maureen, Joanne, and even Benny, always thought that I was Roger's greatest love. They always assumed that we would be together until the end. Collins and I knew better than that. I was never meant to be Roger's greatest love. April wasn't either. That honor went to Mark.
I don't think I really believed in destiny or fate before I met Mark and Roger. But now I see that it was April's destiny to bring the boys together, and it was mine to bring Roger back to life, so when the time was right, he could sweep Mark off his feet.
I've made a few accomplishments in the time I've known the guys. I made Roger live again when no one else was able to, I beat my drug addiction, but I think the greatest accomplishment of all, was being able to help Roger and Mark see what had been there all along. I hope that I've made April proud. I hope when we meet, which I'm sure will be someday soon, we'll be able to watch over our boys and know that they're finally right where they belong.