Disclaimer: I don't own RENT, or any of the characters within the following story. There will be mentions of: attempted suicide, prostitution, and other things which may not be appropriate for a young audience.
Happy Birthday, Toni, I hope you had a good day. I wrote this for you and I hope that you like it.
Love Ricky
On the front stage of a haze filled bar, a guitarist stood near a microphone. His arms were covered in tattoos. He rolled his sleeves down and scanned through the crowd. He knew that his friend would be there, in the front row. She wasn't there, though. Somebody, at the back of the room, waved to the stage. The guitarist's hand moved to the neck of the guitar. The guitarist was Roger Davis, a twenty-four year old
Roger played every note at the same rate that he did in practise. It wasn't hard for him really. Their songwriter, Rover, didn't make the hardest songs to play.
After the show, a few hours later, when Roger walked onto the streets, blindly drunk, he stumbled through with April by his side. Eventually he walked by his apartment.
At the front of his apartment building, there was a guy, watching from the bench near the street. His extremely short blond hair was all around his head. He held a pair of oval black glasses in his hand. On the ground, next to his feet, a bulky camera sat. His hands were in his dark pockets. Roger stopped and walked into the apartment, barely noticing the man on the bench.
The man on the bench then put his glasses on and kept walking through the mild chill. His imagined the man he saw, on his way back to his friend's apartment, where he was staying.
"Mark, you're back!" his roommate said.
Mark walked into the bedroom, placed his camera on the bedside table and collapsed onto the bed. He shut the door and laid on the ground.
It had seemed like for days, Mark had just sat on the bench, camera in one hand and script in another. He was barely twenty-three at this time, just dropped out of university the year before. They didn't let him make the film he wanted to make.
The next day would be just another day of filming again, from eight until one in the morning. He relaxed on the bed. As the morning light hit his eyes, he knew he was already and hour behind. When he left the house, only fifteen minutes later, he was back at the apartment. He pulled out his camera, and he breathed in and out.
With his camera in one hand, he spun the handle in the other, allowing it to capture another few seconds of film. He sighed again and his hand was stuck on the wheel. He placed the camera down on the ground again and watched a couple of skyscrapers from the city. He rested against a gate and sighed.
One of the people who lived in the house walked out and tapped his hands against his right leg. Mark turned around and saw the man from the house.
"Sorry," Mark said.
Roger blinked a couple of times and walked past him quickly. Mark's hand reached out for Roger to stop him. His hand slipped and he hit himself in the stomach.
Mark's breath came out as a flow of mist. Roger stopped for a second. "Mark? Mark Cohen?" Roger asked.
Mark looked up to Roger and then back down. "Yes," Mark said.
"Do you remember me? Last time I saw you must have been June '84."
"Yeah." Mark held the camera tightly in his hand and then breathed in and out again. "Roger." Mark thought for a second.
"Well, it's good to see you again," Roger replied.
Mark nodded and then breathed out, watching as the camera in his hand sat. Roger continued to walk away.
The first flake of snow for the day fell next to Mark. He sighed and picked the snowflake with his hand. As the snow fell, he felt the snow seeming to stab through his heart. His older sister, Cindy, said that the city was freezing during the winter. Mark didn't get the flu often, if ever, so he didn't really care.
More flakes fell from the sky passively. After half an hour of snow, and filming it, he took a rest against the bench, sitting near the snow covered ground. He breathed in and out, watching as Roger walked back into his house. Roger sat next to Mark and then sighed. He pulled out a cigarette and lit with the tip of his match. He breathed in and threw the match on the ground.
They sat there, for a while. Together, they didn't speak. The silence, for the both of them, was discomforting. This became a daily routine, and it took two weeks for Mark to say something to even slightly disturb the silence. "How have you been, Roger?"
"I'm good, Mark. How about you?" Roger said. Mark felt like Roger didn't particularly care, but he still answered.
"I'm well."
Snow fell around them, and they lapsed back into silence.
Their high school days of glory as friends, hiding from everyone, were a distant memory, despite being five years ago, not that long for them.
Five years, and a lot had changed. One day, Roger didn't go to their common meeting place. Mark filmed all day that day, hopeful. It wasn't until two in the morning, when Roger stumbled home, that he even saw him.
When Mark stopped Roger at the front gate, Roger shoved Mark away. In the darkness, Mark felt the snow covering him. He slowly sat back up.
The next day, when Roger returned to the bench, Mark stayed away from him. Roger picked up a snowflake and gave it to Mark.
The next day, Mark didn't go back. He kept filming around the town. He tried to stay out of where Roger would be. In his own mind, he didn't do anything wrong. It was all Roger.
Mark's roommate didn't have enough money to make rent that week. To pay for it, they'd have to get money, and quick. With neither having a job, the roommate started to run drugs for a living.
One night, when Mark was lying around on the couch, a familiar face walked into the room. Mark took off his glasses and almost smashed them into the ground.
Mark walked towards the bathroom. He covered his face in freezing cold water. He looked into the mirror and shook his head.
Five minutes later, Mark was lying on the ground, unconscious. Roger dragged him out of the room, his arms were tired from the pulling. Mark's eyes opened slightly, and Roger bent over Mark's body.
In the confusion of sirens and blazingly bright lights, a few snowflakes fell between Mark's eyes. Roger spent the night with Mark.
They spent another few weeks, after then, avoiding each other.
Mark needed more money. Even though he had met up with a professor at the university he went to, Mark still didn't have money to eat let alone rent his own place. Mark's old roommate died of a cold at the end of the month before.
Mark stood on street corners in the cold hours of the night, hoping somebody would walk by who would through him some change and push him against a wall.
He made enough a night to cover his rent for a week. The handle went unturning. Every night, he would come home and shake the snowflakes out of his hair.
Roger would play on stages around the city and walk his way home at least twice a week. He'd make sure that his guitar was there with him, and his friend April. While he played, and each time he played, he forgot about everything else.
Each time he broke a string, it was like he broke his heart. And every gig, he made enough money to get himself high as a kite.
Every time he walked home, he walked by the same streets. Those streets were always lit enough for him to see everything around.
Mark, one day, took his camera out again. The film in the camera was getting near the end. He played back what he had, through the crappy projector one day. Most of the footage was pure garbage, but it was still better than what he'd ever submitted to university.
His work at night would make him freeze to death, but by the time he was done, he knew he had enough matches and money to buy enough paper to keep the fire bucket going for another day.
On Christmas Eve, Mark took his camera alongside. He'd gotten wind that tonight would be his chance to film. When he walked to the street corner, he waited, and waited.
Snow fell around him. He was lost in the snow. Somebody snapped Mark back to reality. They took the camera in their hands and then looked at the short, awkward, blond. "Film me," he said.
Mark walked to the man's house. It took two hours, and the man just wanted a copy of the film and to pay mark for his service. Two hundred was enough to last at least two weeks.
As Mark left, the man became interested in the scars on his wrist. Mark kept his mouth shut and turned around. "I'll get your film to you."
Mark stood outside, over a bin, and watched as everything he'd digested that day ended up inside it.
Mark stood on another corner. It was Christmas Eve, and it was was freezing.
That night, Roger walked to the same corner as Mark.
Roger decided that Mark was more important than his own stupid addictions. Mark took a twenty from Roger after they argued for ten minutes. When Roger left, Mark threw the money away and let the snow fall over it. His knees were touching the cold ground and he let out a few tears.
Mark took the snow covered money from the ground. Roger turned back around the corner and leaned into Mark. Mark stood still.
"What are you doing to yourself?" Roger asked.
Mark looked to the ground and then back into Roger's eyes.
"I'm making sure that I live."
"This isn't living."
The white covered ground seemed to emit a kind of heat to Mark. He leant against the ground, camera in one hand. "It's the only way I will live."
Roger breathed in and out. "I'm sorry. Mark, move in with me?"
"Roger, I have my own place."
"Move in with me. I'll look after you."
That was the last night that Mark spent out in the snow, waiting for people to walk by and pay him to use him. That was the first night that Mark had really lived in about five years. It was the first time that Roger and Mark had spent under the same roof.
Mark needed to get better clothes. He made sure that everything he did led him away from his hard life on the street, even though his camera and he still had proof. The camera's film could be replaced.
The snow, the snow would be there every year as a reminder. Roger and Mark would never lose each other again. Roger promised that nothing bad would happen to Mark because of him, again.
Mark's promises were held, and so were Roger's. Every year, on Christmas Eve, Roger and Mark would stand outside, in the snow, in each other's arms, nearby each other.