Author: Emmie
Title: You Had Time
Fandom: RENT
Pairing(s): Mark/Roger
Rating: G
Continuity: Post-RENT. I leave Mimi's fate up to your imagination, but she's not in the story.
Author's note: My first finished RENT fic. This was actually meant to be an artsy drabble, 200 words max…and then it exploded. Just over 2,000 words. I'm not sure the longer format suits it. Opinions (both on characterization and grammatical stuff/general storytelling) greatly appreciated. There is a lot I don't like about this fic.
Disclaimer: Not mine, don't sue, plzthx.
Summary: Roger doesn't know what to say.
As the bus pulls into the parking lot, Roger's heart sinks. The chatter of his bandmates fades into the background of his mind as he sees Mark leaning against a parked car. Waiting for him. It's a sight that, after a three-week tour that could be better described as an exploration of New York's absolute seediest dive bars, should make him unbelievably happy. And it does, really. It's just...
He steps off the bus, stretching muscles that have spent one too many hours crammed into the old VW monstrosity with four other guys and their equipment and squinting in the bright sunshine. The look Mark gives him is his usual, slightly reserved grin. There is no expectation in that look, and somehow that's worse. Mark's silence speaks volumes, and Roger hears every word.
You said you needed time; you had time.
Roger doesn't resist when Mark reaches down to grab his amp, knows it would be no use. He doesn't even try to convince him to trade for the lighter guitar. He does stare helplessly at Mark, fishing for something to say. Mark saves him.
"So, did they love you or what?"
Roger shrugs, mutters something. Tries not to say what he's really thinking.
The only one who really loves me is you.
And that's the truth of it, really. Out of everyone, Mark's the one that has always been there. It's not that he doesn't know it, though he has to admit that he acts like he doesn't often enough. It's just...easy to forget, to get wrapped up in himself and just expect Mark to go on being there. Then he invariably falls apart, and Mark puts him back together, and he swears to himself he's not going to take Mark for granted anymore.
Except he always does, and one of these days Mark's not going to put him back together, and he thinks that day just might be today.
He'd been packing. What was it about packing with them? Mark had been standing in the doorway, watching him, trying to make small talk. He'd only been packing for this pathetic tour, a brief trek with the newly re-formed Well Hungarians, playing for people who were at best uninterested (at worst, all too interested in finding new and interesting items to throw at the stage). It was a trip Mark heartily approved of, and not in a trying-to-convince-himself sort of way. No, Roger was positive it was a genuinely-please-that-his-best-friend-was-finally-living-his-life-again sort of way.
Still, as Mark stood there, watching him pack, the tension between them had only increased, and Roger couldn't help but think of an eerily similar experience, as he had packed for Santa Fe and they had both tried their best not to say what was really on their minds. It hadn't worked then any better than attempting to dispel the tension with logic -- the fact that he wasn't leaving leaving this time, that nothing was wrong -- was working now. Somehow he knew that if he could bring himself to ask Mark (which he couldn't) and if Mark would tell him the truth (which he wouldn't), he would be thinking the exact same thing.
Roger was zipping up his duffel bag, thinking that maybe if they got out of this room, went out in the living room, screwed around like they always did when Roger wasn't being broody and angry and Mark wasn't being broody and silent, maybe then this feeling would dissipate, when Mark, who had been quiet for a minute, muttered his name. He half turned and then Mark was in his arms, lips on his. Roger stumbled back, tripped over his bed and landed flat on his back, half on top of the duffel bag, whose zipper dug into his back through his worn-thin t-shirt.
His first thought was that this was not what he had meant by "screwing around."
His second thought was that maybe all this time, he hadn't been the only one falling apart.
Head spinning, he scrambled out from under Mark, backed up slightly, quickly, then noticed the look on Mark's face as he did so and stopped. His mouth opened but nothing came out, his mind spinning so fast that his body was frozen.
How, in so many years of living with Mark, he had never realized this, never even thought about it, Roger didn't know. It wasn't that he was averse to the idea, he had simply never considered it. And he was leaving in the morning (so let's not be shy, whispered part of his brain, but he ignored it) and what if something happened tonight and then in his absence it got weird? What if Mark took it wrong, thought he was running off again? (It was a fine time to start thinking of Mark's feelings, but better late than never, he supposed.) What if...
His brain ground to a halt there. What. If.
In the end though, he had said that he needed time to think. Because he loved Mark, even if this maybe wasn't what he'd ever meant by "love" either, and because he loved that naked, hopeful look on the other man's face, and because he couldn't bring himself to take that look away, not yet, not even though deep down he knew even then that he would have to eventually, and that it would be worse then.
They had ended up on the couch after all, and maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe even though it was perfectly innocent, maybe if Roger had been a better friend, a better person, he wouldn't have let Mark pass out curled into him, head resting on Roger's chest, warm weight pressed against Roger's body, between his legs in a position that, had Mark been just slightly less scrawny would have been uncomfortable, but as it was was just...perfect. And maybe he should have said no, maybe he should have insisted that they each go to their own room. Maybe he shouldn't have pressed a small, almost instinctive kiss to the top of Mark's head, and maybe he shouldn't have been quite so thrilled with the smile and contented sigh that accompanied the action.
But, looking down at the man lying along his body, a man who, until about an hour ago he had never thought of as anything but his best friend, a man who looked so blissfully happy just lying there that Roger would have had to be dead to not feel some of that happiness himself, he couldn't help but think... maybe he should. Maybe, just maybe, something good could come from this, something that could work.
He spent the first week of the tour trying to believe it. Trying to convince himself that he wouldn't necessarily hurt the person who meant so much to him. He dreamed of Mark more than once. Nothing overtly sexual, which he was thankful for (a wet dream on the cramped vehicle that was their excuse for a tour bus surely would not have gone unnoticed, and he never would have heard the end of it), but dreams nonetheless. Now that the initial shock had worn off, he could admit that he wasn't unattracted to Mark. In fact, he could definitely consider the possibility...
As time wore on, though, reality set in, and he slowly began to accept that it would never be more than a possibility. In fact, Roger thought bitterly one night, staring out the window as lights flashed by outside, it seemed the more his attraction to his friend deepened, the more obvious it became that nothing could come of it. He glanced around the bus. It seemed his bandmates were sleeping, except for George, the drummer, who was driving and singing along softly, slightly out of key, with the classic rock station. He wondered if they knew how lucky they were. All right, no one on this bus had exactly had an easy life, he knew. Still, they all had girlfriends to go home to, and groupies on the side if they wanted. He envied, at the very least, the simplicity of their lives. The sad truth was that being on the road sucked, especially when you were slumming it, playing bars where you were afraid to touch anything, sleeping -- or attempting to sleep -- on the bus between gigs. It was easier when you had someone waiting for you. Roger remembered that from past tours, when he'd thought nonstop of April.
Well, he supposed he did have someone waiting for him. It was a little different, though -- what Mark was waiting for, he could never give. He tried not to think about the fact that what Mark was waiting for and what Mark was hoping for were not necessarily the same thing. Somehow the idea that the blow he had to deliver would be completely expected was worse than it coming out of the blue. He wasn't sure why.
Sitting there, staring out that window, he made his decision. Leaning back, he let himself feel that familiar weight against his chest (Familiar? Somehow it was, although he'd spent only the one night curled up peacefully with Mark), imagined his best friend's -- his lover's, he amended, a little surprised at the thrill the thought brought -- sleepy smile as those blue eyes looked up at him. Yeah, it was just in his head, just for the tour, and Mark could never know. Still, he hoped that back in the loft, his friend could somehow tell that Roger was thinking of him, could feel some of this peace, before Roger had to come home and destroy it.
So for the next week and a half, Roger carried with him a fake hope, a fake Mark. He let himself imagine coming home to waiting arms, sharing uncomplicated kisses... Onstage, he looked out to see Mark in the audience, grinning up at him -- not a terribly hard image to conjure; Mark had been to enough of the Well Hungarians' shows -- but it was different now, and, knowing what he was going to do with the filmmaker after the show, Roger grinned ferally back. (The very real girl standing beside imaginary Mark nearly fainted.) Ballads took on meaning in a way they hadn't since Mimi.
Roger was aware that he was losing his mind.
As the tour had wound to a close, Roger had become less and less thrilled about going home. Home meant replacing his fake Mark, who he could and would do anything for (and with) with a real Mark, who he could only hurt.
Time cares little, though, for the woes of a pretty boy frontman, and he finds himself here now with the real Mark, not in his arms but walking by his side. Conversation is sparse, as Roger tries to make jokes but they fall flat, and Mark tries not to ask what he wants to know, but they both hear the unspoken question anyway.
Reaching the loft, they're both out of breath from carrying Roger's bag and equipment up the stairs. Roger mutters thanks and says he's going to unpack.
Just in case, he closes the door.
The bag, however, winds up on the floor next to the bed, and Roger himself face down on the mattress. Frantically, his mind tries one last time to convince him that it could work, that maybe if... Or maybe they... He sighs, knowing he should get up. Go explain to Mark. Go apologize. Go break his heart, but at least give him an answer. Somehow though, he can't seem to make himself move.
Mark curls up on the couch, strangely calm in his certainty. Roger's silence, his closed door, the fact that the soft sounds from the bedroom sound nothing like packing... He could go ask for Roger's decision. Know for sure that nothing is ever going to be the same between them, and not in the way he had hoped. But really, he saw the look, the depth of sadness in Roger's eyes as he got off that bus, and that is answer enough.
How can I go home, with nothing to say?
I know you're going to look at me that way
And say, what did you do out there?
What did you decide?
You said you needed time, and you had time.
You had time.