Title: February
Author: Corinna Lael
Feedback: Ambrosia
Pairing: Only friendship, Mark/Roger
Word Count:
Rating: R for dirty mouths
Genre: Angst
Summary: Mark and Roger make it through the winter
Notes: partially inspired by a Dar Williams song of the same name, which has NOTHING to do with the fic.
Special Thanks: To anyone who reads it! It's my first Speedrent challenge.
Spoilers: Why would you be here if you haven't seen Rent?
Warnings: Some swearing. Nothing you can't handle if you've seen Rent.
Disclaimer: All characters, situations, and settings are the property of Jonathan Larson and

Mark's coat was the first thing to disappear from the loft this February. They were used to the cycle after all these years. Christmas money and gifts from friends and parents always got them through December and January, and the world was warm enough by March to get by without extra. But February...February was always brutal. Things died in February. If neither of them had work at the time, and there were hospital bills, Mark would take care of it. It was the way it had always been.

The first coat that showed up, in Roger's exact size and fit, caused the biggest fight that Mark had ever seen. Roger nearly brained him with a chair that he threw at the wall in a rage. "What the fuck, Mark?" he shouted angrily.

Shocked, Mark had stammered, "You ripped your old one...I sold a script." It was a lie; he had received a gift certificate from Cindy for Christmas, but Roger would have considered it charity.

Roger's face was a mask of anger, but Mark had always known that it was just that, a mask. Beneath it was shame and bruised pride, as potent as hundred-proof liquor. He slowly unclenched his fists, muttering, "I can take care of myself, you know," despite the fact that he had never taken care of himself in his life.

"I know," Mark lied again. The expression on Roger's face, disheartened but relieved, was silently observed by the one eye Mark had ever truly seen through, its passage marked by the almost inaudible whir of the camera on its tripod.

The first year there was a steady paycheck coming in, Roger got two new sweaters (secondhand) and a space heater for his room. There was never any wrapping paper, any plans or parties. They showed up, folded in his closet or plugged into the electrical cord. Roger would sometimes mumble a clumsy thanks to his roommate, but Mark would just shrug. "You'd do the same for me," he'd always reply.

A year after Mimi's last winter, Mark and his camera watched and recorded as Roger felt the bite of February worse than ever before. The shivers, the clenched teeth even when he wasn't angry, the tenancy to stay in bed just for the warmth were all more pronounced. Mark tried buying oatmeal instead of Captain Crunch, but that was considerably less than well-received by his "cold, but not fucking desperate" friend.

After the third time Mark had called in sick to take care of Roger so they didn't have to pay for another hospital bill, the paychecks stopped coming. Despite Roger's repeated attempts to bodily force Mark to work, the fact that they were punctuated with hacking coughs and gasps of pain did little to help his cause.

With a little help from Joanne and Collins under the table, Mark made ends meet. After all, sleazy news shows always needed footage. Roger's flu went away, miraculously, and he lived another spring.

Towards the end of the next January, Mark began stockpiling. He would take trips out to Scarsdale, ostensibly to see his family, and raid his old room. He'd come back with blankets that his grandmother had knitted, sweaters that were too ugly to take to college, even a few outdated appliances from the garage. The microwave with the scratched-up display, the abandoned kettle that whistled too loud, the toaster oven with a door that had to be propped open, all mysteriously turned up in the loft after another nephew's bar mitzvah, another second-cousin's wedding. If his mother noticed that his duffel bag was somewhat more full when he left than when he arrived, she was probably grateful for it.

Mark had never bothered taking full-time work again; he had had to take too many days off with his 'sick brother' to hold one down for too long. Most of his thought dwelled on the fact that as a premature baby, most of his and Cindy's time together as kids had been her taking care of her sick little brother. Karma, he supposed. He took jobs he didn't want, videotaping bar mitzvahs and baby showers, ribbon cuttings and even one especially traumatizing birth. He only made half-wage on that job. They stopped paying when the footage cut out halfway through, due to the fact that the cameraman had fainted.

When February hit, it was with a vengeance. Biting winds made their ways through even the tiniest of cracks between the door and the wall. They had to stuff old shirts and towels into the gap at the bottom of the window. If they had had a working radio or television, they would have heard "the coldest winter in decades" repeated over and over. As it was, they recorded their own devastation inside. Roll after roll of film showed up in Mark's closet marked "Snow."

When the space heater gave out in his room, Roger kept silent. He knew very well that the two of them pooling their cash would give them somewhere around six-fifty, and it had been a week since they'd had anything to eat besides dry cereal, and anything to drink besides water. The last year had cost them Collins, flying up to join his Angel, and Maureen and Joanne, flying west to go for broke in Hollywood. The only birds still in their nest huddled together with a determined cling, desperate to keep the tree upright.

Mark had walked in to try and convince Roger to eat three days after the heat stopped working, and it was the first time Roger could remember seeing Mark truly furious at him. He had grabbed the few coins left in the bottom of the jar, pulled his coat up to his ears, and left Roger shivering in his bedroom. When he came back two hours later, he carried a new space heater, and his coat was missing. That night, he and Roger laughed at the footage Mark had recorded of his pathetic haggling with a disreputable pawnbroker.

Other things disappeared that winter. The loud kettle, the scratched microwave, and the broken toaster oven all went the way of that first coat. In their places, AZT showed up and doctor's bills went away. They'd put ads in the paper for new roommates, but no one wanted to leave their residences, no matter how bad, in such temperatures.

By the middle of the month, Roger was covered in lesions, his skin mottled and clammy. Mark sat beside him for hours, talking to him, screening films he'd been working on, reading from newspapers he'd lifted from restaurants and libraries. Occasionally Roger would reach up and grab his friend's hand or shoulder, just to reassure himself that Mark wasn't going anywhere. Mark changed his sheets, which Roger was constantly soaking with sweat and urine, made his phone calls, and worried. The handle of the Bolex turned unceasingly, saying what Mark didn't want to; he didn't want to miss anything, not even the worst parts. Both of them knew there wouldn't be much more footage of Roger.

The nights grew impossibly longer, just because the skies never lightened. Nearing the end of the month, Roger worsened considerably. Shaking convulsively for hours, he would cling to Mark, sobbing at the pain. In his more lucid moments, he would growl, "I'd better win a fucking Oscar for this," straight into the unflinching lens of the camera.

They were perhaps three days from the break of the storm when the heater broke again. Both young men stared at the useless carcass of their salvation for a few desperate moments before Mark picked his camera up. "I'll be back soon," he said quietly, and walked out of the bedroom. Roger merely nodded, all he had strength for, and clutched the blankets even more tightly around his wasted shoulders. When Mark finally returned with a smaller but functional heater, Roger tried to figure out what he could have possibly sold.

It was hours before he realized that Mark's camera hadn't returned with the smaller man. He mustered all his strength and shoved Mark, hard.

The disease had so taken its toll on his once-strong body that Mark didn't even fall off the bed. He looked concernedly down at his friend. "What was that for?"

"You...idiot," Roger wheezed, cursing the bronchitis he had developed the week before. "The fuck...is wrong with y--" he broke off, coughing, and Mark rushed to help him drink some water. Roger pulled away after a minute, eyes hard. "You," he said very carefully, wincing at the pain in his harsh-sounding voice, "go sell my fucking guitar. Get that damn thing back."

Mark's jaw clenched almost imperceptibly. "No way," he said flatly. "You have to have your song."

Roger's hand flew up to clench the front of Mark's shirt, and his eyes were wild. "I wrote my fucking song." He brandished his other hand, shaking so badly he couldn't have held a crayon, and hissed, "Does it fucking look like I'm ever going to play again? Look at me, Mark!"

Mark's eyes were wide, head shaking, violently denying that anything he said was true, denying that Roger could give up his dream, denying above everything that Roger was dying. Everything was too sharp, everything was too bright. The world didn't make sense without a filter, without film and a lens.

Roger's voice, once sexy in its huskiness, was now gravelly and hoarse as he croaked, "I wrote my song, Mark." He turned Mark's head to face him, and caught his eyes. "Now I want my fucking Oscar." He gave his roommate a little half-smile, then dissolved into another violent fit.

Mark nodded, a little shaken. "Okay...okay, I'll do it." Roger nodded, squeezing his hand even more tightly. "Go," he managed to rasp out.

The much larger case felt foreign to Mark's hand, its handle too big and too Roger for him. The entire long walk was strange, unsettled. The people in the shop seemed in a good mood. When he walked back, he finally noticed; the snow had stopped, and it was warm. The sun was fucking shining.

He ran upstairs, smiling ear to ear, face chapped by the wind, and burst in the door. "I got it," he called out eagerly. Once into the bedroom, he stopped, not entirely sure what to make of the still figure on the bed, stunned that somehow, it was exactly what he had expected to find. Slowly, carefully, he took the Bolex out of its case with trembling fingers, wound it up, and said in a voice too sure, "Nineteen ninety-three, six pm Eastern Standard Time, March First. The end."