Title: Coming Closer
Author: Elsa
E-mail: Please! elsa_fiveoheight@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Mark, Mimi, Roger, et al are the property of Jonathan Larson.
COMING CLOSER by Elsa
**
part 1
**
His hand connects with the wood of the heavy door, beating next to the lopsided strip of masking tape that reads "MIMI" in all caps. He looks at the cracked tile ceiling, silently willing Mimi to hurry. He feels wrong here, uneasy. For a moment he thought it was just because he was fully clothed, but as the discomfort seeped past the external he wondered if it was something else. He tugs at the collar of his sweater, flushing as he steps out of the way of a blonde wearing little more than her breast implants and carrying a whip. He doesn't know where to look, how to behave backstage at an S&M club. He tightens his fist to knock again, deciding that if she doesn't answer this time, he is going to get the hell out of there and tell Roger to give her his own damn messages.
The door swings open, and Mimi grins, her face lighting up with recognition. To Mark's relief, she is yet to change into her work clothes.
"Hey, you," she greets him warmly, beckoning him inside. He enters and closes the door partially behind him. "What are you doing here?" Mimi asks as he looks around the small dressing room. He has never been here before. His gaze is cautious, curious. He has never been anywhere like here before. "Mark?" she asks, interrupting his survey of the room.
"Yeah. Roger asked me to tell you - oh, a riding crop. Wow," he notes, distracted, his voice a nervous monotone as he notices the assortment of implements, some he doesn't recognize, sitting on a table next to her makeup bag.
"What'd Roger want?" Mimi presses gently, and Mark reluctantly drags his eyes away from her kinky prop table.
"Oh, um, he wanted me to tell you that he'd be home late - he's playing at that club a couple of blocks from here with some of the guys from his old band, and - I don't know. I think he's just excited and wanted to tell you, but he couldn't get through on the club's phone line, so I said I'd come let you know."
"That was nice of you," Mimi says, plopping herself down in front of her makeup mirror, the legs of the metal folding chair scraping against the linoleum floor. She tugs the rubber band out of her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders. Mark finds himself watching her, noticing the way the lights catch the gold in her eyes and wanting to touch her hair. He always sees Roger stroking it - while they're lying on the couch or sitting at dinner, or that night at Christmas when Mimi was so sick. He sticks his hands in his pockets, glancing around nervously, feeling awkward. "Are you heading down to see Roger?" she asks, her wrist flipping rapidly as she expertly applies mascara. Her lashes are thick and dark, a fringe of black framing large, earnest brown eyes. For a moment Mark's eyes meet hers in the mirror, and he quickly looks at the floor. She pivots in her chair to look at him, and he realizes she's waiting for an answer to a question he didn't hear.
"Um, what?"
"I asked if you were on your way to see Roger," she says, smiling. She turns back to her mirror.
"Oh. Sorry. I don't know; I think I'm going to head back to the loft-"
"You're not going to watch him play?" She sounds surprised, and Mark wishes he hadn't told her he wasn't planning on going. He thinks he heard disappointment in her voice as well, and it singes something inside of him.
"I don't know. Maybe later. I don't think they're going to be on until after midnight, anyway."
"I think I can get out of here by then, if you want to wait for me," Mimi proposes casually, gliding a blush brush in sure, even strokes across her cheeks, further warming them with deep pink.
"You mean . . ." he begins, processing her suggestion. He wonders if she expects him to sit back here, or if she wants him to watch her perform, to see her in the black patent leather lingerie that's hanging on the doorknob and which he assumes she's wearing tonight.
Something tugs at his stomach, and he realizes that's what he hopes she's wearing tonight. He hopes she'll let him see her in it. A moment later he thinks of Roger and guilt crashes over him, blurring and scattering his thoughts of Mimi. He will pick up the pieces later, when he is alone, late at night as he listens to Roger and Mimi in the next room. The paper-thin walls of the loft carry the audio with little distortion. He can hear everything.
"You should stay for the show," Mimi says, tossing the blush down and picking up lipliner. Her hands are steadier than he expected, more confident, lacking the trembling that he recalls from the last days of Roger's drug use. Mark doesn't know how to ask her about it, but he nurses a private, ardent hope that her recovery has been less agonizing than Roger's. "Mark, are you okay?" she asks, realizing that she's lost him again.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I just - don't think I can stay," he replies, and she turns to look at him again, resting her elbow along the back of her chair. Her hand supports her head, her fingers long and graceful against the side of her face.
"Why not?"
"Because it's you," he answers quietly, simply, this time holding the gaze of the woman in front of him. For a moment he forgets the list of excuses he has to distance himself from her. He doesn't care that she is the girlfriend of his best friend, or that she is so desperate for money that she allows herself to be abused by careless men. He doesn't care that she is an addict, that she has AIDS, that she is nothing like him. Her searing eyes remain fixed on his, searching, questioning, curious and afraid.
"What?" comes her barely audible response, deafening in the silent room, so much so that he heard the click of her tongue against the top of her mouth when she spoke. Mark's mouth is dry, his tongue paralyzed as his jaw opens and then shuts again. The hot weight of want settles over him, grounding him in a place where his camera is worthless, incapable of recording the enormity of those seconds of silence and unreadable looks. He is consumed by the physical, by a third dimension whose existence he'd almost forgotten. His blood begins to pump and burn and his heart to hammer against his ribcage. Starved of touch, he aches for it now.
"Why are all the walls so close together?" he mumbles thickly, yanking with nerveless fingers on his collar, seeking the relief that eludes him.
"Here, Mark, sit down," Mimi instructs, eyes wide with worry, as she stands up. He obeys and falls gracelessly into her chair. "Are you sick?" she asks, brushing her fingertips along his hairline, wiping away the sweat that he didn't know had formed there. His body throbs with the tension of having her so close, his soul groping for something to grab hold of, something to use for leverage as he pulls himself over his own wall of resistance. He thinks it could be her. She crouches down in front of him, their eyes locking as she searches his face for signs of illness or distress.
"Do you love him?" Mark asks suddenly, flatly.
"What?" The question emerges as a breath from her full lips, almost a gasp.
"Do you love him?" he repeats, more clearly this time. She remains silent, her mouth open slightly as her eyes dart around his face. "You do," he tells her simply, turning his head away in resignation. "I know you do. You love him." He keeps his eyes averted as a moment passes in agonizing silence.
"So much," Mimi whispers finally, and his eyes lift to meet hers. As soft as the words are, they are so saturated with emotion that his heart twists in his chest. Her admission wrings the organ for its last drop of promise, and yet he doesn't resent her. He knows it is wasted in him. "I love Roger," she reiterates, still barely audible, as though convinced that if she does it quietly, his heart will break less. Her tenderness makes it worse, he thinks.
"Do you tell him that?" Mark asks, his voice choppy and high as he finds diversion in thoughts of Roger. His concern for his roommate is genuine, though he uses it to mask his own feelings, replacing them with something safer. Taking care of Roger is a reliable distraction from his own pain. "You should tell him you love him. All the time."
"Mark, what's going on?" Uncertainty penetrates her gentleness, and in the dips and curves and open spaces of her speech he thinks he can see her soul, resilient and pure despite a life pervaded by sickness.
"Nothing," he answers.
"Not nothing. What?"
The burgeoning need to tell her everything and the awareness that he can tell her nothing clashes on his face, in his furrowed brow and pleading eyes. How does he tell her how lonely he is? How does he tell her how left out he feels when Roger whispers something to her that makes her giggle, or that it hurts him when they disappear somewhere without inviting him? He knows he intrudes on their relationship more than he should, but he was never prepared for how much it would hurt to have the apartment so silent. What kind of life can be lived in the quiet?
There is nothing fertile about silence, nor distance, but in the spaces between sound and touch he finds the only stability he knows, the only warmth, keeping him secure as it destroys him. Pulling away makes him nearer to death than any of his friends. Vitality means coming closer.
Mark wonders what it is about contact, about a kiss or intertwined fingers, that can be so redeeming. And he wonders why it is that a litany on camera angles could glide off his tongue so easily, while something as simple as admitting sadness gets caught in a trap of self-denial and shame before he can even form the words to express it. His loneliness is private. He is not like Roger, who is not paralyzed by the conflict between rage and joy and love, and though he struggles to verbalize his feelings he can easily act on their power.
The camera has its limits. He can feel it, but he can't say it, and his chest heaves with frustration. It's so simple, he thinks. Tell her. Just say something.
"Dammit, why is this so hard?" he exclaims. "I should be able to do this!"
"You make it hard, Mark. Every second you spend hiding behind your camera makes it harder to come back out again." Her words are not an accusation. They are not harsh or cruel; they are simply true, and truth is the one thing to which he's always responded. It is the thing that motivates and inspires him, and she knew somehow, instinctively, that it was the only way to reach him.
He inhales sharply and leans over her, grasping the sides of her chair. She tilts her head, her breath teasing his lips.
"I don't want to hurt Roger," Mark murmurs, pressing his forehead to hers.
"Shh," Mimi says, closing her eyes. Permission. He pulls back slightly.
"You know him, Mimi," he begins, not sure why he's speaking so quietly or why he's so anxious. "He's volatile. He could kick my-"
Mimi cuts him off as she presses her lips to his. He feels the tension drain from his body, and he settles into kissing her, remembering to angle his head so that his teeth don't gnash against hers, remembering all the technicalities of how to move his tongue without being too aggressive or too passive. He has kissed a lot of women, and he has kissed Maureen, who was never hesitant with criticism, a lot. He knows the procedure. And yet, with Mimi, his experience has not overridden instinct. He begins to improvise as the kiss grows more intense, and her fingers begin playing with his hair before they find their way under his sweater. It violates every animal instinct he ever had not to throw her down on the table or shove her up against the wall.
They separate, gasping for air. Mark bites her swollen lower lip a final time before moving down to rest his head against her pounding heart, one finger running absently along her breastbone. The kiss ended as it began: prematurely.
"Oh, God," Mimi pants.
**
end part 1
**
Kind of an evil place to leave it, I know. The original draft extended beyond there, but I was looking over it and thought, "Hey, that has two meanings!" As an ending, it stuck. Sorry. :)
Author: Elsa
E-mail: Please! elsa_fiveoheight@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Mark, Mimi, Roger, et al are the property of Jonathan Larson.
COMING CLOSER by Elsa
**
part 1
**
His hand connects with the wood of the heavy door, beating next to the lopsided strip of masking tape that reads "MIMI" in all caps. He looks at the cracked tile ceiling, silently willing Mimi to hurry. He feels wrong here, uneasy. For a moment he thought it was just because he was fully clothed, but as the discomfort seeped past the external he wondered if it was something else. He tugs at the collar of his sweater, flushing as he steps out of the way of a blonde wearing little more than her breast implants and carrying a whip. He doesn't know where to look, how to behave backstage at an S&M club. He tightens his fist to knock again, deciding that if she doesn't answer this time, he is going to get the hell out of there and tell Roger to give her his own damn messages.
The door swings open, and Mimi grins, her face lighting up with recognition. To Mark's relief, she is yet to change into her work clothes.
"Hey, you," she greets him warmly, beckoning him inside. He enters and closes the door partially behind him. "What are you doing here?" Mimi asks as he looks around the small dressing room. He has never been here before. His gaze is cautious, curious. He has never been anywhere like here before. "Mark?" she asks, interrupting his survey of the room.
"Yeah. Roger asked me to tell you - oh, a riding crop. Wow," he notes, distracted, his voice a nervous monotone as he notices the assortment of implements, some he doesn't recognize, sitting on a table next to her makeup bag.
"What'd Roger want?" Mimi presses gently, and Mark reluctantly drags his eyes away from her kinky prop table.
"Oh, um, he wanted me to tell you that he'd be home late - he's playing at that club a couple of blocks from here with some of the guys from his old band, and - I don't know. I think he's just excited and wanted to tell you, but he couldn't get through on the club's phone line, so I said I'd come let you know."
"That was nice of you," Mimi says, plopping herself down in front of her makeup mirror, the legs of the metal folding chair scraping against the linoleum floor. She tugs the rubber band out of her hair, letting it fall past her shoulders. Mark finds himself watching her, noticing the way the lights catch the gold in her eyes and wanting to touch her hair. He always sees Roger stroking it - while they're lying on the couch or sitting at dinner, or that night at Christmas when Mimi was so sick. He sticks his hands in his pockets, glancing around nervously, feeling awkward. "Are you heading down to see Roger?" she asks, her wrist flipping rapidly as she expertly applies mascara. Her lashes are thick and dark, a fringe of black framing large, earnest brown eyes. For a moment Mark's eyes meet hers in the mirror, and he quickly looks at the floor. She pivots in her chair to look at him, and he realizes she's waiting for an answer to a question he didn't hear.
"Um, what?"
"I asked if you were on your way to see Roger," she says, smiling. She turns back to her mirror.
"Oh. Sorry. I don't know; I think I'm going to head back to the loft-"
"You're not going to watch him play?" She sounds surprised, and Mark wishes he hadn't told her he wasn't planning on going. He thinks he heard disappointment in her voice as well, and it singes something inside of him.
"I don't know. Maybe later. I don't think they're going to be on until after midnight, anyway."
"I think I can get out of here by then, if you want to wait for me," Mimi proposes casually, gliding a blush brush in sure, even strokes across her cheeks, further warming them with deep pink.
"You mean . . ." he begins, processing her suggestion. He wonders if she expects him to sit back here, or if she wants him to watch her perform, to see her in the black patent leather lingerie that's hanging on the doorknob and which he assumes she's wearing tonight.
Something tugs at his stomach, and he realizes that's what he hopes she's wearing tonight. He hopes she'll let him see her in it. A moment later he thinks of Roger and guilt crashes over him, blurring and scattering his thoughts of Mimi. He will pick up the pieces later, when he is alone, late at night as he listens to Roger and Mimi in the next room. The paper-thin walls of the loft carry the audio with little distortion. He can hear everything.
"You should stay for the show," Mimi says, tossing the blush down and picking up lipliner. Her hands are steadier than he expected, more confident, lacking the trembling that he recalls from the last days of Roger's drug use. Mark doesn't know how to ask her about it, but he nurses a private, ardent hope that her recovery has been less agonizing than Roger's. "Mark, are you okay?" she asks, realizing that she's lost him again.
"Yeah, I'm sorry. I just - don't think I can stay," he replies, and she turns to look at him again, resting her elbow along the back of her chair. Her hand supports her head, her fingers long and graceful against the side of her face.
"Why not?"
"Because it's you," he answers quietly, simply, this time holding the gaze of the woman in front of him. For a moment he forgets the list of excuses he has to distance himself from her. He doesn't care that she is the girlfriend of his best friend, or that she is so desperate for money that she allows herself to be abused by careless men. He doesn't care that she is an addict, that she has AIDS, that she is nothing like him. Her searing eyes remain fixed on his, searching, questioning, curious and afraid.
"What?" comes her barely audible response, deafening in the silent room, so much so that he heard the click of her tongue against the top of her mouth when she spoke. Mark's mouth is dry, his tongue paralyzed as his jaw opens and then shuts again. The hot weight of want settles over him, grounding him in a place where his camera is worthless, incapable of recording the enormity of those seconds of silence and unreadable looks. He is consumed by the physical, by a third dimension whose existence he'd almost forgotten. His blood begins to pump and burn and his heart to hammer against his ribcage. Starved of touch, he aches for it now.
"Why are all the walls so close together?" he mumbles thickly, yanking with nerveless fingers on his collar, seeking the relief that eludes him.
"Here, Mark, sit down," Mimi instructs, eyes wide with worry, as she stands up. He obeys and falls gracelessly into her chair. "Are you sick?" she asks, brushing her fingertips along his hairline, wiping away the sweat that he didn't know had formed there. His body throbs with the tension of having her so close, his soul groping for something to grab hold of, something to use for leverage as he pulls himself over his own wall of resistance. He thinks it could be her. She crouches down in front of him, their eyes locking as she searches his face for signs of illness or distress.
"Do you love him?" Mark asks suddenly, flatly.
"What?" The question emerges as a breath from her full lips, almost a gasp.
"Do you love him?" he repeats, more clearly this time. She remains silent, her mouth open slightly as her eyes dart around his face. "You do," he tells her simply, turning his head away in resignation. "I know you do. You love him." He keeps his eyes averted as a moment passes in agonizing silence.
"So much," Mimi whispers finally, and his eyes lift to meet hers. As soft as the words are, they are so saturated with emotion that his heart twists in his chest. Her admission wrings the organ for its last drop of promise, and yet he doesn't resent her. He knows it is wasted in him. "I love Roger," she reiterates, still barely audible, as though convinced that if she does it quietly, his heart will break less. Her tenderness makes it worse, he thinks.
"Do you tell him that?" Mark asks, his voice choppy and high as he finds diversion in thoughts of Roger. His concern for his roommate is genuine, though he uses it to mask his own feelings, replacing them with something safer. Taking care of Roger is a reliable distraction from his own pain. "You should tell him you love him. All the time."
"Mark, what's going on?" Uncertainty penetrates her gentleness, and in the dips and curves and open spaces of her speech he thinks he can see her soul, resilient and pure despite a life pervaded by sickness.
"Nothing," he answers.
"Not nothing. What?"
The burgeoning need to tell her everything and the awareness that he can tell her nothing clashes on his face, in his furrowed brow and pleading eyes. How does he tell her how lonely he is? How does he tell her how left out he feels when Roger whispers something to her that makes her giggle, or that it hurts him when they disappear somewhere without inviting him? He knows he intrudes on their relationship more than he should, but he was never prepared for how much it would hurt to have the apartment so silent. What kind of life can be lived in the quiet?
There is nothing fertile about silence, nor distance, but in the spaces between sound and touch he finds the only stability he knows, the only warmth, keeping him secure as it destroys him. Pulling away makes him nearer to death than any of his friends. Vitality means coming closer.
Mark wonders what it is about contact, about a kiss or intertwined fingers, that can be so redeeming. And he wonders why it is that a litany on camera angles could glide off his tongue so easily, while something as simple as admitting sadness gets caught in a trap of self-denial and shame before he can even form the words to express it. His loneliness is private. He is not like Roger, who is not paralyzed by the conflict between rage and joy and love, and though he struggles to verbalize his feelings he can easily act on their power.
The camera has its limits. He can feel it, but he can't say it, and his chest heaves with frustration. It's so simple, he thinks. Tell her. Just say something.
"Dammit, why is this so hard?" he exclaims. "I should be able to do this!"
"You make it hard, Mark. Every second you spend hiding behind your camera makes it harder to come back out again." Her words are not an accusation. They are not harsh or cruel; they are simply true, and truth is the one thing to which he's always responded. It is the thing that motivates and inspires him, and she knew somehow, instinctively, that it was the only way to reach him.
He inhales sharply and leans over her, grasping the sides of her chair. She tilts her head, her breath teasing his lips.
"I don't want to hurt Roger," Mark murmurs, pressing his forehead to hers.
"Shh," Mimi says, closing her eyes. Permission. He pulls back slightly.
"You know him, Mimi," he begins, not sure why he's speaking so quietly or why he's so anxious. "He's volatile. He could kick my-"
Mimi cuts him off as she presses her lips to his. He feels the tension drain from his body, and he settles into kissing her, remembering to angle his head so that his teeth don't gnash against hers, remembering all the technicalities of how to move his tongue without being too aggressive or too passive. He has kissed a lot of women, and he has kissed Maureen, who was never hesitant with criticism, a lot. He knows the procedure. And yet, with Mimi, his experience has not overridden instinct. He begins to improvise as the kiss grows more intense, and her fingers begin playing with his hair before they find their way under his sweater. It violates every animal instinct he ever had not to throw her down on the table or shove her up against the wall.
They separate, gasping for air. Mark bites her swollen lower lip a final time before moving down to rest his head against her pounding heart, one finger running absently along her breastbone. The kiss ended as it began: prematurely.
"Oh, God," Mimi pants.
**
end part 1
**
Kind of an evil place to leave it, I know. The original draft extended beyond there, but I was looking over it and thought, "Hey, that has two meanings!" As an ending, it stuck. Sorry. :)