A/N—I don't own RENT. It belongs to Jonathon Larson.
Notes: This is FRIENDSHIP ONLY!
This is dedicated to all of my wonderful reviewers and followers, especially Gazelle, who's been asking for an update. Here you go!
Mark was out the door the moment that Roger fell asleep. If the few instances when April had been deprived of her drugs was anything to go by, he had about forty minutes before Roger woke up. And if Mark didn't get this set up before Roger woke, it was never happening.
Apparently the beating on the patio hadn't gone unnoticed last night, as the "janitor" caught him while he was locking the door.
The man had named himself the janitor of the building as a sort of justification for taking the room at the very bottom of the stairs. It had been abandoned for nearly a year, and the man had brought no furniture. No one cared that he had taken it—in fact, the inhabitants of the place often took his few belongings into their own apartments when Benny Coffin came to visit and make sure that no one was mooching off the empty rooms without paying their rent. But the man had insisted.
"Heard a lot of noise last night," he observed as he mopped, splashing the filthy water everywhere. Obviously he had only dragged his stuff up when the sounds of Mark preparing to go out began to spread through the pipes.
Mark nodded, keeping his face directed at the ground in an attempt to hide the green and purple bruises on his face. "Just a little."
"A fight?"
"No."
"Lots of yelling."
Mark forced a laugh. "I knocked over the guitar." It was a terrible excuse, but he wasn't going to talk about the beating. So long as he didn't draw attention to it, and so long as it didn't happen again, he could get Roger through withdrawal without any outside trouble.
The "janitor" nodded and finished up his mopping, and Mark hurried down the stairs, trying to do the math in his head about how much time he'd wasted trying to get away from the man. Every second counted, as he didn't know for certain that Roger was going to stay asleep for the entire forty minutes.
But getting out of the building after there was any type of excitement whatsoever was absolutely impossible. Heads poked out of doorways as long-time residents recognized his footsteps, and question after question was asked. He dodged them all and told them he'd knocked over Roger's beloved guitar. He kept his scarf high on his face to keep the bruises out of sight.
On the last flight of stairs, he met the person he'd been most afraid of.
"How are you doing?" It was the girl who lived in the flat across from them. She was a very pretty girl, with dark brown hair and eyes. She looked to be about sixteen. She certainly dressed like it. But she was nice, and she was quiet, which in a rundown apartment building like the one on Avenue B was something that many, many people were unlucky enough not to have. He'd never complained about her, and she'd never complained about them, even when he and April had used to scream at each other at the top of their lungs.
It wasn't any use telling her that he'd dropped Roger's guitar and that the bruises were because the head of the instrument had given him a beating. The girl—Mimi?—worked somewhere down the street, though Mark didn't know exactly where, and she came home late. He'd seen her out of the corner of his eye while he'd been dodging Roger's blows out on the balcony, and he knew that she'd seen.
He shrugged. "It was…it was just an argument."
"Do you want ice?"
"No, no. I had some earlier, and it just made it sorer. Too cold." He smiled and readjusted his scarf.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I've got to run and get some footage," he said, hefting his camera as he brushed by her and ran down the stairs. As he went down, he heard the tap tap of her heels going up.
He waited until he was out of the Avenue B area before running. It was a bad idea to run in that part of town. Even if you were the victim of a crime, the police liked to arrest anyone who ran. It was better than waiting to ask questions and see who was the criminal and who wasn't. It was why Mark wanted a bike. Walking in this area was frightening. It took too long. He desperately wanted a bike so that he could get in and out of this place faster, and so that he could maneuver the busy Manhattan streets without needing a car. He didn't want a car.
"What's wrong with a car?" Roger asked as he played Musetta's Waltz on his guitar.
"We don't need a car, Roger. They're expensive. You never go out, and I'm actually pretty certain that my license is expired. And…and you can't run away on a bike."
"Are you afraid that someone's going to run away?"
"I don't know. People do that stuff. People leave if they get a chance."
He hit the border between downtown and Avenue B, and started running. He needed to get to the hospital quickly. He knew that when Roger found out, he would be furious. But April's note wasn't enough. Though Mark didn't want to know Roger's death sentence, he also knew that if Roger had a death sentence, he was going to fight it. But to fight it, he would need medicine—AZTS were what Collins took—and for that he needed a prescription from the doctor.
The hospital loomed in front of him. Mark slowed, sucking in several large breaths. He needed to look healthy. He'd been to this hospital several times. It was where the poorer crowd went, and the people there tended to meddle. If someone saw him and thought he was ill, chances were that they'd insist he get checked out for illnesses such a pneumonia and asthma.
Once he had his breath back and he'd gotten his sudden jitters under control, he went inside and approached the nurse.
"Excuse me…I'd like to set up an appointment for AIDS testing."