Chapter Six: The Talk

Notes and Disclaimer: This took significantly less headache than Chapter Five, probably because I'm writing as Mark again, and I had in mind the way in which I wanted the chapter to end. I put up a warning, but it's a surprise. You'll see. Oh. And Roger's mood swings violently. Watch your heads.

I still don't own anything. I borrow personalities and blatantly steal characters. Enjoy.


Mark

You know how people use that expression, "the kind of girl you'd take home to meet your parents?" When you meet a girl who's pretty and smart, genuinely nice, sweet, and caring, you tell your friends that she's the kind of girl you'd take home to meet your parents, even if you know that, a.) you're too chicken to actually bring her to meet your parents and b.) her parents would frown upon you if she took you home to meet them.

Wait. I don't think that's really what I mean; Maureen isn't the type of girl I'd take home to meet my parents. She's very pretty, of course, and if not smart then at least witty, and she's nice enough to me, even if she is a little bit... well, physical, I guess. But I wouldn't bring her home to meet my parents; my father would probably take to her too much, and my mom would turn into the father of the bride: constantly suspicious and exasperated to a fault; how could her pure little son have possibly been seduced by the lascivious ways of a seditious harlot?

No, really. That's my mom.

But anyway. Almost as much as I can't see myself bringing Maureen home to meet my over-protective mom and righteous father, I can't see myself bringing Maureen home to meet my friends and roommates. With Roger, roguish and serpentine as he is, connected to April closer in than the hip, with Benny, always the womanizer, and Collins, ever a ...manizer with a anarchical streak a mile wide, it's not that I think Maureen won't fit in. She'll work herself in with them just fine. I'm really worried about myself, as ugly as that sounds. I've got this bad feeling that being around these guys is going to make Maureen realize how much of a loser I am.

What if she forgot about me to mess around with someone else? Someone like Roger. Not that Roger would cheat on April or anything. Just... what if? I mean, it's not like I think Maureen is unfaithful or anything. It's just... you know. I'd be blind and vain if I tried to pass myself off as half as good-looking as Roger is, or half as talented. Or half as cool. I'm just not. He's Roger, the hip, badass underground rocker who can smoke pot freely and of his own will and has no girl-problems to speak of. I'm Mark, the goofy, awkward writer-slash-filmmaker who can't handle beer or marijuana and who has never had a girlfriend in his life, even if it is a young life. And that's unless you count Maureen. But Maureen's not even my girlfriend; she's just- we're... I don't know.

What are we? Whatever we are, she likes me, right? She's got to, since she kissed me like that. And I like her. I know I do. Way more than some junior high crush or infatuation with some unattainable celebrity. That's got to count for something... Unless it doesn't. I wouldn't know.

"Mark?"

I guess I don't realize that I've been standing outside the door to our apartment until Maureen tugs on my arm and calls my name; talk about spacing out.

"Something the matter?"

"No, I'm fine," I reply, shoving the hand that isn't holding my camera into my pockets, feeling around for the key that will let us in and out of the cold, damp night that is threatening to storm again. "Oh, I... I don't think I have my-"

"Key? You don't," April interrupts, giggling as Roger wills me out of the way to open the door, twirling the key around his finger when the door starts to close behind him. "Roger does."

"Roger!" In an act of chivalry that would make my mother proud and Roger sarcastic, I jump to catch the door right before it slams, much to the smiles and giggles of my female friends, one of whom -you can guess which- curtseys as she crosses the creaky threshold and pulls me along behind her, following Roger and April up a narrow stairwell as far as it takes us, right to the unlocked door of our loft apartment.

"Damn." Coming from Maureen, I can't tell whether that's a, 'Damn, this place is a shithole,' or a, 'Damn, this room is going to swallow me.'

I jump to my home's defense anyway, not looking forward to meeting skeptical looks from Maureen every time we come back here. "You get used to it," I explain. "It's really a mess now; we were kind of in a hurry to get out tonight, and-"

"No, Mark- wow. I love this space." I can't help myself but smile as Maureen looks around, up towards the high ceiling, at the loft blocked off by curtains, at the long windows and the makeshift stove, which has long since gone out. "God, it's-" She throws her arms out to her sides, earning a weird look from Roger, who's already situated himself on our well-worn couch, Collins' bed. "This is so cool. It's so alive!"

I almost want to let her know that it's probably more alive than she means, that while four or five people live here at once, there are smaller, four and six and eight legged inhabitants whose presence isn't so welcome. But I smile and nod and thank her, shrugging my shoulders and shoving my hands into my pockets, modestly and quietly taking her unusual compliment.

"Yeah- it's home, even if it is a little cold."

"Well, that means we don't need a fridge for the drinks," April interjects, smirking as she comes out of the kitchen with three bottles of beer, hands one to Maureen, and tosses the other to Roger before joining him on the couch. "Tea water's on, Mark." Leave it to April to remember my tea.

"Tea? Not coffee?" I raise an eyebrow and Maureen grins, running her fingers back through my hair again, knocking the curls around and leaving her hand on the back of my neck. "You're not one of those beatnik kids who sits around in coffee shops trying to write all day, are you?"

"Are you kidding?" Roger starts, grinning and pulling April onto his lap. "They'd kick him out after an hour with all the money he's got."

"Good. I can't stand those beatnik guys. Too moody"

She looks at me, and I shrug. She laughs, and I smile. She pulls my head towards her, and I slip out from under her hand and take two steps back, shoving my free hand into my pocket and pulling my camera close.

"I-uh... I'm going to get dressed," I murmur, taking off for the ladder to the bedrooms and indicating my soaked jeans and damp shirt as I go. "I'll be right back, okay? Just... wait down here?" I don't know how Maureen can be so comfortable with that sort of contact when Roger and April are stretched out on the couch not ten feet away. I mean... they can see everything, and even if they won't say anything to her yet, I'll get harassed for days. I'm a schlemiel. I'm an easy target. I can't help it.

"Is he always like that?" I stop near the top of the ladder to look down on the floor below, where Maureen's made herself comfortable at the base of the couch and has started on her... third or fourth beer of the night.

"Like what? Flighty and spastic?" April laughs and leans back into Roger.

"Nah. He's usually really boring." Gee. Thanks, pal. "He's just nervous because you make him horny." Thanks again. There's laughter from downstairs, and when Roger looks up at me on the ladder, I take it as my cue to leave and disappear under the curtain of sheets that Roger and I have constructed as the front wall of our bedroom.

I'm pretty sure that I'm blushing, since when I peel my wet clothes off and toss them into a yellow crate, my face is definitely warmer than the rest of my body. In fact, the rest of me is pretty damn cold. I weigh pajamas versus regular clothes, not really wanting to have to get dressed again, but not about to look like a slob in front of Maureen. Clothes it is, even if that means the corduroys that April's already nixed and a sweater that will only make it worse.

Just as I cross to retrieve my pants, the veil of sheets rustles and moves, and I nearly dive into bed and scramble under the sheets, feeling that Maureen and I haven't progressed far enough in our nonexistent relationship for her to see me in my underwear.

"You have three seconds to put clothes on. One... two..."

Even I smile here and relax under my mismatched sheets; the voice addressing me is much too rough to be Maureen's, and the fair warning is common between Roger and me, what with sharing a room and having at least a tiny bit of respect for privacy.

"Three." Roger appears, head and shoulders first, through the hanging sheets, snickering when he looks around and finds me cocooned in bed. "Mark, please don't tell me that you're wanking with your girlfriend sitting right downstairs." He's trying to be professional, but his grin is hard to hide.

"Very funny. Hand me my pants?" He does, tossing them at my face as soon as I've said it, knocking my glasses askew. I disentangle myself from the sheets and stand to get dressed, pulling my pants on while Roger wanders, plucking two notes on his guitar, nudging the side of his mattress with his toe, and overturning an unused crate for the Hell of it before returning to me and leaning against the table partition between our room and Benny's.

"Really, Mark: why are you even bothering to get dressed? You could have killed two birds and your virginity with one stone just by asking Maureen to follow you up."

Feeling my ears burn, I throw one of my shoes at him, and he nonchalantly kicks it across the room. "Is sex all you think about?" Without waiting for the answer, which I already know, I carry on. "Roger, we're not even... I've known her for two hours."

"...And?"

"And... and you just don't do that after two hours. That's after months and months of a strong, committed relationsh-"

"Two hours didn't stop me and April."

"...Thanks," I deadpan, fixing the button on my pants and searching around for a belt. "But me and Maureen aren't you and April." Take that.

"Yeah, well." He sits himself down on my milk-crate nightstand and strums an air guitar for a few seconds, too lazy to walk across the room for his acoustic, but in need of something to do. "She's going to leave you. Fast."

I don't know why this scares me. Technically, I'm not even hers to leave, and the way things went back in the bar, I don't get the feeling that she's tired of me already, but a sick chill creeps up my spine and all the way to my fingertips, which wind through the canvas belt that I've finally found under a few of Roger's shirts. There's something about his nonchalance that's turning my blood to liquid ice, I think; hubris, after all, is the downfall of so many would-be heroes. Not that I'm a hero.

"That's not funny."

"But it's true." In a moment of silence, he looks over to where I've seated myself on my mattress again, belt and sweater forgotten, then goes back to his air-guitar and presses on coolly. "Mark, I don't know how you think you two will work out. She's horny as a seventeen year-old guy. Unless that guy's you."

"I don't-"

"Do you seriously think that she came home with you so that you can look at the stars and watch old movies? Even for the beer. Do you think she really came for that? I mean, you said it yourself: she could have any guy. Why you?"

Thinking it is one thing. Hearing it from a best friend is another thing entirely.

"Something's going to have to give, Mark, or she's going to go, and not only will you be alone again, but you'll have missed out on losing your virginity to one of the hottest chicks you've ever seen. Even if she is a sneaky bitch."

"She is not."

"Not what? Not sneaky, or not a bitch? Or not hot?"

I flop backwards into bed and hold the heels of my hands against my temples, closing my eyes while Roger, in his own harsh way, tries to help.

"I've been with a lot of girls, and even if they're great on the outside, they've all got their inner bitch. Maureen's inner bitch is just bigger than most others. You can't see it, since you don't know better, but just seeing how she treats you, it's damn obvious. If you don't give her what she wants, it's over."

"Just how does she treat me?" That's unfair for him to say. "She's nice to me. She's really nice."

Without a warning, save the scratching of the milk-crate against the dull wooden floor, my mattress sinks a little, and there's a significant new weight on top of me, something that feels not unlike a knee firmly between my legs. Startled, I open my eyes again and push my hands up, right against Roger's chest, meeting his grin with a scowl.

"You're so cute, Markie," he mocks, trying on a high-pitched sigh of a voice as he leans down closer to my face. "We should fuck."

"Shut up."

"Oh, you're so cute when you're angry. We should fuck."

"Roger, get off," I growl, shoving hard at his shoulders, which only brings him down closer. "You're such an asshole."

"Are you going to say that to her when she's the one on top of you?" His voice is back now, low and rough, but coming through a smirk to kill all smirks. "Don't think it won't happen, because it will. Soon, if you're looking to stay with her."

"We're not even together," I argue, but the conviction isn't there. "We're not."

"Bullshit."

"I just met her! She's not my girlfriend, Roger."

"Not yet. These things go in order, Mark." Without even trying, he moves my arms out from under him and pins them solidly at the elbows with his own arms. I wince, and he feigns pity. "First, you meet. You have a few drinks, get to know the bare minimum about each other. Next, you're fuck-buddies."

"Shut up." I'm sure that I blush crimson when I struggle under him, getting a grin from Roger when I can't budge under his weight.

"What? 'Fuck-buddy?'"

"That's not true!"

"Fuck-buddy, fuck-buddy, fuck-buddy." If I could move, I'd kill him. "Sure it's true. She'll be all over you, and you're crazy if you say no."

"I'll say no."

"No, you won't. Don't give me that; you want her."

"Not like that!"

"Yeah right. I know you're not as innocent as she thinks you are. You want her."

"Roger, that's gr-"

"Gross? What's so gross about it? So, you have sex. So what? Everyone has sex, Mark, and don't tell me that you don't think about it, because I know damn well you do. You're not going to get struck down dead if it's Maureen instead of your hand."

I glare and then look away, but I don't deny it.

"Are you really going to miss out on this chick because you're too afraid of what your mom would think if you had sex? Your mom? Think about it like this: I bet your mom wouldn't be too happy if she knew that you whacked off, either. Live a little."

"And she'd be downright pissed if I became a teenage father."

"Condoms, Mark: we have them. Use them."

"What are you, anyway? My father or my Health teacher?"

"Hey, I'm just looking out for you. You've been living here too long to still be a virgin." He grins, and I've got to smile a little under my blush, even if I don't really know what to say. What follows is a weird silence, with Roger staring down at me, studying me like he's actually paying attention. Very, very close attention.

"Mark?" he asks after what seems like a few minutes, and I try to squirm under him, getting rather sore after being pinned for so long.

"Yeah?"

"...Do you even know how to use a condom?" The serious look on his face breaks right in half when he grins and starts to laugh, and even though my face burns up, I smile and kick at his legs, twisting and struggling and promising to kill him when I get up.

"You know, a lot of virgins lose their nerve, if you know what I mean." He nudges his knee a little too close, and I frantically try to knock him off balance, laughing now, and attempting to knee him in the stomach. "Are you going to be able to handle it, Markie?"

"Fuck you."

"Or will it be the other way around?"

He lets go of my arms now, but only long enough to give me the chance for one good shove before flipping me over to my stomach and dropping his full weight onto my back, grinding his knuckles into my head until I'm howling half in pain and half in laughter. Leave it to Roger Davis to turn a sex-talk into a one-sided wrestling match.

"You're horny for her!" he jeers, grinning. "You wish that I were her, laying on top of you like this."

"I hate you!"

"I know you do." He flips me over one more time, knocking my glasses down my nose and further worrying my hair when my head hits the springs again. "You know, you're definitely going to be on the bottom."

"Whoa!" I barely even have time to blush by the time another voice, distinctly female, interrupts, and Maureen's head and shoulders can be seen poking through the curtains at the top of the ladder. "Oh, God. I should have known you were gay."

Needless to say, Roger doesn't miss a beat. "Straight as a circle, babe," he says, smirking horribly as he slips one hand behind my head and smothers my nose and mouth with the other, pressing his mouth to the back of his hand and 'kissing' me passionately, much to my kicking and struggling. He only pulls back and sits up when I think I'm about to pass out, grinning broadly as he watches me catch my breath and glare at him from behind my crooked glasses.

"Be careful with him, okay?" he says, standing to his feet and glancing over at Maureen. "He bruises easily."

Maureen giggles and quickly makes herself very at home in my bed. "Sure thing. We'll go slow."

I blush horribly when she starts to trace invisible hearts low on my stomach, and Roger flashes me a grin and a thumbs-up from behind Maureen's back.

"I'm going to get back to April and getting drunk," he informs us, and I shake my head in the negative; if he doesn't leave, I won't be alone with Maureen like this. "Don't cry, Mark; tonight is going to be the best night of your pathetic young life. And I'll even let you have the room to yourself. Yourselves."

He turns to go back downstairs, leaving me half-naked with a very smikry Maureen laying half on top of me, but turns back towards us just as he gets to the spot where the ladder is hidden.

"Oh. You can thank me later, but there's a condom under your pillow."

I really do hate him.


Notes: And I take my first whack at something akin to slash. In honor of the Day of Silence and because some insane anti gay-rights protesters harassed me today outside of school, I might try to pull a Roger/ Mark one-shot together, but it'll be late.

I love reviews. Hint, hint, grin.