A/N: Um...you should be prepared for upcoming chapters to just completely skip about 4-5 months sometimes. I have to get through about 5 years here...but it'll work, I promise. I sat down and made kind of an outline, complete with months, ages, ect...and it'll work.

I've got some interesting stuff planned...well at least I think it's interesting. :o)

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"So you're really leaving?" Mark's roommate Benny asked him as he continued shoving clothes into bags.

"Well yeah. I have to be off campus by tonight."

"What the hell do you parents care what you major in? You're obviously smart enough to of gotten into Brown in the first place. That's not enough for them?"

"Nope. He wanted me to do something with numbers or money or become a doctor or something. Being an art major is a little to faggy for him."

Benny laughed and sat down on his bed. "Can't you get financial aid or something?"

"He makes too much money."

"Right. You decide where you're going yet?"

"New York. I talked to Roger the other day."

"And how does Julian feel about that?"

"What?" Mark asked turning to Benny, completely mortified.

"Julian. The poet. You're boyfriend." He said playfully. "How does he feel about you leaving him to go and shack up with your high school fling?"

"I'm not…christ! No! Roger's just my friend, and so is Julian! I've known Roger since I was 14, and I was going to use Julian in a movie if I…if my father hadn't stopped paying."

"Riiight."

"Fuck you Benny, you sound just like him." Mark said turning back around and stuffing more clothes angrily in into his bag.

"Calm down. I don't care what you do."

Mark sighed. "Hey, if I give you his address can you sell back my books and send me the money?"

"Yeah, sure."

Mark scribbled down Roger's address and phone number and handed it to Benny. He could write them from memory. He'd actually had them for months, but he could never bring himself to call him for some reason. He just thought it would have been weird, or awkward or something. Though, he overcame that feeling for fear of living on the street. He was never going back to live with his parents. Never.

He zipped up his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and glanced around the room. He was leaving a lot of stuff behind. He had to take a bus to the city, since his father had gone and sold his car.

"Well, I guess I'll see you around." Mark said turning back to Benny.

"Yeah. Good luck man."

"You too."

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Roger blew a stream of warm air into his numb fingers trying to regain some feeling in them. He had been standing outside for a good 45 minutes waiting for Mark to get there. His scrawny ass better get here soon, he thought to himself. As he was thinking this a cab stopped in front of him. A smile crept onto his face as he watched Mark get out of the cab.

"Are you just gonna stand there?"

Roger laughed and went to help him grab his stuff.

"It's been a while." Mark said turning to Roger as the cab pulled away.

"Yeah it has."

"How've you been? How's the band?"

"Good good, all is good, but can we finish this little reunion upstairs? I'm freezing my nuts off out here."

"Wouldn't want that to happen now would we?" Mark said with a smile following Roger into the dimly lit building. Roger pulled off his hat as they started up the stairs and Mark had to do a double take.

"What the hell did you do to your hair?"

Roger laughed running his hand over his newly bleached blonde hair. "I wanted to look more like you."

Mark just stared at him. He wasn't digging the short, bleached within an inch of it's of it's life look. He missed the slightly shaggy brown curls.

"April did it. She thinks it looks hot, what do you think?"

"April? Who the hell's April?"

"My uh, my girlfriend." Roger said turning around and taking a few more steps.

"You have a girlfriend?"

Roger sighed, set Mark's bag down on the landing and walked back down so he was standing even with him. "Yes I have a girlfriend. And I like her, a lot. So, you and I are nothing. We weren't ever anything. Ever. That thing that happened between us, it was nothing. Absolutely nothing. It never even happened, you get it?"

"Yeah. I get it. Never happened. And um, I had a girlfriend too, back at school." Mark fumbled out.

"Really?"

"Yeah, her uh, her name was Julia. She was…really great. But I had to break up with her, you know?"

"Yeah, that sucks. Hopefully you'll find some one new, yes?"

"Hopefully." Mark said quietly.

"Well, come on!" Roger said enthusiastically. "I'll show you around upstairs and you can meet April and stuff."

"Alright."

Roger led Mark up into the loft, which was just as dimly lit as the hall and the stairs had been.

"Very nice." Mark said setting down the boxes that he had been carrying.

"It is isn't it? That's your room by the way." Roger said pointing to a door next to the fridge, in what Mark guessed they considered the kitchen. "Scotty left a lot of shit in there. I'd burn the sheets if I were you, all him and Maureen ever did was fuck."

"Great." Mark said picking the boxes back up. "I probably wont be able to provide you with that kind of entertainment though, just so you know."

"Shame." Roger said as Mark entered his new room.

Nothing spectacular. A bed. A few milk crates stacked on each other next to the bed. A dresser in the corner that looked like it was going to fall over. A closet. A window. It smelled weird. Mark made a mental note to buy some candles or some air freshener or something. He pulled the thin blanket and grungy sheets carefully off of the bed, completely disgusted thinking about the amount of DNA that supposedly was on them.

He walked back out into the loft where he found this girl, who he assumed was April, hanging all over Roger.

"Mark, this is April."

"Hi." Mark and April said in unison.

"I've heard a lot about you." April said with a smile leaning on Roger's shoulder.

"I uh, haven't really heard much about you."

"Not much to tell." She said with a giggle.

"Jesus will you guys shut the fuck up! Do you know what time it is?" An angry Brian yelled swinging open his door.

"It's like 3:30 Brian." Roger spat, slightly annoyed.

Brian groggily walked over to the table, sat down, and buried his face in his hands.

"Well, April and I gotta go somewhere."

"What?" April asked, confused.

"I have to get that thing, for later? You know?"

"Yeah, fine." April sighed, breaking away from Roger and heading to the door.

"We'll be back in like 20 minutes, alright?"

"Where are you going? Want me to come?"

"No...no, just stay here. It's nothing, I've just gotta get something, we'll be right back."

"Ok."

"And don't worry, Brian isn't that much of an asshole."

"Fuck off Roger." Brian's muffled voice called from the other side of the room.

"Later." Roger said pulling the door shut. Mark turned and looked at Brian.

"What?" Brian asked, noticing that Mark was staring at him.

"Nothing...you just uh, look tired."

"Well I am."

"Yeah. So...how's the band and stuff? Do you guys have any gigs or anything coming up?"

"I don't fucking know, Scotty takes care off all that shit."

"Oh, right. Well…I'm gonna go unpack and stuff."

"I don't care."

What a ray of fucking sunshine, Mark thought to himself as he walked back into his room.