Author's Note: Wow, you guys really liked that last chapter! Thank you so much for all the great reviews, I wish I could tell each of you individually how much your words meant and I tried to
incorporate some of your suggestions here! Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this chapter and I hope my characterization of Roger is getting better. Rent belongs to Jon Larson and I just use it to have some fun. Enjoy!

Chapter 4 – Falling Hard

Mark's POV

Let's put together the sequence of events, shall we? First, Mimi dies. Roger goes into his room and doesn't come out for months. He sulks around and is overall depressed. I, however, try to continue on with my life, but the fact of the matter is, I get sucked into his madness, and become one with Roger. Then, miraculously Roger starts doing random things, sitting outside on the balcony for hours at a time, staring at the ceiling while lying on the floor, generally odd behavior when looked at from a distance. Then, he starts getting all chatty with me. I freak out, as I often do, and run to Maureen and Joanne for help. We talk and make up, sleep in the same bed last night, and then spend a relatively carefree day in bed doing nothing. Now, Roger takes me out to dinner, pulls me to the back of the room and is kissing me.

Now, can someone please tell me where this makes sense? I realize after a moment that I'm just standing there, allowing him to kiss me, and not making the slightest movement to respond to his action. I think I'm in shock. He finally pulls away with a hurt look across his face and I feel bad. But I honestly don't know what to think. My head is spinning faster than I can keep control of. I feel so dizzy and have the urge to sit in a corner and be alone. I can't take this anymore and I lose control as my body falls to the ground.

I open and my eyes and actually feel like I'm in a warm place. I'm laying on a very comfortable surface and try to survey my surroundings. I don't recognize where I am, which automatically causes me to become nervous. I'm not in a hospital, which I suppose is a good thing. I don't know how long I've been out, where I am, and if Roger is even here. I wouldn't be surprised if he just ran out and left me there, unconscious in the middle of the café.

I try sitting up a little and notice I'm in a bed, a very girly bed, to be exact. Maybe some girl came and rescued me, took me home, and is now going to nurse me back to health? Unlikely story. But then… it dawns on me as I hear the dreaded noise.

"Pookie! You're awake!" I hear Maureen scream from right outside the room.

I cover my ears and slink down back into position. "Not… so…. loud."

She covers her hand over her mouth and comes rushing to my side. She hands me a glass of water and practically forces it into my mouth. "Marky, you need to drink some water."

"Whoa, there," I reply as she pushes the glass into my hands. I gently sip the water and after I've drank more than half to satisfy her, I place it down on the side table. Dare I ask? I figure I must.

"Is… well…." I start, unable to formulate what I want to ask her.

"Roger here?" she finishes for me and I reply with a slight nod of my head. "Well, he was here, but he just left…"

I can tell by the tone of her voice she's holding out on me. She always gets like that when she knows something that isn't good, but doesn't want to tell me in fear that I'll go nuts or cry or something even worse.

"Did… he say… anything about… what happened?" I ask her, stopping frequently in fear that he did, and what she must be thinking right now.

"He just said that you two were eating at a café and then all of a sudden you fainted, no reason why," she replied, obviously with a curious tone in her voice. She knew something was up and that she was being denied information.

God, what Roger must think of me right now. He must hate me and never want to speak to me again. I feel horrible. I don't even know what to think, I mean, Roger, the manliest man I know, if that even is a word, just kissed me, the dorkiest person he probably knows. I mean, it's true. Why would he even be attracted to me, of all people? He could get any girl he wanted… and probably most guys too!

I realize that I've spaced out and Maureen is looking at me rather funny. I sit up on the edge of the bed. "Uh… I feel fine, so I probably should go."

"Not so fast, Marky, Roger specifically said that you should stay here until he gets back," she tells me.

"He's coming back?" I ask her, my voice cracking with every word.

"Of course, silly! Oh, I probably didn't mention that, did I?"

"Yeah, you failed to mention that part…" I reply to her with an evil glare on my face. Why would he leave me alone with Maureen, of all people? Is this punishment or something, because it sure feels like it! She drags me out of the bedroom into the living room and I realize I'm in Joanne's apartment. It actually makes a lot of sense, considering we were closer to their apartment than the loft. I make myself comfortable on the couch and she stays busy in the kitchen, a rather amusing sight if I say so myself. Maureen was never one for doing any type of work in the kitchen, cooking or cleaning alike. She must be uneasy about the whole situation.

"So where did Roger go?" I politely ask her, hoping that she'll at least tell me that.

"I'm not at liberty to say," she replies with a sly look on her face. Now I know something's really up. What could he be doing? Going to get a gun to shoot me in the face? Getting a tray of pies to throw at me and laugh? A knife to cut off my tongue? As each of them gets increasingly worse, I doubt Roger would actually consider doing them.

So here's the ultimate question, do I tell Maureen what happened? I mean, it could be a good idea. I could pick her mind for possible reasons why all this has happened. That or she'll start laughing at me. Then, when I'd tell her how I fainted after he kissed me, she probably would hit me over the head. That wouldn't be too nice either. So, I'll try to get other answers first.

"What was he like when he brought me over here? Was he upset?" I ask her, a question that I hoped wouldn't arouse too much suspicion.

"He didn't seem upset to me, he was worried. He was all fussing over you and I finally told him to chill out," she informs me.

A smile creeps over my face at her response and I can tell she noticed it as well. He was worried about me! That made me feel a little bit better, I suppose. But deep down inside he probably was angry. So angry that he probably went out and screamed at the top of his lungs. Once again, with the speculation.

"That's… good."

"Anyway… how did things go last night when you got home?" she asks me, prying for more information. She's so nosy; she always has to be in other people's business, normally my business, and critiquing it.

"Well… we talked and such and yeah…" I replied, realizing she wouldn't be satisfied with that answer whatsoever. "And this morning we went shopping and had a fun time…"

"Have you been eating lately? I just don't understand why you would faint like that!" she says, oblivious to the fact that you can faint for other reasons.

"Yeah, I haven't been eating that great lately… but Roger's new job will hopefully change that, I mean… yeah… that has to be why I passed out, it makes the most sense," I told her; almost reassuring myself that was the reason.

She seems slightly convinced and relived by my response and goes back to doing something… I'm not even sure what. She's moving a bunch of stuff around in the kitchen and then mutters something, moves something else and continues this for a couple minutes. I watch her carefully and it gets to a point where I can't help but start laughing at her.

She stops at stares at me. "What's so funny, mister?" she says in such a serious tone.

"It's just… what the hell are you even doing?"

She huffs a little bit then comes over to stand by me. "Joanne hid the alcohol on me and I know she put it somewhere in one of these cupboards."

"That's… funny," is all I can reply without sounding rude or extremely mean. I continue laughing, considering the situation. I need a good laugh at this point.

"No it's not!" she says and continues in her search.

As I continue to laugh at her, I don't even notice the door open or Roger come into the room.

"What's so funny?" he asks and my head perks up to look at him. The laughing stops immediately and the uncomfortable silence seeps into the room.

"Well… Joanne hid all the alcohol from Maureen, and she's been rather advantageously looking for it… with no luck," I reply, hoping that my upbeat response would break the tension that was present.

"Ah, I see," he simply replies. I look him over and notice there's nothing too unusual about him. He didn't return with any bags, so that rules out a couple of my suspicions. I look for a weapon on him of any kind and it doesn't appear to be one. So, my life is safe for now. He walks over to the other couch across from where I was sitting and takes a seat.

"Feeling better?" he asks me timidly.

"Uh, yeah, I think so," I reply.

"Good… that's good."

Luckily for us, the phone decides to ring at that exact moment and Maureen jumps to grab it. She vibrantly answers it and it's clearly apparent it's Joanne on the phone. The whole time, I stare down at my feet, occasionally looking over to Roger, who is doing his best to keep his gaze away from my face. However, both of our attempts fail horribly when our eyes meet and we both quickly look away. Yeah, things are definitely not back to normal… they are to the point where we can't even look each other in the eye.

Maureen finally hangs up the phone and comes over to us. "Listen, Joanne is on her way home from work, and we were thinking, how about we make dinner for you boys?"

We both glance over at each other and it's obvious we both love the idea. The more time we spend with other people the better. The longer I have to ponder what the hell happened earlier today. I still haven't figured it out.

"Yeah, that would be great," I tell her. Roger nods his head in agreement and looks away from me. I can't tell if he's mad at me or if he just is really disappointed.

"Great! I'm going to run across the street and grab a couple things we need," she informs us.

"I could go!" Roger and I both say as we stand up in protest. We both look over at each other and the moment gets creepier by the second.

Maureen shakes her head at us and laughs for a second. "Don't worry guys, I can handle this. You two stay here."

Either Maureen is doing it on purpose to get us to talk or she's honestly a crazy person. I can't tell. My whole head is flooded with about fifty things at this point and I pray that I don't get overloaded again and faint again. Now, that would be great.

As soon as she closes the door, I know I'm doomed. I try to think logically now and figure out what to say. None of it makes sense logically, so I give up on that temporarily.

He stands up and starts pacing across the room. He's making me nervous and I want nothing more than everything to just go back to the way it was, when everything was fine and normal. Ha, normal. I guess we really have never had normal lives, so I suppose that's pointless to ask for.

"I can understand if you just don't feel the same way, but you gotta let me know," he tells me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Uh…" I am unsure how to respond. Do I feel the same way? I don't know, is that what I've been afraid of this whole time? What I've been too afraid to admit?

"Never mind, let's pretend like it never happened," he says, walking away from me, obviously hurt by my response.

"No, that's not it," I blurt out. What am I doing? I don't even know. Maybe I'm too afraid to consider the truth. Maybe I do feel the same way. There's only one way to find out. I walk over to him and grab his arm to pull him back facing me. "Kiss me again."

"What? So you can faint again?" he replies rather sarcastically.

"No, not at all. I just… just do it."

"No Mark, I'm just not going to start kissing you because you told me so," he says, his voice getting louder by the syllable.

"I just… I need to know…" I mumble, hoping that he does what I desperately need him to do.

He steps closer to me and I feel his arm touch mine. He says quietly to my face, "What do you need to know?"

I can't bear to look up at him, so staring down at my hands I reply with, "I need to know if what I'm so desperately trying to hide is what I'm truly feeling."

It appears as if my answer was good enough for him because the next thing I feel is his warm lips pressed upon mine and his tongue venturing into my mouth. I try to comprehend the feelings I am experiencing, but they seem to be too numerous to count. It takes me a moment to realize I am kissing him back and how hard Roger is pushing into me. The next thing I know he's got me pressed up against the wall and I feel his hands, his magical hands, pulling on my hair.

He pulls away gently and has this curious smile upon his face. I suppose I do as well. What does it all mean? Am I in love with Roger? Am I gay? I'm not too sure, but I do know that I enjoyed kissing him and having his hands touching me. It was a feeling I haven't experienced since… well… I guess you could say Maureen and I dated, but it was much more magical than that. There was this connection, like no one else in the world mattered, that everything around us stood still, and it was us.

He cleared his throat and was obviously waiting for a response from me. I tried not to smile too outrageously, but I couldn't control it. Our eyes connected and I couldn't contain my emotions anymore. I smiled from ear to ear and he followed suit. He motioned for me to follow him over to the couch, so I did what I was told. We sat down by one another on the couch, each afraid to be the first one to speak.

"So… I think I know now," I tell him.

"Really?" his spirits get lifted as he turns and faces me. "What's the conclusion?"

"Well… I do have to admit, I really enjoyed that," I tell him, feeling my face getting rather red as I spoke every word.

He continued smiling at me and shifted closer to me on the couch. I could feel my heart beating even faster as our bodies touched. We sat like that for a moment, relaxing for a moment in our quite fucked up lives.

I pondered us for a moment. So what does that mean? Where does that put us? I'm too afraid to ask because I didn't want to ruin the beauty of the moment. But the temptation was too overwhelming. I turned to face him and said, "So… where does that put us?"

"Well… I'm not too sure. I'm surprised we've made it this far," he declares. I agree with him. For once we're not fighting and one of us isn't terribly depressed and avoiding the other. It's a nice feeling, I have to admit.

"I just… I don't get it… you never finished telling me how you got from sitting out on the balcony for six hours at a time to kissing me in the back of a restaurant," I say to him, hoping that it doesn't come out badly.

He laughs a little then turns to face me, "Yeah, I skipped around there a bit at the end."

"Uh… that's one way of looking at it."

"So, you're probably going to laugh at me when I tell you this, so you have to promise not to," he starts.

"I promise. Although, no guarantees especially if it's really funny," I reply.

"Well, here goes nothing," he says. "I was sitting on the couch one day and I watched you come in. You looked like shit; it was when you had that cold a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, the thought occurred to me what I would be like if you… you left me… if something ever happened to you and I was left to die alone."

I couldn't look at him anymore, it was too difficult. He continued on with his story, his voice getting quieter with every word. "And I couldn't imagine being without you at all. I realized at that moment that you've always been there for me, when I've needed you the most, and that you would never leave me. That you were my rock."

I'm trying to cover up the few tears that have begun forming in my eyes as he continues, "That's when it started. When I started to realize that it was entirely possibly I could be in love with you and didn't realize it. So, there you have it. You can laugh at me now."

He finishes, trying to add some humor into the story that was entirely too sad, and faces away from me. I'm facing away from him, wiping off the tears that have suddenly decided to occupy my eyes. I finally regain composure and turn back to face him.

I try smiling and tell him, "That was very nice of you to say."

He looks up at me and shrugs his shoulders. "I do what I can. Thank God Maureen didn't come in then, she would make fun of me for years for being all sappy."

"Yeah, she wouldn't be nice about it, that's for sure," as we slip back into our comfortable chatter.

"So… I mean… whatever," he says, obviously wanting to say something more, but afraid to.

"Yeah?"

"Well… you asked where that put us… and I was just going to say…"

I smile at him, shy Roger is often unseen and quite amusing when seen. "Don't be afraid, I'm not going to bite you, or faint again. Or at least I'll try not to."

"Good to know," is all he replies with. I figure I'll give him some help on this one.

"Let's not worry about anything right now… we'll just see what happens," I tell him. It's a good plan in reality, rushing into anything significant at this point could turn disastrous rather quickly, and in all honesty, I was still rather confused about everything. I didn't think I was gay, but I couldn't deny the attraction I was feeling for Roger. The way his body would touch mine sent chills up my spine.

"Yeah… that's a good idea…" he replies, content with my assertive answer. He grabs a hold of my hand and drags me over to the bathroom. He drags me inside and shuts the door and I'm quite confused by his actions.

"What are you…" I try to get out and am silenced by his hand placed over my mouth.

"I just… had to do this… and figured Maureen might be back soon," he tells me before grabbing the back of my head and brings my face in contact with his. Our lips meet, like two lost loves, and for the first time, we're kissing because both of us believe in us. The past two times have been exploratory, but this time it's different. We're stopped rather quickly, as the shrill of Maureen's voice echoes through the apartment. He gives me a small kiss on the cheek, a smile, and walks confidently out of the bathroom. I stay for a moment, regaining my composure, and walk back out into the living room.

Maureen eyes us both and gives us her 'look over'. She suddenly has this evil look on her face and it concerns me. She couldn't have possibly seen or known for that matter. She sets down a bag on the counter and then comes back over to us.

"What's with the silly looks on both of your faces? When I left you both looked like… not so happy to be stuck with each other," she asks us. I mean, that is a fair point. Maybe we shouldn't have been that obvious.

Roger steps up for both of us, "Uh, don't worry about it. We talked it out, it's all good."

Maureen eyes us both and doesn't seem convinced, "Well, that's good. Now you both can help me. And look…" she says, rushing back over to her bag of goods, "I bought more alcohol!"

Roger and I exchange glances of horror, considering we both know what happens when Maureen consumes a great portion of alcohol. Normally it involves her proclaiming her love for someone that she isn't currently dating, followed by making out with said person, followed by the person she really is dating getting angry (or in my case, getting sad) and leaving the room. Overall, a good time, wouldn't you say? Wonder why Joanne hid it in the first place…

"I'm going to freshen up and change real quickly, so if you two wouldn't mind starting to cut up all these vegetables, that would be super!" she tells us as she leaves the room.

"Sure…" we both mutter.

We head over to the counter and begin our medial task, when I feel Roger's hand touching the small of my back. His touch in undeniably electric and I respond to it. He leans into me and whispers into my ear, "You know, I haven't told you this yet, but all that other stuff, about why I like you, doesn't compare to the face that you are really cute, especially when I do something that makes you happy."

I know I'm blushing at his wonderful remark. I can hear Maureen washing up in the bathroom, so I know we're safe for at least a minute. I lean up to kiss him and he pulls me in to deepen the kiss. However, we're cut off again, this time for something we were definitely not anticipating.

"Uh… Mark? Roger? What the hell is going on?" We pull away from one another as Joanne's voice stings our ears from her position in the doorway. My stomach sinks and I suddenly have this terrible feeling wash over me. I think Roger feels the same way as well. Great…

I hope you enjoyed this chapter; I'd love to hear what you think in a review! Thank you again for reading!