Posted a while back; moving it into the new RENT section (yay for a Rent section!)
Another fic dug from the depths of the hard drive. Enjoy.
Ignorance
He sat on the couch waiting for her to come out. He played with one of the many threads that snaked lose from the cushions; he often wondered if he pulled the right one if the entire couch would fall apart. He always contemplated this – well, he contemplated each time he waited for Maureen to get out of the damn bathroom. It killed time.
Mark tugged a thread lose as he stared at the bathroom door. He could hear Maureen singing over the sound of running water – slightly off-key, and he smiled at the thought. Every time he stared at that door, he was reminded again of how he loved her.
Maureen was probably the most important thing in his life at the moment; still he couldn't help but think that it wouldn't last. Roger seemed to think it wouldn't. Not that the musician had come straight out and told Mark such a thing, but he could read it in his actions and attitude toward Maureen. Roger liked her, sure, but it wasn't any deep kind of like. Maureen was a difficult person to be around continually. Mark knew this. Still, something drew him to her. He wasn't sure if he could explain it, but even if she pissed the hell out of him, he came back. Always. What did Roger know? He was hardly around lately. He and April spent more time out of the loft than in it. Part of his brain was plagued by that fact, but he chose to ignore it. He'd been ignoring it for a while. He had Maureen and his films. He was happy.
Yep, happy. It seemed strange to have happy and Mark Cohen in the same sentence.
He heard the water stop and knew it would only be a moment or two before Maureen bounded out in nothing but a towel. She was unafraid to walk around the loft like that; she had. In fact, one time she lost the towel, right in front of Roger. If it had been anyone else but Roger, Mark would have probably been jealous. Maureen hadn't seemed embarrassed, but he choked it up to her personality.
Her winning personality.
He pulled another thread off the couch.
The door to the bathroom opened, and sure enough, a towel-cad Maureen stepped out.
"You're running out of threads, pookie." He looked up at her, a look on his face that could only be read as loyalty, love, and dedication. She stared back at him for a second, and he could have sworn he saw a look of guilt cross her eyes for the slightest second. But if disappeared as quickly as appeared, so he thought he was mistaken. Maureen fingered her wet hair before turning sharply toward the bedroom. "Get ready. We only have six hours to set up before the protest tonight."
He didn't answer, he just got up to make coffee, knowing he'd need to get him through a protest of Maureen's. Yelling at him because the mics don't work or the props were wrong . . .
Maybe Roger was right. Maybe he was, as he was constantly told, a "sucker." Maureen was his girlfriend. He was doing what any good boyfriend – what any good friend for that matter – would do.
Then why did he have a nagging feeling in the back of his brain? He picked up his camera and stared at it a second, studying it as if it had the key to his problem. Maureen entered and he naturally pointed the camera at her.
"The diva makes her entrance," he narrated and Maureen struck a pose. Another reason he loved being with her – she was far from camera shy and proved to be an interesting and complicated subject. She was boundless energy, even it if was often one-sided and shown only toward a subject that interested her.
He tried to pinpoint his problem later at the protest, studying Roger and Maureen's interaction when he and April showed up. April hung back, looking a bit lost, well, lost wasn't the word he was looking for. She just looked . . . different. He got up from the equipment he was working on to film Roger and Maureen, who had turned to playfully exchanging insults. Their exchange was always fun to witness; it made for entertainment later.
He gave up. He pushed the feeling down and smiled. It was easier to ignore things. At least in his world. Maureen's shout broke his thoughts and he answered it. 'Doormat,' he could almost hear Roger tease, but instead noticed Roger walk back toward April. They disappeared during the performance and didn't resurface until he was packing up.
"Where's Maureen?" April asked him. Roger stood a bit of a distance away and Mark wondered why he didn't come and say hi. He turned to find Maureen, and realized she was nowhere in sight.
"I don't know," he admitted and sat somewhat dejected on the "stage." April sat next to him.
"She probably just went to change or something."
"Yeah," he quickly agreed and twisted the mic cord around in his hands. April turned toward Roger and back toward Mark for a second before getting up to join her boyfriend once again. To disappear until all hours of the night he knew and mentally kicked himself for the thought. He sounded like a parent.
He sighed.
Alone again.
No, just for the moment, he corrected himself as he finished coiling mic wire. Maureen made her appearance when he was just about done. She always did. She'd bark at him during set-up and disappear during clean-up.
Oh well, she loved him. His mind turned to jello when she smiled and butterflies stirred in his stomach when they kissed. He always fell whole-heartily in love, not doing anything halfway.
"Marky," she pouted. "What'cha do with the bell?" She immediately rummaged through creating a new mess.
"Here," he grabbed it before she could do further damage.
"Thanks, pookie."
Pookie. Marky. Two words he'd normally cringe at. Somehow, from Maureen, however, they had a different meaning. Put up with faults with love, he supposed.
Roger and April weren't home when he struggled with the lock. Maureen walked in and for once, made no excuse to go out – go drinking, dancing, and flirting (heavily, Mark added). Instead, she patted the couch.
Mark almost did a double take. The feeling he had earlier resurfaced and, for a moment, he stood still, afraid of sitting on the couch.
"Jeez, Mark, sit. I know you. You don't want to go out." She pushed a strand of hair off her face. "Scared of sex, Marky?" She gently teased before climbing across the couch. Catching him off guard, she pulled the back of his shirt, sending him tumbling onto the couch. It groaned in protest and Mark thought it would break. Maybe it would, after what Maureen had planned happened.
He stared up into her face and realized he'd lost his glasses in the tumble. Maureen was a blurry figure without them.
"These?" She dangled them in front of his face and he grabbed, slipping them on.
He still had that feeling.
He was basically sprawled on Maureen's lap, with Maureen initiating sex (as she always did, Mark swore she was addicted to it – not that he was complaining) and he had a bad feeling.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Or course, he caved into Maureen's seductive ways, ignoring a gut feeling once again. It was the story of his life. Perhaps his mind truly knew about the fuck-ups he would make in life. It didn't matter if it did or not, his heart always forced him another way, ruling his life decisions – including the one that let Maureen try new and kinky things.
Love, he was in love.
Love.
They spent an incredible amount of time lounging on the couch afterwards, covered in a thin blanket. The light bulb in the single lamp next to them flickered. He listened to Maureen's steady breathing. He didn't move for fear he'd wake her. He took his glasses off with the hand not entwined with Maureen and studied the lenses.
He heard someone fumbling with the lock. Roger.
"Christ, Mark, you got a bedroom."
He slipped his glasses on again. "You should talk. Even with walls, you and April aren't exactly quiet. Or discreet." He noticed then that April was missing. He shifted his weight carefully and extracted himself from Maureen with waking her. It was cold and he was clad only in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. He followed Roger toward their make-shift kitchen area, which really consisted a small stove, refrigerator, and a rusted sink. A table stood a few feet away.
"Where's April?" Mark asked as he pulled out a chair and sat down. Roger looked at him a second.
"At a friend's."
"Have a fight?"
Another long stare. "Yeah."
He was lying. Mark knew it. He thought about April's appearance earlier. Odd.
"I'm going to bed." Roger walked toward his own room and click of the door seemed deafening.
Wrong.
Mark ignored it.
Instead, he sat on the arm of the couch and watched Maureen sleep. She was peaceful, beautiful, innocent. Whenever he saw her sleeping, he saw every one of her dislikeable qualities disappear. At that one moment, it could seem like things were perfect. He reached for his camera, then changed his mind. He didn't need to film an image that would forever be engrained in his memory.
His thoughts wandered back to April. Maybe he was wrong; she and Roger could've had a fight. When they fought, it often ended in April staying away from the loft for a few days.
They never fought often. April was even-tempered. She was strong, but lacked a flair to fight with words. She preferred the silent treatment, something that could drive Roger nuts.
He sighed.
He was doing that a lot lately. He dragged a folding chair from the table and brought it over to the window. Halfway open, he shivered from the breeze. It was a clear night and a full moon lit the sky.
He glanced back at a sleeping Maureen and then at Roger's closed door.
He had a bad feeling.
There was no other way to put it. But he had idea toward what or even if it was directed to Maureen or not.
He looked back toward the moon. If he only knew.
If he only knew.