Disclaimer: Rent and By My Side belong to Jonny and Stephen Schwartz/Peggy Gordon/Jay Hamburger
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AN: This one is going to be flangsty (aka fluffy-angst) And the lyrics to the song are beautiful, so I couldn't resist posting them all
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Where are you
going?
Where are you going?
Can you take me with you?
For my
hand is cold and needs warmth
Where are you going?
Far beyond
where the horizon lies
And the land sinks into mellow blueness
Oh
please, take me with you
Let me skip the road with you
I can
dare myself
I can dare myself
I'll put a pebble in my shoe
And
watch me walk
I can walk
I can
walk!
I shall call the pebble Dare
We will walk, we will talk
together
We will talk about walking
Dare shall be carried
And
when we both have had enough
I will take him from my shoe,
singing
"Meet your new road!"
Then I'll take your
hand
Finally glad
That you are here
By my side
By my
side
-By My Side, Peggy
Gordon and Jay Hamburger, Godspell
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"Mimi!" Roger says, pulling away from me, and suddenly I can feel the cold, although before I was warm, despite wearing only an undershirt and boxers. I can still feel his lips against mine, and I stroke them with my fingers, still unable to believe what just happened. It happened so fast and felt so good, and then Mimi had to come barging in. Mimi the destroyer. "It's… it's not what it looks like!" He shouts. What is that supposed to mean? Was this just an accident? Oh, please, God, don't let this have been an accident. If Roger loves me, I'll go kosher again, I swear, and I'll stop coveting and oh God, I would do anything to feel his lips brushing mine again and taste his sweet, sweet kisses.
"What am I supposed to think, Roger, when I walk in to find you and your best friend making out in your underwear?"
"You are the one who broke up with me, if I recall, so shouldn't I be allowed to find someone else?" Oh, thank you, God! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I should be worried that Mimi just caught us and is pissed, but I'm too busy silently rejoicing, until she yells again.
"Who said I broke up with you?"
"You moved out after calling me a paranoid asshole; what was I supposed to think?"
"Fuck you, Roger Davis, fuck you!" She grabbed her purse from off the floor and ran out of the loft in a huff. I could hear her heels clacking down the stairs and her door slam.
Roger reached out a finger and ran it down my jaw line. "I'm sorry, Mark," he whispered. "I didn't want it to happen this way. Mimi… she's going through a lot of shit right now. Shit I can't deal with. And I… I love you, Mark. I love you. I have for about… half a week now. I'm scared now, scared that you don't like me and now you'll think I'm creepy and…" I cut him off with a kiss and reentwine my fingers into his soft hair.
"I know," I whisper, my lips still barely pressing into his. "And I do, too." He grasps the back of my neck to pull me into another searing kiss, and we're back where we left off, but this time it's his tongue that snakes between my lips and I moan into his mouth. Unexpectedly, he breaks the kiss off again, leaving my mouth feeling empty. He pushes his stool away from the counter and walks to the couch.
"I can't do this to you, Mark," he says quietly, turning away from me and sitting down. I follow him and sit behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He shrugs it off. "I don't know how far I'm going to go. I get out of control. I can't make you sick, Mark. I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
I begin to knead his tense shoulders and lean my head over his shoulder. "I won't get sick, Roger. We… we'll be careful. And if I get sick… I'm with you, and you're by my side." He says nothing. "Please, Roger… you have no idea how much I need you." He turns his head, and I can see tears glistening at the corners of his eyes.
"Okay," he says. "I trust you." I lean back and he leans forward and our lips meet thousands of times, and we stay like that on the couch for what feels like an eternity, until with one last gentle kiss he gets up. "We have to tell them," he says, heading into his room. "Get dressed." He calls everyone, telling them to go to the Life Café, and then when we're both ready to go, we entwine our fingers and walk, side-by-side like this, to the café.
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When everyone sees us holding hands, at first Mark blushes and tries to pull away, but I grip his hand tighter and kiss his cheek. "Guys, um, Mark and I… um… well, we…" Maureen practically jumps on us before I can finish, and she seems proud, somehow. She squeezes us both with hugs, and I feel reassured that someone is accepting us. Everyone else just stares, except Mimi, who is shooting a death glare at Mark. "So… yeah." I squeeze Mark's hand tighter to reassure him. The hostess leads us to our table, and we sit in an awkward silence for a while.
"So…" Collins ventures. "When did you…"
"This morning," Mark answers, a bit shaky. I stroke my thumb along the back of his hand the way I did earlier, when he was sick. Suddenly the ice cracks apart and we're barraged with questions, most of which we manage to answer. Mimi is silent the whole time, glaring mostly at Mark, as if it's his fault that he is the most beautiful person I have ever known. Finally we're done eating, and Joanne pays and we go our separate ways. Unfortunately, Mimi has to go the same way as us.
"So," she says, "You… don't like girls anymore?"
"I don't know," I say softly. "I guess I still do."
"But you like boys?"
"Yeah, I guess…" It hasn't really occurred to me since I kissed Mark that I'm gay now. Mark isn't a guy, Mark is Mark. But I guess I am, or at least bi. I never thought that would apply to me. Of course, I never thought I would love Mark.
"And if I offered… you wouldn't take me back?"
"Mimi, if you still don't remember, you broke up with me. You can't expect me to come crawling to you when you are the one who's at fault here. If you want me, you shouldn't have left me and expected that this time I would come back. We've been through this too many fucking times, and you never change, and you say that this time you'll quit for me, but you end up blowing the man to get smack because I took your drug money. It's the same every time, and I am through. We're over, Mimi. Get that through your head. Over." As if to prove a point, I lean over to kiss Mark. We reach the apartment, and we ascend the stairs. She goes into her apartment and slams the door, and a flight of stairs later, we're in ours.
I collapse on the couch and Mark sits down next to me, holding my hand and leaning his head on my shoulder. I stroke his hair, and we stay like this, hand in hand, side by side.