Disclaimer: Totally don't own RENT


Connection – Chapter Seven

In the final days of summer, Roger disappeared again. Life had never been more lonely for Mark, and somehow he knew Roger felt the same.

Before he left, their interaction, never particularly verbal, had dwindled down to muted exchanges of pleasantries. The subtle gestures, smiles, nudges that had defined a connection beyond their understanding were lost in the confusion of what they meant. Mark had to sadly admit that he hadn't noticed the silence until this new physical distance had been forced between them.

Mark sat on his new bed in his new dorm, miles away from the familiar. One hand instinctively clutched the old camera, and the other was flipping numbly through his new textbooks. Everything he needed to pursue a career in medicine. The constant grief he had been mildly aware of since he'd lost Roger welled up inside of him. Mark knew Roger shouldn't be out on his own. Mark knew what happened when Roger was left by himself. Mark knew how that itch to experience every possible pain and pleasure just burned inside of him at every moment.

The roommate came in with some friends. They ignored Mark and he extended them the same courtesy. He switched textbooks, opting for Biology this time. He frowned down at the pages, not really sure what any of it meant. The tiny text blurred before his eyes in a maze of black.

The semester dragged on. Mark attended class and did well. He took pictures and filmed when he was done studying. He made a few distant friends and drank tea while his roommate sweet-talked girls on the other end of the darkened room. Mark called his mother regularly and never missed a class.

He did, however, worry. He even went as far as calling Roger's house, his stomach knotting in guilt when Roger's mother mistook his awkward greeting for her son's voice and started crying with relief. For one fleeting moment, Mark considered lying to the woman to save her some grief, but he knew better than that. So Mark simply hung up, knowing now that there probably wasn't a soul from his old life who could tell him where Roger had gotten to.

Mark made a pass at a tall girl with long blonde hair, wearing a mini skirt and smoking near a coffee shop. She flicked ash in his direction, smiled coldly and looked him over. When he asked her name she crossed her arms and leaned against the building before responding. She didn't ask his.

The next night when Mark attempted to call the number she'd given him, he reached a local Chinese delivery place. Mark had a thing for fast girls, but sometimes the girls Mark liked were so fast, the relationship was over the moment they met.


His first night back in the city, Roger found a new world. Instead of drugs and cheap girls, he found underground punk music. He soon found out that these worlds fit very nicely together. He spent the night in a club, grinding and jumping with strangers as the noise of the band throbbed so loudly he was deaf a few hours in. The experience of being in an audience and not onstage was a new one.

A girl pulled him into the bathroom, dressed in the shortest skirt he had ever seen and a top made out of more safety pins than fabric. Slammed up against the wall, she had his pants open before he knew what was happening and a few moments later, the idea of thinking had left his mind altogether. He switched positions so that she was up against the wall, her breasts pressed against his chest, his hands under her ass and her legs around his waist. She left him alone, barely bothering to straighten herself up before simply walking out, his cum glistening on the inside of her thigh as he held the side of the sink to wait for the logical portion of his brain to group back together.

Roger knew that fucking strangers in dirty bathrooms without condoms was a bad idea. But he also knew that being alone was the worst feeling in the world. If anonymous sex brought him close to another person, he was alright with that. And if he closed his eyes and pretended the girl didn't smell like trash and sweat, the sex felt pretty damn good. And Roger liked to feel good.

He spent the next couple months in the clubs, feeding off of the energy from the bands and their fans. He slept in a different place each night, carrying around his little bag of clothes and the guitar. He saved whatever money he had until he absolutely needed it and stole anything else he needed to survive. Roger thought nothing of slipping out of restaurants without paying the check, or of tucking a box of condoms under his jacket.

But Roger thought about Mark more than he would care to admit. He knew his friend was off in college, studying to be a productive citizen. Studying to learn ways to leave behind needy boys with drug problems. Mark was off living the college life. Mark was probably loving it. Mark probably had a girlfriend by now. He probably had a new best friend who didn't disappoint him by showing up completely trashed and begging to go for a drive at 3 in the morning, as Roger so often had. Mark was probably having good sex with his college girlfriend, who was probably smart and funny and beautiful but aggressive enough to appeal to Mark. Roger knew Mark wasn't thinking about him anymore.

He called home one night, to hear his mother's voice. Hearing her son, Mrs. Davis cried openly in relief while Roger sat in silent shock until she asked him in a vague voice if he had called the previous day. Dragging himself out of the guilt he felt at leaving a mother with so much worry, he shook his head before remembering she couldn't see him over the phone.

"We thought it was you. It was a boy. Now that I think about it, he sounded nothing like you. I just hoped so much that you would call."

Roger smiled genuinely. He only knew one boy who would have been calling. When he hung up, Roger called a different set of parents.