Disclaimer: Totally don't own RENT


Connection – Chapter Eight

Mark should have known. He really should have been expecting the late night phone call. He should have known the moment the phone rang. He should have expected to hear the hesitant hope in Roger's voice when he said that he was at a bus stop and had no idea how to get to the campus from there.

And maybe on some level, Mark did know, and he had expected it.

It was raining when Mark started walking and it only rained harder as time passed. By the time he could see Roger's thin body stretched out on his side on a bench fast asleep, no part of either boy was dry.

Mark picked up Roger's guitar case and gently pushed on his shoulder. Roger sniffed, let out a soft moan and opened his eyes, which were red, unfocused and glazed. Even though he looked high, his eyes sparked immediately with recognition and he grabbed at Mark's arm, clutching a fistful of fabric and staring up at his friend.

"I didn't think you'd come." Roger admitted, though Mark could easily have said the same thing to him.

Mark rolled his eyes, letting Roger grab onto him. They let the silence pass, eyes meeting in an awkward attempt at avoidance, uncomfortable in the face of more noise than either had heard in months.

With the rain stinging his eyes behind his glasses, Mark helped Roger up, staggering for a moment when Roger collapsed against him, arms flung tight around his waist, burying his wet head into Mark's soaked sweater.

"Come on." Mark urged, pressed Roger away. "It's cold."

Mark left one arm protectively around Roger's shoulders. Roger wrapped one of his instinctively around Mark's waist.


The roommate was out when Mark pulled Roger into his dorm room, which was fortunate considering the first thing Roger did was drop his bag and flop onto Mark's bed. Mark let a scowl pass over his features before hurrying over to Roger and pulling him off of the bed. He absently dug into his closet and pulled out some dry clothing, throwing them at Roger before pulling his own wet shirt over his head. Roger watched him, his heart and his pants tightening in reflex to seeing the familiar body, Mark's collarbones piercing out of his pale skin, perfect to be nipped at with eager teeth. When he turned around to reach for another shirt, Roger's eyes followed the curve of Mark's spine, imagining the other body beneath his, pressing desperate kisses into the smooth flesh, fingers laced around his abdomen, pressing them together, sliding apart and then back together, sticky from sweat.

Something in the back of Roger's overeager mind told him that initiating any further sex acts with the best friend he had already gone too far with could be detrimental to any relationship they had left. But Roger's body wasn't particularly interested in anything his mind had to say about the situation.

Dropping the clothes onto the floor near the bed, Roger reached out to Mark, wrapping one long arm around his chest and pulling Mark back against him. One short noise of protest was silenced when Roger pressed his lips onto Mark's neck, just beneath his chin. Mark's head tilted back, his hair tickling against Roger's chest as Roger's hands slid down Mark's belly, his fingers taking their time to press into the cold skin, coming to rest on Mark's hipbones and then slowly sliding beneath the waist of his jeans.

"Roger…" Mark's tone could have been pleasure. It could have been anger and it could have been fear. Neither boy really knew. Mark wasn't particularly sure what had brought them together, Mark leaning against Roger's chest, and Roger's hands down the front of his pants while his lips pressed their imprint onto every spare bit of the flesh on Mark's neck he could find, but after spending his first semester of college hitting on girls out of his league without any luck, Mark wasn't about to complain.

Roger turned him around, pressing Mark's back against the wall, and his lips against the prominent collarbone, pulling Mark's skin gently between his teeth, his fingers playing around Mark's waist, sliding down until he could grab Mark's ass through his jeans, shoving their hips together roughly and feeling Mark's hands tighten around his arms. Roger moved his lips back to Mark's neck, sucking at the skin behind his ear, pulling their bodies together.

Mark wasn't entirely uncomfortable at the present situation, but something itched inside of him. He pressed against Roger again, his short nails biting into the other boy's skin, then pushed him backwards. Roger stumbled a step back, his sore eyes sorry and hesitant before his knees hit the side of the bed and Mark was on him, pulling Roger's shirt over his head and threading his fingers through the damp mess of hair, bringing their lips together in the heat of wasted months of solitude and cautious avoidance. In all of Roger's imagined interactions, this was never a scenario he had planned out. In his mind, Mark was beneath him, his lips against Roger's ear, his legs around Roger's waist and Roger's fist tight around Mark's cock.

But somehow they ended up with Roger on his back, his fingers woven through Mark's hair, Mark's hands pressing his thighs down onto the bed and Mark's mouth wrapped around his cock, completely in control of every breath Roger drew.

For a moment Roger thought he should have been frustrated by his lack of dominance, especially when Mark pulled away too soon to dust light little kisses down Roger's chest and belly. If Mark liked them fast and Roger liked them nice, how was it that right now Mark claimed Roger's mouth, sliding their hips together in a sloppy rhythm and Roger was letting him? Roger knew he should have had enough when Mark slipped a finger between his legs. Mark knew he was going too far. Neither boy really cared.

Roger was asleep, snoring lightly with strands of his dirty, wet hair plastered across his face. Mark was resting against his shoulder, watching Roger's chest rise and fall and tracing his fingers absently along the lifelines of a thin arm. Together they smelled of sweat and sex and the hand lotion Mark kept near his bed. Roger turned on his side toward Mark, wincing in his sleep as he shifted his hips, the bruises of Mark's kisses darkening on his skin. Mark had an urge to shake Roger awake.

Mark liked girls who kissed on the first date. Roger liked nice girls who smelled pretty. But boys weren't girls.