Disclaimer: Totally don't own RENT
Author's Note: So I think this qualifies as "M" by now. I probably should have changed the rating a few chapters ago. Two chapters today, kids. I only plan on one more after this, but it's possible there will be two.


Connection – Chapter Ten

Roger had stumbled back to the city on his own and the first thing he thought, when he found himself bedding rock groupies for a place to sleep every night, was that he should have just stayed with Mark. There was a certain amount of security in getting laid by the same person every night. Except that Mark wasn't exactly speaking to him at the moment.

It was early spring, though Roger would never have known outside of the calendar. The city was as gray and miserable as ever. Each girl in the long line of sex and pity was a copy of the previous one, skinny as hell with black holes of makeup for eyes and a bad nicotine habit. The first band he joined out of desperation played off-key punk anthems Roger penned by stealing from graffiti in public restrooms. Girls grabbed at his ankles on the stage and climbed up beside him, hindering his guitar playing by pressed their hipbones into his ass and leaving red trails from smoky lips on his neck.

Kisses tasted like alcohol after the show, as he pressed up against some pretty thing in an alleyway, and tried desperately to pretend she hadn't been throwing up in front of the stage from a bad trip last week right before screwing his bassist in the bathroom of the club.

"Can I call you?" He gasped, his lips against her neck as he finished, slowing unfolding his body from hers.

"I've got a boyfriend." She pulled her skirt down and adjusted one of her heels, ducking out from underneath his arms and swaying down the alleyway and out of sight.

Roger leaned against the wall, rubbing at the stain on his pants and wanting more than anything for someone to know where he was. He would need a hit in a few hours and he'd want a drink not long afterwards. He would have to find another girl if he wanted to sleep tonight or beg his drummer for the couch again. He fixed his pants and grabbed his guitar. There was just too much shit to worry about.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember a time when he wasn't constantly dirty, hungry and almost completely reliant on sex and drugs to survive. When he opened them he was standing on the curb under a bus stop. It all made too much sense and he just backed away.


Mark liked to think Roger would realize on his own that he was killing himself. He liked to hope that one day the phone would ring while he was studying and it would be Roger. He always held his breath when he came back to the dorm, hoping to find the long, thin body dirtying his sheets again. But the phone only rang on Sundays when his mother called and even the roommate was hardly ever hanging around. Mark filmed after classes and studied every evening, surviving on solitude and dry cereal. He took pictures of people when he wasn't filming and saved them in shoeboxes under his bed, trying to find meaning in his strangers, hoping beyond all hope that he would recognize someone in those faces.

When it wasn't enough he set up the projector he'd bought second hand and watched Roger practice his guitar, pretending they were in the same room, going about their inspiration together in the silent company.

Biology was making Mark sick. The more he groped for reasons to stay in college, the more he realized he'd never had one to begin with. College equated to awkward study groups where he seemed to be the only one not progressing. College was girls who liked to tease a bit too much and roommates who ignored him unless to hint he should spent the evening somewhere else. It was long nights reading textbooks while he stared longingly at the boxes of film and photography, begging for a night off to edit properly and write a screenplay. College had never shown him anything worth staying for.

Mark made himself tea and once he sat back down on his bed he kicked his Biology textbook onto the floor. He honestly didn't really care anymore.