Disclaimer: It's all Jonathon Larson's. No one could hope to measure up anyway.

Roger

-just about a month later-

Roger fought the urge to laugh as Mark stared at him with an expression that clearly stated that he thought Roger was absolutely out of his mind. "You—I—no. Absolutely not." He folded his arms stubbornly over his thin chest, shaking his head, no; this is not a good idea, no, I can't do this. Roger could read it all over his face.

"Awww, c'mon," Roger encouraged, "I'm going to be right next to you in case anything happens. Which it won't."

They were parked in the empty parking lot behind Mark's elementary school, abandoned for the weekend. A little earlier Roger had pried out of Mark, much to the boy's obvious chagrin and displeasure, that he'd never learned to drive, mainly because his parents didn't really want to teach him. Immediately Roger had taken it upon himself to introduce Mark to the world of driving.

"Besides," he tempted, stretching and wriggling about in the worn leather of his seat, "You want to know what it's like to drive, I can tell." Reaching over, he ruffled Mark's short blond hair, ignoring when Mark tried to duck away. "Aren't you just going crazy wondering?"

The returned glare, which Roger assumed was meant to be intimidating and convince him that Mark wanted no part in this business, was beginning to soften and look far less convincing. Not like he could ever manage to look particularly threatening, but now Roger could tell that he was just about to reach the brink and give in. Finally, shooting Roger a final attempted death-glare, Mark sighed and opened his door, clambering out and muttering, "Your insurance when I crash."

Chuckling as he securely fastened his seatbelt and making a point of testing it once he was in the passenger seat, Roger reassured him with, "You'll be fine. It's easy. In fact, it's really fun."

Mark snorted derisively. "Yeah—sorry, Rog. I don't trust your opinion of 'fun' when to you, standing up in front of a few hundred people screaming some punk-rock song that you wrote two days before constitutes fun. Oh, or seeing how fast you can drink a two-liter bottle of Coke. And did I mention—"

"You're stalling," Roger accused good naturedly, noting that Mark's knuckles were turning slightly white from gripping the steering wheel in front of him. Mark just gave him another look. "I'm just explaining why trusting you isn't the wisest thing that I could do if I want to be in a good situation. Or surive."

"Relax," Roger instructed, leaning enough to put a hand on either of Mark's shoulders. They were completely tensed, so he dug his thumbs into the T-shirt-covered muscles, lightly massaging as Mark took a deep breath and let him to loosen his shoulders. Always, Roger had been a very touchy person, and whereas before Mark had jumped anytime Roger initiated any contact that wasn't play-fighting, now he was getting more comfortable with gentler touches.

The week before, Roger had asked him why he was so paranoid about it, and Mark had explained that his mom was constantly picking at him, hugging him, laying a hand on his arm while they talked, etc, and his dad never touched him, and then changed the subject immediately. Roger let it lie there.

Once Mark didn't have quite such a death grip on the steering wheel, Roger continued, "Okay, turn the key all the way away from you. Yeah, further—"

rrrrrrvvvvvvvvvv

"Okay, okay, let go!" Mark dropped his hands as though the ignition had suddenly burst into in flames, and the engine quit its revving. His already pale face was absolutely pasty, and when Roger grinned brightly, he only managed a rather sickly smile in return before he looked straight ahead again.

"Okay, what now? I can't even turn it on right."

"Oh, it was fine. I should've warned you. Put the car into Drive. That one, yeah. Very good. Okay, now you've got awhile before you have to turn or anything so you can just put your foot down on the acceleration pedal—the smaller one—and…go."

Wham. The car jolted forwards, Roger's seat belt catching him when he nearly slammed his head into the glove department after snapping it violently back against the headrest as Mark floored it for about two seconds and then viciously stomped on the brakes.

"Shit, Mark, what the fuck? Dude, slowly, you can't just…"

Roger let his voice trail off as he looked at Mark. The smaller boy was bent forward, forehead resting on the steering wheel, absolutely cracking up. Unable to help it, Roger began laughing as well. He met Mark's eyes, and that just set them off into a louder fit.

Finally, once they had caught their breaths again, Roger suggested, "Maybe let's try that again…carefully…"

This time, he watched as Mark very cautiously lifted his foot from the brake and eased it down onto the gas pedal. They accelerated to twenty miles per hour, cruising easily towards the back fence. As they neared it, Roger calmly pointed left. "Start turning now. Yeah, like that." They car was turning, but he could tell that it was definitely not fast enough. "Mark—turn—no, more—KEEP TURNING!"

Panicking, Mark let go of the wheel, which Roger reached for and jerked around. The car swung widely along its shitty turning radius, just barely getting around without brushing the wire. "Brake!" he ordered, and Mark did so.

Roger put the car into park and turned to face Mark. This time he found him staring resolutely out the front windshield, face completely red and blue eyes glossy with fluid that he was furiously blinking back.

"Hey…you okay, man?" Roger queried, resting a hand on Mark's thin shoulder. When he tried to shrug it off, instead of moving away, Roger curled his fingers more tightly. Mark mumbled something inaudible.

"What, now?" Roger asked quietly.

"Now do you believe that I can't do it?"

Roger shook his head. "Nope. I think you're a lazy ass who's trying to get me to drive you everywhere. You're probably just that desperate to be in my presence."

Slowly a smile crept its weak way over Mark's features, even as he shook his head. "Roger—have I ever told you that you're insane?"

Content and satisfied that he'd gotten a positive reaction, Roger assumed an expression of deep thought. "Hmm, not too often—you're not usually one to state the obvious when your camera's not out." As Mark rolled his eyes, Roger rested his chin in the palm of his hand, lips turned upwards ever-so-slightly. For a moment, he could see Mark's eyes open wide, and then the boy blinked, looking away abruptly. Roger cocked his head.

"What?"

"Nothing. Really, Roger, nothing. I'm gonna try this 'driving' thing again."

For another moment Roger studied him, trying to figure out what he had obviously just missed, but Mark gave no sign that the awkward moment had even happened. He just started the car again and went back to going around the parking lot in circles, which were considerably more successful this time. Eventually, he managed to even park straight, and after that accomplishment, Roger decided that the driving lessons were over for the day and forgot about the strange emotion behind Mark's gaze.

----------------------

Since it was a Saturday and his band had a gig, Roger had gotten Mark to agree to come hear them play. It'd been a little while since they'd done a show, and as always when he was getting back up on the stage after not having been there for awhile, Roger was nervous. It wasn't nerves in the conventional not-wanting-to-do-it way, but more just hoping that people would show up, and that their new music would be received well by everyone.

For the first ten minutes or so, Mark was hanging around backstage, following him around like a puppy, while the rest of the band shot him sideways glances and made snide remarks under their breaths. Frankly, Roger didn't really care what they thought, because he and Mark had gotten pretty close, even already, and Mark didn't seem to really notice the disparaging comments about his wardrobe and incessant filming.

It wasn't long before Mark had realized that before gigs, Roger wasn't particularly social; Roger tended to want to sit off in his particular corner backstage, warming up, and occasionally leaping up to go make sure some equipment was in order, so Mark gave a little wave and headed out to find somewhere to watch from.

As Incendiary made its way onstage, with Roger stalking out last, he was greeted with the welcome sight of quite a good number of fans, leaping and screaming, some of the girls blowing kisses, and the smoky, salty smell of too many people in a fairly small room. Immediately, a grin broke over his face as he held up his guitar, and this brought more raucous cheers. Stepping up to the mic, he let his eyes, rimmed carefully in eyeliner, sweep the room until they finally singled out Mark.

He was wedged among people in the back, but Roger could see that nevertheless he had his video camera up. For a moment he drew the camera away from his face so that their eyes met, and he gave an encouraging smile that Roger returned, ignoring everything else around him for a few moments.

The sight of him there gave Roger any confidence that he was lacking, and a warm tingle that he couldn't quite name swept through his body. "Are you all ready for the most amazing night of music ever?" he growled into the microphone, and listened appreciatively as fresh cheers began. When he stood back, all it took to silence the whole room was one hand raised.

The band had a pretty fair selection, with five covers and eight original songs, three of which were new. In fact, one of them was the one Roger had played for Mark in his room not too long before, and when they started in on that one, Roger locked his eyes back onto Mark. He could see a grin sweep over the pale face as recognition dawned. It felt good, since Mark was obviously pleased.

By the time they'd finished, Roger was slick with sweat and his throat was completely dry from singing and giving the audience the occasional comments that they always loved, as though the prose was better than the poetry.

As people mobbed the stage, Roger escaped as quickly as he could. He got tired of the girls that flung themselves at band kids as though there was no tomorrow. It went along with that whole pleading, desperation thing again, and how much that bothered him.

Instead of plunging into the crowd to be fawned over, he went back to put his Fender away, and when he finally looked up again, Mark was standing there. Hurrying to his feet, Roger hugged him briefly. "Dude, thanks for coming," he said, voice raspy, and coughed slightly.

Looking concerned, Mark asked, "Are you alright?" Roger nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, fine, just my voice is dead. Well, so…?"

"It was…it was good. Not the kind of music I normally go for, but it was good. Your drummer could use some work, though…"

With a laugh Roger nodded. "Yeah…Cody thinks that he's amazing. And the girls usually can't tell and just think he's hot, so he gets more than his share of attention."

By now Roger had finished packing, and they were heading out of the crowded club, Roger in front of Mark like a shield as he shouldered through people while waving, trying to avoid overzealous fans. It took longer than he would have liked to escape, but finally they were outside, where he breathed in the cool air thankfully.

"You sound like you're jealous," Mark commented, continuing the conversation from before with his voice lower now that they could talk without shouting over the inside din.

Roger rolled his eyes, swiping at his hair, which was starting to droop forward under the combined weight of gel and sweat. "I'm better than that bastard any day. Not to mention a hell of a lot sexier."

"Yeah, really." Roger paused and turned to face Mark, eyebrows raised. His friend wore a strange expression that Roger couldn't read on his face. It was the same one that he'd caught a glance of earlier, and frankly, he was getting tired of not being able to tell where Mark's mind was.

"Did you just…" Roger began.

"I don't know." Mark replied quickly, ducking his head as he put the car between them so that Roger couldn't see him anymore.

Still trying to figure out what exactly he'd meant, Roger unlocked the car doors, sliding into the driver's seat. When Mark got in a moment later, his face was crimson. "I…uh…" he mumbled, rather ineffectively. Roger hid a smirk, thinking that Mark was cute when he was embarrassed.

His hand stilled, and he had to force himself to remember to start the car. What? he thought to himself, flabbergasted. I think it might be just a bit strange to think that my best...best guy friend is cute. Even if he might have just said I was sexy. And I might have just interpreted that strangely.

It bothered Roger more that he really didn't mind.

The ride to drop Mark off was spent in silence, broken only when Mark hurried out of the car, calling, "Great show…see you later!"