A/N: Hello everyone! Was in the mood to write and, well, this is a really amusing chapter… So here we are. Enjoy! Reviews are my crack. Help me maintain my addiction. It's worse this week since my boyfriend isn't here to tell me he loves me every day. Therefore, I need reviews to boost my self-esteem. LET THE MARKROGERNESS BEGIN!
Disclaimer: RENT. Mine? Not. Okay, I think that should be cleared up now.
Chapter Three: The Opposite of 'Help'
"Roger," Mark growled, feeling rather like a trapped animal with his heart pounding frantically and his back against the wall as his roommate advanced on him. "Roger, we talked about this. You don't have to-"
"Shut up and let me put some fucking eyeliner on you already, Mark," the songwriter muttered. Although he was trying to sound nonchalant, Roger couldn't keep the grin off his face. If he was honest with Mark, he knew that the smaller man wasn't a makeup kind of guy. Roger himself only wore so much because it was, well, glam for his rocker look… and he was damn sexy in eyeliner.
Mark was feminine enough, and the way he dressed... Well, unless he was going clubbing or he suddenly acquired an entirely new, cooler wardrobe, Mark didn't need to be anywhere near a stick of eyeliner.
Nevertheless, it was fun making him squirm.
"Roger, no! Roger!" Mark cried, squeezing his eyes shut as the eyeliner pencil in Roger's hand made for his eye. "Don't stab me in the eye you jackass!"
Roger cackled evilly, but he decided that he'd put Mark through enough torture for the day. Enough cosmetic torture, anyways. He regretfully put the cap back on and slipped the stubby black pencil into his pocket, smiling wryly and holding out his empty hands for Mark to see as he peeked at him fearfully from under his lashes.
"Fine. But if I'm not allowed to put any eyeliner on you, then I have to think of another kind of lesson to give you…" He pondered for a moment the vast amount of things that Mark probably didn't have a clue about when it came to homosexuality in practice, finally settling on something that would be equally if not more amusing than making his friend looking like a scary raccoon.
"Roger…?" Mark asked guardedly, still backed against the wall. "What are you thinking…?" His roommate hadn't moved any further away, although they were uncomfortably close for two friends who had no intentions whatsoever of taking it to the bedroom.
Well, not NO intentions whatsoever…
Mark flushed at his own thoughts, stifling the urge to bang his head against the wall. No no no no no. He had been over this with himself. No sexual thoughts about Roger. Just because there was a possibility now, because Roger was bi and had for some reason chosen only recently to tell him… For God's sake, Cohen, get it together! Mind out of the gutter!
In his flustered mental tirade, the filmmaker failed to notice the predatory gleam in Roger's eyes or the way he was subtly inching himself closer until he was being shoved further into the wall and his wrists were being pinned up above his head in one fluid movement of the rocker's large, calloused hand. Blue eyes widening in surprise, Mark opened his mouth to ask what the fuck Roger thought he was doing when a pair of chapped lips descended on his.
"MMPH!" Mark attempted to protest, twisting his wrists to free them, but Roger's grip was far too tight and he had to wait until the guitarist pulled away from his unresponsive lips to form any real words.
Roger pulled away, smirking in amusement at the discomfort pervading the stiff man he had pinned to the wall. The mild panic in Mark's eyes was endlessly entertaining. He could imagine the thoughts going through Mark's head, overanalyzing everything as usual, probably wondering how he'd tell Roger he wasn't interested or marveling over Roger's supreme kissing skills.
That last part might have been Roger's ego talking.
"Shush, I'm teaching you how to kiss a guy," he cut Mark off as the bespectacled man started to stutter out a sentence. Eyes still wide open, he leaned down again and sucked Mark's bottom lip into his mouth, gently tugging at it with his teeth until he opened his mouth and Roger could swipe his tongue over that lower lip tantalizingly before diving in.
Damn it all to hell. If Roger was going to play cocktease with him Mark was never going to kick his disturbing habit of fantasizing about his friend at inopportune moments. Hesitantly he responded, bringing his hands up to grasp at Roger's bleached hair and figuring that he could always excuse himself with the fact that he was a hands-on learner.
Roger grinned against Mark's mouth, shaking off the uneasy feeling that he was enjoying this a little too much to be entirely platonic. It was MARK, and everybody knew how adorable that Mark Cohen was.
Not to mention that he'd always had a bit of a weakness for his favorite filmmaker.
He had his roommate right where he wanted him, and he was sure that right now he could ask anything of Mark and he would comply. Roger pushed a knee between Mark's legs, spreading them just enough that he could fit his hips against the blonde's and push their chests firmly together. The hand that wasn't occupied with Mark's wrists slid up his side, lightly stroking, and back down again until it was dangerously close to Mark's nether regions.
Breaking away and opening his eyes to reveal a spark of mischief and maybe a hint of arousal, Roger drank in the sight of Mark flushed and panting beneath him, blue eyes hazy. He leaned in and breathed against those lips, "I hope you enjoyed this more than the eyeliner, Marky."
He abruptly backed off and released the dumbfounded filmmaker from his grasp, striding into the kitchen. He was grinning from ear to ear, trying to ignore the treacherous fluttering of his heart in his chest that it had given him to kiss his best friend.
"Roger… what just happened?" Mark asked weakly from the next room. Roger sniggered.
"Practice makes perfect, Mark…"
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Maureen had dragged him out SHOPPING.
Mark was certain that shopping was, in fact, the equivalent to hell on earth. This being said, he was fully prepared to move back in with his mother and go to temple in Scarsdale every day to avoid ever ending up trapped in hell with Maureen Johnson.
He may have been being just a little dramatic. But seeing as he wasn't yet fully recovered from Roger's sexual harassment the day before, which he couldn't truthfully say was totally unwanted, he could excuse himself. Next to Maureen no one would be able to tell that he was feeling like a drama queen that day anyways.
"You'd just be ADORABLE in this!" she gasped, pulling a blue hoodie off of the rack closest to them and holding it up to him. "It looks like your size, too! Here, go try it on with the rest."
Maureen shoved several items of clothing, all of which had received the same introduction to him as she grabbed them from random racks around the store, and shoved them into Mark's reluctant hands. He grimaced at some of the articles, including but not limited to what looked to be a jean skirt.
"Maureen. I know you like to shop, but if I'm wearing something that starts at my waist I'd like it to travel all the way down to my ankles. I'd also like it to have legs." He paused, squinting at the shirt on the top of the stack. "Is this- is this MESH?"
The brunette just swatted at him reproachfully, sticking out her tongue like a child. "Just try it on! You might like it."
Slowly, the line for the changing rooms dwindled and they reached the desk. A young blonde woman with ear buds in her ears and a wad of gum in her mouth flipped through her fashion magazine, looking supremely bored. She slapped a "5" tag into Mark's hand for the door handle and he was ushered into the nearest open room.
The malls in New York City were not known for their cleanliness, and the changing rooms were no exception. This one had yellowed walls, a cracked mirror and peeling linoleum floors, and in the corner was something that Mark was almost positive was old vomit. Sighing, he gingerly sat the items of clothing on the wooden bench taking up half of the tiny room and picked up the black mesh t-shirt.
I can't believe I'm doing this…Mark thought bemusedly as he stripped off his beloved red-and-blue striped sweater. He took a deep breath before pulling the offending t-shirt over his head, glad for once that his blonde hair was too short to really mess up because it surely would have with all of those holes.
His eyes widened comically as he turned to survey himself in the mirror. Ohhh, fuck. No. No he was not going out in public in this shirt.
Mark had never been particularly fond of his body, seeing as he was both pale and scrawny, not to mention a little on the short side. The black of the shirt made him look exponentially paler, as well as revealing more of his pasty complexion than it concealed. Just as he started to pull one arm back through so he could take it back off, he heard Maureen yelling through the door, so loud that she must have been pressed up against it.
"Mark? Are you done? I want to see!" The doorknob turned, and before he could shimmy out of it his ex-girlfriend had barged into the room excitedly and was squealing in a pitch that Mark thought may only have been heard by any dolphins or bats in the area.
"Hot DAMN, Mark!" she said when she was done, eyeing him critically. "You won't be having any problems getting a guy to take you home…"
He only sighed again, knowing that if he tried to convince her not to buy it she'd only go off on a rant about how he needed to expand his wardrobe and she had a credit card.
For the third time that day.
Why, why did Joanne have to give her that evil piece of plastic?
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Collins and Mark sat, or rather sprawled, on the duct-taped couch in the center of the loft leisurely as they passed a joint back and forth.
"Collins, man, thanks for not going crazy over my gay thing," Mark said, relaxing for the first time since Roger had molested him ten feet from where he was sitting at that moment. He could have put it more eloquently, but that was the thing about being high- you just don't give a flying fuck. And it had been a long time since Mark had shared a joint with Collins.
"Why would I?" the dark-skinned man beside him said languorously, staring at some imaginary spot on the ceiling. "People fall in love with people, Mark. Whether or not they have the 'right' anatomy. Some people just have… preferences. And their preferences are their business."
He nodded, taking in the philosopher's words more deeply than he would have were he sober. Collins was always spewing this kind of shit out at them, but when he was high it made perfect sense.
Mark had loved Maureen because she was fiery and passionate and she needed him. He didn't love her for having a vagina- in fact, she was so dominant that Mark could see now how submissive he really was, contrary to most men. And most importantly, she'd been his FRIEND, and she still was even if she dragged him shopping and made his ears hurt when he could have been filming.
A brief image of Roger floated through his mind, but he brushed it away with little effort, giggling at a different thought that had floated through his head.
"You know, this was all Roger's idea, the whole giving you lessons on how to be gay spiel," Collins said absently. He was smiling, obviously remembering whatever amusing things the guitarist had said. "But I think he had a point. You don't really know what you're doing when it comes to dating anyone, not just when it comes to dating other men."
Mark could only nod to that, remembering all of his embarrassing experiences- Nanette, Caroline, that nameless girl at the hot dog stand at the baseball game his father had taken him to, Maureen. He'd royally effed them all up without even trying.
"You know what I think your problem is, Cohen?" he continued rhetorically. "I think you just don't really know what your type is. I think you're going for people that you don't really like."
The shorter man frowned, furrowing his brow in confusion. Why would he want to date someone that he didn't like? Why did he accept Nanette's and Maureen's advances if he didn't feel attracted to them? Well, he wasn't that fond of the sex in either case, and he'd once called out the name of a prettier girl with Nanette and she had slapped him and broken up with him the next day, but…
He blinked, shocked that Collins might actually be right.
"Maybe I'll have better luck with guys," he mused out loud, taking a long drag from the diminishing joint and passing it back to his friend. "Maybe it was just the vaginas." He giggled some more. Mark had always been giggly when he was high.
"Or 'cause you just want to make other people happy," Collins said, and then let out a bark of laughter. "You're like the anti-Roger. He just wants to make himself happy. Maybe you should talk to him."
The image of that bleached hair and those green eyes were back in the forefront of Mark's mind, chapped lips smiling at him mischievously, but Mark couldn't bring himself to banish it again.
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"Aren't you supposed to be working, Mimi?"
"I am working. Just watch."
Mark sat back, raising his eyebrows incredulously. As far as he knew, the Latina was a stripped, not a prostitute. Yet here they were on a street corner, the tan-skinned girl made up with thick mascara and shiny lip gloss in the tiniest mini-dress he'd ever seen and a pair of heels so tall that it made him scared for her life. If she didn't look like a prostitute, then he wasn't gay.
And they had certainly established at this point that he WAS gay…
She struck a pose on the corner, batting her lashes and giving a slow, seductive smile at any man that passed by. Several suits gave her looks of disgust or of repressed desire before quickly striding away. A homeless man across the street gave her a wistful once-over before ambling away. It was twenty minutes before she got any of them to stop for her.
A tall, gangly, balding man in glasses approached her nervously, pulling at his tie- he looked as though he'd just come from a particularly stressful business meeting. Mimi wasn't deterred by his appearance; Mark watched in mild disbelief as she placed a light hand on the man's arm and purred something into his ear, pulling away and batting her eyelashes. His eyes widened and he stepped away, striding more quickly down the street with half a grin on his face.
"Wh- What did you SAY to him?" Mark asked, baffled to say the least.
"That was your lesson in seduction and flirting, Mark," she laughed. "Be a tease. Don't give them what they want right away and they'll come back for more." She ruffled his hair affectionately, winking one large brown eye.
"But what did you SAY?" he demanded, concerned for his friend. She just rolled her eyes.
"All of the Cat Scratch girls have to take a shift on the street 'advertising'," she said ruefully. "It's not the most glamorous job- but hey, it pays the bills."
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"I thought you might have had sort of a stressful couple of days, so… Let's just eat," Joanne smiled at him in the dim lighting of the private booths of the Life Café that night. Mark visibly relaxed, slumping his shoulders wearily.
"Everyone wants to help me, but mostly I think I'm just getting more confused," he admitted to the dark-skinned woman before him. Joanne and he were, in a way, of the same mind, and it was so easy to talk to her. If he was honest, he knew that if he needed advice she'd be right up there with Roger as one of the first people he'd ask.
Again, Roger's smiling face popped into his head and his lips tingled. Mark resisted the urge to touch them, remembering his roommate's lips on his, but he could see that Joanne saw the troubled thoughts written clearly on his face.
"Mark, is there something you want to talk about?" the lawyer asked, smiling in encouragement. She didn't push- Joanne was good at that, not probing for information but waiting until he decided it was okay to tell her.
"I just feel a little nervous… about, you know, coming out to my family," he lied after a moment, pushing away the confusing thoughts of Roger. Joanne looked skeptical for a moment, but she let it go.
"Well I think that's something I can actually help you with," she said warmly, accepting her plate of pasta as it was set down in front of her and thanking the waiter before turning back to her blonde friend. "I never told any of you how I came out, did I?"
"No," he answered, suddenly curious. What WAS Joanne's story? Of all of them, he'd always assumed that Joanne was the most mainstream, the most successful with loving parents and a confident attitude. The rest of them had shared their fucked up stories time and time again, but Joanne had stayed contentedly silent. What was her baggage?
"Lucky for me, my parents are accepting people," she told him, looking off to the side with her dark eyes distant. "I waited until I was safely away at college before I told them anything about the people I'd been seeing all those years I told them I was dating… They said that they'd had their suspicions all along, anyways. I didn't exactly lie, I just left out their genders. A lie by omission but still, not so bad right? But I'm glad I told them. And you'll be glad, too, even if your parents react differently."
"My parents aren't going to be happy," Mark replied with a huge sigh. He closed his eyes, imagining his mother's tearful voice on the phone asking him hysterically if he was joking around with her because this WAS NOT FUNNY. "They're divorced. My dad's an abusive bastard, my mom's been nagging on me to get married to a nice Jewish girl and settle down so I can have a bunch of grandchildren for her to spoil… I just don't know if I can tell her. She's going to cry."
Joanne put down her fork and reached out to grasp on of his hands in both of hers, squeezing reassuringly. "I know it's hard, Mark, but you have to do what's right for you and I think that at least your mother will be able to accept that."
"I know that Cindy already had kids and all, but she still…" He trailed off, at a loss. Mark had struggled with his sexuality for so long now it was odd to allow himself to think, "I'm gay, and it's not wrong." He felt guilty, and although he knew he shouldn't it was gnawing at him anyways.
"Don't worry, Mark. Even if your parents give you crap about it… you always have us. We're a family, too." Joanne offered him a kind smile before returning her attention to her meal. Feeling a bit calmer he followed suit.
It was funny to think that he was sitting here with his ex-girlfriend's fiancée enjoying a meal- but out of everyone, Mark thought that Joanne had probably been the only one to give him any help at all.