Chapter Fifteen: I Should Tell You and La Vie Boheme B

Disclaimer: I do not own RENT.

Mimi and I stand in the snow just looking at each other for a moment. Since I pulled her outside, I guess that means I should start.

"I should tell you, I'm disaster," I admit. My girlfriends have all met rather tragic ends (not just April, but I blame most of them on Benny, seeing as how he dated all of them first), I'm dying…eventually, and if Mark didn't make me take care of myself, I probably wouldn't bother. "I forget how to begin it." And let's not mention that April and I dated for three years, so it's been four years since I had to worry about starting a relationship. Are we moving too fast? It kind of feels like we are…

"Let's just make this part go faster," Mimi disagreed, pushing me back. Although if she thinks this is slow enough to complain about, I'm getting a bit concerned. I'm still not comfortable with hand-holding yet… "I have yet to be in it." What's that supposed to mean? She hasn't yet been committed to us? She's seems to have put an awful lot of effort into it. Or maybe she's just never dated anyone before? That's hard to believe. I mean, she's nineteen, attractive, outgoing, a stripper…and of course she has probably – as with everyone else I've ever liked – already gone out with Benny. Then again, he's married so it obviously wasn't going anywhere so maybe she doesn't count it as 'dating.' "I should tell you," she confesses.

"I should tell you," I agree. So very, very much. At least we finally got the whole AIDS confession out of the way and let me tell you, that went a lot smoother than I thought it would.

"I should tell you," she insists, clearly wanting to go first.

"I should tell you," I counter, having totally called dibs when she came over to make out with me two nights ago.

Mimi turned away, breaking our silent battle of wills but going first anyway. "I should tell I blew the candle out just to get back in." Really? This is a revelation. I should probably point out that that's sarcasm as anyone who believed that it was a revelation after my CLEARLY incredulous 'it blew out again?' from…three nights ago obviously can't grasp it to save their lives.

I can totally one-up her here and we both know it. "I'd forgotten how to smile until your candle burned my skin." Yes, in case anyone missed that, I'm totally a masochist. Not as much as Mark is, obviously, but is anyone really that surprised?

"I should tell you," Mimi says again, rubbing her shoulders and looking longingly towards the Life Café where her coat lies abandoned on one of the chairs. I wonder what gem she'll have for me this time. Is it that she DIDN'T really lose the key to her apartment so she had to climb in through the window and decided to come visit me the other night? Because I already worked that one out, too.

"I should tell you," I agreed. She really should know about April, but when I tried to bring it up, she got all flustered and blew her candle out again. Possibly because she doesn't want to hear about a young, pretty girl I'm dating dying because of AIDS? Although she had HIV at the time…but still, the similarities must be disconcerting, to say the least.

"I should tell you," she said again. Okay, we've agreed that we should tell each other things…now will we ever get to it? No promises.

"I should tell," Mimi and I say at the same time. I guess I was going to say another 'I should tell you' and she was actually going to tell me something. Ah well, let's try again. "Well here we go." Oh look, we even made the decision to try again simultaneously! We are such a great couple. Why haven't we hooked up yet? It's been three days already! "Now we…"

Crap, what rhymes with 'we' that is one syllable so not to throw off the rhythm and isn't something totally inappropriate like 'pee' or 'whee'.

"Oh, no…" Mimi can't think of anything either. Ah well, that rhymes with 'go' at least. I vote we pretend 'we' never came up and keep going.

"I know this something is," I soldier on. How to best describe our newfound relationship? I'll find something inspiring and profound to say! Any minute now… "Here goes…"

"Here goes," Mimi encourages.

"Guess so it's starting to-" I cut myself off before I can say 'snow' because I realize that it has been snowing since before we even came out. Besides, it's rather romantic – though freezing – and I don't want to jinx it because then it might stop and we'd just be standing here in a pile of snow. SO not romantic. "Who knows?" I quickly amend to make it sound like I'm still attempting to describe our relationship.

"Who knows?" Mimi echoes because she certainly doesn't.

"Who knows where?" We sing this simultaneously while we start to circle each other. "Who goes there?" Now I have no idea what we're talking about or what we're doing, but it's kind of hot, so why not? "Who knows? Here goes…" Okay, now we're going to actually have to start with something original. Think brain, think!

Quickly, I grasp Mimi's hand. That's original. And progress on my 'holding hands' phobia to boot.

"Trusting desire, starting to learn," Mimi and I begin in tandem. You know, she's a really great singing partner. I'm glad I decided to give this relationship a chance. Okay, let's see what we've got so far…we wanted to learn to do something so we are…but what is it that we wanted to do? "Walking through fire without a burn!" Wow, that is kinda kickass. Scratch that, it's totally kickass. I should definitely look into doing that…

"Clinging a shoulder a leap begins," we chorus. Oh, wait, are we just learning to jump OVER fire? Because let me tell you right now, that's not nearly as cool. "Stinging and older asleep on pins." …Yeah, that just sounded kind of poetic so we threw it in there. And in rhymes with 'begins'! We didn't want to be stuck with the 'we' situation again.

Speaking of… here's another attempt to tackle it. "So here we go. Now we…"

I've still got nothing. "Oh, no."

"I know," Mimi said gently, as a sort-of singer herself, she's well aware of random rhyming difficulties.

"Oh, no…" This time it's because this really could go somewhere and that is frankly terrifying.

"Who knows where? Who goes there? Here goes." Okay, now I'm going to kiss her. "Here goes. Here goes. Here goes. Here goes. Here goes…" Yes! Finally worked up the nerve to plant one on her.

She just smiled happily. Wow this girl sure is easy to please. Then again, she apparently moves pretty fast – can't say I've noticed – and it has been three days, so…With that, I put my arm around her and we head back inside.

The sing-along portion of the party is apparently over as everyone is just sitting around talking when we come in. Mimi brushed the snow out of her hair while I focused on getting it off my jacket. Then she brushed the snow out of my hair and the whole moment was so fluffy and adorable that I just had to do it again.

Unfortunately for me, I'd forgotten that Collins is, in fact, secretly still in junior high. He spotted us immediately and the first thing he did was say, "That's right, come on", point us out to everyone around him, and then get right up in our personal space just watching us kiss. Naturally, this totally killed the mood, even if Mimi did seem to think it was funny.

Desperate to salvage something of the totally awesome me-inspired epic event, I watched anxiously as Roger and Collins – perhaps trying to make up for killing things to begin with – grabbed Mimi's hands and helped her onto the bar counter. Since we all know that Mimi is a…dancer, we toasted that. "To dance!"

"No way to make a living," was Mimi's first thought on the subject despite the fact that people regularly through around bills no smaller than twenties at her place of employment. But then, all those drugs can't be cheap, I'm sure. "Masochism, pain, perfection." Oh, she's masochistic, too? She and Roger are kind of ill-fitted in that department, then. Not, of course, that I'll tell HIM that as it might encourage him to just quite while Mimi isn't dead and/or involved with Benny. "Muscle spasm, chiropractors, short careers, eating disorders!" Well, yeah, I suppose you can only be a stripper for so long before the next underaged girl comes to take your place, but that seems remarkably forward-thinking for Miss Mimi. Eating disorders could help in the short run, but long-term it will just make the whole aging thing worse. And it's not good for you, obviously, but that's kind of implied from the 'disorder' part of the term. And did Roger just leapfrog over the counter?

…Why? Must ask later. In the meantime, it's time for my encore.

"Film!" people scream obligingly as I get up on the counter. Geez, it's like that's all people know about me. Mark Cohen – cameraman.

"Adventure, tedium, no family, boring locations, darkrooms, perfect faces, ego, money, Hollywood, and sleaze!" Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have taken the 'word association' approach to this, but then, I kind of used up all my actual valid material earlier during my actual, valid showstopper.

Angel, of course, followed me because she is wearing a fantastic outfit and hasn't had a chance to showcase it yet. "Music!"

"Food of love, emotion, mathematics, isolation." I wonder what the food of love is…I bet it's chocolate…I could really go for some chocolate right now. You know, we never really did get around to eating, did we? Did the waiter even bring our food out or is he tactfully waiting for us to finish? Because it did look like we were done after Roger and Mimi left, but maybe he correctly identified that as the interlude it was. He HAS been working here for quite some time, after all. I'm not sure why in the world 'mathematics' would follow 'emotion' unless that emotion is 'boredom' which isn't really an emotion at all or 'irrational hatred'. "Rhythm, power, feeling, harmony, and heavy competition!" Oh, and now we finally get to the words that actually have anything to do with music. She better not ever try to tell me that math and music are related or else that might just ruin music for me, which would suck as I'm surrounded by people seemingly incapable of going five minutes without bursting into song.

"Anarchy!" People yell, hoping to get Collins.

Of course, they do but Maureen has gotten tired of waiting for someone to yell 'Drama Queen' so she gets up there as well, merely mimicking Collins.

"Revolution, justice, screaming for solutions, facing changes, risk and danger, making noise and making please!" With that Collins hugs Maureen tightly, thrilled to death that he might have finally found a kindred spirit. Wonder if that means he'll hang around more. Of course, I highly doubt that Maureen actually cares about any of that beyond how it will get her more attention and – with luck – on TV but no need to burst poor Collins' bubble.

Then we throw political correctness completely out the window and go with something that applies to everyone there but Roger, Mimi, and I. "To faggots, lezzies, dykes, cross-dressers too."

"To me!" Maureen shouts, apparently not realizing that she falls under the 'lezzies' and 'dyke' category.

"To me!" I add, since I don't actually fit any of those.

"To me!" some random guy I may or may not know yells out.

"To you and you and you, you and you," we all move across the Life Café, pointing to as many people as we can so no one feels left out.

The six people who are actually important enough for me to know and I huddle around the middle of the table. "To people living with, living with, living with-" Wow, some random black guy just came out of nowhere, lunging at us like he's trying to fill in for Benny or something. I hope Roger doesn't notice. I wonder if Mimi knows about his latent – or not so latent in a certain landlord of ours' case – homicidal tendencies yet? Still, we continue undeterred, "Not dying from disease!"

"Let he among us without sin be the first to condemn!" Yep, we've officially pissed off even the most tolerant of Christians by not only unabashedly and blatantly living in sin, throwing a party and singing about it, but now by actually quoting Jesus. It's a good thing everyone in the restaurant is apparently an atheist. Or agnostic, I suppose.

Oh, and now we seven important people are dancing on the table while everyone else is relegated to floor-dancing. "La vie Boheme! La vie Boheme!" I'm dancing next to Collins! Oh, wait, Angel picked me up and put me on her other side so SHE'S next to Collins. God, I'm such a lightweight…but that's okay. "La vie Boheme!"

Now, to recapture everyone's attention. "Anyone out of the mainstream…is anyone in the mainstream? Anyone alive with a sex drive. Tear down the wall. Aren't we all?" Okay, now Mimi and Roger are ignoring me. It's to be expected, I guess, since they just now got together. Must make self and others feel awkward by interrupting Maureen and Joanne. I tap Joanne on the shoulder. "The opposite of war isn't peace," I inform her gravely, as if she absolutely had to know that this very second.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it – she was in a good mood. She turned towards me, laughing. "What is?"

"It's creation," I reply, feeling quite profound. I'm quite proud of myself for that line, actually. War equals destruction, so the opposite of destroying something is creating something new. I'm so brilliant sometimes, I'm in awe of myself. Why don't I have more fangirls again?

"La vie Boheme!" Oh, crap, now everything just went all slow-motion on me. Yep, the couples are being all couple-y and I'm left dancing by myself on a table looking like an idiot. Well, Collins and Angel are still dancing but that's only because Angel is so bouncy and they're holding hands and clearly just dancing with each other, Mimi and Roger are making out AGAIN, and Maureen and Joanne are just smiling and holding each other. Now I feel awkward…Again…Story of my life, I swear.

Suddenly, they all seem to snap out of it as one with one final, "Viva la vie Boheme!"

And…now it's all couple-y again but the dancing is over so I'm just standing here looking awkward. At least people are clapping so I can bask in the applause while trying – and failing miserably – to convince myself that I'm not actually feeling out of place.

Finally, Roger remembers me. He turns around and gives me a big hug. Yay! At least he still loves me. Wait, that didn't come out right…I think…

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