Disclaimer: I don't own RENT.
Author's Note: This story will eventually be M/R, but it's also going to be wicked long, so you'll have to wait awhile. It's also sort of a request story, for rexmanningdays. Most of the general ideas are hers, so please fangirl her properly. And wish her a happy birthday, hers is Monday.
This story will contain a female OC. She will be a main character. She also will not be "involved" with either Mark or Roger. Ever. She's there to bring them together and be cute. Seriously, we promise. She won't boink the boys.
I Found a Reason
Chapter One – Cherry Coke and Blondie
Roger's POV
First thing in the morning, a guy I've never talked to before thumps me on the back and leans against the locker beside mine.
"Roger, man! Been looking for you since school started. I saw the band last weekend. Amazing. Me and the guys all saw you, you know. And it looked like most of the girls did too." He winks. I stare, raising my eyebrows when he doesn't say anything for a moment. He looks slightly put off by my lack of enthusiasm at his presence.
"So, uh, we were thinking, you know, that you should really come to this party this weekend. When's your next show? Me and the guys were thinking since like, we know the band we could… hey, what are you doing for lunch today, man?" He throws an arm around my shoulders as I close my locker and start to move.
"I have a gig." I tell him, shrugging off his arm.
"During lunch?" He frowns, confused.
"No, jackass, this weekend. And your parties suck." I push him away and continue down the hallway, ignoring some other guy who calls my name and waves. Same as last year… even some of the same people. Most of these assholes never said a fucking word to me until I joined a band. Then out of nowhere everyone wants Roger Davis at their party because they hear he's some kind of suburban rockstar.
I frown, thinking that maybe I should have at least thanked him for liking the band. I mean… someone has to go to the shows for us to keep going. Maybe if they seem genuinely interested in me or the band I could try to be nicer, I guess.
I just don't really want to think about it. It's fucking junior year and my parents are getting sort of pushy about college. They're being nice enough about it and it's not that I'm totally opposed to it, but I just don't think it's to my advantage to go now. I'm sort of in my prime. If I'm gonna be a musician, I need to go out and get the gigs now while I'm young. I can go to college later.
And then the rehearsal schedule… I'll never have time to do the homework this year. I have to convince them to cut back. We don't need to practice together every night, we did that all summer. Even every other night would be fine, then I've got time to study too. I have no problem giving up weekends for the band, but I also have to graduate and keep my grades decent. It's not my fault if they don't care how they do in school. They're the ones who need to practice anyway.
A girl giggles to her companion as I pass them into the gym and I roll my eyes, pushing my way through the door and toward the locker room. Three days in and the girls are proving they haven't aged a bit over the summer. Giggling girls aren't too cute when that's all they know how to do.
Something big and sweaty nudges me out of his way and I scowl, rubbing my shoulder. I'm not really in the mood to deal with this now. Muscles continues on into the locker room and I straighten myself out and look over my shoulder for a teacher. Nobody's around, so I pull my pocketknife out and go to pick the lock on the door to the wrestling balcony. To my surprise, it's already unlocked. Shrugging, I push it open and slide in, shutting it softly behind me and starting up the narrow staircase.
The wrestling balcony is behind the second level of bleachers. With the bleachers folded up, there's a large space and when the bleachers are pulled out, there's just enough room behind them to sit comfortably. And with the floor being wrestling mats instead of the wooden gym floor, it's significantly more comfortable… and significantly harder for anyone to find me. I pull out a pack of cigarettes as I slip through some of the metal framework to find a place to sit and then stop suddenly, frowning.
Another boy seems to have a similar disinterest in gym class. He's small, has shaggy blond hair and thick glasses. I tilt my head slightly, watching him thumping his hands on the floor with a wrong beat to the music I hear coming from his massive headphones. His eyes are closed and he's bopping his head up and down, mouth moving with whispered lyrics and soft "ba da dah's". Of all people to be skipping gym to dork out to Elvis Costello.
"Little Marky Cohen!" I grin, kicking his leg gently. He pulls himself out of his little party and throws off the headphones, looking up with wide blue eyes, clenching his fists at his sides.
"Oh…" he sighs, relaxing. I drop down beside him and pull a cigarette and a lighter out. I offer the pack to him and he frowns slightly, and hesitantly takes one.
"Well don't take it if you don't want it. Cigarettes don't fall from the sky, Marky. I have to buy them."
He rolls his eyes, snatching the lighter from me. "What are these?"
"Cloves. Smell fucking killer, don't they?" I ask him, blowing my smoke to the side.
"Yeah…" he lights his and stares at it before awkwardly taking a hit. "No one can see the smoke up here?" he coughs.
I smirk at his watering eyes, watching him trying to offhandedly duplicate my practiced balance of holding the cigarette between my first two fingers. "I've been smoking up here since freshman year. Trust me, they've never thought to look."
He tosses the lighter back at me and I keep it in my hand, flicking it open and shut absently.
"Nice shirt." I offer, referring to the Blondie group shot on his chest.
"Oh… yeah. Thanks." He genuinely smiles and pushes his glasses up on his nose, staring at his shoes.
"The blue matches your eyes." I tease him, giving him a nudge. "What tape is that?"
"Bastard." He's still smiling though, and I enjoy that he's letting me poke fun at him. "It's This Year's Model."
"Wicked." I grin. "I figured, I've got the vinyl somewhere, I think."
"Hmm." He smokes and stares at me. "You still do vinyl?"
I let my head fall back against the wall. "Of course. It's still the best way to listen to anything."
He shrugs and falls silent. I flick open the lighter again and roll my thumb over the wheel until it lights. He finally resorts to staring at me playing with the lighter and I flick it close and pocket it, finding myself smiling almost shyly and rubbing my hands together for a lack of anything better to do.
"Didn't think you'd remember me." He remarks casually.
I grin at him. "Aww, Marky. How could I forget?"
"Well, you were always kind of a bastard."
"I still am. Promise." I hold up two fingers and smile. "Scouts honour." He smirks and watches me pick up another tape from beside him to examine, thinking for a moment.
I've known Mark since we were kids, both somehow conned by our parents into little league baseball. We used to eat snowcones together after practice, waiting to get picked up. He's always been sort of a quiet kid, and he keeps everything inside. I smile wryly, thinking of when a stray ball of mine knocked him in the head. Any other little kid, besides Mark, would have been crying in the dugout the rest of the day. But he sort of frowned, rubbed his head and staggered around for a moment, perhaps even with his eyes glistening, but he never cried. It sort of stuck with me. He was weird like that. Small little Mark with the big glasses, looking like a little blond mouse in his uniform, not quite sure how to put on his mitt the first practice. "But I'm left handed!" He had said. "Shouldn't it go on my left hand?"
I smiled. I hadn't seen him much after we both quit. Not until high school, and that was only in passing. His hair is longer, and he's developed a taste for geek rock I suppose, judging by Elvis Costello and the Devo tape I'm holding now, but he still looks like the same kid.
"Ever listen to XTC?" I ask him, checking the song listings on the tapes. He shakes his head, watching me.
"You should. If you like Costello, you know." I tell him and he nods slowly, studying me curiously.
He hits my arm. "Hey, gimme another cigarette."
"You little badass." I mock, holding out the pack.
"I usually hate smoking," he says. "But you're right, these smell really good."
I pull it back. "Well good, then I'll smoke. You can smell it. You weren't holding up so well, anyway." I take one for myself and pocket the rest, leaving him scowling at me before he rolls his eyes and reaches into his bag, pulling out a Polaroid. Before I can protest he snaps a picture.
"What the fuck is that?" My eyes cloud with white light for a few moments after the bright flash.
"We like to call them cameras, Roger." He says, pulling the picture out and dropping it on the mat in front of him.
"Well, someone is going to see the flash. Stop it. I'm not losing my gym escape because you need to preserve a memory."
"Oh grow up." He toes at the developing picture, smirking as my surprised expression becomes clearer. I smoke for a minute and he stares, pushing his glasses up on his nose and drumming his hands on his thin legs.
"So…" he attempts awkwardly.
I roll my eyes and stand up, suddenly thirsty. I reach into my pocket to feel a good amount of change. "You're such a spaz. Want a soda?"
He sort of smiles and stands up too. "Yeah, sure."
"Someone is going to see us."
I shrug. "Probably. Which is why this is so convenient." I pull my stolen hall pass out of my bag.
"Hooligan." He looks amused.
"Nah. If I was I'd be all dangerous and stuff without a stolen hall pass. This is actually sort of cheating." He leans against the wall, waiting.
"Shit man," I groan, counting change. "I was wrong, I've only got enough for one. Okay?"
"Sure." He shrugs.
"What do you want? Coke, root beer, some weird shit, Cherry Coke?"
He laughs, pushing his glasses up. "Cherry Coke."
"Nice." I muse, pushing in the coins and watching the can roll out. I hand it to him and he snaps it open before taking a drink.
"You have Chem next right?" He asks, passing the can to me.
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
"You're in my class."
"Oh… right." I frown, realizing I hadn't noticed him in it before and feeling like a jerk.
"Bastard." He teases, stealing the can back.
"I was probably sleeping." I admit. "First few days, you know? It's all just class rules and shit."
"Fucking lame." He agrees from behind the can.
"Why'd you go to the wrestling balcony? I've never seen anyone else up there but me during school." He passes the can to me.
Mark shrugs. "My sister told me she used to go up there to makeout with her boyfriend. That's why they started locking it during the day."
"Aww, they get caught?" I ask, handing him the can.
"Yeah, pretty much. But now it's even safer as long as no one sees you go up. And you're not the only one who can pick a lock." He finishes off the can.
"Fucker, I hardly got any." I growl, taking the can away from him and tossing it in the garbage, annoyed.
"Oh buck up, Rockstar." He mocks, pulling out the Walkman and shoving the headphones over his ears again.
I didn't even think he knew about the band, and pretty glad he hadn't mentioned it until now. I watch him walking away and jog a few steps to catch up. I throw an arm around his shoulders and wave the hall pass in his surprised face.
"Little Marky Cohen will get in trouble without this, you know."
He grabs it away from me and pushes me off as the bell rings and the hall fills up with other kids. I wait for him as he grabs books from his locker and follow him to Chemistry.
The seating chart doesn't have him next to me in Chem, but when the teacher decides to start a lab today he catches my eye and we nod together. We end up being equally amused by being assigned to create the different molecules out of a bunch of wooden spheres that fit together.
"What the fuck is this? We're in high school." He scoffs.
"Just go with it. We get to play with blocks all period." I tell him and he finally laughs.
To my further amusement, he gets frustrated after only a few minutes.
"Why isn't this working?"
"Because you're trying to build carbon dioxide with chlorine. You need the black one, not the green one." I hand him the right colour sphere and he frowns at it.
"What did you do, memorize the periodic table?" He scowls, pressing a wooden stick into another ball.
"No, I read the worksheet."
"Oh." He mumbles and pulls it in front of him.
"Hey, how'd you know about the band?" I ask him, tilting my head as I hold up Formic acid and snap at the teacher. She glares at me but nods at my molecule.
"I went last weekend for the newspaper, to take some pictures."
"School hadn't even started yet." I take apart my molecule.
"Well the editor called me and said he wanted some pictures for the first paper, the one that's coming out Friday with all the 'welcome back' bullshit. So I went."
I shrug. "So what did you think?" I ask, realizing it's probably one of the first time I've ever asked and not just been told.
Mark fidgets uncomfortably for a second, and a slight tinge of pink covers his cheeks. I smirk, knowing that look. I sigh and toss another hydrogen across the table for his water molecule.
"Liked it a lot, huh?"
Mark pushes his glasses up his nose and blushes harder.
"Actually, I uh… I really didn't."
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise and he stares fixedly into his work until I start laughing, startled to find myself almost relieved at his answer.
"Not your thing, huh? Too cool for you?" I tease, stopping him from trying to force a carbon to fit with his oxygen and hydrogens. "Mark… there's no carbon in water. You're done, just show her."
He holds it up absently. "Sorry." He mumbles.
"Honestly? I don't care. Actually, I'm almost glad."
He stares at me. "You're glad I think your band sucks?"
"Well, no. I'd actually want you to fill me in on why we suck, eventually. But seriously. I'm not my band. I don't care."
He gives me a real smile not laced with awkwardness and throws a chlorine at me and I catch it.
"First of all, there's your bassist." He starts as I check off the molecules we've built on our worksheet.