A/N: Yes. I know. I'm horrible. I'm sorry. But... I found it and now I just want to write it so bad! So I can just put out this first chapter and see if people like it while I work on my HP stuff, and if they like it enough I'll update it until it's finished! (I have it all planned out!) Enjoyyyy!

Disclaimer: RENT isn't mine, or else what's happening in this fic would be the show.

Chapter One: Not So Hypothetically

"Rog?" Mark asked tentatively, toying with the ends of his perpetually worn striped scarf. His blue eyes were trained on the floor between his feet.

"Mm?" came Roger's noncommittal reply from the couch. He was sprawled across it, legs draped over the arm as he doodled aimlessly in the margins of the old black notebook that Mark knew contained the lyrics to his songs. He didn't look up or otherwise acknowledge that he'd heard the blonde filmmaker. But that was Roger; he pretended to work, tried to, and ultimately ended up drawing ridiculous cartoons with more focus than Mark thought was really necessary.

The scrawny man knew that this was all of the attention he could expect to get from Roger if he didn't say something interesting enough to catch his bleach-blonde roommate's attention. He took a deep, steadying breath that didn't bolster his courage quite as much as he would have liked and went for it.

"Have you ever, er… slept with a guy?" he asked, voice cracking only slightly. Hopefully that was nonchalant enough.

"Sure, why? Got a hot date? Need some pointers?" Roger's tone was much more offhand than Mark could have pulled off, but the guitarist set aside his notebook and pen and sat up to survey his shy roommate with a wide, amused grin. Attention successfully caught. Mark looked up and spluttered, turning an even more interesting shade of crimson.

"No!" he protested a little too loudly. "Well, I mean, I guess… Wait, what? Really?" If possible, the filmmaker's face felt even hotter than before.

"No, I'm LYING," Roger snorted sarcastically. "Yeah man, more than once. So what?"

"That's, um... That's j-just… I didn't really ex-p-pect that from, um, you," Mark admitted awkwardly. His embarrassed stutter, which no one but his family and Roger had ever heard, was making an appearance and he wanted to slap himself. "You being the rock star and all, I kind of figured you for straight as an arrow…"

"Not really," the songwriter shrugged, running a hand casually through his carefully gel-spiked hair. "You have no idea what you're talking about if you think all rock stars in New York are 'straight as an arrow'." He made quotations around the phrase with his fingers, mocking Mark. "You don't think it's weird that Angel and Collins fucked, so why should I be any different? …Never mind. What's up?"

Fiddling with his fingers and biting his lip, Mark glanced away again. Suddenly, telling Roger at long last seemed so much harder. To his surprise, after a moment, the rocker snickered. "You're seriously blushing?" he asked, starting to laugh at Mark's discomfort. "What was it you were about to say? Or is Marky too scared of his big, bad bi roommate sneaking in bed with him to tell him now?"

"Roger!" he yelped, protesting. "You know I don't care. Almost all of our friends are gay… And I can't even count how many times we've come home piss-as drunk together and passed out in the same bed. I just wasn't expecting YOU to swing that way…" He trailed off, unsure if he should just blurt out what he had meant to tell Roger in the first place or if he should use the opportunity to back away from the topic.

"Then why did you ask?" Roger rolled his eyes. He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively- Mark knew that his friend was only trying to embarrass him and he shouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction, but he was blushing again. Damn his translucent skin! "Anyways, finish your sentence. You guess….?"

"I-" He stopped, licking his dry lips. One of his eyes was developing a violent twitch, and his heart was threatening to burst out of his chest, but this was the moment of truth. He'd hidden it long enough.

"Rog, what would you think… Hypothetically speaking, of course! What would you say if I told you I was g-gay?" He stumbled over the sentences, feeling impossibly more humiliated. Taking it upon himself to flop down on the couch as far away from Roger as possible, the filmmaker chewed his lip until it bled, anxiously waiting for his roommate's response as Roger digested this in a moment of perfect silence.

"No shit?" he asked finally, his joking turned thoughtful. Mark didn't know if he should be disgruntled by the lack of surprise that his best friend was showing at the news; he said nothing, in any case. "Since when, Mark?"

"I said hypothetically," he complained. His hands itched for the comforting weight of his camera. "I guess… Always?" he said weakly to Roger's scrutiny. "I didn't tell anyone because… I don't know. It's stupid, I know."

"Move your ass closer, I'm not contagious… well, as long as my dick doesn't magically find its way up your ass, I'm not," Roger said, smiling easily as he moved a little bit closer to Mark and allowed the other man to close the rest of the gap so they could really watch each other as they talked. He slung an arm over the filmmaker's skinny shoulders in a gesture of support. "Alright, keep talking."

"I don't know!" Mark repeated in frustration. He gratefully leaned into Roger's warm body, happy to have the support of his closest friend; this is what he had feared he would lose if he confided this particular secret in Roger. This was what he'd ALWAYS been most afraid of losing. "No one would condemn me for it if I came out. At least, not anyone I care about. Just… I don't really know how."

"Don't know how to come out? Just tell everyone at once!" Roger suggested, looking Mark right in the eyes. His voice was so sincere compared to his usual rough edges that Mark would have laughed if he didn't find, to his mortification, tears of frustration stinging the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away, scowling at himself.

"No, I don't know how to do ANY of this," he clarified, sighing deeply as he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes to disguise the burning liquid. "I don't know how to tell people: our friends, my parents, my sister... And I don't know how I'm supposed to act, or, well, how gay SEX works. At least not enough to make an attempt. And how do you ask another guy out? How does that WORK?"

"The same as with a chick," Roger assured him. "I mean there are a few differences… Like, they have a cock. But dating and shit is the same with a guy or a girl." He grinned, making a lewd gesture with one closed fist and his index finger. "And, you know, you might end up taking it up the ass."

"That doesn't help me… I'm hopeless, Rog," he groaned. "Let's just declare me asexual and be done with it. What am I going to tell my family? They won't be as understanding as all of you. They're Jewish."

"Because you've been SO concerned about updating your parents on your life before?" Roger scoffed. He ruffled the nerdy boy's hair, letting his hand linger there for an extra moment. "Mark, you don't even have to come out to your parents if you really don't want to. Who cares? Who cares if the even know?"

"B-but they deserve to know that their only s-son is gay, don't they?" Mark blanched at his uncontrolled stuttering. It as an old habit, and it only surfaced when he was under a lot of pressure; the filmmaker found it to be humiliating either way. "Even if I d-don't like them."

Roger would have felt sorry for his conflicted friend if he didn't find the entire situation so amusing.

"I think we both know that you aren't going to introduce them to your first fuckin' boyfriend or anything," he commented snidely. "I don't see what there is to get worked up about."

At the mention of his first boyfriend, Mark nearly swallowed his tongue. Of course he knew that he liked men- to some degree he'd always known, though it had taken Maureen to set him straight. (Or not so straight, if you thought about it.) But until now, Mark hadn't even worried his little blonde head about things like boyfriends and introducing said boyfriends to other people in his life.

Now that he was out, at least to Roger, he was on the market for a boyfriend. That was an odd thought. At some point he'd find himself under some guy on a bed, and his friends would have to be informed.

Oh, God. Mark shook his head, trying to clear the image from his mind. Roger should not have been included in that string of thoughts; he felt himself getting hard against his will at the thought of his roommate's naked body lying on top of him, cock nudging at his entrance… Ohh shit. No, no, no… Must think non-sexual thoughts about Roger.

Roger observed his friend with one eyebrow raised, taking in the mess that Mark was at the moment. He'd rarely seen his friend's skin simultaneously pale and blush; the result was an unattractive pinkish-white blotchiness overtaking his face. It looked rather awkward, which he supposed suited him. The other man's jaw was set in a tight frown, and he had a concentrated look in his eyes as he stared down at the floorboards.

"Hey, man, you okay?" he found himself asking, resting a hand on Mark's knee in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. He slid it up to his thigh and continued to stroke it with his thumb. It was a habit he'd picked up from Mimi, and the ex-rocker seemed unaware that it could be taken sexually. He just wanted to help Mark relax.

Mark didn't have that misconception. His dick gave a painful throb as Roger's large, calloused fingers gripped his thigh and he jumped, barely stifling an undignified squeak. Trying to draw attention away from the bulge in the front of his jeans, which he was oh-so-inconspicuously readjusting to be less obvious, Mark started babbling.

"It's just uh, that you said boyfriend and I started thinking about how I'm not very good at dating. And I guess I'm not really one for short relationships. I wasn't people to be my friend before I date them. You can't fall in love with someone who isn't your best friend."

"Oh Marky, I knew you loved me!" Roger cried, flashing him a winning smile and capturing both of the smaller man's hands in his. "Now we can be together happily-ever-after and you can have my babies!"

The mock-joy on the former rock god's face was enough to send Mark into a fit of relieved hysterical laughter. "Rog, you are literally the most ridiculous person I have ever met," he chuckled, slapping the guitarist away playfully. "Asshole. You know what I mean."

The two artists fell into a comfortable silence as Mark started to contemplate his options. Never one for silence, Roger broke it. "So, now you have to tell everyone else," he said bluntly, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Let's do it tomorrow, I haven't been to the Life in a while…"

"What?" Mark asked in disbelief. "Roger, I never said I was ready to."

"Come on, Marky, don't be a pussy. You knew once you told me that this was inevitable. It can't be that hard. Just think how happy Maureen will be? She'll probably think she turned you or something." The filmmaker had to laugh at that. He really could imagine his fiery ex-girlfriend's face as she got the news. Roger's puppy eyes were hard to resist…

"Well… Alright," he sighed, and Roger gleefully disentangled himself and sprinted to the phone to start making calls.