Expression
Title: Expression
Fandom: RENT
Pairing: Mark/Roger (Marker)
Rating: T
Summary: It's Valentine's Day and Mark can understand why Roger might be moody. He'd never been the best at expressing himself in words anyways...
A/N: This was my first fic. I'll probably edit it at some point. But it has a special place in my heart... Go easy.
The heart stares at him innocently from where it had been scratched into the wood high on Roger's bedroom door, just barely within Mark's reach.
The door had been perfectly normal earlier that night, just before the filmmaker had left for another frosty evening of filming in the park. Mark had stood in front of Roger's door, bundled up in his sweater and plaid jacket and his usual blue-and-white striped scarf wrapped snugly around his neck. He had paused, camera under his arm, as his knuckles came into proximity with the scarred wood.
Roger's bedroom door was so badly mangled that, Mark mused to himself, he would definitely be required to replace it if he ever moved out of the loft.
First were the dents from angry junkie fists, most of them Roger's, from his withdrawal days. The way it hung crooked in the doorframe from the amount of times it had been slammed so hard the house shook in a monumental rage as Roger came down off his high, or had a fight with April, or when he tired of dealing with whatever one of his band mates or groupies that he had brought home that day to shoot up with him. When Roger got frustrated, he hit things. He slammed doors and yelled. It was usually whatever happened to be closest- Mark, the bedroom door, the nearest wall. When Roger was mad, or frustrated, or upset, you always knew.
Then there were the holes dotting it halfway between the floor and the ceiling, where Roger had tacked up a different poster each week. Gigs for the Well Hungarians at CBGB's, the Cat Scratch Club or the Pyramid Club used to cover ever4y available flat surface of the loft; Collins and Mark would tease him endlessly over his enthusiasm, and his painted nails and dark eyeliner and bleached blonde hair spiked up in the latest rocker boy fashion. Those days, Roger's guitar and his songs were the only two things in his life, and his eyes blazed with passion for what he did.
And when the dark rings around his eyes stayed there, even after he had scrubbed the makeup off, and the track marks started adding up on his arms, and Mark and Roger were alone in the loft with each other- though, to the Jewish filmmaker, it seemed more like living with a zombie than the person Roger had been- the tension turned into screaming matches that turned into more slammed doors, more useless pounding on the door at two in the morning, begging for a fix, just ONE more, one and he'd be fine. Mark wouldn't let him out, though, until he stopped shaking. Until he wasn't desperate for the drug anymore, until April's name disappeared form Roger's trembling lips as he tossed and turned in his sleep, until there was nothing left of the addiction but a lot of bad memories and Mark's demands to know where he had been all day, all night, and was he high?
The scuff marks and scratches were results of the days shortly after withdrawal, when Roger had been left home alone again, and with his newfound freedom found something he hadn't had to deal with in more than a year, since before the drugs and withdrawal and April: boredom. Roger was tired of sitting and moping, and pacing and moping some more, waiting for Mark to come back and remind him to take his AZT- waiting for Mark to come home so that maybe he could work up the courage to tell him, tell his roommate what he'd been thinking for so long, what he so desperately wanted to say. He would rearrange the sparse furnishings in his bedroom, muttering and cursing because he was still weak from his exhausting six month withdrawal. He wasn't careful with his bed, his dresser and his nightstand; they were old and half-broken when he had gotten them from the pawn shop, and dropping them, or scraping them roughly on the door as he carried them in and out wasn't a huge deal.
Of course, he might have considered the damage the door was sustaining.
Roger had been alone in his room all day. Moping, sleeping, playing a few tuneless notes on his Fender, and ending with a heated "fuck this shit" or some variation before starting the cycle over again. Mark hadn't tried to extract him long enough for breakfast or AZT. In fact, he hadn't seen the rocker all day long, though he knew from the cursing that he was in his room. The songwriter was clearly brooding.
Considering the date, Mark didn't really blame him. Roger didn't have very many good reasons to celebrate this particular holiday.
The filmmaker had screwed up his courage and rapped his knuckles against the wood, calling, "Roger! I'm going out." He'd received only a noncommittal grunt in response. Figuring that that was the best he was going to get it Roger was in one of his moods, Mark had sighed and trudged out the door, leaving Roger to the empty loft.
From what he could tell, the songwriter hadn't left his bedroom since he'd been gone. But the heart… Frowning and furrowing his brows, the ginger-blonde stood on his tiptoes and stretched his arm to lightly touch the new blemish. No one had ever deliberately scarred the door before, and especially never in an identifiable shape. The rough, lopsided heart shape gouged into the door was different.
He pressed his index finger gently to the outline and traced it, a shaky smile forming on his lips. He twisted the doorknob with his other hand, eyes still glued to the shape, but before he could push it swung inwards, and he stumbled forwards in surprise.
There was Roger, completely naked but for a pair of tight black boxers that Mark had never seen before. (and he had seen most of Roger's tiny wardrobe) His face was clean shaven, free of the brown stubble that usually graced his features, and framed by chin-length dark blonde hair, still damp from what was undoubtedly a recent shower. The rest of his body was slicked with water as well, clinging to his eyelashes and magnifying his emerald eyes impossibly within his too-red face. The rivulets still dripping slowly down the other man's bare skin had Mark drooling.
Wordlessly, and still blushing profusely, Roger wasted no time by placing one hand in the small of the filmmaker's back and pulling him towards him roughly so that their bodies were pressed together in a way that had Mark abruptly wishing he'd gone nude today instead of wearing all of those bothersome layers
As Roger's other large hand cupped the back of his neck, however, coherent thought became increasingly more difficult. They were replaced by jumbles of feeling, contact, fire, Roger. Roger's thumb caressing his back in slow circles, and Roger's tongue slipping into Mark's mouth in a blur of lips and teeth, and Roger's hips moving frantically against his as they both sought out friction. Before he could even make a conscious decision, Mark's hands flew up to Roger's soft, wet hair, tangling into it and tugging it urgently.
It seemed ridiculous that oxygen could possibly be a priority, but Mark broke away gasping for breath, pausing in his motions and slackening his grip in Roger's hair. Taking advantage of the shorter artist's breathlessness, the songwriter replaced his hands firmly on Mark's waist and led him towards the bed, throwing him onto the bare mattress. Without breaking contact, Roger climbed onto him and straddled him, hovering above his lover's hips with a satisfied smirk on his lips and a wicked glint in his eyes.
"Holy- Roger- God-!" Mark groaned, reaching towards the taller man helplessly, but finding both of his wrists pinned above his head by one of Roger's calloused hands. He strained his hips upwards, but Roger was teasing now, placing frustrating kisses along his neck and jaw and the corner of his mouth and trailing the fingers of his free hand beneath the hem of the other man's sweater. He looked down at his struggling captive with burning desire evident in his eyes.
Mark's blue eyes were wide and clouded with lust. But one last semi-coherent thought broke through.
"The heart. It's for me."
"Mm," Roger hummed, grinning. "Happy Valentine's Day Marky. Now, let's see what we can do about those extra clothes…" With that, conversation ceased.
Roger had never been the best at expressing himself in words anyways.