6This is my first RENT fic, so please don't' kill me if it's horrible. I wrote this during my free period when my head kept revolving around the sentence fate gets its revenge in the strangest ways and listening to Light My Candle on repeat. If it's strange and makes no sense, I apologize in advance. So read, and hopefully, enjoy.
Fate's Revenge
You wonder if fate just has it in for you.
You haven't done anything to deserve this. At least you don't think you did. You're not sure anymore.
The two of you have fallen into a sort of routine. Meet, talk, forget. Pretend. Pretend that you're still in love. Pretend that you're still happy. But you haven't been happy with him, not for a while.
You don't know when that changed either.
Your past with him has blurred together into something unrecognizable, unknown. Lighting candles, and then playing a game of back-and-forth as you kept blowing it out behind his back. A plea to go out tonight, a demand to come back another day.
I should tell you, I should tell you…
Running away to Santa Fe, his love song for your eyes, going back into rehab, new beginnings. Old vices coming back to tear down the new beginnings.
Smack, Benny, other faceless men from the Cat Scratch.
And then there was Mark.
Always Mark.
You don't know how many times you've heard Roger say something like, "Mark never treated me this way," or, "Mark never tried to change who I am. Mark would never leave me."
But Mark could only stay for so long.
You were slightly surprised that you didn't feel anything when news of his death reached you. He'd been caught in a riot at one of Maureen's protests. Didn't stand a chance.
It didn't matter. Mark had never really been her friend. He had just been Roger's roommate. Just that geek behind the camera.
Mark deserved to die. But that was too harsh maybe. He didn't mean to make Roger love him.
But it was still his fault in a way, because in the end, it wasn't the drugs or the cheating or the fighting that had destroyed what they'd had.
It was Mark.
Mark, who always hid behind the camera, never living, but watching everything. Mark, who wore that stupid blue and white scarf, even when it was summer and the heat was boiling. Mark, who was devoted to Roger and was loved by him with all his heart, even if he didn't realize it.
Mark who was forever gone, out of Roger's reach.
And now he's yours.
But fate has it in for you.
You don't wonder anymore. You know.
Because one Christmas Eve, exactly five years since you'd first met, someone had knocked on the door to the loft. And that was the beginning of the end.
Roger opened the door, and like he had that night five years ago, asked who he thought was Collins, "What'd you forget?"
"Got a light?"
A boy probably just over eighteen was standing there, holding a candle out awkwardly to Roger. He was pale and thin, glasses, perched on his nose, magnifying his bright blue eyes. In the crook of his arm was a camera. Exactly like the one Mark had always carried.
"Mark?" Roger asks the Mark clone, not sure if he was real or not.
The boy blushes and shakes his head no.
"You must be mistaken. I'm Mack Kaplan."
You sit there in shock. Even his name sounds similar to Mark's. You've faded into the background now. Have ever since Roger opened that door and his eyes met Mack's.
"Nice to meet you Mack. Where you live? I haven't seen you around before."
"I moved into that vacant apartment downstairs."
Good Lord, he even has your old apartment!
You're starting to regret agreeing to move in with Roger.
"You?" Roger says skeptically, "You barely look sixteen."
"I'm nineteen," he says indignantly, face turning redder, "But I'm old for my age."
You feel a sense of déjà vu as they continue to talk. It's like looking at Mark and Roger. Like Mark had never left. Like Mark had never died.
When Mack leaves, you see Roger staring after him with a dreamy look on his face.
The look he once gave you. The one he never stopped giving Mark.
You know what you have to do.
When Rogers is fast asleep, dreaming of Mack/Mark, you pack everything you consider valuable, and stuff as many of your clothes as you can fit into your bag. You jot a quick note and are about to leave it on the nightstand, where you know he'll see it, when you see the candle still burning.
It smells like apples. Like Mark.
You lay a gentle kiss on Roger's forehead and blow out the candle, dropping the note in front of it.
I should tell you, I blew the candle out so something new could begin -Mimi
Fate has the strangest ways of getting its revenge.