Part 1: Human Beings are Great Adapters
Posted 6.27.02

"I swear to god it wasn't my fault!" Mark froze in his tracks. He was expecting a nice hug, maybe a welcoming shag when he walked in the door. Maybe, if things were really bad, a long whine about how he didn't have inspiration for a new song. Roger and immediate denial were never a good thing. Mark had to proceed with caution.

And suspicion, of course.

"What?" he asked the guitarist as his backpack slipped to the ground. To say that Roger looked nervous would be an understatement. He was disheveled and he winced at the sound of Mark's voice.

"I was hungry, Mark!"

"What?"

"I was so hungry I wasn't thinking straight! I didn't mean for it to happen!" The more Roger tried to explain the more Mark's stomach sunk.

"What?"

"And...and... it just seemed like a good solution at the time! Really!"

"What?!"

"And...and... if you look at it a certain way, this is your fault for not buying food!"

"What?!!"

"And I'm sure your mother will-" Annnnd the clincher.

"MY MOTHER?! What the fuck does my mother have to do with anything?" Mark started to advance on Roger slowly, fire in his eyes. The pieces were very slowly arranging themselves in the correct order. Mother...Roger...food...dinner...shit.

"Well, you see, she, uh, called." Roger stared at his feet, backing up slowly and blinking a little too often. "And, well, she wanted to know if we wanted dinner. And, you know. I did. But, uh, she meant with her." He winced a ducked.

Roger was very good at ducking. He had known Mark for nearly six years and gotten a crash course in dodging projectiles in the past two. Not many people expected a relatively calm camera nerd to get incredibly fucking pissed on a regular basis. Those people did not date Mark Cohen.

(Although, it must be noted that this is the opinion of Roger. Mark takes a very different view on the same subject, claiming that it has nothing to do with dating Mark Cohen and much more do with being Roger Davis. But this is moot and probably bears no significance to the rest of the story of a very fateful Thursday.)

A book hit the wall where Roger's head had been.

"You fucking IDIOT!" Mark seethed. "You know that my mother doesn't know that we're dating! You know that my mother would have a coronary if she found out I was shagging my best friend! You KNOW that my mother and I don't get along!" (The author smirked to herself at the witty Convenience reference and went on with her work.) "We're screwed!" Roger was going to comment that they hadn't screwed since this morning and it might be a good idea to have another go, but figured this probably was not the best time. With a sigh, Mark slid onto the one cushion of their ratty sofa that wasn't covered by their collective crap. Roger got up from the floor and walked over to the couch, tentatively placing his hand on Mark's shoulder.

"Mark," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. Really. I'm such a fucking moron and I really should have thought about you before I thought about my stomach. I was just a little distracted and... yeah. It's my fault."

"It is," Mark muttered with a heavy sigh. He leaned back against Roger's side. "But I guess we'll have to find a way through it. I mean, we can go one night without crawling all over each other, right?" Roger gave him what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but he honestly didn't think that they could. From the look on Mark's face the filmmaker had just about as much faith in their libido as he did. "At least, not so overtly." He slid over and he and Roger proceeded to perform what seemed to be a very intricate pattern of flailing movements that ended with Mark perched sedately on Roger's lap and Roger kicking papers to the floor so that he could stretch the entire length of the sofa. "So what day is this little armageddon going to take place on?" he finally asked as he lay his head on Roger's shoulder.

"Thursday," the musician replied. Thursday. That was in two days. Mark hated Thursdays. He could never quite get the hang of them. He smirked a little at the irony of his calling their trip into the 'burbs an armageddon. He had always held that if the world was going to end, it would be on a Thursday.

"That's two days. Great." He sighed again and turned to Roger, who was clearing his throat.

"Since we're going to have to stay off each other on Thursday, maybe we should try and get it all out of our system now." He gestured towards a slightly obvious problem in the region of his lap and Mark couldn't help but grin wickedly.

"Well, if you insist. But prepare to be sore. I'm still fucking pissed at you," he growled.

"It's only the fucking part I'm interested in, really-" was all Roger could manage to get out before being dragged down to the floor.

To Be Continued...

Get the Hang of Thursday...

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