Dying By Surviving Chapter 12
Title: Dying By Surviving
Chapter: 12/15
Rating: PG
Pairings: Mark/Roger
Summary: Set three years postRENT. Roger and Mark deal with losing friends differently. How does Mark deal with the knowledge that he may very well be the last one of their group left alive? What if Mark can't take the pressure?
One hour earlier:
Mark pulled the covers tighter around him, pushing his head deeper into the pillow. He breathed in deeply and Roger’s scent curled into him. It was like a balm that somehow burned at the same time. He sighed. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.
He couldn’t believe himself. After he’d traced every grain in the wood of the kitchen table, counted all the tiles on the floor and noted every slight peel in the wallpaper, Mark had somehow found himself drawn to his room. He’d fallen into his bed fully clothed, rolled to the side that Roger had slept on and tried to find any scrap of evidence that last night hadn’t been some sort of dream.
And now he was still laying there, breathing in Roger’s scent and filling the slight indent he’d left in the mattress. In spite of the fact that it only managed to drive him deeper into depression while somehow soothing him at the same time. Maybe not in spite of the fact, but because of it.
I am such a Goddamn masochist.
He’d tried to resign himself to the thought that it was a one-time thing, that Roger had been drunk, that they both hadn’t been thinking straight. It was obvious that for whatever reason, Roger hadn’t liked it, and while that was enough to shatter Mark’s already damaged heart, it still wasn’t enough to make him able to forget it and move on. He’d wanted last night so badly, and he’d thought Roger had too.
He’d been wrong. Being wrong seemed to be a pattern with him.
He’d already gone through every reason he could think of to justify why Roger had left. None of them appealed to him, and all of them only helped to increase the mental reprimands and insults he’d been throwing at himself for the past hour. It seemed that unlike relationships, self-loathing was something Mark did very well.
The first reason that had come to his mind was that the sex hadn’t been good. It was the most obvious, but somehow Mark couldn’t manage to believe that one. Hell, he’d heard Roger’s moans and seen the way he’d shivered under Mark’s touch. And knowing Roger the way he did, he knew that the guitarist wasn’t that good of an actor.
The second reason could be that in the light of day, Roger had seen clearly and been appalled by what they’d done. That one stung the most, but it made a bit more sense. Before, Roger had seemed to be more attracted to women. At least in all of his serious relationships. Maybe in Roger’s mind, guys just didn’t fit the bill for long-term.
The final and worst reason he’d come up with was that Roger just didn’t really want Mark the way that Mark wanted him to. It was possible that the guitarist had used Mark as an outlet to relieve tension and nothing more. Just the thought of it left Mark feeling nauseous. He knew that if that were the real reason, he’d never recover from it.
I can’t believe you’d use me. Just like everybody else. I thought you were different.
He cursed at the fresh tears building in his eyes. He’d already cried enough. It was insane, the effect Roger had on him. He’d cried more in the past eleven months than the rest of his 25 years of life put together. The crying wasn’t helping, anyway. If anything it just made the pain worse. The sobs felt like they were splitting his chest in two. He was exhausted, body, mind and soul. He could feel himself breaking, and he was powerless to stop it.
I told you how easy it would be for you to destroy me. Didn’t you believe it? Or did you just not care…
Part of him was furious. Part of him wanted nothing more than to hunt Roger down and kick the shit out of him. He wanted Roger to experience just a taste of the agony he was going through right now. And he was appalled at himself for wanting that.
The larger part of him just wanted Roger back. He wanted to be held and told it was all a misunderstanding, that Roger loved him… even fucking cared, just a little. He wanted to forget any of this had ever happened. He would gladly go back to being Roger’s friend, even if it hurt like hell, as long as he didn’t lose him completely. Then he had to wonder if he was ever anything more than just a friend to Roger in the first place. He winced. It sucked that he was still capable of feeling even more hurt at that thought.
Even though the worries and insecurities were coiling in on him, causing the pain pulsing behind his eyelids, Mark felt so Goddamn tired that soon his eyes were slipping shut and he was falling asleep again. He welcomed it. Maybe in the darkness he could forget, even if just for a while.
He was jolted awake by the ringing of his telephone. He groaned, rolling out of bed and padding slowly back into the living room. He was tempted to ignore it, but the ringing was causing his pounding headache to intensify, and he’d rather just tell whoever it was to fuck off so he could go back to sleep. If it was a telemarketer he was going to go completely postal.
He sighed in relief when he picked up the phone and the loud ringing ceased. He raised it gingerly to his ear.
“Hello?” he mumbled into the receiver. Whoever it was it had better be good.
“Mark?” he heard a familiar voice ask, and he froze. “It’s Roger.”
He tried to get his thoughts back together, but they’d been so completely derailed by those two simple phrases that he couldn’t even begin to form a coherent sentence. This was so completely out of character for his best friend that he’d never thought in a million years that it would be Roger. When Roger ran, he ran. He didn’t call for weeks, sometimes even months. Mark had thought he’d have to spend a lot of time and energy tracking Roger down after he’d dealt with some of the emotional fallout. Apparently, this was not the case.
Duh, Mark, his mind supplied. Well, at least that had been a somewhat coherent thought. He was recovering.
Mark stayed silent for a long moment, and finally Roger spoke again.
“Listen, about last night…” Roger started. Mark managed to get it together at the words and cut him off.
“Don’t, Roger,” he muttered. His eyes closed and he leaned heavily against the table. “Spare me whatever rejection speech you were planning. I’ve got the picture.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that leaked into his voice. At the shocked silence, Mark moved to hang up the phone.
“No, that’s not… I mean, shit, Mark!” Mark heard Roger exclaim, and moved the phone back to his ear. In his own apartment, Roger started to pace. “Just… just fucking listen, okay?”
If it were any other type of situation, Mark would have been amused that Roger had practically squeaked the last part out. He sighed.
“I’m listening,” he prompted when there was another pause.
“It’s just... Look, I… I’m sorry about what happened this morning. I just… I panicked. I mean, it happened so fast and I guess… I need some time to process this.” Roger’s fingers dragged through his hair nervously. Mark suppressed the sudden anger boiling in his stomach.
“You could have woken me up long enough to tell me,” he muttered. “Listen, Rog, I can understand if it’s not what you want. Just please… don’t draw this out anymore. If it was a mistake-“
“It wasn’t!” Roger cut him off, and Mark was surprised at how adamant he sounded. “I knew what I was doing, Mark, even if I’m freaking out now… even if I don’t quite understand… But it was right last night. It was right with you.” Mark tried to fight it back, because he knew he’d only be disappointed in the end, but he couldn’t help the sudden feeling of hope that lit in his chest.
“You didn’t hate it, then?” he whispered, no longer in control of his own voice.
“God, no!” Roger hissed. “It was… Jesus. It was amazing, Mark. It’s just… I need some time to think about this. I don’t know why, but I’m - I feel all fucked up. Confused. I don’t know. I need to figure this out. Can we just… fuck, I don’t know, take a break from each other for a couple days so I can?”
Mark couldn’t help the self-depreciating laugh that fell from his lips.
“Roger, when have you ever needed my permission to do anything?” he asked. Roger cringed. “Do you even consider us ‘together’ in the sense that would constitute us taking a ‘break’?”
Roger could understand that Mark was angry. Hell, he deserved it, didn’t he? But to hear the normally calm voice twisted like that, knowing that he’d been the one to cause it, made something inside him break a little.
“Please, Mark,” he begged. He was surprised he could. As a general rule, Roger Davis did not beg. “I know I don’t deserve it, but please, give me a chance to figure this out. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I just can’t…” he trailed off. He knew if he tried to go on, the sob catching in his throat would cause his voice to break.
At the pleading tone in Roger’s voice, a tone he’d only ever heard the guitarist use with Mimi as she lay dying in the hospital, all of Mark’s anger dissolved. It wasn’t fair that Roger had this much power over him. It wasn’t fair that he still loved the bastard so much.
But then again, it’d been proved to him over and over that life was anything but fair. He let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
“Okay, Rog,” he said, reigning in the sudden urge to start sobbing into the phone, to beg Roger to just stop it, to put him out of his misery now instead of building up all this false hope. “Just… call to let me know how it’s going, if it takes more than a few days, okay?”
“Yeah,” Roger answered, the relief apparent in his voice, “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah. Talk to you later, Mark,” Roger said, forcing himself to hang up when everything in him screamed not to.
Mark waited until the continuous beeping of the dial tone reached him. His eyes empty, he put the phone back.
“Love you,” he whispered, tears making his vision swim again.
Enough to let you do this to me. Enough to let you make me hope again, when I know it’s useless.
Mark slid down to the floor tiredly. His fingers dug into the carpet. It was only a matter of time before Roger left him for good.
He could only pray that he wouldn’t survive the second time around.
Monday, 3:17 pm:
Chris sat in the break room, his coffee cooling in his hands as he glared at the wall, lost in his thoughts. Everyone who came in and found him in this state knew to steer clear of him. A pensive Christian, especially one with that look on his face, was a Christian to be avoided. It usually meant he was about three seconds away from either throwing something, bitching someone out, a combination of the two, or, worst of all, staying eerily silent for the rest of the day.
Christian’s mood swings were legendary.
There were only two people who could hope to approach Christian while he was in this state and not get their heads bitten off. One was Bethany Vine, who, since she was the head producer of Vivre, put up with the least amount of bullshit from him. The other was the cause of Christian’s mood, and wasn’t likely to show up. Mark had been avoiding him since he’d come in this morning, after all.
Luckily for everyone involved, Beth had just decided to stop by the break room for a cup of coffee herself. As she walked in, poured her caffeine and paused for a moment to run her fingers through her short red hair, everyone else in the room let out a collective sigh of relief. No one envied her job of damage control with the resident prima donna.
Noting the look on Christian’s face, she rolled her eyes and immediately walked over to him, sitting down with the metallic scrape of chair against floor. She put her mug down and leaned an elbow on the table, resting her head on her palm. One eyebrow raised quizzically.
“So… who pissed in your coffee?” she asked. Chris’s gray eyes snapped to attention, softening slightly when he saw who was addressing him.
“No one,” he muttered, bringing the cup to his lips, taking a sip and then wincing. “It’s just colder than my last date, apparently.”
“Last date? Since when are you dating again?” Beth asked. “I thought you were exclusively messing around.” She failed to notice the contradiction of terms. “Well, at least since that whole thing with Mark didn’t work out.” Chris glared at her.
“I don’t remember ever expressing to you a desire to see Mark anywhere but professionally.” Beth snorted.
“Sweetie, give me a little credit. I may get stuck in my office more than I’d like, but I do know what goes on among my staff members.” Chris couldn’t help but smirk.
“You get to hear all the juiciest tid-bits from the gossip vine in your position, don’t you?”
“Chris-dear, I am the gossip vine,” she smiled. “Fits the name, doesn’t it?”
“I will ignore the fact that you just made a horrible pun for both of our sakes.”
“Mmm… nice try in diverting the conversation. You had a date?”
“Not a date, really,” Chris hedged. “I just got stuck taking care of an inebriated closet homosexual this weekend. It was the first time I’ve been in close proximity with a man and a bed at the same time since a couple weeks ago, so I figured it warranted being noted.”
“Two weeks of celibacy? With your sex drive, it’s a wonder you haven’t imploded.”
“You’ll notice I said ‘in close proximity with a man and a bed at the same time’. I didn’t say anything about not having sex for two weeks.” Beth winced.
“Please tell me I don’t have to have the carpets in your office cleaned again,” she joked. Chris grinned.
“No, but you might want to disinfect your desk.”
“You are so lucky I know you wouldn’t dare, or I’d have to kill you, you horny little bastard.”
“Sticks and stones, love. Sticks and stones.”
“Anyway, what’s got you sitting here worrying your pretty little head off? You’ve got everyone in a twenty-foot radius scared shitless.” Chris sighed wistfully.
“It’s nice to have that effect on people.”
“Christian.”
“Alright, alright. I’ve been trying to track Mark down all day. He’s been quite elusive, and it’s become pretty obvious that he’s avoiding me. I want to know why.”
“Ah. Well, if it helps, just after lunch I sent him to help Dan out in putting the finishing touches on next week’s show. No doubt he’s been hiding out in the cutting room. If you hurry, I’m sure you could corner him there.” Chris smiled then stood, pausing to place a light kiss to his friend’s cheek.
“Thanks, love. I owe you a drink for the well-timed information.” Beth just laughed and waved him away.
“I’ll put it on your tab.”
Two minutes later:
Chris knocked on the door, and after hearing a muffled, “Come in,” stepped into the cutting room, giving his eyes a minute to adjust to the sudden darkness. He made out two figures in the back of the room. He saw a short glint of light reflect off of Mark’s glasses. He was sure if he could make out expressions, Mark would have that adorable worried furrow to his brow. He grinned.
“Daniel, sweetheart, is that you?” he addressed the other shadowy figure.
He loved to tease the poor kid. He’d come from a very strict religious background… one rivaling Mark’s. Only he’d taken the lessons more to heart. Gay people still made him nervous, even though he tried his damnedest to fight the homophobia. Chris probably wasn’t helping his struggle much, but it was amusing as hell.
“Uh… y-yeah,” he stuttered. Chris could almost feel Mark’s disapproving frown. He’d often told Chris he was only exacerbating the problem.
“Well, would you mind giving Marky and I a couple minutes alone? I’m sure it won’t take long…” He pumped the innuendo into the request, biting back a laugh when Daniel actually let out an uncomfortable squeak.
“Sure,” Daniel said hurriedly, and before Mark could protest or try to explain, he was out the door. Chris finally let out the laugh he’d been holding in.
“God, I love that boy,” he chuckled. He blinked when Mark flicked the lights on.
“Why the hell do you always have to terrify him like that?” he asked with a glare.
“Because he allows himself to be terrified. Really, Marky, you have no sense of humor.”
“No, I just actually have to work with him most of the time. I’d rather not have a homophobic cameraman who believes I’m having sex with you working under me.”
“Ah, well, I suppose we can’t always get what we want. Give him a couple more months and he’ll be over it. I mean, you got over it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, well, the big difference there is that I’m bi. Daniel is so straight it hurts.” Mark was surprised at how easily he fell into the comfortable banter. He was almost sorry he’d been avoiding Chris all day. He needed this kind of human contact, especially now.
As soon as the lights had come on, Chris had immediately noticed the dark rings under Mark’s bloodshot eyes, the drawn look to his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His shoulders were slumped, and there was something about him that just seemed… defeated. Chris finished his perusal of his friend and frowned.
“Okay, enough about Daniel. What the hell is wrong, Mark? Why’ve you been avoiding me all day, and why do you look like complete and utter shit?” He immediately regretted being so blunt about it when the tension in Mark gave an almost audible snap, his eyes becoming guarded. This was not good.
“Nothing, Christian. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mark turned away and went over to the splicer, making a false show of fiddling with the locking clamps.
“Yes you do,” Christian said, putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him away from the machine. “What happened, Mark? I know it’s something about Roger…” Mark wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Look at me, Mark,” Christian snapped, tilting the filmmaker’s face up with a gentle hand. Their eyes met, and Chris knew he wasn’t imagining the pain he saw there.
“Please, Chris,” he whispered. “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.” Then Mark was turning away again.
Chris knew when Mark could be cajoled into talking about something. However, there were rare instances when the filmmaker’s stubborn streak came out and he refused to go any further on a subject. Chris could already see that this was one of those times.
In the year he’d known Mark, Chris had never seen him close himself off this much, this quickly. Sure, Mark had never really let anyone completely in, but he had never shut anyone completely out, either. The filmmaker looked practically dead, his entire body speaking of dejection and, most alarmingly, acceptance of it. Mark had given up.
Chris’s jaw clenched as rage started to boil deep in his stomach. Something had happened between Roger and Mark, he was sure of it, but it had obviously gone wrong. After talking to Mark at the club that night, Chris knew that he had been ready and willing to finally give in to his love for the guitarist. Chris had let them alone all weekend because he hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but now he saw he might have made a mistake. It might be biased of him, but he was convinced of where most of the blame for this fiasco lay. And he’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch his best friend hurt like this.
Roger was so dead.
5:48 pm that evening:
Roger snapped his guitar case closed. He was so distracted that he pinched his finger in a lock. He hissed, muttered a curse and started shaking the injured hand back and forth. He stopped to examine it, relieved when he saw that the skin hadn’t been broken. The last thing he needed today was to have to tell their producer he’d turned the studio into a biohazard.
He’d been thinking about what had happened between him and Mark for the past two days. Sometimes he felt no closer to a decision than he had been that first morning after. He couldn’t mess around about this for much longer. He was running out of time.
Part of him had still been avoiding the problem. It was a habit for Roger to ignore the big problems and close himself off, become distant from everyone. He was almost better at it than Mark when it came right down to it. Hell, he’d stayed locked in his room barely eating or sleeping and only going out to get a hit for almost a month after April died, before Mark had forcibly shipped him off to rehab.
Blake had been shooting him worried glances all day long. Even Jeff, who was much more oblivious than even Blake, had asked him what was wrong at lunch. He’d answered the only way a brooding Roger could; with a blank stare and the assertion that it was, “Nothing”.
If there was one thing that was certain now, he knew that he loved Mark. He hadn’t been able to sleep, he could barely force himself to eat, and it was only years of habit that caused him to take his meds. He could keenly feel Mark’s absence, almost as if it was a physical pain. He knew he couldn’t live without the filmmaker. So why didn’t he just give in?
The bottom line was that he was just too Goddamned scared of it all. With a sardonic smile, he realized that what he was feeling now was very similar to how he’d felt when Mimi had first started coming around. The reasons for why him and Mark together was a bad idea kept spinning through his mind, recycling all the old hang-ups. And if how he was feeling for Mark now was so similar to how he’d felt for Mimi, it might be possible that he was only thinking of Mark as a replacement.
He groaned. He’d been thinking the same things over and over and over, and he still wasn’t sure about what he had to do. He almost wished it wasn’t his decision to make, but he knew that it wasn’t up to anyone but him. Only he could figure out what it was that he really wanted.
The studio door creaked open, and Blake popped his head in. Roger looked up and grabbed his guitar, making his way over to the door.
“You ready to go?” he asked. Technically, they should have left at least a half an hour ago, but they’d been on a roll, and no one had been ready to pack up. It seemed that Roger composed better under emotional strain.
“Uh… Roger, I think there’s someone here to see you, man,” Blake told him.
“Who?” Roger asked. He hadn’t been expecting anyone, and he knew it wouldn’t be Mark, even though the filmmaker had dropped by the studio a couple of times before… well, before Roger had fucked everything up.
“Christian.”
“Chris? What the hell? How did he even know where to find me?”
“That’s the thing, man,” Blake said. “He called my cell around four and asked me for directions.” Well, that made sense. Roger remembered Blake stepping out in the hallway to take a call around then.
“Okay. Well, where is he?”
“Down at the front desk… pissin’ off the secretary.” Roger winced.
“Well, let’s go down there, then.”
“Me too?” Now Blake looked nervous.
“Safety in numbers, Blake.”
Roger knew that Christian would be ready to kill him. If Roger had been in Chris’s position he’d be ready to kill himself. That didn’t mean he was all that eager to die, however
“Okay, man. I’m not gettin’ involved, though. This is your mess.”
“Fine, fine.”
Roger left his guitar and they rode down the elevator to the lobby. With a ding, it opened, and Roger was greeted with a fuming Christian and a frazzled looking receptionist. When Chris noticed them, he gave Roger a very disturbing smile, sauntering over in a way that made Roger feel like a deer in headlights.
“Roger, darling,” Chris said, his tone not matching his words at all. “If I may have a moment?”
Then he was grabbing Roger by the front of his shirt and dragging him out the side door, Blake following behind with a shocked look on his face. Roger had a short moment to think that Christian really was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked before they were out in the alley and Chris was releasing him roughly.
While Roger had known Chris was ready to scream, yell and insult him at a level he’d only had hints of before, he never expected the guy to actually hurt him. Well, until there was a fist slamming into his jaw and Roger was tossed back like a rag-doll into the brick wall. His vision went blotchy and he tasted blood. He heard an exclamation from Blake and a scuffle that was the bassist placing himself in between the two of them. Well, so much for not getting involved.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, man!” Blake was saying. “Calm the fuck down!”
Roger gathered himself and stood. Chris was glaring at him murderously from beyond Blake. Roger was suddenly very grateful that Blake was there, because if he hadn’t been, Roger probably would have fought back. And getting into a fist-fight with one of Mark’s best friends wasn’t something he needed to add to his already bad record.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Christian finally seethed after a few moments of silence.
“Uh…” Roger had no idea how to answer that question.
“What the hell did you do to him, anyway?” Chris continued, oblivious to any sound Roger had made.
“Wait, what?” Roger’s eyes widened. “You mean Mark didn’t tell you?”
“No, he didn’t tell me, you asshole,” Chris sniped. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but when something life-altering happens to Mark, he has this tendency to detach. He won’t say a Goddamn thing to me.”
“Well, then… what right do you have to get so pissed off when you don’t even know?” Roger glared. He knew he had no right to be defensive, but Roger’s emotions and actions didn’t often follow what his logical side was telling him.
“Don’t even fucking start,” Chris lowered his voice. His tone was downright dangerous. “I know you did something, Roger. It isn’t everyday that Mark looks like he’s ready to jump off a fucking building.” Blake had moved back and was glancing back and forth between them like he was at a tennis match. Roger’s next reply caught in his throat as he took in Chris’s words.
“Wha-What do you mean?” he stuttered.
“Goddamnit, Roger I trusted you with him! What’s more important, he fucking trusted you! And you - you fucking shattered him.”
Roger was at a complete loss. He’d had absolutely no idea that he’d hurt Mark as badly as Christian was saying he had. It was the last thing he wanted to happen. He’d been so caught up in his own problems that he hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how Mark would react.
I’m such an asshole.
Roger couldn’t look Chris in the face, then, and his eyes swept to the ground. What the hell was he going to do now? As his shoulders dropped, he heard Chris give out a tired sigh.
“Do you have any idea,” Chris whispered, “what I would have given… shit, what a part of me would still give, to have him love me the way he loves you?” The shock generated by that statement caused Roger to raise his eyes again. Chris didn’t look so ready to kill him now. He just looked… sad.
“Fix it, Roger,” Chris muttered, and he was the one to look away this time. “Because as much as it hurts sometimes to see you two together, it kills me even more to see him like this.”
And with that final statement, Chris started walking away. Roger watched him go, and their eyes locked when Chris turned around for a moment.
“But I swear to God, Roger,” Chris said, “if you hurt him again, I’ll hurt you ten times over.” With that look on his face, Roger didn’t doubt him for a second.
Then Chris was really gone after turning sharply out of the alleyway. Roger stared after him, completely numb with the shock of the encounter. Blake was the one who broke the silence.
“Holy fuck, man,” he breathed almost reverently. “You just got the shit kicked out of you by a skinny, white, British, gay guy.” Roger’s lips tilted up slightly.
“A skinny, white, British, gay guy with one hell of a right hook,” he corrected. Blake laughed at that.
Roger rubbed at his jaw for a moment and his smile grew. Chris trying to knock some sense into him might have been the best thing that could’ve happened.
“Blake… can you take care of the equipment? I’ve got something I need to do,” Roger said after a moment.
“Sure, man,” Blake answered, giving a slight squeeze to Roger’s shoulder and walking back inside. Roger was left alone in the alley.
He followed Chris’s steps out and hailed a taxi. It was at least a ten minute drive to Mark’s apartment from here, not taking into account the fact that they’d be driving during the tail-end of rush hour.
He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.
Chapter: 12/15
Rating: PG
Pairings: Mark/Roger
Summary: Set three years postRENT. Roger and Mark deal with losing friends differently. How does Mark deal with the knowledge that he may very well be the last one of their group left alive? What if Mark can't take the pressure?
One hour earlier:
Mark pulled the covers tighter around him, pushing his head deeper into the pillow. He breathed in deeply and Roger’s scent curled into him. It was like a balm that somehow burned at the same time. He sighed. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.
He couldn’t believe himself. After he’d traced every grain in the wood of the kitchen table, counted all the tiles on the floor and noted every slight peel in the wallpaper, Mark had somehow found himself drawn to his room. He’d fallen into his bed fully clothed, rolled to the side that Roger had slept on and tried to find any scrap of evidence that last night hadn’t been some sort of dream.
And now he was still laying there, breathing in Roger’s scent and filling the slight indent he’d left in the mattress. In spite of the fact that it only managed to drive him deeper into depression while somehow soothing him at the same time. Maybe not in spite of the fact, but because of it.
I am such a Goddamn masochist.
He’d tried to resign himself to the thought that it was a one-time thing, that Roger had been drunk, that they both hadn’t been thinking straight. It was obvious that for whatever reason, Roger hadn’t liked it, and while that was enough to shatter Mark’s already damaged heart, it still wasn’t enough to make him able to forget it and move on. He’d wanted last night so badly, and he’d thought Roger had too.
He’d been wrong. Being wrong seemed to be a pattern with him.
He’d already gone through every reason he could think of to justify why Roger had left. None of them appealed to him, and all of them only helped to increase the mental reprimands and insults he’d been throwing at himself for the past hour. It seemed that unlike relationships, self-loathing was something Mark did very well.
The first reason that had come to his mind was that the sex hadn’t been good. It was the most obvious, but somehow Mark couldn’t manage to believe that one. Hell, he’d heard Roger’s moans and seen the way he’d shivered under Mark’s touch. And knowing Roger the way he did, he knew that the guitarist wasn’t that good of an actor.
The second reason could be that in the light of day, Roger had seen clearly and been appalled by what they’d done. That one stung the most, but it made a bit more sense. Before, Roger had seemed to be more attracted to women. At least in all of his serious relationships. Maybe in Roger’s mind, guys just didn’t fit the bill for long-term.
The final and worst reason he’d come up with was that Roger just didn’t really want Mark the way that Mark wanted him to. It was possible that the guitarist had used Mark as an outlet to relieve tension and nothing more. Just the thought of it left Mark feeling nauseous. He knew that if that were the real reason, he’d never recover from it.
I can’t believe you’d use me. Just like everybody else. I thought you were different.
He cursed at the fresh tears building in his eyes. He’d already cried enough. It was insane, the effect Roger had on him. He’d cried more in the past eleven months than the rest of his 25 years of life put together. The crying wasn’t helping, anyway. If anything it just made the pain worse. The sobs felt like they were splitting his chest in two. He was exhausted, body, mind and soul. He could feel himself breaking, and he was powerless to stop it.
I told you how easy it would be for you to destroy me. Didn’t you believe it? Or did you just not care…
Part of him was furious. Part of him wanted nothing more than to hunt Roger down and kick the shit out of him. He wanted Roger to experience just a taste of the agony he was going through right now. And he was appalled at himself for wanting that.
The larger part of him just wanted Roger back. He wanted to be held and told it was all a misunderstanding, that Roger loved him… even fucking cared, just a little. He wanted to forget any of this had ever happened. He would gladly go back to being Roger’s friend, even if it hurt like hell, as long as he didn’t lose him completely. Then he had to wonder if he was ever anything more than just a friend to Roger in the first place. He winced. It sucked that he was still capable of feeling even more hurt at that thought.
Even though the worries and insecurities were coiling in on him, causing the pain pulsing behind his eyelids, Mark felt so Goddamn tired that soon his eyes were slipping shut and he was falling asleep again. He welcomed it. Maybe in the darkness he could forget, even if just for a while.
He was jolted awake by the ringing of his telephone. He groaned, rolling out of bed and padding slowly back into the living room. He was tempted to ignore it, but the ringing was causing his pounding headache to intensify, and he’d rather just tell whoever it was to fuck off so he could go back to sleep. If it was a telemarketer he was going to go completely postal.
He sighed in relief when he picked up the phone and the loud ringing ceased. He raised it gingerly to his ear.
“Hello?” he mumbled into the receiver. Whoever it was it had better be good.
“Mark?” he heard a familiar voice ask, and he froze. “It’s Roger.”
He tried to get his thoughts back together, but they’d been so completely derailed by those two simple phrases that he couldn’t even begin to form a coherent sentence. This was so completely out of character for his best friend that he’d never thought in a million years that it would be Roger. When Roger ran, he ran. He didn’t call for weeks, sometimes even months. Mark had thought he’d have to spend a lot of time and energy tracking Roger down after he’d dealt with some of the emotional fallout. Apparently, this was not the case.
Duh, Mark, his mind supplied. Well, at least that had been a somewhat coherent thought. He was recovering.
Mark stayed silent for a long moment, and finally Roger spoke again.
“Listen, about last night…” Roger started. Mark managed to get it together at the words and cut him off.
“Don’t, Roger,” he muttered. His eyes closed and he leaned heavily against the table. “Spare me whatever rejection speech you were planning. I’ve got the picture.” He couldn’t help the bitterness that leaked into his voice. At the shocked silence, Mark moved to hang up the phone.
“No, that’s not… I mean, shit, Mark!” Mark heard Roger exclaim, and moved the phone back to his ear. In his own apartment, Roger started to pace. “Just… just fucking listen, okay?”
If it were any other type of situation, Mark would have been amused that Roger had practically squeaked the last part out. He sighed.
“I’m listening,” he prompted when there was another pause.
“It’s just... Look, I… I’m sorry about what happened this morning. I just… I panicked. I mean, it happened so fast and I guess… I need some time to process this.” Roger’s fingers dragged through his hair nervously. Mark suppressed the sudden anger boiling in his stomach.
“You could have woken me up long enough to tell me,” he muttered. “Listen, Rog, I can understand if it’s not what you want. Just please… don’t draw this out anymore. If it was a mistake-“
“It wasn’t!” Roger cut him off, and Mark was surprised at how adamant he sounded. “I knew what I was doing, Mark, even if I’m freaking out now… even if I don’t quite understand… But it was right last night. It was right with you.” Mark tried to fight it back, because he knew he’d only be disappointed in the end, but he couldn’t help the sudden feeling of hope that lit in his chest.
“You didn’t hate it, then?” he whispered, no longer in control of his own voice.
“God, no!” Roger hissed. “It was… Jesus. It was amazing, Mark. It’s just… I need some time to think about this. I don’t know why, but I’m - I feel all fucked up. Confused. I don’t know. I need to figure this out. Can we just… fuck, I don’t know, take a break from each other for a couple days so I can?”
Mark couldn’t help the self-depreciating laugh that fell from his lips.
“Roger, when have you ever needed my permission to do anything?” he asked. Roger cringed. “Do you even consider us ‘together’ in the sense that would constitute us taking a ‘break’?”
Roger could understand that Mark was angry. Hell, he deserved it, didn’t he? But to hear the normally calm voice twisted like that, knowing that he’d been the one to cause it, made something inside him break a little.
“Please, Mark,” he begged. He was surprised he could. As a general rule, Roger Davis did not beg. “I know I don’t deserve it, but please, give me a chance to figure this out. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t lose you. I just can’t…” he trailed off. He knew if he tried to go on, the sob catching in his throat would cause his voice to break.
At the pleading tone in Roger’s voice, a tone he’d only ever heard the guitarist use with Mimi as she lay dying in the hospital, all of Mark’s anger dissolved. It wasn’t fair that Roger had this much power over him. It wasn’t fair that he still loved the bastard so much.
But then again, it’d been proved to him over and over that life was anything but fair. He let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
“Okay, Rog,” he said, reigning in the sudden urge to start sobbing into the phone, to beg Roger to just stop it, to put him out of his misery now instead of building up all this false hope. “Just… call to let me know how it’s going, if it takes more than a few days, okay?”
“Yeah,” Roger answered, the relief apparent in his voice, “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah. Talk to you later, Mark,” Roger said, forcing himself to hang up when everything in him screamed not to.
Mark waited until the continuous beeping of the dial tone reached him. His eyes empty, he put the phone back.
“Love you,” he whispered, tears making his vision swim again.
Enough to let you do this to me. Enough to let you make me hope again, when I know it’s useless.
Mark slid down to the floor tiredly. His fingers dug into the carpet. It was only a matter of time before Roger left him for good.
He could only pray that he wouldn’t survive the second time around.
Monday, 3:17 pm:
Chris sat in the break room, his coffee cooling in his hands as he glared at the wall, lost in his thoughts. Everyone who came in and found him in this state knew to steer clear of him. A pensive Christian, especially one with that look on his face, was a Christian to be avoided. It usually meant he was about three seconds away from either throwing something, bitching someone out, a combination of the two, or, worst of all, staying eerily silent for the rest of the day.
Christian’s mood swings were legendary.
There were only two people who could hope to approach Christian while he was in this state and not get their heads bitten off. One was Bethany Vine, who, since she was the head producer of Vivre, put up with the least amount of bullshit from him. The other was the cause of Christian’s mood, and wasn’t likely to show up. Mark had been avoiding him since he’d come in this morning, after all.
Luckily for everyone involved, Beth had just decided to stop by the break room for a cup of coffee herself. As she walked in, poured her caffeine and paused for a moment to run her fingers through her short red hair, everyone else in the room let out a collective sigh of relief. No one envied her job of damage control with the resident prima donna.
Noting the look on Christian’s face, she rolled her eyes and immediately walked over to him, sitting down with the metallic scrape of chair against floor. She put her mug down and leaned an elbow on the table, resting her head on her palm. One eyebrow raised quizzically.
“So… who pissed in your coffee?” she asked. Chris’s gray eyes snapped to attention, softening slightly when he saw who was addressing him.
“No one,” he muttered, bringing the cup to his lips, taking a sip and then wincing. “It’s just colder than my last date, apparently.”
“Last date? Since when are you dating again?” Beth asked. “I thought you were exclusively messing around.” She failed to notice the contradiction of terms. “Well, at least since that whole thing with Mark didn’t work out.” Chris glared at her.
“I don’t remember ever expressing to you a desire to see Mark anywhere but professionally.” Beth snorted.
“Sweetie, give me a little credit. I may get stuck in my office more than I’d like, but I do know what goes on among my staff members.” Chris couldn’t help but smirk.
“You get to hear all the juiciest tid-bits from the gossip vine in your position, don’t you?”
“Chris-dear, I am the gossip vine,” she smiled. “Fits the name, doesn’t it?”
“I will ignore the fact that you just made a horrible pun for both of our sakes.”
“Mmm… nice try in diverting the conversation. You had a date?”
“Not a date, really,” Chris hedged. “I just got stuck taking care of an inebriated closet homosexual this weekend. It was the first time I’ve been in close proximity with a man and a bed at the same time since a couple weeks ago, so I figured it warranted being noted.”
“Two weeks of celibacy? With your sex drive, it’s a wonder you haven’t imploded.”
“You’ll notice I said ‘in close proximity with a man and a bed at the same time’. I didn’t say anything about not having sex for two weeks.” Beth winced.
“Please tell me I don’t have to have the carpets in your office cleaned again,” she joked. Chris grinned.
“No, but you might want to disinfect your desk.”
“You are so lucky I know you wouldn’t dare, or I’d have to kill you, you horny little bastard.”
“Sticks and stones, love. Sticks and stones.”
“Anyway, what’s got you sitting here worrying your pretty little head off? You’ve got everyone in a twenty-foot radius scared shitless.” Chris sighed wistfully.
“It’s nice to have that effect on people.”
“Christian.”
“Alright, alright. I’ve been trying to track Mark down all day. He’s been quite elusive, and it’s become pretty obvious that he’s avoiding me. I want to know why.”
“Ah. Well, if it helps, just after lunch I sent him to help Dan out in putting the finishing touches on next week’s show. No doubt he’s been hiding out in the cutting room. If you hurry, I’m sure you could corner him there.” Chris smiled then stood, pausing to place a light kiss to his friend’s cheek.
“Thanks, love. I owe you a drink for the well-timed information.” Beth just laughed and waved him away.
“I’ll put it on your tab.”
Two minutes later:
Chris knocked on the door, and after hearing a muffled, “Come in,” stepped into the cutting room, giving his eyes a minute to adjust to the sudden darkness. He made out two figures in the back of the room. He saw a short glint of light reflect off of Mark’s glasses. He was sure if he could make out expressions, Mark would have that adorable worried furrow to his brow. He grinned.
“Daniel, sweetheart, is that you?” he addressed the other shadowy figure.
He loved to tease the poor kid. He’d come from a very strict religious background… one rivaling Mark’s. Only he’d taken the lessons more to heart. Gay people still made him nervous, even though he tried his damnedest to fight the homophobia. Chris probably wasn’t helping his struggle much, but it was amusing as hell.
“Uh… y-yeah,” he stuttered. Chris could almost feel Mark’s disapproving frown. He’d often told Chris he was only exacerbating the problem.
“Well, would you mind giving Marky and I a couple minutes alone? I’m sure it won’t take long…” He pumped the innuendo into the request, biting back a laugh when Daniel actually let out an uncomfortable squeak.
“Sure,” Daniel said hurriedly, and before Mark could protest or try to explain, he was out the door. Chris finally let out the laugh he’d been holding in.
“God, I love that boy,” he chuckled. He blinked when Mark flicked the lights on.
“Why the hell do you always have to terrify him like that?” he asked with a glare.
“Because he allows himself to be terrified. Really, Marky, you have no sense of humor.”
“No, I just actually have to work with him most of the time. I’d rather not have a homophobic cameraman who believes I’m having sex with you working under me.”
“Ah, well, I suppose we can’t always get what we want. Give him a couple more months and he’ll be over it. I mean, you got over it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, well, the big difference there is that I’m bi. Daniel is so straight it hurts.” Mark was surprised at how easily he fell into the comfortable banter. He was almost sorry he’d been avoiding Chris all day. He needed this kind of human contact, especially now.
As soon as the lights had come on, Chris had immediately noticed the dark rings under Mark’s bloodshot eyes, the drawn look to his face. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. His shoulders were slumped, and there was something about him that just seemed… defeated. Chris finished his perusal of his friend and frowned.
“Okay, enough about Daniel. What the hell is wrong, Mark? Why’ve you been avoiding me all day, and why do you look like complete and utter shit?” He immediately regretted being so blunt about it when the tension in Mark gave an almost audible snap, his eyes becoming guarded. This was not good.
“Nothing, Christian. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mark turned away and went over to the splicer, making a false show of fiddling with the locking clamps.
“Yes you do,” Christian said, putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him away from the machine. “What happened, Mark? I know it’s something about Roger…” Mark wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Look at me, Mark,” Christian snapped, tilting the filmmaker’s face up with a gentle hand. Their eyes met, and Chris knew he wasn’t imagining the pain he saw there.
“Please, Chris,” he whispered. “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t.” Then Mark was turning away again.
Chris knew when Mark could be cajoled into talking about something. However, there were rare instances when the filmmaker’s stubborn streak came out and he refused to go any further on a subject. Chris could already see that this was one of those times.
In the year he’d known Mark, Chris had never seen him close himself off this much, this quickly. Sure, Mark had never really let anyone completely in, but he had never shut anyone completely out, either. The filmmaker looked practically dead, his entire body speaking of dejection and, most alarmingly, acceptance of it. Mark had given up.
Chris’s jaw clenched as rage started to boil deep in his stomach. Something had happened between Roger and Mark, he was sure of it, but it had obviously gone wrong. After talking to Mark at the club that night, Chris knew that he had been ready and willing to finally give in to his love for the guitarist. Chris had let them alone all weekend because he hadn’t wanted to interrupt, but now he saw he might have made a mistake. It might be biased of him, but he was convinced of where most of the blame for this fiasco lay. And he’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch his best friend hurt like this.
Roger was so dead.
5:48 pm that evening:
Roger snapped his guitar case closed. He was so distracted that he pinched his finger in a lock. He hissed, muttered a curse and started shaking the injured hand back and forth. He stopped to examine it, relieved when he saw that the skin hadn’t been broken. The last thing he needed today was to have to tell their producer he’d turned the studio into a biohazard.
He’d been thinking about what had happened between him and Mark for the past two days. Sometimes he felt no closer to a decision than he had been that first morning after. He couldn’t mess around about this for much longer. He was running out of time.
Part of him had still been avoiding the problem. It was a habit for Roger to ignore the big problems and close himself off, become distant from everyone. He was almost better at it than Mark when it came right down to it. Hell, he’d stayed locked in his room barely eating or sleeping and only going out to get a hit for almost a month after April died, before Mark had forcibly shipped him off to rehab.
Blake had been shooting him worried glances all day long. Even Jeff, who was much more oblivious than even Blake, had asked him what was wrong at lunch. He’d answered the only way a brooding Roger could; with a blank stare and the assertion that it was, “Nothing”.
If there was one thing that was certain now, he knew that he loved Mark. He hadn’t been able to sleep, he could barely force himself to eat, and it was only years of habit that caused him to take his meds. He could keenly feel Mark’s absence, almost as if it was a physical pain. He knew he couldn’t live without the filmmaker. So why didn’t he just give in?
The bottom line was that he was just too Goddamned scared of it all. With a sardonic smile, he realized that what he was feeling now was very similar to how he’d felt when Mimi had first started coming around. The reasons for why him and Mark together was a bad idea kept spinning through his mind, recycling all the old hang-ups. And if how he was feeling for Mark now was so similar to how he’d felt for Mimi, it might be possible that he was only thinking of Mark as a replacement.
He groaned. He’d been thinking the same things over and over and over, and he still wasn’t sure about what he had to do. He almost wished it wasn’t his decision to make, but he knew that it wasn’t up to anyone but him. Only he could figure out what it was that he really wanted.
The studio door creaked open, and Blake popped his head in. Roger looked up and grabbed his guitar, making his way over to the door.
“You ready to go?” he asked. Technically, they should have left at least a half an hour ago, but they’d been on a roll, and no one had been ready to pack up. It seemed that Roger composed better under emotional strain.
“Uh… Roger, I think there’s someone here to see you, man,” Blake told him.
“Who?” Roger asked. He hadn’t been expecting anyone, and he knew it wouldn’t be Mark, even though the filmmaker had dropped by the studio a couple of times before… well, before Roger had fucked everything up.
“Christian.”
“Chris? What the hell? How did he even know where to find me?”
“That’s the thing, man,” Blake said. “He called my cell around four and asked me for directions.” Well, that made sense. Roger remembered Blake stepping out in the hallway to take a call around then.
“Okay. Well, where is he?”
“Down at the front desk… pissin’ off the secretary.” Roger winced.
“Well, let’s go down there, then.”
“Me too?” Now Blake looked nervous.
“Safety in numbers, Blake.”
Roger knew that Christian would be ready to kill him. If Roger had been in Chris’s position he’d be ready to kill himself. That didn’t mean he was all that eager to die, however
“Okay, man. I’m not gettin’ involved, though. This is your mess.”
“Fine, fine.”
Roger left his guitar and they rode down the elevator to the lobby. With a ding, it opened, and Roger was greeted with a fuming Christian and a frazzled looking receptionist. When Chris noticed them, he gave Roger a very disturbing smile, sauntering over in a way that made Roger feel like a deer in headlights.
“Roger, darling,” Chris said, his tone not matching his words at all. “If I may have a moment?”
Then he was grabbing Roger by the front of his shirt and dragging him out the side door, Blake following behind with a shocked look on his face. Roger had a short moment to think that Christian really was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked before they were out in the alley and Chris was releasing him roughly.
While Roger had known Chris was ready to scream, yell and insult him at a level he’d only had hints of before, he never expected the guy to actually hurt him. Well, until there was a fist slamming into his jaw and Roger was tossed back like a rag-doll into the brick wall. His vision went blotchy and he tasted blood. He heard an exclamation from Blake and a scuffle that was the bassist placing himself in between the two of them. Well, so much for not getting involved.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, man!” Blake was saying. “Calm the fuck down!”
Roger gathered himself and stood. Chris was glaring at him murderously from beyond Blake. Roger was suddenly very grateful that Blake was there, because if he hadn’t been, Roger probably would have fought back. And getting into a fist-fight with one of Mark’s best friends wasn’t something he needed to add to his already bad record.
“What the fuck is wrong with you!” Christian finally seethed after a few moments of silence.
“Uh…” Roger had no idea how to answer that question.
“What the hell did you do to him, anyway?” Chris continued, oblivious to any sound Roger had made.
“Wait, what?” Roger’s eyes widened. “You mean Mark didn’t tell you?”
“No, he didn’t tell me, you asshole,” Chris sniped. “Maybe you didn’t notice, but when something life-altering happens to Mark, he has this tendency to detach. He won’t say a Goddamn thing to me.”
“Well, then… what right do you have to get so pissed off when you don’t even know?” Roger glared. He knew he had no right to be defensive, but Roger’s emotions and actions didn’t often follow what his logical side was telling him.
“Don’t even fucking start,” Chris lowered his voice. His tone was downright dangerous. “I know you did something, Roger. It isn’t everyday that Mark looks like he’s ready to jump off a fucking building.” Blake had moved back and was glancing back and forth between them like he was at a tennis match. Roger’s next reply caught in his throat as he took in Chris’s words.
“Wha-What do you mean?” he stuttered.
“Goddamnit, Roger I trusted you with him! What’s more important, he fucking trusted you! And you - you fucking shattered him.”
Roger was at a complete loss. He’d had absolutely no idea that he’d hurt Mark as badly as Christian was saying he had. It was the last thing he wanted to happen. He’d been so caught up in his own problems that he hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how Mark would react.
I’m such an asshole.
Roger couldn’t look Chris in the face, then, and his eyes swept to the ground. What the hell was he going to do now? As his shoulders dropped, he heard Chris give out a tired sigh.
“Do you have any idea,” Chris whispered, “what I would have given… shit, what a part of me would still give, to have him love me the way he loves you?” The shock generated by that statement caused Roger to raise his eyes again. Chris didn’t look so ready to kill him now. He just looked… sad.
“Fix it, Roger,” Chris muttered, and he was the one to look away this time. “Because as much as it hurts sometimes to see you two together, it kills me even more to see him like this.”
And with that final statement, Chris started walking away. Roger watched him go, and their eyes locked when Chris turned around for a moment.
“But I swear to God, Roger,” Chris said, “if you hurt him again, I’ll hurt you ten times over.” With that look on his face, Roger didn’t doubt him for a second.
Then Chris was really gone after turning sharply out of the alleyway. Roger stared after him, completely numb with the shock of the encounter. Blake was the one who broke the silence.
“Holy fuck, man,” he breathed almost reverently. “You just got the shit kicked out of you by a skinny, white, British, gay guy.” Roger’s lips tilted up slightly.
“A skinny, white, British, gay guy with one hell of a right hook,” he corrected. Blake laughed at that.
Roger rubbed at his jaw for a moment and his smile grew. Chris trying to knock some sense into him might have been the best thing that could’ve happened.
“Blake… can you take care of the equipment? I’ve got something I need to do,” Roger said after a moment.
“Sure, man,” Blake answered, giving a slight squeeze to Roger’s shoulder and walking back inside. Roger was left alone in the alley.
He followed Chris’s steps out and hailed a taxi. It was at least a ten minute drive to Mark’s apartment from here, not taking into account the fact that they’d be driving during the tail-end of rush hour.
He only hoped he wouldn’t be too late.