Disclaimer: Not mine. As usual. I just have several of these characters talking in my head. Why yes, I am crazy; why do you ask?
A/N: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For every almost-fluff story Aubrey writes, there is a disproportionately angsty story. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to go the other way, so don't expect fluff to emerge when I write angst. Oh well. This is the same universe as "The Truth About My Life", and probably occurs before that. Oh, and as a warning… this is quite possibly the angstiest thing I've ever written. Things are getting to my head, clearly.
Usually when Mark looked out on the street he could find something of interest, something that caught his attention. Usually he could find something that spoke of life, of hope, even here, but today… Nothing.
He turned away from the window with a sigh. It wasn't the city that was different today, he knew. Just his state of mind, and his ability to see it. "My own private catastrophe," he muttered with a wry, humorless smile as he crossed the room to the kitchen.
It had happened that morning—or, to be more accurate, Mark had noticed it that morning. Now that he thought about it, Roger had to have known for some time now, had to. But then why hadn't he said something. They could have done something, could have… He didn't want to worry me, Mark realized suddenly. The goddamn idiot…
That morning… Roger had been coughing. Had been for some time, but it just hadn't clicked in Mark's mind somehow until… He noticed Roger wiping the blood off his hand. He'd been coughing up blood, and it hit Mark all of a sudden—Roger was sick. Yes, that was a fact of life, Roger was always sick, but there was a different. This was more immediate, more real… Most of the time Roger never looked sick, but now he really was, and somehow Mark realized it was probably too late to see a doctor about it. When Roger had probably been hiding this for weeks…
I'm going to lose him, Mark thought with a painfully sinking feeling. Not just in some distant "some day", but soon. How the hell could he…
Mark shook his head and turned towards the kitchen sink. There were dishes that needed to be washed. More importantly, he needed to distract himself, with any mundane task just to keep his mind off of the fact that his best friend was…
Dying. He stuck the plug in the sink drain, rolled up his sleeves, turned on the water. Shouldn't surprise me this much. I mean, I knew it was coming, just… not quite so fast.
And Roger… did he think he could go on pretending there was nothing wrong? Probably. He was stubborn like that and he would keep on denying it as long as he could.
Clenching his jaw, Mark picked up the sponge and scrubbed at a dirty plate as hard as he could, as if focusing all of his emotions on the damn dishes would change something, would at least make it stop hurting… Right. He knew better, but that knowledge didn't keep him from trying. He made it through several plates and had moved onto silverware before he slowed, stopped, winced a little upon realizing that none of this did anything to stop him thinking. Did Roger know he knew? Could he even bring himself to tell Roger he knew, when Roger had been hiding it from him for God knew how long?
He realized abruptly that he was still holding a kitchen knife, and picked up a dish towel to dry it off. A moment of hesitation, and he pressed the very tip of the knife to the pale skin of his forearm, just below the crook of his arm… right where Roger had scars on his forearms from shooting up. The knife traced a thin, light line down, trailing a faint white line on his skin that, in a moment, faded to pink, barely visible against his skin tone. Not enough to break the skin.
"What the hell am I doing?" he murmured to himself. True, it certainly did serve as a distraction, but the wrong kind of distraction, and in the long run…
"Shit!" He drew a sharp breath and pulled the knife away from his arm. He hadn't been paying attention, had pressed down a little harder than he meant to… Mark watched in morbid fascination as blood slowly rose to the surface of the cut, startlingly bright against his pale skin. Just a little cut, but—
The door of the loft opened behind him; Mark jumped and dropped the knife in the sink, pulled his sleeve down over his arm. Out of sight, not exactly out of mind. He turned to face his roommate with a falsely bright smile. "Roger, you're… you're home. I didn't know you'd be coming back so soon…"
Roger couldn't have seen, couldn't know… Mark's arm still stung underneath his sleeve, pain pulsing with the frantic beat of his heart.