Title: Unfinished
Author: Lioness Black
Rating: R/M
Summary: Mark's point of view of Roger's withdrawal, and the aftermath.
Notes: I played with the timeline a little, written for speedRent.
Special Thanks: All the websites that helped me on withdrawal research.
Disclaimer: Not mine, just good fun.
"Close on Roger, who's been sitting on that window sill for days now, with a look on his face which I have become quite accustomed to."
Roger ignores Mark.
"Things going well, Roger?"
Nothing.
"And your day, Mark? Why, thanks for asking, Roger. I got hit in the head with a stale roll by a waiter at the Life Café when I didn't tip."
Despite himself, Roger snorts a laugh. It is the first real sign of life from him in weeks. Longer than that, really. Mark was getting so used to Roger this way, seeing him laugh was strange. A ghost of his former self. His former self from over a year ago. Before withdrawal, even before the drugs, and before April.
He looks up. "That didn't happen."
"I got it all on film," Mark replies.
Roger's smile fades and he turns back to the window.
Shit, Mark thinks. He was here for a second, and then he was gone again.
The camera rolls on.
---
I was overwhelmed by the smell of vomit. I could see it in the bath tub, and I knew that I was going to be the one to clean it out later.
I could see the scratches Roger had made into his own arms. They looked like burns. The skin wasn't broken, there was no blood, but there were swollen, red welts, four of five thin layers of skin, peeled away, revealing a darker, new, more sensitive skin.
Every night I told myself that this would be the worst one. After this, it had to get better. So far, it hadn't.
I hadn't filmed in days. Helping Roger through his withdrawal was the priority number one. It had been three days since he had used. This is the longest he had gone without falling back. This had to be the last time.
"Mark," he said looking up at me. He looked helpless. "I'm sorry."
"What happened?" I had only been away for a couple of hours.
He started scratching at his left wrist. "I bought, but-" He threw up, this time making it to the toilet. "I didn't take it. I didn't."
"Where is it?" I asked. I knelt down next to him and pulled his hand away from his wrist. I'm careful. I didn't see any blood, but the last thing I want to to do is come in contact with it on accident.
Roger is my best friend, but I was scared to death of getting HIV.
It was lucky he had gotten the drugs today, though. If he had gotten it last night, we would have had to start over again. Last night when he had been begging me to get it for him, swearing at me, threatening to kill me if I didn't get him some. The bruises on my arms from where he had been hitting me weren't going to go away anytime soon.
"In the barrel," he said.
The steel barrel we kept when we couldn't pay the heat, in order to burn whatever the hell we had around. Good enough place for it.
I was about to suggest a shower, but then I remembered the bottom of the tub was lined with vomit. I was about to throw up, just from the smell.
"I'll be right back," I said. I walked out of the bathroom, chucking my scarf and sweater on the couch. I checked the barrel, and Roger had been telling the truth, I could see the plastic bag in the bottom. I got cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink and went back into the bathroom.
Even worse than the smell of vomit is the smell of vomit, covered up with bleach.
---
Roger has an unfinished tattoo on his thigh. Only two other people know about it, Mark and April.
Well, April isn't telling anyone, Roger thinks with a bitter sarcasm.
Mark only knew from forcing him into the shower, when he had been sweating, throwing up pure bile, since he hadn't eaten in days, or when the muscle spasms got bad.
He hates to think about himself during that time. He hates to think of the terrible things he said and did to Mark. Mark had been the only person who put up with him, who helped him.
"Get it for me! If you don't, I'll fucking kill you! I'll break your fucking neck! I hate you! You motherfucking cheap ass!"
Roger rests his face against the cool glass of the window. He isn't over his shame of saying those words, among others, to his best friend. The only person who was willing to help him.
Sometimes the memories blur, but for some reason, he can recall every time he threatened, swore at, and- oh god, all the anti-Semitic remarks he had made. Anyone listening in must have thought Nazis lived there.
Roger remembers how Mark never said a word. It was as if Mark couldn't hear those words, or feel his fingernails digging into his arm.
Now, Mark is friendly. Mark jokes, films, brings home bagels that Roger knows he can't afford. Mark doesn't talk about that time. He never brings it up and he seems to go deaf when Roger, even now, even four months later, tries to apologize for his actions, for his words.
"Hey. Did you take your AZT yesterday?"
Roger looks over at Mark, who's holding his camera in one hand, and Roger's medicine in the other.
"No," Roger says. "I forgot."
Mark tosses the meds to him. "You can't forget."
"Thanks, mom."
"You want to go out with us tonight?" he asks.
"You and Maureen? I'll pass. I don't need a night of Maureen's too much information."
"Too much information?"
"Oh, you know. 'Buy me this ten inch dildo, Pookie,' or 'Last night Mark and I had fun with handcuffs and whips.' And not because it reminds me of how I'm not getting any, and how no one wants to do it with the HIV guy, but it freaks me out."
Mark laughs, a little uncomfortably. "She's never said those things."
"Are you kidding me? She says things like that all the time. I've never met anyone who really doesn't care what people think. That's not bad, it's just that I don't need to hear the details. It sort of drives me up the wall. But she's your girlfriend, so I won't say anything bad about her."
He laughs again. "I'm glad to see you're getting your sense of humor back."
Roger smirks.
"Look," Mark says, "if you change your mind, we'll be-"
"I'm not going to change my mind."
He sighs. "All right, Roger. I'll probably be back sometime tomorrow."
"I don't need a play by play. Please, no."
"You're not going to like to hear that she's about to be evicted and she's talking about moving in here, are you?"
"No, I'm not. Don't tell me that."
Mark laughs again, uncomfortable again. "Well, uh, Roger, you'll be okay here by yourself, right?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Roger says.
"Is just Maureen, or..."
"I'm tired. My back's been killing me all day. I'm going to try and sleep."
Mark nods as he drapes his scarf over his shoulders. "Get some rest." He leaves, feeling guilty for leaving Roger there. He knows that he can't base his life around keeping Roger safe, keeping him clean, but he had grown accustom to taking care of Roger.
Mark is aware that Roger won't always need him. That someday, despite what Roger doesn't say, he will find someone new. Someday, Roger will find love again.
---
It had been over a week since Roger bought the drugs. Over a week since I had burnt them in the barrel. Roger was still weak, but most of the major symptoms had passed. We had made it past the worst.
He barely got out of bed, though he never slept. It hurt him too much to even move.
I never pressured him to do anything. If I even suggested that he eat something more than toast with coffee, he would rip my head off. He wasn't too weak to call me names, then an hour later, quietly apologize for them.
I never accepted the apologies. Not because I didn't forgive him, but because I knew that wasn't really Roger saying them.
I drew him a hot bath one day and helped to the bathroom. I helped him out of his clothes and into the tub. I sat on the closed toilet lid and watched the wall ahead of me, while Roger sat in the water. He didn't do anything at first, he just sat there.
"Do... you need help?" I asked. I didn't want to push him.
He shook his head. "This feels good."
It was the first thing Roger had said felt good, since his last high. That had to be a good sign.
He rubbed his hand against the top of his head. "My hair feels weird."
"You haven't washed it in a while. All of you is kind of weird." It was supposed to be a joke, but Roger didn't laugh. I really didn't expect him to. I picked up the bar of soap and held it out to him.
He took it from me, and dropped it. He stared at it, as if picking it up again would hurt.
"You know what they say about dropping the soap," I said. I slid off the toilet and onto the floor next to the tub. I reached into the water, between Roger's legs and picked up the soap.
"Do you want help?" I asked again.
He nodded.
Roger didn't say anything as I bathed him, and washed his hair. I wasn't shocked at my erection. This was an intimate moment. Sure, Roger wasn't getting a hard on from the bath, but he was suffering from withdrawal. He probably wasn't feeling a lot of anything.
It was then that I noticed the tattoo on his thigh. He hadn't mentioned getting a tattoo. But then again, when he and April had been on their continual high, he never told me much of anything.
If he had, I wouldn't have wanted to hear. I had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to their habit.
Three letters in a curly script were marked into his skin, Apr.
It didn't take a genius to figure it out.
Before I helped Roger out of the tub, I put clean sheets on his bed. He got out and I dried him off with a towel, and walked with him back to his bed. None of his clothes were clean, so he stayed naked.
"I think I might sleep," Roger said. He said that nearly every day, but as far as I knew, he hadn't slept.
"Okay," I replied. I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. I had never done that before, but doing it then felt right. He gave me the strangest look.
I walked out of his room, closing the door securely behind me. I went into my own room, and closed the door. I sat on my bed and whacked off, feeling sick and guilty.
---
"It's official," Mark says, coming into the loft the next day. "Maureen's moving in. If it's all right with you."
"Good morning," Roger replies. He points to the coffee pot. "Help yourself."
"Is it all right with you?"
"I've been awake for ten minutes. Let the information sink." Roger is lying, he's been awake for three hours. He had just come to the conclusion that he should just get coffee and be awake.
"Sorry. How was your night?" Mark pours himself a cup of coffee.
"Boring. Maureen can move in if she has to. But can she keep the sexcapade stories to herself?"
"I can ask."
"Thanks."
"Collins is going to be in for a surprise when he comes back and she's here."
"He met Maureen. He liked her," Mark says.
"He met her once, and she didn't go into the details of your sex life."
Mark doesn't say anything. Instead, he pulls his camera out of his pocket.
"First, don't film me. Second, I don't want to know what you had been filming last night," Roger says.
"I wasn't going to film you," Mark replies. He pushes the camera away. "Okay, I was, but I wasn't going to make you talk."
"Good."
"But since I'm not filming, I'm going to make you talk."
Roger grimaces.
"You're not by the window. You actually seem like you're in a good mood."
"Questions make people talk, not statements."
Mark give him a slight smile. "I know. I just... it's like you're breaking out again. You seem better. Better than you have in a long time."
Roger nods. "I feel better."
"I'm glad." He pauses, taking a sip from his coffee. "Do you really hate Maureen? Or just her... openness?"
"I don't hate her. Really, Mark, I don't. She just sort of puts me off. How long have you been seeing her now? It's been a while."
"Oh, uh, a couple of months now. Since-"
"Since when?" Roger asks.
"Nothing. I got my dates mixed up."
He takes a deep breath. "Since after you kissed me?"
"It wasn't really a kiss," Mark protests before he can even think. It's the protest he's been planning since it happened, for if it ever came up. "It was just a moment, Roger. I was feeling, I don't know, brotherly or something. Fatherly, maybe."
The excuse works because Roger will never know what he did after he left the room. If Mark had ever felt fatherly, that was not the time.
"It's okay, Mark."
"I hoped you wouldn't remember."
"I always remember you. You and..." His voice trails off. Under his breath he whispers, "You know."
Mark nods.
The three letters on Roger's thigh will never let them forget.