Roger looked up from his guitar as Mark gave another hoarse cough. Looking up, Mark met Roger's gaze and tried to give him a small smile only to start coughing again.
"You're sick," The songwriter pointed out. "How long has it been, Mark? A month, maybe two."
Mark only coughed in return. One cough leading him into another, a coughing fit was making its presence known. The filmmaker doubled over at the intensity of the coughing. He shouldn't have been sick as long as he had been. It was simply a cold, not some major illness.
"You need to go to the hospital," Roger said, as he started playing his guitar again. He watched Mark, his friend, fight his coughing.
"I'm fine," the sick man managed to say in between coughs. "It's just a cold. It'll be gone before you know it."
The two friends knew that this was a lie considering that Mark had been dealing with this "cold" for over two months. The filmmaker walked over to the sink, grabbing a glass of water and quickly downing it so maybe, just maybe, the coughing would stop.
No such luck.
"You need to go to the hospital," Roger remarked as he removed himself from the table in which he had placed himself upon and set him guitar when he had been sitting. "And I'm not taking no for an answer."
Mark simply regarded his best friend. Breathing deeply, holding off the coughing for just two seconds, he mumbled, "No." He raised his eyebrows almost as a challenge to Roger. It would have been an intensive moment had it not been then that Mark started to cough once again.
"Told you, I'm not taking no for an answer."
Roger went into the room Mark lived in grabbing a few objects of clothing: a sweater, his beloved scarf, and, what looked like, a clean pair of pants. The songwriter just tossed them out into the open area of their living room.
Mark just took in the scene. His clothes were flying out of his room. "Roger, leave my clothes out of this."
"Get dressed."
Mark gave Roger a stern look before dumping himself on the shabby couch, they'd found somewhere. Eyes locked and war lines had been drawn.
Roger swiftly pulled out a paper bag and started stuffing the clothes he had previously evicted from Mark's room into it before grabbing Mark, himself, and hauling him over his shoulder.
Clad only in his boxers, Mark instantly felt the cold, December air embrace him as Roger walked out the door. Mark knew he had no say in the matter so he did just as any other sick person would do, he started coughing again.
"Roger I'm cold," Mark staved off the coughing to let out that one sentence. Roger simply rolled his eyes and kept on walking. Mark was already sick as it was, what was a few moments in the cold? Roger couldn't help but let a smile run across his face as he mused that thought. True, it was a bit assholistic but he had the best intentions in his heart. "Roger put me down and give me my clothes. Now damn it." Yet, Roger kept on walking as if he had never heard Mark's pleas in the first place.
Upon arriving at the hospital, Mark's pleas and begging became greater. "Roger, I'm fine. I don't need to go to the hospital."
"Well, since we're already here why don't you get checked out?" Roger placed Mark in a chair and walked over to the counter to sign him in. He started filling out the paper work wondering if any of this really mattered in his friend's case. It was simply a cold that had gone on for just way too long. And he was doing what any good friend would do at this point.
Just as Roger was about to turn the paper work in, Mark appeared behind him and grabbed it. Making a few small marks on the documents, the filmmaker tried to slip it past the songwriter.
Roger, thoroughly annoyed already, took the papers back. Looking over what he had changed, Roger's face fell.
"How the hell do you have AIDS?"