Cannot, have not, will not ever own RENT.
"Mark?" Roger's voice echoed through the dull emptiness of the loft, though none of the furniture had moved. His breath escaped in a light puff of fog. Winter. Hell. The time of year when the air was contagious and things died.
He received no answer. Mark hadn't answered in a long time.
"Marky, are you there?"
"Go away."
Here was another turn of the vicious cycle. He knew every line, every breath, every blink and every millisecond of the events about to occur. Yet his response was the same as it always was.
A sign of insanity is repeating an action under the same circumstances expecting different results.
Sigh. "Marky…"
"You'll take me away from Roger."
No one could identify what was wrong with him, really. He had been sick for such a long time, ever since Maureen cut the sleeves of his favorite band T-shirt, or when he tossed away an old pair of sneakers, or maybe it was long before that. Mark fluctuated between two personas: reclusive, angry Mark and frightened childlike clingy Mark. Roger was unsure of which Mark he feared more or saddened him more. Neither were real—they stole his real Marky away, locked him in a closet and beat him, whipped him, raped him until he was silent, stony, dead.
Those blue eyes turned up to him, eyes once full of life and sparkle like that of a cerulean summer sky now matched the shade of old wallpaper. They were dull, as though faded by sun despite the perpetual darkness that permeated this particular room in the loft. His skin was so pale, so fragile looking.
"You okay, Mark?" Roger's voice was steady in its calmness, as if Mark were a deer he'd found walking in front of his car that he desperately wished to keep in his sight.
"I said get out!" His voice gained an edge of hysteria, implying not only seriousness but desperation. The air in the room was stale, dusty, too heavy to breathe.
"Okay." Roger surrendered easily. He knew it wasn't worth the fight, it wasn't worth the blood and the tears.
"Roger!" Tag team switch. Mark grabbed a hold of his leather jacket and stared up with pleading, tearful eyes. "Don't leave me," he whispered, though no one else was in the loft.
"I won't, Marky," replied Roger, already knowing the routine. He attempted to turn up the corners of his mouth into a smile, but his face had forgotten how.
"Roggy, they keep coming for me. They keep touching me and they want me to go, they say that you're with them, they…"
"Shh, I know. I won't let them take you."
"Thank you, Roggy. I'm tired."
"I'll let you sleep."
"Be there when I wake up?"
"Of course, Marky."
"They keep talking to me. Their voices are so nice…nicer than…but I can't…no I won't, I can't, stop, please….I…no…GET OUT! NOW!" He flailed about hysterically on the bed, screaming and kicking the walls and the mattress and Roger, fighting back invisible demons. He leapt back to the window ledge, rocking back and forth and sobbing. "Get out of here! You killed Roger! You killed him!...we killed him…" He took out a faded scrap of cloth worn threadbare and sniffed it.
Roger shut the door to Mark's prison, not looking back at the ritual, as Mark twisted the corners of his shirt and screamed. An inhuman wail rose to the rafters and rattled the pipes, begging for release and his Roger. Then, he started laughing, the high pitched, insane cackle, his eyes wide open, grinning, laughing. And Roger broke down, sobbing, body heaving, unable to hear the sound of Mark laughing any more.