A/N: Inspired by Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark", I felt like writing a quick angst piece. Review please! I love feedback…
Disclaimer: Mark, Roger and RENT altogether don't belong to me. Just this story.
I Will Follow You
Mark closed his eyes wearily, leaning forward to rest his head on top of his and Roger's hands clasped on the crisp white sheets of the hospital bed.
His head was throbbing with one of the worst migraines he'd ever had in his life. It might have had something to do with the thirty four hours he'd been awake, afraid to fall asleep in case Roger slipped away from him. It might have just been the shock, the grief, the absolute terror he felt when he thought back to the way his friend had started coughing just a week before. The sores appearing all over him, his face and his arms…
The filmmaker shuddered, a few more tears slipping from under his tightly closed lids. His friend was dying. He might have looked right this moment so peaceful, even hooked up to an IV, sleeping with his chest moving slowly up and down in time with his breath. But behind it all, Mark knew that his body was starting to shut down. All because of the damn rain and their faulty insulation and Benny's refusal to pay for their heat and the fluid in his lungs and April and her needles.
Truth be told, although he could have blamed any number of people or factors, Mark wasn't as scared as he could be. Because…
Mark thought back to his days at Scarsdale High, when he and Roger had been the best of friends since kindergarten and they were both happy and healthy. No HIV. No drugs, no withdrawal. No Maureen or April to complicate things. Just Mark and Roger.
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Behind the school was one of Mark's favorite places to be at sixteen, laying on the grass on a June afternoon beside his best friend. Roger was, as usual, rambling- he had a tendency to do that when he was high. Just like Mark tended to get emotional, and Maureen tended to get just a little sluttier. Roger was a talkative drunk and he was the same when he was lighting up with his best friend behind the school on afternoons like this. It wasn't a big deal. Mark actually sort of liked it, listening to Roger talk and talk and talk.
"And I was thinking the other day, what is the POINT? Why are we here? There are… there are just a whole shitload of people HOMELESS and sick and dying all over the world and I just don't see the point. Why are we alive if we're just going to end up dying, you know?" Roger is saying, and Mark just nods his blonde head sagely because he isn't sure what to say.
"And then I thought, if there's a God, why is he letting all those people suffer and die all over the place? He must be one sick son of a bitch if he wants to watch that every damn day," he continued, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the greater being he was currently imagining. "Right, Mark?"
Now he has to say something back. The bespectacled boy stares at the clear blue sky, watching the wispy clouds move slowly across it as he formulates his answer. "Yeah, I suppose that's true," he says slowly, lazily. There isn't any rush. Its summer and he's riding his high with Roger, joint held loosely between his fingers.
He brings it to his lips, taking a long drag, and absentmindedly passes it to his friend. Mark certainly isn't one to ramble when he's high as a kite like he is now. He's a thinker, and right now he's thinking about all of the things he can't say, like the pleasing shade of green of Roger's eyes and the way his friend moved so sensually sometimes, almost like a cat, and that mischievous smirk that he always wore when a new idea popped into his head that made Mark's pants a little tighter. Mark knows it's not normal to think of your best friend this way and that's why he doesn't say any of the things he's thinking, only stares at the sky like it's the most interesting thing in the world.
"Mark, what would you do if I died?" Roger asks suddenly, so suddenly in fact that the blonde boy beside him chokes on his own spit, eyes bugging out. He can't imagine a world without Roger. He can't imagine waking up every morning without knowing that somewhere, namely a ways down his own street, Roger is waking up too, or perhaps still sleeping because the musically gifted boy likes to sleep in even on school days and he's probably going to fail his first period English class because of it, but he doesn't care. Because it's Roger. And Mark needed him.
"I… I don't know," he says honestly, voice cracking. He leans up on one elbow to gaze at Roger with eyes as blue as the sky, looking lost. "I'd probably die, too."
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This is the first time, but not nearly the last, that Roger asked him this question. And the more that he was asked, the more that he thought about it, and Mark is sure within the next few months that he meant it that first time when he said that he would die if Roger would. Even if his judgment then had been clouded and the only thought in his head had been "Roger? Dead? Oh, God.".
He was right. If Roger died, then so would he. Even if he had to take things into his own hands.
A lot of people- most people- they wouldn't ask their friends, no matter how close they were, to make that promise to them, but Roger had always been blunt. And of everyone in the world, Mark could count on him to be there when he needed him, just the way he was there when Roger needed him. In any situation, they would always help each other however they could.
As he stared at the sickly pale skin of Roger's face, the sheen of sweat on it indicating his persistent fever, Mark let his thoughts drift back to the night that he'd made his promise. A promise he had always intended to keep. And whose moment of truth seemed to be approaching.
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It was dark and he could barely see between that and the sheeting rain and all Mark could think of was the phone call he'd received twenty minutes ago begging him to come over. Because Roger needed him for some reason, and when Roger needed him he was there. It might have been three in the morning and pouring buckets, but he would come.
He couldn't help but be worried, even though it was him with his clothes soaked through climbing the dangerously slippery trellis against Roger's house, him knocking on the window and only holding on with one hand, vaguely aware that he was unsteady and the wind could blow him off and onto the ground any second. Roger had been acting strangely lately, staying in on nice days instead of hanging out with Mark at the record store or behind the school where the rest of the potheads hung out. He had been quiet, withdrawn, and the bruises all over his arms and his torso had been appearing more frequently. Last Tuesday he'd come in with a black eye that he refused to explain, and he hadn't even wanted to light up with Mark after school. It had to be something serious.
The window in front of him slid upwards and a pair of wiry-muscled arms shot out to grasp him by the wrists and pull him inside. Mark landed awkwardly on the carpeted floor of his best friend's room, stumbling and dripping and shivering cold. He would probably come down with a nasty cold in the next few days, but at the moment all he wanted to focus on, all he COULD focus on, was Roger.
The other boy was shaking, tears streaming down his face. A blank expression adorned it. His normally mischievous, vibrant green eyes looked dull and there was a large bruise across his left cheekbone in the shape of a hand. Mark could hardly believe that this transformation in his friend could have occurred over the last forty-eight hours since he'd seen him, but here it was. Roger looked broken.
It scared him.
Since he'd arrived in Scarsdale way back when his parents had divorced, the blonde boy had been looking to Roger Davis for guidance. It was easy to tell why: here he was, scrawny and geeky looking in his thick black glasses, tripping over his own two feet and stuttering every other word, and there was Roger who was always so spontaneous and wild with that I-don't-care-what-anyone-thinks attitude. Roger wasn't allowed to fall apart like this but he was, and Mark wasn't exactly sure what he was supposed to do.
"Roger? What- who did this to you?" he asks, voice unsteady, even though he already knows the answer. It's not like the guitarist in front of him has ever told him in so many words that his dad smacked him around the house like a rag doll and broke beer bottles on the walls that his mother has to clean up later, but Mark is decidedly observant when it comes to Roger and he knows.
Roger is silent, just staring at him, and then all of a sudden- always sudden, that's Roger, hasty and spontaneous and brutally honest, never caring about the consequences- Mark finds himself with and armful of sobbing rocker boy, and he's wrapping his arms around him even though he's sopping wet and freezing and now Roger is going to get sick too.
"Mark, God, Mark, I can't take it anymore," he's saying between sobs, choking on the words. "He's going to hurt my mom like he hurts me and I can't let him, I'm so fucking scared, Mark."
The shorter boy wishes in the back of his mind that he had his new camera in hand, because even in such a state of disarray Roger is beautiful. And just like that he pulls back and looks into Mark's eyes and their lips are pressed tightly together. Roger is looking for comfort and he finds it in Mark's cold lips against his chapped ones, and Mark knows that this isn't happening for the reasons that he wants it to but he can't help moaning into it, closing his eyes helplessly and allowing Roger's tongue past his lips.
Just as abruptly Roger is leaning way again, staring at him like he's lost and Mark is the only one who can help him. He jerks up the sleeve of his pajamas and exposes two nasty gashes, still bleeding, to his friend who can only observe with wide eyes.
"R-Roger?" he asks timidly. "What are those?"
"I…" Roger is at a loss for words, eyes flickering to his dresser nervously, and Mark follows his line of vision to the gleaming pocketknife lying open there. It clicks, and he's terrified again, terrified of losing Roger all over again. He can't lose Roger. He can't even wrap his mind around the idea. Roger licks his lips and whispers, "Mark? Can I ask you something?"
"Yeah?" Mark drops his voice even though it isn't necessary. He's desperate to hear an explanation. He'll do anything to make this all go away.
"I'm so afraid… I'm afraid he might kill me… I don't want him to kill me. I think… I'd rather just do it myself. Mark, if I do, will you come with me?" It sounds more like a scared four year old is speaking to him than a seventeen year old boy with aspirations of becoming a rock star, but Mark can't blame him because he sees the bruises.
And without even having to pause to think about it, Mark reaches out to his friend again and whispers, "Of course."
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It makes sense, if he really thinks about it. Mark doesn't know what death will be like. Hell, nobody does, and plenty of people are scared of what it might be. Roger, he's always been frightened of dying, he's the worst about it of everyone that Mark has ever met in his life.
And what ISN'T scary about it? It's the unknown. It's darkness. And no matter what anyone says, every person in the world has that deeply ingrained fear of the dark deep down inside of them. Alone, it's scary. It's menacing. But if you go with someone else… Well, it's just a hand to hold, just a tiny bit of comfort, but it's enough to help you put on a brave face and step into the darkness with your head held high.
Roger's heart, Mark can hear from the frantic beeping of the heart monitor as nurses rush into the room in a panic, is about to give out.
Just before he flat lines, Mark whispers, "I love you." And he wishes that he had the courage to say it while Roger was still breathing, but this is okay too because he'll be with him again soon and he can tell him then.
On his way home, Mark fingers the bottle of pills he's smuggled out of the hospital in the pocket of his coat and smiles to himself.
He'd follow Roger, and he'd follow him tonight.