He doesn't even remember what they were fighting about in the first place; but now, nose to the door that was only seconds ago slammed in his face, he's already set about what Mark does best. Worrying.
Roger knows his way around the more dangerous parts of town. Roger knows how to cook heroin and punch someone's lights out if they try to mug him, and he's a lot more competent than Mark, but Mark is worrying and he's not fucking sorry about it. He's not.
He's not sorry and he was right. Roger knows he's right. He's just being a prick because…
Because he's Roger.
As if that's an acceptable explanation. As if he has to take that crap.
Mark often wonders what would have become of Roger if he hadn't convinced his parents to keep sending him cash well after he dropped out, what would have happened if he hadn't helped Roger through the worst of his withdrawal. What would Roger have become? Would he be another of the haggard twenty-somethings crouched in alleyways, kneeling behind dumpsters giving blowjobs for blow? Would he have gotten clean himself? (doubtful) Would he have moved on with his life - would he have become someone different altogether? Would he even be Roger anymore?
Or would he become April, instead - a bloody wreath around his face in the bathtub, bleached hair dyed pink?
Mark often wonders, but he doesn't necessarily like to wonder, and now all he can think about is Roger stalking down one of those alleys and what he might do-
No. No, that's ridiculous. Roger is fine. He's just overreacting
(again)
and Maureen says he overreacts, and Roger says it, and maybe they're right and he needs to sit down and read a book, or take a cold shower. Anything to get his mind off of it.
—
Two hours, it's been two hours. Roger isn't back.
The loft is stifling even in the nighttime - it's cluttered and stuffy, and Mark can't decide what's preventing him from breathing: the air or the fist clenched tight in his chest, right around his lungs.
It's mid-July. The streets are crawling with drugs, with prostitutes, with rapists and murderers, with kids who don't know they're in way over their heads.
(kids like Mark used to be)
(kids that Roger will think he can save)
Mark stares at the clock, and counts the minutes, and agonizes.
So many things he's never said, will never say. Will especially never say if Roger doesn't come back. What he should have told him - what he should have said, to make him stay.
But this would have happened tomorrow if not today.
Three hours since the argument Mark gets out of bed, stops pretending he's going to sleep tonight, and makes himself a tea.
—
Fifteen hours since the fight and it's four in the afternoon and Mark is awake and Roger- Roger is nowhere. Roger is lost and Mark has unplugged the phone to stop himself from calling and asking, have you seen him? Where is he?
It's far too early to start a search, and the police don't take too kindly to the East Village anyways.
He's relapsed, an anxious voice in his brain has been whispering. And all he can imagine, every time he closes his eyes for a moment, lets his concentration slip, is Roger and his green, green eyes, so intensely focused on him, his lip curled into a sneer, the needle dangling from his arm-
No! No, no, they can't go through that again. Roger will never put him through that again. He wouldn't.
He can still feel the sweat coating his naked form huddled on the couch. He can feel it seeping through his t-shirt, can feel Roger shaking, sobbing. Can feel his fist connecting with his jaw.
Remembers the way he'd looked - mad, crazed, forever fucked up - when he'd left every time, disappeared for days on end, stumbling back inside reeking like sex with strangers.
Remembers how he'd looked, the glint in his eye just last night when he'd slammed the door in Mark's face.
No, Roger can't have relapsed. He wouldn't. He doesn't hate Mark that much.
(does he hate Mark?)
If the phone rings, it's in his imagination, but he stares at it until the sun goes down anyways. It's not even hooked up, but then, Roger would find a way. He always finds a way, doesn't he?
He loves life, even if he says he hates it.
—
On the third day Mark wakes with a jerk from the only sleep he's managed since Roger's departure to said roommate's face two inches from his.
It could be a dream - it could because Mark's dreams get a little funny sometimes, especially in this past year, but he's pretty sure this isn't one of those because his breath smells like the Chinese place two blocks away and he's shoving a carton into Mark's sleepy hands, grunting. "Lunchtime."
It takes him a moment to react. Because Roger is here, and Mark isn't, not entirely. But he shoots upwards like he was yanked (by April's ghost, perhaps, or Roger's if he really is dead on the side of the road like Mark was beginning to think) and stares, stares, stares, clutching the box too tightly as he watches Roger shrug off his leather jacket and spread out his food on the metal table in the kitchen.
"You-" he splutters, and Roger just barely has the decency to look at him before turning back to his chopsticks. "You bastard. Where the fuck have you been?"
"Where does it look like? I got lunch." He sounds so annoyed, holding the carton up a fraction of an inch before beginning to filter noodles to his mouth, brown and dripping.
This is Roger's way of apologizing, which Mark knows - would be perfectly familiar with, if he weren't seeing red. Disappearing is Roger's specialty, if there's conflict to be had, and sometimes Mark is grateful for it. Not today.
Before he knows it he's already across the room, already throwing the box of noodles to the floor. And Roger, he actually looks outraged for the half second before Mark has his collar bunched up in both hands, nose to nose with him, and everything freezes.
He thinks-
He's sure-
Mark is angry, but he's also incredibly close, too close, closer than he's been since before Mimi came and went with a sashay of her hips, since before April when they used to play those stupid games like gay chicken and twister with shots of cheap liquor, smoking indoors with Collins in one big circle, everyone holding everyone elses hands. Mark is so fucking angry, and yet, it's hard to take him seriously.
"What's your problem?" Roger manages, but he can't bring himself to push him away. He could, he knows he could -
But there's no telling what Mark would do.
There's no telling what's going through Mark's head until he explodes, each time out of nowhere, completely unpredictable. He's like a pipe bomb and Roger doesn't know how to save him now, can only supervise the damage done.
And if Mark kisses him just like this he might not complain.
And if he loves him so much, he'll stop choking him.
"You didn't even call! What the fuck is wrong with you Roger?! What's wrong," he starts again, on a rampage that ends with a choked sound and a sob, a genuine sob. It's a noise so rarely heard from anyone here, let alone Mark, that neither of them knows what to do.
"Hey, man, it's not a big deal." He tries to shrug it off, but the expression on Mark's face says that it is, and he'd better amend it soon.
"Not a big deal. Not a big deal, Roger, are you kidding? Please tell me you're joking." He takes a shaky breath, a precarious smile on his face - its so sarcastic he can't even look at it, and he wonders when he started rubbing off on the filmmaker. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were high."
And then he's got an armful of Mark, whose gone from crying to laughing to crying some more, and there are actual tears against his shoulder that taste like fear, like unspoken secrets. Mark is all around him, suddenly, an atmosphere he's realized that he needs, couldn't have stood another minute without. Mark is inside and outside of him and he's never going to admit that he's the most important person in the world right now, and always has been, actually. And Mark is crying, and fuck, it's his fault.
It always seems to be his fault, when Mark cries.
Seeing Mark in a state like this is wrenching. He never cries, makes a point not to. Nobody ever sees him vulnerable - he'd rather lock himself in his room, or cry in the shower for an hour and a half until the water is in danger of becoming ice. But Roger, he has this stupid control over him - has the power to see right through him, and Mark never really tries to stop him. He just lets him use him and see him and he thinks he might love him, thinks Mark probably knows that.
Fuck. He's got to apologize.
He's so bad at apologies.
"Jesus, Mark, I-" he begins, stopping himself before he can say anything stupid. Mark's eyes are red and watery, his glasses slipping down his nose and Roger thinks he's sort of beautiful. "… Mark." He rubs a hand over his face and then through his hair, taking a deep breath and letting it out. He can feel Mark watching him, on the verge of distressed hiccups, and it kills him. "Look. I'm sorry. I- felt bad, for what I said, and I didn't think…"
"You never think," Mark mumbles, and buries his face in the crook of Roger's neck where it smells just like him, always, and not of dark alleys or sexy women on the street and he's just so glad Roger is back.
"Not really," he admits with a smile, wrapping his arms around him more tightly and squeezing. His lips brush his hair, the tip of his ear, as he murmurs low - "Mark, I'm sorry."
Mark, I love you.
And Mark gives a shaky kiss to his neck, and for all of the reasons they can't do this, and that Roger will never let him try, he can swear he hears Mark breathe I love you too.