A/N: I don't think I'll be updating Cat Scratch Club anytime soon, I'm really stuck on the second chapter, so I decided to take a break on that for a while and to write a sequel to Guilt. Thanks so much everyone who reviewed it, your reviews really made me very happy. These characters don't belong to me, they're products of the late great Jonathan Larson.
Mark POV:
"Roger!" I get up off the couch and walk over to Roger's door, knocking on it loudly. "Roger, time for lunch!"
He swings the door open and glares at me.
"It's been six months. You don't have to babysit me anymore."
I don't answer and watch his lean figure as he walks over to the table and sits down in front of the sandwich I put out for him. He brings it to his mouth and is about to take a bite but then drops it and turns to look at me instead.
"You know, you don't have to breathe down my neck every time I eat something. I haven't…done anything…is half a year, when are you going to loosen up?"
I shake my head and look down at his too slim form. "You're still too thin Rog…"
He rolls his eyes and takes a bite out of his sandwich and chews carefully before responding. To my amazement, he actually nods. "I know but you can't expect me to gain back 50 pounds overnight. I am gaining, and I'm not doing anything…unhealthy anymore." He takes another bite of his sandwich.
That logic I can't argue with, and I'm glad to have no return argument. He's right. In the six months that he's been seeing Dr. Gomez he's gained a lot of weight and eats pretty much normally except for the few times when something major has happened and he slipped back into old behaviors for a few days. But, I have to credit him the few times that did happen, because every time he admitted it to me and allowed me to help him through whatever it was. To say the least, I'm kind of shocked at how much progress he made. To go from not being able to so much as look at food without having a panic attack to where he is now…well, you have to give the boy credit.
I hear him sigh and I come out of my daze to find him looking at me again, his lunch half finished.
"If you're going to watch me like that can you at least pretend you're doing something else?"
I smile and sit down on the couch, turning on the TV and start flipping through the few channels we get that actually have decent reception. "Just tell me if you need help, okay?"
From the reflection in the TV screen I see him nod and return to his sandwich, and I smile, glad that things are finally starting to look up for a change.
Roger POV:
Just as I take the last bite of my sandwich I hear my beeper go off and I reach down to shut it off. I stand up and go over to the kitchen counter and turn around to Mark who's sitting on the couch, watching some corny made for TV movie, and jokingly say, "Mark, take your AZT." I've been having fun getting back at him for all these years of nagging and nagging, constantly reminding me to take my medicine. My smile disappears though as he doesn't move from the couch, but instead turns to face me with a somewhat guilty expression beneath the surface of his face, and refuses to meet my eyes.
"I took it before."
"Bullshit. What's wrong?" I make my way over to the couch and sit down next to him.
"Nothing's wrong Roger, I already took it today. That's all." He stares down at the scratchy wood surface of the floor, refusing to look up at me. Mark's always been a horrible liar, and I've always been able to read his mood and his feelings. And right now he is guilty and afraid, and I know there is definitely something he's not telling me.
I lift his chin so he's eyelevel to me, trying to catch his swimming vision as he tries to look anywhere else but into my eyes. But our eyes finally do lock and I hold his gaze for a moment before asking, "Mark, what's going on? What aren't you telling me?"
Mark POV:
Shit shit shit shit shit. All right, so he discovered my secret…just breathe, he doesn't have to know why… "It's just - I don't know…you went for months before you started taking AZT and, well, we can't exactly afford it right now…I can go without out it for a while, it won't hurt me too much…"
"Yeah you're right. You know what? We can't exactly afford food right now either. Maybe I should stop eating, I mean, I can go without it for a while and it won't hurt me that bad."
"Roger…" I shake my head at him. "That's not funny."
"Well it's about as funny as you not taking your AZT. How long have you gone without it?"
I shrug helplessly. "Not that long, maybe…a week?" Or three weeks and two days counting…close enough…
"Mark, how could you do that? I thought you were smarter than that!" He sighs in frustration and looks at me pleadingly. "Look, I know money's been tight around here lately but you can NOT just stop taking the thing that's keeping you alive." He jumps off the couch and runs over to the counter, pouring a glass of water and returning with his own AZT. "Here, take mine, okay?" Before I can respond the white pill is being shoved into my hand and the glass of water nearly poured down my throat. "And first thing tomorrow morning we're going out and getting you your own."
I nod even though I know I won't really do it and he smiles, then goes into his room, leaving me alone to sit in my own world of thoughts.
Well, that went well. I wasn't lying to him exactly…I just didn't tell him the whole story. Truth is, money's been pretty tight around the loft lately. We could barely afford the money for Roger's AZT and food before, now add to that my AZT plus the cost of his therapy. There's no way we can afford all that. Roger thinks I just stopped taking my meds. But the truth is I never started in the first place. He doesn't know how bad the situation really is because he thinks all this time we've had the money to pay for the extra expense of my meds, but in reality we haven't. I haven't picked up one single AZT prescription.
Roger's still sick. We can't afford both my meds and his therapy so the choice was easy to make. People live for years with HIV without taking AZT, without even knowing they have it, so I should be fine for a while, as long I do start taking it soon. But if Roger's anorexia comes back full force again he could die in a few short months. So for now, it's Roger's therapy over my AZT.
I open up the New York Times that was on the coffee table and start looking through the help wanted ads, looking optimally for a filming job but at this point I'd take anything I could get.
A/N: Sorry for such a crappy ending for this chapter, I couldn't think of anything else to do.
