Mark has this… condition.
Collins calls it an inferiority complex. Angel, who loved deliberating over people's eccentricities and how they might have came about, would call it a result of having never received enough positive attention as a child. For Benny, who knew Mark before anyone else in the group, Mark's "condition" was a monthly cycle he went through, and had something to do with the fact that he could never get a girlfriend.
They were all right, in a way, but they were all wrong.
Mark is scared. He has always been scared. He was scared when he was five years old, cowering before his violent father. He was scared when he was ten years old, put into a foster family. He was scared at thirteen, forced to stand up in front of a congregation of non-blood relatives and speak in a language he never really understood. He was scared at sixteen, trying to drive a car for the first time, and at seventeen, when he first let a drug infiltrate his body.
But Mark is scared now, because now, he has everything to fear.
Mark's biggest fear is of abandonment. He hates the word, cringes whenever it is said and will tell people he hates the word because it is so unemotional in its description of so emotional an event. Whether or not he is telling the truth is up for debate, but it is certain that there is more to Mark's loathing of the word than just that. Mark hates the word abandonment because he knows what it is to be abandoned, and he won't admit it.
He called it "a break" when Roger left for Santa Fe, or in slightly less eloquent terms, "heading out of town." It was never abandonment, Mark reasoned, because Roger wasn't leaving just him – he was trying to flee from everything, Angel and Mimi and his own self, even if that was something he could never really get out of his sight.
The same happened when Maureen left him. It was a year before Roger's departure and half as significant, if that, because when Maureen left Mark, he knew it didn't mean he would never see her again – nor, in fact, did it prove to mean that he would never sleep with her again. (But that came later.) No; Mark saw Maureen's breaking up with him as being, well, a phase. While it turned out to be her new self, he never thought of it as abandonment, because, well, she didn't mean to leave him.
It was only slightly different when Mark was ten and in his first foster family. Then, he was trembling in fear, because he didn't know who his "new parents" would be. He didn't think of his real parents, because they weren't really anything to him. They were the ones who beat him for ten years straight. Mark paid them no mind, and when he moved to a different family, it wasn't abandonment – it was a change of heart. They didn't want Mark anymore, and, well, he didn't want them either.
Death isn't abandonment. April and Angel didn't abandon him, because they couldn't help it. Distancing oneself from one's family isn't abandonment, Mark reasons, because, well, he can always call them. So by his logic, he has never really been abandoned.
And yet, when it comes to abandonment, Mark's scared as hell.
He loves his life the way it is, loves his friends all in a line with their odd quirks and character traits so easily described for him. He loves his camera, loves the way it seems to capture everything just as if there were no lens, as if it were merely picture flowing into the camera and developing film. He loves everything just the way it is. If anything changed – if anyone left him – Mark can only see his life as being inexplicably different, just from the loss of one person.
"Take your AZT," Mark will tell Roger, because he's scared that if Roger doesn't, he'll die sooner.
"Stop sleeping around," Mark will chastise Maureen, because he doesn't want her to get sick too, or to get caught up in some bad relationship she'll regret.
"Don't overwork yourself," Mark will tell Joanne day in and day out. Being overworked turns into stress, which turns into illness or reckless behavior, which, well, turns into HIV or AIDS. It isn't logical, but that is how Mark has come to see things, with so many of his friends diagnosed with the fatal illness (and two dead of it; one by her own choice in light of a discovery, the other concluding a valiant attempt to keep living).
To Collins, Mark will advise, "Stay home a little while," because every time Collins leaves, he can't help but wonder if he'll ever see him again. Collins seems so fun and full of life, but Mark isn't fooled. He knows Collins' T-cells are the lowest of anyone's, and if he doesn't get sick and die on some trip, he might decide to stay. That, Mark thinks, would be even worse. Death isn't really abandonment, after all (by his standards), but permanently relocating probably is.
Mark doesn't know what to say about Mimi. She is reckless and wild, yes, but remains so utterly condescending in Mark's presence that there isn't much he can suggest to her without sounding like an overprotective mother. He'll try reminding her to take her AZT – rather than dry-swallowing Roger's pills whenever her beeper goes off – but she'll just giggle and bat his hands away and tell him not to worry, that she's a big girl and can take care of herself. But she's barely twenty, and god, she's ridiculous.
Mark's condition isn't that he's always worrying about people, though. It's more serious than that.
Every few weeks, he'll be scared. Terrified, even. It's not a generic fear, the kind of creeping worry he has every time he walks down a city street. No. Once in a while, Mark will wake up, absolutely terrified that someone – Roger – will leave him and never come back.
Angel was the first to pick up on this. No – chronologically, Roger was the first, but relatively, Angel figured it out after a shorter time of having known Mark. It was the very night she met him, in fact, when she first noticed the way Mark held Roger maybe a little too tight, shot Mimi skeptical glances, and stared at his shoes, a few steps behind his friends in his attempt not to bother anyone.
"Hey, Mark?" Angel said one day. "You know he's not going to leave you, right?"
But she was wrong, which of course only reinforced Mark's terror. When Roger returned from Santa Fe, he was met with a bone-crushing hug that didn't end for at least five minutes. "Never go away again," Mark had wanted to say, but didn't; something about Roger's weary eyes and sleepy walk had made him merely instruct, "Take your AZT and go to bed."
Every night since, Mark has had nightmares.
He has always dreamed about death. He has always had dark, twisted nightmares about people dying and leaving him alone. But following Roger's excursion, his dreams grew, if possible, even darker. Mark began to dream of himself and a friend, usually Roger, walking along a rickety bridge. All would be fine for a time, but after a while, lava would rise up and scorch off a portion of the bridge – always the spot where Roger or the other friend would be walking at the time. He would burn, of course, and would vanish, after which time the bridge would completely repair itself, leaving Mark to walk the rest of the way on his own.
They are terrifying.
Sometimes there are new developments in the nightmares, the latest of which is that there will be many, many people on the bridge with him, and that some of them jump off rather than be scorched off, and still others merely vanish. At the end, sometimes Mark elects not to continue his journey, but just sits in one place on the bridge for what seems like an eternity before the lava rises up yet again and burns him. Those are the dreams that horrify Mark far more than the others, because it is one thing to be left alone, but still another to never proceed in life after being… well… abandoned.
When there are new developments in the nightmares, those are the times when Mark will experience his "condition." Those are the times when he will be meek for the day, quiet and cautious and never speaking without being directly addressed. He will apologize for minor errors, add polite words such as "please" and "thanks" onto his every sentence, and go out of his way to make sure Roger is content. It seems to apply only to Roger, because no matter how many times Maureen asks Mark for a foot rub, he always declines.
One day, Maureen and Joanne are at some Important Event (labeled as such by Joanne, spoken in a tone that just screamed capital letters) and Collins is spending the day with Mimi. (Nobody knows why, but Roger's usually hypersensitive cheating-radar is calm due to the fact that Collins wouldn't sleep with a girl – well, other than Angel – if his life depended on it.) Roger and Mark are left alone in the loft, Mark editing film in utter silence while Roger plays his guitar. Mark never makes noise on These Days, especially when Roger is playing his guitar. It's just not respectful, and besides, Roger doesn't get up and jump around while Mark is trying to screen a movie, does he?
"Pass that comb, wouldja, Mark?" Roger mumbles absently, running a finger through his hair and holding his guitar steadily with the other hand. Mark hands him the comb without a moment's thought and returns to his film. It is only a moment before Roger snaps his fingers, and Mark turns. "How do I look?" Roger asks cheerfully.
"Great," Mark replies automatically, because he wouldn't tell Roger otherwise even if it were true (which it isn't).
With a yawn, Roger asks randomly, "Can you make coffee?"
"Sure," says Mark, and he gets up. "Milk? Sugar? Black?"
Roger shrugs. "Do… uh… milk. Yeah, milk."
"We're out of milk," Mark tells him flatly.
"Then why'd you offer?" Roger snaps, definitely irritated.
Mark's face crumbles in a way that Roger is sure he has never seen it done before. "Hey… what the hell?" he asks, and springs to his feet. He has a song to write, sure, but he also has a roommate who obviously is having problems.
"Sorry," Mark mumbles, and wrestles out of Roger's grip.
Roger huffs dramatically. "If there's no milk, don't offer milk."
"Sorry," Mark repeats, sounding crushed. He slips over to the couch and draws his knees up to his chest.
"You're an asshole," Roger mutters.
Suddenly overwhelmed, Mark lets his head slide between his knees in an expression of total emotional agony. Months and months of bottling things up and witnessing trauma appear to have finally gotten to him, and Mark's entire body shakes.
Roger lets his guitar clatter to the ground and approaches Mark. He has seen this before, seen it on what Mark calls "accidental footage." His own withdrawal and Mimi's have both been played out for him in short clips, swiftly taken off the projector by Mark when he realizes what they are. Now, Roger recognizes his own shuddering.
"Mark, it's okay," he says quietly, because he knows that if it were him, he would want someone to at least try to make him feel better. "C'mere. Look up." He gently prods Mark's chin upward. "Mark, what's wrong? Or is it just one of those days?"
Mark shakes his head and trembles. "I'm just… it's too much," he gasps out, sounding like he has just run a mile, chased by a stalker or his mother.
"I know," Roger says, and strokes his back. "I know. I do."
"I'll buy milk," Mark whispers, but Roger holds him in place. "N…no?"
Roger sighs. "Don't," he says.
Mark doesn't move, only gazes emptily at his hands.
"Roger?"
Roger raises his eyes to meet Mark's. "Yeah?"
His voice trembling, Mark asks, "Are you… going to leave again?"
Roger so hates lying to Mark. Then again, he hates clichéd truths and promises that might shatter under the pressure of remaining firm. He sighs. "I don't know," he says slowly, "but I promise to always come back."
Mark looks deeply relieved, and his shoulders slump forward. "I'm cold," he says without quite saying it – his lips form the words, but no sound comes out. Roger tugs his sweatshirt over his head and wraps it around Mark's wiry body without a second thought. Mark smiles. "Thanks," he whispers.
"Anytime," Roger replies. His voice is dead, anticipating any number of new developments, everything from being asked the time to being kissed.
Mark turns his hands over to stare at his palms. "And, uh…" he begins slowly. "If you had to, would you fight for me?"
"If I had to?" Roger repeats.
"If it meant losing me otherwise." His eyes, usually blue as the sky, are now blue as the center of a flame.
Roger is silent for a moment, thinking.
"Please," Mark says, his voice cracking. "I have to know."
The musician slides his hands up Mark's back to hold the filmmaker's shoulders. "Of course I would," Roger says.
"I… I… thanks," Mark says.
Roger nods. "Don't mention it."
Mark's hands twitch and his eyes flutter closed. He falls asleep, and dreams of an empty bridge with people, everyone from Alexi to Roger to Mark himself, frolicking on the grassy field on the opposite end of it. No lava rises to scorch the wood. Instead, Mark takes it upon himself to hold a dripping candle in his hand and carry it over to the bridge. He calmly lights it on fire and watches it burn, perfectly content and safe in the arms of his best friend.