Title: Ice Cream Therapy
Author: Lioness Black
Pairing/Characters: Paul, Mark, one-sided Mark/Roger
Rating: PG13
Genre: General/Humor
Summary: Mark has something he needs to get off his chest. My standard Paul, and Hanke!Mark. I have the official seal of Hanke!Mark.
Notes: Written for emilystarr1 for rentficathon on LJ.
Spoilers: Post-Rent
Disclaimer: Not mine, just good fun.

This is what it always comes down to. The most important decision of your day.

Cherry Cordial or Vanilla Bean?

Paul inspected the pints of ice cream through the glass freezer door. Well, the cherry is certainly more exciting, cherry ice cream with real cherries and chocolate chunks, but the vanilla is a staple. Who can disagree with vanilla? No one, that's who. Because even if it's vanilla ice cream, it's still ice cream.

But no one else is eating it, Paul thought. It's just me.

He opened the door and selected the Cherry Cordial. If he got caught with vanilla, Kevin would certainly mock him for being vanilla.

Paul paid for his ice cream and left the store. He clutched the paper bag and walked down the street, and into the community center.

No one should ever have to deal with paperwork without ice cream. He made sure a towel was handy, he always got ice cream on something, usually the most important thing out of all of them.

Someone suggested that he not eat ice cream while doing paperwork, but that was just silly. No one can do paperwork without ice cream.

It was about ten minutes into paperwork, and Paul had the spoon hanging out of his mouth, when there was a knock at the door.

Paul pulled out the spoon and shoved it into the carton. He looked up. "Come on."

The door open and a man stepped in. "Um, hi."

Hundreds of people had walked through the door, and even more had been to group. Paul was incredibly good with names and faces, and he knew this blonde-haired man had been there before, but he couldn't place him.

"Hi, come in," Paul said, standing up. "What can I do for you?"

The man walked in. He was holding onto a messenger bag, even though the strap was wrapped around his shoulder. "I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Mark, I was here a few times, uh, a couple years ago?"

Paul smiled. "That's right. You were Angel's friend."

"Friend of a friend, really. I mean, I knew him, we were friends, I guess, but we really weren't all that close. As not close as you could be with Angel," Mark said, his fingers wrapping tighter around the strap of the bag as he spoke.

"Well, sit, please."

"Thanks."

Paul sat and put the papers aside. He looked at the ice cream, unsure of what to do with it. He pulled the spoon and set it on the towel. He snapped the lid back onto the pint and looked around for what could possibly be the coldest spot in the room. He set it on the shelf behind him. It was as good as anywhere.

"Am I keeping you?" Mark asked.

"No, not at all," Paul replied, spinning back around in his chair. He smiled. "What brings you here?"

"Um, well, it's, it's really kind of stupid, actually." Now that Mark didn't have the messenger bag to keep his hands busy, he picked at invisible lint on his jeans.

"If something is happening in your life, and you feel you need to talk to someone about it, there isn't any reason not to, even if you feel it's minor. If you feel like you want to talk to someone, then that's the first step."

"It's just, that you, you deal with people with, you know, terminal illnesses, and HIV, and stuff, and this isn't anything like that. I'm an idiot. I should go."

"You don't have to stay, but you're welcome to. You don't even have to talk. I can go back to doing paperwork and eating ice cream, and you can hang out. There's a couch over there, if you have a book or something," Paul said. "Honestly, though, I'll do anything to put off doing the paperwork, that's why I bring the ice cream."

There was a long pause and Mark scratched underneath his jaw for a moment. "I'm... I'm lonely. It's dumb. I... am jealous. Very jealous, um. My best friend, he, he met this girl, and she's great, I mean she's really great. She's great for him, they're a great couple, they're just, they're really... great. And I know... I know I just want what they have. I haven't had a relationship in a while, and then I sit and I wonder, and when I wonder, because I have all this time on my hands, because I have no social life, I wonder if maybe... you know, maybe I have feelings for him that are more than just best friendly feelings. Or maybe it's her, she's pretty, she's a fucking stripper for Christ's sake, who wouldn't want that? She's got a great body, I mean, she's my best friend's girlfriend, I'm not really into her, but I'm not blind.

"I'm not gay. I'm acknowledging that she has a great body, I'm not gay. I don't have a problem with gay people, I have lots of gay friends, and even if I were gay, it really wouldn't be a problem, I could be gay, I guess. Maybe I am, like a little, you know? Like bi. I've had lots of girlfriends! Well, not lots, several, I'd say. Four, actually. Well, I don't know if tango lessons count as dating. I'd say, yeah, that, that's four. It's kind of been a while since I've been in a relationship; it's been forever since I've had sex. It's been months. Well, a year. I guess that's just a lot of months put together, isn't it?

"Anyway, I just... I'm kind of feeling left out. It's like everyone is moving on with their lives and I'm not. I'm still that guy. You know, I'm that guy. That guy who's still living in the past. And it's not even like the past was all that great. And it seems stupid, it seems so weird and dumb, and pathetic, but I'm still just floating. I liked things better when it was just me and Roger. I want that back, and I can't have it, because he's with Mimi, and I can't say anything because they're so happy. Even when they would break up, if I said something, I'd never be able to take it back, and things would be weird, and he'd take everything I say literally, and I wouldn't want to fuck things up for him and Mimi anyway, and he's definitely not gay, or bi, he's never even... people assume I, well, no, if they did, I'd least get guys hitting on me. Unless I'm a troll and I didn't even fucking know it.

"But! The point, the point is everyone has lives. And I'm still sitting in the same place because I can't have the life I want."

"And what is the life you want?" Paul asked.

He looked down at his hands for a moment, and then looked back up at Paul. "A life with Roger. Even if it's just what it was before. Us hanging out. Dumb shit. He used to..." Mark paused to smile, as he recalled the memory. "He would, he'd come up behind me and wrap his arms around me and we'd just stand there for a few minutes, and then it'd be over. After he met Mimi, even before he moved in with her, he stopped doing that. I kind of lived for that moment. Roger's like that. I know he still loves me, you know, as a friend, but it was always strongest when he was single. He gives his everything to the people he loves, and he can only do it one person at a time. While he's loving Mimi with everything, he can't give as much to someone else. He'd be a horrible Buddhist."

Paul smiled. "It sounds to me like you care about him a lot."

"I do."

"You have a lot of options, Mark."

"No, not really," Mark said with a laugh. "I... stay."

"And that's an option. But you have many others."

"I can't tell him. And I can't... move on."

"Well, you know what I do when I'm in a situation like that?" Paul asked.

"What?" Mark looked at him, as though waiting for the secret to life.

Paul spun around in his chair and grabbed the ice cream. He dropped it on the desk between himself and Mark. "Ice cream."

"Ice cream?"

"Ice cream. You'd be surprised what ice cream solves. Ice cream makes boring paperwork that I have to do bearable. It makes my relationship issues come into focus. It really is the key to happiness."

"What about getting fat?" Mark asked.

"Apparently, um, jogging is also good for you," Paul said, laughing.

Mark laughed. "Cherry Cordial. My favorite."

"Well, if you don't mind sharing a spoon..." Paul grabbed the spoon and stood up. He motioned to the couch.

They sat down on the couch together and shared the ice cream.

"I do feel better," Mark said. "I don't know why, but I do."

"See. I recommend ice cream to everyone. It's too obvious. No one thinks about it. I'd lose my job, though, if everyone knew about ice cream therapy."