"Mark," comes a low, raspy voice from the couch. Roger. He is almost inaudible, but certainly not unnoticable, sprawled as he is on the couch with his too-long hair hanging over the edge. Arms still dotted with track marks torture Mark from across the room – Mark, who is making tea for his roommate. In fact, Mark is beginning to feel that he is Roger's babysitter.
"Mark," Roger repeats, and this time Mark swivels around to face him, burning his hand in the process.
Under Mark's breath is a muttered "Fuck," and if Roger hears it or sees the burn, he makes no mention of it. Of course, Mark tells himself. Because right now, Roger has greater needs than Mark does, and it is the duty of the cantankerous roommate to cater to these needs. And they have a great range – between making cups of tea and miniature fires in the metal garbage can for Roger, Mark is starting to wonder if Roger is pregnant.
"Mark," Roger says for the third time, still monotonous and seemingly indifferent. Mark knows that Roger cares – it is a human quality, and even April cared about something – or rather, someone. Someone whom Mark knows to be not Roger, but that is a different story for a different time. But yes, Roger cares. Perhaps withdrawal, however, has lost him the energy to show emotions the way real people do. Real people who aren't repenting for the daily sin of slitting one's arms open and injecting poison into one's body.
With an agitated look in his eyes, Mark brings the newly-made tea over to Roger. "What?" he asks, desperately trying to control his temper. He remembers Collins' rules, the tips given to him prior to the anarchist's departure for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: One. Remain calm. Two. Call for help when you need it. Three. Never let him have "just one." Four. Don't say "April."
It is the first that it is the hardest, strangely enough. Mark does not see his best friend and he wonders why he is trying. It seems like trying to find a mobile circle in a stationary square. Then again, he supposes, there will always be people who will swear to the ends of the earth that something is something else. Mark, who is a filmmaker after all, does not even have the ability to be one of these people. As much as he would like to see his best friend in this shell of a human being, Mark finds it impossible.
"I want my guitar," Roger announces weakly.
Mark gets to his feet and dashes into the bedroom, returning seconds later with Roger's dusty guitar. His quick response comes about as a result of the fact that, well, Roger hasn't played the guitar in nearly four months now. Mark cannot imagine ever deserting his own passion, and wonders how Roger can stand to be so incredibly lonely as he must be without April, Collins, or music. He shudders at the thought.
When Mark gently places the instrument in Roger's hands, afraid to damage it and set off his roommate's temper once again, he is stunned to witness Roger slamming the headstock of the guitar into the wall, forming a hole in the wall and spitting cherry-red guitar paint onto the couch. Mark generously reaches over to brush the paint onto his own hands, but Roger angrily slaps Mark's hand and growls, "Don't fucking touch me."
Mark calmly starts to explain that he didn't intend to touch him, but Roger just huffily turns to the side and snaps, "Make me soup."
With nothing else to do and the desire to calm his roommate down, Mark, feeling much like a housewife, bustles to the refrigerator and shuffles around in a search for soup. When he finds none, he turns back to Roger and is horrified to find the musician's shoulders shaking. And not, Mark knows immediately, with laughter or sobs. He is simply doubled over with a pained expression, completely silent, as though no words could express the agony he is enduring.
"Roger, what's wrong?" Mark asks urgently. He grabs the hands of his roommate – not considering the anger Roger expresses when touched, but purely focused on helping his friend through this – and kneels just in front of the couch, eyes bright and wide and driven. "Tell me what's wrong," he encourages. "Tell me what it is. I'll help."
In a low rumble, Roger grunts, "Hurts."
"I know it hurts," Mark says soothingly, and even rubs circles on his friend's shoulder. "It's okay, though. It's okay. Tell me where it hurts."
Roger breathes deeply and makes a vague gesture to his general forearm area. "Too smooth," he says. "Need… I need… I need just one, Mark." His eyes, wider than Mark has ever seen them, are pleading with his roommate. "Please, Mark. Please."
Mark begins to say that no, Roger, you cannot have heroin or it'll ruin your withdrawal, but before he can say a word he sees a flash of dark blond hair as Roger gets to his knees beside Mark. "Please, please, please, please, please, Mark," he whispers urgently. His nails claw at his own forearms, leaving marks that mockingly resemble the marks from the real drug. The Real Drug. Far more serious than Roger's self-harm.
"No – Roger, please don't do this to me," Mark begs. He does not even know if Roger understands him; it seems that the once-musician is too wrapped up in his own hysteria to even comprehend anything else. "Look," Mark says in a panic, "I'm tiny, and we both know that if you hurt me, I wouldn't be able to stop you. Collins isn't here. Benny isn't here. So there's nothing really preventing you from overpowering me and getting high and throwing the rest of your life away. And making the disease worse. But is that really what you want to do?"
Roger laughs hollowly. "Yes," he says immediately, but despite the surity of his tone, his eyes give away his uncertainty. Victory! Mark exclaims silently, but knows that a moment's triumph, when dealing with Roger, can quickly develop into the next moment's complete and utter failure. So without changing his expression or tone, Mark continues to watch his friend's emotions play across his sullen face.
"No, it's not," Mark says quickly. "You just want to feel better. Isn't that right?"
Roger betrays his inner turmoil by nodding, and Mark almost lets slip a smile. Catching himself, he merely plows on, "You'll feel better when you get through this. And then you'll be in total control of yourself. You can live your life how you want to, and you'll know if you're happy, or sad, or angry – it's really you. It's not some drug taking over your body and your mind. Isn't that what you want?"
Another nod, this one more reluctant. Mark is so overjoyed with Roger's reaction that he nearly hugs his roommate, but instead he waits patiently for a verbal response. When one comes, it is hardly surprising, but rewarding all the same.
"I want to be Roger," says the nearly-incoherent songwriter. "I don't want to be Heroin. I want to be me."
"You can't be you," Mark says gently, "with a drug."
Roger nods. "I know," he says, and throws his arms around Mark in the split second before his head drops down and dangles by his neck, drooping to the side as Mark lifts him up and carries him to bed. Five minutes later, Mark curls back up on the couch and wonders if maybe a delirious Roger isn't all bad. More proclamations of love, at least, occur; even if Roger is unwilling to express his love for Mark, it is known in certain moments that without Mark, Roger would be dead and probably rotting. Either that, or with a needle stuck up his arm as his corpse freezes on the floor of the loft.
/lj-cut