This is another oneshot that's been on my computer forever, and I decided that it wasn't as trashy as I first thought. So I fixed it up and posted it! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Hmmm... damn. Nope, still not mine. Yet. Mwahaha.
Mark sat on the cold, hard floor, letting his mind wander. Inevitably, his thoughts turned to his friends, and he let his head fall into his hands with a little moan.
Of the group, only Mark was left now. He had somehow always expected this, but not he way that it had come about.
Collins had died almost a year ago, only a few months after Angel. This too had been expected, and their grief was painful but not all-consuming. But then, five months later, Mimi had followed after him, and that was when things had crumbled.
He had tried his hardest, he really had. He had struggled to hold the rest of them together, but it was futile from the start. Roger pulled away after Mimi's death, and Mark could do nothing to help him. Maureen and Joanne had simply stopped calling the two men, as it seemed there was simply nothing to keep them coming back. Meanwhile, Mark fought to coax Roger out of his room, to try and get him to eat, to play his gutair, to live, but it was no good.
He should have seen the signs, but he was too wrapped up in his own emotions. So it was a huge surprise when one day he caught Roger walking out the door, telling him that he was heading off to Atlanta. Mark had begged him to stay, but the gutairist had been firm, saying that he was going to die in this place if he didn't get out now, get some breathing room, somewhere there was no memories.
And so Roger left, never to be seen again. Mark had forgotten how empty the apartment could be, how hugely, pressingly silent. He'd forgotten what it was to be alone.
He thought of how Maureen and Joanne, once they found out what had happened, had started to come over again, to check up on him. But he had desperatly wanted them to just go away and leave him alone with his misery. He now cursed himself for being so stupid as to wish for such a thing.
Only two months ago, Joanne had been mugged and killed walking home late from work one night. Maureen, desolate without her other half, had moved in with Mark for about two weeks before packing up her own stuff and leaving for God knows where.
So here was Mark, bitter and alone once again. For a while, Benny had tried to check up on him, but Mark hadn't even opened the door. Benny had another life, a better one, with no one dead or depressed, and he'd soon stopped coming around too. That was a few weeks ago, and he hadn't seen Benny since. Once again, Mark cursed himself for being such an ass, and wished now he'd let Benny help him, instead of pushing away the only person left to him. Now he really was all alone. But not for much longer.
Mark was suddenly gripped by a sharp pain in his abdomen. He doubled over, moaning, as dry heaves shook his thin frame. He hadn't eaten all day, and what little still sat in his stomach had already been emptied into the toilet. The bathroom floor was starting to chill him through his jeans, and he wished his body would hurry up already.
As he sat retching, his leg suddenly gave an involentary twitch, which knocked over the bottle sitting beside him. It rolled across the floor, and without thinking Mark scrambled to get it. He was stopped, though, by a sudden lightheadedness, and an even sharper pain in his belly. He curled up on the floor, moaning again. God, but this fucking hurt. It had better be over soon.
It will be, he comforted himself. After all, you couldn't ingest a whole bottle of asprin and expect to survive, right? It was only a matter of time before this would all be over.
He kept repeating this to himself as he began to struggle for breath. His chest was constriciting, and the lack of oxygen was not helping his dizziness any. Actually, it was making it worse. Black spots were dancing in his vision, and his head was begining to ache dully. But it didn't hurt, not really. He felt it as though from a great distance, as though he was watching a stranger in a movie writhing on a bathroom floor. A very dark, macabre movie. He watched as the man's breathing grew even more labored, quick and shallow, and then slowed. He watched as the stranger slowly stopped twitching, and finally lay still. For just a moment, he thought he saw someone else there, bathed in light, kneeling beside the person on the ground, but he couldn't make out who they were. Everything was blurry.
And then...
The Next Day
Roger took the worn stairs two at a time. He'd gotten a phone call a while ago from Benny, telling him all about Joanne, and Maureen, and Mark. How Joanne had been killed, how Maureen had disappeared, and how Mark now seemed to be totally disconnected. Benny hadn't even seen him since Joanne's funeral, and Mark hadn't let him in whenever Benny had come to check on him. It was after he'd heard about Maureen that he realized he needed to be here.
After hearing about how the performer left, he had felt a sudden flash of anger. How could she just leave. And just when her and Mark need eachother most. On the heels of this thought had come another, one that had frozen him were he'd stood. But that's exactly what you did, isn't it?
And with that, he'd hoped the next bus out of Atlanta to N.Y.C. Unfortunatly, there had been some delays, and he was a day later than he should have been. Oh well, he'd been planning to surprise Mark, so he didn't know Roger was coming back, so one more day wouldn't matter.
He reached the door, the one leading to his loft, his and Mark's. Their home. Excitedly, he placed his bag on the ground and unlocked the door with the key he'd kept with him this whole time.
He found the loft dark, but he didn't really think anything of it. The power must have gone out again. No big deal. Still smiling, he dragged his stuff inside and shut the door.
"Mark!" he called excitedly. There was no answer. A shiver ran down his spine just then, and an unexplainable feeling of dread settled in the pit of his stomach at the oppresive silence.
Relax, Davis, you're just freaking yourself out. He's probably just gone out, and thank God. It's good for him, so don't flip out.
He had almost managed to convince himself that everything really was normal when he saw the camera. It was lying abandoned on the table, tipped on it's side. The dark surface had lost it's luster, and it was now scratched and grimy, the lense gone.
It was a sad sight, the broken camera just lying there on the cold surface, abandoned. Emotions rose up within Roger, feelings that seemed far too poignent to simply have been brought on by the sight of a discarded peice of scrap-metal. Now both disconcerted and confused, Roger shook off his feelings of forboding as best he could and went about trying to settle himself in before Mark returned.
He couldn't wait to surprise Mark. He knew his friend would be overjoyed to find him here. They could both go out to the life or soemthing, it would be just like old times. He couldn't wait. He'd probably even...
... Oh My God
Ahh, symbolism is a beautiful thing. If you guys didn't see it, then either you didn't read or else I'm not as good as I had hoped. Message me and tell me what you thought, please.