A/N: Finally! Toni needs to update more often. Toni also needs to stop talking in third person. I blame Vikki for that. :P She does it all the time. Anyways! Here's some more delicious angst for your pancakes, lovelies, I would really appreciate reviews if you have the time. Seriously. This is becoming my favorite chaptered fic to write, ever.

Disclaimer: Has RENT ever been mine? Refresh my memory.

Chapter 5: So Damn Clever

June 6th, 1994

They think that I can't hear them talking about me.

"But he's been acting really oddly lately-"

"Well, he's Mark, Maureen, the guy's a little quirky as it is! It doesn't mean that he's crazy, but his best friend died-"

"Joanne! Shh! Keep your voice down!"

"Right, well-"

I'm sipping at a mug of green tea in the living room, legs curled under me on the couch pretending to watch whatever the fuck it is that's playing on the television before me, but the sound is muted as I strain my ears to listen to their conversation. It feels unnaturally quiet here, although if I'm being truthful the loft is even quieter- practically dead, except for my own soft breaths. Outside, the late afternoon sun is hidden behind marshmallow-fluff clouds and I can't help but think that it would be a perfect day to walk down to the cemetery and visit Roger.

But of course, that was why I was here, wasn't it? To talk about Roger, 'fill them in' on my appointment, which I'd love to tell them was a complete and utter waste of my time.

I know that I can't actually do that. As aggravated as I am about their badgering and all of the tabs they've been keeping on me, Maureen and Joanne are my friends and I can't worry them. I need to step up, as usual, and assure them that yes, I'm fine, and no, I won't be going back to that doctor of theirs. They should have known better than to send me to a shrink in the first place.

Sure, they think I'm going crazy- and maybe I am a little bit out of it- but they don't have to be so very obvious about it.

Now they've lowered their voices and it's hard to make out the words, although I can still grasp the gist of the conversation. Marky is hurting, Marky needs help, he needs guidance- bullshit. I wish they'd step back and realize that I'm a big boy. I don't need to be taken care of.

I'm a grown man, not a child. But at the same time, to them, I'm "Marky."

I wonder if maybe they'd be better about this if they adopted a damn kid and left me alone for once. But of course I can't say that…

Beside me, Roger is silent as well, knees pulled to his chest as his eyes bore holes in the wall between the kitchen and the living room. He's just as aggravated as me about all of this, although he's not going to say it because he had been the one who made me go in the first place. He says that I'm not crazy but I'm not sure who to believe anymore. That shrink lady had certainly looked at me like I was crazy. Same way my sister used to when I had those few and far between temper tantrums. The same way my father had looked at me, a long time ago.

I don't really want to think about that, though. Not right now. I have bigger things to worry about.

Absently, I reach for his hand and stroke my thumb over the knuckle, once again marveling at the papery feeling of his ghostly skin. Sometimes, when I doubt myself, I'm simply amazed at how painstakingly my mind has crafted this imaginary Roger for my comfort. He's not exactly as I remember him at all- he's exactly as I would imagine him to be were he to come back from the dead. Cleansed, as it were. Offensive as ever, but with a strange new solemnness about him that spoke volumes about what he'd learned in the process of dying.

I tended to overthink things, and if this was just another one of those things I wouldn't be too surprised- still. I snuck another glance up to Roger's stoic face as I tentatively touched him, fingers crawling up to his wrist. He finally snapped his gaze away from the wall.

"What?" he snapped, a look of instant regret flashing across his face as I flinched. I lowered my eyes, stung, but I probably deserved it. I needed to stop thinking like this.

He had to be real. I had to believe that he was real. Otherwise I was just another pathetic piece of bohemian trash that the city had finally driven to insanity.

Otherwise, Roger really was gone and I was compensating by committing the slowest form of suicide.

After a moment he visibly forced himself to relax, smiling somewhat agonizingly at me and reaching to tilt my chin up. I saw what he was doing and lifted my head before he could try and fail, knowing that his inability to really touch me was a sore spot for him.

"Don't lettem get to you," he whispered, cupping my jaw with one cool shadow of a hand. I found myself nodding even as they started to come closer, voices getting louder, clearer. I just kept my eyes locked with his, desperate for some sort of confirmation. "You're as sane as I am."

How sane could he possibly be, trapped between two worlds? But before I could really start to worry about it I had a new problem on my hands- Maureen and Joanne had entered the room, and were both watching me in a sort of horrified fascination as I leaned into my invisible boyfriend. My face immediately flamed with color and I jerked away, staring up at them innocently and bringing my mug to my lips.

"… So, what did you ask me over for?" I asked, smiling lamely. I wasn't fooling anyone but the effort had to count somewhere, someday. Joanne was the first to speak.

"Oh, we just wanted to ask you about your appointment… You sounded pretty shaken up on the phone." She smiled falsely and I was impressed with the smoothness of the lie as she sat on the opposite couch, fingering the beige fabric in a nervous gesture that most people probably wouldn't have noticed. But of course, I notice everything- I smiled wryly, tilting my head and lowering the mug again. Maureen sat, uncharacteristically uncertain, beside her fiancée and fixed her eyes on me like she was scared that I would fade away.

I had to admit, I was sometimes curious if that was possible. When you spent so much time dwelling on the dead, on the ghost of love, was it conceivable that you could slip into the realm that they inhabited, leaving just the husk of your former body behind?

Was that why people went into comas? Was that why they died, apparently of grief, after the death of a loved one? Was I getting slowly sicker as Roger took over my mind, became my newest obsession?

Was I going to die?

It was this sort of tangent that I didn't like to go on and I had to swallow, hard, and refocus in order to form an articulate answer.

"Oh- it was fine. I don't think it's for me." My smile was shaky at best and I took a deep breath, using my two first fingers to push my glasses up my nose and avoiding both of their eyes. I knew that this probably wasn't helping my case- still, I'd rather not risk it. The eyes are, supposedly, windows to the soul; could I honestly say that I wasn't worried that they would take one look and know everything?

Could I honestly say that I haven't been doing the same thing to Roger these past few days?

"Well Mark, you never know-" she was wheedling, chewing her lip as Maureen clutched at her hand, strangely silent. "- You might just need some time to get used to it… Or you could see a different therapist, there are so many options-"

"I really don't think so." I like to think that I wasn't being frigid, but I could see the metaphorical icicles forming from the tip of her nose as her mouth tightened.

"Mark." Ah, no… I'd provoked her. Now I was going to be chewed out by a lawyer- what, I thought to myself sarcastically, were the chances of winning that one? "Just listen to me. Hear me out. Can you do that, at least? For me?"

Grudgingly, I nodded. It was Joanne- she was reasonable. Logical. Cautious. We got along just fine most of the time and despite my delicate situation I didn't want to compromise my relationship with her. No, not even for Roger.

I would do anything for him, but there was only so far I could go when I was living and he was dead.

In the meantime, I sat back and braced myself to endure yet another lecture on properly handling my grief. I'd gotten them from everyone: there was Maureen with her constant calls, her high-pitched insistence that I see a doctor, that I get out of the goddamn loft, her worried looks just like the ones she was giving me now; there was Paul, and also Steve, both from life support and both grimly optimistic in a way that I didn't quite understand always bumping into me on the street or dropping by "just to check on me". So many people that I barely knew or not at all, all trying to make some difference in my life- I suppose I just feel bad for not really meaning my 'thank you's.

It wasn't that I didn't appreciate it their concern, but I didn't exactly like it. All that it meant in my mind were more eyes focused on me- and no introvert likes being under a spotlight.

Joanne seemed to gather her thoughts, setting her shoulders and disentangling her hand from Maureen's to fold them in her lap and gaze at him levelly with dark, serious eyes. "Mark, we're worried about you. You haven't been yourself recently."

"Who am I, then?" I tried to joke, and I glanced discreetly to the side to see Roger mouthing the same words with a faint smirk. While that was disconcerting, I tried not to blow it out of proportion. Joanne gave me a withering look to which I ducked my head, cowed.

"You know what I mean, Mark. Don't get defensive with me." Pausing, she looked to the ceiling as if praying to God for the right words. I knew the feeling.

"Mark, hey man, I- Mark? What are you doing down there?"

I had paused, self-conscious, and looked up reluctantly to meet Roger's incredulous eyes from my place kneeling beside my bed. I was nineteen and still scared stiff of the city, and he hadn't been around to see me pick up this particular habit in the past year or two. "Um… Praying?"

"Praying?" The way that he wrinkled his nose had struck me as adorable even far before I had known I was in love with him. "What the fuck for? Hey, ask the big man for beer then. We're almost out of alcohol and if we don't get some cash flow in here soon then I'm going to be painfully sober by tomorrow night."

I couldn't help but smile goofily at his usual antics. "Oh… Alright."

He had hunkered down beside me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders casually. "God, you're so goddamn passive sometimes. Stop it." He paused, rolling the words around in his head for once instead of spitting them out as they occurred to him- as far as I knew, I was the only one that he ever did that for. "What's up?"

The memory was clouding my mind and I struggled to pay attention as Joanne began talking again. "You have to admit that you've been acting strangely… You can't deny that you've been spending too much time alone. Mark, I haven't seen you film anything in weeks-"

"I still film." My voice sounded oddly thick and I swallowed the lump that I wasn't aware had been growing in my throat. The lie stared me in the face like a beacon- there's something wrong here, Mark.

It was true. I really hadn't been filming much, if at all- my camera was currently gathering dust on my nightstand beside the alarm clock that I had so far managed to restrain myself from violently disposing of. (barely.) It wasn't like me. I really ought to be paying more attention, being more careful. It was a dead giveaway.

I really wasn't doing well, was I?

Speaking of which, more memories of Roger were resurfacing, the scene playing and replaying and becoming harder to ignore as this tense conversation extended.

"Nothing…" God, I'd always been the worst liar. No wonder Maureen and Joanne could see right through me. Roger had awarded me a snort and patted me on the back.

"Right… You know, you can actually tell me shit, Cohen. It's not like I'm your best friend or anything." He'd deadpanned. I had gone pink faster than the speed of light, guiltily nodding.

"I- I just- I don't have the right words… I just wish- I don't know."

"… Is this about your parents?"

"…Maybe…"

Another reason that I missed Roger, even when he was right beside me, watching me with those sad, darker-than-ever green eyes like he knows what I'm thinking. He was always so intuitive, always knew just how to comfort me and still manage to be an asshole- he still tries, probably way harder than he ever had to before, but it's just not the same.

I want to feel his warmth, his breath on my ear, and unless I imagine it I'm never going to again.

He wants me to live, but I can't lie. The thought has crossed my mind. What if, when I was dead, I could finally touch him again? What if that was the answer? If I were to just speed up the process… If I were to say, take those pills that they'd offered me… If I were to take just a few too many- but no, Roger would kill me. Obviously not literally.

Joanne's hand on my shoulder snapped me out of my reverie and I flinched, unused to this much human contact. She looked into my eyes with concern. "Mark?"

"What?" I probably shouldn't have sounded so defensive, voice cracking. Maureen finally broke her unusual silence, absolutely devastated- I hadn't noticed the silent tears streaking her cheeks until now, but all of a sudden the dark streaks of mascara down her cheeks were all too evident. She sobbed, covering her mouth with her hand.

"M-Mark- Mark we just- we just want you to get better."

I hoped that I didn't look as awkward as I felt, wondering if it were in my jurisdiction to go over there and attempt- most likely unsuccessfully- to comfort her. Joanne saved me the trouble, immediately scurrying back to her lover's side and taking her into her arms, whispering soothing things into her ear. I watched uneasily; in my own ear, Roger was muttering. "Mark, don't. Don't let them do this to you. She's going to make you go back-"

I resisted the urge to snap at him. Weren't you the one who was so keen on me going, a few days ago? Weren't you the one who made me? There was no point in accusing him. Roger would just scowl, brush it off- or worse, he'd disappear again and leave me alone with these two emotional women. My friends.

When had I stopped being the one who took care of them? When had I become the problem?

I'd rarely ever seen Maureen like this. She was absolutely hysterical- I should have known, of course, that she would be the first to crack. She had depended on me so heavily, even after our breakup- even now, when she had Joanne, she was staring at me pleadingly, voice wavering as she begged tearfully, "P-please Mark- please. We just- I just need you- I need you to get better. I love you. I need-"

She cut off as another ugly sob rose in her chest and I averted my eyes, ashamed to be silent. Roger's ethereal touch on my shoulders, attempting to knead them, attempting to ease the tension in every line of my body, was nothing but disconcerting at the moment. I could feel Joanne's conflict from across the room. Should she glare at me, angry and frustrated, because I've hurt them both? For upsetting Maureen this way? Should she soften, continue in her attempt at reason?

Softly, deadly, Joanne met my eyes and I couldn't describe the nervous jolt of energy that followed every capillary as she searched mine. This was it. I'd allowed her a look in the window and she could never unsee it… I truly was fucked now, wasn't I?

I turned to Roger for help, breaking the stare and slumping in relief, whispering to him and grasping for his papery hands. "Roger, please. Please just- just- show them. Please…"

Don't let them think I'm crazy…

God…

Don't let me be crazy.

"W-Who are you talking to?" Maureen choked. "Mark?" My eyes widened- I hadn't known that I had been speaking out loud. Shit.

"I- I wasn't-" I choked, terrified all at once that they had figured me out. Roger hunched over me protectively, as if he could shield me. I wanted to whack him upside the head and tell him to go home, leave this to me- what was a hallucination, a ghost, whatever he was, going to do for me now?

Get me institutionalized, probably. With my luck…

Maureen's sobs only got louder, deafening in my ears. God, I couldn't do this. I really couldn't. It didn't matter anymore if I was sane or insane, just that all of this noise, all of this pressure, all of the doubt was going to drive me there either way.

Why can't you see him? WHY can't you SEE him?

I twisted to look at Roger pleadingly again. He was staring at his own hand, shaking before him, eyebrows pulled together in concentration. Like he was trying… trying… trying so hard he looked like he was about to cry, or pull his hair out- which I'd actually seen him do, once, back when he was still strung out on heroin and always right on the edge, balanced precariously on the fine point of a knife. Trying…

Failing.

Fuck.

They couldn't see him. They were never going to see him. I was alone… Alone with this person, this shadow of a person, and was that really worth it? Was it worth my life? The crushing realization must have been clear on my face because Joanne grimaced sympathetically and reached out for my hand. Against my better judgment, I shakily took it, gazing at the contrast of our skin tones dully against the ruby red of the carpet between us.

"I don't think that you're crazy, Mark. But I think that you need help."

MRMRMRMRMRMRMRMRMRMR

The entire exchange had given me a bad feeling.

I still couldn't believe that I'd done what I'd done. Admitted what I had. Allowed them to make another damn appointment, with the same blonde shrink and everything.

I wished that I could still be the rock that I'd always been, the anchor, but apparently that wasn't meant to be.

Roger's accusatory eyes were burning into me as I strode into the loft, tossing my keys onto the metal table in the kitchen. I tightened my mouth but said nothing, didn't even turn, waiting for him to make the first move. Impatient, impulsive as ever, he began hardly a moment after I'd closed the door.

"What the fuck, Mark."

I whipped around, my heart racing, my mouth twisted into a scowl. For once, I wasn't going to take this. I wasn't just some puppet, just because I loved him, just because he loved me so much- how did I even know he was real anymore?

How did I know?

"What. What do you want, Roger?" I demanded, not in any mood to be toyed with. His eyes darkened as he strode closer, sneakers making no echo in the dusty silence surrounding us thickly, preternaturally so. He bared his teeth.

"I'm not fucking kidding, Cohen. What have you done? Do you understand what you've done?"

"What? What have I done, Roger?" Tears threatened but I blinked them back skillfully, glad to have some of the strict control back that I'd been missing recently. That was my problem- that had been my problem, all along, and I'd just been too afraid to see it. "Why are you mad at me? Because I opened my fucking mouth?

Roger was my problem. Roger, who was probably, realistically, a figment of my own masochistic fucking imagination.

"No- don't do that!" He jabbed a finger at my chest and I was surprised to find that it actually hurt, a shard of ice in my sternum, making me stagger backwards. My eyebrows shot up, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling, and he seemed to be struggling with his own emotions, panting and getting right in my face until we could have been sharing breath if he had actually been breathing any. "Don't you pin this on me! It's your own fault-"

"I can't help it if they think I'm crazy, Roger, can you really blame them-?"

"Yes! I can! And I am!" He threw his arms up with a short, hysterical laugh, shaking his head and closing his eyes. He looked like I felt- at the end of his rope. I still couldn't help choking on my own incredulous laughter.

"You wanted me to go, remember? You made me go. Where's the support?"

"You went once- it didn't work out. You don't need that shit, Mark. You don't." A note of desperation snuck into his voice, one that once again only I would have heard whether or not he was alive. I felt myself softening despite myself, dropping my eyes. "I don't want them to make you think you're crazy… I don't want-"

To lose you.

I heard the end of his sentence even after he cut off, cringing, shoving his hands into his pockets and rocking back on his heels like he had no idea what to even say anymore. It had always been so easy to see, when he was upset, exactly what he was thinking- I could read him like a book, watching his expression twist this way and that.

No wonder he had changed his mind so quickly. I was getting tired. He was getting tired. With both of us so tired, so strained, something was bound to snap-

It might be me.

"Roger." I sighed, wandering towards him. He shook his head jerkily but I wrapped my arms carefully around him anyways, whispering against his cool neck, "I don't want to lose you, either."

He took a deep breath, wrapping his arms around my waist instinctively and pulling me closer. There was a physical ache growing between us, a combined lament that we couldn't do this right, not how we wanted- the more I touched him the more numb I became, the more abnormal it seemed. I shivered and he dropped me like I was on fire, regarding me uneasily.

I broke the silence with an awkward cough, toeing the ground. "I'm going, you know."

"You don't have to-" he protested, tensing all over again, but I shook my head with a resigned slump to my shoulders.

"They heard me, Roger. They heard me talking to thin air. Do you honestly think that I'm going to get away with that?"

There was no answer, and when I looked up his frown had deepened, his eyes cast sullenly at the ground. Before my very eyes he began to fade, melancholy rolling off of him.

"Wait- Roger, don't go yet!" I reached out to him, desperate, and was shrugged off without a moment's hesitation.

Run away, hit the road, don't commit…

But he'd committed to me.

He glanced up once more to meet my eyes sadly, and then he was gone. I stared at the empty spot on the floor that he had been standing on, unsure of what I believed anymore. Roger… My Roger. He would be back, or so I hoped. But probably not today…

I reached up and fingered the silver ring at my throat, swallowing hard, feeling as though I'd been nailed to the floor.

When had everything gotten so complicated?