Walk Beside Me Chapter 11: For Once the Shadows, a rent fanfic

Chapter Eleven

"For once the shadows"

Roger

It was a rough week for Roger. He realized that as he recalled his bar tab for the week.

Monday: Six gin and tonics

Tuesday: Seven jack and cokes (hold the coke)

Wednesday: Six manhattans

Thursday: Two beers (the alcohol had been getting to him)

Friday: Four White Russians (light on the cream)

But, every single time, he'd been alone. Jordan had said that as soon as he had some news he would meet Roger here at the bar, so Roger had waited every day and drank his way through enough liquor to shoot his liver straight to hell.

Today was Saturday, and it was six o'clock when Roger sat down at the bar. Sara had said that she could come with him if she wanted, but Roger wasn't going to drag anyone else into the D.C. underworld, except for himself. She knew where he was and who he was meeting in case something went terribly wrong, but Roger trusted Jordan to do this right.

"Back again?" The bartender asked as Roger sank down heavily in his, now customary, spot.

"Yeah. I'm just gonna have a nervous break down." Roger replied.

He put his head down on the bar. If Jordan didn't show up tonight, Roger didn't know what he was going to do. He was starting to wonder if he was wasting time sitting around when he should be looking for Mark.

"Here."

Roger looked up; a slightly effeminate looking drink was sitting in front of him. The glass was one of those thin glasses that he couldn't quite figure out how to hold, and inside the magenta liquid fizzed slightly.

"What is this?" he asked, pointing at the drink.

"A Nervous Breakdown." The bartender replied.

Roger raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"You asked for it." The bartender shrugged.

Roger laughed. "I suppose I did."

He sipped the drink as daintily as he could manage, but his own nerves made him gulp it down. He was about to order a slightly more manly drink when the door opened.

Roger nearly leapt off his stool as he tried to turn around and see who it was. A blonde-haired bulldog walked in with a rarely seen smile splitting his face like a scar.

"Jordan!" Roger whispered, not trusting his voice enough to speak any louder.

"Roger." Jordan embraced Roger. Roger realized that Jordan had never hugged him before.

"You found him?"

"I found him."

"Oh, thank God! Jordan, if I were drunk right now I could just kiss you."

"Haha, then let's get smashed."

"No, no, no, no, no." Roger replied. "Let's go get him."

"We can't. Look, don't ask questions. Don't dig for information. I can't tell you anything, just in case." Jordan motioned to the bartender then turned to Roger. "What was it that we used to drink back when we were famous?"

"We were never famous."

Jordan nodded coldly. "That's true. Two jacks with coke."

The bartender nodded.

"When can we go?" Roger asked. All his nervousness had been replaced with courage. He wanted to charge in and rescue Mark and just be done with all of this.

Jordan paid for their drinks and waited until the bartender was busy with some other customers before answering. "Tomorrow night, meet me here. Look, Roger, this isn't going to be safe. So please just follow my lead."

"You were the drummer. I was the lead singer. You know that I'm not good at that."

Roger laughed, but Jordan's eyes darkened. "Yeah… I was always the one following your lead."

They both sat in silence for a while. Roger's tongue was itching with all the questions he couldn't ask. He tapped his finger against his now empty glass and watched Jordan stare into the bubbles of his coke.

"Roger, do you remember the first time you got me high?"

Roger thought about it for a moment. He remembered shooting up with Jordan, but the very first occasion didn't stick out in his mind. "No… why?"

Flashback

"Jordan! Jordan! Come here!"

You stumbled into our hotel room late that night. I wasn't sure how you kept going in those days. You never seemed to sleep, but between the alcohol and the sex and the drugs I guess you just never came down from one high or another.

I shook my head at you. You were just high again. You were gonna tell me something completely ridiculous. I thought you would never be able to trump the last time you'd gotten high and told me that you had just seen tiny men crawling up the walls of our hotel room.

"Jordan!"

"What, Roger?"

"Jordan. Jordan. Jordan." You were laughing by that point, nearly falling over.

"Yes, Roger." If I ignored you, you just got obstinate, so it was better to just let you have your fun.

"Dude, Jordan. I can speak Persian."

"No, Roger. You can't speak Persian. You're on Persian."

"What are you smoking?!" You asked me, grabbing my shoulder. You were looking at me with these big, hollow eyes. I called Mat to come deal with you, but he told me to fuck off, that he was sleeping and that I should deal with our resident druggie all by myself.

"Watch!" Then you started clumsily twirling your wrists in a sad mimic of a belly dancer and spat words at me that clearly weren't Persian, but were just a creation of the heroin.

"Roger, that's not Persian."

"You're high." You said and flopped down on the floor.

I patted the top of your head. "No. That would be you."

I went to go back to sleep, but you kept waking me up every ten minutes because you wanted to talk to me.

"Roger, what the fuck do you want?!"

"I want you to try this." You held the syringe out to me in your shaking hands. I remember specifically that you were laughing and it took me years to realize that your laugh sounded so malicious. "It's the best thing ever, Jordan. Trust me. Don't you trust me?"

At the time, I did. I trusted you implicitly. We were all so young and you seemed to have such great dreams. That's what I trusted, I trusted your hopes, but I shouldn't have trusted your insanity. All it took was those four little words: do you trust me?

I trusted you. So I took the syringe. And then, when I was throwing up in the bathtub you didn't stop laughing and speaking to me in "Persian". And when that shit had finally cleared my system I remember you smiling at me. "It gets better."

"I trust you."

I hadn't even realized that the words had come out of my mouth, I was so disoriented and in so much pain.

And I continued to trust you for months after that, letting you lead the band around like a puppy on a string until you ran it right into the ground. I trusted you each and every time you handed me that syringe.

Roger didn't say anything for a long time. "I'm sorry, Jordan."

"It's too late for that."

"It's never too late."

"Maybe it wasn't for you. But I've been on smack for years longer than you were. Don't apologize. It's just a part of my life. I can't change it. I'll see you here tomorrow night, ten o'clock. We'll go find that other boy who trusts you."

Jordan stood up, but Roger grabbed his arm. Roger considered all the things that he could say to Jordan, but he didn't say anything; he only smiled sadly and nodded goodbye.

He watched the reminder of all of his old mistakes walk out and he hoped that tomorrow he'd be looking at the reminder of all the good things in his life walk back in.