"Hey," Roger slurred. "I'm home."
"You're drunk," Mark countered, getting out of bed and grabbing him by the shoulders. Roger turned to look at him, his eyes hazy and the blood drained from his cheeks. "And high. What are you on?"
As Roger began to calmly catalog a list of different clubs drug, Mark pulled him out of his bedroom. Roger was loud and clumsy when he was messed up, and Mark didn't want him to wake Maureen. When Roger tripped over his own feet, Mark was ready for it and caught him around the waist. He maneuvered Roger over to the couch and lay him down. He was turning to walk away when he felt his friend's cold hand encircle his wrist.
"Don't go," he implored quietly, seriously.
Mark lay his hand over Roger's, willing away that frightened look in his eyes.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly. After a long moment, he gently pried himself loose from Roger's steely grasp. "I'm just want to get you some water," he said. "You're going to get dehydrated with all of that shit in your system."
As he walked toward the kitchen, Roger punched a sofa pillow in anger.
"Goddamn it Mark," he said brutally. "I don't need you to fucking take care of me!"
"Yes," Mark said, not unkindly, as he returned and forced the glass of water into Roger's hands. "You do."
Roger capitulated, his mood changing rapidly as it often did when he was drunk. He took a long drink from the glass before turning his head to look out of the window. He couldn't face the worried, earnest looks of his friend anymore. Mark who never did drugs, rarely drank, hated the loud, pulsating crowd of a party. Mark who had never had to watch someone he loved die before his eyes.
As Mark watched Roger's expression cloud, he knew that Roger was thinking about April again. Roger still hadn't said a word about her since that night, but Mark knew he thought about her. That's why he partied so much. That's why he stayed out so late and did so many drugs. It kept him from thinking about her and from acknowledging the guilt and anger and sadness that he was feeling. It was destroying him; he was destroying himself. Since April, he had kept the entire world at a distance, keeping it out of striking range. He even pushed Mark away - not quite roughly, but firmly - and Mark had always been the one person he didn't feel the need to keep at arm's length. It was slowly destroying Mark as well. Roger didn't - couldn't - realize how much Mark needed him and how helpless he felt in the face of this situation.
"I miss her too," Mark finally whispered, hoping to illicit some kind of response from the musician. He hoped that Roger would turn to look at him, tears in his eyes. He hoped that Roger would pull him close and sob and scream and finally let go of these things he had been holding onto for so long. He wanted Roger to hold him tightly and talk to him again, like they used to, and tell him how important he was to him, that he couldn't make it without him.
But he didn't. His expression remained the same, hard and impenetrable, his eyes firmly averted.
"She's dead Mark," Roger finally said flatly. "She killed herself, and she killed me. What else is there to say?"
"That you loved her!" Mark cried, stung by the cold cruelty of his words. "Christ Roger, that you two loved each other and that she's gone and that it's killing you!"
"AIDS is killing me Mark!" Roger shouted suddenly, jumping to his feet, the world swaying before his eyes.
Mark froze for a long moment, staring into Roger's crazy, swimming eyes, before bowing his head. As if he had to be reminded that Roger was dying - as if he didn't think and agonize about it every day. Every time he looked at Roger, part of his mind was reminding him that someday he would look up and Roger wouldn't be there.
The quiet sorrow of his friend instantly deflated Roger's anger. It left him in a long, hard sigh. He wanted to hit himself; he could be such an asshole sometimes. Mark didn't deserve to be yelled at like that. Mark deserved so much more than he could give him. Roger sank down beside him, resting an arm around his shoulders to show his true remorse.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "It just makes me so angry sometimes... I forget that you lost her too."
Roger felt something in Mark relent, and Mark leaned heavily against him, turning his head until it rested on Roger's chest. Roger felt him shaking and pulled him closer. He hadn't realized that Mark was so upset.
"There's something about his arms. I don't know... he reaches out to you so rarely, but when he does there's something indescribable about it. Like the rest of the world doesn't even exist. Or maybe it does, but you just don't care anymore."
Mark clutched at Roger's arm, thinking that it might delay the moment when he would pull away. Guilt was suddenly overwhelming him again, like it had done so often in the past year, guilt for what he was doing to Roger and what he was doing to April. The emotion had become so familiar; it was almost easier to take than this feeling of shaking in Roger's arms, feeling Roger's fingers run over his shoulders in an attempt to comfort his apparent pent-up sorrow over April's death.
Mark pulled away suddenly, her face and voice running riot in his head.
"I-I'm exhausted," he stuttered, seeing the surprised look on Roger's face. "I really need to get to bed - so do you. Can I, um.. get you anything?"
"No," Roger replied, beginning to shut down again. Mark watched in frustrated despair as that curtain fell over his face and he withdrew back into himself. "No, go to sleep Mark."
Mark nodded miserably and turned to walk back to his room.
God April, he thought. I wish you were here. I feel so alone without you. I love you.
Sometimes he realized how strange that thought might seem to anyone else. April was Roger's. In a way she had been his closest friend, but she had spent most of her nights in Roger's arms. When he was first beginning to realize his own feelings, he would lay alone in his bed and think about that fact, if only just torment himself. Some nights the thought made him crazy with jealousy and longing, but he would never begrudge either of them the happiness they had found.
And now I have Maureen. Mark paused in the doorway, watching her sleep peacefully like he had done at least a million times before. She looked so sweet when she asleep, all of her wild capriciousness gone. Maureen loved him. At least he thought she did. He climbed back in bed beside her and stared at her for a long moment before running his fingers softly over her hair. Maureen had never been a substitute in his eyes. He couldn't help the way he felt for someone who was lost to him, but he did love Maureen. She was his reckless, moody, beautiful companion, and he feared the day when she would realize that he was not enough to make her happy.
But when she was asleep, she was still his. He pulled her close, and she moaned lightly before settling against him. He closed his eyes and tried not to think anymore.
**more soon...**
