Yay! Finally able to upload. I swear the site went down minutes after I finished this chapter. Only three left now! And I actually think I know what I'm going to do with all of them, so that's a relief. :)

Just a few slight revisions. Added a little to the fight because I felt it was lacking. And yeah, I talked to Dean and Jim last night, so I'm happy. :)

I wish they were, but they're just not...

**

Mark opened the door to the loft, half-surprised to find it unlocked. He stepped into the darkened front room, unwinding his scarf from around his neck and dropping it onto a table beside the doorway. Looking up, he noticed Roger sitting on the table staring out of the window, his tense form silhoutted by the street lamps. Mark paused, staring at him in confusion. Slowly he reached over to flip on the lights.

"Roger?" he said as his friend turned to look at him, blinking at the sudden intrusion of the light. "Is something wrong?"

"Um... no," Roger said, suddenly panicking. "Did you get the piece for your camera?"

He cringed as the words came out of his mouth. He had thought he had the strength to tell Mark the moment he came in the door. He knew it would be easier that way - and better - like ripping off a band-aid quickly. But Mark's smile had stolen his calculated determination, and the stall had escaped his lips before he could stop it.

Mark opened the refrigerator, rummaging for food. He mentally thanked Maureen for her recent surge of domesticity as he pulled out a carton of milk.

"Oh, no I didn't," he replied, surprised that Roger had remembered his excuse for leaving the bar. "The place was closed. Some Buddhist holiday or something."

"That's a shame," Roger said absently, looking down at his hands, feeling the guilt crushing down on him. He could still feel Maureen's hair between his fingers. The sensation was enough to drive him crazy, because he already knew what was going to come of it. He wanted more than anything to keep this secret to himself, to take it to the grave to avoid hurting his friend, but the itch in his hands insisted that he say it. "Um, Mark.. I have to tell you something."

Mark didn't hear the tension in Roger's voice, just made himself a bowl of cereal, his mind still in another place at another time.

"What's up Roger?" he asked. "Oh! I saw a flier on my way back here, thought you might be interested..."

Roger struggled as Mark told him about someone selling appliances for cheap. The words kept rising in his throat, and he kept choking them back. He waited for the filmmaker's cheerful voice to stop, waited for his own fear to dissipate and for Maureen's cryptic warnings to stop revolving in his head.

"Mark!" he finally burst, interupting his friend. The chaos in his head gave way to silence so he heard his next words clearly as they came out of his mouth. "I kissed Maureen."

Mark's chatter abruptly stopped and he stared up at Roger, slowly placing his bowl back on the countertop. His eyes were disbelieving, begging Roger to laugh or contradict himself or take it back entirely. But he didn't.

"I kissed Maureen," Roger confirmed in cracking voice, gesturing helplessly.

"What?" Mark asked softly, the word coming on a breath and echoing in his hollow ears.

"I'm sorry," Roger croaked. "Jesus Mark, I'm so sorry. I don't know how it happened, we were drunk and - I don't know - I was lonely and she was here..."

"Why are you telling me this?" Mark demanded distantly, moving back and forth behind the kitchen counter like he couldn't decide on a direction to take. His hands moved up as though he intended to cover his ears but dropped listlessly to his sides.

Roger closed his eyes in misery. "Because I thought you deserved to know."

"Deserved it?" Mark cried, his voice raising as he whirled on his friend. "You thought this was what I deserved?"

"Mark, God, that's not what I..."

"Fuck you Roger! I deserve a friend, I deserve someone who loves me!"

As Roger repeated those words in his head, the room suddenly opened up and allowed him to see clearly. He had grasped some vestige of this while arguing with Maureen, but it wasn't until he heard the words from Mark's mouth that he truly understood what it meant. Looking at his friend's distressed, shaking form, he knew what he had to do, the only way he could partially redeem himself. And it terrified him.

"She does love you Mark," he said slowly, deliberately. "She loves you more than anything. It was all my fault."

"What are you talking about?" Mark whispered. He had rested his elbows on the counter, burying his face in his hands.

"I did it," Roger insisted, standing. He began to walk slowly toward his friend, swallowing difficultly. "I was scared to tell you, but it was all me. She didn't want any part of it, but I-I was drunk and I wanted her. So I pulled her toward me and I..."

Roger lay his hand on Mark's bent shoulder. Mark recoiled from him violently, hitting his hands away, his face contorted with rage and betrayal.

"No!" he shouted. "You're lying Roger! Don't lie to me!"

"It's true Mark," he said, tears welling in his eyes without his control. "It's true..."

"It's not!" Mark flung himself away from the kitchen counter. He mumbled to himself, holding his head between his hands as though he were trying to physically stop his thoughts from colliding with one another. "It's not, it's not, it's not..."

"Mark," Roger whispered, agonized. "You have to know, I... I never meant to hurt you..."

"Goddamn it! What are you saying?" Mark cried, his eyes crazy with anger. Roger stopped short, frozen by his tone and expression.

When he saw the he had successfully silenced his friend, Mark continued more quietly. A touch of his broken heart crept into his voice as he looked straight into Roger's guilty eyes for the first time. "Why couldn't you let me be happy with her?"

"What?" The question came out on a breath as Roger realized exactly what he had done in Mark's mind.

"This was the one thing I had, the only thing I had! Why does it always have to be about you? Why couldn't you let her love me!"

Something in Roger snapped, and the bitter words escaped his mouth before he could check them.

"She doesn't love you Mark! Christ, she never has!"

The anger and truth of his outburst came to rest silently between them in the abrupt stillness of the room. All of their collective hurt and anger and confusion now - instead of flying around the room past their heads - lay in the center of the room between them, clear and exposed. Roger looked across it to Mark's face, stunned by misery, and realized that this gulf he had created might always divide them now. His sick terror suddenly eclipsed every other emotion raging in his head. Some part of his mind - bent on revenge - whispered to him to remember this, to remember the exact moment when he lost Mark.

"You're right," Mark fiinally said softly after many silent moments, his eyes looking inward. He choked back a wretched sigh. "She doesn't, does she? Why do I always..."

love people who will never love me back?

Roger made a slight movement toward him, but Mark held up a hand to stay him and turned away. He walked quickly to his bedroom to escape the infuriating pity and ignorance in the musician's gaze. Mark stopped short in the doorway, however, the evidence of Maureen's hasty departure everywhere. The closet was open and noticeably emptier, several of her hangers dropped on the ground. The things that normally inhabited the bedside table, a tube of lipstick and her earrings and her address book, had been swept away, presumably into a bag. The room had a feeling of desolation, as if no one had ever lived there at all. She was gone.

Mark felt rather than heard Roger come up behind him. His friend's hands slowly touched his shoulders, hesitantly, certain of rough rejection. But Mark didn't have the strength to move or recoil, the willpower to walk away. Roger slowly let his forehead rest at the base of Mark's neck, and there was nothing Mark could do but wince, willing himself to leave and hating himself for knowing that he never would. He leaned back slightly so that his back rested against Roger's chest.

"I'm so sorry Mark," Roger whispered brokenly, his breath warm against Mark's neck. "I'm so, so sorry..."

"I know you are," Mark managed. And he did. He knew that despite Roger's carelessness, his kind of ignorant selfishness, that he really was sorry. Roger squeezed his shoulders with his next words.

"It's just that.. ever since April..."

Mark tensed. "Don't."

"Mark, please, I have to--"

"Don't talk about her!" Mark said, finding that in anger he had the strength to pull away from Roger. "Don't bring her into this; she has nothing to do with this."

"But she does!" Roger following his friend back into the front room, watching as he paced back and forth in front of the couch. He sighed. "Don't-... don't you know I saw the way you two were with each other? Don't you think I realized that after I went to sleep she went to you? Jesus Mark! It drove me crazy..."

Mark stopped pacing abruptly, turning to stare at his friend with wide, outraged eyes.

"What are you saying?" he demanded quietly, uncomprehending. "What -- you think, you think I was cheating with April?"

"I didn't say that--"

"But that's what you meant! Christ Roger, what the fuck is wrong with you?"

Mark suddenly couldn't take it anymore, couldn't be in the same room with him and his eyes and his arms any longer. "I've got to go," he mumbled, and headed for the door.

"No, wait..."

Roger grabbed his hands, pulling him close.

"Mark, listen..."

But Mark was deaf to his words and shook him off, tears finally blurring his vision.

"I'm going," he said, lost. Shaking but deliberate, he left, closing the door on his friend. He made it down two flights of stairs before he sunk to the ground, squeezing his eyes shut as the stinging, bitter tears came.

Roger stared at the closed door for a long moment, stunned into silence, before dropping into a chair and burying his face in his hands.

**

Hopefully more chapters soon. Much love to everyone who reviews; you guys really make my day more than you can imagine!