Disclaimer: I don't anything. Including my soundtrack because it still hasn't come. But don't get me started on that.
Author's notes: Thanks for all of the feed back. Here comes a set of semi-dramatic chapters. I hope you enjoy them.
Just one more note, I do realize that my timeline on how soon Mark found out about his HIV is really off, but I had to alter facts a little, because otherwise I would have had to do so much more of the whole Roger feeling all depressed about Mark hating him thing, and I didn't want to do that. So basically you can attribute any fallacies about HIV/AIDS that I have in this story to the fact that I needed something to happen for my plan. I do not mean to bastardize the disease or anything, but I tend to take creative license with facts sometimes.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Mark looked down from his position on top of the ladder. Where they had gotten a ladder from he wasn't sure, but now he was on it, looking through a hole in the corner of the ceiling, his head getting hit with snowflakes that were coming in through the hole. Roger was standing below him, with a look on his face that matched his statement. "I think this is where Musetta got in." He replied quickly, as though this explained everything.
"Musetta?"
"The cat. Since she liked the waltz so much."
"Oh." Roger paused very briefly. "But what the hell are you doing?" He repeated his question.
"I wanted to see if I could fix it so she couldn't get back out." Mark's one made it seem as though this entire thing was obvious.
"Well, unless you leave the ladder there, she's not going to be able to get back up there."
"Well, we'll have more heat if we fix it anyways." Mark pointed out, and he breifly rubbed his bare hands together. "Do we have a hammer?"
Roger snorted. "No. And even if we did I wouldn't give it to you. You're going to kill yourself, get down from there."
"No, I'm not. And I'm going to fix this. We can't just have snow come into the apartment. I think I'm gonna go see if there's anything down in the old office." Mark started down the ladder, crying out softly when his foot hit a patch of barely melted snow that had drifted in.
Roger moved quickly, and caught the filmmaker before he had barely fallen off of the ladder. "I told you that you'd hurt yourself." He admonished with a grin at his friend's face as he lowered him to the floor. "Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been here. My poor Marky-Man would have been lying on the floor, alone and hurt." He paused his teasing a little, looking at the melting flakes in Mark's hair. He ruffled it. "Being snowed on."
Mark gave him a pointed look. "I wouldn't have fallen if you weren't distracting me."
"Whatever." Roger rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just let me and Collins handle any repairs around here OK. Marky-Man has more important things to worry about."
"Fine." Mark nodded, not bothering to get mad about Roger's implications because he knew Roger was just trying to look out for him. He glanced around the room, his eyes settling on his own arm. "Why doesn't Roger Doger take his hand off my arm?"
Roger quickly moved his hand, turning around as he did so, heading towards the door. "I'm gonna go pick up our meds. You need anything?"
"Nope."
"K, well, I might stop by the Life to see if they'll deliver food for your surprise party tonight." Roger had been joking about giving Mark a birthday party for the past four days. "Be here when I get back."
Before Mark could ask when that would be, Roger was gone. With a sigh he grabbed the ladder and folded it, briefly going onto the roof and placed the ladder back where he had found it. Outside it was snowing, and cold. Almost as cold as it was inside the loft, but not quite. Not wanting to stay out for longer than he had to, Mark quickly went back inside, rubbing his hands together as he did so.
Inside he found himself at a loss of what to do. Musetta was sleeping, curled tightly on Roger's bed, so he didn't want to disturb her. His film was currently at a standstill, nothing was turning out right, so working on that wasn't an option. He was trying to decide whether or not watching what he had would help him when there was a knock at the door to distract him.
It had barely been five minutes since Roger had left, so Mark figured it was him, having left something behind, as well as his keys. "What'd you forget?" He asked with a sigh as slid the door open, turning back around at the same time.
"Got a light?"
The voice that asked was feminine and sultry. Definitely not Roger. Mark turned around quickly. "Mimi…" He trailed off at the sight of the dancer.
Mimi was standing in the doorway a smile on her face. She was wearing, jeans, a coat and a few sweaters, which were clean, not torn like they used to be. Her eyes were no longer surrounded by shadows, her face had filled out. She was still skinny, but it was a healthy skinny. Overall she looked better than Mark had ever seen her. "Mark!" Her eyes lit up and the smile grew on her face as she walked in, pulling him into a hug. "It's so good to see you."
"Umm, well…" Mark trailed off again, unsure of how to respond to the girl in front of him. He was barely able to return the hug out of shock.
"Where's Roger?" She pulled away, and the smile returned to it's coy state.
"He um…" Mark scratched behind his ear nervously. "He went to pick up our AZT." It took Mark a moment to process exactly what he had just said. "Fuck." He muttered under his breath.
"You?" Her smile faded. Mark nodded with little other choice. "Oh Mark, what happened?" She ushered him a bit further into the loft, almost forcing him to sit by the kitchen table.
Mark didn't really want to answer. In the back of his mind he knew that she should be the one having to answer the questions. But in the front of his mind he knew that she should be able to talk about it. And Mimi, he didn't really know what would happen between Roger and Mimi now, but he had a feeling if Roger got over whatever anger he felt at her for running, they'd be real close again, and he should probably have a stable relationship with her. "My stepfather happened."
"You…have a stepfather?" Mimi sat near him. The question made it clear about how little she really knew about Mark. Everyone knew that he had a stepfather, just not to mention him.
"Since I was eight." Mark responded bitterly. "The gist of the story is that he was a fucking asshole."
"I'm sorry." She looked relatively upset about the whole thing, but she was glancing around the whole apartment. "That…it really sucks."
"You're telling me." He followed her eyes, watching as they landed on Roger's guitar. For a moment Mark felt a twinge of something, but he wasn't sure what.
"How are you dealing with it?"
Mark wanted to send back a biting remark about how he was only raped and given a death sentence. About how fabulous he was feeling after that. But he couldn't voice this thought. "About as well as can be expected I guess."
"Have you tried Life Support? They're great at listening, and giving advice. I think you'd like it a lot."
"I've been thinking about it." That was a lie. Mark had no desire to ever go to those meetings. They were supposed to affirm life, but all they did was ever depress him.
"You really should." Mimi didn't say anything for a moment. "Gosh, Mark. It's so hard to think that you have it too." She put a hand on his arm. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you.
He watched. She still wasn't looking at him. "Get your hand off of me." He pulled his hand away, something suddenly snapping, his mind going a mile a minute giving him reasons why he shouldn't care about her.
"Mark what's wrong?" Mimi frowned.
"You are. You're not really sorry." He stood. "It's the same as it always was. You're pretending to care, and you'll keep pretending until Roger shows up, and then you'll just cling onto him and forget what it was you were doing."
Mimi tugged on the sleeves of her coat. "Mark you know that's not true."
"Yeah it is." Mark found the talking coming to him far more easily now. "You'll tell him how sorry you are, and beg him to take you back, and he will, and then the only person in the world will be you again."
"Fuck you Mark. I love Roger. I will always be there for him."
"Then where have you been the past ten months?" Mark challenged quickly. Now he was having a hard time to not speak his mind.
"I was in rehab. I got clean. I got a real job." Mimi informed.
"For how long? Two, three months this time?"
She stood indignantly. "For good!"
"That's what you said the last time, and then you just went back to the smack the second things got a little tough."
Mark would have kept going, but Mimi's hand collided with his cheek, her nails dragging across the skin.
"Mark you shouldn't leave the door open. You're letting all the heat out." Both people in the loft turned; Mimi to face the door, and Mark away from it, where he walked into his room, closing the door. It was Roger, who had made record time on the Meds run. He had his mouth open to talk again, but he could only form one word. "Mimi."