Author's Note: Thank you for your positive response. I got a lot more reviews than I was expecting and I'm very appreciative. Forgot to mentionthis story switches perspectives eachchapter. More to come.Love and enjoy.

Trusting Desire
Chapter Two – Walking Through Fire
Mimi's POV

When my eyes open the first thing I'm conscious of is his arms around my waist. The second is his breath on the back of my neck. Slowly my body begins to drag itself out of sleep. His breathing follows a slow, steady rhythm, warm on my skin. A smile pulls at my lips and I let it spread cautiously, worried any movement at all, any change of expression might wake him up, though I know it won't. The broken clock near my head says 11:42, which is about five hours fast, meaning that it's probably only 6 or 7 in the morning. Roger absolutely does not function until after ten and if he has his way, will sleep until noon. It doesn't help that we probably only fell asleep a few hours ago.

Carefully, I extract myself from his grip and he groans loudly and turns away. I bite my lip as I smile again to block the laugh that wants to escape. Roger has two ways of communicating, and honestly, they're not really that different. There's a complex series of guttural sounds that to him constitute as speech. He talks to me, of course. But when he really needs to say something he has no idea how to say it and can never say exactly what he means. Unless he's angry, then he says exactly what he's thinking and regrets it later. Which leads to an awkward attempt at an apology that usually just ends up with him saying something along the lines of "you know what I mean" or just shrugging helplessly at me or whoever else he might have been yelling at.

And really, he still warns me about him all the time. He still sees himself in the shadow of his terrible temper, but I don't really see it anymore. For months all he did was lay in bed with me, smiling a sad, painful smile that I know hurt him horribly to force for me. For months he put up with my screaming and my anger and all he did was hold me.

I sit on the edge of the bed swinging my legs casually, not quite fully ready to leave the room yet.

So this temper thing. It's been really quiet lately. He doesn't have much to get mad about. I don't give him reasons to anymore. I don't shoot up. I don't work at the Cat Scratch. I don't talk to Benny. I'm sure I bother him once in awhile, probably more than that, but somehow he's calmer and he doesn't let it get to him like it used to. I could ask him, but he'd probably just shrug at me and give me a kiss and that would be all. Roger's not a talker.

I finally stand up away from the bed and let my hair down, shaking it over my shoulders. The weather is amazing right now, I notice while I'm standing beside the small, cracked window. The sky is as clear as it gets, a soft sort of breeze floating through the leaks in the window frame. People outside look comfortable, some even look happy.

Roger grunts in his sleep and drags a blanket over his head. I turn to lean against the window, grinning back at the bed. I really want to wake him up. There's a lot I really want to do with him right now, actually. All of them require him being awake and functional. I can't even see him anymore, he's buried himself completely in threadbare sheets, face pressed into the pillow. A sigh escapes from me and I start to reach for the top I dropped on the floor last night, but stop halfway there. Roger sleeps entirely too much. I slowly climb back into the bed and curl up beside him. His hair is in his face and I push it away, leaning in closer to press my lips against his forehead. If he feels anything, I get no sign of it.

I reach under the covers and pinch his side to wake him up. He growls in his sleep and flops onto his back, ignoring me. I pinch him again, harder and he swats me away. He's completely missing the point. I move my hand lower, down his leg and then back up to the inside of his thigh. He doesn't even move.

"Roger…" I try, in my best sex kitten voice.

I get a response that sounds somewhere between a "hmmph" and a "uuuh."

"Roger, you should really get up." I tell him in his ear, moving my hand up a few more inches. When he doesn't respond I crawl on top of him, leaning down and crossing my arms over his chest so my face only a few inches from his. Finally he acknowledges that I'm in his vicinity and his hands go to rest on my legs, one on each side of him.

"Hmmpuhh?" He asks, his eyes slowly blinking open. Not fully functional, but an improvement. I kiss him desperately, my hands moving up from his chest to play within his hair. He's slow on the uptake but eventually gives in and attempts to reciprocate.

"Baby, I think you're wearing too much." I tell him, pulling away to bite at his ear.

His grip on my legs gets firmer and I know I've said the right thing. I reach down to pull at his pants and he kisses me again, his hands moving to my back to pull me closer to him.

He'll sleep until 3 now, probably, but what can you do. I won't be moving either. He's fallen asleep half on top of me, his head on my chest, arms firmly around my waist, and he's not moving. It doesn't matter to me, I love being near him. I kiss his rumpled hair and close my eyes.

There are few times when I get a sense of who he used to be. Once in a while he'll laugh at me in a certain way that suggests a bit more life than usual. Sometimes Mark can get him to act out a little more. Last night we were up late because Roger was recounting the times he used to bring Mark to the bands gigs with him. There wasn't as much cynicism in him last night, and he was more just good humour. When Mark got tired, it was Roger dragging me back into the bedroom. He kissed me a little harder than usual, undressed me a little quicker. I asked Mark once if he was really that different of a person than he was before all the shit happened to him. Mark got sort of quiet and didn't look at me.

"Yeah… I mean, you wouldn't really know, would you? But yeah, it was like starting all over again with a new best friend."

Sometimes I want him to be different, just because I feel like I'm missing out by meeting him too late. Sometimes he's depressed, or regretful. He misses who he was too, I think. He misses performing and being in a band, that's what Collins told me before he left to teach again.

He writes me little songs now and then, when we're alone in the loft and he's just been playing around on his guitar he'll string a few chords together and sing about my outfit or something. He'll pull me into our room at odd times of the day to hear parts of something new he's writing. That's all he really does these days unless I drag him somewhere with me. I see him quietly fooling with his guitar on the table or in the room and there's always the small, contented smile he'll only give me.

When he finally wakes up hours later, he moves off of me and pulls me right up beside him.

"Love you, beautiful." He grunts in that husky, throaty voice, roughness amplified by sleep.

Out with Maureen while Joanne is at work and Mark and Roger sit around the loft we go "shopping".

"I would buy that one." Says Maureen, pointing at a short red dress with a low neckline.

"I want that one." I tell her, leaning against the glass to get closer to the floor length pink formal gown.

"That's so… princessy."

"Yours is slutty." I retort and she laughs at me.

"I want that bag." Maureen says. Hers is black leather with a silver handle.

"Mine." I point at the gold sequined clutch.

"Those shoes." Black stilettos.

"Those." Pink pumps with bows.

"None of that is you at all." Maureen stares at me in amusement.

I shrug at her. "I wore that other stuff every day. I'm bored of it."

"When?" He asks.

"Tuesday." I tell him.

"Oh." He says, moving closer.

"Roger you don't have to, I'm just saying…"

"Hmmphuh." Is his response, and before I can try to reply he's already asleep.