Author's Note: It's been a few days, I know. Sorry. Thank you again for all the reviews, I'm glad there are people who like this. As always, enjoy.

Trusting Desire
Chapter Four – Clinging A Shoulder
Mimi's POV

The mornings blend into days and the days blend easily into the evenings. Typically, Mark will be up first, making tea for himself if we have had the money to buy some. I'll wake up when I hear him rummaging around outside of our door. I use a little of the time before Roger wakes up to just lay around on the small mattress beside him.

I smile when the first crash of Mark dropping things in the kitchen startles me from sleep. Roger's breath is hot against my ear and I take a moment to untangle myself from him. He grunts in his sleep and flops onto his back when I move away. I sit up on the mattress, gathering the blanket up around my body and lean against the wall. Roger is snoring quietly, his bare chest rising and falling in a steady tempo. I tilt my head, looking down at him, letting one hand reach out lazily, tracing my fingertip along his collarbone. His skin is warm, smooth and firm under my touch as my finger reaches his shoulder and drops off of its predetermined line.

He sighs and my eyes move back up to his face. There are lines of age just beginning to form around his eyes. For a small moment, he looks weary and almost old, and then I push away false visions and concentrate on his real features. I bite my lip against a spreading smile and reach my hand out again, running my fingers through his hair and moving closer.

Roger is very good looking, but not in a way I'm typically attracted to. I've seen the way he used to look, when he was more my type. I had vaguely remember seeing him around the building with a blonde girl when I first moved in. Back then, Roger seemed even taller. Whenever I saw him he was smoking, his arm slung around the blonde girl's shoulders, a great white grin spread across his face. He always seemed to be laughing at something. In Mark's older films there is a Roger whose presence dominates the others. He's always winking at the camera and kissing April, the girl, for show and making little jokes about Mark. There's someone who used to get along with Benny and who would start dancing or singing in the middle of the street just for fun. He's untouchably cool, but completely approachable.

I wouldn't have known, but Mark and I need something to do while we wait for Roger to wake up most days. He's shown me a lot about a person I'll never know, someone I once looked at from across the hall and wanted in an instinctive, animalistic way. Most of the old Roger is gone. Even when he's at his best, his eyes don't hold the same light they did when he was younger. The green is tainted with a darker emotional stain that no one can lift. He does his best, I think, but I still see these old films and want him to toss his arm around my shoulders and throw the camera that cocky grin that has since been replaced with a predominantly sad smile. His heart just isn't in life like it used to be, no matter who or what he has to live for now.

Roger moans and stretches slightly and I think that he might wake up, but I'm disappointed when he settles back into the same position again, tugging more of the thin blanket around him. I should have known, it's only about nine in the morning.

The blanket covers most of his body now, except for the tips of his sharp collarbones and his shoulders. The muscle on his arm is still rather generous, all things considered. He's a lot thinner than he used to be, especially lately, but there's still a good layer of muscle on him. His arms are hard, and strong in a way a woman could never be. There's a beautiful texture to his skin that's just so much different than mine. That's the way men are. Everything about them is all muscle and angles and hard, smooth skin. I love to pinch his stomach or his side just to feel him beneath his clothes, or take his arm when we're out together, my small hand barely covering half of the girth of his arm. I love to be close to him and feel this strange, hard body next to mine. When he laces his fingers through mine to take my hand, his fingers are long and thin, his hand dwarfing mine by a long shot. I love slipping my hands up under his shirt whenever we're out together, just to tease. He likes to leave his arm around my waist, leave his hand on the curve right above my hip. I like knowing that he loves looking at me. We were made to appreciate each other.

He moves again, landing on his side. The long brown hair, so much different than the bleached blond mess he has in the old movies, flops over his face. Reaching out, I brush it away. I want to wake him up. I frown, thinking about it. I'll only feel bad about it for a minute if I do, and it's not like he'd complain.

"Roger…" My lips up against his ear, I call his name softly.

"Meh." Is his response, typical early morning speech from Roger.

I continue to whisper to him, but he brushes me away and turns over. I scowl, but not in the mood enough to bother him anymore, I just give up. I pull on some clothes and go out to join Mark, who is standing with his tea near the table, frowning down at his camera. He smiles absently when he sees me.

"I made extra, if you want any." He says. His attention turns toward the window and his frown grows more defined.

"What's wrong?" I ask him, helping myself to some of the tea.

"It's raining." He says, and for the first time I notice the water gathering in the buckets stationed around the loft from the leaky roof and the heavy pour outside. I shiver, also noticing the lack of warmth away from the bed.

"I was going to walk down to the park, you know? Get some filming done…" He trails off, looking very put out. He shrugs.

"I was going to go anyway, but I don't want to get the camera wet."

I climb up on the table near where his camera is set and blow on the hot tea.

"Where's that umbrella you and Collins stole from that guy at the train station?"

Mark smirks. "I don't know. Maybe he stole it back. I can't find it anywhere." He shrugs again.

"Hey," he says suddenly. "You're up pretty late today."

"What time is it?" I had thought it was around nine.

"Nearly one." He smiles. "I'm up late too. We all slept in today. Did you try to wake him up yet?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have much luck. You can try if you want," I offer. "But watch out. You can't offer sex as a consolation prize when he gets pissed."

Mark grins and almost laughs. "We'll just wait again then, huh?"

"Hmm." I respond, as I'm mid-drink.

A few months later, one morning disrupts our routine. When I wake up, I discover Roger missing from the room. Frowning at the new development, I drag myself out of bed to see where he's gotten to. Pulling on a sweater, I hear him outside the room. When I open the door a moment later I see him sitting on the table, his eyes red and swollen. He gives a weak cough when he notices me and smiles feebly.

"Didn't mean to wake you." He says quietly, his voice raw and tired.

He looks physically ill, beyond just exhausted and the drastic change leaves me speechless. He seems to understand, and slides off of the table to walk over toward me.

"Hey, hey." He says into my hair, pulling me close. "I'm alright, don't worry like that. It's just a cold."

I feel my breath catch in my throat. He backs away with the same sad little smile, his hand still holding onto mine even though he's standing a couple feet away now.

"Go back to bed, Mimi." He tells me. "I don't want you to get sick too. You're not as healthy as me."

I stare at him for a long moment and then let go of his hand. He lifts himself back up on the table and rubs at his eyes. He's tired. I want to go back over and drag him back to the bedroom with me, but I know he won't let me. He gives me a hard look when he sees me still standing in the same place.

"Just go to bed." He uses his forceful voice, the one he bosses Mark around with. Although it sounds a lot more intimidating when he doesn't have a sore throat or look like a sick child. I give up and retreat, hoping Mark will either wake up soon and fight with him for me or the two of us together could make some impact on his decision. I slip back into the bedroom, wondering if avoiding a fight was a good excuse for leaving him out there. Even if I knew my pestering him wouldn't make a difference, I should have been doing something besides just letting him get his way.

Because after all, Angel had thought it was "just a cold" too.

This thought makes me doubt myself significantly and I pause just on the inside on the bedroom. No one ever wants to really acknowledge that they're sick, and suddenly I'm not okay with letting Roger have his way. I open the door again and realize he's no longer on the table, but lying on the beaten couch, one hand thrown over his eyes. When he hears me approach the arm slides to the side and he frowns.

"Mimi, look it's fine, okay?" He makes his angry face at me when I kneel next to the couch, but I ignore him.

"Roger, shut up." I make my own angry face back at him. He's about to say something else but stops and just glares.

"You don't know anything." He decides and closes his eyes again.

"You can be such a jerk." I tell him, backing off for a minute to return to our room and retrieve the blankets from the bed. I spread them over him carefully. He isn't happy with me, I can tell, but he doesn't say anything else.

Mark's door opens and Roger rolls his eyes at me.

"It's so early." Mark whines, shoving his glasses on his face. "What the hell are you two doing awake."

"Roger is an asshole." I tell him. "And he's sick."

Mark kneels beside me and Roger crosses his arms over his chest.

"I'm fine." He growls, the gravel usually in his voice muted considerably by fatigue.

Roger lets us take care of him, scowling and grumbling and threatening the entire time. But he recovers a few days later. Mark digs through the loft for change and rolls up our blankets to take them a few blocks to the Laundromat for us. He tosses his own beaten quilt in our room.

"I don't want either of you to get sick again. Just use my blanket until I get back."

Roger has a faint smile on his face when he's lying in our bed again, Mark's blanket wrapped tightly around us.

"What?" I reach over him and wrap an arm around his waist and pinch at his stomach.

He smirks. "I love that he lets me be as lazy as I want."

"Because you'd actually do chores if someone asked you to?"

He turns onto his back and pulls me on top of him, pressing his mouth against mine, his long fingers caught up in my curls. Instead of responding to my question his fingers slip beneath my top and pull it off over my head.

"Not sick anymore, I guess." I tease him.