Author's Note: Hmmm. You'll hate me for this one. And you'll understand the boys argument better in the next chapter, which should also be the last if it goes as planned. Thank you for the reviews and for reading. Much love.

Trusting Desire
Chapter Six –Stinging And Older
Mimi's POV

The first thing I become conscious of is that I'm alone in bed. Frowning slightly, I sit up. I can't think of why Roger would be awake so early, and then I realize it's early afternoon and it's mewho has overslept.

The second thing is that I can hear Roger yelling. This also strikes me as odd, considering Roger doesn't do too much yelling anymore. I listen for a moment and then bite my lip in worry. He is angry. Very angry at Mark, it seems. Slowly, I pull myself out of bed and drag some clothes on. When I gingerly open the door of our room, sure enough Roger has Mark up against the wall, leaning in close and letting him have it.

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, because you don't know what it's like! You don't know anything. All you have is your stupid fucking camera and all your stupid memories and that fucking infatuation with Maureen. Just get over it! All of it! You have no fucking right to…"

Mark surprises both of us by pushing Roger away from him.

"I just want you to do something with your life! You've had all the opportunities you could have ever wanted and you fucked it all up and you're trying to blame me for it!" Roger stares at Mark, obviously not expecting his reaction.

"Well, you can't blame me for this, Roger! You can't blame me for all of your shit anymore. I didn't give you heroin, I didn't tell you to stop showing up to practice, I didn't tell you to start dating April. I didn't get you kicked out of your band and I didn't make you fuck up all those auditions. You know what I did do? I tried to help you! I told you every damn day to stop killing yourself. I took care of you when you were sick. I made you go to auditions. I…"

"Maybe you should have just backed the fuck off!" Roger yells back, regaining his strength and pushing Mark back to the wall. "Maybe I didn't want your help! Maybe you should have just let me die! That's all I wanted anyway!"

"We can't eat cereal and dream our whole lives, Roger!"

Roger glares at Mark. I can see him fuming silently in a mood he hasn't been in for a very long time.

"Maybe you should just accept that neither one of us is any good at what we do. Maybe that's why we're so fucking poor, Mark."

Mark has no words, his mouth hanging open stupidly staring at Roger in silence. Roger sees me in the doorway but before I can speak to him he's grabbed his coat and left the loft. I think about following him, but at the moment Mark looks so torn apart I can't help but pity him instead. I take his hand and pull him over to the beaten couch. He collapses on it and stares at the floor.

"Where's your camera, Mark?" I ask him gently, reaching over to rub his shoulder.

He shrugs. "Over there."

"You're not filming today?"

He snorts. "What's the point?"

"You know he didn't mean that."

Mark shakes his head. "It doesn't matter if he meant it or not, it's true." He shrugs again and clams up.

"Why were you fighting?" I try a few minutes later, climbing onto the couch beside him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders, leaning in close to share body heat in the cold loft.

Mark doesn't say anything for a while, staring at one spot on the floor. He looks back over at me finally, just when I think he might be purposely ignoring me.

"He's sick." Mark mutters under his breath. "He saw a doctor, and he's sick."

I feel my heart dropping in my chest, falling flat into my belly, clattering loosely. His words are dull, empty and pained. Roger is sick?

"When did he get sick?"

"That last cold he had. He told me finally he still didn't feel all that great."

"That was over a month ago." I say and Mark nods.

"Yeah, it was a couple weeks ago he mentioned it. Then he told me he really thought something might be wrong." Mark looks angry when he talks.

"Why didn't he tell me?" I find myself pouting, jealously creeping in over their closer relationship.

"He didn't want you to worry. He saw how you acted when he got a cold."

"How sick is he?"

Mark snorts. "His T Cells are lower than they've ever been before. He's feeling weak and sick all the time and he's so thin…" he trails off, looking away.

"I don't see…"

"Fuck, Mimi. You sleep with him every night, you haven't seen how much weight he's lost?" Mark stands up, his anger seeping back in. I've never seen him lose his cool this close up before. He's shaking, his features contorting intoan emotion that seems awkward and out of place on his face.

"They told him he's just going to get worse from now on." Mark falls onto the couch again, defeated. "He's not far from developing AIDS full out now." He mumbles something else about T-Cells and higher dosages that I don't hear much of.

I bite my lip and can't think of what to say. Roger cannot possibly get sick before me. I can't watch him die. I can't be the one sitting with him and holding him that last day. I can't. He's supposed to be there for me. Who is going to be with me when I'm afraid and shaking in my deathbed?

"He's out in the cold…" I say absently, looking out the window.

Mark follows my gaze.

"I should go find him…" He muses. "…really should."

"I'll go with you." I offer immediately, standing up.

"No, no. He'll kill me if he knows I let you go out. It's freezing." Mark says, shaking his head. He disappears in his room for a minute and comes out with his blankets.

"Just take these and go to bed, ok? It's cold in here too. I'll go find him."

"Mark!"

"Mimi, just… do it, ok? Please? He'll only be more pissed off if you're out there too."

I watch him pause next to his camera, sitting innocently on the table, before heading out. He doesn't pick it up.

Suddenly I'm furious with the pair of them. Roger for not telling me that he's sick, and Mark for making me wait here like a stupid child for them to come back. Stupid Roger and his fucking pride and Mark and his complete lack of emotion, shocking the hell out of everyone when he finally feels something and fights back.

I curl up in a tight ball under the covers and wrap the blankets around myself. I can't forgive Mark for the "you sleep with him every night" jab either. I did notice, I tell myself, but I know it's a lie. I really hadn't. But then again, I hadn't really slept with Roger in a while anyway. He's been too tired recently. Which I thought was strange at first, Roger is never too tired for sex, but then just shrugged it off. Maybe he really was tired.

I feel like the child Mark reduced me to at that moment. I feel like I should have known without Roger telling me. I should have known what he told Mark and what Mark might already have known anyway. I shiver involuntarily and I can't tell if it's from the crack where the window just won't close or from the sudden realization that I'm not quite as in touch with Roger as I thought I was.

I toss and turn for a while before deciding I really should be out there looking for him too. Fuck Roger if he gets angry. I'm not sick right now, I can handle it.

But it's just so warm in the bed, and I know that Roger would be much happier if Mark brought him home to me warm in bed. I don't know what's more important at the moment, pissing him off to help him or making him happy. The whole problem seems ridiculous. All I know is that I want him here with me right now. I want to feel his body pressed against the length of mine, his fingers combing through my hair and I want to hear him laugh against my hair when I poke him in the stomach. I just want him right now.

I can't believe that could be taken away from me. I never imagined that he would get sick first and now I'm faced with the very real possibility that it could be him who dies first.

I can't stand it. I can't do this. I can't watch him die. I can't be the strong one for us. I can't watch Mark see his best friend die. I can't live with Mark afterwards, the two of us devoid of the person we cared about the most, living off of each other's melancholy, feeding off the quiet vapor of death that would surround us. I can't.

I pull the blanket over my head and pray for them to get back soon because even if I wanted to go, at this point I can't move from my grief.