Author's Note: This chapter starts in the morning of the last chapter. So pretty much, this is what is happening while Mimi is still asleep. There will be an epilogue after this chapter, since I decided to do something a little bit differently. Thank you for the reviews, and enjoy. The last chapter will be up very soon.

Trusting Desire
Chapter Seven –Asleep On Pins
Roger's POV

When Mimi falls asleep, I carefully slide out of her hold and go back into the main room of the loft. To my surprise, Mark is still awake. He smiles absently in greeting, before returning his gaze to the cup of tea before him. I pick up my guitar and drop onto the couch next to him, hearing it groan under our shared weight. I poke quietly a few strings, not really playing much of anything, just to have something to do with my hands. Mark is still staring into his tea.

"Lose your soul in there?"

"Are you okay?" He asks at the same time.

I stare at him. "I'm fine, Mark." I'm feeling anything but fine, but I don't want Mimi to worry, and I don't want him worrying either.

He shrugs. "Well, you said a few weeks ago that you weren't feeling all that great. I just wanted to know if it was better or not."

"I'm fine." I repeat and go back to my idle guitar playing. He leaves it for a few minutes before looking over at me again.

"What, Mark?" I ask, annoyed.

"I know you're not."

I roll my eyes. "Fine, I'm not fine. Ok? Is that what you want to hear? I think I'll die tomorrow."

"Don't be such an ass, Roger." He says, clearly close to be fed up with me.

"I know. You're just trying to help." I mock him. "Just leave me alone."

This whole exchange is quiet, our voices low and soft. We're not really fighting. It's typical behavior for us.

"Are you going to see a doctor?"

I clench my jaw and glare into the floor. "Yes. I'm going in the morning."

"I knew it." He whispers.

What he knows is that I never voluntarily go to the doctor and that I must be convinced it's serious if I'm going on my own. What he doesn't know is that I was only doing it to make sure I was going to be healthy for Mimi. Since I guess I sort of care about my life now.

"You don't know anything."

"Why don't you ever just tell people things, Roger?"

"I told you now, didn't I?" I shoot back.

There is an awkward silence that passes between us and he stirs his tea and drinks it and I quietly strum a C chord.

"Do you want me to go with you?" His voice is so low I barely hear it. It's an open offer and I know he won't be offended if I refuse, but I stop playing and hold the guitar still.

"Yeah." I mutter. My eyes find his and he smiles weakly, hiding his worry and I attempt to return it, but I know I only come off as disgruntled.

"Don't tell Mimi. She doesn't need to know." I look him in the eye, making him understand I'm serious. He nods.

"You should go to bed." I tell him. "I'll wake you up."

"You're really going to wake me up?" I think he believes my pride is going to triumph in the end and I'm going to go it alone.

I shake my head. "No. I want you with me. I'll wake you up."

He's about to stand up but pauses.

"What?"

"Are you scared?"

"Fuck off, Mark."

He hits me in the arm and I do my best to grin at him, despite inwardly screaming an affirmative to his question.

Mark walks beside me, and I take a slower pace than usual so he can keep up as he's been engrossed in his camera the whole way, walking more leisurely than usual. He's been filming some other stuff so far but finally turns the camera on me.

"Close on Roger as he walks to his first voluntary doctor visit."

I make a face at the camera. "It's not that monumental."

"Monumental? When did your vocabulary expand beyond 'fuck' and 'shut up'?" He teases me from behind his camera face.

"Shut up." I grin cleverly. He smirks.

He continues narrating to himself, sometimes about me, sometimes about people we pass and mostly he's just babbling. I begin to realize I don't spend much time alone with Mark anymore. If it's been long enough that I'm starting to listen to his senseless camera talk just because I miss it, it's been too long. I feel like I should do something to thank him for coming with me because I never would have asked him to if I was left to my own devices. I wait for my moment.

Mark pauses his filming a few minutes later to stare at a street sign.

"Are you sure we're going the right…"

I reach out and grab hold of his camera, pulling it away from him and turning it around. He lets out a shocked gasp of surprise and swipes at the air for it. I film his flailing and laugh at him, backing away.

"Roger, you're going to break it! Give it back, now!"

"Close up on Marky Cohen." I narrate, making my voice whiny and nasal. "The best friend a former drug addict could ever have."

He stops for a moment and smiles into the camera, taken by surprise but pleased, then reaches out again.

"Roger, give it back."

"Marky, tell the kids at home what you were doing in the shower this morning."

"Oh, fuck off." He moans, finally grabbing the camera back from me and pushing me away. "Not all of us have girlfriends."

I push him back, which starts a frantic shoving match in the middle of the sidewalk, disturbing pretty much anyone in our vicinity.

"Your film for the day is ruined." I say, laughing, holding him still, both of us out of breath.

He shrugs. "I'll edit it."

I throw an arm around his shoulders and grin at him.

"Thanks for coming with me."

He pretends to be shocked. "I should have been filming that. A 'thank you' from Roger Davis that didn't have to be wrestled out with brute force."

I pull my arm away. "Don't be a dick. I thank you sometimes."

He nods. "Yeah, usually. But usually it takes you know, a good year or so."

I push him again which leads us into another shoving match that lasts for the next few blocks.

"I don't think they're going to let me go in with you. Are you going to be okay?" He asks me.

I nod. "Yeah… yeah, I'll be fine. It's enough that you came here."

"How are you paying for this?"

I shrug one shoulder. "I sold one of my amps."

"One of them, you still have the other, right?" He looks bothered by this. I don't tell him that it's the small, shitty one that barely works.

I nod, filling out some paperwork.

"You don't have insurance." The woman behind the desk frowns at me.

"I just want to get checked out, okay lady? I've got money." I growl at her, annoyed.

"It's extra if you don't have insurance."

"I know. I have the money."

She tightens her mouth into one long line and takes the clipboard back. "Have a seat, Mr. Davis." She glares at Mark. "Can you please refrain from filming in here?"

He looks like he is about to protest, but then shrugs and lowers the camera. We sit in a corner together, waiting silently until my name is called. I give Mark one last look and follow the doctor into the back.

The visit is long and tedious. It's a lot of waiting alone in the little room on my part, a lot of unreadable nods and looks from the doctor. He never once looks optimistic or in good humour, and I have to admit that it gives my already heightened sense of worry a little extra to latch onto. It seems like hours when he finally decides to talk to me, and for all I know it might have been. His words are riddled with uncertainty and regret. He doesn't really want to talk to me, I know. My T Cells are too low, lower than ever. He's spotted lesions I didn't know I had. The next cold or virus I catch could very well be my last. I'm not healthy at all and he knows it. I stop listening after awhile, hearing him now talking about my medication and what I should be doing and taking. I'm going to get AIDS and I'm going to die, and it's going to be soon. Joking with Mark on the way here seems like a very long time ago. The doctor lets me go a few minutes later. I shell out my money to the receptionist and head back to Mark.

He doesn't say anything. In his quiet Mark way of just knowing what's happening he simply falls into step beside me and waits for me to talk. When we'renearly home and I haven't said a word he gives up.

"What happened? What did they say? You were in there for so long."

I shake my head. "I'm dying."

"Well, but… you're okay, right? I mean. You're still…"

I stop in my tracks and glare down at him.

"Oh grow up, Mark. I'm fucking dying. If I get one more cold, one more little attack on my immune system, I'm gonna die. Okay? Do you get it this time?"

I turn to continue walking and he grabs my arm and pulls me back.

"No! It's not okay, Roger. Look at me! How bad is it?"

"I just fucking told you, let go of me."

"Roger…"

"Let go!" I pull my arm away and the force makes him stumble a step back. I shove my hands in my pockets and head back to the loft.

"Roger don't be like this, please." He begs me, catching up.

I stop again. "Like what? How do you want me to act? Do you want me to be happy?"

"Don't shut me out. Don't shut Mimi out either. Just talk to us, okay?"

"Leave me alone."

He grabs my arm again. "You grow up! Do you hear yourself? This is all you are, Roger. You get disappointed, you get some bad news and then you shut out the fucking world! Are you going to spend the rest of your life moping around?"

"The little I have left is mine, Mark. I'll do whatever I want."

"Why can't you just be happy? Why can't you see the good in your situation? Why can't you ever just realize that…"

"What good?" I scream at him. People on the street are staring at us. "What fucking good is there in dying from AIDS?"

"You could have died so long ago, Roger. And you're wasting this extra time that you've acquired. You can't sit around the loft until the day you die."

"I tried, okay? I tried to get back into…"

"One audition and you gave up! Don't you remember how many bands you tried to join before you found the Hungarians?"

"Maybe I should have given up a long time ago. If I was any good it wouldn't take that much to get noticed." I mumble.

"You're being ridiculous." He says.

When we fight, we have an odd way of having two or three separate fights all at once. Most of the time, neither one of us knows what the other is yelling about and it takes a lot of time for us to think back on the argument and understand what was going on and why we were both being stupid.

I continue on towards the loft and he is silent until we're home. He comments about how he wants to see me happy in my time left and I blow upand completely lose my temper. The temper I'd been doing so well repressing these past few months explodes upon Mark and I have no control left over our argument.