Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.
Mark's voice opened with an average enough message. "Hi, you've reached Maureen and Mark. We're not answering the phone right now--"
"--probably because we're having hot, passionate sex," Maureen cut in. "Come join in. Or come to my demonstrations, it's even better, 11:00 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays…"
Her recorded voice went on to give an address and further innuendo and blatant references to sex and sexuality. A year ago, Roger would have laughed, doubly hard if Mark was in the room to laugh with and at. He would have snorted helplessly at "doubly hard". A lot had happened in the past year, and Roger didn't much want to laugh.
A loud beep interrupted Maureen. Roger shifted the phone, the plastic earpiece burning his skin. His pulse raced. He breathed deeply a few times, leaving condensation on the telephone and a record of heavy breathing on the answering machine. "Mark," he blurted like a sentence. Then, after a moment, "I'm at the clinic. Um…" The address was written on a card beneath the desk's heavy glass cover. "Mark, I… need you. Here. Please, I--"
"Roger?" It was Mark. "Are you okay?"
Roger's shoulders slumped forward as tension fled, his spine curved over the desk. It was the first thing patients saw at the clinic, the desk, usually with someone behind it, in the room with blue and white wallpaper. "Fine. Fine."
"You said you needed me," Mark reminded him. His tone hovered between emotions, not yet upset at the worry Roger had caused him--though, should that worry prove pointless, Mark would be upset--nor completely placated with the empty words. He needed more information.
"I do," Roger said. I do need you. It sounded pathetic and sexual, precisely the reason he avoided the final two words. Need you. It was something out of a marriage proposal or an apology. It was not a phrase involved in a telephone call made from a rehabilitation center. Roger needed to explain to Mark that this was not an emotional reliance. He needed Mark to know that he could look after himself. I am clean, he thought firmly, but the HIV felt like dirt in his blood. "It's for--"
But Mark had only one question: "Now?"
Roger nodded.
"Did you just nod into the telephone?" Mark asked. The worry was gone.
"Uh…" Roger traced designs on the glass with the edge of his pinkie finger. "Yeah." He blushed.
Mark sounded amused as he asked, "Are you blushing?" Same old predictable Roger.
Roger blushed a darker pink. He glanced around the room; two new inmates of the voluntary clinic were filling out paperwork with the aid of a blond nurse in green scrubs. Donald and Katie, two teenagers proudly bearing the blue smock of the volunteer, filed papers with quiet chatter. She laughed at something and punched his shoulder gently. He shoved her off, playfully.
Roger brought the phone directly beside his mouth. He could almost feel the plastic against his lips. "Yeah," he whispered. The bottom of his stomach was disintegrating. "Mark--"
"Yeah," Mark said. "I'll be there in half an hour."
"Thank you!"
"Sure."
Mark hung up the phone.
Donald turned to Roger. "He's coming?" Donald asked. He was seventeen, with dark hair that looked as though it had not encountered a comb or razor in at least two of those seventeen years. His eyes were hidden, but Roger knew they were trained upon the soon-to-be-released rehabilitant.
"Yeah," Roger said. He hung up the phone. "I won't be seeing you, then."
"We could--" Katie began, then bit her lip and filed vigorously, an admirable act as filing demanded a slow hand. "Never mind."
"All set for college, Don?" Roger asked.
Donald nodded. "NYU," he said, "I think. I got admission at Berkeley, you know, out in California?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, they say it only drizzles there, and…"
Roger kept Donald talking for the thirty-two minutes it took Mark to arrive at the clinic, not that this was a feat of note. Donald talked at length whenever given the opportunity; having an active listener was a benefit but not a necessity. When Mark walked through the door, camera in hand, Roger politely silenced Donald long enough to say, loudly, "Mark!"
"Roger." Mark lowered his camera. "It's been a while. I don't know if I told you I was sorry about everything."
"Thanks." To Donald and Katie, he added, "This is the 'I'm sorry' they give you when a relative dies." Then, to Mark, "Look, the thing is--I tried to tell you over the phone. I'm not O.R." There was a sharp intake of breath from behind him, but Mark's face registered nothing. "On my own resourses. That's O.R. If I leave the clinic today," Roger explained, "I need to be… in custody." He struggled for the words; they didn't fit. What if it's like this when I try it again…? He dared a glance at the instrument case at his feet. Because Mark had said nothing, Roger tried to lay his meaning out plainly: "Will you take legal responsibility for me?"
Mark felt his jaw unhinge. It did not, however, drop. Nor was he angry. Somehow Roger seemed to be allowing him to say no, without saying "feel free to deny me" as insisted a positive reply. He had no hangdog expression; rather than stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring at the floor, Roger had his hands awkwardly dangling at his sides, his eyes boring into Mark.
The answer was in his mouth already. It had been there, always, so Mark was unsurprised when his mouth opened and said, "Sure."
As they were leaving, paperwork with Mark's signature in Katie's hands, Mark reached for Roger's pathetic duffel bag, the container of all his worldly possession save the guitar. "That's okay," Roger said, swinging the bag onto his shoulder. Around his neck fluttered a grey scarf he had not seen before.
Before Mark had the chance to reach for the guitar, Roger had the instrument held tightly in his arms.
"You haven't played in months, have you?"
"Not since April."
TO BE CONTINUED
Well, here it is! That was my first try at writing fanfiction for RENT. Feedback is always appreciated, I hope anyone who's reading this enjoyed it. Also, I don't know much about rehab centers; the O.R. release is a question when leaving prison.