Disclaimer: I don't own Rent or Bless the Lord; these belong to Jonny and Stephen Schwartz, respectively

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AN: Umyeah, Bless the Lord is a song from Godspell… the reason it's on my Eargasm playlist is because A. It's a good song, despite the fact that I'm not religious, and B. It's Shoshana Bean, and she love in this song. I didn't incorporate the whole song very well, but same thing with the last chapter… just found a line that worked and went with it. It talks about healing, so I was like, "omg Sick!Marky!" Anyway, this was so fun to write, and I'm pretty sure you guys will like it, too

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He healeth thine infirmnities
And ransoms thee from death
- Bless the Lord, Godspell, Stephen Schwartz

I wake up to a throbbing head, and I'm not breathing. My nose isn't taking in air; it's stuffed with something… cotton or snot? The latter; of this I am sure. I panic, but then I open my mouth. Ahh, there we go. I haven't had a nose this blocked-up since... last spring. Allergies suck. I am ready to go on a quest for The Almighty Claritin, but discover that I can't open my eyes. They're glued shut, presumably from that nasty eye-crud I always get too much of when I'm sick. Solution: find Roger, persuade him to bring me a hot cloth so I can get my eyes unglued… or rip out my eyelashes. I decide firmly on the former. "Roger!" What I expected to be a yell comes out as a raspy croak. I manage to call his name as loud as I can, and eventually Roger is silhouetted against the backs of my eyelids. "Gan… gan'ou ged be a gloth and soag it in hod wader? I dink I'b sick…" His hand is cold as he presses the back of it to my forehead.

"God, Mark, you're hot!" Really? Wait, he means my fever. "What do you want a hot cloth for?"

"By… by eyes…" I croak. He feels my eyes and notices the fact that my lashes are glued shut. He runs his hand down my cheek, and it feels cool and soft; I had expected it to be rough with calluses, but it feels nice.

"Okay, Mark, I'll be right back. Don't move. I'll bring you the sheet from my bed too, and see if I can find some other blankets lying around." It feels like he's gone for forever and I'm spending an eternity listening to him rummage through the cabinets and drawers. Finally he's back, and he begins to wrap me in a cocoon of three sheets and the wool afghan mom knitted for me Christmas before Christmas before last; before hot-plate, after itchy puke-green sweater. I find myself enjoying his gentle touch, and as he wipes at my eyes, holding my chin gently to keep my head still, it feels like I'm a kid again, being looked after by mommy, and she'll be back from her trip to the store in a few minutes with candy - a being-sick treat - and new books, not paperback but hard-cover, for her poor, sweet baby. And later, once my fever breaks, I'll eat chicken-and-stars while watching animated animal movies. I open my eyes and see Roger, gazing down at me with an almost motherly look on his face. The light shining in behind him makes him glow, like my own angel. He drapes towels across the curtain bar over the window to block out the light, and pulls up a chair next to my bed. He gently places his hand on my forehead again, then moves it to my cheek and neck. "Still hot…" he murmurs. "Do you want anything? Water?"

"Glaridin," I croak "And sobe ize wader"

"Sure thing, Marky," he says softly, and leaves for the bathroom. I hear him opening the cabinet that once had a mirror on it but now features only a few shards of broken glass still stuck to it and grabs the Claritin (top shelf, far right; I always put it in the same spot for easy access), and then I hear his steps into the kitchen, where he pops ice out of the tray and turns on the faucet. The sound of the running water and cracking ice makes me thirsty beyond belief, and it's the best feeling of relief I have ever felt when he helps prop me up into a sitting position on the pillows and holds the glass to my dry chapped lips. His finger brushes them briefly and accidentally, and I savor the feeling in the moment before he jerks it away, pretending it didn't happen.

He asks me if I can put the pills in my mouth myself, and I can, but I find myself lying just so I can feel his fingers on my lips again. He places one, then two in my mouth, and I love how it feels when his fingers rub so gently over my lips. He holds the glass of water to my mouth again, and I swallow the pills, marveling at how I never realized how romantic being taken care of can be. Yes, romantic; I can't help feeling that I'm falling for Roger, even though he's my best friend and a guy and that's wrong wrong wrong and yet so right. I know it's right, because when I felt his fingers against my lips, callused but soft, it was like ten cages of butterflies were released into my stomach, and their wings were fluttering against my stomach and my chest and my heart and that's what butterfly kisses really are. I long for him to touch me again in that gentle way, so different from how he usually is: rough and crude and loud and mean. I don't know how a man I knew so well can suddenly change and be so soothing and gentle and so fucking appealing. I want to be sick forever so he'll never change back, and it's like a fairy-tale, where a frog turns into Prince Charming.

"Roger, I…" I begin to say, but he holds a finger against my lips.

"Shh, don't talk. Just try to sleep, and you'll feel better when you wake up." I pull my hand out of my cocoon and hold it out, and he grasps it, even though I didn't think he would, and his strong-but-so-gentle thumb strokes the back of my hand like the strings of his guitar. "Shhh," he whispers, even though I'm not talking, and I drift to sleep to the gentle strums and "Shhh"s.

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Mark is, dare I say, beautiful when he's asleep. God, he's beautiful. I can't hide the fact that I am very, very, very attracted to him from myself anymore. After the past few nights since that day that I found myself admiring Mark, I have benn dreaming of him in various states of undress and kissing me, touching me, holding me, making love to me, and I can't deny it. I blamed it on horniness, on raging hormones, on anything that seemed plausible, but I realized when I woke up this morning that there is no blame needed; it's no one's fault because it's not a problem. I am in love with Mark, and that's the way it is, and I'll pray to whatever's out there that he feels the same way.

This morning I found myself looking for excuses to touch him. I felt his forehead for fever more than I had to, and was eager to check for warmth on his cheeks and neck. I savored wiping that stuff off his eyes, and even though eye-crud is generally rather disgusting, on Mark it's nothing but adorable in some strange way. I loved feeding him those pills and holding the glass to his mouth just because it gave me license to touch those lips I've only dreamt about. And holding his hand just felt so right and good. But I want more. I want to wrap my arms around him and kiss those warm lips and gently undress him and do god-knows-what else. I want to keep him warm on cold nights and snuggle with him while we watch TV. I want to hear him say and moan and shout my name in every different possible way, and do the same to his name. There's so much I want and that I know I can't have.

His eyes flutter open, and for a minute when he's gazing at me with that pale blue it's like he's looking into me and not just at me. A faint smile plays across his lips, and I just want to kiss him right then and there, but I can't. "Better?" I ask softly, and he nods. He's wiggling out of the sheets, and I help to pull them off of him. He's sweaty from his breaking fever, and he glistens in the thin beam of sun that squeezed past the towels I had draped over the window. I leave the room so he can change into fresh clothes, and soon he emerges.

Still almost no words pass between us, but that's alright, because it's so much more tender a moment when we don't speak. He walks up to me and I come so close to grazing his lips with mine, but then I think better of it and walk away to make him some tea. He sits on the stool by our pitiful kitchen counter and watches me heat a mug of water on the hot-plate and then steep the teabag in it (Jasmine, his favorite) and add one, two cubes of sugar from the little sugar-bowl Angel gave us last summer, shortly before she got sick. It occurs to me then that I'm wearing nothing but a pair of plaid boxers, but it doesn't bother me. I set the tea down in front of him, sit on a stool opposite him, and watch him slowly sip at it. His glasses fog up, and I reach across to softly rub the steam away. He smiles and sips more, and I do the same thing again. He starts to laugh, the first sound he's made since he woke up. I laugh along with him, and then we just sit there and look at each other.

The next things go by in slow-motion, but also happen so smoothly that I don't really think about them. He sets his tea aside as he reaches his hand across the counter to cup my cheek and we both lean forward until our noses brush across each other and our lips ever-so-gently meet in a soft, lingering kiss. The lids of my eyes fall as I tilt my head and put a hand to his cheek, pulling him closer. We stay with our lips just barely touching for a moment and both our eyes slowly open, and as I gaze into his eyes, I find nothing but love and wonder in them. I close my eyes again and press my lips a bit harder into his; our kiss is desperate now, and my other hand moves to the back of his neck and pulls him in. His tongue pushes past my lips into my mouth and he does things that I never thought he could do with his tongue, and his hand tangles in my hair. We don't hear the door open, but we do hear something drop to the floor, and we quickly move away from each other and turn to find Mimi standing in the doorway.

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Sick!Marky Translations: "Can... can you get me a cloth and soak it in hot water? I think I'm sick..." "My... my eyes..." "Claritin" "And some ice water"