All the color drained from Roger's face. He looked like he was about to pass out. He opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking.
"You went through my room?" he demanded.
"That's not the point, Roger, and you know it!" Mark yelled. Both Collins and Roger were shocked by Mark yelling; Mark never yelled unless he was really upset. "How long have you been using?" Roger looked at the ground. "How long?"
"Since Mimi died," he replied quietly.
"Fuck Roger, that long? What do we have to do, put you in rehab or something?" Collins asked. Roger spun around to face the African American, and shook his head.
"No, no rehab. I can't do rehab. Help me…please! I, I need help, and those freaks at those rehab places don't understand. They pretend to understand, but they don't," he pleaded with tears in his eyes. Mark and Collins looks at each other. They couldn't send Roger away. First, he was their friend and he needed them, and second, they couldn't afford rehab.
"We're not going to send you away," Mark said. "But you're going to have to stop doing smack; no questions asked. No 'one last hit' bull shit." Roger nodded.
"Fine, fine, whatever. Just don't send me to rehab." Mark pulled his lover close to him. Roger began to cry, something he almost never did.
"You're going to stay right here baby, don't you worry about that. Collins and I are going to help you through this." Collins silently left to go tutor while Mark began to calm Roger down.
Two hours later, Collins returned from tutoring completely exhausted. His student was beyond clueless, and it was frustrating. When Collins got to the loft, Mark was sitting on the couch eating a bowl of cereal, and Roger was nowhere to be seen.
As if reading Collins' mind, Mark said, "Roger's asleep in his room, or at least trying to sleep." Collins grabbed two cans of beer for the both of them, and sat on the makeshift coffee table.
"Here, you need a drink." Mark took a long drink of his beer and smiled.
"Beer and cereal, wow this is a first." Collins took a drink of his beer.
"Just drink
up."
"Why does this seem too easy? Roger seemed too eager to
quit smack." Collins shook his head.
"It's not going to be easy. If we hadn't been so blind, and caught it early on; then yes it would be easy, but we didn't." Mark slammed down his can of beer, and got up. He began to pace behind the duct tape covered couch.
"Why didn't I catch this sooner? I mean, I'm his boyfriend, I should have noticed that he was high!"
"Shh…you'll wake Roger up." Both men looked at Roger's half opened door. They could barely make out his sleeping form on the bed. "He was much more careful about covering up what he was doing." Mark finished off his beer, and tossed the empty can in the trashcan.
"I'm going to go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning. Night." Collins smiled weakly and kept drinking.
It was 2 AM, and Roger desperately needed a hit. He rolled around on his bed, muffled his cries in his lumpy pillow, and clawed at the sheets. Finally, he got up, and began to dig around his room; nothing. Roger stumbled out of his room, and next door to Mark's room.
"Marky?" he whispered. Mark rolled over to face Roger, and propped himself up on his elbow.
"Rog?" he mumbled as he squinted in the darkness that was partially because it was night, and partially because he wasn't wearing his glasses. Roger trudged across the room. The moonlight from the front room framed his outline as he crawled into Mark's bed. Wordlessly, he curled up against Mark, and rested his head on his chest. Mark ran his fingers through the rocker's long hair until they both fell fast asleep.
The next morning, Mark woke up lying next to Roger with his arm draped over the larger man's waist. The rocker was shaking and sweat was trickling down his neck. Mark kissed Roger's temple, and began to whisper reassuring words in his ear.
"Shh, it's okay. It's okay baby." Inside, Mark was thinking, And so it begins.
A/N: Updated Off-Set for those who are reading it. I've gotten some new readers, so let me explain. It's the sequel to Off-Camera which is a behind-the-scenes on the movie version of Rent type deal. The link for Off-Camera is on my profile (first link I believe), so if you're interested, go check it out!
Tina101