Disclaimer: Not mine. Get over it.
Notes: I wrote this months ago and never posted it because I was under the impression that it would develop into something more. It did not. And so here is a teeny tiny oneshot that I wish could have been something more.
For Chris and Teeny, without whom I would never be inspired.
----
There was a simultaneous bowing of heads as a large arm flopped lifelessly over the side of the couch in the living room area.
No one said a word, but all silently grieved until Roger broke away from Mark's clinging arms and slowly moved to his friend's side. He had not been crying until he reached the body. Kneeling beside the couch, Roger leaned over his longtime friend and roommate and shattered the silence with a broken sob. Mark went to him and draped an arm around his shoulders and attempted to pull him away. This act of concern only got the filmmaker growled at and shoved away.
Roger put his hands reverently on the body of his friend, on his chest, just above where his heart had just stopped beating. He replaced his hands with his head and continued to sob into the chest of the man that he known practically since his arrival in New York City.
No one knew quite what to do. The one who usually handled such matters was not moving in spite of Roger's best efforts to get him to wake up. Maureen and Joanne were, as ever, standing apart from Roger, Mark and Collins, clinging to each other and able to be safe and content in each other's company as the others never could.
Days later, it was time to bury the philosopher whose tombstone read, "Thomas B. Collins. 1962 – 1998. Lived. Laughed. Loved."