Disclaimer: RENT and its characters do not belong to me.
Author's notes: Thank you reviewers, you made me very happy and encouraged me to write more.
For the purposes of this story, they aren't close friends or anything, but Benny is on speaking terms with Mark and Roger.
Mark was sitting in the kitchen reading an old copy of the Village Voice when Roger came out of his room in the mid-morning. "Hey." He greeted quietly.
Roger looked over, and gave Mark the once over. "You look like shit."
"Gee Roger, you always know what to say to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside." Mark made the sarcastic comment to make it appear as though Roger's words had deeply offended him. Both men knew that this wasn't true, but went along, as was the pattern. Mark knew that Roger was probably right. He hadn't slept at all last night, and when ever he didn't sleep he always ended up with the tired circles under his eyes. Combining this with his pale complexion and lack of shaving in three days just did wonders for his appearance.
"Whatever." Roger opened the fridge, glancing in and temporarily forgetting that they hadn't ended up getting their food yesterday as planned. He turned back. "You didn't sleep did you?" It wasn't like he didn't totally care. It was just that sometimes he couldn't be bothered, and this wasn't one of those times. Mark shrugged. "You doing OK?"
Mark closed the paper and stood. "I'm fine. I'm going to go film."
"Someone should probably go to the store today." Roger remarked grabbing the paper and sitting where Mark had been.
"Right." Mark reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a wad of crumpled bills. "Here. Knock yourself out. I'll be back later." He grabbed his camera and left without waiting for acknowledgment.
Roger sighed. Apparently today wasn't the day that he should bother to care. Mark obviously didn't want to talk about what had happened or the fact that he clearly didn't want to go back inside another store. Roger knew he wouldn't be able to get Mark to talk about it either. So the only option, was to not be bothered to care.
Three nights later, Mark knew he wasn't looking any better. He still hadn't been able to sleep, and was living off of Roger's coffee, which he couldn't remember ever doing before this incident. On the bright side he had shaven, and the bruise was on his forehead was fading. On the other hand his skin was even paler, and the circle's around his eyes were even darker, with his eye's quite bloodshot, and his voice was going gravelly from the lack of rest.
He knew the weight loss was setting in. Mark couldn't bring himself to do anything about it. Somehow eating just hadn't been, and wasn't, an option. Every time he tried it just came back up.
Mark's hands were still red and raw, and hurt to touch anything, because whenever he looked down at them, he could still see all the blood from the cashier. Mark knew that this probably wasn't exactly normal…but he didn't exactly want to go around talking about how insane he thought that he was going.
So he didn't. Instead of talking to someone about every thought that was going through his head causing all of his new idiosyncrasies, he would just assure everyone that he was fine when they asked. And as far as he could tell, they were believing it, leaving him to contemplate everything on his own.
And that was when Benny showed up. Roger let him into the apartment while Mark sat at the kitchen table. Both Benny and Roger glanced around awkwardly around for a moment. "So…what are you doing here?" Roger finally asked. "We paid the rent."
"I know. Allison and I had a bit of a fight." Benny tucked his hands into his pockets.
Roger smirked a little. "Westport a little unpleasant is it?"
"Shut up." Benny snapped. "I just need a place to crash tonight so she calms down."
"Whatever." Roger shook his head throwing his hands in the air. "If Mark doesn't care than the couch is yours."
Both looked over to Mark, who was watching them. "Do what you want." His voice was pretty hoarse from lack of use. That was another thing that he hadn't been doing much of lately. Talking. If he wasn't assuring Roger that he was fine there wasn't much else for him to say. "I'm going to go to bed." They acknowledged him and watched as he went into his room.
It was seconds after the door closed that Benny turned to face Roger. "That boy looks like shit."
"God Benny." Roger ran a hand through his hair in an annoyed manner.
Benny gave him a look. "Oh like you haven't noticed."
"No. I have noticed. That's the problem." Roger sat down at the table, his temper leaving a bit.
Benny took a seat next to him. "What's going on with him?"
Roger stopped to think for a moment. He realized that Benny wouldn't know what had happened. "A couple days ago he got caught up in this convenience store robbery. There was a hostage situation. He hasn't said much about it, except that he's fine."
"And you believed him?" Benny scoffed a little.
"Well I don't exactly have much of a choice." Roger shot back quickly. He was going to go on, but he stopped and thought better of it.
Benny rolled his eyes. "You always sucked at the whole taking care of someone thing."
"You can't just take care of Mark, Benny."
"Well if he's not gonna do it himself you have to." He glanced around, lowering his voice a bit more, as though to make sure Mark wouldn't be able to hear him. "Look whatever happened when he was a hostage clearly affected him."
"No shit."
"Look, all I'm saying is that I'm looking at him and he's starting to look like you did."
Roger didn't say anything for a moment. It wasn't that he wasn't as concerned as Benny. But he hadn't found a way to get Mark to actually listen without freaking him out. Until then he knew it was best to just leave him alone. "You have to let things with Mark run their course."
"If you let this thing run much longer the results won't be good."
Roger awoke to voices. "What's this?" It was Mark.
"I made breakfast." The second was Benny.
Mark spoke again. "Why?"
"I thought you could use some real food." Roger could see Benny shrugging. "Eat up."
Roger sat up stood, still hearing the conversation. "I'm not that hungry."
"Mark shouldn't you eat something?"
"You can't eat when you're not hungry."
"You can't live if you don't eat."
Roger started out of the room, looking around to see where Mark was pushing a plate of what looked to be eggs back towards Benny. "Benny I don't want any breakfast. Just give it to Roger or something."
"I made a separate plate for Roger." Benny shoved the plate to Mark. "Now eat."
"I don't want to eat it."
Roger tried to interrupt. "Uh guys?" They ignored him.
Benny glared. " Mark you have to eat. If you don't start eating now then I'll---."
"I am not a child!" Mark cut him off angrily.
"Guys!" Roger tried again a little bit louder.
Benny threw something right back. "Well you're sure taking care of your self like one. Mark I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but if you think I'm just gonna stand back and watch you destroy yourself then—."
And he was cut off again. "You're never around and you have the nerve to tell me what to do! You have no idea what is going on with me!" Mark turned turning away from Benny as though he was leaving.
"Mark…" Roger tried to stop him, but Mark blew right past him out the door. Roger, was only just awake, but enough so to be angry at Benny. "Great job."
"I was trying to help." Benny justified.
"I told you to leave it alone." Roger grabbed his jacket. "I'm going to go after him. Get out of here. Allison's probably waiting for you."
Benny rolled his eyes a little managing to find the small amount of humor in the situation. "You're in your pajamas."
"At this point I don't really care." Roger slipped into the coat. "Just get back to Westport. We'll call you when we need to be bugged about money again." He left the apartment quickly starting outside to find his roommate.
More to come soon. Tell me what you think.