Goodbye My Lover
A/N: Well, here's an angsty, sad fic...the title is from James Blunt's song of the same name, just so you know. I'm not exactly sure how happy I am with this story, so please review.
Tears are streaming down my face. I promised myself I wouldn't cry, that I'd keep my composure, and I've always been able do that before...but today, today I guess it was just too damn much to handle.
He's beautiful...he always was. His hair is arranged perfectly, the long locks framing his face gently, looking strangely blonder than usual. He's in a suit – a nice, black dress suit, pressed and neat and clean. I've never seen him in a suit before – to Roger, jeans without holes and an unwrinkled shirt were considered dressy. But today...well, God, it's not like he had a choice of what to wear. If it had been up to me, he'd be wearing one of those faded band t-shirts with jeans and his leather jacket. But it's nice, anyway.
I look around me at the space around the casket, where the family customarily stands and greets people. Maureen and Joanne are here, of course. Joanne paid for quite a bit of the funeral, after all. His mother's here, crying over her son. His father isn't, and I'm glad – God knows I would have killed him today, thinking about what Roger told me about him...but that doesn't matter. But it's not the people that I here that I notice – it's the ones that aren't here. There, next to Maureen, is where Mimi should be standing, and beside her should be Angel, holding Collin's nonexistent hand. Gordon should be coming up to me and telling me that he's so sorry for my loss, Pam should hug me and say she'll miss him too.
What am I thinking? If things were the way they should be, then we wouldn't be here at all. We would be at the loft, sharing a couple beers, Roger playing his guitar and me filming him. Roger would be telling me to turn off my goddamn camera and I would be flipping him off and telling him to shut up and pose for the camera. He shouldn't be laying there, so perfectly cold in the casket.
The ceremony's about to start, I know. Maureen and Joanne say their goodbyes, Maureen sobbing into her lover's shoulder. Mrs. Davis steps up to see her son for the last time and moves away, her eyes red and swollen...I know that mean they're just waiting for me.
I'm trembling as I take his cold, frozen hand. "Hey baby," I whisper softly, wiping my tear from where it fell on his face. I'm staring at him, at those hollow cheeks and pale skin, looking at him and that shadow of death that has engulfed, and an unexpected feeling swells up inside me...rage. "How the hell, Roger? How the hell do you expect me to survive without you? Who am I at all without you, baby...you can't be gone...What the fuck am I suppose to do now? Why? Why did you have to go..." Tears are coming hard and faster now, and I'm sure I'm insanely loud, but I don't care. "Why...why...why..."
I feel strong hands on my shoulders, and my immediate illogical thought tells me that it's Roger's hands. I close my eyes, tears still streaming downwards, as I revel in the comfort of warm hands on me, giving me that solid connection. My mind slowly admits that the hands are too small to be Roger's and too big to be Collins', but the identity makes no difference to me now. I look back down at my lover, my everything, my best friend, and whisper softly to him, "I love you, Roger...goodbye." I turn around and bury my face in my comforter's warm shoulder, letting the strong arms wrap around me in a caring embrace.
"Mark, the ceremony's about to start," comes the deep, gentle voice. I look up at Benny, surprised at his unusual amount of care as he leads me to the front pew where we sit beside the remnants of this broken family.
Maureen is the first to speak, her voice soft and hesitant. "I remember the first time I met Roger – he was a rock star, and I was instantly infatuated. How could I not be?" Maureen's smile was bittersweet as she swallowed. "He was always so... raw, rough, unbridled. Roger had this intensity about him that like nothing I have ever seen before or since." Maureen was silent for a minute. "I've spoken at way too many funerals," she said softly, her voice slightly bitter as she wiped away a tear. "We love you, Roger, and we'll miss you so much..."
More people are talking, but I'm not listening. These people, people who saw Roger at Life Support, people who use to be in his band, assorted ex-junkies – they don't know my Roger, they weren't there. The people from Life Support never knew Roger before he found out he was HIV positive. Those guys from the band weren't there to get to know him when he wasn't high or drunk or simply on his constant ego trips. The guys he used to shoot up with weren't there every night when he needed a hit so bad, when the withdrawal was so painful and he hated me for not letting him see the Man...these people all think they knew Roger, but they have no right to talk about him like they'll miss him that much. Roger was mine, and no one else's...even after his death I'm still possessive of him.
I know I'm expected to say something about Roger now, and I go up to the front of the small church numbly, not quite sure what to say. I'm crying again, but I don't care. Everyone is looking up at me with looks of sympathetic embarrassment, as though they can't handle the extent of my grief. But it doesn't matter. I clear my throat, and say the only thing I can think of. "I...I love you, Roger." A silence fills the air for a few moments, and I touch his hand gently. "Goodbye, baby."
I walk back to my seat coldly, unable to feel anything but this suffocating sense of loss, knowing that now it truly is goodbye.