(Confessions of Sheets)
Mark wouldn't let Collins buy white sheets for the loft anymore. There were too many memories involved, memories of long nights in a hospital room, of curled confessions as lovers sat and regretted never mentioning their adoration. He couldn't see white sheets without recalling the feel of his hand holding a piece of ice up to Roger's lips to keep them from breaking open and bleeding as they had the one night he'd fallen asleep. Mark couldn't see white sheets without thinking of being tucked under a dying musician's arm, knowing he'd really always been in love with a rock star, since that first day when he knocked on the door rather pathetically hoping someone would let him in, would let him stay. He's been in love since he first saw Roger, even though the bleach-blonde had opened the door and almost slammed it on his face, thinking he was some Christian boy or something.
He has clips of videos of white sheets surrounding a frail, pail body that once held all the passion and life of twenty men. Or at least, that's what Mark always thought. Roger had been raw, Roger had been everything Mark wasn't. Engaged, in the moment, alive even when he was dying. But now, when Mark sees white sheets, all he can think of is death, and that bright flicker of golden light fading from hazel eyes as recently wet lips murmured in a whisper so low he had to strain to hear it, "I love you," Because that was Roger's crowning moment, his last moment, his dying moment. And the idea that he had spent his final breath on Mark is both thrilling and terrifying and Mark isn't sure if it was because he and Mark were together and Roger always lives in the Now, or if it was because he was the first one Roger really loved. His heart tells him that. His heart screams that it was the second one, that those last days spent in love curled on a hospital bed were the truth and the first time they've both been stripped bare and laid open for the entire world to see.
Now, when Mark sees a white sheet he thinks of death and at the same time, he thinks of confession. He thinks of dark eyes under dark lashes turned to him while a frail hand grips his with a strength that should be gone. He recalls a gaze that demanded attention, demanded that it not be broken and the warring emotions that flickered across his best friend's face. Mark sees his other hand extending, brushing long, limp hair back from a sweat-soaked fevered face and a nod. Roger didn't need to say anything, his filmmaker always understood. He cannot sleep on white sheets now because the only time he did was when he was a kid before he talked his mom into navy blue and the last week of Roger's life, when he spent the night curled up next to him, wiping his brow in a typical way and thinking of romance clichés. The only time in his adult life he's ever spent the night sleeping on white sheets was the night before the one person he loved more than anything slipped away from him.
So you see, he simply can't let Collins buy him white sheets, even though Collins is doing everything for him now, because when he sees them, all he can really see is Roger, his Roger and regret the year they spent waiting for love. Love that had never left, would never leave and had always been.
And so, Mark thinks, if he ever goes to the hospital again, he will ask for yellow sheets, because then someone can remember him.
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I do not own RENT in any form (except a poster, a movie, 2 shirts and a plushie)