Warming the Heart
Chapter 2
A/N: I love my readers. I've decided. Except for that badrobot person because actually, that -wasn't- the experiment. Thanks much for mocking my writing :3 I'm sure you're quite the jackass too.
Whoops! Language. Baaaad.
anyway. Thank-you all who will continue reading my things, and the experiment was really just to see how many -reviews- it receives. I understand that people read fluff more, most definitely. Logically it would be reviewed more as well. And really, I need an outlet for fluff sometimes. So.. this would be it. Heh.
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"So, do you think they're dead?"
"Doubtful. The blonde one's chest is moving."
"Well.. what about the other blonde one? What if he's dead?"
"I don't think he's dead."
oh fucking hell his head was killing him.
Slowly, ever so slowly, those eyes with the 'come hither' glare slid open to the soft sunlight that was New York on January First of the new year. The sun was partially obscured by two dark, vaguely humanoid figures leaning over him, and for a moment he worried he'd been abducted by aliens. He started, moving to struggle to his feet.. only to find that there was definitely something keeping him pinned quite nicely to the surface below him.
Oh god. He had been abducted. And now he was strapped to some operating table in some space ship and--
It was about that time that his 'straps' gave a groan of their own and shifted atop him, successfully digging a knee into his pancreas.. or where he thought his pancreas might be. Whatever it was, it hurt like a bitch, and it was then that he gathered what little strength he had and shoved Mark from atop him, causing the smaller blonde to yelp as his hip and elbow connected painfully with the roof.
"I don't think either of them are dead." Muttered the voice from Roger's right as the other chuckled to itself.
All right. He wasn't abducted by aliens. Mark had been using him as a pillow.. fuck, that was an understatement. Mark had been using him as a fucking bed. They were in New York--the cold told him that much, and, very suddenly, he wished for the return of the filmmaker. He'd made for a good blanket. His mouth was desert dry and the space behind his eyes was throbbing as though a they themselves were gongs and some minuscule man was standing there, swinging his mallet and hitting them over and over and over again, only to create the worst headache in the history of the world. Just how much had he drank last night?
"You boys all right?"
Roger's initial response was completely unintelligible, just a jumble of letters somehow strung together to create an entirely inhuman sound. His throat felt beyond raw, and his lips cracked as he spoke; no blood, but extreme, sharp pain. He ceased attempting to speak, swallowing once, twice, licking his lips, and attempting again.
"I.. I think we were locked out." Roger knew he should have been offended by the laughter greeting him from both sides of his head, but instead his reaction was to hold both hands to his head, eyes nearly crossing as he worked at blocking out the pain in his head. He was so focused on forcing the gonging away that he did not notice the hand on his leg, just above his knee, gripping tightly to his pants. He did not notice Mark's disoriented staring through one lens of his askew glasses. He did not notice that he was holding on to Roger himself with one hand, and his camera with the other--the latter was his most precious possession, so what did that say of the former?
"Well, the door's open now. Just consider yourselves lucky that you didn't freeze to death out here. I heard that temperatures got below freezing." The second voice interjected, starting to move away. Let them wake themselves up.
"You two're just lucky that we left some stuff up here yesterday, or you would have had to find another way down. We'll leave the door open for you." And the two voices retreated before Roger had ever gotten a good look at them, laughing all the while, the sound still audible long after they'd disappeared through the doorway and down the stairs.
Or perhaps that was the echo bouncing off the walls of his mind.
"Roger." He heard his roommate croak from beside him, and when he turned to stare blearily down at the young man, he saw a definite green tinge. Or perhaps he was imagining that.
"Yeah?"
"I'm gonna throw up."
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His eyes were shut tightly against the sound of retching coming from the bathroom as he nursed a chipped glass of water, careful of his already chapped lips around the sharp edges--it wouldn't do to cause more bleeding than he already had. A twin glass rested on the make-shift coffee table before the couch he was stretched out on, just awaiting its owner's return. Silence for a moment, and then another violent bout, followed by nearly inaudible whimpers that caused the rockstar to shut his eyes for a moment, sighing heavily. What a night they'd had. They'd been drunk off their asses, but he could recall bits and pieces of it. Small snippets of conversations, horribly off-key singing, kissing...
Hold on there.
Kissing?
Logic would say that, as they had been locked up there with no way down other than that one door, they had been alone. They'd awoken alone this morning, and thus had been alone all night..
Which meant that the only person in his company would be Mark.
Which would, in turn, mean that it had been Mark whom he'd kissed.
Aquamarine eyes slid toward the bathroom door, where an exhausted, almost smudged filmmaker was emerging, holding tightly to the doorframe, watching the floor in front of his bare feet as he stepped one, then two, then three, all the way toward the couch, where he settled on the end opposite Roger's, reached out, grasped his glass, brought it to his lips and took a long drink.
Roger's gaze still hadn't moved from him.
Swallowing, Mark stared rather vacantly at the apparently shocked guitarist, lowering the glass to his lap, where it was clutched between two shaky hands.
".. what?"
Nothing.
"... What?"
"We kissed."
The silence that descended over the loft following that statement was suffocating. Mark's glass very slowly tipped within his hands, allowing the water to dribble slowly onto the couch and eventually the floor, though he remained completely immobile otherwise. Roger, on the other hand, was staring blankly at him. .. really, this wasn't the reaction he'd expected from Mark. He'd expected the other to jump up and rush to the bathroom again, disgusted with their actions. He'd expected something other than the dripping water. Anger, despair... something!
"And?"
That hit Roger like a blow to the head. He almost physically reeled, but kept himself--barely.
"And!?!?"
"Well... yeah. And. It's tradition. You kiss someone at midnight."
".. we're both men." The genius of a bleach-blonde stated.
"Yes."
".. doesn't that freak you out??"
He saw the other's Adam's apple visibly bob with a swallow. If only he could see inside that pale head of his. If only he could get past that hungover glaze in Mark's eyes and pry into his thoughts, find out what he was thinking. If only he could understand what was making this next answer so difficult to conjure up. It was a simple yes or... yes question! He may have been a part of that 'open-minded rock and roll' group, but the filmmaker was his best friend, and had been for a long while.
".. no."
The enormity of this response didn't settle in on Roger's throbbing mind until he'd registered the light dusting of red across the pale cheeks.
"It.. It doesn't?"
".. not at all."
The staring match that ensued after the interrogation was ended when Mark blinked slowly, owlishly, at the musician across from him, knees up to his chest by this point in time, as though he were trying to contain the butterflies in his stomach. But they were very violent, violent butterflies, and it was a visible change when those butterflies decided to pay a visit once again.
The clatter of the glass falling to the ground but remaining intact was followed by thumping, skittering footsteps as Mark again thundered toward the bathroom, a hand over his mouth, eyes squinted shut. The door slammed behind him, and still Roger had yet to move.
"... It didn't freak him out?"
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So. This is the one time I'm open to plot ideas. Send me your ideas! Where would you like to see this story go?? -gasps-