A/N: Things are going to start getting gradually more intense here so hold onto your hats. Also, a few people told me they were really curious to see Gordon's involvement in this story, so here's some more Gordon for you! Make of him what you will. Personally, I adore him. Review if you can!

Also, a note: if anyone was wondering, the ~voice~ in Mark's head is meant to be his intrusive thoughts. Just to clarify.

Chapter 8: One Wrong Move

Roger's friendly mood lasts all of two more days.

In all the time he's known him, Mark feels like he should be able to predict Roger's mood swings by now. There's some kind of pattern that he used to have a pretty firm grip on, but it eludes him now – it's probably the agonizing seconds between breaths that make it so hard to tell now, the hyperawareness he has of every passing moment that he's wearing these wounds on his body like a crime scene.

He has to admit, looking down at them, that his arms are starting to resemble a murder victim's.

(That doesn't stop him from pressing the knife down again.)

It's almost a relief when Roger slams his door while he's passing it on the way to the kitchen – he'd spent almost half an hour working up the motivation to get out of bed for the glass of water he only wants because his headache is starting to get unbearable, and he's pretty sure he's dehydrated.

Honestly, Roger's casually concerned friend routine has been scraping his nerves raw from the first day. That's just not Roger. Mark knows Roger, however distant he's been in the past year... And casual was not something that Roger did. Not like this.

The last time Roger had been casual about anything, he'd been so goddamn stoned that he'd actually handed over the syringe without a fight, grinning.

"S'okay, Mark, it's not like I'm fuckin' addicted…"

Roger did not do lukewarm friendliness, gentle concern. Something was very, very wrong – everything was so tense, forced, like someone was pulling his strings. When Mark is lucid enough to puzzle it out, he groans. Collins. Has to be.

No one else is that observant. No one else would care enough.

(Roger, especially, would never fucking notice he was drowning until he washed up on the shore with a note to outdo April's.)

Sometimes… sometimes he just really fucking misses having Tom around.

But that would mean the end of this charade. That would mean dragging himself out of bed and actually doing something about it, which is too impossible and daunting and exhausting just to think about to even consider.

In the end it's probably a good thing that Roger is the one still living with him, because at least Roger won't be bothered by the muted sound of Mark's existential panic vibrating through the walls. He'll sleep through it, like always; and no matter how many spark flares of hope he lights in Mark's chest, Roger's never going to look at him with the same desperate adoration Mark still occasionally sees in his own, in the mirror.

The loft goes chillingly silent again. Mark finds himself tiptoeing to and from the bathroom, and forgoing food altogether. He doesn't know what he's done to piss Roger off – or maybe he's just in one of those moods, again, where he hates the universe and himself and his whiny, good-for-nothing roommate who can't hold down a job.

(Mark remembers weeks where neither of them had a job, spent eating stale Captain Crunch – dry, with their fingers because they couldn't afford milk and it was more fun this way, anyway – laughing and balling up the Classifieds to throw at each other across the table.)

It's somehow less distressing that his chest feels like it's got a massive crater in it when Roger isn't around to critically observe him around every corner, green eyes narrow and sharp and picking him apart. As though he needs any help with that.

It's not fair. I've left him so many loose edges.

He doesn't look at Roger's door as he passes it on the way to his own room, clutching his arm to keep the blood from seeping into his sleeves. He disregards the nausea that chokes him when he wonders, in passing, what Roger would think if he came out and saw him right now, like this.

Roger's door stays thankfully closed and deathly quiet. So much for impromptu movies and popcorn, huh?

The crater in his chest begins to feel like a graveyard.

They're not fighting, but they're not talking. Mark can deal with that.

Roger really fucking hates himself sometimes.

Collins is right. Everyone is right, and he's the only fucking one who wasn't taking this seriously until now – there's something seriously wrong with Mark.

He can't figure it out. Mark's always been a painfully open book, hard as he tried to keep his secrets. Or maybe Roger had just assumed…

Fuck, he doesn't know anymore.

It's like he doesn't know Mark at all. A year ago, so much as inviting Mark into his room would have been enough to have him beaming like a kid on Christmas morning.

So much of the way they've interacted these past few months is based on quiet hurt, silent pleading. Roger leans his back against his headboard and fists his overgrown hair, frustrated, and listens to Mark padding cautiously past his door.

To the bathroom and back. And again. And again. Every few hours, like clockwork, all night.

(What the fuck is he doing in there? Pissing his brains out? Passing a kidney stone?)

He thinks he's being subtle, probably.

There are a lot of things that Roger would rather be doing on a Saturday night than locking himself in his room and pulling his hair out in soundless aggravation. He wants answers. He wants Mark's smile not to look so goddamn haunted, so fake. He wants to know what the fuck he did, or didn't notice, and what the fuck he has to do to fix it.

Angrily, he chews the polish from his nails and glares holes in the wall separating their rooms, half-tempted to press his ear to it and listen. Sometimes Mark has conversations with himself – or, well, he used to. When he was okay. When Roger didn't want to shake him until he hiccupped the whole story, until he was nineteen again and smiling and shoving that camera in his face

He doesn't know how this happened. Or when.

When had Mark torn away from him so cleanly he hadn't even left a scar? How is he supposed to fix it, when he has to drag the man out of his room for a movie?

It's like their roles have reversed, and he doesn't remember agreeing to this.

Collins was right and everyone is counting on him to sniff it out, to crack Mark open and cradle him while he cries. But Mark's not crying, he's numb. That's scarier. Mark has always tried to be numb, but he's never succeeded. Now his face is blank.

Roger used to be able to read him like the back of his goddamn hand.

He growls wordlessly and grabs for a notebook and a pen off his nightstand. If he can't get Mark to talk, maybe he'll just write it out the old-fashioned way.

The old Mark would approve. He's not sure about this one.

He flips furiously to an open page and bites the end savagely. Too bad. He's doing it now, and Mark's not going to have a choice.

For whatever fateful reason – Mark wonders later if he was just subconsciously lonely, and then scoffs, because there was nothing subconscious about it – Mark finds himself making a second attempt at a cigarette in the forgotten lot behind the community center, surrounded by chunks of concrete and forlorn, scattered weeds.

This lighter is a piece of shit. It takes him upward of five minutes to get so much as a puff out of it, and then within seconds he's coughing, blinking furiously, glad that there's no one around. His eyes are still watering when the door he'd forgotten even existed behind him creaks open, and a tall figure slips out, wriggling into a worn black jacket.

Mark takes another hasty drag and wonders why God hates him so much.

Maybe he thought you'd want a voyeur. You know, for when you off yourself?

Gordon blinks at him, seeming momentarily taken aback by his presence. Or maybe his existence in general. Me too, buddy.

"Mark," he says finally, pausing and deliberately leaning back against the wall beside him. He raises his eyebrows without accusation. "Skipping?"

Mark licks his lips and gives a halfheartedly sheepish look.

Gordon, unsmiling but not unfriendly, reaches out and plucks the lighter from where it's dangling loosely between his fingers.

Years ago, this scene would have been reversed – it would have been Roger, moodily puffing on a Marlboro on the fire escape, and Mark beside him, absentmindedly playing with his lighter while their shoulders bumped together. He'd say something dry and sardonic and Roger would snort, tilt his head back and laugh into the night.

Then he'd pass Mark his cigarette, tauntingly, and Mark would take a quick drag just to humor him, just to keep himself from leaning forward and kissing the taste from his lips.

He figured Roger probably wouldn't appreciate that. He'd never done it.

If you had, maybe he'd never have looked twice at that junkie downstairs. That's what you thought about her when you connected the dots, isn't it?

Mark grits his teeth stares up at the sun until his eyes water just to have an excuse.

That voice, that fucking voice, he can't stand it. It's him but it's not and he doesn't know where it's coming from. Possibly from hell. Maybe from the graveyard in his chest.

Maybe he is a ghost, after all. A living one, miserable at best. Destined to be lonely. Trapped here, for no good reason at all.

Tormenting the people who are still breathing.

"I quit a few years ago," Gordon says unexpectedly, and when Mark looks back at him – still squinting sunspots out of his eyes – he's staring up at the clouds, casual as ever. The lighter has gone out, but Gordon makes no move to flick it again. Mark resists the urge to reach and grab for it, skin itching at the thought of losing something that he related to so much that he'd had for so pathetically long.

It takes him a minute to realize he's supposed to respond. "Oh." He lowers the cigarette awkwardly. "Um. Do you want me to…?"

He moves to stop it and Gordon reaches out and catches his wrist, making a face. "No, it's fine."

Mark stares down at his fingers curved around his arm, wondering if he's really that small or if Gordon's fingers are just long. The skin beneath his sweater is burning at the contact but he's used to that by now – and if he makes a noise, Gordon's going to give him one of those long, searching looks that make him squirm and remember guiltily that he hadn't called his mother back in so long that she probably thinks he's dead.

The silence is getting awkward. Mark is pretty sure that's his fault but he's not sure if he can fix it. Gordon releases him with a speculative expression.

"You seem off," he says bluntly, flicking the lighter again, and just like that they're back to square one.

Mark swallows. His mouth tastes awful, but that's the price of these disgusting things. At least he's not in the middle of an anxiety attack anymore. "Nah."

That doesn't seem to deter the other man, and he doesn't know why he thought it would. Gordon is not Roger. This seems more relevant than ever. "You think you're the only one walking around like a zombie around here?" Gordon wrinkles his nose, not really amused but smiling self-deprecatingly anyway. "Don't insult me, camera man. I went to grad school. Where is that camera of yours, anyway?"

His hair is still a wild curly mess, limper than Mark remembers it being at group last year. It sets his teeth on edge, remembering that Gordon is one of them – dying, and not bothering to pretend otherwise. That's another thing that sets him apart from Roger.

Roger gets angry so easily. Roger is ignoring him, right now, and for what?

(He can't complain, he shouldn't complain, if Roger starts paying attention again how will he hide this, how will he get through the fucking day?)

"I don't take it everywhere with me," he manages, laughing and it almost sounds real. Gordon doesn't look convinced; he doesn't look accusatory, either. It relaxes him a little to realize that he's not being called out right now. Not really.

"I don't think I've ever seen you without it before," Gordon says, shrugging. "That's all."

But his eyes are fixed on Mark like he knows, with such overwhelming sympathy that Mark has to look away, grimacing when he realizes the ash has burnt right down to his fingertips. Again. He drops it and puts it out clumsily with his sneaker, dusting his hands off on his pants. He doesn't even fucking like smoking. His mouth tastes like a trench now. Gordon is still watching him, probably, but for once Mark kind of wants him to. Doesn't want him to leave.

The lot hadn't seemed so empty when he'd first slunk back here, but now he can't imagine staying if Gordon chooses to head back inside.

With the rest of them, his mind whispers. Aren't they supposed to care about you?

A well of loneliness that's been growing in the back of his throat for months now suddenly overflows, and he finds the words bitterly forced out of him no matter how he tries to hold them back. "You know, everyone else around here is always going on about how nothing is forever and you just have to live for today. But I'm not allowed? To change. Or to be anything they didn't fucking expect." His eyes start to sting again. He can't look up.

Gordon is humoring him, and that's it. There's no one in the goddamn world who should have less pity for him than this guy.

"I'm just – I'm so sick of it. Maybe you just weren't looking hard enough, huh? I haven't changed. I'm exactly the same."

His hands won't stop shaking.

"People see what they want to see," Gordon offers, hesitating before reaching to pat him on the back. His hands aren't as big as Mark had originally thought. Roger's are bigger. They're thin and steady, and he realizes that it's not just his hands shaking.

Gordon is looking at him with a slightly wary expression, and Mark realizes that he expects him to jerk away from the simple touch. But he doesn't want to. Can't. It's been so, so fucking long since anyone has touched him besides Roger and Collins and Maureen, all people he's lying to, people he's avoiding like the plague just because he can't get a hold of himself.

Gordon is actually the only person he's really talked to, period, in over a year.

He doesn't really have the wherewithal to process the frankly embarrassing rush of gratitude that colors his cheeks just then. "You're probably right."

"Oh, I'm usually right." Gordon gives half of a tired smirk. "I'm a teacher. You get used to it."

"I knew that." Mark takes a deep breath and finally straightens up, tugging his sleeves down. He doubts that Gordon missed the movement, but at this point, he's already so deep that it doesn't matter. "You teach, uh, science. Right?"

"Biology."

What's one person who knows he's struggling? It's not like Gordon knows where he lives. He's got half a dozen people on his back who only seem to care about him when they think he's going to jump off the roof.

Not a bad idea.

No, wait, those are his friends – but fuck it, he's too tired now to care. Fuck his friends. Fuck Paul, fuck Collins, fuck them all. They won't miss him that much.

Gordon is okay, though.

He digs the pack of Marlboros out of his pocket and tentatively holds them up. "Right… You think anyone in there might want these? I'm not much of a smoker…"

There are times (most of the time, actually) that Mark spends every waking moment agonizing over Roger Davis. His hair and his eyes and his laugh, his scowl, his approval, his affection, their relationship… It all spins like a sickening wheel and he hates himself, and he loves Roger desperately, and he doesn't know how to reconcile it all.

And then there are times where Roger doesn't exist at all.

He lost it. He doesn't know how, but it's not in his pocket where it belongs and there's no little bump for him to rub his fingers anxiously over, to rush into the bathroom and flick over his wrist, hands shaking like a junkie's, God he's so fucking stupid this is ridiculous! This is ridiculous and why is he shaking so hard, and where the fuck is it!

He's tearing apart his room, boxes overturned, film reels and old newspaper clippings and blurry photographs of Roger and Collins and Benny toasting the New Year strewn carelessly across the floor. Under the bed, under the mattress, inside each of his dresser drawers – he checks and re-checks the wastebin by the door even though there's nothing in it because he hasn't been fucking writing anything that he feels comfortable lying around, even in the trash.

Underneath the panic he knows this is too much, that he's going to get caught if he keeps freaking out like this.

But it's got it's hooks in his skin and it's pulling and pulling, like the eyes at Life Support, like Collins and his pointed little comments.

Need a fix, huh? Maybe you can visit Roger's old dealer, that'd probably do just as well.

He blinks back frustrated tears and pretends he doesn't hear it, the incessant nagging in his ears. He hates that voice. It isn't him. (It is him, though, sounds like him, could be him.)

Where is it? Where is it? Oh God, if he'd dropped it in the hallway, or on the stairs, shit shit shit –

"Hey, Mark – woah. What are you looking for, man?"

He gives himself whiplash sitting up at the sound of Roger's voice in the doorway. He's looking around at the catastrophe that is Mark's room in plain amazement, blinking. He's wearing eyeliner again today, and it reminds him of April and heroin and wanting so badly to kiss him on the fire escape. It makes his stomach hurt.

"Nothing."

Roger squints at him in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah." He clears his throat, tries to pretend his skin isn't on fire. He wishes he hadn't given those damn cigarettes away now. Anything not to have an anxiety attack right here, right now, with Roger watching him and clutching a piece of paper in his doorway.

It's folded up into a tiny square. Mark focuses on it so hard that his head starts to pound.

"What – um, what is that?" he asks, hoping desperately that Roger won't pick up on his stammer. He used to tease him about it all the time, but right now he almost looks serious, and Mark doesn't want to risk catching his roommate on one of his perceptive days. "Been writing again?"

To his own ears, he sounds like he's been eating sandpaper. It feels like something is eating at the lining of his throat – his panic or maybe stomach acid, who can tell?

Roger slowly turns his attention back to him, but his eyebrows are up in his hairline. Fuck. "Nah, not really. I just, uh – here."

He makes a frustrated sound and shoves the folded-up square at Mark without explanation. Mark takes it tentatively, still tensed and crackling like a live wire, and pretends that he cares about what's inside for a good five seconds before nodding and shoving it into his pocket.

Roger's eyes follow his hands as they start their pawing again, darting once more around the room. His voice rises incredulously. "So you're just destroying your room for… no reason? For fun?"

"It's nothing," Mark grits out, and has to pull his arm back before the sleeve starts riding up. It's not under the bed, anyways, he'd already checked… hadn't he? His head is swimming. Roger is watching. Shit shit shit –

"Do you think I'm stupid or something?" Roger takes a (menacing, probably unintentionally, still makes Mark flinch though) step into the room, bristling for a fight. "What the hell is wrong with you lately?"

What is wrong with him? Mark doesn't want to know, doesn't want to think the words. He's better, it's over, it never happened. He left all of the papers back in his old bedroom, all of the evidence.

He's fine! Roger can fuck off!

"Mind your own business, Roger. I said it was nothing." He forces himself to glare and clench his fists, to keep his voice steady, but he can hardly even maintain the anger when there's no knife in his pocket, nothing to keep him grounded. When had he even started depending on that crappy gas station knife, anyway? The one he got fucking mugged for?

When he finds it he's going to get rid of it, he decides. He doesn't need to depend on anything. Not his knife. Not Roger. Not even Gordon.

At least Gordon hadn't barged into his room and started interrogating him.

"Oh, you're not my business now?" Roger's got that bare-teeth expression on, the pained one he gets when he's trying to restrain himself – and failing, miserably. The part of Mark that isn't hyperventilating is achingly guilty for upsetting him. (Not that it takes much to upset Roger, not that it's his fault, not that Roger even probably cares that much.) "Since when, Mark?"

He can't help it, though. He scrambles to his feet, voice climbing despite himself. "Since right now! Please just – leave me alone, I'm fine! Are you happy?"

"Are you?!" Roger chokes back a laugh, pushing his hair out of his eyes and approaching him again. Mark backs into the wall in alarm. Roger grabs him by the biceps and he fights back a groan at the dull flash of pain from his cracking scabs. "Well?"

"I don't have to be happy all the time! It's not my fucking job. Besides," he gasps, struggling to breathe. He wonders if Roger can tell he's suffocating. Roger is so close to him but he doesn't want to kiss him, for once, just to sprint as far from him and here as possible.

"You're imagining things. I'm fine."

He wishes it was true.

I wish I was dead.

That one might have been him, he isn't sure anymore.

"I don't know how you fucking thought I wasn't going to notice! Where's the camera, Mark?" He's on a roll now, bright red and teetering dangerously into "gonna cry" territory. Mark thinks his chest is caving in again, wonders how that's even possible when it was already in ruins. He hasn't seen Roger cry since Mimi died. "Paul called, he was worried about you, Collins is worried about you, Joanne hasn't seen you in months – Maureen thought you were doing drugs, I told her you weren't but are you? Because –"

Mark cuts him off in the middle of his rant, grabbing his hands and harshly tearing them away, shoving him. "Fucking hell, Roger, I said get out!"

Roger stumbles back a step, dumbstruck. Time freezes. Mark's racing heart is the only thing he can hear, blood rushing in his ears, trickling down his arms beneath his sweater.

It's really not sweater weather anymore.

"You know what – fuck it. I was just trying to help. Do what you want." Roger steps back towards the door with a dry, angry snort. When he turns to storm away at last, slamming the door in his wake, Mark sags against the wall and lets out a shaky breath into his trembling hands.

He's never, ever in his life yelled at Roger like that. Not when he had his tantrum and ran off across the country last year. Not even when he caught him stealing from his wallet, years ago, shaking and desperate for a high.

He stares down at his dirty socks, feeling sick. A strangled laugh tears from his throat.

The knife lies innocently at his feet.

He bends down to pick it up – God knows he's going to need it, now – and Roger's note falls out of his pocket and onto the floor, forgotten.