A snowflake drifts miserably down and lights on the tip of Mark's nose. He grimaces and reaches up with one gloved hand to brush it off.
It feels like his limbs weigh him down like dumbbells. He hates this. He hates everything about this, about himself. He'll never escape it. Not for as long as he lives here, anyways. Not as long as he doesn't even fucking have heat in his shitty apartment.
It's always worse, this time of year.
There's a deeper chill in the air that only he can feel, which makes his face a mask and his fingers tremble, and his voice shrivel up into nothing.
Roger hates the fall, but Mark hates the winter.
In fact, Mark and Roger are more similar than they often liked to admit, although it was obvious to anyone who had ever been alone with the two of them. They were each other's complements; and beyond that, they operated almost like one unit half of the time, Mark and then Roger and the Mark and then Roger, just getting things done, saying things that need to be said, an endless cycle in tandem. It was all so smooth and practiced.
It's like a dance with them, he dimly realizes.
It was, sort of, his only remaining secret. The winter weight he carried. Roger had to know, but nobody else… Mark didn't want to worry them.
He remembers how his mother had worried, and his sister, the first winter it had happened.
He remembers spending his entire adolescence in doctors' offices – in waiting rooms, in lines at the pharmacy picking up prescription after prescription.
He remembers a long line of very condescending people with degrees talking down to him over a clipboard, telling him rather than listening. That had been the worst of it. He'd finally stopped going, when he'd turned eighteen, left town and his prescription and never looked back.
(Roger had found out, though, and it was back to the pharmacy.
He can't decide if he's still petulant about that or if he's just grudgingly grateful.)
In the end, he's glad he's poor sometimes. Otherwise he might not have an excuse to ignore his mother's calls, ignore his doctor's calls, forget to pick up his prescription every couple of weeks.
We're trying to cut down on the phone bill.
I can't afford a visit this month.
I don't need them.
It goes on and on and on – and Roger just sighs and pats him on the back, or shoves him, depending on what the occasion calls for, and picks up the phone for him.
For someone who despised human contact, Roger sure was willing to play Mark's caretaker when he thought he needed to.
The inside of the building isn't much warmer than the street, but at least there's no wind knifing at him through his threadbare jacket. Mark grumbles curses under his breath and tries to rub the life back into his fingers as he climbs the stairs, sluggishly, one at a time. There are times that he likes living on the top floor, but there are others – every day, actually, at least at this time of year – that he resents the eight flights of stairs.
He can barely drag himself down them, let alone up. But it has to get done.
Mark is very, very used to doing things for the sake of getting them done, and this is no different.
He tells himself that, six flights up, with is lungs burning and his knuckles white on the freezing metal railing, legs leaden. Besides, Roger would kill him if he just curled up here and went to sleep.
He only knows that because he's done it before – but that's beside the point.
By the time he reaches the door he's more than happy to take a nap on the doormat. He manages to stumble two feet inside and directs himself to his mattress without pausing to lock it again. Roger looks up from his paper – or, at least, Mark thinks he does, but he doesn't turn to look and confirm it, groaning as he collapses into bed like it's the only real thing in the world.
There's a rustling, and then footsteps. He presses his face into the pillow and tries to succumb to the heavy buzzing in his head.
"Let me die," he groans as Roger hauls him back into a sitting position, slumping against him, refusing to hold up his own weight.
"Bad day?" Mark can tell without even looking that Roger is raising his eyebrow at him. He almost smiles at that, but in the end he just tucks his face into his neck and exhales loudly, nuzzling there like a cat.
Once upon a time he'd had some kind of dignity around his roommate, but at this point… well, it's just them, and Roger is arguably as pathetic as he is.
"Right," Roger sighs. His fingers are carding through Mark's hair, and the sensation makes him boneless, sinking into Roger's lap gratefully with an unintelligible mumble. He almost doesn't hear Roger's next question – he has to be prodded to respond. "Take your meds?"
His voice is gruff, but Mark knows he's more concerned than he wants to let on. He always is.
People have some weird misconception of Roger as some self-absorbed prick of an ex-junkie. Mark will never understand it. Roger worries and fusses over him more than his mother.
He is a prick, just not in the way everyone thinks.
Mark feels himself frowning guiltily. He doesn't open his eyes. "Did you?"
Roger smacks his arm. "Yes. For once. So you have to. Come on, Cohen."
It goes like this every day. If one of them does it, the other one has to – it's how they've been guilting each other into taking their fucking medication for over two years now, and as much as Mark loathes it, he knows Roger's got him twisted around his finger.
Missing his medication usually just means a headache… but if Roger misses his, he could die.
He starts to make a half-hearted excuse. "I just got home, though –"
Roger dumps him off his lap unceremoniously and stands over him, hands on his hips. "Do I have to go get the fucking bottle for you?" he demands, and Mark stares sheepishly up at him for a moment before nodding, feeling his lips curve up at the corners despite himself.
Throwing his hands up, Roger exits his bedroom huffily and goes to rummage loudly in the kitchen. Their pill bottles are side by side on top of the microwave, but Roger always insists that he drink – and eat – something with it, reminding him impatiently of the on-an-empty-stomach gag reflex that they both know he hasn't been able to kick yet.
His lips twitch again, and he realizes the heaviness in his limbs has disappeared. He sits up on his elbows cautiously and peers toward the kitchen, smiling bemusedly at Roger's savage attempts at making him a sandwich.
How would they ever get by, without each other?
Sometimes he thinks he'll never smile again, and then he comes home to Roger.
Sometimes he thinks Roger will never smile again, but then he'll say something inane and sarcastic and Roger will laugh and…
Well. This is his life.
"Hey, Rog," he calls, and Roger looks up from the mutilated pieces of jam-covered bread, still scowling. "It's Christmas this week."
"Yeah?" He snorts and looks down at his creation, attempting to fold it. "Aren't you Jewish?"
"Fuck off. What do you want?" Mark laughs, and wonders at the sound of it.
Roger's eyes gleam. Mark is groaning before he even says it.
"I want you to take your fucking pill."
"Oh, shut up –" He sighs, dramatically, and he holds out his hand mock-expectantly. "Am I ever going to get to eat that?"
This time of year will always roll around again, and it will always be hard.
But they'll muddle through. Together, as always.