He remembers what Angel said a few years ago. "Times are shitty, but I'm pretty sure they can't get worse."
She was talking about New York. Roger has to take a deep breath and remember where they are. He has to remember that it's cold. Winter makes people desperate. They need money, so they can buy oil or pay for cold medicine or feed their kids. He tries to give the person the benefit of the doubt, and imagines it was a struggling father trying to provide for his children, or a woman who needed her AZT, or a homeless kid who hadn't eaten in days.
He tries not to think about the fact that it was probably a drug addict, just desperate for a fix.
The truth is, there's been a string of burglaries lately, and even though he didn't exactly see it coming, Roger's not terribly surprised.
The fucking windows are shattered, and the hot plate, his stereo and his guitar and his amplifier, and whatever heat they could keep in the place is gone now. This would have to happen the one fucking winter when they had enough money to pay the heating bill, wouldn't it?
Shit.
Mark's nowhere around. Roger hopes he's still out, and he hopes he's got his camera with him, because if that's been stolen too, Mark's going to be a mess. Hell, Roger's getting there himself, because it's just now sinking in that they took his god damned guitar.
Calm down. Somebody's grandma must have been sick, and she needs soup and bread. That must be why they would do this. Take our shit with no consideration at all. We're cold too, you know. He's shaken from his thoughts when the door to the loft opens, and he's startled by the realization that he doesn't really feel safe here anymore. He turns quickly, his hands clenched into fists, and sees that it's just Mark. He's forgotten to breathe.
"Roger? What happened?"
He tries to say that someone broke in, that some things are missing but other than that everything is alright, but when he actually speaks, he finds himself trying to explain about somebody's sick grandmother, someone who can't feed their kids, the girl who needs her AZT, and that's why the windows are busted and their stuff's gone. A whole bunch of babble that doesn't make any sense. He's confused and angry and afraid, and he wasn't even here when it happened. Shit, he sounds pathetic, like a kid waiting for his older brother to explain things to him, and when he realizes that that's not too far off, he gets annoyed with himself. He's lived in New York for years and he should be used to this kind of thing.
He clears his throat, and tries again. "They took the hot plate, and my stereo and my guitar and my amplifier. Do you have your camera?" Please tell me you have your camera. Don't let this be any worse than it already is.
"Yeah," Mark replies, patting his bag, his fingers searching for the familiar weight of his camera. "Roger, are you alright?"
"Fine, yeah."
"Were you here ... when -"
"No. I just got back a few minutes ago."
"I'm sorry about your guitar."
"Yeah."
They stand there for a few minutes, unsure of what to do, shivering and trying to shrink down into their jackets. Eventually Mark takes him by the elbow and leads him over to the couch, pulling him down and leaving his arm around Roger's shoulders. Roger's sure that Mark feels the same way he does now - afraid and unsafe, even though this is home. He's not showing it, though, but then again, Mark never does.
People don't generally come back to the places they've robbed. Roger knows this, but it's still not too comforting. "It's pretty freaky, isn't it." He didn't mean to say it aloud. Mark's nodding, murmuring his agreement.
"We should do something about the window." So they find some cardboard boxes and some duct tape, and Mark's got his camera while Roger sweeps up the broken glass, breaks the boxes down with an X-acto knife and uses his teeth to tear off long strips of tape, putting down layer after layer of tape around the edges of the cardboard. He thinks he's done okay sealing it up, considering that this was all they had to work with to keep the cold out of the loft. It would still be pretty stupid to turn the heat on, so they'll just have to pile the blankets on and huddle together until they can replace the glass.
Mark calls the police while Roger sits at the windowsill, his view obstructed by ugly brown corrugated cardboard. "I need to report a burglary," Mark is saying, "Someone broke into my apartment." He pauses. "No, we don't know when. Between seven and ten o'clock, I think."
Roger stops listening after a minute or so, and lets Mark get on with it, while he keeps staring out the window - or at the broken-down cardboard box. Whatever. He's vaguely aware of Mark asking him for the serial number on his stereo, but he doesn't know it. Whoever took it will probably file the number off anyway.
After a while, Mark hangs up, and says, "He said we should check out pawn shops - they're our best bet if we want to get our stuff back."
"I figured he'd say that."
"We can go look tomorrow before you go to work."
"Yeah, but you don't need to come. I'll go myself." He starts to light a cigarette, but he finds that his hands are shaking so much that he can't strike the match properly - either he doesn't do it hard enough or he does it too hard, breaking the match. He gives up, and they go to bed, but Roger can't sleep. He's too angry, too afraid, too cold. He's wired, he wants to punch a hole in the wall, he wants to scream. He wants to pick up his guitar and play something harsh and angry and stupid and brutal, something that isn't his style at all, but he remembers that his guitar is gone and he's probably not going to get it back.
He can't do anything constructive, and it's driving him insane.
If he bothered to really figure out the amount of time he's spent sitting at this windowsill ... well, what does it matter? The point is, he's spent a lot of time at this windowsill. He knows this view, right down to the flaws in the panes of glass. He knows that they're so old that the glass is thicker at the bottom than it is at the top. He likes knowing this, being so intimate with a space that these things that wouldn't be apparent to anyone else are as clear as day to him.
But now it's just ugly brown cardboard.
A/N: Pfft. "A few days." Oh well. I hope you enjoyed it, and again, many thanks for the reviews, alerts, favorites, and idle glances. I'm going to make a valiant attempt to write something happy next time, but I can promise nothing.