Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playing with the characters.
"Did he get home last night?"
Roger looked up from the bowl he was scrubbing, his eyes still bleary from sleep. "Who?" he asked. Roger was not a morning person. In fact Roger was not a person to be seen before noon, unless of course he hadn't yet been to bed. Then, as Collins could attest, he was a great deal of fun.
"Mark," Collins clarified. He had the impressive capacity to be fully awake before seven o'clock in the morning; Roger himself meant to crawl under the blankets and catch another five or six hours' rest before attempting anything complicated.
"Oh, yeah," Roger said. "He slept in my room." He dried out the bowl with his threadbare T-shirt.
Collins' coffee mug hit the table a bit too heavily. "In your room?"
"Yeah."
Collins shook his head. He inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly, and tried to remind himself that here was Roger, and he liked Roger and didn't want to hurt him, and Mark was just a twit, and he—Collins—was officially opposed to violence against helpless creatures. "He have a nightmare?" Collins asked.
"Actually, um…" Roger grinned a grin with only one possible meaning, a silly look like a little puppy who'd managed to finally drop his crap on the sidewalk and not on the carpet.
Collins gritted his teeth. "Roger," he said, very slowly. "I… I have to… get to class. Early office hours." Collins drained his coffee cup, nearly choking himself but not daring to show it, and stood. "Tell Mark I want a word with him."
"What's wrong?" Roger asked. The puppy had regressed to old habits, and he wouldn't understand what he had done wrong. "Collins!" he half-called, half-whined, hot on his hells to the door.
Collins turned. He shook his head. "Roger, don't. Please. Just, if you trust me, stay away from Mark for a day or two. You can be his friend, you can kiss him, cuddle him, I don't care, but I want a word with him before he… before you…"
Roger interrupted, "It's all right. He told me, Collins."
"Told you?"
Roger nodded. "He told me that he overdosed and that you're his parole officer," he said. "And that's… that's… well it's unsettling," Roger said. He looked away. "It's unsettling after, you know. But I like this one," he asserted, looking up again. "He's clean now. And anyway, you don't get to tell me who to date! And I would never be stupid enough to become addicted. Not again," Roger added softly, blushing hard.
"I just don't want anything awful to happen to you."
"I can look after myself."
Collins sighed. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you can, Roger." But that doesn't mean you will…
---
Mark was having a spectacular day. After admitting everything to Roger, he had expected distance. He had expected Roger to stay away, expected an awful while of waiting and not knowing if they were yet a them.
Mark received something altogether else. In the morning, Roger woke him with a cup of coffee and walked him to work. Roger was there to walk Mark home when his shift ended, asking about his day and offering his jacket, since Mark seemed cold.
In fact, Mark reflected as he curled up on the couch, already missing Roger, being babied was quite nice. Roger acted as though Mark needed protection, and Mark liked that very much.
"Hey." Collins settled himself in a chair near the couch, curled up against the cold. "Mark, man, we need to talk."
Mark sat up. "Yeah?" he asked.
"There's a reason I asked you to stay away from Roger," Collins said. He had done both: asked Mark to stay away from Roger, asked Roger to stay away from Mark. Mark feared him and Roger respected him, it should have been enough. "You know what happens if I tell the police—"
"I'm clean!" Mark interrupted, half-frantic. He shook his head. "You can't, Collins, I'm clean. I haven't touched anything… I drank," he admitted. "I had a, a beer and some vodka, with you and Roger, that's all," he insisted. "I swear it, I swear to God, I haven't done anything illegal."
"What if I told you," Collins asked, weighing his words carefully, "that Roger Davis is only nineteen years old?"
The affect was instant: Mark leaned forward, his mouth agape and his eyes wide. "Nineteen?" he repeated. "I… I thought he was twenty-three!"
"He is twenty-three. Mentally, though, I'd guess about nineteen. Look, Mark, he's made his mistakes, I don't want him paying for yours, okay?"
"I'm clean," Mark insisted.
"You're a liar," Collins returned, anything kind drained from his tone. "Roger told me. He told me, Mark came clean. He was so impressed with you, Mark. He was so happy that you trusted him." Collins forced himself to stop, not because he didn't want to continue berating Mark—he did—but because there were tears gathering in his eyes. He had been around the first time and seen what happened to Roger. He didn't want to see that happen again. "You're a real son of a bitch, you know that?"
Mark shook his head. "No," he insisted. "If he knew--"
"If he knew the truth he could love you! But you don't love him, do you, Mark?"
"I do!"
"Then why are you lying to him?"
"He'd leave me--"
"He wouldn't leave you, he's in love with you! If you told him, he would only love you more. When you play someone, rule number one is know your mark. If Roger's your mark then you tell him the truth! He already thinks you're a poor, abused boy who didn't know any better!"
Mark bit his lip. It was how he had thought, too, each time he remembered Marcus's sweetness, the gentle caresses as he forgave Mark's inability, and finally the gentle, halting suggesting, the dropped hint that there was something that could help…
"It doesn't matter," Mark whispered. He had never meant for it to get out of hand. It was behind him now, and that was it. Never look back.
"And if you're HIV-positive?"
"What?"
Both men turned. Standing in the doorway, looking confused and on the brink of hurt, was Roger.
To be continued!
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