A/N:

This is Mark and Roger FRIENDSHIP , just I see their friendship as ridiculously deep. I think Roger's death would be the most devastating for Mark and believe you me, this has been hell to write. So ,you are warned: TISSUES ARE REQUIRED

I apologize now for what I'm doing to poor Mark. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, I think. But, he has to suffer a little bit more. And trust me, these three chapters are NOTHING compared to what I've planned in the next chapter or so. I was gonna do 4 chapters and an epilogue. Now It's gonna be 5 and an epilogue because what I'm doing to Mark will take two chapters to really work.

Oh, and I'm starting to think that I might be borrowing some stuff from Anthony Rapp's book "Without You" especially about needing to be there when some one close dies. It's unconscious, and I don't remember exact phrases (and my book is somewhere in box right now) but if it strikes you as something from the book, I apologize in advance.

Anyway, don't own.

XXX

Mark didn't know what he hated more; the silence of Roger sleeping , or the hacking coughs when he was awake. The coughs were Mark's sure sign that Roger was still alive, but they also were a reminder that Roger was in pain. And would have to remain in pain because he was too stubborn to go the hospital.

He still remembered that argument as if it were yesterday, when in fact it had been two years ago.

They've just finished burying Collins. They are celebrating his life as they do best: drinks and partying at the Life Cafe. It's going on midnight when Maureen stumbles out the door, Joanne helping her along. Benny had been gone for a while and people are leaving. The less than thrilled host is glaring at the remaining patrons: A slightly tipsy artist in the back corner who is trying very hard to 'woo' the pretty young model seated across from him. A considerably drunk older gentleman is hitting on the only server. And the boho-boys, who are in a heated discussion.

"I don't wanna go like that." Roger muses. He's had a few but is still relatively with it.

"What'd ya mean 'like that'" Mark hasn't had any since his first one. He's been too busy filming and reminiscing about Collins to order another.

"In a hospital. Those tubes and such." Roger shudders.

"Those 'tubes and such' made it so he went much more peacefully. He'd have been in massive amounts of pain if it weren't for such modern devices."

"Who the fuck cares?Collins didn't want that either. In fact, if he hadn't collapsed in front of 25 students over there in Long Island, he wouldn't have been carted off in an ambulance. And he wouldn't have been shipped back to the shitty little AIDS ward of an even shittier little hospital." Roger slurs out. Normally, Mark would automatically discredit anything Roger said once he gets to the slurring stage but just because it's garbled doesn't make it any less a valid point. "Promise me, something, Mark."

"Whatever you want, man." Mark is distracted by the host getting all up in the face of the older man who has gone one step too far with his waitress flirtations.

"Don't let me die in a hospital. I wanna fucking die in the loft. With you and Maureen and Joanne and even fucking Benny there. "

Mark drops the water glass he's been holding and it shatters. This distracts the host and Mark throws the $25 dollars he has on the table and drags Roger out.

When they are back in the loft, Roger turns to Mark again.

"Promise me, Mark. Promise me I won't die in an unfeeling hospital room."

"I...Rog..."

Roger's eyes meet Marks and Mark knows he can't deny Roger this.

"I promise."

And so, Mark was forced to sit up at night and listen to the hacks and shudders that came from the rock-star's room. Roger had gotten considerably stubborn that past week. Every time Mark so much as knocked on the door, he was greeted with a 'fuck off and let me die'. Even though Roger had been growing weaker, Mark was still a little scared of his friend. Roger had a tendency to find the strength to protest anything even at his weakest. But, Mark inhaled. It had been nearly a week since Roger had even stepped out to eat. Mark kept refilling a plastic pitcher of water whenever Roger fell into a restless sleep.

But after a week, Roger needed a shower. A bath. Anything. It was all Mark really could do to make sure his friend was truly comfortable. 'Comfortable'. The word shot shivers through Mark's small body. "Making them comfortable" was something hospices and the like offered. He took a deep breath then pushed open the door with his hips. The lock had been broken for years now and just at that moment, Mark was particularly grateful for said fact.

"Get out of here." Roger growled between coughing fits.

"No. You've been hulled up in here all week. You need a bath."

"I'd think my personal hygiene would be the least of your concerns." Roger was in rare form.

"Normally, yes. But you've had a fever and have been laying in your own germs for a week. I'd think..." Mark had to rethink what he was going to say. He meant to make a point about immune systems and such but in Roger's current state of pissed-off, perhaps it would have been in Mark's best interest to not test the waters too much.

"I'll survive." Biting sarcasm was Roger's current weapon of choice.

Mark geared up his strength and had the rock-star in his arms before there could pass another moment.

Roger struggled but in his weakened state Mark overpowered him and carried him to the bathroom. It was a bit of a struggle but they made it in one piece.

That of course did not mean Roger would necessarily make things easy.

"We're in the bathroom. That doesn't mean I'm going to take a shower."

"Bath then."

"Neither. We are going to sit here in silence until you realize that you're an asshole and let me go back to my room and let me get on with my dying."

That sentence snapped a switch in Mark, and he found a strength he didn't know he had. The size of the bathroom helped as Roger didn't have much space to flee.

"No, I'm not a fucking asshole. I've kept my word." Mark started to try to wrestle Roger out of his clothes and into the tub, and the whole time he was giving the rock-star a verbal beat down as well. "You get to die here, even though I have the 'pleasure' of listening to how much pain you're in and I don't even get the satisfaction of helping you through this. I get locked out of the room, told to 'fuck off and let you die'. Well, I'm not listening to you for once." Mark managed to get Roger's shirt off.

That's when he saw them. Dark spots. "K.S. Lesions" Mark whispered.

Roger's eyes were full of...Mark couldn't tell what exactly. Fear, grief- for both himself and Mark, and a weird relief that Mark finally knew were all mixed together in the turquoise.

"How..when'd the first one..." Mark sat back down on the edge of the tub, still holding Roger's shirt in one hand.

"About four months ago...there are more...lower."

Mark couldn't stop the strangled cry that escaped. These were the beginning of the end. He swallowed his emotions, though they weren't going to stay down. K.S. Lesions equaled Epidemic Kaposi Sarcoma. Which in HIV positive people, like Roger (who, for all they knew could have progressed to full blown AIDS- Mark was struggling to keep food on the table and doctors visits to tell them that the bad was getting worse seemed ridiculous) especially people like Roger who couldn't always afford their AZT all the time, and hadn't in at least a month, it was the turning point. Roger would likely be gone in the inside of two months. Couple that with whatever cold Roger had developed (Mark still wondered where it had come from...he'd been so careful when he went out to wash his hands like a million times and wipe down everything with rubbing alcohol), that was likely to turn worse, and two months would be a blessing.

Roger was overcome by another coughing fit that echoed in the bathroom.

Mark couldn't stop himself and he threw his arms around his best friend. Roger reciprocated the embrace and the two sat there for what seemed like days.

XXX

Roger got his wish. Maureen, Joanne, and even Benny showed up at the loft not long after that moment in the bathroom. They kept a nearly constant vigil, Joanne and Benny working from there as much as possible, leaving reluctantly when forced to do so.

For the first month or so, it was like old times. Or as much so as it could be.

The second month, things started to crumble around the filmmaker. Roger only could spend a few hours awake at a time before he drifted off into a restless slumber. To ease the pain some, Benny provided alcohol. He could have gotten his hand on some painkillers

(when your rich and married to one of the most powerful real-estate families in Westport, things like prescriptions are easy to come by)

but Roger had been adamant: no narcotics. According to him, drugs were the reason he was dying, and no amount of reasoning could convince him that painkillers were okay in that situation. Even pot was shunned but that was because coughing hurt.

But it wasn't just Roger's imminent death that was troubling Mark. It was how the rest were handling it. Maureen would enter the loft and burst into tears. Benny sat in stony silence with his sunglasses on. Joanne...well, she at least occasionally took care of Mark by treating him to dinner and forcing him to get out. But even she took to periods of melancholy.

And that left Mark to make the mood as light as was possible.

It was wearing on him, he realized, one day, sitting on the floor beside Roger who lay on the couch asleep. The few moments of sleep he gathered couldn't have totaled more than an hour or so a day. Two was even rarer. Three would be a bloody miracle. He just didn't want to miss anything Roger would need him for. Not that he didn't trust and love the others.

But, Mark had been there.

Mark had been there for April, the note (testing to prove the note was right and April had also infected him with KSHV that lead to the KS) , for the withdrawal. Benny had long since bailed, and Maureen was cheating on Mark up, down, and sideways. Mark felt...somehow, and he knew it was ridiculous and selfish, but that he was entitled to be there. To take care of Roger. To help him from this plane to the next. He didn't, however, always feel that Benny and Maureen -and by extension Joanne- deserved that chance. He was going to give it them, because his more rational side knew they were Roger's friends- well, Benny had been back in the boho-boys' good graces since just after Mimi had died- as well.

He didn't have time to muse on the various degrees of friendship much longer because Roger woke up at just that minute.

"Mark?" He called out, or rather choked out. This was his second bout with pneumonia and it was likely to be his last.

"Yeah, Rog."

"Just..."Roger's breathing was labored ; and Mark's breath caught in his throat. "I love you."

Mark sat in silence momentarily, trying to get his thoughts together. There was so much to say. He wanted to beg Roger to hold on. Joanne and Benny were out working, and Maureen (like normal, Mark thought) was nowhere to be found. He realized that asking Roger to hold on when it was obvious he was ready to let go was cruel.

"I know. I love you too." Mark drew blood biting his lip. He couldn't look Roger in the face, so instead he just gripped his hand, as Roger faded into unconsciousness again, listening to his friend's breathing become more and more labored. Though he normally sought silence, he wasn't prepared for the overpowering silence when Roger stopped breathing, that was only broken when Maureen slid open the loft door and let out a scream that could be heard clear to midtown. Mark wanted to scream too- scream, cry, go crazy- but what use was it? Roger was gone, and with him went Mark's sanity. He dropped the now stiff and quickly cooling hand of his best friend and ran out the loft. He wasn't sure he'd ever return there.

XXX

TBC- I'm evil but I honestly can hardly see,my eyes are so misty. So, I figured I'd stop there, and allow myself as well as my readers to some time to regroup. I'll try to have the following chapter up soon but I have to do some research first. And again, I state, this is almost nice compared to what I'm going for in chapters 4 and 5. Thank you all for reading this far.