Further Notes and Disclaimers in Prologue.

Wow, this is almost it. Just the epilogue left after this, guys! I love you all, everyone who's been reviewing and stuff...it's just a neat feeling inside, thinking that there are that many people out there who respect this. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, everyone who beta-ed, or tried to help me out when I wrote my way into a corner. In no particular order, these people are: Mel, Sandy, Bri, Ayano, Tiara, Emily, Amy, Nikki, Nicole, Alison, Taliba, Brian, and all of RML, for listening to my ramble ceaselessly about how meaningless, boring, and bothersome this story was.

control
part 4: you play doctor, but i've lost patience

He hadn't realized that he was shouting.

The notion sounded silly as it reverberated around his head. Hadn't realized. It made it seem as though he were calm, half sane even. Too busy, maybe, too busy doing other things to take a moment to realize that he was screaming.

Too busy ruining his best friend's life.

"No...no...NO! Mark are you fucking nuts?! Do you realize...NO! No, you don't, you can't, we can't! We can't do this, Mark and you know it, you know it and you just won't admit it to me, to yourself, that we can't can't can't cannot do this! It's crazy, it's just insane and impossible and wrong! It's wrong, and that's all there is to it!" Mark had backed away from him, tears threatening again amidst the confusion and bewilderment and anguish. Roger jumped up, and he stood slowly, following his musician.

"H-how is it wrong? How, Roger?" he whispered, his voice gaining strength with every word. "How is it wrong, because I feel it? Because you despise me? Because you can't stand the idea of your masculinity being threatened by someone's emotions?!" He knew he should have resisted from the moment that Roger laid hands on him, but he wouldn't...couldn't pull away.

"Don't you see it, Mark?!" His hands closed around Mark's shoulders, shaking him quickly. "Don't you see how wrong it is? How it will ruin everything?"

"Roger, you're hurting..." He ignored Mark, lifting him from the ground, his hands shaking with fear and blind panic.

"It will ruin us, Mark! Ruin us!" He shook the filmmaker again, a frightened gasp escaping from his mouth. "It will ruin everything we have, everything we worked for, everything I worked for!! We can't throw everything away just for some stupid infatuation! We can't do that, Mark!" Another shake, another distraught cry from Mark.

"Roger! Stop!" he begged.

"You're so naive, Mark!" he continued, unabated. "You're so fucking naive that you don't even realize...you don't even know that...you can't imagine what it's like! You can't! You think everything will be okay, you just tell me that you love me and everything resolves itself, right?" Another shake. "Right?!" Another, and Mark sobbed, letting the tears start to emerge again.

"Let me go! Please, Roger, let go!"

"Things aren't that easy, Mark! Things don't tie up that neatly, we can't follow our fucking hearts because it leads to trouble!" Another shake. "Trouble, Mark, trouble for me and certainly trouble for you!" That was it. That was it, he couldn't take it anymore, he couldn't put up with any of Roger's shit. Mark hit that breaking point and hard. He rocked backward violently, putting all of his weight into it and pulling from Roger's grasp. It threw his antagonist off, pitching Roger backwards suddenly, in a move that would be comical if the situation had been less tense.

"I've fucking HAD IT with you, Roger!" Mark bellowed at the top of his voice, pushing away the tears and pain and longing for the anger and frustration. Caught off guard again, Roger blinked at him dully. Mark took the opening and backhanded the guitarist. Hard. "You're a fucking bastard!! You pull me through hoops and you lead me on and you attack me and scream at me and use me and then you act as though you do care for me and you want me to be okay! You make me do these things..." He glared, tears starting to drain from his flooding eyes, his face flushed scarlet. His hands shook and trembled, and Roger gazed at him, almost frightened. No, no, he couldn't do that again, look so innocent and gorgeous, he couldn't be the Roger that Mark had fallen in love with, no...no, he couldn't yell at his Roger like that...couldn't....

"You...god, you made me self-destructive and then you love me again and I want to just surrender to you, be with you again.... Roger, you just don't understand...I love you so much...and you use me over and over again, you toy with me and treat me like shit and I take it! I fucking take it from you, let you use me because I think it will make you love me! That's all I want, that's all I've ever wanted! You could make me so happy, Roger!" At this point he was almost pleading, hating every word that slipped from his tongue, hating the confusion on Roger's face, hating his emotions, his pathetic confessions, but mostly hating himself. "You could make me so happy, and you don't even realize it...you don't realize that just by...by being with me, by sitting with me, by having a decent conversation with me I could be so happy and you could be the cause, Roger! You could be the one who makes me so happy...and I used to...I used to think that you wanted to do that...that you wanted to make me happy.

"Back before Mimi died...right before she died and right after you were so kind to me, Roger, so sweet. We started to take care of each other again, just like we used to. It was what I wanted, all I really wanted. I didn't care if you loved me, just that we could be so close again and then you go and you...you do this! You treat me so badly and I take it and I hurt myself! Over and over again to make up for it, to...to show you...that I could...that I could...take care of m-myself...I can, Roger, but I don't want to! I want you, Roger! I want you to take care of me! I want to take care of you! I want to sit there and remind you to take your AZT and take you out to lunch and sit with you and talk to you and listen to you play and write and help and...and..." He trailed off dully. The tears of his eyes were reflected in Roger's. He couldn't yell at Roger like this.... *He has no problem yelling at you when you cry...* *But...but he's not in love with me...he doesn't care for me like I do him...it's different...*

He crouched down to where Roger was sprawled on the floor, kneeled in front of his musician and reached out, touching his knee. "I'm in love with you, Roger. I can't take that back." Roger didn't pull away from Mark's touch, he just sat there, absorbing everything that had been said, everything that had happened in the months following Mimi's death. It was so much, so much had happened, had evolved.... Mark loved him...and he loved Mark...more than anything, more than he had ever loved anything in his entire life...he had always loved Mark, and now that he realized it...now that he admitted it to himself, admitted it to Mark.... He just had to tell him. He had to tell him, and explain why. Why they couldn't.

"I love you too, Mark. I do." The words sounded foreign to him. He had told Mark that he loved the filmmaker dozens...hundreds of times, probably, in their long friendship. But this...this wasn't the love of best friends...brothers...this was something new, something deeper, something deeper than what he had with April...with Mimi.... Mark sat there, frozen, a light shining through his tears, through his pain and shimmering back at Roger, growing brighter and brighter as the words sunk into Mark's mind. "I love you, and that's why I can't do this to you!" The light began to fade, slowly. "You understand that, you have to, this will ruin everything I've made for myself and..." He stopped as Mark's eyes went out as quickly as they had flickered to life. He shoved away from Roger and stood up.

"That's...what this is all...about?" Mark's voice was low and his eyes were level with the ground.

"What?"

"You and your...your reputation...that's what..." Roger reached out to touch his shoulder.

"Exactly! Mark, you have to understand! That was the whole reason that I was so horrible...that was why I did those things, because I knew this couldn't happen, and I didn't want you to know, to feel badly when I knew that nothing could happen, so I hid it and now you know, so it's okay..."

"It's okay?!" Mark's head snapped up, a trail of fire in its wake. "It's okay?! Like HELL it's okay! You little bastard! I pour my fucking heart out to you and you...you..." Roger jumped up after him, looking baffled. Without thinking about it, Mark backhanded him again. "If you love your fucking reputation more than me...God, find another life to ruin, you son of a bitch, because we're through. Love...roommates...friendship...everything." He stomped angrily to his room and slammed the door before Roger could react.

Roger watched, mystified, and sunk into the couch, his fingers pressed to the trickle of blood dripping from his nose. He was right...all he could think about...was that he had been right the entire time. It had ruined them...he had lost his Mark, his world.... He slammed his fist into the couch and yelled, shouted at the top of his lungs. He had lost his Mark and he had lost his love and without those things...without Mark...who was he? He was...nothing.

"You certainly fucked this up!" He was surprised to discover that the harsh words were coming from his own mouth.

"It's not my fault!" he yelled. "It's not! How could I help it?! This is my life we're talking about here!"

"My life? My life?! Christ, this isn't just my life anymore it's his too!! I'm in love with him...I'm fucking in love with a guy who's supposed to be my best friend, and I treat him like shit, I drag him through hell and high water, I belittle him, I make him feel like crap, think that he's worthless and...and...god, I fucking made him cut himself over my damn neglect..."

"I love him...."

"THEN WHY DON'T I START ACTING LIKE IT!!" He slammed his fist into the wall, hard. "God I'm such a fucking bastard, I can't believe I did that to him...do that to him! I love him and I hate him sometimes, god I'm such a prick, such a fucking jerk!! I hate myself, I hate myself for doing this to him...to us! I'm losing him...I've lost him already because...because..." Roger sunk into the couch and buried his face in his hands. A back part of his mind was going wild over the fact that he had just had a violent argument with himself aloud. He ignored it and tried to concentrate at the problem at hand, tried and failed miserably, Mark's words repeating over and over in his head like a dull funeral mantra. "Find another life to ruin...we're through...love...roommates...friendship...everything...we're through...love...we're through..." He couldn't take it. He needed Mark, he knew he did, knew in his heart that he couldn't really get by on his own. That he didn't want to get by on his own.

"I can do this..." he whispered. The fog was pulling out, slowly...slowly.... It was easy. One inch at a time, he could do it. First, go over to the door. Then knock, then talk to Mark. Apologize. Hold him. Cry. Promise him love and companionship, and then...deliver. "I can do this," he said with more certainty. It didn't matter any more, any of it. Not his career, not his reputation. He could deal with that later, much later. He needed Mark. He needed him, despite what he had implied earlier, despite the way he had hollered and protested all those weeks ago. Mark was like a lifeline to him, a saline drip of pure emotion and love and comfort, even if the filmmaker didn't know it. Argue, yes. Ignore each other, maybe. Cut off all ties...he would kill himself.

He stood absently, starting towards Mark's bedroom door. He could do this. He could, it was simple. Baby steps, inch by inch, crawling along the road to forgiveness. He knocked once on the door. No reply. Taking a deep breath, he rapped a second time.

"Leave me the fuck alone, Roger!" Mark bellowed. Roger froze. Mark's voice was thick and ragged. He was crying, and hard from the sound of it. Mark had never cried before Mimi's death, never fell so easily to emotion until the neglect and abuse came into play. His stomach lurched as his conscience quickly reminded him that he was the one causing Mark's tears. He breathed deeply again and tried his best to reply evenly.

"Mark, I'm sorry!" he insisted. "We need to talk. I need to...I need to apologize." Silence. "Mark! Dammit, I'm trying here and..."

"Like hell you're trying!!" Roger wasn't sure he had ever heard Mark scream so much in one day. His voice sounded much less like the timid, naïve boy of the pa

...really so outlandish, roger? there have to be good people left in the world. i think you're a good person at heart...

st, so much more like a hardened, disheartened

...find another life to ruin...we're through...

old man. He loved that spark in Mark's eyes, his voice, his demeanor, that childlike glow of innocence. Mark was special he had decided one afternoon, after watching the filmmaker feed pigeons a year after moving into the loft. He was special because his innocence was never lost. *Never lost, that is,* he thought dully, *until now...*

"I am trying, Mark!" he shouted. "I'm trying because I love you and I want this to...I want you to...I want to feel..." He reached for the doorknob. Locked. He had expected as much. "Mark, let me in!"

"NO!"

"Mark!" It was useless. Mark didn't want to see him. A thought flashed through his mind, and consumed it, raging like wild fire, causing his hands to beat on the door with all his strength before he was fully cognizant of the reason behind it. Mark was in there alone...Mark didn't want him to come in...because Mark was.... "Open the door, open the door, Jesus Christ, Mark, please open the door!"

"I said to leave me alone and I meant it, Roger! Get the fuck out of this building and just leave me..." The door shuddered as Roger threw his weight against it, silently thanking Benny for never taking the time to bring the building up to code. The wooden molding holding in the hinges lurched. Roger tried it again. "Stop it! Stop it, leave me alone, get out of here! Get the fuck away from me, you bastard, just leave me..." There was desperation in his voice now, blind panic, fear pain longing pleading begging scolding dying... "...ALONE! Go AWAY don't do this, Roger, don't come in here, you can't, Roger, you can't you can't you can't..." The wood twisted and bent and moaned and sobbed and Roger couldn't distinguish between those cries and those of his anguished Mark. As the hinges finally gave way, he heard one last moan from the filmmaker, his name, his name almost whispered as he barged in and froze.

The picture in his head was much darker, much more painful. He saw his dear one lying on the bed, arms prone, blood seeping into the mattress, sweat and blood and pain and fear dripping down his brow, blonde hair stained, white soul stained. It was worse, even though it was better, because some part of his head had still held that the image was an exaggeration, that it would be so much cleaner and neater, that it may have not even happened. He couldn't help but stare, tendrils of startling red flowing from all angles, a shimmering sheen of sweat gracing his angelic face, arms torn into, raped by the shaking fingers and gleaming razor.

They stared at each other for a long moment. The silence hit them like a tidalwave, rushing around them ceaselessly. Roger's fingers slowly uncurled, as if reaching, reaching to save Mark...but stopped as his soaked in the image before him.

"I thought you said you'd stop..." He wanted it to be angrysad, or at least angrymad, but it came out frightenedbetrayed, a small, whispered whisp of air. Those eyes dug into him from the end of the bed. The blood was running, pooling on the floor, soaking into clothing and bedspread.

"I thought you said you'd take care of me..." More sadangry than angrysad, it was equally low in voice, but spoke volumes more. Betrayal betrayal betrayal...

"W-what?" Roger stammered. That hadn't come up, each screaming word was branded into his mind, sizzling still from the sting, and they had not spoken of taking care of each other in that argument, not once...

"At Mimi's funeral. Before. You promised me. I cried and you promised me, Roger. I knew not to accept them all, all your promises for fact, I knew that, but you promised." That childlike quality came back to his speech as he slung accusations at Roger while his life force seeped into his jeans and pillow. The images slowly came back to the musician, sinking back into his brain. "I couldn't get that tie done, my hands were shaking and you came over to me and you tied it and I told you I was scared and I cried and you held me then, and told me!" He was right. Mimi's mother insisted on the church, and Mark had helped him find a suit and helped him dress and prepare and remember things, and then just snapped, his tie drifting to the ground, his bones shuddering with grief and loss, blubbering about fingers and freezing and memory, and Roger had walked over and tied it for him and everything clicked. In that moment, everything clicked.

"I'm scared."

"I know you are. I am too."

"I can't take this anymore, Roger...I can't...."

"You think I don't know that?"

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry! I..."

"Sssh. Don't cry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."

"When Collins goes back...back to Cambridge...we'll be alone. Again."

"I know."

"I don't want to be alone. I'm so scared, Roger..."

"We won't be alone. We'll be together. We'll have each other. Always."

"Always?"

"Always. We'll take care of each other, Mark. I promise you that."

It was perfect, a perfect memory of his valiant little filmmaker, something that happened so rarely up to that moment. Mark had come out of his shell for a stunning moment, and they had admitted their fears to each other. Mark had trusted him, trusted him enough to cry on his shoulder. He so rarely connected, so rarely even attempted...Roger had thanked the god whose very existence he doubted, thanked him for allowing the musician to be there for his Mark. But...he had promised. And he had never followed through. And Mark...Mark was right.

"Why, Mark?" he shivered. "Why?! Why should you do this to yourself, why?"

"Why shouldn't I, Roger?" he whispered, tears streaming down his face, so pale, so ashen, so dead, mixing with blood and sweat and fear and regret. "Why shouldn't I do this?"

It was so simple. He didn't understand why it took the whole length of that endless silence to come to him. It was the essence of this fight...of this whole issue.

"Because I love you, Mark." His voice had stayed so calm, he hadn't even realized he had said it out loud, his mind still berating him for standing in that horrid silence for so long, trying to grapple with a reason. "Because you are my life, Mark. Because I don't want you to hurt. Because I want to protect you. Because I was wrong, and I want you to be there to tell me that, to punish me. Because I will never, ever forgive myself for this." Another silence filled the room, stopping it up quickly with a mucky sort of soundlessness, a stillness that was akin to wading through cement. In sickeningslowmotion the razor slipped and in whirringrealtime, Roger fell to his knees and found himself at Mark's feet, just as the filmmaker collapsed into a heap of blood and tears and cries and pain.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorryI'm sorryI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry..." Over and over until the words blended together and sounded foreign and wrong to his ears. He held his sobbing Mark, the cries muffling any real words from escaping. "You're bleeding, oh, Mark, you're bleeding so much..." They lay on the floor in that heap, holding each other until the crying stopped and the blood had hardened to a crimson goo that covered them both and the floor around them.

"I love you," Roger whispered into Mark's hair after the tears had finally subsided. "I do. I promise."

"Please help me, Roger." It was a whisper, and Mark was shaking again, shivering and shuddering, rubbing his devastated arms. "I need help, I do, I hurt...all over. I want to stop hurting. I need to, I can't take it anymore. You'll help me, won't you? Can't you?" Mark's eyes begged him for an answer, cried, told their own story of loss and betrayal and pain. He touched Mark's cheek, left a rust fingerprint on it, and kissed his tearsweatbloodpain covered forehead. Suddenly the paper folded neatly in his back pocket had the weight of the world and the volume of the oceans.

"I can. I can help you, I will help you." He sat up slowly, pulling Mark after him. "We'll clean you. And get you some fresh clothes. And I'll clean up and we can...we can try and help you." His eyes devoured the sight of the man in front of him, the fatigue and loss and emptiness. "No...no, I'll help and you can sleep. You're so tired...so tired, Mark, you should sleep..." He was vaguely aware that as he prattled on, Mark's arms had latched around his neck and his eyes were digging into Roger's, asking for permission, permission to...

Mark wasn't sure if it had exploded or imploded. His brain, that is. When their lips met, all he felt was the surge of...emotion? love? hope? trust? Whatever it was, it overpowered his sense, numbed his brain, and enveloped the two of them whole. Sensory override, as their bodies pressed together and their lips parted, and after what felt like two lifetimes of breathless clinging, the emotional backlash knocked them on their heels.

"I...I...I..." he stuttered helplessly, struggling to stand up again as Roger rushed to his side. "What...what was that?" Roger took his hand, smiling, really smiling, for the first time in months.

"That was love, silly," he whispered, helping Mark to his feet. "That was perfection and love." Mark slowly, slowly digested this, clutching at Roger as they limped towards the bathroom. *love...* He held Roger's hand tightly as his musician sat him down and picked up a washcloth.

"Love..." he said aloud. It made such perfect sense. He wondered why he had been stupid enough to ask, asking when the answer was right there in front of him, smiling at him and wiping crimson stains from his cheeks. It had been right there and he had missed it, his whole life, sitting right in front of him, helping and grinning and loving him right back. Silly. Roger had called him silly. He was. He had been for years. Suddenly, he was starting to see things right again.

It didn't take long to wipe the crimes of the past from Mark's body. Soon he was freshly showered and dressed, extra sweaters trapping in body heat, bundled in extra blankets and lying peacefully on the couch. Sleep didn't claim him, not yet. He lay instead with Roger's arms draped around him, his musician sitting on the floor, leaning on the couch. One of his hands lay nestled in Mark's, Mark tracing the lines with one stubby fingernail as he talked and talked and talked, about absolutely nothing.

"...really quiet and I was frightened for a minute, but he was really okay. But I was really so scared, I was so little, and I thought that he was going to fall. He thought that it was funny, but it really wasn't, I was so little...you have nice hands..." Roger laughed softly and brushed his fingers through Mark's damp hair.

"Baby, go to sleep...please..." he pleaded gently. "You need to sleep..." Mark was silent for the first time since he had gotten dressed. Circles and stars and swirls, his finger continued to trace idly around Roger's hand. A forlorn look danced through his eyes as he started to trace the lines of Roger's flesh. "Mark? What's wrong?"

"I don't want to sleep, Roger," he said softly. He didn't look up from the jagged twists and turns of his musician's skin. "I'm...I'm...I don't want to." He held the hand tighter, fingertips flowering into white prints on dark skin. "I don't need to." Roger kissed his forehead and murmured into his ear, soft insistences of love and devotion and promises of faith and love, the stars in the sky and the velvet expanse of galaxy to hang them from. Mark's eyelids drooped, but his fingers dug into Roger's palm.

"I'll be here when you wake up...I won't leave you...." Mark sighed, the relief evident in his troubled gaze. He lowered his head into Roger's hand, his pallid skin warming Roger's palm. "Just sleep, Mark, you do need it. You've been through a lot."

"I'm just afraid I'll wake up and it will all be a dream," he mumbled absently as he drifted off. Roger brushed through his hair again, pulling the blankets closer to Mark's throat.

"Never...never...this is real, Mark, and it will be just as real tomorrow. Close your eyes. Please?" His pleas fell on deaf ears, however. Mark was already sleeping soundly, his soft breaths caressing Roger's hand as his heartbeat steadied. Roger watched him for a long while, still half embracing him. It couldn't be that easy. It just couldn't, no one could go from...from......images flew through his mind, Mark screaming, Mark cutting, Mark bleeding all over the both of them, crying and crying and raging against him...something so horrible to this sleeping angel. It didn't happen like that, not even in movies, not even in fairytales. His angel could not stay an angel, and a part of him that ached and cried and burned knew that. He knew, deep down, that his Mark would bend and flip and twist before the week was through and more pain and tears would follow. They needed to end this hurt, find some way...

Again, the slip of paper seemed to grow and grow in his pocket, achieve enough mass to almost rock him back from Mark's grasp. "I want you to call this woman." That's what Collins had said, call her and she could help, she could help them. He slipped his arms away from Mark and his lips slid over the filmmaker's. He stood slowly, the number weighing more and more the closer he got to the phone. It was lead, pure lead, as were his fingers as he dialed. One ring. Two. *It's late.* Three. Four. *Or early.* Five. *Or...

"I said, hello..."

"Oh! Oh!" he stuttered. "Oh...I'm...um...hi. I'm...my friend..." There was a soft sort of polite laughter from the other end. He got the impression that she had waited up for him.

"You're Collins' friend, Mark, right?"

"Roger...actually..." he said dully. "I'm calling about Mark.... Um...Collins said you could help him...and...um..."

"Roger, why don't you take down this address, and after you do, tell me about your friend..."


Concluded in Epilogue...
Comments to kait@frowl.org.