A/N: Just a short little thing I wrote. Blatantly movie-verse.
"I'd hate to see you pass up something that might be good for you," Mark tells him softly, eyes entreating him. "You'll only regret it."
Roger looks down, busies himself looking out the window and drinking coffee. He laughs once, a little bitterly. "I'll live," he assures Mark, seeing him fight to hide the hurt Roger's words provoke. It's not difficult, because the hurt quickly turns to anger, frustration, crushed hope… in a word, disgust. Roger has to struggle slightly to not physically react to that unfamiliar expression on Mark's face, because he's not sure he's ever seen it before. He's been reclusive nearly a year, Mark's been with him through months of withdrawals and countless relapses. Why, Roger wonders, should it be something as simple and as common as him refusing to leave the house that sets Mark off?
Regardless of his incomprehension of the situation, it only gets worse. Mark gets to his feet and adjusts his scarf, practically spitting on the way out the door, "Right."
The heavy metal door to the loft slams, and the sound feels like it's reverberating in the pit of Roger's stomach. It's when the feeling lingers that Roger recognizes it for guilt. Well, isn't that nice, Roger wonders a little darkly. Just a day of new emotions around here. Mark finally learns to hate me and I get guilt back.
The guilt only gets worse, because, sighing softly, he starts thinking about why he feels it. It's about last night, when Mimi and Mark and Angel and Collins had been standing there, their expressions ranging from challenging to hopeful, begging him to come back to real life, to the world they inhabit. He starts thinking about the fact that the guilt doesn't come from Mimi's bright, hopeful smile, or Mark staring up at him with that too-familiar look in his eyes that says he's bleeding inside. It's sure as hell not Collins or Angel, because much as he loves Collins and Angel seems like a nice girl, it's not Angel's well-meaning offer of support or Collins' frustrated, almost utterly defeated face haunting him now. It's the tension in Mimi's posture as she walks away in Angel's arms, Mark trying to hide his upset from Collins even as the bigger man pulls him into a supportive embrace, saying he's done all he can. Great, Roger thinks, even disgusted with himself now. All this thinking and all I've done is realized that I only care about people when I think they might give up on me. Mimi's smile and Mark's hurt blue eyes are the images stuck in his mind, but they don't sway him in the least. He only begins to think that he has to fix things when he envisions life without Mark; what he could have with Mimi.
Still, he muses, even if it's motivated by selfishness, maybe this is his chance to make things right? To stop pretending that every cell in his body hadn't been set afire by Mimi's kiss, that he hasn't heard Mark trying not to cry at night? He's not quite narcissistic enough to credit Mark's upset to himself alone, but if he's honest, he knows damn well he's a big part of it. It may not be because Mark is grieved for him personally, but because Roger is a microcosm of the state of Mark's life at large at the moment. Mark pours ev