Roger woke far too early, glancing to the clock briefly through the darkness and noting that it was almost 5 AM, and still dark out. He pushed himself quickly out of bed – quickly enough that it woke Mark, who opened his eyes and blinked at him sleepily.
"You alright?"
"Fine," Roger said shortly, and gave him a smile for reassurance. He didn't want Mark to get up now – one of them ought to be getting a good night's sleep, at least. "Go back to sleep."
Mark frowned at him for a moment before dropping his head back onto the pillow and Roger walked out of the bedroom quickly. He just barely made it to the toilet and knelt over it as his stomach muscles spasmed and forced out what little he'd eaten yesterday. When he was done, he spat into the toilet, stood up slowly, and flushed it, taking several deep breaths to settle himself. At least he hadn't really woken Mark, at least Mark hadn't come to make sure he was really okay. Mark had been losing enough sleep over him lately.
He stepped to the sink, grabbed his toothbrush and toothpaste, and started furiously brushing his teeth to get the taste of acid out of his mouth. It didn't help much, and he gave up after a minute, all but slamming the toothbrush onto the edge of the sink and stepping out of the bathroom with a sigh.
The answering machine blinked at him balefully, a single point of red light in the darkness of the main room, and Roger wrinkled his nose. Someone had called at three in the morning earlier, and he and Mark had just let it ring. Probably Maureen from LA – she tended to forget the time difference. He let it be, decided to let Mark listen to it and call her back, as he always did. Much as Roger liked Maureen, he was too tired to deal with her any time soon.
He was too tired to deal with much of anything lately.
Roger rubbed at his arms, trying to bring some warmth to them. He'd worn a sweater and a pair of sweats to bed, and he still felt like he was freezing. Well, perhaps because it was freezing in the unheated loft in February, but it didn't bother Mark as much as it did him. Then again, Mark wasn't as thin as he wasn't now. Mark didn't look like he'd shatter with the slightest passing breeze. Roger did. He wasn't fooling himself, not after this long coming to terms with it, and dying came as no surprise to him. Maybe not tomorrow, but not all that far off either.
For a moment he stood there, in the middle of the darkened loft, just looking around, and then walked to one of the closets across the room, the one they kept piled with old junk they never used anymore. He spent a couple minutes searching through it, doing his best not to make enough noise to wake Mark again, and finally found what he was looking for, an old tape recorder Maureen had left behind when she left. They never had any use for it, but they'd never bothered to get rid of it either. Roger had found a use for it.
He sat down on the couch, and glanced quickly to the door to the bedroom. Still dark, still quiet. As long as he was careful, he wouldn't wake Mark. He pulled his feet up on the couch and tucked them underneath him, found that uncomfortable and shifted once more, and simply sat with the tape recorder resting on his lap, leaning over it slightly. Flipping open the tape recorder, he found an old tape in it with something scribbled on the label in Maureen's indecipherable handwriting. She wouldn't miss it. Roger rewound the tape to the beginning, then pressed record.
"Hey, um... Hey, Mark. I hope this is working, because I'm not going to try to do this twice. I don't... think I could." He did his best to speak quietly, just loud enough for the recorder to pick him up without his voice carrying all that far, to Mark still in bed.
"So, I just wanted to... to tell you a few things before I... can't anymore. You know. So you won't forget it." He swallowed. This shouldn't be quite so difficult. ...No, who was he kidding? It should be exactly this difficult, because while he wasn't fooling himself about death, he kept trying not to think about how little time he had left with Mark, and every time he was reminded of it, it was a knife to his heart. But this was necessary, however much it hurt.
"I'd write it down, but that's kind of stupid, and I think I'd probably end up burning it or something. This is easier, if you're going to ever actually get it.
"I... I just... You've always been my best friend. You know that, it's just... You've done a lot of things for me that you never had to, that you shouldn't have had to, and I never really thanked you for that. So... thank you, Mark. For not... giving up, I guess. You're a better person than I ever could be. When I'm... When I'm not around anymore, don't just shut down, okay? Talk to Collins, or Maureen and Joanne, or someone, just don't... Don't shut people out. I know you do that when shit happens, and... just don't. If you've got to move out of the loft to deal, if you've got to get Collins to move in or... I don't know, get rid of my stuff or something, do it. I'm not kidding.
"And I... I don't even know what else to tell you right now. Didn't really think this through. But... I love you. You're–"
"Roger?"
Roger jumped and quickly hit the stop button, tucking the recorder behind his back as he looked up at Mark, standing in the doorway of the bedroom. "Yeah?"
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah," he said, hoping his tone was reassuring. He shoved the tape recorder down between the couch cushions. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Okay..." Mark said slowly, like he wasn't sure whether or not to believe him. He looked kind of fragile in the darkness – not nearly as much as Roger, but worn. He'd been so busy taking care of Roger, he hadn't given any thought at all to taking care of himself. "You coming back to bed, or...?"
"I'm coming." Roger pushed himself off the couch and went to meet Mark in the doorway, wrapping an arm around his waist and kissing his temple. His free hand went up to run through Mark's hair, making already messy hair stick up wildly. He watched Mark for a moment, eyes flickering over the contours of his face like he had to worry about forgetting it, like he was the one going to be left behind when all this ended. The moment ended, and he pulled himself away from such thoughts, pulling Mark gently into their room, and back to bed.
Mark was shaking a little as he came in the door, the faint sense of nausea in the pit of his stomach. His eyes were sore and reddened, though he didn't think he could cry any more at this point, and all he could feel beneath the numbness was a deep, aching emptiness. Even knowing it was coming, even with so much time to get used to the idea, now that Roger was actually gone, he felt like the world would never be right again. Roger was gone, and nothing would fill the hole.
He wanted to curl up in their bed and stay there forever. He wanted to lay there until he disappeared, or the world did, until he wouldn't have to face it anymore, until he wouldn't have to face life without Roger. Knowing he couldn't do that, he sank slowly onto the couch, and resisted the temptation to draw his knees up to his chest and just curl up there and sob. Part of that, no doubt, was only because he'd worn himself out crying before.
It took him a while to notice he felt something hard between the couch cushions, and he only bothered finding out what it was because it was poking him uncomfortably. He pulled it out, and shook his head slowly when he saw what it was. A tape recorder. God knew how long that had been there...
He started to set it on the coffee table, but something stopped him. Mark stared at it for a moment, and then sat it on the couch beside him, pressed rewind and waited until he heard the tape click, and after a moment's hesitation, pressed play.
"Hey, um... Hey, Mark. I hope this is working..."