[For Roger] The Phantom of the Clinic

[queer_as_brian]

Brian had spent every night in the same place, hovering near the clinic, occasionally heading inside to watch Roger sleep. The few times Mark had seen him (when Mark himself hadn't been asleep, folded into uncomfortable-looking positions in one of the clinic chairs) the other man had thankfully left without a word, giving Brian a few minutes of

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[one__song]

Roger understood why depictions of jail always had that tally thing on the wall. In a place where time literally did not pass, it was easy to forget the timeline the rest of the word functioned on. Most mornings, when the drugs had completely worn off and his body ached and seemed to be tearing at the poorly-sewn seams, he couldn't tell you what day he'd been admitted, much less the current date. As time slipped past him, Roger feared that meant it was getting shorter, that soon days would cease to unfurl before him at all, and all he'd be left with was a warm, white light and a heap of sand where his life once was. His legacy - breakthrough as it might have been - was written about a relationship that had ended, and his new relationship warranted no song that anyone could relate to. Fuck, Roger wasn't sure he could relate to it. Unrequited love was way too... I-lost-my-dog-and-my-car-won't-start-and-I-loved-an-albino

[queer_as_brian]

As Roger struggled to breathe, Brian found himself holding his own breath. He let it out in a harsh sigh, taking a half-step toward the bed before stopping himself, watching Roger while all but poised for flight. Christ, he couldn't do this, it was too much, it was too real.

[one__song]

The footstep on the floor gave him pause, and his breathing ceased for a moment, gripped by the irrational and crippling fear of a man incapacitated to the point of being unable to defend himself if the situation arose. He could barely see the figure, masked in shadow, but there was still something about him. A kind of cold intrigue that seemed to radiate out from the tilt of his shoulders, the shape of his hair, the curve of his hips...

He knew who it was, then, and if he'd been breathing in the first place, he would have stopped then.

"Brian," he breathed, the sound made tri-tonal by the wheeze that gripped his chest and his throat. He hadn't meant for it to sound so... breathless, but he hadn't been breathing, and he hadn't been expecting Brian in the way that he'd wanted to badly to see those eyes, those hips, that chest

[queer_as_brian]

Spotted and recognized, flight was no longer an option. Brian took a deep breath and crossed the seemingly huge distance in a few steps, giving Roger a crooked smile as he looked down at him. "Hey, Rockstar," he said, voice disturbingly rough with emotion. He cleared it quietly, hoping the sound had gone unnoticed by Roger.