GO AWAY, WRITER'S BLOCK. I'm trying to get myself back into writing; let's see whether this works.


Title: Geostationary Orbit
Fandom: Peep Show
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 780
Summary: Post-series seven. Mark has to adjust to living without Jeremy, or so he thinks.
Notes: Is this what one would call fix-it fic? I suppose in a sense it's break-it fic, because Mark Corrigan is not allowed to be happy.



It’s lovely to have Dobby here, but there’s something very frightening about living with someone he actually likes; it gives him a whole new array of fears to find space for in his mental filing cabinet of terror. He could fuck this up at any time, and he has a lot more to lose now than he did when he was living with Jeremy. Unhealthy though his cohabitation with Jeremy undoubtedly was, it was nice to have someone in his life who was safe, as a fixture if not as an influence. Mark never felt that Jeremy might walk out at any moment if he said the wrong thing; he certainly never feared it. Jeremy may have ruined his life, but at least he did it reliably. And now Mark is living with someone whose continued presence, although infinitely more desirable than Jeremy’s, is in no way guaranteed (he’s considered insuring their relationship by making her sign a twelve-month tenancy agreement, but he can’t help feeling that might not go over too well), and Jeremy is gone.

Or so he thinks.

-
There’s a creaking noise in the middle of the night, and for a moment Mark is convinced they’re being burgled before he remembers that Dobby’s roleplaying session overran. He turns on the light, reluctantly, so she’ll be able to see, and—

Jeremy is frozen in a half-stoop at the side of the bed.

Mark yelps in terror.

“Jesus, Mark,” Jeremy snaps, unfreezing immediately. “Did you have to do that? You scared the shit out of me!”

“I scared the shit out of you?” Mark demands. “Why were you by my bed?”

“Oh, right,” Jeremy says. He leans over to touch his index finger to Mark’s lips. “Go back to sleeeeep,” he says. “You’re having a dreeeeeam.”

“Jeremy,” Mark says, swatting his hand away, “do you honestly think my dreams are characterised by extended vowels? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Yes,” Jeremy says. “About that.”

There is a pause.

“Yes?” Mark prompts.

“The place I was staying.”

Of course. Mark was a fool to think any living arrangement with Super Hans could possibly have lasted. Putting him and Jeremy together was always going to end badly. There’s probably a smoking crater where Hans’s flat used to be.

A horrible thought occurs to him.

“Is Super Hans going to want to live here?”

“What?” Jeremy asks. “No. God, no.”

“Good,” Mark says. “Because, much though I hate proposing that we leave anyone to die on the street, I’m not sure that’s a situation that would leave us with any alternative.”

“Right,” Jeremy says. “That’s sort of why I’m here, actually. The dying-on-the-street thing.”

Mark eyes him uneasily. “You... killed Super Hans?”

“There was a misunderstanding.”

Oh, Jesus, he actually has killed Super Hans. It was always a matter of time before Jeremy added manslaughter to his long list of extra-legal activities, and now Mark has to deal with the repercussions. Still, if Jeremy had to kill someone, at least it was only Super Hans.

Is that a terrible thing to think? Does that make Mark a terrible person? He wasn’t the actual murderer, at least, so he’s probably still winning in the two-man morality race.

“What sort of misunderstanding?” he asks. “With a knife, or...?”

“You know how I said I was living with Super Hans?” Jeremy asks. “Turns out he... disagreed, and we had a bit of a fight, and I had to sleep under a bridge. For a week. Or two. How long’s it been since I moved out?”

“Oh, my God, Jeremy!” Mark exclaims, sitting up. “You’ve been sleeping on the streets?”

“Well, not actually, obviously,” Jeremy says. “I’m just explaining what I would have had to do so you’ll understand when I tell you that’s why I’ve been sleeping under your bed.”

-
In the end, it’s Mark who ends the relationship. Jeremy’s back in his old room now (even though Mark feels he would have been well within his rights to evict him off the balcony), but whenever Dobby touches him Mark can’t stop thinking of Jeremy hiding under the bed, listening.

It’s a horrible break-up. It was always going to be, of course, but in the event it turns out to be even more horrible than Mark could have anticipated. Years from now, this is going to claw at his stomach. Why the fuck couldn’t he have picked one of the many moments when they weren’t actually in the process of having sex?

God, he wishes Jeremy would stop smiling.