Disclaimer: Characters belong to Showtime and CowLip. No money is being made off of this work.

Note: Happy Chanukah, and welcome to this story! For any other Yiddishists out there, I've decided that Ethan's violin-playing grandfather is his maternal grandfather, who was born to a Yiddish-speaking family in Poland before he moved to Berlin as a young man to get a job in the Berlin Philharmonic, as Ethan described to Justin. The grandfather married another camp survivor after the war and came to the U.S. sometime in the late 1940s to play with the New York Philharmonic. Most of the rest of the Yiddish-related material will be explained in the story itself.

The story is set very early in Season 3, around 2002. Enjoy it, and I'll see you at the end.

Sheygets

The first time that Justin Taylor had moved in with someone, he hadn't given it much thought. Brian had given him the run of the loft, a space in the closet and in the bed, and allowed him to cook whatever he wanted in the elegantly appointed kitchen on the restaurant-quality stove. It was only after he had abandoned the loft to move into Ethan Gold's tiny studio that Justin realized what a sweet deal he had given up. For one thing, there was his share of the rent. While half of not much was, well, not much, it was still more than he had paid at Brian's. For another thing, there was the telephone.

Brian had relied entirely on his cell, as had Justin. But Ethan still maintained a landline. Justin suspected that it was primarily for the look of the thing, as the phone blended in perfectly with the shabby-but-romantic look of Ethan's place. He had noticed it, allowed himself to swoon a little over the implications, and then had forgotten all about it in the heat of their nights together. He continued to use his cell, and gradually, Ethan's landline faded from his mind entirely. Until the day that Justin was home alone and the telephone rang.

Its first long chirp startled Justin and caused him to skitter his pencil all over a still life he was working on for class, ruining it completely. Annoyed, he glanced around the apartment, locating the offending device just as it rang again.

Now this was a problem. In the rush and excitement of moving in, neither Ethan nor Justin had thought to discuss the landline. In one sense, it belonged to Ethan, and Justin hesitated at the thought of answering someone else's phone. But in another sense, it belonged to the apartment, and the apartment was half Justin's now, and maybe the responsibility of answering the phone came with that.

The phone rang for a third time. Suddenly, the thought struck Justin that he didn't see an answering machine, and he didn't know whether or not the phone had voice mail. Even if it was Ethan's phone, maybe the polite thing to do would be to answer it and take a message. Justin picked up the cordless unit on the fourth ring.

"Hello, Ethan Gold's apartment," he said.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Just as Justin was about to hang up, an old woman's accented voice came through. "Who is this?"

"Justin Taylor. May I ask who's calling?" Exactly as his mother had taught him.

"This is Mrs. Fania Rosovsky," the old woman's voice said. "May I speak with Ethan, please?" She pronounced the name carefully, but it still came out as "Ee-san."

Justin scrambled for his pencil and a piece of scratch paper. "Ethan's not here right now, Mrs. Rosovsky. Can I take a message for him?"

"This is Ethan's number," Mrs. Rosovsky said, in a somewhat plaintive tone. "He is the one to answer it."

"He's in class right now, Mrs. Rosovsky," Justin replied. "If you want, I can take a message and give it to him when he gets home."

"Who are you? Ethan doesn't say anything about his new friends."

Justin was so pleased that Ethan used a word that Brian had refused that he forgot to think for a moment. "I'm Ethan's boyfriend," he said.

It only took an instant for the words to tumble out of his mouth, but in the silence that followed, Justin had ample time to regret it. He had no idea who this woman was, he realized, nor did he know what she thought of gay people. If she was anything like Justin's father --

"Boyfriend?" Mrs. Rosovsky said, sounding stunned. "Ethan's . . . boyfriend? He is a faygele? Oy, vey iz mir . . ." And she hung up.

Well. That had gone less than perfectly. But there was no taking it back now. As Brian might have said, the only way out was through. Justin dutifully wrote the name "Mrs. Fania Rosovsky" and the time of the call on his piece of scratch paper, along with the word "faygele" for future reference.

Wednesdays were Ethan's long days at school, beginning with a violin lesson at nine and ending with a lengthy seminar on the music of Stravinsky that Ethan always claimed gave him a headache. As always, he looked exhausted by the time he dragged himself in the door, though he brightened upon seeing Justin. Thinking that Ethan would be more receptive to his phone message if he were in a good mood, Justin advanced and kissed Ethan thoroughly as soon as Ethan had set Misha's case down.

"Mmm," Ethan said, chuckling low in his throat. "This is the kind of greeting I like." Another kiss led to a few minutes of groping, and by the time they pulled apart, Ethan seemed relaxed and refreshed.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," he said, then laughed. "I've always wanted to say that."

Justin laughed along, but even he could tell that it sounded forced. Ethan set down his backpack and smiled at him. "What's up?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. There's something . . ." Ethan waved his hands vaguely. "I don't know, you just seem . . . well, off. What happened? Did your dad call? Or . . . Brian?"

There was no avoiding it, especially with that opening. "No," Justin admitted, "but someone called for you. On the landline. I didn't know if you had voice mail, so I answered it." He picked up the piece of scratch paper on which he had written Mrs. Rosovsky's name, only then realizing that he had forgotten to take down her phone number. He handed the paper to Ethan, mustering his courage to ask, "By the way . . . what does the word 'faygele' mean?"

Ethan stared at the paper for several long minutes, his lips pressed together into a thin line. When he glanced up again, his eyes were remote. "It means fag," he said. "It also means that I have to call my grandparents, Dovid and Fania Rosovsky. Right now."

He crumpled the paper into a ball and dropped it on the couch. Without further ado, he marched over to the landline, picked the phone up, and dialed. After a moment, a bright, though somewhat strained, smile spread over his face.

"Hello, Bubbe?" he said. "It's Ethan."

He paused for a moment, listening. Justin held his breath. Slowly, Ethan's smile melted, to be replaced by annoyance.

"Bubbe," he said. "Bubbe, please. Bubbe . . . Bubbe, slow down. Can you put Zayde on -- Bubbe, you know I don't speak Yiddish . . . or Polish . . . English, please, Bubbe?"

He tossed Justin an irritated glance, though Justin could not tell if the irritation was at him or his grandmother, retreated into the bathroom, and shut the door.

Justin couldn't hear the details of the conversation, but he could follow the tone of Ethan's voice, alternating between irritation and what seemed to be genuine distress. At one point, Ethan sounded as if he might be about to start crying. Justin knocked on the bathroom door, on the theory that the boyfriend-ish thing to do was to try to comfort or support Ethan. But the only response that he got was a shout of "Go away!" followed by the thump of something, probably Ethan himself, moving in front of the door to bar it.

Well, at least he had made the effort. Justin wandered back through the little studio, at a loss for something to do. He picked up a pencil and began to sketch a quick study of Ethan's violin with a single red rose next to it as a peace offering. But halfway through, his hand began to shake, and he abandoned the sketch.

He glanced at his backpack where his cell phone was stored, but he couldn't think of anyone he could call. Brian was out of the question, and Justin and Michael hadn't been on good terms recently. Debbie was probably at work, and Daphne had her Women's Center meetings on Wednesday nights. Justin couldn't think of what to say to his mother, and anyway, it seemed babyish to call her when he was the one at fault.

The shadows lengthened, and Wolfram emerged from a corner and meowed to be fed. Justin obligingly poured some kibble into the cat bowl. Feeding the cat reminded him that it was getting towards dinnertime, which made him think that, whatever else came of the phone call, Ethan would probably be hungry afterwards, and getting dinner started was the least that Justin could do for him. He wandered over to the kitchenette, opened the cupboards and scowled. Midterms were coming up, and in the rush of studying, neither Ethan nor Justin had remembered to buy groceries recently. There were a few cans of beans, half a loaf of bread that was starting to grow penicillin, the tail end of a box of the health cereal that Ethan claimed to like even though Justin maintained that the box had more flavor, and a packet of ramen noodles in the back of the dish cabinet.

A look inside the fridge revealed some eggs and a bag of peas preserved in a chunk of ice in the back of the freezer. Well, it might not be jambalaya night, but then, Ethan wasn't a big fan of jambalaya anyway. Justin could work with what he had, and if it wasn't exactly gourmet, it would at least be something to eat. He found a battered saucepan, filled it with water, and set it on the stove to boil.

The conversation behind the bathroom door had died down to a low murmur. Justin supposed that that was a good sign -- no one seemed to be crying or shouting -- but he wondered how long it would go on. The water boiled, and Justin dumped the peas in, straight from the freezer bag, then cracked an egg into the water and swirled it with a fork. When that had cooked for a few minutes, he added the brick of ramen noodles and waited for them to soften. Then he tore open the flavor packet -- "Oriental" flavor, though Justin had never quite understood what that meant -- and stirred the powder in until the broth was brown and salty-smelling.

Justin ladled the soup into two bowls and set one at the table for himself. He picked up the other one, stuck a spoon in it, and tiptoed over to the bathroom door. He caught hushed fragments of conversation, and then a faint laugh from Ethan, and decided that it was safe to knock.

"Ethan?" he called. "Are you hungry? I made dinner. Just ramen, but it's hot, at least."

There was a sudden silence. Justin waited. Ethan did not yell at him or throw anything at the bathroom door, but neither did he give any indication that he wanted to see Justin. Justin pushed at the door and discovered that it was no longer blocked. He opened it just enough so that he could stick the bowl of ramen in and set it on the floor, then shut the door again and went to eat his own dinner.

Ethan did not emerge from the bathroom until after Justin had finished eating and had washed the dishes and put them away. He had just sat down with his art history textbook when the bathroom door creaked, and Ethan came out, carrying the phone in one hand and his untouched bowl of ramen in the other. He set the phone back in its cradle, and turned to Justin with an uncertain, apologetic look.

"It's gotten cold," he said, gesturing with the bowl of ramen. "And the broth has kind of congealed. Sorry. But thanks for thinking about it."

"We could heat it up again," Justin offered, but Ethan shook his head.

"I'm not hungry right now. Maybe I'll have this for breakfast tomorrow morning." Ethan wandered over to the refrigerator and put the ramen inside.

Justin smiled. "Be a nice break from that shit cereal you keep buying."

"Hey, I like that stuff."

Ethan stuck his tongue out at Justin, and Justin allowed himself to relax a little. "So . . . you're not mad?" he ventured. "Upset? Do you . . . "

"Need to talk?" Ethan finished. "I don't know. Maybe. But I'm not mad at you. Turns out you're my own personal sheygets."

Justin wondered briefly if he would learn a new vocabulary with each of his relationships for the rest of his life. Brian had taught him fun words like "rimming" and "munchers," but keeping up with Ethan looked like it would be a lot more work. Still, Ethan had had a tough day, so Justin put on his most ingratiating smile. "Where sheygets means 'adorable, devoted, completely fuckable boyfriend?'"

"Sort of," Ethan said. He flopped down on the futon, and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Wolfram promptly tried to walk over his face. Ethan sat up, petted the cat, then shooed him away. "Sheygets is Yiddish. Means that you're not Jewish -- though you are adorable, devoted, and completely fuckable, too. It's like a boy shiksa."

That word Justin knew, since he had overheard Melanie use it once to describe Lindsay. "I prefer the term your sister used," he said. "Don't you think 'goy boy toy' has a better ring to it?"

Ethan laughed out loud at that. "Absolutely. My goy boy toy, my sheygets, that's you."

"So sheygets is Yiddish. And what about that other word? The one your grandmother used?"

"Faygele." Ethan stopped laughing. "Yeah. That one's Yiddish, too."

Justin was silent for a moment. "So . . . how did it go? With your grandparents. Was this --?"

"Yup. That was my oh-so-charming, coming-out-to-the-Holocaust-survivor-grandparents scene. What did you think? Oscar quality?"

"Ethan, I am so sorry," Justin said. "I had no idea she was your grandmother when I answered the phone. And anyway, you just seem so . . . comfortable when you talk about your family. I guess I just figured they knew."

Ethan grimaced. "Well, now Bubbe knows for sure. I've been out to my parents and my sister and my brother for a while now, but I think that Mom kind of never mentioned it to Bubbe. She's just crazy about kids -- my brother's only been married for a year, and Bubbe's already pressuring him to have kids."

"That must be intense."

"Mom says it's because Bubbe knew too many women who were sterilized in Ravensbrück," Ethan said with a shrug.

"Holy shit." Justin squelched a pang of guilt and changed the subject. "What about your grandfather? You talk about him sometimes."

"Yeah." Ethan traced his finger over the sheets. "We never really talked about it when I was younger -- we mostly talked about music -- but I think . . . I think he kind of figured it out. At least, he didn't sound nearly as surprised as Bubbe was."

"Are they okay with it? With you?"

"I think so," Ethan replied. "It took a while, and Bubbe was pretty upset. Going home for Passover this year is going to be really weird. But Zayde told me some stories about Leonard Bernstein. He played for the New York Phil for a while when Bernstein was the conductor."

"Leonard Bernstein?" Justin wasn't always familiar with the famous musicians that Ethan talked about, but he knew that name. "West Side Story Leonard Bernstein? He was --?"

"Pretty much, yeah. He got married, but I think you had to in those days. Anyway, Zayde knew him around the time he was leaving his wife. He said it would have been easier for Bernstein and for his wife if Bernstein had been able to be honest. So . . . I think he doesn't mind so much about me."

"I'm glad."

"One of us is, then. I'm still kind of in shock. I guess I'm glad they didn't disown me or anything." Wolfram returned for another dose of attention, and climbed into Ethan's lap. Ethan scratched behind the cat's ears and smiled as Wolfram began to purr. "Bubbe will probably come around, I guess, and Zayde's okay with it. He said that Bubbe would at least be glad that I didn't end up marrying a shiksa. And, speaking of which, I learned sheygets, which, by the way, isn't really a nice word unless I say it to you."

Justin laughed. "Yeah, well, I learned two new words in Yiddish. I learned faygele and sheygets."

Ethan gave a wry smile. "I really should learn Yiddish one day, at least so I can understand Bubbe when she gets upset."

"I'm sorry I upset her. I had no right to do that."

"Don't be sorry." Ethan shook his head. "I'm glad you did it. I don't know if I would ever have had the courage to come out to them on my own."

"Does it feel better now?"

Ethan considered for a moment. "I don't know. It feels . . . different. I think it'll feel better eventually. Maybe after Passover. But at least I don't have to feel like I'm lying to them any more."

Justin nodded. "That's what Deb always says."

"You know what I really feel right now?" Ethan said. "I feel like I need a hug from the handsomest, most romantic, most fuckable, blondest, most blue-eyed sheygets in the whole apartment."

Justin laughed, and dumped the art history textbook on the floor. "Coming right up." He moved to the futon and evicted Wolfram from Ethan's lap so that he could take the cat's place. Ethan and Justin held each other tightly, and it did not take long before they decided to prove once again just how thrilled Ethan was to have his very own sheygets in his bed.

END

Afterword: Thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed this story! So, there's a couple of new words in Yiddish! Sheygets isn't used very much -- certainly far less than shiksa -- but you might come across its plural, shkotzim, used in much the same sense as "hooligans." Ethan is half right about faygele -- in the U.S., it's mostly used to mean "fag," but that's a slang meaning. Faygele literally means "little bird," and is often used in that sense. If you're speaking Yiddish, you indicate the meaning you want with context and body language.