Disclaimer: I do not own RENT, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Mr Bubble, Smurfette, or any other copyrighted material.

Roger didn't come out of his room, nor did he open the door, throughout the course of the afternoon. Mark knocked first, calling Roger's name and asking to be let in. He said who he was, as though Roger didn't know. When he left the landing, he was crying and furious. The rain hurt him, wouldn't let him out of the house.

"Mark, do you want to play with us?" Mimi asked. Last Christmas, when she and Maureen were left at home with Angel, and Angel was downstairs at her sewing machine, Mimi and Maureen had pushed the furniture aside in the big not-quite-anything room and played jump rope. Maureen had been in more trouble than Mimi, but Mimi wouldn't do it again. She spent the majority of her remaining afternoon helping Maureen replace the furniture, and having a darned good time of it.

So she wasn't playing jump rope now. In fact she hadn't been allowed to bring her jumping rope at all because "your mom's not totally comfortable with my family", as Benny explained it to her.

"What does that mean?" Mimi had asked.

Benny paused for a moment, then explained, "It means when we were kids I wouldn't've put it past my siblings to play double-dutch and juggle bananas, all the while calling it physics homework. But your mom doesn't know that."

So Mimi left her jump ropes at home, and instead brought Hungry Hungry Hippos, as she now told Mark: "We're playing Hungry Hungry Hippos!"

"No, thanks," Mark said. "I'm not really a Hungry Hungry Hippos guy."

He went upstairs instead and sat in the doorway of the attic, letting little drops of rain spatter him. The tiny yard out back was getting the lion's share of the rain, but enough of it paused to dribble across the left side of Mark's body. His clothes soaked through. He wrapped his arms around his knees and watched the rain.

"Hey, Mark."

"Oh." Mark groaned and straightened up. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he did, but at the moment Joanne was the last person he needed to speak to.

"You okay?" she asked.

Mark shrugged. He scoffed. He wiped his wet face on his dry right sleeve and asked, "Should I be? I fucked up. Tom and Angel hate me. Alison probably won't let me near her kid. And you think there's something wrong with me. And on top of all that, I didn't mean to hurt Roger. I really didn't."

"Mark." Joanne stroked down his wetly defiant hair. "Angel doesn't hate anybody. She doesn't know how. And you don't want to be around Mimi. You call her Microchiroptera."

Mark laughed. He shook his head. It was true that he and Maureen used that nickname for Mimi, but… "I didn't think you knew that," he said.

Joanne rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah," she returned, "I'm thick. You two cackle it when you're sharing a room. Come on, give me some credit."

Mark offered a weak smile in apology. "Sorry."

"Forgiven."

He swabbed at his eyes. "So what about the rest?" he asked. "Tom hating me and you thinking I'm messed up and Roger being hurt."

Joanne considered this for a long moment. She took a deep breath before answering, "Mark, I don't think you're messed up. I think you're lonely at school and I think you're incredibly horny and being as you are a seventeen-year-old boy, I think that defines good health. As for Tom and Roger, well… I'll never tell Tom this—and neither will you—but he needed something to wake him up."

"What?"

"I disagree with his parenting style." Joanne picked her words very carefully, then she leaned in and whispered for his ears only, "He doesn't know what he's doing." Mark chuckled, and Joanne did, too. "Just don't tell him that," she added. "It'll be our secret."

Mark grinned. "Yeah."

Joanne gave his hand a squeeze, then stood. "Stay up here as long as you like. Just remember the party tonight."

She made it almost to the stairs before Mark called, halting and hesitant and the quintessence of adolescence, "Mom?"

"Hm."

"…" Mark opened his mouth, closed it, shook his head and sighed. "Thanks," he said.

Downstairs, Joanne found Benny curled up on the couch, reading. He had his legs tucked under him and a blanket covering as much of his body as was possible. She sat next to him and didn't say anything. Benny went on reading. "Benny."

"Hm," he said, not looking up from his book.

"Benny," she said again.

"I'm listening," he lied.

Joanne jammed her toes into his thigh. Benny yelped and jumped. He closed the book gently, cleared his throat and said, "Am I to believe this will be a repeat of the Adirondack trip?"

"Yes."

He set the book aside. "Very well." He straightened up, handed her a corner of his blanket, and said, "What's on your mind, Jo?"

Joanne pulled a share of the blanket over herself. "My kid, your kid, Tom's kid."

"My kid the fetus, or my kid Microchiroptera?"

Joanne motioned helplessly. "Does everyone know that name?"

"Just me, Maureen and Mark. I think. Oh, and you. Why, it's funny!"

"Fine. It's funny. But look, I'm not sure about Tom and Roger."

Benny snorted. "I've heard that sentence with Julian, Andrew, and the unforgettable Emilio."

Joanne kicked him again. "I'm serious!" she protested. "I'm worried about that kid."

"Who isn't?"

"I just… I don't know, Tom thinks Roger is him. And Roger isn't! He leaves him alone all the time. It's not good for him."

Benny nodded. "I agree," he admitted, "but I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish. Are you going to talk to him?"

"Probably not," Joanne admitted. "He'd get upset."

Benny tilted his head back and gave it a little shake of reminiscence. "Ah, our hypersensitive little brother. In all meanings of the term," he added, snickering.

"You're ticklish, too," Joanne reminded him.

"Uh, not as much as he is."

"Anyone I know?" Collins asked. He sat sideways on an overstuffed chair.

"Smurfette," Benny said.

"Smurfette isn't a he."

Joanne sighed. "Nice to see you, too, Tombola."

"So what are we all talking about?"

"We're criticizing your parenting style," Benny answered honestly. Joanne shot him a malicious look.

"Cheers to family," Collins decreed.

"Cheers," Benny echoed. He raised an imaginary glass and leaned forward to clink it against Collins' imaginary glass.

Collins imaginary drank. "Where is the little bat, anyway?"

"Benny!" Joanne cried, and Benny laughed.

"She's upstairs, playing Hungry Hungry Hippos with Maureen."

Collins laughed. "Hungry Hungry Hippos. Who invented that? It's better than Snooker."

Joanne gave him a strange look. "You hate Snooker," she said.

"So? It's real easy to be better."

--

They made it through the afternoon without incident. Maureen decided at 6 o'clock that she was in a bubblebath mood. Mimi jimmied the bathroom door open and perched on the toilet. A sign on the door stating "Warning: Estrogen!" was attributed to Mark's impish side, but no one truly believed that. Benny blamed Collins. Collins blamed Benny. "Just take credit," Collins said.

"Why? You did it."

"Even if I did, I have a surly teenager to talk with."

Benny laughed and shook his head. Angel rubbed Collins' arm. "Would you rather I talk to him?" she asked.

"No, I should. Guys? Could you try to rally your troops?" Collins asked, knowing the others would have an easier time of it. Maureen wouldn't want to get out of her jammies, until she learned she could dress as fancy as she liked. Mark would do as told, only pausing to pick a book to bring with him. Mimi was never a problem. Roger would be the officer from the ranks--the trouble without meaning to be. So when Collins knocked on Roger's door, he called out in a tone of alliance. "Roger, could you open the door please?"

Roger didn't.

Collins sighed. "Roger, I wasn't asking," he said. There were sounds within the room, little whimpers and footsteps. Then something heavy scraped along the floor, and the door opened. Roger stood in the doorway, his head bowed towards the floor. Oh, jeez... "Um... we're going to a holiday party tonight. You can go like that if you want--" he said, indicating Roger's favorite outfit of blue jeans so worn the blue was only a tint and a cotton T-shirt that once had a picture on it but not was so thin the pink of his nipples was visible through the fabric "--but if you have something a little less, uh, casual..."

Roger nodded. "I understand," he said, but he was so nervous it came out as a whisper.

"Thank you."

Collins turned and walked away. He hadn't gone four feet but Roger called, "W-wait! I... I... these are... they fit right."

"Your other clothes don't?" Collins asked.

Roger shook his head.

"Oh, Roger... I wish you'd told us."

Roger looked at his feet. His hair flopped forward. "Sorry."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way. Let's see if Mark will lend you something tonight. Hey, Mark!"

Mark poked his head out from the spare room. "Don't go in the bathroom," he said. "Maureen is stuffing Mimi's bra."

"Oh, God," Collins groaned. "I understand your gayness. Do you have anything nice you can lend to Roger for tonight?"

For a moment, Mark was in silent in thought, then he nodded. "I have the old Hamlet my library put on the dock!"

He disappeared into the room, but Collins called him back. "Mark!" He chuckled. "Mark... only you, Mark. No, Roger needs clothes."

"He's wearing clothes."

"And yet you're staring at his nipples." The comment caused both boys to blush, and Collins mentally slapped himself. It was okay to say that to his siblings, not to their kids, and especially not to his. Mark disappeared into his bedroom and emerged with a pair of pants and a shirt. He shoved them into Collins' hands, then slammed the door. Collins sighed. "Joanne," he called, "I made it worse!"

"So fix it, Thomas!" she called back.

"Roger, go try these on, okay?" Collins said. He handed Mark's clothes to Roger and knocked on the door. "Mark, I'm coming in, okay?"

Mark was standing in the corner, head in his hands. "Hm. Interesting. Mark, your mom talked to you earlier, right?" Collins asked.

"Yeah." Mark looked up. "Yeah, you don't have to do this."

"Maybe I think we need follow-up. Mark... can you talk to me, not like a child? Can you be an adult?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I can."

The house was too big for a couple, even a couple with a child. They hadn't bought it. Angel inherited the house from her grandmother and they moved in. The bed Collins now sat on was the same bed in which Angel had been conceived. (Different sheets). He jerked his head, and Mark sat beside him. "When your dad left, remember, you stayed here for a while?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah," he said. "It was weird, everyone here when it wasn't a holiday."

"Benny wanted to move in with you guys. He had this idea that you needed a man around. Joanne hated that. But you two were the only kids in the family at that point. We all felt like you were kind of ours."

"Great," Mark spat, "so I tried to fuck my brother."

"Hey," Collins snapped in his best no-nonsense tone. "Adult, remember?"

"Sorry. Go on."

"Good job. What I'm trying to tell you, Mark, is that I was pretty pissed off at you, that doesn't mean I don't love you."

There was a knock at the door and it opened. "Um," Roger said. He looked at Mark and Collins, then at himself, his ankles poking out from the too-short pants and his wrists from too-short sleeves, but the shirt hung like a tent otherwise. Collins covered his mouth, too close to laughing for his own good. "Oh, Roger," he said. "I am so, so sorry. Okay. You can wear your own jeans and, uh, I guess borrow one of my shirts. It'll be big on you, but it's better than..."

Roger nodded and headed back to his own room to change clothes.

"Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"It... it wasn't wrong, really, what you tried with Roger. There's no shame in sex. What bothers me is that you don't think of Roger as a member of your family. If he had been any other boy and you slept with him, that wouldn't be a problem. He's supposed to be family."

"We're a fucked up family," Mark decreed.

"Strike two. You don't think Roger's part of your family?"

"I don't know. I mean... Mom told us that you and Angel were adopting a little boy. I thought she meant a little boy, maybe two or three years. The first time I saw Roger..." Mark shook his head. "It didn't even occur to me that he was yours. I swear, I thought... I didn't even know until he led me back here. I thought he was just some kid. And by that time we had already... you know..."

"What?"

"Kissed. We kissed in the park. I didn't know, and I didn't... I don't..."

Collins placed an arm around Mark's shoulders. "You know what sucks?" he said. "We had a tough situation. It wasn't anyone's fault, but we were able to make it look like yours. I'm sorry I did that, Mark."

Mark shrugged. "You were just coping," he said.

"Then you'll forgive me?"

Mark looked up at Collins. He blinked. "I... um... yeah, of course," he said. "I forgive you."

Collins nodded. "Thank you," he said. Then, lightly, "Now, let's go find Roger a shirt before he shows up topless to the party."

to be continued...!