There is some discussion of religion in this chapter. It's not intended to offend anyone. I hope that if it does upset you, you'll take into consideration that these are only the views of the character and that they are not meant to offend. I am sorry if anyone is hurt, offended or upset. That was not my intention.

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playing with the characters.

"Davis!"

On Monday, his coach pulled him out of practice. Roger was closing the few-foot gap between himself and the rest of his team. It was a gap he had made, racing out ahead of them, around the track time after time getting farther ahead, until farther ahead meant closer behind.

"Davis, come here."

Roger jogged over. "Yeah?"

"Can't let you run like that. Go get cleaned up and come back for drills. You've got to keep pace with the team, Davis."

In the bathroom, Roger caught sight of his face. His nose was bleeding, and the bottom part of his face was smeared with blood. He washed up, kept pace. And outside of school, when he ran too hard the nosebleed returned.

-

"Roger, wake up. It's two o'clock in the afternoon. Roger, you've been asleep for hours, get up!"

"Mmm'k," Roger mumbled.

He managed to push himself out of bed and stumble into the bathroom. He didn't bother closing the door. When he was through, Roger found himself exhausted, his eyelids so heavy they closed against his will. He wandered back to his bedroom and fell into bed.

"Roger, don't tell me you've gone back to sleep! Roger!" She shook him, but he made no effort to move.

He didn't know how long it was before she returned, this time to rest a hand on his forehead. "Are you feeling all right, honey?"

"No," Roger admitted.

"What's wrong? Where does it hurt?"

He rolled over just enough to look at his mother. He met her eyes and said, "I'm wrong, Mom. I'm gay. Got put together wrong." Then he rolled over, pulled the covers up, and if she continued to speak, he didn't hear her.

-

"Roger, honey. Roger. It's Sunday, Roger, Sunday afternoon." It was the first time her voice had broken through to him. It sounded dense and slow, like oil in the pan before the heat's turned on. "There's someone here to see you, Roger."

He didn't answer.

"Please come and talk to him, Roger."

Roger moaned and huddled deeper under his blankets.

"Well perhaps he'll come in and speak to you."

Roger said nothing. He listened to his mother retreat, quiet voices, and footsteps towards his room again. He had no interest in speaking to anyone. No, Roger realized, that was untrue. He wanted to speak to people. He wanted to speak to Mark and Collins.

"Hello, Roger."

Roger groaned. He knew that voice anywhere, that half-lilt of an under-developed Irish accent. "Have you come to tell me I'm an abomination, Father?"

"Why's that, Roger? Have you killed somebody?"

Roger couldn't help himself: he chuckled.

"The only sinful act you've committed is turning your back on life."

Roger sat up. "What about having sex with a man?" he asked.

The priest shrugged. Up until then, Roger had actually liked Father Luke. He seemed to care about what he was saying, and also about the congregation, which was more than Roger could say for most priests he had seen. "Do you love him?"

"What?"

"Do you love him?" Luke repeated.

Roger nodded.

"Then what sin?"

"That he's a man."

"The only sin in sex, at least that I see in the Bible, is in not loving. If you love him, Roger…"

Roger frowned. "What about Genesis?" he asked. "It says," he said, not totally sure why he was bothering to argue with someone who wanted to tell him he was doing right, "that to lie with man as with woman, is abomination."

"I can't speak for your experience, Roger," Luke said, grinning, "but you may know that a woman's build, is quite different from a man's." Roger smiled. "And before you bring this up, Sodom and Gomor'ra was about disrespect. It was about men having corrupted hearts, not about anal sex. Lot asks God to spare Sodom, do you remember why, Roger?"

He nodded. "Yes. If he could find a hundred good men."

"One," Luke said. "Lot got the wager down to one good man. A man is decided good or evil not by his actions but by the reasons behind them. If you are having intercourse with someone you love, that is between you and him. The sin you've committed is in denying your life."

"What?"

"At the heart of the Garden of Eden grows the tree of life. As long as you lie in bed sulking… There's more to it than happiness, Roger, because beneath all your feeling is life."

-

Keeping pace wasn't as difficult as it seemed. All he had to do, Roger found, was listen to the pounding footsteps of a dozen boys, hear the rhythm, and match it with his own body, step for step for step.

"Why?" he asked that night, breaking into Meredith's conversation. "What did Mark do? He's a good man."

"Honey," Meredith said, "anyone who does things like that to a little boy is seriously ill. Not a good man."

Roger didn't bother arguing. She wouldn't listen.

The following morning, he jogged half a mile before stopping at a pay phone.

Morning always had offered a lot to Roger, more than just an opportunity to run around wherever his mom had packed up and moved to. As much as he enjoyed being outside, in the middle of the city, in sweatpants and a T-shirt and not having thousands of people watch him like he was insane, Roger liked even more to run through the streets and see everything, with everyone asleep, the city just his.

It had been low houses in Utah. Low houses, wide streets, and the gates were always locked at the theater but that didn't stop Roger climbing in, not after his brother showed him how.

Taos had the same build, low, squat houses, a dun-orange color of abode brick, just like the dust at the edges of the desert, where Roger stood before sunrise, watching, waiting, then racing out and daring himself how far he could go.

This particular morning was foggy, cold. Roger clutched the payphone like a lifeline. He wasn't surprised when the answering machine picked up at the loft. "Hey," he said. "It's Roger. Mark? I miss you. Are you okay? How's your film? I… I love you." He sniffled and squeezed his eyes shut. No. "I love you, I want to be with you, I… I don't know what to do, but… I have to go. I love you."

He lingered for a moment, trying to think of anything more to say, something meaningful, something to make him feel better and make Mark forgive him. Oh, God. He hadn't considered that Mark would be angry with him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know… forgive me. Please forgive me. It's… uh, it's almost 5:30 now. I'll try to call tomorrow around the same time, if you're willing to talk. I love you. 'Bye, Mark. Take care."

He forced himself to hang up the phone, and he ran. He ran from the message, from the telephone, from the apartment. Even when he was running back to it, Roger ran away from the apartment.

He wasn't ready for it. Roger wanted to keep running, keep going, but he had already exceeded his usual distance, and he pounded the sidewalk back home, rasping through a ragged trachea. Tomorrow couldn't come soon enough.

Meredith froze when she saw her son. "Honey…"

"Yeah," he said. "I need to shower."

The nosebleed was back. Roger's knees shook, and his skin throbbed and melted. In the tub, his knees gave out. Roger sat on the floor with cold water pouring from the shower faucet. He leaned against the side of the tub and heaved deep breaths until his pulse had slowed to normal and he could feel the cold.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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