Disclaimer: Rent was created by Jonathan Larson. Someone else now has the rights to it; I'm not sure who, but not me. I'm only having a bit of fun. Please don't sue me... pretty please?

It had been a long time since Roger was in temple, and it felt strangely right to him. The trees on the grounds and the grass and flowers hadn't changed at all--he always loved Beth Israel for how natural and vivid it was. Back behind the temple he saw the outdoor auditorium where he had given his Bar Mitzvah. Roger couldn't remember the last time he was here, but he was glad to come again.

That is, until he got inside. He saw who sat in the front row and quickly thumped down on the last bench.

Mark surveyed the rows of people trying to figure out where he and Roger could sit. Usually, he sat with his family who also attended temple regularly, but he figured that may be too much to spring upon Roger, especially since this was their first outing in public since Roger's arrival. When Roger made the choice for him, he didn't mind. He saw his parents sitting about halfway to the front. His aunt Margaret was two benches behind them. He waved hello to a few people and then turned his attention toward Roger.

"Did you used to sit in the back when you used to come here?" he asked.

Roger shook his head. He didn't speak, not wanting to draw attention to himself. Returning to temple was one thing, but speaking to his family was quite another.

Mark furrowed his brow and was about to ask why Roger had picked the back, but then he realized that Roger was trying to avoid someone. "Don't worry, we don't have to talk to anyone if you don't want to."

Roger nodded. "Thank you," he whispered. He watched his family as he did, terrified they might hear his voice somehow. The rabbi entered the room and Roger fell silent. Ever since he developed the patience he had liked to really listen to the rabbi.

Mark listened attentively and the service passed very quickly. At the end, he turned to speak to Roger and was shocked to find that he was gone. He stood up to go after him, but was ambushed by his parents.

"Mark, honey. It's good to see you again. It's been too long!" gushed his mother. "You've got to meet the Rosenbergs' daughter, Lorraine! Very pretty and single, too, I might add."

Roger had crept out of the temple and slunk over to Mark's car, where he now crouched, out of sight. He hoped Mark wasn't too angry about this. Even if he was, it beat the alternative by a long shot.

Mark scanned the crowd for Roger and he tried to dissuade his mother from setting him up on a blind date. He tried to cut the conversation short, but his mother was like a pit bull with a lamb chop when it came to his supposed happiness. The only way he could get away from her was to agree to having dinner with the family the next day. Luckily he mentioned he had a guest staying with him, so the invitation was extended to Roger as well. Lorraine Rosenberg would probably be invited, too, he thought. Mark glanced at his watch. He had been arguing with his mother for a good ten minutes and Roger didn't have a key to the car.

He was surprised to find Roger crouching. He thought he would be leaning on the car or something. He unlocked the doors and motioned to Roger to get in the car. "Sorry about that. My mother ambushed me and the only way I could escape was to agree to a couple of hours of her trying to feed me and set me up with various women tomorrow night. You're invited, too."

Roger nodded. He slipped into the car and quickly looked over the cars in the parking lot. Unless his family had bought a new car, they weren't here-- and none of the cars looked big enough to comfortably seat all of his siblings, so he guessed they weren't. "How's your mother? And do you want me to go?" he asked.

"My mother is her normal interfering self. And you have to come. I cannot endure hours of questions about marriage and grandchildren on my own. At least we can get a good meal out of the deal, but we're both going to be fussed over." Mark shook his head. "Sorry to bring you into the middle of my family problems."

"It's fine." Roger hesitated, then reached over and rested his hand on Mark's shoulder. "I'm glad you're not going alone," he said.

"Me too." He smiled weakly. "You'd think after learning how to repair them in med school, I'd grow a spine of my own."

"It's okay. I never learned how to stand up to my parents." He thought for a moment, then asked, "Is it too... telling, to bring a pie or something?"

"You can make pie?" Mark was surprised. Even his mother had never mastered pastry. "No, don't worry about being too telling. My parents have been denying my sexuality for years. They'd never pick up on anything that subtle.

Roger grinned. "Good. What's your favorite?"

Mark considered his options. "Blueberry. I don't often eat it because I usually end up with discolored teeth, but if Mom decides to invite any eligible young ladies to dinner tomorrow, that would be a bonus."

Roger flat-out giggled at that one. He didn't mind that Mark wasn't telling his mother about him--he wasn't a secret, just, she might not be ready for that yet. "Then blueberry it is. We might need to buy a few things, but... blueberry pie. With crosshatched dough on top!"

"It sounds good! What do you need? We can stop at the market on our way home."

"Well..." It would be better to stop at home and check the recipe, but Roger was afraid to suggest it. "Blueberries, flour, sugar, condensed milk."

"I have the flour. I don't usually use sugar, so we need that and blueberries. Anything else for the crust? I remember my mom used to use this white stuff when she tried to make pies. They never tuned out."

"No, that's all," Roger said. "You have shortening in the house."

Mark drove pulled into the parking lot of the small market he frequented. "You better come in with me. I have no idea what converted milk is."

"Cond--" Roger stopped himself. He nodded and got out of the car.

"What was that?" asked Mark. He was sure Roger had started to say something.

"N-nothing," he said.

Mark led the way into the store. It wasn't big, but there was a good selection of produce and the people who owned it were friendly. He examined the selection of fruit and turned to Roger. "How many blueberries do you need?"

"About two and a half cups. Uh, maybe two containers?" he suggested, pointing. He wouldn't touch the containers himself, though. "Then we need vanilla, sugar and-- well-- we can get sour cream instead."

Mark placed the containers of berries in his basket and headed to the baking supply aisle for the sugar. "I thought you said we needed converted milk... am I saying that right?"

"Y... well... no... sour cream works, too," Roger said. Since Mark couldn't remember 'condensed' and he didn't want to make him mad but somewhere in Roger's seventeen-year-old mind... that was funny.

"You can see how much I cook! I'm one of the rare people who can burn a pot of water." Mark tried to keep everything light but was a little disturbed that Roger wouldn't contradict him, even in the matter of converted milk or whatever it was called. "What's it really called again? Maybe if I learn the ingredients, I may not be so hopeless. At least I could hand things to you."

"Condensed milk," Roger whispered. It was ok as long as he was directly answering a question, right? He reached for the sour cream, realized what he was doing and pulled his hand back.

Mark chuckled gently. "Oh those ladies over there must have thought I'm an idiot for talking about converted milk. Let's get it. Oh, is there anything else you need while we're here? Not just for the pie, but for cooking in general. You probably know what I have better than I do."

"No--I can make do with anything," Roger assured him. He ignored the comment about Mark being an idiot. He wasn't smart, but he wasn't that dumb.

"If that's everything, we should head to the check out." He turned toward the tills. "You know, I've been coming here for years. When I was little, Mom would take me to the bakery section for and buy me a cookie if I was good that day." He laughed. "You want a cookie, Roger? You've been very good today."

He smiled. "Okay," he said. "That sounds nice, thank you." And he liked that Mark considered his behavior acceptable. It gave him an idea of what Mark wanted, and what he would accept.

Mark led Roger toward the bakery section and inhaled the aroma of fresh-baked cookies. "What kind do you want? I highly recommend their peanut-butter chocolate chip." He was pleased that he could share this memory with Roger.

"That sounds good," he said. Roger had been trained to hear "highly recommend" as something completely without options. Luckily he liked chocolate chips in any environment.

"Two peanut-butter chocolate chip cookies, please." The treats were still warm. He passed one to Roger and took a large bite from the other. "Mmm. Whenever I have one, I always think about when I was little and what a treat these were."

Roger took a bite, trying to analyze Mark's comment. That one was tough, so finally he gave in. Maybe--just maybe--it was an innocent comment. "They're very good," he said.

Mark smiled at him. "I'm glad you like them. I guess we should get going." They lined up and paid for the few groceries and headed to the car. Once they were on the road, Mark turned to Roger. "I normally just relax after temple, but do you want to go anywhere before we go home?"

Roger shook his head. "We can go home. I'll start making the pie--unless there's something you want to do."

Mark thought for a moment. "No. I think I'd just like to relax. I could keep you company while you bake. I don't think I'll be much help with the pie."

"That's fine," Roger assured him. He mentally ran through the recipe in case Mark wanted to help. "It would be nice to have company while I'm baking."

Mark pulled into the driveway and parked the car. "I'm going to change out of my good clothes and put on some jeans," he said as they walked into the house.

Roger nodded. "I'll do that, too," he said. He only had one outfit of Mark's to wear besides sweats and couldn't imagine showing up in temple with pie stains all over his front. That would make him conspicuous.

Mark took his time changing his clothes. By the time he was done, Roger had already started blending flour and shortening for the pie crust. Mark walked over and sat on one of the bar stools he had near the counter. "I'm impressed. You've managed to surpass my mother in your cooking abilities. Please don't tell her I said that."

"I wouldn't," Roger assured him. He wasn't that kind of person, plus he'd been told not to and so would never. He rolled out the dough, turned it into the pie tin and cut off the excess. He set it in the oven and started to make the stuffing. "Do your parents know a lot of people at the temple?" he asked.

Mark laughed. "Only most of the people who go. It's easier to tell who they don't know!"

"Who?" he asked. Roger honestly wanted an answer to that. He just hoped Mark's parents wouldn't connect him to his parents. He doubted it, since he had started using a twist of his real name when he realized he couldn't go home. Everyone called him by his middle name anyway, so that was easy. But giving up his last name had hurt him. Still, he was used to Davis now.

Mark thought for a moment. "Well, they've always been good friends with the Steins and the Rosenthals. They've had the Gollums and the Schwartzes over a couple of times when I've been there for dinner. And the Goldbergs and the Samuelons have seemed to join the conspiracy to set me up with a nice Jewish girl. And of course there's the Himmelfarbs and the Feinbergs."

Roger froze. His throat constricted, and he took a deep breath to calm himself down. "B-but... tomorrow... that's, that's just... your family, and us, right?" he asked.

Mark nodded. "Most likely, it will be just us. When mom has a lot of people over, she usually tells me to dress up."

"But she'd say if someone else was coming, right?"

"Well, most of the time she does when she invites me. She'll talk about how so-and-so's going to come. And she always invites people at temple, so it should be just us."

"Okay. That's good," Roger said. He added filling to the pie crust and started putting on the cap. "What are you going to tell them about me?"

"I'm not really sure. What do you think I should tell them?"

"I don't know. It's up to you." How, Roger wondered, could Mark explain living with a seventeen-year-old boy?

Mark thought for a bit. "Mom won't acknowledge that I'm gay, so I can't say you're my boyfriend. Oh! I have an idea. One of the doctors at the clinic is spending six months in Africa with Doctors Without Borders. We could say you're his son and you're staying with me while he's away."

"Okay. That makes sense." Roger repeated to himself that he was the son of a doctor from Mark's office. He put the pie in the oven. "Okay. What shall we do now?"

"Whatever you want. We could watch TV or a movie or we could play Scrabble or something."

"Um, sure. Any of those sound good. We could watch TV and play Scrabble, if you want."

"That would be great. I'll get my board." Mark went to the closet and got the game from the shelf and set it up on the coffee table in front of his couch. "It's been a while since I've had anyone to play with."

Mark took the letters and tried shuffling them around. "You know, Roger, I realized that I don't know a lot about you. I know you're Jewish and I know you're seventeen, but that's about it. Tell me more about yourself." He thought a moment and then placed OXEN on the board and drew four more tiles.

Roger hesitated. What could he tell? He barely knew what there was to say anymore. "What would you like to know?" he asked. He spelled KNOT across Mark's OXEN.

"Well, how far did you get in school?" he asked as he spelled out TRUST.

"Freshman year." Roger spelled out another word. "I did pretty good, too."

Mark took his turn and drew more letters. "What was your favorite subject?"

"Well... I liked English. We wrote stories and read poetry. And I liked biology and geometry was fun. I liked a lot of my classes."

"Do you miss school?"

Roger shuddered. "There wasn't any point in my staying on. I wasn't good and I had much more useful things to do," he said softly.

Most of the time Roger seemed very mature for his age, but at the mention of his being bad, Mark realized how young he must have been when he left home. He furrowed his brow. "How long were you with him? Your last boyfriend I mean."

"I met him when I was fourteen," he said. "I'd just started high school. My sis-- my-- I was... lonely. And he was nice."

"Did you love him?"

"Of course I love him-- loved him."

"You're lucky, then, to know love so young," Mark said softly. He had dated many people, lusted over some and slept with a few, but he'd really never been in love before. "I don't think I've ever truly loved anyone."

Roger didn't know how to answer. He took his turn at Scrabble. "You're not like him," he observed.

Mark just waited for Roger to explain. After a several minutes and a few more turns at Scrabble, he finally asked. "How are we different?"

"Well... you're shorter," Roger said. And you don't love me.

Mark chuckled. "Yeah, I'm shorter than a lot of people. You're already a hair taller than me, and I bet you have another growth spurt." Mark thought for a minute. He wasn't sure if this was an appropriate question to ask a seventeen-year-old, but he had relatively few people to talk with about matters of the heart. "This is going to sound weird, and feel free not to answer, but how did you know you were in love with him? Did you know right away?"

Roger shrugged. "I just know," he said. He stood. "I don't wanna play anymore," he announced.

Mark nodded. "That's fine. Thanks for playing with me. I'm going to read for a bit." Mark went over to the corner of the room and sat down in his comfortable chair. He'd obviously said something that bothered Roger. He wondered if it was the questions about his previous relationship or his inquiries into the nature of love. But if he didn't ask someone, how would he know to recognize love when he felt it? But what had he said that would bother Roger so much?

He lightly skimmed the book he had grabbed and replayed their conversation in his head. As a scientist, Mark liked to explore things from all angles. He definitely felt something for Roger but he wasn't sure if it truly was love. He certainly was physically attracted to the young man. He cared deeply for him and wanted to protect him, but did he really love Roger? Mark was very guarded and didn't like to broadcast his feelings before he was certain what they were.

Roger went upstairs. The weird thing was, he had never felt the need to do this to himself. He'd never thought about how he would. He'd always been told, had things done too him. He sat on the edge of his bed with his jeans pushed down to his knees, folded a belt in half and hit his thighs, hard. He barely held back a swear.

Mark tried to read for a few more minutes but couldn't concentrate. He wandered over to the kitchen to where the pie was slowly browning in the oven. He looked through the window in the oven door and thought it looked great. He then realized that the timer wasn't set and he had no idea when it was supposed to come out of the oven. He'd seen Roger go upstairs, so Mark climbed the flight to Roger's closed door. He knocked. "Roger?" He called. "When is the pie supposed to come out of the oven?"

Roger put down the belt and pulled up his pants. His thighs throbbed and there was actually blood in a few spots, but nothing showed through his jeans. He opened the door. "I'll go check it," he told Mark, hoping he hadn't left it too long. But he was feeling better now, so he knew if he had burned the pie he had a solution to that.

Mark entered the kitchen in time to see Roger take the pie from the oven. Once he had placed the pie on the cooling rack, Mark went over and engulfed the young man in a hug. "I can't claim anything to do with this masterpiece, so I wanted to hug the chef."

"Thank you." Roger returned the hug. Probably the hardest part of this would be not eating the damn pie! "Do you want something to eat for lunch?"

"That would be great. Now that I've smelled that pie, I'm starving!"

"What do you have in mind?" Roger asked.

"Soup and sandwiches? I can even help, as long as you don't let me near the stove." Mark looked sheepish. "I had to replace a pot a few weeks ago because I burned the soup. I didn't know soup could go up in flames like that."

Roger forced a smile. "Okay," he said. "You make whatever kind of sandwiches you like, and I'll heat up some soup."

Mark rummaged in the fridge and got out some bread, butter, lettuce and tomato. He searched for some sliced beef he knew he had, but cringed when he pulled it out. The edges were a bit green. He threw the meat into the compost bucket and got out the mayo instead. "Tomato sandwiches OK?" he asked.

"Sure. Whatever you want," Roger said. They had some leftover tortilla soup which he now put in a pot on the stove.

Mark put four slices of bread into the toaster and went to work slicing the tomatoes. "I really do appreciate you handling the stove part of things. I'm sure the fire department also appreciates it," Mark said with a grin. The toast popped and he added butter and mayo to it, layered lettuce and tomatoes and finished the sandwiches by cutting them diagonally in half. "I'm getting spoiled by having such good food. Even when I ordered take-out every night, I wasn't eating this well."

Roger smiled weakly. "It's just leftovers," he murmured, almost apologetic. He'd made a pie that day and that was quite a bit of cooking. Nevertheless, he surely could have made something decent. He knew Mark wouldn't be angry, but that just made it worse.

"They're good though." Mark brought the sandwiches to the table and motioned for Roger to sit down. "So what did you think of temple today?" Part of the ritual at the Cohen household was to discuss the service over lunch. He liked the idea of continuing the tradition.

Roger took a bite of his sandwich and a spoonful of soup. "I'm not sure. I see the story differently," he said. "What did you think?"

"I'm not sure. It's one of those stories that got ingrained to me when I was little. Half the time I start to glaze over as soon as I hear the text. I always get this feeling of deja vu when I listen to Rabbi Himmelfarb because he tends to use the same passages over and over and doesn't change his views. How do you see Cain and Abel differently?"

Roger stirred his soup absently. "Well... God puts his mark on Cain. He protected him... he gave him the chance to redeem himself, didn't send him to the slaughter. Cain goes out from the grace of the lord but only to find the goodness in his soul. At least that's how I see it," Roger ended weakly.

Mark paused for a moment. Roger had a point there. "I've never thought of it like that. I've always fallen into the pattern of being horrified by what Cain did and then thinking he was a cruel bastard and then not thinking too much more of the story until next week. That makes sense what you said. Cain didn't lead an empty life. He had children and a life afterwards, even though what he did was so heinous."

Roger nodded. He ate for a moment in silence, save the sound of the spoon against the bowl. For him, Cain was never a murderer. He was a man who killed another man, and Roger always wanted to know why.

"Why did G-d favor Abel? Didn't He know what would happen?" he whispered. He had never asked Rabbi Himmelfarb, who didn't seem open to interpretation, but it was something Roger had never understood. G-d seemed to be punishing Cain even before Cain committed his crime.

"When I was little I thought it was because G-d liked lamb chops better than salad, but when grew up I learned that both animal and agricultural offerings were accepted by G-d. Maybe it's because Abel always gave the very best portion to G-d and Cain didn't pay so close attention to what he was given. Or maybe G-d didn't like Cain's temper? I don't know. I haven't thought about it too much before."

"If G-d didn't like Cain's temper, why goad him?" Roger wondered aloud. He never felt that stories were told fully in the Torah. They never covered why things were done, and that bothered him. He shrugged. "I'm sorry. I don't know about this stuff."

"I don't know why G-d would goad Cain. 'Course, I haven't really thought of it as goading him until you just said that." Mark stopped for a moment and ate some more. "You may not know all the answers, but man, you ask good questions. I haven't thought about the Torah this much since my bar mitzvah."

Roger smiled slightly. "Thank you," he whispered, almost afraid to acknowledge that something kind had been said. "So... what else do you have to do today?"

Mark finished his sandwich. "Not too much. I think I'm going to have a lazy Saturday. I'm entitled to one after treating so many geriatrics at the clinic this week."

"All right." Roger quickly finished his meal and picked up the dishes. "Of course you are."

"I think I'll set up a lawn chair outside and enjoy the fresh air. You want to come?"

Roger shook his head. "Maybe in a minute. If that's ok."

Mark nodded. "That's fine. I'll bring a book outside then, if you'll excuse me." He stood up from the table and got a book from the living room, then opened the patio doors and headed for the shed to get a lawn chair.

Roger washed and dried the dishes. When that was done he made a casserole and put it in the oven. It would cook for a few hours, freeing him up for whatever was needed. Then he went outside and sat by Mark's lawn chair, completely unnoticed.

to be continued!

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