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?
Mark squeezed Roger's shoulder. "Feel free to talk to him openly and honestly. I realize your mother is a child psychologist, too, but David won't repeat anything to her. He's pretty adamant about doctor-patient confidentiality."
Roger nodded. He understood. He didn't even know the names of his mother's patients; he wasn't too concerned. It wasn't that he worried about.
Mark glanced at his watch and then shuffled some papers on the desk, making stacks and grabbing files. David would arrive any minute. He felt that Roger really needed a chance to speak to someone about his experiences and his fears. Mark wasn't sure what to do to help Roger heal emotionally. It was beyond his expertise and like he had done with Roger's arm, he deferred to someone more knowledgeable.
Roger shifted on the chair. He sat on the edge of the seat. There had to be something here he could use just to keep himself safe, just in case. There were tissues and cotton swabs... the swabs were in a glass jar, he supposed in a pinch he could use that.
Just as Mark looked at his watch to check the time there was a knock on his door. He opened it and invited the newcomer into his office. "Roger, this is my colleague, David Solomon. I'm going to go check on some other patients while you two talk." He gathered his files and pens and left the room, closing the door behind him.
When Mark turned to open the door, Roger grabbed a tongue depressor off his desk. It wasn't much (he wished for a scalpel) but it would do. He slipped it up his sleeve, past the ribbed cuff.
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Solomon," Roger murmured.
"And you Roger. Why don't we get to know each other a bit? Tell me a little about yourself."
"Okay," Roger agreed, always the compliant one, but he didn't add anything more. What did he want?
"You could always start with your name, age and serial number," said David to break the ice a little.
"Roger. Seventeen." It occurred to him that he didn't feel like Roger Davis. It was just the line he gave, and for a while he fooled himself into believing it. When he saw his mother and brother again, though, he knew he wasn't Roger Davis. He wasn't Joshua Feinburg anymore, though, either.
"I noticed you didn't give me a last name. Why is that?" David wanted to see what Roger thought about himself. Some kids only volunteered the minimum of information as a means of control. Others wanted the attention off them as soon as possible.
"I don't really..." Roger shifted awkwardly, rubbing his wrists. "It's... I'm... It's Feinberg," he said. "I guess."
"You guess?" David repeated, hoping Roger would elaborate.
"I was born with it," he explained. "I-I used Davis for a while... my mother's maiden name."
"While you were away from your family." It wasn't a question. "How long were you away from them?"
"Three years," he supplied. "Maybe a little more." He shifted his arm and felt the tongue depressor. It calmed him.
Dave nodded. "Can you tell me about the time you were with...Robert was it? What were your days like?"
Roger took a deep breath. "Just... normal. Maybe a little like a housewife? I kept the house clean and did the cooking..."
"Do you enjoy doing that?"
He considered for a moment. "I like cooking," he said.
"What do you like about cooking?"
"Rhythm," he replied. He liked how his body knew the motions. He liked making things. "Food."
David nodded and made a note of this. "How long have you been at Mark's place now?"
Roger thought for a moment. He was honestly unsure, but he knew they had been to temple twice. "Maybe two or three weeks," he guessed.
"What do you think of staying with Mark? How is it different from being at Robert's?"
Answers leapt to mind. Mark respected Roger's personal space and there wasn't any sex, and he was never hit or locked outside or punished. But any of those answers made Robert seem like a twisted jerk. There had to be some difference.
"Mark has central heating," Roger answered finally.
"Is that a good thing?" David decided to humor him. Perhaps he could use 'central heating' as a starting point.
He nodded. "Especially when it's cold like this," he said, meaning the weather. It had been snowy lately. Roger loved the snow. Loved the cold, too.
"Is there anything you don't like about Mark's place?"
Roger shook his head. "I love staying with Mark."
"What do you love about it? Be specific."
Oh. Roger understood that. So anything he said, this guy would just assume the opposite was true about Robert. He wasn't stupid. Jesus, sure, Robert got a little out of control sometimes, but he had a good heart. He'd taken Roger in, hadn't he? Fed him, housed him, clothed him? Roger wasn't about to turn around and squeal him out.
"May I go to the bathroom please?"
David nodded and waved him towards the door. "Go ahead."
"Thanks," Roger muttered. He stood and left the room quickly. The restroom was small, but at least it locked. Roger locked the door, then sat in the corner with his head buried in his knees. What had he done? Oh, god. Oh... sure. Sure, sometimes, Robert was a little... mean, but, Roger wasn't easy to live with, he daydreamed and moped, fuck, he wouldn't've been punished if he had just behaved.
"Asshole." Roger smacked himself across the face. What had he done? Only put away the man who had taken him in when he had no where to go. That was his fair trade-off?
David waited several minutes for Roger. He knew the young man was agitated. He didn't really want to talk. His body language and non-answers told more. Roger obviously didn't want to say anything against Robert or Mark. He was eager to please, almost to a fault and probably feared negative consequences. He had noted some unusual postures and fidgeting. Roger wasn't ready to talk, but he needed to.
Ten minutes later Mark entered the office. "He excused himself to the washroom. I don't think he's going to talk to me for a while, but I want to keep trying. Maybe next time you could stay with him. He seems to trust you, for the most part."
Mark nodded. "It's worth a try. He does talk to me at night. He's got severe anxiety. I found him hiding in the laundry room the other day."
"I'll give you a prescription for some Adivan, but only give it to him if you can't get him to calm down. Make him tell you what he's feeling and try to get him to relax. The pills are a last resort. If the anxiety persists, we can discuss more extensive drug treatment, but I can't prescribe long-term medication without knowing him a little longer."
Mark thanked his colleague and scheduled another appointment where he could talk to Roger. When David left, he went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. "Roger?"
Roger looked up. He had deteriorated a lot. After a few minutes he had snapped the tongue depressor and scratched himself pretty badly. He gasped. Oh, god. "Just a minute!" He scrambled over to the toilet, yanked a ream of paper off the roll and dabbed up as much of the blood as he could and threw the paper in the trashcan. He was still bleeding, but he pulled his sleeve down to hide it, then wiped his eyes and opened the door.
Mark could tell Roger was in a bad state. His eyes were red, his nose was still running and he couldn't look directly at Mark. He tried to comfort Roger by putting an arm around him, but the younger man was entirely too tense to relax. He guided Roger to the chair in his office. "Dave told me you were done for the day. Are you alright?"
Roger nodded. His head was spinning--his entire body was spinning, lost and confused and pained. At least his rectum was. His arm burned pleasantly, but he felt he might be ill. He felt the sleeve of his sweater sticking to his arm. "I'm fine."
Mark wasn't so sure about that. Everything about Roger told him he was anything but fine. He was trying to think of something to say, but then noticed something red on the sleeve of Roger's sweater. "What's wrong with your arm?"
"N-nothing." Roger quickly moved his arm out of Mark's line of sight. Nothing wrong, nothing wrong, he was fine. He got what he deserved.
Mark reached over and grabbed Roger's arm and slid the sleeve up. There were deep gouges on Roger's wrist, not to mention a few splinters. "What did you use to do this?" Mark asked. It was obviously self-inflicted.
Roger flinched and looked away. Did it matter? He was obviously in trouble already. He let Mark hold his arm. It was already hurt, he didn't want to exacerbate it.
"Roger, I need to know. There could be toxins on the object."
Without looking at Mark, he slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out half the tongue depressor. He set it down on the desk.
"Thank you." Mark grabbed some sterile tweezers from the cupboard as well as some gauze and tape, and butterfly closures. "You're lucky they don't need stitches. Why did you need to do this?"
Roger shrugged. Because I'm a dirty little bastard. Because all he did was run away. He ran from home, ran away from Robert. Sooner or later he would just run away from Mark, no matter how much he liked life with Mark, liked Mark. He would just end up hurting him.
"Was it because I made you talk to David?" He cleaned the scrapes and started to pick out the splinters.
"No." It wasn't Mark's fault. It was Roger's.
After getting the splinters out, he started putting the butterfly closures along the cuts, then covered them with gauze and tape. "Roger, we'll have to have a talk about this later tonight, OK?"
Roger nodded. He would find some way to make Mark forget about this. Maybe he would do the laundry; if he did everything it would take a few hours and Mark would fall asleep.
"I still have a few more things to do around here. Then we'll get lunch and head home early, OK?"
"Okay," Roger agreed. He would go along with whatever Mark wanted.
Mark signed a few papers, placed orders for tests and started typing a few reports on his computer. He was concerned that Roger had felt the need to harm himself again, and felt that he needed to spend some time with him in a comfortable environment. He also wrote a memo to David to advise him of Roger's state of mind. He was just printing the memo when there was a knock at the door. "Come in," he called.
A professional, neat woman walked into the office. "Mark Cohen?" she asked, and when he affirmed his identity she handed him an envelope. "This is a subpoena from the district attorney for the trial of Robert Evans."
"R-Robert's trial?" Roger asks, suddenly attentive. She nods. "Oh..."
Mark took the envelope and read the subpoena. He had received them before and this one seemed pretty standard. There was also a form that ordered records pertinent to the case. He scanned this one as well, and then realized the date of the trial was listed for next week. "Is this date correct?" he asked.
"Yes," she said.
Roger stood and went to look. That wasn't possible. Next Wednesday, it couldn't be so soon! Robert had just been arrested. What if they dismissed it altogether? He'd be out again. "T-they can't," he said. It had to be a mistake.
Mark sighed. "It's happened before in cases I was involved in. The defense pushes up the trial date hoping the victim won't be ready to testify. We'll make it work, Roger."
Roger opens his mouth, but he's cut off. It's just as well, since he doesn't know what to say. "Roger? You're Roger Davis?" the woman asks. Roger nods. "This is for you," she says, and hands him an envelope.
Mark kind of regretted using Roger's name, but realized that the district attorney would have found him eventually. At least now Mark could help him prepare for the trial. "I see the D.A.'s name on the summons but I don't have contact information. How do we get in touch?"
She gave him the address and telephone number for the district attorney, then excused herself and left the office. Roger sat down. He tossed his subpoena on the desk and brought his knuckles to his mouth. "Oh, god," he whimpered.
"I'm here for you, Roger. Let's go home and I'll make you lunch, OK?" Mark realized Roger was in no shape to go out to eat. He needed to be in a safe place as soon as possible.
He nodded. "Y-you don't... have to cook," he said. It was one of the few useful things he could do around Mark's house, and he didn't want to give it up.
"Who said anything about cooking? I'm heating the pizza we didn't eat last night." Mark tried to break the tension. "You can handle dinner tonight, if you want."
Roger smiled tensely. "I... think that would be ok," he said. He stood up. "Can we go now?"
"Of course." Mark handed Roger his jacket and put on his own coat. "Let's go home, Roger."
to be continued!
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