Warnings: mentions of hot sweaty boy sex, pink

I do not own RENT.

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"March 20th, 1992, 4 pm eastern standard time. I'm at Maureen and Joanne's apartment, where Maureen appears to be cooking. But you never know, the apron and mittens could be some kinky new sex game our favorite lesbians are trying out," Mark narrated from behind his camera as he walked into the women's apartment.

Maureen, decked out in a pink apron and matching oven mitts, frowned at her ex-boyfriend. "Ha, ha, very funny Marky. And you're one to talk. Don't think I don't know about all the kinky stuff you and Roger do behind closed doors."

Blushing, Mark set down his camera and sat down on one of the chairs around the table. "So what are you doing?"

"As a matter of fact, I'm fixing a marvelous birthday dinner, complete with cake, for my Pookie," she said as she cracked some eggs into a mixing bowl.

"I didn't know it was Joanne's birthday. Tomorrow night we should all go out and get drunk to celebrate. I didn't know you could cook either. Today is just full of surprises."

Maureen snorted. "That may have something to do with the fact that we only ever had Cap'n Crunch to eat at the loft." She began vigorously mixing the batter with a whisk. "Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be home doing some of the aforementioned kinky stuff with your boyfriend?"

Mark sighed and placed his head on his folded arms. "We got into a fight about that new club he's working at. I don't like it because it's full of drugs and I'm scared of losing him again. He kept telling me that he would never go back to being a junkie, but I don't know. I guess I was just being paranoid." He put his head down on the table. "I've screwed everything up."

Maureen put down her bowl of batter and came to stand across the table from Mark. "Honey, what you need to do is go home and apologize. You've both had time to cool off and will now be thinking rationally. You both didn't mean half the things you said." She took the filmmaker's face in her hands. "Then once you've fixed everything and had a long heart to heart, you can go back to having hot sweaty boy sex." She smiled brilliantly as Mark squeaked.

"Maureen!" Mark squeaked as the drama queen pushed him out the door.

"Besides," she said, "you can't stay here. Joanne will be home in a couple of hours and I have to finish fixing dinner. So go. Shoo." And with that Maureen shut the door and turned back to her cooking.

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When Joanne arrived home two hours later, the scene was much different.

"Honeybear," Joanne called out as she sniffed the air, "is something burning?"

Her only response was a weeping Maureen who launched herself at the lawyer and continued sobbing into her shirt. "Honey, Maureen, what happened? Why are you crying?" she asked as she maneuvered both of them to sit on the couch.

Maureen looked up from Joanne's soaked shirt to look at her lover. "Well, I was trying to fix you a nice dinner for your birthday and I found this recipe for a cake, and, well, it looked really easy. So I put everything together and it looked good before I put it in the oven. " At this point Maureen burst out into tears again. Joanne just held her until her sobbing subsided.

"Well it said it had to bake for an hour, so I thought I could close my eyes for a little while because baking is very tiring. I didn't mean to fall asleep. When I woke up the smoke alarm was beeping and the cake was all burnt and horrible. It looked like charcoal!" Maureen stopped to wipe her eyes on her pink apron before continuing, "Something is wrong with the spaghetti sauce too, I don't want to know how that messed up. The only thing I didn't screw up is the pasta, but a six-year-old can make pasta!"

Joanne wrapped her arms around Maureen and attempted to muffle her giggles in her girlfriend's hair. "Sweetie, you can't cook." She pulled back and looked at Maureen.

"I know! I just wanted to do something special for you, for your birthday." Her tears had slowed to a trickle down her cheeks.

"How about this," Joanne said as she took Maureen's hands. "You go take a shower to get the egg out of your hair while I order Chinese food. We can save your marvelous pasta for this weekend and I'll show you how to make spaghetti sauce. Then we can eat the takeout with wine while we watch old movies, okay?" Joanne asked with a kiss to Maureen's lips.

"Okay," Maureen nodded. "I'm sorry I'm such a screw up and you always have to fix my mess-ups."

"Baby, I wouldn't have you any other way," Joanne whispered as she placed another kiss on Maureen's lips.

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Words: 832

Oh my god, she wrote humor. You're all having an aneurysm right now aren't you?

This was written for speedrent challenge 64.

Review please.

Dymond