One True Pairing: Love, Sexuality and Identity in TROUF

One True Pairing: Love, Sexuality and Identity in TROUF

In my first personal essay on TROUF, I briefly discussed the significance of Blue and Alaster's relationship and the impact it had on me as a teenager. I often look back on this part of TROUF as perhaps the most interesting aspect of it to me. There are many reasons for this, but primarily, this relationship within the roleplay was my way of exploring the possibility of being in a relationship as a teenager in a safe environment.

At fourteen, I barely understood my own sexuality. It had only recently occurred to me that it might be women I was romantically attracted to instead of men. In my rural Appalachian community, the idea of someone else finding out about this terrified me. I feared rejection, particularly from my friends and my parents. My friends, after all, were mostly female. Maybe they wouldn't want to be friends with me if they knew I was a lesbian. Maybe they would feel threatened by me, the way I felt threatened by men, who leered at me and made inappropriate comments.

I was a somewhat androgynous child, mostly by my own design. I had a need to prove myself as capable and masculine as my younger brothers. My brothers shared a talent for music with my father, a professional musician and music teacher, that I could never quite access, though my father always insisted I was musical and could do it if I “put my mind to it.” I was, however, scrappy and driven. Time after time as a teenager, I found myself faced with some obstacle, whether it was my disconnect with music or my sexuality or the strange melancholy that would take me sometimes, crippling in its intensity. Every time, my reaction was to beat my fists against the obstacle with unrelenting fury, sometimes making progress against them from sheer persistence. Dad said I could do it if I put my mind to it. I put my mind to breaking out of the box I found society trying to push me into.

In the midst of this, there was TROUF. And there was Blue. She was like a friend to me, or perhaps more accurately, a sister. I had younger brothers but I did not have a sister and I had always wanted one. Perhaps I thought a sister would understand me better than my brothers, who'd never been whistled at by a passing stranger or told not to cut their hair short because it was too masculine. Blue understood me, though she wasn't me, or at least she was not entirely me.

She shared traits with me. She was angry most of the time, angry that the world she lived in wanted to define her by her biology. For Blue, this meant her race. For me, it meant my gender. They were two sides of the same coin. I was drawn to women, not least of all because it was part of what made me masculine, which I so desperately wanted to embrace. Blue, being a nelfkin, a race who were treated poorly by most other people in the realm, was drawn to a fairy, the race that hated nelfkins the most.

The relationship between Blue and Alaster developed almost as organically as a real relationship might, though perhaps more fancifully. It was, as you might expect, an awkward courtship, considering that myself and my friend, Shey, who played Alaster, were very young and understood next to nothing about being in love. Nonetheless, Blue and Alaster fell in love. I like to think they recognized a mutual hurt in one another. Blue stopped throwing herself against her obstacles with such fury. She had Alaster now to soften the blow.

I did not, of course, think of them at the time as an allegory for forbidden love, though that is exactly what they were. It would not be until later on that I would begin to look for representation of myself in the media, surprised when I did not find it there. I could not relate to television shows like Will & Grace. I wanted to see a queer relationship that developed as naturally as the relationship between Blue and Alaster had developed.

I began to question why I never saw myself reflected in media when I was fifteen. By then, I'd started to explore the idea of bisexuality. The older I grew, the more often I found myself attracted to people at all, be they men or women. Mostly, when I look back on it, I am shocked by how few people of either gender I was attracted to. It was only recently for me that I began to understand that I am not a very sexual person, but that's a whole different kettle of fish.

My parents have since become very supportive of my sexual identity, but it was a learning curve for all of us. I don't think either of them expected to raise a daughter like me. I wasn't just gay, or bisexual, I was rebelling against the idea of being thought of as “feminine.” Women did not have to be feminine, in my mind, and men did not necessarily have to be masculine. For instance, Blue and Alaster did not fit the idea of a “normal” relationship that I had in my head. Alaster was the more vulnerable of the two, while Blue was always steadfast and strong. She protected him at every opportunity. She could fight and defend herself, he could not. She was plain, he was beautiful. She had gray eyes as interesting as metal washers, he had vibrant baby blues.

The very first person to make an effort to reach out to me about my sexuality was Shey. Before my parents, or my brothers or any of my other friends said anything about it to me, she was the one who wrote me a note that told me she hoped she ended up with a handsome musician and that I met a hippie girl who didn't shave her legs so we could both be happy in life. I must confess, I didn't quite know how to take it. It wasn't that I was surprised, rather, I was surprised by how normal it seemed. Of course she knew before anyone else. However, in my world, such things were not spoken of. She had broken taboo by mentioning it. And it opened the floodgates for me.

I realized then that I was tired of hiding. I had hidden in Blue, who was stronger than I was. I had created Leffi, the elf, who I always thought of as gay, though her orientation was never expressly stated, and that was just more hiding. When I created her, I'd thought it might be easier to reveal her sexuality to my friends than it would be to reveal my own, but I still could not make myself do it. All around me, people treated homosexuality like it was somehow shameful. And I was ashamed for a very long time, but if my dearest friend, the one who created Alaster, who knew my heart like no one else, saw nothing wrong with it, why was I still disguising my true self?

This is not to say that I was then set free from the shackles of societal norms. I struggled for many more years with understanding myself, eventually calling myself a bisexual who was not very sexual, and my parents worried that I had isolated myself from having a relationship of any sort. I was afraid of that too, for a long time. That I did not often desire another person in that way seemed as shameful as desiring women.

However, it was not true that I had never been in a relationship. I knew how to have a relationship in an RPG like TROUF. Ultimately, this led me to literate roleplay with other people online, where I explored my sexuality much as I had learned to do as a child with TROUF. Unlike with TROUF, I could experiment with people I didn't know in person and have strong connections to. I did find, over time, that I developed deep friendships with several of these people. I was able, for instance, to admit that I was a virgin in my early twenties to a friend I roleplayed (and still roleplay) with via email.

These roleplays via email started, for me, with Blue and Alaster. Shey and I spent, I think, more time in TROUF that just about anyone else. Sometimes, this resulted in us roleplaying together and accidentally leaving our friends behind in the main story, though we tried to avoid it. After a while, we struck upon an idea.

One summer, we spent nearly a week together at the West Virginia State Fair in a camper with my parents and little brothers. I raised goats and sheep as 4-H projects every year and so I had to be at the fair that long, but there was a lot of free time between showing animals that had always bored me to tears. Usually, I'd spent most of my time at the fair by myself. The previous year, I'd spent all my free time on the computers available to the public in the exhibit hall. That year, with Shey by my side, I still spent a lot of time at the computers. This was when we started the “Fatherhood” roleplay via email.

Fatherhood was inspired by the “Modern TROUF” roleplay that our group had started on our forum in tandem with our main story. In Modern, everything was the same except it was set in modern day. In Fatherhood, things were slightly different. It focused on Alaster and Blue in their married years in modern day, and their child, Arabelle. We'd decided to explore this idea of our characters as parents because when we weren't at the computers or hanging out with my goats, we were watching a VHS tape of Bill Cosby On Fatherhood on the small TV in our camper.

I recently mentioned this to Shey, and how when I first found out that Bill Cosby had been accused of sexually assaulting a large number of women my reaction was sorrow that my precious childhood memory was now connected to that. Her reaction was much like my own, she said, adding that “Alaster had looked up to him.”

Regardless, Bill Cosby's influence on Fatherhood was an element of comedy. Alaster and Blue were amusing in their attempts at parenting their strong-willed daughter. I can't remember now how long we continued this roleplay, only that we did eventually stop. I went to college. Shey and I fell out of touch for a bit, mostly, I've always thought, because of my depression and anxiety that began to make it difficult for me to maintain personal relationships.

Still, neither of us could quite give up on Blue and Alaster. Periodically, we would contact one another with a short story one of us had written, or a song that made us think of them. I rewrote the first meeting between Blue and Alaster in our modern day alternate universe several times over. Each time, Blue was a waitress in a coffee shop and Alaster was her friend's deadbeat brother, and somehow the pull between them was irresistible. To me, they became the very definition of true love, supporting one another through thick and thin. Of course, they also represented my friendship with Shey, which was one I could never justify barricading myself from. We were friends, and would always be friends, and I do believe that is still true, despite my unique ability to make myself completely unavailable to the rest of the world.

During my third year of college, we started talking about writing modern TROUF short stories again. At the time, I was dealing with a newly discovered problem – panic attacks. TROUF was a blessed relief from my anxiety, the same escape it had always been. We were older now and both of us more conscious of the ways in which TROUF lacked a bit of diversity. All of the characters, traditionally, were white-skinned and heterosexual. Why didn't we have any gay characters? When we thought about this, we quickly came to the conclusion that if any of the characters were gay, it was probably Fae and Shadow.

By this time, we were very attached to all of the characters from the main story. Fae and Shadow were a natural fit for one another, as they had been friends in the main story. Though we never got around to writing the whole story at the time, the idea was cemented in my mind. Fae and Shadow were together, as surely as Blue and Alaster. If you've been reading along on TROUF and have noticed how close these two characters seem, particularly in stories written by myself, this was intentional. Like Blue and Alaster, Fae and Shadow are meant to share their happy ever after when the story concludes.

On the other hand, there is “proto” TROUF, the story of the heroes who first used the magical crystals given to them by the gods. The decision was made by the group when we first came up with this concept that the proto characters would not have their happy ever after. And while the details of this are not yet decided upon, the story already has a darker feel to it. This is the story that Leffi belongs to.

Leffi, in many ways, represents my own struggle with my sexual identity, and also my gender identity. She is not like me in that she is tall and extroverted and prone to smiling. She is like me in that her romantic feelings are quite complex but rarely spoken out loud. Despite being private about her own feelings, Leffi goes to great length to support her friends, perhaps because she knows what it is like to hide what you are. In particular, she is close to Emma's character, Wyndal, and Shey's character, Trynace.

This is partly in keeping with the main story. Leffi has the Codex crystal, which is the crystal that Blue carries. The crystals have unique relationships to one another. For instance, Codex's powers compliment Cerebrum, the crystal that Alaster and Trynace both carry during their respective quests. Codex also shares a bond with the Null crystal, used by Zi and Wyndal. Blue and Zi are good friends, as are Leffi and Wyndal.

Most accurately, I would describe Leffi as bisexual, but much like myself, she is drawn to intelligence and personality more so than physical appearance. In Wyndal, she finds an intelligence that rivals her own. However, Wyndal is gay, the only gay male in TROUF as of now, so their relationship is only one of friendship. Leffi spends a lot of time trying to hook Wyndal up with men they meet during their quest, much to Wyndal's embarrassment. She does this because she fears that she cannot find “true love” for herself.

As mentioned in the short story “In the Library of Skye,” Leffi has terrible luck because she was cursed by the goddess Jilna. She is as unlucky in love as she is in everything else, though she is always optimistic about her bad luck. Of course, as luck would have it, the person Leffi is most drawn to is her compliment, Trynace. And Trynace is head over heels in love with a strapping young knight of the realm named Spencer Spencer.

True to her character, Leffi makes the most of this. Trynace becomes her closest friend and she allows herself to be happy for Trey when she realizes how deep the bond between Trey and Spencer truly is. Of course, this is proto TROUF and no one lives happily ever after. Leffi's bad luck extends to her optimistic world view. Things do not get better, as she expects. They get worse.

Even now, TROUF helps me sort out my own emotional baggage about my identity. Writing Leffi and Blue allows me to explore the idea of strong, masculine women as heroes, rather than female heroes that can be seen as sex symbols. Leffi reflects my own identity as a bisexual in a more direct manner, but Blue and Alaster still break down societal barriers with their heterosexual relationship.

I hope I can continue to explore all of these themes in TROUF, and also other examples of diversity that I did not know much about as a young, white Appalachian. It would be wrong to call TROUF truly intersectional and all inclusive at this point in time, but I hope that it will continue to grow and perhaps one day, someone else will read these stories and see themselves reflected back.

- Rachel

Modern TROUF: Fatherhood, Chapter Three

Fatherhood, Chapter Three

Deciding to go through with having a child sparked a new debate between Blue and Alaster, one that seemed to have no immediate answer and left them both at a stalemate. It made sense to Alaster that if they were expanding their family, they also needed to expand their space. The easy solution, in his mind, was to ask Roger to move out. Of course, he'd been trying to get Roger to move out for several years now without success. He was not surprised that Blue was reluctant to pressure Roger into leaving.

“He's my friend,” she told Alaster reproachfully. “How many times has he been there for us?”

“For you,” Alaster corrected. It was no secret that Roger didn't like him, and in turn, he didn't like Roger either. However, it was true that Roger had been Blue's friend for a long time. They were close. Alaster didn't like it. It wasn't that Blue couldn't have friends other than him (and a fat lot of good it would have done him to try and insist on such an absurdity), but he didn't see why said friend had to live in their home.

Blue rolled her eyes, as she always did when she thought Alaster was being immature. “Roger ain't the problem, Al, it's the apartment that's the problem. Our bedroom is barely big enough for the two of us. The kitchen is, like, a dollhouse kitchen. It's fine, if you're not trying to manage a household. What if we want to have another kid after this one though? We need more space and Roger moving out isn't going to help. What we need to do is find a house.”

This prompted a scoff from Alaster. “We can barely afford to pay rent on an apartment and you want to rent a house?”

“It's not that much more expensive than paying the rent on this place would be if Roger wasn't sharing it with us,” Blue pointed out. “Yet, you're a proponent of kicking him to the curb. We gotta figure something out, Al, if we're really going to have this baby.”

Alaster was back to trying and failing to cope with the concept of fatherhood. Now that he'd said he wanted the kid, now that Blue had admitted to the same thing, the terror was really setting in. He didn't know the first thing about babies, except that they were small and fragile and completely dependent, and they were incredibly loud when they were upset.

How many more months did he have to prepare for this?

“I should get a job,” he said.

“I don't think so,” Blue replied. “Someone needs to stay home with the kid, at least for a while.”

“What, you want me to be the stay at home mom?” Alaster sneered. Staying at home by himself was one thing but it seemed weird that he should be the one raising the baby while Blue worked.

“Did you expect me to quit my job?” Blue asked testily, tapping her fingers on the kitchen  table. “You really think I should stay at home because I'm the woman, and you should go to work because you're the man?”

Well, when she put it like that, it sounded unreasonable. Alaster had not gotten into a relationship with Blue under the misconception that she was willing to adhere to the same conservative values his own mother had. She was anything but typical and there was no doubt in Alaster's mind that of the two of them, she was more inclined to do well in the workplace. She was driven and intelligent and stubborn, all of which were traits he found very attractive and yet somehow also infuriating. He suspected she had similar complaints about him.

Staying at home, though, was slowly driving him crazier than he already was. He'd noticed that the more time he spent on his own in the apartment, the less willing he was to go out anywhere. His tolerance for other people, which was never high in the first place, was now at an all time low. He still went out to buy cigarettes, but that was easier because it was routine. Every couple of days, he walked down to the nearest gas station and bought two or three packs. He didn't talk to anyone, usually he didn't even make eye contact with the cashier, just walked in and motioned to the brand he preferred and mumbled the number of packs he wanted.

He didn't think it was a great idea for him to stay at home with a kid and raise it like that. If possible, he wanted to avoid giving the kid the same complexes that he'd developed. Genetically speaking, it was already going to be dealing with a history of mental illness on both sides of the family tree. Blue functioned a lot better than Alaster did but that didn't mean she didn't struggle with her own issues. Not to mention that her own father committed suicide when she was young.

“No, I don't think that,” he objected. “It's just... Me, with a baby, unsupervised?”

“You unsupervised,” said Blue with a smirk. “Why not?”

“What if I break it?” Alaster asked, and it was a genuine question even though Blue laughed aloud as soon as the words left his lips. “Stop it, I'm being serious! You know, babies are these tiny, helpless things with tiny bones and, fuck, they don't even hold their heads up properly. You have to feed them the right things, you have to change diapers...”

“Oh, scary. I think you could manage changing diapers, hun.”

“You're missing the point.” Alaster was grumpy with her now. Why did she have to laugh at him when he was stressed?

Blue gave him a sympathetic smile and shook her head. “I know you're freaked out. Honestly, it's going to be a huge adjustment for both of us. Sure, I'd like to stay home with her, you know? It would beat the hell out of serving people coffee all day. If I do that, do you really think you can get a job that pays well enough to support all three of us? I'm sorry, but I just can't see it. I'm not trying to drag you down here but my resume beats the hell out of yours and we both know it.”

Even though it was true, Alaster couldn't help but frown. He didn't need reminded how useless he was, but Blue was right. He probably couldn't even get a good job, let alone hold it down. Still, was he really going to spend the rest of his life at home, never facing the scary outside world, never dealing with his demons?

“Al, I think we need to talk about therapy again,” said Blue, as though somehow sensing his thoughts. “I didn't want to push you because it's your choice, but with the baby, things are different. You need to start taking care of yourself.”

“I'm not crazy, I don't need anybody poking around in my head,” Alaster replied automatically. It had been a while since they'd had this conversation but it used to come up often. “There's nothing wrong with me.”

“I'm not saying there's something wrong with you.” Blue's expression clouded and she looked away from him. She was silent for a long moment, as though she was struggling to find the right words. At last, she said, “I love you the way you are, every part of you, but I want you to be healthy. It's the same as any physical illness. If you had, say, cancer, I'd want you to seek medical treatment.”

The comparison made Alaster sick to his stomach. How could she act like having cancer was the same as whatever his problem was? So he was depressed, lots of people were depressed, and lots of people were anxious too. He wasn't suicidal, not really, even if he did occasionally think of himself as a waste of space and resources.

“So I'm unhealthy,” he said, his tone bitter. “You can just admit that you don't think I can handle raising our kid.”

“I am not saying that, nor do I think it. I just think there's stuff you haven't dealt with, stuff with your dad...”

“Stop, stop talking.” Alaster rose from the table, determined to leave the conversation before it inevitably devolved. Blue meant well but Alaster didn't want to talk about his father. He didn't even want to think about Aster if he could avoid it.

She rose to her feet as well and followed him into the living room. “You keep it all locked up forever, Al, and it's gonna eat you up inside. Trust me, I know.”

Instead of responding, he sat down on the couch and turned on the television. Seinfeld was on, and he turned the volume up. His shoulders hunched defensively.

Maybe he had problems, but going to some stranger and paying them money he didn't have so they could force him to talk about his daddy issues wasn't the answer, not in his opinion. How was talking about Aster going to help? He wanted to forget, not remember. It was all in the past anyway. Aster was dead and buried and he needed to stay that way. Alaster needed to not think about him.

“Okay, you don't want to talk, I get it.” Blue sounded irritable but resigned. “I'm going to work. Call me if you need anything. I love you.”

He didn't say it back, didn't turn to look at her as she left.

–

The initial elation of deciding to keep the baby was wearing off for Blue. She still wanted it, couldn't deny that much, couldn't help wondering if it would look more like her or Alaster, or some funny combination of them both. She'd even started thinking about it as a girl, though she hadn't directly admitted this to Alaster. Is was far too early to find out the gender but Blue liked the idea of having a daughter. She didn't know a lot about girls, aside from being one. Her siblings were all male. Most of her close friends were women, though. She could imagine raising a little girl to be a strong woman like Fae or Artemis, kind and funny like Zi and Shadow.

She was scared, of course, that she was making the wrong decision. Given her own history of struggling with depression and the residual trauma from her father's suicide when she was a child, she wasn't always in the best mental health herself. And Al, well, he had his reasons for being the way he was but it was in his blood too. Aster hadn't been a mentally healthy person, and Alaster's mom had always been barely clinging to the shreds of her sanity.

Was it irresponsible to have a baby that might struggle through life the same way? Blue told herself that she could balance it out by being there, supporting her child in a way that Alaster's parents had been incapable of doing for him, like her own mother did, like her father had done before life got too hard for him to deal with.

For so long now, she'd been so focused on Alaster's health that perhaps she'd forgotten to take care of herself in this regard. Where did she get off telling him he needed to deal with his baggage when she was just as guilty of refusing to deal with past problems? She'd never sat down in a therapist's office and talked about how her father's death had affected her. But she coped with it, in her own way. She drank a little too much but she didn't often get drunk, and she'd stopped completely upon discovering she was pregnant. She was fine. She could hold down a steady job, stay in relatively good shape, eat healthy food and maintain eye contact with customers at the coffee shop.

She'd told Alaster that she didn't think he was incapable of raising a child, and that was mostly true. At least, she hoped it was. As much as she loved him, she understood his limitations better than anybody else, save Fae. Responsibility was never something he'd been good with. She wanted to think she could leave their child with him and everything would be fine, and the kid probably would be fine, but that didn't mean Alaster would be fine.

Then again, maybe he'd be a great parent. Despite how recalcitrant he usually was, he was affectionate with Blue, in an awkward, embarrassed kind of way. Around other people, he kept his distance, but when they were alone, he could even be described as cuddly. And he'd asked her to keep the baby. Part of him wanted it, and badly, or he would never have said anything.

Blue hated that she didn't feel completely confident in Alaster's potential parenting skills. She hated bringing up his father, hated making him feel like there was something wrong with him. On too many occasions, she'd known that feeling herself. It hurt like a physical blow and she didn't want to hurt Alaster. Since they'd started dating, perhaps even since the first time she ever met him, she'd felt the need to protect him.

He never wanted to talk about the ways in which his father had abused him. Fae had it worse, he always said. With Fae, the abuse had been regular, both physical and verbal. On occasion, Blue had discussed this with Fae, who seemed to understand Blue's desire to better understand her boyfriend.

“For a while, it was just me,” Fae had told her once. “When we were both little, I was still a disappointment but Alaster had potential.”

Alaster probably didn't know how much Blue knew about it. She'd never told him about her talks with Fae, though he seemed to sometimes suspect that they were in cahoots, plotting to get him sent to rehab or something. Blue remembered once suggesting rehab several years ago, when Alaster had been more committed to ruining his liver than he was at present. He'd stopped talking to her for days, probably never would have talked to again if she hadn't sought him out herself. Fae had explained to her later about Aster forcing his son into rehab. Blue had never brought it up again, but Alaster was still paranoid about it.

“You look down.” Zi's voice roused Blue from her thoughts and she looked up to see the younger woman smiling at her from the other side of the coffee shop counter. As always, Zi was the picture of loveliness, with her hair done expertly in braids and her outfit flattering and fashionable.

Blue had always liked Zi, kind of thought of her as the little sister she'd never had growing up. Zi worked at the coffee shop to pay her way through grad school, deceptively smart, which Blue appreciated. They'd known each other since Zi was a cheerful college freshman and Blue was struggling through her senior year of undergrad.

“Oh, I suppose I'm a little preoccupied today,” Blue admitted. She hadn't told any of her friends about the baby yet. She was waiting until things were further along. It was still so early in the game and Blue didn't want to tell everyone, only to lose the baby and then have to explain what had happened.

“How's Alaster?”

“Still upright and relatively healthy.” Blue made herself a cup of decaffeinated coffee. Working in this place was a constant temptation lately, but caffeine was right out. Decaff was not the same, of course, and when she sipped it, all she tasted was disappointment.

Zi watched her with confusion, cocking her head slightly to one side. “Did you mean to pour decaff?”

“Yeah, I'm cutting out caffeine,” said Blue, and she set aside the less than perfect cup of coffee, giving it one last look of disdain. “You know, uh, new diet.”

This was not a particularly good lie, since Blue had never even really tried to put herself on a diet. She tried not to eat too many carbs, since her metabolism was nothing like her boyfriend's and as such, her figure was harder to keep, but she insisted this was because she liked to be healthy. Between her and Alaster, one of them had to be.

Luckily, Zi didn't question her, though her expression gave away her skepticism. Blue was just grateful her coworker hadn't made more of an issue out of it. She wasn't ready to tell anyone the truth. Her friends would want to congratulate her and Blue was not in the mood to be congratulated.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down to see a text from Fae displayed on the screen.

Hello, Blue. Can we talk? :) :) :)

It was hard to say what Fae wanted to talk about. Blue was afraid that it had to do with the baby. While she hadn't told Fae herself, she doubted Alaster had been able to keep the information to himself and the only person he would have felt comfortable talking to about it with would have been his twin sister. Then again, there was a chance Fae was still in the dark and just calling to check on her brother, as she did on a fairly regular basis.

Taking a deep breath, she texted back a quick confirmation.

Fae's response read: I hope I am not being forward but I spoke to Alaster and from what I understand, congratulations are in order. <3

Blue could have smacked her forehead against the counter. She'd expected it but that didn't really make it any easier.

She typed back: yeah i reckon

Fae wrote: Can I call you? I know you're at work. ^_^

“Can you watch the counter for a bit?” Blue asked Zi, who smiled and nodded.

Slipping out the front door of the coffee shop, Blue dialed Fae's number and paced the sidewalk as she waited for her friend to answer.

“Hello?” Fae greeted.

“Hey,” said Blue in response. “I guess you heard from Al, huh?”

“Yes, I'm sorry to be nosy. I was just wondering how you're holding up. I texted Alaster today and he said you'd decided to keep the baby.”

It was a pretty day outside. Blue leaned against a metal bench and stared up at the blue sky. The color had always reminded her of Alaster's eyes, clear and so bright that it hurt to look at them for too long. She wondered if their child would have those blue eyes, or gray like her own.

“I wasn't sure at first,” she admitted. “He says he wants me to keep it. He doesn't always know what's best for him though.”

On the other end, Fae hummed in agreement. Then she said, “I haven't told Alaster yet but I just found out that our mother's very ill.”

Blue pinched the bridge of her nose and suppressed a groan. Yet another thing to stress about, she supposed. She couldn't say she was very sad to hear the news. Amelia Gwilimen was not exactly Blue's favorite person. Blue could count on one hand the number of times Amelia had spoken directly to her, and all of those conversations had included the word “commoner” at least once.

“How sick is she?”

“According to her lawyer, it's cancer and she only has a couple of months. He only called me, of course, because Alaster wouldn't answer him. You know how he is about the phone. Apparently, Alaster's still listed as Amelia's next of kin. The lawyer mentioned something about her will too. Aster left her everything, to my understanding.”

“So, what you're telling me is that Al needs to talk to this lawyer fellow.” Blue was already dreading having that conversation with her boyfriend. She should have kept her mouth shut about therapy this morning. Now, he was going to be in the worst possible mood.

“I'm sorry. I know he's not going to want to do it. I'll call him if you'd like, I'm honestly not sure which of us he'd prefer to hear it from. He won't yell if he's talking to me, but he won't do what I tell him to do either.”

“I'll do it,” said Blue, because it was her opinion that Fae should not be forced to deal with Gwilimen family issues any more than was absolutely necessary. On this matter, she and Alaster were in agreement. If possible, she tried to keep Alaster from dealing with them too. “He's going to be difficult. I'll probably have to threaten to make him sleep on the couch to get him to do it.”

“Thank you.” Fae sounded relieved. “So, now that we've gotten that out of the way, tell me about how you are. How far along are you?”

“Ah, not far. A couple of months. I've got another doctor's appointment in a week.”

“Let me know if you need someone to go with you,” said Fae. “Really, I'm very happy for you. Have you thought about whether you'd rather have a boy or a girl?”

Blue's cheeks colored a bit at the question. Of course she had, but she couldn't just admit to that. “You know, as long as it's got all its fingers and toes, I'll be happy.”

“Oh, yes, but I'm personally hoping it's a girl. Boys are wonderful too but I saw this adorable dress at the store yesterday and I nearly bought it. Little girls have the cutest clothes. You won't mind if I spoil her, will you? I'm excited to be an aunt.”

“You know you're welcome to spoil her rotten.” Blue's mouth turned up in a tiny smile. Fae sounded happy. Her mother had been happy about it too. It made Blue feel better about keeping it.

“Have you thought of any names?” asked Fae.

“Not really,” Blue admitted. She wasn't good with names and she hadn't asked Alaster about it. Perhaps when she got home that evening, she could ask him about names before she brought him his mother's lawyer. “Thought we'd use Gwilimen for the last name though.”

“You could hyphenate your last names,” Fae suggested. “Plenty of people do that these days.”

“Grass-Gwilimen or Gwilimen-Grass?” Blue laughed a bit at how absurd it sounded. “No, I think Gwilimen is better.”

She liked the name, even if she didn't care for the family as a whole. There was no need to try and preserve her own last name, since her brothers would likely see to carrying it on themselves. Likely, Alaster would be in favor of using it. It seemed like the sort of thing he would think was “proper,” and she didn't always humor him about such things but this once, it felt right.

“I've got to get back to work but I'll call you tomorrow, let you know how everything goes,” she said. “Thanks for calling, Fae, it... It means a lot to me.”

“We're family,” Fae replied. “Talk to you later, then. And take it easy, please. If you need anything at all, let me know.”

Well, Blue thought as she headed back into the coffee shop, at least she could rest assured that Fae was happy with the news. Amelia Gwilimen's illness, on the other hand, was likely going to cause a great deal of trouble. If the woman's lawyer was trying to get in contact with Alaster, Blue doubted she was long for this world.

–

The apartment was suffocating. Alaster couldn't stand to be cooped up in it, for a change. Instead, he took himself, his cigarettes and some whiskey in a small metal flask, and wandered down the street to the nearby park. He made use of the shoplifted sunglasses and found a fairly secluded bench to sit on beneath a large oak tree. From this seat, he could see the playground, where a local daycare had brought a dozen or so small children for an outing.

He would bring his son here, he thought. He'd already decided the baby was going to be a boy and he didn't care to analyze why he was so set on the notion. If he was the one staying home with it, a boy would be better. He didn't know a thing about girls, except Fae.

Fae was delighted with the idea of being an aunt, which Alaster supposed was a good thing. He hadn't talked to her about his fears of getting stuck at home for the rest of his life with Blue taking care of him. Mostly, this was because he thought Fae probably agreed more with Blue than she did with him on the topic. Blue wasn't the only one who thought Alaster needed counseling.

Just the thought of going to a counselor made him want to scream. How many times had people tried to force him to talk about the shit show that was his life? Sure, it had been alright for Fae, but that didn't mean it would be the same for him. He'd worked so hard to keep his life Aster-free and he didn't want to dredge it all up again. It wasn't like Aster still haunted him, not like he used to. Seeing the man buried had done Alaster a lot of good.

Even now, Alaster was still angry at his father. He was angry about the physical abuse his sister had endured for years, before she was old enough to escape it. He was angry that when she'd gone, he'd been left behind to face Aster's wrath on his own. His anger was never directed at Fae, because he couldn't blame her for getting out while she could. After all, he'd eventually done the same, even if that had meant sleeping on his buddy's couch and drinking himself under the table every night.

Of course he should have finished high school. At the very least, he should have gotten his act together and taken the GED so he could go to college. Maybe he'd actually be able to get a good job to help support his family if he'd done that. Then again, it wasn't really the fact that he didn't have a high school diploma that kept him from getting a good job. His work ethic was pathetic, he was rude and unpleasant, and none of his former employers were inclined to give him good references. He'd dug this hole himself. Blaming Aster for it wasn't going to fix his problems.

Most days, Alaster lived in his head. He knew this but couldn't figure out how to change it. The answer should have been simple, like everyone always said. If there was nothing to be depressed about, he had no business being depressed. If there was no point in worrying about things, he shouldn't let himself get so anxious. It was all easier said than done.

Blue could understand him in some ways. Fae understood in others. His sister knew his past and his girlfriend knew his mind. That was lucky, he knew. He wasn't alone, even if he still felt like it. Hell, compared to what Fae had endured as a child, Alaster's problems were small potatoes.

His phone started ringing again. Alaster took it out of his pocket and stared at it. He didn't know the number but this was the sixth time it had called him. He didn't answer calls from numbers he didn't recognize. Nine times out of ten, it was someone he didn't want to talk to, someone he used to get wasted with or knew in high school, and he had nothing to say to any of those fuckers.

It was too bad Jimmy had kicked it. Alaster missed that crazy asshole. He'd been one of the only real friends Alaster had. Alaster still had his number in his phone, though he'd changed phones a couple of times since Jimmy's death. It didn't feel right to delete it. Jimmy hadn't been the best influence on him, but he'd kept Alaster going when there was no one else who could.

He silenced the call and stuck his phone back in his pocket. Whoever it was could leave a voicemail. Another one, he supposed, since he'd noticed he had several. He didn't want to listen to them. Didn't whoever it was realize that he had enough to deal with already? As if his life wasn't screwed up enough, he'd just agreed to have a kid with his girlfriend who thought he needed to sort out his daddy issues before the baby was born. It hadn't been that long ago that he'd started to think things had finally turned around for him.

He missed the early days of his relationship with Blue. They'd been so different from each other, so reluctant to like each other at all, but she'd caught his interest from the start and he somehow couldn't extricate himself from that. Why she put up with him back then, he would never know. Somehow, that interest had turned into a connection with her that rivaled only the bond he shared with his twin sister.

Back then, she'd been as inclined to get wasted with him as she was to be critical of his vices. She didn't struggle with liquor like he did. No matter how often she drank it, she never seemed to form a habit. Habits weren't in her nature. She could do the same thing day after day for months and walk away from it at the drop of a hat. Sometimes he wished he could be like that. Instead, he wallowed in his unhappiness, unwilling to change his ways even if it was to make himself more comfortable.

For a moment in time, they'd been a force to contend with. He didn't love her any less these days, quite the opposite. They had grown together now so that each of them felt most comfortable in the presence of the other. Blue was Alaster's stability, unmovable by any natural force. Where his mind was chaos, hers was order.

He did not speak of such things out loud, of course. In contrast to how free he was with complaints and woes, he was surprisingly conservative with compliments, even when it came to her. In many other ways, she was an exception.

A small boy kicked a soccer ball and it rolled past Alaster's bench. Alaster's eyes followed the soccer ball. Back home, they called that a football. His “friends” in high school had laughed at him when he called it that like it was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. It became a bit of a party trick, one that worked well on girls. His accent, it turned out, was considered attractive.

The boy jogged over after the ball, but stopped short in front of Alaster, looking at him with narrowed eyes. He couldn't have been older than seven or eight.

“You're not supposed to smoke in the park,” the boy said, pointing to Alaster's cigarette.

Alaster took a long drag before he answered the boy. “That's why I'm sitting all the way over here.”

“Mom says not to talk to strangers, and you're pretty strange looking so I'm probably not supposed to talk to you,” said the boy, as though this explained his presence.

“Probably not,” Alaster agreed testily, wondering where the child's guardians were. This was how children disappeared on Law & Order SVU. He definitely wasn't going to put his kid in daycare if they just let them wander around the park like this. “Don't you have parents or something?”

A middle-aged woman with dark hair approached, her mouth set in a thin line. “Jeffrey, I told you about bothering strangers. Why are you harassing this poor man?”

When the boy didn't immediately answer, Alaster lowered his shades and fixed him with a look.

“The lady asked you a question.”

A sly look spread across Jeffrey's face and he said, “He told me he had candy.”

Alaster straightened up indignantly and pulled his shades off, folding them and hooking them on the collar of his t-shirt. “I have no idea what he's talking about, I'm just trying to smoke a cigarette in peace.”

“I really am sorry,” said the woman. “My son thinks he's funny.”

“I hadn't noticed,” Alaster remarked dryly.

He watched the boy, Jeffrey, get dragged away with a smug grin. Score one for Alaster; random kid, zero.

His phone rang again. He took it out and checked it, just in case it was Blue or Fae. It was the same number that had called him a moment ago. Once again, he thought about how he should probably answer it but instead he silenced it once more. Maybe later on he'd listen to those messages.

He took another drag off his cigarette.

TBC