A Tight-Knit Family // Falsettos AU

Alternate/Alternative

Whizzer

This it it. Mendel and I have arranged all of the things of ours (and some of Trina's and Marvin's) that we're selling. We wanted to do a garage sale, but since neither of us has a garage, we're standing by the curb outside my (new) apartment building. 

"Isn't this fun?" I ask him. "We don't hang out nearly often enough." 

"Well, last time, you got mad at me for trying to break stereotypes," he points out. 

"You called me a whore!" 

"Hey, did I ever confirm that? Did I?" 

A young woman comes up to express interest in our collection. "Hey, are you guys selling this stuff?" 

"Yes," Mendel says with more than a touch of sarcasm, "that's why it says 'yard sale' on our sign." He smiles warmly. 

"Okay, well..." The college kid (just guessing here) starts to browse. "Hey, is that you"—she points to me—"in this picture with Bo Burnham?" 

I look over to what she's holding. "What the f—I already told Marvin I was going to keep this!" I take it out of the girl's hands. "That's not for sale." 

"But I thought he said—"

I give Mendel a help me out here look. "U-uh, yeah," he tells her. "Actually, none of it is for sale. The sign was to mislead people." He laughs. 

"Oh, okay." The girl leaves, and I look at my friend irritably. "Nice job! We just lost a customer!" I hiss. 

"I get anxious when confronted!" 

Trina

Marvin looks alarmed. "What the—what's 'nipple stimulation'?!" 

"I don't know," I reply tiredly, "but maybe we shouldn't be inducing labour at home. We should let a professional handle this." 

"Fine. Cordelia's coming over, by the way." 

"Who invited her?" 

"I did." He looks at me like I'm stupid (I'm not stupid). "Obviously. You know what? You seem to be in a lot of pain right now, so I'm gonna look up more ways to induce labour." He goes back to his phone. 

"I'll be in more pain when I'm in labour!" I inform him. 

"But we both want to meet our baby, right?" 

I roll my eyes. That's easy for him to say, but I'm the one giving birth. 

There's a sudden knock on the door. Marvin gets up to answer it. "Oh, hi, Cordelia!" he greets her perkily. "We're just trying to get Trina to go into labour!" 

"Fun..." she says hesitantly. 

"So Charlotte's still busy with school, huh?" I pipe in. "I talked to her on the phone the other day, she was pretty busy." 

Cordelia looks hurt. "You talk to her on the phone without me?" 

"I usually call you!" I remind her. 

"Okay, what's some of the stuff they're suggesting on there?" she wonders, to Marvin. 

He extends the arm holding his phone. "Sex. Absolutely not. Spicy foods? Membrane stripping? What is membrane stripping?" 

"I don't know, but it sounds dirty," I put in. 

"I'll keep looking." 

Mendel

"So I've been dealing with some stuff lately," I say to Whizzer when we don't have any customers to serve. 

"Oh yeah? What kind of stuff?" 

"I feel like I'm failing as a psychiatrist. I can't find anything to help Marvin with lately, and if he needs help, I don't feel there for him," I vent. 

Whizzer puts a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sure he's just evolving from the problems he would talk about in therapy." 

"He still talks to me, but as a 'friend'..." 

"That's good! Maybe he's using your sessions to just vent to his friend! Sometimes you need that more than professional therapy." His hand is still on my shoulder. I brush it off because it's July and it's hot. 

"But I don't know if that's allowed. I try to keep my work as professional as possible. Can't we talk outside of work?" 

"Don't judge Marvin for what he chooses to do. Like I said, he probably isn't dealing with the same stuff he started going to you for." 

I sigh. "Okay, I guess. Now I'll talk to him about it later, but let's get back to our selling before we have any more custo—" I see a gigantic crowd at our curb. How long have we been talking?

"—mers?" Whizzer mutters, to finish for me. "Oh, no, not MERS. I just realized. Why'd you cut yourself off there?" 

Trina

"You know what?" I demand after a while of searching for methods (and trying a few. Don't worry, they exclude sex and membrane stripping). "Maybe I'll just wait to go into labour naturally. This is too stressful." 

"If you insist," Marvin says. 

"But you'll be ten months pregnant soon," Cordelia opposes. 

"So? That's only..." I pause. "Forty-three weeks." 

"Oh, my God," my ex-boyfriend groans. "Too many weeks can be dangerous, Trina. Stay aware of that." 

"If it's too long, I'll just go to the hospital to be induced." 

"I think you should go before it's been too long," Cordelia chimes in. 

I shrug a little. "Good point. Look, you guys. Whatever happens, I'll make sure that I don't put the baby in danger. And on the bright side, it's making up for having been underweight," I add. "So can we just leave it at that?" 

"That sounds fine," Marvin says grudgingly. 

Whizzer

Fortunately, the rest of the sale goes well. And though I didn't let Marvin convince me to sell all my objects, he was right about one thing. Well, we're not rich, exactly. But we certainly got a good deal of money out of this. 

When I open the door to Marvin's apartment, he's sitting on the couch, looking defeated. 

"What's wrong?" I ask. 

"I'm never going to have a baby," he explains. 

Oh, God, what happened?