A Tight-Knit Family // Falsettos AU

The Clothing Box

Charlotte

"It's official, Cordelia!" I say to my girlfriend, coming into our apartment. "We're official!" 

"We've been official for more than two and a half years," she responds, clearly confused. 

"No, I mean, we're officially Jason's godparents. God, we had so many parents to run it past, but here we are." I shrug. 

"Oh, my God, that's great! I bet we're gonna babysit him all the time now." 

I sit down on the couch. "Yeah." 

"We're so married." Cordelia swats my arm playfully. 

"And that's fine... right?" 

"Of course!" she says immediately. "I've been over that for quite a while." 

I nod. "And also, that doesn't mean we have to get married anytime soon, right?" 

"Course not." She smiles, and I do so back. 

"Perfect." 

I have the feeling we both want to get married. 

Whizzer

"Hello?... Oh, hi, Mendel." 

"Who's calling you?" I ask Marvin. 

He looks at me, holding the phone away from his ear. "Who do you think?!" 

"Oh, yeah. Mendel. What's he saying?" 

"I DON'T KNOW YET!" Marvin goes back to his phone. "Heyyy, Mendel. What do you need?" 

I sigh, bored and hot (it's August, but I'd be hot anyway ;)). 

"What?! Why?! I worked so hard for months!" 

"Is he firing you?" I interject. 

My boyfriend gives me a glare and suddenly I feel cold. He listens to Mendel. 

"You can't move in here?... The baby rooms were given an equal amount of work, Mendel!!... Ugh, fine, I'll talk to Whizzer about it." 

"Talk to me about what?" I'm afraid I already know. Are we moving? I just moved! 

"SHH," says Marvin, still on his phone. "No, not you. I meant Whizzer." 

"But I am Whizzer." 

"WHIZZER, I SWEAR TO GOD—I'LL TELL YOU AFTER I'M DONE TALKING TO MENDEL." 

"Okay, sorry." 

"NO, I KNOW YOU'RE MENDEL!" he cries into the phone. "I WAS TALKING TO WHIZZER!" 

I wait for the conversation to be done, and then I question Marvin again. "Talk to me about what? Are we moving?" 

He sighs. "Sorry for shouting at you back there." 

"I don't care. I still love you. Are we moving?" 

"Yes, Whizzer. Did you really think we were going to be able to act as joint-custody parents with a newborn baby?" 

"Yeah. And you did, until Mendel talked to you," I point out. 

"I don't care," he says politely. "Sorry, I just... either we're gonna take a few years to live with him, or we're just going right ahead and moving in with Trina and Mendel. It just... makes sense." 

I frown. "Why wouldn't it make sense this way?" 

"He's a month old, Whizzer. He's not having two bedrooms." 

I kind of laugh. I don't know why. 

"It's a good point," I continue. "I guess we should prepare for this, then." 

"I guess we should," sighs Marvin. "Whizzer, we'll figure this out. Right? This is what we were getting into. Being a tight-knit family." 

I nod. "I know." 

The past eight months have been full of quick decision-making. I think it'll be once we witness the impacts of this decision that we'll realize if any of them were the right one. 

Trina

"So you guys decided to move in in, like, five minutes?" I ask Marvin after a couple of weeks. 

"More or less. Come on, I told you I would be here when I found out you were pregnant. And I'm here." 

Whizzer rushes in. "Marvin... where's my Bo Burnham picture?" 

Marvin doesn't say anything. 

"Where is it?" 

"He's a problematic celebrity," is all my ex-boyfriend says. 

"But he's a celebrity!" Whizzer turns to me. "Trina, do you know what happened to it?" 

"It's in this box," I say, handing him said box. 

"Trina, that was the garbage box!" complains Marvin. 

"He's a celebrity," Whizzer tells him sternly. 

"We have no place for any of our stuff! Especially since Trina and Mendel kept, like, all of their things when they moved in together." 

"We compromised our belongings," I argue. 

"Doesn't look like it!" 

"We'll, are we going to keep anything of ours?!" Whizzer asks, searching through the garbage box. 

"Nope, no room." 

He looks sad. "What about our clothes?" 

"Oh, damn. I don't know." 

I take the garbage box back from Whizzer (it's huge. It had to be, to hold so much stuff). "You can put your clothes in here, both of you." 

"I don't want them getting mixed together!" Whizzer protests. 

Marvin turns to him. "What's wrong with my clothes?!" 

"Everything." 

"How about you guys sell the stuff from the garbage box?" I suggest. "Mendel will probably help." 

"No, he won't," Whizzer says quickly. "He's not good at keeping customers." 

"Trina, why can't you help?" Marvin questions. 

"I have a baby to take care of." 

"We all do. That's the point of this!" 

"I have more responsibilities, Marvin." 

"Right, how could we forget, primary parent," Whizzer mutters. Of course it's the quaternary parent complaining.