A/N: Now we'll get to hear from Roach's family. I always loved them but I made a few small changes. Trysta is twelve in this, not ten, so her relationship with Fool will be less squicky. Also, Donna and
Debbie are friends in this and she shares a room with Trysta and Dot. Morgan and Roach share a room too. Also, Fool lives near them. Enjoy!
Roach sat down on the floor under the kitchen table staring at a book. He had started out reading the thickest book in the house, War and Peace, in an effort to take his mind off of Alice. It wasn't work in the slightest amount. He wasn't even reading anymore, just staring at the words as rthey crawled across the page. What was wrong with him?
"Are you playing fort?" asked his six year old sister, Dottie, as she crawled across the cold linoleum and under the old table. Roach shook his head no and then motioned to the dusting of dirt on her overalls and pink t-shirt. What was it with girls and the color pink?
"No, me and Morgan were digging to China but then Dad got mad and made us fill in the hole." Said Dottie
"You look like pig pen." Wrote Roach. Dottie brushed some of the dirt off of herself.
"Yeah, I guess I do. Well, you look like a giant Mr. five foot nine and growing." Said Dottie. Roach closed the book and tapped Dottie playfully on the head with it. She laughed, it was nice when she laughed. It was completely different from the way Alice laughed, as it should have been considering that Dottie was his sister, but it was still nice.
"Did I ever tell you that you were the nicest, smartest, bestest big brother in the whole wide world?" said Dottie sweetly
"What do you want?" asked Roach. Dottie's sweet smile faltered, he saw through her like grandma's underpants.
"Can I call Messenger? I'd ask Dad but he went to work and I'd ask Donna but she's in our room really, really, mad about something." Said Dottie. Hard, heavy steps could be heard coming down through the ceiling followed by some muffled cursing. Roach nodded yes. Dottie smiled and gave him an air hug because he didn't like to be touched.
"Yay!" said Dottie. She crawled out from under the table with speed only a six year old could possess. Roach came out much more slowly and stretched the kinks out of his bones. The sound of the rotary dial phones filled the kitchen with its melodic sounds which mixed with Donna's pacing and Dottie's excited squealing.
"May I please speak to Messenegr Robeson, please? This is Dorothea Louisa Francesca Bianca Lonna Rebecca Cullen, sister of David Mathias Cullen…I dunno, Anita that's just what my named me….well it's better than everyone calling me Headbanger…Miracle's a good name for your baby I guess…hi Messenger! The number of the day was eleven today…and the letter was D like for Dot! I know, they almost never go over ten…so what are you up too?" said Dottie. Roach laughed a bit as she twisted a lock of her brown hair between her fingers like Trysta did when she talked to Fool. He was grateful that she had taken his mind off of Alice…and now his mind was right back there again. Great. He sighed and went into the living room to continue to stew in the feelings Alice had stirred up.
"You will not believe what happened at Dairy Queen today! Also I got you a scoop of bubblegum fudge ripple delight, it's in the freezer." Said Donna as she came into to the room with her video camera trained on him.
"(Thank you.)" said Roach as best he could. Ice cream sounded wonderful right then, especially bubblegum fudge ripple delight, the best flavor in the world. Well, second best only to Alice. And yes, he could taste, just not as well as normal people.
"Uh, you're welcome? Anyway, God, I had the worst time! Debbie says we're going to hang out at her place away from the prying eyes of the world after the terrible awful thing happened-" said Donna
"That thing with the girl who stole your boyfriend?" wrote Roach. Donna took a moment out of her tirade and sat next to him, the camera never leaving her hands.
"Yeah, that bitch! Anyway, Debbie drags me out to Dairy Queen and we stay there, like, all day just eating ice cream because the guy she likes works there. So we're there, she's filling me with ice cream so I'll break out again, and then the bitch and that pathetic excuse for a human being show up and you know what happened?" said Donna her breath getting heavy, the veins on the sides of her head pulsing. She looked kinda like dad when he found Morgan's pee bottle.
"(What?)" asked Roach. Donna softened. Poor David Jr., he did not need people he didn't even know making fun of him for things that were out of his control. She didn't want to make him feel bad, poor guy had enough problems as it was.
"Oh nothing interesting. So, what'd you do today?" asked Donna. Roach felt his face heating up almost instantly as he remembered his day with Alice. He shifted his book onto his lap and turned the TV on.
"(Lucy's on.)" said Roach motioning towards the TV. Donna gasped, a million scenarios running through her head, none of them innocent.
"You and Alice did it?" whispered Donna. Roach gave her a hurt look. Did she really think he was capable of something as terrible as that?
"I would never do anything to hurt Alice." Wrote Roach. Donna was sixteen, she knew the implications of implications of those eight words. She took the remote from his hands and turned off the TV. This was not the time for Lucy.
"David Jr.,…why would you think that it would hurt Alice? Well yeah, it hurts the first few times but it's not a bad thing. I mean, mom and dad do it all the time, do you think dad would ever hurt mom?" said Donna feeling embarrassed herself. She sent those feelings away, this was not the time for silly teenage squeamishness. Roach looked very thoughtful at that moment. He had been hurt and he would never hurt her like that but his parents did it all the time…maybe they were trying to make another baby or something.
"Are they trying to have another baby?" wrote Roach. He assumed that girls put themselves through that to make a baby like Headbanger had. Messenger kept telling him that girls like it too and nothing bad could make something as perfect at the unborn child within his wife, Headbanger, which might not even have been Messenger's in the first place.
"Hell no! There's already five of us, David Jr." said Donna. She briefly got a nightmare vision of wading through a sea screaming, vomiting babies…she shuddered.
"Then why?" wrote Roach. Donna took a deep calming breath. This was not how she imagined spending her summer vacation. She imagined lazy days at the beach and in front of the TV, not frantic calls from their mother at the hospital in the middle of the night telling them that their little brother had been found and he was almost dead…a great start to summer. Well, that had been months ago, enough time for David Jr. to get used to her enough to ask about their parents sex life. Joy.
"Because they want to express their love, I guess. Girls like it too, I swear on our mother's grave." Said Donna. Roach gave her a look.
"Ok, her future grave. Anyway, whatever you and Alice do together just make sure she wants to. If all else fails just ask her what she wants to do and when. I'm not going to tell you what to do or how to do it because that's getting way too weird." Said Donna turning off her camera and going into the kitchen to kick Dottie off the phone so she could discuss these developments with Debbie, her best friend, unfortunately.