➝ The Triad

Alaska Saraleigh Ravigne

Chey's foster sister, and the first to run away from home to escape the abuse: Her flight was what gave him the courage to make a break for it himself.
She was found, a runaway, by a rather wealthy gentleman named Mr. Brauhm, who owned a couple vineyards in NY state. He took her in and treated her much like a daughter…though his gazes lingered in uncomfortable places and his passing caresses were a shadow less than paternal. Despite, Alaska felt she was treated well—and, for the most part, was. She was able to do several terms of private school, including one abroad, at the same co-ed school Mr. Brauhm had attended himself and had a soft spot for.
Throughout, he presented her as ‘the maid’s daughter’ to anyone who asked.

Unfortunately, when Alaska was seventeen, Mr. Brauhm suffered a stroke and passed away. He had adult children from a previous marriage, and though he tried to leave Alaska some money, his biological children were highly suspicious of the ‘maid’s daughter,’ who looked nothing like the cleaning woman and had appeared out of nowhere. After the memorial service, the younger Brauhms sent Alaska on her way with $100 and departing glares.
She took a bus down to NYC, a place she’d been to on several occasions with Mr. Brauhm, and started trying to feel her way out in ‘the real world.’ Enamoured with Broadway, she tried to make it as an actress, with very little luck. It was during her struggles for employment (and housing, and groceries…) that she ended up sucked into the fringes of sex work, by a pimp who promised her he had an understanding of Hollywood and would, as her ‘manager,’ be able to get her climbing the ranks—even though she was having to start from the very bottom.

In getting older she saw what a farce it was, but by that point her pimp provided her housing, paid her phone bill, controlled her financial security and had her exactly as dependent as he wanted her to be.

She’d picked up an aristocratic affectation from her years with Mr. Brauhm and held fast to it even as a call girl, though, and it was that affectation that caught Reggie off-guard one evening when she bought a night’s worth of uppers from him. They chatted briefly about their lives and when she paid him for the product she added in a “Thank you, sir.”
“Ah, you don’t need to call me that? You’re paying me, here, ya know…” Reggie had joked, only to be met with a pointed eyebrow raise and a:
“It’s respectful, not deferential. I’m aware I have no need to call you anything.”

Reggie was intrigued by her and, over the course of several months, worked diligently to get to know her better and pry her out from under the control of her pimp. The two of them didn’t try to make a romance out of it, and what with Reggie worrying about coming off as predatory and Alaska resistant to the idea of trusting his motivations, neither of them quite managed to address the fact that they were becoming more and more like a couple as time wore on. They were, though, and when Nathaniel moved in, he ended up folded into the love as well. They finally but a label on it in 2015, and the three of them now are a healthy, happy poly triad.

Alaska reconnected with Chey in 2016 and despite sharing no blood whatsoever, is interestingly like him in terms of mindset: Geared towards smiling in spite of her life, towards being good to others, towards fighting the darkness—even if her optimism is much lower key than Chey's. After their reconnection, it was actually her and Reggie’s gentle, healing guidance that helped him limp his way back to his identity; to being his true, sunlit self.
Even if her circumstances aren't a societal ideal, Alaska’s doing well. She's glad to be in contact with her foster brother, and they're quite close. She takes pride in her work even if she laughs at the idea of someone calling her an 'exotic dancer.' She’s no longer ‘escorting’ and is looking forward to putting herself through college, unconcerned with a later start. Her future is bright and getting brighter all the time, and she gives herself credit for it.

Reginald Matthew Hall (“Reggie”)

Reggie grew up in paycheck-to-paycheck poverty, being raised by a single mother, his father having left when he was very young. Growing up food-insecure and fatherless, with drive-bys around the corner about as frequent in his neighborhood as car horns in Manhattan, Reggie’s childhood wasn’t what anyone would call easy, but he managed well enough. The trouble for him truly started in high school, when he came to realize he was bisexual. He fell for another boy in his grade, who he started dating despite still being in the closet. They were both growing up in "sketchy" neighborhoods, but his boyfriend's was markedly worse and essentially controlled by the Crip subset gang whose territory it was located in. Due to his location and older brother's preexisting engagement, Reggie's boyfriend, Derek, was just barely starting to get a little involved in gang activity at the time; doing runner jobs and generally being treated like a whelp.

Reggie came out to his mom shortly after beginning his relationship with Derek, and was devastated by her reaction: He hadn’t necessarily expected warmth, but he’d hoped for attempted understanding or cool disapproval at the very worst. Instead, a screaming match ensued and she ended up actually physically chasing him from the house with a broom. As a result, he moved in with Derek, who was unfortunately sinking deeper and deeper into "gang life." After moving in, Reggie got sucked into the outskirts of it, too: Started running, then dealing, then getting into fights. Both he and Derek ended up being expelled from school because of it.

In late 2011, when Reggie was just 19, Derek was killed in a drive-by shooting. Shit had never been calm in that life, not with the ever-present threat of clashes with the Bloods sets in the city, and definitely not with that year’s ignited war with Brooklyn’s Most Wanted—but losing Derek was a violent jerk into reality for Reggie. After getting shot in a revenge mission Derek’s older brother pulled him along on, and subsequently died for, Reggie tucked tail and ran from “gang life.” He was left with few other skills though, so he stuck to slinging drugs and dodging cops (semi-successfully.) Though he’s severed a lot of ties, he still has friends involved in the life, even if he mostly associates with Folk Nation members now rather than out-and-out Crips...and he still wears his past in subtlety, as the blue in his hair and the way he sometimes paints his nails navy.

Reggie was only a couple years out from his abandonment of gang life when he stumbled across Nathaniel walking barefoot along the interstate. They developed a strange sort of friendship from there, as Reggie helped him find a name and a job and a life to live. Nathaniel moved in and out a couple times, and was taking some time for much needed IOP care when Reggie ran into Alaska.

He was delivering up in the Bronx and taking his chances in 280 turf, counting on either old ties or his own unremarkability, when he met the most interesting young woman he could imagine. She was still firmly under the thumb of her pimp, but he was taken by her presence; her vocabulary; her azure eyes and the bizarre fact that a woman like her was hustling.
They started talking more, seeing one another more, and Reggie definitely started crossing boundaries as a dealer. He ended up offering her a place to stay and trying to negotiate the—at that point—highly distrustful Alaska out of her employment.

“So...What am I looking down the barrel of here, Mr. Hall? I blow you every day, put out a couple times a week and I get a roof over my head, is that the situation?”

Alaska had asked the first time Reggie brought her over to his modest house, trying to convince her to come and stay.

“Wha—‘Las, no. Fuck, I mean, if you wanted to—I won’t turn you down, but—no, this is just—a favor? You don’t have to pay rent with your body! Or at all. It’s just—it’s just what it is. ...Did you actually call me ‘Mr. Hall’?”

It was a long road but Reggie was persistent, his gold-hearted nature unwilling to let so remarkable a woman continue to be trapped and controlled. Alaska was too clearly meant to be independent, too clearly meant to own her life, and he felt nearly duty-bound to facilitate that.

“I mean...I’m just saying, if you came to stay with me permanently, that would be one less thing that pimp has hanging over your head,” Reggie said, handing Alaska the joint and gesturing around his small living room. “He wouldn’t be able to be like, ‘Well I give you somewhere to sleep, so.’”
“I’ll concede you have a point, there.”
“Hell yeah!” Reggie beamed. “I mean, admittedly, my friend Nathaniel has been having a rough time of it lately so I'm planning on inviting him to stay with us too, but don’t let that scare you off! He’s a good guy—”
“Reggie, this is a two bedroom house.”
“Yeah, don’t worry, Nathan and I can share a room. I’m sure he won’t mind.”
Alaska gave him a long, unreadable look; haze rising from the joint she held between two fingers like one of her Virginia Slims.
“…Reginald Matthew Hall, you’re either a good liar or a good man and I don’t know what to do with you.”

Nowadays, Reggie's in a poly relationship with both Alaska and Nathaniel, living happily, though Nathaniel has his struggles.

Reggie still deals, but backed out of the opiate game once fentanyl came in heavy and the opioid crisis set in. While his source of income may be of questionable morality—he's not a bad guy. He doesn't want to sell people their deaths, doesn't want to cut his shit with fillers and risk harming people, he's overall compassionate and goofy and laid-back. Rent's hard to make in NYC, education's hard to pursue when you got expelled for gang affiliation. Sometimes alternative occupations are all you have. He deals, Alaska works the poles, and they make enough to support themselves and their boyfriend, Nathaniel, who's slowly getting into freelance programming. It works just fine for them.

Nathaniel

Nathaniel woke up several years ago in the wooded area next to an freeway, with no name, no memories, and no shoes.
With his options being run into traffic or walk along the road shoulder and hope for the best, he chose the latter.

Fortunately for him, Reggie was passing and seeing this potentially-crazy Shoeless Wonder trudging along the shoulder sparked his curiosity. He pulled over and asked if Nathaniel needed help and what his name was. Nathaniel shrugged. 
Did he need help? Dunno—maybe? 
What was his name? Fuck if he knew. 

Now that? That was absolutely interesting—so Reggie told him to get on in, scleral tattoos and all, and took him to a hospital.
No head trauma.
No substances.
Nothing.
Just total amnesia—except for the degree of certainty Nathaniel felt answering "No" to the question "Do you think anyone's looking for you?" 

Reggie took him in like a stray puppy, because what else do you do with a total stranger you found wandering the highway? 
Reg needed to call him something, and there had been a male nurse at the hospital named Nathaniel. He liked the name well enough and decided it could be his, though there was something about it that made him feel like he was pulling a prank.

Rebuilding himself from the ground up, starting at a tentative age of 19 or 20 years old, was—and is—a difficult experience for him. He’s had to have numerous MRIs and doctor’s visits to try and figure out a malady of symptoms that refuse to be explained. His total amnesia being one, of course—but he also struggles deeply with emoting; he tends towards a flat affect and ambiguous facial expressions. Genuine ones happen but are nearly consistently muted, and though Nathaniel tries to learn to do it all properly, his attempts usually just make him look uncomfortable. He tends to stare blankly a lot, that “looking through you” thing; like he’s looking but not seeing. He’ll still respond when spoken to, though; he’s not even zoning out, really, just different. Different enough to really feel it.

He was already feeling lost and alienated in early 2014, a year after being ‘found,’ when he was hit by a headache so excruciating that he couldn’t see, couldn’t think, just went on impulse for the nearest option that could make the pain stop: He took Reggie’s old gun and shot himself in the head.

And here's the weird thing: He didn't die. He didn't damage his ocular nerve, he didn't lose any brain function. He didn't even lose consciousness. He put a bullet through his skull and was able to get up and unlock the bedroom door before Reggie could break it down, able to say "Hey, I might need to go to the hospital."
It barely left a scar.

Everyone called it extremely lucky, of course. A fluke. One-in-a-fucking-trillion. 
Nathaniel has been left with a slight preoccupation with the idea that he can't die—when drunk he becomes adamant that he's immortal and "destined to overthrow God." He tends not to remember these comments when sober, and is very embarrassed by them.

His headaches are infrequent; only ever occurring on the anniversary of his “Awakening” (as Reggie calls it) and with more and more years between flare-ups. He’s dedicated himself to learning coding and computing; it requires far less social aptitude and there don’t tend to be job interviews that take one look at scleral-and-face-and-hand tattoos and assume the worst. (Not that Nathaniel particularly blames them; he has no memory of what the tattoos he’s cloaked in ever meant to him.)

Despite his struggles with expressing himself, Reggie and Alaska have learned well how to read Nathaniel, and the three of them, however strangely and clumsily, have ended up happily in love. They’re all doing just fine.