More queer characters!
Kia ora, friends!
If you’ve been following along since last year, you might remember a little piece of something I shared in December called Underground. If you haven’t read that, I definitely think you should either before or after this! It doesn’t matter what order, though, either way I think you’ll get some context for details present in the other. This is another very rough draft, but I like where it’s going and it definitely has potential to feed back into the afore mentioned Underground scenario.
I posted on twitter tonight (at the time I was writing this, a couple days ago) about how I have kind of been struggling with whether or not to make every one of my big characters queer; every time I write a new person into existence (or they come into existence for me to write about - I’m not entirely sure!), my instinct is always to make them a lesbian or bisexual or non-binary or trans (or many all in one) and there’s a part of my brain that pushes back on that. I think it really comes down to the deeply internalised misogyny and queerphobia that I have as someone who didn’t always know they were queer and trans and non-binary, so I’m trying to push back against that. I really enjoy writing queer relationships and the people in them, and I think there is a part of me that thinks that excluding cisgender heteronormative relationships is excluding a portion of a potential audience, which is wild because, like, who cares? So, sorry, if you are a cisgender heteronormative person coming to my writing and feel excluded… that’s kind of by design. There are enough stories in the world about those kinds of people, and I want to hold space for stories about not those people.
Anyway, all of that is to say that this fragment of a story is about two new characters named Cassy and Taylor. Taylor is a non-binary trans-fem and Cassy is a gay trans man. They have two children together named Riley and Canada (why Canada? I don’t know, it just came to me!) and they all live together in an underground facility known as a crisis shelter. I haven’t nailed down all the details about timelines or even locations compared to the Underground story fragment, I mean that should be obvious since both are pretty rough drafts, but I wanted to make sure these share some key details. These stories are part of a whole that comes after a form of world-shattering collapse, hundreds of years in the past, where technology is still present and usable but ancient. I could write a whole page about where I got my inspiration for this setting, and if you know me you can probably guess a few, but I have tried to make it my own and I will work on that further as this story, these stories, become more cohesive. But I should shut up and let you get to the part you came here for: queer people!
Let’s jump in.
“When you were packing up and getting ready to leave, it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the last time I told you I love you.” Cassy’s eyes darted around Taylor, trying desperately not to look at them, yet somehow always landing on them, even for the briefest of moments. Taylor blushed.
“So, are you going to, then?” Taylor prodded, shyly but playfully.
“Uhm, am I going to?”
“Tell me you love me, idiot,” they laughed.
“Oh… uh, yes… I love you.”
“I love you too Cassy. Was that so hard?”
“No, I…”
“We’ve been together for ages now, it’s okay to say it sometimes.”
“I know, I… it’s been a long time since I felt safe.”
“I know, and you are safe here.”
“I love you, Taylor,” Cassy sighed gently as the butterflies in his stomach took flight.
“I love you too,” Taylor reached out to put a hand to Cassy’s cheek, and they responded with a small chuckle and a smile.
“Are you ready to go?”
“No. I’m going to miss you, I hope you know that.”
“I do. I’ll miss you too. But it’s only for a few months.”
“Yes.”
“And when you’re back, well, you’ll have succeeded.”
“I will.”
“And we’ll be safe. For good.”
“Yes.”
“So, are you ready to go?”
“Yes.”
Daylight was barely breaking as Cassy watched his love from a short distance as they loaded their saddlebags onto the small courier mech. The two of them had cobbled the mech together from scrap salvaged in the lower levels of the shelter where the life support systems had broken down. It had taken them a year to build, and it was ramshackle but sturdy. Taylor had a lot of gear to bring with them, no one knew what they would find when they reached their destination, or even along the route. No one had been that way for decades, much less returned. Taylor’s destination was an ancient pre-apocalypse crisis shelter, much like Sierra shelter, the one Cassy and Taylor lived in, but long since abandoned and overrun by various flora and fauna. Taylor’s objective was a computer deep within the shelter, hundreds of metres underground. On that computer should be access codes and telemetry data for the dormant communications satellites orbiting the planet. The theory was that if the data on that computer could be recovered, it would be possible to feed it into their own shelter’s systems and reactivate the satellites, reenabling communication between all of the shelters across the planet. And if that theory proved correct, then the shelters could begin to coordinate their efforts against the elements and hostile forces, with the goal of securing the planet and making it safe for everyone to start returning to the surface, to repopulate the world and rebuild it. It was a noble plan, but an extremely tenuous one. There were some in Sierra shelter who believed it was a wasted effort and that the data was lost, or that even if the satellites were able to be spun up again the communications architecture on the ground would still be inoperable. But no one really knew for sure. The consensus was that it would be a waste of equipment, resources, and people. But that was why Taylor was going, and going alone – they knew that if they didn’t, no one else would. And Cassy understood – he believed in the mission.
Once all of the gear was loaded, Taylor made their way back to Cassy. They took Cassy’s hand in theirs and looked into his eyes.
“It’s not too late to forget about all this,” Cassy smirked, knowing he wouldn’t change their mind.
“You know that’s not true,” they smiled. “This will all be worth it.”
“It will. We’re counting on you.”
“And I’m counting on you to keep it together while I’m gone. For the kids.”
Cassy nodded. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a small circular object and presented it to Taylor.
“I found this a few days ago, I kept it from you because I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Is that…?”
“…a network beacon. I tinkered with it a little and got it to work with the terrestrial network. It has a solar charger, so if you wear it on your backpack it’ll be charged when you want to use it.”
Taylor turned the device over in their hands.
“It doesn’t squawk?” they asked almost to themselves, noticing it had no speaker or microphone.
“No, it’s an old emergency beacon. I couldn’t get a comms one working. But when you hook this up, it’ll send a ping through the network to the computer in our quarters. I’ll be able to see where you are on the map… and I’ll know you’re still alive.” Cassy averted his eyes, a little ashamed of his insinuation.
“I’ll be fine, love,” Taylor reassured him, squeezing his hand.
“I know, just… use the beacon? Please?”
“I will,” they smiled warmly.
“The, uh… kids will be grateful.”
“Right. The kids.” Taylor winked at Cassy and squeezed his hand again.
“You should get going. Don’t want to waste the daylight.”
“Yes. Tell Riley and Canada I love them.”
“They know. But I will.” Cassy and Taylor embraced, and then softly kissed.
“I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
“I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon.” Taylor turned and headed toward the courier mech and climbed aboard. They briefly looked back and waved to Cassy, before turning their attention back to the patchwork control panel and reacquainted themselves with the navigation system. A few button presses and a couple of switch turns later, the mech lurched into life and began making its way down the dirt path, away from the shelter access tunnel where Cassy was standing, and toward the sun cresting the horizon. Cassy continued to watch until he couldn’t see Taylor or hear their creaking mech lurching across the landscape and returned to the shelter.
Taylor’s expression turned steely as looked to the horizon and absent-mindedly adjusted the mech’s stability switch, trying to find a comfortable balance.
“I swear to the stars, this plan had better work.”
So what did you think? As always, I would love to hear your feedback, and you can hit me up at the social or email links at the bottom of the page. Comments, questions, suggestions? Let me know!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read, I really appreciate it. And if you liked this or any of my other posts, consider telling a friend? It’s completely free and would really help me out - I don’t do any paid advertising of any sort so the best way I can reach more people is by word-of-mouth. It’s easy, too! Just click that li’l share button right………………….there. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻
That’s it for this week, folks. Take care of yourselves and I’ll talk to you again soon.
Ka kite anō au i a koe. 💚