fought the hurricane.

hc meme.

      yancy was the first person raleigh told about him being trans. ( it was hushed, raleigh seven and yancy twelve, in a house somewhere in seoul. it was sometime after midnight and they were supposed to be asleep, but the rapid fire clicking of their mother’s keys on her laptop as she worked to finish up something for the embassy there was keeping them both up. yancy had stared at raleigh for a good minute or two, then loudly affirmed that he’d still be raleigh’s brother, regardless. the loudness to the comment had their mother come into their room and pointedly stare at their clearly not slept in beds until they both climbed under their respective covers and went to sleep. )

      jazmine is born when raleigh is 10 and yancy is 15. considering their mother’s job and how frequently she traveled, raleigh was completely in awe when she delivered jazmine healthy. even if she was screaming like a banshee. ( jazmine is the one that ruins the secret of raleigh being trans. she overhears yancy call raleigh his brother one day. with the impetuosity of a three year old, jazmine tells her father and he in turns tells his wife. raleigh is outed. he silently resents jazmine for two years. )

      sitka for raleigh is loss. when he woke up in the small clinic of that small village, raleigh’s first thought was he hoped that yancy was dead before he hit the freezing water of the alaskan coast. it was selfish, possibly cruel, but he knew yancy may not have survived in the frigid water, anyway. sitka is loss and pain; not just the connection with his brother being forcibly torn in two, but the lasting nerve damage to his right arm and shoulder. the electrical burns, too. ( for raleigh, loss is engraved on him in a way that connects him with yancy, even if he’s one sibling short now. )

      but hermosillo — hermosillo is special to him. once or twice a year ( maybe more ), raleigh will go there. yancy’s body was never recovered and it’s lead to rumours that he’s alive, but raleigh’s dismissed most of these because he knows yancy wouldn’t just not find his remaining family, he knows. but still, there’s a grave with yancy’s name, his mother’s surname, in a small graveyard in hermosillo. jazmine always seems to know when raleigh is going to be there, because she’s always there, replacing the flowers and cleaning away dust.

      día de muertos— even though raleigh’s parents and brother are buried in the same graveyard, he only attends to his mother and yancy’s places on the ofrenda within jazmine’s hermosillo home. he knows it irritates jazmine because she was always their dad’s favourite, but it’s a leftover feeling from when he was nearly been disowned.

      jazmine knows that raleigh was always ( and still is, even if yancy is gone ) closest to her oldest brother. it wasn’t surprising, because it was always them, the boys with the mother whose job took them to pretty countries with beautiful cities. the boys who effortlessly evaded their mother’s security detail even though they were supposed to be doing homework or sleeping, something that didn’t involve making all the neighbourhood dogs go mad with barking.

“Certain stereotypes are being broken: that only people with a certain profile can be actresses or be on the cover of magazines. Other faces of Mexico are now being recognised. It is something that makes me so happy and proud of my roots.”