The Troy raising his younger brother au
This is inspired by a post by @troy-barrett-love I don’t know if I’m ever gonna fully write this fic but I need to get the thoughts out of my head. If anyone else wants to steal this pls do.
So as we all know Curtis is a pos with a significantly younger wife. It’s really not a crazy leap to imagine him having a basically replacement kid with her after Troy comes out and he realizes Troy is a “failure”. Now in my head this kid is a boy for the ultimate angst of it all (Curtis getting his do over in this new son). I’ve been calling this kid Curtis Jr. or CJ for short, idk it just feels like it fits. Then timeline wise I’m setting this about 13-14 years post Role Model, Troy is freshly retired, he and Harris are childfree, instead they just have animals.
Okay now that I’ve set the scene a bit. Troy just finished his final season, he’s starting at settle into things when he gets a call from a Vancouver area code. It’s a social worker calling about Troy’s little brother, he’s been removed from their father’s custody (dealer’s choice on why). And first of all Troy is freaking the fuck out this all because what the fuck??????? He has a brother????? There’s a huge scramble to prepare a room for CJ and since it’s a move between provinces and a pretty significant move at that they’re also communicating with a social worker in Ottawa specifically to make sure everyone is acceptable. Then when Troy and Harris finally meet CJ he’s basically just what Troy was like in the beginning of Role Model but worse. Because I imagine that Curtis decided that what went wrong with Troy was that he didn’t exert enough control over Troy, so he’s going to fix that mistake with CJ. So CJ has internalized just as much bullshit at 13 as Troy did at 25.
After this it’s all more nebulous in my mind. Like I think maybe he’s in a hockey league. And maybe Curtis is trying to get custody back. I don’t know to me this all sounds so juicy. I’m not planning on doing anything with this concept rn, but if anyone else wants to pick it up…
OP you are right and correct, so much so much so that I'm already partway through writing a fic with a very similar premise, also featuring a Curtis Jr who ends up living with Troy and Harris because Curtis Sr would absolutely have a second son and try and force him to be "better" than Troy. Better at what? Hockey? Being straight? Eliminating his own personality so that Curtis can relive his youth through a perfect avatar of himself? Who knows, probably not even Curtis.
Imagine Troy's feelings on being confronted with Curtis Jr. It would be like a living version of that therapy exercise where you have to try and imagine your child self and try saying to them the awful things that were said to you. Troy would hear the same sort of bullshit he heard as a kid being directed at his brother and have his whole childhood recontextualised. Because if Curtis Sr is wrong about his youngest son, then maybe he's just wrong in general, and if he's wrong in general....then maybe Troy didn't deserve any of it as a kid either?
