It's February in the Alien Romance webcomic plotline. Steve is pushing for Osking Robert to record a demo and try to become a 'real' band. And then the plotline I've been working on in a writing blitz Discord occurs that July. The graphic novel scenes I've been working on happen in fall! Cathy moves into an art commune with her friends and gets creeped on by the charismatic leader. Maurice is working on a novel as an excuse to join study group at Sieversville.

ZZ found his father sitting alone on the front porch swing, staring at his hands. He sat down in the empty spot beside him, resisted the urge to launch the swing into action with his feet, and touched Maurice's shoulder. That's when he noticed Maurice's red eyes, and the slightly dampened sides of his prickly salt-and-pepper beard. And it struck him that this was how he'd occasionally find Ren, during those 3-month downtime stretches when Ren would struggle to decompress from spending most of the year in warzones or remote regions of the world, treating the aftermath of violence and poverty. The bucolic little Arzamastsev farmhouse was a shock, Ren used to say. As much of a shock as the dangerous situations that kept him on high alert and ruined his nervous system. The sudden and profound change of pace was physically painful - his brain couldn't accept that he wasn't in danger here. It took all three months of leave to wind down; and then he'd have to deploy again, almost as soon as he'd finally settled back down to a peaceful life. ZZ figured his own nervous system was already tested by the stresses of the theater industry; all deadlines and demands and not a lot of it life-threatening. "You took his place," ZZ remarked to his father with a nervous little laugh. Maurice didn't look up. "Hmm?" he questioned into his folded fingers. "Ren used to sit here, just like this. You're doing double duty, playing yourself and him." Maurice glanced sidelong at ZZ. He rubbed hard at one eye with his fist. The gesture smeared wetness across the side of his face. "He..." Maurice started. "He, uh..." He was stuck reliving the moment Ren arrived home with postwar trauma crashing down on him. Muttering, "It's not right that I get to leave, and they all don't." Ren wanted to bring all of Yemen, Afghanistan, back country Ethiopia home with him, and he did just that. Ren's patients all lived in his heart, hundreds of them, eventually thousands of them. Setting up surgical tents in the worst places in the world was Ren's idea of 'normal', and all those tents came home to the farm, and were released gradually through hours of stories told through tears, that the family endured even though none of them had seen a single day of war.

ZZ fears... I'm not sure. Hmm. Disapproval, maybe, but he gets it quite a lot so he's facing his fears on a regular basis. He wouldn't list that as his biggest fear. It makes him seem insecure. He is insecure. He drowns it all out by being loud and quick-witted and boisterous. He outgrows it, to some extent. When he moves back home during COVID and finds that there's no advantage to being loud anymore, and is forced to slow down and leave some space for his family, disapproval won't be haunting him as much.