ALLY

Past

From the very beginning, Ally was not a wanted child.

Their mother had been assaulted, and she had no access to terminating the pregnancy. So Ally was born, against her wishes. Because of this, Ally's mother grew to resent them, especially because as they grew, they didn't resemble their mother at all. To her mom, they were just a walking reminder of it all.

Added onto the fact that their mother was barely getting by as is, Ally was often left to fend for herself. The most their mother would do was buy some extra food so they wouldn't starve at least, most of Ally's clothes being their mother's old clothes, often too large for them. But it wasn't like anyone was seeing them, their mother had given birth at home, and kept Ally secret. Ally did not go to school, and wasn't taught much of anything as a kid. Ally has had to figure out everything for themself from day one. As their mom's clothes started to fit them more, around age 10, since their mom was rather small, Ally decided to start leaving the house on her own. It wasn't like their mom was going to stop her now, if anything she wanted to see Ally as little as possible.

Ally would usually try to find other kids out on the street usually, and had mixed success.

Some were friendly, some would laugh at them for "being a boy wearing girls clothes".

Ally didn't really get why it was funny, and usually would just try to walk away from those that laughed. But sometimes she wouldn't, playing along with it just to see what other kids did. Up until that point, all she really had for reference was listening through the wall of their apartment whenever the neighbors kid was watching shows. Most of the time hanging out with the latter kids ended in them being dared to do stupid things, which she always did just to hear the cheering and laughter from them. It went on like this for most of her teenage years, going back and forth between kids who were actually nice, and kids who just wanted to mess with them. Eventually the nice kids would stop going outside as much though, and Ally stopped seeing them around much, which led them to hang out more around the crueler children in order to keep some friends, even if they were bad ones.

Eventually, when they were about 13, Ally's mom ended up drinking herself to death, Ally came home to it after running through the streets all day. They weren't really sure what to do. Or how to even feel about it. In the end, she simply called for an ambulance through the home phone, and then walked out back onto the street. With nowhere else to go, she started sleeping behind dumpsters at night, and continued doing what she usually did during the day; hanging out with a gaggle of bad influences.

Despite this group going back and forth between mocking them and then being friendly again, Ally kept sticking by them for the 2 years. Their other friends had disappeared, and this was all they had now, and at least these guys would share their food with her, even if they usually made them play the clown to get it. A couple months before Ally would turn 16, one of these boys in the group had another dare for them. Ally's clothes were becoming a mess, and she'd asked if any of them could spare money for them to at least get a new shirt. The answer was "sure", but instead of giving Ally money, the boy pointed over toward a small group of men leaving the bar, clearly drunk, and said that Ally should just grab that guys wallet. They'd get to have whatever was in the wallet, and he'd give them another 10 bucks if she could do it without being noticed. Another in the group, who usually went along with these dares, showed sudden concern, thinking that this was a bad idea, but when they couldn't give a 'good reason' as to why, Ally would give in and do it.

They crossed the street, pretending to walk distractedly, and "accidentally" ran straight into the man, grabbing the wallet out of his pocket and giving an apology before trying to quickly walk away. But the man quickly realized, and snatched them by the wrist, pulling out a blade and screaming at them. Ally hadn't expected it to go south in this direction so quickly, and instantly started crying. They had the sense at least that a dare or 'i need clothes' wasn't sympathetic enough to most, and fell back to acting as if they still lived in their mom's apartment, saying how they both had hardly any food and were starving. She would glance over to the other side of the street, only for her to see that their "friends" had instantly dashed away the moment a weapon was drawn. The angry man wasn't backing down, but the bird-man in the group intervened, snatching the wallet back out of Ally's hand, and then pushing the other man backward, evidently drunk out of his mind as well, but managing to convince them to put the knife away. He looked back to Ally, told them they were free to go, but only if they knock off the stealing. Ally nodded quickly and swore they wouldn't, then ran away as fast as possible.

That bird-man never really left Ally's head since, so used to most people leaving them to fend for themself, even their nicer friends from ages ago were afraid of confrontation, this man standing up for them was incredible to them, and they hadn't even managed to get his name. But she wouldn't ever manage to come across him again since, the city was simply too large. The next 6 years of her life were fairly uneventful. Still on the street, but without any friends anymore, though she figured she was better off without them anyway. She did mostly keep by her word to not steal anymore, but they only really applied this to doing it directly to people, instead simply sneakily shoplifting now, and getting very good at it at that. They never had any money, but at least they weren't worried about being clothed or fed. Only once did Ally break this promise, spending a couple months pickpocketing again, but only from those too old or too young to do anything about it. She felt terrible doing it, but they used this money they gathered up to buy a cheap used phone, and then promptly knocking off the pickpocketing again once she'd gotten it.

On their 22nd birthday though, almost like a present from the world. Ally would spot that same man that stopped them from getting stabbed in the street. With years for the memory to have twisted into something far more dramatic than it was in reality, Ally was ecstatic to see their 'hero' again and ran over, introducing herself and recounting what he'd done for them (though it had turned out later they didn't need to recount it, he'd remembered it all just fine despite his inebriation.). The guy just sort of stared at them for awhile in silence, so they broke the silence by telling him that she wanted to stick around with him, because it was true; they felt safer around him than they'd ever felt with anyone else so far. He tried to get her to leave at the start, but Ally pleaded, saying they'd been 'kicked out from home', she felt guilty for lying, but didn't want to lose him again. He would eventually give in, but on the condition that Ally "go find a job". They agreed, and he finally introduced himself as Phoenix. And after that, Ally would follow him around everywhere when they could, even managing to get the number Phoenix could be reached at.

As it turned out, the phone number they'd gotten was actually his roommate's phone, so she couldn't text him as often as she'd like, but it was good enough. With this used phone as well, Ally managed to get the "job" she'd promised, finding the parts of the internet where people would do sex work, and decided that would have to do, after already discovering that because her mother kept them such a secret, she had no way to apply to any real jobs, she legally didn't exist, and going through the work of getting all that on her own seemed like a hassle they didn't want to deal with right now. With these photos and videos giving her at least some income now, they could buy more things for real instead of stealing, even if it wasn't a lot.

It wouldn't take long for Ally to meet Phoenix's roommate Zacharie, and they would come around to the apartment every now and then to hang out, even though she usually had to leave again at night because of the lack of space, but sometimes they would get to stay and sleep on the floor. After about a year since finding him again, Ally had nobody they liked more than Phoenix, and she tried to ask him out on a date, only to be rejected. They were heartbroken over it, but continued to hang out around him and Zacharie, satisfied enough with being close to him.

After 2 more years though, Phoenix would ask Ally out this time, completely overjoyed, she said yes, and the two began dating. Ally seemed far more excited about it than he did, but she was okay with that. At least at the start. They'd thought Phoenix was just awkward about dating, and that seemed to genuinely be true, but he never got any less distant. He'd get nicer with how he talked, but would still suddenly disappear and not talk to Ally for what felt like ages. Eventually paranoia started gripping Ally's brain, and in their fear she would start obsessively texting and leaving voicemails to him through Zacharie's phone, sometimes accusing him of loving Zacharie instead of them, an idea that only felt like it got more and more traction as they would catch Phoenix flirting with other people all the time. He would admit to everything else, but insisted nothing was ever going on with him and Zacharie. Ally didn't know whether to believe that or not, but chose to trust him, when they were feeling well at least.

A couple years would pass, and Phoenix got kicked out of Zacharie's apartment. When Ally asked about it, Phoenix would simply say they got in a fight. He would never elaborate until much later. It was least one anxiety out of her mind now, but with Phoenix on the street full time with them, Ally would still continue to see him go flirt and disappear with other people. He always came back to them, but she still felt terrible. They never had the confidence to have a serious about it though, and Phoenix had grown used to mostly ignoring their outbursts. He'd go from mean, to nice, to sneaking off again. Ally had no reference for a good relationship, but surely this wasn't it. They were too attached to him still though, and refused to leave, simply hoping that eventually they would be enough for him.

Current

Eventually after going out to eat something cheap, when they returned to their usual alley they would hang around, someone else was sleeping there. Phoenix seemed irritated, but Ally came over them to see if they were alright, and after managing to get them to speak, found out his name was Rowan, and realized he was also homeless like them. Ally offered for him to stick around with them to have safety in numbers, and he agreed.

Later they'd come across another person in their situation, a opossum named Damien. Much like Rowan, Ally offered for him to hang around as well, and he decided he would as well.

It's been the 4 of them for some years now, and the group has generally grown closer, but not necessarily because they like eachother. Well, Ally likes them at least. Ally likes all 3 of them very much. But none of them seem to get along at all with eachother. Phoenix gets mad at everybody, Ally's used to that. But Rowan gets angry at Phoenix as well all the time, provoking him on purpose. And then Damien scolds Rowan, and then yells at Phoenix too, and the cycle keeps looping. The group looks after eachother a little bit, because they all care about Ally, but Ally's not fully aware of this, and she worries a lot now that she's going to lose all the people she cares about.