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buckyscrystalqueen · 4 years ago

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Ain’t Sayin’ She’s a Gold Digger: Part 4

Pairings: Sugar Daddy!Negan x Sugar Baby!Reader

Warnings: Sugar baby relationship, swearing

Word Count: 7,963

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the four months between getting the tickets, and heading to Burning Man, Jeff added seventeen countries and almost double that in states to deal with hotels that were going through the summer with bad ratings and numbers to your travel list. And while he worked, you worked with your new, temporary Burning Man assistant and your friends to organize everything you would need. It was chosen by the group, that now included Matt and Stacy, to join Kenzie and Stacy’s usual camp, which was actually a collection of make your own camps, to get the full Burner experience, and despite the fact that you felt like you were going crazy with Kenzie, who was the other natural organizer in the group, the trip came up before you knew it.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Jeff laughed as he finally drove his RV into Black Rock City behind the 26 foot U Haul filled with your contribution to camp- thousands of dollars worth of water, Gatorade, mini and regular sized liquor bottles, beer, snacks, granola and power bars, and a thrift store find stand up piano, that Matt was driving for you.

“Oh, it’ll be fun.” You giggled as you waved at someone Kenzie had been yelling out the U Haul window at.

“Did you forget, I’m an old man, sweetheart?” He asked with a glance over at you before turning to the right to head down to where your camp, Island Time was located.

“Did you forget that we decided you are seasoned, not old?” Kara asked as she held two of six boxes of decorations in place on the dinning room table.

“We definitely agreed on seasoned, your Majesty.” Dana called out from the back bedroom, where she was responsible for keeping the dozen solar powered coolers of ice in place. Your boyfriend groaned as your smile grew even more.

“Oh, I’m never going to let you live this down.” You giggled as you reached over and pat his thigh.

“Yea, and you’re just making me wanna call an Uber.”

“They have an airport!” Chelsea called out as she sat up from the couch, where she was holding a rope that connected the three massive shade tents, also named Costco Barns, that would make up your themed camp.

“Don’t encourage him.” You scolded as you turned in your seat to look back at her. “He will leave.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.” She laughed as she sat up completely, as Jeff parked the RV on the left side of your camp site, and beside the U Haul that would turn into a ‘fishing pond’ for all the snacks it held. “Alright, let’s get unpacked.” You pat Jeff’s thigh once more as the girls in the back got out to start setting up.

“Just let go, sweetheart.” You told him as he set the emergency brake. “You are allowed to take a vacation and the company won’t crumble in your absence.”

“You are the only person I would agree to this for.” He said honestly as he dropped the keys in his cup holder and picked up your hand. “I love you, (Y/N). I need you to know that.”

“I love you, too, Jeff. So, so much.”

“Are you two gunna help, or are you just gunna sit there all day?” Dana asked as she grabbed one of the decorations boxes to carry out. You muttered ‘shut up’ and gave Jeff a chaste kiss before getting out to begin the long day of work. Kate, who was the mastermind behind your camp’s theme, started directing instantly, transforming the square of desert into a tropical wonderland.

Your group had thought of everything, from a had painted directional sign that pointed fellow Burners to coffee, the Playa, the Deep Playa, City Center, the bathrooms, and of course, the Burning Man center piece and The Temple, to a bunch of tropical themed pool rafts to be used by whomever as seats. You had a blue tarp on the ground and the dyed canvas covers above you that Chelsea had painted to look like waves, and dozens of starfish, jellyfish, and fish toys zip tied anywhere they could go so they didn’t become missiles in a dust storm.

There were four fishing poles laid against the U Haul, which had giant handmade banners on each side to promote your camp, and they were set up for ‘fishing’ with baskets on the end of the 100 pound test line that Jeff swore would hold up for what you needed it to. And the piece de le resistance of your camp was an inflatable palm tree cooler, that would have ice cold drinks for anyone passing by that needed one, that would sit directly in front of the piano you had brought to play as yet another contribution to the Burning Man community.

“It’s perfect.” Dana said with a proud smile as you on Jeff’s shoulders, and Chelsea on Matt’s strung up the last strings of blue lights in the canopy.

“I would hope so.” Kate said with a nod. “I busted my ass to figure out this design.”

“Hey! Beach girls!” A guy called out as he rode by your camp on his bike. “Nice idea!” You all yelled thanks as Jeff kneeled down so you could climb off.

“Damn, it’s hot.” He sighed as he sat down on one of the couple chairs you had brought. You nodded in agreement and used your already dust covered shirt to wipe off your face.

“I need a shower.”

“Get used to being dirty.” Kenzie said as she just took off her shirt and tossed it on a chair on her way over to grab a the reusable water bottle with her name on it so she could fill it up from the sink on the outside of the RV.

“So are we getting ready to open here or what?” Matt asked as he helped Chelsea dump ice from one of the solar power coolers into the palm tree cooler.

“Yea, someone throw up the fishing sign.” You said as you two pulled off your shirt and headed inside to get dressed. “I’ll go get ready.”

——

“Oh, do you know ‘Piano Man’?” A girl asked as she skipped up to your piano with a champagne slushy from a few camps down. You glanced up at her and nodded as you set down your mermaid patterned water bottle, that was currently filled with rum and coke and adjusted your shell patterned bikini top.

“I wouldn’t be a piano playing mermaid if I didn’t!” You cried as your fingers moved from playing a random melody to the newest request. You started playing over the cheers of a man, who had gotten a mini bottle of Jäger and a bag of Goldfish in his fishing pole bucket, as the girl in front of you cheered and started singing with you, and the group that had collected in your tent at some point since the sun went down. You glanced over at Jeff, who had decided months ago that he was going to be on whatever shift you were on, and gave him a slightly knowing smile, since his only job was to make sure ice was being made in the ice genies you had filling your freezer, and that the ice that was melting was draining into a new one to make more ice as needed.

He’d spent most of his evening simply watching you, and holding up polite conversations with people that had come in to your tent and had some how slipped past Matt, and Stacy, who were on an entertainment shift with you in the main part of your camp, while Dana played ‘fish’ in the fan filled U Haul, and the other girls rode around to check out some of the rest of the camps. You couldn’t help but fall even more in love with him like you had every day for the past couple months. He was just entirely too good for you, and you didn’t ever want to be away from him.

“Alright, guys, I’m gunna take a break for a few hours.” You said when you saw Kenzie and Kara on their bikes. “Put requests in the fish bowl!”

“We’re switching out?” Matt asked as grabbed a beer from the palm tree.

“Yea, we’re gunna go burn a while.” You said as you adjusted your mermaid scales bottoms on your way over to the U Haul. You yelled your intentions to Dana, who was going to switch places with Kenzie for the second shift of fishing, and grabbed your heavily decorated with bright neon blue LED battery power lights beach cruiser.

“You know, I don’t know if I remember how to ride a bike.” Jeff said softly as he grabbed his matching, mixed color bike from next to yours.

“I’ll make sure you don’t fall or embarrass yourself, my love.” He leaned over and kissed your temple as you grabbed your alcohol filled bottle and a water filled one as well and stuck them in your basket. “Alright, let’s…”

“Hey wait!” The girl that asked you to play Piano Man said as she came running out to the road. She smiled at you and held out a pair of pills. “Thank you. For my song.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to…”

“Take them.” She giggled as she grabbed your hand and put the two pills in your palm. “Happy Burn.” You nodded at her and looked over at Jeff with a smile.

“Just don’t think.” You said as you put a pill on your tongue, grabbed the back of his head, and kissed him roughly. You could feel him tense up the slightest bit as you pushed the pill between his lips with your tongue, but after a moment, he loosened up, and let you give him the ecstasy.

“What kinda bad influence are you?” He laughed as you popped your pill in your mouth and followed it with a swig of your drink.

“One that you love.” You cooed as you straddled your bike and put your feet on the pedals. “You coming?”

“I guess I am.” He sighed as he got on his bike and briefly wobbled after you before he gained his confidence and pulled up to your side. “Thank you for not letting me back out.”

“Well look at it this way now.” You said as you grabbed your head lamp from the basket, switched it on, and put it on your head. “I just did ecstasy and am headed out to la Playa at prime time in Burning Man time in a bathing suit.”

“Yea, and if you walk more than five feet away from me at any point in time, I’ll take you to Europe, steal all of your things, and leave you there for a week to fend for yourself.”

“Oh, that sounds dangerous.” You teased as you pulled into the center of Black Rock City. You rode over to where a group of bikes and parked yours in the line with the rest, making sure to lock the wheel to the frame just in case someone drunkenly confused your bike with theirs.

“I don’t dance.” Jeff yelled at you over the music.

“You don’t have to.” You laughed as you laced your arm with his and pointed the farthest camp on the edge. “How about we start there and work our way down the line until the E kicks on?” With a nod, he reached out for your hand and laced his fingers with yours to walk with you. It only took about an hour for the drugs to kick in, and in that time you had been gifted a rubber bracelet for the event because you had pretty hair, a few glow stick bracelets and necklaces which made you realize you forgot yours in the RV, and more than a few shots and drinks. And as you were talking to someone about your time in Juilliard, and disagreeing with them on why your Burning Man nickname should not be ‘Keys’, you realized that Jeff was lost in his roll and the softness of your skin on the back of your neck.

“You OK?” You laughed at him when you had a moment break in the conversation.

“Why is your skin so soft?”

“Because you’re high, baby.” You laughed before saying a quick ‘see you later, come see us’ so you could hunt down your bikes before you got lost in the sensation, too.

“You’re back quick.” Dana said as you pulled up to the campsite and got off your bike.

“Yep.” Kenzie, who was sitting right next to her took one look at you before sitting up and turning to the group.

“OK, someone needs to turn the music up right now so we don’t have to hear them fuck!”

“God, you’re impossible.” You laughed as you headed in to the RV with Jeff’s hand in yours, while the people under your tent cheered for you. The second the door closed behind you, you kissed your boyfriend and walked him back to the king sized bed, closing the door only a couple seconds before your clothes hit the floor.

“Fuck, baby girl.” Jeff sighed when he got you completely undressed, and laid out on the blankets. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You know, I’m honestly surprised you lasted the entire week.” You admitted to Jeff, as he held the door to room one of four suites so you and your friends could shower off and have a good night sleep before you flew home. He huffed at you as your friends all tiredly headed into their rooms beside and across the hall from you to shower and wash off the six layers of dirt and catch up the dozens of hours of missed sleep.

“That is only because I wasn’t leaving my gorgeous girlfriend alone in the desert with that many drugs, and that many naked people.” You snorted a laugh through your nose, dropped your purse on the floor just inside the door, and kicked off your shoes in opposite directions on the way to the shower. “Hey, who said you could go first?”

“I will kill you if you think you are getting in before me.” You growled as you pulled off your clothes and got into the shower. “Get in here and help me.” You whined as you stood out of the way of the shower spray and turned the water on.

“So needy.” He huffed as he stripped out of his clothes and stepped in the shower in front of you. With a content sigh, you wrapped your arms around his waist and rested your head on his chest.

“This is all I need in life anymore.” You told him as you watched dirty water wash through and around the soft hairs on his chest. You adjusted your cheek and sighed once more as he grabbed a bar of soap and washed you off in lazy circles.

“Move in with me.” Those four words made your stomach flip as you looked up at the first man that had ever made you feel worth while, and nodded your head without needing to give the proposition any thought otherwise.

“I’m taking a long nap first.” You replied with a smirk as you laid your head back down on his chest.

“I think that can be arranged, baby girl.”

The next two weeks of your life was a complete whirlwind as you packed up all your belongings, moved across Central Park to Jeff’s Upper East Side home, and helped Chelsea move out of the four bedroom hell hole she lived in with 3 total wack jobs and a horrible landlord since she spent half the time sleeping on your couch as is, and into your old room. But just as you were getting everything settled, you caught some kind of stomach bug that turned out to be something way more serious.

Jeff stood pin straight still, and dead silent, as you both stared at the door of the hospital room you were in- a trip you made because he couldn’t take one more night of you throwing up and writhing on the bathroom floor in pain. You had no idea what he was thinking, but then again, neither did he. You were both just absolutely terrified.

“Are they OK?” You both asked the second the doctor walked into the room.

“Let’s just take a look, OK?” He said with a reassuring smile. You couldn’t bring yourself to believe him as every single drug you took in Black Rock City ran like a bad movie in your head. You reached out for Jeff at the same moment he took a step toward you, as the doc grabbed the ultrasound wand. You actually held your breath as he located the two side by side blobs and nodded his head.

“They look fine.” You exhaled forcefully and burst into fear and joy fill tears, as Jeff sat down in the chair next to you in relief. “Two healthy babies.”

“We did a lot of drugs.” Jeff said as he worried your hand between his as he stared at the monitor. “And a lot of drinking at Burning Man...”

“And all I can say on that is get in touch with an OBGYN, and disclose everything. I won’t lie to you, there could be some consequences, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that. I’ve seen drug addicts who used everyday of their pregnancy and had perfectly functioning, otherwise healthy babies. I’d just refrain from any and all alcohol consumption and drug use.”

“Oh absolutely.” You said with a nod as you took the two photos he handed you and held the delicately in your hands. “I’ll do everything by the book.”

“Just don’t worry to much about what you did. Focus on what you can do for them now.” You nodded your head and took the paper script from him, which Jeff took from you right after. “Something to help with the nausea. And I’ll have the nurse bring in a list of some OBGYN’s in town for you as well.”

“Thank you, doc.” Jeff said with a nod as he stood up and shook the man’s hand. “We appreciate it.” With another nod, the doctor left the room to go about his day, and you looked up at the father of your children and started to cry.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!” He shushed you softly and shook his head as he leaned down to wrap you in a hug.

“It’s ok, baby girl.” He whispered as he held you to his shoulder with his hand on the back of your head. “I’m not mad. It’s OK now. We’ll all be OK.” You nodded for a second before your stomach rolled, and you practically shoved him away to grab the vomit bag the nurse had given you to get sick in. “It’s OK.” He repeated as he gently rubbed your back and picked up the ultrasounds from your lap to look at them in complete disbelief. “We’re all gunna be alright.”

——

Jeff didn’t speak to you for three days after you got home, other than to check to see how you were feeling, and to remind you he loved you every night as you walked out of the living room to the master bedroom without him, which was unusual for him, since you usually went to bed together. On the fourth night, you got fed up with laying in his bed, waiting for the man that you had fallen head over heels in love with, the father of your children, and grabbed your pillow and the blanket to head down to the guest bedroom. You made it almost all the way to the door, when it opened toward you. Jeff stopped for a moment and looked at you with eyes full of concern, as you hiked the blankets and your pillow up a little more.

“No.” He said simply with a shake of his head, as if it were the answer to all of your problems.

“No, you no!” You snapped back as tears welled in your eyes. “I’m going…”

“I always wanted kids.” He sighed as he stepped in front of you and pulled the blanket out of your arms to put it back on the bed. “Hillarie couldn’t conceive. And the few times she did, we miscarried before the end of the first trimester.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you know that fear doesn’t go away?” He asked as he walked you around to your side of the bed. “Fear that you’re going to blink and everything is going to be ripped away from you, that doesn’t just go away.” He sighed as he pulled off his shoes and carefully laid you down on the bed so he could get in behind you. As if you were China doll about to break, he scooted up behind you as close as he could, and gently wrapped his arm under yours across your chest.

“(Y/N), I’m so sorry I’ve pulled away from you. It is absolutely not your fault, or the fact that you are pregnant. I love you so fucking much and I need you with me every fucking day for the rest of my life. And now I need our kids just as much, but I’m fucking terrified. I can’t… I can’t…”

“I’m scared too.” You whispered as you pulled his arm even closer to you. “What if I fucked them up?”

“Then we will figure it out together, baby.” He sighed as he hugged you a little tighter. “I’m sorry I pulled away. I needed a minute and I never should have taken it silently without telling you what I was doing. That was not fair to you. I’ve just never been good at handling hard life shit.” You shook your head in agreement and sniffled as your tears fell on his arms and your pillow. “I’m sorry. Forgive me…” You nodded your head and rolled over to face him, and he held you to his chest as his own tears welled in his eyes.

“Just tell me it’s gunna be OK.” You sobbed as you held on to his shirt so he wouldn’t leave when you voiced your insecurities. “Tell me I didn’t kill our babies at stupid fucking Burning Man or that they aren’t going to end up blind, or with only one limb between them….”

“No, shhh…” He tried with a shake of his head as he realized that you were dealing with different versions of his same fears about the situation. “Our babies are going to be just fine. Unless they’re boys… then we’re both screwed.”

“No, I want boys!” You whined as he leaned back enough to kiss your forehead and wipe away your tears for you.

“Then we are going to have two, healthy boys, that have all ten fingers and all ten toes each, in their right places, on the right babies. And they’re gunna be smart, and handsome, and funny, and…”

“Perfect?” He nodded his head as he moved his hand to your stomach with as big of smile as his nervous self could handle.

“They will be perfect.”

——

“OK, you understand that I’m supposed to be peacefully resting at home, right? Not looking at new houses…”

“You’ve taken over my closet.” Jeff laughed as he held the elevator door open on the fourth floor of the millionth condo you had seen in the past six week. “And it’ll only be a matter of time before you start taking over the one in the guest bedroom. Besides my place is more of a bachelor pad still. It’s not really kid friendly…”

“I know what you’re doing.” You said as you stopped in front of 4B and turned around to look at him as you put your hand on your back and cocked your eyebrow at him. You pointed at the bump that officially stuck out past your boobs and shook your head. “We made it to the second trimester. You don’t need to distract yourself...”

“But we still need a bigger house.” He chuckled as he leaned towards you to knock at the door. “One that you can decorate for our family and not my assistant for my tastes.”

“Whatever.” You huffed as you turned toward Jeff’s real estate agent, Mark. “So? Let’s hear it.”

“Four beds, three and a half baths.” Mark started as he walked backwards into the living room. “Thirty five hundred square feet, and washer and dryer in the unit.”

“Big kitchen?” You asked as you curled your lip at the hideous purple painted book shelf in the study to your left off the living room. “Eww…”

“Big kitchen.” Mark agreed as Jeff followed you around, taking mental notes about the things he would need to change for you to make this the house you wanted to start your family in since he didn’t mind one bit where he lived as long as you were there with him.

“God, who designed this place?” You asked as you turned around and looked at weird, bell shaped light on the far side of the open concept room in what had to be the dining room. “Schools?”

“7, 2, and 8 out of 10.” He said as he looked at his notebook to get the answers to the questions he knew you were going to ask since he had been working with you for a few weeks. “The building was built in 1906 and was last coded in 2019. Been on the market five days and it’s already seen three people.” You shook your head as you peaked into the half bath and the walk in pantry across the way, before heading into the absolutely gorgeous white and grey kitchen, thats only blemish was the colored cushions on the bench in the breakfast nook in the corner, and more of the same strange gold bell lamp shades.

“This could be a play room.” Jeff said as he looked at the den that backed the kitchen.

“You have another closet back there. And the laundry room with a sink is over there.” You nodded your head and glanced down the hall that lead to the bedrooms, as Jeff came up behind you with a smirk.

“You are poker facing awful hard, baby girl.”

“Other than paint, and changing light fixtures, I love it, but I’m not telling him that.” Your love huffed and nodded his head as you walked over to look at the actual laundry room with a sink, cabinets, and counter space, and the large walk in closet.

“It also has 3-zone central AC, a humidification system, and radiant-heated floors in the bathrooms. And it has a part time doorman, a live-in super, more added storage, and a bike room. The walk score is 98, and transit is 100. Now I think is the cutest part of the house is this room right here. I know Mr. Morgan said you were having twins, and this is perfect already if they are girls, or it can be painted for boys…”

“Oh, wow.” You said as your facade slipped for only a moment when you saw the built in bookshelves on one wall, and the already built in bunk beds next to the long closet on the other. You glanced up at Jeff with a smirk you couldn’t control, and he kissed your forehead in silent confirmation.

“What are they asking?”

“$5,375,000.” Jeff whistled as you looked at the similar room across the hall, that had the same bookshelves on one wall but a small ensuite on the other wall.

“HOA?”

“It’s a little higher than the rest.” Mark said as he followed you and Jeff through the second to last bedroom, and the bath that it shared with the room with the bunk beds. “$5,018”

“Can you give us a minute?” Jeff asked as you stepped into the last room, the master bedroom.

“You may not have enough room in this closet either, baby.”

“Finally found one you like?” You finally let your smile show, and nodded your head as you turned on the wood floors that ran through all of the bedrooms toward him. He sighed and put his hands on your hips with a small smile that made your heart melt and your stomach flip. “Do you want it?”

“Do you?” He nodded his head and searched your eyes for a moment before taking a deep breath.

“I’m gunna say the same thing I said to Hillarie when I bought our first house. This house will be our house, until the day comes when you don’t want me here anymore, which hopefully is never. But if that day comes, this house will still be yours, and our kids, for the rest their lives… unless you cheat on me, or if you attempt to steal money from me, which yes, it is possible, because I watched my ex-wife try to do it. Not saying you would, but I still need to lay the rules out…”

“Wait… you’re giving me a house?”

“No.” He chuckled as he moved his hands to the small of your back to hug you. “I’m buying us a house, that I’m going to put your name on as well, so that we both know that you and our children will always be taken care of. Because you are the real love of my life… and I need to know that you are safe.” You couldn’t help yourself but to start crying, and his smile simply grew more as he leaned down and kissed your forehead. “Wanna walk through it one more time to make sure you really love it?”

“Yes…”

“Well go on then.” He chuckled before giving you a chaste kiss. “I’m going to talk price and see if I can get them to do a short sale so we can get in here and get that purple book shelf painted…”

“Eww and change those horrid light shades, please!”

“We can find some new light shades, sweetheart.”

“Hey baby!” You called out before he could walk out of the room. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“Anything for you, baby girl.” You blew him a kiss and turned to look at the small white and bronze accented bathroom, that would have to have to be redone in some actual color, before heading back over to the bedroom with the bunk beds.

“This is gunna be your room one day, babies.” You whispered as you rubbed your bump and looked down at your babies as the reality that they would never have to live the life you did growing up caught up with you. You started to cry again as you looked up at a giant giraffe stuffed animal the owners kids owned, and choked on your tears with a laugh. “God, and I promise I will never buy you two something so tacky.”

——

“OK, this is just not fucking fair.” Dana said as she walked into your new, freshly painted, co-decorated, slightly remodeled home for your gender reveal. “This place could fit my house like ten times over!”

“She looked at about a million and one to find this one.” Jeff teased as he took the giant basket she was carrying from her.

“What’s in the basket?” You asked as you pushed the front door closed and took a step toward your boyfriend, only to have him turn away and Dana step in front of you.

“You can open it later.” She laughed as she turned you around and pushed you into your living room. “Now show me around. Be a good hostess before everyone else gets here.”

“Oh, Jesus I can’t even… You’re so needy!”

“Oh, I know! It’s so hard to be a good host.” She laughed back as she followed you to the kitchen, where you had dozens of finger foods and desserts in pink and blue.

“OK, wait. You have to place your vote.” You said as you pointed to the dry erase board you had borrowed from her office. “Two boys, two girls, or one of each. And then you have to wear the beads.”

“Oh, I like it!” She said as she lifted the two strands of blue beads from around your neck. “You want boys?”

“Oh, I need boys.” You said as you held out a few dry erase markers for her to choose. “Dana, we’re girls. Do you remember how much trouble we got in to?”

“Yea, but so do boys.” She pointed out as she drew a mark under the one boy, one girl column and picked up one of each necklace.

“Yes, but boys listen to their mothers.” You reminded her as you want over and grabbed a glass of blue raspberry lemonade and a blue straw from the table of the breakfast nook. “Come on, you have to see the boy’s room.”

“What if it’s one and one?”

“Then I guess I’m just going to have to recreate the room on the other side? I don’t know. I do know that I’ve grown to hate this purplish pinkish bleck shade they had in here…”

“Oh, that’s really cool. But I see about the color, this is awful.”

“So this one shares a bathroom with the one next door. And the one across the hall has an ensuite so it’s the guest room. And our room is next to that…”

“Oh, let me see the remodel you did with that. You changed the bathroom, right?”

“OK, so first, you have to see the final product so I can show you how we changed it because the way they set this up is just asinine.”

“What did they…”

“Who makes a master bathroom five feet wide and thinks that’s OK?” You asked as you stepped into the master suite and pushed open the bathroom door. “So this wall stopped here and we pushed it out into one of the two closets the undecided room had and doubled the size. And then I added the tub because I needed it.”

“I like this color.” She said as she touched the dark teal accent wall behind the mirror.

“I used the same one on the bookshelf in the study because I liked it so much.” You said with a nod. “We also pushed this wall into the walk in because Jeff still has his closet space out here and I didn’t need that much space, so that few feet gave us just the amount of room we needed.” Dana nodded and turned toward you with a smile.

“Are you happy, (Y/N)? Like not because of the physical possessions… does he make you happy?” You smiled and nodded your head as you put your hand on your 20 week along bump.

“Dana, I’m pretty sure I would die without him in my life. I have never loved someone the way I love Jeff.” Her smile grew as she stepped forward and put her hands on either side of your stomach.

“Then I know I made the right choice in calling you back that day.” You nodded your head as Jeff called your name from outside the door, and you looked over at him with a smile.

“My mom just got here. Are you done touring?”

“Where did your beads go, mister?” You asked as you turned toward him and followed him out of your room.

“Mom votes with me that they are both girls so I gave them to her.” He laughed as he reached out for your hand just long enough to pull you to the side to put his hand on the small of your back.

“And you know I’m going to keep giving you shit until you put them back on, Daddy.” You cooed as you grabbed two pink bead necklaces and held them out to him. “Or you can sleep on the couch, far far away from Mommy and the boys.”

“See, I like her already.”

“Thanks Mom.” Jeff laughed as he put his necklaces on and turned you around to the food covered island. “Sweetheart, this is my mom, Sandy. Mom, the love of my life, mother of daughters…”

“Sons.” You laughed as you stepped forward to the grandmother of your children. “(Y/N). It’s so nice to finally meet you, Sandy.”

“Oh, please. It’s Mom.” She said sweetly as she gestured to your bump. “May I?”

“Absolutely!” You laughed as you reached out for her hands and pulled her a step closer. “You’ve got the soccer player down here, and the long jumper that uses my ribs as a jumping board up here. I say they have to be boys because like two nights ago, they got into what felt like a slap fight against my bladder and I feel like only boys would be that rude to their mother in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She laughed as she rubbed your bump through the knee length blue and pink splattered, off the shoulder dress that was tight against your body and had a long, loose ruffle around the top. “If they are boys, I hope for your sake they are nothing like their father because he was a wild child.”

“Oh, really!” You squealed as you refilled your cup and picked up a pink chocolate covered strawberry, while Jeff whined ‘Mom’ on his way to go get the door. “Please, I am begging you to tell me more.”

“Oh, honey I will never run out of stories about my Jeffrey. Like this one time…”

“Mom!” Jeff said as he walked back into the kitchen behind Chelsea and Kate, and couple of Jeff’s friends that you had only meet a few times before. “Don’t start!”

“Oh, I’ll start alright.” She laughed with a shake of her head. “I have to pre-warn her what she’s getting into with Morgan boys.” You laughed with her as Jeff simply shook his head and went to get the door again, and Dana quickly jumped on the train to get more stories about the father of your child with you. Since you had no representation of family, you shared your own embarrassing childhood stories as your friends and his came together to celebrate the lives you created. You played cheesy games, and ate probably way to many sweets, until Jeff’s assistant, Rebecca got there a little late with two large black balloons for Baby A and Baby B.

“OK, let’s see what the final vote is before we pop these suckers.” Jeff called out over the slight hum of voices in the living room and kitchen as he pointed to the two balloons Rebecca was putting in the arch way between the living and dining room. One of the men that worked in Jeff’s New York office, Jason, grabbed the white board for you and carried it out to the dinner table, where the presents that people had brought to make the last couple months of your pregnancy a little more enjoyable were.

“So we have eight for boy boy.” You said as you looked at all the tallies on the board. “Which is the right team, by the way…”

“Thirteen for girl girl, the winning team.” Jeff interrupted with a playful glare.

“You are are just mistaken.” You giggled. “And fourteen for both. So Baby B is the one up by my ribs, and Baby A is right now down by my left hip. So we’ll obviously start with A. Thanks, Bex.” You said as you took the balloon and a sewing needle from her. “You wanna?”

“No, pop away, my love.” Jeff said as he moved the balloon between you so that you could both be in the photos Kenzie had been taking for you all afternoon. You and your party guests counted down from three, and hesitated for only a second before hitting the black latex with the sharp tip. You cheered excitedly as blue confetti rained down on your head and floated down on your hardwood floors.

“Ok, so this one better be a girl.” Jeff mockingly complained as he took the string from you and traded it for the next balloon.

“If it is a girl, she’s a badass with the way she’s beating up on her brother.” You laughed as you handed him the pin. “But it’s gunna be another boy.”

“Wrong.” He laughed before starting the next count down. You actually held your breath, hoping in that moment that it was a girl for his sake, and you shrieked happily when the destroyed latex released its pink confetti over the blue.

“We got one of both.” You said with a smile as Jeff cupped your jaw with his hands.

“A Daddy’s girl and a Mama’s boy.” He said with a nod. “We’re both screwed.”

“Yea we are.” You laughed as you stood up on your tip toes and kissed him softly. “A boy and a girl… sorry baby, we gotta do even more painting.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh, God, is this really necessary?” You whined as you stepped in to a white and black polka dot sleeveless, halter gown to go to a charity event for one of the foundations Jeff was a part of.

“I’m sorry, but it is.” Jeff said with a nod as he pulled your dress up to your hips where you could reach it without bending over around your substantial 32 week along bump. “It’s a once a year dinner that I have to go to, and you said you wanted to go…”

“Yea, I know.” You sighed as you turned around so he could zip you up. “But I was obviously delirious, running on more sleep, and probably half the size I am now.”

“And you still look just as beautiful to me, baby.” He said sweetly to keep you calm like he usually did as he turned you around toward him with a smile. “I love you… and I know Jett and Jace are both thankful you are carrying them…”

“Yea, I know you think that.” You huffed as a small smile pulled at your cheeks. “But I think these two are ungrateful, hate monsters that can’t keep their arms and legs inside the moving vehicle.” Jeff laughed whole heartedly as he knelt down and slipped your wedge sandals on your feet for you.

“You’re almost there, baby girl. 36 weeks was your goal…”

“Just make it go faster.” You sighed as you put your cell phone on silent and handed it to him to carry so you didn’t have to bring a purse. He put it in his inside jacket pocket with your tissues (because everything made you cry now a days), your lip gloss, and a bag of goldfish in case you got hungry before dinner was served.

“Make it through dinner, and we’re one more day closer.” He said in a sing song voice as he turned you toward the door and gave you a gentle push in that direction. You grumbled at him under your breath as you adjusted your belly band under your dress, and headed down stairs. “It’ll be over before you know it, sweetheart.” He placated over your continued grumbling when your car pulled up in front the Ritz in Manhattan. With one last grumble, you lost the pout and forced a smile on your face as he and his driver, Jonathan, helped you out of the car.

“Oh, you look so big!” “When are you due?!” “Twin’s, that sounds like a lot of work!” “Oh, you have to use cloth diapers, they are so much better for the babies.” “A tiny thing like you is going to have a lot of fun pushing those babies out.”

“OK!” Jeff said quickly before you knocked the woman that was reaching out for your bump on her ass. “Let’s go find our seats and get you off your feet.”

“Why do people think it’s acceptable to touch me?”

“Because people are weird.” He laughed as he guided you around a chair that had been left pulled out.

“Jeffrey Dean!” You stopped walking as a woman stood up on the far side of the table in front of you, and Jeff’s hand gripped the back of your dress when she started walking toward you.

“Hillarie.”

“The Hillarie?” You asked with a glance back up at him. He nodded his head and rubbed your back as he cleared his throat.

“What can I do for you, Hillarie?”

“Oh, nothing, I just… oh! You’re… pregnant.” You nodded your head and put your hand on your bump as she smirked between you and her ex. “You finally caved and went with a sperm donor…”

“Good night, Hillarie…” Jeff tried as he gave you a gentle push to the right, but his ex side stepped and blocked your path.

“No, I’m sorry. That’s rude of me.” She giggled with the fakest smile you had ever seen. “You seem like a nice young thing. I bet you found a man to knock you up and went after Jeff for the money, didn’t you?”

“Excuse me?!”

“That’s enough, Hillarie!”

“I mean you are huge and, let’s face it, we both know Jeff’s sperm are way to old to be a viable option…”

“I’m sorry.” You interrupted as your whole body started to shake. “I think I missed the memo saying that your opinion about my children and their father mattered to anyone but yourself.” She cocked her eyebrow at you as you reached back for Jeff’s hand with a very forced smile. “And I’m even more sorry that you decided to cheat on him and pass up on mind blowing sex. Not that it’s any of your business, but I can promise you that he is responsible for my huge stomach. He’s responsible for making me happy, and he’s responsible for making me forget my own name every night.” Hillarie looked shocked at your retort as you stepped back the other way and up to her side with a smile. “Oh, and thank you for talking to him. Now I know I’ll go to bed wore out as we both attempt to forget you are still in Manhattan and so he can welcomingly remind me the seasoned man he is and exactly who fathered my babies.” You took a step back and smiled at her once more as the exhausted vindictiveness washed over you.

“And I’m sorry that you weren’t capable of getting pregnant. But obviously… that’s not Jeff’s fault.”

“OK, let’s go find our seats, baby girl.” Jeff said quickly as he stepped between you and his ex with an uncontrollable satisfied smirk on his face. “Good night, Hillarie.” You heard her growl behind you as you were led away, and you glanced up at Jeff for a moment. “You did fine.” He chuckled before you could even ask.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t my place… really, they’re starting with salad.”

“Just start with the salad so you don’t rip anyone else’s head off.” He laughed as he pulled your chair out at the first table in the middle row of the room.

“And for that, I’m eating yours too.” You huffed with a smile as you put your napkin on your lap, and turned your attention to the rest of the people at the table, who were thankfully people that you knew from Jeff’s New York office that had attended your gender reveal, or would be attending your baby shower the next day. “Growing babies is tough work. Can’t be done on just greens.”

#negan x reader #Ain't sayin' she's a gold digger #Negan's thirst squad #Negan thirst squad

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romanceismycallingcard · 4 years ago

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50 questions tag!

I got tagged by @bl-crossingtheline! Hello darling! Sorry I’m so late on this. Needed a good block of time and then I just kept forgetting. 😜😂

Questions:

what color is your hairbrush? Aqua/Teal

name a food you never eat: Brussel sprouts. And fish.

are you typically too warm or too cold? Um... in winter I’m just perpetually cold. I prefer to be on the warmer side. But as I’ve gotten older that’s changed a little bit. But I don’t know if I’m like always cold or whatever.

what were you doing 45 minutes ago? lol eating fresh home made sour dough bread with my family.

what’s your favorite candy bar? 100 grand bars

have you ever been to a professional sports game? yes. a hockey game with my family and brothers’ hockey teams.

what’s the last thing you said out loud?: My brother was leaving so I yelled BYEEEEE HAVE A NICE DAY from my room and he said NO~! YOU HAVE A NICE DAY! so then I said FINE IF YOU’RE FORCING ME TO. lol. That was one of our nicer interactions 😂

what’s your favorite ice cream?: anything with caramel or maybe moosetracks. Or just plain vanilla cuz it’s classic, yummy, and underappreciated.

what was the last thing you had to drink? milk

do you like your wallet?: Yes! I do! I found it years ago at a thrift store and it was just perfect for me. It’s black with a pretty metal thing with engraved flowers on it. It zips closed AND there’s a coin pouch inside. And it’s the kind that folds in half rather than the kind that looks like a clutch purse which I’m really glad about because the clutch purse shaped ones seem to almost never be quite the right size - either too big or too small and sometimes the latch breaks so then it just flops open. :P

what’s the last thing you ate? sour dough bread

did you buy any new clothes last weekend? um.... no. But i did this last Friday cuz I had to pick up some things from Walmart and I impulse bought a $10 dress that looked comfy and light weight and casual and I can wear it on days when I don’t want to wear pants. I didn’t have a good dress for days like that before.

what’s the last sporting event you watched? uh...... i don’t. Unless my friend showing me a two minute compilation clip of the danish (i think?) sport of jumping over rivers with a pole counts. or unless watching super junior perform counts.

what is your favorite flavor of popcorn? butter + salt or white cheddar

who’s the last person you sent a text to? real texting it was a mom I babysit for. But more recently than that I was messaging blue (musicdramalove) on tumblr.

ever go camping? my family used to go camping a lot - like at least once a year. But we haven’t for several years now since all my siblings and I are adults now. I think I might’ve gone with friends a couple years ago though. idk.

do you take vitamins? nope. If I get sick, I drink a looooooot of orange juice.

do you go to church every sunday? yeah

do you have a tan? not right now. hopefully I will by the end of summer (if not June)

do you prefer chinese or pizza? chinese (but pizza’s good too)

do you drink soda through a straw? not unless I order it at a restaurant and it’s in a glass. But that’s rare. I usually order water or sometimes a cocktail.

what color socks do you usually wear? I have a set that’s cream, a couple greys, and white, and I have a set that’s cream, grey and light pink.

do you ever drive above the speed limit? heck yeah. Usually I keep it to about 5-10 above. But it also depends on what streets I’m on.

what terrifies you? Failing at working a career job or living a miserable life or being alone forever with no one to take care of me when I’m sick.

look to your left, what do you see? my purse on the floor next to my dresser

what chore do you hate the most? scrubbing my shower/bathtub.

what do you think of when you hear an australian accent? steve the animal guy or liam and chris hemsworth or KJ Apa or Rebel Wilson. Or the other day when I was talking to my nanny kiddos about accents and the girl and I could do decent-ish british accents but absolutely failed at an Aussie accent

what’s your favorite soda? root beer

do you go in fast food places or just hit the drive thru? depends on the day or sometimes the line of cars in the drive thru

what’s your favorite number? 4. idky but I’ve always thought of it as my lucky number. Plus I just like it. It’s even. It’s small. 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 x 2 = 4.

who’s the last person you talked to? my brother when I was yelling bye to him.

favorite cut of beef? yeah i really don’t know or care

last song you listened to? We by Yesung

last book you read? honestly can’t even tell you.

can you say the alphabet backwards? YES I CAN AND I’M VERY PROUD ABOUT THIS

favorite day of the week? mmm..... saturday because I usually see my friends on saturday and also refuse to do homework on saturdays.

how do you like your coffee? with a big scoop of hot chocolate powder and quite a bit of half and half. sometimes I forego the chocolate powder but my preference is to have it.

favorite pair of shoes? oooh..... I love my shoes. I have so many that I like. um... okay I’m gonna say it’s this one pair of brown heels I have. They look kinda like leather, orangey-brown, 4in tall heel, and they’re almost like ankle boots because the material goes to just below my ankle. They look amazing with skinny jeans.

time you normally get up? mm..... somewhere between 8 and 9 I guess if I wake up naturally. But I have to get up at 6:15 for work and 7am on days when I have church bc I’m head of nursery (but church is at 10am and online cuz quarantine)

sunrise or sunsets? hm.... I guess sunset bc it sets behind the mountains and it’s gorgeous.

how many blankets on your bed? rn 1 really light one cuz summer’s basically here.

describe your kitchen plates? white with a red and grey design on them with a red border on the edge

describe your kitchen at the moment? currently a mess bc things are being moved around and sorted and everything is everywhere. Other than that, it’s got a sink, fridge, oven, dishwasher, you know, the uszh.

do you have a favorite alcoholic drink? mm.... right now I guess my go to is a moscato wine. I think that’s my favorite thing right now. You can call me a wimp but hey it’s a step up from Mike’s hard mango punch. I also really like mules.

do you play cards? yes.

what color is your car? silver. and it annoys me bc it looks like every other unimpressionable unremarkable unmemorable car out there :p

can you change a tire? .............................................no.

your favorite state/province/county/etc.? MINE

favorite job you’ve had? my babysitting job for a neighborhood family. I’ve been babysitting them for about 7 years now and I have been with them for two of their kids’ births and I’ve gotten to watch them grow up and develop personalities and learn about life and it has been such a fun experience and blessing to me.

how did you get your biggest scar? okay so I don’t know about biggest, but the one that I’ve probably had the longest and is still clearly visible is one that’s on my foot. It’s about a cm long and is about an inch or so in from the base of my second toe on my right foot. I got it when I was... I think a sophomore in high school when my family visited my bro and sis-in-law out of state for Thanksgiving. I went to grab a bottle of sparkling apple cider out of the fridge but, in the process of grabbing it or moving something aside or something, the bottle of sparkling cider fell out of the fridge onto the tile floor right next to my foot and SHATTERED. I was frozen in shock. Didn’t know what to do. Felt embarrassed and felt bad about the broken bottle and mess. I didn’t even realize until my mom and sis-in-law were cleaning up the floor around me that there was a small shard of glass somewhat embedded in my foot. I don’t remember feeling any pain from it. I think I was probably still in shock. But I still have the scar.

Tagging: I don’t really know and I’m tired so ANYONE WHO WANTS TO 😊

#tag game #50 questions #fun times

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labgrownsteaks · 4 years ago

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Chapter 9

Guy worked on the loading dock of a local thrift store. It was Friday, and he was looking forward to the weekend. Looking forward to the trip they were all going to take. He had googled about Siri’s “malfunction” and came up with nothing. He also hadn’t ruled out that since the actual unit was a knockoff, that perhaps it was simply defective. That’s what Vitamin’s mom gets for buying him a fake Siri Egg he thought as he lifted up a box of old keyboards onto a flimsy aluminum shelf.

Joyce came up the dirty steps. She was in her 60s, and supposed had a broken back, carpal tunnel, “neurological issues”, sleep apnea, and every other thing she saw a product advertised for on the shopping channel. If the shopping channel had a way to fix it, she had to have it. She was the floor manager, essentially the person put in charge of keeping all the miscreants that worked there in line.

“Whadduya doin with that box of keyboards? That’s for recycle!” she yapped while hobbling towards the shelving unit.

“Oh, these are still good. The MX2000 is actually better than most modern laptop keyboards. If somebody had an old Module Console this would definitely come in handy” Guy stated diplomatically.

“Crap. Crap Crap. Box full of crap.” She said as she rummaged through the box. “Crap.” she said as she tossed each keyboard in the giant rubbermade container. “Crap” She said as she through an old computer textbook into the “book box” . “Crap” as she threw a shrink wrapped pack of cassette tapes into the garbage. “Throw away the crap! Is it that hard?” The ironic thing was that Joyce probably had more crap than anybody else. She would come on Sundays when nobody was there, and unload boxes of it, and they’d be waiting for me Monday morning. Strange pillows to improve your posture while you sleep, garbage bags full of yarn, and an assortment of pressure plates for your feet. Of course all of this stuff had to go out on the floor , and of course it had to be priced just under what she paid for it, which pretty much meant the store was become a boutique of her discarded items.

“Throw away the crap!” she stated as she walked down the steps. Guy walked over to the recycling, and the garbage, and got everything out and took it to his car, which was parked just a few steps from the loading dock. It was a pretty common occurrence during his workday. In fact, he couldn’t remember a day where he had come home empty handed, the only problem now of course, was that his stuff was now filling up his house. And his storage unit....and his other storage unit.. As Guy was walking back he saw a jacked up Chevy pulling up, it had a organ tied up in the back. Guy knew the organ would be “crap” and wouldn’t be worth unloading, so he talked the driver into coming over to his place after work. He’d give him 40 bucks for it. He could actually use an organ.

Around lunchtime Vitamin, and Erin showed up with a bag full of McDonalds.

“Burger for the working man?” Erin said as we walked down the alley. Guy was actually a pretty big dude, standing 6′ 5″ and coming in at around 250lbs. Even though he was a complete dork, he was built like a barrel and looked like the kind of person who could handle himself on a ranch.

“What’s up goobers” Guy said as we approached.

“Chow time” I responded, while stuffing a fry into mouth.

We sat down together on the loading dock, and it didn’t take long for the subject of Siri to come up.

“You can’t be serious about this shit bruh” Guy said to me.

“What’s the alternative? We’ve been given a quest. An actual quest!” Erin said “Siri played Lord of The Rings for fucks sake!”

“What do you do when you see a fork in the road Guy?” I said. “You take it!”

“You stole that from somewhere! I’ve heard that before” Guy said

“Yeah, probably, have no idea where from though”

“So when are we dropping tomorrow?” Guy stated while biting into his burger.

“Around 10, then we’re headed down to the river. It’s supposed to be nice out. We can hang out in the woods by the banks and plot” Erin stated

“Sweet, I’ll meet y’all there then” Guy said

“Tomorrow is the test. It’s going to be a big trip! “ Erin said

“A test for what?” Guy said

“If we can work together” Erin continued. “If we’re really going to pull this off, we’ve got to be able to work together”

“Look. Even if we did break into Quicksilver. What would we do then? Like, what am I supposed to do? Just push the delete key, and walk back out?! The place is full of cameras. Literally, if I got in, I legit would have no idea of what to do....like...none”

“How can we ignore this? “ I stated. “Like. Can you imagine getting old and having this chance and not taking it?”

“This isn’t a chance bruh. This is illegal. I’m not breaking in. Nope. Not doing it” Guy looked up at me and Erin, and I could sense that he could sense our disappointment. “Seriously! No....Fucking.....way! Can you imagine me in prison? And for breaking into Quicksliver!”

Erin had a sneak attack. ��Didn’t Quicksilver basically destroy the entire dream of the world wide web?”

“Yes. Quicksilver sucks. Yes, they are evil incarnate. Yes. They’re making the world a worse place. No. No. No am I going to break into their headquarters. No chance!”

We could hear Joyce coming up the steps. Guy shooed us away “Get out of here!” and we took off down the alley. They weren’t supposed to have lunch breaks, which basically meant the day was an all day snackathon for everyone who worked there.

“You see that pocket fishing pole set?” Joyce squawked.

“Nope. I think we put that out a couple weeks ago” Guy responded

“well it’s gone, and Linda doesn’t remember selling it either so.”

“Ok. Well I’ll keep an eye out for it”

Joyce muttered something as she hobbled back down the steps. Guy could see Erin and me at the end of the alleyway. He watched us as we got onto our “motorcycles” and drove off.

Another local to the thrift store scene was Ryan, and he pulled up to the Loading Dock in a 1978 Ford Fairmont. It was completely rusted out. The drivers side floor panel was actually gone, so when you rode with him you basically felt like you were in a Flintstone car. He had a bunch of Ham radio gear on the dash, and the sounds of James Brown were blasting as he rolled up. He was also prone to intermittent James Brown impersonations. He opened the door with some swag, and threw his jet black hair back. he had transitions lens in his glasses, and one of those baseball hats on that made him look like a Hollywood film director.

“Got something for ya buddy!” Ryan stated as he walked up to the dock with a book in his hands. “You still collectin textbooks?”

“Of course. How could I stop?” Guy responded.

“Super rare. I found it at State Surplus” he said as he handed guy the old textbook. It had a Blue canvas cover, no dustjacket, just the embossed “gold” font on the front. And it simply said ZXBASIC on it in bold letters. Guy began to thumb through the book, seemed pretty standard. Black and white diagrams for outdated programming languages that he loved so dearly.

“Check the front page” Ryan said, and Guy flipped the pages back and inspected the first page. It read.

ZXBASIC and Finite State Machines

Hyperdine Systems Inc.

1967

“Hyperdine was the first iteration of Quicksilver. Check the logo! It’s still the same. You could definitely get something for it on Ebay. Some fanboy would probably pay a pretty penny!”

Guy felt annoyed at this point. It was one of those times, like when you stub your toe minutes before you have to take a interview for a job on the phone, and then your toast burns and stinks up the house, and the postman decides that now is a good time to get into a conversation with your neighbor who is restraining their barking dog in the apartment next door. Everything bad happens all at once. In this case, he felt like he was being pushed. And Guy didn’t like to be pushed. He just wanted to sit at home, with his new organ, and learn how to play inagaddavita amongst all of his plastic computer friends.

“Thanks man!” Guy said. “This is really dope!” . Another car had pulled up, and a nervous middle aged woman with a small dog was waiting. Ryan noticed and popped back into his car. “don’t say I never did anything for ya man!” He said while starting his car up. The radio blared James Brown.

Get up, (get on up) Get up, (get on up) Stay on the scene, (get on up), like a sex machine, (get on up)

Guy looked back down at the beautiful code in the book. “What had Quicksilver become?” He thought. They had been so cool. Why did they have to just turn to crap? The woman pulled up and popped her trunk. She was pulling a dog carrier out of it. “Oh sorry!” Guy stated. “We’ve already got a ton of carriers. Maybe try Goodwill?” The woman, in her 40s gave him an exasperated look, and suddenly the carrier seemed to weigh a million pounds, and it was a major issue to get it back into the car. The rest of the day was pretty slow, and guy chilled out, on a nice fall day outside, and read ZXBASIC.

#lgs

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originaldetectivesheep · 7 years ago

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A Life of Riley Part 1 - The Problem With Grinckles ch 4

Chapter 3

At least it was still almost warm out; at least the sun was out and it was almost warm. That was the good part – that was as good as it got. Because if I had been freezing, or drenched in cold rain, while I was standing waist deep in this goddamned ornamental puddle between the new dorms east of the arts quad, my legs covered in duct tape to keep any more grinckle spines from stabbing me in the shins and my third-best Boca Juniors shirt rapidly declining towards being my fifth-best Boca shirt on account of the sweat and swamp water and fish slime, waving a net around while Wilson yelled and pointed to spots where I should throw more of our groundbait and getting stared at by shocked and disgusted hippies, that would have been too much, and I would have given up on this grinckle garbage and moved to Antarctica or something. As it was it was still sort of endurable. Kind of.

"Leo! Left! Left! Ten o'clock!" I turned, eyes on the water, and saw the flash of red that Wilson was yelling about. I crushed a bread ball in my left hand and scattered it on the water over the fish; the grinckle turned and popped up for the bait, and I shifted my grip to stab in under with the net, swiping it up and out of the water in a flurry of putrid spray and dangerously stabby spines sticking through the webbing.

"Got it! Got another one! One second!" I turned the handle of the net over and over, getting the bag with the squirming, spasming grickle secured so that it didn't jump out while I was getting my glove on. We'd lost a couple on the first pond before I got this down, but after three hours of fish hunting on six pools, I had it down to a science. I flexed my hand inside the thrift-store oven mitt to make sure of the grip, then started turning the net back to open it up again.

"What are you doing? That fish is out of the water! You're torturing it! That's awful! I can't believe this! What kind of ethical researchers are you?" I made sure I had a grip on the fish before I looked up, dorsal spines dug into the cotton not where my hand was, its menacing tail flap flap flapping against the side of the glove; Wilson was backed up from someone blonde and distraught in designer jeans and dreadlocks down to the backs of her knees, trying to guard the fish bucket.

"Hey lady, you're going to torture it more if you don't let me throw it to Wilson up there so he can tag it. Bug off, science in progress." I waved the fish at her, trying to wave her away.

She turned and looked at me. "Is that an oven mitt? Is that duct tape? What do you mean, 'tag'?" She was distracted, so I sidearmed the fish past her to Wilson, who caught it bare-handed; he'd grown up having to watch out and not get knifed by fish, so he could do stuff like this without worrying about the spines. "You – you can't – you can't just throw animals like a baseball!"

She was screaming at me, so Wilson could go on with his work; he balanced the fish expertly on a knee, punched with his biopsy punch through the webbing of the dorsal fin to collect the sample, then slid the sampled grinckle into the bucket with the rest of them with a splash. He knelt down to open up the sample case to collect and document the core we'd taken from this fish; our heckler turned around at the splash, and I had to chip in to distract her while we got the data collected.

"Sure we can; we just did. And now that we did, and got our scientific data, the fish is back in the water with the other ones we've tagged, just like it would have been half a minute sooner if you didn't stick your nose in. Good job. Super productive." I did a golf clap that of course didn't sound like anything because I was doing it with an oven mitt against a fishing net pole.

The hippie's nose ring wrinkled up, and she shot a look at our bucket. "That's – that's inhumane too – that's six, seven, seven big fish in just a half-full tupperware bucket. You can't do this – you can't do this to the earth! Born free! Born free!" She must have been into crossfit or something, because she was deceptively strong for her size – strong enough to pick up our forty-liter bucket, full of grinckles and pond water, and throw it out at me. And that sucker traveled – it rotated in the air, getting a lot of the weight out in a shower of fish and a plume of pond slime that instantly grabbed everyone's attention all around the quad and was probably going to blow up on Twitter in about a minute and a half, and I dove into the water to get away from it, but the bucket itself splashed down a good ten yards past me.

"Born free! Born free! BORN FREE!!" She was screaming her lungs out, and Wilson was balled up on the ground, curled up in the fetal position to protect our data. I pushed myself up out of the water, soaked and stinking and now getting cold as the water dripped off me, and just looked at her; deprived of active resistance, she eventually got herself collected together, gave us the finger, and walked off to bother someone else, mission accomplished. I felt myself over to make sure I hadn't gotten stabbed again while I was underwater, and hiked myself up to go wade out after the bucket.

Wilson was sitting up by the time I dragged the bucket back to the shore, checking over the data with a grease pencil, shaking his head. I thumped the tub up on the grass and sat down next to him. "Let's just call time on this pond," I said. "We're short samples, but seven's almost up to what we were looking for, and it'd take us all night to catch another three fish that we hadn't caught yet. Let's go somewhere else and see if we can't finish another pond or two before dark. Freaking hippies, man." I shook my head, scattering the last of the water out.

Wilson nodded, opening up his backpack and tucking the data sheet back inside. "Yes. I agree. It's more important to cover more places lightly than fewer with depth, this point in the investigation." He shook his head. "And we need to go fast, and not make a disturbance. I thought I understood women from this country, but –"

"Yeah, like I'm saying, man; freaking hippies. But it's not that bad – when we get to that lake behind Pettingill Hall, we're going to have to watch out, there's frat houses over that way. This chick at least had a reason for wrecking our bucket here, even if it was a dumb and bad reason; some of those frat bros will throw you in the water just to be a dick." I stood up, pulling out my phone. "I'll text Yuping and ask which of the ponds near here we should hit next – or did you have something spotted?" I thumbed open our map and swiped it to zoom in, finding where we were and looking around for pins from the rest of the team.

Wilson had his phone up landscape, braced on his knees, splitscreening between the map and a spreadsheet. "I think the best is to go from here to the Facilities pond next to the sand depot – it is only a couple hundred meters, and Remy has it 'not confirmed'; I think we fish there, for half an hour, and if we don't find a fish, then we can set a border. Unless Yuping has something he hasn't pinned yet; I will text him and check." He flipped the spreadsheet out of the way and popped up Messenger.

"Sounds like a plan," I said. "I'll pick up the bucket and crap and start moving; we'll want to get going that way anyway, since –" My phone buzzed in my hand, and I looked down to a text from Remy:

> yo dude can I call you real quick?

This was weird. What the hell did Remy want to talk about by voice instead of texting like a normal person? I poked his icon and swiped over to call him, bringing the phone up to my ear. "Yo, Remy, it's Leo, what up?"

"Hey, yeah, I know it's weird but dude, I dunno how to explain this. It would be hard by text and if I just sent you the pictures cold you wouldn't know what the hell was going on. Lemme take a second and think about this."

"What? What's going on? Remy, where are you at?"

"I'm on the road – I'm over on the side of one of those access roads on West Campus, the roads through the woods around the tennis courts and the incinerator complex and all those little ponds out there. One sec, lemme drop a pin and it'll pop on the map." There was a rustle in the phone as Remy moved it around to check himself in, and I put the phone on speaker so that I could look at the map and see what the hell was going on.

"Okay, so I'm out on these roads out here, and dogg, you are not going to believe this even after I send you the pictures, but there are fish, like that grinckle fish you guys are hunting, squished in the road like roadkill." I caught a notification in our group chat, probably those pictures he mentioned. Wilson would have got it too, but he was ignoring his own phone, stood up and leaned over mine, staring into the map and Remy's mic-crinkled voice through the speaker.

"So someone dropped a fish," I said, "I don't know that that makes it a thing; these grinckles flop around and fight like hell once you grab them, and if you fill up a bucket too high, they might get out. I know the people fishing for them aren't doing it for trophies and don't want to let their food get away, usually, but –"

"No, Leo, Leo, this is serious. It's not one fish. It's, like three fish, three or four fish each time, and this place I'm posted up on is like the third one of these places that I've come across. It's like these fish are like crossing the road and getting run over. I didn't pin it before because I didn't know what the hell was up but dude, it's wack. It's mad wack – can you like come over here and have Wilson take a look at this because I don't know what the hell is up with this fish biology, man." There was a note of almost panic in his voice, and I took a deep breath. This was still just fish. This was still just weird fish, and Remy was overreacting and seeing things, and it wasn't going to get any weirder.

"All right," I said, "we'll come over and check it out. I can see your pin – can you pin where you took the other pictures?"

"Like I said, I didn't pin when I shot them, but I left geotagging on, so I should be able to import them into the map that way. Give me a sec while I get that set up."

"No problem," I said, "you can do it while we're coming over. It'll probably be about fifteen minutes – we had kind of an accident with some hippies and I'm covered in pond water, so we'll have to walk instead of taking the bus."

"Gotcha," Remy answered. "You'll probably see the map buzz in a couple minutes. And watch out – this shit's weird enough without you go and drag water fights with hippies into it. Catch you in a few." The grinckles themselves were weird enough without you bringing in them getting allegedly roadkilled, I wanted to say, but that wouldn't've been productive and Remy'd already hung up anyway. I lumped the bucket up onto my shoulder and checked the map for the way we'd have to get going towards Remy's pin.

I had the bucket with all our stuff to manage, and Wilson was dialed in on his phone, tracking the pins as Remy put them in and swapping around between apps like he was onto something, so Remy saw us before we saw him, coming up on where he was, him and his bike at the side of the road on a gentle curve covered in fallen leaves. He waved, and the motion got my attention, and I picked up the pace to get over, thunking the bucket down at his feet. "Hey, good to see you guys; sup Leo, sup Wilson." Remy had his hand out and shook like he always did. "This is where it's at – you see the pictures? The last ones was from right here." He pointed out ahead of us onto the curve: onto the splashes of red scales in the orange leaves, the smears of stinking guts and solid, knobbly backbones that hadn't gotten crushed under whatever's wheels. I hadn't seen the pictures – too much stuff to carry – but just looking at this, it was pretty easy to see how Remy got the idea that the fish were being roadkilled. There wasn't a whole lot else that could explain something like this.

I took a few steps out onto the road, looking and listening around for traffic. Wilson didn't follow; he was staring driven at his phone, fingers hammering madly at the glass. "It's… yeah, Remy, sorry I doubted you. The spray of these fish… it's like they were just in this one line across the road, and that's where they got ran over. It looks weird as hell, but I don't know what else it could be. I don't know how this even happens, or what it is, but shit, you're right. Fish roadkill. What the hell."

"This corner is a corner because of two ponds," Wilson said behind me, a nervous energy in his voice like he'd cracked the case. "One of them, on the inside, is marked by Yuping as a big good fish pond; there are three students who have caught at least three fish from there. The one on the outside is 'no fish' – three different students have fished there and found nothing, but not in the last week. These fish were killed this morning, perhaps only as long ago as last night – the guts would not be this solid if it was older. It is the same with the other two sites – they are a shortest distance between ponds with different levels of noted fish presence. If there are fish in the road, it is that someone is moving them – probably from ponds of many fish to ponds of fewer fish."

I spun around, punching a fist into an open hand. "Of course! If this was a dump, they probably wouldn't want to draw attention to themselves seeding every stupid pond on campus with these things – they'd use like a septic truck and barf it out the hose into a couple ponds, maybe one full truck per pond, only however as many as they could fit in one night. But they don't want to give themselves away with a mass fish kill either, so they'd have to thin them out – like with gill nets and put it on a trailer on a Bobcat to drag the extras around to other ponds, spread them thin so that they'll melt off and we won't have nine hundred dudes doing a fishing derby on one pond to attract attention." I paced along the road, thinking.

"If they moved fish as late as over last night, they might still need to move more fish – and if we can catch them doing it, we can find out who's behind this and then Remy can just put them in a crossface chokehold or something and we can get the whole story out of them that way instead of having to genetically analyze any more grinckles." I looked up. "Wilson, you've been on your phone – are there any more gaps where they might move fish into ponds that don't have them yet?"

Wilson smiled, holding up his phone with a false-colored map on the face. "Way ahead of you, Leo. I have already mapped out the distribution space: we had to to set the parameters. And on the way over, I found some other shortest points: there are six more spots, I think, that we might find the same dead fish, if not now or tomorrow."

Remy leaned over, looking at the spots in Wilson's perimeter. "Yeah – yeah, I get that. I was past a couple of those, though, and I didn't see no dead fish there – not yet." He looked over at me. "So what – are we gonna do a stakeout?"

I shook my head. "There's three of us – I'm not counting Yuping, Riley's not gonna let him out of the lab – and six maybe-crossings. We can watch half of them in person, max, and there's no telling if they're even gonna go tonight, or not till next week. There's a smarter way to do this – but I'm gonna need to bring in someone else. Is that ok?" I felt bad about asking sight-unseen like this, but if I mentioned that it was Sajitha I needed to bring in, Remy's tongue would be flapping out behind him like a '30s cartoon wolf, and if I mentioned her by name I'd also have to tell Wilson that she was in the Applied Physics lab. He'd get over it, though; to the extent that he had a type, as far as I could remember, Sajitha was Exactly It, and he'd be too busy showing off to her to worry about what she might or might not be telling Riley about what was going on.

As it turned out, I was worried for nothing. Remy shrugged. "Do what you like, man. This is your deal, dogg, I don't care who spots me in, just as long as I can drop a naeryeo on this fish burglar's head when we find'em." He mimed pulling his knee up to start the axe kick.

Wilson nodded with folded arms. "As long as it is not Riley you need to ask, I am fine."

I nodded back. "Yeah, no worries. I've got a friend who works a desk in Facilities – lemme text her real quick, I'm pretty sure she can lend us some infrared motion cameras." Remy's face was already making the connection to Sajitha's job, while Wilson hadn't met her yet and was looking at him confused; I slid that problem over to the side for the future, and went back to my pocket for my phone.

Chapter 5

#nanowrimo #alifeofriley #fiction

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