Lol, it's the sims, who cares if you inbreed.
Love Shark's makeover - very artsy!
My conscience does! Until I tell it to shut up.
It's so nice to see you posting an Immortal Dynasty Trip! I am sadly behind due to RL interference but I will catch up over the coming days!
It's so nice to see you commenting! And take your time.
Shark's kinda cute, actually...lol.
Awww....poor Anette! I actually forgot that Bill was an adult until the sparkles.
He's definitely one of the cuter guys in Twinbrook. There's very little "wrong" with him.
Yep, Bill starts off the game very close to elderhood. I originally hoped that Annette would get someone closer to her age, but I guess she doesn't mind.
There is just so much about this chapter that I love. You write with almost a satirical bent...and that is something I greatly admire. All of those subtle details--the cicada, the canary yellow paint, the slobber-covered tiberium--it all just adds so much to the story.
Thanks! I think I'm trying really hard with detail this time just because I need practice writing fiction and wielding adjectives again.
Shark is surprisingly handsome! And Amy is just the cutest. Then again, I think I'd be just as excited about walls if I'd been living on empty lot. Still, her enthusiasm is adorable.
He is! Writing excitable sims is interesting; it's writing a character type that is so much unlike who I am in real-life.
I like how you've included the dynasty helpers in this storyline. It's hard for there to be any meaningful updates about them since they mainly just build their skills, but you've done a nice job keeping their roles interesting.
I'm somewhat nice to my helpers; they might work to the bone to get masterpiece museum pieces done, but I try to fulfill their wishes and give them some sort of happy ending.
Chapter 8: Baking Buns
This chapter is the story of three new parents.
One of them had shiny dark hair and flawless skin. Even with a lack of papers, her age was verified by those. Our guesses were late 20's at that time. Most of us started families later than that, but the rest of the world saw her, Annette, as a typical new mother.
The other two waltzed into their elder years without any children and no excuses for it. Bill and Harwood had little in common, except for being (as far as Annette was concerned at that time) lifelong bachelors. But the nooboo fever attacked and ravished them too.
Why yes, the Waverly manor was baking a multitude of buns in multiple ovens. This is the story.
Finishing the house neatly coincided with Bill’s elder birthday. Even though Annette made some effort to make it a tolerable day, with yellow cake and a small party, her poor partner still sulked to the closet after blowing out the candles. He rummaged around for hair dye and anything acceptable and in aqua.
For him, sweater weather would come soon enough. But as Twinbrook still hovered at 80F or higher, even late at night and later in summer, sweaters were out of the question. Bill dug around the drawers a bit more, until he came across a tank top, in aqua and printed with black skulls. That, plus a pair of boxer shorts, it counted as clothes, even with company over. Annette subscribed to that philosophy for herself too.
The clock read 10PM, and most of the guests were gone. Maybe one still sat down, licking frosting off their fork, but the house got quiet in the time it took him to get the shirt on without it being inside out.
Most of them left, except for one comely, red-haired woman, who vomited in the toilet. No one knew her name, no one but Harwood, that is. He ended up claiming her after she washed her face.
“Don’t worry. She’s just a friend,” he said, with a smirk, escorting her out the door. "You guys might get to know Blaise a little better."
The party ended by the time Annette found Bill, with him hiding in the living room, and behind the best floor-to-ceiling television that tiberium could buy. She just sat down, with nonchalant gossip on her tongue.
“I think that Harwood knocked up that woman,” she said, as her rear end descended and hit the firm sofa cushion. "It's funny, I think this might be his first one. He's never mentioned anything about kids or even any partners. Heck, I thought he was gay."
“That’s all that’s on your mind? Not me being old?” Bill asked.
“Um, yeah. I have to clean the toilet now because of his squeeze. I don’t really care if you’re old or not. You’re a pretty sexy old man, if I say so myself.” Annette found his arm around her.
“That matters a lot to me. I’ve been thinking about this whole relationship business over the past few days, and I actually feel great about it,” he said.
“Really?”
“Really. As long as there are no surprises. I like things this way.”
“No surprises.” For a moment, Annette’s life felt like the slow, no-surprises lull that Bill wanted, until she woke up later that night to throw up. She threw her clothes in the laundry again, in case there was still tiberium dust left in the pockets. But even fresh laundry failed to take away her nausea.
Soon after, the household got a call from Harwood’s “friend,” just to forward the news to him that she was indeed pregnant. He took it with a weird sense of apathy, and was spotted using a dating site at the library.
Anyways, if you couldn’t guess by now, Annette had the exact same news, at least in regards to parenthood. Somehow, she forgot about the bun in her oven until she visited one of Shark’s old classmates one morning. She had Shark and Harwood with her; Shark had an honest reunion with a friend over waffles. Harwood found himself a new date.
Annette, against good sense, tore her nephew away from a delicious breakfast to spread the good news.
“Wow, my uncle did that to you?” he asked, pretending to not know how nooboos came to be.
“Yep!”
“Fool! I told you to leave,” he retorted. "And now you definitely can't."
“Now, now, your anger isn’t good for the nooboo. Isn’t your plate still half-full? Don't waste good waffles.”
“Point taken." Shark grumbled and headed back to the kitchen. "Good luck with your devil spawn.” The two of them turned away from each other for the rest of the day. Annette, now eating for two, stole a waffle for the road, and still wanted to get home to the collection of cheese plates and sushi stacked in the fridge. And cook something else, because neither were advised for pregnant women to eat. Maybe more waffles. She almost bolted out the door without Harwood, who was either sorely rejected or getting lucky.
It was the former. The wise old man made a foolish move, and found a married woman on the dating site. Something went wrong between him and Mrs. Castor. Before she could strike him in anger or tell her husband about the old man who tried to flirt with her, Annette grabbed Harwood by the wrist and led him out the door.
“You didn’t get any waffles, did you?” asked Annette.
“No.”
“Well, I’m fixing that once we get home.”
Someone else had the Motive Mobile that morning, so the two hailed a taxi, with Harwood looking out the window in silence. He tapped his fingers on the door.
“I want to leave your business with married women up to you, but this is just hilarious," said Annette. She laughed when she remembered his craggy face and scattered liverspots. Harwood was a man who showed his age. "Because when I think raw womanizing appeal, I think of Harwood Clay. Duh. How do you do it, though?"
He shrugged.
"Is this new for you?" Annette asked.
"Somewhat. I had flings before, but I'm in a stable place for the first time in ages. This is my weird way of finding someone right for me," he said. "And I'm having some fun with it."
"So, what about Blaise?"
"I'll do what I need to. She's a loose woman, but good for a fling. I'll keep my eye on her and avoid whatever comes out."
"God help you, because I'm in the same boat," Annette said, pointing at her tummy.
“Congrats on that, though I guessed when you stopped eating your sushi. I'm not so opposed to it, now that I think about it. You have years to leave behind a legacy, immortality or not. Me?” He stared out the window with an anxious, wide stare, as they crossed the bridge over to Puddlewick Lane.
“I’m lucky if I have a few more years. So do you want your ice sculpture now, or should we wait until you’re done baking that bun?”
“The latter,” said Annette, “Breaking the news to Bill is a little more important now.”
However, the house was empty, except for Sagebear sprawled out on the sofa with the television blaring. Amy was out for a movie matinee with a couple of friends, considering that she already mastered the art of portraiture and had actual time on her fingertips and not just paint. Shark went for seconds at breakfast. Bill, well, that was the mystery.
Whatever. Annette made enough waffles for two hungry sims plus more, with a glass bottle of real maple syrup and a stick of softened butter set on the island counters.
Whatever. Annette made enough waffles for two hungry sims plus more, with a glass bottle of real maple syrup and a stick of softened butter set on the island counters.
She also added to the stock of cheese plates, cutting to the mild hum of the refrigerator, and a muffled chainsaw. Those walls worked wonders. Now with a long maternity leave ahead of her, Annette took criticisms of her plating to heart. Sloppy, unorganized. But those cheese plates looked better each time she made them.
Sometime in the afternoon, Bill finally came through the front door. Sagebear bolted towards him and lapped his face.
“I missed you,” Annette said, holding a cheese plate, “What could have given you a reason to leave the house?”
“A job,” he stated.
“Really, what?”
Bill shoved an ID-card into her hand.
Bill Racket. Twinbrook Police Department. City employee. #045603., and a picture where he stared at the camera with utter dejection, as if it was a criminal mugshot. Just a mugshot with a blue background.
“You know, when I suggested a job, I thought that you could go into business. Or tax fraud,” said Annette.
But no, he slipped away while Annette got ready for work a couple days prior and headed to the police department with truthful information about himself. He might have held some shallow loyalty to Twinbrook’s biggest criminal family up until that point, but people can change. Funny enough, his criminal record was mostly clean, except for a series of public nudity charges about 30 years prior. That, and Scout Sargeant processed the job applications, and she had no opinion of Bill either way. Facing his older brother, enemy, and long-time police officer Dudley came a little later. Telling his mother could never come at all, if he played it right.
“It’s not like I’ll turn you in,” Bill said, “In fact, I can pull some strings to let you steal in peace. But otherwise, I want to do well there.”
He went up to bed without a word about Annette’s new t-shirt, or the slight bump under there. By the time she made her way upstairs, Bill was asleep, snoring with Sagebear curled up at his feet.
Something about work kept doing that to Bill. He got sleepy as soon as he got home, and headed upstairs before Annette could say that she was pregnant. As time went on and she got rounder, she assumed that he knew what was going on. But why risk it if he was dense enough to think that her cooking was just that addictive?
Bill finally got into a better sleeping groove, so that he was awake for quite a while after work. By that time, Annette waddled around at the end of her pregnancy, weighed down.
“I hope that you figured out that my cooking isn’t that fattening,” she said.
“Yeah?”
“Bill, I’m pregnant.”
“But you still look so thin!”
Gawd, was he dense.
“I mean, that’s great!” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “Surprising, but I think I can handle it.”
By handling it, it meant that he was out and missing for the next two days, leaving Annette to sleep alone in utter silence. Sagebear went back downstairs to her dog bed. She had one extra serving of food to put away after dinner without him to eat it. But two days was enough, and Bill came home to sleep in their own bed, next to his enormously pregnant girlfriend. He came back to a situation he had to accept without a scowl. The compromise was two hours overtime at work each day. Processing more police reports took Bill’s mind off fatherhood, and commitment. There was also the bonus of watching his family’s business get raided. Without punishment for them, but he kept an inkling of hope.
Annette’s new interest in fishing was unrelated to any of that, though. She just got into a sushi-making groove, and one of Harwood’s close friends kept a pond full of fish on his property.
Making him pancakes in thanks did not go so well, though, when Annette's water broke before she could flip the first one. As the pancake cooked and burned in an old, cast-iron skillet, Annette called a taxi and headed home. Juan Darer would have to deal with the pancakes himself.
Of course, she went home only to grab a toothbrush and some pajamas, with every intention of getting a ride to the hospital to deliver her nooboo in sanitary and private conditions. Every contraction got closer and closer, though, and she hardly got through the front door before it was too late to do anything else but give birth right there. Everyone else in the household was asleep, working, or engrossed in their art. Annette labored with a stranger panicking.
The end came within the hour, as if all of the pressure inside of Annette released its grip.
Because after less than an hour at home, Annette held a healthy little boy in her arms. Ten fingers and ten toes, in spite of Annette drinking the regular Twinbrook water. Healthy lungs that produced mighty screams. And vibrant pink skin.
“Oh, hey there,” she whispered to him. “Hope your dad thinks the same way, but I always liked the name Franco. I hope you don’t mind it.”
Finally able to fully bend over without a nooboo nestled inside of her, Annette laid Franco down. At last, she could get her regular clothes back. She also learned that their house guest was named Eva Drudge, and she was just one of Harwood's friends.
Annette mailed Eva a check, with a memo attached.
Good luck getting more child support after this. - Annette
Bill, the new father immediately fell in love when he came home from work a little early. He did his duties in keeping Franco clean and smelling like cloying nooboo powder.
The story about the new parents would not be complete without the last one, who had no idea what to do with his new twins. Beverly and Eva both gave him chilling announcements too. But Harwood could take solace in how his world wasn't crashing down alone.
Not that Julienne could easily convince Annette of what horrors awaited for her either.
Word Count for this chapter:
2,309Word Count so far:
12,660Revised on 2-2-2015
