Quaranteam: Book 2 - Ch. 30 (Patreon)

Chapter Thirty

            May 8th, 2021

            As much as he used to love travelling, he was finding that getting around in the post DuoHalo world was a lot more complicated than it had been before. Of course, he had nearly two dozen people relying on his health and schedule now, so perhaps that was why it felt like any time he wanted to go anywhere, it was a major undertaking.

            The plan was this afternoon they were going to fly out to DC, so that Andy could have appointments with the other members of the Oversight committee as well as the President herself on Monday and Tuesday. He was anticipating flying back Wednesday, so it wouldn’t be too disruptive to the schedule, but it still meant some people needed to get dosings before he left, so he’d fucked eight partners in the last twenty-fours, and Emily, who he was inside of at that very moment, made nine.

            He was sat up in the bed, his back against Piper, who had her back against the backboard, while Emily was bouncing up and down in his lap, a sort of seated cowgirl that allowed the small English woman to take her time, weaving her hips back and forth to let her slide up and down along his cock.

            “Where are you, Andrew?” Emily asked him, turning his head to make him look at her. “You know it’s rude to be thinking about something else when you’re fucking your wife.” The expression on her face was still kind and understanding. Emily had grown emotionally a lot over the last half a year, but she still had elements of self-doubt and concern that she wasn’t good enough for him. Andy had done his best through constant reassurance and repeated praise to convince her that she wasn’t just Sarah’s partner who’d come along for the ride, but her own woman that Andy had also fallen in love with along the way.

            “Sorry Em,” he said, kissing her neck. “Just some heavy things on my mind, but I shouldn’t let them interfere with our time together. I’ll try and stop thinking about it.”

            “What can I do to get you more focused on the here and now?” she giggled, wriggling in his lap. “A bit of roleplay? Having me on all fours?” She moved to nibble on his earlobe. “I’m quite eager to feel you cumming inside me, my love. I think I’m at that sweet spot where you might knock me up, and I’m oh so eager to be bred now that we’re wed. Doesn’t that excite you? Knowing your blushing British bride is a wanton, desperate bitch for you, yearning to be fucked until she’s knocked up, proudly bearing your child? Let me give you a child, Andrew. Claim me. Mark me. Fulfill my body’s wants. Own me. Give it to me. Cum in this tight young British cunt.”

            There was something special about Emily whispering profanities into his ear – the fact that she always did so with her posh upper class British accent somehow made the words more exquisite, more taboo, more delicious. And even though he was still nervous about the information Phil had dumped on him mere days earlier, his body knew it had a job to do and when he felt her inner muscles clamping down on him, his body responded in kind and provided her with a load of cum to set her at ease, to fill her body’s yearning needs, their lips locking as his orgasm triggered hers, and the two releases entwined into one intense shared moment, linking the two of them in the shared pleasure of the orgasm.

            When the moment started to pass, Emily pulled back from the kiss and peered into his eyes, her fingers stroking across the back of his shaved head. “You’ve still got that worry in your eyes, beloved,” she said softly to him. “Sooner or later, I wish you’d let me in.”

            Piper leaned in and kissed Andy’s other cheek. “I think it’s probably time, Andy,” she said to him. “You can’t keep it on your shoulders forever.”

            “You think Ash can handle it? Now?”

            “I think Ash is the toughest woman I’ve ever met, and I spend my summers surrounded by Olympians, Andy,” Piper giggled, stroking his face. “Have a little faith in her.”

            Andy drew in a deep breath and then sighed it out again. “You’re probably right,” he agreed, leaning his forehead against Emily’s, as the tiny blonde smiled impishly at him. “You’re both probably right. Okay, Piper, send out a message and why don’t we have all the wives meet us in the Bird Cage in about ten minutes. The three of us should definitely hop through a quick shower first.”

            “I’m not that messy,” Piper said with mock indignation.

            “M’love,” Em giggled, “you’ve still got his cum dripping down onto your inner thighs.”

            “Okay, so maybe I am that messy.”

            Piper sent a message out to the wives’ chat group before they headed into the bathroom and took a quick shower, although Andy did have to politely ask Piper not to try and push for a second dose while they were showering, the athlete’s engines seemingly running hot that day. After the shower, the three got dressed and headed out of the master bedroom, heading down the hallway, giving a polite wave to the Air Force repair crews that were rebuilding the walls around the hidden elevator that had been damaged during the assault less than a week ago.

            It was astonishing how much it felt like happened on any given day for Andy anymore. He missed the week’s long vacation they had had for their honeymoon, when the lot of them had simply sat on a beach and enjoyed the surf and the sand, even on the day when the rain had threatened to flood them off their deck chairs.

            “It’s nice of you to fly me to D.C., Andrew,” Emily said to him as the three of them walked over to the bookcase, finding it already open, meaning at least some of his wives were already upstairs and in the little study. “Hopefully your meeting about Ibanez won’t be any crazier than the sort of nonsense that I imagine a director’s going to get up to after a year of sitting idly on their bottom. Sometimes they can be like feral creatures, directors, willing to scratch at anything and anyone that upsets their delicate sensibilities. It’s so strange, having to break up our shooting schedule by allowing people time away to go back and visit their partners, but I suppose this is going to be more common moving forward.”

            “What are they doing on the weeks while you’re not there?”

            “Shooting other people’s scenes mostly, but also coverage, pickups, and 2nd unit work,” Emily said to him, walking with his right arm around her shoulder. “I’m first on the call sheet, but ‘Looky Loos’ is an ensemble show, so I’m only in like 35-40% of the show’s scenes. There’s lots of scenes they need to shoot that I’m not in, and that is going to be typical for a lot of productions now. So the scheduling and planning will take more work, but if they really need me for all of a project, they can shoot it in California. If the project was here, I could just take a day off to fly up from LA, have a quickie and then fly back down, but because it’s on the other side of the world, that’s less plausible.”

            “Well, the show’s set in London, Em,” Andy said to her, “and a lot of it is set outdoors in well-known locations, so yeah, it’s kinda gonna have to be shot over there. And besides, you’re the one who agreed to the show.”

            “Oh, I’m not complaining, Andrew,” she said with a smile, leaning her head against his chest. “I am simply pointing out that these are the things producers need to keep in mind from now on. For the larger teams, it either needs to be less distant from their talent’s cock on tap, or they need to prepare to work around on-again-off-again shifts. I’m going to miss you terribly while I’m away. Sleeping by myself sounds truly gruesome.”

            “You could take Sarah with you, you know, if it’d help you sleep better.”

            “Maybe for the second or third week while I’m away, but I need to be able to stand on my own two feet at least a little bit,” she said, as they reached the top of the stairs, seeing that Moira, Sarah and Niko were already there, hearing Fiona helping Ash’s very pregnant, very swollen form up the stairs right behind them, as Andy stepped down to help her up the narrow stairwell.

            “You’d better have a damn good reason for making me waddle my pregnant ass up these goddamn tight stairs, Andy,” Aisling grumbled as she reached the top of the stairwell.

            “Ash, I promise you, this is important,” Andy said as his wives all moved to settle in seats around the room, the two couches and two chairs leaving exactly eight seats. “Piper, can you go make sure the door is closed and latched please? And everyone, take a good look around the room carefully and make sure Nicolette’s not hiding behind a cabinet or something.”

            That elicited a good laugh, which he hoped would fill the room with some cheer before they got into the hard conversation.

            Piper headed down the stairs and Andy could hear her latching the lock into place, something they’d never done before in the house, which he could tell was imparting some of the gravitas onto his partners. As she started her way back up, Nico turned to look at Andy, narrowing her eyes a little. “Shit’s serious, isn’t it?”

            “Matty’s with Jade right now?”

            “He’s taking a nap, but yeah, Jade’s keeping an eye on him,” Niko said, as Andy moved to sit down on the couch between Niko and Ash, taking one of their hands into one of each of his own. “Andy, you’re scaring me.”

            “Look, what I’m about to tell you… I’ve known what I’m going to tell you for less than a week,” Andy said with a sigh. “And I probably should’ve told you all as soon as I knew about it, but I didn’t…” He looked around the room, trying to avoid looking at any one face, but his partners had positioned themselves so that he had nowhere to look that wasn’t looking at one of them. "Niko had just had Matty, and Ash is going to be giving birth soon… I was worried that the news would be a blight on all of that.”

            “Andy, whatever it is, we can get through all of this together. You should’ve told at least one of us,” Ash said, a tired frustration plain on her face.

            “He did,” Piper said. “He told me. Because he felt like I had the least at stake with the specific issue, and because he needed to tell someone before he went crazy. I told him to let it sit a few days before he talked to everyone, but that eventually, he’d need to tell all the rest of you, so if you’re angry at him for keeping it from you for a bit, that’s on me too.”

            “No wonder you two have both been on edge the last few days,” Moira said. “We’ve all felt like we were walking on eggshells, and figured it was maybe about the attack on the house.”

            “That certainly didn’t help,” Piper said.

            “Nor did the whole mess with LP,” Andy said with a soft laugh.

            “I’d thought maybe it was about the new girl, Ming,” Niko said, “but she seems so damn nice, I was having trouble making that make sense in my head.”

            “No no, it’s fine. Ming’s lovely.”

            Niko snuggled up hard against him. “Andy, whatever it is, we’re a family goddamn it, and we’re going to get through it as one, so whatever it is, we can talk about it together,” she told him. “So just tell us already.”

            “When Phil came by on the 3rd, he had some news to share with me, news he hadn’t told almost anyone else, news that I’m going to share with you, although I want you to keep in mind, right now, the number of people who know this information is very very small, and you shouldn’t talk about it with anyone outside of this room yet.” Andy turned to glance over at Ash. “Not even Linda, because I don’t know if Phil’s told her this yet or not, although he probably should’ve.”

            “Jaysis, Andy,” Ash said, her Irish accent slipping out for a moment. “What’s Phil gotten himself into that he hasn’t even told Linda about?”

            Andy drew in a deep breath and then he started to talk, telling the roomful of his wives about the nanobots, about Team sizes, and most importantly, about the reduced aging speeds. A couple of times, his partners attempted to jump in, but each time, Andy would raise his hand, as if to suggest holding all questions until the end, and then continued.

            He took the time to explain that while Phil couldn’t be sure exactly how long they’d live, he was currently giving them life expectancies of around two hundred and forty years old, give or take a few decades. But Andy also took great care to explain that wasn’t going to affect anyone outside of those within Teams. And then reiterated that it wasn’t going to apply to their children. They would easily outlive their own children by decades, if not centuries.

            Andy could feel both Ash and Niko’s grips on his hands grow a lot tighter at that.

            The room was quiet for a couple of minutes, and the first person to speak, surprisingly, was Moira.

            “Alright, you bampots, let’s nae get up into a panic yet about any of this,” she said, a sort of odd smile on her face. “I love wee Phil ta death, but he’s not exactly Nostra-fookin’-damus, is he? He doesn’ae know th’ future any more’n the rest of us do. There’s a whole lotta time between now and then, an’ I want you lot to think about what’s changed in just the last twenty-five years alone. Cellphones, the Internet, electric cars… the world’s runnin’ forward so much faster than anyone expected was possible. Whatever Phil thinks he knows ‘bout where we’re goin’ tae be in ten- or twenty-years’ time, there’s no way he’s taken everythin’ intae account.”

            “That’s true,” Fiona said. “Look at how much has changed in just a year. A year ago, did you think you’d be married, Andy, much less to multiple women?”

            “Christ,” Andy laughed, “I thought I’d probably be stuck living with Eric forever. Not living in a mansion, fathering children and going to visit the President.”

            Sarah nodded with a slight smile. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while, you could miss it,” she said with a giggle.

            “Thanks Ferris,” Andy shot back. “So nobody’s freaking out?”

            “Oh, I’m concerned,” Ash said, “but I don’t see any reason to get too worried now about it. I don’t even have these two terror twins out of me yet. Yes, I don’t much care for the idea of outliving my children, but that’s a possibility any parent has to deal with. How much slower did you say we were going to be aging?”

            “For our Team size? About one month for every six months, or two months a year.”

            “So when these kids are turning eighteen, I’ll only look about three years older than I do now?”

            “That’s what the math and the science says.”

            Niko snorted. “We should all be so lucky.” She reached up and turned Andy’s head to look at her, and he suddenly felt like a child being talked down to. “We all appreciate you being worried about this, Andy, and about how we were all going to react, but time… it’s a funny thing. And being told you have more of it? That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

            “I’m not keen on watching our kids grow old and die,” Sarah said, “but like Ash said, any parent’s going to have to deal with that possibility.”

            “Today and tomorrow aren’t the same thing, baby,” Ash said, squeezing his hand reassuringly. “And whatever Phil thinks he knows about the serum today, it might be different tomorrow. Think of how much he’s learned about the serum in just the last few months alone, and he helped invent the bloody thing. His knowledge, our knowledge about the serum’s going to keep evolving day by day, and tomorrow’s a new day. And I don’t mind staying young and beautiful a bit longer than I was originally supposed to, while the new reality gets figured out.”

            “Stop overthinkin’, ya numpty,” Moira giggled as he looked over the room, seeing nobody was anywhere near as worried as he’d expected them to be. “A year is a long time, so twenty? That’s bleedin’ eternities, tha’ is.”  

            “I… I guess that’s totally fair,” Andy said, nodding as he realized not for the first or last time that all his wives were much smarter than he was, or at the very least, wiser. “But if that changes anyone wanting to get pregnant, I completely understand. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a dealbreaker for at least one of you.”

            “How soon is the information going to be made public?” Sarah asked him.

            “I probably just doubled the number of people who know about this by telling all of you,” Andy said, “but when Phil and I meet with the President tomorrow, we’re going to have to tell her, and I think the ultimate call is hers, although I’d expect it to be relatively soon. People are going to start noticing on their own eventually, although maybe we’ll have a bit of time because of people being in denial about it. And, like I said, it’s based on Team size, so the number of larger Teams isn’t all that plentiful.”

            “Are you expecting that number to grow?” Fiona said. “Because if you aren’t, you damn well should. When it gets out that more partners prolong your life, expect loads of people to try and push for their Team size to go up, whether they deserve it or not.”

            “I don’t deserve it,” Andy muttered. “But here we are.”

            “You do deserve it, so get over it, babe,” Ash said.

            “It doesn’t change a goddamn thing for me,” Piper said. “As soon as next year’s Olympics are over, you’re going to get me knocked up and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.” The mischievous smile on her lips told Andy that she wasn’t kidding, and that no matter what his opinion on the matter was, she was going to get him to put a baby in her. The recent scare at the hospital when Niko was in labor had been a little rattling, but her birth control had held, and Piper’s dedication to getting pregnant with Andy’s child was only second to her having a second triumphant Olympics. Now that both the Summer and Winter Olympics had been rescheduled for 2022, with the Summer’s again in 2024 and the Winter’s returning to 2026, Piper would get her one last shot before her retirement.

            “Nor for me, Andrew,” Emily said to him. “I want to be a mother, and we’ll worry about our longevity compared to our children once we get older. So no, it doesn’t change a thing for me.”

            “Me neither,” Moira said. “Fi?”

            “You can take this child from my cold dead hands,” Fiona said with a slight laugh, placing her hand over her belly that was far from showing signs of the life growing within. “Zero regrets.”

            “Ash?” Andy asked.

            “I wanted the twins out before, Andy, and this doesn’t change that, nor the condition I want them out in,” Ash said with a slightly weary smile. “Sure, it’s a complication, but life is full of those.”

            “Niko?”

            Niko clung to his hand a bit more firmly than he’d expected. “Matty is a blessing, Andy. Our own little miracle. Male children are so rare that they’re one in ten, and we got one with our very first. Nothing’s coming between me and our son. Nothing.”

            That just left Sarah, and Andy didn’t expect it to be a big deal for the tall redhead, but when he looked at her, he could see there was conflict writ large upon her face, as she looked down at her hands, her brow furrowed. “Sarah?”

            Sarah jolted her head up suddenly, glancing over at Andy with a shy smile, one he hadn’t seen from the bubbly aggressive woman since the time she’d been forced to tell Andy about attending one of his panels in disguise. “I… well, I suppose there really is no good or bad time to bring it up, but I tested positive for pregnancy this morning.”

            Normally everyone would be cheering and clapping, but knowing what they knew now, there was a certain sense of trepidation, so Andy rose from his feet and moved over to crouch down next to Sarah. “Whatever you want t—”

            “We’re keeping it,” Sarah said, a smile spreading on her face. “I knew something was different when I woke up this morning, and Phil’s news doesn’t change anything for me. Not a fucking thing. I love you, Andy. More than I thought I could ever love anyone. All of you. I’m going to add a child to this amazing family, and there is not a damn thing any of you fuckers could do to stop me.”

            Emily rushed over and wrapped her arms around Sarah and hugged the statuesque redhead as hard as she could, giggling the entire time. “You are going to be an excellent mother, Sarah, assuming you can watch your mouth around the child.”

            The whole room laughed at that, Sarah most of all as she shook her head. “Nah, fuck that. Any kid of mine is going to grow up getting used to hearing Mommy swear, so you’ll all just have to deal with it.” She leaned down and kissed Andy hard for a long moment, holding his head in her hands when the kiss finally broke, as she whispered to him, “Are you okay with it?”

            “I’m getting there,” Andy replied quietly. “But I’m just as excited as you are. Go us. The kid’ll probably be a rock star.”

            Piper tapped Andy’s shoulder. “I know we’re trying to keep the information down low, but you’re probably going to want to tell Nicolette sooner rather than later. It can probably wait until you get back from D.C., but I wouldn’t wait much longer than that.”

            “She’ll want to keep the child anyway,” Andy said to himself. “And I get that. I imagine the news can’t stay under wraps too much longer, but it’s definitely up to the President on when the information comes out publicly, because Fi’s right – there may be some people who try and make a hard push to bring their numbers up, knowing that it comes with the benefit of decelerated aging.”

            “How long are you going to be out in D.C. Andy?” Ash said. “Because if you’re not here when I go into labor…”

            “Three or four days, tops, and if there’s even a flutter of you going in labor, I’ll hop back on the plane and fly straight back here,” he said. “It’s a six-hour flight, and whatever it takes, I’ll be here.”

            “You damn well better be,” Ash said with a laugh. “Especially considering I’ve got two of these little fuckers to get out of me.”

            “It’s not like you’re short on things you need to brief the President about,” Niko said with a resigned little giggle. “Slowed aging, Valhalla Falls, General Ibanez, the brainrape variant, China’s collapse and the deal with the Empty Wives… you and Phil will probably be talking at them for at least a few hours before anyone gets a word in edgewise.”

            “I’m probably going to spend the entire flight there reading up on all the various details we have about the spread of the variants of the virus, so I’d understand if nobody wants to tag along,” Andy said. “Did you ladies decide who wanted to come with me, other than Emily, who we’ll basically just be sending off on a commercial flight as soon as we land?”

            “I’m coming, Andy,” Fi said, “just because I want to keep documenting this whole story of yours with photos as well as words. I know I don’t have the clearance to go with you into the situation room or meet the President—”

            “Oh, you can definitely come and meet the President, Fi. You just won’t be able to sit in on the high-level briefings,” Andy told her. “But that’s fine. Moira? Sarah? Piper?”

            “The team’s going to be in town for a week of scrimmaging,” Piper said, “so as much fun as it would be to go to the White House, I need to start working with the girls, getting everybody back into shape, and training up the new girl, getting her into rotations, having her get used to the rest of us.”

            “New gare-rul?” Moira asked, that word always sounding odd coming off her lips.

            “Yeah, one of the old members of the team, Reagan McIntosh, died to DuoHalo, so we needed to get a replacement,” Piper said, frowning a little, clearly not liking thinking about the passing of her former teammate. “I know we think a lot about all the men that died, but we lost a lot of good women out there too. Plus the team has got to get used to the new coach they’ve saddled us with. We’re going to scrim with on-again, off-again weeks, alternating, so we’re all travelling some, but also taking care of ourselves too. Whole new world out there.”

            “I’ve got an interview with a couple of the hospitals, deciding if I want to work in someone’s ER for a bit, or if I should just open a general practice here in New Eden,” Moira said.

            “Hell, you could establish an ER here on the base,” Andy said with a laugh. “Considering the chaos this lot gets up to, we probably need one.”

            “Maybe,” she said, “but setting up my own hospital is definitely more work than I want to do. I’d rather just take care of people instead of becoming some kind of administrator,” she said, shivering on the last word like it was the most horrible option she could consider.

            “Sares?” Emily asked.

            Sarah shook her head. “I have to fly down to LA tomorrow for a meeting, so I can’t, babe, but I’ll come out with you to London for the second and third weeks of filming.”

            “Who’s the meeting with?”

            “Patty Jenkins. She’s in talks to direct a Star Wars movie and wants me to read for part of the ensemble cast, see if I’ll mesh well with the others.”

            “Break a leg, then,” Andy said. “Alright, I guess it’s just me, Lexi, Fi, Melody and Em, then.”

            “Actually,” Emily said, “Tala was asking if she could go with me to London, and I told her I’d happily book her a ticket. You don’t mind, do you?”

            “I haven’t dosed her in a while, but we can take care of that on the plane, so yeah, should be fine,” Andy said. “Assuming Phil and Linda don’t mind. And I want to thank you all for being so understanding about why I kept this information to myself for a bit. I truly didn’t want to step on anyone’s moment of joy.”

            “This family’s tough as nails, babe,” Ash said, standing up with some help, before moving over and giving him a long kiss. “You built it that way.”

            “Are we taking Ming with us?” Fi asked. “I feel like the President may want to meet her, and despite the fact that they already debriefed her here, they may want to do so again.”

            “Good thought,” Andy said. “Fi, can you send Ming a message and see if she minds joining us on the trip?”

            “One step ahead of you, love,” Fi said, already looking at her phone. “She said she’ll be ready in five minutes.”

            “Sounds good.”

            From there, everyone said their goodbyes before heading down to gather their things. Phil had said he and his small team would meet them at the private airfield. Andy had stressed that he would be bringing between five and seven people with him, meaning Phil couldn’t bring any more than seven with him, as the plane only held sixteen. But Phil only rolled up with Linda and Violet in tow, and Linda didn’t look all that pleased. She walked past Andy without even saying hello.

            “You told them?” Andy asked Phil.

            Phil nodded, pulling his own suitcase. “Figured I had to. She’s not mad that I waited to tell her; she’s mad that I told you before I told her.”

             “Sorry, Linda.”

            Linda scowled at him and then sighed. “You’re so damn lucky the wedding’s next month, otherwise I’d have considered making him kick you out of the wedding party.” She tried to hold the angry face for a bit, then laughed, reaching to hug him. “I’m fucking with you, Rook. Relax. It’s annoying, but I’ll get over it long before the wedding on the 12th.” She, Phil and Violet carried their bags up onto the plane.

            “Jesus, it truly does run in the family. You’re all phenomenal liars.”

            “C’mon,” Lexi said from the plane’s hatch. “Let’s get everyone on board and get this show on the road. We’re burning daylight here. It’s bad form to keep the President waiting.”

            “Our meeting isn’t until tomorrow, Lexi,” Andy said as he walked up the stairs into the airplane.

            “I think she’s just worried she’s going to misplace D.C.,” Melody teased from the co-pilot’s seat.

            “Oh, shut the fuck up, Mel,” Lexi said with a laugh as she pulled the airplane’s door up and secured it closed. “I swear, you lose an airfield one time, and nobody let you forget it…”

(Author's note: There are two different PDFs attached to this post. One is just of Ch. 30, the other is of Chapters 1 through 30, and includes an updated Cast of Characters.)