So when I said I'd be updating more frequently, I also forgot that I said low in quantity and high in quality. I keep forgetting that what I write doesn't have to be exponentially long and, yet, EVERYTIME I WRITE, I get upset because I feel like I haven't written enough. As of late, though, I've been doing college stuff for college so...there's another excuse? But now I am out of college on summer break and I've honestly just been bumming around so I hope you all forgive me! I will beg if you want me to. If you don't already, catch me on the internet somewhere (else?)! Enjoy, my Darlings.
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Chapter 16: All Together Now
I opened my eyes to darkness. The earthy scent flowing through my nostrils definitely wasn't my own; the warm arm slung over my waist had a farmer's tan that couldn't begin to compete with the dark skin it laid upon.
"So you're awake. Finally."
The arm lifted and nudged me in the side. A second later, Aaron's jawline came into focus. I glanced up at him.
"Don't stare at me." I put my hand to his chin and turned his head in the opposite direction.
"How can someone who sleeps so peacefully have so much disdain for attention?"
"Are you listening to yourself? That made absolutely no sense." I stretched.
"With how antagonistic you are while awake, the calmness of your slumber leaves nothing but fascination to be felt. Hence, your being stared at."
I rubbed my eyes and simply peered at him. "I'm the one who has a way with words, remember?" My God. I shouldn't have let him follow me back to my room after our talk; I could feel the protectiveness radiating off of him in waves.
"Well, get up. We're supposed to be doing something productive."
"I'm laying in my bed, delirious, with you next to me. That isn't productive enough for you?" I asked cheekily.
"You must want to stay in the bed. Do you want to stay in the bed? Because that's easily becoming more and more of a possibility with every passing second." His eyes were twinkling and the protectiveness was gone.
"Alright, alright." I waved him off nonchalantly but shot up off of the mattress nonetheless. I wasn't going to take the chance with my subconscious and Aaron actively working against me. I was bound to make a mistake.
"You're no fun, Miss Lieutenant."
"And you're just now figuring that fact out. The earth continues to spin on."
Clearly, I had fallen asleep after exposing some skeletons in my closet to Aaron; a decision that I hadn't exactly worked out the ramifications of yet. So far, all I could gather as a consequence was emotional exhaustion.
All that left Aaron's lips was a slight grunt. "I'll meet you downstairs. Apparently, it's time for a family meeting." His fingers hung in the air after forming quotation marks.
"A family meeting?"
"That's what King Elizabeth has started calling them."
I massaged the area between my eyes. Maybe if I rubbed hard enough, I could pretend that Victorian was capable of not being a nuisance. Or maybe I could just paint a bullseye and have Aaron take aim.
"Right. Of course he did. What else would Victorian use?"
"He could have said pow-wow or-" Aaron started.
I held up a hand. "Please don't."
As much as they seemed to hate one another, they were extremely alike. An image of Aaron, Jarvis, and Victorian standing shoulder to shoulder flashed in my mind. I could easily picture them as the pseudo Three Musketeers.
Aaron smiled and left the room.
No sooner than I was exiting my room was I following the unmistakeable sounds of Victorian and Aaron's yelling carrying through the hallway to the foyer.
Maybe the Two Musketeers could remain its own thing.
"What is all of the yelling about?"
"Ah! Lieutenant, I was just telling your boyfriend here that I am more than apt and brilliant enough to lead our expedition into the apocalyptic unknown! He has no idea what I am capable of, but you and I both know that if there is anyone that can vouch for me here, it's you. So go on! Tell him!"
I was massaging between my eyes again. "What 'expedition' would that be? And why is it that you want to be at the forefront?"
"Oh, come on! You can't really expect to just stay here in this...safehouse, Lieutenant. We've got to keep moving."
"That's not what I asked, Victorian. Where are you trying to go?"
"Well that's the point, isn't it? We've got to leave to explore to know where we're going to go!"
He was making it seem like we were children in a magical forest. I stayed silent.
"See?" Aaron taunted. "She feels the same way."
"Pipe down, Loverboy, this is between the Lieutenant and I. She can't feel the same way because she knows that I am right." Victorian's tone lowered as he turned back to me.
I knew it was coming.
"How is this only between the two of you?" Aaron's hands were moving in stiff, pointed movements. "Your suggestion to just walk out of here involves all of us leaving!"
The Englishman kept staring at me in an attempt to ignore Aaron. "You don't have to come, Loverboy." Victorian's eyes flashed.
Aaron let out a snort of derision. "Please! Like I'm gonna leave Scarlett in your hands."
I felt Victorian's tolerance dwindling. This was going to be both of their last breaths if I didn't do something.
"That's absolutely not an option and is completely out of the question. Wherever Scarlett goes, I go."
"First of all," Victorian turned to face Aaron and sent a rude gesture in his direction. "She's not your property! You don't get to just keep her all to yourself! And second, I've known the Lieutenant much longer than you, which means I know exactly how to keep her safe. Do you?"
"Scarlett knows good and well she runs herself and our relationship, Fish and Chips. She knows she's not my property." Aaron's eyes became slits. "And I'm not the one who damn near blew her up. I remember that. Do you?" He took a step in Victorian's direction.
"I remember her responding to the 'damn near blow up' with flying colors." Victorian shrugged. "Not a big deal for the Lieutenant-at least, before she met you."
Aaron made an attempt to lunge and I quickly moved forward and put my hand on his chest. He pushed against me but made no moves to go around my body or set me aside. Jesus.
"You don't get to make decisions for the rest of us on your own, Fish and Chips. It doesn't work like that. She's not leaving here just because you say so."
This was coming from the man who singlehandedly decided I wasn't going to travel up the eastern seaboard with him because it wasn't safe. Look at how that turned out.
"I never said it was." The Brit was feigning calm now.
"Then quit acting like it! I'm not leaving her with you. End of story. Nothing is more important than her safety."
"Hey!" Jarvis interjected.
Aaron didn't even look Jarvis' way but uttered a quick, "That's not what I meant."
Jarvis slid in a low, "Sure it wasn't."
"You know we can't stay here, Lieutenant. We can't get comfortable." Victorian was back at it. Staring at me as if just a look would be enough to make me understand. To make me agree.
"You've been here all of one day-hell, not even that! And Scarlett and I were only here a few hours before-"
"Stop it, both of you!" Stephanie's motherly voice shut the two men up. The only sound in the room was Jarvis' chuckle.
"We'll never be able to decide on anything unanimously," she emphasized, "if we have to listen to the two of you bicker and scream at one another."
"That's right," I began. I was still plastered between the two, hoping that I wouldn't have to render both of them unconscious to stop their fight.
"And the two of you know very well, Victorian especially, that I am not a mediator. I can listen to proofs and theories but I won't argue with you. In fact, I don't argue, I-"
"You disagree." Aaron finished with a smirk.
Idiot.
"Right. So we're going to make a plan and if all five of us don't like it, we go back to the drawing board. End of discussion."
The duo both made unintelligible noises of agreement.
"Good. Now where's the food?"
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"So Mademoiselle," I grimaced as Jarvis' alfredo moved around his open mouth. "What do you see in my boy Aaron here? I mean, sure, he makes a mean chicken alfredo, mais can he light the fires of your desire?"
Aaron's fist dropped down upon the crown of Jarvis' head with a little too much force. "Stop it with the french and the flirting." I could see him stifling a laugh though.
"Frenchmen know how to love, you know?" Jarvis pressed on. "And we love hard. Really hard. We turn into solid rock from how hard we Frenchmen love, Mademoiselle."
"Oh, I bet," I said in feigned agreement as I spun a forkful of fettuccine.
"You mean the descendants of Frenchmen." Aaron corrected.
"French is French, bro! Stop trying to downplay my heritage! Afraid she'll admit she likes me and let me whisk her away to my Eiffel Tower?" Jarvis had a smirk on his face and stuck his tongue out at Aaron's irritated expression.
"I can't downplay something that doesn't actually exist Jar, that's one. Two, eat your pasta and shut up."
Aaron turned my way and stared. Don't enable him, he mouthed.
I cocked my head to the side and mouthed back. I enable you, don't I?
Jarvis stuffed some more pasta in his mouth and continued. "You see, Mademoiselle? He's jealous. We've hit it off and he wants to keep you away from me. But I won't let him!"
"Hmm. Set him straight then, Jarvis. We can't have him trying to extinguish our feelings for one another, can we?"
"No, we can't, Mademoiselle..." Jarvis waggled his eyebrows and leaned across the table towards me. Aaron shot out of my peripheral while palming Jarvis' face like a Spalding.
"I already told you to stop. You're my best bud, but I'll sock you right in the jaw, man. I mean it." Aaron shoved Jarvis back and sat back down with a huff. His body had a slight vibration to it as he bounced his leg up and down under the table.
For the first time in a while, I felt a genuine smile wanting to rear its head from beneath the surface. Instead, I just placed my hand on Aaron's thigh and squeezed. I leaned toward him and whispered a gentle "relax." The bouncing ceased.
"Just sayin'..." the Creole mumbled.
"Well, started dinner without us, eh?" Victorian's voice filled the kitchen. "Jeez, the world experiences a zombie epidemic and manners cease to exist."
Aaron stiffened. Victorian had left after his and Aaron's "discussion" and, while he tried to appear aloof, it was clear to me that he was just as upset as Aaron was.
Stephanie followed Victorian into the room and moved to grab two more plates from the cabinet. Apparently it was clear to her too.
"Oh no, I've got it, Love. Don't worry about it." Victorian lifted the two plates from her hands and sent her in the direction of the table.
He's got it? Victorian had never got anything instead of me in all of the years I had known him.
Stephanie sat down next to Jarvis and her dreamy expression didn't go unnoticed by the three of us at the table.
"Now," Victorian placed the two plates next to one another and took a seat beside Stephanie. "About leaving, Lieutenant."
"Everyone," I corrected.
"Yes, everyone," he forced out. "I believe we need to keep moving. To get to the research facility."
"What research facility?" Jarvis questioned. "I thought our plan was to find Scarlett and then stick together? Which I'd like very much, Mademoiselle."
Aaron picked up his fork and pointed it at Jarvis in a warning silence.
Jarvis ducked his head.
"We've found the Lieutenant; now we can go. Simple."
"What research facility?" Aaron repeated.
"Possibly in Virginia. Maybe D.C."
"You want us to head out and explore based on a possibility and a maybe? No."
"Unanimous, Aaron," I reminded him with another squeeze.
"Based off of what sources, Victorian?" The Englishman was a word of mouth guy. His brother's wife's stepfather's son's dog could have barked something and he would help spread it like wildfire. It was one of his many infuriating qualities.
"Back in the Corps," Victorian slurped his food. "There was something of a makeshift Area 51. Never confirmed but constantly talked about. Supposedly, it was used in conjunction with all of the other military branches. That means the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, and the Navy." He finished with a smile at Stephanie.
I shook my head. "Even if there was something like that, we would have known. We're experiments, Victorian."
"Ah, Lieutenant, when you've got the entire United States military services trying to keep something away from prying eyes, it tends not to be that hard."
Jarvis grunted. "So you're saying that there is possibly maybe a military base with information on these zombies? Or whatever the hell they are?"
"Possibly maybe, yes, Mr. Rousseau."
Stephanie's cheeks still had a red tinge to them but when she spoke, her voice came out strong. "What proof is there, Alex? You can't just suggest that we go in blind."
"Or go in at all," Aaron mumbled.
"There's not really any proof per se..." Victorian's eyes wouldn't leave his plate. "More like an urgent whisper. Along with a scrap of paper."
"I'm getting wisps, Victorian," I began. "And I'm not convinced."
In his eyes were a silent apology. "From the Admiral, Scarlett. From Abraham."
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I KEEP SAYING HELLO AND THEN I LIE AND LEAVE BUT HELLO I AM NOT LYING OR LEAVING. Welcome back to FLOSS! Enjoy yourselves and tell me about your lives; I'd love to hear everything. That's all. See you in chapter 17! :)
Keep Flossing!
<3 Swaggerwithwords