Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Chapter 70: Back and Forth


Julian joins Jilly on the sofa on the balcony outside their new bedroom in the house they bought in Isla Paradiso, located conveniently near Nautilus Laboratories, one of Landgraab Industries' many research facilities where Fergus had sent he and Jilly to work for him. "Fergus just texted; he wants to meet with us at the lab tomorrow. He has an assignment for us."

"I have an assignment already," Jilly pouts playfully, stroking his knee, "What are you guys doing with all those octopusses, octopi, whatever, that I keep catching for you, anyway?"

"That's not my project," Julian clarifies, "But I believe they're experimenting with cell regeneration. And I think whatever Fergus has planned will take precedence over your scuba expeditions."

"Okay," Jilly says, resting her head against his shoulder. "Are you okay?" she asks quietly, "With being at Fergus' beck and call like this, I mean?"

"I am if you are, Jill," Julian answers non-committally.

"But, he's my cousin," Jill points out, as though her family relationship with their new boss makes her situation more tenable than his.

He could explain to her that everything Fergus had done went according to Geoffrey's plan, and if he was caught up in it now, it was probably more than well-deserved, but Julian tries to distance himself from the man he was before and simply speaks to a different truth, "I'm happy, Jill. Happier than I think I ever imagined I could be." That wasn't part of Geoffrey's plan, as far as Julian can tell, though figuring out what, exactly, his former self had actually wanted when all was said and done has proved near impossible, despite his access to Geoffrey's memories. Maybe Geoffrey never really knew himself.


Julian puts thoughts of Geoffrey to rest; whatever his former self had wanted is no concern of his now, and he has his own desires to look to. Jill draws her knees up against her chest as she nestles under his arm.

"Good," she answers simply, not being one to brood over things.

"I knew, the moment I first saw you, that you were the one," Julian broaches a new subject after a small, content silence.

"You mean love at first sight?" Jilly interrupts his carefully prepared speech, "That's silly. You didn't even know me."

"Even so, I knew in my gut that you were the one," Julian carries on.

"I thought you were cute," Jill says cheerfully, "Really, really cute. I definitely wanted to get to know you better."

"Which is why you blew off our first date," Julian laughs, following her down this sidetrack into their shared memory, leaving his prepared speech behind.

"I never did!" Jilly protests, and laughs, "Oh, you mean that day I blew off classes and you made Fergus call me?"

"You had promised to let me walk to class with you," Julian says.

"Well, that was hardly a date," she answers, "But still, I'm sorry if that's what you thought."

"I'm over it now," Julian answers, smiling fondly at the reminiscence. It wasn't that long ago, really. But so much had changed since their first meeting that it felt like years gone by. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Julian decides to drop the tender preamble he'd practiced and put his proposal out there in the most direct and simple way he could, "Jill, will you marry me?"

"Okay," she answers as casually as if he'd suggested they order a pizza.

"Just okay?"

"Should I do the same act I did in the restaurant for the fake engagement?" she asks, her voice teasing.




"No," he answers with vehemence, pulling her onto his lap to embrace her fervently, "I don't want you to fake anything. I just want to know that you want this, that you aren't agreeing just to be agreeable."


"Julian, baby, you know that's not me, I don't do things I don't really want to do," Jilly answers, wrapping her legs around his waist as he buries his face between her breasts, "Of course I want this. After everything we've been through, we've stuck together. I just thought it was obvious that marriage was the next step for us."


Pulling their clothes off each other in a desperate hurry, they fall back onto the couch together in a deep passionate kiss.


"I love you, Jilly," he says, his voice husky as he comes up for air.

"I know, baby," Jill answers, "You don't have to say it."

"I like saying it," he answers, "And I like hearing it."

Jilly smiles indulgently, "I love you, Julian," she says, groaning as he enters her.

"Again," he begs, holding himself still inside her as he waits.


"I love you," she sighs, and he thrusts again.

"Again," he demands.

"I love you," she answers,  her response become as much a demand as his as they move in time with the back and forth rhythm of their words, until the words themselves lose their meaning and become the song of their lovemaking.


"It's a good thing we own this whole island," Julian remarks with a chuckle as they lounge together after making love on their balcony. Their new house sits alone on a small island named, appropriately enough, Isla Romantica.

"I bet any creep with a telescope on their balcony could get an eyeful, though," Jilly laughs.

"I'm going to pretend that we have absolute privacy here," Julian laughs with her, "Otherwise, I'd have to get up and take you inside. And buy more curtains, too, probably."

They laugh together, making no move to go inside, too content to just lay in each other's arms out in the warm evening air.

"That day you disappeared," Jilly breaks the small silence, her tone grown serious, "I looked everywhere, I couldn't believe you were gone. All I wanted was to get you back, I would have done anything to get you back."

"I knew you would," Julian answers softly, contrite now, "I used that to lure you in, to rescue us both. I'm sorry I used you that way."


"No, don't be sorry," Jilly replies hastily, "You didn't plan to be kidnapped, and you just did what you had to get us back together, even if that meant tricking me. You're a very sweet person, Julian, but you can be ruthless and cunning when you need to. I like that about you, and it will definitely come in handy." She rests her head back against his chest, laying her hand over his at it wanders down her stomach, "What I was trying to say is, I'm not romantic like you are. I don't talk about my feelings much, though I'll try, for you. And I just wanted you to know how much you mean to me. I was lost without you, and I'll never forget that."

"I'll never forget it, either," Julian promises as she releases his hand to continue its travels down her abdomen, "Do you want to go inside or...?" he asks.

"Hot tub," she says, taking his hands as she stands.


The next morning, Jillyan was able to get in a few hours of scuba diving, catching a few more of the requested octopi to bring to the lab before their scheduled meeting with Fergus. After delivering her catch, she finds Julian at his station, and throws her arms around his neck.


"You are so sexy in your science costume," she purrs against his shoulders, "Dorky sexy."


"And you can really rock a wet suit," he replies, turning to embrace her.


"Fergus!" Jilly exclaims when her cousin joins them, "You'll never guess! We're getting married!"

"Actually, I had guessed as much," Fergus answers, "You'll have to put off any wedding plans, though, until you finish this mission I'm sending you on."


"Like you delayed your wedding so we could rescue Julian?" Jilly replies, her fists balling in anger. Julian wraps a gentle arm around her waist, calming her with his touch.

"It's okay," he whispers in her ear, "We're in no rush. Let's hear what he wants."


"Both MorcuCorp and my grandfather did a lot of back and forth time-travelling to one particular time and place. You know what I'm referring to," Fergus says looking significantly at Julian, who nods in response.

"Where your grandmother came from?" Jilly asks.

"Yes. The number of divergent timelines created by both Farrell's and MorcuCorp's interference has created an imbalance in that area. Unfortunately, it's an area already heavily imbued with fairy magic, including a portal into the fae realm."

"You think there might be contamination?" Julian asks.

"My grandfather brought an artifact home with him from France, a nectar bottle, that should never have existed in this timeline. There's definitely contamination, but how bad it is, I can't say. I'm sending you two to investigate."

_________________________________

I haven't updated the rolls on my sidebar yet, but I'll reveal it here. It's Couple, 2 kids.
So, Julian is here to stay. The original rolled secondary career was Business, but I've decided to take the expansion gift and change it to ITF Astronomy career. Though Julian has actually been in the household all this time, he's not worked at all. In the story, his career was going to be about his continued attachment to MorcuCorp under Fergus' reign, and I rather prefer him being in the scientific research area over the business side of things. It certainly helps to go along with Jilly's adventuring. For those of you who have not played the scuba career, you can actually get dive jobs from the science rabbithole (and from City Hall and the Bistro, too) so Jilly diving for octopi as an assignment is actually a real thing she does for her job.

I've torn down the science rabbithole in IP and replaced it with an open building that has science & chemistry stations and stuff, plus rabbithole rugs for the science building and ITF's astronomy career building. (Thanks, Misty!) I will eventually post the lot on my Simblr for anyone who wants it. It will be an IP specific lot, since it's a beachfront lot and being non-level will probably only fit in that one location.


24 comments:

  1. Great as always. I'm loving the Science/ chemistry building. And I'm really interested in seeing more re the Astronomy career seeing as I don't have ITF. And couch seks.

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    1. Thank you, Treason! I loved building the science building. Though I wish I had more decor for it. Lie, sciency things, lol.
      I've not played the astronomy career yet either, so I'll let you know how it goes. I'm not sure how much it will play into the story, though. Since Julian as written seems to be more engaged experimental lab work stuff. But the fist level of the career is 'space janitor', lol.

      Couch seks, yes. Originally I was going to do that scene in the sauna. But we'll save sauna seks for later.

      Biscuit is sitting on my hands as I type....

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  2. If only they knew the whole Internet could see, eh?

    I saw the house on your Simblr a few days ago. I think it's awesome work, as always. <3

    Interested to see where this contamination thing goes. Never a dull moment for this poor family.

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    1. That would be mortifying wouldn't it, to be browsing the interwebs only to discover you are a game character and all your personal business is posted online for everyone to see...
      I can't take full credit for the house; I yanked it from Sunlit Tides. But I did do some major renovating and the decorating is all mine. Including the pics of Julian in his underwear I've hung all over the place. =P
      I'm totally winging my story from here on out. I have no idea where I'm going. But I seem to be sitting in a handbasket....

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  3. Yay for marriage and babies! And congrats on not having a an overstuffed household this time around!

    Oh wow. Time travel now? I'd wondered if you'd planned on doing anything more with the nectar bottle that didn't belong. This should prove really interesting and fun! But will it be better than the beloved Morcucorp lab raids?

    Though I'm glad to see that Jilly is settling down with Fergus as her boss. lol. And it's super sweet to see how Julian is so focused on Jilly. I can't wait to see how their story unfolds from here.

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    1. Yay for marriage definitely. There will babies eventually, but I'm waiting on that for awhile since I only have to have 2 this time. Which is such a nice change!

      There isn't going to be time travel, I'm sorry I made that confusing. They are going to France, where that Celtic tomb is..in my universe, that's Uvie's tomb and also the location of a portal Auberon creates to the fae realm. The time travelling Farrel and MorcuCorp did the medieval era (which is in that same part of France) has created some wibbly wobbly timey wimey ball issues that Julian and Jilly are being sent to investigate. They aren't actually going back in time though.

      I am considering the possibility of ITF time travel in this gen, though, since it does have the mysterious crash site to explore and thus fits Jilly's Adventurer gig. But I haven't figured out how it would fit into the story, exactly. I'm kicking it around though.

      Jilly is okay with Fergus as a boss as long as he doesn't expect her to work in an office. Breaking into tombs, yes, she can do that.

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  4. They are an adorable couple, and fit each other so well, I'm happy that Julian is going to stick around. I like Julian, and I'm glad that he has a little bit of Geoffrey's backbone inside him, otherwise he might be too much of a pushover, lol I love that picture of Jilly with her fists clenched, she looks like she's ready to punch Fergus! :P

    I'm curious to see how this contamination thing pans out. They'll be time traveling again, possibly meeting ancestors, and a portal to the fae realm? That sounds really fascinating! (Fergus could even time travel and meet the vengeful ghost before he was a vengeful ghost, but then that might really upset the time continuum, lol) =)

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    1. I fell in love with Julian & Jill as a couple, too. I think they go together well. =)
      You are right, I think he needed to retain that spark of Geoffrey, though, otherwise he'd be a doormat.
      That pose Jilly is in is one of Sunny's. I use some of Sunny's poses in almost every chapter now, no lie. The expressions are awesome.

      And as I just said to Sunny, I'm sorry for the confusion about where Jill & Julian are going...they aren't going to time travel, just regular travel and tomb raiding. I don't even know what they will find there yet, either, lol. After all the planning I've done for this generation to get to this point, now I'm just winging it for awhile.

      I did actually have this momentary idea of Fergus visiting Reinier in Summerdream, but I scrapped it pretty quick, lol.

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  5. I'm so glad that you've rolled couple and Jilly will get to keep Julian! This whole thing of contaminated timelines sounds fascinating and I can't wait to see where you'll take it!

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    1. I'm happy to get a boring married with 2 roll for once in this legacy, too. Though I think this is the first time I've done a couple roll that was this complicated and frought with doubt.
      I also can't wait to see where I take this story from here.Maybe I should make a time machine and read what I will have written. =P

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  6. *happy sigh* Couple and only two kids. What a beautiful roll.
    I too love Julian and am glad he gets to stick around.
    Jilly had a point when she told Fergus about how he "waited" to get married when Julian needed rescuing.
    Yeah, that time travel to the future could be cool. I want that expack, but I haven't gotten it yet.

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    1. It is nice I don't have to kill Julian off, lol. He and Jilly are a great couple, and I'm happy they can settle down now. Though there are adventures to come, at least they are together.
      I agree, Fergus put his own wedding ahead of helping Jill find Julian. But then Fergus never really made finding Julian a priority, he judt wanted to do something about MorcuCorp to protect his own family.
      I haven't done much with ITF yet, but in the bit of testing I did in the future, it did seem to have some adventure type elements that would fit with Jill's career, so I'd like to send her & Julian. I just need to figure out where and how it would go into the story.

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  7. Julian can be a little demanding, can't he? ;)

    Yay, I'm glad that Julian and Jilly can get married, and he's here to stay.

    I like how excited Jilly was when she announced their engagement to Fergus. It was like she forgot for a moment that he's their boss and controls their whole lives for nefarious purposes now.

    Hmm, contamination, interesting...

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    1. At least his demands are easy (and fun) to satisfy, lol.
      I'm really glad I can keep him, too.
      LOL, Fergus is still Jilly's cousin and they were always close growing up, so she does still see him as her family more than as the MorcuCorp Overlord.

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  8. Sorry it took so long to get here! The day you posted blogger didn't tell me, then I saw in the thread as I was going to bed, then the day after I didn't get a chance to sit down hardly, then yesterday blogger was down for most of the evening (Or, my evening, probably a different time for you). But I made it now!! Woo!

    Wow, that's some mission! I'd forgotton all about thay nectar bottle! I remember you mentioning it would have some significance, though. I wonder how dangerous this will turn out to be...

    I'm sosososo glad you rolled couple! It was a bit hit or miss with whether Julian would survive or stay and Julian and all that at first, but now we can rest assured that he's sticking around :) And having a couple of blonde babies.

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    1. I decided to do this mission with no planning ahead of time. They are just going to France to do the tombs and I'll take pictures and decide the story from there. That nectar bottle is a relic of what I originally had been planning for Farrell and Aouregan's story...I ended up changing my original idea, and the part where the bottle fit in got cut. Which left that bottle just hanging there. So, here it is again, lol.

      I'm glad I rolled couple, too. I like keeping Julian around.
      The babies will be blonde, lol. This is actually my blondest legacy ever.

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  9. All caught up! (On Summerdream, too!) Fergus running Morucorp!!! OMG! I absolutely can't wait to see where this will lead. And Julien IS Geoffrey! I wonder if shades of his former self will show up to cause trouble? I hope not, but I can see where it would be something Jillian notices from time to time. This is going to be one hell of a generation - I can't wait to see where this all goes!

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    1. Yay, thanks for catching up, Jill! Fergus is now in charge of MorcuCorp. He did it to once and for protect his family, but of course that kind of power can twist a person...
      There are bits of Geoffrey that still manifest in Julian, but that might not be a bad thing. Geoffrey was a quick thinker and not afraid to take decisive action, so that could come in handy for Jilly.

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  10. Gosh they're so cute cuddled up on the couch like that. Yes, maybe it's well deserved, this table flipping and now being a minion. But he's not Geoffrey any longer, so it feels wrong. I'm so glad she said yes. Er, "okay". And yay, he's here to stay! Can't wait to see their kids, they'll be beautiful.

    "science costume" --lol.

    I saw your new science lab lot on Tumblr a few days ago, it looks great. You build some kick ass lots.

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    1. I think they are a cute couple, too. =)
      Yes, very true, he isn't Geoffrey anymore, but the 'punishment' isn't so bad for him, either. He'd probably prefer complete freedom to do whatever, but he is happy to have Jill, and not unhappy with the work he's been asked to do.

      I liked contrasting Jill's real reaction to a proposal to the staged one they did for the photo. She's very matter of fact about things, and was expecting they were going to get married anyway.
      I'm really looking forward to the kids, though I'm holding off until they are closer to Adult.

      Thanks! I've always loved building, since Sims 1. Especially community lots.

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  11. Yay I'm all caught up! I've missed your stories, and these last few updates are fabulous. Very intrigued by this new direction, with Fergus at the helm.

    -AyB

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    1. Yay, it's great to see you again! Thank you so much! That is the big question for me right now, what will Fergus do with his power? I have some ideas, we'll see what I can do with them.

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  12. Ok no more squinting for me, it hurts lol. But I truly feel like I don't have to worry too much about Fergus and Julian now.
    Glad Jilly and Julian are really getting married, they've been blessed with a great roll, which is much deserved with all they've been through.

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  13. I feel a little better about Julian. I have concern that this little expedition may alter him though. I hope not, but, I am sure it will be dangerous. Crossing timelines may alter his mind or bring forth memories of other clones or something wicked. Fergus is definitely changed a lot.

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