Quaranteam - North West Ch. 13

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QT:NW continues the official Spin Off for the Quaranteam universe originally created by CorruptingPower. You do not need to have read the original series to enjoy this one, but you really do need to start with Chapters 1-4 (I really suggest you read the original though, it's great!). Fans of the original should be pleased to know CP has approved the story and the continuity.

In this chapter you can expect vignette moments, and some mentioned MF and MFF.

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Kyla looked back at me with a smile over her shoulder as she walked ahead in the grocery store. We were both bundled up to the gills, though amidst all of the other chaos that had been going on for the past five days somehow her things had still been delivered - the storage containers were starting to get stuffed with all the luggage of the girls that had been added on top of the stuff from my old house. Now Kyla had her own clothing again, so she was able to bundle up with her own clothes instead of borrowing things from the others.

That look she gave me turned saucy as she checked ahead of herself again, and then looked back and reached down and flashed me her ass. Her warm-hued cheeks wiggled as she walked, mostly bare except for the thin band of her thong.

"You are such trouble," I laughed.

She gave one extra little booty shake and then pulled her pants back up, turning and grinning at me, though I could only see it through her eyes since we both had on medical masks over bandanas. Sometimes I could forget that Kyla was barely 22 years old and just out of college, and that she wasn'tjust the mysterious Filipino Intelligence background that loomed over our relationship.

"But I'm your trouble now," she teased me.

I reached out a gloved hand to her and she took it, squeezing our fingers for a moment as we walked, and then we went back to filling the cart.

We had nine mouths to feed between the two RVs, plus I wanted to drop off some extra supplies to Mary and the kids. Based on what I'd figured out in context between what Mary said, I knew that she was trying to stretch things a bit. I couldn't blame her - I was basically their sole source of meals. The state-wide shutdown on evictions meant that they weren't going to get kicked out or foreclosed on any time soon so they had shelter, but I could understand a single mom being worried that the charity could end at any time.

"Fruit Loops or Trix?" I asked, holding up the two cereal boxes to Kyla.

"For Ivy or for the kids?" Kyla asked.

I snorted and put them both in the cart. Ivy, despite currently holding the 'smallest woman in the family' certificate, could eat like a horse and she had a sweet tooth. She worked hard to let herself do it - she had a whole body weight only exercise routine that she followed almost every day to keep her soft but lean figure - but the number of empty carbs she could put away was still a little astounding.

To be fair, most of the cart was packed with fruits and veggies. We would do a pickup at the butchers before heading to Mary's, so we were just going down the middle of the store looking for any other staples we might be missing. Peanut butter and jam went in the cart - doubles of both, with one set destined for Mary. A couple of large bags of coffee. Kyla's preferred tea was in stock, so we grabbed two boxes of that. Aria had asked us to pick up ingredients because she swore she could make pizza on the barbeque for us. I was sceptical, but a good pizza wouldn't go amiss so I was willing to try.

"I really like this," Kyla said.

"What's that?" I asked, trying to figure out what she was looking at on the shelves.

She turned and stopped me pushing the cart, sliding herself into my arms and hugging me loosely around the waist. "This," she said. "Even with the masks and everything. Grocery shopping with you. Running errands. It's all so normal. I think you'd have fun doing it in Manila though, it's more of an adventure."

I grinned behind my mask and leaned down to press my forehead to hers. "Maybe we'll get a chance one day," I said. "But I like this too, babe."

Her eyes narrowed a bit and the bridge of her nose crinkled. "Not babe," she said. "That's what Erica calls you. Something else."

"Sugarplum?" I suggested.

She rolled her eyes.

"Snookums?"

"What does that mean?" she asked, slipping her arm through mine so we could start walking again.

"No idea," I said. "I think it's made up."

"Then no," she said.

I sighed dramatically. "Maybe we'll just need to let it come natura-"

Shouting from the front of the store cut me off. I frowned and glanced ahead down the aisle but couldn't see anything. I picked up the pace and Kyla followed, slipping her arm from mine and spreading out to the walk quickly on the other side of the aisle from me and the buggy. It was tough to hear what exactly was going on, but someone was obviously agitated and other people were reacting to it. When we reached the end of the aisle it was clear that the shouting was off to the right near the front doors.

I left the cart there, crossing to Kyla's side, and we peeked around the corner.

Just inside the front door, the man who had to be the manager was getting screamed at by a pair of rough-and-tumble-looking hicks. Neither man looked like they had shaved for a couple of weeks and they seemed more likely to be encountered out on a hunting trip than in town. They were both very much not wearing masks as they shouted and made a fuss, gesturing wildly as the dress-shirt-wearing, mask-protected store manager tried to convince them they couldn't walk around like they were. I heard big buzzwords like 'constitutional' and 'freedom of travel' and other drivel that I'd been hearing from hicks angry at the law since I was a kid. To be fair, almost any redneck or hick had a bit of a bent towards the 'sovereign citizen' idea - if I wasn't rational enough I may have ended up down that rabbit hole if I hadn't made the deal with Greerson and they'd forced me off my family land.

Being told what to do by the government didn't go over well with folks like me and these guys. The big difference between us was that I had a few more brain cells to rub together and see the holes in their screamed arguments.

"Fucking assholes," I grunted softly.

"Harrison, I can literally feel what you're thinking right now," Kyla said. "The store has security for this."

"I'm pretty sure their security is a couple of pimple-faced teens and that manager," I said. As we watched, the manager threw his arms up in the air and started yelling back at the two guys, giving up on all semblance of de-escalation.

"'Scuse me, folks," said a voice forcefully behind us. I turned and found myself mask-to-face with Barry O'Callahan. I hadn't seen him in a couple of months and it looked like he'd dropped a bit of weight, though not enough to be considered 'fit' by any means. His cart was full of stuff that looked like he'd just scooped it right off the shelf and into the cart.

"Barry?" I asked. His lack of a mask was concerning, though at that moment I had to guess he was affiliated with the two still yelling at the front of the store.

"Oh, Harrison! What's up?" Barry greeted me with a grin. "You wanna walk and talk? I'm on a time crunch here."

I glanced at Kyla, who just raised an eyebrow at me, so I gestured for her to stay with our cart while I followed Barry.

"You never came out to the Beaver," Barry said as I followed him down the next aisle. He pulled up in front of the cans of soup and started yanking them quickly out of the little dispenser things, tossing them haphazardly into his cart. "Seriously, my man. With your time in the military, I bet you'd fit right in with the guys. You should really come hang out or something."

"Yeah, maybe," I said. "Barry, what's with the no-mask thing?"

"Hah! They really do have you fooled, huh?" Barry laughed. He was already moving up the aisle headed for the tinned pasta. "The whole disease thing is just a sham. A false flag thing to get us all compliant. It's the fault of the cities, really. Too many people packed in too tight, and everyone getting so liberal the real power brokers felt like they were losing their grip on us. So they come up with a 'pandemic' to make us all too afraid of our own shadows to organize."

"Dude, I've seen the deaths," I said. "My girlfriend's apartment complex in Portland is half-empty. People I know are dead."

"Dead, or just missing?" Barry asked flippantly. "Word is, the government is forcibly moving people around. Pulling them out of cities under the cover of night. We're still trying to figure out where the camps are, but we'll find them."

He moved another aisle over, and we were in the frozen section. He pulled an entire stack of Hungry Man microwave meals out and reached for another.

"You realise you sound insane right now, right?" I asked.

"Hey, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction," Barry shrugged. "What's more likely, that the entire human race is at risk, or the government is lying to us again?"

The problem with arguing with a conspiracy theorist was that there was always just enough kernel of truth to make the conspiracy plausible. Based on my interactions with Agent Greerson, the government wasdefinitely lying, or at least causing a lack of information, with the goal of maintaining order. But after what I'd seen and experienced at the site, not to mention the very large amount of money the government paid me for my land, the pandemic was also very real.

"What if it's both?" I asked.

"Not likely," Barry shrugged. "Dude, you should totally come up to the Beaver. We've got a whole set of evidence tracked out, like cops do for investigations. What do they call it... a murder board? Yeah, something like that. Seriously, it's wild the shit that they are hiding from us."

Barry was heading for the front of the store now and walked right past the cashier tills. The two guys were still arguing loudly with the manager, along with a couple of other workers who were trying to get them to leave.

"Not going to pay either, huh?" I asked.

"Hey, when society breaks down," Barry shrugged. Another guy dressed similar to the two shouters and Barry came from the other direction, his cart full of loaves of bread and boxes of soda and what had to be half the twinkie display.

I stopped about a dozen feet from the confrontation and Barry just kept right on going, walking his cart past the manager as the grocery store employees got even more upset. The two shouters were smirking now, taunting them, as they followed Barry and the other cart-pusher out of the store. The manager was almost entirely red-faced and looked like he might have an aneurysm as he stormed off to a back office.

I was standing near a cashier and I turned to her. "No one called the cops?" I asked.

She shrugged. "They don't show up, or if they do it's too late and they tell us to file an insurance claim."

I sighed heavily and went looking for Kyla. Apparently, Barry and the assholes were escalating their assholery and adding wingnut conspiracies to the list.

* * * * *

"Happy one month and four days anniversary, babe," I said, clinking mugs with Erica.

We were alone, out on the edge of the forest. After returning from our grocery run I had gotten to work on my plan - step one had been moving the portable fire pit out here, followed by a couple of the lawn chairs. The others had kept Erica busy while I was doing it, and when I had led her out of the compound at dinner she hadn't expected anything. I'd already had the fire crackling, and a 'fancy dinner' set as best I could on a TV Tray between the chairs, draped in a much too large tablecloth, with the fancy china and silverware that had been passed down through my family. We'd eaten and watched the sunset, and then as the stars started to come out Erica had insisted on sitting on the ground, her leaning back between my legs, as we sipped our cold beers and looked up at the night sky.

"I can't believe it's only been a month," Erica sighed.

"And four days," I pointed out with a smile.

"And four days," she grinned. "You know, I'm not going to stand for one year and four days."

"One year exactly," I promised her, hugging around her waist and leaning down to kiss her temple.

"Unless the world really falls apart, obviously," she teased. "Then I think I'll forgive you."

"Thanks," I chuckled.

She turned back, pulling me into a proper kiss. "Marry me?" she asked.

I blinked. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," she nodded. "We wasted years. This month has had more ups and downs than an elevator, but there's nothing more that I want than you, and this."

I pulled her into a kiss, hugging her tightly. I wasn't sure how I would have asked her - I wasn't a big fancy dinner, make a spectacle of it kind of guy. I likely would have overthought it, and tried too hard to make it special.

"Yes," I said.

We made love on the grass at the edge of the trees, the fire dimming to coals and the stars and moon our only real light. When we woke up the next morning with the dawn we were covered in a blanket, still naked.

"Kyla," Erica explained as she stretched under the blanket.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"Because I told her I was going to ask you," she said. "She was happy for us."

"But you didn't know about the date," I said. Erica just gave me a look and a smile, and I shook my head. She'd known the whole time.

We made love again, and then held each other afterwards and talked logistics. I could afford whatever we wanted in terms of a wedding now but with the world the way it was it didn't make sense. Even if we'd gotten together a year ago we'd have wanted a small ceremony anyways, just our close friends and family. I had a couple of old military buddies I'd have liked to invite, she had some tattooist friends she knew across the country.

We'd do a ceremony down the line if the world got better. My sister was the biggest part of the equation since we didn't want her to miss it. Neither of us had living parents anymore, and extended family connections were lacking.

"I love you," she whispered against my lips as I agreed to let her tattoo my ring on my finger. "Fiance."

"I love you too, future Mrs Erica Black," I whispered back.

"Erica Lacosta-Black," she said, then shook her head. "Ehn, doesn't flow. Mrs Erica Black it is."

* * * * *

"Happy one month and three days anniversary, ma dulcinee," I said, hugging Ivy to me as the credits rolled on the movie.

She turned in my lap and kissed me softly. "Happy anniversary, mon amour," she hummed happily.

My date with Ivy had taken a little more work than with Erica, but it was mostly digging around in the storage containers to find the right stuff. The flatscreen needed our longest extension cord, and finding the old DVDs proved harder than I expected since I wasn't sure what box they'd ended up in.

I couldn't bring Ivy out on a true Dinner and a Movie experience, but I manufactured a Drive-In experience of our own. It... worked. Sort of. We had the TV blasting, and were pretty much backed up right in front of the screen as we sat and cuddled on blankets in the bed of the truck. The popcorn was microwaved, but I'd melted real butter to drizzle on top, and I'd found a couple of old oversized plastic cups to hold our sodas.

"Je t'aime," she whispered with a smile, stroking her fingers through my beard. Erica had finally decided earlier that day that she preferred it shorter and I'd been allowed to trim it back down and clean it up. Vanessa and Kyla had both been thankful for that, but Ivy had admitted she kind of wanted to see how long it could get so that she could braid it and make me look like a viking.

"Je t'aime," I whispered back, stroking her lower back with one hand under her shirt.

"Harrison, I want you to know, I don't expect a proposal," she said.

I cocked my head.

"I just mean, don't feel like because we are in love, and you and Erica are in love, that we need to be the same," she said, putting her hands on my chest and looking at me in the dark. The light from the TV shimmered in her eyes. "I don't need to feel...even with her, I think is what you would say?"

I hugged her harder, and with more purpose. "Thank you, ma dulcinée," I mumbled quietly. Ithad been on my mind a bit since Erica had asked me. I still hadn't had time to really come to grips with it and figure out how I felt. I was still having a hard time computing the four different relationships I was in, let alone things like what a marriage would look like. Marrying two women was illegal in Oregon as far as I was aware. I stroked the curls away from her face and just looked down at Ivy as she smiled at me. "You are an absolute wonder, you know that?"

She pursed her lips, air-kissing to me. "And you are my big, lovable grizzly," she said. "Fierce and strong and proud, but fuzzy and huggable." She hugged me back, pressing her cheek to my chest.

"Do you want to watch another movie?" I asked.

She shook her head without pulling away from the hug, and then changed her mind and nodded. "One more," she said. "But something sexy."

"OK, let me see what I can find."

Dirty Dancing had been one of my mother's favourites and was probably the sexiest DVD we'd kept.

Ivy loved it.

By the time the credits were rolling we were naked and she was licking her way up my cock, gazing up into my eyes with the same 'hungry eyes' from the famous montage scene. She shifted higher, straddling my waist and reaching back to wedge my cock between her tight little ass cheeks to tease me with some dry humping, and grinned. "One day, I am going to dance for you," she said. "My best lap dance ever. And the first song you can't touch, but the second one you can touch me wherever you want."

We kissed, and she slipped my cock into her ass with that soft little pleased grunt of hers, and we had slow but hot sex late into the night. And for the second night in a row I fell asleep naked and outside under the stars with a woman I loved.

* * * * *

"Did you hear about what happened on the Rez?" Fuller called to me as I was making my pickup. We were edging closer to the middle of June and the heat had just kept climbing and climbing, so he was waiting until we pulled into the parking lot before he brought out the three big paper sacks of our order.

"No," I said, thinking he must have been talking about the protest from last month. "What happened?"

"Aw, man. It's pretty awful. From what I hear, some racist fucks broke into their community centre and lit the place on fire, then in the commotion they snuck into a bunch of the houses and RVs and stole shit. There's a bunch of injuries from trying to fight the fire, and I guess they were running a food bank out of the centre and some guys were trying to get the food out when the whole place collapsed."

"Fuck," I said, but it didn't do enough justice to what I was feeling.

My heart had dropped into my stomach, and I kind of hated that the first thing that came to mind was a fear that Kara might be dead. She would absolutely be one of those people, inside a burning building, trying to salvage anything they could before they lost it all. Even after everything, after the way we broke up, after the lawsuits and the protests, after last month... she was my first in almost everything.

"Yeah, pretty much," Fuller nodded, unable to see my expression behind my mask at this distance. "Shit's totally fucked. Word is the Rez Cops don't have any leads, and the Statey's don't have the manpower to help out. Whoever did it is getting away with it."

I thanked Fuller for the news and loaded up the groceries. When I got back in the cab of the truck Vanessa turned down the radio, concern bringing her eyebrows down into a furrow as she picked up on my mood immediately. "What's wrong?" she asked.