Quaranteam: North West Ch 41 (Alpha)

The following story is based on the fantastic Quaranteam series by CorruptingPower over on Literotica. You can continue to expect general themes of light Mind Control, bonding and Harems from the original, but with a slightly edgy and alternative cast.

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The stares I was receiving were a bone-chilling mixture of suspicion, absurdity and concern. They left me feeling not only awkward as hell, but also dubious about the rest of the stuff I had to talk about at Valkyrie Falls.

It also didn’t help that, on the whole, everyone back at home had more or less been rolling with the punches when it came to my variant reaction to the vaccine and everything with Josie. And the ladies at the Falls had been rolling with things fairly consistently over the last couple of months, too.

“So you have… predatory sperm?” one of the ladies asked dubiously. She was a tall, lithe woman who usually had an easy smile and was a professional WNBA player, if I remembered correctly. That or was going to the WNBA and had just graduated from college. Or something like that. I wasn’t even sure if her name was Cassie or Carrie - what I was sure of was that she wasn’t particularly attractive to me, especially when grouped up with several other women who were making my inner dog growl hungrily.

“It’s not predatory,” Erica said, standing with me in front of the group out of support and solidarity. Josie was on my other side and made a point of grabbing my hand and holding it in front of all the ladies. “It’s just… laced? With vaccine? OK, that doesn’t sound much better.”

“Actually,” Kyla said from the side of the group. We’d taken two cars over to the Falls as planned, and Kyla, Erica and I would be heading back once we were done, while Josie, Dani and Aria would be hanging out there until later. It had started raining before we left, so our update meeting with all the female athletes was happening in the cafeteria, so Kyla, Aria and Dani had grabbed a table off to one side instead of mixing in with the ladies. “‘Predatory’ is a good way to think of it. Harri is dangerous if you are tempted to get into a sexual situation with him, ladies. You all know us, and him, well enough to know he’s not going to run around without any pants trying to jerk off in your smoothies or water bottles, so you don’t have to actually worry about him like that. He is dangerous to people who are threats, though. Threats to him and his family. And right now, I promise that you guys are all part of his family. You know he’d do some ridiculously risky shit for any of you - we just figured out that it’s a medical condition.”

Her jokes and light smirk helped ease a lot of the uncomfortable feelings in the room, and the visual she painted of me Porky Pigging it around got a decent number of snorts and chuckles.

I’d been debating how much we should really tell the Valkyrie Falls ladies. On the one hand, they already knew way more than they were supposed to, and we had to explain Josie imprinting with me, but the rest of them not getting vaccinated yet. On the other hand, I was already really stretching the fact that I hadn’t signed any NDAs when everyone else had, and the more people who knew about my particular situation could also be a risk.

The end of the debate was when Josie and Kyla pointed out that only the full story would keep anyone who was sort of interested in me, or even in Leo, from trying some misinformed tricks.

“Does anyone else have any questions to ask me?” I asked the group. “You can also hold onto them to talk to any of the ladies - they’ll help you out as best they can, or can text me your question so it’s anonymous.”

Melina raised her hand after a moment to catch our attention. “Ten?” she asked with a laugh. She got another easing of tension out of the ladies as they chuckled at her tone.

“Ten,” Erica answered for me, smirking as she looked at me with a grin in her eyes for a moment and then out to the women again. “To be clear, and I swear I’ll cut off your nipples if you guys leak this shit and get Harri in trouble for telling you all the unfiltered truth this whole time, the last we heard the minimum safe number of partners is seven. Which means an optimal number is higher than that; we just don’t know what it is because no one in our circle has been told. We do know the minimum number has gone up over time, though, so…”

“It could keep going up,” Abi filled in, and Erica nodded.

“To be clear, I’m actually Harri’s ninth partner,” Josie smirked. “I snuck in under the wire to not be Double Digit.”

That got a snort or surprise out of me, and I had to cover my mouth with my fist to stop from snorting again. I wasn’t just if Julia would resent being my ‘Double Digit’ partner, or take it as a note of pride.

“Are you gonna forget your phone again any time soon?” Melina followed up with an even bigger smirk.

“No,” I groaned and chuckled, patting my pocket where my cell was currently one full ringer volume and vibration. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget my cell phone anywhere, ever again. I’m even thinking of getting a second one just to keep in an ankle holster.”

“Is he as good as Ivy brags he is, Josie?” another of the ladies asked with a teasing grin. I wasn’t even close to sure of her name, I just recognised her as ‘afro lady’ because she had a pretty large, natural afro.

“Oh, he’s amaz-” Josie started to answer with a big grin, but Abi cut her off.

“That sort of gossiping can happen outside of a group setting,” she said sternly. “Does anyone have an appropriate question for Harrison, or can you save them to ask in private? No one? Alright, then Sara and I need to continue this conversation with Harri on other topics, so please clear out of the cafeteria for now.”

It was tough to argue with the authority that Abi carried around, both with her size and her personality, so while the chatter kicked in quickly among the ladies, I didn’t hear any complaining about them being so perfunctorily dismissed.

“I’m going to do some crowd control,” Erica murmured to me quickly, slipping her arm around my waist to hug me, and pulling me down with a playful tug on my beard to kiss her as well. Then she was slipping away and starting a conversation with a couple of the ladies. I noticed Kyla and Dani also quickly embroiled in small groups of women as they headed out of the cafeteria and into other parts of the compound, but Josie stuck with me, and I noticed Aria lingering as well - she was a social woman, but I was pretty sure that Sara was her primary friend at the Falls, and she wanted to wait for the tall Icelandic woman.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Josie offered as I turned my attention to her before we got back to business. I had a moment of mild awe as I looked down into her eyes, and my brain had to catch up with my body - this pretty, athletic, funny woman and I hadn’t just crashed together for an amazing fuck, but we were also life partners now. She was mine.

“Could have gone worse,” I agreed, then sighed softly as Abi and Sara started coming over to us. “Could get worse.”

“Hey,” Josie said, soft and quick as she squeezed my fingers with hers. “I wanted this, I just didn’t know I’d get it like I did. I’m all yours, cowboy.”

How the hell did she know I needed to hear that?

“Please don’t start with that,” I groaned instead at her use of the nickname.

“You love it,” she snickered as she turned with me to face the two Icelandic owners of the Falls. The problem was she was kind of right, there were a lot worse nicknames out there and I’d sported a few over the years between high school football and the military. My only issue was that it came from Kashm, and if she found out it was being used by my girlfriends, it would probably mean trouble. But it was definitely better than ‘Mountain Man.’

We joined Abi and Sara at one of the tables near the side windows of the building, the natural light from outside coming in a cool shade because of the cloud cover and casting the three blondes in a healthy light compared to the halogens overhead. Aria came over as well and sat down at the table connected to ours, but back just far enough that the busty woman was making it clear she was listening in but not actively trying to be in the conversation.

There was an awkward moment as the four of us weren’t sure where to start, and Sara was the one to break the ice.

“You’re happy?” she asked Josie pointedly.

Josie sighed, her shoulders relaxing. “Very.”

“You told me… a little, last night,” Abi said, frowning that matriarchal, concerned frown of hers that wasn’t so much a frown as it was just focused seriousness. “You two were not careful about things. I thought you were both smarter than that.”

“I’m still on the pill,” Josie said. “And it’s not like we made a plan to have sex, Abi. But it was hot as hell, and I’m not mad at all that it turned out the way it did.”

“And you, Harrison?” Sara asked me pointedly.

“Josie and I were going to end up together,” I said confidently. “I knew it since the first day we talked, I just didn’t want to… admit it. Or push for it. That’s not who I am, usually.”

“Harri,” Josie said softly, grinning and blushing as she scratched her fingernails up my thigh under the table.

“Tough to argue with a beautiful woman like you flirting with me, Joss,” I said. “I was only ever worried that if I caught feelings properly and then something got between us. And you all know just how complicated my situation is.”

Abi turned to look at Sara, and they locked eyes for a moment as they silently agreed about something, but she turned back to us.

“We aren’t… concerned about you,” Abi said slowly. “And we still appreciate everything you and your family do, helping bring in all the supplies we need, but Harri- You need to promise that if you are going to continue coming to visit us here, you won’t have sex with anyone else. No more of these… accidents.”

I’d been expecting this, but that didn’t stop the dog in me from wanting to blurt out several different challenges and offers, starting with suggesting I bend Abi's thick, powerful ass over that very table to show her how wrong she was to ask me that, and only getting filthier from there. The good news was that I had a firm grip on that gut reaction, especially because I was expecting it, and I was able to answer much more appropriately. “I can promise you that,” I agreed. “And, again, I’m sorry that this happened the way it has. I don’t regret Josie and I at all, but I regret it happened the way it did instead of us being more adult about it.”

“I dunno,” Josie smirked a little, her eyes giving me a teasing look. “What we did out in the woods was pretty adult, if you ask me.”

“Not helping, darling,” I said with a little snort and a smirk. Then I shook my head and focused back on the two Amazonian blondes. “Did you guys have any more concerns or questions about that stuff? Because I have a couple of other things I need to run by you.”

They didn’t, and Josie and I gave them a slightly more comprehensive story about what had happened between Josie and I fucking, and her waking up in the medical facility in Portland. Namely, the highway ambush, her injury and the regeneration that had saved her from months, or potentially even years, of rehab if it had been bad enough. I also reminded them of the other dangers we’d been running into out there, and how even if we were seeing some hope and light on the horizon, we had no idea what the next few months would look like as the government and military tried to roll out the vaccine to a wider and wider area.

Both of the ladies had questions after that, about whether they were even safe to keep their friends and clients at the Falls at all, or if they should try to get everyone to Portland and into the system.

“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll bring it up with Miriam, and she wants to come out here in a couple of days to meet you both and see this place, so we can talk about it then, but for now? It’s probably best to stay put. From what we saw and heard, we’re in the very early days of the rollout, and it’s messy just like any other government program. The fact that they are trying to rush partners together also concerns me a bit when their pool of people is still limited. Things will be smoother in a few weeks or a month, I would bet, and by then if you decide to take Oracle you should have the best chances of matching up with someone, or maybe they’ll even have newer, better options by then. They’re still working on the vaccine, maybe they even crack the whole ‘partnering’ thing and those of us already with it become a phase one relic compared to what most people in the country or world get.”

That opened up some questions we couldn’t answer at all, as Abi and Sara wondered about their home nation and whether the US was offering the vaccine to other countries. Iceland was already a pretty small population; they couldn’t afford a devastating death toll. Not that any nation could, really, but starting with smaller numbers meant you had less distance to the bottom. It was only the inherent isolation of a lot of the villages and cities that gave Abi and Sara hope that things weren’t as bad as they could be.

That brought us back around to what to do in the here and now, and I eased them into the idea of two or three members of mine and Leo’s family sleeping at the Falls every night.

“I don’t think we need to be actively keeping guard or anything,” I assured them. “But if someone decided to roll up through your gate, or sneak in through the woods, I’d feel a lot better if you had a couple of us with firearms experience and training to help delay them while the rest of us get over here. It’s not perfect, but it would make me feel a lot better and is the best, least-disruptive answer we can come up with right now.”

Abi and Sara agreed that they would talk about it - they still weren’t thrilled about the need to take defensive precautions to begin with, but they also understood that it might be necessary. I was out of topics at that point, and they asked if they could talk to Aria and Josie without me, so I gave Josie a quick kiss on the side of the head as I stood up.

“Again,” I told them. “I’m sorry I’ve been… a bull in a china shop around here. Every week, every few days lately, my life keeps getting… messier. I hate that it’s been disruptive and causing any problems here.”

Abi and Sara glanced at each other again, putting that ‘women who have been friends for years’ super power to work as they communicated silently, and then Sara turned back to me. “You are a mess, Sheriff,” she said in her thick Icelandic accent. “But you are also a good man. We can forgive you. Just no more sex!”

“Yes, ma’am,” I chuckled, and almost wished I was wearing a hat that I could tip to her.

“See you later, cowboy,” Josie said as I turned to leave, and Aria barked a laugh as I took in a big breath and let it out in a sigh.

I left the cafeteria, planning to find someone else from my family to check in with, hoping they’d taken the temperature of the rest of the ladies and feed me some intel. After that, I would make myself available if anyone wanted to ask me questions. The first people I spotted were my fiancée and Melina, outside despite the soft, misting drizzle that was soaking everything, bundled up in their jackets and walking arm in arm towards the running path up to the Falls. Part of me thought about joining them, but that would be avoiding the things I actually needed to be doing, so I just watched them for a moment as they left the parking lot and stepped out onto the forest path.

Heading down the main hall on the ground floor of the facility, I poked my head into the open multipurpose rooms and indoor gym, but didn’t see Kyla or Dani in them, though I did get a strong mix of waves and looks from the Falls women who were hanging out in pairs and small groups. By the time I got to the far end, near the main stairwell up to the bunk floor and the change room and showers, where all my problems - at least here - had really started, I was questioning whether I’d missed them or if they were upstairs in someone’s room.

I was distracted from my wondering whether I should head upstairs and start knocking on doors by Rachel coming out of the change rooms, dressed like she was ready for a good workout in a bright red, heavy sports bra and tight workout shorts that clung to her astoundingly athletic body. The bright colour contrasted wonderfully with her dark African American colouring, and her bare torso showed off an eight-pack that almost rivalled my variant-regeneration-gifted one, while still keeping the curves that made her unmistakably feminine. When she saw me she broke into a smirk, her statuesquely pretty face reminding me again that while I didn’t know her very well, she was one specimen of a gorgeous woman. ‘Muscle Mommy’ indeed.

“Hey,” she said. “Everything OK?”

“I’m just wondering where Dani and Kyla are,” I admitted. “And I’m not sure I’m allowed upstairs without a chaperon.”

Rachel snorted and then laughed, her voice warm and boisterous. “Probably a good idea if you stay down here, huh?” she said. “I’m pretty sure they’re both with Spencer, or at least they went up there together before I went to change.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “I’ll leave them to it, then. Hey - do you mind weighing in on… all of that?” I waved back towards the cafeteria. “I know it was a lot, but I’m still trying to figure out how it looks from the outside, and not from the middle of it all.”

Rachel smirked lopsidedly at me for a moment, huffed another chuckle and shook her head. “Honestly? You’re one lucky fuck,” she said. “Josie is so into you, and it’s obvious from your other girlfriends that they are too. That’s what I can wrap my head around - the relationship stuff. Everything else? The vaccine and the variants and all the mess? I don’t super care. You seem like a good guy, the ladies all like you - well, except for India. You know India is kind of a cunt towards you, right?”

“I didn’t know it went that deep,” I said with a frown. “I knew there was some tension, though.”

“Maybe I’m being a little rough on her,” Rachel shrugged. “I’m not big on catty shit, even if I am a fan of well-executed pettiness. Anyways, all the ladies in your orbit talk highly of you, and I’d think Leo was your actual brother with how much he loves you. So I guess I’m saying that anyone who does have an issue is someone who’s looking to have one anyway.”

“OK,” I nodded, letting out a bit of a relieved breath. “That’s actually reassuring. And a bit of an ego boost if everyone is singing my praises.”

“Not that you needed one,” she smirked.

“No,” I chuckled. “I guess I don’t.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“For sure,” I said, and I offered that we could walk and talk to wherever she was heading, and we started down the corridor slowly.

“The whole ‘predator sperm’ thing,” Rachel said, and then snorted at the look on my face. “I’m just busting your balls. But my question is related. That whole thing - it’s just you who has it, right? Leo’s not some time bomb waiting for the first un-taken pussy to spring his trap?”

“No,” I laughed at her phrasing. “No, Leo’s not- The Docs don’t know why I’m having this reaction, but it’s very much a me thing. Leo has the vaccine in him, but from what the Doctors have said, him or any other guy with the vaccine shouldn’t have any sort of implications for a woman who hasn’t been given a proper dose of the vaccine in the regular way.”

“OK, cool,” Rachel nodded, and as we passed by one of the multipurpose rooms she glanced in and then hesitated. “Actually, hold on a second.” She ducked in, and I saw that she’d spotted Yvonne sitting on one of the couches that had been moved into the ‘art studio’ room. Yvonne looked up, startled from the book she was reading, then set it down as Rachel turned and waved me in.

“Hey, Yvonne,” I said.

“Hi,” she said, and I managed not to groan or let the dog growl from my guts. Yvonne was just as attractive as Rachel, just in different ways, with her pale, sharp Eastern European looks, the intensity of her eyes, and her slightly athletic-bohemian casual style as she was hanging out in baggy sweatpants that were a little low on her hips, a dark sports bra that showed of her muscled torso even if it was softer and less defined than Rachel’s, and a loose tie-dyed sweater hanging open. And then of course there was her Estonian accent. I was a sucker for accents - but then, how many men weren’t when it came down to it?

Rachel grabbed a chair and pulled it over as I approached, and gestured for me to sit as she took the spot on the couch next to Yvonne.

“What’s up?” I asked as I settled in. “Did you have a question for me, Yvonne?”

“What?” she asked in confusion. “No.”

“This is all me,” Rachel shook her head. “Well, not all me, but- Whatever. I’m just getting it out there. Is it safe for me and Yvonne to have sex with Leo?”

“Rachel!” Yvonne said, starting to blush furiously as she sat up in alarm.

“Oh, shush, girl,” Rachel said, patting her leg. “Harri’s fucking Josie, along with all his other girlfriends. And the way they talk, I don’t think I’m shocking him here.”

“Still,” Yvonne said, glaring at her and then looking over at me with wide eyes.

My gut was in turmoil. That dog, that hound in me, wanted to answer in a way that wouldn’t even make sense. How would I even pivot them from ‘Can we fuck Leo?’ to ‘You can fuck me and it’ll be fucking great’? But here the two of them were, right next to me, the current objects of my unwarranted jealousy.

I barely knew them, I had to remind myself. It didn’t matter that I found them both attractive as hell. And just as importantly, they were interested in Leo.

“It’s, uh, fine,” I assured Yvonne, and then Rachel. “Yes, from a vaccine standpoint, it’s safe for either of you to sleep with Leo. And just FYI - as far as I know, he’s clean of any STDs, so it’s safe that way too. Just talk to Dani first, yeah? I’m pretty sure she’ll be fine with it, or even help make it happen, but just- yeah. Talk to Dani.”

“Mu jumal,” Yvonne groaned, probably in Estonian, and combined with her continued blushing, I got a sense that it was something along the lines of an embarrassed ‘Oh my God.’

“Do you think he’d want to?” Rachel asked.

“Have sex with you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I’m pretty sure he would. I mean, I’m flirting pretty hard, he’s just kinda hitting this niche for me of the right amount of soft, sweet, and nerdy, but not a limp noodle or an incel loser. Like, he’s a well-socialised nerd, not someone living in their basement.”  

I couldn’t help but snort a little as she talked about Leo like that. “Um, well, honestly, Rachel - and this applies to you too, Yvonne - I can’t imagine any straight man seeing either of you and not putting you in the ‘Yes’ category for that particular question.”

“Sure, but I mean, is he into us?” Rachel doubled down. “Either of us. Has he said anything? Because, yeah, I’ve worked hard to look like this, and Yvonne is an absolute baddy, but there’s a difference between ‘yes’ and… I don’t know.”

I sighed, glancing between the two of them. They were both fully engaged in the conversation, even if Yvonne looked like she wanted to melt into the couch and disappear due to the abruptness of it.

“He’s… mentioned you both,” I said, trying to walk the tightrope of bro-code in this circumstance and not being sure what the line even was. “Positively?”

“Harri,” Rachel said, then glanced at Yvonne and gestured to her fellow athlete. “Tell us straight. Yvonne is dying here.”

“I didn’t even ask a question,” Yvonna argued.

“Fine, Rachel,” I said, shaking my head. “Yes, he’s into both of you. And, knowing him, he feels awkward about what to do with that since he’s got four partners, but is into you both. And don’t worry, all of the ladies in our families who have met you two have been telling him you’re into him, too. You guys aren’t very good at keeping it a secret if you were trying to do that. Also, haven’t you already kissed him, Yvonne?”

“You kissed him already?” Rachel asked in surprise.

“I- maybe,” Yvonne admitted, blushing all over again. “A few times.”

“Jesus,” Rachel said. “How am I the one falling behind?”

“Look,” I said. “Just… before you guys start anything more with him, take one beat with me here to game out what the future looks like. Leo’s into your guys, and you’re into him, but you’ve also been in your bubble here for a while. Leo and I are the only guys who’ve been around, and I’m not saying that means you’re bound to fall for one of us or something, but- I’m just saying that when the vaccine rollout comes around, the two of you are going to have a chance to sign up for Oracle, and it’s supposed to be able to match you up with someone who is an amazing fit for you. But if you start diving into things with Leo, he’s going to get invested. Maybe more than invested. So just, do him and me a favour and figure out if you’re crushing on him or if you can see yourself with him. Long-term. Maybe for the rest of your lives, if they don’t figure out the science. If he’s in it deep with you, and you decide to go for Oracle and not him, you’ll hurt him pretty badly. He loves just as hard as I do.”

Rachel nodded slowly, biting the inside of her cheek in thought, and then glanced over at Yvonne, who was a little more stonefaced. “What are you thinking?” the Amazonian woman asked her shorter friend.

“I think-” Yvonne started, then hesitated and looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “Leo thinks Oracle is really smart, but I don’t trust it,” she said. “I don’t want a computer making decisions for me. I want to make my own choices, and I- I want to choose Leo. I really like him, and… and I want to go further with him. And I wonder what it would have been like if this pandemic had never happened, and we ran into each other at the grocery store? Would I have been as struck by him then? Would I have seen who he was, how much I would like him?” She paused to swallow and shook her head. “But I’m also worried that your government won’t let me partner with him. I’m not from here. I don’t have a US passport; I’m Estonian. What if they make me take Oracle, or just try to send me home?”

“That won’t happen,” Rachel assured her quickly - maybe too quickly.

“I don’t think it would happen either,” I said a little more evenly. “But, if you’re sure about Leo, then having a relationship with him already going on should help things happen. From what little I know of the whole thing, they aren’t breaking people up.”

“Then I'd better get that white boy in bed,” Rachel smirked. “Because I agree with you, girl. Fuck letting a computer try and decide my romantic chemistry with someone. It’ll probably think I want some meat-head jock because of our matching lifestyles.”

I wasn’t so sure of that - the Oracle surveys had been pretty extensive, but I felt like playing devil’s advocate at that moment would have been working against my best friend.

“Just talk to Dani before you guys do anything more,” I repeated myself from earlier.

“She’s hanging around this afternoon, right?” Rachel asked.

“Yeah, unless something with them changes, she should,” I nodded.

“You want to talk to her first, or me?” Rachel offered Yvonne. “Or together?”

“See on nii kuradi ebamugav,” Yvonne muttered. “Together, I guess.”

“OK,” I agreed, and then swallowed the thick spit that had been collecting in my mouth as I continued to resist the urge to put in any sort of comment about the fact that I was interested, available, and could be everything they wanted and more. God, fucking either of them would be fucking amazing. Or both at the same time. I cleared my throat, covering my grunt, and then stood up. “I’ll let you guys figure out what to do with all that and see if anyone else has questions for me about everything.”

“I’m sure there’s a couple who do,” Rachel smirked, and then shrugged with faux-innocence at the look I gave her.

“Well, I’ll try to be as open and honest with them as I can,” I said diplomatically, internally strangling the hound to keep myself from saying anything more.

When I left the multipurpose art room, I found Erica sitting on a bench just out of view of the door, smiling knowingly.

“Hello, wifey,” I growled softly as I went to her and stood between her knees, running my fingers through her rain-damp hair. “What’s that look for?”

“Just wondering when my brother is gonna get laid with one of those hotties,” Erica smirked. “Which, I mean, I’m slightly jealous since he’ll get to tap that and I won’t, but also good for him.”

“Kinda feel the same way,” I admitted.

“I know, hubby,” she smirked, smiling warmly up at me.

“We’re fucking weird, you know that?” I chuckled.

“Super weird,” she grinned.

“How was your walk and talk with Melina?”

Erica just smiled at me and purposefully kept her lips shut tight, which was as much a message as if she’d said something clearly. I groaned softly, internally arguing with the grinning dog in my gut, which made her laugh, her eyes telling me how much she was enjoying this. “Where are the Stripper and the Spy?” She pivoted the conversation.

That made me snort hard and shake my head. “Please tell me that’s not their duo nickname?”

“Just came up with it,” Erica smirked, then she looked off down the corridor. “Never mind, here they come.”

She was right; Kyla, Dani, and Spencer were all coming down from the direction of the stairs up to the second floor, chatting amongst themselves.

“Have you been interrogated yet, Harri?” Dani asked playfully as they got close, clearly not expecting me to have gotten pressed very hard.

“Not yet,” I said, trying not to wonder too hard about whatever Spencer had wanted to talk to the two of them about upstairs in private. Kyla slipped in next to me and I hugged her for a moment and leaned down to kiss her hair, and then she was slipping away almost as quickly and stepping aside.

“Hi, Harri,” Spencer grinned, fresh-faced and bright. And she crashed into me with a full-bodied hug, pressing her cheek to my chest.

“Oof,” I grunted from the force of it, and I wrapped my arms around her in a bear hug, trying not to give any attention to her big, athletic-bra-clad breasts compacted firmly against me through her bulky sweater. “Hey, Spence. Are you the one who's going to interrogate me, then?”

She smirked a little and pulled just her head back from my chest, continuing to hug me. “Nope, I got all my questions answered already,” she said.

“OK,” I said, sighing a little, and I wasn’t sure it was in relief or trepidation because I had a clear view over the shorter girl's head and shoulders at Kyla and Dani, who were both trying not to smirk, and Erica, who wiggled her eyebrows at me.

‘Fuck off,’ I mouthed at all three of them, rolling my eyes.

That broke Kyla, who smirked fully, and Dani covered her mouth and laughed with her eyes.

Spencer broke off the hug, stepping back and shimmying her shoulders a little as she sighed and looked out of the big windows of the corridor into the outdoor gym and beyond. “Looks like it’s stopped raining?” she asked.

“It’s still wet, but it’s not falling from the sky,” Erica chuckled, shaking her head a little to show she was still bearing some rain from earlier.

“Cool,” Spencer said, then looked up into my eyes again. “Wanna go for a walk? Maybe give some of the ladies time to come up with awkward, probing questions?”

“Sure,” I said, trying not to hesitate too much in the middle of the word and give away that I had minor misgivings about being alone with Spencer right after whatever conversation she’d had with Kyla and Dani. But Spence was looking at me entirely innocently, and her smile at my agreement was as bright and innocent as ever.

“Cool, lemme go put on my boots instead of sneakers,” she said, and left to jog back towards the stairs.

“What am I walking into?” I asked my two pregnant partners and Dani as soon as Spencer was gone.

“Sounds like the forest, Harri,” Erica smirked.

That had me giving her a look.

“Nothing, Harri,” Kyla assured me. “You’re not walking into anything. Spencer just wants to spend time with you.”

“Just time?” I asked.

“Just time, Harri,” Dani chuckled. “Not everyone wants to pull you out into the woods and fuck you. Just a bunch of us.”

“Bitch, your fly is open and your crush is hanging out of it,” Erica chuckled.

“Oh, come on,” Dani scoffed playfully, her Australian-California Girl mix of an accent stretching her vowels out in that odd lilting way she spoke. “Harri’s hot as fuck, and he’s Harri. If I were single, of course I’d wanna bang him. But I’m not, so I obviously won’t, and that’s a decision made before the fact that I could fucking die a horrible, acid-y death from the experience.”

“Dani,” I groaned. “I appreciate the thought, but just so you know, that kinda thought does not help with my current-”

“Predatory Cum issues,” Kyla grinned.

“We are not calling it that,” I said firmly.

“Sorry, Harri,” Dani apologised. “I didn’t mean- You know what, I’ll just keep my yap shut.”

I groaned and pulled her into a side hug, which was the only kind of hug I trusted myself to give her at the moment. She returned it, laughing with my arm over her shoulder, and then stepped back.

Our conversation didn’t go any further as Spencer rounded the corner at the end of the corridor and came towards us, now clad in hiking boots to go with her bulky hoodie and workout tights. “Ready to go?” she asked.

“Sure, hon,” I said. “See you ladies in a bit? You might want to check on Josie and Aria in the cafeteria. I left them with Abi and Sara.”

My partners and Dani nodded me off, deciding to check in with the others like I’d suggested before deciding on anything else. I opened the door into the outdoor gym for Spencer and she murmured her thanks through a big grin as she stepped through.

“So,” I said as we crossed through the gym towards the parking lot. “How are you doing, Spence? Last time we chatted you were dealing with a lot of heavy stuff.”

Spencer let out a heavy huff of breath and shrugged as we hit the gravel of the parking lot. “I think I’m compartmentalising,” she said. “Or, my old therapist would say that’s what I’m doing, but I think I’m just trying to have a life without getting run over. You and all your drama make a pretty good distraction, though.”

“Me and my drama?” I asked with a chuckle.

She turned to me, still grinning. “Yeah, Harri,” she said. “You and your drama. What else do you want me to call it?”  

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m just not used to being a dramatic person.”

“Oh, that’s some bullshit,” Spencer said. “Every story I hear about you, every time you come back here, it’s all drama. I bet if I meet this ex-girlfriend-turned-current-girlfriend she’ll have stories of you being a huge drama magnet in high school, too.”

“Her name’s Kara,” I said. “And, ah, no comment.”

“I knew it,” Spencer said, scrunching up her nose at me as she kept grinning. Then she reached over and grabbed my hand comfortably a few steps from us getting onto the path up towards the Falls. “It’s OK,” she said. “It’s just part of your superhero-ness.”

“I’m not a superhero,” I sighed. “And I should have known you would circle back to that.”

“Of course I would,” she laughed. “I mean, you even have superpowers now!”

“I don’t have superpowers,” I argued. “I just- it’s not- I don’t have superpowers.”

“Just what someone with superpowers would say,” Spencer said, narrowing her eyes and tapping her temple with her other hand.

I knew what I was worrying was coming, on that walk. The fact that Spencer had taken my hand so casually and didn’t let go as we walked up the trail just spiked that worry a little bit more. I wasn’t sure what to expect, though - I suspected Spencer had a crush on me, but she hadn’t actually said anything about it. And, especially after my last visit and cuddling with her as she word-vomited processing her grief and frustration over the death of her father, I felt like maybe if she had been crushing on me, I’d safely transferred into more of a big brother or favourite uncle kind of safe mentor role for her. Not that my gut wanted that, but every sense of propriety did. She was too young for me. Hell, there were moments when I still felt like Kyla and Ivy were too young for me, but they carried the weight of their own lives and choices that added some maturity to them.

But then, Spencer had been through her own shit, too. So maybe I wasn’t giving her enough credit.

Or that was the devil living in my gut, and I had to tell him, ‘Not today, Satan’ every time he gave me the urge to turn and kiss Spencer as the start of doing unspeakably horny acts with her.

The thing was, for all my worries, and even for all my desires… nothing happened. We chatted and joked all the way up to the end of the trail at the Falls. Then we stood there, hand in hand, looking at the small waterfall. With the heavy cloud cover, the thunder eggs planted into the stone and earth behind it weren’t catching any light, but even just the natural beauty of the running water and the peaceful sounds all around us was a soothing balm.

We walked back slowly, her smaller but calloused hand in mine. Talking about nothing and everything, like we took walks like that all the time. And I started to wonder if maybe I should do walks like that more often. With her, yeah, but also with my partners. Back home. It was good to just connect, without distractions or sex on the mind, surrounded by nature and focused on each other.

“Thanks for coming with me, Harri,” Spencer said as we reached the bottom of the trail. She finally let go of my hand, but that was only so that she could wrap me up in another hug.

“Mmf,” I grunted, and hugged her back. “No thanks needed, hon,” I told her. “That was great. We need to do this more often.”

“Totally,” she agreed, hugging me tight with her cheek pressed against my chest.

We stood like that for a good minute or more, and I got the sense that she wanted to say something but held it back. And for once my gut wasn’t sure what it wanted me to do, because I was less sure than ever about what Spencer was thinking. Maybe I was out of the danger zone with her and firmly in a healthy friendship. Or maybe I wasn’t. Poking at whatever she was feeling in that moment would only give me answers I didn’t want, whichever way she went.

- - - - -

“Do you really want to know?” Kyla asked me.

We were in Leo’s car, which I’d borrowed for the trip over to the Falls so that we weren’t travelling with the Sheriff brand on us. The last thing we needed was someone associated with the assholes who ambushed us trailing us to the Falls. And then there was the fact that my truck was still spattered with bullet holes, and the back seat had Josie’s dried blood staining the seats and floorboard.

Erica had elected to stay back and continue her ‘crowd control’ with Josie, Aria and Dani, and Josie would drive everyone but Dani back home later, while Dani would sleep there and be joined by Kyla - who was looking forward to having her own room again for the night - and Leo. I wasn’t thrilled that Kyla wouldn’t be close by at night, but the situation was what it was.

Our short drive back home with just Kyla felt a little off, doing it in a car and not the truck, but otherwise it was good to just be with her for a minute.

Of course, we couldn’t just be together. There was way too much to talk about.

“Nyes,” I grumbled and blew out a breath.

“Nyes?” she asked. “Is that like Nyet?”

“It’s like No and Yes at the same time,” I said. 

“Oh,” she said, then snorted and smirked at me. I’d told her about the conversation I’d had with Rachel and Yvonne, partially to share what I’d learned about Leo’s likely future, and partially to keep her informed on the ‘What my Gut is telling me’ front. What I hadn’t purposefully done was provide a segue into talking about her conversations, and Erica’s.

“Just tell me if anyone is planning on jumping me, knocking me out and having their way with me,” I said, only half joking. There were several women at the Falls who could reasonably accomplish that task, with all their athletic training.

“No, no,” Kyla said. “Nothing like that.”

“Then I’m good,” I said.

“OK,” she agreed. “Then what’s really on your mind, dear?”

Sometimes I felt like she wasn’t just a trained spy, she was also a mindreader.

“We both need to talk to Ivy,” I said with a slight frown. “She had no idea about your background, and I think she managed not to let anyone else see it, but she was pretty upset when she found out.”

Kyla frowned as well, nodding slowly and looking out the window as we drove down the forest-lined highway. “About not telling her,” she guessed.

“Probably,” I said.

“Shit,” Kyla sighed. “I…should have seen that coming.”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” I grunted.

“I’ll handle it,” she said.

“We should talk to her,” I countered. “Both of us. We both didn’t tell her.”

“It wasn’t your secret to tell,” Kyla pointed out.

“She’s my partner,” I said. “And yours by team proxy. This is a We thing.”

“Fine,” she agreed after a moment. “But only because I can tell you won’t let me take this off your plate.”

“Like you would let me do that for you?” I pointed out.

“Touche,” Kyla said with a little smile.

I made a split-second decision and pulled off onto the shoulder of the road.

“What are you doing?” she asked, quickly glancing behind us in case I’d seen someone following our car, but nothing was back there.

“Something important,” I told her. “Come on.”

We took our firearms, and Kyla followed me from the car, over the ditch on the side of the road, and through the wet brush and into the forest proper. Once we were under the trees and out of sight of the highway, even if we would be able to hear any cars that passed, I unslung the MP5 from my shoulder and gestured for Kyla to hand me the M4, and I set both of them down carefully.

“What are we doing, Harri?” she asked me again.

I offered her both my hands, and she put her hands in mine lightly, looking up at me as her eyes softened a little.

“I’ve had a few reminders today that sometimes it’s good to be alone together in the woods,” I said. “And we’re together a lot, Kyla. You're my partner on this team, but you’ve also become my partner in so many other ways. I can see you looking for places to fit yourself in all the time. But one thing we don’t get nearly enough of is just a minute to… I just want to make out with you, darling. Like fucking teenagers. That’s what I want.”

“Like teenagers, hiding in the woods so we don’t get in trouble?” she grinned at me.

“Better than in the back seat of the car I borrowed from my buddy,” I pointed out, laughing softly. “I know it’s ridiculous, Kyla. But after the week we’ve had, and the month… I love you. And I know you know that, and we show it in so many more ways than we say it, but still. I love you, and I wanna kiss you like nothing else in the world matters.”

She looked up at me, her fingers curled in mine softly between us and holding on, and for a long moment, I was just looking at her, not all the things she built herself up to be. Not the things she was trained to be or do. Just her. Just Kyla.

“Then kiss me, Harri,” she said, letting go of my hands and reaching up to embrace me.

I kissed her. And it was a really fucking good kiss.

- - - - - 

We stopped by the ‘base’ on the base, checking in quickly with Miriam to let her know the progress we’d made on the Valkyrie Falls stuff. Laura was busy on a call, and I could hear her raised voice through the shut door of the RV, but I didn’t ask, and Miriam didn’t tell. She kissed me on the cheek before Kyla and I left, which was a little surprising since it was in front of a few of her staff, but then I wondered if maybe PDA was becoming more of a ‘thing’ with everyone under her command needing to be partnered up. How many of her Airmen and staffers were partnered together? And would they be assigned to the same locations from now on, since they had to fulfil their vaccine requirements regularly?

That also brought up the question of what would happen if Miriam or Laura got reassigned from the base to somewhere else - command of almost any other posting would likely be an upgrade, I guessed, but what would that mean for us? Usually, the military didn’t give a fuck where the spouse of an active duty service member wanted or ‘needed’ to be, but were things going to change now because of the vaccine?

There was no way I was going to get answers to those types of questions anytime soon.

After our fifteen minutes of making out in the post-rain forest, Kyla and I both felt like we needed to change, so we split up to do that before planning to rally up with Gerty and get to work.

I was just stripping off my boxers when there was a knock on the bedroom door in my RV, and Julia poked her head in. As soon as she saw my state of dress, she broke into a grin and slipped inside. “Well, hello there, soldier,” she said.

“Hey, babe,” I chuckled softly, going ahead with peeling my briefs the rest of the way off and kicking them up onto the bed.

“Fuck me,” Julia sighed, eyefucking me from head to toe as she leaned back against the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again, Harri. You were hot before the regen, but now? I mean, it’s just not fair.”

“Says the woman with the best ass in America,” I smirked at her as I pulled a new pair of underwear out of the wall cupboard where I kept some of my summer clothes.

“Damn straight, I say that,” she grinned. “I’d offer to give that python some lovin’, but I’ve been informed that others have plans for you today.”

“Erica and Josie, right?” I asked, pausing to let her get a bit more of an eyeful before I put on my fresh briefs.

“And Kyla,” Julia said.

“Really?” I asked in surprise. Why hadn’t she mentioned anything?

“That’s what I’ve been told,” Julia shrugged. “So - I mean, a little blowie wouldn’t hurt, right?”

“No, but it’ll make it hard for me to get dressed again,” I laughed as she grinned and made grabby hands towards my crotch. “What’s up? Did you just come in here to objectify me, or was something on your mind?”

“I can do two things at once,” she smirked. “But yeah, I did come looking for you when I heard you and Kyla were back. While you were gone I sat down and talked with Gerty about the whole Deputy thing.”

“OK,” I said, finally starting to put on my underwear. “And you have concerns?”

“I mean, yeah,” she shrugged. “At least by last year’s standards. This year? I mean, we’re calling you Cowboy for a reason, right? We’ve gone back two hundred years to the gold rush era, this is the wild west, and I guess you can deputise anyone you need to. But, basically, I’m in.”

“You’re in,” I repeated. “As in, you want to be a cop?”

“I want to be a deputy sheriff,” she said pointedly. “Your deputy. And I was being serious earlier, we can use my helicopter if we need it. You might be the only county sheriff in Oregon with your own air support.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the remote counties out east have their own helicopters, but the point stands,” I said. “And it is very appreciated.” Then I sat on the edge of the bed and sighed, gesturing for her to come to me. She did, and soon she was straddling my lap, sitting on her knees with them outside of my legs, her arms wrapped loosely over my shoulders. “Kyla and I have been… Look, we’ve both probably seen worse stuff while we were deployed, not to mention the raid where you were a complete badass. I’m not going to try and scare you off, but the day-to-day stuff is different than being over there. It feels different because it’s here. At home. If you do this, it’ll make you look at things differently. I never fully shook my MP training when I got out, but everything is dialled up to eleven now. You don’t need to expose yourself to that if you don’t want to.”

She was taking me seriously, and the look in her eye told me she was actually weighing what I was saying carefully. Then she finally shrugged and shook her head. “I can do the job,” she said. “I have the skills, and I have the tools, and I can handle the mental aspect. And there’s no fucking way I’m letting you assault a building without me at this point. We’re a team.”

“You’re sure?” I asked again.

“I’m sure, Sheriff,” she said, then sealed it a moment later with a firm, close-mouthed kiss. When she pulled back, she was grinning playfully. “So what’s it pay?”

I managed to keep her hands from wandering too low as I kissed her back, groaning as she thrust her hips against mine teasingly as we made out for a minute. Julia was like Erica in so many ways, just with different parts of her accented. She was a little more silly, a little more easy-going instead of an organiser, and a lot more used to violence in the way that only veterans who had been deployed into hot zones could be.

She ended up letting me up to get dressed when I stuck my tongue in her ear as she was trying to kiss her way down my chest, her squeal of surprise followed by her laughter making me think twice about the whole ‘getting to work’ because Julia was mine, and by God, I wanted to remind her just how good we were together.

Still, she backed off and watched me with a playful scowl as she worked a finger in her ear, and I pulled on a fresh pair of jeans and a pair of socks. I was reaching for a shirt when she sighed.

“What is it?” I asked with a chuckle.

“I mean, you don’t need to put on a shirt,” she smirked. “I don’t think anyone will argue with you giving us some eye candy.”

“Julia,” I said, pulling on the T-shirt. “That’s how we end up getting distracted. And I’d rather have a shirt on if we do some maintenance work on the-”

I intended to mention the firearms. We needed to give our regular carries a thorough workover, and I wanted to do a proper check on everything that we’d brought down from the Rez police station before we started gathering more. Making them all safe and cataloguing them was going to be a job in and of itself, and I was seriously considering asking if Dani wanted the job since she already knew firearms enough to do that.

My thoughts were interrupted, however, because as my head popped through the neck hole of my shirt, I found that while I’d put my shirt on, Julia had peeled hers off and was standing half naked, her boobs looking utterly suckable with her nipples already starting to stiffen up.

“Did you say something about distractions?” she asked me with an evil smirk.

“Everyone thinks Ivy is the troublemaker,” I sighed, standing up and rushing her, picking her up with my arms around and under her butt and lifting her high enough that she tipped over my shoulder, laughing in surprise. I turned and stepped to the bed, leaning over and dropping her onto it on her back, making her breasts bounce as she let her arms flop to the side. “I think you’re gonna give her a run for her money, though.”

Julia grinned up at me and shrugged. “I’ll give it my shot,” she said. Then closed her eyes and gave me a soft moan as I licked one of her nipples and then gave it a little suck. I followed that up by pulling away and giving the side of that same tit a little spank, making her suck in a breath and glare at me.

“Come on,” I said. “Work first, play later.”

“Don’t write checks you can’t cash, Cowboy,” she warned me.

I crawled up her a little more and leaned down to give her a kiss. “I’ll try my best,” I promised her. “But if my best isn’t good enough, I’m going to wake you up tomorrow morning.”

That got her eyebrows raising, and her pupils dilating a little. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “I did tell you about that little fetish, didn’t I?”

“You don’t want me to fuck you awake, then?” I asked with a smirk.

She shook her head, then nodded, then shook her head again, then scoffed. “I don’t know how to answer that,” she laughed. “Yes, please, fuck me awake tomorrow.”

“OK,” I said, then gave her another, sweet and short, kiss. “Now come on, Deputy. Let’s get to work. You, me, Kyla and Gerty have plans to make.”

“Sounds good, Cowboy,” she grinned. “Can’t wait.”