QT UK - Chapter 15 (Part 1, WIP)

As is often the case, this is coming to you a bit hot (and before the QT editors have cracked it into shape) to stop there being a delay getting it to you

28th October 2020

Tomorrow always comes after a happy ending.

The words drifted up from the back of Ethan’s mind as he stirred. It was something his first boss at the BBC News had been fond of saying, a reminder to the crew that it didn’t matter how well a broadcast had gone, the cycle didn’t stop and they’d still be back the next day having to work just as hard. Evidently he’d taken the phrase to heart enough for it to have stuck.

He felt the pleasing weight of her body, half on top of his own, before registering anything else - felt it shift against him with shallow breaths perfectly in time with his own, warm air blown softly against his chest. One of his arms was around her and he drew it tighter, content to lie there barely aware for as long as he was going to be allowed, only waking further with the dim realisation he didn’t know exactly how he’d got there.

The last he remembered, Aoife had been on top of him, her face bunched tight in the last moment before his climax had hit, his own eyes had closed, and something warm and wet had coated his thighs. Then nothing, just the familiar haze stretching out and only finally lifting now as he woke alongside her.

Someone had put a blanket over them both, something he discovered as he moved just enough to disturb it, leaving a cool draft to tease his side and rouse him enough to finally open his eyes. He peered past the splay of green hair that filled half of his vision, into the grey of the room illuminated by a single splinter of daylight light sneaking past the edge of one of the curtains and realised they were still in the cinema room; although not on the same sofa he was sure they’d been on before. Instead they’d been moved further back, to a different pair of couches that had been turned to face each other and pushed together in the approximation of a bed. Whoever had done that had also taken the care to clean the mess from his crotch, as well as gathered up the clothes that he and Aoife had discarded, folding them into two neat piles nearby.  Ethan began to sit, but a soft exhalation from alongside him sounded enough like a sigh to make him stop.

There was just enough light for him to see Aoife, although her face was half veiled by her hair, and he gently brushed it aside to look at her properly. Enough time had obviously passed that she’d stopped saying imprinting, but she didn’t move - although he could convince himself that the corner of her mouth quirked at the touch. He’d never seen her look this content, catching her without any of the frustrated energy he was so used to her carrying, and as he watched he realised how relaxed the knots under his own skin suddenly felt. The cliche would have been for things to not feel real, but he wasn’t sure if anything had felt more real in his life than the sense of her body against him and, after a few moments, it was more than Ethan could manage not to lean in and ease a kiss on her forehead. 

What sort of idiot would have risked losing this? 

He rested there with her a while longer, until the sounds of activity outside the window began to creep into focus and joined the questions he had; about how he’d seemed to have lost several hours and just who had found and tended to them. Even then he had to fight his reluctance to move for several stretched out minutes before leaning in and mumbling an explanation to the Scottish girl, just in case she could hear it.

“I’m going to find out what happened. Try not to get into too much trouble while I’m gone this time, ok?” 

Aoife didn’t move as he carefully lifted her off himself, but Ethan still did his best to remove himself from the blanket and scramble free of the pushed together sofas without disturbing her. He had to stop himself from standing and watching her a moment longer, heading instead for where his clothes waited nearby, newly aware that whoever had been here had seen (and left) them both nude. Pulling on his jeans after his boxers, he felt the telltale shape of his phone sitting in one pocket, and instinctively reached to check it, only to immediately curse himself for doing so. 

The clock said it was late afternoon, which meant he’d lost more than twelve hours since he’d paired with Aoife, and the volume of notifications and emails waiting for was ample proof of just how little the world cared to slow down and notice. He swore to himself and rubbed a hand across his face as the constant background flicker of stress returned. Rhys had attended the meeting with the foreign broadcasters in his place it seemed and a secure link to a server’s worth of footage from the Germans did its best to jump out at him, now Ethan’s responsibility to start wading through along with the rest of his back-logged schedule. At some point, he realised, he was going to actually need to focus on his job again. There were enough other questions lingering however that the first thing he did was to open his group chat, and looked to follow the trail of messages left there in the direction of wherever the others had ended up. 

Stepping back out into the corridor the sun was low enough through the windows to leave him blinking, and he traced his way back through Taymont, feeling like the building itself was watching him with a sort of detached indifference as he surfaced. At some point he pushed past the unmarked boundary between the quieter parts of the hotel no-one seemed to use, and the spaces used for production, emerging into the familiar background pattering of noise and occasional mask clad runners moving from office to studio. However it was the side of the building he made his way towards, through the exit reserved for transmission cables and headed for the terrace it opened out onto.

The smell of smoke from the grounds staff burning leaves lingered in the pale air as Ethan stepped outside, quickly noting that the Special Branch presence seemed to have dwindled to a single marked police car near the front of the building. It wasn’t hard to find at least three of his team members where their chat had suggested they would be. Days earlier, he’d requested to Pallisade’s site manager that they might be able to return some of the outdoor heaters and cushions that had been taken from the patio during the enhanced restrictions, looking for small things he could push through that would make a difference to the newly forming Teams. He hadn’t actually expected it to go anywhere, but then the sudden, uncommented appearance of several tall heaters that captured near-new furnishings in a pocket of red-tinged warmth was particularly on brand for site management’s sense of priorities. Jess and Alex sat together on a two seat sofa, the sisters inclined familiarly towards each other, with the sense that the only thing stopping the pair from leaning against each other was the presence of Moxie having curled herself up in the small space between them. The dog’s head rested against Jess’s leg, half-regarding the screen of one of the laptops the two redheads were using, with work on the project seemingly already insistent enough to be a feature of their downtime. 

Farah occupied an identical seat across from them, casually striking in a black leather jacket that Ethan was sure he’d previously seen Alex wearing, which might have begged more questions were it not for the fact that Sarah, the camera woman from Team Kaminski was there with her. The pair’s body language was similarly close, but with none of the familiarity of the McNamara sisters, instead replaced by a flirtatious intensity as Farah leaned forward towards the glasses wearing brunette, propped up against the back of the seat with one arm that was practically wrapped around the other woman. 

The four of them weren’t entirely alone, with a small group made up of researchers, editors and a make-up artist from both Teams Barclay and Kaminski having claimed the space beneath another heater a short distance away, giving the whole scene an odd sense of normalcy that hadn’t felt present for weeks. That alone was enough to briefly unbalance Ethan as he approached however, almost like he’d been stepped sideways as he slept, finding himself somewhere parallel where everything had been moved a couple of inches in different directions.

Moxie was the first to notice him, with a curious prick of the jack russell’s ears followed a second later by a short bark. Quickly, several sets of eyes were on him, although Ethan was grateful that the members of the other two teams did their best to keep things to an idle glance in his direction before returning to something a couple of them were watching on a phone. Sarah shifted with a subtle embarrassment away from Farah that went unnoticed by the other woman, with the presenter instead giving Ethan a broad smile. Meanwhile there was an unexpected, self-conscious fluster from Jess and the hint of a blush as the younger of the two sisters glanced away. 

Something tugged at the back of Ethan’s mind in response to the gesture - a compulsive little note that stirred, semi-erect, through the constant background hum of his libido and caused his attention to catch on her. He watched her bite her lip, and felt the unusually strong urge to go and kiss her, enough that even briefly he felt his questions and thoughts about Aoife slip. She hadn’t been dosed by him in several days and logically, he knew the serum would be making her feel the need, but, for an instant, it felt as if there was something in his mind alongside him driving him to feel it too. Telling him how hot and sore that need was.

Pressing.

Urgent.

Insistent.

…but it only lasted for as long as it took Alex to be the one to speak.

“So, what time do you call this?”

The older of the two McNamara’s words were filled with an increasingly familiar sarcasm, but he still had to blink the foreign sensation away before he could be sure who’s voice he’d heard. And it took him just a little too long to grasp at a response.

“Oh you know how it is. You hit snooze on your alarm a few times and suddenly it's the middle of the afternoon.” 

Evidently the quip was still hesitant enough for Sarah to feel in the way, and the camera woman awkwardly began mumbling her own excuses as she pulled herself from whatever was going on with Farah. She waved away the polite protests telling her she could stay if she wanted and made to leave, although not before Farah pulled her in close and whispered something in her ear. Whatever was said had earned Ethan’s partner a playful shove to the shoulder, leaving Farah grinning as the other woman slipped away. Again, Ethan’s mind slipped as it tried to find solid ground, and again, it was Alex that pulled him back.

“Are you ok?” Her voice had a genuine concern this time, and he realised how carefully she was watching him. 

Ethan took a second to find an answer, but a grin came with it as he did. “Yeah…I think I’m good. Just…” 

A sound came from a short distance away, before he could finish the thought - a rising moan that spilled out of the phone the group behind were clustered around. It was followed by several more, each more obviously pornographic than the last, although the women from the other Teams made no attempt to turn the volume down, or bothered to show any shame in whatever x-rated video they were watching. What was odder however was how Ethan’s own embarrassment didn’t surface. It wasn’t that it felt usual, but the emotions that should have told him it was unusual simply weren’t there. And even after a blonde haired editor from Team Barclay slipped her hands down her jeans, while casually talking to the woman next to her, he still found himself able to turn back to his own team, and finish his thought.

 “I just feel like there’s a few gaps and my head can’t quite catch up.”

He did, at least, manage to feel foolish for how understated that sounded.

There was a flicker of attention from the others in the direction of the sound too, although only Jess’ lingered for more of a moment,  causing her cheeks to colour further. Alex appeared to be too busy watching him, as if she’d not quite decided if his answer was enough to ease her concerns, while Farah just smirked.

“Did you miss Armstrong?” the Indian woman asked, with a relaxed stretch out into the space Sarah had left next to her. “She’s been checking on the pair of you a couple of times an hour since it became clear you weren’t going anywhere.”

“Must have done. I’ll admit to not being sure how we even ended up like that.”

“Evie was the one who ended up finding you both, after you weren’t answering any messages this morning.” Farah replied. “It was obvious that Aoife was in an imprinting sleep but you were even more of a dead weight than she was, so she came and got the rest of us to help. The pair of you had made a real mess of the sofa you were on but we couldn’t exactly move you back through the building like that either so the least we could do was to get you cleaned up and comfortable. I’m just jealous you didn’t make me squirt as hard as she obviously got to.”

“Seriously?” Alex quirked an eyebrow at Farah’s over-candidness, before seeming to catch how Ethan’s mind was still pulling at some of the implications of what had just been said. “Armstrong said that her best guess is that you’ve had one of these regenerations that have been talked about.”

It seemed as reasonable a conclusion as any. Ethan had seen some of the before and after footage from Veraxiontic of people in the US who’d supposedly recovered from significant health conditions after receiving the vaccine, with beneficiaries entering an unconscious state following pairing, similar to an imprint, as something triggered their bodies to heal. He’d become desensitised enough to feeling like science was suddenly being written by a sci-fi author to accept it himself but Project Upstart still hadn’t quite worked out how to present it to a  British public that were already going to be asked to accept that this wasn’t all a hoax without getting their heads around the impossibility of re-grown limbs and the blind being able to see. The more Ethan considered that that was what had happened to him however, the more his gut protested against the idea.

“But I’ve never had any health conditions to recover from. And I don’t feel any different.” Or at least no different to the changes he’d been noticing anyway such as his appetite slowly increasing, or the way the extra inch he’d been carrying around his waist had toned up in the days since things had started. It was possible there was something undiagnosed he didn’t know about, but that felt unsatisfying as an explanation, or address the new feeling in the back of his mind, straining against his self-restraint as he looked again towards Jess.

“Not a doctor, Ethan. She just said it was obviously a response to the vaccine so we should try not to worry.” Her tone however, suggested that they had worried, and Ethan watched as she quickly tried to shift the conversation before he could dwell on that. “How’s Aoife doing?”

“She’s still sleeping off the imprint.”

“Riiiight, because that’s what I meant.”

He caught Alex’s eye, and for a second Ethan could see something strained there, barely buried under the outward humour. It wasn’t just him that she had been concerned about. But then it wasn’t just Aoife who could say that she wasn’t part of the plan.

“She’s…finding some parts harder than others,” he settled on eventually. “I don’t know how easy it’s going to be for her to come to terms with a lot of what’s going on, or to find the answers she wants, but then maybe that’s not unreasonable of her. She can be stubborn, so I’m just glad she’s trusting me enough to help her through it.” Alex glanced down briefly, as he spoke, and he waited for her to look back and let him hold her gaze before continuing, his voice low but earnest. “I don’t think anyone should be made to feel like this is meant to be easy.”

Alex gave a weak smile and for once, he couldn’t tell how sarcastic she was being. “Lucky her.”  

He’d have pressed a little further, only for another, particularly loud moan to come from the other group’s phone, slicing through the atmosphere enough to cause Mox to give a confused little yap. Jess only fidgetted and blushed further, prompting Ethan to turn back to Farah in search of an explanation. 

She shrugged. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I think most people are at least a little bit horny most of the time now. I think some people have just decided it’s not worth dancing around the fact that everyone around them knows it too.” 

“There’s still a lot of people on site working on normal production who don’t know about the vaccine and Project Upstart though.”

“Actually, Delphi questionnaires went out to the rest of the staff this morning. Evie said something about management aiming to have the site fully vaccinated by the end of the week.”

Ethan paused, the news enough to briefly distract himself from picking at the odd sense of disinhibition around him. He was pleased, thrilled even; but the thought of the rest of the colleagues he’d arrived at Taymont with getting vaccinated, quickly stumbled over the realisation that he wouldn’t be able to ignore the gaps others had left for much longer either. Instead, he fought back a sigh, and gave a practiced step around the thought.

“Was that what was up with you and Sarah,” he asked, settling on returning to the topic, and received a half-proud grin from Farah.

“What can I say, she likes flirting, I really like attention and neither of us see the point in pretending we aren’t having fun.” As soon as she said it however, a note of hesitation seemed to finally catch up to her. “But there’s nothing more to it than that, promise.” 

Ethan closed the gap to where she was seated, brushing a hand through the side of her hair reassuringly before replying. “The fuck are you promising me that for? I like you Farah, but I don’t own you either. And you’d have far more reason to be upset at me than the other way around.”

He watched her relax. They’d never talked about exclusivity or commitment beyond the vaccine, but clearly there were enough guessed expectations that he made a note that they needed to. For a second, he wondered how much of an influence the serum might be having on how she was feeling and acting, whether she would have flirted quite so openly with Sarah before or if this was all new. But it was followed by the odd realisation that it almost didn’t matter. This was the only version of Farah he was ever going to know, and if this was out of character, he was never going to be able to understand what had changed. The same for Jess and Alex and for Nia.

But would he notice if Evie or Aoife were different? 

Next to him, he noticed that he was standing close enough to Jess for her breath to have hitched, the sound clear to him over the rest of the noise around them. He looked to her, felt the foreign feeling stir again, impressing on him how close she was to be able to reach out and touch, but she shook her head and he forced several steps back. 

Ethan breathed, and Jess did with him. “Where is Evie anyway?” 

“Some sort of crisis meeting apparently,” Farah replied, prompting Ethan to pull out his phone with a frown as he tried to work out if he’d missed a message about it. It was only when he checked the project’s electronic diary that he was able to see Evie’s name, booked in alongside Laura Cooper and Rhys, on a secure call to Westminster for the rest of the day. Both of the site’s government liaisons and their head journalist.

“Any idea what it’s about,” Ethan asked.

Alex shook her head. “Nia wasn’t invited either so it must not be to do with Upstart.” 

Ethan swore, more out of frustration for Evie than anything else, but not quite able to escape the feeling that something new was about to start looming unwelcome overhead, and intrusive thought that the police were suddenly absent because they were needed elsewhere.

“What about Nia then, where’s she?”

“Making some calls,” Alex said, the characteristic tone of her voice making it clear that her reply was dripping with understatement. “She went for a walk to the top end of the site a little while ago, said that she didn’t want to be in the office and the reception was better there.”

Ethan noted a hint of exasperation too, as the redhead spoke. Alex barely knew Nia, but it was obvious that she’d already decided no-one was about to stop the other woman from trying to fix the world on her own. Or maybe Alex had tried? Either way, the fact that Nia had presumably barely stopped was probably the least surprising thing he’d learnt since waking up, but still came with a prickly guilt that he hadn’t been there to make her slow down.

He wasn’t sure if he swore out loud the second time, or if it was just in his head. Whichever it was was enough to make Jess choose to speak, for the first time since he’d arrived. She looked down as she did, her voice carrying a certain pressured heaviness, stumbling her way through her words. Just like with Farah however, it was hard for him to know how much was some effect of the serum, and how much was Jess being Jess. “We felt bad that we weren’t helping them, but didn’t really know what to do either, so we agreed we’d help by making sure own our work’s taken care of. And being there to support the two of them when they need us.”

“Four of them,” her sister corrected, leaving Ethan to take a second to realise Alex meant himself and Aoife as well. Jess nodded, with a certain quiet enthusiasm showing through the strain.

For a short while longer, they made small talk, catching Ethan up a little further on what they’d heard about the rollout of the vaccine to the rest of the staff and the potential for more new people to be drafted in. Apparently the members of Project Upstart who’d been around long enough had already started betting pools on which of the old crew would end up together, as well as speculating about what would happen to Jon, their weather man who was just camp enough to leave people guessing about his sexuality. There was also the slightly uncomfortable mention from Farah that she’d heard they may be recruiting some new engineers, leaving Ethan with the uneasy thought of how much pressure Aoife was quickly going to find herself back under. In truth, for most of the conversation, he was eager to leave, wanting to find Nia and to start handling whatever issues his team was now left facing, but at the same time he didn’t want to immediately walk away from the three women in front of him. As much as he believed they’d understand, they’d been given less of him than he wanted and the least they deserved were a few more snatched minutes of his time. And even then, his focus was still blunted by the creeping sense of arousal he couldn’t entirely shake, struggling to listen through every little blush and murmur Jess made; until he was sure that somehow the pressure from the serum that had to be affecting her was working on him too.

Somehow, Ethan managed to keep his cool, pushing intrusive thoughts of the redhead’s lips on his own to one side, despite being aware of how his heart rate was increasing the longer he stayed near her. It was something that wasn’t helped by the sight of two of the women from Team Kaminski beginning to kiss each other, just over Jess’ shoulder, taking the display as a cue to go and look for Nia. It was all a touch more than he could bear. 

However, just before he managed to excuse himself, Alex decided to unintentionally make things worse.

“So, when are you going to show him your ‘thing?’” she asked, leaning towards her sister, teasing her with a joke that Ethan clearly wasn’t meant to understand yet.

“What? No! Alex!” Jess immediately flustered, suddenly sitting up straight enough that the laptop still resting on her knees almost fell to the floor and caused Moxie to hop down, the dog’s ears and tail both pricked upwards. “He’s probably got enough to worry about without…it’s not, he doesn’t need…I mean I will eventually, probably, definitely, I just need to…” With each blathered word Jess’s face progressively began to match the colour of her hair, only stopping when she finally caught up with herself and took a breath. Only then did her forehead crease into a frown, and she gave a glare at her sister that somehow managed to only make her look cuter. “You are such a bitch sometimes.”

Alex smirked. The reaction seemed to be exactly the one she was hoping for, and she fixed Jess with her grin, playfully daring her sister to keep going until Mox barked at her. Alex rolled her eyes and turned to the animal, talking to her as if she could understand sarcasm. “Right, don’t you start. This totally isn’t what she wanted to happen.”

“No it’s not,” Jess protested, but in doing so somehow only seemed to prove Alex’s assertion.

The odd sensation pulling at Ethan tightened. “Am I missing something here?”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Both sisters replied at once. Ethan managed a brief glance in Farah’s direction, finding her leaning forward in her own seat with an anticipation obvious enough to confirm that he was the only one without any idea of what they were talking about. Realising he was waiting for her help, she gave a small shrug. “Alex is being a little unfair, but on the other hand Jess was being a pretty massive dork when she was wondering how to tell you.” 

It took effort for Ethan to suppress a frustrated sigh. His body already felt more tense than he knew what to do with and he was eager to try and find some distance to let it settle, but he didn’t want to force Jess one way or another either. 

“I’ve time for you,” he said to her, carefully trying not to add to things, but he accidentally met Jess’ gaze as he did so and found himself held there, unable to look away. “But only if you actually want to tell me whatever it is now.”

The light from the heater caught Jess’ face as she shifted in her seat, the red glow and heavy shadows adding to the feeling of intensity that had been forced between the pair of them and left to hang there, warm and unnatural. She wavered, as if understanding that if she gave even a little of what she was holding back, neither of them might be able to stop, but not quite able to tell if she cared. Her fingers, looking to grip to whatever they could find, curled around the edges of her laptop, and Ethan realised that both of them were holding their breath.

Eventually, she managed to break the tension, glancing over her shoulder to confirm there were other people still around, and slowly shook her head.

“I do…but I don’t.”

“I can make some time for you properly after I’ve seen Nia,” he offered, realising how much it sounded like an open proposition. But then he supposed that’s exactly what it was.

Jess gave another small nod. “I think I’m going to really need that.”