Chapter Ten: Moving On
"OW! Crap, son of a bitch! Who's bright idea was it to move out in friggin' JANUARY?"
"Yours, dumbass."
"Oh, right."
Lana shook her head at Archer down on the sidewalk as she handed a large box labeled "Sterling: Bedroom, DO NOT OPEN! (this means YOU, Seamus!)" to one of the movers, who were loading the large semi-truck with everything from Archer's now-empty, infamous penthouse. Archer picked himself up from the icy concrete, rubbing his sore backside gingerly.
"It's weird moving out, Lana...hard to believe I've lived in this place for almost 20 years. Raised two and at least some of one of my kids here..."
He smiled to himself when he thought of the legions of women and prostitutes he had banged there over the years as well, but thought it wise not to mention that particular bit of his nostalgia with his 3-month pregnant fiancée.
Lana chuckled at Archer's attachment to his former home, and put a hand around Sterling's waist.
"Yeah, I know it's hard, honey."
Archer looked down at the front of his pants with an amused grin, pleasantly surprised...those were REALLY good memories.
"It actually is, Lana...see?"
Lana looked down to where he was pointing, and rolled her eyes.
"Put that away, idiot, I didn't mean you were hard...I'm gonna have to admit, though, there's a lot of memories attached to this place. It's still funny how Lewis took his first steps here, but Leon had his first steps at my place a few days later..."
Archer grinned, and drew his black wool scarf tighter, feeling a chilly draft as he watched the movers take his favorite chair up the ramp into the moving truck.
"Or how Leon said his first word, 'daddy', at my place but you heard it first because he called you 'daddy', but Lewis's first word was at Mother's house, and her and I heard it first. Heh, who would've guessed that his first word was going to be-"
Lana smacked her forehead, remembering something.
"SHIT!"
Archer looked at her curiously.
"Uh, yeah, duh Lana, we both know the story. Lewis wouldn't stop saying 'shit' for like two weeks, remember? Drove Mother insane, it was great! Every time 'Grandma' showed up to visit, little 1 year old Lewis plodded out, smiling, cute as hell, and chanting, 'shit shit, oh shit' while he pointed right at Mother's face! Ha ha...oh man, good times."
"No, not that, Archer...I just remembered, there's still a shit load of stuff in Orin and I's old place that hasn't been packed yet! Crap, guess that means the kids' pet salamanders are probably dead..."
Archer stuck his tongue out in disgust.
"Ew, why the hell would you let them have salamanders in the first place? Those slimy things smell worse than Pam's gross, crusty, old dild-OH, hey, guys! Uh, all packed up, ready to go?"
Leon, Lewis, and Seamus walked up to their parents, carrying their suitcases.
"Yes, we are all finished packing our things. But what is all the talk about dildo, hmm? Did, ah, Mom here, have malfunction with hers or something? I am, as you know, quite adept at electronics, dear mother, so if you let me take a look at-ow, ow, OW!"
Seamus's dirty rhetoric was cut short by Lana grabbing his ear with her gloved hand and twisting it upwards roughly, greatly amusing the twins and Archer.
"Shuddup, Joseph Mortimer Granville Junior. No, guys, I was talking about all the stuff still in my old apartment. Leon, Lewis, you remember your salamanders, Maverick and Goose?"
The twins' faces dropped, just then remembering their pets. Their lips began quivering, knowing what their mother was about to say.
"Well, after about four months alone without any heat, food or water, I'm really sorry to say, but there's a good chance that they're-"
Archer interjected quickly, and nudged his family towards his Dodge Charger in the car park below the building.
"-eager to see you guys again after such a long time! In fact, uh, let's go see them now, at their temporary home at the pet shop and pick them up before we head out to the new place out in Savona..."
As the three boys climbed into the back seat of the car and Archer put their suitcases in the trunk, Lana got into the passenger seat. When Archer got in and sat in the drivers seat, he couldn't help but notice her looking back at him with a befuddled look.
He leaned over and whispered into her ear, "For shit's sakes, Lana, these guys have been through enough death and other weird morbid shit for now, let's try to give them just a little bit of a break or else we might end up with three creepy militant goth kids...I'm sure as shit not raising that circus, not with all the guns and knives and shit we own between us. That's the groundwork for Columbine 2.0 if I've ever heard of one".
Lana just sighed and shut her eyes, too worn out to deal with the multitude of things wrong that he had just said. Archer leaned back into the drivers seat, started the car, and pulled out into the street, heading towards the nearby pet store.
Seamus sat between Leon and Lewis, happy to be going on a nice family outing. He had settled in to the daily routine of having a big breakfast, walking to school, working at ISIS for a few hours, then getting a ride home from Dr Krieger, having dinner, doing his homework, followed by chatting with Woodhouse as he helped him with the nightly chores, then a quick Russian language lesson with Leon and Lewis, followed by a few precious, uninterrupted minutes of talking with Archer and/or Lana after the twins go to bed, then 7 quiet, peaceful hours of sleep before repeating the whole process again the next day. It grounded him to reality, and, with every day that passed by that adhered to this schedule, his traumatic past pushed itself further out of his mind, making Seamus feel more and more like a normal 16-year old kid.
The twins, however, seemed to thrive on general chaos and disarray, yet were so dependent on a few odd, consistent things. Seamus was positive that they'd completely derail in mere days if they were separated from said things. For instance, the innocuous act of Lana (who was carrying their unborn sibling and recovering from a near-fatal gunshot wound) moving in with them for a couple weeks after her hospital stay aggravated Leon's claustrophobia to the point that Archer had to cancel all other plans to take Leon out for a 4-day backpacking trip up in the Catskills in the dead of winter to calm him down enough just to make grades in school to pass that semester.
On the other hand, Seamus had been locked away in a steel footlocker that has been tossed in a bathtub filled half-way with ice water when he was only six years old, and had an extra day tacked on every time he cried, whimpered, or made a sound beyond answering his commander, totaling, at the end of it, nearly a week locked inside that tiny footlocker...and Seamus felt much more comfortable in small spaces than Leon, even though Leon was trapped in a much larger, much less-confining car trunk, and for fewer days than him, and he even had his brother to keep him company! Such luxury! And he always got perfect marks on his report card without needing a camping trip...so why would Leon need a vacation just to do the bare minimum of what was expected of him?
These contradictory things confused Seamus to no end, but he still accepted his strange little brothers lovingly, no matter how much they confused him.
"So, ah...are we going to see the der'mo out of some dried up dead salamander, or what, eh guys?"
The twins started crying loudly on either side of him, much to Seamus's great confusion and his adoptive parents' frustration.
Archer gently banged his forehead on the steering wheel as they sat at the red light, only a block away from the pet store.
"Goddammit, Seamus..."
Seamus frowned and patted the twins' backs, sorry for making his brothers upset, but all the more confused as to why they were upset at all...he had thought that seeing a couple of dried up little lizards would've been fun. He sighed, pulled out his flask full of vodka, and took a couple of stealthy sips as the tiny whirlwind of chaos unfolded around him, unsettling his comfortable routine.
Archer sped past the pet shop, and headed straight out of town west, towards their new, secluded, custom-built mansion on the outskirts of Savona, NY, four hours away from the heart of Manhattan.
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin
"EDIE! YOU TRIFLIN' BITCH! Where'd you put my stupid...whatever, stomach-squeezer thingie?!"
Pam yelled out to her sister down the hallway of their father's farmhouse. She and Krieger were visiting Poovey Farms to introduce him to her family, and to announce their engagement when the rest of the Pooveys arrived the next day.
"DIDJA CHECK UP YER FAT ASS, SPAMELA?!"
Pam audibly growled in frustration at her sister's cruelty; she had hoped that a couple decades apart would've cultivated at least a shred of kindness in Edie, but, if anything, she had become meaner since Pam left Poovey Farms for college years ago.
"Yeah, well...maybe yer skinny ass needs a whoopin' so you remember who the hell is the big sister around here!"
"HA! I DON'T NEED ANYTHING BUT FUNCTIONAL EYES TO REMEMBER THAT, LARD-O-LAKES!"
Pam growled out loud again to Edie, went back into her old bedroom, and slammed the door shut.
Krieger, who had been sitting on the bed in his boxers the whole time, twiddled his thumbs nervously as he looked around Pam's old room.
Pam sat down next to him as she pulled her "3 Babou moon" t-shirt over her head, getting ready for bed.
"Why ya look so sketchy, Al? Dad seemed to liked you...shit, even Edie wouldn't stop eye-banging ya all throughout dinner, and trust me, that's the closest you'll ever get to a compliment from her. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll all be happy to hear about our engagement when everyone else arrives tomorrow, all right?"
Krieger looked at Pam with a strained smile, his face sweaty and flushed. Pam was genuinely worried now.
"Woah, what the shit is going on with your face? You look like you're either shitting, dying, or coming..."
Finally, the scientist released the deep breath he had been holding for the past several minutes.
"Pam I'm sterile and I can't give you children like other guys because apparently I really am a clone and so I'm shitty and terrible and awful and you might as well go marry someone else with functional seed and have a bunch of babies before it's too late and you wind up cold, alone, and dead, just like my non-existent sperm count that I just looked at a few minutes ago on that microscope!"
Pam glanced over to her old microscope set on the floor, which was covered in lukewarm semen.
"Ew...well, it's not the first time it's had that much splooge on there..."
She sighed and wrapped her arm over her fiancée's shoulders as he hyperventilated, holding him tightly.
"Oh, Krieger, relax, c'mon, shh. Listen, I don't think I've ever told this to anyone, but I don't want kids. Ever! Babies are cool and all, but I sure as shit don't wanna have one of my own weighing me down, especially with all of my hobbies...plus kids are just way too much responsibility..."
Krieger sniffed and looked up to Pam, his bright green eyes hopeful.
"Really? So you don't care if I'm only half a man?"
He spread his legs open and scowled at his lap as he raised a small rubber mallet in his hand, threatening to smash his own genitals.
Pam grabbed Krieger's wrist gently and raised it above his head as she smiled coyly, pushing his back against the mattress as she straddled his lap.
"Al, you're all man to me. The fact you're firing blanks means we can actually go bareback from on, so that's definitely a plus..."
Pam kissed him deeply, and he dropped the hammer behind the bed with a loud "thud" on the wooden floor as he returned his fiancée's affections.
As they made love, he was still surprised that the perfect woman for him was someone who he had worked with daily for years. She was more perfect for him than a line of code he had written to design a prefect woman in digital form...but, nothing beats analogue.
"HEY QUIT MOVING THE FURNITURE UP THERE! I'M TRYING TO SLEEP, KIDDO!"
Edie could be heard snickering loudly from down the hall at their father's remark over the loud squeaking of Pam's old bedframe.
Neither Pam or Krieger heard or cared; their happiness was far too distracting.
Somewhere Along I-80
Woodhouse sat in the large dog crate Archer and the twins had shoved him into when Seamus and Lana weren't looking, and sighed miserably, shaking his head at Bartleby sleeping soundly in the cage beside him in the back of the moving truck.
"They could've at least changed the newspaper in here for me like they did for you, you know..."
Bartleby lifted his head, yawned, and turned his back to Woodhouse.
"Oh."
The valet went back to hugging his bony knees to his chest, trying to stay warm in the flimsy crate; he would have to tell Seamus about it later when they all arrived at their new house.