Growing Up – Part One



July 2024

Roman Bonacorrd is 29; Remus Bonacorrd is 32; Kyla Bonacorrd is 32; Krysti and Cole are 4; Brandon is 3.




“This place is awesome,” said Roman.  “Look at that view.  Look at that pool. It’s perfect.  You guys sure know how to pick a house!  Are you sure you wouldn’t change your mind about - ”
“No,”  said Remus firmly.  “And isn’t it time you stopped asking?  Now that you and Dee are living together...”

“We’re not living together!”  said Roman indignantly.  “We’re just… living together.  But not the way you make it sound.  We’re roommates because it makes sense under the circumstances.  Other than that, we’re both keeping our options open.”
“So you’re not sleeping with her any more?
“I didn’t say that, either.  That’s another option we’re keeping open.”


  “I don’t believe you two!  How can you ever be comfortable with – “  But he never finished the sentence.




Roman turned to Kyla.  “Is he still sicking up?”
“Yeah, “she said.  “I’ve been trying to get him to see a doctor, but – “
“Shit!  The doctor!”
“What?”




“The doctor!  What time is it?”
“Just after two.  Why?”
Shit!!” 



----

Kyla found Remus in the kitchen.  “I thought you said you were better,” she said.
“I am better,” he replied.  “Better than I was before, anyway.”
“Are you sure?  Because you don’t actually look better.”




“Come on, Kyla, I never said I was completely better… but I’m getting over it, really.  There’s nothing to worry about.”

But she did worry.  At first, they'd thought it was just something bad he’d eaten, but now she wasn’t so sure.  This had been going on for far too long.  Sure, he said that he was improving, but he’d said that about a week ago, too.  Then he’d tried to go back to work, and come home early, so sick and exhausted that he’d slept the rest of the day and night.  How could he expect her to not worry?




He'd been working from home as much has he was able.  They couldn’t afford for him to take a complete break, not with the mortgage they had now.  That was probably part of the reason he didn’t want to worry Kyla any more, but she’d seen him, doubled over with pain and nausea, when he thought she wasn’t looking.




She couldn’t blame him, though.  Not when she was playing the same game herself. 




She’d thought it was just stress, when the dizziness and nausea had started, but she was sure now that she had some milder version of whatever Remus had.  That was why she wasn’t convinced it was food poisoning – her symptoms had started several days after her husband, making it more likely that she had caught something from him.  She didn’t want to worry him any more, but she was watching their children, very closely.




The kids seemed fine, though, to Kyla’s great relief.




Krysti, their eldest by about 10 minutes, was the most independent of the three children.  She could entertain herself, alone in her room with her toys, for hours.




Her twin Cole, on the other hand, was hard to keep in any one room for more than a few minutes.  From the time he’d first learned to crawl, he was off in search of company and whatever adventure there was for a small boy to find in his home.




Brandon was the unpredictable one.  One moment, he could be sweet and loving…




… and the next, he could throw the kind of tantrum that would leave Kyla’s ears ringing for the next hour.

They were all growing up so fast.  It was hard to believe that the twins would start school in only six months.

---- 

They went to bed early that night.  Remus was more tired than he would admit, and really, so was she.  “Where did our babies go?” she asked him as they lay in bed.
“I was wondering that myself,” he said. “It feels like it’s only been a few months since the twins were born.”




“I know,” she said.  Then she laughed. “And what a mess of a night!  “Do you remember, we went out that evening… than you came home half-drunk, and then when everything started happening, the maid actually came out of Roman’s room to help… “
“Yeah… and now Roman’s going to be a father himself.  I don’t know how someone like him could even let that happen.”

“It’s not that difficult a mistake to make,” she said.  “You know that.  You know why I had to have my dress let out a week before the wedding.  It was so easy to get carried away in Granddad’s hot tub…  Roman would have been proud of you,” she teased.
“Don’t you ever tell him!” Remus said.  “He’d never let me – “ Then he sat up suddenly.  “Oh, hell, the wedding!”
“What?”
“Our wedding!  I mean, our anniversary.  It was our anniversary last month.  Our fifth anniversary… I completely forgot!”
‘So did I!” she said.  “God… like, five is supposed to be special or something… I just forgot all about it.”
They just sat for a while, thinking about it.




“Well… there has been a lot going on,” Remus offered.  “I mean, with your father, then moving house… and your brother’s wife getting pregnant again… “
“… and Roman and the baby, and then you sick… I thought things got better over time.  When’s it going to start getting better?”
“I think it already is,” he said, pulling her back into his arms.  “I mean, we’re settled in here now, the house is great… your father’s back home, Roman is coping with the idea of parenthood much better than I ever expected… everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see.”

Kyla lay awake long after Remus, trying to believe it.  She finally fell into a restless sleep, only to wake up again a couple of hours later.  Remus was gone from the bed, and somehow she knew that he had been for some time.
She found him sagged on the floor of the bathroom.  “Come on, get up,” she said, fighting to keep the fear out of her voice.  “You can’t stay here.” .




“I can’t get up,” he whispered.  “I just can’t.”
No, he couldn’t, Kyla could see that.  He could barely lift his head to answer her.  The house was warm, but when she touched his hand, she was shocked by how cold it was. 
“It’s ok,” she said, swallowing back her panic. “I’ll be back in a minute…”  as she ran to get a blanket, and the phone to call an ambulance.


----

I had a very different story to write for these two, then they both started with the nausea thing and I decided to go with it… Remus really did get worse because he went to work… I was watching Kyla and the kids and didn’t realise he was going until it was too late to stop him, and he came back sick enough to land himself in hospital via my random sickness roll.

This one took forever to write, mostly because 2/3 of the original update is now part of another update, thanks to my “great” idea to change the order I'm posting the story in.  I had to write this one almost from the beginning again, before I can get on to the stuff that was originally written for it.  Or to any of the other almost-finished ones I have in my drafts that were also originally supposed to come first. 

I stuck with it because I think the story works better this way than the way I’d originally planned, although it’ll be 3 or 4 updates before I can share my original plan and see if anyone reading it agrees :)

Comments

  1. Whoa, I really like your hospital rolls with your sickness, makes things a lot more realistic and scary.

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  2. Yes, you definitely know how to up the scariness factor!

    Gameplay wise, do you use the Realistic Sickness hack? I'm curious because you said you sent Remus to work and I'm pretty sure my Sims would die if I sent them to work sick with RS installed!

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  3. Apple, thanks - I like to make it a little bit scary for me as well... even if it is annoying to have to change my plans sometimes :

    Carla, I do have the Realistic Sickness hack - I think the only reason Remus survived going to work, was that he was almost cured before he left... which made it all the more annoying that he sneaked off/I didn't notice him going. The illness would have been a non-event otherwise.

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  4. Ha, making the update longer at the last minute, I do that ALL the time, lol! You know, the story does what it needs to do! ;)

    Eeek! I'm scared of your sickness rolls too! (Scared, but tempted to start using them myself because they're genius!) I hope he's going to be alright though.

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  5. I hope they both get better soon, taking care of 3 toddlers and being sick can never be easy.

    I like those hospitall rolls!

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  6. Thanks, Laura... I don't know about genius, though - more, born of the frustration of seeing sims go eat dinner five minutes after being saved from death. Now, instead, I'm just frustrated because sims roll major illnesses five minutes before I planned to do something else with them... :)

    Writing something like this is new to me, and I'm finding it an interesting process ... I had a nice reserve of already written updates when I started this so I could mess around a bit more without affecting my posting schedule, but now they're gone.

    I'm going on vacation soon and part of my plan, as strange as it sounds for a vacation, is to build up my blog reserve a bit again (well, it is winter here, have to have something to do for long dark evenings...).

    Tanja, yeah, the kids! After moving Roman out, I had to haul him back already to help with the kids!

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  7. I like the idea of a hospital roll with sickness. It makes it much more random and realistic.

    I think the safety of going to work and Realistic Sickness depends on what illness they get. I have had Sims go to work with the flu and not die. On the other hand I have had Sims go to work with a cold and drop dead right in front of the car pool.

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  8. Oasis, that sounds like it could be right - the different illnesses progress at different rates. Also it could depend on the job, as sim needs drop at work according to the type of job - for example comfort and energy would drop faster for a sim in the military, say, than someone like Remus in a desk job.

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