Page 45
As I worked to pull a few quotes from the fairy-tale book that, at that point, I refused to call Grimm’s. Such lovely things like, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit.”
“Ohhh, did you know there’s a copy of H. C. Anderson’s Little Mermaid where it wasn’t the thinly veiled allegory for wanting to shag his bestie?” Jess’s quip drew my attention.
“What?”
“Yeah, Ariel was a self-insert, and the prince was his best buddy and the whole fish out of water and stolen-voice thing was him confessing his forbidden love.” Jess giggled and bounced in her seat. I vaguely remembered something to that effect.
“How’d it work out?”
“Oh, totally missed the mark. Buddy was not interested in little Ariel at allllllll.” She shrugged.
Zeke strode through a little while later, gathering an armload of books from the dangerous returns rack that I had culled for him to deal with. “What’s up?”
“Lunch in five?” Jess peered up, and Zeke glanced from his armload of books to us.
“Sure. I’ll stow these away later.” He put the books back and dusted off his hands before strolling to the bathroom.
The door didn’t close, and he rummaged around a bit, sink running before he dried his hands on the ancient continuous towel roll. That telltale squeak made me want to snap and throw the remainder of my drink at him.
He really irritated me for a flash, and I shook my head.
“Hey, Jess. You, uh… Expecting?” Zeke gave Jess a weary glance, and I glanced over my shoulder.
She immediately perked up. “Do what?”
“There’s an um…test?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and I frowned as she blinked and rose, scooting off to check something.
“Ohhh, boy.” She laughed from the other room and brought back a chunky square of blue plastic with omegapos emblazoned on the side.
Zeke frowned.
“She was testing me for parasites and stuff from books.” I gave the thing in her hand an uneasy glance.
“Well. You have a parasite, it looks like!” She dropped the little thing that looked suspiciously like a pregnancy test with two blaring pink lines.
“Uh…” My stomach flipped as my ears rang. A whine like a mosquito punctuated the silence, Zeke’s voice as he put two and two together while I was still adding one and one.
I came up with three.
“Lex iiiiiisssss pregnant!” she squealed, and I snatched the thing up to stare at it.
“No!” The word cracked in my suddenly dry throat.
“Yep!” She kicked her feet and snickered.
“How do we—where did you?” I stared at the thing, mouth hanging open as I tried not to think about the device being coated in my pilfered piss.
“We went into that omegaverse novel earlier to get you some seltzer water, and I snagged a few of those.” She pointed at the thing. “You’ve been off, and I figured…”
“We—I was in heat and…” I covered my mouth as Zeke paled.
“Potentially we can go into another book and reset you to human with your gifts—but I’m not certain if it would remove the parasite or—I mean, when pregnant archivists go in, the baby is usually protected by instinct… But you’re male.” She pulled out a composition book and began writing out notes, pencil scratching loudly as she did so. “Or there’s another omegaverse novel we can go into, change things…”
“No,” Zeke spoke up, composure returning. “I—I mean.”
“I mean, if you’re all for having a baby, I’ll stick around for it, but I won’t force Lex to do this.” Jess gave Zeke a glare.
“There’s no way. I mean. This is fantasy. I’m not—” I stammered as Jess started talking about options.
