Disclaimer: Blah blah blah, enjoy the show.
Some, ah, gore. Prepare.

Six Seeds
by Mice

-Prologue-

One day, Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, was outside painting flowers. She came upon a particularly ugly flower that she couldn't paint and decided that it should come out. With one mighty tug with her small, delicate body, she pulled up the plant and a large hole. A hole so large that out sprang the chariot of Hades, god of the underworld. So taken by her childlike visage and charms, he raped and abducted her to his kingdom below the earth.

Upon not finding her child anywhere on earth, Demeter appealed to Zeus for help, but her cries fell upon deaf ears for Hades had gotten to him and bribed him first. Scorned, Demeter froze the earth for no sunshine would appear where her daughter was not.

Noticing that nothing was flourishing after a time, Zeus sent Hermes down to the underworld to retrieve his daughter and return her to her mother.

However, there was a glitch.

(From the journal of Madeline Bass)

April 15th, 1968

Today, a ballet dancer came to the hospital with a sprained ankle. She's very tiny and reminds me of me at age eighteen, before I fractured my left leg. Jacqueline is very optimistic about her own recovery - she says that it happens every once and a while and she's always bounced back.

Also today, we took in another patient. He's being treated for his heart condition. I'm going to sound very corny here, but he's caused a heart condition in me. I'm smitten. He's very handsome and very strong. Actually, I'm not the only one taken with him...Marti is, too. I know that I'm not in the shape I was in two years ago, but I'm still my mother's daughter...

Annie woke up from her check up with Dr. Emily Clay-Poole. "Is everything all right?"

Emily grinned. "Everything is healing wonderfully, Annie. Have you noticed any difference?"

"Well, of course! The numbness is gone, my knee joint doesn't feel like it's swollen shut on rainy days...it feels just like it did."

Emily blinked as she took off her gloves. "Excellent, then. If there's nothing else, Annie-"

"There is one thing...it's been over a month and, uhm...I feel really awkward saying this, Dr. Clay-Poole..."

"Don't be nervous, Annie. You're my patient and if there is something wrong, it is my duty to fix it."

"It's been over a month and I haven't had my period yet."

Emily smiled. "You're probably just nervous about your new life, having new options..." Emily let that sentence hang in the air, choosing that exact moment to look her patient in the eye. "it could be quite overwhelming."

"No, I'm all right. I've never been the stress or anxiety type..." Except now, Annie thought silently as she looked away from the doctor's eyes. There was a Pandora's Box inside Annie that she definitely did not want Emily to find the key to.

"Don't dismiss the conclusion. Do you use birth control pills?"

"I'm celibate at the moment."

"Could you be pregnant?"

Annie shook her head hard as she went over to put back on her green t-shirt and khaki pants. "I just said I was celibate!"

"Then don't dismiss stress. You sound very excitable right now, Annie...would you like me to prescribe something to help calm you down?"

She shook her head again, gently, and put her clothes down. The last thing she needed was a potentially suspicious girlfriend medicating her. "Maybe we should schedule a pregnancy test...just in case..."

April 27th

I asked William out yesterday. I was so tired of dropping hints and flirting and never knowing what was going on through his head that I just asked him out.

Then he asked if he could have a second helping of pudding.

When I came back he said that he was flattered, but he felt that we didn't have anything in common. Even after all our talks about music and books, he felt we had nothing in common.

We both saw the same thing in Catcher in the Rye and he feels we have nothing in common.

Today, when I came in, he was talking to Jacqueline, the ballet dancer. She came back for a check up and to see me. She found William instead. William asked her out. She said she had to check.

I feel sick.

The drive up his parents street was a slow parade of a very morose Bobby Drake. He looked at the kids who were playing freely in the yard and growled as he thought, What right do they have?

As he turned off his car and walked up the walk, he stopped and stared at the oak tree right in front of his parent's window, where Annie knew it to be. He bit his lip until he found a salty patch as he wished he could have asked Annie to come with him, awkwardness aside.

"Robert?"

Bobby's head lifted up to see his father in the doorway. He was wearing jeans. William Drake did not wear jeans. He also didn't wear Birkenstocks.

"...Dad?"

"I'm out of clean clothes. I don't feel like washing them."

"But the sandals..."

William held up a hand to quiet his son's questions. "I don't particularly care for the feeling of sweat piling up in my loafers."

Bobby nodded, wondering if those were his Birkenstocks.

"What in the hell is on your head?"

"It's a beret."

"Why is it on your head?"

Bobby began to growl. "Look, Dad, do we have to have this conversation?"

"It's better than the one we could be having!"

"But I want to talk about it, Dad! I want to talk about her to someone who knew her like I did!"

"Don't look to your father for someone who knew your mother, Bobby." Jacob Bass walked up with Harpo Lubbock. "Nobody knew her like I did, Bobby. Not you, your father, or even your Nan."

William's eyes squished together in a desperate attempt to blink his brother-in-law out. "You arrogant little-"

With that, the man formerly known by all who loved and teased him as Weenie Man, punched William.

April 31st

If it weren't for Jacob, I don't know where I'd be.

Sometimes at night, in our apartment, we talk until the morning and wish such silly things that we weren't just brother and sister, that we were twins and connected from the very beginning.

Jacob says that William is an idiot for turning me down. I told him about how I saw how he looked at Jacqueline and how he didn't look at me. I told him about how disgusted with myself I am.

Jacob kissed my head and held me as I cried. I don't know what I'd do without Jacob. Life without Jacob would be unbearable; I'd have no one to put band aids on all of my cuts and scrapes, both metaphorically and physically.

Emily let the ladle slowly pour out the soup into the ivory white bowl. Hank sniffed at it; wondering what could have happened to make Emily stray from her normal macrobiotic diet. This soup had unusual bits of flesh in it that Hank wasn't quite sure if he had ever seen before in his life.

Emily caught his eye. "It's monkey brains soup, Henry. It's a delicacy as well as an aphrodisiac."

Hank blushed internally at that. Sex was not something he cared to think about at this moment.

"Go on, Henry. Eat up." Emily smiled at him with an expression that was trying desperately to be warm and affectionate.

As the spoon broke the surface of the broth, Hank thought carefully about his words. His relationship with Emily couldn't possibly continue. He had only flirted to get what he wanted, and that was happiness for his student. Somehow, he had gotten a girlfriend with the charisma of Melba toast and a night of what could have been incredible bliss with someone whom he never thought could hold his attention. Not seriously, anyway.

Some of the broth caught on the fur surrounding his lips and Emily was quick to blot it out with a linen napkin.

Just what was missed with Annie? A drunken tryst? A possible sweeping romance? Such possibilities seemed silly to him now. The truth was that he tried to take advantage of her. He knew - at least on some level - that she had feelings for him, and he had tried to exploit that to make him feel like a man -- like a better man. And the only thing that came out of it was two weeks full of tension between them. Xavier had been asking about her progress -- still wary of the newest pupil at the school. Hank had promised Charles that he would be solely responsible for Annie while she studied there and how there were great things in her that would be an asset to the team.

Jean was now trying to get Annie expelled. Annie wasn't fighting it.

Emily broke his thoughts with a small cough. She demanded a compliment on the food.

"It's very tasty, Emily. Thank you."

May 5th

It's disgusting what you will do to prove a point.

I told Jacob that if I lost fifteen pounds and got my figure back, William would ask me out. He said that if William did, he was a jerk. I said that this would just highlight that and nobody in the hospital would ever be kind to him again. I told him that it was enough incentive to me.

Jacob wasn't as quick to put his support behind me. He said that I should lose the weight for myself and not just to prove some point. But he does support me. He knows how badly I want to do this and that I don't want anyone to tell me no.

My brother has never told me no. I love him for that.

He's also very happy since I introduced him to Jacqueline. They're going out on their third date in a week tonight.

I started my "diet" while he was out on their first date. It's pretty sick, but when I was still a dancer, it worked for the girls who had trouble keeping their weight down.

I have never had to keep my weight down, so I never did it until that night. It's funny; throwing up always seems so easy when you are carsick. I kneeled there, over the toilet for over five minutes, playing with my uvula with my index finger, but it was the smell of bleach, urine and shit in the toilet that was more effective. But not sick enough to throw up.

That's when I saw my toothbrush by the sink. It was much longer and I wouldn't have to feel my finger getting slimy with spit every time I tried. It worked. I didn't throw up much, but I guess it's something you have to work at. Like dancing en pointe; it's something you work up to. Maybe also because I waited too long after I ate. It seems the sooner I throw up after I eat, more stuff comes up.

I've already lost seven pounds. At this rate, I could even get to be 115lb by June!

The results came back. Dr. Clay-Poole was fast, if not wrong.

Annie stared at her stomach. She knew she wasn't pregnant. She was thinner now than she was a month ago, before anything happened with Bobby, before anything that had maybe happened with Hank.

And her body told her that it was just wrong.

Tired from the confusion, Annie knocked on the door of the only person who could help her.

Some people have chocolate cravings. Other have the need to have macadamia nut brittle ice cream at three a.m. in the morning or else the world will cease to exist. The only reason Annie could think of as to why she absolutely had to see Bobby was that he was her macadamia nut brittle ice cream.

"I'm grooming!" a voiced answered.

"Please, Warren, it's important. I need to know where Bobby is."

With that, the door swung open. "You don't deserve to know where Bobby is."

Annie rolled her eyes. "I know about the pool you guys have going on about me, Bobby, and Hank. I know that you have a lot riding on the me and Bobby odds."

Warren shrugged. She had a point. "He's in Long Island."

"I need to be there."

"When?"

"Now."

"Are you winning me the big money, Annie?" Warren allowed himself to smile. More for the prospect of Annie making up with Bobby and making his best friend a happy man again than for anything he bet. "

I just need some macadamia nut brittle ice cream..."

May 10th

...why am I so nauseous all the time? When I eat, when I don't eat, when I sit up, when I sleep, I'm so nauseous...

Jacob and William were arguing in the living room. This is why Harpo and Bobby were in the kitchen eating cookies Madeline had made before.

"These are amazing."

Bobby nodded knowingly. "Yeah."

"Is it the nutmeg or the ginger that gives them that--"

"You know, I've never been sure...I've always thought she put in a dash of cloves--"

"Ah can taste something like that!"

"But no one has been able to figure out how she does it. Not even my Nan, though Lord, she has tried."

"Wow." It was the only proper homage Harpo could give.

Bobby cleared his throat and went to the refrigerator for something to drink. "So, you're dating Jubilee..."

"Well, yes, sir."

"Don't call me sir."

"Okay, Bobby."

"And don't call me Bobby."

"Mr. Drake?"

"I don't like that, either."

"Robert?"

"Too plain."

"Sir Robert?"

"Doesn't offend me. Let's do it."

Harpo nodded. "Sir Robert, then."

Bobby poured himself some ice tea from the fridge, or what he thought could be ice tea. If his father could run out of clean clothes in ten hours, then who knows what else could go wrong. "What are your intentions towards my sparkler?"

"Nothing but the purest kind."

Bobby scoffed. "Good luck, kid. Good luck."

"Excuse me?"

"I had pure intentions once, Harpo. Beautiful, ivory intentions. I once saw a woman I fantasized having children with. I actually fantasized about having children with a woman!"

"That's the traditional way of doing it."

"Do you know what she did to me, Harpo? After I made love to her in a way that would make Lord Byron arise from the dead just so he could write about it? Told her I loved her?"

"Did she spurn you, Sir Robert?"

"She went after my best friend after breaking up with me!" Bobby held up his hand. "Do you know what I did with her with this hand?"

Harpo panicked -- forgetting for a split second that he was an empath and knew perfectly well that Bobby Drake meant that he had caressed his lady's face with extreme gentleness and passion that he never thought he could possess, but the only thing that stood out in Harpo's mind was that Bobby's code name was the Iceman, and he once saw a porn where they had used ice.

Lord, did they use ice.

So the only thing Harpo could say to counteract this sudden appearance of frozen fondling in his mind was to blurt out, "Ah'm a champion ballroom dancer and Ah have pretty hair!"

This first impressed Bobby, then annoyed him. Finally, he settled for confused. "How does this tie into me and my passion for Annie?"

"It doesn't...really...but, Ah had this nasty flash in mah head when you held up your hand, and you're the Iceman--"

"You saw the porn with the ice--"

"Yeah! And while it was pretty interesting, you don't want to imagine your cousin--"

"--Doing what they did with ice--"

"Yeah!"

"...LORD, what they did with that ice." Bobby concluded. For a moment, Bobby looked at Harpo. "You look a lot like him."

"Who?"

"Cliff." Bobby began to smile. "You are mellow, just like he was."

Harpo nodded slowly, intrigued by his cousins that he had never met. "What about Holland?"

"That's a question scientists have been wanting to know for centuries."

July 15th

William just told me that he loves me! I don't know when I've felt so happy!

Jacob gently sat the ice on William's eye, which William smirked at.

"You have a good swing there, Jacob."

"Well, you make an incredibly soft punching bag, William."

William and Jacob continued to glare at each other until the mantle clock's second hand had revolved four times around the clock face. Jacob wanted to give William another black eye to match his other. It was something Jacob had wanted to do ever since he and Maddie had begun to date. The only reason he had resisted for so long was that Maddie had made him promise her that he wouldn't and it was important for Maddie to have someone who wouldn't tell her no. It didn't stop Jacob from having held that William Drake was the biggest hypocrite he had ever met and marrying his sister had proved that. He was sexist, racist, and more Catholic than the Pope.

As much as he hated to admit it, with the death of his sister, Jacob Bass had finally achieved one of his life long goals.

William cleared his throat uncomfortably, searching for something to bring out the mollified Jacob that used to live right around the corner who spent fifteen minutes and two antacid tablets picking out his tie. "Remember that barbeque we had for your parents' fortieth anniversary? That was something."

"Remember when you slept with my wife and cheated on your wife who was my sister? Now that was something."

William promptly shut up and refrained from adding anything else.

"How much of an idiot do you take me for, William?"

"She slept around before-"

"So did I." Jacob smiled as he saw the stunned expression on his brother in-law's face. "With her sister. In fact, it was the one that didn't want to sleep with you."

William's shocked face twisted into contempt. "Who are you talking about?" He knew. And he hated it.

"Jacqueline Lubbock. The dancer." He gingerly tapped his knee as he talked, to help alleviate any of the discomfort that he was beginning to feel. The last thing he needed while confronting his brother in-law was to throw up. "You remember Holl's twin sisters, Julia and Jacqueline."

William shrugged. "Hollis didn't like them very much, as I recall."

"They were a bit different from the others, for sure. When they turned eighteen, they messed up their family's five generation monogram."

William gave a nod as he remembered Hollis talking about her "deplorable" little sisters, Holda and Hilda. He thought the name changes were for the better, but he never told her that.

"Harpo over there is Julia's." Jacob grinned as he laid out his cards. "He's mine, too. You're not the only one who can knock them up, William. Did you ever tell Maddie about that?"

"Yes." She hadn't told him.

"I know you, William. Unfortunately, I know you." Jacob looked over to the kitchen where his youngest son and his only nephew were talking. Jacob could sense them bonding, being his mother's child. People used to say that the Bass family was a bit peculiar, and it was true. He came from one of the oldest established family of empaths in modern history. He had it, his mother had it, Maddie had it. His son Harpo had it in overwhelming spades. And it was because of all this, Jacob knew William. He spent the past thirty plus years sensing William's treachery against his sister. It was enough to turn him into an ill man. "William, did you ever tell her about you and Hollis when she was awake?"

He shook his head no.

"Did you think she never knew?"

"She couldn't have."

"Maddie knew everything."

"Oh."

"And she stayed with you."

"Oh."

"She put up with you all these years, stood there as you made fun of your own son, knowing that you had another, trying to please you for almost forty years-" Jacob bit his lip as his nausea acted up, a bile tasting reminder of what this man had caused his sister to do. "And you never gave a damn about her. You just treated her like a kitchen appliance. Not anymore, William. You don't get that right anymore."

"I know what I did to Maddie was disgusting, Jacob," William began to defend himself, upset that he had let him get this far without sticking up for himself, "and I'd do anything to take it back-"

"It's not just about what you did to Maddie, you ignorant prick! You knocked up my wife who left my children! You try telling two children that their mother never really cared and try being everything so they won't miss her!" Jacob took a deep breath. He could feel his lunch in his throat. "And it's about what you did to Maddie. What you didn't know."

"What, Maddie cheated on me? Great family you guys have, great family."

Jacob shook his head, enraged that his brother in-law didn‘t get it. "Why did you go out with my sister? Why did you ever have to ask her out?"

"She was pretty-"

"She was always pretty. And then-" Jacob put a hand to his mouth. "Excuse me."

William began to smile at the reemergence of his brother in-law as Jacob made his way to the bathroom. Seeing William's smile reflected in a picture frame, he head for his bedroom and threw up in William's best pair of shoes.

I may have problems with confrontations, Jacob thought as he spied a pair of well-tailored slacks on his second wave of nausea, but I'm nobody's weenie. Not anymore.

Oblivious, William made his way into the kitchen where his eyes were treated to his son and Harpo doing the Fox Trot with Harpo leading.

"Goddamn it, Jacob, you're not here for half an hour and you made my boy and your boy faggots! Incestuous faggots, fantastic! We‘re all going to hell!"

Just then, a dark shadow loomed over the Drake house.

August 11th

I feel so stupid! To help with my weight loss, I tried not eating all day...okay, three days. So when William took me to meet his parents and his father held his hand out to shake it, I passed out! Luckily, William thinks he needs to take care of me that much more. That I'm okay with.

Four men stood in the kitchen, each a little afraid of what was going to happen next.

A meek knock was heard in the dead silence of the kitchen. Only Bobby was brave enough to answer, though only in a high castrati voice. "Who is it?"

"Bobby? It's Annie...is this a bad time?"

Bobby thought for a moment. If this was Armageddon, he would like to be with Annie. "It's okay. Come in--wait! Is there an angel of death out there with you?"

After a slight mumble that no one could make out, Annie answered back. "Warren says he doesn't do that anymore."

Bobby took a moment to feel stupid. "Okay, come in."

Warren strutted his way inside, eager to make fun of his friend. "Bobby, how many times have you flown in the Blackbird?"

"Warren, how many times have I been outside the Blackbird when it's hovering outside my childhood home! It's pretty damn creepy! No wonder people are always screaming!" Bobby popped his head outside. "Jesus, Warren, it's still hovering! Who's piloting that thing? Could you tell them to go away and to stop scaring people? Could you tell them to do that?"

Warren looked around inside the darkened Drake house. It did have a creepy feeling about it, and it caused him to shiver.

"See, you think it's creepy, too!"

"Do not!"

"Then what was that shiver for!"

"I was getting my groove on."

"You don't have a groove!"

Warren sniffed at the air, not liking being challenged like this. "I do not need to be accused of anything here. I selflessly came here to drop Annie off because she needed to be here. My work is done." With that, Warren spun around and began to exit the Drake home, but not before Harpo spoke up.

"Wait, you're Warren Worthington, the III!"

Warren grinned. "Yes I am."

"You de-pantsed me at a barbeque our families once had together."

"I de-pantsed many, lad. So I'm sure I did." With that, Warren and the Blackbird made their exit and Annie made her entrance.

William was the first to speak. "Who are you?"

"Dad, this is Annie. Annie, my dad."

Annie simply waved to his father, not wanting to shake his hand after knowing what type of man he was.

Bobby led Annie upstairs and inside his room where he sat her on the bed. "Are you all right?"

She shook her head.

"Did you already talk to Hank about this?"

Annie shook her head again.

Bobby pointed to the patch of bed beside her. "Would you mind if I sat there?"

Annie looked up at him wordlessly. He sat. She immediately put her head on his shoulder and began to sob.

"What's wrong?" Bobby had a good guess that she just didn't miss him that much.

"I'm pregnant."

Bobby felt an anvil drop in his stomach.

"Is it mine?"

Annie tried to say yes. She tried saying no. Her silence was all Bobby needed.

"You don't know."

She finally spoke. "I don't know anything, Bobby!" Her sobbing increased. "I swear that Hank and I didn't do anything, I swear that we didn't, but I don't remember! I try to think about that night, but nothing comes. It's like it was cut out of my head and--"

"And what, Annie?"

Annie's weight collapsed on his lap. Her muscles were lax, as if they had been holding a tremendous weight in them for weeks and now, they chose to let go. "Are you still here, Bobby? I can't feel you."

Bobby's worry increased as her voice was confused and misplaced. "Annie, are you okay?"

"My mom's here, Bobby. I can see her, can you?"

"I'm going to call an ambulance, Annie. Your mother's dead."

"I'd like to think that, but she tells me different." Annie's voice became looser now. Not like it was drunk, but more drugged. "She tells me things. She's the one who told me that your father was a cheater."

Bobby picked up his old phone, feeling very stupid at all the Duran Duran stickers he put on there as a youth. But then he never thought he had to use this phone to call 911 about his nearly passed out and pregnant ex-girlfriend. "She knew about that, huh?"

"She said you'd do the same and to stay away. Just like Lindsay. She said you'd hurt me."

Bobby held the phone away from his ear tenetively, not wanting to look at her. "Do you always listen to what your mother says?"

"Sure. She's the only mother I have...Bobby, I hurt right now...a lot..."

Bobby carefully looked back to Annie and saw that previously khaki pants were now very red around the crotch and further down.

August 16th

The doctor says that I'll be fine, as long as I actually eat my food instead of throwing it up. He gave me a diet to use instead of my methods. I don't care right now. William asked me to marry him.

Dr. Gloria Guest stepped out of the examination room. This was the second time in twenty-four hours that she had seen William Drake. "Bobby? Your friend is fine and you can go in and talk to her in a few moments."

"Uh, Gloria...is she okay?"

Gloria nodded. "You mean is she speaking more coherently than before? She is, Bobby. She is."

William cleared his throat. "What exactly happened?"

"She was exhausted. This woman just underwent major surgery. She shouldn't be up and about like she was."

"How was she going to get better if she was never up and do her physical therapy, Gloria? That's why she had her surgery, so she could be physically active again!"

Gloria just stared at her grade school friend for a few moments. "Bobby, just what surgery did she just have done to her?"

"This, uh, thing...that repaired...uh...stuff...in her knee."

Gloria nodded. She did see that in the x-rays.

"Does this have to do with her being pregnant?"

William's eyes bulged. "Pregnant! Is it yours, Bobby? Please tell me it's not yours!"

"It could be mine--"

"Goddamn it!"

"Knock it off, both of you!" Gloria yelled. "Nobody is pregnant."

A look of relief flushed over the elder and younger Drake's features.

"There is no way she could be pregnant, Bobby."

Bobby smiled a little. "Well, there is a way..."

"Not without her ovaries and her uterus there isn't."

That bit confused Bobby. "What do you mean?"

"This woman, on top of having a knee surgery done, had a complete hysterectomy done two weeks ago."

(From the Journal of Dr. Emily Clay-Poole)

August 24th,

Henry came over and I served him dinner. He then proceeded to tell me that he no longer wished to meet my acquaintance and that we would be no longer be seeing one another. I suspected this much, which was why I made sure not to cook it until tonight. I had been saving those scraps for two weeks, biding my time before preparing them carefully. It just goes to show that men of modern science are truly clueless when it comes to a woman's anatomy if they can confuse their reproductive track for a monkey brains soup.

to be continued >>

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