Indigo Blues 🪼✔

6 - Project Projection

If things weren't bad enough in regards to Tannus having horrible mood swings and hormonal breakdowns, he was also growing pretty fast. He looked like he was at three months, then four, and now, only a month later, he looked like he's full term. He was also not feeling too well and whiny. I'm so glad that he tried it out instead of me...

"Rose, would you please go give Mr. Whiny-Pants a pillow for his swollen feet before he drowns himself in unnecessary tears?" I growled at her as Tannus moaned from the back room of the lab.
Rose giggled, finding the whole thing funny, and took a pillow back to him. I was trying to stabilize the growth of his babies without having him grow any bigger in the long run. Since he looked like he was almost seven months along, I had to figure out a way to make the baby stop growing but keep getting nutrition until the actual seventh month came along. I don't know how that's going to work since he's so far along but I'm a chemist; I'm supposed to help.
"He says he wants to leave and go do his own project." She said as she came back.
"You can tell him that until we get his growth under control, he's not going anywhere. He's got first month symptoms with a seven month stomach. His body isn't catching up along with the growth and if we don't do something to regulate everything, the baby or him could die."
Rose nodded and I knew she told him because she stumbled out of the room with an exasperated expression on her face.
"Jeez..." she said, raking her fingers through her blonde hair. "My mother wasn't this bad with my younger sister..."
"I don't know why he's like that either." I said, mixing some of Tannus' DNA with a little something. "Hand me some of that stuff over there."
Rose was getting used to trying to read my mind when I pointed and said stuff. She was smart enough to grab at least two or three things that was in the vicinity of where I pointed to not look so dumb. She grabbed two beakers and I grabbed the one I needed and she leaned on the table.
"Do you think you can do it?"
"Well, I really don't have a choice. The accelerated growth is for the DNA to make a perfect sperm, fast and full of chromosomes; flawless. But it has to do this quickly to get to the egg during the ovulation period or it won't work. I never got to perfect the growth of the child and we have to have the special ingredient slow down or we would have this mess on our shoulders." I said, gesturing to the whiny ass in the room.
"That's true... but do you think you can get it to Dr. Bracken before he grows anymore?"
"Please, Rose, I'm a chemist. I work long hours to prove that I can do it. Why do you think I have no friends and talk to my cat."
"Um... lack of social skills. Plus, you kind of put people out..." she said with a roll of her blue eyes.
I gave her a smile. At least she was learning to take my humor. From what I've heard, it was stand up-like in the sense that it was so truthful but said in a way that made it almost unreal. I don't understand what that means but I just knew I needed to find something to slow down the growth quickly. I mean, I really hadn't tested the purple jelly bean on my monkeys yet so... yeah...
"Delilah! Get me a pizza!" Tannus yelled from his little room.
"Shut the hell up!" I yelled back when the door burst open. "Ah, Hank..."
"I told you not to call me that!" Thomas snarled.
"Would you rather I call you Bruce?" I said with a serious face.
"Calling me by my name would be nice!" I smiled at him and he looked over at the extra room. "Is he in there?"
"Yeah..."
"He's on the premises and he's in this little room instead of working on his own project?!" Thomas belted.
"There's an issue that needs to be resolved before anything happens...Unless you really would like him to work the way he looks. By all means, make the decision." I said, dismissing him to the other room.
Thomas left and I waited to see how he would react.
"Holy shit!" came from the room and then the sound of something being thrown.
"Don't be so surprised you jack ass!" Tannus yelled, the sound of tears on his voice. "This is what was supposed to happen!"
"But you're so... so... uh..." he looked at me and I shrugged.
"This is the problem that I'm having."
"What's going on?"
"The growth for the sperm to fertilize the egg wasn't regulated after the fact and so it is making the baby grow at the same rate. If I can get it to not grow anymore until he actually reaches that month, then maybe we can work with it."
"Can he still work?"
"I guess... I mean he's the one that was complaining. He's not in the best of moods."
"Would you?!" Tannus yelled from the room.
I made a face but looked at Thomas.
"It's up to you whether you want him working or not."
"He needs to do this project so, yes..."
"Take him. It will give me peace and quiet."
Thomas went back in and there was a bit of a protest but eventually, Tannus came out, holding his back like a woman and rubbing his stomach.
"I hate you so much, Delilah."
"I do believe you've made that perfectly clear throughout the week."
Thomas led him out and I sputtered, happy to be rid of him.
Rose looked at me for a moment and then put her hand on her hip.
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Is it intelligent?"
"Do you even have the tiniest feeling toward him? I mean, he's carrying your children; they're half of you too, Dr. Manchester."
That was a good question.
"I don't answer stupid questions, Rose." I said, going back to work.

*TANNUS*
Thomas walked beside me and was not kind enough to not stare at me the whole way to my station. People watched me as I walked and I started to become very self-conscious about what was happening. I will admit that yes, I shouldn't have eaten the jelly beans, but this... This was never something I wanted...
"So um... how many are in there?"
"I heard two."
"How have you been with it?"
"I have mood swings and a craving for pizza of all kinds. And I feel fat."
"Well, you have gained a baby..."
I stared at him with wide eyes as tears brimmed.
"You-you think I'm fat?!" I wailed, my bottom lip quivering.
Thomas acted like he had been jolted to life and he flailed his hands in front of me.
"N-no, I mean the baby is another person and since it's growing in you... It's a logical explanation... uh..."
"I'm sorry... Don't even worry about it." I said, wiping my eyes. "Have you still not gotten the project off the ground?"
"No, we need you to do that for us. You have the most knowledge of it and Johnsie is doing as best as he can but..."
I nodded and we opened the door to my lab where Johnsie, my assistant was screwing on a part to the project we were working on. When the door opened he turned and then he gawked at me. I gave him the evil eye and he gulped.
"Uh, um... Dr. Bracken... um..."
"I'm aware of my huge ass stomach. Get it all out so we can get to work." I growled, drumming my fingers.
"You're huge." he said with wide eyes.
"You are a smart lad. That's why I hired you to be my assistant." I grumbled and Thomas left. "Now, what's the status on the machine?"
"It's um... uh..."
"Damn it, Johnsie, look at me, me, not this atrocious stomach. My eyes are up here. Jeez, I feel like a woman with big breasts..."
"I'm sorry, Tannus, it's just... I wasn't exactly looking at it to be distracting but wondering how you were going to work with that much weight in front of you?"
"Very carefully." I hold out my hand. "Now help me sit down beside you and show me what's been completed."
Johnsie nodded and helped me sit down, showing me the aspects of the machine. I nodded as he spoke about the parts and grabbed the chart from behind him.
"So, if we get all this on before the end of the week we should be alright?"
"That's what I see out of it. But we'd have to get about three different parts on their each day and given your circumstances, we will be limited." He said, looking at my stomach again.
I growled, envisioning my big hands around Delilah's little neck and ringing it back and forth.
"Well, I guess Delilah will have to help us now since she screwed me over. Joke about that and you won't have a job." I said, pointing at him.
Johnsie smiled and looked at my stomach again.
"What does that feel like? Not many guys get to know how that feels."
"Awful... It's like I'm carrying a bag of potatoes in front of me and I have no way of putting it down. It hurts my back like hell and as good as they are, pizza is starting to get on my nerves. I just... I want my life back. Plus, I'm getting stares like I'm some sort of unicorn." I said with a frown.
"Well, if it matters, Dr. Bracken, I'm with you every step of the way." He said, going back to putting a coil in the machine.
"Why is that?" I asked, leaning back and making sure he was doing everything right, plus, taking the weight off my back.
"Well... You took me in when no one else at the company did. They didn't believe me when I said that I knew what I was doing because I didn't graduate from high school. I mean, I haven't had the best of home lives either and so this was my chance. You took me in and let me show you what I can do... and for that I thank you. Plus," he said with a grin to me. "It's science in action. Even you as a scientist should that that's pretty nifty."
"How about you go eat one and find out how "nifty" it is." I said but with a smile.
Johnsie was a good kid, very bright despite his upbringing, a regular prodigy. I think it was the hormones that were over inflating the feeling of accomplishment in molding him but I suddenly wanted to hug him. I refrained...