Lilith told me she was pregnant again on a night that felt too calm to hold news like that.
We were in the girls’ room, the twins finally asleep.
She sat in the chair next to Selene and said it simply:
“It’s happening again.”
For a moment, everything inside me settled.
The noise.
The pull.
The restlessness I’d been pretending not to feel.
It all went quiet.
I kissed her, slow and grateful, and she leaned into me with that soft certainty she always carried when she was expecting.
The house felt different after that — warmer, fuller, like the walls themselves were holding their breath with us.
For a while, life slipped into a rhythm that almost felt like the outside world didn’t exist.
We had intimate moments in the sanctuary — the kind that weren’t about heat or urgency but about connection.
The kind that reminded me why the bond mattered, why she mattered, why we mattered.
We still went out to eat together, slipping out to feed, looking for two sims walking together so we could feed at the same time.
Being ourselves together.
At home, the quiet moments were the ones that anchored me the most.
Tucking Lucian in at night, listening to him ramble about potty training and monsters under the bed and how he was definitely big enough to sleep without the nightlight now (he wasn’t).
Holding the girls while they napped — Selene curled against my chest, Thalia in Lilith’s arms, snoring slightly.
Watching them play with the dollhouse, the two of them babbling to each other in their own language, moving the little wooden figures around with surprising seriousness.
Feeding the twins together, enjoying the closeness.
For a time, it felt like the world had narrowed to just us.
Just this.
Just home.
Lilith didn’t go out anymore — not while she was pregnant, and not because she needed to.
She hadn’t felt any pulls lately, and she trusted that.
Trusted herself.
Trusted the bond.
I, on the other hand…
I felt them.
Soft at first.
Then sharper.
Then insistent.
But I ignored them.
For her.
For the kids.
For the life we’d built.
For the first time in weeks, I felt steady.
Almost steady.
Because even in the quiet, even in the warmth of our home, even with Lilith’s hand in mine and the girls asleep on our chests…
the pull didn’t disappear.
It waited.
And I pretended not to hear it.
Tiara stopped by one evening to fill us in on life at the fledgling houses — who was settling in, who was arguing over chores, who was trying too hard to impress Alina or Janessa.
Lilith shared our big news, and Tiara lit up in that bright, earnest way she always had.
She hugged Lilith, hugged me, then immediately started talking about baby names before remembering we didn’t do that part yet.
Life kept moving.
Lucian would wake up in the middle of the night, sad he was alone.
Sometimes it helped to give him a snack and tuck him back in.
Some nights Lilith would run him a warm bath to settle him.
And there were always the stories — the same three books he insisted on, read in the same order, with the same voices.
Eventually we hoped he could sleep through the night without needing one of us there.
The girls had their own struggles.
Everything was intense for Selene, especially when she woke up — the kind of intensity that hit like a wave.
We were regularly giving her cuddles and comfort to get her back to sleep.
Thankfully Thalia could sleep through most of Selene’s screaming.
I still don’t know how.
For a while, the rhythm of it all felt steady.
Predictable.
Almost peaceful.
I didn’t realize Lilith could feel the pull I was ignoring.
Not until she told me during a movie one night — one of those rare, short quiet windows when all three kids were asleep at the same time.
I hadn’t been going out.
I’d been focusing on the kids, on her, on the life we were building.
But she told me the pull was seeping through the bond anyway, brushing against her like a draft under a door.
“You need to go take care of it,” she said softly, eyes still on the screen.
“Whatever you need to do.”
There was no jealousy in her voice.
No fear.
Just that steady certainty she always carried — the trust in us, in the bond, in me.
I had recently become a Master Vampire and was close to Grand Master, which would put me on the same level power‑wise as Lilith.
I told her I would go once I reached Grand Master.
She nodded, then told me about a way to adjust our powers — to fully align them once I reached Grand Master.
A deeper connection.
A shared strength.
Something only possible when both vampires were equal in rank.
I wanted that.
For us.
For the bond.
For the family we were building.
So I told her I wanted to do that first.
She didn’t argue.
She didn’t push.
She just took my hand, laced her fingers with mine, and said:
“Then we’ll do it together.”
And for a moment — just a moment — the pull quieted again.
But it didn’t disappear.
It never did.
It waited.
And I kept pretending I didn’t hear it.
Maybe I was also waiting for the girls to get a little older.
It still took both of us to keep them fed and clean.
Especially on the nights when Thalia didn’t sleep through Selene’s screaming and we were juggling two babies in the dark, trying to soothe one without waking the other.
The girls crawled all over the upstairs now — fast, determined, everywhere at once — but they couldn’t get up or down the stairs, obviously.
That didn’t mean they stayed in one place.
Lionel was routinely tracking down one or the other, scooping them up from behind the couch or under the desk or halfway into the laundry basket, and relocating them back to their space with the patience of someone who had accepted his fate.
Thalia loved to hear stories, and I loved to tell them.
She’d curl against me, eyes wide, listening like every word mattered.
Sometimes she even fell asleep mid‑sentence, her little hand still resting on my arm.
She was easy to soothe.
Easy to settle.
Easy to love.
Selene… was Selene.
Intensity wrapped in a tiny body.
One afternoon, Lilith walked into Lucian’s room and found him trying — and failing — to use the potty by himself.
The mess was bad.
Catastrophic.
Too much for her to handle.
She froze in the doorway, whispered “nope,” and backed out like she’d seen something supernatural.
Lionel and I cleaned up the bedroom while Lilith went literally anywhere else.
Lucian kept apologizing, little voice trembling, and I kept telling him it was okay, that learning was messy, that he was doing great.
He believed me eventually.
Life kept moving like that — chaotic, exhausting, strangely beautiful.
Mom called one evening and said she wanted to come over.
I didn’t want her walking through the Hollow alone, so I sent Lionel to escort her.
He didn’t complain — he never did — but he did give me that look he gives when he knows he’s about to be pulled into family dynamics he didn’t sign up for.
She was glad to see me when she stepped inside the house, but she didn’t linger on it.
She wanted to see the grandbabies.
Lilith was feeding Thalia in the living room, sitting in her usual spot near the fireplace.
Mom sat beside her, leaning in with that soft, eager expression she always had around babies.
When Thalia finished, Lilith handed her over.
Thalia was… unsure.
She stared at Mom with wide, suspicious eyes, lower lip wobbling.
Then she cried — loud, dramatic, betrayed.
Mom tried bouncing her, rocking her, talking to her, but Thalia wasn’t having it.
Eventually, though, she caught sight of the fire.
The flames flickered, and her crying cut off mid‑sob.
She stared, mesmerized, completely forgetting she was in a stranger’s arms.
Mom took the win.
Selene, on the other hand, took to Mom immediately.
She reached for her, babbled something that sounded like a greeting, and settled in without hesitation.
But she didn’t stay long.
She wanted down almost immediately, squirming until Mom set her on the floor.
And then, of course, she headed straight for the fire.
Completely unaware of the green stink cloud trailing behind her.
Lilith sighed.
Mom laughed.
Lionel intercepted Selene before she could crawl directly into the flames.
Just another night in the Hollow.
And through all of it, the pull kept brushing against me.
Quiet.
Persistent.
Waiting.
I kept pretending I didn’t hear it.
Upstairs, Lucian was playing in the playroom.
He couldn’t go up and down the stairs yet — no one had shown him how — so he stayed on the top floor, drinking his milk while he waited for someone to come get him.
Pretty calm for a clingy toddler.
Lionel found him first.
He always did.
He sat on the floor with Lucian, helping him stack blocks, handing him toys, listening to him babble about monsters and potty training and whatever else lived in that busy little mind of his.
Then Lionel showed him how to go down the stairs.
Slowly at first.
One step.
Then another.
Knees turning, little body twisting so he could go down backwards, the way toddlers do — looking up toward the top, inching down one careful step at a time.
Lionel stayed right behind him, steady and patient, guiding without rushing, letting Lucian feel each movement for himself.
Lucian lit up when he realized he could do it.
He wasn’t stuck anymore.
We hadn’t put in baby gates yet, so we’d have to see how he did.
How we did.
But before he could make it downstairs on his own, it was bedtime.
Lionel read to him — the same book, the same voices, the same rhythm that always worked.
Lucian curled up against him, eyelids heavy, breathing soft.
By the time I came in, he was already asleep.
I tucked him in, smoothing his hair back, whispering goodnight, hoping — like always — that maybe tonight we’d all sleep through the night.
And for a moment, it felt normal.
Routine.
Just another bedtime.
But something tugged at me as I stood there in the dim light.
Something small.
Something I didn’t want to look at too closely.
I realized I didn’t know what Lucian had played with today.
Didn’t know what he’d eaten.
Didn’t know what he’d laughed at, or cried about, or learned.
I only ever saw him like this.
Quiet.
Still.
Already drifting.
The rest of his day — the living part — belonged to someone else.
And I didn’t know why that bothered me.
Not yet.
But it did.
It sat in my chest like a memory I couldn’t quite place.
Not a painful one.
Not a bad one.
Just… familiar.
A faint echo of waiting my turn.
Of being loved, but not always first.
Of learning to be patient because everyone else was busy.
I didn’t see the whole shape of it then.
Just the outline.
But it was enough.
Enough to start the spiral.
After tucking Lucian into bed, I was hungry but didn’t want to go out so I had one of the plasma fruit pouches Caleb always carries.
It takes the edge off the hunger although it doesn’t really satisfy it.
When I came downstairs, Lilith and Lionel were talking by the fire.
The room was warm, soft, steady — the kind of steady I’d been clinging to without realizing it.
I stopped in the doorway for a moment, just watching them.
Lilith laughed at something he said — quiet, warm — and then she took his hand and guided it to her stomach.
“Here,” she murmured. “She’s moving.”
Lionel’s face softened.
He leaned in, eyes wide, reverent.
And something inside me snapped.
It wasn’t loud.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t even visible, probably.
Just a tightening.
A pull.
A sharp, hot twist in my chest that I couldn’t swallow down fast enough.
I didn’t want him touching her.
I didn’t want anyone touching her.
Not like that.
Not in that moment.
The jealousy hit so fast I didn’t have time to hide it.
Lilith felt it immediately.
Her head turned toward me, eyes steady, expression shifting — not angry, not startled, just… aware.
“Mateo,” she said softly.
Lionel pulled his hand back at once, stepping away like he’d crossed into territory he hadn’t meant to.
He didn’t say anything — he didn’t need to.
He knew.
Lilith rose slowly, one hand on her belly, the other reaching for mine.
And in that moment, she saw what I didn’t.
This wasn’t about Lionel.
It was about me.
About the power still humming under my skin, too sharp, too loud, too new.
The ascension had shifted something in me — not the bond, never the bond — but the way my instincts sat inside my body.
Too much energy.
Not enough grounding.
A pressure that didn’t know where to go.
Lilith felt the imbalance before I did.
“We need to do the realignment,” she said.
“Now.”
Her voice wasn’t afraid.
Her voice was steady, certain, protective.
She wasn’t afraid of me.
She was afraid of what would happen if we didn’t fix this now.
Because if I kept slipping like this — if the power kept misfiring, if the pull kept getting louder — she would have to ask me to leave the Hollow until I could control it.
And neither of us wanted that.
I nodded, because I couldn’t trust my voice.
Not with the power humming through me.
Not with the pull whispering at the edges.
Not with the fear of being sent away until I could control it tightening around my ribs.
Lilith’s fingers closed around mine, grounding me, steadying me, guiding me toward the ritual that would bring everything back into alignment.
At least for now.
She led me to the kitchen first.
She handed me a drink — bitter, metallic, infused with something ancient and grounding.
After we drank the draught, we went downstairs to the sanctuary — the quiet room we used for feeding, for meditation, for anything that required stillness.
The air felt different there.
Sharper.
Cleaner.
We sat across from each other on the floor, knees almost touching.
“Breathe with me,” she said.
So I did.
We closed our eyes.
We let the bond settle between us, open and vulnerable.
The realignment wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t a surge of power or a flash of light.
It was a shift.
A deep, internal click — like something inside us had been slightly off‑center for weeks and finally slid into place.
Her strengths brushing against mine.
My weaknesses softening under hers.
Our instincts syncing, smoothing, balancing.
For a moment, everything felt clear.
Then the girls woke up.
Their cries cut through the house — sharp, hungry, insistent.
Lilith opened her eyes and sighed.
“Midnight feeding.”
We went upstairs together.
Thalia was already pulling herself up in the crib, reaching for me with sleepy determination.
Selene was louder, angrier, kicking her blanket off and demanding attention immediately.
We fed them side by side, the room dim and warm, the twins’ little hands gripping our shirts, their breathing softening as their bellies filled.
It should have felt grounding.
It usually did.
But tonight, something in me was still off.
Still restless.
Still pulled.
Lilith saw it.
She always did.
When the girls were settled again, she turned to me — calm, steady, unshakable.
“Mateo,” she said quietly.
“You need to go.”
I froze.
“Go deal with the pull,” she continued. “Whatever it takes. Before the baby comes.”
Her voice didn’t waver.
She wasn’t asking.
She wasn’t suggesting.
She was telling me.
“You’re slipping,” she said. “Your power isn’t settling. And I can’t risk you losing control with a newborn on the way.”
I swallowed hard, throat tight.
She stepped closer, resting her hand on my chest.
“I love you,” she said. “But you need to go. Tonight.”
The pull brushed against me again — sharp, insistent, undeniable.
And for the first time, I didn’t pretend I didn’t hear it
Simmers!
If you’re interested in writing and/or reading sims stories, participating in fun competitions and events, joining a friendly and welcoming community, completing legacies and challenge and earning medals, or just having a great place to discuss Sims 2, Sims 3, or Sims 4, then there is a place for you at the
Boolprop.net Forums
Discover more from Love My Sims
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Be the first to comment