Chapter 33: Dead Man's Party

Lyle is not easily distracted from his work.

After her anti-gravity experience, Violet suddenly understands Lyle's addiction to the adrenaline rush.

Violet and Lyle have kept up their night owl lifestyle, and are up long after their kids have gone to bed. Tonight, a broken hot tub interferes with their late night fun.


"I'll have this fixed in a flash," Lyle says.


"I'll be in bed when you're ready," Violet answers.


"Wait up for me, then."

Allyson is pleased they've left some cocktails out for her.

It's a dead man's party.

Dermott meets up with Candy Greenwood in the park after school. She's a genius like he is, and they've been best friends since childhood. Now that she's started high school, Dermott confesses his attraction.

Candy hoped her first day of high school would end like this. Besides being a genius and a virtuoso, she's also a snob, and Dermott's intelligence, looks and wealth satisfies all her requirements in a boyfriend.


Behind them, classmates Moshe Greenwood and Clint Keane-Still have a heated argument about dim sum.

While her brother discovers first love, Briar Rose meets with their vampire grandfather at the Red Rendezvous. At this early hour, the bar is rarely busy. Even with the thin crowd, Beau is more comfortable in the deserted second floor of the bar, by the stage where no band has ever played. Despite his advantages over them, being around groups of humans makes him nervous.


"Tell me about your family," Briar requests, "Tell me about your life before you came to Twinbrook."


Beau hesitates. "There's nothing to tell," he says, and Briar gives him a stern look. "All right," he sighs in acquiescence, "What do you want to know?"


"Start with your childhood," she says, "Who were your parents?"


"My parents were traditionalists. Both vampires, who didn't believe in breeding with humans. They were also traditionalists in their feeding habits, so they would have nothing to do with hospital plasma or plasma fruits. They were lone predators, and they were for the most part competitors. They came together for the simple purpose of breeding. Once that was accomplished, once I was born, their brief partnership ended. They shared responsibility for my upbringing, and my time was divided between them."


"How sad," Briar remarks. 


Beau shakes his head, "No, not sad. That was a fairly vampire childhood." 


"So I'm guessing there weren't a lot of hugs."


Beau laughs harshly. "None, in fact. Hugs aren't a common vampire activity."

"Your children all have human mothers," Briar says, "You aren't a traditionalist like your parents."


"I left home when I came of age," Beau says, "Because I was in competition with my parents for prey. It was time to find my own hunting grounds. I went first to Bridgeport. Though there was much competition there, but I did well for myself, securing three fe - women for myself. The vampires there, though, were very clubby. They had leaders and expected all the vampires in town to check in with them, attend meetings...not for me. I struck out for Twinbrook, a place where there were no vampires, where I could found my own dynasty, and live by my own traditions."


"But your children..."


"Have largely turned from me, yes. Your grandmother pointed this out to me on the day you were born. They all had human mothers, and expected human affection from their father, I suppose. And yet despite my failings, I have a human granddaughter who seeks my company. Though you aren't vampire, you take after me more than any of my vampire  descendants. You're intelligent, quick-thinking, and unafraid."


"Well, I get that from my father, too, I think," Briar says, giving credit where it's due.


"Mmm, yes. The Carlton." Beau agrees, "He funded the research that resulted in the 'cure' for vampirism. I hated him for that, but he fathered you, didn't he? Violet chose well." 

Beau takes his leave then, running away in a blur of speed.

Though Briar's meeting with Beau took place away from the rest of the bar patrons, word quickly made it's way to her father. 


"Your mother told you not to speak with the vampire," Lyle reprimands her as soon as she got in the door.


"He's not going to hurt me," Briar protests, "And Mom should know that, she was a vampire once, herself. He's my grandfather."


"It's not a matter of him hurting you," Lyle explains, "Beau Merrick is your grandfather, but he was no father to your mother. She doesn't want him infiltrating her family."

"Mom can't keep him out of my family if I choose to include him," Briar says.


"Listen, Briar, when I was your age, I couldn't be told what to do, either. You are too much my child for me to think you'll do anything besides what you want to do. I'm just asking you to respect your mother's feelings on this. The less she hears about him, the better. Are we agreed?"


"Agreed," Briar sighs.

Briar's birthday comes. Dermott looks forward to own birthday.

Briar Rose becomes a young adult.

The first thing she does is invite Drew over to discuss their plans for the future.

Just the mention of a wedding party put Drew on the verge of fainting, so Briar agreed to marrying him privately right there in her kitchen.

Once her marital plans were taken care of, Briar went to the High Products office building to get a job with the local paper. On her way home, she stopped at the tattoo parlor to get a tattoo, a small rose on her wrist.

"Did it hurt much?" Drew asks, wondering how she got the courage to endure that kind of pain.


"A little sure. But it was exhilarating, too," she answers, "I may get another one."

Briar and Drew share a love of the written word. Extroverted Briar expresses that love in the field of journalism, while her introverted husband stays home and works on his novel.

It started as just a typical day in Twinbrook. Then, fiery destruction fell from the sky.

The meteor struck the High Products office building directly.

Miraculously, no one was hurt and the building suffered no damage, except for the large meteorite that got lodged in the front door. Briar made a quick call to her father, who rushed over before the science facility types could come and claim this find.

Lyle decorates the front lawn with the fallen meteorites. Violet wonders if having space debris in the yard violates the homeowners association rules.

Despite the lack of casualties and damage, the meteor strike is the biggest news to hit Twinbrook ever, and Briar Rose quickly gets to work interviewing the local populace. She starts with her uncle, Hunter McDermott-Bayless, a world renowned surgeon. for information on any injuries suffered. There were no physical injuries to report, only psychological trauma.

Her next interview is with her mother-in-law, Ariana Meredith-Coddle, a prominent scientist at the science facility. She doesn't reveal anything that Briar couldn't learn from her father, but she's an 'official scientist' and is therefore more quotable.

Briar is confident that this article will catapult her career forward.

Fishing Fracas is so fascinating.

Lyle and Violet, still in love after all these years.

Drew has never done anything this scary in his life. And that's why he does it. He'll be a much better writer if he has some real experiences to write about.

The tattoo he chose matches Briar's.


Challenge Notes:
Generation 8 is officially begun. My roll was Couple, 2 kids, Journalism & Author careers, with Perfect Careers and Tattoo addict.
Note, I'm not trying to count Drew's tattoo as part of the tattoo addict. He just rolled a wish to get one. Briar will be the actual tattoo addict. About that, I'm having some issue with that tattoo chair; when I get the screen to create the tattoo, the Sim is fully dressed and I can't actually see the tattoo I'm creating. So, for future tattoos I will be adding them through CAS and deducting the 150 simoleons to pay for them, rather than using the tattoo parlor.


I'm kind of worried about achieving perfect careers for Drew. The skill careers at higher levels require huge sales to progress. I've reached level 10 with other skill careers, like sculpting, but only in the last days before the Sim died. And I've had Sims die of old age before getting to level 10 of skill careers. So there is a possibility of failure this generation. I'm saving up Drew's happiness points to get the author reward that increases the pay for written books, but that costs 30k, so it will be some time before I can accrue that.


Dermott has 2 days before becoming a YA.


Drew's traits are Coward, Good, Artistic, Kleptomaniac and Shy.
Briar Rose got Excitable as her adult trait. I rolled for that one, it shows up fairly frequently in this family in random rolls.


And yay, my first meteor strike. It was kind of anti-climatic. No one died, lol.