The side of the fork cut through the fluffy, dark brown foam like a sharp knife through tender meat. In the abrasive surface, caused by the many small pockets of air inside the crème being exposed, the light of the lamps over the table was caught. Underneath that was a layer of white, simple sugary stuff, adding extra sweetness to the lightly bitter note of proper chocolate. Then another layer of brown. At the bottom, a layer of cake dough, rolled into a delicious layer of thinness.

Thusly sliced, the dream of sweet tooths everywhere decided to fall over when John tried to pick it up. That made it easier to load the thing unto his utensil but also left a smudge on the plate. Not that it really mattered, only Lydia was dining as if she was in fine company.

Some chatter was going on between parties on the table. Brenda was engaged in a bout with her husband and Eliza, the blood mage still speaking in a more stammering matter than usual but clearly warming up to John’s parents. Yet another trauma that was, if not banished, at least faced.

Lydia was having a nice chat with Beatrice. A chat in this case being defined as the queen talking and the robotic maid nodding in semi-regular intervals to indicate she was still listening, only throwing in the occasional comment. Her elder in the sisterhood was sitting right next to her, but her attention was turned to Metra, the two of them involved in a talk about an episode of a series they had apparently been watching together in the hours John spent sleeping. The dreamless life of his Artificial Spirits was always going to be a bit of a mystery.

Against his worse intentions, John himself was engaged in an usual bit of banter with Maximillian, who had been strategically placed right next to him and Rave. “Seems like your movie career fell absolutely flat on its face then,” he poked fun and moved on from their previous topic at the same time.

“An unsubstantiated claim!” the former king took affront to that.

“The hell are you doing in DC then?” John asked, immediately adding, “Don’t you dare!” when Maximillian looked over to the Gamer’s mother and already drew breath for the easy counter joke. He was avoiding the topic as best he could. Particularly since both his parents were having that post-coital glow of happiness around them. Okay, it was pretty much present all around. Something about the Newman genes must have had created areas of sexual relief.

Taking a moment to clear his throat, skipping the answer he wanted to give, Maximillian did raise his voice, “Well, I was in the area to take inspiration from the scenery and to celebrate for a bit.” He ran a hand through his thick brown hair, grinning self-assured while doing so. The strands stayed back in that natural way that was currently in fashion; the gravity mage had let his hair grow since they had last met.

Rave gulped down the last slice of cake, before asking, “What’s there to celebrate?”

“I got one of the main roles in a theatre bit,” Maximillian proudly declared.

“Okay, so your movie career fell absolutely flat, Max,” John repeated smugly, while tapping his fork on his plate to create somewhat of a mocking noise.

“…You are technically correct for the moment,” the fellow brown-haired man of good looks conceded the point.

“Which is the best kind of correct,” the Gamer went back to his cake.

Rave couldn’t resist also going about and teasing him. “How much of the role was your last name though?”

As it was, Maximillian was one of the few people John knew that used his actual last name from the Abyss in the real world as well. Granted, the house Habsburg wasn’t extinct or anything, and he did have his bloodline ingrained into his memories, but John still found it to be an odd choice.

“About 25%?” the former king answered earnestly, not shy about this whatsoever. When trying to get into show business, one used what advantage one had. “Helps that I am supposed to play a prince.”

John could see it now, flyers tumbling through the air about an actual descendant of royalty playing a royal in a play. Combining that with a photo of Maximillian and they were bound to increase the likeliness of selling tickets by a nice margin, especially with the female crowd.

From across the table, Eliza suddenly jumped into the conversation. “Can you even do stage plays with all the fucking walking you need to do?” she asked, an easily missed bit of guilt swinging in her tone as she glanced at the walking stick that the king had left leaning against a nearby piece of furniture.

“It’s somewhat limiting my choice of roles, but it works for the most part,” Maximillian answered. “Given pauses, I can act like its not even there. I just shouldn’t put too much pressure on that foot for too long.”

“Well,” Brenda also joined the conversation, “I am sure you will look stunning. Don’t forget to get us tickets. All three of us would love to go.”

The third being Hex, who was still not around. Apparently, she wanted to do some patrolling or something. John’s paranoia whispered to him that she was in the process of backstabbing him, but only a complete moron would wait until this evening to finally do something. After all, why choose the moment when there was the whole group when they had been ample time to do the betraying with relative ease.

John really needed to up the security measures around here. For the moment, Metra had assured him that she would stay near the house and keep watch. She liked the watchdog duty. A great relief for her contractor, as the berserker babe was one of the strongest solo fighters around him.

“Consider it done, Brenda,” Maximillian took a little bow in his seat. Looking for signs that the king was envious of his father or anything like that, John kept a close eye on his movements in situations like these. So far, nothing of the kind. Seemed like the king was only in it to get his dick wet. Which was insulting in its own right but much better than him making this whole situation even muddier.

John just realized that he felt like he had landed in the middle of one of Eliza’s cheap dramas. Except nobody was making any fuss about any of this except him. Everybody was just carrying on. He did his best to follow suit.

“Mhm, when you get famous,” his mother continued the small talk, “you getting busy with a married woman might put together a bit of a scandal.”

Lydia dismissively blew air out of her nose. “Gazing upon the amount of dirty deeds done in the show business, one can conclude that such a thing is less likely to happen than it is to,” the queen explained in no uncertain terms what she thought of the situations. “That aside, Maximillian is already adept at handling scandals at some level.”

“That makes two of us,” the Habsburg descendant retorted.

Brenda loaded an extra-large slice of marzipan covered cranberry cake onto the queen’s plate. “Now, now, get along,” John’s mother berated. “I have too much cake for you all to get lost in bickering.”

“This is kinda just how we talk, Bren,” Rave admitted, twirling a strand of her pink hair. “Like, 90% banter around here.”

“Reminds me of my old drinking buddies,” Benjamin Newman finally found his way back into the conversation as well. The many small conversations had converged into a big one. “How do I miss them…”

Aclysia tilted her head quizzically, “May I inquire what happened to them?”

Brenda rolled her eyes in an amused fashion before her husband could answer. “They went from drinking buddies to a scotch club.”

John raised an eyebrow. “What’s the difference?”

Giving him side-eye as if he had just asked why they weren’t supposed to build their house out of a mixture of horse dung and mud, Maximillian shook his head. “Really… a Scotch club is much more refined, in it for the taste not the sensation of getting drunk. Highly uncivilized of you, John.”

“I find alcohol pretty uncivilized,” the Gamer retorted. “Disgusting stuff.”

“John Newman!” his mother raised her tone in playful sternness. “Did I just hear that you drank over in Europe? With their frivolously low drinking age!”

“Like anybody is even keeping that one,” Rave giggled. “I had my first beer when I was 15.”

“All of you are indecent as fuck,” Eliza cussed, “I could stop drinking tomorrow! Because…”

“Because you could be pregnant tomorrow,” John interrupted, causing laughter around the table. “I get it. It isn’t happening yet. Can I marry someone before I get a kid?!”

“You heard him Brenda, he said he is going to stick his cock into my womb and impregnate me the moment he and Jane get hitched,” the blood mage declared.

“That’s not what I…” John tried to interject, but she and his mother had already decided to run with it. Again.

“Oh my, that’d make for one interesting ceremony,” Brenda giggled, probably imagining her son giving the yes and Eliza nakedly jumping on the altar the second the lucky pair’s lips were parting. Because John could actually see her do that, he was happy that his mother added, “Perhaps you should wait until the day after though. That night belongs to the bride.”

“Eh,” Rave shrugged, “I am sure we can work it out.” Why she was now joining Team Impregnation, John wasn’t too sure about. The way her blue eyes looked over mischievously made him understand that she was doing it to tease him though. He could almost see the pink lustre dance in her eyes. Almost, it was currently snuffed out for obvious reasons.

“Is your engagement anything official yet?” Ben inquired into his son’s affairs. “I don’t see a ring…”

“Nah, he just asked me if I would say yes if he asked,” the Lightbearer opened up.

“Ah…” Ben looked a bit torn by that. “Slightly unromantic, but better than knocking up the girl you have been dating for a few months and then deciding to keep the baby.”

“I don’t think of a secure engagement as unromantic,” John’s opinion on the matter was quite clear cut. “You lot realize that I will now delay the wedding until I am ready to have a kid, right?”

“Booooo!” Eliza shouted, slamming her hand on the table and causing a wave of clinkering sounds from metal and porcelain. “Booo, I say, you… wait a second if he was conceived out of wedlock, does it mean you are actually a fucking bastard? THIS IS IMPORTANT!”

“Information: inconclusive,” Beatrice’s semi-robotic voice passively echoed across the table. “Analysis of specific situation: I lean towards no. Biological parents got married following conceiving of child. Argument could be made in case of mother wedding another man entirely but not knowing it.”

“Well, we never took a DNA test…” Benjamin began and giggled when that earned him some unappreciative or confused glances. “I am kidding, your mother is one horny lady, but she doesn’t cheat.”

“Okay?” John was slowly immunizing against the continuous mentions of his parents and their sexual activities. Exposure was the best way to get over that whole thing, after all. “Anyway, Jane and I are engaged to be engaged, so to say. Might happen next year or in a decade, we’ll see.”

“Ja, not in a hurry,” his girlfriend agreed.

From there, the conversation again fizzled into smaller topics. Brenda commented on Eliza’s healthy appetite, as she was solely responsible for the destruction of about a third of all the cake around. “Although I have to wonder where you leave all that,” John’s mother ended that topic, looking at the flat stomach under the tight shirt Eliza was wearing.

“Tits and ass,” the blood mage floppily answered.

Shortly after that conversation, John began the long dance of wanting to leave, involving repeated goodbyes, quickly jabbed small talk and numerous little jokes. Much like earlier in the day, Brenda was also quite happy to hurry them out of the house. There was no way the walls were thick enough to hide what she was about to do.

“Your mother is the fucking best,” Eliza told John, once they were on the sideway. “Like, seriously a cocksucking be-“ her sentence was interrupted by her suddenly slipping on something and landing face first on stone. “MOTHERFUCKER!” she screamed as she got back up. In the otherwise empty streets of the quiet suburb, that scream was like a police siren.

“Well, I saw that coming,” the Gamer sighed and helped her up. “Must have earned some minor ire from Gaia for shovelling your bodyweight in sugar into you.” The blood mage growled as she realized that this meant she had to limit future cake-times with Brenda to what her stomach could actually fit rather than what her magic could immediately digest it into.

“It’s dangerous to go alone,” John joked, carrying her princess style from the moment forward, “let me take you.”