The Gamer Chapter 1578 – Birthday John 2 – Group 1 (Patreon)

“You drew one of the ‘lucky’ lots, huh?” John wondered, when he left the apartment. With him were Hailey and Momo. That was it. Considering there were twenty other girls behind that door, a group of just him and two haremettes must have been a rarity.

“Like it’s lucky to be almost alone with you.” Momo’s immediately sassy response made John wish to kiss her on those pink lips of hers. He did not. “What, all lusted out?” she read his thoughts.

“Yup,” John answered. It was half a lie, he couldn’t get fully ‘lusted out’. Between what his body was and how they looked, that was just a physical impossibility. For the time being, however, he was thoroughly satisfied.

“Y’all got any idea what we can do?” Hailey asked, while they headed down the hallways of the Palace’s interior.

Thoughtful humming from Momo. A giggle by the country gal. “What?” Momo asked.

The country gal looked left, then right, at the two that flanked her and giggled again. “Ya two ever realize that ya got a bunch of the same body language?”

John and Momo exchanged a near symmetrical glance, both of them realizing that they had their hands on their chins in the exact same, pondering way. Once they saw this, they both put the hand aside. It was beyond mirroring each other, it was the right hand for both of them and they both wrinkled their forehead upon seeing that they were still in sync.

Hailey found all of that hilarious and John finally broke their chain of similarities by laughing with her, while Momo pointed accusingly at her Master. “This is all his fault! He planted all of these habits in my brain when he created me!”

“I doubt that,” John pointed out. “Otherwise Aclysia and Beatrice would have that problem too. It’s just you.”

“Urgh, what’s the alternative? That we’re just that similar?” Momo wretched, as if she could not stand that thought.

“Best kind of game?” Hailey asked.

“”Strategy,”” John and Momo answered in unison.

“That proves nothing!” Momo then added on her own, overpowering the country gal’s giggles. “I’m not similar to this pervy dork at all! He’s a massive thorn in my side!”

“Because people are never thorns in their own side,” John teased.

“Ya should stop actin’ as if he’s any more pervy than you are.”

“I have it in numbers,” Momo disagreed immediately.

“She’s got you there,” the Gamer switched sides.

“Guess she does have me there,” Hailey gave up the point.

They continued on in silence for a little bit. “I’m nothing like him,” Momo grumbled.

“Why does that even bother you that much?” John wanted to know.

“It just does, okay?!” Momo answered immediately. After a few deep breaths, she continued in a smaller tone, “I don’t like to consider that I’m more you than me.”

“Didn’t you just try to say that it was because I put it in your head?”

“Yeah, I did… just because I don’t like considering it doesn’t mean I don’t.” That answer was all too relatable to the Gamer and they both sighed in perfect unison. “Stop that,” Momo pleaded. “You’re giving me your paranoia. Am I being mind controlled after all? Is all of this an elaborate scheme to keep me as cheeky and cute as possible, without giving me free will?”

“I’d be a genius if I pulled that off,” the Gamer responded jokingly.

Momo rolled her eyes. She wasn’t like Eliana or Gnome, who needed gentle touches when they were having their doubts. “You’re lucky I can take a joke.”

“Ain’t that the reason why ya keep sleepin’ with him?” Hailey asked.

“Nice.” Momo laughed and offered the blonde her fist for a quick bump.

“You’re lucky I can take a joke,” John told them.

The two haremettes pushed and prodded him all the way on the rest of the way. Being cheeky with him was apparently the mood of the moment. It only changed when they had made their way down to the pier attached to the base of the star fort. “Moment of truth, where should we go?”

“Midnight Forest, maybe?”

Momo’s suggestion was met with a mixture of excitement and disagreement on Hailey’s face. She looked like she had just bitten on something with a sour rind and a sweet core and was now conflicted about whether she should take another bite. “I do remind you that fae and I are… ya know.”

“Well, stop surrounding yourself with metal fumes all day,” Momo stated.

“How do they hate that but like you? You’re all metal.”

“That is a fantastic question that we will never get a good answer to,” John told her.

Momo crossed her arms under her poncho and crossed her legs. It was always fascinating to look at the mixture of her fully covered and slender top and then those thick thighs in their stockings on full display. “It’s because you lack intuition and are terrible at context clues.”

Unable to help himself, John put a hand on Momo’s thighs and squeezed. The fairy maid didn’t even acknowledge the act with a glance. It was just that natural for them to engage in this closeness. Hailey, in her leather bra and half-undone coverall, wore her uniform as much as Momo did with her maid outfit. There were certain clothes haremettes spent the majority of their time in and these were Hailey’s.

Well, putting aside all the time they spent wearing nothing at all.

“So.” John put his other arm around Hailey, pulling her into his lap. The anchored boat rocked softly, as weight shifted. “Midnight Forest or not?”

Hailey looked for a better idea, but found none. Momo smiled. “We’ve not visited the Midnight Brambles Court recently.”

“There haven’t been issues with missing children recently.”

“Is that a thing that happened?” Hailey asked, then shot John a smug look. “Thaaa-ynghhh,” she drawled the word out and he inhaled the heavy accent like it was the fumes of finest wine. “You get excited all easy like.”

“I won’t be judged by a woman that I can make orgasm by squeezing her boobs for thirty seconds.”

“Ain’t that a curse,” Hailey drawled sarcastically. “So? Children disappearing?”

“Once or twice and only for a few days. It was a few minutes or hours for them. Nothing worrisome happened and we forbade them from doing it.” John let out a long sigh. “Although there is a point where I wonder how much oversight I should provide. You know, when you don’t warn your kid about the literal fairy forest, or if you do and then they still go there, maybe they deserve to be taken out of the genetic continuation.”

“That’s grim, my man,” Momo pointed out.

“Yeah, I don’t know, just tired of parents who think they can abdicate all the responsibility.” John let out another long sigh. “But then there’s also the parents who go full helicopter and don’t let their kids take any risks at all.”

“I really think you’re bringing your mundane perception into this right now,” Momo stated strongly. “Personal bias, especially.”

“…Probably,” John surrendered. “For all the love I have for my parents, they’ve been just the worst mixture of caring and uncaring.”

“I knew some peeps like that,” Hailey agreed. “Parents would drop them off at school, then not care at all what happened in it, but then be super doting and protective when they were out. My dad always said that he trusts public schools as far as he can shovel shit.”

“Was that before or after his health started to take a turn for the worse?”

“Before.”

“That’s fairly far then?”

“He said it ‘cause he’d literally shovel shit into the window of the principal if they taught me the wrong stuff.” Hailey chuckled. “Lady, I do lov’ my old man.”

John was simultaneously outraged and amused by this blatant willingness to soil the offices of public officials. Rural people were just built differently in that regard. “We’re going to homeschool our kids anyway, aren’t we?”

“Prolly,” Hailey answered.

“You have like 4 stay at home ‘wives’,” Momo put the word into air quotes, “and then like 10 more with a flexible schedule. We’ll definitely have the time to put the curriculum together ourselves.”

John nodded and rolled his shoulders. That seemed so far away, but how far was it really? The wedding planning was advancing and after that he had nine months of Eliana being pregnant, presumably, and then two to three years before the child was ready to be taught the very first few things.

Actually, that was quite a lot of time. The question was only how that time would feel once the events began flowing into each other.

“What’s the newcomer doing at the moment?” Momo asked.

“The newcomer? Oh, Ehtra,” John realized only after a moment. He gently probed in her direction, to not let her feel that he was investigating. He only needed a general location anyhow. “If I feel this right, looking around the Hudson Barrier… I hope she changed her uniform before she did. Why?”

“Just curious. Even if she does not join your harem immediately…”

“Or at all,” Hailey threw in.

Momo gave the country gal a glance that expressed how ridiculous she found that idea. “…The only thing that Master is weaker to than attractive women is white-haired maids with attitude.”

“She’s right, you know,” John agreed.

“…Anyway, even if she does not join immediately, I just want her to do well. I know things get… messy when you don’t feel in control of your destiny. Makes you resentful of everyone you think is involved.”

“You used to hate me quite a bit.”

“She did?” Hailey wondered.

“Hate is a strong word,” Momo said, shifting uncomfortably. “It was kind of… difficult. I didn’t love him like everyone else that was around and then I also felt kind of attached to him in a way I didn’t like and… I just needed to spread my wings for a bit.”

“You still fly around often,” John observed.

“Still hasn’t stopped being fun.”

The boat stopped between the Midnight Forest and the Shadow Island. They disembarked and started walking into the forest. They were in the Unseelie part of it, where the kind of fae lived that were generally regarded as bad news. To John and the two girls with him, they were barely more than mild annoyances.

The sky overhead was filled with stars. The moon was vacant that day, leaving in its place a hollow ring, blacker than the void between the silver and golden dots everywhere else. The starlight was intense, painting everything argent. “That’s weird…” Momo muttered.

“What is?” John asked.

“Don’t you… Hm?” Momo turned her head and stared at something John didn’t see. “Give me a moment, I have to do Viscountess things.”

“I’m your Earl, can’t you tell me?”

“Psh, no?” Momo answered with incredible amusement. “Sit down on that mushroom while you wait.”

John and Hailey turned around, to look at a tiny mushroom right next to them. “That’d be a lil’ sm-“ the country gal started, but when they faced Momo again, she was gone. “How did she… fae stuffs, imma spare myself the question.”

“Probably smart,” John agreed. “Especially since…” he gestured at the mushroom, which now was the size and shape of a particularly comfy armchair. “Can’t turn around for a split second around here without something pulling a prank on you.”

“Gents first,” Hailey stated and pointed at the chair.

John obliged, if only because this was his chance to have her sit in his lap again. It had been more than a minute since the last time. An unacceptably long gap. Soon, the country gal’s plush derriere was settled on his thighs again. She leaned against him, sliding forward just enough that he could put his chin on her shoulder. Then, he put his arms around her.

“Ya know how to make a gal feel secure,” Hailey hummed and closed her eyes. “Even in the middle of the weird fairy forest.”

“I gave you the power to feel secure.”

“Yeah, but… Imma just speak for myself here, but I want ya to protect me, ‘cause I’m your woman.” She nuzzled against him.

“That works for me,” John assured her. He gently took the trucker hat off her head, just so he could run his hand through her hair, from the dark roots to the sun-bleached tips. She smelled of machine oil, dust, and something sweet. “I’d turn the world upside down if it meant keeping you safe.”

“Ya did, didn’t you?” Hailey asked. “After Rome, I mean.”

John’s mood turned a little dark. The main reason to kill Mengele had and would always have been what he did to Eliana. However, he could not deny that him arranging an attack that aimed at abducting Hailey alongside the Rose added an extra factor to the satisfaction of seeing him dead and broken.

Aclysia had brought most of the others to justice. Only one mercenary remained and that one would be dealt with via Fusion’s legal system.

“I will do it again and again,” John pledged to her. “Because I’m yours.”

Hailey turned in his embrace, straddling him. She was just incredible, gorgeous with an intellect to match. Her hands on his face, she let one wander through his short hair. “You’re mine,” Hailey agreed. “Lady knows that I never thought that I’d ever share a man with so many others, but you’re worth it. They’re worth it.”

Nothing more or less could be said. Hailey leaned in and they exchanged a kiss. Then another one. Then, another one. Again and again, giggling in between them as if this was the first time they crossed that particular line. John held her close, playing with the tips of her hair. There was so much about her that was just… wow.

“I love you,” Hailey whispered.

“I love you too,” John answered just as quietly.

The moment lingered on and on, stuck in the air around them like she was stuck between his arms. She was his, and his, he cared for, deeply.

Momo eventually returned, a contemplative look on her face. “So, what was so interesting, Viscountess?” John asked.

“A thing… don’t worry about it… I’ll talk to Aclysia about it,” Momo stated.

John’s eyebrow shot up, but the way the fairy maid said it did not leave much room for questions. Rising from the mushroom chair, John carried Hailey first in his arms, then on his back. She wanted to be carried, he wanted to feel her enormous breasts squish on his back. They all won.

“Any book recommendations, Momo?” Hailey asked, just to counteract the silence. It was a gentle silence, fitting for the forest, but their voices were sweeter.

“I’m working through the Odyssey for the third time,” Momo answered.

“Done with the light novel phase?” the Gamer asked, his eyes glued to the way her hips swung as she walked. Did she even realize she could have led him anywhere and he would have been too busy marvelling at her to notice?

He glanced up for a moment and found a pair of smug eyes smiling back at him. She definitely knew.

John’s eyes travelled back down. He almost did not hear her answer over the wide swings of her firefly-wings-framed hips. “You know, ancient stories and light novels aren’t that different. Totally convoluted power systems, very barebones plot coherency, weird characters that only pop up for a paragraph….”

“Ya sayin’ that Sword Art Online and the Odyssey are similar?” Hailey sounded doubtful.

“I mean, they’re more alike than people might want to admit.” Momo suddenly stopped, twirled around and walked right up to John. “Then and now, here and there, fae to mundane, the moon circles through the mortal and immortal skies. Are the stories told under its path not those that take on the longest march? Would the stories told again and again not be those that appeal the most and surface through the brain’s work?” Momo placed a kiss on John’s forehead, then hovered back on fluttering wings. “So must too the story be judged. One is new and sells quite well, the other old and has much to tell. Both are wrapped in inconsistencies, but did the average ever care about plot above character? To the masses, themes above all appeal.”

“And what enjoyment do you derive from this little spiel?” John asked.

“You know, a dance, a twirl, a chuckle up in the sky.” Momo smiled brightly. “Perhaps a word exchanged with people I love, presented in prose – For a few laughs.”

“Well, then you succeed, my lovely fae.”

“Of course, I do, my loathsome lover,” Momo hovered back towards him, this time to kiss Hailey. “Enough of this though, it makes me feel all tingly.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“The cuddle box kind of tingly!”

“Isn’t that really good?” John doubled down.

“No!”

“It tots is, she’s just bein’ bratty.”

“NO!”

“Let’s find a cuddle box,” John decided.

Just like that Momo’s smugness melted.