John slowly placed his eating utensils down. It wasn’t that he had no more hunger, but the appetite was definitely gone for a moment. ‘Well, that’s useless and incredibly heavy knowledge,’ he thought, letting the eerie silence settle around the table as everyone else displayed similar reactions.

Like he assumed most people had, the Gamer had played with the thought whether they lived in a simulation before. Also, like everyone else, he had eventually just stopped thinking about it, as there was no way to prove it. Considering it was all fun and games, until a supreme deity waltzed into his life and dropped the bombshell that it very well might be true.

Knowing it also didn’t serve him in any way. There was no practical application for this. It wasn’t like being aware of the fact that this was very likely to be a dream suddenly propelled him to a fourth dimensional being with reality bending mind powers. It was just there. Something he was now wizened up on because he just had to find out about it.

The question was how to handle that knowledge. It was easy to dismiss the thought experiment. It wasn’t quite as easy to dismiss the potential end of their entire universe at the mere boredom of Gaia. In the end, however, there were only two possible responses to this. They could either let this swallow them whole and cause a spiral into nihilism or they could accept this, shoulder the burden, and carry on.

“Alright,” he therefore took the charge on making the quiet go away. Nihilism really wasn’t his style. “So that at least explains how multiple dimensions seem to be a thing. Apparently, Gaia just… dreams in parallel or something.”

“Makes ya wonder how screwed up her brain must be,” Rave bantered right back. “I mean, my dreams are weird, but this is a whole different level of stupid.”

“I mean, at least its coherent,” he stated in a drily appreciating tone. “So that’s something.”

“Ya know that maybe none of this is making sense, but ‘cause we never knew anything else, this is what we define coherent as,” his girlfriend retorted.

“Huh, yes, actually…” He furrowed his eyebrows, then giggled a little bit. “Man, this must be shocking me worse than I thought if you manage to out-philosophize me, Jane.”

“Oy, say more mean stuff like that and I won’t be sorry next time I take ya in mid-sleep Full Nelson!”

Slowly thawed up by the couple’s play-fighting, one by one, everyone else in the room resumed their participation in the now. They weren’t equally able to shake this off. He and Rave seemed to cope with it well enough, perhaps only trumped out by Sylph, too whimsical to care. Most affected was Lydia, who didn’t seem to come back to reality for a long while.

“You okay?” John asked, when the queen quietly held out her cup to Aclysia.

“I am bothered.” She shook her head.“I am aware of what the correct response to this knowledge would be, lest I plan to invite hopelessness to my mind, but I still find myself contemplating the implications of this on things that have happened. None of it can lead anywhere. If she really is dreaming, then everything is included in it. Most importantly, she did say she let free will be a thing, which is a worrisome implication that she can make it not so, but also means that it currently exists in spite of this being a mere creation of her sleeping mind…” Lydia trailed off, clearly stopping herself, slouching forwards.

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John stood up and walked over to rub her back and let her rest her head against him for as long as she needed. “Yeah, it does cause some immediate existential dread.” Denying this wouldn’t solve the problem. Better to face and talk about it. “Let your mind go where it needs to. I’ll be here and we can make sure that our reason doesn’t fail if anyone ever gets anxious, alright?”

He could feel how her spine straightened back up to her usual posture and she gave a slow nod. Chances were, they would all lie awake tonight. Maybe a few more times over the next week. Then even fewer times over the month. A couple of times over the years. Eventually, once or twice over a decade. Things like this never went away completely, but they faded with time.

Soon, they just continued with breakfast. There was nothing else to do. Reality may not be based on what they anticipated, but it was their reality. Given what they all had been through and what they all felt, it wasn’t a bad one.

___________________________________________________________________________

“Soooo, how was your birthday party, sweetie?” Brenda’s voice reverberated from the phone, while John massaged Rave’s back with his other hand. His girlfriend purred, in a perfectly human way, loud enough for his mother to hear. “I hope your girlfriend can still walk?”

“Mom, can we not talk about sex?” John requested, still violently uncomfortable whenever the topic came up with his parents. “I had a great birthday, a wonderful night, can we leave it at that?”

“Sure, sure,” his mother giggled. They had actually talked shortly yesterday. With everything else going on, it had been an under two-minute call reduced to the necessities. Today, John had a lot more time. “So, when are you visiting again? Your father and I want to give you your gift in person.”

“Do tell me it’s not another one of your vitamin supplements,” John almost begged. His mother’s interest in health products had become a bit obsessive. Not to a worrying degree. Certainly a few levels under aggressive veganism. Still a bit more than the average person that took vitamin D during winter.

Of course, John had set Hex (and one of the surveillance golems that masked themselves as friendly neighbours) on checking where she got those. Neither the bodyguard nor the Wardeth (that was the name of the company) golem had found anything suspicious. Which made John feel quite a bit paranoid.

‘Maybe I should ease off on the scope of investigations a bit. Knowing about the surroundings of their acquaintances and the shoesize of their pharmacist is quite overkill,’ the Gamer thought, as his mouth continued to move. “I assure you, my diet is balanced, I have a girl that takes care of that.”

“Yes, I know Aclysia is doing my job now,” Brenda put forwards. “We have been exchanging recipes. I didn’t even know you could use carrots like that.” Hyper sensitive about these things, John closed his eyes and ignored the phrasing to the best of his ability. “Anyway, you didn’t answer the question, sweetie. When are you coming over?”

“Difficult to say…” John tried his best to dodge details. Luckily, fluidly lying was one of the advantages that came with a high Charisma. His left-hand stopped rubbing Rave’s oiled back while he hid the truth from his mother, though. “My company is having some issues right now and I need to be around in case something happens.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good,” worried, his mother spoke into the phone. “Do you need help? It all sounded pretty valuable, so I don’t think what your father and I could put forward would help much… maybe if we sold the house in Springfield…”

“No, no,” John quickly dispersed her concern. “We are having some issues, no troubles or problems.” He realized he had just used three words for basically the same thing, so he stopped and reformulated properly, “There is a situation that could develop in either an unpleasant direction or resolve without any further complications. Either way, I got a handle on things, I just need to be around to put the right countermeasures in place, whatever my detractors decide to do.”

“Alright…” Brenda sounded mostly appeased. “You got an ETA on that? That’s what you fancy business people say, right?”

“In emails, yes,” John laughed, then mentally went through his calendar. “I think I can swing by for a few hours next Sunday. I can bring a few of the girls as well, if you want.”

“Of course!” his mother replied enthusiastically. “Wouldn’t be half as fun if I couldn’t press all of your harem for all the details you’re too ashamed of to talk about.”

“Mooooom…” John whined, suddenly feeling like a thirteen-year-old that had been barred access from the Xbox, “…could you not?”

A hand reached up to his ear and Rave snatched the phone from him. “Gimme,” she said, when she already had it. “Hey Bren, what’s your baby boy whining about this time?” A little pause, during which the Gamer’s girlfriend stretched out again. With a sigh, John resumed his massage, now with both hands. “He’s giving me backrubs, like a good boy.” The conversation moved on.

‘If you weren’t on the phone with my mother right now, I would stop straddling your squishy cushion of an ass and start spanking it so violently you couldn’t sit for the remainder of the day,’ John thought, earning himself a wink over Rave’s oddly attractive shoulder. The Lightbearer had successfully read his thoughts – like so often. Now she was wiggling her bum under him. Which was just unfair, as he was only wearing boxers.

“Ja, ja, John is just overcautious and stuff… No, finances are good, no worries there. Made some recent investments that left us a bit thin in fluid capital, but lotsa assets acquired, so no biggie… Mhm? Oh yeah, I’ll bring e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e, everyone I can… Sure… uh-huh… Funny that’d ya mention that, they resolved that according to bro code, was kinda funny… Will make doubly sure she comes along… Yes… Yesssssss… Alright, hope the weather will be good… Alrighty, love ya, future mother-in-law.”

John had only understood about half of that, but the phone was now offered back to him. Quickly, he wiped the oil off his right hand with a wash cloth that had been placed on the couch table, then he returned the device to his ear. “You haven’t put a ring on her yet, have you?” his mother immediately made sure.

“No, not yet,” John answered, gaining himself a happy little tune, hummed by his girlfriend. Since she already knew that he was only preparing things so the question would come under the perfect circumstances, there was nothing lost on discussing these things (in minor detail) in front of her. “You will hear of it before she does, don’t worry.”

“Unfair!” Rave complained, but he shut her up by going back to rolling her relaxed muscles under his palm. Her legs and arms stretched out and clawed softly at the oil cloth covered couch, like a cat that had just woken up. “Unfairrrrr,” she purred again, from deep within her throat.

From there, the phone call devolved into pleasantries. How Brenda’s neighbours were doing, how she and John’s dad wanted to visit him for a change (something the Gamer still had to prepare a faux-home for), what recent happenings were and other little updates. After about twenty minutes of that, the conversation ended with his mother saying she had to start preparing some food for when Benjamin came home.

Immediately after he put the phone down, he unequipped his boxers and his flaccid dick went into full erection. “Guess ya ain’t interested in your mom after all,” Rave teased, seeing this reaction.

“Can you not?” John asked, feeling the blood flow back to his brain already. Nothing killed his excitement more than thinking of his mom, except the word ‘daddy’ maybe. “I don’t have an incest boner, why is that so odd for you?”

“It’s not,” his girlfriend giggled, as they both moved around a little bit, so John found himself at a better angle. “Just fun to tease ya with it.” He grumbled something unflattering. “Aw, don’t be like that tiger… I can repay ya with anal, how does that sound?” It sounded quite fair, so John grabbed the oil bottle again and put some of the lubricating lotion between her round ass cheeks. Although she had gotten a bit wet from the massage, that was only her pussy and he wasn’t going to ram it into the back entrance dry. Usually, he was slathered in pre-cum to compensate, but not this time around.

The oil did its job and he sank in without any problems. ‘Oh yeah,’ he thought as he felt the soft tightness of her asshole around him, heard her moans and saw her back tremble in pleasure, ‘this definitely makes living in reality worth it, no matter what origin it has.’

Lydia leaned over the back of the couch, to John’s left. Perhaps still a bit shook by the recent developments, the queen had finally caved and partook in the tradition that clothes were not usually worn inside the Gamer’s home. No uniform, no shirt, no pants, not even a summer dress. She wasn’t completely naked, though, sporting the same type of sexy, lace underwear everyone had worn during the orgy yesterday. To John’s liking, it did give him another flavour of (what amounted to) nakedness.

“Is this how you spend your last vacation day?” she asked, the hint of disapproval in her expression greatly offset by the fact that she was basically shoving her petite tits in his face. The pink nipples stood out heavily from the black lace, easily visible thanks to the gap in the bra made specifically to make them accessible.

Before he answered, John gave one of the nipples a kiss, sucked on it and circled it with his tongue. With his sexual skills, even that much made the adoring queen pant and distracted her enough that Jack could form behind her. Same problem as with Rave’s butthole, but without oil in reach, he decided to just push into her pussy, through the slit in her panties. It hadn’t even been an hour since he last fucked Lydia, but he was going to take advantage of it, while she was there.

“No, we’re going to do some things today,” he assured her.

“That’s…” Lydia gulped, trying to speak normally despite the large cock sliding in and out of her. “That’s good… as pleasing as this is, you have many things to inspect,” she moaned, just as Rave came, burying her face in a pillow she had grabbed at some point. John couldn’t help himself, dropped his own load inside them, and thus forced the conversation to halt for a climactic few moments.

“Whew,” he huffed afterwards, continuing to thrust when the orgasms had subsided. Just some mellow fucking. “How much longer are you staying, Lydia?”

“I’ll… have to leave tom-mhm-orrow,” she gasped her answer. A painfully short visit, but he was happy she had come over in the first place. Giving her a long kiss, he let her know that, without wasting much in the way of inadequate words. He also put some plans together to maybe give her a pleasant surprise.