When Eights emerges airlock-style from the orgy chamber, Nathan's nearby, Kerron sitting on his shoulders as a not-a-fox-anymore. "Eights, hi!" Nathan says. "This is my and the Joker's son, Kerron."

"Hi, Eights!" says Kerron, waving.

"Hi, Timer! Hi, Kerron!" she says, waving.

"That's not Daddy's name, that's his power," says Kerron.

"It's my nickname, like how Mummy calls you munchkin," Nathan tells Kerron. "When Eights met me I was using it all the time."

"That's about the size of it," she agrees.

"How come you want Daddy to bite you? Do you want to be a vampire?" asks Kerron.

"...He has a magic power," Nathan says weakly. "Sees - goals, intentions, the like."

"It is technically two magic powers!" says Kerron brightly. "Addy says."

"I can bite you if you want!" Kerron volunteers. "I never get to bite humans besides Mummy and she doesn't let me break the skin, I don't even know what humans taste like!"

"I don't think so, kiddo."

"Do I have to wait to be older," huffs Kerron.

"Yes. When you are five you may work out whatever biting arrangements suit both you and the bitten person, okay?"

"But that's a long time!"

"It wouldn't be weird or anything," Eights offers. "Not for me. But if you don't wanna encourage him..." She shrugs.

"I don't wanna encourage him," agrees Nathan.

"Awwwww," says Kerron.

"Five years isn't that long, anyway," says Eights. "I've been walking and talking for twenty thousand."

"That's a long time!" says Kerron. "That's older than anybody I know! I know some old people. It's not older than the Arostuff all added up, though," he adds contemplatively. "I don't have Arostuff in my head though. I can ask the princess for it when I'm five. Everything has to wait till I'm five."

"Why's that?" inquires Eights.

"The Arostuff in question is the sum total of all the memories of everyone a certain vampire more than two thousand years old ever touched. Many of those people were rather old themselves. Elspeth sometimes distributes it, and she can redact to protect the privacy of the living, now, but there's too much to redact all the adult content."

"Gotcha."

"And I'm not sure if she'll be distributing it any more at all, since many of the dead in question are now understood to be still capable of objecting to things."

"Awww," sighs Kerron.

"Only 'many'?"

"Well, some of them are probably not going to be invited to wake up from the catacombs, at least not anytime soon. I can't imagine Her Majesty conferring consciousness voluntarily on Chelsea or Jane."

"Because...?"

"Jane hurt the Princess and Chelsea went around snip-snipping people's affection for one another, including said Princess's. And unlike Addy, they don't have so much benign use or tractable personalities."

"Gotcha," she says again.

"Of course, since we determined that you're from Aurum originally, they might already have woken," says Nathan thoughtfully. "Her Majesty'll probably have Jane check up on that and put them on the 'no-fly list'."

"Ooh, flying, I wanna fly, where's Mummy, she'll turn me into a bird I bet," says Kerron, bouncing up and down on Nathan's shoulders.

"She's busy," says Eights.

"But I want her! I wanna turn into a bird."

"I have some coins, kiddo, I can turn you into a bird," snorts Nathan. "What kinda bird?"

Eights giggles.

"So that's my kid," Nathan says. "It has now been much less time since you have seen a child."

She cracks up.

"Rumor has it," observes Nathan, "that you want to get bit again. Isn't the vampire one of the Joker in there? Did he not oblige this interest?"

"Sure he did," she says cheerfully. "But it's not like wanting him to bite me and wanting you to bite me are mutually exclusive."

"True. Kerron's sleep cycle will probably figure it's time for him to crash for the night in spite of this being Mars on another world at some point in the near future, shall I find you thenabouts?"

"Sounds like a plan," says Eights.

"Alrighty then."

"WATCH MEEEEE, DADDY," Kerron hollers, figuring out how to dive and pull up from said dive at the last moment halfway across the pavilion.

"It is apparently not right this minute," laughs Nathan quietly. "That's wonderful, kiddo!" he calls to his son.

Eights giggles and pats Nate on the shoulder.

It is some fifteen minutes later when Kerron divebombs his father, sits on his shoulder, and starts snoring loudly.

"You know," she remarks, tipping her head at the door to the orgy chamber, "it occurs to me that you'd be pretty popular in there."

"D'you think so? I'm not as friendly to the general population since I got vampired up again. Only so much editing the theoretically uneditable mate bond would take. I am happy to bite pretty much arbitrary people, though."

"Well, how do you feel about being cuddlemobbed by alts of your mate?"

"I think the extant data we have on alts of mates is that the Emperor finds them disturbing and Alice is Alice. Oh, and other Alice appears to find hers perfectly unalarming and Orfeo has no special reaction to alts of his imprint insofar as that's data. I suppose I may as well see where I fall on the apparent spectrum."

"I'm sure Jokes can keep them off you if you turn out not to approve," she says, patting him on the arm. "C'mon."

Yes it is!

"Hey, babe," says Nathan. "The munchkin's down for the count."

"Great. Come snuggle us," he says, opening his arms.

"Mm, yeah," says the one whom the Joker was recently kissing.

Nathan consults his interest in this practice. Yep, there it is. Snuggles. Ungentle vampire snuggles, because he's pretty sure nobody in this room is delicate enough to care if he accidentally breaks something by going too fast, too strongly.

Nathan is pretty comfortable with this. Alice is probably still technically a newborn and could do some careless damage, but nobody else in the room appears at all likely to accidentally render him uncomfortable.

When the Joker is (temporarily) done kissing Nathan, the other one with scars inquires, "Do I get a turn?"

"A turn at...?" inquires Nathan archly.

"Kissing you?"

"Well, if you're so keen on it," he says, and he seizes and repositions her rather casually. "Any dreadful things happen if you interact with venom?"

She cuddles up. "Nope!"

Then her kisses might be a little nibbly.

He's pretty comfy with the girl-shaped ones. If the boys who aren't his start sidling up he might have residual hangups about that. Kiss kiss, anyway.

Apparently the Joker has been gossiping, or they can just tell, because although Kas and Micaiah are part of the general cuddlepile neither of them seems interested in soliciting kisses. And there's another female-shaped one who's curled up next to Sue and Alice, apart from the crowd but still touching Kas; she must be Petaal.

She must, but Nathan's not going to approach her, he heard the explanation when Kerron was looking her over for potential petting earlier. He has three Jokers to kiss. He finds this a fine number.

N'awwwwsnugglesnuggle.

When Nathan's teeth are out of the Joker, Eights climbs into the Nathan zone of the cuddle pile and inquires, "Do I get a turn?"

"Hmm," says Nathan, theatrically stroking his chin and consulting his timer on When To Bite Eights.

Just shy of three seconds is good!

One, two, snatch-snarl-bite. (The snarl's all theater.)

It's good theater. Eights giggles.

Om nom nom. Again, not filling up. He doesn't like the idea of wishing himself empty, for some reason.

Eights is still pretty well mangled by the end of it, but she doesn't seem to consider this an impediment to making out with him a little.

Neither does he!

Mmmmmm snuggly bleedy makeouts. Those are one of her favourite kinds!

(At some point during all this, the lady-shaped Joker alt with scars on disassembles herself and then comes back together sans nibble marks. That probably makes her Ghosty.)

Nathan's pretty content here in this pile. People to kiss, people to bite, people being warm and snuggly on him, and a happy mate. All good things.

[Hmm?]

[Thanks for coming up with the makeout corner,] he says cheerfully, [it's tons of fun.]

[You're welcome. I figured the consequences of not having it would be pretty dire, whether they wound up taking the form of scandalized parents and traumatized children or the form of incessant complaints.]

He laughs, aloud and over brainphone.

[Should I be scandalized that you're trying to conduct a conversation with me at this moment?]

[I dunno, are cuddlepiles scandalous?]

[Only if the people involved are vacationing in Sandy's head or something else is going on to complicate the matter.]

[Well, there's some kissing and some bleeding going on, but I'm not doing either. I think you can let go of your pearls.]

[Haven't got any pearls.]

[Well, then you can let go of whatever else you were clutching.]

[If I do that, the glass'll break. Clutching is an important mechanism for keeping objects like my cup of juice suspended above the ground.]

He cracks up.

[At any rate, I'm glad you're situated comfortably.]

[Awww,] he says fondly. [You're a real sweetheart sometimes, smarty pants.]

[Why do you call me that?]

[It's cute. It suits you. Why, does it bug ya?]

[Not especially, but no one else calls me that. It's not like I'm short on nicknames.]

[I call you that,] he says tranquilly.

[I am aware.]

[Anyway,] he says, observing Eights and Nathan winding down, [I'm gonna go do something scandalous. See you later!]

[Later.]

Would it be an excellent moment for Nathan to begin a prolonged sequence of kisses with the Joker?

Ooh, yes it would!

That's splendid! That happens.