On Sexual Healing and Future Sight

((Author's Note: I will not be posting a chapter on the 23rd of December on account of Christmas. As such, next chapter will be on the 6th of January. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and so on my fellow degenerates.

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Once they had finished cleaning up the aftermath of Marisa accidentally inhaling some of his cum, she dropped from seated to lying down and made a gesture in the general direction of John’s dick, which was still erect courtesy of Climax Control’s refill function. “Lots of vigor, huh? My leg’s kinda killing me right now because we got a bit intense, or I’d have loved to continue. This has been way better than expected.”

John chuckled. “I’m not entirely sure if I should take that one as a compliment or not, to be honest.”

“Compliment, definitely. Thing is, a year ago I didn’t know about the audience thing and I thought I was a lesbian. Then you started peeping and I discovered that I not only didn’t mind, I actually liked it. Then you started showing up in my head while I was flicking the bean. Just watching at first, then getting involved and stuff. But I was kinda worried maybe you’d just gotten entangled with the exhibition thing and it’d fall flat if we actually did something for real. But we just pretty conclusively proved that I am indeed batting for both teams, just with a heavy leaning towards chicks.”

For a moment, he was worried that he might have just overpowered her natural leanings with his various Skills, but between Pheromone Aura being strictly non-verbal communication and everything being multiplicative. Well, multiplying a 0 went nowhere…

Everything she said also implied a different conclusion. “So… does that mean I’m, uh…”

“The only guy I’ve ever been into? Yep. Like I said, definitely a compliment.”

“In that case, I’m honored.” That was quite something. Among others, it was enough of a confidence boost to make him not mildly dread asking a question he kind of should have probably asked beforehand. “So, does this-” he gestured at the two of them on the bed, “-mean I’m your first boyfriend too?”

“Nope.” A heartbeat passed before she continued, “Okay, that sounded less shitty in my head. Basically, it’s not you, it’s me. Except unlike the cliche I actually mean it. Long story short, I’m not in the market for romance stuff. Just some no-strings fun with someone who ain’t gonna be playing an angle or getting me in the Goldie brass’ frown town over not looking for more. If I were looking for love, though, yeah, I’d be down for giving ‘first boyfriend’ a try.”

“Okay. If that’s where you’re standing…” If he had a nickel for each time he had heard something like that… he’d have earned more off that than his past self from last month would have believed. He tried his best to hide that, despite that last bit, it still felt like a gut punch, crumbling all of the self confidence boost of moments ago into nothing.

Clearly, he hadn’t entirely succeeded, as she decided to explain further, “Look, it’s… I really do mean it when I say it’s me. I don’t want to get into the details, but there’s something I’ve gotta do. And it’s something I can’t just drag people into, and there’s no getting an SO without dragging them into it. Honestly, even making friends is kinda pushing it, but there’s only so much isolation a girl can take.”

“I don’t really know what to say to that except ‘okay’. Sorry.” That… helped with his own feelings a bit, but at the same time it made him worried about her beyond just the fact that she was going to get deployed again once her leg was better. For now, it was probably better to just try to change the topic, for both their sakes. His powers were helpful in supplying an obvious go-to. “That aside, some notifications have popped up since I came over. Since they’re probably about you in one way or another, do you wanna see them?”

“Sure, lay it on me. But, uh, lemme put something on first real quick. Feels a tad unfair to keep sitting on full display considering…”

They got dressed, Marisa got a party invite, and then John pulled up the first notification.

“Just to be clear, I don’t particularly mind if it takes a couple of failed tries before you pull it off.” Marisa’s more or less trademark teasing smirk was back in full ****.

“Good to know.” Though her turning down more than being friends with benefits still stung, her air of banter and shenanigans was too infectious not to fire back. “For the record, how are you on additional tries after I pull it off?”

She answered that by giggling and throwing her pillow at him. So he whacked her in the face with it, which he was pretty sure she let him do but she also turned from giggling to laughing so it was a win anyway. Once she had calmed down a bit, he went for the next notification.

Quest Objective Completed: Graduated from Peeping Tom
Grope Marisa.
Reward: +1 AGI, 200 EXP

“You’re getting stronger from getting dirty? Damn, dude, talk about winning the Innate Ability lottery. Anything else fun we can clear while I’m on medical?”

“Technically yes but uh…” Kissing was out for the same reason he hadn’t kissed Qhila, and the ship had sailed on the “lose his virginity to” one, which left: “The next thing with a confirmed reward would be getting you pregnant…”

“Point taken.”

Achievement Unlocked: Third Base
Have both given and received oral.
I’m still mad at you for ruining the sequence
Reward: 100 EXP, +1 The Wiggle lvl, +1 CHA, +1 LIB

“‘Still mad’, huh, Johnny?” She quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Uh, today may not be the first time I was told something to the effect of ‘the most we can be is friends with benefits’...” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.

She narrowed her eyes. “So I’m your backup choice?”

“No! God, no. It isn’t like that at all. I’m still half expecting to wake up and discover that this was a dream I had while I was **** because you clobbered me for peeping. But-” His frantic attempt at grasping at some way to explain any of the tangle of feelings he felt for multiple women around him, despite not having made much sense of the whole of it himself yet, came to a sudden halt when Marisa burst out laughing.

“Sorry, dude, I’m just pulling your leg. Even if it was like that, I can’t really get salty about it when I’ve got something myself that takes priority over trying for a relationship, yanno.”

“I guess so.” John sighed with relief and pulled up the next notification.

Achievement Unlocked: Wrong Way Down
Have someone inhale your semen.
I hope that was by accident…
Reward: 50 EXP, breath mint, bottle of cleansing water

“I think these are meant for you,” John commented drily as he retrieved the breath mint and water for Marisa. She punched him lightly in the shoulder in response.

Achievement Unlocked: Third Time Wasn’t the Charm
Have romantic advances rejected by 3 different women in the span of two weeks.
Guess you’ll need either more Wisdom to pick ‘em with or more Charisma to charm ‘em with.
Reward: 50 EXP, +1 WIS, +1 CHA, Pre-packaged Pity Party

“Ouch, dude, that’s rough.” Marisa gave him a sympathetic pat on the same shoulder she had punched moments earlier. “At least if the other two responded like I did, there’s a silver lining. Are they hot? And is it anyone I know? No, wait, the only hot chicks we’ve both met as far as I know are your mom and lil’ Miss Brighton. You didn’t seriously hit on Moira, did you?”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “No, I didn’t. Just that bit of trolling at school, because she seemed to be following me and I wanted to know why.”

“Oh, that’s easy as fuck.” While she was still wearing an amused smirk, something in the look in her eye told him she was also being entirely serious. “The Goldies are gonna keep tabs on you because you’re a Late Bloomer. That’s enough potential to make waves that if you’re gonna turn evil or start rampaging through mundanes, even if they’re shitheels, they need to know early so they can nip ya in the bud. And if you ain’t, which I’m pretty confident you ain’t, then they need to keep an eye out for someone like the Cabal or the Emerald Shitstains yoinking your ass into slavery or worse. But as a Late Bloomer it won’t be long before there’s enough magic mojo connected to you that it’ll be less tailing you and more handing the case over to their seers most of the time.”

“... How much can seers actually see like that? Because I’m not sure that’s a level of surveillance I’m comfortable with… And does seer mean future stuff like prophecies? Because that kind of implies some shit about free will…”

“I don’t actually know how much the Order seers can see. The hereditary ones, House Varnish or something, are supposed to be pretty good, but the specifics are all classified and shit. They probably did, like, an in depth vibe check on what your morals are and how firm they are, and other than that it’d be lookout for things that’d end up with you under the thumb of someone nasty.

“As for the free will thing, my bio mom tried to cover some of that with the other magical theory crap I didn’t get either. When I asked for the ‘for dummies’ version, she said that basically, the future ain’t fixed but people spend a lot more time than they wanna think about on autopilot instead of making choices. And they also sometimes end up with a choice where who they are means there was only really one option they would ever pick. The stuff that comes from that kind of non-choices is what seers can see. If they’re real good, they can maybe see past one real choice to tell where both options go, but with more choices it gets murky fast.”

“Okay, that’s a relief on the free will front at least. Still not too happy about the snooping, but I guess if they didn’t, it would skyrocket the risk of getting a Bad End.” He frowned.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much true. If you want to murk it up good for both Order seers and bad ones, the good play is to be mindful of your options and make sure to actually consider them. That way, you’ll be making real choices instead of running on autopilot more often.”

That was a good point. It also brought to mind another thing that probably piled a bunch of choices into the situation right quick: Two seers with different interests both looking at the same person’s future. Presumably, peering into the future was a big enough deal that how, or if, they acted on it would pretty much always be a carefully considered choice. Which, in turn, would mean that as soon as he did catch the attention of a second seer, the GRO seer would effectively be preventing snooping by worse people rather than snooping themselves.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He paused briefly. “Actually, speaking of choices, I’ve decided that I’m going to be an Abyssal doctor, or healer, or whatever the proper term is. Do you know any local Apothecaries that are known to be decent people?”

“Yeah, there’s uh…” She scrunched her face up in thought. “I can’t actually remember her name, something Russian sounding. I did the ‘What’s up, doc’ line on her when the Goldies sent me in for a checkup after I signed the contract, and it amused her enough that I ended up just calling her ‘Doc’. Anyway, I got nothing but good vibes outta her, and it’s apparent that Shield Branch brass has mad respect for her. Including Sir Liverspot, and the only way he’d respect someone who ain’t got a stick lodged so far up their ass it tickles their tonsils is if they’re both good people and someone that knows their shit.”

Russian-sounding name and well respected by the GRO leadership, that sounded like the Dr. Breshnik that Moira had mentioned. He was still going to ask Qhila to look into her too, but it was looking promising so far.

They spent a bit of time discussing local medically oriented guilds in case the Apothecaries didn’t pan out. There were a total of 3 operating in and around Springfield, in addition to which most larger guilds with mainline activities that involved significant risk of combat, like the GRO, Hunter guilds, and Inferno security, had some in-house medical for the ailments most commonly faced by their membership.

The smaller providers competed in a market where the Apothecaries were the undisputed giant by simple din of the Apothecaries not caring to get rid of them. While they were a medical service provider, the Apothecaries were primarily a research institution funding said research with the medical services. They were also an organization that prized their senior members’ discretion to arrange their activities as they desired highly.

As a result, their services were far from streamlined or standardized, and they mostly didn’t care for attracting more patients suffering from common, easily handled ailments than they already got. Most of the membership was more interested in the uncommon or rare cases that both yielded more interesting data for research purposes and could usually get more funds per workhour for sheer scarcity of healers capable of handling the case at all.

They also maintained no standards for bedside manners at all, and aside from some guild-wide and local price minimums, individual members set their own pricing scheme. Apothecaries of managerial rank also had free reigns over furnishing their part of the hospital, though the cost of said furnishing then detracted from what they’d have left for research.

Consequently, smaller Abyssal medical businesses generally came in one of two types. One offered slightly less expertise than the Apothecaries for a slightly lower cost, but guaranteed a much more comfortable patient experience. The other offered less than half the expertise for less than a tenth of the price.

In both cases, they only covered fairly common ailments or subsets thereof. If whatever you were suffering from was uncommon, or common but from a source that was too powerful for local clinics, you were stuck with the Apothecaries as basically your only option.

Regardless, one of the local guilds was struck from the potential options list. Marisa knew of investigations into them that spoke of shady practices but hadn’t produced conclusive enough evidence to **** Dante, in whose territory the clinic was located, to let the Order bring down the proverbial, and possibly literal, hammer.

After an hour and a half, he felt like sticking around any longer wouldn't be fair to Qhila. Besides, he had a lot to tell her about.

On the way home, he opened the one notification he had opted not to show Marisa, after his speed reading Perk had let him skim the title when it first showed up.