DD 304 Ch 26 (Patreon)

The looting was done faster than I could have imagined, as the remaining members of our teams scoured over the dwarven hive like starving, feral rats. However, I had a different task.

I ripped open a portal to allow a great many people to leave, occasionally changing the location to allow those who were done to get out, but was slowed as Helen stepped up beside me and slid her arm into mine.

"What are you doing?" I said, turning to the flaming-haired paladin, who responded by leaning on me cutely with what passed for a genuine blush on her face.

"My mother's here, and you said you went along with what she believed. Just bear with me for a minute. I'm sure it's worse for me than you," she told me, her tone sickeningly sweet as she batted her lashes.

It was like cuddling a tiger who still had the blood of its last meal dripping from its jowls.

I froze in place, somewhat unable to believe that this was really happening. My eyes looked up and met Des’ whose jaw was currently hanging open wide enough to catch flies. My succubus was shocked into complete disbelief. She slowly blinked like it was going to be a different image when she opened her eyes again.

She was just moments from making this a far bigger deal than it needed to be.

I subtly shook my head at her, and her mouth snapped closed as she gave me a squinty side-eye and mouthed, ‘Did you charm her?’

‘No,’ I mouthed back as snappily as I could. The idea that I’d do something like that was horrid.

Meanwhile, Helen was completely oblivious to this long-range conversation happening and snuggled in closer, shooting a beaming smile across the way in another direction towards a well-dressed man that I could only assume was one of her many fathers, uncles, or whatever she called them.

The man himself looked on with only a little interest before flashing Helen a smile and walking away as if he suddenly had something urgent to do.

Des caught my attention again, staring at me very hard and rolling her hand as if to demand an explanation.

I waffled my head back and forth, and then stared at her with wide eyes that I hoped would communicate that we would talk about it later.

Des then tilted her head, made a ring with one hand, and stuck her index finger through it repeatedly, her head tilted slightly askance.

My eyes went wide and I shook my head violently. ‘No! Nothing happened!’ I mouthed.

"What's wrong?" Helen asked, looking up at me through her lashes. It was so strange for her face to be so close and for there not to be a scowl on it.

I turned back to Des with serious eyes, demanding that she stop.

Des grinned, a wicked smile spreading across her face that I deeply knew I was going to regret.

I stared back at her, lowering my gaze and doing my best to tell her that this was serious and she needed to back off for the moment.

Her grin only grew wider and wider as she gave me a big okay sign and spun away.

“What was that?” Helen frowned.

"Nothing, I was just talking to Des." I told her.

Helen looked at me like I was a fool.

"You know. At a distance." I pointed across the way as if that would magically make it all make sense.

Helen still looked at me as if I'd hit my head, and I brushed her expression off.

"When two people love each other very much, Helen, distance does very little to stand between us." I offered.

"Oh," she said slowly, and with a small amount of thinly veiled disgust. "Yeah, I don't need a birds and bees conversation from you," she snapped, and I felt far more comfortable when she was being angry with me.

Really, I had dug this hole deep enough. I could handle her being more angry.

"You know, Helen," I began, only for a flash to streak across my vision before the Harem Queen landed before the two of us.

She squealed and picked me up, kissing me on each cheek before she put me down and did a similar, if more excitable, version of the greeting with Helen. "I'm so proud of you," she squealed.

The Harem Queen was wearing a flowing silver dress with a burgundy shawl, both had seen better days, having been cut and smeared with blood. Her dress was probably a little shorter than it had started and I could see the hole ridden stockings through the holes in her dress.

Helen cleared her throat. "Mom."

"What? And don't tell me you're going to be embarrassed of your old lady now." The Harem Queen planted her hands on her hips, daring Helen to say more.

However, she was smarter than that, clamming up immediately and changing tactics. "Well, just don't make too big a deal of it. You know, it's still new and if you come on too strong it could ruin it," Helen said, blushing.

The Harem Queen spun back to me with a victorious smile on her lips.

I was surprised at how badly it felt to see the Harem Queen so excited that something was happening between me and Helen. I had just been mere seconds away from telling Helen about the lie and getting rid of all of this awkwardness, and then her mother had to come blazing in, so happy that I would feel even more guilty interrupting this.

God damn it. If I said it now, it would feel like I was punting a puppy through a ring of fire and into a spike pit. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling, wondering what in the world I had done to end up here. This was certainly a good example of why lying never solved anything. Fuck you Sun Tzu.

Speaking in my head to the dungeon, or whatever higher power ran the space, I promised that I would be good and stop lying if it saved me from this moment of awkwardness.

But, nothing happened. So I did the best thing I could do and squeezed a smile onto my face.

"Mother," I said, trying out the term on the Harem Queen.

She squealed with absolute giddy delight. "Again," she exclaimed, batting her lashes.

I sighed. I'd fucked up. I'd fucked up bad and the Harem Queen continued to stare at me with barely constrained excitement.

"Yeah, it's just a little new. It's a little awkward," I said, grabbing Helen by her hip and squeezing her tightly against me. Her face turned bright red, most likely angry enough to hit me for that motion. Though thankfully she didn't, or it would ruin the moment. Helen seemed fairly invested in this. I supposed while it was awkward and a terrible lie, it was making two people very happy. Maybe that karmically balanced it out?

"I'm just so excited," the Harem Queen said. "Can I take a picture?"

"No," I said, only for Helen to speak over me.

"Of course, Mother. But please don't share it online. You know how weird social media can be these days."

"Oh, yes, of course," she said, though it sounded to me like she was barely listening as she suddenly stuck her nose into her CID and began excitedly typing something out.

Helen took that moment to shoot me a small apologetic smile. Perhaps she wasn't as angry as I had thought.

I took a deep breath. "Look, Helen, we need to talk," I said carefully, hoping that I would be able to extract myself from all of this.

Yet those words looked like I might as well have just killed her dog based on the way her eyes went wide and a small gasp escaped her lips.

"Is everything okay?" she asked.

No, it's not, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

"Everything's fine." Somehow came out instead. "It's just, your mother's hope is a little much for me to take on." I tried to be diplomatic about it all.

"Oh, of course," Helen said, while her mother was distracted. "Don't worry, I'll try and minimize how much we have to do."

I squeezed my eyes closed. That wasn't the problem.

"Say cheese!" The Harem Queen whipped back around, swinging herself behind us and pressing me and Helen together. And just by happenstance, she managed to press my arm deep into Helen's cleavage and my face into the side of hers, with a wicked smile that told me perhaps that wasn't an accident at all. Her CID was held out in front of us and began taking pictures, all three of us pressed together.

I took a deep breath. Everything in this situation was fixable. All I had to do was tell the truth. I glanced at the Harem Queen, knowing that I would also crush her soul a little in the process. I swore to myself, pinching my eyes closed. This wasn't supposed to be this hard.

The Harem Queen looked through her CID quickly and then beamed, came over, kissed me on the top of the head, and then did the same for Helen.

"I'm so proud of you, Helen. Don't worry, the wedding will be beautiful," she said, and hugged me one last time while she whispered in my ear, "Just think! If you couldn't have the woman on the poster in your room, you could at least have her daughter." And then, with a wicked grin, the Harem Queen ran off, leaving me speechless.

"Is everything okay?" Helen asked, and I turned to her, my expression a practiced neutral.

My real answer was that nothing was okay, but I didn't have the heart at this point to clear anything up. I had been thoroughly defeated in that interaction. I would perhaps have to find a more gradual way out of what I had stepped into.

“Everything is peachy.” I said.

***

"Order, order!" Des banged her gavel on the table.

As we sat around the kitchen table, she had pulled me into this immediately after the raid on the dwarven hive. Though I desperately needed to get to the UG and have some post-mission conversations. Though with everything that had happened, they would likely need at least a few hours for people to get their ducks in a row.

So here I was, at a family meeting. Des sat at the head, gavel in hand, wearing a silk robe that matched her pink eyes.

I paused, scanning the room and suddenly noticing that most of the women around the table were wearing silk robes. That felt like more than random chance.

"Can we get this over with?" Crimson asked as she cracked a beer and put her bare feet up on the table, wiggling her toes at me in greeting as she knocked back the first of what I assumed would be more than a few beers before the meeting ended.

"Order." Des banged the gavel again. "Feet off the table. Wait." She looked at Crimson's feet, then at my eyes, then back at the feet. "No, you can put them down. I don't think they're going to win Ken over."

"Excuse me?" I sputtered.

"Foot fetish is more rampant than you'd think, Ken," Des said, wagging the gavel at me. "Just needed to check your reaction to see if I need to get a pedicure. The ones for adventurers are so expensive."

"Yeah, because they have to bring a freaking sander out," Penny said with a huff. "I went for one once, and… there is something deeply unsettling about power tools around my feet."

Many of the ladies around the table began nodding along with Penny's words. Just the thought made me shudder.

"Des, why are we all here?" I asked, once I was sure everyone was listening.

I noted that Crimson had already been a bad influence. Felin had now pulled out a bottle of Irish cream and started pouring shots for her and Misha, who apparently had gotten added to this group.

Meanwhile, Selene seemed to prefer wine, pouring herself a glass before looking around the table to ask if anyone else wanted some. Des gave a quick give-it-here gesture until the bottle was passed to her. She was at least refined enough to pour it into a glass before handing it off to Bellaire, who sat in a cream silk robe happily showing off her tanned legs, a burgundy sash tying it all together.

"Look," Des said, leaning over the table, threatening to bang the gavel again. "I said the family meeting is in order. Even the elves came." She gestured at Elysara who was wearing a sapphire silk robe with golden patterns dancing across it.

"Well, of course. I assume you saw the same thing I did." Elysara's eyes glimmered as she stared back at Des.

"And Ken promised an explanation," Des quickly added, shooting me a look.

"This is about Helen?" I said, deciding to cut through all the unnecessary bullshit.

"So you do admit you've done something," Des said. "Did you charm her? Turn her into your unknowing love slave who simply slavers at your—"

I banged my hand on the table and pointed a finger at her. "Don't you even dare accuse me of doing such a thing."

"It's hot," Penny said, and I shot her a sharp look.

"Taking away someone's free will is not hot, Penny. However, pretending to do so can be," I added with a grin, and Penny's cheeks flushed bright red as she suddenly found the center of the table very interesting.

Elysara was fanning herself after those words. "Well, if that's the way you feel," she said, "I suppose there's something we can do about that."

"Enough. None of this. Back to the topic," I said. "Helen." I looked around the table, then sighed and put my head in my hands, running my palms over my face, wishing this would just go away. But while I might have told a small lie for Helen, I would never lie to the ladies here. "So where do I start?"

I leaned back in the chair, looking up at the ceiling. "Apparently Helen told a small fib to the Harem Queen. She told her mother that she and I were in a relationship to get out of some blind dates. I found that out when I was confronted by the Harem Queen and, of course, told her that it was not the case. But then later this came up with Helen while we were reading The Art of War, and she's such a pain in my ass, so I thought… what if I told a small fib and tried to grasp her weakness?"

The table all nodded, staying quiet and I found myself letting out a breath that at least they understood this was hard for me.

"Then what?" Des leaned over the table, tilting her head as she watched me.

"Well, I told her that I hadn't outed her secret to her mother. And she was incredibly thankful. At the moment it seemed like it would really bite me in the ass if I told her what I'd done." I answered.

"So it's just going to bite you in the ass harder the longer you wait," Crimson commented, taking another swig of her beer.

"Yeah, well, that's the thing about pain. We humans are very avoidant of it, aren't we?" I said, scratching the back of my head. "So I didn't tell her the truth, and she stayed thankful to me for keeping up the fib with her mother. And now it seems she's gone to her mother, who now does believe we are in a relationship. And the two of them are being so incredibly sweet and encouraging. And fuck." I rubbed my face and let out a heavy sigh that was immediately followed by all of them laughing.

I peeked between my fingers, curious what they would say, frowning as I spotted Charlotte. "Are you done, Charlotte?" I asked.

She was still clutching her stomach while Bun-bun held on for dear life. She took several deep breaths and tried to calm her laughter. "It's pretty funny, Ken."

"Is it now?" I gave her a flat look.

"Yeah, well, so you've dug yourself a hole so deep.” She laughed. “What was it that set all this off? What did Des see?”

"My interactions with Helen, where she was leaning on me, resting her head on my shoulder," I said, pinching my brow.

"Helen?" Penny sat up straighter. "No way, you must have charmed her."

"I swear by all things holy, and I guess in my case unholy, that I did no such thing. And I would never do that, except in combat, or with your permission." I mumbled the last part and really wished I had a drink to stuff my face into.

Crimson must have practically read my mind, because she cracked a beer and handed it to me, and I drank it gladly.

"I guess I'm not going to be the only red-haired lady in the harem soon," Elysara lamented exaggeratedly, pulling at a wisp of her hair and curling it around her finger. "Though I suppose some company in that regard would be welcome."

"I am not adding Helen to the harem," I said with certainty. "After all, this is all starting with a lie. And at some point I'm going to have to come clean, and it's going to blow up in my face to epic proportions."

"Or… or, hear me out," Des said, holding her hands up. "You go along with this long enough that real feelings start. Then it won’t be a lie."

"It's still based on a lie," Fayeth spoke up. "I don't think the foundation of a relationship can stand on a lie."

Crimson squinted at Fayeth. "Didn't yours and Ken's start because you thought he had proposed to you, and he thought he was just giving a gift to an elf?"

"That's different. That's a misunderstanding," Fayeth frowned.

"Misunderstanding, lie," Des waffled her hands. "They're not that different."

"Kill me now," I groaned, and set my head on the table.

"We'd all really prefer if you didn't die, Ken," Crimson said casually, continuing to drink her beer.

"Yeah, well, I feel like it might be easier than digging my way out of this," I said with a sigh. Helen wasn’t my biggest fan right now. But if I revealed what I’d done, then she would go nuclear.

The table fell quiet for a moment, save for the noise of people enjoying their drinks.

"Well, there is one way you can move through this," Elysara said. "You commit to the bit. You tell Helen that you're fake dating, and then you tell the Harem Queen that you are fake dating. That way the lie clears itself up, but you don't have to upset Helen, nor are you lying to her mother."

“The Harem Queen would probably go for that just in hopes that some actual feelings bloomed.” Fayeth agreed.

I leaned back and stared at Elysara. Of course she would have perhaps the most politically savvy answer. Her idea was a way to try to undo the lie.

"We'll see," I said noncommittally.

Des banged her gavel, and I nearly jumped. "Anyways, back to the next order of business. Loot," she exclaimed.