Nathan wanders to the collection of Jokespawn, where his mate appears to be at a loose end, and scoops him up off the floor. "Hi, babe. How're the altkids?"

"Adorable," he says, wrapping his arms around Nathan's shoulders and kissing his cheek. "Demon's got a name now, didja hear? Aianon. And his dragon's Ansharil."

"Having a name is useful," says Nathan.

"Mhm. They got 'em from Sarion's mom, apparently."

"Cute," laughs Nathan. "And the baby one has been rechristened, too, but you already knew that."

"Yep. Harley Andrea. Hope he turns out okay," he says musingly.

"I think if the princess volunteered she must have a good shot at doing it right."

"True. I just dunno what'll happen to one of me who's raised - nice," he says. "It's never happened before." He shrugs. "He's still one of me, though, so I'm not too worried."

"Why would it be worrying?" asks Nathan. "You think something weird'll happen to a one of you with a decent childhood?"

"I have no idea what'll happen to a one of me with a decent childhood," he says. "Maybe he'll turn out like Micaiah and Jellybean. Maybe he won't turn out to be one of me at all. Maybe he'll turn out to be one of Voice."

"...Well, if you believe Angela, Voice can turn out all right."

"Sure, I believe it."

"Oh, that reminds me, Pattern was asking for everybody to stop at the little genomics lab she wished up over there and submit samples for Jane to look at so we can have a look at how alts and genes interact. I didn't bother since I'm one of a kind so far, but she'd probably appreciate it if you swung by."

"Sure," he says. "Wanna wander over thataway?"

Nathan kisses his mate's neck and wanders over thataway. Jane is displaying instructions on sample production on a screen on the relevant hardware.

The Joker submits some samples. If he's lucky he can do it without Nathan having to put him down!

He is lucky!

Terribly terribly lucky. He celebrates by kissing Nathan's cheek again.

Ooh, kisses. Nathan gets out of the way so Juliet can go give Jane a swab.

"Spotted him from across the room. Have not been formally introduced."

"You should, he's fun. Squishes almost as hard as you do," the Joker says reminiscently. "Maybe harder."

"Really? Well, I'm not a newborn anymore," chuckles Nathan.

"Apparently demons can deliver some serious squish. Maybe you guys should arm-wrestle on behalf of your species," he suggests whimsically.

"Could do. He likely to want to?"

"Why not? Could be fun," he says in prediction of Aianon's likely attitude.

"All right then. But you realize I'll have to put you down in order to arm-wrestle him or anybody."

"I'll live, sweetheart."

"You better. Where is this demonic competitive fellow?"

"Mmm..."

Aianon appears. Half a second later, so do pants.

"Hello there. Rumor has it you might be able to arm-wrestle a vampire and win." Nathan puts the Joker down and spreads his hands. "I am a convenient vampire."

"Someone will have to explain 'arm-wrestle'," says Aianon, "but I think that could be fun."

"We find some surface - not Pattern's little genomics lab over here, maybe a rock, outside - and plop our right elbows down on it and -" He demonstrates the relevant grip on his mate. "Try to force the other's hand down onto the rock or whatever."

The demon laughs. "All right," he says agreeably.

Aianon starts slow, testing Nathan's strength. He is careful not to dig in his claws.

Nathan's hand stays exactly where it is. "Am I trying to win or do science?" he asks.

Their joined hands sway abruptly in one direction, and then somewhat less abruptly in the other. Aianon doesn't have perfect control of exactly which muscles are exerting how much force; he crushes Nathan's hand a little.

"A little less with the squeezing?" Nathan says, wincing.

"Sorry," he says, flicking his tail from side to side, and tries to squeeze less. Which also leaves their hands more or less vertical.

"Although the fact that you can meaningfully squeeze my hand is interesting," comments Nathan, still pushing.

"Is it?" he wonders, still pushing back. Their hands waver back and forth a little; the force he applies isn't consistent.

"Yeah, at home vampires can be hurt by three things. Vampires - or our relatives, if they get a chance - and werewolves and fire." Pause. "Starvation can also get us but it's slow. Usually."

"Aww, sweetie," the Joker murmurs, giving Nathan a hug and a kiss.

"Demons can be hurt by many things, but killed by few," he says. "Unicorns. Certain magics. Unicorns no longer burn me; I have not tried the other."

Nathan kisses back. His distraction does nothing to lessen the force of his wrestling arm.

The demon laughs. His distraction makes him forget not to squeeze, very very briefly before he remembers again.

"Ow. I'm calling this experiment if that happens again," says Nathan.

"I could just make you unsquishable," says the Joker, pecking Nathan on the cheek.

"Shouldn't need it," grumbles Nathan. "Fine, go for it, babe."

He hugs his sweetie. "There, you're squishproof."

Aianon cautiously increases the pressure of his hand. There is no more crushing.

"I'm not even unusually strong for a non-newborn vampire, there's variance."

"My father was stronger than I," says Aianon. "Few others were."

"Well, if you win - which is looking increasingly unlikely - we can see if Emmett wants to come try, he's probably strongest of anyone who might show up to a peal party."

"'Course, even if he beats you, you're giving a credible enough showing here that he'll be after you to come participate in his Ultra Olympics - at least half of the suggestions he got when he sent out that email survey were better than 'Ultra Olympics', I think he's just really attached to the name. He'd probably love to have all kindsa extradimensional aliens playing."

"What is an Ultra Olympic?"

"You don't singularize it," says Nathan. "Olympics. So, on Earth-type worlds, there's this ancient worldwide athletics competition every few years. It's called the Olympics. But it wouldn't be fair to have vampires and hybrids and werewolves playing with everybody else. So Emmett came up with a version for us. It's smaller - and less serious; we get most of our ability out of the box so people who want to participate don't have to spend their lives working on it; Kerron shows up and competes sometimes and the rest of the time he doesn't even go for a walk on a typical day. But it's fun."

"It does sound fun," says the demon.

"You win," says the demon. "I'd suggest a forfeit, but I'm told you wouldn't accept." He grins at the Joker.

Nathan retrieves his hand. "You were told right. I'm pretty free with the squishing and the biting, everything else is single-target. Besides, I'm essentially straight when not under the influence of spooky mating magic." He winks at the single target of his spooky mating magic.

The demon spreads his wings in an elaborate shrug. "You can bite me, too, if you want."

Nathan blinks at him. "I have," he observes thoughtfully, "no idea what you would taste like."

"Then why don't you find out?" he invites.

Nathan shrugs. "You appropriately rigged not to turn into anything if bit?"

"Demons are immune to venom."

"Yeah, vampires are immune to everything but a shortlist of squeezing, whoever told you demons are immune to venom probably hadn't met my kind."

"Hm," he says. "I wish to be immune to you - nothing. I wish not to be immune to you - I lose the coin. I wish to reverse the previous wish - I lose that coin also."

"Fair enough. Where d'you want to be bitten?"

"Wherever you please."

Nathan is a bit of a traditionalist. He goes for the throat.

"Nice," comments Nathan, after he's helped himself to a reasonable amount and sat back. His eyes have gone a peculiar sepia color, neither his usual red nor the black of the demon's blood. "Not like anything on the market, not like human, but nice."

"Oh? Bubbly or animal blood makes 'em gold, human blood makes 'em dark red, being thirsty makes 'em black, what do you do?"

"Sepia."

"Peculiar." Nathan peers at a stray droplet. "Yeah, I have no idea how that works, bubbly is actually gold but animal blood is not... Anyway, thanks!"

Nathan swaps arms. "You think this'll go differently?"

"Emmett will flip," snorts Nathan, retrieving his hand again. "He would be very disappointed if any of his participating athletes were, er, drinking up."

He giggles and hugs his sweetie.

The demon awwws.

Hugs!

"You are both very sweet," the demon declares, and he arches his wings around them.

"Thanks," laughs Nathan.

Hugs?

Sure, why not.

Hugs! Very nice gentle many-limbed hugs. Not the squishy kind.

Nathan is happy to distribute squishy hugs but does not like to receive them, so this is good.

Snuggly!

Huggly and snuggly.