Dear Diary,

"Sometimes, if you're lucky, someone comes into your life who'll take up a place in your heart that no one else can fill, someone who's tighter than a twin, more with you than your own shadow, who gets deeper under your skin than your own blood and bones."

- Snoop Dogg

Four hundred and twenty days! Four twenty! Blaze it!

I did not expect to find words of actual wisdom from Snoop Dogg of all people, and finding them on my four hundred twentieth day here seems like the Fates are definitely fuckin' with me. But honestly, if the Fates are gonna fuck with me, doing so by dropping cool shit in front of me that only Isekai me is gonna recognize is like, surprise morning birthday sex kind of fuckin' with me is way better than the surprise painful buttsex version they kept throwing at me last winter.

That quote, though. I love my tiger wifey, I love my little Menace, I even got some strong proto-love kinda affection for Marie's horde hoard and a certain Sister who is badly overdue for her deflowering. I would kill or die for any of them. They've all got that kind of place in my heart, I guess, even if some of them are still shaping it around them. But... Saffron. Oh, blessed fuck Saffron. She completes me. Like, not just because everything I suck at she's awesome at, which lets me maybe focus on being the best me I can be without having to worry about, y'know, whether the bills have been paid. But... every place inside where I maybe feel empty, or hurt, or like some part of me just never grew right, she's there. Just... there. I dunno, maybe that's fuckin' codependence instead of love. I worry about that shit, like I'm not loving her right. But oh, my, god, do I want to, because she absolutely loves me exactly like I need, each and every time I need it.

That wanting to is the first and most important step, Daughter.

Really, Boss? You're not just blowing smoke up my ass to make me feel better?

So says my wife, and she would know.

Thanks, Dad. You're the best.

I know.

Kinda wonder about weed in the here and now. Like, back in the world of Eastside, even before it got legalized I could find that shit on half a dozen different corners. Those unlicensed dealers were still cheaper, even if they might not have the fancy name brands of shit. Odds are at this point they were dealing stuff they grew themselves. I wonder if there's anybody like that here. I haven't seen anything in the way of smokables, either tobacco or weed. Probably for the best, because with all the pain from my scars I would definitely have a habit by now.

Speaking of habits of questionable morality and my sweet Kitten loving me in every way I need, she definitely hit me with the mother of all seven syllable shenanigans yesterday at sunset. "Uh... I'm not..." I stopped, remembering promises made and my own determination to shake the shit that had me by the neck. Me saying no to being the sluttiest slut that ever slutted ought to be my decision to make, not some kind of fucked up loss of agency making me nauseous, especially at the thought of getting railed by my wife just because she happened to be the hottest dude I'd ever personally seen at the time. I tried again. "Are you sure I'm ready for that?"

She rolled us into the Love Shack bed, where Lachlan stood, an absolute confection of a man, getting readier by the moment as he looked at the two of us and said, "I don't know, are you ready for that?"

I clumsily scooched myself down the bed until my toes touched the padding on the foot. "I... uh... I know that's just you Co-Located and shapeshifted, but holy fuckin' shit. Wow. I'm not sure?"

Carruthers stood where Lachlan had a moment before, his dark hair making him look somehow more mature, even though I knew with absolute certainty that he was younger than Lachlan. "What if it wasn't?"

I tried to think about that. I really did. But c'mon, my wonderful witch of a wife had dangled two different slabs of grade A beef in front of me while I was still kinda reeling from her seven syllable symphony, so thinking was not really on my list of options at the moment. None of the ones that scrolled through my head really worked, either. Attack and Flee were both right out, and Cast didn't give me a lot of options that seemed appropriate either, so I went for Use Item. "Gimme a blindfold."

He chuckled and opened the drawer, pulling out a blindfold and tossing it to me. "So, what are you going to do if midway through the night I bring in the real Linus or Lachlan? Or even both of them?"

"Uh... is screaming profanity an option?"

She slipped the blindfold over my eyes and tied it tight. "A secret for you, love. I love your... vocal loss of inhibition as much as you love my sweet tooth."

"Hold my hands?"

She laced her fingers through mine. "Of course, love."

I learned a bit about myself over the course of the night. Some of that shit would have been disturbing if I hadn't been so thoroughly distracted. When I cinch down that Mimic-hide blindfold like I did when it started to slip, I can see right through that shit. I do not produce vulgarity word salad when my mouth is full. Most surprisingly to me, I'm more flexible than I thought when positioned as the meat in a beefcake sandwich.

Oh, you are definitely the cheese in between those slabs of beef, love.

Mimic dreamt of Chibi Chef Saffron dropping slabs of beef from orbit, and that crazy melanistic tabby loved each and every one to pieces. With her maw, of course, but holy shit was there some enthusiastic mastication going on. Almost drowned out the practically continuous angry chanting of the Kraken.

Woke up face to face with Saffron, our limbs wrapped around one another. Took me a moment to realize that we were not, in fact, back in the Lancaster House bedroom. I rested my head against Saffron's, luxuriating in the warmth of bodies. "Kitten?"

She started her bootup immediately, sniffing, then sticking her tongue out to taste test the world. I couldn't resist, and kissed her thoroughly. She responded in kind, and I felt the smile creep across her face as she went from waking to awake. Without opening her eyes, barely pulling away from my lips at all, she murmured, "enjoy your rewards, my ever Heroic wife?"

I chuckled from deep in my throat as her hands wandered, telling the rest of me good morning. "Ooh, yeah. Definitely. Kinda reminded me of that old thing about really good singers though."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Hmm?" She murmured as she kissed my neck.

I nuzzled her hair, reveling in the smell of it. "Y'know, only an incredible singer can deliberately make herself sound like a not incredible singer. You were almost clumsy as Carruthers. Not nearly up to the holy crap skill level I know you've got as Lachlan."

She snorted, then chuckled against my neck. Her laughter kept getting worse, jiggling her physics against mine. Right about then I realized that the hands providing an ersatz bra for her and, in fact, the pair doing the same for me were neither fuzzy nor clawed. I lifted my head just a little to see Lachlan snoozing, dead to the world. By the fuzz against my back, I'd wound up with Carruthers snuggled up behind me. Not as soft as Marie, but damn near as fuzzy, really. "Hey, why'd you get Lachlan."

"Bigger hands," she giggled.

"Fair point."

She tilted her face to look at mine. "Are you okay with this, love?"

I froze with my mouth open. "I... Well, shit, I'm not sure."

She smiled at me and said, "so, twice more then, to follow your own rules?"

My mouth kinda dropped further open for a moment, but I managed to keep from saying anything loud enough to wake the men. "I really do not know if I'm up for that."

"Well. While you make up your mind, do you mind if I have a go?"

That hit me out of left field. "Uh, what do I do then?"

"That is entirely up to you, love. You could hold my hands, although some things are a little hard to do without both hands. You could watch?"

"Watch?"

"Watch." Marie announced from over on the divan. I glanced down to see her sitting there in her uniform, a gray onesie taking shape as she knitted. I really weirded myself out by not actually blushing. I mean, I thought I should, but at the same time some part of me was confused by not being really upset about what I'd done overnight.

"Uh... do you really wanna?"

Saffron frowned, but more considering than upset. "Would you be hurt by me doing so?"

I thought about it for a second. "No? I mean, I really don't think so? Yeah, if you hid it or lied about it or made me feel like you'd be mad if I jumped in right in the middle or something. But... honestly the really bad part of me thinks that it'd be totally hot."

Marie chimed in with, "Yes."

While I giggled at that, Saffron took me by the ears and said, "no, love. That is most definitely not a bad part of you. Naughty, perhaps. Ribald, definitely. Sensual, fantastically. Horny, absolutely. But not bad. Understand?"

Something inside me warmed at that. Not just because her fingers were running through my hair, thumbs brushing my temples, but because it felt like for once in my life somebody'd seen some part of me and instead of judging me for it, snickering at it, exploiting it, or even just tolerating it, she absolutely adored that part of me as much as I adored every part of her. I think I cried a little as I kissed her, nodding.

When we finally came up for air she said, "so, we'll need to be about our duties soon, but thanks to the manifold blessings of My Goddess, that need not mean we must leave this little love nest, and due to the hard work of the Imperator's most ferocious Attack Dog and her Tigress handmaiden, most of our duties require far less than our full concentration, don't you think?"

I snickered a little and said, "I'm totally gonna get you to play hooky once the war's over. At least once."

"Once the war is over, there will be far less likelihood of some crisis happening at any given moment, and I will absolutely follow My Beloved Goof on a day of irresponsible adventures." We lay there smiling for a bit, and eventually she said, "so, if you're really ready for another go by the time they wake up, lets see if you need me holding your hand?"

"What if I want it?"

"Then you tell me so, and my hands are yours as much as anything else of mine, love."

"Okay."

She grinned at me and asked, "if you're not ready by then, or if you need a break after, might I have a turn with them?"

"I uh... I'm a little torn?"

"How so?"

I blushed as I said, "I'm not sure my hands won't be too busy to hold yours." Emboldened by her sudden gleeful grin, I said, "I also feel like we're treating them kinda like hunks of meat." When she looked at me quizzically, I explained, "like, I really don't like either of them like, y'know, 'life partners' or shit. The thought of marrying either or both of them just seems like a lifetime of being a Thinking Brain Human for both of them."

She stroked my hair and said, "I really had no intention of keeping them like that, either. I doubt either of them want to fill such a role. They're friends, yes. We're enjoying a rendezvous, yes. Quite a fun one in fact. But it need be no more than that. As for their opinions, I'll be sure to ask them when they wake up. Which they won't do for a while; you rode them very hard and put them away quite sweaty."

"Oh, noes! More Saffron smooching in the meanwhile!"

So yeah, the three of us might have been a little distracted today. Marie and I didn't spot a single call for support, although we did watch as Olga used what looked like a ship's anchor chain to yoink a big hunk of debris from the line I'd smashed across the City, only to have said hunk of debris get pulled into the water by a tentacle that only seemed small in comparison to Mimic's gargantuan ones, then yeeted deep into the Undead held portion of the City. Late in the day, Swanson's HQ building flashed a complex signal which I eventually deciphered to mean 'staff meeting tomorrow midday'.

Maze and I stole a copy of The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents and spent the day reading in our Academy suite bedroom.

Half of the kids played something like 'red rover' while the other half played something like 'house' with the remaining Maenads and kids who hadn't been claimed. I realized that any remaining at this point probably wouldn't be. We'd have to do something about that eventually, although it looked like the Maenads who still had babies with them were the sort who enjoyed the whole nursemaid thing, and from the way I saw them gently showing even the boys in the group how to change a diaper, didn't mind the parenting part either. So we just needed to get them a place to stay out of the weather, really.

The trio of us in Advanced Healing mostly sat in the back of the room like delinquents, smiling at jokes that the rest of the class couldn't get. Smart delinquents, I guess, because the rest of the class still used us like a kind of Wikipedia when the profs stumped them. Sister Siobhan gave me a look at one point, like she'd wanted the Cadet to figure the answer out on his own, but I just smiled at her, and she blushed and sat down suddenly. I swear I didn't send her live imagery of the goings on. Not even a little bit. Saffron might have though.

The pair of us in the office really tried to get some work done. We really did. Okay, Saffron did, and I tried to be a good little seat cushion and provide her with all the support and comfort she needed to change the world for the better with nothing but sheer force of will and prodigious amounts of Mana. Unfortunately, the boys waking up and stretching diverted both of us into stare and comment quietly to one another mode, and that's pretty much all that pair of us did for the rest of the afternoon, like a sexier Waldorf and Stadler. Okay, Saffron's definitely sexier, and she tells me I am too, and our pair of himbos didn't seem any less enthusiastic for me to be their dance partner than her, so I'm gonna say yeah, I'm definitely sexier than a septuagenarian Muppet.

So, final tally of things learned for the day. I did, in fact, make progress on overcoming my mental block, assisted by my very good fellow himbos Linus and Lachlan. The soundproofing on the adjoining door in our Academy suite is still soundproofed, and if I'm paying too close attention to goings on when my mouth is full my profanity word salad can and will overflow into another mouth, and Saffron will laugh so hard she falls off my lap when that happens. Saffron was not, in fact, as sexy as I thought she would be, she was in fact multiple orders of magnitude sexier than that. Watching Linus's need to bone overcome his sheer terror as the pair went for round five with my favorite Maenad, Maid, and Wifiest of Wifeys, who decided she wanted a ride on the town bikes, was goddamned hilarious.

Also, Lachlan has got to be the smoothest goddamned man in the Allied Cities. When we dropped the pair of them off in the boy's club, he turned to me, bowed, brushed his lips across my knuckles, and said, "it has been my honor to ser... serve and satisfy you, Champion."

I dunno which was worse, the fact that I was so gobsmacked by that I stood there staring until he was out of sight down the stairs, or the ongoing snickers from not one, not two, but three different High Priestesses filling the back of my head as I did.

'Oh, noes, the hot guy was a gentleman and my three hot as fuck ladies think my reaction is silly'. First world fuckin' problems, I tell you. Gotta love em.