"He definitely lived here," Lisa said, standing in Gideon's apartment. The fun thing about Gideon being so cooperative is that we only needed a search warrant to enter his home without permission.

There were, of course, other places we had to look that didn't belong to Gideon, and for that... we were going to have to ask some people very nicely, and probably come back with a warrant.

"No bugs that I've found," I said, putting the picture back on the thumbtack it had been hanging from previously. "Either the ones that're here are hidden better than I can look... or they're just not here to begin with."

"How paranoid is Skinner?" Lisa asked. "She did fuck with Gideon's mind, after all. Do you think maybe she trusted her juju enough that she didn't need to keep close tabs on him?"

I frowned, considering things.

"...Maybe," I said. "It's- I mean, it's possible, but... It's complicated. If he was more or less left unsupervised, then he was just a catspaw, rather than an actual asset that she cared about. Don't get me wrong, Skinner's an awful person who doesn't think other people deserve free will, but she's more specifically predatory, in a particular way. So... We'll know how much attention Skinner was paying Gideon if we go back and ask him some more questions."

"Ugh," Lisa mutters.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, Gideon as a person kinda sucks, but this is literally our job, so..."

"This is your job," Lisa said. "You don't pay me anything."

"...Shit, you've got a point. Well, okay, we'll negotiate terms at your earliest convenience, maybe even tonight. I'm not getting a reliable salary either, but considering the month we just had, I can definitely afford to pay you what you're worth."

"I was joking," Lisa said. "I know you were joking with the whole 'pet foxgirl' thing, but I do more or less get to just sit around and be cute all day instead of dealing with capitalism, and personally I think that's fucking rad."

"Yeah, but how are you going to impulse-buy stuffed animals when you're wine-drunk at three in the morning if you don't have your own money?" I asked. "How are you going to buy seven pairs of colorful thigh-highs you end up never wearing because they're the wrong size but you're too socially anxious to return them? How are you going to buy a fighting game you don't even like playing just because one of the characters got revealed as trans in a DLC announcement?"

"...Do you sit around writing these down in advance?" Lisa asked. "Do you just have this shit locked and loaded at all times? How do you come up with this stuff?"

"I took a theater class in 8th grade," I said. "Between that and spending most of high school on a Homestuck roleplaying website, I've had a lot of practice at improv. And... well, I also just listen a lot. Immerse myself in culture. Pick up on what's going on and then remix it into a stupid joke."

"Anyway," Lisa said. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with being your actual, literal employee. We're roommates. That would... complicate things."

"Yeah, that's fair," I said. "At the same time, it's also ethically imperative that you get paid, so... we'll just bring it up with our actual boss, the one who cuts our checks."

"Fair enough," Lisa said. "Mh. Well, I'm not sure we'll find anything here, but... we'll keep looking, I guess?"

"Might as well," I said.

----------------------------------------

"Well, that was a waste of time," Lisa said.

"Ordinarily, the veteran detective says that confirming there's nothing to be found in a likely spot isn't a waste of time," I said. "However, right now, we spent all day looking through Gideon's apartment and found nothing besides some broken electronics and a half-finished gunpla."

"Remind me again what a gunpla is?" Nicky asked.

Now that we'd more-or-less made our peace with each other, she spent a lot more time downstairs in the common areas, chilling on the couch with her laptop and a lap desk featuring a full-sized 100% keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, and a strange-looking gadget that I belatedly realized was a 3D mouse, designed specifically for people working in CAD and other 3D modeling software.

In her everyday casual clothes, which seemed to involve loose sweatpants and a very baggy shirt- the stuff that I was pretty sure she wore to sleep, really- she had an almost ethereal quality to her, between her stark white hair and deathly pale skin. It was very distinct, and visually differentiated her more than you'd think from the typical blonde white superheroine what has fat knockers. It was hard to look at her and see anything other than just... Nicky, my weird vtuber roommate.

Who, upon closer inspection, was currently modeling the demongirl avatar I'd commissioned from her.

"Plastic model kit for those big robots from Gundam," I said. "But, I mean, also a catch-all for plastic model kits for really any anime merchandise. Hell, I've even seen gunpla that used a few parts cast in silicone for the production of naked big titty waifu models that you get to assemble and paint yourself."

"Classy," Nicky said. "What does it say about me that I kinda want one?"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"That you're tempted by tits and tasteless trinkets," I said.

"Or you miss Bionicles," Lisa added.

"Bionicles didn't usually have nipples," I said.

"Maybe where you're from," Lisa said.

"Hey, actually," I said. "Nicky, as it so happens, I have the mother of all 3D printers in the basement, and if you'd like, I can in fact produce prototypes of pretty much any 3D model you can make."

"...Please don't infect me with the desire to custom-make horny model kits," Nicky pleaded.

"It would be very funny, is the thing," I said.

"Don't you dare use my commitment to the bit against me."

I grinned.

----------------------------------------

"Hey, you got a minute?" Lisa asked.

"You're sitting in my lap while we watch Gundam," I said. "We've got plenty of time."

"Right, can you pause that, actually?"

I did, and sat up a little bit straighter. The two of us were in Lisa's den, with Lisa's laptop sitting on the removable lap desk I'd built as part of her fancy cube chair.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Akane brought up the polycule idea with me again," Lisa said. "And... I'm not really sure how to feel about it."

"My own suggestion is to just go for it," I said. "The two of you could both use some extra love and intimacy. Just because I'm being weird about it doesn't mean you have to miss out."

"Maybe, but... I don't know," Lisa said. "It's just..." She sighed. "I like her, but I get the feeling that she only kinda likes me. That I'm getting this offer extended to me just because I live here and it'd be awkward, otherwise. That I'm just grid-filling, and... that I don't belong here."

"I see," I said. "Counterpoint: how many times have you sprawled out across Akane's lap while she played with your ears, your hair, or your tail?"

"...A few times," Lisa admitted. "But..."

"Lisa, I hate to break it to you, but Akane desires you, carnally, even as you are, with your perceived flaws," I said. "She doesn't care that you don't have curves like an envelope some poor fool vainly labeled 'do not bend,' she sees a redhead in a heels and a jumpsuit sporting fox ears and a tail, and she gets a metaphorical boner."

"I- well- yeah, but..."

"Look, I'm aware that you don't currently look like genetic engineering gone wrong, but this house is very much skewing your perception of what the archetypal conventionally attractive woman looks like."

"Wait, genetic engineering gone wrong?"

"Yeah, Akane's got those fat knockers specifically because her mom fucked up with her own gene therapies and cloning procedures. And then there's Nicky, a half-alien royal whose heritage is traced to a technologically-advanced society that may very well have decided to engineer and tweak their women to conform to certain otherwise-impossible beauty standards. You, though, instead of an impossibly stacked porn star, just... look like an attractive human woman. Slightly tall for a woman, nice hips, nice tits- yes, even though they're small-medium for a real human... I'll help you look however you want to for gender euphoria, but I will also say, right now? You are already a conventionally fuckable woman. A hot chick. A babe. You can make your own thirst-traps on Twitter or whatever, if you felt like it. Akane wanting to fuck you isn't her settling, it's her being attracted to women."

Lisa's face had reddened and heated more and more as I went on.

"You're a blonde wig and some props away from a perfectly serviceable Mercy Overwatch cosplay," I continued. "Or like. Whatever hero shooter game is popular these days and features technically-not-superheroes who look like they're designed to have porn made of them. Doesn't matter."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Lisa said. "I'm hot and everyone in this house wants to fuck me. That does make me feel better, but I think I get the picture."

"And, again, you do get to look more or less however you want, if it's a self-esteem thing," I continued. "People talk a big game about learning to be comfortable in your own body, but I'm not a Doctor of Applied Transhumanism because I thought that changing your own body was a bridge too far. If you really, truly, cannot think of yourself as complete and womanly without tits bigger than your head and hips wide enough you have to walk through doors sideways, I can arrange for you to look like that."

"You are really insistent about me sleeping with Akane," Lisa said.

"I'm insistent about helping you reach a point in your life where you're happy with who you are and what you look like, and can comfortably be intimate with others," I corrected her. "Because we're both trans, and this is what loving kindness looks like between us."

"Mmm."

I took a hand off her waist, going up to rub between her fox ears.

"And, well, if loving kindness between us looks pretty gay... so be it," I said. "I sure as hell don't feel particularly put-upon by being kinda gay with you."

"Does that mean you'll date me?" Lisa asked.

"Probably not, in all honesty," I admitted. "I'm going to be leaving this world behind when I'm done with this job. My home is another world, and it would be irresponsible to make that sort of commitment when I plan to leave in the near future."

"Then... why bother with any of what you're doing here, with me?"

"I may not live here permanently, but nobody lives in the world permanently," I said. "We all still retain an obligation to make things better, even if we won't ever personally see the benefits of those improvements."

"Sometimes I forget how religious you are," Lisa said. "What with, y'know, being gay, trans, and a self-proclaimed false god of flawed creation."

"Honestly, it's not much to do with me being religious," I said. "I put great stock in being a good person as an active practice, and it just so happens that Judaism, which I was drawn to mostly for the arguments, happens to be quite experienced at teaching goodness as an active practice. And, well... it does help, when it's an ancient living tradition, and not just my own moral compass, telling me that the right thing to do is personally inconvenient for me."

Such as, for example, not fucking my roommates. Did I want to? Yes, absolutely, especially Lisa. But I knew better. I knew it would lead to pain and ruin for everyone involved. That's why I was really so insistent about Lisa getting confident enough to fuck Akane. I was hoping that if they were fucking, then they wouldn't desire me anymore, and holding out would be easier. Hopefully... hopefully I could leave this world and return home without leaving a fucking mess behind.