Pauline's office is subtly expensive-- the sort of place you work at if it is very very important that you show old money that you too are used to having money.  

"Welcome, Alexander! I hope we at Billionaire Marriage Brokers will be able to make a successful match for you and your husband-to-be."

He refrains from expressing his opinions about the name of this company. "I hope so too." 

"First, you'll have to sign this non-disclosure agreement, of course. Basically, you're agreeing that you cannot mention anything you learned at this session to anyone except your prospective husband. If you decide to go through with the agreement, then we'll give you a broader NDA, of course."

The nondisclosure agreement uses a lot of legalese, but the upshot of it is that Billionaire Marriage Brokers's lawyers make more in a week than Sasha does in a year and if he tries any funny business they will destroy him. 

What the hell. It's not like he has anyone to talk to anyway. He signs. 

"Great! And here's the file. I'll give you a minute to look over it, and then you can ask me any questions you have."

Lev Aarons. Sasha might have heard of him, and might even recognize the face, depending on how often he reads about tech. Billionaire Marriage Brokers's name is mostly marketing fluff, but Lev is the real deal, one of the youngest billionaires in the world. He founded Yenta, which is best-known for using the world's first successful dating-site algorithm. Sasha's probably used it for hookups. 

Professionally taken photos that don't stop him from looking profoundly uncomfortable. Personality test: 95th percentile openness, 90th percentile conscientiousness, 5th percentile extroversion, 60th percentile agreeableness, 99th percentile neuroticism. Daily life: he works ninety hours a week, half on Yenta and half on the Aarons Foundation, which gives money mostly to global health and development, but also to pandemic prevention and the development of lab-grown meat; in his spare time he reads science fiction novels and comics; there is a notable absence of any reference to friends. Expectations for his partner is mostly a list of 'no's: Sasha will not be expected to exercise, to maintain a certain weight, to go to parties, to help with the business, to talk to Lev's family, to feign interest in Lev's hobbies. The "no" box on "have sex" is circled with particular enthusiasm. There's a big line through the entire appearance section of his preferences for his partner. In messy handwriting, the section about desired personality says:

-Kind
-Smart
-Likes books
-Gives good hugs

and then a fifth item that was scribbled out.

That's....a relief. A long series of reliefs. Lev Aarons could probably date anyone he wanted, and he goes for "smart" and "gives good hugs"? How hard is that to find?

Not that Sasha's complaining, of course; Lev Aarons — Lev, just Lev, he's marrying the guy, referring to him by full name is weird — doesn't care about most of the things that would make the idea of an arranged marriage to a random billionaire a terrible idea. Hopefully he doesn't mind if Sasha sleeps around but if Sasha's expected to be celibate than whatever, it's still a good deal, how many people would check "no" for maintaining a certain weight? 

He'd signed up for this months ago, because BMB — he refuses to use the full name — paid a ridiculous amount for two days of interviewing and photos. He hadn't expected anything to happen, there aren't that many billionaires in the world and most of them are not into weird trans nerds who are cagey about politics, but if he had been expecting anything this is miles better than what he would have expected. 

He probably should have questions other than "When do I start?" 

"Well, there'll be a week to see if you suit each other, then a six-month trial run, and then you can get married! He's requested two weeks' notice to get the place you're staying ready. He's paid for our pampering package to get you in tip-top shape for your trial period, but added the note that you should only do it if you want to and he wants you to be comfortable."

So there are expectations about how he'll look, but Lev doesn't want to think of himself as the kind of person who has rules about his partner's appearance and weight, so he's not saying so. That's..... worse than he'd hoped but still strictly better than he'd expected. 

"Sure, why not. Put my best foot forward, and all." 

"Great! Do you have any other questions for us, or should we talk about your compensation?"

"I don't have any other questions, no." 

"Okay! So you'll get twenty thousand dollars at the end of the weeklong trial, one hundred thousand dollars after six months, and one hundred fifty thousand dollars per year thereafter. Of course, all your routine living expenses will be covered. If you have urgent expenses, you can get half of your first week's compensation up front."

Holy fucking shit. 

He mentally calculates how much he'd need to stay in a hotel for two weeks. "I don't need half upfront but a tenth —" 

"Very good, we can do that. --Just between you and me, I don't normally recommend that our wealthy clients show our non-wealthy clients their request lists. It can put the relationship off on the wrong foot to know that the wealthy client requested a certain race or size or hair color. But he insisted for transparency reasons."

...huh. 

Maybe Lev did mean exactly what he said when he circled "no" on all the expectations. 

"Thoughtful of him." 

"Well! If you don't have any other questions, time to take you to book your appointments and then you can sign your paperwork!"

The pampering package apparently includes a daily personal trainer session, a weekend afternoon with a personal shopper, four spa afternoons, a doctor's visit, and a haircut and wax right before the big day.

...he realizes after two and a half minutes of trying to figure out how to schedule around the amount of time he'll need to set aside for this that he has the resources to take days off, now. 

"What do you even do with a personal trainer," he says, not really expecting an answer. 

"He will customize your exercise routine to make sure you're at your physical best!"

Rejected responses include "And there's going to be results in two weeks, huh," "It's so cute that you think I have an exercise routine," and "Rich people." 

He instead goes for a very neutral "Kay." 

The paperwork he has to fill out once his appointments are scheduled is slightly terrifying!

The prenup says that he knows he is going to earn $150,000 per year of marriage, that he definitely does not expect any more money, and that he understands that he is definitely not going to get 50% of Lev's wealth at any point.

The non-disclosure agreement says that he can talk about his relationship with his friends and family, but if he talks to a journalist about any of it, or talks to someone who will talk to a journalist about it, then he will have to pay an eye-popping sum, and if he mentions that they met through Billionaire Marriage Brokers to anyone he will have to pay an even more eye-popping sum. 

Billionaire Marriage Brokers has hired a lawyer whose job is to explain every. single. paragraph of these agreements to him. 

He does not expect any more money than that. He frankly doesn't know what he'd do with 50% of Lev's wealth. He doesn't have friends or family to talk to about his marriage and he has zero interest in journalists. Thank you lawyer for explaining all of this. 

Then he can leave with a check for $2500 ("just to be on the safe side") and Pauline's personal cell phone number ("in case you think of any more questions").

Holy shit holy shit. 

He finds the cheapest hotel that's within walking distance of work and checks in for two weeks and drops his bag on the floor and flops on the bed (his! his and only his! for two weeks!) and stares at the ceiling. He gets a healthy amount of sleep, for once. 

Work is so much less stressful when he doesn't have to find someone to take him home at the end of the night. Who would have thought. 

The personal trainer is excessively perky and deeply concerned about Sasha's posture. About ten minutes into their first session, he steps back and says "you don't even know how to breathe." He spends most of his time trying to get Sasha to exercise tiny muscles that he didn't even know that he had and making tiny adjustments in how Sasha stands and sits that barely feel any different.  

He has an unlimited budget to buy clothes with the personal shopper. The personal shopper is mostly interested in helping him explore his own sense of fashion, whatever that means to him! She informs him that he's a true winter and flattered by black and intense blues and purples. 

The spa afternoons feature a massage, a facial, a manicure, and a pedicure. 

The doctor gives him a complete physical, then asks if he intends not to be on testosterone or if the doctor should write him a prescription.

No one misgenders him. 

Having a medical professional not misgender him is a new and vaguely-unsettling experience. The reason he's not on testosterone has nothing to do with whether or not he wants to be but he likes his body the way it is (this is not strictly true but "it would be nice if my back didn't hurt" is not something testosterone will fix.) The tiny adjustments apparently help, when he remembers them; waking up not in pain is a brand-new experience and one he's enjoying the hell out of. 

He winds up with a lot of cool purple and dark red and silvery grey and deep blue and almost no black, soft fabrics and sweaters that are big enough to fall off his shoulders. He gets more sleep than he's gotten in what probably isn't actually forever but sure does feel like it. His bruises heal and disappear. 

At the end of the two weeks, the personal trainer gives him a workout plan and his card and says "I think if you keep working with me your back will stop hurting in six months, but obviously that's up to you and Lev."

He goes to a salon for a haircut and waxing if he wants it and a last manicure and pedicure.

Even if meeting Lev is a disaster, he'll still have had these two weeks. They've been a really, really good two weeks. 

On the day of the meeting (and it's probably indicative of something that he's calling it "the meeting," like it's strictly professional and not his introduction to someone he might be marrying) he dresses up, because he can do that now, spends probably too much time calming himself down. 

The first thing Lev says when he opens his door is "oh, you're beautiful", in a tone of wonder.

"--sorry, sorry, I know I shouldn't, sorry. come in?"

That's...actually really cute. 

"Thank you," genuinely pleased. He comes in, sits down, remembers the advice he was given about posture, adjusts, wonders if he looks like he's fidgeting, decides not to care, folds his hands so he has something to do with them. 

"I... do you want to see your rooms?"

— Right. Contract said no sex, so separate rooms. (Rooms, plural. Weird.) 

"I would, thank you." He's still earnest about it. 

His bedroom is purple. His feet sink into the carpet when he walks into it. There's an enormous empty bookshelf that takes up an entire wall, and a huge east-facing window that takes up the other wall. The bed is huge and there are four blankets and innumerable pillows, and there's a couch that looks like it could swallow him up. 

"Do you like it?" Lev asks anxiously. "I can get someone to redecorate if you don't."

He hasn't had his own room since — he doesn't think about that. 

"It's gorgeous, I love it." 

"You also have a bathroom and a study and a little kitchen in case you want to make yourself something in the middle of the night or when the staff are using the main kitchen."

Sasha's half-convinced he's going to wake up any minute now — this doesn't happen, not to people in real life, certainly not to him.

"Can I hug you?" 

"...yes?" Lev says uncertainly.

As promised, he's good at hugs, firm-but-not-crushing and soft-but-not-limp. 

"It's gorgeous," he repeats, "I love it, thank you." 

Lev clings onto Sasha like he's afraid that if he lets go Sasha is going to turn into smoke and waft away.

About thirty seconds into the hug he is also noticeably hard. 

Okay that's a little weird but Lev very clearly needs the hug and if Sasha lets go now he'll be so awkward about it and really the awkwardness-minimizing thing to do is to keep holding on. 

Lev really really needs a hug. 

He is not going to let go of his own accord. 

He gives it a couple more minutes before he squeezes and then lets go. 

"Really, thank you," with as much sincerity as he can put behind his voice before it loops around to sounding sarcastic. 

"No, thank you."

He wonders why Lev thinks Sasha did him a favor for roughly half of a second. How touch-starved must he be?

He shelves that line of thought for when Lev isn't literally right there and instead takes his shoes off and tests out how soft the couch actually is. 

The couch is, in fact, incredibly soft.

He makes a noise like a pleased cat and curls up in the corner of it and glances over at Lev. 

Lev sits on the couch as far away from Sasha as possible!

Huh. Weird. Well, he's only known the guy for about ten minutes, if he clings to Sasha and then avoids him that's not really Sasha's to poke at yet. 

He curls up smaller and sinks into the couch and makes another mrr sound, keeps an eye on Lev's expression. 

Lev is staring at him like he is the most wonderful thing in the world. His hand hesitantly moves towards Sasha's hair and then he stops and pulls it back.

Cute! Kind of weird given how long they've known each other but wow is Sasha disinclined to bite the hand that feeds his gift horse, or whatever the fuck. 

"You can touch my hair if you want." 

Lev reaches out really slowly, pets his hair and sighs. "It's soft." He strokes it a bit more and then says "you don't have to let me touch your hair if you don't want to. I don't-- want to make you do things you don't want to do."

"Mmmmmm." It's been too long since anyone did that, and much, much longer since anyone did it gently. "I do want to." 

"I'm glad!" He's so gentle.

"I know I'm not anyone's first choice of someone to be with," he says, still petting Sasha's hair, "and you wouldn't be here if not for the money, but-- I do really want you to be happy here. I'll give you some money every week so you don't have to ask me before buying things. I have a cook and a maid and you can tell them what you want them to do, if you want, or you can do your own cleaning and cooking if you'd prefer that. If there's anything you want, anything at all, please tell me, I'll do my best to make it happen. And I don't want to-- to ask too much from you, or make you uncomfortable, or anything. Your time is your own, you can do whatever you want with it."

It was obviously a rehearsed speech.

How is he supposed to come up with coherent responses while Lev is petting his hair. "You're sweet."

Pause.

"I haven't had very much time to myself in —" he's not thinking about that — "a long time, it might take me a while to get used to. Tell me if I'm bothering you?" 

"You won't." Pause. "And you don't have to-- I mean-- obviously you can invite people over and things, I don't... have... friends but that doesn't mean you also have to not have friends."

He stretches out, moves so his head is closer to Lev's hands. "I don't have anyone I'd want to invite but I'll keep that in mind." 

"This is nice." Lev tries scritching his scalp.

Asjljjksdjfh ❤️. 

He flops into Lev's lap and purrs. 

He freezes up when Sasha flops into his lap and then very carefully starts scritching Sasha's scalp again. 

(He is definitely turned on, if Sasha is curious.) 

The purring doesn't stop; Sasha is not particularly turned on but gosh that sure would be easy for Lev to change if he wanted to. He is mildly curious about how Lev would react if Sasha moved just a little bit differently but not enough so to actually do that, given how emphatically Lev circled "no" for "have sex." 

Lev seems perfectly happy to just keep scritching Sasha and listening to him purr indefinitely!

His brain might actually have turned to mush by this point.

He is so so pleased with this turn of events and is definitely not going to end it. 

...he will, however, fall asleep with his head in Lev's lap. 

That is completely okay! 

Lev will spend a while watching Sasha once he's fallen asleep and then eventually drift off himself.

He wakes up after a couple of hours and very carefully gets up off the couch without waking Lev. 

What do the other rooms look like? 

The bathroom is a bathroom. Even billionaires have not come up with that many improvements on bathrooms. 

The study has the same carpet as the bedroom and another east-facing window. Every wall is covered in empty bookshelves. There's another extremely soft-looking couch and a desk with an oversized, comfortable chair. There are three laptops piled on top of the desk. 

The kitchen might be small in theory but it's definitely larger than the kitchens in, say, the average dorm room. The shelves and fridge are stocked with easy-to-prepare food. One of the counters has a ring of keys and a wallet on it. The wallet contains several credit cards in Sasha's name and a thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills. 

If he goes back through the bedroom, he can figure out what one of the keys is for. The bedroom has the only door that leads to the rest of the house, and it locks. 

He doesn't buy that Lev doesn't have a key, but that's a sweet gesture. 

He goes back to his bedroom; if Lev's still asleep he'll unpack as quietly as possible. 

Lev disappeared at some point in the looking-at-the-kitchen process!

Huh. Okay. Well, it's not like Lev doesn't have better things to do than wait for Sasha. 

He unpacks, doesn't particularly bother to be quiet about it. His clothes fill about one third of the closet and he has just barely enough small useless sentimental things (a piece of seaglass, a red glass heart, a ribbon with a scorpion charm on it) that the bookshelf doesn't look completely empty. 

Lev continues to be distinctly not here!

(In fact, he is in his office, having a panic attack.) 

Once he's done unpacking (which doesn't take very long, he doesn't have very many things) he paces around his room, tries to come up with something to do, fails, and then gives up and goes and looks for Lev. 

In the living room he finds a twentysomething woman on a laptop who looks up guiltily as soon as he enters the room. "Hello, sir! I'm Shelly, the maid. --You caught me on a break, Lev says I'm allowed to take my breaks in the living room, I'm not doing anything that's against the rules."

There was no way of doing this that wasn't going to be awkward. "Wasn't going to say anything. My name's Sasha, do you know where Lev is?" 

"He's in his office, sir. We're usually supposed to leave him alone but he says you should come in whenever you want."

...weird. 

Well. Lev can have better things to do than wait for Sasha but still be interested in interacting with him? Sasha hasn't known him long enough to say. "Thank you!" he says to Shelly, and finds Lev's office and knocks on the door. 

"You don't have to knock, you can just come in."

He comes in. "Hey." 

A huge smile breaks out on Lev's face as soon as he sees him. "Hello, Alexander."

He usually doesn't say this so quickly but it's a little silly to be on a full-name basis with someone he might get married to. "You can call me Sasha. If you want." 

"Sorry. Sasha. --I guess we kind of got distracted and didn't finish the tour? Sorry."

"It's not a problem, I'm sure you have better things to do than wait for me, I'm just — not used to being alone. I can find something to do with myself if it's bothering you." 

"How could you possibly be bothering me?"

"...I could be keeping you from getting work done?" he tries, because he isn't actually positive why he's so sure that approaching Lev of his own initiative is bothering him. 

"And then what, I'd get fired from my own company?"

Oh no he's cute. "They told me you work ninety-hour weeks, I was assuming you didn't do that for no reason. So it's okay if I stay?" 

"Please do! --I work ninety hour weeks because I have no friends and also no life." Which is why I am paying you to be my friend, he doesn't say.

...right, this is the guy who is paying a ridiculous amount for Sasha to live with him and didn't (openly) ask for anything except a smart kind person who likes books and gives good hugs. He sits down crosslegged on the floor.  

He still doesn't own books but he has a phone, he can read on that if Lev is doing things. 

He is doing things! Specifically, he is having a very quiet and very subtle panic attack because he said that he had no friends and no life and then Sasha didn't say anything at all. If he clicks on things on his computer a lot it will look like he's working. 

Eventually he pulls himself together enough to ask, "do you want to be sitting on... not the floor?"

"The floor's fine — sorry, am I making it weird, I can —" he cuts himself off before he can apologize again. 

"Sorry, I just forgot to buy more chairs for the office, I can fix that. We can go to the library if you want? Or the movie theater? Or the living room but Shelly's usually working on her novel in the living room and when I'm out there she feels like she has to pretend to be working and it's really uncomfortable."

He can't think of how to respond to the bit about Shelly, so he doesn't. "The library sounds good?"

It comes out more tentative than he was hoping. 

"Cool!" He picks up his laptop and heads to the library.

The library does not resemble a library that a single person owns. It resembles the bastard offspring of the municipal library of a moderately-sized city and a university library's psychology section.

There are giant armchairs everywhere to curl up and read.  

The spines of the nonfiction books are marked with Dewey decimal numbers. The fiction shelves are labeled by genre by a person who thinks it is important to distinguish "cyberpunk" and "New Wave" but that all fiction set in the present day can be safely labeled "earthfic", and that "pretentious literature" and "extruded fantasy product" are both genre names.

That is a delightful way to organize a library and Sasha's going to find enough historical fantasy books to last him for the next forever. 

Lev is watching Sasha. He has enough self-control not to say "you're beautiful when you're happy". Unfortunately that thought is taking up enough of his brain space that he doesn't know what else to say.

That's totally fine! He doesn't have to say anything! He has a library and it has books in it and Sasha can read those books! He has been maybe a little bit starved for time, recently. 

When he's collected enough books to last him a week (normally that would only be one but he's pretty sure he's going to have lots more free time now so it's nine) he  puts them down on a chair and hugs Lev. 

Sasha is happy and Lev is being hugged and this is the best day ever.

"Tell me about what you're reading when you're done?" Lev says. "Uh. I mean. If you want to. Sorry."

He has books and free time to read them in and a place to stay and enough to eat and someone who obviously wants him around and this is the best day ever. "Of course!"

"I keep buying books even though I don't have enough time to read all the ones I have. It's a problem."

"Not for me it isn't." He hugs Lev tighter.

"You should read them and tell me which ones I should read!"

What if. Lev pets his hair while they hug. It's a crazy idea but it just might work.

Sasha melts against his shoulder and makes a soft pleased sound into Lev's neck. 

Cuddles are extremely great and he needs to be touched so so badly.

However, he probably should have anticipated that having a really hot person touch him of their own free will and make noises into his neck (!!!) would result in him getting really really horny. This was not really a problem he had anticipated having when he put in the application. Honestly he hadn't been thinking about much of anything when he put in the application except how nice it would be to hold someone's hand and also to know for absolute certain that if he died on Friday night someone would notice before Monday morning. 

Sasha seems willing to ignore it so maybe. they can just. keep ignoring it. forever.

He's perfectly happy to keep ignoring it forever, and just keep making small sounds and tilting his head so Lev's hand is where he wants it. 

Sasha making small sounds is literally the best thing that has ever happened to him. 

Lev wants to kiss him, and wants to say "I love you", and wants to get down on his knees and pull off Sasha's pants and make him come, and wants to beg him to never never leave, but he does exactly none of these things. Instead he says, "do you want to watch a movie?"

"Movie sounds great," he says, without taking his head off of Lev's shoulder. 

Can they walk with Sasha's head on his shoulder. Probably not, but Lev is willing to try.

Well, if Lev keeps petting his hair they're not going to get much of anywhere. 

With a tremendous feat of willpower, Lev takes his hand off Sasha's hair. "Wait, did you get dinner?"

"I did not." 

"We should get dinner and watch a movie! --Uh, I mean, if you want to, I shouldn't assume that you want to, sorry."

He smiles into Lev's shoulder. "I would love to get dinner and watch a movie with you." 

This requires extricating himself from Sasha enough to use his phone. 

"What do you want?"

"I'm not picky, whatever's good and nearby." 

"...I have a cook. You can in fact have anything you want, although if it involves buying groceries you might have to wait a bit."

"Seriously, I am not picky, whatever's easy.

...although I have had enough scrambled eggs to last several lifetimes so maybe not that." 

"It's your first day here, I thought... it would be nice? If you could have whatever you want?" His voice is really uncertain.

"You're sweet, but I genuinely don't have preferences about food."

Maybe if he comes up with a preference then Lev will be satisfied he's telling the truth? "Uh, unless you put hazelnuts in everything, one guy did that and it wasn't torture or anything but I'd rather not." 

"I won't put hazelnuts in everything! --Are grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup okay?" He's texting Edith, the cook.

Oh good, normal food that normal people eat. "That sounds wonderful." 

Lev finishes texting Edith. "She'll bring us the food when it's ready." He starts walking out of the library, pauses, doubles back, and holds Sasha's hand.

He's really, really cute. Sasha laces their fingers together. 

He makes a little happy whimper.

...depressing, but also cute. 

Sasha doesn't know his way around this house yet but he will follow Lev to the movie theater that he apparently has. 

It turns out, if you are stupidly wealthy and really like movies, you can actually just have a movie theater screen in your house. And a popcorn machine! And movie theater snacks! And a giant, incredibly soft couch to flop on while you're watching your movie theater screen!

"What do you want to watch?"

"My favorite is Pan's Labyrinth, but Ocean's Eleven and Howl's Moving Castle also good if you don't want to watch weird historical fantasy in Spanish with subtitles." 

"I would want to watch weird historical fantasy in Spanish with subtitles even if it weren't your favorite."

He has to go over there to set up the movie! Which is good, because if he sat down, then Sasha might sit down next to him, and that is terrifying.

He picks a spot and sits in it. If Lev doesn't sit next to him, he'll move so they're next to each other anyway. 

Well, that is absolutely terrifying. 

Much to his surprise, Lev talks incessantly during movies. Maybe he would have known that if he had ever actually watched a movie with a person before.

That's.....probably a good thing. 

It's been a while since he watched this. The way the communist rebels in the woods are presented is still correct given the context, but it — itches, now, in a way it didn't before. He keeps remembering things he'd rather not remember. He fears the Pale Man more than he hates him, this time around. 

Lev is getting so incredibly cuddled. 

"This movie is terrifying," Lev says, holding on tightly to Sasha. "And also pretty. Terrifyingly pretty. Prettily terrifying."

"Much like you," he does not add.

He holds tightly back. "It is." 

In the second half, once Ofelia's mother dies, the horror largely stops being fantasy monsters and starts being human. Personal. He doesn't let go of Lev. 

Lev stops talking, puts his head into Sasha's shoulder, and makes sniffling noises.

"Yeah," Sasha says softly, and pets his hair. "Me too." 

The ending is bittersweet but triumphant. Sasha has cried every time he's watched this movie and this time is no different. 

Lev was quietly having a panic attack about crying at a movie (probably it was weird? and overemotional? and would make Sasha hate him?) and so he feels a lot better when Sasha also starts crying. 

He wants to kiss Sasha to tell Sasha he loves him to kiss Sasha's hair to tell Sasha he's beautiful to watch another movie. 

Edith shows up with the grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. 

Oh good, food. Something to focus on other than the movie, and the previous times he's watched it and the previous people he's watched it with. 

It's still, objectively, a very good movie. He kind of wishes he hadn't told Lev it was his favorite, though. 

He leans against Lev and eats. 

Meanwhile, in the kitchen: 

"They were definitely cuddling," Edith says. "I think they're dating."

"But who is he?" Shelly asks. "He's nice-- and cute-- but when would Lev ever have met someone?"

"Online, maybe?" Edith asks. 

"Bit weird that they didn't meet in person before we had to renovate the side of the house so he could move in," Shelly opines. "I hope he's not some golddigger out to steal Lev's money."

"He's bad at feelings, he's not bad at money, I'm sure there's"-- Edith gestures vaguely-- "a prenup or something. Or whatever you call a prenup for moving in."

"I just don't want him to be taken advantage of," Shelly says. "Which is probably kind of ironic given the number of hours I work versus the number of hours I bill, but--"

"That's not what 'irony' means," Edith says, "if you want to be a writer you have to learn what 'irony' means. What you're doing is called 'hypocrisy.'"

"I really liked the movie," Lev says, "but I am going to have so many nightmares tonight. The Pale Man. Ugh."

"Yeah, I did too the first time I watched it." 

He looks at Lev's face and figures he might as well see what he says. "The last two weeks were the first time in years I've slept in a bed alone, it still feels weird." 

On some level, he knows that Sasha is trying to give him what he wants, because there is so much money at stake, and he can't know whether Sasha is telling the truth about never sleeping alone or even about wanting to sleep with him.

On another level, he's not sure he cares.

"Do you want to sleep in my bed tonight?" 

"I didn't even know he was gay," Edith complains.

"He's obviously gay," Shelly says. "He's read Dykes to Watch Out For. No straight man has read Dykes To Watch Out For."

"He likes comics!"

"He has Venom shelved under 'LGBT comics'!"

Alex, the driver, who has mostly been scrolling through Twitter on his phone, puts in, "Are we sure he's gay? Sasha kind of looks like a really weird girl."

Edith and Shelly whirl and glare at Alex. "That's rude," Edith says. 

"Don't misgender people," Shelly says. "Sasha might be trans or he might just be androgynous but either way he was introduced to us as a he and therefore he is a man."

"Okay, okay," Alex says, "sheesh."

"I'd like that, yeah." He leans a little heavier on Lev. "My room is amazing, I'm just — adjusting to having one." 

"I'm happy to help you adjust! It's going to be... non-euphemistic sleeping together, though."

"That's fine! I would have been surprised if it wasn't, honestly, you circled 'no' very emphatically." 

aaaaaahhhh why did he say that what if lev does want him to shut up, brain. 

"Yeah, it's just. Not my thing," he blatantly lies.

He is willing to pay someone to pretend to like him and to want to cuddle with him and watch movies and talk about books and eat dinner together and notice whether he dies. That's-- it's fine, it's okay, it's better than not having any of that, he's grateful that he's wealthy enough that he can get his emotional needs met on the free market, there are lots of people who are lonely and they're just lonely and there's nothing anyone can do to fix it. 

But the thought of having sex with someone and knowing that they're just doing it for money and they're pretending to like you and want you is the most horrifying thing he can imagine. He would rather die. He is just going to be a kissless virgin forever.

....he got hard when Sasha hugged him. 

Whatever. Not his business. Well, kind of his business, but not his business in a way that makes it a good thing to poke at right now. "I...might at some point sleep with other people, euphemistically, if that's okay with you? Not soon, and I can deal with being celibate if you'd rather I do that but it wouldn't come easily." 

That is horrible and it makes Lev want to curl up into a little ball and sob. But it's not-- it's not fair to demand that Sasha be celibate, it's not fair to demand that Sasha not get to be with someone he actually loves.

"Of course, it's fine," he says and smiles. He's a good liar these days. Claire is the only one who ever catches him and she's too professional to say anything.

He doesn't catch the lie. 

"Mmm. That's all I was going to ask. If you don't want me to fall asleep here we should probably head to your room." 

"We should probably go then." He doesn't move.

Awwwww he's going to have to be responsible. 

"Alright, c'mon," and he gets up, takes Lev's hand. 

"Mrf," Lev says, but responsibly stands up and walks in the direction of his bedroom.

His bedroom has an enormous bed and a dresser and books and papers that used to be piled everywhere on the floor but, thanks to Shelly's intervention, have been neatly piled near the door instead. 

Wow, that bed is really very enormous. 

Sasha heads into the bathroom and runs a scrap of paper over his teeth, which isn't ideal but it's whatever, and strips down to his boxers. It's not like Lev isn't going to know where the scars came from. 

"Do you need to brush your teeth or-- oh."

Lev stares at him with his mouth open. That is not the look of a person who doesn't want to have sex with Sasha. 

(he's beautiful he's beautiful oh god he's so beautiful--)

He shouldn't say anything he shouldn't he shouldn't —

".......not your thing, huh." 

"I don't." Lev closes his eyes and presses his knuckles into his eyelids. He can get up and have a panic attack later, he can get up and have a panic attack later, he has to be calm now and explain himself or Sasha will freak-- "I'm okay with hiring someone to pretend to like me and to cuddle me and watch movies with me. I'm not okay with having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me and is only doing it for the money. I'm sorry I-- you're beautiful. You're so beautiful. Of course I want to have sex with you. But I can't because you don't want to have sex with me."

He opens his eyes.

How does he even begin to interact with that. 

"I do not currently at this moment particularly want to have sex with anyone, you included. You could change that pretty easily if you wanted to, I'm going to assume you don't. If I didn't actually want to be cuddling you I'd be doing it much less and would not have asked to spend the night with you, like, even given that there's money involved you gave me a room, I'm pretty sure I can safely assume you're okay with me using it. I like cuddling you, you're soft and it's been way too long since anyone actually wanted to cuddle me. 

If I at some point want to have sex with you — which I almost certainly will, because you're smart and adorable and incredibly into me and turns out I'm into that — I will tell you so. If I don't want to have sex with you I won't act like I do, why the fuck would I do that, you clearly don't want me to or you wouldn't have circled 'no' in the first place and having sex you don't want is terrible actually and I don't want to do it again. Are you going to be okay with me here?" 

He has no idea how to respond to anything Sasha just said. He has turned a bright red color and he is staring at Sasha and he knows it is acting but it seems for one dizzying moment like it might be real. 

"I-- yes. Yes I am. Please stay with me." He doesn't know if he means 'in the bed, tonight' or 'in my house, forever' but both are true. "I-- don't know how I could get you to want to have sex with me, if I did. I don't. I'm not good at social things."

Good. He flops on the bed. "Oh, it doesn't take social things, if you pulled my hair that'd do it. Please don't, tonight, I'm very thoroughly enjoying getting to stay in a bed without hooking up with someone first." 

"You don't ever have to hook up with me to stay in my bed."

He blinks and finally processes that sentence. "You didn't have a bed?!"

"....if you didn't already know that, I am concerned about how well BMB does their background checks, because lack of a stable address is the sort of thing you should really notice when you run a background check.

Anyways, in theory no, in practice I'm pretty and friendly and at least okay at flirting and I could usually find someone." 

"...They didn't tell me why you needed money, it was confidential-- Sasha, I'm so sorry--"

He curls up and buries himself in blankets. "I'm here now. You are the last person who needs to be sorry for anything." 

It's not like he's any better than the people Sasha was hooking up with before, anyway. He's just a richer person looking for a longer-term deal.

He runs a finger along Sasha's spine. "If-- if you get in a situation like that again, call me, okay? I can get you an apartment. Even if we're not-- together-- anymore I'm going to want you to have a place to stay."

"You're sweet." It sounds more like a sigh than Sasha was intending for it to. "I will. Keep doing that?" 

Lev will definitely keep doing that then, while also quietly hating himself.

Sasha is bonier than Lev would like. Probably hasn't been eating enough because, because he was homeless. Christ.

"Family kicked you out? I mean you don't. Have to tell me, if you don't want to. Sorry. I. Sorry."

"You can ask, if you hit something I don't want to talk about I'll tell you so. Family didn't kick me out. 

— I mean they did but that's not why my housing situation or more accurately lack of such was the way that it was, I was running away from a relationship that got very bad." 

"Fuck. I'm sorry."

(In the back of his mind Lev sees Sasha two years from now saying that he was homeless because he ran away from a bad situation with a billionaire and he wants to die.)

"I have a security guard, if that helps, Claire insisted."

He smiles and shifts closer to Lev. "It does." 

You should tell him, you should tell him, you have to tell him, he told you--

"I was a foster care kid," he says, quickly.

He looks up from where he's buried himself in soft. 

(That's kind of an odd subject change but probably the connection will be made clear.)

"It doesn't feel right for me to know your thing if you don't know mine."

Ah. "'S not why I said it. But you're sweet. 

Do you want to talk about it or do you just feel like you should?" 

"I never want to talk about it, it was horrible."

He runs his palm in circles across Sasha's back.

Soft humming sound. He settles back into the mattress. "Then don't make yourself." 

"You can talk about it, if you want to, or not if you don't."

"....I don't. Maybe at some point but not right now." 

"Okay."

Lev very hesitantly kisses his temple. 

He smiles and leans into the touch and kisses Lev's cheek. 

He could totally kiss Sasha. Sasha is right there. 

He presses a quick kiss into Sasha's lips.

He sighs, soft and pleased, and kisses him back, soft and almost as quick. 

"Goodnight." He settles himself in, takes Lev's hand. 

"Goodnight." Lev pauses. "I've never done that before."

"We can get started on fixing that tomorrow," he says, half-slurred together, and then something unintelligible, and then his hand goes limp in Lev's. 

Lev had penciled in plans to have a panic attack as soon as Sasha went to sleep, but in fact it is really hard to have a panic attack when Sasha is in his bed, so he presses himself up against Sasha and falls asleep. 

He wakes up early; he always does. Gets out of Lev's arms to use the bathroom, comes back and finds a piece of blank paper and writes a note that says "I never actually took those books with us out of the library; I'll be back. —S ❤️" and leaves it on the bed where Lev will be expecting him to be. 

He wakes up and Sasha isn't there and for a bleary moment he worries that it was all a dream or that Sasha has decided to leave.

But then he sees the note with a heart (!!!) and everything is okay. 

He emails Claire and the head of the Aarons Foundation to tell them that he'll be working less because he's started seeing someone. He takes a shower, jerks off thinking about Sasha, gets dressed, and checks his email. Claire has already emailed him back with a link to Yenta's paid time off policies, under which he has accumulated almost six months of PTO, and a suggestion that perhaps he wants to go on a romantic trip for, oh, six weeks. 

He goes to the library to find Sasha. 

He turns when he hears the door open.

"Sorry, I know I said I'd be back, I got kinda lost on the way here. Your house is big. I might need a map or something. How are you?" 

"Good! Is there anywhere in particular you want to go? --In the world, I mean."

"...um, not that I've thought about much, but give me twenty minutes to think about it and/or research museums and I'll have a list?" 

"Cool! No rush or anything, Claire just sent me a passive-aggressive email about how I don't take vacations and I thought, you know, vacations might actually be fun if they were... with someone else."

He sounds pathetic.

There is no way to respond to that that doesn't sound either a) condescending or b) equally pathetic. He picks up the pile of books, from which two have been removed and three have been added, goes to hug Lev, realizes his tactical error, and leans on him instead. 

Yay being leaned on!

"I can work in here while you read if you want, or I can work in my office if you want some time aw-- alone time, or we can do something? Up to you."

He doesn't miss the correction. "Reading with you sounds nice." 

Then Lev will grab his laptop and start reading a report about the expansion of CBT groups into developing countries. 

Sometimes he snorts at his screen or makes disgusted faces or says "hmm, I guess."

Edith is briefly confused about where Lev is but eventually appears with coffee and waffles. 

He starts on an alternate history book about the Napoleonic wars as fought with dragons. He does not so much drink coffee but that's fine, Lev can have his, waffles are great. 

When Edith collects the dishes, she will notice that he didn't drink coffee and ask if he wants tea or orange juice or something instead.

(Lev will completely fail to process that any of this is happening because he is, instead, contemplating the risk that CBT spreads American-typical depression to other countries.)

"Do you have hot chocolate?" 

"Of course! Would you like that every morning or just right now?"

"Just right now is fine. Thank you!" 

Then he will get hot chocolate with little marshmallows. 

"I'm sorry if you meant that I should make it from scratch-- we don't have the ingredients for that around because Lev likes the packets."

Tiny marshmallows! 

"No, packets are great. Thank you again." He's very earnest about it. 

"You're welcome!" Edith says. "Talk to me any time you need something, we all want to help get you settled in."

(Lev takes a quick break from researching CBT to message Shelly to say that she should buy some more chairs for his office and they should be really really comfy like the couches in Sasha's room. Shelly complains in the kitchen about how she is being worked like a slave, to which Edith tartly replies "twenty hours a week?") 

If given a couple of hours, he finishes the book and moves on to an older childrens' fantasy that promises (and delivers on) lots and lots of scheming plots. 

Keeping track of how long it's been when he's working is not exactly Lev's strong suit. 

He does occasionally glance up at Sasha and bite his lip and feel a warm glow.

His work continues to be punctuated with Lev saying to himself "that makes sense" and "no fucking shit" and "oh, come on."

He's cute. 

When he gets halfway through the second book, he gets up. "I'm going to take a shower, if you want to stay here I'll come back but if you go somewhere else I can find you," he says, and kisses Lev's cheek. (He does remember to bring the books with him when he goes back to his own room this time.) 

Lev touches his cheek where Sasha kissed it. "I'll stay here," he says. "Feel free to interrupt me whenever you want, I kind of... get into a flow with work and stop noticing the existence of external reality."

"Yeah, I used to get the same way. See you." 

The shower is kind of excessively long; he's figuring that with Lev of all people he doesn't need to worry about using all the hot water. 

Lev closes his laptop and stares out into space.

He kissed Sasha. He kissed Sasha. He kissed Sasha and told him that he wanted to have sex with him and he, and he, and they slept in the same bed last night and they've known each other for less than twenty-four hours and he is already the most important person in Lev's life and Lev is not sure if he wants to cry or laugh or both at the same time. 

He's panicking. He's panicking but he's so happy because Sasha. 

It's all fake, of course, he has to remember that, it's all fake, he's paying Sasha to read in the same room as him when he does work, it's a pleasant job and it's well-paid and Sasha doesn't want to lose it but that doesn't mean that Sasha likes him. Of course Sasha doesn't like him, no one likes him, he's weird and awkward and embarrassing and he's said so many foot-in-mouth things in the past day and Sasha just smiled at him because Sasha is being paid to not judge him for saying weird things. 

He wants to make Sasha smile. He wants to make Sasha smile so badly.

(Sasha said he might want sex, at some point-- he doesn't want it now but maybe someday-- it would be fake, it would be fake, Lev would have to say 'no', but he imagines how wonderful it would be to have someone want him--)

He's all warm and melty when he gets out of the shower. He gets dressed — in purple leggings and one of the ridiculously soft sweaters that's large enough to fall off his shoulder, no shirt underneath it — and brings the book he was partway through back down to the library. 

Lev stuffs his panic attack down when he hears the door open, glances up, notices that the sweater is falling off Sasha's shoulder and he's obviously not wearing a shirt, and says "...I need to go to the bathroom, sorry, be back in a bit."

"Kay!" He picks a chair and settles into it. 

He sinks into the fetal position on the bathroom floor. 

He hates this, he hates this, he hates this and he doesn't want it to end--

Sasha has some suspicions about what might be happening in the bathroom. Unfortunately for both of them, he's completely wrong. 

He reads. 

The concept of interacting with a person who might possibly want to have sex with him is just so completely terrifying. 

He eventually calms down, stands up, heads back to the library, opens up his laptop, and starts reading. "Uuuugh."

"Everything okay?" 

"The guy I have working on mental health stuff is really good but he keeps wanting me to give money to psychedelic decriminalization and it's like-- I can see his arguments? Maybe this is a really good thing to be giving money to? But I don't want to and I wish he would stop mentioning it in his reports."

He nods. "Makes sense. Any particular reason why you don't want to?" His tone is genuinely curious. 

"I don't like politics. I just-- want to do noncontroversial things that everyone can agree on, like polio vaccinations or antiretroviral treatments, and not have to deal with-- protests and lobbying politicians and direct action and thinkpieces about how I'm a racist sexist capitalist homophobe and all the rest of it."

"Not sure I'd call antiretroviral uncontroversial, but yeah, you're not wrong, getting involved in politics is terrible."

"Antiretrovirals are controversial among assholes, maybe. But I dunno how many people are like 'you have to choose between your baby getting AIDS and dying of diarrhea because you don't have clean water for formula, maybe you should have thought of that before you got raped.'"

"I don't think anyone would phrase their position in those terms but I wouldn't be surprised if that was a position that in practice people held, they'd just come up with a justification for it somehow." 

"Well, then, they don't have to spend their billions of dollars on antiretroviral therapy, and I will spend it on keeping babies from dying. The nice thing about not doing politics is that we don't all have to agree on whether babies should die."

"This is true." He's not really in a position to touch Lev but he can move, and then he can put his head on Lev's knee. "I don't actually disagree with you, to be clear." 

Sasha's head on his knee!!! The concept of Sasha kneeling at his feet causes a bunch of feelings that he is going to deal with later because he is concerned they might make him a horrible person. 

Lev scritches Sasha's hair. "I know. I just... I like people, in general. I don't like having enemies. And mostly I don't? When I do Yenta I'm just trying to make the algorithms work better so people can find people they match with more easily. When I donate my enemies are, like, diseases. Or famines. Or the fact that we can't get meat anywhere except from animals who suffer a lot. And then people are like 'you should do politics' and half of America is my enemy and I don't like it." He sighs. "I don't vote." 

Mmmmmmmm hair scritches. He was already warm and melty and now he is much much more so. "Everyone I've known who didn't vote — not, like, didn't make it this one time, but didn't vote in general — had asshole reasons. You have the exact opposite of asshole reasons. It's kind of refreshing, honestly, I don't really do politics either anymore." 

"I'm not sure that I don't have asshole reasons. You should have the courage of your convictions, and all that. It's bad to be the sort of person who wouldn't hide Jews because they're afraid of confrontation with the Nazis." He sighs. "The argument could be made that I'm apolitical because the political beliefs associated with my beliefs that poverty is bad and equality is a good thing and such imply that my billions should be taken away by the government and redistributed, and then I would not have a pretty boy with his head on my knee whose hair I can scratch."

Soft humming sound. "When I say asshole reasons, I mean things like 'both sides are evil actually, voting is just buying into the system, the only morally correct thing to do is either that revolution we're always talking about but never working towards or planning for the aftermath of, or complaining about white men and beating our boyfriends when they point out that we are white men because that makes them a traitor to the cause apparently.' You do not have asshole reasons."

— Wow, he did not intend to get that personal when he started talking. "And in any case, you do put kind of a lot of time and money into stopping babies from dying, I wouldn't say you don't have the courage of your convictions." 

Lev was going to reply with something like "I'm not sure that a revolution would be wrong, actually, except that I'm opposed to this idea because I'm pretty attached to my head" but fortunately waits until Sasha has finished his thought and then is filled with an inchoate but fervent desire to commit murder. 

"People shouldn't beat you. Ever. For anything."

He shifts so his head is on Lev's thigh. He does not say Never? What if I ask nicely? 

"Thank you. — I wasn't intending to get that personal when I started talking, sorry. I did mean it when I said you put your money where your mouth is, voting isn't the only way to do that." 

"I... like knowing things about you. Even things that kind of make me want to commit murder."

"You're very sweet. Please don't commit murder, he's not worth the effort."

"I won't! Prison doesn't have you."

That's cute! Lev is really very cute. Instead of expressing this sentiment in words he opts to express it by smooshing his face into Lev's thigh. 

Oh gosh a cute person is smooshing his face into Lev's thigh. This calls for kissing hair-petting.

He purrs and moves his head so Lev's hand is where he wants it. 

Work is not really that important. 

He'll keep purring, then. 

Kneeling at someone's feet while they're playing with his hair and making purring sounds interspersed with small soft pleased whimpery sounds, with absolutely zero expectation of sex, is weird but very nice. 

Lev is getting really good at petting Sasha's hair in a way he likes, possibly because whenever he's doing it he is concentrating wholly and entirely on how Sasha feels and what might make Sasha feel good. 

"Mm. You're so distracting."

The whimpery sounds get louder, longer. 

(He should really find a vibe he likes if he's going to keep doing this, he thinks absentmindedly.) 

Lev is having an urge to pull Sasha's hair and listen to him hiss. But Sasha said that would make him want sex, and Lev is... conflicted about sex to begin with and definitely doesn't want to send any sort of message that he expects it. 

He starts massaging Sasha's neck with his other hand.

A soft broken sound, and he melts into Lev. 

Lev keeps massaging his neck, his shoulders, his scalp, the sides of his face.

When he massages Sasha's shoulders he notices that Sasha definitely isn't wearing a shirt under his sweater and makes a low noise deep in his throat.

That's a good sound. How does he get Lev to make it more. 

He's so so so relaxed; he couldn't hold back the way he's moaning even if it occurred to him that maybe he should try. 

He really, really likes making Sasha moan. 

He starts making these little possessive sounds whenever something makes Sasha moan particularly loudly.

Ohhhhhh. Those are also good sounds. 

If you use your fingernails on his back and shoulders and scalp, you can get Sasha to make some extremely interesting noises. 

He scrapes a fingernail across Sasha's back by accident and says "sorry, sorry."

He arches his spine and gasps — "don't be, that's perfect —" 

"You're perfect."

Lev scratches his back and shoulders and scalp. He's breathing heavily and moaning.

So is Sasha. 

"You should pull my — ah yes there — my hair," breathy and more than a little desperate. 

"Are you sure?"

He said that made him want to have sex-- but that might not mean he wants to have sex right now-- maybe it's a different thing, maybe it only works like that for him sometimes--

He nods emphatically. "Want you to touch me — want you to fuck me — definitely want you to pull my hair, Lev, please —" 

Meanwhile, at the kitchen--

"They're fucking," Shelly said. "I can hear them."

"In the library?" Edith says.

"Well, it is his house, he can have sex in any room he wants to."

Lev freezes. "I don't-- I can't--"

He pulls back and looks up at Lev's face. "I'm sorry — do you want me to stop —" 

"I don't, I don't know--"

Stupid, stupid, you can't have a panic attack in front of people, they'll know, stupid stupid stupid--

"Okay," he says, soft, "hey, it's okay, I'm stopping, I'm not going anywhere." He gets up and moves, very hesitantly, into Lev's lap. 

To Lev's complete and utter humiliation he starts crying. 

"Sorry, I don't-- don't usually let people see me like this-- I can go--"

He's holding onto Sasha very very tightly.

Oh, sweetheart. 

"You don't have to go." He holds Lev, puts one hand on his back and the other on the back of his head. "You don't have to be sorry. I've got you." 

He cries into Sasha's shoulder for a bit, but his breathing slows and deepens and he murmurs into Sasha's shoulder "'s nice."

(stupid, stupid, he'll never like you now, stupid--)

He keeps holding him, presses a kiss to his forehead. "Panic attacks?" 

"I assume. Haven't been diagnosed or anything. Sorry."

He doesn't know what he's apologizing for.

(stupid stupid stupid)

He nods. "Me too. 

Do you want to talk about it? It's okay if you don't, I'm not going anywhere." 

"You... too?" he says cautiously. 

Intellectually, he had been aware that he was not literally the only person on the planet to ever suffer from a mental health issue. But emotionally he was sure that only he did, because he was stupid and pathetic and everyone hated him and they were right.

He nods again, rests his forehead against Lev's. 

"Mostly it's politics stuff that sets it off — I used to have a tumblr, I stay off it now — but some of them are totally random. The taste of hazelnuts — he used to put nutella on everything, for a while I couldn't eat chocolate at all. Plato's Allegory of the Cave. There's nothing wrong with having brain bruises." 

"I don't have a reason. I'm just-- like this. Have been since I was a kid."

Sasha could be making it up, could be pretending so that Lev would feel comforted about his (stupid stupid pathetic) panic attack, but being paranoid is hard and Sasha is soft and warm and he just wants to rest and be held. 

"You're wonderful."

"....You told me last night you didn't want to talk about your childhood because it was horrible. I bet there's a reason." 

He's happy to hold him. 

"I could bribe all the grocery stores a mile around us not to carry hazelnuts, you know."

"You don't have to bribe grocery stores into not carrying hazelnuts. I don't want to eat them, I don't care whether anyone else does." He very cautiously pets Lev's hair. 

Lev makes a happy noise about having his hair petted. 

"You're no fun," he complains. "I like making stupid grand romantic gestures."

Then he can have his hair petted more. 

"Do you know what set this one off? If you don't know, or don't want to think about it, that's fine." 

"I have. Issues. About sex," he mumbles into Sasha's shoulder.

Another nod. "Makes sense." He keeps petting. "There's probably a way to work around them. If you want to, and want to talk about it, of course." 

He takes a deep breath and presses his forehead into Sasha's shoulder and tries to put his thoughts in order. 

"I've never had sex before. I'm scared of people seeing me naked because I don't want them to be grossed out by me because I'm ugly. I'm scared of other people touching my dick. I'm scared that I might do something wrong and hurt them or bore them or make them uncomfortable. I don't want sex unless I have... feelings... and I'm scared of having feelings for people. And I am really really scared that you're pretending to want to have sex with me because you think it will make me happy. I think that's everything."

"I'm definitely not pretending to want to have sex with you, the pretending to want to have sex with people phase of my life was terrible and I'm not going to artificially extend it. There's plenty you can do while keeping your clothes mostly on. Other people touching your dick can be worked up to, it is totally normal to be scared of that when your first kiss was yesterday. You pay a lot of attention to the person you're interacting with in non-sexual contexts and I'd expect that to extend to sexual ones; I'd actually be really surprised if you hurt me by accident. Being scared of having feelings is, again, totally normal; I'm less sure how to help with that, but having any experience being around people will probably not hurt. That's not perfect but it's what I can think of off the top of my head." 

"The problem is that you'd say 'I'm definitely not pretending to want to have sex with you' whether or not you were pretending to want to have sex with me," Lev says miserably. "And I don't know what you could do that you'd only do if you actually wanted to have sex with me so I don't know how to resolve it one way or the other. --Oh, I forgot that also I'm scared that I'm going to be another person in the line of horrible people who have hurt you, I keep having these flashes of a future where you're telling someone 'I was in an abusive relationship and then I was homeless and had to have sex for a place to stay and then I was with this creepy billionaire and he fucked me up even more'--" and he's crying into Sasha's shoulder again. 

"Sorry. I don't want to make your problems about me."

This seems like it calls for more hugs and more hairpetting. 

"No, hey, it's fine, brains have bruises, it's not your fault what they are. You're not creepy, I have a really good creep radar and you are one of the least creepy people I've met in a long time — and that's including, like, coworkers, I know what you're thinking about sampling pools and while you're not wrong to think it it's not in fact correct. You treat the staff well, you generally care about the effects of your actions on other people, you don't want to get involved in politics so you give to non-controversial causes like polio vaccines, you care about the possibility of maybe hurting me,  you're not going to be horrible." 

"I think caring about the possibility of maybe hurting you is a low standard."

Lev is skeptical about how good Sasha's creep radar can be if it is not hella pinging on him but that does not seem like a good argument to get into right now. 

"You're not wrong! But — you pay attention, you care, you don't actually want me hurt, I am very confident that if I told you something was hurting me you would stop."  

It is hard for Lev to put into words exactly how sickening and horrible the thought of hurting Sasha is, so instead he buries his face in Sasha's shoulder and says, "I really really don't want to hurt you." He kisses Sasha's cheek.

Should he say this? Well. Better get all the emotional vulnerability over with at once. 

"I want to take all six months of my vacation leave at once and I want to spend all day in bed with you cuddling and watching movies and reading books and I want to take you to every museum you want to go to all around the world and if you still like me afterward I want to get married and at some point in there I want to try to give you lots of orgasms. That's what I want."

"You're the best decision I've ever made." He pulls back just barely enough to kiss him. "That sounds perfect. And at some point I want to try giving you lots of orgasms too." 

"Do you have to."

"I'm not invested in it being soon, and if it never happens that's fine. But I'd like to." 

"No, wait, that's not fair! You can't just go around saying things would make you happy! Then I have to do them! That's cheating!"

(He's smiling.)

"You make me happy." 

(--it's fake, it's fake, he's lying-- why would anyone be happy to be with you-- but it's so nice to pretend)

"You make me happy!"

He's so!! Good!! 

Sasha leans down and kisses him. 

Kissing Sasha is amazing!

But after a few minutes, with some regret, he says, "if I'm going to take the next six months off I need to tell people that I'm going to do that."

He kisses him one more time and gets up. "We should go back to one of our rooms anyway." 

"We should. I'll meet you in your room in a bit?"

"Mhmm!" 

He takes the book he'd brought down (along with two others) with him. 

Lev sends an email to Claire saying that he is, in fact, going to take six months of vacation, and telling her where's he's at on various projects so other people can take over. He tells the head of the Aarons Foundation that he trusts them and his employees can make any grants which seem basically reasonable as long as they aren't about psychedelic decriminalization. 

He doesn't go to bed with Sasha. He opens a new document so he can think. 

Evidence that Sasha is lying: it's what you'd expect to be true, if you're paying someone to be your romantic partner. Sasha has not said or done anything blatantly inconsistent with this hypothesis: you'd expect him to say that Lev makes him happy once he knew how important it was to Lev. Lev had a panic attack in front of him and has cried in front of him twice even though they haven't even known each other for two days; Sasha wanted sex (maybe?) and he had to deal with Lev panicking instead. Lev is sad and desperate and needy and all of that is unattractive.  

Evidence that Sasha is not lying: He sounds sincere. Wishful thinking. 

He drafts an email to his broker telling him to put ten million dollars in an account in Sasha's name. He deletes it. 

If he gives Sasha ten million dollars, he'll know for sure. But then Sasha will leave.

He's not... doing harm to Sasha, he doesn't think. Sasha prefers what they're doing to his other available options. He might like it better if Lev gave him ten million dollars and fucked off, but it's not a harm to Sasha to only offer the trade he's willing to make. 

Being in love with someone who doesn't love you back but is pretending to love you is going to be emotionally harrowing, Lev can feel it. But his bed feels too large and empty when he thinks about Sasha not being in it. He wants-- he wants cuddles, he wants sex, he wants a romantic vacation, he wants to watch all Sasha's favorite movies, he wants to hold him while he cries, he wants to buy someone ridiculous presents, he wants to celebrate holidays together, he wants to be able to love someone. And the thought of doing all that with someone who isn't Sasha feels like a knife in the gut. 

He redrafts the email to his broker. He sends it. 

Six months. He can have six months, and then he'll tell Sasha that Sasha's rich now, and then Sasha will leave, and then he'll always know what it was like to love someone. 

He makes a nest out of pillows and blankets and curls up in it and reads and waits for Lev. 

....Lev is taking kind of a while. Sasha gets up and makes himself hot chocolate, writes down a list of things he wants to bake now that he has the chance  — hamentaschen, lemon bars, sugar cookies — and sub-lists of ingredients they might not have; he'll check the main kitchen tomorrow. Gets through another chapter of the book. Looks up nearby grocery stores, then opens a private window and does some research on sex toys, because trying to find hookups while Lev is right there just sounds depressing. 

"Sorry that took a while," Lev says.

"It's fine! — I'm halfway through a list of what I want to make now that I can, are there any particular baked goods you haven't had in a while?" 

"Mm. Chocolate cake."

He writes that down, with a note that says "you will be tempted to make it from scratch; resist this temptation" in the margin, and then pulls Lev onto the bed with him.  

"I want to make out with you for like two hours."

"Good." Kissing him's a good start. 

It really is!

His hands find Sasha's hair.

He makes the same breathy whimpery sound he'd been making before and puts his own hands in Lev's hair.

Oh that's a good sound.

Lev pulls Sasha's hair.

His hands twist involuntarily in Lev's hair, and he arches forward and tips his head back and hisses through his teeth. "Lev — please bite me —" 

He bites Sasha's shoulder hard. 

"I like this-- like hurting you--"

"Oh — " 

He clings to Lev; his hips roll forward. 

"You," he's panting, "you could, you could choke me, or keep biting, Lev please —" 

Lev puts his hand on Sasha's throat and kisses him and groans into his mouth. 

"You're so beautiful, I could do whatever I want to you--"

"You can — please do —" 

"I mean not really," Lev hastily corrects, his hand still on Sasha's throat. "I don't want to do things you don't want-- I just like-- thinking about hurting you-- and making you do things--"

He opens his eyes. "You don't want to do things I wouldn't want. So I trust you to do whatever you want to me." 

"Fuck, that's hot."

He's biting Sasha's neck and pulling his hair with one hand and choking him with the other and grinding against Sasha's thigh.

He makes a sound that would have been a moan if he could breathe and writhes under Lev's hands and presses his hips into Lev, tries to find an angle that'll put pressure where he wants it. 

He stops biting, kisses the spot he bit, and says, "I like-- hurting people-- all kinds of ways-- and forced orgasms-- and tying people up-- and mind control-- I like the idea of raping people-- I like thinking about making people bleed-- I like trans guys a lot, you're so beautiful-- I like it when people are scared-- and have to do what I say--"

He can't breathe. He can't breathe he can't breathe can't breathe. It's, it's not — not just — can't breathe. 

He's struggling in earnest now. 

Lev lets go of his throat and wraps his arms around him. "Are you okay?"

He doesn't react at all. Doesn't even seem to hear the question. He's hyperventilating now that he can breathe; Lev can probably hear that his heart is going jackrabbit-fast. He's shaking, just a little bit. 

"Shhh, shhhh, it's okay, I've got you, it's okay." He tries stroking Sasha's hair.

There's half a chance he's making it worse. He was the one that triggered it. But it's so awful to have them alone, he doesn't want to do that to Sasha. Sasha can tell him to go if he needs to.

The shaking goes down. His breathing calms, some. He slumps forward into Lev's chest. 

That's good. Lev keeps stroking his hair and murmuring vague reassuring things.

He buries his face in Lev's shoulder and curls his fingers in Lev's shirt. His heart slows, his breath keeps hitching. 

"I'm here, I'm going to stay here, everything is going to be all right, I promise."

He nods and clings to Lev. "Yeah." It's almost too quiet to hear. "Yeah, you are. You're here." 

Lev kisses his forehead. "You can talk about it if you want to but if you don't I can just hold you."

"I'm — probably never going to be able to do. A lot of that."

Lev kisses his forehead. "I don't care."

Nod. "I — being tied up is good. Getting thrown around is good. I can't — not when I'm scared, ever — I can't do noncon stuff, I don't even have a real safeword, my safeword is just no — please don't talk about that while we're —" 

And now is when he starts crying. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know--"

Hugs.

Hugs. Lev should keep hugging him forever. He's so warm and so good and he's safe, Sasha's not going to get hurt here. He keeps clinging. "Not your fault, not your fault, wasn't you, just — please —" 

"I'm never going to hurt you, I promise." He pauses. "Unless I make a mistake or it is somehow necessary to prevent a runaway trolley from killing five children or similar."

Shaky laughter. "Yeah," he says, almost to himself, "yeah, you wouldn't — you're here —" 

Lev kisses him. "I don't want to scare you. I don't want to do things to you that you don't want."

He kisses Lev. "I know you don't. I'm not scared of you." 

He feels warm and fuzzy and soft inside.

"You're so beautiful."

Another kiss. "You're so soft." 

He flinches but keeps holding onto Sasha. 

"— I don't mean like that, just — whenever you touch me you're so gentle, even when you were biting me you were gentle about it." 

Lev sighs. "I like that."

"Good." He settles into Lev's chest like he'd settle into a mattress. "You're good." 

He really really wants to tell Sasha he loves him. 

"You're one of the best things that has ever happened to me."

He makes a soft pleased sound into Lev's shoulder. 

"...I should probably go to the bathroom and possibly change, this is uncomfortable," he says after a couple of minutes. 

"Sure thing," Lev says. 

(He feels anxious about that. He's not sure why.)

One more kiss on the cheek and he gets up and brings a change of underwear into the bathroom. 

...while he's alone, he takes a moment to put cold water on his face and the back of his neck before he comes back out. 

While Sasha's in the bathroom he can have a small panic about how he's a terrible person!

When Sasha comes out, Lev is smiling. "You're so pretty."

"Thank you!" He climbs back into bed. 

Lev holds him. "I think two panic attacks is probably enough for one day."

"Yes. At some point we will manage to actually have sex and nobody will have a panic attack at any point but today is not the day to try again." He smooshes into Lev's shoulder. 

"...I obviously don't want you to have panic attacks but it is reassuring that I am not the only person in this relationship who's fucked up."

Hum. "Yeah. It's — easier, with someone who's been there. Or somewhere kind of adjacent to there." 

"It makes me feel... safer. Like... you're like this too, so you won't judge me as much for it."

(but Sasha does judge you-- do you really think he's happy with someone as fucked up as you are--)

"Even before I wouldn't have judged you for having panic attacks. It's not your fault you're in pain." 

Lev kisses him. "It doesn't matter."

He kisses back. "It doesn't." 

"...I don't think I'd had any idea how nice kissing is before."

"Yeah." 

Another kiss. 

"...took me a while to relearn." 

"I want to give you every nice thing in the world."

"You're so cute." 

Maybe they can just kiss for the rest of the night.

Yeah. Yeah, they can. 

Sasha's happy to fall asleep in Lev's arms again. 

It's a lot easier to sleep with Sasha in his bed. 

When he wakes up in the middle of the night he reaches out for Sasha and then falls right back to sleep.

Good. 

When he wakes up in the morning — not quite early enough for sunrise, but early enough that it's still pinkish out his window — he gets up and makes one cup of hot chocolate for himself and one cup of hot chocolate minus liquid for when Lev wakes up. 

Lev wakes up maybe half an hour later.

"Morning."

He thinks about knowing that Sasha is going to be there in the morning and he feels sort of an electric tingly feeling on his skin.

He kisses Lev. "There's hot chocolate almost-made if you want it, I wasn't sure when you'd be up." 

Waking up in the morning and already knowing where he'll be that night is a good feeling. 

"Ooh, hot chocolate," Lev says, and finishes making it.

"What do you want to do today?"

"I was going to check out the main kitchen so I can see whether I need to make a grocery run before I start on my list of baking projects, but I don't have anything in particular I can think of other than that." 

"...I want to go grocery shopping with you. Is that weird?"

"I don't think it's weird! No judging me for the butterscotch chips, though."