...the way Sasha's holding himself doesn't change. From his body language, anyway, he might not have noticed. 

Lev is trying to calm down. Unfortunately, his traitorous brain keeps producing thoughts like "maybe Sasha isn't responding because it's happened to him so often that he's used to it" and "Sasha has sucked a lot of dick, I wonder if he's sucked off someone whose name he doesn't know" and just the image of Sasha kneeling before a line of guys and blowing all of them.

He is pretty sure that responding like this to therapeutic holding is another thing that makes him sick and broken. 

He rubs Lev's back and tucks his face into Lev's shoulder. "You okay?" he says, quiet. "You're really tense." 

Oh god he knows.

"Sorry. Sorry. I. Sorry."

"No, hey, it's okay, you don't have to be sorry, I really am just worried about you and the thing worrying me really is just that you tensed up." 

He's so nice. 

Why is that hot.

Why is everything about Sasha hot. 

He tries to figure out a way to say "I'm fine, it's just that I'm really attracted to you and that freaks me out" without attracting the attention of Christine or, worse, Marlo, and eventually settles on "I'm just a little freaked out."

"Alright," he says, and keeps rubbing Lev's back. 

Sasha is so good.

(--his mouth is right there and you could kiss him-- what if he touched you and looked at you affectionately and told you that he loved you and he wanted to be with you for the rest of his life-- what if he pulled you into an alley and shoved you onto your knees and fucked your face and came on it and everyone knew and no one cared because that's just what gay men are like--)

His pants are really uncomfortable.

Sasha ignores how hard Lev is, because there's no way to not ignore it that won't make everything horrifically awkward, and hums into Lev's shoulder; Lev might recognize the tune to Shalom Rav. 

Why is Sasha so good. 

He is very relieved when Christine says he's time to move on. For the next three people he tries Therapeutic Arms Wrapped Around Their Shoulder instead.

He curls up very small and lets Marlo and Dolph and Andre respectively hold him however they want to. 

After group, Christine gestures for Marlo to follow her to her office. 

"I assume Lev has spoken to you."

"Yes. He has." 

There are — a number of things he isn't thinking about. 

"What do you think about that?"

"...I think that if what he wants is to recover, doing right by him means giving him the space to let him." 

"What are the obstacles in the way of you doing that?"

"...I can't actually not pay attention to him, I've been trying." 

"Why do you think that is?"

Because I'm in love with him and making sure he's safe and happy and okay is the most important thing I could possibly be doing, he doesn't say, but he can't think of anything to say instead. 

She waits for a while, then says, "on a scale of one to ten, one being the least and ten being the most, how committed are you to recovery right now?"

"It's — important to me to do right by Lev, and if that means recovery that means recovery and if it doesn't it doesn't." 

"Why might recovery not be doing right by Lev?"

"I just mean that I don't know." 

"It seems to me," Christine says, "that if you recovered it would be easier for you to participate with Lev in his recovery. You could support each other. You wouldn't necessarily have to avoid him."

"I'm going to avoid him for as long as he seems to want me to either way."