Oh good he doesn't have to figure out what to say. "All of those sound interesting." 

"We don't know a lot about depression," Lev says, "because pills are an antidepressant and basically everyone is on them. Right now we treat depression as a disease of, mm, about ages eleven through sixteen, because at sixteen essentially everyone is on pills. But that's not how it worked before pills were invented. Most depression was adult depression. People were depressed for decades."

"...that's terrifying to think about!" 

He touches his cheeks. "It is! But it's also really annoying if you want to understand human psychology because it was this basic fact of human psychology for thousands of years that some people were depressed and... it's not like we can study it. People aren't depressed anymore. --Pills did a number on the study of human happiness for the same reason."

They aren't really sure what to say, so they nod and arrange themself on Lev's shoulder and look up at him, signalling I'm interested I just don't have anything to add as well as they can. 

Lev can chatter about how it used to be that people in bad situations were crushingly miserable all the time, and now everyone is basically happy, so it's hard to figure out what situations make people miserable because the baseline is so high. The research they did before had some weird results like that the only benefit of being rich is having more money than other people and people aren't happier if they have more nice things. It would be good to be able to study that more but of course people who aren't on pills (cheek touch) are a weird sample.

Sasha notices the cheek touches but they're not really sure how to respond, except to kiss Lev's cheek where his fingers just were. 

When he does Lev pauses and stares at him with a soft warm happy look.

Oh good. 

They won't stop, then. 

"I can't fuck you again tonight. Um. Honestly twice is a lot for someone who isn't on pills, I just kind of, uh..." He trails off without finishing this thought.

"...I kind of figured, I wasn't expecting you to. You just make really good faces." 

"So do you. And you make pretty things," he says before he catches himself.

"....hm?" 

"Uh, I mean, your costume is really good so you've probably had a lot of practice and made other pretty things?" he tries.

Something sounds kind of off about that but Sasha is currently much too cuddled to care. 

They press their face into Lev's neck. "'S cute. You're cute." 

"You should show me the things you make. See if I'm right."

"Mmm. Another thing for next time." 

"Yeah," he says.

He is very tired and Sasha is very snuggly.

Yes. Yes they are. They aren't any less snuggly asleep. 

In the morning he very carefully extracts himself from Sasha without waking them and decides to wake them up with pancakes!

He hasn't cooked much since he finished his gened cooking requirements but pancakes are easy.

When he does wake them up, Sasha takes a couple of moments to figure out where they are and what they're doing, and then they smile up at Lev and determinedly do not kiss him while there are pancakes between them. 

He has still not got any clothes on. 

"Hi! You're still really pretty. --Oh no I don't have anything for you to wear that isn't your Halloween costume."

"And you're still cute. I can just wear the costume home, it's not like I'll be the only one." 

"That's fair. Probably more people will be wearing their Halloween costume home than not." His face hurts a little bit from smiling. 

"Yeah. Probably no one'll even look at me twice." He does not put his head on Lev's shoulder; he instead sits in such a way that he can comfortably eat food. "These are excellent pancakes."