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Mordred says that Lev is supposed to go off his medications and tell Mordred if he's not feeling well and needs to taper down more slowly.
Obviously, the thing this means is that Lev is supposed to taper down as quickly as possible and hide the tremors and headaches and sweating and light hypersensitivity from Mordred so that he isn't upset by them.
Lev manages to do this for almost two days.
Yeah then Mordred stops him (and feels a little bit bad about it but also Lev please stop doing things that will predictably end with you falling on your face).
When Mordred tries to stop cuddling Lev, still close enough to stop Lev if he tries to stand up, Lev has hallucinations about mouths and monsters and Dr. Keaton and Samson Trammel and something that Mordred can't tell what it is because it's in Yiddish. He screams and cries and pleads incoherently in several different languages.
So Mordred... accustoms himself to the idea that he's going to spend the next couple days in bed with Lev. Gets Agravaine to bring them food and water, which he does with a minimal amount of eye-rolling. This is both easier to deal with and, on another level, immeasurably harder for reasons he does not feel like examining.
When he's being held, Lev is happy and says "love you" and "you're pretty" and asks Mordred to read to him and also asks him when he can go to the library or when class is or whether he should be working on his thesis and occasionally propositions him for sex. "No" is usually fine when it is from George and terrifying when it is from Echavarria. Mordred tries switching from "no" to "maybe later," which is much more likely to result in Lev making happy noises and trying to curl up on his thigh and much less likely to result in Lev crying and begging Mordred to tell him what he did wrong so he can fix it.
Lev shakes and trembles and throws up more food than he's capable of holding down; he complains about light and noises and pains all over his body; he sweats and he's uncomfortably pale.
And then when Lev is otherwise normally asking Mordred about his research, he smiles at Mordred and kisses him.
He tucks Lev's head under his chin so he can't do that again.
"I like you too."
A short nap later--
"Making me have sex with girls is fine," Lev says, "but I do not want to be lent out to Samson any more."
His voice is kind of shaking and his muscles are tense and it looks like he is barely holding himself together.
"Oh thank you thank you thank you-- I love you-- I knew I was important to you."
Mordred is keeping his voice very carefully stable and his face very carefully calm. "You should never have been lent out to Samson Trammel in the first place."
"Because I'm your thing and I'm precious and Samson-- breaks his toys."
Because NOBODY SHOULD EVER BE GIVEN TO SAMSON TRAMMEL FOR ANY REASON EVER.
"Yeah. Because you're good and precious and lovely."
"I like it when you say nice things about me. Because I've done a good job. I've made you happy." Lev's so happy. "I'm glad I'm yours."
Lev leans over and throws up stomach acid into the bucket.
"My head hurts."
Lev returns to cuddling Mordred and occasionally murmuring affectionate things about how much he loves George, and intermittently Ramon
And then he sits up and kisses Mordred on the lips.
Mordred has -- no idea what to do with that. He took this -- anything like this -- off the metaphorical table and off the metaphorical menu years ago and hasn't revisited that decision since, and Lev is very sweet but he is not Gale and he almost certainly doesn't know it's Mordred he's interacting with and -- Mordred has no idea what he thinks or feels at all, and no idea how to respond.
So mostly he doesn't respond, until he manages to stop overthinking long enough to push Lev gently away, and put his chin on top of Lev's head so Lev can't do that again.
"Maybe later."
"Okay."
He rests his head on Mordred's shoulder and falls asleep again. He looks healthier than he did before, less pale, less sweating.
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