Mordred remembers after about a day to check whether Lev is with Oswald. Upon confirming that yes, he is, and Mordred doesn't have to ask Mrs. Winston-Rogers for yet another favor, he sets to avoiding him.

This is probably some kind of cowardice. He should apologize for lashing out, or reach out, or do something. If nothing else they're on the same team and they need to be able to work together.

Mordred cares enough about that to dislike himself a little more for it, but not enough to stop.

Gale... was worried, the last few days in New York, but Mordred had wanted to do almost anything but talk about it and Gale hadn't pressed and so the only people who know are Lev and probably also Oswald and Mordred would prefer to to keep it that way. Lev and Oswald is, frankly, enough people to be avoiding looking in the eye.

He spends a lot of time with his notes, spends a lot of time talking over what they know with Anemone. He's good at thinking about anything and everything other than right here and right now. (He's not thinking about when and where and how he learned that particular skill.)

Meanwhile--

Oswald is afraid that this is in the service of Nyarlathotep, this is yet another example of the warping thoughts and desires endemic to brushes with the eldritch, chaotic pleasurable violence goes hand and hand with cult activity

And the requisite chill at the times that he knows he and Samson have interacted with Lev in the same ways.

Then on the other hand what is it to be warped? What can be done about that? Is there any version of them that is clean and sound and whole? Is there any version of him that does not reach for what he cannot have and should not want? Knowledge rends and protection burns and comfort traps and love sears and they are good to each other, he thinks, even if they are not good to each other, and he loves someone who loves the wide dread unknown world, loves two someones, and he thinks love must be something dread and unknown and wonderful in itself.

Lev returns from being read to, flops onto the bed next to Oswald, and says, "what is the current subject of your misery?"

Oswald stares into the middle distance. "Is it still wrong what he's doing to Lacie, when she likes it so much? Are we SURE that there is a difference between these situations instead of me drowning in wishful thinking?"

"I don't actually know which situation you are talking about."

"Between you liking things, and me liking things, and my sister liking things. I think actually there is no difference but I would LIKE there to be so that fucking you is okay and the things Samson is doing with my sister are not."

"I feel like one important difference here is that your sister is summoning a Great Old One that will devour the world and we are having sex. Yeah, it's wrong but there are different scales of wrongness."

"Okay but they are ALSO having sex and I was supposed to keep that from happening."

"I am really not sure the sex is the problem here? I think maybe the torturing people and the summoning evil gods is the problem and the sex is basically fine."

"Was also supposed to keep her from summoning Great Old Ones I guess but that's different, I didn't spend years scared about that. I did not know those other things were on the table for most of that time."

Lev hugs Oswald. "People grow up and start making bad choices about sex?"

"And sometimes get driven mad by a Great Old One and start making -- wait I don't think this is precisely the part I object to but I don't know what I object to instead. Okay, I think we have concluded that there is no difference except you are interpreting this as all just sex that is fine and I am interpreting this as all people using other people. But maybe that's just how everything works."

"I mean did she like it. I guess that's a weird thing to think about with your sister."

"I think she likes it now and maybe sometimes before and that's scary but I don't know what to do with that or if it makes any sense."

"...I don't think you're using me?"

"I think I must be but I don't think it's -- hurting anything. And it's -- you could, too, you know."

Oswald is BLUSHING.

"You really do have to use nouns if I am going to have any idea what you're talking about."

"Are you suuuuuure? I think you have made this up to make my life more difficult."

"You're cute." Lev kisses his forehead.

Oswald kisses Lev's neck and then whispers very quietly in his ear "do you want to fuck me?"

"Yes." He kisses his forehead again. "And I think... if I like it and you like it... it is different from when you have sex with someone that they don't like at all because you will hurt them if they don't. And... even if they like it later... it's still bad because of all the hurting you did before?" He sounds hesitant about this.

"I guess things don't really stop being bad just because they're in the past. If that was how anything worked we'd be very different people."

"If Dr. Keaton hurt me until I was so fucked up that I thanked him for it that would be bad."

"I'm not sure we should ignore what that version of you wanted when deciding what would be good or bad for him though. But it would still be incredibly fucked up to have that happen. And it's horrible, doing that to someone."

He is starting to cry.

More comforting hugs.

"I mean it is bad for Samson and Lacie to have sex because you're not supposed to have sex with your foster daughter but it's also bad for us to have sex because you're not supposed to have sex with men? But if she liked it that is... not bad for her, I think, even if it is bad in general. And the thing that was bad for her is that he hurt her until she was the kind of possession he wanted to own. It wouldn't be better if he wanted a possession he didn't want to fuck."

Oswald has been trying unsuccessfully for several minutes to transition this conversation to having sex and instead they are talking about Lacie again and he's crying and it's terrible. "I think I am trying to make my peace with being the selfish kind of evil. Which is easier to integrate than it could be because I try to avoid being cruel or destructive or various other kinds of evil."

"What exactly do you do that is evil. You try to fight evil gods and listen to music and kiss me. Samson is evil because he broke my arm and wouldn't let me get it treated for two days and you would not do that."

(--evil evil evil-- he wonders if he should run away from Oswald too before he--)

"What!"

"Samson deserves to be burned to death by lava. --I still want to know exactly what you do that is evil."

"I... exist? No, that's not -- I don't... I don't do things because they're right, I do them because it's easier than figuring out how to leave. And when I do break the rules it's because I want to be happy. And I don't trust anyone else on this team and when I do talk to people I'm callous and tactless and when push comes to shove I put my own life before anyone else's. Which maybe isn't evil but it's not, I'm not an altruistic person."

"None of those seem evil to me. They seem like at worst normal personality flaws and in several cases normal personality traits. Also you were talking about us."

Overwhelming self-hatred.

"I don't know if it's evil. It feels like it must be. I want you so badly and I can't point to why that makes me feel guilty but I know I'm guilty of something."

"I mean it is wrong to have sex with men? Because it is sick and perverted. And wrong to hit people. But I don't think it's like. Evil wrong."

"Maybe I just use the word more loosely. To mean things like selfish or perverted or wrong. I don't have as many words as I have feelings in my gut. I love you."

"I love you too. And I really like it when you hit me. So I don't think it's selfish. Maybe I'm selfish."

"I think both of us can be selfish." For instance he can want Lev to fuck him for plenty selfish reasons.

"Yeah."

(--evil evil evil--)

[To return to the main plot click here.]

Later--

"Has it occurred to you that no one in this expedition is older than 24. Because it has occurred to me. and it is awful? None of you are going to get a chance to DO anything."

"I guess so. I'm not sure I was going to do anything. Or, anything more than I was already doing ...No, I should be upset about that, I should be freaked out about probably... dying in my 20s... I don't know why I'm not."

"I mean in a very meaningful sense I am going to die at 26, so."

"In another meaningful sense you have managed to make it to your thirties. Not in the doing things sense I suppose."

"I am 36! Made it long enough to be a wolf with my own adorable punk lover."

"I don't know about adorable. I like to pretend to be slightly more dignified than that."

"No, you're adorable. I'm going to kiss your nose and you are going to make a FACE and it will be an adorable face."

He does as threatened.

Such indignities........

Oswald does, in fact, make a face.

"See! You are adorable."

Well, can he call him adorable if he is being kissed on the LIPS. He cannot. Checkmate.

Lev kisses him a bit then says:

"The point is that you have been an adult for six years, which is hardly any time at all. And mostly what you are going to do with your adulthood is travel the world fighting an evil cult? And it would be good if you also got to... Go to movies. Go to coney island. Take girls on dates. Cruise strangers. Read books."

"I guess I didn't really... think about those things. I kind of... didn't have a life outside my work. Or a future. ..................did I have a future at all? I just meant I hadn't planned for one that wasn't whatever Samson Trammel wanted me to do but I'm not really sure... what my... life expectancy... working for him... was."

"Presumably at some point they would either induct you in the evil cult or feed you to the mouth. Kind of weird he didn't actually."

"And then I would either be dead or in an evil cult. I can't say I know what his time frame looked like. I suppose I have read books. Gone to movies sometimes, even. Did not manage any dates. ...Or friends, particularly."

"You have a date now!"

"See, maybe I'll get more living done this way than the other way around."

"I guess you are traveling to exotic countries and seeing the sites."

Gallows humor smile. "Yes, I am finally getting around to tourism."

[Return to main plot here.]

On their first day waiting for Sister Waletta to come back, Mordred contracts heatstroke. 

Lev... thinks about it. Remembers that Araari said a good treatment for heatstroke is damp cloths. Notices that they don't have enough water to put any damp cloths on Mordred, not unless someone goes without water.

Lev goes a day without water. He gets thirsty like he's gone a little too long without drinking on a hot day; he doesn't get thirstier than that. 

He considers putting a damp cloth on Mordred, but (--your child-murdering boyfriend--) he knows how this kind of relationship goes, from George and Ramon. You hurt them, and then you're kind to them, and then they don't leave, because they're always hoping you're going to be kind to them again, that this time it will stick. 

He sends Oswald into the tent to check on Mordred a somewhat unreasonable number of times. If Mordred is dying then Lev won't give a shit about manipulating him. Until then he is thirsty and he doesn't drink water and he waits.

By the morning of the second day, Mordred is feeling a lot better. He... doesn't really want to interact with Lev, and there are not a lot of other options of people to interact with. He spends a lot of time in his tent with Anemone's books. 

It's stupid. He is doing it for his own selfish reasons and if he actually cared about Mordred he would just stay away--

That evening Lev catches Mordred as he's getting some water and says, very quickly, "I'm sorry. I don't want you to forgive me."

"...........Well, I haven't yet, so that's good probably."

Mordred does not seem to be walking away so Lev continues with what he's saying. 

"It was a really awful thing to do to you and I wish I had been the sort of person who wouldn't do it."

"I understand why you did? But it's.... hard to have a relationship with you, when that's on the table as a thing that might happen. I'm sorry too. For what that's worth."

Lev looks horrified. "I am not trying to get you to have a relationship with me? --like I know that most of the time when people are awful to you and then apologize they're trying to get you to forgive them so that you can keep having a relationship and they can hurt you again but I don't want you to forgive me or have a relationship with me because I don't want to hurt you."

"...okay, leaving aside whether that is why people usually apologize for things, I miss having a relationship with you. I would say something about how uncomfortably not making eye contact is getting really old but I feel like you'd take it as an instruction to go away and that's not what I mean."

"I can... not go away... until you want me to? --Um. I don't want to hurt you. I really really don't want to."

"Thank you. I'm sorry too? For what I said?"

"You don't have to be sorry, it's true. I could have known if I'd wanted to know, and if Echavarria had told me to stab someone I probably would have, and I'm in general a bad person."

"I still shouldn't say cruel things to you, especially not cruel things I don't even really believe, to get you to shut up, even if I turn out to be right by accident."

This is a different adoring facial expression than the one Mordred usually gets from Lev.

"Um. Can I tell you about Marlo?"

".....sure?"

"When I was a kid I figured out I was a fairy and then I figured out that if you're a fairy real men will buy you food and take you to the movies and get you presents and give you a place to sleep if you, you know. Reward them. So I did, a lot. And I met Marlo.

"He was two years older than me and he was a sailor. He was always very quiet and-- good at the things real men are good at-- but he didn't really like them. And he wasn't actually a real man, he was-- well, we didn't have a word for it, Ramon called it a queer, the ones who like sucking dick and don't like wearing makeup. Probably that's why he didn't like any of the things real men should do. And he was... kind? He didn't do things to me that hurt. He let me borrow his room to study when I-- when I couldn't study at home. He liked listening to me talk about what I was learning. He thought I was interesting and smart. He would just-- look at me like I was the most important person in the world. And whenever he went sailing I missed him so much and he would-- carve me things while he was sailing-- as a present for when he got home--"

He is tearing up a little bit,

"He died. In the Great War. His ship went missing and they never found it.

"And I went to college and-- there wasn't anyone else in the world like Marlo. There were lots of people who pretended to be like him until they got mad and no one would mind if they hurt you. Or who wanted to believe they were like him but they really weren't.

"And-- I think probably I should regret doing the thing because I hurt you a lot? And I would regret it if you never wanted to talk to me again because then I just hurt you for no reason? And. I regret that I am the kind of person I am and the world is the way it is that I had to, I-- I wish so much that I had met you right after Marlo died and--

"But I am not sure I regret it in the world we're actually in because I don't think I would have believed you were really like Marlo, otherwise.

"Sorry."

Mordred opens his mouth, and then closes it.

".....I need a couple of things. The first is that I need you to promise me that is never, ever, no matter what, going to happen again. Not 'unless you really need to,' not 'unless you're in a lot of pain,' never. The second is a hug which feels like a very wrong thing to ask for especially from you right now but in fact it is a thing I need."

"--Um I think before I can promise that I am going to need to know what 'this' is."

"'This' is the thing where you say or do things specifically to hurt me."

"--um. I'm sorry I think this is maybe something that normal people can just figure out on their own but I really don't want to do that thing and I don't think I can promise to never deliberately hurt you at all because if nothing else sometimes you might need medical treatment and I already don't hurt you for no reason. And I am scared this sounds like trying to find loopholes but I just don't want to promise something and then-- break a promise-- because I didn't understand what I was promising--"

"It's-- It is really scary to me that you don't regret having said the most hurtful things you possibly could on purpose to hurt me. I understand why you did it. I also wish the world were not such that you felt like you had to. And I want a promise that you are not going to keep finding or coming up with reasons to have to."

"Um. --I'm sorry I think if I were a better person I would just say 'yes' but that. Is the kind of promise that George used to make to me when he-- when things started, and I don't-- I don't want to say words to you that might not mean anything. I'm not-- trying to be difficult, I'm trying to--" He makes a frustrated noise.

He hugs Mordred because that is the one of the two things he can definitely just give him.

A hug is good. He is maybe a little bit clinging.

"When you hurt someone then you say the right things without-- really paying attention to whether they're true or not-- and they stop being mad and then you can hurt them again later and-- the part of this cycle I can disrupt is the part where I say things that reassure you without worrying about whether they are true or not."

"That makes sense. I.... am scared that if I say 'if you have a good enough reason' then it will keep happening that you will break me on purpose and then turn out to have had a good reason."

"I don't want to break you ever again. It was the worst thing that happened to me in the past"-- he considers this carefully to ensure he is making an accurate statement-- "ten and a half years. Or. That I did. It didn't really happen to me, I was at fault here."

In the last ten years Lev has been drowned and given malaria and -- "Okay," Mordred says, and clings to him tighter.

"Do you want to go back to the tent if you're going to keep hugging me, I don't want you to get heatstroke again."

"...yeah. Tent is probably a good idea."

The tents are kind of small, so if they want to snuggle they actually do have to press up into each other. And it's cold at night in the desert so they really do have to snuggle for warmth. 

Mordred has ever been cuddled but it-- really does not happen very often. Lev is soft.

The funny thing about being in Mordred's arms is that he can actually just... relax.

Lev hasn't actually relaxed in years. Probably about sixteen years. There's always a part of his mind looking over his shoulder, always a part preparing for what's about to happen next. But with Mordred he's safe.

He presses his face against Mordred's chest and makes little happy noises into it. He puts Mordred's hand on his hair and goes mrrrrrrr like a cat. 

(He wants Mordred to pull his hair but he is hardly going to push this that far.)

Lev is very good. 

He is not really sure at all what he is doing-- he had taken this sort of thing off the table and now it is back on, in a teetering sort of way where it is maybe about to fall off the table, and because it was off the table he had not really thought at all about what he would do if it were on-- but it's. Nice. He feels uncertain and a little shy but he does not really want this to stop. 

When he shared a bed with Ramon, he had insomnia.

Lev's breathing deepens and his eyes close and he falls asleep. 

--oh.

A few days later--

They are in the desert. It is extremely boring in the desert. Exciting feelings like "heatstroke" and "diarrhea" have been replaced with overwhelming boredom. Fortunately, they have Anemone's books to read.

Oswald is primarily reading only when there is literally nothing else he could be doing, out of concern that if he passes up any opportunities to do things like prepare rations or reorganize their supplies or let Lev flop on him then he is going to get bored of the books too and go insane.

Lev is currently lying with his head on Oswald's leg and his eyes closed, contemplating the possibility of being asleep. Unfortunately, he has slept quite a lot today, and his body does not want to be cooperative.

Oswald may or may not be helping with this endeavor by idly playing with his hair. Honestly Lev should probably not spend his entire life asleep even though this is a very understandable impulse.

He is not planning to spend his entire life asleep. Only until they get to see Ayers.

Mordred has finally arrived at a point when he has practically nothing but time, and therefore is in the middle of reorganizing his and Anemone's combined notes to be in a somewhat more sensible order. There's an index.

Has Mordred considered that he's very cute.

Look. Listen. How many times has he wished he had an easier-to-use format for all of the things he's noted down. It's still not a corkboard and string because those seem hard to carry but at least he'll be faster now.

Indexes! Note-sorting! Finally something he knows how to appreciate.

"Mordred, you've very cute, I like your indexes."

Is he just announcing this apropos of nothing? That's kind of cute in itself. "They are very useful."

He absolutely is. "You should have seen my old notes on the cult."

"Because they were meticulously well-organized and easy to read?"

"So he could organize them."

"On the one hand I have so many notes on so many things, and this is kind of absurd, but on the other hand I keep being right that things that came up once in a very specific context keep coming up again and I want to remember it when that happens so I'm just writing down everything that's mentioned in the context of the cult or things next to the cult, and -- I had a point when I started talking. I think my point was that this index is getting really long."

"Maybe you should be cross-indexing instead? I guess that doesn't have the advantage of a single list..."

"I can also cross-index and indeed probably should but what I want mostly is a single list of all the things that have come up and the pages where I can find more details about them so that it's all in the same place, yeah."

"Have you considered having a wildly disorganized set of notes which are occasionally interspersed with recipes, notes about your appointments, and the time you got bored and started trying to prove the Pythagorean theorem. And then you can connect things through serendipity."

Tiny laugh. "Not only have I not considered that, I will not consider that, and in fact I have already forgotten what you said."

"Well. When it turns out the Pythagorean theorem is integral to understanding the Thing with a Thousand Mouths, won't you be eating your words."

"I love you so I am deciding to forgive you for whatever nightmare your paperwork looked like. Do we really need to prove the Pythagorean theorem ourselves to understand the Thing with a Thousand Mouths, I feel like Pythagoras did that part for us."

"Maybe the proof is important! You don't know! Wasn't there that one book about that Great Old One who was a mathematical proof?"

"Was the Great Old One specifically a proof they teach to high schoolers across the nation?"

"Maybe our sanity has all been rent by Pythagoras. You don't know. You don't have a comparison."

"I'm a languages person not a math person, if the proof is important I'm not going to get whatever insight it's important for by serendipity anyway."

"I guess our comparison is Mordred who, admittedly, does seem saner than either of us."

He nods mock-seriously. "The math is probably what drove us insane, then. There's no other obvious explanation here. Which I think is an argument that you shouldn't try to prove random math in your notes, really."

"I have been defeated by the power of logic." He sighs. "I can't believe Ayers is alive."

His hair-ruffling turns slow and pensive. "It's quite remarkable."

Mordred is not quite close enough to non-awkwardly pet Lev's hair about this and really doesn't want to move. Also there are all the other reasons it would be at least a little awkward to pet Lev's hair about this. Fortunately Oswald seems to have it covered.

"I knew he would have come for me if he could."

"I hope he'll be able to... that you'll..." he tries to find a phrasing that works and sighs. "I hope it all works out this time. I'm really glad that," vague gesturing, probably the sentiment is obvious enough that no more words are required.

"I miss him."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know."

Mordred is... extremely quiet.

Oswald is going to telepathically beam I'm worried about Lev at him. Also incidentally this feeling might show on his face. Vague huglike thing accommodating for Lev's head being on his leg.

"It's stupid, I know it's stupid, I just."

"I don't think it's stupid."

"Not stupid at all." He is murmuring more than talking.

"He wasn't nice to me," Lev says to Oswald's leg.

"I'm not sure how much an effect things like that have on feelings. I wish he had been."

there are people I miss even though -- "Yeah, I -- still don't think it's stupid. But. What Oswald said."

"I mean. Cultists, right."

Sad laugh. "Yeah."

[Return to the plot here.]

After a couple hours alone with Ayers, Lev has returned, happy and somewhat dazed. His neck is somewhat more hickey than neck.

Does Oswald know what hickeys look like in great detail by now? Yes. Does he doublecheck to make sure they aren't some kind of unexpected supernatural thing anyways? Yes, because he is feeling high-strung and necks are the kind of place supernatural things manifest these days. "You look happy."

"Yeah. He's so good." He has such a stupid grin on his face.

It's a very wonderful grin, thank you very much. "I'm glad." Talking about other people having sex is so incredibly awkward, wow. "I suppose he's better at the stuff with the, the," gestures, "uh, pain, than me, though I guess it's not actually hard to improve on--" maybe he would be better at self-deprecating humor if he was any good at delivery

"It's not, um, a comparison? And to the extent that it's a comparison you're probably, um. --like I think not ever having tortured me helps?"

"Oh no, I didn't mean it as--" he's saying at the same time Lev is. Oh dear. He should quit trying to say casual humorous things and go back to being high-strung in all his conversations. "I guess we are hitting marks on very different ends of the spectrum, aren't we."

"I love you." This is a very goofy smile and also he collapses in bed because he's not very good at walking.
 
 

"I love you too."

"He loooooooves me," Lev says in a sing-songy voice. "He looooooves me and he doesn't want to make me sad and he only hurt me in ways I like."

He sits down next to him. "That's very good."

Part of his brain is remembering that Ayers is going to make Lev sad because he is dying. That part of his brain can shut up and go away.

"He kept apologizing to me. And telling me I'm smart and good and precious and all the things he said about me were wrong and he'd spent years remembering the things he'd said and regretting them. I didn't even remember half the things he was upset about having said."

"Well, I am glad that he has seen the light about how wonderful you are." Asking about the regrettable things he said seems like a good way to make their day somewhat worse for no reason, so he resists the temptation.

Lev presses his head into Oswald's shoulder. "You're all wrong!"

"I'm afraid you'll find, sir, that we are in the majority on this one."

"Truth," Lev says very seriously, "is not up for popular vote." Then he starts giggling.

"You'd say something to him if you didn't like something, right?"

Lev makes a vague wiggly hand gesture. "I mean he's only doing things I like?"

"I guess you knew each other pretty well." He does not sound convinced.

"I mean, I don't want to cause trouble?"

"If it was me I would definitely prefer you causing trouble to accidentally hurting you for real."

"I mean, it's kind of unreasonable to ask that he wouldn't hurt me at all. When I like-- the kinds of things I like."

"I don't mean -- I just, I worry? I love you and I don't want anything bad to happen and then keep happening because -- and, and Ayers loves you too, so he'd probably agree." Part of him is saying that Ayers clearly does not care enough about Lev getting hurt but that part is not helpful.

"I guess?" Lev says. "I don't. --I guess almost everyone who's ever loved me has been on Nectar, haven't they."

A few days later--

It's been a week and a half in the desert and Mordred has spent it in various combinations of hot, thirsty, exhausted, and slamming his head against a metaphorical brick wall.

Currently he's in the cave, where it's relatively cool, avoiding the sunlight.

"How's the magic going? Controlling the fundamental forces of the universe sucks more than expected?"

"Unbelievably so."

(There's a couple newish bitemarks on his wrists.)

Lev indicates it with his head. "Those are way freakier than they used to be."

"Yeah. I know." But other kinds of bruising are harder to control and he doesn't want to experiment here and -- he doesn't say any of that. "Wonder how Zoe's hand is doing."

"I'm kind of grateful that my mental health is too fragile to learn any magic."

Mordred laughs even though it's not that funny.

"You want a hug or sympathy or distraction?"

"Distraction, please."

"You want me to try to teach you a language? It might be helpful to learn something you're actually good at."

"Yes," he says instantly.

"What do you want to learn? I know, uh, Yiddish, Latin, Greek, Italian..."

"...I want to say Yiddish but probably Italian is more useful."

"I also know French, Russian, and Polish, if one of those is better."

"I --"

God he's so tired why is he so tired this is languages he likes languages--

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I-- get it."

"...yeah. Thank you."

"It sucks to make yourself small. So small that you can't even-- think."

"Yeah. And running yourself into a wall repeatedly in the hope that this time it'll work isn't a great time even when the stakes don't involve the fate of the world."

Tiny smile. "I'd hoped you'd be. Impressed. That I know so many languages."

"I am also impressed that you know so many languages."

Lev twitches like he very much wants to reach out and touch Mordred. "I've always been good with them, ever since I was a little kid. And, you know, growing up where I did--"

Does he want to be holding hands. They can be holding hands. "Yeah, I bet."

!!!!!!!!!

He tries to compose himself and not seem overly excited.

Lev's hands are smaller than Mordred's and the calluses are different. Mordred isn't thinking about that, or about the implications of the impulse decision he just made.

"...sometimes I wonder how many languages I might have learned if I had actually grown up in New York," he says instead. "Or -- what my real accent would have been, if I'd had one."

"Depends on how rich you were, I think. Whether you were"-- he gestures vaguely with the other hand-- "a real American."

"No, I mean -- so the thing about my accent is that it's fake no matter what? The New York one I taught myself and the mid-Atlantic one was taught to me."

"Presumably you had some accent when you were a little kid."

"Presumably. But I don't remember what it was."

"That's sad. I-- haven't had anyone to speak Yiddish to in, god. Almost twenty years."

"That's also sad. I'm sorry."

"We both made ourselves different than we were."

"Yeah." He would like to put his head on Lev's shoulder. He does not do that.

"I don't regret it," he says quietly. "I'd rather study people than Talmud. But no one I talk to knows what Talmud is. It's weird to miss a place you never belonged in."

"It really is. ...Italian might be more practical but I think I want to learn Yiddish anyway. And not even just because my dad would have an apoplectic fit, although he would."

"I'd like to teach you Yiddish. It'd be-- good-- to have someone who knew the first language I ever learned."

"It'd be good to know the first language you ever learned." There is an unusual amount of intensity in this sentence for the sentence that it is.

Heart eyes.

"I don't know that I've ever belonged anywhere really."

"I'm sorry." He's said this over and over again but he keeps not having any better ideas for what to say.

He doesn't say something stupid like 'maybe I can belong with you.'

"I think anthropologists aren't supposed to belong anywhere. We're supposed to be sitting away from everything. Watching."

"Sounds lonely. But then I'm not an anthropologist."

"Aren't you lonely?"

He has Agravaine. He has Gale. ....he's not really sure what's happening with him and Agravaine and Gale is, well. ".....yes."

He laughs without humor. "We have something in common. It'd be good if at some point we had something in common that wasn't incredibly unfortunate."

"Languages. Books. The natural history museum. I guess those might not be things in common the way you mean."

You bounce, Mordred doesn't say.

"That's true. --I've been thinking about being immortal."

"Oh?"

"I guess it's not as bad as it could be. Because I've never belonged anywhere."

It takes him a moment to parse what that even means. "....ah."

"More to watch, standing from the outside. Generations more of people to understand."

"We don't -- know how it works. It might not be like that." He doesn't sound very convinced.

"I guess I could die tomorrow. --Someone should try stabbing me at some point. See what happens."

Someone should NOT. He laughs anyway because -- honestly because it's easier.

"I'm serious, it's probably better to know before it comes up."

"You're not wrong, I just--" Why are feelings.

"It's nice to have a friend who objects to me being stabbed," Lev says dryly.

"...I have no idea what to say to that so I am going to go with 'you're welcome' and we will pretend I said something more normal?"

"Something else we have in common. Absolutely no idea how to be normal."

"I have any idea I just can't consistently do it." He is aware that this is not the point.

"I'll write an ethnography. The Normal Person Observed In His Natural Habitat."

"How much time are we going to spend around normal people in the foreseeable future, Oswald's Oswald and as much as I like Zoe I don't think normal people do that much corde lisse."

"Well, I do have eternity to do it in."

"That's true."

"This is not a distracting conversation, I'm sorry."

"Well, it's not repeatedly failing at the most important thing I've ever been this bad at, so."

He traces a protective sigil on the ground. "'Hello' is 'shalom aleichem.'"

"Shalom aleichem," he repeats.

Then Lev can walk him through various greetings and goodbyes and also food and a little grammar.

"Your pronunciation is really good."

"I pick up sounds fast in general, I think, it happened when I was trying to change my accent too."

"Better than me," Lev says. "I've been speaking mostly English since I was fourteen and I still can't get rid of my accent."

Mordred, who is extremely aware of why someone would want to get rid of their accent, does not protest that it's a good accent.

"Fourteen years in a language is a lot!"

"It'd be funny to go back to New York and try to pass you off as a Jew."

"It would be." He's smiling for real by now.

"I wonder if WASPS or Jews have more bullshit rules."

"I don't know how you'd begin to count or establish a fair standard of comparison but I'm tempted to try."

"Traditionally I think we have 613."

"Sure but there have to be more than that in practice, if that's just the rules you have written down, there's always things that aren't against a rule technically but nobody does them and you'll get glared at if you do--"

"Also the Torah never says you're supposed to use different dishes for milk and meat. Just that you're not supposed to boil a kid in its mother's milk."

"Right, and things like that. I think the unspoken ones are harder, honestly. Harder to deal with, I mean, but they're also harder to count. If you're not supposed to mix milk and meat you can just not do that but I couldn't just -- not talk to people -- or, I could, but that was wrong too --"

Lev squeezes his hand.

Mordred squeezes back.

"I think we have fewer rules that aren't spoken. Or. I guess 'you're supposed to be loud and interrupt each other a lot' is also a rule. That was hard to unlearn."

Lev's been very quiet almost the whole time Mordred has known him. "Must've been a change."

"Be careful. I might start feeling comfortable enough around you to yell. --Or at least you can see me with Ayers."