Kaleva is sitting at the lunch table, alone, reading a book! (Li Chen has tourney practice.) 

If it were possible to join a gang without talking to anyone he would totally do that but unfortunately it is not. 

He sits down at the same table, not directly across from Kaleba(?) but in the seat next to the one across from him, with his food. "Hello." 

Kaleva puts down his book.

"Hello?" His tone is polite but fundamentally confused that anyone would want to talk to him. 

Sasha's pretty sure they don't just come right out and say "I'd like to join your gang" here, so he casts around for a more delicate way to phrase it. 

"My name is Sasha," he says, mostly to stall for time, and then lands on "I've noticed that you and Li Chen spend a lot of time together." 

"I'm Kaleva Weselton." (He pronounces it 'Wesselton.') "Chen's my roommate."

Is it an exclusive gang? He can deal with that if it comes up. Sasha isn't really sure how joining a gang works here but Kaleva didn't deny it and that's a plausible first step. 

"Nice to meet you, Kaleva," how to put this so nobody gets hit, because if he gets in a fight then he's going to lose. "It seems like having him around makes everyone safer." It's a little tentative but this way if they turn out not to want him he can have plausible deniability about whether he was asking at all. 

"Oh, you're one of the new villain kids, aren't you? --Yeah, people are assholes, but Chen doesn't like bullies. I can tell him to keep an eye out for you?"

Oh! That was easier than it could have been. 

"Thank you! 

Do you guys have somewhere in particular you meet up?" 

"We... do homework together? You can come if you want."

Sasha seems lonely. Very lonely, if he's willingly talking to Kaleva. Chen would approve of inviting him. 

"Sounds good — where and when?"

It might be a little awkward to explain to the other villain kids but it's not like he's part of their gang, and he can always just not explain it if it's too fraught. 

"Nobody's really done homework with us before, so it's just in our room. Chen usually gets done with practice at 4:30."

It's not like he was expecting there to not be favors involved but if he's going to be in their room it's a sure thing now. "I'll see you then!" he says, needlessly cheerful like everyone at this school always is, and smiles at Kaleva and starts eating instead of talking. 

Kaleva waits briefly to see if any more conversation will happen, then returns to his book. (It's a history of King Beast's unification of Auradon.) 

He eats about half of the (slightly ridiculous) amount of food he'd taken and wraps up the rest and keeps it. 

He finds Chen and Kaleva's room by 4:26 and reads in the closest nearby public space until 4:38 to give Chen time to get back and Kaleva time to talk to him, and then goes and knocks on their door. 

"You're here!"

The table is spread with textbooks and papers, almost as if Chen and Kaleva are actually doing homework.

"Hello! I'm Chen — sorry, we're kinda spread out but there should be enough room —" He clears some of the papers. 

Huh. 

Well, he did bring a textbook — more for plausible deniability if he was stopped by a teacher than for anything else, but still. 

"Nice to meet you, I'm Sasha." He sits down and opens the book to the page with their problem set, which he's been working on but he suspects his methods and the ones they're supposed to be using have very little to do with one another. 

Kaleva glances at the textbook. "If you need help, I'm in Calc BC, I can probably explain what's going on."

Are. 

Are they actually going to do math. 

Are people at Auradon okay. 

What is happening. 

"I'll probably need the help," he says instead of any of that, "they seem to think I've been taught a lot more than I have in fact been taught." 

"Here, I can walk you through the first problem."

After some minutes of this, Kaleva says, "do... do you actually know how to solve an equation?"

"My way works," which is true at least half the time. "But they didn't really focus on math at villain school and at a certain point if it wasn't getting me food I had more important things to do." 

"Yeah, you have really good mathematical intuition. I guess not having that drained out of you is one advantage of educational neglect. It's just-- how do they expect you to pass algebra II if you don't know any algebra?! Don't they have placement tests?"

He's assuming a placement test is a test you take so they can figure out where to place you. "If they have any, they didn't have us take them." 

Seriously why are they still doing math. 

"They don't have placement tests. Usually they look at the classes you took and the grades you got in whatever school you went to before but I think for villain kids they just guess." 

"This is a TERRIBLE SYSTEM! I guess I'm just going to have to teach you all of high school math! In the next three months! So you don't flunk!"

"I could try to talk to the scheduling people — I got them to let me count the civil service exam as a social studies class, I'm sure I could get them to give you a level change." 

"But then he's going to be behind! Even though he's really good at math! Because we decided to feed people garbage and leave SERIAL KILLERS in charge of their MATH EDUCATION!"

Kaleva seems to find every aspect of this situation personally offensive. 

"I'm pretty sure none of the people who taught me math were serial killers, for whatever it's worth."

He can't say he's ever been angry about that in particular, but having someone who isn't from the Isle get angry about it is…nice. For some reason he hadn't expected that. 

(And having Chen offer him a favor already is definitely a good sign. Even though they're still doing math. Seriously, what is going on and when is he going to be ordered under the table.) 

"Well, serial killers or not, they were awful at it! --Chen can get you dropped into Algebra I, but that would make it really hard to get into college, and I bet I can teach you everything you need to know by the time you have to take the final exam. Because, unlike Chen, I have no friends and no hobbies and no life."

"You have friends," Chen says, like it's a conversation they've had before. 

"…wow. College. That's an option, huh." 

Turning down a favor could be interpreted as "I won't use too many of your resources" or it could mean "I don't need your help," but he'll be accepting a favor either way, hopefully Chen won't take offense. 

"I learn fast, I'm sure we can manage," he says to Kaleva. 

"I have friend. Singular. And occasional people who put up with me because they like hanging out with you." He turns to Sasha. "Great! What other homework do you have?"

Seriously, what the fuck. 

Maybe they want to get homework done while they scope him out and then he's going to be ordered to his knees? Maybe there's an different kind of subtext that they use in Auradon and that he's not picking up on? Maybe they're fucking with him to see how he'll react? 

"Safety Rules For The Internet and Remedial Goodness, but neither of those are due tomorrow and it's busywork anyway." He hates those names. "Some writing I'm done with for Lit, and a question set for V&V." 

"You have classes in what?!"

"I know. I'm pretty sure they're designed to be as insulting as possible, you can't write curricula like that in good faith — or, I guess someone probably could, but assuming good faith without evidence has not historically been a good assumption." 

"I…don't think I can get them to let you out of that." 

"How do you have an entire class in Safety Rules for the Internet? There's like two rules! Use a password manager and don't click on phishing emails! --Can I see what's even in the Remedial Goodness curriculum?"

"They spend a lot of time talking about the dangers of interacting with strangers in chatrooms. I mostly tune it out, I don't know why they're expecting us of all people to be dangerously trusting of strangers who haven't made a damn good show of being trustworthy first." 

He digs a worksheet out of his bag and hands it to Kavela. 

"Hey, Chen, did you know you're not supposed to lure people into an amusement park so you can turn them into donkeys? Because apparently Fairy Godmother thinks Sasha doesn't know that!"

"What in the —  who writes these questions, a group of ten year olds with a Mad Libs book?"

"Like I said. As insulting as possible." 

Over the course of the next hour, between "Sasha has a patchy education" and "Sasha is not in academic classes because Fairy Godmother put him in Safety Rules for the Internet instead", Kaleva winds up volunteering to tutor Sasha in literally every subject. 

He also has no ability to control his body language whatsoever, so it's pretty easy to figure out that he is attracted to Sasha and really, incredibly, hopelessly in love with Chen. 

Kavela's cute. 

Chen's giving basically no signs that he's noticed. Which.....might explain how at the end of an hour they're still talking about classes? He's pretty sure that he's part of the gang by this point, he's been offered too many favors not to be, but given that he has done neither any sex nor any crimes for them it's a little hard to believe it's that easy. 

Dinnertime!

On the way to dinner, Kaleva keeps grinning at Sasha like he's the most amazing person in the world. 

How do you survive with emotions that obvious.

Chen usually sits with his teammates at meals but making sure the new villain kid is alright takes precedence. They'll understand. 

"You know there's usually snacks left out, they're supposed to be for the sports kids but anyone can grab one, they don't care," he says offhandedly to Sasha when he notices him taking ridiculous amounts of anything that can be tucked away in a bookbag for later. 

"I didn't, but thank you!" 

He doesn't stop, of course. 

Judging by Kaleva's facial expression, he seems to view sitting with the new villain kid as being something equivalent to rescuing six puppies from a burning building. 

Kaleva reads while he eats, but he's constantly sneaking glances at Chen and Sasha over his book. 

Kaleva is adorable. Dangerously transparent, but adorable. 

After dinner he smiles and thanks them both again and goes back to his own room and flops on his bed and wonders what the everloving fuck just happened. 

Kaleva is a really, really good teacher. He never seems to get bored, has a gift for explaining things so people can understand them, and is clearly so interested in whatever he's talking about that it rubs off and you're excited by it too. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, Kaleva's smiles change from "Sasha is very pretty" to "Sasha is personally responsible for every good thing in the entire world and I want to bask in his reflected glory." (The latter is also the Chen smile.)

That's… 

He really needs to find a word for Kaleva other than "cute," this might be Auradon but calling other gang members cute tends to not end well. But it's really cute, and also kind of sad, and if this were the kind of situation where sharing food was a relevantly important gesture Sasha would bring him an apple. 

He keeps spending time in Chen and Kaleva's room. He keeps watching the way they interact with each other, the way Chen's face goes soft when Kaleva gets excited and the way Kaleva beams whenever Chen says something positive. He keeps not being ordered to the floor even once, which after a while passes through confusing and transitions into being frustrating, because Chen is really very well-built and Sasha's willing to bet he has a gorgeous cock. 

Auradon continues to be confusing, but being part of Chen's gang is largely succeeding in getting people to leave him alone, and having Kaleva is helping him in class, and he can still tune out Safety Rules For The Internet, and it's still obvious which answers they want in Remedial Goodness, and life is pretty good. 

Sharing food is totally a relevantly important gesture in Auradon, as Sasha will find out when Kaleva shows up at his dorm room wheeling a large box of shelf-stable food. 

"Kaleva," and he has no idea how to end that sentence. He puts the box under the desk he doesn't use anymore anyway and — he still hasn't been asked, maybe Auradon is different, maybe he should be careful — kisses Kaleva. 

Kaleva freezes up for a second, and then kisses back. 

He is abjectly terrible at it. 

Sasha reaches up to curl his hands in Kaleva's hair and pulls his head so it's at the right angle and bites — lightly, testing the waters — on Kaleva's lip. 

Kaleva moans into his mouth and starts running his hands through Sasha's hair. 

That's better. 

(Sasha is acutely aware that his roommate could come back to their dorm at any point, and having Harry and Kaleva in the same room at the same time is....not a good plan. But. Kaleva's hands in his hair.) 

"Well, helloooooo~~. What do we have here? When Chen's away his toys will play."

And....there he is. Of course. 

"Chen's getting as much of me as he cares to," Sasha says lightly, like the implication is in fact true and like the entire situation with Chen isn't still deeply confusing. There's no reason Harry needs to know otherwise. His face is still less than three inches away from Kaleva's, and his hands are still in Kaleva's hair. "I can thank Kaleva properly, can't I?" That comes out sugary-sweet and only-halfway-teasing. 

"Well, don't let me stop you, Sasha. You didn't before."

what

is going

on

Yeah okay sometimes you just have to commit. 

"Just go with it," he whispers to Kaleva, and then kisses him again, deeper this time, tugs on his hair and presses one thigh between Kaleva's knees. 

Kaleva makes a very undignified noise, like he's about to protest, but Sasha's mouth is on his and his hands are in his hair and his thigh is between his legs and it is really hard to think right now!

"Oh, bravo, bravo, A for effort, little Sasha. You've got him wrapped around your finger. Can I assume you have Chen equally well in hand?"

He turns to Harry but keeps a hand in Kaleva's hair, keeps his grip gentler than it looks. 

"Have you never, once, in your entire life, learned how to keep your mouth shut?" He turns back to Kaleva, kisses him one more time, short and shallow with no affection at all. "C'mon, Kaleva, sweetness, wouldn't you rather be somewhere we won't be interrupted?" 

Kaleva has no idea what's going on but he can recognize a leading question when he hears one. 

"Yes?"

"Now, why would I do that, if I keep my mouth open someone might shove a cock in it."

Ignoring Harry is easier than not doing that and in this instance probably less costly. 

He smiles at Kaleva (pleased, approving, not affectionate) and takes Kavela's arm and leaves the room, shuts the door firmly behind them and walks quickly (doesn't run, if you run people wonder what the hurry is) down the hall. 

Kaleva follows him. "What is going on?" he whispers.

Auradon. 

"As far as I can tell Harry only speaks one language — I was trying for an obvious enough show of 'this person is mine and also I've got enough protection that I'm not afraid of you' that he wouldn't fuck with you too much but if you can avoid him it'll be better for everybody." 

"You kissed me!"

Chen's at tourney practice at the moment but Kaleva and Chen's dorm is still probably the safest place they can go. 

"If I'd known he was about to walk into the room I wouldn't have." 

"That's not the point!" Kaleva whispers even though the hallway is totally empty. "Guys aren't supposed to kiss other guys. I think."

"What? Don't answer that, explain later when we're in actual private." 

Two turns, one doorway, one public space, another hallway, and they're here. 

Inside!

"I don't know what needs to be explained about guys not kissing other guys! Have you ever seen two guys kissing?"

"........yes? Fairly frequently, actually." 

He sits down on the edge of Chen's bed. 

"Yeah, that doesn't... happen in Auradon."

That is a bizarre thing to have only be for villains, but he can't exactly say "well, banning anything fun does seem in-character" to Kaleva. 

"Huh," he says instead. "Why not?" 

"I'm not... actually... sure." Kaleva sits down on the couch and conspicuously leaves space next to him for Sasha to sit. "But if this were a thing that existed at all for people who aren't, you know, evil, surely someone would have... mentioned it. Honestly, they mentioned a ton of stuff that evil people do! If you had asked me before ten minutes ago I would have told you that it was just not a thing that happened."

There has to be some way to argue this that doesn't just boil down to "well, maybe being good is bullshit." 

"Well, they mentioned a bunch of things evil people do, and they never mentioned this. And there's no way you could cover everything anyone could possibly do, no matter how long you talked about it, and there's plenty of things that people do that you might not see them doing. How do you know this isn't just one of the things they didn't get to and you haven't seen personally yet?" 

"I know how relationships are supposed to work! You find your one true love, you sing to them, you kiss, optionally you defeat a dragon or something, you get married, you have sex, and then you have babies. But two men can't get married or have sex or have babies. We're not capable of doing most of the steps in the relationship."

Probably the best way to do this is to just ask lots of questions. "Why does that have to be how relationships work?" 

"I don't know! It just is! But I really really want to kiss you and I have never wanted to kiss anyone before!"

He could debate the "sex always comes after marriage" point, or the "there is exactly one path to a relationship and it includes babies" point, or the "I have never wanted to kiss anyone before" point. 

He opts instead to move into the space next to Kaleva and say "It is definitely possible for two men to have sex," because he's not that shy about his ulterior motives. 

Kaleva would argue with this but he is only a mortal person and Sasha's lips are literally right there. Probably "how can two men have sex if neither of them have vaginas?" can wait until after Kaleva has climbed into Sasha's lap and kissed him for, oh, two hours.

Well. That is, sort of, what he was aiming for. 

Sasha leans into him and pulls Kaleva's head into place by the hair and — he seemed to like the biting — presses his fingernails into the place where Kaleva's scalp meets the back of his neck. 

His hands find Sasha's hair again and he moans against Sasha's mouth. "Oh, Sasha--"

"Kaleva," and he pulls him closer by the waist, sets the glow of pride aside to examine later, "here, Kaleva, yes, like that —" 

"Sasha, Sasha, you're perfect, Sasha--"

Kaleva is still a pretty crappy kisser but he is a quick learner and extremely enthusiastic.

Sasha will just keep pulling him into place as often as he needs to. 

Kaleva liked the nails, liked the biting — Sasha breaks the kiss and pulls his head back by the hair and bites, lightly, on the hollow of his throat. 

Fortunately, Kaleva really likes being pulled into place!

And he really really likes being bitten.

He starts to grind unconsciously into Sasha's lap.

...yeah, alright, Sasha can spare a hand to unbutton Kaleva's pants. 

The angle's not really right for moving his hand much, but he keeps pressure there, lets Kaleva set the pace, keeps pulling Kaleva's hair and biting at Kaleva's neck, jaw, lower lip. 

"You should probably explain how sex between two men works before I get extremely extremely frustrated."

It's only 3:45, they've got time —

"It can work like this," kiss, "with you in my lap and my hands on you," kiss, "or I could lay you out and suck you off, or I could go down on my knees and you could fuck my face, or," he ducks down and bites Kaleva, not quite hard enough to leave a mark, "or there are — other things — but maybe not for your first time —" 

Hiss about being bitten.

"I think your explanation," kiss, "should assume I have less background knowledge," kiss, griiiinding into Sasha's lap, "because I don't actually know what 'suck you off' means."

Is that an invitation? That sounds like an invitation. 

Sasha turns Kaleva around and presses him backwards into the couch, kisses him one more time and sinks down to the floor and pulls his pants down. "How about," a kiss to Kaleva's hipbone, "I show you instead?" 

"I think hands-on demonstrations are an aid to learning!"

Some part of Kaleva is aware that he's going to have a crisis about this at some point, but that really seems like a problem for Future Kaleva to deal with. Present Kaleva is going to find out what 'suck you off' means and is extremely pleased to discover that it apparently involves his penis.

Sasha, meanwhile, is unaware of any impending crises. 

Once he gets Kaleva's cock out he looks up at Kaleva through his eyelashes, smiles as sweetly as he knows how, and sinks down. 

Okay, yeah, that's amazing.

"Sasha-- Sasha-- Sasha, you're so beautiful--"

Oh-oh-oh — he holds Kaleva's hips down and makes soft desperate whimpering sounds around Kaleva's cock and closes his eyes and presses his forehead into Kaleva's stomach, something about the way Kaleva is talking is so good — 

"Sasha, you're wonderful, I love the way you look between my legs, it feels so good, it's so hot and wet and good and Sasha ohhhhhhh---"

His back arches and he pushes his dick deep into Sasha's mouth and he comes.

Sasha's eyes flutter open. 

He swallows and rises from his knees, sits back down on the couch next to Kaleva. 

Kaleva throws an arm around his shoulder and kisses his temple. "Do you want me to--?"

He does not especially want to find out just how bad Kaleva would be at blowjobs, no. 

"Just — keep talking?" he says, and then his brain catches up to his mouth and he isn't sure why he'd said that. 

"About anything, or about how wonderful you are, or--?"

His breath hitches at the word wonderful. 

Kaleva runs a hand along Sasha's cheek. "You're so beautiful and so smart and you make such good faces and I really like kissing you and whenever you smile my heart leaps in my chest."

It's — words like that are for smoothing over a problem, or for talking to someone who could hurt you, or for someone you own, it's not — Kaleva doesn't sound like he means it in any of those ways and Sasha doesn't know what's going on and Sasha never wants it to end — he curls up against Kaleva's side and takes one of Kaleva's hands and puts it on his hair and doesn't silence the soft high-pitched noises coming out of his throat. 

Kaleva pulls his pants back on with one hand and with the other he pets Sasha's hair. "You're so good, your mouth made me feel so great, your hair is so nice to pet, I love the face you make when you finally get something, I love your thoughts on poetry--"

Being wanted feels like glowing, feels like warm golden liquid settling in his bones. Sasha presses closer to Kaleva's side, wraps one arm around Kaleva's shoulder and curls his hand in Kaleva's hair again. 

Kaleva kisses him. "You are one of the best things that has ever happened to me."

The glow grows brighter, warmer. Sasha closes his eyes and smiles into the kiss, pulls himself into Kaleva's lap. 

"Everything is so soft here," he breathes against Kaleva's mouth, "you're so good to me, you're so sweet, I'd never had anything really sweet before," and he can't tell whether he's talking about sugar or Kaleva or both. 

"At some point I'm totally going to freak out about all this but right now I just want to hold you because you're amazing. --Although we should probably stop before Chen gets home."

"Yeah. We should." He doesn't want to, Kaleva is warm and soft and sweet and Sasha can't remember the last time anyone's done this. 

He leans forward and kisses Kaleva one last time and then pulls away. 

The bad news is that Kaleva will be completely incapable of not smiling at Sasha like he's the sun and moon and stars.

The good news is that Auradon is homophobic enough that no one will notice. 

"I vote we both skip class tomorrow and spend all day in bed."

"I would like to avoid conversations with Fairy Godmother if at all possible." 

"I don't think you need remedial goodness because you are already extremely good."

"If you keep saying things like that we're going to end up back where we started." (Not that Sasha wouldn't like that, but.) 

"I think not telling you how great you are all the time will be very hard and I should be rewarded for it by getting to tell you how great you are constantly when we're alone."

"You're so sweet." Kissing him again is a bad idea and Sasha is in fact capable of understanding the word shouldn't but it's very hard. 

"...Maybe we should work on algebra and that will make me want to kiss you less."

"I'm not sure that seeing you get enthusiastic about math will make me want to kiss you less, but it's worth a shot." 

He's been keeping his books in Chen and Kaleva's dorm for the last two weeks, which is good because he really doesn't want to go back to his own dorm until he absolutely has to. 

They can totally touch legs on the couch! It's plausibly deniable! Maybe Kaleva just wants to get close so Sasha can see what he's doing!

Maybe he does! 

When Chen comes back he'll find them sitting close to one another but not touching in any way that couldn't be overlooked. 

He drops his gear on his bed to deal with later and takes his jersey off almost as soon as he walks in the door. "You two seem happy." 

Kaleva stares open-mouthed at Chen's bare chest, recontextualizes the fact that he keeps staring open-mouthed at Chen's bare chest, realizes that the emotion he is experiencing is not "admiration" but in fact "lust," wonders if he should stop staring at Chen because Sasha might be jealous, considers fleeing into the restroom, decides that that would probably be suspicious, and finally decides to slam his face into the math textbook, which is not very unsuspicious but is definitely the least overwhelming course of action.

....that's very Kaleva but also, what. 

Sasha's trying not to laugh. "Kaleva brought me kind of a lot of food," he says, because not explaining at all is probably a worse idea than giving an inadequate explanation. 

"And then I met his roommate," Kaleva says to his math textbook. "His roommate is... a lot."

"He's toned it down since I found you guys," which is true, Harry has. 

Something about the tone of voice there seems off. "Should I be concerned?" 

"I've got it handled but if that ever changes you'll know it." He's pretty sure they don't actually shank people here, and not just because they have actual knives, but given what Kaleva said earlier about men kissing Chen would probably still react more than is warranted and Sasha's not a fan of Harry but he doesn't really want him to get whatever-people-get-in-Auradon-instead-of-shanked. "Anyway, he won't touch the food — I know it's from you, Kaleva, but he'll parse it as a gift from Chen and he's got enough sense not to mess with that." 

Kaleva lifts his head out of his math textbook and decides to just fix his gaze on one of the lamps. 

"Harry needs Remedial Goodness. Maybe Remedial Remedial Goodness. He would definitely use an amusement park to lure people into becoming donkeys and then he would torture the donkeys to death."

"To my knowledge he has never lured anyone into an amusement park or turned anyone into a donkey.

Also, where is this coming from? He barely did anything." 

Kaleva tries to telepathically send the message "I don't want to talk about why Harry sucks while Chen is in the room because I am a terrible liar and Chen is going to ask questions."

Unfortunately, Kaleva has the magical ability of a turnip, so this does not work. 

"I don't like people who would mess with your food. I got you the food so you wouldn't have to worry about going hungry, not so Harry could mess with it."

"And he's not going to."

Pause.

"It's really great being friends with the two of you."

"I'm glad we're helping." 

Kaleva does one of those you-are-the-source-of-all-goodness-in-the-world smiles at Sasha.

"Me too." He smiles back for a moment, then returns back to their textbook. "Anyways, Kaleva, you were saying?" 

Math! Lots of math! Plausibly deniable cuddles!

If Chen even notices the plausibly deniable cuddles, he doesn't react and he certainly doesn't say anything about it, but eventually it's going to be time for dinner and they'll have to separate anyway. 

Kaleva spends all of dinner grinning at Sasha and complimenting him and doing plausibly deniable cuddles. It would be really terrible if anyone in Auradon had any idea what gayness was whatsoever.

He tosses and turns all night, his sex dreams having acquired a new specificity. 

The next morning he is literally twitching with anticipation. 

All Chen says about it is a quick "Are you all right?" on their way to breakfast.

"I'm fine! I think I'm going to have breakfast in my room actually! If you see Sasha tell him I'm in our room!"

His leg is shaking so quickly it is almost vibrating.

O....kay. 

He does get a chance to tap Sasha on the shoulder and tell him where to find Kaleva, and the flavor of the way Sasha smiles and thanks him is not helping with how confused he is. 

Kaleva is adorable and at some point they might need to talk about subtlety but this morning is not that point. This morning Sasha takes the food he's gotten up to that point and eats on the way back to Kaleva's dorm.

Kaleva has too many feelings to eat breakfast. 

As soon as Sasha enters the dorm room Kaleva pounces on him and starts kissing him. 

Someone's enthusiastic. 

"Good morning," he says the first time he comes up for air, and he pushes Kaleva backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed and keeps pushing until Kaleva is on his back. 

Kaleva falls back onto the bed and smiles up at Sasha. "I was totally intending to have a responsible adult conversation about feelings, but you are too pretty and actually all I want to do is have more sex."

"Am I now." That sounds like a good moment to bite down on Kaleva's neck, still not quite hard enough to leave a bruise, and start getting his clothes off. 

"It's really unfair! You should have a less good face."

"I don't know," kiss, "if it's getting me results like this," kiss, "maybe I shouldn't," kiss, and another bite, this one on the muscle where Kaleva's neck meets his shoulder. 

"You," kiss, "should have fewer clothes," kiss, "so I can see," hairpetting, "if the rest of you is just as good."

What a good plan. Sasha sits back on his heels and strips his shirt off — he's thin, not worryingly so but it's noticeable, with a visible collarbone and sharp shoulders — and then goes right back to kissing Kaleva, lets his left hand slide under the hem of Kaleva's shirt to rest on his side. 

Kaleva pulls his shirt down so that it continues to be fully on his body, then runs his hands along Sasha's back and sides.

"Oh, Sasha-- Sasha you're so beautiful-- I love touching you, I love kissing you, I love the way your chest looks--"

Huh. Yeah, that makes sense when he thinks about it, in Auradon they probably don't have to care whether you'd lose any fight you got into, or whether you're good enough at what you do that you have enough to eat. It's still weird, though. 

"Kaleva — " He keeps petting Kaleva's side, kisses him again, "Kaleva, c'mon, let's get this off so I can see you, you're gorgeous —"

"No, you're gorgeous, I'm kinda weird-looking."

"Kaleva." Kiss. "You're beautiful." Another kiss, this one deeper. "Whatever's under here," he tugs at Kaleva's shirt, "I'm going to like it." A kiss to Kaleva's jawline, followed by a quick gentle bite. "Let me see you," kiss, "let me touch you, Kaleva —" 

"I am not beautiful," Kaleva objects, but he lets Sasha take off his shirt.

He looks like a pale flabby nerd who doesn't really go outside or exercise, possibly because he is a nerd who doesn't really go outside or exercise.

He looks like he's never gone hungry a day in his life, is what he looks like. "You are," and Sasha runs his free hand over Kaleva with something like wonder. (He's never known anyone this soft, before. He knows better than to say that out loud to Kaleva.) 

Kaleva's back arches. "You like me," he says in a tone of awe.

"I do." 

This seems like it calls for more kissing. 

Shirtless kissing is really nice!

Kaleva approves.

It really is, isn't it? 

It's really a shame that you need your hands to get somebody's pants off; Sasha doesn't want to take his hands off of Kaleva. 

It's okay, Kaleva can take his own pants off!

Oh, good, now Sasha has something else interesting that he can touch. 

That is really distracting, but Kaleva is going to try to pull off Sasha's pants too.

(There is an increasingly incoherent stream of praise, interspersed with "oh" and "Sasha.")

He can spare his hands long enough to strip the rest of the way, and then he goes right back to what he was doing, leaves trails of kisses and soft bites over Kaleva's chest. 

Kaleva's hands are entangled in Sasha's hair and he's grinning.

Good. Good. They should stay there, and he should stay that way. 

Sasha keeps kissing him as he makes his way down Kaleva's torso, kisses each of his hips, kisses the insides of his thighs, and then swallows down Kaleva's cock. 

Kaleva gasps and pulls Sasha's hair.

He hums, pleased, and keeps running his hand up and down the inside of Kaleva's thigh. 

"You're so good, I love you."

— he what — 

Sasha stops moving. 

— he what — 

"Are you okay?"

"You what?" 

His voice sounds strange, like he's listening to himself from the outside. 

"I love you? Sorry, I kind of thought it was obvious--"

"I need to go." 

He stands up and grabs his clothes and starts toward the door, still on autopilot, then remembers halfway there why he can't do that and goes to the bathroom instead. 

"I'm sorry, I don't know what I did wrong-- please tell me, I can fix it--"

His hands are shaking a little bit. He gets his clothes back on. 

"You didn't do anything wrong." Kaleva's Auradonian. It's not — "I just have to go." 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I don't want to hurt you--"

"You didn't do anything wrong." He reaches the door. He leaves. 

He does not go back to his own dorm, because this is not a conversation he wants to have with Harry. He goes to the library and sits on the floor in the back of the stacks and presses the base of his hands into his eyes until lights burst in front of them. 

Kaleva pulls the blanket over his head and cries. He hopes that Chen doesn't come back into the room because Chen would be so sympathetic and not ask any questions and that would make him feel so much worse. 

He'll have about an hour and a half to himself before Chen gets back. 

That's enough time for him to stop crying and get dressed but not enough time for him to stop projecting misery all over the place.

Chen sits down next to him, puts a hand on his shoulder and waits to see how he reacts. Are you alright is a pointless question, he's clearly not — "Are you going to be alright?" Chen says instead. 

Wow, it's kind of hot when Chen touches him.

This wildly inappropriate realization makes Kaleva break into hysterical laughter.

"I think I'll be okay," he says when he recovers himself.

He's still worried. "Are you ready for class or should I tell her you were sick?" 

"Might as well go, it'll be distracting."

He doesn't ask. If Kaleva wants him to know, he'll say. He moves his hand to Kaleva's back, just for a moment, then stands up and hands Kaleva his bookbag. "C'mon, we're already almost late." 

Sasha doesn't go to Remedial Goodness that day. 

Fairy Godmother sighs and marks Sasha absent. "When you don't want to attend class, should you (a) attend anyway and pay attention, (b) skip class, or (c) light things on fire in the back of the classroom?"

Harry raises his hand. 

"For the last time, Harry, 'torture people' is not the right answer. It's not even on the list of possible answers."

Harry lowers his hand and goes back to lighting pieces of paper on fire.

"You should attend class and pay attention," Claudine says in a monotone, staring at the desk. 

"Very good!" Fairy Godmother says encouragingly. "Claudine, you're one of the best students I've ever had in Remedial Goodness."

"It's all thanks to my father," Claudine says, her monotone unchanging.

"What about going to class and not paying attention?" She's been scribbling in a notebook marked "Definitely Not Evil Plans" the whole period. 

"Why would you not pay attention in a way that doesn't involve lighting things on fire?"

You should pay attention because if you don't they will get angry and beat you. 

"You should pay attention because the light of knowledge inspires the soul to greater love, wisdom, and goodness."

"Very good, Claudine! You're on track to get an A!"

"Goodness is bullshit. You should pay attention 'cause if you're not smart the loa'll get you, and there's no loa here." She says the loa'll get you like she's teasing a kid, not like she's talking to a classmate. 

"Nat, if the loa bother people, King Ben and his team of advisors will handle it! You don't have to worry about things like that."

She adopts the most innocent, wide-eyed look she can muster. "What, and they'll come in guns blazing for little old me?" 

"Of course! We protect all the citizens of Auradon."

Claudine starts coughing. There is probably some dust in the air. She's not covering her laughter, definitely not.

The innocent, wide-eyed look gets even more exaggerated. "Oh! Like they've been protecting me my whole life? Gosh, that's so generous!" 

"Well, no," Fairy Godmother says, "we only protect people in Auradon, not people on the Isle."

She doesn't have anything in particular planned for Fairy Godmother but avoiding a pop quiz is enough of a goal for now and it's not like Claudine or Harry are going to start asking questions. "So if my friends were here, you'd protect them too?" 

Harry does not seem interested in asking questions! He has gotten tired of lighting things on fire and started poking himself with a safety pin. 

"Of course! It's so nice that you want to protect your friends."

Uh huh. "That's real sweet of you to say." She leans forward, widens her eyes a little more — it's painfully obvious that she's not being sincere but Fairy Godmother doesn't seem to be able to read tone for the life of her. 

How anyone thinks they're learning anything in this fucking class is beyond her. 

He gets himself together in time to go to Algebra, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with Kaleva. 

At lunch he gets his food and looks at Kaleva's nearly-empty table, looks at the door, looks at the table again, and sits down. Not directly across from Kaleva, but in the seat next to the one across from him, the same seat he picked the first time they talked. 

Kaleva looks heartbreakingly grateful.

"Hi."

"Hi." He does his best to smile. "Sorry about this morning." He's not sure if he is or not but obviously the first thing you do is repair your bridges. 

"It's okay. I'm sorry too."

He nods, quick and tight, and smiles again. 

Kaleva hands Sasha an apple off his tray.

He takes it, looks at it for a moment. Looks up at Kaleva. Takes a bite. 

Hands Kaleva an orange. Smiles again, more natural this time. 

Kaleva peels the orange and eats it. "It's good."

"Fruit that's still fresh is hard to find on the island," he says, voice softer than he'd intended it to be. 

"I grew up in Arendelle, we didn't get it much either."

Maybe he does get it. 

"I'm — glad I can give you something." He is, that much he's sure of. 

"I like getting to make you happy."

"I —" 

He isn't really sure how to respond to that. 

"You have a good smile." 

"Yours is better."

"I don't think we're going to agree on this one no matter how much we argue." 

"Then we won't argue and I will rest secure in the knowledge that I'm right."

Kaleva is so sweet. 

"Well. I've already decided not to argue with you." 

"Wait, in general? I'm going to exploit this. Robin Hood should definitely have given the money to the poor instead of keeping it."

"Absolutely not in general, who just gives away the thing they're going to use to eat that night? He'd earned it, he gets to keep it!" 

"But if he didn't give it away then that poor mouse would starve!"

"Well, if he'd wanted to buy something from the poor starving mouse, I can't say I think much of his judgement but that's fine! But just giving it away is just irresponsible, you can't feed your people if you give your money away to strangers, and —" he can't actually finish this sentence, he's laughing at the look on Kaleva's face. 

He doesn't want to say 'I love you' because it went terribly last time but Sasha just keeps doing lovable things. It's really hard.

"No, it's totally in his enlightened self-interest to help the mouse, because the mouse is going to be grateful and hide him from King John. You get to have nice things when you don't constantly punch holes in the social fabric for no reason!"

"He didn't know the mouse would hide him, you don't get credit for information you don't have, and the social fabric is that you support your people and you don't sell them out because you had a feeling about some poor mouse you saw!" 

"When you do nice things for people, they help you out in return! This is a normal thing that happens a lot! And the social fabric is that if people are starving then they're taken care of and then you don't have to worry that you are going to starve!"

"And what about the Merry Men who didn't eat because their leader gave away their money to a mouse? Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there, and this is clearly not the sort of place where nobody ever has to worry about starving, or —"

This time he cuts himself off on purpose. 

"Man, that jerk has gold wheels on his carriage, I think they should just steal stuff from him until nobody has to starve."

"Yeah. I'm with you there. But you can't do that by giving other people everything you have and hoping it works out." 

"Seems to work okay for Chen."

"...Chen's starting off with a lot to give.

Not that it isn't meaningful that he does that, just. Not everyone can be Chen." 

"He would be like that even if he didn't have anything to give. Even if he were on the Isle."

"People who are like that on the Isle find a different way to be, or they starve."

"Yeah. He'd starve."

Sasha's not sure how true that is. People are different when they're desperate.

"Yeah. He would." 

"This is depressing. Want to argue about Robin Hood?"

"I think if we try to argue about Robin Hood we'll circle around to talking about depressing things again. How about math?" 

Math!

Math indeed. 

He is going to have to go back to his dorm at some point today. He's not super looking forward to it but that is in fact a thing he will have to do. 

Kaleva is fine if he just hangs out with him forever!

Tempting, but he does have to sleep tonight, and Chen will have questions if he spends the night with Kaleva. 

He kisses Kaleva goodnight before he goes, quick and shallow. 

Kissing! This is probably a sign that Kaleva hasn't ruined everything forever.

"You could stay on the couch and we could tell Chen your roommate sucks."

He has definitely not ruined everything forever! He has not even ruined most things for a little while! 

"He didn't even do anything, it's not worth setting Chen on him for." 

"I guess." 

Kaleva kisses him. "Goodnight."

One more kiss and then he has to leave no really. "Goodnight." 

He doesn't get a lot of sleep that night. 

Kaleva cries himself to sleep.

And Chen worries about both of them. 

Kaleva is awkward around Sasha for the next few days. He doesn't kiss Sasha or touch him unless he initiates, but clings when he does. He talks about conspicuously normal topics when they spend time together. He looks longingly at Sasha when he thinks Sasha is not looking; he smiles desperately whenever Sasha touches him or does something affectionate. He conspicuously does not stares at Chen when Chen strips off his jersey in their common room. 

He cries every night. 

Sasha touches him as often as he can get away with, kisses him every chance he gets, and it's not enough, Kaleva's still hurting and Sasha doesn't know what to do about it and I love you echoes in his ears, I'm sorry, I don't know what I did wrong, please tell me I can fix it, in Kaleva's voice, whenever he tries to think about it, and he can't sleep, and —

And on Saturday morning he sits with Kaleva at breakfast and watches the way Kaleva looks at him and watches the desperation on his face, touches Kaleva's shoulder whenever he has an excuse to, and then he goes back to his dorm and tells Harry "Please fuck the noise out of my head." 

"Chen is very good-looking but Uma would be so jealous if I were punched by someone else."

"Chen won't punch you for it." This is true, but mostly because Sasha isn't planning on telling him it happened.

"How nice of him to let other people play with his toys."

Sasha is grabbed by the hair and shoved to his knees.

Oh. Good.

"Yeah," and it comes out softer and breathier than he was trying for. 

"You know, they didn't let me bring aaaany of my toys from the Isle. A lifetime's collection, lost"-- he grabs Sasha's hair and yanks it-- "like that. Not even my father's hook to comfort me."

The click of a switchblade knife opening. 

"But Auradon has given me some new toys."

He moans out loud at the pull on his hair, goes where he's pulled — his breath hitches when he hears the knife, he wants to say something but he can't quite get his throat to work — 

"I guess Chen is going to want me to return his toy in good condition," Harry says thoughtfully. "Nothing more than a few cuts. Of course"-- Harry whispers this next bit in Sasha's ear-- "my hand might... slip."

He bites Sasha's earlobe hard. 

"Yeah — nnh — it — oh —" 

Biting him gets another moan, louder this time. 

"Clothes off or I cut them off. Your choice."

He strips as quickly as he can. 

"Aw, you're no fun at all," Harry says, walking behind Sasha, "you're going to pay for that."

He cuts a semicircle across Sasha's back.

"Only — have — so many — ahhhh —" 

"Why not? Chen's a rich boy and I'm sure he likes seeing you dressed up pretty."

A second semicircle joins the first one.

Instead of trying to come up with an answer to that he tilts his head back and moans. 

The knife clicks shut. "I'd like to see you bleed out all over the floor," Harry says in tones of regret, "but it's not nice to break things you're borrowing. And I am nice, aren't I, Sasha?"

"Yeah," gasp, "yeah, you are," and the terrifying thing is that he almost means it. 

Harry slaps him across the face. "Wrooooong. You are getting so many wrong answers today, little Sasha."

He tries for "I think you're nice" and what comes out instead is "'m sorry," slurred together. 

Harry walks around Sasha, examining him, and makes a tch-ing noise. "No bruises, no healing cuts, and you go under so easily-- they aren't treating you well at all, little Sasha. No wonder you had to come to me."

He grabs Sasha by the throat, yanks him up, and throws him against the wall.

He moves like a rag doll, no resistance in him at all. Makes a soft sound of agreement, only half aware of what he's agreeing with. 

The sound of Harry's pants unzipping, then the sound of a switchblade being opened, and cold metal pressed against Sasha's throat. 

"You are going to have to be very still," Harry says, "or I'll slit your throat."

"Oh," very soft. "I — can do that —" and his voice shakes but he doesn't move. 

"Legs around my waist, little Sasha, I can't use you like that."

Another soft affirmative sound.

Obeying without moving his throat is — not easy. Sasha makes it work. 

Harry fucks him up against the wall, slowly, roughly, without consideration for his feelings, the knife steady and still against his throat. 

He likes slow. He likes rough.

He's not really capable of keeping himself quiet, right now. 

That's okay. Harry Hook likes noise. 

He angles the knife slightly and a single drop of blood wells from under Sasha's jaw.

He tilts his chin up and whimpers. 

The movement causes a thin line of blood to well from Sasha's neck.

"Uh-uh," Harry chides, "you don't want to do that."

Harry fucks him harder.

He wants so badly to move, to make it better for both of them — he stays very very still and keeps his eyes open and lets the whimpering melt into long drawn-out moans, doesn't try to speak. 

"Maybe when I come my hand will shake. Maybe my hand will shake and you'll die. What do you think of that, little Sasha?"

He's terrified of that. 

He does not move. 

"You're scared of me! How fun."

Harry is fucking him really hard now. It's going to be difficult not to move his throat.

It is — he can feel the cuts welling up, can feel it every time he can't keep himself quite still enough, it's terrifying and it's so good —

Harry grabs Sasha's hair and slams his cock into his ass and bites down hard on his neck and comes.

The knife wobbles slightly but it doesn't cut. 

Oh please Harry please — keeping himself still is so hard but he holds back the shaking, doesn't bother to hold back the sounds — it's, it's so good, he'd remembered being terrified but he'd almost forgotten how good it was.

Harry drops him on the floor and looks at him with contempt. 

"Can you get that curly-haired little gay boy who keeps following you around to clean you up, or do I have to?"

He flinches, very slightly. There's almost no tension in him. 

"I think you're going to have to." It's half-murmured; he doesn't want to admit anything to Harry but he can't let Kaleva see him like this. 

"This is literally what minions are for," Harry grumbles, but he takes out a kit from under his bed and starts to clean and dress Sasha's cuts. 

He moves where he's pushed and leans into the contact and otherwise is about as responsive as a sack of flour. 

When Harry's done, he says, "do you have a scarf?"

"Think so. Don't remember." Pause. "Can't really think." 

Harry sighs and wraps a scarf around his neck. "Return it or you'll lose a finger."

He smiles, just a little. "Will do." 

With that, Harry does up his pants and leaves. 

…he isn't sure what he was expecting but he knows the disappointment is completely unwarranted. Of course Harry wasn't going to stay. Why would he? 

He stays there, sprawled out on the floor, for maybe twenty minutes before he drags himself up and gets dressed. 

Sasha isn't here. 

Not that Sasha has to be here. Sasha is his own person who makes his own decisions about whether to be here. It is just that Kaleva has understood precisely nothing of the book he's reading, and also his legs are shaking. 

Sasha gets there about forty minutes later than he usually does, after making sure that he doesn't have any visible injuries. He's hiding the limp, not perfectly but pretty well. 

He glances between the two of them. 

He'll ask about the limp later. "Good morning." 

"Good morning." 

Sasha is limping, something has gone wrong, but if he's supposed to know what it is then Sasha will tell him and if not he can just be sick with worry.

"Good morning."

Yeah he's not missing the worry there.

He sits down, pulls out his books. (Ow ow ow ow ow. At least he doesn't have to deal with classes today?) Definitely does not tell either of them. Maybe he'll have twisted his ankle when he tripped on the stairs, or something. Kaleva doesn't need to know about his recent Harry-related decisions and Chen definitely doesn't need to know. 

The scarf is new. It's not that Kaleva has catalogued every item of clothing Sasha wears-- well, actually, it's exactly like that, except that Sasha only has like four outfits so it's not very hard.

"Where'd you get the scarf? It's nice."

"I'm borrowing it, it's my roommate's." 

"Let's do homework."

The way Sasha's shoulders relax at that does not make Chen any less worried and he can't imagine Kaleva's any different. 

They work on homework. 

No one on the Isle would give someone something for free; it had to be a transaction. Sasha is limping. Sasha is covering his neck. From Kaleva's limited interactions with Harry, he seems to be both attracted to Sasha and sexually interested in hurting people. 

Why didn't Sasha ask Kaleva to help. Kaleva made enough of a mistake that Sasha would rather go to Harry Hook, a person who'd leave him limping, than to him.  

Kaleva doesn't talk about it but he is definitely projecting abject misery everywhere. 

If neither of them want him to know what's going on it is going to be very difficult to get them to talk about it. He might be able to get Sasha alone and ask about the limp? 

For now, though, he does his best to make things as normal as they can be. 

Kaleva's miserable again and he still doesn't know what to do and

He does his best to keep the peace of mind he'd just found and focus on math. 

Kaleva declares himself to be done with homework surprisingly early!

"I think I'm going to go for a walk," he says, "see you guys."

(Does 'walk' mean 'cry by himself'? Yes.)

Chen waits for him to go before he says, "So what happened?" 

"Nothing happened." He's holding his pencil tighter than he strictly needs to. 

"You're limping." 

"I tripped and hurt my ankle." 

"I won't do anything on your behalf unless you want me to. You know that, right?" 

"I tripped and hurt my ankle," he says again. 

Kaleva is just going to. sit. in a corner of Auradon Prep's extremely beautiful grounds. and cry a lot. 

He messed up the best thing in his life and there is nothing he can do to fix it and now the person he loves is going around having his ankle twisted by Harry Hook.

"Okay.

Do you need anything? For… your ankle?" 

"…Can I hug you?" 

It takes him a moment to process the request. 

"Of course," and he stands up and hugs Sasha from behind his chair so Sasha doesn't have to stand, firm and gentle and putting pressure on Sasha's shoulders and chest and back. "Of course." 

This feels — good. Warm. Safe. 

He leans back against the chair, lets his head fall against Chen's shoulder. It's been too long (a shorter time than it's been since before he was ten, and still too long) since someone held him. 

He manages to not cry. It's a close thing. 

He keeps up a stream of "Hey, hey, I've got you," soft and steady into Sasha's hair. 

After a couple of minutes, he lets go. 

"Thank you." Objectively, the air isn't cold. 

Sasha smiles up at Chen, grateful, and takes his things and leaves. 

Harry is lurking around the outside of Chen's room waiting for him. It is BORING. This is the sort of task you send a minion to do, back when Harry had minions. Well, actually, it is the sort of task Uma did-- gang leader to gang leader diplomacy-- but Uma is back on the Isle and Harry is stuck on this stupid continent with its stupid rules about not torturing people and its stupid demands that you know how to "read" and "do math" and its stupid lack of Uma or Gil or any minions at all. 

Waiting is really boring. Harry amuses himself by drawing a design into his arm with his new switchblade, but then he starts getting a little lightheaded and he has to dress the cuts so he won't be out of it for talking to Chen, and then there is nothing fun to do at all. 

His plan was to catch Chen when Chen left. But when he sees Sasha leave, he waits ten seconds for the kid to go away and knocks on the door. 

He answers the door. 

"…Hello." 

Harry comes inside, looks Chen up and down, and whistles. "Sasha's a lucky boy."

He has no idea how to react to that, or indeed what he would be reacting to, so he doesn't.

"Is there something you need from me?" he says instead. 

"I am here to tell you that I returned the merchandise in good condition. Cleaned his cuts and gave him a scarf-- which I will expect back, by the way, so no funny business."

What does that mean. 

"I genuinely have no idea what you think I might be planning to do with your scarf, but there will be no funny business." 

(Cleaned his cuts — how many injuries was Sasha hiding — he will figure that out when he's not talking to Harry Hook, who apparently thinks of Sasha as merchandise.) 

"Good," Harry says, apparently satisfied. "Happy to be of service. --You really should hit him more, there weren't any injuries on him at all and he went under when I'd barely pulled his hair. It can be a pain but I know him, he really does need it, he gets so twitchy without it."

what what what what what 

"I'll take that into consideration. 

Have a good day." 

"Toodles! And seriously, any time, happy to help."

Harry feels extremely satisfied about how successfully his first attempt at gang leader diplomacy went. To celebrate, he's going to go desecrate a temple. 

 …

"What just happened," Chen says, in Chinese. 

He probably could get Sasha to explain it, when they next see each other in private. He probably should get Sasha to explain it, and not just because apparently Sasha's more hurt than he's letting on. He definitely should not and will not do anything to Harry Hook, at least until he understands what's going on, "returned the merchandise in good condition" notwithstanding. 

Harry sees Sasha when he returns to his room to pick up some stuff for the desecration!

"I talked to Chen," Harry says, "so I hope we'll be able to see a lot more of each other."

"…yeah," he says, like that makes sense and like he isn't trying to rapidly figure exactly how much Chen and Harry are respectively likely to know now. "Hope so too." That's maybe 20% true but it's more than zero true. 

Should he fuck with Sasha?

Well, Harry did not get to this point in his life by repressing any random impulse that came into his head.

Harry goes up to Sasha, kisses him, grabs his hair with one hand and squeezes his dick with the other. Then he pulls away. "Looking forward to it."

It's too brief to really respond to, and Sasha can't decide if he's glad of that or not. 

"Yeah," he says, instead of anything with substance, and then he leaves the room, not going towards any destination in particular. 

Chen isn't particularly looking for Sasha, but when he sees him he's not going to turn down the opportunity. 

He taps him on the shoulder. "Can we talk?" 

He is really not looking forward to this. 

"Sure." 

"Great! There's a study room that's usually open, it's just over this way —" 

It is in fact open. Chen lets Sasha pick his seat first, then sits down himself. 

"So your roommate decided to talk to me after you left." 

"He mentioned." 

"Oh, good. I was wondering if you could explain some of the things he said?" 

Fuck. "I can." 

There are any number of questions he could ask first but the one that comes out is "How many injuries are you hiding?" 

Then, at the look on Sasha's face, he adds, "I'm not going to do anything unless you ask me to, I just want to know." 

He looks at Chen for a moment, and then he unwinds the scarf and tilts his chin up to show the cuts. 

"There's more on my back, they're long but they're not deep."