Lev goes where he is tugged!

Good. Then Lev can hold him. Being held is very important. 

Lev holds him for a bit, then says "be back in a sec," kisses him, goes to the bathroom, undoes his pants, jerks himself off, and finishes thinking about Sasha's face.

When he gets back Sasha's moved under the blankets and is curled up around a pillow. 

Lev gets under the blanket with him and wraps his arms around him.

"Sorry about that."

"Mm." He settles into Lev's arms, doesn't let go of the pillow. "'s fine. You've got me." 

"I've got you."

Afterglow cuddles are even better than regular cuddles. He feels warm and safe and like he's home. 

"I like having sex with you."

"I like sex with you too. You have good hands."

"Thank you."

Everything is warm and soft and Lev is holding him and Sasha is so so so safe. 

He closes his eyes and sinks into sleep.

Lev drifts off as well.

The next few days go faster. They watch movies; they spend slightly absurd amounts of time cuddling in various locations; Sasha bakes and Lev stays in the kitchen with him. They don't go out often but they go out ever. 

From Lev's perspective they're leaving the house quite a lot actually!

Lev is the happiest he has ever been. There's something almost decadent about doing normal life things with another person: baking cookies and eating them with someone else; reading a book cuddling with someone else; watching a movie with someone else, and talking with him about it afterward, because you both just had the same experience, because you are doing things together all the time. Lev identifies this feeling as "being in love"; a person who had more experience with it would probably identify it as "not being lonely."

Lev finds out that Sasha has never seen Star Trek, is horrified, and declares that they have to watch every single episode of TOS while Lev explains that Kick and Spock are boyfriends. 

They have a fair amount of sex. Lev does not take off his clothes and moves Sasha's hands away when Sasha tries to touch him. About half the time, he jerks off in the bathroom afterward; about half the time he stays cuddled up to Sasha. 

This is not a long-term sustainable solution, but Lev isn't planning on doing this long-term. He doesn't want to see disgust flash across Sasha's face if Lev takes off his shirt; he doesn't want to look at Sasha and know that he's bored by giving Lev pleasure. It's harm reduction, in a way. Sasha might not really want to have sex with him, but normal people wouldn't really mind having someone totally focused on giving them lots of orgasms even if that person was needy and unattractive. If he just only focuses on Sasha, then Sasha won't be fucked up about it, and Lev won't be a horrible person.

He is uncomfortably aware that this is a rationalization. 

Sometimes, when they're cuddling, Lev disappears for ten minutes and sits in the bathroom and thinks about how Sasha doesn't love him. But it's okay. He knows exactly what to do to cover up that he's been crying. 

He doesn't ask about why Lev won't let Sasha touch him — he has issues about sex, Sasha knows this, prying is almost never helpful — he doesn't ask about where Lev goes when they're cuddling, or why. Sasha cuddles up to him afterwards, says I'm here, I want to be touching you, see, I like when you're near me in every way he can but words. He falls asleep every night in Lev's arms. It becomes so familiar that he's not sure how he ever managed to sleep without them. 

He tries not to count off in his head how long has left. He finds himself calculating and recalculating it anyway (five months two weeks three days and six hours until Sasha leaves...).

He stays up late to watch Sasha sleep. He asks Sasha to wake him up when Sasha does. He drinks a lot of coffee and takes a lot of modafinil. 

He makes lists in his head of things of places to take Sasha and presents to give him and things to do with him and doesn't tell Sasha about any of them. 

He tries not to think about the number of things that will always remind him of Sasha. He does not succeed.

He doesn't tell Sasha he loves him.

He does, however, ask Sasha about going to a bookstore. That's okay, that's reasonable, that's a normal request, nobody would put "and then he made me go to the bookstore" on their list of complaints about their evil billionaire ex.

(When he was a kid he used to pile up three or four or five books and sit in a corner of the bookstore where no one could see him and read, and he was always found midway through the second book and never got to find out how it ends. He buys the books now. He's always wondered what it would be like to look at books with someone.)

Sasha hasn't had time to go to a bookstore in ages. He'd love to. 

For the first hour and a half or so it's fun, pointing out books he read when he was a kid and never wants to read again because in retrospect they were probably awful and he doesn't want to damage that memory, laughing at silly back-cover blurbs and saying just put it on AO3 like everyone else at the books that have been written since 2015 about Alexander Hamilton. 

— and then he turns a corner before Lev does and freezes. 

"Oh, hi, Sasha!" Alyx says. "I haven't seen you in ages."

"Yeah. It's been a while." 

"We should catch up! What have you been up to? How are you and Malcolm doing?"

(Lev has gotten distracted by a Diane Duane Star Trek book and is totally not paying attention.)

"I haven't seen Malcolm in more than a year. My boyfriend and I've been watching Star Trek." He says it almost mechanically. 

"Oh! I'm sorry," she says, and casts about for a way to change the subject. "What've you been up to in terms of, like, movement stuff? I've been busy with my blog and my band but I've also been doing a bunch of shifts at the infoshop. Probably why I haven't been seeing you!"

"I have been up to absolutely the fuck nothing in terms of movement stuff. You haven't been seeing me because I left."