Lev hugs him. "I'm sure you know this but your ex-boyfriend is a horrible person. It doesn't matter if there are good days because, because you deserve a relationship where it is all good days and they're always sweet to you and you can decide for yourself whether you want to do something that might hurt you and, and you don't have to be on edge at all--"

"Malcolm was definitely horrible but I don't really believe in deserving." 

"I guess I mean I want you to have that."

He cuddles up to Lev. 

"I want me to have it too." 

"Someday you will, I promise," he doesn't say.

"I love you," he doesn't say.  

He holds Sasha very tight and says, "thank you for telling me."

"Thank you for letting me." 

This is normally the time where he'd sneak off and go cry, but he can't because Sasha needs him. 

So he just holds Sasha. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't trust himself to speak.

That's okay. Holding him is enough. 

Eventually he says, "I hope you get it."

"I have it now." 

"Oh.

"Thank you."

(he just said he thought it was fine before-- he has low standards-- he deserves better)

He should wait to say I love you. 

"Keep holding me?" he says instead. 

"Whenever you want, as long as you want," Lev says.

Lev is very very good and Sasha never wants him to stop. 

"Tomorrow can we stay in," he says into Lev's chest. 

"We can bake cookies and watch Star Trek and snuggle while reading comics and have sex but only if you want to."

"You're so good," he sighs, and relaxes in Lev's arms. 

"...It's okay if you don't want to talk about this but why the fuck did she think I was straight?"

"Because that whole group of people is obsessed with identity politics and according to them the more privileged identities you have the worse you are. 'White billionaire' just doesn't have the same ring as 'cishet white billionaire.' Also apparently you're misgendering me even though you've literally never done that." 

Lev has the facial expression of a person who has literally just realized that there exist people who don't think Sasha is a guy. 

"I have a billion dollars! I don't think you can actually get more privileged than that!"

"Yes, but it is very important to Alyx that I am supporting specifically cishet white billionaires, not just billionaires in general, by dating you." 

"You're a guy. Not a very common hobby among straight men, dating men."

"'Straight men misgender people, Sasha!'" he says, in a near-perfect mimicry of Alyx's tone. 

"What. I. ...it is so strange to think that somebody might think you're a woman. It's like she's claiming that I think you're a tomato. I don't even know where to begin arguing with it."

"You're so good," he repeats. "Also, never talk to a TERF, they think I'm coping with the trauma of my abuse and trying to escape oppression by alienating myself from womanhood or whatever the fuck, it's bad. For the record the trans thing happened before the abuse thing." 

"...I have no idea what a TERF is but that sounds really stupid. Why would being abused make you want to transition? Why wouldn't you have stopped transitioning when you become homeless and that obviously didn't work to keep you from being oppressed?"