"I fall in love fast just in general but I stayed in love with you because you're perfect." 

"I am very very skeptical of this claim."

"You separate your steampunk books from the rest of your historical fantasy, for starters, which isn't really its own thing it's just a way in which you're adorable. You like listening to me ramble, you're not just listening politely you're actually interested, do you know how rare that is? You're so good at explaining things, you can make a subject like programming that I've read about dozens of times and never understood just click. You pay so much attention to what you're doing, you're interested in the world and it makes you so interesting to talk to. You're perfect." 

"If people don't like listening to you ramble, they are just wrong, you are incredibly interesting. Also, steampunk and historical fantasy are meaningfully different genres."

"Historical fantasy and steampunk and high fantasy and urban fantasy and alternate history and military sci fi and space opera and cyberpunk are all meaningfully different genres, and yet, when you walk into a bookstore —" 

"Bookstores don't carry enough speculative fiction!"

"You're so right! And so cute, and perfect, and I love you!" 

"Thank you for calling me. I don't know what I would have done if we had stayed broken up. --Probably died and left you all my money."

The way he's cuddling Lev gets noticeably clingier. 

"I kept opening my phone and talking myself out of it, it was a matter of when, not if." 

"I'm so so grateful. --You should probably push more. In general."

"It… has not historically been the best strategy, and I'm not just talking about he-who-shall-not-be-named. But I've been working on it. 

You should push more too." 

"I don't actually know what you mean."

"Like — the thing where you don't seem to have opinions about where we go or what we see, you just want to go where I want?" 

"I... actually do get a lot out of making you happy. Like, even setting aside that I was worried that expressing preferences might make you do them even if you didn't want to, I... a lot of the time the thing I want most is actually just to see you smile." Pause. "But I want to go to WorldCon and meet Ada Palmer."

"I would love to go to WorldCon and meet Ada Palmer with you."

"I meant a different thing by 'push,' though, I meant-- I tend to get avoidant of things when I'm scared of them or I'm worried I've done something wrong or something? And I think one way all of this could have been avoided is if you had been like 'hey, why are you acting so weird?' and made me explain. Uh, I mean, you don't have to but like-- I think that's a thing that'd probably be good for me in general."

He nods. 

"I think part of that is that in a lot of my relationships before this one I hadn't felt like I was allowed to have space? So now I try really hard to let people have space. It's another thing I can work on, with you in particular." 

"Space is important to me too, like, even though we sleep together every night I don't think I'd ever want to share a bedroom, but... I trust you."

He glows.

He scritches Sasha's hair and beams. 

"Foster care kid," he says, "I need a space that's mine with a door that locks. --I don't have a key to your rooms."

Oh. 

Huh. 

"Not even for emergencies?" 

He shrugs. "It's probably irrational but... I would feel really anxious if I knew that I didn't have any space where I could forbid anyone else from entering. Especially if I were living with a stranger. Try not to have a heart attack with your door locked, I guess."

"…oh. 

I don't think I've ever had my own room with a door I could lock." 

"It's a really nice thing to have! --At least for me. I guess you might prefer I have a key in case you have a heart attack but. I am actually not comfortable with that. So."

"No, I like it. I'll probably keep leaving it unlocked, but I like that it means something to have it unlocked."