He shouldn't say anything he shouldn't he shouldn't —

".......not your thing, huh." 

"I don't." Lev closes his eyes and presses his knuckles into his eyelids. He can get up and have a panic attack later, he can get up and have a panic attack later, he has to be calm now and explain himself or Sasha will freak-- "I'm okay with hiring someone to pretend to like me and to cuddle me and watch movies with me. I'm not okay with having sex with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me and is only doing it for the money. I'm sorry I-- you're beautiful. You're so beautiful. Of course I want to have sex with you. But I can't because you don't want to have sex with me."

He opens his eyes.

How does he even begin to interact with that. 

"I do not currently at this moment particularly want to have sex with anyone, you included. You could change that pretty easily if you wanted to, I'm going to assume you don't. If I didn't actually want to be cuddling you I'd be doing it much less and would not have asked to spend the night with you, like, even given that there's money involved you gave me a room, I'm pretty sure I can safely assume you're okay with me using it. I like cuddling you, you're soft and it's been way too long since anyone actually wanted to cuddle me. 

If I at some point want to have sex with you — which I almost certainly will, because you're smart and adorable and incredibly into me and turns out I'm into that — I will tell you so. If I don't want to have sex with you I won't act like I do, why the fuck would I do that, you clearly don't want me to or you wouldn't have circled 'no' in the first place and having sex you don't want is terrible actually and I don't want to do it again. Are you going to be okay with me here?" 

He has no idea how to respond to anything Sasha just said. He has turned a bright red color and he is staring at Sasha and he knows it is acting but it seems for one dizzying moment like it might be real. 

"I-- yes. Yes I am. Please stay with me." He doesn't know if he means 'in the bed, tonight' or 'in my house, forever' but both are true. "I-- don't know how I could get you to want to have sex with me, if I did. I don't. I'm not good at social things."

Good. He flops on the bed. "Oh, it doesn't take social things, if you pulled my hair that'd do it. Please don't, tonight, I'm very thoroughly enjoying getting to stay in a bed without hooking up with someone first." 

"You don't ever have to hook up with me to stay in my bed."

He blinks and finally processes that sentence. "You didn't have a bed?!"

"....if you didn't already know that, I am concerned about how well BMB does their background checks, because lack of a stable address is the sort of thing you should really notice when you run a background check.

Anyways, in theory no, in practice I'm pretty and friendly and at least okay at flirting and I could usually find someone." 

"...They didn't tell me why you needed money, it was confidential-- Sasha, I'm so sorry--"

He curls up and buries himself in blankets. "I'm here now. You are the last person who needs to be sorry for anything." 

It's not like he's any better than the people Sasha was hooking up with before, anyway. He's just a richer person looking for a longer-term deal.

He runs a finger along Sasha's spine. "If-- if you get in a situation like that again, call me, okay? I can get you an apartment. Even if we're not-- together-- anymore I'm going to want you to have a place to stay."

"You're sweet." It sounds more like a sigh than Sasha was intending for it to. "I will. Keep doing that?" 

Lev will definitely keep doing that then, while also quietly hating himself.

Sasha is bonier than Lev would like. Probably hasn't been eating enough because, because he was homeless. Christ.

"Family kicked you out? I mean you don't. Have to tell me, if you don't want to. Sorry. I. Sorry."

"You can ask, if you hit something I don't want to talk about I'll tell you so. Family didn't kick me out. 

— I mean they did but that's not why my housing situation or more accurately lack of such was the way that it was, I was running away from a relationship that got very bad." 

"Fuck. I'm sorry."

(In the back of his mind Lev sees Sasha two years from now saying that he was homeless because he ran away from a bad situation with a billionaire and he wants to die.)

"I have a security guard, if that helps, Claire insisted."

He smiles and shifts closer to Lev. "It does." 

You should tell him, you should tell him, you have to tell him, he told you--

"I was a foster care kid," he says, quickly.

He looks up from where he's buried himself in soft. 

(That's kind of an odd subject change but probably the connection will be made clear.)

"It doesn't feel right for me to know your thing if you don't know mine."

Ah. "'S not why I said it. But you're sweet. 

Do you want to talk about it or do you just feel like you should?" 

"I never want to talk about it, it was horrible."

He runs his palm in circles across Sasha's back.

Soft humming sound. He settles back into the mattress. "Then don't make yourself." 

"You can talk about it, if you want to, or not if you don't."

"....I don't. Maybe at some point but not right now." 

"Okay."

Lev very hesitantly kisses his temple.