He does a lot of looking things up. On weapons and gender (he finds a very long blog post about weapons with multiple human forms, usually of different genders, and how the registration and ID laws need to be updated to account for that), on how weapons work in general, on magic, on dunjes and regulations about dungeon delving and reporting things, about what he needs to do to get an identity since that's apparently important...

He also gets knocked out of his hyperfocus on research when he discovers online games. A lot of these are really fun! He likes the story ones, especially with characters, best, though platformers are fun too.

He'll still be at the computer when the family wakes up.

Meanwhile, Lennah has been having a bad time.

She'd told herself, earlier, that she could deal with it later. Now it's later, and she no longer has an excuse to put it off.

She let her brother see what it was like, pinning Matt up against the wall, kissing him roughly, feeling the rough masculine texture of his stubble, pushing her tongue into his mouth, the darkness in her heart and in her eyes... that's not, at all, a thing she wants her brother to have been anywhere near being a part of.

But he didn't distinguish – why does that feel like a but?

...he didn't feel awkward about it, so there isn't the – reflected embarrassment. Only hers.

She still doesn't feel comfortable about the whole thing. But if she's the only one who feels about it, then in a sense the awkward doesn't have to be out there in the situation. She can... she doesn't have to... she's not obligated to feel any particular way about it.

So how does she want to feel, and how does she in fact feel? If she's free from worrying about how she should feel.

...if she'd had him around, to talk to, back then... then she might have confided in him, to an extent. Not with so much detail. But... he's someone she can talk to, someone she can be comfortable with.

And he won't judge, won't mind, so she doesn't have to be embarrassed or ashamed. She doesn't have to share more than she wants to, but she doesn't have to worry about accidentally sharing too much. She doesn't have to worry about making him uncomfortable, doesn't have to second-guess herself about being appropriate.

...she might need to think about what her parents will think is appropriate. But that's just a matter of what they find out. —she'll have to make sure he knows not to share.

Wait. Shit. Does he know not to tell Dad about the thing?

How long have they been down there talking?

—that'll be Dad coming up the stairs now. Too late to do anything about it, either way.

She breathes a sigh of relief when she hears him go into his and Mom's bedroom and close the door.

She has a little trouble falling asleep.