"Um. Are you exaggerating for effect or are actually your only opportunities to talk to other people parties and sports and sex--?"

"I could in theory go to concerts or something, except, again, migraines. Or I could do the thing Littlies do where they walk up to someone and say 'hi, do you want to be friends.'" 

"Do you want to move to Cascadia?"

"...in theory I should ask more questions about what Cascadia is even like but it honestly can't be that much worse than sleeping 16 hours a day because I'd rather not experience the other 8." 

"I love Cascadia but it's definitely not for everyone-- you should ask more questions-- you're old enough and male enough to dodge the ambient social pressure to procreate, Lily was worried about that-- but you can go to a book club or a knitting club or a poetry reading or go on a hike with Asher or, or get a Tumblr--"

"First question, what's a hike." 

"You go out into nature and walk around and look at, uh, trees and flowers and stuff? The stars at night And talk about things with the person you're hiking with? Asher and I always end up arguing about economics but I think that's just me and Asher, not hiking in general. I don't know, I got enough nature by the time I was twelve, I really don't want to appreciate any more of it. --Lily really likes them."

"...stars aren't much to look at in my experience but I might as well try, I guess, on a good balance day. What is your tech level like, roughly?" 

"Have you ever been, I dunno, a hundred miles from a city?"

"I don't know how much a mile is but I've never been outside a city." 

"Please come to Cascadia, it might be two or three years before I get a door again but I promise you it will be so worth it, you will get to see real stars. --The light from the cities makes it so you can't see the stars."

"Yeah. Cascadia sounds worth it. — assuming I have, like, a place to stay and some way to acquire food, I won't have a job there and I don't know how feasible it would be to get one." 

"If I like you as much as I like Lily, then you can just live with me forever and not have to think about money, because I have way, way too much money. If I don't, you get a very small apartment and food stamps and health care just by living in Cascadia and you'd definitely qualify for disability so you could have some pocket money. If you wanted to work with scientists from the Cascadian government and let them study you, you could make the Cascadian median income just by doing that, or more if you're particularly useful. And there are-- other jobs-- but if you're on disability you'll have a vocational counselor, they'll help you figure out what kinds of jobs you can do around your disability, freelance writing or translating or programming or something--"

He nods. "I'm still kind of running on 'anything is better' but seriously, most things would be better." 

"I have a theory. About your world."

"What is it?" 

"I think they do something to your brains in the pretty operation that makes you-- happy and stupid? And they fucked it up when they did it to you and gave you brain damage."

That sounds... kind of depressingly plausible. 

"I don't know. It doesn't sound wrong, but — I don't know." 

Lev rests his head on Sasha's shoulder. "It really requires a lot of self-control," he says, "not to say 'I love you, run off with me to Cascadia, I'll take care of you and you won't have to worry about anything and we're going to be so happy.' Because-- you're so much like Lily, you're Lily with bigger eyes and different trauma who hasn't read good poetry or seen the stars and who had an entire society teaching you that you're stupid, and-- it would be really easy to just act like you're Lily? But you're not, you're your own person, it wouldn't be fair to you because-- because you're not going to be Lily and I don't want to set things up so you have to spend your entire life as a slightly inferior version of my husband instead of, like, a perfect version of you. If I love you I want to love you, for the person you are." He snorts. "Sorry about the big speech."

He curls a hand around Lev's head and holds him.  "...you use the word love in a way that I don't really get but that — I think I'm going to like once I do." 

"I am extremely upset about your entire society."

"I'm not unaware of the concept of romantic attachment, they aren't villains from a book. You just — use it differently." 

"Yes and it is very important to me that you get to experience the thing I'm using it for!"

He kisses the top of Lev's head. "You're sweet." 

He smiles maybe a bit more than is warranted by that. 

"You should ask me more about Cascadia probably. --Uh, one thing is that time doesn't pass in your world while your door is closed? So if you decide you want to go back to your world and you're a decade older that might be hard to explain. And I might stop getting doors at all and you'll be stuck in Cascadia."