"You okay?" Marlo says, quietly enough that nobody's likely to notice unless they're already listening. 

"I'm fine."

He is visibly not fine and also staring very intently at Sasha.

He... doesn't know how to help with that. 

"...all right." He drops the topic, but keeps an eye on Lev for the rest of the day. 

Lev is pretty unhappy all day but it's not obvious how much of that has to do with Asher and Sasha, as opposed to football and yardwork.

He -- does his best to be distracting. 

He doesn't expect it to help much. 

Lev does a teeny tiny smile at him once!

(He's gone that evening; it's Friday night and he's at services.)

Asher is completely missing this entire drama, as he is completely wrapped up in contemplating how good and amazing Sasha is. 

Sasha is aware that Lev is miserable but puts it down to yardwork. 

Lev has a lovely smile. (He immediately yells at himself for the thought.) 

The next day is — bad. 

Not because of the camp, not really; it's a day just like any other, it just — gets to him differently. It's one of those days where, if he were home, he'd go to Natalie's house and put on her clothes and her makeup and pretend to himself that he didn't have to borrow it from someone else; it's one of those days where every time Christine calls him Alexander or refers to him as a man he wants to break down crying for reasons that don't make sense. 

He does his best to hide it, during scheduled activities. It really isn't the sort of thing he wants to fill out a worksheet about. 

Sasha is sad. He shouldn't care as much about that as he does. 

Sasha is sad and that is suddenly very very important.

He doesn't know what Sasha is sad about. He touches Sasha a slightly excessive amount during paintball when Christine isn't looking and asks him lots of questions about embroidery during lunch and draws hearts where Sasha can see while Christine is lecturing about reasonable financial planning. 

Asher is sweet but it. It doesn't help. The touching is nice but it also reminds him that he has a physical body that other people can interact with, which is horrible; the embroidery is nice to talk about but it reminds him of all the things he'd like to embroider onto his clothes and can't because it would be too counterculture or too feminine or too — 

Asher looks out for an opportunity to talk to Sasha alone that night. 

They don't get a chance to until they have some free time the next morning. 

Marlo is at church; it's just Sasha and Asher and Lev. 

"You were sad yesterday."

Lev looks up from his book and kind of hates himself about it.

"I still am. 

It's just — one of those days, you know?" 

"One of which days?"

"...y'know, when you desperately need a hug but also the idea of having a physical form that other people can interact with is the worst thing ever and the idea of someone perceiving who you are in a way that isn't accurate makes you want to cry and also you kind of can't breathe because your clothes are too restrictive?" 

"...no."

"Yes."

"Yeah. They're not great obviously but at home I have ways to deal with them and here I just — don't." 

"How did you deal with them? None of my ways of doing it are. Great."

"I had Natalie, I could go to her house and borrow her clothes and makeup and nobody else would be there and she'd be sympathetic and talk about other things in a way that was actually distracting. I don't know what you do if you don't have a fake sister."