Asher feels like this is not the most important line of conversation right now.

"Tazalkyran, if you died, I would want to die."

"Oh."

He hugs Asher very tightly.

"...I think I want to hold Taz for a bit," Asher says to Ben, "and then we can go talk about your feelings about being queer and losing your virginity."

"Sounds fair."

He snuggles Asher. A lot. Many snuggles.

"I can't kill you or hurt you or leave you, because I love you and it would destroy me."

"Well—same to you. I was—it took me about half a heartbeat to realize, when I first remembered you said you'd kill me, that I can't run away, I'm not—I can't run off on you like that, you'd be upset and you wouldn't even be able to yell at me about it cause I'd be gone. And—if you wanted to kill me for fair reasons I couldn't fight you, either, I realized that too. Except actually it's NOT fair to kill me if it hurts you too, you shouldn't have to suffer for my stupid mistakes."

"I love you. Thank you for telling me and for not running away, I-- don't know what I would have done."

Hug. "I love you. I love you. I want—I want to not have done this stupid thing. I'm really glad he's okay. I like him a lot and I wanna be his friend and—I don't get to expect that, now, I really really do not."

"I wouldn't be so sure. Ben is the one who forgives people, I'm the one who holds grudges."

He smiles, a little sadly.

"Even if he does, though—and I really hope he does—I still don't get to expect it. It's... not fair, it's not reasonable, to rape somebody and then say 'hey, sorry about that, but you're really cute and I like you a lot so let's be friends, oh and that was really hot, do you wanna do it again sometime'—"

He pauses for a split second, reflecting on the words that have just come out of his mouth. Then he says, "Wow, I'm a fucking awful person, aren't I."

"You're my favorite fucking awful person and I love you and you can rape me whenever you want."

"—I love you so much."

"Remember when we met, uh, this morning, and I said that I was a bad person?"

"Yeah?"

"--I'm just saying I'm a fucking awful person in, like, a reasonable and goal-directed way, and you are a fucking awful person in an impulsive and counterproductive way, and you can figure out how to do the first thing and then we can be fucking awful people together. And if you don't we can go to the Isle and then you can rape whomever you want, it's kind of a social norm there."

"Okay." He snuggles him. "I love you."

"The only reason I'm not going 'okay, try not to do violence to people, but if you do I'll cover it up' is because you don't like lying."

"Also I am clearly not capable of picking people to hurt where you could cover it up if you tried."

"You're underestimating me."

He cracks up.

"All else fails, I'd travel to Agrabah and figure out how to get my hands on a genie and then wish that any time you rape someone they forget the experience and remember that you had a pleasant conversation with them about the weather."

"—that's horrible!" he says, giggling. "That's—ugh, that'd itch worse than lying!"

"That's why I'm not going to do it!"