It is the best softest prettiest—

"Go do the thing and then I will fuck you."

"You're so mean," he says, but he does go put her number on the fridge. "I'm going to regret asking this but do you know how to call people on phones?"

"I do not."

He demonstrates instead of giving Tazalkyran a blowjob. He's SO responsible.

Yes. Responsibility is good and important and Tazalkyran loves him very very much.

And once he knows how to call people on phones, maybe he can pin Asher to the bed again, that sounds like a plan.

That does sound like a plan. 

"You," kiss, "have the best," kiss, "softest," kiss, "prettiest," kiss, "face."

He squirms. "I like when you look at me like that. Like you own me."

"You're a treasure. Marry me."

"I will! When it's legal."

He beams delightedly, and then kisses him.

"We could delay sex a bit longer and tell Ben he has to go legalize gay marriage and then we can get married."

He kisses Tazalkyran's shoulder.

Giggle. "If legalizing gay marriage is that easy why hasn't it happened already, anyway?"

"Policy tradeoffs. Ben can only push so far so fast and he hasn't been particularly prioritizing gay stuff. We're a minority of the population and nearly all of us can say we're 'just friends.' It's not obvious that it would improve things for gay people to make it more obvious that we exist. If Ben legalized gay marriage, lots of people would realize gay people exist, and it would take longer to close the Isle."

"Huh. All right. And he'll change his mind about which things to do first just 'cause you fell in love?"

"I'm his best friend, I can ask."

"Convenient."

"It's like-- he can give me things I ask for, because I wouldn't ask for it if I hadn't thought about the tradeoffs and made sure it was worth it for me, and if it's worth it for me he wants to do it?"

"Makes sense. Must be nice to have a friend like that. Especially one who's a king."

"Probably you should, like, watch some videos of the Isle and then decide whether you think it's worth it to be able to marry me, or if like a private ceremony with no legal meaning is good enough."

"Mm—I don't care about the law, really—the thing that would be better about marrying you legally would be not having to lie about whether we're fucking."

"We're going to need a legal marriage to get that, you aren't supposed to have sex outside marriage."

"These are such dumb rules. I mean, my world has that one too, but I never expected I'd have any reason to pay attention to it."

"And either way you're going to end up lying about, like, how often you wind up almost killing me during sex. That is frowned upon."

"Aww, but it's so much fun!"