"How do you think we found out about the healing, we have been having ill-advised leather sex all afternoon--"

"Is that what it's called? --Wait, you too?"

"Honestly, I am reconsidering not talking to you about my sex life."

"...what," he says slowly, "is a safeword?"

"Okay, Tazalkyran, if you want to fuck someone who is struggling and saying 'no' and 'stop' but is secretly really into it-- well, first you talk about it and make sure you're both on the same page, and then you choose some word like 'red' or 'safeword' or 'pineapple' or something that means actually no. And then you can do that without actually raping people. --Ben, same lecture, other end."

...he pauses, absorbing this concept.

He tries to say something, can't figure out how to put it to words, tries again, fails again, gets frustrated, bites his lip, takes another deep breath and waits to see if he'll figure it out if he just gives himself a little time.

Asher goes into the room and hugs Tazalkyran. It seems like the sort of thing to do.

He leans into Asher and hugs back and manages not to cling.

And says, slowly and fumblingly, "Do—I think that's—I don't—" Pause. Breathe. "...I think that's a really good idea and I'm really glad its a thing and I wish we'd had it and I—it doesn't make sense to think 'do I get one too' but—"

"Yes, you can have one too."

"I... think that's something I was missing, the—ability to think of something as seriously really a problem even if it feels great and it turned out fine last time—like, the voice in the back of my head that says 'hold up, Taka, you are about to for real do some stupid shit' was never that strong to begin with and then I kept shutting it up over and over again because I was horny and irresponsible and then it went away and then this. And now I want it back and also to never not listen to it ever again."

Hugs. 

"I really liked all the sex we had but-- yeah, you need to have a voice that tells you 'don't rape the King of Auradon no matter how hot it is.'"

"Yeah, I—think all the sex we had would've been pretty much just as good if I'd stopped every time I heard from the little voice and had an actual conversation about why I was worried I was making a terrible mistake. And then maybe I would have had the presence of mind not to rape the King of Auradon even though it was really hot. —sorry."

"For what it's worth, I also thought it was really hot."

"But the next person might not think it's really hot, that is in fact a pretty common outcome of raping people."

"I am aware."

"Sorry." Hugs. "The thing I'm worried about is, like, you said you wouldn't do it again? And then you did it like a couple hours later? So that doesn't make me super-confident in you actually not doing it again when you say you won't, this time."

"...I... you said if I raped somebody again you'd disembowel me and asked if that sounded fair, and I said yeah, cause it is, and I—thought it would be easy not to, I thought all I'd have to do would be not decide to on purpose and I knew I wasn't gonna do that because it'd make you sad and I don't wanna make you sad, but it turns out I can also do it by being horny and irresponsible and not thinking about what I'm doing, so, now I know that, and if I just never let myself get carried away like that again then... I won't be doing it on purpose and I won't be doing it not on purpose so what's left?"

"I don't know." Hugs. "I'm not going to disembowel you. Probably even if you rape someone. I love you. We'll, I don't know, go to the Isle together and eat garbage and have weird kinky sex lives."

...he laughs softly and leans on Asher and snuggles him. "I love you too. So much."

—Ben has been quiet. He looks at Ben.

Ben was sitting cross-legged on the floor contemplating something. 

He glances up and says, "I think actually you'd be testing out my new alternative to the Isle. I don't want to send new people there."

"What's your new alternative to the Isle?" He thinks maybe he should know this but can't actually call the information to mind when he tries.

"Uh, I haven't figured out all the details yet, but the basic idea is that we'd try to rehabilitate people instead of making them eat garbage and only interact with other evil people and then come up with this weird evil-is-good-actually social system."

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."