"Yeah."

He's terrified and turned on.

He bites, hard, until he tastes blood.

And then he wraps his hand around the back of Ben's neck, much the same way he did yesterday, and kisses him.

He is so terribly aware of how frightened Ben is, frightened and in pain, and everything about him is so beautiful and precious and—he wants to protect him, wants to keep him safe, it is so so incredibly important that Ben be safe—

He's moving slowly, still, trying to make sure that he only does things that are okay, but apparently you have to be close so he's just going to have to get closer—kiss him more deeply, embrace him more firmly—until it works or Ben tells him to stop.

Ben doesn't tell him to stop; Ben doesn't heal. 

Come the fuck on, he refuses to let this magic system get away with being this stupid—

No. Focus.

The feeling he needs here isn't anger, it's love.

Everything else falls away, unimportant; there's just Ben, beautiful sweet precious Ben, with his kindness and his smiles and his genuine wholehearted desire to see everyone get along and have nice things—Ben, Ben, lovely Ben, Ben who it is so terrible to hurt—sure, maybe Takai thinks it's hot when he bleeds, but this is not about Takai, Ben is hurt and he—needs—to—heal—him—

And he heals. 

"...I did lose my virginity to someone who loves me," he says, in a tone of wonder.

He smiles at him.

"Yeah."

Ben kisses him.

He kisses back, and hugs him, softly and gently. Ben is so good. Good good good safe safe safe.

"We should try to get you to make all three of us immortal and capable of healing."

"Sounds like fun."

"I'm going to have a lot more scope for getting away with radical things if no one can assassinate me. And if I die my dad will become king again."

"—I kind of wanna try making you immortal right now while I'm still thinking about how terrible it would be if you got assassinated, but I'm not sure if I might need to be—closer—for that—and I'm sure I can still think about how terrible it would be if you got assassinated later. After our date, maybe."

"Good romantic date topic. How terrible it would be if my dad were king again."

"I did say after. We can do actually romantic things for the date itself. —I don't really know what things are considered romantic around here so mostly I am imagining us cuddling on Asher's couch and playing video games."

"The most romantic thing is doing something your partner likes."

"Well, I do definitely like cuddling. And your incredibly cute smile."

"It's hard not to smile at you."

He makes the Happiest Face again and hugs him.

His boyfriend and his best friend are both so cute!

"Magic?"

"Magic! What magic should I do? Does the island thing actually make sense? What other stuff is there that I could solve by kissing the two cutest people in the world?"

"I don't know that the island thing makes sense. You could probably cure diseases and end famines and prevent natural disasters, if the fairies can't. But our biggest problems are bigotry-- against black people and gay people and people who have sex before they get married and Islanders and nonhumans-- and I don't know that you can fix that with magic."

"...hmm," he says. "I mean, not directly, yeah, but I've got this boyfriend I can do true love magic with. Two of them, even. There's got to be something that's good for, right? Not that I'd know how to change anybody's mind with it, but you might."

"Maybe if we demonstrate that it works? One of the reasons people oppose gay relationships is that they think that they can't really be loving."

"Yeah. So show 'em how wrong they are."

"Maybe if you can arrange to heal a disease or something and then I announce you did it because of how much you loved Asher-- you probably can't publicly date me, at least not yet--"