Sasha thinks that Chris's thing is not at all weird, and that having made out with Gwen and Nat and Ember a time or three or twenty-seven certainly doesn't make him any less gay. He does not contribute to the speculation as to why Marlo abruptly stopped having casual sex or even kissing anyone including his anchor; he's interested in the eight year old bishop's plans for once he becomes pope and the plots of several books he hasn't gotten around to reading. He doesn't explain what he's so anxious about. (He keeps himself busy, tries to keep his anxiety in check, mostly fails. He checks the tent nine times, triple lucky, every night.) 

He collects batteries from toy stores and copies information from books into the margins of other books and clears out stores and pulls his own fucking weight, anxiety or no. 

The eight-year-old bishop apparently wants to declare eating wild greens to be a sin so he doesn't have to do it anymore. The Catholics feel he will be guided by the Holy Spirit not to do this. The non-Catholics think that if the eight-year-old becomes pope it will be HILARIOUS but he will probably be guided by Lev to the same conclusion. 

No one asks what Sasha's anxious about. If he wants to tell them, he'll tell them. 

Loki makes a point of congratulating Sasha on his finds. 

They don't see any other crews or any drones. 

That's good. That's much much better than the alternatives. He's with the non-Catholics on this one, as funny as it would be for the eight year old to be Pope he's pretty sure he would be guided away from declaring anything too out of line with what popes are supposed to declare. 

It's not safe enough for him to have a breakdown out here, it's not, he can wait, it can wait. 

When they go back to Eros he makes himself sit still. 

Lev is kind of bouncing when he gets back. 

And Sasha hugs him very very tight and whispers "Your room? Please?" 

"Of course."

Once they're in Lev's room he kisses Lev and then buries his face in Lev's shoulder and finally, finally lets himself cry. 

"Shh," Lev says, "shh, it's okay. --Do you want to talk about it?"

"— Last time I left home on a scavenging mission I came back and everyone I knew was dead." 

Hugs. "I'm sorry."

Hugs. Hugs are good. "And I know me being there wouldn't have changed anything — they didn't forget to lock the windows or anything, the windows were broken, I don't know what happened but everyone was where they usually slept they just were —" and he sobs and clings to Lev. 

Lev rubs circles on his back. "I've got you and I'm going to keep you safe. I promise."

Lev's sweet. Lev's so so sweet. "It's not even me I was worried about, it was you, every time I blinked I'd wonder if everyone would still be here when I got back or if something would break and you'd all be gone and you —" and he stops, for real this time, cuts himself off and just holds Lev. 

"I'm not going to die. I'm going to live, fuck, I'm going to live to be older than the oldest person you remember maybe."

"The oldest person I remember is — I don't actually know if the rabbi was older than my second-grade teacher or not, but it'll be a while before you're older than either of them." He's not clinging quite so tight but he is still very much clinging. 

"I never do anything dangerous, I'm gonna live to be a hundred and three and still be working."

"You'd better," Sasha says, and then kisses him again. It's still wanting but it's less desperate, this time. 

"You don't have to scavenge. I mean, you can if you want to, and you have to do something, but you can cook or churn butter or farm or be my secretary-- god knows I need one--"

"...I don't know. I'm good at it and that's important but I was kind of low key panicking the whole week and I think I should maybe wait a few days before I decide." 

"Okay." Kiss. "For what it's worth, I try to avoid giving everyone jobs that make them panic, not just people I," brief pause, "want to kiss."

Kiss. "That's good." Kiss. "I'd be kind of concerned if you didn't." 

He's going to stroke Sasha's hair and kiss his forehead and hold him.

He nestles into Lev and closes his eyes and lets himself be held. 

It's good. It's really good. Lev is very good. 

"Someday we're going to spend time together and neither of us is going to cry. I believe in us."

"Yeah." He's smiling, just a little bit. "I believe in us too." Lev is very good for cuddling.