Leo is doing his math homework. 

"Hey!"

"Hey! I still have all of my blood and have had zero sex with Asher today. Although that second part might change, we're going to his place because I don't want to make you be in a room with him or wake Marlo up." 

"I am somewhat concerned about this relationship to be honest."

"That's fair, it's pretty concerning, but he has already agreed to do fewer sketchy things even to people who aren't me because he doesn't want to make me sad so I think it's probably an okay idea." 

"I guess. I just don't want you to get hurt."

He hugs Leo. 

"Yeah. And that makes sense, but — maybe I'm overconfident but I think if I was going to actually be harmed by this it would have happened the first time, when I didn't know what was going on and he was planning to eat me, and I wasn't even really hurt by that. 

I recognize that this doesn't make it seem any less sketchy but I really do think he's not going to hurt me for real." 

"I guess for the rest of your life he's always going to know where you are and whether you're okay any time he cares to check, and it's hard to get much worse than that."

"...that's how he knew to help with Lilith." 

"There are any benefits."

"Yeah. 

I love you and I'm going to come home to you." 

Leo kisses him. 

"If Marlo and I someday think the relationship is a really really bad idea will you at least listen to us?"

"Course." Sasha kisses him back. "You guys are my sanity check on lots of things. And I love you and care about what you think." 

"Okay. I'm going to worry about you a lot though."

"I love you," he says, and kisses Leo again, and heads back to his room to put shoes on and grab Asher.  

"What kind of supernatural is Leo, anyway? Some kind of fairy? He looks kind of like Lilith."

"He does not kind of look like Lilith. But yeah, some kind of fairy." 

"I mean in the"-- handwaves-- "supernatural senses thing. The one where Marlo shines so bright he hurts to look at."

"That makes more sense. I wonder what Marlo looks like to people who aren't vampires, I should ask Leo — apparently when he isn't in human form he's even brighter." 

"I wonder if I hurt Marlo to look at," he says cheerfully.

"Not to look at, or he'd have mentioned it. Maybe to be around but not in a supernatural way, I don't think." 

"Oh, well, that sucks. I don't want to hurt him."

Asher somersaults to his feet.

"....it's sort of private and I'm not sure how much I should be sharing but it isn't you hurting him, it's — there are things that cause him to be a way he would rather not be and recently they often involve you, just because both of the times he's been around you have been really stressful in pretty similar ways." 

"Because people are hurting you and have to be punished for it?"

"Because there's a lot happening and he doesn't really understand what's going on but he obviously has to do something about it, and the something that needs to be done often turns out to be more vicious than he prefers to be when he has time to think about it. The fact that I'm getting hurt is part of it but 'people need to be punished' is not really the thing." 

"I think... maybe I am bad at understanding good people problems."