"I can't, the other you is monogamous." 

"That's weird. I mean, I guess I'm bi, it's not that weird that I'd be another sexual minority."

"You got some discourse about it a while back and apparently your reasoning was that your boyfriend was just so good that you don't want to date anyone else." 

"Okay, yeah, that sounds like me. --It's just that Sasha and Z are both so good I don't want to date anybody else!"

"Well, I know it isn't him or me or Marlo." 

"I can't imagine me dating Marlo anyway. I annoy the shit out of him."

"Apparently the Cascadia versions get along great," and he keeps a hand on other Sasha's back. 

"Maybe they got off on the right foot."

He sits on the couch, a few inches away from Noonlight, so Noonlight can touch him if he wants to.

Noonlight doesn't especially want; he curls up against the other him instead. "Maybe." 

"Z's busy for complicated reasons but I can probably get our Marlo to come give you a hug if you want."

"— I have a tragic backstory and the things I need out of hugs are really specific and it would be weird. But maybe." 

"Okay. --I'll do my best to figure out how to get you back."

"Thank you. — you probably should deal with the alien, if there's no shortage of alien experts there's probably a reason they called you specifically." 

"Okay, I'll go talk to them."

"Bye."

He curls against the other him and tries not to think too much about anything. 

Let's do this one last time.

My name is Levva, and I'm a grey.

I'm clumsy and I have motion sickness and asthma and no pain tolerance and I'm too weak to carry much of anything and I hate all sports with a burning passion.

I was planning to get a desk job in the military but I flunked out of basic training. In theory I'm looking for new jobs but in practice I spend my days indulging my fetish for greys who are better than I am and updating my blog about economic policy, which I can't accept money for because I have no income. I love babies so so much but I'm so dysgenic it wouldn't be ethical for me to ever have one. And I'm Voan which just adds insult to injury. I hope someday I can swap to Anitam and live on their social services forever.

I'm not okay.

And then--

The world flashes green and Levva wakes up on an unfamiliar street corner that smells strongly of pee. He pulls his knees into his chest and cries.

An alien comes up and babbles to him in an unfamiliar language. He half-heartedly tries some Voan. The alien goes away.

About half an hour later an alien in some sort of uniform appears and babbles at him, and then talks into some sort of primitive everything, and then some other aliens in uniforms show up and babble at him apologetically and take him into a truck. He doesn't resist. He tries to tell the aliens he's polluted but they don't speak Voan. Probably the aliens don't care about pollution anyway.  

He ends up in what is recognizably a prison cell. There's a toilet in his room with him. He's polluted and in prison and they're going to execute him. He curls up in a ball and cries and goes to sleep.

Eventually he is woken up for some sort of medical procedure. He suffers through it, pollutes all the medical techs, and eventually goes back to sleep. Everything is less scary and overwhelming when he's unconscious.

"--are you sure the alien hasn't done anything but sleep since--" He pauses. "That's a Lev."

"A Lev?" the SHIELD agent says.

"It's not an alien invasion," Asher says. "Doc Ock the second summoned a bunch of copies of my ward from alternate universes for some reason. I guess this one is from a universe where he isn't human. Leave me alone, I'll try to talk to him."

Levva is woken up again and now a very attractive alien who spends way too much time in the sun and has a glowy blue thing in his chest is babbling at him. 

This is fine. 

A different primitive everything is placed in front of him and it shows him a picture. The alien clearly enunciates a word and then looks at Levva expectantly. 

Okay. They want to learn Voan. He can do this. Maybe once their machine translation learns the word for 'pollution' he can explain to them that everyone who's touched him needs to shower. 

The alien didn't seem to recognize him, and judging by his miserable expression Asher's presence isn't very comforting. He'll wait until Jarvis has learned the alien's language.

A few hours later the everything says in Voan:

"Hello, I'm Jarvis."

"Hi, Jarvis," Levva says.

Jarvis waits for a few minutes and then prompts him with, "I'm sure you have questions."

"Not really." 

"Do you want to keep talking to me or do you want to talk to Asher? I can translate." The screen shows a picture of the alien with a glowy blue thing in his chest.

"Don't care."

"Then you can keep talking to me," Jarvis says. "Do you need anything?"

"I'm polluted," Levva says. "I need a shower."

"I don't know what that means."

"I touched urine," Levva says. "And now I'm polluted, and people who touch me will become polluted unless I shower."

Jarvis shows some videos of aliens coughing and sneezing and throwing up, then an alien with sores on their skin. "Like this?"

"No," Levva says, "that's 'sick'. I'm polluted. It doesn't look like anything. You can't check for it with machines or anything. --I'm sorry, I'm not a theologian--"

"Is there anything you need for the shower so you won't be polluted anymore?"

Special soaps. But he doesn't remember the order of the soaps. "No."

(If they don't have a procedure for pollution already then everyone here is polluted-- everything here is polluted-- he can never know whether anything is clean or not-- he's going to be polluted for the rest of his life-- Levva tries not to think about it but he's always been awful at not thinking about horrible things he can't change.)

One of the uniformed aliens shows him to a shower and he showers and scrubs his skin until the sensation of being polluted, still present, subsides and he realizes that he's about to faint from hunger. 

He signals the alien and they take him back to Jarvis. 

"Is there anything else you need?" Jarvis asks. 

"Food," Levva says. 

"Our scans indicate that you can digest the same food we eat," Jarvis says. 

The food, when it arrives, is alien; he doesn't recognize it. It tastes pretty good when he manages not to think about the fact that it's probably polluted. 

As he eats, Jarvis explains, "Some people in our universe can travel to different universes. One of them opened a door to another universe and forced you through it. We are going to send you back soon."

"Okay," Levva says. At least he won't be polluted forever or executed. That's a comfort. Well, probably a comfort for the second one.

"The same people live in different universes," Jarvis says. "There are other Levvas. You might also know Sasha or Marlo or Asher or Z. There are versions of those people too. You can meet them or stay here."

"I don't have friends," Levva says. 

"Okay," Jarvis says. "You can meet the people who like Levvas from other universes, or you can stay here until we figure out how to return you."

"I don't care," Levva says.

"You're not... curious?" Jarvis asks, surprised.

"Why would I be curious?" Levva says. 

Asher, watching this, totally breaks all the rules of confidentiality and messages Sasha:

There's a third Lev, he's a depressed alien.

Jarvis just asked him if he's curious and he said 'why would I be'

oh god

I think he needs a hug

immediately

should I show up

I'm going to collect him