"You're very excited."

"Do you want to work with me and Cascadilev?"

Hair-touch, curling into Sasha's side. "I'm really dumb. I probably can't keep up."

"We're all dumb."

"Lev, I know you aren't dumb, and Cascadilev sure doesn't seem dumb, and I don't buy that Levva's dumb either." He hugs Levva tighter. 

"We're all dumb, so if we can keep up probably Levva can too."

"You're greens."

"They aren't anything, we don't have castes." 

"Maybe you don't officially have castes but the other me is definitely a green."

He doesn't actually know enough about greens to dispute that so instead he keeps hugging Levva. "I bet they'd still like having your help. — you're from a different world, you might notice things they wouldn't." 

They all think he's smart because the other hims are smart, and that's the only reason they're keeping him around, and if he lets them know how dumb he is he will go back to the cell with the toilet in the same room and he doesn't want to live in a room with a toilet even if this world doesn't have any pollution.

"I want to stay cuddling you."

"Okay. We can do that." He smiles over at his Lev and adjusts the way he's holding Levva. 

Levva cuddles Sasha until Sasha seems bored and then eats a meal and then showers for five hours and then eats another meal and then sleeps.

The Levs are so excited to be working with each other that they almost forget to feel bad about how much worse they are than the other one.

Sasha cuddles Levva until Levva wants to stop, and then he goes and hangs out in the room where the Levs are working, and then he eats a meal and curls up next to Asher and reads. 

He does a lot of reading. 

The Marlo in this world isn't his Marlo, they have the same name but not the same face. He can't find any reference to a Z but maybe he goes by a different name publicly or something. 

He doesn't sleep. (He couldn't sleep. He's not safe here.) The other Sasha finds food for them both and shares it and he keeps watch and they try to figure out how to communicate — he teaches the other Sasha the Russian words for tree, street, sign, garbage, chips, food, bag. 

He's so tired. He's so, so tired. 

In the morning Levva wakes up and he can't stop thinking about other greys, tall and strong, people who can throw him around, and he can't stop thinking about having a baby with one of them, a little baby who babbles and smiles and has ten little tiny toes--

Fuck.

He finds Sasha. "I'm springing."

"I don't know what springing is." 

"Amentans-- that's my species-- are only fertile in the spring. So in the spring we really want sex and babies. And if our bodies are confused about what season it is we spring."

"It is actually spring here, it's April — can I kiss you." 

"Please."

Sasha kisses him, scrapes his teeth over Levva's lip. 

That's nice. 

Sasha's not grey, not even grey for an alien, but he's pretty and he likes Levva and it's spring. Levva kisses back with enthusiasm.

Sasha debates letting go, but — he has super strength, he can totally just pick up Levva and bring him to the room Sasha stays in.