"Honestly?"

"Yeah?" 

"It's the first food I had on the train out of Weselton."

"...it's incredible," he says, and kisses Kaleva. 

A few months pass.

Kaleva studies obsessively for the Oxford entrance exams. In some ways, it's easier when he's not in school-- he can go down as many rabbit holes as he likes, and he can focus just on what's on the test and not other things. (In some ways it's harder. He tries not to think about that.)

He helps Sasha with his homework. He likes teaching.

They go to the bathhouse and he's grinning like an idiot when he sees how floaty Sasha is when he's suspended. They go to all the museums and libraries in New Orleans. He lets Sasha pick out his clothes. 

Kaleva dodges Charlotte's questions about where his parents are until she gets used to the fact that she now has two teenagers instead of one. 

He feels really weird. He thinks the emotion is called 'happiness.'

A few months pass. 

Sasha studies with Kaleva, gets Kaleva to explain the math so it makes sense and explain the science so he can see how it clicks and reads about parts of history he's interested in. (Reads up on what England is like.) His grades improve; he gets more of his homework done when Kaleva is there helping him. 

They go to the bathhouse and Sasha gets hit and gets tied up and suspended from the ceiling and gets fucked where Kaleva can see, and afterwards Sasha goes to Kaleva and puts his head on Kaleva's shoulder and says "let's go home," and falls asleep on Kaleva's shoulder at night. 

They go to all the museums and libraries in New Orleans. Sasha does a slightly ridiculous amount of reading about art and art history, gets more and more confidently opinionated the more he sees. He picks out Kaleva's clothes for him, which ends up with Kaleva wearing more color than is typical for Auradonian men but maybe Auradonian men are just wrong. 

He keeps quiet through conversations with Charlotte, ignores everyone she knows who's his age in favor of Kaleva or a book, does his best to get through Remedial Goodness class without anyone seeing Kaleva on his end of the Skype call, learns to climb trees. (He still misses his old gang. But.) 

If this is what Auradon is like when you have people, he's a fan. 

And then it's almost Mardi Gras.

"You should wear a dress to Mardi Gras."

"I am still not one hundred percent sure what one does at a Mardi Gras, but wearing a dress again sounds nice." 

"There's a parade and people get drunk and stuff but-- there are costumes, Sasha. People wear masks. You could be my girlfriend."

"And my hair's been getting longer — I could kiss you in public —" 

"We could hold hands and go on a date--"

"You could show me what a date is!" 

"I think normally a date involves fewer drunk people than Mardi Gras does."

"Even so." 

Kaleva pulls Sasha onto the bed and kisses him. 

"I'm going to have the hottest girlfriend ever."

"You're so cute — you're my people —" 

"You're my people!"

The wait until Mardi Gras takes way too long.

It does, it's true. 

But by the time the wait is over, Sasha's had enough time to find a dress (blue and swishy) and a mask (sparkly silver) and he has no idea what he's expecting but this is more. 

".--You're so beautiful."

"So are you!" 

Kaleva hugs him and kisses him and says, "maybe we should stay here actually."

"You're very good but I want to kiss you in public and see what Mardi Gras is like." 

"I guess," he says grudgingly, "I can fuck you while you're wearing a dress literally any time."

"You can! And when I don't have a mask maybe I can wear makeup too." 

"You can't say that right before we're supposed to leave the house! It's unfair!"