"Everyone deserves to have people be nice to them. And you in particular are awesome."

What he should do is tell Bruce the truth.

What he wants to do is lean into the hug and pretend that Bruce is his boyfriend and loves him and Lev is capable of loving him back. 

"...I'm kind of being an enormous asshole to you."

"Can you tell me in what way? I can't promise not to make you regret telling me but I can promise to try really hard not to."

"Well," he points out, "you love me, and I--"

"It's. Okay. If you don't love me back. We haven't been together for all that long even. It's kind of ridiculous for me to love you already, you're being the sensible one here really. Um. In my defense you are very good."

Bruce's words sure are at odds with how much he looks like a kicked puppy.

"I want to, I just can't. If the Erogame gave you a quest reward where I fell in love with you you should take it."

"Uh." Aarons was honest and Bruce should be honest too. "It did give me a quest. Asking me to convince you you love me. But I don't want you to believe you love me if you don't, that would be awful."

And then his brain catches up to what he just heard. Aarons wants to love him! Aarons maybe sort of consents to be mind-controlled into loving him! That is arguably even more intimate and beautiful than an actual declaration of love and he needs to hug him about it. Fortunately he is already hugging.

"That's a weirdly specific language choice!"

"Possibly it has a definition of love by which you already love me and wants me to convince you to use that one? Possibly we should talk about our definitions of love at some point."

Possibly that should be when they aren't sitting in an alley covered in slowly drying semen.

"Yeah, maybe we should get... different clothes first."

"Yeah, these are . . . honestly kind of awful now. Tempted to abandon my pants and underwear in this alley and assume going about my life in just a shirt will work out."

"I think probably just being naked is hotter?"

"Hmmm, and I don't want to buy new pants either. You make a compelling argument." He strips, wads his gross pants and underwear up and stuffs them into his shirt so he has a convenient bundle with a nongross surface.

"I'm not sure I want to walk around naked even at BOD 17." Lev pokes his head out of the alleyway and looks for clothing stores. Restaurant, restaurant, grocery store, bookstore, restaurant, Anthropologie, Victoria's Secret-- "--oh come on."

"Oh, come on," he says to the sky. "Just because I would enjoy watching him walk around naked is no reason to be bogus about it." Then to Aarons, "Maybe the Victoria's Secret sells, like, workout shorts or something?" He hasn't seen women's underwear since he stopped sharing a washing machine with his mom.

".........it's trying to get me to wear a dress."

"Is this a situation where I should yell at the game, or where I should yell at anyone who gives you crap for wearing a dress? Not that anyone in their right mind would object to a dress when I'm right here being starkers."

His voice is a tiny squeak.

"I don't know."

"Well, everything I was scared to do until you egged me on turned out to be a good idea, so I'm tempted to borrow your strategy."

Crushing misery!

"...I want to be a girl."

"And from the looks of it, so does the game, so I bet we'll get enough magic to make it happen soon. Might as well dress for the job you want. I'm sorry, that was an awful pun and this is clearly serious business."

...Lev's crushing misery deepens and he doesn't really say anything.

"Can you tell me what you're worried is going to happen?"

He looks up at the sky.

"You know, now would be a really convenient time for Bruce to acquire a telepathy power."

Quest available: Professor XXX

Acquire telepathy.

Success: Telepathy, ??? does not have to communicate ??? feelings in words.
Failure: ????