Leo is eight, and he prays every night that Heavenly Father will make him a boywife.
Leo is smart. He's skipped two grades and even so he's bored; the teachers let him read textbooks from the grades ahead in the back of the class. But he's small and he's clumsy and he likes playing horses with the girls more than he likes playing football with the boys. The other boys are large and confusing and they hurt him. He comes home from school with black eyes and scrapes and he doesn't tell his dad where they came from. He might still grow up to be a husband, and husbands are supposed to protect and defend their wives.
Men grow up to work construction or drive trucks or farm, and that scares Leo-- jobs outside that leave you sweaty and tired once you're done, jobs for large men who are good at sports, having to be around men who swear and spit and make him want to cry. Boywives get to read books, he's seen them. The books have shirtless men on the cover and he's not allowed to read them until he's bigger, although he doesn't know why he'd want to read them anyway. It doesn't seem like there's any math or science or history in them at all.
Maybe it makes more sense when you're a grownup.
Leo spends hours cuddling his little brother and sister, counting their toes and kissing their noses and reading them board books. He wants to play with his sister-wives' babies and read them stories and teach them their numbers and their colors and their letters. He wants it so badly it hurts.
You're not supposed to speculate about Heavenly Father's will. But Leo knows exactly who he wants Heavenly Father to choose for him: Marlo, four years older than him. Marlo found out some boys were hitting Leo and told them that next time they could pick on Marlo instead of picking on someone littler than them, and since then Leo has hardly had any black eyes. Marlo is brave and noble, like a hero in a storybook, and Leo wants to wear a white dress and marry Marlo and kiss him and be held by him and be sealed to him for eternity.
Leo is eight, and the prophet has just had a revelation, and he is the happiest boywife in the world.
--
Leo is ten, and he's stupid.
He's slow and stupid and it feels like he's thinking through molasses, and he has to read the page three or four times before it sinks in and he keeps making stupid mistakes on all his math problems and he never finishes all of his homework no matter how hard he tries.
His mom got pregnant when the baby was only five months old, and she's so tired, she's so so tired, and he has to help his mom watch the younger kids as soon as he gets home from school and then he's up all night with the baby so his mom can get some rest and-- he knows it's important to help out but he's so stupid.
He starts getting B's on tests. Then C's. Then D's. Then he fails, and the teachers start talking about holding him back a year.
His mother says, "it's all right. You were ahead already."
--
Leo is twelve and he doesn't go to school anymore. Boywives don't need to go to school. He'll learn everything he needs to learn from his mom, and she needs the help around the house, with all the kids.
He borrows the textbooks from a friend and tries to read them but he usually can't get more than a page in before he falls asleep.
--
Leo is fourteen, and he's awkward and gangly and somehow simultaneously too skinny and too fat and he has a big nose and acne and he tries not to imagine how disappointed his husband would be to get him.
He won't end up with one of the important families. Heavenly Father picks, but somehow Heavenly Father ends up picking the most beautiful girls and boywives for the most powerful men. Boywives don't ever wind up being a man's first wife; the first wife should be capable of having children.
He doesn't dream, anymore, of marrying Marlo, except at night, when his hands are between his legs and he's doing something he's pretty sure a good boywife is not at all supposed to do.
He hopes for an older man. Someone kind, gentle, understanding. Patient with him, if he wants to go slow. A man whose other wives would be understanding. A man whose children are all old enough to sleep through the night, and whose wives are too old to have more, so he can get some rest.
--
Leo is sixteen, and he's not married yet. His mother says that Heavenly Father knows she needs the help. Leo suspects the shy awkward ugly boywife who keeps falling asleep during church is not as popular as one might hope.
The textbooks have gathered dust, but sometimes late at night he can think, and he knows his Bible and his Book of Mormon well enough to think about them even when the baby has been crying for three hours, and he has... questions.
He tells his mother that he's taking the toddlers to the library today, and he lets them play in the children's section, and he searches on the Internet for "questions about Mormonism" and then "questions about Mormonism atheist" and he reads and his stomach sinks to the floor.
Leo is sixteen and Marlo has disappeared with Malcolm LaBaron's boywife and he thinks: "why couldn't that be me?"
--
Leo is sixteen seventeen eighteen and he's not brave enough to leave the only life he's known to go out into the real world, the world of sex and drugs and sin, where he'd have to be one of those real men whom he still doesn't understand at all and who still scare him to no end, to work construction and take care of a family and have opinions about sports, the world where it matters that he's stupid and slow and can't think right. And he thinks about it all the time but he's not brave enough for the other way out either.
Leo is eighteen and Malcom LaBaron keeps looking at him at church and Malcolm's fifty years old and has three wives and six babies and Leo knows Heavenly Father is going to give the prophet a revelation soon and the thought of touching the man makes him want to throw up and he knows what his life is going to be--
"You're getting married!" his mother tells him, and she's — tired. She looks like she would like to be excited for him but mostly, she's tired.
He thinks a word he's probably not supposed to know.
"To Malcolm LaBaron?"
"To Malcolm LaBaron," she confirms. In the background a toddler starts screaming. "I'm sorry, I have to —"
And Leo is alone.
It's not... a surprise.
He didn't expect to be happy about getting engaged, not for years.
It still hurts.
And then the preschooler decides to try to eat dog poop and Leo does not have time to worry about it at all.
"They're marrying another boy off to Malcolm," Sasha says over breakfast. "He's — a little older than me."
He reaches out and takes Sasha's hand and — doesn't know what to say.
"If we go back —"
"I don't want to either but I can't let that happen to someone else."
"Okay." Squeeze. "Okay, we'll make it work, it'll be different —"
"You've got me and I've got you and I'm not fifteen anymore and it'll be different."
Leo feels like he's floating six inches to the left of his body.
At night he imagines Marlo coming for him, saying that he's always known who Leo was and always loved him and now he's come to rescue him and they can go to Salt Lake City and never ever have to go to church again and Leo will never have to change another diaper, and then Marlo kisses him and he knows sex is supposed to hurt but Marlo is so good and sweet that he imagines it would feel nice, with Marlo.
He hears a branch scraping against the outside of their trailer and he imagines it's Marlo coming to rescue him.
Malcolm takes him out for long walks. It's-- fine. It's fine. Leo is too stupid to remember the beginnings of Malcolm's sentences by the time he gets to the end of them. He doesn't love Malcolm and Malcolm doesn't love him but maybe that'll be okay, he'll help with the babies and maybe Malcolm won't bother him too much. He likes women more than men, he has enough children.
Going back feels right and feels wrong, all at once.
He's public about it. Informs the church that he will come back, with Sasha, for good, on the condition that he marries Lev and stays married to Sasha and nobody else is married to Malcolm, ever. They'd wanted him for a position in the church since he was twelve, his family has connections, this will work, he believes it as hard as he can.
They agree.
He holds Sasha so so tightly at night, and — they figure out how to make the move go as smoothly as it can.
People are whispering about him and staring when he's at church.
It is very, very uncomfortable.
He doesn't know what's happening.
Being in church again feels familiar-but-wrong in exactly the way that gets under his skin the worst.
He sits in the front row where he always sat, Sasha next to him, and smiles and nods to people and looks happy to be there.
(People are staring at them. At Marlo for having his hair long enough to tie back — at Sasha for having his hair obviously cut, it's grown out enough that you can't tell he cut it himself in the bathroom with scissors but it only goes down to his shoulders now — at both of them for being back. Marlo does his best to ignore it.)
At least being stared at is a break from worrying about getting married to Malcolm!
After church he goes to his mother and-- doesn't ask. Just picks up the two-year-old and answers his questions about the sky near his mother.
If you're marrying someone you have to talk to them first. That's the rule, it's a good rule, even if being in this building makes his skin crawl.
He looks for Leo after church is over, smiles at him when he finds him.
Why is Marlo smiling at him.
Why is Marlo here.
he's come to rescue you no don't be an idiot
"Hi."
"Hi," he says, like he likes being here. "Do you want to go on a walk?"
Even just getting out of this building will be better.
"Um. Yes?"
His voice squeaks.
"I can take your brother," says Sasha, and reaches out for him.
Marlo is talking to him why is Marlo talking to him
He hands Sasha his brother and tries not to think about the possibility that there's a pickup truck somewhere out behind the church and they're going away--
Once they're outside he says "I don't know if you'd been told, but in case you haven't — Malcolm isn't marrying you. I am."
He stares up at Marlo like Marlo is a winning lottery ticket.
"--No one told me. Maybe my mother was going to after church."
"I'm glad I did, then," and he's smiling. "It'll just be you and me and Sasha, I know that'll be a change."
oh god no babies he'll be able to sleep through the night he'll be able to have a complete thought--
"That sounds nice. Although of course I won't be-- jealous, or anything, when you decide to marry a woman."
"I don't expect that to happen," and if it does Sasha knows he has to make me leave this town immediately, "but I'll keep that in mind for if it ever does."
He wants to ask something like "but don't you want to have kids so that their souls can come to Earth"--
--and then he remembers just in time that that is a bad question to ask your literal savior.
He also probably shouldn't comment on Heavenly changing his mind, or on Marlo having left the church.
"The sermon was interesting today," he says.
He'd been focusing on keeping his face blank and touching Sasha for support in ways that wouldn't be noticeable; he barely remembers the sermon but he can agree noncommittally.
Oh no now he has to think of another topic.
Um.
"I'm good at cooking?" he tries.
"— I'm sorry. You don't have to — prove your credentials, or anything, I just don't have much to say about the sermon."
"Sorry I'm just. Trying to think of something to talk about. Sorry."
"It's alright," very gently. "What did you like about the sermon?"
Leo looks up into Marlo's gentle eyes and says, "--I didn't actually pay any attention, I spent half my time worrying about why everyone was staring at me and half of my time keeping Isaiah from kicking Alma."
...the smile is real this time.
"Neither did I, I was making sure Sasha was okay and thinking about how weird it is to be back."
"You went... away. For a while."
"I did.
You can ask, if you want, I don't know what questions you have but I'm sure you have some."
"...Why did you come back?"
Because Sasha begged me to, he could say, and doesn't, because Sasha hates being here as much as he does.
Because we can't let what happened to Sasha happen to anyone else and we can't rescue the people Malcolm is already married to but we can rescue you, he could say, and doesn't, because that's — a lot to hear, from the person who's just told you you aren't marrying the man you thought you were.
"You," he says, even though that implies a lot of things that aren't true, and he promises himself and Leo both that he'll explain when they've had more time.
"Really?" he says.
Marlo loves him Marlo loves him Marlo loves him-- Marlo loves him and Leo is going to explain everything and they can go to Salt Lake City and--
oh no oh no that face
"We couldn't get any of Malcolm's other wives out of his house, but we can get you out. And Sasha couldn't not, so — we did."
He's never been good at hiding his facial expressions.
"Oh. --That makes sense."
Marlo is keeping very careful control over his face.
He keeps himself very gentle when he says "Can I hug you?"
"Yes."
(It's okay even if Marlo doesn't love him-- Marlo is rescuing him and Marlo is so good and Leo can keep sweet, can cook and keep the house clean and obey and never fight with Sasha and be happy and then Marlo will be happy he rescued him--)
Marlo hugs him.
Over the last two years he has gotten very, very good at giving hugs.
!!!!!!!
He feels so safe.
Good.
"We're going to be okay," and his voice is still so so gentle.
"I love you," he blurts out.
"...I like you," he says, after a moment. "I don't love you yet but I think I could."
That's... so much more than he could have expected.
"I have. For a long time. --You saved me from bullies when I was a kid."
"I'm glad it worked."
"And I've wanted to marry you for. A while."
(More than half his life, but who's counting?)
"Then I'm glad I can give you that," he says, and then squeezes and lets go.
Marlo is!!!! So good!!!!
"Unfortunately, I'm really boring, so I don't have a lot to talk about."
"That's okay."
"What's it like-- out there?"
"It's.... bigger. I knew there were going to be lots of people I didn't know and never could but that's different from walking around and only seeing unfamiliar faces, you know?"
"Yeah, that's weird to think about."
"Yeah. Obviously it wasn't the only weird thing but honestly I think that was the weirdest."
Maybe the walk can be over now and they can return safely to Leo taking care of his younger siblings, a situation he totally knows how to handle.
It can!
Sasha will happily hand over the two year old.
Leo smiles at Alma and starts playing Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.
And Sasha goes home with Marlo and clings to him at night and tries not to think to hard about anything much.
The wedding comes very quickly.
Leo had always expected to have more time to-- prepare, to get to know his husband, perhaps to fall in love.
But the wedding happens in a rush. He suspects someone is pushing it to happen quickly, before the prophet can change his mind, and he has barely talked to Marlo alone for twenty minutes by the time he's wearing a suit and standing before the prophet to vow to be sealed to him for eternity.
He and Sasha hadn't had a real wedding. Marlo looked forward to his wedding day for — he doesn't know how many years — and he's not sure how he feels now that it's happening; he vows to be sealed to Leo for eternity and thinks I'm going to keep you safe, I swear it as hard as he can.
And they're alone, together, in the bedroom, and he's supposed to--
His father's boywife took him aside, before the wedding. Explained to him how sex works between two men, that it hurts, that he should keep sweet and take pleasure in his husband's pleasure and he will be rewarded in Heaven.
Leo doesn't believe in Heaven, but Marlo rescued him, and he will do anything to make Marlo happy.
It's his wedding night and the thought of touching Leo that way makes him feel — well, he's felt slightly to the left of himself since he arrived in this town, but more to the left of himself. And Sasha is sleeping somewhere else tonight; he doesn't have a steadying hand to cling to.
He sits down on the bed, for lack of anything else to do with himself.
Leo sits on the bed and rests his head on Marlo's shoulder.
"Maybe you can hold me for a bit first?"
Oh. That's easy.
"Of course," he says, and collects Leo in his arms, cradles him the way Sasha likes with one hand on the back of his head.
Being held by Marlo makes him feel safe and loved and okay, and Marlo is warm and strong, and he's so tired (he's always so tired), and it's easy to close his eyes and drift off and rest--
Before he knows it, he's fallen asleep.
Marlo kisses his forehead and moves them both so they're lying down, drapes an arm over Leo's side and keeps holding him and closes his eyes too.
He blinks his eyes open after ten hours of uninterrupted sleep, an experience he has not had since he was nine years old.
Marlo reaches forward and tucks a piece of hair behind his ear.
"Morning, beautiful."
"Morning," Leo says, and curls up on Marlo's shoulder. He probably should feel anxious, but he's drowsy and Marlo is holding him and it is hard to be scared of anything at all. "Sorry about last night."
"There's nothing to be sorry for. Also, separately, you were very cute."
Does Leo like when Marlo plays with his hair as much as Sasha does?
It makes him curl up on Marlo's chest and make soft noises and immediately fall back asleep.
Leo is cute.
He wakes up again a couple hours later.
"Good morning again," Marlo tells him. "You might want to stay awake this time, breakfast'll be ready soon."
Is that a veiled criticism? He can try to stay awake.
"I will," he says. "Sorry. It's just-- the babies aren't sleep-trained yet."
"No, it's fine, you don't have to be sorry, I just thought you would probably want to eat with the two of us."
Sasha's going to be here. It seems like Marlo is not the sort of person who likes his wives to maintain separate households, so he'll have to make sure to get along with Sasha as best as he can. He hopes Sasha isn't jealous.
"Okay," he says, and anticipates the inevitable oatmeal.
"Good morning," says Sasha from the doorway, "pancakes are almost ready."
Pancakes?!
It is, he guesses, his honeymoon.
"Thank you!"
"You're welcome," and he's smiling. "We have maple syrup, because Marlo still hasn't opened his eyes and seen the truth —"
"— and we have chocolate syrup because Sasha can't abide not literally everything tasting like a Hershey bar, whichever you prefer."
"I've never had chocolate syrup before," he says, and very carefully takes one pancake and puts a small amount of chocolate syrup on it.
Sasha takes three, and doesn't actually drown them but only because pancakes don't have to breathe in the first place. "How do you like it?"
His eyes are closed and he is making small noises and chewing very very slowly.
"....you can have more than one," Sasha says, because he recognizes that behavior.
"How many can I have?"
"As many as you want. We have a kind of ridiculous amount of pancake mix."
He starts shoveling pancake into his mouth.
Good.
Sasha leans on Marlo and eats his chocolate-drenched pancakes.
And Marlo puts an arm around Sasha's shoulders and kisses his cheek and keeps them both as steady as he can.
Pancakes! Pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes pancakes!
How many pancakes can fit inside a single human's stomach? Leo is doing an experiment.
At some point Sasha might have to get up and make more pancakes. Not that he's objecting.
More pancakes!
Leo's stomach hurts a little bit from how many pancakes he's eaten.
It's good to see him eat enough.
(Sasha, Leo might notice, is cuddling Marlo almost every moment he can be.)
Leo has not noticed this. It's not pancakes.
Then by the time Leo is full nearly to bursting and can concentrate on anything that isn't pancakes Sasha will be half in Marlo's lap with Marlo's hands in his hair.
Leo looks up from pancakes, observes this, and tries to figure out if he's still welcome.
(They're in love. It makes sense that they're in love, why wouldn't they be, they ran away together-- but it's still a thing to look at them and know.)
"Do you want to cuddle with us?"
"I'll probably fall asleep again."
"That's fine."
He rests his head on Marlo's shoulder and tries to figure out the dynamics here.
Sasha is going to be Marlo's favorite, that is clear. And he didn't expect to be at all unwelcome during the morning after Marlo and Leo's wedding. But he doesn't seem to be jealous at all-- he's secure in being Marlo's favorite and he doesn't mind sharing cuddles? There are worse ways it can be. Leo will have to make it clear that he's not trying to be Marlo's favorite.
And what about religion? Leo has never told anyone he's an atheist, and it's the kind of thing where if you said it to your husband you're going to get slapped. But Marlo and Sasha left. So it's possible it'd be safe to tell them. Or maybe they believe in a different religion? Leo decides to pay attention.
He's uncomfortably aware that Sasha is very very pretty.
Sasha cuddles up to both of them, like he's making a point, curls up against Marlo's chest and Leo's side.
Leo needs to pay attention, needs to figure out his place in his new husband's life. But he's so tired.
Maybe if he just rests his eyes a little bit--
Marlo doesn't stop holding him when he falls asleep.
"Do you think he's okay," he says, very soft.
"I'm not sure I think anyone here is okay. — but you saw how many siblings he has, he's probably just exhausted."
"That's true," very quietly. "— if it looks like I'm going to do something that would lead to a baby in the house —"
"We leave immediately. I know."
Marlo is getting cuddled extra much.
He wakes up after only forty-five minutes this time.
"Good morning again," Sasha says from Marlo's shoulder.
"Sorry," Leo says. "It's just-- the baby hasn't been sleeping through the night yet, it'll be better when she gets older--"
He feels... weird. Strangely good. Things don't hurt as much. Probably it's because Marlo is here.
"It's not a problem? You can sleep as much as you want."
"Thank you. --I think I'm done sleeping for now though."
He couldn't sleep even if he tried. It's a weird feeling.
"Okay."
Maybe Marlo should be petting Leo's hair.
He makes a little happy noise--
--and then looks at Sasha to check whether that's okay.
Sasha's smiling; he reaches out and takes one of Leo's hands.
Okay. They're into family togetherness. That's okay.
"What were you planning to do today?" he asks Marlo.
"Spending time with you. Maybe getting some work done — I work remote, I can do that without leaving — but mostly spending time with you."
"Oh. I didn't know if you had-- honeymoon plans or something."
"It's your honeymoon too, I wouldn't have wanted to plan things without talking to you."
"Oh. That-- makes sense. --I haven't left town much. I don't know where would be a good place to go."
Marlo pets his hair.
"We could go to the city for a few days — there's a zoo and an art museum and a natural history museum and a planetarium —"
"I don't think I've ever been to any of those things!"
"Then we can show you some of them!"
He bounces.
"I've never been to Salt Lake City before! Apparently it's huge!"
"It is huge — the planetarium's great, I liked the natural history museum and the library but I don't know what you like —"
"I love libraries and I like history-- I don't know what a planetarium is--"
"It's for seeing the stars — you can go at night and use their telescopes, or they have films about astronomy during the day, there's a dome they project things onto the ceiling of."
"That sounds like the best thing in the world."
"It's great."
Leo puts his head on Marlo's shoulder.
He observes that they have not had sex yet. That is good, because he's scared, but also terrible, because he's scared and the dread is spreading through his entire body and he just wants to get it over with.
Maybe Sasha is here because Sasha doesn't want them to have sex? That would make sense. But they are going to have to have sex at some point.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm great."
Keep sweet, he thinks.
He clearly isn't.
Marlo gives him space. (Sasha can ask later, maybe that'll scare him less.)
Aaaaaaaaa no what did he do wrong why is Marlo moving away from him.
"Em," and it isn't quite a warning. "You're just freaking him out more."
"Sorry," very quietly to Leo, and he goes back to hugging him.
And now Sasha told Marlo to hug him and he should probably be thinking about this, should probably be figuring out what it means for his place in the household, but he's tired and overwhelmed and Marlo is right there, as warm and strong as he'd always imagined, and hundreds of nights of fantasies rise up and he's crying softly into Marlo's shoulder.
Okay. Okay. This he can do, he knows how to do this.
He cradles Leo and whispers "we've got you, we've got you, it's going to be okay," over and over again into his hair.
Marlo is so good. How is Marlo so good and noble and kind and everything Leo ever dreamed he would be--
"I don't know what to do," Leo says into Marlo's shoulder. "I don't know what-- my position is."
"We both like you and care about you and want to give you a place where you can be okay," he says, because he doesn't know what else to say.
"I think I've said five words to Sasha in my entire life before my wedding day."
"And you bounce when you're happy and get excited about libraries, but I can leave you alone," and he does that.
Okay, Sasha is leaving them alone, that must mean that it's time for--
He presses a kiss firmly to Marlo's lips in between his tears.
Marlo hesitates and then kisses him back, puts a hand on the back of Leo's head.
Leo has never kissed anyone before.
Marlo's lips are so soft and he's holding Leo and it's better than he ever could have imagined.
He makes a quiet little noise into Marlo's mouth.
Quiet little noises are good. Leo is good.
Marlo curls around him and holds him and kisses him — lets his hands fall on Leo's sides —
Okay. Okay. He can do this.
He strips off his shirt and pants in a businesslike way and lies down on his stomach. "I'm ready."
"— no. No, you aren't. Here, roll over, on your back."
What, it has to take longer.
But he trusts Marlo so he does what he's told.
Marlo leans down and kisses him.
Oh--
It's more wonderful than he ever imagined.
He's so, so gentle; his hand curls in Leo's hair.
He is Marlo's, always Marlo's, Marlo's in this world and in the next if such a thing turns out to exist, and Marlo will keep him safe and protected and he doesn't have to worry about anything and everything will be okay as long as Marlo is here.
Leo makes soft little noises into Marlo's mouth.
"You're doing great," he murmurs, "so good," and he runs his hand down Leo's side, rests it on his hip.
"Oh," he says into Marlo's mouth, "oh, oh, oh--" and it's hard to think about anything other than Marlo, his smell and his warmth and the way his hands feel on Leo's hip.
He pulls Marlo closer.
He goes where he's pulled — kisses Leo deeper, kisses down his neck and across his shoulder and across his collarbone —
It's so much nicer than he could have imagined-- he feels wanted, he feels loved--
Marlo keeps going down, down his breastbone and down his stomach.
Leo is currently floating in a haze of arousal and has entirely forgotten that Sasha was there.
He puts his hands in Marlo's hair and says, "love you-- love you love you-- you're so good, you keep me safe, you rescued me--"
"So good," he murmurs back, "you're so good, you're doing so well," into Leo's skin, and then he kisses down Leo's stomach and looks up at Leo.
What is he doing. This was not covered in the profoundly awkward conversation.
Marlo smiles up at him and kisses Leo's dick.
Oh.
It sends a shiver through his entire body.
Good.
Marlo has gotten a lot of practice with this particular sex act in the last two years.
Leo did not know this particular sex act was a thing until a few minutes ago!
"Oh," he says, "oh oh oh-- I love you--" and finishes.
Marlo swallows and then moves to kiss Leo's cheek and press his head into Leo's shoulder.
"What do you want me to do?"
"The honest answer is 'whatever you want' but that might not be the most helpful."
"I mean, do you want me to kiss you there, or touch you, or"-- he blushes, unable to finish this sentence.
"Touching sounds good," and Marlo kisses him again.
Leo has lots of practice doing this and he is pretty sure it will also work on someone else!
It makes Marlo close his eyes and make soft whimpery sounds against Leo's shoulder.
Leo wants to kiss it.
And Marlo's his husband so he can.
He gingerly takes Marlo's dick into his mouth and starts to move.
Marlo curls a hand in his hair and bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut —
It doesn't hurt at all even a little bit.
No. It doesn't. And it doesn't hurt when Marlo finishes either, careful not to pull Leo's hair.
He has had pancakes and sex and cuddles and an uninterrupted night of sleep and he is pretty sure there is no happier person in the entire world.
"Good?"
"So good! I love you so much!"
"You're adorable."
"I used to dream that you'd come and rescue me."
Marlo pets his hair, curls up around him. "I'm glad I did."
"I thought about it when I--" He blushes.
"So adorable." He kisses Leo's forehead.
"I really really want to make you happy, as your boywife. Tell me how to do that?"
"I meant it when I said I wanted to give you somewhere that you can be happy and okay."
"We'll just both have to agree to be happy then."
"Yeah." Kiss. "We can do that."
He snuggles with Marlo all morning and then he eats lunch (as much as he wants!) and takes a long hot shower (not a spongebath! not in his father's first wife's house! no one telling him to hurry up!) and then dresses in some of his threadbare and much-repaired old clothes and looks around to see what Marlo and Sasha are doing.
Marlo is on a laptop working on something fiddly involving spreadsheets; Sasha is also on a laptop working on a tattoo design commission.
Leo looks for a book to read.
There are books!
They include quite a bit of fantasy (including several collections of Neil Gaiman short stories, but none of his novels), nonfiction about psychology and history, and sci fi.
Leo contemplates this, decides he is probably too stupid to understand nonfiction, almost picks up one of the short story collections so that he won't lose his place when Marlo interrupts him, and then decides that they might be Sasha's books so Sasha might probably object to him reading them.
He looks for the broom and starts to sweep the floor.
Next to the broom in the closet is a vacuum cleaner.
The house is already pretty clean, like they'd cleaned up before bringing Leo home, but he can pass some time sweeping.
He is not going to try to figure out how to use the vacuum cleaner right now!
He doesn't want to tidy up before he knows how things are organized, but he can sweep and dust and clean the bathrooms.
He can do that, but once he has done that it will be done, and Sasha's already taken care of the dishes from breakfast (other things this house has: a dishwasher).
Hm.
He is very unsure of what to do with free time. This is not an experience he has ever had before.
He tries dusting again more thoroughly this time.
Once he dusts more thoroughly there is still nothing else to do, but Sasha is working in the living room.
(They don't own a TV. They don't have anything that particularly needs tidying.)
They can always start spring cleaning!
He gets a bucket of water (from the sink!) and a sponge and starts scrubbing down the wall.
"We moved in three weeks ago," Sasha says. "If the wall needed cleaning I'd be very surprised."
"Sorry," Leo says. "I wasn't sure what to-- do."
"It's fine. — sorry, you can read any of the books on the shelves."
"Thank you," Leo says. He considers the books carefully and picks up a collection of short stories, in case someone wants to interrupt him.
Nobody seems particularly inclined to interrupt him, although Sasha occasionally glares at his screen and mutters words that a good boywife is not supposed to know.
Leo reads the rondel at the beginning of Smoke and Mirrors, and it's nice-- he's not sure that he has a head for poetry.
Leo reads Chivalry, and he's pretty sure he doesn't get it.
Leo reads Nicholas Was, and then he closes the book and stares out into space.
"...are you okay?"
"...I didn't know stories did that."
"What part are you at? — and do you want a hug?"
"Nicholas Was. And yes."
Sasha puts the laptop down and hugs him.
"Which thing do you mean, it's been a while since I read that one."
"It's..." He pauses. "It's a story about how things pretend to be good but they're really bad and-- it's only 100 words and there's so much in it and it's scary and." He pauses again. "I haven't read much in the past seven or eight years."
"...yeah. That would be a lot."
"Are all his stories like that."
"...most of them are sort of creepy and almost all of them are about things pretending, but they're not all that — flavor, I guess would be the word I'd use."
"I like it. --Like is a weird word to use. I don't know." He thinks. "It's not sweet."
"No," he agrees. "It isn't. Nothing he writes is."
"--can you tell me what things I should read?"
"I'd start with M Is For Magic — here, I'll find it for you —"
Leo starts reading and-- Sasha was cuddling him earlier, it's allowed, and it was weird to go so long without holding anyone-- rests his head on Sasha's shoulder.
Sasha moves so his shoulder will be a more comfortable pillow and keeps working.
The Case of the Four and Twenty Blackbirds is written in a really weird style and everyone is talking funny and it doesn't make any sense, probably because he is stupid.
When he reads the end of Troll Bridge, when a man escapes his life and becomes a troll, he reaches for Sasha's hand and squeezes it.
Don't Ask Jack makes him clutch Sasha.
Sasha puts a hand in Leo's hair and holds him tight, tries to mimic what works when Marlo does this.
"I like the stories," he says into Sasha's shoulder. "Even though they're. Not sweet."
"I think I like them because they're not sweet, at least a little bit. — My favorite story in this one is Sunbird, it's towards the end."
He reads it; he laughs, he clutches Sasha, and at the end he sighs and closes the book and rests his head on Sasha's shoulder.
"It's good."
"I'm glad you like it."
Sasha is making that face at him and it makes Leo suddenly realize that Sasha is very very pretty, and he's holding Sasha's hand and has his head on Sasha's shoulder and their thighs are touching and their faces are close enough that he could reach out and kiss Sasha right now and he is very aware, from this morning, how nice kissing is.
He should stop touching Sasha.
He is going to stop touching Sasha any minute now.
Just a few more seconds.
Marlo could walk in-- Marlo could walk in and see them and he's very kind and self-sacrificing and noble but any man would get upset about his wives cheating on him with anyone, much less each other-- does Leo want to get a black eye--
Well, evidently, yes.
To distract from his internal turmoil, Leo says, "so do you have thoughts about how you want to divide things up? You're his first wife, you get more say."
"...I can't sleep without him. You could join the two of us if you wanted but I do need him there at night, when he's not there I — it's — not good.
Other than that I haven't thought about it as much as I probably should have."
He's smiling so hard his face hurts and-- he's going to feel guilty, later, even if Marlo doesn't catch him, but right now he's so happy.
"Can I still have-- some nights with him, even if he goes back to you after?"
"Yeah. Of course, as long as I'm not sleeping alone."
He's maybe clinging to Leo, just a little bit.
"I'd like getting to sleep with you and him."
He'd like getting to see Sasha in his pajamas and touch his back when there's plausible deniability and maybe rest a hand on his hip when everyone thinks he's asleep and can't be held accountable for his actions. Which probably makes him a grade-A terrible person, since Marlo is his savior and they've barely been married for 24 hours and now Leo is fantasizing about cheating on Marlo with his own wife. But it is hard to feel bad about that when Sasha keeps looking at him.
"I'd like that too." He nuzzles Leo's shoulder. "I'd like that a lot."
"We can alternate days? --I don't know how you want to divide up chores, or if you're going to want me to get a job."
"There winds up not being as many chores as you're expecting, there's only three of us and no toddlers and we have a dishwasher and a laundry machine. I started doing commissions when I noticed myself getting kind of itchy with how much free time I had but maybe that'll make sense for you and maybe it won't, one day isn't really enough to know, and you're going to want to get your feet under you first either way."
"That makes sense," Leo says. "I'd offer to cook but I'm not sure I know how to cook things with uh. You know. More ingredients than just flour, beans, rice, oats, eggs from the chickens, and whatever came from the garden."
He has the overwhelming desire to pet Sasha's hair.
"I can teach you, I mostly figured out a handful of really easy things and got good at them."
(If he follows through on this desire he will find that Sasha makes soft happy noises when his hair is touched.)
He very carefully brushes just the tips of Sasha's hair with the back of his hand.
"Honestly," he says, "I would be happy if I never ate beans and rice again."
"And you don't have to!"
His hair is very very soft.
"I don't want to distract you from your commissions."
"You're not. — I mean, you are, but not in a way that's hurting any, I was working for most of last night so I can afford to be distracted for a while."
"You have so many books."
"We do!"
"I have fourteen books."
"No, you have several dozen books. — I guess they're collectively owned books but that makes them kind of yours."
He bounces.
"Thank you thank you thank you thank you-- am I supposed to share mine--"
"You can but honestly I get most of what I read from ao3 and Libgen so if you'd rather keep them you can do that too — oh, man, we need to get you something internet compatible, there are so many books —"
"I get a laptop?!"
His tone is rather like the way you'd say "I get a million dollars?!"
"I know — but there's millions upon millions of books and you can just get them for free and you'll never have to be on a bus for an hour and walk for two hours to the library again, and if it lets you get a job that plus the free books means it'll pay for itself and even if you don't get a remote job it's such a quality of life increase —"
"Millions and millions of books?!"
"--I probably can't get a remote job, I'm really dumb, if you wanted me to get a job I was going to babysit."
"...I draw, it doesn't take being smart. Em did data entry for a while and apparently it was mind-numbing. Things you have to be smart to be able to do and things you can do remotely overlap but they're not the same, and anyway even if you don't have a job you should be able to have millions of books and more art and music than I know how to quantify and also the whole rest of the internet, I meant what I said about quality of life increase."
"I could probably do data entry but I like kids."
He shrugs.
"If babysitting makes more sense then it does? I don't mean definitely not babysitting, just that it isn't your only option."
"You guys are so nice to me."
"You're so easy to be nice to."
Leo cuddles him and reads his book.
"Hey," softly from the doorway.
Leo looks up and freezes.
He's smiling.
"Can I join you?"
"Course. — the book you were reading yesterday is on top of the shelf over there, there was stuff on top of it so I moved it —"
Okay. Marlo is fine with it. He's okay with them being affectionate. That-- is unusual, but this is an unusual household in a lot of ways, he shouldn't be that surprised.
Marlo takes the book and, instead of reading it, arranges himself so his head is in Sasha's lap and closes his eyes.
Leo pets Marlo's hair! Because he can do that now! (Eeeeee.)
Apparently everyone in this household makes quiet happy noises when you pet their hair.
What an important discovery!
"I can't wait to go to Salt Lake City."
"If we pack tonight we can go tomorrow — how many days do you think —"
"A week?"
Bounce bounce. "That sounds awesome. I'm already packed and everything."
"You're going to love it."
Leo eats as much food as he wants at dinner and then goes to bed early in his own room and falls asleep quickly.
When he wakes up, he spends a while luxuriating in the feeling of being able to lie in bed as late as he wants without having to get up to change a diaper or make a bottle.
After dinner Marlo gets himself and Sasha packed, and then Sasha pins him to the bed and murmurs "good boy, sweet boy" until he goes quiet and trembly, and they fall asleep curled around each other and in the morning he packs up the car while Sasha makes breakfast and then they can get out of this town for the week.
Salt Lake City is, as promised, enormous.
Leo has been to a city! He goes to the city on a pretty regular basis! It has sixty thousand people in it, not counting tourists.
Salt Lake City, apparently, has many more than sixty thousand people in it.
"There are so many people. I didn't realize there were this many people in the whole world." And then he realizes he's an idiot because of course the world has lots of people in it and now they're going to make fun of him for being dumb--
"Neither had I."
There are so many people! And so few of them are children-- he sees some families with five or six kids, but also a bunch of smaller families, and some families with no children at all. And people are wearing shorts and tank tops, even if they're women, and people seem to be in couples, and--
He grabs Marlo's hand and squeezes.
Marlo squeezes his hand back. "I know," he whispers.
Sasha is noticeably more relaxed than he ever was in church.
"I love your hair," he says earnestly to a woman in a tank top whose hair is electric blue and who has so many tattoos she's running out of uninked skin.
Leo touches his hair-- it falls to mid-back, because he's a boywife, and probably says to everyone here that he's a polygamist-- and blushes.
Marlo squeezes his hand again.
"Let's get to the hotel?"
"Yeah."
On the way to the hotel he sees a box labeled 'Take A Book Leave A Book.'
"...what's this?"
"Book exchange box — it's supposed to be like the thing where a group of friends might trade books with each other so everyone can read them, but for a whole neighborhood."
Leo opens it up.
"Imagine having so many books that you can just give away books."
"You get a free book in exchange, I think of it more like a library with a limited selection and an entry fee."
There's Stephen King and John Grisham and Fern Michaels and a book about scoring well on the GRE and a guide to becoming an FBI agent and an extremely scribbled-on coloring book.
"...so I should not just take all the books."
It is taking a literal physical effort not to shove all of them into his bag right now.
"...do you want to use my laptop to go on Libgen and download twice that many books."
"...would I have to pay for them."
"Nope. Libgen is a mildly sketchy Russian website where very helpful people upload books and then anyone can download them for free."
Leo very regretfully closes the take-a-book-leave-a-book box, pauses, then reopens it to take out the coloring book.
"I don't want to use your laptop if you're busy with it."
"Then I will have no qualms about asking for it back if I need it."
You don't have to give books you own back, he doesn't say.
"The coloring book is for Alma," Leo says. "He likes coloring."
"Okay," Sasha says, and doesn't say anything about leaving a book behind.
Leo goes back to the hotel room and borrows Sasha's laptop and opens the Libgen page and then stares in confusion, completely uncertain of what books he wants to read.
(Marlo and Sasha might notice that Leo seems to only own three or four outfits, and all of them are almost worn out.)
Yeah, they've noticed that.
"You liked Neil Gaiman, you could look for more of his books — or maybe you'd like —" and he lists off a few other writers.
Leo gets some books and cuddles with Marlo and reads.
Salt Lake City is enormous.
They go to the zoo and see animals from six different biomes, and to the planetarium and see the stars, and to the natural history museum and see fossils, and to the art museum and see paintings, and to the library and see more books than Leo has ever seen in one place at one time.
Marlo still seems more relaxed here than he does in their tiny little town; Sasha continues to compliment people on blue hair and tattoos and piercings and at one point looks just a little bit longingly at a girl in a crop top.
Huh. Sasha's into girls. That's interesting.
Leo tries to read all the signs in the art museum and ends up seeing maybe a quarter of it by the end of the day. He winds up spending two hours at the monkey house asking the zookeeper innumerable questions and then the entire way home won't stop talking about how smart monkeys are. He gasps at the planetarium show and cries when they talk about how old the universe is. He is confused when he discovers that the natural history museum doesn't have any history in it, but it has more monkey facts in it and that's even better. He spends twenty minutes just walking around the library running his fingers down the spines of all the books and exclaiming to Sasha and Marlo about all the things people write books about.
When he gets back to the hotel room, he borrows Sasha's computer and searches "middle school curriculum" and then "what you learn in middle school" and "middle school homeschool" and takes notes on the free hotel stationary.
Marlo makes careful notes of the things Leo likes — they can go back to the museum if he wants to see more of it — and looks up books about monkeys and books about astronomy for middle schoolers and bookmarks the more promising-looking results.
He cuddles Leo and Sasha at night and sends Sasha warning looks when he looks too desperately at short shorts and crop tops and dyed hair and tries not to be too obviously married to them both when they're out.
Marlo can try not to be married to both of them, but a man with long hair and modest clothing holding hands with or gazing longingly at another man can really only be one thing, and whispers and under-their-breath "plyg"s follow them around Salt Lake City.
Leo wants to see more of everything, but he does not especially like the art museum, unless Sasha is telling him about art. (He stares openly at Sasha when Sasha tells him about art.)
Leo loves restaurant food, particularly restaurant food that has lots and lots of calories, particularly particularly restaurant food that has endless refills. He thinks the Olive Garden's infinite breadsticks is the single greatest invention known to humanity.
Leo doesn't initiate sex with Marlo, not without permission from Marlo, but he's used to sharing small spaces, and he goes to the bathroom and thinks about Marlo's hands and Marlo's mouth and Marlo's dick, and all his old fantasies are much more real now that he knows what it's like.
At night he rests a hand on Sasha's shoulder or his hip or once, bravely, his thigh, and it sends electric shivers through his entire body. (He starts imagining Sasha, too, when he's in the bathroom, Sasha looking up at him through pretty lashes and kissing him between his legs--)
On Sunday, he braces himself to see what they're doing about services.
On Sunday morning Sasha says "So I thought maybe the aquarium today?" like services didn't exist at all.
...huh.
Leo looks up and says, "I'm an atheist."
"Oh, good, so am I."
"I'm complicated but I believe the word is agnostic. The aquarium sounds good to me if it sounds good to you two?"
"Yes."
Octopuses are ALMOST as interesting as monkeys.
Octopuses are SO COOL. they can CHANGE COLORS and PRETEND TO BE ROCKS and THEY'RE SMART ENOUGH TO ESCAPE THEIR TANKS AND THROW SHRIMP AT AQUARIUM WORKERS HOW COOL IS THAT.
This is a much better way to spend a Sunday morning.
It is extremely cool!
Aquariums also have employees that he can harass with extensive octopus questions.
Is it really harassment if the employees are enthusiastic about answering, though.
(Being obviously polygamists in an aquarium on Sunday morning gets them fewer judgemental stares and more confused ones. Marlo is still acutely aware of every single pair of eyes.)
When they leave, Leo says, "I haven't ever told anyone I'm an atheist before. Or skipped church."
"...I'm not sure we went at all when it was just the two of us."
"We didn't."
"It's too bad we have to go to church while we live back in town. People would gossip."
"...yeah," very quiet. "But we have to stay or they'll start marrying more people to Malcolm again and I can't —"
Leo reaches out and squeezes his hand. "It's okay. I'll make faces at you during the dumb parts."
"Yeah." He holds Leo's hand very tightly. "And it's better with you two, I just. Miss being able to wear what I want and cut my hair if I want and spend my Sundays how I want."
Leo touches his hair. "That sounds nice."
"It is. — you don't really notice how heavy it is until you cut it off. Or how hot it gets in the summer, having all that hair on the back of your neck and all that fabric on your arms and legs, until your hair is short and you can wear short sleeves and shorts if you feel like it."
"Did you stop wearing the temple garments?"
"Of course I did, they're terrible."
"I would, but I don't actually own... other underwear," he says. "I guess we could thrift some while we're here."
"We should get you more clothes while we're here anyway."
"That sounds great. --I want to do something sinful. Is coffee any good?"
"It is not. If you want to try caffeine we can get a soda but coffee tastes like it's trying to kill you."
"It doesn't taste like it's trying to kill you," Marlo protests, but he notably doesn't argue that it tastes good.
"Let's get a soda."
"Let's. — when we get back to the room there's something I want to show you."
The hotel has a vending machine; Marlo gets a Coke and Sasha gets a Dr. Pepper and Leo can pick what he wants.
Leo considers it very seriously and gets a Coke.
He takes a sip and spits it out.
"It's attacking my mouth."
"It's carbonated! Sodas are all like that, it's not just the caffeinated ones. You learn to like it, if you have a ridiculous sweet tooth like Sasha or sometimes want to stay up all night like me."
"Why do people do this deliberately to their drinks."
"I like it, it makes my mouth feel all warm."
"The first time he tried it he announced that his glass had been filled with thumbtacks," Marlo says to Leo.
"You can finish mine," Leo says to Sasha. "What do you want to show me?"
Marlo takes off his shirt.
On his left side is a tattoo of a horse, about the size of Sasha's hand.
And on Sasha's right side is a tattoo of a rabbit, about the size of Marlo's hand.
Leo reaches out gingerly and touches it. "It's beautiful."
"It was the one of the first things we did, after. — thank you."
"First thing I did period was find a bathroom and cut my hair."
Can I have one, he doesn't say.
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know if I can put into words what it means — for you I'd say maybe a magpie, they're smart but more importantly they're curious — but Em loved Black Beauty as a kid and I just, always really liked rabbits, and it felt right."
"For me?"
At the face Leo makes he flinches and curls up like a poked fern.
"what-- I'm so sorry, I don't know what I said--" Leo reaches out to hug him and then hesitates.
Sasha hesitates and then hugs him tight.
If Leo were a good person he would not have this reaction to holding Sasha when he was shirtless and instead he would have some more contextually appropriate reaction.
"I'm sorry-- I shouldn't have assumed-- I didn't mean it like, if I got a tattoo like that, of course I wouldn't--"
Sasha doesn't answer; he doesn't trust his voice. Just hugs Leo tighter.
Marlo hugs both of them.
"That's not what he meant," very softly.
"What did he mean?"
"....honestly, nothing, but it looked like you were flinching and that freaked him out and —" and he would gesture helplessly if his hands weren't full.
"I wasn't, I was-- surprised. It sounded like he thought I might get one."
.....he's just not going to answer that, yet.
Instead he's going to cuddle both of his boys.
"And it doesn't make any sense because-- Sasha's your favorite wife."
He doesn't try to argue, because Leo isn't wrong.
"Sorry," Leo says, and puts his head on Marlo's shoulder.
"Not your fault," he says, and puts a hand on the back of Leo's head.
He snuggles up with Marlo and tries not to worry about what he did wrong and does not succeed.
Both Marlo and Sasha are very very cuddly.
(Having another person with him in Marlo's arms still feels weird. He ignores it.)
A little while later, Leo says, "I want to try alcohol."
"Are you sure? — alcohol really does taste like it's trying to kill you, I don't drink it."
"I mean apparently it makes you feel really nice? I like things that do that."
"I'll get drunk with you if Em gets the drinks," Sasha says before Marlo can protest.
"....okay. I can do that."
"Best husband ever."
He doesn't react in words, but he does kiss Leo and Sasha on the forehead and go and find a liquor store and bring them back three bottles of assorted alcohol.
"I'm going to go check out the park, have fun."
Oh no in order to drink he's going to have to disentangle from Sasha.
He sits up and pulls Sasha towards him.
Sasha goes where he's pulled.
"Em wasn't kidding, it does taste gross. You just gotta ignore it."
He pours some wine into a paper cup and drinks it.
"It's not that bad. Kind of fruity."
He drinks some too.
"Maybe I've just been drinking the gross kind."
Mm. It's nice. He wants another cup.
Once he's poured it his hand reaches around and starts playing with Sasha's hair.
Oh. That's nice.
Sasha drinks and moves his head into Leo's hand and makes a soft little "ah" sound.
He feels so warm and nothing hurts and he's not scared of anything. It's strange. He can't remember the last time he wasn't scared of anything but it feels like nothing at all in the world is ever going to go wrong.
He takes a big sip and says, "did you know octopuses can play with Lego?"
"I didn't!"
They're very close.
"Yeah! The aquarium people were telling me about it. They can put the blocks together! They don't know how to build recognizable things though."
"Or maybe they'd be perfectly recognizable to an octopus, we don't know."
"That's true! I wonder what things look like to octopuses. I wonder how you'd figure it out."
His cup is empty! That is very strange, He should have more.
It is terrible to have to untangle with Sasha but afterward he can play with Sasha's hair more and hear more of those noises.
Sasha sighs and finishes his cup and pours another and says "I wonder if you could teach an octopus sign language."
"They taught a gorilla sign language! And she adopted a kitty."
"Aww!!"
He ducks his head and presses into Leo's hand.
"You're so pretty," Leo says.
"Thank you."
He nuzzles Leo a little harder.
"You have a nice smile."
It is suddenly very important that Sasha understand exactly how good he is.
"You're so good," Leo explains. "You're so pretty and good and I love you."
"You're so good."
"Love you," Leo says into his hair, "love you so much." There is a reason he's not supposed to say this but it can't be that important because, in reality, nothing could ever go wrong in the entire world-- "I wanna kiss you."
Sasha leans in and kisses him.
Leo tastes like wine and he kisses with far more enthusiasm than skill.
"Wanna kiss you," he says, "all over."
Sasha tastes like wine and curls around Leo like a vine.
"We can do that."
"Love you," he says, "Marlo kissed me down there and it was so nice."
"--oh shit Marlo."
"It's — he isn't like —"
Sasha gives up on words and kisses Leo again.
Leo kisses him back and then pulls away and says, "I don't want to cheat on Marlo."
"Yeah," quietly.
He's still clinging like a vine to Leo.
"I love you," he says, "you're so beautiful, I want to."
"You're beautiful —"
A kiss on Leo's neck won't hurt anything, right?
Leo puts his hands in Sasha's hair and pulls him close and says, "But Marlo saved me, I can't do this to him."
"Yeah," he says softly, and presses his head into Leo's shoulder. "Yeah. That makes sense.
Cuddle me?"
"Yeah," he says, "of course. --I'm not sure if I like being drunk."
"We don't have to do it again. — you don't have to do it again, I like it sometimes and need it sometimes."
"It makes me not scared. But there are good reasons to be scared, sometimes."
His dick is hard and pokes a bit into Sasha's thigh.
He wishes, almost, that he were drunk enough to just — kiss him again and say fuck it.
He isn't. He buries his face deeper in Leo's shoulder and clings.
He strokes Sasha's hair and says, "I love you so much."
"I love you too."
"...want to hear more about octopuses?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do."
Then Leo will snuggle him and tell him about octopuses until Marlo gets back.
When Marlo gets back he mostly wants to put his head on Sasha's shoulder and hold on to Leo's hand and not be in a physical form.
That's all right.
Leo is just... never going to mention what happened. To anyone.
That's alright. He doesn't have to say anything.
Marlo falls asleep on him that night.
Between the painfulness of soda and the bad decisions involved in getting drunk, Leo is unenthusiastic about committing further sins. He is concerned that maybe the sins were forbidden for a good reason.
"What are we going to do for our last day in Salt Lake City?"
"We really should pick up things for you, and then we can go back to your favorite thing we've done so far?"
"Pick things up for me?"
"I mostly meant clothes that aren't threadbare, Sasha talked about getting you a laptop but we can do that online and probably should."
"I get new clothes?! Can I pick them out?"
"Of course you can."
"Can I get something--" He blushes. "Immodest."
"Yes! And we're getting you normal underwear."
"I'm sorry my underwear is ugly."
"That's not why, it's because both of us prefer the experience of wearing it and I'm guessing you'll prefer it too."
He tries his best not to think about Sasha in normal underwear.
(Leo has only the vaguest idea what normal underwear looks like, and imagines it either as brightly colored temple garments or large cloth diapers.)
"I do want to be pretty for you."
Forehead kiss.
"I know, but I obviously wasn't clear enough the first time and I'm happy to clarify."
He holds Sasha's hand on the way to the clothes store.
And Sasha holds his.
(Sasha's sleeves are rolled up and his shirt is unbuttoned further than is modest.)
"I have determined through empirical research that short sleeved shirts are fine as long as you have a long sleeved shirt under them, and then you have short sleeved shirts you can wear when we're in private if you want."
Leo, who is dressed modestly, is doing a terrible job of not staring at Sasha's wrists.
"That makes sense. --I want to be pretty."
They're very nice wrists, it's true.
"You are pretty. — but yes, we can do that."
When they get to the store, Leo says, "...this is not a Goodwill."
"That's true, it's not. — having everything be the same size makes it easier to find things that fit and there's way better selection and you can get socks and underwear in a ten-pack."
"New clothes!"
Marlo is so good. Even though he is not Marlo's favorite he gets new clothes and as much food as he wants and a trip to Salt Lake City where they got to go to the aquarium and maybe even a laptop although he is skeptical of the laptop.
"Yes!"
Things that clothing stores that aren't Goodwill have: more than one of the same thing, in multiple colors and sizes, multiple items that were designed to look good together, clothes that have never been worn or washed by anyone else before.
"If you're wearing normal underwear the texture's way more important, you want to be careful of that when you're trying things on."
"Do you get to try on underwear?" He is somewhat skeptical of this.
"No, but I have extras and you can borrow them for the next however long."
Probably Sasha should at some point let go of Leo's hand but he doesn't really want to.
Leo sees some underwear that is brightly colored and silky and he stares at it with longing.
Sasha follows his eyes and takes them off the rack.
"They're for women but that doesn't have to stop us."
"Really? --They're so pretty."
"They are."
Possibly Leo should also acquire clothing that is meant to be seen, though.
Leo gets pretty underwear and soft pants and shirts that are bright colors, and all of it is new and he has so many clothes he could go two weeks without doing laundry if he wanted to and Marlo doesn't make the choices for him and Marlo lets him have whatever he wants because Marlo is so good.
Leo keeps thinking about how he'd kissed Sasha, and-- on one hand, he doesn't want to get hit, and he really doesn't want Marlo to be disappointed in him. He wants to be a good boywife who makes Marlo happy because that's what Marlo deserves. On the other hand-- Marlo deserves honesty. Marlo deserves not to be cheated on and then have his wives flaunt it in front of him unknowingly by holding hands. Leo is a terrible person, he should be grateful to Marlo for everything, he shouldn't be like this, but-- trying to pretend he's not like this would just make it worse.
When they're looking for socks he says to Marlo, "Can I talk to you privately?"
"Of course," and finding a private corner to talk in might be tricky but he's sure they can manage. "What's going on, are you okay?"
"--Last night when we were drunk Sasha and I kissed."
"Okay.
Did you want to be kissing him?"
His shoulders curl in.
"Yes."
"Then that's fine."
He pulls Leo forward and hugs him.
"You can kiss him again, if you want to."
"...you're not mad?"
"I'm not. — if it had turned out that you hadn't wanted to be kissing him I would have been mad at him, but it didn't, so I'm not."
"I cheated on you."
"...I want to say something about how if I'm going to be married to two people at the same time I don't really get to complain if they kiss each other as well as me, but my actual feeling is 'oh good they're both happy.'"
"You're so good, how are you so good."
"...I try, mostly. Sometimes I think 'what would Malcolm do' and then do the opposite but mostly I just — care about you being okay."
"I used to imagine how good you would be to me and then you are always better."
"Good."
He kisses Leo's forehead.
"...when we get back to the room I want to ask what you imagined, but for now let's go find Sasha?"
"Okay."
When they find Sasha, Leo very deliberately kisses him, and then glances at Marlo for approval.
He's still smiling.
eeeeeeee
"I told you he wasn't like that," he doesn't say, but he does kiss Leo back very enthusiastically.
"I love both of you!" he says.
Leo is going to own so many clothes.
"And we love you!"
He is.
When they get back to the hotel, Leo says to Marlo, "you wanted to ask me about something?"
"You said you had imagined what being married to me would be like, and I'm curious."
Leo blushes intensely and does not answer.
Oh no that's adorable.
"Tell me?"
"Well, when I was eight, Marlo saved me from bullies and ever since then I-- wanted to marry him. Because-- he's so handsome and good and, and before I became an atheist he was faithful and I knew he would be kind and fair and not give his favorite wife more than everyone else and he'd spend time with everyone equally and tell me he loved me and wanted to be with me and I was good--"
Marlo hugs him.
"I'm glad I can live up to that," very soft.
"You're so much better than I could have imagined. You let me go to the aquarium."
"Alternately, I got to go to the aquarium with you."
"See! That's why you're so good." He snuggles Sasha. "Isn't he?"
"He's the best," Sasha agrees.
"I love you. Both of you."
He blushes again and smooshes his face into Sasha's shoulder.
"You're so cute."
Maybe he should be touching Leo's hair.
"What's making you blush so much?"
"Uh-- I used to-- I mean, I do-- sorry, I'm trying, I'm not deliberately avoiding saying the thing--"
"It's cute. You can take your time."
If he says the thing to Sasha's shoulder then maybe it will be less embarrassing.
"I thought about being married while I touched myself."
Marlo curls around him, kisses the back of his head.
"So cute. — tell us more?"
"Uh. I'd think about you kissing and holding and touching me-- and also just about, like, being married, like cooking your favorite meal so you smile at me and doing whatever you say no matter how silly it is and you saying I'm good and you hitting me when I've done something wrong--"
He glances at Sasha and then hugs Leo tighter.
"You're lovely, you're so good —"
"And a lot about-- after the apocalypse-- because it makes for better stories-- and a lot about you having rescued me instead of Sasha-- especially if I were still faithful and you had to tie me up or hurt me to get me to escape--"
"You can stop," he says, softly. "...do you want me to tie you up in real life?"
"--uh, I mean, you don't have to stop me from going anywhere, I will not go anywhere you want me to not go."
"I know. But Sasha likes the way it feels and since it was a thing you'd imagined I thought maybe you would too. — you can say no."
"...huh."
"And Em likes getting hit, if we're sharing."
"...maybe I should tell you about what happens in some of those post-apocalypse fantasies."
"Maybe."
He squeezes Marlo's hand and pushes his head very intensely into Sasha's shoulder.
"I think about-- it's after the apocalypse and the Satanists are hunting us down and I'm in hiding and Marlo gets captured and tied up and tortured and they try to get him to give up my location and he doesn't tell them because he loves me--"
Behind him Marlo whimpers, very softly.
"You like that?"
"He does."
"Is this a-- thing people like a lot."
"...I don't know if it's a thing people like a lot. The internet had a lot to say about it when we looked but the internet has a lot to say about everything, I just know we like it."
"What did the Internet have to say about it."
Sasha says "diatribes about how it's for degenerates and deeply unappealing porn,"
at the same time as Marlo says "Don't hit the kidneys, if his hands start tingling it's cutting off his circulation and you need to untie him right now, that sort of thing,"
and then they look at each other and both laugh.
Leo says, "my husbands are so adorable," before he totally notices what he's saying.
"No, you," before he really hears it, and then he blinks.
"--uh I mean if you don't want to--"
"No, I just meant you're adorable."
"I want to be married to you and not just-- both be married to Marlo."
"I want that too."
"I think. I probably would like it? If you tied me up? --One of the post-apocalypse fantasies is where I'm tied up to a chair and Marlo has rescued me and he thinks I'm so pretty that he has to have sex with me right then and there before I am even untied. And also he is bleeding a bit."
"We can do that. And I can make him bleed a little bit."
Marlo buries his face in Leo's shoulder and makes a sound that might be Saaaaaaaasha or might just be aaaaaaaaaaaaah.
"I bet he would look nice bleeding."
"He does look nice bleeding."
He thinks for a bit and then says, "I would like being talked about like I'm not there while other people make decisions about what they're going to do to me because I don't get any say in it at all."
"...that we might be worse at."
"...no, I mean-- I was trying to guess things Marlo would like by thinking about things I would like--"
"— oh."
"Looks like you were right."
"And you"-- he says to Sasha -- "know Marlo so you can say what he would like or not like-- and if you're really wrong he can just stop us, he's our husband--"