Sasha is here as Sailor Neptune. More precisely they are here in a Slutty Sailor Neptune costume they made themself, smiling brightly and holding a soda and pretending not to judge the costumes of people who aren't even trying. (A speedo and some bodypaint does not Darth Vader make, buddy.) 

It's a nice night. Last year's Halloween party had had a theme to their costumes and Sasha hadn't been told about it, and showing up as Rey when everybody else was cats or mice or tigers or the occasional weirder mammal was an experience and not a great one, and the year before that they'd stayed home with their then-enbyfriend and handed out candy to kids which wasn't bad but isn't as nice as this. 

He smiles at the person who is half a galaxy. Star stickers in accurate constellations requires actual effort and he can respect that even if whoever this is did only manage to get one shoulder and half their thigh. 

Sasha being Slutty Sailor Neptune is not fair. That is really just not fair.

And then Sasha smiles at him, like before they've even sucked anyone's dick or anything, and he turns bright red and wants to sink into the floor. 

Awwww. 

(Other things a speedo and some bodypaint does not make: Green Lantern. A cat. Seriously, if you aren't going to even wear a cat ear headband what are you doing. Whoever came as Wonder Woman did a really good job, though, the bracers look almost like real metal even though Sasha's pretty sure they're foam.) 

Sasha put some effort into their costume because Sasha is the best person in the world. 

Lev lurks near the snack table and eats handfuls of pretzels, on the grounds that if his mouth is full no one can reasonably expect him to talk. (He checks; they're the zero-calorie kind, so he can do this all night, or until his stomach literally runs out of space.)

The person who came as Slutty Hermione and the person who came as Ron are either extremely true to their characters or having some relationship problems, Astrid from How To Train Your Dragon has a Stormfly plushie on her shoulder which is adorable even though the rest of her costume is literally just a bikini, and Sasha finishes their soda and grabs another and some assorted desserts from the snack table. 

Oh no Sasha's coming close to him. 

He grabs a handful of cheese puffs so he has even more excuse not to say anything.

They smile at Lev again and say "Nice costume."

Ack.

He swallows the cheese puffs and says, "Thank you. I didn't, uh, finish it. --I kind of decided I was going at the last minute and then I had to make a costume really fast but then I got distracted by trying to make sure that all the stars were in the right places and I had to decide what "right place" meant and then six hours later I hadn't actually made that much progress on my costume but I'd learned a lot of astronomy and reviewed a bunch of high school math--"

"— sorry," they say, "I'm not laughing at you, promise, that's just — really cute —" 

"Thank... you...?" he tries. "It's not. Really a very good costume. --People said I'd never use trig in real life but here I am using it for my Halloween costume because I'm a dork--"

"It's a fine costume! And even if it wasn't, which it is, at least you put actual effort in, unlike speedo-and-body-paint Darth Vader." 

"That's me," he says, "forced to put effort into my costume because no one wants to look at me shirtless."

"...not what I meant, sorry, I've just been judging Darth Vader quietly for the last twenty minutes for thinking that body paint counts as a robot suit." 

"Sorry. I was. Trying to make a joke. Um. My name's Lev." He grabs a handful of cheese puffs and shoves them into his mouth.

"Nice to meet you, Lev. I'm Sasha." They reach out for a handshake, realize they're still holding a paper plate, and just sort of stand there awkwardly. 

Lev narrowly avoids saying "I know."

Instead he says, "so are you from old Sailor Moon or new Sailor Moon?"

"Old Sailor Moon. Not that I don't like the new one but they kinda neglect everything about Michiru except her relationship with Haruka? And that's definitely better than pretending they're cousins, but." 

Sasha is really good.

(He knew Sasha was really good but it's even more obvious now that, for the first time, he's exchanged several entire sentences with him.)

"Yeah, I don't think we should neglect sex as a way to characterize people but... there's a difference between that and writing entire episodes where your character could be a sexbot and no one would notice."

"Yes, that. And also the thing where it means neither of them get to really have a relationship with Usagi at all?" 

"They did too. There were strapons involved."

"Okay, fine, but when you're spending that much time on sex it still takes away from the time you can spend on people building friendships with each other and non-sex characterization." 

"What, no, I'm pretty sure every one of those naked transformation scenes were completely necessary and exactly what the story required."

"Hey, a naked transformation scene doesn't take that much longer than a clothed transformation scene! A couple of seconds per episode doesn't make that much difference in terms of anyone's narrative arc, it's not at all the same thing." 

"Yeah, it's like when they make all the exposition happen while everyone is changing clothes or taking a shower or while someone is fucking in the background or something. They still have all the porn but, you know, it doesn't slow down the plot."

"The background fucking gets kinda distracting sometimes, but I get your point."