They can do more of that then!

Lev is being very very careful not to touch Martin, which is difficult because this is not a very large bed.

Lev is so cute. But after a while Martin notices the no-touching. 

Maybe Lev just doesn’t like touch? Except no, or at least probably not, because he really likes hugs—

“...Um,” he says. “Sorry to interrupt, but, uh— do you want...a...hug? Or something? It’s fine if you don’t, just—uh. Sorry, I know this is probably weird.”

This question is answered by Martin suddenly having a head on his chest and a very tiny person pressed up against him. 

Oh good. Hugs! Hugs are so good! Hugging Lev is so good. Lev is being very hugged.

Actually Martin is very good and warm and soft and wow okay Lev was very touch-starved.

It is theoretically possible that this is also true with the names swapped. Martin is not letting go anytime soon unless Lev wants him to. Instead he is going to smoosh his face down into Lev’s hair. 

Martin's behavior might tip some people off that this state of affairs is not particularly heterosexual, but unfortunately over the course of his adult life most of the heterosexual men Lev has talked to in a personal capacity were professional dancers and actors, and so he has been very misled about how often straight men cuddle other men.

Martin is blissfully unaware that Lev thinks he is straight! He is however very aware that Lev is soft and good and very snuggleable. 

On Monday they go out for lunch and Lev hugs Martin when they're at the Indian restaurant!

Eeeee!!!! More hugs!!!!!

Martin is startled at first but then he hugs back. He remains very good at hugging. 

"So I've been thinking about the non-digitizable statements I've found and trying to figure out what I can learn from them."

“And what do you think?”

"If nothing else, magic really clearly has an aesthetic. It's all... suffering and disgusting things and death. You don't get magic that's friendly. Or even like... sublimely and beautifully dangerous."

“Oh. Yeah, that’s... a thing. Some of it might be our reputation? People tell their friends to tell us their ghost stories, not their—sublimely beautiful encounters. But probably not all of it, given the sorts of stuff in Artefact Storage. Not much... benevolence there.”

"When you're collecting false stories, do you get people talking about their high school friend who could cast real spells or the time they saw an angel or the healing miracle God performed for them?"

“I mean, yeah, but... it’s hard to tell which ones are real? The biggest category is probably anecdotal, where it’s not like we can prove them wrong, and our confirmed-real category is not exactly a huge sample size. Unless we’re including artefacts, I guess.”

"Still, if the non-digitizable ones are real, it's suggestive that none of them have any angels or healing miracles in it. --I guess I shouldn't assume they're real, because I have no idea why they're non-digitizable and maybe whatever it making them non-digitizable is totally unrelated. Maybe some spirit in the Magnus Archives has a grudge against statements with a certain number of apostrophes in them. Who knows."

“...Probably not totally unrelated, we only have two statements that are definitely real and both of them are non-digitizable even though most statements digitize fine? And all of the definitely fake ones digitize. Could be a coincidence, two isn’t much to judge from, but—honestly, it’ll probably be easier to figure out once we have more to work from.” Shrug. 

"That's true, there is a correlation, but I want to keep in mind that we don't know it for certain. --Assuming they're real, magical things really... it's not even that it's dangerous, it's that it's a specific kind of dangerous? Buffyverse vampires are dangerous, the fae are dangerous, but they're both the wrong aesthetic. It's all... death and gore and for some reason bugs."

“I mean, Jane Prentiss has killed... what, seven people? Eight if we count Harriet? The bugs don’t seem exactly disconnected from the death.”

"Right, but the bugs show up even when they aren't killing people-- Ivo Lensik had an apple that burst into spiders."

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess that’s true. ...Technically neither worms or spiders are bugs, although I guess we don’t know what Jane’s worms are, they could be larvae of something—um, sorry, I’m getting off track. It’s the bug aesthetic but it doesn’t seem to actually necessarily be bugs, is what I mean.”

"I said 'bugs' and not 'insects'! --The fact that it's a bug aesthetic also points to a different interesting thing which is that it seems to pay attention to human concepts like bugs and, like, coffins being related to death."

“...Huh, that’s true. That’s—related to the thing you were thinking about before, right? Where magic cares about minds.”

"Yeah! Honestly, the whole aesthetic is related. The obvious explanation for magic having an aesthetic is that it's picking it up from human minds somehow. --I guess the causality could go the other way but it doesn't seem that likely, there's an obvious other explanation for why we think bugs and coffins and severed hands are creepy."