"Ooh, are snuggles on offer? I could definitely do snuggles. Also the emotionally intense conversations, I guess."

"Snuggles are always on offer." Now he is holding shirtless Lev.

Gosh he sure is! Hopefully the emotionally intense conversations do not require him to be very coherent, because he has definitely lost all ability to form words. (He has not, however, lost the ability to pet Lev's hair.)

"You realize this is a terrible idea, right."

"...Yeah. I mean, it's definitely not a good one, just..." 

(Lev's hair: still very soft.)

"Like... you are 95% of my social interaction and the only person I really trust and my intellectual collaborator and we just moved in together and you're probably the most important person in my life, and I've known you for like a month? And I'm your boss? And you really want to sleep with me and I have no idea if I want to sleep with you?"

"...If you're trying to convince me not to do this, you probably should have done that before I moved all my stuff here? I don't super want to move again.

...You're not wrong, though."

"...I definitely want to do this. Because the alternative for me is that I have bad insomnia and cry a lot and can't work much and then I get eaten by a vampire, and that is in fact way worse than rushing into an unhealthily codependent relationship with a hot guy who's really sweet and smart and good." He decides that expressing his full feelings in Russian would be unnecessarily frustrating for Martin, and expressing them in English would be a terrible idea, so instead he presses his forehead into Martin's chest and attempts to express them telepathically.

"...Yeah.

I... I want to do this too? It's maybe not the best idea but, like, I've already moved in, and given that we can't quit, I'm pretty sure that not doing this would probably be worse for both of us? And I'd rather make some slightly bad choices that I might regret in a couple years than see you get eaten by a vampire, and even if you turned out to be terrible I would probably still have that opinion? But you're not terrible, you're... really great, actually."

Happy wiggles!

"You're also really great. --I'm really sorry, I don't know why I'm like this, it's not enough that you're hot and I'm in love with you, apparently for me to start wanting to kiss someone the stars have to align properly and Mercury has to be in retrograde and--"

wait aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

wait what

...Okay. Martin is going to keep petting Lev's hair and address the parts of that he knows how to address.

"It's okay, really. Even if you never want to kiss me, like--it'd be a nice bonus, sure, but I am in fact genuinely fine without it?"

And then, very quietly: "I. Think I might love you too."

".........feelings are hard."

"They really are!" Martin is going to bury his face in Lev's hair again now. Lev's hair is very good.

"It's-- not just the ambient mind control that has me so fucked up."

"...Is it Asher, or something else?"

"...my parents wanted me to read chemistry. I, uh, pretended I was applying for chemistry and actually applied for psychology and only told them once it was too late for them to change it. It was basically the first time I'd ever disobeyed them? They were furious, obviously. Because there's no jobs in that, I'm going to be broke forever, they sacrificed everything for me so I could have a good life and now I messed it up... It was a pretty miserable year and then I got to Oxford and called them and told them I was, uh, queer and they yelled a lot and I yelled a lot and I haven't talked to them since." 

“I’m really sorry, Lev.” Lev is getting so hugged. 

"And then I went and got my PhD and... actually my parents were totally right. There aren't any jobs in it. I thought I was smart enough and hard-working enough and passionate enough to beat the odds and then I wasn't. I'm just. A failure. --And I really stopped publishing so much after Asher died. He always helped me with my papers? He helped me come up with ideas and analyze the data and edit my papers. And then he died and-- I published less and I didn't publish in high-impact journals and my work wasn't cited as much and. All along it wasn't that I was smart like I thought. I just had a brilliant fucking ghostwriter."

“Oh god I’m so sorry. Um. I... think it is probably normal to publish less and do less good work while you’re grieving? I guess I’m not the one of us with a PhD in psychology though.”

So much hug. 

"So I was dealing with the death of my fiance and the loss of my dreams and also my asshole parents turning out to be right about everything-- almost everything-- and I thought I'd just do the Magnus Institute for a year or two to save some money and. Instead. Mind control and also my life expectancy is I don't know five years maybe."

“Wait, why are you assuming that last thing? Gertrude lived a long time, why do you think you’ll be different?”

"...I am counting getting mind controlled such that I am no longer meaningfully myself as dying? I expect to be engaging in riskier behavior than she was?"

“I... guess? I still don’t know where you’re getting five years from, but.”

After a pause, he speaks again, a bit quieter: “I don’t want you to die.”