"...well I don't really expect your life expectancy to be that much longer than mine."

“—wait, okay, I was following your reasoning for you, but I am not planning on doing anything much riskier than what Gertrude did! And I’ve worked here for a few years now, why aren’t we counting from then?”

"The Archives is clearly much riskier than Research! It's the one with the Watchful Thing, and the random mind control, and the not being allowed to quit, and the psychic whose visions showed that all the death tendrils were centered on the Archives. --I think it's fine, at least we don't have to worry about doing plans that are good in the long term."

“I... guess???

...I really really don’t want you to die.”

"...........why."

“Because.....I.....like....you........?”

".........and it doesn't help that if I'm right you won't have to outlive me by very long?"

"No??? I'd really rather neither of us die!"

"I can... avoid mentioning it? And also avoid making the ill-advised drugs decisions I'd otherwise make?"

"...You know what, sure, I'll take that. It's not like we know much yet anyway, we can--reevaluate our timelines in a year or so, I guess."

It is hard to be upset about his impending death when there are snuggles, and also he got a good night's sleep and had enough food to eat. Lev is a simple person. 

"Mm. Love you."

...Snuggles are really good. Also, Lev saying 'love you'.

"...Yeah. I love you too." Forehead kiss.

"We should spend this morning discussing nothing important. Tell me about pretentious movies. Or what you do when you're not working."

Martin talks about pretentious movies for a while, and then poetry. He likes Keats a lot and he's written some of his own poetry. (He gets very red if Lev wants to read it, but he pulls it out to share. It's solidly mediocre.) He doesn't have that much of a life outside work; he used to be a lot busier looking after his mom, so he has a lot of free time that he doesn't super know what to do with. He likes spiders! Have a half-hour infodump on how actually spiders are very cute and smart and good and not at all how people think of them.

Spiders are cute and smart and good! Also Martin is cute and smart and good. They should get a pet spider maybe. 

Lev, who is completely incapable of appreciating poetry, thinks that Martin's poetry is great. 

Lev is also very demanding of snuggles.

Martin is so obliging when it comes to snuggles. Snuggles are great.

At lunchtime, Lev says: "We should probably go get lunch and talk about work stuff, Любимый."

Time for more blushing! "Yeah! Yeah, that sounds good."

They can walk to the restaurant holding hands.

"It looks like there are some common themes in magic across statements beyond the-- horror movie aesthetic. Darkness is one-- magic things seem to take place at night or in the dark, or extinguish the lights around them, and the 'lightless flame' is a spirit. Speech is another one-- vampires can't talk, and being around the supernatural seems to keep people from being able to talk. And it seems to warp time. Hours pass and the statement-givers don't know where they went." 

"Huh, yeah, that's true. I wonder if the time-warping is what was going on when Graham stared at his table for hours? There was other stuff going on there, too, though."

"Yeah, but it at least seems possible-- the Leitner book ate time when the statement-giver was looking at the images too."

"Yeah. I wonder if there are other patterns we're not spotting, or patterns we don't have enough information to spot yet. Probably, right? But I dunno." He shrugs. "Anything else you've noticed?"

"There are definitely patterns we're not spotting because none of it-- fits together. I can... sort of make predictions... but I can't rule things out. --I guess I can, I would be really surprised if we found a non-digitizable statement about meeting an angel who blessed them by curing their cancer and then no one died or suffered horribly and no bags of teeth showed up."

Snort. "Yeah, that... sounds about right. Unfortunately. ...Oh, I should probably see if I can do any follow-up with Gerard Keay, he's showed up in two statements now."

"Yeah, he sounds useful. --I wish Trevor the Vampire Hunter hadn't died, he is the most useful statement-giver."