"So do I. I have read that book as well. I disagree with some of the material in the second half..." (He wrote it when he was a lot younger, okay.) 

Bounce bounce. "Yeah but the stuff about using incentives to guide the population to do the behavior you want is really interesting!"

Leareth wriggles more upright. "Yes, it is interesting, and often it works, even! Nonetheless, I think that in the centuries since that book was written, history has proven that it is often very complicated and hard to predict what precise incentives and therefore behaviours will end up resulting from the relatively clumsy levers of change that politicians have..." They can go back and forth on this topic for a while if Levris stays interested, although at some point it'll start making Leareth's head hurt again. 

Levris is not going to be the first one to stop talking about it!

His ambient misery about whether Leareth secretly hates him does not, apparently, stop him from saying Leareth is wrong about goddamn everything.

This is very fun! They don't stop even when a baffled-looking Healing trainee comes in to examine Leareth again and bring him lunch. 

Eventually Leareth yawns. "All right, I think I had better eat something and then rest some more. Maybe tonight they will be able to tell me how much longer I need to stay here. I am already tired of this bed, it is uncomfortable." 

Levris says, "I can check if your mind looks better."

"Interesting, is that something you can actually see with Mindhealing? How does it show up?" 

"I've looked at people with head injuries before, their books are more... scattered? Disorganized? I haven't studied it enough to be able to diagnose anything."

"That makes sense, you can look and tell me about it. ...In general I am not bothered if you want to look at things in my mind, at this point. You are my lifebonded and so I figure we are going to end up knowing each other rather well." 

"Thank you!" Subjects that make Levris bounce apparently include "getting to look in Leareth's head whenever he wants." Levris looks at it, and as an afterthought shows Leareth. "It looks like some of the pages are gunked up? I didn't check before but I could look at the rate that the gunk is going away."

"That is very interesting. It is sort of how it feels, my thoughts are kind of gluey, I dislike it." Leareth eases himself back into the bed.

:You seem to be in a much better mood: he adds in Mindspeech. :I am glad, and I apologize again for carelessly upsetting you - I could try to explain at some point why I was in the past somewhat disturbed about lifebonds in particular...: Something is tugging at his memory. :Wait. Did I snap at you earlier and tell you to do Mindhealing to stop being upset? That was rude of me: 

:It's fine, I did it.: Levris switches to showing Leareth his head. There's a part of Lev's library where the texts and pictures are blurry and hard to make out. :It's conditional, it's not like normal Mindhealing. So if I'm miserable it can sort of... shut down all my feelings and make my body run on autopilot? But if I'm not miserable it's fine-- see, more of it is getting blurry while we talk about it. I invented it!:

Leareth is torn between being very impressed and very concerned. :What a fascinating technique, that is brilliant! You know, I would have expected you to do something much less drastic than 'turn off your emotions'. You do not need to leave it like this. If you are still upset about something then we should talk about it: another yawn, :well, maybe after I have taken a nap, sorry: 

:Okay. And I don't mind, it's-- not nice to be projecting misery all over you just because you don't want to be lifebonded to me against your will.:

Leareth holds back from saying what he's thinking, which is that Levris might be a lot less pleased about the lifebond if and when he learns a few more facts about Leareth's life.

(Really, it has to be 'when'; Leareth can't relocate to Valdemar, being lifebonded and separated most of the time is well known to be miserable, and it feels kind of unrealistic that he could keep that many secrets about his life the whole time. Also he keeps finding that he wants to tell Levris things, which is probably a lifebond effect rather than a rational response, but still.) 

:I do appreciate it: he sends, with an internal sigh. At this point he can barely keep his eyes open. :Need to - sleep - now...: 

Levris bends over and kisses him gently on the forehead. "Go to sleep."

Leareth is momentarily distracted by the forehead kiss and the fact that it's giving him SEVERAL surprising feelings; mostly he feels very safe and loved, which is not at all an emotional experience he's used to having. He's drowsy enough that he can't muster much curiosity, though, and drifts off to sleep within a minute or two. 

Levris is still reading when he wakes up. 

He's pretty disoriented and his first half-awake thought is that he wants a hug; this is very uncharacteristic and strange, but he's sort of accidentally projecting it along the lifebond anyway. 

Levris hugs him!

"Nice sleep?"

"I feel a lot better." Wow, and being hugged is bafflingly nice. He would stay here for a long time except that now he feels kind of awkward about it. "Did you have a good afternoon?" 

"Yep! I read a book and went to a guard-house for a bit to send a letter explaining to everyone that I did not just disappear for no reason."

Leareth sits bolt-upright. And then grabs his head, it turns out moving fast is still not the smartest idea. "...What. Did you put my name." 

"Um. Yes? Was I not supposed to?"

Leareth buries his face in his hands. He has a headache and thinking is hard and he still can't do magic and now this completely predictable consequence of his failure to be smart in time is happening. 

:I am sorry: he remembers to send a moment later, since Levris must be getting a helping of his distress about it and, knowing him, will use it to quickly become miserable. :It is not your fault, it was a perfectly understandable and reasonable thing to do, just - very inconvenient. For reasons I did not get around to telling you yet: He hadn't thought Levris would leave. Mostly he hadn't thought period, due to thinking still being kind of painful.