"And then I would either be dead or in an evil cult. I can't say I know what his time frame looked like. I suppose I have read books. Gone to movies sometimes, even. Did not manage any dates. ...Or friends, particularly."

"You have a date now!"

"See, maybe I'll get more living done this way than the other way around."

"I guess you are traveling to exotic countries and seeing the sites."

Gallows humor smile. "Yes, I am finally getting around to tourism."

[Return to main plot here.]

On their first day waiting for Sister Waletta to come back, Mordred contracts heatstroke. 

Lev... thinks about it. Remembers that Araari said a good treatment for heatstroke is damp cloths. Notices that they don't have enough water to put any damp cloths on Mordred, not unless someone goes without water.

Lev goes a day without water. He gets thirsty like he's gone a little too long without drinking on a hot day; he doesn't get thirstier than that. 

He considers putting a damp cloth on Mordred, but (--your child-murdering boyfriend--) he knows how this kind of relationship goes, from George and Ramon. You hurt them, and then you're kind to them, and then they don't leave, because they're always hoping you're going to be kind to them again, that this time it will stick. 

He sends Oswald into the tent to check on Mordred a somewhat unreasonable number of times. If Mordred is dying then Lev won't give a shit about manipulating him. Until then he is thirsty and he doesn't drink water and he waits.

By the morning of the second day, Mordred is feeling a lot better. He... doesn't really want to interact with Lev, and there are not a lot of other options of people to interact with. He spends a lot of time in his tent with Anemone's books. 

It's stupid. He is doing it for his own selfish reasons and if he actually cared about Mordred he would just stay away--

That evening Lev catches Mordred as he's getting some water and says, very quickly, "I'm sorry. I don't want you to forgive me."

"...........Well, I haven't yet, so that's good probably."

Mordred does not seem to be walking away so Lev continues with what he's saying. 

"It was a really awful thing to do to you and I wish I had been the sort of person who wouldn't do it."

"I understand why you did? But it's.... hard to have a relationship with you, when that's on the table as a thing that might happen. I'm sorry too. For what that's worth."

Lev looks horrified. "I am not trying to get you to have a relationship with me? --like I know that most of the time when people are awful to you and then apologize they're trying to get you to forgive them so that you can keep having a relationship and they can hurt you again but I don't want you to forgive me or have a relationship with me because I don't want to hurt you."

"...okay, leaving aside whether that is why people usually apologize for things, I miss having a relationship with you. I would say something about how uncomfortably not making eye contact is getting really old but I feel like you'd take it as an instruction to go away and that's not what I mean."

"I can... not go away... until you want me to? --Um. I don't want to hurt you. I really really don't want to."

"Thank you. I'm sorry too? For what I said?"

"You don't have to be sorry, it's true. I could have known if I'd wanted to know, and if Echavarria had told me to stab someone I probably would have, and I'm in general a bad person."

"I still shouldn't say cruel things to you, especially not cruel things I don't even really believe, to get you to shut up, even if I turn out to be right by accident."

This is a different adoring facial expression than the one Mordred usually gets from Lev.

"Um. Can I tell you about Marlo?"

".....sure?"

"When I was a kid I figured out I was a fairy and then I figured out that if you're a fairy real men will buy you food and take you to the movies and get you presents and give you a place to sleep if you, you know. Reward them. So I did, a lot. And I met Marlo.

"He was two years older than me and he was a sailor. He was always very quiet and-- good at the things real men are good at-- but he didn't really like them. And he wasn't actually a real man, he was-- well, we didn't have a word for it, Ramon called it a queer, the ones who like sucking dick and don't like wearing makeup. Probably that's why he didn't like any of the things real men should do. And he was... kind? He didn't do things to me that hurt. He let me borrow his room to study when I-- when I couldn't study at home. He liked listening to me talk about what I was learning. He thought I was interesting and smart. He would just-- look at me like I was the most important person in the world. And whenever he went sailing I missed him so much and he would-- carve me things while he was sailing-- as a present for when he got home--"

He is tearing up a little bit,

"He died. In the Great War. His ship went missing and they never found it.

"And I went to college and-- there wasn't anyone else in the world like Marlo. There were lots of people who pretended to be like him until they got mad and no one would mind if they hurt you. Or who wanted to believe they were like him but they really weren't.

"And-- I think probably I should regret doing the thing because I hurt you a lot? And I would regret it if you never wanted to talk to me again because then I just hurt you for no reason? And. I regret that I am the kind of person I am and the world is the way it is that I had to, I-- I wish so much that I had met you right after Marlo died and--

"But I am not sure I regret it in the world we're actually in because I don't think I would have believed you were really like Marlo, otherwise.

"Sorry."

Mordred opens his mouth, and then closes it.

".....I need a couple of things. The first is that I need you to promise me that is never, ever, no matter what, going to happen again. Not 'unless you really need to,' not 'unless you're in a lot of pain,' never. The second is a hug which feels like a very wrong thing to ask for especially from you right now but in fact it is a thing I need."

"--Um I think before I can promise that I am going to need to know what 'this' is."

"'This' is the thing where you say or do things specifically to hurt me."

"--um. I'm sorry I think this is maybe something that normal people can just figure out on their own but I really don't want to do that thing and I don't think I can promise to never deliberately hurt you at all because if nothing else sometimes you might need medical treatment and I already don't hurt you for no reason. And I am scared this sounds like trying to find loopholes but I just don't want to promise something and then-- break a promise-- because I didn't understand what I was promising--"