Grinning, Sasha rolled his eyes when Johann corrected him on his lover's name.  Balfour had done much the same, though without the cuffing, at the Ministry and Sasha knew he had to start getting used to it.  Get comfortable with less of the formal detachment that he'd grown used to growing up. 

"That's good," Sasha confirmed with a nod.  "I'm glad." 

And questions such as the one in Sasha's head violated every single one of those etiquette rules he'd grown up with.  There were some topics you didn't discuss with others, especially adults, but trying to discuss them with his peers hadn't been very helpful.  Luckily, even though Johann was almost twice Sasha's age, socially he occupied a role that was somewhere between adult and peer. 

It was a topic they'd danced[1] around before and Sasha knew he was no less confused now then he'd been then.  Perhaps, even more so.  And, the discussion of Feliks' parentage had only rekindled that confusion (as well as prompted new confusion, which Sasha would come back to). 

"You said, Mr- Balfour-" he caught himself with a nod towards Johann.  "That he had ... been with a witch.  Vast oversimplification, I realize."  One he still hadn't quite wrapped his head around.  "Have you ever, you know, ... did you date witches, too?"  Given the way Nick and Virgil put it, it was commonplace but Sasha really didn't trust their ... perspective.  Advice.

1.	Woven Threads of History - Johann pays a friendly visit to German

“… did you date witches, too?”

Ok, that had come from a direction he hadn’t anticipated! The raise of his left eyebrow, momentary frown and blink at Sasha gave away that thought. He gestured, in suggestion they take a seat, feeling this wasn’t a question to answer stood up on a balcony where others might overhear.

“No, not really,” Johann began, once they were settled, “Not like I ‘date' Balfour.” He punctuated it with air quotes from both hands. What he had with Balfour was well past the ‘dating’ definition. It was a proper relationship, and in a few days it would be an engagement if all went well. It was another reason he was coming by to see Sasha, to tell him the plan.

“I mean,” Johann clarified, realising his short form answer was unlikely to satisfy Sasha’s intense curiosity, “I’ve kissed a couple of women - well, more precisely, they kissed me.” He shrugged, biting his bottom lip in thought. The time Hannah Bombay had launched herself at him inebriated and spent the night in his bed while he worked, and the strange job tailing the cheating wife during his travels were stories for another day.

“I don’t think I look at women in the same way as I do men. I keep very close friends of ladies, but I’ve never felt tempted or compelled to kiss them, or found the rest of them physically attractive,” he gestured down his torso in reference of breasts, hips and his hands lingered at his hips, “or, well… you know… interesting to explore in private.” He gave an exaggerated shrug and reached for his glass.

Johann didn’t want to go too cold and analytical on this, Hannah Bombay style, since this was Sasha asking, who was as good as a younger brother. That, and a year of being with Balfour had rather expanded Johann’s understanding and vocabulary with regards to sex.

He was about to go on, but he hesitated, looking at Sasha’s expression.

“Go on, you always have questions…”

Sasha's brow furrowed in thought as he listened, trying to both follow what Johann was saying and use it to try to answer the underlying questions bouncing around in his head.  He took a slow sip of his wine but chuckled and blushed when Johann outlined a curved body frame.  He still was not entirely comfortable with these kind of conversations, and he was sure it showed, but not having them was definitely not doing him any good. 

And, Johann was bound to be one of the easiest people he knew to talk about it.  Sasha trusted he wouldn't judge him or toss 'helpful' suggestions his way the way his peers had.  Ever since since George Carter[1] dragged him into the girl's lavatory to offer advice on girls, his peers seemed to think there was one, specific answer to Sasha's confusion.  Oddly, those suggestions didn't really help as much as they seemed to think it would. 

Sasha grinned, slightly, and nodded when Johann stated rather than asked if he had any questions. 

"Does it bother you?" Sasha asked, shrugging his shoulders.  He eyed Johann, carefully, for any sign that was potentially crossing a line.  "I mean, do you care that Balfour has been with ... with women, too?"  He grimaced and shook his head, certain the question didn't come across the way he meant.  And, the question very much seemed to overlook who the specific woman was in favor of generalizing her to other women.  "Even apart from who -"  Which was a whole other question in itself. 

"Is it normal to like both?" he finally asked, settling on the underlying root of the question. 

1.	Girls Just Want To Have Fun

“Does it bother you?”
“That I don’t like ladies like that?”
“I mean, do you care that Balfour had been with… with women, too? Even apart from who… Is it normal to like both?”

“What’s ‘normal'?” Johann quipped back, though it was deflection. “It bothered me at first, I suppose if I’m honest. Not because they were women, but because he’d been with people. Quite a few. It was like a secondhand jealousy. A worry that I would be yet another in a long list.” The pale fingers of his right hand fiddled with his glass distractedly and his shoulders hunched a moment. It had mostly been over performance anxiety - that he had no experience, and Balfour quite obviously had buckets of it. That and second-guessing he wasn’t a pity case. But Balfour’s genuine actions had very swiftly set aside those doubts under Johann’s unrelenting observation.

“I’d only had one ‘boyfriend’ so to say, before I met Balfour,” he explained to the younger wizard, a lingering feeling of guilt prevailing when he thought of Arcturus, “and we weren’t the type to jump into bed.” Not for the want of me trying, he thought to himself. Poor Hollingbury, little had he known that wrangling Johann away from chronic sleeping potion addiction would awaken a rather more romantically awkward version of his patient.

“So if you’re worried you haven’t got it figured out at 18, try 34.” Johann levelled a gaze at Sasha, “At your age I didn’t think I’d ever find anyone attractive and want to know them as more than a friend while everyone I knew was either already doing someone or obsessed with finding someone.” The corner of his mouth curled up as he considered, “When I got together with Balfour, apart from my father, everyone seemed entirely unsurprised that he was another man. I think I was the last person to realise I was gay.”

With that out of the way, he turned his attention fully back to Sasha. “Yes, it’s normal to like both in that it’s normal to like men, and it’s normal to like women, or like no-one at all.” He agreed, “and I’m a little relieved you're asking rather than sharing the results of a science experiment. Come on, out with it.”

There was a time - and it wasn't all that long ago - that 'does it bother you that you don't like ladies' would have been the questi0n.  That would have been a question he wished he'd had the opportunity to ask a few years before, when he'd first gotten together with Ferguson Amherst. 

That had been another time.  Sometimes, it even felt like another life. 

But, three years down the path of a new life didn't completely undo fifteen years of Catholic upbringing.  An answer for what's normal all too readily found it's way into his head.  "Well-" Sasha started to say, but caught himself with a shake of his head, knowing that had much more to do with habit than personal belief.  He was grateful when Johann provided elaboration beyond his vague answer, alleviating Sasha from proceeding with any habitual foot-in-mouth-enducing comments. 

Besides, he didn't need to actually define normal to recognize his history with relationships didn't conform to whatever definition that might be.  With just a touch of surprise, Sasha realized that Johann's history was much closer to 'normal' than his own.  If he was still clinging to a previously-conceived definition of normal. 

“At your age I didn’t think I’d ever find anyone attractive and want to know them as more than a friend while everyone I knew was either already doing someone or obsessed with finding someone.”

Sasha grinned and blushed, rubbing his face with his hand for a moment.  "At least your friends weren't, you know, actively trying to find you someone ... to do?"  He offered, posing it as a legitimate question.  Perhaps that had been the case and Johann chose not to mention it or, perhaps he hadn't noticed.  By now, Sasha had come to suspect that deep-seated, occasionally-deliberate naivety might be a family trait that had, somehow, passed directly from Johann to himself and missed everyone else on that side of the family.

"Science experiment," Sasha half-chuckled, half-scoffed, shaking his head.  "I think that's what they thought I should be doing.  I don't know," he offered, shaking his head.  "I mean, between Ferguson and Kohaku and The Closet, I thought I had it figured out.  I took-"  He cut himself off, with another shake of his head.  Somewhere around early spring, when it he'd allowed himself to be convinced that Abby wasn't coming back, he'd tried to wrap that into the reasoning somehow.  At the time, it had smoothed the edges around the rejection.  Hindsight had, since, turned all of that on its head.

"It just seems so complicated.  And, half the time, I don't know what I'm doing."  And, his track record wasn't that great.  "And, I'm terrified I'm going to screw things up."

“At least your friends weren’t … trying to find you someone … to do?”

Johann scoffed down a laugh and shook his head, waving his hand in declination. Like his cousin, at that point Johann had rather been submerged in studies. Not to mention, he had been a typically awkward teenager, despite his elevated strata at Durmstrang, he’d not monopolised on his status to try and find a girl or future wife amongst his classmates. Neither were their family significant enough to warrant any great approaches. The only witch Johann had spent significant time with had been his cousin of the same age. The social ability had come later in life with the experience of going out there and figuring things out by himself. Which meant regularly inserting his foot in his mouth with strangers.

“Not with any success,” he admitted to Sasha in a mutter, “I really hadn’t learned tact.”

Sasha on the other hand, appeared to have engaged in a few romantic experiments, naming them. The time he’d gone to visit Sasha in the wake of Jacoba’s death and recovering from that horrible poisoning (for which Johann still carried a heavy guilt for his small involvement in) they had touched upon these experiences. Gillyweed was a good loosener, along with the alcohol.

“It just seems so complicated. And, half the time, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m terrified I’m going to screw things up.”

Johann fixed his relative with a proper look, but the twitch of his lips gave him away.
“The whole point is to screw things, though,” he dissolved into laughter, which he at least hoped dissipate some of Sasha’s nerves. “No, I understand, at least, I think I do. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Half of the reason I took out a Witch Weekly subscription was research. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it did show that we’re all as clueless as each other.” He grinned and his shoulders shook in amusement at recalling the poor advice.

“It really depends what you want to get out of it,” the older wizard softened, trying to offer genuine advice, “is it just curiosity about sleeping with someone, and therefore you don’t feel you need the whole ‘deep connection’ or is it that you have your eye on someone and you want to be more than friends. That being apart means they’re in your thoughts and your heart aches a little? And that’s the reason you’re terrified you’ll screw it up?”

His subconscious rather sweetly suggested it was the second.

Reliably as dense about such matters as a piece of lead about such things, Johann's joke had gone straight over Sasha's head.  Even Johann's quivering lips had done little more than to confuse the younger of the two.  He started to shake his head and opened his mouth, intent upon reiterating that avoiding screwing things up was exactly his hope, when Johann started laughing.  Sasha blinked and stared blankly at his cousin as he replayed the last few sentence in his head and, finally, understood. 

"Scheiß.  He felt the heat rise in his cheeks and he shook his head, joining in the laughter as he rubbed his face with his hand.  "I ... yes.  I suppose if you put it that way, there is some wisdom."  Wisdom was probably not that best descriptor but that didn't seem to matter. 

The moment of goofiness did prove to lighten the tone and Sasha took a deep breath and a sip of wine as his laughter faded. 

He didn't have any reason to doubt Johann wasn't being entirely truthful but Sasha still couldn't resist a surprised "really?" when Johann mentioned his own insecurities.  "My classmates all sound so flippant and ... non-plussed about it.  I assumed-"  He wasn't really sure what he'd assumed; such topics had generally been avoided in the past in the name of decorum and propriety.  "And, Witch Weekly?  Seriously?" 

It was, admittedly, difficult to picture Johann sitting down to a cup of coffee and an issue of Witch Weekly.  It was hard to imagine anything of practical value coming from that particular publication.  "Did it, you know, actually help?"

And, really, Sasha was willing to try anything if it would help.  Especially given how readily an answer came to Johann's other questions.  Sasha quickly shook his head, unambiguously, at the notion of just hoping into bed with someone out of curiosity.  Even his classmates' encouragement, and drinks shared with a curly-haired wizard, hadn't made that any more appealing.  No - not only was the second option more applicable, the description Johann provided was very much on the nose. 

"Yes," he admitted, as he felt another more subtle blush settle on his cheeks.  "To all of it.  Though, I mean, we're officially dating so we aren't just friends.  But, it has been like that since ..."  Did he even really know when it had started?  "I don't know.  But, I'm always thinking of her because she's brilliant and amazing and she makes me a better version of myself, even when I'm not with her.  And, everything is already so complicated and I feel like I'm improvising all the time without really knowing what I'm supposed to do."

Ah Sasha, king of the question list. He was so lost, and he didn’t have the benefit of being older and wiser for it, as Johann had been by the time he’d got round to taking an interest in more than friendships and intellectual networking.

“… we’re officially dating, so we aren’t just friends…” Sasha admitted and Johann gave a raised eyebrow and nod of approval at this progress. “… I’m always thinking of her because she’s brilliant and amazing and she makes me a better version of myself, even when I’m not with her..” Johann supposed this was the equivalent of their friends hearing he and Balfour talk about how wonderful the other was. Maybe he could appreciate how nauseating it could be after a while. It wouldn’t make him stop though.

“… I feel like I’m improvising all the time without really knowing what I’m supposed to do.”

“Sasha,” Johann began, in a deeper tone, giving his cousin the big brother look, “there isn’t an instruction manual or set theory to this. You’re meant to improvise.” Well, other than the general consensus that one did not treat the other like dirt and remained faithful. Sasha didn’t seem the sort to break either of those. He was too busy forgetting to speak in full sentences to consider those sorts of slights.

Gods, his mother would have laughed at them both. Though, she might be better advice on the ‘dating a woman’ front, he thought to himself. Maybe if Johann had been inclined at the same age he might of sounded much like Sasha and been just as confused, seeking books. His interest in Witch Weekly wasn’t purely for the terrible romantic advice, in desperation, but this wasn’t the time to elaborate for Sasha. He was remarkably easy to confuse on a social subject. It wasn’t so hard to see why his social etiquette training was taken to heart and held onto with dear life.

“If you’re always thinking of her,” Johann softened his tone a little, playful, “and she makes you head over heels happy then she’s the right person to be with.” He smiled. “Incidentally, does ‘she’ have a name?” He leaned his elbow on the surface between them, drawing out the she each time, “and does ‘she’ have a picture?”

“Sasha, there isn’t an instruction manual or set theory to this. You’re meant to improvise.”

Sasha cleared his throat and laughed, slightly, shaking his head.  "There really ought to be one," he said quietly.  That would certainly make life far less complicated.  There were, of course, bound to be some rules and guidelines outlined in the rules of etiquette but they hadn't quite gotten that far when his fourteen-year-old self had been attending those lessons. 

Furthermore, Sasha suspected those rules didn't have addenda for less common dating situations, like when tagalong, parasitic spirit...things took over your girlfriend on a date. 

But, he was ... and did think about her all the time.  As he had done so for most of the year that she'd been gone, at least until he'd finally convinced himself not to.  How could he not? 

"She does.  Both."  He dipped his head, the gesture accompanied by a slight blush and a sheepish grin, when Johann asked about her.  Sasha shifted in his seat, slightly, to free his phone from his pocket and navigated through to facebook.  "Abigail Reid.  Aileen Reid's little sister?" he added, assuming it was more likely that Johann had heard of or crossed paths with the former professor than her younger, squib sister.  Of course,  Abby's name was bound to be familiar, thanks to the Daily Prophet. 

"She started working at the office on Level 2, today," he added, with a bright grin.  "So, you'll probably run into her, at some point.  She'll be the one putting up streamers in people's cubicle."  And, the one they were keeping an eye, because of Ira Almasy - whose reach still seemed widespread, even after her death.  Jacoba.  Abby.  Now, she had found a way into his extended family.  Sasha took a long sip of wine. 

“Abigail Reid. Aileen Reid’s little sister?”

Johann tilted his head, his mind’s eye recalling the route to the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and the bright young intern girl the other year. Bubbly, talkative and friendly sort. Complete opposite to all he had gleaned of Aileen Reid.

“She started working at the office on Level 2, today, so you’ll probably run into her, at some point. She’ll be the one putting up streamers in people’s cubicles.”

“Yes, Abby!” Johann broke out of his mental tracing. “She did a stint under Glass on Level Three before. I can picture her. You mentioned her a while back now. Reoccurring character in the life of Sasha Schlagenweit.”

Johann tapped his right temple, beneath dark curls, happy he could recall the young Reid sister. “Level Two now? Going up in the world. Well, for what I know of her already, she seems a lovely sort, Sasha. Enchanté.” He nodded approvingly. “You’re trusting me to run into her, rather than arrange an introduction? Honoured, cousin, honoured.” He patted his chest and leaned back as if bestowed with a great responsibility rather than actually teasing Sasha that he might let slip something to Abigail Reid while unattended in her presence. “I will put in a good word for you, don’t fear. Maybe twenty.”

Sasha nodded his head, confirming that Abby had, in fact, spent some time on Level 3.  Even if part of the reason they'd hired her was to keep an eye on her, Sasha stood by his insistence that that wasn't likely to be the only reason.  It was an accomplishment on her part and it would be a benefit to the Ministry for her to be there. 

"Reoccurring character in the life of Sasha Schlagenweit.”

"It was, perhaps, one of the substantial benefits of being sent home from school."  Even if he'd never quite felt a part of Hogwarts after he was allowed to return - more like an out of place interloper than anything - he'd considered it an advantageous twist of fate. 

With a blush and a dip of his head, Sasha quickly countered his cousin's dramatics.  "Those were not, necessarily, my intentions," he added, quickly.  "I do entirely trust you to run into her but I'd ... considered arranging an introduction.  But, the Ministry seems a rather public place for such an introduction so I assumed chances were good you'd run into her there before such an opportunity presented itself." 

With a deep breath, Sasha sighed and looked down at the drink in his hand.  Though his thoughts preferred to linger among these more casual topics, they kept unwillingly slipping back to the ominous elephant that seemed to have taken residence in the corner.  Taking another deep breath, Sasha shrugged and licked his lips.  "It doesn't bother you ... doesn't make you wonder how someone, you know, could be attracted to someone like that?"