Something in her arches its back and purrs, that he would seek her out first.

“It’s sex pollen,” Rose diagnoses, prim and articulate. Dave is flushed in ruddy blotches, a shadow in the hastily-shut doorway. “An external reproductive agent, recreational drug on Derse and Prospit, and the heavily sought after scourge of low-brow fiction.”

“Wow, those carapacians are freakier than I thought they were,” says Dave, who is conspicuously pulling his pajama shirt down over his crotch.

She shuts her book with a crisp snap, settling it spine-out on her lap. There are alchemized throw-pillows strewn about the room that she’s claimed for her own. It’s drafty, but everywhere on the meteor has a draft. That’s to be expected. This . . . is to be unexpected. To be. Is.

“And how, exactly, did you find yourself pollinated?”

“You’re never going to let me hear the end of this. Fuck.”

“You just realized that now?”

“Excuse me,” he says, shuffling into a corner and sliding down the wall to sit with his legs splayed outwards. “for having other things on my mind. Things that have nothing to do with my ectosister. I swear to like . . . god . . . god tier – somebody's gotta – Rose, if you tell anyone –”

“I won't,” she says. “Relax. What are you going to do about it?”

His face pinches behind Ben Stiller’s legacy, she can half-see his eyes squinted shut, and then his glasses flash – a skill inherited from the anime villain masquerading as his brother, she would assert – and the gears of time tick ever forward behind his forehead.

“I assume you know the consequences for not seeking out some form of companionship?”

“Fuck. I can guess. Of course that's in your wheelhouse, I shouldn't be surpr–”

Blood in the water, he stops abruptly, realizing in the exact same moment that Rose raises an eyebrow – left, perfectly skewed to convey delicate disdain.

“Why did you come to see me, then?”

“Jesus, Rose.” His head in his hands. White-blonde hair, catching the glaring fluorescents, a thin spiral threading out from the apex of his skull. She eases up. There’s a time to press and a time to be met in the middle. This situation is delicate, so it falls to the latter category now.

“It’s alright –” and “– I wanted it to be you,” tangle over and under, all at once. It takes her a second to process.

“Could you repeat that?”

Perfect, pin-drop silence.

“Fuck,” Dave says emphatically.

Rose was, of course, a virgin. She had been homeschooled, she didn’t have that sort of relationship with her in-home tutors, and, for as complicated as their relationship often was, she had never been particularly inclined towards her mother, where intimate matters were concerned.

And then there was Dave – Dave who she felt stupid for not realizing was her brother, Dave with his white-blonde hair and off-color eyes and his birthmarks in all the same places. Brother, or clone?

How long had it been, really? They’d been friends for longer than they’d been siblings in all ways except for technicality. They had sexted, awkwardly and semi-sarcastically, over Pesterchum – deleted the logs. It was the stuff of fever dreams that they never discussed face-to-face lucid, and never would. Until:

“Dave, I think your clothes need to be off for this part.”

He twists the hem of his shirt in his hands, splayed back on the pillows, more pliant than he had been with computers between them. His posture is still defensive, curled inwards around the heart of him.

“How long do I have?” He asks.

“That depends on how long it’s been.”

“Longer than the doctor recommends, that’s for sure.”

“I’ve never been to a doctor who recommended an erection, I’m afraid.”

“Damn, Rose, that’s probably because you’re a girl.”

“Not long enough to panic,” she decides to tell him, although she really doesn’t know. It seems like the right thing to say until he tenses further, jaw to toes. What was she supposed to say? In her mother’s – no – her trashy erotica, it’s like breathing, the clothes come off and they climax in sync, taken into the throes of passion. Her partner – her brother – has a tremor down to his wrists, and what’s she supposed to do?

“Would you prefer one of the tr–”

“– No,” he cuts her off. “Can you imagine? I mean, if Terezi caught wind of this, if fucking . . . Karkat, I just – I’d – I can’t. I can’t make you do this either. I don’t know what got – I’m sorry. I’ll turn back time or something –”

“– You haven’t already?”

“It’s not working right. I can’t focus.”

“Dave,” she advances, hand-over-hand. Presses her thumb to his inner wrist, rabbit-fast pulse and fever-hot. At this angle, she can see wide pupils ringed thin red. “Relax,” she soothes, and then, because it sounds sexy, “let me take care of you.”

She feels ridiculous. She is ridiculous. It’s all ridiculous. She can almost taste his panicked indecision, like copper, like caught gears. He lurches for a second, tailed by his own verbal vomit.

“I – you open shit around here, right?” It’s not a question, she doesn’t answer it. “It’s a big place. I was looking for things to alchemize, there were these, like, these urns, yeah? Big, vase-looking things, and, you’re going to laugh at me, I don’t care, it was so stupid – there were dicks painted onto the sides, like animal dicks or something, like bug dicks, but definitely dicks, and I nudged that shit with my shoe, the rubber part – the rubber part of my shoe – and it sort of –” he gestures evocatively. “Broke. And then this.

“Rose,” He turns to her suddenly. “I’m not ready,” he says. “I’m not ready for this, I’m scared, I don’t want to do this, there’s another way, right? You’re messing with me. There’s got to be another way you’re my si–”

“– I don’t know,” she snaps, something squeezing in her stomach. It’s not arousal. “I thought you wanted it to be me,” and it comes out sounding bitter, almost, and she hates herself for it, hates herself for making it worse, for being a virgin, for not understanding.

He doesn’t say anything. A deep, juttering breath.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Her pulse skitters – it must be the same time signature as his, they’re the same. His indecision curdles in her stomach, and some part of her hates him for making this difficult, for making her so uneasy.

“Do we have to like –” he gestures again, looped fingers punctured by the index of his non-dominant hand, crude, but hesitantly so. “How far do we have to go? We gonna pop my cherry?”

She nods in lieu of an answer, not trusting herself to speak. She’s shamelessly making it up as she goes – or, if not shamelessly, then without a witness or judges or a jury. The world has shrunk to the space shared by their breath, by hesitation, and she can’t stand it, skin crawling, fists clenched.

She closes the gap, his mouth is bitter and chemical-sweet, frozen, mashed against hers. She thrusts forward again, across the gap, and their teeth catch at angles. He sobs down in his throat, and as comfort, she kisses him again, misses, presses her nose into his cheek and her mouth against the corner of his.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

She decides she can’t hear him.

Somehow, all his clothes come off. He’s scarred, pale, too skinny. His ribs jut, his stomach caves when he draws in his anxious breath. His glasses stay on, though at this distance, she can see his expression, and he’s leeched of color. Gaunt, she thinks. Gaunt and pretty. Somewhere else altogether.

They have the same splash of moles where thigh meets pelvis, it makes her dizzy and sick, and then she looks, looks at him in his whole and – his cock is hard against his thigh, flushed purple and leaking, though an entirely reasonable size. She’s nervous anyway, nervous because her fingers sting and tampons burn.

“Like what you see?” He asks, question tipping up at the end like he really wants to know. Her thighs clench, the fabric against her labia comes away wet. The worst part, really, is that she does. She has the right type of narcissism, it seems. She has the right kind of sadistic personality, taking pleasure from his obvious pain. Her stomach lurches – in that soft, burning place, she still loves that it’s her.

“Don’t be so full of yourself,” comes out instead.

“Don’t keep me waiting.”

She whines where her throat meets her chest – frustration, though not the right kind. She peels her leggings off of her legs, drags her panties to the side, clamors over to straddle him, something nauseous oozing in her belly. He’s hands-off, curled into the cushions, sweat on his brow. She has to line herself up – she wants to hate him for this – it hurts, she wants to hate him when she breathes raggedly into the crook where neck meets shoulder, but he makes a sound like it’s been punched out of him, the muscles of his stomach flexing wildly, and she just wants to hug him instead.

– It’s that, for all that he is, he’s never done anything wrong, he’s never done anything to hurt her, with the technical exception of sharing her genes. He means well. He’s something gentler than her, and if anything, that makes her bad for taking without thinking, for her reckless abandon. He’s crying and she’s pretending not to see it. She’s buried in his clavicle, they’re sweating, rocking against each other in weak little thrusts, and her hair is salt-wet. She drags the rest of her clothes off over her head in a moment of want for skin-to-skin, to give him something he couldn’t take from her, takes his hand so gently in her palm to press against her breast.

It hurts. It’s dry and it hurts. It’s sandpaper for all her wetness and his leaking, and she’s too full, and she’s just as scared as he is, but she’s the competent one today – tonight? He moans from his stomach, choked confession. It’s alright – it’s “alright, you’re alright, shhh –”

“– I don’t know h– I don’t wan– I – Rose –”

She levers herself up in a moment of painful clarity, slams back down to scatter their thoughts – they’re too skinny, bones matching together wrong. His muscles spasm and flutter and he outright sobs, doesn’t stop – “I – I’m sorry, it’s over, I’m sorry, fuck, what if I –”

“– It’s fine, it’s fine. You’re fine. Don’t cry –”

He presses his face into his hands. He’s leaking back out of her, sickly-slow. She didn’t notice when he came, really, but there’s no doubt now. She’s sobered, shaking, terrified, hoping he doesn’t notice. She’s his rock. She did this to him. She crosses her arms over her chest, modest all at once.

“Fuck, I didn’t mean to cry on you, you’re never gonna –”

“– I’m never going to talk about this again, if you don’t want me to.”

“Did you . . . ?”

“Yes,” she lies. “It was good,” she lies. “You were good.”

Smiles, wan crescent moon.

“Ha.”

“You love me,” she says, leaning back into his collarbone, because, with painful clarity, it’s true. He tenses. She can’t tell who started the shaking, clammy fear-sweat. “It’s okay. It’s better to love me, I think.”

“You think?”

“Shhh.”

Seconds break and shatter.

“Rose,” he says. She’s melted onto his chest, something disgusting drying into his skin. In the wake of panic is exhaustion, bone-deep, something she can’t recognize as her own. “Rose, my leg fell asleep. Your – you have a bony ass. We should get cleaned up before the next dream bubble, right?”

He smells sharp and bitter, chemical-sweet. Something in her is still arching. If it’s love, it’s love twisted ugly, love that she couldn’t admit to in good conscience.

“You’re right.”

He’s relaxed under her. They almost fit together, like this.

“Thanks,” he says, surprising her. “I really . . . thanks.”

Another kiss to his cheek, intentional, this time.

For her or for him – it doesn’t matter, because it needs to be said, spoken aloud, made real. A small smile, something sad and sticky. Pity, maybe – for both of them.

She says, “don’t let it happen again,” and hates herself for it.