She can’t help that she keeps dropping the alchemized Bordeaux glasses with their long, delicate stems. Mother kept them in the house they shared – dozens of them, all the same shape and size, next to the mugs so that she could create and nurse a hangover from the same cabinet. They rarely snap at the stem.
In this state, Rose compares the tapered bowl to her namesake and pictures a stem studded in thorns. She grasps it incorrectly, clumsy-fisted, because she is not her mother, and, were it truly a rose, the flat points would not even have the capacity to pierce the skin of her palms, calloused as they are from her improvised weaponry.
Rose is already tipsy on what tastes like perfumed rubbing alcohol when her girlfriend, who is glowing too brightly for the room that they’re in, suggests that her constant state of inebriation may be detrimental to her health long term.
"Where did you hear that?" Rose scoffs, intonation spilling out around her loosened tongue. She isn’t sure how much she’s actually had to drink, but she feels comfortably softened and the barrier between her thoughts and her mouth has more or less been torn to shreds.
Darling Kanaya’s brow pinches, and all Rose can think is that she’s a goody two-shoes who doesn’t want her to enjoy herself.
And she is enjoying herself, thank you very much. She loves the Rose she finds at the bottom of her glass, and right now, she hates the spoilsport that is her girlfriend. Kanaya never went grimdark. Kanaya doesn’t hold the knowledge of what it looks like for everyone she loves to die in every conceivable way. Kanaya never had a mother, so she cannot know the bitterness that licks blindly at Rose whenever she is even close to what could be considered sober. She doesn’t know what it’s like to know you are becoming the woman that you still cannot hate. Rose’s struggles are, quite literally, alien to her.
She stands and waits for her head to settle itself. The blackness that spots her vision does not go away when she blinks, so she lists into the wall for its stability and guidance, and Kanaya readies herself to follow.
"Do not," Rose commands brusquely, setting her empty glass on the precarious little three-legged side table with a deadened glass chime. "Follow me."
She’s seen the face Kanaya is wearing. Her lover is so beautifully transparent, untempered by the world and how it coaxes you to veil your edges. She’s fashionable and savvy. She’s chic, quiet, and so utterly straightlaced. She does what she’s told, which is a good thing, because if Rose had to see her airy grace in the state that she’s in, she’s certain she would die of petty jealousy.
The wall sways with the motion of her head. She follows it. Dave is, thankfully, by himself. He is tucked away in one of the rooms with the squealing doors that don’t lock, and his makeshift quarters are sparsely decorated in the style of his bedroom back on Earth. He sprawls on the card suit sheet draped over a bare mattress on the floor – she can only imagine that that’s aged well – there is his laptop, plugged into the wall, glitching minutely with jpeg artifacts and spare pixels. His turntables float freely near the ceiling – they remind her of oversized bumblebees, idling gently. She always takes a second to consider the significance of his preserved specimens – he stacks them in jars, backlit by some cobbled nonsensical technology that casts them in warm ambers. They’re embryos. Ontogeny recapitulates distant phylogeny – they could be anything to the untrained eye, their differences are minute.
She’s sure that he takes a conflicted sort of comfort in surrounding himself with the past, but she also has to consider the very real possibility that she is projecting. Either way, it is all that he has known. The way he wakes at the first disturbance is a testament to that.
"It’s just me," she says plainly, and he eases by a fraction. Her voice is familiar to him now. He’ll let himself drift to wakefulness, trusting her to keep an eye out for potential threats, because he does trust her. Maybe too much.
This will work in her favor.
He startles when she pins him, stiffening and then retaliating, but it’s her, and he doesn’t want to hurt her, so he lets her hold his wrists against the mattress. Lets her bury her face in his neck.
He smells like sleep – sour breath and warm skin, sweat-pungent at his pulse point, and when she presses her cheek into it, she can feel his heart buckling rabbit-fast.
"Rose," his voice vibrates through her cheek. His accent, exacerbated by sleep, lengthens her name into something musical. She cuts him off before he can ramble. She needs to keep things on track, or he’ll distract her and gain the upper hand.
"Don’t talk," she slurs, and she can feel the exact moment he smells the alcohol on her breath by the way he tenses in understanding. It’s annoying how people treat her when she’s had a drink or two, like she’s not in control of herself, like they have to hold her hand. She hasn’t had her hand held since she was . . . she must have been four, give or take. Mother preferred to grab the nape of her neck in any case – it was easier to reach, and harder to wrench away from. "It’s just me," she repeats.
She lifts her head. With her hands pinning his wrists, she’s left without any real means of physical exploration, but she still has eyes.
"This is really funny, Rose, you got me. Caught in the act with my sister, stop the presses –" she shoves a wad of patterned linen into his mouth before he can let his mouth get away with him. He’ll only work himself up, and she sees no reason to let him talk if he won’t do what she says. Kanaya would do what she says. Rose doesn’t want to think about her.
Dave chokes around his makeshift gag. When he tries to spit it out, she spools in more of his sheets, and then, with as much tenderness as she can muster, she nudges his glasses off with her nose and leaves behind a sloppy kiss on his forehead, lipstick-black and almost glowing against his pallid skin.
He whimpers.
With his face bared like this, it’s not hard to see that they’re related. He has feathery white eyelashes, same as hers, and his eyes are red in this lighting, crowned in threads of pink. He blinks rapidly, as if trying to convey something to her in a code that she won’t bother to decipher. He is the furthest thing from Kanaya.
"We match," she coos. It’s not entirely true – her eyes are more purple than red, and she doesn’t bother blocking out the light, or to hide them, but at a distance, Rose and Dave are nearly identical.
The first time he bucks, she is almost thrown off. He rolls his hips to the side, the fabric pulling out of his mouth from the leverage his position on the sheet gives him. He squirms, and she tries not to let the throbbing heat that blooms between her legs distract her from her mission – she digs her thumbs into his wrists hard – he learned swordplay, she learned how to play dirty, and she knows how unpleasant it is to struggle when the veins at the surface of your skin are being forced against bone. Really, he should be thankful that it’s her. He’s not in any danger, and it’s sort of insulting that he keeps acting like he is.
"Stay still," she commands, lowering her head to latch on to his carotid artery.
Dave may not be smart enough to relent initially, but he is smart enough to stop struggling when Rose holds this power over him, so she takes her time laving her tongue over his bed-warm skin, creating a seal, testing the give of her brother’s skin. Wondering how long it’ll take to get him hard. It’s a pleasant surprise when he loosens, lolling his neck back subserviently – a little stiffer than she’d prefer, but it’s enough give. He’ll stay put.
She releases him with a soft pop, cleaning up the welling blood with apologetic passes of her tongue. Something in her knows that she has earned his submission.
"Good boy," she praises gently, grinding their hips together – he’s hard. She wonders if he got hard when he got all the scars she’s picked out on nearly every inch of exposed skin – it’s not hard to piece together a picture of his life. He’s been forced to make friends with pain, he’s learned how to tolerate it more readily. She wonders if that should make her as wet as it does.
He groans when she finds a rhythm – hip to hip, clumsy and burning hot, the layers between them are becoming troublesome. They chafe, and his eyes are welling oh-so-pretty – he’s not used to even this level of light, or maybe it’s the pain of the lovely little souvenir she gifted him in her delicate purple, or maybe he’s in psychological distress.
"Stay," she says again.
He stays.
She lifts off his shirt. His stomach is nearly concave, and his ribs stick out like the keys of a piano. For a second, she regrets her choice of instrument, she wants to play him completely, to turn inside-out, ripping him into something melodic along the seams of his scars. She follows the shape of his hips down to where they meet the soft fabric of his pants, so distracted by the soft curve of his penis that she doesn’t notice his removal of the gag until he’s talking again.
"Please don’t," he gasps out, forgoing his usual verbal gymnastics. There’s saliva spilling down his chin and his hair is ruffled over the lipstick-stamp she gave him. Rose assesses him with a level gaze. It’s a good look on him.
"I told you to stay put," she repeats, grasping him for emphasis. "I also told you not to talk." He’s impossibly warm, and soft, and he just about whines when she squeezes. Again. Again. "Be good."
"Rose, we’re related," he says hoarsely.
"Our planet is dead," She returns patiently, though she doesn’t feel very patient. "We are on a meteor in outer space."
"I know, but –"
"Doesn’t it feel good?" A long stroke from base to tip. Pre wells at his slit and she uses it to ease her path from top to bottom. "I know you’re enjoying this."
"I shouldn’t have the hots for my sister – Rose – you’re my sister, and fuck –" he lets out a ragged breath as she parses his anatomy. "I’m pretty sure this is rape." Frenulum. Foreskin. Testes. "Like, n-ninety-nine percent sure, and you’re drunk, so it’s like I’m also raping you. This is like – shit, shit, shit – an incest rape party, and you have – your girlfriend, Rose, oh my god –"
She stops off his erection at the base. He’s thicker and warmer than a wine glass, and she can feel his pulse. Dave’s shoulders are shaking. "Don’t talk about her right now."
"Rose –"
"– don’t. And don’t call it rape," she wrinkles her nose. "If you wanted to leave, you could. You’re stronger than me."
Her smile feels thin and mean.
"Here," he watches, rapt, as she pulls her cape off over her head and twists it, corner to corner, until it’s functional as a length of ugly tangelo-colored rope. She positions him how she wants and ties it loosely around his wrists, pulling her dress off over her head for good measure. "How’s this?"
His eyes are fixed somewhere above her head. They keep flicking to what he can see of her breasts – she didn’t plan to have sex, she’s wearing a simple alchemized sports bra, soft and wireless with high coverage, and yet he’s still scandalized by her collarbones and the shapes below the fabric. Adorable. "I can get out."
"Pretend you can’t," she tells him. "That way you won’t have to worry about whether or not you want it."
"Pretty sure this is rape," he says again, quietly, but he doesn’t struggle and he even moans, so terribly debauched, as she resumes her pattern of strokes. She laps the sound out of his mouth, and he ruts up into her fist, and it’s so good just like that that she isn’t distracted until he turns his face away, leaving the rest of her makeup in a black smear across his cheek.
"What?" Rose snaps. She’s starting to get annoyed by his diversions.
"What about you?" Dave asks, nodding towards her leggings. They’re rucked up around her thighs, riding up over her calves and framing his cock in shadowy red-orange.
She tightens her jaw. It’s awfully thoughtful for a boy who insists that he’s being being raped by his sister, but it is, ultimately, to her benefit.
She tugs one leg out of her leggings and lets the other leg hang around her ankle – now that she’s remembered herself, she’s clumsy and rushed. She’s never gotten off without her underwear on, so she leaves it in place, tugging the crotch of her panties to the side. They both cry out when she slides over her brother’s cock – it’s sort of slick, sort of throbbing warmth, and it sends electricity skittering up her spine. "Fuuuck." Heat sears through her stomach.
"See?"
Dave doesn’t have the courtesy to answer. They grind together twice more before he catches on the rim of her entrance – it’s hard to tell, she probably wouldn’t be able to pick it out if she hadn’t used a tampon before. Penetration has never felt good, but she can’t remember being this turned on before, so she makes her decision quickly. Though her drink is wearing off, she can blame her haste on its associated impaired decision-making – it’s okay when she does it – and the headache is rushing up so she needs to get this over with now, and Dave almost sings when she lets him inside – it stings and pain lances through her stomach and up to her navel, but she ignores it in favor of the soft give of his skin, the way that Dave thrashes, the way the tears in his eyes are overflowing out over his cheeks.
Rose grinds instead of bouncing like she thinks she probably should – back and forth, it’s the best way to make sure she’s properly stimulated, but it’s still not enough. She jams her hand between their bodies and touches herself over the cotton she’s left in place, and it builds quickly, and she loses strength, collapsing until they’re pressed together, stomach to bare stomach and chest to chest. She leaves blooming bruises and soft noises pressed into the crook of his neck, suckling like a baby, and he stays put except to grind.
He finishes without warning, letting out a choked gasp. It can’t be much, but she still feels full, and she’s startled into a finish of her own, which she bites out of his shoulder. She can hear his voice, but she can’t decide whether or not he’s saying words with the way her heart throbs in her ears, racing. Racing. Her tacky fingers still. The room is thick with sex, Rose can’t see where Dave’s glasses got off to, and it’s very, very clear what she’s done to her brother.
Most urgently of all, perhaps, is the fact that he finished inside of her.
"Oh my god."
He looks just as shocked as she does. He laughs once, nervous, and then again, higher. More hysterical.
"It isn’t funny," she snaps. It’s not why he’s laughing, but she needs a target for her anger.
"I just had unprotected sex with my ectosister," he wheezes out, and she slaps him across the face where her lipstick streaks his skin. He laughs harder, startled, and then it cuts off.
"I won’t get pregnant," she says stubbornly. Without the all-consuming haze of angry lust and the blanket of alcohol, she’s quickly coming back to herself. There is semen dripping out of her vagina. It feels weird and gross and uncomfortable. "Oh my god."
"Hey," true to his word, it’s not hard for Dave to untangle his hands from the shoddy knots of her shirt. He props himself up, and she slides down his body, limp, until her cheek is pressed against his sternum. His pulse is somewhere between where it should be and a crash course for cardiac arrest – higher than she would ideally prefer, but it’s better than it was. "You won’t."
"I just raped you," she says faintly. "And my girlfriend . . ."
"I won’t tell her," Dave says stubbornly.
Rose is going to have to have a serious talk about misplaced loyalty.
"I tore your neck apart."
"My god tier jammies’ll cover it," she tries to force her breath to even out. She’s not sure which one of them is shaking, but there is an undeniable tremor. ". . . you need to make better alcohol," Dave says abruptly. "That shit tastes like if Kanaya’s perfume drank isopropyl and then had a wholeass infant baby child with one of those shitty little flower stores at the mall."
"That is shockingly close to the actual recipe."
"You’re going to kill yourself with it."
"I might."
Dave loops one arm around her. It feels backwards, but also safe, and Rose is limp and numb.
"It’s not the end of the world," he assures her.
She laughs softly. "No, I suppose not. By definition, it is the aftermath of the end of the world."
"We’re on a meteor in outer space."
"I’m so fucking sorry, Dave." She imagines him scooping out the clump of cells that paranoia assures her she can already feel in her belly – a fluttering little heartbeat like a scared animal. Hands and feet that look just like his. She imagines him putting it in a jar.
"I won’t tell anyone," he repeats, but it won’t change anything. She’s certain that, just by looking at them, the whole meteor will know, and there’s nothing she can do.