"You never saw this aspect of human reproduction on your little screens?" Rose attempts a classic Lalonde smirk, but the adrenal hormone pulsing in her heart distracts her. She must pull a face that betrays her attempts at lightheartedness, because Kanaya steps in closer and takes her face into her hands.
“I only had access to what was directly relevant to you or your friends.” She says it right into Rose’s eyes, looking at her as if she’s searching for understanding. “Are you okay, Rose?”
Right as she’s about to respond with a clever yet endearing response about what Kanaya may or may not have seen of her life, another shiver wracks her body. Her knees go weak, and she nearly crumples; the only thing that saves her is the grip Kanaya has on her head. It’s not comfortable, but none of this is comfortable, so it hardly registers that she ought to stand back up.
Kanaya, thankfully, takes control of the situation and swiftly moves her position to hold Rose by the ribcage. Each point of human - well, troll - contact burns warm on Rose’s body, even through her layers of clothing. She’s beginning to sweat through the layers of clothing she’s got on. Her hair hangs limp and wet on her face. This is progressing much faster than it ought to, for a first heat, she tries to think. She doesn’t get as far as fully verbalizing it in her head. It's more of a consideration of an image of a vague understanding of the situation. The shivers are strong enough to shut up even Rose Lalonde, Seer of Light's internal monologue.
“Rose, would you like to lay down? I’m going to set you down in the horn pile,” Kanaya says as she half-drags half-leads Rose in that direction. “But please, can you try and explain to me what’s going on? I want to help you.”
It takes a few long moments to hobble their way to the horn pile. Each step Rose takes threatens to send her crumpling into the lab's metal floor. Rose’s face feels like it’s on fire, and there’s a growing pain in her abdomen. No. Her pelvis. And it's not a pain - not really, her thoughts racing so fast as she tries to understand the sensations she's having. It’s like…something has been removed from her body. Or it was never there? She’s missing something, somehow. And it’s all she can think about as she attempts to settle onto the pile, how there’s a need that she can’t quite verbalize, but a deep hunger in her body is screaming at her to fulfill it all the same. She tries to tell Kanaya what's happening, but can hardly get more than a few words out. “Heat. I’m…heat.”
“You’re cold, Rose? But you are sweating - completely wet. Regardless, I will get you a blanket.” As she turns to walk away, Rose uses her quickly weakening strength to grab Kanaya’s wrist. It isn’t a strong grasp, and Kanaya almost doesn’t seem to notice until Rose’s uncut nails scrape her palms.
“In heat. Need…alpha. First time,” Rose manages to croak out, before her hand comes to slam down next to her side. Kanaya jolts a bit at the loud honk, but Rose just moans a little bit. She can’t get comfortable in her body, let alone on top of a pile of literal horns. Normally the irony of going into heat while literally horned out the ass would at least give her a quirk of the eyebrow if not a self-satisfied chuckle, but Rose is not in an eyebrow quirking mood. She can hardly quirk her toes in an attempt to get her mind off the all-encompassing void in her pelvis and the sweat sticking her dress to the back of her legs.
“Alpha? Is that another word for human? I’ll get Dave.” Kanaya takes off, nearly sprinting, before Rose can answer her misconception. Dave is the last person she wants to see right now. God forbid her heat set off his. Or is that just a porn thing? She can’t remember right now, but the thinking is keeping her mind off the pain, the want, the need. Oh god, she needs it. So bad.
Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, when Kanaya comes back, it’s with Terezi. “I asked Terezi where Dave was, and explained what was happening, and she said she could help.”
No she can’t, Rose wants to say, but she just shivers again. What does Terezi know about any of this?
“This happened to Dave once, right at the beginning of the journey,” she says, as if reading Rose’s mind. Is that a thing a Seer of Mind can do? Probably, Rose relents to herself, and the somehow even-more-shit-eating-than-before grin that Terezi grows on her face all but confirms it. “She needs an alpha to pail with. That’s like a secondary gender for humans,” she says, turning back to Kanaya.
“Oh, so, you need to have relations with Dave?” Kanaya asks, once again turning, presumably to try and fetch him. Rose appreciates the misplaced help, but not as much as she wants everyone to shut up and let her suffer in peace.
“No, Kan, stutid. I already told you that Dave couldn’t help her! He’s the same as her. Besides, he’s her human brother, and you know they get weird about that.”
“Right. So what do we do? You said you helped Dave with this when he,” Kanaya trails off.
“You don’t have to pail her. Unless you want to.” Terezi’s eyebrows start dancing above her crimson eyes, and Kanaya’s cheek flush green. “But not now. It wouldn’t help her, anyway. Get some water. Lay down next to her, but don’t touch her.” Terezi steps back. “You may need to remove her clothes, though. So, uh, I’m gonna head out. So you two can get down to business.” Again with the eyebrows.
Kanaya watches Terezi leave, and Rose whimpers. Kanaya’s head snaps back to watching Rose. “Sweet, you’re drenched. Terezi was, regrettably, correct. May I, er…undress you…?” Rose can hear the trail of finish crumbs in Kanaya’s voice, the uncertainty. This was certainly not how she expected this evening to go, they haven’t even discussed any…feelings…the two of them may have for each other. So the finish crumbs are going both ways, even in Rose’s internals, even as she sweats and pants and whimpers like a dog.
“Yes. Please,” Rose mumbles, tensing all her muscles. It’s painful as her arms are lifted above her head, but the relief is near instant as the top layer of fabric is removed. She has on her slip, and her undergarments, but the heavy fleece of the Seer robe being removed is like a little bit of heaven. “Join me,” she asks Kanaya.
It’s a long night, but Kanaya lays by Rose’s side all through it. She doesn’t sleep; between Rose’s whimpering and any small movement causing a long hooooooonk to startle her right back awake, she can’t get any rest. She’d much rather be in a recuperacoon, submerged in sopor slime and dreaming as nicely as she can on this meteor, but she refuses to leave Rose’s side. Her pale, pink skin is redder than she’s ever seen it.
Seeing Rose like this would scare her, she thinks, if she could still feel that emotion. She’s far past being scared now, ever since they entered the game. Then after all they went through before the kids arrived on the meteor. But she cares for Rose, and so that space in her blood pusher that used to be capable of fear beats a little faster than normal.
At some point, Rose tosses and lays an arm across Kanaya’s motionless yet restless form. The horns squeak below them, but it doesn’t wake Rose. Kanaya lays like that, held by a feverish Rose, and pretends that everything is alright. She feels the heat coming off Rose, smells her slightly sour sweat. Her thoughts try to drift toward laying together like this in a different scenario, but Kanaya veers them back. That's not what's happening right here; she isn't going to have that with a human girl. But the pressure of her arm, the slight dampness on her ribs where Rose's sweat pools on her chest, this is nice while it lasts.
By the time Kanaya decides Rose is ‘awake’ (the fits and starts of her sleep causes Kanaya to wonder, let alone her already-lacking knowledge of what is normal for humans at bedtime), Terezi has brought in an alchemized satin sheet to place on top of them. When Kanaya stands up, she’s stiff, and unrested. She could have really used that sopor.
“I am going to clean your face, Rose,” she says as she runs off to get a bowl of water and a sponge. When she returns, unsurprisingly, Rose is in the exact same position as when she left. She looks hurt, and Kanaya wishes she could do something more than this.
When Terezi came to bring in the sheet, she had explained a bit more about the situation. That Rose would just have to wait it out. It would only get worse before it got better. Dave’s lasted a week, but it also didn’t hit him as quickly as Rose’s hit her.
All she can do is make her as comfortable as possible while Rose sweats and pants it out.
She sponges the sweat off of Rose’s face, her bare shoulders. Rose thanks her, meekly, and says something that Kanaya can’t quite catch but might have been a statement of human love? But no, of course, this is her desperate for her human reproduction partner, she’s just misplacing it onto a troll.
That doesn’t stop her ear tips from turning warm, and a green tint shading her cheeks. She’d keep that thought hidden, but she nearly said it back.
A few hours go by. Kanaya sits and reads on the horn pile next to Rose. Rose begs for an alpha; Kanaya can only murmur reassurance or ignore her. There’s no one coming to save her. So she pretends her chest doesn’t ache, that she doesn’t wish she could fill whatever need Rose has in this moment. She just reads about her rainbow drinkers on Alternia, imagines a certain human’s face on the highblood love interest. She cannot have it, she cannot even want to have it, but of course the imagination can only think of faces it already knows, so if one of these characters looks like Rose, that’s not really anyone’s fault, is it?
She is taken out of her book by a scream. A shriek, really, loud enough that she’s certain Gamzee must have heard it wherever he’s hiding out on the meteor. It’s coming from the human girl right next to her. Rose’s face is contorted in pain, she’s grabbing at her abdomen over the covers, two thin layers of fabric the only thing keeping her from scratching herself raw.
Not that it looks like that will save her for much longer. Her nails are already catching on the satin, beginning to shred it, by the time Kanaya can grab hold of her wrists. She shrieks into Kanaya’s face, but the response is stone cold. She knows this is not personal, whatever this is. She just holds her, keeps her as still as possible while Rose thrashes about.
She is not a weak girl, Rose. It takes all of Kanaya’s power to keep her still, she’s fighting back, and Kanaya begins to feel like a jailer. She knows she’s only doing this for Rose’s own good. To keep her from hurting herself. But how come she feels so evil? She’s fighting with her now, struggling to catch hold. It’s as if all the strength that Rose didn’t have yesterday was in fact just being saved up for use now.
It’s all Kanaya can do to not let go, but her own nails are beginning to dig into Rose’s pale skin, bright red blood threatening to break free.
She cries.
It begins all at once, but once it starts, Kanaya can’t stop the tears. She didn’t want this. She didn’t want any of this. But she wants Rose, so she’ll keep hold until all this stops. She screams along with Rose, all the tangled feelings coming out in a mess of sound. She wants to help, to be part of this, but not like this. She wants to take care of Rose, but she doesn't want this responsibility, and all these running threads of desire and confusion lace together into a curdling shriek that threatens to outlast Rose's.
Rose's shrieking and thrashing ends as abruptly as it began, and Kanaya calms down nearly instantly. The intensity of Rose's gaze, her purple eyes staring into Kanaya's soul, it feels as if something serious just happened. But Kanaya can't quite process that just yet.
It takes a few minutes before Kanaya trusts Rose enough to let go. Rose just slumps back onto the pile. She’s no longer sweating, but her breathing is heavy.
“Rose?”
“Yes?” Her voice sounds different. Fuller. More normal.
Although, from what Terezi filled Kanaya in about, this is anything short of normal. She should be like that for at least a week. “Are you okay?”
“Better than ever, Kanaya.”
Kanaya doesn't believe her. She doesn't fully understand the situation, she may never understand what just happened, but being next to her felt right, as wrong and confusing as this whole alien pailing situation is. Maybe she'll have to do this again in the future. Maybe she'll get the privilege to do this again in the future.
They lay together for another night. This time, Kanaya nearly gets some rest. They don’t discuss what happened. Kanaya isn’t sure if this is something that’s appropriate to bring up, after all. If the pailing drones visited her and her quadrants, she wouldn’t want to discuss it with them. Especially if it were so...shocking. So, they lay there. Rose reads some of the book aloud to Kanaya. It’s…oddly normal.
Kanaya isn’t sure what the future holds for any of them, but perhaps in the future they will have a chance at it together.