They scooted to the edge of the bed, hugging his pillow to their chest. “I do, as well. With you, I mean. I have feelings. For you. Romantically. And physically,” they added in a rush. “You’re very… dashing. Oh gods, shut up, Cylene.”
At their despicable stammering, Dex grinned, far too pleased with himself. “So, you like me too, is what you’re saying? And you think I’m dashing, and you want to jump my bones.”
They gasped in genuine offense, “Don’t you dare put those horrific words in my mouth!”
“I could put something else in your mouth,” he purred darkly. “You seemed to like it.”
“Dex Triever, you absolute brute!” they cried, throwing his pillow at him as he roared with laughter. “I take back every nice thing I have ever said about you.”
“Uh-uh, no taksie-backsies. You said it, and it’s mine now.” He chucked the pillow at them and leaned back against the dresser, arms resting on his raised knees. “You’re into me and my super-hot bod.”
Questioning every life decision that had brought them here, they bundled the pillow back in their lap and sighed. “I don’t know why I ever thought you’d take this with grace.”
More relaxed than he’d been in a long time, Dex gazed at them with nothing short of adoration. “Cya, I’m glad you like me, because I like you a lot. Like, a lot, a lot.”
Their cheeks ached, and their heart was so full they feared they’d burst. “I like that you like me a lot, a lot.”
“Can I kiss you now?” he asked, and their stomach plunged to the tip of their tail.
It seemed rather silly to be more anxious about this answer than any intimacies they’d shared thus far. For deities’ sake, they’d had his dick in their mouth not two hours ago. Yet, nerves fluttered around their stomach and cinched their throat shut.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” they said in lieu of an answer. “Before we… You deserve to know. Before. In case it changes your mind.”
“It won’t,” he said, and their heart squeezed.
“Still.”
“Okay.” Like he read the gravity in their expression, he sat up straighter, crossing his legs underneath him. “You can tell me anything, Cy. You know that.”
“It’s not an easy thing to tell,” they whispered, trying for a smile that broke halfway through. “The last time—the only time I ever did, it… didn’t go very well.”
Like a soldier traversing an active minefield, he asked, so carefully, “Is it, like, a bad thing?”
“I don’t know,” they confessed, hating the moisture gathering in their eyes. “Everyone tells me it is, but I… It’s not like I had any choice in the matter.”
He frowned, hands fisting in his lap. “Well, if you didn’t have a choice, then it’s not your fault, right? So, you shouldn’t feel bad.”
Their breath hitched at that, and he whined, crawling across the floor to kneel beside the bed. He reached across the mattress to touch the end of their tail above their rattle.
“Hey, c’mon, don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” they said before they could stop it.
“Don’t be sorry, either. It’s okay to cry.” He squeezed their tail, his thumb rubbing over their scales. “I just don’t like when you’re sad.”
Cya leaned their head on the wall and worried their bottom lip until their skin split. They tasted rust and metal, and it made their stomach turn. Or maybe it was the words clawing their way up their throat to bash against their teeth. Words they’d kept swallowed for so long.
“I was born wrong, Dex,” they said, and he cocked his head, one ear folding down. “Genetically. I have a mutation, an abnormality in my chromosomes, and it made me all wrong.”
“Like, you’re sick?” he asked, and they shook their head.
“No, but I’m different. I wasn’t born a girl, but I wasn’t born a boy either. I’m intersex.” A single tear slid down their cheek, and Dex tightened his grip on their tail. “Do you understand?”
He shook his head.
“I’m somewhere in between, on a genetic level. My parents chose to raise me as a girl, but I was never a girl. But I’m also not a boy.”
“Nonbinary,” he said.
