“Are you alright?” was the only thing Aura could think to say when she found Adan a little while later.

He was now laying on his back on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. The agitation clear on his face. No acting hiding the way he truly felt right then.

“Of course. I’m not hiding in the bedroom anymore, right?” he mumbled.

“Just in the living room?” she attempted to tease, though he was much better at playfulness in the face of upset. He had had years of practice at that with her after all.

“Kind of hard to hide in the main room of the place. Which has glass fucking doors” he defended, though the words still lacked conviction.

“I’m sorry” she said softly as she moved to take a seat on the floor in front of the sofa. She reached her hand up to gently clasp his and laid her head back softly against his hip. “I know this has gotta be really hard for you, on a level that I can’t even understand.”

“I mean, it’s not like I even thought of my brother when I looked at Ilian. Not really. I mean, I remember Brady as a six year old” he shook his head up at the ceiling. “I always wished I could see him grow up with me of course. And now I guess I get to, every day. But it’s all tangled up now with Ilian being... what he is, and being really...” he sighed heavily again.

“And being really fucking hot?” Aura offered.

“Thanks for that” Adan scoffed, though he continued holding her hand, so he must not have been too offended.

“Well, he’s not actually your brother. So I think it’s OK for you to find him attractive, right?”

“Yes, much better to be attracted to a member of an entirely different species whose entire race wants to wipe out yours, than your own brother. It’s all good” he scoffed.

“Now who’s abusing sarcasm?” Aura replied, giving his hand a little squeeze.

“How the hell did life get this fucked up?” Adan mumbled with another heavy sigh.

“Life has always been fucked up. We just get a bunch of exciting new flavors of fucked up now” she shrugged, which did actually cause the tiniest trace of a smile to touch his lips then.

He then pulled her up onto the couch, and onto his own body and gave her another kiss. Then a more sincere smile. “I do love you, Aura. And you gotta know that I need you to get through any of this, just as much as you need me. You know that, right?” he asked as he gave her another squeeze.

“I’m beginning to suspect it” she managed with a tiny smile of her own.

“Suspect, huh?” he asked as he gave her another kiss, still holding her there above him, where she had no choice but to adjust to the new position by straddling his hips, as he pulled her closer for more of those gentle kisses.

“Breakfast is, uh, ready” Ilian interrupted from the doorway a moment later.

“Thank you so much” Adan responded in a loud sarcastic tone as the interruption easily ended their latest embrace. “We weren’t busy doing anything else at all, Ilian.”

Aura just blushed and laid her head against his chest for a moment before managing to push herself up off of the couch and him. She then reached her hand down to where Adan was pushing long dark locks back from his face in frustration.

“Breakfast then?” she attempted a smile.

“I may need a minute” he mumbled.

“Really?” she couldn’t help a little giggle at the implication.

“Now who’s gloating. Go have your food” he smirked as he waved her away with another shake of his head as she stifled another giggle and moved to follow after where Ilian had just awkwardly moved across the hall to the dining room following the interruption.

“I’m sorry” Ilian told Aura a moment after she had sat down across the table to have breakfast with him. “I didn’t realize you had been upset again.”

“Hmm?” she asked as she picked up her silverware.

“That’s when he kisses, and touches you like that, right?”

Aura felt her cheeks reddening all over again. “That’s not the only time he does that” she denied awkwardly, averting her eyes again.

“There’s another reason then?”

Not sure how her cheeks could feel even hotter then, she fumbled for more words. “Apparently there’s one corner of the internet you haven’t found yet” she stated more to herself.

“Sorry?”

“Ilian, showing affection like that to each other... It’s something we do for a lot more reasons than just trying to calm each other down or something” she shook her head, once again finding herself in the most awkward of conversations.

“What reasons?”

She was at a loss for words then. She had no idea how to even try to explain something like that. Especially since she was pretty new to the world of physical affection herself.

“People just do that when they like each other, a lot. And when they wanna make the other person feel good, in general. Not just because one of them might be upset” she shook her head again.

She tried to lock her attention on her breakfast then, in the hopes that that would be a sufficient enough explanation. Though she doubted that it would be, considering who, or what, she was speaking to.

“I’m sorry, again. I really am trying to understand you. There’s just a lot I still don’t. Obviously” he added more quietly.

Aura just shook her head. “What? Your race doesn’t have sex? I mean, all races have sex. That’s sort of how they became races” she mumbled again, still not able to look directly at him.

“Sex? Like male and female?”

“No that’s... OK, the English language is fucked up, I admit. But in this case, sex means like... mating?” she attempted to come up with the only word he might understand.

“To produce offspring?” Ilian offered.

“Fuck! Can we have one conversation that doesn’t involve offspring? Just once? I’m freaked out enough about that goddammit” she complained.

“You’re getting upset. Should I do... something? To help?”

“God, stop” she blushed again.

“So, you mate with each other to make each other feel good. But mating with each other could lead to... producing children? And you’re terrified of that happening right now? But you still enjoy mating with Adan, despite that?”

“Oh my god, would you stop saying mating?” she continued having to fight the urge to hide under the table.

“I’m just trying to make sense of it. That’s all” Ilian told her apologetically.

“News flash; sex, mating, it’s never made sense. But we still really like it. Our whole race is crazy. Happy now?”

“Sometimes, when you walk in on the middle of a conversation, you just know you shouldn’t have...” Adan said with a raised brow as he entered the room in the middle of Aura’s last exclamation.

“Well you try explaining the whole concept of sex to a really fucking hot alien. Good luck” she defended as he warily moved to his seat.

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass” Adan said with a shake of his own head as he reached for his food.

“Exactly” she mumbled as she forced her attention back to her own food, leaving Ilian just to look between them with confusion. But he thankfully said nothing else just then.

Though, at that point, Aura was so flustered, she couldn’t stop herself from speaking up again. “So how does your race make children, Ilian?” she had to ask.

“So, do we have anything stronger than juice from concentrate?” Adan interrupted with discomfort of his own then.

“What? He wants to learn about us, and we wanna learn about him. Seems as good as place as any to start, right?”

“Or we could say, ask him about their economic system?” Adan offered pointedly.

“He was already asking me to explain your way of ‘calming me down.’ We’re already on this subject. May as well get it all out there, right?” Aura defended.

“Maybe I could go eat in the living room” Adan mumbled.

“Don’t you dare” Aura ordered, causing him to put up his hands in defeat, though he stayed, awkward as it was.

“How we procreate?” Ilian asked warily.

“Yeah. You know how we do, mostly” she pressed.

“Uh, we take male and female cells and place them together to create a hybrid of the two. Then, when it is fully formed. It joins our society” Ilian explained slowly. “That’s mating the two cells together. But it’s nothing like, what your people do, apparently?”

“A whole society of test tube babies?” she narrowed her eyes at that.

“Of what?” Ilian asked.

“So your people don’t actually have sex. Mate. With each other?” Adan asked, trying not to appear too shocked by the idea.

“That would be rather inefficient” Ilian stated plainly.

“Can’t argue that I guess” Adan shook his head and just returned his attention to his breakfast.

“I’m still not absolutely clear on how your people procreate though. I assume it also ends with the cells from each gender being joined. Just unclear on how you accomplish that differently than we do. And what it has to do with the kissing and touching you seem to enjoy.”

Adan and Aura just looked at each other with more awkward silence. Finally, she spoke, “care to take this one, Adan?”

“No, I really, really don’t care to” he stated plainly.