You push your lunch around your plate as if that'll fool anyone. Most of the evening you were distracted enough with stupid complex imperial business, but you have next to nothing on your schedule for the after-midnight hours. Just one engagement, really.

"You thtill need to eat even when you don't feel good," Sollux says from across the table. You can see him struggling to keep a straight face: you've told him pretty much exactly that, in so many words, dozens of times over the sweeps. "Not eating maketh it worthe."

"And you ought to know, huh?" you say.

He doesn't even rise to the bait, just says, "I do have eckthperienthe with it, yeah." You must really be fucking up if he's staying this rational.

You make yourself finish your lunch. It seems like a waste, ignoring your food when you have a fucking nutrition block staff whose only job is to prepare your meals. They're supposed to be extremely good at it.

Somewhere in there, as you're shoveling food into your face, your revolting narcissistic self-pity flips quadrants into revolting narcissistic self-loathing: look at you, whining and dragging your feet like a scolded wiggler because you are expected to have sex with a good-looking young troll who, from the look on his face last night, is going to be heartbroken if you don't. Oh, the agony. Oh, the hardship. So maybe it's not a beautiful destined quadrant match. A lot of trolls don't get what they want in life, and usually in much uglier and more violent ways than this. You're now the ungrateful grub from the story who was gifted a deadly warship and complained about its paint job.

You push your empty plate away. "Okay," you say, "let's do this before I hate myself to death."

Sollux gets up and kisses your forehead. "That'th the KK I know," he says. You shove him. You're still friends.

The reproduction and pleasure suite is kept under drone guard; the ones currently on duty salute when you and Sollux arrive and step back to allow you to open the door. Inside, there's a series of privacy screens, painted with the likenesses of past Empresses and Emperors reclining in luxury with their consorts. You make a mental note to never pose for like that much of a douchebag, no matter what excuse gets presented to you.

Beyond the screens, the suite opens up to one big, open block. Up front there's the pool, and the bare slate floor around it, and the retaining rings in the walls that you hope you won't need to use again. Further back there's a lounging area with decorative fabric on the walls and an outrageously luxurious pile, and tucked in the farthest corners are the breeders' recuperacoons.

When you arrive, the older of your breeders is lounging by the side of the pool, watching the younger one—spawned from one of his clutches, if you've read all the paperwork right—execute a graceful turn in the water. They look totally wrapped up in each other.

Then they look up and see you there, and that all goes to hell. You ruin things just by existing yet again. The older one—Dualscar, god, that's a name for a general, not a breeding slave—has already rolled up onto his knees and bowed his head by the time you find your voice to say, "No, stop that, don't go all formal on me."

Dualscar smiles in this way that makes you have to remind yourself really hard that he can't raise a claw against you. "Anythin you like, Your Devvastation," he says.

You want to snap at him—tonight's not about you, maybe—but you'd probably just be encouraging him. Instead you look at the younger one, still in the water, looking at you almost as nervous as you feel. "You want to come out of there?" you ask, holding out a hand.

He gives you this beaming look of gratitude that you did absolutely nothing to deserve. "A course," he says, climbing up out of the water to meet you. He's taller than you are, though at least only by a reasonable, Solluxy degree, rather than a got-nearly-three-hundred-sweeps-on-you degree. The bones of his face are set at angles that look just faintly strange, and his thorax is slender but not quite delicate, water running down over the sleek planes of his muscles. There's so much needy hope in his eyes you can barely stand it.

"Says in your papers your name's Eridan," you say. "That right, or you go by something else?"

"That's right, Your Devvastation," he says. "I ain't had a chance to earn anythin else yet."

You're totally not hesitating, much, and you totally don't need the reassurance when Sollux runs a little psionic touch down your back. Maybe it helps, though. You take Eridan's hand. "Come on," you say. "Think I'd rather do this someplace comfortable."

He nods, following you around the pool to the lounging area on the other side. His hand is a little chilly in yours. Your digestive sac is in knots again. You hope Sollux isn't going to be watching too closely; sure, he knows how pathetic you are, but you've been laying it on so thick lately you're embarrassing yourself.

You stop when you get to the lounging area; you look at Eridan, and he looks at you. You have no idea where to start. Eridan fidgets for a few seconds and then asks, "Howw can I please you, Your Devvastation?"

"It's Karkat," you say, and he blinks at you in confusion. "My name. You can call me Karkat when it's just us."

"Oh," he says, and stares at you like you've just given him something he doesn't even know what to do with. Dualscar was a little terrifying, but Eridan is...Sollux would say he's dangerous, because you look at him and you know you could pity him if you tried. No, stop kidding yourself. You wouldn't even need to try. He's your age, according to his papers, and this will be his first time. He fidgets a little more.

You reach up and take his face in your hands, pulling him down so you can kiss his mouth. It's...nothing like kissing Terezi was; you suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise, but she's sort of your baseline for the experience. Eridan's kiss is gentle, maybe...teasing? His tongue flickers against yours and retreats, and his blunted teeth feel strange against your lips.

You want to undress, but you know you shouldn't. That's too personal, too vulnerable, too...quadranty. Still, you unbutton your jacket and toss that behind you, then rest your hands on his hip bones, below the arcs of his gills. He drapes his arms over your shoulders like he's trying to be confident and seductive but you've seen soldiers going to battle for the first time and that is exactly what he reminds you of right now.