But mercifully—

“Genetics fuckin’ blow, man.”

Rowan exhales for what feels like a full minute as relief washes over him. For now it’s enough. Enough to suggest that maybe Rowan can tell him about his condition one day without fear of being outright rejected or looked at completely differently. A pleasant warmth settles into his belly where before there had been nothing but permafrost.

Mal climbs off the bed, and Rowan thinks he’s going to get ready to pack up, but he slips on his briefs, tosses Rowan his own, and climbs back on the bed.

He sits with his legs crossed, knees high and arms perched on top. Gold eyes train on Rowan as he sits up and shimmies into his own underwear. They don’t bother to put on anything else.

“What’d you think?” Mal asks him after a long moment of nothing but a soft stare at Rowan.

“About the scene?”

“Yeah.”

The question catches him off guard, something that seems to be happening a lot lately with Mal. It stings a bit too, Rowan’s mind wandering down a rabbit hole of questioning why Mal’s talking to him about this now and not at the diner like they’ve done every other time. After how much Mal’s already opened up to him tonight, Rowan would be nothing short of devastated if their trips to Sheila’s came to an abrupt end. Truthfully, he sees the diner dates as a part of his own aftercare as well as Mal’s.

“It was good.” He pauses, gathering his thoughts, willing his mouth not to say it was worse—even if only a tiny bit—for having to use condoms. “Different” he settles on. And because he doesn’t want Mal to think the worst, he tacks on, “It was hot as hell seeing you like that.”

“Got pretty into it yourself,” Mal notes. “You ever done that before?”

“Not anything long like that. Just a bit with… y’know, hookups.”

He forces himself to meet Mal’s eyes after he says it, catching the tail end of a wince from him. The tiniest scrunch of his eyebrows, but it’s the only sign tonight that Mal has shown recognition of his other exploits. Or maybe it’s for some other reason entirely—Rowan’s having a hard fucking time reading Mal tonight.

“Was good. First time, most people don’t know how hard to go. Or how long.”

Rowan tosses him a smirk. “Thought you’d know by now that I’m not most people.”

The corners of Mal’s lips pull back into a closed-mouth smile. “Yeah. Figured you’d remind me, Narcissus.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Rowan laughs, leaning over and shoving at Mal’s knee. “I have a text from you from last week declaring yourself the World’s Best Bottom.”

“Don’t even tell me it ain’t true. People would commit crimes for my ass.”

Rowan doesn’t doubt it. Some days he feels like he’d commit a felony for the chance to see Mal outside of the club or diner. To have him visit him at work or go out for a drink outside their normal meetups.