"Thank you for helping us get through them!" Helen chirps.

When they reach the bedroom, Edmund kisses James firmly. "My blood is full of sugar and I want to suck your cock for that thing you said about taking care of me and keeping my heart in one piece," he says in a rush. "Also because I've still got half of me from the nudity taboo timeline and my brain keeps finding it so relevant that we're naked."

James returns the kiss just as enthusiastically.

"Oh good because I was thinking literally the same thing." Pause. "Wait there was that thing I wanted to ask," which involves Peter and his absolutely ridiculous dick and that would not be as salient otherwise except right now he was just kissing his boyfriend while naked.

"- right! What was it."

"Let's sit down first."

To the bed! Pulling Edmund by the hand.

Edmund sits down.

"Do you have a crush on your brother?" he asks without preamble.

"And you call me a fucking mindreader?!"

James—sort of visibly relaxes, and laughs a bit to himself. Okay it feels a lot nicer to know he was not making stuff up. "I—in the orgy world you mentioned that in the UK bacchanals—bacchanalia—whatever—are usually family affairs. And then when Tintin asked you what your brother was like you looked a bit like—the way you look around me. Kind of." He's still holding Edmund's hand, running his thumb against Edmund's skin.

"You - can't tell him. Obviously. He's. Um. A normal person? And not..."

Pause.

"Broken?"

James's eyebrows shoot so far up it's a wonder they don't reach orbit. "Broken? I mean obviously I won't say anything without your permission but—you're not broken!"

"I didn't - that was the wrong word. But. It's really - there's a reason that people don't - it's not okay."

"...the reason is because babies of siblings often have birth problems I'm pretty sure. What else is there?"

"There's - fucked-up power dynamics, he'd feel like he couldn't say no to me - God doesn't like it - I, I couldn't be with him, not properly, not publicly, it's illegal, and - wrong - and -"

He glances at the handbook for a split second and flinches like it burned him. Frantically, he sinks his teeth into the back of his hand and sits still, his eyes closed, breathing heavily.

"Well there's enough porn of it that I'm pretty sure it's pretty normal," James says, releasing Edmund's hand and wrapping that arm around him. "To want it, at least. And he is a pretty great guy. You shouldn't—just because you may never have it doesn't mean you should be mad at yourself or feel guilty for wanting it."

"...that's not. I can't just - if I don't feel guilty then what's to stop me from doing something about it."

James lets go of Edmund to kneel in front of him and lay his head on Edmund's knees. Without looking up at him he says, "Yesterday you asked me why I was feeling guilty. When I saw your brother and that reminded me that some people would not have a lot of fun in that world...

"I wanted him. I wanted him like that, visibly miserable and powerless to do anything about it. I wanted to tie him up and get him hard and ride his stupidly huge dick and watch him hate every minute of it and not be able to stop me.

"I had the power to do something like that, I had the thought, maybe just one more round, just have some fun with him and then I'll undo it, and that was what I felt guilty about. But it wasn't the guilt that made me undo it, and it's not the guilt that's making me choose one way or another. It's what's right or wrong. And I still want to see his face like that and know that I did it but there's no point in feeling guilty about it because I'm not going to do anything about it. Because it's not right to hurt other people like that for my own pleasure, and you know this is true too, and I'm betting you would tell me I shouldn't feel guilty either.

"So. You're not going to do something that hurts him, or yourself, because that's who you are. You don't need to add pointlessly torturing yourself to the deal."

Edmund leans down to kiss James' forehead. "You're so good," he says thickly. "You deserve better than to have to untangle my ridiculous issues."

He grins up at Edmund at that. "Book's shipping us, gotta play the part and all that. Also is it bad that thinking about your brother's stupidly huge dick is getting my motor running again, because," and he leans back to gesture at what he means by it.

"Honestly it's kind of got me going too. It is stupidly massive, isn't it. ...are we going to have sex while both thinking about the inappropriate things we want to do to Peter, this feels like some kind of relationship no-no."

"Our relationship is not normal by any stretch of the imagination and I feel like at this point we should just ride it, pun intended."

"...maybe you're right." Kiss. Grinding against James. "God. Thinking about you riding him."

"I would need," he says, standing up and pushing Edmund back onto the bed, "a ton of prep for him to fit inside me. I have some practice but that was unreasonable." And now he's the one who'll kiss Edmund, naked on Edmund's bed.

He is still not from a "nonsexual nudity" world but he's really unsure people could realistically do this and not get turned on.

Edmund whimpers a little bit. "I - I could help, maybe. Loosening you up before the main event."

"That does sound like fun. Maybe you could fuck me first, make sure I'm all ready and loose, and then he does me next.—oh, or maybe even better, you could both fuck me at the same time."

"I may not be as ridiculous as he is, but I still don't know that you want to be fitting us both in - unless you mean one at each end - kissing over you -"