[FIC] [NEWSFLESH] "And You Would If I Would"
And You Would If I Would (5514 words) by umadoshi
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Georgia Mason/Shaun Mason
Characters: Georgia Mason, Shaun Mason
Additional Tags: POV First Person, Canon Disabled Character, Pre-Canon, Adopted Sibling Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Codependency, Roughhousing, Backrubs, guilty teenage masturbation
Summary:
I told myself it wasn't my fault if I couldn't ignore those glimpses of skin or the softness of her body when we hugged. It made sense: George was a girl; I was into girls; she was the girl I was always with. Sooner or later my hormones would figure out she was my sister, and then touching her would just give me the same sense of warmth and comfort as it had all our lives.
Some of my wires got crossed sometimes, that was all. Puberty was weird and confusing, according to everyone ever, and after a while things would settle down.
That was all it was. It had to be.
Set about nine years before Feed, when Georgia and Shaun are fourteen.
Additional notes:
--Title from Tori Amos' "Horses".
--Beta work by
wildpear.
You can also read the fic here:
George and I had growth spurts like we were playing leapfrog. Hers happened a bit late and mine happened a bit early (statistically speaking), so for a couple of years neither of us really had a height advantage--or more importantly, a reach advantage. That lasted until we were about fourteen, when I gained a couple inches on her overnight.
Being basically the same size for so long meant I hadn't developed an "I'm bigger than her" instinct yet. We'd mostly stopped having actual fights with anything but words, but any time we started roughhousing or play-fighting, I still fought back in earnest. Vying for physical dominance was something we'd been doing for as long as we could remember, and we weren't ready to stop. In a way neither of us tried to put into words, it was like running laps: a familiar, visceral thing we could do together where we could use our bodies without thinking about fraught stuff like "puberty" and "hormones" and "me wanting to punch people out for the way they side-eyed us if we got into each other's personal space".
(That last one got under my skin all the deeper because George had started being uncomfortable giving or receiving physical affection with me, except in private, back when we were, like, eight. The fact that adults and classmates would give us funny looks for sitting too close together or whatever was infuriating in its sheer stupidity.)
Because the thing was, no matter how resistant we were to some kinds of change, our lifelong sensitivity to each other's presence meant we were aware of each other's bodies. And for all that George, at least, couldn't wait to be an adult and able to live by her own rules, adolescence was something we resented. Adolescence and our parents' inflexible repetition of "but you're not children anymore" had robbed us of our shared bedroom, the private space that had been ours for as long as we could remember.
Our room had been our sanctuary, the site of countless pillow fights and blanket forts, the place where we'd read aloud to each other or in companionable silence; it had been where we held our real fights, away from our parents' prying eyes. It had been where Mom and Dad had sworn up and down they'd never, ever film us without our knowledge; it was where, every single night, we'd listened to each other breathe as we fell asleep. It was where we'd cuddled up to each other when one or both of us was sick. It had held all of our dreams.
But when we officially turned twelve, it was like it threw a switch in our parents' heads, and that had been that. George and I had managed to get some concessions out of them, like the door between our rooms and the shared bathroom, but long before we hit thirteen, we'd been separated.
Now whichever of us woke up first couldn't just look across the room and see the other one sleeping. Now it felt like getting away with something if one of us was in the other's room while they fell asleep, or if we were moody or stressed enough to want to fall asleep beside each other. Nighttime became a mystery, and while we slept, nighttime worked tricks on our bodies, plaguing us both with muscle aches and other growing pains.
I studied George's body a lot, trying to make sure she didn't change too much without my noticing. Then I felt weird about doing it, because that was definitely on the unspoken list of things brothers were supposed to ignore about their sisters, and then I felt angry about feeling weird, and so on.
**********
It got worse as we got older. By the time we were thirteen and a half, male classmates were making comments about the girls' bodies, and George wasn't immune, although she didn't tell me much about it--probably because she didn't want me breaking arms at school.
She was lanky at that age, almost at her full height but still developing curves. You couldn't have paid me enough to admit how much attention I was paying to her breasts, partly because I didn't want her to lump me in with anyone else who might be looking.
Some days, though, it seemed like she was deliberately making damn sure I was aware of her body--so much so that I hoped she didn't think she was being subtle.
We came straight home from running laps one day, instead of showering and changing at the gym, and while we were both in our rooms, George started bitching loudly through the half-open connecting door that tits were royally inconvenient for running and hers could be done growing any day now, please and thank you.
"Oh, God, not boobs," I called back. "How'll you ever survive?"
I'd barely gotten the words out when she came stomping into my room, still in a bra but shirtless, mouth twitching with irritation. "If I wind up a buffet for a pack of zombies because I was weighed down with extra ballast, just remember you said that."
"Boobs probably kill straight guys more often than women in the field," I said, unable to resist baiting her. It gave me an excuse to eye her cleavage, since she'd basically left it on display. "They're pretty distracting."
I don't know if the goading was what made her grab me, but next thing I knew she was snarling "Screw you," as she grabbed my hand and shoved it onto her left breast, with no sign that she thought there was anything strange about what she was doing. She held my hand there while she jumped straight up, showing me exactly how the motion made her chest bounce, redistributing the weight.
I gaped at her, dry-mouthed and way, way too aware of how soft her breast was, how she was still sweaty from exertion, how I could feel her nipple against the ball of my thumb.
"And that's with a sports bra on," she said, voice curdling with annoyance like I wasn't standing there trying not to come in my pants. Grumbling under her breath, she shoved my hand back off her chest and stalked back to her own room.
By sheer force of will, I managed to keep my own voice steady when I asked if I could have the shower first. If George noticed I was in there longer than usual, or guessed it was because I was busy getting my rocks off under the spray, she didn't say anything.
**********
Maybe it's ridiculous that even then, I didn't quite put together what I wanted. I didn't let myself clue in that what she did made me horny for reasons beyond "I touched a girl's chest", just like I never let myself grasp that the times I masturbated guiltily after catching glimpses of her body went beyond "I got an eyeful and my dick doesn't know she's my sister".
I told myself it wasn't my fault if I couldn't ignore those glimpses of skin or the softness of her body when we hugged. It made sense: George was a girl; I was into girls; she was the girl I was always with. Sooner or later my hormones would figure out she was my sister, and then touching her would just give me the same sense of warmth and comfort as it had all our lives.
Some of my wires got crossed sometimes, that was all. Puberty was weird and confusing, according to everyone ever, and after a while things would settle down.
That was all it was. It had to be.
**********
I stopped being able to delude myself not long after we turned fourteen. We were bickering about something--something stupid, something neither of us really cared about--and it got physical because we were snarly and restless. We wound up wrestling each other right down to the floor, where George squirmed until she got a leg in between us and kneed me hard in the solar plexus. Having all the air driven out of me didn't make me let go of her; it just made me clamp my hands down, pinning her by the wrist and hip.
George made a concerted effort to wriggle free. I squeezed harder, equally determined to hold her still until I got my breath back. She fought my grip for another minute before going limp, admitting defeat. I loosened my hands without letting go, sagging against her while I waited for my breathing to slow.
I'd had her pinned roughly to her bedroom floor that exact same way dozens of times before. But that time, seeing her sprawled under me, I had a moment of utter clarity: it wasn't the perfect way her hip fit in my hand that was turning me on, or the sight of her pulse fluttering in her throat, or the quick, unsteady rise and fall of her breasts as she panted. It wasn't the flush of exertion in her cheeks, or the way I could feel her eyes on me...
Except those things were exactly what I was responding to, because it was George I was holding under me--my sister, yeah, but what did that matter compared to the fact that she was Georgia? My head swam with how badly I wanted to get my lips on hers, see for myself what she tasted when she licked them, just like she was doing now.
I'll give her this: she gave me advance warning that she was retracting her surrender--fair enough, since I hadn't let go. I felt her muscles tense and relax a little as she gathered herself. Then she shoved herself straight up at me.
She couldn't get much momentum from that position, so I could have stopped her. But between her sudden movement and how stunned I already felt, she managed to get loose.
Once she was free, she could've run; sometimes she did, and if Mom yelled at me for chasing her, George hollered right back. Even if we'd been fighting hard enough to hurt--and there'd been plenty of times when we were kids that one of us got pissed off enough to go after the other as hard as we could--George would put it on hold to defend her right to fight me if she damn well wanted to.
But instead of running, she got her hands on my shoulders and shoved me down so hard my head hit the floor. She froze instantly, just like I would have; wanting to hurt each other sometimes never meant wanting to injure each other.
"I'm fine," I said. My head throbbed, but not in a way that meant I'd taken real damage.
We took simultaneous steadying breaths, and then her fingers were knotting into my shirt to hold me still while she straddled me, just like she'd done tons of times, not quite coming to rest on my abs. It was a good strategic position for her: I could push her right back off, but if she resisted I'd have to throw her harder than I wanted to.
I lay still and prayed she'd stay hovering over me, because the dull pain at the back of my head didn't change the fact that I was more turned on than I could remember ever being in my life. If she settled her weight on me--
George smirked, accepting my tacit admission that I wasn't going to toss her...and dropped her weight onto me. I bit down on my lip to keep from saying anything. There was no way she could miss how hard I was, and if I let myself speak, I didn't know if what came out would be "I want you" or "it's not what you think", and I didn't know which was worse.
She made a sound like she'd been punched in the gut. There was one excruciating, incredible moment where she shifted, rubbing right on me, and my thoughts melted into an addled mess of holy shit, what if she's wet? Would I even know? I didn't have the first clue how wet girls got when they were turned on. Maybe you couldn't even tell while they were dressed, or maybe sometimes you could, like if I got horny enough to leave damp spots in my boxers.
I couldn't think straight, and I couldn't move. I could only lie under her, trying not to show that I was frantically searching her face for any sign that she was even remotely as excited as I was, that she wanted...what I suddenly knew I wanted.
But I couldn't guess what was going through her mind, which was fucked up enough in its own right. All I knew for sure was she was still on top of me, not commenting on or trying to evade my hard dick pressing right between her legs.
It felt like she was pressing back, just a little, but I couldn't trust that feeling. I didn't dare. I was dizzy and queasy and
my dick
was between
her legs.
I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on not moving under her. After what felt like hours, George said, with unnerving calm, "I win." When I didn't reply, she tightened her fingers in my shirt and said it again. "I win, Shaun."
"You win." My voice sounded like it'd been run through a shredder.
George frowned a little, nodded, and got up. Carefully not looking at any part of me other than my face, she said, "You smell like a sweaty boy. Go take a shower."
It was a perfectly normal thing for her to say, but it wasn't accompanied by her usual exaggerated nose-wrinkling. I asked, "You realize I took a shower less than three hours ago?"
That earned me a faint smile. "Well, do it again."
Go take care of that was what she meant, and we both knew it. "I'm going to get a drink," she added, and walked out without looking back at me, giving me room to catch my breath and get into the shower without either of us having to acknowledge what had just happened.
**********
After that, our roughhousing got more frequent, not less. George left some serious bruises on me, which was fine; Irwins get banged up all the time, so in a way it was good practice. It was also just plain worth it. I would've gone through way worse to be able to touch George so freely, and have her touch me.
If the bruises I left on her bothered her, she didn't show it. She kept being every bit as likely to start something as I was, and since we were both moody and prickly in ways that made Mom roll her eyes and mutter about teenagers, it didn't take much to set either of us off.
I had another growth spurt somewhere in there, giving me an unmistakable advantage over George; more and more, when we went at each other, I started trying to consciously gauge how much force I was putting into it.
George was livid when she realized; we got into a real fight about it that lasted until we both would've been shouting if we'd been home alone, culminating when she spat, "Don't you fucking dare baby me!"
I'd picked her up a couple times before that, but always when she was off guard. Now she was braced and focused...and that wasn't enough to keep me from grabbing her and throwing her onto her bed. (Fuck, she was practically weightless.)
I didn't throw myself on top of her, or lean in, or anything my instincts were telling me to do. I made myself stay completely out of her physical space, and I took a couple deep breaths before saying, "If we're gonna keep doing this, you need to get it through your head that I can hurt you, Georgia. It's not a fair fight anymore."
She sat still and quiet, thinking, until I tentatively said, "George...?"
My voice wobbled on her name, and that softened her in a way my retort hadn't. She didn't point out that I'd always been able to hurt her, or that she was still plenty capable of hurting me.
What she said was, "'Doing this', huh?", and then shook her head to absolve me of clarifying. "Okay. You're right. I'm sorry."
**********
We didn't stop what we were doing, but it changed.
I went easier on her without treating her like glass, and George didn't complain again. But the bigger change was how often we didn't bother looking for pretexts anymore. We just grappled a few times a week in the privacy of our rooms, putting our hands all over each other and pressing parts of our bodies together, mostly managing to keep from touching anywhere that a bathing suit would cover.
One time--just one time--I shoved a knee between her thighs, harder than I'd meant. George gasped under me as my leg bumped roughly against her crotch. I winced, opening my mouth to apologize, and realized she'd grabbed the waistband of my jeans.
"Maybe that's enough," she said. "My back's sore today."
I found my voice. "Want me to rub it?"
There was something unsettling in her answering smile. "Yes." She let go of my jeans, freeing me to move. Then, without looking away from my face, she sat up, reached under the back of her shirt, and unhooked her bra before stretching out face down on the bed so I could touch her.
If she felt my hands shaking, she didn't comment.
**********
Over the next weeks, I learned a lot about giving George quality back rubs.
Basic technique, for one thing. I got good enough that I could see a difference in how she moved through her day. I learned that it was easiest to do if she took her top and bra off entirely, and that she was willing, even eager, to do that. I learned what kind of lotion made it easiest to work on her muscles.
I learned that it was strategically sound to find time to jerk off first, even though it was no guarantee that I wouldn't wind up with a hard-on by the time we were done.
I told myself I was doing all I could to not cross any real lines. There was the masturbating in advance, but I also didn't try to watch when George took her shirt off, and I made sure not to touch her in any new ways without checking in. I never let my fingers drift to the sides of her breasts, even when massaging became caressing and she was making tiny content noises under my touch, her face buried in a pillow that kept her from seeing the incriminating bulge of my cock in my pants.
None of that kept me from feeling like shit at how I was responding to my sister's comfortable sighs and trusting vulnerability. And when George offered to reciprocate, my refusal was so awkward that she actually took pity on me and let it go. But her small frown betrayed a constellation of emotions--dismay and frustration, a flicker of hurt she couldn't quite hide--that I hated making her feel.
We'd always told each other everything. How the hell was I supposed to tell her I wouldn't be able to relax because I'd be too scared of her seeing the way her touch affected me?
**********
After a couple of months and more massages than I wanted to admit I was counting (twenty-three), during one of the handful of times I wasn't rock-hard by the time I finished rubbing George's back, I wound up sitting beside her on her bed, my hand between her shoulder blades, and blurted, "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
George froze. The only motion I could feel was the soft thudding of her heart against my palm through her back. A small eternity passed.
Then she said, "Turn off the light."
She was closer, but couldn't do it herself without giving me a way better look at her chest. I obeyed, not asking why. The room plunged into darkness.
Safe from any eyes but her own, George rolled over with a rustle of sheets. Her hand closed over mine. "Lie down?"
I lay down slowly, trying not to bump into her bare chest, and discovered she was facing the wall--away from me, reaching around herself to hold my hand.
"Yes," she said quietly, once I'd settled behind her. "This is all okay. I'll tell you if it's ever not."
"Promise?" It had been months since my voice had cracked, but now it snagged as she nestled closer, half naked against my fully-clothed body.
"You don't need to ask me to do that," she whispered.
"I know."
She added, "I like it when you touch me," and somehow I didn't flinch. She liked it. That was the important part, wasn't it? Even if I was getting something out of it that she wasn't?
We lay like that in the darkness of her room for a long time, long enough that I relaxed a little. George's back was warm and smooth against my chest, her breathing so soft that I thought she might be drifting off--which made me feel even more like a creeper when my cock started to harden in earnest.
Our bodies were only barely touching from the waist down. I swallowed hard, unsure whether pulling further away would only draw her attention to how I was responding to her.
George's grip on my hand tightened before I could decide. "Shaun."
I shut my eyes uselessly against the dark and my own rising panic. "I'll be back in a minute," I said, cutting off whatever she'd been going to say. "Bathroom."
"Okay."
As I got up, I squeezed her upper arm and reiterated, "I'll be right back."
**********
Alone in our little bathroom, I breathed as deeply as I could. Entering from George's room meant the lights had come on in UV, not white light, and the dimness was comforting. It meant I didn't have to see my own eyes in the mirror while I dealt with the insistent erection that I should fucking well not have from lying in my sister's bed, or having my hands on her skin, or feeling her snuggle against me with her goddamn shirt off.
What the fuck, George?
Unhelpfully, my brain replayed the last full sentence she'd said: I like it when you touch me.
I like it when...
I tried to steer my mind into safer territory, but there was nowhere safe to go. When I had porn in front of me where no one involved looked like George, I could usually manage to only half-imagine her. But more and more of the time I'd been giving in to what I really wanted, tracking down stuff with girls who did look at least a little like her--or a lot, if I could manage it--and jerking off to that.
I'd also been feeling grosser and grosser about it, but that didn't help now. All those visual aids plus how well I know her made it way, way too easy to imagine how she'd touch me, especially after all the practice I'd had recently.
The important thing was that I'd said I'd go right back to her room, and I couldn't until I got off. I was too damn horny from touching her. My hard-on would probably ease up on its own in a minute or two if I just thought about something else entirely, but as soon as I was back in there with her, all bets would be off.
I'd told her I'd be back, so I had to do this. And it'd be over a lot faster if I stopped fighting my imagination. Again.
Both of my hands clenched tight: one into a fist of frustration, and the other around my dick. I gave myself a couple quick strokes, then reached for a bit of lotion...the same kind I'd been using on George's back, milder than the stuff we use after showers. Its faint scent had already been on my hands, but now it was fresh, stronger, and according to some part of my brain, it smelled like her.
My imagination was off and running, and from there it took less than a minute--long enough to fantasize about her hitching herself up to sit on the sink's counter, putting her hands on my hips to pull me to her. It could almost be her hand on me now, jerking me off eagerly while she kissed my neck, laughing.
I could almost pretend it was innocent, what I was imagining. Just George's hand and laughter, not--not her lips parting for my cock, or rhythmic gasps while I fucked her. I was determinedly not (quite) imagining her on her knees, on my bed, inviting me--begging me to...
I like it when you touch me.
Touch me.
At the last second I grabbed a handful of tissues and used my other hand to hold them in place while the orgasm wracked me, while I bit my lip raw to keep from making noise. My hip banged into the sink on one of my last thrusts into my hand, but I didn't yelp or swear. I just leaned forward, panting, letting the counter hold me up for a few seconds.
I almost staggered as I straightened, but I threw the used tissues into the toilet and flushed, then fumbled for soap and water. I had to get back to her.
**********
I slipped back into the room quietly and sat on the edge of George's bed, almost hoping she'd fallen asleep. "Hey," I whispered.
Her voice came back out of the shadows. "Hey."
That was all she said, but I know the not-a-sound of her silence when she's waiting. I lay back down, putting a light arm around her.
"Hang on." George spoke again while I was still trying to decide how close to get. It was George--if she'd noticed my hard-on before and I hugged her tight now, she'd know immediately why I felt safer, and would probably piece together that I'd been envisioning her while I was at it.
It's a good thing I've never really wanted to keep secrets from her. But I was starting to wish it was a teeny bit easier.
There was a heartbeat of silence where neither of us moved, where we were barely touching.
Then she turned over to face me, and her arms went around me. A corner of my brain processed that she arranged her bed sheet as she did it, so it wasn't bare breasts suddenly pressing against my chest--technically--but her whole body was against mine, snuggling close. I could smell her hair, her skin; I could feel her breathing as clearly as I could hear it.
"About what you said before--" she began.
I tensed all over, and George broke off, her arms tightening convulsively. An edge of urgency crept into her voice. "I promise."
Something cracked deep inside me, below my throat. Something that could've been a sob.
"I promise," she murmured again. One of her hands stroked my back while she held me. "Shhh, it's okay. I'm not going anywhere."
That's how I realized I was trembling--badly.
George didn't say anything else for a little while, just kept making soothing, awkward noises while I clung to her. The shaking refused to stop, and it got worse every time I told myself I should let go of her. My brain was too overloaded with need and guilt and desperation, and the thought of pulling away felt like finality, like any distance I put between our bodies now would somehow translate into something worse and permanent.
Lying in her arms like that, I might've thought our bodies couldn't get any closer--not without evicting all the cloth between us. But slowly, as we shifted against each other, we pressed closer and closer and closer. Every minor adjustment settled us more perfectly together, and each one calmed me a little more...and made me more aware that George's arms around me were as desperate as mine around her.
We lay like that long after we were both completely silent. George kept rubbing my back while the fingers of her other hand made their way into my hair. And eventually, the closeness had a predictable effect: my dick twitched, then gradually stiffened until I was partway to another erection. This time it was pressed against George's belly, and she--she shifted against it, against me, just a tiny undulation of her hips. I barely kept from groaning; if George tried to suppress her soft gasp, she failed.
Then she pulled her head back in a way that told me she was looking at me, and said, "Can you see me at all?"
I could see just barely enough that I didn't have to grope for her face as I put my hand on her cheek. "Not really."
"I want you to look at me." The muscles in her jaw twitched as she swallowed. "Can you turn the light back on?"
It meant letting go of her, but I knew exactly where her bedside lamp was. I reached out, and black light took the worst of the darkness away.
George had taken her sunglasses off while I was in the bathroom. I was confronted with her eyes when I turned back to her, as her arms tightened around me again.
"Look at me," she whispered. "Look."
So I looked. I looked straight into the blackness of her blown pupils, then at the painful earnestness of her expression.
I did my best to stop thinking about my own guilt and shame--my own everything--so I could really see her, the way she was asking me to.
What I saw was the effort she was putting into letting her feelings show, even though being alone with me had always been when she was most emotionally open. I saw the love that was always there, and...a complete lack of horror, or anger, or disgust.
Instead of the things I'd spent months scared of seeing on her face, I saw a longing as deep as mine...and the same fear I'd been seeing in the mirror every day.
In a movie, we would have kissed. In real life, we just kept staring at each other; George was studying my expression every bit as intently as I was studying hers. It was weirdly exhausting. We're good at wordless communication, but that didn't mean we were magically making plans or working out anything but the fact that we were in this together, whatever this was.
(This was George's absolute love for me, and mine for her, and the impossible wonder of seeing her eyes alight with hunger for me, plus my collapsing belief that this had to be all kinds of fucked up and wrong. If she felt it too, if she wanted it too, how the hell could it be wrong?)
We kept not-kissing when our faces touched. We just pressed our foreheads together silently, holding each other tight while everything and nothing changed.
I wasn't sure what blew my mind more: that George felt the same way I did, or that I'd managed to convince myself she didn't. So many little things should have tipped me off.
I wanted to ask how long she'd known, either about her feelings or about mine, but even when she'd been comforting me, she hadn't come out and said anything about sharing my feelings. I followed her lead and kept quiet.
When she eventually peeled herself away from me, she did it slowly, rubbing her cheek against the inside of my arm. "Lie on your stomach for me," she said. Her voice was steady until she added, "And take your shirt off," with a catch that made me want to grab her right back into my arms.
Instead I obediently sat up and pulled my t-shirt off over my head. George took advantage of my gaze being elsewhere to sit up too and grab her own shirt from where she'd abandoned it by her pillow. She'd tugged it on by the time I looked back at her--but she wasn't wearing a bra under it, and the shape of her nipples was visible through the worn fabric.
"On your stomach," she repeated, so crisp I realized I was staring slack-jawed at her chest, practically drooling.
"Sorry," I mumbled, dragging my gaze away.
"It's okay."
Shivering, I lay down and closed my eyes. There was the soft sound of George putting lotion on her hands--that smell again--and a long moment of anticipation while she leaned over me.
"My turn to touch you," she said, and then she laughed, letting her hands drop onto my back. "Finally."
Originally posted at http://umadoshi.dreamwidth.org/733323.html. Comment here if you like, or comment there using OpenID. Comments at DW:
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Georgia Mason/Shaun Mason
Characters: Georgia Mason, Shaun Mason
Additional Tags: POV First Person, Canon Disabled Character, Pre-Canon, Adopted Sibling Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Codependency, Roughhousing, Backrubs, guilty teenage masturbation
Summary:
I told myself it wasn't my fault if I couldn't ignore those glimpses of skin or the softness of her body when we hugged. It made sense: George was a girl; I was into girls; she was the girl I was always with. Sooner or later my hormones would figure out she was my sister, and then touching her would just give me the same sense of warmth and comfort as it had all our lives.
Some of my wires got crossed sometimes, that was all. Puberty was weird and confusing, according to everyone ever, and after a while things would settle down.
That was all it was. It had to be.
Set about nine years before Feed, when Georgia and Shaun are fourteen.
Additional notes:
--Title from Tori Amos' "Horses".
--Beta work by
wildpear.
You can also read the fic here:
George and I had growth spurts like we were playing leapfrog. Hers happened a bit late and mine happened a bit early (statistically speaking), so for a couple of years neither of us really had a height advantage--or more importantly, a reach advantage. That lasted until we were about fourteen, when I gained a couple inches on her overnight.
Being basically the same size for so long meant I hadn't developed an "I'm bigger than her" instinct yet. We'd mostly stopped having actual fights with anything but words, but any time we started roughhousing or play-fighting, I still fought back in earnest. Vying for physical dominance was something we'd been doing for as long as we could remember, and we weren't ready to stop. In a way neither of us tried to put into words, it was like running laps: a familiar, visceral thing we could do together where we could use our bodies without thinking about fraught stuff like "puberty" and "hormones" and "me wanting to punch people out for the way they side-eyed us if we got into each other's personal space".
(That last one got under my skin all the deeper because George had started being uncomfortable giving or receiving physical affection with me, except in private, back when we were, like, eight. The fact that adults and classmates would give us funny looks for sitting too close together or whatever was infuriating in its sheer stupidity.)
Because the thing was, no matter how resistant we were to some kinds of change, our lifelong sensitivity to each other's presence meant we were aware of each other's bodies. And for all that George, at least, couldn't wait to be an adult and able to live by her own rules, adolescence was something we resented. Adolescence and our parents' inflexible repetition of "but you're not children anymore" had robbed us of our shared bedroom, the private space that had been ours for as long as we could remember.
Our room had been our sanctuary, the site of countless pillow fights and blanket forts, the place where we'd read aloud to each other or in companionable silence; it had been where we held our real fights, away from our parents' prying eyes. It had been where Mom and Dad had sworn up and down they'd never, ever film us without our knowledge; it was where, every single night, we'd listened to each other breathe as we fell asleep. It was where we'd cuddled up to each other when one or both of us was sick. It had held all of our dreams.
But when we officially turned twelve, it was like it threw a switch in our parents' heads, and that had been that. George and I had managed to get some concessions out of them, like the door between our rooms and the shared bathroom, but long before we hit thirteen, we'd been separated.
Now whichever of us woke up first couldn't just look across the room and see the other one sleeping. Now it felt like getting away with something if one of us was in the other's room while they fell asleep, or if we were moody or stressed enough to want to fall asleep beside each other. Nighttime became a mystery, and while we slept, nighttime worked tricks on our bodies, plaguing us both with muscle aches and other growing pains.
I studied George's body a lot, trying to make sure she didn't change too much without my noticing. Then I felt weird about doing it, because that was definitely on the unspoken list of things brothers were supposed to ignore about their sisters, and then I felt angry about feeling weird, and so on.
**********
It got worse as we got older. By the time we were thirteen and a half, male classmates were making comments about the girls' bodies, and George wasn't immune, although she didn't tell me much about it--probably because she didn't want me breaking arms at school.
She was lanky at that age, almost at her full height but still developing curves. You couldn't have paid me enough to admit how much attention I was paying to her breasts, partly because I didn't want her to lump me in with anyone else who might be looking.
Some days, though, it seemed like she was deliberately making damn sure I was aware of her body--so much so that I hoped she didn't think she was being subtle.
We came straight home from running laps one day, instead of showering and changing at the gym, and while we were both in our rooms, George started bitching loudly through the half-open connecting door that tits were royally inconvenient for running and hers could be done growing any day now, please and thank you.
"Oh, God, not boobs," I called back. "How'll you ever survive?"
I'd barely gotten the words out when she came stomping into my room, still in a bra but shirtless, mouth twitching with irritation. "If I wind up a buffet for a pack of zombies because I was weighed down with extra ballast, just remember you said that."
"Boobs probably kill straight guys more often than women in the field," I said, unable to resist baiting her. It gave me an excuse to eye her cleavage, since she'd basically left it on display. "They're pretty distracting."
I don't know if the goading was what made her grab me, but next thing I knew she was snarling "Screw you," as she grabbed my hand and shoved it onto her left breast, with no sign that she thought there was anything strange about what she was doing. She held my hand there while she jumped straight up, showing me exactly how the motion made her chest bounce, redistributing the weight.
I gaped at her, dry-mouthed and way, way too aware of how soft her breast was, how she was still sweaty from exertion, how I could feel her nipple against the ball of my thumb.
"And that's with a sports bra on," she said, voice curdling with annoyance like I wasn't standing there trying not to come in my pants. Grumbling under her breath, she shoved my hand back off her chest and stalked back to her own room.
By sheer force of will, I managed to keep my own voice steady when I asked if I could have the shower first. If George noticed I was in there longer than usual, or guessed it was because I was busy getting my rocks off under the spray, she didn't say anything.
**********
Maybe it's ridiculous that even then, I didn't quite put together what I wanted. I didn't let myself clue in that what she did made me horny for reasons beyond "I touched a girl's chest", just like I never let myself grasp that the times I masturbated guiltily after catching glimpses of her body went beyond "I got an eyeful and my dick doesn't know she's my sister".
I told myself it wasn't my fault if I couldn't ignore those glimpses of skin or the softness of her body when we hugged. It made sense: George was a girl; I was into girls; she was the girl I was always with. Sooner or later my hormones would figure out she was my sister, and then touching her would just give me the same sense of warmth and comfort as it had all our lives.
Some of my wires got crossed sometimes, that was all. Puberty was weird and confusing, according to everyone ever, and after a while things would settle down.
That was all it was. It had to be.
**********
I stopped being able to delude myself not long after we turned fourteen. We were bickering about something--something stupid, something neither of us really cared about--and it got physical because we were snarly and restless. We wound up wrestling each other right down to the floor, where George squirmed until she got a leg in between us and kneed me hard in the solar plexus. Having all the air driven out of me didn't make me let go of her; it just made me clamp my hands down, pinning her by the wrist and hip.
George made a concerted effort to wriggle free. I squeezed harder, equally determined to hold her still until I got my breath back. She fought my grip for another minute before going limp, admitting defeat. I loosened my hands without letting go, sagging against her while I waited for my breathing to slow.
I'd had her pinned roughly to her bedroom floor that exact same way dozens of times before. But that time, seeing her sprawled under me, I had a moment of utter clarity: it wasn't the perfect way her hip fit in my hand that was turning me on, or the sight of her pulse fluttering in her throat, or the quick, unsteady rise and fall of her breasts as she panted. It wasn't the flush of exertion in her cheeks, or the way I could feel her eyes on me...
Except those things were exactly what I was responding to, because it was George I was holding under me--my sister, yeah, but what did that matter compared to the fact that she was Georgia? My head swam with how badly I wanted to get my lips on hers, see for myself what she tasted when she licked them, just like she was doing now.
I'll give her this: she gave me advance warning that she was retracting her surrender--fair enough, since I hadn't let go. I felt her muscles tense and relax a little as she gathered herself. Then she shoved herself straight up at me.
She couldn't get much momentum from that position, so I could have stopped her. But between her sudden movement and how stunned I already felt, she managed to get loose.
Once she was free, she could've run; sometimes she did, and if Mom yelled at me for chasing her, George hollered right back. Even if we'd been fighting hard enough to hurt--and there'd been plenty of times when we were kids that one of us got pissed off enough to go after the other as hard as we could--George would put it on hold to defend her right to fight me if she damn well wanted to.
But instead of running, she got her hands on my shoulders and shoved me down so hard my head hit the floor. She froze instantly, just like I would have; wanting to hurt each other sometimes never meant wanting to injure each other.
"I'm fine," I said. My head throbbed, but not in a way that meant I'd taken real damage.
We took simultaneous steadying breaths, and then her fingers were knotting into my shirt to hold me still while she straddled me, just like she'd done tons of times, not quite coming to rest on my abs. It was a good strategic position for her: I could push her right back off, but if she resisted I'd have to throw her harder than I wanted to.
I lay still and prayed she'd stay hovering over me, because the dull pain at the back of my head didn't change the fact that I was more turned on than I could remember ever being in my life. If she settled her weight on me--
George smirked, accepting my tacit admission that I wasn't going to toss her...and dropped her weight onto me. I bit down on my lip to keep from saying anything. There was no way she could miss how hard I was, and if I let myself speak, I didn't know if what came out would be "I want you" or "it's not what you think", and I didn't know which was worse.
She made a sound like she'd been punched in the gut. There was one excruciating, incredible moment where she shifted, rubbing right on me, and my thoughts melted into an addled mess of holy shit, what if she's wet? Would I even know? I didn't have the first clue how wet girls got when they were turned on. Maybe you couldn't even tell while they were dressed, or maybe sometimes you could, like if I got horny enough to leave damp spots in my boxers.
I couldn't think straight, and I couldn't move. I could only lie under her, trying not to show that I was frantically searching her face for any sign that she was even remotely as excited as I was, that she wanted...what I suddenly knew I wanted.
But I couldn't guess what was going through her mind, which was fucked up enough in its own right. All I knew for sure was she was still on top of me, not commenting on or trying to evade my hard dick pressing right between her legs.
It felt like she was pressing back, just a little, but I couldn't trust that feeling. I didn't dare. I was dizzy and queasy and
my dick
was between
her legs.
I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on not moving under her. After what felt like hours, George said, with unnerving calm, "I win." When I didn't reply, she tightened her fingers in my shirt and said it again. "I win, Shaun."
"You win." My voice sounded like it'd been run through a shredder.
George frowned a little, nodded, and got up. Carefully not looking at any part of me other than my face, she said, "You smell like a sweaty boy. Go take a shower."
It was a perfectly normal thing for her to say, but it wasn't accompanied by her usual exaggerated nose-wrinkling. I asked, "You realize I took a shower less than three hours ago?"
That earned me a faint smile. "Well, do it again."
Go take care of that was what she meant, and we both knew it. "I'm going to get a drink," she added, and walked out without looking back at me, giving me room to catch my breath and get into the shower without either of us having to acknowledge what had just happened.
**********
After that, our roughhousing got more frequent, not less. George left some serious bruises on me, which was fine; Irwins get banged up all the time, so in a way it was good practice. It was also just plain worth it. I would've gone through way worse to be able to touch George so freely, and have her touch me.
If the bruises I left on her bothered her, she didn't show it. She kept being every bit as likely to start something as I was, and since we were both moody and prickly in ways that made Mom roll her eyes and mutter about teenagers, it didn't take much to set either of us off.
I had another growth spurt somewhere in there, giving me an unmistakable advantage over George; more and more, when we went at each other, I started trying to consciously gauge how much force I was putting into it.
George was livid when she realized; we got into a real fight about it that lasted until we both would've been shouting if we'd been home alone, culminating when she spat, "Don't you fucking dare baby me!"
I'd picked her up a couple times before that, but always when she was off guard. Now she was braced and focused...and that wasn't enough to keep me from grabbing her and throwing her onto her bed. (Fuck, she was practically weightless.)
I didn't throw myself on top of her, or lean in, or anything my instincts were telling me to do. I made myself stay completely out of her physical space, and I took a couple deep breaths before saying, "If we're gonna keep doing this, you need to get it through your head that I can hurt you, Georgia. It's not a fair fight anymore."
She sat still and quiet, thinking, until I tentatively said, "George...?"
My voice wobbled on her name, and that softened her in a way my retort hadn't. She didn't point out that I'd always been able to hurt her, or that she was still plenty capable of hurting me.
What she said was, "'Doing this', huh?", and then shook her head to absolve me of clarifying. "Okay. You're right. I'm sorry."
**********
We didn't stop what we were doing, but it changed.
I went easier on her without treating her like glass, and George didn't complain again. But the bigger change was how often we didn't bother looking for pretexts anymore. We just grappled a few times a week in the privacy of our rooms, putting our hands all over each other and pressing parts of our bodies together, mostly managing to keep from touching anywhere that a bathing suit would cover.
One time--just one time--I shoved a knee between her thighs, harder than I'd meant. George gasped under me as my leg bumped roughly against her crotch. I winced, opening my mouth to apologize, and realized she'd grabbed the waistband of my jeans.
"Maybe that's enough," she said. "My back's sore today."
I found my voice. "Want me to rub it?"
There was something unsettling in her answering smile. "Yes." She let go of my jeans, freeing me to move. Then, without looking away from my face, she sat up, reached under the back of her shirt, and unhooked her bra before stretching out face down on the bed so I could touch her.
If she felt my hands shaking, she didn't comment.
**********
Over the next weeks, I learned a lot about giving George quality back rubs.
Basic technique, for one thing. I got good enough that I could see a difference in how she moved through her day. I learned that it was easiest to do if she took her top and bra off entirely, and that she was willing, even eager, to do that. I learned what kind of lotion made it easiest to work on her muscles.
I learned that it was strategically sound to find time to jerk off first, even though it was no guarantee that I wouldn't wind up with a hard-on by the time we were done.
I told myself I was doing all I could to not cross any real lines. There was the masturbating in advance, but I also didn't try to watch when George took her shirt off, and I made sure not to touch her in any new ways without checking in. I never let my fingers drift to the sides of her breasts, even when massaging became caressing and she was making tiny content noises under my touch, her face buried in a pillow that kept her from seeing the incriminating bulge of my cock in my pants.
None of that kept me from feeling like shit at how I was responding to my sister's comfortable sighs and trusting vulnerability. And when George offered to reciprocate, my refusal was so awkward that she actually took pity on me and let it go. But her small frown betrayed a constellation of emotions--dismay and frustration, a flicker of hurt she couldn't quite hide--that I hated making her feel.
We'd always told each other everything. How the hell was I supposed to tell her I wouldn't be able to relax because I'd be too scared of her seeing the way her touch affected me?
**********
After a couple of months and more massages than I wanted to admit I was counting (twenty-three), during one of the handful of times I wasn't rock-hard by the time I finished rubbing George's back, I wound up sitting beside her on her bed, my hand between her shoulder blades, and blurted, "Are you sure you're okay with this?"
George froze. The only motion I could feel was the soft thudding of her heart against my palm through her back. A small eternity passed.
Then she said, "Turn off the light."
She was closer, but couldn't do it herself without giving me a way better look at her chest. I obeyed, not asking why. The room plunged into darkness.
Safe from any eyes but her own, George rolled over with a rustle of sheets. Her hand closed over mine. "Lie down?"
I lay down slowly, trying not to bump into her bare chest, and discovered she was facing the wall--away from me, reaching around herself to hold my hand.
"Yes," she said quietly, once I'd settled behind her. "This is all okay. I'll tell you if it's ever not."
"Promise?" It had been months since my voice had cracked, but now it snagged as she nestled closer, half naked against my fully-clothed body.
"You don't need to ask me to do that," she whispered.
"I know."
She added, "I like it when you touch me," and somehow I didn't flinch. She liked it. That was the important part, wasn't it? Even if I was getting something out of it that she wasn't?
We lay like that in the darkness of her room for a long time, long enough that I relaxed a little. George's back was warm and smooth against my chest, her breathing so soft that I thought she might be drifting off--which made me feel even more like a creeper when my cock started to harden in earnest.
Our bodies were only barely touching from the waist down. I swallowed hard, unsure whether pulling further away would only draw her attention to how I was responding to her.
George's grip on my hand tightened before I could decide. "Shaun."
I shut my eyes uselessly against the dark and my own rising panic. "I'll be back in a minute," I said, cutting off whatever she'd been going to say. "Bathroom."
"Okay."
As I got up, I squeezed her upper arm and reiterated, "I'll be right back."
**********
Alone in our little bathroom, I breathed as deeply as I could. Entering from George's room meant the lights had come on in UV, not white light, and the dimness was comforting. It meant I didn't have to see my own eyes in the mirror while I dealt with the insistent erection that I should fucking well not have from lying in my sister's bed, or having my hands on her skin, or feeling her snuggle against me with her goddamn shirt off.
What the fuck, George?
Unhelpfully, my brain replayed the last full sentence she'd said: I like it when you touch me.
I like it when...
I tried to steer my mind into safer territory, but there was nowhere safe to go. When I had porn in front of me where no one involved looked like George, I could usually manage to only half-imagine her. But more and more of the time I'd been giving in to what I really wanted, tracking down stuff with girls who did look at least a little like her--or a lot, if I could manage it--and jerking off to that.
I'd also been feeling grosser and grosser about it, but that didn't help now. All those visual aids plus how well I know her made it way, way too easy to imagine how she'd touch me, especially after all the practice I'd had recently.
The important thing was that I'd said I'd go right back to her room, and I couldn't until I got off. I was too damn horny from touching her. My hard-on would probably ease up on its own in a minute or two if I just thought about something else entirely, but as soon as I was back in there with her, all bets would be off.
I'd told her I'd be back, so I had to do this. And it'd be over a lot faster if I stopped fighting my imagination. Again.
Both of my hands clenched tight: one into a fist of frustration, and the other around my dick. I gave myself a couple quick strokes, then reached for a bit of lotion...the same kind I'd been using on George's back, milder than the stuff we use after showers. Its faint scent had already been on my hands, but now it was fresh, stronger, and according to some part of my brain, it smelled like her.
My imagination was off and running, and from there it took less than a minute--long enough to fantasize about her hitching herself up to sit on the sink's counter, putting her hands on my hips to pull me to her. It could almost be her hand on me now, jerking me off eagerly while she kissed my neck, laughing.
I could almost pretend it was innocent, what I was imagining. Just George's hand and laughter, not--not her lips parting for my cock, or rhythmic gasps while I fucked her. I was determinedly not (quite) imagining her on her knees, on my bed, inviting me--begging me to...
I like it when you touch me.
Touch me.
At the last second I grabbed a handful of tissues and used my other hand to hold them in place while the orgasm wracked me, while I bit my lip raw to keep from making noise. My hip banged into the sink on one of my last thrusts into my hand, but I didn't yelp or swear. I just leaned forward, panting, letting the counter hold me up for a few seconds.
I almost staggered as I straightened, but I threw the used tissues into the toilet and flushed, then fumbled for soap and water. I had to get back to her.
**********
I slipped back into the room quietly and sat on the edge of George's bed, almost hoping she'd fallen asleep. "Hey," I whispered.
Her voice came back out of the shadows. "Hey."
That was all she said, but I know the not-a-sound of her silence when she's waiting. I lay back down, putting a light arm around her.
"Hang on." George spoke again while I was still trying to decide how close to get. It was George--if she'd noticed my hard-on before and I hugged her tight now, she'd know immediately why I felt safer, and would probably piece together that I'd been envisioning her while I was at it.
It's a good thing I've never really wanted to keep secrets from her. But I was starting to wish it was a teeny bit easier.
There was a heartbeat of silence where neither of us moved, where we were barely touching.
Then she turned over to face me, and her arms went around me. A corner of my brain processed that she arranged her bed sheet as she did it, so it wasn't bare breasts suddenly pressing against my chest--technically--but her whole body was against mine, snuggling close. I could smell her hair, her skin; I could feel her breathing as clearly as I could hear it.
"About what you said before--" she began.
I tensed all over, and George broke off, her arms tightening convulsively. An edge of urgency crept into her voice. "I promise."
Something cracked deep inside me, below my throat. Something that could've been a sob.
"I promise," she murmured again. One of her hands stroked my back while she held me. "Shhh, it's okay. I'm not going anywhere."
That's how I realized I was trembling--badly.
George didn't say anything else for a little while, just kept making soothing, awkward noises while I clung to her. The shaking refused to stop, and it got worse every time I told myself I should let go of her. My brain was too overloaded with need and guilt and desperation, and the thought of pulling away felt like finality, like any distance I put between our bodies now would somehow translate into something worse and permanent.
Lying in her arms like that, I might've thought our bodies couldn't get any closer--not without evicting all the cloth between us. But slowly, as we shifted against each other, we pressed closer and closer and closer. Every minor adjustment settled us more perfectly together, and each one calmed me a little more...and made me more aware that George's arms around me were as desperate as mine around her.
We lay like that long after we were both completely silent. George kept rubbing my back while the fingers of her other hand made their way into my hair. And eventually, the closeness had a predictable effect: my dick twitched, then gradually stiffened until I was partway to another erection. This time it was pressed against George's belly, and she--she shifted against it, against me, just a tiny undulation of her hips. I barely kept from groaning; if George tried to suppress her soft gasp, she failed.
Then she pulled her head back in a way that told me she was looking at me, and said, "Can you see me at all?"
I could see just barely enough that I didn't have to grope for her face as I put my hand on her cheek. "Not really."
"I want you to look at me." The muscles in her jaw twitched as she swallowed. "Can you turn the light back on?"
It meant letting go of her, but I knew exactly where her bedside lamp was. I reached out, and black light took the worst of the darkness away.
George had taken her sunglasses off while I was in the bathroom. I was confronted with her eyes when I turned back to her, as her arms tightened around me again.
"Look at me," she whispered. "Look."
So I looked. I looked straight into the blackness of her blown pupils, then at the painful earnestness of her expression.
I did my best to stop thinking about my own guilt and shame--my own everything--so I could really see her, the way she was asking me to.
What I saw was the effort she was putting into letting her feelings show, even though being alone with me had always been when she was most emotionally open. I saw the love that was always there, and...a complete lack of horror, or anger, or disgust.
Instead of the things I'd spent months scared of seeing on her face, I saw a longing as deep as mine...and the same fear I'd been seeing in the mirror every day.
In a movie, we would have kissed. In real life, we just kept staring at each other; George was studying my expression every bit as intently as I was studying hers. It was weirdly exhausting. We're good at wordless communication, but that didn't mean we were magically making plans or working out anything but the fact that we were in this together, whatever this was.
(This was George's absolute love for me, and mine for her, and the impossible wonder of seeing her eyes alight with hunger for me, plus my collapsing belief that this had to be all kinds of fucked up and wrong. If she felt it too, if she wanted it too, how the hell could it be wrong?)
We kept not-kissing when our faces touched. We just pressed our foreheads together silently, holding each other tight while everything and nothing changed.
I wasn't sure what blew my mind more: that George felt the same way I did, or that I'd managed to convince myself she didn't. So many little things should have tipped me off.
I wanted to ask how long she'd known, either about her feelings or about mine, but even when she'd been comforting me, she hadn't come out and said anything about sharing my feelings. I followed her lead and kept quiet.
When she eventually peeled herself away from me, she did it slowly, rubbing her cheek against the inside of my arm. "Lie on your stomach for me," she said. Her voice was steady until she added, "And take your shirt off," with a catch that made me want to grab her right back into my arms.
Instead I obediently sat up and pulled my t-shirt off over my head. George took advantage of my gaze being elsewhere to sit up too and grab her own shirt from where she'd abandoned it by her pillow. She'd tugged it on by the time I looked back at her--but she wasn't wearing a bra under it, and the shape of her nipples was visible through the worn fabric.
"On your stomach," she repeated, so crisp I realized I was staring slack-jawed at her chest, practically drooling.
"Sorry," I mumbled, dragging my gaze away.
"It's okay."
Shivering, I lay down and closed my eyes. There was the soft sound of George putting lotion on her hands--that smell again--and a long moment of anticipation while she leaned over me.
"My turn to touch you," she said, and then she laughed, letting her hands drop onto my back. "Finally."
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