1.

It starts in so many ways. She has her back to him as she plays and he watches the back of her neck, the curve of her hairline, and wants to touch. She's so contained; so still, aside from the fingers that fly across the keys; but he knows how soft she would feel to touch and he does. He comes up behind her so quietly she would have been startled if she did not always know exactly where he was, where he had been, where, to the moment, he was going to be.

She smiles when his fingers trace around her hair, his hand on her shoulder, more possessive than he knows. She smiles up at the portrait on the wall- see, mother?- because every time this happens she feels a little bit like she has won. He steals the smile from her when his hand slips around to cup her breast, so gently at first she almost makes a sound and loses her place – just for a moment, skipping a note or maybe three- and he notices, and this time he is the one who smiles and his voice is low in her ear when he whispers –

"Keep playing."

And she does, and it is not just at the piano, and she smiles because she understands a challenge better than almost anything. She is good at games but she wonders when he became such a match for her. She knows she is lost if she makes a noise but she closes her eyes as her fingers skim the keys, and oh she tried so hard to be a stone, to carve herself out of black marble, but she is soft in his hands as the sinking red clay. The barest hint of his fingernail scrapes her nipple through the velvet and she cannot; she hisses and stops and he is remorseless, in her ear again –

"Start again. From the beginning."

Her lip curls. She almost growls, but her heart is smiling like only he can make it and she sighs, clenches her fist, stretches her fingers out again and resumes, her voice as idle as she can make it –

"Where did you ever learn such wickedness?"

"From you of course. You know it was. It's always you."

She hears those words always you and clasps them to her like a talisman. He does not let her glow in its light for too long, bending over her to nuzzle and then kiss the back of her neck. She closes her eyes and carries on playing, wants to ignore everything so as to finish at the same time as wanting simply to delight in him and nothing else. The piano suddenly seems like a curse on her. And his fingers are working deftly at her throat because he knows this dress too well, knows how to break her out of it without even having to look and she cannot even blame him for any of his damnable skill when she knows she taught him all of it.

"You're so close to the end –" he whispers as she reaches the last part of the piece, and she cannot help but feel a thrill of something rather like pride to know how often he must have listened and paid attention, always perfectly attentive to what she does without the interest ever getting in her way or being unwanted. She smiles, but then –

"Wouldn't it be sad if something made you stop now?" he adds wickedly, as one hand slides down inside her corset. She makes a strangled sound that is not entirely ladylike and almost says something terribly vulgar. She stops herself just in time, knowing that in this mood he could easily consider it an interruption worthy of making her start again. He pries her laces apart at the back until she breathes out hard, pushing her breasts into his hand, wanting to hate him and never capable of that. Anything but that.

"When you get to the end –" he tortures her so calmly, twisting his spare hand into her hair and loosening it steadily and deftly – "I am going to fuck you senseless". He drops it out so casually she has to grit her teeth to keep from screaming.

"You will scream –" as though he can tell; she supposes he can – "I'll make you scream so loudly even she will hear". She shudders to hear something so uncannily close the way she always likes to imagine it and rushes through the last few bars with angry, trembling fingers, twisting around violently on the piano stool the second she is done and slapping him in the face. It was either that or kiss him and she had as little awareness of what she had been about to do than he had, because he blinks at her; shocked, but not that much, and catches her wrist hard before she can do it again, his other hand still in her hair and pulling now just enough to hurt a little but never too much. He scrambles awkwardly into her lap, kissing her not awkwardly at all, with trembling, hungry lips and she pushes all of the anger and frustration he has built up in her into the kisses she gives back.

She can feel his cock pressing hard against her and her fingers itch to take it in her hand but he is still intent on meanness, holding her hand tight even though he wants her so much, she can see it in his eyes. She can see an answering blackness in her own eyes reflected in his and not for the first time she wonders disjointedly which of them is which; which parts are hers and which are his. She tries to remember what she sometimes knows – that they are all hers.

For a moment she almost says please but he will not let her without serving her an excuse to do so, whispering instead beg me as he dips his head to her breasts, spilling them out from over her laces, his breath turning the nipple hard as he takes it gently in his teeth. She shakes her spinning head, knowing that she will anyway, almost whimpering as he licks and nibbles at her and her please comes out in a rushing sigh.

"Please what?"

"Please fuck me brother, please I –"

But it is enough and she has never known him capable of waiting too long. He lets her go and she falls to the floor like water, no sooner on her hands and knees than he is behind her. She can feel his hardness against her and the groan he makes with more than just breath and he starts to say something but the only word that comes out is –

"Always –" She knows he wants to carry on the game, to mock her for giving in so fast – always so desperate, she knows should have been his sentence but she likes always, there is no way in which she can interpret that one word that does not sound good. His voice wavers and breaks and he pushes into her in one long shove, thrusting into her rough and shuddering and just for a second she swirls apart and comes back together and she comes back together right. As if this could be the one thing in her life that is not wrong, in defiance of all logic and it's impossible to think or know anything beyond her brother being inside her, again, where he should be. But she makes herself speak, to let him know at least that she is not coming undone, whether she is or not, she hisses –

"Now who's desperate?" as though he did say that out loud and he forgets or does not know that he did not because he never needs to speak all of what he means for her to always know what the rest of his line will be. She wrote his life's script out for him long ago but just for now he cannot care either, because she is all there is and he cannot get close enough even now. He pulls her back by the hair but she follows so quickly it never hurts; she can know, just for now, that he will never hurt her, never lie to her and as she sits back she finds she is staring right up at their mother again and she trembles as though she could come just from the victory she feels right now, but instead her lips just curve and she thinks yes mother, take a good long look; thinks it so hard she might have said it aloud.

She arches back and his face presses into her neck, his arms winding around her, holding her close, as close as they could possibly be and when she too soon begins to shake in readiness he pauses inside her long enough to whisper out half broken orders –

"Wait – not yet – together – always together –" he moves inside her, fingers stroking between her legs and she breathes out her echo –

"Never apart," - pushing into his hand, her body shaking and tense and singing out in relief so hard it is almost pain and he comes only seconds behind her, coming into her hot and wet as blood and she looks back at the picture on the wall hoping that between them they can scream loud enough to reach the grave.

And after he slips out of her, she stays in his lap with her head against his chest and just for a moment he strokes her hair and she feels quite small, almost as though he could look after her, as though she could relinquish some degree of control. But she knows she cannot, even when he lifts her in his arms like a bride or a child and carries her to the fireplace.

The nights are long here, spare logs piled up high in readiness and there are already blankets piled up themselves by the far from the number of times they have fallen asleep down here.

_x_

I really have no defence for this 'ship other than it being hella hot. :-P I have tagged it as non –con even though it's not necessarily in this instance. I think from the nature of the relationship and how it all began it has to be always considered as dub con at best. But I did want to write something that puts Thomas a little bit more in charge of things than I know he really was, make it a little bit more mutual perhaps because I like to think he didn't 100 % hate it. But uh yeah, I feel bad as hell for writing this and worse for posting it. I may write more. :-)