Title: We're Damned At The Start
Author: kimbo-smarties
Rating: M
Disclaimer: General Hospital doesn't belong to me. I actually don't even watch it anymore, but these characters won't let me go.
Genre: Angst, Romance
Fandom: General Hospital
Ship: Michael/Kristina
Summary: Sequel to "A Breath In The Dark". It's a strange thing, Michael finds, waking up to realize that he's slept with his own sister.
Author's Note: Written for fanfic50 prompt #40 - mistake. Cross-posted to If Only In My Fantasies and shipcest on Livejournal. Title comes from "Hey Now" by Augustana, the song played during Claudia's car crash scene. I've always considered it to be Michael and Kristina's song.
When Michael wakes, he registers four things simultaneously: that the morning sunlight is far too bright, even behind his eyelids; there's a fresh pot of coffee brewed, and it smells heavenly; there's a faint sound of running water in the background, which means someone's in the shower; and he has the worst headache in the history of mankind.
Opening his eyes is his first mistake of the day. The light blares down onto him, enflaming the already unbearable pain in his head, and making the coffee smell not so heavenly anymore.
Hungover. He thinks, his face pressed down against the faintly fruity smelling pillow in an attempt to block out the light. I'm so hungover. What the hell happened last- oh. This pillow smells nice. It smells- oh, that's nice. It smells like-
-There's skin. Lot's of skin, tan and pale and pink. And there are mouths everywhere, on necks, lips, thighs, breasts. His hands are all over her, and her hands- God, he loves those tiny little hands- are teasing him, touching him, urging him on as he pushes deeper and deeper. His mouth's on her neck, feeling the muscles move and contract as she pants and calls his name louder and louder and louder until she-
The shower stops. Michael's wide awake.
It's an odd feeling, he finds, realizing that he's slept with his own sister. There's an overwhelming mixture of dread, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, and awe. His heart's beating out a wild but constant rhythm of oh shit- oh shit- what have I done- what have I done. The emotions creep through his body like paralysis, and he's torn between jumping out of a window and hiding under the covers, never to be seen or heard from again.
My sister. My fucking sister. Kristina. How could I- how could we?-
- Somehow they crawl back inside through the window with their mouths still attached. As soon as her feet touch the floor, he picks her back up, pressing her against the wall, dragging his hand along her thigh, up her skirt. Her hips grind against his and she moans into his mouth at the contact, her fingers clawing to get his shirt off.-
Coffee. He needs coffee. Or more alcohol. Or another bullet to the head.
Settling for coffee, Michael wills his limbs to move, and rolls up to sit on the edge of the bed. He briefly looks down at himself, hoping- praying- that the memories were just nightmares. Delusions brought about by his twisted mind. But the evidence of the previous night's events is there, along with a faint bruise on his inner thigh that he really doesn't want to think about. He finds his boxers quickly, his already scarlet cheeks reddening even more at the soreness in his groin as he tugs them on.
Moving slowly, Michael makes his way across the apartment to the coffee pot, stopping several times along the short way to force down nausea. He's just finished pouring up his cup when the bathroom door opens. Suddenly, he's panicking. He's terrified and worried and she needs to go away because he has no idea what he's going to say to her and oh God, he feels like he's going to be sick.
Kristina steps out of the bathroom then immediately pauses at seeing him. Her expression is unreadable, which does nothing at all to calm Michael's nerves. He's so good at reading her, he knows every little nuance of her face, but she's not giving him anything. No shock, no guilt, no acknowledgement, no nothing. She's just looking at him.
Now he's sure he's going to be sick.
"Good morning." She says quietly when he's staring down at the counter tiles, trying to force the bile back down his throat.
"Morning." He replies, when he can.
She moves quickly- but with a slight limp, he notices- towards the counter, making sure to walk as far around him as she can. "I see you found the coffee."
He's still not looking at her. Still trying to keep himself from bolting towards the bathroom. Or bolting as far away from Port Charles as he can get. He only nods, wrapping his hands around the mug in acknowledgement.
There's an awkward pause after that. It's foreign concept to them, being awkward around one another. They've always had an easy relationship, even when they were fighting. They've always had an easy chemistry. Obviously, too much chemistry.
"You're probably hungry." She says, trying to cut through some of the tension. "I can make breakfast. I can't cook much, but I can do breakfast. That is, if there's anything in the fridge besides old milk or moldy cheese or whatever it is guys let rot in there. Lulu probably keeps you guys stocked pretty well, though. And Olivia seems like the type of mother that makes sure her son has three meals a day. Possibly four. Or five, if you count a good tea. Is tea a meal? Does anyone have tea besides the Cassadines?-"
"Kristina. You're babbling. And I'm still hungover."
She starts to speak again, but stops herself, focusing instead on tapping her fingers together in an erratic rhythm. Michael knows it's coming, he can see it rising inside of her, getting ready to erupt; he can see the words forming in her mind, he can see her trying to figure out how to fix this. That was supposed to be his job. He was her big brother; he was always the one to swoop in and save her from her troubles, to fix all her problems. He didn't know what to do now that he was her problem.
"We had sex."
Plain, simple, to the point. None of the babbling that she was prone to, or the attorney-like procrastination she had inherited from her mother, or the extravagant speech patterns of her Cassadine heritage. Just a straight-forward, emotionless fact that twists his gut into knot upon knot.
"We had sex," she continues slowly, as if she's still trying to process the information, "You're my brother, and I'm your sister, and we had sex. Really thorough, passionate, toe-curling sex. Multiple times."
Momentarily, Michael's guilt is replaced by a sense of smug satisfaction. Toe-curling. Toe-curling was good. It was damn good. Which meant that he had been damn good. God knows, from what he can remember so far, she had been absolutely ama-
His sister. His sister.
"We were drunk. We were absolutely wasted. And we're hormonal teenagers that were in close proximity to a member of the opposite sex. That's just a breeding ground for... depravity. Really hot, multiple orgasm inducing depravity." Kristina pauses here, her eyes glazing over slightly, and her cheeks reddening to the color of his own. When she catches herself, the babbling returns with ferocity. "Which can't happen again. Obviously. Of course, it can't happen again. I mean, you're my...and I'm your...and we. It just can't happen again."
"Right." He says when it's obvious that she's waiting for him to agree. It takes him longer than it should to pull the word from his mouth. Between the memories, the coffee dulling his hangover, and her "multiple orgasms" comments, his guilt and self-disgust is getting pushed back further and further from the forefront of his conscience. He's always known he was a twisted little bastard, but the fact that he doesn't wholly agree with his next statement proves it to the fullest. "Last night was a mistake."
"Right!" She says brightly. He can see it in her eyes though; she doesn't think it was a mistake either. "One that we should completely forget about. We'll...we'll put it behind us, we'll never speak of it again, and it'll be like it never happened."
Michael agrees, because that's what she wants to hear. For now. Whatever spark, whatever pull there was- there is- between them is going to go ignored and unanalyzed. For now. Because that's what needs to be done. He needs to forget; they need to go back to the way they were.
But he just doesn't think he can look her in they eye anymore without picturing her face as she came screaming his name.
Author's Note: I've returned! I've had major writer's block for months now, but I seem- I hope- to have finally moved passed it. As I mentioned in the disclaimer, I'm not even watching GH anymore. I'm just reading the recaps online- and even then I'm skimming over the parts that don't interest me. Between all the Brenda and all the Abby, I just had to stop. At least there's still fan fiction!
Speaking of, I'm not quite sure about this one. Then again, I'm not sure about all my fics right after I finish them. I kinda hated "A Breath In The Dark" a little right after I wrote it, but looking back on it months later, it's one of my favorites that I've ever done.
As always, review, review, review!