This fucking joint isn't doing a goddamn thing right now.
You are way too pissed off right now to think straight, and it doesn't help that the joint you currently held between your lips decided to be completely and totally ineffective. You give up. Nothing was worth wasting your nerves as you currently shook from anticipation of seeing her again.
You rub the lit end of the joint against the bottom of your boot, the empty echoes of the house filling the spaces within your mind with anxiety you didn't want, anxiety you couldn't handle. How could you? The gravity of the situation was far more than you had ever thought possible, but after the other night, apparently nothing was off-limits.
Fuck this. I'm out. Can't be here anymore, not right now.
You jump down from your bed, shoving your foot into the other boot. You never bothered to tie the laces, and now was no exception. You decide to just leave - if you faceplanted on the pavement, so-fucking-be-it. Couldn't be any worse than facing her, than dealing with what happened the other night. Not again. Not like this.
You descend the stairs and hope that you didn't make too much noise. Luckily, there was no one in your house. Or so you thought.
"Lip?" you hear from behind you, and it's all you can do not to jump out of your skin. You don't want to turn, don't want to look at her head-on and face what happened. "You goin' out?"
You realize there is no going back, no way to get out of this. You have to turn around. You have to look at her directly. Slowly, you turn, the reluctance evident on every move you make. Your eyes pan up to meet wide, confused brown hues. "What's it matter?" you respond, keeping your tone deadpan. There could be no going back, but going forward, you could do your best to remain as unhindered and unemotional as possible.
"I was hopin' we could talk," she explains, folding her arms across her chest. "Y'know...'bout the other night."
You shrug. "Nothin' to talk about."
"Lip..." she says, and your heart swells. She steps closer to you, her pace slow and her gaze locked on yours. Seeing her so vulnerable hurt you so much, especially knowing you caused it. But, goddamn it, if she came closer and you could actually smell her, feel her breath, it would be over, and you may not be able to stop yourself. Restraint was always one of your weakest points, but with Fiona present, now it was nigh impossible. "Please...stay. We need to talk about it."
"Talk about what, Fiona, huh?" you say, not in a harsh way. "Talkin' about it will make it real. Talkin' about it won't make it any less wrong. Talkin' about it won't bring us back to our happy little family, won't take back what happened. The only thing that can come from talkin' about it is dark, hellish, and more fucked up than we've ever been. Are you sure you wanna cross that line? Are you sure you wanna get fucked over by a level so low we have never reached it until the other night?"
"Yeah, I am," she says, almost immediately. "We need to figure out what it was, what it meant, and what the hell we're gonna do about it."
Your hands remain in your pockets, and the shakiness of your extremities has your heartrate beginning to soar as your palms sweat. God, she's too damn close.
She steps closer. "You don't like me bein' this close to ya, do ya?" she asks, her voice in a whisper that is just the right combination of hoarse and sultry. That's her to a tee. "I can see how nervous you are right now. Hands are shakin', jittery as all shit. You look like Frank when he needs a drink pronto."
"That doesn't help," you say, avoiding her eye contact as she moves in, a mere couple of steps away from being close enough to straddle your lap. "Fi..."
"Why is it so wrong for this to be a thing?" she coos, the desperation in her voice conveying the grittiness of the subject matter. "Why is it a fucking sin to feel the charge we felt the other night?" She raised a hand to gingerly place a hand against your chest, but you take a step backward and her expression shifts to a look of confusion mixed with longing. "Lip - "
"No!" you blurt, not quite raising your voice yet.
"Tell me you didn't feel anythin' and we'll give up!"
Your hands remove themselves from your pockets and you throw them up in defeat. "What the fuck do you want me to say, Fiona?" you admit, the volume of your voice now raised to a more normal Gallagher volume. "Do you want me to say that I can't stop thinkin' about the other night? Do you want me to admit that it's taking every fucking ounce of my willpower not to kiss you right now? Do you even understand the depths of my love for you? Do you know that every time you've walked into the same room in the past couple of days it's made my stomach drop and my head spin? Do you know what you're doing to me?" You pause, and she begins to cry. Your heart hurts for her, but it also hurts for you, and you can only deal with so many things at one time. "Goddamn it, I fucking love you, alright? I mean, you can be a real pain in my ass...but let's face facts, okay? What happened the other night was the beginning of the end, and, fuck all, I would let it be the goddamn apocalypse if it meant I could kiss you and hold you and make love to you."
"It's not that easy," she says, speaking up for the first time in a bit. "But you were gonna keep runnin' away...how does that make it any easier?"
"It has to, or something else must," you confess, closing the gap between your paces and cupping her face within your hands. "We can't, Fi, no matter how much we want to. You're our caretaker. I will do whatever I can to help you around here. I will help with the laundry, I will watch the kids. Fuck, I'll even give Frank a run for his goddamn money."
She chuckles, her hands sliding up to hold your forearms. "Really? That's some real couple shit right there." You both share a small chuckle, but then her expression fades to one of loneliness and she presses her forehead to yours. "But...but that means you won't be able to love me like you want to, or love me like I want you to."
You sigh, your thumbs swiping underneath her eyes to draw away the moisture. Her body heaves within your grasp in response to your release of deep inhalation, and your skin flushes. "That's all I can give you."
She pulls back and looks into your eyes, her expression understanding what you'd really meant by that. It would be your own secret version of "I love you" whenever you wanted to tell her that in the presence of others. It is then that she initiates the next move, gently swiping her lips against yours in a fleeting kiss.
The electricity between your skin as it comes in contact with hers is overwhelming, but you are not one to complain, especially since the charge seemed to be drawing energy from the pair of you into one, fluid contact point. Your lips against hers had been all too short, so you leaned in to capture one more magnetic connection...then another...then another.
The kiss deepened between you and suddenly her arms are around your neck and her tongue is wrapped decisively around yours. The mixture of tastes is so sinfully enticing that it completely turns you on, but it also makes you love her more than you ever thought possible. It's like you and Fiona were soulmates, hell-bent on sticking by one another until hell itself freezes over and the Gallagher family holds a good-standing. In a world filled with umpteen oddjobs, a deadbeat alcoholic for a patriarch, a neighborhood of equally-underwhelmed trash, and neverending miscommunication, your relationship with your sister is the one good thing that has come from your godawful, shitty world.
When Carl, Debbie, and Ian bust in through the back door, you and Fiona immediately separate, the magnetic pull still there, though the attraction somewhat diffuses with the presences of your other siblings as they return from God-knew-where. Carl is trying to explain something to a vehement Debbie, and Ian is laughing it off as he makes a quick snack for them, but it doesn't matter. Your eyes are glued to Fiona's your bodies steadfast in the gap now between you. That kiss, the amazing caress you just shared, never happened, and, as far as you both are concerned, could never happen again.
You give her a look that says what just occurred was a momentary lapse of moral judgment and that, because of your other obligations, cannot happen again, and she seems to agree. Neither of you utter a word. Instead, the pull of magnetism between you is absorbed through osmosis in the dense air of the Gallagher home, and you both go about your business, discussing the day with the others and returning to what God apparently intended for the two of you to be: siblings.
You love her. You fucking worship her.
But she is your sister, and that comes first, as it always has.
There is one phrase, though, which haunts your mind, and echoes even as you plop down onto the couch to watch some WWE with Carl and Ian: only a Gallagher could ever truly love a Gallagher.
God-fucking-dammit.