Disclaimer: All characters and locations belong to their respective owners.
A/N: I had some difficulty writing this fanfic. This is one of those stories that I had under control...until the thing started to go in a different direction (read: WANTED TO BE LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN) and my focus on it tapered a little - you know, real life and all. Not that I rushed through this like that Gods-awful story, "LINErider"; I had to force myself to get past some of these parts. I just wish the ride could have gone a little more smoothly X__X.
So, uh, in case you clicked the link and still haven't noticed, this fic contains incest. And yuri. Incestual yuri. Pretty mild, nothing too graphic. If that makes you squick, the back button's right there. Just puttin' it out there.
Oh, and the title comes from a poster you see in the beginning of "Bioshock". And those who've played it and watched the walkthrough (like me, heh) will know that fire can be one of your attacks. Like I said before, inspiration comes in the most unusual places.
Fire At Your Fingertips
Nove was cold, terribly cold, to put it simply.
The girl was curled up like a ball under the sheets, so much so her legs were pressed to her chest and her chin tucked in the nook of her knees. The coverlets were drawn tight around her body, and her breath puffed hotly in the lumpy enclosure.
In spite of all this, Nove was still cold. Not even the furnace, which kicked on every now and then, warmed her; better yet, the door was closed.
The window was not.
A calico cat – and a male calico at that, for calicos were known to be almost exclusively female – was perched on the sill and staring out the window. This cat was called Scruffy. He loved the outdoors, because the wind felt so nice and the air smelled so fresh and the sun so warm. He even liked sitting in the garage and watch the rain or snow fall. But the little guy was such a hypocrite; he complained about the closeness of the inside, and he complained about the cold openness of the outside, and the Nakajima clan couldn't make heads or tails what Scruffy wanted.
Nove could sympathize with him; after all, the calico got his quirks from her, his master. They couldn't stand the cold, but they tolerated the cold weather and flying snow and freezing rain and sleet. It was hypocrisy at its best – two living, breathing, existential beings in itself.
Tonight, unfortunately, was a different story. Just as Nove was about to become engrossed in the web of slumber, Scruffy let forth a protesting meow; he meowed and meowed and meowed, and he continued to meow until the redhead snapped awake in a sitting position and promptly asked what the hell he was bitching about.
As soon as she saw Scruffy looking up longingly at the closed window, she was the one who started bitching. The storm windows hadn't been installed yet due to the weather, but tonight was unseasonably cool, and all the blankets had to be brought out of each and every closet. And Scruffy had to choose two o'clock in the fucking morning to have his master open the window.
So Nove bitched at Scruffy for waking her in the middle of the night. She bitched as she threw off the coverlets and left the comforts of the bed. She bitched and swore as her bare feet braced and padded the cold floor. She bitched as she opened the window and felt the brisk air nip her face and her cheeks and her hands. She bitched as Scruffy plopped his feline ass on the sill, bitched as he purred his thanks, and bitched as she crossed the room, climbed back into bed, and huddled her sorry self beneath the sanctity of quilted paradise.
The quilts were thin and falling apart. Nove refused to gather anymore because, for one, Scruffy shed like an ant burning under the pinpoint glare of a magnifying glass; and two, the goddamned cat just didn't like having his claws filed down to itty-bitty stubs.
She should have shaved him whole when she had the chance, see how he liked being without fur to keep him warm, the lucky bastard.
So there the Combat Cyborg lay, facing the wall that contained the goddamned window and the goddamned cat. The green digital numbers on the alarm clock pierced the blue-light blue darkness. The time was 4:00.
Four o'clock.
In the fucking morning.
Nove bit down on her bottom lip and stirred up a mental storm of vulgar curses. It had been two hours since Scruffy complained about the window. Two hours, and she hadn't fallen asleep. Two hours, and she was still freezing and suffering, while everyone else was off in dreamland and at ease in their cradles of warmth and thermal undergarments. She was too cold to get up and fetch a comforter from the hall closet, and she was too stubborn (and too embarrassed) to bother Genya and the girls to move over and make room.
A chill ran down her spine, and she snarled and rolled away from the window, dragging with her the corner of the sheets tucked under the mattress. Curse her bullheadedness!
At that moment, the door creaked open. Nove looked up, just in time for the moonlight to spill out into the hallway and bathing her visitor in silver-white resplendence.
The younger girl blinked, confusedly. "…Ginga?"
"You should keep your door open," the eldest Nakajima sibling chided gently, noiselessly slipping through the crack in the entrance. "How will we ever know if something happens to you?"
Nove snorted. "I'm a cyborg. The only thing I have to worry about is my components breaking down. Same goes to you, too."
"We're still human, regardless of what you say," said Ginga, and she stopped at the edge of the bed. Her olive green eyes flitted to the black and orange creature perched contentedly on the window sill. "I see Scruffy's bothered you again." At the mention of his name, the cat chirruped and looked her way, his tail curling crookedly with interest.
Nove barely caught her words. From where she lay, she could smell the other's musk, a heady ambrosia of potpourri and clean linen, thickening as life continued to breathe into the body standing right next to her, subtly rising and falling with each intake. Looking at Ginga, with her long, flowing, violet hair framing her slender body like velveteen curtains, and her skin pale and gleaning white like marble, Nove found the sight of her beautiful.
It was like something out of a dream.
"Nove?"
"What?" She stared at the other, stupid with confusion. "Did you say something?"
"Yes. I asked if you needed an extra blanket."
"…O-Of course not!" she protested, turning her head away with a frown. "I'm perfectly f-fine! What does it look like to you?"
"It looks to me like you're cold."
"Nonsense! I'm as tight-knit as a ball of yarn under these sheets! Scruffy should like to think to so! Isn't that right, Scruffy?!" The cat let loose a low meow in reply and folded his ears back. "See, he agrees with me, so don't worry about me. We'll make it through the night a-okay."
"But Nove—"
"I'll be fine. Go back to sleep." And the younger turned her back on the elder and said no more.
Ginga sighed, forlorn and defeated. "If that's what you want." She clutched the heavy coverlet close to her chest, and she remained standing by her sister's bedside for a moment longer. Then, with a second but inaudible breath, she spun on her heel and left the room.
Nove listened as Ginga's footsteps faded away the deeper she pressed into the household. She barely caught wind of the closet door opening and closing before the footsteps picked up again and ceased altogether.
She glanced at the alarm clock. It read 4:15. She looked past it and locked eyes with Scruffy, whose green and wide cat-eyes stared back with that typical feline curiosity.
"I know what you're thinking," she said to him, "but I can handle it. Really. Now if you excuse me," and here she yawned and buried herself in the loose, fur-embedded sheets, "I'm going to catch some much needed rest."
"Meow!"
"Oh, don't start. Leave me alone."
"Meow!"
"For the love of the Gods, go to sleep…."
"Meow," Scruffy watched Nove succumb to slumber's silky cocoon, and not long after he, too, settled into a furry black and orange ball and dreamt of catnip, tearing up and down the second-storey stairs, and ducking his head in the crook of his owner's strong, warm arms.
Regardless of what was happening, the world kept moving, and in its wake the night grew old. The moon relished taking its sweet time off its stellar throne, and the stars parted a path for it to make its descent behind the city's shining metal towers. Soon the sun would assume its rightful place and deliver golden light to this side of Mid-Childa; and in twelve hours time it would resign its position, repeating the cycle anew and forevermore until the fabled end of days.
So the people slept – some snoring, some tossing and turning, some coughing, some enduring the invisible clutch of sleep apnea. The Nakajima residence was peacefully quiet—
"MEOW!"
"Scruffy, SHUT UP," Nove groaned petulantly as she rubbed the sleep from one eye.
"MEOW!"
"Goddamn it, Scruffy," Through blurred vision she saw the numbers 4:18 blaze like dumped radioactive waste, and at this she gave a long-suffering sigh. "It's too EARLY for this shit." With slow, considerable effort she rolled on her other side—
And stared up at Ginga, her skin white as a lily and naked as the day she was born.
Nove's heartbeat jumpstarted, practically shocking her to complete wakefulness. "Ginga, what in the flying fuck?!" Every muscle screamed for her to back away, to put as much distance from the bed and the nude woman as much as possible…but they refused to listen. She tried to move, willed her mind and body to back that ass up and oh gods why in the flying fuck wasn't she moving?! "Wh-What…What…What are you—?!"
"I figured this was a better idea," the violet-haired Nakajima put casually. "After all, what good is a blanket when you have a soft, warm body lying next to you?"
"Are you fucking SERIOUS?!"
"I wouldn't have done this if I wasn't."
"By the Gods…I…I dunno if I can do this. What if someone walks in while we're sleeping? I…I don't want that person getting the wrong idea."
"Well, we can always close the door…."
"My door doesn't lock in. You know that."
"Who said I wanted to lock it?"
"SAY WHAT NOW?!"
Ginga laughed. "I'm kidding. Just make sure I have enough room to lie on; I'm going to go close the door."
"…A-Alright," Nove nodded dumbly, and as the elder started in the opposite direction she gazed at the quilts in her hands. She didn't realize until now she was crushing the material, her blunt nails poking through the various holes and loose threads that many moons ago Scruffy made when he was a growing kitten. Furthermore, her hands were shaking. Nove didn't understand; why was she was so nervous? What was there to be nervous about? Ginga was her sister, her elder, the person who – alongside Subaru and Nove herself – shared the same genetic material of their original, the late Quint Nakajima. Most siblings slept with each other sometimes, even when one of the two was stark naked…right?
Right?
'There's nothing wrong with that,' she thought. 'There's nothing inconspicuously wrong with it at all. I mean, it's only one night. It's not like it's gonna be a sort of ritual or whatever people do to get acquainted with their beds….' She ran a hand through bright red hair, sighed, and then lifted her head. 'Maybe I'm overreacting.' "Hey, Gin, you comin' or not HOLY SHIT YOU ARE!" It was the most she could get out before she was knocked back on her ass, pinned to the mattress by a pair of strong hands around her wrists and the weight of the woman's body above her. "What the hell are you thinking?!" she snapped, glaring up into smoldering green.
Ginga smirked and chuckled darkly. "What else? I'm thinking of sleeping with you."
"Yeah? I don't recall 'body-slamming your sister in your birthday suit' being on the list of nighttime traditions."
"You forgot to mention that the sister's supposed to be 'dressed' for the occasion."
"Right. Now seriously get off. Your thunder thighs are crushing me."
"Not until you take your clothes off and let me warm you up."
"No fucking way. Get off."
"Make me."
"Let go of my hands and I WILL."
"Alright," she let go, and like lightning Nove pounced, wrestled the elder onto her back, and straddled her hips, all in one fluid motion. Her hands were clamped down on those round shoulders, fingers and knuckles bleeding white like spilled paint on colored shirts, and her core pressed hard to keep that firm, trembling middle still.
She glared down at her prisoner - wild strands of mauve spread like angel's wings on the pillow; a pair of arms snaking round her neck and hands threading and picking at her scalp; the grin splitting her face like a cut melon as her chest rumbled with laughter – and frowned. "You tricked me," she grumbled petulantly.
"I tricked you," said Ginga in a sing-song voice.
"You tricked me to get into my bed."
"That's right."
"And here I thought you were being bold."
"I am."
"No, Gin. You aren't bold."
"I'm not?" Palms flattened and ran slowly along the hill of her shoulder-blades and the length of her frame. Her features settled and her grin faded into a dreamy sort of smile.
"No, you're not."
"Then what am I?"
"You're outrageous. Not only do you have the tits—"
"Full thirty-five-C tits." Hands rested on curvaceous buttocks and squeezed.
Nove grimaced. "…Y-Yeah. Not only do you have the tits to walk in here ass-naked, you bodily assault me in an attempt for me to get dressed and scrub my dirty rag against your sopping wet dish sink." She huffed. "C'mon, Gin, what makes you think I'm that easy? So you're groping me. So you're trying to undress me with your eyes and getting a damn good jolly outta it. I said I'd let you sleep with me, not sleep with me. Do you know where I'm coming from?"
"Oh, I most certainly do," came the giddy reply. "Even with no clothes on, I can feel your flower crying me a river…."
"That's not what I meant!" the younger hissed, her face warming considerably. "Look, just get under the covers and go to sleep. I'm done playing this game!"
"But I'm not," said Ginga, and whatever playfulness was in her voice vanished in an instant, replacing it with a serious, dangerous calm that sent shivers down Nove's arched spine. "You're going to play with me, and you're going to like it."
The other girl spluttered, but she quickly regained her composure. "L-Like hell I will! I'm not gonna take this lying down with my legs spread wide open and thinking of England!"
The elder licked her lips. "All the more reason to explore uncharted territory and make my mark. Come here!" She pulled Nove to her and, just as the latter did to the former, rolled the cyborg beneath her. She slammed her hips into that precious space between her sister's legs.
"MotherFUCK!" Nove all but whined, teeth grinding and hands digging into the sheets.
Ginga elicited a strangled moan and repeated the motion. "Yes, that's it. Yes…That feels so good." She panted, gripped the squirming form tighter, then resumed. "Must have more…."
"This is…all kinds of…messed up," Nove grunted. "For Gods' sake, Gin…we're gods-damned sisters! Doesn't that mean something sacred to you?!"
"Oh, girl, have at you! It's the thought that counts, not the DNA results!"
"But, Gin—"
"Just feel, Nove. Don't think. Feel."
Nove gave a heavy sigh. "You just don't know when to quit, do you? Fine, have it your way. I'll play your game…and win!" And she shot up, latched herself onto her opponent, and fastened her lips and teeth on the skin below the shell of an ear. Ginga grunted in reply. She pulled the girl close and wrapped her arms round her neck, where she began clawing and bunching the fabric of the T-shirt up her back.
Within the next few minutes they lost themselves to a ferocious passion, teasing and sucking and nipping and stimulating one another to heights transcending emotions and feelings and the world that composed solely of them.
And for the rest of the night, Scruffy the calico cat sat on the window sill and watched, eyes alert and tail straight as a ruler.
Some Hours Later….
A scream shattered the peaceful quietude of the Nakajima household, and even through the pitter-pattering of feet, the flurry of worried shouts, and Scruffy's meows (that were growing increasingly loud and, quite strangely, more ambient by the second) Subaru was soundly asleep, sprawled beneath the sheets and snoring as if the cows were passing by right outside her window.
But it was not to be. The door was nearly thrown off its hinges, and something had grabbed and hauled her up into a sitting position. It didn't fully wake her, as Subaru was blinking the sleep from her eyes and licking her lips, but through blurry vision she could make out a mop of short red hair, hot pink irises, and a grin that could cut TSAB headquarters in two.
"Wendi…?" the former Striker asked thickly. "What is it…?"
"OUR SISTERS HAVE BECOME WOMEN!" Wendi shouted in her face.
"Our who have become what now…?" was the reply, complimented with a large yawn.
"Here, I'll show you!" Wendi took her sibling by the arm, yanked her out of bed, and promptly dragged her along the hall. Subaru followed close by, stumbling over her own feet.
Once they arrived at the entranceway, Wendi pushed her way past a wide-eyed, jaw-slacked Genya and her fellow scandalized Numbers. She stopped her blue-haired companion just inside the room and pointed in front of them. "Look, Subaru! This'll definitely wake you up!"
A muffled voice broke the deathly still silence. "Ohmigods, Subaru's here. Oh. My. Gods. I can't let her see me like this."
Subaru blinked at the sound and straightened her posture. "Ginga…?"
"Oh Gods, she's looking this way, isn't she?" A human-sized shape moved under the quilts as if burrowing deeper into a hole. "Don't let her see me, Nove. For the love of the Gods, Nove, don't let her see me—"
"She's already looking this way, you moron!" the redhead's voice snapped, and with an ungraceful motion tossed the sheets to the floor. Lying together were Nove and Ginga, their naked bodies flushed against one another and legs intertwined. The older Nakajima was on top of the younger, arms wound about her neck and face buried between a pair of round, pert breasts.
Time slowed to a snail's crawl, and just as it had come it was gone, hotwiring synapses and kick-starting a dozing blob of grey matter into gear. Then, as if a firecracker had gone off in her face, Subaru kick-started into wakefulness."DAAAAYUUM, Gin! I heard of kissing cousins, but this takes the cake!"
"Ah, this isn't what it looks like!" said Ginga, taking a quick peek at her family (and the cat) from the fleshy hills. "We were cold, and…and I th-thought maybe we could, umm, warm each other up, a-and—"
"Don't even bother!" Nove intercepted irritably. "If you'd locked that door, we wouldn't even be in this predicament!"
"That's not what you said when you bound me up—oomph!" She was cut off by having her face shoved back into Nove's chest.
"They don't need to know that," the latter snarled, her hand keeping the former's head in place. "Gods, you are fuckin' terrible, you know that? You can't even lie out of a paper bag if your life depended on it."
"You're so cruel!" the violet-haired girl protested as she struggled to break free of Nove's suffocating hold. "So cruel!"
"Yeah, whatever."
The moral of the story is: Always make sure to keep your door locked. 'Cause you never what's gonna come around the corner. Or something like that. Oh, well!
