Authors note: I'd just like to point out that this fic contains both slash and incest...if that squicks you, don't read it! Consider yourself warned...

Also, I in no way condone incest in real life. This is fan *fiction*.

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Disclaimer: You know the drill. I don't own anything!

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Holding hands with Alex feels like the most natural thing in the world.

And I suppose, from a certain point of view, it is. Years ago, before the plane crash that was to separate us, Alex and I walked everywhere hand in hand. There was nothing strange about it, nothing unnatural...just a simple gesture between two brothers, an expression of our childish love for each other.

A long time has passed since then, however. For over a decade, loneliness and guilt were my constant companions. Oh I found friends of course...after a while I was even able to form a kind of replacement family at the Institute...but that aching sense of isolation never quite went away. I was always alone, even when surrounded by my team. For a long time I thought that Jean could fill the empty space in my heart, but it never happened. She tried...she tried so hard to make me happy...but I was beyond her help. In the end, she had to turn away. I don't blame her. If anything, I'm surprised that she stayed for as long as she did.

But now there's Alex. My brother Alex. All it takes is a touch of his hand, and all the loneliness melts away.

God, I love him so much.

Here in New York City, nobody knows who I am. Nobody knows Alex either. My brother slips his hand into mine and nobody stares. As far as they know, we're just another pair of queers walking down the high street. In Bayville it might have raised a few eyebrows, even amongst those that didn't know the truth about our...relationship. In Bayville everyone is white, middle-class and, most importantly, straight. Just one of the many reasons why I love NYC so much. Here gays are a dime a dozen. Jeez, they have whole nightclubs here devoted to homosexuals. I know, I took Alex to one only yesterday. Nobody stared there either...just told us what a cute couple we made.

...If only they knew...

Incest. It was never something that I'd ever given much thought too, and even when I did, it was the kind of thing that turned my stomach. I mean, screwing around with your family? No sane person would ever do that...that was the stuff reserved for perverts and sickos. No normal person would ever do that...right...?

And yet here I am, twenty years old and completely in love with my younger brother.

I don't care what anyone says, it is love. When the Professor talked to me, he tried to persuade me that it was a crush...a dangerous infatuation...something that I could forget about and move on. What did he know? I love Alex more than anything else in the world, and he loves me too. I've waited my whole life for someone to feel that way about me...I'm not going to give him up just because of some stupid taboo. We're not hurting anybody, I'm not forcing him to do anything that he doesn't want too. In fact, it was him that instigated the whole thing. If Alex hadn't made the first move, all those years ago, I would probably still be silently wrestling with my emotions, trying my best to deny whatever this thing is between us. I know that our relationship isn't exactly normal, but then what is? A boy and a girl? A boy and a boy? A boy and his brother...?

I know what the Prof thinks about me. He thinks that this is all down to some kind of mental illness...a sexual perversion twined with an all- consuming need for acceptance. Maybe that's how it looks from the outside, I don't know, and I'm not denying that I don't enjoy sex with Alex, or that I don't seek his approval...but there's more too it than that. I love him. In my own way, I've always loved him. And now that I have him, I'm not ever going to let him go.

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Alex walked silently alongside his brother, watching him sidelong through a parted curtain of blond hair. Scott's thoughtful expression was enough to earn him a puzzled look from his younger brother, who gently squeezed his hand in order to gain his attention.

"Hey," the Hawaiian prompted, questioning frown pulling his eyebrows together, "You okay?"

Scott blinked as though emerging from a deep sleep. "Sorry?"

"You looked about a million miles away just then. What's up?"

Scott paused for a moment, considering the question, then broke into a smile. "Nothing." Disconnecting his hand from his brother's, he wrapped his arm around the younger boy's waist and pulled him closer against his body. "Just thinking."

Alex grinned and rested his head against Scott's shoulder. "About me?"

A nod and a soft kiss. "Yup."

"Good."

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