A/N: -_-;; I can't believe I'm doing something like this on Christmas Eve. D: Oh, and I'm very, very sorry if this offends people. I do not support incest. Trust me.

"Is this supposed to be easy reading?" I ask the next morning, on Axels couch. I have pulled a little brown book with golden accents out of a seat cushion. This is our Sunday.

"I suppose so. It really wasn't something I had intended to buy." Axel sits on the floor against a desk across the room.

"All the characters are really sick…" I flip uncomfortably through the pages.

"They all have serious Oedipus complexes. Their problems mainly originate from their parents and stuff. Their sexual frustrations, too."

"It's weird." I toss the book onto a recliner nearby. "I'm so glad none of us are like that." Axel's face breaks into a creepy grin.

"Oh, dear Roxie, everyone in this world has an Oedipus complex of some form or degree. We can't help it."

"Freud was just a sick dude that brought up sick ideas that nobody wanted to talk about and called it psychology." I mutter with revulsion.

"Call it whatever you want." He sighs, standing up. "You can keep that book… do some thinking about your parents."

"Sick bastard…"

"Speaking of which," he says, pulling on a black coat, "I'm gonna go visit my father."

"You're going to church?" I ask, for some reason this is the first thing that pops into my head.

"Uh, no. My real father. Goodbye."

Axel shuts the door quickly behind him. Am I just supposed to sit here? I guess that's ok. He's left me here by myself before. Its morning… the lot that Axel's apartment is on isn't very attractive, though. The clouds make everything look dark. I guess a storm is coming?

I lie on my back on the couch. I'm not hungry. I feel too nauseous. I have a pretty big problem on my hands.

I sit up a little to glance at the book. If I read any more of that, I might vomit again.

Is there some kind of medicine I can take that would make all this go away? I'm the very worst kind of older brother. Nothing bad has happened yet. I want this to end before something bad happens.

Someone knocks on the door twice, lightly, like a baby woodpecker.

"Hello? I'm coming in."

My sister steps into the room, wearing a large, comfortable looking hoodie and khaki skinny-jeans.

How the hell am I supposed to solve inner problems if she starts following me around?!

"I figured you might be here." She sighs, and gets a strange, scrutinizing look on her face. "What's wrong with you?"

"I felt sick. I didn't want you to have to deal with me all night. Axel's been taking care of me." Wow, that sounds close to some kind of truth.

"Are you feeling better?" She asks, sitting on the couch next to me.

"Yeah, kind of." If you sit too close to me, however, I might throw up again.

"… Are you mad at me?" She says, hesitantly.

God… why am I being tortured like this? I couldn't be mad at Namine… even if I wanted to. I'm so pathetic. But what the hell am I supposed to say to her?

"Why on earth would you think that?" I ask sadly, feeling myself lean onto the couch to look at her. She's so damn pretty. It isn't fair.

I think I might be looking at her a little too wistfully – she fidgets uneasily and tries to avoid my eyes and puts her hands in the pocket of her hoodie.

"I dunno… you seemed a little unhappy about me wearing your clothing."

"Namine, I don't care." I say seriously.

She finally gives in. She glances at the book on the recliner nearby, but thankfully doesn't pick it up. She turns to me and says:

"So does Axel have any weed around here, or what?"

When Axel returns home a few hours later, Namine is laying on the couch in a pot coma. I'm on the floor, leaning against the couch with a cigarette, flipping channels to the large TV sitting on Axel's desk.

"What an interesting scene this is." He muses as he opens the door. "We should draw on her face."

"I feel stupid. She's only sixteen. She shouldn't be getting into that kind of stuff."

"Ah, whatever. It never really matters in the end."

"I don't want half of her brains to be scooped out by the time she graduates." I mumble dejectedly, continuing to flip channels.

"If it's her reputation you're worried about, I would forget about it." He sighs, tossing a convenience store plastic bag onto the already too-cluttered desk. "She's set. You guys are rich."

"That has nothing to do with it." I mutter in irritation.

"You're graduating this year, right?" he asks.

"Yeah. And I'm not gonna drop out."

"Education is overrated," says the wise man, and pulls a cigarette out of his pocket.

"How is your father?"

"He's fine. Well I mean, dead. I put a six-pack in front of his tombstone at the cemetery."

"I bet he'd like that." From what I can remember of Axel's living father, beer is a good sentiment. The death of his father may have been the best thing to happen in Axel's life.

At eight in the evening, Namine is still out.

"Hey, Roxas," Axel nudges me in the ribs, grinning, "Should we bury her?"

"Shut up. Let me borrow your car. I'll give it back to you tomorrow."

Namine doesn't wake up when I lay her on the couch back at our house. I sigh. She'll definitely be sick when she snaps out of it. I head into the kitchen and get a wet washcloth and place it gently on her forehead.

Then I realize: Holy shit. Did I just let my little sister overdose? Panic floods into my veins like melting ice. I run into the kitchen again and get a glass of water, and splash it into Namine's face. She wakes up, gasping, tears glistening in her eyes.

"I was asleep, bastard!"

"Oh."

Namine heads upstairs to take a shower, and I pull on some pajamas in my bedroom, then sit in front of the window In the back of our kitchen, looking out at the garden tinted with the deep blues and grays, making the tiny, dead, crispy flowers look like little ghosts.

I hear my sister walk gently towards me. She kneels behind me and softly puts her arms around my neck, laying her head on my shoulder next to mine. Breath from her nose meets my collarbone. I can feel steam emanating from her skin onto mine. Her hair falls onto my back, damp and warm. This too – I believe – is innocent.

This hurts. My stomach hurts. My heart is beating fast. I can feel her hand drift slowly from around my neck to my naval. Damn it…

"Namine…" I breathe hoarsely, hugging my knees to my chest so she can't see my impending erection, "You're driving me crazy."

"Sorry…" she says quickly, drawing her hands away, "I'm not trying to annoy you."

"You're not." I mutter. I'm so fucked up. I can't even stand up. She's going to have to leave first. I feel so sore.

"Good night, Roxas." She says, standing up.

"I love you." I say quietly.

"I love you too," she says sweetly, and walks away.

So, what the hell was that? I've never told my sister that I loved her unless my parents instructed me to. Of course I love her as family, but now, that is becoming an increasingly more difficult to focus on. Family. Family is disgusting.

Why was the word family created? Why couldn't we just forget about family? Animals can. Humans however, have to turn everything into a dogma. You can't love your sister. Why can't you love your sister?

Is it because you feel disgusted by your family? Or perhaps… do you feel disgusted by your family because you are told to be disgusted by your family?

Start coming up with reasons not to love Namine.

She's a little girl! Well, no she's not. She's not too young to love, but still…

There are tons of boys at school that like her. So? Boys that age are stupid. They don't know how to make someone like her happy.

Our mother and father? They're never here. They're always gone for work, or vacations. Even when they're both here, together, they wouldn't notice anything. They're a tangent force, they aren't there.

She's your sister. Family. Sister. Does it matter? Of course it does. Do not lose sight of this fact. Cruel facts can slap you in the face later in the great scheme of things.

But I love her!

Do I really love her?

I'm not sure.

Maybe I'm just attracted to her.

Can I piece together lust and love?

Whatever. Thinking about this is going to make me vomit again. Perhaps Freud doesn't deserve to be called sick quite as much. I sure do, though.

My bedroom is too cold. I decide to take a shower. Perhaps, (for the both of us) being externally clean is a way to escape from the internal filth. Sort of.

After I shower, I pull on my pajamas and walk into the hallway, and I hear Namine's little voice call for me from within her room.

What the hell am I supposed to say? No. I'm not going into your room because I don't want to seduce you and I just took a 'shower' and I feel sick and if I look at you I could vomit and-

The door opens, and Namine is just wearing a shirt and some panties. A jolt of pain erupts in my midsection and I focus on the paint chipping off of the doorframe.

"Check this out." She whispers, smiling, and takes my hand. She leads me to the window across from us in her bedroom. Outside, a remarkable amount of snow has piled up on the trees, on roofs, in birdbaths, in sheets on the road, covering everything. It's still drifting down excessively, in large chunks.

Namine squeezes my hand, and I can feel the blood in my stomach rush to my face.

"January is more winter than December is." She looks up at me. There is no moon; her face is simply pale and grayed by the reflective white that is engrossing the landscape outside. "Do you like winter, Roxas?"

I sigh.

"A little." I mumble.

Something strange happens, again. Namine looks at me in a watery, almost boredom, then leans forward, lifting off from her heels a little. Dear God, this is it. This is the end of me. Her breath is on my face, gently, and she kisses my cheek. Maybe, just maybe – this too – is innocent. Sisterly.

I turn away from her dejectedly. I can't look at this. This is wrong. The pain in my stomach drifts slowly downward. Down. Rock bottom. It's where I stand. Thanks a lot, you son of a bitch, Freud. Your outlandish and sickening concepts may have gotten the best of my sister as well.

She squeezes my hand a little tighter.

"Namine, stop." I groan, in honest pain.

"Why? You're so serious." She says irritably, dropping my hand.

"Yeah? Well I'm going to bed. Get some sleep. I need to think about something else for a while."

"But why? What the hell is wrong with you?"

I turn around, and look at her face, miserably. I must look as bad as I feel, because she sees my face and suddenly she's full of wakening concern.

She reaches for my hand again.

"It's this, isn't it?" She frowns, and looks at me, "You take this seriously."

I shudder. My bones ache. Everything aches.

"Yeah." I whisper.

Namine drops my hand. She looks almost sick, herself.

"I think I'm going to go to bed." She mumbles, "I… I can't…"

"It's ok." I assure her, "Just forget about it. This isn't real. Go to bed."

She leans forward and kisses me on the lips. I can delude myself as much as I want, but this is an unavoidable thing I'm trying to fight against. I cup her face with my hands, and almost let myself proceed, but I quickly jerk her face away before I lose it.

"Goddamnit Namine, stop." I nearly moan.

"Shut up, you bastard. You started this." She spits out, acidly, and climbs into bed. And she leaves me no choice but to step out and get in my own.