Steps

Aya + Aki

By: L 0 K I

Envisage

This was bad. This was real bad. There was a golden-haired angel innocently spread across the bed, and a little devil sitting on his shoulder, whispering in his ear.

Except...the devil didn't exactly feel little, and the 'angel' was his twin sister. So innocent and trusting---why couldn't she have been more suspicious of him?

He was suspicious...

When did he start seeing her differently? He couldn't remember. He was afraid, afraid that he had always seen her this way, and it was just their world that was suddenly different, casting light on his true emotions.

His true emotions...what were they?

NO.

He instantly scrambled back from that question; he wasn't ready for the answer. He was never going to be ready for that answer, no matter what it was.

And yet, he was doing something...something less than innocent, no matter how he tried to hide his intentions. He knew it.

But he didn't know how to stop.

( You don't want to stop. )

He did want to stop. It wasn't right.

( Who says? )

Everyone, he thought. Everyone says it's not right. Brothers and sisters are not supposed to---

( And who are they to decide? Kagami-san said it best, she is your---)

NO.

( Yes. Look at history. This type of relationship isn't completely uncommon. Look at the gods, many of the divine pairs are brother and sister. Kings and queens marry into their own families. Princes and princesses. Even cats and dogs will breed with their own---)

NO. Mythology isn't true. I'm not royalty. I'm not an animal. I'm not!

I love Aya. I only want her to be safe and happy.

( What if she feels the same... )

Aki froze at that, not daring to breathe. He just knelt there, waiting for that sweetly poisoned voice to continue, as he knew it would.

( What if she loves you? What if she...wants you? )

"Aya..."

He tried not to think about it, not to see the things that could happen if that were true. But it was impossible for those words not to spark, and for those sparks not to follow lines of black powder in his mind until they exploded.

For one long second it was like he was seeing everything through a straw, distant and not quite real, and then it all burst into focus. The same bed, the same stance...the same beautiful girl.

The devil was in the details.

Aya lay sprawled on her back, her limbs languid, the sweep of her eyelashes lazy. She gave him a look like the moon behind clouds, or the first star winking into existence as the night descended. A look full of mystery and power, a delicate felinity that reached out ghostly arms and embraced some unknown part of him, drawing him closer.

He was moving closer, though his feet didn't seem to move at all. He was on the bed, and everything shifted beneathe his hands and knees, changed, but he didn't care. She was still the same.

She would always be the same. And she would always call to him. For a moment, even within the dream, there was a dream. A flash of dappled light on wet ivory skin. A turning of gold eyes that were both innocent and beguiling.

But then the image was just as suddenly gone, and Aya was touching him, her soft fingers on his face, down over his lips, and he parted them for her, placing tiny kisses on her fingertips. She pushed up with one arm and her hair moved like living-silk, catching stray moonbeams, or perhaps creating them.

"Aniki," she whispered, and it didn't startle him. It was a prayer on her lips, an endearment, a riddle.

"What is it," she asked, and she didn't sound at all like his loud, brash sister. Her voice was hushed in the dim, warm room, sending a twitch of sensation right to the very base of his spine. Gooseflesh broke out on his arms.

"Hmm." His eyes focused on his sister, only to find that he was kneeling beside her on the bed, and she had asked him a question.

What was it?!

He needed to get a hold of himself, and fast.

"I'm going to lift your shirt up, just a little..."

She paused a long moment, and he wondered absently if she had fallen asleep, but then her shoulders shifted in a strangely relaxed move, and he had the sudden image of smoothing his hands over those shoulders, of holding her down...

"Okay."

He shook the image away sharply, but it didn't want to let go.

Pull yourself together, Aki, damn it.

He reached out and gently splayed his hand over the small of her back. He dragged his fingers down, then under the hem, slowly pushing the cloth up, his fingertips tingling with the feel of her skin, silken-soft, and very warm.

"Lift up," he whispered, and she did, arching her back slightly and skewing the fall of her skirt just a little more.

He was beginning to feel dizzy. His hand reached out on its own, tracing a slow, sensual caress down the exposed path of her spine.

He was beginning to feel...

Without warning he straddled the backs of her knees, making sure not to actually put any pressure on her.

She immediately squirmed, burying her face in the pillow and squeezing her knees together. Her shoulders were so stiff---he knew, even if she didn't consciously think it, she recognized the suggestiveness and implied aggression of his pose. He hadn't meant it that way.

Had he?

The fact that he even had to ask himself that question was answer enough. He bit his tongue hard in warning, using the pain to steady his heartbeat and even out his breath.

Then there was the peculiar feeling that he was literally pulling two halves of himself back together.

He could do this. He would do this. And he would stop acting as if he was nothing more than some animal without any higher brain functions.

I am her brother. I will not do anything to make her feel as if she can't trust me.

Pretty words. And he meant them.

He always meant them.

But in the next second he turned his head just slightly, and caught the dim glow of the single table lamp. Its light was feeble, but it was just enough to expose the path his hands were supposed to take.

Too bad that path ran parallel to the path he wanted to take.

A mental slap. A mental shout at himself. If he didn't stop thinking in such words, then he knew it wouldn't be long before he started acting in them.

That wasn't allowed.

He was so furious with himself.

Aya. Think about Aya. Your feelings don't matter. And you better start remembering that.

Something in him rebelled violently, but the rest of him finally settled down, finally allowed him to take a breath.

His eyes dimmed to gentle warmth, and he combed his fingers though her hair. There was a volcano of affection within him, bubbling closer to the surface. This is always how his sister made him feel. This is always how he should feel.

"Relax, Aya," he whispered, "We don't have to do this if you really don't want to."

And they didn't. He would take the risk of dying at Ceres' hand, if he knew it would benefit Aya in some way. More and more, everyday, he felt as if there wasn't anything he wouldn't do for his sister.

She said nothing, but slowly, muscle by muscle, she relaxed into the bed, uncurling her limbs from the pillow and instead cuddling it to her loosely. He caught the sight of a tiny, warm curve to her lips, before she turned just enough and a lock of gold hair fell to hide her face.

He smiled too, he couldn't help it. When Aya was happy, she was like a child. All the world was stripped away, to reveal something both passionate and innocent. And in those moments, she was nothing short of...infectious.

And he had no will to resist.

She shuddered once, when he first applied the pen to her back, but she lay still while he worked.

Ten minutes later, he sat back up and winced, capping the pen then rubbing painfully at his neck. It felt as if someone had been slowly trying to separate his head from his shoulders, by simply pulling at it with their bare hands. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, but it was quickly being out-weighed by...

Accomplishment.

"It's done, Aya," he said with pained relief, quickly slinging his leg back over and getting up before he could be dragged down into more suggestive thoughts.

Aya didn't react, other than to curl her legs up closer to her body and press her head into the now mal-shaped pillow.

"Aya? Did you hear me?" He backed up off the bed, then came around to the other side where he could see her face, though her hair still played peek-a-boo with him.

Aya. His lips formed the name, but he didn't take that last step to say it. Speaking seemed beyond him at the moment. Something clenched in his chest at the sight of her lashes resting so peacefully against the curve of her cheek. The sensation was nearly painful, but it felt amazing, too, constricting his heart until he felt almost as if couldn't breathe.

It was as if she had given him a gift, just by falling asleep. He sat down absently on the edge of the bed, staring. Just watching her breathe---in and out in and out---It was like all his troubles and worries, all his fears slid right off his shoulders. His neck didn't hurt anymore. His conscience wasn't clawing at him. Everything was perfect and quiet, everything was okay.

He reached out a steady hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, left his fingers to linger on the soft skin of her throat. Her heartbeat thumped slow and even, a muted lullaby to calm the darkness inside him.

Time passed and shadows shifted across the floor, Aki remained in place and watched his sister with dreamy, sleepy eyes.

He was edging closer and closer to that line of no return, but for the moment he couldn't bring himself to care.

Envisage

vt : to have a mental picture of esp. in advance of realization : form a mental image of something that is not present or that is not the case : To look in the face of; to apprehend; to regard.

Synonyms: Imagine. Conceive of. Ideate. Envision. Foresee. Predict. Visualize. Picture. See. Awake. Conjure up. Foreglimpse. Realize. Comprehend.

TBC...