
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/207070.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Hawaii_Five-0_(2010)
  Relationship:
      Steve_McGarrett/Mary_Ann_McGarrett
  Character:
      Steve_McGarrett, Mary_Ann_McGarrett, Jack_McGarrett, Mrs_McGarrett
  Additional Tags:
      Incest, Character_Death
  Series:
      Part 1 of Unchained_Melody
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-06-02 Words: 6375
****** Melody, Unchained ******
by somehowunbroken
Summary
     They're not hurting anybody.
Notes
     Oh my God, I cannot even - okay, so. I did not mean to write this. I
     was talking to my H50 enabler (you know who you are - hell, everyone
     else probably does by now too) about this prompt that I saw at
     [[info]]
h50kinkmeme and was sort of thinking about writing. "It's Steve/Mary," I said.
"Underage. A losing your virginity thing."
"Write it," she said.
"I don't write het," I replied. "Or incest. Or underage things."
"Wriiiiiiite iiiiiiiiit," she said. (Or something. I'm reasonably sure there
were more words, and I'm definitely sure it was less whiny.)
And then I wrote it.
I know - I know, okay - that only like four people are going to read this, and
that includes me and said enabler. This will probably lose me flist people,
too. I am aware of this. I... am still posting it, because despite all my
hesitations and the squick level involved for a lot of people (read: high, very
high), I think it came out pretty well. That's not a feeling I have about fic
very often, so. I will not be offended if you skip this for any reason at all.
I only ask that you don't hate on it. I am aware that I'm going to the special
hell, okay, I don't need you to tell me that. If it's not your thing, just
skip, please, for your sake and for mine.
Still with me? Gonna give it a try? Okay. Since we don't know for sure: for the
purpose of this fic, Steve is two years older than Mary. (I'm sure this will
get jossed later, which is part of why I'm stating it here now.)
“Come on,” Mary says with a laugh. “It’ll be fun.”
“You’re insane,” Steve tells her, but she can see that spark of interest, that
flare he can’t quite keep hidden. “Why would you even say-”
“Because it’ll be fun,” she repeats, walking purposefully to stand in front of
her brother, who’s sitting on the edge of his desk. She’s small enough and he’s
tall enough that they’re almost eye-level; Mom says she’ll hit a growth spurt
soon, but Steve’s just come out of one, and he’s almost six feet tall now. He
towers over her standing, but like this, she can look him straight in the eye.
Mary had barely noticed when Steve had hit the growth spurt, except to note
that he was suddenly inhaling food like a vacuum. “He’s always eating
something,” she’d complained to Leilani at lunch one day, tracking Steve with
her eyes as he crossed the other side of the cafeteria. “Doesn’t even matter
what – mostly it’s junk food, chips and Twinkies and soda. I wish I could eat
like that.”
“Yeah,” Leilani had giggled. “But look at him, Mary. He’s so-”
And she’d just giggled some more, and Ashley and Niri had joined her, and Mary
had rolled her eyes and taken a sip from her juice.
But then she’d looked.
Steve is – okay, he’s always been her brother. He’s always had her back, has
been ready to stick up for her or whatever, so it’s not like he’s not a good
guy. And when she starts looking at him objectively, not sister-looking, she’s
a little surprised to find that he’s kind of cute. Really, really cute, in
fact.
“I’d make out with him,” one of the other girls had said, and it sent this
quick burst of something through Mary, something like fire. Something that
she’d immediately wanted back.
So now she’s here, standing a few inches from her extremely cute brother, and
yeah, okay, this isn’t exactly something brothers and sisters do, right? Except
how she kind of really wants to, and Steve’s not exactly pushing her away.
“Fun,” Steve tries, licking his lips, “fun is hanging out with Lono and Jace,
fun is football and surfing, Mary, this is not-”
“Not right now, it isn’t,” she says impatiently, and then she leans in and
mashes their mouths together and rests her hand on Steve’s thigh.
And – okay, so she doesn’t have a lot of experience with kissing. It’s not like
she hasn’t before, but she hasn’t done it too much. She doesn’t pull back,
though, just keeps pressing their lips together and moving them around a
little, and suddenly Steve breathes out a little and slides his hand up into
her hair and kisses her and wow, okay, this is nothing like she’s been kissed
before. This isn’t Doug beneath the bleachers, both of them awkward and a
little nervous, this is her brother in his bedroom and Steve? Steve is good at
kissing. Steve is awesome at kissing, and he’s got a hand in her hair and a
hand on her arm and his tongue is in her mouth, and that feeling, that hot rush
of whatever it is, it’s back and it’s collecting in her belly and she just –
wants.
“Mary,” Steve gasps, pulling his head back. She’s never seen him like this,
eyes open wide and pupils all blown up like that. “Mary, we can’t – we-”
“Sure we can,” Mary whispers to him, and she takes a breath and leans in to
kiss him again and moves the hand on his thigh up a few inches, and oh, oh.
She moves her hand carefully, trying to unbutton his pants and pull the front
open, to get her hand inside his boxer-briefs and around him. Steve makes this
choking noise into her mouth like she’s hurting him, but when she stills her
hand he moves his hips so he slides through her fingers.
“Mary,” he says. “You – you’re my sister.”
“I’m on the pill,” she murmurs. “We’ll use a condom.”
Steve stares at her for a few seconds but then it’s like something breaks, like
he just stops fighting against Mary’s insistence and his own doubt and goes for
it. He gets a hand back in her hair and skims the other down her side until
it’s around her hip, big and warm and pulling her in. He’s got his legs spread
apart and she fits neatly between them, her hand still wrapped around his dick
in his pants, and Steve’s moving his hand up a little, lifting her shirt until
it’s gathered under her armpits. He pulls his mouth away from hers and looks
her straight in the eye.
“Tell me,” he says in a rush, his thumb rubbing at her nipple through her bra.
“Mary, you have to – do you really-”
“Touch me,” she replies. Steve’s kind of a headcase sometimes, she knows, as if
she’d tell him to stop now that she’s getting what she came in here for. “Take
it off, reach in, whatever, Steve, just-” She breaks off when Steve leans his
head down and closes his lips around her nipple through the material of the
bra. It’s thin, kind of lacy, and she can feel the heat of Steve’s mouth, the
tip of his tongue flicking up against her a little hesitantly.
“Oh,” Mary breathes out, closing her eyes. “Oh.”
“Is it-” Steve says against her chest, mouth barely an inch form the wet patch
on her bra. “Is that good?”
“Yeah,” Mary groans, wondering if it’s bad form for her to shimmy a little to
the left and push herself back into Steve’s mouth. “Please, Steve-”
He goes back to it with a vengeance, licking and rubbing his lips against her
nipple through the material. One of his hands goes underneath her bra on the
other side, tracing delicately over the skin on her breast, finding her other
nipple and tracing his fingertips over it.
“Steve,” Mary gasps out, reaching up with her free hand and grabbing his arm.
Her other hand has gone totally still in Steve’s pants, and she carefully draws
it out and latches onto Steve’s other forearm before she squeezes there, too.
“You can-” he replies, pulling back and grabbing one of her hands, guiding it
back towards his pants. “Just-”
“No,” she says firmly, and Steve stops – stops touching her everywhere, pulls
back entirely, and Mary has to grab his hands in hers and back up a little
tugging until Steve stands and follows. “Come on, Steve, come on.”
She sits on the bed and pulls her shirt off over her head, then unhooks her bra
and tosses it to the side, too. She looks up when she’s done, and Steve is just
– staring at her.
“You’re really pretty,” he blurts out, and then his cheeks go really, really
red. Mary considers teasing him, but smiles after a minute.
“Oh, please,” she says, trying for confident, but she sounds kind of nervous to
her own ears. “It’s gonna kill me, not being able to tell my friends that I
slept with the cutest guy in school.”
Steve goes even redder and ducks his head, but there’s this really adorable
smile on his face, like he’s really happy she said that. He pulls his own shirt
off and Mary takes him in again, like she had the other day, and it’s like
she’s seeing him for the first time. He’s thin but he’s got nice muscles, the
beginnings of a six-pack and some hair on his chest. Mary smiles up at him and
pats the bed beside her, and he sits down like he’s not sure what to do next.
“You actually want to,” he says, unsure, and Mary rolls her eyes and climbs
into his lap and kisses him again, pressing their chests together and rubbing
herself against where his dick is still trapped in his boxer-briefs.
“Yes,” she says when they break apart, just in case Steve hadn’t gotten the
message from that. He laughs a little and grabs her around the waist, rolling
until he’s on top. He props himself up on his arms and leans in to kiss her
again and again and again until she’s moving her hips against his and he’s
breathing hard into her shoulder. Mary taps him on the arm.
“You have condoms, right?” she asks, mortified that she’d forgotten something
that important in thinking about this, but Steve nods and reaches into his
bedstand and pulls one out of a sock that’s folded neatly into the drawer.
“Have you ever-” he asks her suddenly, pressing their hips together and pulling
back quickly.
“No,” Mary tells him honestly. And then it occurs to her- “Have you?”
“No,” he chokes out. “This much, yeah, but actually – no.”
“We’ll figure it out,” she says, reaching up to brush that stupid long piece of
hair that Steve refuses to cut out of his face. It’s long enough to tuck behind
his ear, so she does, and when she focuses back on Steve’s face, he’s got his
eyes closed and he’s breathing hard.
“Okay,” he says, rolling off the bed and standing in one quick movement. He’s
pushing his pants off his hips and they hit the floor only a second before his
underpants, and then he’s standing in front of her, completely naked and okay,
wow, there’s seeing pictures in a health textbook and then there’s the real
thing, and they’re not as alike as Mary had thought. Naked men, Mary decides,
look silly.
There’s this unsure look on Steve’s face again, so Mary lifts her hips off of
the bed and slides out of her jeans and panties, letting them slide to the
floor.
“You really are pretty,” Steve says softly, walking to the very edge of the bed
and resting his hand on her shin. “I’m not just saying it, Mary. You – you’re
pretty.”
This time Mary can feel her own cheeks get hot as she smiles back. “Thanks.
You, too. Well, not pretty, but you’re-” She slaps a hand across her mouth as
Steve grins down at her – and that’s the Steve she knows, confident and a
little ridiculous, so she grabs the condom with her free hand and slaps it into
his palm.
Steve stares down at it for a minute, and Mary sits up, tugging on his arm
until he plops down beside her. “We don’t have to,” she says quietly. “I know I
kind of – but if you really don’t want to, Steve, I’m not gonna hate you or
anything.”
“No,” he says, smiling at her a little. “But if you changed your mind-”
“Nope,” she grins, and he smiles back at her, and then he tears the package
open and pulls out the condom. Mary’s got about a second to wonder how it’s
going to fit – there’s no way it’s big enough to fit over Steve’s dick – but
Steve rolls it on and it stretches and goes pretty much all the way up to close
around the base.
Mary realizes she’s staring when Steve laughs a little, and she looks up to see
him looking at her with a smile on his face that’s kind of nice, like he thinks
she’s being especially cute right now for whatever reason. She leans in and
pulls his face down to meet hers, and they kiss for a few minutes. Steve leans
into her slowly, and he runs his hands all up and down her chest and stomach.
Mary feels him wrap his arms around her and cradle her to him, and then she’s
being tilted backwards until she’s flat out on the bed. Steve’s above her
again, but this time there’s no clothing between them, nothing preventing Mary
from getting her hands on his skin.
“If you need me to stop,” Steve starts, and he sounds so serious, like he wants
Mary to hear and remember every word. “Promise me you’ll tell me if you need me
to stop, okay?”
“Promise,” Mary says instantly.
“I mean it,” Steve says, looking her straight in the eyes. “This – if you
haven’t before, I’m gonna hurt you, and-”
“I’d rather it was you than someone else,” Mary offers. “At least I know that
you’ll stop if I say stop.”
“I will,” Steve vows, and it’s not like Mary doubted it before, but now she’s
absolutely positive that Steve’s got her.
“Okay,” she says, smiling at him. “Ready when you are.”
Steve leans down and kisses her again, his mouth burning on hers. She keeps her
hands moving, up into Steve’s hair, down his back, holding the curve of his ass
in her palms. Steve’s hand moves down her body, rubbing at her nipple again,
skimming across her stomach, and finally dragging down between her legs. He
rests his hand there for a minute, just holding still, and then he bends a
finger and pushes it inside her.
It’s a little weird, but in a good way; it’s different from her own finger,
that’s for sure, bigger and rougher, but it’s not weird in a bad way. Steve
moves his finger a lot, in and out and wiggling around inside, and then he
pulls it out and pushes two back in. It’s more than she’s ever had before – two
of Steve’s fingers are like three of hers, and she’s never gone that far before
– but it’s not as big as Steve’s dick, which is pressed against her leg. Steve
is moving his hips a little, rubbing up and down her leg, and Mary doubts that
Steve’s doing it on purpose.
Two fingers becomes three, stretching her open and moving, always moving
around. Steve stops after a while, pulling his fingers out and looking back up
at her as he moves his hips until he’s settled between her legs. “Last chance
to change your mind,” he says softly, and Mary reaches up for him, kissing him
as well as she can as she runs her hands up and down his back again.
“Haven’t changed my mind,” she tells him when she rests her head back on his
pillow, and Steve smiles and rests his forehead on hers as he reaches down and
guides himself into her.
Mary hisses as Steve pushes in; it hurts, but it’s not unbearable. Steve
freezes, stops moving entirely, and he looks down at her with a weird look on
his face, like he’s halfway concerned and half out of his mind. “Mary?”
“Keep going,” she instructs, and he moves his hips forward a little more. He’s
probably about halfway in, maybe a little more, and he stops again when Mary
scrunches up her face.
“I’m gonna pull out slowly,” Steve says suddenly, and she opens her eyes to see
the full-on concerned look. “Just relax, okay-”
“Don’t,” she commands, and Steve stops again, just holds perfectly still above
her. Mary pulls in a few deep breaths and lets them back out before she nods.
“Keep going.”
“Mary, I’m hurting you-”
“Would you rather it be someone else hurting me?” she asks. Something in
Steve’s face darkens, and then he’s pushing back in, slowly but surely, until
she can feel his balls against her.
“Tell me you’re okay,” Steve begs hoarsely, and his face is buried in her
shoulder. “Tell me, Mary.”
“I’m okay,” she says into his ear, kissing him lightly on the cheek. It’s not
really comfortable, it’s weird, and she has no idea how but she knows it’s got
to get better. “I’m really okay, Steve.”
“Okay,” Steve replies, and it sounds like he doesn’t believe her, so Mary moves
her hips a little, side to side, and feels him suck in a breath. She moves
again, and his hips pull back a little and move forward again, like they’re on
autopilot.
“Don’t,” he begs her. “Jesus, Mary, keep still, or I’m gonna lose it and hurt
you.”
Mary just smirks and does it again and again and again until Steve gets with
the program and starts moving with her. Moving in her; she can feel every tiny
little movement, and it’s not as great as she was led to believe, but this
isn’t bad, not at all. Steve seems to be enjoying himself completely, at least;
his mouth is hanging open and he’s panting. His hips move faster and faster
until his whole body goes stiff, and Mary can feel him twitch inside her. He
lets out this sound like she’s never heard before, something like a gasp and a
moan at the same time, and she shivers as he carefully pulls out of her and
collapses to her right.
Steve seems to be trying to catch his breath or something, so Mary rubs her
hand up and down his back until he turns to face her. He looks like he’s half-
dizzy, like if he stood up he’d just fall right back down next to her, and Mary
grins at him. “It was that good?”
“Are you okay?” Steve asks instead of answering, reaching out and resting one
of his hands on her stomach. It’s a little weird, affectionate and awkward at
the same time.
Mary rolls her eyes. “I’m fine, Steve. “You didn’t hurt me, okay?”
“But-”
“You didn’t hurt me,” she repeats firmly. “I’m pretty sure you liked it more
than I did, but hey, it gets better, right?”
Steve frowns, and she knows the face that’s coming next, the one that’s full of
doubt and a little self-loathing. He’s probably already beating himself up over
this. “Mary, we can’t,” he says.
Mary raises an eyebrow and looks down at her own body, then over and up the
length of Steve’s. “I’m pretty sure you just lied to me,” she says calmly. “We
pretty much proved that we can.”
“I mean again,” Steve says, pulling his hand back, and Mary’s a little
surprised at how much she wants it back, how she wants Steve’s hands all over
her again. “We shouldn’t have done it in the first place. What if Mom or Dad
had woken up?”
“They didn’t,” Mary points out. “And anyway, I locked the door.”
“Ma-ry,” Steve groans, and she mimics his tone when she replies, “Ste-eve.”
“Okay,” Mary says, rolling over and sprawling all over Steve, her breasts
pressed into his chest and her mouth inches from his. “Okay, one more thing,
that’s all, and if you decide we can’t, then that’s it, okay?”
“One more thing,” Steve repeats a little skeptically, like he’s pretty sure
she’s lying – which, to be fair, she totally is.
“One more thing,” she agrees, leaning down to kiss him. Steve responds
immediately, opening his mouth when she licks at his lip, and yeah, this is
something Mary could definitely do more often. It’s not what she has in mind,
though, so she pulls back and licks her lips as she scoots her way down the
bed.
She hasn’t done this before, but it’s not exactly rocket science, figuring out
how the condom comes off. Mary even manages to get it tied without spilling it,
which kind of feels like a victory. She tosses it without looking towards the
trashcan, hearing it miss and hit the floor with a wet little sound.
“Gross,” Steve starts to say, but then Mary runs her fingers lightly over
Steve’s soft dick, and he gasps in a breath instead of continuing with his
complaint. Mary takes it in her hand, leaning in close to look. There’s a vein
running up the bottom, dark against the pale skin, and she traces it from base
to tip with her fingertip. Steve’s staring down at her, and his breathing is
going fast again.
Mary runs her finger over the same path again, and Steve lets out that gasp-
moan and drops his head back against the pillow. “This is your one more thing?”
he asks weakly, but he’s not telling her to stop.
“Nope,” Mary counters, leaning forward and darting her tongue out to lick at
the vein she’s been tracing.
“Oh fuck,” Steve gasps, pumping his hips a little. “Mary, oh my God, what-”
“If you ask me what I’m doing,” she tells him, “I’m going to stop.”
Steve falls absolutely silent.
“Try to stay still,” she adds, and then she wraps her mouth around the head of
his dick and runs her tongue across the slit in the top.
Steve’s getting hard again, she notices, and it feels weird in her mouth; she
bobs her head up and down experimentally, moving her tongue randomly and
sucking every once in a while. It’s easy enough to fall into a rhythm, holding
the base of Steve’s dick in her hand and moving her head and using her tongue,
and out of the corner of her eye Mary can see that he’s got his hands twisted
into the bedsheets. He’s gripping so hard that his knuckles are white.
“Okay,” she says as she pulls her mouth off of him, “so that’s how you do
that.”
“Just-“ Steve says, and wow, his voice is different than it usually is, deeper
and kind of rough. It sends that thrill through her again as Steve grabs at
her, pulling her up to kiss her desperately, his dick rubbing all over her
stomach, wet with her spit. He pulls back after a minute, breathing hard, and
his hand is already reaching for the drawer in the bedstand. He tears the
condom packet open and reaches down, but Mary takes it from him and repeats
what he did before, rolling it on as he had.
“Ready?” she asks, on all fours above Steve, who nods, so she positions herself
above him and sinks down.
Steve is making what’s pretty much becoming Mary’s favorite noise, that hitched
breath-moan thing, and she gasps as she settles down against his hips. Steve
thrusts up a little and it – sparks, or something, and suddenly Mary’s leaning
a little bit back and moving just so, and Steve’s moving his hips with her
again, and this is better, so much better. This must be what people were
talking about, she thinks distantly, watching as Steve does something with his
hand – licks his fingers, maybe, and that’s weird, but then he reaches towards
her. His fingers rub between her legs, and – God, okay, that’s it, that is
definitely what it’s all about, and Mary lets out a sound she had no idea she
could make as she slams her hips down and loses her mind.
“Holy shit,” Steve says when Mary opens her eyes again. He’s lying next to her,
running his fingers through her sweaty hair, and he smiles a little when she
looks up at him. “Better?”
Mary frowns as she thinks about it. “Did I yell?”
“You did,” Steve confirms, and there’s a smug little half-smile on his face,
but Mary’s feeling pretty wrung out, so she just rolls her eyes and burrows
into his side.
“Mary,” he says gently, and there’s that voice again, the serious one that she
hates.
“Okay,” she says, suddenly tired. “Okay, never again, I get it. Just,” she
hesitates, “just don’t kick me out? Please?”
“Of course not,” Steve replies immediately, pulling her into his chest almost
protectively. “You have to put a shirt on, though.”
“And you should put some pants on,” she agrees with a yawn, already reaching
around on the floor for the shirt that Steve had tossed off earlier. She pulls
it on and finds her panties, too, before she crawls back beneath the sheets.
She holds them open for Steve, who has walked over to the dresser to grab a
pair of worn pajama bottoms from a drawer. He stops a few steps from the bed
and shakes his head.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” he asks as he slides in and
scoops her up, wrapping his arms around her back. “You couldn’t have grabbed
your own shirt?”
“Sorry,” she mumbles into his neck, even though she’s not. She’s already half
asleep.
Mary wakes to someone running their fingers through her hair, and she feels
warm and safe and kind of happy for the first time in a lot of mornings. She
blinks her eyes open to see Steve staring at the ceiling, his hand absently
moving over her hair as she rests her head on his chest.
“Morning,” she says, rubbing at her eyes and smiling up at Steve.
“Hey,” he replies, smiling back kind of gently. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m a little sore, but yeah.” Mary closes her eyes again and
rests her hand on Steve’s belly, a few inches from his waistband. She can feel
the muscles underneath her hand stiffen as Steve sucks in a breath.
“Mary-” he starts, but she laughs and leans up to kiss his cheek.
“I know,” she says, sliding out of the bed and hunting around for her pants.
She tugs Steve’s shirt off and yanks her own on, tossing his back at him.
“Ready?”
Steve looks wary all of a sudden, like he’s realized that she’s about to do
something he’s not going to like. “What are you-”
Mary smiles at him and opens the door. She waits a few seconds, then slams it.
“Steve!” she yells. “I know you have it! Why would you take it? You can’t even
use it!”
“What are you-” Steve splutters, but Mary narrows her eyes and jerks her head
towards the door. Their mother’s voice calls up the stairs a second later.
“Steve, whatever it is, give it back to your sister. And Mary, do you think you
could keep your voice down? There’s no need to yell like that.”
“Distraction,” Mary says simply as Steve finally climbs out of the bed and
pulls the shirt on over his head.
“Good move,” he says approvingly, walking to the door. “Ready?”
“Let’s go,” Mary says, and they walk out of Steve’s bedroom, already arguing
about whatever it is that Steve allegedly took as they make their way down to
the kitchen.
“Steve, give it back to her,” Mom says when they walk into the kitchen. “And
we’re out of your cereal, so you’re going to have to make do with some of
Mary’s.”
Steve groans. “Mom, there’s so much sugar in that,” he complains, even as he’s
pouring a bowl for himself. “Can we go to the store later?”
“I’ll go while you’re at practice,” she says, looking at Mary. “Mary, honey,
are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Mary says, frowning and tilting her head to the side. “Why wouldn’t I
be?”
“You’re walking a little funny,” Mom observes, and Mary can see Steve freeze
out of the corner of her eye.
“Blame Mr. Army Man,” Mary grouses, and Steve turns a little green as his eyes
widen. “He had me doing these squat exercise things last night. My legs are
really sore.”
“They’re good for you,” Steve declares as he puts his orange juice down. His
face is back to its normal color. Really, Mary wonders, he didn’t actually
think she as going to tell, did he? Like she wouldn’t be in as much trouble as
he would?
“Don’t scare me like that,” Steve mutters as she sits down and digs into her
cereal.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she mutters back, and Steve scowls at her, and Mom whacks
him on the back of the head with the newspaper as she walks past, and Dad
lumbers down the stairs and cracks a joke about something having to do with
cars that makes Steve groan into his cereal. It’s just like any other Saturday
morning, so Mary hides her smile behind her spoon and goes on eating.
Steve goes upstairs to shower and change and then Mom takes him to practice;
Mary lounges on the lanai with her English homework, reading through two scenes
in Hamlet and wrinkling her nose at the weird language. Steve gets home early
in the afternoon; they hold football practice in the mornings now, because it
gets too hot later in the day, and he pops his head out the back door. “Is Mom
around?” he calls.
“No,” Mary tells him, setting her book down. “She went to the store after she
dropped you off, remember?”
Steve frowns. “Mary, that was, like, four hours ago. She should be home by
now.”
“Probably,” she replies, unconcerned. “Maybe she went over to Aunt Julie’s or
something.” Mom’s friend Julie lives nearby; sometimes Mom stops over there to
visit. It’s not the first time she’s lost track of time at Aunt Julie’s.
“Gonna catch another shower,” Steve says, leaning on the doorframe. “If she
comes home before I get out, ask her if it’s okay if Mark and Jace come over
for dinner, okay?”
“Sure,” Mary replies, grabbing her stuff and heading in to watch some
television. She’s earned it with all that Shakespeare.
Steve is just coming down the stairs, his hair still dripping, when there’s a
knock on the door. Mary opens it up and smiles at the man standing on the other
side. “Hey, Officer Na’ala. What can I do for you?”
“Mary,” he says, and Mary sees his face for the first time, really sees it, and
she wants to slam the door in his face, wants to shut him out, run away.
“No,” she says, strange and hollow and empty. “No.”
“Mary,” Steve says, beside her in a flash, pulling her into his side and
shielding her view from the officer in the doorway as she starts to cry.
“Officer Na’ala, come in, let me get my dad.”
“No, Steve,” Mary sobs as he leads her to the staircase. “No, don’t, please.”
She doesn’t know why she’s begging, what she’s begging for, only that Steve’s
leading her away from it and she already knows, knows that going upstairs isn’t
going to fix anything. “Steve, please.”
“Mary?” Dad leans out of the door to his bedroom. “Mary – Steve, what’s-”
“Officer Na’ala is here,” Steve says, and his voice sounds weird, too, like
he’s afraid to put any emotion in it. It’s thick, sort of, heavy and clunky,
and Mary watches as his words hit Dad in the chest like a fist.
“I’ll be downstairs,” Dad says faintly, and then Steve pulls Mary into his room
and shuts the door.
The day passes in a weird sort of haze after that. Mary spends most of it on
Steve’s bed, curled into her brother’s arms, sobbing until she doesn’t have
anything left. Dad comes in and explains it in a stutter, repeating parts and
skipping parts too, Mary’s sure, but he leaves after getting all the words out,
doesn’t stop to hug them or anything. Mary starts to cry again after he shuts
Steve’s door, and Steve gathers her up tightly and doesn’t let go. She can feel
his tears falling silently into her hair.
There’s a viewing and a funeral and a wake, and through it all Mary’s got this
gnawing sense of guilt in her stomach. When they get back to the house after
all is said and done, after Mom’s in the ground and Dad’s just as buried in his
investigation, she heads right for Steve’s room; she hasn’t slept alone
since... since. There’s a pile of her clothing in the corner, and she pulls her
dress up and off and drops it on top before grabbing the shirt and pants of
Steve’s that she’s borrowed off of the bed and slipping into them. She doesn’t
want to cry or scream or anything. She just wants to go to sleep and not wake
up until the nightmare is over.
Steve wakes her up when he climbs in beside her later. “Sorry,” he says
quietly, sliding his arm around her stomach and arranging himself along her
back. Mary doesn’t say anything, just settles back into him, and it’s not long
before she’s out again.
She wakes before he does the next time, and she’d get up and go down to the
kitchen and try to figure out how on Earth to make dinner for what’s left of
her family, but Steve has her pulled in so tightly that she’s pretty sure she
won’t be able to get out. It’s not like she actually has any idea what to do
about dinner, though, and he wakes up not long after that anyway.
“How are you?” he asks her sleepily, right into her ear, and Mary squeezes her
eyes shut and blurts, “Is this our fault?”
Steve freezes for a second before rolling away from her in the bed, but it’s
only so he can scoot until he’s lying face-to-face with her, looking her in the
eye. “What – Mary, how could this be our fault?”
“What we did,” she replies, tears blurring her view and her words. “Do you
think – maybe it’s like, I don’t know – we weren’t supposed to, and now – now
Mom’s-”
“Shh,” Steve soothes, sitting up and pulling her with him, until he’s cradling
her up against the headboard. “Mary, no, don’t think that, okay? This was some
creep trying to go after Dad. That’s it, end of story, all right?”
“But what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong,” he says softly, rocking her back and forth a little. His hand
is back in her hair, rubbing gently into her scalp, and Mary can slowly feel
herself calm until she’s just leaning into Steve, holding him as much as he’s
holding her. Steve switches to moving his hand through her hair, soothing
himself as much as he is her, Mary knows.
“You’re sure?” Mary asks finally, and feels Steve nod into her hair.
“We’re not hurting anyone,” Steve says quietly. “It’s – it’s the opposite of
that, right? So Mom getting hurt – that’s not retaliation for anything we’re
doing.”
“Anything we’re doing,” Mary repeats, turning so she’s looking Steve in the
eyes.
“Anything we’re doing,” he confirms, and then he leans in to kiss her on the
forehead, then the cheek, then, hesitantly, on the lips.
Mary kisses him back immediately, bracing her hands on his chest as she moves
from sitting across Steve’s legs to straddling his lap. His hands move to hold
her face as he kisses her more and more urgently. Mary shifts forward a little
and feels Steve’s hardness through his pants, and she rubs down gently as she
pulls back to catch her breath.
“Is the door locked?” Steve asks, head falling back against the headboard.
“Dad’s at work,” Mary answers. “He left while you were sleeping, and you know
he won’t be back for hours.”
“Good enough,” he decides, leaning back in to kiss her as his hand slips down
her side. He fumbles with the ties on her pants and tugs; Mary kneels up, and
he pulls her panties down, too. She wriggles the rest of the way out and kicks
them to the floor while Steve gets his own clothing off. They’re naked faster
this time, and Steve’s hands are more sure as he rolls the condom on and
reaches out to grab Mary’s hand.
“It was better for you the second time,” he says, almost like he’s asking.
“When you were sitting on top.”
“It was,” Mary agrees, but slides down onto her back anyway, hitching her knee
up as she goes. “This way, though, let’s figure it out.”
Steve uses his fingers first, like he had last time, and his mouth wanders back
and forth between her mouth and her breasts. Mary can hear the little noises
she’s making by the time Steve looks up at her, his face somewhere around her
stomach.
“Can I-” he asks, jerking his head towards where his fingers are resting inside
her.
“If you really want to,” Mary replies, making a face, because she can’t imagine
why anyone would want to put their mouth-
“Oh,” she gasps, because wow, okay, that’s new and different and good, really
good. Steve’s tongue slips in around his fingers, and Mary thinks she might
actually lose track of time a little as she curls her fingers into Steve’s hair
and lets go.
“Okay,” Steve says after a while, laying his head on Mary’s thigh and looking
up at her. “That’s kind of fun and kind of gross.”
“Great,” Mary replies, “good, I’m glad you figured that out, are you ready to-”
But Steve’s already moving up, and his lips are swollen and wet and red when he
kisses her. He tastes different, and Mary tries to lick it off of his lips, the
taste of herself. She feels Steve settle between her legs and then he’s pushing
in, and there’s none of the pain, none of the discomfort from last time – it’s
easy, the way he slides smoothly in, and they both breathe out when Steve
buries himself completely. He stays still for a minute, like he’s trying to
memorize how it feels, but then he rocks his hips gently and they both groan.
Steve keeps things slow and steady for a while, and it’s really a shame that
Mary can never tell anyone about this, can’t gush to her friends about the
faces Steve makes as he pushes and pulls back, the way his breath catches when
Mary figures out how to squeeze the muscles inside around him, the way he leans
down and kisses her like she’s something special, something that’s just his. He
finally speeds up when Mary starts meeting his thrusts more insistently with
her hips, and when his fingers reach down and start rubbing at her again, Mary
cries out and arches her back and feels herself clamp down on Steve’s dick, and
he chokes on air and pushes in hard and comes, too.
Mary can tell that Steve’s worn out – he hasn’t been sleeping well the past
week, not that she blames him, and it takes him longer than it maybe should to
lean up and roll the condom off. He turns and pulls Mary in as soon as he’s
done, burying his face in her neck and kissing the skin there.
“We’re not hurting anyone,” he repeats, and it sounds like a promise, like
reassurance.
“No,” Mary agrees, “we’re not,” and she falls asleep peacefully for the first
time in a week.
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