malpractice

nc-17 | crazy space incest

In a way, she had saved him.

With his life unimpeded, he would have gone on to be just like his father. Rich and ignorant, living in a house that practically cleaned itself, married to a woman who may have loved him, once, but was now just here for the shiny. Fancy dinner parties on the weekends, where his wife would complain about the help and he'd complain about the nurses at the hospital. People would smile to his face, because he'd be too important to piss off, but whisper about him behind his back.

"No," she murmurs against his chest. He strokes her hair, hoping her nightmare fades.

Life out here on this flying trash heap wasn't much - it was downright miserable, sometimes - but he liked the person he was now more than the memories of what he was. That counted for something.

And this was how he repaid her for that.

It would be easy to blame her. She had initiated it, after all -


his lips, pursed up, 'shh, shh, shh', he's never understood why that soothes her, but it does, then she leaned forward, gentle pressure, sloppy movements, unsure, unfocused, he was unable to stop, think, feel anything other than pressure in his chest


- so it would be so simple to just chalk it up to her mangled mind. She did it. Her fault.

Except that wasn't how it worked. She was damaged, so he had to be the responsible one. He could have pulled back and smoothed down her hair, resetting the boundary between them. The boundary that had never been blurred until they cut into her brain.

No, no, he couldn't blame it solely on the doctors. He had been a willing participant -


her hands, soft, barely trembling, blame it on the fact that the heat's been messed up for days, too cold, that's why she sought him out, crawled into his bed, seeking warmth, upset from a nightmare, that's why he needed to calm her, hold her, touch her, soothe her


- and there hadn't been any doctors meddling with his brain. He was sane and rational, and he hadn't stopped it.

She's quiet now, warm, soft flesh wrapped around him on the tiny bunk. Breathing slowly, normally, the occasional contented sigh escaping. Sleeping more peacefully than she has in months. It's the effect he's been trying to attain with one drug after another, and if he had achieved this with an injection, he'd be elated.

But he didn't. He took advantage of her, used her -


gasped her name, because of her nimble little hands, because of her roaming mouth, because she wouldn't stop saying his name, any protests he could muster died in his throat, slipping away into the void


- and when she woke up, for all he knew, she'd want to kill him.

"No," she says again. She lifts herself up, props her chin on his chest. "Always here. Always awake. Always me."

He whispers her name, intending to follow it with an apology, an explanation - not that he has one - but she touches his face, tracing a line along his cheekbone, over his nose.

"Don't think," she implores him. "Can't sleep with your thoughts running through my brain."

She lowers her head, centering her ear over his heart. When she runs her hand up and down his side, caressing his skin, it's easy to give into her request.

(fin.)