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A/N: I do not own the TV show ‘The Gifted’ or its characters. The characters and world are the intellectual property of Matt Nix. I am simply borrowing them for entertainment value, and certainly receive no monetary gain for this ficlet. This is a one-shot for the time being.
WARNING: PLEASE READ TAGS (but in case you missed it) Incest, Sibling Love, UST, Struckercest, Nudity
You have been warned! And without further ado~
He knew his sister was gorgeous.
She was the type of beautiful that was hard to ignore. He hoped he wasn’t the only one, but he had had inappropriate thoughts about his sister before. It was hard not to; she was just so sexy, calm, sweet, and self-assured. She seemed at ease in her own skin in a way he found envious.
When they merged together in Fenris, he was part of that perfection. Finally.
He felt a sense of one-ness with her. He knew that it wasn’t wrong to feel so strongly for her then. She was him, and he was her. Where one ended and the other began he did not want to know. When they joined hands, it was glorious.
He had told no one, but his dreams about Lauren had turned explicit ever since Fenris. In the beginning, he met her in his dreams on building tops. But over time, their setting changed and somehow he knew he was seeing himself in her shared apartment with Mom and Dad.
In her bed, she was naked under the sheets.
He appeared to her, and the god-like glow of Fenris enveloped them though they did not touch. His hair fanned out around him and he watched with fervent eyes as Lauren climbed out of her bed. The blankets lay crumbled on the bed and Lauren stood in all her glorious splendor.
He was aroused by the sight of her. These dreams always made him have mixed feelings. He woke up with a furious hard on most often, and other times he would wake up to a mess in his shorts. He naturally had to take care of these urges, and he felt ashamed of himself for needing her in this way.
The more he dreamed of her this way, he hungered for her. That she kept coming to these dreams, in which they were enveloped by the golden light, spoke volumes to him. He knew she longed to be with him, as he did her.
He was going to have to do something drastic to get her to ever turn to their side. Andy knew it was risky, but he was going to have to kidnap her.
They were meant to be together. He would make her see that. He knew she already knew it in her bones, she was only trying to deny their attraction. Yet she still showed up to their shared dreams, so he knew she had not given up on him entirely.
He would never give up on her. He would just have to make her see.
That was why he agreed to the sister’s pleas to “help him.” He knew it was a duplicitous way to achieve his means. He knew it was wrong to want her so badly, but nothing would stop him from being with her anymore.
He was frustrated when she put up a fight.
Lauren came to him less and less over the days after he agreed to the sister’s plans. She could sense what he was trying to do, and valiantly tried to stay awake and away from her brother. One night, her exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell into a deep sleep despite her best efforts.
Andy was shocked when he saw his sister again. It had only been days, but already her mental resistance had cost her much. He expected to find her scowling at him, but what he didn’t expect was the sheer tiredness reflected in her face. She was exhausted, and the bags under her eyes screamed it.
More than that, it was more, Andy realized as he peered closer. Lauren was trembling and gripping one of her arms fiercely. Her hair was long and greasy as if she hadn’t washed it. What was wrong?
He couldn’t feel her power. Normally when she was near there was always the tantalizing potential that at any moment, they could seize a terrible power. Now there was nothing. He felt no gravitational pull towards her and the realization left him desolate.
He had done this to her. He knew suddenly that she was willing to do anything to keep him from hijacking her brain.
Guilt flooded Andy in that moment. He cautiously approached his sister.
“Lauren? What’s happened?”
She didn’t reply at first. She pursed her lips sourly and wouldn’t deign to look at him.
“You know damn well what,” she curtly replied at length.
“I’m sorry, Lauren. I didn’t mean-“
“To steal my free will?! What the hell, Andy?!”
Lauren was furious. She lashed out at Andy and he barely evaded her cutting disc. She had gotten better offensively, that was good. Andy chuckled as he parried her attack. The sound of his mocking laugh incensed her.
Lauren let loose a piercing cry and slashed her hands through the air. Her forcefield spread large around Andy and she was able to manipulate it into a sort of rug wrapped around him. He was immobilized.
Lauren was livid and breathing hard as she approached. She was so angry, she got in his face and was almost nose to nose with him. “Call off your fucking telepaths, Andy!” she growled. “Or else!”
She tightened her force field’s crushing hold on him and Andy grunted. He could feel himself passing out soon. He could barely breathe to tell her that he would- call off the triplets.
He passed out before he could tell her, and woke up back in his bedroom a world away.
*~*~*
It had been almost a month since the incident in their last shared dream, and Lauren was staying away.
She no longer came to their shared dreams. Being without her was driving mad. He longed to see her lovely face, her pouting lips and long blonde hair. In their shared dreams, she came to him and they would embrace. He had kissed his sister in the dreams. Her lips were his and his alone. He could never suffer her to be anything other than a part of Fenris. Without Fenris, there was no reason for his being. Without the united feeling he got from connecting with her, there was no meaning to life.
He would just have to arrange to get her alone. He would do it by himself this time to keep anyone else in the Inner Circle from knowing. He had no intention of returning home to the Inner Circle unless and until he returned with his sister by his side.
Andy was able to learn from Polaris where his mother and father were staying. She had been to see Eclipse, of course she had sworn him to secrecy over the fact. She had no way of knowing what Andy hoped to learn by giving him the information. She assumed he missed his family like she missed Eclipse.
How wrong she was.
Andy had no desire to see his parents. He had seen the disapproving looks on their faces when he defended Lauren against the Purifiers. He knew they liked to think themselves above him, and it made him feel that there was no love lost between him and his parents. They were too different now.
However, with Lauren, he could forgive her for her self delusions.
He waited outside their apartment building in the shadows. It was daytime when Lauren finally exited the building. She looked sporty with her blonde hair pulled up into a high, messy pony tail at the top of her head. She was wearing running shoes, spandex, and a matching jacket. She looked much healthier than the last time he’d seen her; more determined and ferocious, too.
She walked with a sense of purpose, her hands balled at her sides. He followed her to an abandoned city dump. There was a wreckage of spoiled machinery and blasted to bits car pieces all over the place. She had obviously been training.
“You can come out,” Lauren suddenly called out.
She didn’t turn around from her stretches. Andy frowned and held his hands up defensively. He cautiously approached his sister from behind, coming out from behind a larger pick up truck still intact. There were oil stains all across the concrete. She had left her mark all over the place.
And from the looks of it, she had been improving.
Andy was delighted.
“Lauren, what are you doing? Why are you fighting so hard?”
“What do you mean?” she asked incredulously, finally turning to look at him. “Trying to keep you from taking control from me?”
Andy looked as if she had slapped him.
“I don’t want that,” he quietly admitted. “I wanted you to come to me of your own free will.”
“Don’t you see what you’re doing is wrong, Andy?!” Lauren implored him. The emotions between them began to rise. Andy began to bristle.
“What? I don’t think there’s anything wrong about mutant hating pieces of trash deserving to be taken out and somehow you’re better than me?!” he demanded.
The earth around Andy’s feet began to quake ominously. Lauren got into a defensive stance and readied herself to do actual battle with Andy this time. It was much more intense seeing him face to face. And wrong, all wrong. It felt so wrong to be squared off against him battle. All she wanted to do was to hold him close and guide him back to the light.
“Admit it!!” he screamed. The ground split into fissures around his feet. “You fucking hate me!” he wailed. The outpour of his emotions was so strong that a crater formed around him. The sound he made was guttural as he sunk further down into the ground.
He fell to his knees and bowed his head, his howl of anguish lost to the wind. Before long, his shoulders began to shake and he was weeping in earnest.
Lauren hesitated. Ultimately though, she couldn’t bear to feel his pain at that moment. She didn’t think. She just went to him. She knelt beside him in the crater and threw her arms around him.
“Andy, I could never hate you,” she told him.
Andy pulled her closer. His embrace was desperate as he held her punishingly tight and cried into her chest. His pain moved her to tears. She brushed her lips in a chaste kiss against his tousled bleach blond hair. Before either of them knew what was happening though, he tilted his head upwards and caught her lips in an urgent kiss.
It was one long confused moment for Lauren.
She felt terribly alive, and yet terrified. She knew she shouldn’t. She knew he was her little brother; that she should always try to protect him. The irrevocability of their actions were nothing to be made light of; the difference was he was sure of their love, it’s righteousness. He felt their love was inevitable from the beginning.
She was the one that put up the good fight; she tried to resist him. She tried to pretend that she didn’t greatly enjoy the thrill of being Fenris; the absolute sense of power. The truth was, when they became Fenris for the first time, she stopped thinking of him as her little brother. When they were Fenris together, they were more than that to each other.
She tried to deny how close she felt to him. She was not happy to dream about him so often. She knew that she did because a part of her always wanted to see him, even when he frightened her.
He did frighten her so much. It was because she felt the same things he did. She agreed that people that hunted and hurt mutants should be made to stop. But the ease with which he accepted their hand in multiple murders disturbed her more than anything.
Fenris had changed them both. Andy turned into someone she didn’t recognize anymore. He went dark. He became obsessed with their family’s legacy and control over his powers. He gave up on humanity, and dared to dream of something more for mutants.
She put up a good fight trying not to go the same way.
She told herself she was a good girl, that she felt badly about all the people she killed. She didn’t like that she had taken so many lives…. the reason being, she had felt good about it at the time.
They were defending their own, and damn what may come.
She regretted it very much. She didn’t want to do destructive things with her powers anymore, but she did want Andy back with her. She couldn’t deny that she wanted to try and control him. She only wanted to guide him down a less violent path. She couldn’t do that if she wasn’t with him.
Being apart from him was so hard. Denying their abilities and her attraction to him was so stupid, undeniable. He was hers as she was his. She needed to be with him more than she needed to stand on some moral high ground.
She crumbled. She gave in.
She kissed him back.
She would be his only love. She would save him. She would prevent him from committing atrocities against humanity. She would take him back from the Inner Circle, but not to go back to the Underground. She could never go back there.
*~*~*
Later that same day
Andy and Lauren were squatting in one of the apartments in her building. She had a master key to all of the bedrooms after the last disturbance she had with their land lord. He no longer denied her anything. He was scared shitless of her, and if he had found the two of them humping on the sheetless bed, he would have politely asked if there was something he could get for them.
She was glad he did not disturb them.
There was no reason to alert her parents so soon. She still had much work to do.
Lauren lay in bed beside Andy. They were both naked, and she rested her head against his narrow chest.
“Andy?”
“Hm?”
“What would you say if we didn’t go back to the Inner Circle?”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“I don’t mean go back to mom and dad. I mean you and me. We can go anywhere.”
“I can’t just leave the Inner Circle, we’re making a difference there-“
She cut him off. “You’re murderers there,” she accused him. “There’s no reason we can’t try to achieve the same thing by different means.”
Lauren raised up onto her elbow, and rested her head in her hand to look down at him. “I understand more than you think I do. I do see you want to help other mutants. I do, too. But we can do it in a way that isn’t considered terrorism, please, Andy,” she begged him.
“How are we gonna start out our own network?” he asked. “We don’t have their money, their connections,” he complained.
“What’s the one thing they don’t have?” Lauren cheekily asked.
Andy furrowed his brow in confusion. “What?”
“We might not have their money and connections, but they never had our power before, either,” she said conspiringly. “We’ll get everything we need somehow. Nothing can stop us, you know that’s true, don’t you?”
Her gaze was very intent upon his face. She knew she could convince him. They just needed to find their own way. She sealed the gap between them and drew him in for a searing kiss. She poured all her love and devotion into the act.
This physical intimacy was something new and electrifying. When they kissed, they were in another world altogether. They got lost in each other and never feared in drowning, they delighted in it. Her touch was an immense sway over him and he could not deny his sexual feelings for her. He would give her anything. If it kept her with him, he would turn his back on the Inner Circle. Who said he had to be with them to further the mutant cause? He had been willing to leave before… before…
“We can make our own safe haven for mutants.”
*~*~*
After she and Andy made their plans, she went to tell their parents good-bye.
“I can’t help him if I’m not with him,” she said to them. “He won’t abandon his cause. And I won’t abandon him.”
“Lauren, no! You can’t go. Not you, too,” her mother implored her.
Her father stood behind her mother, and the grim look of acceptance on his face was not lost on her. They always had an understanding, she and her father.
He knew she had to do this- he knew that if there was anyone who had a chance of bringing their boy back, it would be their girl. He just hoped she didn’t get lost in her attempt. Who knew what the cost of failure could be? He was afraid to find out, but he understood that he wasn’t being asked.
The kids were going to leave them. They mistakenly thought that Lauren was going to infiltrate the Inner Circle and try to win to Andy back from within. The Inner Circle also thought Andy was attempting to bring Lauren into the fold, to make their position stronger and the Mutant Undeground weaker.
Little did they know they would both be disappointed.
Andy and Lauren von Strucker were on the run.