She was cold. Worse, she was hungry. It was still dark but getting lighter, and she still hadn't found somewhere to hide, a safe place where she could get a few hours' sleep.
As she wandered down the street, more and more people came out of their houses. They all stared at her. She wasn't blue, but somehow she knew they could see her anyway, that they'd still see her no matter how many times she changed her skin.
Some part of her thought, This is stupid. But she couldn't remember, except that it seemed familiar, like it was something that had happened before.
She thought that maybe there was someone who could make them not see her, make them forget they ever had. But whoever that was, he wasn't here, and the people watching her were starting to murmur, a buzzing that got louder and louder the faster she went—
When Raven woke up, it was dark again. She was in her room—not her room at the mansion, as she'd thought before she turned on the lamp, but her room in their Oxford flat.
She'd had that stupid dream every night this week, so she already knew there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen for a snack. The snack turned into a whole meal, but that was fine. It was a lot better to be stuffed than to be even a little bit hungry.
On her way back to her room, Raven paused in front of Charles' bedroom door. The light was on, but despite that he was asleep when she opened the door. There were books scattered all over the other side of the bed. She picked them up and dumped them on the floor, then crawled in next to him. He was hogging the blanket, as usual. When she managed to pull enough of it from under him to cover her, it was warm.
It had been years since the last time she'd gone running to Charles after a nightmare. When she'd been younger, crawling into bed with him had been the one thing that made her feel safe enough to get to sleep again—but the longer she'd stayed with him, the fewer nightmares she'd had, and the more babyish she'd felt about it. But this week had been bad, and she wasn't going to spend one more night alone in that strange bed when Charles was right here.
Raven didn't realize how easily she'd fallen back to sleep until she woke up again. Shadows moved together in the dark. It was hard to see exactly what they were doing, but she got the basic idea. By the time she woke up for real, she was wet and aching.
The shadows were still moving inside Raven's head; in the dark of the bedroom, Charles was a shadow too. He was lying on his stomach, the mattress creaking lightly as he moved his hips. He was definitely not helping.
"Yes," he murmured. "Oh, that's good."
It only made her ache more.
She made herself pink, then shook his shoulder. "Charles. Charles, wake up."
The bed stopped creaking. "—Raven? What are you doing in here?"
"I had a nightmare."
"Oh."
"And you were projecting."
"...Sorry."
"Don't be sorry."
In a second, he'd be awake enough to stop sounding vague and confused, and tell her to go back to her room instead. Before he could get that far, Raven kissed him. For a moment, Charles was still, and then he kissed her back. It was familiar and warm, exactly the way she remembered from when they'd used to practice together. It turned heated faster than it ever had back then—Charles rolled onto his side, she scooted closed to him, then somehow her leg was over his and his hand was up her shirt, cupping her bare breast like he'd only done once before, the time he'd decided for both of them that they had to stop.
He'd promised to stay out of her head, but maybe he was in there anyway. Before Raven had finished thinking it, Charles pulled away. "We can't," he said, and his control must have been shot in general, because Raven also heard, I've missed you.
"Me, too," she said, and kissed him again.
'I could practice with you, if you like.' That was what Charles had said two years ago, when he'd found her crying herself sick because she'd turned blue when Stan Palmer kissed her. By the time they'd practiced for a week, Raven stopped caring about Stan Palmer, and started caring about how far she could get Charles to go. They stopped whenever she turned blue, and so she learned how to stop herself turning blue when they kissed, and then when they french kissed, and then when they made out on the couch for up to an hour, hands roaming over each other's clothes. But no matter how pink she stayed for how long, Charles would never go further than that. 'I'm your brother,' he'd say, like he didn't say that every time he wanted to win an argument. 'You're too young, anyway,' like that wasn't what he always said when the brother thing didn't fly.
Now, he kissed her back, and this time his hand was burning against her bare thigh when he said, "You should go back to your room."
"I don't want to go back to my room."
She rolled onto her back and pulled him on top of her, wrapping her legs around his waist. She expected him to get up, turn the light on and argue with her about it until she didn't want to make out anymore, never mind sleep with him. For a moment, she thought he definitely would, knew he was thinking it—she could read his body almost as well as he could read her mind, sometimes, and it was written everywhere they were touching. But then he relaxed, and this time he was the one to kiss her.
They'd never had this much room on the couch, and they'd always been wearing sturdier clothes than his scratchy pajamas, her thin panties under her nightshirt; she'd never felt him as clearly as she did now, as he settled between her legs and began to rub against her, where no one but him had ever been.
She'd been on the edge of something, the last time they'd stopped. Bigger than anything she'd gotten to on her own, when she put her hand between her legs at night. She'd been so close, and then Charles had freaked out and ruined everything.
It didn't take long for her to reach that place again now—but it had been so long since they'd practiced that she couldn't hold onto it, felt her pink self slipping away through her fingers.
"Don't stop," she said, tightening her legs around him, running her hands up his back. "Please don't stop, please—"
Instead of stopping, the way he always had when she turned blue before, no matter how much she begged him not to, Charles groaned into her neck, and kept moving. He didn't stop until she went over the edge, crying out, muscles inside spasming as pleasure flashed through her.
"Raven," he said, his voice low and rough. He'd sounded winded before, sometimes, but not like this.
He was still hard against her, and between that and his voice, Raven still wanted more, still wanted him to fuck her.
"Don't stop," she said again, rippling pink. She reached for the waistband of his pajamas, he helped pull her panties down, and then he pushed inside her, so much bigger than her fingers when she'd tried this alone. It hurt, but only a little and only for a moment, and then Charles was moving again, inside her this time.
It lasted long enough for a burn to start, and for her to think that if it kept going for a few more minutes, she might go over the edge again. But she had only barely thought it when Charles groaned and went still. He sank down until he was lying on top of her, a warm solid weight. Raven liked it. He was still inside her, and she liked that almost as much.
They kissed for a few more minutes, soft and slow, all the urgency and tension gone. There was a delicious glow through Raven's whole body. Charles pulled out of her and they lay side by side, his hands stroking her back, their legs entwined. This was definitely her favorite part. She was going to remember this for next time.
Of course, then Charles tried to ruin it. "We shouldn't have done this," he said. "It can't happen again."
"You should stop talking. Stupid things come out when you talk," Raven said, instead of 'I'm not really your sister' or 'I might even be older than you, so stop telling me I'm too young!' She already knew those arguments didn't work. Anyway, she wasn't too worried about what Charles said now that it was after. If he'd really meant it, he wouldn't have put his hand back up her shirt right after he said it, rubbing his nipple under his thumb in a way that made her shiver. "You should go back to sleep."
Whether Charles went back to sleep or not, she didn't know—but even though it was starting to get light outside, Raven fell asleep right away, in the safest place she'd ever been.