Work Text:
Wise was a bad person. This he knew, without a shadow of a doubt.
As an illegal Proxy, it was kind of a given. As Phaethon, they avoided taking the shadiest jobs that came their way, even when the money was good. The more violent raider gangs, the mob, hell, sometimes even some minor league TOPS Alliance representative would search for their services, waving around really fat stacks, but the answer was always no. Even then, their usual go-to agents—people they considered friends—were no strangers to killing. Hollow raiding was a dog eat dog business, after all.
On top of that, their mother was who she was. Folks would sometimes joke about it, ‘Arna, huh? Unfortunate last name you two got there.’ They would roll with it, change the subject, bury the resentment as deep as they could. The government still wanted them behind bars, they were just lucky that Hollow Zero destroyed almost all records of their existence, including their old surname. Taking Teacher's name as their own was one of the tiny acts of defiance they allowed themselves.
But that wasn't what actually carved his name on the long tally of deplorable human beings.
No, that was something far more personal. Far smaller, in many ways.
Wise sighed, cupping his face in deep weariness. His eyes stung in the dim blue lights of the workshop’s monitors. The HDD was acting up lately—software side, his area of expertise, Belle reminded him—data packets corrupted for no clear reason when synced to Eous, highly detrimental to their work, and an express ticket to Vomit City.
It wasn't that late yet, just past midnight, but he felt about ready to pass out. The house was his for tonight, not that he was enjoying it in any particular way, locked up in the staff room since before the store closed for the day. He was used to it, it was comfortable even. Hours of solitude, just him and his work. No entitled customers, no loudmouth associates, no little sister.
He missed Belle already. She hadn't left for even six hours, and she'd be back tomorrow morning.
It felt like there was a void in his chest whenever she wasn't around.
It was for the best. Belle was the face of their duo for a reason: she was the one who liked being social, after all. Wise was best suited for this, out of sight, out of mind. It went both ways. Like this, he wouldn't drag her down with him, at least.
Belle was out with Nicole and Anby, girls’ night from what he'd understood. It was good, she deserved that break from everything. From him.
The IDE on screen taunted him, the little caret cursor blinking rhythmically. The last hour had been spent debugging the same issue: for whatever reason, the motor sensory data sent by Eous’ networking system was being interpreted as invalid by the HDD, and for whatever reason this error wasn't being handled correctly by the neural synchronizer software, so instead of rerouting their real vestibular system’s signal to their brain, it was instead sending out a stream of repeated zeroes. To get an idea of what it felt like, picture those dreams where it feels like you're falling and it wakes you up, but multiply it by five and make it keep going non-stop. It sucked.
He hadn't gotten any work done the past half hour. Anxiety had overcome him, the kind that snuck up on him too gradually to notice until he was a little lightheaded. He pushed his chair back from the desk, letting the seat spin freely with his momentum.
He hated being apart from her, even though he knew he was bad for her, because he was a vile, despicable thing. She had no idea, of course, it was absolutely imperative that she couldn't know.
Belle was the last thing he had left of his old life—of when things were simple and made sense, when it looked like the worst was behind them—though he didn't deserve her. If she learned how he truly felt, deep inside, she would hate him, and he would deserve it, plain and simple. He didn't feel right without her, didn't feel whole.
The truth is Wise loved Belle wrong. When he was meant to protect and cherish her, his perverse heart dreamed instead of claiming her—tainting her with his sick desire, making her all his.
That love ate away at him from within, like a leaking battery: corrosive and toxic, and maybe at any point it could burst into flame. He didn't want to feel this way about her, but this matter proved entirely outside his control. Yet, he knew it was love, twisted and sick as it was. He was tired, down to the bone, but wasn't ready to go to bed, though, despite his exhaustion. Really, he was avoiding it like the plague, because the last few nights he'd dreamed of her.
It was so vivid in his mind still: Belle wore a flowing white dress, all silk and lace, with white lillies tucked in her hair. They were in that old chapel in the Academy campus, just the two of them, and in the hazy, warm sunlight that filtered in through every window, his sister looked more angelic than anything he'd ever witnessed.
In that little dream world, it was just the two of them. She knew how he felt, and she loved him back just as much. Somehow, his love wasn't a corrupting influence here, it was pure and beautiful and good.
And right there, on that seldom used altar, she gave herself to him, and he took it all, wholeheartedly. Even now it gave him chills, thinking about it—about the curve of her waist, the warmth of her body pressed up to his, the softness of her lips—the sheer catharsis of feeling her, every last part of her, and kissing every last inch of her body without missing even the tiniest spot.
The painful stiffness in his underwear only served to fill him with shame. He pulled his knees up, curling in on himself to ease the discomfort. Wise wished he could claim he'd never succumbed to the urge to touch himself to the thought of his sister, but as stated before, he was a bad person. A bad brother, a bad son to his likely–late mother.
Teacher had asked him to take care of Belle, and instead he fell in love with her.
Instead, he moaned under his breath, hand pawing at his cock through his sweatpants, all the while letting his fantasies run wild:
His sweet little baby sister, on her back in bed—their bed—wearing nothing but lingerie, deep indigo just like her hair dye, with garters and thigh high stirrups, smiling that bratty grin of hers, the one that let you know that she knew you were wrapped around her finger. With that same finger, she would beckon him, and he would close the distance as if magnetized, crawling on his hands and knees on the mattress until he hovered over her, feeling the heat exuding from her flushed skin, heart pounding in his chest in anticipation—
“Fuck—” back in reality, Wise groaned. His hips bucked against his hand almost reflexively, the cotton of his sweatpants a frustrating barrier for the friction.
He got up from the desk chair, not bothering to shut the HDD down, instead bolting it upstairs. He needed this, needed to at least let himself fantasize of her, otherwise he'd go mad.
But Wise was a bad person, so, of course, he wasn't going to just fantasize. No, he needed more, if only a bit more, so he didn't head straight to his room. He opened the bathroom door, ignoring the shame in his gut as he shuffled through the contents of their laundry hamper, until he found his prize.
Every time he did this, he told himself this would be the last. He knew it was bullshit. Like the perverted fuck he was, he was simply addicted to it. Now in his room, he threw himself onto his bed, one hand pulling his pants down as the other brought his own sister's user panties up to his face.
A shudder rolled down his whole body as he breathed her in. Even muted like this, her scent did something to him, it was the only drug he needed. Absolutely despicable, of course, but what else was he meant to do? He loved her so much it hurt. He might be bad, horrible even, but he just needed this. This was the one selfish thing he allowed himself, because he'd sooner die than hurt his precious Belle. He vowed to himself that she would never be allowed to learn the depths of his depravity, he'd keep her safe from it—from himself.
So he humped his own hand with frantic desperation, pretending for a moment to be in that dream world where he wasn't sick, where this fruit wasn't forbidden. In that world, he would make sure that Belle had all she ever wanted, because she was his everything, in every single world, she would always be.
He pictured the softness and warmth of her under his touch. She seemed impossibly so, a heavenly thing that he didn't deserve, but she willingly debased himself for him, letting his tongue taste all it, drinking up her laughs and sighs and moans as she encouraged him further, bringing her closer and closer to ecstasy. He wondered what she would sound like. His brain couldn't settle on whether she would be quiet, holding back her voice into quiet little whimpers that he would skilfully coax out, or if she would be loud, unashamed, crying out his name with an intensity to match his own. And he could only dream of what she might taste like. The nectar of the gods itself couldn't compare to her, of that much he was certain, strong like a drug going straight to his nervous system, giving him a high unparalleled to anything.
“Belle…” Wise grunted, taking another deep breath of her musk, just barely impregnated into the fabric, a glimpse of something that must never be. In his blackened heart, he dreamed of her, his beloved sister—beloved wife—pregnant with their child, glowing with that vitality of an expecting mother, helping him around the store in the daytime, before he pampered her like royalty in the after-hours. All to see her smile, to know that it was him who brought her this joy, who took care of her, whom she chose, because she loved him back even though he didn't deserve it.
He needed her like air. A life without Belle in it wasn't worth living, even like this, lived out in disgraceful secrecy, his sin hidden so it may not sully her purity and goodness.
His whole body tensed and spasmed as he came, the orgasm hitting him all at once, leaving him shaking with that familiar mixture of elation and deep, deep guilt. So Wise just lay there, sister's underwear in one hand, his own seed covering the other and regret festering in his soul.
He was a bad person, the lowest of the low. He didn't know how to be anything else.
After the high there naturally came the hollow.
Had he done something to deserve this torment? Or was it punishment for Helios Academy’s crimes? Or maybe even something the parents neither of them even got to meet did? Wise wished he knew. He would do anything to put an end to this sickness in his heart, so that his life could go back to normal, and he could love Belle the way she deserves.
The first few times he did this, he even cried afterwards. Really filling out the pathetic creep bingo card, he was, but what else could he do? Who wouldn't cry at that realization? That you're deeply broken, that nothing in the world could hope to fix you? That the one person you love more than anything in your life would be better off far, far away from you?
He was long past that. Now he just stared at his ceiling with that bitter aftertaste in his mouth.
He wished more than anything to not feel this way, or he would, if he wasn't so horrible. The truth is he wished he could be allowed to love Belle, openly and without shame, and to have her love him back.
He dragged himself out of bed, begrudgingly. He needed to wash his hands, and to get back to work, if only to make it up to her. To hear her praise once the job was done.