“You’re dripping.”

Caleb cracks one eye open. The bag of frozen peas you set at his neck fifteen minutes ago has gone soft, condensation tracking down his throat and disappearing into the collar of his henley.

“I’ll get him a new couch.”

You cross your arms and raise a brow. “With what money.”

“He can add it to my tab. Right under the chiropractor bill.”

“Careful with the tab, captain,” Sylus warns drily. “I’m very creative about collecting, and I’m starting to think you enjoy owing me.”

Caleb chucks a pillow across the room. Sylus catches it without flinching and tucks under his arm like he won it fair.

“You boys—” you look between Sylus, settled into his armchair like a throne, and Caleb, sprawled on the couch “—are going to play nice.”

“We’re behaving,” Sylus says.

“Barely,” Caleb adds.

Sylus shrugs. “Barely counts.”

They’ve been like this since tonight’s game. Before the game, actually. Since the first time they met on the ice two seasons ago, since something sparked between them the first time your brother knocked your boyfriend flat on his ass only for the silver-haired menace to come up smiling.

Tonight’s third period had been ugly. Caleb’s team down two, Sylus’s team running clock, and somewhere around the seven minute mark Caleb had taken Sylus into the boards in a way that could have looked accidental from the cheap seats and looked extremely on purpose from the bench. Sylus answered with his fists. The refs let them go for longer than they should have. Both were ejected, and you’d watched them get walked off in opposite directions like dogs separated mid-fight while five thousand people screamed.

You’d had the idea on the walk back to your dorm. Stupid. Catastrophically stupid.

Come over, you’d texted Caleb. Sylus’s place.

Three bouncing dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. He’d called you instead.

“You’re out of your mind, pips.”

“Probably.”

“Meimei.”

“Gege.”

He released a long, suffering breath. “Why?”

“Because I love you and I love him and I’m so tired of being caught in the middle like this.”

“He gave me a split lip.”

“You gave him a bloody nose.”

“And you think this is a fix?”

“I think it’s a try.”

He showed up an hour later, of course. You’d never asked Caleb for something he didn’t give you.

“How’s the nose,” Caleb says without opening his eyes.

Sylus touches the bridge of his nose, more out of habit than concern. “Fine.”

“Shame. Could’ve sworn I did more damage.”

“You always did overestimate your impact.”

“Overestimate?” Caleb’s eyes finally open. “I’ll overestimate my fist up your—”

“Okay!” you interrupt, lifting both hands in surrender. “New rule.”

“This should be good,” Sylus says under his breath.

“Each of you has to say one nice thing about the other,” you announce. “One. Single. Nice. Thing. And then we can move on with our evening like adults.”

“I am being an adult,” Sylus counters. “I haven’t poisoned his drink.”

You scoff. “That’s baseline human decency.”

“For me, sweetie, it’s generous.”

Caleb snorts. It’s the first sound he’s made in Sylus’s direction that isn’t hostile, and you watch Sylus clock it with a small flicker at his eyebrow.

“Caleb,” you say. “You first.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re in his apartment drinking his whiskey and bleeding on his furniture, and I think that earns him a compliment.”

Caleb stares at the ceiling for a long second, jaw working, like you’ve asked him to move a mountain with his bare hands.

“He’s fast,” Caleb says, finally.

“Fast,” you repeat.

“On the ice. He’s fast. Faster than he should be for his size.” Caleb pauses. “It’s annoying. Like a cockroach.”

“That’s not exactly a compliment.”

“It’s adjacent.”

You look at Sylus. “Your turn.”

Sylus takes a sip of whiskey, holding it in his mouth for a moment as he turns over his options. He swallows and tilts his glass toward Caleb.

“He doesn’t quit.”

Caleb glances over.

“Down two,” Sylus says. “Most players know when they’re beaten. He apparently lacks that particular survival instinct. Played the last seven minutes like he could bully the scoreboard into changing.” He takes another sip. “It was irritating.”

“So we’ve established you’re both fast and stubborn and you hate each other for it,” you say. “Wonderful. Truly groundbreaking diplomacy.”

“You asked for one nice thing,” Sylus says, swirling his glass. “That was one nice thing.”

“That was one nice thing wrapped in three mean ones.”

“What can I say? I’m efficient.”

“You’re efficiently a prick,” Caleb fires back.

“Mm,” Sylus hums, entirely unbothered. “Is that what you say when you don’t have a comeback, or is that what you say when your sister’s watching and you want her to think you’re tough?”

Caleb sits up. Drains his whiskey in one go, sets the glass on the table, and lets the bag of peas slide from his neck and thud to the floor.

“Watch it, pretty boy,” he says, eyes narrowed.

“It’s a genuine question. Because you do the same thing on the ice. All those big hits, the scrapping, mouthing off at the refs. It’s very impressive. Very masculine. Especially when she’s sitting third row.” Sylus tilts his chin toward you without taking his eyes off your brother. “Must be exhausting, carrying a crush that obvious for that long. I’m surprised she hasn’t said something.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“She’s a kind girl. Probably doesn’t want to embarrass you.”

“I said shut your mouth.”

“Or maybe she likes it. Having her big brother panting after her like a dog at the door every time she—”

“That’s enough!” you yell.

Both sets of eyes snap to you. You’re not one to raise your voice, and they both know it. You don’t know what you’re going to say next until you’re already saying it, and by then it’s too late:

“If you can’t talk it out, maybe you should just kiss and make up.”

You know it sounds wrong the second it leaves your mouth. You’re tired and tipsy and your brother and your boyfriend are having a conversation about you like you’re not in the room, and all you wanted was for them to stop, and what resulted was the dumbest sentence you’ve said in your entire life.

You try to chase it with a laugh that doesn’t quite land. The room doesn’t laugh with you.

You scramble to walk it back. “Kidding. Obviously. God, your faces. I’m going to get more ice—”

Sylus sets his glass down. The sound of crystal on marble is small, though it lands like a gavel.

“Interesting,” Sylus says.

“I was joking,” you reply, too fast.

“Were you.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.”

Sylus rises from the armchair, crossing to the couch in three steps. He holds out a hand to Caleb.

“What the hell are you doing?” Caleb asks.

“She asked us to make up,” Sylus says simply. “I’m making up. Stand up, captain.”

“You’re out of your goddamned mind.”

“She’s been mediating between us all night, and she’s running out of patience.” Sylus’s hand is still extended, patient and unmoving. “Your poor sister has spent two years trying to keep us from killing each other. The least we can do is give her what she wants for a few seconds.”

Caleb tries to look unbothered, but you catch this jaw tightening at your poor sister. ”She was being sarcastic.”

“Was she?” Sylus glances at you over his shoulder. “Sweetie. Were you being sarcastic?”

You should say yes. You should laugh it off and go get more ice and let the night fade into something survivable.

You just can’t seem to make yourself do anything at all.

Sylus turns back to Caleb, eyebrow raised. See?

“Fine,” Caleb says. “Fine. One kiss.”

He doesn’t take Sylus’s hand. He stands up on his own, because of course he does, and squares up in front of Sylus with his shoulders braced like he’s about to take a penalty shot.

“One kiss,” Caleb repeats.

“One kiss,” Sylus agrees.

Sylus cups the side of Caleb’s face, thumb settling by the butterfly bandage at his brow. Caleb swallows hard, but doesn’t pull away.

“Relax, sweetheart,” Sylus teases. “It’s a kiss. We’ve gotten more physical over a little black puck.”

Caleb’s hands curl into fists at his sides, his face carefully impassive. “Get on with it, pretty boy.”

Sylus leans in and kisses him.

It starts as nothing. A closed-mouth press, chaste, just sufficient enough to satisfy your request. Sylus’s hand stays at Caleb’s jaw. Caleb’s hands stay at his sides. It’s two men doing something for the benefit of a third person they both care deeply about, and nothing more than that.

Then Caleb’s mouth moves.

It’s the smallest shift—his lower lip catches against Sylus’s, and you watch Sylus notice it—tilting his head to change the angle, transforming the kiss from nothing to everything in the span of a heartbeat.

Caleb’s hand comes up to Sylus’s collar, fisting the cotton there. Not pulling, just holding, his split knuckles going white behind their tape. Sylus makes a small sound, approval or surprise or both. His hand slides from Caleb’s jaw to the back of his neck and he deepens the kiss, mouth opening against Caleb’s slowly, like he’s afraid to startle him, afraid for the moment to vanish, and Caleb lets him.

The kiss isn’t for you anymore.

You can see the exact moment it stops being a performance and starts being something private. Caleb’s other hand comes up, both fists in Sylus’s shirt now. Sylus’s fingers curl into the hair at Caleb’s nape, tugging gently. The sounds shared between them are wet and obscene and utterly, nakedly honest.

Your hands are in your own lap, fingers laced tightly together. You’re watching your boyfriend kiss your brother and the thing you're feeling isn't jealousy or shock or any of the things you are supposed to feel. What you feel instead is heat pooling low, the kind that makes you press your thighs together and the friction of your jeans agonizing.

Sylus pulls back first, turning his head just enough to look at you. His eyes scan yours, drop to your lap, then return to your face. His mouth tilts, and he’s beside you on the couch in three strides.

Caleb stands frozen in place, mouth still slightly open.

Sylus pats the empty space beside him. “Sit down, captain.”

Caleb sits.

Sylus settles between you, one arm stretched across the back behind your shoulders, the other behind Caleb’s.

“Well,” Sylus says to no one in particular. “That was overdue.”

Caleb is staring at the muted TV, jaw working, suddenly captivated by what might be the least consequential Division III basketball game of all time. His lip is bleeding again, the split reopened from the kiss, but he makes no move to wipe it clean.

“Caleb,” you say.

“Don’t.”

“Your lip—”

“I know.”

“It’s bleeding again.”

“I know, pips.”

Sylus reaches over and swipes his thumb across the corner of Caleb’s mouth, catching the blood. Caleb flinches but doesn’t pull away. Sylus studies his thumb for a second, then wipes it on his own jeans, satisfied.

“Good kisser, by the way,” Sylus says lightly. “In case that wasn’t clear.”

Caleb closes his eyes.

“Very direct. Bit aggressive. Holds on like he’s afraid you’ll leave.” Sylus glances your way. “You should try it, sweetie.”

Whatever lust-drunk haze you were in is sliced clean through by the implication, cold and brutally sobering.

“Try what,” you murmur.

“Kissing him,” Sylus clarifies. “You should try it. I think you’d like it.”

Heat floods your face. “Sylus.”

“Hm?”

“You know we can’t—that he’s—” you gesture vaguely between yourself and Caleb, then toward Sylus. “—and we’re—”

“Why not? Because we’re dating?” Sylus asks, sounding genuinely curious. “Or because he’s your brother?”

Your stomach falls through the floor.

Because you thought you’d hidden it. You’ve been so goddamn careful—with your eyes, your hands, the way you angle your body when Caleb sits too close and the way you laugh at his jokes exactly as long as a friend would and not one second longer. And Sylus just picked up everything you’ve been hiding and set it on the coffee table between the three of you, and now you’re all staring straight at it, and there’s no putting it back.

“Both,” you say. “Obviously both.”

“What if it’s neither,” Sylus says, holding both of you in the loose parentheses of his arms, as if he doesn’t find any of this complicated at all. ”What if the problem is that you’ve both wanted each other for so long you’ve turned it into something you’re not allowed to have, and the not-being-allowed has gotten so big you can’t see past it anymore.”

Caleb is staring blankly at the TV again. His throat works around his response.

“She’s your girlfriend, Sylus.”

“She is.”

“And I’m her—”

“You’re her brother. Yes. You’re also in love with her. We all know this. We’ve known it all night. We knew it long before tonight.” Sylus inspects his nails, nonchalant. “So let’s stop building the case and move to the verdict, shall we?”

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“Sweetie. Look at me.” You do. He’s giving you the look he gives when he wants your full attention, a look he doesn’t use often and one you’ve never been able to refuse. “Listen to me. Both of you. I’m going to say something, and I’m going to say it once, and after I say it neither of you gets to pretend you didn’t hear.”

You nod. So does Caleb, in sync, and you watch the small flicker pass across Sylus’s eyes that means he noticed.

“Your big brother won’t touch you,” Sylus says to you. “You know that. I know that. He knows that. He’s spent—how long, Caleb?”

Caleb blinks up at the ceiling.

“How long,” Sylus insists.

“Since I was thirteen.”

“Since he was thirteen. All those years deciding he’s not going to touch you. He’s not going to undo that tonight. Not for me. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

Your heart beats so heavily you’re certain the whole room can hear it.

“But,” Sylus continues. His arm tightens behind your shoulders. His other arm tightens behind Caleb’s. “He can touch me. Can’t you, Caleb?”

“...Yes.”

“And I can touch her. Can’t I, kitten?”

“Yes.”

“Then look at that. Look at how convenient that is.”

Caleb leans out of Sylus’s reach, dragging a hand through his dark hair. “Did I knock something loose up there, Qin? Lay into you a little too hard tonight?”

“Not nearly hard enough.” Sylus smirks, the amusement fading into something more focused. “Nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to touch tonight. Everybody goes home having had exactly the experience they pretend they didn’t want.”

“That’s a nice speech. You rehearse that in the penalty box?”

“I had five minutes. Figured I’d make good use of them.”

“You’re delusional.”

“And you’re still here.”

That lands. You see it hit in the way Caleb’s mouth opens and stays there, the argument dying in his throat. Because he could leave. The door is right there. He has a car. A phone. Yet he’s sitting under Sylus’s arm and hasn’t taken a single step toward any of them.

Sylus sees it, too.

He reaches up and catches Caleb’s jaw, thumb finding the split in his lower lip, and presses into it. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to feel.

Caleb hisses through his teeth. His hand wraps around Sylus’s wrist but doesn’t pull it away.

“Unless,” Sylus says, his thumb resting in the seam of Caleb’s mouth, “you’d rather go back to arguing about hockey.”

Caleb doesn’t argue. He doesn’t say yes, or nod, or do anything at all except sit there with Sylus’s thumb against his lip and his hand around Sylus’s wrist and his chest rising and falling faster than it ever has on the ice.

That’s enough for Sylus.

He tilts Caleb’s jaw down and kisses him, tongue working in slow and unhurried strokes, like he has the whole night and intends to use every second of it. His thumb slides to the hinge of Caleb’s jaw and rests there. His other hand stays on your shoulder, keeping you close. Keeping you watching. A warm, heavy, point of contact that says stay and watch this and you are not going to look away from what I’m doing to your brother’s mouth.

Caleb’s hand finds the back of Sylus’s neck, and you inhale sharply.

Sylus pulls back at your gasp. His hand leaves Caleb’s jaw and finds yours with the same grip, thumb at the corner of your mouth, fingers curving under your chin, tilting your face up to meet his. His eyes scan yours, and something in his expression comes alive and hungry.

“Open, sweetie.”

He kisses you, and it’s a kiss you know. The shape of his mouth, the pace, the pressure of his tongue against yours. You’ve kissed this man so many times you could map it blindfolded.

But there’s something in his mouth that isn’t his.

It takes you a second to place it, a warmth that doesn’t belong to Sylus. A faint copper edge that blooms on your tongue when his presses against it. The blood of a split lip. Caleb’s, carried on your boyfriend’s tongue, delivered to yours with each stroke. You whimper against his mouth, and feel Sylus smile into the kiss—a small, satisfied flex that says his hypothesis just proved correct.

“There,” he says quietly, pressing a parting kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Now you’ve had him, too.”

On the couch behind him, Caleb’s eyes are focused on your face—specifically on your mouth, more specifically on the place where his blood is still sitting on your lower lip and you haven’t wiped it off.

“Now,” Sylus says, turning back to Caleb. “Your turn, captain.”

Caleb opens his mouth and Sylus kisses him, tongue sweeping wet and slow and thorough. Caleb’s teeth close around Sylus’s bottom lip and hold, pulling, tasting the sweetness that’s sitting on Sylus’s lip from yours. The bite pulls a low sound from Sylus’s throat, his eyelids fluttering at the pressure, and Caleb doesn’t let go. If anything he sucks harder, desperately chasing your mouth the only way he’s allowed to. 

Sylus finally pulls back with noticeable effort, running his tongue over his own lip where its newly swollen.

“Well?” Sylus asks, amused and knowing. “Could you taste her?”

“Apple.” Caleb swallows. “Green apple.”

The words hit you hard and low. Your Chapstick. The one he’s bought for you in bulk since you were in middle school and keeps in his glovebox because you always lose yours. The one he tosses into your lap without comment every time you get in his car, the one you reapplied before walking into this apartment.

“Yeah,” Caleb says, rougher. “Yeah, I could taste her.”

Sylus’s mouth curves. “Good.”

“Again,” Caleb says to Sylus, not asking. “Kiss her again.”

Sylus obliges. He turns to you and claims your lips, longer, dirtier, a thin strand of spit connecting your mouths when he pulls away. He turns to Caleb, who catches it with his mouth before Sylus finishes turning, desperate and graceless and nothing like the controlled athlete who commanded the ice earlier tonight. Caleb’s hand comes up to the back of Sylus’s head and holds him there, kissing him harder, letting Sylus feed him the taste of you, only pulling apart when his lungs burn for air.

“More,” Caleb groans.

Sylus huffs a laugh. “Greedy.”

“More, Sylus.”

The rhythm turns hypnotic. Sylus kisses Caleb, turns, kisses you. Kisses you, turns, kisses Caleb. Each pass filthier than the last, a little more urgent, carrying more of your brother to you—not just his taste but his small, wet sounds, his shallow breaths, the barely-held-back noises he keeps making against Sylus’s tongue that Sylus carries to you like gifts.

You don’t know how you end up pressed together.

Caleb’s thigh is flush against Sylus’s, their shoulders overlapping. You’ve managed to end up in your boyfriend’s lap, straddling his hips. And Sylus keeps one hand on each of you the entire time, one at your hip now, the other on Caleb’s bicep.

You lean in after one of the passes and catch Sylus’s mouth before he’s fully turned away from Caleb, the kiss off-center and messy, and you taste Caleb so strongly that your hips buck against Sylus’s.

Sylus laughs. He gives your ass a teasing smack.

“Bedroom,” he says.

Caleb pulls back, eyes widening. “Sylus—”

“We’re moving this to the bedroom. This couch costs more than your car, and your sister’s about to ruin it.”

You frown. “I am not—”

“Sweetie, your hand is on his belt.”

You look down. Your hand is, in fact, on Caleb’s belt.

Not through Sylus, just—your hand, on Caleb’s belt buckle, fingers curled around the leather, and you don’t remember putting it there and you don’t remember Sylus guiding it, and you’re dangerously close to not remembering why this whole thing was ever a bad idea in the first place.

You pull your hand away like it’s been burned.

“Bedroom,” Sylus repeats, an order rather than suggestion. He stands, bringing you with him, your legs wrapped around his waist. He eyes Caleb and tips his head toward the hallway. “Now.”

Nobody argues.

Sylus’s bedroom is all dark wood and low light, with a bed that takes up most of the space. It’s a mattress you’ve been on a hundred times. You know how the sheets feel bunched in your fists, how the pillow positions your hips at just the right angle when he puts it under your stomach, how the comforter feels around your shoulders when he tucks you in with a kiss to your temple.

You have no idea how different it’ll feel with three people on top of it.

Sylus deposits you in the middle of the bed before crossing to his nightstand. 

“Caleb,” Sylus says. He turns the lamp down another notch. “In or out. I won’t ask twice.”

You watch your brother from the doorway, his gaze flicking to and away from you, like the sight of you—leaning back on your elbows, lips kiss-swollen, hair a little mussed, eyes alive and wanting—is too much to bear.

He steps in, locking the door behind him with a loud click. “I’m doing this for her.”

“Of course you are,” Sylus says.

“I mean it, Sylus. This isn’t—I’m not here for you.”

“Nobody asked you to be.”

“Good.”

“Good.” Sylus reaches behind his neck, pulling his shirt up and over his head. “Clothes. Off. Both of you.”   

“All of them?” Caleb asks, still lingering by the door.

Sylus drapes his shirt over the back of his desk chair. “Leave the underwear. We’re not animals.”

“Debatable,” you mutter, and Sylus’s mouth twitches.

The three of you strip in silence, shirts tossed aside, all three pairs of jeans hitting the floor at different speeds— Sylus’s first, folded; yours next, kicked off the edge of the bed; Caleb’s last, shoved down and stepped out of.

You’ve seen your brother shirtless—at the beach, after a shower, when he mows the lawn in the dead of August. What you haven’t seen is your brother in gray boxer briefs that do nothing to hide the way his erection strains against the fabric, tight enough that you can tell where the head of his cock meets the shaft, that you can see the darkened spot at the tip where precum bleeds through.

Caleb catches you staring, eyes finding yours and holding them until you’re the one that breaks. Your cheeks burn violently, fingers fumbling with your bra clasp like you’ve forgotten how it works.

“Eyes up, captain,” Sylus warns, moving to the foot of the bed. “She’ll still be there in a minute.”

“You going to coach me through this like it’s a power play?” Caleb grumbles, crossing his arms over his chest.

“If that’s what it takes. You never could finish without a setup.”

“I have fourteen goals this season.”

“And how many assists?”

Caleb's mouth opens and shuts.

“...Shut up.”

Sylus huffs out a laugh. He pulls you to the edge of the mattress by your ankles, and you yelp.

“I’m going to tell you where to look all night, sweetheart. Get used to it,” he says to Caleb before turning his attention back to you. “Lie back, kitten.”

You settle back. Sylus stands between your legs, one hand braced beside your head, and for a moment it’s just the two of you. He kisses your throat, your collarbone, mouth moving down the center of your chest slow and warm. His free hand finds your waist and holds there, thumb tracing the skin above the waistband of your underwear.

“Caleb,” Sylus says against your skin. “Behind me.”

“I’m not cuddling you, Sylus.”

“Nobody’s cuddling anybody. Get behind me. Hands on mine.”

“This isn’t—”

“For her, captain. You’re doing this for her. Remember?”

Caleb positions his knees on either side of Sylus’s calves, chest close to Sylus’s back but not quite touching. He braces one hand on the mattress, the other settling over Sylus’s at your waist, lining up finger over finger, his broader palm bracketing Sylus’s against your hip. The added weight presses Sylus’s grip firmer into your skin, and you arch up into it.

“There,” Sylus says. “Feel her through me. When I move, you move. Yes?”

Caleb’s voice is barely there. “Yes.”

Sylus’s thumb traces up the curve of your waist. Caleb’s follows—riding the back of Sylus’s hand, tracking every motion. Sylus’s hand slides to your ribs, and Caleb’s follows, up and around. Sylus’s fingertips graze the underside of your breast and you gasp, and Caleb’s knuckle catches the edge of your skin where Sylus’s hand doesn’t fully cover.

Caleb freezes.

“I didn’t—I—”

“Caleb…” you whisper.

You look up at Sylus, but he doesn’t intervene. He watches your face from above, letting you be the one who tells Caleb what’s allowed.

“It’s okay, gege,” you decide. “You don’t have to stop.”

Caleb’s hand unfreezes. His fingers resettle over Sylus’s, and they keep moving.

The next touch isn’t an accident.

It’s the back of his ring finger, tracing a line along your ribs that Sylus’s hand doesn’t cover. A quarter-inch of contact, gone, then back—his pinky, grazing the curve of your waist as Sylus’s hand slides lower, gone just as fast. Ghost touches, so minimal you could pretend they didn’t happen. Caleb finding the gaps and pressing into them, testing, learning you through the spaces between your boyfriend’s fingers.

“Sylus,” you whisper.

“I see it, sweetie.”

“Is he—”

“He’s being creative.” Sylus’s mouth lifts. He shifts his hands enough to widen the gaps between his fingers by a fraction, adjusting his grip to give Caleb more room. “I’m allowing it.”

Caleb presses closer behind Sylus. His chest makes contact with Sylus’s back, and the added weight pushes Sylus’s body down against yours.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, in warning and permission at the same time.

“I know.”

“You’re on top of me.”

“I know. That doesn’t mean I like you.”

“You liked me just fine on the couch.”

“That was—that was the situation. That was for—”

“For her. Yes. You’ve mentioned.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to your breast. His tongue traces the curve, teeth teasing your nipple, and you arch up into him. The motion presses your hips against his, and Sylus’s hips press back against Caleb’s, and Caleb—

Caleb grinds forward.

It’s a small, involuntary roll of his hips against Sylus’s ass that pushes Sylus’s hips into yours, and you feel the force of Caleb traveling through Sylus like a wave cresting against you.

Your mouth falls open.

“Caleb. Do that again,” you urge.

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. Do that again.”

He does it again, harder this time. His hips roll forward, grinding Sylus into you, and the pressure hits you exactly right. You gasp and grab Sylus’s shoulders. Sylus makes a low, strangled sound you’ve never heard from him before, Caleb’s hips driving him forward and yours rocking up to meet him.

“More,” you gasp.

Caleb grinds harder, his exhales ragged against Sylus’s neck. The bed is moving. You’re moving. Caleb’s hands are now white-knuckled on Sylus’s hips and Sylus’s are braced on either side of your head and you’re gripping the sheets with both fists as the room dissolves to nothing but friction and heat and breath.

“Caleb—” Sylus manages, his voice is rough in a way that makes your stomach clench, “Caleb, you need to—fuck—you need to—slow down.”

Caleb doesn’t slow down. His next stroke grinds Sylus into you so hard you nearly scream, grabbing onto Sylus’s shoulders, and your boyfriend shudders—actually shudders—and Caleb’s hips snap forward again, relentless.

Sylus throws his weight backward, driving Caleb off him enough to break away. He holds a hand between you and Caleb like a referee calling a penalty—chest heaving, skin flushed, entire body vibrating with the effort of stopping.

“Christ,” he grits out. “The pair of you.”

You stare up at him, breathless. Caleb has one knee up at the end of the bed, hands still shaped around hips that aren’t there anymore.

“We need to slow down,” Sylus says, pushing his hair back with one hand, “or one of us was going to finish in our underwear like a teenager, and I am not going to let that be me.”

“Could’ve been me,” Caleb says, roughly.

“It was going to be all three of us. And we haven’t even started yet.” Sylus looks between you, eyes dark, still catching his breath. “Underwear off. All of us.”

“Thought we weren’t animals,” Caleb mutters.

“We evolved.” Sylus counters, already halfway out of his own boxers. “Take them off, captain.”

You lift your hips and shimmy out of your panties, tossing them off the side of the bed without ceremony. Caleb relents, kicking his underwear off in the general direction of his jeans.

It’s seeing them side by side that knocks the air clean out of you.

Sylus stands tall, lean and carved, all controlled lines and casual strength. A trail of silver hair guides your eyes to where his cock hangs heavy between his thighs, the tip flushed and leaking. Caleb stands broader, rougher around the edges, the bruise on his ribs going green, tape still half-wound around his knuckles. Dark hair runs in a line below his navel, and when you see your brother’s cock for the first time—thick and eager in his hand—you draw your knees together.

Sylus’s hand catches them before they close.

“Uh-uh,” he says simply. With one palm on each knee, he eases them back apart. “None of that, sweetie.”

He guides you back against the headboard, adjusts the pillow under your lower back, running a hand down your calf once he’s finished like he’s admiring his handiwork.

“Comfortable?” he asks, sitting back on his heels.

You nod. “Yes.”

The mattress dips as Caleb moves to kneel behind Sylus. He reaches for your boyfriend’s hip, already angling to resume the position—his chest against Sylus’s back, Sylus between your legs, the structure of this arrangement he knows and trusts.

“No,” Sylus stops Caleb with a hand around his forearm, pulling him to kneel beside you instead. “I want you to see something.”

Sylus settles between your legs, lowering himself on his elbows. His mouth grazes the inside of your thigh, red eyes pinning Caleb.

“You can look, captain.”

Caleb swallows. “I am looking.”

“Then look properly.” Sylus’s breath hits your aching core with each word, and you squirm. “It’s okay. Look at her.”

Sylus holds Caleb’s eyes as his mouth moves higher. He kisses your hip, the crease of your thigh, the soft skin below your navel. Then his tongue teases your clit, and your hips jerk up off the bed. Caleb’s hand, resting on his own thigh, curls into a fist.

“See how pretty she is?” Sylus murmurs against you.

“Sylus—”

“Look.”

Sylus parts you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue, closing his lips around your clit with a teasing suck before pulling away—giving your brother an unobstructed view, you realize hazily. He spreads you open with both thumbs, displaying your swollen, slick pussy with an almost reverent care. You’re so wet that you’ve made a mess of your inner thighs, so wet it should shame you, but the way Caleb is looking at you right now leaves no room for any feeling other than the dizzying certainty that your brother wants you as badly as you want him.

“You did this, Caleb. Your sister’s pretty little cunt is ruining my sheets. All because of you,” Sylus muses. He drags a thumb up through your slick heat, eyes locked on Caleb’s expression as he circles the wetness around your clit. “She’s been like this since you grabbed me by the shirt. Since you made me bleed on the ice, I’d imagine.”

Sylus lowers his mouth to you once more, tongue patient and expert, licking into you the way he knows you like. The sensation makes your toes curl, but you’re faintly aware that the act isn’t for your pleasure, but for the benefit of the man kneeling beside you with bated breath.

Caleb watches intently—the way Sylus’s jaw works, the speed and pressure that makes you gasp, the way your hips buck when he hums against you every few strokes—studying like an exam he’s desperate to pass.

“Caleb,” Sylus says, lifting his mouth just enough to speak. “Spit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t put your mouth on her,” Sylus explains. “But you can give her something from it. Can’t you?”

Caleb exhales hard through his nose, but doesn’t deny it.

He leans over you, and his face is close, close enough that his breath heats your stomach, close enough that you see his nostrils flare, briefly, involuntarily, his lips parting at whatever he finds there. He lets saliva pool under his tongue and glances at you sideways, a silent plea for approval.

You nod, quickly, anticipation buzzing under your skin. “I want to feel you there, gege.”

He spits.

When it lands directly on your swollen clit, you cry out. The streak of saliva runs down your slit slowly, torturously, so erotic it makes you clench around nothing.

“Good,” Sylus murmurs, and drops his head back down. He works it in with his tongue, and the added slick makes you moan. “Feel that, sweetie? That’s all your brother. You’re taking him so well.”

Your hand finds the nearest solid thing—Caleb’s thigh—and grips tight.

Caleb lets out a strained sound at the contact, but he doesn’t pull away. You can feel the small shifts in his weight as he leans closer, pulled in, unable to help himself. He watches Sylus’s mouth on you with an expression that’s long passed hunger and arrived somewhere more primal.

“Sylus,” Caleb says, more groan than word.

Sylus hums against you but doesn’t move.

“Sylus. Let me—”

Sylus lifts his head, mouth glistening. He looks at Caleb with his chin resting against the inside of your thigh and a lazy, knowing expression that makes your stomach flip.

“Let you what, captain?”

Caleb’s throat moves. “Taste.”

“Taste what.”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m going to make you say it.”

“Her. I want to taste her. Sylus, let me—”

“How badly.”

His jaw flexes once. Twice. “Badly.”

Sylus presses a kiss to your thigh before sitting up, giving his cock a few lazy strokes. “Hm.”

He positions the head of his cock between your legs—not to enter, just outside—sliding just the tip up and down the wet of you. You gasp, cunt throbbing, aching to be filled by him—by Sylus, by Caleb, by both.

Caleb is watching with his mouth open.

“How badly,” Sylus repeats, eyes on your brother as he rolls his hips against you this time, dragging the full length of him through your folds.

“Sylus—” Caleb urges.

“Tell me, sweetheart. I want to hear you say it.”

“Please.” It falls out of Caleb’s mouth unauthorized. “Please, Sylus, let me—”

Sylus grinds against you again, slower. He makes sure every inch of him is covered, glistening with you, and Caleb is watching with every muscle tense and his hands gripping his thighs hard enough to bruise.

“More?” Sylus asks Caleb, almost bored, like he’s asking about the weather.

“Sylus, for fuck’s sake—”

“That didn’t sound like more.”

“More. Yes. More, just—Sylus, come on—”

Sylus rolls his hips into you one last time, a long, slow grind that pulls a moan out of you and leaves him drenched. He rises onto his knees, cock gleaming with you, and looks at Caleb.

“Come here, captain.”

Caleb moves before the sentence is finished.

His mouth is on Sylus faster than you can process it—tasting you with one long, flat stroke of his tongue from base to tip; a wrecked, thankful sound torn from somewhere deep inside his chest.

“That’s it.” Sylus’s hand finds the back of Caleb’s head and holds there. “Taste your baby sister, Caleb. That’s what she tastes like when she wants you. And she’s been wanting you all night. Can you taste that? Can you taste how badly her body needs yours?”

Caleb’s hands grip Sylus’s thighs as his mouth works—tasting, chasing it, trying to get every trace of you off Sylus’s skin. You watch your boyfriend lose himself for a moment: his hips jerk forward once, and he looks down at Caleb with an expression you’ve only ever seen him give you.

“God, look at you,” Sylus says, low. “This is what you’ve been missing. Years, Caleb. Years of this.”

Caleb lifts his head. His mouth is wet, eyes nearly black. He looks at Sylus first—a look that is somehow both grateful and furious—and then he looks at you.

“I know,” he says, bitter but not at you. 

“Was it worth it? Being noble?”

Caleb shakes off Sylus’s hold, running his hand over the back of his head like he could erase the man’s touch. “Shut up, pretty boy.”

Sylus raises his hands in mock surrender. “I’m not saying anything.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“I’m thinking—” Sylus wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and settles beside you against the headboard. His hand finds your knee, pulling it closer to your chest. “—your sister has been lying here all alone, begging for you to fuck her, while you’ve been busy showing a lot of enthusiasm for a cock you claim to hate.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Qin.” His words are calm. His ears, unfortunately, are bright red. “That was for her, not you.”

“Was it. Then prove it.” Sylus gives your thigh a squeeze. “Do something for her she can actually feel. Between her legs, captain.”

“No. That’s—no. That’s not what we agreed to.” Caleb’s whole body goes rigid. “You said nobody touches anybody they’re not supposed to. That was the rule.”

“We didn’t agree to anything,” Sylus counters. “We’ve been making it up as we go. And so far, everything we’ve made up has worked, hasn’t it.”

“This—this is different.”

“Is it? You tasted your sister on my cock and the world kept turning.” Sylus raises a brow. “What makes you think this will be any different?”

“It’s completely different and you know it.”

“How.”

“Because she’s—” Caleb gestures at you without looking at you. “She’s right there, Sylus, and I—”

“Look at her, Caleb.”

Caleb looks at you, and you don’t soften it. You don’t close your legs or reach for the sheet or give him something to hide behind. You let him see the aftermath of an hour of being touched through another man, what a lifetime of being so close to your brother but never close enough has done to you.

“Caleb,” you say. “Please. Just come here.”

His hands open and close at his sides. “Pips, you don’t know what’s going to happen if I—”

“I know exactly what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t.”

“You’re going to touch me and it’s going to feel like it should have felt a long time ago. And I’m going to be fine. And you’re going to be fine. And I’m asking you, gege. I’m asking. Please.”

He’s quiet. He looks at Sylus—not for permission, not exactly. Giving your boyfriend one last chance to change his mind, to tell him this is wrong, to kick him to the curb and slam the door behind him and pretend none of this ever happened.

“She’s asking, Caleb,” Sylus says gently. “And I’m tired of being the only one who listens to her.”

Caleb closes his eyes with a heavy exhale. Opens them.

He moves between your legs.

“Closer, sweetheart,” Sylus directs from beside you. “She’s not going to bite. Yet.”

Caleb nods and inches closer on his knees, until the front of his thighs are flush against yours. He takes himself in hand and you open for him, drawing both knees tighter into your chest.

“I don’t—” Caleb starts. “What if I—”

“Just the outside,” Sylus says. “You don’t have to go in. Just feel her against you. That’s all.”

That’s all.

He presses the length of his cock flat against you the way he watched Sylus do, sliding slowly through your slick heat without entering, and the weight of your brother against your cunt makes you forget how to breathe.

“There,” Sylus says from beside you. You watch him wrap his hand around his own cock, stroking it in time with Caleb’s slow rolls, the visual sending a new wave of heat down your spine. “Just like that. Easy, captain.”

Caleb rocks his hips in long drags, hot and devastating as he slides through the wet of everything the night has built. His hand is still on himself, still controlling the angle, still holding onto the last bit of restraint he has left.

“Shit,” he manages. “Sylus, she’s so—feels so—”

“I know.”

“She’s—I can’t—”

“You can,” Sylus assures, gentle and genuine. “You’re fine. She’s fine. It’s just the outside.”

Your hips rock up to meet his on the next stroke, shifting the angle, and the head of his cock catches at your entrance.

All three of you gasp at the same time.

“That’s okay. Just a little is okay,” Sylus says, quieter now. He leans closer to rest a hand on Caleb’s lower back. “You can give your sister just the tip. That’s allowed. That’s nothing.”

“That’s not nothing—”

“It’s close to nothing. Let it happen.”

Caleb rocks forward and the head of him slides in—just barely inside, the tight heat of you closing around the first inch, your legs falling wider open with a small gasp. He collapses forward, free hand fisting into the sheets beside your shoulder. Your mouths open, only inches apart now. His hand tightens around himself like a brake.

“There,” Sylus murmurs. “See? That’s fine. Nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” Caleb grits out.

“Then go a little further. You can let go of yourself. You don’t have to hold on anymore.” His thumb soothes small arcs on Caleb’s back. “Why don’t you give her a little more. Just an inch. She can take it. Can’t you, sweetie?”

Caleb’s hand releases. He plants it beside your other shoulder.

“Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, more, please—”

Caleb sinks deeper. An inch. Another. His jaw is clenched so hard you can see the tendon at his neck as his eyes lock on yours, searching for the thing that will tell him to stop.

You don’t give it to him.

“More,” you beg. “I can take it. I promise I can take it.”

“Pips—”

“Gege, please. I need you closer. I need more.”

“All the way,” Sylus says, and his hand presses flat against Caleb’s lower back. “All the way, sweetheart. She’s asking so nicely. Give your baby sister the cock she’s been begging for.”

Caleb pushes all the way in.

His forehead drops to yours, eyes squeezing shut. His forearms are shaking where they cage your head, and you’re full of him, completely, finally, and you have never in your life felt more whole.

Your arms come up around his neck, legs wrapping around his waist, and you hold him there, as deep as he can go. Sylus strokes the back of Caleb's head once before returning to your side.

“There you go,” Sylus murmurs. “There. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.”

Caleb’s breath shudders against your mouth.

“Give me a second,” he says. “Meimei, give me one second.”

You give him a second. You give him several. You lie there with him buried inside you and his sweat-slicked forehead against yours and your breath mixing in the inch between your mouths and you wait.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

When he moves, it’s in rolls, not thrusts. He moves like he’s terrified of the end of this, like if he goes slow enough it will never stop, and you let him, because you’ve waited years and you can wait a few more minutes.

Sylus settles back against the headboard, stroking himself slowly, watching the two of you with half-lidded eyes, his free hand resting on his own thigh. Occasionally it drifts—brushing a strand of your hair out of your face, giving a reassuring squeeze to Caleb’s forearm. Though you can barely register anything aside from the way Caleb is looking at you the way you always dreamed he would, like he’s burning alive and doesn’t want to be saved.

“Faster,” you plead, gripping his forearms for leverage.

Caleb doesn’t check with Sylus anymore. He goes faster.

You dig your heels into his ass, pulling him impossibly deeper. He groans against your throat, the loudest sound the room has heard all night, and his hips snap forward and the bedframe hits the wall with each thrust and neither of you cares. You’re nothing but two people who have been starving trying to eat at the same time, and it’s too fast and too much and not enough and—

“Caleb,” Sylus says.

His rhythm stutters. “What could you possibly—”

“Kiss her.”

Caleb cuts Sylus a sidelong glare, but he doesn’t reply.

“You heard me, captain.”

Your brother looks down at you, hips still rolling in a steady rhythm. He lowers his mouth to your forehead and presses his lips there. It’s the kind of kiss you’ve received a thousand times—at the airport, at graduation, in the parking lot after games. Safe. Known.

Sylus clicks his tongue, dissatisfied. “Lower, Caleb.”

Caleb inhales sharply, eyes scanning your face, contemplating. His hips have all but stilled, as if he needs all of his focus to fulfill the request. He picks a lower spot—the apple of your cheek—and kisses you there softly.

“Gege,” you whisper against the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Please.”

“I know, meimei.”

You tilt your chin up, lower lip brushing his. “Please. Just one.”

Caleb kisses you, and the world falls away.

It’s slow, unbearably slow, just the full, warm weight of his mouth against yours for the very first time. His hand comes up to cradle your face, the gesture so tender you feel the start of tears pooling behind your lashes.

Caleb pulls away a fraction and comes back. His lips part, barely, and yours open to meet them. His tongue finds yours tentatively, nothing like the way he kissed Sylus, and you savor the way it glides against yours like it was always meant to. He tastes like whiskey and copper and Sylus’s skin and underneath all of it like Caleb—not number five, not the hockey captain, but your older brother, the one who taught you to skate when you were nine and held both your hands the whole time and never once let go.

His hips start moving again, each stroke matched to the kiss, each deep roll timed to the slide of his tongue against yours. Your hand moves from his jaw into his hair, and you kiss him back and feel a lifetime of careful distance dissolve like it was never there. Like all those years you thought were keeping something out were really keeping something in, something alive and wound tight and desperate for the chance to break free.

Caleb deepens the kiss, hungrier now, tongue licking deeper against yours as his hips snap forward so hard it’s almost painful.

“There he is,” Sylus says, barely above a breath, hand quickening on himself. “Fuck, look at you two. Let go. Together. Let everything go.”

“Gege,” you manage. “I’m close.”

“I know.” Against your lips. “Me too, meimei. Me too.”

“Don’t stop.”

“I’m not—I won’t—I—”

You both let go.

You break around him. His hips stutter. The sound he makes into your mouth is the twin of the one you make into his, and there’s nothing poetic or graceful about it. He holds your face like he’s trying to live inside the kiss, like if he stays long enough it’ll become something he can keep. You feel his release pulse hot inside you, your own orgasm pulling him in even deeper, and you hold each other through every wave, never breaking the kiss. Not even when he’s shaking, and you’re shaking, and neither of you can breathe.

Beside you, Sylus comes with his forehead tipped back against the headboard and his hand in your hair, fingers tangled loosely in the damp strands at the back of your neck while the two people he brought together fall apart. His exhale is long and heavy and sounds, if you’re listening for it, like satisfaction.

The kiss finally, reluctantly breaks.

Caleb pulls back an inch, resting his forehead against yours, the two of you trading shaky breaths while you wait for the room to stop spinning.

“I just kissed you,” he whispers.

You laugh, and it comes out wet. “You did a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, but—“ He wipes away a tear from your cheekbone you didn’t realize had fallen, his eyes glassy and dark and full of so many emotions your chest aches. “I kissed you, meimei.”

“Yeah, gege.” You grin. “You did.”

He smiles. It’s a smile you’ve know your whole life but never from this close, and from here it simply looks like pure, wild joy. And you think, without deciding to, that you’d burn the entire world to the ground just to see him smile like that twice.

Caleb stays inside you for a long time. His face is in your neck, your fingers in his hair, the two of you so thoroughly entangled your heartbeats are nearly synchronized.

Sylus is the first one to move.

He gets up quietly. You hear the tap run in the bathroom, the sound of a drawer opening and closing. He comes back with a glass of water and a warm cloth, sits on the edge of the bed, and rests a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.

“Out,” he says, gently. “Easy. I’ve got her.”

Caleb pulls out—reluctantly, carefully—and rolls onto his side. He reaches for you immediately, pulling you against his chest, arm heavy over your waist, nose in your hair, like he’s afraid someone’s going to call time.

Sylus cleans you up. Sets the water on the nightstand within reach. Pulls the sheet up over both of you, kisses the top of your head, and goes to the other side of the bed.

He lies down beside Caleb. Not touching, giving the two of you your own space to come down together. Caleb’s palm presses into your bare abdomen, soothing circles over your stomach. And after a minute or two, he shifts backward. Just enough that his shoulders meet Sylus’s chest.

Sylus lifts his arm and drapes it over both of you, over Caleb’s ribs, your waist, his palm settling on your stomach on top of Caleb’s hand.

Caleb exhales. His whole body goes slack against Sylus’s chest.

“Don’t you dare say a word, pretty boy,” Caleb murmurs.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“And don’t bring this up ever again.”

“Bring what up.”

“This. Any of this. Not on the ice, not in the locker room, not ever.”

“Caleb, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m asleep. You’re asleep. She's asleep. Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing at all, sweetheart,” Sylus confirms. “Though if it had, I’d be putting myself down for the assist.”

“I will smother you with this pillow.”

“That would require you to let go of her first, captain.”

Caleb’s arm tightens around your waist. Sylus’s arm tightens over his. You lace your fingers through both of their hands where they overlap on your stomach and close your eyes.

Somewhere in the living room, the basketball game has ended, the TV humming without an audience. Nobody gets up to turn it off.

Nobody gets up at all.

if u made it this far....thank u for reading, fellow freak ;)

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