"Well, it looks like something's making him happy," Thalia remarked.
Maria looked at the sleeping Marcus' face but saw no indication of joy. "What?" she asked, confused.
Thalia pointed to the tent in her brother's loose gym shorts and then Maria unsuspectingly looked. Thalia grinned at the sight of Maria blushing bright red and then quickly averting her eyes.
"Thalia!" she quietly admonished, not wanting to wake him.
Thalia was three years younger than Marcus, and for nearly all her life, he had cared for and protected her. When he was only four, his mother had told him it was his job, and he took it a bit more to heart than the average brother would have.
When they shared a bedroom, she would sometime sneak into his bed at night, and he made no objection. Even when she eventually got her own room, there was still the rare occasion when she was afraid of something and sought refuge in his secure embrace for the night.
He always looked out for his little sister, and he knew that part of that meant helping to ensure that she could look out for herself, so he often wrestled and roughhoused with her, tho not too roughly. He wanted to make sure she grew up strong and capable.
That ambition took a hit when she was diagnosed with a rare degenerative disorder that slowly degraded her muscle tissue. It first presented as clumsiness but then became quite concerning.
She spent an increasing number of her early teen days in the hospital and then she was pretty much living there by fifteen.
It was all a blow to Marcus since this was something he was powerless against, but he remained dedicated to his sister and made it his mission to make sure she was never sad, even though she wasn't expected to live past twenty. Or perhaps especially because of that.
She spent as much time as he could with her, and due to the lack of privacy, they began communicating certain things indirectly to each other. Not that it was intentional, but things that they didn't want to say aloud were expressed thru passing comments and jokes.
They had to read between each other's lines.
When the hospital had done all it could, their parents bought her the best hospital bed available so she could move back into their home and also hired a live-in nurse.
After Marcus turned 18, he moved out to live closer to the hospital, but this turn of events defeated the purpose, and since the nurse, Maria, was now using his old room, there was no place for him back at home.
On the upside, he still had a sofa available to him, if he needed to stay the night, but Thalia's grand bed was wide enough to let them both comfortably nestle in next to each other, typically to watch a movie or read, but also to nap.
Maria was not much older than Marcus, but she looked a bit younger than him and was moderately attractive. She was gentle and reserved, but it took no time at all for her and Thalia to become fast friends, but Maria always kept it in the back of her mind that she was there to serve Thalia's needs above all else.
Talking to Marcus and Maria separately, Thalia managed to squeeze out confirmation that they both found each other attractive, but that neither had any intentions toward the other.
In their own ways, both of them were dedicated to Thalia, after all, and she cherished them both for it.
Her brother was always her hero in her eyes, and she loved him more than anything. Perhaps more than she had anticipated, as she discovered on an occasion when her sheets needed to be changed, so he suddenly scooped her up in his arms and held her.
Much to her surprise, it was the first time she had experienced sexual arousal. She never outwardly acknowledged it, but it was the catalyst for her thinking differently about her brother.
To an extent, they were always pretty open with each other, and sex-adjacent topics often arose, in one form or another, tho typically thru innuendo for the sake of humor.
After that incident, she began becoming increasingly less subtle, but still nothing too bad. Maria was able to laugh along, figuratively and literally, but her professionalism forbade her to actually engage in any of it herself, tho she would have likely felt free to otherwise.
Thalia would sometimes privately tease her brother and Maria about their still unrealized mutual attraction, but that was largely a coping mechanism to deal with her own growing attraction.
In the later months of her seventeenth year, she became increasingly aware of her own mortality and all of the things that she would never get to experience in life, and an intimate relationship with a man was at the forefront.
Consciously, she would bring up qualities about her brother with Maria and extol his virtues, but in such a way that it seemed either innocent or something akin to a playful tease at Maria's expense.
Unconsciously, however, Thalia was setting a stage and stoking a fire.
Thalia's eighteenth birthday party was attended by her parents, Marcus, and Maria, and there was much joy, but within Thalia was an underlying current of dismay.
Her parents had to leave shortly after for a trip, but Marcus and of course Maria remained.
By nightfall, Marcus had fallen asleep at Thalia's left, and Maria sat at her right. They talked quietly to avoid waking Marcus, and then the matter of an erection arose.
"I bet he's dreaming about you," Thalia teased.
"Oh, be quiet. He is not," Maria insisted, still blushing. "Stop looking at it," she added pulling Thalia's face away from the sight, bringing a giggle with it.
"Yes, Maria," was suddenly mumbled sleepily.
Thalia's jaw dropped and her eyes shot directly to Maria's.
Maria practically squeaked in shock and embarrassment, and her face turned the brightest red that Thalia had ever seen it.
"Oh, my god," Thalia whispered, tho wanting to shout in ecstatic joy. Then she felt and heard him moving soon followed by the weight of his leg over hers. Her expression changed to confusion and her head turned quickly back to him.
Once Thalia realized he was grinding his bulge into her thigh, she clutched, if you could call it that, Maria's hand completely unsure what to do.
They both watched in shock while he sluggishly humped her leg and his face pressed against her shoulder. They both gasped when his left hand slid across her stomach and absentmindedly groped.
"Oh, my god," Thalia whispered again, but in a very different tone, and for a very different reason.
"Should we wake him up," Maria asked desperately, but Thalia had no answer to provide.
Thalia's attention was focused on the feel of hardness burrowing into her thigh, and soon the fact that she was suddenly quite warm between her legs.
