Author's Note: This was intended as a Christmas contest kinda thing for Lit, but I don't really do those and didn't realize that much like everything else Christmas, that stuff starts way too early. Also I was a little slower getting this done than I meant to be. Oh well. It's still well early for actual Xmas, and is plenty incesty since that's what we all really want anyway.
*****
I'd never been drunk before. Maybe I still wasn't. For my eighteen year old, alcoholically-inexperienced self, it was hard to know exactly where the line was.
There were three reasons for my current lack of sobriety: Ash, Mandy, and Jen, aka my sister and cousins respectively. I was the youngest of the four of us, and therefore subject to much corruption and loss of innocence when we all got together.
This evening in particular, we were hanging out in the basement of mine and Ash's house in what was essentially our rec room. The adults of our extended family were all upstairs, probably more wasted than any of us were. Technically we had all reached the stage of being adults too, more or less, but we still clung to our more youthful statuses and kept apart from the older generation somewhat.
The Christmas season had lost its luster as we aged. In years past, Christmas Eve would have been a sacred and revered time; the day before bountiful presents were to be looted in a frenzy of childhood glee. Nowadays, we amused ourselves by other means. Such as, for example, sneaking booze away from the upstairs family and persuading the baby of the family to do shots.
I'd wisely, in my own somewhat hazy estimation, cut myself off when I found myself unable to walk without feeling like I wasn't quite doing it right. I now lounged on the couch in a pleasant stupor, giggling madly at anything even remotely funny the girls said or did.
Ash, for all that she'd been right along with our cousins in attempting to get me drunk, had at least backed me up when I said I was done. Best not to give her baby bro alcohol poisoning so close to Christmas, she reasoned to the others, though I believed in my little heart that there was more love behind her concern than the purely pragmatic.
Christmas movies had been running non-stop on the tv. I watched them in a half zoned out state while Mandy and Jen argued about the rules of a drinking game. I'd figured out a while back that they were talking about different games, and it was mildly hilarious to me that they hadn't figured it out yet.
Ash slipped lightly onto the couch next to me, adopting a posture almost as relaxed and sloppy as my own.
"Holding up ok, Wes?"
"Think so." I shrugged without moving my eyes from the tv. "Every year the Grinch thinks he can stop Christmas, and every year he's wrong."
Ash laughed melodically. "Yeah, you're doing fine." She patted my shoulder. "Want some food to help soak up that alcohol?"
"Nah, still full from supper."
"Yeah, me too." Ash yawned. "Between that and the booze, I could just go to sleep, almost."
"A nap almost sounds good, actually."
"Right?"
Ash snuggled closer and let her eyelids drop. I smiled and returned my attention to the Grinch's cunning ploy that seemed remarkably similar to his devilish scheme from the year before.
Mandy and Jen had resolved their argument while I wasn't paying attention, and were currently engaged in a game of dexterity involving coins. I was pretty sure they still had the rules wrong, but I didn't know exactly what since drinking games weren't my forte. I only knew that there wasn't much drinking going on considering the typical object of such pastimes.
Ash's breathing changed, prompting me to look back at her. I couldn't be sure, but I thought she might actually have dozed off. Certainly her face was relaxed and peaceful, and her chest moved in deep, regular motions.
I hadn't realized before, but the way she'd lain against me pointed an astounding amount of cleavage right at my face. It was a magical combination of her angle of rest, and the way her shirt had fallen open at the neckline.
It wasn't the first time I'd noted my big sister's awesome boobs, but it was the first time I'd been sufficiently inebriated that I kind of just kept staring at them. In my state, they were rather hypnotizing and hard to look away from.
I wasn't quite out of it enough to try grabbing them, but good lord I could have if I'd wanted to. They were right fucking there. It would have been so easy. But wrong. Definitely wrong. And I wasn't even sure she was asleep, for that matter.
I belatedly became aware that the room had gone quieter. Not silent, not with the tv on, but my cousins weren't causing any sort of ruckus at all. I turned my head toward them, only to find two gleaming pairs of eyes staring right back at me.
There was a tenuous silence for a moment longer, then a gleeful, "Oh my god," from Jen.
"Dude," Mandy agreed.
"You were checking out your sister!" Jen said with a manic giggle.
Mandy gave me a disbelieving tilt of her head. "Dude," she repeated with a slightly different inflection.
I realized I'd been caught, and that I needed a cunning and eloquent defense in order to weasel out of the situation. "Uuuhhh..." I said.
"You total perv!" Jen declared just as happily as if she'd found twenty bucks in her pocket.
"Seriously though," Mandy said.
"I didn't..." I protested, "she wasn't... it was... I wasn't..."
"Go on, finish a sentence," Mandy encouraged. "We'll wait."
"Good lord you two are jerks sometimes," Ash mumbled. She stretched, offering me an even more tantalizing view that I had to steel myself against, then sat up straight. "You can't help yourselves, can you?"
"Wes was perving on you," Jen said somewhat defensively. "He was staring right at your tits."
Ash looked down at herself, then shrugged. "I shoulda picked a tighter top, I guess."
"You telling me you really don't care?" Mandy asked. "You don't even think it's funny?"
Ash looked at me, searching my eyes. "Maybe a little funny," she said with a wry smirk. She put an arm around me and pulled me to her instead of vie versa this time. "I do have kind of a pervy li'l bro."
"Aw, come on," I said. "They were right there."
"But you'd have to be kind of pervy to look as long as you did," Ash said.
"How would you even... were you watching me the whole time? I thought your eyes were closed."
"Just open enough to watch the movie. And you, as it turned out."
"Goddamn," I muttered a little sulkily. "I can't catch a break, can I?"
Further implications only gradually dawned on me. Ash had noticed me staring well before Mandy or Jen, and she hadn't said anything. She also hadn't immediately revealed herself as being awake when accusations started flying. Further, she certainly wasn't mad at me. Some of that was good, most of it was just confusing. Had I been missing opportunities to stare at boobs all this time? Well actually, she was still my sister. Probably best not to think that way.
"We need to get you a girlfriend or something," Jen said halfway seriously.
"You think that would help?" Mandy asked.
"I dunno. Maybe."
Mandy peered at me. "You don't have one already, do you? 'Cause that would make checking out your sister that much worse."
"Would it?" Ash asked lightly. "I don't know that it really affects anything."
"Well it's kinda like cheating a bit on top of everything else."
"Looking's not cheating."
"I said like cheating. Not that it fully was."
I debated trying to sneak off, or more likely run away, while the girls were bickering. There wasn't really much hope of that, though. The alcohol in my unhabituated body was a real drain on my ambitions for moving, let alone with much coordination. Plus it seemed to be numbing my embarrassment, because I was pretty sure I should be feeling worse about everything right now. It wasn't great having my sister and cousins debate my perviness and lack of girlfriend, but it wasn't quite as dishearteningly shameful as it could have been.
I flinched as Mandy sat down beside me, opposite Ash. She kind of had to cram herself in between me and the arm of the couch. I'd been too preoccupied to notice her approach.
"So," Mandy said, eyes focused directly on mine, "do you have a girlfriend?"
"Uh..."
"Because you've never said anything about having one."
"I might have a friend who'd be into you," Jen added helpfully. "But only if you're not going to stare at Ash's tits around her."
"Oh come on," I whined. "It was one time. I'm all dopey and out of it."
"One time that we know of," Mandy clarified.
"One time that we're making a big deal out of," Jen further clarified. "There's been a couple times you've looked at my tits. But those were normal glances, not actual stares."
"Hold on, what?"
Jen shifted uncomfortably. "You know, when boys look at your tits, but then look away again immediately. 'Cause they wanna look, but know they shouldn't. It's normal. You can't count that."
"She's right," Ash said. "It happens."
"You can count it when it's your cousin. Or brother."
Ash shook her head thoughtfully. "No, I don't think so. Still a boy. Still tits. Rules are the same."
Mandy sighed heavily. "I don't think I'm drunk enough for this. Or maybe you guys are all too drunk for it. I'm not sure which."
"Speak for yourself," Ash said. "I'm not hardly drunk at all."
"Me either," Jen said. "I don't think we were playing that game right. I should have more booze in me by now."
"I might go see what else I can swipe from upstairs," Mandy said, heaving herself back to her feet dramatically.
"Yeah, I'll come with," Jen said. "Could be something good we missed."
Ash and I were left alone, our cousins' banter fading as they ascended to the upper level. I was suddenly far more aware of how close she still was to me.
"Sorry about that," Ash said.
"Sorry for staring."
"It's fine."
"Is it though? Maybe Mandy was right."
"S'not up to her. S'up to me. I say it's fine."
"Oh. Ok."
A moment of silence passed.
"Wes?"
"Yeah?"
"You don't have a girlfriend though, do you?"
I shook my head. "No."
"Have you ever?"
I flushed warmly. "No."
"Didn't think so."
"Kinda pathetic, huh?"
"Only if you let it be. Doesn't have to mean anything."
"Maybe. I feel like there's something wrong with me though. Or I'm just super unlucky. Or something."
"Maybe." Ash had a thoughtful expression. "You wanna change that luck a little?"
