It was surprisingly easy to keep the others in the dark about what he and Starlight did behind closed doors. Whenever their parents weren’t working, they just had to blurt out some half-baked excuse about having to do homework together and Starlight insisting that they should not be interrupted because this semester was especially brutal. It was almost perfect. They saw each other every day, talk in private more often and have the most amazing sex behind closed doors. Yes, it was almost perfect, except for one thing.

“Sunburst, be a dear and call your sister downstairs, dinner is almost ready.”

“Sunset left for college two weeks ago.”

Stellar Flare sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she closed her laptop. “Sunburst,” she began, serious tone and all, and Sunburst rolled his eyes because he heard this lecture a thousand times already. “I know this is all new to us, but at least try to get along with your new sister.”

“Oh, we get along just fine—” he bit back a smirk, “—I just don’t need to call her my sister. Heck, Sunset is already high-maintenance enough as it is, she occupies all my brotherly feelings and stuff.”

He was met with a look of exasperation as his mother waved her hand dismissively. “Fine, just tell Starlight that dinner is ready.”

Sunburst grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

His mom and his stepfather really like to refer to them as ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ any chance they got. It never failed to make him cringe because what he and Starlight had was nowhere near sibling affection—at least healthy sibling affection, he thought with a grimace.

She was in her room, sitting on her desk as she worked on her newest art project, headphones on and music blasting to a volume that was definitely not healthy. He smiled fondly and closed the door behind him, closing the distance in a few steps until he stood behind her, he placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in to kiss her cheek, startling her slightly.

“Dinner’s ready,” he said when she took her headphones off.

Starlight perked up, shooting him one of her absurdly adorable smiles that would have made him freeze on the spot with a big, goofy grin if he weren’t already used to them. He carefully pushed her sketchbook aside as he leaned in to kiss her properly, one hand gripping the back of her chair while the other grasp her desk, these small pecks were never enough, for either of them. She moaned into his mouth and pushed him back a little, her eyes dazed and cheeks blazing.

“Sunburst, this is dangerous. Someone could walk in…”

He huffed, letting his head drop to her shoulder. “Screw them.”

Her breath was soft and warm against the skin of his cheek. “I know this is annoying.” She sighed, petting his hair and he nearly melted, wondering if she felt this good when he ran his fingers through her hair. “Maybe I shouldn’t have insisted on keeping our relationship a secret, maybe it could have—”

“Hey,” he looked up, placing his fingers under her chin so she would meet his eyes. “What’s done is done, so stop beating yourself over it. Even if they had known, there’s no guarantee they would have changed their minds. Who knows? They would’ve probably forced us to break up or something.”

She let an agitated huff, pushing him away as she stood up and flopped on her bed. “It’s weird. I insisted that we keep this a secret and now I hate all the hiding, I’m such a hypocrite.”

“We can still go on dates,” he said, laying on the bed next to her and taking her hand. “We just need to go somewhere no one recognizes us.”

She smiled and crawled closer to him, resting her head on his chest and his arm automatically wrapping around her waist. He stared at her ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes, feeling like he would fall asleep at any moment with how comfortable he was at the moment.

After a brief pause, Starlight spoke up again, her voice slightly muffled. “You know, I’ve been thinking…we’ll be graduating this year, and we have to start looking for universities and applying and stuff, I was thinking that maybe we could…”

He perked up, hope bubbling in his chest. “Go to the same university?”

She nodded slowly, playing with the buttons of his shirt. “Yeah, I mean, once our parents aren’t hovering over us, we can basically do whatever we want.”

“And…” he took a deep breath, willing his stuttering heart to stay calm. “We could tell them, then?”

She sighed, sounding exhausted and sinking deeper into him. “I don’t know but…we can’t keep this from them forever, can we? I just think…maybe they won't take it so bad if we don’t live with them anymore, and you’re eighteen already and I’ll be too in a month so…”

“They couldn’t tell us what to do, we’ll be basically adults.”

“Yes, but we need to apply to the same schools and get accepted first and…and…”

He stroked her head before he pressed his lips against her forehead. “Sounds like a plan.”

Sunset was just glad to be back. She was tired as hell, but it had been her choice to take the early morning flight, besides that it was one of the cheapest flights she could get. Her mom and stepfather had been invited to some exposition in Chicago by one of their friends, so she didn’t bother to knock or announce herself as she approached the silent house.

It was hard to imagine that half a year had passed since her mom’s remarriage; well, she hadn’t really been paying attention though, with her studying on the other side of the country it was hard to be part of her family's "quality time", which—according to her brother’s messages—consisted on a lot of senseless talking and awkward family activities. She sometimes felt bad for Starlight and Sunburst, they probably rather be left alone than forced to spend time with each other.

Sunset wouldn’t have tempted fate if she knew she would be eating her words a few minutes later.

At first, she was too busy struggling with her keys and trying not to drag her beaten suitcase too much—fearing that it would break open if she dropped it—to notice anything strange. Then it got a little weird when she entered the foyer, thinking of making herself a cup of coffee before heading to bed, and heard the mishmash of piano keys.

Sunset knew that Sunburst didn’t play if he could avoid it, maybe he was sneaking some practice now that their mother wasn’t hovering over his shoulder. But even then, it didn’t sound like Sunburst’s playing at all, in fact, it sounded like a five-year-old was smashing the keys to his heart’s desire. She was mildly curious, but mostly tired and dreaming of her warm, fluffy bed when she glanced at the living room to see what it was. All thoughts of her bed flew out the window when she saw what was going on.

There was Sunburst, sitting on the piano bench, and it wasn’t a five-year-old pressing the white and black keys, but Sunburst’s elbows. He wasn’t even facing the piano, he was…oh, there was Starlight…sitting on his lap, her legs on either side of him, moving and grinding against him and they were making these weird noises—

Oh.

Oh!

She wrenched her eyes away from the mentally scarring sight because she knew what they were doing, she knew what it looked like when a girl and a boy were making out. Holy shit! At least they had been mercifully clothed, and Starlight still had her pants on and she hadn’t ended up seeing her little brother’s penis—oh god, she was going to throw up, she…she had to erase the image somehow, scratch that, she would have to pour bleach over her eyes and drink a whole bottle of absinthe along with some pills and pray she would drop dead because she couldn’t fucking deal with this goddamn nightmare!

Her brother was screwing her stepsister!

She didn’t even bother gathering her suitcase where she left it near the door, she didn’t even know how she got to her room, feeling like she was on an acid trip gone bad. She collapsed on her bed and thought about curling up in a fetal position and rock back and forth like a patient in a mental ward from a bad, inaccurate horror film. Instead, she fell asleep, only to wake up an hour later and remembering why she was feeling so sick in the first place.

She wouldn’t be drinking any coffee tonight for sure, she needed something way stronger than caffeine. Luckily, she had a secret whiskey bottle she kept under her bed, expertly hidden from prying eyes. Some booze and lots and lots of episodes of her favorite soap opera—she backpedaled from that thought, because she wanted to forget what she just saw, not be reminded of it while watching a show that was the breeding ground for complicated romantic relations.

She settled for watching Sofia the first instead.

Two hours later a thoroughly satisfied Sunburst walked up the stairs, not having realized that Sunset was home until he passed by her slightly open door, stopping when he saw that his sister looked like a mix between a zombie with a junkie while watching a bunch of children’s cartoons on her bed. He knocked on her door gently and peered inside.

“Hey, when did you get back?”

He nearly jumped when Sunset looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

“Ssssssuuunnbursttt.” His sister slurred.

Sunburst blinked; his eyes drawn to the whiskey bottle. “Sunset, are you drunk?” His voice was flat and exasperated as he took the bottle from his sister’s loose grip.

“’m not drunk.”

He snorted. “I feel like I’ll get intoxicated just by standing near you.”

“Shut up, is your fault.”

“I’m not the one who bought you this,” he wiggled the bottle in her face and raised an eyebrow when he read the brand. “Apparently, dad did, hope he won’t be too mad that you know where his secret stash is.”

She didn’t reply and Sunburst assumed it was due to her intoxication, instead of a sincere wish to stay quiet. The muted voices from the laptop made the silence less awkward. When Sunset spoke up again, he was surprised by how sober she sounded.

“Sunburst, I…you know, you can tell me anything, right?”

Sunburst gave her a strange look. What the hell was she saying?

“Just go to sleep Sunset, and don’t complain to me in the morning about your hangover.”

“I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow with or without the booze.”

“Then take an aspirin or something.”

“I saw you.”

Sunburst perked up. “Huh? What are you talk—?”

“I saw you!” Sunset stood up. Her feet were shaky but her voice was firm enough to shatter his carefully constructed world of secrecy into dust. “I saw you having sex with Starlight!”

The bottle slipped from his fingers and fell with a thud on the carpet, rolling away out of sight. No one paid it any heed as Sunset grasped his forearms tightly, shaking him a little. “Look, I don’t care what those animes and comics or whatever told you, this is reality! That shit is not okay! Screwing your stepsister is not okay! Just…What is wrong with you!? You better stop it before mom finds out!”

Sunburst was so dumbstruck that he couldn’t speak or stop her from shaking him so roughly. Dread gripped his heart so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. Stop? Stop being with Starlight? What would Sunset do if he didn’t? Would she tell them? He swallowed his anger and clenched his fists, leveling his sister with a cold stare. “No.”

Sunset met his gaze with her own fiery glare, fingers digging painfully into his skin. “Sunburst,” she started slowly. “I’m not telling you to stop having sex, sex is great, you can have as much sex as you want, with anyone you want, as long as it’s not with someone from our family!”

Sunburst pushed her away, fingers twitching with the urge to break something. “You think this is just about sex!? Fuck you, Sunset, I’m not like you! I…I actually love Starlight.”

Sunset snorted loudly and waved her hand dismissively while looking at him with sisterly disdain. “Oh please, you’re what, eighteen? What do you know about love? You barely know her, besides there are plenty of girls out there you could be dating—”

“I’ve known Starlight since middle school and…we’ve been together for two years!”

“W-Wait,” Sunset’s eyes were wide. “This means…before, before mom married…you were…”

Sunburst nodded, his voice strained as he answered. “Yes.”

Another silence followed his words and the theme from Sofia the First might have ended, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that he was in deep trouble and in his frenzied state considered hunting down the whisky bottle and smashed it over Sunset’s head or himself or something.

“Are you going to tell mom?” he asked, feeling like a little kid with his head down and his bangs covering his eyes.

“Fuck if I know.” Sunset sat on her bed, burying her hands in her red and blond hair like she was about to rip it out, letting out an agitated groan. “Okay, so…you love Starlight?”

Sunburst nodded.

“Okay…” Sunset let go of her hair and buried her face in her palms. “Just…just make sure you keep it down and be careful, and don’t ever let me walk in on you again, okay?”

“Man, this really sucks, you know?” Trixie sighed, resting her chin on her hand with heavily lidded eyes. “Trixie played wingman for you two for years and now this.”

Starlight perked up; her fingers curled against the novel her grandmother had gotten her. The old lady had a knack for getting her the best gifts, ever since she was a baby her grandmother’s gifts never disappointed, while her dad’s presents always ended on the back of her closet, collecting dust.

“It’s so unfair. You had…no, you have so much chemistry,” Trixie continued, not bothering to look at the waiter that brought them their drinks. Starlight thanked him quietly. “But you have to admit, living in the same house would make it easier for you two to hook up…wink,” Trixie smirked.

Starlight gasped, pretended to be disgusted and shocked, and spluttered excuses about Sunburst being her stepbrother and how she would never—

She stopped in the middle of her speech. Starlight was tired of pretending, tired of hiding what she and Sunburst have; she felt like she was suffocated by the weight of her secret. She was stuck in limbo, not being able to do anything about it, she wanted…she needed to…to talk.

And the truth streamed out of her like a busted pipe, spilling her guts out to her best friend. She might have cried near the end, or already cried in the middle, she wasn’t entirely sure, so she pretended that her face wasn’t drenched and blotchy from crying as she braced herself for Trixie’s judgment.

Trixie blinked, took about five seconds to process the news, and grinned. “AHA! Trixie was right all along! Maud owns me twenty bucks now!” She pumped her fist in the air, startling a bored couple sitting on the table behind them, and Trixie gave her a million-watt smile. “There was no way you two could have so much unresolved sexual tension going on without snapping. So, tell me how it happened, and don’t spare the details!”

Starlight sniffed, utterly confused—kind of happy, but still confused. “Huh…” When did it happen? What sexual act had been the ‘snapping point’ for them? Was it that kiss they shared when she got fed up with him and when he insisted on tutoring her on every subject? Or that one time when she gave him a blowjob just because she could and he had been more than receptive to her advances? “It happened some time ago before dad remarried and…yeah…”

Trixie’s eyes grew wide, letting out a loud gasp before she grinned quite manically.

“Oh, Trixie can’t believe you,” she threw her head back with a laugh. “You little slut,” she said, sounding proud and teasing at the same time. Starlight wasn’t offended, but she was highly embarrassed and hoped that the couple behind them wasn’t listening to their conversation. “I feared that you would become a prude ever since you started hanging out with Twilight and her goody-two-shoes friends, but look at you! Sexing up your stepbrother like a pro! Oh my gosh, Trixie’s so proud of you!”

“Trixie! How can you, I mean why are you…just…ugh!”

“I’m guessing your dad has no idea,” Trixie continue as if nothing was wrong, as though they were talking about the weather. “Does anyone know?”

“No, we haven’t told anyone…but Sunset knows b-because shekindofwalkedinonus.”

“Oh? You should have invited her over.”

“Trixie! This is serious!”

“So am I! Sunset is a total babe; I couldn’t be more serious.” She cackled and Starlight found herself wondering how they became friends in the first place. “Okay, since you’re here and not in some nunnery, I’m guessing Sunset hasn’t told anyone else.”

“No, she hasn’t,” Starlight mumbled, her cheeks red. Nothing had been more off-putting than the knowledge that Sunset had seen them going at it. When Sunburst told her about it, she had been close to breaking everything off with him in a fit of hysterical panic.

“What are you going to do now?” Trixie asked, her expression serious for once. “Do you plan on keeping this a secret forever?”

Starlight sighed. “I don’t know, we were thinking of telling them once we moved out for college, but I just know that my dad will explode if he finds out.”

“Oh, please. You’re almost eighteen, it’s high time your dad realized that you’re not a little girl anymore. He’s in no position to tell you what to do—”

“Trixie, he’s my dad, I don’t want to hurt him.”

Her friend gave a loud snort, scowling heavily. “He just came back to tell you he’s getting married to your boyfriend’s mother after traveling through Europe, even though he technically had custody of you and left you with your grandmother.”

“Well, we did keep in touch—” at Trixie’s incredulous look, Starlight heave another sigh, “—okay, maybe we didn’t talk every day, but he’s still my dad.”

She hung her head, unable to meet Trixie’s gaze anymore, her fingers playing with the straw of her drink. She gulped, feeling a knot tightly lodged in her throat. She was happy that her dad was back, but it wasn’t the same...and probably would never be the same. As much as she hated to admit it, Starlight couldn’t shake the feeling of distance between them. When her mother died, they both dealt with their grief in their own ways, while she lashed out at the world (and would have probably gone down the deep end if it weren’t for Sunburst, her friends, and her grandmother) her father had retreated from it. He used the job offer in Europe as an excuse to escape from his grief, from everything that reminded him of his late wife, escaping from the world when it got too much for him.

Sometimes she wished she could live with her grandmother again. She kind of missed her messy house filled with books and cats, even though the cat hair had been the bane of existence during her punk face. Maybe…maybe if she moved in back with her, her dad would be more receptive to the idea of her and Sunburst being an item.

“Look,” Trixie said, and Starlight perked up at the seriousness of her tone. “If you want to be with Sunburst, stay with him. I’m not going to judge, Maud and Twilight won’t either. If something happens, you can count on me.”

Starlight smiled faintly, feeling lighter than she had in weeks and gratitude swelling her heart. “Thank you, Trixie.”

While summer break was a much welcome respite from school, it also meant that he and Starlight were running out of excuses to lock themselves in one of their rooms to fuck. Well, they did come up with the excuse of summer homework and an assignment they had to do over break, but other than that, nothing much. And they clung to that excuse for all they were worth.

“You’re such a tease, you know that?” He groaned lowly, watching her eyes practically shine as her lips curled into a devious smile, her hands running up and down his chest and shoulders. She rolled her hips into him again, and they both let out a series of needy moans.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sunburst.” She practically purred his name, flashing him a sultry smile as she set up a steady but slow—far too slow—pace with her hips.

His hands roamed up her body, marveled at the softness of her skin, stroked her back, her sides, her shoulders, and cupped her breasts roughly, enjoying the soft sighs she let out as she continued to grind against his dick. He thought about looking down, to the place where they were joined, but that would mean he would have to look away from her face, twisted in such wonderful expressions of pure pleasure and love.

Ah, decisions, decisions. He wished all of his dilemmas were like this.

Sunburst firmly placed his hands on her hips, guiding their movements with the languid rocking of his hips until she threw her head back with a cry. He was entranced by her hair, the way the purple strands were plastered to her forehead, and the messiness of it because he loved running his fingers through it. He wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his days like this, just him and Starlight naked on his bed. Gathering the last of wits, he brought a hand between her legs and stroked her clit with his thumb. She jerked and mewled throatily, gasped out his name in that raspy, sensual way of hers that always made his limbs feel weak and his brain melt into a puddle of mush inside his skull.

He panted as he thrust into her, whispered his love for her, and kissed her gently as she came undone in his lap. His blood roar in his ears, his nerves endings on fire as she rode him to his orgasm.

They cuddled a little in the aftermath, shared kisses, and talked about random things until it was time for dinner. They took their time getting ready since the whole family would be there.

Dinner was filled with the chatter of his stepfather and his mom as it usually was the case. Sunset was far less talkative ever since their parents divorced and she usually spent her time in their father’s house. Perhaps it was her way of showing their mom what she thought about this sudden remarriage…or maybe she was simply avoiding him and Starlight.

“So, Sunburst,” his mother, Stellar Flare, asked, snapping him out of his thoughts. “What is your biology assignment specifically about?”

Sunburst tried to be discreet when he looked at Starlight, or at least that was what he told himself. “Anatomy.”

Starlight tried to covered her reddening cheeks, gulping down a tall glass of water. Sunset choked on her food and went for her wine instead.

His mom remained oblivious. “Oh, sounds interesting I guess? Don’t work too hard and just enjoy yourselves.”

Sunset choked on her wine.

Author's Note

One more chapter to go! Feedback is very much appreciated since the dislike bar doesn't tell me much