Community Home Kissing Booth // [C Fair] (Open)

( I C A R U S E D I S O N F I N C H - E M B E R S T A T T )

You can be oh so mean
I just can't see
No in between
You know what the sun's all about
When the lights go out

Memories sway through my mind in perfect time to Swallow-Anne's hips, a hectic splicing of thoughts that are at once contradicting, yet seamless in a way I'd rather not to admit to. The simple sight of her is enough to flush my face with thoughts I'd prefer to shut out, but as she leans over the table in a cacophony of skin and shamelessness, I can't even coherently identify what all it is that I'd like to forget in this moment. "Sticky Icky!" The nickname summons a flash of history: broken locks on bathroom doors and the tragedy of a house that contains too many kids and too little privacy. "How'd you get so lucky as to get this job? Ain't even seen you like anything but your birds. 'Cept maybe that time I found ya in the bathroom knib-knobbin'..."

Mouth hanging open since the instant her shadow crossed paths with my booth, sashaying toward me with the kind of confidence that makes me question which side of the booth each of us is really on, my jaw drops a little more at her brazen commentary. "Ain't got a problem helpin' you with that you know..." Something almost like sound attempts to eke out my throat, but finds itself strangled by a recollection of emotionally scarring horror. The far-away vision of a light bulb on the brink of flickering out seems to laugh at me with its sudden will to live, brightening in response to the open door and unexpected arrival of a girl with round cheeks and wide eyes that don't look nearly as surprised as the situation warrants. "The way you been lookin' at me, maybe it was me you was thinkin' bout in there." Time has the ability to change a lot of things, but I'm still exactly the same now as I was then: stutter-stop still with a tangle of dysfunctional vocal chords and a daydream that the entire world could just black out completely so no one could see the excess of embarrassment written across my face.

Schroeder's trilling voice rolls through the space between us as Swallow-Anne bites her lip and I become even more aware of the... similarities between this moment and our previous run-in. "You really gonna make me pay t'kiss you? I'd be like payin' for my own place... Ain't really fair is it?" I've got a list six miles long about everything that's unfair right now. "Us havin' to do this to get enough money for us to have nice things?" Flicking my eyes over to meet those of my feathered friend, my jaw tightens as I meet his judgmental gaze, the laughter in his coo as undeniable as Cygnus and Mace's. "Really like him, Sticky. He's good for a bird, smart as can be too... at least you got somethin' nice..." I can't really help the way my attention is drawn back to her — I can't really help a couple of things right now — but she does manage to catch me by surprise when she reaches out to pet Schroe. Even in a backwater District like Ten, most people tend to recoil from pigeons, drawing a line that tends to look an awful lot like the capital I in Icky Emberstatt. However, the moment of appreciation is cut short as she saunters around to my side of the table and reminds me how there's more than one kind of line that isn't meant to be crossed.

I would recoil if there was anywhere for me to go, but as she plops down on my lap, I find myself caught in a tragically tight spot between Swallow-Anne and my own teenage hormones that don't speak the same language as the more sensible parts of my brain, flippantly ignoring my repeated mental wailing of the word NOOOO. I should know better, but I've never been so good at knowing things. Icarus. Edison. Finch. Emberstatt. Stop it. Stop it now. But she wraps her arms around my shoulders and giggles in a way that I find I don't mind nearly as much as the way Cyg, Mace, or Schroe's voices ring in my ears. "So you gonna charge me or not?" Way back when, in that tiny bathroom with nowhere to run away to, I did the only thing I could: I reached out with the kind of super speed I'd only ever seen in eagles swooping down for a kill and I slapped the light switch down in hopes that I could turn everything off. The world plunged into shadows, but she was still there, side by side with my complete humiliation. These days, it seems there's no off switch anywhere near Swallow-Anne. "Ain't gonna tell no one if you like it Icky, specially not if you want to do it again later."

Her lower lip is jutting out in a pout and I know she's not really upset, but the world beyond her blurs out and every tiny detail of her face comes into sharpened focus. Five hundred seventy-two carefully emphasized eyelashes flutter at me and I'm trying my damnedest to sort out what I'm supposed to say, "I-I-I—" stuttering out my mouth as I mumble my way into incoherency beneath the small weight of her body and the glint in her eyes that assures me I have no secrets in this moment. It's a mistake when I drop my gaze in a useless attempt to avoid the situation. My adopted sister is not shy to prove that she has a really nice rack. "Uhhhh... I just —" The knowledge that I should look back up is there, but I don't know which aspect of her is more dangerous for me to focus on right now, so there's a mesmerized delay where the only thing that consumes my vision is —

"No. I mean, yes. No, I meant no... or maybe. But it's not that..." What's the question again? When my eyes shift their focus, they skitter back and forth like a terrified rabbit desperately searching for a light switch an escape that doesn't exist. "I can't really, I mean, Mace and Cyg said I had to do this, but I don't think they meant —" For a few seconds my words forget how to be words as my hands find her waist, wondering if there's any chance I can move her away from —

I'm still babbling an endless string of pointless gibberish when my flailing eyes come across her mouth once more. The words light switch, light switch, light switch echo through my mind like a mantra that's trying to promise salvation, but the only thing my hands have found are her hips and I know there's no off switch for this moment. Even if there were, it wouldn't save me any more now than it did before. "I'm just gonna —" And because I've finally acknowledged that there's only one real exit strategy, I take a deep breath and lean in, the world plunging into a different kind of darkness as my eyes flutter shut despite myself. "I think I'm supposed to —" But millimeters away from her lips, I pull up short, eyes flashing open in an utterly honest display of tawny-golden horror. "— not kiss my sister. Definitely. Definitely not." To my credit, I try to break the moment by looking away, but once again find myself looking directly at Swallow-Anne's chest. There's no off switch with this girl. Definitely not.