u/Daemon_D_Hart

This is a work of fiction. All the characters in the story are over the age of 18. Not My Brother's Keeper is a dark romance involving two stepbrothers (unrelated by blood) who have trouble dealing with the overwhelming attraction they feel for each other.

Not My Brother’s Keeper

“I’m really pissed at you, you know,” Adrian told me several weeks later, when I was finally a bit better. Apparently, a life spent dealing with my dad’s violence had turned me into a sturdy creature. I healed well and fast.

“Why?” I knew why, but I wanted to let him say it and get it off his chest. I really needed him to let it go.

“You should’ve reported him, make him swallow his fucking words. For fuck’s sake, Jo, do I have to tell you violence is bad?”

We were renting a small studio apartment over the summer, and I worked at a supermarket. Adrian didn’t need to work since his mom sent him money – though they weren’t on good terms since the incident with my dad. He continued to dedicate himself to his art, sketching furiously at times. From time to time, he landed a gig creating designs for various clients, small but generous, such as local bars and clubs, or websites launching new products. I was faced with another reality concerning the two of us. While he actually worked only a small fraction of the time and much less compared to me, he still brought in more money. His talent shone through, even so early in his career. It was my understanding that he still allowed his mom to help him financially, because he didn’t want to cut ties with her.

And he had no reason to do that, because Madeline wasn’t at fault for what happened in any way. She even called to apologize to me, though she had nothing to apologize for. Adrian, however, thought differently. He now hated my dad openly, and I was doing my damnedest to make him understand that it wasn’t a good idea.

I still had no idea who told my dad about us. I had no idea what he knew, besides the bits and pieces he’d let me know that day. It seemed that he only knew that I was dragging Adrian down with me, forcing him to live in sin. Sure, Adrian had made it all clear to my dad that I was the one taking it up the ass, therefore he now had a good image of what was happening with us.

It bothered me. I had to know who tattled to him. Could it be one of the students? But how? And why? As far as I knew, Adrian and I were the only people from my hometown attending our college, and no matter how much I wrecked my brains, I couldn’t recall seeing any familiar faces around.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Adrian poked me in the ribs, though he knew I was still hurting from time to time. That was his way to make me pay attention.

I was lying on the sofa and he was kneeling by my side, his face close to mine. At times like that, I wondered what he could possibly see in me. He kept telling me I was pretty, and I knew I had a decent face – one thing I got from my mother, after all – but in my book, that was hardly a reason for him to become so taken with me. There were other guys in the world, guys with less baggage than me. Or maybe he liked a bit of pain in his sandwich, and I was just the right combination.

“What should I say? It would’ve only made things worse. It’s water under the bridge, anyway. Don’t let it bother you.”

Adrian leaned closer. “When do you have to leave for work?”

“Not for a couple of hours. Why?”

“I want to show you something.”

He dragged me off the sofa and pulled me along until I was at the desk.

“What am I looking at?”

He opened his laptop with a flourish. I was stunned for a couple of moments. Though he preferred pen and paper, so to speak, it looked like he had gone the digital way.

That was me. My face. Encased in an elaborate frame with flowers, patches of colors, all kinds of shapes I couldn’t describe because it required me to know more about art than I knew. The most stunning part of Adrian’s piece of art was that it appeared to have come together from dashes of paint – digital paint, but still – with no actual sketch behind. There were no lines, anywhere, but I knew that was me.

And it wasn’t simply me. My eyes were closed, and my eyebrows knitted together in a frown. The corners of my mouth pulled downward, and there was a darkness coming off the painting which I couldn’t quite define. It was as if he’d seen the essence of my soul and poured it inside his art.

That was me, the real me, and it shattered my core to understand that Adrian truly saw me with his artist eyes.

He rested his forearms on my shoulders and angled his head to press his cheek against mine.

“What do you think, Jo?”

I was speechless. It had to be his best work to date. I didn’t want him to think that it was getting to my head that he enjoyed painting me so much. But I had to give him credit for making such an astonishing thing.

“It’s amazing.”

“Really?” he teased me. “Is it you?”

I nodded. I couldn’t bring myself to say it, to ask how he could see so much of me when I was someone else to the entire world.

“I took your advice,” he said, moving away.

I noticed only then the slick large device connected to the laptop. It was a huge screen that lit up and Adrian did a quick demonstration of adding a few details to the painting by moving a pen over it.

“It helps a lot, especially with corrections,” he said.

“Was it expensive?”

Adrian shrugged. “I had enough money, and that’s the only thing that matters, right?”

“You’re right. I’m glad you did that.”

Adrian observed me closely. “Are you sad?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Why would I be?”

It was too early for me to tell him how much I loved him because he could see me, the real me, without knowing that later it would be too late.

“You look sad,” he insisted, brushing my hair away from my forehead.

“This is my usual face. Morose by nature.” My joke fell flat.

He took my hands in his and then kissed me. I heard him closing the laptop, and I regretted that he seemed to be sorry for showing me that.

I was becoming more and more aware of how fortunate I was to have him all to myself when he could have anyone he chose.

Our lovemaking had become tender lately, mainly because of my healing ribs, and I was alright with it. Still, a part of me wanted to endure more punishment at Adrian’s hands because it would wash me clean. Of what? My sins, perhaps.

Adrian pushed me back toward the sofa. He was a giving lover, as I had come to realize. Once he’d decided on me, that he liked me better than anyone else, he did everything for me. I was hardly an invalid, but he batted away my hands when I tried to help by lowering my sweatpants.

He did it all, and he enjoyed doing it all. I have to admit that he was truly adept at making a man come undone. Though I was trying to protect myself by not giving in completely, that was a tall order once Adrian set himself to work.

In one go, my cock disappeared inside his mouth. In the past, being already too smitten with him, it’d been hard to focus on the technique itself. But now, I could tell that, like in his art, he was improving a great deal.

Actually, he was getting better at deepthroating me. It was so good that my skin broke into goosebumps everywhere. Adrian had worked to nullify his gag reflex so much that I could feel my cock in his throat, getting squeezed from all sides. Damn, that feeling, that sensation was everything. I still think of it while I jerk off. Nothing would compare, ever. Since I never fucked him, so his ass wasn’t up for comparison. I’m sure I would’ve love them both the same, his ass and his throat.

I groaned and complained that he was too good for me to last. Under Adrian’s encouragements, I was learning about the importance of being vocal while having sex. It had felt so weird in the beginning. Are there people in the world who do this naturally? This is what I was wondering back then.

For me, it was learned. It all had to be learned, but I had grown up with a handicap, twisted and void of a good part of me. Lack of empathy could rise from that sort of upbringing. I wouldn’t call it that; just a selective lack of empathy in my case. After all, it’s better to save what you have in short supply for those who deserve it, right?

Adrian was moving his lips over my cock, over and over. He enjoyed doing this thing, starting from the root and pulling with his lips, creating suction while he moved toward the tip. I think I was oozing so much precum when he did that because he once complained playfully about it. Seeing my face, he’d sneak closer and whisper in my ear that he loved it, he loved my cum and wanted to have even my precum, though it was salty and so much because I couldn’t help myself and most likely enjoyed doing all that in his mouth.

Yeah, he was definitely better than me at dirty talk.

And now, he was on his knees in front of me, performing beautifully and sucking my cock. From time to time, he abandoned it in favor of licking my balls. Adrian gave himself completely, like he was in a trance when he sucked cock. I cannot bear the thought of him doing the same with other people.

He didn’t stop for a moment. He took me deep and opened his eyes to give me a look that conveyed everything, how much he enjoyed doing that, mostly. I came down his throat while losing myself in his beautiful eyes.

“Satisfied?” he asked once I managed to breathe more normally.

I only nodded.

He grinned and got up. “How about you put your ass up then? I need to come inside you.”

Adrian said such things like they were the most normal in the world, and I lived for it. So I adjusted my position, turning quickly and lowering my pants even more. I got so used to his dicking that we didn’t even need a lot as far as preparation went.

Never again have I ever allowed anyone else to do that to me. Whether brief associations, or friendships for life, they never mattered as much as it mattered that Adrian loved doing that to me.

One thing I loved but didn’t dare to admit it out loud was when Adrian chose to spank me during fucking. His cock went deep inside me, and my body welcomed him because it knew him so well. I could hear his labored breathing as he pumped into my ass. His first slap took me by surprise, but then I breathed out in relief. Adrian had a very specific way of doing this. After he landed a slap, he cupped his hand over the reddened spot, squeezing it, while he moaned in appreciation.

Yeah, he had a thing for my ass. It made me curious what he could see in it that would be so different from all the pussy he’d had in his life. But it was different, and it did matter because he wasn’t the sort of guy to do things by half.

“I can’t get enough,” he whispered. “Fuck, Jo, if only your dad saw you taking it up the ass.”

My ass squeezed his cock hard. We were a couple of weirdos. He shouldn’t have mentioned my sanctimonious father, and I shouldn’t have gotten hard over him talking like that.

But it did give me a deep, dark satisfaction to use my religious dad in that manner, to have him immobilized, with toothpicks holding his eyelids open, so he had no choice but to witness his son taking it up the ass, like Adrian said.

Yeah, as I said, we got each other freak on and getting right on it.

Adrian came deep inside me, slapping my ass a couple more times. I’d feel it later, that spot he preferred, sore and hurting a bit. At work, when I rested, at any moment, I’d feel it, and it would make me feel so proud.

He held me over his lap afterwards. One thing he appeared to enjoy a great deal was to play with his own cum in my ass. His fingers moved in and out and he spread his jizz around my asshole until it got all absorbed. It was his way of claiming me, and I was more than alright with it.

“Is it going to be hard for you to stack those shelves with a broken ass?”

I snorted at his lame joke. “Is this what a broken ass looks like to you?”

Adrian laughed, throwing his head back. I still had a hard-on, so I adjusted my position, making sure to poke him in the thigh with it.

He slapped my naked ass again but not so hard this time. “You’re insatiable, aren’t you, Jo?”

“It’s only because of you.”

“Good, that was my plan all along. Shouldn’t you be getting ready for work?”

“Fuck off, I still have a hard dick.”

He laughed and allowed me to get to my feet. I clenched my butt cheeks to keep his jizz inside me while he blew me again, taking his time now and teasing me until I was a blabbering mess.

When Adrian showed me my own cum in his mouth, coating his tongue, I knew I’d never love anyone else the way I loved him back then.

Because you only get to love, truly love, once in your life. It doesn’t have to be the first time, but it matters to be the last.

For me, he was both.

tbc

Not My Brother’s Keeper

My stepbrother kept his word and was now talking to me outside of our dorm room. At first, we got a few odd looks here and there, especially when walking together. It was clear as day that we were different. I even distinctively heard a girl asking Adrian why he was hanging out with ‘that nerd’ when she thought I was out of earshot. Nerd was a term I could live with. At least I was no longer the weird guy who preferred bible study to smoking and shooting the breeze, as I had used to be back home. All those guys and gals in my hometown, they should’ve known it was my father’s fault that I wasn’t spending time with them, though I have to admit I had developed a superiority complex from a young age, comparing myself to them and finding them lacking basic intellectual skills.

We threw ourselves into our studies, Adrian out of passion, me out of necessity. Although we didn’t have sex again for a while, there was a tacit understanding between us now. We talked, and we spent hours in silence, bent over our sketches and textbooks. And we were, to an extent, I like to believe, quite happy.

Adrian didn’t mention again that I should come out to my father. I was content with that, because I couldn’t picture myself in that position. For all my determination to do things my way, there were strings holding me back, strings that stretched between me and the home I wanted so desperately to leave behind.

“So, you two are brothers?” A chick in goth makeup and shredded jeans stopped in front of us as we were enjoying a quick lunch on a bench in the quad.

“Yeah, why?” Adrian asked. I always let him speak when people talked to us, because he was the socially-adapted one. While I was, well, the opposite.

“You don’t look alike at all.”

“We’re actually--” I started, but Adrian stopped me by wrapping one arm around my shoulders and pressing his cheek against mine.

“Are you sure we’re not alike at all? Look closer,” he said to the girl.

She did lean forward. Didn’t she realize Adrian was making fun of her? She was cute in that punk way chicks who rebel against the norms are. Her whole attitude and clothes and makeup were screaming ‘don’t call me beautiful’, when they were all perks to make her stand out.

“Nope,” she concluded. “I’m not calling your mom names, but seriously, you two can’t have more than one parent in common. Biological parent,” she added quickly.

So she was smart, too.

“Also,” she added, “you two look more like a couple than brothers.”

That gave me pause. The skin on the back of my neck pricked unpleasantly and I tried to pull away from Adrian. He was too close, and we were making people talk.

“For real?” Adrian asked, drawling the word. “Then you wouldn’t be shocked at all if we did this, right?”

I had no idea what he meant until he turned his face to mine. I pulled back in terror. “What the hell?” I murmured, pushing Adrian away.

“Ah,” the girl snapped her fingers, “you must be stepbrothers. Whose mommy married whose daddy?” She looked completely unfazed that Adrian had been about to kiss me. In public. In broad daylight.

Unlike me; I was barely keeping from shaking, and the physical reaction I was having took me by surprise. If it all had been in my head, then I would’ve managed somehow to deal with it. But my problems and hang-ups ran deep, and they were beyond my control. The truth was: I was reeling from a simple touch and a joke. Adrian was known on campus as being unconventional, in the way artists always get away with, so if he’d just kissed a guy out of the blue, no one would’ve batted an eye. Even if that guy happened to be his stepbrother.

Adrian, shocked and hurt by my reaction, didn’t reply. He was staring into my eyes, conveying without words that punishment waited for me. I stared back, helpless and angry.

“His mom married my dad,” I said, without tearing my eyes off Adrian. We were starting to fight that very moment, and the goth girl just happened to be a witness to our drama.

“Cool. So you get along?”

Either she was tone-deaf when it came to social cues, or something else was happening.

“Not really, no,” Adrian said and pulled away from me. “Actually,” he said, pushing himself up and offering the girl his arm in an exaggerated old-fashioned way, “I was barely waiting for someone to come along and save me from this bore.” He threw the word at me, along with a hard stare, over his shoulder.

My punishment was starting. He continued to look at me, long enough that the girl, now hanging on his arm, gave him a questioning look. Then, her eyes moved to me, asking the same silent question.

I couldn’t answer that, not because it was a stranger asking, but because I was still frozen in place, unable to do or say anything. Adrian was waiting for me to do something, to prove my undying love or simply admit the fact that we were together now. I would prove it to him eventually, and it would be done in such an unequivocal manner that he’d never doubt me or my feelings again. As much good as that would do to us, but when you are left with no choice, you discover quickly that making yours is not hard at all.

“Let’s do something fun,” Adrian said to the girl, pulling her along and moving away from me.

I’d never get used to watching him go. But while in that moment, it all seemed possible, him coming back, telling me it was only a cruel joke he was playing, me calling after him and telling the girl Adrian was mine, stepbrother or not, it wouldn’t be forever that way. We waste so much when we are young: time, feelings, words, silences.

***

Adrian returned late. I was still studying, wanting to blame staying up late on needing to do that, so I could talk to him. If he’d never come back, I would’ve stayed up all night.

“Listen,” I started without looking at him, still pretending to be absorbed by my textbooks, “you can do whatever you want. Just don’t humiliate me in public again. Is that okay with you?”

He stopped, whatever was that he was doing. “Jo, are you for real?” He wasn’t taunting me; what I read in his words was curiosity and a bit of shock.

“Yes, as real as I can be. You’re not tied to me.”

Stupid young me, hoping he’d relent in front of my so-called indifference and give me what I wanted, despite me saying the opposite of it.

“You’re positively mental,” he accused. He began undressing.

When he threw his t-shirt at my head, I didn’t dodge. The smell of his sweat – his post-sex sweat – hit me.

“Did you sleep with her?” I asked.

“Does it matter? You just said I wasn’t tied to you.”

“You did. I hope you’re not imagining you can fuck me after you just fucked her.”

Adrian came closer. He leaned against the desk. When I stole a look at him, I saw that he was completely naked. His cock was hanging limp, and I could sense the rubbery smell of condom and spermicide. At least, he was playing safe.

“Have you ever fucked anyone raw?” I didn’t realize that the question came out of my mouth, when I thought I was just thinking it.

Adrian took one of my textbook, closed it and dropped it on the table. Then he proceeded to do the same with all of them, until they were stacked together to one side in a disorderly heap.

“Why would I answer that?” he said. “Why would I tell you anything at all ever in this life?”

His voice was filled with rancor, which surprised me because I was too inexperienced in feeling love to understand.

“You went with her.”

“You didn’t come after me. What will take, Jo? Do you want me to fuck you raw? Do you want that only if I’ve never fucked anyone else raw? What do you want from me?” He was growing gradually frustrated, putting me, as well, in a state of restlessness. And then, that fateful question: “What are we going to do, Jo?”

I pursed my lips and locked myself in stubborn silence. Adrian huffed and pushed against the stack of textbooks, making them spill over the desk and onto the floor.

“So damn childish,” I murmured under my breath. I was one to talk. However, pretending to be the grownup in the room, I started picking them up and putting them back on the desk.

I thought his little act was over, but he had something else in mind. The moment I had all my textbooks back on the desk, arranged neatly as I liked them, he returned and pushed them off and on the floor again.

His lovely green eyes were almost dark with fury. Do you know that old Chinese philosophy about yin and yang? I was cold while he was hot, I was darkness while he was light, he went and did things while I waited them to be done to me. I guess those ancient people knew a thing or two about human beings and how they function. Of course, such concepts refer to the feminine and masculine dichotomy, so I have no idea how they apply when both parts are supposed to be the same.

Hence my and Adrian’s problem. He expected me to be the same as him, and that was where he was wrong. I expected our love to be doomed because it couldn’t happen – because we were so different – when in fact, we were gravitating, drawn irresistible like a two-planet system that would either end up existing in balance, succumbing to a crash or drifting away.

We were clashing and crashing now. That was our phase.

“Are you fucking twelve?” I asked. He was trying to get a reaction out of me, and I didn’t want to give him any satisfaction. I didn’t get angry; my father had driven that out of me, and I had learned it as an important survival skill.

“No. Are you?” Adrian challenged me. It was hard to face him while he was naked like that. He was comfortable in his own body for sure. And he didn’t mind using it so he could get the upper hand in this confrontation with me.

“Definitely not. Stop being a brat.”

I grabbed my textbooks and huddled them in my arms. Giving him a triumphant look wasn’t the wisest choice. Next thing I knew, we were on the floor, wrestling with each other, my textbooks quickly becoming collateral damage in our little furious dance.

When he slapped me, it shocked me. It wasn’t even a hard slap, but it was meant to humiliate me and make me act for a bull seeing red. That was what he wanted to get out of me.

“What?” he hissed in my face. “Pretty nasty, right, Jo? Don’t look so offended, for fuck’s sake. Each time you behave like you did today, it’s a slap in my face.” He emphasized the last words. My, mine, me. These are words used by selfish people. But I didn’t mind him being selfish. I wanted him to be more than selfish.

“I can’t be that,” I said, my fury, which had been on the rise for the last half hour, subsiding already. “Out in the open like that. Adrian, I can’t.”

My honest reaction made some of his anger fade, too, but not enough. He wrestled me until I was on my belly, pressed against the floor.

“You asked me a question, Jo,” he hissed in my ear. “Unlike you, I’m going to be honest and tell you. I’ve never fucked anyone raw. But I am going to fuck you like that because you deserve it, you fucking scumbag.”

How was that a punishment? I suspected that it wouldn’t be a nice experience for me, but I still wanted it, that part of him that he’d never given anyone else.

“Aren’t you going to protest? Beg me not to do it, and I won’t,” he said, shaking me.

“Do as you please,” I whispered, and there must have been so much desire in my voice, so much want, because Adrian chuckled, making the hair on the back of my head rise in a pleasant, almost unbearable way.

He pleased to fuck me. Raw.

I didn’t pose any resistance as he took me out of my closest. We remained on the floor, so the carpet was rough under my knees and elbows as Adrian put me in a doggy-style position.

“Spit will do, fucker,” he mumbled.

Even if Adrian seemed bent on punishing me hard, he wasn’t inconsiderate enough to forego preparation completely. As much as he tried to be bad, he wasn’t good at it because it wasn’t in his nature. While I was all good and pristine on the outside, harboring dark thoughts and feelings underneath my veneer of respectability.

I knew what I was doing by not fighting back. If I’d done that, he would’ve stopped; I’m sure of it. But this way I was dragging him down with me, and as much as my conscience told me not to do it, I was too tired to fight my feelings anymore.

It was better this way, I told myself in that very moment. Adrian would see how wanting me tasted of ash and bad behavior and wouldn’t continue on that path. I’d be left with my suffering once he abandoned me, and it would all work out.

How’s that saying? When man plans, God laughs? The Big Guy surely had a field day with my bad choices because no good thought nurtured by my religious education stopped me then.

Adrian was behind me, struggling to get his cock inside my ass. He was growing frustrated because I wasn’t planning on making it easy and he wasn’t a rapist. But I loved it so much; I loved him so much. What I was thinking and feeling combined into a strange explosive cocktail, so much so that when he tried to push his cock inside me once more, I thought I’d come on the spot.

I could tell he was about to give up when I stopped him. I grabbed his hand first, that without turning; then I let go of it so I could search for his cock. Then I placed it at my backside, enjoying how silky, alive and pulsing it was in my hand and aligned it for proper entering.

“Jo,” he whispered.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You wanted to fuck me raw, didn’t you?”

“Is that what you want?” Emphasis on ‘you’.

“I only want to make you happy,” I said instead of admitting the truth.

“Liar,” he accused me, but his voice had grown thick with desire as my ass started to swallow his cock slowly.

You may say that it’s psychological and all that, but sex did feel better when he took me like that. His cock slid inside me after a few more tries and more spit, and when he started moving, oh my heart…

To compensate for his lack of bad boy charm under the circumstances, he grabbed my hair. All over me, his lips over my ear, his nipples rubbing against my back, his pubes against my ass, we were closer than ever. And he kept telling me things, about how he hated me but couldn’t stop wanting me, that I was like a curse on his life but he wouldn’t bear not to have me.

I came twice. The first time happened after he was barely in for under a minute or so. The second, when he grabbed my cock and pumped it hard while slamming into me and making me see stars and heaven and all kinds of other beautiful things.

But the most beautiful was him coming hard inside me. Yes, it was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me until that moment.

tbc

AN: If you want to read chapters in advance or simply support me, you can do so on my SubscribeStar.

Not My Brother's Keeper - 24