Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/40879.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      Skins
  Relationship:
      Maxxie_Oliver/Tony_Stonem/Effy_Stonem
  Character:
      Maxxie_Oliver, Tony_Stonem, Effy_Stonem
  Additional Tags:
      Incest, Het_and_Slash
  Stats:
      Published: 2009-12-29 Words: 3703
****** Tea & sympathy ******
by iridescentglow
Summary
     Maxxie tries to build bridges with Tony, but gets more than he
     bargained for at the Stonem house.
Notes
     Warnings: underage sex; incest; threesome; dubious consent.
     If you're looking for good old-fashioned slashy goodness, this is
     probably not the story for you. It's more about Effy (and her
     relationship with Tony), viewed through the eyes of Maxxie.
     Spoilers: #1.08, 'Effy'. For the sake of this story (and my sanity),
     pretend #1.09 didn't happen.
"Alright?" Maxxie said when Tony opened the door.
Tony looked him up and down, looked out at the rain. He made no move to let
Maxxie inside. "Alright?" he replied tonelessly.
"Alright," Maxxie said again, redundantly.
He had found that it was completely possible to have a fully-formed
conversation consisting entirely of the word alright, batted back and forth
between two people. It was all about the inflection—whether you stretched it
out, like alriiiiight, or stamped it down into a single grunt; added a question
mark or an exclamation—but you could distil whole sentences into one word. The
only thing was, Maxxie had hoped he might be able to find more to say to Tony.
He cleared his throat.
"Can I come in?"
Tony shrugged laboriously, a flicker of sarcasm appearing on his face. "If you
really want to," he said.
Maxxie shuffled inside as Tony stepped back, holding open the door. He raked
the wet hair off his forehead. Tony made a face as he accidentally flicked
water in his direction. He looked at his feet and watched the water pool there
on the hall floor tiles.
"Didn't think to bring an umbrella?" Tony asked. "It's been raining all day."
"No," Maxxie said, feeling stupid. It really hadn't occurred to him. In fact,
he hadn't planned to stop by at all. One minute he'd been at home, watching the
Disney channel and having impure thoughts about High School Musical. An hour
later he'd found himself turning up Tony's street. His mum said he was
impulsive. That was usually a word people used when they really meant stupid.
Maxxie tried again. "Haven't seen you in a while. I mean, since all that stuff.
Sid told me about what happened with your sister and I mean… I'm sorry. That's
really fucked up."
Tony didn't reply. He began to walk down the hall towards the kitchen and
Maxxie followed, still talking. "And I know things have been weird with us
since we went to Russia and… everything that happened then. I know things with
you and Michelle are all bollocksed up, and part of that's me. My fault. But
it's you as well, Tony. You were a right cunt to me and I was mad at you for a
while. It's okay, though, 'cause I'm over it."
They reached the threshold of the kitchen. Still Tony didn't say anything.
Maxxie continued, "And I just wanted to say sorry, for what I said to you in
Russia, because you weren't that bad. When you gave me that blowjob, you
weren't so bad, really. I mean, not good, obviously. But it wasn't, like, my
worst ever. There was this boy I met in my Expressive Movement class. We went
out for, like, a week and it didn't work out. But the one time we had sex, he
gave really bad head. It was like he was trying to do it expressively and…"
Maxxie trailed off as he realized that the kitchen wasn't empty. Effy was
propped against the worktop, her head tilted slightly as she listened
impassively. She blinked at him and said nothing.
"You remember my sister, Effy," Tony said, shooting Maxxie a tight smile that
seemed to communicate, shut up.
Maxxie gave a small and moronic wave in her direction. "Oh. Yeah. Alright?"
She didn't reply.
"We were just having tea," said Tony.
The kettle clicked off, sending a cloud of steam into the air as it reached the
boil. Wordlessly, Effy set out three tea cups on the work surface. She paused
and glanced at Tony. He said, "Oh, yeah, I hid it behind the Alpen. Dad never
eats that stuff."
Effy stood on tip toes, reaching up into one of the high shelves. She pushed
aside the cereal and pulled out a bottle of Bells whiskey. With noticeable
concentration, she poured identical amounts into each of the tea cups. Then she
added hot water. As she returned the whiskey to its hiding place, Tony reached
over and grabbed two of the cups. He handed one to Maxxie.
"If the parentals come in the room, pretend it's tea, okay?" He picked up a box
of tea bags that were sitting nearby. "Orange and cinnamon," he read from the
packet. His eyebrows quirked. "How delightful."
Effy smiled at Tony, but still she said nothing. Tony and Effy didn't stand
close together, the way Maxxie had noticed that siblings often radiated towards
one another. If anything, they kept their distance. Yet somehow, they seemed to
orbit each other; never touching, but each always aware of the other's
presence. It was like an invisible cord connected them.
Not knowing what else to do, Maxxie took a sip of his "tea". He didn't want to
say anything, for fear he'd accidentally say something wrong. His earlier
comment about Tony's blowjob technique still seemed to hang in the air. It was
unnerving to be thrust suddenly into the Stonem siblings' tiny universe of
meaningful looks and unspoken words. Every time he sneaked a glance at Effy, he
found her looking right back at him. Her gaze was somehow impassive yet
intense. He couldn't shake the feeling that she was trying to x-ray into his
head and read his thoughts.
Maxxie gulped absently from his cup and then choked. Tony raised an eyebrow at
him as he recovered from his coughing fit and the three of them lapsed back
into silence. Tony drank his whiskey as if it were actually orange-and-cinnamon
tea, taking it in short, measured swallows. Effy curled her fingers around the
china, holding the tea cup close to her face and inhaling the scent and warmth.
Occasionally, she would take small, cat-like sips from the cup.
The sound of the lounge door opening was startling in the quiet kitchen. BBC
interlude music blared loudly, interspersed by talking and laughter. As he
heard footsteps in the hall, Maxxie glanced guilty at his cup of "tea". When
Tony's mum and dad appeared in the doorway, he put the cup down hastily and
tried to conceal it with his arm. He noticed both Tony and Effy smirk at him.
"Good episode of Autumnwatch?" Tony asked his dad.
"You may mock, my son," said Tony's dad, "but it was. Learned all about the
mating habits of the red deer. It was most illuminating."
Tony's mum laughed, as if he'd said something funny. Tony rolled his eyes.
As Mrs. Stonem's eyes fell on Maxxie, she said, "Oh, hello there. Haven't seen
you in a while."
"Don't say that, love," Tony's dad told her, "they might have fallen out. You
never know what kids get up to. Everything's always so dramatic, life or
death." His face darkened slightly. It seemed to take him a moment to gather
his thoughts. "Friends again, are you?" he murmured distractedly. "Good, good."
Tony rolled his eyes again, although more discreetly. Maxxie couldn't think
what to say, so he just made an effort to smile. He suspected the result was
slightly manic.
"We're going upstairs," Tony said at last. He took three more measured swallows
and then placed his empty tea cup in the sink. He moved to the door. Not
knowing what else to do, Maxxie followed him. He hadn't finished his "tea" and
to leave it behind seemed incriminating, so he took the cup with him, still
half-hiding it behind his back. He glanced back and saw Effy tip her head back
and drain her own cup, with a few effortless gulps. She didn't even blanch. She
placed her empty cup in the sink next to Tony's and moved to follow her
brother.
"You sure you don't want to stay down here with us, sweetheart?" Mrs. Stonem
asked Effy. "Leave the boys to their fun. Your dad and I could make cocoa."
"We just had tea," Tony said. "So she doesn't want cocoa." He turned to Effy.
"Do you?"
Effy moved her head slightly.
"See?" Tony continued. "She doesn't want cocoa. Leave her alone. She can come
upstairs with me and Max if she wants."
Mr. Stonem was getting red in the face, but before he could say anything, Tony
let out an exasperated breath and left the room. He bounded down the hall and
Maxxie heard his feet thump hard against the stairs as he took them two at a
time. Resurrecting his awkward smile for a moment, Maxxie muttered an awkward,
"Bye!" at Tony's parents, bowed out of the kitchen and followed Tony upstairs.
A quick backward glance confirmed that Effy, too, was following, but at a
slower, meandering pace.
Tony's bedroom was still tidier than a teenager's bedroom had any right to be.
Most of the carpet was visible. There were clothes hanging in the wardrobe,
rather than in heaps on the floor. His bed was actually made—although as she
entered the room, Effy flomped carelessly onto it, producing a comfortable dent
over the female outline. What was different about Tony's room, Maxxie noticed,
was that, though still tidy, it was now lightly cluttered. Maxxie almost
tripped over some hair straighteners that formed a noose on the carpet near the
door. Beside the Anaïs Nin book on Tony's nightstand was a windfall of
glittery, colourful tubes of lip gloss and eye makeup. The faint scent of
perfume that clung to the room was not restricted to the place where Effy
lolled on the bed; it was deep-seated, built up over a period of days and
weeks.
With all three of them inside, Tony closed the door and then leaned against it.
Maxxie hovered awkwardly and then finally sat down on the bed, a wary distance
from Effy. Carefully, he placed his tea cup on the carpet at his feet. He
watched as Effy began to pick at the purple nail polish on her fingernails.
Then his eyes slid back to Tony, who stood statue-like at the door. Once again,
Maxxie noticed the strange, invisible cord connecting Tony and Effy: how aware
he seemed of her movements; the way her eyes were always drawn back to him.
"Boys are stupid."
Maxxie was startled. It took him a moment to realize it was Effy who had
spoken. He had almost expected it to be the voice of an almighty god, or maybe
a TV voiceover designed to narrate the situation.
She continued, nonplussed, "Why didn't you just show him what he was doing
wrong?"
Maxxie looked at her with wary eyes. It was definitely less unnerving when she
didn't speak at all.
"Girls share. Boys are just pricks. Narcissistic pricks." She laughed for a
single moment and then was silent again.
Maxxie chose that moment to glance in Tony's direction, hoping he might mention
that now was time for Effy to take her meds or something. Effy chose the moment
he took his eyes off her to climb into his lap and start kissing him. It was
really an impressively smooth ambush. She placed her hands on his shoulders,
securing him in place, and then twisted her body around his. She flicked her
hair out of the way and her face descended on his. He blinked and his lips met
hers. Wet, hot and utterly impossible to dissuade, she coaxed open his mouth
and inserted her tongue. What was astonishing was how little her seduction of
him actually seemed to involve him. He spent a few stunned seconds being
enthusiastically kissed and then she pulled away.
Maxxie wondered exactly what it was about him that made members the Stonem
family want to kiss him completely out of the blue. (Maybe he should be on his
guard around Tony's mum and dad.)
"I—" he said, striving for articulation and failing. His eyes flicked wildly to
the door, where Tony still stood. His expression was dispassionate, although
his mouth seemed to have tightened into a decent approximation of a straight
line.
"Ignore him," Effy suggested cheerfully and resumed kissing him. It was a still
a full-frontal attack, although he had to admit, it wasn't unpleasant. He found
it was difficult to follow her advice, though. He could feel Tony watching
them—he could actually feel Tony's eyes upon him. It was a sensation he felt as
strongly as if fingers were tracing along the skin of his neck and shoulders.
Effy writhed in his lap and resistance, increasingly, seemed futile. His lack
of participation in the whole endeavour continued to be a non-issue as Effy
began opening up his trousers, picking apart the buttons with small, nimble
fingers.
Her voice was breathless but impudent—almost sing-song with glee—as she said,
"You can see who's better, gives us grades… marks out of ten!"
She licked her lips and he felt the last of his resistance evaporate. When
Maxxie was twelve, he came to the conclusion that he was gay. There had been
months of fighting with his mum, the bullying at school, his clumsily attempts
to navigate the entirely new world of the gay scene. At that moment, his body
did not seem remotely interested in any of these things, however life-changing
they had been. Effy's fingers were poised to reach inside his boxers and his
dick was definitely enthusiastic about this prospect, regardless of her gender.
As if sensing his crisis, Effy said, "I know you like boys, but I can't be
worse than him, right?" She cast a scathing look over her shoulder.
"That's enough," Tony said suddenly. He stepped forward and grabbed Effy by the
arm. He yanked hard, pulling her off the bed and onto her feet. "Stop it," he
hissed at her.
Maxxie realized he was balling his hands with fistfuls of the bedspread. His
trousers were still open, his boxer shorts straining. He watched open-mouthed
as Effy, like an angry wasp, batted at Tony's hands that still held her in his
grasp. When she freed herself, she tore open her shirt, revealing her breasts.
Defiantly, she addressed Maxxie: "Is it because of these—because I'm a girl?
You can call me by someone else's name, it's okay. I don't care. Just pretend
I'm a boy. No one's completely gay. No one's completely anything." Her voice
grew frustrated. She whirled around to face Tony again. "You know I'm not a
virgin, right? You know I probably had sex before you."
Tony rocked back on his heels. He stopped trying to grab at Effy, but he
couldn't seem to stop looking at her.
Effy's voice was quieter, almost monotonous, when she continued, "I used to
listen to you and Michelle through the walls, you know. When you'd sneak off to
have sex." She sounded almost sad as she said, "I liked Michelle. She was too
good for you." Her tone abruptly switched to upbeat and conversational as she
turned to address Maxxie. "Michelle gives good head. Well, he always seemed to
enjoy it." She lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Maxxie didn't think he could have formed words if his life depended on it. He
exhaled slowly, his gaze flicking between Tony and Effy. This is really fucked
up, he thought wildly. And yet, he was not leaving. Not even thinking about
leaving.
He was thinking about Effy's mouth; the slight, cat-like smile that tended to
appear, unexpectedly, at her lips. He was thinking about her milky-pale throat,
how the skin swelled into small, perfect breasts. He was thinking about the way
her eyes reflected in Tony's—that identical gaze; fierce and formidable;
spelling out, you and me against the world.
"Get dressed," Tony told Effy.
"No," she said. She let her shirt slip to the floor, where it pooled, purple
and silky. She arched her back, nudging into Tony's personal space, but without
touching him.
Tony's lips moved for a moment, without forming sound. Maxxie thought he was
going to start shouting. Instead, he reached out and to touch her hip—it was
not the same forceful touch as earlier, but Tony still seemed tensed by a
desire to control. He drew her close and she fitted against his body perfectly.
Her breasts rose and fell in a single exhalation (a kind of, ha, I win) before
their lips met.
Maxxie watched them kiss with something like shock—a dim echo of surprise that
fused with a darker excitement. His thoughts splintered. This was—new?Yes, he
decided immediately. New like the pieces of herself Effy had clumsily scattered
across the room: glittery breadcrumbs to assert her presence. It was the reason
for the indescribable tension between them—their new, reckless desire for each
other; antagonism fuelled into new touches, new transgressions. He also had a
vague suspicion that it was, in part, theatre: it was play for his benefit.
"Effy?"
Maxxie was startled by the voice, a call from downstairs. It was Mrs. Stonem.
The world outside of Tony's bedroom was making itself known and Maxxie realized
he had half-forgotten it even existed. Tony and Effy parted, breathless,
although their hands still lingered on each others' bodies, light strokes of
fingertips against skin that seemed almost unconscious—compulsive.
"Sweetheart?"
Maxxie heard the creak of stairs. He stood up, so suddenly that he knocked over
his forgotten cup of "tea". Liquid leaked across the carpet. He pulled at his
trousers hastily. While he was quietly having a heart attack, Effy did not seem
the least bit panicked. She bent down to retrieve her shirt and dressed
quickly, but carefully. She wiped her mouth and spared a smile for Maxxie.
Effy crossed the room. A floorboard outside creaked and she opened the door at
the precise moment her mother stepped up to the other side of the threshold.
She closed the door behind her as she left the room. Maxxie could hear a flurry
words exchanged between mother and daughter, muted by the door. Then came the
sound of footsteps leading away.
Tony muttered, "Won't leave her alone for five fucking minutes anymore. Always
wanting to know what she's doing. Always checking up on us."
Maxxie didn't want to mention it, but he felt that maybe Tony's parents were
right to pay close attention to what their children got up to. He suddenly
wished that less of the whiskey was staining Tony's carpet and more of it was
entering his bloodstream.
"No offence, mate," said Maxxie, "but your sister's fucking crazy."
He honestly didn't mean it as a joke, but when Tony burst out laughing, he
found himself overcome by a fit of laughter, too. A little of the tension
seemed to dissipate. It was almost like they were friends again.
"You know," Tony said casually, as if this were a conversational topic he had
been mulling over, "you didn't let me fuck you. In Russia. So you don't get to
call me a crap shag. Until I fuck you."
"Oh, but Tony"—Maxxie did his best to imitate Tony's more-casual-than-thou
inflection—"you're assuming I'm a bottom."
Tony smiled. Maxxie recognized it as the smile of grudging respect that he gave
when someone unexpectedly impressed him. "Well, when you assume," Tony said in
a fond drawl, "you make an ass out of you and me."
Maxxie echoed his smile. He realized it was probably the closest Tony would
ever come to saying, please fuck me.
The door banged open and Maxxie started once again. Effy. She ducked inside and
slammed the door behind her. Maxxie realized he had been edging ever so slowly
towards Tony, as if desire were tingling through every part of him, making his
feet move of their own accord.
"What did you do without me?" Effy asked impishly.
"N-nothing." Maxxie's mouth seemed to spit the word out on automatic.
Effy rolled her eyes. "Boys are stupid," she repeated.
Without hesitation, Effy unbuttoned her shirt and flung it onto the floor. She
did a skip and a pirouette across the room, cutting a line between Maxxie and
Tony, and then sank onto the bed. She cast aside stripy socks and Maxxie
noticed that her toenails were purple, just like her fingernails. She shimmied
out of dark jeans, leaving them to fall on the carpet like a snake's shed skin.
Her underwear was green and she hooked her thumbs under the elastic and began
to drag them down, exposing the sharp bones of her hips. Then she stopped.
"Oh," she said, as it were an afterthought, "Mum wanted to know if you want to
go with her and Dad to the park. Apparently there's a group of people going
owl-watching. Should be fun." Her hands were still poised at her pelvis.
"They're leaving in five minutes. If you want to go."
"They're actually leaving us alone?" Tony asked slowly.
"I think they think that Maxxie's a good influence," she said. She shot him a
look of exaggerated lust that was still entirely too filthy. She lowered her
voice. "Personally," she murmured, "I think Maxxie's a very good influence.
Very good."
From downstairs, Maxxie heard the metallic clink of the front door opening,
followed by a bang as it slammed shut.
"Looks like we're parental-free," said Effy.
"Oh god," Maxxie said. He covered his face with his hands and let out a low
moan. The situation had definitely begun to overwhelm him.
Effy chose to laugh at his obvious discomfort. Maxxie just continued to moan.
After a moment, he felt a hand, warm and heavy at his shoulder. Tony yanked
lightly at the neck of his t-shirt. He nosed closer and whispered, entirely
without sympathy, "Alright?"
Maxxie took his hands away from his face. He took a deep breath and said, in
the most conversational tone he could muster, "Tony, mate, could you do me a
favour? Go downstairs and get that bottle of whiskey, please."
Effy's laughter became gleeful. When Maxxie looked in her direction, he
realized that her underwear had joined the pile of clothes on the floor. She
was now sprawled on the bed, naked and uninhibited. She seemed to pulse with
energy; intoxicating and impossible to resist. He recognized, finally, her
desire to be worshipped, to be a goddess—to be violated, to be misunderstood.
"Oh god," he said again. "I really need a drink."
"And then?" Effy asked eagerly.
"And then… I guess we'll see."
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