Tongue Tied

As always this takes place in Easton which is a fictional place in the UK. Please do not reproduce this story in any form without my written consent for profit or otherwise. As a side note I personally don't consider Step-siblings legitimate incest however it is certainly taboo to some extent and I doubt people would approve if this was posted as anything other than incest. Hence the category choice. Anyway enjoy!.

--

Are you kidding me? This is the worst moment of my goddamn life.

Not a great start in my opinion, but that was probably the beginning of everything so I figured it should go first, as for the rest well... lemme explain. My name is Camillo Drake (Cam to most) I'm nineteen and I'm part Italian on my mother's side, hence my first name, which I got from my mum's granddad. Drake comes from my dad Richard who is probably the most British person alive. I'm an inch or so over six foot and slim but not particularly muscular, I tan easily so my skin is usually fairly dark and my hair is naturally light brown and usually short, although I dye it black and let it grow out a bit every once in a while. So a kinda mixed appearance to go with my mixed heritage.

My mother died in a car crash when I was just five, it was the two of us in the back and my father in the front, Dad came out pretty worse for wear but alive and I survived thanks to her, she managed to shield me from harm even at the cost of her own life. From what I've been told that was pretty typical of her, she was a selfless person, she also had red hair and that's where the worst moment of my life begins. You see I have a mental disability, I don't know if it's because of her death, or some other factor but it seems pretty likely it's related to my mother, I cannot deal with people with red hair and I mean cannot. If I even see a person with red hair my thought processes start to get messed up, if I have to interact with them then you can forget it, my brain just shuts down completely. No words. No movement. Usually panic. Sometimes absolutely nothing. I can deal with strawberry blondes though and that nasty rusty orange colour some girls have been dying their hair lately too, but natural pure red? The kind that looks like a waterfall of fire? Game over, please reset my brain. I had to actually change classes several times in highschool and college because of this problem.

Pretty bad right? You should have seen our household when my older brother Rio (named by my dad with only minor influence from my mom) dyed his hair red for a joke. Four days of broken plates and stunted conversation, my dad nearly went insane, finally he snapped and shaved Rio in the middle of the night. Normality was restored, but Rio's been holding a grudge ever since and I'm sure he's just waiting for a chance to shave dad in revenge.

Right. Worst moment of my life, well that's enough background so lemme skip forward to a few weeks ago when my dad and his girlfriend of the last few months Casey declare they're going to get married and Casey is going to move in with us, bringing her twenty year old daughter with her. Now most people would be bent out of shape by this announcement but I was just glad to see dad was getting over mum, Casey had been his first girlfriend in... well definitely the first I could remember and I was just thrilled he was leaving the house again. So I decided to weather the storm as best I could, gotta look out for your folks right?

Skip forward to today, I'm meeting my new step sister for the first time at the wedding rehearsal, Casey and dad have been looking nervous as hell all day and I, being the naïve fool I was, thought it was because they were excited about the wedding. Now I'm stood next to dad, who looks nervous as hell, across from Casey, who also looks nervous as hell, Rio to my left, looking like he's gonna laugh his ass off, and my new step sister in front of me.

She was a goddamn red head. Not just a red head but a pure, crimson silk, waterfall of fire, shimmering orange style red head, twin bangs framing her face and a long ponytail that ran down to just below her shoulder blades. Not only was she a red head but she was pretty damn hot as well, she was roughly around six foot, maybe five nine, typical fair complexion of a red head, beautiful blood red lips, a dark smirk and an ample d cup bosom. She looked like a metal head or a goth, black tanktop, black cargo pants, leather jacket and three large skull piercings in her left ear. Drop dead gorgeous, at least in my opinion.

Simultaneously I was hit by my gorgeous girl, red head, and meeting someone important for the first time panics, the realisation that I was going to have to live with her hit me soon after, things weren't going well. I had frozen, for a while now at least, and I don't really remember much after that. I'm told I didn't make a single sound, turned and walked straight to the coat room, I shut the door behind me, there was a thud and nobody saw me again for a while. I remember coming to my senses in the coat room so I can only assume that was the truth.

--

I was at the wedding, well that wasn't strictly true, I was hiding in my suit in one of the back room of the church. I was so far away from where the actual wedding had taken place that I'm not entirely sure I could confidently say I was actually at the wedding. I hadn't seen any signs of my new step sister yet, but that might have something to do with the fact that I hadn't seen anyone yet, with the exception of Rio who'd given me a lift here.

I was sat in the middle of the floor of an abandoned room drawing furiously, I'd brought one of my sketch pads with me, drawing was one of my favourite things to do when I was stressed like this. Too bad my style was so anime, it didn't win me any art prizes that's for sure. I was in the middle of depicting an epic battle between two effeminate dudes with giant intricate swords and musing on how anime was very subconsciously gay when a hand grabbed me from behind and covered my eyes.

"Hey guess who."

"Um..." I didn't recognise the voice, not even a little which was odd.

"Oh right you never actually heard my voice did you? Well I'm gonna be your sister and housemate in about an hour so I figured we should meet at some point."

"Ahh." My response was stunted, my brain was already shutting down just from remembering what she looked like.

"Oh don't worry about my hair, look." She took her hands away from my eyes.

I caught sight of her, and felt my brain happily kick back into gear. Her hair was happily scrunched up and contained under a large black beanie, I let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey I'm Cam."

A smirk floated on her lips for a second. "Awesome. For a while I was worried you were dumb or mute, or both, this'll make things much easier."

"Nice to meet you too, you always this nice to people you've never met before?" I replied returning her smirk.

"Ooh. I have met you before though haven't I? But you decided to go hide in the cloakroom instead of saying hello."

I blushed. Her smirk grew. "So what's your name?" I asked trying to hide my embarrassment.

"Tabitha. Taby for short. So how bad is it? Does it have to be a whole head of hair or is just a little bit enough?"

"Don't!" I yelled as she began to pull her hat back off her hair. "Just, don't."

"Ouch" she said sitting down next to me. "That bad huh?"

"How about we talk about something else?" I asked.

She glanced over at my sketch pad. "So you into that kinda stuff then?"

"Anime?"

"No men." She replied grinning and sticking her tongue out.

I laughed. "I'm not really into either, I had a friend back in highschool called May who was seriously into the whole anime scene. So when I was learning to draw she leant me some books she had and my style hasn't really changed all that much since. You?"

"Nah, never really had much interest." She blinked and chuckled. "In anime that is, I have plenty of interest in men."

I grinned and cocked an eyebrow at her suggestively. Tabitha laughed in response and stuck her tongue out again. "Oi you, don't make me take off the hat."

I laughed and we chatted for a bit longer until one of my new relatives came to find the two of us, seems it was time for us to get down to the actual wedding part of the afternoon. Since I was dad's best man and Tabitha was a bridesmaid I figured we should probably listen to the poor guy who had been sent to find us and told Tabitha as much.

She shrugged in response but got up to follow me as I left. Leaving me in the awkward position of having to either ask her to wait until I'd left or tell her to go on ahead of me, either way we couldn't leave at the same time. Otherwise she wouldn't be able to take of her hat. As I hung about awkwardly by the door Tabitha grabbed me by the arm and led me on.

"Don't worry about the hat" she told me as we made our way to the wedding. "I'm not gonna take it off."

"You've got to be kidding. We're at a wedding, you're a bridesmaid." I said in disbelief.

Tabitha giggled. "You just know it's going to be dull as all hell, maybe this'll make things a bit more interesting."

--

"I can't believe you did that!" Casey yelled, tears of laughter rolling down the faces of my brother and father, every once in a while Casey would glare angrily at dad and he would try desperately to stop laughing, only to continue again when she looked away.

Tabitha and I were stood in the graveyard of the church being lectured by Casey, Tabitha had done one better than just wearing the beanie, she had also put one of her leather jackets on over her dress. The look on our elderly relative's faces when she came down the aisle was priceless, dad had managed to keep himself under control during the service, me and Rio? Not so much.

"And Cam! What were you thinking? Why didn't you stop her?"

I desperately tried to keep a straight face, I had to answer her question seriously, I'd managed it so far and all I had to do was come up with so kind of response. Anything. Aww who was I kidding? I burst into a fit of laughter, seeing me lose it Tabitha lost it as well and the two off us just laughed and laughed until there were tears dripping off our faces and we could barely breathe.

Casey scowled at the two of us. "Well I'm glad you two are getting along so well, too bad you had to ruin my wedding to do it!" She stormed off in a huff, leaving Tabitha and I to try and get ourselves together.

"Alright you two, me and Rio are gonna go talk to Casey, you should go on ahead to the reception. Go on make yourselves scarce." Dad tossed me the keys to Rio's car, I could see he was trying to act serious and hold back his laughter, but every once in a while a chuckle would escape.

We took off, the roads were icy as hell which was fairly typical for the area and the season, we'd had snow a few days back and the church was in a pretty backend area so they didn't bother to grit much. The car skidded a few time to say the least but I managed to keep everything under control and it wasn't so hard that I couldn't continue chatting casually to Tabitha in the passenger seat.

What happened next was a hundred percent not my fault, it was a sharp turn and I took it fairly slowly to be careful, the other guy however was an asshole. A blue corsa suddenly comes screeching around the corner at an insane speed and immediately skidded over to the wrong side of the road as a result, I swerved desperately but had no chance of getting away. He crashed into my front right light and sent me spinning off the road, it's just a small country road so there was no barrier, we go flying off the road and into the foliage around us, we hit several more obstacles soon after, I couldn't see what the hell was going on but I was doing my best to get the car back under control. Then things went from bad to worse.

The car was still rolling about, we hit something pretty hard and Tabitha's beanie came off, that was not good. Oh god, I could see mum, suddenly I was in the back seat, mum was shouting my name, I was yelling. I was back in the driver's seat, flailing wildly trying to control the car, were we even still moving? I couldn't even tell, I was in the back seat again, someone was pressing me down against the seat, the car was shaking, everything was starting to slip away. I could hear someone yelling my name but I didn't know who any more, I blacked out.

--

Ugh. My head was a jumbled mess, where the hell was I? I groaned, I had the headache of the century, huh? I could feel something soft against my cheek and I felt warm, was I wrapped in something? There was a voice.

"Cam?"

I came round, hearing Tabitha's voice brought everything back. "Fuck I hope you got that assholes licence plate, I'm gonna murder that dickhead."

"Oh thank god." Tabitha said.

It took me a moment to realise where I was, we were in the back seat of the car, the front was pretty smashed up. I looked up and saw Tabitha's face, she'd put the beanie back on much to my relief, I looked down and caught sight of something else. It was then that I realised I was lying on the seats, Tabitha underneath me, with my head pressed up against her breasts. I went bright red and snapped into a sitting position.

"Christ sorry." Jesus she had one hell of a rack on her, the thought that I'd been pressed up against those puppies the whole time and couldn't even remember it killed me.

Tabitha smirked. "What you think you got yourself into that position? It's fine." Then her face went deathly serious and she pulled me into a proper hug.

"I'm just glad you're ok, you had me really scared for a bit there Cam. What happened? Did you get hit in the head? Do I need to call an ambulance?"

"I..." I stopped, I didn't want to talk about what happened in there, I'd never had a flashback to the accident before and it wasn't something I wanted to dwell on. But I'd nearly killed us both back there, the least I owed her was an explanation.

"How long was I out for?" I asked.

"Five, maybe ten minutes most. Cam..."

"I'll get to it in a sec, did you call anyone?"

"Yeah, your brother said he'd be here in about twenty minutes. He's called an ambulance too just in case but I don't know how long that'll be, probably a while since the roads have only gotten worse." She motioned out the window and I saw it was now snowing, wonderful.

I took a deep breath, time to spill the beans. "My mum died when I was five, in a car crash, she was in the back seat with me and she saved my life. The thing is, mum used to have red hair like yours, so when your beanie came off like that things started to blur together. I-I couldn't tell what was really happening anymore, I started seeing mum and remembering things about the accident, it shut me down and... fuck... I sound so pathetic, I'm so sorry because I almost got us both killed and..."

I felt Tabitha's arms wrap around me and trailed off, I hadn't even noticed but I'd started crying and as she hugged me the sobbing became worse. I don't know if it was how cold it was in the car, but at that moment her hug felt amazingly warm.

"Thanks" I said as she rested her chin on my shoulder.

"It's okay." She said reassuringly. She dropped one hand down for a moment and grabbed one of mine, gently massaging my palm with her thumb as she hugged me. It was a tiny gesture but it felt reassuring.

--

The next day I came back from work exhausted, it had been a crappy day and I was glad I hadn't been hungover, that being said I hadn't been planning on drinking at the reception anyway so I regretted not going a little. However after all the hassle with the paramedics and explaining what had happened to Dad and Casey neither Taby or I had really felt like any kind of party so we'd made our excuses and headed back to my (now our) place so I could help her get situated.

I came in and wandered into the kitchen, pouring myself a drink before heading into the lounge. I froze in the doorway, Taby was sat on the couch with her hair down and another girl sat next to her, the two of them were inspecting something on Taby's phone and didn't see me come in. She noticed me shortly after I froze however and quickly grabbed her beanie from the table next to her. Not before I'd dropped my drink however, thankfully the glass hadn't broken but there was still orange juice all over the carpet now.

"Ah sorry Cam I didn't know you were here."

"It's fine" I muttered going into the kitchen to grab a cloth. As I rooted around in the cupboards I heard Taby and her friend talking in a whisper.

"Is that the one you were talking about? The one who's autistic around readheads?"

"Debbie!" I heard Taby shriek a little louder than a whisper. "I never said he was autistic, he just has an issue with red hair."

"Whatever, looks pretty autistic to me."

I scowled, I'd known this girl for less than a minute and I already disliked her. Finding a cloth I did my best to clean up the stain on the carpet before heading for the stairs. "Hey Cam do you wanna hang out with us for a bit?" Taby asked.

"No thanks." I replied feeling vindictive. "Wouldn't want my autism to bother the two of you." Taby looked immediately guilty and the girl went bright red in response. I smirked viciously and headed upstairs.

I sketched a few random pictures and trashed them all before deciding to try sketching Taby, I'd sketched most of the people I know a few times at least and since I couldn't think of anything else to draw I figured it would kill some time. After a few false starts I started to get into the swing of it, despite having only seen it briefly a few times Taby's hair was probably the easiest part. The first time we'd met her fiery locks had been ingrained in my memory, her features were distinct and she came out with a very fierce look by the time I was done drawing her face. Next I started on her neck and shoulders.

"Wow that's amazing." I jerked with surprise at Taby's voice and my pencil gashed across the paper, leaving a huge tear in the middle of the sketch.

"Oh dammit! Sorry..."

I looked up and saw Taby stood in the doorway looking sheepish, I sighed. "It's fine" I told her. "I can always just draw another one."

"Then let me model for you." She said inviting herself in. "It's the least I can do."

"Whatever." I replied. "Shut the door and stand still for a bit."

There was a long silence as I pulled out a fresh piece of paper and began to study her, I'd had friends and the like offer to be models before but they'd always given up midway through, they all said that the way I looked at them was 'too intense'. I had several pieces of paper out in front of me as I made some experimental sketches, jotting down parts of her features wherever there was space as I mentally explored her appearance. Her breasts especially were unusual for someone with her bust in that there was no trace of them sagging underneath her bra, I sketched down several attempts at her torso before I decided on one that looked right, I was just about to begin the main drawing when she broke the silence.

"So do you need me any longer or..."

I laughed. "I know I'm probably making you feel uncomfortable, all my models say the same thing. I've got enough sketches now so I can go from memory like I was before, don't worry."

I went back to drawing and she remained standing in the middle of my room, only now I wasn't looking up at her. A few minutes passed before I stopped drawing and my eyes flicked up to meet hers.

"Did you need something? I'm not used to having an audience."

Taby sighed. "Dammit you're making me feel like a royal asshole here Cam, look I'm sorry about what Debbie said before."

I shrugged. "It's fine. She was right anyway, I might as well be autistic, at least then I'd have an excuse."

"Cam..." Taby was looking at me curiously, I'll admit I was more than a little shocked with myself. I hadn't meant to sound that pathetic.