Quarantine in Neverland Ch. 01

Author's Note- This is the first part in a longer series involving an 18 year old sister and her 20 year old brother home alone from college and forced to shelter in place together. This first chapter is mainly setting the story/characters up for the more intense action to follow. I hope you enjoy it and the chapters to follow. Please leave a comment, vote if you like it and feel free to reach out to message me if you enjoy the story.

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When the quarantine hit, their mom and dad were on a private island resort in the Virgin Islands. Brad had just spent a week in Florida with his buddies for Spring Break, but when he got back to campus, he was told he had until noon Monday to take whatever he needed from the dorms because they were closing down campus.

Brad just gotten started on the three hour drive home when his eighteen year old sister called him, freaking out that her college was closing down too and in a panic that they had cancelled train service out to her remote college town until the quarantine was lifted. Brad pulled off the interstate and crossed the bridge over the six lanes of traffic so that he could turn around and get back on headed back north.

Melissa's college was a small, liberal arts school in the mountains upstate. Brad always teased her that if you wanted to major in conservation, pot smoking or lesbian studies it was a great school, but otherwise it was a total waste. There was nothing else up in that part of the state but summer cabins, fish camps and hunting lodges so it didn't shock him that they discontinued train service. Most of the kids were gone for Spring Break and with hundreds of public transit workers calling in sick, they wouldn't waste the manpower to keep that line running.

Melissa should have been home, or off on Spring Break herself, but she had volunteered to stay behind and do an observational data study for a family of beavers that the school was trying to reintroduce to a local river. She was one of only a handful of students and faculty left behind when they announced that they were closing the nearly deserted campus for the rest of the semester.

It meant driving another 90 minutes back the way Brad had come, but it wasn't like he could leave her there. Brad called her cell phone once he pulled up outside the dining commons where she had asked him to pick her up. She came to the door and waved to him for help. It was cold, grey and there was still patchy snow on the brown grass alongside the walkway. Brad hunched down into his coat and leaned into the wind as he trudged up to the door and into the warm steamy air of the dining commons. There were a couple dozen people sitting around at the dining tables drinking coffee and snacking on what the food they still had to serve as everyone waited for their rides to arrive.

"Thanks Brad," Melissa was sliding an overstuffed duffel bag across the tile floor toward him from a pile of suitcases and tote boxes piled up against one wall to the right of the door. "If you could take this one I'll start bringing the suitcases."

Brad hefted the duffel over a shoulder and walked it out to his SUV. He still had plenty of room in the cargo area, but folded down the back seats to make even more space. Melissa rolled up with two suitcase that Brad loaded in and they went back to get the rest of her stuff. With a couple more trips, they had the rest of it loaded and were back on the road.

"I can't believe they just kicked us out like that!" Melissa fumed as she stared out at the rolling hills and bare trees along our route.

"Hey, think of it as an extended Spring Break," Brad shrugged. "Everybody is closing down."

"Well maybe some of us are actually more interested in doing something more challenging than going on Spring Break during college." She huffed.

"Listen, Pre-Law isn't like the hemp woven textiles studies you guys take up here, Melissa." Brad was getting irritated, which was nothing new between them. "It's actually a lot of work, a lot of pressure and once you're in third year like I am it's brutally competitive if you plan to get into one of the big law schools. Winters suck up here and if you don't get away for a while to decompress, you will go bat-crap crazy and lose your shit at some point. I've seen it happen. So give the frat-boy thing a rest because as a freshman at that hippie hideaway you have no idea what it's really like, okay?"

Melissa looked over and was about to say something, but she could tell Brad was fully ready to get into it and she knew he was more than capable of giving as good as he got when it came to arguing. Instead, she started pulling off her hat and heavy coat now that she was warmed up in the car. She had to unbuckle her seat belt to get out of her coat. The back of the SUV was now fully stacked with both of their stuff so there wasn't a back seat to toss her coat onto. She turned around in the seat and leaned into the gap between the two front seats to stuff her jacket and then her backpack into whatever gap she could find between the boxes and bags. Her hip and side pressed into his shoulder and she ended up bumping his head with her elbow as she wrestled with her bag.

"Owww?" Brad complained half-heartedly, more out of annoyance than injury. "Trying to drive here, thanks." He navigated the long arcing bend around the hillside and her weight shifted over onto his side, her thigh and rounded hip in denim felt firm and comfortable as her weight rolled against him. Her stretching arms revealed a couple inches of warm pink skin between her belt and the bottom of her sweater and Brad couldn't help notice how good she smelled. A little like soap and citrus, maybe even cucumber.

Her gear settled, Melissa slid back into her seat and reached for her seat belt. Brad looked over and joked, "Looks like somebody didn't dodge the freshman fifteen!" He could feel her glare as he saw her head turn in the corner of my eye. "Relax," Brad said. "You were one of the few who could actually use it." And the truth was she could. Melissa had always been small and skinny. Even if she hadn't been two years younger, she couldn't have avoided the nickname "runt" as she had topped out about 5'5" and couldn't weigh more than 110 lbs with both her pockets filled with change when she went away to college. In a mildly uncomfortable way, Brad had noticed that the seatbelt had nestled into a respectable pair of C sized breasts underneath her soft, cream colored sweater and though her jeans now fit more snugly than they had in the fall, her thighs looked pleasantly firm beneath the stretched denim.

"Well I didn't earn a lacrosse scholarship to a power five school like some people," she sniffed sarcastically."But you'd be amazed what level of exercise you can get doing wildlife studies in the field around here." They wound our way through the small town at the base of the hills and Brad looked for the on ramp to the highway. "I didn't get fat. I got stronger, actually."

"Okay, okay. Truce." Brad chuckled. "It's going to be a long drive."

Nearly six hours later, it was the dead of night when they pulled into the garage at our parent's home in the gated suburban community where they had grown up. They were too tired to do all of the unloading, but took a few bags each and went up to their rooms.

It was after 9:00 when Brad woke the next morning and he was pretty sure he was the first one up. Melissa was famous for sleeping late and Brad didn't hear any sounds from her room as he took a leak in our shared bathroom. He made his way downstairs to the kitchen and trudged sleepily across the tile in his bare feet toward the coffee machine on the counter. He pulled down the coffee and filters from the cupboard and added water to the reservoir before turning on the machine to begin brewing. He stood sleepily watching it begin to gurgle and drip as he yawned and enjoyed a leisurely scratch of his balls by reaching down to into his flannel pajama bottoms without the restriction of underwear to impede his access.

"Please tell me you're going to wash that hand, before..." Brad jumped in surprise, turning to find his sister staring at him from the breakfast nook. "...you eat anything." She took a sip from her juice, her brown eyes sparkling with satisfaction as she savored his embarrassment.

"What the fuck?" Brad protested. "Can't you say good morning like a normal person when somebody walks in the room?" He ran his hands through his wavy blond hair to release some adrenaline. "Plus, when do you ever get up before noon, anyway?"

"Since I got chosen to work in the lab and help with the re-introduction project this semester, dumb ass." She rolled her brown eyes. "And could you put a shirt on? I know you think you look like Thor without it, but it's still the middle of winter and there's nobody here who cares how much time you spent on your tan over break."

She sipped her juice again and Brad couldn't help notice how much prettier she had gotten. Her cheeks had filled in even in the few months since he'd seen her at Christmas, giving her face a healthy, natural look that was a great improvement over the thinner, mildly goth look that he always attached to her in his memory. She peered out over the rim of her glass, watching his reaction and Brad realized she had cut her hair into something like a bob. It gave her a vaguely French air with the bangs accentuating her eyebrows and the long lashes of her deep brown eyes.

Brad tilted his head to the side as he realized that his geeky little sister was actually cute for the first time in her life. She lowered the glass of juice and her full pink lips formed a confused pout as she waited for him to look away. Her eyes dropped and Brad saw color fill into her cheeks as she asked "What?" in an embarrassed voice.

"Huh?" He stammered as he realized that he had been staring.

"What are you looking at?" She looked at him sideways.

Brad pulled himself together. "A runt drinking juice," he quipped like old times. He turned back around to pull down a mug and pour some coffee from the half-filled pot. He swung over to the refrigerator to find it mostly empty except for bottled water, juice and condiments. He rummaged around and found some cheese in the dairy drawer and matched that up with some crackers from the cupboard to eat until they could run to the market. Brad turned to walk toward the breakfast table.

Melissa squirmed out of her seat as he approached. "Thanks for washing that hand before touching everything in the fridge by the way."

Brad grunted as he sat down and stuffed the block of cheese in his mouth to open the crackers. Still, he couldn't help notice how cute her butt looked beneath her pajama bottoms as she stomped out of the room and started climbing the stairs.

"OMG," she thought. "Did I really say he looked like Thor out loud?" Melissa could barely contain her embarrassment as she climbed the steps back to her room. Once behind the safety of her closed door she felt the full flush of her embarrassment wash over her face as she replayed what had just happened.

The truth was he did look like Thor with his shirt off, which made it all the more annoying that he walked around like owned the world. At 6'4" and over 225 lbs Brad could have been a football player, which would have been bearable if he was also dumb. But he wasn't. Melissa had spent her entire life in the shadow of her older brother who seemed perpetually tanned and handsome in that blond hair, blue eyed careless way that made him look like he wasn't even trying. Which he probably wasn't, Melissa admitted to herself, as she rolled her eyes.

It was hard enough being small, skinny and plain growing up next to tall, tan and handsome, but if there was any justice, she should have been the smart one to balance things out. As it was, Melissa had to listen to every one of Brad's teachers sing his praises when they met her and listen to all her girlfriends fantasize about what it must be like to live under the same roof as him.

The truth was Melissa was smart, but never seemed to get the attention and credit for it that everyone lavished on Brad. Like he got extra credit just for not being the dumb, handsome jock he looked like. Instead, she just felt completely inadequate every time she was around Brad and if she was being honest, she would probably hate him a lot less if he was actually half the jerk she made him out to be in her mind. Instead, he just ignored her except for the occasional runt joke and left her behind as he always seemed to be heading off somewhere with the popular kids. He made her feel invisible.

Just like sitting at the kitchen table when he walked in the kitchen. She was about to say something, but watching his tall muscular figure stride across the tile, she found her breath caught in her throat and was afraid to speak thinking her voice might crack. It was only the nervous humor of seeing him scratching himself that had broken the spell. As it was, she felt proud of herself for making him jump with surprise and embarrassment. It was long past time for him to see what being awkward felt like.

With that memory cheering her up, she rolled off the bed and went in the bathroom to run the water in the shower. She automatically checked to ensure that the door to Brad's room was locked from the inside before stripping off her pajamas and panties and dropping them in her hamper.

She stood looking in the mirror as she waited for the water to start steaming in the shower, proud of the strong curves of her thighs and the shapely butt that had formed over the months of daily climbing in the hills around campus. Even her tits had finally come in as her appetite had improved and now made a nice shapely balance to her smooth hips and thighs.

Secretly Melissa had been waiting for spring to start later in the semester so that she would finally have a chance to show a little more of how she had filled out over the long north-country winter. She hadn't gotten much attention from the boys at college during the fall and now she wondered if anybody was ever going to see her filled out before school opened up again. She took one more pleased look over her shoulder at the shapely bubble of her smooth pink butt and got into the shower.

By the time Brad had finished coffee and headed back up to his room, Melissa had finished her shower and was rummaging through her closet looking for something to wear. Most of the clothes in her bags needed to be washed and the ones that didn't probably smelled like they did after spending the night crammed in with the others.

Brad went to use the bathroom and found it was still locked. He knocked loudly and called out to Melissa, who was notorious for forgetting to unlock his side when she was done in the bathroom. Melissa reflexively jumped and flushed with embarrassment for having forgotten, again and ran quickly to unlock his door from the inside.

"Sorry", she called out as she scooted through the door to her room. Brad got a brief glimpse of her wrapped in a towel as the door closed behind her.

Brad turned on the water in the shower out of habit as he stripped down and sat on the toilet to go to the bathroom. Even though there was a nice steamy warmth to the room, he was used to the shower taking a while to warm up. He was reminded of the smell Melissa had as she had leaned against him in the car as it now perfumed the air of the bathroom. It wasn't overly sweet and flowery, it smelled healthy, fresh and natural. Like plants that grew beside a stream instead of the cloying smell of a bouquet. He shrugged to acknowledge that he kind of liked it.

Melissa took longer than she planned picking out an outfit. Most of the clothes she'd left behind she left for a reason. None of them felt very flattering. The couple of tops she tried on looked way too tight compared to how she remembered them and had an embarrassing amount of cleavage now showing over the neckline as her bigger boobs were being held together and pushed upward. Realizing they all looked pretty much the same, she opted to throw a soft flannel shirt over the top of one of them and put on some sweatpants that she had previously saved for those times when she had felt puffy and bloated when she was in high school.

Making piles of her clothes from her bags, she walked the first load of laundry down to the room off the pantry where the washer and dryer were located. After getting it started she made a few more trips to bring the next couple of loads down where she could begin transferring them once the first load was clean. Once she had her assembly line set up to her satisfaction she padded out through the kitchen to the sound of the TV coming from the family room.

She walked in to find Brad sprawled on the couch flipping through channels in that annoying way he had since he was a kid. He looked over as she walked in and plopped on one of the overstuffed chairs.

"Well that explains it," Brad turned his attention to the TV as channels flipped by.

"Explains what?" Melissa sighed. "You know if you push the guide button it will show you what's on for like five channels at a time, right?"

"You're wearing your period pants." Brad said with a smirk. "If I knew you were PMS'ing yesterday I wouldn't have given you such a hard time."

Melissa fought the urge to blush. "I'm not on my period, idiot. I just don't have any clean laundry." She fumed for a moment. "Thanks for dressing up by the way. Do you own anything but sweats?"

Brad looked down at his warm up suit with approval and shrugged. "I'm not going anywhere. News says were supposed to 'shelter in place' and my place is going to be right here for the duration". He rolled languidly over onto his back without ever interrupting his steady advance through the channels on the massive flat screen.

"At some point we're going to need food, Brad." Melissa clicked through her phone. "It looks like the market is still open. I'm doing laundry right now, but I can go with you when I'm done."

Brad looked over. "Like that?!?"

"No doofus, that's why I'm doing laundry, so I can change before we go."

"Make you a deal," Brad suggested. "I'll go to the store if you let me throw my clothes in with yours."

"I've got a couple more loads by myself, Brad."

"Which is why I don't want to wait around for hours before we go. I've only got like half a load of darks and half a load of whites. If you throw them in with yours we'll both be done and have food in the fridge in the time it will take you to do the rest of your laundry."

Melissa couldn't find a good reason to object so she took Brad's basket full of laundry as he headed out to get food. She was expecting his stuff to be gross and sticky and was pleasantly surprised to find it didn't smell any worse than her laundry as she separated and started loading the next group of darks into the washer.

Brad still hadn't gotten back by the time she had to switch again, but he came in with at least six bags in each hand as she was folding the first load to come out of the dryer. "Is there more in the car?" she called out.

"No, I got it all in one trip," Brad called back. She finished folding the last pair of pants and wandered out into the kitchen. Brad had already loaded most of the cold food into the freezer and fridge and was sorting a mixture of canned goods, cereals and snacks into the cupboards.

Melissa wandered over to one of the bags still full on the counter and began pulling out oreos, microwave popcorn and the orange flavored individually wrapped cupcakes she had loved growing up. It dawned on her that Brad had gotten all of her favorite junk food. She looked over in the next cupboard and saw two big bags of her favorite kinds of chips. Brad was always the healthier eater of the two of them as he played sports year-round and she couldn't help but be a little cheered up by the idea that he had remembered everything she liked and went out of his way to get them for her. She looked over at him as he was cleaning up the empty bags from the counter.