The following afternoon was the source of one of Skye’s most brutal soccer practices she’d ever gone through with her team. There was some kind of bug going around at school, which had not only put their coach out of commission, but several of Skye’s teammates too. This resulted in not only having a substitute coach who seemed to get a kick out of making the girls miserable, but since there were less players at practice, the ones who were there got pushed even harder to make up for the loss. Mason’s seemingly juvenile bout of shunning his sister continued throughout Sunday night and Monday morning, which seemed to motivate the high schooler to play even harder, even though it wasn’t a real game. She was mad at him for how he was treating her, but then she’d remind herself that her fucking around with him in front of the waitress was what spawned his little temper, so then she’d get mad at herself. But it was easier to feel mad at him instead, so she’d switch back again, and so the cycle would continue. She wasn’t furious, but she was furiously annoyed. Peeved beyond measure. Frustrated and without anything to take out her energy on other than a soccer ball.

So by the time she finally came home, Skye was more tired than she’d felt in months, and obviously a good deal sweaty too. She harbored a brief sense of further bother when she stepped through the front door and saw that the TV was on, indicating Mason’s presence somewhere. I can’t wait til I can move out and live on my own, she thought, wishing she could strip completely naked and stand in front of the open freezer to let the chilly air wash over her. But with Mason around—or really, any of her family—she couldn’t cool down the way she really wanted to.

Prying off her shoes and stripping her socks, she wandered into the living room, her sweaty feet loudly pattering against the wooden floor as she took her shirt off and carelessly tossed it on the ground before crashing in the seat next to her brother. “Hey,” she said, not expecting him to respond, but watching whatever video game he was playing. She was so tired she didn’t even want to take a shower yet and have to keep standing for another ten minutes, so instead she sat slumped next to Mason while waiting for however long it took to naturally cool off in the sports bra and shorts she had on.

“Welcome home,” Mason responded in a neutral tone without taking his eyes away from the TV. But as soon as a cutscene started playing, he took the opportunity to scoot away from her, in a move that he hoped would seem subtle, but was easily noticeable by Skye.

She was hasty in assuming that he had moved away from her because he still harbored a grudge from yesterday, but she held her tongue on the matter. “Did you get a new game?” she asked instead. “I don’t recognize this.”

“Yeah, just a couple hours ago. It’s called Dreamcatcher.”

“Looks fun.”

“Well the trailer made it seem better than it is, I think. But it’s about this woman who gets transported to some kind of sleep world every time she goes to bed, and the world is influenced by the things she goes through during the day. I kinda expected there’d be more like, fighting and enemies and stuff. But the story’s pretty good.”

There was silence between them for several moments, until Skye couldn’t help but comment on his changed attitude. “So… you’re talking to me again? That’s nice.”

Mason had no idea what she meant, and was immediately confused. “Huh?”

“Do you not remember being mad at me yesterday? You decided you weren’t gonna talk to me for most of last night, and this morning. And I saw you try to scoot away from me when I first sat down.”

“Yeah, cuz you fucking smell,” he rolled his eyes. “How was that not the first thing you thought of?” He chuckled at how quick Skye was to assume. “But yeah, you’re right. I’m not mad at you anymore. Congrats.” 

Skye looked down at herself, noticing the sweat stains on her bra and the darker-than-usual color of her shorts. “Oh. Yeah. OK, that’s fair then.” She turned her head to faintly sniff under her armpit, a motion that made Mason nervous.

“If you try to ‘prank’ me again while you’re sweaty though, I swear…” he grumbled. “If me not talking to you annoyed you, I’ll shun you for at least a week if you make me go anywhere near your armpits.”

Skye laughed at his reaction, but she didn’t think she’d ever done anything that mean to her brother. “Don’t worry, I didn’t even think about it. Is Mom home yet? Or Mikayla?”

Mason’s focus had returned to his game, so his reply came sporadically. “Uhh… Mom’s not. Mikayla came home, for a little bit. She left though. I think. I don’t know where.” He paused for a beat, then added, “She left a brownie for you though, on the table.”

“Oooh,” Skye said, sitting up straight to glance into the kitchen.

“I think it’s an edible.”

“Oooooooh!” Now his sister was really interested, and she got up to head into the kitchen. Mason glanced at her ass as she passed in front of the TV, wishing she wasn’t so sweaty so he could appreciate it more.

“Mmmmmm,” Skye hummed, floating a circle around the kitchen table before picking up her sister’s gift from the paper plate in the center. As she held it up to admire how good it looked, Mason paused his game and turned to watch her, holding back a smile on his face. Skye didn’t even bother asking how strong the weed was, and opened her mouth to stick the entire square in with a single bite. It wasn’t a particularly big brownie either, so she only bothered chewing it a few times to break it up before swallowing it all down. From the moment she put it in her mouth to the moment she gulped it down had been barely two seconds.

“Oh my God, shit,” Mason laughed, scratching his forehead nervously. “I didn’t think you’d actually swallow it, I figured you would’ve chewed it for a little bit first. I didn’t realize it’d be so small compared to you.”

She turned to him with a confused look on her face, “What do you—” And then it hit her, a burning sensation on her tongue that increased in severity with every passing second. She started coughing, and a panicked look hit her face as she leaned over the table, tightly gripping the sides. “My throat’s burning,” she said. “Oh…” She stopped herself as she realized that talking only made it worse, as Mason jumped up in excitement.

“Hell yeah it is!” he exclaimed, grinning with a proud look on his face. “That’s for embarrassing me in front of Annabelle last night. Now we’re even.” As soon as Skye had left that morning, Mason used his mom’s Amazon account to order some ghost pepper sauce with same-day delivery. While Skye was busy running around at practice, Mason had been using a shovel to stir together ingredients to make a nefariously flavored brownie. It had only finished baking half an hour before she’d gotten home.

Now, Skye’s eyes were reddening and tearing up as the burning began to feel like little knives stabbing all around her mouth, and she whimpered as she rushed over to the fridge to grab a carton of milk. She didn’t even bother grabbing a cup and opted to just chug the whole-fat drink straight from the container, swishing it around before spitting it out in the sink.

Mason’s laughter became more uneasy as he saw how badly Skye reacted to the material, knowing he might actually be risking payback for his payback. But his laughing stopped outright the second he saw his sister projectile vomit into the sink. He had never seen someone throw up so violently before. “Oh… shit,” he muttered, realizing he put too much of the pepper in.

“What the hell, Mason!?” the giant teenager screamed in between sessions of puking and carton-chugging, crying as she tried to neutralize the pain with the milk. Her body was convulsing, and her ass was quickly clenching and unclenching itself, a sight that her hopelessly horny brother did not miss. She rushed to grab some ice cubes from the freezer to stuff in her mouth, hoping that the cold might counteract the violent amounts of heat she was feeling on her tongue and gums, but then another round of vomiting came out before she could make it back to the sink. 

Mason stood completely still, frozen but watching for the next 15 minutes as Skye emptied out her stomach’s contents into their kitchen sink. Eventually she wasn’t even really throwing up anymore, just dry heaving, but even if there was nothing less to sacrifice, it clearly made no difference to her digestive system.

Once she was able to go a full minute without any more heaving, she turned around, and her eyes finally locked ahold of her brother’s. The milk carton was empty, and they were out of ice, but her throat still burned. She ignored the drool dropping from her lips, and her hung head low as she panted in disbelief that her brother could enact such cruel retribution.

“You’re… dead…” she whispered, shaking her head and sighing with exhaustion. “I want to stomp on you so hard that your body explodes like a grape,” she said, closing her eyes as she pictured the image in her head. “Or grab onto your head and your feet and pull you apart into two pieces. And then eat you. I’ll just eat you and then never see you again.”

She opened her eyes again, and Mason was still frozen in place, but now with a paled expression as he tried to gauge how serious she was. She took another moment to catch her breath and muster up her energy, the two of them staring at each other with polar opposite feelings, until Skye was finally ready. And then she pounced.

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Sorry for the long delay, but I just updated this story for subscribers a few days ago for the first time since last summer, so I figured that it's probably a good time to also update it here too. I haven't quit, but I did get an internship and had some mental health stuff so my output slowed for a while. Hopefully I'll be back now!

If you wanna read ahead, the next 8 chapters (Chapters 23 to 30) are available on my DeviantArt at deviantart.com/jessajess99

Thanks for reading!