"Maybe not then," she laughed. Marrying a sibling would be weird. "So you'll be alone forever, then. Seems like a very ... unsatisfying life." Unsatisfying in that there would be no physical pleasure to be found. Not that one needed to be married for sex, obviously, but if he wasn't even looking then the chances of finding it were zero to none.

  

Kieran quirked an eyebrow at her. "I never claimed to be planning on celibacy," he said. He cleared his throat. "What's the sudden interest in my life plan, anyways?"

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"It's just on my mind, I guess." Fallon shrugged. She still didn't believe his excuse about the article, which would mean something else in his life plan was urgent. "If you're not celibate do you know anything about preventing children? Or are there a bunch of little Kieran Abernathy's out there?"

  

They were edging close to things that were dangerous to say, and Kieran took a sip of his drink before answering. "I don't have any abandoned children, Fallon," he said simply. People who cared about propriety didn't end up discussing their sex lives with their sisters, at least; a shame their parents had never bothered to try and teach them that.

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"Then how do you prevent them?" She pressed. Kieran had to realize why she was asking — not for his sake but her own.

  

"Oh," Kieran said flatly; he thought she was still being a shit, but she was actually asking him. "I know there's methods, but I don't have - details."

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set by MJ!

"But ... if you're not celibate and don't want a wife ... " Fallon was confused and unsure how to phrase her question without being so obvious about her relations with Jesse. "How do you know there aren't little Kierans everywhere?"

  

Kieran could bend the truth, identify the non-penetrative sex that people could have, but with their upbringing and the circles she ran in he was fairly sure she already knew. If she was asking him it was because she wanted to have penetrative sex - if she was not having penetrative sex already - and if they circled around it he would not help her.

And - well, this aspect of his identity was illegal too, and Kieran knew it well. But it felt less dangerous than the werewolf thing, less likely to blow up - people went to prison for it but they didn't ruin lives, and if Fallon did arrest him then he was confident in Eileen as a cover story, sure that she would come down and say that they were common-law married, that they had sex all the time and that he simply pulled out before the point of no return, and say it so believably that no one would convict.

So it was with all this knowledge, and looking carefully at her - he wanted to gauge a reaction, especially if things were going to come to blows - that Kieran said: "I don't sleep with women."

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set by MJ!

It took less than thirty seconds for Fallon to realize what Kieran meant by his statement. Not sleeping with women meant he slept with men, which was ... strange. (Having only just learned how sex worked a few months ago, she really wasn't sure how homosexual sex would work.) Her expression fell into one of genuine surprise as she struggled to rationalize what this meant.

Homosexuality was illegal, something she ought to report him for if she was truly an officer of the law. But, was he really harming anyone by doing so? It wasn't as though Kieran was attempting to fornicate with every man on the street. He just ... slept with men the way she slept with Jesse. (And Lachlan that one time.) That could be okay, right?

"Oh. Well, that explains why there aren't any bastards to be concerned with," was all she could think to say.

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   Cassius Lestrange

She looked more surprised than hostile, which was good; well, it was probably good. This was not something Kieran told women very often, although he suspected that some of the women around him could figure it out - and he'd told Eileen, when they were teenager, but Kieran and Eileen's codependence had removed much of the fear from the conversation. "Yeah," Kieran said, still looking at her, still holding that fight or flight instinct in place.

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set by MJ!

Kieran looked like he was about to bolt, which Fallon supposed was to be expected. He had revealed a highly personal, highly illegal thing to her — a law enforcement official and his beloved sister. Were the situation reversed Fallon would want to flee too.

Moving closer towards him, Fallon enveloped him in a tight hug. Hopefully, at least just this once, actions would speak louder than words.

  

Kieran settled into the hug, and some of the tension went out of him. He squeezed his sister.

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