WARNINGS: Omg, so many warnings. Seriously, guys. I thought Castles was bad (for me, at any rate), but this is way worse. We've got: explicit sex (featuring finger-fucking, multiple orgasms, forced orgasms, overstimulation, and extremely dubious consent if not actual non-con), guilt, jealousy, and basically just a whole lot of unhealthy relationshipping in general. Shit's pretty dark.

In other news, oh hey, FFN keeps stripping out the initial apostrophe in my title. FANTASTIC.


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'Cause You're a Criminal (As Long As You're Mine)

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Ventros was a reddish-brown, M-class planet, the sixth in its system, and located slightly beyond the edge of Federation space. It had once been a mining colony, but said mines had long since dried up, and the planet now existed as little more than a glorified rest stop—a place to put in for supplies and repairs, but not much else. As such, it had also become a haven of sorts for small-scale trades and backroom deals—an out-of-the-way territory too inconsequential for anyone to pay it much attention, where no one besides a few locals ever stayed long anyway.

It was the small-scale trade that had brought them there—a stash of rare, Vulcan gemstones they'd come across while lifting a few phaser emitters, that Lore had taken more or less on an impulsive lark. The buyer they'd found had suggested meeting on Ventros, and thus, there they were, currently in orbit.

Owing to the planet's status as a stopover, a myriad of other ships shared orbit with them, most notably the USS Balaton and the USS Mae Jemison. Usually in such situations Ishara would have been the point person for any business deals, but since Lore had been the one who'd wanted the stones in the first place, and furthermore the one who'd tracked down their buyer, he'd waved her off and taken it upon himself this time around. He was currently getting ready to beam down, and Ishara was monitoring the area with a distinct disinterest.

She'd transported down, herself, a few hours earlier, to scope its one port settlement out—and the fact that it was referred to as a 'settlement' and not a 'city' spoke volumes. There had been an attempt to turn one of the empty mines into something of a tourist attraction, but that was about the only interesting thing that could be said about the place. As far as she was concerned, the sooner they got out of there, the better, and not just because there were two Federation vessels in orbit.

Almost as if on cue, Lore strode back into the cockpit just then, looking for all the galaxy like the spitting image of a certain Starfleet operations officer. Ishara did a double-take, and something in her stomach flipped uncomfortably.

Intellectually, she'd known he had the uniform—he had mentioned as much to her, before—but being intellectually aware of it hadn't really prepared her for actually seeing it. She hadn't much thought of Data since falling in with Lore—hadn't much wanted to think of Data, and most of the time succeeded reasonably well in her attempt to not do so. After all, despite how they were, effectively, identical twins, their personalities and mannerisms were as different as night and day, and as a result it had been strangely easy to form a mental separation between the two. But seeing Lore standing there in the crisp black and gold of Starfleet, watching him adjust the cuffs and smooth the front of the jacket, knowing the clothing had once belonged to his brother…

She didn't like it, she realized. It didn't fit, it wasn't right, she didn't want to look at it.

She couldn't stop looking at it.

Forcibly, she pulled her eyes away from him and turned back to the viewscreen. The Balaton and the Mae Jemison still sat there, suddenly appearing far more ominous than they had before, and she heard herself say, "You sure you don't want me to go instead?" A part of her wondered if she wasn't asking simply because she didn't want to see him dressed like that any more than she already had.

"Your concern is charming," Lore said, with complete insincerity. "Unfortunately, my contact is a Ferengi, and quite a socially conservative one at that. He wouldn't take too kindly to dealing with a woman, let alone a fully clothed one."

Well. It had been worth a try, she supposed. She opened up the bag that sat next to the navigation console one last time, as if to make sure the cases of stones were still in there.

Lore actually laughed. "Don't tell me you're worried."

She wasn't—was she? But maybe she was. Worried someone might—essentially—recognize him. Worried they might finally get caught and brought up on charges. Worried, perhaps, that the act of posing as his brother wasn't risky enough, and that the uniform might progressively see more use in the future.

Ishara banished that last thought—despite his bravado, Lore was thankfully too paranoid to chance wearing it any more than he absolutely had to—and with a frustrated sigh, closed the bag back up. "I just want to get this over with," she grumbled, and threw herself into the co-pilot's seat. Cursorily, she checked the time, then checked the region's current weather conditions for good measure.

Lore came up behind her, grasping the tops of her arms in a parody of affection. "You know…" he purred, bending down so that his lips were right next to her ear, "…you never did tell me the details of this so-called 'betrayal' of yours."

Forcibly, she shook him off, and turned around to level a glare at him. Pointedly, she didn't let her eyes waver from his, though whether she was trying to prove something to him or herself, she wasn't sure. "Don't you have an appointment to keep?"

Lore merely laughed at the acid in her voice, but straightened up all the same. "Yes, ma'am," he said mockingly, and even gave her an impudent salute to go along with it, that insufferable little smirk of his playing about his mouth the entire time. And then he picked up the bag and left the cockpit, triumphantly whistling a tune she didn't recognize.

Ishara breathed unsteadily and watched him saunter out of sight. No, nothing like Data at all.

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She took a long, hot shower after he left, as if it could somehow wash away his jackassery. As if it could somehow wash away even more. She let the water run over her skin, let the scent of her exotically-spiced Risian soap fill her lungs, and by the end of it, managed to feel a bit better. She sighed as she toweled off, and rather than get fully dressed again, simply slipped on a short robe of Bularian satin. It was late, local time, and though her natural clock wasn't completely in alignment, it was close enough. In a couple of hours she'd be tired, and she decided to take advantage of the solitude by settling back in the cockpit with a PADD and a cup of tea, the expanse of the planet spilling out in front of her.

Her serenity was short-lived. Not even fifteen minutes had gone by before the console in front of her lit up, announcing that the transporter was in use. A few moments later, Lore entered the cockpit, the bag in his hands looking a lot heavier than it had when he'd left. He dropped it on the floor next to the pilot's seat, and despite herself, her eyebrows lifted in surprise at the incredibly solid thud it made. The latinum he'd gotten in exchange for the stones was significant, to say the least.

"It went well, I take it?" she asked.

"Eminently so," he confirmed, the cockiness veritably ringing in his voice. "And to think, you didn't think we should have bothered with them."

Ishara rolled her eyes and turned back to her PADD. Whatever. It had just seemed like they were more trouble than they were worth at the time. It was always annoying when they had to liquidate hauls. He should have understood this and in all honesty probably did; it was just that his capacity for egotism knew no bounds.

Lore sat down and went about breaking orbit, setting an impulse course out of the system. She expected him to leave the cockpit then, to go strip off the uniform and throw on some of the dark, neutral clothes he normally wore, but he didn't. He just settled back in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and his hands laced together behind his head. The polished, black, Starfleet-regulation boots glared into her peripheral vision and succeeded in putting her on edge. The one consolation she'd had about this whole situation was that he at least wouldn't have to wear the uniform for very long. And now there he was, just…lounging around in it?

After a few awkward minutes of trying—and failing—to read a news article, Ishara couldn't take it anymore. Her eyes sidled over to him, her head following a moment later, and she finally asked, "Aren't you going to change?"

"I was thinking I'd leave it on for a while," he confessed. "I'll admit, I'm not the biggest fan of the waist band, but I do rather like the collar. Besides,"—and here he looked over at her and flashed his teeth in a mischievous grin—"mustard looks good on me, don't you think?"

It had looked good on Data. Somehow, it just looked wrong on Lore. Wrong and completely at odds with the organization it was supposed to represent. She scoffed at the question, and instead of answering, just disdainfully turned back to her PADD.

Fine. Let him be that way. Never mind that she had the sneaking suspicion that he was leaving the clothing on precisely because it put her on edge. If he wanted to be an asshole that was his prerogative, but she'd be damned before giving him the satisfaction of seeing her outwardly upset.

A few more minutes passed, and she was moderately proud to see she only had one more paragraph of the article left—but then Lore decided to speak again, and her concentration went right back out the proverbial window:

"So about the way you used and betrayed my little brother…"

Her stubborn-yet-ultimately-insufficient spell broke, and Ishara slammed her PADD down on the console right before she hurled herself to her feet and towards the exit. For fuck's sake, she didn't have to put up with this.

Which was easier said than done, of course, because in a flash Lore was up and out of his own chair, and had caught her around the waist before she even reached the door. "Leaving so soon?" The words were mild in tone, but loaded in meaning, and the way they settled in her ear sent a hot shiver down her spine. The mustard-yellow of his sleeve, though, was impossible to ignore—as was the press of the jacket at her back—and her irritation with him returned full-force.

"I'm tired," she snapped.

"Are you," he said, more a statement than a question. "That's interesting, because I'd swear you were just trying to avoid an uncomfortable topic of conversation."

"And so what if I am?"

He seemed to shrug. "I'm curious. I want to know." It was perhaps the only personality trait he had in common with his brother, and the realization did nothing to soothe her nerves.

"Yeah? Well, maybe it's none of your damn business."

Lore chuckled. "Like that's ever stopped me before."

Ishara grit her teeth, wondering if his smarmy, self-satisfied tone had ever sounded more grating.

A beat passed, and then he went on, as if attempting to jog her memory: "You once said you were friends. Or, at least, that he was the closest thing you ever had to one."

She huffed. "Seriously, why the hell do you want to know?"

"I told you. I'm curious."

"Well, too bad, because I'm not telling."

His hand shifted up onto her ribs and his lips found the back of her ear. "I could coax it out of you, I'm sure," he murmured—and then his thumb raked over the fabric of her robe, right across her nipple.

A traitorous jolt traveled down to her core, and she bucked in his grip—even tried to elbow him in the side, for all the good it would do—but he just caught her wrist with his other hand, restraining her with infuriating ease. His mouth found her ear again, and he mused, "What kind of a friend was he, I have to wonder. The kind with benefits, perhaps?" The arm around her tightened and his voice suddenly took on a dark, possessive edge. "Did he fuck you until you screamed, until you were begging him to stop?"

God, but she couldn't help the rush of heat between her legs at those words—at the reminder of what he, himself, had done to her on more than one occasion. Against her will, she trembled. But anger overpowered her momentary arousal, and she defiantly spat out, "We were friends. We talked. We had drinks together. He vouched for me to the rest of the ship's crew. That's all."

Lore seemed to take a moment to process that information. "And?" he prompted.

There was no getting out of it, she realized. Because as many times as she could deflect the subject, he could always bring it right back to the forefront, and as strong as she could be, he was still stronger, and she knew from experience that he wouldn't let her go until he'd gotten what he wanted. He was implacable like that.

She took an unsteady breath and bit the words out, just wanting it to be done and over with it at that point. "And I played along, okay! Made him think I wanted to leave the colony after we rescued the Federation hostages. Made him think I maybe even wanted to join Starfleet. But really I was just using him to get close enough to the Alliance to take out their defense system."

"Ahh…" Lore crooned, as the puzzle pieces finally fit into place. "And when you got what you wanted, you turned on him."

Ishara swallowed, defeat and shame burning in her chest. "Yes," she whispered.

Abruptly, he let her go, and she almost stumbled due to the sudden lack of support. "There," he said lightly. "That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

She whirled around and glared up at him, downright impotent with rage. It took her a couple breaths, but once she felt like she could move without breaking into pieces, she stomped past him to pick up her previously-forsaken PADD. "You're a fucking asshole, you know that?" she demanded, and she was on her way to brushing past him again and out of the cockpit for good when he caught her a second time. Ishara tensed, nerves and body getting really tired of this shit, but he just pulled her back into his chest and nuzzled his lips against her neck.

"I could make it up to you," he said, and it was impossible to miss the suggestive note in his voice.

Another jolt traveled down to her core, and for a half-second her resolve wavered. God, she fucking hated him. Hated what he did to her because there was a part of her that absolutely loved it, and she managed to jerk her head away and snarl, "No. I'm done with you tonight. As if I didn't know you left that uniform on just to torture me."

"Torture you?" he repeated incredulously. His head lifted from her neck and his voice turned sharp. "Here I thought you liked it. After all, you couldn't seem to take your eyes off of it earlier. To say nothing of the way you shivered in arousal when I mentioned you fucking my brother."

She squirmed in his arms. "That had nothing to do with it, you jackass!"

"No?" he demanded. There was the slightest pause, and then he said, "Let's find out, shall we?" And before she knew it, she'd been hauled backwards to land unceremoniously across his lap. The PADD clattered to the floor somewhere. And then, before she could properly react, one of his hands dipped underneath her robe, in between her legs. She gasped and instinctively clamped her thighs together, but the android had already found what he was looking for.

"Why, Ishara!" he exclaimed, in feigned shock. "It appears you're quite wet. Or perhaps I should say, you are quite wet." Both his tone and expression turned mild at the words, a pitch-perfect imitation of his brother, and the effect was unnerving—especially when he was still touching her so intimately. She scowled and shoved at his shoulders, well-aware of the flush that was already rising to her cheeks and angrier all the more for it.

"Would you cut that out?" She squirmed in his hold again, trying to break free, but the arm around her waist just held her tighter and the fingers in between her legs just slid deeper. Her breath faltered, and for a moment, so did her resistance. Lore shot her a nasty smirk.

"Make me," he said, and she would have killed to wipe that arrogant look off his features.

In hindsight, it was a stupid thing to say. But good God, was he ever obnoxious at times. Obnoxious enough—especially when combined with the emotional turmoil he'd already caused—to make her want to throw the one ace she had right in his face.

"Don't forget," she said, "I know where your off switch is."

His hand stilled dangerously and his smile suddenly fell. Ishara had just enough time to swallow apprehensively before he said, "Funny. I know where yours is, too." And without warning, he plunged two fingers deep inside her.

She gasped, her hands suddenly grabbing his shoulders for support. She wriggled again, but he just held her firmly, working her with an almost cruel intensity, and within a matter of moments she was coming hard and fast around his fingers.

She assumed that would be the end of it, that he'd made his point—that she was pathetic, a virtual slave to that organic weakness called a sex drive—and would now let her go so she could fume and he could gloat, but he didn't. He just kept at it, his hold around her waist hard and relentless, his fingers curling mercilessly inside her, and before she knew it she was coming a second time. And then a third. And it was only then that he slowed down—slowed down, but to her horror didn't stop.

"Now," he said, as she tried to catch her breath, his voice soft and menacing in her ear, his hand utterly tireless in her body, "can you honestly tell me you aren't thinking of my brother right now? We're physically identical, after all. We have the same basic programming, the same knowledge, the same…abilities." And here he angled his wrist lower and his fingers sped up, stroking her with an inhuman pace and pressure. Ishara moaned, a fourth orgasm mounting violently, and when it hit, he slowed back down just enough to draw it out, expertly making sure it didn't leave as quickly as it had arrived. She shuddered against him, hating how the fabric of the uniform caught under her fingers, yet helpless to let go. "Can you honestly tell me," Lore said, "you wouldn't rather have him doing this to you?"

Ishara clamped her eyes shut as the pleasure rolled over her, threatening to tear another moan from her throat. Seriously, what was with him and his brother issues? She could only guess at the masochistic game he seemed to be playing, trying to get her to confess such a thing. As far as she was concerned, the question was too ridiculous and offensive to answer. Instead she sneered, and managed to push out a simple, fierce, "Fuck off."

"Ohh," Lore drawled, mockingly sympathetic. He clucked his tongue chidingly. "I'm afraid that's the wrong answer." And with that, he plunged a third finger in. Ishara yelped, her back arching and her head tipping back.

The feel of him was overwhelming. It was too much, she was too full, and when she tried to get some sort of respite by twisting her hips and kicking her legs, all it earned her was a fifth shattering climax.

"Please," she begged, once she'd found her voice again. She was shaking, too slick and too sensitive. "Please, no more."

"Then say it," he ordered, dark and vicious. "Tell me how you wish it was my brother doing this to you." He pushed a fourth finger in, stretching her to the brink, and his thumb settled punishingly on her clitoris. "Tell me it's Data you want." She cried out, mindlessly biting his shoulder, and still he didn't let up.

He was insane, she realized, through the haze of sensation. That was the only explanation. That, or else this was some karmic retribution for her betrayal back on Turkana IV. Desperately, she tried to claw at his arm, to force him out of her, but she might as well have been trying to pick up a starship with her pinky for all the good it did. How long had she even been there, trapped on his lap? Minutes? Hours? And how much longer would he keep her there? All night? All week?

The rest of her life?

She couldn't get enough air. It was coming harsh and heavy in her chest, but still it wasn't enough. She was starting to feel light-headed, her vision was sparkling behind her eyelids, and she could swear that even her hands and feet were beginning to tingle from lack of oxygen. Much more of this…oh, God…much more of this and she was going to pass out.

"Please," she heard herself say again. A sixth orgasm was building, painful in its intensity, and she sobbed deliriously into his shoulder. "Please, I can't…"

"Then say it!"

"No!"

"Why not!"

"Because it isn't true!" It came out on a scream, her entire body convulsing as her climax crashed over her. She shook, and cried against him as she rode it out, and by the time she was done, she was sitting boneless and exhausted in his lap. Sleep was already tickling the edges of her mind, and it occurred to her that his arm, still around her waist, was literally the only thing keeping her from simply falling to the floor. His hand had finally, blissfully stopped moving inside her, and she gathered her wits just enough to be able to breathe out a very sincere, "God, I hate you."

"…Careful," he said, and gave her clitoris a warning pinch as he withdrew, "I might decide you need more." Ishara whimpered, trembling at the prospect, and Lore chuckled. Thoughtfully, he rubbed his fingers together—still soaked with her fluids—and said, "My, but you do make a mess, don't you. I'm actually going to have to run these clothes through the laundry sanitizer."

"Your own fucking fault," she managed tiredly. "I never asked you to…to…"

"Make you orgasm so many times in such quick succession?" She could hear the smug satisfaction in his voice and wanted to punch him in the face. The action would have only hurt her hand in the long run, so it was probably just as well she didn't have the energy for it. A tremor passed through her—aftershocks still running their course—and Lore gathered her a little closer. If it were anyone else, she'd think his touch almost tender.

"Come on, my pathetic little human," he murmured fondly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "You're tired. Let's tuck you in." And with that, he shifted her in his arms, picked her up, and carried her off to her quarters.

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A/N: Originally this was just supposed to be a porny fic involving the uniform Lore stole from Data in "Brothers," but in the process of writing it it turned into a clusterfuck of guilt and jealousy and relationship drama. Because these two are super terrible and so, so fucked-up.

I do find it really interesting, though, that Lore—at least on some level—seems to realize he has fucked up and pushed too far, and (in his own terrible way) actually tries to fix it? I mean, granted, his way of going about it is to be like, "Hey babe, how 'bout some hot sex?" instead of, like, apologizing, and it all goes to hell anyway because of sibling rivalry, but…like…he tried? Kind of?

In other news, I'm a big MST3K fan, and as such I was really tempted to use "Bellerian" (from Space Mutiny fame) instead of "Bularian" (a legit species mentioned in a TNG episode), but ultimately decided it was just too goofy a reference for such a comparatively dark fic, pfft.

Anyway, thanks for reading!