by Kelsey
Disclaimer: CLAMP, please do not kill me for what I am doing to your characters.
Warnings: SQUICK, incest, blood, sex
Notes: A few weeks ago, I requested on my LJ that people give me drabble requests for strange pairings. This would be one of Shineko's. (Sorry yet, dear? XD) Not only did I include her pairing, I also included MY pet squick pairing. No babies were eaten in the making of this fic, even as bizarre and disturbing as it turned out.
"The sadness will last forever."
--Vincent Van Gogh, dying
Kotori has always loved to fingerpaint, loved the intimacy of her fingers through warm slick paint. She remembers being very young when she first discovered her own form of art; her brother received a paint set for his birthday and allowed her to use it after he saw the way it entranced her. Eventually both forgot that the paint set had originally been Fuuma's, as Kotori decorated paper and walls and clothing with streaks of bright color. Her father told her that painting on the shrine wasn't allowed, but if Mother let her paint on the walls of the house, it was all right with him. And Mother liked it when she painted, hanging her paper creations on the wall. My little artist, Mother said.
She is long past the age for fingerpainting, and yet she does it still, and in her dreams Mother is there, and she smiles and she praises her art just like always, and it really is just like always, even if Mother looks like a mermaid and the Bad Thing happened six years ago, the Bad Thing that Kotori only remembers in the softly lucid afterglow of the dreams, the nice dreams that don't predict the world shattering to pieces.
Fuuma doesn't know that she saw him, that she sees him now, standing in the red-soaked room, Mother's head in his hands, the play of his tongue over her blood. It's blood. In her head she screams and screams and screams, but her voice is silent because this isn't happening, that isn't Mother, Fuuma said so. It must all be in her imagination, and maybe Fuuma took back his paint set and spilled the red everywhere. She has never tried tasting the paint before, even as a small child, so in the dream she enters the room, dips a finger into the paint, and raises that finger to her lips.
Salt, salt and seawater. She is curiously disappointed with the flavor, but the warmth of this particular paint is wonderful, its richness and texture on tongue and finger both. Mother looks so beautiful covered in it, and Kotori unbuttons the front of her dress and then lets it fall to her feet, and she smears a little design on her stomach, and she writes her name on her arm in sloppy katakana, and she laughs and laughs and laughs and feels like she's broken. And there is Fuuma, her beloved big brother, and his hands are around her neck but she is still laughing and he is smiling an un-Fuuma smile and the room dissolves into feathers and they stand on a starry black plane, although it might only seem that way, as she is losing consciousness from lack of air.
He puts her down, sinks to the floor and takes her with him, petting her hair. "The future cannot be changed."
She kisses him then, soft and sweet, the way she has always wanted to kiss Kamui but never has, and never will. Her brother's hands are warm, so warm with bloodpaint, and her hair is sticky with it and now he is smearing the place where she wrote her name on her arm and writing something on her thigh, something that is difficult to read upside-down but looks like The one who hunts the majesty of God and oh no, he isn't--but she loses the thought because he has both of her wrists and is leaning above her, pressing her into the ground until she is almost afraid she will break, and she can only kiss him again, kiss him and love him and hope that he will believe what she says when he is done.
"The future is not yet determined."
And then she is sinking, sinking into the canvas of black, and bubbles trail from her nose and mouth like strings of pearls and there is a flash of sunlight as she finds the soft sandy bottom of the sea, the sea where Mother lives and where she will live forever and ever because she cannot die again. Kotori feels lovely and free and wishes that she had thought to take her clothes off sooner when visiting Mother. It is so beautiful down here, so achingly lonely.
Mother is here now, Mother is smoothing her hair and the bloodpaint is floating away, back up to the blackness that layers over the sunshine, and Kotori presses her face into Mother's shoulder and weeps, because she knows that something is terribly, terribly wrong, and that she will never see her brother or Kamui again, not even after they die. Her grief is great, awesome in its depth and magnitude, and suddenly she understands why Mother lives in this sea, and Mother gives an understanding smile when she turns her face up to look at her.
"There is always a price to pay."
Mother's arms around her tighten.
"But now I have you with me."
She has a fleeting moment of wondering if she is more like her brother than anyone ever thought, that because people see in her ultimate purity and gentleness that she must always be so, be whatever they want in as gentle and accommodating a way as possible, but now Mother is rubbing the bloodpaint off of her stomach, and then the title that Fuuma wrote on her thigh, and then Mother's hand is between her legs and her mouth opens to form a round O of shock, but she articulates nothing, nothing.
Mother's voice is breathless and pressed up against the curve of her ear. "You're such a pretty girl, Kotori. I've missed you."
"M--Mo--"
She has never seen a mother kiss her daughter on the mouth, and strange is that, because mothers are wonderful kissers, tasting of paint and the afterimpressions of a lightning strike. She floats almost horizontally, one of Mother's arms supporting her back, and she hangs suspended in the kiss, transparent and fragile and crystalline. She feels as though she can be seen through, insubstantial as mist. Her soul is bared and she feels herself washed clean and she can be anything, anything, so she puts her arms around Mother's neck and now the kiss is violent, tumultuous, and waves crash in her ears and the sunlight makes spots dance before her eyes and then the water settles again, and when she looks at Mother's face Mother is smiling at her, both arms pulling her upwards and closer into an embrace, and it is then that Kotori realizes that she is a mermaid, too, just like Mother.
Mother kisses her again, tugging lightly at her lower lip with her teeth, and then pulls back, bright laughter cascading like an underwater waterfall. "You're just like me, Kotori. Just like me. And if you close your eyes, neither of us will have tails, just two legs. Isn't that funny?"
She closes her eyes and sees, and Mother is right, because they look the same, and they are the same, and are both less and more than what they were before. Before. Before when there were other people to love and wonderful paints to play with and a place that did not consist of endless sea and sand. Mother presses her lips to her neck, warm and strangely hot at the same time, and there is a sigh of approval and appreciation as Kotori tentatively cups one breast in her small hand, a favor for a favor.
"Mother, we're dead," she says, feeling that she should clarify this before they proceed any further.
"I know," Mother says, drawing back so that Kotori can see her smile.