Author's Notes
I debated with the rating quite a bit with this one, and eventually tossed it into T. If anyone thinks it's crossing the border, tell me and I'll shift it into M. I'm still rather iffy at the distinctions. Especially when it comes to psychological minddrabble and angst. I wrote the lot as a oneshot, then decided it reads better split. So this doesn't count as a multichaptered fic in progress, one because it's done, and two because it was a oneshot till after its completion. Says so right here in my rulebook *holds up imaginary book*. See?
And if there's any gaps in knowledge, that's because it's a snapshot. I included anything important though, although some you need your mind to elaborate on yourself.
Basically one of those 'and they do not live happily ever after fics'. I know the general idea is a little clichéd, and I have done it before with Bloodstained Night, but I pop different twists and turns and quirks in them, so it's all good.
Inspired by Macbeth. You'll know what parts where when you see it. Those scenes are quite famous.
Anyway, enjoy, and tell me what you think.
Flicks of a Brush
Painting was art. But for him, it was also a reprieve. And with no other medium available to him in his solitude, what else could he use to paint his life but his own blood?
Kouichi K/Koichi & Kouji M/Koji
Rating: T
Genre/s: Angst
Part 1 of 2 - Depiction
He was thirteen. But he felt as if he was six again, dipping his stubby childhood fingers into the pallet of red paint and dragging the crimson coated digits across the paper spread before him. But it wasn't red paint anymore...or it was, of a sort. The crimson liquid that sustained life, blackened where dried and redder where moist coated his fingertips now was neither as vibrant or as artificial, but the same time, not as real.
It was not paper this time, nor paint. Rather, blood and water mixed as the cold faucet numbed his fingers and removed the stains. Refusing to mix and be washed away, clear white, pink and red danced across the porcelain inner surface, staining slowly yet firmly, dull under the murky white but darkening and permanently marking its trail down the drain. The droplets of water made it glimmer, giving shine to the crimson trails drying in the moist and slightly heavy air. The windows were shut. So was the door. Alone, he stood, watching the blood washing, but not being washed away.
The door opened and closed behind him, and a pale hand, untainted, reached over and closed the faucet, stopping the cold trail of water.
'Your hands are freezing,' Kouji's voice said softly in his ears, long, pure black hair tickling the sensitive skin on his neck as the younger twin grasped the blood-coated hands without seeing the blood. There was worry in that tone; he had to wonder how many times this ritual had taken place over the year. Sometimes, it seemed so insignificant though. Couldn't have been that many.
The other looked down at his hands, still seeing the vibrant blood, still smelling that putrid copper. Closing his eyes tight, he resisted the urge to grab the soap sitting innocently near the edge and scrub till they were clean; whoever said soap helped keep hands clean were wrong. Wrong! All it did was spread the blood, darken it, promote it...
The other handed him a towel, watching him worriedly, carefully, as his brother accepted it and folded the top over its hands. It was white...well, it had began white, until the towel greedily soaked up the blood.
He handed it back without using it. It didn't matter anyway; his hands were that wet, water wise. The cold winter air drafting in (apparently, Kouji had left the front door open, or at least a kitchen window or something of that sort) was already aiding the evaporation, helped along by the natural body heat that he sometimes felt not.
Kouji looked him, once again not knowing what to say. He knew what. He knew why...vaguely. But he didn't really know why. In other words, he understood the surface, but not the significant interior within lay both the box and the key to unlock it.
It pained him greatly. Seeing his brother suffering. But it pained him more that he couldn't help. Couldn't do anything.
Kouichi knew that. Perhaps that was why he barely saw at all. It was one thing, if he ever could, he would change about his brother. Hiding his problems away so they barely touched others, keeping the pain and turmoil inside. Washing away guilt that should have been long eradicated, but persisted because it had been written into his very soul.
He could do little. Being there, maybe, but how could he truly be there if he didn't understand where? In the end, the only thing he could really do was help the mask stay up. Goodness knew what would happen if it broke.
It should never had come to this. Perhaps if he had noticed earlier. But what could one blind ultimately do against sights they could not see? Except tell them so and draw them back behind the veil with them.
'C'mon Kou. Put a smile on your face.'
He did so obediently, lips moving under the other's soft, clean touch, staying in that position once the hold fell away. Blue eyes, crystal clear like the turquoise stones that was the envy of any in want of beauty and wealth, bored into his own, the orbs he knew to be murky, dirty, unclean...stained. He saw them in the mirror, in reflections about, day after the day. Each one darker and more stained than the last, as the blood failed to wash out, and new scabs overlay the old, each time adding a newer, darker tone.
The other pulled him away from the drawings from his life and of those he had taken; his sin. 'Come,' he said softly, taking the bloodied hand, uncaring of the red that stained them with murder. 'Forget this.'
I can't. And they both knew that. How long had it been since the paintbrush had been picked up again? He had lost track of the days.
So had the other, looking at the clean, unblemished but numb hands, cold from the faucet that tried to wash away what wasn't there.
'I don't understand,' he said honestly, taking the other hand as well and pulling him into the darkened hallway of the apartment, then into the kitchen with its wooden table and chairs and the empty sink with dishes drying on a towel.
The other said nothing, only letting his brother push him into a chair and watching him take a seat himself.
'When you do this Ni-san, I worry about you.'
He knew that. He knew, but he could do nothing. Couldn't he see that blood coating his hands? That horrible copper-putrid layer that refused to be brushed away but darkened by the day?
'Why can't you see it?' he asked instead, staring at the hands on his lap. He had given up trying to get them clean. He'd forget them soon, before the red stains scraped over the pure keys of the normal board. And then the cycle would begin again.
'There's nothing on them,' Kouji said softly, staring at his brother.
'There is,' his brother said, almost disconnected, before seemingly snapping out of it. 'Never mind.' He pushed the chair back, hearing the scraping noises as it dragged on the uncarpeted floor. 'We'll be late.'
Kouji followed his brother, watching him flitter around, tracking down their jackets, gloves, scarves and hats as if it was a night terror, or just a brief spell. He knew better though; he knew his brother too well. Even better sometimes than his own mother, who still worked for long hours day in and day out, working hard to support a son and at the same time being taken away from him.
It seemed like a curse. Alone even with friends, ad family. Alone simply because of what he was. A personification of darkness, closer than any of them could understand. An enigma that would never be truly clear to them. A shining diamond, black as the night, concealing its secrets so deep within its glamour that the little chips and cracks that managed to break its hard shell revealed little, when anything at all.
He hadn't just been a warrior using the spirits of darkness. He had been the spirits of darkness. No body, soul bonded so tight that only death had torn it apart, and only then, barely so. He should know, he had taken those spirits for the briefest moment, and in that, felt nothing except it bursting against the light with power like he had never seen nor experienced.
He had never made it past the surface. How could he, ultimately understand the one who dwelled constantly in its core?
How could anyone, save perhaps himself?
Kouichi silently handed him his clothing, and the younger twin slipped them on, scarf, jacket, hat then gloves.
'Ni-san...'
A soft laugh, sounding so real if only he hadn't seen the minutes trailing behind. But if he wouldn't watch and note, who would. 'I'm fine.'
He knew he wasn't. But there was no use pressing. Diamonds rarely released the treasure they guarded, not even under the force of a volcanic explosion.
He found himself looking back at the other's hands, covered in their mittens. Cold, white...and yet the other saw them glimmering with a scarlet hue that carried the blood of allies, enemies and innocents alike.
No, he couldn't understand. And he didn't think, that if it took the experience itself to satisfy him, he would survive to attain that moment of epiphany.
Just as it was the nature of darkness to encapsulate the light...and more.
Sometimes, he wondered if he was just imagining it, piercing little hints together that may have been nothing more than just that. It passed sometimes so fast, leaving no evidence behind in its wake except the slightly haunted look that one could not notice unless they looked to close for the curtain that drew over them, keeping their secrets.
'Ni-san…'
'Hmm?' Kouichi turned to look at him, apprehension carefully concealed under a mild image of curiosity.
He remembered the images the other drew. Always in either a lead pencil or in red inked pen.
'If you could paint, what colour would you paint in?'
If the other sensed the oddity of the question, he did not react.
'Red,' was all he said, before holding the front door open, letting the freezing wind envelop the entire hearth.
