New ff100 fic, yay!
Title: In the Red.
Fandom: Count Cain.
Characters: Cain, Riff, Merriweather.
Prompt: 011 - Red.
Word Count: 347.
Rating: PG (for mention of violence)
Summary: Cain's thoughts during the Black Sheep chapter.
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: Count Cain and all associated characters, settings, etc., belongs to Yuki Kaori-sensei. The only profit I make from this work of fiction is my own satisfaction and, possibly, the enjoyment of others. The quote from Alexis comes from ‘The Sound of a Boy Hatching’, The Cain Saga Volume 2, over which I claim no ownership. I know the Riff here isn’t quite the Riff of Godchild Volume 6 - so let’s just pretend he’s having a ‘nice’ day. One day I will post something not based on the color prompts - but for now, enjoy a series of not-quite-drabbles for ‘red’.
When Cain thinks of the color red, he sees the blood dripping from Merediana’s self-inflicted wound. He sees the darker, already dry blood sticking to Emeline’s slit throat. He sees the blood pooling beneath Aunt Augusta’s body as she breathes her last. He sees Riff’s jacket darken with blood from the bullet that should have hit Cain himself. He sees the fine trail of blood that leaked from his father’s mouth as he snarled the words that have hounded Cain for half a decade (“You will die alone and unloved!”).
Cain’s hands are stained with the blood of those he has loved and those he hasn’t, yet sometimes he’s unsure which haunts him more.
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Riff remembers that the illustrations in introductory medical textbooks always colored the organs in diverse bold shades, as if to make the differences among them clear. Later on, the textbooks became more anatomically correct, as he found at his first autopsy. Several members of his class, he recalls, turned green or otherwise expressed discomfort at the sights and smells, but he had observed with a dispassionate, clinical eye which drew praise from his professors and curious looks from his peers.
It wasn’t until later in the privacy of his own apartment, while he cleaned the splatter from his overcoat, that Riff was nearly sick at the memory of dark, deoxidized blood and horribly pale organs.
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When reminded of the color red, Merry thinks fondly of the day her brother, in one of his uncharacteristically puerile moods, accompanied her to the orchard, where they snuck into the cherry trees as though they were thieves, stealthily picking the most red-ripe ones and gathering them in their pockets. Then, with many furtive glances toward the house, they crept up an old elm (perfect for lazing about in) and proceeded to devour their spoils as quickly and enjoyably as they could, sharing and hoarding with equal abandon. Riff had found them there as twilight fell, Merry dozing in Cain’s lap while he swung his legs from a branch and whistled Beethoven through lips sticky with cherry juice.
END
My Little Damn Table.