Karai smells blood the moment she slips into the room, carefully closing and locking the door behind her. Not (really) a metaphorical way, either--she can literally smell blood, feel the metallic taste of it on her tongue.
And if she can smell it, with her weak human nose, the place must be reeking for her sister. Maybe that's why Lavinia's sprawled on the streets like a stoner, half in and half out of her black-and-red Foot gear, staring up at the ceiling with a dull expression.
Music plays faintly in the background, a singer Karai doesn't know crooning about heartbreak and broken dreams. There's a bruise on her sister's face, a memory from a recent fight with the enemy turtles she stubbornly refuses to call her brothers--the reminder of that loyalty makes Karai feel odd in a way she can't explain.
"What." Vinny doesn't sit up to look at her, although the fact that she doesn't sit up or close her now-bleeding legs proves she must know it's Karai who's just come in. She flips the knife she's holding around in one hand, blade flickering red.
"You're not the only one who's bored, you know," Karai says easily, crossing the room to sink down on Vinny's mattress. It crinkles beneath her--Vinny's a neat freak who always insists on using plastic coverings for this stuff, blood blossoming in a transparent garden.
She peers down at Vinny's thighs, at the neat, straight marks lined up there. At the bruises, imprints of hands larger than Karai's and with too many fingers for Vinny's. Her sister had cut through them, maybe on purpose, as if she's trying to cross out the memory of their father's touch.
Karai drags her gaze away from the marks and lifts her gaze to her sister's face. She reaches up and carefully turns Vinny's black mask so that it covers her eyes, sending the tails flopping down the side of her neck.
Vinny lets out a put-upon sigh, but doesn't move to push Karai away. "This again?"
"Yup." Karai plucks the knife from her hand, running her finger along the hilt. It's a knife she remembers giving Vinny for her twelfth birthday, or what they had both decided was her birthday. "You like it better when it's me, anyway."
As if to prove her point, Vinny's breath hitches when Karai drags the blade along her inner thigh, slow and precise. She ends the cut with a showy little flick that sends crimson droplets fluttering through the air, towards the dark heat between Vinny's legs.
It took a while for Karai to figure out why her sister made such strange faces after getting injured during a spar, how she always insisted on tending to her wounds in private. It took a while to explain why Vinny would often regard her swords and knives with something more than reverence, something approaching hunger.
Same way it took a while for Karai to figure out her own desires, the way seeing her sister bleed makes her feel like a strange, hot kind of love boiling in her stomach. She cuts again, blood running down her hand, and Vinny groans, head falling back so that her blinded eyes are directed at the ceiling.
Karai lowers her head, gazing at the apex of Vinny's thighs. She can see something glistening there, and she's pretty sure it's not blood. "You're wet," she teases.
Vinny lets out a low huff of laughter, nostrils flaring. "So're you."
And, well, she's not exactly wrong. Karai laughs and swipes her hand between Vinny's legs, dragging her fingers along the cuts to make her sister quiver and squirm. Then she's prodding Vinny's dripping folds, letting out a soft sight at the tight, clenching heat. Vinny might be cold-blooded, but there are still places where her human side shines through.
Vinny groans, lifting her hips, blood sliding off her legs to drip onto the sheets, before settling back down with a sigh as Karai draws her hands free. Her knees shift slightly apart, giving Karai better access.
"You're such a freak," Karai says idly, dragging the blade to crosshatch through some of Vinny's old cuts.
"Says the girl with the, nnnh, knife." Vinny smiles at her, sharp and bright against green scales, even as her cheeks flush red. Karai loves her smile so much; she leans down to kiss it, blinking at the faintest taste of salt against her tongue.
She pulls away to cut again, and again, getting her hands red enough to smear them over Vinny's thighs, covering up the bruises. She'd cut away every part of Vinny their father has marked up, cut away the bruises he's left on Karai's own body while she's at it. She could stitch their bodies together for a collage, filling in the gaps.
The next time she lowers her head, she pushes between Vinny's legs again, feeling them open to let her through. She lets the blood wash over her face, opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue to savor the sweet, sweet taste of Vinny's want, heavy on her tongue, the cool rub of scales against her lips.
Karai sucks and Vinny groans, trembling around her. She can feel Vinny's hands drift over her hair, along her shoulders, massaging the rippling curves of her spine.
When Karai sits up, she can feel blood on her face, dripping down her cheeks and across her throat like a necklace. Unsanitary, maybe, but she and Lavinia have been so drenched in each other's bodily fluids over the years that any diseases they could have given each other would have been passed on long ago. Same as with--
No, no, she's not thinking about Father now. This isn't about him, this is about them. This, this alone, is about them.
She flips the blade around in her hand and nudges it between Vinny's legs, up into her cunt. Vinny lets a few sharp squeaks of pleasure, somehow flushing even harder. Her fingers tap against the sheets, slightly out of time with the music.
"Hold that for me, will you?" Karai whispers, gently pushing Vinny's legs back together until the sides of the knife are pressing into her skin, sending fresh blood trickling. Vinny tenses, but doesn't open her legs again or move to take the knife away.
Karai wriggles out of her pants and already-damp underwear, crawling carefully up Vinny's body. She pauses for a heartbeat over Vinny's chest, fingers splayed across her sister's broad shoulders.
"I'm going to fuck your face now," she tells Vinny, feeling oddly hesitant. She wants to ask Is that all right? but that feels like more taboo, somehow, than cutting her sister's thighs or jamming a wet cunt into her mouth. No one asks in their world, after all.
Vinny licks her lips. "What are you waiting for?" she whispers, rough and hungry.
"Greedy fucking bitch," Karai whispers, smiling. She pulls herself the rest of the way and lowers herself down, pressing her lips to her sister's. Vinny lets out a moan, the sound vibrating straight to Karai's core.
Karai throws her head back with a gasp, grabbing the mattress to brace herself as she starts rocking back and forth. One of Vinny's hands comes up and pushes under Karai's shirt, over her breasts, rolling callused fingers across her nipples in a way that makes Karai gasp and shudder into the wet, sucking depths of Vinny's mouth.
She can feel Vinny shaking underneath her, reaching down to drag shaking fingers across her wounds. She's grinding down on the hilt of the knife, no doubt cutting herself deeper in the process.
The thoughts make Karai hump her face faster, harder, shaking with effort. Her bloody fingers reach to smear Vinny's face crimson, to tangle in Vinny's mask tails and drag her closer.
"Fuck," she whispers, rough and garbled, the words like blades dragged out of her throat. "I love you, I love you, I--"
When she comes it's wet, messy, mixing with the blood on Vinny's face and the saliva in her mouth. Vinny cries out beneath her, twisting and writhing, reaching her own edge in a blaze of red, silver, and green. The sound she makes is so beautiful that Karai sobs as she flips awkwardly to the mattress, plastic crackling, flopping down with her face right to Vinny's.
Vinny tears her head and they kiss, slow and deep. There's no salt anymore, this blood and the aftertaste of Karai's own fluids, sliding down her throat like healing nectar.
Karai waits as long as she has to before coming up for air, pushing upright with a grunt. She leans over to fish the knife out of Vinny's push, tossing it aside to be cleaned later. Then she forces herself to her feet, staggering around the room on damp, jellied legs.
"Where the fuck do you keep your bandages?" she calls over her shoulder, doing her best not to drip red on Vinny's scrolls or weaponry.
"Wooden cabinet, upper hand corner," Vinny replies. Karai gathers her replies and makes way back to the bed, reaching for Vinny's legs.
Vinny swallows. "I can--"
"Shut up." Karai dresses the wounds as best she can; none of the wounds are particularly deep, thank fuck. They'll scar, but the scars have been there for a while, cut over again and again. Vinny will hide them behind her wrappings and Father won't--no one who sees will care.
"Me too," Vinny says softly, almost as quiet as the music.
Karai pauses in the midst of tying a bandage. "What?"
Vinny sits up slightly, and Karai can see that she's taken off the mask, blinking at Karai with those deep blue eyes of hers. "I love you, too."
Karai looks away, back at the blood crusting her hands. She'll have to take a shower after this, wash away everything except for the taste of her beautiful, foolish sister on her tongue.
"Yeah," she replies, feeling oddly tired. "I know."