A/N: My take on a few key moments in Riff Raff and Magenta's lives. This is kinda a mash-up of movie and musical verse (although, it is probably worth mentioning that in my head these characters will always be as portrated by Kristian Lavercombe and Maria Coyne), but disregards Shock Treatment and ROTOQ. There isn't any real incest in this chapter, but there will be in the next part… this is my first Rocky story so please be kind :) One of my personal pet hates with this fandom is when people write Transsexual as if it is the same as Earth, so I've included quite a few "alien" things (or tried to) which are basically just things with slightly different (sometimes more literal) names. I hope it's fairly obvious what those things are supposed to be.

i.

They had always been different. They shared a room from the moment she was born, and although he tried to act like he hated the invasion on his privacy (he was seven when she was born), it was clear to anyone that knew him that he adored his baby sister. They had developed a bond from day one, one that not even their parents understood. He was quite happy sitting in their room, at his desk, with a startube and a pile of tablets stolen from his father's library, whilst the very suggestion of reading outside of school made Magenta scrunch her tiny little nose up in disgust.

"Riff?" Magenta would ask, tilting her head to one side, and he would put down his glowing tablet and allow her to crawl into his lap.

"Yes, sister?"

"Why do you read all the time?"

He'd smile, ruffling her already pretty messy mop of red hair, and holding her close as he picked his reading material up again, "one day, when you aren't so small, you'll understand," he told her. It was a convincing answer to someone who was merely five, but as she grew up, she never did understand what he meant.

Some were supposed to be academics, and others weren't. Magenta was very much in the second category. Where Riff had completed his studies four whole moons early, Magenta struggled. She wasn't smart. She had a mature attitude and could certainly talk down the other children her age, but she wasn't smart, not like her brother was. By the time she was the age of ten, her parents had given up on wishing she were more like him, but that didn't stop her from identifying the look of disappointment on their grey faces every time she came home with another poor grade. She so looked up to her brother, longing to have even half the brains he had, but she just wasn't destined for it.

Perhaps, they had always been close for a reason. Maybe it had been foreshadowed since the moment she was born. Either way, when it happened, she was grateful for whatever security her brother could offer.

It had started out like any other day; she had spent the earlier hours (she later found out Earthlings referred to this as "morning") half-heartedly cleaning the house as per her mother's wishes, and then as soon as the lighter hours were over, she went off to school. When she returned, however, she immediately knew something was wrong, mostly because her brother was sitting in the main house, not away in his room.

"Mother and father are gone," he had told her in a slow, even voice. It was not unusual for him to speak slowly, or bluntly, but never to Magenta. They had both been born with a speech impediment, but she had always been of the opinion that she got the worse end of the deal, being unable to pronounce particular sounds. Still, that had never stopped her from speaking, unlike her brother, who rarely spoke to anyone aside from his sister.

Their parents were dead. Magenta had started to cry, and Riff had allowed her to climb up into his lap, even though she was way too big to do so now. The same stony expression remained on his face as he distractedly stroked her hair. As she was only ten, he would have to take on the job of her guardian. They had nobody else.

ii.

He watched his sister grow into a teenager, through tired, sad eyes. It was a lot of responsibility, for someone so young to take charge of another's life, let alone someone who he cared so deeply for, and he struggled. Every obstacle in her life, he blamed himself for. Perhaps if he'd taken more time to try and help her speech problems, or he'd spent more time tutoring her, she would've achieved more, had more friends. He'd worked hard at his studies. This had given them good standing now that they had to fend for themselves, because his knowledge of the sciences had made him very sought after for work, but their relationship was held together by a thread. She resented him, he could tell. He never knew what to say to her, and more often than not ended up snapping, shouting at her and immediately wishing he hadn't. She quickly grew tiresome of him and they drifted further and further apart.

Magenta, just like her fiery frizz of bright red hair suggested, grew up to be wild. Uncontrollable. It frustrated Riff because he had the kind of mind that enjoyed being able to control things. He liked formulae and equations and scientific experiments because they only had one possible outcome each time. His sister was too spontaneous, too unpredictable. He longed for the little girl who wanted nothing more than the security of her big brother's lap, who truly believed he could do anything, but she had been lost a long time ago, somewhere amongst all the house moving, and late nights alone. She'd been forced to grow up. Riff had gone to work, and Magenta had stayed behind, and it was almost as though one day he'd returned to find someone different in her place.

The final straw, however, was the night Riff was awoken by the pacifiers, returning his little sister – who appeared to have only got half dressed that evening - from a broken curfew.

The curfew had been set to prevent the younger generation of Transsexual from wandering the streets in the lighter, most dangerous hours, and Magenta especially had been ordered to stick to it, both by their parents, and later, Riff Raff. Of course, this was an open invitation for her to do the opposite. Breaking the curfew meant an automatic fine, which of course Riff couldn't afford to pay, and she'd stumbled to bed leaving him arguing with the two officers. Their front passage slammed closed, and she groaned as Riff arrived in her room, pushing her blankets off.

"What were you doing out?" his voice held its usual soft calmness, but when Magenta looked hazily up into his face, the anger in his eyes gave him away.

She tried to casually shrug him off, "nothing, Riff. Leave me alone, I need to sleep."

"You went out, looking like that, to do nothing," he repeated, poking a finger into her barely-covered chest for emphasis.

Sweeping the blanket off her bed, Magenta wrapped it solidly round her shoulders like a shawl, sobering a little at the irritation in her brother's voice. Her head was swimming. Could he not save his interrogation for the morning? Rolling her eyes, she looked away, and he grabbed her by the wrist to ensure her attention remained focussed on him, his pale, cold fingers digging into her flesh.

"You do not come of age for another three years. You are not to go out looking like some cheap-" he grit his teeth, muttering a profanity she had certainly never heard him use until now, before continuing, "you are going to stay in this room. You will not leave for studies, for seeing your friends. You will not even answer the siren should it ring whilst I am not here."

"And if I need to use the bathroom dear brother?" she snarled, sitting up straight to stare him down.

He growled, not only letting go of her, but tossing her hand back into her lap, "you do not leave this house. You hear me? You remain here, where I can keep an eye-"

"You? How are you going to keep an eye on anything?! You're never here Riff! You're busy doing this important work that I am not allowed to hear of. I wonder if you ever even remember that you have a sister, much less want to spend time with her? I don't even remember the last time we ate together. Why should I listen to a word you tell me?! You wouldn't even notice if I was dead. I should have been in that vessel with our parents. Would that have made you happy? Would it?!"

Her voice got louder and louder until he was forced to slam his hands over his ears to block her out, and finally he snapped, grabbing her roughly by the throat and slamming her against a wall. She stared at him in surprise, and all of a sudden started to panic, realising she couldn't breathe. She kicked at him, trying desperately to speak, but he was trapping her vocal cords, winding her. As quickly as he'd turned, he suddenly let go, and she slid down the wall, falling in a heap at the bottom of the cold stone.

"My dear sister," he whispered, kneeling beside her, "what have I done to you?"

Her eyes still wide with fright, she tried to scamper away from him, whimpering like a small animal. Riff stared at her with eyes swimming with tears, and then shook his head, wiping his face on the sleeve of his night shirt. He crawled to his feet, and nodded in her direction, trying to gather his thoughts, before turning, and walking back to his own room. They never spoke of it again, and Magenta learnt how to behave.

iii.

The prince was notorious for his inhumanity, his frivolous sexual antics (even on a planet like Transsexual where most things were not frowned upon, they had their limits), and – unfortunately for Riff Raff – his scientific experiments. It was around the time of Magenta's seventeenth birthday that he first approached their home. Or, rather, one of his minions approached, delivering a letter penned by Frank N Furter himself, requesting Riff's assistance.

"It's a great honour to be personally requested," the minion had sneered, watching Riff fold the letter neatly away into his pocket, before scurrying away.

It certainly had been an honour, but at the same time, the implications that came with serving someone like the prince were a lot to consider. He had remained quiet, deciding not to mention it to his sister because she would surely want him to take the position. She wouldn't understand what it entailed. Riff was not afraid for his own reputation, but for hers. Being associated with the royalty of their planet did not hold the prestige it did elsewhere. Frank N Furter was the product of corruption, his family only still on the throne because of the rest of the planet were too scared to overthrow them. Working for them would pay little more than working anywhere else, but, at that moment in time, Riff had nowhere else.

Reluctantly, he agreed.

For the first moon, it was bearable. Riff worked long hours for very little, his master insatiable no matter how hard he worked. He was worse in person than Riff could have imagined from stories, though the grotesque face that he had often seen painted in tablets was exactly as pictured. Riff was just one of several lab technicians the prince employed, but he was by far the best, and the one Frank concentrated his attentions on most often. Along with the technicians, he had several house maids – domestics, as they preferred to be known – and a butler who occasionally made an appearance in the lab, to deliver messages. Each of them had worked there for so long that the skin on their faces was taut, greying, and in a permanent frown. In silent anger, Riff watched the way his master – as Frank insisted he was to be known – cajoled his female employees into doing things they didn't want to, be that as innocent as sitting on his lap whilst he worked, to being led, miserably, to his bedroom quarters when he became restless. It was sickening, but they had to do as they were told or risk losing their jobs. One of the other technicians, when Frank was otherwise engaged, quietly told him that it wasn't just the women, and he ought to watch out if he didn't want to be next.

He never told Magenta anything about where he worked, and she never asked. They rarely spoke, ever since that one incident, and although he often saw a questioning look etched into her pretty, pale face, she never put her wondering into words, which he was grateful for.

A short while later – it felt a lot longer – Riff was working late in the lab, alone. Frank had insisted he required only his assistance that evening, and sent everybody else home, a fact which Riff was quite resentful of, especially as all that needed doing was some documentation which anybody could have done. He was scribbling away in silence when Frank appeared at the end of the desk.

"We are going on a mission, my dear Riff Raff!" he announced excitedly, his red painted lips curving into a hideous smile.

"A mission, master?" Riff had replied, his tone even. He didn't even bother looking up from his papers.

"Yes, one beyond the shores of Transsexual. We leave tomorrow. Don't bother packing, you shan't need anything."

Dropping his pencil, Riff looked up, narrowing his eyes, "tomorrow? I'm afraid I can't."

At this, Frank let out a short, clipped laugh. It echoed around the tiled laboratory, ringing in Riff Raff's ears. Carefully, the prince sat down at the end of the desk, dangling his long, stocking-clad legs over the side, and clicking his heels on the table leg.

"Oh? Why not?"

"I have much to do here, master," he explained, though his mind had immediately turned to Magenta. He could not leave his sister behind. He hoped the panic that was rushing through his veins was not evident of his face, as he picked his pencil up again, and continued to write.

"Very well," Frank said slowly, seeming to contemplate. He rested his head on his hand, tapping his chin with his index finger comically, "your sister..." at this, Riff's head jolted upward, "beautiful girl isn't she? Yes, I shall very much enjoy having her as my companion."

"Fine," Riff Raff growled, placing his pencil calmly into its holder, "I'll go with you."

"But surely you can't leave poor... what was her name again? Magnolia? Magda?"

"Magenta," he corrected, through gritted teeth.

"Ah yes, Magenta. We can't leave her alone without her big brother, can we? Perhaps she would feel quite at home in my quarters after all-"

Just the way Frank's mouth slurred her name made Riff's blood boil, bile rising in his throat. Something inside of him snapped and he reached for the prince, gathering the thin material of his tight blouse in his fists. A look of surprise barely registered on Frank's face.

"Lay one finger on her and I'll-"

Frank let out another short laugh, "you'll what? You're nothing but a pathetic little boy," he sneered, as Riff let go of him, "look, I'll make a deal with you. You'll both work for me – you as my lab assistant, your sister as a... domestic – you'll do as I say and follow my orders."

"Why should I agree to that?! My sister, she's not yet of a working age and..."

Frank hushed him with a finger to his lips, rolling his eyes, "fine, fine, she won't work. I'll have her sent straight to my bedroom. Do ensure she's appropriately dressed won't you?"

And, with very little choice, Riff agreed to continuing his placement at the castle on it's journey. The only condition, which he had ensured Frank agree to before he even approached his sister, was that Magenta remain safe and unharmed. He was not to use her for anything besides housework. Frank had reluctantly agreed, and whilst most of his morals were undoubtedly tarnished, Riff had been assured that when he made a promise, he kept to it.