Disclaimer: RHPS doesn't belong to me, sadly. That fantastic priviledge belongs to Richard O'Brien and 20th Century Fox.
Magenta is bored. She is sitting in the lab alone – the Frankenstein Place, as it was known before, is still on its way to the planet Transsexual, too big a carrier for the cargo it holds. Too empty. Magenta flicks the feather duster she is holding ineffectually, sending a cloud of dust up into the air. She sneezes.
"Ach," She snorts, pulling a ragged hankerchief out of the pocket of her apron. Embroidered in one off-white corner is a blood-red, curlicued 'F' – it must have been Frank's, Magenta realises, and it floats to the floor from her red-painted fingers. Frank is dead, she remembers. Frank and Rocky and Columbia, all of them dead and gone. And her own brother killed them. Sickness churns in her stomach, and Magenta places a hand on the floor to steady herself. It's been five whole Earth days since they blasted off from that awful little planet, leaving everything they'd known for the last however many years or so behind. At first Magenta had been really, truly ecstatic – she would be home at last, among the people she knew, people she loved. Transsexuals from Transylvania, not paltry Earthlings. She'd been anxious to return, so very anxious... so very easily led. That was shameful, she realised now. Magenta knows that she is strong enough to have done something - that if needed, she could have wrapped Riff Raff round her little finger. She could have stopped her brother's plans from going quite so far. She could have stopped the murders.
Standing, Magenta feels something wet on her cheeks. Reaching up a hand, she's shocked to discover that the wetness is, in fact, tears – tears. Magenta crying is akin to the Apocalypse banging on the door with a pitchfork. It's something that doesn't happen. It's something that shouldn't happen. It's a silly, human action, one that Magenta would usually scoff at. But here she is, hair tumbling around her shoulders and thick globs of black eyeliner sliding down her face as she sobs. She picks up the fallen hankerchief and dabs ineffectually at her face. At least she is alone, she muses, stumbling across the room to rest against Rocky's old tank. Crying is bad enough, but crying in front of Riff Raff would result in crippling humiliation.
"Sister dear," She hears him drawl as he comes into the lab, and she inwardly curses. "I've been looking for you everywhere... Are those tears I see?"
"No," She lies. "Of course not. What reason do I have to cry?" She says, turning her back to give herself the opportunity to clean up her face.
"None at all," Riff Raff says smoothly. "By my calculations, we shall be back on our home planet within the next thirty-six Earth hours."
"Oh!" Magenta breathes, and for a moment she is happy again – only a moment. Her face falls as her heart sinks, and she clutches the tank's edge.
"Whatever's the matter?" Riff Raff asks, sounding concerned. "Are you not pleased?"
"Of course," Magenta says hastily. "I want nothing more than to be back on Transsexual. But..."
"But?" Riff Raff probed – really, this behaviour is ridiculous. Magenta's been quiet over the last five days, and here maybe he's getting close to finding out why.
"Well... will they not wonder where the Master is when we return without him?" Magenta asks cautiously. "And why the mission has failed?"
"Little technicalities." Riff Raff says with a shake of his fair head, smiling again. "Really, Magenta, is that all you were worried about?"
"Yes." She lies again. She doesn't want to tell Riff Raff what's on her mind, for fear he'll think she's completely changed or that she's turning against him, but after these last five days, she's beginning to understand what the heavy, solid feeling in her chest is. It's not a reaction to being blasted out of Earth's atmosphere, as she originally thought – no. It's grief. It's loss. It's everything that a human would feel if they'd just lost all of their closest friends or their family in one swift coup. And that's what Frank and Columbia were, really – not so much Rocky. But then that makes it worse, in a way. He was innocent. He'd done nothing. Absolutely nothing, apart from be created – and in what way was that a crime? Columbia, too, hadn't done anything wrong – she'd just been pulled in with the wrong crowd and ended up being tarred with Frank's brush. She was young and naïve and, hell, was she annoying, but she'd been Magenta's friend. Well, she'd been the closest thing to a friend Magenta had made on Earth. And Frank... oh, Frank. Where to start? With him had been where the faults lay, that was true – the figurative blood was on his long, feminine, sparkling hands. But as Magenta thinks now, she remembers. Remembers that he had always been that way. That he was headstrong and forceful, dynamic and beautiful and... and fearless. Right up until those last moments, at least, when Riff Raff had faced him down with the lazer that ended his short but certainly eventful life. And she knows that people will talk. That they will lay the blame at she and her brother's door for his death. If nothing else, Frank was well loved by the Transsexuals, and Magenta and Riff Raff certainly hadn't been as popular.
"But..." She starts up again, as Riff is about to leave. "But Riff Raff, my brother... What do we tell them?"
"We tell them that Frank was power-crazy and that the only way to abort the mission was to end his life," Riff Raff shook his head. "It's the truth in any case."
"Is that really why you killed him?" Magenta blurts, and slaps her hands over her mouth.
"What?" Riff Raff asks, eyes narrowing now, face paler than usual. Magenta shakes her head.
"Nothing. Nothing." She repeats, backing away from where she'd begun to walk towards her brother, stumbling as she realises she's truly fearful of his anger. "I didn't-"
"Do you honestly believe that I – I – killed the Master out of some silly, human emotion like jealousy or hatred?"
"No!" Magenta lies, because that is exactly what she thinks.
"I did what I did for us, dearest Magenta." Riff Raff says, crossing the room and taking her face in his hands. His touch feels all wrong on her skin. Heavy and cold. And as if when he takes his fingers away, there will be streaks of blood on her cheeks. "For you. So we could return to Transsexual. And be happy. Aren't you happy?" He asks, and his voice is softer as he bows his head to look into Magenta's green eyes. She doesn't answer him. He lets her head go with some force and she trips over the steps leading up to the tank, sending her sprawling across the floor.
"You've gone all..." He sneers, and doesn't finish. He leaves the room and Magenta pulls herself up to a sitting position, tears stinging at her eyes again. This time, she goes to pick up the hankerchief. There is a big, black footprint on it – Riff Raff, of course. She wishes she could hurl the hankerchief at him, throw anything, but anything would be too light to sail across this chasm that has opened up between them. Magenta curls in on herself, feeling a shell of what she used to be, and cries. She cries for Rocky. She cries for Columbia. Oh, she cries for Frank. Countless tears splash to the floor.
But most of all, she cries for her brother.
So, yeah. I'm not even sure what this is. What I do know is it was almost an allergic reaction to "The Rocky Horror GLEE Show" - I swear, I watched it and it had me screaming at the screen, and not in the way that Rocky Horror should. Nothing (much) against Glee but... it was all wrong. So in my own small way, I'm doing something to make it right again, I guess. :)
Anyway. R&R and stuff, if you like. I hope you enjoy this little fic - I know I enjoyed writing it.
Keep on truckin', folks.
Cherry xxx