Warning! Contains squicky incest and graphic violence. Don't read it if you don't want to be traumatized.

Play this song: Doll Parts by Hole

...

Kyle wanted to run. He wanted to turn his back on the old shotgun row house and run - after Zoe, back to the swamp, anywhere. And when he tried to make his left leg do the motion that would turn him around, he fell forward and hit his head on the door. Despite all the healing Misty had done, his limbs were still not his limbs. He couldn't really tell them what to do.

He didn't even have full control over his head. His mouth was still suffering a disconnect from his thoughts. His eyes were focusing better but things were still blurry around the edges. He couldn't quite hear right either. Changes in sound were startling, even if they weren't startling sounds in their own right.

When his mother screamed it was like an ice pick in his brain. He wanted desperately to run. But she opened the door and he fell into the house. Into her arms.

...

4 years ago

It had been another of mom's bad days. When Kyle got home from school she was sprawled on the sofa, stoned and puffy-faced from crying all day. It hurt the boy to see her so miserable. He knew where it would lead, too. He'd been through too many evenings like this already, since dad left. She'd sob, she would tell him how she didn't deserve such a great son, then she'd talk about how badly she wanted to die. He hated hearing her say that. He felt so helpless.

She put on a weak smile and held a hand out to him. "Hey," she said. Her voice was raspy from smoking and crying. She sat up. She was wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing the past two days.

"Ma," he said. He set his backpack down and went over to sit beside her. "Ma, you can't keep torturing yourself like this."

She leaned against him, put an arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. He hugged her.

"He's not worth it," he said quietly. He was privately pissed that his dad could leave them in such a state but he wouldn't add that to her troubles. She was frail enough as it was. "We don't need him."

"You're so good to me," she sniffled. She was crying again. "You're the only man in the whole world who ever really loved me. I don't know what I would do without you."

"Ma," he said. He could tell she was going to start talking about suicide soon. "Don't talk like that."

She put a hand on the curve of his cheek. Tears streamed down hers. "Oh, Kyle. I love you so much. I don't deserve a son like you."

He looked at her helplessly, not wanting to go through this same talk again and not knowing how to prevent it. But she didn't say her next lines. She just kissed him on the cheek. She looked in his eyes and stroked his cheek with her thumb. Then she kissed him again, on the mouth. It had been years since they had mouth-kissed; not since he was in preschool and things like that were normal between mothers and children.

She kissed him again and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He froze. He knew what was happening wasn't supposed to be happening but he didn't know what to do. Her hand went under his shirt, skin on skin. Then her hand was on his fly, tugging it open while she kept kissing him. It wasn't long before she was straddling him. He couldn't push her away. She needed him. His body was slow to respond; he was tense and scared and feeling a bit sick. But his body did respond to her skilled touches and that made him feel even worse. But she needed him. So he answered that need, just like he answered all her other needs.

It was just the first of what would become a steady string of encounters that he wouldn't think of when he wasn't immediately in them. She never talked about killing herself again. Not to him.

...

Present day

Her hands were on him. She was grinding herself against him. It set his teeth on edge. In the past he could endure it by thinking of other things but he couldn't think of other things anymore. Thinking was still a struggle. He could only feel. And at that moment he felt preyed on; restrained by her grabbing hands. He trembled. He wanted badly to push her away and the limbs that weren't his were twitching with the urge to respond.

In a flash of clarity he saw his future. He would be stuck in the shotgun shack forever, a prisoner to his mother's whims. When he was alive he had been looking forward to graduating college so he could find a place of his own. He wasn't going to leave New Orleans but at least he would be able to live his own life. She said he was dead. He had no life to live now.

Her hands shoved his over her crotch and something inside him snapped. He found a word. He found it but it wouldn't come out. It was like trying to pass a kidney stone: It was stuck near his tongue, aching to come out. His blood rushed through his veins, hammered through his heart. He forced air through his throat and shaped it into a primal scream. And somewhere in the sound he found the shape of the word he needed so badly. A word he should have said years before.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

The word dissolved into the yell and he grabbed the nearest thing and started beating her with it. He hit her till he couldn't see her face anymore, screaming and using his word again and again. When she was a completely unrecognizable mess of bloody brains and gore he staggered to his feet.

He tingled all over. For the first time since waking up in the towel place he had controlled his whole body. He could feel that control ebbing again but he'd had it. For just a few precious moments he'd been able to tell his scarred body what to do and it had responded. He left the room and lumbered to the living room where he crouched down in the glow of the television. His right hand was still clutching the bloody trophy. Strands of his mother's hair were stuck in the blood.

He pulled himself into a sheltering curl and started to rock. It wasn't a deliberate motion. It just happened, a response to his frazzled state. He didn't know why Zoe had put him here. He didn't understand why she kept going away. He longed for the swamp again. For Zoe. For something that made sense. He could still feel his mother's hands on him. He rocked more to chase the feeling away. There were no thoughts of what to do next or what would happen. It didn't occur to him to hide her body. He simply couldn't think in straight lines. All he could do was rock and hug the trophy that had freed him from his mother's unwanted touch forever.

...

Author's Note:

Yeah, yeah. I know I said this was a one-shot but I got a lot of requests to keep going so you guys only have yourselves to blame for this.