Daaaamn, I actually thought that I posted this chapter before I went to bed. Turns out I didn't, which would explain why it didn't show up on my profile, ha ha. But, here it is. After the last smutty chapter, we'll get one that is much more serious. Still a bit of smut, near the beginning, because RHPS is all about the smut.
Also the first appearance of what will become a very big problem for our dear Riff Raff.
RHPS is the property of Richard O'Brien.
Chapter 10: I Know Places
When Magenta was finally satisfied - so, about seven orgasms later - they were both exhausted enough that they considered going to sleep right there on the living room floor, tangled up in each other and bathing in the afterglow of their lovemaking session. Unfortunately, Sienna had other plans.
The baby started to cry, and Magenta muttered a few curses and got up to go into their room, where Sienna lay in her bassinet. Cooing gently at the child, she lifted her to her breast, giving her more milk as she lay down in her and Riff Raff's bed. Riff Raff slid into the room, standing to watch his sister and daughter and feeling nothing but a rush of affection.
When the baby had been fed and burped - no spitting up this time - Riff Raff went to pick her up and lay her back down on her tiny mattress. He adjusted the blankets around her a bit before crawling into bed next to Magenta, turning to spoon her. She stroked his arm gently, and he murmured, "Do you remember when we had to leave home?"
"Mmm?" She was half asleep.
"I remember it plenty," he whispered into her ear.
"Why don't you relay it to me?" Magenta said, her eyes fluttering a bit. "I could use a bedtime story."
He chuckled and kissed the side of her jaw, her loose hair tickling his face. "It's not the greatest story, but it's a story, none the less."
It had been a regular morning in the Vitus apartment - well, nearly regular.
Riff Raff had gotten up early to pull on clothes and take care of his essentials. He still worked as a handyman, but he was planning on looking for another job today, and he had to look a bit more put together than usual. No shift this morning, so he put on a long black dress and did his makeup, feeling grateful that he had a reason to do more than just his eyes after so long.
After leaving the bathroom with his face fully painted, he figured it was time to wake up his sister. She was asleep in his bed - she'd long ago abandoned her top bunk - on her stomach, the blankets covering everything below her waist, her bare back exposed. She was nineteen now, about to graduate upper school in a month or so. Graduate, and with average grades. Didn't sound that big to anyone else, but to anyone who knew of how she'd struggled during the past few years, it was huge.
She would be dead now if you'd have gone to Strangelove.
The voice was sudden and came out of nowhere. It was loud enough that it could've been someone standing right next to him, but it sounded like it was coming from the back of his skull. He jumped and spun around, looking for the source.
Nothing. No one was there. He blinked in confusion. What was. . . ?
Riff Raff shook his head and walked over to run a finger down Magenta's spine. A slight shiver. She was awake. "Genta," he said, his voice teasing.
"Mmmmm," came the response.
"Time to wake up, my love."
"No, it's not," came her muffled voice. She reached out an arm and tapped the alarm clock next to their bed with a fingernail. "I have six more minutes. I fully intend to use them."
"So do I," Riff Raff growled, and he leaned down and flipped her so that she was on her back. A small "eeek" came from her throat, and she blinked up at him, her eyes a bit bleary. He moved so that he was on top of her, straddling her hips, a playful smile on his face.
"Riff. . . ." she whined in protest, even though her hands went straight up under his skirt to stroke his fishnet-clad legs. "Come on, I need sleep. Don't you know how little sleep I've been getting, with you all over me all the time?"
"You say that like I'm the only one at fault," Riff Raff said. "Half the time, I believe it's you who can't keep your hands off of me." He leaned down and kissed her hard, feeling her hands move themselves to his chest, until he pulled back with an even bigger grin. "And by the way, your morning breath is horrible," he teased.
She snorted, but then gave him a look that could only be described as pure seductiveness. "Well," she said, "if you're too repulsed to kiss the lips on my face. . . ."
". . . . then perhaps I could put my mouth to use somewhere else," he said. And then, after an agonizing three minutes of teasing and taunting, his tongue was sliding along the wet folds of skin between her legs, and she was holding onto his hair as if it was a lifeline. Every movement of his mouth drew a gasp, a moan, a shiver, a sigh, a murmur of his name. . . .
The door slammed open.
Father was standing there. His face glowed red, veins were bulging in his neck, his flashing eyes positively livid as he stared at them. Riff Raff wrenched his head up so fast that he almost hit the top of the bunk bed, and he felt the blood drain out of his face when he saw his father. Magenta's eyes snapped open, turning to look to the doorway and hissing a bit when she saw who was there.
When Father spoke, his voice was eerily calm. "What's going on in here?"
Silence. Riff Raff opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Magenta only stared at her father, seeming to not realize that she was completely naked in front of him. Father's stare shifted between them, and when he spoke again, he was yelling.
"I said what the fuck is going on in here?!" He stormed into the room and suddenly grabbed Riff Raff by the neck. Yanking his son off of the bed, he slammed him into the floor. Magenta bolted up and aimed a punch at his back, but Father turned once and backhanded her sharply across the face, knocking her away.
"What the hell were you doing?" He snapped, turning back to face the choking Riff Raff. "What have you been doing? What the fuck is wrong with you? You're fucking your own sister, you piece of shit -"
He was cut off as he buckled a bit, Magenta having returned to land a kick in the back of his knee. Father let go of Riff Raff, turning to Magenta and grabbing a handful of her hair, pulling her down onto the floor to meet his eyes.
"And you, you filthy slut, I bet you talked him into it, I bet you would've done the same shit to me!"
Magenta's hands shot up to claw at his face, trying to get him to let her go, but he talked through her assault. "You think I don't notice? You think I'm that much of an idiot as to not notice that your door is locked every day? That I don't hear you in there when you're supposed to be asleep? That I can't see you two giving each other those looks?" He threw her to the floor. "Eye fucking each other all the time, have you been eye fucking me, too, whore? Is fucking your family what gets you off -"
Riff Raff was behind him, his arm around Father's throat, cutting him off, choking him. Father's hands flew up to grip Riff Raff's elbow and wrist, pulling them away, almost succeeding -
Father suddenly flipped himself over so that they were both on their backs, Riff Raff being pinned under him. In the brief moment that Riff Raff's arm was knocked loose, Father broke free and scrambled up, breathing heavily as he stared at his son and daughter on the floor. The deep red in his face turned to a blotchy purple when Magenta moved so that she was between him and Riff Raff, shielding her brother.
When he spoke again, the cold calm was back. "I want you out of this house. Both of you. I didn't want either of you in the first place, and you're insane if you think I'm going to put up with this. . . ." he flailed his hands, trying to come up with the words. "This abomination."
He turned and exited the room, leaving the siblings sitting still for a moment, before immediately turning to check each other for injuries. Nothing broken, no scrapes, no bruises, but their hands were shaking worse than an earthquake.
They had their essentials packed within ten minutes. Hairbrush, toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, a small bottle of shampoo, tampons, birth control, money, changes of clothes for each of them. . . . Riff Raff had a large old suitcase in the back of the closet from when he'd once left for three days to tour Strangelove, and Magenta had emptied out their old school bags to carry anything extra.
They filled their bags until there was no space left, Magenta stuffing the very last corner of the suitcase with the benzodiazepines she was prescribed a year ago for her flashbacks. She rarely took them, but Riff Raff had insisted, just in case something happened. . . . In case her neck was touched by a hand, or a room suddenly got dark enough to remind her of the pantry. . . .
With Magenta fully dressed and carrying the book bags and Riff Raff holding the suitcase handle, they made their way out of the bedroom. The air of silence hovered between them, and it only got heavier when they saw Father, still having not left for work, staring at them with such hate and revulsion that it almost hurt.
He stood by the door, holding it open. Riff Raff walked out in front, and when he reached back to hold Magenta's hand, Father let out an almost demonic growl. "Sick fucks," he said. "I've spawned a pair of sick fucks."
The siblings said nothing, only squeezed their hands tighter, Riff Raff leading the way out. As soon as Magenta was through the door, Vandal Vitus hissed "And don't ever come back," before slamming it closed behind them. The click of the lock seemed disproportionately loud as it shut them out of their old home forever.
They started walking out of the parking lot, and Magenta was the first to speak. "What are we going to do?"
Riff Raff clenched her hand almost painfully and said, "Get on the bus. Go to the bank and withdraw all my money. And then. . . ." He trailed off.
Magenta thought for a moment before saying, "We could leave town. We could just get on another bus and go somewhere. Anywhere. I know places around the country that are well-known for their care of the homeless -"
She cut herself off as the word weighed itself in her mind. Homeless. They were homeless.
"What about my job? It's our only source of money right now." He grunted a bit in frustration. "I don't have anything else but the bare necessities."
"You have me." She said, her voice fierce.
"I consider you a bare necessity."
She let out a long sigh before muttering, "I could. . . . I could start selling sex for money again. I don't know how to do anything else -"
"No," Riff Raff said, and now it was he who was fierce. "You could be a cashier. Or a waitress. Or a maid. But I don't want. . . ."
Silence. Soon they were at the nearest bus stop, then on the bus, then at the bank, then out on the road again. With nothing else to do, they ended up sitting on the steps of the city hall, staring into the distance and not talking for a good while.
And then Magenta said, "Have you ever heard much about the Capital?"
He blinked himself out of his reverie and turned to her. "The Capital? Of Caligari?"
Caligari was a whole other country, a good twelve hours away on bus. It was famous for being the center of everything in the planet Transsexual; trade, wealth, culture, politics. The Capital - it seemed to have no other name - was a bustling metropolis of riches and wonders, if what they saw on television was anything to go by. The Great and Fabulous Furter family themselves lived there, their home a golden castle at the heart of the city.
It was also, Magenta told her brother, a popular site for people looking to start over with a new life. Jobs everywhere, good apartments for sale, a lot of extra money to go around. . . .
Riff Raff said, "We'd have to get over the border to Caligari first. And then spend a good amount of time getting to the Capital. What if it's not really worth it?"
"It's got a reputation for being a place where people go when they're looking for better lives. And. . . ." she trailed off a bit, and looked him hard in the eyes. "And it's probably the most tolerant place on the entire planet. We could pretend to just be like any other couple, but if anyone ever found out. . . . The consequences wouldn't be nearly as bad as they would here in Aldous. I've heard that it's where a lot of incestuous couples go, when they've been rejected by their families. It might be the best option for us, Riff Raff. It's. . . . It's something."
The next night, when they were on the bus that would take them to the Orwell/Caligari border, Riff Raff heard it again.
He had the window seat, staring out at a long blue forest that stretched out around the street. The moon was a crescent, smiling mockingly at him. His sister was taking a nap in the seat next to him, her head on his shoulder and his arm around her, their bags on the bus racks above them.
She's dead. You're holding a dead woman.
It was the moon that was talking to him, its white teeth flashing as it giggled. He blinked, and the moon went back to normal. But the voice spoke again.
Your precious Genta is dead. Died in her sleep.
He believed it.
When he looked back on this moment, he was confused as to why he believed it so instantaneously, but he did. A cold fear gripped his heart, and he was absolutely convinced that Magenta was dead next to him. His head snapped over to her, and in the dimness of the bus's light bulb, her skin was washed out and sallow, her eyes sunken in, her lips blue. There was no movement of her chest to indicate breathing, and she felt so cold. . . .
"Magenta!"
Riff Raff turned to grip her by both shoulders, and she snapped her eyes open. Her pretty green eyes, so dry and lifeless.
"Magenta!" He almost shook her, no, she wasn't dead, she couldn't be, not his angel, his love, his darling, oh fuck please no -
"Riff Raff!" She was gripping him back. . . . Alive. Clearly alive. Breathing. Her pulse was tangible through his fingers. And her eyes were wide with confusion. "Riff Raff, what the hell? Are you alright? Did something happen - ?"
She cut herself off when she saw that he was crying. The tears made their way freely down his cheeks, and he almost crushed her in a hug. Not dead. Alive. So convinced, he'd been so convinced -
"Riff," Magenta's voice was much gentler now, and she'd wrapped her arms around his neck and was holding him close. "What is it? What happened, love?"
He said nothing. Only continued to cry in relief that the moon had been wrong.
It was dusk of the next day, and they were ready to act.
There were long lines, endless lines, of people passing through the two countries. The bus had dropped them off a town away from it, and they'd spent their day planning their crossing of the border. They'd talked about it briefly before, thought it was now that they were coming up with their complete strategy. They had no one to contact on the other side, no family or friends, but they didn't need to; they were ready.
Tentatively, Magenta brought up Riff Raff's breakdown the previous night, but he'd shrugged it off and said it was a result of the stress of getting kicked out of their home. At the time he told her this, that was genuinely what he believed it to be. . . . Even though he remembered that single voice the night they'd left, and felt twinges of doubt.
The sky was a soft yellow and getting darker, a few stars piercing through, the moon absent. They made their way through the trees, toward Lake Crystalline, one of the biggest lakes in the world. . . . And on the other side was Caligari. They found what they expected: motorboats, lined up on the shore. A rental company, loaning out the boats for leisure to those who could afford it. The employees' sales pitches could be heard even from the siblings' spot in the forest, with a lot of people around to be distracting. Riff Raff had enough money on him to pay for an hour of motorboating, but he was inwardly worried that the employees might see all their bags and get a bit suspicious. So, just in case, he'd brushed up a bit on his hotwiring skills.
Lake Crystalline was shaped like a boomerang, and they were on the tip of it. Steal a boat, get to the inner curve of the boomerang, where there was much less border patrol, and then run. Run as fast as they could, without getting shot at. Shield Magenta's body with his own, if he needed to.
"Ready?" She asked.
"Let's go."
They moved to walk out of the forest, and bumped into someone immediately.
"Hey, watch where you're going!"
Magenta almost snapped back at the man she'd run into, but the other man next to him grabbed his forearm and hissed out a reprimand. The two were crouched low, their bodies dirty, their faces rough and similar in appearance. Black hair, bright blue eyes, tanned skin, straight noses, full lips. They were looking up at her and her brother from a spot behind the bushes, one annoyed, the other a bit scared.
"Sorry," Riff Raff said in a hushed tone, pulling her back and putting himself between them. "My sister, she wasn't looking where she was going. . . ."
The one still looked annoyed, but the other perked up a bit. "Your sister?"
Riff Raff nodded warily. From her place behind him, Magenta caught the eye of the man who spoke. His next statement was directed at her. "You two headed for the Capital?"
She nodded, and this man gently slapped the other on the shoulder. "Cool yourself, Hawthorne. They're like us."
"How do you know?" The other man, Hawthorne, spoke. "She could be lying. They could be spies."
"We don't want any trouble," Riff Raff said, backing away slowly with Magenta pressed behind him. "We'll leave to attend to our own business."
"Oh no you don't! They're going to tell someone that we're out here, Sherwood, they'll alert the authorities, we'll be shot dead if Grandfather finds us -"
"But he won't," Sherwood said, running his fingers gently along Hawthorne's back, and Magenta suddenly realized what he'd meant by "they're like us." "Grandfather won't ever find us, sweetheart. Neither will my parents, or yours. Tell me," Sherwood stood up and locked eyes with Riff Raff, "how long have you two been icebound?"
Magenta was confused at this question, but Riff Raff answered after some hesitation. "About three years," he said. Three years; the amount of time they'd been together.
Sherwood nodded. "Been four and a half, for us. You'll have to forgive Hawthorne; he doesn't trust easily."
"Not like I have reason to," Hawthorne muttered.
"Your sister, huh? Full, half, adopted, step?" Sherwood said to Riff Raff.
"Full."
"Damn, you have good reason to want to leave Orwell. Hawthorne and I," he motioned his head toward his companion, "are first cousins. Parents never knew about it, but Grandfather found out and lost his shit. So we ran for it." He approached them a bit more, pausing just outside of their comfort zone. "Anyone waiting for you on the other side?"
"No. No one."
"Listen," Sherwood said, after a look of consideration. "I have an old friend waiting to transport us to the Capital once we get to Caligari. Ze should be on the other side with zir van. It's dangerous out there on your own. Do you two need - ?"
"No!" Hawthorne bolted up, his eyes flashing with suspicion. "You'll get us in trouble, Sherwood, how do we really know that they're like us?"
"He answered the icebound question. That's good enough for me," Sherwood said, his jaw set. "Now, do you two need transportation? To the Capital?"
At this, Riff Raff looked back at Magenta, his eyes asking her for her opinion. She gave a slight nod.
"We'd appreciate it, yes," he said, and soon (with some grumbles of protest from Hawthorne) the four were making their way down to the shore of the bank.
As expected, the employee they approached looked highly suspicious when they asked for a motorboat for an hour. Didn't take much to get him to agree to it, though; all Magenta had to do was bat her eyelashes a little and he melted. The four of them were soon in a boat, with Sherwood manning the steering wheel, pulling farther and farther from the shore. . . .
Riff Raff sat in the back with his hand firmly entwined in hers, holding a light conversation with Sherwood as he drove. Magenta didn't pay much attention to them, instead thinking about how the shitty fucking wind was getting her hair into more knots than it'd ever been in, when Sherwood aimed a question at her.
"Hey, Magenta, when did it start for you?"
"What?" She said, reaching up to pull her unruly hair out of her face. "What do you mean?"
"He means, when did you start falling in love with your brother?" Hawthorne repeated, looking at her with not-at-all veiled contempt. "If he is your brother."
"He is," Magenta said, looking him back in the eye with just as much contempt. "I was a little girl."
Sherwood spoke on. "We didn't really get involved with each other until we were already adults. Getting out on our own, needed roommates, so we got an apartment together. It just kind of happened."
"I don't think they need to know about our romantic history, Sherwood," Hawthorne muttered.
"I'm just trying to make conversation," Sherwood said.
"Not like we need much, anyway, we're almost there. . . ."
They were coming up to the shore of the curve. It was abandoned, but from there it was only a short trek away to Caligarian soil, where there would be a van waiting for them. . . .
The border patrol's sirens started to wail.
Hearing Hawthorne's scream of "Shit!", Magenta turned and saw the flashing lights of a border patrol boat, heading toward them, a loud voice over a megaphone yelling "Stop in the name of the Orwellian law!"
Wasting no time, Sherwood shifted the boat into its full speed, swerving a different part of the curve as the boats seemed to gang up on them. A long beam of light flashed above their heads - antimatter lasers. Magenta felt Riff Raff tug her down so that she was flat on her stomach on the floor of the boat, his own body curled over hers to protect her. She turned her face enough to see the feet of the two cousins, scrambling to move out of the way of the lasers. The sirens were getting closer. . . .
When the boat slowed down, she almost wanted to scream at Sherwood to speed it back up again, but Riff Raff got up off of her and pulled her up enough to realize that they were on the shore. The cousins, having brought nothing but the clothes on their backs, lept from the vehicle immediately. Magenta was still wearing both book bags, so she was ready to jump, too - until she saw Riff Raff move to get something from their suitcase.
"Riff, please, whatever it is, it's not important -" She went to grab his arm, and saw another flashing red light shoot past them. It was inches away from the side of her brother's head, and he finally turned and grabbed her hand. Together they sprung out of the boat, onto the sand below, and they began to sprint away, the distant shapes of Sherwood and Hawthorne in the woods already.
Soon they were in the darkness of the woods, stumbling around, their hands being practically glued together being the only reason that they weren't separated. The sun had completely set by this point, leaving little light. Dark, it was so dark. . . .
The darkness of the pantry, the endless panic, the knowledge that De Lordy was going to come and force himself on her any second -
Magenta screeched and smacked herself. No, not now, this is not the time or the place -
But she was there, in the pantry, banging on the door and screaming for someone, anyone to come help her. Her heartbeat was pounding against her ribs, ready to break them, and her lungs were helping, they were expanding with so much air. Her head felt so light, and the pantry was so dark, the food being knocked off the shelf all around her. There was someone holding her hand, and it was De Lordy, and now he was scooping her up in his arms, oh no, oh please no, he's going to rape me, he's going to take me to his bedroom, no please shit don't touch me -
She was scrambling and screaming, and soon a few more hands were holding her arms and legs still. Distant voices, vaguely yelling. "What the fuck is wrong with her?" "She's having a flashback, get her some light -"
Her head was so floaty; she was going to pass out, and they would fuck her while she was sleeping -
The light turned on.
She blinked, and she felt a pill being pressed into her hand - yes, a pill, and she remembered what these pills were for. She swallowed it dry, and within a few minutes her light-headedness became pleasant instead of sickly, and she could see now that there was no darkness.
She was in the back of a speeding van, the light hanging over her turned on, Sherwood looking concerned, Hawthorne looking at her like she was the most terrifying thing in the world. Her brother was next to her, one hand firm on her shoulder, the other tightened around her bottle of benzodiazepines. His face was unreadable, but his voice betrayed all his worry. "Genta, are you okay? Do you need space?"
She didn't answer this question, her eyes straying instead to the bottle of pills. "Riff. . . . Did you. . . . Is that what you were getting. . . ?"
"From the suitcase?" He responded. "Yes. Good thing I did, I'd say."
That they were, Magenta thought blearily. From the driver's seat, she heard a guttural voice say, "She alright back there? Poor thing was almost passed out."
"She's alright," Riff Raff said, pulling his sister tightly to him.
She slid her heavy-feeling arms around him and murmured "You prick, my pills aren't that important. . . ."
"Obviously, they were," he said, tracing circles into her back.
"Riff," she murmured into his ear, so quietly that only he could hear. "What does 'icebound' mean?"
He chuckled a bit. "It means involved with someone incestuously. It's a slang, my love." He was now massaging her back deeply. It felt so nice, and she was suddenly so exhausted. . . .
They were in the Capital when she woke up.