Work Text:
It’s hard to find anything about her mother online. She’s discussed it countless times with Dirk, half-choking-up, half-seething as she discusses the common problem between the two of them. Their complete, innate inability to connect to their respective guardians. It frustrates her to no end, the strange absence her mother has left within her, like a festering hole she’s unable to fill. One so ridiculously and outlandishly futile considering she's never even met the woman, never even seen her past the flash of a magazine cover, or an old, dusty photograph, worn with the decades it has been left for.
There’s one page, though, that Roxy scrounged up from the depths of the internet. Hidden under countless scam and porn sites and pages for things she never even thought people could be into. Lodged under all this in a deep corner of the web is an old news site. The website is hardly functional now, but with her way around a computer, she’d managed to recover it. There’s a seizing in her stomach when she opens it again, a wash of dim light falling over her face as she huddles the laptop screen closer in the dead of night, feet tangling together under her desk. There’s always a ripple of nervousness that bounds through her when she’s on here, like it’s something she was never supposed to see, something deeply prohibited and instinctively wrong.
It hardly stops Roxy, though. It's why she keeps doing it.
It’s an old interview with her mother, one following the release of ‘Complacency of the Learned’. There’s a video attached, then a transcript below, one she’s read over and over, thousands of times, attempting to grasp at the last remaining remnants of this woman’s existence. The way she speaks, so smartly, detailed and researched. It makes Roxy feel embarrassed; she feels small compared to it. Feels unworthy of even reading it. She can hardly stand to watch the video. Seeing her move and speak and smile and be human. It makes Roxy’s heart race with something she doesn’t recognise. Familial want, maybe? The need for a mother who waited for her, waited for her instead of the alcohol she left behind? It’s ridiculous. Her mother had real things to do than worry about some fucked-up girl in the future. Had real wars to fight, revolutions to lead. Things to do that weren’t as pathetic as staying up at night and feeling bile rise up in her throat at the thought of a mother who cared.
Roxy watches Rose move, watches her smile at the interviewer's questions and answer them in her timely responses, grinning in that sly way she does. It make heats rise to Roxy's cheeks, makes something distinctly non-familial feeling weigh in her stomach.
“Some say your book behaves as a sort of…” The interviewer gestures with her hands, pursing her lips, eyes darting to the camera, “revolt against the system.”
Rose considers her question, fingers pressing to her chin in a way that makes the air in Roxy’s throat catch, fingernails almost coming to press against the black of her lips. “Sure, I would consider it that way,” She begins, folding her arms under her breasts. Roxy breathes and absentmindedly gropes her own chest. She’s flat compared to her mother, which is to be expected. She feels herself and sighs as her palm catches on a nipple, groping deeper, biting her lip and—what the fuck is she doing? She pushes her hands down, and her thighs clench. She’s being dirty, she thinks, watching her mother and letting her eyes drag over her body. She’s being so dirty.
“Complancey of the Learned is the culmination of all my past works, it is, I believe, the most crucial point of my career thus far,” Rose waves her hands, the ends of her fingers sharp and black, “It means a lot to me, the story itself, it’s a reflection of a life I believed I would have experienced. Perhaps in another realm of existence,”
“Do you believe in that?” The woman opposite asks, leaning forward, “The idea of past lives, or, say, alternate versions of ourselves across different universes?”
Roxy swallows, her throat tight.
Rose looks to the camera, her eyes purple and startling in a way that always makes Roxy’s brain whirl, dizzy with hands coming to clench at the fat of her thighs. “Yes,” she says, slowly, “I think, somewhere out there, there’s a version of me that lived a fuller life than I am now,”
“Fuller than yours? What could that possibly be?”
“Perhaps I met more fulfilling people,” Rose thinks aloud, clicking her tongue. Roxy’s hands are inching closer to her crotch, her underwear feels suddenly too tight. “Had more fulfilling romances, had more of a family.”
The interviewer nods, “Romances, you say?” She chuckles, then stifles it with a cough, “I’m sure you will find this profoundly unprofessional, but I am to believe that many people are curious about your relationships. Especially considering your seemingly strong bond with acclaimed film director Dave Strider,”
Roxy’s pacing two fingers over her panties, her shorts pushed to her ankles. She’s staring at her mother’s face, how her tongue slightly pokes into her cheek, how her brows furrow and her lips twitch into a ghost of a smile.
“Certainly not, he’s not my type,” Rose looks to the camera again, staring as if she sees Roxy. Roxy’s fingers speed up, her cock twitching and wetting the fabric.
“Oh, really? What is your type, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t find this relevant to my book,” Rose says, sternly, and—fuck, Roxy wants so dearly—wants Rose to speak to her like that, in all her acerbic grace. She’s pushed her panties down, hand around her weeping cock as she imagines, so brazenly, the woman she sees in the video speaking to her directly. Tutting and cursing her, splayed in her lap as she pumps up and down Roxy’s length, degrading her in the most perfect way.
Getting off to videos of your mother, Roxy? She’d say, grinning with all black lips and hints of white teeth, How scandalous, what would your friends think? Of you touching yourself in the middle of the night to your mother? Are you that pathetic—that desperate for someone to touch you?
To love you?
And Roxy whimpers, whines and says yes, says it over and over until the word loses all meaning. Her hand pumps quicker, thumb coming to massage over her tip and making her moan in an utterly pathetic way. She’s holding herself up, hand shaking as she grips the wood of the desk, her eyes never leaving her mother’s. She hardly hears the video anymore, just watches how her mother’s face moves, how she smiles in a sorely awkward way that reminds her of herself, how her eyes turn to slits and move in ways that remind her of Dirk. The simple idea of how similar her mother is to her gets her off even harder, builds a knot in her stomach and twists it feverishly.
She’s close, so close to being finished. She closes her eyes for a brief second and scrambles for an image to finish on. She finds it in her mother on top of her, purple eyes finding her from above as she slips onto Roxy, mouth opening in a silent gasp. She’s filled with Roxy, murmuring into her ear a mix of praise and degradation because Roxy’s unsure of what she enjoys more. Unsure of what the real Rose would say to her, anyway.
It’s almost sad that it's that thought which finishes her off, has her hand jack herself off a final time as she spurts white onto her pyjama top. Her breaths are shallow, and the video is still playing on her laptop. She hears the muffled chuckle of her mother and closes it with shaky hands. There’s a familiar stench of guilt that clouds her, builds a strong hold in the depth of her stomach and follows her to the bathroom and back. Follows her as she dips into bed and covers herself with the duvet and countless blankets that swallow her into darkness.
It stays with Roxy until the next morning, and she finds her laptop to ask Dirk if he’s had any luck with locating photos of his bro.