Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/642406. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: Multi Fandom: Homestuck Relationship: Rose_Lalonde/Mom, Rose_Lalonde/Kanaya_Maryam, Bro/Dave_Strider Character: Rose_Lalonde, Mom_|_Roxy_Lalonde, Dave_Strider, Bro_|_Dirk_Strider, Kanaya_Maryam Additional Tags: Incest, Rape/Non-con_References, Angst Stats: Published: 2013-01-17 Chapters: 1/? Words: 1208 ****** let's take jesus off the dashboard, got enough on his mind ****** by orphan_account Summary a reverse oedipal complex with the worst consequences. Notes i was going to publish this in one post but i decided that it would be a better idea if i did it in several chapters. the problem is that only one and a half chapters have been written. more soon. Your mother is a first class alcoholic. Her whispers are chardonnay and she shouts vodka martinis. She likes to ignore you in exchange for strangers, kissing her reflection in the mirror. She whispers terms of endearment in your ear at night, so soft that in the morning you might actually believe them. She wakes up with her face pressed against your feet and lipstick smears on your bedspread. She makes sure to get the stains out. Sometimes you sit next to her and watch her do it. You pick at your nail polish and she picks it up later, stumbling without a purpose. More often than not, she misses the mess and vacuums the clean areas of the house. You sit on the couch with your legs crossed and your heels clicking together. She grins at you, red smeared on her teeth. She makes you ill. You heard tales of mothers who had fallen for their daughters, kisses exchanged in the middle of the night, denial racing through their veins. Mothers who said, “This is a secret you have to keep forever.” Mothers who made their children into something, whether it something awful or not. Mothers who had their children call them ‘mommy’ until the age of 18. Mothers struck with a reverse Oedipal complex. You didn’t believe them. Myth is commonly based on the internet, nowadays. You heard about Strider’s ongoing battle with ‘Bro’. Waking up with his brother’s hand in his own, not remembering how it got there. Bruised hips and chapped lips. You had watched the messages pour in, shock etched across your face. You had always considered Dave’s familial life to be plain. Boring in the way that while the two of them were odd on their own, their relationship was purely that of a father and son. Dave’s brother had raised him from childhood. Your spine tingled lightly as you pictured the older Strider, sneaking into his younger brother’s room in the peak of the night, fingertips searching in the dark for the fragile body of whom he should have considered his son. You wrote about it in your journal until you heard your mother’s calls for you. Then you ran to her. You know better than to hide. She always finds you. Your mother would play sick on a regular basis, her retches into the toilet the regular background music to your pen jotting across a piece of paper. You would ask her to quiet down in there, and she would. Maybe you never appreciated your mother as much as you should have. Didn’t appreciate her constant praise and gifts. Didn’t appreciate her acceptance. It’s hard to love your mother while still psychoanalyzing her every move. There had been a broken martini glass on the floor for the past week. Your mother didn’t clean it up, yet still sweeping around it. It sat there for months on end until you picked up the shards of glass with quick fingers and quiet precision. Your mother smiled at you, the day after. She smiled. Just kept grinning. Like she was proud of you for doing something you would’ve been expected to do in any other household. She bought you two new journals the next day, and they sat on your desk for weeks, tied in pretty ribbon. You walked in on your mother crying a week after she had given them to you. You forgot what it was like to hear her in pain. You could get used to it. You graduated the eighth grade with flying colors, your lips painted black and your middle finger high up in defiance. No one saw it because no one was looking. Dave Strider sent you a message saying, “you’re the star, it’s you” and your mouth twisted up something evil. He was right. You were the star. It was you. Your mother is a quiet woman. She says very little, and when her conversations don’t require words, she doesn’t talk at all. While she is extremely quiet, she is also the loudest person you know. Her hair poofs up in a way that is entirely unflattering, her lips are always shining red, her eyes are large, and her clothing is always far too fancy for the occasion. You enjoy the annual Christmas photo taken with her, if only just to see the differences between your physique and hers. To compare the curve of her hips to the sharp angle of your shoulders. The slope of her chest to the flat plane of yours. The upward slant of her lips to the downward fall of yours. There’s never anyone to send the Christmas card to. You send a picture of it to Strider and he sends you one in return. His brothers’ arms wrapped tightly around him, staking claim, tacky Christmas sweaters worn. You responded the right way, with laughter instead of psychoanalysis. Everyone has their own way of dealing with crisis. For Dave it was ignoring it. For you, it was head on confrontation. Your mother would play coy, shying away from the fact that anything was wrong in the first place. She would take you out for Chinese food, a dull smile always planted on her face. It was her normal look. For you, head on confrontation was the way. For your mother, she would pretend she didn’t know what you were talking about. Then she would kiss your cheeks softly and go to bed. Strider sent you a message the same night, panicking. Alerting you that his brother had finally fallen over the edge into insanity. He was awake. He was awake this time, and his brother came pawing into the room, touching him without permission. Lips pressed against soiled skin, whispers of encouragement as he wrapped his younger brother’s hand around him at the edge of dawn. Dave had seized up, tears rolling down his cheeks. But the older Strider just… didn’t stop. Didn’t stop when his brother thrashed around, pulling away, screaming for help. Just clamped his oversized hand down over his mouth and rutted against his side until he reached release. TG: i think hes finally lost it TG: lalonde TG: im scared A week later, your mother drank her weight in tequila. Her skin buzzing, her hands searching for contact. You begrudgingly sat in her hold, her fingers stroking your face. “So pretty, Rosie.” “Always been so pretty.” In an act of defiance, you shaved your head. Maybe you thought your mother’s grasp would dull. You stopped wearing makeup, stopped eating. Stopped caring. You cried to yourself, your hands on your head, feeling the slowly growing stubble. This isn’t what you wanted. Your mother would still come in every night, stroking your face and whispering to you. Her lipstick would stain your face, leaving heart shaped marks on your cheeks in the morning. At school, fists were just another form of her kisses. Punches in the jaws gave you equal if not less pain than your mother’s smooches up the side of your jaw. Shouts of “dyke!” were embraced as a replacement to her terms of endearment. You started dressing like you believed it. Button up shirts and slacks. You did this until they realized that it wasn’t fazing you. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!