[Fic] "Only Children" -- Homestuck
Summary: The thing is, Roxy never really wanted a sister. She wanted her mom. (650 words)
Note: This ficlet was inspired by the 7/19/15 15_minute_ficlets word #232. It's also a Cotton Candy Bingo fill for the prompt: acceptance, because why not.
[ETA: The ever-so-slightly revised final version is now up on AO3!]
---------------------------------------------
Only Children
---------------------------------------------
The thing is, Roxy never really wanted (or expected) a sister. Neither did Rose. They each wanted their mom.
And they got that! Operation double-timeline mom-swap reacharound was a success! (Which wasn't the main point of the scratch thingywhatsit at all, but eh. Details, schmetails.)
Except they're basically fraternal twin sisters now -- or maybe part of a fraternal quadruplet set along with Dirk and Dave, or maybe three overlapping sets of two; look, ectobiology is fucking weird and weird time shit does not help anything -- and Roxy officially and irrefutably has No Fucking Clue how to handle that. Like, moms are for unconditional love, and making bad dreams go away, and just kind of being there as an example of adulthood and how you, too, can grow up and be awesome if you can get over your inferiority complex! Sisters are, at least according to her understanding of antediluvian pop culture, more for squabbling and teasing and stuff? And also at least theoretically on equal footing instead of the whole 'I brought you into the world' thing. She's not sure how to fit the two relationships together.
Neither is Rose, apparently, which means they spend a lot of time kind of awkwardly standing around trying not to admit how much they each want a fucking drink to help them forget to be awkward, and down that road lies a lot of bad shit nobody needs to revisit. Ever.
"My life sucks," Roxy says for the infinity-plus-oneth time to Jane, who is not experiencing anything remotely like the same amount of family drama, curse her and the piano she rode in on.
"Mmm," Jane agrees from around a mouthful of coffeecake batter, made from scratch in deference to John's adorkable hangups. She grabs a clean spoon from a drawer and offers Roxy a sample. "I think this might need more cinnamon. Thoughts?"
Roxy dutifully pops the spoon into her mouth and considers the batter flavor. "I dunno, it seems all right to me," she says after a moment. "And you could just put more cinnamon in the glaze later if we're wrong, right?" She licks the back of the spoon clean for good measure, then tosses it across the kitchen into the sink. Perfect aim, thank you thank you, take a bow.
Jane sighs. "It's not the same thing at all, but yes, I suppose I could. In the meantime, take two cupcakes and go talk to Rose instead of me. You'll never get anywhere if you both keep moping at everyone except each other, and regardless of what type of relationship you settle into, I promise it will work better with honest communication."
Roxy flops dramatically sideways along the oversized kitchen counter. "Ugh. Why do you have to be so sensible at me, Janey? And why is talking so hard?"
She can feel something gritty under her cheek, spillage from when Jane was mixing the dry parts of her recipe together. She probably has sugar in her hair now. Bleh.
"I think most things that matter to us are hard," Jane says as she pours the batter into a donut-shaped cake tin. "We get scared of screwing up. Case in point: me and my stupid crush on Jake. But are you more scared of screwing up and having to fix your mistakes, or of being stuck where you are forever until your dreams turn sour and there's nothing left worth fixing?"
"Ugh," Roxy says again with great feeling, and slithers out of the kitchen rather than answer. But she steals a pair of cupcakes from the Tupperware container on the table, and when she hits the stairwell, she starts to climb up toward Rose's writing room instead of down toward the lab she shares with Jade and Dirk.
She never really wanted a sister.
But fuck if she's going to throw away the one she got.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 7/19/15
15_minute_ficlets word #232: sister
---------------------------------------------
Lalala, just doing little finger exercises...
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)
Note: This ficlet was inspired by the 7/19/15 15_minute_ficlets word #232. It's also a Cotton Candy Bingo fill for the prompt: acceptance, because why not.
[ETA: The ever-so-slightly revised final version is now up on AO3!]
---------------------------------------------
Only Children
---------------------------------------------
The thing is, Roxy never really wanted (or expected) a sister. Neither did Rose. They each wanted their mom.
And they got that! Operation double-timeline mom-swap reacharound was a success! (Which wasn't the main point of the scratch thingywhatsit at all, but eh. Details, schmetails.)
Except they're basically fraternal twin sisters now -- or maybe part of a fraternal quadruplet set along with Dirk and Dave, or maybe three overlapping sets of two; look, ectobiology is fucking weird and weird time shit does not help anything -- and Roxy officially and irrefutably has No Fucking Clue how to handle that. Like, moms are for unconditional love, and making bad dreams go away, and just kind of being there as an example of adulthood and how you, too, can grow up and be awesome if you can get over your inferiority complex! Sisters are, at least according to her understanding of antediluvian pop culture, more for squabbling and teasing and stuff? And also at least theoretically on equal footing instead of the whole 'I brought you into the world' thing. She's not sure how to fit the two relationships together.
Neither is Rose, apparently, which means they spend a lot of time kind of awkwardly standing around trying not to admit how much they each want a fucking drink to help them forget to be awkward, and down that road lies a lot of bad shit nobody needs to revisit. Ever.
"My life sucks," Roxy says for the infinity-plus-oneth time to Jane, who is not experiencing anything remotely like the same amount of family drama, curse her and the piano she rode in on.
"Mmm," Jane agrees from around a mouthful of coffeecake batter, made from scratch in deference to John's adorkable hangups. She grabs a clean spoon from a drawer and offers Roxy a sample. "I think this might need more cinnamon. Thoughts?"
Roxy dutifully pops the spoon into her mouth and considers the batter flavor. "I dunno, it seems all right to me," she says after a moment. "And you could just put more cinnamon in the glaze later if we're wrong, right?" She licks the back of the spoon clean for good measure, then tosses it across the kitchen into the sink. Perfect aim, thank you thank you, take a bow.
Jane sighs. "It's not the same thing at all, but yes, I suppose I could. In the meantime, take two cupcakes and go talk to Rose instead of me. You'll never get anywhere if you both keep moping at everyone except each other, and regardless of what type of relationship you settle into, I promise it will work better with honest communication."
Roxy flops dramatically sideways along the oversized kitchen counter. "Ugh. Why do you have to be so sensible at me, Janey? And why is talking so hard?"
She can feel something gritty under her cheek, spillage from when Jane was mixing the dry parts of her recipe together. She probably has sugar in her hair now. Bleh.
"I think most things that matter to us are hard," Jane says as she pours the batter into a donut-shaped cake tin. "We get scared of screwing up. Case in point: me and my stupid crush on Jake. But are you more scared of screwing up and having to fix your mistakes, or of being stuck where you are forever until your dreams turn sour and there's nothing left worth fixing?"
"Ugh," Roxy says again with great feeling, and slithers out of the kitchen rather than answer. But she steals a pair of cupcakes from the Tupperware container on the table, and when she hits the stairwell, she starts to climb up toward Rose's writing room instead of down toward the lab she shares with Jade and Dirk.
She never really wanted a sister.
But fuck if she's going to throw away the one she got.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 7/19/15
15_minute_ficlets word #232: sister
---------------------------------------------
Lalala, just doing little finger exercises...
You can also read this entry on Dreamwidth, where there are currently (
comments)