Emerald sighed softly as she slid into bed. She'd never really appreciated how amazing it felt to lie on her back, staring up at the slanted ceiling, until Cinder had her out running errands every hour of the day and night.
Cinder was a lady of luxury, and she made sure that her accomplices were outfitted in similar luxury. Despite Emerald's bedroom being a tiny loft, it was covered in plush emerald green wallpaper. An elegant chaise lounge, the only red thing in the room, stood somehow both lazy and imposing, like Cinder herself. An everpresent memory, like a bloodstain on jade silk, that Emerald wasn't free.
Emerald rolled over in her enormous queen-sized bed. Not that she didn't enjoy it, but sometimes the space felt like it was just…too much. Too empty.
When Emerald lived on the streets, she slept on an abandoned fire escape. It was tiny and cramped, but she got accustomed to curling up when she slept. She was curled up in the fetal position now, her arms wrapped around her knees, lying on her side with her green hair, still damp from her shower, pressing into her pillow.
When Emerald dreamed, she was plunged into the past. Tonight was no different.
She watched them walk by, beautiful and elegant, dripping with diamonds that her fingers ached to steal.
"Get out of my way, street rat."
Even their words were pretty and cultured. Little Emerald wanted to be one of them when she grew up.
The first time she stole something, she got caught. It was a beaded bracelet, far too big for her little nine-year-old wrist. They threw her in jail for one night and Emerald sobbed all night, until her eyes were red-rimmed and the dirt on her face had been washed away.
She never cried again.
The woman's face blurred in front of her –street rat, menace, nothing.
"We really need to clean up these streets." The woman's voice echoed, as did the sound of her heels on gutter floors.
"Look at all these orphans –it's absolutely disgusting."
"Street rat! Stop!"
Emerald had been backed into a corner, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as the two men neared her. In one hand she clutched a bag full of jewelry and in the other, a makeshift knife. care-less. care-less. care-less. Her heart scolded her with each beat. She had been. She'd gotten caught.
They were going to take her back to jail, or cut off her hand –that was the punishment in Vacuo for a second offense of stealing. Blind terror consumed her.
It was muscle memory, and she felt it all over again –the way her muscles tensed before she leapt, the cool piece of metal in her hand, the taste of the man's blood as it spattered all over her face. Rinse and repeat. The second one had enough time for a gurgled scream before Emerald, wild, fearful, half-mad lunged at him.
Her eleven-year-old shadow, cast by the rising sun, over the bodies of the two men, scarlet blood dripping from her weapon and pooling at her feet.
"Have you ever killed anyone?" Cinder had asked. Emerald was sixteen.
Blood. Adrenaline. They tasted the same.
"No," Emerald had lied.
She hadn't killed again –she'd gotten better at stealing.
"Street rat."
"I' M NOT!"
Emerald had dreamed of her mother before and she saw her now, an image blurred with time.
She saw herself sitting on her mother's lap in front of a roaring fireplace. She was six years old. They were both wearing white dresses. Emerald knew it wasn't real –her mother had abandoned her at birth –but she still felt connected to the image.
Her mother looked down at little Emerald –her mother was the spitting image of her, except for her sky-blue eyes.
"Do you know why your eyes are red, darling?" Emerald's mother said in a voice that sounded unfamiliar, and yet warm and comforting.
Emerald shook her head.
Emerald's mother leaned closer, an indulgent smile curving her cultured lips. "It's because you're a murderer."
Emerald stumbled back, suddenly a gangly eleven-year-old holding a knife. The white dress she'd worn was spattered with blood, some dried, some still dripping.
She turned her shocked gaze to her mother, but her mother was dead too, throat slit in a jagged, messy way identical to the wounds Emerald had left on the throats of the two men.
Her dead mother fluttered open her clouded blue eyes and purred, words rasping through a cut throat, "Sweetheart, I always knew you would grow up to be a murderer."
"I'm NOT a murderer! I'm NOT!" Emerald screamed. "Mama, I'm not! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
"Liar. They're all abominable liars."
Her mother was replaced by the corpses of the two men, perched at a tea table. Their cold, dead hands held teacups, purple-tinted pinkies raised.
"But not all of them are murderers," the second said. "You're worse than the rest of them, street rat."
Emerald dropped to her knees, horrified. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"
"Emerald!"
Emerald's eyes flew open and she frantically struggled to regain her bearings. Mercury was there –why? –and he had crouched down beside the bed, his quicksilver eyes unnervingly quiet as he looked at her.
Emerald sat up, pulling the blankets around her in a pathetic attempt to cover up her see-through green nightdress. "What are you doing here?" she demanded, trying to summon anger, but all she felt was fear lingering from her dream.
"I heard you screaming," he said gravely. No smart-ass comments. His eyes didn't even flick down to her poorly-covered body, like they usually would have. She breathed deeply, let her heart slow down, before she spoke.
"Are you really Mercury?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. "Is this a trick question?"
"You're not usually so nice," she tried to explain. "I mean, usually you're kind of a douchebag."
"Sleepy you is mean," he concluded, standing.
"Was I really screaming?" Emerald asked softly. She couldn't look at Mercury, so she kept her eyes on her shaking hands.
"Yeah," he said. "You were yelling 'I'm not' and 'Leave me alone'." He smirked, but it was a halfhearted one. "I thought the cops had caught up with you."
They stayed there for a minute in the darkness, and then Mercury turned towards the door. "Well –uh –I'm gonna go. Sorry for bothering you, or whatever."
"Mercury." Emerald felt so vulnerable asking this but she couldn't face her dreams alone. Not yet. "Will you –stay with me?"
He looked surprised, but after a minute of –surprisingly adorable –baffled shock, he said, "Sure, Em."
He slid into bed next to her, perfectly filling up the unbearable amount of space, and awkwardly put his arms around her. Emerald slipped into the curve of his figure, which was surprisingly comfortable. In the morning, she was sure she'd care that she was sleeping next to Mercury Black with nearly nothing on for now, she was just content to be pressed up against his chest, to hear his slow, steady heartbeat.
"You've killed people." She said.
"Yeah."
"What's it like?"
In the silence, she felt him considering, before deciding to be honest with her.
"It's usually a rush. Pure adrenaline, you know? Like when we spar. But no rules. Freeing."
"Usually?" Emerald said softly.
"It was harder when I killed my dad," he admitted. "Not because I loved the old freak –it was just hard working up the nerve to do it."
"Do you ever –feel bad?"
He looked down at her, his quicksilver eyes glinting in the dim light. "Emerald, why are you asking me this?"
"I killed someone," she whispered into his chest.
"Oh." He said, clearly taken aback.
Then –"When?"
"I was eleven," Emerald said softly, and then she was somehow crying, and she couldn't stop, so he held her all night long until she sobbed herself into a dreamless sleep.
New Author's Note:
Hey guys! So I have decided to make "Nightmares" the first chapter of a series of Emercury oneshots. Now accepting prompts so if you have any ideas, or even just like a quote that you'd like me to write about in reference to them, please leave me a review or PM me! Looking forward to hearing your ideas!
Until next time!
-Ariesgirl666