Rocky Horror does not belong to me; it belongs to the eternally awesome Richard O' Brien.
This story is rated T (at least for now; I may change it to M later on down the road. Maybe.)
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3. Dreams
In the last week, she'd started having dreams. They always ran the same way…
*She's in a hall of mirrors, calling out and hearing her voice echo. She thinks it's just her at first, when a voice responds. A voice she never thought she'd hear again.
"Collie?"
The voice comes from the end of the hall. She can't run fast enough, and yet she finally makes it. There he is, just as she remembers him. No blood, no crude surgical scars, the grease in his black hair catching the light (though where the light's coming from, she can't say). He holds his arms out to her and she rushes to him. They wrap their arms around each other. She nuzzles her face into his shoulder. The smells that clung to him – motorcycle grease, the oil in his leather jacket, his hair gel – fill her nose. Eddie is back, and everything is as it should be.
Then she looks into the mirror behind them. She sees her face, along with the back of his head.
Except his hair isn't black. It's blonde.
He's not wearing his jacket anymore. His bare muscled back and gold pants shimmer in the same, untraceable light. She can't see his face, and she doesn't want to.
What she wants is to break free, but she can't even move. In fact, they both seem frozen in this position. He doesn't grip her tighter. He just calls out "Collie" over and over. She can't stand hearing her nickname in that voice. Not Eddie's voice, rough from smoking, drinking, and singing rock n' roll as loud as he could. But the other voice, smooth and perfect. Does he even understand what he's saying?
Even though she can't move, her voice comes back to her. "Stop calling me that!" She begs. "You can't call me that! You're not Eddie!"
This doesn't bother him. He keeps calling like she hadn't said anything.
She wants to kick him, hit him, squirm out of his grasp and run away. She can only repeat herself, in the hopes her voice will break the mirrors.
"YOU'RE NOT EDDIE!"*
She heard the shriek of his name ringing in her ears. She'd had nightmares before, but she never screamed herself awake.
She hated waking up alone. Sometimes Magenta would be there, the nights she wasn't staying in her brother's room. "Gennie" (which she learned to never call Magenta to her face) would turn on the lamp, sit in bed beside her, and assure her it was only a dream.
Tonight, however, she had the room to herself. She listened, waiting to hear the footsteps of the other residents of the castle as they stormed to her door and yelled at her to shut up. Luckily, she either wasn't as loud as she thought, or everyone else was too asleep to care.
She rolled over and hugged her pillow close, tears starting to spill. "Goodnight, Eddie."
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He was in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He usually had no problem falling asleep after "relieving Frank's tension", but tonight, he couldn't close his eyes without seeing faces. Not Frank's; his creator was snuggled up next to him, snoring quietly.
He saw Janet, calling him "creature of the night," wearing his leopard jacket after they'd been discovered.
*She grabs his hands and guides them over her body. Her hair changes from brown to red, and her voice becomes higher.*
He saw Eddie, singing about loving rock 'n' roll, being reduced to a pile of guts and leather.
*He's in the center of the action – isn't Eddie supposed to be doing this? – dancing, picking her up and spinning her around. He also sees himself, held against the wall by Frank. If he's over there, why is he in Eddie's position?*
He saw Columbia, her disinterest in him when they were first introduced, screaming as Eddie was killed right in front of her.
*He knows he shouldn't say it. It's the last thing she needs to hear after what just happened. The words come out anyway: "Why do you keep him in there? He's so ugly."*
Maybe, if he waited long enough, he'd just drift off…
"EDDIE!"
He bolted upright in bed, his heart pounding, jostling Frank off him. A name sat on the tip of his tongue; "Collie," a response to his name.
But it wasn't his name. He wasn't Eddie.
Next to him, Frank groaned in his sleep as he felt an empty space where his creation should have been. He sighed and lay back down.
He could figure this out in the morning. He just had to ask her. How hard could that be?
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Thanks for reading! See you next chapter!
You ever have one of those dreams where you're doing something and yet you can see yourself standing off to the side? Or is that just me?