14Yeah, so a follow-up idea for this one-shot has been stuck in my head in some form or fashion ever since writing the original one-shot. This got finished in part because I kept thinking about it more and more until the idea was too fleshed out to not write, and in part because I was encouraged by some guys in a Discord server to write a follow-up.
Ironically, this is interrupting the upload schedule of the story for which that Discord is dedicated... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This is not going to be like my first RWBY fic, which started as a one-shot… then became a two-shot… then became a full story. The difference between them is that I wasn't struck by an entire, fleshed-out plot idea for this one like I was for Wash It Away.
Besides, I like how this ends too much to write anything beyond it.
- Ikedawg43
Emerald walked through the streets in search of food, but she was more enveloped by her thoughts than her search. When she was little, searching for food meant hunting to find some dumpster with a fresh batch of scraps that hadn't been picked over yet, or maybe putting all her strength into fooling some clerk into thinking that she had a little bit of cash to pay with. By the time she had first reached the age she was now—around seventeen, though without any real records or even a birthday, so that number was malleable—she had more than enough control over her Semblance to move to petty theft. Interestingly enough, though, when the Relic of Choice had let her restart her life inside her seventeen-year-old body, she had retained the extra few years of control over her Semblance and Aura. Emerald found it strange that the Relic had been so… helpful. Even growing up on the streets, she had been conditioned to think of genies as beings that granted wishes and tried to screw you over on some technicality—malicious creatures, not benevolent ones. Instead, Choice had seemed to go out of its way to help her out.
Now, "searching for food" meant looking for some restaurant that sounded good. She had stolen cash to spend, and if she hadn't, then some poor waiter would be tricked into thinking she did. Emerald would have made some effort to ensure that whoever did pay had it coming, whether because they were a jerk or seemed well-off. She had never before felt bad about what she had to do to others in order to survive. Meeting Cinder, fighting to destroy Beacon, serving the Queen of the Grimm… all of that had changed Emerald's perspective somewhat. Emerald used to fight to survive, but she had helped end that same fight for so many people. She didn't consider herself a good person—never did—but she couldn't bring herself to cause suffering to those who didn't deserve it.
She didn't even really notice or care where she walked in search of food. Emerald's mind was working overdrive on what she would do next. She was in Mercury's hometown, one of the larger subsidiaries to Vale's capital. Marcus Black's residence was outside of town, and Emerald planned to go by the next morning and… and do what, exactly? Introduce herself to Mercury's abusive father as a girl from a future where he was dead, and demand that he release his son to her? What good what that even do? Mercury wasn't a warm person even on the best of days, and he'd tell her to go to hell if she tried to drag him anywhere, regardless of whether it would get him away from his father.
Emerald snorted a laugh to herself as a thought crossed her mind: if she hooked up with Mercury or even just flashed her tits to him, he'd follow her like a puppy. It wasn't the worst idea in the world, but Emerald wasn't certain it would accomplish much. She didn't know much about Marcus Black, but what she did know didn't paint a great picture: alcoholic, abusive, hard ass, controlling, hateful. She didn't want to bet that he wouldn't hunt Mercury down once he left. There would need to be a more permanent solution.
Besides, this Mercury was the one that Cinder had recruited. Em had no doubts he'd sleep with her given the opportunity, but she'd never get through to him like that. She'd probably hate it, too; Emerald had no delusions that she didn't hate the old Mercury. He had changed drastically in their time together, to the point where Em just wasn't sure how to handle him now. As funny as that plan was, it would accomplish nothing and she'd regret it immediately afterwards anyways. Were it her Mercury, the one she had just left behind, the plan would have worked and Emerald would have gone with that off the bat without a second thought. Then again, she doubted she'd even need to resort to that if it were her Mercury.
It had only taken Emerald a few days to get here but she already missed Mercury. She was upset with herself for not taking any opportunity with Mercury earlier. Sure, they were scared because they didn't think they had long to live and didn't want to ruin things, but she was a fool to think that she could pursue her feelings once they got to safety. It took a magical portal to the past for Emerald to get to safety, and now here she was, pining for even the chance to see Mercury again. It felt safe for Emerald to admit to herself now that she loved the boy—but it frustrated her that she'd never had the courage to push him to admit the same thing.
She had a chance, though. Mercury was still alive in this timeline. The million-lien question, though, was how the hell she was supposed to get through to Mercury a second time, when the first time had taken years and a trip to meet the literal devil.
Emerald's thoughts, doubts, and worries swarmed her mind and muddled her senses, which revealed themselves to be a mistake. She heard the footsteps pick up their pace behind her, but it didn't register in her mind that she was walking the streets alone, that she was half-naked by normal dress standards, and that she was rather exotic-looking for Vale: a perfect recipe for some scum to try something stupid.
Or it would have been stupid had Emerald been paying more attention. She reacted, but she never got turned around before a hand wrapped around her mouth from behind. Another one wrapped around her stomach and she was lifted a few inches off the ground and drug into the nearby alley, before being set down and shoved up against a wall. She kicked and thrashed the whole way, but it did nothing. Whoever had her was stronger than she was, though given her old body, that wasn't saying much. Emerald had always been a one-trick pony with her Semblance.
And all it would take is spinning around to make eye contact to give them a hallucination so terrible that they'll never sleep again. She was thinking about making them experience being ripped in half by a Grimm; that was pretty gruesome, and it was a pretty easy thing for her to project. The Semblance was preloaded in her mind; she just needed a chance to use it.
Emerald's head thrashed back and bashed her assailant's nose with considerable force. The guy flinched, but not enough for Emerald to wriggle around and make eye contact. The blow should have broken his nose, but if it hadn't, it meant the bastard had Aura, which was bad news for her—it meant Huntsman, or a criminal of similar stature. He's already stronger than me, but if he has Aura, this… could be bad. One hand remained on her mouth, and the other snaked in between her thighs—thankfully, on the outside of her clothes, for now. He used it to grab a hold of her inner thigh and try to pry her legs open, though, so that's not so great.
Emerald remained calm, despite the situation she was in. She continuously thrashed and fought back, but she didn't have the strength to break free from her attacker's grasp, or even stop him from continuing. Em was honestly more pissed at the thought that she might have to get raped before this guy gave her the chance to use her Semblance. She threw a fit with her shoulders and flailed her arms, but couldn't shake off her attacker and couldn't spin around enough to make eye contact. The bastard was hiding his face from her each time she turned, and he didn't realize it, but that also kept him from being subjected to a crippling hallucination.
The hand that had griped her thigh released and started tugging down on her pants; Emerald's belt made progress slow, but she could feel air on more and more of her hips. Seriously, after surviving being hunted by Team RWBY, rebelling from the Queen of the Grimm herself, and using a god-damn Relic, Emerald was about to get bent over by some nameless thug in some backwater town all because her old body was too weak to turn around and make the guy hallucinate. Emerald's resistance faltered as she ignored what was happening to her by focusing instead on preloading her Semblance. There was no chance in hell this asshole was going to be able to rape her and then release her to flee without giving Emerald even the tiniest glimpse of his eyes, meaning that she was going to make him suffer sooner or later. Emerald focused on preloading her Semblance, deciding that a Grimm mauling was far too tame of a punishment—that was only enough for attempting to rape her. This would call for poetic justice, and despite the situation, Emerald smirked as she imagined a scenario that forced her attacker to experience being raped by Grimm. It was inspired by some fucked-up Mistralian shit that, ironically enough, Mercury had tricked her into watching once. If that wasn't enough, she also decided to have an Ursa smash the guy's balls afterwards, and—
You're an idiot, Emerald.
With one hand clamping her mouth and the other still trying and failing to tug her pants any lower than her hips, there was nothing stopping Emerald from reaching her holstered weapons. She grabbed one, unfolded the pointed blades to it, and swung backwards for her assailant's crotch.
The bastard pulled back and blocked the blow as if having expected it, but that didn't matter. He had released Emerald to do so and she spun around immediately. Rather than run, her attacker stood tall and Emerald came face to face with the cunt, likely trying to glare her down for daring to go for his family jewels.
Gotcha.
Emerald froze. Gray hair, gray eyes, a tall and lanky build, and a little bit more baby fat in his cheeks than when they last met, but that was to be expected when you went back to your seventeen-year-old body.
Mercury.
"What the hell?" Emerald let out, more to herself than to the boy who'd just tried to accost her. She knew that Mercury grew up with an assassin for a father, so expecting any sort of morals from the boy pre-Cinder was asking too much, but randomly trying to rape passersby in an alley? That felt low, even for Mercury. He'd never mentioned anything like that before, and he certainly hadn't ever done anything like that since she'd known him—then again, when working for Cinder, you couldn't risk getting caught on anything stupid.
Em had her chance to punish her attacker with her Semblance, and her hesitation showed on her face. Mercury was frozen before her, waiting to see what move she would make. If she put Mercury through what her Semblance was primed with, that would make it all but impossible to ever convince him to go with her. It was already a longshot to get him to grow into her Mercury, but she wasn't sure if she could live with herself if she knew that she erased any chance here. Mercury would never even consider trusting her after she made him experience Mistralian Grimm porn.
Then again, he royally deserved it right now.
Confusing Emerald further, Mercury couldn't keep a straight face any longer and burst out into laughter, doubling over and holding his sides.
"Gods, Em, you should see your face right now!"
Emerald didn't know what was going on, but heat crept up in her cheeks when she realized he was laughing at her. This had all been a joke. Just another one of his stupid, stupid jokes to rile her up. He loved riling her up, and she hated when it worked because she felt so embarrassed. This was like that, but on an entirely new scale.
"You asshole!" Emerald cried, smacking Mercury's head while it was at about waist-high for her. Doing so reminded her that he had pulled her pants down a little, and while the belt had caught on her sides, it had gotten pulled down a few inches and she could feel a breeze. She quickly pulled them back up and rounded back on Mercury, who was about to start crying from laughing so hard. "Do you know how horrible the hallucination I almost gave you was?!"
Mercury slowly started to come down from his laughing fit. She hated this part of their relationship, or she thought she did, but it at least felt familiar and safe. Mercury was being an ass, and she was putting up with it; things were as they should be. Emerald didn't even realize how easily she had fallen right back into their usual groove.
"I didn't realize you were so starved for touch that you'd give up after five seconds!" Mercury let out in a wheeze, fighting against his laughs to inhale air. "You practically went limp in my arms there!"
Emerald kicked him in the shin for that one, hard, and his wince shocked her.
"You have legs!" Emerald let out in a gasp, to which Mercury just grinned at her dumbly.
Then it hit her.
"Y-You know who I am?!"
It was both a statement and a nervous accusation, followed by a wary look to Mercury for confirmation.
Mercury smiled at her—a genuine, happy smile that she almost never saw from him that sent her stomach into loops—and he nodded. "Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping that you'd still be wearing that tiara."
Emerald didn't even bother replying, instead crashing into Mercury's chest and wrapping herself around him. She'd done it. She wouldn't even have to pray that he would believe her. She wouldn't have to try to explain to him who he was supposed to be come, or why, or anything. Her Mercury was here somehow, and she had found him.
"It was a Relic, not a tiara," Emerald protested weakly, her face buried into the space between Mercury's neck and shoulder.
"Whatever you say, princess," Mercury drawled back. She knew him so well that just from the tone, she could tell he was rolling his eyes. His arms wrapped around her—not in a rapey way, this time, her mind unhelpfully supplied—and Emerald was content to stay there forever.
She wasn't alone.
Mercury would lecture her for thinking that, and he would be right. He'd been the one who tried to break her of her dependence on Cinder. To hear her go right back to forming such a strong attachment so quickly went against what he had tried to teach her do be, but she didn't care. They had escaped that life entirely; this one could be different.
"I love you," Emerald whispered. Honestly, it was a lot easier to say than she had expected; she'd kinda been banking on herself chickening out, and had surprised herself by admitting it to him. She was infinitely grateful that she was hiding her face by burying it into him; Em's cheeks were heating up in embarrassment, and that was the last thing she wanted Mercury to see right now.
"I-I know," Mercury replied softly. He hadn't been ready for that at all, Em could tell, but that was okay. She wasn't afraid that she was going to scare him off. Hell, she wasn't even all that concerned that he couldn't say it back to her. Emerald knew deep down that Mercury cared for her; it didn't matter to her how long it would take for him to admit that or even to realize it.
After all, they had just bought themselves all the time in the world.
"How?" Emerald changed the subject for Mercury's sake; pushing him when he wasn't ready could only backfire. She hadn't even realized her eyes were watering, and she hoped burying her face further into Mercury would hide that. "How are you… you?"
"I was holding on to your leg when you put the Relic on," Mercury answered. "Apparently, that means I get to come along for the ride. I could see you in that…chamber, when you were picking what decision to redo, but you couldn't see or hear me. The Relic told me that it didn't have to let me come back with you, but…"
"It let you anyways?"
"Guess so," he answered, shrugging light enough that he wouldn't jostle Em too much. Emerald could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, and it all served to reassure her that this was really happening. It was honestly hard to believe good news anymore. "I figured you'd be sentimental enough to come find me. I've just kinda been waiting around town for a hot green-haired chick in a sports bra to show up. You're not exactly hard to spot."
"Aww, you think I'm hot," Em teased as she finally broke off the hug. A sense of normality returned at the banter.
"I mean, I just tried to take you into a back alley. If that isn't a compliment, what is?"
Emerald kicked Mercury's shin significantly harder than the last time.
"Hey, nice pad," Mercury called out, setting the pizza box on top of the hotel room's microwave. He had jokingly suggested they get Mistralian takeout, and it took Emerald half a second of remembering all the times she'd had to eat that while working for Cinder to nearly bite his head off. So, pizza; always a safe choice. "Whose is it?"
"Mine," Emerald called out, altering her voice and her appearance into that of some random man in his fifties. "The name's Pompous McDouchebag the Third. I'm an important businessman and an asshole who wouldn't notice or care that a second room got added to my hotel tab."
"Uh huh," Mercury responded unimpressed, picking up a wallet sitting on the bedside table. As he expected, inside was the ID of the man Emerald had projected herself as. Didn't take much to figure out that this was their 'patron' for the night. "Luke Cuyler, huh? Heh, you weren't far off with your name, Em."
"Whatever," she called back, brushing past Mercury to grab herself a couple of slices. They didn't have plates, but they weren't paying for the room anyways, so they both decided to just lay their pizza on top of the bed. What'd it matter if it stained the covers?
"So, you wanna tell me how you got out of that pinch with Cinder?" Mercury asked, his mouth half-full of pineapple-ham pizza.
Emerald looked him dead in the eyes, and a slight shutter came over him as her Semblance applied itself. He only noticed it because of how obvious Emerald made it and, quite frankly, how often she used it on him when he pissed her off. The fact that he was expecting it and was looking for that little shimmer helped a lot, too.
Instead of answering, Emerald projected the scene that she had 'reincarnated' into onto the bed-space between them as a sort of hologram. In it, the projection of Emerald held out her pistols at Cinder in a stand-off as the men Emerald had been running away from ran past the alley. With them gone, the projection of Cinder whipped her head around in confusion as the projection of Emerald disappeared. In its place, a half-transparent Emerald walked forward, simulating that Emerald had used her Semblance to disappear. 'Emerald' reappeared, trying to climb the wall of the dead end, and Cinder closed down towards her. The real Emerald turned and flipped Cinder off, before vanishing around the street corner.
"You could have just said that," Mercury griped. "I just used my Semblance to hide would have worked. I wasn't that curious."
Em gave him a tiny smirk, hidden behind a slice of pizza. "More fun that way. Plus my mouth was full."
"Never stopped me from talking."
"I know," Em huffed. "Nothing does, apparently."
"So what's our plan now?" Mercury asked, appearing as carefree as one could.
"Get your Semblance back," Emerald replied, not meeting his eyes but answering firmly. That much she had planned out, at least.
"I was talking more about tonight, what with how we have a hotel room to ourselves…" Mercury prodded her, hoping to elicit some sort of rise.
"I'm sure you were," Emerald replied, rolling her eyes and ignoring his comments. Not unexpected, but that did disappoint a small part of him. Riling up Emerald was his favorite past time. Guess nothing can be that easy. "I was hoping you had a plan for getting it back, or could at least help me come up with one. You killed him once, so I think you're the expert on how to do this."
"Eh, he's an assassin and an alcoholic. It won't be hard to get him drunk, and then we chain him to a chair," Mercury answered, finishing his pizza and tossing the crust towards the trash can. It hit the rim and lipped out, landing on the floor. Merc shrugged. "He's got all sorts of fun shit hidden away. There's been more than one job where he's had to extract information, so I'm sure I can make it fun. Everyone breaks, given enough time. Most people, only a day or two, if that; for my asshole father, maybe four or five."
"It's that simple?"
"Tie him to a chair and beat him till he gives my Semblance back," Mercury confirmed with a nod. "It's torture, not rocket science."
"Are you… sure you can handle that?" Emerald asked, giving him a worried look. He wanted to make fun of her for that—seriously, how sappy could she be?—but his heart just wasn't in it; couldn't bring himself to be that much of a dick.
"You're asking me if I'll be okay torturing my father for five days, after he's tortured me for seventeen years?" Mercury asked, wanting to laugh. He bit it back, though, not trying to throw it in her face. "You met me the night I murdered him, Em. Honestly, the bastard deserves to die twice, in my opinion."
"You're in luck, then," Emerald responded, giving Mercury a soft smirk. He wanted to hate that smirk, but right now, he really liked it. "How would you like to see Cinder Fall face off against Marcus Black after Marcus has had a few days to prepare for her?"
Mercury was surprised, but certainly not disappointed. His smile mirrored Emerald's coy smirk.
"I've got dibs on the winner, then," Mercury added on. Emerald shrugged, and like that, their plan was set. "Hoping it's my dad. I would really love to return that abuse one last time."
"Speaking of," Emerald called out in a way that told Mercury that he had just opened a can of worms that he had nearly avoided, "is he going to be… angry that you're coming home late tonight?"
"Coming home late? What, are you kicking me out?" Merc mocked, though Em didn't quite pick up on it.
"N-No, you can stay if you want. There's only one bed—" Emerald scanned the room quickly, trying to sort things out in her mind, before shaking the thoughts free. "Fuck it, we'll share. We've done weirder things anyways." Working for the Grimm came to mind.
"I'll be doing someone weird, from the sounds of it—"
"Back to the point," Emerald spoke over Merc, cutting her eyes at him. "Is Marcus going to get angry or violent if you didn't come home one night? What if he thinks you're selling him out to someone?"
Emerald was unsure about it, worrying that she might just be paranoid, but she felt it important enough to ask anyways. Her shoulders sagged in relief when Mercury didn't even bat an eye at the question.
"Eh, I'll just tell him I was rutting some girl," Mercury answered, shrugging his shoulders, "and that I stayed till the morning for another go at it. Game knows game."
Had Emerald's glare at him been any flatter, he might have confused it for Weiss Schnee. At least Em wasn't that annoying. And thank the gods that she actually has tits; Merc would have gone mad long ago if the only eye candy he got to look at were Cinder and Salem. There was something to be said for being able to get caught staring without fearing for your head getting chopped off… either one of them.
"I'll embellish and he won't suspect a thing. Besides, I have good material to work with, here," Merc trailed off, giving Emerald a coy smirk. "We are going to sleep together, in a hotel room, after getting dinner. Hell, if I describe you, he might even think I bought a hook—"
Emerald shut him up with a pillow to the head and Mercury couldn't help but laughing as she pretended to storm off.
"I'm getting a shower," she announced in a huff, marching off into the bathroom. "And I'm locking the door behind me. Don't even think about doing it again, asshole."
"I wasn't," Merc lied badly, earning a flat glare from Emerald before she shut the door. He wouldn't have tried it again, mostly because since he had done it once, it wouldn't have caught Em off-guard this time. She would have been ready to disappear via her Semblance; that, or she would have had something awful to make him see instead.
There was a reason that Mercury was always looking for new ways to antagonize Emerald. Such as the alleyway earlier, though he was concerned that he might have gone a little far there. What could he say, he saw Emerald and the alley was right there; it all just lined up so perfectly. It almost wasn't even his fault.
Alone for a few minutes, Mercury moved over and grabbed himself another slice of pizza, before settling down in the chair that came with the plain desk in the room. He flipped it around so he could kick up one leg and rest it on his knee, silently marveling at all the tiny sensations he could feel. Having his actual legs back was strange. His mechanical ones were fancy tech—stuff that Cinder had acquired through Watts, he later came to find out. They had sensors that plugged into his nervous system, giving him a vague sense of pressure in his legs; not good enough to feel touch or temperature, but enough that he could register blows during combat.
He missed those legs, actually. There was no way in hell he was getting in touch with Dr. Watts in this new life, though, so these flesh ones would have to do. The mechanical legs somewhat simulated Mercury's old Semblance, but having guns in his feet was a fantastic addition. Kicking people in the stomach just wasn't the same without blasting them at the same time.
Mercury shoved all other thoughts out of his mind after that and pulled out his scroll, killing time until he heard the water stop running. Emerald emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, wrapped in a hotel towel with her dried hair trailing down the back. Or, well, those two long strands Emerald keeps trailed down the back, since the rest didn't reach past her neck. Emerald's hair looked much better by the time they got to Beacon because it got a little longer, but her street-urchin weird-ass bowl cut did her no favors.
"What took you so long?" Mercury asked with a snicker. "Were you thinking about me?"
Emerald paused mid-step and gave Merc a suspicious look as she tried to figure out if he meant that the way she suspected he did. He absolutely did.
"I'm not sure I want to know what you do in the shower, but I was actually washing up," Emerald replied dismissively as she walked over to the chest of drawers. She started digging around in it for her clothes, though Mercury suspected that it should only have taken her, like, a second or two. She was homeless, technically; how many things could she really have brought with her?
Mercury's thoughts came to a complete halt when Emerald dropped the towel. She faced mostly away from him, leaving him with a view of her backside and just a taste of sideboob.
"…are you trying to get me to go take a shower?"
"I've been trying to get you to do that more often for years," Emerald joked, turning her head towards Merc to give him a smirk. It had the effect of turning her torso a little more, turning sideboob into sidenip. He struggled to look her in the eyes, which was as good as admitting defeat to Em at this moment. "This is all it would have taken? Huh."
Emerald turned back around and started to dress, starting with some simple shorts to sleep in… which meant that she had to bend over to put them on. Mercury spent about half a second convincing himself that he shouldn't look before he gave in. Emerald didn't go super slowly or anything, but she did seem to take her time just a little, and there was a good amount of stuff on display for Mercury.
"If I didn't know better, I would say that any girl changing in front of me wanted to fuck me," Mercury called out accusingly, almost warily. What was Em's angle here? He'd just pretended to assault her earlier, so there was no telling if this was payback. It felt like payback, but he wouldn't even bother denying that he was enjoying this payback so far.
"Well, we do have a hotel room to ourselves, and you're already planning on embellishing about me," Emerald called out, digging through the drawers with her back to Merc once more. Once she found what she was looking for, she turned fully around to face him, tits out and all. She looked him up and down judgingly, and then shrugged. "Eh, I'd probably let you, if we're being honest."
Something stirred in Merc at that, and he realized that this might actually be happening. Emerald, huh? Can't say he didn't see it coming, but he and Em were close now, and if they were going to be spending a lot more time together now that things had reset…
Ah, who was he kidding? He hadn't taken his eyes off her chest since he turned around. Merc was completely down for this.
"I've got one rule, though," Em announced seriously, forcing him to turn his gaze upwards towards her eyes. He tried to give her a cocky grin and act unapologetic about it, but it faltered and he just looked awkward to have been caught. Emerald ignored it. "I'll only fuck a guy once he tells me he loves me."
Merc hesitated for a few moments, realizing what Emerald was getting at. She was hoping to get him to say something that they both knew he wasn't the type to say—she was trying to get him to say it back to her. That was not something he wanted to do. Then again, all it was gonna take to get things going was saying three words. Mercury's blood was already pumping, and it wouldn't be hard to justify a few sweet nothings, especially not if it was the only thing stopping them.
"And I have to believe him when he says it," Emerald added on, giving him a stern look to let him know that she knew what he was thinking, and Merc suddenly looked away guiltily.
Damn, she would throw that on there. Emerald certainly knew him well enough by now to know if he lied, but he didn't even really want to try it. Even for him, that would be a dick move. That left Mercury with the option of actually saying it and meaning it, which… wasn't his style. He wasn't sure if he thought love even existed after growing up covered in welts and bruises from his father, and if it did, he sure as hell wasn't someone it would apply to. He liked Em, he guessed, and some part of him was glad to see her freed from Cinder's manipulation. If Em had asked him to admit that he liked her, then he'd already have Emerald up against the wall with his tongue down her throat. He'd be willing to admit that, but… he couldn't say that he loved her.
He looked off at the ground in silence, unable to tell Em what she wanted to hear.
"That's what I thought," Emerald called out coyly. He'd been afraid that she'd be upset or disappointed in him after she had said it earlier, but it seemed that she hadn't even thought he would say it. She gave him a smirk, before disappearing entirely.
"Oh well," Emerald's voice whispered sensually into his ear, making him flinch and whip his head to the side. The real Emerald was crouched down next to his chair—clothed in the same type of shorts and a loose t-shirt, with damp hair from the shower—and was giving him a shit-eating grin. Her eyes flicked down towards his pants teasingly. "At least you do think I'm hot."
"That was low," Merc admonished, making a point to keep his leg propped up on his knee. It did a decent job of obstructing any view of how much Emerald little stunt had affected him, and not reacting to it was not giving in to it.
"You made me think you were going to rape me earlier," Emerald loudly shot back, exasperated, standing up to full height to admonish him.
"That was a prank and you know it," Merc dismissed with a roll of his eyes, grinning the whole time. If it wasn't, he'd be the worst rapist of all time. He never touched anything higher than her thigh and didn't even unclasp her belt when trying to 'get at her.' "We both know I didn't mean that."
"Yeah, well, I meant mine," Emerald called back softly, not bothering to look back at Mercury as she pulled back the covers on the bed. Merc went noticeably silent at her comment, to which she just rolled her eyes again. "I'm going to bed. You, uh, gonna go shower now, or are you getting in?"
He hesitated for a moment, before throwing off his shirt and making his way over to the bed. Em eyed him slightly suspiciously at that, but he was laying down and the lights were out before she could protest.
"Hands to yourself," Em called out flatly.
"Okay," Merc pretended to agree. This was Emerald they were talking about; they both knew that she'd wake up buried into his side no matter what. Isolation didn't treat her well.
Mercury bit back a laugh when it took her less than a minute to switch position and violate her own rule by curling up next to him. She probably had expected him to push back on the no-touching rule and was upset that he hadn't, which Merc found really funny.
"What happened to—"
"Shut up."
Emerald didn't like Mercury's addition to the plan, but he convinced her to go for it. There was a small chance it would work and that Mercury would get his Semblance back without having to spend days torturing his father, and it was at least worth trying it as a hailmary.
The first step was the most obvious, and the easiest: get Marcus Black drunk. Mercury had downplayed how furious Marcus would be that Mercury had dared to stay out for the night, but by coming home with booze in his arms, Merc was ensured that Marcus wouldn't hit him—for fear of wasting the alcohol. It was a tried and true strategy, one that Mercury had employed often. Marcus would be furious, but he would resign that anger to the backburner while he was preoccupied with drinking. The fact that he had recently gotten back from a mission and had nothing better to do than abuse his son meant that he'd be ready to drink as soon as Mercury showed up with the stuff.
That part went according to plan. With the help of Emerald's Semblance, acquiring a lot of alcohol from a liquor store was easy. Hard stuff, too, nothing that might fill Marcus up too quickly. Mercury showed up with liquor practically flowing from his arms, and Marcus had nearly forgotten to ask his son where he had been the previous night. Even when he did, he bought Mercury's line about shtupping some local girl easily. Mercury seemed to be the type of kid to get his rocks off on a Tuesday and bring home hundreds of lien's worth of alcohol, go figure.
Once Marcus was plastered, step two went into effect.
"I want my Semblance back," Mercury growled, picking Marcus off the ground where Mercury had shoved him. "And you're going to give it to me."
In his inebriated state, Marcus first thought it was a joke. After all, his bitch of a son didn't pose a threat to him and had been cowed for years. If the brat let Marcus abuse him so easily, then he was just a worthless excuse for an heir to the assassin. The fact that he thought he was intimidating enough to demand his Semblance back was simply laughable.
Marcus gave in to his son's wish for a fight, though, and being drunk had leveled out the playing field somewhat. The hate in Mercury's eyes was real, as was the determination behind his attacks, but Marcus was holding back. The boy was a natural fighter and favored his legs in ways that few fighters did, but he was sloppy and inexperienced. He hadn't taken Marcus' lessons to heart, which was all the more reason he wasn't worthy of a Semblance. Those who could be killed easily when deprived of their Semblance shouldn't be allowed such a crutch, because eventually, there would come along someone who would take it away. Marcus made a name for himself because of that.
Even plastered to hell, Marcus Black had this fight in the bag, because he knew his son's three weaknesses: he relied too much on his legs, he wasn't capable of thinking ahead, and he was weak. That last one was ultimately the worst, and the one that disgusted Marcus the most. Even with victory in his grasp, Mercury would let defeat snatch him through a lack of discipline, and it was time to teach the brat that lesson.
The ploy was simple. Let Mercury think that he had won by allowing himself to be pinned to the ground with Mercury's legs straddling the man's chest. Mercury's second flaw—not planning things out—would prevent him from realizing the trap. Marcus would breach Mercury's Aura concentration with daggers into both of his knees, crippling the boy and taking away the only thing he could fight with. Then, once battered and crippled, Marcus would show the boy just how weak he really was. Mercury would writhe in pain and his weakness would cause him to let up on Marcus; he didn't have the strength or resolve to push through.
What Marcus did not realize is that it was the second time Mercury had seen that trick from his father, the first being the first time he had lost the use of his legs. That time, Marcus had been wrong about Mercury's third weakness, because even while crippled the boy forced himself to strangle his father through sheer hatred.
This time, as Marcus jabbed at Mercury's knees, Mercury jumped up and allowed the daggers to miss him. Marcus nearly stabbed himself in the sides, pulling up only to scratch at his Aura. Mercury's foot broke his nose a moment later, and the next thing Marcus knew, he was trying to focus his eyes on those of his son. He was being held up against a wall by the hem of his shirt, his Aura had nearly been broken, and Mercury was threatening to bash his head with an expensive whiskey that came in a dangerously-thick glass bottle.
"Semblance," Mercury growled, "now!"
"You think this proves that you aren't weak?" Marcus spat out at his son, literally, as he spat blood-tinged spittle at his son's face as an insult. "This just confirms it. You can't even face me like a fucking man. Had to get me drunk before facing me, coward."
"We all have our weaknesses that we have to dominate," Mercury hissed venomously, quoting Marcus' own words back at him. "Yours is your bottles. If you can't overcome that, then you don't deserve your Semblance. So hand over mine."
Marcus laughed in his face, a wet and broken laugh, but a cruel and vicious one nonetheless.
"Oh, such a big man you are," Marcus taunted. "You think that quoting my own words make you smart. That winning by my rules make you strong. If you're dumb enough to play by the rules of others, then you're weak without even realizing it."
Mercury's glare grew furious, and Marcus laughed at him louder.
"Look, you think you've won, and yet you just realized that you can't win my game when I set the rules. Your Semblance is gone until I decide otherwise. You're weak because you're a subject of my rules, and you'll always be weak until you can make your own."
Marcus laughed as Mercury's face twisted in anger and resentment.
"Fine by me," Mercury announced lowly, dragging Marcus over to a steel chair, the kind that was sturdy enough not to be easily broken. There were already several sets of chains and straps fixed to it—how Marcus hadn't noticed that earlier, he wasn't sure—and Mercury forced him into them. When Marcus tried to resist, Mercury's fist reminded Marcus how much a broken nose hurt.
"This is your last chance. Release my Semblance, and I let you live," Mercury called out. From his voice, he already knew that Marcus didn't believe the threat Mercury was trying to build up. He spat at the boy again instead. "Have it your way. Cinder?"
Marcus' blood went cold when someone new entered through the doorway. A woman in her early twenties with black hair and a dangerous air to her. Even drunk, Marcus could spot a contemporary of his, at least when they weren't making any efforts to conceal what they were.
"You pathetic little runt!" Marcus growled at his son. "I told you to grow strong and impress me. Instead, you whore yourself out to someone on the promise of what, that they'll make you stronger? Protect you? Pah."
"Oh, Marcus," this Cinder woman cooed, slowly walking around Marcus' chair to force him to lose sight of her, "we're going to have so much fun. My name is Cinder Fall, and we're about to be seeing a lot more of each other."
"Fuck you and the dick you rode in on," Marcus growled bitterly, already having an idea of where this was going. His worthless rat of a son had sold him out to some rival for money or sex, and if they were half-way competent, he wouldn't be getting out of this alive. They wanted something from him, probably from his previous jobs, and they knew it wouldn't be easy to pry out of him.
There were a few things he could start doing to figure out how good this woman was, and by proxy, how fucked his shit was.
The first was the most obvious. The woman was getting way to close to him. There was an excessive amount of straps and chains around his arms and torso, and even his thighs, but the lower halves of his legs were free. As soon as she walked up to him again, he kicked her in the shin. A professional would have been baiting the attack, and an amateur would have recoiled from being kicked. The woman didn't react immediately, but she did recoil and wince in pain a little, before fixing him with a deadly glare.
"Your death just got prolonged by several hours," the woman hissed angrily. Mercury was watching him nervously, as if checking to see for something—what, Marcus didn't know.
But it was curious that there was something Mercury was afraid of. Thinking back on it, the woman's reaction seemed delayed, even through Marcus' intoxication. Something was off there, and Marcus had seen enough tricks through the years to know when someone was trying to pull something over on him. With Mercury's Semblance stored, Marcus could suppress other Semblances, but had no room to take any away permanently; they had to be stored somewhere. His son had left him with just enough Aura available for Marcus to use his Semblance. After all, how else would Marcus release Mercury's?
Marcus reached deep down to what Aura he had left, engaged his Semblance, and wouldn't you know it, someone was actively using a Semblance from nearby. He could feel it. Marcus was smart enough not to look in the direction of the source, which would give away that he was on to them, but in his periphery he could tell that no one was there.
"All of this effort for my idiot kid's Semblance?" Marcus asked the woman, feigning to be giving in to the pressure. "The kid's not worth it. Take it, and take him."
Marcus released Mercury's Semblance, and the kid looked stunned that his ploy had worked. It had been years since the kid had used his Semblance, and he had never bested his father. Now, he finally had his Semblance back.
Marcus howled in laughter as he ripped the Semblance away from the other person in the room, locking it deep away in the spot that Mercury's had been stored for years. His son would not get the best of him, not by a long shot.
Mercury's stomach flopped. Something was wrong.
His Semblance was back.
And Marcus was laughing at him, despite his broken nose and despite being a captive. Marcus was laughing at him, despite having given Mercury his Semblance back. Mercury knew what that meant, but he didn't want to explicitly think the words. He didn't want to give in to the chance that he might be wrong, because if he did, it would surely go away. It didn't matter if that made sense or not, it was all he had and he stuck with it. He had to.
"M-Mercury?"
Fuck. Emerald's voice broke him. Something was wrong and he knew exactly what it was. He was so fucking stupid! He should have seen this coming. Mercury couldn't bear to look at Emerald, not when this was his fault.
But he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone and ignore her. He looked over to Emerald guiltily. A flash of terror in her eyes tightened the knot in his stomach even further. That terror subsided and fear, sadness, shock, and hysteria rushed in to replace it. He knew that feeling. He knew that feeling and he fucking hated it. Having your Semblance torn away was having a piece of your soul forcibly removed, and it left a hole in you. It left a hole inside of you, in a place that you never realized you even had anything until it was gone. Mercury barely even registered that he was, for the first time in years, whole once more now that he had his Semblance. He had to watch Emerald go through the worst thing he had ever experienced and it was his fucking fault.
But it was Emerald losing her Semblance, and that made it so much worse. He'd rather have his whole Aura ripped away by Cinder's Grimm parasite or even by his father than have to look Emerald in the eyes as the only thing she had ever relied on was taken from her. Emerald had always struggled with her dependency issues, and now the only part of herself she could rely on was gone.
Mercury took two steps and launched his fist into his bastard of a father's nose, whipping Marcus' head back with a sickening crunch.
"Give it back, asshole!" Mercury screamed, the tinges of his vision going red. Marcus spat whatever blood he could and laughed limply at his son. Mercury bashed his father's face again.
And again.
And again.
And when that didn't seem to hurt the man enough, he brought his fist down on Marcus' downturned hand, smashing it against the chair's arm. With his Aura long gone now, the bones in Marcus' hand shattered in several places with more sickening crunches.
Mercury's vision tinged with red, pulsing as the blood pounded in his head.
Marcus wasn't physically able to laugh in his son's face anymore, but the fact that he stubbornly refused to die or go unconscious mocked Mercury enough. This fuckwad has the audacity to hurt Emerald and then try to live to tell the tale?!
Mercury's fist shook. Breaking the man's nose and hands wasn't doing the trick. He was still breathing.
Breaking his ribs would deal with that. And if the first punch didn't do it, all the better, because it would weaken him for the second punch. Or the fifth. Or the tenth.
Something held his right arm back. He tried to shrug it off but something felt off and he looked down to find Emerald there, wrapping herself around his arm to stop him from attacking the bastard. She looked scared, but it wasn't the same as before. Em had recovered well enough from the initial, soul-crushing loss of her Semblance, and was looking at him in fear. Or fear for him?
Mercury's blood pounded too loudly in his ears for him to think clearly, or even hear Emerald. He looked at her confused, and she kept desperately repeating whatever it was she had said until he could hear it.
"—need to stop! Please, calm down! You can't kill him!"
"The hell I can't!" Mercury hissed back furiously. Emerald flinched—she flinched at him. That sobered him more than anything.
"It's okay, Merc, it's okay," Emerald whispered calmly, stepping up into his chest and cupping his face with her hands. She did it to calm him down and make him focus on her, and while he did calm down, he was still focused on the asshole who needed to pay, sitting only a few feet away.
"He's going to die the most painful death I can give him," Mercury hissed, though he took care not to look at Em when he said it. It wasn't meant about her and he'd be damned if he hurt her any more than he already had.
"Calm down, Mercury," Emerald repeated, finally getting him to look her in the eyes and truly take a breath. "Good. It's okay, Mercury. Just calm down and think about it."
"He took your Semblance," Mercury pointed out, his voice nearly cracking now that he was coming down from his adrenaline-fueled rage. "How are you okay with this?"
Emerald dropped her hands down from his face now that she had his attention. "This was always a long-shot. We were going to have to force him to give up your Semblance." Emerald cut her eyes at Marcus, who was trying to listen in, but was looping in and out. She returned back to Mercury quickly out of fear that Mercury would follow her eyes to his father and lose control again. "The plan doesn't change. We've already prepared for this. We'll just get my Semblance back instead of yours."
"A-Are you sure you're okay with this?"
"I don't like it," she admitted, cutting her eyes dangerously at Marcus. "But only one of us can be the hysterically emotional one. Guess it's my turn to be stoic and distant." She slapped him playfully on the chest at her joke. Mercury tried to laugh or even smile at it, but he couldn't bring himself to, instead giving her a weak grin. It hurt to even try to smile right now.
"Now what?" he asked, not trusting himself to make a move anymore.
"Knock him out," Emerald responded softly. "We need him stable enough to survive several days of… well, torture. Plus, he needs his Aura to release the Semblance, right?"
Mercury nodded weakly to answer her question.
"Good. Knock him out, and we'll start getting ready for that."
"I… take it this isn't your first time torturing someone?" Emerald asked awkwardly as the two nibbled at their food. They were eating in a different room from where Marcus was held, mostly because it wasn't pleasant to eat in that room after a full day had passed. The night before, they had eaten their first dinner there, mostly because Mercury refused to break off his hateful glare at his father. Em was concerned about that—she had never seen Mercury this intense, this furious, and the one time he had gotten close was the first time he had ever opened up to her about his father.
Still, she suspected that this was about her more than it was about Merc's dad. Mercury could hardly look her in the eye still, and when he did, he did a horrible job hiding the guilt.
"I've watched a few times before," Mercury replied, his eyes stuck on his food. "It's not… complicated. You just make them go through endless pain; everyone breaks eventually. Having all the right toys helps, though."
Toys, he said. Emerald imagined that the only child who would have played with these things growing up was Cinder. By "toys," Mercury meant the supplies that his father had on hand, specifically designed for torture. Marcus Black had been partial to chemical and electrical methods, meaning he had all sorts of nasty things to stick you with. Chemicals that melted your flesh, chemicals designed to attack the nerves, even bottles of concentrated pepper extract that would infuriate and burn you once applied to cracks in the skin, or sensitive places.
Mercury had been using those to compliment the real, physical torture. Like the seasoning to a sick, twisted meal.
"We're going to get my Semblance back," Emerald reassured Mercury. She wasn't sure if he needed to hear that, or if he needed to hear that she wasn't scared of losing it, but she knew it was important to keep repeating it. He seemed to ignore her every time, retreating in on himself and glaring at the nearest object that wasn't Emerald. "It's just going to take some time. I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't either."
Mercury's hands balled into fists on the table as he glared at the chips on his plate.
"Mercury, it's okay," Emerald called out softly. He wasn't listening, so Emerald reached out and placed her hands gently on top of his nearest fist. Mercury's surprise cut through his seething as he looked up at her, and Emerald gently worked his fingers loose from his fist. "Don't take it so hard. This isn't your fault."
"This is my fault!" Mercury snapped, banging his other fist on the table in anger. He snapped out of it immediately afterwards, looking up into Emerald's scared eyes. "I-I'm sorry, Em. I should never have agreed to let you use your Semblance on him. I should have seen it coming—"
"That's not your fault," Emerald reassured him. "It wasn't even your plan."
It had sounded like a good plan at the time. Trick Marcus into thinking that Cinder Fall had it out for him for some reason, that way when Cinder did show up to recruit him, Marcus would be prepared to ambush her in retaliation. One of them would be taken out, and there wouldn't be any risk on Emerald or Mercury's part.
"You're not the one who knows him, who knows how his Semblance works," Merc cut back, dragging his eyes away. "He can only take your Semblance away while you're using it. I thought since he can only hold one, we'd be safe, but—" Mercury's hands curled back into fists, and Emerald squeeze the one her hands were still resting on to reassure him. "I'm a fucking idiot. I shouldn't have let this happen, Em."
"It's okay, Mercury. We both let it happen."
"I let it happen!" Mercury growled. "I did this, okay? I was stupid and you're suffering for it. Don't act like that's okay…"
He looked away from her, eyes trailing down. Merc even tried to pull his hand free of hers, but he only did so weakly, and Emerald refused to let him pull away now. She didn't say anything, which was the only way she could really get through to him right now. Emerald waited patiently, looking to Mercury until he finally looked back up at her. When he finally did, he did so hesitantly. Mercury's eyes were filled with guilt.
It struck Emerald in that moment just how hard Mercury was being on himself and, more critically, why. Maybe she'd already known or suspected why, but this confirmed it to her completely. This wasn't about Mercury's dad. Mercury had dealt with the reality of who his father was for years. He may not have always handled it well, but he handled it better than this. He handled it noticeably differently that this.
This was about her. She was the only difference here between Mercury silently hating his father for being abused and between Mercury coming unhinged and beating his dad to a pulp. Mercury was beating himself up because he had let her get hurt.
The way that he refused to speak about it, the way he awkwardly and guiltily shied away even after trying to talk to her about it made her think that Mercury hadn't realized any of this himself. Who was she kidding, of course Mercury didn't realize that he was emotionally compromised over her.
Despite the situation, Emerald found herself smiling softly. That was so incredibly him, and it was endearing. It would have been adorable and the absolute perfect teasing material if the situation weren't so dire and Mercury's wounds still very raw. Mercury was confused as to how she could smile right now, but the sight relieved a lot of tension he had been holding.
Mercury pushed his seat back and rose from it. "I'm going to get your Semblance back," he announced, his voice a mix of determined, grave, and confident. "I don't care how long it takes."
He left Emerald sitting at the table, marching off for another round of returning some of his pain to his father.
"Wake up," Mercury mocked, pulling the headset off of his father's ears. He could hear what was playing from the entryway of the room, not that he could even describe the sounds. Garbled, angry static with metallic screeches, human screams, demonic whispers, and all sorts of other shit that would make your ears bleed. Literally, in Marcus' current case. The man hadn't even heard Mercury's taunt, so he repeated it a second time.
"You fucking worthless piece of shit," Marcus growled as venomously as he could in his current state. "I should have kicked your pregnant mother down the stairs or popped your fucking skull with a coat-hanger, you miserable—"
Marcus convulsed painfully as Mercury hit a switch, manually sending a stronger electric shock to the various wires attached to his father.
"I know that I didn't know her, but don't talk about my mom that way," Mercury threatened lowly. "As much as I would love to drag this torture out, there's a point that even I would get tired of it. Why don't you just release Emerald's Semblance and we get this all over with?"
"Which stripper is Emerald, again?"
Mercury sent another jolt through his father. The first time that Marcus had insulted Emerald like that, Mercury had nearly killed the man again, and for the second time Emerald had to stop him from doing so. That line wasn't even all that clever, and since then Mercury had gotten really tired of it. You'd think that in four days, he would come up with a second comeback. Mercury had come up with probably dozens with his first two days of knowing Emerald, and while they weren't all that clever, he at least had some variety.
"Right, the green-haired dime-a-dozen whore," his father wheezed, bracing for another shock.
"You need better material," Mercury commented flatly, shocking his father once again—he'd heard that one, too. Merc held the voltage for significantly longer this time, which did not go unnoticed by his prisoner.
"You retard! You've learned nothing from me and you don't deserve her Semblance back!" His father still hadn't realized the depths of Mercury's contempt towards his opinions, as he kept giving them like they would matter. Like he had any control over the situation. "You'll kill me if you're so reckless, and you'll never get it back then! You should have learned the fucking lessons I taught you."
"Oh, I did, believe me," Mercury answered back darkly. "Any time you tortured someone for something, I was watching—and you spent my whole life torturing me. I spent the whole time imagining returning the favor, so you might even say that you've been preparing me for this very moment my whole life."
Marcus glared back at Mercury hatefully, but he said nothing.
"Keep them awake," Mercury repeated the words his father had once instructed him with. "Sleep restores strength and sanity. Rob them of it." Mercury held up the headphones that he had used to torment Marcus with; they'd been used in tandem with a battery rigged to shock him if his heartrate fell below a certain threshold. "No sleep, constant pain, and no hope."
"That's what you do when you just want them to suffer," Marcus spat out in a laugh. "If you want something from them, you—"
"You use their hope against them," Mercury answered, unimpressed, which wiped the smile off Marcus' face. "See, the thing is, I'm not planning on bargaining with you. I'm not trading your life for Emerald's Semblance. I'm trading your death for Emerald's Semblance."
Marcus went still, staring at Mercury in equal parts shock and anger.
"Hold out as long as you feel like it. Every second is going to hurt more than the last, I guarantee it. But you don't get to die until Emerald is whole." Mercury knelt down next to his father, putting them at eye-level. "Do you get it now?"
"You miserable wretch!" Marcus exploded, fury boiling over. He seemed enraged at the mere thought that his son would do something he did not want or predict, that Mercury was somehow more than the worthless hanger-on he'd been cursed with for years. And the kid had the nerve to go through all of this just to kill him?! "You ungrateful cur. You—!"
Mercury got tired of the petty insults. His father was all smoke and no fire. A fist to the mouth forced Marcus to reset himself.
"Your mother was a whore," Marcus spat out. There was no angle to it anymore. Perhaps Marcus had finally realized that Mercury wasn't vying for his father's approval, and that he wasn't doing this just to make a point. Mercury didn't care about Marcus in the slightest, and now that Marcus saw that, he dropped his arrogant attitude. Neither of them knew what Marcus had left once that was removed. "You're not my son. You were never good enough to be my son! Your real father is probably a stray dog or a dimwitted crackhead or a crippled Ursa that your horny mother wrapped her legs around!"
Mercury sat there, shaking his head idly. He wondered why Marcus was so fixated on throwing that in his face. Did he think it hurt Mercury to hear that? He had to, right? There was no way he'd try to twist the knife so much if he didn't think it bother Mercury on a deep, emotional level. Mercury had thought that he had finally broken through to Marcus the depths of his contempt, but it appeared he was wrong. He needed one more push.
Mercury obliged.
"I hope you're right about that." It was long overdue to show Marcus just how little he meant to Mercury. And this time, he would get to see Marcus' face when it finally clicked. "I hope anyone else is my father. It means that I get to wipe every trace of you from this world, seventeen years past due."
Marcus hadn't spoken again after Mercury's last session with him. He had the look of a man who finally realized that he'd made his last mistake. He sat there and awaited execution now.
Mercury insisted that Emerald wouldn't have to do any of the torture herself, realizing that Emerald didn't quite have the stomach for it. He wasn't wrong about that—Emerald had a difficult time at the Fall of Beacon, spending most of it trying to suppress her thoughts so she wouldn't show weakness to Cinder, but all the death and suffering was… intense. Mercury was more desensitized to it, and she was visibly grateful to him that he had made the decision to spare her from it. All she had to do was watch him and ensure he stayed awake.
Marcus was so different from the last shift she'd had him for. There was no fight left in him. All he had done was sat there for two hours, staring off despondently at the wall. Emerald had taken Marcus' headphones off of him and he hadn't noticed.
That had been over an hour ago.
Without warning, a rush shot down her spine, and something warm filled her chest. Power surged through her, and the hole that had been left in her was filled. She had her Semblance back. The realization took her breath away, and she nearly flexed her Semblance on the spot just to check. She caught herself at the last moment; Emerald didn't think that Marcus was in any position to steal it a second time, but it wasn't work risking.
"Tell Mercury—"
Emerald cut Marcus off with a bullet to the forehead. The man's Aura crackled and fizzled out. Emerald pulled the trigger a second time.
She had heard their fight earlier. It had taken everything in her not to come in there and beat the man to a pulp herself when she heard that. How dare he say that to Mercury?! Had he not hated his son enough in his miserable life?!
All Emerald had ever wanted was someone to love her, and she thought not having that was the worst thing imaginable. She'd quickly decided that having someone who should love you hate you passionately was so much worse. It hurt her to think about Mercury growing up with that. If Cinder had ever showed such contempt—no, hatred—for her, Emerald feared that she would have blown her own brains out. Mercury had grown up through that.
He deserved so much more than that.
Gods, Emerald wanted nothing more than to make Marcus suffer even more before killing him. Marcus deserved nothing. He didn't deserve last words, or a final wish. Nor the chance to potentially redeem himself in some small way. He should die as pathetically as he lived, and Emerald didn't regret in the slightest robbing him of whatever he was going to say.
This was the first life that Emerald had directly taken, which was no insignificant feat considering all she had gone through without doing that yet. She certainly didn't have a taste for killing, but she enjoyed putting Marcus down. Especially if it saved Mercury from having to do it again.
Mercury burst in the room a few moments later, having been woken by the gunshots. He looked to her in a frantic panic.
"What happened!?" His eyes made it to Marcus, and Mercury assumed the worst: that Marcus had escaped his punishment without releasing Emerald's Semblance. "What!? How did he do that? We searched him! He was tied down! He—"
"Mercury," Emerald called out calmly. "It's okay. I have my Semblance back. I-It's over."
It took him a few seconds to register the words, but when he did, a great weight released from his shoulders. He nearly fell over. The pure relief from his guilt shone on his face, and the sight resonated deeply with her.
Mercury wrapped Emerald up protectively a moment later, hugging her into him tightly and burying his face into the top of her head.
Emerald returned the hug and let herself enjoy it for all it was worth. After a few moments, she felt moisture on the top of her head, and the thought that Mercury was so relieved he was crying shook her to her core.
She needed to help him, now. Not just for selfish reasons, though those certainly existed, but because it wasn't good for Mercury to avoid this for so long. He needed to come to terms with how he felt, with their relationship, with who they were to each other. It would only hurt him if he waited any longer. He couldn't afford another episode like this, where he didn't understand that he had lost control because he let her get hurt. They might not get lucky the next time.
Sure, there was a selfish element to it, too. She wanted Mercury to realize. Emerald already had, after all. She'd even admitted it. But she was concerned for Mercury much more than she simply wanted this for herself.
"Mercury—"
She didn't get the chance. Mercury pulled her even tighter into him, holding onto Emerald for all he was worth. They practically melted into each other's arms.
"I love you, Em."
