Author's note: the stories might not be linked at all sometimes, the only character that will be in every chapter is Killian Jones, and each time another character or couple, from his own point of view. This is my first Once Upon a Time fanfic, I hope you'll enjoy it and I will appreciate any comment, so please don't forget to leave a review. Nothing else to note about the story, except there'll be one main theme per chapter; I thought most stories end with revenge, why not start with it?
Title: The Legendary Killian Jones
Chapter 1: VENGEANCE
"Look at the sun! It's dry, it's dead, it needs a drink, it wants blood! And I'll give it blood!"
Alfred de Musset
...
An eye for an eye.
There's a certain familiar ring to it that Killian Jones finds alluring. In fact, there's something about the law of retaliation that he would describe as just. Fair. What is unique about it though, he reckons, is that it we've all heard it somewhere, we've all heard it before, and so when it comes down to actually considering it, it sounds different. It sounds legitimate. And it always sounds familiar.
A wife for a wife.
Killian Jones was never a good man, he was however more often than not led to show kindness; mercy. Often, he simply tells himself that something broke inside of him, when the woman that he loved died in his arms. There's something that tore; something that snapped. He watched life hope and dreams drain from Milah's eyes, and a new man was born. No more kindness. No more mercy.
So vengeance?
Why not?
…
The girl is beautiful, this much he's got to admit. There's a perfect word to describe a woman like her, and it's: lovely. Killian's been with too many women to consider that he has a type, but as he discovers the blue-eyed beauty, he reckons that she's the sort he would have taken home. In fact, if she hadn't happened to be dating the murderer–the Crocodile–he thinks that he might have been visiting her library over three times a week for entirely different reasons.
"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?" She says to him when he comes through the door, and each time the smile she greets him with is honest as can be; it curves dimples into her peachy cheeks, and it's as though nothing brightens her day more than the idea to brighten his.
He figures a woman like Belle du Maurier is definitely the sort he would court; she's kind and she's ravishing, smiles in a way that could soften a fiend, and there's something about her that feels overly precious for a sickly world.
"Only the usual, love." He speaks casually. "Only the usual."
And what he usually does, at her library, is browse a few books without interest and feign to read. He only watches her when she isn't watching him. He makes himself both discreet and courteous enough to be sure he won't be mentioned to her boyfriend, because that would be the ultimate joke. Killian Jones doesn't get played, he doesn't get fooled.
He fools the fools.
And that librarian with doe eyes and long brown hair is probably the loveliest fool he could have come across, a fool nevertheless, and it didn't take long for Killian to decide that Belle du Maurier was probably the last person in Storybrooke–in the entire State–that deserved to die. But again, avenging Milah was never about the Murderer's girlfriend, she is merely the means.
That's what is both unjust and fair about the law of retaliation. That eye you take for the one that was taken isn't always the culprit's eye. You don't kill the man who killed your love. You kill his.
The shelves of the library are burdened with monstrously heavy books, but Killian can still distinguish the girl as she takes a short break, sits down on one of the low-price armchairs with the original French version of Alexander Dumas's Comte de Monte Cristo. He watches her captured by the plot, a long fingernail nervously caught between her teeth, as she barely finds the courage to turn one page after the next.
He watches her, and he thinks that vengeance is an ugly thing.
But again, this was never about pretty.
…
Hunting isn't about speed; it isn't about strength, either. It isn't about your skills, how well you aim or how quick you strike; generally, Killian Jones learned that it's about knowing how to disappear. To be invisible.
He doesn't only know where Belle works now, he doesn't only know that she starts at eight and finishes at four, that she smiles brightly enough to draw jealousy from the sun, loves French literature and tales of romance. Unfortunately for Belle du Maurier, there's just one thing she loves that Killian can't forgive. He knows her better than well now, he knows her like the back of his hand. He knows where she goes home at night–and to whom–he knows where she runs when she's afraid, and where she hides when she's wounded.
Because he does wound her. Killian finds this much impossible to deny.
The only reason why the renowned Mr. Gold doesn't visit his sweetheart at her workplace is because he's busy with his own, and can't afford for anyone to discover what he's up to. He's always up to something. There's always a scheme, a design that he plans and no one is in on it; not even Belle. That's what hurts her, Killian reckons. What hurts her is that Rumpelstilskin must love her with everything that he is, but nor her love nor his will ever be enough; he'll always need more.
Killian understood that, as he watched the girl dry puffy red eyes, half concealed behind a large book. She loves the Murderer, she loves him the way a fairytale princess loves a toad that she believes will turn into her prince, in the meanwhile she loves him ugly and treacherous, and Killian thinks that she's guilty of that at least.
Yet when she sheds silent tears, in a corner of her own library, Killian puts down the book he was feigning to peruse, walks to her and asks, too gentle to be intrusive. "What's the matter, doll?"
She laughs at the mere mention, a wet nervous chuckle that comes out sad and embarrassed. "Nothing, hum… It's foolish, really."
He doesn't nod or agree with that statement in any way, but deep down Killian doesn't disapprove of the term. The more he gets to know Belle du Maurier, the more he watches, the more he'd like to tell her that it is foolish, so very, very foolish. Not just because she loves a creature that is lucky to be able to breathe the same air as her, because she loves a beast who might be what she wants but will never be what she deserves, but because the way she loves him is itself ridiculous – and unreciprocated.
She loves him with all her heart and is his body and soul. But he'll never be hers.
He follows her when she goes home at night, he watches her climb the doorsteps and slide into the Crocodile's lair. Killian doesn't need to be quick, he doesn't need to be strong, not for now; he just needs to be invisible. Once she's inside, he watches through the windows; the woods offer just enough camouflage, and all dressed of black, Killian is like a shadow disappearing with its own kind.
The lights downstairs remain switched on long enough, and as he can't hear any shouting, Killian guesses that tonight, the Crocodile is lying. He's watched them long enough to know that their relationship is split into two equal alternatives: fighting, and lying. He heard Belle shouting at him more than once, not with anger but with that desperate acuteness, this pleading sliver in her voice, she'd ask him–Do you love me, Rumple?–and when he'd say yes, she'd ask: how?
It's a matter that Killian is rather interested in himself.
When they're not arguing–it's usually really one or the other–then he's lying to her, he's hiding something, and it's only one more thing to fight about. Killian wondered, at first, if it was distance that allowed him to see this so clearly, but now he knows that she can see it, too. Every time the man she loves greets her with a smile, one that isn't deceitful but not completely sincere either, she knows that he's lying.
It's something that she's never shared with Killian, of course, although he suspects she came to think of him as a friend. He's not her friend. But he's thought of it though, he ponders on it sometimes and thinks that if he were her friend, he'd tell her: run. He'll never change for you. He'll never be honest to you. Run now and run fast, because if you don't, you'll lose yourself in the process; because if you can't make him beautiful, he'll make you ugly. Because if you don't leave now, you'll just end up loving him until you can't.
But Killian says nothing.
He just watches; and he waits.
…
There's something about the law of retaliation that sounds unfair, too. The downsides of his plan are something that Killian hadn't given much thought to until he met Belle du Maurier. It's something that crossed his mind once or twice after he met her, and something that's never been more clear than now, when he drags her across the floor.
He has a pistol aimed at her head but she's struggling still, and he figures it's only fair.
It's funny how "fair" never had the same ring after he started thinking of vengeance.
She started crying a while ago, and he would have expected being unable to think through the whimpers, he would have expected for her cries to deafen his brain and determination, but Killian Jones has never felt more clear-minded than now.
He pushes her on the bed and keeps her still by the sole menace of his firearm. Once this is over, he'll clean up any trace of a struggle because he wants Rumpelstilskin to find her there. He wants the Crocodile to come home, with plans and hopes filling his thoughts, and he wants there to be surprise in his eyes when he discovers his beloved on their bed, the sheets a crimson shade of red that the murderer won't be likely to forget.
She's stopped crying now; she stays motionless, half-sitting on the mattress, trembling and terror fills her eyes, but she isn't crying.
She looks at him.
She doesn't ask why, she knows why, because she doesn't have a violent bone in her body nor an evil thought in her mid, and any enemy she might have can only come from the man she loves. The man she chose.
Killian could tell her about Milah; as surprising as it may sound, he's never given much thought to this moment, how it would unfold. But as it turns out, he simply can't say anything; he thinks he understands now, the unfairness of this primitive rule. An eye for an eye. It means being willing to accept that your actions are, in the name of vengeance, both legitimate, and illegitimate. It means being willing to become exactly as horrid as the person who took something from you; no more, no less. It means that your actions will not be justified or forgiven any more than his.
But it would be a cruel joke, Killian thinks, that now, he should prefer justice to vengeance.
"I'm sorry, love." He says, and. "It's not personal."
And it's not. It's never been personal.
The weapon is aimed at her, Killian's finger lies still against the trigger, but there's something peculiar, paralyzing his hand.
It's the look she gives him, he reckons.
It's idiotic, it's actually foolish, paradoxical, and inexplicable, but it's happening.
There's something in her blue eyes that is so helpless it summons allegiance. There's something strong about her weakness, there's something inside him that tells him it's because he could press that trigger that he can't. There's something in Belle du Maurier's eyes that commands obedience, something that Killian could fight against.
He's not certain why anymore.
He watches her watching him, and it occurs to him that it's different from what he's used to, spying on her through crowded shelves. In fact, he wonders if it's not the first time he's really looked her in the eye.
And the thought gets lost in the sound of the gunshot when he fires.