killy character study ayyyyy. not something i usually do, i'm an emma lover, as most of you know. but fuck it, it's dark couple time *finger guns*. while that plot twist hurts me deep in my soul, i'm so ready to explore this.

oh god imagine the angry sex. just, just imagine.

this is sort of killian becoming his own dark version and how his relationship with emma is sort of fucked. everyone is sad. including me, lol. but i really love this. which is something i say a lot but i'm proud of this one.

also still a little awkward at writing smut/sex related stuff so like forgive me

go listen to 'please don't go' by barcelona, though, i wrote this to that. heartbreaking song.

hope you enjoy :)))

don't own shit

He wakes to unending black, dripping off him like morning dew, useless to wade through. The sound of creaking metal and magic assaults him, the harsh noise like a funeral march. It hurts, oh it hurts, to become again; searing white pain in every line of his tattoos, the rings clamping down on his fingertips, cross tightening around his neck like a noose.

He imagines how Emma did this, how she survived. Will he survive?

Yes, he will, because he cannot die. It had seemed that way for so long anyway that it won't change much. He thinks of the ring around her neck and of his brother. Oh Liam, body at the bottom of the sea between worlds, their coward father beside him.

"Hi," comes a weak voice, mere feet in front of him yet sounding light years away. Emma, but not Emma, with her arms crossed across her chest to hold herself back. Through the dark of his hood he can see the pain in her eyes, how her nails clench into the leather jacket. After so many weeks in the clothing of his lands, it is unholy, seeing her this way. Killian wonders if she is just a voice, there to train him, but he knows his Emma.

"Swan." It barely exits his lips and yet it tastes like death, sour on his tongue. It is the voice of a man with a cauterized arm, the rocking waves adding sickness to his insides, years and blood ahead of him.

"How do you feel?" She asks and it is the simplest question in the entire world. As if he'd woken from fitful dreams, sweat on his back.

"Different," he replies, looking down at himself, the black cloth drowning him.

"That doesn't go away, I'm afraid."

Killian wants to leave this place, this pedestal, without her. He doesn't want the hero's journey they had all given her. You can fight this, Emma, whispered into her soft hair over and over again, wanton kisses in hidden alcoves. He wants none of it, doesn't want to fight. Perhaps that is why Rumplestiltskin hasn't show himself, the old Dark Ones know he will be all too easy to swallow.

"So now what, love?" He grimaces, stepping off the platform, coming toward her. "We reign, terrible and fierce? Cut down those who defy us?

"What are the Dark One's great plans for us?" He smoothes his hook across her pale locks, smirking as she raises an eyebrow. She uncrosses her arms and brings a hand up, pulling back his large hood. The light hurts his eyes. She offers him a small smile.

"I've been the Dark One for less than five minutes and you already expect me to be scheming?" Her fingers linger on his cheek, tracing the scar. Pausing, she cupped his face as he lowered his hook. "This wasn't what I had planned. I never wanted to hurt you."

"I know," he took in her changed appearance, the way her face looked far too gaunt and how her bright red lips were pulled into a frown. There was a tear threatening to drop from her eye and he wished he could kiss it away. "Better to make the best of it, though, I guess."

He took her arm and led her through the dense forest, the sun setting behind them.

Killian swirled mist in his open palm, the sea forming in his fist. Emma laughed as small mermaids danced across his fingers, their tails splashing in the vision's waters. She gripped his left arm tighter, resting a head on his shoulder as they walked.

"Where are we going?" She asked after a time, Killian still staring at the magic he created.

"Anywhere, I suppose." he told her, closing his hand and letting it fall to his side. "Your family?"

"Not yet."

"Aye."

Laying on his back, he stroked his hand through Emma's now white locks, the colour unfamiliar and cold. She had been the sun mere hours ago and now here they were, the darkness. He wondered what it would do to him once he succumbed, how unbecoming he'd look. It was silly, to think that Emma would no longer love him when the darkness ate him whole.

She was still beautiful, his Swan, still so devastating he forgot to breathe while she was under him, her skin soft against his, lips trailing red down his chest. It had been so feral at first, devouring each other under a thick canopy of branches, and then he'd kissed her, drinking in her mouth with all the love he knew and it had been beautiful.

Two years ago, in that mad jungle, the pirate he had been could never have dreamed for such a woman as this, such a captivating witch.

They could not sleep, so he knew that she was awake, breathing silently next to him, listening to his blackened heart as it thudded against her. Did they even need air? he wondered. It took all of his will not to see this darkness as light, to not see it as an adventure with an end in sight.

What would he do? To her? To himself?

Killian laughed as Emma walked two fingers up his chest, stopping to touch his lips. He pressed a small kiss against them and sighed.

"We could send them all back," she whispered into the black night. "Without us. Save them the heartbreak of trying to make us good again."

"What about our future, love?" He asked, solemn, paper and ink house circled in red wrapping around his heart.

"It's right here," Emma said, her voice breaking as she grabbed for his hand, knitting her fingers with his. "Right here, Killian."

He watched her from a few feet back, watched her hands curl into fists and then flatten against her sides as she weighed her options. Through the trees he could see the Queen and her thief lover, staring quietly at each other as Snow held her small child, tears flowing without any fight.

"Emma?" He called softly, only for her to hear.

"Help me, Killian," she sobbed against tight lips. He came to her side, lifting his right arm as she did, smoke wafting out of their fingertips. It flowed down to the forest floor, racing across the dirt toward Granny's and the crowd that gathered.

He watched the Queen's head pop up suddenly, the distinct hiss of magic familiar to her ears.

"Everybody inside!" Regina shouted, grabbing Robin's arm and racing toward the door of the diner.

He watched the gray smoke engulf the diner, Henry's eyes searching the forest for any sign of his mother. Emma's teary gasps continued as she watched her family disappear, the hole in the earth the only sign that they had been there at all. Killian wrapped his arm around her middle, pulling her back against him. He kissed the crown of her hair until she quieted, thumb rubbing circles under her leather coat.

He is angry, most days, bursts of rage bubbling to the surface more often than he wants. He kills, that is what scares him most, that he kills everything in his path. If he could dream, he knows that his hand would be around Emma's neck, squeezing until there was nothing left.

The old Dark Ones don't like to share. They like him better, his soul is willing, easily coerced into fun. Nimue goads him on as a tinker bleeds beneath his foot, unable to cry for help. She smiles her siren grin and turns to Emma, teasing. Emma rolls her eyes and waves a nonchalant hand, stopping Killian from doing anymore damage.

They are two halves of one whole but she has the advantage of natural magic. She will always be more powerful, voices whispers in his ear at night, planning the next day's adventure, the next plunge into the deep pit of magic his love dug for him. He asks Emma how much longer the cursed old ones will haunt him and she shrugs, cleaning dried blood from under her nails.

She is too like him, took quick to use her hands instead of actual magic, wants to feel the life leave her victims, as he does. He does not have enough fingers to collect and wear the rings of the dead he leaves behind, carts knocked over and villages set aflame.

"Why aren't you stopping me?" Killian shouts at her in the midst of a raid, throat hoarse and face dampened with sweat and blood of the innocent. There is a woman at the end of his hook, eyes lifeless, and he waves her away, magic sending her into a burning house.

"You don't want me to," Emma answered simply, kicking aside fallen soldiers as she surveyed the damage he wrought.

He wants it to be false, but oh gods it isn't and he loves the black heart that pulses beneath his skin, loves the way the darkness calls, silver tongued Nimue at his ears and the crocodile smiling in the distance. Women would always be his undoing.

The darkness takes its final bite when he is inside her, lips dragging rough kisses against Emma's shoulder, her gasps in his ear. She is beautiful and terrifying like this, with his length between her legs and his arms pulling her tighter. They have lain together like this many times in the last few months, the forest ground beneath them and the quiet trees the only audience to their union.

He had imagined making love to her in a downy bed back in Storybrooke, or in the cabin of his ship, the moon reflecting off the waves. But there was a hunger in the both of them to become one and this was the closest they would ever come, their magic rippling off their naked bodies and into the dirt, setting trees alight and shaking the earth.

He comes, spilling into her and gasping against her reddened skin, pulling her closer, closer, until it is as if their is no barrier between their souls, Emma's cries reverberating in his skull, their love calling into the night.

The forest burns around them both and his skin is in flames, heat flaring everywhere. He does not know what is happening to him until Emma's soft voice is hushing his, hands smoothed against his face. Her sea glass eyes are hard to find in the maddening fire and he wants it to end, wants the pain to stop. The old ones are laughing and Nimue is rejoicing, finally satisfied.

"Killian," Emma croons, forcing him to look at her, the fire dying around them. "It's over, my love, it's over." She holds him until the sun rises, his body weak against hers in the dim light.

He looks down at his hand, holding it up so he can study the pearlescent shine to his skin. It is similar to Emma's, but there is faint blue shimmer, the sea spilling from his veins and mixing with his hot blood. He turns to look at his love, wants to see her reaction.

Emma's eyes are bright and happy, tears spilling.

"You're beautiful, Killian," she whispers, hand cupping one cheek. He leans into it, sighing as she places the other over his heart, still beating madly. He puts his only hand over hers, feeling the heat underneath.

"As are you, my love."

While making love in the forest is never less exciting than the last time, Killian tires of moving from village to village, burning and breaking bodies. The darkness no longer needs to seduce him, it is not as hungry for wreckage. Seeing those that pass them wince and move quickly is enough for a while, Killian turning to smirk at Emma, her gaze piercing under her hood.

He follows her like a moth to a flame, his dark swan swathed in grey fabric, dark dresses flowing off her body like smoke. She is a vision and he cuts down every worthless human that stares at his magnificent, beautiful wife. He is the only one allowed to gaze upon her beauty, the darkness beneath intoxicating. She smiles at him, Emma catching his eyes often.

The Dark Castle calls out to them from across the realms, pulling them home. Killian does not enjoy the crocodile's scent that lingers, but there is power in the stones that is unmatched. He burns every spinning wheel, throwing millennium old straw into the hearth. He watches Emma ghost her fingers across the spines of endless tomes, not bothering to open them. They have the knowledge of the old ones, they already know what lies behind the covers.

She pushes him against the great table in the study, kisses down his chest, and christens their new home. Their souls fold together and magic floats around them, telling the stones, wood, and stained glass that their masters have come home.

The Dark Ones are home and they are hungry for flesh.

fin.