out on the edge (and I'm screaming my name)
Three hundred years is more than enough time to lose yourself.
PG-13. Violent themes, potentially disturbing imagery, descent into madness
He's been here before. Tunnel vision, blinders, call it what you will. The instant his hook sinks into that crocodile's flesh, there is nothing else. There can be nothing else. He's finished, he's done it. The fear in the crocodile's eyes tells him it will work. He's won.
He barely feels it when he falls; stars explode behind his eyes and then there's nothing.
It doesn't matter, though, because he did it. Three hundred years of waiting, three hundred years of doing what he had to, and he's done.
When he wakes up, his wrist is chained to a solid metal object that curves over and over and refuses to move when he pulls against it. The room is cramped and small, boxes strewn about haphazardly. His hook is gone, but it served it's purpose. Dimly he recalls pushing aside the Swan girl, Emma, and he judges she must be the one responsible for his current predicament. The crocodile is already dying; there would be nothing he could have done to him.
"Killian," a soft voice uges, and he snaps his head up, searching for the sound.
There's no one in the room with him, but he knows that voice. He knows it because his bones ache and his heart pounds in his chest, black ashes fluttering away.
"Milah?" He blinks and she's there. She looks exactly as she did the day he lost her, exactly as he loves her. She takes his breath away, she takes everything away. He tries to reach for her, to touch her, but his hand rattles in his chains and he curses.
She smiles softly and crouches down between his legs, her fingers coming up to his cheek, tracing some pattern only she knows.
"My love," she murmurs, and there are tears glistening in her eyes and he knows his cheeks are wet but it doesn't matter because she wipes the tracks away and cradles his face in her hands. "You did it, my love."
"For you, Milah, for us. I did it." He lurches forward, breathing hard and he desperately wishes he had two hands again, that he could run his fingers through her hair and feel the curve of her cheek, the way she would lean back against the hand on her neck. She peppers kisses on his face, small light presses against his cheeks and his nose and his forehead and his eyes and it's not enough, he's crying now, he can feel it dripping off of his chin and he knows if he opens his eyes something will happen and he can't. "I love you, I love you, come back, please" he repeats mindlessly, he doesn't know what he's doing except he can feel the wetness when she presses her cheek against his and curls her hand across the back of his neck. She kisses along his jaw and finds his lips, a light chaste press all she gives through his mumbled words.
Finally, it's too much, not enough, and he allows his eyes to slide open.
She's so close, so real, he can feel it. He can see her.
"We can be together, please," he says and she smiles forlornly. It feels like his heart is in a vice and he wants to scream.
"No we can't," she whispers, and leans forward to kiss him. He opens to her instantly, ignores the taste of salt as he kisses her, pours everything he has felt for this eternity into it. She cradles him against her, presses them closer. Her lips are soft and just like he remembers, fire and passion and love, gods, he has missed her so much.
Finally, she breaks away, their foreheads pressed together, and he feels it, she's leaving again and there's nothing he can do again, he can't lose her, if he does, he will go mad.
Madder.
"I love you," he says again, like it will make her stay. "I didn't tell you then but I did, I did, oh, I still do." His chest feels like it's cracking in on itself. "I have loved you for so long, Milah." He's crying and his voice is rising but it doesn't matter because her hand on his cheek feels impermanent and fading. He is shaking apart and the only thing holding him together is the press of her fingers and the feel of her skin against his.
"Stay, please, stay, I'll do anything, I did everything for you, please," he whimpers, but already she is drawing away.
"You can't, Killian. I can't." A sad smile slips across her face. "I was never really here in the first place."
"No!" he roars, pulling at his chain and stretching out what's left of his left arm to her. "Please! Milah!"
She flickers, like lightning in a bad storm, and then she's gone.
"Goodbye, Hook," her voice floats to him, a quiet sound. Final.
He's shaking, crying and screaming for her, anger fused through him. He pulls on the cuff around his wrist until he feels blood sliding down his arm but he doesn't care anymore because it doesn't matter because she's gone and their crocodile is gone and he has nothing and all he needs to do is get out of here.
There isn't enough air and he feels himself losing consciousness, black spots dancing around his vision, and he sees things, sees the demon and he sees Bae and he sees so many people, he sees bodies and bodies piled everywhere, the sharp slice of his hook through flesh.
He chokes on something and slams his head back; it hits the metal device and then he doesn't see anything.
The next time he comes back slowly, dimly. He is flat on his back, and he can't feel his arm. He blinks at his wrist, over and over, until it focuses and he can see red crusted over his arm and into his shirt. When he moves, it burns and crackles. He can't feel it, though, not when he rattles it and the metal rubs against his skin, opening new rivulets of red.
"You shouldn't do that," a voice says, and he whips around to see Swan, crouched beside him. Slowly, he raises himself up off the floor.
"Why not?"
She shrugs in response, so he continues. He pulls his fingers together and tries to slide them through the cuff, but it doesn't work. Instead, he pulls at his thumb and shoves his fingers together again, twisting.
"You're going to break your hand."
He turns to her, raises his hook out of habit before he realizes he doesn't have it anymore. "Stay away from me," he snaps, but she doesn't move, doesn't even flinch. He twists his thumb one final time and his hand slides free, covered in blood. He flexes his hand and notes that his thumb only twitches. It doesn't hurt, though.
"I'm afraid, Miss Swan, that I must take my leave of you," he says, voice hard. He doesn't know where he is or where he's going, but he doesn't care. It doesn't matter. This world, no world, nothing holds anything for him. All these years he's lived, he no longer feels alive, not anymore, yet he knows death holds nothing but more loneliness.
He feels directionless, but he can't bring himself to care. It feels like a slippery slope but he's already fallen and all that's left is to enjoy the ride.
When he rises and walks past Swan, she flickers like Milah did, but she stands and follows him out. He finds himself in a hall, and he just keeps walking. She trots to keep pace, but remains utterly silent. He walks until he finds a door, and he opens it and walks through. There are people here, and some of them look strangely at him, at his missing hand and bloody arm, covered in black leather with a look of death about him.
A woman with dark skin steps in front of him and places her hand on his chest. He wants to laugh; he wants to slash her throat and step around her body. Swan has vanished.
The woman touches him with something, presses a device against his chest and it feels like his whole body is alive, lit up with pain, and he feels it before he loses everything and drops to the ground.
He's tired of waking up. He wants to close his eyes and never see sunlight again. He wants to lay in his bed and wake up next to Milah.
None of them are viable options. There's blood in his mouth and when he flexes his jaw and moves his tongue it hurts.
"I don't love you," a voice hisses from next to him. He turns his head wearily, already tired of these games. It's pitch black where he is, and he feels something tight across his chest, his arms.
"I never loved you," the voice continues. "How could I love a monster?" The voice softens then and suddenly it's oh-so-familiar.
"Milah?" he asks, soft and hesitant. He didn't expect to see her again, to hear her voice.
"You're not what I fell in love with, Killain," she says, words cracking. "You've become as bad as he is." Fingers brush his cheek before the dissolve like they were never there. "You're a monster with a hook for a hand."
"No, Milah," he says, but she talks over him.
"How could I ever love a monster," she repeats. "You will not find me in death. All you will find is your revenge," she hisses.
And then it's gone. All that's left is silence and the dull throb of his body.
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter
He's done.
When they speak all he does is laugh and when they let him go he watches them choke on their own blood.
Captain Hook is no ones pet. He is done playing by the rules of the living.
(there's a shadow at the edge of his vision, red and gold and brown fluttering behind him, but every time he turns to look at it, it's gone, and he is being stalked by visions and taunted by his past and he doesn't know which is real and which isn't but he slices through them all the same)