This two part, one-shot is based off a prompt from OTP Prompts on Tumblr. I hope you enjoy it!
Never Letting Go
Part One
"Killian…" David quivered, tears flooding down his cheeks as he grasped the man's body in his lap, cusping his head in his hands. "Killian, no," he repeated.
A servant had found his body while he was dusting the great hall of the palace, lying there on the stone floors, sprawled about. Knowing him to be the King's husband, the servant had had word sent out to him immediately.
David had been out, visiting his mother. Killian was supposed to go with him, but was feeling sick. If only I'd been here for him, David thought, maybe I could've saved him.
His body couldn't have been there more than an hour, since that was the last time David had seen him, shortly before he left to go visit his mother's farm only a few miles away. It had been a passionate, happy and warm goodbye from Killian for such a short departure. David could still feel the heat of the man's lips against his even now as he held the man in his arms.
"David," said the faint voice of Snow White and she laid her small hand gently on his shoulder, "I am so sorry."
David could bear to rip his eyes away from the lifeless image of his husband to look at her. The pale, empty face of the dead man looked wholly foreign to David, who, in that moment, had flashes of the warm, bright and happy face of his husband racing through his mind.
The eyes that looked back at him could've been those of a stranger.
A gash that pierced through his stomach appeared to be the cause of his demise. Blood seeped from his lifeless body into David's hands as he finally managed to rip his gaze away from the man and to the guards that stood solemn nearby.
"How did this happen?" he demanded, almost furiously if it were not for the aching cry in his voice.
Their blank faces answered him. They didn't know.
His eyes moved back to Killian's face. He looked at him, his eyes, his lips, his cheeks, his eyebrows, all which once happily formed together the face of a cheerful, smiling man in rhythmic harmony, though now fell empty and cold. David almost half-expected Killian's eyes to suddenly fill with life again, and his lips to form into a grin, displaying his gleaming white teeth, and he would admit to everyone there that this was all just one large, humorous joke.
But he realized that that wouldn't happen.
Killian Jones, his husband, friend, adviser and hero, was dead.
He leaned forward closely to Killian's face and whispered somberly. "I will always love you. Forever and ever."
It was a grand funeral for Killian Jones the one that the kingdom held for him. A massive, lavish event, with all of the people of the kingdom in attendance. The people had loved Killian. He had been a generous and kind man to everyone he had met, and it showed with the thousands of people who gathered to mourn his loss.
Even the Evil Queen, with her severe dislike for Snow White and Prince Charming, had herself been fond of the dark-haired man, and attended the funeral. She set aside her hatred for David, and offered him her condolences.
"Give King David my sympathies," she had somberly told Snow White.
Snow White, the gracious and kind lady she was, one of David's truest friends, had planned the whole thing down to the flower displays. David, in his grief, had found himself unable to do much of anything in the days following the loss of Killian. He had hardly left his tower bedroom of the palace, usually spending his days trapped in his bed.
Sleep was the only reassurance he could go to, because then, only in his dreams, could he be reunited with the man who had stolen his heart. The only person he had ever truly loved.
But, more often than not, he had nightmares of that day. When he had first been called to return to the palace, when he had walked in, wondering what could be the problem, and when he aw his husband's body slumped over on the floor, a pool of blood drenching the ground underneath him. When David had rushed over to him and tried to save him, despite knowing it was futile, wanting to do whatever he could to bring him back to life. And when he had been forced to accept that the man was gone. Forever.
But that day was different. David hadn't been able to sleep at all that day. No, instead he stood near the large window of his room, watching below as the people of his kingdom gathered in the courtyard and gardens of the palace to pay their respects to the King's beloved husband.
He had agreed the week before to appear at the funeral, to say goodbye to the man he loved, making his first appearance to the kingdom since Killian's death.
"David?" Snow asked from behind, quietly entering the room. He turned and looked at her, though said nothing. "Everyone is ready. Are you coming?"
He nodded and followed her out of his bedroom, down the halls of the palace and to the great hall. Through the great, wooden doors they passed into the courtyard, and he greeted his kingdom solemnly. They bowed to him as he walked over to Killian's body, which was mounted on a platform of flowers, on display for the kingdom to say goodbye.
And that was exactly was David did.
"Goodbye, Killian," he muttered as he laid his hand gently across the man's chest and closed his eyes, one last tear managing to escape from his eyelid.
