This is something I've had in my head since I watched Dorian Gray (and I've not read the book in a while so it probably isn't very correct) xx This has now been edited, because I hated the formatting and I hadn't fixed it when I first posted x Please read and review though :)

Dorian's home was very lovely, she thought. The furnishings were impeccable, the candlesticks made of real silver, the table already set for dinner. Everything was made of wood, mahogany it looked like, with a grand oak fireplace and a grand staircase that if she walked down she knew she would fell like a princess. As radical as she was she still appreciated being treated like a princess - what girl secretly didn't?.

She also appreciated traditional values and good culture however much she wanted the vote. Her mother had called her contrary. She said Emily was far too much like her father.

Emily wasn't sure if it was a compliment.

The room was gorgeous - large and spacious, but not so far apart that you had to shout or feel isolated. It felt like she could stand here forever - if only she had Dorian by her side. The curtains were heavy and expensive - but the kind of thing she saw regularly at home and there was an odd lack of servants in the house - it was oddly silent, specifically for who she hoped was in here.

There was an odd discoloured space over the fireplace, looking empty and cold for reasons she couldn't determine. A gut feeling told her something should be there, but she couldn't tell what. It was like a nagging feeling, clawing at her insides, and she tilted her head to the side, wondering at what could have been there.

It was the perfect place for a portrait or some other painting, but she wondered why it would have been removed.

Then from above her, almost in contradiction to her previous thoughts, as she admired the furnishings, the sounds of shouting echoed. Hearing her father's voice and then Dorian's she rushed to the stairs to the landing, following the shouts.

Emily was halfway up the stairs to the attic before she even realised she'd moved, wondering what they were doing in the room she had been refused entry to. As she reached the top she was almost knocked back down them, near trampled by her terror-stricken father.

It was, frankly, an unnerving experience for her - she had never seen her father upset or distressed, never mind on this kind of scale.

Her father's eyes flashed with animal terror before focusing on her and recognition sparking in his eyes. Her insides froze for reasons she couldn't explain.

"Emily," he gasped. He froze for a millisecond before grabbing her arm and dragging her down the staircase. As she was knocked off-balance she heard a slam, like something heavy colliding with a wall. Her eyes flickered upwards to find Dorian, grasping the bars ahead of him, fingers wrapped around like spiders in a web.

"Dorian!" She stepped forwards, closer to him, but found herself restrained by her father. Her father! She struggled against him, surging forwards like a wave against the tide; futile but trying.

"No Emily," he grunted, dragging yet away from the only man who had ever meant something to her, with the exception being the man who was pulling her. The monster was her father, leaving an innocent man alone to suffer in the dark.

Dorian struggled with the bars for a moment longer, his eyes locked on hers, his fingers straining towards her. She got far enough forwards for him to clamp them tightly around her wrist for a moment and then let go, backing away from her an anguished look in his eyes.

Her father pulled her further away, inches that were miles.

"No!" She fought like a wildcat, maddened by fury and fear. She didn't even know why she was so scared until she saw the flashes of candlelight that wasn't from candles and realised that the bars weren't opening.

Dorian gave her one last heart-rending look, pleading with her for something she couldn't guess, before vanishing into the darkness of the shadows as she was moved further and further away from him. Even through the locked bars she could see the flickering of firelight in the night, casting haunting shadows on the walls as she was pulled down the stairs. She fought her way through the dining room and the main hall, all the way to the entrance hall, clawing desperately at the mahogany door as she tried to get inside. Her father still refused to let go of her, wrestling her out of the door.

It was then the world exploded and Emily found herself flung back hard onto the pavement, her father sprawled besides her as she blinked up at the house. It was going up in smoke, ashes all that was left of its beauty. She couldn't help but think it was ironic for some reason.

And all she could do was cry.

Dorian knew that he had become a monster. He knew that he had become something of nightmares, that his soul was blacker than anything else.

But he hadn't cared - not for a long time.

Not since Sybil.

Until he met Emily.

Emily was good and kind and sweet and very strong, fierce enough for a tiger. He refused to destroy her with what he was. So when he saw her trying to get to him, he exchanged a look with her father that told him exactly what he thought.

As much as they had come to hate each other, he saw a glimmer of respect in the older man's eyes at his insistence to save Emily.

He was a monster, but he didn't need to drag Emily down with him.