Teratogen
The sound of water on concrete is hollow, echoing through the base like the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh. He's been hearing it for days and now it has almost faded into the background. Almost, but not quite. It is a constant in this place, like Caspian taunting Silas, like Kronos' casual assumption that it can all be the same again. Like Methos wishing he was anywhere but here.
He doesn't plan on being here long enough to become truly used to any of it. If anyone knows the danger of becoming used to things, he does. He's been the frog in the water with the temperature heading slowly towards boiling and he's no wish to be that again.
He knows only too well how little space there is between Methos now and Methos then. More importantly, he knows what it would take to make the space disappear. So few degrees between living and death. Or Death.
He wasn't lying to
Kronos when he said he wasn't like that anymore. Of all the things he
said, that was the one Kronos should have believed. He is different
now. He doesn't want to be here; doesn't want any of this. But if
anyone can, Methos knows it's Kronos who can make him want it again.
He can feel it even now, the power shivering under his skin in the
places where his blood beats strong with fear and anticipation. It's
the promise of unfettered freedom -- all the power and none of the
responsibility -- the freedom to lurk in the shadows of Kronos' flame,
directing it, stoking it, knowing when to bank it. He can have it all.
He has never wanted anything less.
But that's a lie. A comforting one, but a lie nonetheless, one he tells
himself at times like this when the power comes down to the taste of a
cock in his mouth and a man grunting above him. Even on his knees he
knows the power he has within his grasp.
And he knows the power Kronos has.
Kronos can make him a monster again. A thousand years has given Kronos a roadmap of all Methos' tender places, every flaw and weakness. He knows how to play them -- a virtuoso of pain and power utterly without conscience. Methos was that once and he remembers it all too well.
The monster has no
conscience, no vulnerability, no soft places for the world to hurt.
He's a hard, hollow shell reckless with the violence of knowing that no
one matters like he does.
Only him. Only them.
Methos loves and hates the monster he was, just as he loves and hates the man fucking his mouth. He hates him with the special malevolence of the cornered. He loves him with the peculiar lust of passion gone but not forgotten. Not nearly forgotten.
It's a particularly
vicious blessing, to remember it all. And most days he can live with
it; it's past and gone and all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the
world wouldn't change a damned thing. But this isn't most days and
today he'd give almost anything to be able to forget what this man once
was to him.
It would be easier that way. Easier to condemn him as an anomaly if
Methos could just forget that once they were four. Easier to have
Kronos die without the memories that insisted he deserved it too. But
he wants to live -- wants it desperately, in fact.
And Kronos needs to die. Another lie. The truth is that Methos needs Kronos to die. He's hidden from it for all these years, but there's no hiding anymore. It isn't just the innocents Kronos would kill (and Methos tries to make himself believe that they're the most important thing, though really that's just one more lie), it's that every day, every hour spent remembering how it once was brings it all closer to coming back.
Kronos is the teratogen: the substance that can make him a monster.
There's no cure, only
excision and complete annihilation.
Methos keeps his eyes closed over the hate, and lies to Kronos again,
this time with his mouth and hands. With each stroke of his tongue and
each slip of his lips he wonders if Kronos realizes any of it. It's no
secret to Kronos that Methos wants him dead, but he wonders if Kronos
knows just how much he needs it.
The only thing he needs more is for this all to be another nightmare;
more real and painful than usual, but a nightmare still. Then he could
wake up and pretend it was forgotten. Until the next time. But there's
never going to be a next time for this particular nightmare. His life
was built on sand and now it has all shifted.
In his darkness, slim, hard fingers stray over his throat, trace ancient patterns over his skin, and drag him back to the here and now. He shivers while Kronos strokes the vulnerable places, softly, exactly. The tender malice is making his gut turn cold and he decides that perhaps Kronos does know.
And Kronos is still touching him, so he arches into it in a perfect parody of passion. He braces for the violence he knows must come, but all that comes is Kronos. Methos' heartbeat stutters. Rough curls flatten against his nose, while Kronos' cock shoves deep into his throat and a litany of curses pour out in Kronos' soft, poisonous voice.
It's the voice of his dreams, his nightmares, the voice he's been hearing in his mind for a thousand years. Betrayal lies under every syllable. It echoes with the sounds of a blade into flesh, the fall of a body, an iron gate slamming shut. It's the sound of everything Methos hoped he could forget yet never could.
Methos swallows it all down, drinking in Kronos, remembering, while the bitter-sweetness almost chokes him.
the end
Written for the Blow it with Feeling challenge, January 2004. My emotion was 'malevolence', in case you couldn't guess. Thanks to MacGeorge and Tritorella for the beta.