Thanatos

Kronos has a gift for death. More than a gift; Kronos loves it, loves death with a passion and a yearning and a rare artistry. He always has, but it's never seemed quite so clear as now. Methos can smell the excitement rising from him, lifting off him in tangible waves as he caresses the case where his virus sleeps. Death under glass, trapped for the moment, but not for long if Kronos has his way.

Methos smiles a smile old and mostly false, lounges back against the wall and regards the chilled death with practiced nonchalance. Perhaps Kronos will even believe it. At last he looks up to meet his brother's pale, mad eyes. Then again, perhaps not.

The lust is still there, flavored with a hint of amusement. A cat regarding its prey, knowing the prey's bravado is merely a facade. Methos leaves the smile exactly where it is, regardless. It's the game they've always played. Kronos takes a step closer and Methos feels the fear inside him rise.

It's not fear of anything Kronos will do to him; it's the fear of becoming what he was. The man he was is never far away and even less so now Kronos is here. He can feel the monster rattling his chains even now. This is the power Kronos has always had over him: the indefinable essence that speaks to the darkest parts of him, that echoes, amplifies, and matches utterly those parts of his soul he locked away long ago.

A thousand years of knowing this man means he knows the second the amusement turns darker, when the lust shifts into need, sharp and strong. Kronos needs him, like he needs death. He doesn't need the man Methos is now. Only the desire between them is unchanged.

Kronos comes closer, one step at a time with his eyes fixed on Methos'. His body sings its response, a mourning song for what he was and what he could be. He doesn't want this.

But he will. Kronos can make him want it.

Methos lets his brother lead him away from the virus, away from the stench of the doomed animals, but not away from death. Death will follow them wherever they go. It is an immutable law of their lives. And death is coming, one way or another; he's known that since the moment the dagger hit his chest.

As if he can read his thoughts, Kronos lays his hand exactly on the place his dagger had been. Gently, when Methos had been expecting violence. Wanting it. But Kronos won't concern himself with what Methos thinks he wants, Methos knows that much without being told. And Kronos knows he knows it; Methos can see that in the wry twitch of his mouth just before it meets his own.

Kronos is kissing him, pressed up against him, need and hunger tempered with a gentleness that undermines all his defences. He has nothing that will save him from this. Kronos knows his weaknesses and this has always been one of them. Methos knows the soft touch of Kronos' lips and hands is merely a weapon like any other, but the knowledge does nothing to shield the vulnerable places.

It just makes the pain cut even deeper.

Because his choices are disappearing, because the part of himself that wants this is rising up from its shallow grave, Methos gives into the kiss. He lets Kronos push him back against a wall and take his mouth with a passion that has always been peculiarly theirs.

Methos opens his eyes in the middle of the kiss. The glow from the fire lights the scarred side of Kronos' face. There is beauty there, the rough, damaged beauty of a well-used sword, battered but still razor-sharp and deadly. Methos has to close his eyes. He doesn't want to want this man.

But he does.

He doesn't want to feel anything for Kronos, but the old, old parts of him, the ones hardwired by all the years of their lives together, disregard knowledge, experience, sense, even fear. All they know is power, submission and lust. He can feel them sucking him down into the quicksand with the touch of Kronos' hands on his body. And Kronos knows his body well. It's as much a part of him as his sword and every bit as much his weapon.

Kronos' hands slide into his hair, taking control and bending him back. His body is hard and hot against Methos', so familiar it only adds to the feeling that no time has passed at all. Fear and loathing pass into unimportance as the lust flares. Kronos is biting at him, drawing blood from his lips, licking it away, gentleness dissolved by fire.

His leg is between Methos' thighs, pressing in hard, hard enough to hurt if he wasn't so achingly erect. Methos' legs shift apart almost without his willing it, shifting down into the pressure. He's hard enough to shatter and he's not sure he won't. He can feel death coming, as sure as his own orgasm and just as devastating. But he still wants one last taste of this before it's all gone forever.

He wants this as he's wanted so many things that were destined to end badly. And it will. He knows that all too well. But all he cares about at this moment is that he wants it. Never more so than when Kronos slips his hand to Methos' throat. He is pushing him back, pressing his throat closed, making his cock pulse and swell as the air grows short.

He presses his head back, arching his throat into Kronos' grip. Kronos' mouth is still on his, all tongue and teeth and kisses like razorblades, but it's the hand on his throat that is stealing all his focus. He could die like this, die coming and falling before the force of Kronos' lust for death. It wouldn't be the first time.

The wall is rough behind him and Kronos is pushing him back harder into it, releasing his mouth with a final bite that tears him afresh. The pressure is gone from his throat and he has to bite his tongue to stop himself begging it back. He's bleeding and aching, gasping and needing as Kronos tugs the jeans down his hips, down his legs and turns him to face the wall.

Kronos pulls the coat from Methos' shoulders before he can even think about shrugging it away himself. He should be cold, but there's fire in his veins and it's crackling under his skin. The fire only burns higher when Kronos pushes inside him. Sweet -- necessary -- pain burns a trail from ass to brain and he's lost. Everything else is falling away, scorched to ashes by the thrust of his brother's cock in his body.

Kronos' hand is back on his throat, grasping hard like the one at his hip. He's thrusting in short, harsh jabs, taking his pleasure of him roughly. It's so familiar that time seems to shift back and forth, as unstable as ice under his feet. He can feel it slipping.

His body is crying out, for air, for touch, for just a little more before it's all gone forever. Kronos' teeth are sharp on the nape of his neck and he can feel the blood flowing once more. He doesn't want to love this the way he does, but it's sharp and dark and sucking him under like a malevolent tide. He spreads his legs wider and pushes back into Kronos' cock.

Kronos chuckles softly as he licks the blood from Methos' skin, taking him harder and faster. He knows. The knowledge is in every touch, every sound he makes. But Methos is too far gone to care. He is lost in the past, lost in the lust for what he and Kronos were together. What they are together.

The dark creature inside him is swelling and growing, surging back to life. He was wrong, stupidly, fatally wrong, he realizes in a moment of dizzying clarity. One taste of this was never going to be enough. If he lets himself fall, nothing will ever be enough.

The past comes rushing up until it's the only thing that seems real. Power, hate, fear….

Death.

Orgasm slams into him as Kronos slams him into the wall and the world tilts on its axis. He's coming and falling with Kronos' arms tight around him, crying out in a language he hasn't spoken in a thousand years while Kronos comes inside him. Then Kronos lets him go, and he's on his own, on his knees with his forehead pressed against cold stone.

It takes a vast act of will to come back to himself, but a thousand years of freedom have given him the strength to do it, even if the effort makes him bleed inside. The clarity he found is still there, sharper than the icy shards of hate in his chest.  In his lust for death, Kronos would unleash his virus, unleash the death inside Methos, unleash death in all its forms on the world once more.

The darkness Kronos has awakened is still there, growing stronger, but it's a darkness no longer at Kronos' service. No longer embracing death, but the bitter, red-clawed chi of survival. He closes his eyes over the knowledge, hiding it from Kronos' gaze, wondering if Kronos knows he's sown the seeds of his own destruction.

It is fit. Kronos loves death, and death has come for him.

The end

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The wonderful and talented Amand-r has remixed this story and come up with something utterly incredible. You can find it at her site here.