The Basilisk
Verin Haley
[email protected]
http://www.geocities.com/lunalarea
Rated NC-17
MAJOR SQUICK WARNING: This is not only a slash story, it's got bestiality.
The pairing's Methos/Basilisk. This is a sick story. You
have been warned.
Summary: Methos stumbles into the Chamber of Secrets.
Harry Potter/Highlander Crossover
Disclaimer: I own neither the characters nor the concepts. I make
no money from this.
The world is blood-black, but vividly scented to life with draughts that
slip into the tunnels through cracks the King can no longer slide through,
scale to stone to freedom. He was free, once, in the before-time, light-time
when there was no hunger. He lives on rats and the small creatures;
he would be dead but for his nature: death never comes except at the hands
of a killer.
The hunger has driven him mad, become his world with the blindness and the
torment of prey one step beyond the stone bars of his once-home. There
is nothing to eat, nothing to see, and no one who speaks but the two who came
before.
That was long ago, in the killing time, when men lived who could yet speak
his tongue.
At the edge of his madness, a man lays down his scent, heavy with sweat
and exhaustion. It is tinged with blood where he has scraped past the
rocks. His breath stirs the wind raggedly. He must be desperate
indeed to consider *him* the lesser risk.
His scales scrape softly towards the intruder, who stills. There is
the tang of metal on his tongue as he closes, and the man raises the light
in his hand towards the King, alerted. The King recognizes the threat
of gleaming, bloodied metal in his other hand, drawn already towards him,
but it is far too late.
He saw the King when the light touched him, and now the man lies stretched
out, dead, as all men die. The hunger drives him forward, and his tongue
slips out and up the trouser of the man's pants to taste him. He is
salty and human; the King savors him.
So he notices when the man starts to breath again, as all men do not;
as no man ever has in the time and again he knew the world and killed for
his lord. Certainly no one ever has in this quiet time of the tunnels.
He killed the man, and he rose again.
The man pretends to be dead still, his life coming shallow in the eternal
in-out, in-out of mortal and immortal life, but his body betrays him.
It is the pressure, the slickness, the back-forth, back-forth of the hungry
tongue massaging against him. He stiffens in life as he never did in
death.
In the still-sentient, still-sane corner of the King's mind rise the specters
of amusement and curiosity: amusement at the fool mortal not-mortal's predicament,
and curiosity as to how he returned himself from death. Hunger will
return no matter when he eats the man, but the boredom-loneliness of his now-life
can be held off for a time yet.
The King paces his tongue nimbly, enjoying the wary fear-scent and the unconscious
arousal. He pretends not to notice fingers that stretch for a sword
fingertips out of reach. Quicker even than warrior's instincts, the
King's tongue retreats to his mouth and the fangs flash forward.
He penetrates deep into the groin with his fang and ejects into him, hearing
the man cry out inadvertently, curling around him, pressing hands against
him. The King pulls out, venom spent, and curls back to wait.
The venom is fast; breathing slows. In a last jerk of movement, the
man's fist closes around his sword as he dies. The King wonders whether
this death, too, will be a minor death -- un petite morte for death's bastard
son. He wonders whether the man will manage to rise again, or if he
has exhausted himself in the one effort. He wonders, and it has been
long indeed since he has had capacity or reason to do so.
A basilisk's venom is among the most potent, but it is not permanent for
a man who cannot die unless killed with steel and lightning's kiss.
Again, the tongue slid against his leg, pressing and searching the familiar
flesh for the fang's wound -- finding nothing except a touch of acridity on
the skin, a residual response driven into the flesh to move under-away from
his probing caress.
In his defense, it has been a long, lost time since the King has killed
a man. He has forgotten the sword and the hand -- forgotten that killers
did not stay still and wait to die. The movement is quick -- quicker,
even, than a serpent's instincts, dulled by size and surprise. The sword
slides into him, twisting and moving in the expert grip to sever the tongue
it has impaled.
The King recoils, pulling the maimed organ back into his mouth. The
man is already moving back, away, through the passage that had allowed him
escape once. It is too late to stop the man's heart with a look, even
if he has not already extinguished the light, and it will do no good anyway
with no tongue to retrieve the body.
The man forces his way through the tight hole, slick with sweat, blood,
and fear. The King presses the blunt tip of his head against the unyielding
surface, driven to follow. He is bloated on his own blood trickling
down his throat, salty and warm, and he clamps his jaw on the stump of his
tongue to slow the loss.
His world is pain, and once more he knows loneliness, but he does not quite
regret that this one got away. He doesn't know what such a resilient
meal would have done to him, and he is probably fortunate he will not find
out. He regrets the loss of his tongue, and the blood that pools beneath
him. He does not think the wound will kill him, but he will not track
right for a very long time. Perhaps never again. But then, basilisks
live a very long time. Perhaps it would grow back, in the coming-time,
in the time when there would be no more hunger and no more darkness.
In the time when he would meet the not-dying man again.
~Finis
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