Highlander: Never Knew the Taste of Blood
Title: Never Knew the Taste of Blood
Fandom: Highlander
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ...Is loverly.
Word Count: 609
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 17. Blood
Characters: Cassandra, mentions of Horseman!Methos.
Pairings: Hints of Cassandra/Methos.
Summary: You never forget your first taste of blood.
Disclaimer: Oh hell no, I still don't anything. The franchise might not be as fucked up if I had control of it... Maybe.
Author's Note: I... Randomly found half of this in a notebook and decided that it needed to be finished. And that is the story of it. Part of the Multifandom 100 Drabble Challenge (even though this is hardly a drabble.)
He smelled like blood- worst still, he tasted like blood. That was the fiercest memory she had of him in that particular sense. She didn’t often let herself remember him in that familiar, loathsome way, but every now and then... Was every now and then.
She’d hated the taste at first and found herself vomiting after every lengthy encounter with him up until he broke her of that nasty little habit by shoving her face into her own vomit, his boots pressing cruelly into the base of her skull to keep her down, repeating this process every night she did it as if he was training a particularly stubborn dog, until the scent of blood that covered him became the lesser of two evils.
When the scent and taste itself ceased to bother her, she learned to hate the fact that it was associated with him. She could cut her finger cutting roots for his meals and get violently angry when she caught the slight whiff of fresh blood that flowed briefly from the quickly healed cut. Butchering animals for meat became a chore far more sickening than it might have been if every waft of blood that her held her nostrils captive and choked her throat didn’t bring her back to those hot, sweaty, horrible nights in his tent.
And then... Just as she came to love him in the only way a docile, broken servant can love the master who protects and feeds her and gives her the attention she craves can, she learned to love the scent and taste of the blood that always lingered on him. At that point, the beatings and brutality had stopped, giving way to the closest thing he had to gentleness and passion, and the taste of blood became like a sweet wine to her until she began to relish in the flavor. Gone were the memories of her people who were slaughtered by both him and his “brothers”, replaced by a need to feel the thrill of a victory she had not participated in, but felt all the same every time she was with him, the tastes on his lips painting a vivid picture for her imagination- one of carnage and destruction... One that didn’t strike fear or loathing into her heart as it should have.
She knew when that happened, it was time for her to get out, but she only thought that way when the bouts of passion with him were over and she was alone again, no longer his darling possession, but her own woman, a woman who knew what wrong she committed by falling willingly into his arms and being just as lustful for the thrill of bloodshed as him, but always went back for more anyway.
Looking back, after the millennia had passed and her time with the Horsemen was nothing more than a distant, aching memory, she believed that to be the reason why she hated him even now. He had made her love him and not only him, but the taste of blood as well, even though she would never admit as much to anyone.
And sometimes, in that split second before the Quickening, when she took a head and the last spurts of blood gushed forth as the heart of her fallen enemy beat its last (when the scent of blood was so thick, she could taste it on her tongue), she remembered those nights... The nights when she feared it, the nights when she hated it, but most of all the nights when she loved it.
After all, you never quite forget your first taste of blood.
Fandom: Highlander
Author: kawaiispinel
Feedback: ...Is loverly.
Word Count: 609
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 17. Blood
Characters: Cassandra, mentions of Horseman!Methos.
Pairings: Hints of Cassandra/Methos.
Summary: You never forget your first taste of blood.
Disclaimer: Oh hell no, I still don't anything. The franchise might not be as fucked up if I had control of it... Maybe.
Author's Note: I... Randomly found half of this in a notebook and decided that it needed to be finished. And that is the story of it. Part of the Multifandom 100 Drabble Challenge (even though this is hardly a drabble.)
He smelled like blood- worst still, he tasted like blood. That was the fiercest memory she had of him in that particular sense. She didn’t often let herself remember him in that familiar, loathsome way, but every now and then... Was every now and then.
She’d hated the taste at first and found herself vomiting after every lengthy encounter with him up until he broke her of that nasty little habit by shoving her face into her own vomit, his boots pressing cruelly into the base of her skull to keep her down, repeating this process every night she did it as if he was training a particularly stubborn dog, until the scent of blood that covered him became the lesser of two evils.
When the scent and taste itself ceased to bother her, she learned to hate the fact that it was associated with him. She could cut her finger cutting roots for his meals and get violently angry when she caught the slight whiff of fresh blood that flowed briefly from the quickly healed cut. Butchering animals for meat became a chore far more sickening than it might have been if every waft of blood that her held her nostrils captive and choked her throat didn’t bring her back to those hot, sweaty, horrible nights in his tent.
And then... Just as she came to love him in the only way a docile, broken servant can love the master who protects and feeds her and gives her the attention she craves can, she learned to love the scent and taste of the blood that always lingered on him. At that point, the beatings and brutality had stopped, giving way to the closest thing he had to gentleness and passion, and the taste of blood became like a sweet wine to her until she began to relish in the flavor. Gone were the memories of her people who were slaughtered by both him and his “brothers”, replaced by a need to feel the thrill of a victory she had not participated in, but felt all the same every time she was with him, the tastes on his lips painting a vivid picture for her imagination- one of carnage and destruction... One that didn’t strike fear or loathing into her heart as it should have.
She knew when that happened, it was time for her to get out, but she only thought that way when the bouts of passion with him were over and she was alone again, no longer his darling possession, but her own woman, a woman who knew what wrong she committed by falling willingly into his arms and being just as lustful for the thrill of bloodshed as him, but always went back for more anyway.
Looking back, after the millennia had passed and her time with the Horsemen was nothing more than a distant, aching memory, she believed that to be the reason why she hated him even now. He had made her love him and not only him, but the taste of blood as well, even though she would never admit as much to anyone.
And sometimes, in that split second before the Quickening, when she took a head and the last spurts of blood gushed forth as the heart of her fallen enemy beat its last (when the scent of blood was so thick, she could taste it on her tongue), she remembered those nights... The nights when she feared it, the nights when she hated it, but most of all the nights when she loved it.
After all, you never quite forget your first taste of blood.