Cuimhne

Warren's still not sure he wants the memories back. There are days when he'd give an arm or leg for the blessed relief of those gray days when he believed himself a man of finite time, but they are fewer now than they once were.

The pain hasn't left him. It lives yet, as Immortal as he is, in a small pocket deep inside. It reminds him of things that can never be undone, only endured. The things he must live with -- has learned to live with.

He has Duncan to thank for that, though he never has.

*

There are times when the memories are sweet with things he can remember with his whole body, things like love, friendship, and passion. Memories of Duncan MacLeod, who gave him all three. To forget him would be to forget a brother at his back, a friend by his side, a lover beneath him.

Those memories still have the power to heat his blood and quicken his breath. Duncan is still inside him, buried in the memory of nerves, muscles and skin. The taste of him lingers on his tongue; the warmth of satiny skin lurks in his fingertips.  Unforgettable.

Now.

*

It's ironic, really. Ironic and symmetrical somehow, that the man who dragged the memories out of the place where he'd buried them is the one he'd never wanted to forget. Forgetting MacLeod was like forgetting himself. It's oddly fitting that he managed to do both.

Once they were warriors, idealists, passionate lovers, brothers of the heart and mind. But now nothing is as it was, least of all them, in the way of all things. Life and death have changed them irrevocably. Once they were two of a kind, and if what he hears is true, perhaps they still are.

*

For Athena, for being there through thick and thin.

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