It was sweet between them that last time, but it was the heavy
sweetness of fruit left too long on the tree. Over-ripe. It cloyed in
Methos' mouth as he heaved his sweat-slick body from Duncan's back and
rolled to lie beside him. Duncan's breathing was rapid, ragged. He was
close, close enough to touch, near enough to draw into his arms but
there was no urge, no desire except to be apart. Duncan rolled away to
face the wall, saying nothing.
Methos raised his hand to
touch the smooth, golden skin of Duncan's shoulder but stayed it a few
inches above instead. Waiting. For something...anything. Whatever it
was, it didn't eventuate, and with a sigh Methos withdrew the hand and
rolled out of the bed. There was no way he was going to be able to
sleep now. Duncan flinched visibly, but remained silent and still.
Methos snatched up his jeans
from the floor and padded naked across the cold hardwood to the
bathroom. It was over, he admitted to himself at last; they had taken
this thing as far as it could go. They were at an impasse and now even
the heat of their passion--the one thing that had always been sure and
true between them--was growing tepid. Methos turned on the shower and
let the hot water beat down on his head.
Time to go. He wasn't sure why
he even hesitated; he should have gone months ago - gone when it first
became clear to him. But he'd stayed; allowed himself to hope that
Duncan's unwilling fascination with him might evolve into something
more. Sometimes he thought he could see it in Duncan's eyes as they
made love - no, he corrected ruefully - as they fucked. Too late for
wanton self-delusion. Sometimes as they fucked, he fancied that he
could see a yearning in Duncan's liquid eyes, perhaps something more
than lust and need.
But Duncan was shamed by it,
shamed by whatever it was that he felt for Methos. That much was clear.
And Methos had spent too many lifetimes hiding, too long being
someone's dirty little secret to put up with it any more. He'd given
Duncan time and enough to reach some sort of acceptance within himself.
The result had been predictable, if sadly so. They were as secretive
now as they had been then, back when they'd first begun this, in that
strange, brittle period after O'Rourke.
It didn't matter why he
couldn't acknowledge Methos as his lover. Reasons were beside the
truth. All that mattered was that he couldn't. Wouldn't. And that
shamed both of them. It was time to go. Past time.
He rinsed the last of the soap
from his skin and shut off the water. Best to do this quickly then.
Dragging it out only made the hurt last longer. The regret was a cold
stone lying heavily in his gut as he dried off and dressed. It was a
familiar thing.
Duncan was up when Methos
emerged from the bathroom. He'd expected Duncan to be asleep by now.
Instead he stood in the kitchen, drinking scotch. His white bathrobe
was belted tightly around his slim waist and the starkness of the
fabric seemed to glow against the bronze of his skin and the curling
waves of his long, dark hair. His beauty still made Methos' heart hurt.
But it wasn't enough, and it never had been. He'd been kidding himself
that it ever could be.
He tore his eyes from Duncan
and went to the dresser, emptying his drawers into a soft suitcase he
dragged from the top of the armoire.
"You're going, then."
Methos could hear the tears in
Duncan's voice, he didn't need to turn around and see them. "Yes," he
answered simply, moving to retrieve a couple of books from the top of
the dresser. "There's not much point in my staying, is there?" A
handful of paired socks tumbled from the bag to the floor when he
shoved the books in and he bent to snatch them up with an impatient
snort.
It was all just stuff anyway -
he didn't know why he bothered. It wasn't as if it couldn't be
replaced. He could just as easily cram his feet into his boots and
collect up his blades and walk out the door without a backward glance.
He'd walked before with less. But he didn't.
"Please don't," Duncan
whispered. "Not tonight. I'm sorry."
Methos said nothing, but
turned and walked away into the bathroom. He grabbed his toothbrush and
shaving kit from the cabinet behind the mirror and pushed the door shut
with a bang. His face stared back at him from the mirrored surface. He
couldn't deny the reluctance he saw in his own eyes. There was a part
of him that could stay here, despite everything and take whatever
crumbs of acceptance MacLeod threw him. But self-preservation was at
the core of his nature and self-preservation insisted that it was time
to go. He slid his eyes from his reflection and left the bathroom.
Duncan was waiting for him in
the kitchen, all wounded eyes and uncertain mouth - already withdrawing
into himself. It annoyed him - the vulnerability, the hurt, the
softness where all he wanted was clean, sharp-edged hardness. Damn. He
was not going to get into
anything with MacLeod now. A big emotional scene was the last thing
they needed. All right, the last thing he needed, he corrected sullenly.
He forced the sudden, irrational anger back into the recesses of his
mind with difficulty.
"Do you have to go now?"
Methos couldn't ignore it
anymore, as much as he longed to just walk away and never look back he
owed Mac something. "I think it's kindest if we don't drag this out. We
both know this is for the best."
"I don't!" Duncan shouted,
slamming his empty glass down on the kitchen countertop so hard that it
smashed in a thousand crystalline shards, flecked with the blood that
dripped from the myriad of tiny cuts in his hand.
Methos stepped forward
automatically to help, but Duncan fended him off with a look and a
gesture, holding his wounded hand against himself, picking the shards
free gingerly and dropping them back on the counter. He glared at
Methos across the kitchen, seemingly daring him to say something.
Methos said nothing.
"I don't want you to go, does
that make any difference at all to you?" Duncan blurted finally,
unchecked misery in his every word.
Methos closed his eyes over
his pain. There was a great deal to be said for simply walking away
without a word. "Duncan," he began carefully. "It's no good. It isn't
going to work between us. Can't you see what a mistake this has all
been?" He kept his voice deliberately gentle; nothing would be served
by cruelty now. "It's for the best. We both deserve better than what
we're getting from this. I'm sorry, you know it's all wrong." True, but
not the truth.
"You never forgave me for
Byron."
"This is not about him and you
know it. You did what you thought was necessary then. Now let me do the
same." Methos turned away and walked back to the bedroom to find his
boots.
He needed to get out of there
fast. This never got any easier, and for some reason this time seemed
to be the hardest of all. He sat down on the edge of the bed and
slipped both feet into their respective boots, tugging the laces tight
and tying them quickly. All the while his eyes flicked back over to
watch Duncan observing him balefully from the kitchen.
Their eyes met for a second
and the pain that stabbed through Methos' chest nearly took his breath
away. There were so many things he wanted to see in that look, so many
reasons for which he would have stayed, but none of them were there.
Not that he expected them to be.
"If it wasn't him, then what?"
The words tumbled out of Duncan in a rush, as if he feared them. "I
love you."
Gods. "And yet I'm still just
Adam, who's staying on your couch." Methos couldn't hold back the
venom. "That isn't love, MacLeod."
"What the hell's that supposed
to mean? We've been together a year and you don't think I know if I
love you or not?" He washed the blood from his hands and advanced on
Methos. "You're just looking for an excuse to run -- again!"
Damn, Duncan seemed determined
to do this, drag the whole bloody thing out. Well if he insisted....
Methos stood and faced his
lover; his body tense and poised to retaliate. "Have you told any of your friends that we're
'together'?" he spat, hatefully pleased when Duncan flinched. "How many
of them even know your latest is a man?"
Duncan's eyes dropped to the
floor and refused to meet his. "Well, Joe knows."
"The man's your Watcher, MacLeod!" Methos hissed in
exasperation. "Of course he bloody knows. Did you tell him? Or did he
find out on his own?"
"It's none of anyone's
business!" Duncan yelled, deflecting the issue.
"True," Methos conceded. He
chose his next words exceedingly carefully, shaping his mouth around
them precisely. "But when you lived with Tessa, did you lie about her
to your friends? Did you keep your relationship a secret from everyone
you knew? Did you pretend it was something other than what it was?" He
knew the answer.
"No, of course not," Duncan
answered quickly, as if such a ludicrous thing had never crossed his
mind.
Bingo. "You've just answered
your own question. Congratulations and goodbye." Methos zipped the
suitcase and picked it up, heading for the stairs at a fast clip.
Leaving in the heat of anger had its strong points too.
Methos was down the stairs and
out in the alley beside his truck before he had a chance to think any
more. He threw the suitcase in the backseat and himself in the front,
revved the engine far harder than strictly necessary and peeled out of
the alley at warp speed. With careful deliberation, Methos breathed the
tension from his lungs as he drove. Now all he needed was a quiet place
to hole up for a couple of years and get the residue of Duncan MacLeod
out of his system. Just one stop first.
The parking lot outside Joe's
was almost empty by the time Methos hurled the truck haphazardly into
the first space. The night was cold and clear, a billion stars peering
through the smoggy city haze to look down on him. Straightening his
coat with a quick tug on the lapels, Methos strode into the bar to say
goodbye to his friend. This was going to be difficult. Dawson was
fiercely protective of the big Scot.
"Hey, Adam!" Joe called across
the bar as soon as Methos walked through the door. Joe placed a
brimming pint in front of Methos as soon as he sat down at the bar.
"Thanks, Joe. Keeping busy?"
Methos picked up the mug and took a long drink. He looked up through
his lashes and caught Joe's speculative look. "What?" he asked, trying
for innocence and realizing how far short of the mark he fell. He'd let
Joe close up the bar first, and then he could tell him goodbye in
private.
The day was catching up to him
at last and Methos was yawning widely when the gunmen burst through the
door.
"Right! Everybody on the
floor!" the first one yelled, waving a pistol at the small group of
people still left in the bar. "Hand over the cash!"
Black ski masks obscured their
features, adding to the menace, as if the deadly looking pistols
weren't enough. Methos' own Sig was sitting idly in the glove
compartment of the truck, for all the good it did. After all he still
had two swords and a boot knife secreted about his person, not that
they were going to be much use now either. Best just to let them have
what they wanted and have everyone live to fight another day.
The two women and three men
dropped to the floor and lay there. Methos waited, Joe hadn't moved
behind the bar, he could see the hand clenched tight around the walking
stick and the stubborn set of the Watcher's jaw.
"Joe!" Methos began urgently,
warningly. These guys weren't fucking around; Joe needed to hand over
the takings and get them the hell out of there.
Then time slowed down and
speeded up with the odd unreality of a nightmare. Methos saw Joe reach
out for the cash register, saw the gunman raise his weapon to hip
height and scream something he couldn't quite understand. There was a
bright flash, a noise that echoed in his head and then Joe was falling,
toppling on the awkward prostheses to crash against the bar and then
collapse limply to the floor. He knew that he shouted as he leapt
across the bar and that dirty glasses went crashing to the ground as he
plowed through them, but none of it really mattered because the bastard
had shot Joe.
He was obliquely aware of the
gunman rifling through the till behind him, the other man screaming at
his partner to get the fuck out of here. The door crashed as they ran
through it and out into the night. But it was background noise because
Joe was bleeding all over the hand that Methos had pressed to the
gaping belly wound. Then Joe stirred and moaned and time clicked back
to its normal pace.
"It's okay, Joe. Just lie
still. We're going to get you to a hospital, okay?" Methos looked
behind him and saw the frightened face of one of the women, Joe's new
waitress...what was her name?
"Ellen," yes, that was it--
"Would you please go into the office and call an ambulance right now.
Tell them what happened. Tell them it's urgent." He kept his voice low
and deliberate, not raising it at all.
The preternatural calm helped.
The young woman went quickly to the office, the signs of panic leaving
her face. Methos could hear her speaking to the emergency operator and
her voice was steady and focused. He looked back down into Joe's face.
What he saw there made it difficult to maintain the dispassionate mask.
Joe's face was graying rapidly, the skin growing dusky with the lack of
oxygen. His breathing was labored and every respiration sounded wet and
choked.
There was little else he could
do until the paramedics arrived, except to press his hand firmly into
the wound in an attempt to slow the river of blood flowing from Joe's
abdomen and try to keep him with him.
"Come on, Dawson...don't go to
sleep on me now. Hey, here's a good one; did I ever tell you about the
time I was in Morocco at this bathhouse in Marrakech? Nope...on second
thoughts I can't tell you that story in front of the customers." Methos
smiled as Joe's eyes crinkled a little at that. "I'll tell you that one
later, though, you'll enjoy it. You'll know who I'm talking about. He's
very big in HQ now. Mind you, he was very big then."
Joe began to cough again, pink
bubbles frothing from his lips. Christ! Where's the fucking ambulance?
"Come on, Joe," Methos said
gently, "let's get you turned onto your side, it might help you breathe
a bit better." He slipped his hands beneath Joe's shoulder and hip,
pushing him to lie on his left side. He'd taken his hand from the wound
to reposition Joe and in the few seconds that had taken the wound
gushed anew. Damn. Methos clamped his hand over the wound again. At
least the new position seemed to have relieved the coughing for the
moment.
In the distance sirens wailed.
A small, warm flush of relief ran down Methos' spine. "They're almost
here, Joe. We're going to get you to the hospital, won't be long
now..." Methos kept crooning reassuring nonsense quietly in Joe's
direction. Methos laid his right hand on Joe's pale, sweating forehead
and stroked his thumb across it. He kept his left hand clamped tightly
over the terrible wound, trying hard not to think of the damage beneath
and how damn fragile they all were.
The siren grew loud and then
swirled to silence; the sound of doors banging making everyone in the
room jump a little. Police officers burst through the door first,
announcing themselves loudly. Methos heard one of the men tell them
that the bandits were gone, and then one of the cops called out the
door, telling the paramedics it was safe to come in.
At last a woman in a blue
paramedic uniform appeared behind the bar and knelt beside them. Her
partner was close behind, carrying a bag and a small oxygen cylinder.
They snapped on latex gloves and the woman tore open a dressing pack,
moving Methos' hand aside and covering the wound firmly. He let them
nudge him aside, straightening his stiffened limbs and staggering to
his feet. He made it as far as the nearest bar stool before he had to
sit down heavily.
"Are you wounded, sir?" one of
the cops asked, laying a hand on Methos' forearm.
Methos looked down at himself;
he was covered in Joe's blood. No wonder the cop was worried. "No, I'm
fine...it's all his." There must have been an exit wound in Joe's back
and he'd missed it. Damn...too long away from medicine. Not that they'd
had automatic weapons the last time he'd practiced but a penetrating
wound was still a penetrating wound.
The cop nodded and walked
away. The paramedics had Joe on the trolley now and were strapping him
in, hooking the IV fluids to the pole and slipping the oxygen cylinder
into its holder on the side. Methos rose from his seat and followed
them out the door.
"Can I ride with him?" Methos
asked as the officers raised the trolley to slide it into the back of
the ambulance.
"Sorry, no room. He's too
unstable. You can follow us in, we're taking him to St John's," the
woman answered curtly as she climbed in after the trolley.
Methos nodded and jogged to
his truck. He took a minute to drag a clean sweater from the suitcase
in the backseat and exchange it for the ruined one he wore. His jeans
and coat still showed a few spatters, but he could live with that. He
climbed behind the wheel of the truck, started it and drove away
quickly in the direction the ambulance had taken.
***
The hospital had gradually
woken and come alive in the long hours that passed as Methos waited.
The unending busy-ness of the place had grown and swelled and flowed
around him, like a river around an island. None of it touched him. Joe
had been in surgery from moments after they'd arrived at the hospital
and since then Methos had paced and waited - impatient for news. A door
at the far end of the corridor opened and a weary looking man in pale
blue scrubs walked out. He snatched the cloth cap from his head and ran
his fingers through his hair as he approached Methos.
"Mr. Pierson?" the man asked
quietly. Methos nodded. "I'm Dr Brennan, I operated on Joe tonight. The
surgery went well, despite the length of time he spent on the table.
Your friend's wound was very serious. The bullet entered through the
abdomen and traveled up into the lower lobe of the right lung. It
missed the liver but the stomach was injured as the bullet passed
through. We're as sure as we can be at this stage that we've repaired
all the damage. Joe's going to be in Intensive Care for today at least.
After that, we'll have a better idea of how he's going to do."
"I'd like to see him now,"
Methos asked, placing just enough command in his tone to ensure that
the doctor took him seriously.
"As soon as he's out of
Recovery and in ICU you can go sit with him. Has his family been
contacted?"
"There really isn't anyone.
Only friends." It was true enough. Joe's fledgling relationship with
his daughter had not blossomed, she'd gone back to England not long
after the whole Walker mess and her replies to Joe's overtures of
friendship had grown more and more frosty as the time had gone on.
Methos knew Joe's last Christmas card had gone unanswered. Those
holidays had been far from happy.
Joe's sister no longer spoke
to him, either. Joe's role in her husband, James Horton's, death, was
too much for the relationship to survive. Now Joe had his work, the bar
and the Watchers, and his friends, including Methos...and Duncan.
Methos thanked the doctor and
walked away, heading for the lifts and the direction of the ICU. Duncan
deserved to know about this and not to hear about it accidentally or
second hand, but the thought of having to call him and speak to him
now, to see him now when it was all still so raw, was painful. He'd go
see Joe first anyway. He was procrastinating; he knew that, but too
bloody bad.
The lift opened and swallowed
him up, grinding slowly down to the floor where the ICU was located.
Damn Dawson anyway...what was he thinking, stalling the thieves like
that? Getting himself shot when all Methos wanted to do was make a
clean getaway? Methos sighed as he stepped out of the lift, his eyes
darting to the arrowed sign above his head and following the
directions. There really was something to be said for having no
attachments. They gave other people far too much power, he thought
wearily. But the fearless part of himself that would not be silenced
reminded him of the madness that lay in being alone, disconnected and
lonely for too long. It was good to be reminded of that...well, useful
anyway. It kept him from wishing the world away, from wishing himself
to a far-off mountaintop and a hermit's lonely shelter....
The door to the unit was
closed when Methos arrived and there was an intercom to one side of it
with a sign exhorting visitors to 'Buzz First and Wait!' He buzzed. And
waited. And then waited a little longer.
Finally, a scratchy,
disembodied voice crackled out at him. "Yes?"
"I'm here to see Joe Dawson.
I've already cleared it with Dr Brennan," Methos answered, keeping it
simple.
There was a pause, filled with
the blank, staticky sound of being on hold. At last: "Come on in. We're
just getting him settled."
The door made a harsh click
and Methos opened it and walked in. A tall young man in nurse's whites
came towards him as he entered. Wheat-blonde hair flopped over his
forehead above expressive brown eyes that reminded Methos strongly of
other dark eyes.... He really had to call MacLeod...later.
"Hi! So you're here to see Joe
Dawson?" Methos nodded. "Okay, his nurse is still finishing up his
admission paperwork but you can sit with him. He's in bed five, over
against the far wall. My name's Josh and I'm in charge of the unit, so
if you need anything, just ask."
Methos smiled politely through
his exhaustion. "Thanks Josh, I'm Adam. I'll just go see Joe now."
The ICU was crowded,
especially for such a small space. Methos picked his way past patients
and equipment and scurrying nursing staff. The occasional monitor
beeped an alarm above the background hum of low-pitched conversation.
Joe lay on his side, pillows wedged behind him, pale beneath the white
sheets, his eyes closed and breathing steadily. Methos tried to ignore
the various tubes running fluids in and out, to bags hung above and
below the bed. The patient, not the process, someone had once taught
him. A very long time ago. Still, it was good advice even if Joe wasn't
his patient.
Methos dragged a chair from
beside the wall to sit by the bed where he could see Joe's face. It was
a long time before Joe woke up.
Methos was dozing when the
whiskey-rough voice caught his ear.
"Hey, watch where you put that
sponge, sweetheart..." Joe rasped, just above a whisper.
A very young female nurse was
attempting to give Joe a wash. Methos watched, smirking a little at the
expression on his friend's face as the girl gingerly dabbed around the
drains and dressings while keeping a towel draped over Joe's groin.
She'd apparently been washing beneath the towel when Joe protested. If
the blush on her face was any guide....
Joe's eyes sought his. "Hey,
Adam. What're you doin' here?" The gravelly whisper sounded like it
hurt.
"Oh you know me, Joe, easily
amused and all that," Methos grinned. "Thought I'd hang out here for a
while and watch a pretty girl give you a sponge bath." The gentle
teasing helped put the world to rights again; it was familiar and
reassuring, a pattern of their friendship.
Joe smiled faintly. "Pervert."
"You caught me." Damn, even
Joe's smiles looked like they hurt. He flicked his eyes up to catch
those of the nurse. "Has he had something for pain recently?"
The girl froze in the middle
of pulling the sheet back up over Joe, a worried look on her face.
"I...I don't know. I'll check the med chart." She leafed through the
papers on the clipboard at the end of the bed and checked her watch.
"He's due for some now. I'll just go get it." She shot Methos another
worried look and scurried off.
Methos nodded. "Thanks," he
said to her retreating back.
"Hey, old man," Joe began as
she left, "where's MacLeod? He here?"
Shit. "Err...no. Sorry Joe, I
haven't called him yet."
"What's goin' on, Methos?" Joe
hissed, under his breath. "Did something happen?"
Great! Now Joe looked as if
Methos had a death message to give him. "He's fine, Joe. At least he
was when I left him." He let the look on his face fill in the details.
"You left him?"
***
Bastard.
He can lie 'til he's blue in the face and I'm supposed to forgive him,
but I want to hold off telling the world I'm fucking my very male best
friend and suddenly he's out the frigging door. Bastard.
Duncan stood cursing his
lover... former lover... and
staring at the door, indecision freezing him into inaction. He couldn't
decide whether he wanted to get drunk or smash something or both or
nothing or simply sit down and howl at the goddamn unfairness of fate
that kept dangling happiness in front of his nose and then snatching it
away. He'd really thought he had a chance at it this time, with Methos.
Why did Methos have to be so
damn difficult? So he wanted to keep his private life private... there
wasn't anything wrong with that. It wasn't anyone else's business who
he slept with. Why this sudden rush to go public with their
relationship? Duncan didn't understand any of it.
No, it was Methos who didn't
understand, Duncan decided. He'd had his whole life--five thousand
years for god's sake--to come to terms with his sexuality. Methos had
always been attracted to both men and women; it was easy for him to
move from one to the other. But until Methos, Duncan had never even
thought about loving a man beyond friendship and he never would have at
all if Methos hadn't been so.... And yes, he wasn't sure how that made
him feel about himself, if that made him someone different from whom he
thought he was.
It was easy for Methos to say
it was the person and not the package, but it really wasn't as simple
as that. Not in the real world. There were so many implications,
expectations and, though he hated to think about it -- labels, things
he wasn't really sure he wanted to deal with. Did he really want to
wear one of those labels? It was one thing to be unconcerned when the
labels were on other people, quite another to put one on himself. He'd
been able to avoid them up until now. It wasn't just a matter of
desiring Methos, loving Methos. Not at all. And he did love Methos,
probably always would. The bastard.
Not that it mattered, he
supposed. Methos was long gone. He'd probably never see him again. If
there was anything that Methos truly excelled at, it was leaving.
Duncan unclenched his fists at
last, and went to find the scotch.
***
"Yes, I left him," Methos
hissed. "Gods, Joe. You know what it's been like--you've seen us
together. He acts like his hands are glued to his pockets. Hell, he
touched me more before we were together. He can't even look me in the
eye; he's so ashamed of what he feels. Duncan has had long enough to
decide if this is what he wants. I can't do it anymore--" Methos broke
off as the nurse returned and waited while she uncapped the needle and
injected it into the IV line.
"There," she announced
brightly, "that should help."
"Thanks," Joe rasped, his eyes
meeting Methos' ironically.
Methos suppressed a grin and
waited until she had gone before resuming his explanation.
"And?" Joe prompted
impatiently, although he looking pale with the effort of the
conversation.
"Okay, okay. Geez, you really
are an incurable gossip, Joseph," Methos chided gently. He sighed,
"I've just had enough of the skulking around in corners. I'm tired of
being introduced as someone who's staying with him for a while. I mean,
what's the point of living in this day and age if MacLeod's still stuck
back in the sixteenth century? It just isn't in him to be even this
tiny bit unconventional." He pushed down the tearing hurt, shoved it
back down hard with all the other detritus from his blighted dream. Joe
didn't need a recount of all the sad little details of this bloody
disaster. Not now and probably not ever.
"I hate to say I told you
so..." Joe trailed off, clearing his throat with a cough and a grimace.
"I know, I know...but you did
tell me so. Twelve months ago."
"Sorry, buddy, sometimes it's
hell to be right. You okay?"
Methos felt his friend's eyes
searching his face for the answers they both knew wouldn't be coming
out of his mouth. "I will be, Joe. You know me, I'll live." Methos shot
him a wry grin and eased up out of the chair. "You get some rest and
I'll be back to visit you later." He smiled again and turned to go.
"Adam, wait!" Joe called in a
harsh whisper, clearly fighting off sleep.
"Yeah, Joe, what is it?"
Methos asked, walking up to stand close by the bed again and catch up
Joe's hand in his own.
"The bar..." Joe began, his
sentence interrupted by a bout of weak coughing that turned him even
paler.
Methos laid his other hand on
Joe's shoulder. "It's taken care of. Don't worry about it. The bar will
be fine."
Joe's smile was thanks enough
and all the reply Methos received, before Joe succumbed to the drugs
he'd been given and fell back to sleep.
***
Duncan was alone in the dojo,
listlessly going through the motions of a basic sword kata, when the
office phone rang. The sound was a shock against a silence so deep the
slap of his bare feet against the floorboards sounded like thunder.
Hope was a small stab of agony in his chest as he ran to pick up before
the machine. He didn't really expect it to be Methos and yet....
He snatched the phone up from
the desk, "MacLeod."
"Mac, it's Adam."
Duncan's heart was hammering
so loudly in his chest he was sure Methos would be able to hear it over
the phone line. Not gone at all. "Methos, you're still here...." In his
amazement it was the first thing that popped into his head and he
flinched at how pathetic it sounded, even to his own ears. "This is all
a terrible mistake, can't we talk?"
Methos cut him off
mid-sentence. "That's not why I called, MacLeod. It's Dawson, he's in
the hospital."
What the hell? "What happened?
Is it his legs again? He has to stop spending so much time on his feet,
his stumps--"
Again Methos interrupted.
"It's not that. There was a hold-up at the bar last night," Methos
paused and Duncan heard him sigh. "Joe was shot once at close range."
"What? Where is he? Is he all
right?" The questions tumbled out of Duncan automatically, while his
mind raced.
"He's in the Intensive Care
unit of St John's Hospital, you know where that is?"
"Yeah, yeah..." Duncan
answered absently as his mind raced. Suddenly a thought occurred to him
and he asked, "Methos, if he was shot last night, why am I only hearing
about this now? It's almost two in the afternoon--"
"Yeah, I'm sorry about that.
Just come up. He wants to see you."
Duncan opened his mouth to
speak but the phone went dead in his hand. He looked at it as if it
held some other information he was yet to uncover. After a long minute
he replaced it and snapped his mind back into focus. Joe. Joe needed
him.
And for a little while he was
able to put Methos out of his thoughts.
Duncan dressed and left the
dojo as quickly as he could, his mind racing with unanswered questions.
The drive to the hospital was mercifully brief; the traffic gods for
once were kind and before long Duncan was hunting for a parking space
in the hospital lot. The confusion swirling in his mind wasn't being
helped by the fact that while it was Joe that he was worried about and
Joe that he was here to see, it was the thought that perhaps Methos
might be here that quickened his feet as he left the car and walked
towards the hospital building.
But then the thought of
exactly what he would do and say if Methos actually was there, sent
Duncan's stomach plummeting to his feet. He was no more prepared to
talk about this now, than he was last night. What the hell would he say
if Methos was there? Before Duncan knew it he was in the lift and
headed for the ICU floor. Who was he kidding? Duncan knew what he had
done that had hurt Methos so, but he was damned if he had a clue as to
how to make it right. The lift doors opened and Duncan walked out,
following the trail of signs to the unit door.
The lack of Immortal presence
was a relief. Duncan buzzed for entry, and waited. It was a long time
before the intercom squawked to life and he was admitted. All the
while, when he was waiting, the questions flew around and around in his
head. He turned it all over so many times, Duncan wasn't sure if he was
on the track to finding answers or simply confusing himself further.
Duncan walked into the small
ICU and tried to push all thoughts of Methos from his mind. Hard
though, when the man who had been responsible for their meeting was
lying in bed in front of him. He could recall that day as if it were a
film running over and over in his mind. Mi casa es su casa...Mi corazon es....
"Joe..."
"Hey, Mac," Joe whispered in a
sandpapered voice. "Good to see you."
"Joe, what happened? Adam said
there was some sort of shooting. Are you okay?"
Joe gave him that look that
Duncan always thought of as the "are you fucking nuts?" expression.
"I'm sorry, Joe. That was a
stupid question. Can I sit down?" Joe nodded and Duncan found a hard
plastic chair and pulled it closer to the bedside, sitting down on it.
"Thanks." For a moment Duncan was quiet, trying to find something to
say to Joe that wasn't a thinly veiled attempt to find out about Methos.
At last Joe, himself, broke
the silence. "He left about an hour ago, Mac. Was that what you wanted
to know?"
Duncan felt himself flushing
with embarrassment. "Umm...yeah. Thanks, Joe. Was he okay?"
"He's tough guy, MacLeod, he's
always gonna survive. You know that." Joe stopped and cleared his
throat, wincing visibly. "Feels like they took out my tonsils with a
fish-hook. You know they stick a tube right down your neck when they
operate? And this damn oxygen doesn't help. I'd kill for a glass of
water."
"Do you want me to get one for
you?" Duncan asked, moving to stand up.
"Nah...I'm not s'posed to have
anything just yet." Joe waved a listless hand at the thin tube
disappearing up his nose.
"Oh. Okay...." Duncan paused,
casting around for a safe subject. Finding none, he plowed onto what he
really wanted to know. "Can you tell me what happened last night?"
Joe's eyes narrowed and Duncan
felt them fix on his own. "Trade ya," the Watcher answered.
"It's over, Joe, that's all."
Duncan closed his eyes at the clutching pain in his gut provoked by the
thought. With effort he pushed it aside, he gestured at Joe's wound
with a wave of his hand and asked, "How'd this happen?"
"I froze," Joe said simply.
"They busted in, waved their guns at me and demanded the cash, and I
froze. So fucking stupid, I should have given them the damn money. But
I was so damned mad, you know?" Joe made a dismissive sound and turned
his head to stare at the ceiling. "Shoulda just given it to 'em."
"Twenty-twenty hindsight's
easy," Duncan said. "I wouldn't have given it to them either."
Joe made a low, short sound of
something like derision. "But you would never have ended up here, no
matter how stupid you were." He coughed again. "Speakin' of stupid,
what did you do to Methos?"
A bunch of answers fought to
find their way out of Duncan's mouth, but none of them had words that
he could form into a coherent sentence. At last he settled for a sad
shake of his head and a lame, "I'm not really sure." He looked at his
feet, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He couldn't talk about it.
Even after a year, and even with Joe, who knew him at least as well as
anyone ever had, it was difficult to talk about his relationship with
Methos. It wasn't like loving a woman, and he didn't have the words to
describe it. None of what he thought he knew was right anymore. "Can we
talk about something else?"
Duncan caught the brief look
of sympathy that flashed across his friend's face before Joe answered,
"Sure, buddy. Now about the bar."
***
The broken glass poured into
the dumpster in a waterfall of light and sound and Methos let the lid
fall shut. The bar was mostly cleaned up and at this rate, they'd be
ready to open at the regular time tonight. There was an upside to all
this manual labor, Methos thought; he hadn't had time to think about
Duncan in hours. Well, not too much anyway. He would heal from this, it
was just a matter of time, and that, at least, was on his side. But
until he did heal, Methos would just have to put up with the sadness,
the wrenching sense of loss, and the deep regret that were currently
churning inside him.
Nothing lasts, not even pain.
He would do well to remember that, he thought to himself. In the
meantime though, keeping busy helped, and time and distance would do
the rest.
It could have been so very
different, Methos mused, indulging himself in a little what if as he
stood soaking up warmth in a small patch of sunlight in the
alley. The beginning had held such promise. One moment they had
been saying goodnight at the lift gate after a long, late dinner full
of wine and easy laughter, the next Methos was losing himself in the
sheer hunger he could see in Duncan's eyes. Then they were kissing, and
he had Duncan pressed, urgent and trembling, up against the wall, all
that coiled strength yielding to his touch. And while Methos' mind spun
at this new variation on their friendship, his body seemed to know just
what it wanted and how to get it.
Perhaps he should have thought
about it more.
But Duncan had been so eager,
responsive and sure that this was what he wanted. And whatever else
Methos should have seen back then had been clouded by the ferocious
desire that had been unleashed between them. He'd wanted to believe.
He'd ignored the small niggling doubts, the voices in his head that
urged caution and reflection. Look before you leap. Methos blew a
derisive little snort through his nose, once those words had been his
motto; before he'd thrown it aside for a dream. Now the dream had ended
and he had crashed back to Earth.
It hurt, but he'd live.
Eventually. Right now, simply surviving would have to do.
Distant fingers of Immortal
presence crawled up Methos' spine and he turned and hurried back into
the bar. Whoever it was could just piss off and go away -- he wasn't
taking any challenges today. Then the buzz intensified and Methos'
heart sank. Worse than a challenger: Duncan bloody MacLeod. Methos
sighed wearily.
He watched from narrowed eyes
as Duncan swept into the room and advanced on him. Methos slid behind
the bar, needing something solid between the Scot and himself.
"Adam."
Well if Duncan could do stern
and businesslike, then Methos definitely could. "MacLeod. What can we
do for you?"
"I saw Joe," Duncan said as he
settled onto a barstool.
"And?" Methos raised an
eyebrow and waited.
"He looks like he'll be okay,
but he asked me to look after the business side of the bar. He said
you'd have enough on your hands looking after the day to day stuff."
Duncan stopped and looked at him as if he expected Methos to say
something.
"I'm sure I could manage,"
Methos answered coolly. What the hell was Dawson up to, anyway?
Matchmaking? Surely not.
Duncan hardened his gaze and
said, "I didn't ask for this, Adam. But Joe wants me to help him and
I'm going to, all right?"
Methos had no comeback for
that. "Yeah, Mac. I won't get in your way. Go on through, you know
where everything is in the office."
Duncan looked at him sadly, as
if he had more to say, but he turned and walked into the office without
a word.
***
Joe's office was its usual
mess and Duncan spent a few minutes straightening up, there were too
many distractions in all the clutter, otherwise. Joe was so vividly
here, in the mix of musician and Watcher, businessman and friend, that
Duncan could see in the things Joe surrounded himself with every day.
As Duncan tucked Joe's belongings away, he had to remind himself that
Joe was all right -- would be all right. By the time Duncan had left
the hospital, Joe had convinced him of that fact. Joe was strong, and
he would get through this. So he should stop worrying and get down to
work.
Duncan sat down at Joe's desk
at last, the computer booted and the accounts program opened. He looked
at the screen but he couldn't make himself concentrate on the work, his
mind kept sliding off into directions he hadn't sent it, thinking about
things he'd rather not.
He'd left the door open as
he'd wandered around the office; voices and the odd clink of glass
against glass filtered in from time to time. Methos' voice was a
separate note, seemingly wired to Duncan's ears and the quiet music of
a laugh, or the slow glissando of his wonderful voice, sent an
automatic response shivering up Duncan's spine. So pathetic.
There was still work to be
done and staring into space wasn't going to get it finished. Duncan
stared at the computer, willing himself to concentrate on the job at
hand, but his thoughts were slippery, sliding past his control and
leading him back to pore over the night before. Now that the anger had
faded, it was all a little clearer. Now that the anger had faded he
knew exactly what it was that he had done and why Methos had chosen to
walk away. In his mind's eye Duncan saw the betrayal in Methos' eyes at
the moment of his denial. How could he have done that to someone he
loved?
There was a good question: had
they really been in love? Or had it all been some aberration, some
mistake? Duncan looked deep within himself, within the deepest, truest
parts of his soul and found the answer. It was a type of love -- a
species of love -- but not the love they could have had. Should have
had.
And that was his fault.
The barriers he'd built
because of his fears had kept them apart. He'd given a portion of
himself to the relationship, too afraid to give it all and now he had
nothing. And it hurt. Duncan was no stranger to pain, but this time the
ache in his heart seemed that fraction more acute...and less bearable.
Because he'd not only done
this to himself, he'd done it to Methos as well. He'd carelessly and
wantonly gone into this relationship with no thought to how Methos
might be hurt by it. He hadn't thought past the searing need he'd felt
for Methos' touch and the joy he'd felt when he'd finally held Methos
close. Duncan had simply ignored the implications of taking a man,
taking Methos, for his lover. He hadn't thought at all about what it
would mean to him, to his whole life. He really should have.
***
Methos unpacked the
replacement glassware, falling into an easy rhythm that left his mind
free to think about other things. As sure as night followed day, those
'other things' became one thing: Duncan MacLeod. What on earth had
Dawson been thinking asking Duncan to help out here? When Methos had
walked out he'd really thought that was the end of it -- that they
wouldn't have to see one another this side of the Gathering. With a
resigned sigh, Methos picked up the now-empty carton and walked out
into the alley to throw it away.
When he'd decided to walk out
he'd never thought he'd be spending his days confronted by a pair of
tragic brown eyes, silently reminding him of his poor judgment. Yet,
here he was. If he was truthful with himself, Methos knew that it was
only Joe's request keeping him here. He lost his taste for
self-flagellation long ago and the look in Duncan's eyes was a scourge
to his soul. There were a thousand places he would rather be than
Seacouver, but here he was for the duration, so he would just have to
make the best of it.
The lid of the dumpster
clanged as it fell shut and Methos let it be a period to his train of
thought. He had work enough to occupy him; mind and body, without
dwelling on things that couldn't be helped. It had been a long time
since he'd run a bar, and a lot had changed. Still, he was sure he
could manage. There really wasn't much Methos couldn't turn his hand to
in a pinch. But he really should go see Joe sometime tonight. Just to
check in and see how he was doing.
The light trilling of the
office phone was filtering out the open door as Methos re-entered the
bar, but once he was a few steps into the room it stopped and he
thought no more about it. He went to hunt down the week's roster; they
were definitely going to need more staff. Methos had just laid his hand
on the clipboard when Duncan appeared at the office door, his face
ashen.
Methos' breath caught in his
throat. "Joe?"
Duncan nodded and his voice
was tight and dry as he answered, "There's been some sort of problem.
They wouldn't say what on the phone. I'm going now. Are you coming?"
Methos was already at the
door, slipping into his coat. "Of course. Let's go." Practicality made
him pause and turn to Ellen, lingering anxiously at the end of the bar.
"Can you look after the place 'til I get back?" She nodded quickly and
he turned to face Duncan again as the younger man was pulling his own
coat into place. "Ready, MacLeod?"
Without another word the two
men strode out the door to find their respective vehicles. As they
stepped out into the shadowy afternoon Duncan stopped and turned to
him. "We could go together," he suggested, with such wary hope in his
eyes that Methos almost agreed, a part of him cursing his own weakness.
But still.... "I don't think
so, MacLeod. I'll take the truck, if it's all the same." Methos
shrugged and slipped past Duncan, heading out to where the SUV was
parked. This wasn't getting any easier, and Methos was beginning to
despair that it ever would. He climbed into the truck and started it,
watching Duncan's T-bird pull away. Duncan's face had been so sad as
Methos had pushed him away. But no matter how woebegone Duncan looked
in a moment of crisis, no matter how much he reached out to him in
need, Methos knew that he wasn't really what Duncan wanted. He'd proved
that.
The open road tugged at
Methos, the temptation to just get on it and keep on going was strong.
His feet itched with the desire to run. The sensation of being trapped
was overwhelming and he hated it, forcing down the rising panic as his
knuckles went white on the steering wheel. He could do this, he knew he
could. He owed Dawson.
***
Duncan pulled up in the
hospital parking lot with a sense of not really being sure how he had
come to be there in the first place. He had been so distracted,
thoughts of Joe and Methos mixing together in one confusing melange,
until he was driving on autopilot. He still had no idea what he was
going to do about Methos. All he did know was that he couldn't let fate
and his own stupidity rob him of this chance at happiness.
It was so stupid that it had
to be this difficult, Duncan thought as he parked the T-bird and got
out, walking towards the hospital entrance. He loved Methos. Deep
inside where it mattered, he knew that he really did. His heart -- and
his body -- ached to hold him close again. But in all the time they'd
been together, Duncan had never quite worked out the right way to act
around him, never managed to be truly at ease in the relationship. He
didn't know how to act and he didn't know what to do and he didn't know
how he was supposed to love Methos. It had always felt off-kilter and
awkward, more so when they weren't alone. And that was how he had
screwed it up.
Duncan pushed the lift button
for the fourth floor and waited. A familiar presence washed over him as
he paced in front of the lift doors, halting his train of thought. He
didn't need to turn around to know who it was, but he did anyway, just
to feel the well-remembered pleasure of looking at Methos. He was
beautiful, it made Duncan's heart skip a little to look at him and that
only confused him more. How could he desire someone so, love him so
deeply, and yet still have acted the way he had?
The lift doors opened and the
two Immortals stepped inside without a word passing between them. At
such close quarters Duncan could smell the heat rising from Methos'
body, and the response it evoked didn't help at all. So he stood, in
stupid silence, his toes curling in his shoes, while the lift ground
its way up to the fourth floor. As they left the lift Duncan let Methos
take the lead down the narrow passageway to the ICU.
Duncan waited as Methos
pressed the intercom button and announced their arrival to the
staff-member that answered. They were asked to wait, so they sat on the
bank of hard, plastic chairs that lined both sides of the corridor.
Neither man spoke, as a few minutes became ten, then twenty.
Finally, Methos sighed and
spoke: "I'm going to get some coffee. Do you want some, MacLeod?"
Duncan, too surprised to make
a verbal response, merely nodded. Was it an olive branch, or was it
just coffee? One never knew with Methos. He sat and watched Methos
disappear around the corner of the corridor, annoyed at his own
confusion. Duncan hated this waiting. What were they doing in there
anyway? And why wouldn't they tell them anything? His fists clenched in
impotent anger, undirected energy surging inside him.
His heart leapt as the unit
door opened, but it sank again as he realized that it wasn't the
doctor, just a pair of young men with tears streaming from their eyes,
their hands clutched tightly together. They sat down opposite him,
folding each other into a tight embrace. He didn't want to intrude upon
their grief but Duncan could not tear his eyes away as the two men,
clearly grief-stricken, comforted each other.
He felt for them, whatever the
loss they had suffered it had clearly been devastating. But in the
oddest way he envied them too -- they weren't alone and they weren't
afraid to show what they felt for one another. Their intimacy showed in
every touch of fingertips on faces, the small responsiveness of action
to need. It was so clearly love -- just love -- open and unembarrassed.
He could have had that too, Duncan realized, right now if he hadn't
been such a colossal fool. He'd had love in his hands, and he'd thrown
it away.
As the men held each other,
tears still streaming from their faces, a little, tousle haired boy no
more than six years old walked up to them and tugged on the nearest
sleeve. "Are you sad?" the boy lisped, holding out a crumpled white
lump. "Would you like my kleenex?"
In the midst of Duncan's smile
and an inward meditation on the innate sweetness of children, there was
a flurry of movement beside him. An older woman, swaddled in handknits
-- the mother? grandmother? -- leapt to her feet and grabbed the child
by the arm, tugging him away roughly. "Come away, Jordan. Right now!"
she ordered.
The older of the two men
looked across at Duncan. Their eyes met for a drawn out moment and,
whatever he'd expected to see there, Duncan could find only sad
resignation.
The woman pulled the child
back to the seating and plunked him down with a glare at the couple.
"You know not to talk to strangers, Jordan," she hissed, not quite
under her breath. "Especially not..." She trailed off, managing to
glare and flush at the same time.
This was the sort of reaction
he'd been worried about? This was the sort of person he'd allow to
influence his life? Methos was right to leave him -- he was a fucking
fool. A million replies ran through Duncan's head at that moment, but
none of them made it as far as his mouth. He had no answer to such
willful blindness; none that he thought would penetrate her ignorance
anyway. He just shook his head at her and stood, feeling Methos'
presence returning and walking to meet him.
***
Methos wondered at the relief
that he sensed in MacLeod as their eyes met in the hospital corridor.
He handed one of the coffee cups he was holding to Duncan who took it
gratefully, laying an unexpected hand on Methos' forearm and squeezing
gently as he said, "Thanks," and leaned in close to drop an even more
unexpected peck on Methos' cheek.
Methos shook off the hand and
stepped back. Whatever the hell Duncan was playing at now, he could
just play it by himself. He ignored the quick flash of hurt in the
younger man's face. "Have you heard anything yet?" he asked instead.
"No, nothing," Duncan answered
and Methos heard the forced stoicism in his voice.
"Then?" Methos began, raising
an eyebrow and taking a drink of the truly awful brown liquid.
"It got a
little...uncomfortable where I was sitting," Duncan answered, tilting
his head at a frumpy hausfrau and a young boy sitting next to where
Duncan had been and then at the object of the woman's disapproving
sneer; the tear-stained couple sitting together on the opposite seats.
"And you thought you would
what?" Methos spat, suddenly incensed at being used –- again. "Come and
put your hands on me uninvited and show her what? That even big, tough,
macho Duncan MacLeod can be a faggot? Or just that he can be an
arsehole?" Methos was peripherally aware that his harsh whisper was
beginning to attract attention, but he didn't care. Bloody MacLeod. His
insides were already shredded but the bloody Scot just kept on twisting
the knife.
"I'm an asshole?" Duncan's
voice was low and incredulous, his stance changing from conciliatory to
predatory in a heartbeat and if Methos had been giving an inch Duncan
would have backed him into the wall, but he wasn't. "I'm not the one
who lives with one foot out the door, looking for excuses to bolt!"
"Yeah, well there are more
ways of being absent than simply leaving. And I didn't need an excuse
when the man who professes to love me does what you did," Methos
gritted out, not in the least fazed by the shock on MacLeod's face. He
wasn't even particularly concerned that now their domestic drama seemed
to be drawing an audience. Hausfrau was staring at them openmouthed,
and even the crying couple had turned to look at them. He ignored them.
Before Duncan could hurl the
next accusation, the unit door opened and the nurse in charge -- what
was his name again...Josh?-- stuck his head out and beckoned to them.
Methos set his coffee down and stalked past Duncan, not waiting to see
if he would follow.
Josh walked a few steps ahead
of them and they still had been given no explanation, no reason given
for being summoned. It was all a bit strange. Methos clearly wasn't the
only who felt that way. He stopped short as Duncan reached out and
tapped the nurse's shoulder and halted their progress across the unit.
"Just hold on a second. Can
you tell us what's going on? What went wrong? Why did you call us?"
Duncan's voice was low and insistent and Methos recognized the
determined set of the Scot's jaw. There was still plenty of hot
Highland temper lurking beneath that apparently calm facade.
The tall young man frowned,
dark brows drawing down over darker eyes. "The doctor didn't come and
explain anything to you?" He sighed heavily, looking tired and
harassed. Methos shook his head quickly, waiting for the rest. "Joe's
stable now but when we called you he was having a severe allergic
reaction to one of the drugs he was given. It's commonly known as
anaphylactic shock. He required emergency treatment, and he needs help
with his breathing for a bit longer but he's doing fine now. You can
talk to the doctor some more about that, though."
They nodded and agreed,
standing carefully apart, and then they made thankful noises that
seemed to pop out of Methos' mouth, at least, without much input from
his brain at all. Eventually they made their way across to Joe's bed
and stood beside it. It was a shock to see Dawson like this:
unconscious and dependent, unable even to breathe by himself. Methos
had to fight back the memories, of all too short a time past when
someone else dear to him had lain like this, ventilated and helpless, a
machine regulating her every breath. But Alexa had been thin and
wasted, her face as pale as the sheets she lay on, whereas Joe was
still strong and muscled, for all that he was pale beneath his tan.
Alexa, if not ready for death, was at least resigned to it. Joe would
fight all the way.
He had no look of death upon
his face that Methos could see and it eased something inside him,
helped him push away the bad memories. Joe would be okay, sooner or
later. But the awful feeling was back, that creeping certainty that
even if Joe made it through this, he didn't have long, not nearly long
enough. And friends like Joe Dawson didn't come along every day. Not
even every century. Most of the time Methos tried very hard not to
think about it.
"I'll stay with him, if you
like," Duncan murmured.
Methos turned to look at the
younger man. His eyes were fixed on Joe's, and Methos could study the
stern profile for a moment without being observed. He could see no
trace in Duncan's expression of the anger of a few moments before, only
fear and concern for this beloved friend. His own anger, too, appeared
to have subsided somewhat, their trite little melodrama seeming petty
and small in the face of the battle this man faced.
"I'll call if there's any
change."
And Duncan would, Methos knew
that. If there was anyone he could trust to watch over Dawson and keep
him posted, it was MacLeod. Methos found that despite everything, there
really was something left still between them and it was this trust. It
eased something tight inside him and he inclined his head slightly,
nodding his assent. "Call me on the cell-phone if there's any problem."
"Of course." Duncan nodded,
still not meeting Methos' eyes.
***
Duncan watched Methos leave
the ICU, following him surreptitiously beneath the shadow of his
eyelashes. He wanted to be furious with Methos, wanted to hate him for
the unwarranted attack out in the hallway. But a part of him knew that
Methos had good reason for his anger. And as much as it suited Duncan's
self-righteousness to think so, the attack wasn't entirely unwarranted.
He knew that. The fury in Methos' eyes had cut deep, all the more so
because Methos had seen exactly what he was doing and held it up to the
ridicule it deserved.
Suddenly, exhaustion was
biting bone deep and he longed to rest. It was as if his anger had been
the strings holding him up, like a marionette, and now that they were
cut, he was ready to fall into a heap. The fight with Methos, all the
drama of the past day, had left him drained and empty. The anger was
gone and in its place was a dull, burning embarrassment at the way he
had behaved. It was unconscionable. What the hell had he been thinking?
A hand tapped him on the
shoulder and Duncan turned to find the nurse, whose name he couldn't
recall, standing there gesturing him to a chair.
Duncan smiled gratefully and
sat, watching the nurse move around to the other side of the bed and
return to his own chair beside the ventilator. Joe lay still and quiet,
the only sound the rhythmic whoosh of the machine as it breathed in and
out for him. The unit lights were turned down low now, as the evening
grew later, and it gave the small area a surreal aspect.
He grew quiet, introspective
with the widening silence and the lowered lights, as he sat and watched
his Watcher. How strange this was. A part of him had always
half-expected that Joe would be the one to watch him die. And now...
Despite the optimism of the staff, Duncan couldn't help but feel
uneasy, Joe was so pale and still, the equipment keeping him alive, so
intimidating, that it was hard to believe he could get through this.
They'd had their ups and
downs, he and Joe, but of late it seemed that they had found some kind
of equilibrium. Understanding even. Duncan wasn't ready to lose Joe,
not yet and definitely not like this.
A machine pinged tunelessly,
and Duncan looked up, startled out of his meditation.
"It's nothing," the nurse
reassured him. "It's just telling me the infusion's finished."
Duncan nodded, supposing that
made some sort of sense, somewhere, while he watched the young man
remove the empty IV bag and replace it. "Will he be all right, do you
think?" he asked, horribly aware all of a sudden, of the fear in his
voice.
"Yeah, I think so," the other
man answered, flicking a calm glance in Duncan's direction as he
adjusted the machine settings. "I know it doesn't look it now." He sat
back down in the chair opposite Duncan's, meeting his gaze easily.
"He's a tough guy, right?" Duncan smiled and nodded once. "So he'll be
okay. He'll do his thing and we'll do our thing and before you know it,
he'll be back home again."
"You think it's that easy?"
Duncan asked doubtfully.
"Not at all," the nurse
answered quietly. "But I think it's that simple."
The thought sat well with him
and Duncan nodded once more and then was quiet.
***
Duncan stood and stretched
when he felt Methos' presence, early the following morning. A night
spent in the hard visitor's chair had not been particularly comfortable
or restful. It was another nurse in the opposite chair now, an older
woman with red hair cropped very short and glasses that teetered at the
end of her nose. She'd taken over from Josh late the previous night
when the young man had finally ended his double shift with Duncan's
grateful thanks. Joe was unchanged through it all, his barrel chest
rising and falling with the slow whoosh of the machine pushing air into
his lungs.
Duncan turned just in time to
see Methos stride into the unit. He looked tired too, as if the bar had
kept him up late, maybe all night. He hadn't bothered to shave and dark
beard shadowed his chin and upper lip. Duncan caught a glimpse of how
worried Methos had been before the old man put up his shutters and hid
behind his usual impenetrable facade. It was comforting, strangely, to
see Methos vulnerable. It happened so infrequently that Duncan
sometimes forgot that Methos could be vulnerable. The old man had more
layers and barriers than anyone Duncan had ever known.
Duncan moved away from the
chair as Methos approached and they circled each other cautiously,
stiff-legged like dogs encroaching on another's territory, while they
changed places beside Joe's bed. Then Duncan watched the tension simply
flow out of Methos as he slumped into the chair.
Methos' eyes were fixed on
Joe's still form as he said very quietly, "Can we just take the ritual
posturing and exchange of insults as read this morning, MacLeod? I'm
too fucking exhausted to deal with all that now."
"I wasn't going to--" Duncan
began in the same tone, surprised when Methos looked up and met his
eyes for an instant. "Me too."
The glance was steady,
measuring and assessing, but whatever it was that Methos was looking
for, he must have found it, because he gave a small nod as he turned
back to Joe. "See you later, MacLeod."
***
So it appeared they had a
cease-fire, at least temporarily. That shouldn't have surprised him,
deep down Methos knew Mac to be a civilized man. Well, basically
anyway. And it would make things easier if they weren't at one
another's throats the whole time. Methos couldn't get comfortable as he
sat beside the bed, with Duncan's presence like nails down a blackboard
still fading away in the background, so he stood, carefully scanning
Joe's face for signs of improvement. But then the nurse, a little
red-haired woman with tired eyes, was shouldering him aside with a
washcloth in hand and Methos took the hint and moved away to slouch
against the wall, watching and waiting. Then Duncan was gone, and
Methos was left with the day, and his silent friend, in front of him.
And he was tired, exhausted
really, so much so that his whole body buzzed with it. He hadn't been
to bed in a couple of days now and there was only so much further he
could go before he crashed. But for the moment he could stay awake and
look out for Joe. There would be time for sleep later. Right now Joe
needed him. He wouldn't look too closely at the reasons why he didn't
want to stop. He didn't want to think too intently about anything right
now.
Because if he thought about it
now, with his resistance low and his need high, he might start to
regret the things he had done. The rational part of him knew he had
been right to leave Duncan, but as tired as Methos was at this point,
the rational part wasn't really in charge anymore. The parts of himself
that wanted warm, strong arms around him and someone to share the pain
and the worry were winning. Methos was briefly, fiercely, glad that
Duncan wasn't standing there with him. If he had been, Methos might
have thrown his self-respect out the window and himself into Duncan's
arms. Maybe.
Methos sat in his customary
hard visitor's chair and watched the frenetic early morning routine go
on around him. It chilled him to see how unresponsive Joe was to it
all. He was going to miss Joe a hell of a lot when he died. No matter
when that was. In an odd way, Methos was grateful for this wake-up
call. If the shooting hadn't happened he'd have just driven on out of
Joe's life, maybe dropped back in every now and then, maybe not. He'd
have ended up regretting that, he knew that now.
"Mr. Pierson?" a voice broke
into his foggy reverie.
Methos shook his head to clear
it. "Sorry. What did you say?"
The speaker was a young woman,
tiny, no more than five feet tall with a bright pink stethoscope slung
around her neck below glossy black bobbed hair. "I'm Dr Wu, Mr.
Pierson. I'm the ICU resident on duty. Sorry I missed you yesterday.
We'll be weaning Mr. Dawson off the life-support today. All going well,
he should be breathing on his own by tonight. You look like you could
use a little rest, why don't you go home for a few hours and come back
later?" She shepherded him out of the bed area with a small hand on his
upper arm as a nurse drew the curtain around Joe.
Methos nodded. He was just
going to be in the way and with the room starting to shimmer and swim
before his eyes he figured some sleep was definitely in order. Despite
his resolutions he knew he was asleep on his feet. Methos shook Dr Wu's
hand and thanked her, then with a final quick look at his friend lying
so still in his hospital bed, left. Be
well, Joe.
He made it as far as his truck
before he realized that he had nowhere to go. Fuck. Now he was going to
have to find a hotel. Suddenly the hassle of finding and renting a room
seemed enormous. He could always just use the sofa in Joe's office.
Methos sighed, squinted up through the windscreen at the
inconsiderately sunny morning and chose the sofa.
***
The fire crackled and sparks
leapt high in the sky, a scatter of gold dust against the velvet black.
By god, it was cold though, the wind whipping down from the mountains
sliced through a man swifter than a claymore sliced through English
flesh. Duncan looked at the men crowded around the campfire, huddled
into their plaids and sheepskins, rubbing their hands to warm them. And
then he dared a quick look at Warren Cochrane, sitting close by him as
always.
Cochrane's eyes were there to
meet his when Duncan looked. And again there was that uncomfortable
fluttering in his stomach that came more and more often whenever he
came close to his friend. What did it mean, this longing that stole
over him when their shoulders brushed or their eyes met? It wasn't just
that his cock stirred sometimes when he contemplated the way Cochrane's
strong back tapered into his slim waist as they walked single file --
that was just because he hadn't had a woman in an age. It was this
confusing, soft...something that gave him daft thoughts about holding,
and stroking, and kissing.
It was too strange. Was he
turning into a woman, or some kind of unnatural man? He had seen such
things on his travels and they always disturbed him greatly. Duncan
shook himself and stared back into the fire, so intently he could feel
the heat on his eyeballs. He was thinking madness. What he really
needed was a woman, a decent dram of whiskey and a few dozen English
heads, that would put him to rights again. Then there would be no more
disturbing thoughts about his best friend, sitting there so innocently
at the fireside.
But then Cochrane was turning
to him, a small smile on his lips and something that looked like desire
in his eyes. He laid a hand gently on Duncan's shoulder and held his
gaze fearlessly.
"It's all right, Duncan,"
Cochrane said gently as he leaned in closer until Duncan could smell
the musk of his friend's body above the smoke of the fire. "Nothing bad
will happen."
And nothing bad did. Cochrane
kept leaning in until their mouths met and then a slippery-soft tongue
slid between Duncan's lips and he opened to it, overwhelming lust and
need and tenderness rising up inside him. Cochrane -- Warren -- kissed
him beautifully, a gentle caress of lips and tongue that felt like
redemption, felt like love, felt like...
Methos.
Duncan woke up, hard as a rock
and confused as hell. He sat up on the side of the bed, willing his
erection away, with his head in his hands and memory flooding his
system with adrenaline. How could he have not known? How could he have
been so blind? How could he have hidden this away inside himself for
all these years?
He had been in love with
Warren Cochrane all those years ago. He hadn't had the words for it
then, and the kiss he dreamed was merely a product of his imagination.
But he remembered it all now: the longing, the desire, the
half-recalled dreams that left him hard and wanting in the gray dawn
light with the smell of Cochrane in his nose. But Duncan remembered the
confusion and the fear most of all, the worry that someone would
notice, that he would be cast out.
Again.
That was terrifying to him,
and the fear prickled out all over his skin as if he was still that
frightened and ignorant young man. That fear of being cast out, as he
had been cast out from his clan, was such an intrinsic part of him that
he barely noticed its existence anymore. It took a conscious effort to
bring him back to the here and now and remember that he was an
experienced and sophisticated man of four hundred and not a green boy
anymore. The fear receded slowly. As it disappeared a certain knowledge
was left in its place.
It wasn't ever Methos, it was
him all along. As Duncan hauled himself off the bed and walked through
the afternoon-shadowed loft to the kitchen it was like a window opening
in his mind and his own behavior became so much clearer to him. The
clarity brought him no joy, only shame. He'd been blaming Methos for
this, for making him feel these things. Some irrational part of his
mind had decided that it was Methos' fault for being intriguing and
compelling and beautiful, and making Duncan want him so desperately.
Was there ever such a fool?
Duncan grabbed one of Methos'
beers from the fridge, walked to the sofa and sank into it heavily. He
regarded the beer bottle thoughtfully as he sat with his long, bare
legs stretched out in front of him. Instead of seeing the
moisture-beaded brown glass, Duncan saw himself, as he had been once
and as he was now. The images came first and then the feelings.
He had always had these
feelings, as far back as he could remember. He'd never had the urge,
the desire, the courage to act on them before this but they'd always
been a part of him. He cast his mind back as far as he could go, right
back into his childhood, to those breathless, reckless teenage
fumblings. He'd convinced himself that it was nothing, that all boys
did such things and in his head he knew that was true, except for one
thing. The desire had never truly gone away.
He'd hidden it in the deepest,
darkest corners of his psyche, given it all kinds of names to disguise
what it really was. But he was pulling it out into the open now,
turning it over and exposing it to the light. It wasn't a comfortable
thing he was doing but if he ever hoped to have Methos again it was
essential.
Duncan MacLeod was a man who,
on occasion, loved men. It was an odd, almost physical sensation to
admit that, even to himself; a hot, sick flush crept over his body and
he rubbed the beer bottle over his face to ease it. He tried it again.
Duncan MacLeod loves Methos, who is a man. That was better, and
certainly true, but it still didn't have that clean internal feeling of
complete truth. He stood and walked to the mirror that hung above the
bedroom dresser.
He stood in front of it and
contemplated his image. It was the same face he'd seen for four hundred
years, yet he'd rarely had so much trouble meeting his own eyes.
Finally he fixed his gaze on himself and took a deep breath. Duncan
MacLeod sometimes loves men, he thought to himself. That was closer,
but it still didn't feel absolutely right. Duncan looked upon himself
once more, cleared his throat and spoke out loud, though he felt
incredibly foolish doing so.
"Duncan MacLeod is bisexual. I
am bisexual." There. It was out. The pun didn't escape him and Duncan
laughed a short mirthless laugh at himself and turned away from the
mirror. It was done. He went back to the sofa and dropped into it
again, picking up his beer from where he'd left it on the coffee table
and drinking the lot in three long swallows.
Oddly enough, he really did
feel better after saying it out loud. The truth settled into his skin
and sat easily in his soul. Less a startling revelation than a simple
recognition of a long-denied truth, admitting this to himself made him
feel...different. Altogether different. It was very strange to him that
a few small words could make such a change to the way he felt, but
there it was.
Duncan rose from the sofa and
went into the kitchen to get rid of the empty bottle. He'd only managed
a few hours of sleep but he was wide awake now. No point at all in
going back to bed. Duncan dumped the bottle in the trash and headed off
for a shower. He should be getting back to the hospital soon, anyway.
***
Methos dreamed restlessly,
dreamed of searching, seeking, holding his hands out for things just
beyond his reach...wanting. He dreamed in sepia-toned snapshots,
jumbled and disordered, of things and times long past. They flashed
past him so quickly he could not hang onto them; they were as slippery
as thought and as insubstantial as wishes. Only feeling remained, a
vast and overwhelming sense of loss that permeated every cell in his
body. At last Methos tossed and turned enough to wake himself.
He sat on the edge of the
seriously insufficient couch and raked a hand through his hair, wiping
the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his sweater. Gods, he reeked
too. He was really going to have to find somewhere to live soon.
Especially since Joe had been inconsiderate enough to furnish his
office without a shower. And what had those dreams been about anyway?
The question had appeared
uninvited, dashing through a space between two thoughts. He didn't want
to start analyzing his dreams; they were a pool of quicksand he didn't
want to set foot in. In five thousand years he'd pretty much learned to
take the dreams as they came and not put too much stock in them. And
most of the time they were remarkably untroubling, considering the life
he'd led. They were a far cry from the nightmares he knew troubled
Duncan from time to time, the ones that had him waking, shaken and
sweat-soaked, clutching Methos like a lifeline, crying out with the
pain and the loss.
Damn. He wasn't going to think
about Duncan. Really. This was what came from not making a clean break,
Methos told himself. Things began to fester. Cause pain. Leave an
aching, empty gaping hole in the place where one's heart used to be.
But the heartache was at least better than the terrifying numbness that
was beginning to re-appear. The numbness scared him more than anything,
he'd been down that road before and knew just where it led. So he
turned towards the pain instead, let it wash up over him, fill him to
overflowing and let it tear him in two.
Methos put his face in
his hands and cried.
He let the huge, wracking sobs
shake him, the vastness of his sorrow permeating his whole body.
Unresistingly, he surrendered to it. A flood of tears ran over his
cheeks, over his hands and down his wrists under his sleeves to his
elbows. The dam walls were down and the river was flowing where it
would, rushing out until eventually it found its level and began to
still at last.
Damn it all to hell. He'd
really thought it would turn out differently this time. He'd loved
bloody MacLeod beyond sense and reason and experience and now it was
all gone to shit. A man his age should have more sense. Next time he
would be more sensible, keep a part of his heart safe and whole; not
give the whole thing away so easily. Even as Methos thought it, he knew
it was a lie and through his tears a wry smile emerged. He never could
lie to himself for long.
Despite everything that had
happened, despite the shitty thing that Duncan had done, Methos still
loved him. Whether he should love him, whether he should even think
about taking another chance, well, that was another matter entirely.
Methos tugged the hem of his
t-shirt from his pants and scrubbed the tears from his face, feeling
the inexplicable relief of giving in to such grief and letting it flow
through him. He knew it would help to ease the pain, but every time he
resisted giving in, as if it was something shameful, to feel so deeply.
Only rarely did he felt the need, but now it was over, he just felt
empty and wrung out, a proverbial dishrag.
But that was okay too, he
could work from here -- he'd done it before. Sometimes you had to break
down before you built up. Methos gathered up his duffel and his broken
heart and went off to the men's room to improvise a wash. It was time
he got back to the hospital anyway.
***
Duncan almost fell over when
Joe greeted him with a smile on his arrival. A weak smile, for sure,
uncertain and weary, but nevertheless an honest-to-goodness Joe Dawson
smile. The relief that washed through Duncan's body almost knocked him
off his feet, but he managed to return the grin with one of his own.
"Hey, Joe, how're you doing?"
Duncan asked as he sat down in his customary chair beside the bed. The
machine was gone, as was all its attendant paraphernalia, and Joe was
back to the way he'd looked when Duncan had first seen him in here. Not
terrific, but not at death's door either.
Before Joe could answer the
question, Duncan froze, warm fingers of Immortal presence creeping up
his spine. The corner of the Watcher's mouth twitched and Duncan knew
Dawson had recognized the look. He met Joe's eyes and nodded his
reassurance, seeing the relief in the blue-gray eyes. Duncan turned
around just in time to see Methos stride through the door.
It was as if his body was
wired to react this way. Duncan found it incredible that even after
everything that had happened, he had only to look at Methos to feel the
first tingling warmth of arousal between his thighs. But even that was
different now, the flush of shame that should have followed hot on the
heels of that surge of desire was entirely absent. He wanted Methos,
loved Methos and at last Duncan could accept that without feeling
guilty or looking to see who had noticed. That was strange, but good.
And because he felt so damn
good, he couldn't help the pleasure he felt leaching out into his
welcoming smile. "Hello, Adam."
***
Well, somebody's looking
chipper, Methos thought as he entered the ICU and was confronted by a
classically cocky MacLeod grin. He wasn't sure whether to be pleased or
dismayed by how happy Duncan looked. And he did look happy. Despite a
few ragged signs of exhaustion lurking around his beautiful face,
Duncan looked wonderful. Methos wondered why.
"Mac," Methos answered with a
smile he knew was too reserved. "Someone's looking better," he added
with a nod in Joe's direction. "How are you, Joe?" Methos found another
chair and pulled it up to the bedside, sitting down beside Duncan.
"O-kay..." Joe managed to
rasp. He coughed a little, and Methos tensed, but then it stopped and
Joe sent him an almost-smile comprised mostly of crinkled eyes.
"Bet-ter."
"So I see. You had MacLeod
worried, you know. He thought he was going to get stuck with
deciphering your accounting from now until the next millennium."
"At least I won't be drinking
the profits," Duncan shot back quickly. "Or giving away free drinks to
every drunk with a hard-luck story."
The friendly tone surprised
Methos again and he raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You wound me, MacLeod.
The very thought." He shuddered in mock-horror, letting his eyes
twinkle at Joe.
"Far be it from me..." Duncan
returned with a small grin.
"Enough already." There was
still enough power in the roughened tones to bring the banter up short.
"Sorry, Joe," Methos said
quickly. "Are you all right?"
"What's wrong?" Duncan asked,
almost at the same time.
"Hurts..." Joe began and
Methos glanced around hurriedly for the nurse. "Hurts to
laugh...dammit. You two clowns are making me..." Joe coughed again and
clutched at his gut, "wanna laugh."
And Methos was so relieved to
see Dawson looking and sounding so...Dawson that had he not been
sitting down he might have needed to. Joe was going to be all right. He
would have this friend at least a little longer. It wouldn't be enough,
but it would have to do. It was never enough, the span of a mortal life
flew by in a heartbeat, and one day, Methos knew, even this beloved
friend would be only an entry in his journals and a fond memory. And
even that would some day fade. Like they all did.
"Methos?" a voice whispered
close by, breaking into his thoughts. "Methos, are you okay?" It was
Duncan, and what Methos could see in his eyes confused the hell out of
him. The shutters Methos had grown used to seeing in Duncan's
expression were entirely absent; all that was there in his clear, brown
eyes was honest concern. A more optimistic man would have called it
loving concern. What in the hell had changed?
"Sorry, guys, just
woolgathering. Plight of the elderly, you know," Methos replied with a
self-deprecating smile, pushing the confusion and the dark thoughts
away. He would puzzle out Duncan's strange behavior later.
Joe and Duncan snickered
rudely at that and Methos had the strongest sensation of slipping back
in time, back to when they had all been just friends and life had been
a little less complicated. It was a good feeling.
They talked a little longer,
filling Joe in on the various doings at the bar, reassuring him that
they had everything under control.
"And stay the hell out of the
Watcher database," Joe croaked with a pointed look in Methos'
direction. "I'll have enough explaining to do if they find out I've got
you two running my bar as it is, without them wondering how I can be
here and logged on there at the same time." The flood of words left him
pale and panting, but his eyes were still lively.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Joe.
Never even crossed my mind." Methos plastered innocence all over his
face but he could see the other two weren't buying it. "What?"
Joe just chuckled at that,
still holding his belly, a low down sniggering laugh that was so
infectious that soon Duncan was joining in and then Methos himself,
until they were all laughing at themselves and each other. Strange that
laughter should help as much as tears. Or perhaps, not strange at all.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," a
voice broke in tentatively, "but Mr. Dawson needs his rest. I'll have
to ask you to come back later." It was the young nurse from that first
day, the 'nervous girl', Methos had dubbed her in his mind. She stood
at the opposite side of the bed, anxiously twisting her hands.
Duncan nodded and stood. "We
should be going anyway. Good to see you looking so much better, Joe.
I'll come back tomorrow, see how you're doing, okay?"
Methos wearily unfolded
himself from his chair and stood too, reaching out to grasp Joe's
shoulder. "Seeya, Joe. Don't be too rough on the nurses."
"You go easy on those free
drinks, Adam," Joe rasped.
"I will be the picture of
bartenderly perfection," Methos announced loftily. And he managed to
keep a straight face while saying it.
"Well, if practice has
anything to do with it." Duncan tossed in, as he gathered up his coat.
"What is this? Did someone
announce National Pick on Pierson Day and forget to tell me?" Methos
asked, wide-eyed, shrugging into his own coat.
"Yes," Duncan answered.
"Didn't you get the memo?"
And then Duncan smiled at him,
that brilliant thousand-watt grin that Methos had been missing for so
long, the one that lit up not only Duncan's face but most of the room
as well. Methos felt the world tilting, slipping away like a landslide
shifting the ground beneath his feet and he had to stand very still,
waiting for it to settle. After a moment, strong hands grasped his
shoulders and shook him very gently. The shock of Duncan touching him
again almost brought him undone and he gasped.
"Methos?" Duncan asked in a
low voice. "Are you okay?"
And the hands hadn't left his
shoulders, the gentle, firm pressure of Duncan's fingers never varied. Don't toy with an old man, Highlander. It
isn't fair. A brief, wistful longing stole through Methos, as
he stood frozen in front of Duncan. Then reality, and sense, came
crashing back in on him and he stepped back quickly. It was a trap,
that tenderness, a snare to catch him and put him straight back on the
road to heartbreak. He wouldn't fall into it again.
***
It felt so good to be touching
Methos again that Duncan almost missed the flash of annoyance that
crossed Methos' face and settled in his mouth. Then the older man was
pulling away and Duncan lifted his hands from the angular shoulders as
if he'd been burnt. He was pushing things, he knew that. He shot Methos
a look of apology and stepped back, letting him pass. It wouldn't help
anything to rush Methos now, not when he'd clearly hurt him so badly.
Duncan turned and raised a
hand in farewell to Joe, then followed Methos out into the hallway. He
lengthened his stride to catch up Methos' long, quick gait so he could
walk alongside. "Going to the bar?" Duncan asked lightly.
Methos looked at him briefly,
just short of a glare. "I was planning to, yes. Why?"
"I have some to work to finish
up there, that's all. I thought I'd come and do it now, if you don't
mind." The fact that he wasn't ready to lose sight of Methos just yet
factored into it too, but he was keeping that entirely to himself. He
only hoped he didn't look too desperate.
"Why should I mind?" Methos
asked blandly, as he stopped in front of the lifts and pressed the
'down' button.
Methos said nothing more as
they stepped into the lift and traveled down to the ground floor.
Duncan watched him hungrily, searching for some sign that Methos wanted
to talk, wanted to yell at him, even wanted to run him through with a
sword, but there was nothing, just this polite distance. It might have
been less painful if it was a sword.
He had a lot of ground to make
up, Duncan realized as he exited the lift and walked out the wide front
doors. He threw one final look in Methos' direction, exhaled noisily
and walked off towards the T-bird.
***
Ellen had already opened the
bar for the afternoon when Methos arrived. Customers were drifting in
and out the front door as he cruised past. He parked the truck around
the back of the lot and headed on in, pleased that things were going so
well. With the bar anyway. His personal life was a whole other thing.
What a bloody mess. MacLeod's behavior at the hospital had been
strange, to say the least. What in the hell was he up to, anyway?
It was too weird. They lived
together for a year and Duncan couldn't bear to stand closer than two
feet away from him in public, then the minute they break up he gets all
touchy-feely? Where was the logic in that? The sense? It was abundantly
clear that they were going to have to talk. Methos caught the look of
disgust on his own face in the mirror behind the bar as he thought
that. Talk... He shuddered minutely and went off to check the beer
supply.
Methos had managed to immerse
himself in fixing a leaky beer line in the cellar, when Immortal
presence crawling up his spine made him stop and search reflexively for
his sword. The fact that he realized, a few seconds later, that it was
MacLeod's presence didn't make him want to change his mind about the
sword.
"Ellen said you had a leaking
line down here. I thought I'd come and see if I could give you a hand,"
Duncan said as he stepped around the kegs, ignoring the half-hearted
sword entirely.
Methos put it down and flicked
an eye at him, giving a sort of combination shrug and nod which was
supposed to tell Duncan that his presence wasn't really required but
that he seemed to take as being an invitation to sit right down. He
settled down next to Methos and surprisingly said nothing.
And for the next half-hour
neither of them said anything more complex than 'pass the spanner'.
They simply worked, in companionable silence, and eventually Methos
began to relax a little. At last he tightened the final join and lay
down the tools, stepping back to take a breather and admire his work.
"Looks like it should work
fine now," Duncan said.
"Yes, thanks for helping,"
Methos answered, hating the cool politeness he couldn't seem to banish
from his tone. He really didn't want to keep on punishing MacLeod, he
couldn't help what he was any more than Methos could. He wanted to say
something more, tried to make the words come, couldn't and went to slip
past Duncan to head to the narrow staircase. A hand on his arm
restrained him, sending his gut plummeting through the floor. Here it
comes.
"Methos wait, please?"
Duncan's voice was low and urgent, a far cry from the impersonal
friendliness he'd been using until now. "Can we talk for a moment? I
really need to tell you something."
It was on the tip of his
tongue to refuse, he knew that he should walk away, but instead Methos
merely nodded, not even bothering to dislodge the hand that still
rested warmly on his arm. It was simply curiosity that made him say,
"Yes, Mac?"
"I've been doing a lot of
thinking, and I've come to realize some things. This is all my fault, I
treated you badly because I didn't want to admit to myself what I am.
But I know now, Methos, I accept what I am and it makes everything a
lot clearer."
This wasn't really what Methos
had expected and he had to ask, "And what have you decided that you
are, MacLeod?"
"I'm bisexual."
The bald announcement was
equally unexpected and for a moment Methos floundered, unsure what to
say next. He winced internally at his own tactlessness when he replied,
"And you've just decided this, have you? After four hundred years of
loving women? And one year of well, fucking me? You'll have to excuse
my skepticism, MacLeod." He didn't intend to be so snide about it, but
it was the only defense he had left.
But to Methos' surprise,
Duncan took no offense, smiling wryly. "It was love, Methos, never
doubt that. And it's not so much 'decided' as realized. I've always
felt like this--you aren't even the first man I've fallen in love
with." Methos couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that piece of news,
but Duncan didn't elaborate, merely plowing on as if he'd planned what
he was going to say and no amount of embarrassment was going to stop
him from saying it. "But you're the first one I ever had the courage to
make love with, the first one I ever loved so much that I put aside
some of my fears. I'm only sorry I couldn't put them all aside so I
didn't hurt you like this." His voice grew low and honeyed, the last
words whispered like an endearment. "I'm sorry I treated you the way I
did, Methos, I was wrong."
And the thumb belonging to the
hand on his forearm was stroking him softly, sending curling tendrils
of warmth through his belly to echo the warmth he could see in Duncan's
eyes. So when Duncan closed the distance between them with a small
swaying motion of his upper body and his mouth settled over Methos'
with a soft, hungry noise, it was all too much to resist. Methos
couldn't help but melt against him, pulling him close with his arms
snaking up around Duncan's neck.
The kiss was deep and sweet
and all too short, but when Duncan pulled away to look into Methos'
eyes with his own so dilated by lust, something compelled Methos to
push away. It was the small voice inside him that would not be silenced
no matter how much the rest of him wanted to drag Duncan to the floor
and rub every inch of their bodies together like kindling until they
caught fire. It was this small, insistent voice that made him step
back, meet Duncan's eyes fearlessly and say: "I'm pleased for you, Mac,
really I am. It's good that you're coming to terms with who you are.
But I just can't do this again, it was a mistake the first time and,
whatever my faults, I do try not to make the same mistake twice."
"But it wouldn't be the same!
I'm not the same as I was. Methos, please, let me show you," Duncan
begged, reaching out for him again.
Methos evaded the hands with a
neat sidestep. "Fine, MacLeod, you've changed," he said with a tight
smile. "Shall we take this upstairs and we can announce it to the whole
bar?"
Methos didn't have to be
touching MacLeod to feel the stiffening of his spine at the suggestion.
The younger man's expressive face went blank with shock.
"See you 'round, MacLeod."
Just because it was the reaction he'd expected didn't mean that it
didn't hurt like hell. Methos had to fight the urge to wrap his arms
around himself to ease the pain in his gut as he fled up the stairs.
"Methos, wait!" Duncan called
behind him, far too late.
***
"Wait, Methos," Duncan said, a
broken whisper this time, as the pain brought him to his knees. Christ,
what a mess this was. Why did he have to react like that? It was as if
he'd had no control over himself at all, he was that green boy again,
afraid of being rejected, cast out because of who he was.
And because of a moment's
stupid reflex he had lost Methos again. The thought of that had his
hands balling into fists, itching to strike out, probably at himself,
in frustrated anger. There had to be some way to show Methos, to
convince him that it could be different if they tried again. There had
to be.
Duncan picked himself up from
the floor and went upstairs. He spared one brief, careful glance for
Methos, standing behind the bar with a beer in his hand, nodded
minutely and left. There was no thrill of challenge, no heady sense of
expectation of the chase to come, just a sick, sad sense of loss and
regret that he should have done this to them both.
***
He'd been unfair. Methos knew
that. He felt like an utter shit as he watched Duncan's stiff-necked
retreat from the bar, pain billowing from him like smoke from a pyre.
And he hadn't been lying when he said that he was pleased that Duncan
was coming to terms with himself -- he was. It just wasn't enough and
it never would be. The sooner Dawson was well and back on deck, the
sooner Methos could make a clean getaway.
He ruthlessly strangled the
remembrance of full, soft lips against his own and a yearning that
never quite went away.
***
For Duncan the next few days
passed in a sense of moving in ever-decreasing circles. He went from
the dojo to the hospital to the bar and back again without any of it
making much of an impression on him. He was going through the motions,
barely keeping it together, making his body keep moving until his heart
decided to beat again. He'd done it before, and he knew it would happen
eventually. But the waiting really hurt.
He was tired of the stalemate,
tired of treating Methos with the same bare politeness with which
Methos treated him. Something had to give. He almost wished that Methos
would live up to the ever-present threat in his eyes and just leave.
Almost.
But not really.
In reality, the thought of
Methos leaving forever was terrifying. But they couldn't go on like
this. Well, Duncan couldn't -- Methos probably could. Nothing the old
man did would surprise him. Duncan needed to do something and quickly.
Guilt bloomed coolly in his gut as he found himself wishing briefly
that Joe wasn't making such a rapid recovery now that he was out of the
ICU and in a regular ward. He was sure that as soon as Joe was back,
Methos would be gone.
He had to show Methos that he
really had changed, that he really was done with hiding who he was.
Dating another man was an option, he supposed, except that Methos was
the only man he knew that he was the slightest bit interested in
dating. And Methos didn't want anything to do with him.
Duncan turned it over and over
in his mind as he arrived home at the loft and collected up the mail
from the box. He sorted through it desultorily, smiling faintly at a
letter from Grace, and flicking a practiced eye over a couple of
gallery catalogs that looked vaguely promising.
Duncan tossed the mail onto
the coffee table in front of the sofa, before he wandered into the
kitchen to find a drink. He poured himself a double and drank half,
refilling it automatically before going over to the sofa and sinking
into it with an audible groan. It was no wonder that he was making
noises like an old man, he wasn't sleeping worth a damn and his days
were long and stressful. Duncan pushed that aside and tried to
concentrate on reading his mail.
***
"But, Joe, he hasn't changed,
not really. He thinks this is what he wants and he's doing anything,
saying anything, to get what he wants. He's such a child." Methos
halted his litany of complaints and watched for the Watcher's reaction.
Joe was going ahead in leaps and bounds since they'd transferred him
out of Intensive Care, but Methos couldn't completely banish the memory
of how close to death his friend had been a few short days before.
Joe shook his head. "Mac may
be a lot of things, but he's not a child. He's a man who knows what he
wants and for some unknown reason he's decided he wants you. Why, I
can't say. But he does. And if you weren't in the slightest bit
interested then this wouldn't be the only thing you ever talk about
when you come here." Joe paused, coughing a little with a pillow held
firm over his belly, before he went on, "So what's the deal, Adam? You
just yanking his chain to hear him yelp, or is there a reason you're
acting this way?"
Methos hated it when Joe
cornered him like this, absolutely hated it. Bloody know-it-all mortal.
He narrowed his eyes at the Watcher sitting propped up in the bed so
cheerfully and tightened his lips in a frown. "It isn't all I talk
about, Joseph, as you well know. Did we or did we not spend some time
yesterday discussing the relative merits of classical and modern jazz?"
"Yeah," Joe agreed, and Methos
could hear the snide remark coming. "But you spent three times as long
telling me all the reasons why MacLeod isn't really serious about being
queer. And I gotta say it again, man, it really ain't something a guy
is gonna lie about, you know?" Joe raised a graying eyebrow at him and
Methos almost snarled.
"That isn't it and you know
it, Joe." Methos gave an exasperated snort and stood up, stalking back
and forth beside the bed.
"Then I wish you'd explain it
to me, old man, cos I'm just not getting it."
Joe was being deliberately
obtuse; Methos could see it in the smug lines crinkling his eyes. If he
wasn't lying in a hospital bed already, Methos could have arranged for
it without blinking an eye. And while a part of himself was working
itself up into self-righteous anger and plotting his dear friend's
demise, the other part was recognizing that he really didn't want to
admit the truth. Not even to himself.
"It isn't that simple. You
know that." Great. Now he was repeating himself, too. Methos waited for
Joe to reply but all he got was a slightly more sincere version of the
obtuseness. And silence -- a lot of silence. The sort of silence a
lesser man would have rushed to fill. Bloody Watcher would have made
one hell of an Inquisitor. Then the words were rushing out of his mouth
before he had a chance to stop them. "Do you have any idea what it took
for me to be able to trust him enough to even start a relationship with
another Immortal? It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
Gods, after...everything." He couldn't even bring himself to mention
Kronos but the name was hanging there between them as clearly as if he
had. "He has no idea..." He trailed off, ordering his eyes not to fill
with tears. "He treated it like it was nothing." Like I was nothing.
"Did you tell him that? Does
he know?"
"It doesn't matter. It's too
late," Methos answered softly as he sank back down into the chair,
avoiding Joe's eyes and the pity he knew he'd see there. "It's over...."
"Is it?"
"What's that supposed to
mean?" Methos shot back, recovering some of his ire.
"You're a smart guy, you
figure it out. Now shove off and let me get some sleep. This 'Dear
Abby' crap wears me out." Joe settled back onto the pillows and pulled
up the covers, only wincing a little. Methos didn't miss the small grin
lurking around his friend's mouth, but said nothing of it, grateful for
the easy out that Joe had given him.
"Thanks, Joe. I'll see you
tomorrow." And Methos left, quietly introspective.
Opening time had come and gone
without him again, Methos realized as he arrived back at the bar. He'd
lost track of the time, again. Methos had been on autopilot since his
talk with Joe, trying to sort out in his head just what he felt about
MacLeod now. He parked the truck and slipped in through the back
entrance to the bar, still lost in contemplation. The buzz that greeted
him was both a complete surprise and completely expected.
While Methos was still
figuring out how that could be so, Duncan popped his head out the
office door, greeting him with a wide, uncomplicated smile. "Hello,
Adam. I'm just finishing up the accounts payable. Shouldn't be much
longer. How was Joe?"
Methos was nonplused for a
moment, and then he recovered himself enough to answer, "He's fine,
making good progress. You going over there?"
"Yeah, maybe a bit later."
"Yeah, okay..." Methos
answered, feeling as awkward as he had ever done.
"Listen, Adam?" Duncan began,
the uncertainty clear in his voice.
"Yes?" Methos answered, too
quickly.
"Do you want to have dinner
with me later on -- maybe a late supper? We could...talk. I think we
should talk."
This was too strange. Before
he could decide it was another very bad idea, Methos grabbed a beer
from the fridge and strode into the office, drawing Duncan with him in
his wake. "Look, MacLeod, do you want to tell me what the hell's going
on?" he demanded as soon as he entered the room and slammed the door
behind him.
Infuriatingly, Duncan just
smiled and walked across to the desk, leaning back against the edge to
face Methos. "I didn't mean to make you angry, Methos. The truth is
that I want you back in my life. I don't know any other way to show you
that except by inviting you into it. So that's what I'm doing. Say yes?
Please?"
Methos regarded him warily. It
was such an immense risk that he was contemplating, it made him feel
more than slightly ill at the thought of everything that could go
wrong. But while he might have survived five thousand years by doing
the safe thing, he would not have lived. Sometimes you had to take a
risk and remind yourself that nobody ever really died of a broken
heart. Besides, it was just supper, not a lifelong commitment.
"All right," Methos said at
last, smiling cautiously. "Supper, then. After closing tonight."
But there was no triumph in
Duncan's answering smile -- just a hint of relief he couldn't hide.
"Thank you, Methos. I'll see you then."
"Yes."
Methos spent a distracted
night tending bar. The drinks wouldn't stay in their glasses and the
glasses wouldn't stay in his hands. He insulted at least one customer
by forgetting her order entirely and annoyed a couple of others by
giving them the wrong change. Ellen had scowled at him through her
wire-rimmed glasses when he screwed up her second table order.
"Get it together, Adam," she
growled, running an impatient hand through her razor-cut brown hair.
"You're fucking with my tips.." She heaved the re-loaded drink tray
onto her hip and stalked away.
It didn't help. No matter how
he tried or how much he wanted to concentrate, it just would not
happen. He couldn't remember ever wanting something so much and being
so afraid of having it at the same time. All he could think about was
stupid, asinine Kit O'Brady and the last day. The last straw....
The phone
rang, its electronic warble echoing around the loft. Duncan hurried to
answer it and Methos tried not to think it was because Duncan didn't
want him doing it. He tried not to listen in too, but it was a small
loft after all.
"MacLeod."
"Anne!
It's so good to hear from you. How's Mary?"
"She did?
That's great."
"Kit
showed up there? What did you tell him?"
And Methos
knew it the moment the conversation had gone awry, Duncan turned away
from him and faced the wall, lowering his voice and hunching his
shoulders. Methos listened harder.
"You did?
Oh. No, no reason. I guess it's okay. Thanks for letting me know. Bye,
Anne." Duncan put the phone down and turned to Methos, still sitting on
the sofa.
Methos
could see the discomfort in Duncan's body language and knew that
whatever came out of his lover's mouth next would probably be a lie.
They weren't Duncan's strong suit, but it didn't stop him trying.
"Problems?" he asked, watching Duncan flush a dull red.
"No, not
all. Just Anne saying hello. I'm going to go downstairs and work out."
Duncan's eyes slid away from Methos' and he headed over towards the
lift.
Something
was definitely up, but that was nothing new. Life with Duncan had not,
so far, been a bed of roses. Or perhaps it was after all -- a few sweet
bits, but full of thorns to catch the unwary. Even the wary got caught
sometimes...
Methos
watched Duncan go downstairs and wondered, not for the first time, when
things would get better.
It was
probably ten minutes later when an unknown Immortal buzz filtered into
his consciousness. His heart leapt and Methos slid out of the sofa and
grabbed his sword from the floor in one smooth motion. If Duncan was
facing another Immortal downstairs, he was going to be there. That was
probably what this whole bloody charade had been about -- a challenge
by this Kit person, whoever he was.
Methos
padded down the stairs barefoot, soundless on the hardwood stairs. Not
that it mattered, they would know he was approaching from his own
strong presence, but every little bit helped. As he reached the last
steps, he strained his ears for a clue as to what was happening on the
other side of the door. But instead of the clash of steel on steel that
expected to hear, all Methos heard was Duncan's nervous chuckle and
most incongruously -- an explosive sneeze. He pushed the heavy door
open and burst out, sword held at the ready in front of him. He lowered
it, feeling more than a bit foolish when he saw the two men standing
companionably side-by-side. Not a challenge at all. He'd never known an
Immortal with the number of friends Duncan had.
"It's
okay, Adam. It's just Kit. Kit O'Brady, meet Adam Pierson." Methos
could hear the discomfort in his lover's voice and could guess at what
had put it there. It almost made him wish it had been a challenge --
that at least he could have dealt with.
O'Brady
looked him up and down, clearly taking in his bare feet, his rumpled
sweats and his hair sticking up every which way -- added one to one and
came up with exactly the right answer. "Well, Mac," he drawled. "I
wouldn't have thought you had it in you." Kit smirked, raised an
eyebrow and extended a hand. "Pleased to meet you, any friend of Mac's
and all that."
"No, Kit
you've got it all wrong as usual," Duncan broke in. "You say some
damned funny things. Adam's just a friend who's staying on my couch for
a couple of days. They're...spraying his apartment
for...uhh...cockroaches. How's that horse of yours going anyway?"
Methos
ignored the man's extended hand and his knowing leer. He spun on his
heel and stalked back upstairs with the sound of Duncan denying him
still ringing in his ears.
It hurt,
more than he'd thought it would, but of course in the death of a
thousand cuts it was the last one that killed you, not the first.
He phoned and cancelled
supper, thanking the powers that be for cutting him the small break of
talking to Duncan's answering machine and not the man himself. One
might not die of a broken heart, but broken self-respect was a killer.
***
Duncan said nothing to Methos
about the cancelled meal. His heart had sunk when he'd found the
message, disappointment spiking through him cruelly as he absorbed the
few words. He shouldn't have been surprised, he thought, the real
surprise had been that Methos had agreed in the first place. He wasn't
giving up, though; Methos was worth another try, or ten. If only he
some idea what to try....
The next afternoon, Duncan
paused at the door to Joe's hospital room and knocked twice, grinning
as the patient waved him in. "You're looking well," he told Joe,
meaning it.
"Thanks, Mac. They tell me I
might be out of here by next week. I'm sure as hell feeling better than
I was. You, on the other hand pal, look like three day old shit."
"Gee, thanks," Duncan answered
dryly.
"Don't tell me you and the old
man haven't sorted yourselves out yet?" Joe sighed. "What is it with
you two?" he asked exasperatedly. "No! Don't tell me. I don't wanna
know."
Duncan saw the twinkle hiding
in his friend's eyes and knew Joe was just giving him a way out if he
didn't want to talk. "He doesn't want me back, Joe," he said, unable to
hide how very sad that made him. "It's over."
"You know, I keep hearing the
two of you saying that and every time I hear it, I believe it even
less."
"Really?" Duncan leaned
forward in the seat he'd claimed next to the bed, resting his elbows on
his knees and fixing his eyes on Joe's. "What makes you think that
Methos doesn't believe it's over?"
"Man, you should be talking to
him about this, not me. You ever think about how fuckin' weird this is?
Both of you comin' in here doing the soul-baring schtick and I don't
have the faintest clue what to tell either of you. You should be
talking to each other, not me."
"Methos bares his soul to
you?" Duncan asked. "What's that like?"
Joe snorted impatiently. "Will
you listen to yourself, MacLeod? You're making yourself nuts over this.
Just go. Go find the old man and talk to him and sort all this out.
Don't come back until you've talked to him, capisce?"
"It isn't as easy as that,
Joe. You don't know everything."
"You never did say what
happened..." Joe let the sentence trail off, as if waiting for Duncan
to supply the rest.
"Methos hasn't said?" Joe
shook his head and Duncan found himself studying the floor. "It was a
lot of things. I let him down in a lot of different ways, and he
forgave me many times but the thing I think really killed it was Kit
O'Brady showing up."
"O'Brady? What the hell's he
got to do with it?"
"He caught me off-balance. I
wasn't ready to tell people about us and then Kit was there making
insinuations and before I knew it I was telling Kit that he was wrong
-- that there was nothing going on between Methos and I." Sick shame
washed through with the memories.
Joe winced. "You're lucky to
still be wearing your head, my friend. I'm not surprised he went and
packed his bags. Not at all."
Before he could censor himself
Duncan found himself answering, "But he didn't -- not right away
anyway...."
"Yeah? What did happen, then?"
Duncan exhaled heavily and
closed his eyes against the razor-sharpness of Joe's stare, reliving it
all over again in damning detail. "I got rid of Kit and went back
upstairs. Methos was back on the sofa reading his book, like nothing
had happened. He didn't look at me and he didn't say anything so I
thought maybe he wasn't all that upset about it -- that he understood
how hard it was for me. And we went through the rest of the evening,
had dinner etcetera; he was a bit quiet but I managed to convince
myself it wasn't anything. I mean he hadn't said anything and he was
still there, so he couldn't have been too upset by it, right?" Duncan
didn't wait for an answer from Joe, merely plowed on before shame dried
the flood of memories. His mouth twisted ruefully. "It wasn't until
after we...we'd," dammit this shouldn't still be so hard to talk about,
"gone to bed and made love, that he got up, packed his bags and went."
Duncan sighed, his eyes finding Joe's at last. "Nobody does retribution
quite like the old man, do they?"
"Did you think that maybe it
wasn't retribution at all?" Joe answered quietly. "Maybe he just needed
to think about it a while first before he made up his mind to walk. He
doesn't give up people he loves that easily, you know. You've seen what
he'll do to keep them."
Duncan let the thought settle
for a moment. "Maybe..." he shrugged, although the idea gave him more
hope than he dared to acknowledge. "Doesn't change anything, though.
He's gone either way and I don't have any idea if he'll come back or
what I can do to make him come back and when did I start sounding so
goddamn pathetic?" He couldn't sit still anymore and he pushed out of
the chair and walked to the window, staring sightlessly at the view for
a moment, turning back to face Joe when he began to speak.
"It's like the man says, Mac,
love makes fools of us all," Joe said a little sadly, the turn of his
mouth bittersweet. He was silent for a moment before his face slipped
into that expression of affectionate exasperation that Duncan knew so
well and he rasped, "Go on, get outta here. Go talk to Methos and sort
it out before you both drive me nuts. Go!"
Duncan smiled slightly at
Joe's bluster. "I just got here, I was planning on spending some time
with you."
"I've seen enough of you this
week to last me a while, now go," he ordered, his eyes too kind to look
at.
"Yes, sir!" Duncan answered,
snapping off an ironic salute.
"That's more like it, soldier.
Now march!"
And Duncan found himself on
his feet and headed out the door before he'd even had a chance to think
about it. He stopped in the doorway and turned back to Joe for a
moment, smiling. "Thanks, Joe. You're a good friend."
"Yeah, yeah...a prince among
men, that's me. Go on, ya big sap..." he growled affectionately, "get
outta here."
So Duncan left and the small
spark of hope that flared in his chest left him warmer than he had been
in a long time. A spark of hope and the speck of an idea....
***
Methos looked up from his
restocking of the beer mats behind the bar when the front door rattled.
The rattle was followed by a knock and Methos hurried across to answer
it. It was a delivery guy, holding a flat, rectangular package wrapped
in brown paper.
"You Pierson?"
"Yeah, that for me?"
"Yeah, sign here, thanks."
And Methos signed for the
package, accepted it and took it inside, thoroughly mystified. Who the
hell would be sending him a -- he ripped the paper away to reveal what
lay beneath...a painting? He looked at it more closely, laying it on
top of the bar to take in all the details. A pencil sketch, actually,
rather than a painting, it was beautiful, breathtakingly erotic.
Methos brushed his hand
lightly over the glass that fronted the plain dark frame. It depicted
two Japanese men embracing, one behind the other, their faces clearly
ecstatic, unambiguously sexual with the erect penis of the man in the
foreground lovingly detailed, standing proudly against his muscled
belly. It was an incredible picture, affectionate and erotic at the
same time, losing nothing to either. Methos turned the frame over,
finding a gallery card stuck to the back. The card had the artist's
name and the title of the work: 'Heal This Lonely Heart', by Sadao
Hasegawa. He peeled the card away, turning it over in his fingers
thoughtfully.
It was only then that he
spotted the handwriting on the back of the card. He should have known. Heal my lonely heart? Forgive me, please.
Love, Duncan. Methos picked up the painting and carried it
into the office. What was he going to do about MacLeod? As gestures
went it should have been a pretty effective one, the thought that
Duncan had walked into a gallery and asked for this unashamedly
homoerotic work of art was undeniably powerful. He propped it up
against the wall on top of the bookcase in the corner, regarding it
thoughtfully.
He had held Duncan like that
once, standing in the loft lit by the light of a golden afternoon.
Close, until they could be no closer, his hands smoothing over Duncan's
skin, learning him like Braille and Duncan had hardened just like that,
his lovely cock filling and lifting towards Methos' touch. And he was
so beautiful that Methos wanted him to see it too, see how perfectly
they fit together, and he turned them to face the long mirror that
stood beside the armoire. Their eyes met in the mirror and Methos
caught a glimpse of fear and shame in the younger man's eyes before
Duncan twisted free and stalked away.
Methos had been left standing
naked and alone, and as portents went, that was a pretty accurate one,
as things turned out. He reached out and placed the sketch face down on
the bookshelf, unable to look at it anymore. It wasn't like he had all
day to stand around, so he went out of the office to get back to work.
Methos was opening a carton of
imported beer and filling the fridge when an all-too-familiar buzz
shivered down his spine. Just great. He looked up in time to see
MacLeod stride through the door. The Scot's whole face creased into a
warm smile as they greeted one another.
Methos, however, couldn't
reciprocate. "Hey, Mac. Listen, about the sketch, thanks but...I don't
think I..."
Duncan cut him off. "I bought
it for you, Methos. I want you to have it." The deep voice grew
passionate and Duncan's eyes darkened. "As soon as I saw it I was
reminded of us, of how it felt to be held by you. Please accept it."
Methos went cold. "And were
you also reminded of seeing us together in the mirror and being so
repulsed you couldn't wait to get away? Why would I want to be reminded
of that?" Dammit he didn't want to be arguing with Duncan again, didn't
want to make an enemy of him but the pain just wouldn't settle. The
memories just washed over him and it was as fresh as if the knife had
just been twisted.
"Methos, no!" Duncan said
quickly, reaching out over the bar, as if to touch him, but Methos
slipped away, keeping his distance. "That was never it. Is that what
you thought? Repulsed?" Duncan shook his head and sank onto a barstool
at last. "Never. Hell, I remember that day now... I was looking at you
holding me, looking at your arms, all muscle and sinew, wrapped around
me and I had to turn away. I couldn't face what the mirror was telling
me. That this was real, I loved a man. A strong, beautiful,
unmistakably masculine man. It was too much. I didn't want to think
about it. I couldn't face the truth then--so I couldn't face us."
"But you can now?" Methos
asked, not bothering to hide the edge in his voice. He was asking too
much to expect forgiveness after all that had happened. "And I'm just
supposed to take your word for it and set myself up to have my heart
broken again for the sake of the opinion of a fucking moron like Kit
O'Brady?"
Duncan's face went very still,
his eyes unreadable for once, except for the pain etched in the shallow
lines around them and his voice when he spoke was low and harsh. "I
can't go back and change what I did, no matter how much I wish I could.
I'm sorry that I hurt you and you can believe that, or not, as you
choose. I'm trying to make amends, can't you meet me halfway?" he
pleaded with his eyes on Methos'.
Methos had no answer, it was
as if hurt had filled his throat and stolen his voice. He looked at his
hands.
"Fine," Duncan said at last
and there was the slightest tremor in his voice, telling Methos how
close he was to breaking. "Keep the picture, or not, as you see fit.
It's up to you. I have to go." Duncan slid from the barstool and strode
to the door, disappearing through it without ever looking back.
Methos watched him leave,
keeping his own turmoil locked firmly inside. His hands were shaking as
he picked up a bottle of Bushmills and a glass from behind the bar and
took them to the nearest table. He sprawled dejectedly into a chair and
poured himself a double. It burned on the way down, a familiarly
comforting pain to distract him from the pain in his heart.
***
How could he have been so
stupid? Duncan asked himself as he drove home. It seemed like he was
spending a lot of time lately asking himself that question. He'd been
so sure that Methos would enjoy the sketch that he hadn't even
considered that it would remind him of anything specific, let alone
anything so damning. He was never going to get this right. Duncan let
himself into the loft wondering why this all had to be so hard.
All he wanted was the one
thing he suspected he would never have. Sometimes he wondered if he did
it to himself on purpose, this sabotage, this constant screwing up of
what he wanted most. As if he didn't believe he deserved to be happy,
as if he still believed that he was cursed -- destined to always be
alone. He wondered if his happiness was destined to always be fleeting,
Tantalus' torture.
He wondered when his life had
spun so far out of his own control. His plans weren't working out the
way he'd expected at all. Perhaps he had been going about this all
wrong. Perhaps the best plan would be no plan at all.
***
The message icon in the window
of Methos' cell-phone was flashing when he looked at it a few hours
later. He was knee-deep in preparation for another busy night, the band
was doing a quick sound check and run-through and that was when he must
have missed the call. The icon winked at him insolently, as if it was
daring him to find out who had called.
Methos sighed and glared at
his phone, knowing exactly who had left that message. It really wasn't
necessary for him to hear it to know. He went into the office for a
little quiet and hit the button for the voicemail number. His breath
caught as his intuition was proved correct. Duncan's deep, impassioned
tones reached out to him in spite of himself.
"I miss you. I miss us. I'm
unhappy without you. I wish you would believe how much I regret what
happened. I'd give anything to take it back. Please give me another
chance. I promise it will be different. It has to be. I'm not the same
man that I was, Methos. I've accepted who I am, who you are. And I love
you. I'm coming by the bar again tonight; I'd really like for us to
talk. Really talk. Call me if you like. See you then." Methos switched
off his cell-phone and sat down heavily. The voicemail message touched
a deep chord in him, he'd rarely heard so much raw need in Duncan's
voice, so much longing and pain.
It touched him that Duncan was
still trying to make amends, to put things right. He wasn't sure they
could be, or should be, in his experience things once badly broken were
best discarded, they were never the same, no matter how well they were
repaired. When the thought that some things were better off not being
the same slid across his mind, Methos put it aside, unexamined. He had
work to do after all.
Saturday night had rolled
around again with a speed that made even Methos shake his head in
amazement. He had a ton of things to do and fewer pairs of hands than
he needed to do it. But busy was good -- busy was always good. Busy let
the minutiae of life fill the moment, pushing out the opportunity for
thought. Busy made the moments tick by faster so that the time when the
godawful hurt in his chest would lessen could arrive more quickly. Busy
filled his hands so he didn't have to think about how empty they felt,
attached as they were to his empty arms. Oh yes, busy was very good. It
let him forget for a moment that Duncan could walk in at any moment.
It was a matter of little
surprise to him when he felt the presence crawl up the back of his neck
and settle beneath his skin. MacLeod. Of course it was. Methos drew in
a shaky breath and made himself get on with the business of opening the
bar. He waited until Duncan was enclosed in the office before emerging
from the safety of the serving area to go and flip the sign on the
front door from 'Closed' to 'Open'.
It didn't take long for the
first patrons to wander in and, before much more time passed, Methos
and the rest of the bar staff were deep in the traditional Saturday
night melee. He was so busy serving that he was only peripherally aware
of the strengthening of Duncan's presence when the younger man appeared
on the other side of the bar.
"Adam, can we talk now?"
Duncan asked, his voice raised above the background noise. "Please?"
Methos stopped very still, his
eyes widening. Then he threw off the sudden, sharp yearning and shook
his head. "I'm busy, MacLeod. Can't you see that?"
"It must be time you took a
break. Please?" Duncan reached out across the bar and closed his hand
over Methos' forearm and stroking it subtly, sending a warm flush of
pleasure remembered curling through him. "I need to see you." The need
in his eyes was persuasive--and infectious.
"When you're finished talking
to your girlfriend...do you think I could get a beer?" a voice broke
in, shattering the fragile mood between them like a roughly accented
sledgehammer.
Duncan snatched his hand away
and Methos braced himself for another round of denial. But the hand
that seconds before had been softly sending tendrils of desire through
Methos' body was now firmly grasping the shirtfront of the man who had
spoken, pressing him back against the edge of the bar, fury in his eyes.
"Take your hands offa me!" the
drunk yelled, taking a wild swing in Duncan's direction.
Duncan evaded the punch and
jabbed a blindingly quick fist into the other man's gut.
He had to act fast. "Out!
Outside now!" Methos shouted. "I mean it, Mac. Put him outside now and
forget about it. He can't help being a fucking moron, it's probably
genetic."
It took a moment but the drunk
caught the insult. "Hey! Watch who you call a moron, faggot."
It was about then that Duncan
lost it completely. The drunk went flying across the room, scattering
furniture and customers left and right. Duncan was on him again in a
flash, deadly fists and feet attacking with shocking precision. The
drunk fought back with tenacity, if not skill, and Duncan took a chair
across his back, sending him to his knees and a savage backhand caught
him in the face. But by the time Methos made it around the bar and
through the crowd to the epicenter of the destruction, Duncan had the
other man pinned on the floor and had halted his fist a bare inch from
the drunk's throat.
"That's enough, MacLeod!"
Methos yelled, grabbing Duncan's shoulder and hauling him back. "Get
off him." The band had stopped and the crowd was momentarily quiet; his
voice was shockingly loud in the sudden silence.
Duncan released his grip and
stood up, lifting a hand to the dribble of blood oozing from his
cheekbone. The cut was deep and if Duncan stayed out here much longer
the crowd was going to be treated to a display of Immortal healing on
top of the display of Immortal machismo.
"You can clean that up in the
office, MacLeod," Methos told him pointedly. He saw the understanding
dawn on the Scot's face as he covered the cut more firmly with his hand
and shooting a last glare at the man on the floor, Duncan left the room.
Methos bent down to the
gasping figure of the drunk, he grabbed the man's shirtfront and tugged
him to his feet, spinning him around and propelling him towards the
back door. Methos shoved him out into the alley, tossing him out like
the trash he was. He didn't spare the drunk another moment's thought,
he wasn't worth it, and besides, Methos had a lot bigger problems
waiting for him in Joe's office. He turned and stalked after MacLeod.
Duncan was wiping the last of
the blood from his newly-healed face when Methos walked in.
"What the hell do you think
you were doing out there?" Methos snarled, slamming the door behind him.
"What are you talking about?"
Duncan asked, his brow creasing in confusion. "You heard what he said."
"Yes, I heard what he said and
I still want to know what you think you were playing at."
"Are you serious?" Duncan
answered, his voice rising. "I couldn't stand there and let him talk to
you like that."
"I don't need you to defend my
honor, MacLeod. Do I look like a damsel in distress to you?" It was a
struggle to rein in his temper.
"No, of course not, Methos.
Was I supposed to just stand there and let that little bigot speak to
us both that way?"
Methos kept his voice
deliberately low. "He wasn't worth the air he was breathing, let alone
making a spectacle of yourself like that. Bringing yourself down to his
level.... Did you expect me to thank you for it? Is this the part where
I'm suitably grateful?"
"I don't know! What would you
have had me do?" Duncan asked angrily.
"Certainly not act like such a
Neanderthal. You can't fight idiocy with your fists," Methos hissed
back. "Surely you know that."
"He just made me so angry,"
Duncan answered, more quietly.
"And perhaps you should think
about why that is."
"So I should just stand by and
let bigotry go unchallenged? I've been fighting it all my life, one way
or another. Don't expect me to stop now. I answered that jerk in the
only terms he would understand and maybe next time he'll think twice
before he spews his poison out in public. I'm only surprised you don't
see that." Duncan stepped in closer, reaching out as if to take Methos
into his arms. "Forget about him. We still need to talk."
Methos stepped back quickly.
"We are talking, MacLeod and
I don't see that it's getting us very far." He saw the frigid tone in
his voice register on Duncan's face.
"I don't know what you want
from me, Methos," Duncan said sadly, shaking his head. "I don't know
anything, anymore. I thought if ...if we...I'm sorry. I should go."
Duncan kept his eyes from Methos' gaze as he walked slowly out of the
room.
Methos sank into the sofa and
put his head in his hands, feeling like he'd missed something important
and having no idea when it was or how he'd missed it. After a little
while, he went back out into the bar still wondering if they could ever
manage to put it together or if they were destined to always be at
cross-purposes.
***
It was midday the next day
before Methos saw him again. Presence rippled down his spine and caused
a complicated mix of emotions to surge through his body. He felt Duncan
watching him, felt the unspoken pain, saw the weight of sadness
pressing down on the broad shoulders. He caught the edge of a wary
glance before Duncan disappeared into the office. He looked,
well...defeated. It wasn't something he'd often seen on Duncan's face
but it was there now. Methos shook off the pity that sprang up unbidden
and went back to flushing the beer lines.
He had two hours until opening
time and he really needed to get this done. Of course, it should have
been done last night but after everything that had happened, it was
hardly surprising that it had been neglected. And he wasn't going to
start feeling sorry for MacLeod now. It was an effort to push Duncan
out of his thoughts again, but he managed it -- almost. And then Duncan
was back, sooner than Methos had expected, standing on the other side
of the bar with that hurt, sullen expression on his face that dragged
Methos' memories right back to that very first night when he had walked
away.
It wasn't like he didn't know
how hard Duncan was trying, Methos thought, while his hands worked
methodically. He knew how hard it had been for Duncan to even admit his
true sexuality to himself let alone to another and he admired him for
having the balls to do it. But he was asking too much to believe that
one thing would automatically lead to the other. Duncan simply didn't
realize how badly Methos had been hurt by his actions. He couldn't,
otherwise he would never have expected an announcement and an apology
to make it all okay again. Not after everything.... He'd expected
better from MacLeod. Perhaps that was part of the problem.
Methos looked up to find
Duncan's eyes upon him, watching him expectantly.
"Do you need me to organize
that plumber for the men's room before I go, Adam?" Duncan asked evenly.
Methos just wanted him gone.
For a lot of reasons, both complicated and simple, MacLeod hanging
around all the time was making him edgy. "No. I'm fine. I think I can
manage to call a plumber," he replied tersely.
He saw the unspoken rejection
find its mark, and cause Duncan to retreat a little more. "Fine, then,"
Duncan said tightly. "When do you want to interview new wait staff? I'm
phoning in the ad tomorrow."
"I don't care," Methos
answered coolly. "Whenever."
"Friday, then." Duncan had
copied his tone and was now speaking just as coldly. It was what he had
asked for after all. "In time for the weekend rush."
"Yes, I am quite aware that
Friday comes before the weekend, MacLeod. Was there anything else?" he
asked impatiently, fixing Duncan with an irritated glare.
"Actually, yes," Duncan
answered with a harsh twist to his mouth. "Is that new supplier
delivering the right wines? Joe wanted to know, he was worried about
him being unreliable."
"He's been here on time so far
and the orders have been fine."
"Well...good. Okay, then."
And when Methos looked at
Duncan he could see the torn expression on the younger man's face
replace the sullen glare. It was the look of a man who had something to
say and not the faintest clue how to say it. Methos had seen it too
many times before. Duncan had frequently worn the same expression after
sex and it always made Methos feel slightly guilty, as if he should, by
virtue of his vast age or wisdom or some such nonsense, know how to
draw his lover out and help him find the words. But Duncan needed to
find his own words; the only thing that Methos did know was that he
couldn't give them to him. And so they had silence instead.
"Goodbye, then," Duncan said,
at last, after looking at him so intently that Methos was sure Duncan
was going to say something.
But apparently not. Methos
shrugged indifferently. "Seeya." He turned back to the shelves of
bottles of spirits and liqueurs lining the wall behind the bar;
mentally noting which would need replacing soon. The front door banged
hollowly and Methos flinched a little but made himself concentrate on
the task at hand. He wasn't going to spend all day brooding about
MacLeod. But something about the way Duncan had said goodbye wouldn't
leave him alone.
Hang on a minute...Goodbye? MacLeod
doesn't say goodbye -- ever -- not if he ever plans on seeing you
again. The prospect of never seeing Duncan again stopped him in
his tracks. Methos turned and looked at the space where Duncan had
been, as if a couple of square feet of empty bar could give him some
sort of insight into the mind of a man he had once loved. He stood
frozen, trapped by the intensity of the moment. Once loved, or loved
still?
Methos' heart thudded double
time as the moment spun out of control; it was now or never, as the
cliché went. He'd jumped out of a plane once with less
trepidation than this, but the sensation was the same, from his toes
upwards, his body buzzed with a tingling nervous expectation. He had to
make the choice now, or there would be no choice left for him. He
almost smiled as he realized that the decision was already made for
him. He could only hope that it wasn't too late.
***
It was pointless. He was never
going to be forgiven. Methos didn't love him anymore, maybe he never
had. He'd been wasting his time all along trying to get him back. Maybe
this had all just been a dalliance on Methos' part, an amusement,
something to pass the time until more interesting things came along.
Perhaps there was no point in staying at all. No point in any of it.
The pain that had been a constant presence in his heart for so long
began to fade and a comforting numbness took its place.
Time to go.
Duncan took himself back to
the loft as quickly as the laws of physics and the road allowed. He
needed to get out of here; there was no reason to stay. The bands of
wounded tissue that bound his heart were thick and constricting,
leaving a heaviness in his chest that made it hard to breathe. He drove
automatically, his head full of goodbye. He would call and explain it
to Joe, he would understand, and they would see each other again,
somewhere else, sometime. It wasn't like Duncan MacLeod could escape
the Watchers for long.
Yes, Joe would be okay and
there wasn't anything for him in Seacouver anymore. Not now.
Ruthlessly, Duncan pushed the memories aside when they threatened to
come flooding back in and drown him.
No.
He was done with wallowing in
self-pity, waiting for Methos to open his eyes and see what had
changed. It was time he had a new life, a change of scene. Not a change
of heart, though. Methos was imprinted on his and he doubted that would
ever change. No, he was better off alone, at least for a while. He
would crawl into some quiet backwater and lick his wounds for a decade
or so, maybe that would give him time enough to heal. Logically he knew
that he would heal, but right now... Right now he felt flayed from the
inside out, stripped bare with salt rubbed into the wound for good
measure.
Duncan pulled up outside the
loft and parked the car, not caring how hard he slammed the door on his
way out. He was through the dojo and back up in the loft before he had
a chance to think about the impulsiveness of his actions. Action was
all he could trust now; thought was far too hazardous a minefield to
enter.
If he thought he might have to
look at the stack of Methos' books on the coffee table, or his laundry
that had been in the hamper the night he'd fled and remember all that
he had lost. He might have to look into his mind's eye and see Methos
sprawled there in the sofa, waiting watchfully for Duncan to return his
love in kind. Or lying in the wide bed propped up on one elbow,
watching Duncan with those beautiful, ancient eyes that never seemed to
miss anything, tracing the lines of Duncan's face with his fingertips,
an unasked question in the quirking of his tender mouth.
If he thought he might have to
remember that he'd done this to himself, perhaps not with malice
aforethought but willingly nonetheless. And with that un-thought
thought resounding in his head, Duncan began to pack his bags.
***
Methos felt Duncan's presence
as soon as he burst into the dojo. Relief stopped him in his tracks --
for just a second. He was still here. Methos ran up the stairs, taking
two at a time, desperately searching his brain for the words to sort
this mess between them out once and for all. He was still searching
when he reached the loft door, but the words were proving elusive. He
hammered the door with his fist and waited for an answer.
The door swung open and Duncan
was there. Methos looked past him and saw the open suitcase and trunk
on the floor. He looked back at the man who had been his lover and
fixed him with a penetrating stare. "Are you going to let me in or are
we going to have this conversation out here in the hall?"
"We're having a conversation?"
Duncan asked dully. "That would make a change. Come on in." His voice,
his whole attitude was troubling, it was as if Duncan had given up
completely and Methos found that the thought was terrifying.
Methos sidled past him and
walked into the loft, turning back to face Duncan when he heard the
door close. "Packing?"
"Let's not play games, Methos.
I should think you'd know what packing looked like by now," Duncan
answered, his voice holding no real ire, only tired resignation.
"So that's it, is it? You're
just going to walk away?" Methos watched as Duncan went back to his
packing.
"Walk away?" Duncan asked,
throwing clothes from the armoire to the trunk. "I'm just moving on.
It's what we do. When life runs out in one place we move on to another.
There's nothing left for me here now. You don't want me here, that's
for sure. So I'm going somewhere else."
"And what will you do?"
"Live?" Duncan answered
bleakly. He added, almost to himself, "Or is that too much to hope?"
Duncan pushed the long strands of hair out of his eyes as he turned to
face Methos, meeting his eyes for the first time. "I don't know what
I'll do, Methos. Why are you here?"
"I couldn't let you go
without...." Methos trailed off, the words drying up in his throat all
of a sudden. "I had to...."
"What? Twist the knife a bit
more? Make me feel lower than I do already? You can't. I've asked you
to forgive me, I've tried to show you that I've changed and I've tried
to make you see how sorry I am for hurting you, but it just isn't
enough. So I give up. I love you, Methos but you don't love me so I'll
take myself somewhere else and try to forget." Duncan picked up a bag
of trash from the floor and went to walk past Methos as if to go into
the kitchen. "Excuse me?" he said when Methos stood deliberately still.
"No." Methos stood his ground,
blocking Duncan's path with his body. Then he plucked the bag from
Duncan's hand and set it on the floor. "No. You're wrong."
Duncan looked at him sharply,
his eyes flashing with a quick burst of temper. "Don't fuck me around,
Methos. Spell it out or get the hell out of my way. Wrong about what?"
"That I don't love you,"
Methos said simply, watching the shock ripple through Duncan's body.
"Come and sit down, please?"
Duncan shook off Methos' hand
when he would have steered him and took the few steps to the sofa.
Methos sat beside him, a leg folded underneath so he could face him.
Duncan stared back, waiting with ill-disguised impatience. "Yes?" he
prompted, when Methos hesitated.
Methos exhaled noisily and
began. "I realized something this afternoon when you walked out of the
bar. I realized that I wasn't ready to let you go. I realized that in
spite of all the crappy things we've done to each other -- will keep
doing to each other in all probability -- I love you and I think
there's something here worth saving." He held a hand up to silence
Duncan when he would have spoken. "Maybe."
"And I love you, " Duncan
answered with desperation coloring his words. "But I can't apologize
anymore than I have. I've tried almost every way I know to get you to
forgive me, I don't know what else I can do." Duncan's eyes were huge
and liquid, shining with the promise of tears. At least the dull apathy
was long gone.
"Perhaps there isn't anything
for you to do, Mac." And the fact that Duncan hadn't flinched when
Methos had caught up his hands and held them, registered somewhere in
his brain, making Methos even more sure that he was right.
"I haven't anything left to
say either, Methos. Either you can accept what I say, or you can't. You
forgive me, or you don't. It's in your hands. That's what it comes down
to." Duncan returned the grasp, gently holding Methos' hands in his own.
"And if I do? If I think I
can?" There was that sensation again, the toe-tingling,
waiting-in-the-jump-zone feeling as if the next step was vital.
"Then I promise never to deny
you ever again, I will never make you feel that I'm ashamed of you --
of us -- ever again." Duncan's fingers closed a little more firmly over
his, daring a small circling stroke of his thumbs. "You know it wasn't
ever you, don't you?" His voice became low and roughened. "It was me
that I was ashamed of --I couldn't face myself -- accept myself for who
I am."
"And you really can now?"
Methos had to ask. "No more 'sleeping on my couch for a few days' and
all that other bullshit?"
"Never again." Duncan's hands
became bolder, his fingers threading through and around Methos'. "I
love you, Methos. Come back, give me another chance and I'll never let
you down again."
Methos had to smile. "Never's
a long time, Highlander."
"I want you with me a long
time. I want you with me as long as we can possibly manage. I want your
beautiful body and that labyrinth you call a brain and all your other
bits as well. I want you, Methos. Come back?" And all the while his
hands were rubbing at Methos', massaging, encouraging small spots of
heat to bloom all over Methos' body.
He wanted to. Damn, he really
wanted to simply accept what Duncan was saying and just hurry through
the making up part right through to the tearing each other's clothes
off part. But that would just land them right back where they had
started.
Methos tugged his hands away
from Duncan's and stood up. Duncan looked at him warily, hurt lurking
in the shape of his mouth. "I just can't think when you're touching me
like that," Methos said as he perched on the edge of the coffee table
facing Duncan who smiled a little smugly. "And you needn't look like
that either, I haven't said yes, yet."
"But you want to."
"Well, of course I want to,
why the hell would I be here otherwise?" Methos shot back in
exasperation.
"Then what's it going to take
to convince you? I could get down on my knees?"
Methos couldn't help the smile.
Duncan narrowed his eyes, as
if daring Methos to make the joke. "I was going to say," his face grew
serious again, "I was going to say that I could get down on my knees
and pledge my eternal love and commitment to you if you want. I even
have some commitment rings around here somewhere if you think that
would make a difference."
Methos blinked. "Rings,
MacLeod?" What on earth?
Duncan ducked his head a
little. "I had a whole plan worked out to win you back. The rings were
stage six."
"So whatever happened to this
Grand Plan?"
Duncan looked up and fixed him
with a look of such unalloyed honesty that Methos almost looked away.
Almost. "I realized that you're worth more than that, " Duncan said
quietly. "That if I wasn't enough for you, without manipulations or
machinations, then it wasn't meant to be. I realized that I couldn't
force you into trusting me again, and that sometimes time is the only
thing that heals us."
Methos swallowed past the
sudden thickness in his throat. "Pretty smart, Mac. Time, then."
"Yes, time."
And before he could question
it, Methos' hand stole out to find its mate, two sets of strong fingers
tangling together in graceful confusion.
Epilogue
"Great party, Mac," Joe said
as he eased himself into the chair, carefully hanging his stick on the
arm. "You guys did a great job on the house."
Duncan turned to him and
smiled. The housewarming was in full swing; their home was full to
bursting with guests, noise and music. It was a wonderful party. Duncan
could just spot his lover's head over the top of the crowd in the
living room. A special celebration today, an official start of sorts to
their lives together, shared with all the people who were special to
them both. It had taken them six months to get here, six months to
build on what they had begun that last day, build their lives and their
house, but it had been worth every moment. The crowd parted and Methos
appeared, smiling broadly into Duncan's eyes. Especially now....
"How are you doing, Joe?"
Methos asked, coming around to stand beside them and slip his arm
around Duncan's waist. Duncan slid his own arm up to pull his lover
closer still, enjoying the warm, hard length pressed along his side.
"I'm doin' okay," Joe
answered. "I finished the physical therapy last week, you know. I'm
feelin' pretty damn good, to tell the truth."
"You're looking it," Methos
told him, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice.
"I'm not the only one," Joe
tossed back, with an eyebrow raised in their direction. "It suits you
-- both of you."
"Thanks," Duncan smiled. "We
think so." He turned to look into the eyes of the man who shared his
life and got a little lost in all the love and tenderness he could see
there. He turned back to look at Joe only when the sound of a throat
being cleared penetrated his thoughts. "Sorry, Joe." He grinned a
little sheepishly, still a little shy about how much he adored the old
man. "Got a little distracted."
"So I see." Joe gave them both
a look heavy with amused patience. He turned to gesture at the rest of
the party, lifting a hand in greeting to Amanda as she danced with
Nick. "Good turn out, everyone looks like they're having fun."
"There were one or two who
ignored the invitation, but no one who'll be any great loss," Methos
said, lifting the beer bottle he carried to his lips.
Duncan caught the anxious look
in his lover's eyes and answered it with a reassuring smile telling him
that no one was more important than what they had together. He'd
traveled a hard, sometimes rough road the last six months, they both
had, but it had been worth it. This time was so different to the last
time; he might well have been a different man.
In a lot of ways he was.
