Lazy Afternoon

Fandom: Highlander

Category/Rated: G

Year/Length: ~320 words

Disclaimer: Not mine, but I love him anyway.

Author's Notes: Written for the NZLJ challenge

Beta: No beta

Look at him; the sun's streaming down on him as he sprawls, half-lying on the swing that graces the shaded verandah. He's got a big cheroot clamped between a set of teeth so pearly white and even you'd think they were porcelain. His hat is sitting way back on his head as if he were an old fashioned newshound, and he's grinning.

This is the life. He doesn't know why he's never thought of it before. Oh, sure, the itinerant vagabond thing is fun, but, face it, Cory me darlin', once you pass your nine hundredth birthday you ought to be showing some signs of maturity. It's time to take a break, take stock of your life. It's time to plan for the future.

He's been many things to many people, and no doubt he'll continue to swagger through life, quixotic as hell, lord of misrule that he is, but for today he's got his feet up on someone else's porch, and he's drinking a beer, smoking a stogie and making paper darts from hundred dollar bills.

He tips his hat, laughing as the posse gallops by, horses sweating as they seek out the stagecoach robber that has somehow eluded them. He raises his beer to them in a mocking salute once they've passed, and then Cory Raines gathers up his stolen spoils, rises and leaves the borrowed swing, but not before he's tossed a handful of banknotes into the mailbox of the house.

This time, he thinks, he'll invest his ill-gotten money into a tidy house with a verandah of its own on which he can suspend a swing, maybe get to know the neighbors, find a sweet widow with whom to dally.

As he heads off in the opposite direction to the posse that pursues him, he shakes his head. He knows he won't really settle down, although that little house really does sound nice.

Perhaps next time.

The End

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