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30/12/00
Highlander Summary: Methos on resurrection. Disclaimer: They ain't mine. No, not even a little bit. They belong to Rysher - Panzer/Davis, even though said folk gave them silly plots and dressed them badly. There's no justice.
Three Days Down bartender
please He got buried once. Well, more than once, probably, but it's just the once he remembers. He was somewhere in Syria, and the people who loved him at the time committed his body to the earth before sunset. Proper for them, and he was killed pretty badly at the time, so he couldn't really blame them, but he still remembers the sheer horror of waking up that way. Remembers it in the too-vivid come-out-and-crawl-up-your-neck way that in the last fifty-odd years has finally acquired a name -- post traumatic stress disorder. There wasn't a name for it at the time. There wasn't a coffin. There weren't any trees to speak of, and no one would waste the little wood there was on housing the dead. So. Just layers of white pulled across his face, and holding his hands against his sides, his legs together. Loose earth all around him, seeping into the hollows of his ears. He dug himself out. It took three weeks. He died more than a dozen times -- usually of suffocation, sometimes of thirst or exhaustion, once of hunger. He hadn't weighed enough even before they buried him. Nobody he knew then was experiencing the blessing of body fat. Even immortality didn't guarantee you a full belly. He thinks he's probably spent more time seeing each bone clearly outlined in his wrists than not. When he crawled out of the ground, finally, it was just night, and the moon was huge and close. Very bright. He thought about the cult from Israel whose leader, they claimed, had risen from the dead and walked out of his grave. In most versions, though, it was a tomb he escaped from -- or a cave with a rock in front of it, at any rate. Kind of them not to have covered him in unmercifully dry earth. He's died in a lot of ugly ways, but getting buried with his head still on is the one thing he's sworn he'll never do again. He's explained the kind of funeral he wants to a lot of people since. Big, the kind you can't get together on a couple of hours' notice, and preferably a wake first. Not because he wants to be remembered. He just wants time to get away before they shove him into the ground again. Maybe steal a drink on his way out the door, or after the party, when everyone's passed out or so plastered that they won't think it's odd that the corpse has risen and joined them. Deserts weren't friendly country for him after that for a long time. If he has to go into one now, you can bet there's something over his nose and mouth, keeping even the smell out. And in spite of the paleness they encourage in him, he's developed a certain fondness for cool, damp places. Paris was good, but it's busy at the moment. Millennium fever, maybe. He celebrated the millennium on his own, with a bottle, in 1993. He's quite aware of the calculations that medieval scholars made concerning what year it was relative to the birth of their messiah, but he knows that written records of the cult in question are badly conflicting, and the result was off by seven. One of those things he gets to know all by himself. He's blaming the busyness of Paris for this particular sojourn to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It rains here too, but it's quieter, and the trees are huge. There are cedars like the cedars that used to grow in Lebanon and Syria, but huge. You stand still and you can smell them so clearly. Snow on them, at the moment. It's barely freezing out, but there are big, loose flakes hanging themselves on anything green and gradually covering the pavement and his shoes. Very grey light, but it's been that way all day, so it's only his watch telling him it's getting late. This latest incarnation of his timepiece is big, with gold edges on a very stark face, and it cost him a disgusting amount. He's sure he paid most of the money for the band. Ironic, since the first thing he did with the watch at home was lift the band off the face and replace it with the saddle-soft leather straps he's been lovingly nurturing since 1947. The fitted metal you get on good watches these days feels like shackles to him, and there's been quite enough of that already. Two years ago, he gave a selection of his watches from the last century to Duncan as a birthday present. Bastard loved them. Restored the broken ones himself, buffed the silver, got every bit of clockwork going. Which isn't to say that Methos doesn't have his own set of jeweller's tools, but he'd never have bothered, himself. Snow in his hair. Bits of it fall down between his neck and coat collar. It really is dark by the time he's made it to the dojo. The car out front is new, and expensive. And English. He smirks at the small, crouching chrome jaguar clinging to the hood, and wonders how long it'll last before the next boy passing the car rips it off and takes it home as a toy. He pats it, and the hood. Notices the distinct lack of the kind of hyperactive alarm system you'd expect to find on a toy that expensive. Duncan's signature is already licking up the back of his neck. It's louder at the door, insistent like the alarm system he expected to find on the car. He has to ignore it very deliberately to get his key through the lock. Because he does have keys, though only to the dojo door. Any valued member might have those. Somebody who wanted to come in and spar after hours, and who didn't mind the cold that builds once the central heating shuts down for the night. And as long as he remembers to lock the door again behind him, he'll continue to have the privilege. No keys to the loft upstairs, and he doesn't take the lift. The stairs are quieter, at least for him, and if he wants to pause on them and blow on his hands, nobody's going to glare at him and tell him to next time remember to wear gloves. And when he wants to come in, all he has to do is knock. It's not like Duncan doesn't know who it is. The first time they did this, Duncan crawled to the end of the bed the next morning and watched him leave. With some kind of expression on his face that meant he hadn't decided whether this leaving was a good thing or a bad thing. He didn't make a scene, though, and Methos found he was still welcome the next time he came. And it was still awkward, the second time and the third time, but after that it was easier. It wasn't even seduction. Not really. Just a good kiss that had the edge of a very dry Chilean wine he'd brought with him. Both of them standing by the windows, staring for some reason at the flat rooftops of a dozen streets of warehouses. He'd turned, caught Duncan's face with one hand and turned him, and kissed him without otherwise touching. He'd been absolutely sure, by then. He'd just needed to find the right way to ask, and in the end the answer was the simplest one. Just kiss him and strip him and let him take you to bed. Sleep beside him afterwards, close and touching but not spooned. Kiss his temple in the morning before you get up and get dressed and steal his last bagel on the way out. The sword that lands at the juncture of his neck and shoulder isn't unexpected, and he's vaguely glad to know that Duncan knows enough to only open the door once he's armed. Less vaguely, he thinks that he should have expected it and blocked the stroke. Something about pride and survival. Duncan doesn't gloat. Just reverses the sword and puts it away, pushes the door the rest of the way open and lets him in. Closes it behind him and shoots the bolt home. And watches while Methos disarms. The sword comes off with his coat, and there's one gun that he's sure Duncan knows about stashed in the lining. Another smaller one and a knife that he hasn't mentioned yet. And when he swings it towards the hook, there's a good, solid clunk that makes it perfectly obvious that it's more than one sword he's packing. "Bad week?" Duncan, who's managing to be amused by it. "Something like that. Bad year, actually. What is it about the millennium that drives all the Immortals out to play?" He paws through the folds of his now-hanging coat until he finds the right pocket. Pulls the bottle out of it. "Here." "Thanks." Duncan takes the whiskey bottle and pads off towards the kitchen, but not before Methos catches the wrinkle in his nose. Sometime later, he'll produce the good stuff -- the bottle he picked up in Scotland before he made his transatlantic jump and carefully packed separate from the armoury. But for the first hour, he'll stick to the Jim Beam, if only to remind Duncan that not everything is meant to be savoured. Pours himself onto the couch in the meantime. He's got his boots off for the first time in too many hours, and now that he's off his feet, he realizes his knees were aching. Didn't mean to walk all the way across town, not really, but he got distracted. Nobody's fault but his own that he's stiff and soggy as a result. "If I'd known you were in town, I would've cooked." Duncan half-drops the plate onto his stomach, letting the top of the sandwich slide partway off. For cold food, it's impressive, and contains at least two ingredients that only Duncan, a gay couple, or a really dedicated yuppie would have in his fridge. Sliced diagonally, very cleanly. He wonders if it's meant as some sort of obscure threat. "I'll settle for being fed." He laughs softly and bites in without sitting up. A fine skill, honed in a couple of really good years of orgies. And, oddly, he's not joking. Fed is good, especially since he seems to have lost most of the afternoon to a moderately nasty flashback. On the stairs, while he blew on his fingers, he caught himself checking the state of his wrists to see how many bones were showing. There are big feet propped on the couch at hip-level to him. Duncan passes him a rather too-nice glass with a respectable shot in it, which he decides to respect enough to at least sit up before swallowing. Carefully doesn't flinch as the JB rubs his throat raw and goes back to his sandwich as soon as he can breathe. Duncan looks at him and doesn't say anything. "How's Joe?" Because he's not ready to talk yet, and if he lets Duncan stay quiet, he's going to have to. "He's OK. He complains sometimes about having to chase me across continents. He gets around a little slower in the winter. I think he's got a new girlfriend. Woman at the bar who helps him with the books." "You're not telling me you don't know her name." "Pat." "And her age, height, and vital statistics." Teasing, waiting for Duncan to ease out of his trademarked flat-affect into a more revealing expression. "Fifty, I think. Five-seven. Hazel eyes, brown hair and none of your business, you can see her for yourself if you have the decency to drop by and say hello to Joe before you disappear again." That was definitely aimed at him, but he's not sure how venomous it was supposed to be. Duncan finishes his drunk instead of looking at him. Not the JB, though -- he's drinking something of his own that probably cost more than it should. Duncan puts the glass down and stares at it. Doesn't look at him. Methos pushes himself up on an elbow. "Look, I'm sorry if I --" Duncan snorts at that, at least, and finally looks over at him. "You forgot to say hi to him last time you were here. He found out and I heard about it for weeks. How can anyone as old as you have so few social skills?" "It's a gift." As long as he's halfway up, he may as well make himself upright. Sock-clad feet on floor, glass in one hand between his knees. He's going to kill himself for this later, because he should know by now that he has to look up at Duncan from this position, and it makes him look pathetically young. Which leads in turn to other awkwardnesses, like Duncan obliquely asking how old he was when he died the first time. "I'd return it." Beat. "Never mind. It's alright, he wasn't really mad. But he made you the topic of conversation for five nights straight." "I'm sure you were fascinated." "I wouldn't call it that. He wanted to know if we were lovers." Which is an interesting question, and not one Methos is entirely sure he's got the answer to. Especially not the MacLeod answer, which is inevitably based on not just the facts as he knows them, but also a healthy dose of Scottish Catholicism with a later dash of the Puritan thrown in for spice. "What did you tell him?" Duncan looks at him for a minute, then gets up and takes his glass and plate away. Comes back and crouches in front of Methos. "I said I didn't think it was quite that complicated, but I'd let him know." It's as good a position as any for a kiss, and he'll take the one he's offered. Even if it doesn't deepen into anything resembling foreplay and breaks off a handful of seconds later. Duncan says, "Your skin's cold." He snorts. "You might have noticed it's snowing." And it is; he can hear it. Wind's picked up, and some of the clumped-up flakes hitting the window glass are managing to do it fairly hard. "I noticed. You dripped all over my floor." A warm hand runs over his shoulder and settles at the back of his neck. "But you've had a good half-hour to warm up and you're still freezing. I'll bet you're this cold even under your clothes." Methos doesn't resist when the second hand slides up under his sweater. Only flinches a little when it pulls his undershirt out of his jeans and pushes under it too. "Uh-huh. You are. You want to tell me what's wrong?" "Not really." More sharply than he meant to. But he's already had to revisit it once today, and as long as everything's coming back to him in vivid, post-traumatic detail, he thinks he'll let sleeping dogs lie. Another long look. He should start billing Duncan for the time the man spends staring at him. "OK. But I'm going to ask you again later." "I'll consider myself forewarned." Dryly. Duncan stands, and pulls him up, and he gets to remember why he kissed Duncan the first time from this position. It's very /male/ direct. Step in just a little and you can have a hard cock as well as some whisker burn as evidence that the person you're kissing isn't quite your usual. Is someone you can fuck without the fucking around first. Warm hands at his waist. Under his sweater, under his shirt, lifting them up. There's a long moment when he thinks he's going to be strangled by them, they're in such a tangle by the time they reach his neck, but he shakes his head until they come off. For his trouble, he gets to be mostly naked in front of a man who's perfectly and over-elaborately dressed. He's going to teach Duncan someday about the dangers of pleated dress pants. "Are we going to bed, or did you want to do this for an audience?" He glances at the window. Sarcastic, if only because he's caught himself shivering again. Duncan gives him another look (have to add it to the bill) and lets him go. Walks around the loft and flips all the lights off, then pulls blinds across the mass of windows facing the street. It gives him time to get himself moved. He's naked and too pale from the waist up, but his jeans are black, and they give him the illusion that he can hide a little against the black of the bedspread. Duncan beside and a little behind him makes the bed sag. He's big, and there's enough muscle packed onto that frame to actually back up some of the /threats/ promises made by his taste for billowing clothes. He's decided not to regret showing up, though. Warm, bare arms around his chest are a good thing, good enough that in a minute they're going to make him stop shaking and hug back. Do some deep, serious kissing. Accept Duncan's hands pushing him down on the bed, and Duncan's weight settling on top of him. Comfortable enough. He, at least, is still partly dressed, though, which he suspects isn't nearly as much fun as being as naked as Duncan is. If only because he'd get more . . . anything. So. Jeans come off. Boxers come off. He manages to kick his socks off with them, if only because he's perfectly well aware of how silly a male human being looks in just his socks. Sometime in the last couple of years, Duncan's learned the distinction between giving kisses and just kissing. The former being entirely too romantic, and the latter wet and messy and utterly erotic, and a great deal more appropriate to what they're doing. There's a finger pushing into him. A little slick, but not very, and its penetration is a bright, sharp moment of pain that only dims once he relaxes and lets Duncan work it in little by little. The second finger, at least, comes properly lubed. He's not really up for full-scale rough-and-tumble tonight. He's already quite raw enough. As it happens, though, two fingers is all he gets. The next time something new touches him, it's a hand on his hip, nudging him over onto his stomach. Warm bedspread under his belly, warm body on his back. Warm knees pushing his knees apart, wider than he should really stretch, but the only other way would put him up on his knees, and he can't manage that with Duncan's full weight on top of him. Then just big and -- oh fuck -- in him. The penetration's slow, but he's tight, and Duncan's big, and the angle isn't giving him any control at all. It's just something he has to lie there and take, and maybe whimper (or howl) from time to time. Until Duncan's all the way in, and working in and out those first few necessary, almost-hurting times. Towards the end, when it's starting to definitely not hurt anymore, he gets kissed. Not on his mouth, since that's buried in the black cotton, but warm and wet at the back of his neck where his shoulders come together. And again under his right ear. Thrust, deep and slightly off to one side, and Duncan's cock rubs over his prostate in the way he's been waiting for since this started. "Yesssssss. Duncan . . ." "Shh." Another thrust. Shift. Pull out and shallowly back in. Working him open, inexorably and, ultimately, pitilessly, but Duncan's still right there, just above him, watching intently and kissing him again whenever he starts to whimper. It's a nice touch. Makes sure that he doesn't confuse this for something else, much earlier -- pre-Duncan, and for that matter pre-Christian -- which he enjoyed a great deal less. Frantic by now. The friction he's getting off the bedspread is almost enough, but not quite. Not even with Duncan right down on him, working a full-body hug into a really wonderful fucking that's managing just now to hit deep and hard where he wants it. "Duncan . . ." Thrust. "Yesssss . . ." Thrust. "God I needed this. Thank you thank you thank you . . ." Which blurs into a steady babble of gratitude while Duncan fucks him expertly, waiting until the last minute to pull them up onto their knees and give him the reacharound he's been needing for the last god knows how long. Softly, "You're welcome." And he gets a last kiss on his neck while he comes, shivering, with his back pressing against Duncan's chest. Duncan must have been holding back, because he manages to finish after that in about five more strokes, just steady ones that somehow manage not to drive him insane but just feel good. Shivering afterwards in the chill of the loft. The outdoors is getting distinctly noisy, and he's grateful that he won't have to go back out into it tonight. Very happy to just settle back, belly-down, onto the comforter, and stay there while Duncan pads away and comes back with a wet and excellently warm cloth. Wipes him down, careful of the places that make him flinch. Which Duncan will ask questions about, eventually. He'll want to know what memories, exactly, can make him flinch even in a state of full relaxation. Soft by his ear. "Methos?" "Ask me some other time. Please?" Because he can't right now. Doesn't want to. He's almost relaxed enough to sleep, and he's getting to the point where he isn't cold anymore. "Alright." "Thanks." Duncan settles naked beside him and rolls close enough that they're almost touching. "You can make it up to me sometime." He does snicker at that. Buries himself in the weight of the comforter Duncan's pulled over both of them. Or doesn't bury. Burrows. Nests. Because he can still breathe, and he isn't going to be scared anymore tonight if he can help it. Damn him for a coward. Sleeping's a problem, because if he drops off, it'll be that much harder to be up before Duncan and out of here before the other man's dressed and prepared to chase after him. But he's exhausted, and not quite sure where he's headed after this. He's
done this before,
but before he didn't show up begging and pathetic. He suspects
gone-before-morning
isn't going to cut it. Even if he had airline tickets in his pocket,
ready
to fly him out of town, he seems to have curled in on himself. Just
this
side of whimpering, if we're honest. Duncan's hands are steady, one on
his shoulder and one on his thigh, just smoothing him down.
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