Fic: A Whim (Methos/Kensei)
It's been so long since I last wrote Methos, it's like hooking up with an old friend and realising that you get on just as well, but in wholly different ways than before. General spoilers for this season of Heroes, I suppose.
A Whim
The first time they meet, neither one of them is called Adam.
Benjamin meets Kensei, and he thinks he sees a bit of his old self in the young man. (Youth is relative. Eighty odd years are old to anybody anchored in time. Benjamin is anchored, but Methos is timeless. It's a dangerous thing to be.)
Kensei meets Benjamin, and he thinks he has met an equal. (How odd that electricity should heal him, however, a hint at a difference greater than Kensei realises, at first. You can die, he later comes to see. Die in a lightning storm, when Kensei is condemned to live forever. He doesn't realise that it is a sentence yet; he thinks it is a chance.)
"How old are you?" Kensei asks with the eager curiosity of the young, a greedy green flame in his blue eyes.
"Old enough to know that the answer doesn't matter," Benjamin answers on a whim, studying his drinking companion less calmly than he seems.
Whims are dangerous things, too. (It is the lesson he learns most in his millennia of existence. He learns it as Death, first, when he lets a slave go. Soon he will learn it again as John, when he falls for a mad poet whose soul blazes brighter than any other, too soon consumed and gone, leaving a shell hungry for something to fill it.)
It is a whim that presses him to taste the bow in Kensei's upper lip, later that night, in a room half lit by a flickering candle, dancing shadows on the walls.
"Why, why," Kensei slurs, for he has not yet learned moderation, "Englishmen hardly ever disappoint."
They kiss again, and Benjamin turns his head slightly, smiles against Kensei's scruffy cheek. "Who told you I was English?"
It was such a time that many clothes had to be taken off, like so many layers that never did lead to the core of an identity. (Even Kensei knows this. Identities are never single, but multiple. Identities are layers, not cores. It is something he will risk to unlearn.)
"How old are you, truly?" Kensei asks the next morning, looking like sin itself naked in Benjamin's bed, rumpled sheet pooling around his hips, daylight striking colder colours on his body than last night's candle. His eyes look like they might be hard, one day, chips of marble that only ever reflect what people need to see.
"Not old enough that this has become boring," Benjamin answers, pulling the bedsheet off.
He bends down to kiss the tempting lips, but Kensei stops him with a finger to his mouth and an alarmed look. "Do you think it ever does?"
Benjamin has to laugh, and nip at that finger. "I hope not."
The first time they meet, everything is still easy. Kensei is young.
The last time they meet, they would need more than a name to find common ground. One Adam feels sorry for the other.
The other doesn't realise how much sympathy he deserves.
It is another whim gone wrong, and it is a last time. One Adam has known enough of those to know.
The other finally realises that death would be a gift.
A short while later, it is.
A Whim
The first time they meet, neither one of them is called Adam.
Benjamin meets Kensei, and he thinks he sees a bit of his old self in the young man. (Youth is relative. Eighty odd years are old to anybody anchored in time. Benjamin is anchored, but Methos is timeless. It's a dangerous thing to be.)
Kensei meets Benjamin, and he thinks he has met an equal. (How odd that electricity should heal him, however, a hint at a difference greater than Kensei realises, at first. You can die, he later comes to see. Die in a lightning storm, when Kensei is condemned to live forever. He doesn't realise that it is a sentence yet; he thinks it is a chance.)
"How old are you?" Kensei asks with the eager curiosity of the young, a greedy green flame in his blue eyes.
"Old enough to know that the answer doesn't matter," Benjamin answers on a whim, studying his drinking companion less calmly than he seems.
Whims are dangerous things, too. (It is the lesson he learns most in his millennia of existence. He learns it as Death, first, when he lets a slave go. Soon he will learn it again as John, when he falls for a mad poet whose soul blazes brighter than any other, too soon consumed and gone, leaving a shell hungry for something to fill it.)
It is a whim that presses him to taste the bow in Kensei's upper lip, later that night, in a room half lit by a flickering candle, dancing shadows on the walls.
"Why, why," Kensei slurs, for he has not yet learned moderation, "Englishmen hardly ever disappoint."
They kiss again, and Benjamin turns his head slightly, smiles against Kensei's scruffy cheek. "Who told you I was English?"
It was such a time that many clothes had to be taken off, like so many layers that never did lead to the core of an identity. (Even Kensei knows this. Identities are never single, but multiple. Identities are layers, not cores. It is something he will risk to unlearn.)
"How old are you, truly?" Kensei asks the next morning, looking like sin itself naked in Benjamin's bed, rumpled sheet pooling around his hips, daylight striking colder colours on his body than last night's candle. His eyes look like they might be hard, one day, chips of marble that only ever reflect what people need to see.
"Not old enough that this has become boring," Benjamin answers, pulling the bedsheet off.
He bends down to kiss the tempting lips, but Kensei stops him with a finger to his mouth and an alarmed look. "Do you think it ever does?"
Benjamin has to laugh, and nip at that finger. "I hope not."
The first time they meet, everything is still easy. Kensei is young.
The last time they meet, they would need more than a name to find common ground. One Adam feels sorry for the other.
The other doesn't realise how much sympathy he deserves.
It is another whim gone wrong, and it is a last time. One Adam has known enough of those to know.
The other finally realises that death would be a gift.
A short while later, it is.