There is Nothing Without Time 2/3
Title: There is Nothing Without Time
Author(s): filenotch
Artist: amyeyl
Crossover: Highlander
Word Count: ~25,000
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Duncan MacLeod, Ahriman, Bobby Singer, Castiel; Methos/Duncan
Warnings: It's Supernatural. It's Highlander. People die, and it isn't always pretty.
Spoilers: Sits within Highlander canon, SPN up through the beginning of Season 4.
Summary: It split open at the blade, opening like the iris of a cat, the edges of the figure blurring into the swirl at the outside, a vortex that Methos fell into with the force of his sword thrust, a ring of laughter in his ears. "I banish you!" Methos finds himself in a world where Immortals never existed, one where all the myths in all the books he's ever read are real. The demon Ahriman has followed him, and Castiel, the living embodiment of all those myths, wants it sent back, and Methos with it.
But how do you vanquish an enemy in a dimension where neither of you exists? The answer lies somewhere beneath the weight of knowledge Methos carries with him, somewhere in the memories of every Immortal that ever lived, but it will take Castiel to find the one that holds the key: the memories of Duncan MacLeod. Castiel will force Methos to face down that death--and in return, Methos will show Castiel that there is something very different between knowing and understanding."
Author’s Notes: This is Castiel in the beginning, and Methos plants at least one of the seeds for Team Free Will. Many, many thanks to tesserae_ for the ass-kicking beta.
Link to Art Master Post: Amyeyl's great pencils
"Candygram," he said, one foot on the landing.
"You're not dead."
"As always, your powers of observation astound me, MacLeod."
The sarcasm hit as intended, and Duncan's face dropped into a scowl. "Three letter word for donkey. Starts with 'A'."
"Not the first time I've heard that. Can I come in?"
"I -- Yes, of course." Duncan stepped in and to the side, and Methos watched him slip the katana into a scabbard in the umbrella stand. Chinese. Blue willow. Early 1800s. "Can I take your coat?"
Duncan fell back into courtesy as a shield, but Methos had no intention of letting him put up that wall. They had loved each other too long for that. He put a hand up to Duncan's chin, then slid back to grip the short hair. "Don't bother. Six months. Feels like decades." He dropped his backpack off the other shoulder and closed the distance, bringing his lips within an inch of Duncan's, breathing in the tea, the tang of anxiety, the trace of expensive cologne. The air nearly shattered between them, the brief touch further strengthening the bond of the shared Quickening that linked them more deeply than emotion alone. But the thin threads of emotion ran through it, inextricable.
Duncan's voice rasped with questions. "I always worry that you're dead. You could have emailed. Text message?"
"Don't you think you'd feel it if I were gone?"
"I wonder," Duncan whispered.
Methos could feel the pulse rising under his fingers, and then Duncan's hands sliding up his back, pulling him closer, through that last inch. They collided in teeth and tongues, and Methos let himself fall in, fall under the desire and the fierce joy that was not wholly his own. Their connection made it difficult to tell, most of the time, but Methos opened himself on purpose, taking in everything that the Highlander gave, giving back.
He tasted metal in his mouth, the slick-sweet of blood from Duncan's teeth on his lip, and all Methos could feel was Duncan's want. Something dark skated under Methos's skin, some new need, but he pushed it aside.
They made it to a bedroom, shedding clothes on the stairs and in the hall. Duncan toed out of his loafers somewhere along the way, but Methos had to stop and untie his boots, pulling them off and setting them aside so that he would know where to find them again. That was the only interruption, the only moment of clear-headedness before they slid together, skin on skin, kissing to bruise and biting, futile as it might be, to mark. They had never been this savage before, not even the few times Duncan used sex to express his anger.
Methos slid down, finding Duncan so hard his cock was tight against his belly, and he wrapped his mouth around it, sinking down beyond the gag in one move, craving the scent and sweat that is only found between a man's legs. But not any man. This one. It wasn't enough, and he backed off, taking Duncan's length in his hand and nosing directly between his balls and his thighs, mouth open and breathing in, tasting, running his tongue across the sac, trying to imprint himself with his smell.
"Slow down," Duncan moaned, his fingers in Methos's hair, not trying very hard to move him away.
Methos backed off only to shift and sink his teeth-just enough for pleasure-around Duncan's nipple, sucking in the point and worrying the nib with his tongue until Ducan's moans became wordless, and Methos felt a feral joy at giving him pleasure. He wanted to bite harder, but he pulled himself back. "No," he said, and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again. He wanted no finesse, just raw lust and Duncan straining under him, wanted to feel him thrust up and lose control it until he bucked, and Methos could feel each pulsation as his mouth filled with desert musk, bitter and sweet at once. It was almost enough.
Methos shifted again as Duncan lay panting, in control of himself once more now that Duncan's need wasn't echoing through him. He didn't know what he wanted, where to land, but a strong arm snaked out and caught him, bringing him in close for slow kisses. Long minutes of gentle lips and tongue were sweet, and he tried to memorize every motion of Duncan's mouth. Eventually need rose, and Methos couldn't help rubbing himself against Duncan's thigh, grazing his teeth on Duncan's lower lip. "Let me," Duncan said, and started to sit up, but Methos pushed him back.
"No. Fuck me." As sweet as it would be to take Duncan, he needed this more.
"I'm not ready."
"I can get you there," Methos said. He slid down and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again, sliding his tongue around the softened shaft and the sucking it in with his nose was buried in Duncan's balls, inhaling the fresh sweat. Part of his brain thought about pheremones and chemical imprinting, rationalizing. As Duncan hardened, he had to pull back a bit. He used all the arts he had ever learned to please a man, savoring the taste and the slide on his tongue. He felt Duncan's hand on his own prick, bringing it to aching hardness, matching the art of Methos's mouth with the art of his fingers. They were familiar with each other, and knew what would give the most pleasure
And when Duncan's hand began to lose its studied skill, when he was ready, and more than ready, Methos lay back, head toward the foot of the bed, and tugged on one of Duncan's hands. "Now." He needed more than sex, but sex would do, and would take the edge off, but couldn't substitute for the deeper need he felt rising, the need that drove him away again, eventually, every time he came back. He splayed his limbs out, displaying and inviting as he had once been trained to do, and he could feel the effect on Duncan, who should have been slaked and slow, but who reared up at the sight of Methos in a wave of lust and wonder that Methos could see in his face.
Duncan seemed to catch himself. "You. We need-"
"We don't," Methos cut in. "I'm ready." And he was, but Duncan used a questing finger to be sure. Methos had walked in the door prepared. "Do not make me wait another six months. Now."
Methos felt the strong hands move his legs, and he watched as Duncan positioned himself, sliding in with enough force and care to make it good. Duncan's body was as hard and lean as it had ever been, and his hands on Methos's legs were firmly calloused, and Methos should not have noticed these things, but Duncan wasn't moving. He was looking down.
"I can feel it coming."
Methos knew what he meant. It sang under his skin, but he pretended otherwise. "I can't, but if you'd just bloody well move, I might feel something coming."
"The Prize…"
"There is no Prize."
Duncan reached down. "Yes there is. You're here." It was exactly the kind of romantic thing Duncan would say.
But the look in Duncan's eyes wasn't tender. It was wild, barely restrained energy, and Methos knew why even if he didn't want to admit it. "I am here, and if you would please just move." I walked through the streets prepared like a whore for you. Fuck me already. Methos canted his hips as best he could, and Duncan gave in, a smile that matched his first slow thrusting, but his face and his hips shortly giving way to an urgency he shouldn't be feeling so soon after… after…
Methos matched every movement he could, but Duncan had his legs up and his arms braced, trapping him. He gave up and gave over, letting his body feel everything radiating out from where they joined-the fullness of Duncan inside him, the warmth where skin met, the give of the mattress against his back-until it suddenly collapsed back into one point of explosion that ran down his legs and through his belly as the tension rose up to the ultimate release, the pulse of life, the little death. Duncan slowed and leaned down, resting his forehead on Methos'. Methos breathed in, took Duncan's ragged breath into his own body, smelling the afternoon tea now mixed with the aftertaste of come in his own mouth, smelled his own come now slicking between them, the scent of clean sweat and body musk. He could feel the tension under his palms as he slid them down Duncan's arms. "Go," Methos said. "Take it."
Duncan's response was a sound of need and confusion, rearing up on his hands and letting go in a pure rut that he had never seen from Duncan in the hundreds of nights they had spent together. Methos rode it, looked at the rigid muscles and the near-rictus of Duncan's face as he slammed into him, all violence and power, freezing as he came again. His unguarded face held uncertain sorrow and pain.
Long moments later, Duncan said, "That-"
"Shhh,"
Duncan pulled himself together and slid back, then fell beside Methos. "Did I hurt you?"
"No way I didn't like," Methos said, sliding out of bed to avoid more trite words. "Bathroom." He waited until he saw Duncan nod, and made his way to a door where he could see a mirror beyond. The bathroom was large, one of Duncan's towels on a hook, and a pile of fresh ones on a shelf. It was almost as impersonal as a hotel. Methos turned on the water in the shower, stepped in as soon as it was warm, and cleaned himself quickly, using Duncan's towel to dry himself.
Walking back into the room he looked up and saw his old Ivanhoe over the bed. "You kept it." Duncan's own Katana was in the umbrella stand, but Methos's sword had the place of honor. It warmed him.
"You left it with me. It's part of why I thought you weren't coming back." The words thrummed through him. Methos did not drop his gaze from the sword, but stepped across the room until he had his hand on the hilt. "It's yours," Duncan said. "Take it."
Methos fought the sudden urge to pull it off the wall, take the hilt in two hands, and take Duncan's head. He took a breath and let himself think it, to let himself put into words what was in him, not just under his skin, but starting to radiate from his bones: The Gathering was going to start soon. He slid his hand off the sword, fingers trailing over the hilt, and looked down.
Duncan looked back at him sated, parted lips just slightly tilted into a knowing smile. Methos could not look away. Under the Gathering need that skated under Methos's skin, buried deeply at the center of his chest, at his very core, he loved Duncan MacLeod. This man--of all the many hundreds of people he had bedded, the dozens he had married--this was the one that lived at the heart of him.
"Are you all right?" Duncan's face had turned questioning, and Methos blinked, wondering what expression he had worn. He didn't want Duncan to see what he was feeling, never wanted to show him just how deep it went. He slipped back into the bed and lay on his stomach, propped on his elbows. Duncan rolled toward him and reached to run a finger down Methos's long nose. "I'm glad you're here."
"Glad to be here." And he was. He wanted nothing else.
"How long this time?"
"Maybe a week," he lied. "Adam Pierson has a research position at a small university with delusions of global worthiness," he lied. "I'm off to dig up some of my old pottery." Duncan snorted, and Methos dropped into the banter Duncan expected. "Well, who better than me will know where to look?" Methos dropped his head, hiding his face. He wasn't sure he could stay even a week. In the middle of fucking, Duncan had said he could feel something coming. The Gathering was starting, and being together would make the urge to fight into a command. No, they wouldn't last a week.
But Methos wanted those seven days, and more, and he cursed Immortality and the Game.
He felt Duncan's fingers on the back of his hand, and then realized that he was standing, clothed, feeling the weight of sword and weapons in his coat.
The lingering sense of love and slaked passion over tension of loss anticipated, realized, suddenly morphed into a taut wire of anger. He looked into Castiel's face as he jerked his hand away. "How dare you?" he said, hearing his voice go low, dangerous, uncontrolled. Methos balled his hands into fists, and looked up. Castiel's expression was raw, reflecting every bit of the pain Methos felt at the memory of Duncan. "How dare you?" Methos said again. "You are no better than Ahriman."
"That was no illusion. That was a true memory." Castiel's voice almost broke, but he didn't look away like a normal man would, didn't hide the naked combination of wonder and pity. Methos felt no pity, and would not look away. If his gaze wounded, he would let it wound. Castiel finally blinked. "I know. I always know, but I have never felt."
Methos let his lips curl in a feral smile. "Yes, well for compassion there has to be some sense of empathy." His words would be his weapons. "If you keep chaos at bay by killing, by destroying the lives of those who loved the vessels you kill? These vessels, as you call them, are people. They are like mayflies to me, their lives so short and inconsequential, and they must be like, what, microbes to you? But to themselves? They are all they have, all they know." Methos took a breath, and his memories presented him with everything he needed. "Even the least of these, isn't that what it says? Whatever you have done to even the least of these-"
"Enough!" Castiel's true voice broke through, pounding in Methos's ears, shaking his bones apart, his organs bursting in a fire of pain, and the last thing he heard before he died was the breaking glass in the surrounding cars.
He revived on a couch in Bobby's house. He looked around. Castiel sat stiffly in a chair, his hands on his thighs, watching, but he did not move when Methos sat up. Bobby was slumped over his desk. "You have to stop doing that to him," Methos said.
Castiel ignored it. "Your presence here upsets the order of things."
Upsets you, Methos thought, but he said, "Then how do we get me back?"
"You must take Ahriman with you."
"How do you propose to find him?"
"Oh," said a voice Methos recognized from the diner. "He'll find you."
Castiel rose, looking past Methos to a hallway beyond. "Come not in that form," he began, the words carrying a weight of ritual.
"I like this form. It's young and kind of hot."
Dean, Methos remembered. He said, "So, where have you been, young man? Your mother and I have been worried sick."
The lean face smiled. "Well, Dad, if you must know, I've been wandering around looking to see what this place is like. You know what the beautiful thing is? I'm not like anything here. Even the demons don't know what to do with me, and that's just like the all-night diner of unending pie."
Methos kept his voice light. He needed to play for information. "I don't recall that you ate."
"You don't have a clue about what feeds me," the shape of Dean said. Methos realized that Ahriman spoke more like a young man of this age, not the way he had in Kronos's or Duncan's form.
Duncan. There was a memory there, but Methos couldn't quite grasp it. What did Ahriman need to survive?
Castiel rose from his seat. "Let me send you back where you belong."
"I don't think so." And with that he was gone.
Methos rose from the couch, murmuring in an ancient language, "Nothing can also be done by him without Time." The phrase rose up from somewhere in the library of lives and memories. It was a quote from a Zoroastrian text, but it seemed like it should mean something. His glance fell on Bobby, still asleep at his desk, and it reminded him of why he had been dead. He turned to Castiel, who seemed frozen on the spot, his trench coat rumpled. Methos's anger had faded a bit. He circled to look at Castiel's face, and found him with his eyes closed. "You in there?"
The angel's eyes snapped open, and the searching, blue gaze held the slightest hint of apprehension. "I must ponder many things."
Methos reached out quickly to grab a handful of sleeve. "Don't go." He didn't know why he said it. "We have to work together."
Castiel looked down to where Methos gripped his coat. He closed his eyes again. "Let go." Methos didn't move. "Please," Castiel said, the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. "Please let go."
Methos loosened his fingers, but did not drop his hand. Castiel reached up suddenly, leaning forward, as if to place his hand on Methos's face, and Methos knocked the hand out of the way, reflexes as fast as if it were an attack. Where their skin brushed for a moment, Methos felt that now-familiar stretch into vastness, but this time it had something else. Castiel had seemed cold before, like the stone or metal of the metaphorical buildings that Methos had been using to make sense of the sensation of size, but this time it was colored with something new. Confusion. Want. Repudiation.
"Fuck," he heard Bobby groan. "Not that again." Methos glanced over. Bobby raised his head, blinking, and Methos remembered Bobby's wife, demon possessed. Given what Castiel had just shown him, his respect for Bobby grew.
There was a beating sound against the air, and when Methos pulled his eyes away from Bobby’s face, Castiel was gone.
***
Methos rinsed the taste of ash from his mouth and spat. "Well," he said, "That was interesting."
"Least you're not freaked out by a salt and burn," Bobby said.
"No, once I decided that I was in Wonderland it got easier. It's like Ghostbusters, only it makes more sense without the pseudoscience." Methos shrugged. "I'd read a lot of the texts already. Now I just have to act like it's real. Bit of a new game, really." It hadn't been that hard at all.
The growl in Bobby's voice surprised him. "This stuff can kill you. Hunters die. If you hadn't had my back just a few minutes ago…"
Methos sobered. "I know."
"No, you don't, Mr. I'm Immortal." Bobby snorted. "Sorry. Always have a bit of a, y'know, buzz or something after one of these."
Methos gathered himself. He undersood the buzz, because he felt it. It was like the old days when he didn't mind being part of the Game, when he hunted. It wasn't quite like being Death, but it fed some of the same hungers. Hunting gave him a reason to be alive. He also had an idea of what Bobby Singer had lost. He stepped up next to Bobby, not looking at him, but watching the flames with him. "Ahriman. Remember him?"
"That demon that brought you here. The one that shouldn't exist here."
"The same. The way he can take any form, you know, the illusions? He can, well, not kill, but make sure people die. Even Immortals."
"What happened?" Bobby asked, blunt and tired.
"My friend. The one that I killed," Methos began. He wasn't sure how to convey what had happened. "Ahriman tricked him into killing his own student."
"Another Immortal," Bobby said. It wasn't a question. "So you can be killed." Methos nodded, knowing that Bobby was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Wanna tell me how?"
"Not particularly."
"Can't help keep it from happening to you if you don't let me know what it is. Fire?" Methos shook his head. "Stake through the heart?"
Methos huffed a laugh. "Survived several of those."
"Beheading." Bobby didn't ask, but Methos nodded. "Figures. I'll try and keep you away from guillotines and people with axes."
"Swords, mostly. That's how we fought, how we Challenged each other. We knew that at the end there could be only one." Methos hated the way the words sounded in his mouth.
"But if you were all supposed to kill each other anyway, what's the big deal about killing a student? You trained each other to kill each other?" Bobby pulled out a flask. "That's fucked up."
Methos shook his head. There was too much to explain. "It was something we could choose to do until the Gathering, that final drive. We trained students to help keep them alive, to give them a fighting chance. I may have killed my friend, but I didn't exactly want to."
"Was he your student?"
My greatest love. Methos thought, expecting to have to push down pain, but he felt nothing but a vague amusement remembering how many times he manipulated Duncan into learning some new lesson. He let himself smile. "I stopped taking students centuries ago."
Bobby snorted. "How old was he?"
"About four hundred years. A puppy, really."
Bobby snorted again. "He was your student, just like the Winchester boys are mine, even though they don't know it." Out of the corner of his eye, Methos saw Bobby shake his head. "I don't like the idea of Ahriman out there. They have enough to deal with without something like that."
"You called them."
"I warned them."
"Good thing. Ahriman damaged my friend that day, making him kill his own student. Making him take his Quickening."
"What's that?"
"The power of each Immortal. When another Immortal takes their head, they also take their power."
It took Bobby only a moment to put it together. "So you're the last. You have all the power combined." Methos nodded and reached for the flask, taking a long swallow as Bobby talked. "So why the hell're we wasting time on salt and burn jobs? I was going easy on you to get you into the hunting life. There's demons! There's Lilith! If you've got all that power, we could take on some of the big guns."
He handed the flask to Bobby. "I have no idea if it means anything here."
"From what you say, Ahriman's got all his same mojo. Cripes, but I hate the idea of that thing being in my house, looking like Dean." He took a drink. "Any bright ideas on how to get it out of here?"
Methos waited for Bobby to take another drink, and reached for the flask. "That moment of power, the only time there was real… something I felt I could use, I tried to use it on Ahriman. That's what brought me here. If I try that again, I'll probably just end up somewhere different."
Bobby looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Power. Like some kind of mojo?"
"Never felt it before, and never since." Methos took a long swallow. "All I have is memories."
"Memories?"
"All of them. Like I told you. It's how I knew your name. I can remember everything every Immortal has done or seen."
A new voice joined them. "And you can't remember what to do with me, can you?"
Methos looked up. Duncan MacLeod's face looked back from across the flames. The figure began to walk toward them, circling the fire. It seemed to reflect in his eyes, giving them a brief, red flare.
"Who the hell're you?" Bobby asked.
"It's Ahriman. Trust nothing you see." Methos capped the flask, put it away, and drew his sword.
"So this is what you've come to, Methos? Putting wee ghosties to bed?"
Methos sank to guard, and murmured, "Stand back, Bobby." Louder he said, "Passes the time. What have you been up to?"
Duncan's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know." And then he was gone.
Methos looked around, started to sheath his sword, and then saw the look on Bobby's face, a terrible mix of joy and anguish. Methos had no idea what Bobby was seeing at first, and then there was a slim brown-haired woman in jeans and a pretty shirt standing close to him. Jim Wilson's memories supplied the name: Karen, Bobby's dead wife. She was smiling, limned by the fire that was still burning behind her, and it couldn't have been the fire that gave her eyes the flash of red.
"No," Bobby said.
"She's not real," Methos said.
Her voice was no-nonsense, just like the practical, funny woman Jim Wilson remembered. "Are you sure, Bobby? What do you really know about this guy?"
Methos saw bright reflections in the creases of Bobby's eyes. "Don't make me do this again."
The figure changed to a pink nightgown, the blood from what looked like bullet holes streaming down her chest, and the voice turned cruel. "Don't want to kill me again? That would be fine with me. How about another roll in the hay for old times’ sake?" And she stood nude, flawless, arms outstretched, more beautiful that any of Jim Wilson's memories.
Bobby took a half-step forward, and then closed his eyes and turned his back on the apparition. That wasn't enough. It disappeared, from what Methos could tell, but Bobby began to turn and turn again, as if he were trying to keep his back to something, his eyes firmly closed. Methos watched as the apparent torments increased, and Bobby started shouting, "No! You are not Karen!"
"Bobby!" Methos stepped forward, and then paused as Bobby began to fight the air, first with his fists, and then with the small silver knife. "Bobby!"
He seemed to get through that time, because Bobby froze for a moment. Methos stepped toward him. "Is it gone?" Bobby turned toward Methos, and his eyes widened. He gave a wordless howl and jumped at him, fighting wildly, the silver knife slipping between Methos's ribs.
He'd been stabbed enough times that he knew it had missed the heart. He would likely live, but the sudden weight in his chest told him his lung was beginning to fill with blood. He tried to stay on his feet, managed to block the next thrust of the knife, but Bobby Singer was mad.
Methos shouted his name, but Bobby's eyes were wide, focused somewhere else. He shouted, "NO! That isn't true!" as he slashed again with the knife, but Methos didn't know what he was talking about. Bobby was looking at something Methos couldn't see, something that painted lines of anguish around his mouth. If the glimpse of the woman was any indication, Ahriman was torturing Bobby using the form of Bobby's dead wife.
The first stab woulnd was starting to heal when when Bobby sliced the knife down his left arm. There was nothing for it. With the pommel of his Ivahoe, he struck Bobby on the side of the head, knocking him out. He stepped away from where Bobby lay, far enough that he hoped he wouldn't accidentally hurt him, and closed his own eyes, determined not to see what Ahriman brought next.
"Why did you have to spoil my fun," said the voice of Kronos. "I should have come after you in this form," said the voice of Duncan, low and behind Methos's ear. "You wanted to fuck me as much as kill me, but we know which impulse drives you most, don't we, Methos?"
"The impulse to survive."
"Oh, that you have. Survive at all costs, no matter who you hurt?" The voice changed mid-sentence, female and melodious. Cassandra.
"You'll have to do better than her," Methos said. "She didn't matter to me."
"But I thought I did," the voice said. "There's a word for what you did to me. Stockholm syndrome."
"That's two words." Methos needed to learn more about Ahriman. He'd only heard about him from Duncan, really. What had Duncan done to defeat him? The damn Highlander had never said, just spoke in uncharacteristic cryptic words. What the hell did I embraced him mean? If Methos embraced Ahriman, he'd be Death again, and God could help them all. If there were angels, there must be a God here.
The voice shifted back to Duncan's, "You've killed everything you ever loved. Everything you professed to love." And then there were voices circling him. Methos couldn’t tell how many, but they spoke in languages that curled together, each accusation of his falsehood, his betrayal, his murderous deed in a cacophony of hatred, so much hatred targeted at him. He dropped his sword to his side, and tilted his head back, enduring. If this was what Ahriman had done to Duncan, he wouldn't have been able to endure. He would feel every word at his core; it was no wonder he'd swung at Richie. He probably thought he was one of Ahriman's illusions.
That clear thought became his anchor, and he tuned out the noises. He was no guilt-ridden child like Duncan MacLeod to be led to insanity by his past. Ahriman would have to do better than this childish prattle. It was boring. "Oh, shut up," Methos said.
The voices went silent, and Methos opened his eyes. He saw Bobby Singer struggling to get to his feet. The fire was burning down, but there was enough light that Methos could see a bruise starting to rise. "Sorry about that," he said, offering his hand.
Bobby looked at the hand, and to Methos's face. "You're real?"
"I'm real, and whatever you saw, that was from Ahriman."
"Son of a bitch." He let Methos pull him to his feet.
"I’m sorry he used Karen on you." He took the flask from his coat pocket.
"That wasn't all he used." Bobby reached for the flask, and after a long pull he said, "I hate that demon."
"Let's go, shall we?" Methos said, but he was thinking. He didn't hate Ahriman. He wasn't sure he hated anything.
***
Methos scraped a match, waited for it to catch fully, and tossed it on the still-moving body in front of him. Green twigs of fingers snatched at the spark, but they were soaked in gasoline, and the fumes rising from the wendigo's hand caught fire before it caught the match.
"You're wasting time."
The voice was both flat and strangely compelling. Methos didn't didn't turn around. He'd missed the sound of wings in the noise of the catching flames. "We've got to stop meeting like this. People will talk."
"You're wasting time," Castiel said again, a hint of frustration rippling through it.
Methos wondered when Bobby would get back from replacing the gas cans in the truck. "I'm fighting in your war." He tucked his hands in his pockets and watched the elongated body writhe with the last of its strength.
"We are not fighting monsters under the bed. Lucifer must not be freed from his cage. Ahriman is a distraction we do not need." Methos felt Castiel step close, felt the handle of one of his hidden knives pressing in as his coat was compressed, felt the breath and smelled the ice and earth that his brain now associated with angel. The whisper in his ear was like a lover's, despite the words. "Three of my brothers are dead, and they slew each other. They did not fall in the war. Ahriman must have deceived them into fighting each other. This cannot go on."
Methos stepped away. Castiel did not follow, but he kept talking. "Duncan MacLeod defeated it. Duncan's memories are within you.”
"I don't know what he did."
Again, the only sign was a tremor in Castiel's voice, but Methos felt the frustration, the anger, the accusation run through him almost as deeply as if it were said with the true angelic voice: "You haven't looked."
And it was true. Duncan's memories were the ones Methos did not want to see. He still could feel Duncan's sense of betrayal from the one brief glimpse taken weeks ago, right after he'd fallen through Ahriman and landed in Wonderland. But if he wanted to find anything else, he was going to have to face it down. Castiel said, "There is no forgiveness without confession."
"I have never asked for forgiveness from MacLeod."
"I did not say it was MacLeod that needed to forgive you. And he cannot. He's dead." The last words echoed in Methos's head, cracking through the shell--yet another layer of shell--that he'd wrapped around himself. He had howled his grief when he woke up in the warehouse in this misbegotten wrong world. He had felt almost nothing since, and certainly not since Castiel had forced him to re-live the last time he and Duncan had made love.
Even now that memory had no force, nothing but an empty ache. The wendigo body burned to a charred shape, the flames flickering down as the fuel was used up. Methos turned to look at Castiel. "So?"
"Find out what he did, or let me look for you." Castiel had the slightest hesitancy in his voice on that last bit, although his face was as impassively intent as ever. Methos looked at him for a long moment, and Castiel said, "Are you afraid? I would not have thought you a coward."
"I'm all kinds of coward," Methos said, "but if I can go where there be dragons with an angel on my shoulder, what could I fear?" He wanted to laugh, but he didn't think that Castiel would understand the irony, and they stood with their gazes locked on each other, the flickering of the fire in Castiel's eyes reminding Methos of both the angel's true form and Ahriman's illusions.
The moment was broken by the sound of a shotgun being cocked. "Just what the hell is going on here?"
"It's okay, Bobby." Methos turned to look at him. "I think I have my ride." He glanced back at Castiel, who nodded gravely. He walked over and stuck out a hand. "If I don't come back, you take care of yourself."
Bobby looked at Methos's outstretched hand, grabbed it, and used it to pull Methos in for a rough hug, hampered by the gun in his left hand. "You get that fuckin' thing, you hear me?"
"I'll do what I can." Methos stepped back. "Will you be all right?"
Bobby shrugged. "Not like I ain't had nothing like that happen before. If you come back, well, it ain't like you won't be welcome."
"I can't keep track of the double negatives."
Bobby grunted a laugh. "I'll be fine. Come back if you can."
"I will." Methos wished he had something to give him. He wasn't generally the sentimental sort, but they'd had a few good weeks of hunting. In his coat he had spare knives, so he reached in and drew out a hunting knife, the tip slightly curved to a point. It was good for skinning, and sturdy enough for utility work. "Maybe this will be useful."
"Can't give a knife. Cuts the friendship," Bobby said, digging his free hand into his pocket. "Here, I'll buy it from you," and he handed Methos a penny.
Methos looked at it. The design was subtly different from current version of the US penny in his own world, he thought. Wasn't Lincoln supposed to be in profile? He hoped to have the chance to compare it soon. "Done," he said, "and a bargain at the price."
They nodded to each other, and Methos walked back to Castiel. "Let's go." Castiel lifted his fingers and they appeared in the warehouse where Methos had first come awake in this world. He looked around at the sigils, and the circle on the floor where they stood. "Now what?"
"Now we look into your memories, and we find Duncan MacLeod, and we learn how he did it." Castiel leaned in and touched his forehead to Methos's, and Methos fell.
***
The sense of a Quickening woke him, first as a threat, and then as a comfort. There was only one person he could recognize through the Quickening alone. He relaxed, listening to the quiet sound of someone taking the stairs by twos. As the door swung slowly open, he sat up. "I knew you were alive." He drank in the sight of Methos in dark leather, a katana in his hand. Duncan didn't glance up at the Ivanhoe over the bed, Methos's own sword, but looked at the ancient blade, thinking the old man was sentimental sometimes. The katana was Duncan's weapon, and he couldn’t help but think that Methos had chosen it at least in part for that reason.
He started to tell him to put the blade away when Methos brought it up to rest at his neck. He swallowed back his words, and felt the blade nick with the slight movement. It was the kind of thing Methos would do, had done, to prove a point. Duncan wanted to believe that was the goal now, but the resurgence of his own hunger, the dark need that had driven him to the Gathering, made the hope a faint one. "Not funny," he said.
"Not joking," Methos said. Duncan felt the blade shift, putting the point against his neck and killing the hope that he would live through this. The point pushed into the flesh, and he heard Methos say, his voice cracking slightly. "There can be only one."
He had hoped for better from him. He wished he had loved him without reservation, but the truth was, he had loved him despite his reservations. The story of the snake came unbidden, and a serpent's voice said, You knew what I was when you took me in. Still, he had to try, one last time, and he fought to keep the bitter disappointment from his voice. "This should be a fight, not an execution."
"I can't risk losing,"
The words lanced into Duncan's heart as the sword went in through his neck, and in the last flickering of consciousness he saw Methos, impassive, reaching for the Ivanhoe, and he felt hatred--for Methos at the betrayal, and for himself for trusting that the snake wouldn't bite.
***
Methos pulled away, stumbling to the far wall. "No!" But Castiel was right behind him, not letting him absorb the memory, hand on his arm, forcing him around, pushing their heads together again.
This time he didn't fall. This time he could page through, and he could feel that Castiel was with him, sifting, turning pages--whatever metaphor worked at any instant in the process of trying to find what Duncan had learned in his scant 400 years that made him able to defeat Ahriman.
He could see memories he wanted to follow. He wished he could see what it was like for Duncan on the day they met. There were other memories he had to skirt. The death of Tessa Noel was limned in pain. The day he killed Richie was wrapped in black silence.
Wait, he thought/said to Castiel. He let himself briefly imagine a little cartoon angel in a tan trench coat sitting on his shoulder, so the answer came to his right ear.
What?
We're doing this wrong. We have to go first to the place where Ahriman defeated Duncan.
But that is not what we want to learn. Methos could sense the impatience.
But that is important to understanding how he learned. Methos moved to the memory of the abandoned race track, of the day Duncan had taken his own student’s head. They stood back, observers behind Duncan's eyes, mere witnesses to his confusion and pain as he saw Richie, Horton, and Kronos, heard the words that sliced through him, watched him swing his sword at phantoms. It was no wonder that when the real Richie came forward that Duncan mistook him for Ahriman, and swung, realizing in the instant before his blade cut flesh that this was his student and his friend and that he could not stop the razor-sharp edge on its path of destruction.
Castiel watched with him, watched through Duncan's eyes as Methos and their friend Joe Dawson arrived too late, felt Duncan's pain as he dropped his sword, and knew from Duncan's memories that he meant never to return.
So that's how it looked to him, Methos said.
He felt Castiel's grumble. What happened next?
Let's ask him.
And they paged through the memories, the long boring days of introspection. Methos almost missed it, but there it was, the thing that Duncan had realized: Killing Richie Ryan, his own student, was not the worst thing he had ever done. In believing the righteousness of his causes, he had killed and maimed. Looking at his actions from the other side, from the view of those who thought their purposes as meet and right, he would be seen as a monster. The revelation wasn't sudden, which was why Methos had almost missed it. It was subtle and it grew, and Duncan came to understand that there was right, and there was wrong, and there was perspective.
Following the line of Duncan's memories, Methos gave in to his desire to know, to understand what it was Duncan had thought of him, and he fell into a moment. It was a strange double memory, because he could remember his own feelings while seeing it from Duncan's memories. He expected the door to be slammed in his face, and he remembered his surprise that Duncan met him without a sword in hand.
***
"Candygram."
"You've used that line already." Duncan wasn't sure why Methos had come, but he knew who it was from the moment the feeling hit. Something must have happened during that simultaneous Quickening. He was glad to see Methos, even hopeful.
"Classics are always the best. Got any beer?"
"I keep it in anticipation of your visits," Duncan said. He wanted Methos to feel welcome. He had no idea how to tell him what he thought about Methos as Death of the Four Horsemen, about how he could never reconcile Methos kindnesses and bravery and love for fragile things with the self-centered, cold-blooded killer. If Methos were a woman, he'd be able to forgive more easily, to say it with his body and shared pleasure. It wasn't like he hadn't taken that route with men before, but it was usually by finding women together, or those rare occasions when they took it out on each other, steeped in violence. Methos wouldn’t be like that, he knew. He didn't know how he knew. And Methos didn't need forgiving. From another view, Duncan was no better, no less needing of forgiveness. Everything he believed about Methos, someone had believed about Duncan himself.
"It'll be stale then," Methos said, and it took Duncan out of his thoughts, took a moment to realize Methos meant the beer would be stale.
"You're not the only one who drinks it." Duncan got him a beer from the refrigerator, and Methos followed him to the kitchen, close when Duncan turned. Duncan froze, finding Methos so near, putting the beer on the counter, unopened. "What?" he asked, knowing the answer. The years of flirting were coming down to this moment-he could feel it from Methos-and it was his decision. He felt want under the pulse of Methos's Quickening, but not just lust. It was far more complicated. Methos didn't move, just cocked his head and looked into MacLeod's eyes. It was all there. "Why now?"
"Why not?" Methos said, and wasn't it just like the man.
Ducan saw something in Methos's expression he couldn't put words to, but reminded him of a wild animal. One false move or word, and it would be over. "Now, then," he said, and because he knew Methos wouldn’t move, he leaned in, hesitating at first, waiting for Methos to back away. For a moment he wondered how to do it, whether to treat him like a woman or a man, gentle with the first kiss, or rough. And then he decided to treat this like the first kiss of many with a person that he loved.
Duncan wasn't ready for the spark, or ready for the way that Methos opened up to him. He felt relief and desire and love. Duncan marveled at five thousand years of experience channeled into feeling for him. It was overwhelming, and it broke loose something inside, the last ribbon of doubt. He would take the risk.
The evening became a haze of sensation, Methos’s technique like a courtesan's but his touch striking sparks against Duncan’s sweat-damp skin. As their fire burned down, he began to laugh into Methos’s shoulder.
"So that was funny?"
"It's laugh or cry, Methos."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know if this will ever happen again." But that wasn't it entirely. He felt reckless.
"How does…" Methos pretended to check a calendar. "…tomorrow morning sound?"
Duncan rolled to face Methos, all laughter gone. "Seriously, Methos, what is this?"
"Whatever you want it to be, MacLeod."
Duncan reached for Methos's face, looking into those enigmatic eyes, and for the first time, trusted what he saw. "I want it to be you. That means I don't expect to pick out curtains, or make some handfasting ceremony, or any of that. I'm not even sure I expect you to be here in the morning, but I do want you to come back."
Duncan sensed threads of emotions through the shared Quickening, but only one he could name: fear. He pulled his hand away as Methos turned to kiss it, preparing to guard himself again, but Methos reached up to hold his hand in place. "I will come back, and if someone else is here, I will come back another time."
"Who could ask for more?" Duncan said, and leaned in to kiss him.
***
Methos pulled himself out of the memory, found himself standing in Bobby Singer's living room, surrounded by books, his face inches from Castiel's. Castiel had his hand on Methos's cheek, and his pupils were wide.
Methos stepped back, an ache sliding into his chest with the memory of walking in like he owned the place, because he had expected Duncan to slam the door, and had barely prepared himself for welcome. He remembered deciding to take the risk, the way his heart had been pounding in the moment before Duncan kissed him, and how his nerves gave over to his instincts, and to artifice so honed that it felt natural. He thought about Duncan's own sense of risk, that this would cement them, or end them, and Duncan's decision to trust. That trust had been the deepest gift Methos had ever been given. He would not let this thing, this angel take that memory to his own purpose. "How dare you?"
Castiel's hand was still raised, but now folded into a fist. "I have never felt what you felt."
"I thought you knew everything."
"It seems that there is knowing and understanding, and they are not the same. I want to understand what you feel for him."
"I thought you wanted to find out how to defeat Ahriman."
"I think…" Castiel began. He looked at his upraised hand, and then moved it to his lips as he raised his gaze again to Methos. "I think it is related. Let me…"
"No," Methos said. "It wouldn’t be the same."
Castiel's eyes drew together a fraction. "I see. Shall we continue?"
Methos closed his eyes. "All right." But he didn't take them to memories of Ahriman. He ventured into memories did not want to dare, but he had to know.
***
It was the first time she had ever talked like this. Sure, she had teased him about his age, but now it had an edge, and then suddenly the edge was gone. "Mac, I know there have been others…" He kissed her neck, pressing her deeper into the couch, wanting to distract her, but when she was fixed on something, she never wavered. "Other loves," she finished. "After a century or two, do you learn how to cope?"
"Cope? With the loss?" When Tessa didn't answer he raised his head to look at her. "Hmm?" She nodded. He looked into her eyes. He didn't have an answer prepared, and he spoke carefully. "No matter how many years go by, or how many times you say goodbye to those you care most about, when they leave-"
She shook her head. "Die," she whispered, not letting him take the easy road.
So that was it, and he knew she was ready for this, that he would do her no favors-in fact would dishonor her-with anything less than the truth. He smiled, but sadly. "Yes. When they die," he said, and she swallowed, but he pressed on and said deliberatly, "you're naked, and alone." But he couldn't stay in that moment, couldn’t let her dwell on it. "But we shouldn't talk about what's going to happen when I'm four hundred and twenty, or four hundred and forty…"
***
Methos pulled himself out of the memory. He could feel it, the depth of Duncan's feelings for her: Tessa Noel, who was killed not long after. There were more of Duncan's memories he could brush through, other women that Duncan had called the love of my life, but none of them sparked the depths that this one-blond, French, an artist-had evoked.
Not the other women, not the few men, and certainly not Methos. Methos had the memories of Duncan's feelings for him, and they could not match what Duncan had felt for this woman. Perhaps her murder was what had enshrined her. It didn't matter. She was the one, and all others, even the enigmatic Methos and the best sex of Duncan's life, took second place.
He felt defeated and hollow for a moment, and then he felt angry. I gave him everything! But had he, really?
"But he did love you." Methos had forgotten about Castiel, who was looking away as he spoke. "There was a…" The angel paused, and his head turned further as he looked for the right word. "He had a passion for you, but he could not be vulnerable to you. She let him be everything he was, even weak."
Methos had never seen Castiel look away when he spoke. This gaze and his words had always been too direct, but this he had barely enough courage to say. They stood silent for a moment, Methos letting his anger drift. He was too old not to see it for the petty jealousy it was. He made a decision. "Do you want me to kiss you, angel of the Lord?"
Castiel's gaze snapped up. "What?"
"You said you wanted to feel." He stepped forward, and took Castiel's face in his hands, bracing for the sense of vastness, but it didn't come. Castiel remained within the skin of his vessel. Methos leaned in, his lips almost brushing Castiel's, breathing in the earth and the ice.
"No," Castiel whispered. "I can see it now. It is not the kiss. It is everything behind it." He reached up and grasped Methos by the wrists, and pulled his hands away. "No," he said again, his voice stronger. "You are not the one to teach me this.
Methos said, "Are you sure?"
"Your passion will be anger, and still I would not know." If Methos didn't know better, he might have thought he detected a longing in Castiel's voice. It echoed something in him-a longing to be the first in Duncan's eyes, the way Duncan had become first in his own.
Methos stepped back and pulled his hands from Castiel's loose grip. He nodded with a slight bow. It would have been a kiss of anger and frustration, that was true. "We still have work to do," he said. "We still don’t know how he defeated Ahriman."
Castiel held out his hand, and for the first time Methos saw it as invitation, not demand. He put his hand out, and as their fingers touched he opened the book of Duncan's memories, and he found what he needed, watching from Duncan's eyes, and trying to understand what he had done.
Duncan moved through the kata, a meditation form. He knew he was in a church, but Ahriman gave him the illusion of standing outside a cave, so he ignored it, focusing on the unity of body and mind. When the form of Kronos rushed out, attacking, he dodged it artfully, each move simply the motion of the kata. With every attack he simply moved aside, treating it like a dance, and refusing to engage, blocking him while ignoring him, until at last he stood at rest.
Ahriman, in the face paint and skins of Kronos, walked up to him, hesitated, and then thrust his blade forward, but Duncan did not move, allowing the weapon to slide through his body without flinching. There was no pain, and form of Kronos and his sword disappeared like all of Ahriman's illusions. From behind him, from all around him, Duncan could heard a hoarse cry of rage, stretching out through the night.
Duncan went onto one knee, casual and comfortable. "Isn't it time for you to leave?"
Ahriman used a familiar, hated voice and answered, angry and sneering, and Duncan realized there was an edge of desperation. "I've only just begun."
Duncan shook his head, opening himself to his meditation again. "You have no place here."
Ahriman tried another tack, threatening. "I'm a part of you now."
Duncan smiled, a curl of lips. "You always were."
In a flash of images and a blaze of white light, Duncan found himself kneeling alone on the rug in front of the church's altar, and he breathed, and opened himself. He was everything, and nothing.
***
Part 3
Author(s): filenotch
Artist: amyeyl
Crossover: Highlander
Word Count: ~25,000
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Duncan MacLeod, Ahriman, Bobby Singer, Castiel; Methos/Duncan
Warnings: It's Supernatural. It's Highlander. People die, and it isn't always pretty.
Spoilers: Sits within Highlander canon, SPN up through the beginning of Season 4.
Summary: It split open at the blade, opening like the iris of a cat, the edges of the figure blurring into the swirl at the outside, a vortex that Methos fell into with the force of his sword thrust, a ring of laughter in his ears. "I banish you!" Methos finds himself in a world where Immortals never existed, one where all the myths in all the books he's ever read are real. The demon Ahriman has followed him, and Castiel, the living embodiment of all those myths, wants it sent back, and Methos with it.
But how do you vanquish an enemy in a dimension where neither of you exists? The answer lies somewhere beneath the weight of knowledge Methos carries with him, somewhere in the memories of every Immortal that ever lived, but it will take Castiel to find the one that holds the key: the memories of Duncan MacLeod. Castiel will force Methos to face down that death--and in return, Methos will show Castiel that there is something very different between knowing and understanding."
Author’s Notes: This is Castiel in the beginning, and Methos plants at least one of the seeds for Team Free Will. Many, many thanks to tesserae_ for the ass-kicking beta.
Link to Art Master Post: Amyeyl's great pencils
"Candygram," he said, one foot on the landing.
"You're not dead."
"As always, your powers of observation astound me, MacLeod."
The sarcasm hit as intended, and Duncan's face dropped into a scowl. "Three letter word for donkey. Starts with 'A'."
"Not the first time I've heard that. Can I come in?"
"I -- Yes, of course." Duncan stepped in and to the side, and Methos watched him slip the katana into a scabbard in the umbrella stand. Chinese. Blue willow. Early 1800s. "Can I take your coat?"
Duncan fell back into courtesy as a shield, but Methos had no intention of letting him put up that wall. They had loved each other too long for that. He put a hand up to Duncan's chin, then slid back to grip the short hair. "Don't bother. Six months. Feels like decades." He dropped his backpack off the other shoulder and closed the distance, bringing his lips within an inch of Duncan's, breathing in the tea, the tang of anxiety, the trace of expensive cologne. The air nearly shattered between them, the brief touch further strengthening the bond of the shared Quickening that linked them more deeply than emotion alone. But the thin threads of emotion ran through it, inextricable.
Duncan's voice rasped with questions. "I always worry that you're dead. You could have emailed. Text message?"
"Don't you think you'd feel it if I were gone?"
"I wonder," Duncan whispered.
Methos could feel the pulse rising under his fingers, and then Duncan's hands sliding up his back, pulling him closer, through that last inch. They collided in teeth and tongues, and Methos let himself fall in, fall under the desire and the fierce joy that was not wholly his own. Their connection made it difficult to tell, most of the time, but Methos opened himself on purpose, taking in everything that the Highlander gave, giving back.
He tasted metal in his mouth, the slick-sweet of blood from Duncan's teeth on his lip, and all Methos could feel was Duncan's want. Something dark skated under Methos's skin, some new need, but he pushed it aside.
They made it to a bedroom, shedding clothes on the stairs and in the hall. Duncan toed out of his loafers somewhere along the way, but Methos had to stop and untie his boots, pulling them off and setting them aside so that he would know where to find them again. That was the only interruption, the only moment of clear-headedness before they slid together, skin on skin, kissing to bruise and biting, futile as it might be, to mark. They had never been this savage before, not even the few times Duncan used sex to express his anger.
Methos slid down, finding Duncan so hard his cock was tight against his belly, and he wrapped his mouth around it, sinking down beyond the gag in one move, craving the scent and sweat that is only found between a man's legs. But not any man. This one. It wasn't enough, and he backed off, taking Duncan's length in his hand and nosing directly between his balls and his thighs, mouth open and breathing in, tasting, running his tongue across the sac, trying to imprint himself with his smell.
"Slow down," Duncan moaned, his fingers in Methos's hair, not trying very hard to move him away.
Methos backed off only to shift and sink his teeth-just enough for pleasure-around Duncan's nipple, sucking in the point and worrying the nib with his tongue until Ducan's moans became wordless, and Methos felt a feral joy at giving him pleasure. He wanted to bite harder, but he pulled himself back. "No," he said, and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again. He wanted no finesse, just raw lust and Duncan straining under him, wanted to feel him thrust up and lose control it until he bucked, and Methos could feel each pulsation as his mouth filled with desert musk, bitter and sweet at once. It was almost enough.
Methos shifted again as Duncan lay panting, in control of himself once more now that Duncan's need wasn't echoing through him. He didn't know what he wanted, where to land, but a strong arm snaked out and caught him, bringing him in close for slow kisses. Long minutes of gentle lips and tongue were sweet, and he tried to memorize every motion of Duncan's mouth. Eventually need rose, and Methos couldn't help rubbing himself against Duncan's thigh, grazing his teeth on Duncan's lower lip. "Let me," Duncan said, and started to sit up, but Methos pushed him back.
"No. Fuck me." As sweet as it would be to take Duncan, he needed this more.
"I'm not ready."
"I can get you there," Methos said. He slid down and took Duncan's cock in his mouth again, sliding his tongue around the softened shaft and the sucking it in with his nose was buried in Duncan's balls, inhaling the fresh sweat. Part of his brain thought about pheremones and chemical imprinting, rationalizing. As Duncan hardened, he had to pull back a bit. He used all the arts he had ever learned to please a man, savoring the taste and the slide on his tongue. He felt Duncan's hand on his own prick, bringing it to aching hardness, matching the art of Methos's mouth with the art of his fingers. They were familiar with each other, and knew what would give the most pleasure
And when Duncan's hand began to lose its studied skill, when he was ready, and more than ready, Methos lay back, head toward the foot of the bed, and tugged on one of Duncan's hands. "Now." He needed more than sex, but sex would do, and would take the edge off, but couldn't substitute for the deeper need he felt rising, the need that drove him away again, eventually, every time he came back. He splayed his limbs out, displaying and inviting as he had once been trained to do, and he could feel the effect on Duncan, who should have been slaked and slow, but who reared up at the sight of Methos in a wave of lust and wonder that Methos could see in his face.
Duncan seemed to catch himself. "You. We need-"
"We don't," Methos cut in. "I'm ready." And he was, but Duncan used a questing finger to be sure. Methos had walked in the door prepared. "Do not make me wait another six months. Now."
Methos felt the strong hands move his legs, and he watched as Duncan positioned himself, sliding in with enough force and care to make it good. Duncan's body was as hard and lean as it had ever been, and his hands on Methos's legs were firmly calloused, and Methos should not have noticed these things, but Duncan wasn't moving. He was looking down.
"I can feel it coming."
Methos knew what he meant. It sang under his skin, but he pretended otherwise. "I can't, but if you'd just bloody well move, I might feel something coming."
"The Prize…"
"There is no Prize."
Duncan reached down. "Yes there is. You're here." It was exactly the kind of romantic thing Duncan would say.
But the look in Duncan's eyes wasn't tender. It was wild, barely restrained energy, and Methos knew why even if he didn't want to admit it. "I am here, and if you would please just move." I walked through the streets prepared like a whore for you. Fuck me already. Methos canted his hips as best he could, and Duncan gave in, a smile that matched his first slow thrusting, but his face and his hips shortly giving way to an urgency he shouldn't be feeling so soon after… after…
Methos matched every movement he could, but Duncan had his legs up and his arms braced, trapping him. He gave up and gave over, letting his body feel everything radiating out from where they joined-the fullness of Duncan inside him, the warmth where skin met, the give of the mattress against his back-until it suddenly collapsed back into one point of explosion that ran down his legs and through his belly as the tension rose up to the ultimate release, the pulse of life, the little death. Duncan slowed and leaned down, resting his forehead on Methos'. Methos breathed in, took Duncan's ragged breath into his own body, smelling the afternoon tea now mixed with the aftertaste of come in his own mouth, smelled his own come now slicking between them, the scent of clean sweat and body musk. He could feel the tension under his palms as he slid them down Duncan's arms. "Go," Methos said. "Take it."
Duncan's response was a sound of need and confusion, rearing up on his hands and letting go in a pure rut that he had never seen from Duncan in the hundreds of nights they had spent together. Methos rode it, looked at the rigid muscles and the near-rictus of Duncan's face as he slammed into him, all violence and power, freezing as he came again. His unguarded face held uncertain sorrow and pain.
Long moments later, Duncan said, "That-"
"Shhh,"
Duncan pulled himself together and slid back, then fell beside Methos. "Did I hurt you?"
"No way I didn't like," Methos said, sliding out of bed to avoid more trite words. "Bathroom." He waited until he saw Duncan nod, and made his way to a door where he could see a mirror beyond. The bathroom was large, one of Duncan's towels on a hook, and a pile of fresh ones on a shelf. It was almost as impersonal as a hotel. Methos turned on the water in the shower, stepped in as soon as it was warm, and cleaned himself quickly, using Duncan's towel to dry himself.
Walking back into the room he looked up and saw his old Ivanhoe over the bed. "You kept it." Duncan's own Katana was in the umbrella stand, but Methos's sword had the place of honor. It warmed him.
"You left it with me. It's part of why I thought you weren't coming back." The words thrummed through him. Methos did not drop his gaze from the sword, but stepped across the room until he had his hand on the hilt. "It's yours," Duncan said. "Take it."
Methos fought the sudden urge to pull it off the wall, take the hilt in two hands, and take Duncan's head. He took a breath and let himself think it, to let himself put into words what was in him, not just under his skin, but starting to radiate from his bones: The Gathering was going to start soon. He slid his hand off the sword, fingers trailing over the hilt, and looked down.
Duncan looked back at him sated, parted lips just slightly tilted into a knowing smile. Methos could not look away. Under the Gathering need that skated under Methos's skin, buried deeply at the center of his chest, at his very core, he loved Duncan MacLeod. This man--of all the many hundreds of people he had bedded, the dozens he had married--this was the one that lived at the heart of him.
"Are you all right?" Duncan's face had turned questioning, and Methos blinked, wondering what expression he had worn. He didn't want Duncan to see what he was feeling, never wanted to show him just how deep it went. He slipped back into the bed and lay on his stomach, propped on his elbows. Duncan rolled toward him and reached to run a finger down Methos's long nose. "I'm glad you're here."
"Glad to be here." And he was. He wanted nothing else.
"How long this time?"
"Maybe a week," he lied. "Adam Pierson has a research position at a small university with delusions of global worthiness," he lied. "I'm off to dig up some of my old pottery." Duncan snorted, and Methos dropped into the banter Duncan expected. "Well, who better than me will know where to look?" Methos dropped his head, hiding his face. He wasn't sure he could stay even a week. In the middle of fucking, Duncan had said he could feel something coming. The Gathering was starting, and being together would make the urge to fight into a command. No, they wouldn't last a week.
But Methos wanted those seven days, and more, and he cursed Immortality and the Game.
He felt Duncan's fingers on the back of his hand, and then realized that he was standing, clothed, feeling the weight of sword and weapons in his coat.
The lingering sense of love and slaked passion over tension of loss anticipated, realized, suddenly morphed into a taut wire of anger. He looked into Castiel's face as he jerked his hand away. "How dare you?" he said, hearing his voice go low, dangerous, uncontrolled. Methos balled his hands into fists, and looked up. Castiel's expression was raw, reflecting every bit of the pain Methos felt at the memory of Duncan. "How dare you?" Methos said again. "You are no better than Ahriman."
"That was no illusion. That was a true memory." Castiel's voice almost broke, but he didn't look away like a normal man would, didn't hide the naked combination of wonder and pity. Methos felt no pity, and would not look away. If his gaze wounded, he would let it wound. Castiel finally blinked. "I know. I always know, but I have never felt."
Methos let his lips curl in a feral smile. "Yes, well for compassion there has to be some sense of empathy." His words would be his weapons. "If you keep chaos at bay by killing, by destroying the lives of those who loved the vessels you kill? These vessels, as you call them, are people. They are like mayflies to me, their lives so short and inconsequential, and they must be like, what, microbes to you? But to themselves? They are all they have, all they know." Methos took a breath, and his memories presented him with everything he needed. "Even the least of these, isn't that what it says? Whatever you have done to even the least of these-"
"Enough!" Castiel's true voice broke through, pounding in Methos's ears, shaking his bones apart, his organs bursting in a fire of pain, and the last thing he heard before he died was the breaking glass in the surrounding cars.
He revived on a couch in Bobby's house. He looked around. Castiel sat stiffly in a chair, his hands on his thighs, watching, but he did not move when Methos sat up. Bobby was slumped over his desk. "You have to stop doing that to him," Methos said.
Castiel ignored it. "Your presence here upsets the order of things."
Upsets you, Methos thought, but he said, "Then how do we get me back?"
"You must take Ahriman with you."
"How do you propose to find him?"
"Oh," said a voice Methos recognized from the diner. "He'll find you."
Castiel rose, looking past Methos to a hallway beyond. "Come not in that form," he began, the words carrying a weight of ritual.
"I like this form. It's young and kind of hot."
Dean, Methos remembered. He said, "So, where have you been, young man? Your mother and I have been worried sick."
The lean face smiled. "Well, Dad, if you must know, I've been wandering around looking to see what this place is like. You know what the beautiful thing is? I'm not like anything here. Even the demons don't know what to do with me, and that's just like the all-night diner of unending pie."
Methos kept his voice light. He needed to play for information. "I don't recall that you ate."
"You don't have a clue about what feeds me," the shape of Dean said. Methos realized that Ahriman spoke more like a young man of this age, not the way he had in Kronos's or Duncan's form.
Duncan. There was a memory there, but Methos couldn't quite grasp it. What did Ahriman need to survive?
Castiel rose from his seat. "Let me send you back where you belong."
"I don't think so." And with that he was gone.
Methos rose from the couch, murmuring in an ancient language, "Nothing can also be done by him without Time." The phrase rose up from somewhere in the library of lives and memories. It was a quote from a Zoroastrian text, but it seemed like it should mean something. His glance fell on Bobby, still asleep at his desk, and it reminded him of why he had been dead. He turned to Castiel, who seemed frozen on the spot, his trench coat rumpled. Methos's anger had faded a bit. He circled to look at Castiel's face, and found him with his eyes closed. "You in there?"
The angel's eyes snapped open, and the searching, blue gaze held the slightest hint of apprehension. "I must ponder many things."
Methos reached out quickly to grab a handful of sleeve. "Don't go." He didn't know why he said it. "We have to work together."
Castiel looked down to where Methos gripped his coat. He closed his eyes again. "Let go." Methos didn't move. "Please," Castiel said, the slightest hint of pleading in his voice. "Please let go."
Methos loosened his fingers, but did not drop his hand. Castiel reached up suddenly, leaning forward, as if to place his hand on Methos's face, and Methos knocked the hand out of the way, reflexes as fast as if it were an attack. Where their skin brushed for a moment, Methos felt that now-familiar stretch into vastness, but this time it had something else. Castiel had seemed cold before, like the stone or metal of the metaphorical buildings that Methos had been using to make sense of the sensation of size, but this time it was colored with something new. Confusion. Want. Repudiation.
"Fuck," he heard Bobby groan. "Not that again." Methos glanced over. Bobby raised his head, blinking, and Methos remembered Bobby's wife, demon possessed. Given what Castiel had just shown him, his respect for Bobby grew.
There was a beating sound against the air, and when Methos pulled his eyes away from Bobby’s face, Castiel was gone.
***
Methos rinsed the taste of ash from his mouth and spat. "Well," he said, "That was interesting."
"Least you're not freaked out by a salt and burn," Bobby said.
"No, once I decided that I was in Wonderland it got easier. It's like Ghostbusters, only it makes more sense without the pseudoscience." Methos shrugged. "I'd read a lot of the texts already. Now I just have to act like it's real. Bit of a new game, really." It hadn't been that hard at all.
The growl in Bobby's voice surprised him. "This stuff can kill you. Hunters die. If you hadn't had my back just a few minutes ago…"
Methos sobered. "I know."
"No, you don't, Mr. I'm Immortal." Bobby snorted. "Sorry. Always have a bit of a, y'know, buzz or something after one of these."
Methos gathered himself. He undersood the buzz, because he felt it. It was like the old days when he didn't mind being part of the Game, when he hunted. It wasn't quite like being Death, but it fed some of the same hungers. Hunting gave him a reason to be alive. He also had an idea of what Bobby Singer had lost. He stepped up next to Bobby, not looking at him, but watching the flames with him. "Ahriman. Remember him?"
"That demon that brought you here. The one that shouldn't exist here."
"The same. The way he can take any form, you know, the illusions? He can, well, not kill, but make sure people die. Even Immortals."
"What happened?" Bobby asked, blunt and tired.
"My friend. The one that I killed," Methos began. He wasn't sure how to convey what had happened. "Ahriman tricked him into killing his own student."
"Another Immortal," Bobby said. It wasn't a question. "So you can be killed." Methos nodded, knowing that Bobby was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "Wanna tell me how?"
"Not particularly."
"Can't help keep it from happening to you if you don't let me know what it is. Fire?" Methos shook his head. "Stake through the heart?"
Methos huffed a laugh. "Survived several of those."
"Beheading." Bobby didn't ask, but Methos nodded. "Figures. I'll try and keep you away from guillotines and people with axes."
"Swords, mostly. That's how we fought, how we Challenged each other. We knew that at the end there could be only one." Methos hated the way the words sounded in his mouth.
"But if you were all supposed to kill each other anyway, what's the big deal about killing a student? You trained each other to kill each other?" Bobby pulled out a flask. "That's fucked up."
Methos shook his head. There was too much to explain. "It was something we could choose to do until the Gathering, that final drive. We trained students to help keep them alive, to give them a fighting chance. I may have killed my friend, but I didn't exactly want to."
"Was he your student?"
My greatest love. Methos thought, expecting to have to push down pain, but he felt nothing but a vague amusement remembering how many times he manipulated Duncan into learning some new lesson. He let himself smile. "I stopped taking students centuries ago."
Bobby snorted. "How old was he?"
"About four hundred years. A puppy, really."
Bobby snorted again. "He was your student, just like the Winchester boys are mine, even though they don't know it." Out of the corner of his eye, Methos saw Bobby shake his head. "I don't like the idea of Ahriman out there. They have enough to deal with without something like that."
"You called them."
"I warned them."
"Good thing. Ahriman damaged my friend that day, making him kill his own student. Making him take his Quickening."
"What's that?"
"The power of each Immortal. When another Immortal takes their head, they also take their power."
It took Bobby only a moment to put it together. "So you're the last. You have all the power combined." Methos nodded and reached for the flask, taking a long swallow as Bobby talked. "So why the hell're we wasting time on salt and burn jobs? I was going easy on you to get you into the hunting life. There's demons! There's Lilith! If you've got all that power, we could take on some of the big guns."
He handed the flask to Bobby. "I have no idea if it means anything here."
"From what you say, Ahriman's got all his same mojo. Cripes, but I hate the idea of that thing being in my house, looking like Dean." He took a drink. "Any bright ideas on how to get it out of here?"
Methos waited for Bobby to take another drink, and reached for the flask. "That moment of power, the only time there was real… something I felt I could use, I tried to use it on Ahriman. That's what brought me here. If I try that again, I'll probably just end up somewhere different."
Bobby looked at him with narrowed eyes. "Power. Like some kind of mojo?"
"Never felt it before, and never since." Methos took a long swallow. "All I have is memories."
"Memories?"
"All of them. Like I told you. It's how I knew your name. I can remember everything every Immortal has done or seen."
A new voice joined them. "And you can't remember what to do with me, can you?"
Methos looked up. Duncan MacLeod's face looked back from across the flames. The figure began to walk toward them, circling the fire. It seemed to reflect in his eyes, giving them a brief, red flare.
"Who the hell're you?" Bobby asked.
"It's Ahriman. Trust nothing you see." Methos capped the flask, put it away, and drew his sword.
"So this is what you've come to, Methos? Putting wee ghosties to bed?"
Methos sank to guard, and murmured, "Stand back, Bobby." Louder he said, "Passes the time. What have you been up to?"
Duncan's mouth twisted into a smirk. "Wouldn't you like to know." And then he was gone.
Methos looked around, started to sheath his sword, and then saw the look on Bobby's face, a terrible mix of joy and anguish. Methos had no idea what Bobby was seeing at first, and then there was a slim brown-haired woman in jeans and a pretty shirt standing close to him. Jim Wilson's memories supplied the name: Karen, Bobby's dead wife. She was smiling, limned by the fire that was still burning behind her, and it couldn't have been the fire that gave her eyes the flash of red.
"No," Bobby said.
"She's not real," Methos said.
Her voice was no-nonsense, just like the practical, funny woman Jim Wilson remembered. "Are you sure, Bobby? What do you really know about this guy?"
Methos saw bright reflections in the creases of Bobby's eyes. "Don't make me do this again."
The figure changed to a pink nightgown, the blood from what looked like bullet holes streaming down her chest, and the voice turned cruel. "Don't want to kill me again? That would be fine with me. How about another roll in the hay for old times’ sake?" And she stood nude, flawless, arms outstretched, more beautiful that any of Jim Wilson's memories.
Bobby took a half-step forward, and then closed his eyes and turned his back on the apparition. That wasn't enough. It disappeared, from what Methos could tell, but Bobby began to turn and turn again, as if he were trying to keep his back to something, his eyes firmly closed. Methos watched as the apparent torments increased, and Bobby started shouting, "No! You are not Karen!"
"Bobby!" Methos stepped forward, and then paused as Bobby began to fight the air, first with his fists, and then with the small silver knife. "Bobby!"
He seemed to get through that time, because Bobby froze for a moment. Methos stepped toward him. "Is it gone?" Bobby turned toward Methos, and his eyes widened. He gave a wordless howl and jumped at him, fighting wildly, the silver knife slipping between Methos's ribs.
He'd been stabbed enough times that he knew it had missed the heart. He would likely live, but the sudden weight in his chest told him his lung was beginning to fill with blood. He tried to stay on his feet, managed to block the next thrust of the knife, but Bobby Singer was mad.
Methos shouted his name, but Bobby's eyes were wide, focused somewhere else. He shouted, "NO! That isn't true!" as he slashed again with the knife, but Methos didn't know what he was talking about. Bobby was looking at something Methos couldn't see, something that painted lines of anguish around his mouth. If the glimpse of the woman was any indication, Ahriman was torturing Bobby using the form of Bobby's dead wife.
The first stab woulnd was starting to heal when when Bobby sliced the knife down his left arm. There was nothing for it. With the pommel of his Ivahoe, he struck Bobby on the side of the head, knocking him out. He stepped away from where Bobby lay, far enough that he hoped he wouldn't accidentally hurt him, and closed his own eyes, determined not to see what Ahriman brought next.
"Why did you have to spoil my fun," said the voice of Kronos. "I should have come after you in this form," said the voice of Duncan, low and behind Methos's ear. "You wanted to fuck me as much as kill me, but we know which impulse drives you most, don't we, Methos?"
"The impulse to survive."
"Oh, that you have. Survive at all costs, no matter who you hurt?" The voice changed mid-sentence, female and melodious. Cassandra.
"You'll have to do better than her," Methos said. "She didn't matter to me."
"But I thought I did," the voice said. "There's a word for what you did to me. Stockholm syndrome."
"That's two words." Methos needed to learn more about Ahriman. He'd only heard about him from Duncan, really. What had Duncan done to defeat him? The damn Highlander had never said, just spoke in uncharacteristic cryptic words. What the hell did I embraced him mean? If Methos embraced Ahriman, he'd be Death again, and God could help them all. If there were angels, there must be a God here.
The voice shifted back to Duncan's, "You've killed everything you ever loved. Everything you professed to love." And then there were voices circling him. Methos couldn’t tell how many, but they spoke in languages that curled together, each accusation of his falsehood, his betrayal, his murderous deed in a cacophony of hatred, so much hatred targeted at him. He dropped his sword to his side, and tilted his head back, enduring. If this was what Ahriman had done to Duncan, he wouldn't have been able to endure. He would feel every word at his core; it was no wonder he'd swung at Richie. He probably thought he was one of Ahriman's illusions.
That clear thought became his anchor, and he tuned out the noises. He was no guilt-ridden child like Duncan MacLeod to be led to insanity by his past. Ahriman would have to do better than this childish prattle. It was boring. "Oh, shut up," Methos said.
The voices went silent, and Methos opened his eyes. He saw Bobby Singer struggling to get to his feet. The fire was burning down, but there was enough light that Methos could see a bruise starting to rise. "Sorry about that," he said, offering his hand.
Bobby looked at the hand, and to Methos's face. "You're real?"
"I'm real, and whatever you saw, that was from Ahriman."
"Son of a bitch." He let Methos pull him to his feet.
"I’m sorry he used Karen on you." He took the flask from his coat pocket.
"That wasn't all he used." Bobby reached for the flask, and after a long pull he said, "I hate that demon."
"Let's go, shall we?" Methos said, but he was thinking. He didn't hate Ahriman. He wasn't sure he hated anything.
***
Methos scraped a match, waited for it to catch fully, and tossed it on the still-moving body in front of him. Green twigs of fingers snatched at the spark, but they were soaked in gasoline, and the fumes rising from the wendigo's hand caught fire before it caught the match.
"You're wasting time."
The voice was both flat and strangely compelling. Methos didn't didn't turn around. He'd missed the sound of wings in the noise of the catching flames. "We've got to stop meeting like this. People will talk."
"You're wasting time," Castiel said again, a hint of frustration rippling through it.
Methos wondered when Bobby would get back from replacing the gas cans in the truck. "I'm fighting in your war." He tucked his hands in his pockets and watched the elongated body writhe with the last of its strength.
"We are not fighting monsters under the bed. Lucifer must not be freed from his cage. Ahriman is a distraction we do not need." Methos felt Castiel step close, felt the handle of one of his hidden knives pressing in as his coat was compressed, felt the breath and smelled the ice and earth that his brain now associated with angel. The whisper in his ear was like a lover's, despite the words. "Three of my brothers are dead, and they slew each other. They did not fall in the war. Ahriman must have deceived them into fighting each other. This cannot go on."
Methos stepped away. Castiel did not follow, but he kept talking. "Duncan MacLeod defeated it. Duncan's memories are within you.”
"I don't know what he did."
Again, the only sign was a tremor in Castiel's voice, but Methos felt the frustration, the anger, the accusation run through him almost as deeply as if it were said with the true angelic voice: "You haven't looked."
And it was true. Duncan's memories were the ones Methos did not want to see. He still could feel Duncan's sense of betrayal from the one brief glimpse taken weeks ago, right after he'd fallen through Ahriman and landed in Wonderland. But if he wanted to find anything else, he was going to have to face it down. Castiel said, "There is no forgiveness without confession."
"I have never asked for forgiveness from MacLeod."
"I did not say it was MacLeod that needed to forgive you. And he cannot. He's dead." The last words echoed in Methos's head, cracking through the shell--yet another layer of shell--that he'd wrapped around himself. He had howled his grief when he woke up in the warehouse in this misbegotten wrong world. He had felt almost nothing since, and certainly not since Castiel had forced him to re-live the last time he and Duncan had made love.
Even now that memory had no force, nothing but an empty ache. The wendigo body burned to a charred shape, the flames flickering down as the fuel was used up. Methos turned to look at Castiel. "So?"
"Find out what he did, or let me look for you." Castiel had the slightest hesitancy in his voice on that last bit, although his face was as impassively intent as ever. Methos looked at him for a long moment, and Castiel said, "Are you afraid? I would not have thought you a coward."
"I'm all kinds of coward," Methos said, "but if I can go where there be dragons with an angel on my shoulder, what could I fear?" He wanted to laugh, but he didn't think that Castiel would understand the irony, and they stood with their gazes locked on each other, the flickering of the fire in Castiel's eyes reminding Methos of both the angel's true form and Ahriman's illusions.
The moment was broken by the sound of a shotgun being cocked. "Just what the hell is going on here?"
"It's okay, Bobby." Methos turned to look at him. "I think I have my ride." He glanced back at Castiel, who nodded gravely. He walked over and stuck out a hand. "If I don't come back, you take care of yourself."
Bobby looked at Methos's outstretched hand, grabbed it, and used it to pull Methos in for a rough hug, hampered by the gun in his left hand. "You get that fuckin' thing, you hear me?"
"I'll do what I can." Methos stepped back. "Will you be all right?"
Bobby shrugged. "Not like I ain't had nothing like that happen before. If you come back, well, it ain't like you won't be welcome."
"I can't keep track of the double negatives."
Bobby grunted a laugh. "I'll be fine. Come back if you can."
"I will." Methos wished he had something to give him. He wasn't generally the sentimental sort, but they'd had a few good weeks of hunting. In his coat he had spare knives, so he reached in and drew out a hunting knife, the tip slightly curved to a point. It was good for skinning, and sturdy enough for utility work. "Maybe this will be useful."
"Can't give a knife. Cuts the friendship," Bobby said, digging his free hand into his pocket. "Here, I'll buy it from you," and he handed Methos a penny.
Methos looked at it. The design was subtly different from current version of the US penny in his own world, he thought. Wasn't Lincoln supposed to be in profile? He hoped to have the chance to compare it soon. "Done," he said, "and a bargain at the price."
They nodded to each other, and Methos walked back to Castiel. "Let's go." Castiel lifted his fingers and they appeared in the warehouse where Methos had first come awake in this world. He looked around at the sigils, and the circle on the floor where they stood. "Now what?"
"Now we look into your memories, and we find Duncan MacLeod, and we learn how he did it." Castiel leaned in and touched his forehead to Methos's, and Methos fell.
***
The sense of a Quickening woke him, first as a threat, and then as a comfort. There was only one person he could recognize through the Quickening alone. He relaxed, listening to the quiet sound of someone taking the stairs by twos. As the door swung slowly open, he sat up. "I knew you were alive." He drank in the sight of Methos in dark leather, a katana in his hand. Duncan didn't glance up at the Ivanhoe over the bed, Methos's own sword, but looked at the ancient blade, thinking the old man was sentimental sometimes. The katana was Duncan's weapon, and he couldn’t help but think that Methos had chosen it at least in part for that reason.
He started to tell him to put the blade away when Methos brought it up to rest at his neck. He swallowed back his words, and felt the blade nick with the slight movement. It was the kind of thing Methos would do, had done, to prove a point. Duncan wanted to believe that was the goal now, but the resurgence of his own hunger, the dark need that had driven him to the Gathering, made the hope a faint one. "Not funny," he said.
"Not joking," Methos said. Duncan felt the blade shift, putting the point against his neck and killing the hope that he would live through this. The point pushed into the flesh, and he heard Methos say, his voice cracking slightly. "There can be only one."
He had hoped for better from him. He wished he had loved him without reservation, but the truth was, he had loved him despite his reservations. The story of the snake came unbidden, and a serpent's voice said, You knew what I was when you took me in. Still, he had to try, one last time, and he fought to keep the bitter disappointment from his voice. "This should be a fight, not an execution."
"I can't risk losing,"
The words lanced into Duncan's heart as the sword went in through his neck, and in the last flickering of consciousness he saw Methos, impassive, reaching for the Ivanhoe, and he felt hatred--for Methos at the betrayal, and for himself for trusting that the snake wouldn't bite.
***
Methos pulled away, stumbling to the far wall. "No!" But Castiel was right behind him, not letting him absorb the memory, hand on his arm, forcing him around, pushing their heads together again.
This time he didn't fall. This time he could page through, and he could feel that Castiel was with him, sifting, turning pages--whatever metaphor worked at any instant in the process of trying to find what Duncan had learned in his scant 400 years that made him able to defeat Ahriman.
He could see memories he wanted to follow. He wished he could see what it was like for Duncan on the day they met. There were other memories he had to skirt. The death of Tessa Noel was limned in pain. The day he killed Richie was wrapped in black silence.
Wait, he thought/said to Castiel. He let himself briefly imagine a little cartoon angel in a tan trench coat sitting on his shoulder, so the answer came to his right ear.
What?
We're doing this wrong. We have to go first to the place where Ahriman defeated Duncan.
But that is not what we want to learn. Methos could sense the impatience.
But that is important to understanding how he learned. Methos moved to the memory of the abandoned race track, of the day Duncan had taken his own student’s head. They stood back, observers behind Duncan's eyes, mere witnesses to his confusion and pain as he saw Richie, Horton, and Kronos, heard the words that sliced through him, watched him swing his sword at phantoms. It was no wonder that when the real Richie came forward that Duncan mistook him for Ahriman, and swung, realizing in the instant before his blade cut flesh that this was his student and his friend and that he could not stop the razor-sharp edge on its path of destruction.
Castiel watched with him, watched through Duncan's eyes as Methos and their friend Joe Dawson arrived too late, felt Duncan's pain as he dropped his sword, and knew from Duncan's memories that he meant never to return.
So that's how it looked to him, Methos said.
He felt Castiel's grumble. What happened next?
Let's ask him.
And they paged through the memories, the long boring days of introspection. Methos almost missed it, but there it was, the thing that Duncan had realized: Killing Richie Ryan, his own student, was not the worst thing he had ever done. In believing the righteousness of his causes, he had killed and maimed. Looking at his actions from the other side, from the view of those who thought their purposes as meet and right, he would be seen as a monster. The revelation wasn't sudden, which was why Methos had almost missed it. It was subtle and it grew, and Duncan came to understand that there was right, and there was wrong, and there was perspective.
Following the line of Duncan's memories, Methos gave in to his desire to know, to understand what it was Duncan had thought of him, and he fell into a moment. It was a strange double memory, because he could remember his own feelings while seeing it from Duncan's memories. He expected the door to be slammed in his face, and he remembered his surprise that Duncan met him without a sword in hand.
***
"Candygram."
"You've used that line already." Duncan wasn't sure why Methos had come, but he knew who it was from the moment the feeling hit. Something must have happened during that simultaneous Quickening. He was glad to see Methos, even hopeful.
"Classics are always the best. Got any beer?"
"I keep it in anticipation of your visits," Duncan said. He wanted Methos to feel welcome. He had no idea how to tell him what he thought about Methos as Death of the Four Horsemen, about how he could never reconcile Methos kindnesses and bravery and love for fragile things with the self-centered, cold-blooded killer. If Methos were a woman, he'd be able to forgive more easily, to say it with his body and shared pleasure. It wasn't like he hadn't taken that route with men before, but it was usually by finding women together, or those rare occasions when they took it out on each other, steeped in violence. Methos wouldn’t be like that, he knew. He didn't know how he knew. And Methos didn't need forgiving. From another view, Duncan was no better, no less needing of forgiveness. Everything he believed about Methos, someone had believed about Duncan himself.
"It'll be stale then," Methos said, and it took Duncan out of his thoughts, took a moment to realize Methos meant the beer would be stale.
"You're not the only one who drinks it." Duncan got him a beer from the refrigerator, and Methos followed him to the kitchen, close when Duncan turned. Duncan froze, finding Methos so near, putting the beer on the counter, unopened. "What?" he asked, knowing the answer. The years of flirting were coming down to this moment-he could feel it from Methos-and it was his decision. He felt want under the pulse of Methos's Quickening, but not just lust. It was far more complicated. Methos didn't move, just cocked his head and looked into MacLeod's eyes. It was all there. "Why now?"
"Why not?" Methos said, and wasn't it just like the man.
Ducan saw something in Methos's expression he couldn't put words to, but reminded him of a wild animal. One false move or word, and it would be over. "Now, then," he said, and because he knew Methos wouldn’t move, he leaned in, hesitating at first, waiting for Methos to back away. For a moment he wondered how to do it, whether to treat him like a woman or a man, gentle with the first kiss, or rough. And then he decided to treat this like the first kiss of many with a person that he loved.
Duncan wasn't ready for the spark, or ready for the way that Methos opened up to him. He felt relief and desire and love. Duncan marveled at five thousand years of experience channeled into feeling for him. It was overwhelming, and it broke loose something inside, the last ribbon of doubt. He would take the risk.
The evening became a haze of sensation, Methos’s technique like a courtesan's but his touch striking sparks against Duncan’s sweat-damp skin. As their fire burned down, he began to laugh into Methos’s shoulder.
"So that was funny?"
"It's laugh or cry, Methos."
"Why?"
"Because I don't know if this will ever happen again." But that wasn't it entirely. He felt reckless.
"How does…" Methos pretended to check a calendar. "…tomorrow morning sound?"
Duncan rolled to face Methos, all laughter gone. "Seriously, Methos, what is this?"
"Whatever you want it to be, MacLeod."
Duncan reached for Methos's face, looking into those enigmatic eyes, and for the first time, trusted what he saw. "I want it to be you. That means I don't expect to pick out curtains, or make some handfasting ceremony, or any of that. I'm not even sure I expect you to be here in the morning, but I do want you to come back."
Duncan sensed threads of emotions through the shared Quickening, but only one he could name: fear. He pulled his hand away as Methos turned to kiss it, preparing to guard himself again, but Methos reached up to hold his hand in place. "I will come back, and if someone else is here, I will come back another time."
"Who could ask for more?" Duncan said, and leaned in to kiss him.
***
Methos pulled himself out of the memory, found himself standing in Bobby Singer's living room, surrounded by books, his face inches from Castiel's. Castiel had his hand on Methos's cheek, and his pupils were wide.
Methos stepped back, an ache sliding into his chest with the memory of walking in like he owned the place, because he had expected Duncan to slam the door, and had barely prepared himself for welcome. He remembered deciding to take the risk, the way his heart had been pounding in the moment before Duncan kissed him, and how his nerves gave over to his instincts, and to artifice so honed that it felt natural. He thought about Duncan's own sense of risk, that this would cement them, or end them, and Duncan's decision to trust. That trust had been the deepest gift Methos had ever been given. He would not let this thing, this angel take that memory to his own purpose. "How dare you?"
Castiel's hand was still raised, but now folded into a fist. "I have never felt what you felt."
"I thought you knew everything."
"It seems that there is knowing and understanding, and they are not the same. I want to understand what you feel for him."
"I thought you wanted to find out how to defeat Ahriman."
"I think…" Castiel began. He looked at his upraised hand, and then moved it to his lips as he raised his gaze again to Methos. "I think it is related. Let me…"
"No," Methos said. "It wouldn’t be the same."
Castiel's eyes drew together a fraction. "I see. Shall we continue?"
Methos closed his eyes. "All right." But he didn't take them to memories of Ahriman. He ventured into memories did not want to dare, but he had to know.
***
It was the first time she had ever talked like this. Sure, she had teased him about his age, but now it had an edge, and then suddenly the edge was gone. "Mac, I know there have been others…" He kissed her neck, pressing her deeper into the couch, wanting to distract her, but when she was fixed on something, she never wavered. "Other loves," she finished. "After a century or two, do you learn how to cope?"
"Cope? With the loss?" When Tessa didn't answer he raised his head to look at her. "Hmm?" She nodded. He looked into her eyes. He didn't have an answer prepared, and he spoke carefully. "No matter how many years go by, or how many times you say goodbye to those you care most about, when they leave-"
She shook her head. "Die," she whispered, not letting him take the easy road.
So that was it, and he knew she was ready for this, that he would do her no favors-in fact would dishonor her-with anything less than the truth. He smiled, but sadly. "Yes. When they die," he said, and she swallowed, but he pressed on and said deliberatly, "you're naked, and alone." But he couldn't stay in that moment, couldn’t let her dwell on it. "But we shouldn't talk about what's going to happen when I'm four hundred and twenty, or four hundred and forty…"
***
Methos pulled himself out of the memory. He could feel it, the depth of Duncan's feelings for her: Tessa Noel, who was killed not long after. There were more of Duncan's memories he could brush through, other women that Duncan had called the love of my life, but none of them sparked the depths that this one-blond, French, an artist-had evoked.
Not the other women, not the few men, and certainly not Methos. Methos had the memories of Duncan's feelings for him, and they could not match what Duncan had felt for this woman. Perhaps her murder was what had enshrined her. It didn't matter. She was the one, and all others, even the enigmatic Methos and the best sex of Duncan's life, took second place.
He felt defeated and hollow for a moment, and then he felt angry. I gave him everything! But had he, really?
"But he did love you." Methos had forgotten about Castiel, who was looking away as he spoke. "There was a…" The angel paused, and his head turned further as he looked for the right word. "He had a passion for you, but he could not be vulnerable to you. She let him be everything he was, even weak."
Methos had never seen Castiel look away when he spoke. This gaze and his words had always been too direct, but this he had barely enough courage to say. They stood silent for a moment, Methos letting his anger drift. He was too old not to see it for the petty jealousy it was. He made a decision. "Do you want me to kiss you, angel of the Lord?"
Castiel's gaze snapped up. "What?"
"You said you wanted to feel." He stepped forward, and took Castiel's face in his hands, bracing for the sense of vastness, but it didn't come. Castiel remained within the skin of his vessel. Methos leaned in, his lips almost brushing Castiel's, breathing in the earth and the ice.
"No," Castiel whispered. "I can see it now. It is not the kiss. It is everything behind it." He reached up and grasped Methos by the wrists, and pulled his hands away. "No," he said again, his voice stronger. "You are not the one to teach me this.
Methos said, "Are you sure?"
"Your passion will be anger, and still I would not know." If Methos didn't know better, he might have thought he detected a longing in Castiel's voice. It echoed something in him-a longing to be the first in Duncan's eyes, the way Duncan had become first in his own.
Methos stepped back and pulled his hands from Castiel's loose grip. He nodded with a slight bow. It would have been a kiss of anger and frustration, that was true. "We still have work to do," he said. "We still don’t know how he defeated Ahriman."
Castiel held out his hand, and for the first time Methos saw it as invitation, not demand. He put his hand out, and as their fingers touched he opened the book of Duncan's memories, and he found what he needed, watching from Duncan's eyes, and trying to understand what he had done.
Duncan moved through the kata, a meditation form. He knew he was in a church, but Ahriman gave him the illusion of standing outside a cave, so he ignored it, focusing on the unity of body and mind. When the form of Kronos rushed out, attacking, he dodged it artfully, each move simply the motion of the kata. With every attack he simply moved aside, treating it like a dance, and refusing to engage, blocking him while ignoring him, until at last he stood at rest.
Ahriman, in the face paint and skins of Kronos, walked up to him, hesitated, and then thrust his blade forward, but Duncan did not move, allowing the weapon to slide through his body without flinching. There was no pain, and form of Kronos and his sword disappeared like all of Ahriman's illusions. From behind him, from all around him, Duncan could heard a hoarse cry of rage, stretching out through the night.
Duncan went onto one knee, casual and comfortable. "Isn't it time for you to leave?"
Ahriman used a familiar, hated voice and answered, angry and sneering, and Duncan realized there was an edge of desperation. "I've only just begun."
Duncan shook his head, opening himself to his meditation again. "You have no place here."
Ahriman tried another tack, threatening. "I'm a part of you now."
Duncan smiled, a curl of lips. "You always were."
In a flash of images and a blaze of white light, Duncan found himself kneeling alone on the rug in front of the church's altar, and he breathed, and opened himself. He was everything, and nothing.
***
Part 3