Fic: Edinburgh Two-step and Reel (2/2) (HL, DM/M)
Did I say R? Oh well. PG-13. Obviously, more inspiration is required. After the 28th, when Sandman return to the Barony. :)
This is the bit
unovis_lj hasn't seen, so there are even more mistakes due solely to my own efforts. It's for
darthhellokitty, of course. Part 1 can be found here.
Characters belong to to Panzer-Davis productions. DM/M.
Edinburgh Two-step and Reel: Reel
“Dr Johnson has allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in Scotland.”
Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
London, 1785.
Rain coming down under the lights of the bar, golden spears in darkness. Wet cobbles, wet hands, muffler damp around his ears. The tart sweetness of good champagne, cracked open on the bridge to the sound of the bells and ten thousand voices counting down to midnight. The Polish barmaid smiling, pulling pints, with holly in the blonde of her hair; half a dozen strangers kissing him in the street and the sound of a ceilidh band up on George Street; fireworks over the castle feathering black sky with gunpowder smoke. Duncan laughing with a trail of Japanese schoolgirls taking pictures of his knees. He’d a skean-dhu down his socks, but Methos had a Glock under his arm and a length of waxed cotton in his pocket, for emergencies. Later it snowed, when they were walking home, great soft flakes gold-edged between cast iron lampposts. Hardly enough for snowballs, but that didn’t stop them trying.
It was one o’clock in the morning, in Scotland, on Hogmanay. The fire was laid and the party only just started.
“I swear,” Duncan said, finding his street door open and damp footsteps on the stone tenement stairs “One of these years I’ll go out to the cottage. Take a storm lantern and a crate of Highland Park and a good book.” He might. But not this year. Methos could hear the music from the first flight of stairs, and when they got to the landing Duncan’s neighbour’s door was open and standing in it a couple he’d met three days ago in the pub - “Adam, meet Hamish and Jo.” They’d talked about fishing, he recalled, and the state of the Union.
There were footsteps behind him and three young students with a tray of bruschetta and a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, which apparently Duncan had quoted in an interview on allotments and the rise of the Labour movement. In Scotland, of course. There was a Saltire sticker on Duncan’s Range Rover and a set of colours in the hall that belonged in a museum were it not for the fact that the man had all his nationalist flags nailed to the wall, although the accents coming up the stairs were cheerfully polyglot. More students. Two men in kilts. A baby, asleep, with parents. A See-you Jimmy hat that ended up, later, on the teapot.
Someone called Alan ran through the CDs and called an impromptu Strip the Willow in Duncan’s hall. People hit the walls, forgot which sex they were dancing - “Women to the right!” Alan said. “That’s your right! Over there! - Oh, who cares? You all know how to do this, right?”
As it happens, Methos did. Then he danced the Dashing White Sergeant with two women from Glasgow in Versace, with whom he’d have happily spent the rest of the night were they not on to the party next door. He took another dram instead, and found Angus who did something on the radio and showed him the stereo. They had the new Glasgow scene for half an hour - everyone knew the words, including him after four days in the capital - and then something with an electronic backbeat like Bedouin drums. Methos was washed up on the sofa by then, Laphroig in his hand: Duncan was demonstrating the Highland Two-step to a young woman from Los Angeles with very good legs, most of which were on show. There’d been three youngsters from England, several of Duncan’s colleagues from the Parliament - “Oh, you’ll be Adam, then?” a taxi driver from Leith, a woman who ran two restaurants, one of which he’d eaten in, a couple from Nairn who’d come down that morning and were driving back when the party finished - “maybe next week.” Three artists, one picture framer, one violin maker, one sculptor who specialised in defacing municipal bus stops, more lumps of coal and dark-haired men than he could count. The heavy swing of Duncan’s kilt. Miniature sausages and pineapple: smoked salmon, gravadlax, and black-bun cut into slices.
In retrospect, it really shouldn’t have surprised him how many people Duncan knew and of those, how many would turn up on his doorstep and how many of those would say, “Ah, Adam.” as if he was part of the scenery already.
It hadn’t been like this in Paris.
Here, Duncan was home, and it showed. It looked good on him, too: there were playbills by the telephone and a battered address book on the kitchen table, three dozen matched wineglasses and a salmon platter that looked well used. He’d a life here. He was happy.
In bed, unexpected, he laughed.
Of all things, Methos had not expected that. He was still bemused. Not so much by the fact that Duncan had taken a man to his bed - and indubitably, for Methos had the memories to prove it - knew what he was doing between the sheets with an Immortal of the same gender as himself. But by the fact he’d taken Methos, with as little fuss as if it was still 1976.
“Come to bed,” Duncan had said, that first night, late. “With me, aye?”
It was the only time there’d be any uncertainty about the situation. Methos, charmed, had smiled and put his glass down. If he’d thought it would be a case of the tiger leading the sheep, he was wrong. Duncan had rolled him over, sucked him down, and overset every assumption Methos had ever made about the man’s sexual preferences. Also, and rather more disconcertingly, the strength of his own response. He’d thought he’d known what he was doing. He was wrong.
He knew that when the airport closing had been nothing more than a note on the news, not the red flag of a contingency plan. When he’d bought six new pairs of socks and a spare sweater and a laptop and Duncan had given him a new pair of gloves. When every morning he’d woken up warm with someone else in the bed and not set himself to concealment.
Duncan laid Scotland before him as if it was a Prince’s dowry, and Methos had fallen. Hard. For the man.
He had half a shelf of books to read and a reader’s ticket for the manuscript library.
The music stopped. He looked up. Duncan smiled at him across the room, with a confident tenderness that was warmth in itself. He raised his glass in reply.
Next year in the Highlands, then. He’d need a new coat.
End.
This is the bit
unovis_lj hasn't seen, so there are even more mistakes due solely to my own efforts. It's for
darthhellokitty, of course. Part 1 can be found here.
Characters belong to to Panzer-Davis productions. DM/M.
Edinburgh Two-step and Reel: Reel
“Dr Johnson has allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in Scotland.”
Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
London, 1785.
Rain coming down under the lights of the bar, golden spears in darkness. Wet cobbles, wet hands, muffler damp around his ears. The tart sweetness of good champagne, cracked open on the bridge to the sound of the bells and ten thousand voices counting down to midnight. The Polish barmaid smiling, pulling pints, with holly in the blonde of her hair; half a dozen strangers kissing him in the street and the sound of a ceilidh band up on George Street; fireworks over the castle feathering black sky with gunpowder smoke. Duncan laughing with a trail of Japanese schoolgirls taking pictures of his knees. He’d a skean-dhu down his socks, but Methos had a Glock under his arm and a length of waxed cotton in his pocket, for emergencies. Later it snowed, when they were walking home, great soft flakes gold-edged between cast iron lampposts. Hardly enough for snowballs, but that didn’t stop them trying.
It was one o’clock in the morning, in Scotland, on Hogmanay. The fire was laid and the party only just started.
“I swear,” Duncan said, finding his street door open and damp footsteps on the stone tenement stairs “One of these years I’ll go out to the cottage. Take a storm lantern and a crate of Highland Park and a good book.” He might. But not this year. Methos could hear the music from the first flight of stairs, and when they got to the landing Duncan’s neighbour’s door was open and standing in it a couple he’d met three days ago in the pub - “Adam, meet Hamish and Jo.” They’d talked about fishing, he recalled, and the state of the Union.
There were footsteps behind him and three young students with a tray of bruschetta and a copy of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, which apparently Duncan had quoted in an interview on allotments and the rise of the Labour movement. In Scotland, of course. There was a Saltire sticker on Duncan’s Range Rover and a set of colours in the hall that belonged in a museum were it not for the fact that the man had all his nationalist flags nailed to the wall, although the accents coming up the stairs were cheerfully polyglot. More students. Two men in kilts. A baby, asleep, with parents. A See-you Jimmy hat that ended up, later, on the teapot.
Someone called Alan ran through the CDs and called an impromptu Strip the Willow in Duncan’s hall. People hit the walls, forgot which sex they were dancing - “Women to the right!” Alan said. “That’s your right! Over there! - Oh, who cares? You all know how to do this, right?”
As it happens, Methos did. Then he danced the Dashing White Sergeant with two women from Glasgow in Versace, with whom he’d have happily spent the rest of the night were they not on to the party next door. He took another dram instead, and found Angus who did something on the radio and showed him the stereo. They had the new Glasgow scene for half an hour - everyone knew the words, including him after four days in the capital - and then something with an electronic backbeat like Bedouin drums. Methos was washed up on the sofa by then, Laphroig in his hand: Duncan was demonstrating the Highland Two-step to a young woman from Los Angeles with very good legs, most of which were on show. There’d been three youngsters from England, several of Duncan’s colleagues from the Parliament - “Oh, you’ll be Adam, then?” a taxi driver from Leith, a woman who ran two restaurants, one of which he’d eaten in, a couple from Nairn who’d come down that morning and were driving back when the party finished - “maybe next week.” Three artists, one picture framer, one violin maker, one sculptor who specialised in defacing municipal bus stops, more lumps of coal and dark-haired men than he could count. The heavy swing of Duncan’s kilt. Miniature sausages and pineapple: smoked salmon, gravadlax, and black-bun cut into slices.
In retrospect, it really shouldn’t have surprised him how many people Duncan knew and of those, how many would turn up on his doorstep and how many of those would say, “Ah, Adam.” as if he was part of the scenery already.
It hadn’t been like this in Paris.
Here, Duncan was home, and it showed. It looked good on him, too: there were playbills by the telephone and a battered address book on the kitchen table, three dozen matched wineglasses and a salmon platter that looked well used. He’d a life here. He was happy.
In bed, unexpected, he laughed.
Of all things, Methos had not expected that. He was still bemused. Not so much by the fact that Duncan had taken a man to his bed - and indubitably, for Methos had the memories to prove it - knew what he was doing between the sheets with an Immortal of the same gender as himself. But by the fact he’d taken Methos, with as little fuss as if it was still 1976.
“Come to bed,” Duncan had said, that first night, late. “With me, aye?”
It was the only time there’d be any uncertainty about the situation. Methos, charmed, had smiled and put his glass down. If he’d thought it would be a case of the tiger leading the sheep, he was wrong. Duncan had rolled him over, sucked him down, and overset every assumption Methos had ever made about the man’s sexual preferences. Also, and rather more disconcertingly, the strength of his own response. He’d thought he’d known what he was doing. He was wrong.
He knew that when the airport closing had been nothing more than a note on the news, not the red flag of a contingency plan. When he’d bought six new pairs of socks and a spare sweater and a laptop and Duncan had given him a new pair of gloves. When every morning he’d woken up warm with someone else in the bed and not set himself to concealment.
Duncan laid Scotland before him as if it was a Prince’s dowry, and Methos had fallen. Hard. For the man.
He had half a shelf of books to read and a reader’s ticket for the manuscript library.
The music stopped. He looked up. Duncan smiled at him across the room, with a confident tenderness that was warmth in itself. He raised his glass in reply.
Next year in the Highlands, then. He’d need a new coat.
End.