That Bar story.
I didn't think I would finish it in time, but here it is, sort of beta read. Well, it's been given the Tianyu seal of approval, so...
Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, Duncan, Methos, Joe or this idea of immortality. I made no money from this, nor do I ever plan to.
WARNING: This is an Amand-r story in all its darkened glory. If you don't know what that means, please read something else of mine to get the idea. I won't say anything more than that, because that'd give it all away.
For Unovis's bar story challenge, May 31, 2005.
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Yeah, That One Last Thing
by Amand-r
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"You know there's always more than one way to say exactly what you mean to say."
--Fastball, "Out of My Head"
"She said, 'Loving you made me happy every day.'"
--L'Arc En Ciel, "Feeling Fine"
The night the bar burned down, Joe had been restringing his guitar.
"I'm not saying it's pornographic, I'm just saying that it's easy to see why people can think so," he mumbled around a mouthful of string.
Methos rolled his eyes and slouched further in his chair. "The act of small minds jumping to conclusions," he muttered, though his lack of audibility seemed to have less to do with his mouth being full and more to do with disgust. He flipped the newspaper closed and tossed it on the table. "I hate to say this, but I am genuinely starting to despise the American public."
Joe rolled his eyes and took the strong out of his mouth, notching the end of the wire into the bridge of the guitar. "Oh yeah, because we were so less uptight three hundred years ago, Goodman Methos."
Methos leaned forward and set his arms on the table between them. "That's the problem, Joseph," he said softly. It was a good thing that the bar was closed, or he wouldn't have heard it, especially the usage of his full name. Joe could count on his nonexistent toes the number to times that Methos had used it. Ever.
Joe had tuned the lights off in other areas and although they still had enough light to read if they held the paper up to the light, it was rather dim. In fact, the only way Joe was even able to string his guitar was based on the fact that he'd been doing it so often that he could do it in the dark. He told Methos that it was to save electricity, as the bar was a money sieve, but the real fact was that Joe had a rampaging headache.
He didn't want to think about that.
Instead he watched Methos glance down at the paper before curving his hands around the glass on the table and cradling it like a fragile thing.
"I thought you were the one who said that history goes in never-ending spirals," he joked.
Methos ran a hand through his hair and slouched back into his chair again, this time taking his drink with him. "The more that I think about it, I'm convinced that history is the colored wax in the lava lamp." He smiles wryly. "Someone turned the lamp off, and the wax is settling and cooling now. In a hundred years the lamp will turn on again, and the wax will start to melt."
Joe stopped stringing the guitar and rested his hands on the belly of it. The string twanged loosely. "I would…that's…brilliant."
Methos smiled. "Always a pleasure to be of service. Brandy?"
Joe inclined his head. "Hit me."
Methos complied with the bottle from the table, then propped both of his feet up on the empty chair at his left. "Are you sure Mac is getting in today?"
Joe twisted the tuning peg for the G string. "That's what he said. Amanda's trial was over last week." Joe sighed and reached past his snifter for the B string. "I still can't believe she even tried to do that."
Methos smiled. "Eh. The Vatican is the crème de la crème of burglary. Eventually Amanda had to succumb to its sweet siren song." He stopped at that and drank from his glass before muttering, "And I have to stop watching Xena: Warrior Princess."
Joe fumbled with the B string a bit. It was thicker and his fingers were having trouble notching it properly. He didn't want to think about what meant either. "What you have to do is stop watching the We network."
Methos shifted in his seat. "What can I say? Lucy Lawless is fucking fantastic."
Joe finally managed to notch the string and he held it tense while he took another drink. "What you're saying is that she has great breasts and long legs and that you don't need to rent porn anymore."
Methos made wide eyes. "Isn't that what I said?"
Joe didn't reply because he was too busy feeling something that was a bit like his headache amplified in THX. If the headache he'd had up until now had been like a knitting needle in his temple, now someone was grinding it all around, stirring the cake batter that had indeed become his brains.
Methos looked up in alarm, then he relaxed a little in that way that all Immortals had once they had gotten past the instinctual urge to bolt.
"Anyway," Methos said jovially and out of the blue, "It's a goddamn sea shanty, and that's all there is to it."
It took Joe a few seconds to rewind the conversation back in his head to a point where this statement would have anything to do with anything they'd said all night. Ah, yes, right there.
"I didn't say it's not a sea shanty, I'm saying that The Kingsmen recorded it when they were smoking something, and it didn't help that they managed to completely forget the English language," he retorted. "'Ayfain liyelkurwl away onee, eektatsh ahip oconstalee' is not a language that I'm familiar with."
Methos smirked. "The mating call of the North American frat boy perhaps."
Joe laughed, but it was short lived because the pain spiked again. If Mac would just get here, he'd be fine.
"I need something better than this shit," Methos told him. It was unlike him to be cursing quite so much, but they were both cranky and the brandy was a bit off. Everything in the bar tasted off and had for days.
"Then go get something else, man. I don't think your legs are strapped on," he retorted, giving up on the guitar for a few minutes and deciding instead to focus on the pivotal point of pain in his skull. It traveled a lot, but when he could apply pressure to certain spots it felt better.
Joe rubbed the bridge of his nose and then opened his hand further to slide his fingers up onto his temples. Methos returned from the bar with another bottle of something that looked like the Glenlivet that he'd stashed behind the register three years ago. The Immortal's left hand brushed by the glass on Joe's side for a second, passing long enough to deposit about five Advil on the polished surface of the table. He didn't say anything, but Joe took them all anyway. At this point he would take anything.
The door to the bar opened just as Methos was pouring scotch into old-fashioned glasses, having abandoned the snifters with the brandy.
"You're just in time," Methos said without looking over his shoulder. "Goodman Dawson was just telling me how he plans to ban all songs with the slightest hint of sexual undertone, including those sung in indecipherable languages."
Mac strode into the room and stopped, mostly because, Joe figured, he needed to adjust to the lighting in the room. Hell, even the street lamps outside were brighter. What was he thinking when he turned down the lights? The spike of pressure in his temple reminded him.
He massaged his head again and prayed the Advil would work. "Methos is off about something," he told Mac as the man sat down in the chair Methos's feet had earlier vacated. "You know, how the world used to be a beautiful place before they invented microwaves and bleach."
Mac shed his coat and tossed it on another table, the weight of it hitting the wood with a thunk. The loudness hit Joe with more pain, but also a shock of surprise; Mac went everywhere armed, but tonight it seemed more acute.
Well, this guitar wasn't going to restring itself.
Methos handed him the final E string and he uncoiled it in his hands as Mac accepted the glass of scotch appreciatively.
"How is everyone tonight?" he murmured before taking a deep drink.
Methos shrugged. Joe had his hands full, and as was the case sometimes, that meant that he couldn't speak at the moment. His mother had always said that he talked with his hands too much. When he had lost his legs, he had been less articulate with his hands when he was moving his mouth, mostly because one hand had to manipulate the cane when he was walking, and Joe was never one who could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. In later years he had learned that walking and talking led to mistakes, as his hands always tried to keep up with his mouth. It was easier to move one thing after another, or just wait for the other appendage to finish before starting something else.
This very thought, this very realization that hands and mouth and feet no longer worked in concert hit the point home with the sharpness of whatever was digging in his skull like so much razor wire.
Methos must have said something because Mac was explaining how Maurice had done up Le Blues Bar in Christmas lights and was selling wassail. Joe was pretty sure that Methos was anti wassail, but he couldn't be sure.
He finished restringing the guitar and began to tune it, shifting the body to more of a playing position and taking a sip of scotch.
"So, I've been having erotic bondage dreams in which I seem to have breast implants," Methos said candidly, before sipping from his drink. Joe rolled his eyes and Duncan just stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked at the older man intently. "Funny," Methos continued, "because I've never fantasized about being a woman before. They're nice breasts, though."
Joe couldn't even muster the irk to say that this conversation was over. He just tuned the A string with his head down.
There was silence from both of them, and then Mac cleared his throat. "Is it just breasts, or do you have-"
"Yeah," Methos finished for him. "I have pretty feet, too." Pause the sound of glass clinking. "I wonder if it isn't all that Heian poetry I've been reading."
Mac snickered. "'A jaded hook-'"
"Really now, that's no way to talk about my dream vagina. I might sue you for harassment."
Joe shook his head and listened to the bickering with one ear, the other ear on his guitar,. He couldn't get the string in tune. Maybe it was his fingers, maybe it was the humidity, though he could tune this thing in a Mississippi swamp if he had to.
"Are they implants, or just breasts?" Duncan asked mildly. Joe was having a hard time believing that they were having this discussion. Maybe the two of them had been watching Lifetime a bit too much. To the best of his knowledge Mac didn't own a TV.
Methos must have given the matter thought, because he tilted his head to one side and closed his eyes. "Implants. But there's a sense that I had breasts before, you know? Like my dream self had them and -dear god, we're not finishing this."
Mac shrugged. "You started it. "
Joe gave up on the A string and took a sip of the scotch. Something was wrong with it. Or maybe it was just him. "Speaking of breasts, how's Amanda?"
Methos laughed, and it sounded like a bark of some sort.
Duncan clucked his tongue. "You have missed the trial of the century. The theatrics, the live demonstrations." He shrugged. "She got twenty years." He swilled his drink and shook his head. "I would feel bad, but she's going to have an 'accident' next week." He made finger quotes.
Methos snorted, and Joe waved him away when he started to fill Joe's glass. "She's going to wait that long?"
Duncan regarded the Watcher with a critical eye before answering. Joe didn't like that eye being on him. Not in this way. Never before had he looked at Joe like this, and it was unsettling. "It was the earliest she could do it and be sure that she could make a get away. We both agreed that it's best that I'm not there for it."
"Well," Methos grunted as he stretched his arms over his head and yawned, "please tell me she was after something fantasticallt valuable, and not the DaVinci Code. That would just be embarrassing."
Duncan shrugged. "Whatever it was, she didn't tell anyone." He frowned. She was actually rather regal about it all, not saying much of anything. They found her in the Borgia apartment, but that's about all that anyone knows."
Joe finally got the A string in tune and went for the D. He'd be happy with halfway there before the next round of drink spitting conversation.
"You have to wonder if she didn't want to get caught, with a stunt like that. Maybe it's a conspiracy," Methos joked, but it fell flat. Mac's nostrils flared a bit and Joe thought to intervene before refraining. Mac was a big boy, and he'd just gotten the D string in tune. It seemed he hadn't lost his touch after all.
Duncan wasn't giving up, though. "I hardly think she wanted to be caught. When has Amanda ever wanted to be caught?"
Methos folded his arms. "I'm just saying that Amanda has a thousand years of experience under her belt. What's she doing at the Vatican? Besides a healthy dose of curiosity, that is." Methos sighed. "I bet they have some of my shit there."
Mac cut a glance at Methos for the curse word, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he rolled his eyes. "Why is it that every time we talk about a place that houses antiquities, you bemoan all your past possessions?" He refilled his glass. They were all hitting the alcohol heavily tonight. "Your stuff wouldn't be in there unless you were a Renaissance artist, Roman sculptor or some such person. Which I think we can all say with some certainty, you never were."
Methos swirled the scotch in his glass as he sprawled a little more in his chair, his arms hooking in the back of it. "Did I ever tell you about the summer I spent following a miracle worker around the desert as he cured the sick?"
Mac frowned. Joe watched him consider it for a minute. He wasn't going to fall for this. Then again if he did, they could all have a good laugh at his expense.
Methos nodded in silent confirmation, eyes wide. "It's true, I was the thirteenth apostle, Rufus." Mac got up and strode away from them to the bar, Methos calling after. "It's a mass conspiracy! Ever since the Council of Nicea, they've tried to suppress the Gospel of Rufus!" Methos glanced at Joe, his face a mask of apology. "Then again, can you blame them? I recall it was actually a handbook on how to pick up ladies. In Aramaic slang, no less."
Mac slammed his hand down on the bar and turned to them. Joe wasn't sure of he was upset or just faking it for the sake of wordplay. They did that sometimes, and it had taken Joe forever to catch on.
"You are going to a special place in hell, Methos, reserved for leg pullers and the unkempt."
Methos turned to face Mac now, his hands out in front of him. "Who's unkempt? I'll have you know that I am always…kempt," he finished, seemingly at a loss for words.
"Are you always this loud?" Joe asked Methos suddenly, and it was enough to freeze both of the Immortals in their tracks. Methos stopped in mid gesture to Mac and rolled his eyes in Joe's direction. They had been putting this off, but the guitar was almost tuned and that was it then, wasn't it? Time to talk now.
"You know what I mean," he continued before Methos could make a glib comment. "You've been giving me a splitting headache all night."
Mac closed his eyes and bent over the bar a little, resting his forearms on the rails.
It was Methos who spoke first, all traces of teasing gone from his voice. Joe had stopped tuning the guitar and was waiting for an answer, hands stroking the belly of the instrument.
"No. I don't know what the issue with you is," he said frankly, his face a mask, but his voice holding a note of chagrin. "It's not painful for me, nor anyone I have ever met."
Joe plucked the G and it sang for him. He's always liked the G the best. It was a mellow note, full of balance, even, the least frantic or worried of all notes in the scale.
"One of you could have told me," he said softly, glancing from Methos to Mac, who had returned and was slouching down in his chair. Joe thought it funny that Methos could slouch with nonchalance, relaxed, as if he was born that way, but Mac slouching either looked sinister or sullen.
"To be honest," Methos said flatly, "I was hoping that you would die of natural causes before anything had happened."
Mac's face flushed and he turned away. Joe could tell that he had thought the same thing. It wasn't that he wasn't man enough to say it; he was too embarrassed to admit that he had thought the same thing.
Hell, Joe would have been the first to say that his present condition was an utter mess. He had no legs, he was sixty-seven, and he had a bad case of the constant shakes. He had thought at first that his body would detox him, but apparently while addiction was partly physical, most of it was wedged in his subconscious like a bamboo splinter under the nail.
"After all the close shaves you've had over the years, it's amazing that it hadn't happened sooner," Methos finished. "Here all it took was a bar robbery gone bad," he finished, snorting. "Figures."
Joe agreed with him. After all of the scrapes they'd been in together, hell even after Jacob Gelati had buried a few slugs in his hide over a decade ago, it had never crossed his mind that this was a possibility for him. And maybe if he had been younger it would have been a grand adventure.
But it wasn't. Joe had a sword cane, and that had been a gift from Methos years before. He had thought it was a gesture, a token, a nod to his job. And perhaps Methos has meant it as such at the time, but Joe had used it for a very different purpose two days ago, and that had made up his mind for him.
"Hell, I'm old. Too old for this shit," he said aloud. Once he'd said it, once he'd cemented it in reality, it felt better. The headache eased a bit, but only enough to make his sight a bit better. Methos was more focused, as if Joe's eyes had decided to put forth one last bit of effort.
Duncan set his glass down and leaned forward to put his head in his hands. "Joe," he said from almost under the table, "we can work something out. There are plenty of monasteries-"
Joe laughed, and it was dry and harsh, a mirror to Methos's. "A monastery? Who do I look like, Connor? I don't think so, buddy." He let his fingers trip down to the B string so that he could get a better idea what the E should be. The headache hadn't affected his hearing, but the pitch of that high string was painful.
Methos didn't say anything, mostly because they'd had this discussion two nights ago, when he'd dragged his ass back to the bar, barely, tired and wired at the same time, Methos's presence drilling into his head like an 8-Bit Craftsman. He hadn't said much of anything then, either.
Oh he'd made a few suggestions, but Methos, as always, seemed to understand what the stakes of survival for anything were, and Joe was just one of fifty million organisms in the universe whose existence could be analyzed by that five thousand year old brain. That left minor things to be ironed out, planned. Mac to be called, this guitar to be tuned and set by, polished and ready to play.
Speaking of which, Joe managed to tune the last string and ran a hand down the full of them, listening to the pleasant almost discordant sound of all six strings singing in perfect pitch. "That's that," he said softly.
Methos set his glass down, rising from his chair and arching his back in a stretch, as if he were just a man about to get going for the night.
"Play us something, Joe," Mac said, raising his head from his hands, his voice strained and almost pleading. Joe didn't like that tone in anyone, least of all Mac.
Joe stroked down the frets with one hand, watching the light catch the metal and mother of pearl overlay in the pick guard. "Nah," he said, "Then I'll have to tune it all over again." He reached for the case with one hand, his other moving to lift the guitar by the neck. "It's time to get this show on the road."
Methos pulled his coat from the barstool across the room, where he'd deposited it when he'd first come in that evening, over five hours ago. Joe guessed that he'd drunk his weight in alcohol since then, or perhaps he'd just nursed the few drinks he'd had. Methos was one of those deceptive people who seemed to drink a lot but actually drank very little.
Mac rose and moved his chair back as Methos dragged the table off to the side so that Joe could set the case in his lap and place the guitar in it. The lining was worn with time. He'd never replaced it like he'd meant to. There were a lot of things he had meant to replace, but they were things that could wait.
Joe closed the lid, lowering the hinges carefully. "You'll notice that she's damn temperamental," he said in his best 'Mr. Dawson Gives A Lecture' voice. He set the case off to the side, as far away from his chair as he could get it without having to leave his seat. "The last time I let anyone touch this thing, it was Richie, and he scratched the neck." Mac backed away a bit, and Joe was sorry he'd said the name. It wasn't what Mac needed right now. "Hey buddy," he said softly to the Highlander. "It's okay," he murmured in the manner he might to a scared horse.
And Mac inched forwards much in the way that horse might, picking his feet deftly and carefully across the floor. Joe thought back to the first time they'd had a moment like this, back when he was on trial for his life, and Mac had left him alone in that room full of demented toys. Joe had never admitted it to anyone but himself, but in that moment he had absolved Mac of any obligation to ever save him from anything. That included this, he guessed.
Mac dropped down on his haunches in front of Joe, clasping Joe's hands. "I never learned how to play the guitar," he said quietly.
Joe released Mac's right hand so that he could pat the instrument case. "No excuse now," he said.
Mac would never tell him not to do this, but his eyes said it. Joe couldn't look at them anymore. Instead, he let go of Mac's other hand and glanced at Methos. As if he sensed that his moment was past, Duncan grabbed Joe's forearm, squeezed, then let go before getting up and moving back for the other man in the room.
Joe had to admit that the most impressive thing about Methos was that he kept himself in a box. Sure when you walked into a room with him, ladies liked to stare because he was handsome, but not as handsome as Mac. But for the most part he was Adam Pierson, just a guy.
But there were moments, like now, when whatever that ancient thing that had germinated and grown into Methos, the aged thing, was allowed to actually unfurl inside Adam Pierson's body, and the very air seemed to change with the switch of personas. It was this person who faced Joe now. He was still Methos, his buddy, in fact Methos was probably more of a friend than Adam had ever been, but it was almost too much to be contained by a human body. Joe's head ached with the mere presence of it.
He'd be glad to be rid of the headache, that was for damn sure.
Methos bent down, bringing his face close to Joe's, his mouth closing in on Joe's lips. The kiss he laid there was neither chaste nor sexy. It was driving, hard, lips and tongue and teeth, and hoo boy, Joe wasn't really one to swing that way, but he could go with it for once. Methos's breath was scotch flavored, but that was fine with him because his was the same.
He opened his lips and let Methos take what he wanted, as if he was looking for some sort of confirmation from Joe that he could only give this way, an ancient custom of the mouth being the passage of all truth. Joe moved his mouth against Methos's, trying to say all that he could say in that gesture alone, though he hadn't noticed that he'd raised his hands to clench at Methos's shoulders until he was gone, face a foot or so from his, breathless, eyes still looking for confirmation from Joe.
"We gotta go," Joe said to the man in front of him. He smiled, and for the first time in the past few days, he meant everything that he put behind it.
"It's a sea shanty," Methos said softly to him. His eyes were wide and bright. Joe had very little occasion to watch the man cry, but if this was what he looked like when in despair, then Joe didn't wonder why Kronos had wanted to keep him in this state. Methos was, beyond all that he could have ever realized until this moment, real. The low light cut across the sharp features of his nose and cheeks and softened them. He was back-lit as he bent down and kissed Joe on the cheek, and in that moment in which Methos's skin touched his face, he could see Mac a few feet away, hair loose, lower lip jutting out in grief as he had seen many times before. His eyes matched Methos's, watery and gemlike, or maybe that was all the brandy in Joe's system.
In any case, he thought, to be loved by the two of them, if just for a little while, hadn't been such a bad ride.
He squared his shoulders when Methos pulled away. "I know, man, I know."
The first time he'd ever seen an Immortal take a head, it had been scintillating and terrible. The preparation for the most ritual of beheadings was gruesome and solemn, something filled with dread for the act to come. Methos was nothing if not ceremonious, but this time he chose to pull the blade slowly, to arc it in a little show for him. The light caught it, and for a second it dawned on him that Methos had cleaned his blade for this occasion, beyond his normal routine that was. The blade was oiled and without flaw, almost white in the contrast to the darkness.
Joe let his hands fall to his lap, empty, nothing left to say, except, "You do know that everything will turn out all right, don't you?" he said quickly, watching Methos adjust his hands on the pommel. "We'll come back around to freedom and democracy again." Funny how saying "we" felt like a betrayal now.
Methos smiled, no teeth but gentleness, saving grace and wisdom beyond all belief. Duncan had recessed a bit into the shadows; Joe hoped that he wasn't going to do anything stupid.
"You always will, Joe. You always will."
Joe closed his eyes for a moment. The pain was amazing, but past the feeling was the brightness that came with something so intense that if one concentrated on it, delved inside it, reveled in it, it became a whiteness that superceded pain and transformed into a completely foreign sensation altogether. He hadn't felt that since he'd lost his legs.
"I wish I could be here when the lamp turns on again," he said hoarsely before opening his eyes.
Methos raised the blade up and behind him, one of those classic poses you saw in film, something in which the cherry blossoms fell in eddies and the film soundtrack had cut out so that the only noise was the crickets in the spring scene. Joe had to admit that the view was breathtaking from his position, and for a split second realized that it was truly ironic that one only got to see it once, really.
Mac ground his jaw, and Joe could see his hands twitching. Methos exhaled finally, so long it was if all air was forever leaving his body. The shoulders started the swing first, an arc of silver that even in the dimness of this light seemed to be moving so-
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next afternoon, as the crews sifted through the rubble that was once Joe's, Methos watched from behind the caution tape, hands shoved in pockets, huddled so far into his coat it was a miracle that he didn't collapse in on himself.
Duncan had followed him here, from a distance just to be sure.
Now they stood side by side, watching the investigators pick out wire chairs melded together from the intensity of the blaze.
"It was the right thing, wasn't it?" Methos asked softly, eyes not leaving the site.
Duncan cocked his head as a fireman pulled what was definitely the neck of Joe's electric guitar from under a bunch of charred timbers. "Of course," he said gently. "It should've been me."
That got Methos's attention; he turned wholly, facing Mac with squared shoulder. The look in his eyes was simple, neutral, the face of knowing. "No, no it shouldn't have."
Mac watched him walk down the street, and knew not to follow.
END
Commence stoning.
Disclaimer: I don't own Highlander, Duncan, Methos, Joe or this idea of immortality. I made no money from this, nor do I ever plan to.
WARNING: This is an Amand-r story in all its darkened glory. If you don't know what that means, please read something else of mine to get the idea. I won't say anything more than that, because that'd give it all away.
For Unovis's bar story challenge, May 31, 2005.
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Yeah, That One Last Thing
by Amand-r
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"You know there's always more than one way to say exactly what you mean to say."
--Fastball, "Out of My Head"
"She said, 'Loving you made me happy every day.'"
--L'Arc En Ciel, "Feeling Fine"
The night the bar burned down, Joe had been restringing his guitar.
"I'm not saying it's pornographic, I'm just saying that it's easy to see why people can think so," he mumbled around a mouthful of string.
Methos rolled his eyes and slouched further in his chair. "The act of small minds jumping to conclusions," he muttered, though his lack of audibility seemed to have less to do with his mouth being full and more to do with disgust. He flipped the newspaper closed and tossed it on the table. "I hate to say this, but I am genuinely starting to despise the American public."
Joe rolled his eyes and took the strong out of his mouth, notching the end of the wire into the bridge of the guitar. "Oh yeah, because we were so less uptight three hundred years ago, Goodman Methos."
Methos leaned forward and set his arms on the table between them. "That's the problem, Joseph," he said softly. It was a good thing that the bar was closed, or he wouldn't have heard it, especially the usage of his full name. Joe could count on his nonexistent toes the number to times that Methos had used it. Ever.
Joe had tuned the lights off in other areas and although they still had enough light to read if they held the paper up to the light, it was rather dim. In fact, the only way Joe was even able to string his guitar was based on the fact that he'd been doing it so often that he could do it in the dark. He told Methos that it was to save electricity, as the bar was a money sieve, but the real fact was that Joe had a rampaging headache.
He didn't want to think about that.
Instead he watched Methos glance down at the paper before curving his hands around the glass on the table and cradling it like a fragile thing.
"I thought you were the one who said that history goes in never-ending spirals," he joked.
Methos ran a hand through his hair and slouched back into his chair again, this time taking his drink with him. "The more that I think about it, I'm convinced that history is the colored wax in the lava lamp." He smiles wryly. "Someone turned the lamp off, and the wax is settling and cooling now. In a hundred years the lamp will turn on again, and the wax will start to melt."
Joe stopped stringing the guitar and rested his hands on the belly of it. The string twanged loosely. "I would…that's…brilliant."
Methos smiled. "Always a pleasure to be of service. Brandy?"
Joe inclined his head. "Hit me."
Methos complied with the bottle from the table, then propped both of his feet up on the empty chair at his left. "Are you sure Mac is getting in today?"
Joe twisted the tuning peg for the G string. "That's what he said. Amanda's trial was over last week." Joe sighed and reached past his snifter for the B string. "I still can't believe she even tried to do that."
Methos smiled. "Eh. The Vatican is the crème de la crème of burglary. Eventually Amanda had to succumb to its sweet siren song." He stopped at that and drank from his glass before muttering, "And I have to stop watching Xena: Warrior Princess."
Joe fumbled with the B string a bit. It was thicker and his fingers were having trouble notching it properly. He didn't want to think about what meant either. "What you have to do is stop watching the We network."
Methos shifted in his seat. "What can I say? Lucy Lawless is fucking fantastic."
Joe finally managed to notch the string and he held it tense while he took another drink. "What you're saying is that she has great breasts and long legs and that you don't need to rent porn anymore."
Methos made wide eyes. "Isn't that what I said?"
Joe didn't reply because he was too busy feeling something that was a bit like his headache amplified in THX. If the headache he'd had up until now had been like a knitting needle in his temple, now someone was grinding it all around, stirring the cake batter that had indeed become his brains.
Methos looked up in alarm, then he relaxed a little in that way that all Immortals had once they had gotten past the instinctual urge to bolt.
"Anyway," Methos said jovially and out of the blue, "It's a goddamn sea shanty, and that's all there is to it."
It took Joe a few seconds to rewind the conversation back in his head to a point where this statement would have anything to do with anything they'd said all night. Ah, yes, right there.
"I didn't say it's not a sea shanty, I'm saying that The Kingsmen recorded it when they were smoking something, and it didn't help that they managed to completely forget the English language," he retorted. "'Ayfain liyelkurwl away onee, eektatsh ahip oconstalee' is not a language that I'm familiar with."
Methos smirked. "The mating call of the North American frat boy perhaps."
Joe laughed, but it was short lived because the pain spiked again. If Mac would just get here, he'd be fine.
"I need something better than this shit," Methos told him. It was unlike him to be cursing quite so much, but they were both cranky and the brandy was a bit off. Everything in the bar tasted off and had for days.
"Then go get something else, man. I don't think your legs are strapped on," he retorted, giving up on the guitar for a few minutes and deciding instead to focus on the pivotal point of pain in his skull. It traveled a lot, but when he could apply pressure to certain spots it felt better.
Joe rubbed the bridge of his nose and then opened his hand further to slide his fingers up onto his temples. Methos returned from the bar with another bottle of something that looked like the Glenlivet that he'd stashed behind the register three years ago. The Immortal's left hand brushed by the glass on Joe's side for a second, passing long enough to deposit about five Advil on the polished surface of the table. He didn't say anything, but Joe took them all anyway. At this point he would take anything.
The door to the bar opened just as Methos was pouring scotch into old-fashioned glasses, having abandoned the snifters with the brandy.
"You're just in time," Methos said without looking over his shoulder. "Goodman Dawson was just telling me how he plans to ban all songs with the slightest hint of sexual undertone, including those sung in indecipherable languages."
Mac strode into the room and stopped, mostly because, Joe figured, he needed to adjust to the lighting in the room. Hell, even the street lamps outside were brighter. What was he thinking when he turned down the lights? The spike of pressure in his temple reminded him.
He massaged his head again and prayed the Advil would work. "Methos is off about something," he told Mac as the man sat down in the chair Methos's feet had earlier vacated. "You know, how the world used to be a beautiful place before they invented microwaves and bleach."
Mac shed his coat and tossed it on another table, the weight of it hitting the wood with a thunk. The loudness hit Joe with more pain, but also a shock of surprise; Mac went everywhere armed, but tonight it seemed more acute.
Well, this guitar wasn't going to restring itself.
Methos handed him the final E string and he uncoiled it in his hands as Mac accepted the glass of scotch appreciatively.
"How is everyone tonight?" he murmured before taking a deep drink.
Methos shrugged. Joe had his hands full, and as was the case sometimes, that meant that he couldn't speak at the moment. His mother had always said that he talked with his hands too much. When he had lost his legs, he had been less articulate with his hands when he was moving his mouth, mostly because one hand had to manipulate the cane when he was walking, and Joe was never one who could walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. In later years he had learned that walking and talking led to mistakes, as his hands always tried to keep up with his mouth. It was easier to move one thing after another, or just wait for the other appendage to finish before starting something else.
This very thought, this very realization that hands and mouth and feet no longer worked in concert hit the point home with the sharpness of whatever was digging in his skull like so much razor wire.
Methos must have said something because Mac was explaining how Maurice had done up Le Blues Bar in Christmas lights and was selling wassail. Joe was pretty sure that Methos was anti wassail, but he couldn't be sure.
He finished restringing the guitar and began to tune it, shifting the body to more of a playing position and taking a sip of scotch.
"So, I've been having erotic bondage dreams in which I seem to have breast implants," Methos said candidly, before sipping from his drink. Joe rolled his eyes and Duncan just stuck his tongue in his cheek and looked at the older man intently. "Funny," Methos continued, "because I've never fantasized about being a woman before. They're nice breasts, though."
Joe couldn't even muster the irk to say that this conversation was over. He just tuned the A string with his head down.
There was silence from both of them, and then Mac cleared his throat. "Is it just breasts, or do you have-"
"Yeah," Methos finished for him. "I have pretty feet, too." Pause the sound of glass clinking. "I wonder if it isn't all that Heian poetry I've been reading."
Mac snickered. "'A jaded hook-'"
"Really now, that's no way to talk about my dream vagina. I might sue you for harassment."
Joe shook his head and listened to the bickering with one ear, the other ear on his guitar,. He couldn't get the string in tune. Maybe it was his fingers, maybe it was the humidity, though he could tune this thing in a Mississippi swamp if he had to.
"Are they implants, or just breasts?" Duncan asked mildly. Joe was having a hard time believing that they were having this discussion. Maybe the two of them had been watching Lifetime a bit too much. To the best of his knowledge Mac didn't own a TV.
Methos must have given the matter thought, because he tilted his head to one side and closed his eyes. "Implants. But there's a sense that I had breasts before, you know? Like my dream self had them and -dear god, we're not finishing this."
Mac shrugged. "You started it. "
Joe gave up on the A string and took a sip of the scotch. Something was wrong with it. Or maybe it was just him. "Speaking of breasts, how's Amanda?"
Methos laughed, and it sounded like a bark of some sort.
Duncan clucked his tongue. "You have missed the trial of the century. The theatrics, the live demonstrations." He shrugged. "She got twenty years." He swilled his drink and shook his head. "I would feel bad, but she's going to have an 'accident' next week." He made finger quotes.
Methos snorted, and Joe waved him away when he started to fill Joe's glass. "She's going to wait that long?"
Duncan regarded the Watcher with a critical eye before answering. Joe didn't like that eye being on him. Not in this way. Never before had he looked at Joe like this, and it was unsettling. "It was the earliest she could do it and be sure that she could make a get away. We both agreed that it's best that I'm not there for it."
"Well," Methos grunted as he stretched his arms over his head and yawned, "please tell me she was after something fantasticallt valuable, and not the DaVinci Code. That would just be embarrassing."
Duncan shrugged. "Whatever it was, she didn't tell anyone." He frowned. She was actually rather regal about it all, not saying much of anything. They found her in the Borgia apartment, but that's about all that anyone knows."
Joe finally got the A string in tune and went for the D. He'd be happy with halfway there before the next round of drink spitting conversation.
"You have to wonder if she didn't want to get caught, with a stunt like that. Maybe it's a conspiracy," Methos joked, but it fell flat. Mac's nostrils flared a bit and Joe thought to intervene before refraining. Mac was a big boy, and he'd just gotten the D string in tune. It seemed he hadn't lost his touch after all.
Duncan wasn't giving up, though. "I hardly think she wanted to be caught. When has Amanda ever wanted to be caught?"
Methos folded his arms. "I'm just saying that Amanda has a thousand years of experience under her belt. What's she doing at the Vatican? Besides a healthy dose of curiosity, that is." Methos sighed. "I bet they have some of my shit there."
Mac cut a glance at Methos for the curse word, but he didn't comment on it. Instead he rolled his eyes. "Why is it that every time we talk about a place that houses antiquities, you bemoan all your past possessions?" He refilled his glass. They were all hitting the alcohol heavily tonight. "Your stuff wouldn't be in there unless you were a Renaissance artist, Roman sculptor or some such person. Which I think we can all say with some certainty, you never were."
Methos swirled the scotch in his glass as he sprawled a little more in his chair, his arms hooking in the back of it. "Did I ever tell you about the summer I spent following a miracle worker around the desert as he cured the sick?"
Mac frowned. Joe watched him consider it for a minute. He wasn't going to fall for this. Then again if he did, they could all have a good laugh at his expense.
Methos nodded in silent confirmation, eyes wide. "It's true, I was the thirteenth apostle, Rufus." Mac got up and strode away from them to the bar, Methos calling after. "It's a mass conspiracy! Ever since the Council of Nicea, they've tried to suppress the Gospel of Rufus!" Methos glanced at Joe, his face a mask of apology. "Then again, can you blame them? I recall it was actually a handbook on how to pick up ladies. In Aramaic slang, no less."
Mac slammed his hand down on the bar and turned to them. Joe wasn't sure of he was upset or just faking it for the sake of wordplay. They did that sometimes, and it had taken Joe forever to catch on.
"You are going to a special place in hell, Methos, reserved for leg pullers and the unkempt."
Methos turned to face Mac now, his hands out in front of him. "Who's unkempt? I'll have you know that I am always…kempt," he finished, seemingly at a loss for words.
"Are you always this loud?" Joe asked Methos suddenly, and it was enough to freeze both of the Immortals in their tracks. Methos stopped in mid gesture to Mac and rolled his eyes in Joe's direction. They had been putting this off, but the guitar was almost tuned and that was it then, wasn't it? Time to talk now.
"You know what I mean," he continued before Methos could make a glib comment. "You've been giving me a splitting headache all night."
Mac closed his eyes and bent over the bar a little, resting his forearms on the rails.
It was Methos who spoke first, all traces of teasing gone from his voice. Joe had stopped tuning the guitar and was waiting for an answer, hands stroking the belly of the instrument.
"No. I don't know what the issue with you is," he said frankly, his face a mask, but his voice holding a note of chagrin. "It's not painful for me, nor anyone I have ever met."
Joe plucked the G and it sang for him. He's always liked the G the best. It was a mellow note, full of balance, even, the least frantic or worried of all notes in the scale.
"One of you could have told me," he said softly, glancing from Methos to Mac, who had returned and was slouching down in his chair. Joe thought it funny that Methos could slouch with nonchalance, relaxed, as if he was born that way, but Mac slouching either looked sinister or sullen.
"To be honest," Methos said flatly, "I was hoping that you would die of natural causes before anything had happened."
Mac's face flushed and he turned away. Joe could tell that he had thought the same thing. It wasn't that he wasn't man enough to say it; he was too embarrassed to admit that he had thought the same thing.
Hell, Joe would have been the first to say that his present condition was an utter mess. He had no legs, he was sixty-seven, and he had a bad case of the constant shakes. He had thought at first that his body would detox him, but apparently while addiction was partly physical, most of it was wedged in his subconscious like a bamboo splinter under the nail.
"After all the close shaves you've had over the years, it's amazing that it hadn't happened sooner," Methos finished. "Here all it took was a bar robbery gone bad," he finished, snorting. "Figures."
Joe agreed with him. After all of the scrapes they'd been in together, hell even after Jacob Gelati had buried a few slugs in his hide over a decade ago, it had never crossed his mind that this was a possibility for him. And maybe if he had been younger it would have been a grand adventure.
But it wasn't. Joe had a sword cane, and that had been a gift from Methos years before. He had thought it was a gesture, a token, a nod to his job. And perhaps Methos has meant it as such at the time, but Joe had used it for a very different purpose two days ago, and that had made up his mind for him.
"Hell, I'm old. Too old for this shit," he said aloud. Once he'd said it, once he'd cemented it in reality, it felt better. The headache eased a bit, but only enough to make his sight a bit better. Methos was more focused, as if Joe's eyes had decided to put forth one last bit of effort.
Duncan set his glass down and leaned forward to put his head in his hands. "Joe," he said from almost under the table, "we can work something out. There are plenty of monasteries-"
Joe laughed, and it was dry and harsh, a mirror to Methos's. "A monastery? Who do I look like, Connor? I don't think so, buddy." He let his fingers trip down to the B string so that he could get a better idea what the E should be. The headache hadn't affected his hearing, but the pitch of that high string was painful.
Methos didn't say anything, mostly because they'd had this discussion two nights ago, when he'd dragged his ass back to the bar, barely, tired and wired at the same time, Methos's presence drilling into his head like an 8-Bit Craftsman. He hadn't said much of anything then, either.
Oh he'd made a few suggestions, but Methos, as always, seemed to understand what the stakes of survival for anything were, and Joe was just one of fifty million organisms in the universe whose existence could be analyzed by that five thousand year old brain. That left minor things to be ironed out, planned. Mac to be called, this guitar to be tuned and set by, polished and ready to play.
Speaking of which, Joe managed to tune the last string and ran a hand down the full of them, listening to the pleasant almost discordant sound of all six strings singing in perfect pitch. "That's that," he said softly.
Methos set his glass down, rising from his chair and arching his back in a stretch, as if he were just a man about to get going for the night.
"Play us something, Joe," Mac said, raising his head from his hands, his voice strained and almost pleading. Joe didn't like that tone in anyone, least of all Mac.
Joe stroked down the frets with one hand, watching the light catch the metal and mother of pearl overlay in the pick guard. "Nah," he said, "Then I'll have to tune it all over again." He reached for the case with one hand, his other moving to lift the guitar by the neck. "It's time to get this show on the road."
Methos pulled his coat from the barstool across the room, where he'd deposited it when he'd first come in that evening, over five hours ago. Joe guessed that he'd drunk his weight in alcohol since then, or perhaps he'd just nursed the few drinks he'd had. Methos was one of those deceptive people who seemed to drink a lot but actually drank very little.
Mac rose and moved his chair back as Methos dragged the table off to the side so that Joe could set the case in his lap and place the guitar in it. The lining was worn with time. He'd never replaced it like he'd meant to. There were a lot of things he had meant to replace, but they were things that could wait.
Joe closed the lid, lowering the hinges carefully. "You'll notice that she's damn temperamental," he said in his best 'Mr. Dawson Gives A Lecture' voice. He set the case off to the side, as far away from his chair as he could get it without having to leave his seat. "The last time I let anyone touch this thing, it was Richie, and he scratched the neck." Mac backed away a bit, and Joe was sorry he'd said the name. It wasn't what Mac needed right now. "Hey buddy," he said softly to the Highlander. "It's okay," he murmured in the manner he might to a scared horse.
And Mac inched forwards much in the way that horse might, picking his feet deftly and carefully across the floor. Joe thought back to the first time they'd had a moment like this, back when he was on trial for his life, and Mac had left him alone in that room full of demented toys. Joe had never admitted it to anyone but himself, but in that moment he had absolved Mac of any obligation to ever save him from anything. That included this, he guessed.
Mac dropped down on his haunches in front of Joe, clasping Joe's hands. "I never learned how to play the guitar," he said quietly.
Joe released Mac's right hand so that he could pat the instrument case. "No excuse now," he said.
Mac would never tell him not to do this, but his eyes said it. Joe couldn't look at them anymore. Instead, he let go of Mac's other hand and glanced at Methos. As if he sensed that his moment was past, Duncan grabbed Joe's forearm, squeezed, then let go before getting up and moving back for the other man in the room.
Joe had to admit that the most impressive thing about Methos was that he kept himself in a box. Sure when you walked into a room with him, ladies liked to stare because he was handsome, but not as handsome as Mac. But for the most part he was Adam Pierson, just a guy.
But there were moments, like now, when whatever that ancient thing that had germinated and grown into Methos, the aged thing, was allowed to actually unfurl inside Adam Pierson's body, and the very air seemed to change with the switch of personas. It was this person who faced Joe now. He was still Methos, his buddy, in fact Methos was probably more of a friend than Adam had ever been, but it was almost too much to be contained by a human body. Joe's head ached with the mere presence of it.
He'd be glad to be rid of the headache, that was for damn sure.
Methos bent down, bringing his face close to Joe's, his mouth closing in on Joe's lips. The kiss he laid there was neither chaste nor sexy. It was driving, hard, lips and tongue and teeth, and hoo boy, Joe wasn't really one to swing that way, but he could go with it for once. Methos's breath was scotch flavored, but that was fine with him because his was the same.
He opened his lips and let Methos take what he wanted, as if he was looking for some sort of confirmation from Joe that he could only give this way, an ancient custom of the mouth being the passage of all truth. Joe moved his mouth against Methos's, trying to say all that he could say in that gesture alone, though he hadn't noticed that he'd raised his hands to clench at Methos's shoulders until he was gone, face a foot or so from his, breathless, eyes still looking for confirmation from Joe.
"We gotta go," Joe said to the man in front of him. He smiled, and for the first time in the past few days, he meant everything that he put behind it.
"It's a sea shanty," Methos said softly to him. His eyes were wide and bright. Joe had very little occasion to watch the man cry, but if this was what he looked like when in despair, then Joe didn't wonder why Kronos had wanted to keep him in this state. Methos was, beyond all that he could have ever realized until this moment, real. The low light cut across the sharp features of his nose and cheeks and softened them. He was back-lit as he bent down and kissed Joe on the cheek, and in that moment in which Methos's skin touched his face, he could see Mac a few feet away, hair loose, lower lip jutting out in grief as he had seen many times before. His eyes matched Methos's, watery and gemlike, or maybe that was all the brandy in Joe's system.
In any case, he thought, to be loved by the two of them, if just for a little while, hadn't been such a bad ride.
He squared his shoulders when Methos pulled away. "I know, man, I know."
The first time he'd ever seen an Immortal take a head, it had been scintillating and terrible. The preparation for the most ritual of beheadings was gruesome and solemn, something filled with dread for the act to come. Methos was nothing if not ceremonious, but this time he chose to pull the blade slowly, to arc it in a little show for him. The light caught it, and for a second it dawned on him that Methos had cleaned his blade for this occasion, beyond his normal routine that was. The blade was oiled and without flaw, almost white in the contrast to the darkness.
Joe let his hands fall to his lap, empty, nothing left to say, except, "You do know that everything will turn out all right, don't you?" he said quickly, watching Methos adjust his hands on the pommel. "We'll come back around to freedom and democracy again." Funny how saying "we" felt like a betrayal now.
Methos smiled, no teeth but gentleness, saving grace and wisdom beyond all belief. Duncan had recessed a bit into the shadows; Joe hoped that he wasn't going to do anything stupid.
"You always will, Joe. You always will."
Joe closed his eyes for a moment. The pain was amazing, but past the feeling was the brightness that came with something so intense that if one concentrated on it, delved inside it, reveled in it, it became a whiteness that superceded pain and transformed into a completely foreign sensation altogether. He hadn't felt that since he'd lost his legs.
"I wish I could be here when the lamp turns on again," he said hoarsely before opening his eyes.
Methos raised the blade up and behind him, one of those classic poses you saw in film, something in which the cherry blossoms fell in eddies and the film soundtrack had cut out so that the only noise was the crickets in the spring scene. Joe had to admit that the view was breathtaking from his position, and for a split second realized that it was truly ironic that one only got to see it once, really.
Mac ground his jaw, and Joe could see his hands twitching. Methos exhaled finally, so long it was if all air was forever leaving his body. The shoulders started the swing first, an arc of silver that even in the dimness of this light seemed to be moving so-
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The next afternoon, as the crews sifted through the rubble that was once Joe's, Methos watched from behind the caution tape, hands shoved in pockets, huddled so far into his coat it was a miracle that he didn't collapse in on himself.
Duncan had followed him here, from a distance just to be sure.
Now they stood side by side, watching the investigators pick out wire chairs melded together from the intensity of the blaze.
"It was the right thing, wasn't it?" Methos asked softly, eyes not leaving the site.
Duncan cocked his head as a fireman pulled what was definitely the neck of Joe's electric guitar from under a bunch of charred timbers. "Of course," he said gently. "It should've been me."
That got Methos's attention; he turned wholly, facing Mac with squared shoulder. The look in his eyes was simple, neutral, the face of knowing. "No, no it shouldn't have."
Mac watched him walk down the street, and knew not to follow.
END
Commence stoning.