For A Favor Not Fleeting, for idontlikegravy (1/2)
Title: For a Favor Not Fleeting
Author: The First Gnome of Crimmas aka elistaire
Written for: idontlikegravy
Characters/Pairings: Nick Wolfe, Methos, Richie, Fitz, Joe Dawson; Methos/Richie
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, who shall be revealed later.
Nick was dreaming.
He was sitting down at an expensive restaurant, linen napkins and polished silverware gleaming on the table, but no one else was there. Everything was poised, expectant, as if the customers and servers would step into the room at any moment, but for the moment, Nick was alone in the silence.
Then he heard voices. He looked up.
Two men were standing in the entryway. The shorter of the two was dressed in a tuxedo, with a top hat and a white tipped cane, looking for all the world as if he’d just stepped out of a black and white movie. He took off his coat and draped it on a nearby chair. With practiced movements, he put his hat and cane down alongside. When he moved forward, Nick could see that the man was even wearing spats. The man spotted him and gave a big smile and a wave. Then he turned to speak softly with the second man.
The other man was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket. He looked scruffy, but reputable, as if he were quite hard-shelled, but still had that interior softness. Nick would have guessed that he wasn’t yet legal to drink, either. His hair was shorn short enough that just a hint of curl came through. Everything about him made Nick think that it was a tough kid trying to make good, and Nick tended to trust his instincts on this sort of thing.
“Okay, this is it. Now, stay calm, and don’t bungle it,” said the man in the tuxedo. “Good luck, my boy.”
“No problem,” said the kid.
Nick wondered if they were related. They both had the same friendly blue eyes and although the older man wore his hair quite a bit longer, they both had a similar shade of dirty blond. Their facial features were completely distinct, but there was already an easy familiarity between them. The nattily dressed one was old enough to be the second man’s father.
The younger man came forward and motioned to the chair across from Nick. “Mind if I sit?”
“It’s a free country,” Nick said.
“Sure it is,” the man agreed. He held out his hand. “Richie Ryan. Pleased to meet you. Nick Wolfe, right?”
Nick shook his hand. “Do I know you?”
Richie shrugged easily, like water sliding off a duck’s back. “We have mutual friends.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. That sort of phrase seemed to go along with certain types of people. “Would that be a tall, thin lady about a thousand years old?” he asked.
Richie grinned. “Amanda,” he said. “Now that’s a real class act, you know what I mean?”
“I know Amanda’s act,” Nick said dryly. He was still working on his issues where she was concerned. She gave him that slow, burning desire deep in his gut, and then she’d do or say something that was like a whack to the head and he’d have a migraine for a week.
“Don’t we all,” Richie said, but it was on an appreciative sigh. “But she’s not why I’m here. Actually, I needed to ask you for a favor.”
“A favor?” Nick repeated, suddenly curious as well as wary. “What sort of favor?”
“A really, really big favor. And I don’t have any way to pay you back.”
Nick gave a short barking laugh. “You’re kidding?”
Richie just looked at him with those big baby blues and Nick felt himself soften a little. “At least just hear me out.”
“Okay, fine.”
“I want you to go and learn a specific, special technique. It’s called the diamond rope tie. It’s part of the Japanese art of rope restraint. Hojojutsu. You can learn more if you want. But I really need you to learn that one.”
Nick laughed. “I’m not sure how my learning something is actually a favor, but that’s not going to be easy.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard of that martial art, kid. It’s a dying breed. And there’s a lot of secrecy around it.”
“Yeah, but I know someone who’ll teach it to you.” Richie leaned forward in his chair. “And the move you need to learn isn’t a big secret, it’s one of the beginner moves. I just need you to be really, really good at it.”
“Why?”
Richie’s expression was carefully blank. “I can’t tell you that. It’d be against the rules.”
“What rules would those be?” Nick asked. He really didn’t like it when things went all squirrelly like this.
“So do we have a deal?” Richie asked, ignoring Nick’s question.
“We can’t have a deal if its one sided and you can’t pay up,” Nick said.
Richie flashed him a brilliant smile. “Yeah, but you’re one of the good guys. And this is for a good cause. Besides, its win-win for you. You could do with a few more skills.” Richie moved his hands through the air as if swishing with swords, and then he actually made the sound-effects noise.
Nick lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“C’mon. Do a guy a favor?”
Nick looked at his earnest expression and groaned. He was going to do this. He was going to prance down the garden path for some wet-behind-the-ears golden-haired kid who’d just asked him for a pretty-as-you-please favor. Nick decided he was the biggest sucker who’d ever been born.
“Yes!” Richie said, with a little elbow-shucking arm movement. “Thank you, Nick. You won’t regret this. I think you’ll be glad you did it!”
“Okay, fine, whatever. Just tell me the name of the guy I need to find who’ll teach me.”
“His name is Adam Pierson. You can find him in Seacouver.”
The guy in the tuxedo came over to the table. “Time’s up, Richie.”
“Thanks, Fitz,” Richie said, looking up. He flashed a grateful look at Nick. “Thank you. And don’t forget.”
Fitz put his hand on Richie’s shoulder and Richie stood. With a practiced bow, Fitz caught Nick’s attention. “And now back to your regularly scheduled dream.”
A moment later, the two of them were gone in the crowd of the restaurant and Nick was being served a big bowl of squid, still alive and squirming. “Waiter,” he said. “There’s a fly in my squid.”
***~***
When Nick woke up, he had a headache and he felt queasy. He’d actually dreamed he’d eaten squid.
The headache got the double aspirin treatment and Nick started to feel better. He walked out to his kitchen and started the coffee maker. Then he grabbed a spare pen and a pad of paper and, as the coffee brewed, he wrote down what he remembered.
Adam Pierson. Seacouver. Hojojutsu. Diamond rope tie.
It seemed pretty specific, actually.
Nick called Bert Myers.
“Yeah. I gotta go out of town for a while, track down some stuff I’m working on.”
“You need help?” Bert asked, because Bert was a nosy bastard, not because he actually liked to help.
“Not yet. I’ll call you if I’m in over my head,” Nick said, with absolutely no intention of calling Bert. This was Immortal business. He remembered the kid in his dream making the swishy sword moves. “Later, Bert.” He hung up.
Nick didn’t really go in for prophetic dreaming, but it had been disturbingly specific. He’d certainly seen odder things. And given that his life span was now going to possibly be counted in centuries rather than decades, Nick had nothing better to do with his time than hunt down a dream. Besides, he’d said he’d do the kid the favor, and Nick kept his promises.
***~***
The drive to Seacouver took two days, but it was good down time. The long miles of road allowed Nick to think hard about things, gave him time for introspection.
He hadn’t seen Amanda since he’d walked away from her after she unceremoniously shot him in the warehouse, triggering his Immortality. Nick still couldn’t forgive her for that, which he figured was probably unfair, but he didn’t care. Nick had believed that someday he might have actually earned the brass ring-he had wanted a family, a house, the two car garage, the whole shebang. Now he wouldn’t ever have a son to teach the finer points of the pick-and-roll or what it felt like to make a double play from left field. All his dreams of eating hotdogs in the stands while his kid played and being proud while attending graduation had been dashed. Dissolved. Destroyed. It wasn’t Amanda’s fault, really, but oh, Nick blamed her for it all. He blamed her with a deep, abiding gut-reaction that never seemed to lessen.
Of course, just because he hadn’t seen Amanda didn’t mean that she wasn’t keeping tabs on him.
Within the week of his returning home and trying to find the remainder of all the pieces that had been thoroughly gutted, an Immortal woman had shown up on his doorstep. Moana. No last name.
He’d almost shot her, even though she’d knocked and announced herself and her intentions. She’d been grim upon noticing the calm panic that had settled over him at her appearance. He knew how to fight, with fists and guns, but not with steel.
“I’m not here for your head,” she’d told him as she stood on his threshold. “I owe Amanda several favors, and she called them in. One month, and I’ll at least teach you the basics of defending yourself. After that, you’ll have to find your own teacher.”
He had reluctantly agreed. He’d needed the training, and at least it wasn’t Amanda.
Moana was taller than Amanda, almost as tall as Nick himself. She was built more broadly, with bigger hands, and heavier muscles. She wouldn’t ever get away with the demure fashions that Amanda favored, but Nick admired the way she moved through the world. Practical, and not giving a shit what anyone else thought. She dressed in jeans and men’s button-down flannel shirts, wearing tan-colored construction boots, and moving like a dancer, like a boxer.
She had been an excellent choice to train him, Nick had to reluctantly admit. Her height and breadth matched his enough that Nick didn’t have any physical advantage there, and he had to learn to deal with that. She was graceful and calm, and took none of his shit, and Nick had to admit, she was a woman. He didn’t think he’d have lasted five minutes with a male teacher.
Something in him just always wanted to start fights, to egg on confrontation. With men, even ones that were his friends, there was always this undercurrent of competition for Nick. He had no idea what he needed to prove, but he felt like he was always being looked at and found wanting, and the little ball of rage that he kept feeding in the center of his chest would pulse and his hackles would raise, like a guard dog growling at every shadow. Becoming Immortal had just exacerbated this tendency in him. Nick knew this, but it didn’t matter. It was part of him, part of who he was.
“You need to get your reactions under control,” Moana had told him one night as she’d taught him how to properly care for his sword. She’d calmly been inspecting the edges of her own. “Your first response is always sarcasm, defensiveness, and challenge. Useful tools sometimes, but not always the tools you need to use.”
“Seems to have worked out fine so far,” Nick had said back.
Moana had smiled at him. “You don’t have to change overnight. Just think about it for a decade or so.”
Nick had snorted and averted his eyes. He hated that he suddenly needed to start thinking about his future in those terms. It used to be he’d take a night or a weekend to make decisions, now he could procrastinate for years about something. Years. Nick tightened his hands into fists.
“You need to release some of that stress before you care for your weapon, or you’ll end up doing it poorly.”
And, of course, Moana was right. Nick hoped the month would go a lot faster. He really didn’t need to have his entire psyche criticized and found wanting.
***~***
Nick had used a few of his contacts to track down Adam Pierson, so he had a fairly good idea where he could locate him.
The trouble was, of course, that entering the sphere of another Immortal always caused friction. The problem was intent. How would Adam know that Nick wouldn’t go for his head? How could Nick know that Adam wouldn’t immediately assume a confrontation and try to attack?
Nick groaned in frustration as he stared up at the building where Adam was purported to live. He could arrange a chance meeting, of course. Plead youth, and won’t you train me? Or he could go in directly. Say he’d heard of him and wanted some training. Buy him a beer? Bring along a pizza? He could always rely on the complete truth. He was here because of a dream that felt entirely specific and real, and stood out sharply instead of fuzzing away like most dreams.
Nick peered up at the building again and then did a sweep of the street and surrounding area. No one was on the street and everything seemed quiet. He hoped he was far enough away that Adam couldn’t sense him. Nick debated turning on his truck and driving away. He could take the afternoon to think it over.
A sudden rushing in his head and then a series of three quick knocks on his window nearly jolted Nick into the passenger side of the truck.
He turned his head and there was a man standing next to him. He had dark hair and serious eyes. Nick rolled down the window.
“Are you going to sit here in the street all day, or do you want to come in and talk with me?” the man asked. His attention wandered to the street. “You’ve been down here for five hours. I imagine you at least need to use the restroom.”
“Uh, sure,” Nick managed. “Thanks.” He rolled his window back up and then got out of his truck. He locked the doors and followed the man toward the building. “Adam, right?” he asked, just to be sure.
“That’s me. Most of the time,” Adam said and turned his head to give Nick a quick flash of a grin. “And you are?”
“Nick Wolfe.”
Adam tilted his head to the side and a considering look flashed across his features. “Amanda’s friend?” he asked, and Nick felt a flush of anger. Who the hell was Adam and how the fuck did he know Amanda? Or that he and Amanda had known each other?
“You know Amanda?” Nick ground out, trying not to let his anger get the better of him.
“We’re old friends,” Adam said, and Nick wished he had a nickel for every time he heard another Immortal say that. Adam opened the door to the building and Nick could see that it was a workout area. He led him across the wood floor to an elevator.
“What is this place?” Nick asked.
“An old dojo. No longer open. The current owner is away for an unforeseen amount of time, and I’m house-sitting for a while. There’s an apartment on the third floor.”
Nick followed Adam into the elevator and Adam pulled down the grate. “Amanda,” he said, getting back to the topic.
“She didn’t send you,” Adam said. “She isn’t obtuse enough to send someone to me without at least a warning. So the question is, who did send you?”
“That’s a long story. I’d rather wait to talk about it,” Nick said. “How did you know that Amanda and I were acquainted?”
Adam laughed. “You are new, aren’t you?” Adam considered him, smirking. “Freshly minted Immortal, and green behind the ears.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Nick said, and felt his jaw setting tight.
“When you tell me who sent you, I’ll tell you how I know about you and Amanda.”
Nick glared at Adam and considered beating the information out of him.
The lift reached the third floor and Adam lifted the grate. “Home sweet home,” he said. “At least for the time being. Make yourself comfortable.”
Adam turned to the right and started puttering in the kitchen. Nick walked slowly into the apartment. It was just one big room, with an attached bathroom and a closet. The bed was against one wall, and the couch and some chairs were arranged to form a living room-like area. It was spare and comfortable. Every item in it was well thought out and either beautiful, useful, or both. “A friend lets you stay here?” he asked, not quite believing it.
“For the time being.” Adam pointed with a coffee scoop. “Bathroom is over there.”
Nick let himself in to the bathroom, took care of five hours of waiting, and then snooped through the bathroom shelves. Nothing feminine stood out. This apartment was obviously owned by a man, although a man of good taste and deep pockets.
Nick came out of the bathroom and stood behind the couch, hands on his hips. He watched Adam finish loading the coffee maker.
“I usually prefer beer,” Adam said, “but since we’re two Immortals who have never met before, coffee is probably a better choice. When we get to know each other, we can start drinking.”
“Sure,” Nick said, keeping his tone bland.
Adam gestured to the couch, and then took a seat in the chair opposite. “So. I’m listening. Why were you performing surveillance on me? Or were you looking for someone else?”
Nick didn’t sit down, but he did lean against the arm of the couch. “No. I was looking for you. I was told to come and ask you to train me in the art of Hojojutsu. Specifically, the diamond rope tie.”
Adam’s eyebrows went up. “Curious,” he said. “That’s a rather particular art. And someone has a surprisingly optimistic viewpoint of my agreeing to teach. I haven’t taken on a student in a long time. I don’t intend to start.”
Nick frowned. That was just great. He’d driven for two days, found a way to meet the intended Immortal without having to duel to the death, and the guy was just going to dismiss him because he didn’t take on students anymore. “Bull--” Nick started to say, about to argue, when he saw a photograph in a frame, on a little end table near the window. “That’s him,” he said. He stood and went over to the table and picked up the photo. “This is the guy. Richie. He’s the one who told me to find you.”
Nick frowned at the photo. Richie and Adam were both in the photo, so it had obviously been taken by someone else-the owner of the dojo and apartment, probably-and they were smiling. It was a close-up, so he could only see their expressions, and the background was out of focus.
Adam took the photo from him, staring at it for a long moment, and then put it back down. “And when did Richie tell you to come find me, exactly?”
Nick grunted a response and moved away again.
“No, really, Mr. Wolfe,” Adam said, his tone turned to ice. His expression had grown hard. “You’ve been Immortal for less than six months. Richie has been dead for nearly three years. He certainly didn’t tell you to find me after you became Immortal, so it must have been before. Why would he do that? And why would you wait so long?” Adam stared at him with an eerie calm that Nick found fascinating and frightening. This was what Moana had spoken about. The opposite of how Nick reacted. Adam was giving off deadly vibes, a coiled tension that made Nick think he was dealing with a snake poised to strike, just biding its time, all potential energy building and growing. Yet, there was an incredible stillness there, where Nick tended toward a furious energy.
Nick shook his head. “You won’t believe me. But I saw him in a dream.”
Adam’s expression didn’t change, but Nick could feel the danger ratchet down several notches. “A dream? Continue.”
“I was in a restaurant and it was empty, and he same in with another man.” Nick frowned. He had heard the man’s name, hadn’t he? For a moment he struggled to recall. “Fitz, he called him. Richie and Fitz.”
Adam’s hard expression faded away and he started to look interested. “Do tell. Please.”
“Richie came over to me and he asked me for a favor. To find you and to learn the diamond rope tie. Just that. He told me I could find you here in Seacouver. He told me your name. Then Fitz said they had to go, and suddenly that was the end. I started dreaming other things. But when I woke up, it was as if that part of the dream was crystallized in my memory. Completely vivid.” Nick stopped and watched Adam’s reaction.
Adam considered Nick’s story. “When was this?”
“Three nights ago. Took me a while to get here.”
“Interesting.” Adam picked up the photo again, of himself and Richie, and the long-ago moment when they were smiling.
“You believe me,” Nick said, astonished.
“Of course,” Adam said. He looked sad, and resigned. “I suppose since Richie has requested that I teach you the diamond rope tie, then we’d better get started.” Adam put the photo back. “You can have the couch, or the other half of the bed. Your choice. We’ll start this evening.” He paused, as if to consider his next words, and then pushed forward. “I am not a pleasant teacher, Mr. Wolfe. I am short tempered and harsh. I don’t teach for a reason.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a lousy student,” Nick said.
“Then we should get along famously,” Adam said.
***~***
Nick was exhausted, and tomorrow he was going to be very, very sore.
Adam was nothing like Moana, and Nick wished he had appreciated Moana’s quiet corrections and explanations more. Adam’s explanations were like riddles. He didn’t want to just tell Nick anything, everything was posed as a question, as if Nick couldn’t possibly be bright enough to figure things out, but that Adam expected to make Nick stretch and stretch until he could understand it.
And that was just Adam testing Nick to find out what he already knew and what he didn’t.
“We’ll have to undo some of what you’ve learned,” Adam had told him, and Nick had clenched his teeth. He did not like the insinuation that Moana had not taught him well.
“You’ve got too much mortal in you still,” Adam had said. “The way you decide to attack or take hits, it is all still as if you need to worry about permanent damage. Amanda certainly didn’t teach you anything, you don’t have her style. You have the basics, but nothing else. Who was your teacher?”
“She was a friend of Amanda’s,” Nick had said, reluctant to give up Moana’s name. It was difficult to know when Immortals were allies or enemies. If Adam held a grudge against Moana, Nick could be out on his ear. “She owed Amanda a favor, so she came for a month, and then left.”
“A month?” Adam had laughed. “You’re certainly not anyone’s favorite, are you? Still, she did an amazing job with you for only a month.”
Nick’s anger had been a bit soothed by that. Moana had offered to bring him back with her. She’d taken leave from work-Nick still found it odd that some Immortals meshed their lives in so completely with everyone else-and couldn’t be away longer. But she had offered. Nick just hadn’t been able to take the offer, not yet. He was still too wounded, too raw. Moana had left the invitation open to him, if he managed to keep his head.
Now, Nick thought, after Adam’s thorough beating, he was regretting that decision. Moana had gone too easy on him, and Nick had thought he could take on another Immortal and win. Adam was so far beyond his league that Nick couldn’t even fathom how much training it had taken to get that way. If Nick had been forced to fight Adam, he had no doubt whose head would have rolled.
Adam put blankets and pillows down on the couch. “I’ve slept on this couch,” he said. “It turns into a lump of stone around three in the morning.”
“I’ll be fine,” Nick said. He was too tired to even think much about it. Probably he was going to sleep hard all the way through until morning.
“The offer for the other half of the bed is still on the table,” Adam said. “I promise not to sully your honor in the middle of the night.”
“As if,” Nick replied. He spread out the blanket and put the pillows on one end of the couch. Tomorrow, he would organize his things more thoroughly. And get some food into the fridge. Adam had stocked it with beer and take-out leftovers. Nick was unable to quite reconcile the lean, fighting figure with the poor food choices, but it didn’t really matter.
As he drifted off to sleep, Nick realized that Adam had said he’d tell him how he knew about Nick and Amanda when Nick told him about Richie. Nick felt entirely too sleep-heavy to even start that conversation. He’d do it in the morning, and then he would press for answers until he got them.
***~***
“First, you must learn to be comfortable with the rope,” Adam said. He had a length of thin rope, more like string really, in his hands. There were two knots at one end, and one of those knots formed a loop. With quick, smooth movements, he wrapped it in a figure-eight pattern between his thumb and pinkie finger, then the end went around the bundle. He loosened it from his hand and held it up. Then he tugged at the loose end with the two knots and it came freely out, flowing like a stream of water at the lightest pressure. “In the past, the warriors kept these in their sleeves,” Adam said. “Bundled and ready to be used. It would take only a moment to pull one out and then tie up their captive.”
Nick tried to imitate Adam’s demonstration and came away with jumbled rope.
Adam smiled and showed him again, more slowly. “Once you get this, I want you to do it one hundred times. Today. Tomorrow. Every day you’re here. It needs to be like second nature to you. Something you can do without even thinking about it.”
“Okay,” Nick said. It sounded like an excessive waste of time to him, because really, after doing a hundred times once, he surely would have it down, but Adam was the one teaching here, so he would go along with it. “You didn’t answer my question yesterday,” Nick said.
“Which question would that be?” Adam asked as he watched Nick go through the motions of winding the rope around his hand.
“How you knew that Amanda and I were acquaintances.”
“Ah.” Adam took another length of rope and started to practice his own winding. He was twice as fast as Nick, and Nick spent a moment to admire his deftness. Perhaps he did need to practice this one hundred times a day, after all.
“And?” Nick pressed.
“You won’t like the answer.”
Nick stopped what he was doing and narrowed his eyes. “I still want to know.”
“Of course,” Adam said smoothly. “I believe you learned about Watchers at some point.” He turned his wrist over and Nick could just make out the faint, dotted form of a blue-green tattoo.
Nick threw down the rope. “What the hell!”
Adam shrugged his shoulders. “I was a Watcher for a little while. Not anymore. It’s been harder to get rid of the tattoo than I thought, but I’ll have it gone at some point.”
Nick’s mind jumped around, making connections, pulling up old questions. “You know Dawson.”
“Yes. Joe and I are friends.” Adam picked up Nick’s rope and held it out to him. “You still have ninety-seven to go.”
“He told you what happened.”
“Amanda mentioned you, too. The last time I saw her. Ninety-seven.” He offered the rope again.
Nick glared at Adam and stomped away. He kicked the lockers in the locker room and looked around for more things to hit.
Adam came into the locker room. “I know you and Joe didn’t get along, and that you’re not very happy with Amanda at the moment. I understand all that. Becoming Immortal is a big transition. But kicking the lockers isn’t especially useful.”
“I know that!” Nick kicked a locker again anyway, leaving a big dent. He really didn’t care that the lockers belonged to Adam’s friend.
“You still have ninety-seven more to go, when you’re done ruining things,” Adam said placid as a lake at dawn, and then left him.
Nick sat down on the bench and tried to get his breathing under control. This Watcher and Immortal business was so in bred. The connections arcing between everyone were thick and deep, and how could they not see how disgusting it was that they were all in bed with each other, complicit in death and hate, and everything immoral and wrong? Amanda knew Adam and Joe, and they all knew each other, and Nick didn’t have a score card. He felt like he was blind and groping in the dark.
What the hell was he doing here anyway?
He’d had one lousy dream and followed it halfway across the country, to one smart-aleck that had more secrets than the government, and he was being played. Adam hadn’t even wanted to take him on. It had only been because-
Nick stopped short. There was something there that he’d missed.
Nick rewound the dream in his head. He thought about Adam knocking on the window of his truck. The photo on the end table.
He strode back out into the main area of the dojo. “What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded.
Adam looked up, a sly smile on his face. “I’m pretty sure that since you aren’t my student at the moment, that I don’t owe you any answers.”
“Not your student?”
Adam held out the rope. “Ninety-seven more. Either you are or you aren’t learning here.”
Nick grabbed the rope out of his hands and started winding. “Now. Answers.”
“Even though you are my student again, anything I would care to share with you would be out of the generosity of my heart. I don’t understand why you expect that everyone must reveal themselves to you.”
Nick glared at him and missed a loop around his thumb, the rope got tangled up and he had to start again.
Adam sighed. “I’m a lot older than you. It’s terribly difficult to know exactly what it is that has set you off. It’d take a long time to tell you all my secrets. Perhaps you’d enlighten me about which ones you mean, exactly?”
“You know,” Nick said, voice low. “Why did you agree to this? When I told you it was Richie. You said he was dead. How did he die? And what about the other man? Is he real too?”
“So that’s what you want to know,” Adam said. “Hugh Fitzcairn. Also Immortal, but he was killed in a Challenge. He seems to be prone to not exactly staying gone, though. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of him coming back as an angel inside a dream.”
“Not the first time,” Nick echoed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all. Apparently Fitz has license to muck around with the hearts, souls, and minds of those he knew when he was alive.”
“Fucking hell,” Nick said. He paused in his rope looping, then when Adam gave him a pointed look, started up again. “And Richie?”
“From what you say, it appears Richie has somehow teamed up with Fitz and now they’re both charging around tilting at our dreams, telling us what to do.”
“I don’t know either of them,” Nick said.
“They both knew Amanda, and they both knew me.” Adam kept his eyes steady on the rope he was winding around his hand. “Close enough, probably, to include you in whatever it is they’re trying to affect.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. Adam was really slick, but there was just the slightest hesitation there. There was still something Adam wasn’t telling him. “And?”
“And what?”
Nick just raised an eyebrow, completed a perfect loop of rope and held it out to Adam. Adam smiled and tugged on the end with the knots and the rope slid out smoothly, perfectly, like a mountain stream down a rock face, until only the other end was still in Nick’s hand.
“Much better. You still have seventy-four of them to do.”
“And you haven’t told me whatever it is you’re holding back,” Nick replied.
“I find myself a bit envious of your dream,” Adam said slowly. “Richie and I were lovers, for a short time, when he was still alive. I miss him. Hearing that he’s shown up in your head, sent you to me, and then scuttled off without a word edgewise, well, it leaves me a bit…overdone.”
Nick stared. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“No.”
Nick sat back and mulled over that information. He wasn’t sure exactly what to think about the situation.
“Seventy-four,” Adam said.
“Seventy-three,” Nick said.
Adam shook his head. “I should never have even gone down to meet you.”
***~***
Nick’s arms were sore that night, from the workout, as he stared down at the couch. His back was also aching, from the impromptu sleeping arrangements.
Adam had been right about the couch. It was hell on the body. Nick had slept all the previous night like a log because he’d been exhausted, and he was again. But just sleeping heavily wasn’t a way to avoid waking up with a crick in his back and a kink in his neck. He eyed the other side of the bed.
Adam was still puttering in the bathroom, and Nick needed to decide quickly what he wanted.
Nick flexed his fingers and stretched his arms. One hundred rope windings. There were one hundred more waiting for him tomorrow. On top of that, Adam had him doing some martial art rolls and flips. He’d flung himself around on a mat for the better part of two hours. Just about every muscle in his body was protesting.
Nick grabbed the pillows and blankets and hauled them over to the bed. He could sleep on top of the covers and under his blankets.
Adam came out of the bathroom. He paused to stare at the bed, smile faintly, and then click off the lights. He crawled into bed and eased himself under the covers. “See you in the morning,” he said.
“Yeah. Good night,” Nick said.
***~***
Day three of his new torture regiment consisted of, finally, learning the technique he’d come to learn.
“Other than the two knots on the end, there are no knots in this technique,” Adam said. He’d looped the rope through itself and slipped it on Nick’s wrist, then wrenched his arm behind his back. Suddenly the rope was over his shoulder, wrapped around him, across his throat-threatening to pressure in against his windpipe-and back over his shoulder. Adam was tugging on the rope behind him and Nick had no choice but to obey, the control the rope yielded over him was incredible.
“It’s called the diamond rope tie because if you could see yourself from the back, you would see that the crisscrossing of the line creates a diamond pattern.”
“Yes, yes,” Nick said, suddenly desperate to get out of the hold. He couldn’t even move. Everything he did seemed to make it tighter, squeeze off his air. He tried to lift his wrist higher, but Adam just took up the slack.
“Tut, tut,” Adam said. “Not so much a diamond shape now. You’re very flexible for having such muscle in your arms.”
“Thanks,” Nick said and tried not to even move a muscle. “Could you--”
“Done,” Adam said, and quickly reversed the sequence of wraps until he had the rope back in his hand again.
Nick rubbed at his throat. “That’s impressive,” he said.
“It is. Traditionally, when the prisoners were brought somewhere, the samurai would loosen the ropes or change the tie, just before handing him over. To protect the secret knowledge of the ties. The one I just demonstrated is a basic tie, not really a secret one. But there are others.”
Nick rubbed at his wrist. There was an indentation in his skin where the rope had constricted around him. He suddenly felt as if the world had opened up around him. How had he never even known this existed before? “I need to learn this,” he said. “I have to know this.”
Adam handed him the rope. “One hundred times,” he said, and for once, Nick sat down and did as he was told.
***~***
Adam had ordered pizza, which was good because Nick’s wrists and arms and back all throbbed from overuse and grueling punishment. He couldn’t have even tried to clench a fork.
“Why doesn’t my healing take care of this?” he asked as he tried to keep his grip on the crust of a piece of pizza.
“It’s not really the same sort of injury. If it healed this, you wouldn’t be able to train. You’d be stuck at whatever you were when you first died. Good for some of us. Those of us who were Olympic fencing medalists at the moment we died,” Adam said with a cheeky grin. “Not so good for those of us who had desk jobs.”
“So my body just keeps on working like it always did. I can build muscle. I can run harder and faster and longer.”
“Yup.” Adam nibbled on a leftover crust. “You can learn muscle memory. Which is what I’m trying to give you. The art of tying-you can know it on a mental level, and it would take time. You have to have it happen with your hands and your body before you even realize you’ve done it. It has to be as automatic as breathing. More automatic.”
Nick sipped at his beer. “When did you learn this?”
Adam looked to the ceiling, thoughtful, as if he were counting in his head. “It was a while ago. I’d have to check my journals to be sure. Not until well into the nineteenth century. I was too foreign to trust, even if I did learn the language almost like a native. But I knew it existed before that. I’d picked up a few things here and there from men who had traveled out of the country.”
“How many other Immortals use this?”
Adam snorted. “Do I look like I initiate an Immortal census every ten years?”
Nick laughed. “Okay, okay. That was a dumb question. I admit it.”
Adam yawned and stretched. “Bedtime, I think.” He made his way to the bathroom and closed the door.
Nick shoved the last of the pizza in his mouth and, chewing, put the box in the trash and the empty beer bottles into the recycling bin. Then he shucked his clothes down to his underwear and crawled into bed.
Adam came out of the bathroom, clicked off the light, and slid in on the other side of the bed.
“How long do you think this training is going to take?” Nick asked into the darkness. He could hear Adam shift around, and felt the movement in the bed.
“Don’t know. You’re a quick learner, but to do this right, it has to be more than just learned.”
“It has to be muscle memory. Ingrained,” Nick supplied, repeating the earlier conversation.
“Exactly,” Adam said. “Maybe a few weeks. Or months. Really, it’d be years to learn it well. An entire lifetime, and more, to learn the majority of it.”
“Richie wanted me to learn the one technique. I need that one first.” Nick wasn’t sure he was ready to dedicate a lifetime to the learning of rope tricks.
“Then you’re already halfway there. Now hush so I can sleep, please.”
***~***
“Today I’m going to teach you to begin to put it all together,” Adam said. He was leaning against the wall. “Stay where you are. I’ll demonstrate.”
Nick was in the middle of the room. He eyed Adam warily. So far he hadn’t liked being on the receiving end of any of the demonstrations. It always ended up with rope marks on his skin and a deep fear of being throttled to death.
Adam burst from the wall. His hand flicked to his sleeve and the rope came out. Then Adam was on him, catching his arm behind him, the rope already around his wrist before Nick could move, and he was moving backwards, flinging out with his other arm, which was promptly snared. Less than five seconds later, he was on the ground, face down, and trying not to squirm. Every time he breathed, the rope seemed to tighten.
Adam’s weight was threatening above him and he leaned down to speak into his ear. “I’m a bit rusty,” he said. “To do this right, you need to be even faster. Smoother.” Then he released the rope and Nick gasped, his hands going to his throat. He glared at Adam.
Adam wound the rope in his hand and offered it to Nick. “One hundred times,” he said. “Then we’ll go through the motions more slowly.”
Nick gritted his teeth and took the rope.
***~***
“Tell me about Richie,” Nick said as they ate dinner.
Adam blinked at him.
“I’m serious,” Nick said. “He’s the only reason you took me on. He’s the only reason I came here. This is a favor I’m doing for him.”
Adam’s gaze wandered to the bed and Nick felt himself start to blush. “Not that stuff,” Nick said quickly.
Adam smirked. “From your initial reaction, I had assumed you didn’t want to broach this subject,” he said.
“Not your love life,” Nick said. “Richie’s personality. The kind of guy he was.”
“Loyal to a fault,” Adam said. “It got him killed.” Adam got up from the dinner table. “I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait up.”
Nick watched as Adam pulled on his coat and then went out the back door, and was gone. That hadn’t gone at all well, he thought. He hadn’t wanted to offend Adam, but obviously he’d touched a nerve.
Nick rubbed at his face. He was tired and he was sore. Additionally, trying to speed up his take-down was giving him bruises. Adam smacked him, open handed, but still hard as if getting hit with a brick, every time Nick left even the smallest opening. He had yet to successfully get beyond the part where he pulled the rope out of his sleeve.
Nick put the leftovers away. They’d ordered in Chinese food, and Adam had gone heavy on the noodles. He finished his beer, thankful for the relaxing effect of the alcohol on his system. Then he drifted over to the photograph on the end table. He stared at it for a long time, as if it would give up some of its secrets, but it remained mute on the topic.
Finally, Nick went to bed. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep almost instantly. He only woke once, when Adam came home and lay down on the other side. Nick could see that it was nearly three in the morning.
***~***
“Do you want to try again or take a break?”
“Again,” Nick said stubbornly. He really needed the break, but he’d be damned if he was going to yield in any way to the insufferable attitude that Adam had taken with him today. He took a deep breath and ran at Adam.
Adam kicked his legs out from beneath him and landed on top of him with a double tap to his ribs, cracking at least one, and tears sprang to Nick’s eyes. The blade of Adam’s hand was at his throat, a training stand-in for a real blade, and Nick blinked away the tears to look up and see the cold fury in Adam’s eyes.
Fuck this, Nick thought. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “I don’t need this shit.” Without even thinking, Nick punched. He’d been a boxer, trained for years, and he knew that physicality like he knew his own skin. He connected with Adam’s jaw, felt a sinister victorious feeling, a gloating that he finally had done something to get past those barriers. Adam’s head snapped back and he dropped like a stone, unconscious, to the floor, eyes wide and blank.
Nick scrambled to his feet. He nudged Adam with his foot. “Hell,” he said. This was not the way to make friends and influence people. He’d just knocked his teacher out cold.
Nick sighed and headed for the freezer. He put two handfuls of ice into a kitchen towel and trudged it back downstairs.
Adam was just stirring.
“Here,” he said, and put the ice-filled towel in Adam’s hands. “This’ll help.”
Adam blinked at him, confusion evident in his eyes. “What?” he asked. “What happened?”
“I hit you,” Nick said. “Sorry.”
Adam smiled. “Good job,” he said. He put the bulk of the towel against his chin where Nick had landed the blow, flinched, and then switched it to his temple. “This is the worst headache I’ve had in a century,” he said.
“Good job?” Nick frowned at him. “I just knocked you out.”
“About time, too,” Adam said. He closed his eyes and sank in against the icy towel. “Nick, you have to commit to learning this. You’re holding back, you don’t have that fire in the belly that you need. You’re driven, but you aren’t near enough to obsessive. I’m glad to see you’ve got some passion in you.”
Nick stared at him. Passion? “I know a lot of people would argue with you about that passion thing. My problem is usually that I’m too passionate.”
Adam shook his head, then stopped. “Ow,” he said. “I don’t mean your usual hot-headedness. Or how you go battering at impenetrable walls, and bullying everyone around you. I mean passion to want to do this.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Give it time,” Adam said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes.” There was mirth in his eyes over that, but Nick didn’t dare even ask. He decided to throw caution to the wind and risk another, more inflammable topic.
“I thought you were trying to punish me for bringing up Richie,” Nick said.
“I never said I wasn’t temperamental.”
“He must have meant a lot to you.”
“He did.”
“And?”
Adam sighed. “Don’t you have a hundred rope windings to complete?”
“Only if you tell me about Richie while I do it.”
Adam considered that. “Fine. Since my head doesn’t want to be sloshed about just yet, I’m not going anywhere for a few minutes. You do pack a wallop.”
Nick grinned and retrieved the rope.
“Richie was a street kid,” Adam said. “Growing up shuffled from family to family. He accidentally witnessed a Challenge and a Quickening and got involved in the world of Immortals.”
Nick paused in his winding. Except for the street kid stuff, that hit a little close to home.
“If you stop, I stop,” Adam warned, and Nick continued with the rope.
“Street kid?” Nick asked. “What century was that?”
“This one,” Adam said, and Nick startled. A muscle twitched above Nick’s eye. “Not everyone is a thousand years old, Nick,” he said.
“Yeah. But I’m the only one I know under a hundred.”
“Richie was twenty-two when he died. He became Immortal at eighteen. So he only got an extra four years,” Adam said mildly. “Of course, those were the years I knew him, so I tend to think they were a gift.”
Nick remembered what he’d told Amanda after coming alive again. How despondent he’d been to think he’d outlive his family, his friends. Four years. Richie had gotten only four extra years. He hadn’t outlived anyone. Dying at twenty-two was barely less tragic than eighteen. Nick thought of himself at twenty-two, how green he’d been, how untested and idealistic. He’d hardly even filled in his own skin by that age. He’d known his own mind, but not been tempered by so many other things that were just around the bend.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said, and he was. It must have been a bitter day to realize that all that youthful potential had been cut down. Richie should have lived forever. Instead he’d gotten four more years. Nick looked down and concentrated on his winding, trying to empty his mind of the misery. Of course, he’d just seen Richie. It was hard to imagine he was gone, when Nick had a bright image of him in his mind.
“We met through a mutual friend. Here, in this very dojo. Right over there, actually. We were sort of like two satellites revolving around this place, constantly bumping into one another. There’d be long hours waiting together at the bar, and we just seemed to have a lot of time to talk. He wasn’t a bad kid,” Adam said.
“So not love at first sight,” Nick said.
“Hardly. More like annoyance at first sight. But he was persistent. Then there was…ah, a certain Immortal in town who was a big mouth and a liar. Circumstances and all. Richie really started trying to talk to me. Next thing I knew, I had a soft spot for him. It just sort of spiraled from there.” Adam smiled fondly. “He had a big heart. Too big. It got him in trouble constantly.”
“What happened? In the end?”
Adam shook his head. “He died. Got mixed up in something too big for him and he led with his heart.”
“I’ve still got eighty-six to go,” Nick said. “There’s got to be more to tell than that.”
“That’s all I’ve got to say. How about you tell me why you’re still angry with Amanda.”
Nick flushed, his anger rising just as fast as it ever did. “Like hell!”
Adam got to his feet, keeping the bag of ice against his head. “I’m going to lie down. I trust you can keep yourself occupied for the remainder of the day.”
Nick watched him go and lost count of how many rope windings he had left to complete.
***~***
On to Part Two
Author: The First Gnome of Crimmas aka elistaire
Written for: idontlikegravy
Characters/Pairings: Nick Wolfe, Methos, Richie, Fitz, Joe Dawson; Methos/Richie
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: Thank you to my beta, who shall be revealed later.
Nick was dreaming.
He was sitting down at an expensive restaurant, linen napkins and polished silverware gleaming on the table, but no one else was there. Everything was poised, expectant, as if the customers and servers would step into the room at any moment, but for the moment, Nick was alone in the silence.
Then he heard voices. He looked up.
Two men were standing in the entryway. The shorter of the two was dressed in a tuxedo, with a top hat and a white tipped cane, looking for all the world as if he’d just stepped out of a black and white movie. He took off his coat and draped it on a nearby chair. With practiced movements, he put his hat and cane down alongside. When he moved forward, Nick could see that the man was even wearing spats. The man spotted him and gave a big smile and a wave. Then he turned to speak softly with the second man.
The other man was wearing dark jeans and a black leather jacket. He looked scruffy, but reputable, as if he were quite hard-shelled, but still had that interior softness. Nick would have guessed that he wasn’t yet legal to drink, either. His hair was shorn short enough that just a hint of curl came through. Everything about him made Nick think that it was a tough kid trying to make good, and Nick tended to trust his instincts on this sort of thing.
“Okay, this is it. Now, stay calm, and don’t bungle it,” said the man in the tuxedo. “Good luck, my boy.”
“No problem,” said the kid.
Nick wondered if they were related. They both had the same friendly blue eyes and although the older man wore his hair quite a bit longer, they both had a similar shade of dirty blond. Their facial features were completely distinct, but there was already an easy familiarity between them. The nattily dressed one was old enough to be the second man’s father.
The younger man came forward and motioned to the chair across from Nick. “Mind if I sit?”
“It’s a free country,” Nick said.
“Sure it is,” the man agreed. He held out his hand. “Richie Ryan. Pleased to meet you. Nick Wolfe, right?”
Nick shook his hand. “Do I know you?”
Richie shrugged easily, like water sliding off a duck’s back. “We have mutual friends.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. That sort of phrase seemed to go along with certain types of people. “Would that be a tall, thin lady about a thousand years old?” he asked.
Richie grinned. “Amanda,” he said. “Now that’s a real class act, you know what I mean?”
“I know Amanda’s act,” Nick said dryly. He was still working on his issues where she was concerned. She gave him that slow, burning desire deep in his gut, and then she’d do or say something that was like a whack to the head and he’d have a migraine for a week.
“Don’t we all,” Richie said, but it was on an appreciative sigh. “But she’s not why I’m here. Actually, I needed to ask you for a favor.”
“A favor?” Nick repeated, suddenly curious as well as wary. “What sort of favor?”
“A really, really big favor. And I don’t have any way to pay you back.”
Nick gave a short barking laugh. “You’re kidding?”
Richie just looked at him with those big baby blues and Nick felt himself soften a little. “At least just hear me out.”
“Okay, fine.”
“I want you to go and learn a specific, special technique. It’s called the diamond rope tie. It’s part of the Japanese art of rope restraint. Hojojutsu. You can learn more if you want. But I really need you to learn that one.”
Nick laughed. “I’m not sure how my learning something is actually a favor, but that’s not going to be easy.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard of that martial art, kid. It’s a dying breed. And there’s a lot of secrecy around it.”
“Yeah, but I know someone who’ll teach it to you.” Richie leaned forward in his chair. “And the move you need to learn isn’t a big secret, it’s one of the beginner moves. I just need you to be really, really good at it.”
“Why?”
Richie’s expression was carefully blank. “I can’t tell you that. It’d be against the rules.”
“What rules would those be?” Nick asked. He really didn’t like it when things went all squirrelly like this.
“So do we have a deal?” Richie asked, ignoring Nick’s question.
“We can’t have a deal if its one sided and you can’t pay up,” Nick said.
Richie flashed him a brilliant smile. “Yeah, but you’re one of the good guys. And this is for a good cause. Besides, its win-win for you. You could do with a few more skills.” Richie moved his hands through the air as if swishing with swords, and then he actually made the sound-effects noise.
Nick lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve got to be joking.”
“C’mon. Do a guy a favor?”
Nick looked at his earnest expression and groaned. He was going to do this. He was going to prance down the garden path for some wet-behind-the-ears golden-haired kid who’d just asked him for a pretty-as-you-please favor. Nick decided he was the biggest sucker who’d ever been born.
“Yes!” Richie said, with a little elbow-shucking arm movement. “Thank you, Nick. You won’t regret this. I think you’ll be glad you did it!”
“Okay, fine, whatever. Just tell me the name of the guy I need to find who’ll teach me.”
“His name is Adam Pierson. You can find him in Seacouver.”
The guy in the tuxedo came over to the table. “Time’s up, Richie.”
“Thanks, Fitz,” Richie said, looking up. He flashed a grateful look at Nick. “Thank you. And don’t forget.”
Fitz put his hand on Richie’s shoulder and Richie stood. With a practiced bow, Fitz caught Nick’s attention. “And now back to your regularly scheduled dream.”
A moment later, the two of them were gone in the crowd of the restaurant and Nick was being served a big bowl of squid, still alive and squirming. “Waiter,” he said. “There’s a fly in my squid.”
***~***
When Nick woke up, he had a headache and he felt queasy. He’d actually dreamed he’d eaten squid.
The headache got the double aspirin treatment and Nick started to feel better. He walked out to his kitchen and started the coffee maker. Then he grabbed a spare pen and a pad of paper and, as the coffee brewed, he wrote down what he remembered.
Adam Pierson. Seacouver. Hojojutsu. Diamond rope tie.
It seemed pretty specific, actually.
Nick called Bert Myers.
“Yeah. I gotta go out of town for a while, track down some stuff I’m working on.”
“You need help?” Bert asked, because Bert was a nosy bastard, not because he actually liked to help.
“Not yet. I’ll call you if I’m in over my head,” Nick said, with absolutely no intention of calling Bert. This was Immortal business. He remembered the kid in his dream making the swishy sword moves. “Later, Bert.” He hung up.
Nick didn’t really go in for prophetic dreaming, but it had been disturbingly specific. He’d certainly seen odder things. And given that his life span was now going to possibly be counted in centuries rather than decades, Nick had nothing better to do with his time than hunt down a dream. Besides, he’d said he’d do the kid the favor, and Nick kept his promises.
***~***
The drive to Seacouver took two days, but it was good down time. The long miles of road allowed Nick to think hard about things, gave him time for introspection.
He hadn’t seen Amanda since he’d walked away from her after she unceremoniously shot him in the warehouse, triggering his Immortality. Nick still couldn’t forgive her for that, which he figured was probably unfair, but he didn’t care. Nick had believed that someday he might have actually earned the brass ring-he had wanted a family, a house, the two car garage, the whole shebang. Now he wouldn’t ever have a son to teach the finer points of the pick-and-roll or what it felt like to make a double play from left field. All his dreams of eating hotdogs in the stands while his kid played and being proud while attending graduation had been dashed. Dissolved. Destroyed. It wasn’t Amanda’s fault, really, but oh, Nick blamed her for it all. He blamed her with a deep, abiding gut-reaction that never seemed to lessen.
Of course, just because he hadn’t seen Amanda didn’t mean that she wasn’t keeping tabs on him.
Within the week of his returning home and trying to find the remainder of all the pieces that had been thoroughly gutted, an Immortal woman had shown up on his doorstep. Moana. No last name.
He’d almost shot her, even though she’d knocked and announced herself and her intentions. She’d been grim upon noticing the calm panic that had settled over him at her appearance. He knew how to fight, with fists and guns, but not with steel.
“I’m not here for your head,” she’d told him as she stood on his threshold. “I owe Amanda several favors, and she called them in. One month, and I’ll at least teach you the basics of defending yourself. After that, you’ll have to find your own teacher.”
He had reluctantly agreed. He’d needed the training, and at least it wasn’t Amanda.
Moana was taller than Amanda, almost as tall as Nick himself. She was built more broadly, with bigger hands, and heavier muscles. She wouldn’t ever get away with the demure fashions that Amanda favored, but Nick admired the way she moved through the world. Practical, and not giving a shit what anyone else thought. She dressed in jeans and men’s button-down flannel shirts, wearing tan-colored construction boots, and moving like a dancer, like a boxer.
She had been an excellent choice to train him, Nick had to reluctantly admit. Her height and breadth matched his enough that Nick didn’t have any physical advantage there, and he had to learn to deal with that. She was graceful and calm, and took none of his shit, and Nick had to admit, she was a woman. He didn’t think he’d have lasted five minutes with a male teacher.
Something in him just always wanted to start fights, to egg on confrontation. With men, even ones that were his friends, there was always this undercurrent of competition for Nick. He had no idea what he needed to prove, but he felt like he was always being looked at and found wanting, and the little ball of rage that he kept feeding in the center of his chest would pulse and his hackles would raise, like a guard dog growling at every shadow. Becoming Immortal had just exacerbated this tendency in him. Nick knew this, but it didn’t matter. It was part of him, part of who he was.
“You need to get your reactions under control,” Moana had told him one night as she’d taught him how to properly care for his sword. She’d calmly been inspecting the edges of her own. “Your first response is always sarcasm, defensiveness, and challenge. Useful tools sometimes, but not always the tools you need to use.”
“Seems to have worked out fine so far,” Nick had said back.
Moana had smiled at him. “You don’t have to change overnight. Just think about it for a decade or so.”
Nick had snorted and averted his eyes. He hated that he suddenly needed to start thinking about his future in those terms. It used to be he’d take a night or a weekend to make decisions, now he could procrastinate for years about something. Years. Nick tightened his hands into fists.
“You need to release some of that stress before you care for your weapon, or you’ll end up doing it poorly.”
And, of course, Moana was right. Nick hoped the month would go a lot faster. He really didn’t need to have his entire psyche criticized and found wanting.
***~***
Nick had used a few of his contacts to track down Adam Pierson, so he had a fairly good idea where he could locate him.
The trouble was, of course, that entering the sphere of another Immortal always caused friction. The problem was intent. How would Adam know that Nick wouldn’t go for his head? How could Nick know that Adam wouldn’t immediately assume a confrontation and try to attack?
Nick groaned in frustration as he stared up at the building where Adam was purported to live. He could arrange a chance meeting, of course. Plead youth, and won’t you train me? Or he could go in directly. Say he’d heard of him and wanted some training. Buy him a beer? Bring along a pizza? He could always rely on the complete truth. He was here because of a dream that felt entirely specific and real, and stood out sharply instead of fuzzing away like most dreams.
Nick peered up at the building again and then did a sweep of the street and surrounding area. No one was on the street and everything seemed quiet. He hoped he was far enough away that Adam couldn’t sense him. Nick debated turning on his truck and driving away. He could take the afternoon to think it over.
A sudden rushing in his head and then a series of three quick knocks on his window nearly jolted Nick into the passenger side of the truck.
He turned his head and there was a man standing next to him. He had dark hair and serious eyes. Nick rolled down the window.
“Are you going to sit here in the street all day, or do you want to come in and talk with me?” the man asked. His attention wandered to the street. “You’ve been down here for five hours. I imagine you at least need to use the restroom.”
“Uh, sure,” Nick managed. “Thanks.” He rolled his window back up and then got out of his truck. He locked the doors and followed the man toward the building. “Adam, right?” he asked, just to be sure.
“That’s me. Most of the time,” Adam said and turned his head to give Nick a quick flash of a grin. “And you are?”
“Nick Wolfe.”
Adam tilted his head to the side and a considering look flashed across his features. “Amanda’s friend?” he asked, and Nick felt a flush of anger. Who the hell was Adam and how the fuck did he know Amanda? Or that he and Amanda had known each other?
“You know Amanda?” Nick ground out, trying not to let his anger get the better of him.
“We’re old friends,” Adam said, and Nick wished he had a nickel for every time he heard another Immortal say that. Adam opened the door to the building and Nick could see that it was a workout area. He led him across the wood floor to an elevator.
“What is this place?” Nick asked.
“An old dojo. No longer open. The current owner is away for an unforeseen amount of time, and I’m house-sitting for a while. There’s an apartment on the third floor.”
Nick followed Adam into the elevator and Adam pulled down the grate. “Amanda,” he said, getting back to the topic.
“She didn’t send you,” Adam said. “She isn’t obtuse enough to send someone to me without at least a warning. So the question is, who did send you?”
“That’s a long story. I’d rather wait to talk about it,” Nick said. “How did you know that Amanda and I were acquainted?”
Adam laughed. “You are new, aren’t you?” Adam considered him, smirking. “Freshly minted Immortal, and green behind the ears.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Nick said, and felt his jaw setting tight.
“When you tell me who sent you, I’ll tell you how I know about you and Amanda.”
Nick glared at Adam and considered beating the information out of him.
The lift reached the third floor and Adam lifted the grate. “Home sweet home,” he said. “At least for the time being. Make yourself comfortable.”
Adam turned to the right and started puttering in the kitchen. Nick walked slowly into the apartment. It was just one big room, with an attached bathroom and a closet. The bed was against one wall, and the couch and some chairs were arranged to form a living room-like area. It was spare and comfortable. Every item in it was well thought out and either beautiful, useful, or both. “A friend lets you stay here?” he asked, not quite believing it.
“For the time being.” Adam pointed with a coffee scoop. “Bathroom is over there.”
Nick let himself in to the bathroom, took care of five hours of waiting, and then snooped through the bathroom shelves. Nothing feminine stood out. This apartment was obviously owned by a man, although a man of good taste and deep pockets.
Nick came out of the bathroom and stood behind the couch, hands on his hips. He watched Adam finish loading the coffee maker.
“I usually prefer beer,” Adam said, “but since we’re two Immortals who have never met before, coffee is probably a better choice. When we get to know each other, we can start drinking.”
“Sure,” Nick said, keeping his tone bland.
Adam gestured to the couch, and then took a seat in the chair opposite. “So. I’m listening. Why were you performing surveillance on me? Or were you looking for someone else?”
Nick didn’t sit down, but he did lean against the arm of the couch. “No. I was looking for you. I was told to come and ask you to train me in the art of Hojojutsu. Specifically, the diamond rope tie.”
Adam’s eyebrows went up. “Curious,” he said. “That’s a rather particular art. And someone has a surprisingly optimistic viewpoint of my agreeing to teach. I haven’t taken on a student in a long time. I don’t intend to start.”
Nick frowned. That was just great. He’d driven for two days, found a way to meet the intended Immortal without having to duel to the death, and the guy was just going to dismiss him because he didn’t take on students anymore. “Bull--” Nick started to say, about to argue, when he saw a photograph in a frame, on a little end table near the window. “That’s him,” he said. He stood and went over to the table and picked up the photo. “This is the guy. Richie. He’s the one who told me to find you.”
Nick frowned at the photo. Richie and Adam were both in the photo, so it had obviously been taken by someone else-the owner of the dojo and apartment, probably-and they were smiling. It was a close-up, so he could only see their expressions, and the background was out of focus.
Adam took the photo from him, staring at it for a long moment, and then put it back down. “And when did Richie tell you to come find me, exactly?”
Nick grunted a response and moved away again.
“No, really, Mr. Wolfe,” Adam said, his tone turned to ice. His expression had grown hard. “You’ve been Immortal for less than six months. Richie has been dead for nearly three years. He certainly didn’t tell you to find me after you became Immortal, so it must have been before. Why would he do that? And why would you wait so long?” Adam stared at him with an eerie calm that Nick found fascinating and frightening. This was what Moana had spoken about. The opposite of how Nick reacted. Adam was giving off deadly vibes, a coiled tension that made Nick think he was dealing with a snake poised to strike, just biding its time, all potential energy building and growing. Yet, there was an incredible stillness there, where Nick tended toward a furious energy.
Nick shook his head. “You won’t believe me. But I saw him in a dream.”
Adam’s expression didn’t change, but Nick could feel the danger ratchet down several notches. “A dream? Continue.”
“I was in a restaurant and it was empty, and he same in with another man.” Nick frowned. He had heard the man’s name, hadn’t he? For a moment he struggled to recall. “Fitz, he called him. Richie and Fitz.”
Adam’s hard expression faded away and he started to look interested. “Do tell. Please.”
“Richie came over to me and he asked me for a favor. To find you and to learn the diamond rope tie. Just that. He told me I could find you here in Seacouver. He told me your name. Then Fitz said they had to go, and suddenly that was the end. I started dreaming other things. But when I woke up, it was as if that part of the dream was crystallized in my memory. Completely vivid.” Nick stopped and watched Adam’s reaction.
Adam considered Nick’s story. “When was this?”
“Three nights ago. Took me a while to get here.”
“Interesting.” Adam picked up the photo again, of himself and Richie, and the long-ago moment when they were smiling.
“You believe me,” Nick said, astonished.
“Of course,” Adam said. He looked sad, and resigned. “I suppose since Richie has requested that I teach you the diamond rope tie, then we’d better get started.” Adam put the photo back. “You can have the couch, or the other half of the bed. Your choice. We’ll start this evening.” He paused, as if to consider his next words, and then pushed forward. “I am not a pleasant teacher, Mr. Wolfe. I am short tempered and harsh. I don’t teach for a reason.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a lousy student,” Nick said.
“Then we should get along famously,” Adam said.
***~***
Nick was exhausted, and tomorrow he was going to be very, very sore.
Adam was nothing like Moana, and Nick wished he had appreciated Moana’s quiet corrections and explanations more. Adam’s explanations were like riddles. He didn’t want to just tell Nick anything, everything was posed as a question, as if Nick couldn’t possibly be bright enough to figure things out, but that Adam expected to make Nick stretch and stretch until he could understand it.
And that was just Adam testing Nick to find out what he already knew and what he didn’t.
“We’ll have to undo some of what you’ve learned,” Adam had told him, and Nick had clenched his teeth. He did not like the insinuation that Moana had not taught him well.
“You’ve got too much mortal in you still,” Adam had said. “The way you decide to attack or take hits, it is all still as if you need to worry about permanent damage. Amanda certainly didn’t teach you anything, you don’t have her style. You have the basics, but nothing else. Who was your teacher?”
“She was a friend of Amanda’s,” Nick had said, reluctant to give up Moana’s name. It was difficult to know when Immortals were allies or enemies. If Adam held a grudge against Moana, Nick could be out on his ear. “She owed Amanda a favor, so she came for a month, and then left.”
“A month?” Adam had laughed. “You’re certainly not anyone’s favorite, are you? Still, she did an amazing job with you for only a month.”
Nick’s anger had been a bit soothed by that. Moana had offered to bring him back with her. She’d taken leave from work-Nick still found it odd that some Immortals meshed their lives in so completely with everyone else-and couldn’t be away longer. But she had offered. Nick just hadn’t been able to take the offer, not yet. He was still too wounded, too raw. Moana had left the invitation open to him, if he managed to keep his head.
Now, Nick thought, after Adam’s thorough beating, he was regretting that decision. Moana had gone too easy on him, and Nick had thought he could take on another Immortal and win. Adam was so far beyond his league that Nick couldn’t even fathom how much training it had taken to get that way. If Nick had been forced to fight Adam, he had no doubt whose head would have rolled.
Adam put blankets and pillows down on the couch. “I’ve slept on this couch,” he said. “It turns into a lump of stone around three in the morning.”
“I’ll be fine,” Nick said. He was too tired to even think much about it. Probably he was going to sleep hard all the way through until morning.
“The offer for the other half of the bed is still on the table,” Adam said. “I promise not to sully your honor in the middle of the night.”
“As if,” Nick replied. He spread out the blanket and put the pillows on one end of the couch. Tomorrow, he would organize his things more thoroughly. And get some food into the fridge. Adam had stocked it with beer and take-out leftovers. Nick was unable to quite reconcile the lean, fighting figure with the poor food choices, but it didn’t really matter.
As he drifted off to sleep, Nick realized that Adam had said he’d tell him how he knew about Nick and Amanda when Nick told him about Richie. Nick felt entirely too sleep-heavy to even start that conversation. He’d do it in the morning, and then he would press for answers until he got them.
***~***
“First, you must learn to be comfortable with the rope,” Adam said. He had a length of thin rope, more like string really, in his hands. There were two knots at one end, and one of those knots formed a loop. With quick, smooth movements, he wrapped it in a figure-eight pattern between his thumb and pinkie finger, then the end went around the bundle. He loosened it from his hand and held it up. Then he tugged at the loose end with the two knots and it came freely out, flowing like a stream of water at the lightest pressure. “In the past, the warriors kept these in their sleeves,” Adam said. “Bundled and ready to be used. It would take only a moment to pull one out and then tie up their captive.”
Nick tried to imitate Adam’s demonstration and came away with jumbled rope.
Adam smiled and showed him again, more slowly. “Once you get this, I want you to do it one hundred times. Today. Tomorrow. Every day you’re here. It needs to be like second nature to you. Something you can do without even thinking about it.”
“Okay,” Nick said. It sounded like an excessive waste of time to him, because really, after doing a hundred times once, he surely would have it down, but Adam was the one teaching here, so he would go along with it. “You didn’t answer my question yesterday,” Nick said.
“Which question would that be?” Adam asked as he watched Nick go through the motions of winding the rope around his hand.
“How you knew that Amanda and I were acquaintances.”
“Ah.” Adam took another length of rope and started to practice his own winding. He was twice as fast as Nick, and Nick spent a moment to admire his deftness. Perhaps he did need to practice this one hundred times a day, after all.
“And?” Nick pressed.
“You won’t like the answer.”
Nick stopped what he was doing and narrowed his eyes. “I still want to know.”
“Of course,” Adam said smoothly. “I believe you learned about Watchers at some point.” He turned his wrist over and Nick could just make out the faint, dotted form of a blue-green tattoo.
Nick threw down the rope. “What the hell!”
Adam shrugged his shoulders. “I was a Watcher for a little while. Not anymore. It’s been harder to get rid of the tattoo than I thought, but I’ll have it gone at some point.”
Nick’s mind jumped around, making connections, pulling up old questions. “You know Dawson.”
“Yes. Joe and I are friends.” Adam picked up Nick’s rope and held it out to him. “You still have ninety-seven to go.”
“He told you what happened.”
“Amanda mentioned you, too. The last time I saw her. Ninety-seven.” He offered the rope again.
Nick glared at Adam and stomped away. He kicked the lockers in the locker room and looked around for more things to hit.
Adam came into the locker room. “I know you and Joe didn’t get along, and that you’re not very happy with Amanda at the moment. I understand all that. Becoming Immortal is a big transition. But kicking the lockers isn’t especially useful.”
“I know that!” Nick kicked a locker again anyway, leaving a big dent. He really didn’t care that the lockers belonged to Adam’s friend.
“You still have ninety-seven more to go, when you’re done ruining things,” Adam said placid as a lake at dawn, and then left him.
Nick sat down on the bench and tried to get his breathing under control. This Watcher and Immortal business was so in bred. The connections arcing between everyone were thick and deep, and how could they not see how disgusting it was that they were all in bed with each other, complicit in death and hate, and everything immoral and wrong? Amanda knew Adam and Joe, and they all knew each other, and Nick didn’t have a score card. He felt like he was blind and groping in the dark.
What the hell was he doing here anyway?
He’d had one lousy dream and followed it halfway across the country, to one smart-aleck that had more secrets than the government, and he was being played. Adam hadn’t even wanted to take him on. It had only been because-
Nick stopped short. There was something there that he’d missed.
Nick rewound the dream in his head. He thought about Adam knocking on the window of his truck. The photo on the end table.
He strode back out into the main area of the dojo. “What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded.
Adam looked up, a sly smile on his face. “I’m pretty sure that since you aren’t my student at the moment, that I don’t owe you any answers.”
“Not your student?”
Adam held out the rope. “Ninety-seven more. Either you are or you aren’t learning here.”
Nick grabbed the rope out of his hands and started winding. “Now. Answers.”
“Even though you are my student again, anything I would care to share with you would be out of the generosity of my heart. I don’t understand why you expect that everyone must reveal themselves to you.”
Nick glared at him and missed a loop around his thumb, the rope got tangled up and he had to start again.
Adam sighed. “I’m a lot older than you. It’s terribly difficult to know exactly what it is that has set you off. It’d take a long time to tell you all my secrets. Perhaps you’d enlighten me about which ones you mean, exactly?”
“You know,” Nick said, voice low. “Why did you agree to this? When I told you it was Richie. You said he was dead. How did he die? And what about the other man? Is he real too?”
“So that’s what you want to know,” Adam said. “Hugh Fitzcairn. Also Immortal, but he was killed in a Challenge. He seems to be prone to not exactly staying gone, though. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of him coming back as an angel inside a dream.”
“Not the first time,” Nick echoed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Not at all. Apparently Fitz has license to muck around with the hearts, souls, and minds of those he knew when he was alive.”
“Fucking hell,” Nick said. He paused in his rope looping, then when Adam gave him a pointed look, started up again. “And Richie?”
“From what you say, it appears Richie has somehow teamed up with Fitz and now they’re both charging around tilting at our dreams, telling us what to do.”
“I don’t know either of them,” Nick said.
“They both knew Amanda, and they both knew me.” Adam kept his eyes steady on the rope he was winding around his hand. “Close enough, probably, to include you in whatever it is they’re trying to affect.”
Nick narrowed his eyes. Adam was really slick, but there was just the slightest hesitation there. There was still something Adam wasn’t telling him. “And?”
“And what?”
Nick just raised an eyebrow, completed a perfect loop of rope and held it out to Adam. Adam smiled and tugged on the end with the knots and the rope slid out smoothly, perfectly, like a mountain stream down a rock face, until only the other end was still in Nick’s hand.
“Much better. You still have seventy-four of them to do.”
“And you haven’t told me whatever it is you’re holding back,” Nick replied.
“I find myself a bit envious of your dream,” Adam said slowly. “Richie and I were lovers, for a short time, when he was still alive. I miss him. Hearing that he’s shown up in your head, sent you to me, and then scuttled off without a word edgewise, well, it leaves me a bit…overdone.”
Nick stared. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“No.”
Nick sat back and mulled over that information. He wasn’t sure exactly what to think about the situation.
“Seventy-four,” Adam said.
“Seventy-three,” Nick said.
Adam shook his head. “I should never have even gone down to meet you.”
***~***
Nick’s arms were sore that night, from the workout, as he stared down at the couch. His back was also aching, from the impromptu sleeping arrangements.
Adam had been right about the couch. It was hell on the body. Nick had slept all the previous night like a log because he’d been exhausted, and he was again. But just sleeping heavily wasn’t a way to avoid waking up with a crick in his back and a kink in his neck. He eyed the other side of the bed.
Adam was still puttering in the bathroom, and Nick needed to decide quickly what he wanted.
Nick flexed his fingers and stretched his arms. One hundred rope windings. There were one hundred more waiting for him tomorrow. On top of that, Adam had him doing some martial art rolls and flips. He’d flung himself around on a mat for the better part of two hours. Just about every muscle in his body was protesting.
Nick grabbed the pillows and blankets and hauled them over to the bed. He could sleep on top of the covers and under his blankets.
Adam came out of the bathroom. He paused to stare at the bed, smile faintly, and then click off the lights. He crawled into bed and eased himself under the covers. “See you in the morning,” he said.
“Yeah. Good night,” Nick said.
***~***
Day three of his new torture regiment consisted of, finally, learning the technique he’d come to learn.
“Other than the two knots on the end, there are no knots in this technique,” Adam said. He’d looped the rope through itself and slipped it on Nick’s wrist, then wrenched his arm behind his back. Suddenly the rope was over his shoulder, wrapped around him, across his throat-threatening to pressure in against his windpipe-and back over his shoulder. Adam was tugging on the rope behind him and Nick had no choice but to obey, the control the rope yielded over him was incredible.
“It’s called the diamond rope tie because if you could see yourself from the back, you would see that the crisscrossing of the line creates a diamond pattern.”
“Yes, yes,” Nick said, suddenly desperate to get out of the hold. He couldn’t even move. Everything he did seemed to make it tighter, squeeze off his air. He tried to lift his wrist higher, but Adam just took up the slack.
“Tut, tut,” Adam said. “Not so much a diamond shape now. You’re very flexible for having such muscle in your arms.”
“Thanks,” Nick said and tried not to even move a muscle. “Could you--”
“Done,” Adam said, and quickly reversed the sequence of wraps until he had the rope back in his hand again.
Nick rubbed at his throat. “That’s impressive,” he said.
“It is. Traditionally, when the prisoners were brought somewhere, the samurai would loosen the ropes or change the tie, just before handing him over. To protect the secret knowledge of the ties. The one I just demonstrated is a basic tie, not really a secret one. But there are others.”
Nick rubbed at his wrist. There was an indentation in his skin where the rope had constricted around him. He suddenly felt as if the world had opened up around him. How had he never even known this existed before? “I need to learn this,” he said. “I have to know this.”
Adam handed him the rope. “One hundred times,” he said, and for once, Nick sat down and did as he was told.
***~***
Adam had ordered pizza, which was good because Nick’s wrists and arms and back all throbbed from overuse and grueling punishment. He couldn’t have even tried to clench a fork.
“Why doesn’t my healing take care of this?” he asked as he tried to keep his grip on the crust of a piece of pizza.
“It’s not really the same sort of injury. If it healed this, you wouldn’t be able to train. You’d be stuck at whatever you were when you first died. Good for some of us. Those of us who were Olympic fencing medalists at the moment we died,” Adam said with a cheeky grin. “Not so good for those of us who had desk jobs.”
“So my body just keeps on working like it always did. I can build muscle. I can run harder and faster and longer.”
“Yup.” Adam nibbled on a leftover crust. “You can learn muscle memory. Which is what I’m trying to give you. The art of tying-you can know it on a mental level, and it would take time. You have to have it happen with your hands and your body before you even realize you’ve done it. It has to be as automatic as breathing. More automatic.”
Nick sipped at his beer. “When did you learn this?”
Adam looked to the ceiling, thoughtful, as if he were counting in his head. “It was a while ago. I’d have to check my journals to be sure. Not until well into the nineteenth century. I was too foreign to trust, even if I did learn the language almost like a native. But I knew it existed before that. I’d picked up a few things here and there from men who had traveled out of the country.”
“How many other Immortals use this?”
Adam snorted. “Do I look like I initiate an Immortal census every ten years?”
Nick laughed. “Okay, okay. That was a dumb question. I admit it.”
Adam yawned and stretched. “Bedtime, I think.” He made his way to the bathroom and closed the door.
Nick shoved the last of the pizza in his mouth and, chewing, put the box in the trash and the empty beer bottles into the recycling bin. Then he shucked his clothes down to his underwear and crawled into bed.
Adam came out of the bathroom, clicked off the light, and slid in on the other side of the bed.
“How long do you think this training is going to take?” Nick asked into the darkness. He could hear Adam shift around, and felt the movement in the bed.
“Don’t know. You’re a quick learner, but to do this right, it has to be more than just learned.”
“It has to be muscle memory. Ingrained,” Nick supplied, repeating the earlier conversation.
“Exactly,” Adam said. “Maybe a few weeks. Or months. Really, it’d be years to learn it well. An entire lifetime, and more, to learn the majority of it.”
“Richie wanted me to learn the one technique. I need that one first.” Nick wasn’t sure he was ready to dedicate a lifetime to the learning of rope tricks.
“Then you’re already halfway there. Now hush so I can sleep, please.”
***~***
“Today I’m going to teach you to begin to put it all together,” Adam said. He was leaning against the wall. “Stay where you are. I’ll demonstrate.”
Nick was in the middle of the room. He eyed Adam warily. So far he hadn’t liked being on the receiving end of any of the demonstrations. It always ended up with rope marks on his skin and a deep fear of being throttled to death.
Adam burst from the wall. His hand flicked to his sleeve and the rope came out. Then Adam was on him, catching his arm behind him, the rope already around his wrist before Nick could move, and he was moving backwards, flinging out with his other arm, which was promptly snared. Less than five seconds later, he was on the ground, face down, and trying not to squirm. Every time he breathed, the rope seemed to tighten.
Adam’s weight was threatening above him and he leaned down to speak into his ear. “I’m a bit rusty,” he said. “To do this right, you need to be even faster. Smoother.” Then he released the rope and Nick gasped, his hands going to his throat. He glared at Adam.
Adam wound the rope in his hand and offered it to Nick. “One hundred times,” he said. “Then we’ll go through the motions more slowly.”
Nick gritted his teeth and took the rope.
***~***
“Tell me about Richie,” Nick said as they ate dinner.
Adam blinked at him.
“I’m serious,” Nick said. “He’s the only reason you took me on. He’s the only reason I came here. This is a favor I’m doing for him.”
Adam’s gaze wandered to the bed and Nick felt himself start to blush. “Not that stuff,” Nick said quickly.
Adam smirked. “From your initial reaction, I had assumed you didn’t want to broach this subject,” he said.
“Not your love life,” Nick said. “Richie’s personality. The kind of guy he was.”
“Loyal to a fault,” Adam said. “It got him killed.” Adam got up from the dinner table. “I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait up.”
Nick watched as Adam pulled on his coat and then went out the back door, and was gone. That hadn’t gone at all well, he thought. He hadn’t wanted to offend Adam, but obviously he’d touched a nerve.
Nick rubbed at his face. He was tired and he was sore. Additionally, trying to speed up his take-down was giving him bruises. Adam smacked him, open handed, but still hard as if getting hit with a brick, every time Nick left even the smallest opening. He had yet to successfully get beyond the part where he pulled the rope out of his sleeve.
Nick put the leftovers away. They’d ordered in Chinese food, and Adam had gone heavy on the noodles. He finished his beer, thankful for the relaxing effect of the alcohol on his system. Then he drifted over to the photograph on the end table. He stared at it for a long time, as if it would give up some of its secrets, but it remained mute on the topic.
Finally, Nick went to bed. He was so exhausted that he fell asleep almost instantly. He only woke once, when Adam came home and lay down on the other side. Nick could see that it was nearly three in the morning.
***~***
“Do you want to try again or take a break?”
“Again,” Nick said stubbornly. He really needed the break, but he’d be damned if he was going to yield in any way to the insufferable attitude that Adam had taken with him today. He took a deep breath and ran at Adam.
Adam kicked his legs out from beneath him and landed on top of him with a double tap to his ribs, cracking at least one, and tears sprang to Nick’s eyes. The blade of Adam’s hand was at his throat, a training stand-in for a real blade, and Nick blinked away the tears to look up and see the cold fury in Adam’s eyes.
Fuck this, Nick thought. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “I don’t need this shit.” Without even thinking, Nick punched. He’d been a boxer, trained for years, and he knew that physicality like he knew his own skin. He connected with Adam’s jaw, felt a sinister victorious feeling, a gloating that he finally had done something to get past those barriers. Adam’s head snapped back and he dropped like a stone, unconscious, to the floor, eyes wide and blank.
Nick scrambled to his feet. He nudged Adam with his foot. “Hell,” he said. This was not the way to make friends and influence people. He’d just knocked his teacher out cold.
Nick sighed and headed for the freezer. He put two handfuls of ice into a kitchen towel and trudged it back downstairs.
Adam was just stirring.
“Here,” he said, and put the ice-filled towel in Adam’s hands. “This’ll help.”
Adam blinked at him, confusion evident in his eyes. “What?” he asked. “What happened?”
“I hit you,” Nick said. “Sorry.”
Adam smiled. “Good job,” he said. He put the bulk of the towel against his chin where Nick had landed the blow, flinched, and then switched it to his temple. “This is the worst headache I’ve had in a century,” he said.
“Good job?” Nick frowned at him. “I just knocked you out.”
“About time, too,” Adam said. He closed his eyes and sank in against the icy towel. “Nick, you have to commit to learning this. You’re holding back, you don’t have that fire in the belly that you need. You’re driven, but you aren’t near enough to obsessive. I’m glad to see you’ve got some passion in you.”
Nick stared at him. Passion? “I know a lot of people would argue with you about that passion thing. My problem is usually that I’m too passionate.”
Adam shook his head, then stopped. “Ow,” he said. “I don’t mean your usual hot-headedness. Or how you go battering at impenetrable walls, and bullying everyone around you. I mean passion to want to do this.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Give it time,” Adam said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the saying goes.” There was mirth in his eyes over that, but Nick didn’t dare even ask. He decided to throw caution to the wind and risk another, more inflammable topic.
“I thought you were trying to punish me for bringing up Richie,” Nick said.
“I never said I wasn’t temperamental.”
“He must have meant a lot to you.”
“He did.”
“And?”
Adam sighed. “Don’t you have a hundred rope windings to complete?”
“Only if you tell me about Richie while I do it.”
Adam considered that. “Fine. Since my head doesn’t want to be sloshed about just yet, I’m not going anywhere for a few minutes. You do pack a wallop.”
Nick grinned and retrieved the rope.
“Richie was a street kid,” Adam said. “Growing up shuffled from family to family. He accidentally witnessed a Challenge and a Quickening and got involved in the world of Immortals.”
Nick paused in his winding. Except for the street kid stuff, that hit a little close to home.
“If you stop, I stop,” Adam warned, and Nick continued with the rope.
“Street kid?” Nick asked. “What century was that?”
“This one,” Adam said, and Nick startled. A muscle twitched above Nick’s eye. “Not everyone is a thousand years old, Nick,” he said.
“Yeah. But I’m the only one I know under a hundred.”
“Richie was twenty-two when he died. He became Immortal at eighteen. So he only got an extra four years,” Adam said mildly. “Of course, those were the years I knew him, so I tend to think they were a gift.”
Nick remembered what he’d told Amanda after coming alive again. How despondent he’d been to think he’d outlive his family, his friends. Four years. Richie had gotten only four extra years. He hadn’t outlived anyone. Dying at twenty-two was barely less tragic than eighteen. Nick thought of himself at twenty-two, how green he’d been, how untested and idealistic. He’d hardly even filled in his own skin by that age. He’d known his own mind, but not been tempered by so many other things that were just around the bend.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said, and he was. It must have been a bitter day to realize that all that youthful potential had been cut down. Richie should have lived forever. Instead he’d gotten four more years. Nick looked down and concentrated on his winding, trying to empty his mind of the misery. Of course, he’d just seen Richie. It was hard to imagine he was gone, when Nick had a bright image of him in his mind.
“We met through a mutual friend. Here, in this very dojo. Right over there, actually. We were sort of like two satellites revolving around this place, constantly bumping into one another. There’d be long hours waiting together at the bar, and we just seemed to have a lot of time to talk. He wasn’t a bad kid,” Adam said.
“So not love at first sight,” Nick said.
“Hardly. More like annoyance at first sight. But he was persistent. Then there was…ah, a certain Immortal in town who was a big mouth and a liar. Circumstances and all. Richie really started trying to talk to me. Next thing I knew, I had a soft spot for him. It just sort of spiraled from there.” Adam smiled fondly. “He had a big heart. Too big. It got him in trouble constantly.”
“What happened? In the end?”
Adam shook his head. “He died. Got mixed up in something too big for him and he led with his heart.”
“I’ve still got eighty-six to go,” Nick said. “There’s got to be more to tell than that.”
“That’s all I’ve got to say. How about you tell me why you’re still angry with Amanda.”
Nick flushed, his anger rising just as fast as it ever did. “Like hell!”
Adam got to his feet, keeping the bag of ice against his head. “I’m going to lie down. I trust you can keep yourself occupied for the remainder of the day.”
Nick watched him go and lost count of how many rope windings he had left to complete.
***~***
On to Part Two