Happy Holidays, argentum_ls!

[amand_r]

Title: Like New
Author: A box full of socks
Written for: argentum_ls
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Richie
Rating: PG

Author's Notes: This is a slight canon divergence AU. In Prodigal Son Richie lists where he's been since he parted ways with Duncan in Seacouver and notes that he met a girl in New Orleans and they went down to Rio. Instead, I've had him meet

Comments

[argentum_ls]

Oh, now that was clever. When I speculated on role-reversal stories for Richie and Methos, I honestly never imagined this scenario. Methos pretending to be a newbie Immortal kind of for laughs, kind of out of curiosity as to how he'd play that part, and kind of as a threat assessment is so fantastically him. (The fact that he actually got taught something made it even better.) And Richie getting to play the part of teacher, with all of his six whopping months of experience (if that), and yet managing to do it well speaks both of his strengths and Duncan's.

I grinned my way through this story, and I would have been happy with just the season 2 AU scenario, but the re-imagining of the guys meeting in season 4 really provided a nice twist. I love the idea that Methos came to Seacouver out of concern for Richie. Them getting to have a friendship on their own terms is...well, it's not all I wanted from the show, but it's pretty damn high on the list.

Thank you, writer. I loved this story.

[merriman]

Thank you. I had a blast writing this. I have a bit of a thing for Methos pretending to be super new to throw people off and I thought well, what if he played it completely new to the whole thing? Richie just doesn't have the experience to catch on to that.

I'll be writing up some notes about all my swap stories (this and the ones I did for Yuletide) soon, but a couple of things here:
Canon screwed me. When I do canon divergence I like to keep it as close as possible, changing one point and working from there. And then there was a lot less time between when Richie leaves Seacouver and when Richie shows up in Paris than I'd been thinking. I was going to have him encounter Methos in Paris and Methos panic about the Watchers noticing. So then I re-watched Prodigal Son and crap, Richie lists everywhere he's been between Seacouver and Paris. Ah well. New Orleans it was

[springwoof]

Lovely story! Methos is so very Methos here--too clever and world-weary, yet occasionally still caught by surprise. And I loved your Richie--so serious and protective and honorable, so achingly young, such a good guy.

[merriman]

Thank you! I do love that Methos is so old and such a know-it-all, but then he'll flat out admit "Nope, don't know that." And it was such fun working to write Richie well. I'd never really tried to write him before!

[tallterror]

Very interesting what-if. I especially loved the twist of Methos playing new to Richie! Good job!

[merriman]

Thank you! I thought it would be a fun situation to toss him into.

[dkwilliams]

What an interesting turn of events! I liked this

[merriman]

Thank you!

[merriman]

Thank you! And Richie really is so earnest (perfect term) early on! So utterly determined to do the right thing, even when he makes poor choices.