November 11th

Rain had fallen steadily all day, saturating the ancient stones of Paris until the effluvia of medieval markets and the blood of ancient massacres combined with the reek of internal combustion. The smell pervaded the air of every street that Methos tramped on his way home. Although he had avoided the parade route, he still hadn't been able to avoid seeing poppies, purple, white and red, floating in the gutters.

It had been almost a century.

As he went through the mundane ritual of preparing for bed—brushing his teeth, screwing the top back on the toothpaste—he caught himself staring at his face in the cabinet mirror. A long-headed man stared back at him—nose like the blade of an ax stared back. Hazel eyes. Sharp cheekbones. A mouth that twisted easily at the ironies of his life—Moth? Maddws? Methos? What's your name today? He touched the glass wondering when it was, exactly, that he'd first seen himself in something other than a still pool of water—five thousand years? Five thousand years ago his features had still been mapped with intricate blue spirals. Four thousand years ago they had been fading, but a man with bright blue eyes had been able to trace them with his finger. They had been vanished for centuries the day he'd given Cassandra to Kronos.

Methos snapped off the light and turned away.

Dropping his clothes on top of the heap of books next to the futon, he climbed in and turned off the reading light, burying his head beneath the duvet. It was too early for sleep, but what did he need to do—unpack the newest crate at Shakespeare and Co.? Go and apologize to Keane: Nothing personal, I just couldn't let you take his head. Go rant at MacLeod: You moralizing prig, how dare you judge me? I abjured an old love for you, MacLeod, the last trace of who I was in a time gone out of mind. It was a long time ago—I hope you never know how long—but I broke my word. You can't possibly understand what that means to me.

Brooding was an indulgence. He despised himself for it.

Kronos was dead. All of the Horsemen were dead. His friendship with MacLeod had been shattered; the re-forged truce between them too fragile to trust. So what? Losing a few illusions would only increase the odds of MacLeod's survival. It was no solace for Methos. There was a fissure in his soul and he doubted he'd ever feel whole again.

Aware of the soft linen sliding beneath him, and speaking of indulgence, he thought of bringing himself off, imagining it was MacLeod's generous hand relearning the intimacies of his body. But under loathing lurked shame and shame would raise more ghosts.

Sleep was welcome when it came—however briefly.

The banging woke him. He responded to the sense of another immortal's presence by feeling for his sword. The rain had stopped. Moonlight cast a distorted human shadow on the door blinds. Amanda...if that's you...

"Pierson, open the door! I know you're in there! We have to talk." MacLeod was outside in full imperial bellow, punctuating his words with blows to the doorframe.

Hoping the man would take a hint, Methos didn't move until the glass was in danger of breaking. Then he threw the duvet aside and got up. Despite the fear knotting his stomach and making his hands shake, he jerked the door open and thrust.

The point of the weapons stopped just short of MacLeod's chin. MacLeod jumped back and landed off balance in a puddle. "Jaesus, Methos!" he said. "I came to apologize."

"Fuck off." Methos jabbed again to make the point. "I'm sick of every immortal in Paris having a turn waking me up."

"Amanda warned me you'd be cranky." MacLeod made a conciliatory gesture, displaying the bottle in his right hand. "I've brought a peace offering."

Methos kept his sword level. The man could stand there with his feet wet and take root as far as he was concerned. Damned if he was going to put up for an expensive bottle of scotch, just because it was in MacLeod's hand. But the moonlight had embroidered MacLeod's head and shoulders all over with tiny silver beads. Methos wanted to howl, to beg protection from all the now forgotten powers that had once sped lost souls to their damnation. Sighing, he said, "What's so important it can't wait until tomorrow?"

"I'm leaving Paris tomorrow. I couldn't sleep without talking to you."

"And if Duncan MacLeod can't sleep, why should anybody else?"

"Please, Methos. It's cold, I'm wet and anybody could happen by." MacLeod's eyes dropped to where Methos's hands gripped the hilt of the sword. He presented the bottle again. "The Lagavulin."

"I suspect an element of self-interest there." Methos said, but he lowered his weapon and stepped aside. "Quidquid id est, timeo Damaos et dona ferentis." Whatever it may be, I still fear the Greeks when they come bearing gifts.

"I expect you do," MacLeod said, brushing by, spattering his legs with cold water. Methos saw there was a poppy pinned to his lapel.

He followed MacLeod inside. "Pour me some of that while I get dressed."

"You don't need to on my account. MacLeod headed for the kitchen,

"Oh, sod off. And don't drip on the floor."

"Anything else?"

"Put some ice in it."

"Sassenach." There was a shudder in MacLeod's voice.

Methos found the bed lamp and began rummaging for his jeans in the pile of clothing.

He'd finished straightening the bedclothes when MacLeod came padding back bare foot with the wet cuffs of his slacks rolled about his ankles. His hair was curling on the shoulders of his open dress shirt. In the warm air he smelled of wet wool, cigar smoke and a faint tang of Bay Rum, as though he had just come from a dinner party. Ice clicked against crystal as he handed over a glass. "It's barbaric to use good whisky like that."

"I thought we had established that I am a barbarian." Methos took a sip, savoring the moody, peat-smoke taste. "Nice.

"It's the sixteen."

"When it comes to conciliation, any year will do."

"Do you always answer the door stark naked?" MacLeod smiled.

"Amanda should have told you that."

"It must have slipped her mind. She's had a lot on it since the other night."

"Has she resolved that little problem with the police inspector?"

"As a matter of fact she left Paris this evening—it was that or jail." There was deep affection in MacLeod's voice and a smile on his lips.

"Pray I'm never on the receiving end of one of her rescue efforts."

"She's creative, our Amanda, not to mention larcenous."

Methos shook his head and took another sip. A farewell dinner would explain the clothes. Are you going to follow her? He sat down on the futon, trying to control the brew of emotion that had gripped him from the moment he'd heard MacLeod's voice at the door. MacLeod kept on smiling.

"Oh for God's sake, will you stop looming and just light? Between tourists, re-enactors and idiots on sentimental journeys, I've had a hell of a day at the bookstore."

"Sorry." MacLeod found a seat on the one of the low leather chairs. "I don't mean to loom."

"You loom, you hover and you hang about like the fog on the Grampians." The bastard was still smiling. Methos could see the glint of his teeth. Stop that. "What do you want? There's this great new contraption called the telephone, ever heard of it?"

"I didn't know you'd ever been in the Grampians." Now MacLeod's voice was flat. "There's an awful lot about you that I don't know."

"Get to it, or go."

MacLeod took another sip and leaned forward. "I can't leave things the way they are between us. You tried to help me with Keane—"

Methos cut him off. "I couldn't see you getting yourself killed in some pathetic panegyric to guilt."

"We have to work this out."

"In the middle of the night? What's wrong with next Thursday?" I am not ready for this.

"When I realized what day it was…tonight just seemed appropriate," MacLeod stood up and began to pace. "I talked to Joe—"

"Phone the International Herald Tribune while you were at it?" Methos interrupted, feeling irrationally betrayed, but unsure of by whom. "You know, the really great thing about the Watchers is they're a constructive outlet for voyeurs, gossips, and busybodies with nothing better to do."

"Or for arrogant, pusillanimous assholes to hide in," MacLeod shot back.

"Touché." Methos mimed a sword touch. "Did you think that up with both hands?" The corners of MacLeod's mouth twitched. "Next thing you know, you'll want to be paid."

"You can be really obnoxious," MacLeod said.

"It's an art."

"Keep practicing, you've almost got it perfected." Methos closed his eyes and ducked his head in an abbreviated bow. "Now, you listen to me—when Cassandra showed up in Seacouver, Joe did everything but turn cartwheels trying to get me to talk to you. I don't know why, but he cares about you."

"So, I owe him for this?" Methos waved his glass. "Fixing you up is how he gets his rocks off." He was going to start laughing any second at the look of outrage on MacLeod's face. There was a putrid kind of satisfaction in reaching for the cruelest things he could think to say. "You know the Vietcong blew off his balls as well as his legs."

"Stop it! before you go any further!"

Suddenly MacLeod was kneeling in front of him, his fingers digging into Methos's shoulders with bruising force, shaking. Whisky and ice soaked his jeans. He dropped the glass, wrenched himself out of MacLeod's grip, and pushed his face up close. "Let me go! Haven't you figured out, after everything that's happened, I'm not what either of you want me to be."

"Yes." MacLeod lifted his hands, sitting back on his heels. "Finally. That's why I had to talk to Joe. Why I came here tonight"

The frame of the futon was digging into his back. He wanted to get away but getting up would have been clumsy and obvious. Hell of a time to start worrying about your dignity, Maddws. Why was that name coming to mind tonight? He groped for his glass. It was empty.

"Joe's a good man. That was unforgivable," he said. "I'm sorry."

MacLeod's expression changed from disgust to something disturbingly like a cat with a trapped mouse. The man was too close. There was a disturbing maleness under the smoke and Bay Rum.

"Apologize to Joe. He seems capable of forgiving you anything." MacLeod reached out as though he would have liked to frame Methos's face with his hands. "Are you up on your classics?"

"Try me."

"'Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nove, sero te amavi.'"MacLeod said each word with a schoolboy's deliberate pronunciation.

"That's St. Augustine you're mangling," Methos objected.

"That's right. Tell me what it means."

"'Too late, I came…'" He'd automatically begun to translating when, suddenly sick to his stomach, he spotted the trap. He tried to rise, but MacLeod was gripping his shoulders and there was nowhere to go.

"Finish it."

He closed his eyes and started again. "'Too late I came to love thee…'" The end of the world shouldn't be so impossible; we all come to it sooner or later. "'I came to love thee, beauty, both so ancient and so young.'" He was clinging to MacLeod's wrists and let his head drop until it rested against MacLeod's chest. "'Et ecce intus eras et ego foris, et ibi te quaerebam,'"he finished softly.

"Yes." MacLeod approved of the top of his head. "'And behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, where I made search for thee.'"

MacLeod's arms were around him, holding his broken parts together, turning his face up and kissing him. He held still for only a few seconds before falling back on the futon and pulling MacLeod down with him. MacLeod's arms snaked under his back, pulling them higher on the bed.

He clung to the man, craving his body as thirsty man craves water, spreading his legs to bring their groins tightly together. Through the fabric of his jeans, he could feel MacLeod's familiar hardness against his erection. MacLeod dug his fingers into his ass, grinding into him, reinforcing the contact. He thought he was crying MacLeod's name and he may have cried another name as well but it didn't matter, he couldn't hear through the torrent of noise in his brain.

MacLeod must have heard him, though. His lips pressed against Methos's eyelids and cheeks. Hands stroked the sides of Methos's face, like fire where they touched him. Methos turned into the hand and kissed the palm, tasting salt. MacLeod's familiar thumb slipped into his mouth and then went away, but before he could cry out, a tongue took its place. Wet and alive, it claimed and colonized him, assuring him that he wasn't alone.

The need for air broke the kiss and they held fast to each other. MacLeod traced the whorls of his ear with a tongue that left a wet trail behind it while Methos raked his hands up and down MacLeod's back and reveled in the solidity of the body in his arms and thrilled by the strength he felt locked there.

Then he got greedy for the hardness that still pressed against his thigh. It had been too long. He wanted to feel MacLeod measuring their cocks again. He wanted to fuck MacLeod's mouth, that hot tongue wrapped around him. He wanted to swallow MacLeod in turn and suck the life out of him.

He reached for MacLeod's belt, tugging on it when it wouldn't come undone, and pulled up MacLeod's shirt. He pulled too hard and the buttons popped against his belly and they both started laughing until MacLeod collapsed on top of him.

"What?" Methos demanded when he got his breath back and MacLeod was still snorting into the hollow of his throat. "What's so funny, you big haggis walloper?" He gave MacLeod a thump in the ribs. "Move! You weigh a ton."

"'Da mihi castitatem et continetiam.' That's Augustine too." Warm breath exploded against his skin.

"But not now." MacLeod lay giggling on top of him and Methos hit him again. "That's a hint."

"I know." MacLeod levered himself up and ran a finger under the edge of Methos's jaw. "Augustine was lucky; he was only wrestling with temptation."

"How do you know?" Methos found the zipper on MacLeod's slacks, undid it, and slipped his hand inside.

"That's what Paul told me when he was teaching me Latin."

MacLeod hissed as Methos's hand skimmed over the soft cotton that restrained his rigid cock until MacLeod caught his fingers and held them.

"Methos, I never meant things to go this far tonight." MacLeod's voice was as smoky as the malt, but he shifted himself away. "We have to talk first."

"No, we don't." Methos pulled his hand free and squeezed MacLeod's cock to feel it throb. "Besides, you're such a liar." MacLeod didn't say anything, just kept looking at him. The staring was starting to piss him off. "Excuse, me, did I miss something? Do you want to go out and get roses too?"

"Methos, this isn't what I want," MacLeod began.

"I want to get laid, MacLeod." He squeezed again—hard. MacLeod jerked.

"Damn you! I want to know what's going on. If I looked, would I find 'Gilgamesh slept here' tattooed on your ass?"

"Would that be worse than anything else?"

"I don't know. Who couldn't I ask you about?"

"None of your damn business."

"Kronos. Cassandra. Ulysses? Any more god or demons? Heroes? Saints? Famous perverts? Sade? Leonardo? Spinoza? Byron…"

"Stuff it, you provincial son of a bitch! I'm going to finish what you started, and then you get the fuck out of my life."

He caught MacLeod by surprise, shoving him over, not caring particularly how he bruised the other mans body. Methos straddled him and finished ripping the shirt open. The last of the buttons disappeared into the bedclothes. He leaned down and bit MacLeod's mouth, then pushed his tongue in, taking blood deep inside, forcing MacLeod to taste the copper and tin.

When MacLeod screwed his head into the duvet, he took a handful of dark hair and jabbed MacLeod's flanks with his knees. He dragged MacLeod's undershirt high enough to expose the small, brown aureoles of his nipples. When he twisted them they were hot and hard. MacLeod moaned, the sound coming from deep in his chest.

Methos give vent his rage; MacLeod put up a hand, but Methos slapped it away and after the one aborted gesture MacLeod made no attempt to fight him off. He smashed into MacLeod's face and shoulders trying to batter the man senseless. He demolished the undershirt in his need to expose more of MacLeod's flesh, scratching and biting, not caring how much blood stained his sheets. He pulled at the buckle on MacLeod's belt again, but there was a trick to it; it stayed closed and as he fumbled with it he realized he'd lost his erection and he sagged, panting, over MacLeod's torso. Then the maelstrom of shame and fear surged again, and when he began pummeling anew, MacLeod finally reacted, grabbing his fists and trapping them against his sides. He smashed his head brutally on MacLeod's sternum and when he lifted his head again to repeat the blow, MacLeod pulled his arms up behind his back, crossing them, effectively locking Methos in place.

He was trapped with his face pressed against the swell of a hard pectoral muscle and his entire body shaking with the pounding of his heart. The coarse curls under his cheek were wet. He hoped it was with sweat, and not with what was leaking from his eyes. He could feel the bass notes of MacLeod's voice whispering to him. It didn't make any sense until MacLeod changed his grip to a one-handed hold and, with the other, stroked down Methos's sweat-slick back. "You're not quitting on me now, are you?" MacLeod said.

"Let me get my breath back," he said, "then I can carry on hitting you some more."

He felt the rumble of MacLeod's deep laugh as the double-handed grip tightened again. "Then let's stay here for a little while."

"Mac, isn't there someplace you have to be?" Methos wailed.

"No."

"Well, a real friend would walk out and let me slink out of town in abject humiliation."

"Probably." MacLeod shifted beneath him, bumping Methos's chin when he tried to speak. "What did you say?"

"I said, you are such a pain in the arse." Methos tested MacLeod's grip but it was firm. "I have to piss," he announced.

"Later."

"OK, I'm sorry I hit you," he said and flexed his shoulders.

"No, you're not. I had it coming; I missed you and I forgot what a prick you can be." The amusement in MacLeod's voice almost made him cry. "But we still need to talk."

"About my love life? Don't be morbid."

"It's relevant." MacLeod said and shifted again. "Do you remember when we met and you offered me your head?"

"Yes."

"Five thousand years and you couldn't come up with a better idea?"

"We've been through this before, Mac, I'm not Einstein." Methos squirmed in MacLeod's grip in frustration. "Is there really a point to this? I feel like hell, I have to piss, and from my point of view neither one of us smells like a rose."

"Cross your eyes and hold it. The point is, Adam Pierson never had to meet Duncan MacLeod face to face. 'There's this great contraption called the telephone.' Remember? You could have left Paris and disappeared for years. I could have killed Kalas and never have known."

"He'd killed my friend and he wasn't going to stop coming for me once he knew I was alive. I'd been out of the game too long. And it doesn't take Machiavelli to figure out that the safest place for any other immortal is right behind you. You know, you're that good, MacLeod."

"Who's the liar now?" MacLeod said. "What kind of an advantage did it give me that Kalas fought me believing I'd taken your head? It's interesting you mention Machiavelli. With the exception of that day in Seacouver, you slough off every reference to your past with some smart remark. It was Joe who pointed out that everything you do directs attention away from what you really are."

"And what do you think that is?"

"A conniving son of a bitch who's ten times older than I am." MacLeod paused, as though he had to be very clear with his next words. "I'm in love with you." Something began to surge through Methos. "But I feel like I'm falling into a well."

"More like a cesspool." The tidal wave of conflicting feeling was threatening to overwhelm him again.

"Maybe," MacLeod said, "but you said yourself that sometimes you just have to go with your feelings. That first night, the first time that I met you, it felt like a bell tolling deep inside me. I'd never felt a presence like that before. I need to know who you really are and I need to understand about Kronos and I need to understand why this is happening between us."

"What about Kronos?" Perhaps he could deal with that.

"He was very old—that's what his name meant." MacLeod was clearly probing for something.

"His name was Croiddws." Methos let his tongue shape his brother's oldest name for the first time in two millennia. "His mother called him after a white raven she saw the day she found him. Kronos…was a joke, later." He flexed his shoulders again but MacLeod's handclasp didn't loosen; any struggle he'd make to free himself would be painful.

He lifted his head as far as he could and looked around the room. There were people in the shadows, men and women cavorting through the figures of a dance. Maddws stood in the circle and watched as they moved illuminated by firelight, in a complicated pattern in and out of the tryllons. He heard the rhythm of the painted drums and the piercing notes of the bone flutes, a funeral dance for the dead chief.

A young man approached him out of the darkness, the fire glossing his skin, his blue eyes glittering. He danced in front of Maddws, kicking and leaping, holding out his hands, beckoning him to join the dance. And Maddws rose and followed him into the dance, into the night, out into the fields beyond the circles where the grass was soft and sweet smelling.

He came back to himself with his arms free, cradled on MacLeod's broad chest. MacLeod must have recognized his surrender and released him. "It was a long time ago," he said.

"Tell me why he called you the survivor."

"He was psychic as well as psychotic?" he said. Truth can sound like sarcasm and slip by, but MacLeod heard something in his voice and tensed. His arms tightened in comfort. "Mac, I'll answer your questions, but, you've got to let me up. It's getting urgent."

"No shit!" MacLeod said. I've been lying on your hilt of your sword for the past ten minutes and I think it's left a permanent dent in my kidney. I'll let you go if you give me your word you won't climb out the bathroom window." It was MacLeod's luck to ask for the one thing that would bind him.

"You have it."

MacLeod opened his arms and Methos fled to the sanctuary of the bathroom. After relieving his bladder, he ran the sink full of cold water, took a breath, and plunged his face into it. He came up dripping, found a cloth, soaked it and wiped it over his neck and chest. Then he sat down on the toilet lid, leaning his head on the cool porcelain rim of the sink.

You must be getting old, Methos, letting someone that young outflank you.

That was the rude and temporary triumph of brute force over intellect, he told himself. MacLeod doesn't know what he's doing.

That was the triumph of his stiff back over your full bladder. No contest. But if you're not willing to take a chance, run away again, you old fool.

There's no window…

MacLeod interrupted his personal colloquy by opening the door and tossing his shoes and the rest of his clothes at him. "Get dressed," he said, "we're going out."

"We are?" He felt slow and stupid as he picked the things off the floor. "Why?"

"Because I'm hungry and the egg in your icebox was laid in the reign of Louis XIII. There's a café a few blocks from here."

"Yeah, I know it." Then Methos recognized the sweater MacLeod was wearing. "That's mine—you'll stretch it out of shape." Actually, it fit MacLeod perfectly.

"I'm not going out naked. Hurry up."

The door was closing when Methos called out, "Mac!"

"What?"

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes."

"Me, too."

"I know. Joe told me."

Outside, the sky had closed in again, canceling the moonlight's promise but the Café des Artistes was only a ten-minute walk. It had gotten colder and the warmth was welcome when they walked inside.

One time or another, he'd patronized the place for a hundred and fifty years. It was so conveniently close to the University that a constantly replenished supply of students and a string of reactionary proprietors had made it all but impervious to change. He liked it. It was dark and old-fashioned with straight wooden booths and a jukebox so old it still played 45s. During the second Great War, young German soldiers had nailed medallions with swastikas to top of the fin de sièclebar. Those were gone, but the bar was still studded with banners and coats of arms from colleges all over the world.

"I like it," MacLeod said, as he slipped into the booth beside Methos.

"The beer's good and M. Gourmont gets his pâté from a cousin in the country." MacLeod's hip gave him a bump. "There's a whole bench over there," he pointed out. "You could have it all to yourself."

"I like it here fine." MacLeod bumped him again. The waitress popped up at his elbow and MacLeod smiled at her and ordered tartines with pâté and beer for them both.

"She never takes my order that fast when I'm by myself," Methos complained. The waitress had not been immune to Hybernian charm.

"It's your personality." MacLeod said.

"There's nothing wrong with my personality."

"Nothing a good beating wouldn't cure," MacLeod agreed.

"It's been tried by experts, MacLeod. I doubt you have any refinements worth mentioning."

Methos turned and put his feet up on the seat between them. Leaning against the wall, he considered MacLeod from behind the barricade of his knees. Tired as he was, he'd only promised to tell the truth, not stop playing with the man's head. "You know a little discipline can be fun with the right person. Tell me your fantasy; do want to tie me up in leather belts? Or do you picture me naked with silk…" MacLeod started to bridle, but not at him.

One of the gaggle of students at the bar had broken away and was approaching, beer in hand, hailing Methos in a flat, midwestern twang. "I thought that was you, Pierson. Remember that course you gave last year? Listen, I've got this great idea I'm going to incorporate into my thesis that'll really frost Green's feminist butt.

"You know the persecution of witches was really a form of medical malpractice litigation. The trials were actually beneficial to society. If you'll help me out with…" The man aimed for the empty bench, still talking. MacLeod stood up and intercepted. "Catch him next semester."

With MacLeod leaning over them, anyone would reconsider their intentions; this one was persistent enough to look at Methos like who's this asshole? Without missing a beat, Methos said, "Catch me next semester' I'm on sabbatical. Green's got my courses. Oh, and don't pay any attention to my cousin. He's from Chicago and he's rude."

The would-be scholar considered the empty side of the booth again, reconsidered MacLeod, and diverted to the jukebox.

"I told you, you loom," Methos said, as MacLeod sat back down. "You're getting awfully proprietary."

"Want me to call him back?" MacLeod made a move to stand up.

"God, no. He's one of nature's bores—you know the idiot who 'praises, with enthusiastic tone, all centuries but this and every country but his own.'"

"No he's one of those 'persons, who, on spoiling tête-à-têtes insist...I'm sure he won't be missed.'"

"All things considered, that's in the worst possible taste." Methos said. They both started laughing and, for the first time that evening, there were no barriers between them. "Am I supposed to swoon on your bosom now?"

"Later. What was he was on about?"

"Medicine and Sixteenth-Century Law."

"That's your course? I forgot you taught at the University."

"Yeah, I like teaching. Good camouflage and I never make the mistake of confusing a popular theory with facts."

"Miniver Cheevey over there doesn't have any more of a clue than I do." MacLeod picked up the sugar jar, clumsily. It tipped and white cubes spilled over the table. He began constructing a little pyramid. "Methos is a myth."

"Are you into golden showers?" Methos interrupted. "I am. Order a pitcher of beer."

"Shut up," MacLeod said. "Joe has a theory that immortals die when the world changes too much for how long is too long? How much change is too much change? It's a nice theory but here you are, looking like any graduate student who ever made a career out of University. You dropped into my life when you felt like it, left your boots on my counter, beer caps everywhere, slept in my bed…"

"And would again," Methos said, "but, you've been slow on the uptake recently."

"I'm not that slow!" Duncan added another layer to his pyramid. "And you kept interfering. You killed Kristin for me. You almost killed Keane." Methos reached out a finger and toppled MacLeod's little tomb. MacLeod scooped the cubes back into the jar. "The few immortals that I know…knew…who are really old, had pasts that were the history I was taught. Darius—Darius said he killed the oldest immortal at the gates of Paris 1500 years ago…Cassandra's a manipulative bitch but I had no idea how old she is…but I thought I did. You're two thousand years older. The Horsemen couldn't have existed."

"Is it the age difference that bothers you?"

"Don't be simple." Now, MacLeod was angry. "Kalas was looking for a very powerful, very old immortal. It's hard to picture you got up in blue paint and badger fat. Who should he have been looking for? I keep wondering if you engineered his death."

"You are being paranoid."

"I can't help it. Is Methos a joke?"

The waitress, arriving with their order, saved Methos from having to answer. He fell on the food with an appetite that, to his surprise, he didn't have to fake. He demolished his portion and was halfway through the beer when he realized MacLeod had stopped eating. "Are you going to finish that?" He pointed at MacLeod's tartine still thickly smeared with pâté. MacLeod silently handed it over, and signaled to the waitress for a refill.

When the food was gone, Methos returned to his sideways position on the bench. "So, what's the next question?"

"You didn't answer the first one," MacLeod said and, turning so that his body hid the gesture from the room, slid a hand into the warmth between Methos's thighs. "Look, I don't want to fight with you any more tonight. Tell me what Methos means, if you even remember."

The reprieve was too sudden.

There's a part of me, it's still the heart of me…

From the jukebox Jackson Browne's voice sang and Methos shuddered as fire washed over him.

…alive in eternity…

In the back draft he closed his eyes and said, "Maddws; it means hawk."

…that nothing can kill.

"Don't laugh; we were big on birds in those days."

He looked up to see MacLeod's cocked eyebrow. "I've got nothing to laugh 'Duncan' means 'brown king'." Methos couldn't help it; he dropped his head onto his knees screaming with laughter. "Stop that, you idiot." He couldn't. MacLeod tried again. "Listen to me." But there was no stopping. The laughter came on in spite of everything he could do. Tears and snot ran down his face. MacLeod shielded him with his body, protecting him from the curious, glancing to see what the lunatic was raving about.

"Mac, you're a fool and I'm losing my mind," he said when he finally could.

"If you say so." MacLeod handed him a handkerchief. "Listen to me, I have to go but I'll be back the night after tomorrow. Come back to the barge with me tonight." MacLeod put his hand back on Methos's calf. "We can talk later."

"You're not asking out of sympathy for the poor 'idjit'?" MacLeod's hand was burning his leg again.

"God, no," MacLeod said smiling. "I'd wake up without my head if I was that kind of a fool."

"Then Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod," Methos reached over and tucked his hand in the overcoat on MacLeod's lap to feel the solid promise behind his words. "Your passion overwhelms me." He squeezed. "I can't fight you anymore. Take me home."

"If I wasn't immortal," MacLeod hissed through clenched teeth, "I'd think I'd done something to really regret in another life."

"Not yet." Methos reluctantly took his hand out. "And I'd like to avoid at least one regret in this life. Please, Mac, I am as sick of talking as I am of sleeping without you."

But he had to wait until the waitress was paid before he could slide out of the booth. Sitting on the edge of the bench, looking at MacLeod's suddenly imperturbable face as he counted out change, Methos found it impossible to resist tugging like a child on his coat.

Finally, the waitress was gone.

MacLeod stood up and leaned toward him with feral hunger in his face and whispered, "You'll pay for this, you pest; I promise you won't sleep."

As he got to his feet, Methos took MacLeod's extended hand and they went out into the cold.

They walked toward the Seine, the wind whipping them along part of the parade route he had avoided earlier in the evening. On the boulevards, red, white and blue bunting dripped from the windows and lampposts of the old buildings. The streetlights made jeweled spider webs of the bare branches of the trees that lined the sidewalks.

MacLeod kept his hand tucked in the crook of his arm, the connection warmed him as they walked. It started to rain again. They came to an awning protecting the stairway to a shop door and Methos ducked under it, pulling MacLeod with him.

"It's getting worse. Tell me why we're going to the barge and not to my place?"

"My mattress has springs and that's going to be an advantage for what I have in mind. Anyway, it'll let up any moment." MacLeod said.

At that moment the heavens opened and it began to rain like the first day of the flood.

"Definitely letting up," Methos said. "Forget meteorology as a career, Mac."

MacLeod took him by the shoulders and kissed him. "It can't last long. Besides, Paris is romantic in the rain."

"What's romantic about it? Place was a bloody, stinking swamp three thousand years." The wind blew a drenching blast into their faces. "See? It still is."

MacLeod laughed and climbed up the steps into the doorway of the building, hauling Methos after him.

Methos backed off and punched MacLeod on the shoulder. "Let go! You nearly wrenched my arm off."

"I'm sorry." MacLeod reached for him, pulled him close again and wiped the rain out of his face. "I'm sorry," he repeated, letting his hand cup the side of Methos's face.

"All right, nobody ever died of a little rain," Methos said. "A lot of rain, though," he added, upon reflection, and tucked himself inside MacLeod's coat. Beyond their shelter, the rain came down in torrents. MacLeod leaned back against the tiled wall of the doorway. They waited; eventually it would slack off…or a taxi would come by.

In the meantime, Methos took an animal comfort in MacLeod's substantial body. He passed the time cataloguing the additional smells the man had picked up since they'd left his apartment: beer, dry sweat, and faint traces of musk. And rain. MacLeod smelled like rain. And rain smelled like sex. Methos found he was smiling against MacLeod's neck; he couldn't help himself. "Tell me something."

"Hmmm?" MacLeod's hands were busy on his back.

"Is that a menhir in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

MacLeod snorted. His hands stopped. "Five thousand years of sophomoric humor. You really should be whipped." MacLeod started petting him again. "Anyway, I'd consider myself of a more classical order."

Methos had been exploring, too. He found the pin of the buckle and released MacLeod's belt. Unbuttoned. Unzipped. He slid his hand inside MacLeod's slacks and MacLeod's cock leapt into his hand, the shaft thick and hard, the tip hot and soft as velvet. He rolled his thumb around the flared edge. "Really? Do you call this Doric or Ionic?"

"Corinthian, definitely Corinthian," MacLeod breathed against his temple.

Methos squeezed and stroked. MacLeod's groan was hoarse, but when Methos started to kneel, he stopped him, objecting, "Not here."

"Oh, yes, here and now." Methos sank to his knees, fisting the cock, desperate for the taste, the smell, and the feel of it to fill some part of him. As he began to suck, MacLeod put both hand on the back of his head, whispering, "Please." There's no mercy here, MacLeod. You don't deserve any. And no finesse, because the world became the cock in his mouth, slippery with spit, filling him, fucking him over and over, the hands holding him and the voice urging him on. He let go with his hand to take the whole shaft deep into the back of his throat, wrapping his arms around MacLeod's thighs to hold him still. He found a rhythm and kept it up inexorably until with a ragged cry MacLeod was filling his mouth with hot, salty fluid that tasted like the ocean. He swallowed it all, knowing MacLeod could feel his tongue and mouth working against the still-swollen flesh, making him bend double from the stimulation.

With MacLeod bent over him protectively, they rested. As MacLeod' cock shrank and became soft in his mouth, Methos let it go, scraping it gently with the edges of his teeth. He liked the subtle spasms he could feel in MacLeod's body. MacLeod swore at him but Methos pressed his face against the spent genitals in an attitude of contrition. He was so hard and so close to coming himself that he didn't dare move. He didn't have to; MacLeod reached for him. "C'mere, y'wanton bitch," MacLeod said, taking him roughly under the arms and hauling him to his feet.

Upright, he was unable to find his balance until MacLeod wrapped an arm around his waist to support him while he undid his jeans.

"Do it for me, Mac, please. Dear God, do me." Methos closed his eyes, leaned against the encircling arm and pushed into the hand that enveloped him. Pumping into MacLeod's hand, moaning with his mouth against MacLeod's throat, he came, spilling himself in a hot, white rush.

MacLeod caught it all, lifted his hand to Methos's lips, and shoved his fingers slimy with come into Methos's mouth. Then MacLeod kissed him deeply with his tongue to take it all back again.

When MacLeod had swallowed it all, Methos leaned against him. With his head in the curve of MacLeod's shoulder, he let the other man see to the buttoning and tucking, shivering a little with reaction but too enervated and smug to do anything but snuggle. He would have been perfectly content, except his jeans were wet from the knees down.

"Do something for me, Mac," he said.

"I'm afraid to ask." Despite the tone, MacLeod's arms tightened and Methos recognized a promise.

"Next time…" Methos paused to yawn.

"Next time?" MacLeod prompted.

"It's like I'm always on my knees. Next time we do a classical reenactment—you be the grateful slave, I'll be the benevolent god." He could feel MacLeod straighten suddenly. "What—?"

"We have company."

A car that had been moving slowly down the street stopped in front of their building and two policemen got out. "Gentlemen?" one of them called.

"Not again," MacLeod said, stepping in front of Methos. "Yes, officer?"

"MacLeod?"

"Inspector LeBrun."

No question about the chagrin in MacLeod's voice.

"Somebody reported a prowler. Is that Mlle. Amanda behind you?"

"No inspector, just an 'old' friend. We were stopping out of the rain."

"Yes, well, perhaps it would be better if you and your old 'friend' stopped somewhere else. We had a complaint that two men were performing a lewd act in public, but it's easy for people to get confused about what they see, especially on a night like this. I believe they must have been mistaken"

"You're right, Inspector." MacLeod started down the steps. "It was a mistake. Come on, 'old' friend, it looks like the rain has slacked off."

Methos followed MacLeod docilely down the steps and into the pouring rain. He didn't say a word until they got to the barge. Then he left his wet clothes on the bathroom floor, wrapped himself in a blanket and sulked on the sofa until MacLeod produced a sufficiently hot and alcoholic drink.

"I don't believe he really thought we were doing anything untoward." MacLeod said as he handed Methos the steaming mug.

MacLeod may have been trying to put a positive spin on their encounter with the law but Methos noticed that his accent had reverted to an earlier century.

"And I'm Marie of Rumania," he snapped, holding the mug close to inhale the scent of rum and cloves "Associated with an internationally known pervert. MacLeod, he winked at me!"

"Thank ye verra' much." Glowering, MacLeod sat next down to him. "I tried to tell you it was a bad idea."

"Yeah, you fought all the way," Methos agreed. "Ohhhh, please. Don't. Stop," He repeated the words until MacLeod made a face at him.

They sat drinking in companionable silence, letting the liquor warm them, until Methos noticed that MacLeod was smiling to himself.

"What now?"

"Even if I am paranoid, Joe pointed out the risk you're taking being friends with me. I don't hide. Anybody coming for me might not know exactly who you are but they'd be very interested." MacLeod reached over and pinched the end of his nose. "It's not safe, so why?"

"Is that the next question?"

"Could be." MacLeod sipped. "But, it's been quite an evening—don't laugh—and tomorrow…"

"I know, you're going out of town." Methos didn't want to hear it.

"Yes." MacLeod put his cup down and pulled Methos into his arms. "Get someone to take care of the shop and come with me," he said. "There's a seventeenth-century inn in Flanders. I last stayed in 1918 but I hear they still have featherbeds, fireplaces, and mulled wine. How does that sound?"

"Like bedbugs, cold feet, and bad plumbing to me. Mac, this is the only century that was ever worth living in."

"Are you're coming?"

"Yes," Methos sighed. "It is, after all, Armistice Day."

The end

3 December 2000