Who Walked Between
The summer of 1939 stretches almost endlessly on, filled with tension and crisis and fear. There are trenches in London's parks and blackout curtains on her windows, and the days are anything but lazy.
Methos spends most of his time at Bletchley Park, bent over codes for hours, until at night he dreams in long strings of letters that make no sense while at the same time holding the meaning to every question he's ever wanted answered. He spends the evenings out, observing and preserving the last sounds and images of a London that he already knows will never be the same again. He visits cafes and nightclubs, pubs and theatres, concerts and museums and bookshops, while the world holds its breath and waits for the storm to break.
June rolls into July, the days long and sunlit, as if the weather knows itself unable to compete with the onslaught mankind is preparing to unleash. Methos spends more of his free time in bookshops than anywhere else, wrapping words and silence around himself like a cloak, using the balm of turning pages to ease the creeping tension of the world beyond the bookshelves.
One store in particular draws him back time and again; a dusty, tired looking shop in Soho that, despite its unprepossessing exterior, has some of the best-preserved first editions that Methos has ever seen -- outside of his own collection, of course. There are almost never any customers, save himself, and the proprietor, a Mr. Fell, always greets him with obvious pleasure, despite the fact that he's never made a single purchase.
By the middle of the month they've progressed from polite greetings to actual conversation. Fell is extremely knowledgeable, clearly seminary-educated, and has some very peculiar attitudes for a mortal: it is remarkably like conversing with Darius, sly conversational traps and all. By their third discussion, Fell has taken to inviting Methos into the back room to share a selection of truly excellent wines. It doesn't take long before his visit to Fell's shop is the high point of Methos' day.
They're in the middle of a friendly argument about Martin Luther - whom Methos once met and had disliked thoroughly - when the bell over the shop door jangles furiously. Fell sighs and puts aside his wineglass. He's halfway to his feet when the door to the back room is opened as forcefully as the front door had been.
The intruder is a young man of Methos' ostensible age, dark-haired and elegantly dressed, with a pair of dark glasses obscuring his eyes. Even with the glasses on, he's uncannily good-looking, even beautiful, with high, sculpted cheekbones and a sinful mouth. Methos notes his own lazy stir of interest without surprise.
"Crowley," Fell says, straightening up the rest of the way. "Have a seat. Would you like a drink?"
Crowley shrugs his assent and drops elegantly into the only remaining chair.
"Crowley, this is Robert Pierce. Robert, Anthony Crowley." Introductions made, Fell disappears, presumably in search of a third wineglass.
Crowley is frowning absently in Methos' direction, with a 'where have I seen you before' expression that the latter is all too familiar with. Suddenly, both dark eyebrows lift, and the well-shaped mouth sags slightly open before its owner closes it again.
"I'll be damned," he says abruptly, then chuckles like a man who's just made a bad joke. Methos is about to request an explanation when Fell returns, wineglass in hand, and Crowley's attention shifts to him like a magnet to a lodestone. Fell raises a blond eyebrow; Crowley returns the gesture, and there's something of the salute behind it. Fell smiles in obvious satisfaction and pours a glass of wine for Crowley before topping off Methos' and his own.
Crowley has a sardonic sense of humour and a sharp tongue that is nonetheless mostly free of any real malice. Methos likes him immediately, especially when it turns out that he feels much the same way about Martin Luther as does Methos. Fell protests, but weakly. His heart doesn't really seem to be in the argument, and a few sharp comments from Crowley about Luther's less attractive ideas and their effect on current events lead him to abandon the topic with obvious relief. Crowley smirks at him, while Methos buries his own smile in his wine glass.
Author's Notes: Written for unrequitedrain; thank you for the prompt, sweetie! Beta-read by the lovely lferion, without whose advice this story would stink. The title is borrowed from T.S. Eliot's 'Ash Wednesday'.