A/N: This was started a year ago and is finally able to be shared. Thanks immensely to 0positiv, who cheerlead the first draft, tptigger, who tore it apart, and idelthoughts who guided the process of putting it back together.

After several rounds of edits, the escalator is gone. Gone!

The mall depicted in this story is fictional and is located in a fictional town that also contains a fictional college. It's easier that way.

This story is #4 in the Something Called Forever series. It is not a crossover, though it does contain references to the other stories. Should you be interested in reading this one as a standalone, here's what you need to know:

In 2015, Richie Ryan (who never died!) relocated to New York City. Shortly after arriving, the building in which his apartment and martial arts studio were located were blown up and he meets and befriends Medical Examiner Henry Morgan and Immortal priest Liam Riley. ("Something Called Living")

About two months prior to this story, Methos showed up at his door one day and announced that he was moving in now, thank you. (Unpublished story #3).

The events of "Something Called Justice" don't factor into this story.

"Something Called Honor" won't start for another month of story time.

Impersonation

by Argentum_LS

On the one hand, Immortality had given Richie the ability to pursue much more interesting goals than he'd allowed him to have when he was an orphan brat getting shuttled from foster home to foster home. He'd lived in Europe, been able to try his hand at being a professional bike racer, and run his own businesses.

On the other, it meant that, in the system or not, he was stuck, forever, moving from home to home and life to life. While the clean slate of starting over had its advantages, always erasing everything—replacing everything—meant that all that extra time was largely spent catching up.

When he'd woken up that morning, sweaty, sheets kicked off the bed, all Richie had known was that he couldn't put off buying summer clothes any longer; he'd had no idea that Methos was making his own plans.

He peeled himself out of bed, plucking at the gym shorts and undershirt he'd taken to sleeping in when he acquired a roommate. They stuck to his body like paste, an uncomfortable reminder that they were the coolest clothes he owned and that the apartment had no air conditioning. Padding to the center of the room, he managed a few desultory stretches before quitting, his hands still pressed to the thin carpet. This was what he had to look forward to for the next few months until the cooler weather came back.

True, he'd chosen to move to this city, to live in this apartment. Not like he had a lot of options. Since leaving Seacouver, he'd zig-zagged across the States, putting in a few years here, a few years there. Turned out that the kinds of places he wanted to live didn't have much to offer him or were filled with the kinds of people who paid very close attention to new people. So, he'd come to New York City. More opportunity, more chance he could stay for awhile before anyone caught on to his lack of aging, and weather that generally sucked. He knew he should take his lumps now and do his best to save his pennies. With a potentially long future, and no hopes at ever being able to touch a pension plan, that was all he could do if he wanted to keep a life of crime in his past.

Buckling down and working hard was what he should do, yet he didn't feel like either his pennies or his prospects were accumulating.

Some days, like this one, he just really wished he had the kind of wealth all the other Immortals he knew seemed to have. Granted, most of them had had centuries to acquire that wealth. Because of it, Mac traveled all over the world on a whim. Amanda—well, she wasn't a good example, since 'life of crime' was her goal. Ceirdwyn had homes in at least three countries, probably more. And Methos—

—had had millennia, and had ended up right next to Richie.

Straightening up, Richie headed for the bathroom while once again finding his thoughts occupied with a question that had been nagging at him for weeks now: Why had Methos insisted on moving in with him? He understood the "I need a place to lay low" excuse that Methos had given when he'd first arrived, especially since Richie had used the same reason only a few months before when he'd had to crash with Liam after his apartment blew up. Only Methos hadn't left, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he wasn't planning on leaving, despite there being no earthly reason Richie could see that the man had to put up with the cramped rooms, ever-present smell of mold, and the lack of functioning climate control when he could undoubtedly afford some place better. Any place better.

With anyone else, the easiest way to get an answer was to ask. In Richie's, albeit limited, experience, Methos might supply an answer, but he wouldn't necessarily supply the right answer—until he was good and ready, that was.

Then again, maybe he didn't have a reason. Maybe being 5000 years old, Methos had aged out of any desire to have reasons. It wasn't like he had anyone he needed to answer to.

Right now, in fact, he was standing in the kitchen, eating. He'd found the leftover fried chicken breast that Richie had been saving for his lunch, and was taking it apart, one thin strip of meat at a time, that he then popped into his mouth. His brown hair was still sleep-tousled and he had a red mark along one cheek from a crease in his pillow—funny how those kinds of marks didn't disappear any faster on Immortals—and his gaze was fixed some place far, far away. He showed no awareness of either his breakfast or Richie's interruption thereof.

Thank god he was wearing boxers, at least. From the sheen of sweat on Methos' skin, Richie suspected that he was lucky to not have found his roommate standing around naked. Still, he expected Methos to have better roommate etiquette than this. Unless he'd aged past the need to care about that, too.

"Hey!" Richie said. "You mind? I was saving that." His stomach rumbled, though he wasn't usually hungry when he first woke up. That took awhile to kick in and then, thanks to his forever-teenage hormones, didn't shut off again until he went to bed. One of the many perks of being in a body that thought it was still growing. He pushed past Methos and grabbed the last granola bar from the box on the counter. It would hold him over for now.

From a distance, Methos answered, "I'll buy you lunch."

Richie managed to get the first bite swallowed without choking. "You will?" That was…not the response he expected. Methos was more of a try-to-stop-me kind of guy rather than a let-me-make-it-up-to-you kind. The offer was tempting, but there had to a be a catch.

Slowly, Methos returned from wherever his attention had gone and he nodded. "While we're out," he stated. "We need to go shopping." He peeled another strip of meat off the breast and ate it. Grease stained his fingers.

Richie's tilt toward forgiveness flattened under the weight of suspicion. "We?" he repeated. He'd planned to get his run in, maybe a little workout, then shower and head out on his bike to see what kinds of clothing stores were around. He still had enough of the settlement from the insurance left to cover all the basics. Get it all done at once and he didn't have to worry about clothes again until the fall. But, he'd assumed he'd be going alone. Though Methos had moved in, he'd made no further effort to participate in Richie's life. Mostly, Methos had kept to himself, spending a lot of time on his laptop doing…whatever he thought was important. Which was fine with Richie, except that he still didn't know why Methos had to do it here.

"It's a good day for it," Methos responded. "The dojo is closed, the refrigerator is distressingly empty, and we could both use a change of scenery."

Sweat trickled down Richie's back from the heat and he shifted uncomfortably. "I suppose it would be more efficient to split the errands. You can hit the grocery store and I'll try to track down a Target or something. Wanna say one for lunch?" He eyed the now half-gone granola bar, then the remains of the chicken breast. "We should probably talk about the whole roommate thing, too. Figure out a chores list, lay down some ground rules…"

Methos licked his fingers clean while staring Richie into silence. "I thought we'd go to the mall. There's one up the road I've been wanting to check out. We'll make a day of it."

"The…mall?" Richie's eyebrows shot up, then pulled back down into a scowl at the thought. Not only where the stores more expensive than he wanted, but malls tended to be packed full of teenagers—and he'd made a point of avoiding spaces teens hung out in since he'd stopped being one. Chronologically, anyway. "I don't think so.

"I've already hired the car. It should be here within the hour." Methos finished cleaning his fingers and dropped the remainder of the breast into the garbage, then pulled a small stack of paper off the top of the fridge and thrust it at Richie. "Look through these and see if there's anything you can use. No sense in spending money you don't have to. I'll go grab the first shower." He took a step and stopped, as if waiting for Richie's reaction. Like he cared about Richie's reaction?

"These're coupons." Richie flipped through the papers. "You've been cutting coupons."

"Printing them, to be precise."

For a second, Richie squeezed his eyes shut. This couldn't possibly the real world. Methos was a complex guy—he'd proven that over and over—yet the realization that he'd been spending all that time hunching over his laptop couponing was almost more than Richie could handle. It was so incredibly mundane…and thoughtful. The coupons would be useful. Though he'd flipped through them quickly, he'd seen a couple of 50% of coupons that would more than make up for a stolen chicken breast and the mall prices, though there was no need to go 'up the road' to use them.

"These are great," he said, sounding a lot more pleased about them than he meant to. "I'll just go downtown, run in and out of a few stores, grab a few short-sleeved shirts, some shorts. It'll be a couple hours. Tops." Richie glanced down at the sheaf of store coupons clutched in his hands. The paper was already wilting from the humidity and April had barely started. He was going to need a lot more than a few shirts and shorts to get him through the next months. "Maybe three hours. Definitely not the whole day. And you do not have to come with me."

"The mall is only a short drive—"

"No," Richie answered stubbornly. MacLeod would be so proud if he could see his protege now and the facility with which he lived up to his teacher's bullheadedness. "Shopping for clothes is bad enough without needing to make a production out of it."

"Then I suggest you don't make a production out of it," Methos countered. "The car will be here in less than an hour." Having now said his piece, and proving that he didn't care about Richie's opinion, he headed for the bathroom.

Stunned, Richie could only watch him go. Once he'd been good at telling people what he was going to do and then doing it, regardless of what objections they raised. Yet Methos had completely steamrolled him. If Richie couldn't win on the topic of shopping, what chance did he have on any more important one? Dropping the coupons on the table, he went to start a list of what he needed to buy. Replace everything he'd lost first and then, maybe, he could work on doing some of the more interesting things.

As expected, the actual shopping didn't take very long; Richie's tastes were pretty simple: some button down shirts, a lot of t-shirts, a couple pairs of shorts for when it was too hot for more, and a few pairs of jeans for when he wanted to go riding. It felt decadent, even wasteful, to be buying new, and from a mall store. On the other hand, he didn't have to pay for lunch—which turned out to be less a benefit than he'd expected when Methos led him to the food court.

The mall was mobbed with other people also seeking relief from the heat, putting extra pressure on the air conditioning to keep up. Richie and Methos managed to find a small table among all the occupied ones and were now finishing lunch while ignoring the other shoppers who hovered around them, waiting to swoop in when they got up.

"OK, the car was a good idea," Richie reluctantly conceded as he toed one bag that was packed full of shirts. "I couldn't have carried everything I need back on the bike. Plus—" He lowered his voice—"it's lucky we had some place to leave the swords."

"Metal detectors," Methos agreed, condemning the devices with his utterance. Neither of them had anticipated that level of security on the mall; they'd only spotted the detectors at the mall's entrances while circling through the parking garage and had shared a moment of horror at the realization of what could have been.

"But I still don't get why you had to drag me all the way out to…" Richie squinted at the city's name as printed on the receipt for his lunch; he wasn't convinced that that particular combination of letters could be pronounced. "...here. The drive back is going to blow my entire afternoon."

Methos looked at him levelly. "I'm sorry, did you have plans?" The touch of snideness in his tone took Richie aback. Slowly, Methos began gathering the garbage from their lunch and stacking it on the tray.

"Well, no," Richie admitted. "Nothing specific, anyway. I mean, I'm getting a couple boxes of uniforms in this afternoon that I should go through and now I have all these new clothes to put away...what?"

"It's Friday night. Why don't you go out, do something fun? I can cover your morning classes."

Richie blinked. There was a catch to the offer; there was always a catch to Methos' offers, and Richie wasn't that naive boy anymore who would fall for them. He pushed his chair back. "Yeah, thanks, but no. My classes, my responsibility. You ready to go?"

Methos shrugged, as if the offer meant nothing to him, as if leaving the mall hadn't occurred to him. "Then invite some friends over. There's no need to keep me hidden. I promise to behave. I won't even raise a fuss when you send them home at a reasonable hour."

There was the snideness again, the hint of accusation. What the hell?

Richie leaned in, fists balling. "Look, when you showed up out of the blue and announced that you were going to be my teacher now, I thought you were going to, you know, teach me something. Instead, you've done nothing except sit around on my couch, eating my food and filching my wi-fi. Now, all of a sudden, you're criticizing my social life." His eyes narrowed in suspicion. "If my choices bother you so much, you know where the door is."

For a long moment, Methos gazed around the space, clearly gathering his thoughts. At the table next to them, a pair of tweenage girls took turns dipping their french fries into their chocolate milk and feeding them to each other, giggling with each bite. They looked so happy. Richie felt his own pulse beat in his jaw as he waited. Methos was the last guy he wanted to turn into an enemy, yet that didn't mean Richie had to let himself be pushed around.

At last, Methos' eyes dropped closed, his lips pressing together. "When you start a new class, do you assume the participants are blank slates, or do you try to find out what they already know so you can build on it?" He grabbed an errant fry off the tray and nibbled it, then tossed it back with a shudder. "Stone cold and soggy; terrible combination."

"A little of both," Richie answered reflexively, frowning at the apparent topic change. Most of his kids were so young that what little they did know was wrong, usually because they'd picked it up from movies or TV and had no way to understand the difference between cool and effective. Mostly what he did with them was drill basics until they forgot the fantasy. "Why?" Methos finally stood up to dispose of the tray and its barely-balanced contents and Richie followed, not willing to let Methos get away without finishing the thought.

He had to scramble back to the table to retrieve his nearly-forgotten purchases. An older man with gray-streaked hair and a woman at least twenty years his junior, who Richie sincerely hoped was his daughter, had already swooped in and taken the vacated seats. Richie flashed them an apologetic smile and got out of their way as fast as he could.

Methos had already disposed of the tray and was well down the concourse by the time Richie caught up with him, the answer to his own question popping into his head.

"Oh! I get it. You've been assessing me, figuring out what you think I need to learn."

"Bright boy."

"But, I don't get it, we haven't sparred or anything. I've learned a lot over the last few years and I've already proven I can hold my own in a fight. Hell, this is practically our first conversation with any substance. What could you've possibly been trying to find out that you didn't already know? My life isn't exactly all that interesting. Besides, I don't get why you suddenly care about me or my life anyway. How is what I get up to any of your business?"

Methos nodded slowly, looking for a moment like he was about to comment on that. When he opened his mouth, what came out was instead, "How about a coffee?"

"What?" Richie spun, briefly walking backward through the crowded concourse, trying to figure out if he'd heard correctly. He drew a deep breath of the mall air, half expecting to catch a whiff of coffee for himself like a subliminal message. Yet the air was so dry and sanitized that it carried not so much as a hint of any cookie vendors or chocolatiers that dotted the concourse in case shoppers needed a reinforcing snack between one store and the next.

"Coffee. Beverage. Often served hot," Methos elaborated. "Careful, there's a pram behind you."

Richie swung back back around in time to avoid the young mother who was pushing a twin-stroller down the middle of the aisle with an expression of fierce concentration on her face.

"Yeah, but we just ate."

"Can you think of a better time? Come on." Methos scanned the mall, taking in the levels and concourses that made it one of the biggest of its kind in the country. "There should be a kiosk or a cafe around here somewhere. Did you see one on our way to lunch?" He scowled briefly at the universal mystery of how to find things when you wanted them, then pointed down a branch they hadn't explored. "Let's go this way."

It was the most determined Richie had seen Methos since their discussion that morning. In fact, while Methos had followed Richie through the early shopping, he'd acted more like a shadow than a companion. Mostly all he'd done was flip through the offerings on the racks and spend enough time studying the mannequins—so many of which were headless that Richie had briefly wondered if he'd stumbled into some bizarre fetish of the old man's.

The new mission revitalized Methos, lengthening his stride. Richie scrambled to keep up. "Hey," he protested, "you wanna help out here?" Like it or not, he needed to stick with Methos, seeing as how Methos had the car keys.

Surprisingly, Methos slowed down, though it might have only been because the shoppers meandering along the concourse served as constantly changing and unpredictably placed obstacles.

They skirted the roped-off atrium where a stage and walkway were being erected for the fashion show that several of the anchor stores were hosting to showcase their new lines, and paused for a few minutes to watch the proceedings. Black clad crew members moved around within, unrolling spools of cables, laying out the runner on the stage, testing the sound setup. It was busy enough to make even Richie curious about what the show would entail—Not that the prospect of watching hot women strut their stuff wasn't enticing enough.

"So what is it?" Methos asked, interrupting Richie's new train of thought. He drummed his fingers on the top of one of the barrier stanchions.

"What is what?"

"The reason why you don't go out."

"I told you: I'm not in the mood." That wasn't precisely what he'd said, but that's really what it boiled down to, wasn't it?

"I don't mean tonight. I mean at all. I've seen you work. I've seen you train. I've seen you play a truly astounding amount of video games. I've never seen you go out."

"I go out!" Richie protested. "I was out last night."

"You were at the church with Liam. Unless you're helping him violate his vows, hanging out with a priest is not what I'm talking about."

Richie couldn't stop his lips from curling in disgust at Methos' suggestion.

"I didn't think so," Methos said, correctly reading the expression. "And your friend Henry?"

Were they really going to do this? "Henry has a girlfriend," Richie said slowly. Even if he was interested in Henry that way, which he wasn't, there'd be no separating Henry and Jo.

Methos raised an eyebrow in a clear "So?"

"No," Richie answered. A downward slash with his hand cut off the suggestion. "We're friends. Also, I think he's way too old fashioned for that kind of thing." He tried to imagine Henry participating in a threesome with anyone, and found that his brain bounced hard off the idea. Yeah, he'd been wrong about the guy before, but Henry struck him as strictly monogamous. The assessment was no sooner out of his mouth than he saw Methos opening his to object. "You know what I mean. He's just...not the kind who'd be into that. You know?" It wasn't his most eloquent moment, and his cheeks warmed in uncharacteristic embarrassment.

"Right," Methos agreed. "So both the friends you've managed to make here are both 'not that kind of friend.' When was the last time you had sex?"

The bluntness of the question stunned Richie. His hands tightened around his bags and for a long moment all he could do was gape at the old man. "How is that your business?" he finally managed. He seemed to be stuck on that question.

Methos shrugged. "Relationships are healthy and normal, even for our kind. Especially for our kind. It's easy to get disconnected from the world, and new relationships help keep that from happening. And you haven't had a relationship since..." He trailed off, and Richie had to fight to hold back the answer that wanted to spring into the silence.

"Still not your business, and I thought we were looking for coffee? Speaking of which…."

On the far side of the atrium, Richie had caught a glimpse of a familiar logo. This time he pulled Methos back into the fray, only distantly noting that Methos seemed reluctant to leave.

The security for the fashion show had blocked off the entire atrium, as well as parts of the main concourses that lead to it, meaning that getting from the one side to the other involved a detour down one wing, cutting across a side corridor, and coming back up on the other wing. It was a lot more work than any fricking coffee would ever be worth.

And it was only made more complicated by the number of other kiosks that peppered their path offering services and goods from cellphone repair, to hand-woven plastic lamp shades, to hair braiding, to themed keychains. As they passed each, Methos dallied for a few moments before continuing on, as if constantly suddenly recalling where he was meant to be going.

At a booth with a caricature artist, a trio sat getting their picture drawn: two guys— mid-twenties, tailored suits, and bushy beards that contrasted sharply with those suits—and a woman—also mid-twenties and decked out in a bright red skirt suit—all standing with their arms crossed like they were waiting for their WWE introductions. Methos tilted his head as he went by and reached up to rub his chin. The woman noticed, then shifted her gaze to Richie, smiled, and, deliberately, licked her lips. Richie tore his eyes away before he could feel more like a sleaze for getting caught checking her out.

Methos crossed his arms, his posture shifting so he was walking with more of a strut than a stroll. Richie shook his head; if he tried to walk like that here, he'd only draw all the security guards' attention—and that was a kind of scrutiny he didn't want.

"This isn't about Kristin, is it?" Methos dropped the question into their happy silence.

"What?"

"The reason why you haven't brought any women back to the apartment. Is it because of what happened with Kristin? Because I can guarantee that there are plenty of women out there who are more worthwhile and less—"

"Psychopathic?" Richie finished, looking Methos straight on as he said it. They both knew it was the word Methos wanted. "No, why are suddenly thinking about her?" Kristin had been twenty years before, Richie's first fling with both an older woman and an older woman, as she'd had roughly six hundred years on him.

"Good, because I'm not going to apologize for killing—" Methos caught one of the other pairs of people walking next to them paying too much attention to them, and lowered his voice as he adjusted his sentence— "your relationship."

Kristin had also been Richie's first experience with how fraught histories could get between people who had centuries to wrong each other. And he'd thought the grudge that Joey'd had against him in high school when he'd gone out with Donna during one of the couple's infamous breakups had been bad.

Then he'd gotten involved with Kristin, an Immortal woman who had been previously been involved with his teacher, who'd then tried to kill both Richie and his former foster sister, Maria. Methos had ended up saving Maria and killing Kristin, as casual about one as about the other. It had taken Richie a long time to come to terms with how routinely, even normally Immortals beheaded each others' friends and lovers. It was just part of the Game, and the Game was their lives.

"Good," Richie echoed, more forcefully, "because I wasn't going to to ask you to. Kristin is old news."

He again found his thoughts drawn to Maria. Once Richie'd shared her home, shared her family, and knew all her secrets, and yet he'd been helpless when she needed him the most. Like all his old friends, he'd had to cut ties with her when he left his first life behind. Unlike the others, he'd been able to watch from afar as her modeling career blossomed. Methos' intervention had allowed that.

Like it or not, Richie owed the old man.

Distracted again, he was nearly bowled over by a pair of young women who tumbled out of a store pulling the blasting beat of a drum machine in their wake.

"...it's just not my usual style..." one of them was protesting, while waving the bag that held the presumably contentious outfit.

Her friend rolled her eyes and offered a chiding, "It's a nightclub. Screw your usual—" that cut off when she caught sight of another group of people at the nail salon a few stores down. "Oh my god, there she is. Come on, we have got to go show her what you got." They took off toward their goal, with no regard for who they cut off in the process.

That snippet of conversation was the closest Richie had been to uncensored teenagers in years. Hearing them, it was hard to believe that he'd've once seen nothing wrong with that behavior. "Wow. That was rude."

"How old are you?" Methos questioned, as the girls' boots clomped into the distance.

"Forty-one. Why? Ya know, if this is personal question day, I have a few I'd like to-"

Methos waved a hand, silencing him. "No, I mean currently. What does it say on your driver's license?"

Oh. "Nineteen," he answered. Back to being the age he was when he'd died the first time. He'd thought about starting the ID at eighteen, but the legal right to sign contracts and own property didn't exempt him from the grief of dealing with landlords and banks who refused to believe that an eighteen year old could be responsible enough. The one year made all the difference. One abstract year on an age statement that meant nothing to him and everything to everyone else.

"Do tell me you have a current ID that says twenty-one? That's the drinking age in this country, right?"

"Yes," Richie agreed, answering both questions. There was something screwy about the idea that his fake ID had a fake ID. Of course, all his IDs were fake now, and would be for the rest of his life. "Again, why?"

Methos shrugged. "You heard them; there's a nightclub around here somewhere. When we're done shopping, we'll throw all the bags in the car and then go scout it out. Can you think of a better way to meet a lot of people quickly? It's ideal. And, since this is a college town, no one will wonder why they haven't seen you around before."

Richie scrubbed a hand down his face as the direction of the questioning became suddenly, painfully obvious. One of the bags slid down his arm and only a quick catch kept it from spilling everywhere. "Did you seriously drag me all the way out here because you're trying to get me laid?" Whatever Methos' answer was, he didn't bother to share it. Par for the course, really. "Geez, man. Believe me when I say I don't need any help with that." Though, granted, it had been a while. "Why would you think that coming to a mall was necessary?"

"It's all about creating opportunities," Methos commented. "Which, I might add, you've done a bang up job managing to avoid on your own."

"In case you haven't noticed," Richie responded, emphasizing the syllables, "I have been busy." As far as he was concerned, there was nothing further to say on the topic.

Methos' eyes closed and his nostrils flared with a blown out breath. "The readiest and most perennial of excuses," he murmured. "And here we are."

Only when they were nearly upon it did Richie finally smell the dark aroma.

Breathing in, he reveled in the scent that was so different, so much more welcoming, than what the rest of the mall provided. From the way the other patrons in line also kept sniffing the air, he guessed that they also appreciated the change. Too bad he'd never grown to appreciate the taste of the stuff.

Methos pulled some money out of his wallet and handed it over. "Coffee. You buy. I'll wait over there with the bags." He gestured to a bench on which a line of elderly men encamped, each piled with bags and heads nodding in boredom. There was barely enough space on the end of the bench for a small child to squeeze in.

Reluctantly, Richie handed over his bags. While he was happy to not have to carry them, Methos taking custody of them was proof that he was up to something. "OK, I give. You want something. I mean, I can't figure any other reason you'd drag me half way across the state to interrogate me about my sex life. So...what is it? Tell me. Whadda ya want?"

Methos gave the menu an overview, then pointed at the display for the seasonal special. "One of those. A small will do."

Yeah, because he'd thought asking directly might work this time. Fine, if Methos wanted to keep dragging the day out, Richie would just have to go along with it. Play along and it might speed things up.

"I never took you for a 'whip cream and sprinkles' kind of guy," he commented, as he took in the ingredient list. Methos-the-frou-frou guy. Now there was an image. It was almost as bad as Methos-the-couponer.

"No?" Methos' lips turned down in thought. "It is a detail I've never used..." He trailed off contemplatively, and Richie had a sinking feeling not unlike the night he'd broken into an antique store and discovered that the world was a much more dangerous place than he'd understood. Maybe he'd chosen wrong this time, too. Shifting the bags for better balance, Methos repeated, "A small. Always start small," then carted the lot off to his designated bench.

Knowing he was going to regret this, Richie stepped into line, the money clenched tight in his grip.