A/N: Written for lyndasty over at LJ. First time I wrote these two, so I apologize for anyone being out of character. The title is from the song "Almost Fed Up With the Blues" by John Hiatt.
Prompt: "Methos and Joe talking about music and their favorite musicians."
Late enough to be morning, early enough that they had hours left before dawn made her last call to the midnight stragglers; a half-forgotten bottle of Old Crow sat on stand between them, along with two smoldering cigars in an ash tray. The pungent smoke drifted around them on the stage, blending with the scent of the bourbon. They breathed it in with conviction, as if it alone was the source of their late night jam after hours in the bar. Only a few low lights were on, bathing the stage in their yellow glare.
"Have to say Son House," Joe said, absent-mindedly strumming a few chords. "If it weren't for him, who knows?"
Methos smirked at him. He had been fiddling with the acoustic guitar that had been left on stage, much to Joe's initial chagrin. The Immortal hadn't really done anything with it, and Joe was beginning to wonder if he could. That look signaled the end of that, though, as he began to play one of House's songs.
Joe stared at him in surprise for a moment, and then laughed and shook his head. "You really have been everything, haven't you?"
"I've told you, you name it, I've done it. Doctor, Indian chief, lawyer, judge, jury, executioner, bartender, bar owner, sales clerk, chocolate maker, boat builder, gunslinger..."
"Astronaut?"
"What do you think I am, suicidal?" he said, stopping the song abruptly with a disbelieving look. It was his turn to shake his head. "I've died many ways, but burning up in the atmosphere is not on my favorites list."
"Only an Immortal would have a favorite way to die," Joe muttered.
"Only an Immortal could die more than once," Methos pointed out. "It's not exactly our favorite activity, either. And Son House is so obvious, you couldn't pick anyone more obscure? I thought that was the big thing with musicians, see who knew the most obscure artist and declare them their king."
Joe snorted and picked up his cigar for a few draws. "You would think that," he said, breathing out smoke. "So tell me, O Really Old One, who do you think is the best bluesman?"
Methos shot him a withering look at the age joke, but ignored it in favor of answering the question. "Easy. Guy named Lazarus Wilson."
"Never heard of him," Joe said, setting his cigar back down. He needed to lay off of them; hanging with Immortals was becoming a bad influence on his health.
"'Course you haven't. He was my neighbor when I lived in the Delta in the thirties. Never recorded, drank most of his money away, but he could make his battered guitar wail in ways that had people wondering if he was the Antichrist," Methos said, and began playing an unknown tune that sent a small shiver down Joe's spine. If the guy had really played even remotely like that-- Methos may be good, but Joe had heard better-- then the Antichrist comparison was understandable. The licks sounded like a demon's lament.
"You didn't just make him up?" he asked, knowing full well there was no real way to verify anything the Immortal said.
"Who do you think taught me to play?" Methos murmured, distracted. His eyes had slid shut, and he began singing along lightly.
"What where you doing in the Delta?" Joe asked, picking up the bottle of bourbon and pouring himself a few fingers. He needed the drink if he was going to suffer through another one of Methos's wild tales, and yet he couldn't help but ask. The man was a fountain of information that no history book in the world would ever know. He had been there, lived there, experienced it all when it was new. Something Joe would never know, except through cold, lifeless facts. And something he would never admit to wondering about, either. "And why'd he never record if he was so good?"
Methos gave a short bark of laugh, and waved at Joe to pour him his own drink. "Oh," he said, "Laz was about as tolerant of other folks as they were of him. They saw him as an old drunk that probably had sold his soul for the music he played."
"And you?" Joe hadn't missed that Methos hadn't answered his first question. Probably wouldn't, either, and if he did, it would probably be a lie. And the bastard controlled all of his own records so there was no telling what was the truth.
"I saw him as old drunk, too, but I had known enough genius in my years," Methos said, downing the drink in one burning shot. He motioned for another. "He had it. Begged him to teach me to play. Tried to pay off his debts, but that got a shotgun in my face and a dire warning not to mess with his affairs. I offered as much whiskey as he wanted at my expense. That worked."
Methos downed the second drink the same way. His voice was already stripped from the alcohol, now almost as rough as Joe's own. He set the glass down on the stand and picked up his mostly forgotten cigar and took a few deep draws off of it.
"Told him he should record, but he didn't want anything to do with it. To him, no recording could ever be as good as the real thing, and he wasn't about to let himself be watered down," Methos said. He blew a few smoke rings, then added, "Even if it would sober him up."
"Thought you preferred the Wild West," Joe asked, wondering if he could get a backdoor answer. He didn't know why he was really curious as to what Methos was doing in the South, but as far as he knew, the man had never lived there, nor had ever mentioned it before.
"I did, but only because it was backwater and all I had to do was pack up and move to the next dusty town. By the nineteen hundreds it was getting harder to do and there wasn't many places I hadn't already been. After Butch and Sundance took off for South America, the whole place began getting civilized, too. Better roads, easier to travel, better health care. Once the population starts living longer than a generation or two, it's easier to get recognized, and no one really buys that 'I'm a son of' or 'I'm a grandson of' line. It was just harder to live there, especially since I had a bounty out on me."
"Do I really wanna know?"
"Apparently blowing up a bank's vault is a criminal activity," Methos said, his face trying to portray innocence and not having it work. "Decided to high tail it east and reinvent myself yet again. Lost myself in New York City for a couple of decades, and then I headed south. Got tired of snow and pop music."
"Pop music?"
"I lived just off Tin Pan Alley, passed off as another half-starved songwriter. I hated the drivel, but it was the best place to disappear. Ran off to Harlem as often as I could. I was a wanted drifter in Arizona for robbing a bank and there I was sitting high at the Cotton Club listening Duke Ellington bring the house down." Methos frowned and took one last draw of his cigar before setting down. He blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. "I've hated pop culture ever since."
"Says the man who listens to Queen," Joe said, retrieving his own cigar again-- health be damned, he wasn't going to waste it-- although his heart wasn't much into the jibe.
Methos tended to grind his last nerve into dust, but he had been tolerable tonight and on previous nights as of late; plus the discovery that they actually had a few musical tastes in common made Joe feel more at ease with millennia-old man. The Immortal was, in a way, the only thing keeping Joe sane lately since Mac was in one of his moody snits that even had Richie wanting to tie him up and dump in the ocean for a few weeks. It was hard to tell what had set him off this time, but Amanda had blitzed her way through town a little over a week ago and was likely the cause of it all somehow.
Honestly, to Joe, it was like having kids and no babysitter.
"Oh, please, like Queen was ever anything but left of the bloody mainstream. Just because they were popular doesn't make them pop culture."
"Uh-huh. Wayne's World ring a bell?"
"So even stoned rockers know a good band when they hear one, and they usually do." Joe quirked an eyebrow at him, mostly just because he knew it would irritate. "Look, I was on stage with the Rolling Stones, I bummed cigarettes off Jimi Hendrix, drank a few fifths with the Clash, I was at Woodstock... At least I think I was, I don't really remember that week. I was partaking of the local substances."
Joe snorted, "Don't tell Mac that. He's got this thing about mind-altering substances that aren't of the alcoholic variety."
"Why do you seem to be convinced that I'm suicidal?" Methos grumbled. "Although a good acid trip might loosen him up, he's got enough 'things' that make him downright boring," he added under his breath. "As I was saying, I know good music. I was there, I saw it happening, I felt it. Queen-- Freddie-- he could rip these dime a dozen pop singers to shreds. He could out sing Madonna and those boy bands put together. Who else can claim that kind of voice?"
"Sam Cooke," Joe offered.
"Otis Redding," Methos retorted.
"Muddy Waters."
"Janis Joplin."
"Aretha Franklin."
"Etta James."
"Bessie Smith."
"Met her once."
"Oh, now I know you're lying," Joe accused. "You can't have known everybody."
"Like that's even possible," Methos shot back. "Sheesh, just because a guy meets a few famous folks in the past few thousand years, suddenly he's making it all up."
"Alright, fine, where did you meet her?"
"She was in this play on Broadway-- I was dragged there by my roommate, before you ask. Don't really remember it, musical theatre isn't exactly my forte. He made me go backstage with him so he could chitchat with her. He was bloody well enamored with her, and was greatly upset that she seemed to be more enamored with one of the chorus girls than him. Broke his heart, and made me miserable in return for months, moping around, his heart bleeding all over the furniture."
"You're such a romantic," deadpanned Joe.
"You didn't have to endure months of ridiculously sappy pop songs being banged out day and night on a piano that he couldn't afford to have tuned properly," growled Methos, pouring another drink. The bottle was almost empty by now, and Joe certainly felt the fire in his blood. He'd have a hellacious headache by mid-morning.
"Why didn't you move out?"
He had never seen Methos blush, and he wasn't now, but for once he almost did look embarrassed, or at least chagrined.
"What did you do, throw it all away on prostitutes?" Joe prodded.
"Usually the first thing that comes to someone's mind is the one thing they themselves would do," Methos said lightly, smiling. "Got something to share with the class, Joe?"
Joe glared, and resisted cracking the man upside the head with the bottle.
"I don't have to pay for it," he hissed.
"Hey, Joe, it's alright, we've all done it. Some of us from both ends of the spectrum."
"You're telling me you've been a hooker?" Joe asked in surprise.
"Sex slave actually. I was taught the many ways of giving pleasure, both male and female, and I was quite good at it, being extraordinarily flexible. And able to take more than the average guy."
Joe cringed and snatched the bottle, drinking the last of it straight out. It burned the whole way down his throat, but it wasn't enough. He stood carefully, ignoring Methos's laughter, and reached for his cane and his glass, and then eased himself off the stage and across the darkened room over to behind the bar. He was going to need more if he was ever going to erase that mental image.
As he dug out another bottle of Old Crow, he heard Methos set down his own guitar and join him, sitting on one of the bar stools. The ash tray was place in front of him, with only one cigar in it, as was another glass. He looked up at the man who made no issue of showing his sheer mirth, and quickly twisted off the cap of the bourbon and poured himself a full glass. He was definitely going to need it.
"I knew it would be worth it someday," Methos said, drawling on his cigar and blowing more smoke rings. "Just wish I had had a camera. The look on your face..."
"I hate you," Joe said, burying his face in his crossed arms on the bar. "I really hate you."
"Should have had a camera ready. Maybe the picture of that expression would've knocked Macleod out of his current hissy fit."
"Just tell him what you told me and that'll send him running back to Paris," Joe suggested.
"Think he'd like that tidbit more than he'd admit," Methos said.
"Oh, God, I don't even want to think about that," Joe groaned, but unfortunately, his buzzed mind was a little slow acting in preventing the image. "Ugh..." He tilted his head to the side so he could glare up at the Immortal. "You do realize he's a womanizer, right? Has been for centuries?"
"Exactly, what's he trying to prove? Hyper-masculinity is such an obvious sign."
"Go away. Please. I'll beg if I have to, just go away," he pleaded, burying his face again. He was never going to be able to look either of them in the eye again. Methos he didn't care about, but Mac was going to be hard-- oh, God, he did not just think that.
If he knew for sure it would knock him out and he wouldn't remember anything of this conversation, he'd start beating his head on the bar.
"That's what he's in a tizzy about anyhow, didn't you know?" Methos continued, as if he hadn't heard Joe's tone of desperation.
"Methos..." Joe warned.
"No, really, it is. Apparently Amanda told him he came off as straight as Seacouver's coastline and he really should just stop pretending."
"...you've got five seconds..."
"Of course, he's in complete denial, and now is brooding over every little action he does."
"...to get the hell out or I'll-- oh, screw it."
Joe grabbed his cane and swung it at Methos, whose quick reflexes only just barely saved him from the blow. He back way from Joe and quickly retrieved his coat from the end of the bar.
"Alright, I know when I'm unwanted," he said, and Joe swore he could detect a pout in the tone.
"You might want to refine that ability a bit more," Joe called out to him as Methos unlocked the door to leave. "Now go annoy Mac or something. Way he's been acting, he deserves what's coming to him."
Methos merely shot Joe a libertine grin and sauntered out of the bar. Joe set his cane back down and instead picked up his cigar. Before he even got one drawl out of it, Methos poked his head back into the bar.
"Oh, and Joe?" he said, and then paused.
"What?" Joe finally asked.
"I lied," he replied, trying the innocent look again.
"About being a sex slave?"
"About... everything. Well, except for Queen being good music, and Son House being an obvious choice... and Woodstock, although I'm not really sure if I was there or not-- hey, watch the head!" Methos huffed as he ducked the thrown glass that promptly shattered on the ground outside. "Alright, I'm going! See if I come back tomorrow!"
The man disappeared out the door again, and left Joe in blessed silence. He knew that Methos would be back tomorrow. Of course he would be, aggravating Joe was his favorite pastime, and there was no way he'd let Joe forget their conversation.
He idly hoped Methos did somehow snap Mac out of his moodiness, just so he could talk to someone who wasn't insane. Of course, the thought of how Methos might just achieve that had him reaching for the bottle again, and with a further stroke of annoyance, he realized he had thrown his own glass and not Methos's.
Soon, the silent room was filled with the sound of a head thudding onto the bar.