Between
(between forget about forgiving and and just accept)
It had been a truly terrible year, Duncan thought. First the Dark Quickening and then the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for God's sake! Two events that had wrenched two dear friends from him. In both cases, Methos had saved the day, saved him and his loved ones time and time again. But now Duncan felt like he couldn't trust the older immortal, like he didn't even know the man. He wanted…God he wanted Methos but he didn't want to want the aggravating amoral pain in his ass. What did this infatuation with Methos say about him?
Yet here they were, the two of them standing in his Seacouver loft again. They had just gotten back from Paris, Duncan was frankly surprised that the old man hadn't disappeared, run away when things got too tough. Instead Duncan had immediately gone back to trying to pry an explanation out of the ancient man who was doing a good impression of a clam. How could the Methos that murdered Cassandra's village be the same man who saved Duncan from himself, be the man in the futbol shirt in that photo with Don Salzer? Was it possible to change that much? Was the old man scheming even now, towards a goal Duncan could only guess at?
Duncan stared at Methos's back and wondered if the old man did it on purpose. Look that sexy that is. Methos was leaning against a window, bracing his forearms against the window pane's edges with his shirt sleeves rolled up exposing pale skin dusted with dark hairs, tendons and veins crawling underneath. The ancient man was leaning on one hip inviting Duncan's eyes to wander down the ancient man's long jean clad legs. His eyes wandered back up, noting how the bones of the old man's shoulder blades stretched the shirt tight and how Methos's head was bent forward as if in supplication.
The Highlander stood, crossing resolutely to stand behind the other man. He laid his hands on the man's shoulders and leaned forward until his breath teased past Methos's ear. The shudder that ran through the lean form was unmistakable. Good he wants this too, not that Duncan had had any doubt really.
"I'm tired Methos, tired of talking, tired of fighting. I want…" Duncan ran his hands from Methos's shoulders around to the lean chest. He pressed his own chest against the ancient back, molding their bodies together from shoulder to knee. It felt good, so good that his cock was stirring against Methos's cheeks at the simple contact.
Methos hadn't moved and Duncan could still feel the tension in the other man's muscles but he could also feel that the ancient heart had sped up, hear the man's rasping breaths. Duncan nuzzled the back of Methos's neck, the softness of the short hairs there tickling his nose and lips. As his hands roved over the hard muscles, his palms circling the nipples he could easily feel through the thin shirt, Duncan's own arousal spiked. His hands traveled down further, just brushing Methos's jean covered sex, to let the other man know his intentions.
Suddenly Methos turned and kissed him. And it was amazing. It was a meeting, a sharing of pleasure, intoxicating and arousing and comforting, it was…too much. Duncan pulled away gasping. Not even meeting Methos's eyes, he dropped to his knees, yanking the buttons of the man's fly in his haste to get them open.
Methos stared down at the fulfillment of his unacknowledged fantasies. The wet heat that engulfed his sex almost shattered his control but Methos knew what this was and what it wasn't. This was sex and Duncan was using it to what? Avoid talking? MacLeod loved to talk or more accurate, to lecture and judge. Fine if he wants to 'try out' five thousand years of experience, that's what Methos would give him.
Reaching down Methos stroked a dark-skinned cheek hollowed around his cock before pulling MacLeod back up to him. Since they apparently weren't kissing, he fastened his mouth to the dusky neck as he led the other man backwards to the bed, clothes falling in their wake. He could feel MacLeod's hands squeezing his buttocks, fingers drifting into his cleft, but he deftly redirected the younger immortal's attention.
He would not, could not let MacLeod take him. Duncan was already so far inside his heart and mind that the older immortal could not let the man inside his body. Not when it was clear MacLeod did not love him. He used instead every trick that he had ever learned teasing and tempting, pressing on chi points, he was attuned to the younger man's every desire. It was a sort of meditation; he had been a whore before for many different things in many different ways. He orgasmed silently, deep inside the Highlander. It wasn't a 'little death', more like finishing a kata. Just an end, perhaps an end to his hope as well. But he would give MacLeod what the man needed, whatever it cost him.
Duncan wandered into the bar. It was still early evening and moving from the late afternoon sun in to the bar's dark interior made him momentarily blind. He paused, waiting until his eyes adjusted and then made his way towards the bar and his old friend.
The immortal grunted a greeting to the barman who immediately set a glass in front of him. Duncan knew that he shouldn't be taking out his bad mood on the mortal, but he couldn't seem to help it. He took a sip, hoping that the burn would clear the fog in his head.
"So where's Richie, Joe? He left me a brief message saying he was going out of town and that the part time guy was gonna be watching the dojo and reporting to you until he got back."
Joe looked up from the bar at him, a curious mixture of guilt and chagrin in his eyes and licked his lips nervously. "Gregor came back into town while you were gone."
Duncan could tell the barman was trying to sound nonchalant, but Duncan wasn't following the connection. What did Gregor have to do with Richie?
"Joe they didn't…" The immortal assumed his face asked the question that he couldn't finish.
"No," Joe quickly assured the other man. "No actually they…kind of hit it off."
Duncan frowned. "Really? Oh, well I guess they were friends before…" He trailed off. "I knew Richie would forgive him." Just as Richie forgave me, Duncan thought but the words didn't need to be said.
"Actually…" Joe winced wondering how in hell it had fallen to him to explain this new development. "They're more than friends, Mac. Richie went with Gregor to pick up his stuff…Gregor's moving into Richie's place."
Joe could almost hear the gears turning in the other man's head. He watched the dark eyes go from surprise to confusion, suspicion and then bingo, something akin to horror.
"But he can't…"
"Richie is a big boy Mac. He can make his own decisions. I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical at first but…"
"Gregor will bring him nothing but pain!" Now the Highlander was upset. "I know him Joe, Gregor is a nice guy, but he…"
"He's not good enough for your baby boy, Mac?" Joe laughed, which at least brought a semblance of a smile to the immortal's face. "I checked him out myself."
"It's just that he cracked up after only two hundred years. I don't want him to hurt Richie by betraying him or leaning on him too much or by giving up."
Joe's eyes showed understanding and his own worry over the young man. "He was happy, really happy. Even if you're not a huge fan, don't ruin it."
Duncan nodded, resigned. Who was he now to tell Richie what to do with his life?
"I never thought that Richie would be with a man after…" He swallowed heavily against the rising tide of self-recriminations, never mind that that particular injustice occurred long before Duncan knew Richie. The weight of his own transgression obscured any attempt at rational thought.
Joe just nodded his understanding. The silence had just reached the other side of awkward when Joe spoke again.
"So how are things with the old man?"
Duncan started at the question. How were things? Worse? Better? He had gotten what he wanted hadn't he? He had hoped that actually having sex with the older immortal would burn away whatever fascination he had, satisfy his curiosity so to speak. It hadn't. Duncan yearned for Methos's knowing touch even as he tried to distance himself. His inner struggle with this new physical relationship had just subsumed his previous obsession with the need to know the ancient immortal.
He was saved from answering by the feel of Methos's quickening approaching. The very fact that he could now recognize the quickening of the man irritated him. It was more intimacy that he was prepared to give.
He averted his eyes at Methos's approach, offering only a standard greeting as the older man took the stool next to him. They sat there, mere inches apart but not together. They both were tense, Duncan could feel it humming through the air like a quiet before a quickening. They both talked to Joe but not to each other.
He knew he was being rude and didn't care, if he even looked at Methos he wouldn't be able to keep his hands to himself. And he wasn't certain that he wanted to sleep with Methos again. Unfortunately as the night wore on he realized that it was inevitable, there was no way that he was going to let the old man go anywhere other than back into his bed.
In the end he invited Methos back to the loft, they both knew what for. But to think the old man needed an invitation…it just showed how different things were, how much Methos was pulling away. Or was he pushing Methos away?
Things simply deteriorated in the following weeks. Methos stopped coming over to the loft unannounced, stopped stealing beer, commandeering the couch, and leaving his stuff everywhere. They were still having sex though.
They met at Joe's three or four times a week and Duncan would invite the ancient man back to his place, his bed. He couldn't help himself. It was like a craving an addiction. They would have dinner, make small talk, have drinks, but it was all a pretense. Methos could drive him out of his mind with a look, a touch. Duncan supposed he should have been prepared, Methos had been practicing for five thousand years, but he wasn't prepared. He knew that he was using it to hide, hide from whatever it was that made Methos irresistible to him.
The old man, on the other hand, was always completely in control as he pushed Duncan beyond whatever boundaries he thought his body had. The ancient man always seemed to know what Duncan wanted, what would turn him on, how far to push, how long to linger. Before he could even form the words, "More," "Harder", "There," Methos would give it to him, angling his thrusts perfectly, moving in deeper than Duncan would have thought possible. He had never come so hard in his life, but he never heard Methos make a sound.
Duncan thought that Methos might be the only person who could have a totally coherent conversation while having sex. It would have been funny if it were happening to someone else. But it just showed that sex with him meant no more to the ancient immortal than anything else.
Duncan felt used, even as he told himself that he was using Methos's expertise for his own pleasure which just made him feel manipulative. Every night they spent together, as soon as he could walk again, Duncan would get up to take a shower. Methos would have left by the time he got out and there wouldn't be a sign in the place that the eldest had ever been there. It was their arrangement he supposed.
Richie and Gregor came back into town. Richie got a job at as a mechanic in a garage, leaving Duncan with the dojo to run. It made Duncan feel as if the young man were pulling away from him too. He never said anything to Richie about his relationship with Gregor but he knew the youth could see censure in his eyes.
Duncan felt like he was trapped like he was drowning, buffeted by currents, pulled down by forces out of his control. He knew he should say something, to Methos, to Richie, Joe, even Gregor, but the longer the silence went on the more difficult Duncan found it to break.
Occasionally, Duncan would meet a woman at the bar, take her home instead like tonight. He did it in full view of Methos but the older immortal never twitched an eyebrow. He wanted the old man to be jealous and he wanted to prove that he could walk away.
He knew it was a lie though, women couldn't satisfy his appetite. Tomorrow he would call Methos, invite him over. Nothing would be solved, nothing fixed. Methos would simply slide into his bed like a succubus, disappearing before the first ray of sunshine in the morning, leaving nothing behind.
Methos sat in his apartment, feeling angry and jealous and hating himself for it. He missed spending time with MacLeod. Before he had crashed on Mac's couch, drunk his beer, left his stuff all over the loft, left a mark. He had more of a relationship with the Highlander then than he did now.
Now Mac didn't even want to talk. Not that Methos wanted to talk, he wanted the Highlander to accept. There was no way to describe how the world was then, how Methos himself was then.
How could he even begin to describe what it was like to live when cities and the written word were being born? When agriculture was still mostly a bad idea and romantic notions like love and morality didn't even exist.
How to describe how he was then, how to describe two thousand years of life and love and loss and fighting? It is impossible to describe, it can only be experienced. How a life lived by the sword led to a thirst for blood and power. That he had felt lost, adrift, with nothing to hold onto, not a place or a people or a code.
It had been a creeping change, the change from simple raiding to butchering and yet he had been reluctant to leave. The four of them, that was what he had held onto while everything around him changed and died, and he had been safe. Safe, with four other immortals who would gladly defend him to the death.
None of it excused him, not even in Methos's own eyes now. But he did not believe in punishment. If the events of his life were listed out in columns labeled good and evil, crime and punishment, what would the total be? If the time he had spent in chains outnumbered the time he had spent as master, would it matter? He had long ago accepted his own imperfections. At least he thought that he had. Until MacLeod.
How had this deteriorated so far out of his control? The answer was even more disturbing, he had not been in control since they had met.
He had thought it simple at first. A reawakening, relearning to live again, to risk, to love. Gods he still missed Alexa. But he had given her Adam Pierson. MacLeod called him by his name and suddenly he found himself wanting to be that person, Methos. How had he come to this? What power did Duncan MacLeod have over him that made him want to change, to forget himself? Who was Methos anyway? No one had called him that in such a long time, not since Kronos. He had always been a man of the times, learning from and embracing each age, each culture in which he found himself. A name meant no more to him than his apartment did. They were just things, to be used and then discarded. Through it all though, Methos had been himself, had known himself, willed himself. Now though he found himself wanting to be like Duncan, to be the kind of man that Duncan could accept, could trust, could love.
At least when the Highlander had wanted to talk it meant he cared, that he wanted things to work out between them. Now…Methos told himself that he really shouldn't be complaining. Here he was having his every sexual fantasy fulfilled. He had had Duncan on his knees, the man's full lips stretched around his sex, stroked the hollowed cheeks. The memories would be keeping him warm for centuries at least. He could see Duncan on his back, spread out beneath him, holding himself open; the younger man on his hands and knees, moaning and gasping, begging for his touch, his tongue, his cock.
Who was he to ask for anything more? Surely he did not deserve that much from someone such as MacLeod or anyone who knew Methos. This pain would not kill him. He would wait, give the younger immortal whatever he could, whatever MacLeod wanted.