"Hey, kid, can you get beer yet?" Asked a set of hazel eyes, always laughing, a comically long nose, and a small mouth in a constant smirk. He had dark brown hair, cut close to his head; he looked about thirty, maybe thirty-three on the outside. One of those boys next door to whom you never said a second word. I looked up from my perch on the folded-out leather lay-Z-boy where I was writing, notebook in hand, eyebrow raised in a pretty good Spock impersonation. I tapped my pen on the paper as I took in the lean 6'2" frame from the spiky brown hair above the long, mousy-looking face, over the gray turtleneck and black duster, to the thin nervous fingers, down the black jeans to the broken-in black hiking boots on his feet, covered in Wyoming dust.
"Mom usually keeps a can of some nasty brew or other in the fridge, Adam, or should I call you Methos today?" He tilted his head to the side.
"Sounds all right," he said, Welsh accent bleeding through the words in one of my favorite voices.
"Shed the duster and shoes," I said, motioning to the leather couch. "Stay awhile. You're on loan for the day." He leaned out of the kitchen, beer in hand.
"Why exactly am I on loan today, anyway?" He inquired as he ambled across the room and flopped onto the couch. I shrugged.
"I'm writing about someone I admire. I figured a 5000-year-old grad student/warlord/slave/doctor who has made a turnaround from a formerly extremely evil dude to one of the good guys could possibly count." He stared at me for a long moment, then took a long drink from his beer. "Besides, it's not like Davis-Panzer has been using you a lot lately." He admitted the point, then made one of his own.
"I hate to point this out and bust your scholarly little bubble," he began, "but I'm a fictional character of someone else's creation." I smiled.
"She didn't specify that they had to be real or alive. Besides, I'm a little fed up with all the gushy graduation crap right now. They want pictures and songs and video snippets and feelings and quotes and . . . just bloody well give me the ruddy piece of paper and handshake so I can go get a bloody life!"
"I get it you're getting stage frightened and camera-shy already? I thought that was why you were making sure you weren't valedictorian?" I nodded, chewing on the end of my pen. "One of the many reasons why I'm glad I went through childhood before school was invented." I just couldn't resist.
"Methos, dear, you went through childhood before the wheel was invented." In a classical Methos move, he stuck out his tongue at me. I wiggled my eyebrows at him.
"Is that and offer? I must tell you I've always liked older men . . . " I let the sentence trail. We both laughed at the ridiculous pickup line. "Hey, this is my fantasy, isn't it? It could happen." He smashed his empty beer can and set it on a coaster.
"I don't think even you are that imaginative. Besides, you're still too young to be frolicking like that, despite what your hormones say." I shrugged, doodling on my paper.
"No, not today. Sometimes, though. Sometimes I almost could. Then again, sometimes I just wish we had more time to talk." I stopped doodling and looked up. If I wanted, I knew he would stay as long as I needed him. I knew he would wrap those strong arms around me, pull me to him, and listen and comfort while I cried. He would laugh and joke with me until I forgot whatever was 'bringing me down.' He broke the comfortable silence first.
"Well, kid, you got a TV, a couch, and a gorgeous hunk who is a never-ending source of brilliant witticisms. What do you want to do?" I set my notebook and pen down, then folded up the leather chair upon which I had been sitting.
"Are you offering to be the couch or the TV?" I inquired innocently, then dodged a pillow as I ran from the room, followed closely by a certain 6'2" hazel-eyed nymph. Halfway through the house, firm hands grabbed me around the waist, dragging me backward onto a wriggling muscular frame as long fingers tickled my sides. I squirmed, laughed, and tickled back until we both lay in a breathless and giggling (or chuckling on his part, as he once told me. He is of the opinion that it is not 'tough and manly' to giggle.) heap on the floor. A sudden thought struck me.
"Do you keep this 'normal guy' persona so that you can still have moments like this? You could have one of those 'tough guy' images, or the 'busy working stiff image', but you choose the 'penniless grad-student' which translates loosely to 'cool, laid-back guy who is really into what he's doing'." He was silent, thinking, while I tried to figure out what I'd just said.
"I think you're probably the first person who know who and what I am to actually ask me that. Yeah," he sighed. "I think so. I hate being this huge idol. People see what I am and who I have been and the fact that I've been around for over 5000 years, and automatically assume that I am this wise, all-knowing fountain of eternal and all-powerful knowledge that I am just waiting to spew like a quarter candy machine. You should be able to identify. People now think that if you have half a brain, that it exists for their edification, and they bug you constantly about stuff, until you pretend to be a total moron just to get a moment's peace. You know that feeling, right?" I nodded. "I'm just some ordinary Joe. I just want to have a beer, a few hours with someone I love. A sunset among friends, a sunrise with my favorite person before the next crisis hits. Normal is not within my reach, I know. People spend so much time and effort speeding around searching for the life less ordinary, but damn it all, I just want to slow down and let the current of time flow over me while I seek that perfect moment, when I can just relax. Don't worry about who knows who I am, or what I have pressing to do today. I want people to realize that I'm not some all-knowing jinn just waiting to pop out of the lamp and do their bidding, you know?" We laid there in silence for a moment.
"Well, will you settle for a few hours with me?" He looked at me for a long moment, allowing the serious moment pass at its own pace.
"Well," he looked me up and down. "I suppose that in the absence of an older gorgeous blonde and a nice old wine, a little girl and an X Files marathon will have to do." I slapped his chest playfully then helped him up, being pulled back down to wrestle around on the floor a couple times before we were finally tired enough to move to the couch.
"C'mon, Methos, I think they were going to start with Tunguska or Little Green Men." He smirked.
"Ooo, goodie." We flopped onto the couch as the beginning credits began to roll with the theme song, curled up next to each other, comforting and close.
What's not to admire?