Truth Will Out
by Argentum_LS
A/N: Written for celli. This was supposed to be a treat in the Wayback exchange. It was also supposed to be 1K. I failed to achieve either goal. Thanks to idelthoughts for the encouragement and betaing of this story. Questions, comments, observations, and concrit always welcomed.
Richie yanked open his front door, sword in hand and a biting demand on his lips. It was late. Or early. He wasn't sure. The pair of boxers and single sock he wore gave mute testament to the fact that he'd been sleeping, dammit. Sound asleep. He thought he'd been having a pretty good dream, too. Fog still blurred his eyes and slowed his thoughts, pushed away only from the Adrenaline rush that came from sensing another Immortal.
"Do not ask any questions," the visitor demanded. He huddled in his long coat, dripping onto the rough carpet that lined the complex's hallway. His brown hair was plastered to his head and a bead of water hung off the tip of his reddened nose.
Early, Richie decided. Too early. The hallway lights were still dimmed and he heard none of the usual noises of his neighbors moving around, either stumbling in after a long night or preparing to leave for a long day. He gave a small sigh of relief that somehow the pounding on his door hadn't awoken them, too, before turning his attention to the man in front of him—A man he hadn't seen or heard from in more than a decade.
"What—?"
A hand clapped over his mouth. "That would be a question." Methos released his gag long enough to shoulder past Richie, inviting himself in. Water trailed behind him, darkening his path. He nodded briefly in acknowledgment of the sword. "You won't be needing that, either. I'm not here for your head. I need your help." He promptly covered Richie's mouth again. His hand smelled like garlic and tomatoes and was cold. Richie tried to pull away, but Methos pushed him up against the pocket door that concealed the washer/dryer closet. "Nod if you understand: no questions."
Richie could have broken the hold. The entryway was a tight fit for two adults, but Richie had been in tighter, and he knew from experience how easily that pocket door came off its track. The desperation etched on Methos' face didn't read like danger, though. And there was no way he'd have come here without a good reason, which, knowing their lives, was probably someone hunting him. Only, why would Methos worry about that? Richie's curiosity got the best of him. He nodded. The hand dropped away.
Methos moved deeper into the apartment, flipping on the light switches as he passed. Without speaking—or asking—he disappeared into the bathroom, then emerged with a towel draped across his head.
Richie desperately wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing. Instead, he bit his tongue and glared the question.
"I've been walking around out there—" Methos waved toward a window, from which came the sound of rain pounding against glass— "for hours. No, I couldn't call a cab. What time is it?"
They both glanced toward the microwave. It flashed 12:00 at them. At some point in the night, the power had gone out.
Richie sighed and started toward the kitchen to set the clock, then decided he didn't care enough right now to bother. "Late enough that I'm gonna go back to sleep just in time to get up again," he responded. That much he could tell without a clock; it was inevitable. "Some of us have to work." There, neither of those were questions.
"Call in sick."
"I don't get sick days. Not at this job."
"What kind of job doesn't come with sick days?"
Richie looked askance at Methos. "Believe it or not, whether or not the job offers sick leave or health insurance is not something I care about," he pointed out. "All I need is the cash. The more, the merrier."
"Then I'll pay you," Methos said. "Whatever you make in a day, I'll triple it. Call in sick. And, while you're being useful, find me something dry to wear." He paused, as if realizing that the last thing one should do after asking for someone's help was to order them around. "Please."
"Ten times," Richie countered, without moving.
"Pardon?"
"Pay me ten times what I'd make today and I'll go text my boss that I have, I dunno, food poisoning, or something. She can't really argue with that." Richie was still holding his sword. He hefted it, as if the metal would give weight to his negotiation.
"Fine."
Fine? That was it? Methos hadn't even looked up from toweling off his head as he said it. Gobsmacked at Methos capitulating without any attempt at negotiation, Richie could only utter, "What?"
Methos cringed. "That is also a question." With a sigh, he admitted, "Fortunately, it's probably the best one you could have asked. I said: Fine. I'll decuple your pay for today. That means increase it tenfold. I can afford it, and even if I couldn't, I don't have much choice. There, I've answered and you've learned a new word. Now …?" He shucked his coat, letting it drop with a squelching thump to the floor. Underneath, he wore a dark gray dinner jacket, which was mostly dry, and dress pants that were soaked up to the knees. His equally soaked shoes had left muddy footprints along his path through the apartment.
Without any seeming awareness that he stood in the middle of Richie's living room, in bright lighting, in front of an open window, he began to shuck his clothes too.
Richie still had on only his boxers.
As an incentive to fulfill the task list, nothing could have gotten Richie out of the room faster than Methos' strip show. Not even the promise of another de-whateveritwas of his pay.
—
"Uh-huh," Richie stated. He kicked his now-bare feet up onto the coffee table and pretended to stroke his chin as if in deep thought. He had thrown on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that didn't smell too bad, but he hadn't bothered to shave before returning to the living room. His fingers scraped the stubble as he formulated how to express his disbelief.
Just as he drew in a breath, Methos cut him off. "If the next sentence out of your mouth is going to start with any of the WH- words, do us both a favor and don't." He was sitting in a kitchen chair he'd positioned on the other side of the table, the towel still draped over his shoulders. He had donned the last of Richie's clean t-shirts and a pair of gym shorts. His dinner suit had been hung into the shower to drip dry, under threat of punishment when Richie had suggested tossing it in the dryer.
"But, magic? Seriously?"
Methos flinched as if anticipating a blow, and clamped his mouth and eyes shut.
Overhead, the fan limped through several revolutions.
Methos cracked one eye back open, then the other. "The spell must not respond to rhetorical questions." He breathed out a sigh of relief. "Finally, a reasonable stipulation. Yes, Richie, magic. Or, a kind of, anyway. It shouldn't be that hard to believe."
"I dunno…" Richie started. It was more of an obligatory protest than a real one. Immortals existed, with all their coming back from the dead and rapid healing and Quickenings that no one could seem to explain beyond an unsatisfactory "that's just the way it is." Plus, he'd heard of some Immortals who had other abilities. It wasn't really a stretch to think that other kinds of magic could exist. "For the sake of argument, let's say I believe you. Your girlfriend—"
"Ex."
"Well, after that, she'd better be. You're ex-girlfriend slipped a truth spell roofie into your drink at dinner and now you can't weasel your way out of any answers. That's gotta chafe."
"You're certainly not one to overdo the elegance of a summary, are you?" Methos scrubbed his hands through his still damp hair, leaving it sticking out in random directions. "However, in essence, you're correct. The issue is not just of 'weaseling out of answers,' though. The spell appears to require me to answer in full."
Richie's eyes narrowed. Methos' sword sat in the corner by the front door; Richie's had been replaced under his bed. There was an opportunity here…
Methos splayed his hands now in obvious appeal to Richie's better nature. "I came here because you already know who I am."
Sure, Richie thought, immediately followed by, Do I?
"And because you happened to be in town," Methos added quickly, as if the first reason wasn't good enough. "Look, all I want is to stay away from any human contact until this spell wears off—whenever that is."
As he'd spoken, Methos seemed to shrink into himself, his features sagging. Richie noticed then the dark circles like bruises that underlined his eyes and highlighted his exhaustion.
"Look, I don't have much here. I kinda make it a point to only be here myself when I can't justify being somewhere else. But I have a couch." Richie patted the textured upholstery of the cushion next to him. "It's probably the most uncomfortable couch you'll ever lie on, and I'm pretty sure the guy who sold it to me did a bait and switch. But, man, I'll bet this whole thing will be a whole lot easier to deal with once you've had a couple hours of shuteye." With a paid day off to look forward to, he planned to sleep as late as his body would allow him.
Methos shook his head, then yawned so wide his jaw cracked. "Can't risk it."
The "WHY NOT?!" Richie wanted to yell pulsed in his temples and he felt his eyes bulge with the effort of holding it back.
"I don't know what spell she used," Methos continued, as if he anticipated that question. Come to think of it, he probably did. "Most spells will wear off after a certain amount of time. But some don't wear off until a task has been fulfilled. And some of those will become permanent if the enspelled gives up … such as by going to sleep."
"Or dying," Richie added, careful to keep any upward inflection out of the words. The more he learned of this whole magic-thing, the worse it got.
"Or dying," Methos confirmed. "I presume. For most people, death would render the spell moot."
"Yeah, this probably isn't the time to go about researching whether it's different for us. So much for my plan to stealthily kill you so I can go back to bed."
"As if you could."
"As wiped as you are right now, yeah I probably could."
Methos shifted on the chair, straightening from the slouch he'd sunken into until he sat up stiff and straight. "Talk to me, Richie. Help me stay awake. Spells cast at night usually end at dawn."
They both glanced at the rain-streaked window, through which they could see nothing but darkness. Dawn could be hours away. Richie had checked the time on his phone when he texted his boss, but he'd already lost track of how long ago that was.
And now he was tasked with making conversation with a person he barely knew, who had always been cagey about sharing what little information he did, and who probably already knew everything about Richie's life, which was barely a blink in the span of Methos'.
Nothing like doing the impossible. It seemed to be the night for it.
"OK," Richie said, "Let's talk."
Methos blinked at him, waiting to learn what topic Richie would propose.
Steeling himself, Richie glanced around the room as if searching for inspiration. There wasn't much to see. A few magazines, a video game console, a blown up poster of himself from his racing days. The furniture was minimal, the decorating more so. After a debauched night out, he'd awoken in ownership of a fake potted plant. There wasn't much more to that story, even if he'd planned on telling it. He almost felt a twinge of guilt at taking advantage of the man across from him like this. Almost. It passed quickly, because some opportunities were too golden to turn down. "Are you really Methos?"
—
Richie had figured his question had one of two answers: yes, or no.
Instead, Methos' eyes widened in growing horror, his breath pulling in like he planned to hold it until the spell passed-and then he unleashed a stream of guttural and clipped language Richie couldn't understand. That language flowed into a sing-song one with different vowels, and then through others, before finding ones that glanced off the French Richie knew.
That's different, Richie thought. That the answer might not be in English had never occurred to him. It also wasn't useful.
He spun his hand in the air, urging Methos to hurry up and get to a language Richie did speak.
Then the expression of the man in front of him twisted from horrified to pleading, and Richie pulled his feet off the coffee table and sat forward in time to receive a strangled, "Maybe."
There was no need to ask for elaboration because Methos didn't have a choice about providing it. He kept talking. Every effort he made to cover his own mouth, pinch his lips shut, or lower his voice to the point of not being audible failed.
Millennia ago, Methos had taken a head. "It might have been my first," he said. "It might not have been. All I know is when the Quickening ended, I had no concrete memory before that point. I didn't know who I was. The only name I could remember was…" The word he pronounced sounded ancient, and powerful, like it had once been the trigger word for its own spell. It was the word of which "Methos" functioned as a pale shadow.
That fact must not have been explanatory enough, because Methos kept talking.
His voice grew scratchy and he clutched at his throat, though he didn't deviate from the topic. He couldn't. He didn't need to.
Richie leapt up and went to the fridge in search of something for him to drink. There was a beer, a single bottle leftover from his last date. "It's five o'clock somewhere," he muttered. "Possibly here. AM, PM, who cares?" The circumstances might justify the drink; on the other hand, they'd want something for a celebration when they got the spell licked. Yeah, he definitely believed it was a spell now.
Richie flipped the tap on and ran it for the few necessary seconds it took to clear the rust out before filling a glass.
Methos had used some version of the name for thousands of years, Richie learned, "but I don't think it's my real name. I suspect it's not a name at all." It might've been a title, an euphemism, or possibly a slur others used for him, or maybe for the Immortal whose head he'd taken. None of that mattered after a few centuries.
And that's when Richie realized his mistake, because Methos kept talking, continuing to elaborate on his claim to the name and the possibility that others might've had equal or better claim to it in a time where the reputation belonging to the name was established—and he started to nod off. Methos' chin sunk to his chest, his eyes falling closed.
The spell required him to answer the question.
It didn't require him to be awake while he did so.
Vaulting over the coffee table, he slapped Methos hard across the face. Methos jerked back awake; His check reddened, bruised, then healed in a handful of seconds. The panic that sparked in his eyes didn't fade so quickly. Methos was completely vulnerable, and he knew it.
"You said you needed to stay awake, so I think we're into 'whatever it takes' territory here," Richie explained, by way of apology. "Also, drink." He handed over the glass, which Methos accepted without any sign of suspicion, and kept careful watch as Methos tried to negotiate how to take water into his body while air was going out of it. After everything, it wouldn't do for the man to drown now.
The spell allowed for its speaker to breathe, and it turned out it also allowed for brief pauses for swallowing. In short order, the glass became as drained as the person holding it.
"I've spent more than a thousand years actively disassociating myself from the name of Methos," Methos continued. "Perhaps I am not him anymore. Perhaps I should cede the name to the others who have since claimed it." He exhaled long and loud, then met Richie's eyes. The familiar resolve had returned. "You just had to push it, didn't you?"
Richie shrugged. He'd learned more than he had any idea there was to know, leaving him with a million more questions he didn't dare ask. Not that he was going to let on to that. "What can I say? I've never met a rule I didn't want to test. Sue me."
Methos gave an exasperated head shake. "Don't do that again."
"Or you'll take my head," Richie responded wearily, anticipating the implied consequence. With Immortals, that threat always loomed in the background. It wasn't unusual for centuries long relationships to end with a slash of the sword in the heat of an argument. And he and Methos had never been friends.
Methos' shoulders dropped and he gusted out a sigh like Richie had missed something important, and obvious. "I don't want your head, Richie and I don't want your Quickening. I never have."
The consolation didn't mean much; he knew how rapidly those sentiments could change. "Yeah, we'll see how you feel in a couple hours. Come on, Old Man, let's get you up and get some blood moving through those ancient veins of yours. If we do this right, we can keep you awake and alive long enough to get you back to your old lying self." He slotted his arm under Methos' and helped him to his feet, then held him steady as the change in blood pressure brought on a wave of dizziness that made Methos tip.
When they were both stable again, Methos asked, "Did you get the answer you wanted?"
"I think I got all the answers," Richie responded. "That might be the first time I've asked a yes or no question and gotten yes, no, and maybe as legit answers. It was pretty cool, too, even if I only understood half of it. Gotta hand it to you for finding a loophole."
"It wasn't a loophole. I … had to start at the beginning."
"Yeah, well, I'm not gonna tell," he reiterated. "Really."
Methos squeezed Richie's shoulder. "I'm not worried."
Richie frowned at the sudden additional weight of the moment. Why the hell not? he wanted to ask. You've never been worried about me telling or threatened my head. Why not? As his ears still rang from the last question he'd asked, he managed to hold his tongue. There was a first time for everything. "So, just a thought here: your ex, the one who put this spell on you…"
"I've tried texting her. I think she blocked me." Methos shook his head at the irony of it all. "Guess she wasn't prepared for me to interrupt our peaceful dinner by yelling at her in a language the modern world doesn't know existed before tearing out of the restaurant and sticking her with the tab."
"Dude, she cast a truth spell on you. I think the least she can do is pick up the bill."
That earned a chuckle. "Surprisingly, I don't blame her. She knew I was keeping secrets from her and she wanted to know what they were."
"Yeah, but a truth spell …" Realizing he was headed toward a question, Richie adjusted his tone. "…is not how to do things. She could've tried being patient and trusting you."
Methos acknowledged Richie's course correction with a small smile. "You know as well as I do that there's no benign revelation waiting at the end of her patience. She either has to worry that I'm a secret mass murderer or she gets to find out I'm one of the most infamous ones."
"Or, she only wondered whether you were married."
Methos was too caught up in his recollection now to acknowledge such a mundane possibility. "She must have slipped the potion into my wine. I'd just finished a sip when the the waiter…" He stopped. They had circled the room a couple times, kicking aside the pile of laundry Richie had been meaning to get to and stepping over a series of boxes that had once contained motorcycle parts. Richie assumed they'd keep circling it until sunrise, though each pass drove home how badly he needed to do some straightening up. Methos turned then, breaking free of Richie's supporting arm. "The waiter asked us how everything was. Everything." He palmed his face. "Fuck."
Answering the question of his name had taken Methos a solid half an hour. How long …Richie turned to look out the window. The rain had finally stopped, though the discordant dripping from the eaves and nearby trees suggested otherwise. Clouds still blocked the stars and ozone and humidity hung in a thick fog that obscured everything else. "No wonder you didn't show up until ass o'clock in the morning. I can't believe I didn't feel you out there." He imagined Methos—soaked to the skin and pissed from delivering an uncontrollable, multi-hour monologue—pacing around the apartment complex until it was safe to come in. Now he was even more surprised that the neighbors—or the cops—hadn't involved themselves.
"I didn't come straight here," Methos countered. "It's not like I could get a cab, and the last thing I needed was someone to ask me, well, anything. Fortunately, I have a little practice in avoiding people and no aversion to walking long distances."
"Wait. You were walking all night and you didn't get much, or any, dinner. That's a lot of energy you burned and practically a whole day without eating!"
"Plus or minus approximately twelve hours and two meals."
Richie waved off the correction. "We still need to keep you awake and moving until dawn. Breakfast, it is." Invigorated by this new prospect, he bounded toward the kitchen. Good thing he'd just been grocery shopping.
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Methos called after him. He pitched a wadded up piece of instruction manual that bounced off Richie's back. "I can see how you live. You might give us food poisoning for real."
"Whatever. It's not like it'll kill us."
—
Though food was no substitute for sleep, it did help perk both of them up. And, aside from the basic commentary required of two people working on a coordinating activity, neither of them spoke the whole time. The silence was easy, companionable, and totally unexpected. In the handful of interactions they'd had since they'd met, Richie couldn't recall the two of them ever getting along like, well, friends. He chalked it up to sleep deprivation.
Together, they cleared the table and started the washing up, with Methos stepping up to the sink while Richie went to retrieve the errant glass from the living room.
"You shouldn't have to help," Richie said, a long-unused rule of etiquette bubbling up. "You're a guest. I can handle this."
Methos shook his head. "I've already been a considerable imposition on your hospitality. Besides, when this is over, I plan to impose on it more and take every advantage of your earlier offer of the couch. The least I can do is help clean up after myself."
"All right."
"You're not going to argue?" Methos seemed surprised.
"Hey, I hate the washing part. Something about the texture of wet ceramic…" Richie shuddered. "You wanna wash, you can wash. I'll dry. Then we can, I dunno, go see if I have a deck of cards kicking around anywhere. Or maybe there'll be something worth watching on TV."
"No TV. The plan is to stay awake, remember?"
It was a good point, and Richie was starting to worry that if he stopped moving long enough, he would fall asleep. He stayed up all night before, lots of times. Most of those times, he was well into the morning before he'd felt a twinge of sleepiness. Tonight, for some reason, was different. Most people would've chalked it up to a consequence of growing old, but, well…
A raucous flurry of twittering broke through his thoughts. Richie and Methos turned as one toward the source just as a different bird let loose with its morning song. Fog still clung to the window, yet a glimmer of brightness shone through it.
"Dawn!" Richie dropped the towel and raced to push the window open. Those damned birds always started about an hour before his alarm went off; he'd never been so happy to hear them before. Second by second, the birdsong increased and the density of the fog decreased.
Methos joined him, still holding a dripping plate in one hand and the washcloth in the other. "Go ahead," he said. "Something simple."
"Are you wearing shoes?" Richie blurted out. It was the first thing he thought of.
"No. Try another one." He didn't even glance down at his feet to check, like most people would have.
"Am I wearing shoes?"
"No. Come on, Rich. Now you're asking the easy questions? That's too simple. You can do better. Just … try to stay away from anything existential."
Put like that, now all Richie could think of were big questions. He scratched his head; it was still too late for this. Too early? Whatever, now was not the right time for clear thinking.
One thing had been nagging at him since Methos arrived, though: that nice suit. While Richie didn't live in the slums, none of the eating establishments within respectable distance required attire fancier than shirt and shoes. A few didn't even enforce that much. However, Mac lived near fancy restaurants. So did Joe. And Amanda. Depending on which one he'd been at, Methos would've had to walk past at least one of their places to get to Richie's. "Why me?"
Methos gritted his teeth, like the question hurt him; the washcloth dripped onto the top of his feet.
"I mean, why did you come to my place?"
His teeth ground with audible scraping and he balled the cloth in his hand, squeezing the rest of the moisture from it. "Because I like you," he blurted out.
"Like?" Richie's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Or, like-like? Because, if it's like-like, I'm flattered, man, but I'm also straight."
"That might've been true when you were mortal. How many Quickenings have you taken since then? They change us more than providing … for example … an ability to play the harmonica." Methos offered the specific like it had been the first random idea he thought of rather than an interest Richie had inherited, all while still keeping most of his attention on the brightening sky.
Richie knew better, and he now intended to have a word with Joe about why that detail was in his Chronicle. That Methos had obviously read Richie's Chronicle was a different issue. Worse, he suspected Methos was right—truth spell or not. His reaction at the strip down earlier was suspicious, though he wasn't going to accept such a claim that easily. "Touche. So, explain Mac. He's taken dozens of heads—maybe hundreds—and he's as much as ladies' man as it gets."
"There's a difference between habit and choice. MacLeod is a creature of habit—though I think, if you asked him, you'd find he's made a lot of choice 'exceptions' to his habit. You're your own man; you make your own choices."
Of course Methos has read Mac's Chronicle, too. Richie chided himself on how he'd never wondered or asked about that before. Methos had been a Watcher; he'd probably read every Immortals' Chronicles—which meant he had a bigger picture view of what they went through than anyone. The possibility that Quickenings had changed Richie in ways beyond the acquisition of some nebulous "knowledge and power" intrigued him. But not as much as the fact that Methos appeared to be coming onto him. While under a truth spell.
"Why me?" Richie asked again. While the words were the same, the question wasn't. Methos had at least fifty centuries under his belt, and Richie hadn't yet made it to one. What could Methos see in him?
Methos shut his eyes and swallowed hard, at least being allowed to organize the thoughts the spell compelled him to express. "The Game is the epitome of sink or swim, Richie. You know that. There isn't a lot of forgiveness for mistakes or ignorance, yet you've held your own. And some of the hurdles you had would have broken a lesser man." He stopped, glanced down and away. Watery light illuminated the side of his body facing the window, a pale pink brightening his skin. When he looked back up again, a smile played on his lips. "I knew you had it in you."
As if now noticing them, he gathered the plate and cloth and carried them back to the sink. Without another word, he finished the washing up, then crossed to the couch and threw himself on it. Richie could only gape, all quips and smart retorts lost in what he thought Methos was insinuating.
The cushions whooshed from the sudden weight and the frame of the couch squealed. Methos ignored both and turned on his side, curling an arm across his eyes.
"Wait! That's it? Knew I had what in me? Come on, man!"
"Go to sleep, Richie," came Methos' muffled response. "Some answers can wait."