Chapter 7 It doesn't matter to me…
Meanwhile, in the shower Sherlock tried to regain his composure and make up his mind.
What did he really want from Benjamin? Was it just sex?
He'd had sex with men and women before, out of curiosity. He didn't label himself anything. Sex, no matter with whom, had just been a means to relieve stress.
Sherlock had never invested any emotions – except for that one time that had gone horribly wrong.
So, was he ready to get involved with a man? he asked himself.
No, not just a man – an immortal man! Sherlock still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that this man could not die… unless he lost his head.
His brain raced, trying in vain to come up with an explanation for this mystery.
Pictures from the fight he had just witnessed haunted his mind. Two men with swords in their hands had teamed up against another man.
Sherlock had followed Benjamin that night, determined to find out what secret he was hiding.
He had waited in the shadows, listened to their conversation.
As shocked as he had been by the revelations, as soon as he realized that Benjamin could possibly lose the fight, he had decided to interfere.
Having taken all kinds of weapon lessons, a fight with a sword seemed easy enough to do and he still had his gun. The latter reinstated a sporting chance.
His opponent, though, had turned out to be an excellent swordsman, but he was driven by sentiment. Sherlock had his own theory about sentiment...
He had to fight dirty in order to win, but he had no qualms doing so. The unusual exertion had left him breathless, and then… then he had to watch Benjamin fight with the other attacker.
A gut wrenching fear that he would lose his friend had churned through his body and scared the shit out of him. This feeling had made it very clear for him that and how much he was emotionally invested in Benjamin.
In the end, his friend had decapitated his opponent while keeping his gaze… he had killed a man before his own eyes…
Sherlock's mind still reeled from the memory of the expression in Benjamin's eyes.
The lightning show afterwards had been a surprise, and had fascinated did all that electric energy come from?
… and then Benjamin had screamed while being hit by the lightning, over and over again… he could still hear it… he shook his head to get rid of the flashback.
Finally, Sherlock finished his shower just when most of the hot water was used up. He toweled himself and put on a bathrobe which hung at the door.
Straightening the collar out of habit, Sherlock caught a whiff of a familiar scent and inhaled deeply while pressing his nose into the soft cloth. It was Benjamin's scent… a little tangy and purely masculine but also clear and fresh like a lush meadow after a short summer rain.
The scent had been ingrained in his memory while sitting next to the other man so many times…
Benjamin, who had been seething with anger after the fight… and who was waiting for him on the couch, nearly naked...
And Sherlock suddenly knew exactly what he wanted from Benjamin tonight.
He tore himself out of his reverie and walked back into the living room where he stopped dead in his tracks.
The immortal lay sprawled on the couch as if his long limbs possessed some extra joints. The towel was slung loosely around the hips, nearly exposing his most interesting parts.
Nursing a bottle of beer, the other man seemed completely oblivious to the effect his display had on the detective.
With only a slight hesitation, Sherlock advanced the couch and plopped down next to the ancient one.
"Want one too?" Methos waved the bottle at Sherlock but he declined.
"No, thanks, I don't drink", he replied.
The ancient one raised himself up, clearly surprised. "Not ever?" he asked. Sherlock shrugged.
"Did once for experimental reasons. Made a mess out of this." He whirled his finger next to his right temple.
Methos chuckled. "Yeah, it does sometimes. But it's good if you want to … forget about things." His voice became wistful.
"Drugs are more effective", Sherlock replied.
The old man scrutinized him. "You tried?" he inquired.
Sherlock held his gaze and nodded. "A couple of times."
Methos could sense that the younger man expected judgement and rejection, but he was far from complying. Hell, there had been times when he too had been high as a kite, and not just for a few days.
He just shrugged and pointed at the beer bottle. "Well, at least this is less lethal." With a grin he took another healthy swig and put the bottle down on the coffee table.
Sherlock couldn't help a smirk. "Guess you must have acquired the taste somewhere along the way", he replied, and he got the response he had hoped for.
"Ah, here we go with the questions. I suppose you have a few, yeah?" Methos retorted with an equal smirk on his chiseled face.
Well, two can play at this, Sherlock thought.
"I could be the one asking, but I'd rather hear what you are willing to enlighten me about", the detective answered.
He was a master at reading between the lines and there was probably more information in what Benjamin would keep to himself than in what he was willing to share.
"This could take the whole night, even if I keep it short", the immortal answered.
Sherlock wasn't ready to give up. "I've got time", he returned and settled deeper into the cushions.
"First of all, whatever I tell you now cannot ever leave this room, understood?"
Sherlock nodded. "I already deduced that you have a good reason to keep your real identity hidden", he replied.
Methos grinned. "And yet you sought to unveil my secret. Curiosity is good for learning, but it can kill you."
Sherlock just shrugged. "No risk, no fun." He remembered a few of his own secrets.
Methos laughed and started his explanation. "Okay, there are people in this world who are born immortal, and I'm one of them. With our first violent death, we remain frozen at that age. After that we cannot die unless we're beheaded. Some of us fight to acquire the life force of others – the lightning show you've seen, which we call quickening – some fight only if necessary in order to survive. The older an immortal gets, the more energy is accumulated, either by age or successful beheadings. And you've heard about the prime rule – it's always one on one combat."
Sherlock's brain sponged everything up with amazement.
"But why all that? How did it start and what is the purpose?" He couldn't contain his questions.
Methos shrugged. "That is beyond my knowledge. Rumour is that in the end of it all there can only be one survivor who gets a 'prize' – whatever that may be. I'm not even sure that a person who knows all the answers exists at all."
Sherlock frowned. "But then… it may all be a hoax. There might be nothing in the end and the only purpose all those fights served is the extinction of your kind."
Methos took a deep breath. "That may be true", he replied, "but unless all immortals stop fighting…", he shrugged.
Sherlock understood. "The game will continue."
Methos nodded. In Sherlock's eyes he could see comprehension of the heavy load he was carrying on his shoulders.
"So… how long have you been around then?" The detective silently hoped for more information.
The old man pondered on how to answer. He trusted Sherlock. And then decided to go for the truth.
"I am supposedly the oldest of our kind, though I don't remember when or where exactly I was born. Things like this weren't exactly recorded back then. I only know that it was somewhere in the middle-east, probably in early Sumer." Methos glanced wistfully down on his hands.
Sherlock's brain raced as he did the maths – five-thousand years? He gasped with shock.
"Wait a moment – you are… more than five-thousand years old?" Sherlock's eyes nearly bulged.
Methos nodded. "Give or take a few centuries, yes. Anyway, regarding beer…" he pointed to the bottle on the table. "I was probably born around the time it was invented."
The younger man let a low whistle and shook his head wistfully. "No wonder you don't mind fighting, or dying."
"No!" Methos replied and sat up.
"I may have died countless times and in many ways. You could say that I'm used to it, but do I want to die?" He shook his head.
"Not really, to be honest. There's always something worth to live for", the old man added with a smirk, patting the younger man's knee reassuringly.
Sherlock didn't know if he should be flattered or having a heart-attack. How could one live like this?
"I presume, visiting the British Museum feels like … coming home?" Sherlock inquired.
Methos' eyes darkened a bit, but he nodded. "There are countless stories about a lot of items there, but…", he stopped and exhaled shakily.
The younger man scrutinized him.
He looks haunted, Sherlock thought. No wonder after a life that long. "Too many unpleasant memories?" he murmured.
A sharp nod. "Times weren't exactly civilized back then", Methos replied and his gaze lost its focus again.
"I've lived many different lives, and I've killed many people ... I did what I had to do to stay alive. Often things ended in a blood bath – that's how times were back then. But then, there were also peaceful periods, at least a handful of them…" His voice drifted down to a whisper.
Methos didn't know why he was suddenly feeling the full weight of his long life, or why he was telling this youngling all this instead of being his usual cynical self.
He felt a hand on his arm and looked at it.
"Don't go there."
Methos raised his head and locked eyes with the man next to him. The face before him held a neutral yet compassionate expression.
"It doesn't matter to me what you've done or who you've been."
The words were spoken with such a confidence that Methos really wanted to believe them.
However, he knew that after events like tonight, such confessions were often related to the level of adrenalin still coursing through the blood.
"You wouldn't say that if you knew more", Methos said softly.
Sherlock smiled. "I don't think so."
He felt heat rising inside him under the piercing gaze of the older man. His hand seemed warm on the cool skin of the other's forearm, even though he could sense the warmth the body next him was emanating.
Sherlock swallowed nervously before he started to caress the skin beneath his fingertips very slowly.
The sudden change in Methos' gaze was astonishing. Green irises with a small hazel ring around each pupil turned into dark-green pools.
Arousal, Sherlock's mind prompted. He was curious and let his fingertips slide down to the pulse point on Methos' wrist. Accelerated, very much so, Sherlock noticed excitedly.
But the old man knew exactly what the young detective was doing and changed the grip by turning his hand, measuring Sherlock's pulse instead.
"Widened pupils, quick pulse… what a simple deduction", Methos said, amusement tugging at one corner of his mouth.
Sherlock blushed profoundly. The atmosphere in the room changed from one moment to the other.
"Tell me, young Sherlock…", Methos rose to his knees on the couch, "what other deductions can you make about me?" the old man purred and Sherlock suddenly found himself being advanced by a dangerously seductive animal in human form.
He involuntarily scrabbled backwards, but Methos was faster and pinned him down by straddling him.
Mesmerized by the pure arousal on the older man's face, Sherlock found himself stammering like a schoolboy.
"I… um, you're… you're dangerous … and a… a deadly fighter."
Methos stopped dead in his tracks.
This only encouraged the younger man. "You keep your real identity a secret because you enjoy life too much… but that wasn't always the case."
The old immortal froze inwardly. "Not bad", he said, keeping a bland face.
"I wasn't finished yet", Sherlock continued and sensing he was getting the upper hand, he sat up.
"There are things in your past you think will lead everyone to reject you. In fact, you've already experienced it", he explained.
"You don't know what you're talking about", Methos replied, his expression shutting down.
Defence mechanism, Sherlock thought.
"Oh, but I know how it feels", he returned and raised a hand.
Methos grabbed his wrist before he could touch the ancient's face.
"I'm not a damsel in distress", Methos sneered.
Sherlock grinned widely. "No."
He shook his head. "You", he wrestled his hand free and changed the grip, tugging Methos toward him, "are like a big cat, barely tamed by culture. Like a chameleon you ride through the times, always adapting for your ultimate goal."
Nose to nose they sat close now.
"Which would be?" Methos growled.
"Survival", Sherlock breathed and closed the small gap with a kiss.
His lips sought Methos' lips and with a smile he felt the old man's arms wrapping around his body.