Disclaimer: I do not own Methos or Highlander. Majkia does own Sydney.
Author's Note: And of course, I realize now why Methos is never the one asked to explain immortality to anyone. He's absolute rubbish at it. Learn with Methos why killing yourself in front of your new girlfriend is just plain stupid. We hope you enjoy the Old Man's folly. More M rating stuff included.
Also, Majkia and I would both like to say that we really appreciate you guys who have been sending us such wonderful reviews. They make us very happy and confident about this story and we have less bottle caps tossed in our direction. Thank you!
She struggled, trying to get free of his grip, sobbing. "The phone. Let go. I'll call 911. Jesus. Adam!" she cried, desperate to do something but held too tightly to fight free.
"No...no, just wait." Methos begged as he released one hand to pull the bloody letter opener out of his chest and tossed it aside, his eyes wide as his heart started to die. His breathing was labored. "It hurts like hell...but it'll pass."
He held her chin so she would look at him and smiled grimly as his labored against the pain. "See you in a second." He said just before his heart stopped. His head fell back onto the bed.
That's when the small crackle of blue light engulfed the wound.
She stared at him, at the light, at the death grip he held her in, tears streaming down her face, but wanting desperately to hope.
Twenty seconds passed before the blue light faded, leaving nothing but dried blood and smooth skin, it took ten more seconds before his heart started again.
Methos gasped as his back rose off the bed, his eyes widening as he tried to drag air into his lungs. His body shook as he tried to steady himself and the pain of reviving swallowed him. He cursed. "Bloody hell, I wish there was a less a painful way of doing that!" He groaned as he waited for the room to stop spinning.
She sat there and began shivering, her eyes wide with shock. "What the hell were you thinking! What the hell are you! Who are you? I don't... It can't.. Jesus..."
He laughed and then groaned when that still hurt. "I told you. Methos, oldest immortal alive, nice to meet you." He reached for her hand, trying to calm her down as the pain passed and he sat up. "Sydney, it's still me, the man you met a few days ago. All that's different is you know the whole truth now."
"I know.. what whole truth? That, what, no matter what, you don't die? That .. that you just go on forever? Alone?" The last word came out awfully small.
In the dark she could of missed the sudden pain in his eyes as he pulled her into his arms, his hold soothing and strong at the same time. "I'm not alone here." He whispered. "Not here, not now."
He could feel her heat pounding as he held her, feel the wetness of her cheeks. She clung to him for some time not saying anything. Then, as her body began to return to normal, she said quietly, "I knew your name wasn't Adam."
Methos nodded. "I knew you'd figure it out on your own eventually. But I promised myself I'd never lie to you." He smiled. "You're just too bloody smart for your own good."
She drew back a bit from him and touched the scar on his abdomen. "And this? Why is it still here, since the new one healed," she asked.
He watched her trace the scar, sucking in a breath at contact with the still sensitive skin, after all these centuries. "It's how I died, the first time." He said, a faint smirk at the ridiculousness of that sentence. "We're all humans in the beginning. Normal life spans, normal lives, a dog and a horse if we're lucky. Then we're murdered and become what we are. It happens with all immortals." He shrugged, scrubbing the dry blood from his chest with the heel of his hand. "Some wake up new born and shunned, some are lucky...And some get killed off before they even learn what they are." He said.
"But you said you don't die," she replied. "Others? Many others?'
"Oh, that's the best part," Methos corrected sarcastically. "We can die. But that would only happen if you took my head. And since we're all a bit old and crotchety, we have swords, the weapon of choice for proper decapitation. I prefer a .45 myself. But it tends to piss people off when you keep shooting them, something about not playing fair." He complained. "But it does help when you have a bunch of head hunters after your arse just to gain quickenings." He waved his hand as if to say that was another topic unto itself.
"I work on and off for an organization that keeps track of immortals," He said, flexing the wrist where his tattoo was. "But even we don't know how many there are."
She pondered it all. "The secret society you mentioned, as if it were a joke," she said. "So you .. did you meet Alexander?" She laughed, sounding a bit embarrassed. "God, I'd be locked away if anyone heard me ask that seriously."
"Not by me, that is unless I suddenly become the center of your next thesis," His eyes narrowing a fracture. "Then I might have to silence you somehow." He joked.
"Who would believe me if I did?" she asked finally finding a weak smile.
"Are you all right?" He asked gently as he brushed the still wet tears from her cheek.
She shivered. "No. You nearly gave me a heart attack."
"I'm sorry, but a cut could of been played off as a trick, piercing my hand would of been explained the same way. I needed you to believe me." He carefully leaned forward and kissed her. "Forgive an insolent bastard?"
She frowned at him. "Was I the only one who didn't know? At the bar, I mean."
"MacLeod knows because he's like me, nowhere near as old but he's the one who acts like the ancient one sometimes. Julian, because we have a past. But that's it, everyone else thought I was simply long lived or just a guy. And I prefer it that way." His brow furrowed. "Does it bother you?"
"It's.. I don't know. I mean, it would be nice to talk to someone who can reassure me I'm not completely bonkers and this is all some sort of Lost fugue state or something."
Methos nodded. "Then seeing Joe is the best plan. He's a watcher, the organization I told you about, his job is to document what we do, keep track of us. Or MacLoed would be more then happy to talk to you, good old boy scout that he is."
"Why did you tell me all this.. show me this?" she asked, watching his expression carefully.
"Because, you were right. I'm alone." He said, feeling the sudden hollow truth of it.
"I have people like Joe and MacLeod, but they're all a part of it. And taking another immortal as a lover is too dangerous, eventually they'll kill me for who I am. Because like you said, people change. More so over the span of a hundred years then over ten or twenty. After that much time you can barely recognize a person. And..." He swallowed and watched her eyes. "When you've lived as long as I have, you can understand how you feel about someone much sooner then you once did."
"I'd have thought it would be the other way round. Especially if there are enemies out there, and others watching you. Why are others watching you?"
"They're bored?" Methos said with a shrug and grin. "I joined so no one would ever find me. I pretended to be a mortal and ended up being in charge of finding myself. Needless to say, that hasn't happened yet." He wore a rueful smile. "But Watchers aren't allowed to interfere and for the most part immortals don't know they exist. They just watch."
"It seems pretty silly to me, but okay. So... Methos," she said it a bit experimentally. "I guess since you don't want to find yourself you use Adam."
"Exactly." Methos said, a smile coming immediately as she used his real name. "You catch on quickly, Professor."
"Well, I was well off my game on you. I certainly had not thought you a decrepit fellow of 5000. I usually date younger men. You know what they say about men reaching their sexual peak much younger than women."
Methos was doing a perfect impression of a fish with the way his mouth hung open. "Decrepit? I'll have you know, child, that I've had the pleasure of making some woman weep at the chance of being with me. How is that decrepit?" There was a certain haughty note to his voice that made him sound more like a petulant child then a great romancer at that moment.
"I'll grant you have nice legs and a fair ass," she replied. "Still.. enthusiasm is what women really want. Well, and a tad bit of imagination. Well, and a bit of tenderness at the right moment. Perhaps we can revisit those issues and I'll revise my view of decrepit men?"
"Enthusiasm?" He asked with a crooked grin before suddenly lifting her onto his lap, holding her hips in place. "Imagination...," his fingers ghosted down her spine so they caused only the smallest of tingling vibrations against her skin, raising the small hairs. "Tenderness..." His voice dropped to a near whisper as he brushed the hair away from her neck and rested his cheek on her shoulder, lips parting to blow cool air just beneath her hairline and along the shell of her ear.
"Mmmm," she whispered. "More please," she asked, her hand reaching for his chest, She placed her palm flat against it above his heart, as if she wanted the reassurance of feeling its beating. She smiled down at him.
He looked up from her shoulder and replied in a lazy grin before his nails trailed down her back, reaching down to cup her ass and pull her against him, causing a slow grinding friction. He hissed in her ear even as he nipped her collarbone and blew over the newly laved skin.
She finally broke into laughter. "Have you always been a brat, or did it take centuries to hone the ability to a fine art?"
"Oh, centuries," He said. "And not only did I know Alexander..." He trailed off teasingly kissing just beneath her jaw. "I..." Then bore his teeth on the skin. "Was one of his favorites."
"Were you indeed," she replied then yelped as he bit down. "I'm going to have to endure overly Bruted male students staring at that bruise and imagining how it got there, you know. I don't even want to guess what they'll think."
Then after a moment she asked, "One of his favorites?"
Methos pulled back and smiled at her. "Probably not the information you were hoping for. But I'm not in the habit of kissing and telling. Or to speak unkindly of the dead. As for your students..." He said, trailing his fingers against the mark. "Tell them I'm newly released from, I don't know, an asylum? And I have massive mood swings between completely giddy to extremely homicidal." He suggested.
"Should I be afraid?" she asked.
"Aren't you?" He asked, looking childishly puzzled.
"Oddly enough, I'm not. Despite delusions of grandeur and imaginative bursts of enthusiasm, I think he's a pretty nice guy. this Methos. And I hope to get to know him better." She pushed against his chest until he fell onto the bed on his back. She moved so she could straddle him and sat on his hips her hands toying with the fine hair on his chest.
Methos eyes slid closed for a moment, as his hands slid up her taunt stomach and over her breasts. "I hope so too." He said as his hands found her hips.
She felt him respond and she raised up to slip him inside her, her eyes closing as she did so, but her lips curving up in a smile at his grunt of appreciation. She began moving on him, slowly, tortuously slowly for him.
Methos groaned out loud, his chest rising and falling in an uneven tempo that only worsened each time she slid back down onto him. His fingers dug into her hips and he made the mistake of pulling her down a little harder the next time. It sent a jolt through him that made his eyes fly open and his mouth form a silent 'o' of pleasure and pain.
She hesitated for a moment her concentration gone suddenly as a wave of pleasure spasmed through her. Methos felt it in the muscles tensing over him. She arched backward with the orgasm, an a groan of pleasure escaped her.
Methos helped her ride out the rest of her release and brought her mouth down to his as he shuddered, fingers twining in her hair as he kissed her.
Afterwards, both of them spent, muscles like jelly, they lay in each others arms.
"So..." Methos said once he could breathe again. "Two weeks, beers with Joe in Paris, right?"
"You're serious," she asked.
Methos looked wounded. "I'm a very serious guy."
"Hmmmm. Right. Lucky I have a current passport then."
"Prepared, I like that." Methos said, then his fingers traced her nose and lips. "But you can say no, now that you know what you do." He let out a deep breath. "I wouldn't blame you if you did."
She laughed, deep in her throat. "You obviously don't know me well. I'm intensely curious, and awfully stubborn. Not to mention far too intrigued by a hidden world I know next to nothing about to not go."
"Good lord, I'm falling for Pandora herself." Methos said. "Heaven help all immortals."
"It's all your fault," she retorted. "Just be glad the Watchers didn't recruit me. See?" she showed him her untattooed arms.
He took her unblemished skin and kissed where she was unburdened. "Give Joe a week, he'll try to make you my personal walking conscience."
"Ah, now I definitely am going. That I've got to hear. So, do I need to make plane reservations?"
"No. You pack, fend off Brut wearing students and bring something other than Bloom or A Concise Guide to read on the plane." Methos ordered. "The rest I'll do."
"Ok, now you need to go, because I need a few hours of sleep. And I have a day of grading exams to look forward to. Blech."
"So you take advantage of my body and then kick me out?" Methos asked curiously. "I feel so used."
"Will you actually let me sleep if you stay?" she asked, the look in her eye clearly saying she didn't believe that for a minute.
Methos looked extremely thoughtful about that. "I can...try."
Sydney socked him with a pillow. "Out. Call me. After noon."
Methos spluttered a bit under the barrage of pillow. "All right, fine!" He yelped and dove from the bed, glowering back at her as he gathered all his things. "But you better make it up to me tomorrow."
"Maybe... If you are extra specially nice."
A dangerous smile appeared on Methos lips as he buttoned his shirt.
Sydney laughed seeing it. Then said, "I'll accept my fate. Well, I'll try to." She watched him as he dressed, perhaps having second thoughts of her own about him leaving.
"Good girl," He teased as he walked over and leaned in to place on last heated kiss against her mouth. "Good night."
"Good night, Methos," she replied. She pulled on her robe, walked with him to the door, watching as he picked up his coat. "Be careful."
He smiled, pulling on his coat, a gleam of steel she wouldn't have seen if he didn't want her to. "Don't worry, I always am."
"Good." She watched him out the door and down the steps. And then she sank onto her sofa. "Oh God. Am I a total idiot?" She laughed, hugged herself and went to bed.
P.S. We love reviews and beer. Throw the first, but not the second please. Shaken beer is messy.
P.P.S. (From the characters.)
Dear Adam,
It was a blast.
Syd
Attached: One bill for the Village Cleaners for 20 bucks to get blood out of a set of sheets.
Dear Sydney,
And worth every bloody dime.
love,
Adam
