After dinner, the two brothers settled on the bed and lay back against the headboard, both looking on ahead at the wall in front of them, neither saying a word, until Methos finally commented:
"So this is what it feels like to be an old married couple on a second honeymoon."
"Married couple, eh?"
A mischievous smirk formed on Kronos' face as an idea came to him. He yawned and raised both arms above his head and settled one of them around Methos' back and gripped his shoulder. When he moved closer to his brother, Methos pushed him away and replied, "Not now, I'm not in the mood."
Kronos laughed, "You sound like a woman I was married to alright."
Methos nodded, "You sound like a woman I was married to as well. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad."
"What would be?" Kronos asked.
"Well, most people tend to marry people who are like their parents, regardless of how the parents acted. It seems we marry women who are like each other," Methos told him.
"It makes sense if you ask me," Kronos said, "You spend 2,000 years away from someone, you're bound to look for a person with similar qualities."
"Yeah, you'd be surprised how many big mean bossy women there are in this world," Methos said.
Kronos turned and looked at him and Methos turned and looked at the wall; Kronos balled his hand into a fist and drew it back to strike but Methos turned back towards him at the last second and Kronos let it go and looked away.
"I just thought of something," Methos said.
"What's that?"
"Suppose there's a camera in this room."
Kronos turned back to Methos and asked, "What's that?"
"Some hotels do that you know, they hide cameras in the rooms and record what the customers do."
"What the hell for?" Kronos asked.
"Well…" Methos said in a suggestive tone.
The look on Kronos' face was priceless as he put two and two together and concluded, "Now that's just sick!"
Methos was starting to laugh as he responded, "I know."
Kronos sprang off the bed and started pacing back and forth.
"That's the sickest thing I've heard in a long time and you believe me, I've heard plenty of them, I…hey!"
With that, he jumped back on the bed by his brother.
"Hey what?" Methos asked.
"How thick do you suppose they make the walls in these places?"
"What?"
"Remember what you said the first night we were at the bar, that the people there were going to get the wrong idea about us?"
"Yes and if my memory serves, all eyes were on us for quite a while," Methos said, "I haven't seen so many people look that uncomfortable since people first relocated to Massachusetts from England, and they had plenty of reason to be uncomfortable."
That same mischievous smirk formed on Kronos' face again and all he seemed to have to say was, "Well…"
"Well what?" Methos asked.
Kronos was starting to laugh as he explained, "I'm going to guess they don't make the walls in hotels very thick, so probably it's very easy for other people to hear what's going on in these rooms…well, if anybody's struck with enough morbid curiosity to be listening in on us, I say we give them something worth listening to."
Methos was starting to get an idea of what Kronos had in mind and he quickly got off the bed and started to back away.
"Oh no you don't, Kronos," he said, "You stay away from me."
"Not this time."
Methos turned to get away but Kronos jumped him and they both fell to the floor. Methos struggled to get away but Kronos had him pinned against the floor; all the same Methos struggled with everything in him to get loose from his brother's grip. Kronos kept Methos' arms locked behind his back and with his brother in no position to escape, he leaned in against him and started kissing him like a drunken fool. Methos alternated between screaming and laughing as he tried to break away but to no avail. While he wasn't able to get away he was able to throw his weight against Kronos and knock him onto the floor; but Kronos was too stubborn to let go of him so they spent the next half hour rolling on top of each other on the floor.
Considering all the noise they were making Methos was sure the other guests and the staff had to have heard the ruckus and they all must have been drawing some pretty wild conclusions; and it was then that he realized this was exactly what Kronos had planned. Somehow Kronos always saw that his ideas were carried out; regardless of everything and everybody involved, and he especially didn't care who came out of it embarrassed to death.
After what seemed like an eternity, both men lost their strength to continue with the struggle any further; the only thing they had the energy left to do now was look at each other and laugh. Kronos lay on top of Methos, too exhausted to get up, and too exhausted to roll off of him. He snaked his arms around Methos' back and said, "I've missed this."
"I've missed you," Methos reciprocated.
"I know," Kronos replied, "But I'm back now, and that's all that matters."
Methos tiredly smiled and wrapped his arms around Kronos' back. Kronos leaned in closer and kissed him. This was something else that both were quite familiar with. Methos claimed that he had forgotten a lot about his past; but from where the Horsemen came in, Kronos recalled every detail of their lives from so long ago. One thing he particularly remembered was how in the beginning, how inconsolable Methos could be; he was scared to death of everything and everyone and anybody who came near him and tried to comfort him, he would fight them with everything in him.
One night early on, Methos began screaming in his sleep and the other three brothers woke him up and when he was aware of his surroundings, he tried to run away. Kronos being the closest to Methos pinned him down so he couldn't escape, and that either reminding him of his nightmare, or his life before they found him, terrified him and he screamed like an injured beast. Kronos sent Silas and Caspian away and insisted he could take care of things; Kronos, a charmer by nature had handled many women in a similar way before, so he did what he knew best. He shut Methos up by kissing him and not pulling away until neither had any breath left in them. If having his new brother pinned on top of him had terrified Methos, having Kronos kiss him like a love-starved fool traumatized him to no return. He fought, he resisted, he tried beating Kronos with his fists but Kronos was too heavy for him to get out from underneath and he wouldn't ease up.
When Kronos finally let him go, Methos wouldn't look up at him; in almost a shameful manner he kept his head low to the ground and crawled back to bed. Later in the night he ran away when the others were asleep, but Kronos found him down by the river. Methos looked terrified when he saw Kronos coming and realized he couldn't get away.
"You have no reason to be afraid of me, Methos," he said, "I'm not going to hurt you."
Methos didn't try to run but he was shaking like a man freezing to death. Kronos grabbed hold of him and waited for what they would later know as convulsions, to pass.
"Now tell me what's wrong," Kronos said.
Methos pulled away from Kronos and kept his head down as he explained to Kronos that he didn't want to tell him. It didn't matter much though, Kronos had seen it all across the land; he knew exactly what kind of life Methos had led long before they had found him.
It took a good long while to convince Methos that he wasn't going to be returning to his old way of life as a slave who did anything and everything to please his heartless master. Methos told Kronos that he knew things weren't the same, and that they wouldn't be.
"Please don't laugh at me if I tell you how I know," Methos said.
Kronos swore he wouldn't. All the same Methos was too embarrassed to look at Kronos as he answered.
"It was the way you kissed me," he shyly answered, "Nobody ever…" even in the dark of night Kronos could see his face turning red, "It was…"
"It wasn't unpleasant," Kronos said.
Methos shook his head. This whole ordeal was embarrassing to him but it was a relief to Kronos because it was the first time since they'd rescued him that he even resembled being happy.
"I know," Kronos told him, "I know exactly what it's like…we all come from the same life."
Methos hadn't expected that; it left him with a question.
"How did you get away?"
Kronos smiled as he recalled, "The last one I served had a wife…she was nice. He was a soldier, he was gone a lot in battle."
Methos seemed to be coming to the conclusion already.
"And she stayed with you."
"Naturally…I learned a lot from her."
Kronos ran his hands down the sides of Methos' ribs to demonstrate; Methos laughed and stepped back.
"She didn't want to be married to him anymore, so we made a plan. She got a dagger and gave it to me. When he returned he took her inside and pushed her on the bed and got on top of her. I killed him before he could even realize what had happened; we burnt his body, took his horses and his gold and left."
"Is that how you got over what they did to you?" Methos asked.
"It took me a long time to get over what had been done to me by those bastards, it probably won't be anytime soon for you either."
That wasn't what Methos had wanted to hear. Kronos kissed him on the mouth again and on his cheek. For whatever reason, it seemed to work and Methos started to laugh again.
"That's better, now come on," Kronos said, "Let's go back."
4,000 years later, they still had an understanding, albeit a slightly better one than in the beginning. Kronos would never say it to Methos but he felt he understood the whole ordeal better than his brother did. When a master demanded their personal services, he wasn't looking for affection, companionship, or love. All he wanted was unquestioned obedience, and when they the slaves didn't dare disobey, the master saw little reason not to be as merciless and brutal as he could be for his own sick pleasure.
Those the two Immortals had served knew nothing about passion or affection and everything about fear and terror. Every kiss, every touch they made towards their slaves, it was all a test of their loyalty and had nothing to do with love or even consideration towards their servants. And they always saw to it that the slaves never disappointed them because if they refused to serve their masters, they were met with punishments beyond anything they had previously had the misfortune of suffering.
It never seemed to matter how far they got away from their pasts and how far they had come from serving those sadists, the damage done to them by the bastards stayed with them all their lives. Immortals were not meant to live in isolation but a good number of them tried in vain to live their whole lives so because they could never move past what had been done to them by other people that surrounded them. Kronos himself stayed away from people many times as best he could because he knew that even though times changed and nations rose and fell, a person didn't have to be a master in order to be a heartless masochistic bastard who thrived on the pain and fear of those he surrounded himself with.
Kronos suspected that Methos suffered a similar fate and that's why despite having 67 wives he spent so much time alone even though he detested it. Now in his own time Kronos had had the intimate companionship of a good number of women who found him to be too affectionate, even for them. One he recalled asked if he was seeing a psychiatrist about his problem. That's what was wrong with people, you act a little different than the rest of the world and suddenly you're the one with a problem. However Kronos had often suspected that because he was the way he was, that was why Methos had been able to come out of screaming blue murder anytime somebody got close to him.
Between the two brothers there was and had always been an understanding that only the two of them knew about. A long time ago Kronos had come up with the theory that the only people closer and more intimate than lovers were brothers because they understood each other the most; each felt the other's pain and both had something to gain from the other's happiness.
Kronos pulled up and away from Methos and looked down at him.
"You know," he said, "You look kind of cute right about now."
Methos couldn't be furious now to save his life. He was too tired and even though he hadn't had much to drink at dinner he felt too drunk for it; he just looked away and laughed.
Kronos got off of Methos and helped him back onto his feet.
"Well now you look like you're enjoying yourself," Kronos said.
Methos had an idea as to why that was but he wasn't about to say anything just yet.
"I guess I'm just happy to be with you again after all this time," Methos said as he stepped next to Kronos and threw his arms around his brother.
Kronos didn't say anything but the thought going through his head at that time was, "If you think you're happy now, just wait until we get the hell out of here."
Methos slowly woke up and saw that the room was dark. He remembered that they weren't at his apartment but in a hotel room; but one thing he couldn't remember was going to bed. Turning on his side he saw Kronos was slowly coming around as well.
"Sleep well?" he asked.
Methos tiredly nodded, "What time is it?"
Kronos got up and picked up the clock off the nightstand, "10 o' clock in the morning and forecast for rain."
"How do you know that?" Methos asked.
No sooner had he said that, a deafening clap of thunder boomed out of nowhere and it almost sent Methos jumping out of bed.
"Call it an instinct," Kronos innocently commented.
"So what're we going to do today?" Methos asked.
Kronos thought about it for a minute before answering, "I'm content to just stay here all day, how about you?"
Methos nodded and rested his head back against the pillows.
"Last night was nice, we'll have to do it again sometime," Kronos said.
Methos thought about that for a minute before asking, "What exactly did happen last night?"
Kronos started to laugh, "Now you don't mean to tell me that you forgot."
"Well there are certain parts that I don't remember, like where it all ended and when we got to bed."
"Well…for one thing we cleared out every last bottle in that bar, after which…well," he laughed, "I really don't know what happened after that, all I remember is I woke up at about 2:30 and found you under the bed trying to dig up the carpet."
Methos looked at his hands as if he was trying to remember the event.
"That must have been some wine we drank."
Kronos laughed, "You can say that again."
The two brothers lay alongside each other for a few minutes in a tired state, taking in the peace of mind each seemed to have found in the other's company. Suddenly, something happened that made it all come crashing down. Both immediately felt the quickening of an Immortal coming down the hallway to their room. Before Methos could even move, Kronos had already jumped out of bed and picked up his Luger and had it aimed at the door.
The door opened and in stepped of all people, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, and Methos at that very moment was paralyzed in bed with shock; all the while wanting to crawl under a rock somewhere at that instant.
Apparently this wasn't the scene that MacLeod had intended to stumble upon either. He stood in the doorway with a look on his face that was so commonly referred to as a deer in headlights.
"Adam…" was all he managed to say.
Kronos, even less thrilled by this company, let out an exasperated sigh, but didn't lower the aim of his gun any.
Methos let out a surprising scream as he jumped out of bed; one that was so sudden and so high pitched that it nearly scared the other two Immortals out of their skins. Instead of saying anything, Methos let out another scream only this one was closer to a laugh; and slowly it became a maniacal laugh of a man who had truly gone insane, and that was the only noise he made as he all but jumped across the room, into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut behind him.
Kronos returned his attention, and the aim of his gun, to MacLeod and said, "Well home wrecker, I sure hope you have a good excuse for barging in like this first thing in the bloody morning."
Duncan closed the door behind him so nobody could walk in on this sight by accident.
"I was worried about Adam," he defensively responded, "I heard what happened yesterday and…"
"And it took you all of 20 hours to come and see how he was doing," Kronos said, "You'll have to do better than that, MacLeod."
Kronos watched as a glare built up in MacLeod's eyes; MacLeod was trying to think of where he had met with this man before.
"You're looking at me as if you know me," Kronos said with a sinister, knowing smile on his face, "You don't know me."
"I want to know," Duncan said, "What are you to Adam?"
"To Adam?" Kronos repeated, "Nothing. To Methos," oh he loved that terrorized look of shock that was building in MacLeod's eyes, "More than you'll ever know. We," he continued, "Are brothers; does that mean anything to you?"
He was talking as if MacLeod were a simpleton, and truth be told Kronos wasn't thinking much different of him right now.
Duncan however at that time was so shocked by what Kronos had just said, he seemed to fit the expression that you could knock him over with a feather.
"That's right, MacLeod, the man you've known as Adam Pierson for two years, and I, have been brothers for well over 4,000 years, can you even begin to understand what that means? I didn't think so…well learn this lesson well, I may have been absent for a while, but I'm back now and I have no intentions of leaving. If I find out anybody hurt my brother, I'm going to kill them, I've already killed well over 10,000 people in my life, one more isn't going to bother my conscience at all. Now, given that my brother for some crazy reason seems to like you, I'm going to give you the chance to get the hell out, but you better do it before I change my mind," Kronos warned him, "Just because he likes you doesn't mean I have to, and hell will freeze over before I do."
MacLeod wasn't stupid enough to press his luck. He opened the door and left the way he came. When that was over, Kronos shook his head and put his gun back down on the nightstand. Even for being as old as he was and having done all that he did, his nerves were still frazzled by this recent series of events; and what had just happened wasn't making him feel any better about it all.
Kronos went over to the bathroom door and listened in. Not a sound, a terrible contrast to the maniacal noises Methos was making just a few moments ago. If it weren't for the undying quickening that was practically booming in his skull, he would swear Methos probably slit his wrists with a razor or drowned himself in the bathtub. Still, Kronos wasn't sure barging in on him was going to do much good. He had seen that look on Methos' face when MacLeod came through the door; this apparently wasn't a visit either of them had had planned. So he decided he'd leave Methos to himself for a while and give him time to take in what had happened and move on from there.
So he gave his brother some room to breathe; during which time he got dressed, made the bed, threw out the wine bottles and straightened up a few other things in the room. He wound up waiting over two hours and still Methos wasn't showing any signs of being alive yet. Kronos went over to the door and listened and the room was still as quiet as the dead. He knocked on the door and heard no response.
"Methos, come on out of there, MacLeod's gone, neither of us has killed the other yet, there's nobody here except me."
He backed away from the door and a minute later it opened and Methos stepped out looking half dead. He kept his head down as he came back into the room, he wouldn't look towards Kronos at all.
"Methos, are you okay?" Kronos asked.
Methos slowly nodded his head and walked over towards his brother.
"I'm not sure I believe you," he reached over and grabbed Methos by the arm, "Come here."
With less than ease, Kronos pulled Methos onto his lap and Methos was less than thrilled to say the least. It gave Kronos a chance to look him dead in the eyes; they were telltale red.
"What's wrong?" Kronos asked.
Methos didn't answer and he dropped his gaze.
"I bet I know," Kronos said, "You were worried if MacLeod and I met," the rest of that thought seemed to need no further explanation, "Well, so we didn't get along, so what? He's still alive, I'm still here, nobody ever said brothers had to get along with friends."
However Kronos could tell by the way Methos was acting that that was the least of his worries.
"What is it?" Kronos asked, "Don't tell me…you're worried if MacLeod finds out about your little past, he'll drop you like a rattler."
Methos closed his eyes and shamefully buried his face in his hands.
"I thought as much," Kronos said, "I still wish you could explain just why you're so fond of that bastard."
Methos tried to get up but Kronos pulled him back down onto his lap.
"Don't worry, MacLeod's not going to find out, not from me anyway," Kronos assured him, "Apparently he's the sort best left in the dark about things like this, and hell if I'm going to give him a light."
He leaned over and kissed Methos and said, "Feeling better now?"
"A little," Methos sheepishly replied.
"Good, get dressed, I'll have them send up our lunch."
Methos got up and went over to the bed and picked up his clothes and got dressed while Kronos called room service. After he hung up he sat down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling and started laughing.
"What is it?" Methos asked.
"The look on your face when MacLeod walked in," Kronos answered, "You sure weren't expecting that, and that sound you made," he laughed, "That was worse than listening to a chicken with its head cut off!"
As Methos recalled the events of earlier that day, he started to laugh as well.
"It would seem also that Macleod sure wasn't expecting to walk in on both of us in bed," he added, "Did you see the look on his face?"
Kronos was about to fall off the bed laughing.
"How old is he?" Kronos asked.
"400 years old."
"He must originate from one of those rigid four corners of the earth," Kronos said, "Usually you get around that long and it's no big surprise to find two men in the same bed."
"That's not what bothers him…not so much as the simple fact of catching the world's oldest man in bed with another man…I don't know why, or what, but MacLeod expects something from me because I'm the oldest."
"What's that?" Kronos asked.
"I don't know…you should have seen him when I told him I had 67 wives, he couldn't believe it. It's like he expects me to be a hermit all my life or something."
"However I'll take it he didn't just get out of a monastery himself," Kronos said.
Methos shook his head, remembering what he'd seen of Amanda over the years.
"Well," Kronos said, "Something tells me that these next few days are going to give him one hell of a wakeup call."
That was exactly what Methos was worried about.
That night as the two lay beside each other in the bed; Kronos looked up at the ceiling in the darkened room and listened to the even breathing coming from the other side of the bed. Methos, thank God, had fallen asleep with no trouble and had stayed asleep for over an hour now; tonight it was Kronos' turn to be the emotional wreck. He had tried to sleep but had forgone that idea when his mind started filling with memories from thousands of years ago. He recalled the first few years that the four of them were together; and in so, he recalled the many nights that none of them slept because Methos was plagued with nightmares from which he would often suffer violent results.
Kronos remembered times when Methos' whole body would go into such violent convulsions that he practically threw himself off the ground and into the air. Another time he recalled Caspian got to Methos first and tried to wake him up, but Methos, still caught up in his nightmare, struggled and dug his fingers into Caspian's flesh. By the time Kronos and Silas got there, Caspian looked like a bear had clawed him, blood seemed to be running down his entire body.
It seemed to take forever for Methos to finally stop having nightmares every single night, and even longer for it to pass that he woke everybody up when he was having them. Kronos had never been able to figure out what the nightmares were about, Methos would never tell him, sometimes he would say he couldn't remember; but Kronos never believed that to be true. One thing Kronos knew was that after all those years of sleep deprivation and putting up with Methos, he had no envy for the mothers who kept their retarded children at home instead of handing them over to an asylum, because the one bright side he could actually look at was that Methos had come out of it after only a few years.
As Kronos looked over to the other side of the bed and saw Methos lost in a deep sleep, it seemed to him, for the moment anyway, that that wasn't something that would be repeating soon.
"Thank God," he said as he moved over and lay down behind Methos and went to sleep by his side.
His nerves had been shot on and off for almost 4,000 years and even he of all people was entitled to an uninterrupted night of sleep.
The storm woke Kronos up at four in the morning; luckily though, Methos was in too deep of a sleep to hear it. Kronos turned on his side and tried to go back to sleep, but something was wrong and he knew it. He got out of bed and walked over to the door, opened it and looked out. Their room was in the middle of the floor so he could look up the hall and down it and see if anybody else was coming. For this time of day, the hall was pitch dark, it was only when lightning lit up the room that he saw there wasn't anybody out, and nobody looking out either. As he looked up the hall, one particularly bright bolt of lightning made the room as lit up as in the daytime, and he saw the knob on the door at the end of the hall turning. Kronos pulled back and closed the door all by an inch or so, and waited.
Over the rumble of the thunder Kronos wasn't able to hear the person come down the hall, and they were mortal so he wasn't able to feel them either; lightning filled the room again just as the person walked past their door. Kronos got a decent look at him to realize his suspicions were correct; it was the same man who ran them off the road. It was then that the gears started turning in his head and he got an idea. Acting quickly, he got dressed and pocketed his Luger where he could get it in a second's notice and secured his sword inside of his jacket. He looked back to the bed and saw Methos was still asleep; Kronos walked back over to the bed and kissed his brother before fixing the lock on the door to bolt behind him before slipping out of the room and following the bastard.
