Nearly an hour passed in this manor, but Joe's mind had started to drift long before that. By now he was just letting his fingers stroll across the strings, not much caring what he played. His thoughts were elsewhere. Actually, his thoughts were across the bar, drinking their umpteenth beer. Joe was still no closer to finding out what was eating at the world's oldest immortal, and his curiosity—as well as his concern—was definitely piqued.
He wasn't aware of what his fingers were doing, but apparently Methos was.
"What was that?"
Joe looked up, startled out of his musings, to see that Methos had pivoted on his bar stool and was staring at him intently.
"That song you were just playing. What was it?"
"Oh, this?" Joe plucked out the familiar notes again.
Methos nodded emphatically. "Yes, yes that one!" He dropped off the stool and landed on wobbly legs, being mostly tired and only partially sober. "What is that?"
"I'm not really sure," Joe confessed. "I had a buddy in Vietnam who'd play these notes on his harmonica. Every night when we didn't have to keep quiet, for the better part of a year. I heard the damn thing so many times I memorized the notes. When I got back stateside and picked up my guitar again, I figured out how to play it. Now I just play it for practice sometimes. It's a nice tune, but it doesn't lend itself to anything, really."
Joe felt more than saw the sharpening of Methos's gaze and knew that the wheels were turning in that ancient mind. A tightening of the jaw, the furrow deepening between his eyes--something was taking root there, all right.
"Play it again," Methos instructed, and since curious didn't even begin to cover it, Joe obliged him. The tune was simple and repetitive and remarkably un-complicated. He could play it from memory, half asleep, while thinking about just about anything else.
"Again."
Joe shrugged and nodded and went through the notes a second time, and then a third, forth, and fifth, all the while watching Methos watching him. He played, watched, and wondered--and felt the hairs on the back of his neck climb up one by one.
"What is it, old man?" he asked, his voice sudden and shocking in air that thrummed with sweet music riding on an unnamed tension. "You recognize it or something?"
Methos blinked and the release was palpable, as though the space between them had been pulled taut like a rubber band only to bounce back again, swift and sudden into enforced relaxation. "It's too high," he pronounced, definitively, into the pooling lassitude.
Joe merely arched an eyebrow.
"Lower some of the notes," Methos elaborated with careful patience.
Joe snorted a laugh. "Which ones?"
"Just do it!" The immortal snapped, but his hands were twitching, clenching and unclenching with tripping fingers, and Joe knew that Methos was holding onto something but he was damned if he knew what. With an exaggerated sigh, he did what he was told.
Methos closed his eyes and concentrated intently. "Closer, but still too high."
"Well it won't go much lower without a capo."
Methos gestured impatiently, and Joe grit his teeth and swallowed whatever he might have said. After applying the capo and completely retuning his guitar, he played the song yet again. Once again Methos shut his eyes to listen, only this time he gave no indication and Joe was forced to wait for instructions..
"Don't stop," Methos directed, his voice painfully soft. Those unsteady hands had balled into white-knuckled fists, and Joe realized it was the song he clung to, the notes that wafted through the air between them as though he had to ride on every one and pull it in, and so Joe obliged him. To deny Methos now would have been beyond cruel.
Three more repetitions passed before Methos spoke again. "It's too fast." This time his voice was clinical. He'd found what he was looking for and was now dissecting it.
Joe couldn't help himself. "Really," he scoffed, part incredulous and part sarcastic.
"It should have more of a lyrical flow," Methos elaborated. "You have it so fast it's halting, too much like a jig."
"What's wrong with that?" The question was an honest one.
Methos would have none of it. "Everything!" Then he winced, apparently dismayed at his own outburst. Joe watched him reel it back, collect the parts that had scattered and reshuffle them back where they belonged. "Please, Joseph." A naked plea. Joe marveled that it must have cost the immortal something terrible, keeping that level of control.
"Slow like blues?"
Methos nodded, and Joe forced a smiled. It was either that or give in to the impulse to question things. Methos didn't seem like he could handle his curiosity right now. He played the song as directed, and when Methos shook his head halfway through the first run he altered it, and again and again and again until the tune took shape according to the immortal's vision.
"That's it!" Methos proclaimed at last, and there was a terrible promise layered within the elation of discovery. So might Oppenheimer have looked, the day of the Trinity Test. "There it is, right there."
"There what is?" Joe asked, still playing.
Then the most unexpected thing in all the world happened.
Methos began to sing.
His voice was soft, and slow, like he was sorely out of practice and feeling very self conscious. After the first few lines though, his voice matched pitch with the guitar, and his smooth baritone filled the bar… and dumbfounded that bartender playing the music. Methos had a pleasant voice, and the song sounded natural coming from him.
It was an old song, Joe knew. It sounded like it should have been sung around a campfire. The guitar accompaniment didn't sound too bad, but one could easily tell that the piece wasn't written for the guitar. Indeed, it had surely been written long before guitars had been invented.
Joe didn't know what language Methos was singing in. He didn't recognize a single word or phrase. However, he didn't have to. The emotion conveyed in Methos's voice as his tongue tumbled over and around the words was heartbreakingly clear. This language, light and pleasant to listen to, produced almost entirely in the front of the mouth, with the tongue and teeth and lips, almost like French but without the nasality, coupled with Methos's surprisingly emotive voice, was enough to convey feelings of immense sadness, and loss, far better than any blues Joe had played or heard in a long, long time. Joe realized now, as he felt his eyes begin to mist, why Methos was so insistent that it be slowed down. That was no dancing song, God no.
This was a dirge, a lament.
But a lament for what, or whom, that was the question.
When Methos finished the song, he looked down and away again, almost turning around. His cheeks flushed slightly from embarrassment. Joe's fingers ground to a stop, unnatural and discordant. The ensuing silence left him feeling oddly bereft, and he spoke more to fill the void of it than out of any hope of getting an answer.
"What was that?"
Methos didn't answer, if even he heard the question. If even he was capable of answering. He stood transfixed, his eyes staring unseeing at some point on the floor. Wherever his mind had taken him, it was far away from here.
Joe put his guitar back on its stand and stood up. "Methos? Yo, Methos!" He walked over to the edge of the stage and climbed down gingerly, as was his way with his prostheses. "Adam?" He tried the different tactic as he approached the distracted immortal, finally waving a hand back and forth in front of Methos's face. "Earth to the old guy!"
Methos jumped, starting slightly when he saw that the watcher was now standing not two feet away from him. He looked confused, his mouth parting as if to answer but no sound was forthcoming.
If Joe didn't know better, he'd have sworn that Methos had just now woken up from that nap--or perhaps a flashback?--and was surprised to find himself standing in the middle of the bar. "I think you'd better sit down, old man."
Methos paused a moment before nodding. He couldn't remember a time when he'd felt so tired, and that was definitely saying something. Of all the nights to hear that song… Yes, Murphy was definitely an immortal.
"No-no," Joe's voice cut in, and Methos blinked. Suddenly the watcher was standing by his shoulder--when had he moved? "I think that you should take a booth."
It was then that Methos noticed that he had been headed for the bar. With a sigh he allowed Joe to lead him over to the booth where his sword was still resting. Perhaps attempting to balance on a barstool wasn't the smartest choice for right now, he mused as he sunk down into the booth and allowed his head to bow forward and rest on the table atop his crossed arms.
"Can I get you something?" Joe's voice came again, this time to his left. "Beer?"
"No!" Methos protested with sudden vehemence, his head shooting up. However, if he was planning on explaining himself those plans were suddenly derailed. By what, Joe didn't have a clue, but the immortal's expression clearly showed that train jumping its tracks. "Water's fine," Methos said instead, his voice still distracted.
Joe nodded and headed over towards the bar. He filled a tall glass with water and added a few ice cubes. Then he poured himself a smaller glass of MacLeod's favorite scotch. After what had just transpired, the watcher deemed that he needed it. Methos looked up again when Joe set their glasses on the table.
"I think this is the first time you've ever ordered water here," he said as he down.
The immortal nodded dumbly as he picked up his glass. He gulped the top third of it before putting it back down on the booth. "Your bar has had an evening of firsts from me tonight," he conceded, his lips twitching into the faintest of smirks. "I've sang, played, and ordered water, and all while topless."
Joe had to laugh at that. Then: "why the water?" he asked; the first of many, many questions, and seemingly, the simplest.
Methos sighed heavily. "Five thousand years, Joe, and do you know when they invented indoor plumbing? Or irrigation? Sliced bread, my ass."
"So that song put you in the mood for water?" Joe was fishing, and he knew it.
Methos shot him an annoyed glance. "No, the ungodly amounts of alcohol in my system put me in the mood for water." But the sarcasm didn't fall nearly as sharp as he'd probably meant it to. Joe took it in, along with how Methos's shoulders were still slightly slumped, and how he easily could read the lines of tension that etched themselves into the immortal's skin now that they weren't hidden by some baggy sweater.
"Funny," he said, "but I don't believe you."
That one earned the watcher an icy glare.
"C'mon, old man. You have to admit that you haven't been acting yourself tonight."
The glare narrowed to a vicious point, and the cold grin that bled into Methos's expression was the reflection of that knife, unsheathing. "Yeah, well, you know. What with the jetlag, and the car accident, the painful reminders of the past, and hateful accusations..."
Joe tensed, recoiling slightly. He'd deserved that. He also wasn't going to allow himself to be distracted. "Painful reminders of the past?"
Methos indulged in an exaggerated shrug, his head falling back to thump against the wall. "What do you want, Joe? An anecdote or riddle from my long and checkered history? Or perhaps a few lines of that 'fortune-cookie wisdom' you seem to like so much." His voice was dismissive, and the exhaustion laced therein wasn't just for show.
"I just want to know what's up with you, old man," Joe said earnestly, allowing his worry to show.
Methos sighed, and Joe watched the fight drain out of him, all those tense muscles relaxing by degrees. Then he took a long sip of water, for courage probably, or maybe he was just stalling. Joe was struck by the inane thought that the immortal didn't look like he was eating as much as he should as he watched skin slide over too-prominent ribs.
"There was a time when I killed and died for this," Methos said at last. He was staring at Joe's altered reflection through his glass, at the watcher almost didn't want to know what he saw in that distorted picture.
"For water?"
Methos nodded. "When I lived in the desert, long ago."
"Are those the painful memories?" Joe felt like he was grasping at straws, but he was grateful that Methos was talking.
Methos quirked a small smile. "Dying is usually painful, Joseph." Then that smile contorted. "Not that you'd be an authority on the subject or anything."
Joe shook his head with an exasperated chuckle. "You know that's not what I meant."
"No." The cryptic reply was tacked onto the tails of another sigh.
Silence returned again, but Joe would have none of it. "Come on, Methos," he all but begged. "Talk to me."
Methos smiled slightly again, that unkind little smile of his. "Why should I?" he challenged quietly.
Joe's answer was sure and easy. "Because if something's bugging you enough for others to actually be able to see that something's bugging you, then it must be serious."
"That transparent, am I?" Methos asked, his grin cooling to a smirk.
"You said yourself that you weren't up to trading verbal blows tonight."
"Then why are you pursuing this?"
That brought Joe up short. There was nothing he could say to that. "Because I want to help," he settled on at last.
Methos gave up a bark of incredulous laughter. "And badgering me is helping?"
Joe shrugged for effect. "Well if you'd just tell me what's wrong that it wouldn't be badgering, now, would it."
Methos rubbed tiredly at his eyes, groaning in frustration and exhaustion.
"Please, Methos. Whatever it is, I'm sure talking about it would be better than sitting here stewing about it and pretending that nothing's wrong."
"You're a watcher, Joe." Methos's hands were still pressing into his eyes. "Not a psychiatrist."
"I'm a bartender," Joe returned. "Close enough."
"Why are you so intent on helping me?" There was a wealth of bitterness beneath the confusion in Methos's tone, his mind having already supplied a dozen unhappy answers. "Do you feel the need to clear your conscience from earlier, or are you looking to pad your records a little with a few glimpses at an immortal's past? Do they still offer nifty little bonus checks for that?"
All right, that one stung. "Some of us don't need a selfish reason to want to help our friends." The words flew out before he could stop them. Joe knew he'd put his foot in it when Methos's face darkened.
"I'm going to put my clothes on, I think." Then he stood without another word and made his way to the kitchen. Joe said nothing, only able to stare after him.
Methos found where Joe had hung his socks and sweater to dry over the industrial sink. The socks were dry so he put those on, relieved to no longer have to walk on Joe's floor in bare feet. It is a bar, after all, no matter how clean Joe tries to keep it. His sneakers were mostly dry, too, so he put those on as well. After all, who wants black-soled socks? Alas, his sweater was still damp. It was no longer dripping though, and most of the wetness seemed to have been pulled down by gravity into the bottom half of the garment and sleeves. Deciding that he desperately needed the baggy concealment of the sweater, he put it on anyway. After all, immortals need not worry about catching cold.
Once again having the protection of the sweater made Methos feel worlds better, even if it was still damp and miserable to wear. Joe had been able to see all of his reactions to things: every muscle's tensing, every relaxation, every sharp intake of breath, every silent sigh. Aside from being literally naked, Methos felt vulnerable being so exposed. Without his many masks, who was he? Deep down inside, he wasn't sure if he even knew. He sure as hell wasn't ready to see what Joe Dawson thought of it.
Of course, deep down inside, he was also curious as hell to find out. Who was the man he buried all those millennia ago? The man who fought and killed, and died, for water in the Sumerian desert, beneath the scorching sun when it was still young and the world was large and new and only the immortals didn't fear the ocean? The man who remembered a time when horses weren't tamed for riding and bronze was so new a discovery it couldn't be had everywhere? The man who became a scholar in the Temple at Ur, by the feet of the Ancient himself, whose lament he'd just sang anew, when writing had been newly invented?
Who was the immortal he was before Methos? Did he still exist, somewhere inside that tumultuous quickening? Or did Death truly kill him off, or was he still there, lurking behind the walls that Methos didn't like to acknowledge with his conscious mind, with all his scholarly knowledge of the Old Ones and the Beginning of Days?
Methos didn't know.
For millennia he has denied the existence of all that he was before Death, preferring it that the man that he was had died. Death killed him and took his place. Or, more specifically, he died when Ur fell, and Death avenged him. Once again his thoughts drifted back to his brothers, and to what he was, what they were, the cities they razed to the ground…
He thought of Kronos: his savior, his brother, his counterpart. If only he could have told MacLeod the reasons he could not have killed him last year when the man practically begged for answers. If only he could tell Joe now.
Methos. Such an interesting name. And somehow, so fitting. Methos. Mythos. A myth. That's what he was. In essence that what he always has been. He was a myth now, as the oldest living immortal, and he was a myth then, as Death of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it held a very different reference, long ago, when Kronos gave him the name, before they rode together. A myth he was then, even, to the Kassite mercenary fascinated by the man with strange eyes who could not die.
A man who was, in essence, already dead. Mythos took his place. Methos he became, when he decided to adopt the name in earnest. Though for 750 years, only five people knew that name. Only one of them was alive today.
And she wanted his head.
Cassandra. His prophetess. As he felt the dampness of his sweater eat into his skin he wondered if she remembered her real name, or if, like he did, she tried to forget it, and go by the one given to her by someone who came to own more of her soul than she would ever admit to.
Methos could empathize.
These things and more weighed on his soul tonight, just as they had been ever since Geneva. Ever since those pasty, bookish, myopic, caffeine-addicted Methos researchers who thought it was cool to hold their meetings in restaurants simply so they could speak to each other in Latin and ancient Greek to impress the wait-staff began offering their wildest theories on all that Methos is, was, and should be, influenced entirely by overactive imaginations, a distinct need for religion in their lives, a few too many lonely nights with the sci-fi channel.
Methos is old. He must know all the ins and outs of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, and every other religious treatise in existence.
Methos is powerful. He must have amassed a fighting skill by now that would make virtually untouchable.
Methos has been playing the game for at least five thousand years. He must know of its origins, and of immortals who've broken the the rules.
What was up with that Methuselah Stone? Rebecca had it. Luthor killed for it. Does it really have magical powers?
Are we really alone in the universe? I bet Methos has met some aliens in his time...
Do you think Methos knows where Atlantis is? Or rather, where it was?
Normally Methos is able to keep his desired commentary to himself during such meeting and take only banal amusement from his colleagues' conjecturing. However, this year he was not in the mood to hear of all the wonderful things that he was supposed to know and have done. He did not want to hear the hope in their voices as they rattled off all that he was purportedly able to tell them. Not this year.
He wasn't the Methos they wanted him to be. Oh no, far from it.
And he wasn't 'just a guy,' either.
That was Adam Pierson.
Methos was Death. Death on a horse. You want my help with your religion? Try Revelations, 6:8. That was me!
Methos sighed again and leaned against the countertop for support. Oh yes, he knew who he was. And it was more than just Death, mounted on a pale horse, bringing ugly end to whomever he met. People saw Death, and knew that their time had come. Sometimes they fought him, sometimes they were resigned, often they feared, but always, always they knew what to expect. Death brought death. It really was quite simple.
Death was gone for right now. Always a part of him, but buried, along with Methos's many other masks. Adam Pierson reigned now, the watcher, historian, and perpetual grad student currently owned the better half of Methos's soul. Adam Pierson, 'just a guy' who couldn't save Alexa. Adam Pierson, the watcher who couldn't save Darius or even attend his funeral. Adam Pierson, the Methos researcher who betrayed Jacob Galati to his death. Adam Pierson, just as good as Don Salzar, whom Kalas butchered for information. It took many a beer bottle to drown the irony.
It was also Adam Pierson whom Melvin Korin had held captive as he tried to locate Methos, or so Adam had told the watchers. Because it was Adam Pierson, who'd befriended Joe, who'd befriended MacLeod, and to whom he betrayed Methos's brothers. Adam Pierson condemned Kronos to die, and convinced Methos to kill Silas.
And it was Adam Pierson, friend of Dawson, who convinced Methos to stand aside and let MacLeod kill Byron. Adam Pierson, who preferred books and beer and baggy sweaters, quick with a joke, possessed of shy and captivating charm. Adam Pierson, mortal, watcher, researcher, your average guy, personally tailored to possess absolutely nothing special about him. Adam Pierson, observer of the game, even as the watchers played larger roles than they ought, who takes no heed as Methos's brothers and students fall. He is only a watcher, after all
Adam Pierson, Methos's best researcher, who knows him better than he knows himself.
Adam Pierson, figment of Methos's imagination.
The man in the stiff blue jeans, damp sweater, and uncomfortable sneakers let out a deep, shuddering sigh. He had many names, but none seemed to fit. Methos: Mythos: myth… he should have died in Bordeaux. Adam Pierson? Perhaps Methos killed him.
So where did that leave him now?
Five thousand years old, and without a name.
Though that wasn't entirely true. He did have a name. He'd had many names before Death--surely one of them would do. And he'd had many identities before Adam Pierson. One of them would suffice as well.
And Joe still sat, out there in the bar, wanting answers. Well, Methos could give him an answer.
He might even give him a name.
