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Duncan fetched the mail from the mailbox and glanced through it as he walked up to the house. All the letters were addressed to Peter Verity.
He really wondered about Methos' sense of humor sometimes.
The ocean didn't look any different in Baja, but the land was dry and vicious. Bees buzzed his head every few minutes and he was sure that was a coyote lurking under a bush just past the road.
He stepped onto the porch and felt the buzz. "I'm around back!" Methos shouted. He was currently wearing a strangely-flavored American accent.
Duncan walked around the house and Methos' sword stopped him at the corner. "Well, you're a trusting soul," Methos said, putting it away. He had a scabbard concealed in netting at his side: beekeeper's protective netting. There were hives among the bushes behind the house. "Where have you been? I thought you'd show up years ago."
Duncan handed him the mail. "I've been busy. This and that." A bee landed on his hair and he shrugged it off.
"Anything in particular?" Methos asked. He moved toward the hives and Duncan followed him.
"I took up snowboarding. I learned to code Perl. I helped catch Kayla Martin." Duncan watched Methos move among the beehives. He looked good; odd, but healthy and bright. He wore a dusty black sweater with his jeans and boots and had a short beard twisted into points, which seemed to be the fashion these days. "You know, Cory's just up the coast in California."
"Yeah, I know. We had a bit of a falling-out. I'm keeping an eye on him so he doesn't spring any more surprises on me." Methos opened a hive and bees swarmed around him.
"He won't."
Methos raised an eyebrow at him.
"He told me all about it--and he told me it was a horrible mistake. Trust me. I know when someone's just telling me what they think I want to hear, and I don't think he was." Several bees landed on the open collar of his shirt, tickling his neck. He swatted at them and one of them stung--a tiny flare, hardly worse than the tickle.
"Hold still," Methos said. "They'll sting you." Bees were crawling all over Methos without stinging him.
Duncan brushed them off. "It doesn't hurt."
"Yeah, but when they sting, they die. Shoo." Methos waved his hands and Duncan backed off. He stood on the back porch and picked the stinger out of his skin, feeling more than a little ashamed. Methos closed up the hive.
"Sorry," Duncan said as Methos ushered him inside.
Methos shoved his nose into Duncan's neck and sniffed. Duncan hunched, pushing him away. "That's what you get for smelling like flowers. Better wash before you go back outside," Methos said.
"Yeah thanks, I'll remember that." Duncan sat at the table.
The sun shone in daggers and sheets through the shutters on the west wall, striping the room with shadow and dazzle. Flecks of wallpaper were stuck to the walls, reflecting formless color: red, yellow, brown, cream.
The table was crowded with jars of honey, which cast a golden glow across the floor. Methos stopped in the middle of the kitchen and stood with his back turned to Duncan, hands hooked in his belt loops, looking at the cupboards. "Why are you here?" he asked.
"I haven't seen you in a while. I thought we might have unfinished business."
"We're Immortal. We're never finished until we're done," Methos said. He bent his head, rocking back on his heels. "I borrowed a book from Darius in 1582 and never did manage to get it back to him. It's probably worth a fortune now--it was copied by hand. His hand."
"You knew Darius?"
"Yeah. He always wanted to introduce us, but I refused."
"Why?"
Methos shrugged. "I'm shy." He looked over his shoulder at Duncan and cocked an eyebrow.
Well, he knew that. "Why did he want to introduce us?" Duncan clarified.
"Oh." Methos turned and leaned against the counter. "He knew who I was; he wanted to show off the world's oldest man to his friends."
"Doesn't sound like Darius," Duncan said, smiling.
"It's true, though," Methos said. "He knew what I was. He'd grown up with stories of the Horsemen in his ears. And he knew that I'd followed a different path than he did, or that you have. He thought I could teach you something."
A bee circled around the room. "You have." Duncan stood and pulled up his shirt, showing Methos the holster hidden in the small of his back.
"Daft boy." Methos rubbed his forehead.
"Methos. Is that my sweater?"
Methos looked down. "Possibly?"
Duncan lifted his chin and kissed him.
He hooked his fingers through Methos' belt loop, feeling dust under his fingertips and wax against his palm. The beard was softer than he expected, nearly as soft as Methos' hair, but the points were sticky as they brushed against his neck. Methos' lips were hard and cracked. His mouth was sweet with honey.
Methos' hands slid up his shoulders--and met with a clap behind his head. He bit at Duncan's lip as Duncan broke the kiss. "What was that?" Duncan asked.
"Bee," Methos said, quite breathless. "Crawling on your hair."
"Mm, thanks." Duncan rubbed his cheek against Methos'. "By the way, I hate the beard."
Methos bumped him away with his hip. "I love the beard," he said firmly. "I've been missing them." He stalked over to the door and toed it open; outside, he opened his hands and released the bee into the yard.
"Well, I guess I can live with that. No worse than Tessa's paint fumes."
Methos turned back with a slit-eyed glare. "What are you playing at, MacLeod?" he snapped.
Duncan spread his hands. "Nothing?"
"You haven't taken another dark Quickening, have you?" Methos advanced on him, head tilted, slight smile on his lips. "Or a clown Quickening?"
"I woke up one day and realized I missed you."
"Oh, God, you're going to get sentimental. Stop," Methos said, walking into Duncan's arms and kissing him, and then wriggling against him and unbuttoning his trousers.
Duncan pushed him back into the table--too hard; he sent the jars clinking together, but Methos didn't object--and dropped to his knees. He opened Methos' dusty jeans and found that the man had stolen his underwear as well. "Is there anything of mine that hasn't ended up in your bag?" Duncan asked.
"Your pants--you have at least four inches in the waist on me." Methos grabbed the edge of the table as Duncan slid his hands under the silk, around the slight curve of his ass. Duncan tugged his jeans down and rubbed his cheek up his thigh and licked up the curve of his cock.
Methos was nearly silent--which didn't surprise him, because nothing about the man could surprise him any more--only his breath betraying him. If Duncan was clumsy from lack of practice, Methos didn't seem to mind.
"You have a hole in your penis," Duncan said afterwards.
Methos slid down onto the floor with him, sweaty and rumpled. "Yeah. It's so you can put things in it."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"Beats me. I didn't ask. When you're fourteen years old and high on sacred mushrooms, everything the shaman suggests seems like a good idea." Methos skinned out of his sweater and ran his hands up under Duncan's shirt.
Duncan kissed him. "Methos."
"Yes?" Methos unbuttoned his shirt deliberately.
"You can't remember your childhood."
"No? Well, I must have read it in a book." Methos shoved Duncan's shirt down off his shoulders and licked his collarbone. "I have no idea why I have holes in unexpected places," Methos said into his neck.
"Yeah, like your brain--" Duncan broke off as Methos slid his hand into his pants.
Methos' fingertips were rough and slightly sticky. His mouth was still sweet when Duncan kissed him; his hair was soft and fine. And his hands were--insistent--
Strong. Duncan clutched him, shoving into his hand, coming. Methos held onto him; held him close. Kissed his neck. "Good to see you," Methos said.
"I needed to think," Methos said, beer bottle propped on his chest as he lounged naked on the bed. "Joe would have called me if you needed rescuing again."
Duncan reclined against the headboard, hand on Methos' ankle and beer at his side. "It's been quiet lately. I've been living in San Francisco."
"That explains this, then--"
"Would you stop it?" Duncan kicked his elbow.
Methos jerked the bottle away. "Hey! Watch it!"
"Joe doesn't like it," Duncan continued. "All the demonstrations make him nervous. He was nearly dragged from his car a few weeks ago."
"Why?"
"SUV. They only stopped when he showed them the handicap alterations."
"Kids today," Methos said.
"So I'm moving. Someplace I've never lived. You enjoy Baja?"
"Yes, but you'd hate it. How about Australia?"
"Sounds good." Duncan rubbed his thumb over Methos' calf. "So that's settled, then."
"What's settled?"
"Me and you, going to live in Australia. Get a building. Get a dog. You bring home the bacon, I learn to make pie..."
"If you put it that way. I love pie." Methos shook his head, laughing silently. "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod..."
"I changed my name," Duncan said.
"You what?"
"My new identity. My driver's license says Gabriel Askey."
"You never," Methos scoffed, prodded his stomach with his foot. "What brought that on?"
Duncan looked up at the ceiling. "Groupies."
Methos started laughing.
"Somehow I got famous, and there were Immortals hanging around all the damned time, and stop laughing! It's not funny!"
Methos curled up knees to chest, he was laughing so hard. Duncan launched himself on top of the man. "It's not funny," he said, and bit Methos' beard.
Methos wrapped his arms around him. Beer spilled from the tilted bottle in ticklish drips down Duncan's back. "Shall I teach you how to live a quiet, retiring life?" he asked.
"I was, for a while there. Twelve whole years before that Slan Quince guy showed up." He nuzzled Methos' throat before rolling over beside him. "I can't disappear. I can't just be a different man. I tried... after Richie... but it didn't take, and I'm really not sure it's a good idea to begin with."
"Is this a rhetorical musing, or are you looking for a few words of wisdom?" Methos raised himself up on one elbow and drained his beer in one impressively long swallow.
Duncan watched his Adam's apple bob. "Have you got any words of wisdom?"
Methos reached over Duncan to set the empty bottle on the nightstand, and then didn't bother rolling back. "Not a one," he said, smiling down at Duncan.
"Well, what good are you, then?"
Methos slitted his eyes at him, then scrambled down his body and knelt between his knees. Duncan quickly set his bottle next to the other. "I am very good," Methos said. "I've had years of practice."
"Yeah?"
Methos smiled. "Yeah. I'm very good at being me." He pushed Duncan's leg up and licked the back of his knee.
"So no good at all," Duncan said. He reached for the beer bottle but stopped halfway there, remembering something. "How do you do your binding trick with your students?"
"I shared a fruit with them. Desire does it; the vehicle isn't important."
He'd felt it when Lucas Desiree died--a sensation he'd never had at any death, mortal or Immortal, before or since. But if all it took was the desire for the bond to form... Duncan tipped the last of the beer into his mouth, thinking that over.
Methos took the empty bottle from his hand and licked the drops from his lips.
A spark jumped between them. Methos leapt back.
The bottle rattled into the corner as Methos stared at him, nails dug into Duncan's thighs. "You bound me," Methos said.
"I." He didn't mean to, but he must have wanted to.
Blood welled up under Methos' nails and was immediately sucked back with tiny lightnings. "Why?"
"I don't know."
Methos stood, smoothing his hands over Duncan's thighs. "It doesn't work in reverse. You won't know where I am."
"But I'll know if you die, right?"
"I won't die." Methos laced his fingers behind his head and looked out the window. "Not in your lifetime. And I don't do marriage, not to Immortals."
"I'm sorry," Duncan said.
"Send me your address when you get to Australia."
"I will." Duncan got out of bed and started looking for his clothes.
Methos caught his hand. "I'll bring honey." He pulled Duncan to him and kissed him hard. "So long, MacLeod."
Outside, Duncan was sure he saw the coyote again, lounging under a bush by the side of the road; but when he skipped a rock toward it, it was only a trick of the light.
THE END.
All comments are welcome.