Warnings: This is the first piece of Highlander fiction I wrote, and it shows. There are parts of it I seriously dislike, particularly Methos' passivity and the lack of detail about what it feels like to be immortal. But, hell, posting gets it off my hard drive and makes me feel like I've done something.
There are distinct elements of dominance/submission in this story, including pain and some semi-consensual sex. I know this freaks some people out, so don't read this if it does. You know who you are. Just to warn you, I use the word 'top' in its BDSM dominant meaning rather than its slash, er, penetrator designation.

Archiving; Ann F at Seventh Dimension: anyone else please ask.

Notes: Prince Dmitri Ivanovitch Vishnevetsky (Baida) was a historical figure from sixteenth-century Russia, the Starosta of Kanev and Cherkassy with five thousand Cossacks to his name. Apt as it is, the contemporary Song of Baida does exist, and the full text is quoted at the end of the text. As so much else, I first encountered him in the pages of Dorothy Dunnett's The Ringed Castle. Copyright rests with Dorothy's sons, and I have used her references without permission but with apologies.

October Lace
Jay Tryfanstone
June 2002-June 2003

The curve of a dashboard could be fascinating, to a man who had no other safe place to turn his eyes. The pitted black plastic, the rough edge of bad trimming by the curve of the glovebox, a glancing scar where someone had once stubbed out a cigarette. Out of the corners of his eyes, the black night and the street lights hazy in the October fog, the occasional dipped yellow lights of passing cars. His own hands, clasped and consciously still. His breathing. The silent watchfulness of the man beside him, driving, hands easy and assured on the wheel of the hired car.

His beautiful, not-so-innocent Highlander.

You do not have to say anything, Methos thought to himself, with a trace of tired amusement. All you have to is endure, and then you can leave. ('You should have known..')

"Well, that was an interesting experiment," said the man beside him.

('...how to punish him')

He could ask, where did you meet Baida? He could say, can I leave now? (No, too much of a request, too many intimations of power and control that right now he couldn't handle) He could say, I'm sorry, you should never have known...he could say, what was the weather like in London?

"What was the weather like in London?" Methos said.

He was astonished by the sound of his own voice, quiet, exact, Adam's voice still, as if those moments of desperate desire and shaming oblivion at this man's hands had never happened.

Duncan laughed. "Methos," he said. "I don't think I'll ever work out what you'll say next."

Unforced affection, a trace of possession, in that warm voice. Too close.

"Where did you meet Vishnevetsky?" Methos asked. "Did he beg, before he died? Had it been too long for him, did he plead with you to take his head, Highlander?"

In the corner of his eye, one hand tightened on the wheel.

"We met, we talked, he challenged, we fought," MacLeod said, equable under provocation. "It was the quickening that was...interesting."

"He was a prince, in his own country," Methos said.

"I know," Duncan said, hands sliding on the wheel as he spun the car onto the quayside. "He seems to have been a great many things, besides."

"You should have seen him in the sixteenth century," Methos said. "He was fighting with his Cossacks... He had a half trained eagle no-one else could go near, and a black stallion, a fantastic horse, it answered to a whistle.." He was babbling. He had to leave.

"He had a valet, too," said Duncan's voice, and Methos went for the door handle, scrabbling, nails on the leather, his whole body taut with the need to leave.

The door was locked.

Duncan hadn't even bothered to try to stop him.

"Central locking has been standard for quite a few years now, Methos," the Highlander said.

This is ridiculous, said the watcher in Methos' head.

"Oh, fuck it, MacLeod," Methos said, "what do you want? Is this some kind of game?" For the first time since Joe's bar, he turned his head to meet Duncan's gaze. The man's eyes were bright, amused, interested, so certain of himself. There was a knowledge in them now that there should never have been.

"Coming from you?" Duncan said. "Methos, you've been playing games within games with all of us since we met. Don't start complaining now I'm starting to figure some of them out."

Methos said nothing. In the silence, he was aware, for the first time, that his jeans were sticky and damp, the smell of his own body strong in the enclosed space of the car. There was no escaping what he'd done: the evidence was etched on his skin.

"I want to talk to you," Duncan said. "and, so help me, Methos, wherever you run I will find you."

(I doubt it)

"Unless you're prepared to talk tonight. Then that's it, Old Man: I promise, you'll be free to go." (I'm learning, Old Man, you've taught me well. Wheels within wheels, lies within half-truths)

Duncan the chivalrous. Duncan the hero, with his absurd codes and trusting honour.

"You promise?"

"Yes."

Oh that lambent, clear gaze, and the wheels spinning in Methos' mind.

"You need a shower, anyway," Duncan said. Then he looked away, into the darkness over the river. "Not that I don't like the smell."

The faintest trickle of unease down Methos' spine. But this, this is Duncan, staunchly heterosexual, straight Duncan, who so far as he knew had never bowed that long hair in grace to someone else's foot or curved his back with the stroke of a whip, giving, receiving, or...

Or made a man come with the touch of his hands alone in the public room of a Paris blues bar.

Promises, promises.

Methos made a mistake.

He made it sitting in Joe's bar, at the back end of a day that had begun with the hazy October sunshine catching the trees and trailing across the damp grass like the lace of an eighteenth century gown. Autumn days, shrouded, curling round time. Walking early through the streets, he could almost imagine that the day had slipped backwards, that the scuffle behind him was a sixteenth century soldier or one of Genet's apaches: the barges on the river swinging lazy between the years. Time stretched, whorled, splintered. He was easy with it, a web of contentment gilding this morning, the coffee, bread and apricot jam he ate sitting at a cafe on the Rue Saint-Michel. In that light, he strode up to the Quai, bargained with the booksellers, too rich with time and thought to argue the toss of a centime over a battered Berlin edition of Rilke's Book of Hours.

Read it sitting in the little cafe outside Pere-Lachaise, with the surly waiter and the cypress rising dark against the opaque autumn sky.

He was happy.

Duncan was back.

Absurd, this questioning flick of anticipatory desire, fed by the awareness he kept closeted. Not a hope in hell, Methos knew. He hadn't spent those long hours in the Watcher's library not to know far too much about the big Highlander.

What he had was enough. The man's friendship, the knowledge of debts shared and paid, after the dark quickening, an intimate knowledge that knew how hardily the easy laughter and graceful poise had been regained. Even sitting in the cafe, unregarded, Methos had felt the corners of his mouth lift in an almost unconscious grin: he'd woken that morning to the knowledge that the Highlander was nearby. Happiness. Pain curved round happiness, the gentle burn of a briar rose's thorns. It was enough, and the man would never know.

Or so he thought, until, relaxed, three bottles of beer down and another one almost untouched on the table before him, he made a mistake. Such a small thing.

He'd expected MacLeod, even considered not going, had been considering not going even as he shouldered open the door and met Joe's eyes across the neck of a treasured guitar. Had wiped that expectation from his thoughts with the application of a mind that had studied with Lao-Tzu, bending with the reeds of a river wreathed in mist like the trees of this city, this morning. Flowing like water, his mind, broad and deep, easy with the turns, not even flinching when MacLeod's presence came nearer, came inside, sat down opposite him and grinned across the table.

"Hello, Old Man," Duncan had said.

Methos hadn't even raised his head, just his eyelashes. "I see your head's still attached to your shoulders, Highlander," he'd replied. It was all right. The walls were in place.

Although, still, the curve of Duncan's cheek and the broad, hard fingernails on the table were so searingly familiar, so passing strange...

Enough.

Like the river, Methos smiled, detached. One advantage of being who he was, in this company, he didn't need to ask the appropriate questions or make the appropriate noises: all he had to do was sit and listen, nursing his warming beer, while the big man opposite him led him through a convoluted and amusing tale of Russian forgeries and the peccadilloes of a quartet of auction house cadets out of their depth. MacLeod was animated, expansive, hands sweeping across the table to make his point, clapping Joe on the shoulder as the Watcher finally discarded his guitar and joined them. The Highlander carried the conversation easily, other patrons turning to smile at the low burr of his voice and the glancing amusement in his eyes. Methos, content, leaned against the wall and was nothing, a river, empty, warmed by the strands of voice and anecdote. After 5000 years, he did inconspicuous well.

If he hadn't spent so much time watching the Highlander (Oh yes, him and Joe both) he would never have noticed. There was just the slightest edge to MacLeod's humour, the faintest air of tension about a body that seemed less graceful than normal. Not recently, but sometime, in the last forty-eight hours, MacLeod had taken a Quickening, and it must have hit him hard. Even laughing, there was an edge of shadow in the eyes that rested on Methos.

Nothing unusual about that. Other immortals seemed to see the Highlander as an ultimate challenge, a prize worth risking everything for. Methos tended towards agreement.

Such a shame, Methos thought, with a glint of humour for himself alone, that the risk really was ultimate.

What was unusual was that Methos hadn't felt that quickening.

He'd never told MacLeod that, since the double quickening, his awareness of the other man had remained in place. Not specifics - Methos couldn't tell, for example, exactly what the man was thinking, but he could gauge the man's mood, judge his temper, knew when he was fighting. At any moment of the day, Methos could turn his head to the place where Duncan was, be it New York or London or jogging through one of the parks that were slowly greening after a long hot summer. And he knew when the Highlander took a quickening, feeling the echo of that eldritch energy in his own bones.

Duncan had never said anything to him about a reciprocal knowledge. Methos thought the connection his own, private solace: very private. There were many things he was not prepared to discuss with Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod or his extended family of friends and Watchers, and this was top of his list.

Almost.

Now, though, his senses seemed blunted. He could feel nothing from the Highlander except the exact sense of his quickening, and that he'd had before Bordeaux. Had he been mistaken? Was he deluding himself, wishing into being a miracle that had never existed? The gods knew, he had wanted this private connection to the Highlander badly enough...he had known, always, that he could never have what he truly wanted. This had been enough. But was he such a fool...

He'd closed his eyes, and not realised. Across the table, Duncan had stopped speaking, was looking at him with concern open and warm in those autumn honey eyes. Always so exposed, his Highlander, emotions running rich under the surface of his skin, a warmth that Methos wanted to sun himself in.

"What is it?" The Highlander asked, Joe's eyes joining his in shrewd inquiry.

"It's nothing," Methos had replied. "I'm tired." He tried for humour. "I was up early this morning."

Joe laughed at that, a short bark of amusement. "Feeling your age, Adam?" he'd asked.
Methos smiled at that, but his awareness was elsewhere, pushing, just a little, against the certain knowledge of MacLeod's presence that had seemed so immutable this morning. Is this for real? Methos asked himself, pushing with his mind. Am I going mad? Never before, never chronicled...He pushed a little harder, questing for the heather-whiskey warmth he'd always associated with that welcome connection.

Across the table, MacLeod stilled.

Choices. Hoops. Commitments and promises and gambles...

Methos had his eyes fixed on Duncan's hand, holding the narrow glass of lager, the broad shape of his thumb, the fingers with scars that Duncan carried from his childhood. Fascinating, the way those fingers tightened on the glass, the skin around Duncan's fingernails whitening a little as Methos thought, hard, at that trace of emotion he was sure was not his.

"Stop it," Duncan said. His voice was harsh.

Transfixed, rabbit to Duncan's stoat, Methos' eyes snapped up to the Highlander's.

Caught the defensive aggression.

"Don't," Duncan said, gentler, adamant.

Methos felt the cold shame race and break over his body, snapping the shield over his thoughts in place. Duncan knew.

He shut his eyes again. Perhaps, when he opened them, this would not have happened. He'd spent lifetimes pretending to be something he wasn't.

He opened his eyes. Across the table, Duncan had leaned back in his chair. His face, Gods, his face, knowledge and acknowledgment clear where there should be none, all other emotion gone.

"Don't do it, Adam," The Highlander said. "Leave be."

"What-" Joe said, startled, looking at both of them.

Flayed like a Viking on a church door. Duncan too? Duncan, carrying Methos' age and needs and grief in his mind? Duncan, with a quarter of the awareness Methos had had of the Highlander?

He needed to leave. Now, rising with a surge of strength that should carry him to the door and the street and the airport, as the silent watcher in his own mind sniggered amusement at this latest escape.

Unfortunately, Methos' escape route led round the corner of the table and straight into Duncan's outstretched arm, the bigger man moving with a speed that still surprised the older immortal.

"Running away?" asked Duncan, that hand twisting in Methos' shirt as the man rose.

Methos had forgotten quite how big the Highlander was, this close, with the heat of his hand against Methos' skin and his eyes staring down out the closed face...twist, now, one feint to the left, spin and -

Not this time. He'd given away to much, all those practice bouts, that fencing with mind and body he could not resist. The man had him hard up against the wall before his feet could take that imagined and wished for route to freedom.

One hand on each of Methos' spread wrists, the other immortal loomed over him. There was no gentleness, now, in the blazing brown eyes that caught his own, and his own composure was splintering into the here and now: too bright, too hard, don't touch me Duncan please.

"I've got too many questions to ask to let you go now, Old Man," The Highlander said. "You're not running away this time."

Methos' throat was dry. The wall was cold behind his back, his own sweat freezing on his body. MacLeod was too close, in all senses of the word.

"I need to go," he managed, the words hard to form, fishing for something, the magic key that would get him out of this..

"Duncan," Methos said.

"No you don't," the Highlander said. "I'm not letting you."

"MacLeod!" Joe's voice, although Methos could not see the Watcher through the black haze that covered his eyes, hiding all save the frightening intensity of MacLeod's gaze.

"It's OK, Joe," MacLeod said. "We've just got something to discuss."

"No discussion," Methos said. It didn't come out with the force he needed. He straightened his back against the weight of MacLeod's grip, felt for authority. Power. He could do this.

"Let me go, Duncan," he said. Power, Now. If ever he needed it.

"No," the Highlander said.

Breathe, Methos told himself. The man was too near.

And nearer. The Highlander took one small step forward, his grip shifting, so close that Methos could feel the warmth of his skin and smell the beer, the apple shampoo scent of his hair, was forced to tilt his head upwards to meet that adamant glare.

"I learned some interesting things, in London," The Highlander said, conversationally, as if his hands were not gripping the twin bones of Methos' wrists, thumbs pressing into the artery, so tight that Methos could feel the blood hesitate in his body. Danger.

"I met a friend of yours," MacLeod said. He waited.

"Oh," Methos said. An answer seemed to be expected.

"An immortal. His name was Baida."

Met him. Killed him. Knew what he knew. Against his will, Methos' body twisted against the restraining hands, arching against the wall, memory shot through with steel and blood and want: this, oh, this he could not take. He turned his head aside from the Highlander's'.

Warmth and silk on the side of his neck, Duncan's hair slipping forward to cover his shoulder as the Highlander bent his head to Methos' exposed ear.

"Are you going to come quietly, Methos, or do I tie you up right here?"

Pain, blood, desire, too close to the surface: he could not help the small groan that slipped past his lips or the slight arch of his back that told Duncan what he needed to know. Want. He'd been hard since the Highlander had entered the bar: now, it seemed like all the blood in his body had winged to his groin, brain starved of thought and oxygen and everything but need.

And Duncan laughed. "It's good to have you at a disadvantage at last," he said, his voice a warm burr that played with the moist breath on Methos' skin.

"Don't," Methos said. It was about all he could manage.

"Exactly," said MacLeod. "But you had to push it that little bit too far, didn't you?"

Too late for dissembling, if he could have managed it. "I'm sorry, Duncan."

"I'm sure you are," Duncan's voice, braided into separate chords by its unprecedented nearness, his breath curling round the sensitive skin of Methos' ear: too much, too soon, betrayed by the searing heat of the other man's body and his own wayward, impossible desire. "But not nearly as sorry as I am. Methos, Yunitsa," the man said, his voice a brand of corrosive memory. "No!"

He'd nearly managed it, the knee to the groin, the desperate, disabling stoke that allowed escape. Too late now, with all MacLeod's weight thrown against his for a second, forcing the air of his lungs in a violent expulsion. Oh, gods, the heat of him, the weight: Methos was shaking when the Highlander slowly rolled away from his body.

"You owe me," said Duncan MacLeod. "Look at me."

Against his will, Methos turned his head. His beautiful Highlander. His beautiful, innocent Highlander, the man who sent desire crashing through his body like a tidal wave of want and despair. And, now, knew it.

"I like my privacy, Old Man," MacLeod said. "And you of all people should know that." The brown eyes were hard, Duncan's jaw set, the flush rising on his cheeks. At least, Methos thought, despairing, at least he's not killed me yet. A deep breath, another, the words forming and clear if he could say them.

"Please let me leave, Duncan," Methos said. He let his own awareness of how the Highlander must feel slide into the edges of his mind, the corners of his eyes, shame, pressure.

And then Duncan made the last response Methos expected.

One of the hands on his wrists loosened, fingers slipping between his, gentle, stroking the skin and the pulse points, twining, caressing with gentle, absolute authority, as if Methos' fingers were his tongue, his mouth, his cock, every inch of sensitive skin concentrated under those sure fingertips. Sweet shock, the curve and stroke of those authoritative fingers, a rhythm of knowing anguish, sliding with the beat of his heart against skin that warmed and shivered under touch. Such a gentle friction, pushing him higher, knowing his breath had shortened and his body had revealed everything he had keep hidden for so long and it was too late, much too late, and this most impossible of choices had been made before he was ready or armed or..oh, gods, the rhythm of that desire, as hidden by the sweep of his jacket, Duncan's fingers made love to Methos' hand.

"We need to talk," Duncan said. "And you're not going anywhere until we have."

Methos hardly heard him, all his mind concentrated on the burning, slow, painful stroke of Duncan's fingers on his. How did Duncan know? What had happened? And, oh, how long had it been, since someone had touched him like this? Long enough to make him feel like it was new, this seductive, powerful surrender that had caught him before he had time to think, feeling himself falling, tangled in Duncan's fingers, his eyes blurred and hearing nearly gone, so close to coming each breath was a separate anguish.

"Methos," MacLeod said.

He raised his eyes again, the Highlander's eyes steady in his vision, detached. Gods, does he know, Methos thought, what he's doing to me?"

The hand shifted, curved round Methos', pulled, and in front of him, astonished, frightened, Methos saw Duncan raise both hands to his mouth (that beautiful mouth), felt the warmth of the man's breath as he opened his lips, was, oh, gods

already coming when Duncan bit down, hard, into the soft pad of flesh under Methos' thumb.

Oh, such sweet black oblivion.

"How long is a night?" Methos asked.

Duncan looked at the clock on the dashboard. 19:30. "Twelve hours," he said.

"All right," Methos replied. Surely he could survive a single night, walk away unscathed in the morning. (and, despite the immortal healing, his hand throbbed, once, a stark reminder of Duncan's strong teeth biting into the flesh.)

"OK," The Highlander said. He turned off the engine, hit the button on the dash that released the locks.

This fatal curiosity. "Don't you want me to promise anything else?" Methos asked. "No pain, no games, no sarcasm?"

Duncan flung his head back and laughed. "No," he said. "Not tonight."

October. Along the embankment, last night's fallen yellow leaves lay wet and glistening under the light rain that spangled Duncan's hair and fell gently on the gray river. Loud through the fog, a single warning horn sounded across the water as an invisible barge negotiated the busy Thames. It was early.

The difference was the smell, ozone and oil. Apart from that, in this weather, Boswell's London mixed with Dickens': the figures in the fog shrouded, could be a lawyer hurrying to a breakfast of oysters, could be a lampman setting out his route, could be Moll Flanders wending her way home, insouciant and laughing against the weather. In London, more than most cities, time folded. There were moments, Duncan felt, when he could take a step to one side and become himself in some other century, drinking coffee with the other exiled Highlander in Childs', wandering, blind with fatigue, through the darkness of the blitz, speeding, dazed with love and hash, between the haphazard, free parties of the sixties. Memories shot through with the river, this slow, heavy curve of water turning through the seasons and the lives of London's past.

This morning, this particular morning, he could barely see the edges of the river lapping at the mudstains on the concrete banking that lined the banks and protected the city from this most fickle of lovers. Fog hung heavy, this morning, cold and damp and gray, as there never had been any other kind of weather and never would be.

Duncan felt it fitting, It was a morning caught between times and seasons: shrouded, elliptical. Kin to the man who stood beside him.

Short chestnut hair, ruffled like an eagles' and whitened by the tiny droplets of light-falling water:, long, mobile mouth, tucked in at the corners, deep-set eyes fixed, now, on the empty space of the river. Thin, intense, the Russian immortal Prince Dmitri Vishnevetsky gazed out across the river he had first seen in 1563.

"Ah, Highlander," Vishnevetsky said. "You're too young to really appreciate the river as it was then, when Elizabeth was still alive." He stopped, glanced at Duncan. "Now there was a woman."

Score two. Duncan thought.

"Methos loved it here," Dmitri said. The man turned, leant back against the concrete walling. From his jacket he drew out a small knife, began, with the ease of someone born well before the invention of clippers, to pare his nails.

"When I let him out," Dmitri said. His smile flashed white, discreet, hidden, behind his beard.

Duncan turned to look back at the river. Against his back he felt the reassuring weight of his sword.

"You don't like it when I say that, my friend," The Russian observed.

"No," Duncan said shortly.

"You have to remember," Dmitri said, "That both Methos and I were born in an earlier time, Highlander. Life wasn't quite so pretty, then."

"I don't recall you figuring among the horsemen," Duncan said.

Score one for the Highlander.

"No. But we had other things in common, Methos and I."

Unprompted, Duncan's mind threw up an image of this man naked, laughing, with Methos' neat head at his knee.

"Why meet here, Vishnevetsky?" Duncan asked.

"Old times," said the Russian. "Very old memories." His eyes slid sideways to Duncan's, filled with a secret glee. "Four hundred years ago, Highlander," he said "I tied Methos to a fence post just about here and paid the watermen to-"

"This is between you and him," Duncan said.

"Have you made him beg yet?" asked the Russian.

"Are you challenging?" said Duncan.

Vishnevetsky laughed. It was the laugh of a man too old to find much amusing, tired, spiked with cynicism.

"Maybe," he said. "After I've had a look at these ikons, Highlander. You have them with you?"

Duncan turned his head. Even in this gray light, the other man's eyes were dancing with amusement that was for himself alone. Suddenly, like the rush of heat that came with the first whisky after the snow, he wanted to kill this man. Felt it in his bones, knew that only one of them would walk away from this encounter alive. Not for him, for Methos, who did not know and would not care if he did.

"Oh, aye," said Duncan.

"Show me."

Moving slowly, Duncan reached down to the duffle bag that lay on the pavement between them. Inside, wrapped carefully in acid-free tissue, were stacked three sixteenth century Russian ikons, exquisite in their detail, richly decorated and gilded. And completely wrong.

In silence, he unwrapped the first and handed it to the man beside him.

Vishnevetsky studied it in silence, eyes narrowed. One hand, unconscious, tightened and released on the ornate frame, as the man's mouth pursed. The look he gave Duncan was dark with questions.

"And where, my charming Highlander, did you find these?"

"I didn't," Duncan said. "What you are holding is currently in the care of Messers Sotheby."

"And how, sweeting, did they get into the possession of Messers Sotheby?"

"I don't know," Duncan said.

"Is that so," Vishnevetsky said.

Duncan said nothing. He knew perfectly well where the ikons came from, but something about Vishnevetsky's manner warned him against divulging the information. He was sure the other immortal had recognised the image.

"Why me, Highlander?" asked Vishnevetsky, head bent again over the ikon.

"Who else?" asked Duncan, and answered the man's inquiring eyes with a feral grin of his own.

"You're right," Vishnevetsky said. He looked at Duncan for a second, a moment's intelligent assessment. "Do you have the others?" he asked.

"Yes," said Duncan.

"Show me."

The night air was cool on Methos' damp skin as he walked onto the barge. Behind, the ominous, large figure of the Highlander, in front, the darkened windows and the slightly damp smell of an unoccupied boat. He stopped at the entrance, felt the light brush of the Highlander's jacket as the man reached round him to undo the lock and open the door.

"Go on," MacLeod said, implacable, behind him.

He went in. How many nights, drinking, laughing, playing chess, Amanda sprawled on the couch and Joe's guitar in the background? How many quiet evenings reading in companionable silence? How many games?

How much payment to be made, before the night was over?

Behind him, MacLeod reached for the light switch. "Go shower," the man said. "You know where the towels are. I'm cooking."

He went without risking a glance behind him, grateful for the respite and swiping a pair of Duncan's sweats and a jumper he'd always liked from the chest on the way. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he thought, standing in the shower for as long as he dared until the water ran cold and the small of roasting chicken curled around the steam in the small bathroom. He dried himself quickly, dressed, so simple. He was thinking, river, peace, an equable solitude of mind that allowed him to withdraw behind his eyes to that place of still watching.

When he emerged, not sure what to expect but easy with it (whatever, ride it through) Duncan was setting the table. A bowl of salad stood ready, fruit and cheese: grateful for something to do with his hands, Methos picked up the tongs and began tossing rocket and lamb's tongue in the creamy salad oil none but the French made to perfection.

"Better?" MacLeod asked.

His head was bent over the serving dishes, long hair casting the light from the lamps in the living room. He'd left the main light on, the room too bright and clear from Methos' taste.

"Yes," Methos said.

"Good," said the Highlander. Unexpectedly, he raised his head and smiled, Methos' breath catching once again at the charming innocence of that grin and the perfect, sculptured lips (Duncan's breath on his hand) that made it.

"Sit, eat," said the Highlander.

Methos sat, looking down at the place setting. Duncan had brought out the good cutlery for him, the Jacobite silver that lived in a locked mahogany cabinet.

The Highlander served and set plates down on the table. Methos looked down. Chicken, herbed: fine beans, new potatoes with fresh unsalted butter. He doubted he could eat a mouthful. Wine, too, and that he took gratefully, curling a hand that remained miraculously steady around the long-stemmed Venetian glass with its small-etched crown at the base of the bowl.

Opposite him, Duncan appeared to have no problems eating, laying into the food with enthusiasm. Toying with his fork, Methos pushed at the chicken. it was delicious, he was sure, but his body rebelled at the thought of food.

Across the table, first hunger assuaged, Duncan tapped the handle of his knife on the polished surface.

"You know," he said. "The one thing I don't understand is why you're quite so frightened. Methos, I know what you did. We went through the dark quickening, remember? I know what you did to Cassandra, I know that somewhere under your skin the horseman still rides. I know you've been playing little games with me since we met. Why are you so scared?"

Methos looked up. (The gleam of grease on that beautiful lower lip, the bright eyes) "It's not the same."

"Why?" Duncan said. "I don't think there's anything you could do that could surprise me now."

Oh, the depth of the man's compassion. It's not you, Methos wanted to say, it's me, all the time.

"Admittedly," Duncan went on. "there were some questions I had that Vishnevetsky went some way towards answering."

Chicken finished, the Highlander speared a forkful of green beans. "You're not eating, Methos," he said. "Are you sorry I killed him?"

"No," Methos said.

"I thought not. You don't really care, do you, Old Man, it's all just a game to you, isn't it?"

"Yes," Methos said.

Across the table, Duncan chased a last errant bite of potato around the plate and stabbed it, victorious.
"Except for us," he said. "Amanda and Richie and Joe and I... You didn't leave us, did you? You're playing more than one game here, aren't you, Methos? Or should I say, Adam? Death? Yunitsa? How many names, Old Man?"

"I don't remember," Methos said. His eyes slipped towards the clock in the corner. Gods, half past nine. Ten more hours.

Satisfied, the Highlander leant back in his chair. Across the table, his eyes were direct, knowing: Methos wondered when he had ever mistaken innocence for a far-reaching acceptance. Revealed, in those brown eyes, a depth of knowledge that he had somehow missed. Games within games.

"I might be younger than you, Methos," The Highlander said. "But I'm hardly naive."

The impulse to laugh was almost disastrous. Once, he had been Death. Once, he had been, oh, a slave, a whore, a god, a king - several kings - a valet.

"This joint quickening," Duncan said, reaching for the fruit knife, its small blade silver in the light. "Did you honestly think it went one way?"

"Yes," Methos said.

"And now you know you were wrong. Tell me, Old Man, how many other times do you think you might have been wrong, these past few years?"

Methos felt every muscle tense. The Highlander was hardly pulling his punches tonight: the gloves were off. Where they were going...where Methos was going... Out the door, he reminded himself, in, oh, nine hours and forty-five minutes.

"No answer?" Duncan said pleasantly, peeling a late, sweet pear, the green skin falling unbroken onto the white linen of the tablecloth. "Let's just take one little game, Methos, one of the ones you've been playing with me."

Methos froze, his mind skittering, panicked, back over the images of the past few years: Duncan's sword at his neck, Duncan's hands on his body, Duncan's sweaters on his skin...

"I call this one the personal space game," Duncan said. He was dividing the pear into neat slices, laying them out on a plate. "It's the one where you see just how far you can get into my space before I back off. That's my sweater you're wearing, isn't it?"

"Yes," Methos said.

"Whose stack of papers is that, by the computer?" Duncan asked, pointing with the blade of his knife. "Whose books are those, on the table? Whose fucking plant is that, for God's sake?"

The question was surely rhetorical. Methos said nothing.

"How many times have you stood that half inch too close, Methos?" Duncan said. "You know, first I thought it was just you, then I realised you didn't do it to anyone else. Did you?"

"No," Methos said. This was getting far too dangerous, and every nerve in his body screamed for flight. He wondered if Duncan had locked the door to the barge.

"Do you realise how often you ask me something with your eyes?" Duncan said. "Or how often you expect me to understand what you're thinking without giving anything away? Do you have any idea," The Highlander added, reaching for a pomegranate from the fruitbowl. "Quite how obvious it was, once I started to see?"

Games within games. "And so?" Methos said.

"Alexa," Duncan said, halving the fruit in his hands with easy grace. "You loved her, Methos, but it wasn't passion, was it? Not the quite the same. Not enough..." His eyes rose from the split pomegranate halves to meet Methos' across the table. "Not enough violence for you, was there?"

Oh, that hurt, a stab of pain and grief that should, surely, be unnecessary by now. Duncan was truly fighting dirty tonight. Methos had to force himself to relax, breath out the gasp he'd made, open his eyes again.

"I'm not denying your friendship or love for her," Duncan said, serious. "But I am questioning...the nature of your attachment."

It was too much.

"MacLeod, one quickening with one very ex-lover doesn't make you the authority on how I feel," Methos said. He could feel the anger rising against his skin, little bubbles of it, swimming and curling in the pace of his blood.

"No," Duncan said, absurdly relaxed (why were they having this conversation?) "But, like I said, it did answer some questions I had.. Sit still, Methos, you're going anywhere yet."

Methos sat: he'd not been aware that he'd risen to go. But with the fruit knife in his hand and the deadly aim of his arm, Duncan could halt him before he pushed the chair back.

"Plus, of course, I've had several months now of knowing how you feel."

And that was the worst. All that time that he'd thought himself safe, and Duncan had been reading him, knowing, invading, unknown and unwelcome intruder on his thoughts.

"See what I felt like?" Duncan said. "You pushed me too far, tonight, Methos."

"Can we stop this?" Methos said. "I don't want to be here."

Across the table, the Highlander smiled. Slowly. Very slowly, a smile that carried a tinge of predatory awareness that sent shivers, again, down Methos' spine. And, gods, his body responded, the first beat of blood and tightening of lungs that said his body knew very well what it needed, forget Methos' brain.

"But I do," Duncan said: he reached across the table, holding out one of the pomegranate halves. "You ought to eat something, Methos, Old Man," he said.

"I'm not hungry," Methos said, automatic.

"Eat," said Duncan's voice, laced with power.

Methos watched his hands reach for the small spoon that someone had thoughtfully placed on the sideplate. It was that forethought that cleared his mind: Duncan had planned this.

"What do you want, Duncan?" he said, laying down spoon and fruit. "Why are we here? Why are you doing this?"

"Can I say...curiosity?" Duncan said. "You're not eating." His voice, then, was very gentle, almost the voice of the Highlander Methos had met so painfully few years ago.

"Can't it wait?" Methos said. He could hear, in his voice, the trace of acknowledgment that tonight he answered to Duncan's voice, and hated himself for it.

"I've waited a long time for this," Duncan said. He was looking down at his hands, balancing the blade of the fruit knife across one broad thumb tip. "Would it be easier," the Highlander said slowly. "If I did tie you up for this bit?"

Anger. Pain. It was too much: Methos stood, pulling the tablecloth with him, a scatter of crystal shards and wine: raised one hand for the missing blade at his back as Duncan's hands and Duncan's body came across the table towards him, so fast, he had forgotten how fast the man was, and then their bodies impacted with a force that drove both of them down onto the floor amidst the ruins of the chair Methos had been sitting in moments ago. "Let me go!' Methos shouted, into the mess of hair that was rolling with him, both hands, impossibly, pinioned, MacLeod's weight across his legs, fight as he could.

"No," the Highlander said, one knee viciously raised and grinding into the spare flesh of Methos' hip, pinioned, stretched, how could he not see this coming? He'd always thought, in a dirty fight, that he'd have the edge over the Highlander.

"Stop fighting," Duncan said, muffled, somewhere above his shoulder and near his ear, but Methos had already remembered who he was.

"Let me go," he said, but Duncan's hands did not move.

"Stop fighting, you know you want it?" he said, the vicious undercurrent clear in his voice. He could feel the stillness in the body poised above his, as he said, now, what they both knew was coming. Or he guessed was coming. Or he thought...what was the Highlander playing at?

"I just don't intend to loose you, tonight," the Highlander said. Gods, the man was heavy, but the warmth of him, he could purr like a cat in the warmth of that body.

"I promised," Methos said, bitter.

He could feel the sigh of Duncan's breath. "But we both know what that's worth, don't we?" the man said. "I locked the doors, Methos."

So.

"So if this matters so much to you," Methos said. "Yeah, I can get off on a little pain. So I belonged to Vishnevetsky for a while. So what?"

"There are times when I feel like I'm peeling an onion when it comes to you," Duncan's voice said. "Each layer peeling off to find another one underneath, acid, sweet, bitter..."

Methos couldn't help it, his sense of the absurd rising, like the anger before it, onto his skin. He laughed, gasped, half choked on a mouthful of hair, and found himself efficiently turned onto his stomach by Duncan's implacable hands. Far more vulnerable now, the anger faded, he could feel Duncan's weight above him, the man's legs holding his own still, Duncan's hands traveling heavy down his stretched arms to hold his hands in place, Duncan's thumbs pressing into the soft skin of the older man's palms.

"I did say sweet, didn't I?" Duncan said, as his full weight came down on top of Methos' back and, for the first time, Methos felt, really felt, that beautiful body stretched with intent over his, each muscle smooth on his skin, the heavy, hot weight of Duncan's erection fitting so neatly into the crease of Methos' arse. He couldn't help it. He groaned, just a little, as his body pushed up into that longed-for evidence of want and felt Duncan begin to push back. And stop.

"I don't think so," Duncan said, above him, easy, so easy he might have been talking about the weather. "Not yet, anyway."

Above him, the weight shifted, Duncan drawing the older immortal's hands back behind his back, holding them in place with his broad left hand, reaching for a napkin: Methos could hear the tear of cloth.

"You'll just have to forgive me later for this," Duncan said, amusement threaded neatly through the brogue that was more pronounced, now.

"I did say you didn't have to do it, didn't I?" Methos asked. He'd tried for plaintive, but above him the Highlander laughed.

"Look at you," he said, honey and gold in the affection of his voice. "Can't you feel it? You relaxed, Methos, the moment you knew you weren't going anywhere."

It was true. Methos, shamed again by his body, turned his face away from that knowing voice as, for the first time, the Highlander sent a gentle, possessive hand caressing down Methos' spine. And his body arched into it.

"You know exactly how beautiful you are," the Highlander's voice said, above him. "But I'll say it again. You're beautiful, Methos: every time I see you I want to fuck you."

Methos winced.

Above him, the weight shifted again as the Highlander stood. "Stay there," he said. "I'm going to clean up."

Methos spent quite a few minutes contemplating the carpet. He could hear the run of water as Duncan washed up, the quick steps across the kitchen floor: feel the rush of cooler air as the man went into the bathroom for what turned out to be a exceedingly quick shower. He could, he supposed, have tried to break the bindings or at least tried to stand and look for the fruit knife, but the Highlander had been right all along.

It was very easy, here, to tell himself he had no choice. And that itself made all the other choices very easy indeed. He just hoped the Highlander knew what he was doing.

But who would have thought it?

His Highlander.

Not the person he expected, at all: darker and stranger and wiser.

And for the first time, Methos felt the gift of Pandora's last, late wisdom licking at the corners of his onionskin mind.

In the shower, Duncan was leaning against one tiled wall, head turned up to the spray, eyes closed. 'I hope to God,' his mind said 'You know what you're doing, `cos if you fuck this up you'll loose him forever.'

"Beautiful," Vishnevetsky said, tilting the second ikon into what little light there was. "You do appreciate that these are entirely anachronistic, don't you? The expression on the face, the eyes..."

"I did notice the eyes," Duncan said, and the Russian looked up.

"Of course you would," he said. "And you were right." His mouth was pursed, his eyes slitted against the cold chill of the fog.

"Tell me-"

"You can ask me over coffee," Duncan said.

"I think we can make it more interesting than that," Vishnevetsky said. He smiled. "Suppose we were to spar here - just here, as if we were actors - and every time you touched my skin you could ask me a question? Hm? And I you?"

"That's a little dangerous," Duncan said. He already knew this man was going to die on the edge of his own katana.

"But we are in public, no? And you are the honourable MacLeod, right? The one who happens to be fucking one of the nastiest guttersnipes of our particular world..?"

"Spar, then," Duncan said, harsh.

"Or is it possible..Draw your sword, my dear...is it possible that you haven't touched him yet? How could you resist?"

"What he or I do in bed is none of your business."

"Keep your blade up if you want to make this convincing. You'll need the practice-Oie!"

"Who's the artist?"

"Adam Blacklock."

"And?"

"Score again, MacLeod."

For a couple of minutes the two men circled each other, exploratory, probing. The Russian was good, but he seemed a little slow: Duncan drew a bead on his shoulder, thrust in tierce-

"And?"

"He was a Scottish Mercenary. Merde!"

"Concentrate yourself. Tell me about Methos."

"The tightest arse I've ever had the pleasure of plowing. That what you wanted to know? Oh, I see not."

Following Duncan's instinctive recoil, Vishnevetsky thrust, caught the Highlander's forearm.

"When did you find out?" he asked, circling.

"What?"

"What he was? The lovely little maggot, always drawn to someone brighter and cleaner."

"I know what he is." Duncan said, through his teeth.

"Do you?" Vishnevetsky asked. He was laughing now, high and strained. "Really? Really, truly?" And as he said it he stepped inside Duncan's guard, and it was too late to pull the stroke, and all those weary, bitter years and all those weary, bitter memories, and the sight of Methos' white face and the desperation in his eyes crashed in on him, and all he could think of was the other man's eyes.

Methos bound. Methos bleeding. Methos coming. Methos coming in such agony it seemed impossible that it might be pleasure. Methos paying, over and over and over again.

Methos, with his eyes so steady and guarded, not at all...

The ghost of the feel of Methos' skin under his hands.

On his knees, beside a river, beset by the vindictive rags of a quickening he had been forced into taking, Duncan MacLeod decided that it was time to stop playing and move in for the kill.

Methos heard the door open and close, Duncan's footsteps going into the bedroom, the soft rustle of clothing. Then the man walking towards him, steps firm and confident in his own space. He almost expected, remembering, a foot in his ribs and had braced for it when he felt the air shift around the man's body.

"Here," the Highlander said, gentle, and he felt soft cloth tucked under his face, covering his eyes, pulled to tie behind his head. He couldn't see, and it felt right.

Hands on the bindings. "Come on," the Highlander's voice said. "Turn over for me."

And Methos did, found his hands bound again in front of him, an insistent pull on his shoulder. "I could carry you," Duncan said. "But that's a bit much, don't you think?"

So he found he could stand, and walk, with Duncan's hand steady on his back, guiding, until he was stopped and the pressure on his shoulder forced him to kneel.

"Stay there." He heard the Highlander's voice, and was left alone for..too long, and as he raised his head to ask, fear chasing anticipation (don't stop now, MacLeod) at last the hands came again, turning him, leaning him back against the cushions of the couch. he relaxed into that welcome support, and as he did, Duncan's arm clasped him across his neck and shoulders, a heavy, still caress. The man must be lying on the couch behind him, Methos guessed, and found his guess substantiated when the Highlander started to speak.

"Well, Methos," That honey-whiskey brogue said, somewhere behind his right ear. "I did say this was an interesting experiment."

"Hmm?" Methos tried.

"OK," Duncan said. "Let's run a tally, shall we? Kronus. Now that was an interesting relationship, my friend, although I think we've been there often enough not to visit again. Death on a horse." The arm tightened, briefly, against Methos' skin: a reminder, very gentle, of the power and training and muscle contained in the body of the man behind him.

"Byron. Vishnevetsky. Can you see some form of pattern in this, Methos?"

"No," Methos said.

"Well, I'm glad you can talk, at least," Duncan said. "Now Vishnevetsky. That was an interesting one. He was fascinated by you, you know."

('O youthful valet,
Will you remain faithful to me?')

"He spent a lot of time following you around, later."

Methos started against the couch and the arm that was suddenly restraining this he hadn't known.

"He knew rather a lot about the people you've been fucking," Duncan's voice said, unmoved. "So I think I can say that I know more than you give me credit for."

Methos leant his head back against the couch. Under the kindness of the blindfold, his eyes were starting to fill. I don't cry. He's not supposed to know this.

"He picked you up from a slaver in Turkey, didn't he?" Duncan said.

Methos didn't trust himself to speak, nodded once, felt Duncan's shoulder, clad in some sort of toweling, move to support his head. He didn't know, had no means to tell, that although Duncan's voice was golden and steady the tears were sliding silent down his cheeks.

"And found out quite early exactly what you needed."

Silence. No point in dissembling, now. Methos tried for words.

"Yes," he said. He was proud of how clear his voice sounded.

(The smell of horse, always: the sweat-rotten silk and the leather collar: the laughter, the strange, cold land and the shamans in their bearskins who had known exactly who and what he was.)

"And how much you could take."

"Yes," Methos said.

"He said," Duncan carried on. "That he only lost you when he started to love you."

Methos sighed, silent, but the arm tightened and released again.

"Then there was Byron. He wasn't quite what you were hoping for, was he?" Duncan said.

No, but that emotional torture had its own rewards, of a kind.

"Although I suspect the mess he got your heads into made up for the lack of physical pain, didn't it?"

"Yes," Methos said. Quiet.

"You do know what we're looking at here, don't you, my friend? Expiation... atonement."

Duncan could feel the shock run through the slight, pale body that he held, at last, under the tips of his fingers and in the crook of his arm.

"Don't try your psycho-bable on me," Methos said.

"Who said you were in charge?" Duncan answered, his fingers gripping, briefly, hard enough to leave bruises.

"I imagine," the Highlander's voice continued. "That's it's quite easy to accept pain in lieu of pleasure, if you don't think you deserve it. If it's forced."

In the crook of his arm, the slighter man's breath hesitated, came heavier.

"Want something to drink?" Duncan asked, pleasantly.

Not trusting his voice, Methos nodded. He'd known all this. Had known it years ago, had know before the Highlander was born. What he hadn't expected was for the man currently possessing his body (How many hours left?) to work it out too.

Behind, Duncan sat up and moved from the couch with a passing caress. Methos heard footsteps, the clink of glass and liquid. Smelt whisky.

When the Highlander came back he felt a heavy, cut-glass tumbler pressed into his hands, but he waited until the man behind him was settled, arm heavy again around his neck, before he drank, raised both bound hands with the glass.

Glenmorangie. Sherry-casked Glenmorangie: Duncan had been raiding duty-free, Methos' mind noted absently around the smooth welcome burn.

"Then came Alexa," Duncan said. "That was different, wasn't it? You loved her."

"Yes," Methos said. Oh, gods, this was going to hurt, but he felt...paradoxically safe here, blind, Duncan's arm a heavy weight of possession.

"I'll bet that came as a shock. You let yourself care, didn't you, but in a way that was very safe."

Yes.

"I'm sorry she died," Duncan said. "I always will be. But it wouldn't have happened, would it, if she was going to live?"

No. Too well, this man knew him.

"And you didn't want her. Not, for example, like the way you want me." Duncan's voice, so steady, no trace of passion. Methos bowed his head away from the comforting warmth of the Highlander's shoulder.

"It's a bit late now," Duncan said. "I've known for years."

It was the sheer matter-of-factness that frightened Methos. He'd thought himself so safe, nursing this stunted little passion, gloating over the moments of contact, the little games he played, half in love with the Highlander (My hero, jeered the small voice in his head, shaming) since he'd read the Watcher's files. And all the time Duncan had known.

"I hadn't realised quite how badly," Duncan said, implacable. "Until the double quickening. Then I knew. I'd always wondered." The man said. "Why you didn't do anything about it. Then I realised you weren't going to."

Methos was definitely having trouble controlling his breathing.

"You knew it wasn't going to work for you, didn't you, old man? No pain, no pressure.. you thought I couldn't do that for you?"

You knew. You thought. Where in the seven hells was Duncan going, and could he get there quickly, please, because any second now Methos was going to cry. Anger, frustration, fear, grief. Fucking Highlander.

"Until Alexa," Duncan said. "Until after Alexa, I didn't think I could do it either. Impasse. Until Vishnevetsky."

"He was a bastard. A liar, a stinking Cossack." (Get out of my head)

"He was a very interesting man," Duncan said. "A little tired, perhaps. I learnt a lot."

The hand that had cradled his shoulder moved, pulled back a little: Duncan's finger's caressing, lightly, the line of his jawbone and the vulnerable skin of his neck.

"So here we are," Duncan said. He paused, and when he spoke again his voice was rougher. "And I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, Methos, so if you don't mind I'm going to kiss you now."

The hand on his jawbone hardened, held his head still: he couldn't see: the beginnings of panic as he felt Duncan near, warmth, the dry, soft, fleeting brush of Duncan's lips on his: so tentative, so hot, and as he raised his head consenting to that caress Duncan's mouth was suddenly there. Hard, demanding, punishing, Duncan's tongue wanting in, wanting the surrender that Methos gave all too willingly, tilting his head back as his mouth opened to the demanding slick-hot-wet-don't stop teeth tongue oh, gods, Duncan, more.

Minutes?

Hours?

When Duncan drew away, both men were gasping for air.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time," Duncan said. There was a trace of absolute self-satisfaction in his tone, and his fingers were still cradling Methos' jaw, slipping to his ear, curving round the folds of skin with exquisite, sure authority.

"By the time I met him," the Highlander said, striving for detachment (and failing: for the first time since their eyes had met across the table in Joe's bar, Methos could feel the trailing edge of Duncan's mind in his) "Vishnevetsky had decided it was never going to work with you and him. He'd kept hoping, catching up with you every so often, watching to see if you would break and he could pick up the pieces again... he needed the pain, didn't he?"

Methos had his head tilted back now, resting on MacLeod's shoulder, his head turned to the sound of Duncan's voice. He had come to the conclusion (finally) that there wasn't a hope in hell of stopping the Highlander if he wanted to talk all night, but maybe, at some point, the man might just get round to kissing him again. He'd settle for that.

"Yes," he answered.

"But by this time, Vishnevetsky had decided you didn't." The Highlander paused, and for a second Methos was sure he tasted the other man's embarrassment. "He'd seen us together, you know."

"What?" Methos said.

"That's why he didn't mind so much, that it was me who took his quickening. He figured he'd have you too."

"You arrogant, pig-swilling-"

"Methos, who's holding your chains tonight?"

Methos shut up.

Duncan ran an apology of a caress over the other man's hair. So soft to the touch, so hard, not to think of the older man as his lover already, the way he was when he'd played this little scene over and over in his head in London, on the plane, in Joe's bar, with the desire and the quickening firmly hidden behind the shields of his mind.

"Vishnevetsky thought," Duncan said. "And I came to agree with him, that you'd gone so far you didn't know how to come back. With the sex. But that you'd come to recognise love, with Alexa. It was just a question of mixing the two."

Silence, but the man under his hands (both hands, now, a silent and ceaseless touch) shuddered.

"I didn't agree with everything the man said," Duncan commented. "But there were some things that made me think... After all, you could hardly walk into the bar and say, Duncan, come to bed, could you?"

Silence. Methos was holding his breath, shaking.

"Or, indeed," the Highlander added, "Duncan, take me to bed. I would have come for either, you know."

Oh, gods, just the thought of it, and he was aching, held in stasis by the touch of the Highlander's hands on his skin.

"I thought you needed time. I thought you needed space to get over Alexa: I thought you knew the possibility was there, has always been there. I was wrong," Duncan said. "When we talked,Vishnevetsky thought I'd have to tie you to the bed. I disagreed. Not, my friend," the Highlander said to the dark head bent against his shoulder "that I'm entirely adverse to the idea. But Vishnevetsky, you see, hasn't lived through years of you playing little come hither games with my mind and go hence games with my body."

Oh, that hurt. Had it been so obvious?

"Only to me," Duncan said, answering the thought. For the first time, now, his voice hesitated. "I set you up, Methos. I gave you a fucking big hoop to jump through."

The hand that had been stroking his hair, stopped, was held still. (don't stop, MacLeod, don't ever stop.)

"And you jumped," Duncan said. "Beautifully. But I didn't give you much choice. If someone used my body against me like that..."

Methos said nothing. He put the glass down, carefully, on the floor. Then he moved away from the couch and the hands that held him complete, kneeling on the floor, facing the man who had brought him here. He bowed his head and opened his eyes, tilting his blindfolded head to the Highlander. "I'm not making any promises about tomorrow, MacLeod," he said. "But I'm yours tonight."

He spread his thighs a little, just a little, so the strain showed in the arch of tendon in his thighs, and waited. He could feel Duncan's arousal in his mind, a tension held in abeyance by the man's control.

"Is this what you want?" the Highlander asked.

"Yes," Methos said, although, in all honesty, somewhere in the back of his head he was screaming.

"We have seven hours," Duncan said, the steadiness of his voice contrasting bizarrely with the urgency of want Methos could feel in his mind. "And you look..amazing, my friend. But this isn't all I want...Stand up," Duncan said, his voice a whip crack of power.

Methos stood. He was shaking again, not entirely sure if his legs would carry him.

"Better," Duncan said, his voice musing. "But not enough."

Methos heard the springs of the couch shift under Duncan's weight, felt the heat of the man's eyes through the blindfold. Steps on the floorboards dropped into a loaded, spine tingling silence, his mind spinning into fragments, lost and found and mealed under those brown eyes. He tilted his head back, tasting the air. There was no expected touch to his skin. He took one remembered breath. What? What?

And felt the cold pain on his back, the knife-edge precise and clean against his clothes, his skin, no steadying hand on his shoulder as he flinched once against the blade and then stood still. Duncan, cutting his clothes away, worked in silence, the only sound the brief hiss of breath when he had finished and Methos stood naked with hands still bound in front of his body. The older immortal could feel blood cooling against his skin: just a little blood. The Highlander had been very precise.

"Methos," Duncan said, his voice a benediction. In that sound he could hear want, affection, admiration. Ownership. It was that that held him straighter against the unseen eyes, knowing he could not hide the shortness of his breath or the force of his renewed erection, his body clearly signaling its need.

Then, at last, Duncan's hands, no caress, a businesslike placement of arms behind head, legs spread, no lingering stroke or gentleness as his skin flinched from and craved the other man's touch. He stood alone, and surely this was how it should be.

The shock of fingers, then, on his mouth, a gentle outlining of skin that turned his head into the need of that tenderness. Warmth against his skin and the soft warmth of Duncan's breath, the other man's mouth inches from his.. "Still want this, Methos? I won't ask again."

How could he not?

He nodded, once, eyes closing beneath the kindness of the blindfold. Duncan drew away without kissing him (regret?), and the next touch he felt was the blade of the knife. He knew, then, that this was not going to be easy. One quick slice of the blade into his shoulderblade, and then a slow, dragging curve: he could feel his flesh part under the steel. Duncan's mouth on his skin, against the blood he felt hot on his back, much more of it than before, something whispered quiet against his skin that he could not hear, and then his body touched again. Unexpected, soft strokes against his body that curved and delineated the line of muscles and tendons, a swift and exact marking. A brush, then, paint that pulled at his skin as it dried, a pattern that started at his ankles and flowed to cover his body, Duncan working with gentle speed. Slowly, as the trail of paint covered his legs, Methos realised that Duncan must have done this before, many times: the hands were too steady and the patterns too perfect: the man knew what he was doing. He could feel the other man's absorption in his mind, an unknown language unscrolling on his body. The feel of it was compelling, exciting, a claim written on his skin.

When Duncan moved to the skin of his buttocks, he could not restrain the shudder that followed the lines of the brush, cold on the sensitised flesh. He could feel Duncan's silent amusement in the charged air. An amusement that was underscored by the tension he could feel, even now, under the Highlander's controlled skill. Whatever Duncan was doing, he needed to do it. And Methos..Ah, Methos felt as if he was being gathered and bound, his soul drawn in and painted on his skin. With every stroke of the brush, his mind was drawn and mingled with his flesh. The sheer physicality of it overwhelmed his senses, each inch of skin anointed, his breath a pathway for Duncan's skill, his body an instrument for the other to use. There was nothing but this.

His back..ahh. Methos hissed as the paint hit the healing scar Duncan had carved into the pale flesh. paint on blood. It stung, but the Highlander ignored the sound, the brush performing wide sweeps across the stretched muscle, curving gently around the line of ribs and spine, a broad swath spiraling up his backbone. Now, for the first time, Methos wished he could see the man's face. Dispassionate? Excited? Concentrated? Did Duncan crave the feel of his flesh the way Methos craved his?

Face to face, then, as Duncan inscribed his wrists, his arms, spun patterns across his chest and collarbones. His face was left bare. Then the rush of air again as the Highlander knelt to paint his belly, face close to the bobbing erection that Methos could neither hide or subdue. The brush was slower now, delving into the lines of thigh meeting belly, the slight curve of stomach, Duncan's breath coming steady with the strokes. A pause. Then one single steady stroke of the brush, from base to tip of his engorged penis, paint so cold against the hot skin, drawing blood and sensation and heat into the core of flesh so, that, despite himself, Methos arched into the caress. He felt his mouth open a little: there was not enough air, there was too much of himself lost and gathered into someone else's hands, there was too much Duncan altogether.

And then there was more Duncan, rising, the unexpected heat of his skin as Methos felt the taller man's body slide against his, skin to skin, the corded hardness of Duncan's thighs meeting his own, chest and belly and cock hard against him. He felt himself melt into the other man's strength, his heat, Methos' body open and needing, every separate hair on the Highlander's body an agonised pressure.

"Duncan," Methos said, turning his head into the space where the other man's head should be, meeting the softness of unbound hair against his skin as Duncan's head lowered to his shoulder. His arms were raised and clasped across Methos', hands around the binding that still held him. "Duncan."

In answer, Methos felt the pressure of Duncan's lips on his shoulder, a soft emphasis as the Highlander took a single cold breath and bit, very gently, into the pale flesh that shivered under his touch. Methos fell forward into the caress, his body lax, shivering against the heat of the other man's skin. "Methos." Duncan said, and raised his head, his body still, taking the weight of the older man with no apparent strain. There was no warning, only the agonised heat of the other man's mouth on his own, open, wet, fierce, an ungentle claiming that ground teeth and tongues in slippery heat, no quarter asked or given. The light was black behind Methos' eyes, but when Duncan drew away he could have sworn he saw stars. Magnet to lodestar, his head turned into the Highlander's as the man kissed, nipped, laved his way down Methos' throat, rose to his ear, came back to claim his mouth again with unsettling urgency.

"You look..amazing," Duncan said against his mouth. The burr was strong in his voice, heather honey voice, dragging the blood slow through Methos' veins in instinctive response.

It took effort to centre himself.

"You're clothed," he managed.

Duncan laughed, turning his cheek against the older mans'. "What's it to you, my dear?" he said, drawing back. "Stand straight for me, Methos. Let me see."

Bereft of Duncan's support, Methos braced himself against the floor, bared feet steady on the boards as he stretched his arms behind his head again. No touch, but the taste of Duncan's desire in his mouth and the remembered feel of his hard body was reassurance enough.

"Kneel," Duncan's voice, the command back in his tone. Methos knelt, knees bruising against the floor. He spread his legs without being asked, knowing his own vulnerability. Footsteps again, the consideration of Duncan's unseen gaze as the man walked around his stretched body.

The hand twisting into his hair warned him. Duncan's hands, no hint of apology in that possessive, bruising grasp as Methos found his head tilted back, his throat opened for the first taste..yes, Duncan's cock, the skin smooth as velvet, the heavy crown tasting of salt and skin. No push yet, and Methos took his chance to taste the fullness of the rounded head, investigate the sweet-bitter folds of retracted foreskin, lap at the small slit that gaped at the touch of his tongue, tasting of seaweed and honey. He didn't know what he wanted, time to taste and spin out arousal, or for Duncan to thrust into his mouth with all the power of his not inconsiderable frame.

The choice was not his.

"Don't come, Methos," Duncan warned him, as the hands took a secure grip on his short hair, pulling at the skin of his scalp. "I want this mouth. Open for me."

Then there was power behind the pressure on his lips, as, blind, he opened his mouth, feeling the moment's inevitable panic - too big, too much: as the Highlander's cock invaded his space in this most intimate of touches. Big, so big Methos strained to encompass the size of him even as Duncan did not stop, would not stop, hand twisting his head back as the Highlander headed straight for the back of his throat. Methos felt his throat rising against the inexorable pressure, suppressed the urge to gag with desperate intent. Duncan was not stopping for Methos' breathing or gagging or the strangled moan he produced around a mouthful of heated flesh. The man kept fucking his mouth, long, slow steady, deep strokes that took no account of Methos' streaming nose and ears, all sense blinded and in pain, all attention concentrated on the cock that owned his mouth. There was no time to accustom himself, no space to consider, just this, the lack of air and the roaring in his ears, the pressure against the back of throat and then the cessation of pressure, a gift that left him bereft and aching for that possession again. The air he breathed was a concession, gasped in around Duncan's skin, his nose and mouth filled with the scent and taste of another man's body. And Duncan did not stop, would not stop, the long, steady, punishing rhythm lifting Methos' knees from the floor with each pass, the bigger man crowding him closer as the older immortal's throat eased into acceptance. Duncan had been right. The rhythm pulled him into arousal, filled his cock and left it oozing pre-cum, the only thought in his head Duncan's flesh and the aching need to feel the man's hands on his own skin. Shameless, Methos pushed his hips forward with Duncan's movement, hoping vainly for some kind of friction against his desperately aroused flesh: a leg, skin of any kind, ah, dear god, a hand.

Nothing.

He was breathless, oxygen deprivation dizzying his brain, loosing badly, his only reality the flesh that ravaged his mouth, and was almost with a sense of relief that he felt Duncan's cock, impossibly, swell a little, felt the Highlander hesitate and speed up. The man's hands slipped further down Methos' throat, steady against the burning, abused flesh. It was so deliberate, so paced, this claiming: the long strokes faster but still steady, still punishing. It was only at the last that Duncan lost it, pounding into Methos' mouth with an unconstrained force that allowed Methos to know just how much the Highlander had been controlling his pace. Too much, and as Methos began to choke for real he felt the first pulsing of Duncan's cock and then the man pulled away. Methos' mouth was open and bruised, his lips swollen, his head aching against the lost grip of Duncan's hands. Sundered and bereft, he felt the first note of keening rise in his throat as, in front of him, alone, unseen and silent, Duncan came violently into the grip of his own hands.

He swallowed the cry after the first note, but it did not go unnoticed.

He waited, then, the blood beating heavy through his body and the only urge and thought towards completion, the only stay Duncan's voice, more powerful in its restraint. The wait was not unrewarded. Half expected, Methos felt the shift in air that signaled Duncan's movement, and then the hands on his stretched thighs, gentle, soothing. No words. Only the feel of Duncan's loose hair on his skin, a deliberate and tantalising caress, and the steady pressure of those hands. His muscles trembled with the command to stay still, not to arch, seeking pressure, into the feathery stokes against his skin, across his thighs, his belly, his cock. His balls, tightening under the tease. He needed, oh, he needed...the noise that emerged from his thrown back head was hardly articulate, but Duncan seemed to understand what he meant. The hands shifted, and seconds later Methos felt the indescribable relief of the Highlander's tongue tasting his skin. Duncan had bent his head between the older immortal's spread thighs, lapping gently at the crease between thighs and belly, the curve of skin at his hip. An inexorable journey. When the man's mouth reached, at last, the swollen head of his cock, Methos could not restrain the gasp of relief and pleasure: he could feel Duncan's lips soft against his skin.

So good. So gentle, the curve of Duncan's tongue, a leisurely possession that sent the blood racing, unfulfilled, around his body. Every nerve in his body sensitised almost to pain, Methos cried out as the heat of that mouth closed at last around the head of his cock. Duncan's hands held him steady: Duncan's mouth held him paralysed between desire and fulfillment, his very breath an action designed for Methos' pleasure. The man held his mouth still, and then sank down, so slow and easy it was like sliding into the sea, the night. From a distance, Methos could hear his own voice, a plea in a language even he had half forgotten. Duncan seemed to appreciate that, the generous, enveloping mouth setting a slow tide of rhythm, mobile tongue sweeping across the needy flesh. Now, not to touch was a torment: he wanted to feel Duncan's skin under his hands, see his face...and then, inexorable, a gathering wave of pleasure, the orgasm that had been sliding up on him broke. Like nothing on earth. It started slow, so slow, waves of sensation so gentle Methos hardly realised that they were inescapable, grew and built to a racing crescendo, no time to ride out the spasms or reach for a safe space. He was flung without a guide into the trackless night with only Duncan's mouth and hands to hold him close against the fear and the ecstasy.

And only Duncan's hands there for him when he roused, holding him steady, with gentleness.

He had been crying, the tear trails wet on his face under the blindfold. He hoped, for a moment, that Duncan had not noticed and then realised that in this moment, it did not matter.

"Welcome back," The Highlander said softly into his ear, and then the hands that had been holding him let go. He was struck, then, by the bleak loneliness that came sometimes with the little death, like a knife to the heart. He was alone, kneeling in the ashes of a friendship that had burned white hot.

"Duncan?" Methos asked, and then would have taken back the word for the stark want in his tone. But he heard nothing. Had the man gone? In lifetimes of leaving, had he been left?

"Quiet," Duncan said, from somewhere behind him. "I want you to see something. Stand up for me, Methos."

There was knowledge. now, in his voice. The knowledge of surrender demanded and given.

Methos stood, blind. He felt Duncan's hand on his shoulder, very light, very sure, as the man turned him and pushed. Still weak with the lassitude of the sex that scented the air, Methos moved slowly under the Highlander's guiding hand. "Carpet." Duncan's voice said, behind him, and he felt the uneven tufts of the kelim that covered the bedspace floor. "Stand," Came the voice, and he stood, immobile, listening to the sounds of Duncan's breath and the noise of something heavy being moved. Near, and away: the solid thunk of weight against wall: he could almost feel the barge shift and settle.

"I'm taking the blindfold off now," Duncan said. "Close your eyes."

Light, almost painful, behind his closed lids, Duncan's hands gentle on the binding.. His own hands were still bound. For one irrational instant, he wished, now, to be free, to turn and bend his head in tribute and love rather than coercion. And then to rise...No.

"Open your eyes," Duncan said. "I want you to see yourself."

And Methos opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was himself.

Himself transmuted, Himself strange, his white skin formed and framed by the blue patterns on his skin and the design of shapes and designs unscrolling across his body. His own eyes, as he had never seen them, with such a space of want...He could not look. Despite the command, he squeezed his eyes closed.

"Methos," Duncan said behind him, and he felt the man's heat at his back. He opened his eyes again, to the antique weight of mirror that had burnt itself behind his closed lids. This time, he could face his painted body with some degree of composure, but he could not meet the eyes of the man who stood behind him, the Highlander's skin equally naked in the mirror's dispassionate reflection.

"You painted me," he said. (State the obvious, Old Man...)

"You'd be right," Duncan said. He was not smiling, but there was, again, that trace of amusement in his tone, as if he knew something Methos did not. The older immortal considered asking why, and , in the context of the evening, rejected that thought.

"It's not exactly traditional," Duncan said, head cocked to one side, as Methos' eyes followed the spiraling traces of paint that bound his limbs. "But it works for me..Methos, move forward a little." His voice was gentle, but the command was back in his tone. Methos moved, Found himself two feet, a foot, in front of the mirror. Duncan touched him then, spread his arms and anchored them to the top of the frame, spread his legs and ran a proprietary hand up the line of his limp cock. Under that almost impersonal caress, it stirred, sensate and detached from Methos' own riven thoughts.

" This is me, Methos," Duncan said. "Don't forget it. Look up."

Methos looked up, met his own gaze in the mirror, looked away in horror and thus watched as well as felt the slow burn of Duncan's hands as they descended his body. As the man knelt and ran those fingers, nails, across Methos' buttocks." Don't move," Duncan said, as the surety of command was firm in his voice again. In the mirror, his eyes rose to the older man's. "Four and a half more hours, Methos. You can take it."

It was then that Duncan's fingers, slick and cold, touched Methos' arse for the first time. Startled, Methos bucked away, and almost instantly felt the promised, stinging pain of the Highlander's open handed and forceful slap.

"Stop fighting, you know you want it," Duncan said. There was an edge of strain in his voice that had not been there previously. His hands positioned the slighter man once more.

Caught, Methos watched Duncan's hand slip from his own skin, drop to touch, surely, the other man's cock. Duncan stood, large in the mirror's frame. The Highlander stepped forward, his eyes dropping. And in the mirror Methos saw the steadying hand on his hip before he felt it.

"Breathe in, Methos," The Highlander said.

Methos did, watching his own eyes widen and blacken in the mirror. He had been here before. It was just another fuck. It would be just another fuck. It would be ... He felt the warm, blunt pressure of Duncan's cock against his arsehole, heat slick against the cold cream. In the mirror, his eyes widened. He felt Duncan's other hand slip to his hip, as the man leaned forward a little.

He closed his eyes, taut, waiting, as those fingers pressed eight perfect black bruises into his skin. Like a river, his mind, bending with the reeds...

"I don't...No!" Methos said, fear lending him strength as he pushed away from the mirror, as Duncan leaned into his body and thrust home with one painful and possessive stroke.

The pain. He wanted to curl round his body, he wanted it to stop, he wanted to run: he could feel the cold sweat break out behind his knees and in his crotch. Stop. Ohh, stop, stop now let me find myself again.

"Fuck you," Said the Highlander, his weight a force that pressed the older immortal back against the glass, his arms a cage, his cock a painful and absolute possession.

"Not like this," Methos said, his voice cracking, his hands curled tight into the intricate plaster of the mirror's frame. "Duncan, not-"

"Yes."

"No." With difficulty, Methos turned his face, pressed hard against the mirror's unforgiving surface, towards the Highlander's. Duncan's eyes were closed, his face close, but not within touching distance. The younger man said nothing, but Methos saw his eyelids tighten as the man moved, slowly, in his body. Slow. Irresistible, a force that could not be denied but seemed to cause as much pain to the instigator as to the receiver.

"Duncan, stop. Please," Methos' body was already falling into the other man's, a surrender his mind fought desperately.

Nothing. Only the painful, steady push, retreat of Duncan's cock into his body. Little movements, time easing the pain as his body loosened. It was mechanical, unfeeling, a possession that was all the more telling for its silence: Methos could hear the little huffs of Duncan's breath, feel the effort it took the other man to take him over and over again. He would have fallen but his hands would not let go of the frame and Duncan's grasp was bruisingly firm on his hips, Duncan's weight hot against his skin.

Then one of the hands let go, lifted: Duncan stilled, raising himself centimetres from the older man's body. Methos trembled then, on the edge of surrender. And Duncan's hands came up to grasp his hair, draw his face inches back from the mirror, turn him to face it. Behind his own wide eyes and the sharp curve of his cheekbone Methos could see Duncan's face, intent, almost drawn.

"Isn't this what you wanted, Methos?" the younger man said. "Is this distant enough for you? Am I giving you enough space?" He thrust again, slowly: Methos could feel the power of the man's body. Duncan could slam him into the glass, take him with all the force in his body, fuck him into oblivion, but it wouldn't be enough.

"Look, Methos," Duncan said behind, the strain telling in the rough edges of his voice. "Look. This is you. Don't lie to me now."

"I can't.." Methos said. Language seemed to have deserted him. He could see the pleading in his own eyes as they meet Duncan's.

"Can't what?" Duncan closed his eyes. His lashes lay stubby and black on his cheeks, his lower lip caught in his teeth.

"MacLeod.." Methos said. He didn't recognise the sound of his own voice.

"Fuck you then," Duncan said. His grip shifted, and Methos could feel him brace himself. Then he did begin to take Methos' body, long, bruising, thrusts that flung the slighter man against the unforgiving cold glass of the mirror and held him there, Duncan's body apart from his, their only contact the hands on Methos' hips and the length of Duncan's cock. Duncan was crooning to him, the words hard edged and bitter- "Oh, my sweet little whore, not so fierce now, you're getting what you wanted all along.." Methos could feel the blood running hot in his body, the strength of his own arousal, and at the same time he felt detached from it, as if he was two separate people, himself fucked, himself watching and assessing, curious, detached. He would not, he could not...he opened his eyes, and met Duncan's in the mirror. It was like falling: he slammed back into his body, aware of the pain of Duncan's possession, the smell of his own sweat, the sharp edges of the frame beneath his fingers, Duncan's hands on his body. His skin was several sizes too small, unraveling with need.

"What do you want?" Duncan said. His voice was harsh, compelling.

Not this, not like this... Oh, Duncan.

He was so clumsy, frozen, his heart beating too fast, short of breath. But he said it, pushing the words out into the space between them.

"Touch me," Methos said. He said it so lightly, laid the words against the glass in a fading circle of condensation.

"Ahh," Duncan said. He stilled, his hands loosened, the tips of his fingers resting on Methos' skin, eight points of fire that warmed, fired, branded: Methos could feel the heat of that touch in his bones. "I thought I was." He ran one hand the length of Methos' spine, not touching the skin, skimming the tiny hairs, and Methos felt his whole body gather and arch to that single caress. "You're beautiful," Duncan said, distracted, and then caught Methos' eyes again in the mirror.

"But don't you think," Duncan said. "That sex is by definition lonely? That however much we try, we remain two separate people, forever divided by what attracts us in the first place?" He stopped. The room was still, and Methos could think.

"It's a counsel of nihilism," he said, into the silence, his eyes closed and his skin chilling.

"But isn't that what you wanted?" Duncan said, gently. "All these artificial ties that bind, this manufactured fear...tell me, my dear, are you so very certain I won't take your head?" Briefly, the Highlander laid his fingers against the side of the older immortal's throat, a moment of warmth. "That, at least, would be real." He stopped. Methos could feel the distance between them, stretching out in a single heartbeat.

"What do you want?" Duncan said again.

"I don't know," Methos said to the mirror, his eyes closed.

"Choose," Duncan said. "Do you want us to finish like this?" He rocked again, gently, in Methos' body, felt the older man shudder against him and almost unconsciously reached out to soothe - and remembered, letting his hand hang in mid air and then fall to his side. He could feel his erection start to wilt in Methos' body, but it wasn't important. This was important, the frown between Methos' eyebrows and the struggle in his head. He slipped free of Methos' body, steadying himself with one hand on the mirror, and stepped back. Methos moaned, bit it back: he turned, eyes closed, leaning against the mirror. He was beautiful, cream and paint, half-mythical. And because he himself was Duncan, because, even now, he could try to make it easier, he said to the other immortal: "Make love with me."

Methos' eyes opened, his pupils so wide and dark that his eyes looked black. There were bruises under his eyes, little stains of blue that made him look deceptively vulnerable.

"You lay my heart on a knife," Methos said.

"I'm good with knives," Duncan answered. He was smiling a little. "Walls, chairs, chocolate. You should try me in bed sometime, it's warmer." He took a step backwards.

"Immortals?" Methos asked. His chin had risen.

"I can do immortals," Duncan said. "Ancients, love, eternity...I never did lock the door, Methos, and I won't try to stop you. You have always been free."

"I know," Methos said. "You're greedy."

"And you've even forgotten when you're lying to yourself," Duncan took another step back, could feel the frame of his bed on the backs of his knees.

"I don't know how," Methos said, slowly.

"Oh, come now," Duncan answered him. "That's the oldest line in the book, and you probably wrote it. Want me?"

"You know I do," Methos said, flayed.

"Then take some responsibility," Duncan said. "We've done it your way: now do it mine."

"You don't know what you're asking."

"Oh, I do. Chose. Or we forget this ever happened," Duncan's voice was equable, balanced, but Methos' eyes flew open at his words. The Highlander was seated on the edge of the bed, naked, his body warm and golden in the light. His hair was loose, his eyes intent, and the flush of passion lent colour to his cheeks: he was beautiful.

"You want too much," Methos said to him, almost whispering. He had straightened against the mirror, his eyes on Duncan's hands, held lax between the younger man's knees.

"What, equality, fraternity, respect?" Duncan asked him. "I thought we were friends." He leant back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. He was a statue in golden fire: the blaze of him warmed Methos' skin, pulled at him, made him feel things he had forgotten centuries before. "Did I ask for more than tonight?" The younger man reminded him. "I won't tell if you won't." He was smiling, but he would not reach out a hand, display his body to seduce, make the choice easy.

Methos took a step forward. His skin could already feel the touch of the Highlander's, a heated shadow on his nerves. This was such a mistake. He should be running, but he was walking instead, one careful step after another, watching the Highlander watching him. He reached the end of the bed, and felt the younger man's quickening curl round him like fire. He was so hot it hurt, so heavy every movement was weighted: he knelt there, between the Highlanders legs, not touching him, and Duncan obligingly spread his knees to accommodate his body. He looked down, frowning, feeling his mind beginning to panic as his hands lifted of their own accord and touched -aiee! Heat- the tough, small hairs of the Highlander's thighs. Duncan's breath hissed through his teeth: his head had gone back, baring his throat, but his eyes were fixed on the older man's. He could not meet that painfully honest gaze: he dropped his eyes, and watched, fascinated, his mouth drying, as under his hands Duncan trembled and the long, clean line of his cock filled, the thick vein pulsing, the head standing proud and rosy. He wanted to smell, to taste, to run his tongue up the length of that velvet-hot skin. He could smell Duncan's arousal as if it were his own: loosened one hand from the other man's thigh with effort and ran a finger up that vein, watching fascinated as the skin flushed under his touch. Oh, he was not the only one wanting, and in this he gave pleasure...He ran his finger around the frill of foreskin which tightened under his fingertips, thought once, knowing it was too late, of pleasures of waiting, and lowered his head to the remembered warm steel-soft length.

It was too late for finesse. He wanted Duncan's skin under his hands. He wanted the Highlander's taste in the back of his throat, he wanted Duncan's voice torn to shreds in his ears. He wanted it all, and now, his hands urgent worshipping, the texture of velvet cock rolled under his check, the power of Duncan's muscles convulsing under his weight. He had the Highlander's hands clasped in his hair, his voice breaking and murmuring, his own true name falling sweet and cracked into his ears. This, then, was lust's bastard, fiercest gift.

He had not completely forgotten, was not completely selfish: could bring himself to want and tease and soothe, his fingers in the warm wet haven of Duncan's mouth and the grabbing, ringed muscle of his arse (lube? Oh dear heart, you make it so easy.) Duncan stretched out sacrifice to this trammeling lust. No, not sacrifice: willing: the man under him moved, clasping him, rolling both of them a full complete circle that encompassed his instinctive urge to flight (Duncan's weight, his own freedom) and the younger man's awareness of both of them ("I have you. You are free."). He ended spread lengthwise across the Highlander's body, stretched out skin to skin with Duncan's mouth hard against his lips and fingers. Duncan's eyes open into his, a blaze of golden possession shared. (Oh, don't say it.) His own hands spreading under Duncan's thighs as he sat back, although the Highlander held him now, eyes, mouth, cock: he tried to be gentle and succeeded in being clumsy. Duncan's arse, his centre, breached with one short thrust that brought them perilously close: hold, hold, idiot, but it felt too good, and even as the other man arched towards him and away from pain he was in further (loins, heart, wings of fire) and so close to coming he was terrified to move and impelled to that terror.

He held on long enough for the Highlander's body to relax and stroked again. He couldn't tell where Duncan's body ended and his began. Duncan's thighs spread across his, their hands clasped together and both holding his weight against the sheet, Duncan's sweat salt on his own skin. All was heat, and Duncan's eyes were a flame he could not guard against. He came, violently, chased into ecstasy by the adamantine love of those steady eyes, and Duncan followed him, refusing to let him go even at the height of his own pleasure.

Spent, his body broke over the Highlander's. But that was all right. The hands on his back were light, soothing. The voice in his ears gentle. His hands were unbound, a kindness.

When he came back to himself, held light in Duncan's arms, he could only laugh.

"I feel like a boy with his first," he said, explanation, to the wordless, questing nuzzle of Duncan's mouth against his hair, and the other man laughed with him.

"I think I'll take that as flattery," Duncan said.

Methos turned his head into the unlikely haven of Duncan's neck. "You should," he said firmly, and felt Duncan chuckle again. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he had laughed in bed. And remembering that timespan tensed.

"What is it?" Duncan asked, and then Methos said, "How much time do we have?"

Duncan's hand on his back stopped, started. " Enough, mo chridhe," he said. "We have time enough. Let me, this time."

And the paths Duncan mapped on his body were those of tender acceptance. His touch was light, and his weight easy, sliding the old man into the kind of pleasure he had forgotten existed. Buoyed on Duncan's voice, encompassed by his hands, held in love, Methos found both age and experience surpassed and overturned by the Highlander. Afterwards, lying spent in Duncan's embrace as the birds woke outside the window, he told the drowsing lover what he could not tell the walking warrior.

"You are clan of my clan," Methos said, in a language so old it had died before writing. "My meat is yours. My fire yours. My body yours."

Over him, under him, Duncan said "One day you will say that to me in a language I understand. Don't go."

He could have commanded. But after the last night, he asked, and Methos acquiesced. It was three hours past Duncan's declared deadline that Methos roused to the fine rich scent of good coffee and the feel of the Highlander's chilled body sliding cold and clean into the warmth of the bed they shared.

"Coffee?" Duncan's voice asked.

Methos put out a hand. How odd, that in a night of transmuted cravings, this had not changed also. He felt light, newborn, tired.

"It isn't morning," Duncan said, lying.

"No?" Methos asked him, around a mouthful of coffee.

"It's afternoon," Duncan told him. "You are forsworn. I will hold you to it."

"Fool," Methos said, without heat. He had not yet opened his eyes. That would be too much reality.

"I don't think so," Duncan stated, with easy good humour.

"You think it's so easy?" Methos said. He could not help but push, even though he knew right here, right now, this was a mistake.

"You think that was easy?" Duncan said. His voice encompassed shock, pain, remembrance. He knew, now, what the stakes were and what Methos was playing.

"I think it took a degree of commitment I am frightened to consider," Methos said.

"But isn't this about fear, all the way?" Duncan said. " I am facing mine, but facing yours is a choice you have to make."

"Don't take the moral high ground with me, Highlander!" Methos snapped. But the hand that came down to touch his hair was gentle.

"Been there. Done that," Duncan said. "Moved on. Was I talking morals?"

"After last night?" Methos could feel Duncan shiver through eight inches of space and several blankets. "I can't tell you..." He searched for words. "It was more...I feel like you gave me..."

"I love you, you know," Duncan said. "For what it's worth. I can't take it back. It's fixed. Even if last night had never happened, even if you want it not to have happened, even if it never did happen." His voice firmed. "This not a bribe or a leash, Methos. You are free."

"Why do you think I'm quite so frightened, Highlander?" Methos' voice was a whipcrack, but the courage it took to reveal his fears sang like gold under the pain.

"It's not important," Duncan said. "I'll take anything you have to give me." He paused for a moment. "Wait. Let me rephrase that. I don't think I could do anything like last night again, not soon, anyway...whatever you want, Methos."

Methos rolled over, further away from the tempting stretch of warm skin and astonishing acceptance. He opened his eyes. Duncan looked down at him, a small frown line between his eyes, but his face open, unquestioning.

"Duncan, what do you want?" he asked.

"Loaded question?" Duncan asked. "But then, how could it not be..." He put his own mug of coffee back on the side table and turned to face Methos directly. "I wanted to know what you felt like under my hands," he said. "I wanted to break you, force you to choose. And I wanted you to choose me." His eyes fell. "And I wanted to make you laugh, I wanted to know what you looked like when it was simply pleasure and nothing else. That was...last night. This morning? I wanted you to be here. I want to curl up with you for a moment. I want you to say, that was good, Duncan, let's do it again sometime. I want to go out and find breakfast and watch you walk away from me knowing you'll be back. I want you to know