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Title: Strength Undying, and in Love
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Highlander
Characters/Pairings: Joe, Methos, Methos/Joe
Continuity: Set just after 6x11, Indiscretions - my new favourite episode
Summary: A long, drunken talk, and ... something else
Wordcount: 3830
Disclaimer: Not mine
Warning: Possibly a bit mawkish for some tastes?
Strength Undying, and in Love
Methos all but carried him upstairs, after all this time still surprisingly strong. Not the time that was surprising. Time didn't have the hold on the Old Man that it did on him. The strength. Always surprising, that strength.
He fetched up on the edge of the bed, blinking blearily down at Methos, wondering vaguely how he'd missed the other man opening the door. It was a manhandle job, getting himself through that door, let alone another man. How the hell had Methos managed it without even bringing him out of his daze? Not that he wasn't grateful, mind. He was quite attached to this daze. Kept away the other stuff. The day. Almost losing Amy. Almost betraying Methos. Almost getting everyone damn killed. Yeah. He was liking this daze a hell of a lot.
"You weigh a ton," Methos commented darkly, from the floor, and Joe looked down at him in surprise. The Immortal glared back, snarling good-naturedly as he wrestled with Joe's belt.
Er.
"What y'doin'?" Joe grumbled, slapping gently at the busy hands. Bloody hell, he didn't need undressing, too! Could manage that his own self, thanks. Methos, completely unperturbed, caught his hands and held them still so he could blink innocently up at Joe, sending a chill up his spine in the process. That look never meant anything good ...
"I'm trying to get in your pants, what's it look like I'm doing?" Absolutely straight-faced, woefully serious. Right on cue. Joe tugged a hand free to slap the smart-arse lightly behind the ear, huffing. Methos looked wounded for all of a second, then let the grin slip out. "Well, you can't blame a guy for trying."
"The hell I can't," he muttered, fumbling with his own belt, fingers feeling just thick and clumsy enough to really start annoying him, the frustration cutting into the happy buzzing in his skull. Damn ... stupid ...
"Joe!" Hands on his, tugging them away firmly, exasperation in every motion, damn blasted hollow-legged Immortal bastard that he was. "Look, you get the shirt off, I'll get the legs, right?" Joe glared at him. Methos glared right back, impressive nostrils flaring in frustration. Joe blinked at him a bit, not moving his hands, until Methos deflated with a sigh.
"Look," Methos scrubbed a hand through his hair, rocking back on his heels to give Joe a dirty look that quickly softened. "All joking aside, I'm just going to take your bloody pants off, and get you into bed. Alright? Because as your doctor," he ignored Joe's derisive snort, "As your doctor, I can tell you that going to sleep with those things on is an idea so monumentally hair-brained it's almost Macleod-worthy, and I can only deal with so many barbarians at a time, alright? So for both our sakes, can you please just let me strip you and get you into bed!"
Joe blinked, then stared at him for a very long time. Methos stared back, anger and honesty, Death and Adam and Benjamin all rolled into one, and Joe could swear the man had no idea what he'd just said. Doctor mode taking right over, and even in the light of the earlier joking, Methos meant exactly what he'd said, and no more. Genuine innocence.
Well damn.
"Do what you want," he muttered, ungraciously, flopping backwards onto the bedspread with a groan. He didn't even have to see the man's face to know the dirty look he was getting, but if Methos wanted to play doctor, Joe was more than prepared to play truculent patient, and enjoy every damn minute. For a second, nothing happened, and he got the distinct impression that the Old Man was considering just strangling him and be done, but then there were fingers on his belt once more, light and careful and without a single ulterior motive, and Joe just let the world slide a bit. He hated watching the legs come off. Every time, even when he was doing it himself. He hated it. Better just to drift if you can.
After a minute, though, after the still-painful jerks of the prosthetics coming off ... Another sensation started to penetrate the fog of his thoughts. Hands, smoothing over the scarred ends of his limbs, fingers ... it was always odd, being touched down there. Feeling the touch between the scars, but nothing over them, no sensation at all ... like the fingers blinked on and off over his skin. Strange. Always strange. He propped himself back up on his elbows, and looked down.
Methos didn't look at him. Possibly he hadn't even noticed Joe wake up. He was watching his fingers, watching them trace over the remains of Joe's legs, and there was the strangest expression on his face. Something Joe had never seen, something not even decades as a Watcher could let him read, and that was more than just strange. That was damn near unheard of. What shaped Methos' features right then was nothing Joe had ever seen on a human face.
Then again, who knew what a human face could learn to show, in five thousand years.
"Hey," he said, softly, and watched Methos almost jump out of his skin, toppling over in a graceless heap of limbs and muttered oaths. Joe blinked.
"Damn, Joe! Warn a person!" The world's oldest man pulled himself back up onto his knees, resting his arms heavily on the bed beside Joe's legs, and this expression was very familiar indeed. Pure Methosian affront, for something that was his fault to start with. Yep.
"What, warn a person that I'm about to ask why he's feeling me up?" he asked tartly, grinning a little when Methos winced, looking positively sheepish.
"Wasn't," the ancient man muttered, sounding so exactly like a five-year old that Joe had to fight to keep the snickers in. The disbelief, however, he let fly without regret.
"Uh-huh. Sure, man. Sure."
"I wasn't!" Indignant now, head coming up to meet Joe's eyes defiantly, and Joe frowned, because he looked serious. Like he meant it. And, okay, that left Joe somewhat confused, because whatever that had been, it wasn't pity, or curiosity, and failing either of those he was a bit lost.
"What were you doing, then?" he asked, honestly curious. Somewhere in the back of his head, he realised curiosity probably wasn't the appropriate response to a man feeling him up unasked, but this was Methos. Nothing he did was what it seemed, and ... and Joe wanted to know what he'd seen, in that moment of silence. He wanted to know what that was, and why it was directed at him.
Cats and Watchers. Curious to a fault.
"I ... I was memorising," Methos said at last, looking away with what looked in the dimness like a flush. Joe stared. He'd no idea what he was meant to do with that.
"Memorising?" he repeated, slowly, shaking his head. Nope. Not getting any clearer. Methos looked up at him, with that weird little shrug thing he did, self-depreciating and small. Joe wondered when he'd learned it, when he'd started trying to fit small in the cracks of life, but that was a hell of a depressing thought and he let it go, falling back on curiosity as the oldest standby, and glaring until he got his answer.
"Joe ..." Methos started, and then stopped, tilted his head back a bit as he tried to gather his thoughts. Joe watched him. He loved watching him. Watching them, but Methos in particular. And yeah, alright, maybe he could admit that wasn't completely professional interest, either. But this man ... that narrow face, smooth, young, hiding all the world behind it. He just wanted ... some clue. Some hint, of what waited back there. Some hint of who Methos was when he wasn't trying to be small and inconspicuous enough to be ignored.
"Have you ever looked at us?" the Immortal asked finally, tipping his head forward to meet Joe's eyes again, almost freakily echoing his own thoughts. But Methos wasn't telepathic. He was not. Joe had enough problems keeping up with the guy without that too.
"Looked at you how?" he muttered, to cover the confusion, and maybe he'd let a bit of something slip into the question, because Methos flashed him that instant grin, that little leap of amusement. He grinned back. A little.
"Well, that'll do too," Methos smiled, the Brit coming out strong in the voice in pompous teasing. Bastard. Then he dimmed a bit, turned back to serious, and Joe pushed himself a little higher to hear better. Methos reached out, feathered a touch over his shoulder, touching the strained muscle, and that expression flickered back over his face. The one Joe had no name for.
"Methos?" he asked, quietly. "You okay?"
He smiled, not instead of the expression, but through it, the smile adding layers to it, shifting it subtly, and for some reason Joe longed to touch that face, that expression. To let his musician's fingers seek out and touch the edges of it, lift it up so he could understand it better. It amazed him, how much that young face could show, how much lived behind it.
"I'm fine, Joe. Right as rain." His voice shifted, and the tone at least Joe could identify, familiar as breathing. Longing. Wistful. Regretful, just a little. The oldest tone in the world, the first note mankind learned to play. Wouldn't be much of a blues-man, if he didn't know that tone.
"Don't sound it," he said, gruffly, wanting to reach out and not being able to, wanting to lumber back into a sitting position so he could reach out to the man, but afraid the motion would break the moment. Methos smiled at him.
"Do I ever?" he asked, wryly, and Joe conceded the point. Methos was many things, but 'fine' was rarely one of them.
"Guess not. What are you doing, Methos? What's wrong?"
Silence, for a beat, as the Old Man pulled himself back together a bit. Then ... "You're a Watcher, Joe. You watch us. But lots of people do that. Some of them, some of you," little emphasis on the word, small smile just for him, "actually see us, on top of that. As people. Real people. But you don't ... even you, you don't ..." He trailed off, half in frustration and half a kind of faded tiredness that Joe hated, down to his bones. He'd seen that tiredness before. The VA. He knew what it was, and he hated it.
"We don't what?" he asked, gently, softly. Whatever it was, he promised silently, tell me and I'll start. Right now. Whatever it is, I'll do it, if it'll make that tiredness go away. Maybe it carried in his voice, that promise, maybe something did, because the man in front of him lifted slightly, coming back up into the light. Joe was proud of that, for a minute. Fiercely proud.
"When mortals get hurt," Methos murmured softly, reaching out to trace Joe's scars again, soft and gentle, with that strange expression. "When you get hurt ... it shows. When you get old, it shows. When you laugh, it shows. Years after, it shows. Pain and fear, strength and courage ... it's all there." He cupped a palm around the end of the stump, just holding it, long fingers laid out across the criss-crossed white lines. "It's all here. When I look at you ... I can see you, Joe. I can see your life, right here. Right there." He reached up, pointed delicately to the lines worn into Joe's face, the creases time had weathered into him, his smile soft and sad. "I can see you, Joe. But ... you'll never see me. None of you. Five thousand years, more, and who could tell? Who's gonna know, Joe?"
Joe shook his head, chewing his lip absently, unable to take his eyes off the man kneeling in front of him. He didn't ... he could see, maybe, why it might hurt, but ... "Ain't it better, that way? Not to ... not to have to show people, when you're down? Not to have to explain how ... how you got broken, way back when?" Because sometimes he wished, sometimes he wished so hard, when he saw people look at him in the street, when friends brought him home and saw ... he did wish, that it wasn't that way. That they couldn't see. That he didn't have to show them, every damn day, how much less of a man he was, now, than he'd been.
"Oh Joe," a whisper, soft and gently exasperated, and Joe considered bristling, but that wasn't pity. Wasn't contempt. Something else. What?
"What?" Might as well ask. Night for baring souls, it seemed. Might as well ask.
"You think it shows you're broken?" Methos asked, his hands moving gently over the remains again, fingers tracing scars lightly, so lightly, almost a ghost of sensation. "You think that's what this means?"
"Don't it?" he asked, bluntly. It's what it had always meant, at least to him. To everyone else who'd ever seen it, too.
"It does not," Methos answered, a little chill slipping into his tone as he moved, lifting himself up onto his hands as they pushed Joe's legs into the bed, emphasising the point, bringing attention irrevocably to the reality of it. "It does not, Joe. It never did. God, don't you know that? Don't you see that?"
"Oh, I see," Joe whispered, more than a little bitterly. Damn, but this wasn't where he'd wanted to go, tonight, not after everything. Not after losing Amy, all over again. He didn't want to remember all his past mistakes too.
"You don't, Joe. You can't, if that's what you think. This ..." He pushed down a little, feathered his thumbs to ease the gesture, making it pointed instead of violent. There was no threat, there, despite the helplessness Joe felt because of it. "This is not a sign of weakness, Joe. Not a sign of a broken man. It is not."
"What is it, then?" And despite the old anger, despite the old instinct to bristle and snap, his own tone had softened, gentled in the face of that ancient earnestness. Methos said a lot of things, and said them in a way that made people dismiss them nine times out of ten, and to this day Joe didn't know how much of that was on purpose and how much was Methos just not knowing how to make himself known to people anymore, but every so often he'd say something and you had to listen. Just listen.
"Look at us, Joe," he said, softly. "Look at me. Look at everything I've been through. You think I haven't been hurt? Put down so it took me years to get back up again? But it doesn't show, Joe. It doesn't show. Every time I fall down, I know it's not going to show. Every time I get hurt, I know it'll fix itself, half the time before I even really feel it. Every time someone puts me down, Joe, I know I'll be able to get up. All I have to do is want it, and it'll happen. Every time. But you ... God, Joe. Every time you stand up, any of you, it means something. It shows ... so much. So much. How much strength do you have, just to be able to stand up, day after day? Because that's what these are, what this means. Strength. The kind of strength no Immortal can ever have, can ever hope to have."
Joe stared at him. Gaping, a bit. Methos leaned over him, hands holding him down, holding on to him, so close they were almost nose-to-nose, and Joe could swear he'd never seen that much desperation in any one face, that much sheer need to be understood, to make himself clear. Methos was shaking, fine tremors of intensity, and there, just for an instant, Joe got a glimpse of the kind of passion it takes to stay alive for five thousand years. If anyone, anyone at all, looked at life the way Methos looked at him now, there wasn't a force on earth could hope to take it away from them.
"It's not ..." he whispered, at last, fighting to explain. "We're not ... we're not even close to you. God, Methos, you want to talk strength? We're light years from you. From any of you. To keep living, to keep going, with everything ..." With everything they suffered. Mac, Richie, Connor, Amanda, even Cassandra ... and Methos. All of them. Against the things they talked about, against the memories that he could see sometimes, floating behind those young faces ... 'Nam wasn't anything, compared to that. He wasn't anything.
"No," Methos said, gentle now, eyes crinkling in the saddest smile Joe'd ever seen. "It's the other way around. You. All of you. People like you, Joe. Like Alexa. Like Amy. So afraid. So small, so young. And so strong. So damn strong. You always have been. Every last one of you. Every time, every time I think, this is it, this is too much, I can't possibly bear this ... someone like you will be there. Someone like you, so frail, so easily damaged, and you'll take everything the world throws at you. You'll get knocked into the dirt, time after time, right in front of me ... and you'll get back up again. And every time you do ... I feel ashamed, Joe. Ashamed that I ever thought of lying down, with everything I have, everything I can do, when you ... God. You don't even have legs, and you're still standing! Alexa, she had one year. One year! And every day, Joe, you could see it. See that bit more of what was killing her. And to the last possible moment, she was trying anyway. Trying to stand, to fight, to be there for me, to be strong for me ... and you. Fighting all Mac's damn battles, fighting all my damn battles, snarling and smiling and ... and ... Damn it! Why can't you see! Why can't you see what you do, what you are! Five thousand years, what the hell is that, compared to you!"
And he slumped forwards, sliding down into a heap, his head coming to rest in Joe's lap while his arms sprawled out around Joe's waist, and Joe could feel him crying down there, silent and shaking, his face buried in the ruin of Joe's legs, tears trickling over them onto the bed, and there was nothing at all Joe could think to say. Whatever the hell this was, wherever it had come from, he couldn't think of one damn thing to say. Five thousand years, and who's to know, Joe? Tell them that, kid. Tell them that, and they'll know. They will know.
He leaned back, easing back down, freeing his arms up, and one hand found its way down, curled around the top of Methos' head, traced a gentle path down to the nape of his neck, and Joe just petted, gently, rubbing callused fingers in the man's hair, soothing as best he could. He was crying himself, he realised distantly, as silently as Methos, just wet trickles down his cheeks and into his beard. A drop curled into his ear, a little plink in the darkness, and he shook his head to clear it. Damn. Damn. Just ... damn it all anyway.
"Hey," he murmured, just a whisper past the knot in his throat. "It's okay. C'mon Methos. It's okay. Damn if I know what, or why, or any damn thing. But it's okay. We'll figure it out, and you can memorise my damn legs or whatever you want, and we'll be fine." His lips twitched, fingers curling through the Immortal's hair. "Two old men, tryin' to figure out how to stand. Yeah? No problem."
He felt Methos move, the head shifting under his hand, over his thighs, and he looked down to see two dark eyes glimmering up at him, wet and crinkled around the edges, and there it was again, that expression, only now it was like a tune just on the edge of hearing, something he could almost, almost understand, something he could just about touch ... Oh. Oh.
"Methos?" he whispered, his head ringing strangely, light and dizzy. The brows drew down, a curious frown on that young, that so very youthful face, and Joe felt a little like laughing, a little like crying. "Five thousand years, yeah? Don't know what it is, pal. Don't know what. But. It's there. It's right there." And he reached out, hand shaking just a bit, and touched the bridge of his nose, just between those eyes, just at the center of that expression. "Whatever the hell it is, whoever the hell you are ... it's all right there. And it does show. I can see it."
For a second, those eyes just stared at him in bafflement, crinkled around the edges like he'd been an old man even when he was young, like he'd been ancient even then and young even now, and then ... then Methos smiled. Something deep and old and clear, something beautiful, like what Alexa must have seen, like what she must have known, to love this man so much, to try so hard to be strong for him ... because it was worth it. It was worth it. To stand back up, every time, to be scarred over and over again and still go on, for as long as you could, because as long as you did, this man would stand with you. Because of you. And how much power was that? How much more than any Quickening, to know that you could give that to someone? To the oldest damn bastard in the world, the man who'd survived things that'd make the most hardened mortal cry, the man who'd done everything, fought everything ... and he, Joe, cripple, barman and part-time musician, could give him this.
Mortality was a mug's game. Immortality not much better. But that was alright. It was alright. Because mortal, Immortal or other, they could still mean something. They could still matter. One way or another, they could still stand for each other, in all the ways that mattered. Whether the scars were inside or out, they were there, and they meant something.
"You know," Methos whispered, smiling softly in the dim. "You're pretty wise. For a kid." Then Joe did laugh.
"Yeah. And you're the oldest pain in the butt in existence." He shook his head, grinning, and poked the old bastard in the shoulder. "Now get up here and get your head out of my lap, or I'm gonna be poking you with something that ain't a finger."
And Methos just looked at him, with a slow, rich smile like a cat that got the cream, and licked his lips. "Promise?" he husked, and Joe gave up. He gave up, dropping his head back with a thunk, and waved for the bastard to do as he pleased.
At least this time he was expecting it.
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And there isn't enough Methos/Joe anyway and this one was so full of love it made me sniffle! Thank you!
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Thank you!
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