SquidgeWorld Archive

Out of the Ashes
by Lady Bard

Paris...

"We're through."  The words ran through Methos' head sounding like a deathnell.  Finished... Over... done...  His mind went on to cheerfully supply other words.  /Damn that highlander./

He lay in a Paris Hotel room a bottle of Wisky over half gone.  It wasn't so much that he would miss the Highlander, well he would.  He'd grown to care for the selfrightious overbearing scot, but what he'd miss was the sence of family of clan... He broke that line of thought off.  He'd miss Joe and Amanda and:.. and...

With a groan he stumbled out of bed. /Drinking in bed. How I've fallen./ He couldn't stand it any more.  /Stupid highlander. Stupid stupid Stupid. Had to introduce me to that kid./  Now he'd never see him again.   His past had swallowed up his present and left him alone and empty and with nothing.  Maybe if he wandered out he'd find an immortal to take his head.

With those cheerful thoughts in mind he took a shower and dressed in baggy jeans and sweat shirt.  He stept out of his hotel room and though the cool air refreshed his body, it did nothing for his mind.

Seakouver...

Richie pased back and forth wondering when Mac would tell him to sit down. He couldn't believe what Mac had done.  He'd made the old guy leave, just like that.  Not a thought for anyone else just his offended morals. Making Methos pay for something that had happened thousands of years a go.
It made very little sence to Richie.  He dicided to go before he said something to rile Mac up.

"Mac, I'm going to Joes.  Say Hi to Amanda for me when she gets here. I'll be back sometime."

Mac reguarded his student, son and friend with concern.  "Rich?"  He allowed his tone to convey all the questions he wasn't quite sure how to ask.

"Later Mac," and Richie slipped out the door and down the elivater to his motercicle before Mac could think to stop him.

***

a bit later...

"Joe."  Richie called subdude for once and the soft gitar music helped him stay in control instead of bursting into tears.

He wondered if he was just going nuts, if becoming immortal in the modern age made for insanity.  He tried hard not to think of what was really wrong but when his mind decided it had taken all it would of his padding around the subject it made him face the cause of his mood swings, Methos.

"Richie, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

/Shit, shit, shit./ "I am?"  He asked, in what he would have been surprised to know was a tiny voice.

"Yes, now talk to me about it." Joe handed the young immortal a soda.

"It's m-methos."

"He'll come back Rich."

"Joe, how can Mac understand? What gives him the right to judge and all of you following him like he was some sort of god?"

It took Joe a second to figure out what Richie was talking about, then he felt ashamed of himself.  "Rich, I don't think any of us can understand the way things were that long a go but what would you have had me do? Chace him down?"

"I don't know but you just... I mean.. He's just gone.  Do you know where he is?"

Joe looked away, "i can't tell you that."

"You'd tell Mac." Richie said, becoming agitated, his voice rising as he spoke.  "Oh but I forgot Mac's perfect, can do no wrong and Methos, the oldest immortal he just doesn't live up so let's abandon him because Mac's having a tempertantrum." He conveniently forgot that not so long ago he had scoffed at the idea of Methos being the oldest immortal.

Joe suddenly understood the wild look in Richie's eyes. "You love him. I mean... You're in love with him."

Richie flushed, "I... It wasn't... I mean he's so normal and he tries so hard to fit in and he's so alone. I've never had these kinds of feelings for a guy before."

"Paris."  The simple word stobbped Richie's rambling.  He stared up at Joe a slow smile spreading over his face and Joe hoped the old man was ready for Richie because he didn't think Richie would give him a chance to escape.

***
Seakouver airport...

Richeae picked up the pay phone and diled a familiar number.  It rang several times before Amanda picked up. "Hey Amanda, Will you do me a faver? Yes, good. Tell Mac something's come up and I need to leave.  Ok thanks. No. no. That's alright.  You, enjoy yourselves."  He ran to his terminal and just made his flight.

***

on route...

Richie figited nervously his anxhiety rising with each passing second. If he logicly thought about his feelings they made no sense.  There was no *logical* reason for him to crave being near the Old immortal.  He was illtempered, messy, always reading those old books...  He was always there when he was needed and Richie *knew* that all that sarcasm hid a very fragile being.  How could he not know?  Until Mac and Tessa, he'd been a street kid surviving by his wits.  You learned how to hide yourself from others so that you wouldn't be hurt.  Richie wondered how much better at that than him Methos had to be.  He was five-thousand years old.

***

Paris the next night...

Methos wandered the streets feeling more alone and depressed than he had in centuries.  He looked around hoping to find something to distract him, someone to take the ache away, someone to make him forget  laughing Blue eyes and a teesing grin.

His feelings were just there nothing to be done about them.  It wasn't as if  he spent much time with the young one or anything but that craving was there not allowing him to eat, sleep, drown his sorrows...  He spotted a small Cayfe and entered finding a corner booth way in the back.

***

same time Paris...

Richie wondered how the hell he was going to find one old cunning immortal in such a huge city.  He cursed fluently in English, spanish, and a smattering of french.  He wandered the parisian streets and spotted a little Cayfe up ahead.  Then heard his stumach growl right on cue.

He thought dying so young was more a curse than a bllessing.  He was almost always hungry and it didn't take much to set his hormones off. Well, he amended silently to himself, now the only thing that set his hormones off were thoughts of one old, cantankerous immortal with about four-thousand nine-hundred eighty years on him.

As he neared the Cayfe the signiture of a very powerful immortal hit him. He stopped dead in his tracks.  Now he was here, what did he say?

***
In the Cayfe...

Methos held the steaming cup between his hands lost in day dreams of a certain red-head.  He was so lost in his dream world that when the Cayfe
doors opened and the star of his dreams walked in he smiled at him.  It wasn't until Richie sat across from him that he realized his dream was really in front of him:

"Richie, how did you get here. I mean, why are you here?"

Richie shivered that cultured voice sounded beautiful to him and held a strange note that he briefly wondered at. "I needed to find you."

Methos gazed at him reaching out to stroke a finger down Richie's cheek before he could stop himself. He couldn't quite believe Richie sat before him.

The instant Methos' finger caressed his cheek Richie moaned softly.  His eyes locking with the immortal across the table.  He thought about peals of thunder, and the earth moving.  He thought he could find that with the man sitting across the table. "What about Mac?"  Methos asked weakly, already knowing if Richie wanted him he would not walk away.

Then the pesky doubts he had pushed away at Richie's appearance surfaced and he pulled away from Richie's warmth.

Richie wasn't sure what was happenning, one minute Methos was touching him and the next those warm eyes were shuttered the old man's entire face blank.

"Methos, Mac can take a leap.  He's a fool. All scottish broodyness and high morals." He leaned forward capturing the hand Methos hadon the table with both his own.  I won't claim to understandor even approve of the things you did in your past, but it's the past.  I want you to know that I cannot hold it against you. I wasn't there.  Who you have managed to become now is a wonderful person a person that I've somehow managed to love."  He whispered the last stunned at his tratorous mouth.

Methos stared, open-mouthed at the words he'd longed to hear from any of his friends coming from the young man that had beyond all reason, stolen his heart.

"You and me? You'd be with me?  I mean Richie I haven't been a very nice person."

Richie shook his head at Methos' babbling.

"Shut up old man," but he was grinning and gently rubbing the hand he still held between his own trying to warm it.  "Do you have a place, or have you been roming the streets?"

Methos flushed a bit, "It's not much. I haven't been very together."

"I know. It's alright. I have a pretty good place.  Let's stop and get your things and then go talk."

It took them almost half an hour to find the hotel Methos had been staying in.  Unwilling to walk any more Richie called them a cab to get them to his hotel.

When they finally arrived Methos looked around in appreciation.  "Nice."

"Racing might not be quick money all the time, but I'm good and I can afford little lugsuries.  Want a shower?  Then while youre doing that I'll  order us something simple."

Methos nodded and when he slipped into the shower Richie ordered a loaf of bread and a couple bowls of stew along with a bottle of wine, nothing fancy but something to relax them.

Half-an-hour later, they sat next to one another on a comfortable couch, stumachs full, glasses of wine in hand.  "So you never told me how you found me."

"Joe,"  Richie smiled a charming boyish smile that made Methos' breathing catch and his heart skip a beat.

"Richie, Mac will be angry with you. I know how much he--"

"shhhhh!" Richie crooned pulling the older man against him.  "It's ok to hurt.  Did you think I was a nice kid before Tessa and Mac found me? That's part of why I don't get it.  They took me in, cared for me, and now he treats you like crap."

"I'm s'posed to be wize or something." Methos mumbled against Richie's shoulder.

"Uh-huh, was a time I thought that too.  Then when all this went down I figured out you were human and that just cause you had more experience than us didn't make you wizer."

Methos had enough reasoning power left to realize their wine glasses would probably shatter if they weren't put down so he pulled away enough to do that then hugged Richie to him again.

Richie continued speaking as if Methos hadn't briefly pulled away.  He gently moved so they were laying in one another's arms Methos' head pillowed on his shoulder. "the way i see things is that," he started rubbing soothing circles over Methos' back, "while you might have advice for people it doesn't mean it will work.  I mean maybe you are wize. Who really knows what wizdom is?  You're here right?"

"I'm a coward."

Richie made a disapproving little noise. "No you are not.  You survive. And I'm glad of it."

"You mean it don't you?"

Richie met Methos' gaze and leaned towards him until their lips were less than an inch apart.  "yes, I mean it and I have forever to prove it to you."

As their lips met and gently plaied together there was no "game," no disapproving friends, no world outside each other's arms.  When the kiss ended they were smiling at one another neither sure what tomorrow would bring, but both sure they would face it together.

End