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Turns Written in response to Unovis' Bar Story Challenge. Thanks to Cinel and Sonia for beta duty. All errors, lack of originality and excess brevity is mine.
It had been an evening of drifting, of letting people and talk and ideas float by like a child’s soap bubbles on a summer breeze. Every once in a while one would pop against my consciousness, usually prompting a pointed commentary to my only audience, one Joe Dawson – bartender, Watcher, friend… mortal. One of the few in my long life who knew my original identity. Well, that was not entirely true, I decided. I was musing again, as I had been musing – drifting – all evening. After a few thousand years, whatever was left of my original identity had faded into oblivion. Or perhaps faded was not the right term. More like crowded out, gradually pushed by time and circumstance to some dusty, rusty file drawer in the far reaches of my brain. If I cared, I could go looking, but it wasn’t like life during long periods of near-starvation and day-to-day brutality was something I cared to reminisce about. The “good old days” were few and far between, way back when… then a frisson of presence splashed against that dusty, rusty brainpan. I straightened and turned towards the door, reaching out to make sure my coat was within easy reach. I figured I knew who it was, but you could never be too careful. Damn, the man makes an entrance without even trying. Immortals tend to accumulate charisma as they age, but MacLeod was born with more than his fair share to begin with – maybe it was that whole Millennium Champion nonsense. Anyway, he probably didn’t even think about the path that automatically cleared in front of him as he approached the end of the bar. He glanced past the dozen or so people between us, our eyes meeting briefly in acknowledgement, but then he just looked away, scrubbing a hand roughly over his face. I waited, expecting him to join me since I am usually entertaining, if habitually annoying, especially to a straight-arrow like MacLeod. It’s a lifestyle. Joe put a double shot of single malt on the bar and Mac took a big mouthful, wincing at the initial burn, but then he closed his eyes as if in relief as he let his head fall back and swallowed, his throat rippling with the passage of liquid. But even after tossing back his drink he stayed stubbornly isolated at the other end of the bar, his only move a signal to Joe to fill his glass again. I wasn’t feeling amenable to being ignored, at least not by an Immortal pup like MacLeod. “What’s going on?” I asked Joe the next time he came within easy earshot. Joe looked over at me, glanced back at Mac, then turned a decidedly steely gaze back to me, a small humorless smile twisting his mouth. “Why don’t you ask him?” “Because he doesn’t look like he’s in a talking mood at the moment,” I replied, stating the obvious. “That’s never stopped you before,” Joe observed pointedly before turning away to serve another customer. True enough. I slid off the bar stool, taking my beer with me and maneuvered through the crowd until I could lean sideways against the bar close enough to catch a faint whiff of ozone-tinted air. Mac continued to focus intently on the dregs of his second two fingers of scotch as though the bottom of his glass could be read like the mysteries of prophetic tealeaves. “Anybody I know?” I asked quietly. Mac shook his head, lips pressed in a grim line, then finished off the few drops that remained in the bottom of his glass. The barely audible, clipped “Probably not,” that finally escaped from his throat sounded rough and reluctant. “Wanna talk about it?” “No.” I studied MacLeod for a minute, noting the clenched jaw, the bunched shoulders, the slightly trembling hands. I glanced over at Joe, who gave me a meaningful look then deliberately jerked his chin towards the exit, adding a raised eyebrow for emphasis. It seemed the bartender was of the opinion that one edgy sword-carrying Immortal overflowing with Quickening energy might not fit into the casual, yuppie ambiance of his drinking establishment. Ergo, Joe wanted us to leave. Fuck that. I firmly took MacLeod’s elbow, ignoring a beetle-browed glare of irritation that would have sent a lesser man scurrying away in terror, and pulled. After a second of resistance he allowed me to guide him to an empty table and into a chair. I grabbed the bottle of scotch and thumped it onto the table before retrieving Mac’s glass, plus one for myself. If I was going to be a witness, or more likely a babysitter, while Mac went on a bender, I might as well get a few free shots of good booze from it. Unwanted Quickenings, in my experience – which was considerable – were a phenomenon best dealt either with vigorous or even violent sex, or with a serious bout of alcohol poisoning. Since the fucking alternative seemed an unlikely possibility at the moment with no Immortal female close at hand willing to deal with the brutality that frequently accompanied post-Quickening sex, alcohol poisoning seemed the next best bet. There was nothing quite like waking up in a gutter and puking your guts out to get over the need to either throttle or fuck the nearest warm body into oblivion. I filled MacLeod’s glass with another double shot and sat back, watching Mac slam it down. There was something aesthetically pleasing about the dim bar lights highlighting the sweaty sheen of that thick neck and prominent Adam’s apple as Mac swallowed, eyes closed, shoulders set as though still prepared for battle. “Joe doesn’t seem real happy,” MacLeod finally offered glumly. “Yeah, well, he’ll get over it,” I replied. Mac sighed, setting down his glass oh-so-carefully – a sure sign that he was beginning to feel the effects of the strong liquor. “I don’t blame him. I’m not exactly a barrel of laughs at the moment.” I leaned a little closer to refill his glass, relishing the opportunity to breathe in a little of the charged aura Mac was exuding. It was intoxicating, like enriched oxygen and, for me at least, a real turn-on. “This may come as a shock, MacLeod, but you’re almost never a barrel of laughs,” I murmured, getting an annoyed frown for my small effort at lightening the mood. “Nobody asked you to hang around,” Mac grumped. This time he just sipped at his drink. “True, but I promised Joe I’d keep you out of trouble,” I lied. Mac just looked at him over his glass with a dubious raised eyebrow. He sipped at his drink again, pressed his lips together in a frown and set the glass down. “This was a bad idea,” he murmured, then pushed his chair back and stood, throwing a few bills on the table. “See ya around,” Mac called over his shoulder as he shouldered his way towards the door. No, no, no. That’s not what was supposed to happen, some internal voice complained in what seemed to me to be an annoyingly adolescent tone. My mind gets like that sometimes. My inner teenager struggling to get out, I suppose. I grabbed my coat and followed in his wake, but Mac was out of the bar and halfway to his car before I stepped out the door. The contrast between the close, heated bar and the cool, chilly air felt good and as I quickened my steps to follow, I felt that inner adolescent come alive, and I consciously let it happen with a kind of eager glee that made my whole body flush with heat. I felt innervated… excited, revved, almost as though it were me that had taken the Quickening instead of MacLeod. There was something in the air, some potent possibility here that seemed more real than any of my fantasies about this man and his heavy warrior’s body, his broad, callused hands, his dark, passionate eyes and sensuous lips. Oh, yes. Potent was the word. “MacLeod! Wait up!” I called, and Mac paused and turned, giving me a decidedly irritated look. “What do you want, Methos?” Mac growled in annoyance. He was the only man on the planet who regularly called me that, and did it often enough where others could hear that I should have boxed his ears for it long ago, but I never did. Truth be told, I liked hearing him say my name. Always had. I paused, giving him a long, speculative look. “Now that’s a loaded question,” I replied in a low, deliberately ambiguous tone. MacLeod cocked his head, raised one dark eyebrow and took a heavy step towards me so that I had to make a conscious effort not to step back. Then Mac took another step, and we were only a couple of feet apart, our breaths fogging the night air around us, filling it like a secret confessional space. “Seems to me,” MacLeod said softly, “that you like loaded questions. Maybe I should ask it again.” He stepped even closer and leaned in a little so that I could see the slight stubble on his hard, square jaw. “What do you want, Methos?” There it was again, the way he said my name. I cleared my throat, looked at the ground, then slipped a hand into my coat pocket to reassure myself that my stiletto was within easy grasp. It wasn’t really because I thought MacLeod was a threat, its just something I do whenever… just whenever. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I finally said, my words barely floating on the shared mist of our breaths. Then I raised my eyes to meet his. Mac smiled, and my hand closed reflexively around the hilt of the stiletto. I’d seen that narrow-eyed, predatory smile before. It could mean a variety of things, from “I think I’m about to get something I really want,” to “You are about to die.” And sometimes those two intentions were one in the same. Then Mac swirled away, the night mist bending in graceful circles around his leather-clad shoulders as he turned the corner and disappeared into the shadows leading to the alley at the rear of the bar. My grip on the stiletto tightened and I contemplated what to do. I could follow the most lethal Immortal on the planet into a dark, deserted alleyway, or I could turn around and go back inside. Easy choice, right? Inside, it was warm, and comfortable. Inside, there was beer and companionship and good music. Inside, my physical and emotional well-being was safe and secure. Certainly no sensible person would walk back there, into the dark, into the unknown where a man of dubious mental stability lurked with a very sharp sword, waiting. I peered into the darkness, but nothing stirred in the deep shadows of the deserted alley. The only thing that seemed to be stirring was my dick. I followed. It must’ve been that whole inner adolescent thing again. My shoes crunched noisily on the gravel, so I knew that he could hear me coming. Even so, I didn’t manage to avoid being yanked almost off my feet and shoved against the cold cinderblock wall. Fortunately, I still had my hand on the knife, which I slipped out of my pocket, holding it against my leg, just in case. MacLeod had both my coat lapels in an iron grip, holding me tight against the wall, with a knee pressed between my thighs. I could hardly see a thing in the darkness, just the gleam of an eye, the hard angle of a cheekbone, but I could feel the heat of his body even through several layers of clothing. I tried to say something clever to ease the tension, but what emerged was more of a mumbled, rather embarrassing “Murmph,” as warm, scotch-scented breath wafted against my face just before lips covered my own and an insistent warm, wet tongue swept over my mouth. That unlikely noise quickly devolved into no noise at all other than our mingled, heated breaths as we sucked and bit at each other. One of MacLeod’s hands finally released my lapel and wandered south, enveloping my crotch in a possessive squeeze that sent an electric current zinging right up my spine, making me gasp and my knees sag enough that I was grateful for Mac’s supporting grip on my lapel. The stiletto somehow found its way back into my pocket since I really needed both hands for other activities as I fumbled to undo the buttons on my jeans even as Mac groped me harder, our breaths accelerating as lust overcame rational thought – assuming there had been any rational thought involved to begin with. Then I was turned and shoved against the wall and I lost my grip on my jeans, which slipped down my thighs, exposing my ass and legs to the cold night air. My cock was hot, hard and aching as it rubbed up against the cold, rough concrete, making me jerk away. That generated a low chuckle from Mac as my coat was easily stripped from me and dropped to the gravel with a heavy, weighted thump. This wasn’t going at all like I had expected. The whole fucking-in-an-alley thing with what was a pretty confirmed heterosexual Immortal was pretty damned far from the scenario I had envisioned but I couldn’t find the wherewithal to object as I heard a rustle of clothing behind me, and my cock, which had wilted a little with the harsh contact with the wall, raised its head in interest once again. I widened my stance and pressed my hands against the wall, preparing for the initial pain of entry. It would be worth it, though. God, would it be worth it, if for no other reason than to get past the games we had played for the past decade. And the very thought of MacLeod’s cock in my ass sent jolts of lust singing through my veins. “What the hell are you doing back there?” I growled when the rustling continued far past any reasonable unzipping time frame. “Shut up and hold still,” Mac snapped, finally resting one heavy hand in a steadying grip on my hip. For a moment I closed my eyes, imagining the sight of MacLeod’s heavy, thick cock held in his blunt, warrior’s hand. Oh, yes. I was tense with – well, with lust, actually, as well as with the expectation of pain, but I had long ago learned the knack of relaxing muscles to minimize it. I lowered my head and exhaled hard, but instead of the burning tear of unlubricated entry, I felt smooth, slick flesh pressed against my own and almost without effort I was entered with only the momentary burn of skin stretched too wide, and a smooth, slick, deliciously cool shove that immediately slid against the sweet spot and made me groan with pleasure. Mac paused once, then pushed slowly in further until he was pressed up tight against my back, radiating heat that felt like it almost burned my skin. “I take it that was what you wanted?” he asked in a tense whisper that tickled right into my ear, sending gooseflesh rippling down my back. I had to swallow first. “Yes,” I finally managed, in a bare whisper. The fullness in my ass slid and slowly back and forth, each time generating a wave of pure bliss. “Oh, yes.” I didn’t know how Mac had made it so easy, so perfect, but at the moment I didn’t really care. I pushed harder against the wall to change the angle just a little and to encourage him to increase the force of his strokes, pleased when I heard Mac’s gasp of pleasure in response. In only a few more moves, Mac was slamming into me hard and fast and I reached for my dick, although my cold hand was bit of a shock, but in a second it didn’t matter as the heat and pressure inside was quickly becoming a driving, relentless force, blotting out any other sensation at all. The sudden noise of a crowd of patrons coming out of the bar was only a minor distraction. Nothing could have stopped us now as we both gasped and groaned, slamming into one another again and again and when I came I only hope I didn’t make some really obvious, embarrassing noise since I was oblivious to anything but my own pleasure that peaked in a hot, heavy, gushing climax. MacLeod was panting heavily, making those frantic, breathy noises that told me he was so very close, so completely lost in his own driving, rutting need, jamming into me one last time and I could feel the heavy body behind me seize as he threw an arm around my chest in a long, powerful, breathless squeeze, our bodies almost glued together, his cock throbbing deliciously inside me as he came. At last Mac took in a deep gulp of air, and then another, relaxing his hold enough so that I could breathe again, and then he sagged, resting his forehead on my shoulder. The laughing chatter and calls of “Goodnight” from the patrons faded into sounds of car doors opening and closing, ignitions starting and cars driving off, and still we stood there, breathing deeply, letting our hearts and breaths slow and even out, hanging on to the warm wave of euphoria that faded all too quickly. The sudden silence was an awkward moment, broken only slightly by our mutual sigh as he pulled away. I turned and leaned against the wall for support for my shaky knees. “Damn!” I remarked, seeing Mac pull off a condom and toss it to the ground. “I know I’ve called you a Boy Scout from time to time, but it was supposed to be a joke!” Mac looked at me with a raised eyebrow as he tucked himself back into his pants and I had a momentary fantasy about us getting completely naked and doing it again in a more private venue. “You mean you try to convince your partners to do without?” he asked. I pulled up my jeans and tried to tidy myself up a little. “No, but I guess I don’t have such exalted expectations about my sexual encounters that I feel compelled to have a lubricated condom at the ready at all times.” Mac picked up my coat, smiling at its considerable weight as he dusted off a few clinging pieces of gravel. “No, instead you have twenty pounds of weapons. I like my expectations better than yours.” He handed me the coat with a solicitous gesture and turned towards the parking lot. When I didn’t immediately follow, he turned back. “Coming?” I was in the midst of putting on my coat and paused, giving MacLeod an irritated glare. “Is that supposed to be funny?” “Actually, no. It was merely a question,” MacLeod responded with a small smile. “Sophomoric humor is your forte, not mine.” I could see that the tense set of Mac’s body had relaxed a little and some of the lines of worry and distraction had eased from his face and his stance had relaxed into that easy athletic grace that was his hallmark. Except now there was that ever-awkward, post-coital “Now what?” question that skulked around us like the proverbial 800 pound gorilla. MacLeod, however, seemed remarkably cavalier about the whole thing, and frankly I found that rather annoying. If there was anyone around who was supposed to be cavalier, I preferred that it be moi. Mac politely waited for me to rearrange myself for public respectability’s sake, and then gestured for me to precede him out of the alley. “I still can’t believe you keep a condom so handy,” I ended up grumbling. “Takes all the… the spontaneity out of things.” Mac paused, giving me a puzzled look. “Spontaneity? I wouldn’t think we could get much more spontaneous than that.” He stepped closer, and under the harsh lights of the parking lot, I could see the wide circles of his deeply dilated pupils, making his eyes look almost ominously dark. A frisson of fear – or was that another jolt of lust? – chased down my spine. It was that inner adolescent raising his idiot head again. “Or maybe it’s not spontaneity you really wanted,” MacLeod added. “Maybe you wanted … romance?” He stepped closer still and reached behind my neck, pulling us together until our lips were almost touching. “Something like this?” And MacLeod kissed me – just soft, lush lips meeting my own until I opened a little without really thinking it, just because the kiss was so expertly done, and a few more seconds of tongue-related intimacy continued until my brain synapses finally closed and I jerked back. “Good grief, MacLeod! I’m no sweet young thing for you to seduce.” My voice was distressingly breathy and I jammed my hands into my pockets when I realized I had been grasping Mac’s coat in my fists to pull us closer together. I wiped the moistness off my mouth with the back of my hand. “I just think it’s funny that you think it is so likely that some nubile young maiden is going to throw herself at you at any minute that you keep a condom at the ready.” I moved quickly back towards the entrance of the bar, but Mac was there before me, opening the door to wave me in like I was his date or something. “Maybe I was carrying it around, just hoping that a nubile old man would throw himself at me,” Mac smirked. “And as it happened,” he said softly as I brushed by him, “I was right.” “If any throwing occurred,” I growled back, “it was when you grabbed me and threw me against the wall.” I reached the bar and knocked on it to get Joe’s attention. He looked up, then did a double-take when he saw me with MacLeod standing right behind me with God-knows-what kind of smirk on his face. “What the…?” Joe finished the drink he was mixing and moved in our direction, grabbing a fresh bottle of scotch and a couple of glasses on the way. His hands moved efficiently and it must have all been from long practice, because his eyes were swiveling so hard in their sockets between me and Mac, I was afraid his head was going to wobble off its axis. “You just left, and I thought…, what’d you… where?” There was a pregnant pause as Joe’s face went from pale to bright pink in about three seconds. “Uh, here,” he mumbled, looking intently down at the glasses he was holding as he plunked them and the bottle down on the bar. “On the house.” He coughed, shook his head as though to clear it of some unwanted thought, took a deep breath and turned away, mumbling under his breath. “So much for discretion,” Mac murmured behind me, so close that I could smell the lingering scents of sex and sweat, maybe a little blood and that tantalizing, addictive tang of Quickening that would linger for another few hours. Eau d’Immortal, or maybe just eau d’MacLeod, I thought as I felt a warm hand deliberately brush my backside before Mac settled in beside me on a barstool. I turned and caught a playful smile lingering on his lips before Mac’s face settled into neutral contemplation of the label on the scotch bottle. I knew what we had done would have only barely taken the edge off MacLeod’s urges. The whole thing felt strange, as though we had stepped outside of reality – and perhaps we had. Nothing made the differences between us and the mortal world so stark as taking a Quickening. It was our bond, our reason for existence, that irresistible repulsion/attraction we felt when we were near each other. Who knew whether there was any Prize? Who really cared? I chuckled to myself. MacLeod cared. “What are you laughing about?” he asked softly, leaning close. “Us,” I replied as I took a sip of my drink, but when I looked up, Mac’s face had an odd, deliberately neutral, thoughtful expression that spoke volumes. “Oh, don’t worry, MacLeod. One fuck in an alley doesn’t suddenly make us an *us*. I was talking about the Immortal us, what makes us tick.” Mac poured some liquor into each glass, then picked one up and sipped, studying me as he did. “And what makes you tick, Methos?” he asked very quietly, leaning close. Damn, there was that name again. Why did he do that? You don’t suppose he knew…? Nah. I picked up my own glass, drank it all down in a gulp and carefully put the glass down. “The same thing that makes all of us tick, MacLeod.” I picked up my coat, but paused, giving Mac a hard, close glare. It was a look I had used for a long, long time and it invariably left its recipients intimidated and mystified. “Only more,” I said in a deliberately malevolent whisper. There. That ought to give the smug bastard something to think about. I left, stepping once again into the night air, taking a deep breath to clear my head and get my raging hormones under control. The bar had suddenly seemed too close, full of too many people, or maybe too many memories. That happened to me sometimes. With so much history rolling around in my brain, everything tended to remind me of something… someone. I groped for my keys, and heard the door open and close behind me, knowing it was MacLeod. “What would it take?” he called as I headed towards my car. “What would it take for what?” I asked, not bothering to turn around. “For us to be an ‘us’?” I stopped in my tracks, and turned. “Excuse me?” “You said one fuck in an alley wasn’t enough for us to be an ‘us.’ What would it take? Two fucks in an alley?” he asked, looking stupidly sincere. “Very funny. Goodnight, MacLeod.” I once again headed towards my car, but this time I heard the steps behind me. Not being in a mood for getting slammed up against another hard surface, the stiletto was out and pointed straight at MacLeod’s throat before he had taken more than a step or two. He stopped instantly, raising his hands in a classic submissive gesture, but I was still tempted to carve that narrow-eyed smirk off his face. “We could take turns,” he said. His hands lowered and he stepped deliberately into the deadly tip of the blade, his eyes never leaving mine. “I fuck you. You fuck me.” He stepped closer still, and the tip of the stiletto pricked his skin just at the base of his neck. A tiny drop of blood oozed out and slipped slowly down his chest. “I’d like that,” he added softly. I couldn’t make myself break eye contact as a wave of cold, then heat washed over me, making me shudder. My hand trembled a little and I lowered the stiletto before it did any serious damage. My mouth was dry as need and memory and intellect all waged simultaneous war with each other. The potential here was vast and far-reaching and no one should know that better than I. You’d think I’d learn from experience, wouldn’t you? What had I considered earlier? – that the evening was potent with possibility – for lust, for pleasure, for forming a bond like no other, for confusion… for disaster. Be careful what you wish for. “Your turn, Methos,” Duncan whispered.
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