This story is intended for adults. If you are under 18 or such material is not legal where you live, please do not read it. Thank you. This story takes place just after the events in "Archangel."

After Such Knowledge

by Dargelos

Immortals become mortals, mortals become immortals; they live in each other's death and die in each other's life. (1)

Now that the body had been taken off to the morgue ("I suppose an autopsy is redundant under the circumstances." Inspector Guitard observed. "And where is Monsieur MacLeod?") and the details taken care of ("Mac's been out of town since Monday. I don't know how I'm going to tell him about this. Richie was running with some bad characters." "From the looks of it, tr�s mal, Monsieur Dawson, considering we thought him dead" "Reports of his death were somewhat exaggerated," Joe replied with bitter humor.) all that was left was the mourning. But after the first rush of grief, Joe felt curiously empty. He handled all the details and demands capably enough, but with a brittle efficiency, referring to Richie as "the body" or "the deceased," divorcing himself from feeling his loss. Adam stayed at his side throughout the long, trying night full of questions, saying nothing unless directly addressed.

Adam drove Joe back to his apartment the next morning and accompanied him upstairs. It was on the tip of Joe's tongue to send him away, but then he decided that it didn't really matter. Alone or in the company of this immortal, the loss was still the same, and he would still mourn or not as his heart allowed.

He got inside and made a beeline for the bed, flopped down and rolled to face away from Adam.

"Joe…"

"What?"

"At least take off your coat."

"Don't feel like it."

"Okay." Adam came and took Joe's canes from him, and put them in the corner. Then he left the bedroom.

Joe stared out the window into the sun-streaked leaves of the trees outside. The thaw was setting in now, and he could feel a knot in his belly and one in his heart, both aching as if they would kill him. The world he inhabited was tenuous, and for the first time he truly wished he had never spoken to either Mac or Adam, never come to know them. Watchers should be apart from this; they were intended to be apart. They were observers.

Too late. He had seen too much, known too much friendship in all its forms. The stroke of Mac's sword had shattered more than one world. Tears ran unheeded from Joe's eyes, and soaked his pillow. He wept soundlessly, for Richie, for his own innocence which he seemed to lose about once a decade, for Mac…for all lost souls, mortal or otherwise, who got ground up in what was called — with some irony, Joe thought — The Game. Finally he wept just because he felt blindingly sorry for himself. He was just so tired of loss.

When he woke it was dark in the room. He could see that the street-lamps had been lit, and a cool, damp breeze was blowing through the open window. It was the sort of night he liked best, and he felt an irrational surge of pleasure before he remembered why he was lying in bed, still completely dressed — even wearing his overcoat.

Richie was gone. "Dead," he said out loud, just to force himself to verbalize the fact. "Dead. Stone dead."

His pillow was soaked, his sinuses congested from the tears, and he had to pee. Funny how the rhythms of life continued despite tragedy, triumph or natural disaster. He rolled over, and there was Adam sitting in the chair watching him.

"JEE-zus!" Joe yelled. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"You've been asleep for hours; I was starting to worry."

"I have to use the, uh…"

"Yeah." Adam flicked on the lights and Joe shielded his eyes against the sudden glare. "Need some help?"

"No thanks." He squinted, tested his balance, then said, "Yeah, give me a hand until I get moving."

Adam shepherded him into the bathroom and took his overcoat.

"You're a good little wife," Joe observed with an edge of meanness to his voice. Why he was striking out at this man he didn't know, but as Adam was the only immortal in spitting distance, he was the obvious target.

"So I've been told. Go pee."

When he'd finished, he burst out of the bathroom feeling even meaner. He wanted to hurt someone as much as he hurt. He wanted to annihilate every fucking immortal on the planet so he could go back to being just a bluesman. He was sick of these people.

"You want something to eat, Joe? You could use some food."

"No, I do not want some fucking food and I especially don't want you hanging around here making a pest of yourself as usual." He went out to the kitchen and got himself a bottle. "I'm going to lie in bed and drink, so why don't you just fuck off?"

Adam said nothing, he just left the room. Joe heard the door of the apartment open, then close, and he took a long, shuddering breath. Alone at last and it seemed over-rated. He took a hard pull off his bottle and closed his eyes against the slow burn down his throat and all the way to his belly where the worst of the ache had settled.

Richie was gone. Mac was probably long-gone, too, off to do himself some harm, or some penance, or just to escape the voices inside his own head that told him that his was the blame for this disaster. If it was hard to be Duncan's watcher just then, it must be a thousand times harder to be Duncan.

The front door opened and closed again. Joe sat up. Adam strode into the room and deposited a bucket beside the bed. "I found this under the stairs with a mop in it, but you can pee in it. I'm taking off the prosthetics."

The recollection of another observer came to Joe. "D'you know this one? 'His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead'(2)" Joe recited. "And you're not taking my fucking legs off."

"That one's too easy, Joe. Quoting James Joyce to me…tsk. That's bad." He pulled off Joe's shoes. "That's a bad sign. You're not going to lie there for days with those things on. You know what will happen."

"I always liked that story; it makes me sad," Joe observed. He shoved Adam away when the immortal tried to unzip his trousers. "Fuck off!"

"You know what will happen," Adam repeated softly. And of course Joe did.

"What makes you the fucking expert?" he demanded, feeling about as ratty as he ever remembered being.

Adam went back to removing Joe's trousers so he could remove the prosthetic legs. "Been there, done that." He hauled Joe's trousers off. "Anyway, immortals don't regenerate limbs overnight, Joe. It was one of Kronos' first lessons to me about loyalty and trust. He had his slaves hold me down and he took both my legs off above the knee. Then he said to me "All right, now here's your sword. Defend yourself from attack." And of course I knew I couldn't."

"Why the hell would he do that?"

"So that I'd understand that I had to rely on him; that no one else would stand between me and disaster."

Joe shuddered. "At least bring my chair over so I can use that."

"Forget it. I'm not having you spend hours drinking and then try to get yourself into your wheelchair. You may enjoy pain but I don't want to clean up your blood, okay?" He set both legs down beside the bed and took Joe's bottle away. "You don't really want to lie there and destroy your brain cells, do you? Why don't you let me make you something to eat?"

Joe felt overwhelmed by the pathos of just being alive, and the tears began again. He covered his face with his hands. "I don't know what I want," he muttered. Adam's arms enfolded him, dispassionate, non-judgmental.

"It's okay to cry, Joe. It's okay."

Joe put his arms around Adam and laid his head on the immortal's shoulder. "I am scared to death," he admitted. "For all of us. And I don't know why."

"I know."

"How could this happen?"

Adam rocked him. Odd how someone so rackety-looking could feel so solid and comforting.

Joe pulled back and looked Adam in the eye. "I didn't mean what I said before; I'm glad you're here." Then, for some reason he might never understand, he took the old man's face between his hands and moved in close to kiss him on the mouth. Just a touch, just a soft kiss of thanks mingled with regret for all the lost moments of life. He felt a soft 'whuf' of surprise from Adam, then a response, tentative at first, but increasingly deep and hungry. It was no surprise; they both understood that this had been waiting for them, but never did Joe imagine that it would come rushing out at a moment like this.

He found himself horizontal, with Adam half on top of him, half lying beside him. Their mouths were so close he could feel the warmth of the other man's lips on his own.

"Is this what you really want?" Adam whispered, his breath tickling Joe's face.

"Yes." And again, "yes. Very much." He snaked his hands under the soft, blue shirt Adam wore, to touch bare flesh. He could almost feel the life rushing through this man's body, through his veins, bone-deep, marrow-deep, rich and undeniable, demanding of every energy. Life had no time for the dead, but used them up and went on. It would use Joe up soon enough, and that would be time enough for regrets and loneliness.

"Yes," said, a third time, as he tugged Adam's shirt off and felt warm flesh touch his own. Third time a charm, casting a spell of faith in the fertile darkness of his own heart. Surrender to life, not death, Joe Dawson; it is surely your only immortality.

Five thousand years.

Think of the passion shared, the love found and lost, pleasure given and taken in that time. Did it show on his body? Joe wanted now to see Adam with these new eyes, and he was clumsy in his anxiety to lay bare the flesh that had received five thousand years of kisses, caresses, like an ancient monument of some lost civilization, an icon that still drew the faithful.

Adam laughed. "What's your rush?"

"I haven't the time you have," he replied, his voice shaky, and Adam, understanding, stripped off his own clothes with a quiet efficiency, and settled on the bed beside Joe, offering himself up for whatever hunger consumed the mortal.

Joe stroked the smooth, golden skin with callused fingers. "Does five thousand years of passion make one different?" he asked.

"How so?"

"More desirable?"

Adam laughed again. "I wouldn't know, Joe, things seem to have a way of evening out."

"You seem so perfect."

"You're a kind man. I've lived with my defects for that long; they seem mountainous to me."

"Like?"

"This nose."

Joe kissed Adam's nose. "What else?" he asked, provoking a shy smile.

"My ears stick out."

Joe kissed the ear closest to himself, then turned Adam's head and kissed the other.

"This situation is ripe for abuse," Adam observed, provoking Joe to laughter, which broke his tension. He pressed his mouth to the smooth chest and tasted Adam's flesh, tongued the small nipples, learned the curve of muscle and bone at the throat, down to his shallow navel, and down again to where his cock stirred, golden and thick, from dark curls.

He caressed it, took it into his mouth, heard Adam gasp, and felt an answering surge in the heavy penis. Salty. Sweet-fleshed. Hot and responsive.

"Ohmygodjoe…you've done this before."

Adam drew him upward for a kiss and to finish undressing him. "I've always wanted to see you naked," he said, echoing his words from so many weeks earlier, yet without a trace of the conscious self-parody he had used then. He rubbed his face against Joe's chest like a big cat, his hands restless on Joe's body. "I have wanted you for so long."

His touch told him that Joe was already aroused, so he teased the man's cock with long, practiced fingers while they kissed until Joe's lips felt nearly numb.

"Why?" he asked as Adam's hand stiffened him.

"Why what?"

"Why me? Why have you wanted me?"

"Because you're Joe, because there is only one Joe. Because Joe is beautiful and bright, and brilliant, and a lot of other words beginning with 'B.' Okay?"

Joe just lay there as Adam covered his face with kisses. "Beautiful? Brilliant?"

Adam caught his chin in one hand. "I do not want to hear any blather. No denials. Say "Thank you, Adam, you have good taste.""

"I—"

"Say it."

"Thank you, Adam, you taste good."

"I do, huh?"

"Yup."

"Yup. So do you," he muttered, biting at Joe's beard. His long fingers played lightly over Joe's face, learning the geography of it by touch. His fingertips caressed the other man's lips, eyelids, lined forehead.

Joe frowned and caught at Adam's hand. He took a good look at it. "You're scarred."

"Yes."

"You're not supposed to be."

"These happened before I died the first time. I don't remember for sure, but I think I was apprenticed to a metal smith. I know how to work gold and copper and bronze. My hands remember." He studied the scars. "They've faded considerably. If I live another five thousand years they might disappear all together along with a lot more of my memories."

"What do you remember of your life then?"

Joe saw Adam get a faraway look. "Pictures only. The ocean, winter, sun coming up. Rings of white stones. I think I come from the isles or the northwest of France. Spain, maybe. Neolithic people. Nothing much more."

"Do you remember dying the first time?"

"I'm not sure. I think I got hit with a club and thrown into a peat bog. Very unpleasant waking out of that, but it might not have been the first time. I don't believe I knew what I was for the longest time. I don't even remember who trained me, Joe, or even if I had a teacher. Isn't that awful? You know my body remembers everything it's ever been taught, but my memories have huge gaps." He sighed. "Time diminishes all of us in some way," he observed, pushing Joe down onto the bed and straddling him. "You have anything slippery in the house except olive oil?"

Joe just stared up at the ancient creature astride his hips. "Uh, I don't think so, why?" In the very next instant he regretted the question, and flushed deep red down to his collar bone. "Nothing for that," he said."

"Tch, Joe…be prepared. I'll be right back."

Joe lay there staring at the ceiling for a few moments, then he looked down at his cock bobbing up from the graying hair at his groin and blinked. Today was happening too fast. From death to desire in a little over twenty-four hours? Not that he was prepared to stop it, but it did seem…"

"Actually I have a soft spot for olive oil. I used it a lot in my youth."

"That would be, what? The first three or four thousand years?"

"Um," Adam agreed, as he dribbled the oil over Joe's genitals like some salad to be dressed. A bit of lemon juice and some onion…

Adam used both hands to spread the oil and stiffen Joe's cock. "You're a big boy; you need to keep something around for occasions such as this when the right lubricant is critical. It's all part of being a good host," he said prissily. "You want to oil me or shall I do it?" He waited.

Joe felt so strange. He found he couldn't answer, but just lay there.

"Joe? I thought you wanted this."

"Time is playing tricks with me, Adam."

"How so?"

"It moves too fast and too slow, and the weight of it is so heavy yet you wear it so lightly. I want to understand."

"Oh, Joe, I thought you knew. 'After such knowledge, what forgiveness?'" he quoted. " 'Think now/ History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors/And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,/ Guides us by vanities.'(3)" He straddled Joe's hips again and rubbed his oily hands upwards through the thick pelt of graying hair on Joe's chest. "Appearances are deceiving, my friend. A Watcher should know that."

The words struck to the heart, and yet Joe knew they were not meant to harm, but rather to warn. He decided to take the warning in the spirit it was intended. "That's what I get for falling in lust with a scholar," he quipped. "But, is this true? Right now, is this true between us?"

"As your heart, Joe Dawson. I love you dearly. You are my best friend." He bent and kissed Joe softly on the mouth, his slick hands curving over the hard-muscled shoulders, then back down over Joe's chest. He sat forward and guided Dawson's cock to the entrance of his body and pressed downwards onto it, impaling himself slowly and with a low moan that could have been anything from pain to intense pleasure.

The only urgency he felt now was for this act, for the union of bodies now instead of minds. As the waves rose they both fell, tumbling from sensation to blank-eyed lust. Adam rocked slowly back and forth, his eyes shut tight, his lovely mouth working as if he were praying silently. And Joe held him like an icon, held fast. Buried inside Adam's heat, Joe lost himself, lost all sense of limits in space or in time. Flesh was one; time lay upon them not at all, nor ticked away inside them, nor betrayed either until the moments after their long, straining release, when the long, perfect, ancient body lay sprawled across Joe.

Adam's hair was wet, his body sheened with sweat. They were glued together from chest to groin with sweat and semen, slick with oil wherever their hands stroked skin. Joe slipped out of the other man's body and Adam groaned softly. Joe ruffled the sweat-damp hair of the old immortal, and felt as if he were the ancient one.

"Did you like that, Joseph?" he murmured, settling his face into the hollow between Joe's neck and shoulder.

"It was amazing. It was like electricity," he said with perfect truth. There had been something about it that actually tingled.

"That was my quickening; you'll get used to it. It leaks a little during sex."

"What?"

"Want to do that again from the other direction," Adam muttered into Joe's neck. "You don't mind, do you, Joe? I want to get inside you."

"Oh god."

"I want to fuck you. I like the way that sounds, fuck you. I want to fuck you. I want to eat you up."

"Adam, Adam…"

Oily hands stroked through Joe's hair and a warm mouth nipped at the sensitive skin of Joe's throat. "Later then. What I really want is to sleep, okay?" He sounded like a little boy.

"Okay, okay. Rest now."

Immortals, even when they were being sweet, were wearing.

Love is a minor chord
Love is a mental ward
Love is a drawn sword
Love is its own reward(4)

Morning brought back memories of all that had happened in the past few days with a crushing force. Richie, dead. Duncan, gone missing. Adam… Joe looked down at the sleeping immortal as if he hadn't been aware of the death-grip Adam had on his wrist. Did he always sleep like that, hanging on to his partner for dear life? Joe sighed; another mystery to unravel, another concern to add to the odd little collection he was constructing under the heading of Pointless Worries about Immortals. Despite that, it was comforting to have the old man there even if he did snore when he flipped onto his back.

The grip on his wrist eased, and Adam rolled over, kicking the duvet back so his feet stuck out from under it. Nice feet. Long. Like lizards, Joe thought irrationally, and fought off the urge to giggle.

He tried to doze, but it was impossible to get back to sleep, so he put on his glasses and started to read the book he'd begun before Duncan had begun to see ghosts. He read for almost an hour before Adam rolled over and opened his eyes.

"Joe!"

"Morning."

"Mmm. What's the time?"

"Bit after ten."

Adam snuggled closer. "I like you in glasses."

"Good." He went on reading.

"What are you reading?"

"Some Barbara Tuchman."

"Oh yeah? Which one?"

"Proud Tower."

"Good book."

Long silence.

"Joe?"

"Hmmm?"

"When did you fall in love with me?"

Joe closed the book and peered at Adam over the top of his glasses. "I beg your pardon?"

"When did you fall in love with me?"

"What makes you think I have?"

Adam looked affronted. "Of course you have. Haven't you?"

How did he do that? How did he manage to look all of fifteen years old and broken-hearted that way?

"Adam…"

Adam snaked his way up Joe's torso and rubbed his face against the mortal's. Damn the man, Joe thought even as he responded to the warm, searching mouth that tasted him, tested him, no one has the right to have this many hidden faces.

"Haven't you?" Adam whispered and for reasons Joe didn't quite understand he replied, "Of course not."

The soft nuzzling stopped for just a moment, then continued. "I guess that's okay, too." Adam murmured against Joe's cheek. Then he lay back against the headboard. "Feeling the loss?"

"Yes, frankly I am." Joe took off his glasses and set them on the night stand along with his book. "It's a constant, dull ache."

Adam nodded as if he knew exactly what Joe meant. Of course he knew; how many friends had he lost to death? And yet, somehow Adam didn't seem like the type to make friends easily. Or rather, Methos didn't.

Joe took the long, scholar's face between his hands. "How many have you lost? How many times have you felt this way?"

Adam evaded his gaze. "I don't remember."

"I think you remember every friend and lover you've ever lost," Joe told him quietly, and was rewarded by the sensation of Adam pulling away from him. Of course he remembered.

"All the more reason not to be stupid, isn't it?"

"No. I know you'll disappear one day," Joe said serenely. "But I'm not regretting loving you." There. It was said now, and nothing on earth could ever take it back or change it, or make it less than it was.

And again, that expression: teenage angst. "You don't know how old you were when you died first, do you?"

Adam shook his head. "I reckon I was about twenty-five or thirty. I'm hungry," he said switching gears in a way that always made Joe a little giddy. "What do you have?"

"Eggs. Beyond that, I'm not sure."

"Let me make some breakfast for you. We can eat it in bed."

"That could get messy."

"I'm counting on having to wash the sheets today." He bounced out of bed and brought Joe's chair to the bed. "I don't really mean you to pee in the bucket. Here you go." He locked it and went off to the bathroom. "I'll be done in a sec," he shouted as Joe lifted himself into the chair. They passed on the way to the bathroom and Adam ruffled his hair. "Looking shaggy."

"Is that bad?"

"Not at all. Coffee?"

"Sure."

And just like that they settled into domesticity.

Can love remember
The question and answer,
For love recover
What has been dark and rich and warm all over?(5)

Joe asked if he didn't want to come along to Maurice's, but Adam said, no, he wasn't in the mood. Joe said he wasn't either, but he'd promised to play a couple of short sets. "It's new talent night at Maurice's. God knows who'll be up there in between our sets."

"I'll be counting the minutes until you get back," Adam told him, and Joe smiled wryly.

"I'm certain you will."

Adam grinned. "You know I'm a solitary creature sometimes. We don't have to be glued together at the hip, you know."

Joe nodded. "It's a little tiresome to be so easily seen through."

"You're too opaque for that; I simply fell back on my knowledge of human nature."

"Pitiful, isn't it?"

"If it was I'd never have loved so many of you. Go on and be a musician. I'll be waiting in bed, all right?" The silly smile on Joe's face warmed Adam's heart. "I'll be the one with the rose between his teeth," he added.

Joe laughed. "I doubt I'll lose you in the crowd."

Once he was gone, Adam put on a Little Willie John tape. Joe's taste in music was almost as eclectic as Adam's was, and he hauled tapes and CDs around the way Adam carried his journals with him. He rooted around in the stack of his things that lay in the corner of the bedroom, and found his current journal. He hadn't made any entries in days, and he wanted to set down his memories and thoughts while they were still relatively fresh.

Mac's apparent madness and Richie's death were difficult to chronicle, and Adam had been laboring over the task since that night, turning over and over in his mind what he could say, what he wanted to say, what it meant to him. In the end he settled for a cool account of the facts. If life had taught him anything, it was that eulogies can wait until you've had time to discard all the things you want to say, and focus, finally, on the things you need to say. Richie could wait, Mac could wait. He finished and laid the journal down, pulled on a jacket and went on down to Maurice's to listen to Joe play. Perhaps there would be years more of Joe and his music, perhaps only days; one never knew. If time had taught Adam anything it was that the moments when it seemed to stretch out before you in infinite planes were lies. Time had its own beginnings and endings.

Joe smiled when he saw Adam enter the club. Adam waved. He sat down at the table and ordered a glass of beer, and settled back to listen to the band. The place was crowded for a weeknight, but Joe always drew a crowd of young Parisians who liked to hear the blues played by someone who understood what they were about. Joe liked to call his music "white boy's blues" but it was the real thing and Adam knew it, because it came from a place in the heart that knew only the bounds of sorrow and pain.

A round of applause signaled the end of the song. There was a quick conference and the band launched into a song Adam recognized. He sat forward and listened as Joe began to growl the words: Didn't we break the silence/Didn't we fear the storm/Didn't we move the earth/Didn't we shoot for the sky…

He felt a little knot of pleasure in the pit of his stomach.

Days on the run/Nights in hiding/Hoping that you were/The healing inside me…

Joe was looking right at him.

Didn't we cross new waters/Didn't we mix new blood/Didn't we build brand new bridges/Didn't we hold back the flood…

Adam could feel a smile stretching across his face. He couldn't stop it.

I'm not afraid anymore
I'm not alone
I'm not the same anymore… (6)

This one had a big finish, loud, hard, emphatic, and the people who sat and listened, breathless as Joe and the band drew them into the spell, were on their feet applauding, shouting and whistling. Joe had a goofy grin on his face as he accepted the ovation, and he kept peeking back at Adam who was grinning crazily, too."

"Thank you, thank you. Mille mercis! That was 'Sweet Fire of Love' by a great musician, Robbie Robertson."

There were some cheers; apparently Parisians knew Robertson's work. Good, Adam thought. Everyone should.

Joe took a break then, to let a jazz vocal group take the stage. They swung into a pretty creditable cover of Manhattan Transfer's "The Offbeat of Avenues" and Joe came and sat down at the table.

"I suppose that was entirely too goopy a thing to do," he said, signaling the waitress to bring him something to drink.

"Yes. And I loved it. Thank you."

"It felt right. What brings you out?"

Adam shrugged. Just found that what I had in mind could wait."

Joe smiled. "I'm glad."

"Me too. How long you playing?"

"One more set after this group is finished."

"They're good."

Joe nodded and then laughed. "Whenever they come onstage, the whole crowd turns into beatniks, I swear. Everything is "cool man." Some guy called me "Daddy-O" the other day."

It stuck Adam funny and he wheezed over his drink, imagining someone calling Joe "Daddy-O," imagining Joe's face. "I'm going to come in here all dressed in black and wearing shades one night," he promised. "And say things like "hip" and "jive" and snap my fingers instead of clapping. What a nostalgia trip. Anyone else playing tonight?"

"A jazz guitar and violin duo. Reinhardt and Grappelli wannabes, mostly, though they have some licks."

"You planning to stick around to hear them?" Adam asked, trying not to sound obvious, which made it all the more obvious what he was thinking.

"I could be persuaded to come home early," Joe admitted as he sipped his beer.

"Well then, let me register a request that we leave as soon as you finish."

"Duly noted.

"Aren't you going to ask what I have in mind?"

"Adam, if I don't know what you have in mind, I have not been paying attention these last few nights." He brushed his fingers over his moustache in a very characteristic gesture, and Adam found himself cataloging it and setting it aside for the future.

He hated doing that.

"What's wrong?"

"Existential angst, Joseph."

"Oh that. Take two aspirins and call me Daddy-O," he said dryly which sent Adam into another fit of giggles.

They left the bar before midnight, taking Adam's car and leaving Joe's. Adam promised to drop Joe there the next day to pick it up, but he said he wanted to take the long route home. He tossed Joe's Gibson into the back seat and drove down to where Mac's barge was moored.

"Why here?"

"I always liked it here with Notre Dame in the background, and all the lights. I always thought it would be fun to come here with someone and, uh, smooch." He helped Joe out of the car.

"Smooch?" Joe chuckled. "You mean 'neck?' Are you suggesting we get indecent in public?"

Adam pretended to think about it. "Yes, I believe I am."

"Now I'm feeling self-conscious."

"I could stand under a bridge and pretend to try to pick you up if that's more to your taste."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I think that would be fun." Adam lounged back against a wall. "Bon soir, sailor."

Joe looked like he was fighting a grin. "You talking to me?"

"Yeah. Gotta match?"

"Don't smoke."

"Neither do I. Want a date?" Adam had a hard time keeping the amusement out of his voice. He loved it that Joe was playful.

"A date?"

"Yeah, you know, like we go somewhere and get naked together."

"I don't think so. You're not my type."

Adam sputtered in indignation. "I'm not your type?"

Joe shoved him into the shadows and caught hold of the sharp chin. "Did I ever tell you what my type is?"

"Don't think so," Adam said between kisses.

"Human."

"Cold, Dawson, very cold."

"Usually has breasts."

"Oh…I remember them. They smell good."

"Um-hm" Joe agreed, biting at Adam's full lower lip. He felt long fingers unzip his fly and reach into the gap.

"Feel good too." Adam's fingers slid into Joe's underwear. "Wet," he purred and was rewarded by a deep shiver of pleasure from Joe, part reminiscent, part very direct. He stuck his tongue in Joe's ear and was about to make a truly lewd suggestion, when he heard someone say, "Merde! Des p�d�s!" He sagged. "Oh, fuck," he said.

"Oh man." Joe pulled his coat around him and turned slightly. There were three young people — two boys and a girl — gaping at them.

"D�fonce!" one of them said, laughing

"Foutez-nous la paix, cr�tin." Adam replied and their laughs turned to scowls.

"Oh man," Joe repeated. "Now you've done it."

"Tais-toi, tappette!" the boy yelled.

Adam stepped out of the shadows to meet whatever threat was forthcoming, but the girl and one of the boys ran off giggling. The second boy, left alone, seemed to shrink into himself. "Va te faire foutre," he said, but it lacked conviction.

Adam moved forward so quickly that the boy didn't have a chance to get away. He gave the kid a shove and sent him flying into the Seine.

"Adam!"

"Little prick ruined my good mood. C'mon, let's go home."

They got back in the car and drove back to Joe's place, but before Adam would let Joe out of the car, he engaged him in a little necking to make up for what had happened along the embankment. "This way we can get away if we need to," he explained. "Or run over anyone who bothers us. Don't you just love doing it in a car and feeling like you're a kid again?"

"Except that they never had cars when you were kids."

"Did it in the back of dad's chariot." Adam felt Joe's mouth turn up into a smile.

"I'll bet you did."

By the time they got upstairs, Joe was sporting an obvious erection, and Adam was half undressed. They fell into bed, and for the next quarter hour went at it furiously. They were both gasping for breath when they came back down.

"Jeezus," Adam panted. "Live fast, die young, eh?"

"Short but sweet," Joe agreed. "What a mess."

"Maybe we could just sleep like this," Adam suggested, trying hard not to notice that they were both hanging off the bed. He wondered if the only thing keeping him off the floor was being glued to the bedspread.

"I think I probably could. Wouldn't regret it until I woke up, either." That said, Joe slid to the floor with a dull thump. Adam followed.

"I think we need a little wash. Stay there."

"I'm not likely to be moving around a lot, Adam."

When he came back out of the bathroom, Adam was naked, and carrying a wet washcloth and a clean towel. "I'd shower, but why bother if we're going to do this again?"

Joe grimaced as Adam hauled him back up onto the bed. "I'm not a magician, you know. This may have been it for the week."

"Nonsense, you're strong as an ox."

"And over forty," he reminded Adam.

"Think of my age, Joe."

"I do. A lot."

"Nothing a little rest won't cure." Joe stripped off his clothes and Adam washed him, though Joe insisted that he was quite capable.

"Doesn't it feel nicer when I do it?"

Joe admitted that it did and stopped protesting. Adam cleaned them both, and stripped the bedspread off.

"I'll wash this out tomorrow," he promised. "I'd just as soon sleep now." He put out the light and climbed into bed beside Joe. "So if women are more your style, why did you start sleeping with men?"

"I found one so engaging I couldn't resist."

"And who was that?" Adam asked, nestling up against the warm, comfort that was Joe.

"Shut up and go to sleep, Adam."

"Joe," he said, almost in a purr.

"Shut up, Adam."

I loved the lamplight brawl we had last night,
Especially the appalling abuse from your maddened tongue. (7)

Joe was jounced out of a sound sleep and at first he thought Adam was getting frisky with him.

"Hey, pal, necrophilia is not an acceptable…" He grunted as Adam's elbow made contact with his ribs, and Adam began to shout in a language Joe had never heard before. He was dreaming, and from everything Joe could see, it wasn't pleasant.

He shook Adam who came out of the dream with a gasp. Joe flicked on the bedside lamp. "You okay?" he asked as Adam sat up and began to rub his face as if he was trying to scrub away the nightmare.

"I'll be all right in a minute or two. It's just that I haven't dreamed like that in a long time."

"An enemy?"

"You might say so. It was my childhood." His eyes were a little glassy.

"I thought you said…"

"I don't remember anything much. This isn't something I can make sense of but I know it was my childhood. And there was fire, lots of it. I hate those dreams."

Joe didn't doubt it, particularly when he saw the haunted look in Adam's eyes. This was something he'd never seen before, another piece of the puzzle that was Methos.

Adam punched his pillow into a ball and leaned back against it. "Okay, I know you're curious. I owe you one."

"What? You mean I can ask you about your past? After that performance?"

Adam smiled weakly. "You know you want to."

Joe had to admit that he was right. "Okay, so what the hell were the horsemen about?"

"You've been talking to Mac."

"Only in passing. You upset the balance of his life, you know."

"He hates me."

"He does not hate you. Stop with that self-pity bullshit."

For a moment, Joe thought he'd gone too far, but then Adam's expression turned Puckish. "Caught me. Okay, that's two I owe you. So, let's see…Kronos, huh?"

"Yup."

"When I met him I was at least two thousand years old, Joe. I'd taken a lot of heads by the time I met Kronos. I wanted his, he wanted mine, but we didn't fight, we fell into bed together which was a real improvement over killing each other," he said, with a reminiscent smile. "In point of fact it was a while before we even got to a bed."

"How did you meet?"

Adam wedged his arm under his head. "I had been traveling the amber trade route. I used to go from what is now central Denmark, along the Baltic coast, down along the Vistula for a way, and then into the Carpathians. There were a lot of villages along the route, and carrying amber, and other things, was a good living. I'd end up on the Black Sea. Sometimes I'd make a big circle, sometimes I'd go back the way I'd come. Occasionally I'd go back across the Bosphorus and into Anatolia,, then back down into Egypt. I've lived a number of lives there, and this time I thought it might be a good idea to carry my wares back down to Tanis... There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing at that time; you never knew where they were going to move the capital or who you'd find on the throne. Anyway, I had it in mind to travel into Upper Egypt and trade some amber for gold. I traveled alone, which was foolish, and I guess that's how Kronos decided to try to steal from me."

"And as soon as he got close enough to you to figure out what you were," Joe began.

"It made him all the more determined. Why not add a head to the collection after all? He used to carry his most current trophy in his saddlebag."

Joe made a face.

"Yeah, they stank. He seemed to like it that we're not immune to corruption after death. The worse they got the happier he was. He really was disgusting," Adam said, with a note of disbelief that made Joe laugh out loud.

"And that excited you?"

Adam stared at Joe with respect. "You're incredibly perceptive, Joseph. Yes, that quality excited me. I was in my "vileness" stage, I guess. I was pretty jaded after all, and I needed a good long wallow. He was like a cool breeze on a hot, muggy afternoon. So, we nearly came down to swords, but there was something so…" He searched for the right word.

"Hot?" Joe asked with a grin.

"Yes, that too, but I think electric would be even closer to what happened between us. I seem to recall that neither of us tied up our horses and had to chase them down afterwards." He laughed to remember how angry Kronos had been. "Kronos had all these big plans; he was going to raise an army from, uh, lord, I don't even remember where. It became something of a regional sport, taking over Egypt, you know. My god, the Libyans, the Persians, the Nubians….who knew who was in charge? But it took more than force of will and a bunch of immortals on your side to become a Pharaoh. I'd done it and what you need is to be in the right place at the right time."

"What???"

"Oh it was a long time ago, Joe, it's not important."

"You were a Pharaoh?"

"Do you have any idea how many there were? It was not a big deal."

"If you say so. Which one?"

Adam grinned. "Is this a test? Djeserkheperure. I'm amazed I remember how to pronounce that," he remarked. "Now stop interrupting me, I'm telling a story here."

"Sorry, Oh Exalted One."

"I told Kronos he'd do well on the trade route but he didn't want to be a trader or a merchant, he was a soldier by nature. All right, a killer. He wanted to raise an army and build himself a kingdom just like that. I didn't think that was too practical a plan and I told him so. Everyone was out to conquer some hunk of that part of the world and I didn't see that we could get up enough supporters out of the flotsam and jetsam of society to beat down the other guys. He said they'd fight for gods and I...oh well we went at it for a long time and I pretty much won the round but lost the war so I guess it was my fault that the horsemen were born. We formed a sort of elite corps and hired ourselves out to local despots with the understanding that half of the plunder we took in belonged to us. Really we kept most of it. Everyone was afraid to argue the point with us. And then we left the people we raided to be ruled by whoever had hired us. Robbed, raped, pillaged and then turned over to a bureaucracy to be taxed. Pitiful. Come to think of it, if I had to do it all over again, I think I'd chose to be Taxes instead of Death. It's scarier."

He looked over as if to check and see if Joe was smiling. Adam liked an audience.

"Anyway," he continued, "the real point to all of this was that we'd get the local despots to control the people, then we'd control the local despots, and when we had enough of them who owed us, we'd convince them it was time to rise up and take over…well, Egypt, let's say, though there were a lot of kingdoms going begging in those days. War, war, war," he said in a fairly good imitation of Scarlett O'Hara.

Joe smiled. "Isn't that something of a leap? From trader to Death?"

"Maybe. I barely remember. Duncan thinks I'm beyond redemption because I've killed so many people."

"Ten thousand, was it?" Joe asked, but he kept it light, teasing. "Frankly I find that hard to believe."

"That's because it is if you look at it as if I delivered each death stroke. I am almost certainly implicated in that many deaths - probably twice that number, but by my hand? Do the math, Joe. It's possible but not likely, is it? And it wasn't just on a whim. Silas wouldn't have been with us if he hadn't thought of what we did as war. Caspian…well, all right, he would have fetched up anywhere there was a chance to inflict pain, but Kronos wouldn't have bothered if there hadn't been power to build and what good would I be as their strategist if the idea was just to knock off a caravan every time we wanted food or trade goods or new slaves? No, there was a method to our madness, and that method was mine. But Kronos was impatient, and that's what defeated us in the end."

"And that method is what you think redeems you?"

Adam just looked at Joe, his expression unreadable. Then he said, "Do you think it does?"

One had to be very careful with Adam sometimes. "I don't think it's a case of redemption. You acted according to what you knew of the world. No better or worse than most men of your time, I'd imagine. I'm not going to judge you for that."

He thought he heard a little, whispered "Thank you." But he was never certain.

"In two thousand or so years I'd been a lot of things," Adam continued, "and soldiering was one of the more obvious occupations in that world. The thing was that I was also tired of people - I mean immortals as well as you lot - just the contact I had along the amber route was more than enough to keep me cynical and cranky for the whole trip. Working in a group didn't thrill me, and I told Kronos so. I had no objection, well all right, I had only a small objection to working with a partner, but when he brought Silas and Caspian and one other immortal - a youngish one - into the mix, God, what was his name?" Adam frowned, trying hard to recall someone he'd known briefly three thousand years earlier. "Well anyway I wasn't happy at all. It wasn't what I had imagined it might be and after eighteen months or so I told him I was going to go off on my own again.

"He told me that to be alone was to court death. I told him he was an idiot, and that I had been smart enough to avoid being killed in the past, even if it meant having to sleep with him, so I could do very well without him now. I suppose that wasn't a very nice thing to say to a lover, eh?"

"And that's when he took your legs off?"

"Mm. He said something like "Okay, you're so smart, protect yourself now." And I recognized that I couldn't, but I didn't take his point until that youngster Kronos was training, got taken down by a band of villagers. Just like that. He'd gotten cocky and went off to steal a woman who'd taken his fancy, and instead of giving her up, her people dragged him off his horse, beat him to death and just for the hell of it, cut off his head. You know how common beheading was in that part of the world at that time? One of the pharaohs…not me if you're wondering, brought captives back from one of his campaigns and beheaded all of them personally. It was the done thing. The danger was very real."

"Uh-huh."

"It was just dumb luck for the kid, but I realized, well, what I'd known all along, I suppose, that there was a very real danger in being alone in the world. I could have avoided it, I had up to that point after all. But it did set me to thinking about how I wanted to live the rest of my life, and how long I wanted that life to be. So I just put the anger aside - that's something I learned over the first two millennia; anger can kill you, Joe. It can suck the intelligence right out of you and it takes away…" He paused and chewed his lip.

"Your juice?"

Adam laughed. "Yeah it does. It takes all your juice out of you. Anyway, I opted for one clean revenge just so Kronos wouldn't think I was a pushover, and then I let go of it."

"What did you do?"

"Cut off his cock and balls while he was sleeping."

Joe was horrified, but Adam began to laugh at the memory. "Silas and Caspian came running because they heard him screaming, and they found me sitting on top of him with the bloody things in one hand and a wicked bronze castrating knife in the other – dear lord, I loved bronze, I loved the way it felt in my hands…but I digress. Silas and Caspian never questioned my authority after that, so it was two lessons I delivered that day." He looked over at Joe who was gaping in horror.

"I'm sorry Joe, I know it's grisly, but life was bloody and harsh and for most people it was short and unpleasant. That's what made us what we were. Besides, I knew they'd grow back. I'd never have taken those if I thought they wouldn't. I'd had too much fun with them." He patted Joe's groin and there was something not quite Adam-like about the gesture. It was rare Joe saw Methos hidden under the grad student persona, and it was almost always unnerving.

"And Kronos let it go after that?" Joe asked, trying to shift Adam's focus.

"Not exactly, but we took it down a level or two. Stole lovers from each other, betrayed one another to the authorities. I've dug him up out of a fresh grave I put him in more than once, and he's done the same for me. Or to me, I guess you'd say." Adam rolled onto his side and laid a hand on Joe's bare chest. "I don't usually treat my lovers so badly," he said reassuringly.

"And why did you let it end this time?"

"He was beginning to bore me. He never changed."

Of all the things Adam could have said, it was the most cold-blooded. It chilled Joe even more than the story of Adam's revenge.

"That's pretty cold," he said evenly.

"I suppose so. After three thousand years of him demanding I come play in his sandbox, I got tired, fed up. He was so limited in his scope. He wanted to rule the world; my god, can you think of a worse job?"

Joe thought about it. "No, I don't suppose I can, but then I don't see why you stayed to begin with."

"Oh well...it's a heady thing to be needed, and it wasn't all bad times."

Joe grabbed the headboard and levered himself against it to roll onto his back and sit up. "That's not a word I'd have associated with Kronos — 'need.' It seems too human," he observed as he settled more comfortably. Moving around in bed, he reflected, was a heck of a lot easier without Adam, but he was just as happy to cope.

"He was remarkably human in many ways. He needed what I could do for him. I knew things about him no one else knew, and I knew how to play to those needs."

"Such as?"

"How much he loved pain. How much he needed to be owned by someone who knew how to dole it out in just the right amounts."

Joe just frowned.

"I'm good at it, Joe. I don't exercise that talent much anymore, but I'm good at making people hurt in exactly the sort of way they need to hurt."

"I'm not sure I want to hear much more of this."

"You did ask."

"Yes, I know."

"Think of it as an action movie. Once it stops it isn't real anymore."

"Unfortunately I know better."

"You did ask," Adam said again. "You know you're like Duncan in that respect. What is it about you two that you seem to need to know the worst?"

Mildly affronted, Joe denied the accusation. "I asked you why you stayed with Kronos; I didn't expect a detailed account of your mutual perversions." Then he said, "I bet you'd have flung them in Duncan's face, too. You're your own worst enemy, Adam, I swear."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Joe reached for his wheelchair and began to lever himself out of the bed. "You figure it out; I have to go pee."

While he was in the bathroom, he heard Adam banging around in the kitchen, and when he came back to bed, the old man was lying there sucking on a bottle of beer. "That just evens things out nicely, doesn't it? Can you say "alcoholic immortal," Adam?"

Adam stared. "Who the hell put a burr up your ass? Oh, I'm sorry, it was me, wasn't it? Want to talk about mutual perversions?"

Joe wondered briefly what was going on, but instead of stepping back from the argument, he warmed to it. "Yeah, well I don't worry about you destroying your liver, but Maurice has been after me to get you to pay your bar tab."

"Why doesn't he just ask me? Who does he think you are, my husband?"

"I think he was under the impression he had, but that you blew him off." A lie, but one that spilled out all too easily. Joe would have been embarassed but Adam didn't give him the opportunity.

"Fine. I'll pay him tomorrow morning, and I'll be damned if I go back there again."

"The man just wanted to be paid for what you'd drunk. Don't be so lord-of-the-manor-ish, okay? Doesn't suit you." For a minute Joe thought he was going to have a beer bottle bounced off his skull, but Adam subsided into a quiet snit on his side of the bed.

"You're such a baby sometimes," Joe observed as he worked his way back into bed.

"Yes, I'm just a treat to live with. You should have set up housekeeping with the Highlander. He's more domesticated than I am, isn't he?"

"No wonder you two fought all the time."

"I'm sure you would have preferred it to be, Duncan, wouldn't you?" Adam asked bluntly. "It's not like I don't know that you're in love with him."

Joe took refuge in denial. "What? Oh, come on, Adam!"

"No you come on. I am not blind and I'm not an idiot. Well not about everything. The Adonis archetype never goes out of style, does it?"

"Adam, you are dead wrong."

"Am I? Really?"

"Yes, really."

"You are one lousy fucking liar, Joe Dawson."

"All right, fine. I'd rather be sleeping with Duncan than you, but he wasn't on the menu. Is that what you want to hear? My god, talk about needing to know the worst."

"I get off on pain, too," Adam sulked.

Joe was about to make a sharp retort but he forced himself to stop and think. He was silent for so long, that Adam noticed and said, "What?"

"Let's not do this."

"Do what?"

"You know what I mean. Let's not do it."

"Why?" Adam was looking for reassurance but Joe had none. All he had was a fundamental truth.

"Because at bottom we're both very lonely men."

Adam looked stricken for only a second, then he nodded. "That's the one thing I can't argue with."

Joe threw his arm around the thin, silent figure and pulled him close. "How the hell did that blow up?"

"Sudden storms in summertime. I'm sorry, Joe. I'll keep my appalling secrets to myself from now on."

"No, I'll listen. I want to. I was shocked because I was enjoying the story."

"Really?"

"Really, but not right now. It's too raw for right now."

They were quiet together for a few minutes, then Adam laughed. " 'Eros, stop aiming at my heart and liver; If you really must shoot me, Please try another organ..' (8) Macedonius wrote that in…around the sixth century, I think."

"You calling me a pain in the liver?"

"A big one."

Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms.(9)

They were lying in bed one night, after a long, lazy bout of sex. Adam asked, "How's your Latin, Joe?"

"Passable, why?"

"Good enough to get an old Roman joke?"

This was one of the great pleasures of knowing Adam. "Let's try."

"Okay. Moritur malefactor et ad oras Acheruntis pervenit."

"Um…a bad man dies and goes to…hell? The underworld."

"I think it's safe to say that this is hell. Dicit infelici Orcus, "Tria flumina in regno meo sunt. In uno ex eis manebis ad pepetuitatem. Licet tibi autem flumen designare in quo manebis. Veni ut--"

"Wait, wait. Orcus? Is that right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, Orcus says to the guy "There are three rivers in my kingdom and you have to spend eternity in one of them, but you're allowed to choose which one that's going to be."

"Very good. So…Orcum sequitur--"

"Wait, what about "Veni, uh, whatever that was?"

"It's not critical. Now listen: Orcum sequitur mortuus ad flumina. In primo, multi videntur qui clamant, corpora quatientes. "Noli in hoc flumen introire! Noli introire! Flumen cera fervens!""

"So Orcus takes the guy to the rivers, and in the first one there were a lot of people, uh, shaking their bodies?"

"Yeah, think of something out of Dante or Bosch."

"Eu, okay. Uh, shivering? They're saying that, uh, saying not to come into the river because it's made of…"

"Flumen cera fervens."

Joe shook his head. "The river is something, uh…"

"The river is boiling wax."

"Ugh, then it wouldn't be shivering they're doing, would it?"

"I wouldn't think so, but the Romans were all mad. All that lead in their water pipes. You never know. Anyway, In secundo multi videntur qui clamant corpora quatientes. "Noli in hoc flumen introire! Noli introire! Flumen nix conglacians frigore!"'

"This lot is shivering," Joe said with a grin. "They're saying 'Don't come into this river because it's made of snow and freezing.'"

"Very good, Joe. We'll turn you into a Roman stand-up comic yet. In tertio multi videntur qui murmurant, corpora minime quatientes "Quid est illud?" Orcum rogat malefactor. "Quid dicunt illi?" "Flumen stercoris," inquit. "Dicunt illi semper "Noli undas facere! Noli undas facere!"""

Joe began to chuckle. "The third river is filled with souls who are murmuring and barely moving. And the guy says to Satan…Orcas, sorry. Says to Orcas, 'What's that river made of? What are they saying?' and Orcas says, 'That river is made of shit. They're saying "Don't make waves, don't make waves!"' (10) Is there some hidden meaning here?"

"You're a perceptive man. I don't make waves, Joe, because we're all standing in a river of shit."

"You really know how to kill a good mood, Pierson."

"Sorry, but you did ask."

"I'll know better next time. I have the feeling that this is in aid of something I'm going to like even less. You're getting ready to fall off the face of the earth, yes?"

"I'm going away for a while, yes."

"I see." Joe shifted slightly and pulled more of the sheet onto himself. He needed the barrier between them now. "Have we really come full circle already?"

"I think you should go home. Put up the tombstone and go home. Duncan won't be found until he's ready. Better yet, why not go down to New Orleans and play your blues down there for a while? You know you'd love it."

Joe ignored the suggestion. "So you're not going to look for him?"

"He doesn't want me around."

Joe was always startled at how totally unperceptive Adam could be even at his age. "I would debate that but I haven't got the energy. Where will you go?"

"I don't know for sure; Egypt, maybe. The light there has always been good for me."

"I don't suppose you want any company?"

"No."

Joe winced at the harsh truth.

"Joe, I love you as a friend and now as a lover, but I want to go my own way for a time."

"Point taken." Joe punched at the pillow under his head. "So, if I promise to behave myself and not get prissy, will you finish telling me about Kronos before you leave?"

"Not about what I used to do to him; I think your imagination can fill in those details."

"Doubt it."

Adam seemed to consider this. "Yes, you're right. It's not in you to imagine things like that. What can I say? It was a time in my life. You give your lovers what they need, I guess, because it's all you have to give them. Do you remember your Virgil?"

"Specifically?"

"'Wild love, is there anything you cannot force on the human heart?' (11)"

Joe imagined, or tried to imagine, Adam loving someone like Kronos, but imagination failed. He acknowledged that this man had places in his heart no mortal would ever know. "Does it usually take that long for you to get bored by your lovers or was he one of the exceptions?" he teased.

Adam gave him the oddest look. "You want a timetable, Joe? The point at which you should bow out of my life gracefully before we make a bad end of it?"

The question sobered Joe. "I guess I do. Especially if that's what's happening now."

"Oooh, now who's being cold?"

"This is self-preservation, Adam."

The old man stretched and got out of bed. "I know that." He padded off to the bathroom to pee. When he came back out, he was grinning. "I figure you for a millennium man."

"What?"

"I think you're good for a thousand years at least, Joe. Think you can say the same for me?"

"I'll give it some thought," Joe told him, affecting a light-hearted air.

Adam got back into bed. "You know, for some reason that scares me."

"What?"

"What you just said. I want to think you and I will be friends forever, Joe. I sort of count on that." He sounded like a kid, and Joe found him irresistible. He pulled Adam into his arms and kissed the top of his head two or three times.

"Okay, okay, there's nothing to worry about. We'll always be friends."

"Really?" Adam's voice was muffled against his chest.

"Really." It was a promise he intended to keep.

"Good, then I have something for you."

"I love presents."

Adam opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out a carving knife.

"Um…"

"Don't be such a baby, Joe, I'm not going to kill you. I'm not even going to give you an in-depth demonstration of what I used to do for Kronos." He laid the knife on the table and began to kiss and caress Joe with the clear intention of initiating another bout of lovemaking.

It didn't take long for Joe to forget the knife on the table, and yield to the hungry kisses of his nearly ex-lover. It might be the last time, Joe realized. He might wake to find Adam gone. His hands clutched the narrow hips above him as he sucked and licked at Adam's engorged cock, drawing it deep, tasting the first drops of fluid flowing from the tip. He felt his own penis similarly engulfed as Adam hungered over him, long hands restless on Joe's body. Adam pulled away and lay down, spreading his thighs wide. Beside the knife was a tube of lubricant; he handed it to Joe.

"Nice and slick, Joe." And when Joe's fingers worked into his body, he gave a little cry that made Joe's hair stand on end. All over his body. It was one of those rare moments when all of Adam's barriers seemed to come down at once, and what Joe saw was the essence of his lover, abandoned, wild, an utterly sensual, sexual creature. Had Duncan ever seen this? Had they ever been to the point where they could let down the barriers?

Adam helped him position himself, propping himself against the immortal's legs. It wasn't uncomfortable, but the angle wasn't perfect either. Still, it was what they both wanted so it was worth the effort. He pressed into the slender body, penetrating with relative ease, and began to move inside Adam's slick warmth. The tight ring of muscle rippled up and down the length of his cock, milking it. Adam's soft moans excited him, drove him to use the old man's body hard, straining against it, supported by his arms, by Adam's legs, by their wills that this act be consummated.

Adam said, "Give me your hand, Joe." His voice was dark, heavy with sex.

Leaning his weight on the other arm, he extended the right hand to Adam. The immortal took the knife from the bed table and made a cut, a deep one, across Joe's hand in a motion so swift, Joe could not have stopped him. The pain from the razor-sharp blade was exquisite and Joe found himself surprisingly close to climax.

"Wait for me, wait for me," Adam begged as he slashed his own hand vertically, almost to the bone. The knife flew to the floor and Adam clasped Joe's hand with such strength Joe wondered if his bones would break. Adam rolled them over so that he was atop Joe and he pressed Joe's hand down onto the bed, leaning into it.

Joe's hand began to tingle. Blue sparks flew from between their palms. Adam's hips moved in a slow, steady rhythm. Adam was giving him a quickening and he could feel it moving slowly at first like lava flowing up from the palm of his hand, then more swiftly, racing through his body using veins and arteries, nerves, bone and skin as conduits for the energy Adam shared with him.

He caught Adam's hair in a vise grip and pulled him into a kiss. When their lips touched, there was a tingle of electricity. Joe felt as if he was being electrocuted slowly, gently.

And then he felt the presence, felt the buzz of immortality for the first and probably the only time in his life, and a moment later Adam was inside him, inside his mind, inside his soul, the whole of his long life laid bare in an instant of comprehension. Adam's orgasm ripped through them both, igniting Joe, sending him up like a Roman candle.

His cry was lost inside Adam, the presence faded and the blue sparks sparked their last between clasped hands.

Only jelly left. Melted bone jelly. Melted ego jelly. Brain so overheated it must have steamed. Joe wept like a child, and cradled Adam…Methos against his broad chest.

"That has the added advantage of making us blood brothers," Adam said, mouth still pressed to Joe's shoulder so the words slurred and tumbled around inside Joe's head, making him laugh.

"I've never…"

Adam raised his head and Joe saw him for the first time as he saw himself. He could barely comprehend what had happened and set aside for a quieter time, a time when Adam would be gone from his life.

"You never will again. It's too hard." Adam levered himself off of Joe's body. "Good sex, though," he quipped.

"Shame you can't market it." Joe lifted his hand and stared at the now-unmarked palm. It ached a little, but there was not even a red mark to show where Adam had cut him. He turned his head. Adam lay with his eyes closed.

"I'm not asleep," Adam said without opening his eyes.

"Need the blanket?" Joe asked, unable to think of a single profound comment to make even at a moment like this.

Adam opened one eye. "I could use it, yeah, he said, and drew the sheet and blanket up over them with his foot, then caught it in one hand and pulled it up to chest level. He moved close to Joe and settled against him. "So sleepy," he murmured.

Joe tried very hard to stay awake, to savor the pleasure of lying beside Adam as he slept, but sleep proved too seductive, and his body proved to be too insistent upon its pleasures to resist. If this was their ending he couldn't fight it. What more could he have of Adam? What more was there? He had come through the fire too, albeit a small one, but the fire of quickening.

There was a tiny speck of immortality within him now, not only in his soul, but streaming through his blood, and he felt remade.

My second thoughts condemn
And wonder how I dare
To look you in the eye.
What right have I to swear
Even at one a.m.
To love you til I die? (12)

And in the end it was a relief to have Adam gone. They understood each other, it was true, but that understanding was based in large part on the knowledge that they were both, by nature, solitary creatures. They were friends who knew how to take a few steps back, lovers who could leave a bed without vacating a heart.

Adam was a thoughtful sort; he left nothing of himself lying around the apartment to remind Joe of the time they'd spent together, no toothbrush forgotten in the bathroom glass, no shoe under the bed, none of the little notes: "Joe I'm off to get some fresh pain so you can have a sandwich for dejuner, d'accord? Ici soon. Love, moi." He stripped the apartment clean of his presence, leaving only a pervasive memory, like the scent of cologne on a pillowcase. And in truth, Joe missed the signs of his habitation even though it was just as well the man himself was gone.

It was almost a week before he found the journal tucked away, under a sweater in the armoire. A little note was taped to the cover. "I shall want this back. Oh, and Djeserkheperure's other name was Horemheb. A." It hardly seemed real, and for hours Joe let it lie on the bed as if it might suddenly begin to run around the room on its own. He never believed Adam would share this with him. Not ever. Not until the sun set in a candy-box of pink and gold, white and blue, where a late-afternoon rainstorm had washed the air clean, and Joe realized that the journal was a promise more than anything else. Whatever was in the diary, it wasn't as important to Adam as was letting Joe know that he would be back to claim it. He had left something of himself with Joe as a bond. He was not severed from the lives of those he loved the way Richie was, not irrevocably lost.

Finally, after he fixed his supper, ate and washed the dishes, Joe sat down to read. The beginning of the journal was in French. Joe laughed when he saw that Adam had at least left one Joe could read.

1519 15th May — Lorenzaccio arrived from Amboise with the news that Leonardo had died. I shall miss him.

Opposite this entry was a scrap of paper with a drawing on it, a man's hand — almost certainly Adam's hand — in the precise, unmistakable style of Leonardo da Vinci. The strange mirror-writing on the page was unintelligible, the date was in another hand — 1482.

Mourning faded, memory of love never could. He did not notice the sun rising the next morning.

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone.
They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on.
And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song.
Oh I hope you run into them, you who've been travelling so long.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control
It begins with your family but soon it comes round to your soul.
Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned
When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Well they lay down beside me, I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping I hope you run into them soon
Don't turn on the lights you can read their address by the moon.
And you won't make me jealous if I hear that they've sweetened your night
We weren't lovers like that and besides it would still be all right. (13)

Notes and Footnotes

(1) Herakleitos, trans. Wheelright, from Seven Greeks, by Guy Davenport
(2) James Joyce; "The Dead" from Dubliners.
(3) T.S. Eliot; "Gerontian" The Complete Poems and Plays
(4) Kate, Anna and Jane McGarrigle "Love Is" from Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Heartbeats Accelerating
(5) W.H. Auden; "The Question" from Collected Poems
(6) Robbie Robertson; "Sweet Fire of Love" from Robbie Robertson
(7 )Sextus Propertius, Elegies III, trans. Lovric and Mardas, from The Sweetness of Honey and the Sting of Bees
(8) Macedonius, "The Greek Anthology" V. 224, trans. Lovric and Mardas, from The Sweetness of Honey and the Sting of Bees
(9) T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland" from Selected Poems
(10 )The story itself is cribbed from Latina Pro Populo and translated pretty freely by Joe.
(11) Virgil, "The Aeneid", trans. Lovric and Mardas, from The Sweetness of Honey and the Sting of Bees
(12) W.H. Auden; "Ten Songs" from Collected Poems
(13) Leonard Cohen; "The Sisters of Mercy" from Leonard Cohen.

Please do not share this story around w/o this disclaimer: Highlander is the property of Panzer-Davis/Rysher. All characters belong to their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended in any way.

E-mail Dargelos with comments

Back to JoeStories Archive
Report concerns/comments to Archivist

Home | About Raine | Contact

This is a fan site, and all work here is produced without the intention of profit; all characters not my own are the copyright of their respective holders.