Title: With Love from Spain (1/?) Author: Corbeau Noir Rating: PG-13 Pairing: D/M Email: noir_corbeau@hotmail.com Website: www.geocities.com/corbeaun Warnings: slash, m/m relationship Summary: Post Highlander 4: Endgame. It's a game of hide- and-seek for Methos and Duncan after the whole Kell affair. But behind the two Immortals' attempts at a relationship (or a lack thereof), there are the locals in the small Andalusian village where Methos is hiding who have a few misconceptions of their own. Disclaimer: Rysher, Panzer/Davis, etc. etc., own Highlander. =========================================================== With Love from Spain By Corbeau Noir Part 1 * * * * The weekly open-air market opened just at the stroke of dawn, but the locals paid no heed to the early hours, most hoping to get their shopping done before the blistering heat of the afternoon. When the hectic early hours finally passed and the sun began climbing into its zenith, all the store keepers retreated to the shade of their booths, lolling beside their produce, moving only now and then to swat at the cloud of buzzing insects that constantly swarmed around them. "Good morning, Mrs. Guerra." The lightly accented greeting roused Mrs. Guerra, the coffee seller, from her half-doze, and her eyes opened just in time to see a familiar, tall, dark-haired young man stroll toward her booth. "Buenos dias, Senor Pierson," she smiled welcomingly, hastening to her feet. "Would you like your regular?" Even as she spoke, her hands were already reaching toward the bag of rich black coffee beans he always bought. The young man, dressed in cleanly pressed linen pants and an overlarge tee-shirt, seemed remarkably unaffected by the heat. He took a deep breath of the air, hazel eyes closing briefly in pleasure at the heady aroma of brewing coffee, and then flashed her a mischievous schoolboy grin, "I'd never start my day without a cup of your coffee, Mrs. Guerra." Mrs. Guerra smiled even wider, handing her favorite customer the bag of coffee beans. "Well, you're welcome here anytime," she promised him. Her words were rewarded with another bright boyish smile. He reached into his pocket for his wallet, and suddenly one hand clenched convulsively around the coffee bag. Alert hazel eyes flicked to the side, scanning the surrounding marketplace. Mrs. Guerra followed his gaze, but didn't see anything unusual. "Senor Pierson?" There was no response and, concerned, she reached to touch his arm, "Senor Pierson, is something the matter?" His eyes snapped back to her and she froze, the hard alien look in his gaze freezing her hand an inch from his sleeve. Then Pierson seemed to shake himself mentally, as if ridding himself of the remnants of some shadow, and the strange look was gone as suddenly as it'd come. Mrs. Guerra blinked. "No. No, everything's fine," and he smiled at her reassuringly, hefting the sack of coffee beans into his arms, "Thank you, Mrs. Guerra." With a polite nod to her, he slipped on a pair of sunglasses and strolled casually back into the midst of the late marketplace crowd, disappearing easily among the roiling mass of humanity. Mrs. Guerra stared after him, feeling, for the first time since meeting him, strangely discomforted. "Well!" an approving voice came from the tomato seller's booth, "He's as adorable as ever." Mrs. Guerra started out of her daze. "Francisca!" she exclaimed, glancing over at the tomato stall, appalled by the speaker's frankness. Francisca the tomato seller, turned newly nineteen just two weeks before, refused to look repentant. "Well, it's true," she insisted, pouting her red-stained lips. Then she turned toward the orange seller's booth and called out mischievously, "Don't you agree, Mrs. Cordero?" Seated in the booth just opposite of her, old Mrs. Cordero gave Francisca a heavy-lidded glare, slowly flapping a paper fan over her carefully stacked pyramid of oranges. "He's a gringo," she stated, her voice flat. "Isabella Caso Cordero," Mrs. Guerra rebuked, and by this time she had dismissed her previous twinges of unease; she reached past the pile of coffee beans to poke Mrs. Cordero in the side, "don't be an old grouch. He's young, good-looking, and obviously well off. And just think," she smiled, "Any of the pretty young chicas here would kill to get a hand on him..." She winked across at the pretty young tomato seller. "Right, Francisca?" Francisca gave the older woman an enthusiastic grin, before turning her full attention to the two customers approaching her stand. "And I just know Lucia would too," Mrs. Guerra continued thoughtfully to herself. At that, Mrs. Cordero slapped her fan down on the booth hard and turned to face Mrs. Guerra. "Maria," she said, fixing her long-time friend with a hard stare, "Tell me you're not thinking of matchmaking that English boy with your baby girl." A sullen expression fell across Mrs. Guerra's face. Her lips tugged into what looked suspiciously like a pout; she refused to meet Mrs. Cordero's eyes. "Yes. Well," and her hands quickly occupied themselves rearranging the folds of her brightly printed cotton dress. "I just think he's a nice boy and Lucia...Well, the silly girl's always away at that magazine of hers, I don't think she's ever had the time to meet any boy, and I wouldn't trust her to bring back the right one anyway from that big old city." She leaned in confidentially toward her old friend, clucking distastefully, "Do you *know* what goes on in Madrid? What kind of *people* are there?" After a long silence, Mrs. Cordero finally spoke wearily, "Maria, you don't even know Pierson that well; you have no idea why he's here or how long he's staying." She gave her friend a wry look. "And in all likelihood he's a city boy himself." Mrs. Guerra glared at her old friend reproachfully. "You're always like this. Can't you not pick on something for once?" Looking slightly offended, Mrs. Cordero harrumphed and turned her attention back to her sitting oranges. "Whatever makes you happy, Maria," she muttered, and began determinedly flapping away with the fan again. About to chide her old friend for her grumpiness, a flash of color suddenly caught the corner of Mrs. Guerra's eye and she glanced over, and suddenly all her previous thoughts scattered. "Oh my. Would you look at that..." Mrs. Cordero glanced up impatiently from her oranges. "What now --...oh." Both women stared wordlessly at the vision before them. A tall, dark-haired, dusky-skinned man stood resplendent in the middle of the marketplace. The late midday heat had drawn a faint sheen of sweat over his skin, and curly wisps of hair lay glistening darkly against the nape of his exposed neck. The stranger looked around the marketplace, seemingly oblivious to the people milling around him, head cocked as though listening for something. It was Mrs. Guerra who spoke first. "Now that is an impressive figure of a man." She nudged her friend, her eyes never leaving the stranger, "Italian, you think?" Attention also firmly fixed on the stranger, Mrs. Cordero squinted. "Hard to tell." And then she shrugged, her meaty shoulders rolling beneath her thin cotton dress, "Could be." Another long thoughtful pause. Then Mrs. Cordero commented, "But you'll have to suspect the wits of the man to wear a coat in this sort of weather." [end "With Love From Spain" – Part 1] =========================================================== Author's Notes: Ah, after a year or so of lurking in the Highlander fandom, I'm finally writing my own story. :) If anyone is curious, the story currently takes place in Andalusia, a part of Spain that with its flamenco dances and always-present sun is what the typical foreigner thinks as "traditional" Espana. Feedback needed, please, to keep this fanfic author sane. ;) -------------------------- noir_corbeau@hotmail.com www.geocities.com/corbeaun -------------------------- =========================================================== 8/30/02