Title: Wings of the Morning--Methos

Author: Figlia Della Musica

Series: Wings of the Morning, 2/?

Pairing: Duncan/Methos

Timeframe: I don’t know.  Pick one.

Summary: Methos wakes up.

Warnings: slash, mush

Rating: PG-11 no nookie, but they’re in bed nekkid

Archive:  anywhere else sure but just ask me first

Author’s comments:  pay attention to chapter titles—they tell the POV

Disclaimer: These gentlemen do not belong to me, unfortunately, and I don’t make any money off of this.  I’m just having some fun with them.

++++++++++

 

Duncan falls asleep again, after our whispered declarations of love.  His head rests on my shoulder, and his arms are wrapped around my neck, holding onto me.  I stay awake, enjoying the sensations, and thinking.

 

Between one day and the next, everything changed.  Yesterday, we were friends.  Oh, I’d harbored a secret longing for the Highlander for a few years, but I couldn’t find the courage to tell him.  Everything was too tenuous before, as though a touch would shatter our careful peace and we’d be after each other’s heads.

 

I have my brothers to thank for that.  Kronos, Silas, and Caspian were supposed to be dead and gone.  Okay, when I really thought about it—which I did maybe once every few centuries, that’s not something one generally ruminates at length upon—I never expected Kronos to really die.  He was too canny, too smart, to Challenge someone who could beat him, and he was too good for someone to get a temporary advantage over him.  Caspian I expected to die, because he never had as much sense.  He was too indiscriminately bloodthirsty—I’d always expected him to kill someone just a little too brutally and end up with a full-fledged hunt on his tail.  Silas, without provocation from the rest of us, would become peaceful.  He’s a gentle soul deep inside, I think, who just got a little too close to the corruption that Kronos was, the depravity Caspian was, and the manipulative anger that I was.  Killing him hurt.

 

And the pain of Silas’ death, the pain of all their deaths—for they were my brothers, even so long estranged—all that pain and on top of it, my Highlander decided that he didn’t like me so much.  Technically we made up, but there was this tension, this niggling discomfort whenever we were in the same place together.  And yet, at the same time, a sense of coming home.  Ever since the Double Quickening—everything goes back to that, doesn’t it?—ever since Duncan and I took Kronos’ Quickening together, we’ve had a high sensitivity to each other, and when he could barely stand looking at me, and I was so afraid around him, it was almost torture, but being apart stretched that sensitivity, that almost-link, so we were constantly back-and-forth.  Until last night.

 

I’d come to the barge to say hello, to be social, and Duncan greeted me with more bounce than usual.  He seemed genuinely happy to see me, and I’d wondered at it.  We talked of not much important: Dr. Seuss, the weather, TV, and beer vs. whiskey.   Amanda came up once or twice, and the seeming hilarity of her pairing up with an ex-cop of all things.  Duncan didn’t seem particularly let down that she had a new boyfriend, and that surprised me. 

 

He’d watched me intently as we talked, but I didn’t notice for… actually, I just realized it now.  All yesterday evening, I was so tense from being near him, wanting him and trying not to show it.  And he was tense too, but again, that’s something I’ve just realized, now that he’s asleep and I’m relaxed.  It was so easy, too; last night, I asked Duncan why he didn’t mind Amanda’s new boyfriend.  He told me he had an interest in someone else, too, and my heart sank a little—a new lover would be likely to take up so much of his attention and damnit, *I* wanted that attention, all to myself.

 

But I couldn’t tell him that, I had to be polite, so I asked who.  And the next part is why I still think I’m dreaming. 

 

I said, “So who is this new person who’s distracted you so completely from Amanda?”

 

Duncan got the most sexy, sensual look on his face, pulled me close to him, and whispered, “You,” right before kissing me harder, deeper, and longer than I think anyone else ever has. 

 

Startled doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt—and still feel, for that matter.  Surprised, nope.  Pleasantly shocked, not even close.  Floored, maybe.  Absolutely stunned and amazed and out of my mind because I had to be dreaming… yeah, that about hits it. 

 

Duncan stirs in my arms, and I stroke his long hair, running my fingers through it. 

 

“Methos?” he mumbles sleepily.

 

“Yes?  I’m right here.” 

 

Duncan’s eyes open, and I know I’m not dreaming, because if I was dreaming I’d explode, there’s so much feeling, so much caring and affection and… dare I say it?  So much love.