Disclaimer:  I don't hold title on any of these characters.  Recognizable characters from "Highlander: The Series" belong to Rysher: Panzer/Davis and are used without permission but without intent to harm.  Damien, Farrell and Ish all belong to Rhiannon Shaw who has been kind enough to let me play with them.  No profit is intended, expected or desired.  (No, really!)
My sincere thanks to Rhi, not only for letting me play with the guys, but also for Beta duties on this story.  Thanks also go to Ali for beta-ing, and to all the writers who've inspired me to do this stuff.
This is a direct sequel to Waking Up and Looking Back.
 

Do I Get the Job?
By Mz. Lizzy

Rich stood in the aisle and waited for the people in front of him to exit the bus.  He'd been sitting near the back for the last few hours, having finally escaped the older woman who kept insisting on telling him the history of her entire family, surgeries and all.  As he made his way slowly toward the doorway he felt the tingle of another immortal.  Tired as he was, he was still pretty sure the quickening he felt belonged to Damien.  If not, well, a bus station was too crowded for a challenge, and he'd just stay put in public until Damien did arrive.  Man, he'd be glad when he had enough money in the bank to hop a plane instead of a bus.

Hefting the bag to his shoulder as he stepped off the bus he was rewarded by the sight of Damien waving to him.

"Rich!  Over here!"

Smiling and returning the wave, he worked his way over to the other redhead in the small crowd.  "Damien!  Man, am I glad to see you!  Remind me to have my head examined for thinking going cross-country by bus was a good idea."

"I think I'll let you sleep before we have that conversation."  Damien took Rich's duffel from him and steered him toward the car.  "You look almost as bad as you did after the flight to Seacouver."

"Yeah, well, the airplane was a lot more comfortable than the bus, and the plane didn't stop every twenty minutes to let people on and off."  Rich stretched while Damien opened the car, the electronic locks opening all doors at once.  "Plus there's no stewardesses offering you cold drinks or peanuts either.  Can I convince you to hit the nearest drive-thru?  My last meal was breakfast -- in Tennessee."

"I can do better than that, I've got a plate filled and waiting for you at home."  Damien tossed the bag in the back, and climbed into the driver's seat.  "And I've got company, so I'm afraid you're sleeping on the couch again."

"No sweat, anyone I know?"  Rich gratefully sank into the passenger seat, reveling in the spaciousness of Damien's car.  The couch was fine with him.

"One of them yes.  Farrell's staying with me for the moment, but I don't think you've met my brother Ish yet."

"Is this the Ish who talked Farrell into getting arrested to help break you out of jail?"

"Yup, the very one."

Damien started up the car and Rich relaxed.  In Damien's company he could lower his guard, trusting the older immortal to keep him safe.  He was tempted to just sleep, but Charleston wasn't that big a town; they'd be back at Damien's place in less than half an hour.  Plus, he was so hungry that only the promise of food at the house prevented him from digging into the glove box looking for something edible.

They were both smirking at the noises coming from Rich's stomach by the time they escaped the parking lot.

"Think we'll make it to your house before I die of hunger?"

"I don't think I'll have to pull your corpse out of the car when we get there."

"True, but if my stomach gets any louder, we might have to use sign language."

"I don't know, I think we can talk over the noise.  What brings you to Charleston?  Need to pick up your motorcycle?"

"Well, yeah, that's part of why I'm here."  Rich paused for breath and courage.  "But I also wanted to talk to you and see if you were serious about hiring me to help with sales.  I'm positive that I can double your client list and your profits within six months."

"What about the racing?  I thought you loved it."  The tone of Damien's voice was very serious, and warned Rich that a smart-ass answer was not going to do.

"I do.  I love the rush, but I had a lot of time to think up at the cabin, and I realized that racing will still be there twenty years from now, and if I can keep my head, I'll still be young enough to do it."  Rich snorted.

"I won't say I don't appreciate what you could do for my business, but why do you want to work for me?"

"Hey, there aren't too many jobs where the boss doesn't mind if you carry concealed weapons, want to know the location of every church and graveyard in the county, have a paranoid streak and no interest in a retirement plan."

Damien laughed.  "Well, Connor might be interested in someone to do the leg work for Rachel."

"Maybe, but I'd bet he can get any one of Sol's grandsons at a discount."

"I hear Kate's got some mob connections."

"Thank you very much, but I'd rather not add 'drowned in cement overshoes' to my 'stupid ways I've died' list.  And that would be right before Mac slapped me up side the head for being an idiot and Aidan gives me that 'and we had such hopes for you' look."

"Ouch!  OK!  Let's discuss job stuff later.  I'm taking a self-declared vacation while Ish is visiting."

"No sweat."  A yawn punctured Rich's statement.  "Sorry, I'm really not like this all the time."

"If you say so."  Damien didn't want to say so, but he thought that was exactly what Rich was like: young, impulsive, charming and relatively inexperienced.

Rich felt them slide into the presence of other immortals as Damien pulled into park in the carport, and was gratified to see the back door of the house open -- after Damien had honked his horn three short times.  Farrell was standing there crowding the doorway with another immortal who, by process of elimination, had to be Ish.

The guy wasn't tall, but he seemed to radiate the kind of presence that Rich had come to expect from older immortals.  His hair was the longest Rich had ever seen on a guy who wasn't in a rock band, but it didn't make him look girl-y, and his clothes looked like he shopped at the same kind of places as Mac.  When Rich met his eyes, Ish smiled in a way that made Rich think of Adam about to make a joke -- or Aidan about to pounce in a spar.  It wasn't an unfriendly look, but it still raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Rich! You look like five miles of bad road -- after a rain storm!"

"Nice to see you too, Farrell."  Rich laughed at the instant camaraderie engendered by Farrell's comment.

Damien grabbed Rich's bag out of the car and shooed the younger redhead forward across the back yard.  "Ish, meet Rich Ryan, Duncan MacLeod's latest student.  Rich, my brother Ishtvan Aziz.  Ish, don't block the door."

"All right, I guess I can let him in without frisking him."  Ish smiled and backed up to let the two of them through the door.

Definitely Adam about to pull a joke, Rich decided.

Farrell was looking a lot better than he had at the cabin.  Silence didn't hang on him anymore.  Even walking down the hall, Rich could see he had more bounce in his step.  Damien and Ish must be good for him.

The four of them settled in the kitchen, leaving Rich's bag in the hall.  Farrell sat down at the table and sipped the waiting beer, obviously resuming the spot he'd occupied before coming out to greet the arrivals.  Rich sank into the chair across from him, while Ish leaned on the counter rather than choose between sitting with his back to the window or the door.

"So, how's Seacouver?"  Farrell asked while Damien tossed a plate full of something in the microwave to heat.

"Empty.  Aidan and Marc are over in Greece, Mac and Adam both took-off for Europe," he answered, opening the waiting beer.

"Is that why you called from Texas as opposed to Washington?"  Damien's voice had a tinge of schoolteacher in the question.  The knowing look in his eye as he turned around to look at Rich warned everyone that while he was happy to see Rich, he could have been happier.  "If you'd called before you left, I could have sent you a plane ticket."

"I needed the time on the road to think."  Rich mentally kicked himself, but kept himself from wincing.  That option hadn't even occurred to him.

"What did you do?  Get off the bus in Texas to catch a night's sleep?"  Damien worried that his young cousin was being as stupid as he himself had been at the same age, but tact and diplomacy weren't exactly among his specialties.  "You didn't fight a challenge on your way here did you?"

"I haven't fought any immortals in months, promise."  Rich held up his hand in a Boy Scout salute, and schooled his face into the look that had been one of his best weapons growing up.  The bottle of beer in his other hand somehow completed the picture.

The three older immortals knew that look.  "Innocent" was one all of them had practiced.  Farrell rolled his eyes, Ish swallowed his beer carefully and Damien shook his head and turned to pull the warmed food from the microwave.  Setting the hot plate in front of Rich it was plain on his face that he was trying to work around what Rich had and hadn't said.

Farrell, however, seemed to find the holes first.

"So, Rich," he started casually.  "What fight did you get into?  And how'd you get to Texas?  Hitchhike?"

The fork paused briefly halfway between the plate and his mouth, before Rich quickly finished the motion and swallowed the food.  The slightly guilty look that flashed on his face before it went blank told the three that something had happened on the road.  Damien pulled up a chair and gave Rich a parental look.  Ish just smirked and sipped his drink, lounging against the counter in a pose that would have done Adam proud.

"If there was one thing that being around Owain taught me," Farrell explained, leaning in conspiratorially, "it was how to hear what isn't said.  You said you hadn't fought an immortal, not that you hadn't fought."

Rich shoveled three more forkfuls of food into his mouth before answering.  "Nothing I couldn't handle."

Tilting his head back to drink his beer, Rich missed the knowledgeable look that passed between the three older immortals.

"Bar Fight."  They all said it at the same time.

Thankfully, Rich had swallowed a bare second before so he didn't inhale his beer, or spray the kitchen.

"How did you...?"  He looked around at all their faces.  While he was expecting them to all be disapproving, as Mac would be, he could see that instead they all looked amused.

"Did you win?" Damien asked.

"Not really."

"Did you walk out on your own feet?"

"Yeah."

"How many were there?" was Ish's first question.

Farrell inhaled, and looked at Damien.  "More than five?"

"Did they make you pay for the damages?" Ish added.

Rich shook his head.  Some days he thought he had older immortals figured out, and some days he thought he'd never figure them out.  This was definitely one of the second sort.  "Seven, and no, just kicked me out of the bar."

Damien shrugged his shoulders and looked at the other two, leaning back in his chair.  "Sounds like a win to me.  Farrell, where was it that we had to climb out the ceiling and escape across the rooftops, Cairo?"

Rich relaxed and shook his head, laughing heartily at the stories of narrow escapes and drunken routs that entertained while he ate.
 

Damien woke to a muffled thump and the clash of steel on steel.  Rolling out of his bed, he noticed that Ish wasn't in the room and grabbed his sword and gun from their usual spots by the bed.  If someone had made it past his security system he was prepared to take them out however necessary.  It did seem strange that he couldn't sense any other immortals beside the three he knew to be in his house, but after the Line War he wasn't about to discount the possibility of a hit team.  He saw Farrell, sword in hand, coming out of the guest room.  Quickly and quietly, they worked their way down the hall to the source of the noise -- the living room.

Rounding the doorway, gun first, Damien found no intruder, no hit team, just Rich barricading himself behind the couch, saber in one hand and a very battered lamp in the other.  He was defending himself from Ish who had his back to the doorway, and a short sword in either hand.  A couple of smears of blood on Ish's skin showed that Rich had been able to make use of the longer reach of his saber, but the cuts in Rich's T-shirt showed that the battle had been far from one sided.

"ISHTVAN!"

Damien's bellow caused Ish to pull back and glance over his shoulder.  Damien could see that Ish's eyes were alight with glee.  Rich held his defensive position, looking slightly ridiculous as the remains of the lamp's shade wilted toward the ground.

"What the HELL are you doing??"  Damien was now in full temper, as he looked around at what the fight had done to his previously well-ordered living room.

Thankfully the fight seemed to have been confined to a relatively small area, but even in the marginal light of dawn the alterations to his living room were quite visible.  The paintings on the walls and the draperies looked untouched.  The antique mirror hanging over the mantel was fine.  The coffee table, however, was halfway across the room from its usual spot in front of the couch and there was a definite gouge in the highly polished wood.  The art books from the coffee table were now in disarray by the fireplace, the end table which had been home to the now battered lamp in Rich's hand was cleared of all the bric-a-brac, much of which was under Ish's feet -- some still relatively intact.  Several of the pillows were never going to be decorative again and someone was going to have to spend time making sure all the spots of blood were taken out of the carpet.

Behind him, Damien heard Farrell mutter, "Not my family, not my problem--" before feeling him retreat back down the hall to the guest bedroom.  It was, after all, just barely past dawn.  He could hardly blame him for not wanting to get involved.

Ish just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.  The glint of mischief in his eyes slowly fading.  "Testing our young cousin?"

"Testing?!"

"Testing!?"

Damien and Rich both exclaimed at once.  They were loud enough that Ish winced ever so slightly.

Damien took a deep breath and proceeded to quote Edana's guest law lecture in precise Latin, punctuating it with insults in Russian, Arabic, German and Italian while watching Rich put down the lamp and fold over the back of the couch, visibly un-tensing, although it was unlikely Rich was able to understand anything beyond the tone of voice.

"NOW APOLOGIZE!" Damien roared, having finished his lecture.

"I'm sorry, Damiano."

"Not to me, you laughing idiot, to Rich!"

Ish, duly chastised, handed both his swords over to Damien before turning to face Rich, who had straightened up to face the pair of his "cousins."

"Richard, I apologize for testing you this morning.  It was wrong of me to do this to you when Damiano had promised you the safety of his house.  Please accept my word that I meant you no real harm and allow me to compensate you at the very least for your ruined clothing."

Rich looked back and forth between Damien and Ish before answering through clenched teeth.

"Apology accepted."

He finally came out from behind the couch, but kept his saber in hand and an eye on Ish as he grabbed his duffel from underneath the cleared end table.

Neither Damien nor Ish moved as Rich crossed the room to the doorway.  He never let Ish behind his back and he waited for Damien to make room before crossing the threshold.

"Y'know," Rich looked back over his shoulder at Ish, "Aidan gave me a warning before starting on pre-dawn attacks, and she didn't ruin my clothes!"

A moment later, the bathroom door didn't quite slam, but the lock could be clearly heard snapping into place.
 

Rich had taken a nice, very long, shower.  Then he'd taken his time getting dressed.  So it was almost an hour later that he emerged from the bathroom clean, awake and finally calmed down.  He didn't want to admit how freaked he'd been to wake up with an Immortal swinging a sword at him.  If not for Aidan's training he'd have probably gone out the window instead of staying to fight.  He hadn't had any nightmares about Mac's Dark Quickening for months, but he could tell he'd probably have one next time he went to sleep and couldn't decide if he was going to kill the first one of them who asked about his dreams.

Not that he was going to sleep again anytime soon.  He was still in that hyper-vigilant state that lasted for hours after a fight.  Well, he thought ruefully, he'd gotten more sleep last night than he had on the bus.

The sent of expensive coffee greeted Rich as he walked into the kitchen, and he found the largest cup Damien had in his cabinet to fill for himself.  Deciding that sugar and cream were called for this morning, he doctored it to his tastes before turning toward the two Immortals sitting at the kitchen table.  He was trying really hard to not be angry with Ish.  Everyone had warned him about Ish being mischievous, and the guy had apologized after all, but still he couldn't keep his eyes from narrowing as he sat down across from him.

"That's another thing."  Ish scribbled something on the notepad in front of him.

"What?"  Damien looked at what Ish had written and colored slightly.  "Yeah, I guess I can help him work on that."

"Help who work on what?"  Rich swallowed his first sip of coffee.  Living under Aidan's roof had spoiled him for the good stuff, and Damien's coffee was even better than hers.  Much as he wanted the caffeine, he was going to sip, not gulp.  "I thought you were taking a vacation?"

"I am on vacation from computer work, Rich, but Ish has brought up some good points of things you should know that we don't think you've learned yet."

"WHAT?"  It was a good thing Rich hadn't been swallowing.  He'd come closer to inhaling liquids more times in the last twenty-four hours than he had in the previous two months.

The explanation poured out of Damien.  "Now look, I'm sure Duncan was a good teacher, after all you've still got your head, but we're both older than Duncan and Connor put together.  Ish is only visiting me for a short time and he's decided he'd like to spend this time getting to know you."

"The truth of the matter," Ish interrupted, "is that you are still relatively young to be completely on your own.  We would be remiss in our duties as your line-kin if we didn't teach you."

Rich quickly put down the coffee cup before he gave into his temptation to throw it at either of them.  He didn't trust himself to speak just yet.

"Rich, each of us trained for over ten years before going off on our own.  Magistra made sure that we had mastery of at least three languages and two weapon styles," Ish continued, gentling his voice to soothe the anger he saw surfacing.  It was becoming rapidly obvious that Rich's temper could be as mercurial as Damiano's, and that Rich hadn't yet mastered his.

"You've done extremely well so fa.r..."  Ish's voice trailed off, not bothering to continue, since Rich wasn't listening.

Rich got up from the table without saying a word.  He didn't need to, really, because his look said it all.  He left Damien and Ish sitting at the table and stormed down the hallway, grabbing his jacket, sword and keys.  He wasn't going to get into a fight with two immortals whose ages were in the four digits, especially since they were 'family', but they were mistaken if they thought he was going to sit there and have them list his shortcomings.

"I'll be back later--" was all he said when he passed the kitchen again.  Both Ish and Damien were standing in the kitchen doorway, but not blocking the hall.  Ish looked like he'd like to say something, but Damien's hand gripping his shoulder kept him silent.  Rich didn't even slow down when he passed Farrell coming out of the guest room.  The back door slammed behind him, and he pulled his bike out of the carport, angrily tugging on his helmet and gloves.  The bike started up on the second try and Rich pulled out onto the road.  He let the sound of the engine and the feel of the wind soothe his wounded pride.
 

It had taken two hours on the road, one cute waitress, three eggs, grits, bacon, biscuits and gravy, coffee with cream and sugar, and one large orange juice, but Rich was finally in a better mood.  Although he was still trying to decide if he really liked grits or just the way they filled him up.

What he was not feeling was comfortable about the need to go back to Damien's house and talk.  He thought briefly about calling on Stormy, but he had no idea where she lived and he was pretty sure she wouldn't appreciate him turning up on her doorstep in the early morning with no warning.  No, what he had to do was go back to the house and confront Damien.  And Ish, who was rapidly climbing his way up Rich's "Immortals I don't like, but don't want to fight" list.  This was, after all, why he hadn't just packed up and left.  He really wanted to work things out with Damien, and Damien really cared about Ish.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled his cycle into the carport and beeped the horn three times.  The back door opened before he'd even gotten his helmet off, and Rich found it encouraging that while he could feel the presence of all three expected immortals the lone figure there was Damien and that he didn't look pissed.  They made eye contact but neither one of them said anything as Damien walked back to the kitchen, trusting Rich to follow him, and poured fresh coffee before motioning him to sit down at the table.

"Rich, I'm sorry that Ish and I pounced on the idea of teaching you this morning without asking if you were interested.  The Line War brought out all our paranoid tendencies, and, barring Marc, you're the youngest and least experienced member of the family.  We just want to make sure that if we lose you it's not because we failed you."

Rich stared into the coffee.  Of all the reasons he'd thought about for the past few hours, concern for his survival was one that never crossed his mind.  He'd come to welcome Aidan's tutoring over the past months, and perked up his ears whenever Adam dropped useful information his way, but even in the friendly crowd at the cabin he hadn't thought that the older immortals might feel protective of him. He felt suddenly overwhelmed at the idea that Damien -- who he'd known for less than a year, and Ish who he'd barely met -- would miss him if he died.  The last time he'd felt this way was when Mac had handed him that first ticket for Paris.

"Now," Damien continued in that same carefully level voice, "I'm very interested in having you do sales work for me, but I hope you will allow me to teach you things beyond computers.  If you are willing to devote twenty hours a week to studying, I'm willing to pay your expenses for the next six months and pay you a commission for whatever new business you can bring my way.  At the end of that time, we can renegotiate."

"What about Ish?"  While the offer was very tempting -- more generous than he'd been planning on asking for -- he wasn't sure if he wanted to live in the same city as Ish for the next several years.  "Is he moving here permanently?"

"I don't know."  Damien shrugged his shoulders.  "I don't expect Ish will even start thinking about where to settle down for a year or so."

 "I don't have to live with you, do I?"  He wanted to be an adult, damn it, and he'd walk away from the most tempting offer if it required him being treated like a kid.

Damien startled and sat back.  "I don't want you living here.  I'm getting married as soon as possible, and I want my own privacy."

"And you'll pay all my expenses for the next 6 months?"  That would include moving, first and last on an apartment, he'd need a car for sales calls... the costs were starting to add up in his head, and he didn't want to drain the savings he'd worked so hard to accumulate.

"I'm not buying you a Lear Jet or paying for you to cruise to the Bahamas, but I'll pay all reasonable expenses."  He grinned suddenly.  "But goof off on the studying and we'll start talking a repayment plan, cos."

"OK."  Rich let go of the coffee and held out his hand.  This was a deal he could live with.  "You've got a deal."

Damien smiled broadly, taking the proffered hand and shaking on the deal.  "Good.  Now, let's go see if Ish has finished cleaning up the living room.  Then we can figure out how much he's going to spend today to replace my furniture and your clothes."

Rich snickered despite himself.  "Sure.  But I'm standing behind you while you ask."

Damien gave him an indignant look before a sly smile lit his face.  "Watch and learn, kid.  Watch and learn."
 

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