Shadow

Disclaimers: Neither 1013 nor Rysher: Panzer/Davis treat them so well as I do, and the rest of it's in public domain, save for my characters, who aren't. (I think that covers both the treat and the trick....) As always, it's Coyote's fault. Yes, I do blame her. Except, of course, where it's my fault.
Rated: R for strongly implied m/m.

Shadow

The door was unlocked when Methos got home.

He pretended not to notice. He continued his usual routine almost casually: open the door, collect the mail, drop it on the table just inside the living room along with his wallet and keys.... If it wouldn't have been completely, wildly, out of character, he'd have started whistling or called, 'Hi, honey, I'm home,' just for the pleasure of seeing what his visitor might do. He was bloody well tempted to do it anyway.

The internal debate over shedding the coat with its incriminating weapons (against the possibility that the Watchers had broken in) was losing to the argument that he wanted his guns near (against the possibility that anyone else had broken in) when an amused, husky voice asked, "So? Guns or no?"

"You sound like Joe asking if I want Italian or Chinese," Methos complained, carefully keeping the sudden amusement out of his voice. "And since when do you leave the door unlocked when you break in?"

"I wanted you to know someone was here." Alex said it simply, as if the answer should have been obvious.

Methos gave in and laughed, then, a throaty pleasure that brought a smile to Alex's face. "Only you. Did you leave me any vodka?"

"Of course." He shrugged, an easy one-shouldered motion that shed light off the silver lettering on his black t-shirt. Methos moved closer to read the logo, and snickered. " 'Cthulu for President. When you're tired of voting for the lesser of two evils'? Since when do you not shoot both of them?"

"I haven't figured out the right ammunition to kill an elder god, and pissing him off would be a fairly major mistake. Besides." Alex shrugged. "I like it." He slid away into the shadows of the hallway, calling over his shoulder, "Happy birthday."

Methos blinked at that, then decided he had heard that right. "Birthday?"

"It's Halloween, isn't it? Bar or restaurant?"

"Alex, when did we fall into the Twilight Zone and how did I miss Rod Serling's voiceover?" Methos asked reasonably. "And I liked 'gun or no gun' better. Had just that certain je ne sais quoi."

A husky chuckle came from the hallway. Alex followed it, now dressed in his own version of understated sartorial elegance: black boots, black jeans new enough to still be black, a long-sleeved shirt so dark green that it damn near looked black, and carrying a black leather jacket.

This one must be new, Methos decided. It's not worn and battered enough to be the old one. That or someone spent hours working on it. He frowned then. Damn. I wanted to do that. Seduction by leather and oil....

"Let me guess," Alex said. "The Boy Scout thinks your birthday should be Midsummer's, doesn't he."

It wasn't a question, and Methos' smile widened to something just shy of wicked. "Probably. I do seem to get presents from him then. Why?"

Alex tossed him the coat and Methos caught it reflexively. A slow smile curled the corners of his mouth as he identified the weight of the blade in it. "What brought this on?"

"You don't remember your first name." Alex shrugged as he pulled out his own battered-'til-it-fit leather coat; it fell into place as smoothly as his name fell off Methos' lips when he came. "But if you're getting a random birthday, it ought to be Halloween."

Methos laughed outright. "What, for the Day of the Dead?"

"For the thinning of the veil between the worlds, yeah," Alex told him seriously. "Dinner first or haunted house?"

"Haunted house," Methos answered promptly. "Let's see if they can come up with anything that can scare us." Alex's immediate laughter both told him the other man's opinion on that and made Methos smile and chalk a point up for himself. Real, unforced pleasure from Alex was more valuable than gold these last few years.

"Come on, then," Methos said with mock impatience. "The night may be young, but I'm not."

Alex only laughed again and led the way into the night.

-=-=-=-=-=-

They were still laughing when they left the haunted house and its now-frightened occupants behind them. "Only you--" Alex's laughter drove any further words from his throat.

Methos summoned an affronted look to his face, despite a suspicion that the lurking grin wasn't concealed nearly well enough. "What did he expect? He came out of a hidden door with a knife!"

"It's a haunted house! He was supposed to look like Jason or Freddy or whatever the hell that idiot's name was, remember?" Alex snickered helplessly at the memory. "You're not supposed to threaten his ribs with his own wooden knife."

Methos shrugged ruefully. "It was reflex," he admitted and heard Alex laugh even harder. "I didn't see him soon enough. So? Dinner?" He grinned at Alex and added hastily, "And no, you may not suggest something with a red sauce, Alex!"

"Damn, and I wanted Italian, too."

-=-=-=-=-=-

"So?" Methos wrapped an arm around Alex, half-drunk for the moment. Not so drunk he couldn't sober up if he needed to; just relaxed enough to let himself enjoy the evening and the warm body against him. "Tell me a story."

Alex grinned at him. "You never ask me to tell you stories."

Methos shook his head. "I didn't ask about you," he specified. "I just want a story."

"Oh, you want the sound of my voice against the unquiet ghosts." Alex chuckled. "Much good that'll do you, but sure, why not?" He glanced around as they walked along, possibly for inspiration. The moon had long since set, waning as it was, and cloud cover both promised drizzling rain soon and blocked the rest of the sky. A leaf-rattling sough of wind nearly put out the guttering candles in two nearby jack o'lanterns.

"A story, hmm? All right." Only a faint trace of irony lay under the amusement in his voice. "All right. As long ago as the last ocean, and as close as next Friday--"

Methos chuckled. "Did you get those in the right order?"

Unexpectedly serious, Alex asked, "Who's telling this story?"

"You are." Drunk, warm on one side, cool on the other, and acquiring a sneaking suspicion that Alex was trying to give him a gift of something important.... "Forget I said anything, please. As close as next Friday?"

"As close as next Friday, this was. The years slid by as years did then: slick and smooth and not enough difference between them to justify a night between the years. No changes. No differences, shaded or stark. The final night of the old year would slide towards its death while the new year lazed its way to birth. The spirits of the dead, recent or not, would crowd towards their freedom in the space between years, which was sometimes longer than it should have been while the years dawdled. The years didn't care what happened, you see, and no god with enough power cared to herd them along properly."

Alex kept them walking as he talked, his steps an almost steady pattern along the concrete. Almost. He and Methos had finished three bottles of wine between them at dinner. His steps, and their occasional hesitation, wove in and out of the story, emphasizing the words in odd places that almost kept Methos from wondering how long Alex had wanted to tell him this.

"The ghosts always made their way in and out of the world in darkness. That suited them. No one could see them and everyone knew that anything which happened on the night between years was their fault. Even the surprises, unpleasant or not, were... expected in a way. Anything could happen, and anything did, and no one anywhere was surprised when it did."

"So many surprises that nothing was surprising?" Methos raised an eyebrow. "That sounds boring."

Alex's grin lit up the night, or at least the part of it Methos was occupying. "Exactly! Shadow, though. Shadow hated being bored. He did his best work where no one quite knew what was what, after all -- up or down, near or far, moving or still, light or dark.... And here was a night that should have held all sorts of opportunities to cause mischief in the year coming in and to taint memories of what had really happened in the year going out, and no one paid any attention."

Methos raised an eyebrow. "Shadow?"

Laughter bubbled out of Alex. "There are gods of everything else. Did you really think no one claimed the fuzzy edges between?"

"You have a point there," Methos muttered. "But I wish I'd heard of Him before. I might have prayed to Him. I think I've spent most of my life in His realm."

"Realms," Alex corrected absently. "And what makes you think He never heard you? But anyway. The problem with years' edge, so far as Shadow was concerned, was that it was too clean-cut. No margins of uncertainty and error. And no light to give Him access, either. In those days, even the moon took the night off for years' end, to celebrate the old and welcome the new."

Methos grinned. "Party animal, huh?"

"Actually, pretty stuck-up and always trailing the sun to be sure She was glowing brightly enough to impress everyone. She got better later."

Methos snickered at the revisionist thealogy but shut up hastily. Stories from Alex were too rare, and this one too strange, to miss any of it. He could laugh later. And would.

"Through laughing? She did improve with age." Alex grinned wickedly. "Gained an appreciation for Shadow, too. That's another story, but there are reasons She looks as She does. However, Shadow's problem was that he needed some light on last night to have some shadows to work in and with. Which meant he needed lights out there, somewhere, that weren't under control and sway of the other gods."

"Hmm. Fireflies don't cast shadows."

Alex grinned. "No. Or the glowing fungi, or jellyfish. Dragons and chimera tended to den up for winter before then, so they didn't set fires going at that point. And people were still scared of fire."

"Prometheus hadn't hacked Zeus off with his little theft yet, hmm?"

Alex just grinned wickedly. "Not yet. Although, now that you mention it, the theft did occur about that time. How did you think Prometheus smuggled fire to the mortals?"

Methos tried to imagine the most unlikely way possible and howled. "Goodness gracious, great balls of fire?!"

"You think Prometheus stuffed sacred fire up his dick to smuggle it out?!? It would have worked, but...." Alex started laughing, leaning on Methos to catch breath and balance simultaneously.

They both tried to picture it and only laughed harder.

"His poor lovers," Methos snickered when he could get words out.

Alex was chuckling. "God. Shadow's ass would have been on fire in all sorts of senses...." He was grinning, wide and wild in the partial illumination between street lamp radii. "No. Shadow convinced Prometheus the humans deserved fire and light. They should get to see things as they were, and feed themselves, and warm themselves. How could the gods get the full strength of their worship if the humans kept dying from bad food, and worse hygiene, and were shivering too much to pray?"

Alex shook his head, grinning. "What a snow job. Prometheus, god of reason himself, fell for a line of rationale."

Methos' mouth quirked. "Not that you've ever talked people into things."

"Of course not." Alex's lips twitched. "Well. Maybe once or twice."

"Of course." Methos paused at the street that would lead them to his flat in another few blocks. "Did you want to keep walking? Or will you finish this before we get back in the light?"

"I'm almost done." Alex grinned at him. "You know the stories. Prometheus stole fire and Zeus, jealous, power-hungry bastard that He was, chained the Titan to a rock for it and made Him eagle-fodder."

Methos snickered. "Well, I've never heard it put quite like that."

Alex shrugged and grinned. "Close enough. Modern phrasings."

"So? What did Shadow get out of it, though?"

"Shadow had humans who'd gotten fire smuggled to them in a plant. He convinced them that the proper way to honor that gift was to use it to light their way at night, and to carry fire in plants themselves at the end of the year. I'm not sure He had pumpkins in mind, but hey, better than turnips. The point, though, is that darkness isn't entirely His realm, but where there's firelight, there's Shadow."

Methos grinned and turned them towards his apartment, warm from the new jacket and the arm around his waist and the certainty, somehow, that Alex had never told anyone else this story. "Of course there's also hell to pay if Prometheus ever finds out what happened."

Alex shrugged a little and shifted direction obligingly. "He'd have to get free too. But there might be trouble, yeah. Or not. He might think it was worth it. Prometheus always did have a soft spot for humans. And Shadow might have tried to pay the debt off before that day."

Something almost... regretful tinged the edges of his voice, and Methos frowned and hugged him before he could ask himself why. "He'd be crazy by now, wouldn't He?"

That question, entirely too serious for a discussion of old myths, tilted Alex's head so he could study Methos from sober green eyes. "The god of reason go mad? What makes you think He's allowed such relief?"

Methos shivered once convulsively, skin shuddering nape to knees as if he'd been shaken out under it like an old rug to be beaten. "Congratulations," he said lightly. "You found something tonight that can scare me." He dug his keys out and offered, "Come in to bed, Alex."

Alex smiled and kissed him, sweet and burning as the amaretto he'd drunk after dinner. "I thought you'd never ask."

Methos unlocked the door and let them in, pausing only long enough to reengage the looks before he started peeling the leather and denim off Alex, soaking in the familiar scents of gun oil and almond and an odd spicy, oily tang that was simply labeled 'Alex' in his mind. 'Bed' was important, and 'now,' and 'us.' Anything else, he could and would think about later.

Like green eyes that almost burned in the dim light, and pale skin that held that light for just a moment longer than it really should, and black hair that seemed to blur into the dark edges of the room if Methos didn't watch carefully. Later would be soon enough to wonder how much of the story was true... and where, exactly, Alex had heard it. After all, Methos thought with what mind he still had at that point, maybe he simply likes telling his life in the third person.

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~

Comments, commentary, and miscellanea:

Er. For the curious. I decline to state whether the haunted house story ever really happened. I wouldn't take my (black belt, twice over) husband to a haunted house after karate class when stoned on allergy medicines. Really.

Written because Sleeps with Coyotes wanted Mythical!Krycek and 'Alex and birthdays'. Meant for Halloween of 2001, but delayed by real life issues. Posted to lists on Halloween 2003. Hope everyone gets the webpage URL by Christmas....

Gorgeous graphics courtesy of