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Mexican Holiday

Get away from it all, he'd thought. Travel for a while, he'd told himself. Mexico is nice this time of year.

Methos glared out the window of his hotel room at the chaos of the street below, where men in military uniforms were fighting a bloody guerilla war with locals wearing costumes and death's-head makeup. Politics in Mexico wasn't nice at any time of year, apparently. There was a certain garish, surreal fascination in the scene, but none of the peace and quiet he'd been hoping for when he decided to visit the town of Culiacan.

The locals seemed to be getting the better of the military now; when the fighting had started, it had looked likely to be a simple massacre, but the people had numbers on their side, and a surprising amount of ingenuity. They'd managed to seize a few of the military vehicles, and destroy others, and more of them seemed to be properly armed now. It wouldn't take much longer before it was over, Methos thought. A coup without popular support would need to be much more heavily armed than this one to be successful.

And if the fighting was winding down, then perhaps it was time to go find someplace where he could have dinner, and a bottle or two of Negra Modelo. If he was already stuck here, he might as well make the most of it.

The low, ominous buzz of an Immortal's presence assaulted him almost as soon as he stepped out onto the street. Could this bloody holiday be any less restful? He scanned the people nearby warily -- there. A tall, long-haired Mexican wearing a mariachi costume and a tricolor sash. The stranger met Methos's eyes, nodded once with what looked almost like a smile, and kept on walking. He didn't look back once.

Either he was extremely skilled, or ridiculously overconfident. Methos decided not to spoil what was left of his vacation by finding out which. He turned the other way, walking away from the strange Immortal. Which, he realized after a moment, meant toward the center of the chaos. It was dying down now, though, ruined paper streamers fluttering in the street and small gasoline fires still burning. And at least the sense of being in another Immortal's presence was fading --

But no, there it was again. Methos flattened himself against the wall, looking for the tall mariachi, but there was no sign of him. And besides which, this felt...different. Not quite the same signature. Which meant there were two of them in the town, apart from him. Some holiday.

He started walking again, looking for the source of the new presence. Stronger this way, toward the carnage -- that made sense -- and he turned one more corner, and -- there.

This might be worth it after all.

The other Immortal was leaning up against a wall, exhaustion and fear in every line of his body. He was slender, dressed all in black, and wearing heavy sunglasses -- with rich, dark blood trailing down from under them. Methos smiled, and walked toward him.

The stranger's whole body tensed as he got close; it looked like panic, confusion more than an aware sense of danger. A fresh kill, then. Even better.

"You speak English?" Methos asked.

"Like a native," the man snapped, though there was pain and fear in his voice. "What the fuck are you?"

"I'm what you are. Let's go have a drink, and talk about that." Methos reached out and grabbed one gloved hand to shake it. "Adam Pierson."

"Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, CIA. At least I was." He was clearly close to falling apart, his grip too tight, his arm shaking. "Somehow I think I might have just gotten fired the hard way."

"Come on. I'll buy you dinner." Methos started to let go, and Sands grabbed at him helplessly.

"I. Can't. See," Sands ground out, as though admitting it hurt him. "If you want me to go somewhere with you, you'll have to lead me."

Methos smiled again. This would be very interesting. "I can do that. Here." He twined his arm in one of Sands's, and guided him off, down the street.

*

"So I take it this was the first time you've been dead, then," Methos said calmly, spearing another forkful of his dinner -- /cochinita pibil/, it was called, a meltingly-tender, hot and tangy pork dish that Sands had recommended.

Sands stopped moving, his fork halfway to his mouth. "Then I was dead, when everything...went cold, like that. I must have bled out, after Ajedrez -- after. Except she didn't get up again."

"Most people don't," Methos agreed. "We're special cases."

"It's happened to you too, then." Sands cocked his head to one side as if he were examining Methos. The dark glasses and the blood smears made the expression doubly alien.

"More than once. It never really gets more fun." Well, for most people, anyway. Byron was an exception to the rule. To most rules. Methos watched Sands eat for a moment, the careful, almost clumsy motions as the man tried to get food from the plate to his mouth without incident. Methos realized he was itching to take those dark glasses off, itching to ask what had happened.

"Can I die? For real?" A black-gloved hand crawled spiderlike across the table, toward Sands's glass of tequila.

"Yes." Methos didn't reach out to help, gauging how quickly Sands was adjusting to his blindness. "If your head comes off, you're done." He paused, feeling an unpleasant smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "It's much like being an ordinary human, really. The biggest threat to your continued existence is others of your own kind."

Sands's brow furrowed. "Why?"

"Why is it always? Power." He sipped his beer. "That buzz you've been feeling since I got close to you is my Quickening. My power. I can feel yours, the same way. If I cut your head off," Sands's grip on his fork tightened, "then that power would be released from your body, and I would absorb it." He was about to ask why he was still alive, Methos thought, watching Sands's lips part, already considering how they'd feel between his teeth.

"Then why haven't you?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Methos smiled wryly. "I've been spending too much time around boy scouts these last few years."

"And all the do-gooding shit has rubbed off, has it?" Sands sounded skeptical.

"More than I ever meant it to, I'm afraid." Methos watched Sands fish in his jacket pocket and come up with a battered packet of cigarettes. "But until I can get a certain excessively decent Scotsman out of my system, your neck is safe from my predations."

Sands nodded thoughtfully, producing a lighter and managing -- after some trial and error, carefully positioning his hands and feeling out distances -- to light his cigarette. He was adapting fairly quickly; he'd never be a master swordsman, but if he lived long enough he might be decent, and he was certainly clever enough to learn how to make an opponent underestimate him. Methos dropped a few bills on the table.

"Dinner's paid for," he said. "Can I take you home?"

"Sure." Sands laughed bitterly. "It's not much to look at, but I suppose that won't bother me anymore, will it?"

*

Sands had rooms in a weathered, creaky old building at the edge of the city, the kind that would have looked squalid at noon but now, as the sun was going down, looked romantic instead. Methos watched Sands fumble with his keys, fascinated. The man had been leaning into him, practically clinging to his arm, on the walk here, but now he refused to ask for any help at all with opening the door.

When the lock finally clicked, Sands turned. "So -- Adam." The pause made it clear he recognized the alias for what it was. "What if I wake up tomorrow and decide that all this -- all this stuff about Immortals and beheading and so forth -- was just /bullshit/?"

Methos looked Sands up and down, considering. "Still not convinced?" He grabbed for one of the guns in Sands' shoulder holster. Sands panicked, instantly reaching for one of the others on his belt, but by the time he had it drawn Methos had already aimed, and was squeezing the trigger.

The recoil from the gunshot snapped Methos's hand back, pain singing in his wrist. Sands staggered back against the door and went limp, sliding down to the floor, leaving a blood trail where the bullet had gone straight through his heart and out the other side. Methos dropped the gun. Fuck, that was a nasty piece of weaponry.

Nobody seemed to be coming to investigate the shooting, which made things a bit easier. Methos picked Sands up -- he felt like nothing but skin and bones, under the guns and harness -- and carried him into the apartment.

The decent thing to do, he supposed, would be to prop the man up somewhere with a beer in his hand, and let him wake up at his own pace. But he wasn't feeling particularly decent, and all the furniture in the living room looked too pristine to prop up a bleeding corpse on it.

Not that the bedroom was much better, everything obsessively organized, the bed made with hospital precision, flat surfaces spotless. Methos laid Sands down across the bed carefully, unbuckling the harnesses and leaving the guns in a pile on the floor. Slowly, he reached for the sunglasses.

Sands's eyesockets were deep, bloody caverns, stark gouges in the pale smoothness of his face -- a face with delicate, almost androgynous lines, probably very pretty the day before. Now.... He leaned down.

The blood on Sands's face was mostly dry, thick and dark, a raw scent rich with iron. When Methos licked at the first smear from one cheekbone, Sands took a sharp, shuddering breath under him.

"I feel like shit," Sands complained.

"Mmm. I'm sure you do." Methos rested his hands on Sands's shoulders to hold him still, and licked at his bloody face again. "But you're alive."

"And you're a pervert." Sands's tone was more amused than outraged.

"No argument." He moved to straddle Sands's hips, rocking slowly as he nuzzled at the ruin of Sands's face. "Live long enough, you will be too." His tongue dipped gently into one of Sands's eyesockets, and Sands whimpered.

"Who says -- aah, God -- who says I'm not already?" Sands reached up to guide Methos's face, to drag their mouths together. His tongue tasted of tequila and spices, and he clawed at Methos's back frantically.

And this was why it was worth it -- there was nothing quite like the passion of a man who had just faced his own death. Methos reached between them and started to unbutton Sands's vest and shirt. His skin was smooth, underneath, almost hairless, stretched tight over his ribs. Nothing like Duncan's broad, muscular build -- and Methos put that thought out of his head fiercely. Duncan was thousands of miles away. Sands was here, was /now/, and wasn't going to try to pretend this was some kind of romance. Sands was --

Was reaching under Methos's shirt, digging bony fingers into his back, growling into his mouth. Methos pulled out of the kiss, sitting up, and Sands's body arched up off the bed, following him. There was blood on his chest where Methos had shot him.

"Clothes off," Methos explained breathlessly, "now." He tugged his shirt off over his head, feeling Sands writhe between his legs as he squirmed out of shirt and vest. The friction was maddening, and that was before Sands started to unbutton his jeans.

"Yes," Sands said, pulling at the denim. "Clothes off."

Methos struggled upright, tugging the rest of his clothes off before stripping Sands, tossing clothes off the side of the bed. Sands was shockingly beautiful naked, spilled across the sheets in a sprawl of lean limbs, face and torso stained with blood. The sheer vulnerability of the pose made Methos's cock ache.

"Come back," Sands growled, writhing on the bed. "Come back here."

"Gladly." Methos climbed back onto the bed, settling his body against Sands's, dragging him closer by his narrow hips. Sands thrust against him, grinding their cocks together.

"Are all Immortals -- yes, fuck -- as kinky as you?" Sands murmured in his ear.

"No, you just got -- aah, harder --" Sands's teeth worried at Methos's throat -- "we both got lucky this time." Methos licked Sands's face, along the bloodied arch of cheekbone. Sands clung to his shoulderblades.

"I -- this is going to sound really fucked up, but -- what you did before. When you licked my -- my sockets."

"Yeah?" Methos paused, studying Sands, stroking his hair, holding his breath expectantly.

"Do it again," Sands whispered.

Methos shivered. After losing his brothers to Duncan's sword, he'd thought he'd lost his chance for this kind of...indulgence. "Tell me how it feels," he said softly, and bent his head to Sands's face.

"It feels -- oh God," Sands moaned. "It's like -- I don't know the words." His fingers tightened, his grip bruise-tight, as Methos's tongue explored the textured hollow of his empty eyesocket. "It's like you're licking the pleasure center of my brain."

"Why, thank you." Methos ground his hips against Sands's. "If the rest of you tastes as good as this, I might have to keep you."

Sands laughed, low and wild. "You're welcome to tr -- mmmm," he purred, as Methos captured his mouth in another sloppy kiss.

Methos snaked a hand down between them, wrapping it around Sands's hard cock, stroking it roughly. More, he wanted so much more -- Sands was satisfying cravings he'd been ignoring for so long he'd almost forgotten they were there. Their bodies slid against each other, slick with sweat from the hot Mexican evening, as Methos kissed and licked and bit his way down Sands's body.

"Jesus fuck." Sands's back arched up off the bed as Methos took his cock in his mouth. He panted, clawing at the sheets, his hips making little half-thrusts as if to demand that Methos take him deeper. "Give," he said plaintively. "Want to taste you, too."

"God, please." Methos twisted around on the bed, bringing his hips up so Sands could reach him, moaning as Sands licked and nuzzled his way to Methos's cock. His touch was greedy, aggressive, almost unbearably sensual.

When Sands's teeth scraped his foreskin, Methos snarled and pushed forward, shoving his cock down Sands's throat. Sands answered with a push of his own, and Methos swallowed around the invasion, running one hand up between Sands's legs to cup his balls.

Sands moaned around Methos's cock, pleading and hungry, so Methos stroked them carefully, savoring the taste and feel and sound of Sands against him. He could feel the tension building at the base of his cock, the slippery shift of energy crackling down his spine. The hum of Sands's Quickening was rising in pitch as he got closer to his own orgasm, and his legs shook, his breathing coming faster and jagged, broken sounds escaping from his throat --

And it was too much, fuck, just enough, and Methos could feel himself shaking, and he was dimly aware that he was moaning, but it sounded so far away, and the way Sands's cock filled his mouth, sliding over his tongue, was perfect, just perfect, fuck, yes -- yes -- /yes/.

Sands was reaching the brink now, too, his balls drawing up tight, his cock stiffening, and then he pulled back off Methos's cock and gasped out, "Oh God, ohGodohGod," tensing up -- and when he came, Methos would have sworn he could taste the energy of Sands's Quickening in the bitter-salt pulse of his come.

"Jesus," Sands said fervently as he fell back against the bed. "Fucking amazing."

"Thanks." Methos crawled up to lie next to him, one arm over Sands. "You weren't half-bad, either." He sighed contentedly, feeling boneless and sated. "You do have a shower, I hope?"

"Mmm-hmm." Sands sounded half asleep.

"Good." No need to rush, really. The shower would still be there in fifteen minutes. Half an hour. Whenever.

The last orange light from the sunset was fading from the walls when Methos opened his eyes again. Sands appeared to be asleep, curled against him, clinging tight. Methos rested a hand on his shoulder carefully. "You awake?"

Sands instantly rolled away from him. "Yeah."

Methos pulled him back, pressing their bodies together. "I was thinking about that shower. Big enough for two?"

"Yeah, I guess. Never tried." Sands was curling in on himself, tension visible in his back.

"Well, it's about time, then. Come on." Without waiting for an answer, Methos grabbed Sands around the waist and dragged him out of bed, toward the bathroom. "Get the last of the blood off you, that sort of thing." He let Sands maintain his sullen silence until the water was running, tepid but clean, and they were both standing in it. "Have you thought at all about where you're going to go from here? I can't imagine you'll want to stay in Culiacan."

Sands pulled away from Methos's touch, flinching back from the hands that soaped his chest. "Look, this was good, and thank you. But you're not going to want me around for long."

"No? Why not?" Methos kept his tone even and quiet, and didn't stop working lather into Sands's skin.

Sands tossed his head, a gesture that looked like it was meant to make up for his inability to roll his eyes. "I'm not exactly good wholesome fucking company."

Methos laughed, low in his throat. "Remind me to tell you about the Book of Revelation sometime." He rinsed his hands in the water, turning Sands to face the cool stream.

"I'm fucking serious. Even before I --" Sands stopped, the expression his face drawn and tight. "Even before the last twenty-four hours. That's why they sent me down here in the first place. I tested out just this side of socio --"

"That's enough." Methos put his fingers to Sands's lips to stop the words, then slid them into his mouth, stroking the slick velvet of his tongue. "I was serious too. We all go crazy eventually, being like this. Being crazy to begin with...." He shrugged, withdrawing his fingers gently. "I think it'll be to your advantage, honestly. You've already learned to cope."

"What would you get out of it, then?" The corner of Sands's mouth twitched, as though he was trying to hold back a smile. "Don't say head."

"You remind me of...a very old friend. It's good for me. Helps me get my balance back."

Sands smirked, as though that were entertaining for some reason. "What happened to the old friend, then?"

"A newer friend killed him." Methos shrugged, then realized that Sands couldn't see the gesture. "We'd grown apart. It's not as bad as it sounds. But he -- he encouraged the killer in me, and I could use some of that now." He grinned, and couldn't help adding, "Also, you're the kinkiest bastard I've had sex with in years, and at my age that's worth a lot."

There was a touch of hysteria in Sands's answering laughter, but he reached out to Methos, hands crawling spiderlike up Methos's chest and neck to explore the planes of his face. "You'd keep me around just for sex?"

"I probably would." Methos gathered Sands into his arms, nipping at his earlobe. "But I suspect you have much more to offer than that."

"It's a deal, then." Sands rested his forehead on Methos's shoulder. "First thing tomorrow morning, if this hasn't all been one long pain-induced hallucination, we blow this popsicle stand. And right now, we get out of this fucking cold water."

"Fair enough." Methos shut off the water. "Come on. Where do you keep the towels?"