The characters of Duncan and Methos are not mine. The rights to them belong to Davis/Panzer Productions.
I did not rate this story Adult because it has no sex, but it does depict a slash relationship. Please keep that in mind when deciding whether to read or to use your delete key.
This is a response to a Valentine's Day challenge to write a pure romance D/M, with no sex. I also submitted it to the Beyond the End competition, and the !
story is subtitled "Beyond the End." I want to thank all the readers who commented at the BTE site; many gave me good pointers to make the story better. And I particularly want to thank BTE Judge #2, who took the time to give a very detailed critique. If I didn't use all her suggestions in this revision, it's only because my skills weren't up to it.
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Such Sweet Sorrow
Or Beyond the End
By August Wright
Duncan returned to Paris on a grey winter day in driving rain turning to sleet. He stepped carefully where water was hardening to ice, past abandoned sidewalk cafes, their empty chairs and tables slick and lonely. The usually cheerful sidewalk vendors and open storefronts spilling their wares out onto the walk like daily yard sales were no part of this Paris. This Paris lacked life and warmth, huddled under cover like Duncan in his overcoat.
His path took him to the bridge, just down from the loo!
ming cathedral, where he stopped and stared at the barge. Standing there was a self-torment, he knew, partly because the open expanse of the Seine chilled the wind from bitter to nearly unendurable, and partly because the ache in his heart grew to an agony at this first clear sight of a remnant of his world before it had shattered.
He'd thought he was ready.
An immortal presence splintered the numbness of his thoughts, and Duncan turned to see a silhouetted figure ambling toward him, coat swinging with his stride like a gunfighter's duster. Duncan felt no fear, only a strange detachment.
Detachment could be good. It kept him from hurting.
Tall, black, and broad-shouldered, the other immortal exuded confidence and mortal menace. He stopped just out of sword reach from D!
uncan and regarded him with the nobility of a warrior born. He seemed unaffected by the lancing cold, and his wolfish smile showed his eager anticipation. "I am Lou Sarnier," he said. A gust of the river-frigid wind faded the last word to near inaudibility. "Shall we leave this bridge for somewhere more private?"
He spoke in an accent of the West Indies, Duncan's tired mind noted. The name seemed nondescript enough, that calculating part of him continued, but what's in a name? His confidence combined with the fact that Duncan had not heard of him suggested that he might be fairly young. Or not, Duncan thought wearily. That could be an act intended to mislead.
The man carried himself bravely, and deserved to be treated with respect. Duncan rubbed his stinging face and decided he had no energy for posturing. "I am Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," he said dully, still lea!
ning his forearms on the bridge rail, "and I don't want to fight you today."
Now would come the anger, the bravado, perhaps threats to attack right here in the open.
"MacLeod?" asked the other man. "The man who killed the Kurgan?"
Duncan winced. "No," he said harshly. "I killed that man."
God.
To Duncan's surprise, Sarnier laughed a jovial, appreciative laugh. "Of course. Good for you. Come on, let's cross our swords and test our skill. One of us is a better man. Is today not an excellent day to die?"
Duncan eyed the man. From most men the speech would sound ridiculous, but Sarnier delivered his performance, if performance it was, with genuine commitment. The grin !
on his dark face held an almost Celtic love of battle, and Duncan felt a nostalgic fondness for him.
"Perhaps it is," he said, and perhaps it was. His death today would harm no one, and would leave only a few loose ends to inconvenience others. "But I'd like some time to prepare."
The other man's expression grew thoughtful, and he stepped closer to Duncan and leaned his own forearms on the rail of the bridge. "If I agree, how will I find you again?"
Duncan pointed at the barge. "I will wait there for you."
Sarnier nodded. "I will come."
Duncan watched Sarnier stride away, bemused by his own request. Prepare how? The truth was, though death was an attractive end to his pain, Duncan didn't have the energy to meet a cha!
llenge today. It was too damn cold. He shook his head, amazed that he had avoided that challenge so easily. He was sure he couldn't count on it again, with Sarnier.
He wouldn't ask again.
Duncan considered the barge, its silent reminder of days when he had believed life could be good, and turned his steps toward a hotel.
Even the inside of the hotel felt dark and damp, the low wattage bulbs in Duncan's room too feeble to hold off the gloom. He considered turning on the television for the sound of human voices, but using the TV for company was a trick he'd learned from Richie. Cheerful voices seemed like a travesty anyway. Watching the rain, he fell asleep in the chair.
The next day, Duncan stared from the quay at his barge, imagining that if it had feelings, it would f!
eel abandoned and bereft. Once it had held a home for Tessa, the light of Duncan's world. Gatherings of friends had warmed its insides with their laughter and celebratory toasts. Now, shut up and dark, it pitched with the choppy waves the Seine threw at it, huddled like the rest of Paris. Well, like everything else in Duncan's old life, it had to go. He sighed and leaped aboard.
Once inside, he found he had no heart for the necessary cleaning and unpacking. He removed the dust cover from the bed, found a wool blanket, Army issue from the Great War, and slept.
Two days later he had accomplished little. Paralyzed by lethargy, he had got no further than unpacking Tessa's photo albums, and now he sat for hours on the floor seeing his own face smiling at Tessa's camera. He looked a stranger to himself, this happy man with the love of a beautiful, talented, passionate woman. On !
some of the pages, Richie cavorted in Paris. He turned those pages quickly. Those few pictures of Tessa herself were where he lingered, and to what he returned, hour after empty hour, as the rain and sleet drummed above his head.
Awareness of an immortal jarred him when it came. He'd forgotten Sarnier. Duncan rose from the floor and found his katana. Much of his life, he thought, had been punctuated by sudden threats to halt the flow of his days, but today he felt no resentment.
Someone knocked upon the door. Moving with a curious sense of inevitability, Duncan opened it. Standing there, lashed by wind and water, was, of all people, Methos.
Methos. Someone from his past life who wasn't gone; not permanently. Duncan was almost startled, and, like his first sight of the barge, the reminder hurt. Duncan wished weakly that h!
e could refuse this visit, but he hadn't the energy for a confrontation.
He stood aside and nodded as Methos stepped inside, dripping on the oak stairs.
"MacLeod," the intruder said, his smile holding irony, that frequent refuge of cynics. "Welcome back."
Human interaction felt alien to Duncan as he calculated his response. "I'm not ready ..." he said.
Methos looked the barge over, and Duncan saw what Methos must see: sheets and dust covers still shrouding the spare furniture, the mattress with no pillows or sheets, just a very old Army blanket. No lights, no fire, no food.
What was Duncan to do with him? He didn't want the man to stay. He didn't want to re-establish any old ties. !
;
"I see that," said Methos. He looked back at Duncan with a question in his expression.
Duncan felt a great weariness. He didn't want to explain; he didn't even want to talk. He wanted to go back to sleep.
"Don't you call before you visit an immortal?" he asked, vaguely remembering how to chide and banter.
"Your phone's not hooked up."
True. Duncan had had no one he'd expected to hear from, and no one he'd wanted to talk to. He hadn't had the shoreside electrical power to his barge turned on either. He just couldn't seem to get to it.
"What do you want?" Duncan found he didn't feel like banter after all.
If Methos noticed the rudeness, Duncan saw no!
sign of it. From a deep pocket of his raincoat, Methos pulled out a paperback. "Return your book."
"You came to Paris to return my book?"
Methos shrugged.
Duncan stared at the book, remembering the day Methos had borrowed it. "The Tesseract," it was titled, and it had been Tessa's book. Methos had spotted it on Duncan's shelf and had commented that he loved things which fucked with the space/time continuum.
It seemed like eons ago - a time when Duncan had still had friends. Had still liked himself. Connor and Richie had both been alive, and not too long before that, Tessa and Darius and Fitz. Only Methos was a latecomer to Duncan's world, and back then even Methos had been only a friend, not the object of extreme suspicion he'd more recently become.
Methos was almost the only one left. The ultimate survivor. And Duncan didn't want anyone, anymore.
"Keep it," he said. "Everything has to go, anyway."
"Everything?"
"You have to go, too. "
At that, Duncan saw Methos sway in surprise.
"I need to get some work done."
Methos recovered, returning to his bland expression. "Want some help?"
"No. Thanks." Duncan was tired of Methos. He was tired of knowing the man so well he could read his slightest change in expression. He was tired of the hopes and illusions he'd once nursed about such an old immortal, and tired of being disappointe!
d.
"Okay." Methos sounded neutral, a tone of voice he'd used often since ... well, recently. "How about we go out for a drink later? Joe's in town, too, of course."
"No!"
Realizing that his outburst required an explanation, Duncan continued. "I don't want to have anything to do with ..." he stopped himself before what he said became too hurtful.
"With Joe?" asked Methos. Then, when Duncan looked away, "or with me?"
"With any part of my old life. I'm really tired. I'm not going out anywhere."
*Please go away.*
"All right, MacLeod," Methos said, his tone muted. "Good-bye."
To Duncan's relief, Methos turned and faced the elements, the open door admitting wind-blown rain for a few seconds.
As Duncan tumbled into bed, he noticed that Methos had left the book.
