WARNINGS, DISCLAIMERS, ETC: They don't belong to me, folks. And in this story they're doin' stuff that TPTB would never let 'em get away with onscreen. Probably why they come bothering fanfic writers like me, wouldn't you say? To spell it out; this is SLASH, that is to say, homoerotic content herein. Moreover it is M/DM slash; so if this is not your cup of tea, or you are not of an age to view this in your current locale; please leave until you are either old enough or change your mind, whichever should apply. Or move, I suppose. Many thanks to Kamil, for beta-reading, and giving me the courage to post my first (sort of) sex scene. Any mistakes are, obviously, still mine. All mine! [cue evil maniacal laughter....]
Finally, a shameless plea for feedback; I'd love to hear anything you have to say about this at tarshaan@moonlit-eyrie.com
In case you're wondering, the title is a mathematical pun. (yeah, yeah, I know. Painful, isn't it? It's not even a very good pun. But I can't think of any thing better, and since studying Hausdorff spaces is what I *should* have been doing at 3AM, instead of writing this, it fits. And it does fit the story. Well, sort of.)

"Mmph?" Methos shifted a little, settling deeper into his usual sprawl across his favourite furniture-of-choice, one Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. "Drink?" he held up the bottle in his hand, offering it to the figure half-hidden behind him.

"My, but you must be feeling mellow. We're down to our last three...."

"In that case--" Methos drained the bottle, reaching for another. "Maybe we should have brought more?"

Duncan grinned down at the man cradled in his arms. "How'd I end up against the tree, anyhow?" he complained half-heartedly, shifting himself so that not quite so many knolls were digging into his back.

"This was your idea, remember? A picnic at the rivermouth, fresh air and sunshine, do you good, lalala. I'm just along for the ride."

"You can't destroy it, you know."

"Hmmm?" It was MacLeod's turn for interrogatory grunts.

"The world. The earth." He used his beer bottle to gesture at two toddlers, framed in green and playing on the river bank. Beyond them, the whitebait fishermen stood hipdeep in the river, pulling nets.

"People. No matter how much you want to, how hard you try, you can't destroy it. Them. They always come back, always rebuild. They always go on. Trees grow, kids are born, fish get eaten. It's the way of it, the way of life, and you can't stop it. Ever.

"I should know," he added softly, "I spent a thousand years trying. Kronos--" his voice faltered as he remembered whose arms were tightening around him, and what part he had played in the downfall of that particular nightmare from his past, and then strengthened, determined to finish the thought. "Kronos spent the better part of three and a half millennia attempting to. Never managed it."

Duncan, wary of spooking his normally reticent lover, stopped his first three thoughts. Then the next two, since the Horsemen were still somewhat of a difficult subject between them. "What brought this on, now?"

"Them." A wave of the half-full beer bottle indicated the scene beyond the screening trees in front of the pair; the children playing in the water, the adults out in the river, the teenager keeping a wary eye on the toddlers. "No matter what happens today, here, there, there's always another river, somewhere. Another pair of babies splashing in the shallows while their parents grab dinner further out. Another kid resenting babysitting duty. Another pair of lovers watching in the shadows--"

Duncan bit back the words that jumped to his lips, not really wanting to interrupt this revealing reverie Methos seemed to have fallen into. Despite the parts of him that wanted to stop it, that feared hearing something he'd have to act on, he wanted to hear more of whatever it was that had Methos so deeply in its grip.

"Oh, in the short term, certainly. You can kill a village, disease or war or--well, or raiders. The Horsemen.... wipe out lives and dreams. But come back in a decade, two--and they're there again. New people, new dreams.

"New life.

"You can't stop it, can't destroy it. It doesn't care how much you resent it, how many there are out there like Kronos who are so totally focused on its destruction, its defeat. It knows it can't be beaten, can't be destroyed. It's the only thing that's lasted longer than I have, the only constant I can count on to still be there in the morning, regardless. No matter what happens, life goes on. It's sort of comforting, you know. The one thing that nobody could take away, however well they planned, however long they spent trying, however many lifetimes they had at their disposal."

"You would have stopped him anyway, wouldn't you?"

Methos half-twisted in Mac's arms. "What?"

"Kronos. It didn't matter that I followed, didn't matter that Cassandra did. You never intended to let him follow through on his plans. You would have stopped him regardless, somehow. Wouldn't you?"

"What are you blathering about now, MacLeod?" Methos shifted uneasily, not sure he liked where the Highlander was going with this.

"God. What an idiot I am, to not have seen that before. What an idiot you are, not to have told me." He smiled blindingly at Methos, not quite believing either of them could really have been so dense.

"Mac--"

"Shhh." A finger to his lips. "You would have stopped him, because you couldn't take the chance that he'd succeed. That his virus would finally have done it, would have destroyed the world. You couldn't risk it, and so you would have stopped him." He smiled down at the oldest man, before leaning in to kiss him. "You know, I think I like you speechless. You're a fraud, old man."

"I....what?"

"A fraud." Duncan grinned against his hair, enjoying the indignation in his lover's voice. "A bloody fraud." Turning Methos' head, he stopped his protests with his mouth. "God, but I love it when you're like this," he whispered against his warm lips. "All languid grace and sarcasm. So much fire hidden beneath your words." He nibbled along Methos' jaw, nuzzling down into his neck so temptingly arched. "So much passion hidden amongst all the misdirection." His hands slipped inside the trenchcoat his lover had refused to take off, one sliding up under his loose sweater for the fingers to caress a nipple, the other slipping lower, trailing across worn denim, tracing his muscles beneath.

"MacLeod!" The name was half protest, half entreaty. "Can't you keep your hands off me for three straight hours? You can get arrested for this sort of thing, you know. And I have no desire to spend the rest of the afternoon ensconced in a police cell, getting to know some...." his voice faded into a moan as Duncan's tongue traced liquid fire across the back of his neck.

"Have I told you how much I love touching you?" Duncan asked, running his hand over Methos' smooth chest. "How much I love the feel of your skin, soft against my palm, softer than silk, than satin, than anything I can remember, when I'm with you? How I love the way you respond to my touch, the tremours in your muscles, the quickening of your breathing. The little gasps that let me know where to linger, and for how long. The way your body twists into mine, the way you make me feel like the rest of the world can go hang, so long as you're safe in my arms?"

His only response was a rising flush, and Duncan, fascinated, watched its progress across the visible pieces of his lover's skin. He moved his hands, felt an answering movement in the bulge at Methos' thighs.

"The way your skin looks in sunlight, your hair, your eyes, your hands.... " A flick of his thumb and the old man's jeans opened, his fingers playing over the skin above the denim. He found the prize he was seeking and slowly, slowly freed it....

"The feel of you in my hand, your pleasure mine to give, mine to receive. The weight of you, solid and heavy and real, so very, very real. The way you moan, so softly tender, when I do this--" Duncan rolled his shaft between his fingers, teasing the head. "Your heat, your taste, your--" he paused, groaning himself, before burying his mouth in the juncture of Methos' neck and shoulder, fighting to keep control of himself.

Duncan bit lightly at Methos' skin, smoothing the sting away with his tongue after. Nibbling, he made his way across the length of one shoulder, around his pale neck, and up to an ear. "The way your cock fills me, so far inside me sometimes I think I might drown when you come. How other times, you squirm beneath me, trying to take me deeper, when what I want most in the world is to crawl inside you and never part us again. How you take me so sweetly some days, when you think I need care and love and kindness. The way you drive into me on others, demanding more than our physical bodies can give...."

Methos groaned loudly and Duncan paused in his talk. "You know, much as I like the way that sounds, don't you think you'd better tone it down a little?" He ran his tongue up around Methos' ear before continuing. "After all," as he nodded toward the scene still laid out in front of them, "we wouldn't want any little explorers just now, would we?" He tightened his hold around the cock in his hand, laughing at the old man's struggle to keep silent. "Then again, if you can't handle it...." he began teasingly, lifting his fingers away.

"MacLeod." The warning growl sent arousal spiking down his spine.

"Methos?"

"You really do NOT want to stop at this point."

"I don't?"

"You don't. Trust me on this one, Highlander." A hand snuck around between them, working to cup Duncan's own erection. He gave it a warning squeeze. "You really do not."

"Ah... yes. I quite see your point."

Duncan resumed stroking the hard flesh in his hand, slowly. Maddeningly. Methos arched back into him, solid and warm in his arms. "You look so beautiful like this. So wild, and free, and so--so mine. Makes me feel like the world is for me, only for us; that it's your gift for me and all we need do is play in it." Duncan firmed his grip on the hot shaft, stroking faster in response to the need he saw rising in Methos' flushed skin, his glowing eyes. Willing his own response down to a controllable level, Duncan whispered in the ear he'd been nibbling on barely a second before. "You do that for me. To me. Take me to pleasures I didn't know I could hold, before you snuck into my heart and then into my bed. I love you, you know. Ornery old man. I love you, far too much to ever let you go. Far too much to ever let you go."

Giving up on talk, Duncan gathered the old man closer, using his free hand to turn his head so he could kiss him properly. Methos shivered in his grip, moaning into his mouth as a hot tongue delved inside.

Pumping steadily with one hand, Duncan let his other drift downwards, over the sweater his lover still wore. It was frustrating, not being able to undress Methos properly, and run his hands down along skin; but the contrast in textures was interesting, and teasing his nipples through the wool brought a surprisingly erotic assortment of sounds from his lover's mouth. Reaching his open fly, he carefully worked his other hand in beneath Methos' leaking shaft, reaching to cup his balls in his palm. It was a tight fit to get a decent angle under the denim, but Duncan managed. To the accompaniment of his lover's increasing moans, he began to roll them in their sac, deepening his kiss at the same time. Sliding a finger past the balls he'd been playing with, he ran his nail along the sensitive skin behind them, as far as he could reach given the jeans Methos was still more or less wearing. He increased the speed and intensity of his strokes along his lover's hard shaft, drinking in the moans he was given to savour. Debating a little too long on slacking off his kiss enough to let them breathe for a minute; the choice was taken out of his hands when his lover surged up against him, tongue plunging deeper into Duncan's mouth as he felt, rather than heard, the hiss as Methos came.

Duncan hadn't thought a more boneless sprawl than the earlier one Methos had draped over him would have been possible, until he saw how relaxed in his arms Methos was now. His head had dropped back down onto Duncan's shoulder, his legs parted wide to make room for Duncan's hands that were now full of the aftermath of Methos' pleasure. Duncan's own need was still strong, pushing against the old man's backside; but they were a little too public for his taste to push things much further. At least Methos was wearing a trenchcoat to hide any nefarious doings--although, Duncan thought fondly, looking at the sheen of arousal not yet faded from Methos' skin, it wouldn't take much to guess what had just taken place under it.

He sat there waiting for Methos to recover enough to say something; not wanting to move just yet himself. Oddly content, despite the nagging arousal he couldn't quite ignore, nibbling again on his ear so temptingly close. Reluctantly letting go of his lover with one hand, he reached into the picnic basket beside them and began to clean Methos as best he could.

This finally roused Methos to comment. "Tissues, Mac?" he asked, amusement obvious in his voice.

"Yeah," Mac flushed a little, slightly embarrassed as always by the old man's mocking his preparedness. "Well, you never know...."

"Hey, just a minute!" Methos protested suddenly, "how'd I end up being the one riding home with wet jeans?!"

Mac chuckled, he couldn't help himself. Methos just looked and sounded so damned indignant, he couldn't stop it. "Uh--"

"Hmph." Methos let him know how much he thought of that defence, the sparkle in the one eye Mac could see telling him the old man wasn't truly peeved.

"Well," Mac said reasonably, "you are the one wearing the trenchcoat. And the one who got to come. And," he added, the coup d'etat, "it's just a tad late for protests, don't you think?"

"You mean to say," Methos said, a hint of disbelief in his voice, "that Duncan MacLeod, the Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod, that is, the original boyscout, you know; are you trying to tell me that he didn't come prepared?" Shifting a little, he pulled a beer out of the cooler before lifting his bag from the other side of it.

"Just as well," he added, in case Mac thought it was over, "that someone considered the inability of a certain Boyscout to keep his hands to himself". Grinning smugly, Methos drew a spare pair of jeans from his knapsack. "If you're quite sure you're finished? I'll go change."

He got three paces into the overgrowth before Mac jumped him from behind, growling softly into his ear. "You know, it's entirely possible we're not quite finished," Duncan whispered suggestively, grinding his erection into the other man's body. "Just how well prepared are you, old man?"

That's all, folks!
Tell me what you think! (Or if you're disgusted that I stopped there *g*.) Mail me at tarshaan@moonlit-eyrie.com.

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