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crossoverficTitle: Many Happy Returns
Series: Tomorrow People/Highlander: The Series crossover
Rating: PG/PG-13
Pairing: Richie/Megabyte per request
Summary: Request fic for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fikgirl who wanted Richie/Megabyte slash.
Spoilers: None. Because Archangel didn't even BEGIN to exist. Nope. Long live Clan Denial.
Disclaimer: Highlander belongs to Panzer/Davis, Rysher. TP belong to Roger Damon Price, ITV, etc. Not me, 'cause if I'd been running these shows I wouldn't have let them get frelling *cancelled*.
"Many Happy Returns"
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are...
never coming home
never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
All the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me
- My Chemical Romance
"The Ghost of You"
It always begins the same way. Megabyte leaves out a plate of food on the table, covered with saran wrap. And waits 'til it gets eaten. Megabyte never announces what's going on. Never makes a big deal. As far as anyone knows, Megabyte's never said anything about it all. They just stop by and find him in front of the TV, on an all-night video bender with cans of Red Bull strewn about.
It never fails to scare them all a little.
After a while, they accepted things the way they were. They sat with him. Brought pizza. Made grunting conversation even in their heads and maintained the terribly necessary quiet.
Eventually, they all burn out. Long before Megabyte even blinks. They make it to midnight, two am. Megabyte doesn't even start on the second case of Red Bull until dawn. They wonder if Megabyte even realizes that they're gone.
Adam rubs his eyes, looks over at Megabyte. He's stretching himself, staying until three. But he got to speak his peace, otherwise whatever hours of sleep he's got left will be for nothing.
"How long are you going to keep doing this?" asks Adam. "Megabyte. This isn't right. You have to know that. We weren't meant to be part of this."
Megabyte doesn't once take his eyes off the TV screen.
"I'm *not* part of it, Adam. Do you see me with a sword in my hand?" Megabyte is forced to pause by the realization that there is, in fact, on screen a version of himself that *is* holding a sword. "Besides when I'm playing Zelda. Or the Renaissance Faire, but that was totally Jade's idea. Not mine."
"Doesn't mean anything. It's like saying you're only part of a war if you're a soldier," Adam tells him. "Megabyte, you can't keep on like this. Everytime he does this, you do nothing but play video games until he comes back. It's not healthy."
"Yeah, well, what is now a days?" Megabyte replies. "I mean, artificial sweetners alone are gonna kill us all. Did you know that Splenda has -"
"Stop it," Adam says. "Just stop pretending like you're okay, because you're not. You're not all right, Megabyte, and this is not all right. How long are we going to do this?"
Megabyte pauses the game, but doesn't put the controller down.
"If you're tired, go. I didn't ask you guys to do anything," Megabyte says.
Adam falls into a sprawled laying position, laughing joylessly, helplessly, "It doesn't work that way. We're your friends, and you think you can hide what this does to you, but you can't. We're going to be here for it. We won't just leave you. We're not like him."
Megabyte turns quickly. "Hey! Richie didn't leave me. He's coming back."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. Any minute now, he's gonna come home and you're gonna see, Adam. He knows what he's doing. *I* know what I'm doing."
"That's what scares me," Adam groans. He rubs his face and yawns, looks blankly down at the floor - mind utterly empty from exhaustion and hours of meaningless mental repetition.
He gets why Megabyte does it. He can hardly muster up his own name, much less any feelings.
Megabyte doesn't start the game immediately. He smiles fondly and at a mental distance of at least a hundred miles. "Remember when Richie finally told Mac that we were going out?"
Adam's mouth goes into a smile before he can help himself. "I thought he was gonna be the first Immortal on record to die of a heart attack."
"Methos is still giving him shit about it, too," Megabyte says with involuntary laughter. "Didn't even phase the old guy. Kinda makes you wonder what he was doing Rome, which I know I don't. I was scared, though. I kept thinking - great. I find a guy I can actually tell the whole teleporter thing to and now he's going to leave me because he's scared of Duncan MacLeod of the Clan McStraight looking down on us because we're *gay*. I mean, *gay*, Adam. Methos wakes up every day for a thousand years and says 'oh, I think I'll go slaughter people' and I've never seen Mac say anything. The guy's been on every continent and has people's entire beings downloaded into his brain when he takes their heads and he's gonna wet his pants over us being *gay*. Up til then I never got all the stupid Romeo and Juliet things that people do for love. Never made sense, because I figure - okay, they break up with you. You just get over it, right? You find someone else. Only, maybe there's nobody else, Adam. Not that I probably couldn't get a date if I wanted to. I mean, let's face it. Who *doesn't* want me? But what would it matter? What would be the point of getting over it? What would be the point of picking up my life just to spend the rest of it trying to be okay or just fine. Because that's the *best* case scenario. So yeah, I do this every time he goes out to fight someone. And I turn into a basketcase, but it's the only way that I can make this fit in my brain. Because the idea of Richie not coming back is too big and it's too much and I just can't. So go if you have to go, but I can't. Because I fell in love with a guy who carries a sword and there's nothing I can do about it."
Adam frowns, throat a little tight. "I hope he knows."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it? You stay even when it makes you crazy and that's how they know that you love them."
Adam nods. Pats Megabyte on the shoulder and leaves.
****
Megabyte's forced to throw the plate away by sunset the next day. It's no good, but he didn't want to put it in the fridge, and forget to tell Richie that it was there.
He calls into work, to let them know that he'll be working from home the next few days. Says he's come down with something and of course Sue and Richard both have to reply that it's going around even though Megabyte hasn't heard of anyone out with a stomach bug in, well, ever.
But it's not like sick is entirely a lie.
Megabyte fixes food that he can't bring himself to eat and leaves casserole on a plate covered in Saran wrap.
He alternately does work and takes occasional breaks for Red Bull or Zelda. He sleeps in front of the TV with an afghan - housewarming present from Ami - and a couch pillow under his head. He does that when he's too tired, on the second day, to keep play.
The caffeine keeps him shaking and he watches infomercials as the second day slides into the third.
Jade comes with Mac at noon.
The casserole sits on the table, also beyond eating. Jade frowns.
"Second plate," she says to Mac, frowning. Mac frowns with her.
"Megabyte?" he calls, peeking around the corner of the kitchen.
Megabyte shuts his laptop and stands up. Seeing MacLeod, somber and wearing a black coat with the collar up sends a whiplash of terror up his spine and it feels like someone ripping tape off of his bareskin.
"No news?" Mac asks.
Megabyte starts breathing again. Shakes his head. Jade frowns.
"We think we know where they may have fought," Jade says. "Joe managed to pull some strings."
Megabyte nods. "Let me get my coat."
He wears Richie's leather coat as Jade teleports him to a dilapidated, abandoned factory and the signs of skirmish are immediate. A spray of dried blood paints a wall and beneath cracked, burned out industrial sized lights they see a broken sword lying in the dirt.
Mac picks up the hilt and looks it over. He fits his hand perfectly into it, turns it over with a slow precise move of the wrist. His arm muscles are like cables.
Megabyte can see the predator in him that way.
"It's Richie's," he proclaims, solemn as a doctor coming with bad news.
Megabyte turns away and teleports.
****
Megabyte looks at what they have in the cabinets. They've got the stuff for tacos, and probably another casserole.
Tacos it is.
He browns meat as the third day slides away from him. Slides into the fourth day.
The tacos steam up the saran wrap as they lay on the table. Megabyte, thinks about eating them, but can't. Wishes he could. Because frankly, they smell good and it's his third of nothing but Red Bull and energy bars.
Only he can't. Can't bring himself to unwrap the plate, eat, and leave Richie to fend for himself when he gets back in. Richie's used to that by now. That there will be something on the table. Megabyte would expect the same, if he was getting in late from work and Richie got home first.
That's what they do. They make tacos and wait for each other.
So he waits.
Megabyte feels Adam coming long before he gets there.
Adam says, from the back door, "It's been four days, Megabyte."
"Doesn't mean anything."
"His sword was broken."
Megabyte turns his head from the implacable logic of it all. Adam takes a seat across the table from Megabyte. Pushes the plate of tacos away to make room for his arms.
"How long are you going to do this?" Adam asks, point blank.
"He'd do it for me!"
"Yes, but that's not the point. What would he *want*, Megabyte?"
Megabyte puts his head in his hands.
"Just give him until tomorrow," Megabyte pleads. "I'm telling you, Adam, he's coming back. I know him. He could take this guy."
"After tomorrow?"
Megabyte takes a large breath. He feels like he's trying to swallow the ocean in a gulp. "After then - I'll talk to Mac."
****
They sit with him, wait shoulder to shoulder for the fourth day to come.
They check the time in ever increasing increments. Unsaid, but clear nonetheless is that they're waiting for Richie to hurry and be dead already. Or for Megabyte to hurry up and accept that Richie was dead the minute he left the house.
Quietly, Jade telepaths, [Do we wait until midnight, or when the sun comes up?]
Ami wraps her arm around Megabyte's and replies, [As long as he needs.]
[That'll be the next ever, Ami,] Megabyte says. Jade and Ami both blush.
[Well, at least it's a comfortable couch,] Adam replies, tugging the afghan a little tighter around him.
[Richie picked it out,] Megabyte notes, not with grief, but with an odd estrangement from his own memories. [Said one of us would probably end up sleeping on it.]
Jade smiles sadly. [I didn't think you two fought that much.]
Megabyte can't help a momentary grin. [We didn't. But I think we both snored. He always said it was me, but one time, I swear to god, he woke himself up.]
Ami buries her face in Megabyte's shoulder, giggling. Even Adam breaks into laughter by the arm of the couch.
[That's Richie,] Jade says, when the laughter dies the death they all knew it had to.
"Yeah," Megabyte says, throwing them off a little with the switch from telepathy to speech. "It was. Guys, if you don't mind, I think - I think I need to do some stuff alone."
And that's how they know the fourth day has come.
****
Night descends and Megabyte is tired of paperwork. Tired of picking through the details of his life with Richie in receipts and check stubs and bank statements. He's tired of making phone calls.
In the end, he didn't have the heart to tell Mac.
So he told Methos. Figured after five thousand years, the old guy had to be more used to this death thing than the rest of them.
And it surprised the hell out of him to see Methos sit down on his couch like a rock hitting the bottom of a river. Methos leaned back and closed his eyes.
"MacLeod won't buy it," Methos says. "He'll keep looking."
Megabyte crossed his arms. "Maybe somebody should."
Methos stood up again. "No, you're doing the right thing. He wouldn't have wanted it otherwise."
Megabyte felt anger that he couldn't even begin to understand or contain. "You don't know *what* he would've wanted."
Methos seemed a little surprised to hear Megabyte lash out like that. He cocked his head. For a moment, Megabyte thought he could see the Horseman in him, staring down an enemy and thinking of the kill. But Methos's eyes softened.
"You're right, I don't. I'm not Mac. Joe. As far as friends go, I barely knew the kid. But I've loved quite a few people who's time ran out right in front of my eyes. And they all said the same thing. They all wanted me to move on. So I did."
"And yet you still managed to stay a pain in the ass."
"Well, I'm five thousand years old. What's your excuse, kid?"
Thinking about it hits Megabyte hard. He stands up and throws the mug he's drinking coffee out of at the wall.
"You didn't know him!" he screams, panting with rage not exertion. "You didn't!"
Suddenly the door swings open behind him. Megabyte keeps his back turned, and since he doesn't sense a Tomorrow Person, figure that it's Methos. Probably had someone teleport him to the house while Megabyte was out getting the papers from the lawyer and just waited. Then again, Methos had always had a slightly creepy love of the huge swing on the porch.
"I don't wanna hear it, old man. I just *don't*," Megabyte bites off his word. "You think you know what he would've wanted, well, you *don't*. You didn't know him like I did. You didn't love him like I did. Because you can't. And I really could care less what some five thousand year old, washed-out serial killer has to say about him. Oh, and don't think I don't know the hard-on you've got for Mac. At least *I* didn't fall for a straight guy. So just go annoy somebody else."
Something drops heavily by the door. "But all my stuff is here."
Megabyte turns around and sees Richie, tired, dirty, with the remnants of battle cut across his shirt, his coat. Megabyte pins him against the door and kisses him deep, hard, desperate. Kisses him even as the tears come rolling down his face.
"Where the *hell* were you?" Megabyte demands, as soon as he can bring himself to pull away.
"Somewhere better than you were, obviously," Richie says, looking at Megabyte's face. And then at the broken mug and the dent it made in the wall. He looks at the place where the wallpaper has ripped, smiles and says, "Eh. I didn't like that wallpaper much, either."
Megabyte grabs him again. "Fuck the wallpaper."
Richie laughs against Megabyte's mouth. "Okay, but not in the bedroom."
Megabyte wants to help himself but can't. He laughs.
"Feel like tacos?" he asks. Richie sits wearily down in a chair.
"I don't care, man. Tacos. Sushi. I could probably *eat* the wallpaper," Richie replies. "So get this, I go to face Skolmann, and he brought *friends*. They chased me into *Ohio*. You ever been to Ohio? Because there's nothing there except cows."
"Smells like it," Megabyte says. "Geez, what did you *do* with the cows. Wait, don't answer that."
"Wasn't planning on it," Richie laughs. He lets his smile go down. "Look, I'm sorry about not calling. I didn't want one of Skolmann's friends coming back here and causing trouble. You okay?"
Megabyte shakes his head. "I keep thinking, maybe one day I'll get old and senile and forget that I love you."
Richie grabs his arm and pulls him down in to the nearest chair. "It's not like I ever will."
Megabyte looks over at Richie and despairs. "It's never going to get any easier, is it? It's always going to be like this."
Richie nods, lets go of Megabyte. "Look, I'll understand if you can't stick around. It's hard. You deserve better. I mean, I never did understand why you put yourself through this. Not like you couldn't do better."
Megabyte looks pissed. "Because I have a fetish for guys who smell like cows and snore loud enough to wake the living and the dead, that's why. Doesn't matter. I knew my chances when I took them."
"And you took them anyway."
Megabyte laughs. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the brightest bulb on the tree. Go take a shower - and don't leave your hair in the sink when you shave."
Richie kisses Megabyte quickly and drags himself towards the bathroom. Megabyte resigns himself to picking up the pieces of his coffee mug and wondering if there's anything left to make for dinner.
- END -
Series: Tomorrow People/Highlander: The Series crossover
Rating: PG/PG-13
Pairing: Richie/Megabyte per request
Summary: Request fic for
fikgirl who wanted Richie/Megabyte slash. Spoilers: None. Because Archangel didn't even BEGIN to exist. Nope. Long live Clan Denial.
Disclaimer: Highlander belongs to Panzer/Davis, Rysher. TP belong to Roger Damon Price, ITV, etc. Not me, 'cause if I'd been running these shows I wouldn't have let them get frelling *cancelled*.
"Many Happy Returns"
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are...
never coming home
never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
All the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me
- My Chemical Romance
"The Ghost of You"
It always begins the same way. Megabyte leaves out a plate of food on the table, covered with saran wrap. And waits 'til it gets eaten. Megabyte never announces what's going on. Never makes a big deal. As far as anyone knows, Megabyte's never said anything about it all. They just stop by and find him in front of the TV, on an all-night video bender with cans of Red Bull strewn about.
It never fails to scare them all a little.
After a while, they accepted things the way they were. They sat with him. Brought pizza. Made grunting conversation even in their heads and maintained the terribly necessary quiet.
Eventually, they all burn out. Long before Megabyte even blinks. They make it to midnight, two am. Megabyte doesn't even start on the second case of Red Bull until dawn. They wonder if Megabyte even realizes that they're gone.
Adam rubs his eyes, looks over at Megabyte. He's stretching himself, staying until three. But he got to speak his peace, otherwise whatever hours of sleep he's got left will be for nothing.
"How long are you going to keep doing this?" asks Adam. "Megabyte. This isn't right. You have to know that. We weren't meant to be part of this."
Megabyte doesn't once take his eyes off the TV screen.
"I'm *not* part of it, Adam. Do you see me with a sword in my hand?" Megabyte is forced to pause by the realization that there is, in fact, on screen a version of himself that *is* holding a sword. "Besides when I'm playing Zelda. Or the Renaissance Faire, but that was totally Jade's idea. Not mine."
"Doesn't mean anything. It's like saying you're only part of a war if you're a soldier," Adam tells him. "Megabyte, you can't keep on like this. Everytime he does this, you do nothing but play video games until he comes back. It's not healthy."
"Yeah, well, what is now a days?" Megabyte replies. "I mean, artificial sweetners alone are gonna kill us all. Did you know that Splenda has -"
"Stop it," Adam says. "Just stop pretending like you're okay, because you're not. You're not all right, Megabyte, and this is not all right. How long are we going to do this?"
Megabyte pauses the game, but doesn't put the controller down.
"If you're tired, go. I didn't ask you guys to do anything," Megabyte says.
Adam falls into a sprawled laying position, laughing joylessly, helplessly, "It doesn't work that way. We're your friends, and you think you can hide what this does to you, but you can't. We're going to be here for it. We won't just leave you. We're not like him."
Megabyte turns quickly. "Hey! Richie didn't leave me. He's coming back."
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do. Any minute now, he's gonna come home and you're gonna see, Adam. He knows what he's doing. *I* know what I'm doing."
"That's what scares me," Adam groans. He rubs his face and yawns, looks blankly down at the floor - mind utterly empty from exhaustion and hours of meaningless mental repetition.
He gets why Megabyte does it. He can hardly muster up his own name, much less any feelings.
Megabyte doesn't start the game immediately. He smiles fondly and at a mental distance of at least a hundred miles. "Remember when Richie finally told Mac that we were going out?"
Adam's mouth goes into a smile before he can help himself. "I thought he was gonna be the first Immortal on record to die of a heart attack."
"Methos is still giving him shit about it, too," Megabyte says with involuntary laughter. "Didn't even phase the old guy. Kinda makes you wonder what he was doing Rome, which I know I don't. I was scared, though. I kept thinking - great. I find a guy I can actually tell the whole teleporter thing to and now he's going to leave me because he's scared of Duncan MacLeod of the Clan McStraight looking down on us because we're *gay*. I mean, *gay*, Adam. Methos wakes up every day for a thousand years and says 'oh, I think I'll go slaughter people' and I've never seen Mac say anything. The guy's been on every continent and has people's entire beings downloaded into his brain when he takes their heads and he's gonna wet his pants over us being *gay*. Up til then I never got all the stupid Romeo and Juliet things that people do for love. Never made sense, because I figure - okay, they break up with you. You just get over it, right? You find someone else. Only, maybe there's nobody else, Adam. Not that I probably couldn't get a date if I wanted to. I mean, let's face it. Who *doesn't* want me? But what would it matter? What would be the point of getting over it? What would be the point of picking up my life just to spend the rest of it trying to be okay or just fine. Because that's the *best* case scenario. So yeah, I do this every time he goes out to fight someone. And I turn into a basketcase, but it's the only way that I can make this fit in my brain. Because the idea of Richie not coming back is too big and it's too much and I just can't. So go if you have to go, but I can't. Because I fell in love with a guy who carries a sword and there's nothing I can do about it."
Adam frowns, throat a little tight. "I hope he knows."
"Well, that's the point, isn't it? You stay even when it makes you crazy and that's how they know that you love them."
Adam nods. Pats Megabyte on the shoulder and leaves.
****
Megabyte's forced to throw the plate away by sunset the next day. It's no good, but he didn't want to put it in the fridge, and forget to tell Richie that it was there.
He calls into work, to let them know that he'll be working from home the next few days. Says he's come down with something and of course Sue and Richard both have to reply that it's going around even though Megabyte hasn't heard of anyone out with a stomach bug in, well, ever.
But it's not like sick is entirely a lie.
Megabyte fixes food that he can't bring himself to eat and leaves casserole on a plate covered in Saran wrap.
He alternately does work and takes occasional breaks for Red Bull or Zelda. He sleeps in front of the TV with an afghan - housewarming present from Ami - and a couch pillow under his head. He does that when he's too tired, on the second day, to keep play.
The caffeine keeps him shaking and he watches infomercials as the second day slides into the third.
Jade comes with Mac at noon.
The casserole sits on the table, also beyond eating. Jade frowns.
"Second plate," she says to Mac, frowning. Mac frowns with her.
"Megabyte?" he calls, peeking around the corner of the kitchen.
Megabyte shuts his laptop and stands up. Seeing MacLeod, somber and wearing a black coat with the collar up sends a whiplash of terror up his spine and it feels like someone ripping tape off of his bareskin.
"No news?" Mac asks.
Megabyte starts breathing again. Shakes his head. Jade frowns.
"We think we know where they may have fought," Jade says. "Joe managed to pull some strings."
Megabyte nods. "Let me get my coat."
He wears Richie's leather coat as Jade teleports him to a dilapidated, abandoned factory and the signs of skirmish are immediate. A spray of dried blood paints a wall and beneath cracked, burned out industrial sized lights they see a broken sword lying in the dirt.
Mac picks up the hilt and looks it over. He fits his hand perfectly into it, turns it over with a slow precise move of the wrist. His arm muscles are like cables.
Megabyte can see the predator in him that way.
"It's Richie's," he proclaims, solemn as a doctor coming with bad news.
Megabyte turns away and teleports.
****
Megabyte looks at what they have in the cabinets. They've got the stuff for tacos, and probably another casserole.
Tacos it is.
He browns meat as the third day slides away from him. Slides into the fourth day.
The tacos steam up the saran wrap as they lay on the table. Megabyte, thinks about eating them, but can't. Wishes he could. Because frankly, they smell good and it's his third of nothing but Red Bull and energy bars.
Only he can't. Can't bring himself to unwrap the plate, eat, and leave Richie to fend for himself when he gets back in. Richie's used to that by now. That there will be something on the table. Megabyte would expect the same, if he was getting in late from work and Richie got home first.
That's what they do. They make tacos and wait for each other.
So he waits.
Megabyte feels Adam coming long before he gets there.
Adam says, from the back door, "It's been four days, Megabyte."
"Doesn't mean anything."
"His sword was broken."
Megabyte turns his head from the implacable logic of it all. Adam takes a seat across the table from Megabyte. Pushes the plate of tacos away to make room for his arms.
"How long are you going to do this?" Adam asks, point blank.
"He'd do it for me!"
"Yes, but that's not the point. What would he *want*, Megabyte?"
Megabyte puts his head in his hands.
"Just give him until tomorrow," Megabyte pleads. "I'm telling you, Adam, he's coming back. I know him. He could take this guy."
"After tomorrow?"
Megabyte takes a large breath. He feels like he's trying to swallow the ocean in a gulp. "After then - I'll talk to Mac."
****
They sit with him, wait shoulder to shoulder for the fourth day to come.
They check the time in ever increasing increments. Unsaid, but clear nonetheless is that they're waiting for Richie to hurry and be dead already. Or for Megabyte to hurry up and accept that Richie was dead the minute he left the house.
Quietly, Jade telepaths, [Do we wait until midnight, or when the sun comes up?]
Ami wraps her arm around Megabyte's and replies, [As long as he needs.]
[That'll be the next ever, Ami,] Megabyte says. Jade and Ami both blush.
[Well, at least it's a comfortable couch,] Adam replies, tugging the afghan a little tighter around him.
[Richie picked it out,] Megabyte notes, not with grief, but with an odd estrangement from his own memories. [Said one of us would probably end up sleeping on it.]
Jade smiles sadly. [I didn't think you two fought that much.]
Megabyte can't help a momentary grin. [We didn't. But I think we both snored. He always said it was me, but one time, I swear to god, he woke himself up.]
Ami buries her face in Megabyte's shoulder, giggling. Even Adam breaks into laughter by the arm of the couch.
[That's Richie,] Jade says, when the laughter dies the death they all knew it had to.
"Yeah," Megabyte says, throwing them off a little with the switch from telepathy to speech. "It was. Guys, if you don't mind, I think - I think I need to do some stuff alone."
And that's how they know the fourth day has come.
****
Night descends and Megabyte is tired of paperwork. Tired of picking through the details of his life with Richie in receipts and check stubs and bank statements. He's tired of making phone calls.
In the end, he didn't have the heart to tell Mac.
So he told Methos. Figured after five thousand years, the old guy had to be more used to this death thing than the rest of them.
And it surprised the hell out of him to see Methos sit down on his couch like a rock hitting the bottom of a river. Methos leaned back and closed his eyes.
"MacLeod won't buy it," Methos says. "He'll keep looking."
Megabyte crossed his arms. "Maybe somebody should."
Methos stood up again. "No, you're doing the right thing. He wouldn't have wanted it otherwise."
Megabyte felt anger that he couldn't even begin to understand or contain. "You don't know *what* he would've wanted."
Methos seemed a little surprised to hear Megabyte lash out like that. He cocked his head. For a moment, Megabyte thought he could see the Horseman in him, staring down an enemy and thinking of the kill. But Methos's eyes softened.
"You're right, I don't. I'm not Mac. Joe. As far as friends go, I barely knew the kid. But I've loved quite a few people who's time ran out right in front of my eyes. And they all said the same thing. They all wanted me to move on. So I did."
"And yet you still managed to stay a pain in the ass."
"Well, I'm five thousand years old. What's your excuse, kid?"
Thinking about it hits Megabyte hard. He stands up and throws the mug he's drinking coffee out of at the wall.
"You didn't know him!" he screams, panting with rage not exertion. "You didn't!"
Suddenly the door swings open behind him. Megabyte keeps his back turned, and since he doesn't sense a Tomorrow Person, figure that it's Methos. Probably had someone teleport him to the house while Megabyte was out getting the papers from the lawyer and just waited. Then again, Methos had always had a slightly creepy love of the huge swing on the porch.
"I don't wanna hear it, old man. I just *don't*," Megabyte bites off his word. "You think you know what he would've wanted, well, you *don't*. You didn't know him like I did. You didn't love him like I did. Because you can't. And I really could care less what some five thousand year old, washed-out serial killer has to say about him. Oh, and don't think I don't know the hard-on you've got for Mac. At least *I* didn't fall for a straight guy. So just go annoy somebody else."
Something drops heavily by the door. "But all my stuff is here."
Megabyte turns around and sees Richie, tired, dirty, with the remnants of battle cut across his shirt, his coat. Megabyte pins him against the door and kisses him deep, hard, desperate. Kisses him even as the tears come rolling down his face.
"Where the *hell* were you?" Megabyte demands, as soon as he can bring himself to pull away.
"Somewhere better than you were, obviously," Richie says, looking at Megabyte's face. And then at the broken mug and the dent it made in the wall. He looks at the place where the wallpaper has ripped, smiles and says, "Eh. I didn't like that wallpaper much, either."
Megabyte grabs him again. "Fuck the wallpaper."
Richie laughs against Megabyte's mouth. "Okay, but not in the bedroom."
Megabyte wants to help himself but can't. He laughs.
"Feel like tacos?" he asks. Richie sits wearily down in a chair.
"I don't care, man. Tacos. Sushi. I could probably *eat* the wallpaper," Richie replies. "So get this, I go to face Skolmann, and he brought *friends*. They chased me into *Ohio*. You ever been to Ohio? Because there's nothing there except cows."
"Smells like it," Megabyte says. "Geez, what did you *do* with the cows. Wait, don't answer that."
"Wasn't planning on it," Richie laughs. He lets his smile go down. "Look, I'm sorry about not calling. I didn't want one of Skolmann's friends coming back here and causing trouble. You okay?"
Megabyte shakes his head. "I keep thinking, maybe one day I'll get old and senile and forget that I love you."
Richie grabs his arm and pulls him down in to the nearest chair. "It's not like I ever will."
Megabyte looks over at Richie and despairs. "It's never going to get any easier, is it? It's always going to be like this."
Richie nods, lets go of Megabyte. "Look, I'll understand if you can't stick around. It's hard. You deserve better. I mean, I never did understand why you put yourself through this. Not like you couldn't do better."
Megabyte looks pissed. "Because I have a fetish for guys who smell like cows and snore loud enough to wake the living and the dead, that's why. Doesn't matter. I knew my chances when I took them."
"And you took them anyway."
Megabyte laughs. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly the brightest bulb on the tree. Go take a shower - and don't leave your hair in the sink when you shave."
Richie kisses Megabyte quickly and drags himself towards the bathroom. Megabyte resigns himself to picking up the pieces of his coffee mug and wondering if there's anything left to make for dinner.
- END -
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