crack_van | The Parting Glass by Kat Allison (PG)

Fandom: HIGHLANDER
Pairing: Gen
Length: ~ 16.100 words
Author on LJ:

katallison
Author Website: Kat Allison's Stories
Why this must be read:

This is a wonderful story about friendship: Joe, Duncan and Methos friendship. And about what will be the cost of friending mortals when you are immortal.
Joe have been finally retired from The Watchers, and all three of them are "celebrating". What Kat shows us here is how fundamentally different are Duncan and Methos, and its painful. But it's a worthy pain. Her Methos is not made of kittens and rainbows. She's mercifulness with him, but not unfair.

Here, see what I'm talking about:

"What, do you want to wrap him up in cotton batting and tell him nursery stories? Is that what you think he wants? D'you think that's how he got to be the man he is?" Methos took a quick angry swallow of his Calvados, clapped the glass back down on the table. "You call me disrespectful. Do you think being sorry for Joe shows him any respect? You think you're doing him a kindness by pitying him?"

"He's an old man, Methos. He's been cruelly treated. I just—I don't want him to suffer more grief."

"With that attitude, you may as well nail him into a mahogany box and trundle him off to the funeral parlor right now. Only the dead are safe from grief, or hadn't you noticed? You can't protect him from that. And even if you could," Methos added, "he doesn't need your protection; he's not a child and he's not helpless. He's a grown man. He needs friends, yes." Methos leaned forward and spoke with intensity. "But patronizing him is not an act of friendship. The Watchers, at least, did him the kindness of not patronizing him. When it was over, by their lights, they let it be over. They didn't string him along, condescend to him like he was some child who couldn't be told the truth."

"Kindness." MacLeod had stuck on that word and couldn't get past it. "That's kindness? To cut him off from his life's work?"

"Amputations aren't pretty. But they can be the kindest thing. I know it, you know it, and Joe Dawson by god knows it." He paused, and then went on more slowly. "Mac—you've seen death from gangrene. Many times. You're intimately acquainted with what happens to those who refuse to give up clinging to something that's already dead. There's only one kind thing to do in such cases—hold the patient down, and cut clean. Joe knows that at least as well as either of us. Don't do him the dishonor of treating him like he doesn't."

MacLeod gave him a hard stare. "You're planning on cutting him out of your life as well. Isn't that it? All your fine talk about the kindness of amputation, and all that crap—you're just looking for an excuse to cut and run. Aren't you?"

Methos made a face that Mac knew intimately, a small complex motion of eyebrows and mouth that conveyed annoyance at the inconvenient accuracy of the remark and an intent to focus instead on Mac's loutish lack of subtlety in speaking it.

"Fine." Forestalling whatever retort Methos was preparing, Mac threw up his hands, threw out words at random. "As if it matters to me. Do what you want. You want to take off, feel free. Don't let me stand in your way, or Joe either. You go right ahead and cut as clean as you want. But me, I'll be here. You say he needs friends, you're damn right he needs friends, and it's clear you're not signing up for the job. But I am. I'll be here. When he needs me, I'll be here. So you can just piss off, if that's what you want."

There is a companion piece to this, Last Set Before Closing, set some years later, about Joe and Duncan, that is as painful and beautiful at this one. So, go to read The Parting Glass, and let Kat know how amazing her writing is