| Date: 25 December 2007
Characters: Methos, The Tenth Doctor Location: a oub Link to IJ: thread #18855 |
 Methos settled onto a barstool, asking for a draft beer before scanning the pub, bored and slightly more relaxed now that he had a weapon on his person. Even if that weapon was only a kitchen knife, it was better than a pipe, and easier to conceal. Easier to pretend he didn't have, and let everyone who met him assume he was the affable, friendly, and young Doctor Adam Pierson whose persona he'd built over the last two decades. Easier to trust them to be mortal humans, believing what they saw, and generally non-violent.
A young man caught his eye, and he raised a mental eyebrow, already calculating how Adam Pierson would react if he came over. Friendly, yes, perhaps interested, if he showed any interest in the scholar. Methos certainly thought he was attractive, and if he knew him, he might actually make the first move, instead of sitting here... Methos muttered a long-dead expletive before picking up his beer, and heading towards the young man. He would have to try to get Alysse and MacLeod in the same room long enough to bounce their skulls off each other, when he found a way to get back. Between them, they didn't make his life any easier. He paused near the man, meeting his eyes. "Adam Pierson, and you are?" |
 The Doctor looked up at the voice, blinked a couple of times in utter confusion. "Me?" Then he went on and hoped it was indeed him the man was talking to. "I'm the Doctor." |
| "The Doctor?" Methos closed his eyes a moment, counting to ten in Greek. "Mind if I sit down?"
This was not what he had expected. Had he really landed in an episode he hadn't watched? The Doctor certainly didn't look like any of the ones in the episodes he'd watched back in the sixties and seventies. |
| He blinked again. "Suit yourself, help yourself, enjoy yourself - I could go on, but I certainly hope I don't need to." |
| "No." Methos set his beer on the table between them after taking a swallow. Decent, if not going to make his list of favorites. He looked over the Doctor a moment, keeping his gaze shuttered. "Most of your regenerations don't look as... pretty." He twitched one corner of his mouth up in a sardonic grin. "Though I think I'm regeneration or two behind, as this isn't a familiar face." |
| He blinked some more. "Do I know you?" He asked, because he really didn't th ink so. Not that he wasn't racking his brain and trying to remember. |
| "I hope not." Methos shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "I watched Doctor Who when it was originally airing. Nice show, though some of the history was off." History he'd lived through, and rolled his eyes when they got wrong. Not that he was about to let the Doctor know that.
"How old are you now? I lost track when they cancelled the show." Younger than Methos, that he was certain. "And which regeneration? Last one I watched was the seventh." |
| He blinked, several times. "Just how much have you been drinking?" he asked, appearing to be casual. |
| Methos snorted, lifting the glass. "This is the first beer I've had since I took the bane of my existance out for drinks a week ago."
A mistake he wasn't going to repeat. One surreal night, a few years worth of conversations with the bloody Highlander, and he was trusting people more than he found comfortable. Not enough to reveal important secrets, like being Immortal, and the oldest of his kind. That was still something he'd rather keep among a privilaged few. |
| "Did the bane of your existance happen to posion you?" he asked, still being cautious and sounding a bit amused.
Well, he had just been told he was a television show. There were only so many explanations for that. |
| Methos took a drink of his beer, watching the Doctor. "Did anyone tell you you're good at avoiding answering questions, Doctor?" |
| He took a drink from his glass of wine. "Several," he agreed, brightly. "Anyone tell you you're crazy?" |
| "Not recently." Methos shrugged. "Not that I listen to." He thought he recalled more than one occasion where Joe had told him he was crazy, but he didn't exactly count that. "You'd get that accusation too, in the situation." |
| "Oh, I get that accusation all the time, in all sorts of situations - and I don't even go around telling people they're characters on tele." |
| "I usually wake up where I fall asleep, and don't run into characters that have stepped out of the one piece of pop-culture I actually paid attention to." Methos refrained from adding "this century" to the end, but the sense of something unsaid hung in the air as he polished off his beer. |
| He looked sideways at Adam. "It's an odd place," he admitted. He was still trying to figure out what the hell to do with the whole television/pop culture thing, and realizing that having a suitable response was, probably, just not going to happen. |
| "Odd is finding yourself dragged into the Highlander's personal crusade of do-gooding when you're happy surviving. This," Methos gestured around them, "is like Alysse setting foot on dry land for more than twenty-four hours. Impossible if you don't actually experience it." |
| He blinked more, utterly lost and confused and bewildered. "Is this like the tree falling with no one to hear it doesn't really make a sound thing?" |
| Methos gave the Doctor an enigmatic smirk. "Only more so." |
| "Much more so," he agreed. "This is a bit like a cat tied on a razor in the shape of a mobius strip." |
| Methos blinked. "What are you talking about?" |
| "Physics, mostly," he said, simply, and finished his drink. "Mobius's strip, Schrodinger's cat, occam's razor." |
| "Schrödinger wasn't as much a genius as he thought he was," muttered Methos, flagging down what appeared to be the first staff he'd seen around here other than the barkeep, ordering another beer. "And his wife screamed when she found out what he was doing with the cat." |
| "Oh, well. No one's perfect and very few people are anything like as smart as they like to think they are. Or mysterious." |
| "Who thinks they're mysterious?" Methos raised an eyebrow, taking a drink from his fresh mug of beer. |
| He thought about it, and frowned a little. "Sooner or later just about everyone, don't they?" |
| "I think I know an exception to that." Methos rolled his eyes at the thought of MacLeod being anything other than hopelessly honest. He'd seen MacLeod being cryptic, but never an attempt at outright mysterious. "He's also got a damnable sense of honor that's going to get him killed." |
| "Oh," he grimaced. "Honor always gets people killed. If you're lucky it won't keep him killed for long." He was thinking of Jack. |
| "If I'm lucky, it only gets him shot, instead of him loosing his head to someone who didn't grow up in the age of chivalry," Methos groused. "Bloody Highlander forgets some of us don't give a damn about chivalry." |
| "Sounds like a real winner," he agreed, blandly. He had no idea what was going on, but he was almost completely afraid of trying to figure it out. Way too much information being thrown at him at once to be able to quite take in any of it. He was still stuck on 'television character'. |
| Methos smiled to himself. He hadn't had a chance to confuse someone quite this much since the Watchers had figured out who he was. And he doubted there would be some Immortal with a grudge against the Doctor showing up to make his life a little more interesting any time soon. Though...
"The Master wouldn't happen to be running around, would he?" he asked warily, making a mental note to try to avoid the Master if he was indeed wandering about. He didn't need to run into someone he suspected Kronos would get along with once they stopped arguing about who was in charge. If they didn't kill each other in the process. |
| He blinked, a bit startled by the question, but then he got over it again, because clearly this guy had watched at least some amount of his life on tele. Or thought he had.
"Oh, yes. He is running around somewhere. Not quite sure where. I left him in the TARDIS but he took off again. Just ask him about the drums. If he twitches or screams you'll know you've found him." |
| "I'd rather avoid running into him altogether. One encounter with an evil megalomaniac in a century is enough." Methos looked down at his beer. Particularly one who still thought Methos was his loyal brother-in-arms, and didn't trust him in the least. It was a peculiar and dangerous contradiction that had gotten Kronos killed in the end, but brought Methos all too close to that end himself. |
| "In that case run away from anyone wearing a suit and tie." He paused. "Myself excepted, of course."
|
| "Of course," Methos replied dryly. He took a swallow of beer. "Anyone else I should avoid, while we're on the topic?" |
| He pursed his lips, wrinkled his forehead and thought about it. "Not that I can think of!" |