+Another Christmas Story+

"It's tradition!"

"It's a choking hazard."

"It's Jimmy Stewart!"

"It's Frank Capra, and the hell with it." Methos kicked something nautical against the hatch housing. "In French."

"English, with subtitles." Mac looped a braided wire studded with lights around a strut, and hopped down to the deck. His breath puffed white against gray: gray barge, gray water, gray sky. Sullen Methos.

Methos tucked his bare hands under the armpits of his coat. "It's sentimental, populist pap, with a heavenly guide named Clarence. Every time there's a ding-a-ling, an angel appears."

"Gets his wings."

"Shows up. I've suffered through the bloody thing often enough, I ought to know."

"It's the story of a good man. It's my favorite movie, and it will do your cynical, wizened soul some good." Mac picked up the trailing end of the lights and plugged it into the extension cord. The bulbs strung along the top of the skylight lit happily. The strand in his hand, the coil on the deck, remained dark.

"I have a DVD of Goodfellas in my pack, and you have at least two steaks in the fridge. Pommes frites. Coffee, dessert, Aberlour. A fire." He shivered.

Mac frowned over the dim bulbs. "Love me, love my movie. Or go off and feed yourself, tonight."

"Love you. Now, there's an idea." He stepped delicately over a patch of ice on the deck, to Mac's side. "A fire. Whisky. Me. All hot, sweet, and moral-free."

Mac eyed him warily. "Joke all you like." A bulb snapped between his fingers. "We're going." He swallowed and jerked the wire. A lighted garland fell.

"Allow me." Methos stepped closer, crowding MacLeod, and picked the wire from his hand. "You twist, like this...." his arm bent across Mac's chest, his hip nudged against Mac's hip; "You plug in here," he looped the wire across Mac's shoulders; "And voila!" The lights, wound across Mac's body, blazed alive. "Now," Methos whispered, his cheek to Mac's flushed cheek, "about that goodly man...."

Mac fixed him with a liquid, stubborn eye. "We're going."

Methos sighed, and bowed his head, and gave a solid shove. There was a splashy splash. The coil of lights snaked overboard, rustling and popping and glowing white, as the line of bright bulbs sank. The cord slithered, then straightened, with a jerk.

"Ding-a-ling," said Methos. He cocked his head, then looked around. "Nah. Didn't think so."

-End-