Author's Notes:
Mischief asked me to write her something. Open a blank document, she said. Put Joe and Methos and Duncan together at the bar, she said. We both did some tweaking to it and now it is here for your enjoyment. You may also read this fic on my LJ or the Highlander Fanfiction Archive.
As always, I don't claim to own these guys. However, if I did, this would be an episode. And remember, it's all fun and games until someone looses a head.

It all started with a bang.

Well, actually, that wouldn't be quite accurate. From one point of view, it started when the bullet entered Duncan's body through his back, piercing lungs and heart before he dropped to the ground like a felled tree. Methos, a grim look of annoyance on his face, uttered half of what he was thinking, that MacLeod was truly a pain in the arse. What he didn't say was the question in his mind: If a MacLeod falls in the park, and no one is there to witness it, can he really be a drama queen when he revives?

And that led to the second point of view regarding when it started, which was that of Joe Dawson. If you asked him, it began long before the trigger was pulled, much less before the bang, and anyone who didn't know that didn't have the sense of a street corner hooker on a cold night. That little bit of homicide had been coming down the pike for a mighty long time in the opinion of one rather astute Watcher and, while he wasn't going to be sharing that information with anyone but himself anytime soon, he was sure about one thing: life was going to get interesting.

So it began. Or didn't begin. Or began long ago depending on your interpretation. Methos shot Duncan in the back. Took him down without batting an eyelash. Stepped around the body and waltzed off as if he'd done little more pat an errant child on the head for some kind of social faux pas at the dinner table.

Duncan did not forget.

It took over two years for the retaliation to commence. One evening, about three weeks after the incident with O'Rourke, Methos found himself floating in the Seine. This might, to some, imply that he was awake when he entered the water but this was, in point of fact, not the case. Actually, Methos was quite dead by means of poison. Duncan invited Joe and Methos over for dinner. They had wine, cheese, and fruit before a spring mix salad with balsamic vinegar was served. Another bottle of wine accompanied stuffed Cornish hens with roasted vegetables. Port was brought out after dinner to accompany poached pears. Nothing seemed amiss until Methos doubled over in pain, glaring at Mac with eyes green and sharp as broken glass.

"You fucking bastard," was all he got out before he died.

Duncan dumped him overboard as a shocked Joe looked on. He dusted his hands in an overly dramatic fashion after the body hit the water with a splash. "That's what you get for shooting me in the back, you cantankerous know-it-all."

Someone else might have thought that Duncan's little act of murder would have signaled an end to the tit-for-tat exchange. Joe was not fooled. He hastily said goodnight to his host and resolved to get as far away from the barge as possible. Mrs. Dawson's boy was not interested in becoming collateral damage in what was, he was certain, about to be come an escalating game of one-upsmanship between a couple of alpha males. Methos was not going to stand for being thrown dead into freezing cold water, particularly when he was wearing his favorite sweater at the time. When the old man revived and dragged himself out of the Seine, he was going to declare war. Duncan would have been far better off, in Joe's opinion, if he'd just pulled out a dirk and jammed it into Methos' chest over coffee. From what he'd been able to gather, that kind of brutal killing was equated in Methos' mind to a friendly, if over-enthusiastic, headbutt or slightly inappropriate version of a love tap -- an Immortal, "howdy-do," if you will.

Joe was, as usual, right.

Within a month the pair had killed one another five times in total. Duncan had been felled by a blow dart shot from Cupid's bow, a falling piano, and an anvil of all things. That last one had occurred while Methos sat in the bar drinking some of Joe's nicer scotch and when the call came in from the field man that Duncan had just been taken down like Wile E. Coyote, Joe turned and said, "Are you purposely using Looney Tunes sketches or do you think you're being cute?"

"Who do you think invented ACME?"

"You are so full of shit."

"Beep-beep."

And so it went on. And on. And on. They used knives and guns and controlled explosives. They used poisons and gasses and vehicles and exotic herbs. They stalked one another and laid traps. In spite of the fact that they began to get quite inventive in their methods of murder, they were scrupulously careful to ensure that the deaths were not public enough to be of note and that they would not cause a mortal harm. Both of them took to wearing Kevlar vests at one point and Methos got around that little annoyance by dropping back to the use of a crossbow with obsidian tipped bolts.

They never did anything that might sever the head from the neck.

It was amusing at first, then it became worrisome, and finally rounded the bend into the utterly juvenile and pointless. Joe hated to intervene in a way -- he hadn't seen Duncan having this much fun since Cory Raines came to town -- but the situation passed beyond ludicrous when he spent a cold snowy evening digging Duncan out of a shallow grave. Sooner or later something was bound to go wrong, Joe reasoned, and he wasn't in the mood to lose either of his friends.

So it was that Joe sat at a table at the blues club in the middle of the afternoon with two cranky immortals. "Guys, when is this gonna end?"

"Joseph, if you might kindly tell Mac that I did not start this little dance of death…"

"You didn't start this dance of death," Duncan shouted and leaned over the table. "I seem to recall a 9mm slug entering my body! Where did that come from, might I ask, the bullet fairy?"

"Hey, hey, hey!" Joe grabbed his cane and thrust it between the pair. "If I have to, I'll call in a priest and get this ground consecrated. As far as you two are concerned my bar is neutral territory. Got me?"

Both Immortals just glared at one another.

"That was not a rhetorical question. Do. You. Both. Understand?"

The grumbled affirmatives from both men were reluctant but given.

"See, here's the thing. I've got a business to run. I can't spend all my time running around Paris trying to keep tabs on the number of times you two assassinate one another, and digging up graves in the middle of the night is not my idea of a fun time. So this is going to stop -- right now -- because I am officially done."

"I don't seem to recall asking you for your assistance in this matter, Mister Dawson."

Joe took his cane and swatted Methos upside the head with it.

"Ow!"

"You know, when some one hundredth your age is the most mature man in the room, what does this say to you?"

Duncan snickered and Joe rounded on him.

"And as for you, I expected better." Duncan withered under Joe's gaze. "This idiot over here has been around for five thousand years, and while it doesn't excuse his behavior in any century, I have to cut him a little slack and figure that he's just kind of quirky in ways we are never going to understand. After all, he hung around with Caspian for a thousand years. That's gotta mess with someone. But you! If Connor saw this he would put a stop to it post haste. It's irresponsible what you two are doing, and you can't convince me that after over four hundred years on the planet you don't know that."

Joe lay his cane down on top of the table and reached into his jacket. He pulled out a Beretta and held it up. "So, this is the deal. The next time either of you clowns puts a cap in the other's ass, I'm next."

Both Immortals looked at Joe in shock.

"What, you don't think I can run with the big boys?" Joe stood up, his face grim. "I've killed a lot of people in my day, I'll have you know, and most of them weren't the sort to get back up. I'm a damn fine shot and I've got the citations to prove it, so I suggest you two make nice before I have to bring this little game of yours to a conclusion neither of you is going to enjoy."

Methos was the first to speak. "You're bluffing."

"Am I?"

Joe, without looking, pointed the gun at Duncan and fired. Duncan had just enough time to look completely betrayed before he fell over dead.

"Joe, when he wakes up he's going to be very upset."

"Yeah, well, he can join the club. I've been upset for months. How many times have you killed him now?"

Methos shrugged.

"Come off it, I know you two are keeping score. How. Many. Times?"

This time, the Immortal had the good sense to look a bit sheepish. "Twenty-seven. Give or take."

"Twenty-seven." Joe waived the gun. "And how many times has he killed you?"

"Twenty two."

"Methos, four different Watchers have reported fifteen different incidents where one of you has killed the other. The general opinion in the organization is that the pair of you have gone fruitloops and, frankly, I'm starting to agree. Now why don't you take your twenty-seven kills, call yourself the victor, and be magnanimous enough to surrender the field?"

"And you think that's going to stop him?"

"Yeah, I think that if you stop, he will."

Duncan reanimated with a sharp intake of air that landed somewhere between a gasp and a groan. Joe braced a hand against the table, shifted his weight, and pointed the gun at him just in case. "Well, welcome back to the party, Sunshine."

"What the hell was that for, Dawson?"

"To show you I mean business."

Duncan got off the floor and pointed at Methos. "And you couldn't have shot him?"

"No, actually, we had something to discuss. Besides, Mac, what's a little homicide between friends, right?"

The response was a snort.

"Now, do we have a moratorium on the mayhem and murder or am I going to have to kill both of you in a very public fashion and dump you on a deserted island?"

Methos put on his innocent face, raised one hand, and placed the other over his heart. "I promise to stop if he does."

Duncan frowned and put a hand over his own heart though it had more to do with rubbing a recovering wound than any kind of pledge. "I can't believe you shot me, Joe."

Joe lowered the gun, and put it on the table. "I'm sorry, Mac. I really am. But this has got to stop and you know I'm right. Now, are you on board or not?"

"Yeah."

"Thank God." Joe dropped back down into his chair with a sigh. "Now can someone here explain to me how it got this far?"

Methos shrugged. "It's just one of those things, Joe, like corpsing or eating Lay's potato crisps. You get started and then, after a while, you can't stop."

"Lay's potato crisps?" Joe gaped at Methos' analogy. "You're comparing killing someone to eating potato chips?"

"Well, it wasn't like he wouldn't recover."

Joe leaned forward and pounded his head against the tabletop. "Get out. Get out now, before I shoot both of you on principal."

So, what started with a bang -- or after a bang, or long before a bang depending on your point of view -- ended with the whisper of a closing door. There were no more gunshots, crossbow bolts, explosions, hit and runs, or random falling anvils. The pair went on as if nothing had happened and no one ever spoke of it again.

After all, Joe was right. What was a little homicide between friends?