All righty, this is an DP/HL xover. And we all know Shana is a bad influence on me, so let's just skip the intro and go straight to the disclaimers ;-)

Don't own 'em, no moola being made. Permission granted for DPs to archive

Mud, Blood and Dates

By: Cousin Mary

"Look, all I'm saying MacLeod is that Rome wasn't built in a day, if you want to invest in-" Methos paused mid speech at the sound of swords clashing in the distance. He frowned, there weren't supposed to be any other immortals in Toronto, he'd checked with the Watchers before he'd let his friend drag him up here. One didn't live as long as he had by making foolish mistakes like visiting a city with an active Gathering going on. It was very late, and they'd decided to cut across the empty park on the way back to their hotel, nothing too dangerous about that, unless you took into account that empty parks in the middle of the night happened to be prime dueling areas for headhunting immortals. "Is that what it sounds like, you think?" He asked.

"I'm not sure," Duncan drew his sword from beneath his long duster, heading up the hill the sounds were coming from. "But let's find out."

"You know curiosity is not a good thing!" Methos called out as he pulled his own blade and followed his friend up the dark path, "After all, look what happened to the cat!"

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"Where the hell did you learn to fence Mary?" Shana yelled as her friend tried yet another hopelessly pointless maneuver. "Cartoons or the Princess Bride?"

"Neither!" Mary told her breathlessly, deflecting Shana's attempt to touch her heart, "I watched a lot of Zorro as a kid." She explained with a grin.

Shana laughed, clashing her foil against Mary's. The frustrating thing was, though she had a hell of a lot more skill and training, Shana wasn't winning. Either was Mary for that matter. Their techniques were so wildly different that any practice session between them always came out hopelessly confused and generally senseless.... which is probably why Mary and Shana enjoyed them so much. The other Dark Perks, however, didn't. (After all, how could you lay bets if there wasn't a clear winner!?) So after six hours, the rest of the Mansion had wanted quiet (they were busy planning this year's Policemen's Ball with Tracy) and had sent the mad duelers outside. And Shana and Mary had decided to practice in the park, well, because they were planning on playing on the swings afterwards.

"But admit it," Shana taunted, "It was a cartoon version of Zorro wasn't it?"

Mary laughed, "And if it was?"

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Methos and Duncan stood at the top of the hill, staring down at the two beautiful young women dueling not a hundred yards away. Both girls were tall and slender, one blonde, the other with long auburn brown curls. They couldn't hear what they were saying, but the way they fought was pure poetry to the two male immortals.

"MacLeod..." Methos leaned in and whispered, "We can't let either of them die."

"We can't interfere," Duncan shook his head, his eyes never leaving the pair, "You know we can't."

"Wait," Methos frowned, "Do you even feel anything?"

Duncan started, then realized what he meant. Concentrating, he used that part of his mind that recognize others of his kind, but other than Methos beside him, he felt nothing. "They aren't..."

"They aren't immortals!" Methos grinned, "Meaning we can interfere all we want."

Suddenly Mary slipped in a puddle and went crashing to the ground. Shana, cackling like a mad woman, kicked her friend lightly in the rear and raised her sword high. "There can be only- Ooomph!" Shana grunted as Methos tackled her.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Mary yelled, watching some man try to pin her friend to the ground. She knew Shana hadn't really been going to hurt her, hell, they had fencing foils with guards on the tips! You couldn't do much damage with one of those if you tried! So as far as Mary was concerned, some crazy pervert was attacking her friend! "Get off her you freak!"

By this time Duncan had reached them too, just in time to see Mary pull the guard off the tip of her blade and shove it into Methos' back. Blood spurted everywhere.

"You witch!" Duncan roared.

"What?" Shana answered, pushing the suddenly limp man off her person. When she was free, she saw a huge Scot about to skewer her friend with a very sharp looking broad sword. "Oh no you don't bucko!" She yelped, throwing Methos's sword square into Duncan's chest.

He too slumped to the ground.

Mary and Shana sat there, in the mud. Splattered in blood and more than a little confused as to what had just happened.

"Hey, aren't these guys immortals?" Mary said suddenly, rolling Duncan over onto his back to get a better look. "Looks like those guys Tracy showed us from the Watcher Database she hacked."

"Yeah, I guess they're immortals then." Shana nodded, "Good, 'cause now that I think about it, they might have thought we were really fighting and tried to stop us."

"Not too bright," Mary commented, peering down at Duncan's mud splattered face, "But nice to know we didn't kill them... permanently."

"Yeah, so I guess they'll wake up when they've healed." Shana nodded.

"Unless we behead them," Mary pointed out.

Suddenly there was a woosh of displaced air as Lacroix landed beside them. He looked from one girl to the other, then down at the two bodies stretched out beside them. Four swords lay scattered around in the grass and all assembled were splattered with mud and blood. "What-?" He frowned, took a closer look at Shana and Mary, then shook his head and took a step back, "Ah... Dark Perks." And in the next instant he was in the air again.

Shana and Mary exchanged an amused look. "Sooner or later he's going to want an explanation." Shana said.

"Yeah, and sooner or later we'll think of a believable one." Mary smirked, then turned her attention back on the semi-dead men. "So... what do we do about the sleeping beauties?"

Shana paused to think about it, "Well, they are kind of cute." She pointed out, "I mean, once they're alive again."

"And we -do- need dates to the Policemen's Ball," Mary added, rubbing a bit of mud off Duncan's face. "Once we clean them up..."

Shana grinned evilly, "When they wake up, they're ours!"

Mary grinned back, "What a way to get dates!"

Moments later Methos and Duncan began to stir.

"Wha- what happened?" Methos asked as he gazed up at Shana, his started beating double time. "Never mind, I don't care, let this moment just go on forever."

"You saved us I think," Mary told them as they groaned and sat up.

The immortals looked down at the tattered shreds that had once been their shirts, then at the two girls. "And we succeeded it looks like." Methos gave them a lopsided grin.

Shana laughed, "Yep."

"We -were- just practicing you know," Mary told them.

"And you waited for us to-" Duncan suddenly stopped mid sentence and looked at his friend in alarm, "How'd you know we-"

"Relax," Shana ordered, "We've seen a lot stranger things under the sun than you two."

"Well, not under the sun-oomph!" Mary rubbed her ribs where Shana 's elbow had connected. "Ow!"

"But you did scare the begeesus out of us," Shana told them with a grin, ignoring her friend's whining.

"Ah, sorry about that," Methos smiled sheepishly. "Any idea how can we make it up to you?"

"As a matter of fact..." Shana and Mary exchanged a grin.

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