"Dao of Methos" (1/1)
This started out as a 500 worder. The insanity took over, and now there's this. Mazal tov, enjoy. And, as always, concrit makes me a better writer. Typos make me frown and squirm. And apple pie makes me smile. A lot.
Dao of Methos
Author: _beetle_
Fandom: BtVS/Highlander
Pairing: Methos/Xander (Nick/Amanda, Nick/Xander, post-MacLeod/Amanda, OFC/OMC implied)
Rating: R
Word Count: Approx. 3400
Notes: Part of the Immortal!verse, set six months after The Correct Way To Fall. Spoilers for S1 of “Highlander: The Raven”, S2 of Highlander, and S7 of BtVS.
Summary: Written for the slashtheimage prompt# 001. A head is lost, a way is found.
Methos dashes into the front hallway of Amanda's townhouse and sees a full-length woolen duster much like his own--a first Christmas gift to Xander that'd been very well received--hanging on the old fashioned coat-rack.
All he can do for long moments is stare at it, until the scents of blood, gunpowder, and ozone rear their ugly heads from under the pungent aroma of burning pot roast and over-cooked starch.
Shaking off his shock, he draws the Ivanhoe and stalks quickly, stealthily down the hall--knowing he won't have the element of surprise in a house currently boasting an Immortal signature besides his own, but knowing he also daren't call for Amanda, or Detective Wolf.
Or Xander . . . who lately seems to wind up wherever the good detective is. . . .
Instinct and his nose lead him past dining room and salon, into the kitchen at the back of the house. As he passes the stove, he shuts it off. If Amanda's still in the Game, the last thing she'll want to see is her house burned down.
Then he's at the narrow cellar door, and the narrower, brief stair that leads down into silent semi-darkness. An oily sweat springs up all over him as he starts carefully downward, wondering on each mute step if it's Xander's blood he's smelling, or Xander's severed head he'll find. . . .
Halfway to bottom he can make out a body--slender, clothed in black, neck and right arm bent at odd, gruesome angles. Fine, fox-like features, and bright shock of platinum hair--
Amanda. Dead, but with her head still on her shoulders. And not about to lose it, if Methos has his say. MacLeod's lost quite enough without losing her. More than he already has, that is.
Speaking of, not too far beyond her, lays a squarely handsome man who bears a superficial resemblance to MacLeod. His body is seemingly whole, until one notices the sluggishly droozling bullet wounds in his chest--likely from his own gun.
Detective Nicholas Wolf, Amanda's latest student--as sarcastic, bitter, and resentful as Xander once was, and sometimes still is . . . but for much longer--and who, in the five years Methos has been acquainted with him, hasn't spared him, or MacLeod a friendly word or glance. Or even Amanda, really.
He does, however, have many words and glances, friendly and moreso, for Xander, who almost blooms in the face of Wolf's not-quite-brotherly overtures.
If Amanda's at all jealous, she's hiding it at least as well as Methos does.
Not that it matters. All of these extraneous asides do nothing but postpone the moment he notices the headless corpse in a darkened corner of the cellar, amidst tumbled boxes and paintings. Postpone the moment the pit drops out of Methos's stomach, the bottom out of the entire world, and everything just stops.
At the feet of the corpse is a bloody, familiar sword--a very recent gift from Methos, upon learning that Xander has--had a natural aptitude for Wu Shu Kwan. A gift that'd made Xander's eye widen with something like surprised pleasure, as it hadn't in far too long.
”I . . . I don't even know how to use it, or what kind of sword it is,” he'd murmured, unable to look away from it, his hand curved possessively around hilt and stroking the blade.
Six months without so much as kissing Xander--not to mention all the strained months before the Butterknife Incident--and imagining Xander holding, wielding, or posing with any number of broadswords had become something between a persistent wank fantasy and an unhealthy obsession for Methos.
The reality, however, is infinitely more potent. Even after watching Xander and MacLeod spar, it'd been strange and almost painfully arousing to see Xander so at home in the dojo, barefoot, shirtless, and competent. Graceful. It's like he's become more himself, and someone else at the same time, and Methos is helpless to admit that he's quite lost his heart to them both.
“It's a Chinese broadsword. A liuye dao: willow leaf sabre,” Methos had said, a nervous, churning feeling in his stomach. He'd felt like an anxious prom date proffering an expensive, but iffy corsage. The five other times he'd driven up to Seacouver to see Xander had been . . . extremely awkward. Verging on disastrous--and even MacLeod had taken to offering him stoic, well-intentioned advice on his love life.
“Liuye dao,” Xander had said wonderingly, and his accent was atrocious, but the look on his face--the look of a man finding something he's been missing all his life--more than made up for it. “Mac's been training me on a bokken, but he won't let me near an edged weapon yet. Says I'm as likely to take off my own head, as his.”
“Well. Far be it from me to agree with MacLeod, but. . . .”
“Bite me.” Xander had stepped back a few paces, into a ready stance, and waved the sword experimentally. Adopted a basic fighting form: bow. Block. Parry. Thrust. Slice. Block. Bow. The look on Xander's face during this display ranges from revelation to a startlingly fierce love.
“Cool,” he'd breathed, nearly glowing with happiness. He is beautiful. Despite the havoc the past year has wreaked, Xander's still so damned beautiful--the light that seems to shine from with him is changed, but untarnished, and brighter than ever.
That churning feeling in Methos's stomach floats upward, to settle somewhere near his heart, where it grows teeth.
“MacLeod was making noises about trying you on a claidheamh mòr, or one of the Oakeshott typologies. Now, I may not be your mentor, but even I knew this would be a much better fit.” It was strange to be able to talk swords with Xander. Strange and wonderful and somewhat melancholy. “It's solid, powerful, excellent for a close-quarters fight. Good for thrusting, and chopping. One of the best weapons to come out of the Song Dynasty.”
Xander grins briefly, before meeting Methos's gaze. “Thank you, she's . . . perfect. How old is she?”
She? Methos thinks, then smiles a little. “Older than MacLeod, but not as old as me.”
Xander rolled his eye, but that grin was peeking out again. Had turned into something frank and appraising. Wanting, Methos dared to hope, and his hope wasn't misplaced.
That night, they'd made love for the first time since just before the Butterknife Incident, and in spite of Xander's increasing chumminess with the good detective. The next morning, however, Methos woke up smiling, only to find Xander watching him as if he was an unwelcome stranger.
Both the day and their moods had only gone south, from there, and the visit was cut short by the expedient of Methos walking out in the middle of a Cold War-esque, non-argument during breakfast. . . .
At five thousand plus years old, Methos is far too old to crumple and weep when a lover dies. He supposes, with a detachment born of rage as clear and cold as a Midwinter day, that once he's avenged Xander that he'll mourn for a decade . . . likely two, in this case, but eventually move on.
As he always does. Even when it feels as if the still-beating heart's been ripped from him.
Such is the Dao of Methos. The Dao of the Sword.
But for now, the one responsible for the pain he refuses to feel is still here, kneeling next to Xander's body, her own soon to be removed head bowed, an ancient-looking tulwar falling out of one hand. The other hand is covering her mouth.
Tamas Wardeep: neither old, nor strong, nor cunning, yet she'd somehow got the drop on Amanda, who's all three. And Detective Wolf, who's . . . well, strong, anyway. Why she chose to begin and end her ambush with Xander's head is a mystery, one Methos really couldn't care less about.
Whatever her reasons or motivations, she'll die tonight.
Methos strides noiselessly across the cellar. Across concrete that's smudged with burns from confined and repeated lighting strikes--with Xander's Quickening. There are tears running down his face, and all he can hear is the terrible, reliable thud of a heart that's been beating for thousands of years too long.
An expanse of pale neck is bared as she holds her penitent's pose . . . she must know he's here, that she's about to lose her head, but she doesn't move to defend herself, doesn't acknowledge him at all. That makes it easier, not harder, to raise the Ivanhoe, and grit out, there can be only One! as he sweeps downward with the Ivanhoe.
“The stone stairs,” Tamas says in Xander's voice, and the Ivanhoe halts millimeters from the pale--far too pale, actually--neck, and Methos is suddenly noticing other things, too. That Tamas is rather too large, too-broad-shouldered, and that the headless body is nearly a foot too short and far too slight.
He throws the Ivanhoe from himself as if burned, starting from the clatter as it, and he fall to floor.
“Xander?” He's kneeling in a small puddle of still-warm blood that is not, after all, Xander's. He wants to ask a thousand questions, not the least of which is: how are you still alive? Somehow, she beat Wolf, and she beat Amanda--how did she not beat you?
But more than that, he wants to drag Xander out of the shadows . . . out of this cellar, and cover his face in kisses, to apologize for the last visit, even though he still doesn't know what he did wrong--and he suspects Xander doesn't know, either. But none of that matters, anymore.
“Xander, love, look at me,” Methos says, reaching out to lay his hand on one slumped shoulder, but hesitating at the last second. “What happened here? Are you alright?”
“He was waiting for me at the top, smiling, and I knew. I knew that I'd marry him. My beautiful Durjaya . . . nothing could stop us from being together . . . .” Xander trails of uncertainly . . . and in perfect, Bombay Gujarati. “We walked down our Temple stair as man and w-w-if-fe--” the last word ends in a hitching, uncertain stutter, and Methos, so relieved as to be utterly boneless, laughs uncomfortably.
“My love,” he starts, meaning to add that's not you, it's--it's her. These aren't your memories. But before he can, Xander's hand has closed on the tulwar, swinging it in a perfect, elegant arc that ends in a cold kiss at Methos's neck.
At last, Xander's face turns to him, fiercely glittering dark eye--eyes? For a moment, Methos could swear there are two dark eyes watching him with trembling malice--shining in a sea of shadows, along with a flash of white teeth. Methos instinctively holds his breath, wondering if it'll be his last.
“They threw rose petals as we came down the stair. And Laksmi smiled on our union. Until he. Ruined. Everything.” The dark, dark gaze flicks over Methos's shoulder, at Detective Wolf's prone body. “I will take her Quickening, just as my husband's was taken, and he will know the pain of eternity without the one person who makes it worth living.”
The tulwar presses in, and thin skin parts stingingly, a thin rill of blood escaping down into Methos's collar. Xander's gaze--no, Tamas's gaze still rests on Amanda with a manic sort of blood lust Methos knows all too well.
“Xander, listen to me,” he begins softly. He's seen new Immortals get lost in their first Quickening. He's seen not-so-new Immortals get lost in a particularly “dark” Quickening. Seen firsthand the miserable wreck that's left behind when a good man succumbs to an unfamiliar darkness.
And with Amanda's age and power reinforcing it, Xander might never be able to find his way out from under the weight of Tamas's Quickening. From under that yearning for blood lust and vengeance.
When Methos's hand settles on his shoulder, Xander flinches, and the sword wavers just a bit. “This isn't you, love, it's her. And all she is now is a few bitter memories and failed vengeance.”
Xander's eye at last focuses on him, though not with any real comprehension. The malice is leaching away and leaving starry-eyed confusion behind. “He has to pay for what he did . . . that's all she has left, now.”
“That's all she has because she let vengeance rule and ruin her.” Methos addresses himself to Tamas's Quickening, meets the dark light in Xander's eye until that light is gone. Till all he sees in Xander's gaze is a broken heart. “She lost someone that she loved, and that's tragic, but it doesn't mean she gets to have another go, or that you should let her. Her time is over, her path is not your path.”
Methos is quite aware of the irony of himself, of all Immortals, cautioning against vengeance. But he's knows Xander better than Xander does and, Tamas's Quickening aside, Xander doesn't have it in him to live a vengeance-fueled life. And Methos hopes he never does.
“We w-walked down the Temple stairs and they threw rose p-petals, Adam,” he whimpers softly--in English this time--his breath coming too fast, too shallowly. The sword slides down Methos's chest, parting coat, sweater and skin, deep enough to make him bleed. He feels the pain of it distantly as Xander lists forward, sweat-damp hair clinging to his neck and the sides of his face. His body is a series of tremors and tics. “We were supposed to have forever. It wasn't supposed to end.”
“It didn't end, Xander. Not for you. I'm here, and I love you.” Methos gently pries the tulwar from Xander's ice-cold, unresisting hand. Tosses it away, then takes the hand in his own and kisses it. Tugs Xander closer--holds him tight when panic-strong arms wrap around him, clammy hands clutching him as if to hold him here.
“I'm the real one, right?” His face is damp and too hot on Methos's neck, a stark contrast to his hands. He feels like a man in the grips of a fever that may be about to break, or may be about to kill him. “I think I'm the real one, but . . . she burns like the sun, and I'm evaporating. She's so loud and so angry. She's a million bees in my head and a knife in my heart and poison in my blood and it all burns, and I can't make her shut up--please, make her shut up--”
Methos shakes Xander once, good and hard, fingers digging into lean muscles that had--as Methos'd predicted--taken months of intensive work to rebuild. But Xander's sturdy frame is still too too sparsely covered.
“You're stronger than this, Xander. Stronger than her.” When Xander shakes his head no, and tries to cower in Methos's arms again, Methos gives him another shake. This time, Xander glares at him, and the darkness in his gaze is all his own. “You have to fight her, just like you did before. Nothing less than your sanity is at stake. If you give in to her, it really will be over. You'll be gone . . . to a place where neither MacLeod, nor I can reach you, or help you. Do you understand?”
“No!” Xander growls, and tries to pull away from him, but he's hardly in any shape to.
Methos drags them both to their feet and turns Xander to face Tamas's body, ignoring the flinch, and brief struggle to free himself, to get away. “Tamas is dead, and still she's fighting for her life. To usurp your life. You have to fight just as hard--harder, or she'll win!”
For a long time, Xander doesn't say anything, doesn't struggle, just stands there, letting Methos hold him. He smells of some herbal soap, of metal and blood. Methos suddenly, powerfully wants him. Right here, right now, with the body of their enemy cooling mere feet away and their allies surely only minutes away from resurrection. . . .
“Xander,” he breathes into the damp hair behind Xander's ear, his lips brushing the lobe. His embrace changes from restraining to amorous, and Xander suffers the change for a few moments before sighing and trying to put some space between them.
“I understand,” he says in a hoarse, tired, firm voice. "Let me go."
So Methos lets him go, though it's the hardest thing he can ever remember doing.
Xander shuffles toward Tamas's body, and stares down at it, before bending down to pick up his bloody sword. He straightens, hefting it thoughtfully.
“I'm the real one,” he tells Tamas's remains; a shaky assertion, but no less valid for that. He clutches the liuye dao with the air of a man making a promise. Points it at the body. “I'm the real one.”
By the time the others stir--Amanda with several sickening crunches of bone that make Xander shudder ever so slightly--he's cleaning his sword with Tamas's shirt . . . with hands that don't shake, but tremor, occasionally.
At first, they only notice Methos, and pepper him with questions he can't answer. Except for one. Detective Wolf's sudden, worried: “Where's Xander?”
Methos grudgingly nods toward a pile of boxes far from the body, from which Xander's watching them all warily.
He meets Amanda's surprised gaze with a stiff nod, then Detective Wolf's briefly, opaquely, before refocusing on his cleaning. Thorough as it is, Methos is certain the first two layers of steel have been polished off.
“Xander, you're okay--” Detective Wolf says, genuine relief in his voice as he starts toward Xander. Amanda's hand on his shoulder stops him before Methos would've. And in a much kinder way, too.
As if hearing that thought, Wolf's Atlantic-blue eyes tick to Methos. They've never been anything more than civil to each other. He finds Wolf to be rather immature, petty and erratic. And Wolf no doubt thinks Methos is a callous bastard.
“You took care of her?” he asks, with the air of a man about to humble himself mightily, and Methos smiles blandly, mentally tsking at the man's startling inattention to details.
“No. Xander was the one who had the dubious pleasure of cleaning up your mess . . . Detective.”
Wolf flushes angrily, then pales. This time, even Amanda's hand isn't enough to stop him from approaching Xander, his face a study in more emotions than Methos is interested in identifying. “Jesus Christ, Xander--you saved our lives--”
“For which we will someday surely repay you,” Amanda says graciously, glancing at Methos with a question in her eyes when Xander neatly side-steps Detective Wolf's open-armed concern. “Though I expect right now, you're ready to sleep for a day and a night.”
Xander, standing halfway between Wolf and Methos, looks at Amanda for a long moment, then smiles wanly, and takes the proffered excuse. Drops Tamas's shirt and bows, the way he would to MacLeod. “Yeah. I am kinda tired. And I really should get back to the dojo before Mac blows a gasket.” He glances at Wolf, whose slightly lost gaze ping-pongs back and forth between the body, Methos, and Xander. "Seeya, Nick."
Gloating satisfaction aside, Methos could empathize with the man, were he moved to. He's worn that lost expression himself for nearly a year. But instead, he moves closer to Xander, and slides an arm around his waist.
Xander tenses, but only a little. Allows Methos to say good evening for them both, and escort him out of the cellar. Wolf and Amanda can dispose of the body, and consider it a small part of their debt repaid.
When both Ivanhoe and liuye dao are hidden safely in their coats, they step out into the cool spring night. Xander spots MacLeod's boat of a car and starts toward it--gasping when Methos catches him around the waist and pulls him close, kissing the sweet spot just above Xander's carotid artery. He's made Xander come by kissing, licking, nibbling and nuzzling that spot alone, and wants more than anything another chance to do so.
When he applies his teeth a little more forcefully than usual, Xander makes a breathless, needy sound low in his throat, and shivers. “Marking your territory?”
“Only if the territory's still mine to mark,” Methos replies softly, laving the bite mark and kissing it. Xander snorts.
“Could be,” he admits, glancing over his shoulder with another one of those infuriatingly opaque looks before continuing towards MacLeod's car. “You should probably ask me over breakfast.”
Their last breakfast aside, Methos doesn't stop smiling all the way to the dojo.
*
Dao of Methos
Author: _beetle_
Fandom: BtVS/Highlander
Pairing: Methos/Xander (Nick/Amanda, Nick/Xander, post-MacLeod/Amanda, OFC/OMC implied)
Rating: R
Word Count: Approx. 3400
Notes: Part of the Immortal!verse, set six months after The Correct Way To Fall. Spoilers for S1 of “Highlander: The Raven”, S2 of Highlander, and S7 of BtVS.
Summary: Written for the slashtheimage prompt# 001. A head is lost, a way is found.
Methos dashes into the front hallway of Amanda's townhouse and sees a full-length woolen duster much like his own--a first Christmas gift to Xander that'd been very well received--hanging on the old fashioned coat-rack.
All he can do for long moments is stare at it, until the scents of blood, gunpowder, and ozone rear their ugly heads from under the pungent aroma of burning pot roast and over-cooked starch.
Shaking off his shock, he draws the Ivanhoe and stalks quickly, stealthily down the hall--knowing he won't have the element of surprise in a house currently boasting an Immortal signature besides his own, but knowing he also daren't call for Amanda, or Detective Wolf.
Or Xander . . . who lately seems to wind up wherever the good detective is. . . .
Instinct and his nose lead him past dining room and salon, into the kitchen at the back of the house. As he passes the stove, he shuts it off. If Amanda's still in the Game, the last thing she'll want to see is her house burned down.
Then he's at the narrow cellar door, and the narrower, brief stair that leads down into silent semi-darkness. An oily sweat springs up all over him as he starts carefully downward, wondering on each mute step if it's Xander's blood he's smelling, or Xander's severed head he'll find. . . .
Halfway to bottom he can make out a body--slender, clothed in black, neck and right arm bent at odd, gruesome angles. Fine, fox-like features, and bright shock of platinum hair--
Amanda. Dead, but with her head still on her shoulders. And not about to lose it, if Methos has his say. MacLeod's lost quite enough without losing her. More than he already has, that is.
Speaking of, not too far beyond her, lays a squarely handsome man who bears a superficial resemblance to MacLeod. His body is seemingly whole, until one notices the sluggishly droozling bullet wounds in his chest--likely from his own gun.
Detective Nicholas Wolf, Amanda's latest student--as sarcastic, bitter, and resentful as Xander once was, and sometimes still is . . . but for much longer--and who, in the five years Methos has been acquainted with him, hasn't spared him, or MacLeod a friendly word or glance. Or even Amanda, really.
He does, however, have many words and glances, friendly and moreso, for Xander, who almost blooms in the face of Wolf's not-quite-brotherly overtures.
If Amanda's at all jealous, she's hiding it at least as well as Methos does.
Not that it matters. All of these extraneous asides do nothing but postpone the moment he notices the headless corpse in a darkened corner of the cellar, amidst tumbled boxes and paintings. Postpone the moment the pit drops out of Methos's stomach, the bottom out of the entire world, and everything just stops.
At the feet of the corpse is a bloody, familiar sword--a very recent gift from Methos, upon learning that Xander has--had a natural aptitude for Wu Shu Kwan. A gift that'd made Xander's eye widen with something like surprised pleasure, as it hadn't in far too long.
”I . . . I don't even know how to use it, or what kind of sword it is,” he'd murmured, unable to look away from it, his hand curved possessively around hilt and stroking the blade.
Six months without so much as kissing Xander--not to mention all the strained months before the Butterknife Incident--and imagining Xander holding, wielding, or posing with any number of broadswords had become something between a persistent wank fantasy and an unhealthy obsession for Methos.
The reality, however, is infinitely more potent. Even after watching Xander and MacLeod spar, it'd been strange and almost painfully arousing to see Xander so at home in the dojo, barefoot, shirtless, and competent. Graceful. It's like he's become more himself, and someone else at the same time, and Methos is helpless to admit that he's quite lost his heart to them both.
“It's a Chinese broadsword. A liuye dao: willow leaf sabre,” Methos had said, a nervous, churning feeling in his stomach. He'd felt like an anxious prom date proffering an expensive, but iffy corsage. The five other times he'd driven up to Seacouver to see Xander had been . . . extremely awkward. Verging on disastrous--and even MacLeod had taken to offering him stoic, well-intentioned advice on his love life.
“Liuye dao,” Xander had said wonderingly, and his accent was atrocious, but the look on his face--the look of a man finding something he's been missing all his life--more than made up for it. “Mac's been training me on a bokken, but he won't let me near an edged weapon yet. Says I'm as likely to take off my own head, as his.”
“Well. Far be it from me to agree with MacLeod, but. . . .”
“Bite me.” Xander had stepped back a few paces, into a ready stance, and waved the sword experimentally. Adopted a basic fighting form: bow. Block. Parry. Thrust. Slice. Block. Bow. The look on Xander's face during this display ranges from revelation to a startlingly fierce love.
“Cool,” he'd breathed, nearly glowing with happiness. He is beautiful. Despite the havoc the past year has wreaked, Xander's still so damned beautiful--the light that seems to shine from with him is changed, but untarnished, and brighter than ever.
That churning feeling in Methos's stomach floats upward, to settle somewhere near his heart, where it grows teeth.
“MacLeod was making noises about trying you on a claidheamh mòr, or one of the Oakeshott typologies. Now, I may not be your mentor, but even I knew this would be a much better fit.” It was strange to be able to talk swords with Xander. Strange and wonderful and somewhat melancholy. “It's solid, powerful, excellent for a close-quarters fight. Good for thrusting, and chopping. One of the best weapons to come out of the Song Dynasty.”
Xander grins briefly, before meeting Methos's gaze. “Thank you, she's . . . perfect. How old is she?”
She? Methos thinks, then smiles a little. “Older than MacLeod, but not as old as me.”
Xander rolled his eye, but that grin was peeking out again. Had turned into something frank and appraising. Wanting, Methos dared to hope, and his hope wasn't misplaced.
That night, they'd made love for the first time since just before the Butterknife Incident, and in spite of Xander's increasing chumminess with the good detective. The next morning, however, Methos woke up smiling, only to find Xander watching him as if he was an unwelcome stranger.
Both the day and their moods had only gone south, from there, and the visit was cut short by the expedient of Methos walking out in the middle of a Cold War-esque, non-argument during breakfast. . . .
At five thousand plus years old, Methos is far too old to crumple and weep when a lover dies. He supposes, with a detachment born of rage as clear and cold as a Midwinter day, that once he's avenged Xander that he'll mourn for a decade . . . likely two, in this case, but eventually move on.
As he always does. Even when it feels as if the still-beating heart's been ripped from him.
Such is the Dao of Methos. The Dao of the Sword.
But for now, the one responsible for the pain he refuses to feel is still here, kneeling next to Xander's body, her own soon to be removed head bowed, an ancient-looking tulwar falling out of one hand. The other hand is covering her mouth.
Tamas Wardeep: neither old, nor strong, nor cunning, yet she'd somehow got the drop on Amanda, who's all three. And Detective Wolf, who's . . . well, strong, anyway. Why she chose to begin and end her ambush with Xander's head is a mystery, one Methos really couldn't care less about.
Whatever her reasons or motivations, she'll die tonight.
Methos strides noiselessly across the cellar. Across concrete that's smudged with burns from confined and repeated lighting strikes--with Xander's Quickening. There are tears running down his face, and all he can hear is the terrible, reliable thud of a heart that's been beating for thousands of years too long.
An expanse of pale neck is bared as she holds her penitent's pose . . . she must know he's here, that she's about to lose her head, but she doesn't move to defend herself, doesn't acknowledge him at all. That makes it easier, not harder, to raise the Ivanhoe, and grit out, there can be only One! as he sweeps downward with the Ivanhoe.
“The stone stairs,” Tamas says in Xander's voice, and the Ivanhoe halts millimeters from the pale--far too pale, actually--neck, and Methos is suddenly noticing other things, too. That Tamas is rather too large, too-broad-shouldered, and that the headless body is nearly a foot too short and far too slight.
He throws the Ivanhoe from himself as if burned, starting from the clatter as it, and he fall to floor.
“Xander?” He's kneeling in a small puddle of still-warm blood that is not, after all, Xander's. He wants to ask a thousand questions, not the least of which is: how are you still alive? Somehow, she beat Wolf, and she beat Amanda--how did she not beat you?
But more than that, he wants to drag Xander out of the shadows . . . out of this cellar, and cover his face in kisses, to apologize for the last visit, even though he still doesn't know what he did wrong--and he suspects Xander doesn't know, either. But none of that matters, anymore.
“Xander, love, look at me,” Methos says, reaching out to lay his hand on one slumped shoulder, but hesitating at the last second. “What happened here? Are you alright?”
“He was waiting for me at the top, smiling, and I knew. I knew that I'd marry him. My beautiful Durjaya . . . nothing could stop us from being together . . . .” Xander trails of uncertainly . . . and in perfect, Bombay Gujarati. “We walked down our Temple stair as man and w-w-if-fe--” the last word ends in a hitching, uncertain stutter, and Methos, so relieved as to be utterly boneless, laughs uncomfortably.
“My love,” he starts, meaning to add that's not you, it's--it's her. These aren't your memories. But before he can, Xander's hand has closed on the tulwar, swinging it in a perfect, elegant arc that ends in a cold kiss at Methos's neck.
At last, Xander's face turns to him, fiercely glittering dark eye--eyes? For a moment, Methos could swear there are two dark eyes watching him with trembling malice--shining in a sea of shadows, along with a flash of white teeth. Methos instinctively holds his breath, wondering if it'll be his last.
“They threw rose petals as we came down the stair. And Laksmi smiled on our union. Until he. Ruined. Everything.” The dark, dark gaze flicks over Methos's shoulder, at Detective Wolf's prone body. “I will take her Quickening, just as my husband's was taken, and he will know the pain of eternity without the one person who makes it worth living.”
The tulwar presses in, and thin skin parts stingingly, a thin rill of blood escaping down into Methos's collar. Xander's gaze--no, Tamas's gaze still rests on Amanda with a manic sort of blood lust Methos knows all too well.
“Xander, listen to me,” he begins softly. He's seen new Immortals get lost in their first Quickening. He's seen not-so-new Immortals get lost in a particularly “dark” Quickening. Seen firsthand the miserable wreck that's left behind when a good man succumbs to an unfamiliar darkness.
And with Amanda's age and power reinforcing it, Xander might never be able to find his way out from under the weight of Tamas's Quickening. From under that yearning for blood lust and vengeance.
When Methos's hand settles on his shoulder, Xander flinches, and the sword wavers just a bit. “This isn't you, love, it's her. And all she is now is a few bitter memories and failed vengeance.”
Xander's eye at last focuses on him, though not with any real comprehension. The malice is leaching away and leaving starry-eyed confusion behind. “He has to pay for what he did . . . that's all she has left, now.”
“That's all she has because she let vengeance rule and ruin her.” Methos addresses himself to Tamas's Quickening, meets the dark light in Xander's eye until that light is gone. Till all he sees in Xander's gaze is a broken heart. “She lost someone that she loved, and that's tragic, but it doesn't mean she gets to have another go, or that you should let her. Her time is over, her path is not your path.”
Methos is quite aware of the irony of himself, of all Immortals, cautioning against vengeance. But he's knows Xander better than Xander does and, Tamas's Quickening aside, Xander doesn't have it in him to live a vengeance-fueled life. And Methos hopes he never does.
“We w-walked down the Temple stairs and they threw rose p-petals, Adam,” he whimpers softly--in English this time--his breath coming too fast, too shallowly. The sword slides down Methos's chest, parting coat, sweater and skin, deep enough to make him bleed. He feels the pain of it distantly as Xander lists forward, sweat-damp hair clinging to his neck and the sides of his face. His body is a series of tremors and tics. “We were supposed to have forever. It wasn't supposed to end.”
“It didn't end, Xander. Not for you. I'm here, and I love you.” Methos gently pries the tulwar from Xander's ice-cold, unresisting hand. Tosses it away, then takes the hand in his own and kisses it. Tugs Xander closer--holds him tight when panic-strong arms wrap around him, clammy hands clutching him as if to hold him here.
“I'm the real one, right?” His face is damp and too hot on Methos's neck, a stark contrast to his hands. He feels like a man in the grips of a fever that may be about to break, or may be about to kill him. “I think I'm the real one, but . . . she burns like the sun, and I'm evaporating. She's so loud and so angry. She's a million bees in my head and a knife in my heart and poison in my blood and it all burns, and I can't make her shut up--please, make her shut up--”
Methos shakes Xander once, good and hard, fingers digging into lean muscles that had--as Methos'd predicted--taken months of intensive work to rebuild. But Xander's sturdy frame is still too too sparsely covered.
“You're stronger than this, Xander. Stronger than her.” When Xander shakes his head no, and tries to cower in Methos's arms again, Methos gives him another shake. This time, Xander glares at him, and the darkness in his gaze is all his own. “You have to fight her, just like you did before. Nothing less than your sanity is at stake. If you give in to her, it really will be over. You'll be gone . . . to a place where neither MacLeod, nor I can reach you, or help you. Do you understand?”
“No!” Xander growls, and tries to pull away from him, but he's hardly in any shape to.
Methos drags them both to their feet and turns Xander to face Tamas's body, ignoring the flinch, and brief struggle to free himself, to get away. “Tamas is dead, and still she's fighting for her life. To usurp your life. You have to fight just as hard--harder, or she'll win!”
For a long time, Xander doesn't say anything, doesn't struggle, just stands there, letting Methos hold him. He smells of some herbal soap, of metal and blood. Methos suddenly, powerfully wants him. Right here, right now, with the body of their enemy cooling mere feet away and their allies surely only minutes away from resurrection. . . .
“Xander,” he breathes into the damp hair behind Xander's ear, his lips brushing the lobe. His embrace changes from restraining to amorous, and Xander suffers the change for a few moments before sighing and trying to put some space between them.
“I understand,” he says in a hoarse, tired, firm voice. "Let me go."
So Methos lets him go, though it's the hardest thing he can ever remember doing.
Xander shuffles toward Tamas's body, and stares down at it, before bending down to pick up his bloody sword. He straightens, hefting it thoughtfully.
“I'm the real one,” he tells Tamas's remains; a shaky assertion, but no less valid for that. He clutches the liuye dao with the air of a man making a promise. Points it at the body. “I'm the real one.”
By the time the others stir--Amanda with several sickening crunches of bone that make Xander shudder ever so slightly--he's cleaning his sword with Tamas's shirt . . . with hands that don't shake, but tremor, occasionally.
At first, they only notice Methos, and pepper him with questions he can't answer. Except for one. Detective Wolf's sudden, worried: “Where's Xander?”
Methos grudgingly nods toward a pile of boxes far from the body, from which Xander's watching them all warily.
He meets Amanda's surprised gaze with a stiff nod, then Detective Wolf's briefly, opaquely, before refocusing on his cleaning. Thorough as it is, Methos is certain the first two layers of steel have been polished off.
“Xander, you're okay--” Detective Wolf says, genuine relief in his voice as he starts toward Xander. Amanda's hand on his shoulder stops him before Methos would've. And in a much kinder way, too.
As if hearing that thought, Wolf's Atlantic-blue eyes tick to Methos. They've never been anything more than civil to each other. He finds Wolf to be rather immature, petty and erratic. And Wolf no doubt thinks Methos is a callous bastard.
“You took care of her?” he asks, with the air of a man about to humble himself mightily, and Methos smiles blandly, mentally tsking at the man's startling inattention to details.
“No. Xander was the one who had the dubious pleasure of cleaning up your mess . . . Detective.”
Wolf flushes angrily, then pales. This time, even Amanda's hand isn't enough to stop him from approaching Xander, his face a study in more emotions than Methos is interested in identifying. “Jesus Christ, Xander--you saved our lives--”
“For which we will someday surely repay you,” Amanda says graciously, glancing at Methos with a question in her eyes when Xander neatly side-steps Detective Wolf's open-armed concern. “Though I expect right now, you're ready to sleep for a day and a night.”
Xander, standing halfway between Wolf and Methos, looks at Amanda for a long moment, then smiles wanly, and takes the proffered excuse. Drops Tamas's shirt and bows, the way he would to MacLeod. “Yeah. I am kinda tired. And I really should get back to the dojo before Mac blows a gasket.” He glances at Wolf, whose slightly lost gaze ping-pongs back and forth between the body, Methos, and Xander. "Seeya, Nick."
Gloating satisfaction aside, Methos could empathize with the man, were he moved to. He's worn that lost expression himself for nearly a year. But instead, he moves closer to Xander, and slides an arm around his waist.
Xander tenses, but only a little. Allows Methos to say good evening for them both, and escort him out of the cellar. Wolf and Amanda can dispose of the body, and consider it a small part of their debt repaid.
When both Ivanhoe and liuye dao are hidden safely in their coats, they step out into the cool spring night. Xander spots MacLeod's boat of a car and starts toward it--gasping when Methos catches him around the waist and pulls him close, kissing the sweet spot just above Xander's carotid artery. He's made Xander come by kissing, licking, nibbling and nuzzling that spot alone, and wants more than anything another chance to do so.
When he applies his teeth a little more forcefully than usual, Xander makes a breathless, needy sound low in his throat, and shivers. “Marking your territory?”
“Only if the territory's still mine to mark,” Methos replies softly, laving the bite mark and kissing it. Xander snorts.
“Could be,” he admits, glancing over his shoulder with another one of those infuriatingly opaque looks before continuing towards MacLeod's car. “You should probably ask me over breakfast.”
Their last breakfast aside, Methos doesn't stop smiling all the way to the dojo.
*