"Come Back To Nothing Special." (Highlander) G
Title: Come Back To Nothing Special. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandoms: Highlander: The Series
Rating: G
A/N: The title is from Field Commander Cohen by Leonard Cohen.
Summary: After getting thrown out of the Watchers, Joe goes back to Chicago and meets Adam Pierson.
1.
At first, he's just a guy at the bar. Old enough that the bartender doesn't need to card him, young enough that she probably is carding him anyway. He's dressed a little better than most of Joe's usual clientele, but it's subtle. He's not giving off flashy rich boy signs, at least.
"I'm Adam," he says when Joe approaches. "I've bought the place next door."
The street's about a third empty storefronts and more occupancy usually means better business for Joe. Folks coming off a shift wanting to get a drink and all. "Yeah?"
"We're planning on opening in the spring," and he hands Joe a business card that says: Adam Pierson, owner, Beans & Company.
That's how it starts.
2.
And Joe's right, he does get a bump in business when the coffeeshop closes for the night. The patrons who were nursing a cappuccino all day come over to nurse a beer, and Adam and his friends drop by for a drink or two after work pretty regularly.
Joe gets invited to play some sets and he does, it's just being neighborly. He's not much for coffee himself these days, but Adam keeps a mug just for him and fills it with water at appropriate intervals. Joe appreciates that.
Adam's neighborly. Joe's not sure how long a coffeeshop will last around here, but he's already been surprised at how long the bar has. So Joe's got no complaints, other than the mild usual sort, until the night he goes out back around midnight and hears the unmistakable sounds of a swordfight.
Now, Joe had made it out of the Watchers by the skin of his teeth, and only Mac vowing an all-out war by Immortals on the Watchers had gotten Joe's sentence reduced from death to exile. Watchers come through Joe's bar every so often and Joe doesn't even blink. He certainly doesn't comp their tabs. He's not going to play-act some kind of gratitude for the Galati shitstorm.
So a swordfight isn't his problem, nothing he should even think to go investigate, but you know what they say. You can take a man out of the Watchers...
And that's how Joe finds himself hiding at the entrance to an alleyway as Adam wields a sword like an expert and then takes someone's head. And it's not like Joe isn't surprised. He is surprised. He's very surprised. He didn't realize hipsters had the upper body strength to sever a man's spine.
3.
Joe feels confident that Adam doesn't have a Watcher on him, that Joe would have spotted the signs of a Watcher on him. But you can't really hide a Quickening under a bushel. Watchers will be on the scene soon. And if not Watchers, then certainly the cops.
"Time's ticking, kid," Joe says, prodding Adam with his foot. Adam groans and pushes himself up onto one elbow.
"I can explain," Adam says, his eyes still bleary from the Quickening.
"Yeah, I'm sure you can," Joe says. "But if you don't want to tell it to the judge, it's time to get indoors."
Adam nods and pushes himself up clumsily to his feet. Joe offers him an arm to steady himself and Adam's grasping grip just so happens to hold onto Joe's wrist. Joe snorts.
"Seriously, kid, inside. You're not my problem, okay?"
"Okay," Adam agrees easily, and then Joe shoves him into the bathroom in the bar, telling him to get himself cleaned up before showing his face, and Adam has at no point put his back to Joe. Joe's kind of impressed.
The cops show up after Joe's gotten three beers into Adam and they've settled on their story. They saw some lights, thought it was fireworks, didn't see anybody out of the ordinary. They're just two small business owners having a chat after work, comparing clientele. An alibi's a great thing to have. So's an accomplice.
4.
"I'm not your Watcher," Joe says.
"But you are a Watcher," Adam says and starts missing more bar nights than he makes. Adam doesn't seem to think you can leave the Watchers. Joe would like to introduce him to the gun they almost killed him with.
But it's not his problem. Adam isn't his problem. The Watchers aren't his problem. Immortals aren't his problem. If Adam's taking more Quickenings, he's having the courtesy to do it somewhere else.
And there isn't a Watcher on Adam at all. Joe's good at spotting these things. He can tell.
But it happens, doesn't it? The Watchers don't know everything. They don't watch everyone. An Immortal like Adam, who cares that he flies under the radar? The Watchers care about history. Someone like Adam isn't going to make history. And the history he makes is the normal boring kind. The Watchers have a million other Immortals making the same kind of normal boring history. Adam isn't important to them.
And Adam isn't important to Joe. Except he was liking having the camaraderie again. And he'd like to have a friend he doesn't have to hide his past from. Everyone at the bar, they think Joe had wandered listlessly once he left Vietnam. They know he traveled. They know he was in Paris, Geneva, Seacouver. Adam's the only one Joe could tell about the rest of it.
Not that he would, because he swore an oath, and he isn't supposed to be going tattling the Watchers's dirty secrets to a random American Immortal no one's ever heard of. Especially not after Joe was nearly executed for tattling the Watchers's dirty secrets to a random Scottish Immortal that everyone has heard of.
But there's nothing to be done for it. Adam's not the first Immortal to decide to break with Joe. Adam and MacLeod could form a club. Mac had saved Joe's life, but when it had come to a choice between the Watchers and Mac's friend, Joe hadn't picked the way Mac had liked. Mac had saved his life anyway, but they were through after that. It was a lesson for Joe about rocks and hard places. And he doesn't have anywhere near the history with Adam that he did with Mac. Adam doesn't need a big reason to ignore Joe. He doesn't need people dying left and right. He just needs to start seeing Joe as the enemy and nothing that could ever be a friend.
Joe makes himself shrug it off. It's not like he's got room to talk about trusting the wrong people. Adam doesn't owe him anything just because Joe's lonely and futilely wishing he had someone to talk to.
And, hey, maybe Adam's the one Joe shouldn't trust. Joe grins at the thought. Yeah, there's an idea. Some kid is the dangerous one here, the one with the horrible past. That's a good one, tell me some more lies. Adam might be a sword-carrying Immortal, but Joe's the one who nearly got the Watchers into a war with Immortals, a war they couldn't win, a war everyone would lose. Joe's the one who's persona non grata with both sides now. Adam's just some kid who stumbled onto the secret of the Watchers and got warned away from them. Maybe Mac had spread the word after Horton and Shapiro. Maybe all the Immortals have been warned now.
Joe's not getting involved. Funny how it's taken him getting thrown out of the Watchers for him to learn how to do that.
5.
The first sign Joe gets that something's gone wrong is when Casey from the coffeeshop comes into the bar before it opens to ask if he's seen or heard from Adam. Adam's been missing for two days and they wanted to check with everyone before submitting a missing persons report. The coffeeshop people had noticed some guys hanging around the day before Adam disappeared, had anyone here seen them, too?
Joe hadn't seen them, but Joe doesn't spend too much time looking at who goes in and out of Beans & Company. He gives Casey his apologies and tells her that he hopes Adam is found safe and sound. Dan at the counter says he hadn't seen anything either, but they'd make sure to ask around as well.
Adam. Missing. Well, he's an Immortal. They do that.
And Joe hates the idea that he might never know. That he could know, but he won't. He has to try. And, hey, isn't this all about knowledge? History? If Adam's never been recorded, Joe could at least get his final death on record.
Joe checks to make sure no one is in earshot of the office.
And then he calls the Watchers.
6.
The Watchers don't want to talk to him. He finally gets ahold of Gary Klein who still owes him from '88. Joe gives Gary a full physical description of Adam, describes his sword-fighting techniques, does his best to keep all his guesses out of it.
"We've got IDs on all the Quickenings in Chicago reported this week, your friend isn't one of them," Gary finally tells him. "But there is something happening in France you might want to know about."
7.
Adam comes back from France.
Adam comes back-- and Joe knows now that four people had walked into that submarine base. One person walked out. One of the dead had been Melvin Koren, famous headhunting Immortal. The lone survivor was Adam Pierson, who no one other than Joe had ever heard of. There are three Watchers in Joe's bar. Another one has applied to the morning shift at the coffeeshop. Everyone wants to know who the fuck is Adam Pierson.
Joe wouldn't be shocked if Adam never came back. Adam knows about the Watchers. He's got to know what he's coming back into.
And for the first couple weeks, Adam acts like he has no idea anything out of the ordinary is going on. Joe hears from neighborhood gossip that Adam explained it all away that it was a family crisis, that his brothers needed him, but that it's all over now, and he's sorry he worried anyone, it was all just so sudden, he didn't have time to think or write a note or call anyone.
But Adam starts coming to the bar more often now. He doesn't say anything to Joe other than pleasantries. And he's very good at avoiding the Watchers and making it look natural.
It doesn't fit. If Adam's the type to get caught up in all of that, the kind to be a character in that sort of horror story, he's not the kind to have no resources. If he has resources, why is he still here? Is this some kind of convoluted fake-out, where Adam pretends he doesn't have resources, that he's just the naive young Immortal that Joe, that everyone, had taken him for? Someone like that would need the money. Someone like that wouldn't be ready to shift identities at a moment's notice. Someone like that would need time to plan his next move, to shift into it slowly. Someone like that can't just easily walk away. But someone like that wouldn't be someone who walked out of that submarine base, so who does Adam think he's fooling?
Adam can't be here just because he has nowhere else to go. Mass-murdering Immortals don't just kidnap hipsters for no reason. Adam must have been someone to them. A lost protege? Joe doesn't know. Joe can't know. The Watchers don't want to tell him anything, keep ruffling their feathers and quoting his stay of execution at him like that means anything in this context, when he's the one who knew Adam before this happened, when they're the ones who were behind the curve and got blindsided.
Joe takes refuge in the petty tyranny of refusing to stock their favorite beers and he keeps an eye out. Adam can, demonstrably, take care of himself. But Joe's become fond of the little hipster, even if he has turned out to be a little hipster murderer. At least he's only killing his own kind, and they all do that. Joe can't get caught up in the morality of guys who've been alive for centuries and will still be alive long after Joe's dust. He's too much of a Watcher for that. It's about history. It's about belief. Joe would never be anyone like Horton.
But he wasn't different enough from Horton as far as Mac was concerned. That's what had hurt the most at the end.
And maybe Mac was right. Maybe Joe wasn't a good enough human to hang around with Immortals. He'd made his mistakes, he'd paid his prices, and now he's here, caught in another damn Immortal's drama.
He should be careful. This one might kill him, too.
But Joe shrugs. Yeah, things can kill him. That's nothing new. Everything's always trying to kill him. That's why this is a blues bar.
8.
Adam starts taking planned vacations. Joe knows this because the coffeeshop folks come in en masse one night to celebrate Casey's promotion. Adam's handing things over to her and plans to sell out to her eventually.
"His brother dying really got to him, you know?" Francine says to one of the Watchers hovering far too close near them. She bats her eyelashes at him. Joe covers a laugh by pretending to study the till. He can recognize Adam's accomplices just fine. The Watcher's eating it up. Joe would let his area supervisor know, except, oh, right, Joe isn't a Watcher anymore. This isn't his problem. It's just his entertainment.
"Death can be rough on a family," Joe says to Francine. She's young, but so are they all, Adam's little minions. Adam doesn't have anyone around who is older than Adam looks like he is. Concerned that someone older might realize that Adam is older than he seems? Joe's never going to know.
He wonders what they think Adam's caught up in, if their minds are full of gangster movies, if they think he has to flee the country, if they think this is romantic. Joe had thought it was romantic once. His mind had been full of men and women who could live forever if they weren't constantly killing each other. It had seemed a good metaphor to him at the time, digging himself out of the muck inside his own mind and learning how to live with a different kind of body. As the man said, what's so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding. That even people who could live forever would still have humanity's foibles... it seems different now, but at the time, he'd been entranced by it. He'd wondered what kind of lessons they could learn from Immortals.
A lifetime later, Joe knows that the real lesson from Immortals is that they're the same as everybody else. But that's the tragedy of them. He hadn't watched Mac for so long without seeing the potential greatness or the heights, but he'd also seen the depths. In the end, Immortals were just like them.
But that doesn't mean Joe's some kind of expert now, more than he used to be. He'd understood Mac about as well as any Watcher ever could. That doesn't mean he understands Adam.
But he thinks it might give him insight into Adam's friends. They're protective of him. They've been fed some line about who the Watchers are, and who knows, they might not be far wrong. Horton had had his allies inside the Watchers after all. After what happened with Galati, Joe's not gonna fool himself that they're all gone. He knows better. Adam's friends are loyal and protective. They're going to cover whatever Adam's doing as best they can.
Joe can either let them or he can tell them to get the hell out of his bar.
He lets them stay.
9.
In the end, Adam throws a goodbye party. Joe didn't expect that. The Watchers squatting at his bar definitely didn't expect that.
"Joe, it's been a pleasure," Adam says warmly, lying through his teeth.
"Don't be a stranger," Joe returns.
Adam salutes him with a beer and then turns to Grant the bassist to repeat the same charade. Joe watches him work the room.
He'll probably never know the mystery of Adam. Even if the Watchers ever figure it out, they're not going to head right to Joe's Blues Bar to spill the beans. Joe's not ever going to see Adam again. He's never going to know how Adam could walk into a room with three dangerous Immortals and come out alive. Joe remembers reading about Melvin Koren in MacLeod's Chronicle. That's not someone who's an easy mark for anyone, let alone someone like Adam. So Adam's not Adam. That's the easy part. The hard part is peering around him to see what he actually is.
Joe had seen Adam fight once. It hadn't looked like anything special. And he hadn't seen any patterns of Adam going head-hunting. It doesn't fit the profile of the kind of Immortal that Koren and Caspari were. Adam's a mystery to Joe and to the Watchers. And Adam's probably laughing at all of them.
Well, let him. Joe can't stop him.
He does wish he had some answers, though. Just a couple. But Adam's playing this tight to his chest and Joe can't frankly blame him for any of it.
"On the house," Joe says, handing him one final bottle. "For the road."
And he thinks, Adam's blown off the whole thing by saying it was an issue with his brothers.
He thinks, Koren and Caspari's first deaths weren't on record.
And he wonders about ancient Immortals, about hiding in plain sight, about refuge in audacity. He wonders what's more likely, that there's an ancient Immortal that the Watchers never found, or if there's one they can't identify even when they're looking right at him, even when they're scrambling to put a name to a mystery. Even when they're listening to him talk about his brothers.
Adam's in front of him, his only chance to ever ask him, his last chance to get lied to by an Immortal.
And he doesn't ask.
10.
Joe keeps an eye out for Immortals coming in and out of the bar. The Watcher presence lightens once it becomes clear Adam's gone for good and isn't coming back. Eventually the remaining Watchers give up and leave.
There are things Joe's never gonna know. He's never gonna know Adam's history. He's never gonna know what happened in that submarine base. He's never gonna know why Adam came back.
But he's used to not knowing. He'd read MacLeod's chronicle backwards and forwards. He'd known MacLeod as much as any Watcher ever could. And now, unless Mac decides to reach out to him, Joe's never going to know anything more about him. Mac could have been killed in a fight two months ago and no one would ever tell Joe. Good Watchers don't get attached. Good Watchers also don't interfere.
Joe had interfered.
He'd shoved himself into history. He'd rationalized everything. He regrets much less of it than any of the sides think he does. In the end, he'd gotten caught up too far in it all, the lines blurring too much between his friend and his job. That's why you're not supposed to interfere. That's why you're supposed to play the good Watcher.
But you can't play the good Watcher when your brother-in-law is murdering Immortals. You can't play the good Watcher when you feel you're the only one who can avert a war. You can't play the good Watcher when the rules they give you will get you and everyone else killed. If the rules don't have the flexibility to bend, then they break.
Joe should have asked to be reassigned the first time Mac made contact with him. He hadn't. He should have. A good Watcher would have.
Shapiro had killed Galati, making himself little better than Horton was. But Joe's used to hypocrites. He's not sure there are any good Watchers left, not after the last decade.
Joe knows what he is, knows what he did. He buffs a glass with a towel and thinks, me and Sinatra, we did it our ways. And maybe the world would have been better off if they hadn't, but they'll never know.
Funny, how things don't change.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1092428.html.