Fic: Truth, Lies and Immortality (Leverage/Highlander) Teen
Title: Truth, Lies and Immortality
Series: Chasing Death
Fandoms: Leverage/Highlander
Pairing: EliotSpencer/Methos
Summary: It’s inevitable that one of the Leverage team’s bad guys is Immortal.
Spoilers: Post The Maltese Falcon Job, pre The Jailhouse Job.
Methos was settled against a tree with one of the books he’d been meaning to read for a while now, on recent scientific discoveries and their possible impact on the way people lived. Eliot was a few feet away, reclined on a chair, fishing pole held loosely in one hand. The contented smile he couldn’t help faded when he felt the thrum of an Immortal presence. He stilled, waiting to see if it would disappear, but it lingered at the edge of his awareness.
So much for the quiet weekend Methos had hoped for. Eliot had been working himself hard since Nathan Ford’s incarceration and since he liked the outdoors and fishing so much, Methos was inclined to indulge him. Although, he could have done without the rustic cabin by the lake. At least there was running water.
Eliot looked over to him and tilted his head in question. Methos raised his hand and signalled for Eliot to wait. Eliot set his fishing rod down and stood slowly. Methos indicated an enemy then shrugged. Immortal etiquette dictated friendly Immortals vacated the area when they sensed another Immortal or introduced themselves. Eliot raised an eyebrow at the use of military hand signals but nodded and shifted his stance in preparation for a fight.
It was obvious that Eliot questioned Methos’s knowledge of military hand signals, but knew it would have to wait until after the situation was resolved. Methos had the feeling that it was the least of what he would have to explain by the end of this.
Methos slid a hand inside his jacket to rest on his sword and he moved to the edge of the clearing, back against a tree. The Immortal would be able to sense him, but that didn’t exactly preclude the element of surprise. Eliot mirrored his movements.
“I know you’re there,” an accented voice called out. Methos picked out elements of an Italian accent, under laid with traces from a variety of European countries. He remained silent. A man walked into the clearing, sword already drawn. He was followed by three mortals. Methos smoothly unsheathed his sword and held it in front of him.
“You’re breaking the rules.”
“I’m not here for you. I’m only interested in your pet.”
“Come and get me, Kadjic,” Eliot snarled. Methos stepped forward.
“He’s my student. His protection is my responsibility.”
Eliot raised an eyebrow, but didn’t relax his guard. This wasn’t exactly how Methos wanted to introduce Eliot to Immortality, but that couldn’t be changed now.
“He’s not one of us yet.”
“He’s still mine.”
“I have no quarrel with you,” Kadjic insisted. Methos sighed. Since MacLeod’s disappearance from Immortal circles over 10 years ago, Methos hadn’t fought a single duel. He’d appreciated the quiet, but it didn’t look like it was going to last very long. Eliot was definitely going to make as many enemies as MacLeod had, although hopefully he’d be more pragmatic about how he dealt with them.
“His quarrels are my quarrels.”
“Then your challenge is met.”
“What are you doing, Adam?” Eliot growled.
Methos risked a glance at Eliot through which he hoped to convey the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t know why Kadjic wanted Eliot, or why Eliot was so eager to fight him - clearly there was bad blood there - but at least Eliot understood that there was more going on here.
“No matter what happens, Eliot, you can’t interfere.”
“I’m not making that promise,” Eliot told him, jabbing a finger in Methos’s direction.
“Your ‘student’ has not been taught our ways,” Kadjic said.
“It’s a process.” Methos caught Eliot’s eye once more. “I’ll explain everything later, but for now you cannot interfere.”
Eliot stared at him for a long moment before he nodded. As a soldier and a hitter, Eliot knew that sometimes you had to put away emotion to deal with later because the distraction could kill you.
Methos was just glad that the Immortal was an enemy of Eliot’s. Methos’s own enemies had the tendency of dredging up bits of his past that he preferred forgotten. The last thing he needed was for Eliot to learn precisely who and what Methos really was. The hitter may have done terrible things and hurt a great many people, but Methos’s cruelty spread over continents and almost a millennium.
The hitter was also trying to reform, slowly but surely. He no longer carried any weapons and Methos didn’t think he’d killed anyone, even accidentally, in at least two years. There were many things Methos was dreading about Eliot’s eventual induction into the ranks of Immortality, but chief among them was that Eliot was going to have to become a killer again to survive.
Kadjic gave his men a small jerk of his head in Eliot’s direction and they moved to surround the man. Eliot turned in a slow circle, keeping them all in sight.
Methos moved to put himself between Kadjic and Eliot. Eliot could take the three men. Hell, he’d taken more than that after weeks being tortured and his hands tied behind his back. The problem was Methos wasn’t sure Eliot could take an Immortal with possibly hundreds of years of training. No matter how good Eliot was.
“So, is there any particular reason you want to kill him?” Methos asked conversationally.
“He and his team destroyed my life.”
“So start a new one.”
He must be young then, no more than a few hundred years, but he probably hadn’t even reached double digits in the number of identities he’d taken on. By the time Immortals hit 500, they were used to moving on and starting again, especially after everything had fallen apart. By the time they hit 1000, it seemed like a waste of effort to get angry about something that was inevitable anyway, give or take a few years.
Kadjic snarled and lunged at him, which had been Methos’s intent. Methos easily knocked the other Immortal’s sword to one side, spun into his reach and elbowed him. Kadjic’s head snapped back and Methos took a moment to see how Eliot was doing. One of the men was laid out of the ground, moaning and Eliot was punching a second man in the solar plexus. Methos grinned when the second man doubled over and gasped.
Kadjic came back at him and Methos ducked, stumbling a bit. He raised his sword to parry another blow and kicked out at the Immortal’s knee. Kadjic roared as he dropped to one knee and slashed wildly in Methos’s direction.
“So tell me, kid, does terrorising mortals excite you?” Methos asked tauntingly. “Four on one doesn’t seem like a fair fight.”
“Who cares about fair,” Kadjic snarled. Methos agreed, but that wasn’t the information he needed. He circled the other Immortal, waiting for the right moment. Kadjic was good, methodical, but easily riled and he focused too much on his sword.
Kadjic leapt at Methos, stabbing at him. Methos thrust the Immortal’s sword to one side. They went back and forth for some time before Kadjic broke off and backed off a few steps to circle Methos warily.
“You send this many guys after the others?”
“I wasn’t foolish enough to go after them without taking care of the hitter first.” Methos didn’t let his relief show, but it was a weight off his shoulders. Parker was okay; and the rest of them as well, he supposed. “Besides,” Kadjic continued with a dark smile, “I wanted to see them suffer myself.”
“How arch,” Methos said with a roll of his eyes. “I hope I wasn’t this melodramatic at your age.” He hadn’t been, he’d been too scared of what he was and what people would do to him for it, but then he’d more than made up for it with the Horsemen.
“Your Quickening will be powerful then,” Kadjic said as he lunged. “Maybe enough of you will linger long enough to see me kill your pet.”
“Even if you did manage to take my head,” Methos said, sliding his sword against Kadjic’s until they were locked at the crossguard, “there wouldn’t be anything left of you afterwards.” Methos gave his sword a brutal twist and Kadjic’s went flying.
“Who are you?” the Immortal asked with wide eyes.
“Adam?” Eliot said.
Methos pressed the tip of his sword into Kadjic’s neck, wishing that it could be simple, just once. He sighed.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Methos told him. He looked over at Eliot, who had a split lip and cut above his left eye. The men were scattered around him, unconscious. The justice system wouldn’t be able to keep Kadjic from Eliot and Parker. “They won’t be able to hold him.”
Eliot’s expression hardened and his jaw clenched. He nodded. Methos nodded in return, relieved that Eliot understood at least this much. He swung smoothly. Kadjic’s head rolled to a stop not far from Eliot’s feet and Methos fell to his knees. Eliot stepped forward, but Methos shook his head.
“Stay back.”
Eliot took several hesitant steps back as mist rose from Kadjic’s body. Lightning arced from the body and then slammed into Methos. He didn’t have a chance to warn Eliot again because he was lost in a sensation that balanced precariously between pleasure and pain. He thought he might have screamed.
When it was over he was left panting on the ground. For such a youngling, Kadjic had managed to take a fair number of strong Quickenings. Eliot slowly approached him and crouched beside him. Methos was grateful when Eliot didn’t touch him; Quickenings always left him feeling twitchy and like his skin was too small.
“You up to taking care of the body?” Eliot asked softly. He sounded so damn reasonable, but Methos could see him distancing himself. Methos gave a short nod and levered himself to his feet using his sword to support him.
They worked in silence, disposing of the body in the lake and packing up their gear. The men they left to sort themselves out. They weren’t going to continue their job without the promise of pay and neither Eliot nor Methos wanted the attention handing them over to the police would produce. They’d been unconscious for the Quickening, so at least Methos didn’t have to worry about Immortals being exposed.
When it was over, they sat side by side on the cabin steps. Methos was quite happy to put off the whole thing for as long as he could, so Eliot was forced to make a start. Eliot wiped a hand down his face and sighed.
“So that secret group you’re part of involves decapitation and lightning storms.”
“Something like that.”
“Adam,” he said, somewhere between a request and a demand.
Methos started with the bare bones of what Immortals were, the general rules, and how the Game worked. Eliot listened without comment, but his entire body was tense and his jaw clenched repeatedly.
“So you get a chance at living forever, but you have to kill people to survive because they’re obsessed with something that may or may not exist.”
“That’s a fairly accurate summation.”
“And I’m like you?”
Methos winced. He’d hoped Eliot hadn’t caught that, but he should have known better. He steeled himself and did something he’d never done with Eliot before. He lied.
“No.”
It wasn’t an outright lie, not by Methos’s definition. Eliot was pre-Immortal, not Immortal like Methos, but the line was so fine that even Methos had trouble keeping the distinction in mind when it came to Eliot, who was so very much like him in so many other ways.
Eliot stared piercingly at him for a long while before he nodded. Methos couldn’t read the stoic expression, couldn’t tell if Eliot believed him, or just knew Methos wasn’t going to give him a straight answer. Methos was surprised when his chest ached at the new distance in Eliot’s eyes.
“Right,” Eliot said. “So, what now?”
And that was the question. Methos had no clue. After Kronos and the other Horsemen he’d tried to avoid getting too involved with other Immortals and pre-Immortals. There had been a few exceptions, like Byron and MacLeod, but they never worked out so well, so he didn’t really know how the whole thing was likely to work out.
“I could do with a beer.”
He looked at Eliot and smiled crookedly. Eliot’s lips briefly quirked in a return smile.
“A beer sounds good.”
The rest would have to sort itself out.
Series: Chasing Death
Fandoms: Leverage/Highlander
Pairing: EliotSpencer/Methos
Summary: It’s inevitable that one of the Leverage team’s bad guys is Immortal.
Spoilers: Post The Maltese Falcon Job, pre The Jailhouse Job.
Methos was settled against a tree with one of the books he’d been meaning to read for a while now, on recent scientific discoveries and their possible impact on the way people lived. Eliot was a few feet away, reclined on a chair, fishing pole held loosely in one hand. The contented smile he couldn’t help faded when he felt the thrum of an Immortal presence. He stilled, waiting to see if it would disappear, but it lingered at the edge of his awareness.
So much for the quiet weekend Methos had hoped for. Eliot had been working himself hard since Nathan Ford’s incarceration and since he liked the outdoors and fishing so much, Methos was inclined to indulge him. Although, he could have done without the rustic cabin by the lake. At least there was running water.
Eliot looked over to him and tilted his head in question. Methos raised his hand and signalled for Eliot to wait. Eliot set his fishing rod down and stood slowly. Methos indicated an enemy then shrugged. Immortal etiquette dictated friendly Immortals vacated the area when they sensed another Immortal or introduced themselves. Eliot raised an eyebrow at the use of military hand signals but nodded and shifted his stance in preparation for a fight.
It was obvious that Eliot questioned Methos’s knowledge of military hand signals, but knew it would have to wait until after the situation was resolved. Methos had the feeling that it was the least of what he would have to explain by the end of this.
Methos slid a hand inside his jacket to rest on his sword and he moved to the edge of the clearing, back against a tree. The Immortal would be able to sense him, but that didn’t exactly preclude the element of surprise. Eliot mirrored his movements.
“I know you’re there,” an accented voice called out. Methos picked out elements of an Italian accent, under laid with traces from a variety of European countries. He remained silent. A man walked into the clearing, sword already drawn. He was followed by three mortals. Methos smoothly unsheathed his sword and held it in front of him.
“You’re breaking the rules.”
“I’m not here for you. I’m only interested in your pet.”
“Come and get me, Kadjic,” Eliot snarled. Methos stepped forward.
“He’s my student. His protection is my responsibility.”
Eliot raised an eyebrow, but didn’t relax his guard. This wasn’t exactly how Methos wanted to introduce Eliot to Immortality, but that couldn’t be changed now.
“He’s not one of us yet.”
“He’s still mine.”
“I have no quarrel with you,” Kadjic insisted. Methos sighed. Since MacLeod’s disappearance from Immortal circles over 10 years ago, Methos hadn’t fought a single duel. He’d appreciated the quiet, but it didn’t look like it was going to last very long. Eliot was definitely going to make as many enemies as MacLeod had, although hopefully he’d be more pragmatic about how he dealt with them.
“His quarrels are my quarrels.”
“Then your challenge is met.”
“What are you doing, Adam?” Eliot growled.
Methos risked a glance at Eliot through which he hoped to convey the seriousness of the situation. He didn’t know why Kadjic wanted Eliot, or why Eliot was so eager to fight him - clearly there was bad blood there - but at least Eliot understood that there was more going on here.
“No matter what happens, Eliot, you can’t interfere.”
“I’m not making that promise,” Eliot told him, jabbing a finger in Methos’s direction.
“Your ‘student’ has not been taught our ways,” Kadjic said.
“It’s a process.” Methos caught Eliot’s eye once more. “I’ll explain everything later, but for now you cannot interfere.”
Eliot stared at him for a long moment before he nodded. As a soldier and a hitter, Eliot knew that sometimes you had to put away emotion to deal with later because the distraction could kill you.
Methos was just glad that the Immortal was an enemy of Eliot’s. Methos’s own enemies had the tendency of dredging up bits of his past that he preferred forgotten. The last thing he needed was for Eliot to learn precisely who and what Methos really was. The hitter may have done terrible things and hurt a great many people, but Methos’s cruelty spread over continents and almost a millennium.
The hitter was also trying to reform, slowly but surely. He no longer carried any weapons and Methos didn’t think he’d killed anyone, even accidentally, in at least two years. There were many things Methos was dreading about Eliot’s eventual induction into the ranks of Immortality, but chief among them was that Eliot was going to have to become a killer again to survive.
Kadjic gave his men a small jerk of his head in Eliot’s direction and they moved to surround the man. Eliot turned in a slow circle, keeping them all in sight.
Methos moved to put himself between Kadjic and Eliot. Eliot could take the three men. Hell, he’d taken more than that after weeks being tortured and his hands tied behind his back. The problem was Methos wasn’t sure Eliot could take an Immortal with possibly hundreds of years of training. No matter how good Eliot was.
“So, is there any particular reason you want to kill him?” Methos asked conversationally.
“He and his team destroyed my life.”
“So start a new one.”
He must be young then, no more than a few hundred years, but he probably hadn’t even reached double digits in the number of identities he’d taken on. By the time Immortals hit 500, they were used to moving on and starting again, especially after everything had fallen apart. By the time they hit 1000, it seemed like a waste of effort to get angry about something that was inevitable anyway, give or take a few years.
Kadjic snarled and lunged at him, which had been Methos’s intent. Methos easily knocked the other Immortal’s sword to one side, spun into his reach and elbowed him. Kadjic’s head snapped back and Methos took a moment to see how Eliot was doing. One of the men was laid out of the ground, moaning and Eliot was punching a second man in the solar plexus. Methos grinned when the second man doubled over and gasped.
Kadjic came back at him and Methos ducked, stumbling a bit. He raised his sword to parry another blow and kicked out at the Immortal’s knee. Kadjic roared as he dropped to one knee and slashed wildly in Methos’s direction.
“So tell me, kid, does terrorising mortals excite you?” Methos asked tauntingly. “Four on one doesn’t seem like a fair fight.”
“Who cares about fair,” Kadjic snarled. Methos agreed, but that wasn’t the information he needed. He circled the other Immortal, waiting for the right moment. Kadjic was good, methodical, but easily riled and he focused too much on his sword.
Kadjic leapt at Methos, stabbing at him. Methos thrust the Immortal’s sword to one side. They went back and forth for some time before Kadjic broke off and backed off a few steps to circle Methos warily.
“You send this many guys after the others?”
“I wasn’t foolish enough to go after them without taking care of the hitter first.” Methos didn’t let his relief show, but it was a weight off his shoulders. Parker was okay; and the rest of them as well, he supposed. “Besides,” Kadjic continued with a dark smile, “I wanted to see them suffer myself.”
“How arch,” Methos said with a roll of his eyes. “I hope I wasn’t this melodramatic at your age.” He hadn’t been, he’d been too scared of what he was and what people would do to him for it, but then he’d more than made up for it with the Horsemen.
“Your Quickening will be powerful then,” Kadjic said as he lunged. “Maybe enough of you will linger long enough to see me kill your pet.”
“Even if you did manage to take my head,” Methos said, sliding his sword against Kadjic’s until they were locked at the crossguard, “there wouldn’t be anything left of you afterwards.” Methos gave his sword a brutal twist and Kadjic’s went flying.
“Who are you?” the Immortal asked with wide eyes.
“Adam?” Eliot said.
Methos pressed the tip of his sword into Kadjic’s neck, wishing that it could be simple, just once. He sighed.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Methos told him. He looked over at Eliot, who had a split lip and cut above his left eye. The men were scattered around him, unconscious. The justice system wouldn’t be able to keep Kadjic from Eliot and Parker. “They won’t be able to hold him.”
Eliot’s expression hardened and his jaw clenched. He nodded. Methos nodded in return, relieved that Eliot understood at least this much. He swung smoothly. Kadjic’s head rolled to a stop not far from Eliot’s feet and Methos fell to his knees. Eliot stepped forward, but Methos shook his head.
“Stay back.”
Eliot took several hesitant steps back as mist rose from Kadjic’s body. Lightning arced from the body and then slammed into Methos. He didn’t have a chance to warn Eliot again because he was lost in a sensation that balanced precariously between pleasure and pain. He thought he might have screamed.
When it was over he was left panting on the ground. For such a youngling, Kadjic had managed to take a fair number of strong Quickenings. Eliot slowly approached him and crouched beside him. Methos was grateful when Eliot didn’t touch him; Quickenings always left him feeling twitchy and like his skin was too small.
“You up to taking care of the body?” Eliot asked softly. He sounded so damn reasonable, but Methos could see him distancing himself. Methos gave a short nod and levered himself to his feet using his sword to support him.
They worked in silence, disposing of the body in the lake and packing up their gear. The men they left to sort themselves out. They weren’t going to continue their job without the promise of pay and neither Eliot nor Methos wanted the attention handing them over to the police would produce. They’d been unconscious for the Quickening, so at least Methos didn’t have to worry about Immortals being exposed.
When it was over, they sat side by side on the cabin steps. Methos was quite happy to put off the whole thing for as long as he could, so Eliot was forced to make a start. Eliot wiped a hand down his face and sighed.
“So that secret group you’re part of involves decapitation and lightning storms.”
“Something like that.”
“Adam,” he said, somewhere between a request and a demand.
Methos started with the bare bones of what Immortals were, the general rules, and how the Game worked. Eliot listened without comment, but his entire body was tense and his jaw clenched repeatedly.
“So you get a chance at living forever, but you have to kill people to survive because they’re obsessed with something that may or may not exist.”
“That’s a fairly accurate summation.”
“And I’m like you?”
Methos winced. He’d hoped Eliot hadn’t caught that, but he should have known better. He steeled himself and did something he’d never done with Eliot before. He lied.
“No.”
It wasn’t an outright lie, not by Methos’s definition. Eliot was pre-Immortal, not Immortal like Methos, but the line was so fine that even Methos had trouble keeping the distinction in mind when it came to Eliot, who was so very much like him in so many other ways.
Eliot stared piercingly at him for a long while before he nodded. Methos couldn’t read the stoic expression, couldn’t tell if Eliot believed him, or just knew Methos wasn’t going to give him a straight answer. Methos was surprised when his chest ached at the new distance in Eliot’s eyes.
“Right,” Eliot said. “So, what now?”
And that was the question. Methos had no clue. After Kronos and the other Horsemen he’d tried to avoid getting too involved with other Immortals and pre-Immortals. There had been a few exceptions, like Byron and MacLeod, but they never worked out so well, so he didn’t really know how the whole thing was likely to work out.
“I could do with a beer.”
He looked at Eliot and smiled crookedly. Eliot’s lips briefly quirked in a return smile.
“A beer sounds good.”
The rest would have to sort itself out.