"Falling Correctly" (1/1)
Inspired by the prompt, and by my friend Squishy, who won't shut the $%@#^&* up about his damn judo class.
Falling Correctly
Author: _beetle_
Fandom: BtVS/Highlander Xover
Pairing: Xander,MacLeod (Xander/Adam Pierson implied)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 500
Note: Set Post-"Chosen", and post-"Horsemen". A follow-up to Life Is Good . . . Cue The Ominous Music, can be read as a standalone. Vaguely AU for Highlander.
Summary: In between ass-kickings, Xander does some growing up. Written for prompt #163: “Bad Idea”.
“This . . . is a not-good idea.”
Xander laboriously picks himself up off the mat. Again.
“Oh? Why is that?” MacLeod obviously couldn't care less about his opinion, and that makes Xander want to express it more. And with fists.
“Well, you treat my boyfriend like crap. You order me around like I'm a retarded stepchild. Then there's the whole mutual antipathy we've got going on . . . let's face it: I'm not gonna learn jack from you.”
Brooding, Angel-esque brows raise over coolly assessing eyes. “Hmm. Not liking me is a very good reason to refuse instruction on how to keep your head.”
When you put it that way. . . .
“I wanna learn.” Xander assumes the Ready stance, yet again. MacLeod mirrors him patiently. “I will learn. I just don't think you're the one to teach me.”
“There isn't a long line of Immortals waiting to train you to someday best them in single combat.”
“Given.” He rushes MacLeod again--only to be hurled to the mat. Again. Sunlight-kaleidoscopes spin across his vision before he squinches his eye shut. Everything aches from hours and days of nothing but this. “Adam. I could be learning this from Adam.”
“He's far too in love with you. He'd coddle you into uselessness.”
“I disagree.”
“With which part?”
God, Xander just wants to slug him. But the last time he tried that, he wound up on the mat for three hours, listening to MacLeod putter around his dojo while he waited for his broken arms to heal.
Sans painkillers.
“There's so much you need to learn . . . the Old Man wouldn't even know where to begin with you.” When Xander warily opens his eye, the kaleidoscope is mostly gone, and MacLeod is looming over him. His saturnine features are grimly unreadable, as always. “If you don't trust my word, I suggest you trust his. He hasn't the patience to teach you proper table manners, let alone proper swordplay.”
“Seriously, I'm warning you--”
“That you'll do what, exactly? Talk me to death?” MacLeod kneels. The Quickening crackles between them like lightning, elemental and vital. “Do you know how many heads he's had to take in the last year, all to protect you?”
Xander turns his face away guiltily. He'd wondered, but hadn't the courage to ask. Because how do you approach something like that?
How do you repay it?
By learning, kid, his better angel whispers. It's started to sound like, of all people, Joe Dawson. As much as you can, whenever you can. From whoever's offering.
Sighing, he takes the hand MacLeod is holding out, and is pulled quickly to his feet. Both combatants pace to their respective sides of the mat. They bow shallowly--sardonically, in one case.
“So when do I get to spar?” Xander assumes the Ready stance. But rather than mirroring, MacLeod rushes him. Before he realizes it, he's on his back again, aching and gasping, watching the sunlit air shake and shudder itself to pieces.
“When you learn to fall correctly.”
Falling Correctly
Author: _beetle_
Fandom: BtVS/Highlander Xover
Pairing: Xander,MacLeod (Xander/Adam Pierson implied)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 500
Note: Set Post-"Chosen", and post-"Horsemen". A follow-up to Life Is Good . . . Cue The Ominous Music, can be read as a standalone. Vaguely AU for Highlander.
Summary: In between ass-kickings, Xander does some growing up. Written for prompt #163: “Bad Idea”.
“This . . . is a not-good idea.”
Xander laboriously picks himself up off the mat. Again.
“Oh? Why is that?” MacLeod obviously couldn't care less about his opinion, and that makes Xander want to express it more. And with fists.
“Well, you treat my boyfriend like crap. You order me around like I'm a retarded stepchild. Then there's the whole mutual antipathy we've got going on . . . let's face it: I'm not gonna learn jack from you.”
Brooding, Angel-esque brows raise over coolly assessing eyes. “Hmm. Not liking me is a very good reason to refuse instruction on how to keep your head.”
When you put it that way. . . .
“I wanna learn.” Xander assumes the Ready stance, yet again. MacLeod mirrors him patiently. “I will learn. I just don't think you're the one to teach me.”
“There isn't a long line of Immortals waiting to train you to someday best them in single combat.”
“Given.” He rushes MacLeod again--only to be hurled to the mat. Again. Sunlight-kaleidoscopes spin across his vision before he squinches his eye shut. Everything aches from hours and days of nothing but this. “Adam. I could be learning this from Adam.”
“He's far too in love with you. He'd coddle you into uselessness.”
“I disagree.”
“With which part?”
God, Xander just wants to slug him. But the last time he tried that, he wound up on the mat for three hours, listening to MacLeod putter around his dojo while he waited for his broken arms to heal.
Sans painkillers.
“There's so much you need to learn . . . the Old Man wouldn't even know where to begin with you.” When Xander warily opens his eye, the kaleidoscope is mostly gone, and MacLeod is looming over him. His saturnine features are grimly unreadable, as always. “If you don't trust my word, I suggest you trust his. He hasn't the patience to teach you proper table manners, let alone proper swordplay.”
“Seriously, I'm warning you--”
“That you'll do what, exactly? Talk me to death?” MacLeod kneels. The Quickening crackles between them like lightning, elemental and vital. “Do you know how many heads he's had to take in the last year, all to protect you?”
Xander turns his face away guiltily. He'd wondered, but hadn't the courage to ask. Because how do you approach something like that?
How do you repay it?
By learning, kid, his better angel whispers. It's started to sound like, of all people, Joe Dawson. As much as you can, whenever you can. From whoever's offering.
Sighing, he takes the hand MacLeod is holding out, and is pulled quickly to his feet. Both combatants pace to their respective sides of the mat. They bow shallowly--sardonically, in one case.
“So when do I get to spar?” Xander assumes the Ready stance. But rather than mirroring, MacLeod rushes him. Before he realizes it, he's on his back again, aching and gasping, watching the sunlit air shake and shudder itself to pieces.
“When you learn to fall correctly.”