HL/BtVS/AtS - AUish, PG, future!fic
Title: Truth indeed came once into the world
Fandom: Highlander/Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Milton
Warnings: AUish; primordial!Methos
Pairings: none
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1105
Point of view: third
Notes: this started out as me wanting to write a fic where Methos was older than vampires. It sorta got away from me.
Methos had a Slayer of his own, once. She was a lovely girl; strong, quick, brave. Died far too young, but that’s the way of things. She lasted a long time, though, nearly five years. Held the record until the Summers’ girl.
His name was Matthew, then. Matthew of Hazor. He is scantly remembered in the Watchers’ records, and as a fool, who died saving his Slayer’s life. Her name is lost.
Methos remembers, of course. He remembers everything.
0o0
The history the Watchers tell is wrong. Methos wrote it for them, when he told the first shamans the spell to bind superhuman strength into a warrior.
He didn’t mean for them to curse all the women of the warrior’s bloodline, or that across millennia and continents, thousands would pay for their conceit.
That is the way things go, sometimes, though. And the world is still here. The ends don’t always justify the means, but sometimes… sometimes, they do.
0o0
If the two Watcher groups ever compared notes (or even acknowledged each other, maybe), they would find a common ancestor. But the arrogance of men knows no bounds, and both thought themselves superior.
He has walked every headquarters since the beginning. He created both, and has destroyed both, taught and tampered, and watches for the next moment to strike.
Demons did not rule the Earth, and the Powers That Be are not the oldest things.
Not even the thing that has the temerity to call itself The First, not by a long shot.
0o0
Methos was a god once. He is still a legend. In a thousand worlds, they tremble at a name he wore like a cloak, at the mere mention of the Scythe he wielded, of the Sword he forged.
The Old Ones are infants in comparison. The Wolf learned at his knee, the Ram shuddered at the touch of a cold blade, and the Hart… the Hart could never meet his eyes.
The history on record is wrong. Methos reads the most classified things and laughs.
0o0
At Wolfram and Hart in its current incarnation, Methos has been a mail-boy who never earned a higher rank, an attorney who defended monsters, and a security officer who killed when ordered to do so.
When the vampire with a soul takes over the Los Angeles branch, Methos is in Australia, sunning on a beach.
0o0
Methos walks the halls of Watcher headquarters, newly rebuilt and ensorcelled. The wards know him. No ward in this -or any- world can keep him out.
There are things older than magic. He trails his fingers on the wall and adds another spell.
“May I help you?” a boy asks, book in one hand and a phone in the other.
He is so young. “I’m here to see Rupert Giles,” Methos says. They trained together, in the life before Adam Pierson. He’s curious to meet the man Ripper has become. Ripper taught the Summers’ girl.
“Mr. Giles is in a meeting,” the boy tells him. “You’ll have to wait.”
“I have time,” Methos says. “Be on your way.”
The boy doesn’t even blink as he walks past Methos. Methos pats the wall and turns to leave.
0o0
The Scythe is in America, with the Summers’ girl. He could call it, if he wanted. It had been his, once.
The Sword sleeps in a tomb deep beneath Britain, buried with a king. He could summon it to his side, if he so desired. It had been his, once.
The whole world had been his once. The whole world is his still, only no one knows it.
0o0
The Old Ones warred. The Powers That Be fled.
Methos waited.
0o0
You should not be here, wind whispers.
Methos smiles, knocking on the door of the Summers’ Academy for Girls.
I was here first, he tells the wind. Before the Primordium. Before magic . Begone, little gnat.
“Yeah?” the Slayer who answers the door demands.
“I was told to come here,” he says. “I want to help fight.”
The Scythe hums, longing for his hand. The Sword rests.
Stepping back, the Slayer lets him enter, saying, “Follow me.”
0o0
Methos had a Slayer of his own once, a lovely girl named Deborah. None of the Watchers or Immortals knew of the legend called Methos then.
The Old Ones hurried out of his way; the Powers That Be dared not whisper his name. The Wolf, the Ram, and the Hart learned and followed his guidance to form an empire so great it spanned realities.
0o0
“Who are you?” Andrew Wells asks him. “Why do you want to join us?”
“I’m just a guy,” Methos says. “Matt Bennison. I lost my family to a monster, and I want to fight back.” He clasps his hands on the table, giving Wells his most sincere eyes. “Please. Either with y’all or on my own, I’m gonna fight.”
“We’ll have to train you,” Wells says.
Methos smiles.
0o0
He remembers the world as it was in the beginning. Before the Primordium, before the Old Ones and the Powers That Be, before The First and before magic…
He was not shaped like a man then, of course, not the shape he has worn for ten thousand years now.
What are you doing? the wind asks.
Taking an interest again, he answers, and lets a little girl teach him how to throw a punch.
0o0
If the two Watcher organizations ever looked beyond themselves, they’d find matching fingerprints in both their histories.
Methos stakes vampires, letting himself be tossed around, and he picks up the paltry magic tricks Wells teaches him like he was born for it. “I’ve never seen anyone except Willow take such levels in badass,” Wells says, making himself sound better than he is. Methos merely ducks his head in feigned modesty when Wells adds, “You’ve gotta be powerful.”
If only you knew, Methos thinks, but says only, “Thanks.”
0o0
The day Methos picks up his Scythe again, he smirks at The First, disembodied still and sulking in the corner, and he murmurs, “Let Death ride again.”
Matt Bennison is dead, killed the previous night by things too weak to use the title demon. The Wolf shouts incantations through the realms, the Ram calls a name not used in more than three hundred million years, and the Hart… the Hart holds a Sword that matches the Scythe humming in his hand.
Methos grins, reaching out his other hand and saying the words that once ate worlds, calling his Sword home.
0o0
“What are you?” Kronos asked him once. It was when he first found the boy, when he chose between killing and keeping him.
When he answered, it was the only time Methos ever told the truth.
“I?” he said. “I am eternity.”