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morgynleriTitle: In the Right Company
Co-author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
auberus
Fandom: Highlander, X-Men
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, sexual situations
Characters: Victor Creed, James Logan, Methos, Kronos
Pairings: Methos/Kronos
Word Count: 4567
Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5
In the Right Company
Chapter 1
Victor rolled his head on his shoulders without opening his eyes, working out kinks from being sprawled in the cell after he'd been dumped back in there, unconscious instead of dead like the humans had expected him to be. Not the worst way to wake up, but not the best, either. He waited a moment longer before kicking his brother in the leg.
"I'm awake already, Victor." Logan opened his eyes, leaning against the wall opposite Victor. A faint smirk was on his lips, despite the situation they were in. It wasn't too far different from those they'd been in before, if a little more of a bitch to get out of without help.
"We've got a visitor from the JAG office." He jerked his head slightly toward the door of their cell, before Victor could make a smart-aleck remark, drawing the other man's attention to the uniformed man on the other side of the bars.
Methos lifted an eyebrow at the recumbent pair. They weren't his sort of Immortal, but they came closer than any of the oddities the human race threw out from time to time. In fact, there was something about their arrogance that reminded him inexorably of the brother he'd fled to Vietnam to avoid; of the pair of them, confined but still arrogant in any of the hundred dungeons they'd temporarily inhabited over the centuries. Hopefully these two didn't have a Silas and a Caspian of their own waiting in the wings to free them. If it had been himself and Kronos thus confined, the entire camp would already have been doomed.
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his stolen uniform, Methos propped a shoulder against the doorframe and gave the prisoners the sort of once-over that was guaranteed to raise the hackles of anyone with any sort of self-respect. He'd had a long time to practice that particular expression, and had raised it to a near-art form.
"Captain Michael Pierce," he offered, once he'd finished his perusal of the pair.
Victor watched the man lazily as he looked them over, the lift of his upper lip to show off sharp fangs the only sign of his discomfort with the perusal. The silent snarl of one predator making it clear to another he wasn't afraid.
"Victor, and he's Jimmy." He continued to watch the man with a nearly unblinking gaze that made most humans squirm, amused to find this man wasn't. Almost reminded him of one of the officers from another war, whose name he hadn't bothered to remember.
Logan hadn't moved, either, though he frowned at the once-over from Pierce, irritation building at the subtle arrogance in the human's attitude. "Come to look at the freak show?" he added onto his brother's offer of their names, an edge to his voice of dark amusement.
"Do I look like a sightseer?" Methos asked sharply, allowing some of the irritation he's feeling to surface in his voice. The combination of seeing Kronos again after nearly a thousand years, and of coming from that into a war as nasty as any he'd fought in before wars had rules, had brought Death uncomfortably close to the surface, and this confrontation was threatening the fine edges of his control in a way that he hadn't had to face in centuries. It was more than enough to shorten his temper. "I was considering ways to liberate the pair of you, but I'm not convinced that it wouldn't do more harm than good. The pair of you are in desperate need of a minder, and I don't think it's a task I'm interested in undertaking. Has no one ever pointed out to you the inadvisability of revealing your abilities to mortals?"
His tone was too sharp, he realized; too close to real threat, but with his temper simmering just below a boil, it was the best he could manage.
"Got a bit carried away." Victor shrugged, settling back against the wall a little more comfortably. No remorse or regret for what had happened, though he felt a twinge for getting his brother caught up in it. Only a little twinge, though.
Logan's frown deepened, curious now. "Are you suggesting you're not mortal?" It was in the way Pierce phrased the question, and something in the scent of him, familiar, though he wouldn't be able to put a name to it if he were asked. Except, maybe, old.
"Carried away," Methos said flatly. "That's certainly one way of putting things." Victor was very like Kronos, and Methos had to push back the twinge of what could only be called homesickness at the thought that he could have had his brother at his side at that very moment. Jimmy, though -- Jimmy reminded him of himself, which was more disturbing than anything else.
He tilted his head to the side, letting his lips curve into a smile that came nowhere near his eyes. It wasn't a pleasant expression; was, in fact, the sort of smile that tended to remind anyone who saw it of the tenuous nature of their grip on existence. The two men in front of him were predators; there was no doubting that, but then, he'd been one himself for millennia, and it was one of the more permanent facets of a mutable personality. Lifting an eyebrow at Jimmy, he straightened and took a few steps inside, almost into reach but not quite.
"What do you think?" he asked, genuinely curious beneath the indifference he wore like a mask. "Aren't the pair of you mortal? You do age, I assume, even if you don't die as easily as the rest of them."
Logan grinned as Victor chuckled, the pair of them giving Pierce looks that would have looked at home gracing the faces of wolves, if wolves took human form. Neither of them had noticed any real changes in a century now, not since they had finished growing up. Nothing that would be called aging, at least.
"If by aging you mean the years pass and we keep living, maybe." Logan shrugged, a smirk still lingering on his face. "Don't know what you are, though, but you're not like the rest here." He paused, exchanging a look with Victor before adding, "You don't smell right."
"Should I say thank you, or take offense?" Methos asked, with an answering smirk of his own. "How old are the two of you, anyway?" He'd first noticed these odd little...quirks in humanity almost two thousand years ago, though he doubted very much that the pair in front of him were anywhere close to that old. "A century? A century and a half?"
He'd met enough young Immortals to recognize the arrogance and sense of invincibility that came with the realization that the rest of humanity was aging and dying and leaving them untouched. "Neither of you has enough sense to realize that what you consider a strength can be worse than weakness once you've fallen into the wrong hands. And you have most certainly managed to do that."
Memory threatened to surface, but he forced it down, the chill in his eyes and voice deepening with the effort. "Not that you seem to have realized it, as of yet." The smile that twisted his lips was one that Kronos would have recognized -- and rejoiced in. "I'm sure you'll more fully comprehend the error of your ways once they've strapped you to a lab table and vivisected you three or four hundred times. I'd leave you to it, if it weren't for the fact that mortals have a distressing tendency to start witch hunts over things like you." Smile fading, he regarded the pair of them with flat disinterest. "Frankly, even with that taken into consideration, I doubt either of you is worth my time."
They exchanged another glance, Logan cocking a questioning eyebrow, and Victor narrowing his eyes, wary and familiar suspicion settling over his features. Uncertain of what would happen, but not about to let someone threaten him or Jimmy. It wasn't entirely impossible for them to break out on their own, but it could be far more trouble than it was worth to do so.
And the fact Pierce had guessed their age so closely only added to the wariness, making him want to bare his teeth at him and snarl. To fight his way out, and damn the consequences, like they had before, when they were younger and more vulnerable.
"What's your own safety worth?" Logan's voice held a hint of the same snarl that Victor was barely holding back. "You, Colonel Audley, whoever else is like you."
Not that he'd necessarily tell, not of his own volition. But he wouldn't promise Victor was above using that to get them out of trouble, or that he wouldn't reveal the information if he were subjected to the sort of torture Pierce was suggesting would happen.
Methos didn't even try to keep Death from his face, and when he spoke it was in the voice that countless thousands had heard just before his sword blotted the light from their eyes.
"Threaten me again and you'll damn well find out," he promised, hand slipping inside his coat to touch the hilt of his sword. He'd been on one of those lab tables himself, once, and if it came down to it, he would burn the world to ash rather than let it happen again. "Don't try to play games with me, boy. Neither of you is anywhere close to my league."
Oddly enough, the promise of death in Pierce's eyes made Victor relax enough to grin again, teeth showing a moment, the situation back onto terms he was familiar with, at least to some extent.
"Are you going to try to kill us, or are you going to do something about these?" He held up one shackled hand, giving Pierce a look that said clearer than words he wasn't afraid - not that he'd admit it if he was.
Logan just kept silent this time, watching Pierce's move toward something in his coat - some sort of weapon, he assumed, though what, he wasn't sure. Not a gun, the movement wasn't quite right. A sword, possibly, though why the man was carrying around one of those when he wasn't in dress uniform was a curiosity.
"That depends," Methos said, and if he was using the voice he'd always reserved for Caspian and Silas, he barely noticed. Death was always too close for comfort, but here the effort of keeping him back was too much -- and unnecessary. "If you two morons are going to head right back out there and continue your quest to attract unwanted attention, I'll slice you into pieces and bury them all at least a mile apart -- or burn your bodies to ash. If you can be persuaded to behave sensibly..." This time, his smile held genuine amusement, but was, if anything, far more disturbing than the ones that failed to touch his eyes. "We might be able to come to some kind of an arrangement."
"What do you call sensible?" Logan could see the point in avoiding attracting too much attention - and he had tried to stop Victor, before things got out of hand. But there was a limit to how much of their violent nature either of them could deny before things got bad.
"We leave. Immediately. And the two of you stay where I can keep an eye on you, at least until I'm sure that I can trust you to behave with as much sense as a mortal of your apparent ages." Methos kept his voice flat, leaving no room for argument. "I'll not end up back in a laboratory because a pair of mutant humans can't keep their urges under control." It was the tone he used with Kronos, when Kronos was being unreasonable. No, brother. The four of us can't take on a walled city. Living had always been Methos' top priority, and he wasn't going to risk that for anyone, let alone for a pair of should-be-mortals.
Victor held up his still shackled hands in silent invitation for Pierce to take them off. He didn't have a problem with the plan as it stood, though if he didn't have the opportunity to kill something, he'd get really pissed off. And probably kill something anyway, just in a more attention-grabbing fashion.
"Deal." Logan was a little more patient in waiting for Pierce to deal with the shackles, though he itched to get out of there as much as Victor. Reaching out to clasp Victor's hand, the two pulling each other up once the shackles were gone, and waiting for direction from Pierce. It would take him, after all, to get them out of there without attracting the sort of attention their way would.
Methos took one last look at the still-shackled pair before slipping a lock-pick out of his sleeve and freeing them from their irons. He couldn't help feeling that by removing their shackles he was somehow chaining himself -- but it was too late for that. Besides, seeing Kronos had been a vivid reminder of the sheer delight that had gone with being Death, with using the sort of power that he usually pretended not to have. He couldn't help wondering if Kronos were still in California, or if his brother had tried to follow him. If the latter were the case, Kronos was probably lost somewhere in Eastern Europe. Hopefully, anyway -- though Methos couldn't help but wonder what his brother would make of these two.
"This way," he told them, and slid like water around the building the Army had been using as a jail. He'd dispatched the sentries to the back of said building on his way in, just in case he'd ended up needing an escape route. As they picked their way down the hill, they passed the two corpses he'd made on his way up, both of them lying face-up in the dirt, slit throats grinning up at the sky. "Tell me that you know something about surviving in the wilderness," he murmured. "We can't chance the city for at least a week, and I don't much fancy playing nursemaid in the jungle to a pair of spoiled modern infants."
Victor laughed, low and amused, letting his claws elongate as he grinned. "You hunt, you kill, you survive." He still remembered their early years, when he'd had to hunt for both of them, to keep them alive. The forested slopes they'd grown up on might not be quite the same, but the principles certainly were.
"We'll live." Logan's smile was more restrained than Victor's, but he moved with the same quiet grace as his brother, two predators who were as much animal as they were human. "We wouldn't have if we couldn't survive the wilderness." Which was all the more clue he was giving Pierce to their past for now, still not entirely trusting. Not yet.
Methos hadn't the same preternatural abilities, but then, neither Victor or Jimmy had spent the better part of seven millennia in a world that was mostly wilderness. He moved at least as quietly as either of the younger men, and was more familiar with this sort of terrain than they were. "Good to know," he murmured, stepping over the body of the last sentry. Their woodscraft dated them, too -- meant that his guess about a century of life had been accurate enough. Any younger, and they'd likely be as clueless as most young Immortals.
"If you think you're up for it, then, we'll go north." His glance over his shoulder was as much challenge as question, though he tried to tell himself that neither of these men were Kronos, to be playing that sort of game with. The brother who'd had his back for a thousand years was more than the equal of the two almost-humans behind him, and not for the first time, he wished he'd had the nerve to stick around and let Kronos know that he was still around, still alive.
"How quickly do you heal?" he asked, once they'd gotten far enough into the jungle to be out of earshot of any stray sentries or wandering soldiers. The shout of pursuit had yet to go up behind them, but he still had one ear stretched for it. He had to know what the pair was physically capable of, at least. "Do you die and come back, or just not die at all?" Hopefully it was the former. It would make them easier to control, put the dynamics of the group close to those he'd used to hold the Horsemen together for ten centuries. If it were the latter, they were more than likely to be unnerved -- and unprepared -- for his sort of revival, should worst come to worst.
Victor grinned at the man's challenging look, his stance loose and easy, ready for the sort of challenge the man was suggesting. One where he could kill, whether human or animal, and ignore the complexities of life that was dealing with human society from the inside.
"We generally don't die." Logan answered the question, his expression more a smirk than Victor's, but equally as feral. "Unless someone's really lucky. But it doesn't stick, even then."
He actually wasn't certain if they really died, or if it just seemed that way, but he had developed a dislike for explosives after the incident where they'd found out that little bit of information. They were one of the less pleasant things to have to heal from.
Which meant they would be a bit more difficult to handle than his brothers had been, at least on a physical level. Somehow, he didn't think either of them would give him as much trouble as Caspian had, once upon a time.
"I'd ask if you could follow orders, but I think you've already answered that for me," he said dryly, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "Give me too much trouble, though, and I'll find somewhere unpleasant to strand you." A thin smile. "I've had a lot of practice." Kronos could tell you that. How many centuries did he spend in that well, anyway? His brother was going to be more than a little annoyed with him when they finally did re-encounter one another. Two months ago, the thought would have chilled him to the bone; had, in fact, sent him running half way around the world. Now, it was almost amusing. Explosives weren't the only reason he'd avoided war zones for the past two centuries.
"Fair deal." Victor spoke before Logan could this time, following closely behind Pierce. He had already decided to trust the man, something about him appealing to his inner beast. "You have an idea where we're going?" Other than north, and away from the humans who had locked the brothers in a cell.
Logan brought up the rear of the little group, keeping alert for any signs of those who would be following them, sooner or later. Or at least, trying to follow them, if they could keep up with them in this jungle.
"Some," Methos admitted. "I don't much fancy the idea of trying to take the pair of you through a Western-controlled border at the moment, even if you did have your papers." He paused, looking hard at the ground for a moment before moving off to the left. "I left some supplies out here, in case I ended up bringing the pair of you out," he explained. "Extra clothes, food, some books; that sort of thing. I've spent more than enough time wandering through the wilderness on the essentials to want to have to do it again."
The conveniences of the modern era were the best thing about it, and Methos had every intention of getting back to them sooner rather than later. "From here, we can pretty much choose a destination, at least in Asia, without having to go anywhere near the American authorities. They're a well-meaning enough government, but they've made things bloody hindering awkward lately."
Chuckling, Victor gave a shrug. He didn't particularly care about the government so long as they provided him a way to indulge in his need for violence and didn't get in the way. Though he would agree, at the moment, the American authorities would make things very awkward if they had to deal with them.
Logan smirked more at the implication that Pierce had been thinking ahead about breaking them out, even if he had given the impression he hadn't exactly intended to. Probably to make a point, Logan thought, but he kept his observation to himself for now. When he had a chance to talk to Victor without Pierce listening, then he'd mention it.
"What sort of books?" Logan asked instead, as they followed Pierce closely, glancing briefly at the spot of ground Pierce had, though he wasn't sure what the man had been looking at. Something he hadn't learned to spot yet, or wasn't aware of to look for, probably.
That was an unexpected question, and Methos, who was rarely wrong in his initial assessment of anyone, looked curiously at Jimmy before answering. There were depths there, then. The entire escapade was getting more interesting by the minute.
"My journals -- well, some of them. Herodotus, and some of the other classics. A complete copy of Byron, a couple of mystery novels..." He shrugged. "They don't weigh more than they're worth."
Logan shrugged, though he was curious about the journals. The classics and Byron he'd left behind when he'd fled his childhood home with Victor, and didn't have any desire to revisit. "Might be interested in the journals," he conceded after a moment, ignoring the raised eyebrow from his brother.
"I doubt you'd be able to read them," Methos said, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement. "They're not in English." He'd stopped using modern languages almost five hundred years ago. "This way." He led them into a little gully, half-hidden by overgrown vegetation. The packs he'd tucked away were under a bush that hid them completely from view, and he tugged them out one by one. "Here. Enjoy."
He wouldn't bother to suggest he could learn whatever language they were written in, not with Victor right there. Maybe later, when Victor was preoccupied with finding something to kill, or with a woman, but not right now.
Victor checked the contents of the pack, careful of his claws, before shouldering it. He didn't want to stop moving yet, though he would welcome the fight if soldiers from the base caught up with them. Welcome and relish the violence and bloodshed.
"Since north seems to be acceptable to the two of you, I suggest we get going," Methos suggested. "It's been a long time since I wandered around this particular wilderness. I'd rather not encounter a booby trap in the dark." No need to mention that encountering one the wrong way could do him a permanent injury. Victor, especially, is the sort to get ideas.
Logan nodded in agreement, shouldering his own pack easily, and waving for Pierce to continue leading the way. Even with the ability to heal rapidly, it was still painful to be injured, and he agreed that he'd rather not find booby traps in the dark. He'd rather not encounter a booby trap at all, really.
"Waiting for an invitation, or for someone else to lead the way?" Victor asked Pierce, giving him an amused look.
Methos lifted an eyebrow at him. "I plan on finishing stowing my gear," he said. Taking his overcoat off was an almost physical relief in the tropical heat. He slid his sword and sheath out of the lining, then rolled the coat itself and stuffed it into the top of his pack. His BDU jacket followed his coat, and he strapped his sword across his back before picking up his pack, adjusting it so as to not interfere when he drew the sword. He hadn't carried the weapon openly in years, but then, he didn't plan on letting anyone get close enough to ask awkward questions. The rest of his weapons he left where they were, save for a pistol, which he strapped to his hip.
"Now I'm ready," he said. The weight of his sword, openly worn, was a physical reminder of the years when he hadn't had to hide what he could do in order to survive, and for once he didn't bother to hide the straightening of his spine, or the breadth of his shoulders. "Come on, then," he said, lifting an eyebrow at the pair of them. "I don't suppose either of you has given any thought to where you want to go?"
"Away from here." Victor shrugged, not particularly caring beyond that. He was far more interested in the sword Pierce had strapped across his back. He hadn't seen anyone using that as a weapon since the American Civil War, and the particular sort of sword Pierce had was unlike any of the swords used even in his earliest years. "Why a sword?" he asked, waving a hand at the weapon across Pierce's back.
Logan hadn't given the matter much more thought than Victor. "Out of this country," he added to Victor's statement about away. "Ask me again later." After he'd had a chance to stop long enough to think more than react.
"Fair enough. North and west first, then, and we'll see from there." Methos turned an amused look on Victor. "The sword? It's...a cultural thing." There was no way he was going to explain the Game to either of them. "Besides, I'm fond of it. They used to be all the rage when I was younger."
Neither really had a reply to that, and remained quiet as them moved off, heading north, Victor dropping back behind Logan to take up the rear-most position. Letting themselves fall back into the habits of a century of relying only on each other, even if they were trusting someone else this time.
It was almost like sliding backwards in time, like wiping away the centuries spent in the swiftly-developing West. He'd spent thousands of years in what today's mortals would think of as trackless wilderness, enduring with nothing more than he could carry. At least the footwear was more comfortable this time around.
He wasn't really sure what he was going to do with his two new companions. They clearly couldn't be left to their own devices any longer, not without running the risk of starting a witch hunt that could all too easily catch up Immortals as well. The Inquisition had been dangerous enough, and the anti-Communist feeling that was so strong in the West right now, combined with the threat presented by modern science, was a recipe for the sort of disaster that had thankfully been avoided, at least so far.
That said, there was really no way to make them safe enough to turn loose. Jimmy might be able to find the sort of balance necessary to live unnoticed among mortals, if he could be separated from Victor -- but Victor himself would find assimilation as difficult as Kronos had. Only willful mortal blindness kept Kronos safe, and if more of these...aberrations continued to crop up in humans, that blindness would gradually disappear. It was an interesting dilemma, to say the least.
Co-author:
auberusFandom: Highlander, X-Men
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, sexual situations
Characters: Victor Creed, James Logan, Methos, Kronos
Pairings: Methos/Kronos
Word Count: 4567
Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Victor rolled his head on his shoulders without opening his eyes, working out kinks from being sprawled in the cell after he'd been dumped back in there, unconscious instead of dead like the humans had expected him to be. Not the worst way to wake up, but not the best, either. He waited a moment longer before kicking his brother in the leg.
"I'm awake already, Victor." Logan opened his eyes, leaning against the wall opposite Victor. A faint smirk was on his lips, despite the situation they were in. It wasn't too far different from those they'd been in before, if a little more of a bitch to get out of without help.
"We've got a visitor from the JAG office." He jerked his head slightly toward the door of their cell, before Victor could make a smart-aleck remark, drawing the other man's attention to the uniformed man on the other side of the bars.
Methos lifted an eyebrow at the recumbent pair. They weren't his sort of Immortal, but they came closer than any of the oddities the human race threw out from time to time. In fact, there was something about their arrogance that reminded him inexorably of the brother he'd fled to Vietnam to avoid; of the pair of them, confined but still arrogant in any of the hundred dungeons they'd temporarily inhabited over the centuries. Hopefully these two didn't have a Silas and a Caspian of their own waiting in the wings to free them. If it had been himself and Kronos thus confined, the entire camp would already have been doomed.
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his stolen uniform, Methos propped a shoulder against the doorframe and gave the prisoners the sort of once-over that was guaranteed to raise the hackles of anyone with any sort of self-respect. He'd had a long time to practice that particular expression, and had raised it to a near-art form.
"Captain Michael Pierce," he offered, once he'd finished his perusal of the pair.
Victor watched the man lazily as he looked them over, the lift of his upper lip to show off sharp fangs the only sign of his discomfort with the perusal. The silent snarl of one predator making it clear to another he wasn't afraid.
"Victor, and he's Jimmy." He continued to watch the man with a nearly unblinking gaze that made most humans squirm, amused to find this man wasn't. Almost reminded him of one of the officers from another war, whose name he hadn't bothered to remember.
Logan hadn't moved, either, though he frowned at the once-over from Pierce, irritation building at the subtle arrogance in the human's attitude. "Come to look at the freak show?" he added onto his brother's offer of their names, an edge to his voice of dark amusement.
"Do I look like a sightseer?" Methos asked sharply, allowing some of the irritation he's feeling to surface in his voice. The combination of seeing Kronos again after nearly a thousand years, and of coming from that into a war as nasty as any he'd fought in before wars had rules, had brought Death uncomfortably close to the surface, and this confrontation was threatening the fine edges of his control in a way that he hadn't had to face in centuries. It was more than enough to shorten his temper. "I was considering ways to liberate the pair of you, but I'm not convinced that it wouldn't do more harm than good. The pair of you are in desperate need of a minder, and I don't think it's a task I'm interested in undertaking. Has no one ever pointed out to you the inadvisability of revealing your abilities to mortals?"
His tone was too sharp, he realized; too close to real threat, but with his temper simmering just below a boil, it was the best he could manage.
"Got a bit carried away." Victor shrugged, settling back against the wall a little more comfortably. No remorse or regret for what had happened, though he felt a twinge for getting his brother caught up in it. Only a little twinge, though.
Logan's frown deepened, curious now. "Are you suggesting you're not mortal?" It was in the way Pierce phrased the question, and something in the scent of him, familiar, though he wouldn't be able to put a name to it if he were asked. Except, maybe, old.
"Carried away," Methos said flatly. "That's certainly one way of putting things." Victor was very like Kronos, and Methos had to push back the twinge of what could only be called homesickness at the thought that he could have had his brother at his side at that very moment. Jimmy, though -- Jimmy reminded him of himself, which was more disturbing than anything else.
He tilted his head to the side, letting his lips curve into a smile that came nowhere near his eyes. It wasn't a pleasant expression; was, in fact, the sort of smile that tended to remind anyone who saw it of the tenuous nature of their grip on existence. The two men in front of him were predators; there was no doubting that, but then, he'd been one himself for millennia, and it was one of the more permanent facets of a mutable personality. Lifting an eyebrow at Jimmy, he straightened and took a few steps inside, almost into reach but not quite.
"What do you think?" he asked, genuinely curious beneath the indifference he wore like a mask. "Aren't the pair of you mortal? You do age, I assume, even if you don't die as easily as the rest of them."
Logan grinned as Victor chuckled, the pair of them giving Pierce looks that would have looked at home gracing the faces of wolves, if wolves took human form. Neither of them had noticed any real changes in a century now, not since they had finished growing up. Nothing that would be called aging, at least.
"If by aging you mean the years pass and we keep living, maybe." Logan shrugged, a smirk still lingering on his face. "Don't know what you are, though, but you're not like the rest here." He paused, exchanging a look with Victor before adding, "You don't smell right."
"Should I say thank you, or take offense?" Methos asked, with an answering smirk of his own. "How old are the two of you, anyway?" He'd first noticed these odd little...quirks in humanity almost two thousand years ago, though he doubted very much that the pair in front of him were anywhere close to that old. "A century? A century and a half?"
He'd met enough young Immortals to recognize the arrogance and sense of invincibility that came with the realization that the rest of humanity was aging and dying and leaving them untouched. "Neither of you has enough sense to realize that what you consider a strength can be worse than weakness once you've fallen into the wrong hands. And you have most certainly managed to do that."
Memory threatened to surface, but he forced it down, the chill in his eyes and voice deepening with the effort. "Not that you seem to have realized it, as of yet." The smile that twisted his lips was one that Kronos would have recognized -- and rejoiced in. "I'm sure you'll more fully comprehend the error of your ways once they've strapped you to a lab table and vivisected you three or four hundred times. I'd leave you to it, if it weren't for the fact that mortals have a distressing tendency to start witch hunts over things like you." Smile fading, he regarded the pair of them with flat disinterest. "Frankly, even with that taken into consideration, I doubt either of you is worth my time."
They exchanged another glance, Logan cocking a questioning eyebrow, and Victor narrowing his eyes, wary and familiar suspicion settling over his features. Uncertain of what would happen, but not about to let someone threaten him or Jimmy. It wasn't entirely impossible for them to break out on their own, but it could be far more trouble than it was worth to do so.
And the fact Pierce had guessed their age so closely only added to the wariness, making him want to bare his teeth at him and snarl. To fight his way out, and damn the consequences, like they had before, when they were younger and more vulnerable.
"What's your own safety worth?" Logan's voice held a hint of the same snarl that Victor was barely holding back. "You, Colonel Audley, whoever else is like you."
Not that he'd necessarily tell, not of his own volition. But he wouldn't promise Victor was above using that to get them out of trouble, or that he wouldn't reveal the information if he were subjected to the sort of torture Pierce was suggesting would happen.
Methos didn't even try to keep Death from his face, and when he spoke it was in the voice that countless thousands had heard just before his sword blotted the light from their eyes.
"Threaten me again and you'll damn well find out," he promised, hand slipping inside his coat to touch the hilt of his sword. He'd been on one of those lab tables himself, once, and if it came down to it, he would burn the world to ash rather than let it happen again. "Don't try to play games with me, boy. Neither of you is anywhere close to my league."
Oddly enough, the promise of death in Pierce's eyes made Victor relax enough to grin again, teeth showing a moment, the situation back onto terms he was familiar with, at least to some extent.
"Are you going to try to kill us, or are you going to do something about these?" He held up one shackled hand, giving Pierce a look that said clearer than words he wasn't afraid - not that he'd admit it if he was.
Logan just kept silent this time, watching Pierce's move toward something in his coat - some sort of weapon, he assumed, though what, he wasn't sure. Not a gun, the movement wasn't quite right. A sword, possibly, though why the man was carrying around one of those when he wasn't in dress uniform was a curiosity.
"That depends," Methos said, and if he was using the voice he'd always reserved for Caspian and Silas, he barely noticed. Death was always too close for comfort, but here the effort of keeping him back was too much -- and unnecessary. "If you two morons are going to head right back out there and continue your quest to attract unwanted attention, I'll slice you into pieces and bury them all at least a mile apart -- or burn your bodies to ash. If you can be persuaded to behave sensibly..." This time, his smile held genuine amusement, but was, if anything, far more disturbing than the ones that failed to touch his eyes. "We might be able to come to some kind of an arrangement."
"What do you call sensible?" Logan could see the point in avoiding attracting too much attention - and he had tried to stop Victor, before things got out of hand. But there was a limit to how much of their violent nature either of them could deny before things got bad.
"We leave. Immediately. And the two of you stay where I can keep an eye on you, at least until I'm sure that I can trust you to behave with as much sense as a mortal of your apparent ages." Methos kept his voice flat, leaving no room for argument. "I'll not end up back in a laboratory because a pair of mutant humans can't keep their urges under control." It was the tone he used with Kronos, when Kronos was being unreasonable. No, brother. The four of us can't take on a walled city. Living had always been Methos' top priority, and he wasn't going to risk that for anyone, let alone for a pair of should-be-mortals.
Victor held up his still shackled hands in silent invitation for Pierce to take them off. He didn't have a problem with the plan as it stood, though if he didn't have the opportunity to kill something, he'd get really pissed off. And probably kill something anyway, just in a more attention-grabbing fashion.
"Deal." Logan was a little more patient in waiting for Pierce to deal with the shackles, though he itched to get out of there as much as Victor. Reaching out to clasp Victor's hand, the two pulling each other up once the shackles were gone, and waiting for direction from Pierce. It would take him, after all, to get them out of there without attracting the sort of attention their way would.
Methos took one last look at the still-shackled pair before slipping a lock-pick out of his sleeve and freeing them from their irons. He couldn't help feeling that by removing their shackles he was somehow chaining himself -- but it was too late for that. Besides, seeing Kronos had been a vivid reminder of the sheer delight that had gone with being Death, with using the sort of power that he usually pretended not to have. He couldn't help wondering if Kronos were still in California, or if his brother had tried to follow him. If the latter were the case, Kronos was probably lost somewhere in Eastern Europe. Hopefully, anyway -- though Methos couldn't help but wonder what his brother would make of these two.
"This way," he told them, and slid like water around the building the Army had been using as a jail. He'd dispatched the sentries to the back of said building on his way in, just in case he'd ended up needing an escape route. As they picked their way down the hill, they passed the two corpses he'd made on his way up, both of them lying face-up in the dirt, slit throats grinning up at the sky. "Tell me that you know something about surviving in the wilderness," he murmured. "We can't chance the city for at least a week, and I don't much fancy playing nursemaid in the jungle to a pair of spoiled modern infants."
Victor laughed, low and amused, letting his claws elongate as he grinned. "You hunt, you kill, you survive." He still remembered their early years, when he'd had to hunt for both of them, to keep them alive. The forested slopes they'd grown up on might not be quite the same, but the principles certainly were.
"We'll live." Logan's smile was more restrained than Victor's, but he moved with the same quiet grace as his brother, two predators who were as much animal as they were human. "We wouldn't have if we couldn't survive the wilderness." Which was all the more clue he was giving Pierce to their past for now, still not entirely trusting. Not yet.
Methos hadn't the same preternatural abilities, but then, neither Victor or Jimmy had spent the better part of seven millennia in a world that was mostly wilderness. He moved at least as quietly as either of the younger men, and was more familiar with this sort of terrain than they were. "Good to know," he murmured, stepping over the body of the last sentry. Their woodscraft dated them, too -- meant that his guess about a century of life had been accurate enough. Any younger, and they'd likely be as clueless as most young Immortals.
"If you think you're up for it, then, we'll go north." His glance over his shoulder was as much challenge as question, though he tried to tell himself that neither of these men were Kronos, to be playing that sort of game with. The brother who'd had his back for a thousand years was more than the equal of the two almost-humans behind him, and not for the first time, he wished he'd had the nerve to stick around and let Kronos know that he was still around, still alive.
"How quickly do you heal?" he asked, once they'd gotten far enough into the jungle to be out of earshot of any stray sentries or wandering soldiers. The shout of pursuit had yet to go up behind them, but he still had one ear stretched for it. He had to know what the pair was physically capable of, at least. "Do you die and come back, or just not die at all?" Hopefully it was the former. It would make them easier to control, put the dynamics of the group close to those he'd used to hold the Horsemen together for ten centuries. If it were the latter, they were more than likely to be unnerved -- and unprepared -- for his sort of revival, should worst come to worst.
Victor grinned at the man's challenging look, his stance loose and easy, ready for the sort of challenge the man was suggesting. One where he could kill, whether human or animal, and ignore the complexities of life that was dealing with human society from the inside.
"We generally don't die." Logan answered the question, his expression more a smirk than Victor's, but equally as feral. "Unless someone's really lucky. But it doesn't stick, even then."
He actually wasn't certain if they really died, or if it just seemed that way, but he had developed a dislike for explosives after the incident where they'd found out that little bit of information. They were one of the less pleasant things to have to heal from.
Which meant they would be a bit more difficult to handle than his brothers had been, at least on a physical level. Somehow, he didn't think either of them would give him as much trouble as Caspian had, once upon a time.
"I'd ask if you could follow orders, but I think you've already answered that for me," he said dryly, ducking under a low-hanging branch. "Give me too much trouble, though, and I'll find somewhere unpleasant to strand you." A thin smile. "I've had a lot of practice." Kronos could tell you that. How many centuries did he spend in that well, anyway? His brother was going to be more than a little annoyed with him when they finally did re-encounter one another. Two months ago, the thought would have chilled him to the bone; had, in fact, sent him running half way around the world. Now, it was almost amusing. Explosives weren't the only reason he'd avoided war zones for the past two centuries.
"Fair deal." Victor spoke before Logan could this time, following closely behind Pierce. He had already decided to trust the man, something about him appealing to his inner beast. "You have an idea where we're going?" Other than north, and away from the humans who had locked the brothers in a cell.
Logan brought up the rear of the little group, keeping alert for any signs of those who would be following them, sooner or later. Or at least, trying to follow them, if they could keep up with them in this jungle.
"Some," Methos admitted. "I don't much fancy the idea of trying to take the pair of you through a Western-controlled border at the moment, even if you did have your papers." He paused, looking hard at the ground for a moment before moving off to the left. "I left some supplies out here, in case I ended up bringing the pair of you out," he explained. "Extra clothes, food, some books; that sort of thing. I've spent more than enough time wandering through the wilderness on the essentials to want to have to do it again."
The conveniences of the modern era were the best thing about it, and Methos had every intention of getting back to them sooner rather than later. "From here, we can pretty much choose a destination, at least in Asia, without having to go anywhere near the American authorities. They're a well-meaning enough government, but they've made things bloody hindering awkward lately."
Chuckling, Victor gave a shrug. He didn't particularly care about the government so long as they provided him a way to indulge in his need for violence and didn't get in the way. Though he would agree, at the moment, the American authorities would make things very awkward if they had to deal with them.
Logan smirked more at the implication that Pierce had been thinking ahead about breaking them out, even if he had given the impression he hadn't exactly intended to. Probably to make a point, Logan thought, but he kept his observation to himself for now. When he had a chance to talk to Victor without Pierce listening, then he'd mention it.
"What sort of books?" Logan asked instead, as they followed Pierce closely, glancing briefly at the spot of ground Pierce had, though he wasn't sure what the man had been looking at. Something he hadn't learned to spot yet, or wasn't aware of to look for, probably.
That was an unexpected question, and Methos, who was rarely wrong in his initial assessment of anyone, looked curiously at Jimmy before answering. There were depths there, then. The entire escapade was getting more interesting by the minute.
"My journals -- well, some of them. Herodotus, and some of the other classics. A complete copy of Byron, a couple of mystery novels..." He shrugged. "They don't weigh more than they're worth."
Logan shrugged, though he was curious about the journals. The classics and Byron he'd left behind when he'd fled his childhood home with Victor, and didn't have any desire to revisit. "Might be interested in the journals," he conceded after a moment, ignoring the raised eyebrow from his brother.
"I doubt you'd be able to read them," Methos said, one corner of his mouth twitching upwards in amusement. "They're not in English." He'd stopped using modern languages almost five hundred years ago. "This way." He led them into a little gully, half-hidden by overgrown vegetation. The packs he'd tucked away were under a bush that hid them completely from view, and he tugged them out one by one. "Here. Enjoy."
He wouldn't bother to suggest he could learn whatever language they were written in, not with Victor right there. Maybe later, when Victor was preoccupied with finding something to kill, or with a woman, but not right now.
Victor checked the contents of the pack, careful of his claws, before shouldering it. He didn't want to stop moving yet, though he would welcome the fight if soldiers from the base caught up with them. Welcome and relish the violence and bloodshed.
"Since north seems to be acceptable to the two of you, I suggest we get going," Methos suggested. "It's been a long time since I wandered around this particular wilderness. I'd rather not encounter a booby trap in the dark." No need to mention that encountering one the wrong way could do him a permanent injury. Victor, especially, is the sort to get ideas.
Logan nodded in agreement, shouldering his own pack easily, and waving for Pierce to continue leading the way. Even with the ability to heal rapidly, it was still painful to be injured, and he agreed that he'd rather not find booby traps in the dark. He'd rather not encounter a booby trap at all, really.
"Waiting for an invitation, or for someone else to lead the way?" Victor asked Pierce, giving him an amused look.
Methos lifted an eyebrow at him. "I plan on finishing stowing my gear," he said. Taking his overcoat off was an almost physical relief in the tropical heat. He slid his sword and sheath out of the lining, then rolled the coat itself and stuffed it into the top of his pack. His BDU jacket followed his coat, and he strapped his sword across his back before picking up his pack, adjusting it so as to not interfere when he drew the sword. He hadn't carried the weapon openly in years, but then, he didn't plan on letting anyone get close enough to ask awkward questions. The rest of his weapons he left where they were, save for a pistol, which he strapped to his hip.
"Now I'm ready," he said. The weight of his sword, openly worn, was a physical reminder of the years when he hadn't had to hide what he could do in order to survive, and for once he didn't bother to hide the straightening of his spine, or the breadth of his shoulders. "Come on, then," he said, lifting an eyebrow at the pair of them. "I don't suppose either of you has given any thought to where you want to go?"
"Away from here." Victor shrugged, not particularly caring beyond that. He was far more interested in the sword Pierce had strapped across his back. He hadn't seen anyone using that as a weapon since the American Civil War, and the particular sort of sword Pierce had was unlike any of the swords used even in his earliest years. "Why a sword?" he asked, waving a hand at the weapon across Pierce's back.
Logan hadn't given the matter much more thought than Victor. "Out of this country," he added to Victor's statement about away. "Ask me again later." After he'd had a chance to stop long enough to think more than react.
"Fair enough. North and west first, then, and we'll see from there." Methos turned an amused look on Victor. "The sword? It's...a cultural thing." There was no way he was going to explain the Game to either of them. "Besides, I'm fond of it. They used to be all the rage when I was younger."
Neither really had a reply to that, and remained quiet as them moved off, heading north, Victor dropping back behind Logan to take up the rear-most position. Letting themselves fall back into the habits of a century of relying only on each other, even if they were trusting someone else this time.
It was almost like sliding backwards in time, like wiping away the centuries spent in the swiftly-developing West. He'd spent thousands of years in what today's mortals would think of as trackless wilderness, enduring with nothing more than he could carry. At least the footwear was more comfortable this time around.
He wasn't really sure what he was going to do with his two new companions. They clearly couldn't be left to their own devices any longer, not without running the risk of starting a witch hunt that could all too easily catch up Immortals as well. The Inquisition had been dangerous enough, and the anti-Communist feeling that was so strong in the West right now, combined with the threat presented by modern science, was a recipe for the sort of disaster that had thankfully been avoided, at least so far.
That said, there was really no way to make them safe enough to turn loose. Jimmy might be able to find the sort of balance necessary to live unnoticed among mortals, if he could be separated from Victor -- but Victor himself would find assimilation as difficult as Kronos had. Only willful mortal blindness kept Kronos safe, and if more of these...aberrations continued to crop up in humans, that blindness would gradually disappear. It was an interesting dilemma, to say the least.
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Date: 2010-04-03 01:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-03 03:44 pm (UTC)