Morgyn Leri (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
morgynleri) wrote2010-04-01 12:00 am
morgynleri) wrote2010-04-01 12:00 am
In the Right Company; Highlander, X-Men; R
Title: 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: 4960 (13,707)
Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5
In the Right Company
Chapter 3
Victor was awake early the next morning, prowling restlessly through the underbrush around the camp, listening and sniffing for intruders, or someone human other than them. Spoiling for a fight, despite the warning from Methos not to attract attention. He reasoned that if the patrol came to the camp, it wasn't him attracting the attention, and it would be the better part of not being found to get rid of the patrol.
He grinned ferally when he caught the first whiff of soldiers near the river, smelling of cigarettes and gun oil and sweat. Victor followed the scent down-river a while, until he spotted the soldiers through the trees, recognizing the uniforms of US soldiers. He hesitated a moment, torn between the desire to just rip into them, and the thought that he really ought to let someone back at camp know before he did that.
A snarl crossed his face as he grimaced, and turned back to camp, moving as quietly as he had approached the patrol, crouching next to his brother to wake him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Patrol, down-river from here. Heading our direction when I spotted them." He kept his voice low, though he expected one or the other of the Immortals was awake to hear him. He didn't trust them at his back in a fight yet, though, not like he trusted Logan.
Logan rolled out of his bedroll at Victor's words, though he didn't immediately get up to follow Victor toward the patrol he'd mentioned, making sure Methos and Kronos were both awake and aware of what Victor had found first. Waiting to see what their reaction to the news would be - or rather, what Methos would have in mind, since he'd gotten the impression Kronos probably would be of a like mind to Victor.
Kronos smiled. Recognizing the expression, Methos sent his brother a narrow-eyed glare before turning his attention to Victor.
"How far were they? And were they American or Vietnamese?" He glanced over his shoulder at Kronos, who was getting their things together. "How's your Russian?"
"Not bad. I spent some time in the NKVD during the purges."
"Of course you did," Methos muttered. He lifted an eyebrow at Victor. "Is it possible to avoid them?" Might as well find out if the man were even capable of that sort of thinking.
"American, and probably about ten minutes behind me." Victor hadn't bothered to roll out his bedroll, and his pack was still where he'd dropped it the night before, leaving him with nothing to worry about in the way of packing.
"Might be able to avoid them," he added after a long pause, though he didn't think there was much point to doing so. Not when they'd find the camp, and know someone was there. There wasn't enough time to truly make it look like there'd been no one there the night before.
"I'm not running," Kronos said flatly, and watched Methos' face tighten with exasperation.
"You realize we'll have to kill them to the last man," he said. Kronos grinned, but didn't respond. Methos knew damn well that killing that patrol was the only thing to do, and given enough time with his own thoughts, he'd talk himself into it. His brother changed to reflect those around him; always had. It was one of the things that made Creed and Logan useful rather than a burden.
"All right; fine," Methos said after a moment. "We'll kill them."
Victor grinned, his fangs showing. Glad for the chance to kill something, his claws elongating, deadly sharp and vicious in appearence. Waiting and listening for the first sounds of the patrol hacking their way through the jungle, bouncing lightly on his toes.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Victor said of having to kill the entire patrol. It was, after all, what he'd had in mind for a good start to the day, and it was good to know he wasn't the only one who thought like that.
Logan wasn't as gleeful as Victor about the killing of men who he had, at some level, called comrade. Or at least, fought on the same side as, even if now they were his enemies. It didn't mean he wasn't looking forward to the fight, though, and he could feel the adrenaline kick in, sharpening already heightened senses and making the backs of his hands itch where his own claws would emerge.
"It's bloody Caspian all over again," Methos said, looking up from his guns to glare at Kronos.
"I think this one will take care of more than women and children, though," Kronos told him. "I haven't seen any evidence of cannibalism yet, either."
"Says the man who used to eat Caspian's cooking with every evidence of enjoyment," Methos sniped back. With Kronos next to him, the upcoming fight seemed almost routine, and he was trying very hard to remind himself that they were about to slaughter a dozen human beings. It wasn't working very well, especially when Kronos grinned like that.
Logan held back a comment on what Victor would probably do with women, doubting that Kronos would much care, and not too sure about Methos either. Focusing instead on the approaching patrol, the sounds of which he was starting to pick up - a machete hacking through vegetation, the fainter sounds of footsteps on damp leaf litter.
Victor ignored the comments between Methos and Kronos for the most part, though he snorted at the bit about taking care of women and children. The former he had better uses for than killing outright, and the latter he didn't consider much of a fight. Which made him wonder about this Caspian they were talking about, if not for long. The looming fight was far more interesting, anyway.
"Right," Methos said, standing up. "Here we go, then." He slanted a glance at Kronos. "Try and restrain yourself. We don't want the whole army crawling around here investigating if you decide to get...creative." His attention shifted, taking in Victor and Logan as well. "That includes you two."
This time, the crack of a branch was loud enough for him and Kronos to hear. The sardonic, slightly amused attitude fell away like the mask it was, and Methos stopped fighting the deep shiver of anticipation for the bloodshed that was about to happen. Kronos had stopped watching him. With a fight in the offing, they'd both become perfectly predictable to the other.
"Why don't we try flanking them?" he suggested. "Creed and Logan, you two stay here; draw their attention, and we'll take them from the sides." It was simple enough, and probably unnecessary, but strategy had always leapt unbidden to his mind. Kronos nodded, and looked questioningly at Creed and Logan.
Victor shrugged, grinning at Methos. "Whatever makes you happy." He actually liked the idea of drawing the soldiers' attention, fairly certain that would be easily enough accomplished when he started killing them.
Logan nodded to Methos and Kronos, agreeing with the tactic without speaking, keeping his claws in by sheer force of will, knowing they would leave distinctive wounds that would have the army looking for him. Victor's kills could at least be passed off as a wild animal, if not as well in this context.
Methos waited until Kronos had disappeared into the trees before following suit. The first shouts of alarm echoed through the woods before he'd gone ten paces, and he swore. Someone -- he wasn't placing any bets just yet as to who -- had gotten impatient. Speeding into a run, he shot the first two soldiers he came across, hoping that Kronos would have the sense to herd the others towards the waiting trap. They couldn't afford any survivors.
Victor paced the clearing impatiently after Methos and Kronos had slipped away, waiting only long enough to start smelling the patrol as well as hearing them before he started toward them, grinning as he heard the first shout of alarm. He tore into the first of the soldiers, ripping his throat out without stopping as he charged at the next one.
He felt the impact of bullets, and roared in pain, picking up the soldier who'd fired at him by the throat and tossing him against a tree, hearing the wet crack of breaking bones when he impacted.
Logan followed Victor once he heard his brother's shout of pain, giving up on keeping his claws in when a soldier took a shot at him. He didn't get a chance to complete the swing with his rifle that he started before Logan gutted him. The soldier dropped with a scream of pain that became a gurgle when Logan's claws went through his throat.
It was a short fight, and a messy one, and it blurred like it always did into the thousands he'd been in before. Mortals always died the same way, eyes fixing on something he'd never managed to catch a glimpse of before going permanently empty. He found Methos before it was over, and got to stand back-to-back with his brother in the middle of battle for the first time in two thousand years; got to watch the cool efficiency that hadn't changed even an iota, though Methos stuck with the guns the entire time, not even reaching for a dagger, let alone his sword. Creed and Logan -- well. If more mortals could kill like these two, the species in general might have been more interesting.
The fight was over too soon for Victor, and he snarled in frustration, though he managed to keep himself from turning toward the two Immortals. If only because Logan was right there, and reminded him that they weren't enemies, that he owed them. He wiped the blood from his claws on a scrap of clean fabric ripped from one of the uniforms, letting them retract slowly as he let the rush of the violence calm him, at least as much as it could.
Logan made sure Victor wasn't going to do something stupid before he retracted his own claws, wincing slightly at the pain as they receeded back through his hands and into his arms. Watching Methos and Kronos where they stood in the center of the mess of bodies scattered on the jungle floor. He didn't trust himself to speak yet, though, and so didn't, taking deep breaths to clear the haze of battle from his mind.
"Good fight," Kronos said, grinning brightly. Methos gave him a long, cool look that was close enough to the sort they'd exchanged over bodies two millenia ago that it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
"We should be moving on," he said after a long moment, his voice as distant as his eyes. Kronos knew better than to push him for more just at that moment. "Get everything together."
Logan nodded, making sure Victor was moving toward the clearing they had camped in before following, gathering his pack and slinging it over his shoulders as Victor did the same with his own, the two working together to obliterate the signs of the fire pit and the shelter that had been built the night before.
Victor was quieter, calmer as they finished taking apart the camp, the destruction helping as much as the violence had earlier. Ready as soon as the Immortals were, itching to move on, head north and away from the life he'd had before the fiasco with his and Logan's senior officer.
Methos was moving automatically, his mind miles -- or centuries -- distant. It was a look that Kronos knew well, and he left his brother alone while they broke camp. He doubted anyone else would even have been able to spot it; still, it was a relief when, after about half an hour's travel, the worst of the distance slipped from Methos' eyes. Despite what Methos thought, Kronos had learned some caution in the intervening centuries, and he wanted to be out of the American zone before Methos started coming up with the more ingenious sorts of ideas of which he was capable.
The distance in Methos's eyes made Logan frown, and he hung back from the Immortals during the first part of the day's hike, giving him room until the distance faded from his gaze.
Victor kept back as well, not needing Logan to keep him away from the Immortals at the moment, though he prowled further out, scouting ahead and to the side simply to keep himself occupied with more than watching the others. It wasn't as interesting when everyone was quiet.
Methos called a halt about an hour before noon, not wanting to spend the hottest part of the day wandering through the jungle. The trees provided enough shade to drop the ambient temperature far enough to prevent the heatstroke that Immortals weren't necessarily immune to, and he ignored Kronos' comments about getting soft after too much time out of the desert.
When they stopped, Victor settled at the base of a tree, his pack dropped to the ground next to him as he leaned back, his eyes half-closed. Taking the moment to doze, rather like a cat, though he listened to noises around him, one corner of his mouth twitching up at the comments exchanged by the two Immortals.
Logan dropped his pack next to Victor's, though he stayed on his feet, watching Methos and Kronos for a long moment before approaching them. Curious about the names Methos had mentioned before, particularly the one they had both compared Victor to.
"Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" He raised an eyebrow at Methos, his hands in his pockets. Curiousity in his gaze despite his gruff tone and stoic expression. He'd learned to hide a lot around Victor, and the habits stuck.
"You can ask," Methos said, putting aside his journal. The emphasis on the last word was slight but audible. Next to him, he could feel Kronos' attention sharpening, focus returning from whatever thoughts or memories had temporarily claimed it.
Logan gave him a sardonic half-smile. "Who's Caspian, other than someone people called Famine once?" He'd ask why they compared him and Victor after, if he thought he needed clarification.
"Our third brother," Methos answered. "He has some...socialization issues." It was a polite way of saying that even compared to the other Horsemen, Caspian had been distinctly disturbed. Kronos gave a snort of laughter.
"That's one way of putting it." he said.
Not enough for Logan to puzzle out quite what the comparison between him and Victor was, but the phrasing of Methos's answer made him doubt he'd get more information without pushing more than he thought would be safe. "What about the fourth, Silas?"
Methos looked briefly down at the journal in his lap. "Silas is different." He gave Logan the full force of his stare. "He's not a monster." Not really. The inability to adapt to modern ethics was nothing like the calculating destruction the other three were as capable of as breathing. "He likes animals." And would knock an infant's brains out against a tree as quickly as Kronos.
The dichotomy wasn't entirely comprehensible, not to modern minds -- but there it was. "If I were helpless, I'd rather Silas stumble upon me than Caspian or Kronos."
"Only because you know me, Methos," Kronos said, in that too-sweet tone of his that meant trouble later.
Logan met Methos's gaze face-on, his expression flat and almost blank, unwilling to show fear, even with a cold trickle of sweat making its way down his spine. That Methos would rather have Silas find him than the other two had a thoughtful expression cross Logan's face before he shoved the feeling down. He'd have time enough to think once they were moving again.
"How long did you travel together?" he asked, despite starting to think he was pushing a bit more than he should. Wanting to know more about these two he and Victor had thrown in with before he was willing to trust them even as far as Victor apparently was.
"A thousand years, give or take," Methos said.
"Until you dropped me in a well." Kronos didn't look nearly as annoyed as Methos had been expecting for the past two millenia, which was more than a little ominous.
"You deserved it," he said, than glanced up at Logan. "Sit down, would you? Stop looming."
Logan pulled his hands out of his pockets as he took the invitation to sit, watching Kronos with the same guarded curiosity he did Methos. "Why drop Kronos in a well?" he asked, that curiosity shading his voice as well.
Victor continued to listen from where he was sitting, letting Logan's curiosity feed him information as well, taking the lazier approach. Though there were questions he'd ask that he didn't think Logan would get to, not soon, and that would be as easily answered by finding fights where he could watch them in the thick of things.
"Yes; that's what I'd like to know," Kronos said, blue eyes sharpening. Methos managed to keep his wince off of his face, but barely.
"You wouldn't listen," he said blandly. "I tried telling you -- I'd been trying to tell you for a hundred years -- that we couldn't keep it up. Humanity was starting to build cities, to collect armies. Four of us on horseback were headed for a nasty fall, and I didn't feel like becoming some petty king's plaything."
It was more of an explanation than he'd have given Logan alone, but with Kronos sitting there with that expression on his face, Methos didn't have much of a choice.
Logan watched them a moment before he asked another question, a vague idea forming at the back of his mind, a curiosity about what could happen if they didn't part ways once they'd gotten safely out of American territory. Only this time, he directed it at Kronos rather than Methos. "Why did you come looking for Methos?"
Kronos scowled. "I don't recall giving you permission to ask me questions."
"Consider me curious," Methos said sharply. The last thing he wanted was for Kronos to start a fight with Creed and Logan. There was no way he'd be able to just tangle with one of them.
"Oh, well, in that case," Kronos shrugged. "Revenge. Reunion. I was going to stick a knife in him and keep him somewhere until he decided to play nicely, but by the time I found him, well." The smile on Kronos' lips was far from pleasant. "He was already going the way I wanted him to go."
Revenge was a desire Logan could understand very well, and memory darkened his expression a moment, a glitter of old rage in his eyes before he shoved it back down. He leaned back, watching them again. "And which way was that?"
Victor had sat up a bit at Kronos's response to Logan, his eyes opening again to watch the trio warily, his attention particularly focused on Kronos. Waiting to see if he'd try to hurt Logan, and idly wondering just what it might take to kill an Immortal, if he went after him. Especially with the comment about putting a knife in Methos. Wondering just how much that'd slow the Immortal down.
"Oh, telling would spoil it," Kronos said, not taking his eyes off of Methos, whose expression, though outwardly calm, was as dangerous as a drawn sword. Methos didn't enjoy being reminded that Kronos could read him as easily as he could read others.
"I've been a good deal more civilised over the past few centuries than my dear brothers," Methos said, after a moment.
"For a given value of civilised," Kronos said sarcastically. He took a moment to send a warning look at Victor, whose expression didn't bode well for anyone.
Victor met Kronos's warning look with a slow smile, a predetory gleam in his eyes that said he wasn't going to be intimidated by something so simple as a look, and he wasn't going to be easily controlled.
Logan shrugged, knowing without looking at Victor that his brother was paying attention to the whole thing, and probably getting more ideas than was always entirely safe. He looked at Kronos again, raising an eyebrow. "You said reunion. You just trying to get Methos back, or are you going to look for the other two?"
"Oh, that is an interesting thought," Kronos said, eyes lighting up.
"I'm not dealing with Caspian again," Methos said flatly, hoping to slice the legs out from under the idea. At the moment, he could have happily taken Logan to pieces for the untimely question, and that more than anything was proof that the last thing he needed was to see Caspian and Silas again. Kronos -- and Creed and Logan -- were proving more than disruptive to the careful equilibrium he normally maintained between Death and the rest of the world.
"Besides, I haven't heard anything about Silas since the Soviets retook Byelorussia. Anything could have happened to him once the war ended."
Logan gave a non-committal grunt, a thoughtful expression in his eyes, though he did his best to keep it from his face. Silent for a moment before he asked another question. "What do you intend to do, then? Other than travel, and get out of Vietnam."
He didn't ask what they - or Methos, really - intended to do with him and Victor. He wasn't about to put his fate in someone else's hands, not that easily. It was enough that he'd had to trust Methos to get him and Victor out of prison in the first place.
"Honestly? Travel, and get out of Vietnam," Methos admitted. "I really hadn't expected the pair of you. This was all very last-minute -- and your not being Immortal changes things more than a little bit." Kronos didn't say anything. At this point, the best thing to do was to let Methos take himself where Kronos wanted it to go. It would happen eventually. He knew Methos too well to think otherwise.
"How?" Logan leaned forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched Methos. "And changes what things?" Not travel plans, since that was fairly obvious, but he was curious, and pushing more than he might usually, simply because he knew these two weren't anything like the sort of people he'd dealt with most of his life.
Victor leaned back against the tree again, watching through hooded eyes as Logan kept asking questions. Wondering a bit where his brother's thoughts were going, and just what that train of thought would bring them.
"Were you planning on teaching them?" Kronos asked, visibly amused. "Have you even had a student since Byron?"
Methos' head came up sharply. "I'd ask you how you know about that, but I'm not sure I want the answer. If you've done anything to him, you'll damn well face me."
"Calm down," Kronos advised. "I didn't hurt him." The lazy amusement never left his eyes. "He's far too interesting to do anything permanent to." After a long moment, Methos relaxed. The tension left Kronos' frame a moment later, and much more subtly. It was another few seconds before they took their eyes off of each other.
"There are things you'd need to know if you were Immortal," Methos said after a second. "Some of them you should still probably learn." How to switch identities -- if they hadn't already learned. How to avoid notice in tax rolls, banks, census records. How to blend in.
"Or we could conquer part of Asia," Kronos said blandly. "Set up our own country."
"Not happening, Kronos," Methos said. "I'm not playing nuclear politics, and you'd have us living in a parking lot inside of a week."
"It would be fun." Victor spoke before Logan could, an amused smirk on his face. "Conquering a country."
Logan gave an almost imperceptable shake of his head, though he knew his brother wouldn't be bothered by encouraging Kronos, and antagonizing Methos. Not if it gave him the opportunity to kill and indulge himself in whatever he wanted.
"What sort of things are you thinking we should learn?" Logan asked, before either of them could say something to Victor. They might be things they'd learned, or things they hadn't, but it would be a better than letting Victor bait someone into a fight.
Methos ignored Victor in favor of answring Logan's question. The last thing he wanted was for Kronos and Victor to team up. 'Disasterous' wasn't a strong enough word for the idea. "Mostly, I'd say you need to learn to stay off official radar. That's more a self-control thing than otherwise, though."
"First time we've gotten really caught." Logan shrugged, knowing part of that was because he hadn't quite kept up enough with Victor to stop things before he'd gone and killed the officer.
"Which means that now they'll have a reason to start digging into your backgrounds, probably for the first time ever," Methos said pointedly. "They'll start linking identities -- I certainly don't believe that this is the first time you two have been in the military -- and it won't take them long to figure out everywhere and everyone you've ever been." It was his own worst nightmare, and the main reason that he began the set up work on his identities fifty or sixty years in advance these days. "Governments hold onto documents forever. For that, you can blame the Egyptians, and the invention of bureaucracy."
"Says the man who's been holding onto his journals since the human race started writing things down," Kronos said. Methos rolled his eyes.
Logan wasn't sure they'd connect all the dots, all the way back, but he was certain they'd connect them far enough. It wasn't like they'd actually changed their names with each war, just joining up with a new generation, and letting them think they were their own sons. If they even bothered to notice.
"How bad is it?" Methos asked, lifting an eyebrow. "If they start -- once they start -- looking, how long will it take them to figure out that something funny is going on?"
"We've fought in every major war since the American Civil War, never actually had to change our names." Logan shrugged, though he wasn't as comfortable as he pretended to be about them finding just how long lived they were. "Don't know if they'll connect us back to where and when we were born, but too close for comfort." Made him rather glad he didn't have any family other than Victor. No one to worry about who wasn't right here.
"Oh, fucking Christ," Methos said irritably. He'd used a throwaway identity to check out Logan and Creed, but it didn't change the fact that he'd left a trail connecting himself to them. "How have you not been carted off to a lab before this?"
"Every American war?" Kronos asked Victor, bored with the lecture already.
"It's a career." Victor shrugged, not any more interested in the lecture than Kronos. He hadn't particularly cared if someone connected their stints in the military, fairly confident in the ability between him and Logan to keep themselves out of any sort of permanent trouble - or paying anyone who gave them trouble back with more than they could dish out.
"No one noticed." Logan's shrug was an almost identical echo of Victor's as he answered Methos's question. "Or saw what they wanted to see." Not his fault if they were blind to what was right in front of them. He'd actually been entertained by it, from time to time. He'd known it was a danger, and it had been a thrill that he'd enjoyed more than the fighting itself.
"Mortals are idiots," Kronos said. "You know that."
"Yes, well, now that they've been given reason to look, I'd imagine they'll put the pieces together pretty bloody quickly, wouldn't you?" He scowled. "I'm willing to bet that will mean Special Forces, in addition to whatever else they would have sent after us."
Victor snorted, curling up one lip in amusement. "Doesn't make them any less fragile than the regular soldiers." Fragile in the sense that they could be tossed like so many ragdolls once he got close enough to hit them. Among other ways of killing them.
"I know they'll put it together quickly. Once they go through enough archives of paper." Logan didn't bother to keep his annoyance hidden at the moment. "It's not something they can do overnight."
"It won't take long. They'll find people, too, who knew you in Korea, and during the Second World War. Maybe even some from the First, if they really go looking." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Christ. What a mess." Looking up, he sighed. "Right. That puts sneaking back into the West right out. They'll have your photographs in every police station west of the Berlin Wall."
Logan didn't mention he hadn't actually been thinking of going back, even if he did miss the wilderness of home sometimes. Especially now, there was a chance to change the routine life had become in the last century. Fight in a war, retreat to the wilderness for a decade, fight another war. Looking for something more of a challenge, even if he wasn't sure quite what he wanted yet.
"Loas it is, then," Methos said. If he were on his own, he would probably have gone to Tibet; might have done so even with Creed and Logan in tow. Kronos was a different story. He wasn't taking his brother anywhere near one of the last sanctuaries he had left. "We're going to attract a lot of attention."
Co-author:
auberusFandom: Highlander, X-Men
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, sexual situations
Characters: Victor Creed, James Logan, Methos, Kronos
Pairings: Methos/Kronos
Word Count: 4960 (13,707)
Chapter 1 ~ Chapter 2 ~ Chapter 3 ~ Chapter 4 ~ Chapter 5
Chapter 3
Victor was awake early the next morning, prowling restlessly through the underbrush around the camp, listening and sniffing for intruders, or someone human other than them. Spoiling for a fight, despite the warning from Methos not to attract attention. He reasoned that if the patrol came to the camp, it wasn't him attracting the attention, and it would be the better part of not being found to get rid of the patrol.
He grinned ferally when he caught the first whiff of soldiers near the river, smelling of cigarettes and gun oil and sweat. Victor followed the scent down-river a while, until he spotted the soldiers through the trees, recognizing the uniforms of US soldiers. He hesitated a moment, torn between the desire to just rip into them, and the thought that he really ought to let someone back at camp know before he did that.
A snarl crossed his face as he grimaced, and turned back to camp, moving as quietly as he had approached the patrol, crouching next to his brother to wake him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Patrol, down-river from here. Heading our direction when I spotted them." He kept his voice low, though he expected one or the other of the Immortals was awake to hear him. He didn't trust them at his back in a fight yet, though, not like he trusted Logan.
Logan rolled out of his bedroll at Victor's words, though he didn't immediately get up to follow Victor toward the patrol he'd mentioned, making sure Methos and Kronos were both awake and aware of what Victor had found first. Waiting to see what their reaction to the news would be - or rather, what Methos would have in mind, since he'd gotten the impression Kronos probably would be of a like mind to Victor.
Kronos smiled. Recognizing the expression, Methos sent his brother a narrow-eyed glare before turning his attention to Victor.
"How far were they? And were they American or Vietnamese?" He glanced over his shoulder at Kronos, who was getting their things together. "How's your Russian?"
"Not bad. I spent some time in the NKVD during the purges."
"Of course you did," Methos muttered. He lifted an eyebrow at Victor. "Is it possible to avoid them?" Might as well find out if the man were even capable of that sort of thinking.
"American, and probably about ten minutes behind me." Victor hadn't bothered to roll out his bedroll, and his pack was still where he'd dropped it the night before, leaving him with nothing to worry about in the way of packing.
"Might be able to avoid them," he added after a long pause, though he didn't think there was much point to doing so. Not when they'd find the camp, and know someone was there. There wasn't enough time to truly make it look like there'd been no one there the night before.
"I'm not running," Kronos said flatly, and watched Methos' face tighten with exasperation.
"You realize we'll have to kill them to the last man," he said. Kronos grinned, but didn't respond. Methos knew damn well that killing that patrol was the only thing to do, and given enough time with his own thoughts, he'd talk himself into it. His brother changed to reflect those around him; always had. It was one of the things that made Creed and Logan useful rather than a burden.
"All right; fine," Methos said after a moment. "We'll kill them."
Victor grinned, his fangs showing. Glad for the chance to kill something, his claws elongating, deadly sharp and vicious in appearence. Waiting and listening for the first sounds of the patrol hacking their way through the jungle, bouncing lightly on his toes.
"Sounds like a good idea to me," Victor said of having to kill the entire patrol. It was, after all, what he'd had in mind for a good start to the day, and it was good to know he wasn't the only one who thought like that.
Logan wasn't as gleeful as Victor about the killing of men who he had, at some level, called comrade. Or at least, fought on the same side as, even if now they were his enemies. It didn't mean he wasn't looking forward to the fight, though, and he could feel the adrenaline kick in, sharpening already heightened senses and making the backs of his hands itch where his own claws would emerge.
"It's bloody Caspian all over again," Methos said, looking up from his guns to glare at Kronos.
"I think this one will take care of more than women and children, though," Kronos told him. "I haven't seen any evidence of cannibalism yet, either."
"Says the man who used to eat Caspian's cooking with every evidence of enjoyment," Methos sniped back. With Kronos next to him, the upcoming fight seemed almost routine, and he was trying very hard to remind himself that they were about to slaughter a dozen human beings. It wasn't working very well, especially when Kronos grinned like that.
Logan held back a comment on what Victor would probably do with women, doubting that Kronos would much care, and not too sure about Methos either. Focusing instead on the approaching patrol, the sounds of which he was starting to pick up - a machete hacking through vegetation, the fainter sounds of footsteps on damp leaf litter.
Victor ignored the comments between Methos and Kronos for the most part, though he snorted at the bit about taking care of women and children. The former he had better uses for than killing outright, and the latter he didn't consider much of a fight. Which made him wonder about this Caspian they were talking about, if not for long. The looming fight was far more interesting, anyway.
"Right," Methos said, standing up. "Here we go, then." He slanted a glance at Kronos. "Try and restrain yourself. We don't want the whole army crawling around here investigating if you decide to get...creative." His attention shifted, taking in Victor and Logan as well. "That includes you two."
This time, the crack of a branch was loud enough for him and Kronos to hear. The sardonic, slightly amused attitude fell away like the mask it was, and Methos stopped fighting the deep shiver of anticipation for the bloodshed that was about to happen. Kronos had stopped watching him. With a fight in the offing, they'd both become perfectly predictable to the other.
"Why don't we try flanking them?" he suggested. "Creed and Logan, you two stay here; draw their attention, and we'll take them from the sides." It was simple enough, and probably unnecessary, but strategy had always leapt unbidden to his mind. Kronos nodded, and looked questioningly at Creed and Logan.
Victor shrugged, grinning at Methos. "Whatever makes you happy." He actually liked the idea of drawing the soldiers' attention, fairly certain that would be easily enough accomplished when he started killing them.
Logan nodded to Methos and Kronos, agreeing with the tactic without speaking, keeping his claws in by sheer force of will, knowing they would leave distinctive wounds that would have the army looking for him. Victor's kills could at least be passed off as a wild animal, if not as well in this context.
Methos waited until Kronos had disappeared into the trees before following suit. The first shouts of alarm echoed through the woods before he'd gone ten paces, and he swore. Someone -- he wasn't placing any bets just yet as to who -- had gotten impatient. Speeding into a run, he shot the first two soldiers he came across, hoping that Kronos would have the sense to herd the others towards the waiting trap. They couldn't afford any survivors.
Victor paced the clearing impatiently after Methos and Kronos had slipped away, waiting only long enough to start smelling the patrol as well as hearing them before he started toward them, grinning as he heard the first shout of alarm. He tore into the first of the soldiers, ripping his throat out without stopping as he charged at the next one.
He felt the impact of bullets, and roared in pain, picking up the soldier who'd fired at him by the throat and tossing him against a tree, hearing the wet crack of breaking bones when he impacted.
Logan followed Victor once he heard his brother's shout of pain, giving up on keeping his claws in when a soldier took a shot at him. He didn't get a chance to complete the swing with his rifle that he started before Logan gutted him. The soldier dropped with a scream of pain that became a gurgle when Logan's claws went through his throat.
It was a short fight, and a messy one, and it blurred like it always did into the thousands he'd been in before. Mortals always died the same way, eyes fixing on something he'd never managed to catch a glimpse of before going permanently empty. He found Methos before it was over, and got to stand back-to-back with his brother in the middle of battle for the first time in two thousand years; got to watch the cool efficiency that hadn't changed even an iota, though Methos stuck with the guns the entire time, not even reaching for a dagger, let alone his sword. Creed and Logan -- well. If more mortals could kill like these two, the species in general might have been more interesting.
The fight was over too soon for Victor, and he snarled in frustration, though he managed to keep himself from turning toward the two Immortals. If only because Logan was right there, and reminded him that they weren't enemies, that he owed them. He wiped the blood from his claws on a scrap of clean fabric ripped from one of the uniforms, letting them retract slowly as he let the rush of the violence calm him, at least as much as it could.
Logan made sure Victor wasn't going to do something stupid before he retracted his own claws, wincing slightly at the pain as they receeded back through his hands and into his arms. Watching Methos and Kronos where they stood in the center of the mess of bodies scattered on the jungle floor. He didn't trust himself to speak yet, though, and so didn't, taking deep breaths to clear the haze of battle from his mind.
"Good fight," Kronos said, grinning brightly. Methos gave him a long, cool look that was close enough to the sort they'd exchanged over bodies two millenia ago that it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
"We should be moving on," he said after a long moment, his voice as distant as his eyes. Kronos knew better than to push him for more just at that moment. "Get everything together."
Logan nodded, making sure Victor was moving toward the clearing they had camped in before following, gathering his pack and slinging it over his shoulders as Victor did the same with his own, the two working together to obliterate the signs of the fire pit and the shelter that had been built the night before.
Victor was quieter, calmer as they finished taking apart the camp, the destruction helping as much as the violence had earlier. Ready as soon as the Immortals were, itching to move on, head north and away from the life he'd had before the fiasco with his and Logan's senior officer.
Methos was moving automatically, his mind miles -- or centuries -- distant. It was a look that Kronos knew well, and he left his brother alone while they broke camp. He doubted anyone else would even have been able to spot it; still, it was a relief when, after about half an hour's travel, the worst of the distance slipped from Methos' eyes. Despite what Methos thought, Kronos had learned some caution in the intervening centuries, and he wanted to be out of the American zone before Methos started coming up with the more ingenious sorts of ideas of which he was capable.
The distance in Methos's eyes made Logan frown, and he hung back from the Immortals during the first part of the day's hike, giving him room until the distance faded from his gaze.
Victor kept back as well, not needing Logan to keep him away from the Immortals at the moment, though he prowled further out, scouting ahead and to the side simply to keep himself occupied with more than watching the others. It wasn't as interesting when everyone was quiet.
Methos called a halt about an hour before noon, not wanting to spend the hottest part of the day wandering through the jungle. The trees provided enough shade to drop the ambient temperature far enough to prevent the heatstroke that Immortals weren't necessarily immune to, and he ignored Kronos' comments about getting soft after too much time out of the desert.
When they stopped, Victor settled at the base of a tree, his pack dropped to the ground next to him as he leaned back, his eyes half-closed. Taking the moment to doze, rather like a cat, though he listened to noises around him, one corner of his mouth twitching up at the comments exchanged by the two Immortals.
Logan dropped his pack next to Victor's, though he stayed on his feet, watching Methos and Kronos for a long moment before approaching them. Curious about the names Methos had mentioned before, particularly the one they had both compared Victor to.
"Mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" He raised an eyebrow at Methos, his hands in his pockets. Curiousity in his gaze despite his gruff tone and stoic expression. He'd learned to hide a lot around Victor, and the habits stuck.
"You can ask," Methos said, putting aside his journal. The emphasis on the last word was slight but audible. Next to him, he could feel Kronos' attention sharpening, focus returning from whatever thoughts or memories had temporarily claimed it.
Logan gave him a sardonic half-smile. "Who's Caspian, other than someone people called Famine once?" He'd ask why they compared him and Victor after, if he thought he needed clarification.
"Our third brother," Methos answered. "He has some...socialization issues." It was a polite way of saying that even compared to the other Horsemen, Caspian had been distinctly disturbed. Kronos gave a snort of laughter.
"That's one way of putting it." he said.
Not enough for Logan to puzzle out quite what the comparison between him and Victor was, but the phrasing of Methos's answer made him doubt he'd get more information without pushing more than he thought would be safe. "What about the fourth, Silas?"
Methos looked briefly down at the journal in his lap. "Silas is different." He gave Logan the full force of his stare. "He's not a monster." Not really. The inability to adapt to modern ethics was nothing like the calculating destruction the other three were as capable of as breathing. "He likes animals." And would knock an infant's brains out against a tree as quickly as Kronos.
The dichotomy wasn't entirely comprehensible, not to modern minds -- but there it was. "If I were helpless, I'd rather Silas stumble upon me than Caspian or Kronos."
"Only because you know me, Methos," Kronos said, in that too-sweet tone of his that meant trouble later.
Logan met Methos's gaze face-on, his expression flat and almost blank, unwilling to show fear, even with a cold trickle of sweat making its way down his spine. That Methos would rather have Silas find him than the other two had a thoughtful expression cross Logan's face before he shoved the feeling down. He'd have time enough to think once they were moving again.
"How long did you travel together?" he asked, despite starting to think he was pushing a bit more than he should. Wanting to know more about these two he and Victor had thrown in with before he was willing to trust them even as far as Victor apparently was.
"A thousand years, give or take," Methos said.
"Until you dropped me in a well." Kronos didn't look nearly as annoyed as Methos had been expecting for the past two millenia, which was more than a little ominous.
"You deserved it," he said, than glanced up at Logan. "Sit down, would you? Stop looming."
Logan pulled his hands out of his pockets as he took the invitation to sit, watching Kronos with the same guarded curiosity he did Methos. "Why drop Kronos in a well?" he asked, that curiosity shading his voice as well.
Victor continued to listen from where he was sitting, letting Logan's curiosity feed him information as well, taking the lazier approach. Though there were questions he'd ask that he didn't think Logan would get to, not soon, and that would be as easily answered by finding fights where he could watch them in the thick of things.
"Yes; that's what I'd like to know," Kronos said, blue eyes sharpening. Methos managed to keep his wince off of his face, but barely.
"You wouldn't listen," he said blandly. "I tried telling you -- I'd been trying to tell you for a hundred years -- that we couldn't keep it up. Humanity was starting to build cities, to collect armies. Four of us on horseback were headed for a nasty fall, and I didn't feel like becoming some petty king's plaything."
It was more of an explanation than he'd have given Logan alone, but with Kronos sitting there with that expression on his face, Methos didn't have much of a choice.
Logan watched them a moment before he asked another question, a vague idea forming at the back of his mind, a curiosity about what could happen if they didn't part ways once they'd gotten safely out of American territory. Only this time, he directed it at Kronos rather than Methos. "Why did you come looking for Methos?"
Kronos scowled. "I don't recall giving you permission to ask me questions."
"Consider me curious," Methos said sharply. The last thing he wanted was for Kronos to start a fight with Creed and Logan. There was no way he'd be able to just tangle with one of them.
"Oh, well, in that case," Kronos shrugged. "Revenge. Reunion. I was going to stick a knife in him and keep him somewhere until he decided to play nicely, but by the time I found him, well." The smile on Kronos' lips was far from pleasant. "He was already going the way I wanted him to go."
Revenge was a desire Logan could understand very well, and memory darkened his expression a moment, a glitter of old rage in his eyes before he shoved it back down. He leaned back, watching them again. "And which way was that?"
Victor had sat up a bit at Kronos's response to Logan, his eyes opening again to watch the trio warily, his attention particularly focused on Kronos. Waiting to see if he'd try to hurt Logan, and idly wondering just what it might take to kill an Immortal, if he went after him. Especially with the comment about putting a knife in Methos. Wondering just how much that'd slow the Immortal down.
"Oh, telling would spoil it," Kronos said, not taking his eyes off of Methos, whose expression, though outwardly calm, was as dangerous as a drawn sword. Methos didn't enjoy being reminded that Kronos could read him as easily as he could read others.
"I've been a good deal more civilised over the past few centuries than my dear brothers," Methos said, after a moment.
"For a given value of civilised," Kronos said sarcastically. He took a moment to send a warning look at Victor, whose expression didn't bode well for anyone.
Victor met Kronos's warning look with a slow smile, a predetory gleam in his eyes that said he wasn't going to be intimidated by something so simple as a look, and he wasn't going to be easily controlled.
Logan shrugged, knowing without looking at Victor that his brother was paying attention to the whole thing, and probably getting more ideas than was always entirely safe. He looked at Kronos again, raising an eyebrow. "You said reunion. You just trying to get Methos back, or are you going to look for the other two?"
"Oh, that is an interesting thought," Kronos said, eyes lighting up.
"I'm not dealing with Caspian again," Methos said flatly, hoping to slice the legs out from under the idea. At the moment, he could have happily taken Logan to pieces for the untimely question, and that more than anything was proof that the last thing he needed was to see Caspian and Silas again. Kronos -- and Creed and Logan -- were proving more than disruptive to the careful equilibrium he normally maintained between Death and the rest of the world.
"Besides, I haven't heard anything about Silas since the Soviets retook Byelorussia. Anything could have happened to him once the war ended."
Logan gave a non-committal grunt, a thoughtful expression in his eyes, though he did his best to keep it from his face. Silent for a moment before he asked another question. "What do you intend to do, then? Other than travel, and get out of Vietnam."
He didn't ask what they - or Methos, really - intended to do with him and Victor. He wasn't about to put his fate in someone else's hands, not that easily. It was enough that he'd had to trust Methos to get him and Victor out of prison in the first place.
"Honestly? Travel, and get out of Vietnam," Methos admitted. "I really hadn't expected the pair of you. This was all very last-minute -- and your not being Immortal changes things more than a little bit." Kronos didn't say anything. At this point, the best thing to do was to let Methos take himself where Kronos wanted it to go. It would happen eventually. He knew Methos too well to think otherwise.
"How?" Logan leaned forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees as he watched Methos. "And changes what things?" Not travel plans, since that was fairly obvious, but he was curious, and pushing more than he might usually, simply because he knew these two weren't anything like the sort of people he'd dealt with most of his life.
Victor leaned back against the tree again, watching through hooded eyes as Logan kept asking questions. Wondering a bit where his brother's thoughts were going, and just what that train of thought would bring them.
"Were you planning on teaching them?" Kronos asked, visibly amused. "Have you even had a student since Byron?"
Methos' head came up sharply. "I'd ask you how you know about that, but I'm not sure I want the answer. If you've done anything to him, you'll damn well face me."
"Calm down," Kronos advised. "I didn't hurt him." The lazy amusement never left his eyes. "He's far too interesting to do anything permanent to." After a long moment, Methos relaxed. The tension left Kronos' frame a moment later, and much more subtly. It was another few seconds before they took their eyes off of each other.
"There are things you'd need to know if you were Immortal," Methos said after a second. "Some of them you should still probably learn." How to switch identities -- if they hadn't already learned. How to avoid notice in tax rolls, banks, census records. How to blend in.
"Or we could conquer part of Asia," Kronos said blandly. "Set up our own country."
"Not happening, Kronos," Methos said. "I'm not playing nuclear politics, and you'd have us living in a parking lot inside of a week."
"It would be fun." Victor spoke before Logan could, an amused smirk on his face. "Conquering a country."
Logan gave an almost imperceptable shake of his head, though he knew his brother wouldn't be bothered by encouraging Kronos, and antagonizing Methos. Not if it gave him the opportunity to kill and indulge himself in whatever he wanted.
"What sort of things are you thinking we should learn?" Logan asked, before either of them could say something to Victor. They might be things they'd learned, or things they hadn't, but it would be a better than letting Victor bait someone into a fight.
Methos ignored Victor in favor of answring Logan's question. The last thing he wanted was for Kronos and Victor to team up. 'Disasterous' wasn't a strong enough word for the idea. "Mostly, I'd say you need to learn to stay off official radar. That's more a self-control thing than otherwise, though."
"First time we've gotten really caught." Logan shrugged, knowing part of that was because he hadn't quite kept up enough with Victor to stop things before he'd gone and killed the officer.
"Which means that now they'll have a reason to start digging into your backgrounds, probably for the first time ever," Methos said pointedly. "They'll start linking identities -- I certainly don't believe that this is the first time you two have been in the military -- and it won't take them long to figure out everywhere and everyone you've ever been." It was his own worst nightmare, and the main reason that he began the set up work on his identities fifty or sixty years in advance these days. "Governments hold onto documents forever. For that, you can blame the Egyptians, and the invention of bureaucracy."
"Says the man who's been holding onto his journals since the human race started writing things down," Kronos said. Methos rolled his eyes.
Logan wasn't sure they'd connect all the dots, all the way back, but he was certain they'd connect them far enough. It wasn't like they'd actually changed their names with each war, just joining up with a new generation, and letting them think they were their own sons. If they even bothered to notice.
"How bad is it?" Methos asked, lifting an eyebrow. "If they start -- once they start -- looking, how long will it take them to figure out that something funny is going on?"
"We've fought in every major war since the American Civil War, never actually had to change our names." Logan shrugged, though he wasn't as comfortable as he pretended to be about them finding just how long lived they were. "Don't know if they'll connect us back to where and when we were born, but too close for comfort." Made him rather glad he didn't have any family other than Victor. No one to worry about who wasn't right here.
"Oh, fucking Christ," Methos said irritably. He'd used a throwaway identity to check out Logan and Creed, but it didn't change the fact that he'd left a trail connecting himself to them. "How have you not been carted off to a lab before this?"
"Every American war?" Kronos asked Victor, bored with the lecture already.
"It's a career." Victor shrugged, not any more interested in the lecture than Kronos. He hadn't particularly cared if someone connected their stints in the military, fairly confident in the ability between him and Logan to keep themselves out of any sort of permanent trouble - or paying anyone who gave them trouble back with more than they could dish out.
"No one noticed." Logan's shrug was an almost identical echo of Victor's as he answered Methos's question. "Or saw what they wanted to see." Not his fault if they were blind to what was right in front of them. He'd actually been entertained by it, from time to time. He'd known it was a danger, and it had been a thrill that he'd enjoyed more than the fighting itself.
"Mortals are idiots," Kronos said. "You know that."
"Yes, well, now that they've been given reason to look, I'd imagine they'll put the pieces together pretty bloody quickly, wouldn't you?" He scowled. "I'm willing to bet that will mean Special Forces, in addition to whatever else they would have sent after us."
Victor snorted, curling up one lip in amusement. "Doesn't make them any less fragile than the regular soldiers." Fragile in the sense that they could be tossed like so many ragdolls once he got close enough to hit them. Among other ways of killing them.
"I know they'll put it together quickly. Once they go through enough archives of paper." Logan didn't bother to keep his annoyance hidden at the moment. "It's not something they can do overnight."
"It won't take long. They'll find people, too, who knew you in Korea, and during the Second World War. Maybe even some from the First, if they really go looking." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Christ. What a mess." Looking up, he sighed. "Right. That puts sneaking back into the West right out. They'll have your photographs in every police station west of the Berlin Wall."
Logan didn't mention he hadn't actually been thinking of going back, even if he did miss the wilderness of home sometimes. Especially now, there was a chance to change the routine life had become in the last century. Fight in a war, retreat to the wilderness for a decade, fight another war. Looking for something more of a challenge, even if he wasn't sure quite what he wanted yet.
"Loas it is, then," Methos said. If he were on his own, he would probably have gone to Tibet; might have done so even with Creed and Logan in tow. Kronos was a different story. He wasn't taking his brother anywhere near one of the last sanctuaries he had left. "We're going to attract a lot of attention."