Chapter Text
What Hopes delude thee, miserable Man?
Think’st thou thus unintomb’d to cross the Floods,
To view the Furies, and Infernal Gods;
And visit, without leave, the dark abodes?
Attend the term of long revolving Years:
Fate, and the dooming Gods, are deaf to Tears.
This Comfort of thy dire Misfortune take;
The Wrath of Heav’n, inflicted for thy sake.
Aen. VI, Virgil, trans. John Dryden
+
Joe Dawson was waiting for the sky to fall. He could not think of a more poetic end to this most miserable day. He was furious. Tired. His prostheses were killing him. And, of course, Methos had left him with the dead Highlander.
As usual, I'm the one who gets stuck dealing with the dead, two hundred pound Highlander skewered to the wall. Who else? Joe thought to himself with annoyance. "I'm his Watcher not his mother, dammit!" Joe grumbled out loud and with no small amount of vehemence. After all that had happened, it felt good to complain a little even if there was no one around to hear him rail.
"Did the old man have to kill him?" Joe griped plaintively, shaking his head and walking towards his dead friend. "With his own sword, no less! Mac's going to be furious." Joe looked more closely at the sword protruding from Duncan's chest, wiggled it a little, trying to determine just how hard it was going to be for him to get the sword out of the wall.
Well, he had it coming, that's for sure. He can be one self-righteous asshole, Joe thought wryly. I was about ready to shoot him myself.... He checked his watch. He wanted to give Methos plenty of time to get clear of the area before he revived Duncan. The lights in the warehouse flickered and the wind whipped through the broken windows. It sure had been one hell of a night.
I'll give it a few more minutes, he thought to himself and while he waited, he pondered his recalcitrant Immortal, Duncan MacLeod.
Joe thought back over this most recent conflagration between Duncan and Methos and felt his irritation ebb a little. It was sad, really. At this rate, the two of them are going to kill each other. For good, he thought morosely. He decided to summarize the problem for posterity, so that he could add it to his personal journal later. Grinning wickedly, he had thought it the better part of discretion to leave his suppositions out of Mac's official journal but his personal journal.... Now that's a juicy piece of work! He couldn't possibly leave all of this out of his personal journal. It would be too much to ask.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out his personal recorder. He checked to make sure that he had enough blank tape in the little machine. Then took a deep breath, worked his shoulders and neck a little to ease the tension, pressed the record button and began.
+
Okay, obviously, Mac's in love with Methos. Well, maybe it's not so obvious. He just hasn't admitted it to himself. Or maybe he has admitted it to himself but just doesn't want anyone to know about it. I'm not too sure at this point.
But what I am sure about is that Mac and Methos have been doing the horizontal tango since before the Horsemen debacle in '96 and that Mac seems very uncomfortable with making the situation public. In fact, neither Mac nor Methos has ever come right out and discussed this development with me, unbelievable as that may seem. God knows I get stuck dealing with every other problem that comes down the pike.
Of course, the fact that I don't have verbal confirmation of the exact goings on doesn't bother me, really. Sheesh! Half the time I don't know whom they think they're fooling. I have eyes. I'm a Watcher for chrissake! Mac couldn't have been more obvious about his lust for the old man if he had written I love to fuck Methos on the bathroom wall of the bar with neon paint. Half the time, I really just want to slap Mac on the back of his head and say, "Geez-us, just piss on him already! That'll keep everyone away. Trust me...."
Hmmm . . . I wonder if they've ever.... Nah. I'd better just stick to the story.
Want to know what really drives me crazy? It's the way the two of them look at each other when they think no one is paying attention. They must really think I'm blind. Well, let me be the first one to tell ya, I may have a small mobility problem but there's nothing wrong with my eyesight. Of course, the googly eyes are only the tip of the iceberg.
There were the longing looks and the frank appraisals; the accidentally on purpose touching and the rampant over-protectiveness; the million and one excuses to crash at each other's apartment and the out-of-proportion emotional outbursts. The out-of-proportion emotional outbursts–yep, can't forget those.
Sometimes it seemed that the two of them would do anything, use any excuse, to be in the other's company. Yet, inexplicably, everything that should have been so straightforward was always somehow skewed just left of reasonable. I don't know what arrangement those two guys are operating under but it certainly is not working. I'm really going to have to give this whole situation some serious space in my journal. Wouldn't want to loose the flavor, the essential essence of all this angst, the titillation that only explicit details can provide....
Anyway, I think it's safe to say that Methos is stuck on Mac, too. Big time. After all, if there's one thing I know about the old man, it's that he has better places to be than Seacouver. And it's safe to say that he steps aside whenever one of Mac's old love interests shows up. Amanda, Claudia, Rachel, Anne. The list goes on and on. Methos always steps aside, reluctantly but graciously, affecting a nonchalance that, I guess, is supposed to show that he doesn't care. Yeah, right.
So, whatever strange and casual arrangement those two have developed over the last few years was devised or is at least perpetuated by Mac. Although Methos may act cynical and indifferent most of the time, it is very obvious to me that the whole situation bothers him more than a little. After all, I can read Methos like an open book.
After the Horsemen incident . . . well, after the Horsemen, everything changed. What was once a situation full of potential suddenly became this dark and ugly soap opera filled with anger and hurt, pride and enraged jealousy. Too many times I had to step between them, Mac being confrontational and overbearing, Methos placating and conciliatory. Still, after it was all said and done, they could barely keep their hands off each other.
Then, the situation went from bad to worse. If I were to think about when, exactly, it became obvious to me that the Mac-Methos pseudo-clandestine-relationship-thing was out of control I would have to start with Byron. And, of course, if I started with Byron, I'd sure have to end it when Mac "rescued" Joi.
Byron. Damn. Although, at the time, I sympathized with Methos' grief over the death of a friend, I am definitely glad the son-of-a-bitch is dead. Byron was like one of those sirens that lured hapless mortals to their doom–beautiful and beautifully deadly. The man was bad news, and Mac had every right to challenge him. Byron had to be stopped before he caused anyone else's death. I only wish that I really knew that Mac's motives in killing Byron were so altruistic. I'd really hate to think that what was really motivating Mac was jealousy. I've just always considered him too noble for such self-serving pathos.
But Mac certainly played the part of a jealous boyfriend when Byron first showed up at the bar, although he may never admit it to himself. And, afterwards, it was as if the incident, Byron's presence and obvious interest in Methos, opened a floodgate of pent up passions. After Mac took Byron's head, he was constantly in Methos' face, pushing him, pulling him, dragging him in and out of the bar, basically manhandling him obnoxiously. If they hadn't been two grown and capable men, I would have had to step in on a number of occasions. Called the police or something.
Now that I really think about the whole situation in retrospect, it's pretty clear that neither of them have been rational for quite some time. I really have to pin the two of them down on the exact details of that double quickening they took in Bordeaux. What with their ridiculous behavior and this strange ability they seemed to have developed to "recognize" the other's quickening and to feel when the other is in trouble, I just know that the double quickening has to be at the root of the problem. But time always seemed to fly as crises after crises swept by, and I just never had the time to give the matter the attention it clearly deserves. And, of course, the two of them were as tight lipped as cloistered virgins about the incident. I'm going to have to do some serious research about this whole situation because something is certainly rotten in Denmark–or Seacouver as the case may be–and I intend to find out what before one of my two best friends gets seriously hurt.
After Byron, the relationship thing seemed to quiet down mostly. Or, at least, there were so many other things going wrong that I didn't have time to worry about Mac and Methos' sexual escapades or lack thereof. Ahriman, Richie's death, Mac heading off to parts unknown, all served to mask what was, in hindsight, a bomb waiting to explode. And when Mac returned to Paris, you better believe that everything started up again, more intensely than before.
Well, that's not really fair. I don't want to give the impression that it was all high drama and emotional turmoil. Everything seemed to be settling down a bit about a year and a half ago after that little thief Amanda skipped town. Amanda sure is easy on the eyes and, truthfully, I usually don't mind having her around, but I sure was glad to see her go that last time. While she was in town, Methos developed this habit of drinking himself to death, literally, that I found most unpleasant. It was really bad for business, never mind inconvenient as hell.
After Amanda left, things finally settled into a more normal state of affairs. Everyone relocated back to Seacouver like one big happy family, and Mac seemed to stop actively looking for extraneous love interests. He and Methos settled into a routine, connected at the hip on most days. They acted like an old married couple, in fact. I can't help remembering those days with a smile. Mac and Methos were just too cute. They both taught at the University and spent most nights at the bar shooting the breeze. Methos even opened up a little about his past escapades. Now what does that tell you?
They left the bar together almost every night and although I know that Methos maintains an apartment in Seacouver, I'm sure he didn't see the inside of it much. Methos was happy, Mac was happy, everyone was happy.
And then, guess what? Shit happened and poof, it all went to hell in a hand basket. Joi was suddenly part of the equation, a beautiful damsel-in-distress, needing help from the noble Highlander–our very own femme fatale, foisted on us by fate to upset our little cart of apples.
I better take a deep breath. Don't want to get too worked up.
It all started about three months ago with a seemingly innocuous phone call from Tom Askew. Tom is a fellow Watcher whom I've known since basic training at the Academy. He's a field agent and, from what I knew of him at the time, a good guy. Inconspicuous. Quiet, mostly. Never one to put himself forward unnecessarily.
Tom was assigned to the immortal Cyrus Baine, a real piece of work. If there was such a thing as a "good" Immortal list and a "bad" Immortal list, Baine was definitely rather high up on the bad list. He was pretty old too, as far as it goes. The Watches had him pegged at about 1500 years. No knowing for sure, though, as it's been rather hard to get anyone too close to him.
Tom called me with a problem that I took very seriously. Apparently, his Immortal had taken to terrorizing this mortal woman by the name of Joi Masters. It was supposed to be a really bad situation, and Tom expressed concern that his Immortal would tire of harassing her and kill her outright. I got the impression that Tom was somehow involved with Joi on a personal level and I sympathized with him. After having my own daughter, Amy, held hostage by an Immortal, you could say I was very sensitive to the situation. Okay, so I offered to help any way I could. Little did I know I was being played like a piano.
What seemed to be the easiest and most natural thing to do was to have Joi come to Seacouver–anticipating that Baine would soon follow–and have Mac challenge him. I discussed the situation with Mac and he agreed, perhaps a little reluctantly at first. I wasn't too worried about the outcome, though. Mac's notorious for his boyscout routine. I knew he couldn't resist the chance to save an innocent mortal from the clutches of an evil Immortal. He's as predictable as the sun rising in the morning. Too bad that it's just his nature.
But Methos . . . Now Methos didn't like the situation from the start and I have to admit, he turned out to be right on the money. Guess his age and experience should be good for something. Other than freeloading and running up an exorbitant bar tab, that is.
But the old man definitely went about imparting his pearls of wisdom the wrong way. He spent the entire time before Joi's arrival criticizing Mac's propensity to help all and sundry, verbally whipping everyone in sight with caustic remarks. No one escaped unscathed, myself included. It was almost impossible to be around him for any length of time. Most nights I wanted to shoot him and put us out of our misery. Of course, Mac just dug in his heals.
And then Joi arrived, and was she a piece of work! Beautiful as the day is long; a porcelain doll with ivory white skin and long brown hair. Reminded me of Audrey Hepburn right off the bat–witty, clearly intelligent but in a quiet, shy way, seemingly as defenseless as a little lamb. And she showed up with this big bruise on the left side of her face, can't forget that. Didn't really mar her beauty, though. Just made you feel real sorry for her. Yep, she was a piece of work.
Well, Mac took one whiff of her and lost all sense of reason. Thinking back, I'm amazed he didn't realize that something was wrong. Everything was just too convenient: the call from Tom, the distressed mortal more attractive than any woman had the right to be, the problem that only Mac could solve. Way too convenient.
At the time, Methos was the only one asking questions and, really, in the beginning, he did seem to be motivated by jealousy. I mean, Mac did drop him like a hot potato.
I get an almost physical pain in my chest when I think about how Mac treated Methos when Joi showed up. I had to stand by and watch. What was I going to say? They're two grown men. I remember the hurt that was flung at the old man on a daily basis. The cancelled plans, the brush-offs, the callously glowing recitation of Joi's many virtues, the way Methos sat at the bar night after night, alone. I still can't believe that Mac could be so insensitive, cruel even. He seemed to want to distance himself from Methos, like he was embarrassed about their relationship. He clearly wanted Joi to come away with the impression that he and Methos were nothing more than good friends. Perhaps in his mind that's all they are. Who knows?
Methos sat in the bar night after night, alone, drinking himself under the table while Mac escorted Joi around town, ostensibly "protecting" her from Baine. She was even staying at the loft. Let me tell you, I thought Methos was going to swallow his tongue when that was decided.
A couple of weeks after Joi was ensconced at Mac's, Baine finally blew into town and made a couple of tries for her but, in retrospect, they were half-hearted tries at best. Mac could never get him to accept a proper challenge and all Baine's presence served to do was to cause Mac to go into hyper protective mode. This is probably when Mac started sleeping with her.
And I don't care what anyone says. I asked Mac to help her, not fuck her. If I would have known that Mac would have reacted to Joi the way he did, if I had known that Mac would do what he did to Methos, I would never have suggested . . . But it's all water under the bridge now.
Then the real problems started. Joi was very inquisitive for such a seemingly shy girl, and one of the many things she wanted to know was whether Adam Pierson was Immortal. And Mac told her. Oh, she rationalized needing to know because she didn't want bystanders to get hurt when Baine came after her, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line is, Mac told her. Then she wanted to know if "Adam" was Methos' real name and how old he was. It was all in the context of "getting to know Mac's friends" and she asked many other questions to camouflage the issue, but what it all came down to was that she wanted to know about Methos.
Of course, Methos wasn't having it. He hated her, barely tolerated her presence. He refused to take her into his confidence and reveal his identity, and she just kept on asking questions, innocently, with those big brown eyes. Mac had to lie about it over and over again. I think his response to Joi was in some weird way tied up with his prior experience with Tessa. I truly think he regrets having lied to Tessa for all those years about the nature of the game and everything, especially because it ended up hurting her anyway. He probably feels guilty mostly because she was taken from him so prematurely, and he's the type to regret any falsehoods that blemished any part of their relationship. As Mac got more serious about his relationship with Joi, he really played the friendship card with Methos. He and the old man argued constantly about revealing his identity. Well, "argued" is probably too mild a word.
They had fights of titanic proportions, and Methos would not budge. I really thought at the time that he was about ready to pull one of his famous disappearing acts. But for his responsibilities at the University, I'm sure he would have cashed in his chips. I wouldn't have blamed him. That's how unfair Mac was being.
Mac's rationale was basically that he hated to lie to the woman he "loved." That was a real kick in the face for Methos. Mac reasoned that if me, Amanda, Richie, Connor, Anne and Rachel knew Methos' real identity then it should be all right for Joi to know too. After all, Mac trusted her, and if Mac trusted her then, obviously, she was trustworthy. What a crock of shit.
Well, Methos, with the good sense he was born with, refused to even consider it. But can you believe that after one particularly nasty fight with the old man, Duncan told her anyway?
When the shit hit the fan, all Mac could say was that since Joi was mortal, it wouldn't really mean anything to her that Methos was THE Methos. Mac wouldn't have to lie about it anymore and everyone would be one big happy family. Mac must have been under the delusion at that point that Methos would just suck it up.
Once Joi was on the "same page" as everyone else about Methos' identity, guess who calls? My Watcher "friend," Tom Askew.
Out of the blue, Tom claimed that we didn't have to worry about Baine anymore, that he had lost a challenge and was the shorter by one head. The threat was over but the damage had been done. It had taken all of three months. So Baine was dead. How convenient. Even I got suspicious at that point. Methos and I started looking into the situation more closely–something we probably should have done at the outset–and we uncovered some really interesting information about Tom Askew and his relationship with his Immortal. Seems that they were really quite friendly, and he had made some suspicious deposits into his bank account recently. There were some concerns about him and his relationship to his Immortal logged into his personnel file by his superiors at Headquarters.
And Joi. There was absolutely no proof to be had that Baine had ever been stalking her. In fact, there was a picture of Baine and an unidentified woman logged into Baine's journal. Although the picture was far from clear, the woman's distinguishable features closely resembled Joi's.
If Methos and I could be said to be on the same page regarding the situation's potential danger, well, Mac was way out in left field. Nothing that Methos or I could say or show Mac convinced him that Joi was a potential snake in the grass. After a point, he simply refused to listen. He and Methos would argue, and Mac would accuse him of having every ulterior motive under the sun, except that Methos was concerned about him, of course.
Well, it all came to a head yesterday. Apparently, Joi called Mac on Thursday to arrange to have him meet her for lunch. Mac disappeared–this becoming obvious when he didn't show up to teach his classes Friday morning. The dean called Adam Pierson, Mac's best friend, to find out what was going on. Then three Watchers showed up dead, and Methos received the infamous, "Give yourself up or you'll never see MacLeod again," phone call, setting the switch up for Saturday night.
What followed was a flurry of reconnaissance work that would have put the CIA to shame. Of course, the key piece of information we were looking for was where the kidnappers were holed up. We already pretty much knew who was involved. Askew, Baine, of course Joi, and the three Immortals assigned to the dead Watchers. We pretty much knew why. After all, all roads lead to Methos–the oldest living Immortal, the old man with the big quickening, the Game's goddamn Holy Grail.
Note to self: that Methos "just a guy" routine is a crock of shit. I mean, I won't blow his cover or anything but he won't be fooling me with that act anymore. I don't have "Boo Boo the Fool" written on my forehead! I have always suspected that Methos had resources beyond what was evident on a day-to-day basis. It would only make sense for a 5000 year-old man to be pretty astute. But what I witnessed during the twenty-four hours between when we first got the call about Mac and when Methos finally went in to get him out, was down right scary. The old man looks so harmless! I knew Methos was good with computers, but I didn't know that he's a veritable computer wizard. He can hack into any database, anywhere. I saw him do it. The phone company, the bank, the Watcher database, nothing seemed to daunt him. He hacked into all those places and more to find out where they were keeping MacLeod.
I guess this is when I finally realized what Mac means to him. I knew they were involved physically and that they were best friends, and I realized that each had gone to bat for the other on a number of occasions over the past few years, but who would have guessed that Methos was so emotionally invested in the situation? I would not even hazard a guess as to what a 5000 year-old man would consider indispensable, that thing he felt he wouldn't want to live without. Apparently, for a certain 5000 year-old man, that indispensable thing is named Duncan MacLeod.
The Methos that I thought I knew would have been quite capable of skipping town at the first sign of trouble. He would have left Mac to his own devices, reasoning that if Mac got himself into the situation, he could get himself out. But the Methos that I met yesterday was a different animal entirely.
Maybe it was the hair that sent him over the edge. They cut the length off of Mac's hair and sent it to the bar in a box to let us know that they were serious. Perhaps it was the bond they share, the result of that double quickening. Methos could tell when they killed him–and they killed Mac over and over again. Methos could somehow feel it when Mac was in pain. I don't know. What I do know is that if I had to describe the person that I was dealing with during the last twenty-four hours, I would have to say I was dealing with Methos the Horseman know as Death.
It seemed to me that more than the desire not to lose a person that he obviously loves, Methos just couldn't stand the thought that Mac would lose his head because of him. As we frantically tried to find out where Mac was being held, I watched as Methos lost himself. Watched as his eyes turned gold and he grew wild around the edges. I watched the love and the fear tear away the everyday facade and reveal the uncivilized face of the world's oldest living man. Now, more than ever, I appreciate how far Methos has come, why he runs, why his philosophy is to "do nothing," why he avoids fighting and quickenings. I saw how easy it is for him to fall back on the old ways, how violence comes to his heal like an old dog, how Death shines in his eyes, turning his irises gold with fury. Last night I was introduced to his tortured soul.
We bearded Askew at his house. Apparently, Askew felt his cover was safe and that we would be too busy concentrating on Mac to make the connections to his part in the plan. Methos wrung the truth out of him, at least as much as he knew. Askew explained Joi's part, detailed the people involved, the plan. The only thing he couldn't tell us was who orchestrated it all and why. Askew didn't know and he didn't care as long as he got paid.
When we located MacLeod, when Methos had the location on a piece of paper in his hand, I wondered what the old man would do to the perpetrators when he found them, what type of vengeance a Horseman called Death would exact. Now I know. I could almost feel sorry for them.
One mortal, four Immortals and Methos the only one left standing–that is the tally. When I walked into the warehouse, took in the carnage, the blood everywhere, the heads and the dead bodies, I was afraid that Mac and Methos were dead. That I had been stripped of my dearest friends, my favorite projects, the purpose of all my days. I have to say that when I realized they were alive even though everyone else was dead, I was glad. Whatever Methos had to do, whatever demons he had to raise, whatever he had to become to preserve Mac's life and his own, I have weighed it in the balance and count it well worth the cost. I can't bring myself to mourn those murders or to spurn Methos for doing what needed to be done. Maybe it's the military man in me.
I can only hope that Mac will feel the same way. Eventually.
When I first revived Mac at Methos' direction, after I had pulled the knife out of his back, I naively hoped that he would wake up and appreciate it–appreciate what Methos went through for him by pulling his ass out of the fire yet again. But, after what Mac said tonight, I doubt that he even realizes what Methos has done for him, how much of himself he sacrificed. I suspect not the least part of which is his peace of mind. Mac didn't even let him get a word in edgewise.
Truth to tell, I was jealous when I first realized that Mac and Methos had gotten involved, that their relationship had evolved to a level that didn't include me. Not just because I was afraid they would exclude me as the third wheel. I envied them their capacity to love after so many years, so much adversity. I envied them the potential that, with a little luck, they could love forever, or at least until the Gathering.
Imagine it. What a love! Methos, the oldest of them all, and Duncan MacLeod, the best of them all. Now look at everything. I really don't know if they can make it back this time. It's such a damn shame. They almost made it, despite it all.