Yay! A fic we finally finished! Go us!
Rating: R; language and two hot guys. ;)
Synopsis: Methos has a bad day.
Warnings: Slash, DM/M, angst, and some humor. But only a little bit of humor. I swear. Oh, did I mention our over-use of the word "crap"? Hehehehehe...
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"This isn't fun! I've had fun! This isn't it!"
--Peter, "Adventures in Slime and Space", _The Real Ghostbusters_
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Methos, the world's oldest immortal, was having a bad day. It started out with his waking up in an unfamiliar place--the bed in his flat in Seacouver, Washington--instead of the couch in Duncan MacLeod (of the clan MacLeod)'s loft.
"The fuck did I get here?" he muttered to himself as he hoisted his overly tired frame out of the uncomfortable bed. Stumbling into the bathroom, he turned on the sink and bent to splash water on his face before he remembered why he rarely stayed in the flat to begin with.
The water main in the area had some problems, and for some reason, the pipes failed to work on a daily basis.
Crap.
Oh, well; he'd lived without running water for centuries, right? He could go without a shower or Homemade coffee for just one day, right? And then, tonight, he'd crash again at Mac's loft on that lumpy-but-familiar couch with Mac snoring in the--
Oh, crap. The fight.
How could he have forgotten? Stupid, stupid, he scolded himself as he pulled on his jeans and the sweater he had stolen from the Boy Scout. That's right, just start forgetting who your friends are. Soon you'll be looking for Silas--
Crap in a can.
An unexpected wave of grief rolled over him at the thought of his old friend, the first break to the melancholy numbness he'd felt about Silas after the initial meltdown during the whole Murderous Past Fiasco. He squeezed his eyes shut as Silas' Quickening seemed to rear it's ugly head, reminding him how he always killed his friends.
He needed some coffee.
Fortunately, there was a small coffee shop he knew of just off of the local campus that would be open and relatively uncrowded at this hour. With the thought of a double espresso firmly in mind, he set off, walking. The campus wasn't too far, and it would seem out of character for the poor grad student he was supposed to be to have a cab bring him to the college campus.
As soon as he stepped outside the door of the apartment building, he realized another mistake--it was raining out. HARD. By the time he'd run back inside and gotten an umbrella, he was soaked. Grumbling to himself, he opened his drawer, to find that... absolutely none of his other clothes were clean. In fact, they were remarkably dirty... He shook a shirt out, and, much to his disgust, a cockroach rolled out. Ewww. He left on what he was wearing, and decided to just walk there, seeing as he was already soaked.
He entered the coffee shop some twenty minutes and countless puddles later, muttering to himself. The nice girl working at the counter took one look at him and closed her mouth on whatever cheerful greeting she might have otherwise uttered. He sighed in silent relief that he wouldn't have to put up with a happy, cheery worker, and gruffly ordered.
The coffee mug was warm, almost painfully so, and a blessed relief from the chilled rain outside. He grasped it in both hands to warm them, and settled down with his back to the wall, glowering around at the rest of the world (or at least coffee shop) over the rim of his mug.
He almost spilled the precious liquid as the Presence of another immortal slammed into him. Just what he needed this morning.
Crap on a bamboo pole.
She wasn't the usual gorgeous types that MacLeod always found himself fighting with; actually, she was kind of ugly. Her bright red hair was stringy, her makeup too heavily applied, and her jewelry simply gaudy. She looked at him distastefully, as one might look at a dead rat lying next to the garbage can, and shook the water, leaves, and sticks out of her umbrella.
Right into his coffee.
Crap on a hot tin roof.
He gave the child a cold glance. "Can I help you?"
She straightened her expensive gray power suit, manicured nails clicking lightly together. "Horrible day for a challenge, isn't it?"
"Oh, you have GOT to be joking. On a day like this?"
She pushed her horridly bright bangs out of her eyes and gave him a pitying glance. "Perfect cover."
Suddenly, Methos remembered where he'd left his sword.
MacLeod's. In the umbrella stand.
Crap in a cup. At least he had his dirk with him, strapped to his calf.
"I'm not going anywhere until you replace my drink," he said with all the dignity he could muster, gesturing to his ruined coffee. "I refuse to fight without caffeine in my system. It's the least you can do." He gave her a charming smile.
She melted. "...I suppose so." She marched over to the counter to get him a new coffee.
He bolted, racing through the rain towards the University.
Soggy.
Without his sword.
With an ugly Immortal chasing him.
Crap in a shoe.
He reached the first of the University halls, and ran inside, looking around for the nearest men's room. Preferably one with an outside window.
He slipped inside, only then realizing his umbrella was still in the coffee shop, and locked the door. Turning around and leaning against it, he found himself face to face with someone. Not just ANYONE, but one of the last people he wanted to see right now.
Crap in a porcelain vase.
"A-dam!" cried the effeminate voice as the blond teaching fellow smiled charmingly at him. "How are you doing today?"
Adam swallowed hard and reigned in the last of his control to keep himself from using the dirk strapped to his leg on his own neck. "Ryan!" He cleared his throat to bring the pitch out of falsetto. "I'm--uh--very wet... and I think there's someone stalking me."
The man clucked his tongue. "Another one of your ex-boyfriends come to reclaim the goods?"
Adam inwardly groaned as he remembered the last excuse he'd used to keep an immortal off his tail. "Uh, no, actually, I've never seen this woman before in my life. I think she wants my head."
"Oh, Adam, we all want you to give head."
This is not happening. This is simply not happening, Methos swore to himself as he rubbed the toe of his boot reassuringly against his dirk. He did not just say what I thought he just said. "Uh, Ryan, we've discussed this before... I'm not interested."
Ryan pouted and began to advance on him, eyes undressing the poor, soaked Immortal. "I just thought... since you've broken up with your latest boyfriend, maybe you could use some--" he licked his lips, "--comforting?"
"My latest boyfriend?" Methos' eyebrows hit the ceiling.
Ryan waved his hand. "Oh, that History teacher... Duncan What's-his-face."
"MacLeod?"
Ryan dismissed it and closed in to his prey. "Oh, yes, it's all over the University."
Crap on a hard disk.
"But... but we weren't even going out!" Suddenly, he felt the unmistakable wave of Presence hit him. "Well, you know, Ryan, time really does fly, and I've got to be going now--ta-ta!" Racing to the window, he opened it up and jumped, landed, and rolled, allowing the last tinges of Presence to leave him. I'm going to miss my class, he realized in a panic. I have to go back. Spotting an empty phone booth, he ran in and shut the door, suddenly feeling even more cold. Shivers began to rack his body, and his teeth played maraca-beats in counterpoint to the smacking rain and howling wind. What to do, what to--
The meeting this morning.
At Eight-o'clock.
It was 8:45.
Crap in a corner.
Okay, this day was rapidly turning into one of the worst ones he could remember off the top of his head. It was even worse then that time he'd gotten arrested during the plague... Especially since THAT had led to some interesting times and several enjoyable escapades...
He was jarred out of his remembrances by someone pounding on the phone booth. He smiled apologetically at them and sprinted through the rain, wondering if he would still be in time to get to any part of the meting, or if he should even try. And if MacLeod would be there.
How had Ryan gotten the idea that he and MacLeod were an item, let alone broken up?
Crap on a sword doing the hula.
But, on to matters right now that he could actually deal with.
The meeting.
He'd just hit the tail end of it, play sick, and go home to spend the rest of this miserable day with a good book, a hot cup of tea and a warm blanket. Maybe if he felt like playing nice to MacLeod, he could go sit on the barge where there was real running water.
He sneezed.
Crap of the Gods.
Well, maybe he wouldn't have to play sick after all.
He raced into the building and up the stairs, wrapping a sick Adam Pierson around him like a familiar blanket. He shook and shivered. He coughed. He snuffled. He entered the meeting room.
"Sorry I'm late," he offered as he made his way to his seat. The two people next to him eased away from him, not wanting to catch whatever he had.
"Thank you for showing, Mr. Pierson," came the cool voice of the Head Professor.
Adam coughed an apology.
The meeting continued for a few more moments, and Adam struggled to keep from laying his head down on the table and sleeping. He hadn't slept well last night, not with the fight rolling around fresh in his mind. He couldn't wait for the meeting to end so he could make his excuses and go home to die in peace. To hell with MacLeod; he could wait until this crappy day was over to have his absolution or whatever he needed to get off his Scottish brooding pride thing.
When the meeting finally adjourned--thank the stars--Adam made his way to their Fearless Leader to excuse himself and get the crap outta there.
"Adam, you look like shit," Professor Jordan told him kindly.
"I was afraid of that. I think I'm going to have to take the day off."
The other man shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Adam, but we're understaffed today. Seven people called in sick in our department alone, and we just barely have enough subs to cover it. Unless you're dying, I'd really appreciate it if you could stay."
Crappy fuck.
Adam sneezed, one only partially faked, and reluctantly agreed. "Um... Professor Jordan, I guess I can stay, but... do you happen to know of a dry set of clothes I can borrow?" He dripped on the carpet. The janitors who came in to straighten the room for the impending conference sent him nasty looks, and muttered something particularly crude involving a dog and Adam's mother when they spotted the chair he had been sitting in.
Professor Jordan gave him another sad look. "To tell you the truth, Adam, we've all changed into our spares. I don't know of anyone that'll have one for you. I'm sorry, but my class starts in..." he looked at his watch, "six minutes. I really must be going."
As the Prof. walked away, Methos considered that he actually knew of one Boy Scout who might have a set of dry clothing. The question was, would he let him borrow them?
He recalled his last words to MacLeod: "Fuck you, MacLeod, fuck your morals, fuck your women, and fuck your damned sense of honor!"
Crap on an iron chain.
Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Within a few minutes, Methos had arrived outside the door to the Highlander's office. He knocked loudly, and waited.
And waited.
And knocked again.
Fifteen minutes later found him standing, shivering, outside the door to his own office, still wearing his own clothes.
MacLeod hadn't been there. In fact, Methos was beginning to suspect that the Highlander had been one of the absent staff members that day.
In addition, he had stuck his hand in his pocket for his key chain, only to discover he had lost it between the day before and now. As a result, he was locked out.
Crap in a cell phone.
This day wasn't going very well...
Oh, that's the greatest understatement in all bloody history, he corrected himself viciously. Stifling another sneeze--but not another curse directed at Seacouver's resident Scottish Highlander--he debated breaking into his own office. No, with his bloody luck, Security would catch him and think he was a deranged student trying to get revenge on a teacher.
He set off to find a janitor.
Evidentially, the janitorial staff had all called in sick, too, because all he could find was a little old lady cleaning a blackboard.
"I don't suppose I could convince you to let me into my classroom," he asked with a brilliant smile.
And then repeated it in Spanish, just for her benefit.
"I have to clean," she denied, scrubbing the huge wrap-around board one inch at a time.
"It really is an emergency," he charmed, stifling a cough. His clothes weren't even drying in the humidity.
"I clean the blackboard," she said in her creaky, slow voice. "Then I mop the floors. Then I can let you in your room."
For the love of--
Senile old bitch. Obviously, the Pierson Charm was fading.
He finally decided, "Screw it, I'm breaking in." Making his way back to his classroom, he looked left, right, and behind him before taking a credit card from his wallet and slipping it into the lock. "Bingo!" he muttered as the catch sprung with an easy click.
The hand on his back took him completely by surprise. "What do you think you're doing, young man?" the security guard growled. "Breaking and entering is against the law!" He fixed Methos with a wary, proud eye. "I knew we'd finally catch that thief!"
"But, I'm--" Methos began, mentally swearing at his stupid self in both Egyptian and Greek.
"I don't care who's son you are, I'm calling the police!" The guard pulled out his walkie-talkie and reported the incident.
"But you don't understand," Methos began again. This is just what I need to improve my day! Now all I have to do is lose a challenge.
And, as he was being hauled off in the police car--for some reason, he had lost his ID card and none of the current staff recognized him--he thought he saw the psychotic ugly immortal bitch watching him.
As if this was his fault.
Crap in a Walkman.
To make things worse, he finally remembered that all his students were going to a lecture today. None of them were even going to show.
Crap in the clouds.
A few hours later, he heard the voice of the Head Professor, talking to the desk sergeants. He reflected that it was good that he had used his phone call to call Professor Jordan's office, not to try to track down the erstwhile Highlander. Unfortunately, the Head Professor hadn't been in, and his secretary had evidently not seen fit until an hour ago to bother him with the news that he was to go bail out one of his poor little professors from the jail.
"I'm so sorry to have inconvenienced you, sir. Thank you for getting me out of there..."
"It's all right, Adam. I think that, after all you've been through today, perhaps you'd better just go home and get some rest... And change into some clean, dry clothes. Those are starting to smell." He pressed some change into Methos' hand. "Here. Call a cab."
"Oh... thank you, Professor Jordan!"
"It's really not a problem. Now, scat!"
When Methos got to MacLeod's apartment, half an hour later, he cursed the fact that he had nowhere else to go. Then he cursed the fact that he didn't have a key--that was on the missing ring, too. He broke into the loft, thankful in some ways that the dojo was empty, but wishing it was open; it would have saved him the trouble of breaking in.
He grabbed some clothes out of Duncan's dresser, decided he just wanted to get clean and dry and sleep for a year, and went and took a hot shower. After jerking himself out of a doze and getting out and dressed, he flopped into MacLeod's bed, figuring he'd only curl up there for a few minutes, and would surely be awake by the time the Highlander arrived back from wherever he was.
He was fast asleep within a minute of falling into bed.
"Duncan, you think that Immortals stay committed to only one gender for their entire life?" Amanda stomped towards the dojo in MacLeod's wake, grabbing his arm and swinging him around. "This is not a time to have a mid-life crisis, it's a time to stop mucking around in your head and get in with that beautiful body of Methos'!"
"But, Amanda, you've never..." he trailed off, suddenly unsure.
"What, you think those cold nights I spent with Rachel were warmed by a fire?" she asked rather jauntily.
He blanched and then flushed. "A-MAN-da..."
"MacLeod, an opportunity like that does not walk around all too often!" she said, more gently.
"Five thousand years," Mac interjected.
"But how long is he going to hang around here, with you acting all cranky and broody?"
"I don't brood!"
"You do too, dear. Methos is perfect for you, and I know he wants you. You want him. What's the problem?" She gave him a soft look. "Duncan, you're going to ruin your relationship with the old man. I know he's mystical, and manipulative, and manic, and just a damn son of a bitch at times, but I've seen you two together, and I've seen how you're driving him away right now. You're scared, and you're pushing all his buttons. You know what? We're going right upstairs right now. We're going to call him, and you're going to explain why you've been such a pain in the ass for the past month and a half."
"Three months, and I don't think this is such a good idea." Nevertheless, he deigned to allow himself to be led towards the lift. Better over the phone than in person, he thought with relief. The message will get all tangled if I have to look at him.
A sudden wave of presence washed over them as they got in the lift, and they looked instinctively toward the door to the dojo. A tall, black Immortal strolled through, carrying a big, black box.
"Lara!" Duncan cried warmly, moving towards the door.
Lara shook her head, though, and he remained back. "I'm just bringing you those pieces you wanted for your class. I have no use for them anymore, so just sort through it to find what you want." She put it down next to them in the lift. "It's really heavy, though, so don't try to lift it without help. Just drag it into your room." She smiled, the perfect, even, white teeth flashing. "I'm going back to Africa for a bit."
"I thought you were staying in Seacouver!" Duncan protested, taking the ancient Amazon's hand in thanks.
"Wen-Tao has never been to Africa," she said coyly, twisting her new ring. "I was just unloading some old stuff I was holding for a friend who ended up dead." Her wide smile waned a bit, but she shook her head. "But, no use dwelling in the past, right? Sayonara, MacLeod-san." With a traditional bow, she departed for the airport.
Amanda frowned. "Mac, what are your feelings for her?"
He closed the gate on the lift and shrugged. "I dunno. She's a nice girl."
"But you don't want to sleep with her?"
"Amanda!"
"And you DO want to sleep with Methos?"
"I..." he nodded. "Why are you so eager to talk me into this?"
She grinned charmingly. "Oh, my dear, when Methos has you trained--I'm hoping for a three-way."
The elevator rose, lifting one overweight box, one devious lady, and one chicken-shit Scot.
No, he denied, a Scot is never chicken-shit.
Highlanders are brave. Determined. Strong. They pick arguments with their best friends.
He frowned. He was going to have to work on his definition of "Highlander".
Methos woke up all at once, feeling that unmistakable buzz that came with the presence of another of his kind. He started to sit up when he heard the voices in the lift and recognized them as MacLeod's and, of all people, Amanda's.
Fuck that crap.
Amanda and MacLeod, talking quietly to one another, in MacLeod's apartment? By far the most likely scenario was that they were there for sex. Not quite what Methos needed, especially as he was lying flopped on the Highlander's BED, of all pieces of furniture!
He decided to lay low--literally--until either he was discovered, or, more favorably, he could escape somehow...