tigriswolf | You come with the dead who people my dreams

Title: You come with the dead who people my dreams
Fandom: Highlander/White Collar
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: AU; spoilers for the Horsemen arc; future!fic for Leverage; future!fic for Losers; mentions of Caspian; mentions of non-con&death
Pairings: mentions of Peter/Neal/Elizabeth; Caspian/Jensen; Methos/Neal; Kronos/Neal; Cougar/Jensen; Eliot/Hardison/Parker
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 1980
Point of view: third
Prompt: Highlander/White Collar/Leverage/The Losers. Methos, Neil, Elliot, and Jensen. Neil was student to War, Elliot to Pestilence, and Jensen to Famine.
Note: I didn't follow the prompt exactly; Neal and Eliot got flipped.

A headhunter confronts Neal as he walks to an all-night deli for a late supper. He usually eats with Peter and Elizabeth, but tonight they had a date, so Neal sent him off with unsolicited advice and laughter.

The headhunter is good, very good, and Neal hasn't used a blade in a little over a century. He doesn't even carry one anymore, since he works in close quarters with the FBI and, even for him, a sword would be hard to explain.

Neal feels the buzz of someone else before the headhunter does, and Moz turns the corner at a dead run, gun in hand. "You can't interfere!" the headhunter shouts, but Moz ignores him and shoots him in the heart.

"You want him?" Neal asks, lifting the sword. Moz shakes his head, so Neal quickly swings; once he's recovered enough, Moz helps his home.

o0o

Neal has pretended to be an infant for several hundred years. Moz thinks he's actually slightly older than Neal, so he takes charge and tells Neal that he'll deal with everything involved with a dead body.

Neal's glad to leave him to it.

o0o

The next morning, Neal goes to work like nothing happened. He smiles at everyone, teases Peter about the date, and solves three cold cases about his own alleged work.

The quickening settled easily, shoved down with his teacher and half a millennia as first a slave, then a monster. No guilt, of course. He stopped feeling guilt around Christianity's birth.

But then at lunch, another headhunter attacks. Peter shoots him and hustles Neal away; a few hours later, it's reported that the body is missing. That night, Neal slips his guards (since it was clear that the man was after Neal and no one else) and takes his second head in forty-eight hours.

This time, the quickening doesn't settle so easily. Nor the next. By the weekend, he's killed three more and he knows it's time to go.

He spends the night with Peter and Elizabeth, laughing and soaking up their simple devotion. He could imagine falling in love with them both, already is a little in love. The next morning, Neal tells Peter that he has an errand and he'll see them later.

He doesn't.

o0o

Moz has more recent connections, a better grasp of the world now; he helps Neal vanish. Neal goes in the middle of the day, with only the clothes on his back and an untraceable phone, which he uses to call a number only a handful of people in the world have and leaves a desperate message..

I need your help, he says. Please, Uncle.

An hour later, he receives a very brief text: an address. A minute later, two words: hey, kid.

Relief fills him. Methos will take over, will find out why he's being hunted. All Neal has to do now is survive.

-----

His uncle is waiting at the safe house, sprawled over the couch and holding a beer. "Didn't expect to see you so soon," he says, collapsing next to Methos and gesturing for the alcohol. It's passed over with little fanfare and Neal drains it down.

No, he's not Neal anymore. Can't be. Time for a new name, a new life. Without Peter, without El. Maybe with Moz, some time in the future.

"We owe a young one named Moz a favor," he tells Methos.

"But of course," Methos says. "We'll worry about that later. You need a good rest."

He closes his eyes, tries to sink into the couch. Methos rests a hand on the back of his neck. "I'm here," he murmurs, voice deep and soft, the same voice he'd used to coax trust from wild horses.

The same voice he'd used to give a nameless, pre-immortal boy to Kronos three and a half thousand years ago.

"Neal," Methos whispers. "Neal Adamson. My younger brother."

"Sounds nice," Neal slurs, and lets himself slump against Matthew, an older brother he's always wanted.

--------

Eliot is walking home from the gym, planning what he'll cook Hardison and Parker for dinner, when the buzz hits. He doesn't react, just keeps walking with only a quarter of his attention. He focuses his senses outward and can separate two separate buzzes: one he recognizes, one he doesn't.

Methos. No, recently Adam Pierson, but not anymore. Matthew Adamson, as of two weeks ago.

But what is he doing here? They haven't spoken in seven hundred years, not since Eliot (then Hector) helped him with security for Silas' haven. Eliot had considered hunting him down when he learned of Silas' death, since only Methos could've killed him, but after a few days' thought, he decided that while might may not make right, Silas was a big boy. Old, strong, and would've chosen Methos' hand to kill him, anyway. Plus, Eliot was busy with that goddamned monkey.

Matthew Adamson steps into Eliot's way, a shorter, prettier shadow behind him. "Eliot Spencer," Matthew says, "this is my younger brother, Neal."

Eliot looks the kid over, and Neal meets his eyes straight on.

Younger than Methos, certainly. But older than Eliot by at least a millennium.

"Matthew," Eliot replies, politely nodding at Neal. "Been awhile."

"Just wanted to let you know we're in town," Matthew tells him. "Be here about a week, most likely, then we'll move on."

"Thanks for the head's up," Eliot says. "We should meet for drinks, catch up."

"Sounds good." Matthew steps closer, lightly grips Eliot's shoulder. "Day after tomorrow, then? We'll meet you at that bar you frequent. Around six?"

"Fine," Eliot says shortly, ready to be done. Parker's probably already at his place. If Hardison gets there before Eliot's present to supervise? He shudders to think what'll happen to his apartment.

Matthew backs off, meeting Neal's eyes for a moment. Neal nods and turns, sauntering along the street. "He was Kronos' favorite," Matthew says in the language Eliot had first known, nearly two thousand years ago. "Had a bit of a mishap recently, found himself lost without a clue."

Methos peeks through, staring at Eliot with an ancient, dangerous gaze. "Someone has been hunting him, Yehudi, and we've yet to discover who or why."

"I'll keep an eye out, Old Man," Eliot promises.

Matthew smiles, says, "We'll see you soon," and follows Neal down the street.

Eliot walks back to his apartment, chases Parker out of the kitchen, fusses at Hardison for doing something to his laptop, and throws together the best meal they've had since the last time he cooked for them.

He'll worry about his uncle and cousin tomorrow.

--------

In Jensen's dreams, Max screams and whimpers and dies dies dies in increasingly grotesque and painful ways. Sometimes, he still wishes Caspian were alive, just so he could hand Max over to his teacher and tormentor, and watch the master work.

Clay's been ranting for three hours. Jensen quit listening two hours and fifty-nine minutes ago. Aisha's the only one arguing with him. Cougar's napping behind his hat and Pooch is mentally composing an email to Jolene.

When the buzz hits, only habit that became instinct three thousand years ago keeps him from jerking upright.

Death, Caspian's brother, goddamn fucking Methos is at the edge of Jensen's range. Jensen hasn't spoken to him in centuries, since that thing in London at the turn of the century, and he can't think of a single reason Methos would hunt him up now.

He sits up and says, "Well, right, we're done now, yeah, Clay? I just remembered a thing I gotta do, computer business, you know how it is." He grins and waves and rushes out, gone before even Cougar can rise to his feet. He does go upstairs, but only to sneak onto the roof, and then he hops to the next, and by the time they realize he's not in the house, he'll be with Methos.

Methos, who he hasn't spoken to since they saved each other's lives. Methos, who killed the rest of the Horsemen over a decade ago.

Methos, who gave him to Caspian after he decided Jensen bored him that very first—horrible, endless—night.

Methos, who's been hanging out with Duncan MacLeod lately, pretending to be an infant, and fucking with the Watchers.

"Hello, Ariston," Methos says, offering a hand.

Jensen doesn't shake. "What do you want, Old Man?" Jensen demands, arms wrapped around himself.

"I'm good with a computer," Methos says, letting his hand fall. "Probably one of the best, in fact. But you're better. And I'll owe you a favor if you do something for me."

Jensen looks at him. Methos waits. "Will Death owe me a favor?" Jensen asks, in a language he hasn't used since he finally left Caspian. "Or just whoever you are this week?"

Death stares at him for a moment, before Matthew Adamson looks back at him. "Death will," Methos promises.

Jensen smiles, clapping his hands together. "Well, then," he announces, "take me to lunch tomorrow and we'll talk about it. I gotta get back."

He doesn't want to turn his back on Methos. Instead, he takes the scenic route to their safehouse, where he keeps Methos in sight until he turns behind a gas station, and then he sprints.

Pointless, of course, if Methos wanted him dead, but it makes him feel better.

(Caspian had respected Kronos, and mocked Silas, and pretended that he wasn't afraid of Methos. The boy Jensen had once been never asked why, just took the knowledge to heart.)

Clay fusses when Jensen gets back, and Jensen makes up a story about needing a Twix to keep his genius juices flowing. He'll make up something else tomorrow, because now that he's done being terrified, he's curious.

He spends the rest of the night retracing every step Adam Pierson made in the Watcher database, trying to figure out what Methos might need. By the time he falls into bed and wraps himself around Cougar, he's still at a loss. He focuses on Cougar, on his scent and his warm skin, and tries not to remember the years he spent with Caspian, how much he learned from Caspian, how much he liked it, even when—especially when—it hurt.

"Sleep," Cougar murmurs, calloused hands gentle as he strokes Jensen's spine.

When he sleeps, he dreams about Max in Death's clutches and he wakes up smiling.

------

The kid sleeps curled up next to Methos most nights. He forgave Methos a long time ago, and there is no one else in the world who was there. Cassandra only remembers the bad times, but Neal… Neal fully embraced everything that came after the slavery. He was Kronos' pet, Kronos' right hand, but only because Methos gave the boy Neal once was to him. He isn't sure why he did that, now. It's been so long he can't remember.

Cassandra only remembers the monster Death was. Neal remembers the man.

And Methos remembers wide blue eyes, and a laugh that spiraled and grew, and damn, but the kid had such a way with a knife. He got over his fear quickly and asked questions, and he learned everything Methos taught.

And then Kronos wanted him. And Methos… he still loved Kronos then. Still thought the sun rose and set on Kronos. So he gave the boy to his brother and tried to forget how he'd tasted.

And now they're the only ones left. Caspian, Silas, Kronos—Methos knew them the longest, and Neal spent five hundred years at their feet and gasping beneath them, and now he sleeps in Methos' arms.

He'll find whoever took a hit out on Neal, whoever keeps sending headhunters after him. And he'll find out why. After that…

His phone chirps at him and he reaches over Neal to grab it. The kid now known as Jensen, Caspian's favorite student (and the only one to survive all of Caspian's rages) has found something.

Death grins.

part 6

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

romyra

OH GOOD GOD I NEED MORE OF THIS LIKE BURNING!!!!!! YOU HAVE MY FULL INTEREST! Absolutely fantastically wonderfully done!

From:

i'm awake, and i'm young, and i'm alive

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