"There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses." - George Bernard Shaw
...
Aaron hasn't had much of a chance to meet Tony's team, not with them being so new and both being so busy. So, it's a surprise when he comes in early one morning to find Baines, at least that's what he thinks his name is, sitting in his unlocked office like he owns the place.
"Agent Hotchner," Baines greets him.
"Can I help you, Agent Baines?" Hotchner asks and has his assumption confirmed when the man doesn't correct him.
"Forgive me if I'm rusty, I haven't had to do this since..." he trails off, eyes going distant in a way that Aaron has seen in the very old. "Well, a very long time."
"Do what?" Aaron asks curiously.
"If you hurt Tony, I will set your ringtone to Miley Cyrus and give your computer a virus that Rickrolls you every time you left click."
Aaron smiles a little, even if he doesn't understand most of that, glad that Tony has people who will support him, even if they do seem a little unbalanced.
"I understand."
"Good," Baines says, growing serious and there's darkness and something more in his eyes.
Aaron has some idea of the kinds of cases Tony deals with, the kinds of creatures, and he wonders for a moment if there isn't one closer to home.
...
"Damnit," Dean snarls as the demon kicks him loose, interrupting his recitation of an exorcism. Lindsey tries to pick up where Dean left off but he's struggling as it is with keeping the demon in place. The demon had taken them by surprise and they hadn't had time for a Devil's trap.
Then Adam starts speaking, low and smooth, the words pouring out easily. Dean thinks it's Latin, he recognises some of the words, but it's not any Latin he'd learned. He grabs the demon's legs when it starts struggling with renewed vigour, screaming as the words seep into it, searing light into its darkness. Adam continues, pitiless and unrelenting.
Dean looks up, meeting Lindsey's eyes when a cloud of black smoke rises out of the victim, swirls madly and then disappears into nothing. He can see Lindsey recognises the exorcism as something more than usual, too.
"What was that?" he asks quietly when Adam has walked away. Lindsey shrugs, following Adam with his gaze.
"A far older, almost forgotten dialect."
And Dean can read enough into that to know that no matter how much Adam likes languages or how much he researches them, it shouldn't have come that easily to him. Not when the only people who still know how to speak it fluently were probably around when it was first spoken.
...
Reid's excited about the exhibit that's just opened at the museum. He's usually only concerned with modern society and the influences that shape and mould people within it, but sometimes he likes to expand his horizons. So it's with a sense of anticipation that he enters the exhibit when he finally gets the chance and looks over the array of artefacts from the Middle East and parts of Asia spanning thousands of years.
There aren't too many other people around, but then it is rather early, and Reid appreciates the quiet as he inspects each artefact and reads the contextual and descriptive information. He's on the third one, some kind musical instrument, when he's distracted by a snickering man a few feet from him.
"Ceremonial urn," the man scoffs before moving on to the next item. Reid tries to put it behind him and continue his exploration, but it's not long before the man starts up again.
"Really?" the man mutters, humour evident in his voice. "Didn't they bother to do any research at all?"
Reid wonders if he's an archaeologist, but no, there's no tan to indicate long periods of outdoor work. He might be an academic, but Reid isn't too sure about that either.
"Ridiculous," the man finally exclaims. "Even a first year should know that's a ritual dagger not a hunting knife."
"Excuse me," Reid begins, more curious than angry, "but if you think it's ridiculous, why are you here?"
"Keeping score," the man answers with a wide smile. By the time Reid recognises the reference, the man is long gone.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with Doctor Who, it's about an immortal alien who time travels and occasionally visits museums to "keep score" of his influence/impact on history. Also, to show off.)
...
Tony's getting some last minute details from the ME before he finishes up his report on their latest case when he spots Adam looking at one of the victims. It's a young boy, maybe twelve, and they'd all taken it hard, but Adam's good at hiding and Tony hadn't realised quite how hard he'd taken it.
"Hey," he says softly, coming to stand next to Adam. Adam doesn't seem surprised to see him, but then it's usually fairly difficult to surprise him.
"I had a son just like him, once," Adam says, gaze not leaving the boy's face. Tony doesn't say anything, just listens. "He was friendly, charming, and so very intelligent."
Adam is silent for a long time before he reaches out to smooth down a lock of dark hair against the pale forehead. The part of Tony's brain that never stops analysing patterns wonders where this fits in the timeline of Adam's life they've been given.
"They found out what I was and he died. Trying to save my life," Adam says with a dry rasping chuckle that sounds hollow and dead. It isn't like Tony hasn't realised the implication of Immortality, but that's the first time it really hits home. Everyone Adam knows is going to die and he's going to live on. Probably whether he wants to or not.
"I'm sorry," Tony says, knowing it's entirely inadequate but meaning it anyway. Adam seems to understand that since he doesn't react as prickly as he usually would to platitudes or false sympathy. Instead, Adam shrugs, pulling on whatever personality he's going to inhabit today, this hour, this minute.
"He wasn't the first," Adam says, all distance and cold like he can pretend the memories can't reach him. "Or the last."
"How old are you really?" Tony wonders but Adam's already gone.
...
There's a moment when they're in the break room getting coffee during a lull in the case and it's just the two of them. Vin thinks Adam is interesting. He smells like dust and lightning and Vin's encountered that before.
"Immortal."
"Nayehi," Adam responds and Vin's eyebrows raise. "Traveller."
"Only partly. Still, not many who can guess that," Vin says. He's never met anyone who wasn't part of the tribe that has known what that is and even fewer who knew without being told. Adam smirks.
"Wasn't a guess."
"Not many outsiders who've encountered them," Vin says, watching Adam speculatively. Adam smiles back with the same smile Vin's seen Ez use in undercover ops when he's trying to be underestimated. Adam shrugs.
"Not much cause to, these days."
And Vin knows all the stories about how the Nunnehi fought alongside the People, how they helped lost travellers, but those stories are old and the Nunnehi are rare these days. Adam doesn't feel new either, like the snap of a static shock; he feels charged and heavy, like the air before a storm.
He's also dangerous, that much is obvious. Even slouching at his desk, he reminds Vin of a big cat, lazing in the sun. He might be indolent and amiable in that moment, but that could all change all too easily.
Vin ducks his head in a bow, respectful of this man and what he is. Adam nods back.
...
"You know you shouldn't be here," Alastair says to him. There are a lot of people Kronos knows down here, a lot of people he's put here, though none of them Immortal, and there's some satisfaction in the fact that they're still frightened of him, because Kronos didn't start at the bottom like most of them. He was a Horseman, he was Pestilence, and that accords him some respect.
Still, Alastair is something different. Kronos and the other Horsemen had run into him in what he thinks is now Syria, but geography is always a little difficult to pinpoint, where Alastair had been playing with mortals, testing their limits. Caspian had been intrigued. Methos had had little patience for the whole endeavour.
"I'm aware," Kronos says, because by all rights he should be a fading nightmare in the Scottish child's head. But he's not. Because of that Double Quickening, he'd fleetingly known what it was like to sink into Methos entirely, to know the labyrinth of his mind, before he was cast out. It shouldn't be possible, but even that brief glimpse had shown him that Methos is far more than he ever suspected.
"It's because of him," Alastair says. "Your Methos." The name ends in a sibilant hiss and Kronos smirks, because Methos isn't exactly unknown in these parts either. He doesn't bother to affirm what he and Alastair both know is the truth. They'd been Horsemen and that hadn't been just a title, even if there were others riding under those names these days. Death hadn't just been a name Methos occasionally tried on, either. But Alastair is looking just a little too patronizing and a little too pleased for that to be the end of it.
"What do you mean?"
"Death is eternal," Alastair tells him. "Death is the beginning of everything and its end. Death doesn't stop. Not like war or famine or pestilence."
Kronos rankles at the insinuation, but follows the thought to its conclusion. He knows Alastair can see the moment it dawns on Kronos because the demon smiles, slow and insidious.
"What was it like fucking an angel?"