Methos didn't know where to begin. He had moved into a cheap hotel in a truly terrible neighborhood under a name he had made up on the spot. What was he still doing in Seacouver?
He should have left town immediately. His relationship with MacLeod was over, with Joe, with the Watchers…all gone. Finding the person responsible wouldn't redeem him in their eyes, the damage was done in Bordeaux. He needed to move on, start over some place very far away. So why hadn't he left yet? Why was he even considering hunting down whoever had ruined this life for him?
He knew why, he had done nothing but stick his neck out for MacLeod since the day he had met the other immortal, running away only to return as if drawn by supercharged magnets. He didn't want to leave.
But he had no leads whatsoever. He had already tried to find out who was behind these attacks. Cassandra had been his first suspect and she had even been in the area of all of the attacks but Methos had refused to confront the woman.
If she had been behind the attacks, it was not his place to stop her anyway. She was only what he had made her. Cassandra had had a happy life once, before he had come along. Methos wondered sometimes if he had had a family when he was a child, like Cassandra and MacLeod. The blurry memories he could remember did not make it seem likely. Even Kronos had remembered his childhood, brutal though it had been, with fondness.
But that was beside the point now. Cassandra was dead and he had no idea who would want to separate him from his friends, get him alone, vulnerable.
There was only one thing to do. Be his own bait. If he made himself visible, hopefully whoever it was would come get him. If not, well hopefully he'd have made himself enough of a target to keep MacLeod safe.
He left the motel room then, planning to head to a really expensive restaurant and have a really great meal…and pay with a credit card in the name of Adam Pierson. Except that on the way to his car, he was hit in the back of the head with what felt like a two-by-four. There was no presence.
Methos awoke in darkness. Unsurprised, he became aware slowly of his situation. He was naked, lying on a cold cement floor, his arms and legs bound and also secured to the floor. No surprise there either.
Suddenly a light turned on, blinding the ancient immortal for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, he quickly surveyed his environment. He was in what must be a warehouse, not very original. There seemed to be literally nothing else in the room, nothing besides a very large man coming towards him carrying a duffel bag.
Methos didn't recognize the man and he wasn't an immortal. He was however the size of Goliath, with a buzz cut and dark eyes, dead eyes.
He dropped the bag and it landed with a loud thud beside the prone immortal. The sound reverberated in the empty space. Methos forced himself to relax, to breathe calmly. It was obvious what was coming. Someone wanted Methos to suffer and now the physical suffering would commence.
But whoever it was didn't really know him. Physical suffering wouldn't break him, better men had tried and failed. Methos barely felt the first cut of the knife.
He didn't know how long the tortures continued, he was so far away inside his mind that time seemingly had no meaning. He did know that the man had become increasingly upset by his lack of response, infuriated each time that Methos succumbed to death.
This time when he revived, Methos knew that something was different. His position had been changed; his knees had been secured to his chest and stretched wide. He started at the knowledge of what was coming.
The man laughed, a flat noise, at Methos' sudden alarm that surely showed on his expressive face. The sound of a zipper lowering seemed gruesomely loud in the enormous space.
Methos struggled, a useless gesture, but he couldn't seem to quell the panic rising to choke him. This wasn't unexpected, it was a common way to not only injure a prisoner but also humiliate. And it certainly wasn't the first time it had happened to him, though it had been a while, five hundred years perhaps.
But now it was different. His mind flashed onto a vision of MacLeod. He had given himself to that man; Mac was the only one he wanted inside him. He didn't want the memory of Duncan making love to him driven out by pain.
He turned his face to the side as the man leaned over him, but the man turned his head back forward. "I want you to know where you are, know that this is not your lover…not that there'll be any doubt." There was that oddly flat laugh again.
Methos looked the man in the face, not wanting to but needing to look, to know who was behind all this. The man's eyes were still flat, as if he weren't really in control, as if he were a zombie…
There was no more time to consider the matter as the man roughly thrust inside. The ancient immortal let out a single choked cry before falling silent again. It wasn't the burning, tearing pain, Methos hated the man's breath on his face, hated the fullness of the man in his body and the weight over him, hated the pleasure that contorted the man's face and quickened his breath.
By the time it was over, Methos felt like he wanted to vomit. He wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out but he was still on the floor, spread open; he couldn't stop shaking or get a full breath…then the man lifted his own sword over him.
He was not ready to die, not even now. It was more than fear; it was will, a ferocious passion for all the unlimited tomorrows with all their limitless possibilities. A passion that MacLeod had given back to him just when he thought he had lost it.
But the man just laughed at him again. "I'm not going to kill you yet." He knelt down between Methos' spread thighs again and pressed the hilt of the sword to the now healed but bloody entrance there. He pressed it in slowly.
"Is this how your lover fucks you? Is Duncan gentle?" The words caused Methos to choke on his own breath and the thrusts became less gentle, slamming into him, rocking his whole body with their force and controlling his breathing. He knew that his insides were completely shredded.
Then it was removed. And replaced with the blade. It pressed in, not stretching him, but simply slicing through, advancing slowly until it reached his chest cavity. He died choking on his own blood, thinking only that being raped with his own sword was a fittingly poetic ending to his relationship with MacLeod.
When he awoke that time, Methos was fairly astonished to be breathing again. A detestable feeling however familiar it was. It was after the astonishment that he realized that he was no longer bound and he stood up. His body was fatigued but intact, dried blood flaked off his skin as he moved.
His attacker was laying on the floor not far away, in a dark puddle of blood, the gun in his hand. And the man's jeans were still open, blood drying on his now quiescent member. Methos' sword lay nearby, covered in blood and other bodily fluids from the hilt to the tip. He almost left it there, but then he felt the ghost of an immortal presence, grating like sandpaper on his strained nerves.
He picked it up and walked forward, toward a door. There was only one person whom it could be…
Instead of ending up outside, Methos walked into another large warehouse area. Cassandra was already there, waiting for him. The ancient man wondered momentarily at the picture he must make, naked, covered in his own blood, holding a sword he'd been violated with and crouching in a defensive posture. He hoped that she was enjoying the view.
Her voice was calm as she strode forward to meet him, her own sword already raised. "Give up Methos!"
The ancient immortal only shook his head in response. If she thought that he had been demoralized into giving up his head, she was wrong. "There is only person to whom I shall relinquish my quickening, Cassandra, and it's not you."
"Duncan!" She screamed as she brought her sword over her shoulder to slice down at him. "He doesn't love you, I've shown him what you are! He doesn't want your filthy quickening inside him!"
Methos parried her thrusts easily, keeping his cool. "Doesn't matter." If he had to wait until the end, until he and Duncan were the only immortals left, Methos would find a way. MacLeod was the only one who would have his power.
The hilt of his sword was slick in his hand as he fought, staying on the defensive. He wanted to conserve his breath, but he couldn't help talking, asking why.
"Why involve mortals, Cassandra? Why did you kill them?"
"Why not, Methos?!'" Her voice was venomous. "You killed indiscriminately!"
The ancient immortal shook his head. That was a different time, a different world, one in which life was violent, raiders were common and slavery more so. She had options, friends to turn to, had grown up with morals… "In your hate, you have become Death!"
He disarmed her then. She was clumsy, no match for him really, the woman must have been counting on emotional turmoil to give her an advantage.
It was then that he felt another presence enter the room. Methos didn't need to look up to know who was walking in but he looked anyway.
MacLeod's eyes were large and dark, his posture tense. Methos knew that Mac would never forgive him even as he drew the sword back for the final swing. It wasn't about vengeance, or saving more innocent people from death, if he let her go, she wouldn't stop and then MacLeod would be forced to interfere…better to let the Highlander hate him than have to take the head of another friend.
He swung, Cassandra's head hitting the ground with a portentous thud.
