Title: You come with the dead who people my dreams
Fandom: Highlander/White Collar/The Losers movieverse
Disclaimer: not my characters
Warnings: mentions of Caspian. Mentions of non-con&death
Pairings: mentions of Peter/Neal/Elizabeth; Cougar/Jensen; Caspian/Jensen
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 630
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.
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.