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May. 19th, 2004 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosHere's my Highlander: The Series submission for the Day After Tomorrow fic challenge. I know I can't kill off Immies with an Ice Age, but that doesn't mean I can't try. ;)
Waist-Deep in a Nightmare
When Methos thought briefly of how it must be in New York, where Joe was consulting on some random bit of Watcher research with the higher-ups, the eldest Immortal was racing up to the roof of Duncan's building with the Scot fast on his heels and the water visibly rising in the stairwell.
There was no way the sea wasn't rising in New York right now. And to be brutally honest, Joe Dawson hadn't run this fast for around three decades.
Methos clenched his jaw at the thought that he'd probably never see Joe again and moved faster up the stairs.
"Got any brilliant ideas for when we get to the roof?"
Resisting the urge to stop running and punch Duncan in the jaw, Methos snapped, "Let's get up there first and see whether or not you left a helicopter lying around, shall we?"
The two of them burst through the stairwell door to the roof, stumbling as the building shuddered under their feet. Duncan didn't expect the foundation to hold much longer, and as much as Methos hadn't wanted to agree with him, that just wouldn't have been like him at all. The building containing Duncan's dojo and loft apartment was old, although not as old as either one of them, and Methos supposed that if this had been any other flood, it would have held up. But seawater swarmed through the place with reckless abandon, rising through the brick building as the entire place seemed to gleefully crumble into it like a soaking wet house of cards.
"Jesus, would you look at that?"
Methos turned at Duncan's quiet question, looking to where the other man was staring. The both of them moved closer to the roof's edge, the sea continuing to swirl below them as slowly growing waves crested against the dojo's walls. They heard glass shatter as a particularly large wave slammed into the side of the building, spraying them with saltwater and making Duncan wince.
But neither one of them took their eyes off the sea just off Seacouver, as it rolled in higher and higher waves towards the city on the shore.
It wasn't as if they hadn't known something strange was happening when the news started coming out the day before. Earthquakes and tornadoes in the southwest. A blizzard in New Delhi. Hail the size of grapefruit in Tokyo. It wasn't as if Methos hadn't seen the like of it before -- if there was one thing he'd learned over five thousand years, it was to expect the worse, even if it might involve a rain of some stunned lower life forms over a populated area -- but all at the same time didn't bode well.
They scanned the bay anxiously, swirling with a sinister life of its own, before taking in the terrified people trying awkwardly to make their way to higher ground in the streets below. "We don't have much time left," Duncan muttered.
Methos frowned. "That assumes we had time left when this whole thing started."
The building shook again, hard enough to make them both stumble, and the two of them shared a look a moment before a huge wave struck the side of the building and the ground collapsed beneath them.
********
"Adam? You all right, man?"
The kid ran up to him as best as he could, the gigantic parka hood bobbing over his wide-eyed gaze as he moved awkwardly to the older man's side. The tundra that had been the Pacific was spotted with the hulking debris of buildings and ships and the frozen remains of hundreds if not thousands of people. Methos and the kid, some homeless young boy named Jack who'd somehow survived being washed out to sea in a broken warehouse, had been making their way back towards the shore for the past day or so, Jack wearing the parka they'd found tucked away in a shipwrecked barge and Methos wearing about a half dozen layers more than usual.
"I'm fine," Methos said, his words clipped with emotion as he stared hard at the body frozen solid into the ground. It couldn't be ... hell, it wasn't even possible.
Was it?
"What'd you find?" The kid peered past him at the human statue lying motionless before them, and he frowned. "What, did you trip over him over something?"
Methos supposed he shouldn't be surprised at the kid's casual response to a corpse stuck in the snow, considering they'd seen so many since the freeze had come. Since the day before, when Methos had awoken from a hypothermic death, sprawled across the chilled underside of a flipped-over fishing boat while the kid tried to tug the henley off his body for his own use. He'd damn near scared the kid to death, waking up like he had, but it certainly had made him more cautious since around the dead.
They'd been God knows how far out to sea before the freeze, the both of them floating in or on debris that was now well stuck into the snow. Just like the corpses they kept tripping over, and just like the body frozen in a posture of terror before them.
The kid took one look at the expression on the older man's face, and his own gaze darkened with worry. "Hey, man, did you know him or something?"
"Or something," Methos said, staring at the body.
Duncan's glassy eyes stared back at him, dark and accusing.
It was probably the way Duncan's body had ended up in the crusted-over snow, with his lower half frozen inside and keeping his core temperature too low to keep him from coming back to life without help. A wooden table lie within arm's length, and Methos imagined his drowned corpse had sprawled over it aftr he'd been swept off the roof with Methos, floating on the ocean's surface until the temperature had plummeted below zero. And that's when he'd frozen ...
"Ain't nothing you can do for him now," the kid said, and Methos nearly argued him on that one. They could snap off the table legs or something, pound away the snow, until they could tug Duncan's body from the cold and get a little warmer. How, Methos didn't know -- hell, he still didn't know how he'd come to, although he thought it might have had something to do with the kid's warm hands tugging the cold clothing from his flesh -- but they could do it. They didn't have a lot of energy due to the hunger that came from barely eating, and it would take a while ... a long while ...
They could die out here themselves, digging out a dead man.
Eventually there'd be a thaw, of course. Just like the last Ice Age, this one would end and the seas would return to their former selves, and Duncan MacLeod would warm up and come to and suddenly realize it had been a hundred thousand years since he'd been frozen into the ocean.
But he'd be alive. For right now, with the kid depending on him and his immediate future more important, "eventually" was better than nothing.
And with that, Methos got to his feet, gave his friend one last apologetic look, and said, "Come on, then. Let's be off."
When Methos thought briefly of how it must be in New York, where Joe was consulting on some random bit of Watcher research with the higher-ups, the eldest Immortal was racing up to the roof of Duncan's building with the Scot fast on his heels and the water visibly rising in the stairwell.
There was no way the sea wasn't rising in New York right now. And to be brutally honest, Joe Dawson hadn't run this fast for around three decades.
Methos clenched his jaw at the thought that he'd probably never see Joe again and moved faster up the stairs.
"Got any brilliant ideas for when we get to the roof?"
Resisting the urge to stop running and punch Duncan in the jaw, Methos snapped, "Let's get up there first and see whether or not you left a helicopter lying around, shall we?"
The two of them burst through the stairwell door to the roof, stumbling as the building shuddered under their feet. Duncan didn't expect the foundation to hold much longer, and as much as Methos hadn't wanted to agree with him, that just wouldn't have been like him at all. The building containing Duncan's dojo and loft apartment was old, although not as old as either one of them, and Methos supposed that if this had been any other flood, it would have held up. But seawater swarmed through the place with reckless abandon, rising through the brick building as the entire place seemed to gleefully crumble into it like a soaking wet house of cards.
"Jesus, would you look at that?"
Methos turned at Duncan's quiet question, looking to where the other man was staring. The both of them moved closer to the roof's edge, the sea continuing to swirl below them as slowly growing waves crested against the dojo's walls. They heard glass shatter as a particularly large wave slammed into the side of the building, spraying them with saltwater and making Duncan wince.
But neither one of them took their eyes off the sea just off Seacouver, as it rolled in higher and higher waves towards the city on the shore.
It wasn't as if they hadn't known something strange was happening when the news started coming out the day before. Earthquakes and tornadoes in the southwest. A blizzard in New Delhi. Hail the size of grapefruit in Tokyo. It wasn't as if Methos hadn't seen the like of it before -- if there was one thing he'd learned over five thousand years, it was to expect the worse, even if it might involve a rain of some stunned lower life forms over a populated area -- but all at the same time didn't bode well.
They scanned the bay anxiously, swirling with a sinister life of its own, before taking in the terrified people trying awkwardly to make their way to higher ground in the streets below. "We don't have much time left," Duncan muttered.
Methos frowned. "That assumes we had time left when this whole thing started."
The building shook again, hard enough to make them both stumble, and the two of them shared a look a moment before a huge wave struck the side of the building and the ground collapsed beneath them.
********
"Adam? You all right, man?"
The kid ran up to him as best as he could, the gigantic parka hood bobbing over his wide-eyed gaze as he moved awkwardly to the older man's side. The tundra that had been the Pacific was spotted with the hulking debris of buildings and ships and the frozen remains of hundreds if not thousands of people. Methos and the kid, some homeless young boy named Jack who'd somehow survived being washed out to sea in a broken warehouse, had been making their way back towards the shore for the past day or so, Jack wearing the parka they'd found tucked away in a shipwrecked barge and Methos wearing about a half dozen layers more than usual.
"I'm fine," Methos said, his words clipped with emotion as he stared hard at the body frozen solid into the ground. It couldn't be ... hell, it wasn't even possible.
Was it?
"What'd you find?" The kid peered past him at the human statue lying motionless before them, and he frowned. "What, did you trip over him over something?"
Methos supposed he shouldn't be surprised at the kid's casual response to a corpse stuck in the snow, considering they'd seen so many since the freeze had come. Since the day before, when Methos had awoken from a hypothermic death, sprawled across the chilled underside of a flipped-over fishing boat while the kid tried to tug the henley off his body for his own use. He'd damn near scared the kid to death, waking up like he had, but it certainly had made him more cautious since around the dead.
They'd been God knows how far out to sea before the freeze, the both of them floating in or on debris that was now well stuck into the snow. Just like the corpses they kept tripping over, and just like the body frozen in a posture of terror before them.
The kid took one look at the expression on the older man's face, and his own gaze darkened with worry. "Hey, man, did you know him or something?"
"Or something," Methos said, staring at the body.
Duncan's glassy eyes stared back at him, dark and accusing.
It was probably the way Duncan's body had ended up in the crusted-over snow, with his lower half frozen inside and keeping his core temperature too low to keep him from coming back to life without help. A wooden table lie within arm's length, and Methos imagined his drowned corpse had sprawled over it aftr he'd been swept off the roof with Methos, floating on the ocean's surface until the temperature had plummeted below zero. And that's when he'd frozen ...
"Ain't nothing you can do for him now," the kid said, and Methos nearly argued him on that one. They could snap off the table legs or something, pound away the snow, until they could tug Duncan's body from the cold and get a little warmer. How, Methos didn't know -- hell, he still didn't know how he'd come to, although he thought it might have had something to do with the kid's warm hands tugging the cold clothing from his flesh -- but they could do it. They didn't have a lot of energy due to the hunger that came from barely eating, and it would take a while ... a long while ...
They could die out here themselves, digging out a dead man.
Eventually there'd be a thaw, of course. Just like the last Ice Age, this one would end and the seas would return to their former selves, and Duncan MacLeod would warm up and come to and suddenly realize it had been a hundred thousand years since he'd been frozen into the ocean.
But he'd be alive. For right now, with the kid depending on him and his immediate future more important, "eventually" was better than nothing.
And with that, Methos got to his feet, gave his friend one last apologetic look, and said, "Come on, then. Let's be off."
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Date: 2004-05-19 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 08:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-19 10:18 am (UTC)woah. dude. now i really want to see the movie.
Date: 2004-05-19 12:49 pm (UTC)Heya, Princess!
Date: 2004-05-22 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-31 08:14 am (UTC)It's been so long, Highlander was the first show I ever fell in love with and I hadn't read fanfic in ages. Suddenly I have the urge to read every single HL fic I can get my hands on. OMG, my Duncan-Methos love is alive again! You resurrected it! Thanks!
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Date: 2004-06-04 06:45 am (UTC)I love your Methos -- not a bad man, but a very, very practical one, far more pragmatic than Duncan would be and destined to survive because of it. Good stuff!
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Date: 2004-06-11 03:00 pm (UTC)