Fanfic: X, or Crossovers that I'm Not Going to Write [Teen Wolf/Highlander]

[argentum_ls]

A series of unrelated crossover ficlets featuring characters from Teen Wolf.

#2: Highlander: the Series

Summary: Jackson learns that getting what you want sometimes has a high price.

Word Count: 1150

“I have to do what?” Jackson exclaims, eyebrows shooting into his hairline. “No, scratch that. They’re going to do what to me?” He plants his hands on the arms of the chair from which he thought he was going to have an easy get-to-know-you with his dad’s new research associate and pushes down. He isn’t quite on his feet, but it will only take a small effort to finish the job.

His parents often had people over to the house for dinner or drinks. Sometimes these were people they wanted to impress. More often they were people whom they felt should be impressed. Jackson’s role in the first scenario was to be dutiful and well-mannered. His role in the second was to trick the guests into letting their guard down so that he could learn, and relate back to his folks, their less polite thoughts. He was used to having to entertain people his parents invited over, so getting sent to his dad’s study with the new associate was just another night in the Whittemore household.

And then this guy came over, a Dr. Adams or Dr. Benjamin—Jackson never bothered to retain their names—and Jackson almost pleaded off because, from the moment the man stepped in the door, Jackson had felt a strange pressure in the back of his head, like a migraine trying to sneak up on him. Except, he’d never been prone to migraines. So he belted back a shot of vodka, silently daring his mother to try to stop him, and stepped out to meet the man with an easy grin, a firm handshake, and a scripted humble retort for the inevitable boast his father would make about his son’s athletics.

When they are left alone in the study for “a few moments” while his father “checks on the dinner preparations,” Jackson is all set. He is convinced that the man is as transparent as that bra Lydia bought that one time. After all, he can’t have much more than a decade on the younger boy and he’s a doctor, so that spells intelligence, dedication, and work ethic—but also nerd. This is clearly a guy who has spent most of his life with his substantial nose in a book, probably doesn’t have any real experiences, hasn’t lived much.

The study is designed to make people feel comfortable. All dark woods and leather, thick beige carpet and dim lighting, lots of antiques and classic touches. It’s quiet and calm in here with an ambiance that makes people want to keep it that way. Jackson’s planning to use that; it’s one of his favorite techniques. He’s settled back in one of the matching antique wing backs with a non-threatening bottle of root beer at his side—the visitor is in the other chair with a bottle of something expensive and micro-brewed next to his—and he’s just reaching for it when the man says, “When did you die?” as if that’s the most normal ice-breaking question in the world.

Jackson misjudges the reach and nearly knocks the bottle over onto the expensive carpet. “Excuse me?” he chokes. He knows the answer, does his best to school his expression before any more unease can show. Up until that second, he’d assumed that Derek’s bite had merely affected him differently than Peter’s bite had affected Scott. Why shouldn’t it have? While it was true that the only change he’d noticed in himself was that his lacrosse injuries healed within seconds, he hadn’t really known what timeline to expect. The first full moon is still a week away. For all he knows, the changes don’t kick in until then. It’s not like Derek has been forthcoming with information. And he’s not about to ask Scott anything.

The man leans back in his chair, tilted like he’s resisting the urge to sling a leg over the arm and kick off his shoes, takes a swig of his beer. “You heard me,” he replies. He eyes the label on the bottle, shakes his head. “Hand brewed doesn’t mean what it used to,” he adds. Under his breath, he says something else that sounds like, “Of course, neither does Cholera.”

Jackson can't do more than gawp, his urge to tell the guy to f-off fighting with his role in the scenario.

After a long moment and another swig, the man says, “All right. Here’s the deal.” And in a handful of sentences that sound suspiciously like ones Jackson swears he overheard that day at lunch from the computer geeks, the man tells him about something called The Game. Only two things sink in: He’s now immortal until and unless he gets decapitated, and hundreds of people around the world want to be the one to remove Jackson’s pretty head from his neck, so he has to learn to decapitate them first.

Jackson’s outburst is interrupted with his father’s return and the announcement that dinner is being served. He swallows back everything else he wants to say. The visitor looks as laid-back as ever, not at all like he had just been explaining how people went around murdering each other for shits and giggles.

He eats his dinner mechanically, doesn’t taste a bite of it. All he can think about is heads. His head. His head being sliced off with a very sharp sword. He hears a thump, jerks his eyes up from his plate, heart suddenly racing. For an instant, he’s certain that the thump was the belated sound of his cranium hitting the table, and he’s expecting a gush of blood to follow. Is this what decapitation feels like? Does decapitation feel like anything? Or are you dead before you know what happened? Then he sees the cook staring, chagrined, at the silver serving tray she’d let go of too soon. A splash of gravy mars the white tablecloth. He ticks his gaze over to the visitor and catches a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth. What a dick.

Jackson decides then and there that he is never going to know the answer to those questions.

The meal turns into after dinner drinks, then dessert. Eventually his father deems his associate to be suitably impressed and stands up to see him to the door. Jackson comes with him, again playing the part of good son. They shake hands. The man’s hands are warm and calloused, ones that are used for manual labor—or for wielding a sword. And the teen gets an inkling that he judged the young doctor wrong on all accounts. He feels a piece of paper pressed into his palm with the handshake, pockets it without comment.

Later, when he finally sheds his family, he unfolds the scrap. Shudders. It’s a time and place, directions and a command.

As he tries in vain to fall asleep, he wonders if immortality is finally going to get him killed.