Title: With the Wind at My Back
Fandom Highlander/Teen Wolf
Characters: Methos & Jackson, mentions of Scott
Word Count: 1300
Summary: Jackson's lessons in Immortality start with the basics.
Content Notes: No warnings apply. This ficlet is from a failed attempt at at a sequel to my Immortal Jackson story, Death Defiant. I have far too many partial stories on my HD, so I hope that by cleaning this up and posting it, I might find the inspiration to work on the full story. If not, this scene can stand alone as a timestamp.
Badges: For the crossovers badge.


The fact that after practice he had to go to practice struck Jackson as patently unfair. Two hours in his lacrosse uniform running warms-ups and drills and scrimmages was to be rewarded with another few hours in the gym doing more warm-ups and drills. The problem wasn’t the amount of exercise or the lack of free time to hang out with his friends—though those certainly weren’t positives—but the fact that the second set of drills centered on his other life. It struck him as fundamentally wrong that he had to go from one arena where he was at the top of the hierarchy as co-captain of the lacrosse team to an arena where he was the absolute bottom, as a newborn Immortal whose mentor still hadn’t let him touch a real sword. What was arguably worse was that he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened at practice, how close his two lives had come to merging out on the field today. He shook his head, forcing the memory down. He had to stay sharp.

The address he’d been given was for a real gym, one that had only opened a few months before in a downtown building that had formerly been offices until the company went under. The place had been renovated since then, the facilities looking clean and ultra-modern with bright lights, new carpet, and the faint murmur of TVs playing in the background. His membership wasn’t for this main facility, though. When he checked in at the desk, he was directed to a small elevator off to the side, one marked for employees only. The smell of disinfectant that wafted out when the doors slid open wrinkled his nose. No attention had been given to sprucing up this part of the building. The elevator walls were tarnished, the floor bare except for a large dark stain on it that he sincerely hoped wasn’t blood. And he wasn’t going to ask about, just in case it was.

Benjamin Adams was waiting for him when Jackson stepped off the elevator into a private studio. The whole floor was covered in a thin blue mat, mirrors lined one wall, and racks of equipment lined another. The outlines of windows were still evident on the other two walls, though the space where the glass should be was boarded over. Adams was a couple inches taller than Jackson and had the wiry build of a long distance runner. His brown hair flopped on his head like he was badly in need of a haircut and far too busy to squeeze one into his schedule. Jackson figured this was part of his absent-minded scientist persona, which Jackson wasn’t entirely convinced was a persona. Right now Adams was also dressed in loose black sweats and a faded Harvard t-shirt.

“You went to Harvard?” Jackson asked, not sure if the clothes were supposed to be a message or a hint. He’d barely known the man for more than a couple months and he didn’t have a lot to go on for figuring out what parts were affected and which weren’t—assuming any of them qualified as either.

Ben looked momentarily confused, then glanced down at his t-shirt. “In the fifties,” he replied with a small, nostalgic smile. “But this t-shirt was a gift.”

“The fifties?” Jackson repeated. Which fifties? A couple things his mentor had said had given Jackson the impression that he was dealing with someone far older than he looked—which wasn’t difficult, since Adams looked all of thirty. He also spoke with an English accent, which made it even more difficult to figure out how his story pieced together.

“Are you ready?” Adams asked, before Jackson could pull together another question. Adams ran an eye over Jackson’s workout apparel, a pair of gray sweat-shorts and a black sleeveless t-shirt that he’d changed into after practice, and nodded once. “Take this.” He held something out toward his pupil, and that’s when Jackson realized that Adams had been standing this whole time with two wooden practice swords partially concealed behind his back, one in each hand.

“It’s wooden,” Jackson sneered, his eyebrows going up in disdain. And dull, he thought. What was the point of that? Weren’t both of them Immortal? As in, unable to get killed? If Jackson was supposed to learn how to use a sword, then why didn’t Adams teach him how to use a sword.
“You don’t get to start with a live blade,” Adams countered, as if reading his mind. He flipped the wooden practice sword around so it pointed hilt first at Jackson, then pushed it forward, clearly expecting Jackson to take it. Jackson hesitated, then accepted the sword, carefully, not quite trusting it to really be made of wood. He didn’t put it past Adams to trick him, to change the rules out from under him. The corner of his mentor’s mouth pulled up into a grin. “We’re not geckos. Limbs don’t grow back, you know.”

Jackson’s grip went loose and he nearly dropped the sword, fumbling to catch it before he made a complete fool of himself. “They don’t?”
Adams shook his head, the grin vanishing. “If you can get the pieces lined up fast enough, the wound will heal and the severed part will reattach. Otherwise…” He grimaced.

Jackson blanched. All he could picture was Scott at practice tonight, Scott with his breath coming in harsh pants, his lips barred to reveal his elongated canines, and his glowing amber eyes. Jackson didn’t know what had happened either. McCall had taken a hit, a hard tackle that knocked him down, but nothing that wasn’t routine for a lacrosse practice. When Scott stood up, his whole posture had changed. He was hunched, his arms tensed, and he looked like he was ready to pounce. Jackson had lunged at him, wrapping his arms around his and hauling him off the field before anyone else could see. He’d thought he was safe from harm.

“You’d better hope that if you get hurt that badly, your opponent has the courtesy to kill you,” Adams continued.

“Why?”

Adams shrugged. “More time to fix things, assuming he doesn’t take your head, too.”

“What about—“ Jackson swallowed hard, not trusting himself to ask the next question, knowing that he probably wouldn’t like the answer. “What about if things are removed? Like—“ He wet his lips, looked down at the fake sword in his hand. It was pale brown, non-descript. He couldn’t even tell what kind of sword it was pretending to be. “Like if someone rips your heart out?” No, he didn’t mean it metaphorically.

Adams hefted his practice sword and laid the end across his open hand like he was forming a barrier between himself and Jackson’s questions. “There’s usually enough left for internal organs to fix themselves.” His response was quiet, contemplative, the way one mentioned an event that wasn’t open for discussion.

Jackson drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had a feeling there were going to be a lot of stories like that coming up, hints of ugliness that he really didn’t want to know about, uses of the word usually that meant not often enough. Adams took that moment to sweep his feet out from under him with a casual spin and leg extension that Jackson never saw coming. Jackson hit the mat hard, his sword skittering across the vinyl surface, out of reach. He curled in on himself, trying to hold on to some of the breath that had been knocked out on impact. He looked up at Adams, mouth agape, eyes narrowed in anger.

“Lesson number one,” Adams responded to the unspoken outrage being directed at him. His words were clipped and no-nonsense. “Always be ready.”