Highlander/Mummy Fic

[icarus_chained]

For a prompt on comment_fic. Yes, I will cheerfully cross Methos with anything, though this one fits really well, I think. Heh.

Title: Ka, Akh, Ren
Rating: PG
Fandom: Highlander the Series, the Mummy trilogy
Characters/Pairings: Methos, Evie, Rick, Jonathan. Rick/Evie, maybe a hint of potential Methos/Jonathan
Summary: In their defence, the dead man they shot woke up again almost immediately. In their further defence, that didn't normally happen, even in Egypt, so they could be excused some mildly violent curiosity on the subject, couldn't they?
Wordcount: 2825
Warnings/Notes: Set not long after the end of the first Mummy movie. Warnings for bullets, resurrection, and a shaky grasp of Egyptian mythology -_-;
Disclaimer: Not mine

Ka, Akh, Ren

"Now what on Earth are you?"

The woman's voice wasn't really alarmed, or even that incredulous. No, it was fascination he was hearing, a great deal of intellectual frustration, a bit of excitement, and something that might have been briefly shamed, for about half a second. Well. It wasn't the worst thing he'd come back from the dead hearing.

"Ouch," he said dryly, opening his eyes and sitting upright to pat at the erstwhile bullet-holes in his chest. "Full cylinder, heart and lungs. Thank you so much. Really, it was lovely."

"Are they allowed to do that?" someone asked. British, male, rather excitable. "Be sarcastic. Are undead allowed to do that?"

"Never stopped them before." Another male. American this time, very deadpan. He recognised that voice. It came with bullets attached.

"He's not a mummy," the woman interjected, and Methos looked up at last to find her crouched blithely beside him, so close as to be practically in his lap, her nose intimidatingly close to his face. He leaned back a bit, raising an alarmed eyebrow, and she shook her head, staring at him in fascinated curiosity. "A mummy wouldn't have died and then immediately come back. They just wouldn't have died. I don't know what he is."

"Should you really be that close to him then, old mum?" the Britisher asked, only mildly longsuffering. "Regardless of species, getting up close and personal with the undead has this history of going badly, you know."

"Pish tosh," said the woman, waving a dismissive hand. "Rick can just shoot him again if he tries anything. He obviously does die. It's just temporary, that's all. We can just kill him again and be a little farther away when he wakes up."

Methos stared at her. He wasn't alone this time, either. Even her two companions-at-arms seemed a little startled by the sangfroid of that response. In Methos' case, however, it was more ...

"'Pish tosh'?" he asked, dry as the nice Egyptian dust that was drowning them all. She flushed, and actually backed away a little. "I'm going to take a wild guess and say 'British'. I don't think I'd be wrong."

"You're one to talk," said the American. "Literally."

He reached down to help the woman to her feet, his revolver still trained on Methos. He'd even reloaded the blasted thing in the few seconds Methos had been 'out'. Just his luck to meet a well-prepared bunch of adventurers. With, apparently, experience in the undead. Wonderful.

"Not really," he sighed, moving carefully to stand himself, and dusting himself off when the action didn't immediately get him shot. "Not since the early 1800s. It just comes back when you spend too much time surrounded by them, is all."

"Hah!" said the other fellow, with cheerful imperialistic pride. "Three cheers for the old country, eh?"

Methos quirked a lip. "Between me and Egypt right now, you really shouldn't start on the question of 'old countries'. We might be here a while."

Hopefully, and barring itchy trigger fingers, anyway.

"Yes, about that," the woman interrupted, bulling her way back into the conversation with cheerful disregard. She leaned close again, as if a close study of his nose-hairs might prompt the secrets of life from him, and Methos eyed her with an odd combination of alarm and amusement. And, perhaps, a little bit of appreciation, but he'd always loved a good healthy dose of curiosity in a woman. "What are you? You can't just come back to life and expect to brush it off, you know. Not even in Egypt, though admittedly the undead are a little more common around here."

"A little too common," the American muttered behind her, and his British companion seemed entirely in agreement. Methos stared curiously at them.

"Might we have some introductions first?" he suggested at last, smiling faintly. "Understandable as the circumstances were, and my sincere apologies for disturbing you at what was obviously a fraught moment, but I do think a round of bullets entitles me to some names, at least, before you start dragging secrets out of me?"

It didn't, really. A round of bullets and a public return to life usually only entitled him to some more bullets, and a few rounds of screaming, and occasionally an attempted dismemberment if he didn't stay alive long enough to get out of there. But that was the useful thing about the British. Provided nobody was immediately panicking, a request for good manners usually had a fair chance of working.

"Oh, of course," the woman agreed, proving him happily right for the first time in this little meeting. She stuck out her hand in greeting and beamed at him. "Evelyn O'Connell, librarian and archaeologist. Pleased to meet you."

"Evie, can we not give the nice undead man our hands? Or anything else?" The American sighed, catching her wrist and pulling it back before Methos could complete the gesture, squinting suspiciously into Methos' smirk. The perils of mixed company.

"Oh, what could it hurt?" 'Evie' asked him, her happiness bright and uncomplicated as she gazed up at him. "Come on, Rick. Where's your sense of adventure?"

"I am refraining from mentioning a lot of things right now," he shot back, still deadpan, but obviously repressing humour as well as exasperation now. "I'm not pointing out any number of places where I might have left that sense of adventure. I hope you're noticing that."

"Hmm," she purred, leaning into him. "I'm noticing a lot of things."

"Oh, for goodness sake," the other man muttered, shoving the American to the side and holding out his hand to Methos. "Ignore them. Newlyweds, you know how it is. I'm Jonathan Carnahan, he's Rick O'Connell, and I'd be much obliged to you if you could, actually, explain who and what you are, and hopefully pull Evie back into a more publicly-orientated frame of mind in the process. If you don't mind?"

Methos laughed, shaking the man's hand with good grace and a certain recognition of a fellow spirit. "Matthew Wrightson, currently," he said, letting the man go in good time not to alarm people. "As you've surmised, I am not a mummy. You will explain why that was your first option, by the way? I know the legends around here, but your reaction seems a bit more than that. It involved less screaming, for a start."

"Certainly," Rick answered, elbowing Jonathan back aside and fixing a wide, friendly grin at Methos. Oh yes. Alpha male, all the way. "If you'd like to explain the whole 'coming back from the dead' thing first."

"Yes, really," Evie breathed, staring at him with that unholy light of fascination in her eyes. "We've never seen it like that before. It doesn't at all match Imhotep's process."

"Imho---" Methos started, and groaned heartily, scraping his palm down his face. "You woke Imhotep? That's why you ... You lot? What the bloody hell were the Magi doing, taking a long lunch?"

"Actually, they were trying to kill us," Jonathan said dryly. "We had a helpful screen of American pistoleers between us, though, and we got on rather well with them afterwards. The Magi, I mean, not the Americans. They were a little dead by that point. No offence, Rick."

"None taken," Rick answered, with an odd air of resigned repetition and amusement. "Since I very happily wasn't dead at the time."

"Happily, yes," Evie hummed, and good grief, they really were disgusting. Adorable, but disgusting. Methos exchanged an eloquent look with the other current bachelor in the party, and then shook himself in an effort to get back on track.

"Well, at least they were trying to do their jobs, then," he sighed, looking away from them out over the desert towards Hamunaptra. He'd not been involved, of course, but a person of his age and inclinations did like to keep on top of such things. He had a vested interest in keeping emergences of old monsters down to a minimum, after all. He was fond of progress. He'd like it to keep progressing.

"It really wasn't their fault," Evie said, more seriously. He looked back at her, raising his eyebrow, but she didn't flinch. "Ardeth did warn us, and do his best to stop us. And he worked with us to put Imhotep back in his little box afterwards. You shouldn't go around placing blame when you weren't even there."

Methos blinked. Well, that was pointed. But she had that look about her, he saw, studying her more closely. A bond of comradeship only newly formed, in intense circumstances, and so prone to a little overreaction in defence of those she'd bound herself too. They all had a bit of it, actually. The three of them. They were evidently still in the jumpy phase, when the rush of battle was still new and fresh.

It probably explained the bullets, as well. Now that he thought about it.

"Yes, well," he smiled, shaking his head at them. "Don't poke at dead things, hmm? It rarely ends well. Trust me on this."

"Oh, we don't have to," the American said, wry and a little challenging. "Figured that out for ourselves, thanks. Or most of us, anyway."

"Oh, hush." Evie elbowed him casually. "You don't get to see an on-the-spot resurrection every day, do you? Did you expect me just to ignore it?"

"I think he expected you not to sit in the dead man's lap and examine his tonsils, old mum," Jonathan noted, grinning at her. "Aside from anything else, you've only just been married. You ought to wait a little before getting yourself a dead man on the side."

"Jonathan!" she cried, blushing furiously, and shoved the man hard enough to knock him into the sand. "Oh, you--- You're terrible. You be quiet! Rick, dear, you know I wasn't ..."

"I'm sure your husband knows it was scientific curiosity and nothing else that motivated you," Methos assured, thoroughly bemused by the lot of them. "Er. I hope so, at least. He's already shot me to death once. I'd like to keep that to a minimum, if at all possible."

"Why?" Rick asked. Bland and with an edge to it, perpetually challenging. He hadn't put the gun away either, Methos noted, though he wasn't pointing it at anyone either. "You'll just get back up again, won't you?"

"Yes," said Methos, equally blandly and equally edged. "But, shockingly, six bullets to the chest does hurt quite a bit. I prefer to avoid pain, where I can."

"Know the feeling," Jonathan agreed, nodding earnestly and ignoring Rick's look with blithe aplomb. "Terrible stuff. I'm not fond of it myself."

Methos grinned at him. "Sensible man," he approved, and Jonathan preened happily at him. Evie, glancing between them, abruptly looked as calmly foreboding as her husband, and inched forward a little to place herself between them. Oh, very protective, yes. Even when she was angry at the man, she wasn't about to let him get himself in trouble.

Not that Methos had been thinking about getting Jonathan in trouble. No, not at all. Idle post-resurrection fancies from a bemused mind, that was all.

"Resurrection?" she prompted sharply, and he half-startled at the echo to his thoughts. And, too, at the implacability of the tone. Her face had hardened a little, though the humour and the fascination were both still there. It might only have been protective brusqueness, but it seemed that dissembling was henceforth at an end, and the people with the guns wouldn't be happy with any further attempts.

Instinctively, Methos found his muscles tensing, even as his stance seemed to relax, harmless and insouciant in compensating disguise. Somehow, though, he didn't feel too much of a threat from them. Their violence seemed more preventative than anything else, and for all Evie's invasive curiosity, there was no hint of darker or more possessive aims about them. It was simply a question, from curious and experienced souls, and he found that he didn't really mind it very much. A word of caution in their ears later on, as a caveat, should be enough for conscience's sake.

"I'm immortal," he said, as blithe and blunt as they seemed to be, and all the more cheerful for it. They blinked at him, but didn't exactly seem surprised. They wouldn't be, he supposed. This bunch wouldn't be surprised by much at all. "Not undead. And not a mummy. I'm ... hmm. It's hard to say. In Egyptian terms, you might think of it as though my Ka and my Khat never parted ways? My Akh remains physically animated, and maintains my body around it, for reasons possibly only the gods know." He paused, and felt something a little wistful pass through him. "I lost my Ren, though. A long time ago, and only partly on purpose. Sometimes I wonder how much of an effect that might have had."

"... Okay," Rick said, slowly. He didn't look skeptical, though. Wary, but not unbelieving. "I'm hoping that made sense to somebody, because I got as far as 'immortal'."

"He lost his name," Evie explained softly, from beside him. Methos looked at her, and found so honest and sincere a sympathy in her expression that he lost his breath for a moment. "He kept his life force and his soul inside his body, but he lost his name. He doesn't remember who he is."

"I know who I am," Methos corrected, but gently. For the compassion in her gaze, he kept it gentle. "I just don't remember who I was, that's all. Not quite the same thing. A man can make a new name, after all."

"Yeah," said a voice, and three of them startled to realise it was Rick's. They stared at him, and he stared back, calm and with something rather deeper than his previous blunt facade would have suggested. "A man can, at that."

And there was more to that than a statement of agreement, more even that just a hint of a shared experience. Methos tilted his head, watching the man, and Rick quirked a lip at him in answer, and put away his gun. He put his arm around his wife, calm and careful with his love for her, and met an immortal's gaze head-on. Not only an agreement, no. An understanding. And, behind it, a permission. Methos fluttered a hand curiously.

"You know something about names, do you?" he asked, with a warm little hum of understanding. Amusement, connection. The man smirked back at him.

"I served in the Foreign Legion," Rick explained, and it was an explanation. All by its lonesome. "I never lost my own name, you understand. But I know a few who did. Know what they made themselves afterwards. I've an idea what that might mean to someone."

Methos huffed at that. A strange little chuckle. "I suppose you would," he agreed, and spread his arms out from his sides, baring palms in open query. "So then. Do I take it that the bullet-ridden part of the afternoon is over, and I'm free to go? Just like that?"

"Oh, no!" Evie exclaimed, disappointment startling her from her abrupt, careful study of her husband. She looked back at Methos in dismay, but her Britishness caught up again a second later, and she dipped her head a little. "Well, I mean. Of course you could. If you wanted to. But I thought you might ... Well. I---"

"She thought you might have a spot of coffee with us," Jonathan finished, from where he was standing behind the pair and studying Rick a little carefully himself. He hid it better, though, and recovered much faster. "So she can pick your brains about Bas and Kas and history and all that rot, yes?" He grinned, ambling forward to sling an arm around Methos' shoulders. He was tense beneath it, Methos could feel the faint readiness in the muscles, but covered with a sangfroid that would have done his companions proud. "What do you say, old chum? For my sister's sake? I do promise that the brain-picking won't be literal, if that's what you're worried about."

Methos snorted. "Eternally grateful," he said dryly, and then paused. Just for a second. Just to look at them, as brave and bright and thoroughly baffling as they were. He paused, and then he smiled, and slung an answering arm around the Englishman's shoulders in turn.

"You know what?" he said, bouncing cheerfully with a wiry, wary body alongside him, and a pair of disgusting newlyweds across the way. "A good cup of coffee is just the thing a body needs after some impromptu resurrection. Don't mind if I do, actually."

"We won't," said Rick, looking down with fond exasperation at his wife. "Oh, believe me. Sit still long enough, we won't mind at all."

Well then, Methos thought. Yes indeed. Not the worst thing he'd heard upon coming back from the dead at all.

Not by a very long shot.