Chapter Text
AN: so like,,, Methos is not really a good guy in this one, at least not by modern societal standards. The dudes been alive for thousands of years, has admittedly done some biblically messed up stuff and was shaped by an era that has completely different and at times opposing moral values when compared to our own. Though he is obviously capable of adapting to present times, there are several moments when Methos shows his age, so to speak, and I was always sort of skeptical of the true depth of his remorse- especially in regards to Duncan. Anyways, I just wanted to explore a Methos whose social conditioning isn’t so flexible, and a Spencer who wholey enables him. Not by any means a healthy relationship, but very interesting to write.
Spencer is little more than a child the first time he meets Methos, who was tall and exotic and a deceptively easy target.
He had beaten Spencer on the street when he caught the boys hand around his purse, but not, as he explained, for the theft in of itself, but for getting caught. (He saw the boy, whip-thin and filthy curled up like a bug on the ground and maybe, somewhere in the great empty cavern he called a heart he felt pity.) Spencer was lucky not to lose his hand. He knows now that if he had not been a pre-immortal that Methos would have simply killed him and been done with it, but by the time it became relevant he had long ceased to care. By the time of his first death, Spencer had been every inch of Methos’ creation, trained and molded and bled by his hands into some fierce and fearsome creature, yet still floundering in the massive presence of the Immortal.
Methos is very good at making legends. Spencer was not one of them.
This is intentional.
Years later, lifetimes come and gone, Methos will lean his head upon Spencer's shoulder and whisper “you weren't meant to be special,” and the pain will be so sweet it's poison.
Maybe Spencer wasn't meant to be special, but he is above all things a student of Methos, so he was always going to be great.
Methos is… everything. He was a father and a mentor and a god. Spencer worshiped him, feared him, hated him, and loved him in the same breath.
He grows up in Methos’ shadow more often than not, though occasionally the man would drop him off with some master or another for a few weeks, a month, even a year once. He remembers that he was taught for months by an old soldier in swordplay before Methos would even deign to look at him and that when Methos took over his studies himself Spencer had spent most of the time wishing that he had died.
He spent more days hating him than loving him, back then.
Methos was not a forgiving master, nor was he a fair one. Some days his mood was such that he would beat Spencer just for being within reach, but others.
On others, the Immortal would take him by the shoulder and teach him how to fish or trap, or to read and to write every language under the sun. Methos took a special delight in Spencer’s habit of devouring whatever information was put in front of him.
He appreciates later that he was, and remains, the most coddled of Methos’s charges. He asks why later and Methos answers. “It had been almost two thousand years by then, and I had had hundreds of students, immortal and mortal alike. Most did not survive their first decade, let alone their first century. I’ve trained fighters and kings and assassins and slaves, all for some glorious purpose I could not- or would not- achieve. Maybe I just wanted a student for myself, for no reason but to be my legacy. Or maybe I just got sentimental.”
Spencer had laughed then, thinking that it had been a jest on his part, but now, he thinks that on some level, Methos had been telling the truth. He never meets another of Methos's students, at any rate.
When Spencer dies the first time he is near thirty, and it’s a surprise and a revelation and a shock all at once, and he woke up with the blood of his killers soaking his tunic and Methos bearing down on the rest in a rage,
It certainly put things in perspective.
In that moment, Methos was a god, he was Death, and a hurricane and an earthquake and every other manner of unexplainable, extraordinary, awe-inspiring thing. Spencer never quite gets over it.
He never really tries.
Methos explains what they are, explains The Game and the prize, and every other thing a mentor does to the newly immortal. He does it in an afternoon, sharp-eyed and blood-stained still, as cold and unmovable as stone.
Spencer, who knew Methos’s moods very well by then, does very little but to nod along.
And after Spencer tips over the line from pre-immortal to immortal, something between them changes unmistakably. It’s not quite even, the relationship between them, not when Spencer is so predisposed to every one of Methos’s whims, but there is something new there. Tenuous, fragile growth. It's something.
It's almost enough.
The difference between Spencer and Methos- and indeed every other immortal he's ever met- is that Spencer remembers his mortal life with such perfect clarity that it's immediately, terribly obvious that something has changed.
The Quickening is not just lightning housed in blood and bone, it is a living, moving organism. A two-sided relationship between parasite and host- one determined before they were ever born. It has wants, and needs and it does change them.
Spencer believes it makes them inhuman.
"Don't be ridiculous," Methos had scoffed, "The Quickening is power. Nothing more."
"I used to be afraid of you before I died. I feared you more than I loved you-- I hated you as much as I loved you. But now," Here, Spencer's voice had gone soft, reverent, "I think that if I left you, you would do terrible things to bring me back, and I would be grateful."
Methos had gone silent then, stone-eyed and obstinate. Unreadable, almost.
He never quite believes him, but that's okay.
Spencer, though he does retain most of himself except for a few, key elements, can't be dissuaded. It remains a point of contention between them for the majority of Spencer's life.
It's hard to say who was right, in the end.
The Schism starts like this; Spencer falls in love.
He'd never been in love before, not this romantic, gentle thing caged like a bird inside his heart, fragile, small, but beautiful and loud. His love for Methos was violent and all-consuming, a chain around his ankle and a fist around his mind. There was no room for gentleness there. Or for reciprocation.
Thutmose was a powerful man, a pharaoh, a warrior, and a leader. He was also very kind, the kindest man Spencer had ever known.
It's where he learned what a burden kindness was on powerful men.
"Everything good in me, comes from you," He whispers into skin, years down the line.
It had been nearly a century since Spencer came into his Quickening, when Methos, after securing Spencer a coveted position as Pharaoh Thutmose's personal aid, leaves.
He does not come back for a long time.
Spencer's love is a slow unraveling, for the both of them, years of stops and starts and dancing around their rapidly growing regard for one another. Thutmose was a pharaoh- he could do as he liked, but he was also a good man, and hesitant to tread where he was unwanted.
Spencer, on the other hand, had no godly idea what love looked like when neither hand held a sword, when there wasn't the possibility of violence behind every poorly-chosen word. He had Thutmose and his gentle nature and took and took until he was bursting with it.
He teaches Spencer many, many things, and instills in him a strange and privileged sort of morality, the one and only part of him Methos would never be able to touch.
Spencer could have spent centuries at Thutmose's side, yearned for it, cherished every moment, and dreaded their times' inevitable end.
They become inseparable from almost the moment that they meet, Spencer a pale shadow behind Thutmose's gold-painted skin. People point and whisper and assume, but they don't become lovers until fate nearly rips them apart.
And for all that Spencer has learned from Thutmose- for all that he lives by the pharaoh's thorough moral values, he is in the end his teacher's student. Spencer's love would always be tempered by fear, by violence. Those are the things he had lived both his lives by, mortal and immortal. And the possibility of losing Thutmose? The very thought petrified
It shouldn't have surprised anyone, what he was willing to do to keep it, this rare and gentle love.
So the thing about Spencer and Methos is, no matter the other factors that may strain their relationship, there is absolute trust between them. A trust given, taken, and earned a hundred times over just as many years. Methos trusts no other like he does his last and youngest student, and it is a dangerous privilege.
And then Spencer breaks it.
First steps are always more important than they seem.
- Caroline Kaufman
CH 1
The very beginning, but also somewhere towards the end
There is a light on in his kitchen window, something warm and flickering through the sheer fabric of his curtains, and that is how David knows that he is here.
David takes his time, almost stumbling out of the cab he had poured himself into at the end of the night, and he uses it to prop himself up while giving himself a few light slaps to try and sober up. The book signing tonight ended in a party at his publishers celebrating the release of his third- and by all accounts most popular- book and he had admittedly overindulged.
Spencer didn't like it when he drank.
The cabbie gives an irritable honk, no doubt eager to get to his next fair and David briefly regrets the tip he gave on top of the already expensive trip from the city when it makes his head throb and his stomach turn.
He hauls himself off of the car and stands on his own two feet with barely a wobble. Progress. The smooth soles of his dress shoes made him quietly despair about the trip up his rain-slick driveway.
He gets to the door almost without incident, only the dampness on one knee told otherwise, and his suit was so dark he was confident that Spencer wouldn't even notice.
It's strange that Spencer hasn't come to meet him.
Adrenaline shot through him, bringing with it a brief curtain of sobriety and David stops where he is. Quietly, he turns the key and holds down the handle so it wouldn't click. He eases the door open and slips through, sliding the deadlock and letting it swing feather-soft against the door frame to wedge it open.
He keeps a gun under the table in the entrance room.
David clears the living room first and finds that the sliding doors are as secure as he left them and that there are no marks on the pristine white carpet his second wife had insisted on and he had never changed. There is nothing in the space misplaced or otherwise molested. Mollified, but not at ease, David flips on the safety, holsters his weapon in the waistband of his dress pants, and moves to check the rest of the house.
Oddly, he finds Spencer in the kitchen. David can’t think of a time in his life when his pseudo-father had willingly spent any significant time there. Between the two (sometimes three, a voice whispers that he studiously ignored) it was always David’s chore to cook. Spencer never liked it. Hell, David could only convince the man to eat food in the dining room on the very rare occasion. Birthdays and holidays, mostly.
But there he is, his deceptively spindly silhouette clear against the light from the abundant windows taking up most of the room. He’s seated at the island, head hanging low and shoulders hunched. He is, as David watches, rocking slowly back and forth, and muttering.
“Gone,” He can make out, “He’s really gone.”
Ice settles like an anchor in his stomach.
“
Vati,”
He calls, the old pet name dragged out of somewhere deep and small inside of him. Spencer's head swings up and David's breath catches. He looks as young as he ever has, of course, but his hair was long and hung in greasy strings around his face, which is at least several days unshaven. And his eyes- he had only seen eyes like that on the walking dead.
“Spencer, what’s wrong?” David knows of course, in his gut. Some part of him has been waiting for this moment to happen- for years and years, he can still taste the question on younger lips, back before he knew better, aren’t I enough?
He knows the answer, now.
“He’s- he’s gone, Dave. I can’t find him anymore.” Spencer’s breaths hitch over a sob, a little crooning wail that didn’t seem like it could fit in a human throat.
David has never seen him cry.
He throws his arms around him just to keep them both together, and feels irrationally that Spencer might shake into nothingness without him keeping him together. David barely feels the hands that grip bruisingly at his shoulders. He has see-sawed between loathing and indifference towards Methos all his life, but in that moment he had never hated anything more. Still, the news was undeniably something of a relief. He had always feared Methos' flaming brand of narcissism wouldn't let Spencer live without him.
“Okay, Okay.” He hums into uncombed hair. “It’s going to be okay, Spencer.” It feels like a lie, but if it is, it’s an honest one.
“I know what we’re going to do, everything will be okay.”
David would make sure of it.
“This is a tall ask.” Aaron Hotchner observes, looking over the file in his hands to where David Rossi was sitting serenely in the chair opposite his desk like he hadn’t just made the most outrageous hiring request Aaron has ever heard. It was very likely to work, he thinks with not a little distaste for the political machinations of the Bureau.
After Gideons very public nervous breakdown and Elles, well. And Elle. There wasn’t a lot the Bureau wouldn’t do at this point to save face, to regain an iota of the respect and trust they needed from the public to even function. The events of that past year have done very little to inspire any sort of good faith in the BAU, and who better to redeem them in the eyes of the public than the famous David Rossi? When he had accepted the BAU’s invitation to come back after nearly five months of staunch refusal, Strauss had been ecstatic.
‘Give him whatever he needs,’ She said, ‘ make this work. ’ What wasn’t said was that it would be his job and very possibly the future of the BAU if he couldn’t.
“He’s more than qualified,” Rossi says, dark eyes calm and more than a little smug. He knew exactly where he had them and as much as Aaron wanted to be annoyed, he was just too tired. He’d rather save the energy for things he had a hope in hell at changing.
Besides, the man wasn’t exactly wrong. Aaron runs his eyes over the file again. B.A’s in Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, Ph.D.’s in Mathematics, Engineering, and Chemistry. The academic qualifications alone were more than impressive, but paired with his age, Aaron more than suspects that the man was socially underdeveloped. Perhaps even severely. He couldn’t figure out why Rossi was willing to stake his entire career on the back of one man, evident genius though he might be.
“Profiling requires more than just being academically accomplished, you of all people know that,” Aaron notes, searching automatically for any sign of a tell, hesitation, anything that would tell him exactly where the man in front of him stood.
“Spencer isn’t just anything.” He says, certain as stone.
“He’s jumping a lot of hoops, not everyone is going to be impressed with that. He may have difficulties, socially.”
“He can handle it,” Rossi says.
“You aren’t going to be able to protect him. The things we see, it’s not for everybody.” Aaron can’t help but think of Elle, of how this job had taken her light, her innocence, and in the end, her life.
“Aaron,” the man interrupts, some emotion flashing in his eyes that is gone faster than he can clock it. Something raw and a little broken. Aaron wants to wonder at it for a moment, wants to dig into the flesh of it until the unfiltered truth is torn out of him. It’s a learned reaction, like a hound catching a scent. Aaron notes it and packs it away for later.
Colleagues aren’t supposed to profile each other, after all.
“We’ve known each other for a long time,” Aaron observes. “If you tell me that you’re sure this is a good idea I’ll believe you.”
Rossi lets out a breath, lips quirking up into a smile. “Thank you, Aaron. You won’t regret it.”
“He’ll be treated the same as any other agent. No special treatment, no more waivers, no exceptions to policy. Six months as a probationary agent to get his quals out of the way, only supervised field time. No interviews, no contact with victims, no weapon until he fulfills all his range hours and gets certified. If he fucks up, refuses orders, acts in any way undeserving of the BAU, he’s gone.” Aaron warns.
“That’s fair. When do we start?”
“We caught a case this morning. Wheels up in 60 minutes.”