Methos and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1b/1)
KC Solano (orchydd@HOTMAIL.COM)
Tue, 1 Jan 2002 22:03:38 -0800
Disclaimers in part 1a
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"Thanks for the compliment."
"You're welcome. Mashed yams?"
***
His computer had a virus. Methos knew this because as soon as he turned it
on, funny bands of colour danced on the monitor and the CD-ROM drive burped.
He pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL. The computer made a sound akin to "phweeethbblllt"
and blacked out. He pressed the restart button. Again and again and again.
The computer stayed dead. He contemplated threatening it with his Ivanhoe.
He tried to remember the last time he made back-ups; he usually did every
week. But then he remembered that with the end of the term fast approaching
and the number of essays and exams he'd yet to correct, he had put off
backing his system up for the past three weeks in the belief that his trusty
old computer would _never_ crash.
If he had ever doubted before, Methos was now a firm believer that Bill
Gates was Evil in its concentrated form.
"You've had worse days, right?" he told himself, "That night you woke up in
bed with the Sultan's prize goat. Or maybe when you were trapped in that
prison cell with that diseased transvestite serial killer. Or the entire run
of the Spanish Inquisition. _Today_ is _nothing_! There _have_ been worse
days in your life!"
If he sounded a bit hysterical near the end of his rant, he ignored himself
and stalked to the bathroom. Maybe a nice hot shower would refresh him.
***
"Y'know what?" Duncan said pointing his knife at Methos. "You don't even
have to continue that train of thought. I've heard complaints about the lack
of hot water enough times that I know when one's about to come."
The corners of Methos' lips turned up and it was a frightening sight indeed.
"Oh, but I can top your ratty old dojo apartment hands down."
***
There was hot water. There was a lot of hot water. There were loads and
loads and _loads_ of smoking-hot water. What wasn't available was cold
water. After cooking Methos to a juicy medium-rare, the plumbing system
decided to add further insult to injury by beaning him with the showerhead.
"All right!" he yelled, waving a fist to the heavens. "You've had your
laugh. Let's pick on the old, skinny duffer with the excellent wardrobe and
see if he gets so miserable that he cuts his own head off to end the pain!
Well, I won't give you the satisfaction, you hear me?! I won't--"
Methos paused in mid-rant. He was talking to the ceiling in Farsi again and
it was only one o' clock in the afternoon.
He looked around the room, slowing taking in any other accident
possibilities. Didn't eighty percent of all accidents occur at home? Not
that he was safer outside where there were freak lighting strikes, cars with
faulty brakes and birds with full bowels.
So basically, he had to survive the next four hours until MacLeod's
Christmas feast. All of this without a single drop of beer. It was a
daunting mission indeed.
***
Amanda rolled her eyes. "Oh, however did you cope?"
"Good question. Right up there with 'who built Stonehenge?' Of course,"
Methos paused to swallow his forkful of turkey, "if any bothered to
concentrate of the proper clues, maybe they'd get closer to the answer."
Joe's eyes lit up brighter than Richie's stereo system.
Connor patted the Watcher's arm. "Down, boy. You know he's just teasing
you."
"Oh, am I?" Methos sent them all an enigmatic gaze, one brow arching up ever
so slightly.
Joe whimpered. If he'd had a tail, it would be wagging at fifty kilometres
an hour.
Duncan glared at his friend. "Methos, stop teasing the mortal. It's cruel."
Methos pouted. "Oh, you never let me have any fun."
"What happened next?" Richie asked.
"Well, naturally, they abandoned Stonehenge and--"
"Naw, with the rest of the day!"
Despite having prosthetic legs, Joe was able to lunge across the dining
table and wrap his hands around Richie's throat.
***
Since he had no beer and had nothing better to do, Methos opted to take a
nap as planned. Theoretically, a nap is supposed to be a peaceful reprieve
from daily stresses. His was anything but. He dreamt that he was Prometheus
chained to a rock but instead of a vulture eating his liver, he'd had
various everyday objects attacking his person. He was just about to get his
eyes plucked out by a set of eyelash curlers when a hard shudder jerked him
awake.
Something was wrong with the temperature in his hole-in-the-wall. Methos
gathered his covers about his body. It was a comfortable enough provided one
was a polar bear. He rang the superintendent only to find out that the power
was out for his block and only his block; something about flooding the
underground wires. Keeping himself ensconced in a duvet cocoon, the only way
he could get the warmth back into his hands and feet, Methos took his
journal from his bedside table and began to write.
After a good portion of the hour had passed, Methos' bladder began to make
demands upon him, forcing him to venture out of his nice, soft, edge-less,
warm, dry bed to go to the toilet. He lay down his journal (which was
stained with blue, black and marbled green ink) and his pen (the fourth one
in a row that had leaked said ink on the journal) on the mattress space to
his right.
He could just envision the toilet spitting its contents at him or a mass
attack of silverfish. Whispering a prayer he'd forgotten he'd known, Methos
inched towards the sinister door. A quick check of the floor revealed no
puddles that he could slip on. Everything electrical was unplugged. The
light fixture seemed to be screwed in properly. Just to be on the safe side,
he hugged the wall to keep out from under it. He managed to reach the toilet
unscathed.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Methos proceeded to empty his bladder. It
didn't take as long as it usually did considering he _still_ hadn't had a
drop of beer --between further injury and beer, injury just _barely_ won. A
bit distracted by the fact that he hadn't encountered any hostile household
appliances yet, Methos hurried to zip his fly and rush back into the safety
of his bed.
Catching one's genitalia in a zipper isn't fatal; it only made one wish that
one _were_ dead.
***
All the males dining compulsively crossed their legs and hissed in sympathy.
The lone female had to excuse herself to the bathroom where, seconds later,
the sound of demented giggling floated out into the dining room.
***
Immortal healing took care of the injury but not quickly enough in Methos'
opinion. He hobbled slightly as he left the bathroom. A quick look at the
clock told him that he still had a little less than two hours until dinner.
And he still had to prepare a dish to bring; Duncan had declared a potlatch
feast this Christmas.
As the elder of the group, Methos had generously offered to lug along
something exotic and, preferably, beer-basted. Unfortunately (or
fortunately) his stove was still broken and the power was still out. Methos
decided to just bring plain old beer and maybe some nachos and salsa from
the nearest grocery store.
"It's a testament," the Immortal told his journal as he put it away, "to how
much I think of those people that I would risk life and limb to go out and
buy them food that they will only make fun of later on. Hmph." He grabbed
his coat from its hook, one of his many swords from its hiding place,
slipped the blade into the specialized sheathe and cut a three-foot slit
through the material.
"Of course." Methos sighed and tried again with a different sword and coat,
this time taking just enough care to make the most meticulous of brain
surgeons jealous.
One of the bonuses of living in a college community was the generous
peppering of corner stores to cater to the whims of the students. Methos
managed to buy his nachos, salsa and sour cream in under an hour, an
especially remarkable feat considering he dropped a jar of salsa, went back
to his apartment get his wallet, knocked over a display case of poinsettias,
went to an ATM machine to put money in his wallet, went to yet another ATM
machine because the first one swallowed his bankcard, and slipped on the
slushy sidewalks on the way back to the corner store.
Then, it was off to MacLeod's hideously well-decorated apartment where
everyone would be undoubtedly well dressed and smelling of expensive
cologne. "With gourmet dishes, too." Methos sniffed. "Bah, humbug. I liked
the Roman version of this feast better. At least they didn't make any
religious excuses for gorging yourself all night and showing off your riches
by buying every little acquaintance a present they probably wouldn't like.
Damn department stores and so-called Christmas sales and Martha Stewart,
too," he added as his feet fell out from underneath him yet again. This
time, the Ivanhoe's hilt stabbed him square in the middle of his left
buttock.
"I don't need his aggravation," he continued as his fellow pedestrians gave
the slender, muttering madman a wide berth, "I'm just going to dump these
crushed bags of nachos and these chemically preserved, artificially
coloured, insecticide drenched vegetables and herbs at MacLeod's, grab the
nearest bottle of alcohol and curl up in his bed.
"Surely," he rolled his eyes, "no gods of bad luck would _dare_ touch the
bed of golden boy of existence! Why, even lint doesn't dare rest upon any of
his dark clothing. Not a strand of hair has the audacity to be out of place
even in the midst of a vigorous sword fight against ten of the world's best
martial artists. I'll bet he even looks perfectly, Playgirl attractive in
bed with Madonna Ciccone hersel--oof!" He scrambled for purchase against an
invincible patch of ice and just barely managed to save himself by hugging a
snowman. Its misshapen head rolled off.
Methos grunted at the headless figure and continued on his way, not
bothering to swipe away the icy evidence of his crime. "And since when has
the owner of two failed businesses been able to afford to buy and renovate a
three-bedroom house anyway? Can you say 'discretion,' MacLeod? I know it'll
be a little difficult considering you've been raised to gargle your
consonants.
"At least he had the presence of mind not to invite that paranoid psychopath
he call his kinsman." Methos turned the corner and slammed his shin against
a newspaper dispenser that had tipped over. "I can just imagine what he'd
bring over for dinner. Haggis." This was said with the same tone that one
would use to describe bodily waste. "And because no one wants to hurt
MacLeod the Younger's feelings or spark MacLeod the Elder's temper, everyone
will take a generous helping of the vile stuff and _I_ will look the villain
when I refuse.
"Next time, I'll take the initiative and spend Christmas in New Zealand. How
can anyone not be merry sipping margaritas in a semi-isolated beach?" He
moved to avoid a small puddle only step into a deeper one that was hidden by
an oncoming family of seven. "Yes, New Zealand is definitely the way to go.
Just me, my laptop and Amanda in the lower half of a Gautier original
bikini."
By the time he finished the thirty-minute walk to MacLeod's, Methos'
collective bruises and minor lacerations wouldn't have looked out of place
on a medieval torture victim. Wearily, he dropped his groceries and let his
head thunk hollowly only the door, leaning all his weight on it. He pressed
the doorbell and didn't release the button until the door opened. Only
paying the slightest of attentions at the buzzing presence of another
Immortal-- and perhaps feeling, in the back of his mind, that having his
head cut off would be a nice respite-- Methos fell into the arms of his
greeter.
"And are you another fine example of the kind of scumbags Duncan lets into
the backdoor?" asked a man with an unfamiliar accent.
Methos held back his groan until he opened one hazel eye to confirm his
suspicions. When he saw the lanky man with dirty-blonde hair and a Columbia
University sweater that had gone one too many rounds with the washing
machine, he admitted that his day just got topped.
Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod was hugging him.
***
Connor snorted. "You think _you're_ disturbed? _I'm_ the one who had your
cheek snuggled in the crook of my neck and my hands perilously close to your
skinny arse!" He threw a nacho at Duncan after the younger Scotsman kicked
him in the shins.
Richie, generously slathering salsa over his nacho, said, "Hey, _I_ liked
what you brought!"
"Thank you, Richard," Methos said with a regal nod. "Well, then, there's
your Christmas story for the year. I hope you all enjoyed it and thanks ever
so for laughing at my mishaps."
"Oh, poor Methos," Amanda cooed, reaching out to ruffle his hair. "Don't
worry, I'm sure it'll only get better."
"It can hardly get worse," added Joe. Saying that, he lifted his goblet.
"Merry Christmas, folks."
"Hear, hear." Duncan raised his own glass. "And a great new year to everyone
from paranoid psychopaths to sex deities to people who are just guys." He
stood, as did everyone else, to touch glasses.
Unfortunately, Duncan's other hand came down on Connor's still-full bowl of
soup, sending the whole thing splashing into the younger Highlander's new
cashmere sweater. Amanda, reacting on instinct, reached out to try to catch
the bowl before it broke. She forgot that she was still holding her goblet.
A healthy helping of merlot splashed all over Duncan's face. Even as he
tried to get away from both wine and soup, Duncan slipped on the remote
control car that Richie gave Connor as a gag gift. He fell with a hearty
thwack on the hardwood floor with his forearm exactly on the spot where
Connor would soon slam down his chair.
Methos smiled, full of grateful relief. "Merry Christmas indeed." He tipped
his chair back...
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le fin
(Methos) thank ye gods!
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