Apocrypha (gen, Hortonfic)
Aug. 7th, 2005 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amand_rDisclaimer: I do not own any of the Immortals mentioned here, nor do I own the Watchers. Horton hears a
Who! Wow! Isn't that great! Horton says that the Who he hears says that all of the above, except for the
Who itself, are owned by Davis Panzer. The Who, depending on which one you mean, can either belong to
Seuss, or the English language. Don't you love relative pronouns? Or I could have meant the band, but let's
not bring Fitz into this, because he's owned by Panzer even as Daltrey owns The Who. And GOD, but Pete
Townsend would kill me.
Thanks to Brianna for the lyrics, "Blood and Fire", by the Indigo Girls. I love you plerk: wooti wooti wooti.
---------------------------
APOCRYPHA
by Amand-r
---------------------------
January 23, 1981
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
--to my great surprise, that by the time the head had hit the ground, all of the children were dead. It doesn't
matter how he did it, but he did.
He then proceeded to decapitate all of the children, string their heads via their ears and hang loops of the
rope about the altar. Photos included in my original report, of course.
Do you know what it must like to be Immortal? To lie awake under the same blanket of stars that you saw
300 years ago? To travel the same roads thousands and thousands of times? What does it all mean?
The Nephilem walked the earth for years before God saw fit to drench the world in water to rid humans of
their kind. Perhaps he missed a few. Perhaps Immortals were meant to be gone from the face of the earth a
long long time ago. Or perhaps they are a new breed set apart.
That is a bitter pill to swallow after watching the Kurgan kill fifteen children, an Immortal monk, and then
eat the tongues of all of them. Innocent childish tongues. Speak no evil, I suppose, is the punchline for that
one.
Something is hideously wrong with the whole scheme of things. Something is wrong with Immortals being
here. If God intended them, why would he program them with the desire to destroy each other? Is God's
divine plan supposed to culminate in the inevitability of Immortal domination?
What would happen if an Immortal like Kanus got the prize? Or Consone, or even Methos? What the hell is
Methos like that he's survived for so long?
I can see how easy it would be. Start with the easiest first. Others will follow. Get them alone, shoot them
and take the head. Take out the worst opposition with cunning and skill: Connor MacLeod and his kinsman
Duncan, Xavier St. Cloud, Grayson, Evan Casparri, and even the seeming-lummox Silas. Approach them
all with great care.
Darius will be an easy kill. Only one thing will flush out Methos, and that's fear. Tread lightly and you will
be rewarded.
P. Alston Hughes, Western European Division
September 8, 1955
James looked up from his book and smiled. He had found the partial letter while digging up a little more
dirt on his new assignment. He tucked the letter into his pocket and shook his head.
He hadn't ever met P. Alston Hughes, but the man had been a legend nutcase, a so-called black sheep of the
Watcher Society in Europe. Blackballed after being committed to an asylum for a little while, Hughes
ranted on and on about the evil nature of Immortals and their very existence foretelling the destruction of
human kind. The Watchers had been very tolerant of him, before it had been deemed necessary to shut him
up. They had sequestered him in a flat in Paris, outside of the main headquarters, but where he was heavily
sedated.
Hughes' physical condition wouldn't allow him to travel much anyway. Hughes had been stupid enough to
confront his assignment years ago, and had paid the price for it. The Kurgan had cut off his left ear, but left
him alive.
Since then, all of his journals and Chronicles had been sealed by the Academy, deemed 'corrupted' and
'inadmissible' as true Chronicles. But James, who had just been assigned to the Kurgan, was allowed access
to the files, seeing as how the last real person to get a handle on the Kurgan's observational patterns had
been Hughes.
Whatever the man had been before he went off the deep end, it had included being a great storyteller and
pontificationist. This gift had greatly served him after his madness had set in. His original files were riddled
with red herrings, half observations and the like. James sighed. There was only one thing to do.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The apartment was small. It was well laid out, but it was obvious that its inhabitant never left, even if by
choice.
James accepted his cup and saucer with trepidation. Nothing was going to allow him to ask this nicely.
"I read your letter," he said to Hughes. Then man was ancient, knotted and withered hands, wrinkly face
puckered with age and bitterness. His good ear just made the missing one look awful, even if he did have a
prosthetic. Every inch of the man's body was covered in age spots, except for the pristine apricot colored
ear; that was eternally young. His eyes narrowed when he seemed to understand what James had implied
with the statement. Of course, he had *implied* nothing.
"You read what letter?"
James opened the yellowed paper and passed it to the other man, sliding it along the small sitting table
surface. Hughes' hand bent the paper as he held it; his hand shook, but it didn't seem to be from any
physical condition. He mumbled words to himself as he read.
"Ah," he told the younger man finally, setting the paper down with great care, folding his hands in his lap.
James took he letter beck. "I see. You want to know just how mad I am that I suggested that terrible idea."
James shrugged. "I'm not sure if you're mad," he said. "What I really want to know, is what you
experienced with the Kurgan." He poured more tea for himself and Hughes. "I'm assigned to take him over
in a month, and the files aren't very detailed. The last person to *really* observe him closer than a six
hundred yard radius was you."
There was quiet and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the other room.
"So you come here and ask what I know, eh?" Hughes shook his head. "Young men and women come here,
asking how I could watch all of that death. They come here wondering just what drove me to this..." he
raised his hands and gestured to the apartment, seeming to be free. Both of them knew that he was not. A
man waited beyond the apartment door, ready to stop Hughes if he were to decide to leave.
"You told the Watcher Council that we should *kill* Immortals," James countered lightly. He fingered a
scone before taking a bite. "I daresay that might set them off a little."
"I'm not saying that we *kill* indiscriminately," Hughes told him. He leaned forward on the chair and
grasped the armrests. "What I am suggesting is a culling. Perhaps if we flushed out all of the bad ones, then
it wouldn't be so potentially terrible."
James sighed, and sipped his tea. "A culling. Do you realize what you're saying? You suggest that we use
all of our resources to track and kill immortals. That's not what we do."
"No," Hughes, chuckled, "you watch. How utterly charming. You know, they used to say that voyeurism
was an expression of deep personal sickness." When James snorted, he cocked his head. "How sick are we
to watch murder? Our society doesn't condone that."
"The Game--"
"I'm not talking about the Game!" Hughes roared. He threw off his lap blanket and rose, toppling the tray,
and the table. James leaned back to avoid the flying hot tea, but before he could leave his seat, Hughes had
a grip on his wrists, holding them down to the arms of the chairs.
"I'm talking about men, women and children falling to a race of people who don't care about them," Hughes
whispered. "The Kurgan doesn't care who he kills, or how he does it. He's not like them. They're all cattle."
James pulled his wrists free and gave Hughes a little shove. It was alarming, having the man invade his
personal space. "But that was the Kurgan. Not all Immortals. Look at Connor MacLeod, Alec Hill, Grace
Chandel--"
"Is one evil deed infinite?" Hughes said suddenly. "Of course not. But tell me, what does the Immortal
mind really think of mortals? In the end? After realizing that a mortal will die anyway, regardless, what
would you start to think? They're indispensable."
James massaged his wrists. "I don't believe that. They don't all think that."
"Are you sure?" Hughes paced the room, rubbing his hands, nervous. "In a month, you will go out and
Watch him," he began again. "And you will watch what he does. When you are done watching all of the
killing, when you can't take it any longer, I want you to think of me again. Because it will be your fault."
James got his coat. Hughes was intolerable. He was useless. He pressed the call button that would bring the
guard to unlock the apartment.
"What will be my fault?" he said wearily.
"The deaths of everyone you watch him kill," Hughes groaned, sitting back down in his chair. "All of those
ones you could have stopped. You will feel it as if it were you. There will be nothing left to hold. Nothing
left but blood and fire." Hughes rubbed his hands together. "The Kurgan is a killing machine. If he were a
mortal, he would already be dead, fifteen times over. If he were a dog, he would be shot."
You cannot be judge jury, and executioner," James told him. He watched Hughes face crumble a little, as if
he realized that his guest was leaving and he had regretted his words. He didn't feel much for Hughes, but it
was enough to make him reach out to touch the old man's shoulder. "It is painful, I know, but we are not
sent here to assassinate them as we see fit."
Hughes laughed. He shoved James's hand away. "You young ones think you know everything." His eyes
twinkled. "You'll see. Someday, you'll turn your hands over and see red. Something will bring you around
to me." Hughes pointed to his temple. "I can see the future, you know."
James Horton paused before he opened the door to the apartment. He glanced back over his shoulder and
shrugged. "Oh, I highly doubt it."
And the Hughes started to laugh. Horton heard the lock turn, then was ushered out by the Watcher security
agent.
Hughes was batty. Crackers. Vehemently vengeful. Watchers had no right to interfere with Immortals.
There was a divine plan to it all, and Horton, despite that he was mortal as they came, had a part in it.
James tucked his collar about his neck to keep out the cold as he made his way to his car. His wife was
making supper for them, probably right at this moment. Joe Dawson was coming over and he wanted to
have a few beers and relax before he had to go on assignment. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets
while he jogged to his car. Something crumpled in the right pocket.
He pulled out Hughes's old letter and stared at it.
"Start with the easiest first. Others will follow. Get them alone, shoot them and take the head...."
"Rubbish," he said aloud. He fumbled with the keys to the car, then opened the door and flung himself
inside, shutting the door quickly to escape the cold wind that was starting to blow.
A window was lit in Hughes's fifth story apartment. James could see the old man watching him. He took
the letter and shoved it in the old file on the Kurgan that he had signed out from the Chronicles' main
library. Hughes's silhouette challenged his very sanity.
"Rubbish," he told the shadow, starting the car and driving away. "It's a bunch of rubbish."
END.
Once again, the lyrics don't perfectly match. But blood and fire, man, that's all Horton...
Blood and Fire, by A. Ray (Indigo Girls)
I have spent nights with matches and knives,
leaning over ledges, only two flights up.
Cutting my heart, burning my soul.
Nothing left to hold,
Nothing left but blood and fire.
You have spent nights, thinking of me,
Missing my arms, but you needed to leave.
Leaving my cuts, leaving my burns,
hoping I'd learn.
Blood and fire
are too much for these restless arms to hold,
And my nights of desire are calling me,
back to your fold.
And I am calling you, calling you from 10,000 miles away
Won't you wet my fire with your love, babe?
I am looking for someone, who can take as much as I give,
Give back as much as I need,
And still have the will to live.
I am intense, I am in need
I am in pain, I am in love.
I feel forsaken , like the things I gave away.
Who! Wow! Isn't that great! Horton says that the Who he hears says that all of the above, except for the
Who itself, are owned by Davis Panzer. The Who, depending on which one you mean, can either belong to
Seuss, or the English language. Don't you love relative pronouns? Or I could have meant the band, but let's
not bring Fitz into this, because he's owned by Panzer even as Daltrey owns The Who. And GOD, but Pete
Townsend would kill me.
Thanks to Brianna for the lyrics, "Blood and Fire", by the Indigo Girls. I love you plerk: wooti wooti wooti.
---------------------------
APOCRYPHA
by Amand-r
---------------------------
January 23, 1981
*~*~*~*~*~*~*
--to my great surprise, that by the time the head had hit the ground, all of the children were dead. It doesn't
matter how he did it, but he did.
He then proceeded to decapitate all of the children, string their heads via their ears and hang loops of the
rope about the altar. Photos included in my original report, of course.
Do you know what it must like to be Immortal? To lie awake under the same blanket of stars that you saw
300 years ago? To travel the same roads thousands and thousands of times? What does it all mean?
The Nephilem walked the earth for years before God saw fit to drench the world in water to rid humans of
their kind. Perhaps he missed a few. Perhaps Immortals were meant to be gone from the face of the earth a
long long time ago. Or perhaps they are a new breed set apart.
That is a bitter pill to swallow after watching the Kurgan kill fifteen children, an Immortal monk, and then
eat the tongues of all of them. Innocent childish tongues. Speak no evil, I suppose, is the punchline for that
one.
Something is hideously wrong with the whole scheme of things. Something is wrong with Immortals being
here. If God intended them, why would he program them with the desire to destroy each other? Is God's
divine plan supposed to culminate in the inevitability of Immortal domination?
What would happen if an Immortal like Kanus got the prize? Or Consone, or even Methos? What the hell is
Methos like that he's survived for so long?
I can see how easy it would be. Start with the easiest first. Others will follow. Get them alone, shoot them
and take the head. Take out the worst opposition with cunning and skill: Connor MacLeod and his kinsman
Duncan, Xavier St. Cloud, Grayson, Evan Casparri, and even the seeming-lummox Silas. Approach them
all with great care.
Darius will be an easy kill. Only one thing will flush out Methos, and that's fear. Tread lightly and you will
be rewarded.
P. Alston Hughes, Western European Division
September 8, 1955
James looked up from his book and smiled. He had found the partial letter while digging up a little more
dirt on his new assignment. He tucked the letter into his pocket and shook his head.
He hadn't ever met P. Alston Hughes, but the man had been a legend nutcase, a so-called black sheep of the
Watcher Society in Europe. Blackballed after being committed to an asylum for a little while, Hughes
ranted on and on about the evil nature of Immortals and their very existence foretelling the destruction of
human kind. The Watchers had been very tolerant of him, before it had been deemed necessary to shut him
up. They had sequestered him in a flat in Paris, outside of the main headquarters, but where he was heavily
sedated.
Hughes' physical condition wouldn't allow him to travel much anyway. Hughes had been stupid enough to
confront his assignment years ago, and had paid the price for it. The Kurgan had cut off his left ear, but left
him alive.
Since then, all of his journals and Chronicles had been sealed by the Academy, deemed 'corrupted' and
'inadmissible' as true Chronicles. But James, who had just been assigned to the Kurgan, was allowed access
to the files, seeing as how the last real person to get a handle on the Kurgan's observational patterns had
been Hughes.
Whatever the man had been before he went off the deep end, it had included being a great storyteller and
pontificationist. This gift had greatly served him after his madness had set in. His original files were riddled
with red herrings, half observations and the like. James sighed. There was only one thing to do.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The apartment was small. It was well laid out, but it was obvious that its inhabitant never left, even if by
choice.
James accepted his cup and saucer with trepidation. Nothing was going to allow him to ask this nicely.
"I read your letter," he said to Hughes. Then man was ancient, knotted and withered hands, wrinkly face
puckered with age and bitterness. His good ear just made the missing one look awful, even if he did have a
prosthetic. Every inch of the man's body was covered in age spots, except for the pristine apricot colored
ear; that was eternally young. His eyes narrowed when he seemed to understand what James had implied
with the statement. Of course, he had *implied* nothing.
"You read what letter?"
James opened the yellowed paper and passed it to the other man, sliding it along the small sitting table
surface. Hughes' hand bent the paper as he held it; his hand shook, but it didn't seem to be from any
physical condition. He mumbled words to himself as he read.
"Ah," he told the younger man finally, setting the paper down with great care, folding his hands in his lap.
James took he letter beck. "I see. You want to know just how mad I am that I suggested that terrible idea."
James shrugged. "I'm not sure if you're mad," he said. "What I really want to know, is what you
experienced with the Kurgan." He poured more tea for himself and Hughes. "I'm assigned to take him over
in a month, and the files aren't very detailed. The last person to *really* observe him closer than a six
hundred yard radius was you."
There was quiet and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the other room.
"So you come here and ask what I know, eh?" Hughes shook his head. "Young men and women come here,
asking how I could watch all of that death. They come here wondering just what drove me to this..." he
raised his hands and gestured to the apartment, seeming to be free. Both of them knew that he was not. A
man waited beyond the apartment door, ready to stop Hughes if he were to decide to leave.
"You told the Watcher Council that we should *kill* Immortals," James countered lightly. He fingered a
scone before taking a bite. "I daresay that might set them off a little."
"I'm not saying that we *kill* indiscriminately," Hughes told him. He leaned forward on the chair and
grasped the armrests. "What I am suggesting is a culling. Perhaps if we flushed out all of the bad ones, then
it wouldn't be so potentially terrible."
James sighed, and sipped his tea. "A culling. Do you realize what you're saying? You suggest that we use
all of our resources to track and kill immortals. That's not what we do."
"No," Hughes, chuckled, "you watch. How utterly charming. You know, they used to say that voyeurism
was an expression of deep personal sickness." When James snorted, he cocked his head. "How sick are we
to watch murder? Our society doesn't condone that."
"The Game--"
"I'm not talking about the Game!" Hughes roared. He threw off his lap blanket and rose, toppling the tray,
and the table. James leaned back to avoid the flying hot tea, but before he could leave his seat, Hughes had
a grip on his wrists, holding them down to the arms of the chairs.
"I'm talking about men, women and children falling to a race of people who don't care about them," Hughes
whispered. "The Kurgan doesn't care who he kills, or how he does it. He's not like them. They're all cattle."
James pulled his wrists free and gave Hughes a little shove. It was alarming, having the man invade his
personal space. "But that was the Kurgan. Not all Immortals. Look at Connor MacLeod, Alec Hill, Grace
Chandel--"
"Is one evil deed infinite?" Hughes said suddenly. "Of course not. But tell me, what does the Immortal
mind really think of mortals? In the end? After realizing that a mortal will die anyway, regardless, what
would you start to think? They're indispensable."
James massaged his wrists. "I don't believe that. They don't all think that."
"Are you sure?" Hughes paced the room, rubbing his hands, nervous. "In a month, you will go out and
Watch him," he began again. "And you will watch what he does. When you are done watching all of the
killing, when you can't take it any longer, I want you to think of me again. Because it will be your fault."
James got his coat. Hughes was intolerable. He was useless. He pressed the call button that would bring the
guard to unlock the apartment.
"What will be my fault?" he said wearily.
"The deaths of everyone you watch him kill," Hughes groaned, sitting back down in his chair. "All of those
ones you could have stopped. You will feel it as if it were you. There will be nothing left to hold. Nothing
left but blood and fire." Hughes rubbed his hands together. "The Kurgan is a killing machine. If he were a
mortal, he would already be dead, fifteen times over. If he were a dog, he would be shot."
You cannot be judge jury, and executioner," James told him. He watched Hughes face crumble a little, as if
he realized that his guest was leaving and he had regretted his words. He didn't feel much for Hughes, but it
was enough to make him reach out to touch the old man's shoulder. "It is painful, I know, but we are not
sent here to assassinate them as we see fit."
Hughes laughed. He shoved James's hand away. "You young ones think you know everything." His eyes
twinkled. "You'll see. Someday, you'll turn your hands over and see red. Something will bring you around
to me." Hughes pointed to his temple. "I can see the future, you know."
James Horton paused before he opened the door to the apartment. He glanced back over his shoulder and
shrugged. "Oh, I highly doubt it."
And the Hughes started to laugh. Horton heard the lock turn, then was ushered out by the Watcher security
agent.
Hughes was batty. Crackers. Vehemently vengeful. Watchers had no right to interfere with Immortals.
There was a divine plan to it all, and Horton, despite that he was mortal as they came, had a part in it.
James tucked his collar about his neck to keep out the cold as he made his way to his car. His wife was
making supper for them, probably right at this moment. Joe Dawson was coming over and he wanted to
have a few beers and relax before he had to go on assignment. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets
while he jogged to his car. Something crumpled in the right pocket.
He pulled out Hughes's old letter and stared at it.
"Start with the easiest first. Others will follow. Get them alone, shoot them and take the head...."
"Rubbish," he said aloud. He fumbled with the keys to the car, then opened the door and flung himself
inside, shutting the door quickly to escape the cold wind that was starting to blow.
A window was lit in Hughes's fifth story apartment. James could see the old man watching him. He took
the letter and shoved it in the old file on the Kurgan that he had signed out from the Chronicles' main
library. Hughes's silhouette challenged his very sanity.
"Rubbish," he told the shadow, starting the car and driving away. "It's a bunch of rubbish."
END.
Once again, the lyrics don't perfectly match. But blood and fire, man, that's all Horton...
Blood and Fire, by A. Ray (Indigo Girls)
I have spent nights with matches and knives,
leaning over ledges, only two flights up.
Cutting my heart, burning my soul.
Nothing left to hold,
Nothing left but blood and fire.
You have spent nights, thinking of me,
Missing my arms, but you needed to leave.
Leaving my cuts, leaving my burns,
hoping I'd learn.
Blood and fire
are too much for these restless arms to hold,
And my nights of desire are calling me,
back to your fold.
And I am calling you, calling you from 10,000 miles away
Won't you wet my fire with your love, babe?
I am looking for someone, who can take as much as I give,
Give back as much as I need,
And still have the will to live.
I am intense, I am in need
I am in pain, I am in love.
I feel forsaken , like the things I gave away.
