Methos and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1a/1)
KC Solano (orchydd@HOTMAIL.COM)
Tue, 1 Jan 2002 22:01:06 -0800
Title: Methos and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Author: Katt Solano
Characters: DM, CM, RR, M, A, J
Category: humour
Rating: PG-13 for those who are sticklers about vulgarity and profanity
Archive: 7th Dimension; anyone else, please ask
Summary: The title says it all.
Disclaimer: No one in this story belongs to me; credit must go to Panzer,
Davis & Rysher. University of Seacouver doesn't really belong to me either;
the name belongs to the same gentlemen/company above and the description is
an amalgamation of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and Simon
Fraser University in Burnaby.
Further Hoopla: Oodles of thanks to Joe for the many conversations we've had
about bad days-- it got me to thinking: what if this all happened to one
person? Unfortunately for Methos, WritingMuse decided to make him the person
in question. Feedback, as you all know, is craved; lots of feedback results
in spontaneous applause and a spot on a super-duper, nifty keen-o ultra-kewl
and lovely pedestal. Oh yeah, hope eveyrone had (and are still having) happy
holidays!
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"I am thankful that this day is over," announced Methos gustily.
Richie, Duncan, Joe, Amanda and Connor sat blinking at him, their goblets
still half-raised in a toast.
"What the hell kind of Christmas toast is that?" Duncan asked.
"One that comes straight from the heart," replied Methos. He took an
appreciating glug of the merlot. Seeing that no one was about to carve the
turkey-- it was so massive that everyone agreed Amanda either charmed it
from the butcher or stolen a serum that could mutate animals into creatures
three times its size-- Methos made to wrench a drumstick off.
"Come on, Old Man!" Richie said with a laugh, "You can't say something like
that and not explain yourself."
"I can do a great many things, youngling, many of which are still illegal in
several countries."
Joe almost snerked his merlot out of his nose.
"Come on, Methos." Amanda nudged him with the dull butter knife. "Give." She
slapped his hand not-so-lightly.
Pouting, Methos withdrew and crossed his arms. "No. Just thinking about it
might bring all the bad luck back."
"Oh, puh-lease!"
Connor half grinned. "Now, now, Amanda. It's understandable that people his
age develop some eccentric superstitions."
"People _my_ age?" Methos levelled a glare at the older Highlander that
would not have looked strange on a Viking berserker.
Connor shrugged and looked away, hiding his grin.
Lifting his nose to the air, Methos put on a hurt manner. "Very well then.
Seeing as you're all so eager to see to my demise, I'll tell you."
The way everyone squealed and clapped like a bunch of kindergarteners at
Story Time did _not_ appease him at all. Sighing melodramatically, Methos
began.
"It all started when I woke up with my cheek plastered to the toilet seat."
***
Things only went downhill from there.
Granted it is extremely difficult to top waking up with one's nose
practically snorting the dubious contents of said toilet but Methos's karma
would be _damned_ if it let him get away with having a full three months of
no hassles that easily.
With a grunt, he pushed off the porcelain altar and promptly proceeded to
crack his head against the wall. After letting out a series of expletives
that would have gotten his ear nailed to the pillory in Medieval France, he
glared at the offending wall. As a posing grad student, his bathroom was
small, true, but not cupboard-sized. Which only meant one thing.
This was not his bathroom. Ergo, this couldn't be his apartment. But for the
life of him, Methos couldn't remember whose apartment it was. In any case,
his stomach roared that it was much too empty to spare any blood cells to
his brain and sent him off into the world for anything that could be
mistaken for food.
"Ragnarok" was the only description that Methos could find for what he saw
when he opened the door. Tables upended, splintered chairs (those annoying
plastic ones that Methos could never get comfortable in; he didn't really
grieve for their demise), shredded papers in every conceivable corner,
shattered glass, and dried ink stains all over the floor and the walls-- the
list went on and on like Egyptian rites for the dead.
"Oh, my giddy aunt," Methos moaned, slumping against the wall. _Now_ he
remembered.
He'd been doing some late-night inventory work to plump up Adam Pierson's
reputation and bank account. Cataloguing and cross-referencing seventy-five
years' worth of presently-useless-but-possibly-ground-breaking stuff for the
archaeology department was so boring it bordered on meditative. Usually,
Methos didn't mind it-- he loved the musty smell of the basement, finding
little treasures and snickering madly at mistaken conclusions-- but some
daft fool who, by some freak of Nature, managed to survive his infancy had
interrupted his reverie.
The six-hundred-year-old village idiot had barged in waving a broadsword in
the same way Emeril Legasse brandished jalapeno peppers uttering some
nonsense like "Fight me and die!" or "Me Conan, you dinner" or maybe even,
"Which way to Over-Compensators Anonymous?" Unfortunately, since he was busy
dodging fifteen pounds of steel at the time, Methos hadn't had the
opportunity to really listen. Oprah would have admonished him soundly.
Escape hadn't been an option; the room was fifteen feet square with
wall-to-wall filing cabinets and a good-sized desk. The exit was blocked by
Krull the Clodpate. All-in-all, he hadn't been that difficult to defeat but,
dammit, Methos hated taking Quickenings! And this man's had reeked,
literally and figuratively. Then there was the entire business of taking a
Quickening in a small, enclosed space filled with sharp-edged, steel filing
cabinets and a sturdy wooden table. It was no wonder he'd passed out singing
a multicoloured aria.
Methos picked up a scorched bit of paper. "--ref. no. 62--ridge
to--Smellings and Cor--1950" were the only legible words. He had been
organizing these files for six weeks not including the time it took to
research various footnotes and references. Another two and he would have
been finished. Now with his binder blown to bits as well, he was going to
have to start from the top. Mistaken conclusions were only funny the first
time around; after that, they were usually annoying at best. He wanted to
bring the idiot back to life just so he could kick his ass all over again.
He really wasn't in the mood to start researching again so Methos decided to
go home, grab a bit to eat and have a proper nap under his lovely
down-filled duvet. Smiling lightly at that thought, he wound his way out of
the basement, up four narrow flights of stairs and through endless rows of
bookshelves in order to exit U of S's main library.
Of course, with Seacouver being in the Pacific Northwest, it _would_ be
raining. Not just any type of rain, oh, no, not for him! It was a
welcome-winter deluge where the clouds dumped moon-sized buckets of glacier
water upon the Earth so that a hawk wouldn't be able to see a foot in front
of its beak. When he finally reached his car-- conveniently parked in the
cheapest, muddiest, farthest parking lot-- the freezing water had completely
soaked Methos' jacket and jeans. A combination of numb fingers and haste
made him drop his keys.
***
"Did I forget to mention that the parking lot had turned into a giant mud
puddle?"
Connor nodded, a smirk on his face that was uncharacteristically free of
malice. "I did manage to catch that."
"Good," said Methos, "Just wanted to make sure."
***
When he bent down to try and find it, his backpack's zipper gave. That
damned thing had gone through several years' worth of obscure tomes being
stuffed in them and four or five cross-country hikes and now of all days
when he had practically nothing in them, it decided to give out.
A few papers fluttered into the mud and quickly proceeded to get soaked.
Methos managed to rescue one and flipped it over to try and read the rapidly
disappearing ink. From what he could deduce, he'd just managed to soak the
stamps right off of his beer card at the Den, Seacouver University's most
poplar watering hole. One more pint and he would have gotten a free six-pack
of Brains Dark. Dammit!
Meantime, while Methos was busy swearing at himself, the ground decided to
swallow his keys. He had to spend another couple of minutes digging for
them, positive that he handled something that came out of the bad side of a
rabid mutt. Then when he finally retrieved the errant keys and gotten into
the car, the damned thing let out an ominous cough.
"Please, oh, please, oh, please _work_, you damned, worthless piece of
_tin_!" Methos slammed the flat of his hand against the steering wheel but
only managed to (a) smash his thumb and (b) anger the Vehicular Gods. The
engine sputtered, whined and died a peaceful death.
The University of Seacouver was on top of a high hill. Granted, it was
relatively small in comparison to the Rocky Mountain Range just a few hours'
drive northeast but apparently just high enough that public transit, in its
dubious wisdom, deemed it practically isolated and thus only sent buses in
frequently during rush hour. Any time outside of those three-hour time
frames, they only came every hour-and-a-half. Methos muttered under his
breath as he trudged through the rain to the bus stop whose meagre Plexiglas
protection was nothing in comparison to a storm in a snit.
He waited a full two hours before he saw a tiny note stuck to the bus
schedule with the words "No buses will be available today due to the transit
strike" in faded, running type.
Wolves could only ever hope to howl as loudly.
***
"How could you forget about the transit strike?" Richie demanded, "It's only
been on every channel and radio station for the past two weeks."
Amanda patted his knee distractedly. "Hush, darling, let him go on. It's
just getting interesting."
***
The taxi driver was probably a pirate in another life. He was also the only
taxi driver in who wailed nasally along with the country music station.
Feeling distinctly uncomfortable in his drenched clothes, Methos tried to
block out the horrendous lyrics. The late twentieth century had spoiled him
horribly; he couldn't reach a higher level of consciousness with damp
underwear on.
Because of the transit strike, everybody and their donkey was driving. There
were even some people who hitchhiked, the "kind souls" who picked them up
slowing traffic down even further. While it would normally take Methos a
mere thirty minutes to drive home during rush hour, that morning the ride in
taxi stretched out to a full sixty-seven minutes.
He finally arrived at his apartment, forking over way too much money to the
grinning urban cowboy. Once inside, he made a beeline for the fridge. There
was a wilted head of lettuce or cabbage or bok choy and a pizza with
penicillin as its main topping. There was no beer.
Methos pulled back, his brows furrowing. That wasn't possible. How could
there be no beer?
He went into the various cupboards. There were shelves and shelves of canned
soup, canned veggies, canned tomato paste and an industrial sized pack of
toilet paper but no beer!
Now, he started hyperventilating.
***
Methos glared at Duncan who was doing his best not to inhale a mouthful of
stuffing. "I hope that gets stuck in your windpipe and we have to call the
ambulance and you have to explain to those nubile young nurses that you
choked because you were making fun of the only friend you have in this
world."
Duncan fell back out of his chair, stuffing flying out of his mouth,
laughing so hard he was convulsing.
"Uh, shouldn't we help him?" Richie asked Joe.
The Watcher only gave his former assignment a brief glance. "He'll be fine.
Shut up and let the old man talk."
***
He nuked a can of soup for breakfast. Except for some bizarre reason, he
forgot to take his spoon out of the bowl while he microwaved it. The ensuing
fire was bad enough to completely destroy both breakfast and microwave oven.
He couldn't use the stove because it had been broken for the past few days
and no one had come in to repair it despite the fact that he'd called twice
the past week. Methos settled in front of his computer with a can of cold
tomato soup and a temper that was bordering on "Caspian" on a scale of
"Darius" to "Connor MacLeod with a hangover."
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