Disclaimers: Joe Dawson, Duncan MacLeod, Methos, and any other characters from Highlander: the Series are the property of Rysher: Panzer/Davis. I don't own them; I make no money from them. Written for the Highlander Lyric Wheel. Lyrics provided can be found at the end.
Rated: PG for mild profanity.

Tricks of the Trade

Joe Dawson's journal, undated entry

I've never thought of myself as the mentor type. When you get right down to it, I'd rather be out there in the thick of it without worrying about some green kid. Who'll step the wrong way and get a dagger in his gut for his pains, more likely than not. They come out of the Academy cocky as hell and determined to make their mark -- never mind that if there's one thing a Watcher should aim to be, it's invisible. They're so damned sure they know all there is to know, and that having two good legs means they can sneak up on the devil Himself and not get noticed.

If there's one thing not having two good legs has taught me, it's that you damned well watch where you step.

Try telling that to these kids, though. No, they've graduated the Academy courses -- passed with flying colours, some of 'em -- and they don't know the first damned thing about following a man for a day and not getting spotted. Never mind following the same man every day and still not getting spotted. How in hell the Watchers have managed to remain even this much of a secret this long...

No one expects to be followed by a man with a cane and no good legs, though. And what a person doesn't expect, nine times out of ten, a person doesn't see. Stand out in the open, they'll look right past you. Huddle around a corner and mutter into a tape recorder -- first, they'll want to know who hired you. Then, they'll want to know what the hell you're spying on them for? They'll ask with a knife to your throat or a gun to your head, too. Worst case, they'll put a bullet in you. These are people who regularly fight for their lives; most of 'em sure as hell aren't gonna believe you're following them for history's sake.

Any of 'em do happen to believe you -- nine times out of ten, you're still screwed. You wouldn't appreciate being spied on; they sure as hell aren't going to like it any better. Unless you're damned lucky, they'll kill you for that, too. And that's only if your own damned side doesn't do it first. My shoulder still aches, winter nights.

Try and get any of that through to these damned fools.... Subtle goes right over their head, but I've never been the most subtle of people anyway. Blunt I'm damn good at -- but blunt, they just ignore. Why'n hell they think I'm just blowing air to hear myself talk, though...

Duncan MacLeod's a good guy, as immortals go. As mortals go too, for that matter -- there's no denying that. They'd damned well better not try, especially in front of me.

Mac is a good guy, though. Most days, he probably wouldn't kill a Watcher, not on purpose. He sure as hell doesn't like us, but until you prove a threat to his or to him, he'll probably let you live.

But you get too damned close to his back while he's standing up from a Quickening, and you'll get a sword through your neck just from pure goddamn reflex. He might be sorry as hell afterwards -- but then again, he might just think you should've known better. Because, damnit, you should have.

Fools, every last one of 'em.

So I've never seen myself as the mentor type. With the blues, maybe, especially now I've got the bar -- but in this? I've no patience with the kind of fool a brand new Watcher's set to be. And as for the rest of it -- train 'em as best you can, send 'em out and hope they survive the first day in the field -- I either care too damned much or not enough, I've never been sure which. That's why I've never let them shuffle me off to cool my non-existant heels teaching at the Academy, though. Every time they start making noises about how a man with a working set of legs -- or, hell, a set of legs at all -- might be better placed to Watch an active immortal, and I have to remind them that I Watched Mac for fifteen years before he found me. And that he only managed that then because that fool Horton killed Darius, and some damned idiot let a Chronicle get lost.

One more good thing about talking to MacLeod -- they've finally stopped harping on my damned legs as the excuse to get me behind a desk, or out altogether.

This new policy, though -- if a few months Watching MacLeod will help prevent another disaster like the ones we've had lately, then I guess I'll just have to figure this mentor thing out. Because if there's one thing, one single thing, that a Watcher needs to understand--

However long their lifelines, whatever their intentions -- immortals are human. It might be the nature of the beast, but damnit, quit trying to make them into something more. They're just like you and me: they love, they hate, they argue. They fuck it up with the best of them, dive right in without thinking, and sometimes wonderfully, gloriously, get it right. More often, they just get by.

They live a long time. They know a lot of history and human nature, usually; it's a consequence of living a long time. So's the money; most of 'em can't help but accumulate it. But they're not elders of some fantasy-woven gentle race, living in harmony with nature and the wisdom of the ages, talking of days for which they sit and wait, when all will be revealed; and thank God that little idiot washed out of the Academy my first year there, or the Watchers would be in far worse shape than we currently are.

They're sure as hell not devils, either, bent on enslaving humanity -- or no more of 'em than crop up in the world anyway. Kronos might have been immortal; but Hitler sure as hell wasn't.

What they are... I've Watched Mac and Methos, squabbling like children one minute and then turning around to lead Amanda up the garden path in pure concert the next. I've Watched them pull pranks on each other, put together plans so complex I wouldn't touch them with Mac's barge pole, and pull them off without a hitch -- then turn around and put all that resource of creativity and energy and pure twisted planning into helping out a friend, simply because that friend needs it, and whether they've been asked to help or not. To be where I have been....

I've seen a man five thousand years old trip over his own heart on his way through my bar, and turn into a stuttering fool. Fortunately, for him and Alexa both, he makes for a damned charming stuttering fool -- but a stuttering fool nonetheless, despite the years of experience. Cynical as all hell, yes -- and yet underneath it all we still matter, to him. Don Salzer mattered, and Alexa mattered -- for the short time they had, Alexa was damned near everything for Methos, so much did she matter. Mac matters to him, and Amanda, and even Richie matters, much as the kid's sheer youth irritates the Old Man, most days. Five thousand years, and you know? He still gives a damn.

He still needs us.

Late nights bullshitting with Methos, or prying stories out of Mac, or keeping Amanda's glass filled; and wouldn't the Watchers just love to know those tales? But the story's quite clear, there -- they put a bullet in me once for talking to immortals; so they're not getting one damned word from those nights for their Chronicles. Those rules are still on the books, despite all the other recent changes -- and never mind the fact that killing immortals is a damned sight more interfering than simply pouring 'em booze and listening, and they're still denying the need for a complete investigation into some of Shapiro's activities; witchhunt, my ass. But I'm not about to give them the damn rope to hang me with this time, either.

But that's not the point, here. Immortals are. And mortals, too. They're just like us, when you get right down to it. Like you or me, just with a hell of a lot more room for grief. A hell of a lot more room for joy as well, but it's pretty well balanced, that way. Some days, Watching Mac and Amanda and Methos, I can't decide which way that balance is weighted, either. Or Watching Richie, who didn't get even a halfway decent mortal lifespan before landing neck deep in the middle of the Game, poor bastard.

They're human, though. They live, laugh, love, sorrow, anger, grieve, love again. And kill -- but then, so do all humans, mortals included. They kill, and we kill, when challenged or cornered or hurt or threatened, or even for the hell of it, some of them, and don't try to tell me humans don't do that last, I have two plastic and metal legs to tell you otherwise. Not to mention a bullet scar in my shoulder that still itches something fierce.

Sure, they live longer. Sure, they know more, sometimes -- it's a consequence, like fleas on a dog; it just is. One day, they'll play me the way I do my guitar, especially the Old Man -- and I'll wind up at the end of the maze wishing I could justify putting a bullet in 'em just to put them out of my misery, and listening to this sneaky traitorous little voice in the back of my head mutter about 'How did he do that?' in sheer bloody-minded admiration all the while I'm yelling at them.

And the next day, they'll look me in the eye, weigh me up, tug all the right strings -- and still get me dead wrong.

So they're not perfect. Not perfect monsters -- or no more of 'em than crop up in the mortal population generally, and even then... Kronos loved his brothers, wanted them back at least as much as he wanted the power. And that bit stuck in Mac's throat at least as much as the fact that Methos lied to him.

They're sure as hell not gods, either. At least damned few Watchers make it this far with those damn Tolkein influenced illusions of age and wisdom intact. Some of 'em might be old, and some of 'em might be wise, but believe me, there's no guarantee those two sets will ever intersect. And even where they do -- even Darius still screwed up, occasionally. As for Methos -- he might do old, and he might do wise, but he very rarely ever does both simultaneously. If you ask him for advice, I wish you luck of it; and furthermore, here's a glass of beer on the house -- it'll be as much use to you. More, if you give in to the natural temptation to dump it over the Old Man's head.

As for the extremely rare occasions he tries to pass on wisdom unasked for -- well, let's just say he's not surprised when you don't listen. If you were likely to listen, he wouldn't think you needed to hear it. Methos has his own ideas of useful.

And in some ways, he's still thick as two short planks, despite the years of experience. Or perhaps because of them. Either way, people still surprise the hell out of him on a regular basis; I know, I Watch it. And I've been doing so more than long enough to know where he shows it, though I'm sure as hell not about to tell him that.

Those Watchers that make it through the Academy and to assignment with those delusions intact, though... that's where we'd better find them someone like Father Liam or Grace Chandel to Watch, if we can't just find a way to get them out of the Game altogether. And then leave it the hell alone except to pray occasionally, when we think of it. Because otherwise, when those illusions finally come crashing down -- and they will crash, it's the nature of the damned Game -- they're not going to come down quietly. And they're not going to crash alone.

And if they do it in precisely the wrong time and place, we won't just have another Horton on our hands -- we'll also have the rest of the poor damned fools he drew in his wake.

So this rotation they're finally introducing, to get the new Watchers a term or two as backup on a decent immortal to start with -- well, maybe it'll help get it through a few heads that whatever else they might be, immortals are as human as you or I. And the rest of it -- leave 'em no more than five years on your average scumbag, no more'n one on the real bastards -- well, it's not perfect. And it's a hell of a lot of work, especially with the Watchers always chronically short-staffed anyway.

But it's a damned good start.

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