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teratornisargentum_ls and I wrapped up another one of our Highlander: The Agent stories last night! This is the fifth in the series, which puts us at the halfway mark for what we've got planned. We've been posting these stories for almost a year now, and working on them for almost two, which is wild to think about.Come to Light (31757 words) by argentum_ls, Teratornis
Chapters: 10/10
Fandom: Highlander: The Series
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Matthew McCormick & Original Character(s)
Characters: Matthew McCormick, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, TV Logic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, secrecy
Series: Part 10 of Highlander: The Agent
Summary: A killer Matthew failed to stop decades ago resurfaces, and his secrecy regarding the depths of his connection to the investigation threatens his partnership with Talbot.
As usual, some stuff about the process of this story:
This one was written late enough in the game that we actually had a series order pretty well established. We knew where it was going to fall in relation to the other stories, which was kind of a novel experience at the time. We wrote so much of the series without having a specific order in mind, it was kind of a new way of doing things.
The two stories immediately following this one were actually written first. One of them was actually the first story ever written for this series, and has since undergone some intense editing to fit with the events of this story and the ones prior. The other was specifically written with the events of Come to Light in mind, even though Come to Light didn't exist yet. Such has been the experience of writing this series. :P
In any case, this was always going to be the story where Talbot learned about immortality, so from the beginning that was where this one was headed.
Even with that in mind, the actual writing process was just as haphazard as ever. Up until probably halfway through the story, my mental image of the final couple of scenes involved an urban setting, not a wilderness. It took a lot of writing about the woods and the antagonist's skill in the wilderness for me to come around to realizing that actually, no, the finale needed to take place out of the city and mentally adjust accordingly.
The actual meat of this story took a lot more discussion, even if the endgame was never really in question. LS and I spent some time talking about past enemies of Matthew's and who they might be, and how to set that up. We wanted there to be a past tragedy of some sort involved. We knew we wanted there to be a longer-term serial killer foe, and we wandered around discussions of that character being Immortal or not, but having him be Immortal let us set up a tragedy further back in the past. We talked about just having that character kill someone who'd been important to Matthew, but there were topics of corruption and betrayal brought up, and the mention of someone being framed for a crime they didn't commit came up and really appealed to me.
We also very much did not want to make the important person who died a wife or girlfriend or whatever. We see enough of that kind of fridging in both Highlander canon and just about every other canon, so for this whole series we've been very deliberately trying to avoid that trope.
A lot of the actual writing process was mostly just winging it. As per usual. That's just how we roll.
The ending was deliberately pretty abrupt, and deliberately resolves basically nothing. This is essentially the mid-point cliffhanger, so to speak, so it was left pretty open-ended on purpose. We've used this story to set up a lot of upcoming stuff. It'll be a little while before we touch back on some of it, but there's gonna be a lot of really intense stuff coming up from all that in future stories. We've really set up a lot of stuff in this first half of the series, that now we can come back around to and eventually resolve.
We genuinely did not mean for the end of this story to land right before the holidays, in time for a short break in posting for holiday stuff and Shortcuts reveals and so on, it just managed to turn out that way.
In any case, very tense story, very tense but very fun to write. It was exciting to build it up to the finale, and I really enjoyed writing Keller. I did not really plan what sort of villain he was going to be beforehand, but I do have a soft spot for the 'amiable but really bent' sort of archetype. I'll look forward to bringing him back down the line to cause more problems. 😈
no subject
Date: 6 Dec 2025 21:30 (UTC)I really enjoy reading these behind the scenes posts, but I have a (probably dumb) question: Given I am very fond of Matthew and both your and LS' writing, but am very queasy about serial killers, how much graphic serial killer content is in this series? I know that's the hook, it being Matthew's job, so I feel silly asking, but I'm just curious about the general tone.
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Date: 6 Dec 2025 21:56 (UTC)You know, there's actually surprisingly little of that. The vast majority of it is extremely canon-typical, and almost none of the violence and death is described in any great detail. Our focus is much more on the interactions and the investigations.
I will warn you, however, that the second main story in the series, Dead End, is much more typically 'creepy' serial killer stuff. It involves heads in jars, but even for that one LS dedicated a lot more time to the investigation and some memories the case stirs up for Matthew, and the various relationships between the characters. None of the descriptions get exceptionally graphic.
no subject
Date: 7 Dec 2025 12:09 (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Dec 2025 17:55 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Dec 2025 12:47 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Dec 2025 17:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Dec 2025 20:05 (UTC)no subject
Date: 8 Dec 2025 03:04 (UTC)After that, it's just two FBI agents solving a case.
If you have any specific squicks or DNWs you want to avoid, please PM me or Tornis and we can give you better warnings.
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Date: 8 Dec 2025 13:50 (UTC)What bothers me about serial killers is really a very specific combo platter that tends to occur in the genre. I've never actually tried to define it before, so this is helpful for me. Thinking it over, it's the combination of sexual violence (which Tornis already assured me about), plus the kills being excessively creepy with trophies, calling cards, etc (if there's not too much detail I can skate through), and the serial killer generally being lauded by the narrative as a superior intellect.
If I think of anything more specific that squicks me out, I'll be sure to ask. You've both been really helpful and I appreciate you taking the time.
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Date: 8 Dec 2025 17:24 (UTC)I hope you enjoy, should you decide to give the series a look! Glad this has been helpful.
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Date: 9 Dec 2025 08:28 (UTC)The serial killers in the stories do get some page time -- but they are definitely not lauded as anything positive.
The victims are mostly a brief collection of names and personal details. Enough to establish that there was a crime.
We've been trying to keep everything tonally consistent with HL.
If you start to read and ever want spoilers or more-detailed warnings about specific stories, please do let one of us know.
no subject
Date: 9 Dec 2025 23:48 (UTC)