Preslash, Tesla/Henry, teen, 2000~ words.

What happened after the destruction. Spoilers for the entire series abound. Angst, some hurt, and a unique brand of comfort. Our ostentatious vampire and lupine savant, sans the remainder... Enjoy. ~Lu

Exspectata Domus

part 1

His ears were ringing. High-pitched white noise swam in a disorienting aural pattern designed to skew him, tip him over the edge of the scale into delirium confounded by fire. He remembered a slender hand pressed between his shoulder blades, a firm shove, a grip that was anything but reassuring before his world came to an end, before a symphony a century in the making reached its crescendo and darkness fell.

That hand, the one he remembered ushering him to this new wrecked world was on his throat, two fingers pressing lightly against the thrum. His eyes opened, burning from smoke and panic, and those fingers moved away in haste as if burned.

Henry looked up, past his companion, past the thick blanket of smoke hanging heavily in the air. If he squinted, if he focused his eyesight just enough, he could make out what he imagined were stars in the heavens, weeping for human and inhuman folly, joining him in his mourning for his home, his family.

It was not until this moment, this devastation, that Henry had ever considered looking to the sky to scream, to howl, damning the woman he loved as mother, condemning the creatures who he had tried to save, those who turned against him.

Against them.

His companion was speaking to him. That arrogant, eloquent voice sounded like it came from under water, in an ocean so far removed from smoke and fire and the end that it sounded out of place.

"Henry," Tesla hissed for a fourth time, this time bringing a hand to rest on his charge's shoulder. Their eyes finally met, time started again, and they watched the Sanctuary burn.

...

The memorial service for the Big Guy was a quaint affair. Magnus had done an endless series of them, eulogizing unknown abnormals, trying to prove a point with each sorrowful speech. His service was no different. She was cold, guarded, spoke beautifully but remained unmoved. Will was convinced she'd finally shut down, that loss had finally caught up to her and choked her heart in a cold fist until it eventually closed off.

Psychologists. Huh.

Henry cried more than he could ever remember doing at that service. He clung to Kate, who clung back equally as fiercely, and he was sore afterward from those awful wracking sobs. There was no gathering after the service – each went his separate way once all was said and done. Kate returned to Hollow Earth to become a leader, a warrior woman, a wife, perhaps a mother. Will rejoined Magnus at the underground Sanctuary, though their relationship still seemed strained around the edges, like plastic wrap pulled too tight, beginning to split at the outside.

Henry didn't return to the Sanctuary. He could not face Magnus, look into her sad eyes and know, know she hadn't trusted him enough to tell him that "Indeed, Henry, I would never take your home away from you. It was a difficult decision, to destroy my house, but I had no choice. The Sanctuary lives on."

He would go back one day, he knew. How could he stay away from his family for so long, those who loved him, those who only really had his best interests at heart?

He went to England, to be with Erika. She held his head to her breast night after night as he wept, snarled, reminisced, and woke him each morning from his nightmares with soft kisses to his eyelids and lips. Every day he told her he loved her, and every day it became more true. She was becoming his entire world, his existence manifest in a tiny body that held not only her own power, but the strength of their unborn child. One night, when they were making love, the fullness of his affection for her hit him, like a satellite falling to earth, and he stopped: his breath caught, his hips stilled, and all he could do was stare down at her, horror in his eyes.

"Henry?" A delicate hand curved around his cheek, a slender finger rasping over his short beard. "What is it?"

"Erika," he said softly, still not daring to breathe, "you're all I have left."

"That's not true at all –"

"It's true. You're it." He rolled off her, then, not daring to meet her gaze. He could feel her eyes boring into him, he could smell her fear.

"Is that so bad?" she whispered, her hand reaching out to touch him, never landing on his clammy skin. He couldn't answer her, couldn't face her. Instead, he stood from their bed, dressed, and left, with a promise that he would be back, and certainly before the baby was born. His departure was met with those howls he himself dared not let loose.

...

Colorado was as good a place as any to settle in. Henry began renting a little cabin up in the mountains, a one-room affair with a fireplace and an empty bookshelf. It took him a surprisingly short time to grow accustomed to no cellular service or wireless access. He contented himself with stalking the woods, watching the wildlife, cooking terrible meals that the Big Guy would scoff at. Henry would smile fondly every time he burned his food, thinking back to the days when he was chased out of Sanctuary's kitchens by a hairy man in an apron, wielding a spatula and growling ferociously about measurements and proper heat sources.

It took longer than expected for Magnus to send someone after Henry, to bring him home, but Henry knew she realized the gravity of his undoing, would have considered the time he needed to begin healing. But, in the end, Helen Magnus, stubborn woman that she was, put a time limit on Henry's sulking and sent a bloodhound to retrieve him. In no internal scenario, however, had his bloodhound been Nikola Tesla.

While Henry had never really considered himself the outdoorsy type, he knew he didn't look half as ridiculous as Tesla, standing on his rickety porch in wingtips and a gray wool trench coat.

"Henri," the bloodhound said, smoothing his lambskin gloves over his long fingers, "Helen thinks it's time for the prodigal son to return to the kingdom. I would tend to agree, considering that you appear to have gone feral." Henry lifted his hand to his face, running his palm over the significant beard he'd grown over the past few months. Granted, his clothes were rumpled and his hair was longer, but feral?

"Not just yet," Henry replied sourly, ready to close the oaken door in Tesla's sneering face. Those lambskin covered hands, however, had different plans. They planted themselves firmly on Henry's chest, and Nikola Tesla broke the seal on Henry's own little Sanctuary, his little corner of the world.

"Good lord! An empty bookshelf? Now, I realize that big words can cause head injuries, but you can't honestly tell me you've been playing the part of woodsman all this time without a single book." Tesla rounded on him, his arms a graceful flourish, dancing his disdain around the room. "What the hell have you been doing all this time?"

"Thinking," Henry growled, slamming the door behind his unwelcome guest. Tesla made sense, in a strange kind of way. Annoy him back home. Good one on ya, doc.

"Now, now, let's not get carried away," Tesla replied, his lips pulling over his teeth in an impish smirk. "What have you really been doing? I find it difficult to believe that you've been playing house all by your lonesome with only your thoughts as company." Tesla raked his eyes down Henry's form, then back upwards in a slow, disinterested way. "Then again, that would certainly explain your current state."

"Just – don't! I don't want you here, Tesla. Tell Magnus I'm not ready to come home yet." Henry stalked past his companion to the small plywood table in the corner of the room, sitting heavily on the one chair he'd kept in the cabin. Tesla frowned at him, in that way only Tesla could, his entire face drawn downward, offended with the world.

"Yes, because she'd let me come back without you," he groused, his eyes flitting about the interior of the cabin, searching for a place to sit, sneering when all he saw was Henry's unmade bed. He hesitated, Henry noticed with interest, before delicately seating himself on the very edge, gently flicking away the heavy duvet, as if it were soiled, spoiled, unworthy of his touch.

Henry flinched.

"No offense, Tesla, but it doesn't really matter to me if she doesn't let you back in. Never really was your biggest fan." Instead of the expected outburst of reasons why, indeed, Henry should not only like him, but respect and admire him, Tesla merely laughed. It was a quiet sound, coming from low in his belly, a slow reverberation traveling up his torso, through the hand that covered his mouth in a mimicry of Victorian women who were once his contemporaries.

"What's so funny?" Henry asked uneasily, grabbing his mug of cold coffee, previously forgotten on the dingy table top when that polite knock had come. Henry told himself he held the mug because he shouldn't waste the drink, rather than admit that the low sound emanating from his companion was indeed unnerving.

Instead of answering, Tesla merely shook his head, as if humouring a child, and proceeded to remove his gloves, one long finger at a time.

Of all the strange things to notice about another person, Henry always focused in on Tesla's hands. They were delicate, but they held untold power, and not merely of the vampiric sort. Those hands had built weapons, lethal devices, touched the bodies of legend (though Tesla, of course, would never refer to Edison as legendary). His hands told countless stories, expressed his contempt for the inferior world in which he was stuck, held dark secrets that would surely never reach the light of day.

And by removing those luxurious gloves from those powerful hands, Henry realized, Tesla was settling in for the long haul.

"Oh, Wolfboy, it makes no difference to me if you like me," he quipped, that toothy smile returning. He gingerly laid his gloves on his knee, smoothing them out, before shifting his attention completely to Henry. "Helen wants you back. She believes that I'm the only one capable of seeing that through –" Here, he paused, ensuring Henry was giving him his full attention. "– if you decide to put up a fight."

Again, Henry flinched.

"In short," Tesla continued, cocking his head slightly, his eyes narrowing, "she's sent me to come tame the beast, ensure you're ready to be socialized again, and plunk you back into your mediocre, albeit more hygienic, place at the Sanctuary. Questions?" Henry could only stare. It wasn't the audacity of the man – that was old hat – nor was it the implication that Henry had indeed gone feral (and, in doing so, possibly let his grooming routine slide). No, it was Helen Magnus' gall. Send the vampire after him, assuming he'll be uncooperative and messy, retrieve him like some runaway?

Sorry, doc, but that won't fly.

"Not gonna happen," Henry barked, tensing. He could feel his muscles cording in his back, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He wasn't about to go quietly into the night, go home to mother figure with his tail between his legs, only to be met by her pitying gaze, her "There, there, Henry. It's all right. You're home now. Everything will be better."

And with that thought, he became uncooperative and messy.