DISCLAIMER: I do not own, nor lay any claim to the characters of Sanctuary, or their world, or the lyrics to Florence + The Machine's 'Howl to the Moon' (I just thought it was an apt title). This is not generating any profit, and is purely a reflection of how awesome the show (and Flo...) is! :D Warning: Here there be smut.
Spring 2014
"If Henry's like a son to you, then does that make you Tiny-Tike's Grandmother?"
She shot Tesla a withering look that did nothing to diminish his amusement. In fact he rounded the desk so he could lean his ass on her side of it, and encroach upon her workspace.
"You still want to enter my room without being shot at don't you?" she eyed him.
He was smirking – unsurprising, really. From the tilt of his gaze he had a perfect view down her top, and the subtle look was still enough to raise gooseflesh along her skin.
"Well," he drew the word out, leaning in close and whispering near her ear with a leer, "I do have a thing for older women."
Helen kept a poker straight face, trying not to let on that she was almost flattered by the sentiment; holding his particularly close gaze steadily even as her nipples tightened beneath her shirt. "Such a shame they don't always have a thing for you," she dead-panned, "otherwise you might have repopulated the vampire race long ago."
He shook his head with a tut, his grin still in place though he crossed his arms against his chest, "Helen," he purred, tempted by the thought of tugging her leather jacket to one side, "I've said it before and I'll say it again… green, is not a good colour on you."
"Nor you." She pointed out with a business-like abruptness, attempting to return to her paperwork.
It took him a second to be sure of what she was insinuating, and then he scoffed, "Oh sure, I'm just so jealous of a babbling infant who gurgles his own spit."
She smiled, knowing that despite the protest she'd cut close to the truth – that 'babbling infant' stole her attention every second it was in the room, and Nikola had never been very good at sharing the stage.
"Really though Helen, after a whole morning cooing and tugging at its toes I would've thought you'd have been honoured by the title."
She should've known getting on with her work would be impossible with him around. Stopping, she looked up again, carefully noting the question he was really asking - the one between the lines. Nikola had not only noticed how much she'd fallen in love with Henry and Erika's little boy, how much she loved having an infant around again, but that melancholy of pain, that echo of what she'd lost. Fact was, Alistair was probably the closest she ever would come to having a grandchild, and she loved it – loved every precious minute of having him there, every second of joy on his unfettered face. She'd only just seen him at Christmas, but when the family Foss had arrived for their second visit Helen had realised just how much she'd missed them... missed the simple joys of children, and family.
Nikola could tell from her sad, thoughtful expression that she had cottoned onto what he'd meant, even before she explained; "I suppose when you put it like that it just reminds me… that I…" she took in a deep breath and held it in, avoiding his gaze. "Reminds me of what I will never... of what Ashley never had the chance to become."
He watched her, closely, with compassion and understanding like a thread in his gaze leading to his heart. Then his fingers slipped into her hair, the comfort of his lips upon hers. There was no need to talk it over – they both knew what she had meant, and there was nothing more to be said. It was, what it was.
"You know," he kept close even as they parted, completely filling her line of sight, "you really do create too much paperwork for yourself – if I didn't know any better I'd say you were doing it on purpose."
"Oh?" she half-smiled, forgoing the pointless reiteration that unlike him she preferred to hold everyone – including herself – to account. It had already become a tired argument, "And pray tell" her voice dropped to a whisper, "why would I want to do that?"
His smirk was instantaneous, "Out of some misguided attempt to keep me from seducing you?"
She laughed, a little more throatily than she would've liked, because she had absolutely no intention of giving in when she had three bills to sign off and four reports to read through. "Somehow I don't think it's going to stop you from trying."
"Oh you better believe it," he whispered, making all her insides promptly flip-flop in anticipation.
"Nikola," she half-complained.
"Aw come on Helen," he cajoled before she could start laying down the law, "the day's practically a write off since the little bundle of fur arrived anyway – take it as holiday."
"Nikola, I don't have time to take a whole day off."
He sighed and pulled a serious face. "What's the point in having lackeys-"
"We're a team Nikola."
"…if they're not there to do your bidding?"
To his intense interest she started to smile, deviously. "Alright," she started, instantly arousing his suspicion, "as one of these lackeys, how about you read these reports for me while I soak in a nice long bath?" She quirked an eyebrow, rendering him speechless for a grand total of one minute as he imagined her doing so, and then realised what she'd just called him.
"Oh, so I'm a lackey now?"
"Only my most useful one," she whispered, kissing him on the lips.
"So give the paperwork to Wonder-Will," he kissed her again, "and let me… demonstrate my ski-"
She kissed him to shut him up, but damn it if she wasn't starting to enjoy herself just a little too much. Especially when his hands started to wander and cup her breasts, fingers brushing over nipples at the same pace as tongues exploring the hot warmth of their mouths. She really had trouble remembering what her point had been, and when she pulled away, they were both a little breathless.
"The more you help me... the faster I'll finish."
He cocked an eye at her, "Well I thought that was a given."
Rolling her eyes she pushed him gently away, "Look, you can either keep pestering me and I'll be holed away in here until dinner time, or you can lend me a hand and then we can go... relax."
He looked at her, as if he didn't believe she had the willpower to resist him if he set his mind to it. To be fair, after that little display he was probably correct in his presumptions, but he certainly did not need to know that.
"How about, we print off the reports and I read them to you… in bed?"
She chuckled at that irascible grin before she'd even given it thought, but when she did, she had to wonder, why she'd never considered that one before.
0 0
It became quite apparent, to Helen at least, why she'd never attempted to read Sanctuary reports in bed, let alone in bed with Nikola. There were too many pieces of paper for a start, and this was only one of the many-paged reports. She'd insisted on doing the rest in her office but, when dinner came and went, and she was still at her desk, Helen had relented to his little experiment.
Scattered all around, the pieces of A4 were starting to float into a bizarre order which wasn't helped by Nikola occasionally snatching an interesting one away, or throwing the so-called 'boring' ones to one side. Then, of course, there was the rather distracting way he was currently kissing in a line from her navel to her sternum, his fingers brushing across the skin of her sides.
They'd discovered rather quickly that she couldn't listen to him read them aloud, especially not when he'd managed to make words like seroslug sound somehow sexual.
"Nikola," she bemoaned with a sigh, rolling back her head against the stacked-up pillow and trying not to fixate on his breath, tickling skin that drew closer and closer to her breasts. She still had her bra on but it was a scant shield, and at this rate it wouldn't be there for long.
"I do love it when you say my name like that," he grinned up at her, eyes alight with untold mischief.
"I can't keep reading the same line five times," she choked out, her eyes fluttering shut as his hands deftly rubbed across the lace of her bra. She was very glad the papers in her hand were now obscuring his line of sight – otherwise he would've teased her relentlessly for the way she'd sunk into that warm touch. "Just… let me finish this paragraph." She moaned involuntarily as he pulled the top of her bra down with his teeth, forcing her hands and the papers in them to one side so he could suck and gently nibble on her flesh. This was ridiculous, she managed to think, she'd never get anywhere if she didn't put him on ice – and fast. "Let me focus Nikola," she chastised, smacking him lightly over the head with the paper.
"Ow," he wasn't very convincing as an injured party but at least he'd stopped testing her erogenous zones for sensitivity, "I thought I was helping you focus," he grinned, "Call it motivational."
"Mhm, I could call it something else as well. Would you mind being motivational on the other side of the bed for just a little while longer?"
"Hmm... I don't know," He walked his fingers up her arm to her elbow, "The other side of the bed?" he gave her a look, settling himself between her legs and not-so-inadvertently rubbing against her, "I kinda like it here."
She gave him a no-nonsense stare that she knew he had no intention of observing, "Only if you promise to stop getting in the way of the paper," she wafted the report in his space, where they had been before he'd usurped them, forcing him to back off just slightly, down her torso.
The look in his eyes as he did so, however, was anything but resigned. Had Magnus paid attention she'd have seen instantly that Tesla had no intention of surrendering on these terms of hers. She put her head down, quickly, to consume as much as she could of the report before he found a way to distract her again… it didn't take him long.
His lips started kissing down her centre but in reverse, until he passed her navel and her skin sparked at every press of his lips. Struggling to stifle a pleased sigh, her breath hitched as she realised where he was heading. "Nikola," the warning was desperate and weak, the sensuous tone of desire breaking it down so that it sounded almost compliant. "What are you doing?"
"Getting," he grinned devilishly between kisses, "out of the way" his hands smoothing over her legs, pulling her panties down, "of your papers." His fingers ghosted along her inner thigh.
"You're really not going to let me-" the sentence was consumed, transformed by the primal sound of appreciation rolling from her lungs as his chill fingers rubbed over her clitoris, soon replaced by the warm wetness of his tongue in its final kiss. The movement twisted her insides into a pleasant contortion, made her mouth dry, her hands curl into the paper, and the sheet beneath them, "…finish…" she sighed.
Long and short licks and sucks worked her into a familiar state of helpless abandon, her chest flexing with every breathy intake of air, her muscles coiling up and easing out to Nikola's rhythm. She let go of the paper to run her fingers through his hair, to urge him gently on and keep close. Who was she kidding? The 'Lotus Elk Habitat and Resources' report had been a write off the moment she'd agreed to printing it.
Her legs were closing round him without her even realising it, skin brushing down his body and making him shudder. He looked up hazily, and her hips instantly shifted in complaint. She had no idea how much that simple touch had flooded through his nerves, made him even more impatient for her.
"Helen," he whispered huskily, his breath cooling against the trails upon her skin before kissing her thigh again and tickling her wet entry with his fingers, "quit distracting me."
"Distracting you!" she sighed angrily, mustering up the wherewithal to start an argument, "You're the one w- oh," she hummed at the press of his digits sliding inside of her, rapidly stroking the entirety of her sex from beginning to end. Her body was breaking out into a feverous glow, the flush of her cheeks mirrored in other parts of her creamy skin as the blood in her body rushed towards the friction.
He watched hungrily, supporting himself over and above her body by his free hand, his hips closer to hers. Her knees were rubbing aimlessly, teasingly along him as she came closer, and she was exquisite, utterly rapturous to behold: more stunning than the New York skyline at night, more scintillating than any discovery – even the one that had entwined their lives in the first place. Fixated on the beautiful sight of her he found himself aroused, to his upmost, as her back arched and her lips parted, her dark hair pooling upon the pillow as her whimpers became more and more pronounced.
The sound of her pulse fluttered, her chest vibrating with a hum that was half-way between sigh and moan, everything about her fluctuated, and he couldn't resist. Without warning he plunged into her, sheathing himself deeply and ushering a cry from her lips as it sent her over the edge. Instinctively reaching for his shoulders and neck, she pulled herself closer into his embrace, catching her breath as all her body spasmed with pleasure and clenched around him.
Daring to open her eyes she took in his tremulous, if slightly cocky, smile and laughed, kissing him deeply as her genius guided her hips to a new beat – one that was languorous and insistent. Their chests brushed against each other, skin on skin, as his fingers finally wrangled the fabric of her bra away. His first instinct was to slice through it with his claws but Helen had already voiced her disapproval of this method in anything but the most desperate of situations.
Desperate was probably the last word to describe this sensation; the gentle pressure building, inflaming them deep and hard. Every inch of them alive to the lips and tongues moulding new paths, hands smoothing ceaselessly across flesh. He hadn't realised how hungry he was, until he was enveloped by her scent, the pounding of her blood, the rush of her breath. His fingernails were trying to creep out into their fully vampiric form, failing only through his sheer determination not to puncture the swell of her ass into which they were currently pressed.
All the while she moved for him, working him up as surely as his hands had her, twisting and shifting to elicit a primal growl from his throat. He'd given up the higher ground, and all control with it. She was the one in command now, her hands making his neck and back flood with static-like jolts that joined the ones darting from lower parts of his anatomy as he thrust inside her. They were both beginning to pant with the exertion, sweat forming as their world closed in, onto the intense swell of heat and electricity starting to crackle between them. It shorted-out their synapses in one long, glorious rush, sweeping through Helen, then Nikola, as he came inside of her and called out her name.
Between the foggy tingling of the afterglow Helen, rather cheekily, wondered whether he'd ever gotten in trouble for calling out the wrong name before. Even during their twentieth-century trysts he'd had a tendency to sigh, moan or gasp it out before the end - the sound of his overwhelming want accompanying her, as she stepped out of reality and into whatever pleasure-melted haze they had brought her to. This time, it was absolute bliss.
Shuddering still from the force of that pleasure Nikola held her in his arms, even though every muscle wanted to liquefy and puddle onto the bed, cuddling. The dark whisper of his blood lust shrank back, overpowered by the exertion, the high, the complete satisfaction. He didn't move, remaining inside of her as their bodies slowly cooled, until he was roused from his state of Nirvana by the gentle press of her lips on his cheek, then a nuzzling into the base of his neck. He turned his head ever so slightly towards her, but she'd buried herself so far he couldn't see her face.
Contenting himself with brushing his hand through Helen's long dark hair, he could feel the growing need to say how much he loved her; let her know that what they had wasn't a trick, or an indulgence, but real. It sat in the upper part of his chest, waiting to come out, but something caught his breath, holding down his tongue. He couldn't quite place it, though it felt worryingly familiar, and, desperate not to lose the happiness of the moment, he pushed that sensation to the back of his mind – alongside all the other thousands of idiosyncrasies which made up his character.
Perhaps she had sensed something though, because she softly put a hand to his chest and pulled apart just enough to look him in the eye. That caring gaze, that wonderful, cheery smile drawing him down to crawl between the sheets and rest, entangled together for a while at least, before one of them needed a little more space to get comfy. She tucked herself against him, sliding her leg between his as he lay on his side, cocooning her in his embrace. Her palms had found a place around his waist, her head resting just beneath his chin. He caught the scent of her shampoo again, exotic and spiced, soothing him.
Then the crying started. Not Helen's - the baby down the hallway in HAP-central. She reacted to it though, lifting up her head a little to figure out what it was. The distinct peal of its little lungs had clearly roused maternal instincts, despite the fact that the sound was in no way loud to her human ears. For Tesla it was an insufferably incessant screech. She smiled at his grimace, rubbing a hand over his chest and patting him gently in understanding. God, what would he be like if he ever had to look after one himself?
"Enrico's been showing him The Howling hasn't he?" He shook his head dryly, sighing as censoriously as if he'd caught Henry doing something incorrectly in the lab, "Showing horror films to an infant, so irresponsible…"
Helen laughed, eying his knowingly flawed witticism, "I doubt Alistair would understand the meaning of it all even if he had Nikola."
"Urgh, I don't care, they should just find a way to make it stop." He buried his face into her shoulder, and murmured with appreciation as she stroked the back of his head.
"I don't know why you're so worried;" she sighed, making him look back at her, "I'm the one who actually sleeps out of the two of us and now I have to get up in the morning to finish reading that report."
He grinned at that, pulling her close again and kissing her on the lips as the squirt's endless squall continued on into the night.
Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed that Teslen fans! :D There will be more – I promise – and a sweet cameo from papa wolf.