Fandom: Sanctuary
Title: Shared Insight
Warnings: Angst, my shoddy writing, Nikola being a knowing sod (you know... the usual)
Characters: Nikola Tesla, James Watson, mentions of the Five (in general) and
Summary: "You really haven't noticed it?" Nikola asks him slowly, disbelief and surprise evident in his tone as much as it is in his eyes, and James frowns slightly. Noticed what?
Word Count: 2'530
Author's Note: I've been reading a lot of icarus_chained's fics as of late; technically, re-reading them. And it's cultivated my Sanct!muse so now I've wrote something of a decent length with some sort of plot. I don't normally write about the Five in their earlier days, indeed I don't normally write much at all, but this kind of popped into my head after I read Perception by Icarus_Chained and I wondered if, in a different setting, if James hadn't actually been aware of his own abnormality and had instead been the one who'd thought themself normal and average... meh, I don't know where this stuff comes from but hey, I wrote James and Nikola in the same fic and it has a plot so I'm happy!
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Shared Insight
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A month. It has only been a month since they'd first started this... journey. Only a month. But by God it feels like a life-time.
A month. That was all it how long it had took for him to realise the changes within him. And it wasn't even him who realised them in the first place.
Ironic really, giving he'd been present at every discovery of the abilities of the others. But fitting for a man, able to see so much, to be blind to his own strength.
John had accidentally tripped down the stone staircase near to the room they often absconded to whenever free or bored. James had been at the base of them, holding a number of precariously stacked glass test tubes he needed to study their blood in greater detail, and had been powerless to assist his friend in his journey to his death. And it would have been the end of John Druitt, that much James was definitely certain of, if it hadn't been for the fact that the tall man had quite literally disappeared from his sight. Only a panicked cry and the smelling of burning air in his wake.
He'd been so surprised by the display that James had promptly dropped what he'd holding and gallivanted back up the staircase to the lab where the others were residing.
For two days they'd searched the whole of Oxford, James and Nigel even going so far as to venture into London to see if there had been any sightings of a tall, well-spoken and intensely confused gentleman in the city. Upon their return to Oxford, James had been greeted with the sight of his friend sitting in the middle of their lab looking for all the world like he hadn't disappeared from the immediate area two days ago and left his friends to frantically search for him.
James had refused to speak to John for a week after that, until Helen intervened.
No man would ignore an irate woman, most especially if said irate woman happened to be Helen Magnus.
Nigel's ability had been discovered purely because James had been unable to sleep after reading of a murder in the Whitechapel district of London. He'd been antsy, unable to stop his mind from pondering over the murder, the way the journalist wrote, the anatomically incorrect images drawn specifically to increase fear in the general public, and he'd chanced a look over at Nigel in their shared dorm room.
Or at least, he'd looked over in Nigel's direction.
It is entirely understandable, and not the least bit undignified, of a gentleman to shriek in surprise at the sight of a pair of pyjamas suspended in the air in the place of your friend.
Entirely understandable.
Nikola's transformation, change, deformation, had been surprisingly slow and subtle in comparison to John's. Less chaotic and animalistic than what James thought it would have been, should have been considering what he was at the end of it.
There was no deranged blood-lust, though there certainly had been a hunger for it, and no aversion at all to the traditional instruments that Mr Le Fanu attributed to Vampires; such as Christian hymns. It was always amusing to observe Nigel testing Nikola's responses to religion by unceremoniously tossing The Bible at the Serbian and watching the now-vampire, snatch it out of the air with a snarl.
James knew Nikola did not relish religion but he had the same respect for its presence as those who grew up in Christian households; it was one of the things that James found interestingly contradictory about the man. A scientist with the origins of faith. James wondered what had happened to Nikola to so forcefully turn him from religion. James doubted he wanted to know.
Helen's reaction to the Source Blood had been misleading, to say the least. At first it appeared she'd had no reaction beyond the initial response to the foreign blood being injected into her veins, and how foolish had they been because who knew if that blood was even compatible with human blood? It could have killed them all for Heaven's sake.
There had been no spontaneous bouts of teleportation, invisibility nor any appearance of claws and too-sharp teeth and too-dark eyes for dear Helen. But, just because it wasn't visible to them all so directly, didn't mean it was any the less remarkable. Indeed, Helen's abnormality was subtle and dignified, very much like she herself.
An accident with a small vial of bacterium had revealed to James, in the early hours of the morning, when he'd been alone in the lab what Helen now possessed within her very blood. Blood that permeated and fed every cell in her body.
It was... exquisite.
An immunity to the bacterium, to every bacterium James had had at his disposal, and James theorised that injuries deemed severe for most would be nothing short of minor for Helen now. It was the most befitting abnormality that James could think of for Helen Magnus; too strong and too stubborn for their time and resilient to the restraints placed on her gender. Oh yes, definitely befitting.
Out of all of them though, it seemed as though James himself had had no real reaction to the Source Blood. He didn't notice any increase in his physical strength or any of his senses. He lacked the capacity to turn invisible and his blood was astoundingly dull in comparison to Helen's own. In short, James was the most unremarkable of the Five of them.
Or so he'd thought.
"I have no idea what you mean Nikola." James says evenly even though the grip on the tumbler in his outstretched hand increases. His eyes narrow as he stares at the relaxed figure of the vampire reclining on the settee in the drawing room of Gregory Magnus' home.
A brief respite from Oxford, holidays were useful at times, had resulted in their attendance at Gregory's home. At first opportunity, Nigel had disappeared – quite literally – into the night heading to, James assumed, one of the least reputable pubs in the area. John had extended to Helen his hand, the skin on his hands dry and lightly calloused, as he'd graciously asked his sweetheart to accompany him to the opera. Which left Nikola and James alone together, because someone had to be responsible and watch Nikola just in case he suddenly devolved into a hungered maniac lusting for blood.
James wasn't bitter about that. Not at all. Why should he be?
Nikola looks over at the stiff British man sat rigidly in the armchair to his right, his face whispering the truth of Nikola's surprise to James. Slowly Nikola stops flexing his outstretched claws, which he'd been fascinated with once he'd awoken from a three day slumber that none of them could explain nor resolve.
"You really haven't noticed it?" Nikola asks him slowly, disbelief and surprise evident in his tone as much as it is in his eyes, and James frowns slightly. Noticed what?
"Noticed what?" James voices aloud, the slightest tinge of annoyance and frustration colouring his clipped words and he knows he's not imagining the way Nikola's eyebrows creep higher. "Nikola. I honestly don't have any idea what you are on about so please-"
"Your abnormality." Nikola cuts in, softly, as precise as a surgeon with a scalpel, and James' words die on his lips. Nikola continues, his words still soft. "You really have no idea what you can do?"
"Nikola I..." James falters, he doesn't know what to say. What can he say? That he's defect. That he has no abnormality. That Nikola is obviously seeing what he wants to see. He can't say that can he?
"Catch." Nikola says sharply, casually, and James' attention snaps onto the small contraption suddenly arcing through the air towards him, a parabolic path with the end point being inbetween his eyes.
Automatically he reaches out with a hand and snatches it up, his other hand gripping the tumbler tighter in reflex. Quickly freeing his hand of the tumbler James focuses on the contraption Nikola had tossed his way.
It's small, light but well-designed. Compact but nonetheless containing some immensely intricate mechanisms and James briefly wonders whether it was a wise decision for the vampire to throw it through the air. The outer case catches his attention and he runs his fingers along it, feeling the ridges and the pours of the metal and what feels like a rubbery-substance under the pads of his fingers. His brow creases in concentration as he analyses the outer case and he finds there's a small mechanism, a button, on the base which he presses lightly. There's a thin-seam that runs along the length of one of the sides and it snaps open, the sound echoing in the quiet room.
Nikola is watching him, analysing him even as James analyses his contraption, but James finds he does not mind. This little device is interesting to him.
Inside the small contraption James finds himself faced with a small number of cogs and parts that he doesn't fully understand the purpose of. He finds that that riles him more surely than any of Nikola's needling comments and he focuses entirely on the cogs. Follows their path, judges their sizes, what they're made of, how they function but not why. Why won't be explained by the cogs, but rather by the thing as a whole. And to understand it's overall purpose James must first understand the inner-workings of it.
And so, that's exactly what he does.
There is a chemical, not much, but it has a familiar smell to it that James has to ponder on for a moment before he can place it. And then he smiles.
Ah... of course.
He raises his head, his focus returning to the room, to Nikola, and his smile remains on his face. His shoulders no longer tense, his body relaxed, and he sees how Nikola smiles at him.
"It's a camera." He says quietly, closing the small camera lightly and holding it out to the vampire. "Quite spectacular. I hadn't thought they could compacted to such a degree."
"Keep it." Nikola says softly as he settles himself back on the settee and smirks at James' face. "You figured it out quicker than the others did put together."
James blinked in surprise at that. Nikola had shown it to the others also? Of course he had, he wouldn't keep such a device hidden away, he would want to show it off. To garner attention and gratification for his actions. Like a child wishing for acceptance and love.
James shook his head slightly, his smile tightening, as he placed the camera on his lap and leant back into the armchair.
"What were you trying to prove Nikola?" James asks tiredly. He doesn't want to play the game anymore. His nerves are frayed and the temporary respite is now over, and he hasn't recovered enough for another round with Nikola Tesla tonight.
"That you have an abnormality like the rest of us." Nikola replies simply, picking up the wine glass that hadn't been present a few minutes ago, and smiling. "You obviously haven't noticed it though."
Maybe it's the calm arrogance that Nikola is exuding right now. Maybe it's the tiredness beginning to set in. Maybe it's the hurt and annoyance at being left to baby-sit. Maybe it's the headache starting to form and the strange lights that are lingering at the corner at his eyes.
Maybe it's all of the above or none of them at all, but James' restraint is suddenly gone. And everything is pouring out of him.
Like the ocean crashing upon the shore in the throes of a storm.
"I do not have an abnormality Nikola!" James thunders, jumping out of his chair, completely aware of the device tumbling to the ground and not caring in the slightest. "I am painstakingly normal!" He spits in anger, pain, hurt, sadness.
The vampire hasn't moved from his seat, still holds the wine glass in a loose, relaxed grip that James knows is anything but. He can see the anger, the hurt, the shock at James' sudden movements, the immediate, conscious effort to tamp-down on those newly-awakened urges to attack, the sadness at his precious camera lying on the ground.
"God damn it Nikola. I am not a toy you can play with!" James bites out, his words sharp and harsh, and he sees a flinch in the vampire's body. A jitter, a shudder, that was the only outward addition to what James could already see.
"And you are in denial about your ability because you are afraid of being wrong." Nikola replies with low, calm words, but the tone is sharp and deadly and challenging that it stops James' anger in its tracks. Stops James entirely.
"You deduced the purpose of my little contraption in less than two minutes whereas the others were pondering for quite a while over how to open it." Nikola says quietly as he swills the wine in the glass before taking a gentle sip of it.
"You have a headache developing, not unlike the migraines you have been suffering in increasing frequency over the last month." He continues as though he is listing a number of items he requires to build another invention. "You have been avoiding highly populated areas, and whenever you have to go into the middle of London you return with a migraine rapidly developing."
"There are times when you're unable to sleep because your mind is thinking too much and too fast for it to stop. You have no way, no method, of how to handle it because nothing works anymore. You have to let it carry itself to completion and hope you will get some rest before another thought or notion catches your attention." Nikola's words echo a knowledge of personal experience that James finds he cannot ignore.
James cannot ignore what Nikola is saying, cannot deny nor argue with such claims because they are true. Deep down, in the most logical and rational part of James' mind, he recognises the things Nikola is describing as what he has been experiencing since two days, four hours and twenty-three minutes after they injected the source blood.
"But what is my abnormality?" James asks, and he winces at the desperation in his voice, at the child-like wanting that he never would have expected himself to be capable of. He wants to know, he needs to know what Nikola sees in him, needs to see what Nikola sees.
Nikola smiles and tips the glass towards him slowly. A sad smile James notes, sad but warm and so very human that it confuses James for a moment because Nikola isn't human... is he?
"You have the gift of sight. Of seeing. Your abnormality James, is to see what we are all blind to." Nikola answers softly, gently, and James can do nothing but stare.
James can do nothing but stare because now he sees what Nikola sees in him. And he sees it by looking at the world around him.
And it is magnificent.
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Fin