A bit of angst on the subject of John and Teslen...because John is quite the angst-master. For those kind-hearted Teslen fans out there, you know you have to feel bad for him...a little. :) This is meant to be set after season four, but frankly it doesn't really matter. There may be a sentence that could possibly be taken as a spoiler, but I'll leave that up to you. This could also be taken as a rough sequel to my story Echoes, considering the more or less reference that's made, but I promise it makes sense on its own if you don't have the time (or if you're a steadfast Magnitt fan). Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: I do not own Sanctuary.
For a moment, the world shivers. It ripples as does water, trembling for the traveler that sifts through its substance, and then stills.
He imagines that the universe flings him down to existence with no more concern than a man flicks a mosquito from his skin—if only the mosquito could dictate its destination.
The only other that might discern this shift, the momentary kink in the network of energies, is continents apart from this place. To him, it would be no more than the drop of a pin in a crowd.
John sees her and smiles, the ghost of an expression. She is asleep, entangled beneath a thin sheet that clings to the sand, and there is a line of moisture shining at her hairline and in the cleft between her breasts.
He allows the tip of his tongue to flick out across his lips. The air tastes of salt.
Out here, there is no defense from his presence: no stronghold to stay his goal. Her electromagnetic shield, now only a useful remnant of its true purpose, is far from where they are.
He has waited months for this opportunity and has tracked her signature to the deserts, where he now stands poised over her tired form. A breeze licks past, toying with the lucky strands that have escaped her ponytail, and the handle of the blade he carries is hot against his palm.
Not for the first time, she believes he is dead. But he is far from it.
The sickness that lives within him is more alive than it has ever been, teeming into the corners of his soul he thought he'd kept hidden. It wants something, and it is very demanding.
The blunted edge of his blade strokes skin he once kissed. The serrated edge nestles close under her jaw. Like an extension of himself, the metal thirsts.
Wandering eyes trace down soft curves, and he remembers, briefly, a time in which he was free to do more than look; he can call upon memories so distant they are barely his own to tell him of nights spent in gentle offerings, without thirst. The part of him that holds his knife steady hangs on these fragments of thought, but the part of him that holds his knife to her neck cares precious little.
He wants to hold her to him until the sun breaks the horizon. He wants to fuck her until she screams and his grip breaks her spine.
Fiercely and ruthlessly, he hates her, yet hopelessly and arduously, he loves her: equal proportionately to the amounts he both loves and hates his own existence.
The pulse that resonates from the metal in his fingers beats quicker. Blue irises dart upwards and lock with his.
"Hello, John." As if he called ahead of time and is dropping by for a game of chess. Her voice portrays none of the surprise he feels from the quickening in her blood.
She is fearless: a trait he finds most admirable.
"Hello, Helen." He knows she feels the cut of his steel because she hadn't made a move. "Not the least bit of astonishment, I see. Aren't you curious as to how I've managed to keep myself alive?"
Her eyes flit towards the hand still holding a blade to her neck, and she tilts her head at him with irony. "Dying to know."
The glimpse of humor is fleeting, but it is not lost on him. They've been playing this game for decades, and he almost smiles.
What fondness softens his expression is swiftly displaced by something keener, which in the next moment transforms into a bitter grimace.
His knife bears into her, allowing a small ruby droplet to make its escape. The sight of it clutches at him, drawing him nearer, and he steels himself. Though she doesn't flinch, her vulnerability is making his demon restless.
"Perhaps," he drawls, "…another time." Taking his fingers and raking through the fluid sands, he seizes a fistful as he would seize their past, but it sifts down through his grasp.
They are alone together in the desert of time, but it is dry.
He will not kill her, though part of him is lurching to do just that. He knows well that his gift is the curse of contradiction, which allows him to rip through flesh as easily as he rips through distance.
There is but one distance he cannot negotiate, and it is the space between himself and the heart of Helen Magnus.
As if to test this, his blade travels lower, releasing the first two buttons of her blouse with short, even strokes. She stares up at him as he nudges the fabric to the side, revealing the cream of her chest, and he could swear he sees his reflection in the wetness of her eyes.
Her breath catches before he looks downwards, and for an instant he thinks he might have seen true panic cross her expression. Because she had made it abundantly clear that he does not frighten her, he thinks it odd.
He means to pinpoint the position of her immortal heart—wants to both feel the thrum of the object that keeps them each alive and to carve it out of her and stomp on it. What he finds there instead makes him so violently ill that he has to turn from her, coughing feebly in disgust.
The moment he does she is on her feet, a gun to his head—it doesn't surprise him in the slightest that she sleeps with one—and a hand grasping the ends of her top together.
It cannot hide what he already knows, nor will it erase the image now burned to his mind's eye. There is a jagged scar on her left breast, closest to her heart, and he knows from whom—and under what circumstances—the mark was manifest.
Teethmarks.
He shudders and thinks he might actually be sick.
When he rises and spits into the sand, she has the gall to look sympathetic, with her barrel still pointed to his head and his head still pounding.
"John—" Her voice trembles the slightest degree, and she is cut off when he snarls at her. He doesn't have words—doesn't think anything he might say to her now will be capable of sense.
She has lain with him—the vampire—at night…how many nights? She has allowed him to see her as he has, has allowed him…to touch—he cannot bear to imagine.
He tolerated James in the day because he saw her smile for the first time since Oxford and thought he deserved it—but this…
Without looking her in the eye and only half-aware that he's trembling, John approaches until the end of her weapon is positioned directly at his temple.
"He doesn't love you, Helen," he whispers brokenly, feeling his demon expand in his anguish.
She shakes her head once, so quickly it might be mistaken for flinching, and he doesn't have to look at her to know she doesn't believe him. He feels an insane urge to laugh because he knows that she'll never stop striving to believe the best of everyone.
Everyone except herself—because that is how she functions.
"And do you?" she propositions.
There is not room in his mind for the insult. He gives a wan smile, bows his head, and the movement makes his stomach churn and his fingers itch for his knife. "For eternity."
The blurred glimpse of her he is served before charging across the ocean, as far as he can think of, is pained. They are both wounded from this night, and though he cannot help but wonder darkly at the whereabouts of her fanged pet, there is relief in the knowledge that her heart beats miles away from those innocent hearts he soon brings to a stop.