AN: There are going to be a million tags for this ep. I can just tell. Give me a couple days and some time to think and I'll write you a Kate one.
Spoilers: Awakenings
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: Not mine. And I am so ludicrously happy right now I don't even care.
Characters: Helen Magnus, Nikola Tesla
Summary: They make it all the way back to the 4x4 before Nikola notices.
After Bite
They make it all the way back to the 4x4 before Nikola notices.
In his defense, he's had a busy day. She's pretty sure he died for a while there, and then he came back to a better life than he'd dared hope dream of recovering, and then he'd been betrayed and called mongrel by a member of his own species. And that's without accounting for his trip down the chute, his ascent, and his own recovery from the wounds he'd got fighting the Queen while Helen did her best to stop the apocalypse.
When they get to the truck, though, she stops for water and the hem of her coat betrays her.
It's nothing at all like it last time.
Okay, so it's a bit like last time. He's in a bit of shock, albeit for different reasons, and he's desperately hungry. But this time he's not scared and confused. This time he knows exactly what has happened to him, has welcomed it, even. He manages to fight off the hunger, adrenaline has its uses human or vampire, or even some of each, as he is forced to acknowledge might be the case with him. But as they trek back to where they parked and the smoke of Helen's magnificent explosions lessens, a new smell fills his nostrils.
Helen is bleeding.
She feels his eyes on her as soon as she shifts, the coat sliding up her arm in treachery.
She's eaten the power bar and the peanuts, and taken as much water as she can, but she's feeling a bit peaked when they finally stop walking. She's lost blood, not too much, but enough to be troublesome if she's planning to spend too much more time in the middle of the desert with a newly remade and healing vampire. He swallows, and she can see the fight he's waging in the way his face stretches, like it's nearly forgotten how but is eager to remember.
She always used to carry an emergency supply of his medication with her.
He figures out what must have happened almost immediately.
The smell of her blood clouds his head for a few seconds, delaying his reason, but before she's had time to flinch in the general direction of her gun, he's already determined that she's been fed on once today. It's anger that comes next, and then the bitter surge of disappointment. To be so close, and to be so very, very far away. That is over in a flash too, and then he's moved on to the next solution.
He was never one for regrets anyway.
"My kingdom for an antelope," he says, like it's a joke he can make and they'll both be safe after they laugh about it.
"I was serious about the Shakespeare, Nikola," she says, and then, because she's Helen Magnus, she rolls her sleeve back further, exposing the wound. "You'll have to drive."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea," he says, leaving the field wide open.
"You've forgotten how to drive?" she says, because she knows how to play as well as he does.
"Do we have any more food?" he asks, because he can feel it in his soul, singing again, and he knows that if she stands there, hand outstretched, he won't be able to resist her long.
"In the back," she says. "You may have to help me eat it."
"Oh, Helen," he says, and takes her hand. "Today I will give you the moon."
He presses his lips against her wrist.
And then his tongue.
And then his teeth.
The desert spins.
Helen Magnus sits with her back to the tyre, propped up on the shoulder of the last remaining vampire and doing her very best not to faint. He passes her a power bar, and then the water skin, and the sand and the sky stop changing places at random. He helps her into the passenger seat, fastens the belt, and goes around the other side to drive. It's a manual, so he can't hold her hand the whole time, but when he can, he twines his bloodstained fingers with hers.
The world, she thinks, is as it should be.
finis
Notes: I wasn't sure if the Vampire Queen actually fed on Helen. Because Helen wasn't particularly mussed or weak after that scene, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how they could possibly have got out of the "I hope you choke on it" clinch without some feeding taking place. So let's just go with "Helen got bit on the wrist and covered it with her coat, and Nikola was busy."
Gravity_Not_Included, May 17, 2011