Another random Sanctuary blurb that popped into my head. Oh, how I wished I owned Jonathon Young...Anyways, enjoy! (:
You are the antidote that gets me by. Something strong, like a drug that gets me high. - Cold, Crossfade.
Nikola Telsa hated being open. He hated not having his little hidden agendas that kept his audience entertained. He hated people being able to read his emotions, see what he was feeling - what they thought he was feeling. He hated it when he revealed himself to anyone.
So, if he hated being open with someone with such great fervor and passion, why was he standing outside Helen Magnus's chamber door, having just knocked and now not-so patiently waiting to be granted entrance? Why had he gone there with the intent of laying his feelings bare - all of them. All of the love he felt for her, the hate he felt for Druitt, his jealousy of her close relationship with James, his loathing of all those lovers she had taken instead of him. The pure anguish he had felt when she had flinched away from him in Rome, while they had been in the catacombs.
He had just proclaimed his undying - no pun intended - love for her, and as he reached out to gently cup her cheek as he had so often wished to do, she cringed away from him, staring at him with some strange mix of shock and horror dominating those normally gentle, gorgeous eyes. At least her emotions had been clear, concise after that moment. His emotions had been a mess after that, until he had finally regained the capability of rational thought. WIthin moments, he had reigned his confused feelings in, had compacted them, stored them away in the part of his brain that was reserved for memories such as those of Dane's death, his numerous beatings afterwards - by his father and by his schoolmates -, the death of his favourite pigeon, the deaths of the handful of friends he had accumulated through his numerous years, the haunted faces of those he had attacked in moments of bloodthirsty viciousness. Of all those memories, the memories that his nigh-eidetic mind recreated for him each night in his nightmares, the look on Helen's face, the look in her eyes, the supposed windows to the soul...That would haunt him until the end of his days - if he would ever be so lucky to have an "end of days".
Before his thoughts could turn any darker, Nikola was interrupted by the sound of Helen's voice calling "Enter!"
It had been a few years since Rome, yet Nikola couldn't deny the sudden fear that gripped his cold, vampiric heart. How could he cope with another look like the one he had recieved in the catacombs? How would be manage another rejection from the woman who had stolen his deadened heart?
He pushed the horrid thoughts away just as simply as he pushed through the mahogany door that led to Helen's bedroom. Ironic that he place he had always dreamed of ending up in had turned into a place he feared he would soon have nightmares of.
"Nikola!" Helen's voice drew him in, drawing his attention to the sight of her lying on her bed, dressed in sinfully delicious-looking nightclothes, a small smile playing about the corners of her lips and a teasing gleam in her eyes. "Come to seduce me then, Mr. Tesla?"
"Are you implying that I may have a chance in succeeding, Miss Magnus?" He replied just as teasingly, though a small part of him, hidden even deeper than his "nightmare compartment", secretly wished she would say yes, he did have a chance. More than a chance, really.
"Of course not, Nikola. After all, it has been a dreadfully long day - I'm really too tired to be up to such tomfoolery." Her lips twisted up into a smirk that Nikola couldn't find the strength to return in full. Naturally, he had taken her words to heart, which wouldn't have been such a bad thing had she not said "tomfoolery". Did she actually think that making love with him would be considered tomfoolery? Like it was some sort of sick joke? Like he wouldn't be pouring all of his being into her, hoping to show his feelings for her through not only his words, but his actions as well? Did she think it foolish?A waste of her all-important time?
Helen must have noticed the strange look on his face, for she once against interrupted his thoughts - something she was quite good at, if he were to be perfectly honest. "Nikola, what is it? You weren't attacked by an Abnormal, were you? Or perhaps you were affected by our new guest, the Tyreclapnadox? After all, the Tyreclapnadox is known for causing errant, irrational thoughts to enter the heads of those around them. It's a defense mechanism - a brilliant one, in fact."
Humph. Errant, irrational thoughts entering the heads of those around them? Perhaps Helen was a Tyreclapnadox in an angel's body? But now wasn't the time for thoughts such as these - he had to tell her, make her see his side. He had to win her, woo her once and for all, no interruptions. This was it. His moment. Their moment.
"Helen, I -"
"Nikola, just spit it out, would you? Honestly, for a genius, you sometimes really have a serious problem with speech."
"Only when you're around."
"What? Nikola, you're not making sense. Perhaps it really wasthe Tyr-"
"Helen, shut up, just for a minute, eh?" Nikola instantly regretted his choice of words, but at least it had stopped her before she could go on one of her scientific rants while he was trying to tell her something important.
Drawing in a shuddering breath, he began.
"Helen, we need to talk. Not just witty banter, or flirty innuendos, we need to have a serious discussion." Seeing her open her mouth - probably to protest, though at which part he didn't know - he quickly raised both of his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Just hear me out, alright? This isn't easy for me you know, and, as you so eloquently put it, I seem to 'really have a serious problem with speech'.
"Rome. Remember Rome, Helen? When I told you I loved you and you flinced, like I was going to hurt you? Like I would kill you? Like I could do such a thing? Remember that, Helen? Remember what I said? I said that I had loved you for a very long time. And I was telling the truth, something that doesn't happen too terribly often. Well, I was being honest then, and I'm being honest now, alright? So let's just get that perfectly clear. At no point in this conversation will I lie to you.Understood? Good.
"It started a long time ago, Helen. I shudder to think of love at first sight, but something clicked when I first saw you, in that crimson dress, looking for all the world like something too surreal to exist on Earth. I tried striking up conversations with you, and eventually it worked. We became close, Helen. Not close enough, however. I still was unable to woo you - you thought me a fool, joking about like I was. But I wasn't joking, Helen - not then, and not now either. I thought I had time back then, especially after the Source Blood experiment, when we were all changed. Then, what did you do? You fell for John freaking Druitt. Jack the bloody Ripper himself! I couldn't deal with it, Helen. Years after, when John had left, the embryo frozen, and you seemingly recovered, I dared approach you as I had back before the Five. But you were broken, Helen. You weren't the woman I knew anymore - you were hollow, and empty, and frankly, it scared the hell out of me. It also made me want to rip out Druitt's throat, mutilate his body in the worst ways imaginable, and string him up in the streets. But that's not my point. I loved you even then, Helen. Even when you were Broken Helen, all cold and listless. James and Griffin couldn't bring you back, remember? But I did, Helen. I brought you back to us. I even gave you a pigeon, Helen. Remember that? Remeber that pigeon?"
He waited until she nodded before continuing.
"You weren't Broken Helen anymore after that - you were you. And I still loved you, throughout all of that. Griffin stopped caring after a little while, and James was too busy solving his little cases or getting high to help you much at all. Eventually, he stopped trying too. But I never stopped, Helen! I still haven't stopped! Why can't you see that, understand that? Haven't you got it by now!"
Nikola threw up his hands in exasperation, pacing around the room, wringing his hands, trying to think of a way to explain to her what she was to him.
"James had his cocaine. He loved his seven per-cent solution, loved it so much that he gave everything else up for it - his health included. Griffin succumbed to gambling after a while. Druitt was obsessed with blood and harlots. I'm addicted to you, Helen. I pilfer your wine cellars, yes, but no one realizes that it's not the wine that I want from you, Helen. I want your love. I want your heart. I want every part of you, Helen, and I want you to give it to me. I don't want to take it from you - I will nottake it from you. I will, however, use my powerfully good looks and genius mind to beg with you, plead with you. Please, Helen. Please, please love me."
He had stopped pacing, and now he stood at the end of her bed, watching her as she trembled with realization. He had been there for her, always. He had taken care of her when she couldn't take care of herself. He loved her, truly, madly, deeply. How the hell had she not realized before? Wasn't she supposed to be a genius too?
"Nikola." The name slipped unbidden past her lips. Her voice trembled, her frame shook, and tears were beginning to form in her eyes. "Niko..." The first teardrops fell, quickly followed by more. A choked sound emanated from somewhere deep inside her.
The man in question watched with horrified eyes as he took in the now-sobbing figure of Helen Magnus. Had he broken her like John had?
In an instant, he was by her side, pulling her into his lap, holding her against his chest as she sobbed into the junction between his neck and shoulder. He pressed his lips into her dark hair, murmuring apologies, begging her forgiveness, praying for normalcy, a salvageable relationship between the two of them. He rocked her back and forth, his prior words forgotten, his mantra now, "I'm sorry, Helen. I love you, Helen. I'm sorry, Helen. I love you, Helen." As if saying her name after each declaration made her realize how truly sorry he was, how much he truly loved her.
It felt like ages before she had reigned in her self-control, but Helen finally roused herself from Nikola, sniffing once before staring into those blue-grey orbs that were gazing at her solemnly.
"I'm sorry, Helen. I shouldn't have -"
"Nikola! What on earth do you have to be sorry for?" Granted, her indignancy was dampened by her red-rimmed, puffy eyes, but it still held an ounce of something.
"For pouring all of this onto you. It hasbeen a long day, I suppose. Maybe I should just - "
"No, Nikola, you shouldn't leave, you should bloody well stay here until I'm finished with you." Helen's words were intended to be taken as innuendo - some symbol that she had not been broken, but had been mended in some unmentionable way. Unfortunately, her words didn't have the affect she had hoped they would've.
His eyes had gone wide, and his teeth worried his inner lip. A brief flash of pain danced across his features, followed by impassivity, something she knew to be an act - after all, she had hidden behind that mask far too many times to be fooled by it.
She supposed he was shocked when she grabbed him by his cravat, dragged him forward, and crushed their lips together. To his credit, however, he recovered quite quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Helen quickly found Nikola begging her lips for entrance, which she granted him nigh instantly.
Their toungues duelled for what seemed like millenia, they lost themselves in each other for what seemed like centuries, and when they surfaced for air, they stared at each other for what felt like decades.
Nikola leaned down to chastely brush his lips with hers before pulling back, a smirk sidling on to his features.
"Well, if that's all I have to do for a snog from you, Helen, expect many more visits from me."
"Why don't you just stay awhile?" She suggested.
His eyebrows shot to his hairline as she pulled him down on top of her.
Fin.
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