Title: "My Sweet Angel, You Deceived Me"
Fandom: Sanctuary
Word Count: 4'144 words (I need to learn how to write shorter fics :/)
Warnings: Umm... sexual themes, dark
Pairings: Helen/John, one-sided Helen/Nikola
Characters: Helen Magnus, Gregory Magnus, Nikola Tesla, James Watson, Nigel Griffin, mentions of John Druitt
A/N: Well, I'm a little stuck with my Vampir Srce fic at the moment because THIS is floating around in my head and stopping me from giving you another chapter! :
Anyway, I do apologise to anyone who reads this and then decides that they want to kill me with a digital pitchfork (or a real one depending on how close to my home you are :/) but I have to get this out of my head because it's driving me loopy.
Kasey xx
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"My Sweet Angel, You Deceived Me"
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It was raining, it was always bloody raining in London after September. It wasn't anything new, wasn't anything uncommon, but what was happening in the streets far below Big Ben that stood like a sentry overlooking London Town whilst the heavens poured made it unusual to him. Maybe when the mist hung low in the air, like it did now over the river, and if the gas lamps were brighter and you could see them from up high, London may well look like a mysterious and ghostly city but the sad truth of everything was, and still is, London doesn't need mist and fog with the ethereal lights of gas lamps to be mysterious and ghostly because of the reality of the city itself is more than ghostly enough. Death hides in the alleys here, behind the wooden doors of worn pine and tarnished oak, it whispers to the vulnerable and made them commit ungodly attacks, slicing and cutting and killing and it was so obvious as to who it was that sometimes the reality is by far worse than imagination. In fact, imagination cannot even come close to the reality of the recent string of deaths that had been occurring as of late.
Nikola sighed as he overlooked the city, standing on top of Tower Bridge, and took a sip of the glass of wine he had 'liberated' from Parliament not half-an-hour ago. His eyes weren't focused on the city itself, they were internalised and looking back at what had happened in such a short time. The blood. John. Helen... Him. A monster.
John was Jacky-boy. Nikola had discovered that only days after they'd injected themselves with the Source Blood but he'd still been changing, his body adapting to his own unique response to the age old vampire blood, and he hadn't had the strength to confront his rival of love. Then he'd forgot. How had he forgot that? He didn't understand it really, his memory was almost infallible, since he'd been young he'd always been able to remember everything. Sometimes a gift and sometimes a curse he acknowledged, but it didn't explain why he hadn't remembered the truth of John until Helen had come storming into her father's Sanctuary with a tear-streaked face, picked up a rifle, loaded it and then declared to him, Watson, Nigel and her father that John was the Ripper. It had been quite a shock for them though, he had to admit. Especially for James.
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"Helen!" Gregory Magnus exclaimed as he spied his daughter careening through the door to his armoury. He hurried after her as Nikola, James and Nigel quickly followed after him. They all stood and watched in confusion and worry as Helen stoically picked up her favourite rifle without a word and began loading it. "Helen darling. What is it?"
Helen didn't reply to her father which automatically made the men more concerned for the young woman, not because she was a woman but because Helen never, never ignored her father when he asked her a question. They all quickly came to the conclusion that something very bad had happened to her and each of them felt an overwhelming need to discover what had been the cause of this 'bad thing' and introduce it to each of them, personally.
Nikola slipped past Gregory who glared at the Serbian Vampire, but Nikola didn't care for Gregory his concern was the woman who looked like she was planning on entering an all-out war which could cause her demise. "Helen." Nikola said softly, moving to stand next to her, close enough to stop her from doing anything drastic but not close enough to be inappropriate; he was a gentleman afterall. "Helen what is it?" Nikola carefully reached out a hand and lightly placed it on the rifle barrel which drew Helen's attention.
She slowly raised her eyes to meet Nikola's own, watery-blue meeting with steely-grey, and she stopped loading the rifle as she stared. Nikola waited, knowing that Helen would tell him when she sorted it all out in her mind. "John's the Ripper."
There was silence, a quiet gasp from James and raised eyebrows from Nigel and Gregory but nothing from Nikola. He didn't breath. He couldn't take a breath. He couldn't act surprised by the news, he didn't know how he could do that right now. There was no way he could fake being surprised by news that a part of him had already known.
"What? Helen are you certain?" James demanded, his voice low and unmistakably ragged. The doctor stepped closer to Helen and stared at her face intently as Helen's eyes drifted from Nikola's onto James' own.
"He broke a young prostitute's neck right in front of me James. I'm quite certain of the fact; especially since he happily confessed all his deeds to me before ending the poor girl's life." Helen snapped, her words sharp and fresh tears forming in her eyes which she refused to let fall.
Nikola stared at Helen, not really seeing her, he was seeing something from the past. Something that for the life of him he couldn't really recall in anything other than vague detail. He heard James speak. "But we would have seen signs. Nikola would have picked up on him, he was looking for the Ripper afterall. If Nikola didn't know it was John then it can't be!"
Helen turned to look at Nikola and noticed that he was staring, unblinkingly, at her but he wasn't seeing her. He was seeing something else and Helen had a strange feeling in her gut as to what it was. "Nikola?" She said softly as she reached out and placed a hand lightly on his forearm, the action was quite inappropriate but she didn't care; Nikola was somewhere else and she wanted him back with her. She needed him.
As Helen laid her hand on Nikola's forearm the Serbian started violently and his eyes snapped onto Helen's own allowing her to see the emotions in them. Anger. Fear. Worry. Pain. Guilt. Sorrow. Oh heavens.
"Nikola. Did you know John was... t-the Ripper?" Helen asked quietly, as James switched his attention from Helen onto Nikola and studied him studiously. Nigel and Gregory were silent as they watched the 'interrogation' of the vampire.
"I..." Nikola blinked and frowned. "I think I did."
Helen gasped and let go of his arm as she stepped away, betrayal written all over her features and James advanced with anger written on his.
"You bastard! You knew and you didn't tell us!" James snarled and Nikola stepped back as the doctor advanced on him. He'd never seen James lose his temper, never in all the time he'd known the man, and now that he had Nikola didn't know what to do. Normally he'd 'vamp-out' and terrify his opponent until they were only fit for an asylum but this was James. He couldn't do that. And he couldn't fight him either. He was friend and he was angry at Nikola and Nikola didn't know what to do.
"I didn't know! I don't know but I do! I-" Nikola tried to explain, tried to articulate his thoughts as they flitted through his mind but he couldn't make sense of them, he couldn't slow them down. His translation of his thoughts was shaky and lacking when he needed it desperately. "I didn't remember until Helen said it!" He almost shouted in desperation as James pushed his so violently that his back slammed into the wall behind him.
"I couldn't remember!" He whispered, anguish clearly etched on his face and James paused as he stared at the younger man. "I couldn't remember it... why couldn't I remember?" James frowned as Nikola continued to almost whisper to himself and James realised suddenly that Nikola was telling the truth; he truly hadn't remembered until Helen had 'jogged' his memory.
"He must have discovered John not long after his change, when his body was still adapting." Nigel injected as the calm voice of reason and James stepped back from his friend so suddenly that one would swear that he'd been shoved back, but Nikola had moved. "He probably didn't have the strength to fight John at the time otherwise he would have, no doubt about that."
"Oh Nikola." Helen whispered sadly as she moved towards her Serbian friend, her oldest friend, and embraced him in a hug which he almost seemed to mould into as he rested his head on her shoulder. He held her tightly, burying his head into her shoulder – still whispering quietly to himself – and Helen carefully rubbed circles in his back trying to soothe him. "It's alright. This isn't your fault Nikola. Of course it isn't."
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'Of course it was.' Nikola snorted in contempt of himself as he sipped the last of the wine and lightly placed the glass on the wall which was the only thing separating him and a good sixty-foot or so drop into the River Thames. Of course it was his fault, he should have remembered. If he'd remembered then none of them would have felt such pain, such betrayal, he wouldn't have felt such pain.
Deciding that he was soaked enough Nikola turned and walked over to the door that would lead him down to ground level and opened it with a simple jerk of his wrist as he pulled on the handle lightly. He hurried down the steps, his shoes making a wet, slapping sound, on the stone steps and when he reached the bottom his straightened his coat and stepped out, back into the rain.
His walk home was quiet and uneventful as his mind thought back over what had happened when they'd all decided to try and find John, only to come up empty as they watched the man they thought they knew, teleport away to God-knows where. Nikola didn't understand how the man could have been so callous, so unkind to the people who cared for him; though he personally didn't care for the man, Helen and James and even Nigel did.
When he reached his home, which wasn't as luxurious as he'd had preferred it to be, Nikola quickly sneaked past his landlady's flat room, which was annoying enough situated right next to the main front door meaning that she always heard him when he was coming in late; though that was before he'd changed and stealth became a natural skill of his. Opening his door he entered his room and removed his coat which was dripping wet and hung it up neatly. His friends always assumed that Nikola's home would be a mess of papers and unwashed clothing but he was nothing if not neat when it came to his living quarters. He moved over towards the fireplace and quickly started a fire in order to warm the rather chilly room up before heading towards his armoire and taking out tomorrow's clothes; he liked to plan ahead when it came to how he looked. Then he picked up his bed clothes and moved to the bathroom he had all to himself started running a bath for himself; since he'd become a vampire the temperature of things had ceased to bother him so the fact that the water wasn't very hot was of no concern to him, all he wanted was to be clean so that he could rest.
He'd long since past the point where he required sleep, a good thing really since it afforded him more time for his work, but there were days when he enjoyed going through the motions of a bed-time routine and slumber for a while. He remembered how Nigel had assumed that he didn't sleep at all when he was still in the laboratory for over 64 hours without pause, but the truth of the matter was that, if he wanted to sleep then it would be easy to do so but he didn't require eight hours of sleep a night to function. Not that he'd ever needed that much when he'd been entirely human either but that's semantics really.
He drained the bath after he'd finished with it and moved over to the mirror in order to organise his hair; which, like the rest of his home, was organised in a particular manner that was unique to him. As of late, courtesy of his work with electricity, his hair had taken to being perpetually stuck up and so he had left it as such; as well as shaving his moustache which he had never really liked but Helen had challenged him saying that he couldn't 'suit' a moustache. He'd won of course.
Once his hair and such was dealt with he changed into his bed clothes, the loose shirt hanging loose as he neatly positioned the towels on the side of his bath-tub so as to let them dry efficiently. Nikola moved back into his room, not paying attention to the fact that the fire was now roaring when it technically should have died down a little, and moved over towards his bed. He paused suddenly as he became aware of someone else in the room, someone he should have noticed before now, and he whipped around fiercely as his claws extended and black bled into his grey-eyes.
"Hello Nikola." A soft voice said from the armchair near to the fire and Nikola froze in surprise. "I'm sorry if I startled you, I just wished to see you."
Nikola's claws retracted as his eyes returned to their normal grey and he moved across towards the armchair, choosing to settle himself in the armchair opposite to the occupied one. He watched Helen wearily as she lifted the poker in her hand and stoked the fire a little to keep it going. "Helen. Not that it isn't nice to see you in my home and such but, why are you here?"
Helen placed the poker down on the hearth and looked at Nikola with wide, dilated pupils. Nikola stiffened automatically and his eyes spied an empty beer bottle in her hand; why hadn't he smelt the alcohol? He sniffed the air and realised that Helen had burnt some herbs to cover the smell. 'Smart drunk.' He thought as Helen smiled at him widely. 'Smart, pretty drunk.'
"I wanted to see you." Helen repeated as she leaned towards him and Nikola could hear the traces of a slur in her words, it was slight and subtle but he was nothing if not observant at times. "I missed you." She smiled at him again, her dilated pupils running along the length of his body. "A lot."
"You saw me not an hour ago Helen." Nikola reminded her gently, not wishing to say anything that she could interpret... differently. He loved Helen, he really did, but she was drunk and, if he had to spurn her advances so that neither of them did something that they'd both regret, then so be it. "Now I think it would be prudent if I escorted you home Helen. Just allow me a few moments to change and I'll return you home." Nikola said as he stood up and moved quickly over to his armoire, picking out the clothes he'd been planning on wearing tomorrow.
He didn't see Helen rise from her own seat and, due to the crackling of the fire, he couldn't distinguish between the soft clacking of her heels on the wooden floor and the crackling of the flames as the wood burned. In fact, he didn't know Helen had moved until he turned around to come face-to-face with her. He automatically took a step back, but his back collided with the door of the armoire and he froze as she took a step towards him.
Helen bit her lower lip, still smiling at him, and Nikola felt the breath catch in his throat as he tried to do something, say something to stop her, but he couldn't! He was frozen to the spot and Helen was so very close to him, he was drowning in her scent, drowning in her. "I don't want to go home Nikola..." Helen whispered as she leant in and her lips hovered ever so close to Nikola's own, close enough for her hot breath to ghost over his flesh. "And you don't want me to either, we both know that..."
Nikola's limbs suddenly came free from whatever binding had been placed over them as Helen licked his ear seductively, and he scrambled away from her, his chest heaving as he drew in ragged breaths whilst he backed away from her. He didn't want this, well he did, but not like this, never like this. She would never remember but he always would and he couldn't handle knowing that. No. He would change in the bathroom and escort her home before anything else happened between them. As least, that's what he planned. He wasn't counting on Helen being more unpredictable than usual when inebriated.
"Helen!" Nikola exclaimed as she threw herself at him, causing him to drop his suit and wrap his hands around her waist as they fell backwards onto the hard wooden floor. Nikola's head connected with the floor and, though he was a vampire and pain wasn't that much of an issue, getting a wallop to the head had the same effect on him now as it did when he'd been human. He blinked several times trying to snap out of the daze the sudden meeting with the floor had caused him, but he wasn't fast enough – still, he got over it quicker than most humans would but still, not quick enough when one had Helen Magnus lying on top of oneself. "What... are you doing?" Nikola panted out as he felt Helen wrapping something around his wrists, it felt like a soft, smooth material and he didn't understand it; he could easily break out of any material now that he was vampire, did she think this would hold him... down for her?
Helen didn't answer him as she giggled and finished tying his left wrist. When she was finished he looked at his hand and saw that she'd restrained it, with a long piece of material running from one wrist to the other which she had in her hands. "Helen." Nikola said, trying to sound calm and in control but honestly he felt anything but. Helen had tied him up! Helen had come to his home whilst she was drunk! Helen was lying on top him grinning at him like he was edible! "Helen, untie me."
"Why? Can't you free yourself?" Helen challenged wiggling her hips a little making Nikola gasp at the feeling. Helen traced the length of the material along his left wrist, her fingers painfully light on his now sensitive skin, before letting her fingers trail the stitching of the bed shirt he was wearing all the way along his arm until she reached his chest where she paused. "Well... can't you get out of this or do you not want to get out?" Helen queried as she pressed her hand down on Nikola's chest, over his left nipple making him hiss and the muscles in shoulders flex; and damn his bed shirt for it being so loose that you could see his neck and part of his chest.
"Helen..." Nikola growled as he threw his head back against the floor, trying to stop himself from doing anything that could potentially harm his drunken friend. "Stop... please..." He pleaded as she slipped her hand underneath his shirt and began rubbing his nipple making him gasp and moan as he tried desperately not to writhe around on the ground.
"Don't you like this Nikola?" Helen whispered as she leant down so that her face was directly over Nikola's. "Haven't you been dreaming of this ever since you first met me Nikola?" Her voice became harder, sharper and Nikola hissed in pain when Helen twisted his nipple sharply. "Come now Nikola! You needn't lie to me now, I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not looking." Helen bit his lower lip hard making Nikola growl and jerk his head away from her. The urge to attack her, to defend himself was getting stronger but he was terrified that he'd kill her accidentally if he gave into it.
"Helen! Please! Stop I beg you..." Nikola whined desperately as he tried to cut through the material trapping his wrists with his claws but he couldn't, it wouldn't cut. Helen saw him trying to get free and she laughed harshly at him, her laugh ending in a hiccup as she tugged on the material causing Nikola to slice his own flesh leaving a jagged wound on his forearm.
"Naughty." Helen admonished as she began wrapping the material around Nikola's forearm on his left arm before moving onto his right until he could barely move his arms more than an inch and he realised that he couldn't break free of the material because Helen had tied him so that his own strength was the support for the material; thus making it impossible for him to free himself from. Only Helen could free him now and he doubted that she'd be letting him go any time soon. "I thought you liked me Nikola?"
Nikola's gaze snapped to Helen's and he gulped, suddenly realising that it didn't matter whether or not he was a vampire because, right now, Helen held all the cards and Nikola was at her mercy. Entirely. Deciding to try and manipulate his way out of his current situation Nikola decided to play along with Helen. "You know I do Helen..." He paused and licked his lips nervously, noticing how Helen's eyes darted down to his lips for a moment before back up to his eyes. "But I didn't think we'd be using restraints for at least another couple years m'dear. You'll have to forgive me for being surprised."
Helen stared at him for a long time and Nikola began to feel nervous, afraid and concerned, not only for himself but also for Helen. He wondered if she'd remember this is in the morning or if she'd forget it. If what his mind was screaming at him right now was going to happen then by God he hoped she never remembered. He'd be able to live with it, but she never would; she could never survive doing that to her friend.
Then she smiled. A small, seductive, slightly-drunken smile which made Nikola want to shout out for help but he couldn't do that to her. If he shouted out then someone would come and they'd accuse her of being a whore like those that John had killed- Oh God. She was here because she was upset about John. She had come to him, drunk and emotionally damaged because she was heart-broken about that bastard Druitt. She was sitting on top of him, smiling down at him as her hands ghosted along his chest, going lower and lower, all because Druitt had broken her. She was going to do something now that she'd forever regret if she ever remembered because he'd broken her heart. And she was going to do the same to him because she couldn't see how much he, Nikola Tesla, loved her.
He didn't want to remember it, he didn't want to be a part of it, so he closed his eyes and willed himself away. He willed himself back to when he was a child with his brother and family back in Serbia. He wasn't in the present in anything other than physical presence and that was all Helen needed wasn't it? Him, physically. She didn't need, she didn't want his feelings right now, so he was doing a good thing really, he was helping her wasn't he?
Helping her but killing himself in the process. But this was the Helen he knew, and he didn't want to be around this Helen if she was going to be around often. But he couldn't leave her unprotected, he couldn't leave her vulnerable to Druitt, so he decided he was going to make a device to protect her, to keep her safe whilst he ran away.
If she never remembered this night then she could call him selfish and narcissistic for leaving her when she needed him most, but by God he hoped that she'd think him selfish and uncaring because he could never bare to tell her what she'd done to him. Never. Not even if it meant he'd finally have her after a hundred and fifty years, he would never tell because her killing him now is bad enough, but him killing her with this knowledge would damn his soul and hers forever. And he loves her too much to do that to her.
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FIN
WTF am I on exactly? Seriously, where does my mind make this stuff up? There isn't a little section in my head called 'fucked-up works here' is there? :S
And I don't even know what the hell happened at the end of this, though I'm sure you can guess... damn I'm screwed up. Um... tell me what you think?
Kasey