AN: I kind of don't like John. Except I really do. Except I really don't. It's complicated. So is this fic.
Spoilers: For King and Country, also it's a bit dark.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sanctuary. I do own a Sanctuarwii. Oh, and the title is a line from "Mr Brightside" by The Killers because originally this fic was something else entirely.
Character: John Druitt
Summary: Adam's flat is cold from unuse, even though the weather outside turned to summer while they hunted him. John doesn't stay long, in any case. He never does.
Turning Saints Into The Sea
Adam's flat is cold from unuse, even though the weather outside turned to summer while they hunted him. John doesn't stay long, in any case. He never does.
He tells himself that he stays away for her protection. It's a lie, like all the others he's told over the years. He stays away because he knows she'll kill him if she gets the chance. And for some reason he hasn't figured out yet, he wants to live.
He haunts the battlefields of France, never really in danger himself but when there's that much death around him, life is easier. He can appreciate the carnage in a way that makes him sick. It's very nearly professional jealousy. His is a far more personal kind of monstrosity.
Skirts get shorter, but some things don't change.
He never did opiates when he was at Oxford. Was never even tempted, no matter what James said about the properties of cocaine. If he was still allowed to feel like a romantic fool, he'd say that with her he'd never needed them. He needs them now.
Something is very wrong with him. When he nearly died before (oh, how he wishes he'd died before), her blood had saved him, made him stronger than ever. That's when the killing began. It takes him a long time to make the connection, because she is the last good thing he was holding on to.
The only one he goes to see is Nigel. He'd have gone to Tesla, if the vampire was really dying, but it's the worst kept secretly faked death in the world, and John has no time for games. He offers Nigel peace, and somehow finds the strength to leave when refused.
Girls get smarter, and mace stings like a bitch, but there's nothing they can do once he touches them.
Asia welcomes him with open arms, and many of them, now that the world is small enough that a white man no longer sticks out of the crowd quite so badly. When he's on the drugs, it's like half of him is sleeping. He starts to wonder what it's like to be awake.
By the time he's come around to hating her, it's too late.
He's in Paris, which was a bad idea, when he first hears whispers of Ashley Magnus. He teleports to Nha Trang and does his best to let the ocean wash away his suspicions.
He is dying, of the old malady newly resurfaced in his old age. For the most part, he is glad. But the part of him that wants to linger over every kill, that wishes it could wallow in blood, that part is not ready to die. He forces restraint.
He loses control.
She hasn't changed at all, which terrifies him because she didn't shoot quickly enough last time, and she doesn't this time either. When she concedes, he suppresses the thought that it was too easy. If she can deal death, he will take it, and gladly.
When he feels death in his veins, he gives over to the monster and lets it carry him away. The blackness is settling in when Tesla finds him, and John is brought back to the world screaming for not having left it.
Irony is a real bastard.
Tesla has pushed down, but the last time John tried that the darkness emerged all the more powerful for its confinement. But his daughter is dead, and he does want vengeance. It will be only a few, a few small deaths very much deserved. That much he can manage.
When he wakes up on the operating table, he can sense her close by. He's so light, he thinks he might fly.
He takes it back without a moment's hesitation, thinking it will be easier the second time, knowing that it's not some of his own personal darkness brought forth by the Source Blood and augmented with her own, that's it an actual monster who might actually be defeated. This time he will be stronger, better able to fight.
He is wrong.
fin
AN: Thoughts about John Druitt, I have them.
Gravity_Not_Included, January 20, 2011