A short, funny Crack!Fic that wouldn't leave me alone when I'm supposed to be working. Curse these rampant plot bunnies! :D The Latin is probably wrong as I used a translator, apologies for that. Thanks for reading, thanks to those who reviewed, and please enjoy!
Disclaimer: Sanctuary and everything affiliated to it does not belong to me.
Love Meter
Helen followed Nikola through the labyrinth, shooting an annoyed scowl at his back for that 'you still like me, it's so obvious' comment. She sniffed mentally. Helen was simply worried about Nikola possibly dying in the tunnel before she could reach his key, yes, that was it.
Her scowl disappeared when she actually thought of Nikola dying. A nameless part of her lurched at the thought. It wasn't her heart, truly it wasn't, it was probably some other organ in her ribcage.
And he said it again. That word. Love.
Helen shook her head, watching Nikola from behind. He hadn't changed since she'd known him. Still hard to read as ever.
Nikola's coat swished as he came to a stop, turned, and presented what appeared to be a spyglass embedded in the wall.
Shrugging off her backpack, Helen pressed some controls and the spyglass extended. She glanced up into Nikola's eyes. They stared back at her with that same serious look as when he told her that he had always loved her down in the catacombs in Rome. The same intensity in his eyes that made her inconspicuously swallow.
Helen bent to look into the spyglass and she momentarily marveled at the ancient vampire technology. Eye-scanners, way before technology came to the rest of the world. Helen found it ironic that it was Nikola, a vampire descendant, who had, for the most part, done it.
The door to her right slid up.
Helen glanced into the large room and saw nothing but two small pedestals low on the ground, some distance from each other. She looked back at Nikola, and ignored the way his eyes snapped from admiring her backside up to her eyes. "Not much of a test."
Nikola raised his hands and grinned at her. "You're a total daddy's girl." He swaggered, following her into the room, but suddenly spun around as the door slid down behind him. "Helen..."
The two glanced at each other and Helen rolled her eyes at Nikola's saucy waggling of his eyebrows. A remark about how they were trapped, alone, in a room dancing on the tip of his tongue. Helen turned and said, "All right, father."
She moved toward the pedestals and saw with confusion her name clearly stated on one while the other bore Nikola's name. Methodically checking all sides, Helen frowned as she looked down at the small short pedestal on the dirt floor. She wondered if she should step onto it.
Nikola cleared his throat smugly. "Well, it looks like you really needed me, right Helen?"
"Just shut up and step on it," she snapped, confused enough as it was without Nikola's constant remarks. She followed suit and as soon as both their weights were on the pedestals, they sunk with a grinding noise and then began to move sideways, jostling them, and pulling Nikola and Helen closer. Helen frowned and turned toward him, watching him hopelessly as Nikola merely spread his arms as if welcoming her into them the closer they got.
When the two pedestals brought them to stand face-to-face, they connected with an audible click. Nikola meanwhile, settled his arms comfortably around Helen, smirking down at her. "Now this, I like very much. Why couldn't this test be mine?" His voice was silky low murmur.
Helen scowled and squirmed out of his hold. "This can't be my test," she protested, slapping Nikola's hands away as they tried to massage her back.
A small slender obelisk cranked out of the floor, rising up directly in front of them. What looked like a thermometer was embedded in the middle. The words 'amor modus' were carved on the obelisk face.
"Does that say what I believe it says, because unless my Latin is rusty, which I highly doubt, it says - "
"Love measure," Helen cut him off. Her eyes took in the apparatus in front of them and her breathing picked up. Of all the – Why would one of the greatest species in history have one of these? She braced herself as Nikola's genius mind connected the dots.
"A love meter!" he exclaimed gleefully, almost like a small boy hopping up and down in excitement. Nikola couldn't stop his low chuckles. He hadn't been this genuinely amused since the time he had pushed John under a hanging mistletoe plant that another man had been standing under at the time. It was even funnier watching their awkward faces as he needled them to obey tradition, with Helen giggling beside him.
Raising an eyebrow that seemed to possess a mischievousness of its own, Nikola looked at her and licked his lips. "Well, well Helen. It seems like your father really did like us as a couple."
Helen sputtered, a first in her long life. "This...this has to be some mistake! My father wouldn't..." She trailed off , looking accusingly at Nikola. "Did you do this, Nikola? On one of your previous visits here?"
Nikola laughed incredulously, enjoying this moment so much it tickled inside. He laid a hand on his chest innocently. "Me?" He chuckled. "Helen, we both saw what you had to do to get in here, and unless I somehow managed to synthesize a fake eyeball of yours, this was all your father's idea."
Helen's mouth was agape in an 'O' of horror and disbelief. She looked up as if glaring at her father and wondering what the bloody hell he was thinking.
"Well," Nikola cleared his throat, but couldn't wipe the grin off his face as he faced her. "Shall we?"
Helen turned to him, incredulous.
"I'll take that as a yes."
Nikola's hands came to rest on Helen's hips possessively and drew her closer. He had waited literally years for this, granted not in this way, but when it came to stolen moments with Helen, Nikola was a greedy opportunist. He didn't give Helen a chance to protest as he swooped down and captured her lips.
Helen gave a muffled protest, but Nikola's hands were like clamps. They crushed her to him and his sensual lips passionately coaxed a response from hers.
This kiss was different from that stolen one in Rome. There was some undefined emotion behind Nikola's slow kiss and Helen began to wonder, before giving in to the swirling feeling erupting in her stomach. It seemed so unnatural, so forbidden, this kiss between them, but then why, Helen registered vaguely, did it feel so right?
Nikola tilted her head up, deepening the kiss, relishing the taste, the feel, the shuddering sensations skittering up his spine.
A humming sound dimly registered in their minds, but Nikola dismissed it in favor of savoring the warm feel of Helen's lips while Helen wasn't certain of hearing anything but the blood rushing through her ears and Nikola's hands delving beneath her leather coat and sweeping over her back and down her sides.
Helen let out a breathy moan at the expert twist of Nikola's lips before her eyes abruptly popped open (when had they closed?) and she pushed him away suddenly. Her face flamed in mortification. Did she just moan? Oh God. What was she doing?! Helen shot a quick sideways glance at the man whose lips practically rendered her boneless.
He looked equally affected. Nikola's mouth was parted and his eyes glazed over. His hands were still extended as if he wanted nothing more than to drag her back into his arms and kiss her over and over again.
A part of her wanted that too. Helen's mind screamed at her traitorous body, furiously scolding her heart for wanting such things. This isn't the time for that, her mind logically shouted while her heart cried, more please!
Helen looked at the meter in front of them, flushing as she noticed a red line had filled the thermometer all the way to the top. That in turn, had activated another pedestal to rise out of the ground, this time holding a bowl of sand.
Stepping off and walking quickly over, Helen hid her trembling hands and tried to overlook the tingling in her lips. Nikola's kiss had shaken her. Damn him.
"Two by two. All right." Her voice was shaky. She started to write in the sand, only to have the room start to shake. Helen took a deep breath, ignoring the recovered smirking vampire, purposely licking his lips, sauntering up beside her. "Two times two, two plus two, two to the power of two and therefore four." She cocked her head. "That is too easy."
Nikola hummed an agreement, but made no effort to help her. This was her test, after all. Instead, he leaned on the pedestal, close enough to feel the warmth off her, and propped an elbow on the stand, resting his chin. His eyes watched her avidly, roaming over her facial features, lingering on her slightly swollen lips. Nikola gave a smirk of pure masculinity.
"Two by two, two by two," Helen murmured to herself, trying not to be affected by Nikola closeness. "It's not an equation, it's a reference. Noah's ark, right? Your favorite metaphor for your work." She closed her eyes against Nikola's stare. "Right, so what's the permutations of abnormal life? They're endless," Helen answered her own question. "Therefore, it's infinity, right." Opening her eyes, Helen repeated, "Infinity." And a sure finger drew the looped shape in the sand.
A key rose out and Helen smiled brilliantly at Nikola, who grinned back at her.
"You're so hot when you're being brainy," he murmured. "Want to share a kiss in celebration?" Nikola straightened and started to lean toward her.
The door slid open to the view of rocks falling from the ceiling.
Helen gasped and Nikola turned to see the same sight. He tsk-ed, inwardly disappointed at not getting a second kiss. "Looks like someone screwed up. Probably that Griffin girl. Or Johnny went psycho again and killed James." He pouted at her. "So, no kiss?"
"Unfortunately Nikola, we do have to save the world." Helen ran out, grabbing her backpack.
"Right, right. Save the worl- Wait, unfortunately? Helen, what do you mean by that? Helen!" Nikola called, running off in pursuit of the only woman he could ever love.
Maybe he'd get that second kiss, after all.