On the third day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

Three French Hens

Romance/Humour

London, 1921

Helen had traipsed down into the chill air of the cellar to find him, wrapped up in her silk house robe and wishing she'd taken the five minute walk to the front door to pick up her coat instead. Though positively refreshing in the summer, the Sanctuary's cavernous wine store was hardly the sort of environment in which one would chose to linger on such a bitter, frost-laden night. Only a creature entirely unconcerned with the thought of catching their death would possibly do so of their own free will, when the chances of warming up in the rest of the house were so drastically reduced. Though, as it was filled to the brim with over seventy years' of quality wine, Tesla might just have braved the cold even if he had been more susceptible to the elements.

He'd burst through the front door just under a week ago now, making good on her invitation to swap the bite of Egyptian sand-storms for English north-winds, and celebrate Christmas with them here. In all honesty, she hadn't been sure he'd accept, but she suspected that the discovery of a palatable local antelope notwithstanding, his unplanned jaunt into the wilderness had exhausted him more than he was prepared to let on.

Not that you could've guessed from the brusque way he had swept in, arms full of "presents" – which had equated to experiments, mostly, that he had taken up half the lab with. Still, it had been a pleasure to see that ridiculous boyish grin of his, and more than entertaining to watch James' expression flip-flop between intellectually fascinated and a tolerance tested to its limit. Even if it sent a paranoid chill through her bones every time Tesla made some lewd insinuation, that James would finally put two and two together, and realise the vampire wasn't entirely speaking from mere wishful thinking.

See, the problem was that after arriving with such aplomb Nikola had gone suspiciously quiet. So much so that Helen rather suspected he was up to something… and a scheming Tesla, was a dangerous thing to leave lying around. So she had gone in search, and somehow, somewhere along the line he'd convinced her into cracking open a rather expensive bottle of 1856 Latour from her father's collection.

"And instead of hiding in one of the secret corridors, you just… let yourself get caught?" she questioned sceptically, leaning a little closer as they discussed the 'incident' as they were now calling it.

"Well," he hummed on an outward breath, continuing to swirl the wine in his glass as his eyes flitted up to fix on hers with a lopsided smirk, "not everyone is as fond of small, intimate, spaces as you are Helen."

The heat in his voice packed an unavoidable punch, despite the sidestepping of her perceptive analysis with a gallingly obvious allusion to their last exploration in Khufu's temple of knowledge. She shook her head disapprovingly but couldn't repress the smile as she remembered their accidental discovery of the little hall.

Clearing her throat a little and raising an eyebrow she managed to look him in the eye again, the blush of her cheeks being the only sign of her now awakening arousal, "You weren't complaining yourself, if I recall."

He shrugged, eyes sparking conspiratorially over his glass as he leant against the wine racks, "Apparently even dusty old corridors have their uses."

"Such as providing conveniently compromising situations?"

"Precisely," his expression warmed; a knowing look that made her insides taut and her teeth start to worry her bottom lip. "I mean, how long might it have taken otherwise Helen, before you gave in to the inevitable attraction between us?"

She chuckled abruptly, whatever point she had intended to make about their original topic of conversation completely forgotten. "Dear lord."

She studiously avoided his cheeky leer with her nose in her wine glass, a more difficult task than might sound since they had drifted together. They were little more than a couple of inches away from knocking heads, a fact which had not escaped Nikola's notice in the momentary pause.

"Helen?"

The softness of his voice made her glance up immediately, and her heart quicken in response. Whatever was coming next, he couldn't quite keep his enthusiasm for it from seeping into his expression, even as he dragged the moment out into the most delicious anticipation.

"You should look up… just a little higher."

Frowning quizzically in a most endearing way, Magnus tilted her head a little more, angling to catch a glimpse of the cellar ceiling and completely clueless as to what sight might await her. She certainly didn't expect the pale white berries and small green leaves dangling above them.

"Mistletoe?" widening her doll-like eyes, she barely had chance to open her mouth again, much less pass comment, before his lips caught hers and they were kissing. What a kiss, so malleable and yet insistent, raising every hair upon her arm, coaxing her body closer until her hand had thoughtlessly drifted to the back of his head.

The touch of her fingertips teasing along his scalp made Nikola hungry for more. He dared to caress her side, pull her in by the waist, teasing her mouth open for a taste. It was all he'd wanted to do since he'd walked through the Sanctuary door: oh how many times he had nearly pulled her into the corridor, to press against her impatiently and demand that they finish what they'd started. It was a never-ending stream of unfinished business, thoughts and feelings that got beneath his skin and played upon him when he least expected it to. The mistletoe was simply a harmless excuse. A tradition, he'd noticed, that Magnus clearly wanted to avoid as there wasn't a scrap of the parasitic love-plant to be seen in the entire house.

Yet reacting to his fingers, lightly tracing, teasing the small of her back, it was obvious that one would've been mistaken for thinking she had no desire to be kissed. She gasped at the sensation; her breasts pressing flush against him, growing warm in anticipation. Managing to somehow lodge her glass on the shelf behind him, she brought both hands into play, smoothing down the centre of his chest and toying absently with his tie as he continued to kiss her over and over again.

When her fingers started plucking at his waistcoat buttons he growled appreciatively, low in his throat and shifted from her now swelling lips, to track that familiar line to her pulse. She paused, like a fish caught on a cat's claw, acutely aware of the chill finger tugging the silk robe away, across her shoulder, and the descending path currently sending her flesh into flurries of excitement. As they reached the top of her clothes she leaned her head into his, revelling in the dextrous caress of his hand that seemed to deny the existence of two layers of fabric, and make her shiver as though she were already naked. Her hands clutched and smoothed across him, until he was looking at her again, the yearning, the desire in him laid bare for her to see. She reached up and drew him down into a kiss, pressing into him with renewed urgency that took him a little off guard, and tipped him back against the shelving making the bottles rattle violently in universal surprise.

She could feel him smile smugly beneath her mouth, and before he could catch his breath to tease she did something guaranteed to render him speechless. Pulling him by his belt she hitched his hips in line with her own, rubbing against the growing proof of his arousal as she undid the buckle. Now it was her turn to smile, as he sighed into her. Both of his hands started to hastily unbutton the fastenings at her back, craving her skin. He'd even managed to pry one or two undone before the smash of his glass hitting the floor reached their ears.

Helen jumped a little at the unexpected sound, and together they froze, every cell alert to the slightest movement. Their eyes met, Nikola's a little more unfocused than hers, slowly realising what the source had been and where, precisely, they were. He leaned in slightly, forcing her into the space between him and the racks, where she couldn't dash away as her body language implied she might. She wasn't getting away that easily, not now, not when he knew how much she wanted him.

It was the doubt, the self-consciousness, the awareness of what she was doing – what was she thinking? In the cellar, of all places? Hell, was it really wise to encourage him when she wasn't really sure that their encounters hadn't riddled their friendship with too many holes to stay afloat? Her skin was pulsing eagerly with the mere memory of his touch, her body remembering what it was like to be a part of him, and it was so carnal, so physical, she couldn't help but fear that there was nothing else tethering this… whatever it was… to reality. His progress backed her into the bottle of Latour, kicking it entirely onto its side and making her slip.

He caught her, just, though neither of them could save the '56 from its ignominious end. She slipped out of his hold as she steadied, her eyes thanking him, but her body reasserting its distance, even as it clutched a little too tightly to her reclaimed glass of wine, and tipped just a little too much of the ruby liquid down her throat in one go. Collar rumpled and tie definitely askew, Nikola could only continue to reel from the sudden change of pace, watching her lasciviously as he attempted to catch his breath. Back against the opposite wine stack she was eying him coquettishly over her glass, deftly knocking back another swig, and another. Delaying tactics, thought Tesla, trying to figure her out.

It was also making her a little tipsy… though Helen was probably going to be the last person to admit that. The alcoholic fire that Nikola had long since said goodbye to, started to prickle her insides, and numb her inhibitions one by one. That's what she was going to blame for the fact that she could practically feel him undressing her with his eyes as he approached.

Trying, and all but failing, to rein-in his most irascible smirk before it gave away his intention, his long hands swept the last remnants of the wine from her grasp and out of her reach.

She pulled a harassed face, refusing to give him the satisfaction of reaching for it, and he merely made a pointed expression in return. "Nikola," She warned.

"Helen I'm shocked," he admonished, sipping on the wine and never dropping the self-satisfied grin, "you know better than to knock back a Latour as if it were gin."

For a second she thought she spied a chink in his defence and made her move, only serving to loosen her dress a little more as she lunged, and give him a peek of the lacy top of her camisole. Whipping the glass up nearer his head he watched, with nothing but pure unadulterated glee, as she was forced to steady herself with a hand against his chest and lean against him.

His lips parted, hesitating as their eyes met and his heart sped. Slowly but surely she came even closer, so that he thought for a moment that the same organ beating so furiously only seconds before had suddenly died. He couldn't be less sure about anything right now, than what she would do next, and the suspense was doing things to him that surely, couldn't be natural. Even so, Helen couldn't quite close the gap between them and make her move. She hovered, less than an inch away, and when he closed that barest distance, wrapping her in his embrace, he could've sworn she'd shuddered in relief.

Slipping her out of the top half of her dress he relished the glance of satin and lace, meeting seamlessly with her skin, practically drinking in the sight of the intimate layer now exposed to him. Drawing tight circles around her taut breasts, he quickly tugged at the shoulder straps so that he could finally graze and knead the tender skin itself. She sagged against the rows of bottles, sinking into his ministrations and tugging at his jacket, as his fingers ventured up her bent knee and above the line of her stockings, to the suspenders holding them up. Unclasping them, the back of his knuckle teased a line against that untouchable inner thigh, rolling her stockings down, and firing darts of pleasure into her core.

She made an appreciative sound, rubbing her leg against him in encouragement, rolling her fingers through and messing up his hair until it stood on end as rigidly as if it'd been shocked. The static between them was growing with the friction, as he found his way to a far more intimate part of her body, and started to rub, slowly along the already heavy bud. Her body twitched at the intrusion, nerve-endings crackling at this rare addition to their encounters. Rare for the fact that they were usually too fast, too eager, to languish and tend to each other's pleasure, lest one or the other decide restraint might be wiser after all.

His grasp of her sensitivities, however, was particularly acute. As if he'd made a study of every gasp, every sigh, every half-vocalised moan to locate precisely where to direct the exact combination of pressure and speed to maximum effect. Her body was practically singing in concert, before he even pressed his fingers inside of her, building it into something perfectly designed to unshackle her from all reserve and cry out her elation.

"Dear God," she gasped, reaching out for something to hold onto and failing to find purchase on anything but dusty glass as she grew nearer to the precipice. He smiled knowingly at her, more than gratified to know he was having such a beauteous effect; that the red of her cheeks, and the slickness at his fingers was his doing. He leant his forehead against hers, feeling her breath as it quickened and hitched with his movements.

She shifted in syncopation, urging him on, unable to concentrate on anything but the ceaseless assault currently enveloping her, completely unaware of the bottles slipping out of their lodgings under her desperate, wandering hands. Her body broke into a wave of unadulterated satisfaction, sweeping her in a roar from head to toe that left her shaking, and still half dressed beneath him. She felt, bizarrely, unsatisfied – as though it were only the beginning, and her body was eager for whatever spectacular sensation awaited at the end. The very instant she could form a cogent thought, she looked at him, with such depth that it quickly pierced the bravado of his achievement, and coaxed out of him a rather tender expression instead.

He kissed her gently, resolutely, and she started working off the jacket down his arms, and the still-open waistcoat underneath. She didn't care if he took her on the cellar floor, just as long as he made her feel that way again. From the press of his lower body rubbing against her thigh, she was sure that wasn't going to be a problem.

"Helen?!" called a voice in the distance, a distinct, and familiar voice, "Helen? Tesla?"

Everything came to a crashing halt at the sound of James' voice echoing through the corridor, into the cellar, both of them straining their ears to hear. A shot of adrenaline cracked through the haze of pleasure, starting to chase it away and replace it with anxiety. Explaining this to James could quite possibly turn out to be the most awkward moment of Helen's unusually long life – the thought of it alone was enough to mortify her. Almost as soon as she'd logged the tone and direction of the sound did she start to extricate herself from their entanglement, hastily reclaiming her hands to slip her clothes back into some semblance of order whilst silently, determinedly urging Nikola to do the same. Feeling little desire to be exposed to Watson, of all people, he didn't argue a great deal, but Nikola was clearly in no such hurry to be separated from her. Reluctantly he gave her the space to manoeuvre, along with a look of bitter complaint, which she, as usual, did little more than sigh at and ignore whilst concentrating on the bigger picture.

Then, rather worryingly, he started to smile and leaned in to whisper in her ear, "We could always hide."

She pulled a long-suffering face, "This is James, remember?" she dropped her insistent voice even lower, "He'd see though it in a heartbeat!"

"Helen, I know you're down here somewhere. The lights are on."

See, Helen managed to communicate without words, to which Tesla silently replied, Okay fine! with a roll of the eyes.

Readjusting her house robe she shook her head in amusement, at the sight of her lipstick, still smeared around the corners of his mouth. Slipping passed him before she got distracted in an attempt to lick it clean; she sped through the labyrinth of wine in order to head James off nearer the door. One look at Nikola in the state she'd left him and Sherlock Holmes would most certainly deduce the situation in a heartbeat. Something which Helen wasn't quite sure she was ready for. Not when she couldn't be certain whether steadfast old Watson was going to scold her as if he were her father, hate her like an adulterous lover, or admonish her as a friend, for not seeing the glaringly obvious flaw in her choices. Any which way, that conversation wasn't going to be particularly pleasant if it had been jumped on him, before he'd noted the little tells and give-aways, so that he felt the direct and palpable bruise to his ego of having missed the clues. And Tesla would, undoubtedly, never let him live it down.

She was so drawn into this consideration that she almost walked right into James, much to both of their surprise.

He looked down at her warmly, grasping the tops of her arms and keeping them together at arm's length. "There you are," he intoned archly, clearly assessing her distracted demeanour, the rumpled clothes, the messed hair, "just got out of bed?"

How she managed not to gawp at him and give herself away she'd never know - put it down to practice, maybe - but Helen simply shook her head in an exasperation she actually felt. "In a manner of speaking," she groused, "I was woken up, rather rudely, by the self-declared genius over there," she tipped her head briefly in Tesla's direction, "and he wouldn't stop bothering me until I'd agreed to share a bottle of wine." Starting to feel the cold she started to walk them both out of the cellar, "Expensive wine at that."

"You were sleeping in your clothes?" He almost sounded suspicious.

"Well I was," she turned back to him, "taking a nap…" a girlish awkwardness found its way onto her features, uncertain of whether or not she sounded wholly convincing, and managing to pass for sheepish, "an, unexpected nap…" she shook her head with a smile and shrugged, as if finally levelling with him, "I fell asleep at my desk again."

All too aware of how common an occurrence that had been since Tesla had left behind the transcript of the vampire temple's walls in May, James chuckled in understanding. He noted the way she scratched her fingers through her shortly-cropped waves of blonde, massaging her scalp from the headache the vampire had no doubt induced, and gradually allowed his primary motive for searching her out, overtake his habitual analysis.

"You might be interested in what I found whilst checking up on our resident Pteranodon." He revealed a silk ribbon that looked suspiciously like it belonged to one of the missing presents from under the tree, and Helen hardly needed to pretend that she was intrigued. It helped push all thoughts of Nikola's touch so far inside her mind that not even Watson could manage to detect it.

0 0 0

In the night, however, her subconscious had replayed the moment ceaselessly, leaving her yearning, and irritable, and mad at herself for even thinking about it. At breakfast Nikola, thankfully, did not appear – because when he did, the knowing looks he kept throwing her way left her skin prickling with anticipation. He was driving her absolutely, bone-achingly insane, and then, then, whilst looking for some wine for dinner, James discovered the missing bottle… -s, plural.

When he showed her the extent of the damage done to the oldest and most priceless section of their wine cellar Helen was genuinely surprised, and genuinely annoyed – albeit, not quite in the way dearest James presumed.

"Bastard," She cursed, ignoring James' wince at her language, and the fact that all the shattered glass she'd stepped over yesterday was now, mysteriously, cleaned up. It was almost as if the bottle from every missing slot had been devoured, rather than accidentally dropped – and she was rather horrified to realise just how many of her father's collection she'd managed to break during their encounter.

Practically fuming she stormed out of the cellar, James pursuing her out of curiosity as much as concern for her blood pressure. Tesla pushing his luck was nothing new, but even this was going a little too far. It made things unpredictable.

"Nikola Tesla, you are a dead man." She projected as she entered the library.

"You're welcome," he teased cheekily, before actually turning round and realising not only did she look as genuinely hacked off as she sounded, but James had followed in behind her. His face dropped to one of studious nonchalance, one hand still bearing the book of ancient vampire vocabulary as she stormed in, finger pointing ferociously.

"I invite you into my house, for Christmas, as one of my oldest friends and this-" she faltered slightly, her mind reminding her of the injustice of this little rant, no matter how good it felt, "this is how you repay me?"

Nikola had already pegged the situation for what it was, knew that James would be watching with expectations, deductions, that could obfuscate the truth if he played the hand right. He also knew that this is what she expected of him, even if a rather noisy part of his psyche wanted to say to hell with it and call her out, there and then. In truth, however, even he was afraid of where that road might lead.

"It was an accident." He stated with a lackadaisical sigh and wide, expressive hands, causing the most endearing look of surprise on Helen's face.

She'd expected many things, but for him to claim something so close to the truth had not been one of them. "An accident?" She even sounded disbelieving.

"Well, yeah…" he tried to look sheepish, but the wolfishness of his thoughts, lingering on her body, were far too evident.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you just trip onto an open bottle of wine and find it just, guzzled down your throat? Silly me!" she scowled, "I swear to God Nikola…"

James could barely contain his amusement, his eyes shimmering with smug self-satisfaction as she laid into him. For Nikola's part, he was finding it hard to pay attention when she had worked herself into such an attractive fury.

"Look I was finishing up that bottle of Latour you ran away from" his accusation stung just a little for the ring of truthfulness, "and I… leant a little too hard on the shelving."

"A likely story," James commented, leaning comfortably against the doorframe, arms crossed and enjoying the show.

"Did you or did you not drink half my father's wine collection?" she demanded, crossing her arms in a way which managed to unintentionally bunch her breasts together.

Tesla really couldn't find the words, even if he knew what to say.

"God damn it Nikola!" she moved to the corner of the room and, knowing what she was after, James was half-way into the room before he realised it.

"Helen," he cautioned, "I don't think that will really resolve anything."

"No – but it will make me feel better!" she posited coldly, as the metal of a gun met her hand.

"Helen!" James' eyebrows were almost in his hairline, the amused lilt in the corners of his mouth undiminishing despite the seriousness of what he was about to say. "As much as I hate to say it… it is Christmas." He glanced back to Tesla, who was watching like a hawk in case Helen really was about to go all out and fire a lead bullet into his body. Little as the momentary pain would ultimately matter; he did actually like this suit. "The last thing you want to do is make yourself feel guilty for the entirety of the holiday out of some misguided sense of having done him an injustice."

"Gee thanks." Tesla bit waspishly behind James' broad shoulders.

Watson ignored him, focusing instead on pressing softly into Helen's arms, reassuring her that though entertaining and not unmerited, her ire was hardly a productive solution. "I'm sure banning him from wine for the rest of the holiday will be sufficient enough to chasten him, won't it old chap?"

Smug bastard, Nikola thought to himself, hardly in a position to argue without ruining Christmas for all of them. Besides which, Helen was eyeing him with a devilish deviousness – as though James' idea held currency in more than the current situation alone. She was picturing his petulant, moody reaction to being deprived of this singular, yet ubiquitous vice, and enjoying the thought just a little too much for his liking. Minx.

Confident that Helen had been appeased by this suggestion, and that the gun at her side wouldn't be raised again – today at least – James mentioned something about dinner, and asked her to join him. Staring Tesla out Helen only distantly responded. Giving a faint assurance that she'd be on her way in a moment, James gave the briefest of nods and left them to it, his footsteps clearly moving further and further down the hall.

What could she say? She knew that he knew, that she knew, the truth… he had let her pass off her frustration as self-righteous fury, allowed her the pretence to save face. Surely he wouldn't believe how much she still wanted to finish where had been cut off yesterday? Surely it had crossed even his mind that this game they were playing wasn't going to end well, for any of them? She cared too much, loved them both too much, to lose them like that.

Resigned, she turned to leave herself, when Nikola's hand lightly grabbed her arm, his lips pressing briefly against her cheek. She glanced at a mischievous smile, before his voice murmured, low and sultry in her ear. "God you look hot when you're angry."

Standing a little taller at the tingle dashing down her spine she turned to him, watching his expression archly, as she half-heartedly wafted the gun underneath his nose. "I would still appreciate having a wine cellar to go back to…" She murmured closely.

An interesting thought skittered across his face, "Hmm," he whispered, "I can think of a better way to make it up to you."

Somehow knowing it wasn't going to be a replacement bottle of Latour, Helen pressed the barrel into his chest and halted his advance. Nikola's smile did not diminish one little bit. He merely eyed her, questioningly, sensing that this was merely a postponement, a rescheduling – and after last night's encounter he knew it wouldn't be long before their next.

Author's Note:

This was the reason you started this fic, wasn't it?

Mmm Kinda… :D

Which might be why it kinda sorta turned into this 5,000 word behemoth! (Sorry guys)

Three French Hens stand for Faith, Hope and Love: Personally I think the ever-hopeful Tesla, ever-faithful Watson and ever-loving Helen Magnus make for a perfect reflection of the three. (Even if I've woefully failed to convey it here) And besides I've been itching to prove my Teslen credentials and write something smutty!

For those of you bright buttons reading more than one of my stories, you may notice this incident is referred to in Love Me or Leave Me.

A big honour must be paid to Sparky She-Demon who not only inspired me to write Christmas things, and poked me through a kinda-complaint on 'The Iron Sea' to write more Teslen-y scenes, but who is also to thank for mistletoe making its way into this story. If you have no idea of what I speak – go read her fanfic Shadow Games, it's full of Christmasy giggles.

Update 01/01/13 - just typos - thank you to our guest reviewer for pointing it out! :) *big thumbs up*