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Just a little thing that wouldn't go away -_-;
Title: Lines
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Nigel Griffin, Nikola Tesla, mention of the Five
Summary: Nigel asks Nikola for a little help with a job
Wordcount: 1562
Warnings/Notes: Set sometime in the early 1900s, I think. Before Worth, but only just.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Lines
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Nigel Griffin, Nikola Tesla, mention of the Five
Summary: Nigel asks Nikola for a little help with a job
Wordcount: 1562
Warnings/Notes: Set sometime in the early 1900s, I think. Before Worth, but only just.
Disclaimer: Not mine
Lines
The bag was heavy in Nigel's hands, the gleam of leather and the soft slide of notes a happy counterpoint to the still-thundering of his heart as he lifted it up into the safe, and managed a smile for the completion of a job that had so very nearly gone south.
"You know, you really are being quite ungrateful, Nigel," Nikola drawled, leaning casually on the back of Nigel's armchair and fiddling idly with the bullet hole in his waistcoat. "Is this the thanks I get for stopping that bullet for you?"
"Ungrate ... You ass!" Nigel shot back, as belligerently as only Nikola could make him, fear and fading adrenalin putting a harsh snap into his voice. He looked over at the vampire and if it could have, his glare would have put another hole in Nikola's clothes. "There wouldn't have been any bullets if you hadn't snuck up behind me and scared me out into the open with them on-bloody-top of me!"
"You mean," Nikola corrected crisply, with a thin little smile. "If I hadn't snuck up on the other gentleman creeping up behind you and pointing his weapon at the patch of empty air holding the cash bag?" He raised a pointed eyebrow, a smug little expression that managed to hold for all of a minute before morphing into a boyish, excitable grin. "Besides. You can't tell me you didn't have fun. Just a little."
Nigel stared at him. Of all the ... "No," he said, as if to a small child. "I did not have fun. Bullets are all well and good if you're nigh on invulnerable, but for ordinary crooks like me, who, for the record, like their innards where they are, getting into a fight with one of the largest private security forces in London is not considered having a good time!" He scowled, stalking over to collapse into his chair, and pointing an accusing finger up at the vampire. "It was supposed to be a nice, quiet job. In and out. You were only supposed to be along to consult on those new electric alarms of theirs, not get us involved in a bloody fight!"
Nikola snorted. "Ordinary?" he asked, raising that eyebrow again. Then he grinned. "Besides. Don't lie. You didn't need me along for that. Those little things were ridiculously simple," he dismissed them with a wave of a hand. "Just a circuit. You could have played jump-rope with them, if you knew what you were doing. You wanted me along because that security force had you worried, and you wanted back-up, just in case." He smiled that dazzling smile of his. "Am I right?"
Nigel grunted, looking away so he wouldn't have to see the smug little smirk on the vampire's face. "Yes, well. The fact that anyone trying to put a bullet in you just to keep you quiet is doomed to disappointment had to come in handy someday. It's still no excuse for drawing their attention and almost getting me bloody killed!" His hands were shaking yet, fear and triumph mingling and slowly subsiding, and he didn't want to look at Nikola's face. Didn't want to meet the vampire's eyes.
"My apologies," Nikola returned smoothly, bowing a little into Nigel's peripheral vision. "Next time I'll remember to let the man shoot you instead, yes?" But his expression as he moved around to study Nigel was contemplative, not contemptuous, and the tone was needling, not offended. "You know," he mused, watching Nigel carefully. "I'm still not sure I understand why you decided to go after them. When you mailed me to ask about the new alarms, I didn't think you were going to use the knowledge to attempt to burgle one of the largest merchant groups in London. Or, for that matter, ask a vampire along just to make sure you got through ...?"
He tilted his head, the question obvious, and Nigel growled. "The swindlers were asking for it," he commented shortly. Feeling his hands knot into fists, and smoothing them back out deliberately. He knew all too bloody well his reasons for going after them. "They can lie and cheat their way into fortunes, swindle honest businessmen out of their livelihoods, and put the poor sods working for them in the gutter, and the law won't so much as look at them. And mark my words, tomorrow morning they'll have the bobbies down at the door, and falling all over themselves to help 'em in their hour of bloody need, while honest crooks like me ..."
He shook his head with a growl, standing so quickly that Nikola took a step back and stalking over to pour himself a drink. Ignoring the shaking in his hand that chinked the crystal against the glass, and the harshness of the gesture that slammed the bottle back on the desk. Wondering why he was explaining this to Nikola Tesla, of all people. To the man who'd probably do little more than laugh.
"I don't expect you to understand," he said at last, not looking at the vampire at his back, and some small part of his brain almost laughed at that, that the vampire should be the safe part of the evening's adventures, that Nigel Griffin should ever have come to this. "Maybe you're like Helen, even James, though he has secrets of his own. Maybe you think all thefts are the same, all crime the same. But there are lines." He shook his head, clenched his fist. "There's a difference between breaking into some nob's bank and taking some things they can well afford to lose, and ... and walking into some poor sod's business, their livelihood, and stealing it away while the bloody law stands beside you and laughs in their faces ... All because you have class, and money, because you're a respected businessman and can do whatever you bloody like ..."
"Such as take a young, foreign inventor under your wing," a soft voice cut in sardonically, and Nigel looked up to Nikola's razored smile. "Such as use him to completely revolutionise your systems, promise him all the money his work is worth, and when the time comes to pay, laugh in his face and tell him that he does not understand your country's sense of humour." Nikola shook his head, that smile still bright and strained as he looked at Nigel. "You'd be surprised what I know of 'respectable businessmen', Nigel," he said, softly. "You'd be surprised where I draw my lines."
Nigel blinked at him, nonplussed, and lowered his glass to stare at him for a minute. "I ... didn't know he laughed at you," he said at last, his hand half-extended in some odd, commiserating gesture. "I knew Edison cheating you was why you came to England in '85, but I didn't know ... You never mentioned that he'd laughed at you."
Nikola smiled darkly. "Yes, well. Forgive me for not wishing to invite even more ridicule. At the time, I was doing my best to forget about it, and fitting in at Oxford was hard enough as it stood." He smiled, sketching a self-depreciating little bow, and reached over to steal Nigel's glass and swallow the brandy himself in one smooth motion, handing it back with a glitter in his eyes like glass. "One country's elite are much like another's, I find," he finished, very quietly, and smiled as Nigel flushed.
"We weren't like that," he said, quietly. And meant it, fervently, for all he knew they'd fallen since. "I mean, yes, on the surface some of us ... but we were never like that. Not the Five of us. Not where it mattered."
Nikola smiled at him. A little crinkle at the corner of a vampire's eyes, and he reached out to touch the back of one knuckle against Nigel's glass, a tap that would have been a salute had he had his own. "Not where it mattered," he agreed, with a little smile. "Which is why it will not matter to me where you draw your lines, Nigel. It doesn't matter to me what you choose to do with your abilities." A slip back into that boyish, dazzling grin, and he finished: "Just be sure to tell me, next time, when I'm not allowed to start a fight?"
Nigel stared at him for a bit. Just for a second. And then he mustered up a grin of his own, and raised his glass in proper salute. "So noted," he said wryly, and tipped his head in offer: "And, you know ... the States are looking more and more friendly, at the minute ... if you ever want me to nip into Edison's safe one night, give the old swindler something to think about, courtesy of Nikola Tesla ...?"
Nikola laughed, loud and startled, and reached out to grasp Nigel's hand, to hold it with a vampire's strength and a friend's dizzy companionship, and Nigel found himself smiling again. Found himself grinning, warm with triumph shared between friends. Yes. They had never been like the rest, they Five. Their rules, their lines, had never been quite where the world said they should be, or even each other.
And, Nigel thought, if that let them do some little things to even the score somewhat, for the sake of a friend, or some little people the law was never going to help ... then it was all to the bloody good, and damn them anyway!
The bag was heavy in Nigel's hands, the gleam of leather and the soft slide of notes a happy counterpoint to the still-thundering of his heart as he lifted it up into the safe, and managed a smile for the completion of a job that had so very nearly gone south.
"You know, you really are being quite ungrateful, Nigel," Nikola drawled, leaning casually on the back of Nigel's armchair and fiddling idly with the bullet hole in his waistcoat. "Is this the thanks I get for stopping that bullet for you?"
"Ungrate ... You ass!" Nigel shot back, as belligerently as only Nikola could make him, fear and fading adrenalin putting a harsh snap into his voice. He looked over at the vampire and if it could have, his glare would have put another hole in Nikola's clothes. "There wouldn't have been any bullets if you hadn't snuck up behind me and scared me out into the open with them on-bloody-top of me!"
"You mean," Nikola corrected crisply, with a thin little smile. "If I hadn't snuck up on the other gentleman creeping up behind you and pointing his weapon at the patch of empty air holding the cash bag?" He raised a pointed eyebrow, a smug little expression that managed to hold for all of a minute before morphing into a boyish, excitable grin. "Besides. You can't tell me you didn't have fun. Just a little."
Nigel stared at him. Of all the ... "No," he said, as if to a small child. "I did not have fun. Bullets are all well and good if you're nigh on invulnerable, but for ordinary crooks like me, who, for the record, like their innards where they are, getting into a fight with one of the largest private security forces in London is not considered having a good time!" He scowled, stalking over to collapse into his chair, and pointing an accusing finger up at the vampire. "It was supposed to be a nice, quiet job. In and out. You were only supposed to be along to consult on those new electric alarms of theirs, not get us involved in a bloody fight!"
Nikola snorted. "Ordinary?" he asked, raising that eyebrow again. Then he grinned. "Besides. Don't lie. You didn't need me along for that. Those little things were ridiculously simple," he dismissed them with a wave of a hand. "Just a circuit. You could have played jump-rope with them, if you knew what you were doing. You wanted me along because that security force had you worried, and you wanted back-up, just in case." He smiled that dazzling smile of his. "Am I right?"
Nigel grunted, looking away so he wouldn't have to see the smug little smirk on the vampire's face. "Yes, well. The fact that anyone trying to put a bullet in you just to keep you quiet is doomed to disappointment had to come in handy someday. It's still no excuse for drawing their attention and almost getting me bloody killed!" His hands were shaking yet, fear and triumph mingling and slowly subsiding, and he didn't want to look at Nikola's face. Didn't want to meet the vampire's eyes.
"My apologies," Nikola returned smoothly, bowing a little into Nigel's peripheral vision. "Next time I'll remember to let the man shoot you instead, yes?" But his expression as he moved around to study Nigel was contemplative, not contemptuous, and the tone was needling, not offended. "You know," he mused, watching Nigel carefully. "I'm still not sure I understand why you decided to go after them. When you mailed me to ask about the new alarms, I didn't think you were going to use the knowledge to attempt to burgle one of the largest merchant groups in London. Or, for that matter, ask a vampire along just to make sure you got through ...?"
He tilted his head, the question obvious, and Nigel growled. "The swindlers were asking for it," he commented shortly. Feeling his hands knot into fists, and smoothing them back out deliberately. He knew all too bloody well his reasons for going after them. "They can lie and cheat their way into fortunes, swindle honest businessmen out of their livelihoods, and put the poor sods working for them in the gutter, and the law won't so much as look at them. And mark my words, tomorrow morning they'll have the bobbies down at the door, and falling all over themselves to help 'em in their hour of bloody need, while honest crooks like me ..."
He shook his head with a growl, standing so quickly that Nikola took a step back and stalking over to pour himself a drink. Ignoring the shaking in his hand that chinked the crystal against the glass, and the harshness of the gesture that slammed the bottle back on the desk. Wondering why he was explaining this to Nikola Tesla, of all people. To the man who'd probably do little more than laugh.
"I don't expect you to understand," he said at last, not looking at the vampire at his back, and some small part of his brain almost laughed at that, that the vampire should be the safe part of the evening's adventures, that Nigel Griffin should ever have come to this. "Maybe you're like Helen, even James, though he has secrets of his own. Maybe you think all thefts are the same, all crime the same. But there are lines." He shook his head, clenched his fist. "There's a difference between breaking into some nob's bank and taking some things they can well afford to lose, and ... and walking into some poor sod's business, their livelihood, and stealing it away while the bloody law stands beside you and laughs in their faces ... All because you have class, and money, because you're a respected businessman and can do whatever you bloody like ..."
"Such as take a young, foreign inventor under your wing," a soft voice cut in sardonically, and Nigel looked up to Nikola's razored smile. "Such as use him to completely revolutionise your systems, promise him all the money his work is worth, and when the time comes to pay, laugh in his face and tell him that he does not understand your country's sense of humour." Nikola shook his head, that smile still bright and strained as he looked at Nigel. "You'd be surprised what I know of 'respectable businessmen', Nigel," he said, softly. "You'd be surprised where I draw my lines."
Nigel blinked at him, nonplussed, and lowered his glass to stare at him for a minute. "I ... didn't know he laughed at you," he said at last, his hand half-extended in some odd, commiserating gesture. "I knew Edison cheating you was why you came to England in '85, but I didn't know ... You never mentioned that he'd laughed at you."
Nikola smiled darkly. "Yes, well. Forgive me for not wishing to invite even more ridicule. At the time, I was doing my best to forget about it, and fitting in at Oxford was hard enough as it stood." He smiled, sketching a self-depreciating little bow, and reached over to steal Nigel's glass and swallow the brandy himself in one smooth motion, handing it back with a glitter in his eyes like glass. "One country's elite are much like another's, I find," he finished, very quietly, and smiled as Nigel flushed.
"We weren't like that," he said, quietly. And meant it, fervently, for all he knew they'd fallen since. "I mean, yes, on the surface some of us ... but we were never like that. Not the Five of us. Not where it mattered."
Nikola smiled at him. A little crinkle at the corner of a vampire's eyes, and he reached out to touch the back of one knuckle against Nigel's glass, a tap that would have been a salute had he had his own. "Not where it mattered," he agreed, with a little smile. "Which is why it will not matter to me where you draw your lines, Nigel. It doesn't matter to me what you choose to do with your abilities." A slip back into that boyish, dazzling grin, and he finished: "Just be sure to tell me, next time, when I'm not allowed to start a fight?"
Nigel stared at him for a bit. Just for a second. And then he mustered up a grin of his own, and raised his glass in proper salute. "So noted," he said wryly, and tipped his head in offer: "And, you know ... the States are looking more and more friendly, at the minute ... if you ever want me to nip into Edison's safe one night, give the old swindler something to think about, courtesy of Nikola Tesla ...?"
Nikola laughed, loud and startled, and reached out to grasp Nigel's hand, to hold it with a vampire's strength and a friend's dizzy companionship, and Nigel found himself smiling again. Found himself grinning, warm with triumph shared between friends. Yes. They had never been like the rest, they Five. Their rules, their lines, had never been quite where the world said they should be, or even each other.
And, Nigel thought, if that let them do some little things to even the score somewhat, for the sake of a friend, or some little people the law was never going to help ... then it was all to the bloody good, and damn them anyway!
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