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Well, cat ficlet, anyway. Since they seem to be going around. *grins*
Title: Catch Cat
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Helen, Nikola, James
Summary: Set vaguely in the early 20th century. Helen really shouldn't have left Nikola alone in her Sanctuary
Wordcount: 780 ish
Disclaimer: Not mine
Title: Catch Cat
Rating: PG
Fandom: Sanctuary
Characters/Pairings: Helen, Nikola, James
Summary: Set vaguely in the early 20th century. Helen really shouldn't have left Nikola alone in her Sanctuary
Wordcount: 780 ish
Disclaimer: Not mine
Catch Cat
Helen had left Nikola to finish the wiring on his own, giving him the run of her Sanctuary for the job, with only James in residence to keep an eye on things. She hadn't, even at the time, thought that this was a particularly good idea, but she had been called away on an urgent errand, and there had simply been no help for it. She'd done her best to impress on him that she expected his best behaviour before she left, but with Nikola ... it was difficult to feel optimistic.
Which was why she was currently walking gingerly around the Sanctuary, her Sanctuary, the way a woman might were she expecting an ambush, or possibly an explosion. Largely because she rather was.
But what she found was ... She honestly didn't know. Really. She truly didn't.
Nikola was crouched in the corner of the medical wing when she found him, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, happily oblivious to everything beyond the copper and current beneath his hands, cheerfully playing with lethal voltage the way a child played in mud. Which was ... worrisome, admittedly, when he had all her Sanctuary beneath his hands, but ...
But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that around his neck ... She spent a confused moment trying to figure it out, to wonder if either he had recently made the unfortunate decision to experiment with fur cravats, or if his obsession with electricity had finally done something irreparable to his hair, and then ... then her mind finally made sense of what she was seeing. Then she realised what it was. And had to press her hand very hurriedly to her mouth to stifle the giggles.
"Is that ...?" she asked, very quietly, as she turned to James. James, who had been standing silently by the door, leaning against the wall and watching Nikola for who knew how long. James, who gave every appearance of having been there for quite some time, and not at all interested in moving.
"It is," he said, just as softly, looking up at her with shining eyes and that particular expression of his that said it was only by the heroic application of British reserve that he was managing to keep a straight face. "The Cait Sidhe from the last shipment from Scotland. They, ah, encountered each other about an hour ago, when we were doing the containment areas." His face twitched, a galvanic struggle going on for a moment, though reserve won out in the end. Mostly. "They glared at each other for at least twenty minutes. It was ... quite something."
Helen felt her own face twitch, fighting the grin. She could imagine. Oh, she could imagine. The phantom cat had been one of their more ... troublesome additions, large, belligerent and territorial, and not at all happy about being removed from its native Highlands. And it was very, very hard to argue with several pounds of annoyed spectral feline, which any number of her staff could produce the claw marks to prove.
Just as it was rather difficult to argue with several stone of annoyed, testy vampire, though as yet no-one had come to her bearing those claw-marks.
Well. Not physically, anyway.
"They seem ... quite friendly now," she noted, trying to tamp down the brightness in her voice. Watching the ghost cat knead its paws into Nikola's shoulders, watching him distractedly reach up to swat at it, sparks dancing around his fingertips, and then look up in blinking surprise when the creature made a happy yowl and started batting at them. Watching the startled delight in his eyes, and the wicked grin that spread across his features as he raised his hand properly, made the sparks leap and dance for his companion's amusement, smiling foolishly the while. Beside her, James made a vague, strangled noise, somewhere between a laugh and a cough, and his eyes as he watched the little scene were very, very bright. As, perhaps, were Helen's own.
"We should ... we should leave them to it," she managed, very quietly. Doing her very best to sound sure, to sound proper, when in fact she was anything but. When the last thing she wanted to do, the very last, was leave this little scene, and the sight of a grinning Nikola Tesla sitting propped against a wall, wreathed in wiring, and playing catch-as-catch-can with a monstrous, midnight ghost cat.
"Yes," said James, watching them and watching her, and fighting a losing battle with his smile as he leaned contently back against the wall, and made absolutely no effort to move. "Absolutely we should."
Yes. They should. They should absolutely move, right now, and leave them to it. Absolutely.
In just another minute, maybe. Just one more minute ...
Helen had left Nikola to finish the wiring on his own, giving him the run of her Sanctuary for the job, with only James in residence to keep an eye on things. She hadn't, even at the time, thought that this was a particularly good idea, but she had been called away on an urgent errand, and there had simply been no help for it. She'd done her best to impress on him that she expected his best behaviour before she left, but with Nikola ... it was difficult to feel optimistic.
Which was why she was currently walking gingerly around the Sanctuary, her Sanctuary, the way a woman might were she expecting an ambush, or possibly an explosion. Largely because she rather was.
But what she found was ... She honestly didn't know. Really. She truly didn't.
Nikola was crouched in the corner of the medical wing when she found him, in shirtsleeves and waistcoat, happily oblivious to everything beyond the copper and current beneath his hands, cheerfully playing with lethal voltage the way a child played in mud. Which was ... worrisome, admittedly, when he had all her Sanctuary beneath his hands, but ...
But that wasn't the problem. The problem was that around his neck ... She spent a confused moment trying to figure it out, to wonder if either he had recently made the unfortunate decision to experiment with fur cravats, or if his obsession with electricity had finally done something irreparable to his hair, and then ... then her mind finally made sense of what she was seeing. Then she realised what it was. And had to press her hand very hurriedly to her mouth to stifle the giggles.
"Is that ...?" she asked, very quietly, as she turned to James. James, who had been standing silently by the door, leaning against the wall and watching Nikola for who knew how long. James, who gave every appearance of having been there for quite some time, and not at all interested in moving.
"It is," he said, just as softly, looking up at her with shining eyes and that particular expression of his that said it was only by the heroic application of British reserve that he was managing to keep a straight face. "The Cait Sidhe from the last shipment from Scotland. They, ah, encountered each other about an hour ago, when we were doing the containment areas." His face twitched, a galvanic struggle going on for a moment, though reserve won out in the end. Mostly. "They glared at each other for at least twenty minutes. It was ... quite something."
Helen felt her own face twitch, fighting the grin. She could imagine. Oh, she could imagine. The phantom cat had been one of their more ... troublesome additions, large, belligerent and territorial, and not at all happy about being removed from its native Highlands. And it was very, very hard to argue with several pounds of annoyed spectral feline, which any number of her staff could produce the claw marks to prove.
Just as it was rather difficult to argue with several stone of annoyed, testy vampire, though as yet no-one had come to her bearing those claw-marks.
Well. Not physically, anyway.
"They seem ... quite friendly now," she noted, trying to tamp down the brightness in her voice. Watching the ghost cat knead its paws into Nikola's shoulders, watching him distractedly reach up to swat at it, sparks dancing around his fingertips, and then look up in blinking surprise when the creature made a happy yowl and started batting at them. Watching the startled delight in his eyes, and the wicked grin that spread across his features as he raised his hand properly, made the sparks leap and dance for his companion's amusement, smiling foolishly the while. Beside her, James made a vague, strangled noise, somewhere between a laugh and a cough, and his eyes as he watched the little scene were very, very bright. As, perhaps, were Helen's own.
"We should ... we should leave them to it," she managed, very quietly. Doing her very best to sound sure, to sound proper, when in fact she was anything but. When the last thing she wanted to do, the very last, was leave this little scene, and the sight of a grinning Nikola Tesla sitting propped against a wall, wreathed in wiring, and playing catch-as-catch-can with a monstrous, midnight ghost cat.
"Yes," said James, watching them and watching her, and fighting a losing battle with his smile as he leaned contently back against the wall, and made absolutely no effort to move. "Absolutely we should."
Yes. They should. They should absolutely move, right now, and leave them to it. Absolutely.
In just another minute, maybe. Just one more minute ...
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