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Gamesmanship, The Annotated Version.
Gamesmanship
[Going on the theory that Nikola came to England in '86 after the blowout with Edison, because seriously. A historical rivalry like that, you can't let it slide. Heh. I just ... wanted to see the Five's reaction. Well, Nigel's, but.]
Nikola always fought back. [Well, he does. Unless, sometimes, it's Helen. And even then ...]
Nigel liked that about him. Always had. Admittedly, 'always' here only covered the few of months since they made each other's acquaintance, so perhaps wasn't worth all that much, but considering what had happened in those months, all that they'd done ... [The Five strike me as having gotten very close, very quickly ... if only because fitting them all in Oxford post-Edison but pre-Ripper makes it kinda necessary, narratively speaking -_-;]
Nikola fought back when you needled him. Not like James, who past a certain point just got brittle and cold and dignified, leaving you feeling the worst kind of scum as he walked stiffly away. [James ... I'm riding a lot of fanon, with this. And also Revelations. Particularly that scene with James, Helen and the Big Guy, because James, when he knew something's coming, but couldn't stop it, drew himself up as best he could to take it ...] Not like John, who past a certain point just kicked your arse up between your ears for you, and had done (and, too, would do the same for James, once the man was safely out of earshot - it didn't pay to mess with either of them). [Let's be honest, when has John's approach to a threat not been to kick it ass over teakettle until it stopped? And from 3x08, he does seem to have designated himself protector the group, or at least the member entitled to menace people until they go away. And the way he is with James in Revelations ...] And not like Helen, with whom fighting on any level was not to be thought of, or all four of them would land on you, and her in the lead. [Helen, of course, is scary simply because she's Helen, and has this weird way about her of not only being able to kick your ass by her lonesome, but also being able to inspire other people to helping her - scary, scary woman]
But Nikola ... Nikola fought you back in kind. Every time. [He does. Friendly or in earnest, Nikola always comes back fighting - John, Helen, his sleeper vamps, Edison, the world ...] A shot across his bows got you a shot in the engine room back. A quip in his ear got you a smirk and a smug, neat little put-down without him ever raising his head from what he was doing. An argument with him could go all night, and never get past needling, childish slurs, while he grinned and raised that cocky little eyebrow of his. Nigel could open fire whenever he pleased, and be sure to get lazy, confident rebuttals right on back, until one or other of them had to concede with a smile, or Helen told them to be quiet already. [*smiles* And I thought it would be something Nigel would appreciate. He gives the impression of being a hard-spoken man, but one that appreciates if you can speak back in kind. If you can take your hits and give them back. And his and Nikola banter in 3x08 ... they know each other can take it. That's part of the fun]
Fighting with Nikola was fun, in short. Whether just between themselves, or on those increasingly rare occasions when some other arrogant snot picked a fight with one or other of them (mostly Nikola - you'd think people would learn), and they could casually bat the interloper's ego between them until whoever it was left with their tail between their legs. [Heh. I like the idea of the Five closing ranks against the rest of Oxford. All outcasts in their own way, coming together to knock the rest down a peg or twenty. Arrogant, childish, yes, but also ... kinda heartwarming, in its way] A wholly childish pastime, but then, there were times they were wholly childish men. Or Nikola was, at least. Catch him admitting different, would you? [*grins* Oh, so very childish, at times. The lot of them, actually. But perhaps Nikola more than most]
Point of it was, Nikola always fought back. Nikola never let anything more than skim his nerves before he shot it down with a grin. You could argue the man to a standstill every night for a week, and he'd never lose that smug, confident little smirk, the occasional brief flares of temper aside. [He never lets anything visibly knock him. He armours himself up in arrogance, and some of it's real, but some of it is that he'll never, ever let anyone see him be knocked down. Never let anyone see him weak]
So Nigel had absolutely no idea what had just gone wrong. He'd absolutely no idea what the hell had just happened. [Which is why, if he does, it's something of a shock]
One minute, they're casually letting fire back and forth over one of Nikola's new engines, the Serb with his head stuck inside the thing and paying Nigel about as much mind as he gave the sparks flying around his hands, John sticking his oar in every so often just to be annoying, and then ... [... Just randomly, but I seem to have a slightly different turn of phrase when it's Nigel's POV, and I'm not quite sure where it's coming from. Heh. But 'sticking his oar in' has a good ring to it. *smiles* And John does. John needles]
Then Nikola'd jerked upright. Then he'd stared at Nigel, shocked and bewildered, searching Nigel's face for something ... Nigel, still caught in the game, had simply stared smugly back, trying not to show his confusion, and Nikola ... Had frozen. Had gone as stiff and brittle and hard as James at his worst, gone as pale as Death with fury, and then ... Simply left. Simply stalked out, not a hard, glittering word to any of them, not one expansive gesture of temper. Nikola had walked out, his machine sparking fitfully behind him, and left Nigel staring after him, as stunned as the rest of them. [Part of this, of course, is that it's still so fresh to Nikola at this stage. Only 1886, which in RL he spent sunk in depression, so ... He's still relatively young, relatively unarmoured, and it's fresh. He can't fight just yet, so he leaves. Nigel just didn't know what he'd poked]
And for the life of him, Nigel had no idea why.
But he was going to find out. Oh, he was going to find out. And not just because Helen had glared at him as if she was two seconds from finding something big and deadly and not the first bit real to feed him to. [I still think most of the Five, this early, at least, when faced with Helen's world, kept feeling just a smidge of lingering disbelief - especially as men of science, Victorian men of science, dealing with what amount to ghoulies and ghosties. The exception might be John, who strikes me as more romantic than the others] Not just because James had looked after Nikola with something close to sympathy on his face, and turned to glare at Nigel reproachfully in that stiff, careful way of his. [James ... His pride strikes me as a fragile thing, in some ways, and he has ... a certain sympathy for others, when theirs is damaged, I think]
He was going to find out because the only reason he'd kept playing this game had been because Nikola wasn't hurt by it. Because the aim had never been to actually hurt the stupid bugger. It was fun, yes, and it had been an awful long time since Nigel'd had anyone willing to match him word for word at it, but the first sign that it was hurting the testy foreigner and he'd have stopped, the way he had for James. He may be an arrogant, hard-spoken sod, but he wasn't cruel. He valued his friends a bit more highly than that. [ ... I like Nigel. Have I mentioned? But he seems so ... bluff and forthright. Hard, but not cruel. Though his contempt, once earned, does seem potent ...]
He found Nikola by the old stand-by of heading for the nearest stash of wine they had on campus. [I've no idea what historical!Tesla's views on alcohol were, but I highly doubt Sanctuary!Nikola's love-affair with wine started after it stopped affecting him] He figured, not incorrectly as it turned out, that a genuinely hurt Nikola would head for something to drown his pain. In some ways, he and James were shockingly alike, though Nikola had yet to show signs of leaning towards James' mind-altering comfort of choice. Off his gourd, but probably not out of his head. [... borrowing from Holmes for James, of course. But ... I sort of get him. With James, it's less about mind-altering, or boredom, as it was with Holmes, but with it being the only way he can force himself to cede control, enough to let the feeling unspool] But still. Quite like James at times, with that sometimes-fragile pride, and Nigel could kick himself for not noting that sooner. Before he'd opened his sodding mouth, for example ... [To be fair, Nikola and James are not the two you instantly link, on first look. Except possibly in my case, as James and Nikola were the first pair I wrote in Sanctuary. Heh. I feel in love, sue me]
He found Nikola perched on a windowsill overlooking the quad, a bottle of wine tucked between his knees, one hand clenched around it in white fury as he heard Nigel approach. The man didn't look around, forehead pressed to the glass, and from what Nigel could see of his reflection, eyes screwed shut. [I have this thing about talking via reflections. It shows up randomly sometimes ...]
"Not now, Helen," Nikola growled, hugging the bottle to him protectively as if he thought someone was going to steal it from him. "I'll apologise for upsetting people later. Just let me ..." [Nikola's used to people yelling at him to do the apologising. Helen most of all, really]
"I don't think it's you Helen wants to apologise," Nigel said softly, and watched as Nikola startled upright, watched as the man turned to him with the same hard, defiant expression Nigel sometimes saw pointed at John, when Helen wasn't around to frown at them for their silent rivalry. [Nikola does have that expression, when he's going against someone who can legitimately hurt him. We mostly see it with John, because, well, John's usually the one legitimately trying] Nigel watched that expression turn his way for one joke, when a thousand hadn't budged the light, tempestuous humour of the man, and yet again cursed himself for ever opening his mouth. [And it strikes me as an expression you don't want pointed your way when you haven't earned it. And Nigel ... For some reason that I'm not completely sure of, Nigel strikes me as protective, and it wasn't his aim to hurt] But he still didn't understand.
"Well, I'll tell her you were by, then," Nikola offered, hard and cold. None of the fire and gesticulating of his usual temper, none of heat-flash-and-gone of even those times when it had been genuine anger and not a game. [He does that. With Helen in The Five, when she said they never liked him. With the others in Sleepers, with 'I hope you're happy'] Because it wasn't anger Nigel was seeing, here.
It was hurt. [*pets Nikola carefully*]
"That's not how this works," he said, quietly, moving cautiously over to lean against the wall beside Nikola's alcove and watch him carefully. "When friends hurt each other, what happens is the one who did the hurting comes and says he's sorry, and asks what he can do to redeem himself." He tried a small smile. "Even if he doesn't quite understand what he did wrong ...?" [Hard edged, but I've a feeling he's as honest with his apologies as he is with his contempt. Nigel just doesn't waste time on niceties, is all]
Nikola looked away again, expression still tight and defiant, and now with just a hint of something that looked like shame. "It's nothing," he muttered, curling himself further into his perch and raising the bottle to his lips, ignoring Nigel utterly once again. Petulant and defiant. [He's embarrassed. He's embarrassed by what happened with Edison, embarrassed to have his new friends realise what ... what a fool he was. Is, for still letting it affect him. So he doesn't want to explain]
"It's not nothing," Nigel snapped, with a hint of temper of his own, and reached out to tug the bottle down. [As I said. Nigel doesn't strike me as fond of wasting time. Impatient, in his way] Not away, mind, because they'd all learned pretty quickly that taking Nikola's alcohol was a sure-fire way to induce a genuine sulk, and Nigel was having enough problems with this conversation as it was. "Nothing is when I call you every dirty name under the sun, and you knock me down a peg or twenty with about two sentances in return, because we've done that a hundred times and it's never ... It's never done this to you. I've never done this to you." [And if he'd meant to hurt, Nigel would have stood by it, but he didn't. He didn't mean to hurt, and he needs to understand how he did, because, impatient or no, he doesn't want to do it again]
He stopped with a snarl of frustration, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Nikola was still resolutely ignoring him, which was something Nigel had never, ever seen the man do before, if only because Nikola seemed fundamentally incapable of letting stupidity go without vocally expressing his opinion on it. To see the man silent, to see him still ... [Heh. Like at the end of Sleepers. It's sort of frightening to see Nikola disconsolate, giving up. It's ... wrong]
"I'm sorry," he said, blunt and tired and as genuine as he knew how to be. "I figured it was a game, that you gave as you got, and had fun doing it. It wasn't aimed to knock you down. Never was. Never figured you could be knocked down. But it doesn't matter. I'll bloody stop, if that's what's needed. Only bloody tell me, you bastard! Tell me what I did wrong, and I'll bloody fix it!" [Again, I'm making a lot of this up out of whole cloth, but there is a hint, in FKAC, that Nigel believes in owning up, in making things right yourself. "Do it yourselves, you lazy squits". But again, mostly me making it up as I go -_-;]
Nikola said nothing. Pale and remote, he hugged his bottle to his chest, and said nothing. And after a minute, after waiting a minute ... Nigel gave up. Oh, not for good. Not by a long shot. But he gave up standing there, gave up waiting when the man was still so obviously upset and in no mood to listen to him. [Stubborn, yes, but I'm assuming anyone who spends any time around Helen learns pretty quickly about beating heads against brick walls, and why you shouldn't] He shifted to leave, meaning to come back later, possibly after cornering James and asking how a man apologised for ... for doing whatever put that glassy, breakable look in a man's eyes ... He moved to leave, and Nikola spoke up, quietly, never looking at him.
"The last time someone told me I did not understand their country's humour," he said, accent suddenly very thick, very tired. "They did so after having used me for months on the promise of a future, the promise of enough money to make my own way, that they never intended to give me. Because it turned out that the joke I did not get was myself. My own foolish hope. The humour I did not understand was their laughing at me." [Okay, Edison? Was a jerk! And for some reason, it's the using him first that gets me. Not just the breaking of the promise, but knowing all the while that you're planning to, and having him work for you anyway, stringing him along on the hope. It's ... the using gets to me. As much as the laughing, and the broken promise. It just ... Ugh.] He laughed, soft and dark. "My apologies. When you said that ... For a moment, I feared ... Never mind. I'm sure I will understand the joke soon enough." [*hugs Nikola* To reiterate, Edison was a JERK]
He looked over then, with a wry, bitter smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, and then blinked at whatever he saw in Nigel's face. Stared, at what Nigel could only guess was the echo of the rage suddenly boiling in his chest, the surge of righteous fury in his gut. Nikola blinked at him. [Given his status as a foreigner and the experiences that would have lined him up for, not to mention his ... somewhat testy personality ... I think Nikola is always a little shocked when someone is actually on his side]
"That's not a joke," Nigel managed, clipped and tight, feeling his fists knot, as if there were someone to hit. For a moment, he understood that little better the surge of darkness in John's face when James turned brittle and stiff, the urge to pound something that apparently took him over. For a moment, Nigel had every sympathy for the darkness in John. [There was always a touch of darkness in all of them. There always is, in most everyone. And I think ... they're all, in their own ways, protective of what matters to them. And they are none of them without ... a certain sense of justice, outside the law] "I would not ... I would never ..."
He wasn't that kind of man. He was not that kind of man, to give his word and break it, only to laugh at someone. To use a friend that way. He was not, nor would he ever be, that kind of man. And there was no apology good enough, if he had made Nikola think he was, and none whatsoever for this person, whoever they were, who taught him to expect it ... Nigel was a decent bloody Englishman, [This is ... That was a thing, in British society. Your word, your honour. It was a thing] and he kept his bloody word, and right then he was silently promising himself that the first time he met this joker of Nikola's, he was going to take a leaf from John's book, and plant a fist somewhere they'd feel it in the bloody morning. [And Nigel's not ... he's not the sort to let it go. He's not the sort to let it slide, not on general principals, and certainly not when it's his friend]
"I know," Nikola said, watching him with surprised appraisal. With a soft, almost rueful smile, and then the man held out the bottle of wine towards Nigel, a gesture of apology that Nigel didn't quite understand. "I didn't think you would. I was just ... Look, it's only been a year. I get a little ... Look, just forget it, will you? Just forget it, and we'll go back in and have a proper fight, make Helen stop worrying ..." [Nikola, of course, is back to being embarrassed at this point, and also touched, which only makes him more embarrassed. Again, he's not used to this whole 'on his side' thing]
He waved his hand, frustration and dismissal, as if he could command the past few minutes to go away by sheer force of will, and it was so Nikola, such a return to his usual tempestuous arrogance, that Nigel accepted the wine in sheer relief. Took it in the spirit it was offered, and watched the breakable thing in Nikola's eyes fade a bit above his grin. [Plus, he's a bloody resilient sod, and he seems to forgive ... well, most of anything, if he likes you to start with]
"Not on your life," Nigel shot back, just to test the ground. "If I so much as look at you wrong for the next few days, she'll skin me and feed the remains to something with far more teeth than any real animal ought to have. You can go pick fights with James for a while, mate. I'm waiting until the coast is clear." If it ever was. If Nikola wanted to play the game anymore at all. Nigel could stop if he didn't. He had for James. [I get the feeling that they all ... sort of tested each other, those early few months. Not maliciously, just ... finding the boundaries. And respecting them. Nigel would have stopped, for James. For Nikola, if he needed it. I think he would have]
But Nikola was grinning at him, now. That smug, taunting smirk, from a man that genuinely couldn't be knocked down, not for long, and it was the light of challenge back in his eyes, the spirit of gamesmanship that Nigel so admired. "Oh?" the scientist drawled, rich and needling. "Afraid of a woman now, are we, Nigel?" [*smiles* But they are so much fun when they're like this, bantering, teasing ... For some reason I've gotten awful fond of the Nikola/Nigel friendship, of late. Heh]
"Not a bit of it," he returned, along with the bottle. "I've an entirely healthy fear of Helen Magnus, which is another thing entirely. And you should talk, or are you going to do your cursing in English any time soon? I may not speak Serbian or Hungarian, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the meaning of some of those words yesterday ..." [*grins* And, of course, a healthy fear of Helen Magnus is a must. Plus. It amused me a little, to think of all the little ways they ... almost cut her out, a little. Part from ideas of what a woman ought to hear, but also in a way out of respect/caution]
Nikola laughed. "I'll start using colourful language in front of Helen just as soon as you and John do," he said, resting a friendly arm across Nigel's shoulders as they meandered back towards the lab. "James, of course, we shan't speak of, because the day James uses foul language in front of a lady ..." [James, of course, is perhaps the most Victorian of the lot of them, in many ways]
"Is the day the seas rise and swallow the earth," Nigel nodded, grinning to hide his relief, and feeling something relax inside his chest. Some tight, violent thing that had been ready to lash out, to break some distant someone (and if it was only a year ago, Nigel could already guess who) who had almost cost him a friendship. As they moved back into the lab, back into the circle of the Five, with Nikola grinning entirely unapologetically at Helen as if nothing he did required the slightest explanation, Nigel felt that hard, vicious thing relax. [Again. A touch of darkness, in all of them. And the surest way to provoke any of the Five seems to have been to strike at any other of them]
But not leave. Not quite. Because Nigel was a good, decent Englishman, and he kept his word, and from here-on, he owed some bloody American sod a good strong punch in the gut. And he'd get it, too. One day yet. For Nikola's sake, for the sake of a friend, he'd give Edison what was coming to him, one day yet. [And all of them, every last one, are bloody dangerous about it]
And what's more, he'd bloody enjoy it, too. [Which, in some ways, is what makes them so awesome. Heh.]
[End]
[Going on the theory that Nikola came to England in '86 after the blowout with Edison, because seriously. A historical rivalry like that, you can't let it slide. Heh. I just ... wanted to see the Five's reaction. Well, Nigel's, but.]
Nikola always fought back. [Well, he does. Unless, sometimes, it's Helen. And even then ...]
Nigel liked that about him. Always had. Admittedly, 'always' here only covered the few of months since they made each other's acquaintance, so perhaps wasn't worth all that much, but considering what had happened in those months, all that they'd done ... [The Five strike me as having gotten very close, very quickly ... if only because fitting them all in Oxford post-Edison but pre-Ripper makes it kinda necessary, narratively speaking -_-;]
Nikola fought back when you needled him. Not like James, who past a certain point just got brittle and cold and dignified, leaving you feeling the worst kind of scum as he walked stiffly away. [James ... I'm riding a lot of fanon, with this. And also Revelations. Particularly that scene with James, Helen and the Big Guy, because James, when he knew something's coming, but couldn't stop it, drew himself up as best he could to take it ...] Not like John, who past a certain point just kicked your arse up between your ears for you, and had done (and, too, would do the same for James, once the man was safely out of earshot - it didn't pay to mess with either of them). [Let's be honest, when has John's approach to a threat not been to kick it ass over teakettle until it stopped? And from 3x08, he does seem to have designated himself protector the group, or at least the member entitled to menace people until they go away. And the way he is with James in Revelations ...] And not like Helen, with whom fighting on any level was not to be thought of, or all four of them would land on you, and her in the lead. [Helen, of course, is scary simply because she's Helen, and has this weird way about her of not only being able to kick your ass by her lonesome, but also being able to inspire other people to helping her - scary, scary woman]
But Nikola ... Nikola fought you back in kind. Every time. [He does. Friendly or in earnest, Nikola always comes back fighting - John, Helen, his sleeper vamps, Edison, the world ...] A shot across his bows got you a shot in the engine room back. A quip in his ear got you a smirk and a smug, neat little put-down without him ever raising his head from what he was doing. An argument with him could go all night, and never get past needling, childish slurs, while he grinned and raised that cocky little eyebrow of his. Nigel could open fire whenever he pleased, and be sure to get lazy, confident rebuttals right on back, until one or other of them had to concede with a smile, or Helen told them to be quiet already. [*smiles* And I thought it would be something Nigel would appreciate. He gives the impression of being a hard-spoken man, but one that appreciates if you can speak back in kind. If you can take your hits and give them back. And his and Nikola banter in 3x08 ... they know each other can take it. That's part of the fun]
Fighting with Nikola was fun, in short. Whether just between themselves, or on those increasingly rare occasions when some other arrogant snot picked a fight with one or other of them (mostly Nikola - you'd think people would learn), and they could casually bat the interloper's ego between them until whoever it was left with their tail between their legs. [Heh. I like the idea of the Five closing ranks against the rest of Oxford. All outcasts in their own way, coming together to knock the rest down a peg or twenty. Arrogant, childish, yes, but also ... kinda heartwarming, in its way] A wholly childish pastime, but then, there were times they were wholly childish men. Or Nikola was, at least. Catch him admitting different, would you? [*grins* Oh, so very childish, at times. The lot of them, actually. But perhaps Nikola more than most]
Point of it was, Nikola always fought back. Nikola never let anything more than skim his nerves before he shot it down with a grin. You could argue the man to a standstill every night for a week, and he'd never lose that smug, confident little smirk, the occasional brief flares of temper aside. [He never lets anything visibly knock him. He armours himself up in arrogance, and some of it's real, but some of it is that he'll never, ever let anyone see him be knocked down. Never let anyone see him weak]
So Nigel had absolutely no idea what had just gone wrong. He'd absolutely no idea what the hell had just happened. [Which is why, if he does, it's something of a shock]
One minute, they're casually letting fire back and forth over one of Nikola's new engines, the Serb with his head stuck inside the thing and paying Nigel about as much mind as he gave the sparks flying around his hands, John sticking his oar in every so often just to be annoying, and then ... [... Just randomly, but I seem to have a slightly different turn of phrase when it's Nigel's POV, and I'm not quite sure where it's coming from. Heh. But 'sticking his oar in' has a good ring to it. *smiles* And John does. John needles]
Then Nikola'd jerked upright. Then he'd stared at Nigel, shocked and bewildered, searching Nigel's face for something ... Nigel, still caught in the game, had simply stared smugly back, trying not to show his confusion, and Nikola ... Had frozen. Had gone as stiff and brittle and hard as James at his worst, gone as pale as Death with fury, and then ... Simply left. Simply stalked out, not a hard, glittering word to any of them, not one expansive gesture of temper. Nikola had walked out, his machine sparking fitfully behind him, and left Nigel staring after him, as stunned as the rest of them. [Part of this, of course, is that it's still so fresh to Nikola at this stage. Only 1886, which in RL he spent sunk in depression, so ... He's still relatively young, relatively unarmoured, and it's fresh. He can't fight just yet, so he leaves. Nigel just didn't know what he'd poked]
And for the life of him, Nigel had no idea why.
But he was going to find out. Oh, he was going to find out. And not just because Helen had glared at him as if she was two seconds from finding something big and deadly and not the first bit real to feed him to. [I still think most of the Five, this early, at least, when faced with Helen's world, kept feeling just a smidge of lingering disbelief - especially as men of science, Victorian men of science, dealing with what amount to ghoulies and ghosties. The exception might be John, who strikes me as more romantic than the others] Not just because James had looked after Nikola with something close to sympathy on his face, and turned to glare at Nigel reproachfully in that stiff, careful way of his. [James ... His pride strikes me as a fragile thing, in some ways, and he has ... a certain sympathy for others, when theirs is damaged, I think]
He was going to find out because the only reason he'd kept playing this game had been because Nikola wasn't hurt by it. Because the aim had never been to actually hurt the stupid bugger. It was fun, yes, and it had been an awful long time since Nigel'd had anyone willing to match him word for word at it, but the first sign that it was hurting the testy foreigner and he'd have stopped, the way he had for James. He may be an arrogant, hard-spoken sod, but he wasn't cruel. He valued his friends a bit more highly than that. [ ... I like Nigel. Have I mentioned? But he seems so ... bluff and forthright. Hard, but not cruel. Though his contempt, once earned, does seem potent ...]
He found Nikola by the old stand-by of heading for the nearest stash of wine they had on campus. [I've no idea what historical!Tesla's views on alcohol were, but I highly doubt Sanctuary!Nikola's love-affair with wine started after it stopped affecting him] He figured, not incorrectly as it turned out, that a genuinely hurt Nikola would head for something to drown his pain. In some ways, he and James were shockingly alike, though Nikola had yet to show signs of leaning towards James' mind-altering comfort of choice. Off his gourd, but probably not out of his head. [... borrowing from Holmes for James, of course. But ... I sort of get him. With James, it's less about mind-altering, or boredom, as it was with Holmes, but with it being the only way he can force himself to cede control, enough to let the feeling unspool] But still. Quite like James at times, with that sometimes-fragile pride, and Nigel could kick himself for not noting that sooner. Before he'd opened his sodding mouth, for example ... [To be fair, Nikola and James are not the two you instantly link, on first look. Except possibly in my case, as James and Nikola were the first pair I wrote in Sanctuary. Heh. I feel in love, sue me]
He found Nikola perched on a windowsill overlooking the quad, a bottle of wine tucked between his knees, one hand clenched around it in white fury as he heard Nigel approach. The man didn't look around, forehead pressed to the glass, and from what Nigel could see of his reflection, eyes screwed shut. [I have this thing about talking via reflections. It shows up randomly sometimes ...]
"Not now, Helen," Nikola growled, hugging the bottle to him protectively as if he thought someone was going to steal it from him. "I'll apologise for upsetting people later. Just let me ..." [Nikola's used to people yelling at him to do the apologising. Helen most of all, really]
"I don't think it's you Helen wants to apologise," Nigel said softly, and watched as Nikola startled upright, watched as the man turned to him with the same hard, defiant expression Nigel sometimes saw pointed at John, when Helen wasn't around to frown at them for their silent rivalry. [Nikola does have that expression, when he's going against someone who can legitimately hurt him. We mostly see it with John, because, well, John's usually the one legitimately trying] Nigel watched that expression turn his way for one joke, when a thousand hadn't budged the light, tempestuous humour of the man, and yet again cursed himself for ever opening his mouth. [And it strikes me as an expression you don't want pointed your way when you haven't earned it. And Nigel ... For some reason that I'm not completely sure of, Nigel strikes me as protective, and it wasn't his aim to hurt] But he still didn't understand.
"Well, I'll tell her you were by, then," Nikola offered, hard and cold. None of the fire and gesticulating of his usual temper, none of heat-flash-and-gone of even those times when it had been genuine anger and not a game. [He does that. With Helen in The Five, when she said they never liked him. With the others in Sleepers, with 'I hope you're happy'] Because it wasn't anger Nigel was seeing, here.
It was hurt. [*pets Nikola carefully*]
"That's not how this works," he said, quietly, moving cautiously over to lean against the wall beside Nikola's alcove and watch him carefully. "When friends hurt each other, what happens is the one who did the hurting comes and says he's sorry, and asks what he can do to redeem himself." He tried a small smile. "Even if he doesn't quite understand what he did wrong ...?" [Hard edged, but I've a feeling he's as honest with his apologies as he is with his contempt. Nigel just doesn't waste time on niceties, is all]
Nikola looked away again, expression still tight and defiant, and now with just a hint of something that looked like shame. "It's nothing," he muttered, curling himself further into his perch and raising the bottle to his lips, ignoring Nigel utterly once again. Petulant and defiant. [He's embarrassed. He's embarrassed by what happened with Edison, embarrassed to have his new friends realise what ... what a fool he was. Is, for still letting it affect him. So he doesn't want to explain]
"It's not nothing," Nigel snapped, with a hint of temper of his own, and reached out to tug the bottle down. [As I said. Nigel doesn't strike me as fond of wasting time. Impatient, in his way] Not away, mind, because they'd all learned pretty quickly that taking Nikola's alcohol was a sure-fire way to induce a genuine sulk, and Nigel was having enough problems with this conversation as it was. "Nothing is when I call you every dirty name under the sun, and you knock me down a peg or twenty with about two sentances in return, because we've done that a hundred times and it's never ... It's never done this to you. I've never done this to you." [And if he'd meant to hurt, Nigel would have stood by it, but he didn't. He didn't mean to hurt, and he needs to understand how he did, because, impatient or no, he doesn't want to do it again]
He stopped with a snarl of frustration, scrubbing a hand through his hair. Nikola was still resolutely ignoring him, which was something Nigel had never, ever seen the man do before, if only because Nikola seemed fundamentally incapable of letting stupidity go without vocally expressing his opinion on it. To see the man silent, to see him still ... [Heh. Like at the end of Sleepers. It's sort of frightening to see Nikola disconsolate, giving up. It's ... wrong]
"I'm sorry," he said, blunt and tired and as genuine as he knew how to be. "I figured it was a game, that you gave as you got, and had fun doing it. It wasn't aimed to knock you down. Never was. Never figured you could be knocked down. But it doesn't matter. I'll bloody stop, if that's what's needed. Only bloody tell me, you bastard! Tell me what I did wrong, and I'll bloody fix it!" [Again, I'm making a lot of this up out of whole cloth, but there is a hint, in FKAC, that Nigel believes in owning up, in making things right yourself. "Do it yourselves, you lazy squits". But again, mostly me making it up as I go -_-;]
Nikola said nothing. Pale and remote, he hugged his bottle to his chest, and said nothing. And after a minute, after waiting a minute ... Nigel gave up. Oh, not for good. Not by a long shot. But he gave up standing there, gave up waiting when the man was still so obviously upset and in no mood to listen to him. [Stubborn, yes, but I'm assuming anyone who spends any time around Helen learns pretty quickly about beating heads against brick walls, and why you shouldn't] He shifted to leave, meaning to come back later, possibly after cornering James and asking how a man apologised for ... for doing whatever put that glassy, breakable look in a man's eyes ... He moved to leave, and Nikola spoke up, quietly, never looking at him.
"The last time someone told me I did not understand their country's humour," he said, accent suddenly very thick, very tired. "They did so after having used me for months on the promise of a future, the promise of enough money to make my own way, that they never intended to give me. Because it turned out that the joke I did not get was myself. My own foolish hope. The humour I did not understand was their laughing at me." [Okay, Edison? Was a jerk! And for some reason, it's the using him first that gets me. Not just the breaking of the promise, but knowing all the while that you're planning to, and having him work for you anyway, stringing him along on the hope. It's ... the using gets to me. As much as the laughing, and the broken promise. It just ... Ugh.] He laughed, soft and dark. "My apologies. When you said that ... For a moment, I feared ... Never mind. I'm sure I will understand the joke soon enough." [*hugs Nikola* To reiterate, Edison was a JERK]
He looked over then, with a wry, bitter smile tucked in the corner of his mouth, and then blinked at whatever he saw in Nigel's face. Stared, at what Nigel could only guess was the echo of the rage suddenly boiling in his chest, the surge of righteous fury in his gut. Nikola blinked at him. [Given his status as a foreigner and the experiences that would have lined him up for, not to mention his ... somewhat testy personality ... I think Nikola is always a little shocked when someone is actually on his side]
"That's not a joke," Nigel managed, clipped and tight, feeling his fists knot, as if there were someone to hit. For a moment, he understood that little better the surge of darkness in John's face when James turned brittle and stiff, the urge to pound something that apparently took him over. For a moment, Nigel had every sympathy for the darkness in John. [There was always a touch of darkness in all of them. There always is, in most everyone. And I think ... they're all, in their own ways, protective of what matters to them. And they are none of them without ... a certain sense of justice, outside the law] "I would not ... I would never ..."
He wasn't that kind of man. He was not that kind of man, to give his word and break it, only to laugh at someone. To use a friend that way. He was not, nor would he ever be, that kind of man. And there was no apology good enough, if he had made Nikola think he was, and none whatsoever for this person, whoever they were, who taught him to expect it ... Nigel was a decent bloody Englishman, [This is ... That was a thing, in British society. Your word, your honour. It was a thing] and he kept his bloody word, and right then he was silently promising himself that the first time he met this joker of Nikola's, he was going to take a leaf from John's book, and plant a fist somewhere they'd feel it in the bloody morning. [And Nigel's not ... he's not the sort to let it go. He's not the sort to let it slide, not on general principals, and certainly not when it's his friend]
"I know," Nikola said, watching him with surprised appraisal. With a soft, almost rueful smile, and then the man held out the bottle of wine towards Nigel, a gesture of apology that Nigel didn't quite understand. "I didn't think you would. I was just ... Look, it's only been a year. I get a little ... Look, just forget it, will you? Just forget it, and we'll go back in and have a proper fight, make Helen stop worrying ..." [Nikola, of course, is back to being embarrassed at this point, and also touched, which only makes him more embarrassed. Again, he's not used to this whole 'on his side' thing]
He waved his hand, frustration and dismissal, as if he could command the past few minutes to go away by sheer force of will, and it was so Nikola, such a return to his usual tempestuous arrogance, that Nigel accepted the wine in sheer relief. Took it in the spirit it was offered, and watched the breakable thing in Nikola's eyes fade a bit above his grin. [Plus, he's a bloody resilient sod, and he seems to forgive ... well, most of anything, if he likes you to start with]
"Not on your life," Nigel shot back, just to test the ground. "If I so much as look at you wrong for the next few days, she'll skin me and feed the remains to something with far more teeth than any real animal ought to have. You can go pick fights with James for a while, mate. I'm waiting until the coast is clear." If it ever was. If Nikola wanted to play the game anymore at all. Nigel could stop if he didn't. He had for James. [I get the feeling that they all ... sort of tested each other, those early few months. Not maliciously, just ... finding the boundaries. And respecting them. Nigel would have stopped, for James. For Nikola, if he needed it. I think he would have]
But Nikola was grinning at him, now. That smug, taunting smirk, from a man that genuinely couldn't be knocked down, not for long, and it was the light of challenge back in his eyes, the spirit of gamesmanship that Nigel so admired. "Oh?" the scientist drawled, rich and needling. "Afraid of a woman now, are we, Nigel?" [*smiles* But they are so much fun when they're like this, bantering, teasing ... For some reason I've gotten awful fond of the Nikola/Nigel friendship, of late. Heh]
"Not a bit of it," he returned, along with the bottle. "I've an entirely healthy fear of Helen Magnus, which is another thing entirely. And you should talk, or are you going to do your cursing in English any time soon? I may not speak Serbian or Hungarian, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out the meaning of some of those words yesterday ..." [*grins* And, of course, a healthy fear of Helen Magnus is a must. Plus. It amused me a little, to think of all the little ways they ... almost cut her out, a little. Part from ideas of what a woman ought to hear, but also in a way out of respect/caution]
Nikola laughed. "I'll start using colourful language in front of Helen just as soon as you and John do," he said, resting a friendly arm across Nigel's shoulders as they meandered back towards the lab. "James, of course, we shan't speak of, because the day James uses foul language in front of a lady ..." [James, of course, is perhaps the most Victorian of the lot of them, in many ways]
"Is the day the seas rise and swallow the earth," Nigel nodded, grinning to hide his relief, and feeling something relax inside his chest. Some tight, violent thing that had been ready to lash out, to break some distant someone (and if it was only a year ago, Nigel could already guess who) who had almost cost him a friendship. As they moved back into the lab, back into the circle of the Five, with Nikola grinning entirely unapologetically at Helen as if nothing he did required the slightest explanation, Nigel felt that hard, vicious thing relax. [Again. A touch of darkness, in all of them. And the surest way to provoke any of the Five seems to have been to strike at any other of them]
But not leave. Not quite. Because Nigel was a good, decent Englishman, and he kept his word, and from here-on, he owed some bloody American sod a good strong punch in the gut. And he'd get it, too. One day yet. For Nikola's sake, for the sake of a friend, he'd give Edison what was coming to him, one day yet. [And all of them, every last one, are bloody dangerous about it]
And what's more, he'd bloody enjoy it, too. [Which, in some ways, is what makes them so awesome. Heh.]
[End]
