Fic: Have Mercy On Your Soul
Sep. 12th, 2011 07:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coffeebuddhaTitle: Have Mercy On Your Soul
Author: coffeebuddha
Rating: R/FRM
Characters/Pairing: Nikola Tesla/Henry Foss
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Word Count: 1102
Warning: This story contains Character Death. (highlight to read)
Prompt: "Sanctuary, Tesla, Five things Tesla took from the sanctuary and One thing he left behind." Requested by![[info]](../../img/userinfo.gif?v=1)
clwilson2006 over on ![[info]](../../img/community.gif?v=3)
comment_fic.
There's a short hair clinging to the cuff of his shirt sleeve, the wrong shade of brown to be his own, that Nikola doesn't notice until he's over halfway through the astronomy textbook he's been absently reading. He studies it dispassionately; plucks it free and holds it between thumb and index for a long moment. There's a rubbish bin only a few short steps from his chair. Failing that, he has a perfectly serviceable floor and a maid who vacuums daily.
Instead, he tucks the hair between two of the pages in the chapter discussing the phases of the moon, leaves the book on the seat of his armchair, and goes to fetch another glass of wine.
He's charmed his way into a lab on a--somewhat--decent college campus and is poking around at the equipment when a gaggle of grad students come in. They either don't notice him or don't care, their voices loud and happy and not nearly as worn down by studying as they should by all rights be, and Nikola is too wired by his plans for his newest experiment to tolerate them, but too disgusted by the idea of actually having to talk with them to engage.
Then one laughs. It's soft and barely noticeable, and so achingly familiar that the microscope Nikola's been studying slips from between his suddenly numb fingers. It only falls an inch or two, not enough to hurt it, but Nikola's too busy already spinning around in barely contained expectation to notice.
The boy is tall and slim with bleached hair that's been artfully arranged to fall just so into his green eyes. He's more than a little gorgeous and blushes when he sees Nikola looking at him. A corner of his mouth tips up in silent invitation, but then one of his friends glances between the two of them and elbows him in the side and that laugh slips out from between his lips again.
It hurts, sharp and sudden like a knife to the gut, because the laugh is right, but everything else is so wrong.
The boy gives Nikola a puzzled look as he walks out, his experiment the last thing on his mind.
He finds the sock stuck with static to the inside of one of his undershirts during his second week in Cancun.
He sits on the edge of his bed for over an hour just studying the weave of the cheap cotton and stroking a fingertip over the thin, almost hole that's been worn at the heel.
The next day finds the sock stuffed into a wine glass left abandoned on the balcony railing and Nikola on a plane headed for Moscow.
There are lips tracing a trail across his collarbone, soft and warm and just the slightest bit wet, and Nikola presses up into the gentle pressure on instinct, desperate for more. He feels the chuckle more than he hears it. The vibration is almost as good as the tongue that flicks out to taste the hollow of his neck, the stubble that scrapes over his chest, and the calloused fingertips that skim over his nipple, then down, down, down, so teasingly close to where he wants them.
It's close, so close he could cry if he was the kind of person who did that sort of thing, and Nikola keeps his eyes closed, cheek turned into the mattress, because it's wonderful and perfect and wrong.
Nikola wakes with a jolt, so hard it hurts from a dream that was too vivid to have not grown from a seed of truth. He takes deep, calming breaths, one after the other. His body is practically vibrating with the tension that has him wound as tightly as a coil, but he slowly loosens inch by painful inch until his limbs are dead weight and his flagging erection is possible to ignore. If his pillow is damp under his cheek, well, it's a humid night and he left his window open, so that's easily explained.
His hands are painted red, thick and sticky and smelling cloyingly of copper. It's everywhere. It seeps into the knees of his pants as he kneels, smudges over his chin when he rubs the back of his wrist across it, mingles with the sweat that's dotting his hairline.
Nikola's no stranger to blood. In fact, he considers himself to be practically a fucking connoisseur of the stuff, capable of picking out its nuances as easily as he can dissect a bottle of wine to its trace elements.
But there's blood, and then there's blood, and countless bloody deaths do nothing to ease the panicky ache that tightens in his chest at the blood flowing so damn easily from a torn open gut and bubbling slowly between barely parted lips.
There's so much blood, too much, and no matter how often he bathes or how far he travels, it never goes away. Not really.
It takes twenty years for Nikola to make it back to the Sanctuary. Helen is still there, as young and beautiful as ever. He can't say the same for Will and tells him as much, earning himself an eye roll and slight head shake that seem more pitying than annoyed. Nikola grins and resolves to drink the entire wine cellar.
He ends up making his way through every decent vintage he can get his hands on and all of the most recent additions to the library. At night, he sleeps in a guest room that's probably been empty for half a century judging from the state of it; it doesn't feel right, but at least it doesn't hurt. During the day, he alternates between harassing Helen in her study and lounging in the library. No one mentions how he avoids the labs or sometimes takes longer routes to bypass certain corridors containing certain rooms and how he flat out refuses to walk through the grounds the one time Helen suggests it. It's a kind of cruel kindness that has him biting back snarls and itching to be gone only a week into his planned two week visit.
Helen sees him off with a kiss to the cheek and a promise to come back sooner this time that they both know he'll break.
He leaves again, almost twenty years to the day after the last time, and just like before he doesn't look back. He doesn't look back, but that doesn't stop him from clearly seeing in his mind's eye the small tombstone tucked into a corner of the garden that's simply inscribed with two dates and the name Henry Foss.
Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated!
Author: coffeebuddha
Rating: R/FRM
Characters/Pairing: Nikola Tesla/Henry Foss
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Word Count: 1102
Warning: This story contains Character Death. (highlight to read)
Prompt: "Sanctuary, Tesla, Five things Tesla took from the sanctuary and One thing he left behind." Requested by
clwilson2006 over on comment_fic.There's a short hair clinging to the cuff of his shirt sleeve, the wrong shade of brown to be his own, that Nikola doesn't notice until he's over halfway through the astronomy textbook he's been absently reading. He studies it dispassionately; plucks it free and holds it between thumb and index for a long moment. There's a rubbish bin only a few short steps from his chair. Failing that, he has a perfectly serviceable floor and a maid who vacuums daily.
Instead, he tucks the hair between two of the pages in the chapter discussing the phases of the moon, leaves the book on the seat of his armchair, and goes to fetch another glass of wine.
Then one laughs. It's soft and barely noticeable, and so achingly familiar that the microscope Nikola's been studying slips from between his suddenly numb fingers. It only falls an inch or two, not enough to hurt it, but Nikola's too busy already spinning around in barely contained expectation to notice.
The boy is tall and slim with bleached hair that's been artfully arranged to fall just so into his green eyes. He's more than a little gorgeous and blushes when he sees Nikola looking at him. A corner of his mouth tips up in silent invitation, but then one of his friends glances between the two of them and elbows him in the side and that laugh slips out from between his lips again.
It hurts, sharp and sudden like a knife to the gut, because the laugh is right, but everything else is so wrong.
The boy gives Nikola a puzzled look as he walks out, his experiment the last thing on his mind.
He sits on the edge of his bed for over an hour just studying the weave of the cheap cotton and stroking a fingertip over the thin, almost hole that's been worn at the heel.
The next day finds the sock stuffed into a wine glass left abandoned on the balcony railing and Nikola on a plane headed for Moscow.
It's close, so close he could cry if he was the kind of person who did that sort of thing, and Nikola keeps his eyes closed, cheek turned into the mattress, because it's wonderful and perfect and wrong.
Nikola wakes with a jolt, so hard it hurts from a dream that was too vivid to have not grown from a seed of truth. He takes deep, calming breaths, one after the other. His body is practically vibrating with the tension that has him wound as tightly as a coil, but he slowly loosens inch by painful inch until his limbs are dead weight and his flagging erection is possible to ignore. If his pillow is damp under his cheek, well, it's a humid night and he left his window open, so that's easily explained.
Nikola's no stranger to blood. In fact, he considers himself to be practically a fucking connoisseur of the stuff, capable of picking out its nuances as easily as he can dissect a bottle of wine to its trace elements.
But there's blood, and then there's blood, and countless bloody deaths do nothing to ease the panicky ache that tightens in his chest at the blood flowing so damn easily from a torn open gut and bubbling slowly between barely parted lips.
There's so much blood, too much, and no matter how often he bathes or how far he travels, it never goes away. Not really.
He ends up making his way through every decent vintage he can get his hands on and all of the most recent additions to the library. At night, he sleeps in a guest room that's probably been empty for half a century judging from the state of it; it doesn't feel right, but at least it doesn't hurt. During the day, he alternates between harassing Helen in her study and lounging in the library. No one mentions how he avoids the labs or sometimes takes longer routes to bypass certain corridors containing certain rooms and how he flat out refuses to walk through the grounds the one time Helen suggests it. It's a kind of cruel kindness that has him biting back snarls and itching to be gone only a week into his planned two week visit.
Helen sees him off with a kiss to the cheek and a promise to come back sooner this time that they both know he'll break.
He leaves again, almost twenty years to the day after the last time, and just like before he doesn't look back. He doesn't look back, but that doesn't stop him from clearly seeing in his mind's eye the small tombstone tucked into a corner of the garden that's simply inscribed with two dates and the name Henry Foss.
Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 05:13 pm (UTC);_____;
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 09:41 pm (UTC)Thanks and sorry!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 05:59 pm (UTC)Poor Nikola!
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 06:04 pm (UTC)*headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 09:40 pm (UTC)[div align="center"]
[hr align="center" size="2" width="100%" /]
Only with <>s instead of the square brackets. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-12 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 03:25 am (UTC)It makes no sense, how demanding I am, I know this. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 03:44 am (UTC)Also, this might help if you decide to search out some real Tesla slash. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Slash_Cotillion
I would totally read that and actually started to write it a little bit. It was still set in the Sanctuary verse, but it focused as much on Tesla's real life (with the exception that he was a vampire to go along with the show's canon) as it did his modern day relationship with Henry, who is this hero worshiping computer/electronics genius who practically had a nerdgasm when he first met Tesla. Still not exactly what you're looking for, but definitely a little closer than this would be. :)
ETA: Also, I saw this and thought of you. &hearts
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 05:23 am (UTC)Hmmm though...Edison. I am trying to picture it. All his frustrated love/rage channeled into his fight with Westinghouse, culminating in a horrible execution. ...It's almost the stuff of an opera.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 02:51 pm (UTC)There's already an opera about Tesla, so it seems like it would just be a matter of time before someone writes an Edison one.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 08:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-13 08:21 pm (UTC)