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grav_ityAN: And this would be the final “chapter” of the little story that could. The other two parts will be posted when they’re edited/written, and I’ve finished wrestling them into history.
This is probably the saddest story ever written off the prompt “I’d miss you if you died (please let me turn you into my vampire minion)”, but that’s what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penknife gave me.
Spoilers: Series to date. Also, canon character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I’m glad it’s here so we can share it.
Rating: Kid friendly
Characters: Nigel Griffin, Helen Magnus, James Watson, John Druitt and Nikola Tesla
Summary: Nigel Griffin dies in his sleep.
+++
Three Ways In, Two Ways Out
They come to him one at a time. He is grateful for that, because he doesn’t think he could stare down all four of them (well, three really), at once and still have the courage to voice his refusal. And he is determined to refuse.
But he’s also polite, southern gentlemanliness coming so easily after the Victorian variety, so he takes all their communiqués, sets up appointments, buys lemonade and biscuits (British ones, because even after all this time in Louisiana, some things just won’t change), and waits.
****
1. First Way In
“It’s a bit uncomfortable at first,” Watson says one sunny day in 1938. “But I dare say I’ve worked out all the kinks in the design. I’d need accurate measurements of course. We’re not the young Oxford men we used to be anymore, my friend.”
Except that Watson is. Not so much as the others, but he’s been wearing that contraption for more than two decades now, finishing it right after they’d finished Adam Worth, and if he’s aged, it’s only around the corners where the light can’t quite breathe through. Nigel’s hands are wrinkled from the sun and shaky from The War, though his body is still hale. He’s aging slowly, but he’s still getting on in years. He’s not sure he minds.
“In any case,” Watson goes on, “I really think you’d grow to like it. I’ve even got plans for an exoskeleton once my bones start to lose density. You might look a bit odd to the layman, but you’d be alive to be looked at.”
Nigel looks over the plans, because he’s finding more grey hairs and he’s having a moment of weakness. It’s all tubes and brass knobs and he can’t imagine what it would be like to carry it around for the rest of his life. He shudders with distaste at the idea.
“I’m not sure this is my kind of get-up, old boy,” he says, leafing through the pages and pretending to look at them even though his mind is made up.
“It’s not as heavy as it looks,” Watson says quickly. “And Tesla is certain that he can modify it further so that – ”
“No, James,” Nigel says finally, meeting his friend’s eyes at last. “Such a life is not for me.”
“You’ll stay here? Alone? In New Orleans?” James demands, incredulous.
Nigel suspects that James believes him guilty of wasting a fine education and unearthly skills. The truth is that Nigel used his education for longer than most men ever do, and once he’d eliminated thievery and espionage, there weren’t many other things his skill set was applicable for.
“It doesn’t get cold here,” Nigel says, looking out at the flowering trees. “And the music’s good.”
James looks at him like he’s gone crazy. Maybe he has. But New Orleans is pretty and his age goes unremarked upon even though he's only changed a little bit since he got here. The people here are civilized, but they accept magic without question most of the time.
“You will call me if you change you mind?” James says at last.
“I will,” Nigel replies.
He doesn’t.
****
2. Second Way In
Nikola hates lemonade, which makes Nigel all the more pleased to serve it. He’s actually gone out and picked the lemons, so as to make it as sour as possible, and sugared his own glass to compensate. He’s half-hoping he can get the vampire to complain, but of course Nikola would rather die (and since he can’t, it’s a moot point).
It’s 1951 and Tesla has been dead for eight years. Nigel very nearly misses him sometimes. He’d taken his fiancée to the funeral, and she’d spent the entire week in New York feeling bad about liking the city so much when one of her betrothed’s friends had died. Nigel found the whole thing hilarious, and took the opportunity to show her why he was friends with so infamous a man as Nikola. She hadn’t bolted or tried to murder him, had married him, actually. But she never bathes Anna unless the baby is wearing something.
Nigel’s aged quite a bit since James last came calling, but Tesla looks exactly the same as he always had, save for the years where he pretended to be old. Nikola looks at him for a long time before he takes a sip of the all to intentionally sour drink that Nigel poured him, as if measuring the years on his face. It’s not hard, since most of them have only crept on in the last decade or so.
“You look terrible,” Nikola says, because he couldn’t be graceful if his life depended on it, and it very rarely does.
“Thank you,” Nigel replies, because he decided a few years ago to take all the remarks about his age as a compliment on the grounds that he can age at all.
“No really,” Telsa presses. “I think being a father is too much for you.”
“I rather enjoy it,” Nigel says, because he does. He almost regrets waiting this long, except the only thing in the world he loves more than his daughter is his wife.
“Do I get to see the little tyke?” Nikola has never been subtle, and Nigel reads the meaning behind his clever inflection all too clearly.
“You could see her, were she here,” Nigel says, glad his American neighbours insisted on teaching him poker. “But she is out with my wife at her mother’s house.”
“Don’t you want them to meet me?” Tesla asks.
“Not particularly,” Nigel says. “Especially since my wife thinks you’re dead.”
“Pity,” Nikola says. He looks at the glass as though realizing what’s in it for the first time and makes a face. “To business then! I have a proposition for you.”
“Please, elaborate.” If nothing else, it’s sure to be the funniest thing Nigel has heard all week.
“Since the stupendous failures on behalf of the allied front after the war,” Nikola begins, as though he contributed nothing to the Cold War besides the actual cause, “I have been working to restore the Earth to its former glory.”
“Whose glory would that be, exactly?” Nigel asks, because he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, and if Tesla is going to kill him, he’d rather it be before his family came back to witness it.
“Why mine, of course,” Tesla says. “Well, my race.”
“And you want me to steal something for you?”
“Good heavens, no.” Tesla might not actually be feigning his emotions at that one. “When one of us poor addicts manages to shake something, I believe it should be left well and truly shaken.”
“Then what?” Nigel asks, somewhat sharply, because he’s poured himself another glass of lemonade while he’s waiting and forgotten about the overuse of lemons in it.
“I want you to become one.” He says it calmly, like he’s talking about five-a-side instead of global domination.
“What?”
“I would miss you if you died,” he says after a moment, and Nigel’s almost positive it causes him pain to say the words. “Please let me turn you into my vampire minion.”
“Certainly not,” Nigel replies. There’s nothing about the word minion that he likes, especially when it comes from Tesla.
“Well you can’t blame a man for wanting to take over the world with his best friends.”
“Helen will kill you,” Nigel says wearily. How is Tesla still so young?
“Not if she doesn’t find out.” Tesla shoots him a side-long glance.
“I’m not going to tell her,” Nigel says. “So you can leave off threatening me.”
“I was hoping not to ruin the moment,” Tesla says, leaning back in his chair. “Do you have any sugar?”
Nigel passes him the sugar bowl and doesn’t so much as flinch when Tesla’s fingernails scrape against his palm.
****
Third Way In
It’s very near the end when he writes to Helen. He almost tells Anna not to send it until after he’s gone, because even if he doesn’t put a return address on it, Helen will still track him down. She’s always been doggedly good at things like that.
He’s afraid of her the most. Not because she’s a woman, he got over that more than half a century ago, but because she’s so reasonable. He knows she will give him a hundred reasons, but he’s got a very good trump card, and he’s hoping he’ll be able to play it without breaking her heart.
“You’re determined, then?” she says, a bit more lightly than he’d been expecting.
“I am,” he says, and wonders for a moment if it will really be that simple. Except it’s Helen, and things are never that simple.
“Mine wouldn’t like James’s,” she says, neutrally and very nearly cold. “No apparatus or mechanics. Just an injection.”
“And then the others to follow,” he doesn’t ask because he already knows. “And then who know what the side-effects will be?”
He has not meant to do that, and when her face darkens in pain, he regrets it immediately. They have no idea what drove John mad all those years ago, but it must be something related to the blood, either the source blood she engineered or the shot of her own blood she gave him when he took ill. Even if it weren’t, even if her blood were totally safe, he still wouldn’t take it.
“I’m sorry, Helen,” he says softly. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You, my old friend, are the only one who ever dared to check my recklessness.” Her voice is warm again, and he knows it’s over without him having to tell her about how much he loves his wife. “It would be a shame to go back on that now.”
They sit on the verandah, listening to the world go by on the quiet street. She reaches across the table to take his hand, and he wonders what she is remembering, or if maybe, just maybe, she has found peace in this.
“All the things we’ve done, Helen, and I’ve no regrets,” he says when the car comes to pick her up a few hours later. “I’ve lived these long years wondering what kind of man that makes me. I’m ready to go.”
He is still surprised when she lets him.
****
Fourth Way Out
“I could do it, if you like,” says the Ripper from the darkness just outside his line of sight.
The machine whirs, not the elegant piece that Watson would have designed to prolong his life indefinitely, but the harsh and ugly device that gives him only enough oxygen to make it through one more day.
“John,” Nigel gasps, because it’s harder and harder every time he speaks.
“I’m here, old friend,” he says gently, and the Ripper steps into the light. “If you need me.”
“I don’t,” Nigel says, and wonders how he was ever afraid of a man so scarred and broken. “But thank you.”
The Ripper is gone a few seconds later, in a flash of light and smoke that they had once called Brimstone and for the life of him, he can’t remember what Helen told him it’s actually called.
He forgets a lot, nowadays. But he holds on.
****
Fifth Way Out
Nigel Griffin dies in his sleep.
+++
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, January 17, 2011
Note: I'm thinking someone should email ff.net and request that Nigel gets a tag on the character list. And now that I think about it, it would be handy if there was one for The Five as well...
This is probably the saddest story ever written off the prompt “I’d miss you if you died (please let me turn you into my vampire minion)”, but that’s what
penknife gave me.Spoilers: Series to date. Also, canon character death.
Disclaimer: Not mine, but I’m glad it’s here so we can share it.
Rating: Kid friendly
Characters: Nigel Griffin, Helen Magnus, James Watson, John Druitt and Nikola Tesla
Summary: Nigel Griffin dies in his sleep.
+++
Three Ways In, Two Ways Out
They come to him one at a time. He is grateful for that, because he doesn’t think he could stare down all four of them (well, three really), at once and still have the courage to voice his refusal. And he is determined to refuse.
But he’s also polite, southern gentlemanliness coming so easily after the Victorian variety, so he takes all their communiqués, sets up appointments, buys lemonade and biscuits (British ones, because even after all this time in Louisiana, some things just won’t change), and waits.
1. First Way In
“It’s a bit uncomfortable at first,” Watson says one sunny day in 1938. “But I dare say I’ve worked out all the kinks in the design. I’d need accurate measurements of course. We’re not the young Oxford men we used to be anymore, my friend.”
Except that Watson is. Not so much as the others, but he’s been wearing that contraption for more than two decades now, finishing it right after they’d finished Adam Worth, and if he’s aged, it’s only around the corners where the light can’t quite breathe through. Nigel’s hands are wrinkled from the sun and shaky from The War, though his body is still hale. He’s aging slowly, but he’s still getting on in years. He’s not sure he minds.
“In any case,” Watson goes on, “I really think you’d grow to like it. I’ve even got plans for an exoskeleton once my bones start to lose density. You might look a bit odd to the layman, but you’d be alive to be looked at.”
Nigel looks over the plans, because he’s finding more grey hairs and he’s having a moment of weakness. It’s all tubes and brass knobs and he can’t imagine what it would be like to carry it around for the rest of his life. He shudders with distaste at the idea.
“I’m not sure this is my kind of get-up, old boy,” he says, leafing through the pages and pretending to look at them even though his mind is made up.
“It’s not as heavy as it looks,” Watson says quickly. “And Tesla is certain that he can modify it further so that – ”
“No, James,” Nigel says finally, meeting his friend’s eyes at last. “Such a life is not for me.”
“You’ll stay here? Alone? In New Orleans?” James demands, incredulous.
Nigel suspects that James believes him guilty of wasting a fine education and unearthly skills. The truth is that Nigel used his education for longer than most men ever do, and once he’d eliminated thievery and espionage, there weren’t many other things his skill set was applicable for.
“It doesn’t get cold here,” Nigel says, looking out at the flowering trees. “And the music’s good.”
James looks at him like he’s gone crazy. Maybe he has. But New Orleans is pretty and his age goes unremarked upon even though he's only changed a little bit since he got here. The people here are civilized, but they accept magic without question most of the time.
“You will call me if you change you mind?” James says at last.
“I will,” Nigel replies.
He doesn’t.
2. Second Way In
Nikola hates lemonade, which makes Nigel all the more pleased to serve it. He’s actually gone out and picked the lemons, so as to make it as sour as possible, and sugared his own glass to compensate. He’s half-hoping he can get the vampire to complain, but of course Nikola would rather die (and since he can’t, it’s a moot point).
It’s 1951 and Tesla has been dead for eight years. Nigel very nearly misses him sometimes. He’d taken his fiancée to the funeral, and she’d spent the entire week in New York feeling bad about liking the city so much when one of her betrothed’s friends had died. Nigel found the whole thing hilarious, and took the opportunity to show her why he was friends with so infamous a man as Nikola. She hadn’t bolted or tried to murder him, had married him, actually. But she never bathes Anna unless the baby is wearing something.
Nigel’s aged quite a bit since James last came calling, but Tesla looks exactly the same as he always had, save for the years where he pretended to be old. Nikola looks at him for a long time before he takes a sip of the all to intentionally sour drink that Nigel poured him, as if measuring the years on his face. It’s not hard, since most of them have only crept on in the last decade or so.
“You look terrible,” Nikola says, because he couldn’t be graceful if his life depended on it, and it very rarely does.
“Thank you,” Nigel replies, because he decided a few years ago to take all the remarks about his age as a compliment on the grounds that he can age at all.
“No really,” Telsa presses. “I think being a father is too much for you.”
“I rather enjoy it,” Nigel says, because he does. He almost regrets waiting this long, except the only thing in the world he loves more than his daughter is his wife.
“Do I get to see the little tyke?” Nikola has never been subtle, and Nigel reads the meaning behind his clever inflection all too clearly.
“You could see her, were she here,” Nigel says, glad his American neighbours insisted on teaching him poker. “But she is out with my wife at her mother’s house.”
“Don’t you want them to meet me?” Tesla asks.
“Not particularly,” Nigel says. “Especially since my wife thinks you’re dead.”
“Pity,” Nikola says. He looks at the glass as though realizing what’s in it for the first time and makes a face. “To business then! I have a proposition for you.”
“Please, elaborate.” If nothing else, it’s sure to be the funniest thing Nigel has heard all week.
“Since the stupendous failures on behalf of the allied front after the war,” Nikola begins, as though he contributed nothing to the Cold War besides the actual cause, “I have been working to restore the Earth to its former glory.”
“Whose glory would that be, exactly?” Nigel asks, because he’s pretty sure he knows where this is going, and if Tesla is going to kill him, he’d rather it be before his family came back to witness it.
“Why mine, of course,” Tesla says. “Well, my race.”
“And you want me to steal something for you?”
“Good heavens, no.” Tesla might not actually be feigning his emotions at that one. “When one of us poor addicts manages to shake something, I believe it should be left well and truly shaken.”
“Then what?” Nigel asks, somewhat sharply, because he’s poured himself another glass of lemonade while he’s waiting and forgotten about the overuse of lemons in it.
“I want you to become one.” He says it calmly, like he’s talking about five-a-side instead of global domination.
“What?”
“I would miss you if you died,” he says after a moment, and Nigel’s almost positive it causes him pain to say the words. “Please let me turn you into my vampire minion.”
“Certainly not,” Nigel replies. There’s nothing about the word minion that he likes, especially when it comes from Tesla.
“Well you can’t blame a man for wanting to take over the world with his best friends.”
“Helen will kill you,” Nigel says wearily. How is Tesla still so young?
“Not if she doesn’t find out.” Tesla shoots him a side-long glance.
“I’m not going to tell her,” Nigel says. “So you can leave off threatening me.”
“I was hoping not to ruin the moment,” Tesla says, leaning back in his chair. “Do you have any sugar?”
Nigel passes him the sugar bowl and doesn’t so much as flinch when Tesla’s fingernails scrape against his palm.
Third Way In
It’s very near the end when he writes to Helen. He almost tells Anna not to send it until after he’s gone, because even if he doesn’t put a return address on it, Helen will still track him down. She’s always been doggedly good at things like that.
He’s afraid of her the most. Not because she’s a woman, he got over that more than half a century ago, but because she’s so reasonable. He knows she will give him a hundred reasons, but he’s got a very good trump card, and he’s hoping he’ll be able to play it without breaking her heart.
“You’re determined, then?” she says, a bit more lightly than he’d been expecting.
“I am,” he says, and wonders for a moment if it will really be that simple. Except it’s Helen, and things are never that simple.
“Mine wouldn’t like James’s,” she says, neutrally and very nearly cold. “No apparatus or mechanics. Just an injection.”
“And then the others to follow,” he doesn’t ask because he already knows. “And then who know what the side-effects will be?”
He has not meant to do that, and when her face darkens in pain, he regrets it immediately. They have no idea what drove John mad all those years ago, but it must be something related to the blood, either the source blood she engineered or the shot of her own blood she gave him when he took ill. Even if it weren’t, even if her blood were totally safe, he still wouldn’t take it.
“I’m sorry, Helen,” he says softly. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You, my old friend, are the only one who ever dared to check my recklessness.” Her voice is warm again, and he knows it’s over without him having to tell her about how much he loves his wife. “It would be a shame to go back on that now.”
They sit on the verandah, listening to the world go by on the quiet street. She reaches across the table to take his hand, and he wonders what she is remembering, or if maybe, just maybe, she has found peace in this.
“All the things we’ve done, Helen, and I’ve no regrets,” he says when the car comes to pick her up a few hours later. “I’ve lived these long years wondering what kind of man that makes me. I’m ready to go.”
He is still surprised when she lets him.
Fourth Way Out
“I could do it, if you like,” says the Ripper from the darkness just outside his line of sight.
The machine whirs, not the elegant piece that Watson would have designed to prolong his life indefinitely, but the harsh and ugly device that gives him only enough oxygen to make it through one more day.
“John,” Nigel gasps, because it’s harder and harder every time he speaks.
“I’m here, old friend,” he says gently, and the Ripper steps into the light. “If you need me.”
“I don’t,” Nigel says, and wonders how he was ever afraid of a man so scarred and broken. “But thank you.”
The Ripper is gone a few seconds later, in a flash of light and smoke that they had once called Brimstone and for the life of him, he can’t remember what Helen told him it’s actually called.
He forgets a lot, nowadays. But he holds on.
Fifth Way Out
Nigel Griffin dies in his sleep.
+++
fin
Gravity_Not_Included, January 17, 2011
Note: I'm thinking someone should email ff.net and request that Nigel gets a tag on the character list. And now that I think about it, it would be handy if there was one for The Five as well...
