HOUSE CALL 1 (i)

by Apache

Content:
Het
Vachon; Nick/Natalie
No Sexual Situations
No Violence

~ ~ ~

I just turned around and he was there.  My instruments hit the floor-- again.  Between my grandmother's ghost and stray vampires, it's been a rough couple of weeks for sterile tools in my lab.

He wasn't saying a word, either, just looking at me.  I wasn't afraid because I'd seen him before -- Screed's friend with the long black hair and the leather look.  He'd hardly talked when Nick took me over there, but I remembered his name was something with a V.  He's the one Tracy knows about, the one from the plane crash.

All of this had plenty of time to run through my head, because he just stood there looking at me.  Like all of them, he looked like a normal human being with something just a teeny bit off.  If you don't know they exist, you don't think of it as inhuman, just a little odd.  But if you're me, you know you're looking at the immortal in them.

And it's separate from the hunger; that's a whole different sight.  Nick hates his vampire self so much, the mere potential for the hunger makes him sick and angry.  But Janette wasn't like that, and this one isn't, either.  He's still, like she was, dark-eyed like her, and he has that manner about him like she did that says he's perfectly at peace with the predator in him.  But also like Janette, that same quality in his manner that marked him as a vampire was also saying he wasn't here to kill me.

Even so, there's only so long I want to put up with a dark brooding look.  I'm just not fifteen anymore.

"You can start by helping me pick these up," I said a trifle tartly.  I stooped down to collect my scattered tray of scalpels and whatnot.  It surprised him, but he complied, with a little bit of the sheepish look of a teenage boy caught doing something stupid.

"Sorry," he said, handing me things.  He was careful to point the sharp ends toward himself.  Nice manners.  Good vampire sense -- don't spill blood unless you really mean it.

I hate thoughts like that.  I glued my eyes to the floor, the tray.

His manner was easy and bluff again by the time I stood up.  He looked at me like he was sizing me up for a grant.  "I wanted to thank you.  You saved a lot of lives."  Sincere words, delivered like a joke.

I looked back at him just as judgmentally.  "You mean unlives, don't you?"

This made him laugh.  "Yup," he said cheerfully.  "Mine included.  I was ... a goner until Nick showed up."  This time his voice started out joking and turned full-out serious in mid-sentence.  The curiosity returned, the vampire alienness.

"A-a-and you want to know why," I said for him.

Now he was really serious, but it expressed itself with a gentle smile and a small nod and a silently mouthed 'yes'.  My heart skipped a beat.  Maybe I'm not that far from fifteen after all... hell, I'm a sucker for it when Sydney does a silent meow...

I sighed.  "You said it yourself:  I'm a doctor.  If that's not good enough, you're just gonna have to live with the mystery, Mr.... sorry."  I do this all the time.  It takes about three introductions before a name sticks in my mind; I hate that.  Unless I see it written down, in which case I get it the first time.  Like on a toe tag.  Oh, it's a warped life I lead.

"Vachon," he said, like it was a question.  He came a little closer.  "Nick didn't tell you," he said softly.  That wasn't a question, and it should have been, but he figured it out by himself.  "How many of us were sick," he pursued.

I turned away, getting nervous.  "I.. I just gave him the virus...."

"A hundred," he said, getting closer.  "Maybe a few more."

I rattled some pans, keeping my back to him.  "That makes sense... an exponential progression..."  I hate when I hear my voice getting jittery.

Now he was right behind me.  "He didn't tell you," he said gently, "You saved us all..."  His hand came up to brush at my hair.

I spun around and pushed him away.  "Look, Mr. Vachon, I just did my .. job,"  I said.  Big lie.  Big tactical error.  However old this guy may be, he didn't get that way by being gullible.

Now he stopped me from moving across the lab, still looking at me with the mild incomprehension and curiosity he'd walked in with.  "You could have just saved Nick," he said, reaching out to lift my chin a little with his thumb and fingers.  "You came to Screed... "  His eyes opened a bit wider, became a little more solemn.  "This wasn't part of making Nick human."

Damn! Does every vampire in town know about Nick and me?  What am I, the girl whose phone number is written on the wall in the vampire boy's room?  I tried to jerk away from him, but he wasn't letting go, and his big dark eyes were flooding into mine with such intensity...

"I like you guys," I said.  It came out in a rushed whisper before I knew I was going to say anything. --Then stopped, reeling with what I'd just heard myself say.  Like?  Bloodsucking murdering creatures of the night?... oh God, it's true.  I want Nick happy, and only regaining his humanity will give him that, but in four years I've seen enough to know... what?  That if I'd met a different vampire, I could have made different choices?  I could have gone across with a whole heart, like I thought I was doing last year during the comet hysteria?  Unthinkable‑‑and yet, and yet--

And this vampire... he's straight out of Wuthering Heights.  You can practically hear the wind in his hair.  He leaned very close, brought his face very close to mine, still holding me with those compelling eyes.  "What you did," he breathed, "I can never repay."

I nodded.  My voice was pure shakes.  "It's OK," I said. "You're.. you're very welcome."  My mouth was dry and I was trying to swallow.  In some corner of my heart, I was seconds away from begging him to....  oh god, what?  Nick, Nick... I thought.  But this wasn't part of my experience with Nick at all.  No ambivalence, no pain, no passionate refusal to be tempted... this vampire is a complete taker, and he was making me want it, want it utterly.

He let go and stepped back, and was suddenly smiling at me again like a wry post‑adolescent.  Nick has that chameleon quality too, but it was still kind of shocking.  "That's not what you want," he said in a joking manner.

"No," I said, a little defiantly.  Who was he to presume to know what I did and didn't want?

But he carried right on with his presumption, in the same insouciant voice.  "No," he echoed teasingly.  His smile had lost its curiosity and taken on a tenderness instead.  This is definitely *not* like Janette, I thought, looking at him with renewed fascination.  He returned the look, and then went serious again.  It was enough to make me dizzy, I thought, and shook my head.

I turned away, turned back to my instruments, happy to look at something familiar and under my control.  Time to crank up the autoclave and pop the old ethylene oxide bag in the toaster, I told myself.  But the vampire came close again, touched my shoulder.

"Let me do this once," he said when I turned around.  I didn't know what he meant, but his hand came up to stroke my hair, to stroke my cheek, run along my jawline, down my throat with the backs of his fingers, back up again to slip his hand behind my neck.  His eyes were huge and lovely, and he leaned forward to kiss me, and I let him.  And it started out as a lovely kiss, tender, maybe even kind or grateful, and then... there was just the beginning of it, just the hint of desire, of his saying through the kiss he could want me...  Oh my.

I pulled back sharply, and he didn't try to hold me.  I was all set to yell at him that one vampire in my life was more than enough to complicate it horribly and wonderfully, and would he please get out of my lab before-- but he wasn't pushing.  It wasn't me he wanted after all, though he had truly meant to give me- something.

He smiled, again with that college-kid air of irony.  "That's all I got, Doc," he shrugged.  But the eyes were serious and kind.  "I know it's not the genuine article, but-"

"Don't you dare say another word," I snapped.  But I was kind of happy, so I was also smiling.

He smiled wider and his voice cracked a little with humor. "OK, I won't," he said, and went out the door. 

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