The Gates fic: Selectively Blind
I have fallen head over heels for the gloriously slashy vampire/human pairing in The Gates. The chemistry! Dylan's sexy voice! I don't care that the show is incredibly cheesy - I'm hooked! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch it!!!!! I want company in my love of Nick/Dylan.
Title: Selectively Blind
Fandom: The Gates
Characters: Nick/Dylan
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,167
Spoilers: Takes place between episodes 8 and 9, so spoilers up to and including episode 8 - Dog Eat Dog.
Beta: Huge thanks to the lovely thehoyden for betaing and Americanizing me even without knowing the fandom.
Notes: Self-indulgence reigns. And conveniently fills a square on my kissbingo card - body: wrist.
"You look as though you've had more than enough of this party," Dylan says. Nick hadn't heard him approach; he turns. Dylan's holding a glass of red wine out to him, a half-empty glass in his other hand. "Here, this might help."
Nick takes the glass. He's been here little more than ten minutes, and it's his third glass. It's that kind of party.
"I guess I'm not doing a very good job of disguising my boredom," Nick says. Politics have never been his thing, courting popularity. He prefers to get on with his job and go home to a quiet evening with Sarah and the kids. Maybe go out for a beer with the guys. Not this type of event, in his best suit and a tie that he's longing to loosen. His fingers edged towards the knot five minutes ago, but Sarah had smiled across the room at him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and shook her head, so the tie is still in place.
Dylan sips his wine. "I don't really see you as the type to enjoy all this fake-smiling and the schmoozing." He punctuates his point by waving his free hand around the room; it's a sea of artful fake smiles.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It was a compliment. Smiles should be genuine and boredom expressed freely. In an ideal world, that is, where politics don't count." Dylan raises his glass. "To an ideal world," he proposes. Nick drinks to that. The wine is good, at least. No expense spared at a Frank Buckley party.
"I'm not sure which is the harder aspect of acclimatizing to The Gates: vampires and werewolves, or the frequency and tedium of the parties." Nick isn't entirely joking.
"At least if a vampire kills you, it's quick. The parties, they just suck the life blood out of you so slowly you don't even realize you're dying a little more with each one," Dylan drawls, deadpan.
Nick laughs. He shouldn't. Being chief of police in a community that includes entire species he thought were myths, creatures - no, people, not creatures, people - who can blur across cameras too fast to catch, who can kill with shocking ease, this is his life now, and it isn't a joke. Yet, somehow, in Dylan's company, it doesn't seem so horrific. Not normal, not even the least bit, and he hopes it never feels entirely normal, but each new revelation startles him less than the previous one. And sometimes, after a glass or two of wine, with Dylan smiling at him like they're sharing a secret, he can see the funny side.
Sarah's talking to Claire. Nick's oddly glad that they're becoming friends, even knowing what he does about Claire. He feels a twinge of guilt, though, sharing secrets with Dylan and keeping them from his own wife. His laughter dies.
"You'll need to tell Sarah sometime," Dylan says, as if he can read Nick's mind. "I take it she has no idea that The Gates is anything other than peculiarly cliquey?"
Nick shakes his head. He isn't certain if he's answering Dylan's question or dismissing the idea of telling her. It appalls him, the very idea of telling her that she's living in a community of vampires and werewolves and heaven only knows what else. That this safe haven he's brought his family to might be anything but safe.
He needs some fresh air. He takes Dylan by the arm and moves them out onto the patio.
The sun's still up and warm on his face out here. He wasn't thinking. "Are you okay? Out here?" he checks quickly. He knows Dylan can go out in the sun, but he doesn't know if it's painful or uncomfortable, if he'd rather endure the tedium of conversation inside than face the sun.
Dylan huffs a laugh and holds his face up to the sun. "I'm fine, see. Unbelievably high SPF sun block," he explains. "Peg makes it for us. We wouldn't be able to function normally without it, let alone pass ourselves off as human."
"Doesn't it irk you, sometimes, pretending to be something other than you are?" Nick asks. Something less, he thinks, the thought startling him.
Dylan appears to consider, staring out into the distance. He shrugs eventually and starts walking out into the garden. Nick follows him. "Yes and no," Dylan says. "Yes, it would be wonderful to live in some utopian society in which everyone was accepted for who or what they are. No hatred of other species. And maybe one day it'll happen. I just don't see it being in my lifetime. The fragile truce we have here, in The Gates, is the best we can hope for."
"And the no?" Nick prompts. He puts his empty glass down on one of the wrought iron tables dotted alongside the pool.
"I like living a human life. I enjoy going to work, coming home, eating dinner with my wife and daughter, helping Emily with her homework." There's a hitch in his voice when he mentions Claire, a slight pause. Nick's noticed a silence between the two of them lately. Even vampires have marital problems, he assumes, and doesn't ask. "It isn't exactly what most vampires aspire to, and maybe there are times when I think of what I've given up and wonder for a moment if it's worth it. When the remembered taste of fresh blood makes me ache-"
Nick remembers the blood on Dylan's face after he killed Teresa. He swallows. It sounds loud even to him.
Dylan laughs. "Too much, huh?"
"My grandmother used to serve blood sausage for breakfast - I never did have the stomach to try it," Nick admits. "The thought of drinking fresh blood, well-" He lets the expression on his face complete the sentence.
"It is an acquired taste. One that we acquire the moment we're turned, and never fully lose, no matter how long we go without."
Dylan sounds longing. Hungry. And yet Nick trusts him, no matter what he said to Simon Ford about not trusting anyone. Which is why he keeps on his questioning. "Isn't there some way you could have fresh blood safely? If you had willing donors, surely you could drink just a small amount, not enough to harm them?"
"Yes, we could. I have done, in the past, before we came here. But it's against the rules of The Gates. No hunting within the walls includes no feeding from humans, willing or not."
They're at the far end of the swimming pool now. The sun is reflected huge and orange in the water as it drops below the horizon. There's no one out here, no one to overhear.
Nick should think. He should be sensible and shut up now and go inside. Get another glass of expensive wine - his last for the evening - and make small talk with humans. Instead:
"You've broken the rules before." He doesn't make it an accusation, just a simple statement of fact.
"Only when it's been necessary. When lives are at risk."
"And always for other people. For Claire, no doubt."
Dylan nods slightly.
"And you would for the sake of Emily, I'm sure."
"Would you judge me for that?" Dylan asks.
"Never," Nick says emphatically. "I have children too, remember. I would do anything for them. Anything." He pauses and leans back against the low stone wall that separates the pool from the rest of the garden before he carries on. "You broke the rules for me too."
"You know that was necessary," Dylan says, a little uncertain, as though he's concerned Nick is suddenly about to charge him with the crime.
"Yes, of course," Nick reassures him. "I do. My point-"
"I'm glad to hear there is one," Dylan interrupts.
Nick continues, unchastened. "My point is that you only seem to break the rules for others. To save other people. Never for yourself."
Dylan nods in acknowledgement.
"So would it hurt that much if you allowed yourself to drink fresh blood occasionally?" Nick looks Dylan in the eyes. "From someone willing."
Dylan tilts his head on one side. "Are you-" he starts to ask, halting as though he can't bring himself to complete the question. He's shaking his head and he sounds puzzled, as though no human has ever offered him anything freely.
"Yes," Nick says.
"Because you owe me? There's no need to make some grand gesture. I'm not asking for it."
"I know you're not. That's why I'm offering."
Dylan looks away, out at the expanse of grounds stretching out below them. He takes a moment, then turns back to Nick. "You would trust me that much?"
Nick doesn't pause. "Yes," he says. "I would."
Dylan takes a deep breath and nods, once. He doesn't say yes, but he doesn't refuse either. Nick leaves it at that. New ideas take time to sink in. He knows that better than most.
*
Nick always swore he'd never be selectively blind.
Then again, he'd always sworn his head would rule his heart until he had a family and threw that idea out the window.
It isn't a lie if he believed it at the time.
And some promises he's proud to have broken.
*
The day after Frank's party a teenage girl goes missing. Her name's Leonie Ng, and Charlie knows her from school. They're not friends, Charlie says, but they have AP English together. He's quiet and calm as he tells Nick, but he looks too pale. Nick hates it when danger gets this close to his family.
None of her friends think she's run away. They assure him of that, all wide-eyed and weepy, interrupting each other with their declarations.
We'd have noticed.
She hasn't been unhappy or anything.
She bought this really cute red dress yesterday. For Andrew Miller's party on Saturday. So you see, Chief, she couldn't have been planning to go away.
He doesn't tell them that there's no standard behavior when it comes to runaways, that some are visibly depressed, no surprise to anyone, whereas others seem perfectly normal and happy, buying party dresses the day before they disappear forever.
Her mother doesn't believe she's run away either, but then mothers never do. There's no father - he died years ago, when Leonie was a toddler. There's no ransom demand either, and Marcus and Leigh scour the last twenty four hours of camera footage only to come up empty. As far as they can tell, Leonie left school as normal, but didn't get home. They can't tell if she got on the school bus or not, and no one can remember. Or no one's telling. The neighbors saw nothing either. So Leonie simply vanished into thin air somewhere in the three miles between school and her home.
The case doesn't make sense and Nick has a monumental headache from the certainty that he's being given the run-around. He knows there's something off about the case - he's getting a sixth sense for it by now - but it doesn't seem to be connected to vampires or werewolves, and he can't tell who really doesn't know anything and who's stone-walling him.
He phones Dylan. "What else is there?"
"Pardon?"
"What other type of-" He nearly says creatures, but stops himself in time. He isn't sure what the politically correct term is, but anything that makes them sound like animals or less than humans is probably out. He starts again. "I know there are vampires and werewolves. What other non-humans are there in The Gates?"
"You're asking difficult questions, Nick." There's a warning in Dylan's voice.
Nick knows he is. He knows he's asking Dylan to betray confidences, to break the rules yet again, but he needs to know. "A girl's life might be in danger, Dylan. That gives me the right to ask difficult questions."
There's a brief pause. "I'll come over," Dylan says, and hangs up.
He walks into Nick's office ten minutes later. "I hope we can do it here, and not in the interrogation room," he says, and Nick flashes back to the first few times they met, the way he treated Dylan.
"The coffee here is terrible. Let's go out, get a decent cup."
The gesture isn't lost on Dylan. He relaxes, infinitesimally, but Nick still notices.
He waits until they're seated - discreetly in the back of the coffee shop, as far from the windows as possible - and well into their coffees before he brings up the case.
"I take it you've heard about Leonie Ng going missing?" It's barely a question - The Gates has its deep secrets, but news like this spreads like wildfire.
"Of course."
"Her mother is panic-stricken, but she's skirting around almost every question I ask. She insists her daughter must have been kidnapped, but she claims to have no idea why or by whom, and there hasn't been a ransom demand. She reported her daughter missing when she was only two hours late home, and yet Leonie has frequent, unexplained absences from school, despite being an honor student. It doesn't add up, and when things here don't add up, I start to question why. Which leads me to my question."
"You do realize that even if I tell you about other types of non-humans, I can't - I won't - name names?"
Nick nods. "That's fair enough."
Dylan puts his coffee cup down and leans forward a fraction. "Vampires and werewolves you know about, obviously. There are also humans who dabble in what some might call supernatural arts. Witchcraft. And some who do more than just dabble."
Nick raises his eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"Deadly. And I chose that word deliberately."
"There's been murder by witchcraft?" Nick makes a mental note to check past records. See if there have been any disappearances that might be more than they seem.
Dylan hedges around the question. "There are some who use it purely for good. For medicinal purposes. And others who use it for power, for control, for anything they crave."
Nick has to believe Dylan. He wouldn't joke in a situation like this. "Okay, check, witches. I've got that. What else?"
"There are the fae."
"The fae? You mean-fairies?" Nick tries hard to keep a straight face.
Dylan smiles. "I think you'll find they prefer the term fae, particularly the males among them. Fairy doesn't exactly convey the sort of image that a red-blooded, heterosexual fae wants to present." Dylan's grin gets wider.
"I imagine not." Nick drinks his coffee. He's sitting in a coffee shop with a vampire discussing witches and fairies, and he needs something ordinary to ground him. The coffee is a little too strong for his liking, but it's good. Familiar. "What distinguishes the fae from humans?" he asks.
"No one factor. There are many types of fae. Mermaids are the most numerous, though you won't find any here."
"Too far from the sea?"
"Much too far. They'd never survive here. Then there are dryads. They need to live in the vicinity of woods, and most importantly have an affinity for a particular tree. Their tree, planted at their birth."
"There are a lot of woods around The Gates," Nick says.
"Yes, there are."
They go quiet while the waitress tops up their coffee. Nick thinks about dryads having a special tree.
"And if a dryad is too far from his or her tree?" he asks as soon as the waitress has moved on.
"As far as I know, distance isn't so much an issue, as time. If they're away from their tree for too long, they'll die."
Nick tries to absorb the information. He's used to taking in details quickly, piecing them together and making sense of a half-formed pattern, but it's hard when everything he's learning goes against everything he's ever believed. "Is that it?" he asks. He hopes the answer's yes.
"No," Dylan says. So much for Nick's hope. "There are shapeshifters."
"Shapeshifters?" Nick's startled, even more than at the idea of people who need trees to survive. "That sounds like the perfect cover for crime."
Dylan shakes his head. "They adhere to very strict rules inside The Gates. I've never heard of any abusing their abilities." He goes silent for a while. Nick doesn't think he's finished, somehow, so he doesn't interrupt the silence, just waits it out. He wants to learn what it is that Dylan doesn't want to speak about. "And then there are dhampirs." Dylan's tone changes on the name, his disgust obvious.
"You clearly don't like dhampirs, whatever they are," Nick presses.
"They're hybrids. Half human, half vampire. There's no love lost between vampires and dhampirs. There are thankfully none within The Gates now. I would know if there were."
"There were some, at one time?"
"There was one, yes." Dylan doesn't offer any more information, and Nick doesn't press further. "Anyway, I have a meeting shortly," he says, getting up. "I'd better be going."
"Thanks for your help." Nick drains his coffee and stands.
"Just find Leonie. Soon," Dylan says, low and serious, before heading out.
*
Nick sits at his desk and mulls over that final instruction. Soon. He adds it to the urgency in Mrs. Ng's voice - the two together equal more than normal concern. They point to a time constraint. Something is going to happen to Leonie if Nick doesn't find her soon enough. He runs through the list of non-humans that Dylan gave him, and keeps coming back to dryads.
He needs to take another look at the Ng's house.
*
He pulls up in the Ng's drive. He hadn't remembered wrong. There are two slender trees flanking the house, one roughly ten feet taller than the other. The taller one is probably twenty or thirty years older than the shorter one. The same sort of age difference there must be between Mrs. Ng and her daughter. The house is near the boundary, the woods surrounding The Gates visible over the wall.
Dryads can't survive long separated from their trees. Dylan was quite clear about that. That must be his time constraint.
Nyssa Ng is standing near the smaller of the two trees, hand resting on the trunk. Her eyes are red.
"What type is it?" Nick asks, motioning towards the tree.
"A Davidia involucrata. It's commonly known as a Dove tree," she says, her voice so low he can barely hear her.
She doesn't ask him if he has any news. Parents can always tell, though some ask even when they know the answer's going to be no.
"They're very close to the house. You don't worry about the roots undermining the foundations?"
She lifts her head slowly, as though it's an effort. "No," she says. "The roots won't cause any problem."
He's certain, now. "How long does Leonie have, away from it?" Nick asks, looking up at the smaller tree. It's a beautiful tree.
Mrs. Ng doesn't speak for a long time. Nick senses she's debating whether or not to trust him. There's nothing he can say now to make her - he knows that from experience. You can't force trust.
She lets go of the tree and holds out her hands to him. "You see me? How dry my skin is? How hard it is for me to move? Leonie has been away from her tree for half a day longer than I have from mine. She will barely be able to move by now." She finally looks him in the face. "She has hours, Chief Monohan, just a few hours."
He wants to tell her to take care of herself, and promise that he'll bring Leonie back, but she'll ignore the first piece of advice and he can't promise the second. Not for certain.
*
He walks into Frank Buckley's office without any preamble, Frank's secretary fluttering unhappily behind him. "Any developments within The Gates have to be approved by you, presumably?" Nick asks.
"Yes," Buckley answers. "It's okay, Melissa, the Chief doesn't need an appointment to see me." Melissa closes the door behind her.
Nick paces. "Have you turned down any requests recently?"
Frank leans back in his seat. "The Gates is a growing community, constantly evolving. Numerous plans cross my desk daily. You'll need to be more specific."
"Anything involving land near the Ng's?" Nick hopes his hunch is right.
Franks jaw tightens. "Yes," he bites out, clearly seeing where Nick's going with his questions. "Derinium Power want to build an alternate power source there, green energy for The Gates. They've been quite persistent." He starts opening files on his computer, and the printer whirs into life.
"And that would involve cutting down some of the trees in that area."
Frank nods. "Yes, it would. You know, then."
"About the Ngs? Yes."
"They were here before The Gates was built. I bought some of the land from Jeremy Ng - Nyssa's husband - and I gave him my word before he died that the trees on his land would be protected. I intend to keep my word."
Something clicks into place. "That's why there's a wide loop in the road near their house. I'd always wondered about that - it seemed like strange planning."
"Everything here has a reason."
"I'm starting to learn that."
Frank hands Nick a print-out. It has all the details he might need to know about Derinium Power. "She doesn't have long, if she's even still alive," Frank says.
"You really do care about the people here." Nick's slowly coming to adjust his thinking when it comes to Frank Buckley. He's had to do that with a lot of the inhabitants here.
"Many of them have been treated as freaks. Spent their lives running. This is their haven."
Nick nods. It's his job to keep it a safe haven for them.
*
He can't take Marcus or Leigh. Not without too many questions that Nick isn't willing to answer. Secrets always complicate matters.
He takes Dylan instead.
"I'm beginning to think I should draw an official salary," Dylan says. "Or at least have a uniform."
"What you're wearing is better than a uniform tonight," Nick says, foot heavy on the gas. Dylan's all in black. He looks pale by contrast.
"I assumed what we're doing isn't going to be exactly legal, or you would have taken one of your men. But I have no idea where we're going."
"Derinium Power have a small plant on Beck Ridge."
"That's outside your jurisdiction," Dylan points out.
"I'm looking for one of my people. That makes it my jurisdiction, as far as I'm concerned."
"Good enough for me."
Eddie Barnes waves them out of The Gates, and Nick picks up speed. Beck Ridge is fifty-five miles away. Over a hundred miles there and back. Nick can only hope he's right, because if he isn't, he's running out of time for fresh ideas.
"I take it that Derinium Power have been eyeing up Nyssa Ng's land," Dylan says.
"It's the highest point in The Gates. It would be an ideal location for them."
"But Mrs. Ng won't sell, obviously, and I'd hazard a guess that Frank Buckley wouldn't give them the time of day either. So you think they've taken Leonie."
"I'd feel happier if there had been some sort of ransom demand."
"The lack of one does suggest they know what she is. Which is troubling."
"Yes, well, right now my only concern is getting her back. Determining how or where they got their information will have to wait for another day."
*
Nick kills the lights a mile out from Beck Ridge. He pulls over but leaves the engine running. "I hope the stories about vampires eyesight aren't just myths," he says, getting out of the car.
"They aren't. I take it you want me to drive?"
"I want to get as close as possible without alerting any guards."
"We can do that," Dylan says.
They coast to a halt beside a wire perimeter. Before they get out, Nick takes hold of Dylan's arm. "I'm leading this rescue. I know you have abilities I don't, but I have the training. Are you okay with that?"
"And if I'm not?"
"Then you wait here." Nick can't risk anything going wrong.
Dylan doesn't pause long before answering. "I'm okay with it."
"Good," Nick says, and gets out of the car. He closes the door quietly and grabs wire cutters from the trunk.
*
Dylan's very still, listening. "There's a guard. Just one, and he's on the other side of the compound."
"Can you tell if Leonie's here?"
Dylan sniffs the air. "I'm not certain. There've been a lot of people here recently, and it's making it difficult to tell, but I can sense something in that building." He points to a low shed.
Nick hopes it's Leonie. He motions to Dylan to follow him, and they race across the open space to the shed. It's padlocked, and Nick reaches in his pocket for his lock picks.
"I can break it faster than you can pick it," Dylan whispers.
"We can't risk the sound." It takes Nick just a few seconds - he hasn't lost the knack.
It's pitch black inside once they close the door behind them, so Nick risks his torch. The shed is full of metal struts and huge reels of wire. There's something that looks like a pile of old rags in the corner. "That's her," Dylan whispers.
They pull off the rags and she's there, curled up underneath. She looks tiny, ashen pale in the torch-light. She's not moving, and for a moment Nick thinks they're too late. He curses, frustrated with himself for every minute he lost on the investigation, but Dylan bends down and picks her up.
"Is she-?" Nick asks, brushing her hair back and feeling for her pulse.
"She's alive. But barely."
"The nearest hospital is-" Nick stops.
Dylan echoes his thoughts. "She needs to go home, not to a hospital."
And they need to keep this rescue a secret. Keep her secret safe.
*
They cover her up with a blanket before they go through the gates. Eddie won't check the back of the Chief's car, but they can't risk him seeing anything suspicious as they drive by.
"I'll call Peg to meet us there," Dylan says.
"She'll know what to do?"
"Leonie should start to recover as soon as she merges with her tree, but Peg might be able to speed her recovery, and, if nothing else, she'll be there for Nyssa Ng."
Dylan's brief and concise on the phone. "She'll be here in a few minutes," he says as they pull up outside the house. The street's quiet, curtain's drawn, but they can't be seen. "I can get her out fast enough that no human eye will catch it. If you can deal with any recording?"
Nick nods. It's their best option.
He waits a few seconds after Dylan's sped past before going up to the house. Mrs. Ng is crying, stumbling over words in her effort to thank them. He'll talk to her tomorrow, tell her to come up with a convincing explanation for Leonie's disappearance. One that leaves out his and Dylan's involvement, or any mention of the reason for her abduction. It will have to be a simple family matter, a misunderstanding or a dead cell phone, a thoughtless teenager. All happily resolved in the end, which is all that matters.
And he'll fix the video footage of their return and write up another set of selectively truthful notes. He's getting adept at that.
*
"If there's a leak of information on non-humans within The Gates, we'll need to stop it," Dylan says once they've left Leonie with her mother and Peg. Nick thinks he saw Leonie vanish into her tree, but he didn't look back.
"We will. We make a good team." Nick means it. He'll start looking into Derinium Power tomorrow, work out who knows what, and where they got their information. He'll watch over Nyssa and Leonie too, make sure no 'accidents' happen.
"Yes, we do. Not what I would have predicted after our first few meetings."
It isn't what Nick would have predicted either, but then all his expectations are getting turned upside down. "I think it calls for a drink to celebrate," Nick suggests.
"I have a bottle of 1985 La Tâche in my cellar."
Nick's more of a beer guy, but he knows enough about wine to know that's a fine vintage. He could easily say yes.
He doesn't. "I have something better," he offers, pulling over to the side of the road. There's a blind spot here, about fifty yards that the cameras don't catch. If there are any questions asked, he had a flat tire. He'll stick a nail in his spare to add credence to his story.
"Better than a 1985 La Tâche?"
"I think you would find it so, yes," Nick says pointedly.
Dylan doesn't make a move. "This is not necessarily a good idea when you're driving," he says eventually. "You're liable to feel-somewhat drunk, afterwards."
"I trust you," Nick says. It's the second time he's said it. He's not certain Dylan believed him the first time.
"If you keep on offering, I am going to take you up on it. I only have so much self-control," Dylan says, and Nick can hear the effort he's putting into maintaining control.
Nick gets out of the car. He leans against it, and waits for Dylan to join him. With the headlights off, Nick can barely see. He closes his eyes a moment to speed up the adjustment. When he opens them, he can see the shadow of the woods lining the road, and the silhouette of Dylan beside him.
"If anyone were to find out-" Dylan says. "If my people found out-"
Nick doesn't think Dylan's trying to back out. He's offering Nick an easy way out, the perfect excuse to change his mind. He isn't going to. "They won't. I give you my word."
Nick doesn't see Dylan move. It's too fast. One second he's leaning against the car, the next he has one hand on Nick's shoulder, pressing him into the car, the other hand lifting Nick's left arm. "You are right handed, yes?" Dylan asks. His thumb is stroking the vein in Nick's wrist - Nick's not sure he even realizes he's doing it.
"Yes." Nick swallows. He takes a deep breath. "You're not going for the jugular?" He's seen his share of vampire movies.
"Too dangerous. It would be far too easy to take more than I meant to." Dylan's voice is different. Less clear and his diction less precise. Nick turns his head, sees a glimpse of teeth extending over Dylan's lips. Fangs.
"Okay," Nick says. The last time he saw Dylan with his fangs extended, he'd just killed a woman. This is quite possibly the craziest thing Nick has ever done.
"The radial artery is safer. Safe," Dylan corrects himself.
It doesn't feel safe. Nick's heart is beating too fast, and there's no chance Dylan hasn't noticed. It's been a long time since Nick felt this scared and exhilarated and-
"Fuck," he exclaims, as Dylan bites. The pain is sharp and strong, and Nick tilts his head back against the car to deal with it. He breathes in sharply, biting his lip. And then the pain changes. It's still there, a steady discomfort in his arm, but Dylan's lapping at his wrist and there's something mesmerizing about the action, something intimate. Nick feels himself relax into it.
Nick's never been turned on by pain. Never been anything other than a vanilla kind of guy - he's both aware of that and untroubled by it. He has enough excitement in his job, he doesn't need excitement in his sex life to get turned on. So he doesn't know why this is affecting him the way it is, but it's only a matter of time before it's obvious to Dylan too. If it isn't already.
Nick tries to edge his body away, but Dylan is immovable. His grip on Nick's arm is light, but his entire body is holding Nick in place. Nick ought to mind, ought to feel trapped, but he doesn't.
Nick isn't sure how long it takes before Dylan stops - time feels fluid, everything hazy - but when he does, Nick feels as though he's coming out of a trance. He shakes his head to clear it, but Dylan's still holding him, so close that Nick can tell they're breathing in sync.
"I didn't know you needed to breath," Nick says, latching onto the one thing that he can bring himself to say out loud.
"We don't," Dylan says. He sounds sated, and when Nick turns his head, he can see Dylan's fangs are still extended. There's a bead of blood on his lower lip - Nick wipes it off with his free hand. His finger brushes against one of the fangs, and Dylan shivers. He licks his teeth and lips clean even though there's no other trace of blood, and Nick watches, fascinated, as his fangs withdraw.
Dylan finally lets go of his arm. Nick lifts his wrist - there are two small marks, and as he looks, he can see them growing fainter, healing at an impossible rate. He feels dizzy. He doesn't think it's from blood loss.
"I should have warned you," Dylan says. "It can be-intense."
Nick stops his words with a kiss. He doesn't mean to kiss him, but Dylan's there, so close, and Nick can't deny any longer that he's been holding back from this for some time now, dancing around the attraction between them. Refusing to see it. Selectively blind again. But here, right now, in this dark and giddy moment, he has to do it.
He doesn't make the kiss linger. He reaches down and finds Dylan's arm. Lifts it to his mouth and kisses his wrist. He traces the faint ridge of veins with his tongue. He won't find a pulse, he knows that. It should repulse him. He doesn't know why it doesn't.
He bites softly into the fleshy side of Dylan's wrist. Not enough to mark, but he tongues the skin afterwards, as gently as if he'd done some injury. Dylan shudders, so Nick does it again and again, kissing the thin skin each time.
"Don't break the skin," Dylan forces out.
"Why not?" Nick has to ask. "What will happen if I do." He nips harder, and Dylan groans.
"If you do," he says, "everything changes."
Everything's already changed. But Nick pulls back all the same. Lets go of Dylan and moves away, just far enough that they're not touching.
He takes a deep breath. "We can't stay here much longer. I'll blame a flat, but-"
"But any longer and it'll look like incompetence. Can't have a Chief of Police who can't change a tire in under twenty minutes." Dylan tries for a joking tone but doesn't quite hit the mark. He looks raw. Nick wonders if he looks the same. They need to talk, but he has no idea what to say.
They get in the car, and Nick pulls away.
*
Dylan's staring out the window. He's the first to break the silence. "We don't have to mention this again. We can pretend it never happened."
"Really?" Nick asks, because he knows he can't.
Dylan huffs a laugh. "No, probably not." He turns to look at Nick. "But it doesn't have to happen again."
Nick pulls to a halt at a stop light. He takes the opportunity to look Dylan in the eyes. "And if we both want it to?" He does and he doesn't. "What then?"
"Then-then I imagine your knowledge of camera blind spots will come in very useful." Dylan smiles at him, old and strong and incredibly full of life, and Nick thinks he knows what's going to happen. He's not sure if he's okay with it, with anything he's done tonight, but he's broken his rule about selective blindness before. There are times for rules, and times for bending them. And sometimes the rules have to be thrown out the window.
*
Tuesday, Nick wakes up early. Sun in his eyes. He shades his eyes with his arm. There's a faint mark - no more than a bruise - on his wrist.
He wouldn't have forgotten, even without the reminder.
He rolls over and goes back to sleep. He dreams of hot red stars and icy midnight skies and the feel of flesh tearing under his teeth. He hears his voice, promising. I'll keep you safe, he says.
When he wakes again, all he remembers is his promise. He doesn't remember the face in front of him - dream blindness, he thinks - but that doesn't matter.
He'll keep them all safe.
//
Title: Selectively Blind
Fandom: The Gates
Characters: Nick/Dylan
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 6,167
Spoilers: Takes place between episodes 8 and 9, so spoilers up to and including episode 8 - Dog Eat Dog.
Beta: Huge thanks to the lovely thehoyden for betaing and Americanizing me even without knowing the fandom.
Notes: Self-indulgence reigns. And conveniently fills a square on my kissbingo card - body: wrist.
"You look as though you've had more than enough of this party," Dylan says. Nick hadn't heard him approach; he turns. Dylan's holding a glass of red wine out to him, a half-empty glass in his other hand. "Here, this might help."
Nick takes the glass. He's been here little more than ten minutes, and it's his third glass. It's that kind of party.
"I guess I'm not doing a very good job of disguising my boredom," Nick says. Politics have never been his thing, courting popularity. He prefers to get on with his job and go home to a quiet evening with Sarah and the kids. Maybe go out for a beer with the guys. Not this type of event, in his best suit and a tie that he's longing to loosen. His fingers edged towards the knot five minutes ago, but Sarah had smiled across the room at him as though she knew exactly what he was thinking and shook her head, so the tie is still in place.
Dylan sips his wine. "I don't really see you as the type to enjoy all this fake-smiling and the schmoozing." He punctuates his point by waving his free hand around the room; it's a sea of artful fake smiles.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It was a compliment. Smiles should be genuine and boredom expressed freely. In an ideal world, that is, where politics don't count." Dylan raises his glass. "To an ideal world," he proposes. Nick drinks to that. The wine is good, at least. No expense spared at a Frank Buckley party.
"I'm not sure which is the harder aspect of acclimatizing to The Gates: vampires and werewolves, or the frequency and tedium of the parties." Nick isn't entirely joking.
"At least if a vampire kills you, it's quick. The parties, they just suck the life blood out of you so slowly you don't even realize you're dying a little more with each one," Dylan drawls, deadpan.
Nick laughs. He shouldn't. Being chief of police in a community that includes entire species he thought were myths, creatures - no, people, not creatures, people - who can blur across cameras too fast to catch, who can kill with shocking ease, this is his life now, and it isn't a joke. Yet, somehow, in Dylan's company, it doesn't seem so horrific. Not normal, not even the least bit, and he hopes it never feels entirely normal, but each new revelation startles him less than the previous one. And sometimes, after a glass or two of wine, with Dylan smiling at him like they're sharing a secret, he can see the funny side.
Sarah's talking to Claire. Nick's oddly glad that they're becoming friends, even knowing what he does about Claire. He feels a twinge of guilt, though, sharing secrets with Dylan and keeping them from his own wife. His laughter dies.
"You'll need to tell Sarah sometime," Dylan says, as if he can read Nick's mind. "I take it she has no idea that The Gates is anything other than peculiarly cliquey?"
Nick shakes his head. He isn't certain if he's answering Dylan's question or dismissing the idea of telling her. It appalls him, the very idea of telling her that she's living in a community of vampires and werewolves and heaven only knows what else. That this safe haven he's brought his family to might be anything but safe.
He needs some fresh air. He takes Dylan by the arm and moves them out onto the patio.
The sun's still up and warm on his face out here. He wasn't thinking. "Are you okay? Out here?" he checks quickly. He knows Dylan can go out in the sun, but he doesn't know if it's painful or uncomfortable, if he'd rather endure the tedium of conversation inside than face the sun.
Dylan huffs a laugh and holds his face up to the sun. "I'm fine, see. Unbelievably high SPF sun block," he explains. "Peg makes it for us. We wouldn't be able to function normally without it, let alone pass ourselves off as human."
"Doesn't it irk you, sometimes, pretending to be something other than you are?" Nick asks. Something less, he thinks, the thought startling him.
Dylan appears to consider, staring out into the distance. He shrugs eventually and starts walking out into the garden. Nick follows him. "Yes and no," Dylan says. "Yes, it would be wonderful to live in some utopian society in which everyone was accepted for who or what they are. No hatred of other species. And maybe one day it'll happen. I just don't see it being in my lifetime. The fragile truce we have here, in The Gates, is the best we can hope for."
"And the no?" Nick prompts. He puts his empty glass down on one of the wrought iron tables dotted alongside the pool.
"I like living a human life. I enjoy going to work, coming home, eating dinner with my wife and daughter, helping Emily with her homework." There's a hitch in his voice when he mentions Claire, a slight pause. Nick's noticed a silence between the two of them lately. Even vampires have marital problems, he assumes, and doesn't ask. "It isn't exactly what most vampires aspire to, and maybe there are times when I think of what I've given up and wonder for a moment if it's worth it. When the remembered taste of fresh blood makes me ache-"
Nick remembers the blood on Dylan's face after he killed Teresa. He swallows. It sounds loud even to him.
Dylan laughs. "Too much, huh?"
"My grandmother used to serve blood sausage for breakfast - I never did have the stomach to try it," Nick admits. "The thought of drinking fresh blood, well-" He lets the expression on his face complete the sentence.
"It is an acquired taste. One that we acquire the moment we're turned, and never fully lose, no matter how long we go without."
Dylan sounds longing. Hungry. And yet Nick trusts him, no matter what he said to Simon Ford about not trusting anyone. Which is why he keeps on his questioning. "Isn't there some way you could have fresh blood safely? If you had willing donors, surely you could drink just a small amount, not enough to harm them?"
"Yes, we could. I have done, in the past, before we came here. But it's against the rules of The Gates. No hunting within the walls includes no feeding from humans, willing or not."
They're at the far end of the swimming pool now. The sun is reflected huge and orange in the water as it drops below the horizon. There's no one out here, no one to overhear.
Nick should think. He should be sensible and shut up now and go inside. Get another glass of expensive wine - his last for the evening - and make small talk with humans. Instead:
"You've broken the rules before." He doesn't make it an accusation, just a simple statement of fact.
"Only when it's been necessary. When lives are at risk."
"And always for other people. For Claire, no doubt."
Dylan nods slightly.
"And you would for the sake of Emily, I'm sure."
"Would you judge me for that?" Dylan asks.
"Never," Nick says emphatically. "I have children too, remember. I would do anything for them. Anything." He pauses and leans back against the low stone wall that separates the pool from the rest of the garden before he carries on. "You broke the rules for me too."
"You know that was necessary," Dylan says, a little uncertain, as though he's concerned Nick is suddenly about to charge him with the crime.
"Yes, of course," Nick reassures him. "I do. My point-"
"I'm glad to hear there is one," Dylan interrupts.
Nick continues, unchastened. "My point is that you only seem to break the rules for others. To save other people. Never for yourself."
Dylan nods in acknowledgement.
"So would it hurt that much if you allowed yourself to drink fresh blood occasionally?" Nick looks Dylan in the eyes. "From someone willing."
Dylan tilts his head on one side. "Are you-" he starts to ask, halting as though he can't bring himself to complete the question. He's shaking his head and he sounds puzzled, as though no human has ever offered him anything freely.
"Yes," Nick says.
"Because you owe me? There's no need to make some grand gesture. I'm not asking for it."
"I know you're not. That's why I'm offering."
Dylan looks away, out at the expanse of grounds stretching out below them. He takes a moment, then turns back to Nick. "You would trust me that much?"
Nick doesn't pause. "Yes," he says. "I would."
Dylan takes a deep breath and nods, once. He doesn't say yes, but he doesn't refuse either. Nick leaves it at that. New ideas take time to sink in. He knows that better than most.
*
Nick always swore he'd never be selectively blind.
Then again, he'd always sworn his head would rule his heart until he had a family and threw that idea out the window.
It isn't a lie if he believed it at the time.
And some promises he's proud to have broken.
*
The day after Frank's party a teenage girl goes missing. Her name's Leonie Ng, and Charlie knows her from school. They're not friends, Charlie says, but they have AP English together. He's quiet and calm as he tells Nick, but he looks too pale. Nick hates it when danger gets this close to his family.
None of her friends think she's run away. They assure him of that, all wide-eyed and weepy, interrupting each other with their declarations.
We'd have noticed.
She hasn't been unhappy or anything.
She bought this really cute red dress yesterday. For Andrew Miller's party on Saturday. So you see, Chief, she couldn't have been planning to go away.
He doesn't tell them that there's no standard behavior when it comes to runaways, that some are visibly depressed, no surprise to anyone, whereas others seem perfectly normal and happy, buying party dresses the day before they disappear forever.
Her mother doesn't believe she's run away either, but then mothers never do. There's no father - he died years ago, when Leonie was a toddler. There's no ransom demand either, and Marcus and Leigh scour the last twenty four hours of camera footage only to come up empty. As far as they can tell, Leonie left school as normal, but didn't get home. They can't tell if she got on the school bus or not, and no one can remember. Or no one's telling. The neighbors saw nothing either. So Leonie simply vanished into thin air somewhere in the three miles between school and her home.
The case doesn't make sense and Nick has a monumental headache from the certainty that he's being given the run-around. He knows there's something off about the case - he's getting a sixth sense for it by now - but it doesn't seem to be connected to vampires or werewolves, and he can't tell who really doesn't know anything and who's stone-walling him.
He phones Dylan. "What else is there?"
"Pardon?"
"What other type of-" He nearly says creatures, but stops himself in time. He isn't sure what the politically correct term is, but anything that makes them sound like animals or less than humans is probably out. He starts again. "I know there are vampires and werewolves. What other non-humans are there in The Gates?"
"You're asking difficult questions, Nick." There's a warning in Dylan's voice.
Nick knows he is. He knows he's asking Dylan to betray confidences, to break the rules yet again, but he needs to know. "A girl's life might be in danger, Dylan. That gives me the right to ask difficult questions."
There's a brief pause. "I'll come over," Dylan says, and hangs up.
He walks into Nick's office ten minutes later. "I hope we can do it here, and not in the interrogation room," he says, and Nick flashes back to the first few times they met, the way he treated Dylan.
"The coffee here is terrible. Let's go out, get a decent cup."
The gesture isn't lost on Dylan. He relaxes, infinitesimally, but Nick still notices.
He waits until they're seated - discreetly in the back of the coffee shop, as far from the windows as possible - and well into their coffees before he brings up the case.
"I take it you've heard about Leonie Ng going missing?" It's barely a question - The Gates has its deep secrets, but news like this spreads like wildfire.
"Of course."
"Her mother is panic-stricken, but she's skirting around almost every question I ask. She insists her daughter must have been kidnapped, but she claims to have no idea why or by whom, and there hasn't been a ransom demand. She reported her daughter missing when she was only two hours late home, and yet Leonie has frequent, unexplained absences from school, despite being an honor student. It doesn't add up, and when things here don't add up, I start to question why. Which leads me to my question."
"You do realize that even if I tell you about other types of non-humans, I can't - I won't - name names?"
Nick nods. "That's fair enough."
Dylan puts his coffee cup down and leans forward a fraction. "Vampires and werewolves you know about, obviously. There are also humans who dabble in what some might call supernatural arts. Witchcraft. And some who do more than just dabble."
Nick raises his eyebrows. "Seriously?"
"Deadly. And I chose that word deliberately."
"There's been murder by witchcraft?" Nick makes a mental note to check past records. See if there have been any disappearances that might be more than they seem.
Dylan hedges around the question. "There are some who use it purely for good. For medicinal purposes. And others who use it for power, for control, for anything they crave."
Nick has to believe Dylan. He wouldn't joke in a situation like this. "Okay, check, witches. I've got that. What else?"
"There are the fae."
"The fae? You mean-fairies?" Nick tries hard to keep a straight face.
Dylan smiles. "I think you'll find they prefer the term fae, particularly the males among them. Fairy doesn't exactly convey the sort of image that a red-blooded, heterosexual fae wants to present." Dylan's grin gets wider.
"I imagine not." Nick drinks his coffee. He's sitting in a coffee shop with a vampire discussing witches and fairies, and he needs something ordinary to ground him. The coffee is a little too strong for his liking, but it's good. Familiar. "What distinguishes the fae from humans?" he asks.
"No one factor. There are many types of fae. Mermaids are the most numerous, though you won't find any here."
"Too far from the sea?"
"Much too far. They'd never survive here. Then there are dryads. They need to live in the vicinity of woods, and most importantly have an affinity for a particular tree. Their tree, planted at their birth."
"There are a lot of woods around The Gates," Nick says.
"Yes, there are."
They go quiet while the waitress tops up their coffee. Nick thinks about dryads having a special tree.
"And if a dryad is too far from his or her tree?" he asks as soon as the waitress has moved on.
"As far as I know, distance isn't so much an issue, as time. If they're away from their tree for too long, they'll die."
Nick tries to absorb the information. He's used to taking in details quickly, piecing them together and making sense of a half-formed pattern, but it's hard when everything he's learning goes against everything he's ever believed. "Is that it?" he asks. He hopes the answer's yes.
"No," Dylan says. So much for Nick's hope. "There are shapeshifters."
"Shapeshifters?" Nick's startled, even more than at the idea of people who need trees to survive. "That sounds like the perfect cover for crime."
Dylan shakes his head. "They adhere to very strict rules inside The Gates. I've never heard of any abusing their abilities." He goes silent for a while. Nick doesn't think he's finished, somehow, so he doesn't interrupt the silence, just waits it out. He wants to learn what it is that Dylan doesn't want to speak about. "And then there are dhampirs." Dylan's tone changes on the name, his disgust obvious.
"You clearly don't like dhampirs, whatever they are," Nick presses.
"They're hybrids. Half human, half vampire. There's no love lost between vampires and dhampirs. There are thankfully none within The Gates now. I would know if there were."
"There were some, at one time?"
"There was one, yes." Dylan doesn't offer any more information, and Nick doesn't press further. "Anyway, I have a meeting shortly," he says, getting up. "I'd better be going."
"Thanks for your help." Nick drains his coffee and stands.
"Just find Leonie. Soon," Dylan says, low and serious, before heading out.
*
Nick sits at his desk and mulls over that final instruction. Soon. He adds it to the urgency in Mrs. Ng's voice - the two together equal more than normal concern. They point to a time constraint. Something is going to happen to Leonie if Nick doesn't find her soon enough. He runs through the list of non-humans that Dylan gave him, and keeps coming back to dryads.
He needs to take another look at the Ng's house.
*
He pulls up in the Ng's drive. He hadn't remembered wrong. There are two slender trees flanking the house, one roughly ten feet taller than the other. The taller one is probably twenty or thirty years older than the shorter one. The same sort of age difference there must be between Mrs. Ng and her daughter. The house is near the boundary, the woods surrounding The Gates visible over the wall.
Dryads can't survive long separated from their trees. Dylan was quite clear about that. That must be his time constraint.
Nyssa Ng is standing near the smaller of the two trees, hand resting on the trunk. Her eyes are red.
"What type is it?" Nick asks, motioning towards the tree.
"A Davidia involucrata. It's commonly known as a Dove tree," she says, her voice so low he can barely hear her.
She doesn't ask him if he has any news. Parents can always tell, though some ask even when they know the answer's going to be no.
"They're very close to the house. You don't worry about the roots undermining the foundations?"
She lifts her head slowly, as though it's an effort. "No," she says. "The roots won't cause any problem."
He's certain, now. "How long does Leonie have, away from it?" Nick asks, looking up at the smaller tree. It's a beautiful tree.
Mrs. Ng doesn't speak for a long time. Nick senses she's debating whether or not to trust him. There's nothing he can say now to make her - he knows that from experience. You can't force trust.
She lets go of the tree and holds out her hands to him. "You see me? How dry my skin is? How hard it is for me to move? Leonie has been away from her tree for half a day longer than I have from mine. She will barely be able to move by now." She finally looks him in the face. "She has hours, Chief Monohan, just a few hours."
He wants to tell her to take care of herself, and promise that he'll bring Leonie back, but she'll ignore the first piece of advice and he can't promise the second. Not for certain.
*
He walks into Frank Buckley's office without any preamble, Frank's secretary fluttering unhappily behind him. "Any developments within The Gates have to be approved by you, presumably?" Nick asks.
"Yes," Buckley answers. "It's okay, Melissa, the Chief doesn't need an appointment to see me." Melissa closes the door behind her.
Nick paces. "Have you turned down any requests recently?"
Frank leans back in his seat. "The Gates is a growing community, constantly evolving. Numerous plans cross my desk daily. You'll need to be more specific."
"Anything involving land near the Ng's?" Nick hopes his hunch is right.
Franks jaw tightens. "Yes," he bites out, clearly seeing where Nick's going with his questions. "Derinium Power want to build an alternate power source there, green energy for The Gates. They've been quite persistent." He starts opening files on his computer, and the printer whirs into life.
"And that would involve cutting down some of the trees in that area."
Frank nods. "Yes, it would. You know, then."
"About the Ngs? Yes."
"They were here before The Gates was built. I bought some of the land from Jeremy Ng - Nyssa's husband - and I gave him my word before he died that the trees on his land would be protected. I intend to keep my word."
Something clicks into place. "That's why there's a wide loop in the road near their house. I'd always wondered about that - it seemed like strange planning."
"Everything here has a reason."
"I'm starting to learn that."
Frank hands Nick a print-out. It has all the details he might need to know about Derinium Power. "She doesn't have long, if she's even still alive," Frank says.
"You really do care about the people here." Nick's slowly coming to adjust his thinking when it comes to Frank Buckley. He's had to do that with a lot of the inhabitants here.
"Many of them have been treated as freaks. Spent their lives running. This is their haven."
Nick nods. It's his job to keep it a safe haven for them.
*
He can't take Marcus or Leigh. Not without too many questions that Nick isn't willing to answer. Secrets always complicate matters.
He takes Dylan instead.
"I'm beginning to think I should draw an official salary," Dylan says. "Or at least have a uniform."
"What you're wearing is better than a uniform tonight," Nick says, foot heavy on the gas. Dylan's all in black. He looks pale by contrast.
"I assumed what we're doing isn't going to be exactly legal, or you would have taken one of your men. But I have no idea where we're going."
"Derinium Power have a small plant on Beck Ridge."
"That's outside your jurisdiction," Dylan points out.
"I'm looking for one of my people. That makes it my jurisdiction, as far as I'm concerned."
"Good enough for me."
Eddie Barnes waves them out of The Gates, and Nick picks up speed. Beck Ridge is fifty-five miles away. Over a hundred miles there and back. Nick can only hope he's right, because if he isn't, he's running out of time for fresh ideas.
"I take it that Derinium Power have been eyeing up Nyssa Ng's land," Dylan says.
"It's the highest point in The Gates. It would be an ideal location for them."
"But Mrs. Ng won't sell, obviously, and I'd hazard a guess that Frank Buckley wouldn't give them the time of day either. So you think they've taken Leonie."
"I'd feel happier if there had been some sort of ransom demand."
"The lack of one does suggest they know what she is. Which is troubling."
"Yes, well, right now my only concern is getting her back. Determining how or where they got their information will have to wait for another day."
*
Nick kills the lights a mile out from Beck Ridge. He pulls over but leaves the engine running. "I hope the stories about vampires eyesight aren't just myths," he says, getting out of the car.
"They aren't. I take it you want me to drive?"
"I want to get as close as possible without alerting any guards."
"We can do that," Dylan says.
They coast to a halt beside a wire perimeter. Before they get out, Nick takes hold of Dylan's arm. "I'm leading this rescue. I know you have abilities I don't, but I have the training. Are you okay with that?"
"And if I'm not?"
"Then you wait here." Nick can't risk anything going wrong.
Dylan doesn't pause long before answering. "I'm okay with it."
"Good," Nick says, and gets out of the car. He closes the door quietly and grabs wire cutters from the trunk.
*
Dylan's very still, listening. "There's a guard. Just one, and he's on the other side of the compound."
"Can you tell if Leonie's here?"
Dylan sniffs the air. "I'm not certain. There've been a lot of people here recently, and it's making it difficult to tell, but I can sense something in that building." He points to a low shed.
Nick hopes it's Leonie. He motions to Dylan to follow him, and they race across the open space to the shed. It's padlocked, and Nick reaches in his pocket for his lock picks.
"I can break it faster than you can pick it," Dylan whispers.
"We can't risk the sound." It takes Nick just a few seconds - he hasn't lost the knack.
It's pitch black inside once they close the door behind them, so Nick risks his torch. The shed is full of metal struts and huge reels of wire. There's something that looks like a pile of old rags in the corner. "That's her," Dylan whispers.
They pull off the rags and she's there, curled up underneath. She looks tiny, ashen pale in the torch-light. She's not moving, and for a moment Nick thinks they're too late. He curses, frustrated with himself for every minute he lost on the investigation, but Dylan bends down and picks her up.
"Is she-?" Nick asks, brushing her hair back and feeling for her pulse.
"She's alive. But barely."
"The nearest hospital is-" Nick stops.
Dylan echoes his thoughts. "She needs to go home, not to a hospital."
And they need to keep this rescue a secret. Keep her secret safe.
*
They cover her up with a blanket before they go through the gates. Eddie won't check the back of the Chief's car, but they can't risk him seeing anything suspicious as they drive by.
"I'll call Peg to meet us there," Dylan says.
"She'll know what to do?"
"Leonie should start to recover as soon as she merges with her tree, but Peg might be able to speed her recovery, and, if nothing else, she'll be there for Nyssa Ng."
Dylan's brief and concise on the phone. "She'll be here in a few minutes," he says as they pull up outside the house. The street's quiet, curtain's drawn, but they can't be seen. "I can get her out fast enough that no human eye will catch it. If you can deal with any recording?"
Nick nods. It's their best option.
He waits a few seconds after Dylan's sped past before going up to the house. Mrs. Ng is crying, stumbling over words in her effort to thank them. He'll talk to her tomorrow, tell her to come up with a convincing explanation for Leonie's disappearance. One that leaves out his and Dylan's involvement, or any mention of the reason for her abduction. It will have to be a simple family matter, a misunderstanding or a dead cell phone, a thoughtless teenager. All happily resolved in the end, which is all that matters.
And he'll fix the video footage of their return and write up another set of selectively truthful notes. He's getting adept at that.
*
"If there's a leak of information on non-humans within The Gates, we'll need to stop it," Dylan says once they've left Leonie with her mother and Peg. Nick thinks he saw Leonie vanish into her tree, but he didn't look back.
"We will. We make a good team." Nick means it. He'll start looking into Derinium Power tomorrow, work out who knows what, and where they got their information. He'll watch over Nyssa and Leonie too, make sure no 'accidents' happen.
"Yes, we do. Not what I would have predicted after our first few meetings."
It isn't what Nick would have predicted either, but then all his expectations are getting turned upside down. "I think it calls for a drink to celebrate," Nick suggests.
"I have a bottle of 1985 La Tâche in my cellar."
Nick's more of a beer guy, but he knows enough about wine to know that's a fine vintage. He could easily say yes.
He doesn't. "I have something better," he offers, pulling over to the side of the road. There's a blind spot here, about fifty yards that the cameras don't catch. If there are any questions asked, he had a flat tire. He'll stick a nail in his spare to add credence to his story.
"Better than a 1985 La Tâche?"
"I think you would find it so, yes," Nick says pointedly.
Dylan doesn't make a move. "This is not necessarily a good idea when you're driving," he says eventually. "You're liable to feel-somewhat drunk, afterwards."
"I trust you," Nick says. It's the second time he's said it. He's not certain Dylan believed him the first time.
"If you keep on offering, I am going to take you up on it. I only have so much self-control," Dylan says, and Nick can hear the effort he's putting into maintaining control.
Nick gets out of the car. He leans against it, and waits for Dylan to join him. With the headlights off, Nick can barely see. He closes his eyes a moment to speed up the adjustment. When he opens them, he can see the shadow of the woods lining the road, and the silhouette of Dylan beside him.
"If anyone were to find out-" Dylan says. "If my people found out-"
Nick doesn't think Dylan's trying to back out. He's offering Nick an easy way out, the perfect excuse to change his mind. He isn't going to. "They won't. I give you my word."
Nick doesn't see Dylan move. It's too fast. One second he's leaning against the car, the next he has one hand on Nick's shoulder, pressing him into the car, the other hand lifting Nick's left arm. "You are right handed, yes?" Dylan asks. His thumb is stroking the vein in Nick's wrist - Nick's not sure he even realizes he's doing it.
"Yes." Nick swallows. He takes a deep breath. "You're not going for the jugular?" He's seen his share of vampire movies.
"Too dangerous. It would be far too easy to take more than I meant to." Dylan's voice is different. Less clear and his diction less precise. Nick turns his head, sees a glimpse of teeth extending over Dylan's lips. Fangs.
"Okay," Nick says. The last time he saw Dylan with his fangs extended, he'd just killed a woman. This is quite possibly the craziest thing Nick has ever done.
"The radial artery is safer. Safe," Dylan corrects himself.
It doesn't feel safe. Nick's heart is beating too fast, and there's no chance Dylan hasn't noticed. It's been a long time since Nick felt this scared and exhilarated and-
"Fuck," he exclaims, as Dylan bites. The pain is sharp and strong, and Nick tilts his head back against the car to deal with it. He breathes in sharply, biting his lip. And then the pain changes. It's still there, a steady discomfort in his arm, but Dylan's lapping at his wrist and there's something mesmerizing about the action, something intimate. Nick feels himself relax into it.
Nick's never been turned on by pain. Never been anything other than a vanilla kind of guy - he's both aware of that and untroubled by it. He has enough excitement in his job, he doesn't need excitement in his sex life to get turned on. So he doesn't know why this is affecting him the way it is, but it's only a matter of time before it's obvious to Dylan too. If it isn't already.
Nick tries to edge his body away, but Dylan is immovable. His grip on Nick's arm is light, but his entire body is holding Nick in place. Nick ought to mind, ought to feel trapped, but he doesn't.
Nick isn't sure how long it takes before Dylan stops - time feels fluid, everything hazy - but when he does, Nick feels as though he's coming out of a trance. He shakes his head to clear it, but Dylan's still holding him, so close that Nick can tell they're breathing in sync.
"I didn't know you needed to breath," Nick says, latching onto the one thing that he can bring himself to say out loud.
"We don't," Dylan says. He sounds sated, and when Nick turns his head, he can see Dylan's fangs are still extended. There's a bead of blood on his lower lip - Nick wipes it off with his free hand. His finger brushes against one of the fangs, and Dylan shivers. He licks his teeth and lips clean even though there's no other trace of blood, and Nick watches, fascinated, as his fangs withdraw.
Dylan finally lets go of his arm. Nick lifts his wrist - there are two small marks, and as he looks, he can see them growing fainter, healing at an impossible rate. He feels dizzy. He doesn't think it's from blood loss.
"I should have warned you," Dylan says. "It can be-intense."
Nick stops his words with a kiss. He doesn't mean to kiss him, but Dylan's there, so close, and Nick can't deny any longer that he's been holding back from this for some time now, dancing around the attraction between them. Refusing to see it. Selectively blind again. But here, right now, in this dark and giddy moment, he has to do it.
He doesn't make the kiss linger. He reaches down and finds Dylan's arm. Lifts it to his mouth and kisses his wrist. He traces the faint ridge of veins with his tongue. He won't find a pulse, he knows that. It should repulse him. He doesn't know why it doesn't.
He bites softly into the fleshy side of Dylan's wrist. Not enough to mark, but he tongues the skin afterwards, as gently as if he'd done some injury. Dylan shudders, so Nick does it again and again, kissing the thin skin each time.
"Don't break the skin," Dylan forces out.
"Why not?" Nick has to ask. "What will happen if I do." He nips harder, and Dylan groans.
"If you do," he says, "everything changes."
Everything's already changed. But Nick pulls back all the same. Lets go of Dylan and moves away, just far enough that they're not touching.
He takes a deep breath. "We can't stay here much longer. I'll blame a flat, but-"
"But any longer and it'll look like incompetence. Can't have a Chief of Police who can't change a tire in under twenty minutes." Dylan tries for a joking tone but doesn't quite hit the mark. He looks raw. Nick wonders if he looks the same. They need to talk, but he has no idea what to say.
They get in the car, and Nick pulls away.
*
Dylan's staring out the window. He's the first to break the silence. "We don't have to mention this again. We can pretend it never happened."
"Really?" Nick asks, because he knows he can't.
Dylan huffs a laugh. "No, probably not." He turns to look at Nick. "But it doesn't have to happen again."
Nick pulls to a halt at a stop light. He takes the opportunity to look Dylan in the eyes. "And if we both want it to?" He does and he doesn't. "What then?"
"Then-then I imagine your knowledge of camera blind spots will come in very useful." Dylan smiles at him, old and strong and incredibly full of life, and Nick thinks he knows what's going to happen. He's not sure if he's okay with it, with anything he's done tonight, but he's broken his rule about selective blindness before. There are times for rules, and times for bending them. And sometimes the rules have to be thrown out the window.
*
Tuesday, Nick wakes up early. Sun in his eyes. He shades his eyes with his arm. There's a faint mark - no more than a bruise - on his wrist.
He wouldn't have forgotten, even without the reminder.
He rolls over and goes back to sleep. He dreams of hot red stars and icy midnight skies and the feel of flesh tearing under his teeth. He hears his voice, promising. I'll keep you safe, he says.
When he wakes again, all he remembers is his promise. He doesn't remember the face in front of him - dream blindness, he thinks - but that doesn't matter.
He'll keep them all safe.
//