The Stackhouse residence, Fangtasia

[onceaviking]

He listens by the door for a little while.
She's asleep. On the couch most like. He can hear her soft breath as well as the muffled sound of the television.

The door opens. It's Bill.

Their conversation is carried on in hushed tones. Bill is evasive when he asks about Sookie's blood. About daywalking. He knows what she is. As does Bill.
Part fairy. And all vampires know that fairy blood makes it possible to walk in the sun.
Only it doesn't, Bill says. It just makes you burn slower.

Burn slower.

"Russell will come for her," Eric says, looking at Bill.

"Well, you should know," he replies. "Since you're now his buttboy."

Eric shakes his head. "No longer. I killed Talbot."
Flatly.

The penny drops. "So that's why he went medieval on TV. Well, thanks, Eric. You just put our cause back a thousand years. He must be after you for that. Why are you even here?"
He is not smug, no. Well, maybe a little. Despite everything. For look how the mighty have fallen.

"I'm trying to save Sookie," Eric counters.

"Oh, give me a break. You don't care about Sookie," Bill says, interrupting him. "You left us in Russell's house to die. What is the fucking truth for once?" His voice rises.

Eric leans in. Almost hissing. "The truth? Well, why don't you tell Sookie the fucking truth if you really love her?"

"What truth?"
It's Sookie. Sleep rumpled and warm.
He can smell her skin.
And her blood.

Bill steps over to her, placing himself between her and Eric, saying, "The truth about what you are, which I've already told you."
Soft. Earnest.
Fake.

Sookie turns to Eric. "Why are you here? To pretend like you care about my safety so you can sell me out to Russell again, or is it to the queen this time?"
Her voice is full of scorn.

He can't really blame her.

But he still need to make her see the truth about Bill. No matter how she feels about him.
"You really believe he is trustworthy?" he asks her. "All I know is, I sure as hell can't trust you," she says. "And now that I know what I am and what you want from me, I can promise you will never get it."
She sounds very sure.

"Well, do what you want," he replies.
"I won't be around much longer anyway. I wish you the best, Sookie Stackhouse." And then he leaves, feeling her eyes on his back. Returning to Fangtasia.

He goes straight to his office and starts shredding what needs shredding. Then he goes over his correspondence with his financial people.

And then he just sits there. Staring into space, his elbows on his knees.

Comments

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam remains completely unmoved.

"Blah, blah, vampire emergency, blah."

Yeah, that about sums it up.

[onceaviking]

He just looks at her.
Then he walks across the floor and through the door, shutting it behind himself and Pam.

"This better be good."

[lazy_but_loyal]

It's not because Pam dislikes Sookie. It's just that Sookie makes Eric blind and stupid.

Pam turns and faces him, looking him straight in the eye.

"You're too busy signing wills and making out with the solution instead of using her."

She keeps her voice down, although she's pretty sure that fairies don't have superior hearing.

[onceaviking]

"There isn't any way to use her. It won't work," he says. Dismissively.

you just burn slower.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"We know Russell wants her," she says evenly. "Give her to him to save your own skin."

A bargaining chip. As leverage. A fucking peace offering. Something. Anything.

[onceaviking]

"No."
Just that one word.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Her tone grows more insistent even as she states the obvious, slowly and deliberately, attempting to hammer the words through Eric's thick Viking skull.

"He's gonna get her anyway, sooner or later."

Russell will eventually get her, whoever's trying to protect her, whether it's Bill or Eric. Eric has her now. Right there, in his office. Would he really die for her?

[onceaviking]

"No. I won't do that to her."

Her defenses are coming down. She is trusting him.
She came to him because she feared he was saying goodbye to her.

[lazy_but_loyal]

So it comes to this. It seems as if it always does, in one way or another.

And Pam doesn't want to have to say it, but she has to, if she's going to make him listen.

"You're choosing a human over yourself, Eric?" she says, her voice wavering.

"Over me?"

[onceaviking]

He leans close, lowering his voice to an almost hiss, "Your lack of sentiment has always been your most admirable quality. Do not disappoint me now."

He cannot handle this.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Sentiment. Sentiment?

She isn't the one being sentimental. She isn't the one saying goodbye.

She would think that Eric would give her more credit than that. But he doesn't hear himself. He doesn't see himself.

"You would have said and done anything to save Godric."

And she would say and do anything to save Eric. Doesn't he understand that? Doesn't he see that she doesn't want anything else in the world, not his money, not his properties -- nothing, except for him to live? She pleads with him now, earnestly, honestly.

"I have no interest in inheriting your farm on Öland. That place is a windy shithole. If you're not gonna give him Sookie, at least figure out how to use her-- and fast."

If Eric won't listen to her now, and if he lets Sookie go, then there's nothing much else she can say or do. So she turns away and leaves him there, to let her words sink in, and to let him make his decision.

[onceaviking]

He doesn't try to stop her.

Because it is true.
He would have done anything for Godric. He would have stayed with him on that rooftop till the end.

And he remembers talking with Athelstan, telling him that yes, if needed, he would hold Edgington in place himself. Till he was dead.

You just burn slower

And Edgington did want Sookie.
Perhaps it would all work out in the end, after all.

He stands there, quietly, in the middle of the bar for quite a while.
Then he walks back to his office.

He can feelSookie's impatience. Her annoyance.

He opens the door.

The mood is definitely ruined. She turns, angrily. "Where the hell have you been?" she asks.

"I needed to think," he says, looking down at her. Small and fragile and pissed off.
And not getting it.

"Well, I am not some kind of prisoner you can just lock up any time you feel like taking off," she continues, staring up at him.

"Actually, you are."
She is. And she was a fool to trust him.

"I knew I shouldn't trust you!" she blurts out. Too late.

"You were right," Eric says as he scoops her up, effortlessly, and slings her over his back. Her attempts at grabbing hold of shelves and whatnot are futile.
She should have known that.

"Let me go!"

She screams all the way down the stairs and he pretends not to hear her.

He closes the chain around her neck and leaves her crouched there, on the concrete floor, chained to the metal structure in the middle of the dungeon, and walks back up the stairs. Without looking back.

She screams after him.

"ERIC!"

But all he hears is Bill Compton's lowered voice. Telling him that daywalking is a myth. Cause you still burn.
You just burn slower.