OOm - Eric's room, late night

[onceaviking]

After having finished his little intermezzo with Jay Eric returns to his room.

He pushes the door open and locks it behind him, once he is inside. Old habits and all.
He strips off his wife beater and toes off his boots right inside the door. He could do with a shower.

His laptop is on.
"What are you looking at?" he asks Pam, as his jeans go the way of boots and wife beater.

Comments

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam hasn't looked up from the laptop screen. Even as Eric strips down.

"What...the fuck...is this."

She's been futzing around on the Internet. Apparently Milliways has its own network, and also its own YouTube channel. There are clips from some kind of lurid squid soap opera.

"What is going on. Why is this even a thing."

[onceaviking]

He pads over and bends down to have a closer look.

"I have no idea," he admits. "But sometimes, they show it downstairs as well."

He smells of sex. Not of blood.

"Apparently, a giant squid lives in the lake. And a mermaid."

[lazy_but_loyal]

"I want to click away from this and gouge my eyes out with silver, but I can't stop watching."

A beat, and she finally looks up at Eric, gaping a little.

"A giant...? And a...?"

She turns back to the tentacle porn.

"Fucking Milliways."

And she closes the window and sighs.

[onceaviking]

"It can't all be that bad," he says, with a small smirk.
"Though I understand that it is a common saying around these parts."

"I am going to take a shower."

[lazy_but_loyal]

"I can't imagine why," she says dryly.

Resting her chin in the palm of her hand, she looks him up and down, her expression betraying nothing. She's probably the only person on whom a naked Eric has no effect. Outwardly, at least. She still thinks he's hot.

"Have fun."

They haven't done anything like bathing together in ages and it's not like they're going to start again now.

And it's not like she's getting nostalgic or sentimental or whatever.

[onceaviking]

He is used to her look. Or lack thereof. He walks past her and into the bathroom, leaving the door wide open.
He tends to do that.

"This place is why I had the shower installed at home," he says, over his shoulder, as he turns the jets on, closing his eyes.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"It is a fabulous shower," she remarks, already having pulled up the Neiman Marcus website to browse for shoes and dresses.

But she does glance up at the open door.

[onceaviking]

He washes in silence for a while, thinking about nothing in particular.

That he is a little hungry. That he needs to get Pam to call the ad agency they'd been considering hiring to get some quotes. Sunshine. No, not Sunshine. How Emcee as a woman had been writhing beneath him. Sookie looking at him when she removed the chains from him at The Fellowship. Looking at him when she realized that he had tricked her. Looking at him - no. That he needs to get the hotel to book tickets for Anubis Air. That he needs to set up an audition for dancers. That little brunette they had hired a while back; how her mouth felt when she went down on him. Fucking Orpheus in a tree. And Jay. Arranging for his car to get an oil change. And fucking Emcee in a tree. Sookie. Sookie high up in the branches of a tree right next to Bill Compton's 'I'm a Louisiana gentleman' Colonial fucking mansion. Fucking Sookie high up in that tree. Sookie looking at him as she squeezed his arm. Godric touching his neck on the rooftop in Dallas.

Aw, fuck!

He tips his face into the spray and the single tear washes away.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam will have to forgo buying anything until she makes up what she has to pay Sunshine. That's what wishlists are for.

As she clicks through more online stores, she keeps glancing up at the open bathroom door.

What's happened here has happened, and she won't dwell on it.

Even if the feeling she got when Eric came for her was something she hadn't felt in a very long time.

Fuck.

She closes the laptop and gets up. She's barefoot, her pumps by the bed, where her vinyl dress is laid out for when she returns to Fangtasia. Padding over to the bathroom, she crosses her arms and leans on a shoulder against the door frame.

[onceaviking]

He doesn't turn around.

"What?"
He sounds tired.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Nothing. I'm just bored."

She sounds like it as usual, but she watches him with detached interest.

"So I guess you have to go back to Dallas while I go back to Shreveport so the universe doesn't implode or some science-y shit like that."

[onceaviking]

He turns around, running a hand over his face, removing the last traces of pink from his cheek.

"I suspect so," he replies.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Well, I hope you get back home soon. I think we need another bartender. And Ginger can't mix ice and water without getting it wrong."

She sighs.

"Also? There hasn't been a night that's gone by that those fangbangers haven't pestered me with questions. 'Where's Eric Northman?' 'When is Eric Northman coming back?' 'Is Eric Northman here tonight?' Just thought I should warn you of an onslaught upon your return."

[onceaviking]

He snorts.

"That's not exactly an incentive, now is it?" he asks, his lips twitching a little.
There is no reason to say anything about Ginger. They both know it's true. They both know they're going to keep her.
There a no need to say anything about that.

"What do we need another bartender for?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

"You can always make them cower in terror. That's always fun."

And it's true, Ginger is a given. Unnecessarily shrill as she is.

"It's close to tourist season and there's already an uptick in human patrons. It's not a big issue right now, but it'd be useful to have someone who can do a little more than just read the labels on bottles of TruBlood. Part-time, maybe." She shrugs.

[onceaviking]

"Got anyone in mind?"

He's always listened to her in matters of business.

And she is probably right. It really was a shame that they'd had to get rid of Longshadow. He'd always impressed the tourists.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"We could hire from within. One of the dancers-- you know, the one with the nipple rings-- okay, the purple-haired one with the nipple rings-- he asked me about taking on a few more hours. I said I'd bring it up with you. He has some bartending experience -- or at least experience with liquor; after all, he was a student at LSU before he got turned."

Louisiana State University being the number one party school in the country.

[onceaviking]

"Didn't we think he was kind of annoying?" Eric asks, as he reaches for the body shampoo.
There's no need really. But he secretly likes the lather.

"Or was that the other one we hired at the same time?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

She thinks.

"...No, that was the purple-haired one with the dragon tattoos. God, I hate dragon tattoos, but the girls like them for some reason. Ugh, baby vamps. They're just as hard to tell apart as humans sometimes."

She raises an eyebrow when Eric reaches for the body wash. But she might not-so-secretly like watching anyway.

[onceaviking]

"That's right. Yeah, the young ones are -"
He shakes his head and works up a lather, closing his eyes to better enjoy the feeling of his hands moving across the body.

"And the not so young ones. You would have wept if you had had to listen to Godric's nest mates."

Venom.

[lazy_but_loyal]

The mention of Godric makes her gaze snap to Eric's face. But his eyes are closed, so she looks away before he opens them again.

"Yeah, well, it is Texas. I assume everyone from there makes the rest of the country weep on principle."

Politics, human and vampire, make her orifices bleed.

[onceaviking]

"Talentless, useless, fucking," and he continues in old Swedish, every rolled r and every guttural g spat like a curse.


He is furious. And he is crying. The tears are dark red and heavy as they slide down his cheeks.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Her gaze snaps right back to Eric's face when he starts swearing and crying, her eyes wide.

Oh, shit.

The pit of her stomach drops out.

"Eric..."

She rushes to the shower stall, hesitant and unsure of what to do, but wanting to do something -- if he'd let her.

[onceaviking]

He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, swallowing.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Eric?"

She reaches through the spray of water to lay her hand on his arm.