A promise fulfilled

[onceaviking]

Eric unlocks the door - and locks it behind them once they are inside.

The room looks much as it did the last time, Emcee was there. A framed picture of a moonlit ruin has been added to one of the walls and there is a stack of file folders on the desk as well as a couple of books.

The bed is made and the decanter on the small table seems to have been refilled.

Eric walks inside, the way you do when you own a place, leaving his flip flops by the door, and unzipping his track suit top.

He turns to look at Emcee, his gaze heavy and measuring.

Comments

[onceaviking]

He looks away.

"I miss him."

He sounds small. Sad.
Lonely.

[i_am_your_host]

His faint voice is a heartbreaking contrast to the huge hunk of shoulder that the Emcee is stroking right now.

He sighs deeply.

"I know you do, darling."

He doesn't look at Eric directly, if that helps him (nobody likes being stared at when they're vulnerable), his hand still on his shoulder.

[onceaviking]

"But I can't. Not at home."

Being vulnerable is dangerous. And it wouldn't be fair to Pam. She needs him to be strong. Not weak.

So he doesn't feel it. When he is at home.

It's different here.

[i_am_your_host]

He frowns...but nods. He understands this, too.

"Sometimes we have to hide what we feel. Even if it's so strong that it crushes us inside. For the sake of others. For the sake of ourselves. It's not the most ideal way of going about our lives, but...not all of us want to wear our hearts on our sleeves or think about what pains us the most."

[onceaviking]

"Sometimes, right before night falls, I dream that he is right there. Next to me. And then I wake up."

He is almost whispering now.

[i_am_your_host]

He turns his head and looks at his face.

And he's silent for a while, his hand unmoving on his shoulder, before he looks away again.

He thinks back not too long ago when Eric let him stay here, past dawn. With him. It was no wonder that he looked so sad in his sleep.

He sighs a little shakily. He hadn't planned on staying. He'd thought it was going to be very practical, only about dinner and sex and then he'd leave, but...

"Shall I stay tonight?"

The phrasing is deliberate. Not forcing Eric to indicate that he wants him to stay or needs him to stay.

[onceaviking]

Eric looks at him briefly and says, when he looks away again, "I don't mind. That you're here."
That's as close to saying anything that he can get.

As close as he can get to think anything about someone being here.

He's been feeling strangely unsettled ever since he tricked Sookie Stackhouse into drinking his blood. A blood bond is not a one way street. And while he has enjoyed feeling her during the night, dreaming perhaps, it is still an openness that he feels he ought not enjoy.
Just like finding it comforting laying next to someone.

[i_am_your_host]

He purses his lips and nods almost imperceptibly. And he leans against him just a little bit more as he shifts his position, getting comfortable.

What does one do with a big sad vampire?

"Tell me more about that picture. To be honest I never thought of you as one for hanging up framed photos. Do you have more like it at home?"

[onceaviking]

He is far too grateful of the distraction to actually acknowledge it in any other way than by latching on to it.

"I guess I'm not. But I do. I like landscapes. And pictures like that. Places I've been."
There's a brief pause.
"And ships. Longboats mostly. Sometimes an artists doesn't fuck it up completely, so ..."

He's on his back again. Mostly. Slightly turned, so he faces Emcee.
Still naked.

[i_am_your_host]

He smiles a little.

"Well, you would know if they did, wouldn't you. And I suppose you could singlehandedly correct every modern historian who claimed to be an expert on early Norse cultures."

Sitting cross-legged Indian style, he stays lightly pressed against Eric's hip.

[onceaviking]

"Sometimes... " he shakes his head.

Somehow, his hand ends up on Emcee's knee. Fiddling a little with the fabric.

Not really thinking about it.

"And arbitrarily assigning labels to shit and then telling me my opinion is invalid because historians agree pisses me off. "

Yes, Father Hermann. He is thinking about you.

[i_am_your_host]

His gaze flicks down to the large hand on his knee, then up the solidly-built arm, stopping briefly at the broad chest, then back to Eric's face.

"Who is saying that your opinion is invalid?"

[onceaviking]

"The priest. Not that his opinion matters to me, but he clearly believes that I am an illiterate idiot. He was shocked to see me read."

Though it may have been the subject matter rather than the reading itself, that had taken him by surprise.

"And then he of course believe that I am a reanimated corpse which means that I do not exist. As a person."

[i_am_your_host]

He pulls a face.

"A reanimated corpse? Well, that's unattractive."

It's said wryly, but really, could one be more distasteful.

"You know you don't need validation from a human, darling, and it's obvious that Father Harman is a very stubborn one at that. If he pisses you off so much, I would suggest limiting your contact before you- I don't know, remove a body part or something."

[onceaviking]

"I couldn't care less about Harmann," Eric says, which isn't objectively true at all. "Or his stupid opinions. But he's been hounding Pam. If he keeps that up I just might remove something."

He scowls.

"Like his heart."

[i_am_your_host]

Oh, that wacky Eric, ripping people's hearts out and whatnot.

"That's...certainly an option."

It's a scowl the Emcee would never want to be the recipient of if it leads to the forcible extrication of internal organs.

"Pam? Your progeny? She comes here now?"

[onceaviking]

"She does. She got celled on her very first visit."

He sounds - proud?

"You shouldn't approach her, though. Not on your own. She is not keen on humans. "

[i_am_your_host]

He raises an eyebrow. He's not going to argue if he considers that a worthy accomplishment.

Not on your own.

Eric sounds as if he's describing some kind of unpredictable predator- oh, right.

"Well, I usually can tell if someone is approachable or not, so I often err on the side of caution, in any case. How is she adjusting to a place like this, where some humans are overly keen on making new acquaintances?"

[onceaviking]

"She hates it," Eric says. "I've warned her that the women seem a little less keen on putting out here than the men, but Pam can be very persuadable so who knows. She might make some friends."

His smile clearly shows that friends is a loaded term. Another loaded term.

"And Pam is not hard to read if she finds your company not to her liking. But she'll behave."

He sounds awfully certain.

[i_am_your_host]

He leans an elbow on his knee and props his chin up on his hand.

"She sounds terrifying."

Being familiar with Eric, he means this in the best possible way.

[onceaviking]

"She is," he says, still smiling. And perhaps there is a hint of something a little softer at the edges of that smile. Blink, and you'll miss it.

"She is the only one from home who comes here. Her and a wolf, but I've only seen him once. "

He casts a brief glance at Emcee." And he is not one of the wolves I am looking for. "

So he is not important.

[i_am_your_host]

He may have caught it. It's easier for him to notice genuine affection when most of what he sees is impassiveness and indifference.

"Wolves? As in werewolves?" He puts two and two together. "They are the ones who bear that mark you showed me?"

[onceaviking]

"They are," Eric says, nodding a little.

"The one who comes here is from my time, but I met him before I had met him, if that makes sense. Anyway, his father owes me money, so he's at heel."

Disparagingly. Clearly, he does not have too high thoughts about wolves.

[i_am_your_host]

He tilts his head, factoring in all the odd timey-wimey shenanigans that the door gets up to, and then he nods, fairly sure that he's got it.

"So you met each other here before ever having met in your own world. That has got to be strange, and I daresay a little awkward. But it sounds as if you don't particularly like wolves in general, even the ones without the brand."

[onceaviking]

"Well, he was from now, and I came in from a couple of hundred years before. And no, you're right. I don't like wares. They're primitive and aggressive."

He scowls.

"And annoying. And they smell."