Close to dawn - Fangtasia

[onceaviking]

Pam had returned from her second visit to Bon Temps that night and right on her heels, Sookie Stackhouse showed up. With Bill Compton's baby vamp, Jessica, in tow.

Eager like bloodhounds because they had a clue. A clue.

Bill had summoned Jessica and had shown her this, this being a brand. A Wolfsangel.
Sookie talked and talked, eagerly, about how it's was the mark of some sort of Nazi commando force called Operation Werewolf, can you imagine, Nazi werewolves, and how they must have gotten to Bill, and if Eric knew anything.
Did he?

She is so eager. Pretty. Her cheeks slightly flushed. Her eyes shining with the excitement of the hunt.
He tells her no. Dismissively.

"Why do I get the feeling you're blowing me off?"
Almost challenging. With so much emotion in her voice.

He exchanges glances with Pam.
Because she is right. This is a really bad time.

Comments

[lazy_but_loyal]

Meanwhile Pam is leaning against the bar, taking all of this in.

Werewolves.

If werewolves got to Bill, then really, what are she and Eric worrying about?

And it's always fascinating to watch Eric when Sookie is around -- especially in the company of other people. Like he's not quite sure what to do with the tone of his voice or with his eyes despite his stoic expression. That a little blonde waitress would have this effect on him is enough to make Pam's eyes roll right out of her head.

But it's far too obvious that Eric isn't telling Sookie something. And whatever it is, he's had a reason for keeping it under wraps.

So with that pointed glance, Pam takes her cue. She goes up to Jessica, who has been ogling Eric this whole time like he's some kind of rock star. She can't blame the girl, though.

"Let's go to the ladies' room and stare at ourselves in the mirror," Pam suggests pleasantly, and she escorts Jessica out of the bar.

Time for a little she-vamp bonding. Or something.

[onceaviking]

Pam and Jessica leaves and Eric faces Sookie, saying "Here's what I know about werewolves: There's a reason their existence has remained a myth to humans for thousands of years. They're territorial, vicious, pathologically secretive."

Trying to impress on her that this is not something to take lightly. That there is actual danger here.

And all the while his mind races. The branded wolves, here. On his turf. But they could not have known that he was targeting Bill Compton, so why take him? Why would their master, the elusive shadow creature, want Bill Compton? And who is he? Or she? The vampire he has been hunting now for ages.

"Boy, does that sound familiar," Sookie says, sarcastically.

"And here's what I know about you," he says, ignoring her tone. "You're so blinded by your obsession with Bill Compton, you're likely to run through the streets screaming "werewolf bait," alerting whoever has Bill that we're onto them or getting yourself killed."

He is not even exaggerating. She did show up here on a somewhat similar hunt once, practically screaming "vampire bait".

"You think I'm that stupid?" She asks, sounding almost a little wounded.
And he shouldn't care. She doesn't matter. Only - he doesn't want her to think that. So he is gently insistent, as he replies, "No, I think you're human."
With all of humanity's flaws.

"Don't underestimate me," she replies. "Don't underestimate yourself," he counters. "Your life is too valuable to throw away."

And he hadn't meant for it to sound quite like that.

[lazy_but_loyal]

In the ladies' room, Pam is indeed staring at herself in the mirror, as she carefully and delicately reapplies her lipstick. Which, of course, matches the color of her cardigan.

Jessica, being the sweet, awkward baby vamp that she is, tries to initiate a conversation.

"So, Pam, when you're feedin' on someone, how do you not kill 'em?"

Great icebreaker, kiddo.

Pam barely glances away from her reflection.

"Bill didn't teach you that?"

Jessica rolls her eyes a little. "Bill doesn't want me to feed on people. And now he's gone and-"

Pam cuts her off before she starts talking about her feelings.

"It's in the heartbeat. You feel it in the blood."

Jessica stares at her, expecting her to go into more detail. "Yeah?"

Christ, did Bill teach her absolutely nothing?

"And when it slows, you stop," she explains impatiently. Really, all this talking is interrupting her lipstick Zen.

Jessica mulls this over as she sits down on a bench behind her, the way every uncertain teenage girl sits, with her hands clasped at her knees, pigeon-toed. She looks up at Pam with those big blue eyes.

"Yeah, but...how do you stop?"

Pam caps the tube of lipstick and leans against the edge of the sink. "I think about crying children with soggy diapers," she replies matter-of-factly. "Also maggots."

Jessica will keep this in mind.

Then she continues, slowly, warily, and hypothetically and theoretically:

"Well, let's say...that you did kill somebody by accident. What would you do with the body?"

Pam stands there, chuckling to herself and shaking her head. She sighs. This has been such a long fucking night.

[onceaviking]

Inside the bar, Eric is trying to explain why just going up to a werewolf and start asking questions is a bad idea. Because he has a feeling that she isn't getting it.

"You have no connections in the were community.They're not gonna answer your questions.They don't even want you to know they exist," he says. She won't stand a chance. Not on her own.

"Bill's out there somewhere in danger," Sookie replies, a pleading note in her tone. "I can't just go on with life like that's not happening.You know that, maybe better than anyone.When Godric went miss-- "

He cuts her off, harshly. "Bill Compton is no Godric."
That is a line of reasoning that he will not tolerate. Not from anyone.

And then he looks at her. At how her big eyes are slowly filling with tears.
"But he's everything to me," she says, quietly. Sounding sad and forlorn and bereft of hope.

"Please don't do that," he says, unable to tear his eyes away from her eyes.

He hates tears. He hates when women cry.

"It makes me feel disturbingly human."
It makes him want to dry her cheeks with his thumbs as he cradle her face in his hands. It makes him want to make sure that she has no reason to cry.
He hates tears.

"I risked my life to help you find Godric, and I don't expect you to do the same for Bill, but at the very least, I hope you'll help me if you can," she says.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Before Eric can respond to her, Pam and Jessica emerge from the ladies' room.

"Sookie," says Jessica quietly, "you gotta get me home before dawn."

Where does the time go?

It's obvious to Pam, in more ways than one, that this talk has gone on long enough, because Eric looks just about ready to start brooding again. With a concerned glance at him over her shoulder, she ushers Sookie and Jessica out the door and sees them to their car, just to give Eric a little space before she ventures back inside.

[onceaviking]

He looks down at the coaster with the mark. Sookie's lead.
And then he crumbles it up into a tiny little ball.

He doesn't trust her to not do something stupid.
And he can't risk her jeopardizing this; the chance of getting his hands on whomever was responsible for killing his kin.

And he doesn't want her to come to harm.
He doesn't want her to cry.

He gets up and starts pacing.
There are only so many people he will trust, or at least trust enough, to ask them to look out for her. Keep an eye on her.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam comes back inside and bolts the door shut.

She'll let Eric pace for a bit without saying anything. In the meantime, she goes behind the bar and warms up a bottle of TruBlood. She knows he hasn't fed properly, looking as pale as he is, and dawn is only about an hour away. Finally, she brings the bottle to him and stands in his way.

"You need to rest."

[onceaviking]

"I need to call someone first," he says, drumming his fingers on the counter and casting a brief look on the watch behind the bar.
"A little closer to dawn."

So, not a vampire.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Okay, but don't run yourself ragged."

She pushes the bottle closer to his hand.

"Who're you going to call?"

He's going to help Sookie isn't he? Yes, of course he is.

[onceaviking]

"JD Herveaux," he answers, taking the offered bottle.
"He owes me money, so I'll offer him a way to lower his debt."

[lazy_but_loyal]

"The construction guy who smelled like booze and dog hair?"

Pam never liked associating with weres. The less she had to do with them, the better.

[onceaviking]

"That's the one," Eric replies with a nod.
"He's got a son. Big guy. Relatively smart. For a were. I want him to keep an eye on Sookie to make sure that she doesn't go and do something stupid."

[lazy_but_loyal]

She ticks her head in a nod but doesn't comment on Sookie. Because Sookie is indeed prone to doing stupid things, causing other people to also do stupid things on her behalf, thus causing a domino effect of stupid.

"Christ. As if we didn't have enough to deal with. Now we've got werewolves in the mix, but now I'm not sure if that's an entirely bad thing in this case. If it is true that some wild rogue pack or whatever has captured or killed Bill, well, that takes him off our hands. Right?"

[onceaviking]

Eric drinks from the bottle of True Blood and puts it down on the counter, next to the crumpled coaster.

"Should Bill end up freed instead of dead, it'll land him in my debt."

He can work with that. And Sookie would be grateful. And besides - "I owe her, Pam."
And he will hate him saying that. But debt is debt.

[lazy_but_loyal]

There's that.

Eric had always been very big on debts -- not so much being indebted to others, obviously, but being able to hold a favor over someone else's head. Often very big ones.

And Pam wouldn't admit it but somehow she understands that his debt to Sookie is worth more than the amount he wrote on that check. It's annoying, but there it stands, and she won't question it.

"First you have to actually find him. At least you have some kind of a lead now with the weres. But don't let all that distract you from what we've already got on our hands."

[onceaviking]

"I do," he agrees.
"And I won't."

He drains the bottle and puts it away behind the counter, leaning in across it.
" I was thinking that maybe I should stop by Lafayette myself. Give him a little encouragement."

[lazy_but_loyal]

"I'm sure he'll appreciate that," she says wryly.

Because being visited by the two vampires most likely to make him shit his pants in fear is always the best form of positive reinforcement.

She shrugs. "I told him to move the entire stash of V by tomorrow. Just to keep him on his toes. Also because this whole thing is pissing me off and the next time I go to Bon Temps will be too soon."

[onceaviking]

"I was thinking about giving him a small token of our appreciation," Eric replies, a little blandly. "It's supposed to have a positive effect."

[lazy_but_loyal]

He's been liberal with the tokens of appreciation lately, but she shrugs.

"If you happen to find a Hallmark card specifically thanking him for being our top V dealer, I'll be sure to sign it with X's and O's."

[onceaviking]

He gets out his phone and starts scrolling through his contacts.
"I was thinking about a car. "

Offhandedly.

[lazy_but_loyal]

And she stares at him.

Seriously.

A car.

"Okay. Eric, you definitely need sleep."

[onceaviking]

He looks at her.

"What are you talking about?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

She lets out an incredulous huff.

"For the past two nights it's been one fucking thing after another, with the Queen and the Magister up our asses, and Bill and Sookie to the left of us, and werewolves to the right of us, and now-- you want to buy Lafayette a car, because that's obviously the next logical step. You know what? I need sleep. I've had to be nice to humans all goddamn night and I need a fucking break. See you tomorrow."

She moves past him, heading for the back rooms.

[onceaviking]

"Contingency planning," Eric calls out after her.
"In case he doesn't behave."

[lazy_but_loyal]

She slows down and eventually stops, one hand on the door handle, as she presses her fingertips between her brows and sighs.

Always with the reasonable reasons.

"Fine," she murmurs without turning toward him.

"I'm just really stressed out right now."

A pause.

"Mind if I have Yvetta tomorrow?"

[onceaviking]

And then he is standing very close, one hand resting lightly on her shoulder.
"Of course not. "

He tugs a lock of her hair gently.
"We'll be fine."

[lazy_but_loyal]

She turns her head toward his hand on her shoulder, her chin brushing over the backs of his fingers. She's silent for a moment before she replies softly,

"I know."

She isn't going to crack under pressure. She just doesn't do that.

Turning a little so she can look up at him, she says, "Do what you have to," trusting him.

[onceaviking]

"I'll just wake up Herveaux Senior. My day guy can take care of the car. I'll be right down."

He lets the lock of hair slip slowly from his fingers and then he turns his attention back to the phone.

"And yes, it will be an expensive car. Just in case. Making up an entry in a stolen vehicles database is surprisingly simple I am told. And who would believe a black, gay, short order cook over a police register? Down here?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

She folds her arms and snorts, leaning against the end of the bar.

"Especially if he claims a vampire gave it to him? He has about as much credibility as sock puppet."

[onceaviking]

"And he would have to explain why the vampire was being so generous."

He smiles at her.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"You think of everything," she says, regarding him with a slow smirk.

She gestures at his phone. "Go on and call your dogs in."

[onceaviking]

"Get some sleep ," he replies with a small smile.

[lazy_but_loyal]

With a curl still on her lips, she turns and opens the door, giving him one last look over her shoulder before stepping through.

She is going to have some nice dreams about Yvetta, dammit. She's earned it.