Chapter Text
It was four in the afternoon when she got up. The day was gloomy and sharply cold, unseasonably so. The big thermometer hanging on the front porch column read between 45 and 50. She shivered and stocked up on wood for the fireplace and made sure the furnace was set to a good, comfortable 70 something. When she went into the kitchen, she saw the bare window over the sink and remembered the previous night.
Everything in the dryer smelled like detergent and fabric softener. No blood. Granted, she knew her nose wasn’t anything like a supe’s. Still, Gran’s lace curtains appeared clean enough and she spent some time rehanging them while the coffee maker chugged along. She didn’t remember Eric putting the table and chairs back to rights, but she supposed he must have since she was able to sit there cradling the mug in her hands. She stared at the door, at the splinter in the frame where Debbie had kicked it in. Thankfully it hadn’t been locked at the time, so the damage was minimal. Nothing a little wood glue and sandpaper wouldn’t fix.
She drank her coffee and felt...well, she wasn’t sure what she felt. Jumbled. Restless. Hollow. She didn’t know what to expect now. It didn’t feel like the last few days, where she sat waiting in anticipation for Eric to emerge with dusk. But she did feel like she was waiting for something. She poured more coffee and made herself choke down a muffin. When her mug was empty she decided she couldn’t just sit here anymore, staring at the spot where she’d killed a woman. She went into the living room and started a fire so she could stare at that instead.
It was about an hour later that she heard movement upstairs. Despite everything, she got a thrill in the pit of her stomach that he was awake. He was here with her. The movement in the bedroom came to a halt. She knew, because she knew every creaky board and loose nail of her floor. Where he was standing should have been squeaky as all get out. Confusion rippled through her, not her own.
And she knew Pam had been successful in getting Hallow to undo the curse.
She should get herself up, she thought. Go upstairs and face him. Find out how much he remembered, how much he had changed. Again. She didn’t have the energy. After a moment, she heard his footfalls, heading towards the closet. They were surer, confident. Long strides. ‘Eric Northman owns the fucking world’ kind of steps. He was himself again. She tossed another log on the fire and wiped her cheek before the tear could track down it.
She didn’t know why she was crying; this was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to be whole, himself. Back to normal.
It isn’t fair , her mind screamed, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. To have him in a place where we could be happy and have it snatched away by circumstance. Again.
She listened to him come back out of the closet, heard him cross the floor and the bedroom door open. It was dark enough outside that she didn’t need to close any of the shutters for him to be safe, although it wasn’t quite sundown yet. The clouds were so thick barely any sunlight had gotten through them all day. Eric came down the stairs, one at a time. Human speed. She consulted the bond and found he was a swirl of things, moving too fast for her to pick out and analyze.
“Sookie,” he said, a slight querying lift in the way he spoke. She closed her eyes as pain lanced through her heart. He even sounded different already, his native accent once more subdued beneath a millennium of masks. He stopped behind the couch and he didn’t touch her. “When did we bond?”
“The day before yesterday, and again last night,” she said. No reason to lie. Certainly couldn’t hide it. It was so fresh, so deep, he could already tell how new it was. He likely had only asked to see if she would answer. She heard the tiniest clicking sound as he checked his phone. Probably for the date. Sure enough...
“The last thing I remember is Hallowe'en night. I seem to have lost several days.”
She nodded glumly. It was gone. This past week of him being sweet and considerate and human . It was gone. No, it isn’t fair!
“The witch…”
“She cursed you. You didn’t know who you were. You’ve been here, so you would be safe.” She was careful not to word that as ‘you were hiding’, because her Viking would take offense to such a notion. Hers. She scoffed internally. No, he wasn’t hers.
“You took care of me.” It was a statement of fact, obvious in every way since he was here, and she was here, and they were both alive. And he was restored.
“Yes,” she replied anyway.
He lifted his head and sniffed. She hadn’t showered. The scent of him was all over her, inside and out. Well, it wasn’t the first time. Probably wouldn’t be the last if the universe was at all kind. She was a little surprised he hadn’t figured that part out already since they hadn’t changed the sheets. Even she could smell them when she’d gotten up. Then again, if he hadn’t needed to speak to her, he wouldn’t have been breathing at all.
He chuckled quietly. “That’s not all you did.”
She tried for cavalier but wasn’t sure how well it worked when her throat was closing up. “Well, you know how it is with us.”
“Hmm.”
The ghost of a touch landed on the back of her neck, pulling down her collar. There were still bite marks there. Elsewhere on her body were his fingerprints in blue and purple. The imprint of his teeth on the side of her breast, no fangs. On her hip. Another set of punctures on the back of her thigh. They were all healing, since she’d had his blood again. Not as instantly as they normally would, which led her to believe that whatever he’d done to her insides had warranted the greater portion of the magic. That should have been a terrifying thought, but it wasn’t. She’d suffered worse. What was bodily harm to a girl when she had a vampire to heal her?
Well that’s a spiral better left untouched, she thought to herself.
“I am not typically so careless with you,” he said. Just how good were his senses that he could tell? Or was it the bond?
“I wasn’t complaining.”
“You should have been.” The rebuke was clear. She snorted, a half exasperated sound. How very like him to criticize her for wanting it a little rough. Okay, more than a little. But he certainly hadn’t turned her down. “What happened, sweet, that you would want me to hurt you?”
He didn’t remember, and she was suddenly glad of that. She didn’t think he’d hold it over her head or anything, she just wanted to put it behind her. “Nothing you need to worry about now. There’s still Le Sang in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
He didn’t call her on the subject change, but she could feel his disapproval through the bond. She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. The bond would also tell him that she wasn’t lying, and that she wasn’t feeling like her life was in danger. Let that be good enough. It occurred to her that she had yet to even look at him since he came down the stairs. No doubt that wasn’t lost on him. He went to the kitchen and was in there for a long time. She heard him make a phonecall and the microwave beeped and the back door opened. She remembered the rest of the laundry. Well, he was clever. He’d figure it out. Especially if he was talking to Pam, as she suspected he was. She hadn’t checked her own phone to see if there were messages from her. She hadn’t wanted to see them, to have it confirmed that her house of cards was going to fall down around her. She preferred wallowing in misery over it instead, evidently.
She stayed where she was, so mentally and physically tired she didn’t think she could get up if she tried. The only light in the room was the fire, and it was dying down unless she could stir herself to put another log on. He finally came back into the living room. He put his bottle down on the coffee table and crouched at the fire to poke at it and add more wood. She made herself look at him.
Fangtasia uniform. Black jeans, muscle shirt so tight she could just about count his ribs through it. He’d brushed his hair back so it framed his face rather than letting it fall forward in soft tendrils the way he’d been doing. He was looking at her from his periphery and she was transported back in time by years, to the moment they met. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen, on a face that could have been carved from marble. She was so hopelessly in love with him and the knowledge was painful. She couldn’t even keep it to herself, because she knew he felt it.
He stood up, seemingly torn by indecision. She tilted her head up to look at him, wondering what he saw sitting there on the couch. If she looked as pathetic as she felt. He didn’t say anything but reached for the Le Sang and drank it down in two big gulps. He put the bottle back on the table and she saw a dribble slide down the neck of it. Didn’t that just encompass everything right there? Drained, empty. Nothing but the dregs left. It’s not fair! Her inner child stomped her foot.
“I don’t want to leave you like this,” he said.
“I’m all right, Eric. Just worn out.” A clean break would be better, right? Let him withdraw and reassess and see where the chips had fallen later. Let them both do it. No need to hash it out now while her heart was still shattered into a million pieces. It didn’t even make sense, it’s not like she lost him. He was right there!
This Eric can’t love you the same , her mind said, as if she was somehow unaware. He doesn’t know that kind of love anymore. She wanted to call bullshit, but couldn’t quite manage it.
“That’s not what I meant.” His voice drew her back from her internal argument.
“I’m sure Pam is waiting for you. She’s been worried.”
“You should probably get rid of that coat,” he said. “Burn it, maybe. Those clothes too.”
Well, that answered that.
He went around behind the couch again and she could hear him slipping into his leather jacket. She wondered if he would say anything else, or if he would just go. She wondered which one she would prefer. His knuckles traced down the side of her neck, and then he was out the front door. She waited until the bond loosened its grip as he got further away from the farmhouse before she let herself cry.
---
It had been days since he left. Days where Sookie had wandered through her house in a stupor before forcibly snapping herself out of it. At first she’d slept a lot. She only made herself eat when she realized how long it had been between meals. She cleaned when she had the energy, showered when she felt gross.
But little by little she put herself back together. She’d ventured out and replenished her groceries. She almost felt normal again. The sun came out, watery and low in the sky, but she basked in it like a cat. It healed more than just her light. A large box was delivered to her door, holding a new coat. Against her better judgment, she smiled and let herself accept that it was perfect. Perfectly Eric. Cranberry red. He liked her in red.
And then he texted her.
Come to Fangtasia. We need to talk.
She drove to Shreveport and parked in the customer lot. There was already a line, and Pam was working the door. Sookie didn’t bother waiting and just walked up to her.
“You did good,” Pam said. “I don’t often say this to breathers, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The vampire hesitated before letting her in, like there was more she wanted to say. Sookie was doing better, but her patience was thin. “Just spit it out.”
“Just thought you should know. Before the witch expired, she told me what the curse was.” Sookie pasted on a mildly interested expression. Pam saw through it immediately, and her eyes got soft. It was remarkable how much it changed her face. “That he would gain his heart’s desire, but not know it.”
Sookie wasn’t sure how to take that. It had so many ways to go with how he’d been. He’d forgotten who he was. Was that his heart’s desire? To not be Eric Northman, the Sheriff of Area 5? Or was it about her? To be near her, to have her, without the politics and facades and baggage. Both were hard to think about. “Thanks, Pam. Is he on the floor or in his office?”
“Office.”
The music was loud and the crowd was enthusiastic in their gyrations to it. She blocked them all out and made her way through them to the back. Chow glanced at her but since she didn’t stop, he didn’t speak. The employee entry closing behind her dropped the decibel level enough that she felt like she could breathe again. Eric’s door was open and she walked to it. He was behind his desk, going through paperwork at a clip that was blinding. She wasn’t surprised, he had a week to catch up on after all.
“You rang?”
“Close the door.” He sat back in his chair and watched her. She hadn’t dressed up in any kind of way and he took in her jeans and sweater and the new red coat without much interest. He looked almost bored, in fact, but she could tell that he wasn’t. “I find myself troubled.”
“Oh?”
“I do not remember what happened while I was cursed, but we obviously had some...intriguing situations occur.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said with a light scoff. He smirked, but it wasn’t the usual one. Too small, too tight on his lips. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“If I asked you to tell me, would you?”
“Does it matter now?”
“It might.”
“Why?”
The look he turned on her now was stormy, but not in anger. At least, not aimed at her. This close, the bond was a live wire between them. He wanted, and he hated that he wanted. He couldn’t reconcile it with himself, with his image. And he hated that too. “You know I don’t like feeling things, lover. But I can’t get you out of my head.”
A younger Sookie would have run from this conversation, and he would have let her, laughing at her cowardice. Even two weeks ago she would have taunted him that he would get over it soon enough so that she could protect her own heart from it. She did neither of those things. It was a little frightening to think that she was ready to face this. And that he was too.
“What do you want from me, Eric?” she asked. It was a gentle question.
“Everything,” he snarled. He waited for her to respond, to snap at him, to put her back up and pick a fight. But she didn’t. She let the bond speak for her, let it grow warm and hopeful. She could feel his surprise at that. It lingered, filling the space between them with all the things they wouldn’t say aloud. But she was still getting her reserves of patience back, and eventually they ran out. She lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Go on then, ask me for it. Make it good. Make me believe it.”
He got out of his chair and stepped around his desk to loom over her. Desire poured through the bond. Not just the lustful kind either. The kind that one got curled up on the couch watching some terrible old movie. The kind where waking up together was a highlight of the day. Well, night. The kind that had permanence attached to it.
She felt a smile starting and didn’t try to hold it back, even though he was trying to look forbidding and cold despite what he was letting her feel from him. The bond couldn’t lie; she could tell just how much he wanted to throw her over his shoulder and fly off with her. Or maybe just slam her against the wall and fuck her until she passed out. It was a tossup. But he just looked at her, noted the way she stood there, their personal space blended into one. Her arms crossed, her stance both belligerent and challenging. At last, his lips curved.
“Sookie Stackhouse, will you be mine? Will you stand beside me, as I stand beside you?”
“Yes, Eric Northman, I will.”
She had barely a split second to prepare before his kiss stole all her breath.
~FIn~