Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Some time after Vampires came out of the coffin, Sookie began to have nightmares. Ones that woke her screaming for her gran, reaching into the dark. About being buried alive, about blood and viscera.

It wasn't until one Saturday night, in Shreveport after a bad date, Sookie came to understand that these dreams were not what they seemed. Instead they were a bleak and very real premonition of her future.

She had opted for a taxi, rather then allow her date to drive her home. He'd been poorly mannered. And his thoughts. That was the line. His thoughts. His imagination tuning in on her breasts and ass, vividly picturing parts of her even she hadn't seen in full detail. He thought he'd take her home, give it to her good. She ended the date abruptly, excusing herself with a stomach ache.

Standing in the restaurant's parking lot, under a street lamp, Sookie toed at a crushed cigarette. Behind her gravel crunched and she spared a quick glance, her curls swinging over her shoulder.

Her mind reached out on its own, prodding the darkness. There was the background hum of the still busy restaurant. Sex, money, hunger, anger. And something else, strange. An empty spot. Like a person with nothing inside.

She wasn't given much time to think about the oddity before she was in the air, and searing pain coursed through her. Heat poured down her neck, soaking the front of her pale pink blouse. And then there was nothing at all.

-

When she opened her mouth to scream it began to fill with dirt. She clawed, her arms feeling like two metal rods as they shredded through the coarse earth. And then sunlight.

She gasped for air, spitting out small rocks and falling on her stomach in the grass. She heaved upwards onto her knees and let out a strangled sound.

She was in the woods, southern magnolias perfuming the air, the breeze moving softly through the leaves.

Sookie slapped her hands over her ears. It was as if the forest was screaming at her, crying out and hissing. She struggled to her feet and tumbled forward. She needed to get home.

Before long she made it to a back road. A few cars passed along, until a big old blue pick up truck stopped, pulling onto the shoulder. A man jumped out and rushed towards her.

His thoughts filled her head, concern and anxiety, rapid and overwhelming, “Hey! Lady, what the hell.”

When he reached her, he grabbed her elbow and she could smell him. Sweat and dirt, motor oil. Iron.

“Come on, get it the truck, you got blood all over you, you need to go to a hospital,” she let herself be dragged to the truck her throat suddenly dry as a dessert.

It must have been her delirium but she thought she could see the vein in his neck pumping.

Once he had gotten her safely in the passenger seat, he regarded her curiously.

“My names John, what's yours,” He asked softly, starting the engine and pulling back onto the road.

“My name is Sookie Stackhouse,” she croaked finally, still feeling grit between her teeth. There was sharp pain in her gums she was currently attributing to the silt.

He made a sharp whistle, “You're that Bon Temps girl that disappeared.”

She whipped her head to him so fast she swore she might have broken her neck, “Disappeared? Does everyone think I've been kidnapped?”

Of course they had. She had been. Technically. What else would she call waking up buried alive.

“Well yeah, you were all over the TV, and your grama and brother were up talking and begging for you back, they apparently brought some guy in for questioning cause he'd been on a date with you when you disappeared,” he clenched the wheel, side eyeing her where she sat half leaning over the center console.

“What is today,” she whispered.

“It's Tuesday.”

She had been effectively missing for 3 days. Had she been drugged. How long had her kidnapper had her buried in the ground. Probably not long if she hadn't suffocated yet.

“I woke up buried,” she muttered slouching into her seat.

The guy grunted, “What kind of sick fuck buries an innocent girl alive?”

She didn't know. She hadn't seen inside her attackers head. It was just an empty space, “I don't understand.”

He must have known she needed it when he stayed quiet for the rest of the drive. Even his brain was dull, as if he had turned down the volume.

Jesus, fuck, what kind of person. This poor girl. I can't even imagine. Girl this pretty can't be safe. God damm. Lindsay isn't gonna believe me when I tell her. Is it her blood, no not a scratch on her

He pulled smoothly into the parking lot of the Shreveport County hospital and soon Sookie was being rushed into a room, nurses all around her.

The beeping of machines sounded like gun fire, the cry of babies piercing her ears as if they were being held up to her head, and the nurses thoughts bombarded her making her so dizzy she nearly collapsed against the nurse who was holding her.

“Thirsty,” she managed to gravel out, hand clutching at her throat.

As one nurse helped to undress her, the other rushed away.

Sookie hadn't ever been in a hospital before. The smell alone was making her gag, vomit, piss, feces. The smell of cleaning products, unwashed bodies, and an undercurrent of decay. Her gums still hurt.

The nurse hustled her into a gown, and started prodding at her, her voice far away and all too loud.

“Shhhhh,” Sookie hissed out, covering her ears again, uselessly, “Thirsty, water, please.”

“She's getting you some water honey, lay down. Your family's been called,” the nurse, completely unbothered herded her onto the clean white sheets.

Three hours and much confusion and fusing and examination later, Gran and Jason stepped into the small room where Sookie now lay, hooked to an IV.

They had helped her clean up, giving her a quick sponge bath. After some gentle prodiing Sookie had submited to a Rape kit. She hadn;t felt any different but the nurses suggested that it might aid in the discovery of her attacker faster then without. Two county cops had come to take her statement and were still lingering in the hallway with coffee when her gran gathered her up in her arms.

“Oh, honey, I've never been so worried in my whole live,” Sookie normally would have thought of how much she missed her grandmother, missed the warmth of her. However at that moment all Sookie could think was how good she smelt.

“I'm gonna kill that motherfucker that took you,” Jason spat out, standing at the end of the bed.

“Jason!” Sookie and Adele both gave him disapproving looks.

He had enough dignity to look sheepish, scratching his neck, “How're feeling, Sook?”

“I feel fine, except my throat hurts something awful, and they can't figure out why. Plus I'm so hungry I could eat a horse,” her voice didn't gravel as much as before and when it caught slightly gran supplied her with the cup of water off the night stand.

“Soon as we get you checked out we'll stop for a nice hot meal,” Adele pushed her hair back from her face.

Sookie could shield her mind from Gran’s thoughts perfectly fine. Jason, on the other hand, projected his thoughts without really trying.

Nasty, snarly and mean, he wanted to clobber the son of bitch who did this to his sister. But he could figure out why she didn't have a single scratch on her.

She snorted, “I don't know Jason, if I knew that I'd tell you.”

His brow furrowed and he pointed a finger at her, “Stay outta my head.”

She threw her hand up in defeat, “It's not like I'm trying too!”

Adele cooed and brushed Sookie's hair sway again, “The nurse said we can take you home and that they'll fax all your medical information to the doctor's office in Bon Temps. Let's get you fed.”

Granny had brought her a change of clothes. Shorts and a soft cotton t-shirt. Jason stepped out and Adele waited with her as she changed out of the gown.

Half way back to Bon Temps they stopped at a small dinner, and Sookie ordered the bloodiest bacon burger she'd ever had. And she ate every single bite.

Chapter Text

At first she had attributed the changes to the possible trauma of being kidnapped and buried alive. Unable to sleep at night, weary during the day, and more sensitive to the sun than usual.

She got a sunburn for the first time in a decade whilst doing yard work on an overcast day. And the sunburn magically disappeared when she went to show gran. And the smells. She could smell everything. When gran put extra pepper in the eggs, Sookie smelt it before she even put on her slippers.

When her coworker Arlene changed her drugstore shampoo out, Sookie nearly toppled over from the perfume in it.

Merlotte’s was a minefield of scent. Human body odor, the iron of them, gum and beer and food. The smell made her both starving and disgusted. A combination that evoked a strange horror within her.

Sookie had dry heaved uselessly into the toilet not ten minutes after entering the bar.

When Sam had gathered her up in his arms she could have puked all over him. Instead of smelling like his usual cologne and aftershave he stunk like a wet puppy. She had turned her head away and scrunched her face up.

He'd responded similarly, his head rearing back, eyes narrowed, “Sookie, you-”

He hadn't gotten a chance to finish his sentence before Lafayette interrupted to give Sookie his own crushing hug.

That first shift back had bordered on nightmarish. She could barely breathe. Her throat had been dry as bone since the incident. No amount of chugging water or freezing ice tea could sooth her. Food got caught in her throat and nearly choked her with each bite. And it was loud. She could hear every bite chew and swallow, sniff cough and scratch. Every crack of an opened can was like the pump of a shotgun. The scrap of forks and knives on plates making her grind her teeth.

Her second shift back had been no better. Her idiot brother and his friends had crammed themselves into a booth and were running her ragged. Because of the nice weather out of towners had packed themselves in like sardines. Dawn was late for her shift and Arlene hadn't stopped trying to tell her about Lisa's recent bout of ringworm.

By the time Dawn arrived the family crowd had shuffled out leaving all the usual suspects milling about with half drunk beers. She had asked Sam to let her leave early, which he'd allowed and sent her away with the reassurance that she would be safe on her way home. When she got home she could hear gran puttering about in her bedroom, humming to herself.

Something in the air smelt different. Familiar enough that Sookie's nose perked at it, however the memory of it was hazy at best. She closed her eyes and let her mind prod at the darkness

Something red and gnarly slithered it's way in.

Sweet thing, sweetest thing I've ever tasted.

She reared back, her head snapping towards where the thought had come, her heart thundering in her chest. She knew the smell. It made her mouth fill with dirt and bile.

Turning she ran up the steps and slammed the door.

“Sookie, you're home early,” Her grandmother was at the top of the steps in her nightgown, looking concerned.

“I think the man who kidnapped me is in the woods,” she blurted out, “I heard him. And I felt him all over.”

Her hand races to her neck, fingers tracing the pain that had come before the darkness. There was no mark. No proof of how he'd hurt her.

Her grandmother rushed down the steps and pulled her away from the door, “We'll call the sheriff's department and have them come out and take a look for us."

An hour later, Andy and Sheriff Dearborne were in the Stackhouse kitchen questioning Sookie. “When you say you “heard him” what do you mean by that Sookie,” Bud had been prying at her for twenty minutes and no matter how she answered she knew she'd seemed crazy.

She swallowed hard and tried not to focus on his pulse bounding in the vein in his neck, “I heard what he was thinking.”

Fucking Sookie Stackhouse. Hearing thoughts? She really is crazy as they say. Andy's thoughts were always loud, like he was thinking straight into a megaphone.

She flinched and glared at the pudgy detective, “I'm not crazy Andy. I know what I heard. The man who kidnapped me was in the woods watching me.”

“Miss Stackhouse, we understand that this whole ordeal has been very traumatic, but we can't put out a search team just because of your,” she knew Andy wanted to say oddity. She almost snarled at him, “Paranoia.”

Gran sucked her teeth, “Now you listen here Andy Belfluer, my granddaughter is not paranoid.”

Andy had the decent to look shamefaced before he tucked his hands in his armpits, “Apologies. We will do our best to get a party to canvas the wood tomorrow for any evidence.”

Bud closed his note pad and stood, “It's getting late. Call us if anything suspicious comes up.”

It became abundantly clear that neither of the two men believed her. She would always be Crazy Sookie. No matter how hard she fought it.

After they had left Sookie crawled into bed, exhausted and restless. Her gums ached. Lifting a hand to her mouth she slipped her index finger passed her teeth, her nail scraping along her soft palate. She prodded softly at her canine teeth, tongue pressed to the other side of her cheek. Her lips pulled back slightly and she heard it. A shifting pop. A strange feeling in her gums. She sat up, reaching for her bedside light as she clambered from her bed. She almost screamed when she saw herself in the vanity mirror. Gleaming, white and pearly, sharp as a knife, were fangs.