Disclaimer: I do not own anything you may recognise from True Blood or its source material. I've made some edits to the first chapter.
The sound of glass shattering against the floor somewhere in the bar registered in my mind. It wasn't enough to drag my attention away from the man lounging next to me though. He was like a panther in his dark clothes, languorously spread out over his chair; his hair layered around his shoulders in a rich gold.
I started to swallow and then stopped. I didn't want him to know how badly this was affecting me. I hoped fervently he couldn't detect the feelings that lashed around in my gut; a giddy excitement spring-boarding into a dark heat that uncoils lower down. I twitch uncomfortably, reminding myself he can't see inside my brain. No, I thought, that's your job.
This night was already leaving me floundering, and I thought grimly, it was still far from over. The plan was too breeze in, grill some lurking vamps with questions about Maudette and Dawn, and breeze out with all the answers. Savin' the day - or at least Jason - by going out at night on my non-date. My eyes flickered to Bill. Non-date, I told myself firmly.
"I hope we're not boring you, Miss Stackhouse?" asked the man of black and gold, to my left. His voice was waspish. I flushed, realizing I had been rude.
I forced my eyes to meet his again. His attention however, was not on me.
The flash of movement at my right where Bill hovered, registered at the same glacial pace of the falling glass. My head swiveled to the sight of Bill underneath a writhing vampire who clawed at him. Her hair fell over her face in a torrent. I could hear the longing pants that fell past her lips as she reached for him, fixed on her prey. She was intent on killing him, keening out her need for his blood. I'd been around folks in the bar when their thoughts swirled into ugliness, but none of them would have been able to carry out those thoughts with the devastating finality she could. She hissed the words: "Let me kill him now, Eric! Let me end him!"
Bill was scrabbling back, his fangs distended and his eyes impenetrable. The sight chilled me.
A throaty pant escaped her as she continued, "You will curse the day you crossed my path again, freak. I will rip into you, like you did with those women, but I will do it slowly." A leaden feeling of dread slugged into me and I sat unmoving at the sight of him pinioned and defenceless. I should move, if only to move away, but I couldn't.
The vampire's nails scrabbled forward, trying to take a hold of him, but suspended in the air just out of reach she was unable to do any real damage. She was held back by the hand of the vampire sitting beside me, holding her like a mother cat supporting its baby by their scruff.
"Really Pamela" he said, "not now".
The realisation shattered its way through my thoughts, like a splinter of ice. Who knew an epiphany felt like an ice cream headache? I hadn't heard him move. The man who sat to my left hadn't moved during the attack. Instead, he shifted and leaned forward in his seat, intently watching the three. This was another man, one who looked – apart from shorter hair – exactly like him. My mind twitched around the mystery.
The figure straightened under his scrutiny and met his double's gaze squarely.
His lips spread cockily into a smile.
"Eric Northman. I believe we've all met."
He was dressed differently – still in black – in leathers, which moulded to him in a darkly expressive way. His hair was short but still gleamed gold in the lights. My eyes roamed over him as if by looking hard enough they would unpick the mystery. They didn't. All they did pick was out the dried blood, which dripped down the left side of his face. His twin? My head snapped back to where Mr Northman still sat, his hands pitched in front of him. No, I realised with a certainty that leapt out at me, like a fist. Him. Really him. But how? The female vampire, unaffected by my growing epiphany, continued to hurl curses ineffectively at Bill, her hands reaching for him.
"What the fuck?" I thought.
"What the fuck?" I said.
"What the fuck?" I said again, for good measure.
No one however, paid any attention to me.
Bill crab crawled out from underneath the female vamp, and shot to his feet, fangs extended, apparently ready to do some rending himself.
"I demand an explanation , Sheriff! For why you have set your progeny on me like some kind of rabid dog –"
The female vampire who had cared me when we came into the bar, edged closer to the struggling trio at that point "Oh, I'm sure whatever it is – it's a real satisfying explanation" she murmured, her own fangs extended.
"Compton" replied the two men evenly, in the same tone of detached contempt and stopped. Apparently, even Eric Northman can be silenced by the experience of spontaneously forming one half of a comedy duo – with himself. Ba doom tish. For a moment, no one spoke. Where they now looking at each other, rather sheepishly? My head eagerly whip-lashed between them. I could feel myself wandering along a precipice of hysterical laughter. All we needed was for someone to trip on a banana skin. Comedy gold.
Around us, the club had stilled as they gazed up at the spectacle on the stage. The spreading silence was what awoke the vampires to action. Bringing himself to his feet, Eric, my Eric, well not that he's mine – oh, you know what I mean! Nodded to well, himself, and the female vampire he still held to follow him out of the public bar. They turned and started to walk away, Eric's hand reaching back to snag behind my back, guiding me forward.
"Oh you want me to come along do you?" I ask sarcastically as I'm led forward, fuming at his man-handling of me. He doesn't answer me.
I stumbled a little as I twisted to look over my shoulder at the vampires still behind us. Normally, I would have struggled more, protested more, but I wanted an explanation with the dim part of my mind that was still functioning.
Bill was still puffing and hissing at the second female vamp, looking for all the world like Tina my cat when a neighbour's cat strolled into the yard. He fell silent after a look from the second Eric (Eric B?) quelled him. Apparently satisfied, second Eric turned his attention to his progeny and gave her a gentle shake. He asked, "Well Pam, why don't we give Mr Compton an explanation of our actions?" before setting her down on the ground.
Her sulky response " Yes, Master" was barely loud enough to hear over the sound of our footsteps as we retreated. It didn't stop me though from seeing Eric following up his words with a mocking little bow, bringing his heels together in a snap and an incline of his head in the direction that the first Eric had taken.
Something that was not quite a laugh but not quite a snort either, choked out of my throat, as a door materialized in front of me and we stepped into an office.
I sat heavily on the couch that Eric thrust me towards, craned my neck to see the approach of the vampires. On the other side of the desk, the first Eric and Pam; well the first ones I'd met that night anyway, muttered furiously to each other in different language. My eyes strayed to his hair flexing over his shoulders as he shook his head vehemently, back and forth. I preferred it shorter, I mused. The longer hair distracted from his face, which had such a strangely intoxicating mixture of qualities: A brazen sexuality when his eyes smouldered, a tantalizing boyishness, a clean cut wholesome air. I swallowed as his eyes flicked towards me before sliding away to rest on the other vampires that trouped through the door.
Bill flounced in and then stopped suddenly, trying to decide where to stand. Eric calmly strolled in and took a seat next to me, his legs crossed with one foot pointing towards me as he threw his arms out across the back of the couch. His fingers stroked the material of the couch, inches away from my exposed right shoulder. I shot him a look, only to be pinioned by his gaze. There was something teasing in his smile, his lips hitched a little over his fangs, but a slight glow warming his eyes that somehow made it less threatening. My eyes shot back to my lap where I smoothed the fabric of my dress.
"Explain" stated first Eric from behind his desk as he sat with Pam gripping the chair she stood behind.
"I too would like an explanation for this unprecedented attack" grated Bill. His gaze shifted to me and then away, tugging his shirt into a straighter position, "Perhaps though I should take Sookie home first where she will be safe. She is mine and I will protect her. And I can not protect her fully when we are being targeted by – whatever you are" he spat the words at the second Pam who regarded him with the same look she leveled at her nails.
"Well" replied second Pam, without lifting her gaze from her nails "isn't this just precious?"
"Eric!" Bill flung at the first Eric "this is not the place for her!" He continued to fret at the impassive vampire who was examining a point on his desk, seemingly oblivious to us. My mind found it hard to focus on his words though. Second Eric's fingers had resumed their casual stroking of the fabric.
"Whatever wizardry has cursed the world with two of you does not concern her! She is mine and I – " he broke off when the Eric at my side started to speak.
"You keep saying that. I'd stop it Compton. Reiterating your claim only undermines your desperation," he said, smoothly dropping his left arm to his side but keeping his right arm arched over my shoulders.
"You dare to claim her. You can not! You know you can not! It doesn't matter how much older you are. She is – " he started back again.
It was the knowledge of what he was about to say that did it. That M word again. It pulled up all my anger, like a cork coming out of a bottle, with the words aimed squarely at him; at his mulish bad temper, his short-sighted possessiveness, his crass entitlement and assumption he could answer for me, decide for me. His? Like hell.
"Bill Compton, I am not yours! I do not belong to anyone but myself. I am not a package to be deposited out of sight when you decide. You will stop cussin' and carryin' on like a twelve year old and let Eric - whoever he is – Future Eric, Mirror Universe Eric, Ghost of Goddam Christmas Past Eric, tell us what in tarnation is going on around here" I flared up at him, and then swallowed as my ears carried back the shrill tone of my voice.
Well, that was hardly the measured response my Gran would have insisted upon. It's the pressure of keeping back a lifetime of reactions to things I'm not meant to know, couldn't know, I guess. When I let up on holding back, I tend to let loose. Even to me though the silence that followed my outburst seemed to flow back with the realization of how pettish I sounded.
Defiantly, I crossed my arms and sat back. Eric gave an appreciative murmur as it brought me closer to him and I jolted to the edge of the couch. I swung around so I wasn't in any danger of lounging contentedly against his chest, and keeping my eyes determinedly trained away from any of the vampires: I folded my arms and waited. A distant part of my mind tried to show me how childish I must look, sulking and obstinate, but I shut it down. I wasn't about to let self-reflection hit me now of all times. Besides, it started out good. I was not Bill Compton's to be tossed aside when convenient and if other vampires wanted to do their level best to unsettle me. Well, that was between them and their...their Maker, I guess. I wasn't obligated to play the role of Sookie Stackhouse, Vampire Power Game Pawn.
"Very well" began Mirror Universe Eric as I now resentfully thought of him. I'd always disliked the Mirror Universe story lines on Star Trek.
"Although" he said, bringing his hands to his knees and meeting the gaze of Prime Universe Eric "you probably won't find it very illuminating." No one in the room dared to move. My breath hissing out between my partially opened lips sounded too loud. I tried to still it.
"My progeny and I were involved in defending ourselves against a vampire who bore a remarkable resemblance to our dear Mr Compton" his voice had a silky power which would have drawn me in, regardless of what he was saying.
"We were greatly motivated to get away from, which is why my progeny reacted the way she did when we appeared outside. He was a unique threat. The circumstances of the last time we encountered him were unusual."
Mirror Universe Pam tittered, melting against the wall in a nonchalant pose.
"There had been some power shifts in our world, and Mr Compton as we know him here," indicating the scowling vampire with an incline of his head, "had been consumed. There was little else to do but head for safety and attempt to regroup. Which was the reason we came to Fangtasia, to meet an associate of ours. A rather independent and strong-headed associate."
He looked at me then for a moment. So did everyone else. My eyes widened under the scrutiny of a roomful of vampires. He gave me that look again. The one I couldn't place the meaning behind; mocking but without any malice.
He resumed eyeballing Prime Eric again and I felt a tiny bit of my tension ebb away. At least they weren't all staring at me.
"That is the reason we decided to come here. As well as for our current appearance" his fingers flicked upwards to indicate the blood on his face and neck, "but as for the how we came here and are now with you. At a point of time that I remember vividly", his voice stretching out over the word like a cat stretching after sleep, "I do not know."
"You do not know," flashed Bill, the words ripping out of his throat.
Eric smiled beside me and shrugged with his hands splaying out to the side in a disarming gesture.
"I told you so", he said.
Well. That was that.
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