What If?
Sookie looks back on her life and wonders why she didn't accept Eric much earlier – it would have saved an awful lot of time and trouble, not to mention several wasted lives.
Takes place after DITF and plays fast and loose with the characters created and owned by Charlaine Harris. The story assumes knowledge of all the books.
There was one thing I was never going to give up, whatever happened, and that was my few hours in the sun every day. Today was definitely too hot to sit inside, even though I had plenty of work to be catching up on. I was going to top up my tan, and to hell with the Fangtasia financial records.
I positioned my sun lounger carefully. Eric would never be able to share the sun with me, but I knew that he had set up some extra security cameras at the back of the house so he could catch up with my movements after I went to bed.
He thought I didn't know, which just went to show how much he underestimated natural feminine cunning. I rather enjoyed putting on a little show for him, knowing how it would excite him later.
Now I had got used to it, I loved sunbathing nude. Eric's house - our house now, although I still found that hard to accept - had total privacy. It also had a glorious pool stretching down towards the lakeside, a hot tub, and the most comfortable set of outdoor furniture I'd ever seen.
In Eric's mind we were married. In mine he was my boyfriend, although as he constantly reminded me he was 'so' not a boy. Whichever way you looked at it though I guess we were committed. It was him: not Bill, not Quinn, not Sam. Whatever his faults, and however challenging it would be, Eric Northman was going to be my HEA.
It was nearly two years since we had first met, going on for eighteen months since we had first been lovers. The version of Eric who I had taken as my lover back then was a different person in so many ways. That was big part of the reason it had taken me so long to commit to him. I'd wanted the sweet, sexy, gentle Eric, without all the power, politics and responsibilities. Not possible, of course.
Thinking about that made me realize how much I had changed. I had been so naïve when I first met Bill Compton. I cringed inside when I thought of the person I was then. It was pathetic really. I was so excited to find someone who I could spend time with without his every thought ruining things. It never occurred to me to ask even the most basic of questions: why had he come to a backwater like Bon Temps; why had he chosen me?
I know now that it was Bill's blood that bound me so tightly to him. I was such a fool, thinking it was true love. I knew so little of the Vampire world. I could kick myself, really I could.
There were some things in my life I would never forget, no matter how long I lived. The night Bill Compton first made love to me was one. My first visit to Fangtasia was certainly another.
I could picture it in my mind as clearly as if it was yesterday. I hadn't been sure whether to laugh out loud at the comic book tackiness of the scene, or run away screaming at the underlying menace. Eric had been the centre of attention. Bill had been surprisingly honest when he told me about him. No-one could deny how gorgeous he was, or how scary.
Perhaps I should have got a hint of what was to come when Eric sent me flowers whilst I was in hospital. I didn't expect him to think of me as anything but a useful tool, certainly not as a human with feelings. I did feel like something out of the tool hire catalogue when he loaned me out to the Dallas vampires. He even made sure he got a cut of my fee.
It was during that trip to Dallas that my doubts about Bill began to surface. And it was in Dallas that I had the first chance to take a different path, which, like a fool I ignored. Until that night in Stan's nest, the celebration party that turned into a massacre, I hadn't considered Eric Northman as a real person. He was my boyfriend's boss, the Vampire power broker, not someone who I could relate to in any way.
Then, in the middle of a scene of blood and carnage I found myself lying underneath him. He kissed me, and in that moment everything changed. Sure, it took a long time, but that was the first step on the road to where I found myself today.
What if I hadn't panicked and run away? That road could have been an awful lot shorter. Bill's behaviour had disgusted me. I realize now that it wasn't his fault. Bloodlust to a Vampire is as natural as breathing is to a human. Seeing it for the first time though, it's not surprising I was shocked. I used that to justify my over-reaction.
I closed my eyes and imagined how very different everything could have been.
"Sookie, you are upset. Let me take you back to the hotel." Eric's voice was surprisingly kind and gentle, a contrast to the scene of carnage around us.
Bill stared at me, his expression a mixture of hurt and anger, but he said nothing. He didn't move as Eric picked me up and carried me outside.
We sat in silence as the car took as back to the Silent Shore. I'd never seen anyone die before. Sure, I'd seen people laid out at their funeral, lying there all peaceful as if they were sleeping. The reality of death was something different though. Those twisted, mangled bodies were going to give me nightmares for a long time.
Eric held me close. I think he was trying to sooth me.
When we arrived back at the hotel he guided me to his room. I didn't protest. He went to the minibar and poured me a large brandy, as I slumped down into one of the chairs. I could hear him moving about in the bathroom, and the sound of running water.
"You'll feel better after a long soak," he said, reaching for my hands to pull me to my feet. He gathered the hem of my dress and lifted it over my body. Of course he knew I had nothing on underneath, my body was still too sore after the battering it had received the night before. Surprisingly for him, he didn't show the normal fangy reaction as he picked me up and carried me into the bathroom.
The water was hot and I gasped as he lowered me into it. He held me for a moment, slowing his movement to allow me to become accustomed to the temperature. I sighed. It felt so good to be held in his strong arms. That must be the effect of the brandy I thought.
"Ow, ow, ow," the sting of the hot water was painful, especially with all the cuts and bruises on my body. Balancing me over the water, he added a blast of cold to make it bearable.
"Would you like me to wash your hair, it has blood in it."
And some other stuff which I didn't like to think about. I could almost have laughed out loud. Only twenty-four hours earlier I had been in an identical bathroom, only that time it was Bill bathing me and trying to help me overcome the horrors I had experienced. What was my life coming to?
I looked up at him. He was still in his torn and bloodstained clothes.
"Your clothes, they're ruined."
He shrugged and peeled them off, right there. He stood before me in nothing but a pair of red silk boxers, which left very little to the imagination. I bit the inside of my cheek, willing myself not to react to the specimen of total physical perfection standing in front of me.
I closed my eyes as he shampooed my hair. His big hands were gentle as he massaged my scalp. He took a cloth and began to sweep gently down my body. He brushed the outside of my breasts, then rubbed a circular motion over my stomach.
Lifting me out of the bath, he carried me over to the bed and sat me down. He took a towel and began to pat me dry, as gently as if I were a baby.
"You are so beautiful," he murmured softly.
"Eric, I look as if I've gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson,"
He laughed at that, and bent down to kiss the top of my head. This was getting a little too intimate; it was time to change the subject.
"How come you didn't run off with the others, surely you felt the bloodlust as well?"
"Of course, but after a thousand years, I have learnt some self-control. Besides I had to protect you. You are a very valuable…..asset to me." He drew out the last sentence deliberately, a knowing smile on his face.
"You know what I think, I think you're very devious."
"You wound me, dear one. I think you are very suspicious."
It's true, I was, but maybe I was suspicious of the wrong person.
Eric had retrieved a comb from the bedside table and was teasing the tangles out of my hair. He had positioned himself behind me on the bed so that I was sitting between his thighs. I could feel the cool skin of his legs framing mine. This was how it had started with Bill. I felt myself shiver.
I wanted nothing more than to lean back against his muscular chest and feel his arms around me. I wanted……...I forced myself to suppress the thought.
"Are you cold, my darling?"
"No, I'm fine." I lied. Cold was certainly not the problem, quite the opposite in fact. "And I'm not your darling."
Another lie, I just wanted to be. Shit, I did not just think that. This was Eric Northman, the dangerous, powerful Sheriff of Area 5. Who right now was stroking my arms and nuzzling my neck with his mouth with a tenderness I would not have believed possible.
I'd nearly died twice in two days. I was battered and bruised. I'd seen my loving boyfriend turn into a blood-crazed monster. The normal rules, the ones that said you should finish with one guy before taking up with another, no longer seemed to apply.
I turned myself in his arms and straddled his lap. He gazed down at me, his eyes heavy with lust.
"Sookie, darling, are you sure? You know I will never force you."
"You don't have to…" I began, but before I could finish the sentence his lips were on mine.
"I hope you are thinking of me, lover." A dark seductive voice broke into my train of thought. Eric was standing in the space left by the sliding glass doors, his arms outstretched like Sampson in the Temple. He was naked of course.
I took a very deep breath. Would I always feel like this at just the sight of him? My heart picked up a beat, and my insides began to tingle.
"I was just thinking about when we first met." I said, trying to keep my voice cool.
"You certainly seemed to be enjoying it," he said, with a pointed glance at my right hand, which was wedged between my thighs, "I do hope you are going to share the story with me."
A/N This idea came to me when I was doing some fact checking for my story 'Secrets and Lies.' At the moment it's just a little experiment but let me know what you think, as I could continue it.
I love 'what if' stories. There are many, many great ones out there in FanFicdom, with some particularly good alternatives versions of what should happen in book one, if Sookie had met Eric before or instead of Bill, and even more excellent alternative versions of Dead to the World.
I don't want to duplicate any of those, but there are lots of other places in the books where Sookie could have made a different choice. I don't think they all justify a complete story, but I wondered if it would work to combine them several different 'what if?' opportunities into a single story.
PS: This is very cheeky but I loved this line from a review of another recently posted 'What if' story: "After DiTF I wish someone would say What if CH doesn't write the next few books and we find someone in FF who could take over!"