A/N: This is was one of my entries for the Dead Pan Contest. I have yet to decide whether to continue this fic - it was originally my intention to do so, but real life is getting in my way at the moment.

Due to the "complex" layout of the film that this fiction is based on, I have been required to use bold and standard font to differentiate between voices. Any text in bold is to be read from the point of view of the narrator. Any text in standard font should be read from the point of view of Eric Northman. I hope you are all able to follow this.

Many thanks to DeeDeeINFJ for her great beta'ing skills!

Disclaimer: All characters in this fiction are the work of Charlaine Harris, with the exception of Karen and Penny who are creation of Zach Helm.

Stranger than Fan-Fiction

-v-v-

This is a story about a vampire named Eric Northman, and his wrist watch.

Eric Northman was a being of infinite time, stifling control and remarkably few words. His latest wrist watch said even less.

Every dusk, for a thousand years, Eric would rise at forty seconds past sunset, except on those highly unusual occasions where a pressing matter pulled him sooner. He would move though his rising ablutions with vampiric speed, slowing only marginally to ensure he cleaned his teeth with the precise number of strokes, before dressing for the night. He was grateful for modern fabrics and designs, preferring the comfort of sports pants and vest to the rigidity of collars and cravats so loved long ago.

His wrist watch thought the vest made his arms and neck look fat, but said nothing.

Every night for six years, Eric would arrive at his club, Fangtasia, and see to the accounts and other paperwork before sitting on his throne at precisely 11:35pm. He would remain there for two hours and ten minutes, ignoring the vermin who would throw themselves at his feet, begging for his attentions.

His watch would enjoy the light splashes of blood across its face as another fangbanger met with a kick to the shoulder.

Every night for eleven years, Eric would review an average of six point three zero nine cases under his jurisdiction as Sheriff of Area 5, only taking a twenty three minute 'feed and fuck' break, and, in more recent years, a four minute TruBlood break, timed precisely by his wrist watch.

Beyond that, Eric lived an un-death of solitude: he would arrive home, alone; he would switch on his hi-fi and dance, alone; and every dawn, at precisely one minute and twenty seconds before sunrise, he would place his wrist watch on the nightstand beside his bed, and then he would die, alone.

That was, of course, until Thursday. On Thursday, Eric's wrist watch changed everything.

If one had asked Eric, he would have said that this particular Thursday was exactly like all the Thursdays prior. And he began it the same way he...

I paused and looked around, but it had stopped.

And he began it the way he always did.

I paused again. "Who's there?"

There was no response, so I continued.

He began it the way he always did. While others' minds would...

A growl escaped me. "Enough! Show yourself!"

I sniffed the air, but I was alone. Hesitantly I resumed my task.

While others' minds would fantasize about their upcoming night, or even try to grip onto the tendrils of memories from their long un-deaths, Eric just counted brushstrokes.

"Who just said 'Eric just counted brushstrokes'? Show yourself, I will end you!"

I spat the minty saliva from my mouth. Who was this? The air was still clear of another physical creature, however I knew this world too well, there were other beings. But there was no buzz of magic, no other-worldly hum. I was alone.

Of course, more to the point, how did they know I was counting brushstrokes?

It was remarkable how the simple, modest...

I halted half way though pulling on my dark grey vest and glared around the room. Still nothing. I cautiously continued to lower it over my chest.

It was remarkable h...

I briefly paused, then tucked the vest into my jeans and resumed my early evening routine.

It was remarkable how the simple, modest elements of Eric's un-death, so often taken for granted, would become the catalyst for an entirely new existence.

-v-v-

Eric drove to Fangtasia and pulled into his reserved space, just a few yards from the rear door. Stepping from his red Corvette, his sneakers made a terrible squeaking sound as they flexed against the asphalt. Eric sent a text to Pam instructing her to fetch him some new ones; he slung the shoes in the trash can under his desk. And though this was an extraordinary day, one to be remembered for the rest of Eric's existence, Eric just thought it was a Thursday.

Pam entered with a box containing my new shoes. "Did you hear that, Pamela?"

"Hear what?" she asked me, dropping the box insolently on the desk. She was a good child, but despite her 250 years, she was a child nonetheless. At least she has good taste in watches, I thought, looking down at mine.

"The voice, did you hear it? 'Eric just thought it was a Thursday'?"

"Don't worry, Eric, it's Thursday." Pam spoke the words with concern, but she quickly switched back to business matters. "Now don't forget we've got Bill bringing his human here later." And with that she turned and left my office.

That evening Eric found it hard to concentrate; his thoughts were scattered, his mind, elsewhere. When a human member of his staff, meekly and humbly, asked him for some historical information on any great fires he might have witnessed for her son's history class, Eric quickly answered that he had been two streets away from Pudding Lane in London in 1666. When in actual fact...

I was right, wasn't I? My memory was perfect. I am vampire, I never forget a fact.

...it had been the Copenhagen Fire of 1728...

"No, not London, Copenhagen,"I floundered. I never floundered. Within a fraction of a second I regained my authority. "1728, just before I relocated to England. It burned for three days"

...which, along with a secondary fire in 1795, destroyed the majority of the medieval architecture of the city.

"Tell your son to look it up on the internet," I commanded, pushing the voice to the very back of my mind. "There was also a second fire, 67 years later. I will answer any questions he has." And with that I walked off, before she could question my confusion. Control and mastery were essential, but it was wise to be generous, answer questions when asked, and provide praise, albeit in small amounts, when warranted, even to the humans.

I attempted to carry on with my night.

-v-v-

If I didn't move, there was silence, blissful silence. Background noise didn't count; the hum of the beer pumps, the buzz of the computer fan, the footfalls of my staff.

Pam entered and closed the door behind her. Her blood screamed concern, but it was a delicious scream, a noiseless sound; it was not the voice.

"What's wrong, Eric?"

"I think I'm being followed," I responded, awkwardly moving my head a little so I could look at her. I was sure she had never seen me like this. I was her maker. I always had a grasp of the situation, a plan, the upper hand.

"How can you be being followed? You're not even moving." She was pedantic, but she had a point. Could I tell her that this being, whatever it was, had found my house, and was now here? There is only so much madness a child should have to hear.

"It's a voice, listen." I resumed the carving of the stake in my hand.

The blade scraping against the wood had the same tone as a wave washing against the sand, and Eric considered briefly that he had carved enough stakes over his many hundreds of years, that these waves would flow together into one deep and endless ocean.

"You did hear that." There was no possible way she would not have heard it. It was just us, alone, and the words were clearly spoken.

"You carving? Or the sawdust landing on the new sneakers? Honestly, Eric!" she chastised as I looked at my shoes. She was right, of course; I should have taken them off, or covered them.

"The voice, Pam."

Nothing came from her.

"The thing is, I do sometimes picture a deep and endless ocean while I'm carving," I said, a little too wistfully for my own liking.

Pam just looked at me. "What ocean?" I could see worry behind her eyes. She blinked them and it was gone.

"The one made by the sound of the... never mind!" I realized it might be best not to continue this conversation. Pam was my child. She had to follow me. She would protect me, but I began to realize that others who owed me fealty might pledge allegiance elsewhere if it started to become apparent that I was not in my right mind.

"Get your shit together, Eric. Bill's here with his pet."

-v-v-

Bill Compton stood protectively close to his pet, who now reeked of him. Such a pity! Only a few nights prior she had been untouched, unsullied by his crassness, and I can't deny that I had hoped to tempt her away before she succumbed. But virgin blood is no different to any other blood, despite the rumors spread by young vampires and romance authors, and since she had experienced the disappointments of Bill, the pleasure I could give her would seem all the sweeter. Unlike the light cotton dress of purity she had worn on her first visit, she was now playing "power" games with her clothes, or at least tempting to. She was trying to send me a message with her tight jeans and snug blue top that her skin was out of bounds, but she had chosen poorly. The fabric hugged her curves and gave my imagination plenty to work with; sack cloth it was not.

I was off my game. There were too many people around for me to start hearing the voice again and let them all know that my grip on this reality was loosening, so after I greeted them, I turned to Pam. "Deal with this!" I instructed her as I sat on my throne and tried to focus on my other "issue."

"Sookie," Pam smirked at Bill's human, "listen to Bruce."

Sookie was quick off the mark. "What am I listening for?" She cocked her head sassily at Pam and stared her out. I wanted to laugh for the first time that night. Well, well! What a brave creature she was.

"Someone has embezzled about sixty thousand dollars from us," Pam told her, outwardly ignoring Sookie's spunk, but her blood was telling me she was very aroused and excited by it. "I wanted to put all our human employees to death or torture, but Eric's being no fun."

"We're mainstreaming," I told the room; that fact alone should quash any need to question my lack of thirst for blood on this matter.

"Quite," added Pam; her disappointment amused me. "So anyway, Little Miss I Hear Live People, we thought your talents would raise fewer… issues."

My eyes rolled into their lids, and I hoped the rest of the room took my exasperation to be with my child and not with myself. Sookie heard voices. Of course she did, that's why she was here. I needed to talk to her about mine, but it should wait. We would be alone.

With flair and feistiness, Sookie proceeded to make demands of us while Bill looked on with a mixture of awe and annoyance. She was out of his control; I, for want of a better word, loved it. I agreed with her that all humans would go unharmed, though the guilty would not go unpunished as per the law of the state of Louisiana; she agreed to repeat this experience whenever I had need of her, and oh, how I had need of her.

Now that we had business matters agreed, she knelt before the pitiful excuse for a blood-bag who was our accountant, Bruce. He had, until now, been little more than a cloud of fearful scents, but...

Eric looked on with distain as Sookie took the hand of the human male before her and stroked the back of it.

"Not now," I whispered at a level that only the other vampires in the room could hear, and they all paid attention.

It was hard for Eric not to picture Sookie as a nurse in the Crimean War, mopping the brows of fallen soldiers as they looked to her for succor and comfort, bravely facing her own fears to tend to their hideous wounds as they cried in agony around her. Eric wasn't prone to fantasies, and he tried his best to remain distant and in control, but of course failed.

He couldn't help but picture her delicate fingers tracing patterns on his cold bare chest. He couldn't help but imagine her tanned, shapely legs wrapped around him in a post coital haze. And he couldn't help but...

"Eric?" Sookie's distant voice called to me. "Ginger knows who did it, but she can't say the name."

I blinked and possibly twitched. Ginger? Where was Bruce?

...wonder how it would feel to be...

"Mr. Northman?" she pulled at my attentions again.

"I heard you," I replied, vaguely recalling her announce Bruce's innocence.

...next to her body as tepid water rained over their entangled, soapy bodies.

"You're staring at my boobs."

How did she dare confront me in front of everyone? My fangs slid down; of course I was staring at her breasts. They were perfect, why would I not?

I motioned to Pam to remove Ginger and continue the process. The possibility that it was a vampire had crossed my mind, and I considered my next move. I turned to Bill. "Compton, I suggest you keep a tighter leash on your pet. Her bark is, I assure you, not worse than my bite."

Ginger's best friend, Belinda, was brought in. Sookie's manner had calmed by the time she came in contact with the fangbanger.

The impertinent familiarity shown by Ginger, and her suspicious unwillingness to submit to the process, came flowing back into my mind. Pam's control of the situation, the distaste she felt at having to manhandle the cheaply dressed bloodbag, and Sookie's concern at the way Ginger was treated, despite her behavior, all played out at speed in my mind.

Sookie asked Belinda who Ginger was seeing; her innocence at the belief that Ginger would "see" just one vampire was delectable; she was so untarnished. Her horror at Belinda's response made me momentarily lose control of my expressionless poise, and the corners of my mouth twitched. Yes, Sookie, some women are easy. Ginger is one of them. But if you want to save yourself for one vampire, I would support you in this with a pleasure so great that no other touch would satisfy you.

Before Sookie could ask her next question, I noticed the subtle shift of my immediate retinue. Bill was twitchy, but trying to act calm, apparently sending a text to someone; his arrogance to the proceedings and my authority was irritating, but not unexpected. Long Shadow and Pam were on alert, awaiting the answer to Sookie's next question: "Which vampire from here?"

The moment she looked up, his fate was sealed. I would have been prepared to discuss the money, torture him a little, maybe remove a finger or three, but Sookie's life was non-negotiable. Long Shadow made for her neck, and, with the stake that had been carved with the waves of the ocean, I ended him. Bill was fortunate that his inaction did not cause him to meet with the same fate, as he nonchalantly looked up from his cell.

-v-v-

I took a final drag on the fag while feeling the air in front of me for some meaning, some substance that was missing. The people below scurried like ants: fetching, carrying, consuming. I flicked the cigarette away from me and watched it sail far out of view. I could do this; one foot, then the other, and I would be gone, following the glowing remains of my nicotine addiction. My long velvet coat caught in the wind and fluttered around my scrawny ankles; eating had never been my priority. I raised my right foot. How hard could it be?

"Karen?"

Suddenly I was no longer on the top of a thirty story building. I was back, a foot off the ground, staring at Penny, the sweet friend I'd met just a few months ago online.

"What are you doing, honey?" she asked me, offering me the paper cup that held my much-needed other legal stimulant.

"Research." I was curt. She didn't deserve curt. She didn't deserve my attitude in general, and she seemed willing to take so much from me. For the umpteenth time I reminded myself I would be kinder to her, but I had been so focused, for a moment there I thought I'd had it. I sighed. "I'm sorry, I think I have writer's block." I took the coffee from her outstretched hand and caressed it.

It was there, carved in the chocolate skin of her face; I hated that look. Pity. "Have you checked your reviews lately?"

I shrugged. I had posted quite a few stories on fan fiction sites, and they'd been very popular. A couple of them had received a large number of reviews from readers, some of whom did write beautiful comments and suggestions. "I don't respond to reviews," I said bluntly, almost to the point of rudeness. Kinder, I would be kinder.

She looked despairingly at the fag ends that were littered at my feet. I had been waiting for her for a while. "And I suppose you smoked all these cigarettes?"

I laughed. "Oh no, m'dear, they came pre-smoked." I coughed. It was a bad habit, and I really did need to quit, but it was another hurdle I couldn't surmount. "What do you think about leaping off a building?" I asked her thoughtfully as I stepped off the little wall which surrounded a raised flower bed, leaving behind the colorful blossoming roses and planting my feet firmly on the harshness of the pavement.

"I don't think about leaping off of a building," Penny said, looking at me over the plastic top of her coffee cup as she took a sip. "I try to think about nice things."

I sighed. "Let's walk." I gestured down the road as I precariously held my cup and took another fag out of the packet. Lighting it, breathing in the bitter fumes, I thought for a second, then blew out a cloud away from Penny's face. I needed to tell someone. It was getting to be too much. I had to share this burden.

"I don't know how to kill Eric Northman."

Her surprise and shock choked her as her body refused to swallow the swig of coffee. "So you're not writing Twilight anymore?"

I looked at her incredulously. I had written one Twific and I was disappointed with it. It was certainly not my best work. "No, Southern Vampire Mysteries. You haven't read them?"

"No." She paused for a second to take another sip, and this time it trickled down her throat comfortably. "But I can help you. Let me beta for you. I know I don't write, but my grammar's good, and I know a good story when I read it." She was in earnest, enthusiastic, and supportive but there was a fairly important question I just had to ask.

"How can you help me, Penny? Hmm? You, who never thinks about leaping off a building? What insight or inspiration could you give me that could possibly help? What could you possibly know about killing a man?" I was harsh, I was angry, I was cruel. But this was my art, and sue me if I was temperamental!

"Well, I know this: Eric Northman is a vampire, not a man. And throwing himself off of a building will do jack shit since he can fly. I've got a TV, and I do watch it from time to time."

I burst into laughter. Damn. "The books are better." I remembered book 5. "Mostly."

She chuckled with me, her large, soft shoulders jiggling. With a dead-serious conviction, her deep brown eyes connected with mine. "I tell you what, honey. Share this with me. Let me be your beta, and I will gladly, and quietly, help you kill Eric Northman. But not A. Skars. I think half the women in this world would hunt us down and return the favor."

I had a new beta.

-v-v-

As happens at these times, Long Shadow's blood spilled forth, and Sookie was coated. Through the rank and rotting stench of his fluids, I could smell hers, so sweet, so heady, so sensuous. This was not where or how I wanted to be sensing it; her legs should be wrapped around me, beads of her blood dripping from my lips as I lift my head from her breasts.

Pam called me with a cough, and directed my attention to her shoes. Long Shadow would cost me dearly, so very dearly; at least she could earn a new pair of Prada pumps.

"Take Sookie and clean her up," I instructed her, and despite her show of distaste for the task, her fangs ran down as she ushered the human towards the bathroom.

I hadn't expected Pam to return so quickly; in my mind Sookie should be our only concern. The answer machine is there for such things, but on the third ring the phone stopped, and within seconds Pam relayed the message, "She's summoned you, now."

"See that this is cleaned up." And with that I stepped out into the car park and launched myself into the blackness.

Shreveport to New Orleans takes me no more than a forty-five minute flight. She knows this, yet she always acts as though I have kept her waiting. I was shown to the Queen's chambers for a "private" audience; her guards flanked her and her minions knelt at her feet. "Private" was not something I normally considered subjective, unless the Queen was involved.

"Eric, sit, please. I had a little convo with someone from your area, and I hear you're feeling a little…" She paused, searching for the right words. "Wibbly wobbly. Are you okay?" She had never spoken to me like a child before; we were both over a thousand years old and had each other's respect for it until today.

"I think I am okay," I answered, and instantly regretted my response.

"Eric," she said, her condescension making her retinue smirk. This was a punishment for a crime I was continuing to commit: uncertainty. "A tree doesn't think it's a tree, it is a tree."

Eric wondered why Sophie-Anne, Queen of Louisiana, was patronizing him. His uncertainty was cause for concern, but to use terms such as "convo" and "wibbly wobbly", in front of her humans, was beyond insulting. To explain to him that trees were trees degraded them both.

I tried to pay attention to what Sophie-Anne was saying, but her words were drowned out, and for once I was grateful. The voice was beginning to exhaust me, and I realized I was developing a newfound respect for the human. How did Sookie cope with this, filtering out what was in front of her and what was in her head, on top of considering her own thoughts? What a very special creature she was.

He should have been questioning who in his area, other than himself, had a direct line to the Queen, or how he might exact his revenge, but instead he wondered why he couldn't shake the smell of sunshine from his mind, or why he couldn't stop picturing Sookie's intensely blue eyes as they shone back at him through the mask of Long Shadow's spilled blood.

"What's going on, Eric?" she demanded, and I snapped out of it.

"Nothing, it's nothing." It wasn't nothing. I was obsessed with a telepath and hearing voices of my own. This chastisement I could take, but what would I be faced with when Sophie-Anne realized I had not shared Sookie with her? I had to give her something. "Long Shadow met his final death tonight, by my hand."

"Messy, Eric, very messy!" She looked me up and down. "Well, you'd better get it cleaned up, and don't expect my help."

I had walked in still covered in his blood, but I knew she was referring to the potential come back from his maker.

I bowed deeply. She shooed me off, and I willingly left.

-v-v-

Only Pam remained at Fangtasia when I walked through the door; she was busying herself with paperwork that she didn't look up from.

"It wasn't me."

"It was Bill," I said with certainty. Of course my child would not share her concerns with the Queen, but why would Bill? Was Sookie that great a prize – or, more to the point, was I that great a threat? I laughed to myself. Next to him? Of course I was!

"I've laid out a change of clothes on your desk."

I looked down at myself, still covered with dry, stale Long Shadow. He had bled everywhere, clinging to my vest and the hairs on my arms. I glanced at my watch, briefly remembering it having a little "episode" of its own just before Long Shadow attacked. It was an elegant watch. Pam had chosen it well, as she had done with all my previous watches, but like all things digital, it occasionally had a mind of its own. And now it was black and silent, dead.

I cleaned off the blood with a cloth and a little alcohol.

"Do you have the time, Pam?" I called.

She checked her watch and replied, "4:17."

I reset my watch.

And so Eric's watch thrust him into the immitigable path of fate. When he asked for the time and was given 4:17, it was, in fact, 4:21, thus setting Eric's whole existence four minutes ahead of time. Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act, would result in his imminent, and final, death.

"WHAT?"

There are no words to describe the concern that flashed across Pam's face at my cry.

"The telepath needs to be back here tomorrow, first dark." And I left. Pam would see to it. Of that, at least, I was certain.