A/N: Takes place after the end of Season 3 True Blood, Eric has killed Russell Edgington and Sookie has left Bon Temps to visit the faerie realm. It also immediately follows episode 19 Season 2 of Vampire Diaries, when Damon is dying from Tyler's fatal werewolf bite.
For Sleepwell: "A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination." Nelson Mandela
The Life in the Night
Chapter 1: Fancy Seeing You Here
He walked away from the graveyard with the pain from the bite in his arm and the sting of leaving his brother for the final time in his heart.
Stefan was angry; angry with him for giving up, angry at himself for remembering that he actually loved his troublesome older brother and didn't want him to die.
Stefan's anger and sorrow wasn't what he wanted for his last hours on earth. He locked his own pain deep inside himself. He needed to get drunk, mind numbing drunk. He just didn't want to feel anymore.
The bar was busy, despite the fact that the sun had just set. Waitresses carried a steady stream of trays loaded with burgers and nachos to the clientele who sat around drinking beers and getting pleasantly toasted.
He hated the sound of their inane chatter and over-done laughter, it didn't suit his mood. He huddled over his glass of imported beer and sunk the whisky chaser. His eyes wandered over to the pool table where a couple of girls were playing against four boys. Didn't seem like a fair match. Every time one of the girls leaned over, the boys made the kinds of comments and faces he had grown to expect, hell, he'd probably thrown out the same sexist, degrading remarks himself at some point.
Now that he thought about it, he was kind of sick and tired of the entire human race. And he was certainly sick and tired of relationships and the angst they had brought to his long life.
He closed his eyes as a sharp pain stabbed him, moving up his arm into his shoulder. He rolled up his sleeve to examine the blackening wound. Glancing up at the bar staff, he no longer saw a pimply boy and two smiling girls, they had been replaced by a red-faced demon and his gnarled black acolytes. He blinked the illusion away. Damn, this werewolf poison worked fast. He'd better drink more and faster.
He put up his hand to call over one of the girls and ordered more expensive beer and another whisky chaser. He was about to compel her into thinking he had already paid, when he heard a familiar, smooth voice next to him saying, "Allow me to get that. And please, the same for me." He swiveled on his bar stool to face the person who was buying him a drink.
"Eric Northman, well, well, well. You are the last person I expected to see tonight." He snorted at the potential irony buried in those words. Eric leaned backwards, elbows on the bar next to him, but even reclining, Damon had to cast his eyes up to look into the distinguishable face of the six-foot four Viking.
"Damon. Long time, no see. How are you, old friend?"
"Been better." Eric narrowed his blue eyes, detected there was more to Damon's frivolous tone than he let on, but let it pass. There was time enough for discussion. "What are you doing in this part of the world?" Damon asked. "Last time I saw you were heading down into redneck country."
The handsome, blonde vampire smiled. He remembered that occasion well. He and Damon had met casually before, but that night they had bonded over bourbon and brunettes. The two vampires had ended up enjoying each other's company until dawn in more ways than one.
He thanked the bar girl who had brought their drinks and then, to Damon's surprise, he actually paid her.
"So hell must have frozen over then," Eric began, "because I believe that that is what you said it would take to bring you back to Mystic Falls."
"Yeah, well, something like that." Damon picked up his chaser, Eric mimicked him and they touched glasses.
"Skål." Eric said.
"Skål." Damon repeated. He kind of liked the vampire's ancient language, it made him think of more honest times when emotional exchanges were settled with axes.
They downed their shots and carried the bourbon bottle and glasses to a booth, planning to catch up in private. Damon slid onto the ripped green leather seat and poured each of them another shot.
"So why exactly are you here, Eric? I'm curious as to why a vampire like you is wasting your time in a dump like Mystic."
"Actually, I think your town has, shall we say, a certain rural charm?" Damon followed Eric's eye line, which took him to a pretty girl who had just walked into the bar. There was something of the sun about her - it radiated off her freckled, fresh skin and strawberry blonde locks.
Damon returned his gaze to the vampire in front of him and smiled. "Have you seen the waitress?" He asked, nodding in the direction of a tall, slim brunette who was serving the banquette next to theirs, a pen behind her ear, her skirt almost as short as the apron she wore. "I should have thought she was more your type." He smiled.
Eric's mood suddenly changed. "I'm done with waitresses." Damon noted the way the Viking suddenly seemed to shrink inside himself and raised an eyebrow. Curious, but he would let it go, for now.
"So" he repeated, "Why are you here, Eric? I'm waiting."
"To find you and your brother actually. And Katherine. We heard news she was out of the tomb. You three still joined at the hip?"
Damon snorted. "Not exactly. Your sources are a little behind the times. Katherine is old news."
"Pity, I always liked Katherine. Had a bit of fire in her."
"You could say that."
"And Isabel?"
"Dead."
"I'm sorry. I know you were her maker." Damon nodded. Looked away. "My condolences." Damon nodded again. Drank his bourbon in silence.
"Who is 'we'?" He asked after a moment. Eric looked puzzled. "You said 'we' heard news?"
"Oh, that." It was the blonde's turn to down his drink. "I am here to inform the vampires of all the Southern states that we have a new King in area five. King William Compton the first." He said formally, barely keeping the hatred out of his voice.
"The same Bill Compton who did that database?"
"One and the same."
"Hell."
"Indeed."
"What happened to Queen Sophie-Anne?"
"Decorating his walls."
"I see nothing much changes at the top." Damon snorted. "Same old vampire politics." Eric smiled, but it quickly fell away.
"It's a disaster. I'm his goddamn Sheriff." He said.
Damon raised an eyebrow. "You are? Where?"
"Shreveport, Louisiana. I run a club there. Fangtasia. Come any time, drinks on the house for any vampire brethren, blah blah." He rolled his hand dramatically.
Damon smirked. "Thanks. I'd love to take you up on that invitation. You have no idea how much." He said dryly. "Sadly, I don't think I will have the time. And frankly, the news of our new King isn't going to bother me too much either."
"Oh?" Eric asked curiously. A change in any one of the area's monarchies usually caused much interest amongst the vampires. Hence this lowly, shitty task Bill had sent him on once he crawled free of the cement he had tried to bury him under.
When Bill had instructed him to travel around delivering the news of his rise to power, Eric had said exactly what he thought of the order. Turned out Bill hadn't much appreciated the comment 'ever heard of email?' and consequently, he was now on a month long tour of the Southern states, basically acting like a gossiping fish-wife, telling all the vampires he could find that a new King was in town.
The mission was a nod to an antiquated tradition that absolutely nobody followed any more. It was certainly well beneath a vampire of his status. A Sheriff. And that is precisely why Bill had made him do it. In a way, he actually admired Compton for commanding the insulting duty - it was exactly the kind of thing he would have done himself. Bill was drawing a line under their new relationship. Flexing his royal muscles publicly, so to speak.
Damon suddenly rolled up his sleeve and showed Eric his pulsing black wound. The Viking's eyebrows raised, but otherwise his expression didn't change. He was an ancient vampire, there wasn't much he hadn't seen.
"I take it you have a werewolf infestation here too then?" He asked.
"Yeah. Something like that." Damon waved at the waitress to bring him another beer, the effects of the bourbon were starting to show. His inhibitions were slipping. He needed to slow down, regain control.
Then thought, what the hell. Fuck it. He needed to tell someone. "I'm dying, Eric. Wanna drink to that?"
Still looking nonplussed, Eric raised his glass, gazed steadily into the younger vampire's saddened, yet defiant eyes and announced, "Well then, we'll have to give you a night to remember."