Pairing: Sookie/Alcide

Disclaimer: Sookie and Alcide belong to Charlaine Harris, the storyline/universe that I am following belongs to Alan Ball.

A/N: For those of you who might be reading my other chapter fic "Made," I am not taking a break from it. I am doing a rather ballsy thing (in my opinion!) by writing both at the same time. I just really, really, really like Alcide...I had to. Enjoy!~

Chapter One

In the middle of the summer, nothing sounded better to Sookie Stackhouse than a lukewarm bath on her day off, and just soak for hours at a time. Today was turning out to be one of those kinds of days. She was going through a breakup with her first love, that bitch Debbie Pelt attacked her a couple of days ago, and Sookie didn't know which way was up anymore. Her whole life seemed as if it were a tornado, whipping around the walls of her heart, destroying all in its path and devouring all her energy. She wanted to go back to when her life wasn't too complicated; when she could predict her days, and people she knew weren't dying left and right. How easy it had been before Bill Compton had come into her life—well, her life was as easy as it could have been then with her telepathy and all.

Sookie turned the knobs on her tub, filling it with more cold water than hot so that the cool mixture would be the remedy she needed to relax her tense muscles and forget the whole world. While the tub was filling, Sookie disrobed in front of her mirror with a sad sort of face. Her skin was littered with healing bruises, thanks to all the vampire blood she had from when she was still in the hospital. The aching marks were a fading purplish color with a faint yellow rim. Sookie supposed they didn't look so bad, but when she pressed the bruises, she'd hiss from the pain. She could just hear her Gran now: "Quit doing it if it hurts!" How she missed her Gran; she'd know exactly what to say to get Sookie through the personal turmoil of a broken heart.

Once she worked off her cotton panties, Sookie fiddled with the knobs on the tub to turn off the water. Just as she was about to step inside, she got the idea of how nice it would have been if she poured out some bubble bath when the tub was filling. It was too late for that now, so Sookie grabbed a couple of oil bath beads and popped them in around the tub. She loved those things; they left her skin feeling real slick, but smelling great.

Grabbing the romance novel she was currently reading, Sookie got into the tub feet first, allowing her body to slide into the water. Being in the tub reminded her of going swimming on a hot summer day, how the warm air would heat up the water so that she wouldn't have to ease herself into the pool inch by inch as she got used to the water. It was heaven to her, and exactly what she needed.

Sookie opened her book to the page where she had left off and unfolded the corner that she had used as a makeshift bookmark. The premise of the story was quite a cliché one, the kind where the guy finally woke up and realized that he loved his best friend after all these years, but she was currently with another man. Normally, curling up with her favorite romance novel didn't bother her when her and Bill had been fighting, but something about not having him anymore, the huge hole he had left in her heart, and the fact that she had no one to tell that she loved them (well, other than Jason and Tara whenever they weren't bothering her too much) kept her from being able to enjoy the words on the page.

It only took a couple of paragraphs till Sookie's eyes welled with tears. They rolled down her tanned cheeks endlessly, running down her neck and pooling around her collarbone. Why didn't anyone tell her that breaking up was this bad, that it sucked this much? Had she known the pain, she might not have gotten with Bill in the first place...

But then she would have missed out on so much, and those experiences were almost worth all the pain she had to deal with now.

As Sookie brought her wet hand up to wipe at her eyes, there was a knock at the door. She was hopeful, for one shining moment that it was Bill, but that was a foolish wish since it was light outside and he no longer had any ties to her. Sookie really considered ignoring the door, she even dunked her head under the water, allowing her hair to get soaked, but as soon as her head popped back up again, the knocking evolved into a persistent banging.

"For goodness sake, I'm coming! Hold your horses!" Sookie called out to whatever visitor she had. Reluctantly, she pulled her dripping body out of the tub. She grabbed a striped towel that she had laid out and quickly dried off her body as best as she could before she pulled a fluffy pink bathrobe tight around her body and tied the belt around her waist.

She padded to the door, leaving wet footprints behind her. Sookie didn't bother looking out the window to see who it was; it was probably the dang mailman with a package, telling her that she had to sign off for it. She opened the door, and without looking at her visitor, she asked, "What do you need?"

"Good morning, Sookie," a familiar voice said in a low drawl.

Her eyes immediately shot up at the tall man standing in front of her. "Alcide, what the hell are you doing here?" Sookie asked, certain that her jaw was scrapping the floor by now. It wasn't like she hadn't seen Alcide for years or anything, she only just met him a couple weeks ago, but he had just left to take care of his family after that Pelt bitch burned down his sister's salon. Only one thought came to her mind, "Oh my gosh, was Janice inside?"

Alcide looked sincerely confused. "What? Oh, that, no...she wasn't inside, no one was," he said simply. He glanced more closely at Sookie, noticing that she was only clad in a bathrobe. Alcide stuffed his fists into his pockets awkwardly. "How about you invite me in so you don't have to stand out in your robe?"

"What? Oh, sure! Come on in!" Sookie said excitedly, yet still shocked to see Alcide standing in front of her. She stood to the side and held the door open for the extremely tall werewolf to walk through. "Do you want anything; coffee, orange juice?" Sookie couldn't help but offer—it was the polite thing to do—even though she was certain that Alcide didn't come all the way to Bon Temps to have a cup of her coffee or a glass of her juice.

"Coffee, please," Alcide said, following Sookie into her kitchen and taking a seat at her table. His large body looked odd perched on her chairs—which weren't tiny, by the way—but Alcide made it look like he was being forced to attend a tea party by an insistent and determined five-year-old.

"How do you take it?" Sookie asked as she poured out two mugs worth of coffee; one for her, one for him. Maybe after she had a jolt of caffeine, she'd start to feel like her normal self again.

"Cream and sugar," Alcide told her, settling into the chair as it gave an audible creak.

Sookie quickly added the finishing touches to the coffee and brought them over to the table, passing one mug over to Alcide as she slithered delicately into her own chair. She brought the warm fluid up to her nose and inhaled its scent, but didn't sip. It was still too dang hot to drink when it was equally hot outside. "So, what brings you to Bon Temps?"

Alcide took a drink from the mug before he spoke. "You do, actually."

Her eyes grew wide and worried. "What?"

"Come live with me," Alcide blurted out as if the request wasn't a huge, life-altering one.

Sookie's brows furrowed. Normally, she would have thought Alcide was just messing with her, but from the expression on his face, she knew that his offer was as serious as cancer. "No, Alcide, I can't just come live with you. Why do you even ask?"

"Some werewolves were here, including Debbie," Alcide said plainly, bringing the mug up to his lips again to take another sip.

She hesitated before she said, "I picked up their scent on your porch, your doorstep...the stench is really strong in your living room. I'm guessing there was blood there?" Alcide asked, but he didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he pressed on, "I also heard from some other Weres in Jackson about how Debbie left the state with two members from her pack of addicts. There's only one reason why she'd leave out of nowhere—you."

"Why?" Of course, Sookie knew that Debbie was a bitch—the bitch in her eyes—but she didn't know Debbie, and Debbie didn't know her. No one had ever hated her quite this much without reason.

"I killed her lover, so she wants to kill mine," Alcide said simply.

"We're not lovers!" Sookie said, nearly yelling. This hardly seemed fair. She already told Debbie that she wasn't sleeping with Alcide. Did she not get it the first time?

"I know that, but she either doesn't believe it or she doesn't care," he told her.

Sookie was banking on the latter. "Let her come back. I'll be ready," she said proudly, finally bringing her coffee up to her chapped lips to take a small sip. "I'm sorry, but I can't come with you to Jackson. I got a job, and like I told you, I'm not going to spend my life running, Alcide."

Alcide nodded his head slowly, and brought his hands together in front of him as if he were in deep thought. "Then, I'll stay here."

"What? You can't just invite yourself to stay at my house, Alcide!" Sookie snapped, trying not to get angry with him. He had protected her when she needed it most, and allowed her to stay with him in Jackson. Had it not been for Alcide, she probably wouldn't have saved Bill. Well, maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad thing, looking back now. If she hadn't saved Bill, she wouldn't have almost died.

Alcide had a half-smile on his lips. "I'm not, remember? You offered to me a couple days ago that I could stay here as long as I like."

Sookie's mouth was open wide again. "Yeah, but that time was different, and you only wanted to stay a day!"

"I would have gladly stayed longer had I not had a family emergency," Alcide reminded Sookie with a hard pointed look. "I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it might mean life or death, Sookie. You got lucky having a couple of fa—vampires around last time. What if Bill isn't able rescue you if they come back?"

She had told Alcide before he left that Bill would come for her when she was in trouble, but she couldn't be sure. What if he got kidnapped again? What if Debbie came back during the daytime? What if Bill decided that she wasn't worth all the work keeping alive anymore? It'd be smart to have a backup plan—a watch dog around to protect her if things started to get bad. She'd be foolish if she thought otherwise. "What about your family, Alcide? Aren't you supposed to be protecting them?"

Naturally, he already had an answer for this. "My father is more than enough protection for my family."

"What about your contracting job?" Sookie asked.

"Already taken care of—I took a couple weeks off of vacation."

Sookie sighed. He had covered all the bases, and he covered them well. "Fine, you can stay. But we're not sleeping together, okay? You can have the guest bedroom."

Alcide flashed her an innocent sort of smile as if the thought had never crossed his mind, but Sookie knew better. He watched Sookie pick up their mugs and take them to the sink before he asked, "What were you doing before I arrived?" He stole another playful glance at her pink robe.

She glanced up from the sink and turned to look over her shoulder into Alcide's beautiful eyes. "I was bathing."

His smile grew wider only slightly. "Sorry about that," he told her as he stood up from the table. "I'm going to go bring in my bags if that's okay with you."

Sookie almost laughed. He had his bags packed, took weeks off from work, and made sure his family was properly protected by his father. It's like he knew she'd agree to his offer way before she did said yes. Sookie turned back to the mugs, hiding her smile as she started to scrub them clean. "Fine by me."