Dead and Gone, With The Wind

(PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU HAVE BEEN READING MY OTHER SERIES OF STORIES THAT THESE TWO ONE SHOTS ARE TOTALLY UNRELATED TO THAT SERIES)

A/N- These two one shots take place immediately after the first chapter of Dead and Gone, which you can read on Charlaine Harris's website. Charlaine Harris writes the Southern Vampire Series/Sookie Stackhouse Series, and as Malanna so eloquently puts it, I hope she doesn't mind my playing with Eric and Sookie for a bit.

Sookie

I gave him a look and he removed his feet from the coffee table. The bottle of True Blood was carefully replaced on the coaster near my glass of sweet tea. After putting the DVD into the player, I sat back down on the couch and pulled the quilt over me. I was skeptical about watching an almost four hour movie, but it was his choice, so what could I say. While we waited for all the FBI warnings and the menu selections, we made small talk that was oddly uncomfortable considering how happy we seemed to be to see each other when he arrived. We'd been all smiles and I'd received as warm a hug as you were ever going to get from a dead man.

"So how is the shifter's mother?"

"She'll be okay, but it was a close call. She lost a lot of blood."

I was slightly amused by the effort because I was sure Eric really didn't care about Sam, or Sam's mother, who'd been shot by her husband two days before on the night of the Were Revelation when she'd shifted to show her husband what the revelation was all about. But he knew I cared, so I guess it was thoughtful. Sam had left me in charge of running Merlotte's so that he could go watch over his mom in Texas. It was Sunday and Terry Bellefleur, Tray Dawson and I had spent a good part of the day organizing things, since we were closed for the day. We'd decided to go over schedules and see where we were on inventory items, since Sam had had so little chance to get things set for his departure.

"What did she change into, that he got so scared he shot her?"

"You know, actually I don't even know. I forgot to ask him. Maybe he was just so startled. Who knows. Are you fine without captions? Lived here long enough to get all the Deep South accents including the fake ones?"

"Yes, that's fine. So you are managing okay with the bar?"

"A work in progress. Terry and Tray are covering the bartending part. The major problem is being down a waitress because Arlene quit in a hissy-fit over Sam being a shifter. But I can do all the rest of stuff like ordering, accounting, setting the schedules and all that. He told the bank I could do payroll but we're all on EFT, so it shouldn't be much of a problem. I can just do it on the computer from the office. I just have to calculate the hours. It's mostly just finding a new waitress to replace Arlene and stuff."

"You know, if you would like any help…"

I cut him off. "No, we're fine. But thanks for the offer." I didn't want to seem rude about it. But I was not indebting Sam to Eric Northman without his knowledge, that was for sure. Besides, the last time Eric tried to lend Sam a hand, the bartender he sent tried to kill me, though through no direct fault of Eric's.

"Heard from Niall?"

I hit the pause button. "Eric are we gonna watch the movie or not?"

"I presume you have seen the opening credits?"

I rolled my eyes but did not hit play. "Yes, I have, but I'm trying to figure out if you want to talk or watch."

I got this wave of his wanting to do other things but considering this was only the second time I'd seen the man in the past two and a half months, he was kidding himself if he thought that was going anywhere. I hadn't seen him since Christmas. He and Pam had come to see me on Christmas Night, shortly after my Great-Grandfather, Niall Brigant, had departed. Pam had wryly commented that the potpourri that I was using to scent my house was quite intoxicating.

"Well, we haven't had much of chance to talk recently," he said with a faint smile.

What could he mean by that? He hadn't had the promised 'talk' with me, but that was fine. Better than fine probably. There had been a continuous stream of flowers, 'thinking of you' messages on my cell phone and the occasional conversation at odd hours. Far better than the attention offered by some men I'd dated, actually. In fact about two and a half months ago I'd broken up with a man who'd shown me less attention than Eric had and who had almost gotten us all killed on top of it.

I had called to thank Eric for every floral arrangement and had withstood the occasional awkwardness of returning every message, even though, with the exception of organizing an upcoming trip to Las Vegas, the reasons for his calls were not exactly crystal clear. We usually just chatted about odds and ends. Although I was always maddeningly happy to hear his voice, sometimes I just couldn't figure out why he'd called me.

"We chatted just this past week," I pointed out. That conversation was a longer one, because he'd called me to tell me that Felipe de Castro, the new King of Louisiana, wished me to attend a celebration in Las Vegas, Nevada, his home base, next month. It was plain this was not an invitation for which kind regrets were an option.

"Actually, I have to discuss a bit more about the travel arrangements with you." He looked slightly hesitant to go there as he said it, however.

I sighed and just gave up, putting the dvd player's remote on the coffee table. Gone with the Wind was going to be epically long at this rate. I looked at the frozen image on the TV screen, the cast of characters with Tara in the background, then turned to look at the gorgeous Viking vampire on the couch near me. I had set myself at a safe distance away from him but noticed that the gap was closing as he'd slyly managed to move closer and closer over the past few minutes.

I waited, but it took him a minute or two to decide what he was going to say. I touched a spot on my quilt that I was going to have to restitch, examining it carefully and tucking the loose fabric back under with my fingernail.

"When did you break with the Tiger?" he asked in a nice, neutral tone of voice.

I looked up at him with a look that must have clearly conveyed the fact that I really did not think that was any of his business. His deep blue eyes sparkled a bit as he looked over at me. He smirked. It was really hard to be mad at Eric, especially since he seemed to have recovered a lot of his former good humor with me since recovering his memories of our one brief week together. But it was none of his business and if he knew me, he knew that.

"Why would that be any of your business, Eric?" I asked, trying not to have too much edge to my voice.

"I would like to know," he replied, looking at me intently.

I considered how to answer, since I didn't really see why he would like to know. But fine, if he wanted to know, I'd tell him.

"About six hours after you, Bill and that Victor Madden left my house. And that's all I'll say on the subject." I'd awakened to Quinn sitting, uninvited, in my bedroom chair and had pretty much shown him the door, even though I knew the Nevada vamps had had his mother and that was how he'd become involved in the takeover.

He looked thoughtful and nodded. "That will work well, then." I suddenly got the feeling that he was really very pleased with my response.

"What will work? What's it to you?"

"It's more what it is to you, which is looking as if you have waited an 'appropriate' length of time."

"I'm beginning to feel like I'm doing one of those Jumble puzzles in the newspaper where I'm supposed to figure out the answer to a riddle from a whole bunch of words or letters that I rearrange. You're not making any sense."

"We're sharing the room. In Vegas. Felipe is under the impression that you're mine, and I'm certainly not doing anything to let him to think otherwise."

Well that was just charming.

"It's so nice that my feelings on the matter were taken into consideration. I'm so flattered that my opinion matters to all of you."

I was mad. In fact, I was even madder because I'd blushed. I got up to take his empty bottle of blood to the kitchen. As I turned from rinsing the bottle in the sink, he just zoomed into view, looming over me. He placed his arms on either side of me, effectively pinning me against the sink. I did not look up at him, which was quite a long way up, at first.

"Sookie, the arrangements were made by Felipe's staff. As I said, I have no intention of leading him to believe otherwise as to whom you belong. And I really wouldn't think you'd want to do so, either."

"What I'd want would be to not go at all. Or to have a choice about where and with whom I stay. Is Pam in the same room?"

"Pam is not attending. On the positive side, I've gotten us tickets to several shows, including the Cirque du Soleil. I thought you would enjoy that."

"But I thought you said that the two nights were already scheduled with various formalities and everything?" I pointed out, as I finally looked up at him.

"We're staying two extra days." He smiled down at me.

What?! Her brain rebelled at the very idea.

"Eric, that's two extra days I miss work! I need to work, remember? And I only asked Sam for three days off. Now it looks like it could be five days off? We're already short staffed. I can't do that to Sam."

"I'll send him someone from the club to work in your place then. Don't worry about it."

What weighed even more on my mind was that I really couldn't afford to lose that much salary. A full week off from work with no pay, because Felipe was not paying me to go to his little fete. I was supposed to be honored to be a human invited by a vampire King to the events. I was getting more than a little agitated at the whole idea. That was a quarter of the month off. I simply could not afford it. I'd have to dip into savings to do that. What if something happened in the house or my car broke down? My mind just started spinning with worry.

Eric tipped my chin up toward him and smiled. "I've gotten Felipe to agree to pay what Sophie-Anne owed you for Rhodes, Lover. So I think you'll come back with money in the bank, don't worry."

I was shocked. I had thought that money was lost for good. Sophie-Anne owed me fifteen thousand dollars for my work in Rhodes and when she died, I thought her debts had likely died with her. I was pretty much speechless.

"Thank you, Eric. I really thought the money was just lost." That was property tax, insurance and upkeep money, all rolled into one. I simply couldn't believe he'd gotten Felipe to make good on Sophie-Anne's debt to me. "Thank you so much."

I smiled up at him and gave him a quick hug. Then I ducked under his arm and went back out to the living room. I sat in the armchair next to the couch.

He walked back out into the living room and stood over me with his hands in his jeans pockets.

"The warmth of your gratitude is really impressive, Sookie," he said in a sarcastic tone.

I slowly turned to look up at him, my mouth dropping open.

"Are you actually implying that I'm supposed to be warmer or more affectionate with you because you got me my money?"

Eric stiffened and suddenly became aware of a definite misstep.

"That was not how I meant it. It came out badly. You ducked away too quickly, that's all." He smiled at me. "And there's not much room for two where you're sitting."

"That's because it's a chair, Eric. A chair generally fits one adult per chair. Unless both are very small. That would not be us."

"Or," he said with a chuckle, "You could think outside the box." And with that he scooped me up, sat down in the chair and placed me in his lap. All before I could even make a peep of protest. "You're usually better at thinking out of the box than I am, Lover. But this time, I had it before you."

Every time he called me Lover it just sent me. And we were now closer than we'd been in months. The soft black t-shirt he was wearing made him look so pale. The deep sapphire blue of his eyes just made my heart flutter. I felt this immense internal struggle inside me. Part of me wanted to run for my very life. And the other part? That part, which was growing larger by the minute, seemed to be in tune with something else that I noticed was, ehem, growing larger. To say I was conflicted was quite an understatement. The previous time I'd gotten involved with Eric it had left me so heartsore that I'd taken a disastrous misstep into my so-called relationship with John Quinn, who'd hardly called, said he was going to stay with me for a month, disappeared and then showed up with a pack of Nevada vampires who took over the state of Louisiana, killing many vampires I knew and liked. I had tried to put all thoughts of Eric far, far out of my mind and had failed repeatedly. And now here he was grinning at me, arm around my waist, mere inches away and quite aroused and arousing. I closed my eyes and looked away.

Eric took advantage of my turned head to nuzzle and then softly kiss my neck. I jumped and tried to rise but he held me firmly in his lap and pulled me even closer toward him with one arm. Then he gently turned my face to him and whispered,

"Sookie, I want to kiss you…"

This was a departure, since usually he just confidently tried to take what he wanted. His fangs were more than halfway down. I thought about him biting me. As in the 'I wanted him to' sense. How messed up was that, I thought somewhere inside my head. I let out a small gasp and looked in his eyes. I felt flooded with a desire that I knew was not entirely my own. It was so strong it made me tremble in his arms. I did not say no, so he began to kiss me softly then gradually more and more passionately as his hands tangled in my hair. I felt him hard against my hip and I moaned.

Suddenly I just pulled back from him, my heart pounding. I'd disconnected from what I knew were his feelings and reconnected with the other part of what I was feeling, which was basically panic. Now there was no boyfriend I could claim to keep my distance. No, I was going to get hurt again. Really, really hurt. Getting hurt a second time was going to be even worse because I'd really have something to beat myself up over if I fell into it all over again.

I tried to get up but Eric didn't let me escape from his arm around my waist. He brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear and looked at me as if assessing the situation.

"When did you start being afraid of me again?"

Around about the time I realized you'd forgotten all about me and my heart felt like it had been smashed into about a thousand pieces and then you were cold and distant for months and weren't even acting like my friend anymore. But then it got better and I don't want to go through the whole thing again because if I do I'll hate myself for being so stupid. And I don't care what you think you remembered, it wasn't you and you won't be that way again because it wasn't really you, and you do not really want me the way I need to be wanted, I thought to myself.

"I just think this is a bad idea Eric. You said a movie. I thought we'd just hang out and watch a movie."

"We can watch the movie or we can talk. It's up to you," he said as he released his arm from around my waist.

I got up carefully, went back to the couch, wrapped myself up in the quilt and pressed play on the remote. Eric rose from the chair and sat next to me on the couch, arms crossed over his chest, staring straight ahead. As I stared at the list of characters from Tara and Twelve Oaks I felt a rush of frustration and disappointment from him.

In the middle of the barbecue scene at Twelve Oaks he glanced over at me and saw the tears on my cheeks. He glanced back at the TV for an instant, puzzled, and then pulled me over to him, pressing his cool cheek against my tear-streaked one.

"We need to start over again," he whispered softly to me.

I picked up the remote and hit pause.

With his cheek still against mine, I said, "Damn it, Eric, the movie is four hours long. If we keep stopping it or restarting it, it's going to take forever."

He burst out laughing, pulled back and then tousled my hair, shaking his head.

"Not the movie, Lover…"

Well then, what did he mean? Oh…

He pulled me closer, wrapped his arm around me and rested his chin against my temple. Then he took the remote out of my hand and pressed play. I closed my eyes for a moment and just savored the feeling of his arms around me. I was flooded with a sense of warmth.