Dead among Friends and Neighbors
A/N:
This story takes place 16 years after Dead Ever After and is about Sookie and Eric meeting each other again under different circumstances.
The story will have fairly short chapters but I`ll try to post often.
Charlaine Harris owns all the characters and the universe this story takes place in. I just wanted to see if I could bring Eric and Sookie back together again.
I want to thank Suki59 for betaing this story (on top of Sookie the Shieldmaiden).
Dead among friends and neighbors
The night was still young when I heard the car driving up Hummingbird Lane. I`d come out of my hidey-hole an hour ago and was considering having a second TruBlood when the sound of the car made me look out my window. The curse of being a young vampire was needing more blood than the older ones did. At least my blood thirst wasn`t as bad as it had been a few years ago.
It was a red sports car and for a moment my heart stopped, thinking of the times I`d seen a red sports car in my driveway. Actually my heart had stopped ten years ago but as a figure of speech it stopped again now. But this car wasn`t a Corvette, even if it was red. It was one of those electric sports cars. Tesla, I believe they`re called.
So my visitor was someone who was vain but environmentally conscious.
I stepped outside. If it was trouble, I`d rather have it in the driveway I`d had repaved recently, than in my living room. I`d had enough mayhem among Gran`s old furniture. It was a wonder that I still had any of it left.
It was dark outside but as a vampire, I had perfect night vision—one of the few perks that came with being turned. But I still blinked a few times when I saw someone with blond hair in the driver`s seat. Someone tall, so it couldn`t be Pam. And definitely not Karin even if she`d gotten her driver`s license recently. She would never have been allowed to drive alone. Too many accidental deaths that needed to be covered up.
So I stood still—and I`d become very good at that after Hot Rain had taken his final revenge on me for killing Charles Twining and, indirectly, Long Shadow—and waited for Eric to unfold his long limbs and get out of the car. Why this vampire insisted on buying cars that were clearly meant for short men going through a midlife crisis, I would never understand.
"Hello, Eric," I said as if it wasn`t at all strange that a vampire who was supposed to serve another 184 years with his queen and wife—and under no circumstances be alone with me—was standing in my driveway.
He looked as he`d looked 16 years ago but then vampires never changed. Which meant that he still looked like a 23-year-old Viking. He even wore his usual jeans and a black T-shirt, though the design and fabric were different from what they`d been when I`d seen him last.
"Sookie." He nodded.
I was wearing a summer dress, and although the cut was different from the dress I`d worn when I`d first seen Eric at Fangtasia so many years ago, it was—ironically—a white dress with little flowers on it, just like the one I`d worn back then. I guess I`d just never bought into the black leather fashion people assumed vampires would wear.
"Is something wrong?" I asked. Apparently I hadn`t quite managed to curb my curiosity. Or anxiety. To my defense, if Eric was here it had to be because something was wrong with one of his children. And I liked both Pam and Karin. We were The Three Amigas. The Vampire Barbies. The Blonde Horde. The vampire who`d started calling us Eric`s Angels had ended up with a broken arm, though. And missing his tongue. I wasn`t Eric`s child. Or his in any other capacity.
Eric flashed me a quick smile and then shook his head. "On the contrary. Something is right. Or will be."
On the outside I kept standing still but on the inside I changed into defense mode. Was Eric here to correct the fact that I`d been turned? To put me in my final grave? Was he here on orders from Queen Freyda to make sure I wouldn`t be waiting in the wings to snatch her husband when she wasn`t looking?
Which I wasn`t. Waiting in the wings, that is. Or going to snatch her husband. I had been in love with Eric but that ended when he asked me to become his mistress. And when he told me he`d planned all along to turn me even though he knew I didn`t want that.
The irony was that I`d been turned anyway—a fact of life (or death) I truly resented, but had come to accept because the alternative was worse. After long and hard consideration, with Pam locking me up until she was sure I`d come to the right conclusion, I`d found that meeting the sun was suicide even if I was already dead. And I still had enough of my faith to know that suicide was wrong. Fate was something you accepted even if it spat you in the face. When life hands you lemons and all that.
"How is that?" I asked in a neutral voice. I`d gotten so much better at not showing my emotions. I thought I´d been good at it even as a human, but not having any blood rushing around in your veins helped matters tremendously.
"You`re a vampire now," he said as if that explained everything.
"I know that," was my tart reply. Apparently I hadn`t entirely embraced my fangs yet.
"I know you didn`t want that and I`m sorry for you," he continued.
I nodded, though I wanted to kick his shin. Being a vampire wasn`t something I wanted but he definitely had. At least back when we were together.
"What`s done is done." At least I could try to sound casual about it.
"I hear that Pam punished Hot Rain for this."
That made me flash my teeth. Oh, Hot Rain had indeed been punished. Pam had shown a true understanding of the time we lived in and how badly vampires needed good publicity. She`d also understood how I`d needed to stay a part of my community so she`d let the human law deal with Hot Rain first.
She`d made a huge show out of how she—the local, law-abiding vampire—had delivered the outside vampire into police custody. She`d had my human friends get on every news channel they could find, to voice their public support of me even when I was a vampire. And, when I`d gotten over the worst of the bloodlust, I`d been pushed out there in my most human summer dresses, to talk to reporters and go on talk shows, making vampires seem like humans with slight dental problems and on a special diet. There was even some footage of me playing with Tara and JB`s then six-year-old twins.
It had all been coordinated with Felipe de Castro, but Pam had planned the whole PR campaign with a determination one had to admire.
Pam had been a good friend but she hadn`t done all this for me. Not me alone, at least. Vampires had been in need of some good PR now that the first wave of shock and interest after the Great Revelation some years earlier.
But Pam was still a vampire and Hot Rain met the pointed end of a stake in prison. Everyone cried dry tears over the loss.
"Hot Rain has changed his name to Hot Dust," I said and it made Eric laugh for a few seconds.
Then his blue eyes landed on my face and his laugh turned into a smile. "You`ve missed me," he said in that way that was so typical of him. It was half a question and half a statement.
"I haven`t had time to miss you," I replied and it was true. I`d been busy and Eric had made his choice a long time ago. But from the shadow that glided over Eric`s face, he wasn`t much pleased with my answer. Maybe he`d expected me to jump into his arms now that I was a vampire?
"Yes, you`ve been busy sleeping around, I hear." Eric was always his meanest when he was hurt. I`d learned that a long time ago.
"I haven`t seen you for 16 years. Of course, I`ve slept with other people." I was angry at myself for trying to explain myself when I shouldn`t have to so I added, "Not that it`s any business of yours."
"Of course, it`s my business, Sookie. You are my wife. And you slept with my child. You`ll always be my business."
So we were heading straight for the ugly. "You divorced me and married someone else. And your child can make her own decisions." I was proud to say that I kept my calm now. I`d only slept with Pam once. Well, twice, really, since I wanted to be sure she wasn`t it for me. I really like Pam and at that point in life (or death), I wanted to be able to lean on her as more than a friend. But Pam lacked an important body part and that was that. No hard feelings.
Eric headed for my house and walked inside without any invitation. Since it was now a vampire residence, I didn`t have to invite him in for him to enter. So much for keeping trouble in the driveway.
When I walked inside after Eric, I found him sitting on my couch. It was a new couch but it was still strange to see him sitting where he`d sat under different circumstances. When I`d been human. And naïve.
"I did not come to argue with you, Sookie," he said. "You know why I married Freyda and you also know how you could have prevented it. But you chose Sam."
I looked at him for a moment and then I walked into the kitchen and grabbed myself a TruBlood. I put it in the microwave and heated it. Then I shook it, opened the bottle and poured it into a glass. I didn`t have much use for silverware or plates but I still liked to drink my blood from a glass. When I didn´t get it straight from someone`s vein, that is.
I walked back into the living room and sat down in my recliner and started sipping my blood. Gran would have slapped me silly for not offering Eric a drink, even if he`d just offended me terribly. And made me want to tear him apart in anger. My sipping my drink without offering him anything was much better than an open fight that I would lose.
"Why are you here, Eric?"
He raised his eyebrows and I realized he knew me well enough to see how I`d deliberately offended him by not offering him anything. Then he got up and started walking towards the door.
I followed him with my eyes but stayed quiet. If he wanted to answer my question he would. If not, too bad.
He opened the door and just as I thought he`d walk outside without saying anything, he turned and looked me in the eyes. I`d always loved those blue eyes of Eric`s.
"I left Freyda," he said.
He stepped outside and closed the door after him.
Eric always made great exits.
A/N:
I hope this is a story you want to continue reading. Let me know what you think!