A/N: Another spin off from ep 1 of season 4. Because Eric should be king, and our favorite pair simply deserves more.
Promise Me New Orleans
Jason had gone, needing to get back to his duties as a police officer, promising to return later. From the couch Sookie watched the shadows cross the wall, paralyzed, alone. Soon the sun too would abandon her, and somehow she knew what awaited, once night descended upon her little house in the woods.
A part of Sookie very much wanted to remain on the couch, but nearly of their own accord, her legs carried her across the threshold to the front porch. Shadows filled the trees, and stars the sky. Face turned up to the moon, she counted the pounding beats of her heart, noting the urgency of that muscle's tempo increasing with every passing moment.
His name hovered upon her lips, a word that began as sigh - before she could end with the biting last syllable, she knew he waited, just beyond the light.
"I knew you would be back."
The vampire stepped forward, a towering Viking clad in jeans and black leather, highlighted sharply in gold. Through the shadow cast by his brow blue eyed blazed as twin points of sapphire, fixed intently upon her.
One step closer, two, three, passed before Sookie regained control of her feet once more, leaving her caught in a tension she didn't quite understand, somewhere between the desire to go to him, and the urge to run away.
Before she could speak, the other appeared, the true traitor wearing a mask of repentance. "Sookie…you're alive."
The sound of his voice, once she'd found so refined, now turned her stomach. The vampire once lover reached out for her, but Sookie recoiled as though from a striking snake.
"No, Bill. Never touch me again."
Disappointed hands fell back to his sides, and amused, the Viking looked on.
"Where did you go? I couldn't feel you, we must talk."
The telepath thought differently, a hard determination glinting in her eyes.
"You will go now, Compton."
The command came quietly, yet with the authority of a royal decree. And though he paid Eric an unkind look, Sookie watched with surprise as Compton bowed low. "Your majesty," before retreating back across the graveyard.
Eyes wide, Sookie turned back to the Viking standing in her yard. "You're King now?"
"Much has changed in the past year." A certain heat entered his eyes, however, as his gaze traveled over her. "But much has not."
Sookie wrapped arms around herself, not cold, yet strangely feeling vulnerable. As though Eric weren't intimidating enough before, as it was. "So you killed the queen."
"She crossed me one too many times."
"And now all the vampires of Louisiana have to kneel before you. I bet you really like that."
Once more, the telepath felt the urge to bolt, as Eric neared closer. And a gasp of surprise escaped her, a nearly imperceptible intake of air, as he himself took a knee before Sookie in the gravel of her driveway. Eyes locked, and a thrill jetted down her spine; she stood incapable of looking away, unable to move. Cool fingers slid into hers, lips soft as silk pressing the back of her hand. Gentle words spoken against her skin delivered a chill of forbidden delight, "Sweet Sookie, finally returned to me."
"Eric…" She wanted to tell him to get up, to scold him for ruining his clothes in the dust, yet nothing so trivial could pass her lips at this moment. She sensed something changing between them, breaking clean, healing anew, as he remained on the ground before her, cheek pressed to her fingers, his lips upon her wrist.
Finally, the Viking stood once more, and Sookie found something cool and metallic pressed into the palm of her hand.
Keys, a fresh cut set.
"What are these for?" she asked softly, looking at the contents of her hand with puzzlement. Yet she had a feeling she already knew.
The vampire's voice came quietly, almost too calm for the weight of his words. "Your brother, strapped for cash, convinced himself you would not be returning, and put the house on the market. I bought it, before anyone else could, because I believed otherwise. I hope you like the improvements."
Sookie sighed, closing her eyes. The world seemed to spin, just a little. She could have gushed, jumped up and down, ran around in circles. Yet her excitement suddenly drained, at a sudden realization. "No one else thought I would return. Only you believed."
Eric afforded a nearly imperceptible shrug, yet his eyes held her in thrall. Not glamour, but a different sort of magic. A brand of emotional intensity she'd only glimpsed once from him, on a rooftop in Dallas.
"I never gave up on you, Sookie."
Light headed, the telepath closed her eyes, inhaling deeply. There was the rich smell of earth and woods that marked her home, but also, a sharp and spicy musk, a thick and heady scent that sent her senses to reel. More than just cologne, the man beneath rendered the air she breathed near him an intoxicating affair.
She couldn't fathom how to thank him.
Not for the house, though the gesture meant the world. That could be settled with money, or in her lack thereof, perhaps an arrangement of honest labor.
But the gift she felt truly grateful for was his faith in her. The only other person to have ever granted such a thing was Gran. Gran, who loved her so completely.
Did this mean Eric loved her too?
She almost feared to think of it. For to be loved, or not loved, by him were equally terrifying in their own ways.
"It feels like only fifteen minutes ago I told you to go to hell, right over there," mused Sookie sadly, nodding towards her porch.
"You didn't mean it."
"No, I didn't." She knew it to be true at that moment, because always something else lingered below her surface, a longing for this vampire she never quite knew what to do with.
A heartbeat passed, two, three. What now? The pair seemed to ask of each other with their eyes. Both knew what they wanted; neither seemed precisely sure of the path to get there. Eric retreated back to business, something he dealt in more often than matters of the heart. "I will send my lawyer to have the deed signed back over to you."
She sensed he readied to leave; panic welled within her. "Wait!" she called, as he tensed to take to the air.
He'd waited a year for her, and he would wait infinitely longer. What was time to a vampire, but his only true possession?
He couldn't remember ever wanting anything, the way he desired this small fey-human.
She stood before him, cheeks flushed; the smell of her blood coursing beneath her skin, so unbelievably sweet. It inspired a certain weakness in the Viking's legs, an anomaly that once infuriated him, perhaps even frightened him. In the beginning, he'd sought to own her because of it. Control the thing that held such sway over him. But now black and white principles faded to gray. What to most vampires could only result in a relationship of master and bonded, he found he wanted more.
At what point had he decided he would fight it no longer?
Perhaps that moment of truth, faced with the danger of Russell's domination, a pair of handcuffs in the sun and the realization that he would let himself die so that she may live.
Not since Godric had another life meant more to him than his own.
Sookie's question came soft as the breeze rustling the leaves. "Why?"
For the first time she did not flinch, when Eric reached up to caress her cheek, indulging in the sensation of her hair sliding through her fingers. "I want good things for you, Ms. Stackhouse."
The telepath pressed her lips; she recognized the evasion for what it was, sliding her fingers between Eric's, she pulled him closer in a moment of boldness. The excitement of risk burned like lava through her veins; finally, she felt on the cusp of learning something true. Once more, she demanded, "Why?"
Eric sensed he could evade her no longer; something crucial waited in the wings. And opportunity that would perhaps never be gained back again, if he did not face this with courage. Sookie thought her heart might explode, as Eric's strong fingers slid to cup the back of her head, pulling her closer. "Because you make me feel alive."
When his lips touched hers, Sookie felt something slide into place within her; a missing piece regained she had not realized gone. Their first kiss had not affected her this way; so much had been on the line, so much fear in the air between them; it all passed as a blur. That night they'd clung to each other with all the urgency of a goodbye, even if neither realized it at the time.
Now, they claimed the sweetness in the victory of survival. Sookie rose on tiptoe to deepen the kiss, Eric exploring her mouth languidly, arms circling around her waist. Through the golden fog her touch inspired within him, Eric realized he had not expected this at all. He'd thought maybe some repartee would pass between them, perhaps a fight to fire the blood, and the chase would go on. Always, she had a way of turning his world on its head.
Still, when the human drew away for a gasp of breath, her forehead pressed to his and small hands clutching his arms, struggling for some purchase in reality, there came a hint of the old uncertainty. "I have no idea what this means for us, Eric," she confessed.
He'd spoken once of wanting her to be his. Vampire notions of ownership, politics, ulterior motives. She couldn't quite bring herself to believe all that had evaporated in a year, even if no mention had been made this night.
The vampire paid her a considering look, ancient eyes glowing as lights. He'd been preparing for the night she would return all year, making a place for her in his life, ensuring he would be able to keep her safe from those who would use her for their own ends. Of course, he expected her to put up something of a fight, but the possibility that she would not be his in the end had never quite occurred to him.
Yet at that moment he could not bring himself to set this before her as a business proposal. He realized, surprised, that he wanted more. That he had no intention of settling for less.
"I think we have time to find out," said the vampire, a hint of his old smile peeking out, a slice of that mask of arrogance she'd first come to know. "Come visit me in New Orleans, Sookie, I promise you won't regret it."
The telepath gave a small, nervous laugh, reminded once more of Eric's newly won status as vampire monarch of the Pelican State. "I forgot, of course you moved."
"Not far." Technically, though by the telepath's averted eyes, he could tell it seemed a world away to her. Or perhaps, simply, the implications of his rank intimidated more than she would like to admit. A large hand cupped the side of her face, turning eyes back to his. "Nothing's changed between us, Sookie."
Gently she traced the swell of his lower lip, marveling at its plump softness. "You really believe that?"
"I still feel the same for you."
"I still have no idea what exactly that means," she countered.
Long fingers slid through her hair, the vampire soothing her with a cool caress. His palms cupped her face lightly, the blade of his thumb tracing the curve of her cheek. "Come to New Orleans, and I'll show you."
Dumbstruck, the sound of her heart thundering deafening in her own ears, Sookie could not protest as Eric leaned down, his mouth closing over hers in a moist lock of lips that left her legs trembling. Slowly, the vampire drew away. "Say you'll come," he demanded softly. Sookie's mouth puckered, but could form no words as the vampire's hand slipped to the back of her head, pulling her in once more. His kisses were a delicacy, a fine thing to be savored, and she whimpered when his mouth left hers once more. "Promise me?" This time his words came with the slightest intonation of a plea, and Sookie found herself softening to his will. Her resolve melting beneath the heat in his eyes, and his maddeningly persuasive touch.
Perhaps she knew all along, that the moment she allowed those clever hands upon her, she would be lost to him.
Finally, she nodded, fingers sliding across the butter soft leather of his jacket, the powerful chest beneath. She intuited she would never speak two words that would resound with more weight, that would change her world so utterly, than the ones that slipped past her lips in a whisper. "I promise."
A shuddering sigh escaped Eric as he pressed his forehead to hers. And then his soft lips there, and her brows, the tip of her nose and her cheeks. Above her mouth he hovered, and in waiting for that space to close between them Sookie could have died of desire, a burst heart in all the suspense. "My lover," the vampire finally whispered, and after one last kiss, he disappeared into the night, leaving the telepath shaking from the memory of him.
Fire in her veins, Sookie ran hands over her arms, marveling at the heat he evoked within her.
There would be no sleep that night, she already knew. Only sighs, and a longing stare out the southern window, attempts to imagine what could await her in that great and beautiful city between the banks of Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi.
A/N: TBC…yes? :)