The vampire Sheriff of Area 5, Sookie Stackhouse, is looking for a new bartender for her bar Fangtasia. Eric Northman is the human telepath who has caught her eye. Wait! WHAT? AU/Role-reversal. Rated M for language.
Another failed relationship. Not even a relationship. Another failed chance. We'd barely gotten to kissing, and she was already comparing me to someone else mentally. Fuck it all! I was never going to get laid. And I couldn't find a virgin to save my life. Although, I wasn't callous enough to find a virgin just so I could get laid. Can't a man want more than a fuck? Fuck!
I took a deep breath leaning against the sink. What I'd seen in the woman's mind had been more than just a regular guy. Why date a regular Joe Schmoe like me if she could date a vampire? And how was I supposed to live up to that particular expectation? I ran my fingers through my hair, having an ADD moment thinking that I needed a haircut before Sam killed me. He'd let me wear it in a ponytail, but wouldn't for much longer. Problem was the Twins preferred it when I wore it long.
No use crying over spilled milk. I opened the fridge, reached for a beer and gulped it right there in the kitchen. Then decided I needed another and brought it with me to the living room. I didn't usually drink, so the slight buzz dulled my senses enough that it addled my mental shields. I could hear my neighbors loud and clear. The lucky bastards were having sex in their bedroom. Of course they were. They weren't freaks like me.
I decided to move away from the living room so I couldn't hear them anymore, but it was no use. The problem was that they weren't making any actual noise. The stuff I was "hearing" was coming from their brains. I groaned. I should have known better than to drink alcohol. Might as well get good and wasted. I had a whole six-pack. With my complete inability to hold my alcohol, I was sure to become FUBAR the Magnificent before long.
Stupid me, I didn't remember how awful beer tastes when it comes right back up.
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"You look like shit," Lafayette said to me as I got to work the next early afternoon. I'd been surviving the morning on Tylenol and water. Thankfully Lafayette toned down his voice when he took a good look. "Sorry, man. Another one?"
"Another one," I answered as I washed my hands. "What's on the menu today?"
"Same as last Friday. We got a deal again on the steaks," he answered. Lafayette was the chef for Sam's restaurant, Merlotte's, and I was… I guess… the sous chef. Who knows? I was Lafayette's bitch. At least the kitchen got too busy for anybody to think much about anything but food, and I thrived in this environment. I could use my skill for good. If the chef needed something, by the time he asked for it, I was already on top of it.
"Eric, my man, let me know and I'll set you up with someone nice. You need a nice girl, not the skanks you always end up with," Lafayette patted my shoulder. He knew all about skanks, being one himself.
Nobody knew what my real problem was. I tried really hard not to show or let on what I could do. They just thought I was a jock, which was fine by me. I mean, jocks were strong but stupid. I'd rather be strong and stupid than have people think I knew too much. Shit like that gets you in trouble. As for Lafayette, he just knew I was efficient, and Sam had no complaints.
"Eric," Sam called from the main door to the kitchen. "I need you at the bar tonight. Sorry, Laf. You think you can handle it with just Terry and Dawn?"
Lafayette gave an exasperated sigh. He hated it when Sam pulled me to tend bar, but it seemed like Tara, our usual bartender on the weekends, had called in sick. Again. "Fine! You better get another bartender. I need Eric here," he said with a great show of stomping his foot. Lafayette was such a girl sometimes.
The restaurant opened at four and we had everything ready for the dinner rush. I could at least do that for Lafayette. Then I went to my car and got my bartending outfit, the black shirt and black pants I kept just in case. I splashed some water on my face in the men's room, combed my hair as best I could and fixed it. I was facing the public, which was always a horrible prospect. I had to keep my wits about me. Thankfully Lafayette had been nice enough to cook something bland that settled my stomach, and gave me a few minutes to eat before we opened.
Too bad that when six o'clock rolled around and it was my turn to give Sam a hand at the bar, all hell broke loose. Several people with smart phones started panicking one by one, as if someone was going around with a cast iron pan and hitting each separately on the head. The dining room remained mostly quiet, but the bar area was thrown into chaos. And I quickly learned why.
I couldn't believe it. I knew something about the magical world, of course. It's hard not to when you can hear and see everything that's running through the minds of others. None of my employers (the Twins and Sam) were of human origin. But to see the rest of the human population enter into the same understanding was… interesting, to say the least. And scary as shit. Finally people calmed down and began to get excited about the announcement. I should have seen it coming when the one vampire didn't glamour my date.
The vampires had come out of the coffin.
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"SHAKE WHAT YO MAMA GAVE YA!" shouted a wasted bride-to-be at me. If the job didn't pay so well for so few hours of work, I would never have accepted. But I was a good dancer, and Claudine was a good friend. I did it more for her than for the Twins. In truth they were triplets: my friend Claudine, her sister Claudette, and their brother Claude. But Claudine worked Customer Service at Lord & Taylor. The Twins owned the strip club where I was currently "shaking what my mama gave me." Thank God in heaven my mama was dead. At least the bride was a looker, and her brain was messy with alcohol, with no coherent thoughts left in it.
At the end of my performance I caught something odd out of the corner of my eye. Actually it was more like someone odd. I did a double take, and they were a pair of someones: two vampire women, sitting in a booth far removed from everything and everyone else. Their skin was glowing faintly in the dark of the booth, and they were both staring at me. I wondered if they wanted a private dance, so I approached.
"Good evening ladies," I said, giving them my best smile. I'd only spoken to vampires a couple of times, but I knew their minds were silent to me. I could only categorize that as a relief.
"What a beautiful man," said the petite blonde with the large deep blue eyes. She was cute in the strictest sense of the word, dressed like she was at a country club or something.
"Indeed," said her companion. Now she was a beautiful woman, with lighter blue eyes, a pouty mouth, and large breasts. "What is your name?" she asked me, her voice almost purring.
"I am Eric. Would you ladies like the pleasure of a dance?" I asked, holding my smile in place. I wasn't exactly scared of the women, but I also didn't want them to eat me.
"We are waiting for Claude, Eric, which is a pity because it would be really nice to see you dance," said the voluptuous vampire.
Right then I felt Claude's buzzing brain approaching. "Miss Stackhouse, Miss Ravenscroft, what a pleasure!" he said then turned to me, as if showing me off. "I see you've met Eric. I wouldn't mind postponing our meeting if you would like to indulge," Claude suggested. I just hoped they paid well.
"Maybe another time Claude. There's only so much restraint we can show around you. Let's speak quickly so we don't end up making a scene," the one called Miss Stackhouse said, but never took her eyes off me. It would have been awkward if I hadn't been so used to it. I couldn't understand why they were worried about making a scene.
Claude turned to me. "Thank you, Eric," he said, and with that I was dismissed.
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I drove all the way from Shreveport to Bon Temps the next day. I lived in Shreveport, but I visited my Gran in Bon Temps whenever I could. I knew my good-for-nothing cousin Jason wouldn't take care of his grandmother, so I did. It was already November. It was starting to get cold in Louisiana, and the lady needed some wood, plus I needed to make sure the chimney cleaners were coming. After making a few phone calls on Gran's behalf, I went outside her house to chop wood. I'd had a delivery set up the day before, but it cost less if I split it myself. So I set to work, finding a sort of peace in this simple task.
Before I was completely done, Gran called me to lunch. She had shown off, as she usually did whenever I stopped by. She'd made a whole roasted chicken, with mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, even some yams in brown sugar for dessert. She always said that her cooking was responsible for making me the strapping young man I'd become. I wasn't about to argue, since I was a good five inches taller than my cousin.
"So what's new, darling?" Gran asked me, putting more food on my plate.
"Did you hear about…?" I stopped short. Should I tell her about the vampires? If she hadn't heard anything, she might be scared when I told her.
"About the vampires?" she ventured a guess. I should have known this was my grandmother I was talking to.
"Yes," I said eyeing her cautiously. "What do you think about that?" I asked, since she didn't seem like she was about to expand on the vampire news.
"Oh! I think it's wonderful. About time they made themselves known. I guess they couldn't, huh? Not really, not until someone came up with that synthetic blood. You know I saw it at the Wal-Mart and almost bought a six-pack, just to have. You never know when you'll have a vampire guest, and you don't want to seem inhospitable. What's the matter with you? Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
She was right. I was staring at her in complete disbelief. "I… I…"
"You didn't think I knew anything about vampires, did ya?" Gran asked me with a wicked smile. I knew where I'd gotten mine: from her.
"No," I answered. I wondered how long she'd known.
"There's a lot you don't know, I suppose. But one little bit at a time. I think one shock per day is all you can handle nowadays. You look like you've been so stressed lately." Gran patted my arm in a loving gesture. She knew me so well. She'd brought me up all by herself after both my parents had died. For a long time it had been just the two of us. Too bad Bon Temps didn't offer any real jobs and I had to live in Shreveport, or I would still be living in her house.
I hurried to split the rest of the wood and to leave a few logs inside so she could use them right away. Then I had to go straight to Merlotte's that day for my shift. Sam had me tending bar again. It was harder to find someone to bartend professionally than it was to find a cook. What Sam didn't know was that, from listening to the tiny bit of information I could actually hear from his brain, I'd learned how to tend bar properly. He just thought I caught on quick.
It got busy quickly, and sure enough, for the first time ever we had vampire patrons come into the restaurant. They remained in the bar area, of course, which was separated from the dining room by a half wall. It was sort of interesting to take the drink orders from the vampires: True Blood, Red Stuff, Pure Blood, A-Neg, B-Pos, AB-Neg, O-Pos. Sometimes they wanted me to combine them. The liquid in the glass wasn't half as gross as real blood would have been, I suppose. It looked bright red, more like a Bloody Mary than blood exposed to oxygen. In fact, if I didn't smell it, I could pretend. I made the mistake of smelling it once and almost gagged. It smelled just like blood to me, the distinctive smell of rust.
Sam asked me for a True Blood A-Neg, and I was thinking that my own blood was A-Negative, when I saw the voluptuous Miss Stackhouse sauntering over to where I was standing behind the bar. The man sitting right in front of me took a look at her and moved from his stool. I wasn't sure if he'd been glamoured or mesmerized on his own. Either way, my new customer was WAY more pleasing to the eye, so I had no complaints.
"Miss Stackhouse, a pleasure to see you again. What can I get you?" I asked and gave her my best smile: anything for tips.
"The pleasure is all mine. I believe you have my order in the microwave as we speak, beautiful Eric," she said, remembering my name. The microwave beeped and, though I only did it when I mixed the bloods, I decided to serve her blood in a glass. She touched my hand with one cool finger as I put it down in front of her. "Call me Sookie," she purred. The woman was pure sex. One could get used to that… particularly when one was frustrated and lonely. And horny.
I had to keep moving about the bar, but Sookie the Vampire never moved from her seat. She was joined by the her friend, Miss Ravenscroft, after about an hour. They both drank True Blood and conducted a whole conversation in whispers until closing time. They paid and left a hefty tip. My smile had done its job, apparently.
"I missed you back here, Stretch," Lafayette said. I helped him clean up the kitchen for a while. We would let someone else take over most of the task, but there were some things that Lafayette liked to do himself, so I helped.
"Trust me: it was no picnic for me either. I'd rather be back here. The vampires are out and we had our first several vampire customers. They don't scare me, but they scare everybody else…" I paused, thinking. "Although nobody did anything about it, so that was good."
After about half an hour Lafayette shooed me from the kitchen and told me to take my ass home. I was more than happy to comply. I walked the whole dark parking lot to the far one where the Merlotte's staff kept their cars, too tired to think much about anything but the cold. I heard the void of mind almost as immediately as I felt my body pinned against my car. It was Sookie the Vampire.
"Hello," she purred. I only started feeling fear when I saw her fangs running out over her lips. Her hands were holding my shoulders, and even though I was several inches taller, she was the one with the upper hand. I tried to move from her grasp but I couldn't, and only made her smile wider.
She stepped back but only a little. Her smile disappeared and she looked either confused or surprised. I couldn't tell. Maybe it was both. "You're a bit different."
Lady, you have no idea, I thought, but only smiled. "I don't know what you mean."
Her expression changed and she smiled widely. "I have a business proposal for you. You are very skilled at the bar and I would like you to be my bartender," she said, cutting to the chase.
That's when I knew I was in deep shit.
The End