The Dormouse is Asleep Again
Fangtasia was overly crowded. I had to squeeze through the door, and even then I had trouble cramming my (let's face it, not) tiny body in between two male fangbangers, wearing white face paint and black lipstick, loitering in front of the door. Or at least, I thought they were loitering. As soon as I shoved past them, I knew they were standing right in front of the entrance because there was nowhere else to go.
"Excuse me," I said as demurely as I could, given the extreme lack of personal space. A hand drifted near my butt. I couldn't tell if it was there intentionally. All I wanted to do was cram my (not) little body into Eric's office. Eric is a big man, that's true, but I knew I'd be able to find a little air in there. I didn't have to compete with anyone for it.
"Okay, enough of this girlie shit," I scowled. I stuck out my elbows and shoved. No response. Well, that's great. Just great! I needed to call for the big guns. I don't like using my big ol' blood bond thing for trite moments like this, but damn it, I'm not going to spend my Saturday night pinned between a fangbanger in a black leotard (that shows off every little piece of him in horrific spandex detail) and a Goth chick with fang marks painted on her boob (which, by the way, was threatening to leap out of her poorly constructed top to smack me in the eyeball).
"ERIC!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I hoped he could hear me over the noise. I added a couple of thought vibes to the plea. Those would help. I tried to bounce upward in the chaos to see if his office door had opened.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea.
Ooh, oxygen. Sweet, life-giving oxygen, how I have missed you.
"My lover," Eric grinned at me. He took my hand and led me back out of the mess of bodies. Fangbangers of every persuasion turned to watch us go. I wanted to stick my tongue out at them, but I didn't. I was being demure again, now that I had a little breathing room.
"Heads!" Someone yelled from the other side of the bar. I whirled around. Eric grabbed me. We hit the deck. Something or someone flew over the crowd. There was a huge noise. Then there was a scream. I felt very, very trapped under the Viking. Claustrophobia usually isn't a problem for me, but then, I hadn't really been in a crowd like this.
Something smacked Eric across the back. I only knew that because the force of it propelled me into the floor. I smacked my head on the floor.
Okay, that isn't cool.
I turned to talk to Eric, but he wasn't there anymore. I wasn't there anymore. The bar had completely disappeared. No more crowds of teenagers with bad fake IDs. No more caked makeup and black spandex and boots with pyramid studs. No more stench of stale sweat and sticky blood on the air.
In fact, it sorta smelled like hot Lipton.
I sat up. I was really woozy. The world spun on an axis and came to an abrupt halt. I was on one of those rides at the fair where the mechanism spins and then all the cars spin independently. Oh seasickness. It took me a long time to get my bearings, and when I had a grip on them, I was pretty sure my eyes were deceiving me.
Fifteen seconds ago, I'd been trapped on a floor by a 1,000 year old Viking. Now I was sitting on a grassy knoll alongside a very large table, and the very large table seemed to be hosting a rather extravagant, if oddly populated tea party.
Okay Sookie, time to get a better sense of your surroundings. Step one, you need to stand up. So I stood up. Or at least, that was the intent. I clambered and jostled my body around on the grass. It was a little slick. Are there grass stains on my butt? I wiped my ass thoughtfully. If there were grass stains, I may have made just made them worse. Crap.
Once I was standing, I could see the table better. It was a Formica laminate table, and while you may not recognize the name, you'd know it if you saw it. You know those retro 50s style diners with the plastic tables? They're usually painted startlingly bright colors (pink, yellow, red) and decorated with a repeating boomerang design. Anyway, this particular Formica table was strawberry pink. The color of the table clashed with the settings, which were an odd shade of avocado green. I couldn't tear my eyes away. It was like I'd just witnessed a train collide with a truck full of elephants. Wearing tutus. And little hats.
I needed to lean on something for support. I grabbed for a chair. Not sure where it came from but Sookie Stackhouse, telepath and expert vomiting champion, doesn't ask questions with unnecessary answers. The chair was there and I needed it. In fact, I needed to sit down. I slumped into the tan, spray-paint-printed La-Z-Boy recliner and let out a breath of exhaustion. My butt was definitely damp from the grass. The wet sensation sank into my underwear (a very tasteful blue camouflage print g-string) and into my skin and into my clothes. Oh gross!
I made a face. Eleven pairs of eyes turned to stare at me.
"If your plan is to join us, Miss Stackhouse, I suggest you change your clothes first." Bill Compton leered at me. It was looking right at my very tasteful g-string and then judging me for it.
"I didn't bring anything to change into!" I protested, covering my pelvis with both hands.
"I did!" Claudine grinned at me. Claudine had apparently brought a change of clothes for herself too. Was she wearing My Little Pony plastic flutter wings? It certainly looked like it.
"Great!" But where was I going to change? I was NOT going to wiggle around behind the La-Z-Boy. I couldn't anyway. It had gone missing. I hoped that wherever it had wandered off to, it would be dried out. Sitting in it was like sitting down on a sponge.
"Here you go," Claudine said as she handed me a pile of neatly folded clothing.
"That's much more appropriate," Bill nodded. How could he tell?
"I disagree," Eric Northman piped up from across the table. He gave me a nod. "I like what she has on."
"No one asked you," Claudine snorted at him. Eric dropped his eyes to the table. He put a spoon in a teacup and stirred the contents. The spoon clacked against the plastic.
"Excuse me, but where can I go and change?"
There was no answer. Oh, look, a curtain! Perfect!
I shimmied behind the curtain and hung up the clothes on a little hook above a mirror. The grass was still wet underneath my feet. My shoes went squish squish when the water seeped into my socks. How delightfully unpleasant.
I looked at the outfit. Oh you must be kidding me. But I didn't have anything else to change into, and I was not going to sit down at a tea party with my ex-boyfriend if I was wearing a damp blue g-string, no matter what print it had on it. I discarded the underwear and pulled the dress over my head.
Have you seen those 'sexy' Alice in Wonderland costumes? This looked like that. It was a light blue pinafore with a skirt that stopped right below my pelvic triangle. There was a little tulle petticoat, and that was pretty much the only thing that kept me from exposing myself to a table full of supernatural types. I was without underwear. How was this better again? I got rid of my wet socks and pulled on a pair of thigh-high white stockings, then slid my feet into little patent leather Mary Janes. There was even a little black headband. I tied it into my blond waves.
My lipstick didn't match.
"You may join us now, Miss Stackhouse," Bill told me. I nodded and sat down, demurely, at the only empty seat. I was at the head of the table, with a vampire on either side of me. I examined the guests.
Bill Compton, my former lover, my first lover, was wearing a tuxedo. He would have looked more dashing if I liked him more. Looking at him was painful, so I stopped. Beside him, Sam, my boss, was sitting on a purple velvet chair. His shaggy back was shedding white and brown fur, and it stuck to the upholstery. Good thing it wasn't my chair. I'd rather throw it out than try to get all the hair off of it. Yuck. Sam winked at me. I really like cats better.
Moving down the table with my eyes, I saw Claude. Claude is the beautiful and completely irritating twin brother of my fairy godmother, Claudine. I guess that makes Claude my fairy god-uncle. Thank goodness he isn't a funny uncle. I've had enough funny uncles to last me a lifetime, or several. Claude was completely, blissfully naked. His nipples were firm and stuck out from his slim but muscular chest. Had Claude rolled in glitter before he'd come to the party? He certainly appeared to have done. There were patches of silvery green glitter on his almost translucent white skin. A pair of wings stuck out from his shoulder blades, like they'd been stuck on with glue and scotch tape. Though awkward, and possibly painful to remove, Claude looked great with wings. I wanted to touch them.
Claude was sitting next to a rather gigantic black werewolf. It had glowing green eyes, and when I stopped to stare at it, it blinked at me and licked its own nose. Truly amazing what dogs can do with their tongues. If I were a dog, I very well might spend my entire day sitting in my room, grooming myself and spending a fantastic amount of time practicing self-cunnilingus. I mean, it sounds gross, but think about how wonderful it would be.
On the wolf's left, Amelia was stirring her tea with her finger. She gazed down the table at me, giggled, and stuck a goofy grin to her face. I laughed. She was wearing a strange, strapless purple dress with enormous black spots on it. It really wasn't the most attractive gown, but in a weird way, it suited my roommate. She was also wearing a false wart. It was stuck on her chin and it had a little hair sprouting out of it. One side of the wart was peeling off. Maybe the glue had set before the makeup had. I wrinkled my nose and Amelia mimicked me.
At the end of the table, perched on the back of a chair and holding a cup of tea in his claw, there was a little sun conure. It was no bigger than Eric's hand, which is big for a hand but small for a figurehead. The little parakeet had a bright orange belly and a little mask of red feathers around his eyes. Green feathers covered his back, and I could see them peeking around the front side too.
"Hello, great grand-father," I said to him. I just knew it was Niall, the same way you know someone is in the room even though you can't see them.
"Tweet!"
"I haven't seen you in awhile."
"Tweet!" Actually, the second noise was more of a screech.
Because it was ironic, Bob was sitting next to my great grand-father, the parakeet. Bob had exchanged his typical and boring Mormon appearance for his much more attractive and appealing cat body. Oh! I'd missed Bob (the cat) so much! I wanted to get up and give him a big hug. Bob leapt up onto the table and trotted down in my direction. It was like he knew! He got as far as Claudine, looked at me, then trotted back to his seat. Apparently I was too far away to bother with. I pouted.
Beside Bob, who bounced back onto his chair and curled up for a nap (he'd exerted himself so much, the poor little guy), Octavia sighed. She'd done up her crop of grayish curly hair in a beehive hairdo. Weird. Octavia was decked out from head to toe in a fuchsia embroidered pantsuit. I felt the urge to gag. Old ladies should never wear anything that matches completely. In fact, no one should wear anything that involves the words "pant" and "suit" pressed together in some sort of unnatural word intercourse.
I had to stop looking at her. I looked at Claudine instead.
Well, I hadn't seen that much naked female skin (which wasn't my own) since high school gym class. I didn't ever want to see that much naked female skin again either. I felt like the ugliest woman around, even worse that Octavia and her pantsuit, even worse than Amelia's wart. Claudine was the prime example of female perfection. She wasn't splattered with glitter like her brother, but she was wearing plastic My Little Pony wings. They only added to her supreme example of beauty. I had to tear my eyes away. It actually hurt, physically, not to look at her.
Beside my fairy godmother (the queen of the pornography industry?), there was another werewolf. I couldn't determine the sex, but if size was any indication, I gathered it was just a kid. It yipped. I really like cats better.
Finally, my eyes fell on the much more appropriate beauty of Eric Northman. Why wasn't he naked? I would fully appreciate a naked Viking, even at a tea party where we were surrounded by ten other pairs of eyeballs. Mental note. Make Eric naked. All the time naked. He looked at me after a long time. He smiled. I smiled.
"My lover," he said to me. "I have saved a gracious plenty for you."
Really?! Oh lordy, give it to me now! I'm ready. Give it to me!
Eric handed me a large mug of tea. With an entire lemon floating in it. It was the biggest mug of tea I had ever seen. Frankly, it was more of a pitcher. It was a pitcher that was shaped like a ceramic novelty mug. The mug had writing on it. In pink letters it said, "Everyone needs a gracious plenty."
Oh good grief.
The tea was peppermint flavored, and it didn't mesh well with lemon.
Sam sat up and licked his own nose. He barked at me. Everyone nodded.
"That's fine, Sam," Niall said at the end of the table. He was setting down his tea. "But I wish to be the top hat."
"BANKER!" Bill barked suddenly. "I totally called it!" Did Bill just say totally?
"What about you, Sookie? Would you like to be on my team?" Eric asked me gently. He pointed to my gracious plenty of tea. "Do you not like it?"
"I love it," I answered him without actually thinking about the context.
"You're not drinking it."
"I don't want to ruin my appetite."
"Oh. Okay." He smiled happily. I could see every single one of his teeth. It was a little garish.
"Sookie and I will be on a team," Eric said to the table.
"No one asked you, Northman!" Claudine scolded him, going so far as to slap him on the wrist. Eric stuck out his lower lip and pouted.
I had the sudden urge to mount him, Alice pinafore up around my hips. I have never seen anything sexier than Eric's lower lip wobbling just a little.
"Sookie, would you like to be the shoe or the dog?" Octavia looked at me from the other end of the table. She was holding one game piece in each hand.
"Has the car been spoken for?" I like being the car. I mean, if I'm going to be forced into a game of Monopoly, I want to be the car.
"I CALLED IT!" Bill yelled. My ears rang like someone had hit a gong with a crowbar. Jesus Christ Shepherd of Judea!
"Oh," I frowned. "I'll take the dog then." But I like cats better.
"I'm hungry," Bill muttered while he handed out money to each of the players. The weres had joined up to cover the job of shoe. Niall regarded them with a look of disgust. Don't ask me how a parakeet can appear disgusted. He just was, and you could tell.
"Sookie is full," Eric told Bill across the table.
Bill grabbed me roughly by the arm and yanked me toward him. I wanted to let out a shriek but my voice seemed to be on hiatus. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. I struggled back toward Eric, but I couldn't get a good hold on the slippery Formica table. It slid out of my hands and the gracious plenty dropped onto the floor. Tea spilled everywhere.
It smelled sickly sweet and I wanted to lick it off the grass before it soaked into the soil.
Bill cut open my arm with a small butter knife. The knife was really hot. I winced when it burned into my skin. Bill dug his teeth into my skin and sucked, right out of the wound. I was screaming but no one could hear me.
"Are you still full, Sookie? Would you like more to drink?" Eric looked at me with enormous blue eyes. I nodded my head. He sank his own fangs into his wrist and held it to my lips.
He tasted like peppermint tea with lemon.
"Sookie, could you move me three places?" Claudine asked me. Bill dropped my arm and it fell limply onto the table. I used it to move the top hat six places.
"Sookie, could you move me eight places? Bill, I need $200 for passing go."
"Fuck you, Sam." Bill snorted. Sam growled.
Eric pulled his arm away and kissed my forehead. His blood dripped down my chin, and then down my neck, and then down between my breasts. Lick it off me, lover. Lick it off me. But Eric was busy licking his own wounds.
"I will lick you, Sookie," Bill offered pleasantly.
"If you touch her, I will put you in jail." Eric replied blandly.
Bill pouted. It wasn't nearly as sexy.
"Sookie, could you move me to Park Place?" Octavia asked.
When was it going to be my turn?! I'd been waiting for hours! I hate Monopoly!
"It will never be your turn, Sookie," Amelia frowned. Then she giggled. A lemon rolled down the table toward me and I caught it. The juice stung the cut on my arm.
I wanted to know why, but I didn't ask.
"Sookie!" Eric was yelling at me.
"Nobody asked you, Northman!" Claudine growled at him. She stood up on top of the Formica table. One of the weres growled. She was standing on his property.
"Sookie!" Eric said again.
"What?" I asked him. But he didn't answer me. Instead, he reached out to touch my face. His fingers were warm. They only felt that warm after he'd dipped them inside of me. He'd work them around in circles, or like pistons in an engine, and when he took them out, they'd be warm. He'd touch me with them. He'd touch himself.
"Sookie!"
This was getting repetitive.
"I want my gracious plenty," I whispered. My voice felt hoarse. I'd had too much lemon and not enough tea. Eric's laugh echoed in my ears.
"After you've had some rest, my lover," he said. His fingers were getting colder.
"It's still on the grass." It was. It hadn't soaked in yet.
"Sookie," he said so softly I thought he was made of air, "look at me."
So I looked at him. He was beautiful.
"There you are," he murmured, bending down to touch my cheek with his lips. His fingers slid through my hair. Pain jarred my head.
"I've always been here," I said. I mean, I hadn't gone anywhere.
"I think you were somewhere else for awhile, my lover," he chuckled a little. His big blue eyes were full of concern. "You've been lying on my sofa for an hour."
"Really?" I didn't believe him.
"Yes. I was worried, but then you told me you would 'take the dog'. Were you hallucinating?"
"Must've been dreaming," I whispered. How much had I said out loud? Oh lordy.
"Hm, yes. You'll have to tell me about it. Was it a sexual dream?" He was grinning again. Smug bastard.
"Nope." And I wasn't even lying.
"Too bad. Perhaps we can make up for that, if you're feeling better."
Headache or no headache, I nodded.
A/N: Sometimes, I suffer from insomnia. Other times, I have incredibly lucid dreams. Usually, I am not quite this psychotic, but sometimes you need to build on a theme. Consider this story an unrelated companion piece to "Lover Lay Down". I may have to add a few more "fairy tale" inspired stories to the mix. Be on the lookout for them!
The title of this story was pulled from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."