Disclaimer: I don't own True Blood. If I did, Eric would be in my bathtub.
Pairing: none. Characters: Jessica
Rating: R (just in case). Some negative views towards Catholic religion. If this discomforts you, I'd suggest not reading.
Summary: Why does Jessica like being a vampire so much?
Life
Jessica stared into Bill's fire and knew they all wanted to kill her.
They despised her, loathed her, for God's sake; they wanted to take her life. Drive a stake deep into her ribcage and drag her, flayed and screaming, into the burning sun. Until her coughs brought nothing but blood. Eat her up and leave her heart for last, take each sip of her blood with slicing smiles and disgusted tongues.
She wanted to be alive. She wanted to live now.
Her human life had been spent in houses like basements and churches; open windows mocking her, bible studies oppressing her as each and every woman in those onion leaves gave birth a virgin or lived and died under the threat of stoning. The colors she had worn then were pink and light blue, or beige and white. White. Never red, and black for funerals only.
She remembered her early years, when her hair turned from strawberry blonde to bright red. She had liked it because it set her apart and made her stand out in the dreary colors of the suburbs, a little of color in a shock of unseemly purity. The red made her skin look creamy and almost blue, like milk, and her eyes were startling under auburn bangs. She was six; she was beautiful, even her father knew it. He used to tousle her hair and call her his little acorn.
During that short time she was happy; the manacles on her wrists felt as light as foam on coffee.
Her mother had despised her red hair, of course. Every time she saw Jessica she would hiss like a run over snake, spine broken but defiance intact. Jessica knew her mother had spoken with her father about it but he had tried to pacify her. He loved his daughters but as she looked back, Jessica knew he was a simple and submissive man.
One night when she was a child she couldn't sleep for her excitement. Her father had gone on one of his infrequent trips; tomorrow he'd return with gifts and kisses and easy smiles, and her mother would be just a tiny bit happier.
Jessica had climbed out from bed and stood in front of her tiny mirror in her bare room. She had picked up her comb and begun brushing her hair, softly, so that it shined and hung in a sleek mane around her curved neck.
She had remembered grand women in black dresses and red lipstick and fire engine hair from magazines her mother had forgotten to toss out and from the allotted fifteen minutes of television, but the picture had been so clear in her head. She didn't have flawless smiles or black dresses of those stylish, free women back then, but she had the hair. Her little fingers had teased a strand of hair away from her cheeks as she thought.
The idea had come, sudden, like the flip of a light switch. Jessica had run to her backpack and rummaged inside her pencil case for her colorful markers until she'd found the one she needed. She'd stumbled back to the mirror, tripping over the tossed bag, and held herself still as she ran the tip of the marker over her lips. Color between the lines, she had thought, color between the lines.
Once she was done she had stepped back and laughed, giddy as a small child on sugar rush. She was beautiful, she'd decided. Flaming hair and pretty, red, lips and big eyes. She had twirled.
Her bedroom door had opened at the sound of her laughter and Jessica had whirled around to show her mother how nice she looked; for once, her mother would be proud of her.
Her mother had stood in the doorway for the longest time, one hand on the doorknob, as she looked down at her. Her brown eyes had flicked up and down Jessica, widening with every stroke. Jessica had smiled and curtsied. The brown eyes had widened even more and her mother's mouth had opened in a silent howl.
Jessica had dimpled and curtsied, a bit wobbly.
Her mother had advanced and grasped the red hair in her cruel left hand, swung her free hand hard until it struck Jessica's cheek. Jessica had whimpered and tumbled to the ground like a small paper doll. Her mother had taken another step forward and Jessica had shrunk back.
"You whore," her mother had said, "You worthless harlot. The Lord has given you the mark of Mary Magdalene upon your head."
Jessica hadn't understood the words, but she'd understood the pain. Oh, how she'd understood it. That night her lips were split until she was forced to swallow blood and her cheeks were bruised until hot tears stung her raw skin and she was thrown into water as cold as her mother's eyes, those black tunnels, held under the surface of both by her mother's hands until there was darkness in her eyes.
It was the first time she had seen her mother's hair unpinned. Dark streaks across pale skin and feverish brow, strands flying in a maelstrom of movement. Hands had gripped her shoulders tight. Brown hair had been outlined against the edge of the white bathroom wall tiles and then Jessica could draw in a gulp of life, breathe for a second or two as her tiny hands scrabbled at her mother's back for purchase, tongue already forming the words of desperate repentance; then the strands had been back against her mother's skin and she was under the water again, choking little breaths and watching bubbles of air zigzagging to where water broke and reality began. Her eyes had hurt and her gums tingled, as she had grown weaker and slower to suck air inside her lungs. On the next shock of cold water on her skin she'd drawn in mouthfuls of icy liquid and choked silently. She'd felt stabs inside her brain.
Jessica had let her hands fall, then. She had known she was drowning and she hadn't cared anymore. Better to leave this place of virgin death before living in the cold and hard embrace of her family. She'd wanted no place in a world where to fear God was to love Him.
And then, she had been able suddenly breathe again. Her instincts then could not be denied so she'd gasped in air and vomited water and coughed and cried, snot and tears running down her face, as her mother had sat back and calmly combed her brown hair back; each pin back in its place, every strand of hair impeccably straight.
The white of her mother's thick sweater hadn't shown the wet marks very much, but Jessica had seen them as drops of hot, red blood.
The next day when her father had came home from his trip he'd kissed Jessica, his eyes soft and sad as he'd smoothed a hand across her shorn hair and bruised face.
"What happened to Jess?" he had asked his wife.
"Oh, some boys picked on her at school because of her hair," she'd answered and turned to look at Jessica. "So the silly little girl took scissors to her own hair."
Her father had turned to face Jessica. She'd looked back at him, eyes straight and staring. He had been the one to look down first.
"What a pity," he'd said, and turned back to his wife.
Jessica had cast her eyes back to the floor and wept.
She let the memory fade. Her eyes traced a random spark that flew from the fireplace and onto the scarred floor. It was of no use to think of that half-life now, now that she was strong and beautiful and free, in a sense at least. One sense was better than none, she thought. She had to obey her sire, or Eric, that cold hard, hot, gorgeous man, but she could take her pain and bite deep into soft flesh and veins and drink of life itself; she could run and run and run and never breathe. Her hair was red and thick and loose, as she had almost never worn during her first, sleeping life. She could feel every life, the individual molecules of air against her bare skin at night, and even the piercing pain of day made her more aware of the life singing sweetly inside of her chest. The thump of human hearts could hypnotize her and the taste of sweat-slicked skin aroused her to no end.
And if vampires couldn't love, and if she was obnoxious, and over-eager, incapable of blending in and of following orders and dismissive of hierarchy, and if Eric and Pam beat her to a bloody pulp of muscles and shards of bone, until she was within inches of true death, and if the bite of silver they used to punish her felt more good than bad, and if she was never absolutely free to do as she desired and never, ever alone, and if she had been chosen by random, and if she had been supposed to be just food, nothing more than cattle to be slaughtered with grim teeth and knives at her pulse points, and if they gave her back to that eunuch, Bill, and if he had never wanted her to begin with, at least she had centuries to be alive.
At least she had that much.