Warnings: Angst, slash, bloodplay, violence, torture, sex. If you're mature enough to watch True Blood, I think you'll be fine reading this.
Disclaimer: True Blood belongs to Alan Ball and the SVM books belong to Charlaine Harris. Only the original characters are mine.
Fight on Undaunted
Eric considered it a tactical error to have allowed Pam to decorate his house. He'd assumed that she knew his tastes well enough to do something he liked. Unfortunately, at the time, he'd annoyed her about something. As a result, the house was a little... well, girly.
The outside was nice enough, a simple one storey brick house, a patio out the back and the gardens were well maintained, several large trees out the back allowed a little privacy. The inside however...
The white was practically blinding. White walls, white tiles, white carpet, white furniture. Although Pam insisted the colours were eggshell, cream, ivory, pearl, old lace, vanilla, and marshmallow. At least he'd been able to stop her before she started putting up lace curtains.
Before the vampires had made their presence known to the world, he'd lived in this house and the main reason he'd picked this place was because it had a basement. The basement was almost the same size as the house, but there were only four rooms. He had renovated the downstairs area to suit his needs and it was where he spent most of his time. Just a bathroom, his bedroom, a small living room and his home office. There was a light tight room in the main part of the house, but he used the upstairs as a decoy and made his living area in the basement.
Godric had taught him that the safest way to hide in a human home was in a basement or a cellar, and so that was where he slept.
As he locked the front door, he realised he could smell dried blood. He looked around, alarmed. Who could have broken into the house? Russell? A minion of Sophie-Anne's? Someone acting on the orders of the Authority? More concerning: whose blood was it?
Following the scent, he went into the living room and stopped, staring at the white sofa. Of course. His suitcase from his trip to Dallas, still unpacked.
He slowly undid the zip and pulled out the black shirt he'd been wearing the morning Godric had met the sun.
Please, Godric.
Father, brother, child. Let me go.
I won't let you die alone.
Yes, you will. As your Maker, I command you.
It was soaked with his tears of blood.
So much had happened since then... His anguished tears were now hard and brittle. Eric stared down at the shirt, gripping it tightly. All he could see was Godric's face, his eyes shining with love, but behind that, his Maker's weary sorrow was all too plain.
Anger suddenly boiled up in him and he began ripping the shirt to shreds, black wisps of material going all over the place. Why? Why? Two thousand years was enough? Boredom? How was that an explanation? There are many older vampires, they certainly aren't bored with their lives. What would make Godric want to do this?
The material settled around his feet. Do this, he thought again, disgusted with himself. He spun around, making for the stairs. It's already done. Godric's dead.
He got in the shower and turned the hot water up as high as possible. Hot needles of water hit him, steam rising quickly. The concrete dust came off almost instantly.
I don't want to think about Godric, he thought, grabbing the shampoo. The perfume of artificial citrus mingled with the cloud of steam. I won't think about Godric.
Gradually all the damned concrete came out of his hair. He slumped against the wall, bleakly staring at the tiles in front of him.
Two thousand years is enough.
I can't accept this. It's insanity!
Our existence is insanity. We don't belong here.
But we are here!
It's not right. We're not right.
You taught me there was no right or wrong. Only survival or death!
I told a lie, as it turns out.
So is this how I'll remember Godric then? Pale from starvation, wearied from the weight of the centuries, and the sad resignation as he tried to be gentle against the anguished anger. He turned the water off.
He flopped onto the huge unmade bed, not even bothering to pull down the sheets. He stared up at the ceiling, trying to make a mental list of things to do tomorrow night. Think of anything but Godric.
Hopefully, it would just be dull, human problems and he wouldn't have to worry about anything vampire related. That would be nice, he thought sleepily. The past few weeks had been the most turbulent he'd had in awhile. Perhaps someday, decades, or maybe centuries, in the future, he would look back on all this and laugh.
As the sun rose and sleep crept up on him, he rolled over to get comfortable, his thoughts drifting into nothingness. His eyes began to close.
Godric was sitting in the corner of the room.
Eric lifted his head, expecting the figure to disappear as full consciousness came back to him. Godric continued to stare at him. He looked just as he had earlier in the night when Eric had last seen him, mournful and angered.
"Godric?" he said slowly, uncertain of what he was seeing. The figure's dark grey eyes flickered to his face, focusing on him, but didn't respond.
...
Lying on the asphalt, he'd thought it was a dying vision. Despite the agonising pain, he'd felt grateful that Godric was there with him at the end. It seemed fitting that his Maker should be there as he burned to death, just as he had been the first time he'd died.
Then Godric had spoken.
"Forgive him, Eric. End all this hate, while you still can. Forgiveness is love. Love is all."
A flash of the first time he'd seen Godric hit him, his chin dripping blood, fangs gleaming in the darkness, utterly unrepentant that he'd just killed Eric's two friends. It seemed ridiculous that his Maker, once so merciless, was now philosophical, about love, of all things.
"Only peace follows death," Godric continued gently. "For all. Even for him."
He remembered his baby sister, Grid, his only sibling that had lived longer than a month. Only a few months old, he'd marvelled over her every time he held her tight in his arms. Covered with blood, her little neck broken, shaken to death by a werewolf.
His beautiful mother Astrid , sweet and loving, always forgiving her quarrelsome son and husband, and patiently smoothing out their fights. Curled up beside the cradle, killed protecting her daughter.
He remembered his father's last labouring breaths, holding on long enough to hear his son promise vengeance, and then the air left Ulfrik's lungs a final time.
Leaving him with dizzying horror, strange things flashing through his head – my parents will never see my children, my father's crown is missing, a wolf just turned into a man, what would Grid's first word have been – and the terrifying realisation that everything had been ripped apart.
Murdered for goats on Russell's orders. Goats!
Russell deserved no peace. A thousand years spent tracking him down, only for him to be at peace?
No.
Thinking he was there to witness Russell's defeat, Bill was now making a pretentious show of triumph. It was annoying, but Eric could tolerate it. He was about to fulfil a promise made over a millennia ago. Centuries of being robbed of vengeance would end and the burden would be gone.
Having Godric there again, still begging for him to show mercy actually felt insulting.
"Everyone deserves peace, Eric."
Beneath Russell's mocking laughter, Eric heard the screams of his mother and the dying gasps of his father.
How could Godric say that? Only his Maker had ever known just how deep his anger went. He'd spent many nights listening to Eric talk about his butchered family, calming him down when he got angry. He'd even offered suggestions on how to kill the mysterious wolf-master – entombing him alive had been one of his ideas!
"You make me bleed, my child. So much hatred."
Godric had told his newly turned Child that some day he would be able to kill and enjoy it. Eric protested furiously, insisted that wasn't true. Yet under Godric's watchful instruction, he'd realised that his bloodthirsty Maker was right.
He could enjoy it. Now he was able to fulfil his final promise to his father and Godric wanted him to feel ashamed for it?
The hypocrite.
"This is who I am, Godric. This is what you made!"
Once, Godric would have smiled about this, would have agreed that it was a fitting punishment, but now he looked troubled.
Russell commanded his attention again. "You will regret this."
"Maybe. But right now it feels fucking good."
Despite everything, the look of sorrow on Godric's face as he'd stepped away, vanishing into thin air, pained him deeply, and brought tears to his eyes.
...
Not tearing his eyes away from the current vision, he sat up. "Godric?" he repeated, growing more alarmed with each passing second.
"What are you -" Eric began, but before he could finish his sentence, the phantom whispered something and disappeared. Eric got up and walked over to the spot.
The air wasn't disturbed, the spot wasn't warm, no sign of magic. What had it been then? He sat down, confused and worried. If it's Godric's spirit, Eric realised, then he's found no peace in his own death.
An icy chill ran through him. Eric had heard that vampires could not return as ghosts. But Godric was the only vampire he'd ever encountered that had willingly met the sun. What if a willing vampire could come back as a ghost?
His mouth quirked in a sardonic smile. From beyond the grave, could Godric still tell him what to do all the time, like he had when he'd just turned Eric?
His smile faded. Godric had not wanted that.
You make me bleed, my child.
He shuddered, trying to shut the words out. That sentence and the look on Godric's face... it would haunt him. Godric had said that once to him before and it hurt now just as much as it did then. Eric leaned back against the wall, staring up at the painting on the wall opposite his bed.
It was a painting of a Viking longship with an elegantly wrought dragon head at the bow. The ship was beached, with waves lapping at the stern, yet the brilliant blue sail was full. A reminder of his short human life.
His gaze drifted down. Here were the reminders of his long vampire life. Below the huge painting was a row of hooks, a necklace hanging off each one.
They were all simple leather thongs with a pendant of some sort, some trophies of defeated foes, and others gifts. A part of a Kelpie's hoof, shaped into a horse. A werewolf claw, hard and blackened with age. A blood-red feather from a Fenghuang bird. A black pearl in the shape of a lightning strike given to him by a mermaid. A fang that had once belonged to Godric.
He went over and picked the necklace, studying the fang. Centuries later, it was still white and razor sharp. He clenched it in his fist, feeling it break the skin, and tried to think of Godric some other way.
Not sad or angry, not weary or resigned. Playful, happy, amused, affectionate... anything! It was no use.
The very last time he'd seen Godric, alive, he'd been looking eastward towards the sun. He wanted the burning death that the sun would give more than he wanted his Child's love.
That was what he remembered.
Eric could already feel blood dripping down his face from being conscious in the daytime. At least, he hoped that was what it was.
Age wasn't the reason, Eric thought darkly, and it wasn't boredom. There was something else and he wouldn't tell me.
He flung the necklace across the room. It bounced against the far wall and slid under the dresser. Whatever it truly was, Eric knew he would never know what had been the breaking point for Godric, convincing him to kill himself. Only Godric could answer that and he was gone.
He glanced over to the spot where he'd just seen Godric. Still empty.
Yet the phantom's words hung in the air. It had whispered, "I'm sorry."
And Eric had no idea what that meant.
...
Hope you enjoyed reading!
