IV.
January 2010
I was very busy when I came back from Paris. Amelia and I had traveled to Texas for a few days. I also continued my consulting work as a telepath. The second week in January I went to Leavenworth for two days to question a purported double agent and terror suspect. Chuck Powell had lowered himself to ask me to work as a consultant for the FBI in interrogating the man. Manny refused to do it for him and told Chuck that it was up to him to repair the burnt bridges with me. The suspect was a naturalized US citizen of Somali descent, fluent in English, Somali and Arabic. I hired Ahmed to work with me. The FBI met my requirements that the man had been formally charged with treason, had an attorney representing him, hadn't been tortured and wouldn't be tortured. And Chuck would not be in the room when I talked to him. Eric had not been thrilled since it seemed a step back into the world of counterterrorism, but I talked to him before even discussing the job further with Chuck, which pleased him to no end. I was amazed at how much I could make as a consultant, although I no longer had all the government benefits.
Manny was encouraging about my ability to continue to work not just for the FBI or DHS but even for other governments. I was a little sketchier about those jobs, which he clearly suggested might come my way. He said he'd had inquiries about my services from the German, Spanish and Moroccan governments. I didn't know what I'd do if they really followed through and contacted me. It was, after all, important work for a cause that would really protect people. I figured I'd cross that hurdle when I got to it and didn't bother to mention those possibilities to Eric or even to Ahmed. In spite of myself, and in spite of all my love for my friend, I found that I'd become more cautious in what I told Ahmed.
I had declined working for Ahmed's brother Saad once the job description was made clearer. Ahmed didn't seem at all bothered by that and said he had sensed my ambivalence about it from the beginning. Saad had found out about my gift from their brother Abby and had inquired about hiring me. He said he had just told Saad that he would ask and he had.
I'd finally asked Eric about the business of giving Ahmed blood in early January the day after we were home from Paris. It was not a happy discussion. Not by a long shot. He was utterly unapologetic and told me flat out that he had pumped Ahmed for information about me after giving him blood and that on top of it, he had indeed glamoured him into telling Eric anything he thought might be important about me. On an ongoing basis, no less.
I was absolutely incredulous.
"What? You did what? Why on earth would you do such a thing?"
Eric finally put down his book (A Hundred Years of Solitude by García Márquez) after several answers that evidently weren't even to questions important enough to him to require his full attention. But now he looked me right in the eyes and said,
"He knows you in a different way than I do. He knew you for more than three years and clearly you will tell him things that you won't tell me. I want to know those things. And I wanted to know what his interest in you was."
"His interest in me? We're friends, Eric, that's his interest! He was kind to me, protective of me and tried to teach me a lot of things that I felt naïve and stupid and ill-educated about in working my job. Remember that in my identity as Sasha Gordon I was supposed to have a college degree? He encouraged me and made me feel smarter. In fact, he made me smarter. He managed to teach me so many things without ever making me feel embarrassed about my ignorance. I've learned so much about literature, politics, language and culture from Ahmed. Meanwhile, from his perspective, I never asked or was nosy about his family because I could read it all from him and I knew how important privacy about it was to him. I never mentioned any of it to anyone because I'm good at keeping things quiet. We genuinely like each other. We understand each other. In spite of all the cultural, educational and socioeconomic differences. What don't you get about that?"
"I wanted to be sure about the situation, that's all."
"Sure of what Eric? The only men I was hanging out with, other than Alla's husband, were gay. What was there for you to 'be sure' about? So sure that you had to mess with my friend?"
"Let's just say that I'm sticking with Shakespeare on the business of naming. Labels, especially when it comes to emotions, are completely irrelevant."
I looked at him, puzzled.
"What does that mean? Do you think you could make the effort to dumb it down a bit so I can discern your meaning better?"
Eric propped himself up in bed and looked at me.
"I think you know exactly what I mean by that statement. Ahmed loves you. You are his friend, but he loves you and in a much more complicated way than just friendship. For instance, he really enjoys showing you off, which to my mind makes him rather odd if he's just into men, now doesn't it? He told me, when he was glamoured, that he'd even introduced you to members of his family as if there might be something between you but that it made you very uncomfortable and that you had told him not to do that again. He said he knew that you loved me. That was good to know. But he loves you as well. I don't care about how he labels himself. I saw what I saw in his regard for you. I wanted to know what his real thoughts were because you spent so much time with him. You even wanted to stay with him in New York back in November, after all. And you still want to spend time with him. I would never have agreed to your staying with him, even with Jamie accompanying you, had I not been already able to 'talk' to Ahmed. He cares for you a great deal. He is concerned for your welfare, your safety. He knows your heart is elsewhere. I just wanted to see the lay of the land, as they say. I wanted to have some measure of control and to secure my interests. I saw my opportunity and so I took it."
He smiled in a self-satisfied way after this explanation. It was clear that he thought he'd been very clever seizing an opportunity that was beneficial both for himself and for Ahmed. I could also see that some of these ideas might have been instilled in Ahmed. My heart was elsewhere…. It was the truth but meanwhile, my mind was boiling. I was just speechless.
After a silence of at least a full minute, I said,
"So let me get this straight, Eric. You gave your blood to my gay friend, interrogated him, and glamoured him into keeping you posted on me and apparently, just to be on the safe side have made sure he'll never lay a hand on me? Am I getting that right? And this is right after I got the big rescue from that embassy, while he was left behind, beaten up and burned, saw Alla beaten up and almost raped in front of him and had to endure watching that and being able to do absolutely nothing to help her. Then he still stayed with me in Germany, called you as I begged him to, in spite of having to really to go to a lot of trouble through another agency, breaking all kinds of rules to do so I might add, waited to fly back to the US with me comatose and then stayed with me during some of the days when I was in Walter Reed because you could only be there at night. That was how you thanked him? You gave him your blood to better read him while you interrogated him and glamoured him? And I suppose, while Andor and Markus watched this little charade, on top of it?"
He looked me straight in the eyes.
"Yes, that's exactly what I did. Andor and Markus weren't in the room. Only two people at a time in the room, remember? I healed all his injuries and left him with no scars so I'm sure he's not exactly displeased. He seems to be very proud of his appearance, no? A very good-looking human and he knows it. But, unless you told him, he knows nothing other than the fact that he was in great shape for his interview for his coveted university job. We each got what we wanted. I really don't see what your problem is."
I was absolutely indignant.
"My problem? My problem? You've got a helluva lot of nerve, Eric! Of course I told him that having a vampire's blood makes that vampire able to read things about the person or more susceptible to glamouring. You bet I did! He's like a babe in the woods where vampires are concerned. He's all fascinated now, no matter how much I warn him to be careful. I'm left wondering if it was some hefty dose of thousand year old vampire blood that got him that way. And do you honestly think I don't know exactly how Ahmed feels about me after I was in the man's brain just about daily for three years straight? Do I really look so stupid and naïve to you? How can you be so insulting! Ahmed and I understand each other perfectly on the matter without any need for discussion. If Ahmed loves me and feels any attraction to me it's only because I understand him. Because I'm a telepath, Eric. He craves being understood. Which you would have known and understood yourself, if you'd come clean and just asked me instead of playing your stupid vampire mind games on him. There was never anything for you to worry about. There never will be. With him or really with anyone. What have I ever done to you that would make you intrude into someone else's mind like that? How can you possibly justify that?"
"Well, you ran away for three and a half years, and you still get flighty and panicked. You still don't tell me things. And for the record, I was more interested in knowing more about who you were to him than I've ever been concerned about who he was to you. I was quite sure where I stood with you by September."
"Have you done the same thing to Alla?"
"No."
"What about Amelia?"
He hesitated as if finally taking in what the problem was to me. "No."
"Why the hell not Amelia? She lived with me for a while. She's in business with me now, we share a room when we travel. And she was involved for a time with Pam. She likes women and men. How is she not a threat to you, hmm? What so different about Amelia?" I was really getting mad.
"You are fond of Amelia in a different way. And as I just said, I was not concerned about your fidelity to me at all. I am not concerned about your choices as any 'threat' to my interests."
"Eric, you know you really piss me off. First of all, I am not fond of Amelia, any more than I am of Pam or Alla or Ahmed. They are all my friends and I genuinely love them. I'm not in love with any of them, though. You're not concerned? Then why did you only do it to the guy friend? Maybe really you are suggesting that I love Ahmed a little too much for your taste? Are you going to start to get fussed about Cadel next? Because I really care about Cadel. Are you going to get jealous of him, too? What about Jamie? He's with me all day when I'm out. And hey, what about Pam? Are you really treading that line with me after you know full well that I didn't even think of dating anyone for three and a half years because I was so hung up on you? Are you?!" I was outraged.
He paused for a moment before answering, looking almost as if he was struggling with himself. "No. I told you, I was not concerned that you were interested in him," he said very coolly. "Not at all."
I sat up in the bed and turned to him with my eyes blazing.
"Why? Why the hell not be concerned? If you were so concerned he might have a thing for me, why not be concerned I could be interested in him?"
"First, because I'm confident of your commitment. But also, because I think the bond between us does not work that way for either one of us."
I sort of froze. The professional interrogator had finally gotten the vampire to say too much.
"The bond? So we're back to the frigging blood bond? Why? I thought we both agreed the bond ultimately had nothing to do with how we felt for each other? That we felt that way before and the bond just sort of… cemented things or made it easier to understand one another?"
"We do agree on that. Although it took quite a bit of work to get one of us to agree on that. But as I told you a number of times, the bond has worked in ways I had not anticipated."
"Do you take come kind of twisted pleasure in being cryptic with me, Eric? Is there eventually going to come a point where you drop the vampire bullshit and just talk to me without the mystery element about the fucking bond?"
He actually twitched slightly. He had obviously been caught out on something. I just didn't know what.
"You already know that it's allowed you to read my thoughts occasionally. Did it never strike you as odd that you weren't interested in anyone else for all that time we were apart?"
I bristled at his words. What? What was he suggesting? I was now, officially, extremely pissed off.
"No. No it didn't, Eric. It didn't strike me as odd at all, first because I had terrible PTSD, had been tortured and I'd totally ripped my life apart at the seams in order to get away from everything that had happened to me. I was a little bit too busy to start thinking about romance, you know? I had all these big adjustments to make to my job. And then there were those little details- that I was in love with you and everybody else seemed drab and colorless in comparison to you, that I was horribly depressed that I'd left things as I did with you, because I missed you. So if you're telling me that you thought the stupid bond was acting like some kind of magical chastity belt, you're kidding yourself and you're insulting me. After I left, I realized I loved you and I was stuck. If I didn't get involved with anyone else, it was because I didn't want to. And if you didn't, it was because you didn't want to. So don't you dare give me any bullshit explanation that it was the bond, because I'm not buying it. I refuse to give up my personal will to my magical connection to you. Sorry. And why would you even want to think such a thing. Weren't you all 'I'm so flattered by your personal choice'? Well, you can't have it both ways, buddy."
He looked at me with distaste over my sarcasm. I frankly didn't care.
"The bond is stronger than you realize, Sookie. Really, under normal circumstances, given the separation, in all likelihood it might have faded a great deal or even entirely. But it didn't fade. Not at all. And every time we've really shared blood, it's only gotten stronger."
It might have faded? What? I was totally confused. "But you talked about weakening it. As if it was permanently the way it is and that there was no other way to diminish it." And we'd just renewed it on top of everything else? How would it have faded? "That doesn't make sense to me."
"I assume that because of the strong mutual feelings it will not just fade. Ever. It didn't fade in three years, even though we were so far apart. When I went to see you in Virginia after Bill located you I was surprised to find that it was almost exactly the same as the last time I'd see you when we'd been together that night in Bon Temps, before the fairies got you. I spent time thinking about it, the fact that it hadn't faded for either of us and what that meant about us, about you. I don't know whether it's because you're so different or that we felt so strongly about each other before the bond was made. Maybe it's both. Even from the beginning it was a very strong bond. I have never been bound with a person about whom I cared so much. And with all the subsequent exchanges of blood, and the times you've just had my blood, to heal, it's made the bond even stronger. Stronger, perhaps, than I wanted you to realize," he said with some soberness, making a face that for Eric almost looked like he was disgusted with himself. "I offered to diminish it to make you more comfortable with it. But I do not think it will ever fade."
"Stronger like what? What are you even implying?"
"Well, obviously you can sometimes read me. And sometimes I feel as if…" he looked at me but didn't finish.
"As if what? Would you just spit it out. What?" I thought maybe he thought that he could actually read me right back because sometimes, I honestly felt like maybe he could. But he surprised me with his answer.
"Sometimes now the connection is so strong that I feel as if I could control you, to some extent."
I chortled as I pulled back from him, shaking my head. He was totally kidding himself.
"Oh yeah, really? Right. Give me a fucking break, Eric. Prove it. Show me how strongly it influences me or could influence me, because I just don't believe it. Compel me to do something. Scare me with your big bad blood bond. Whatever. I just don't believe it can make me do a damn thing. Whether it's being faithful to you or anything else. I think you're kidding yourself if you believe that you can make me do anything through the bond. What I do is my personal choice. And you used to be glad that it was."
"I don't want to control you, Sookie. I want you to have choices. I usually like your choices but even if I don't, I'm willing to let you have those choices. I like you as you. I have never consciously tried to control you since we've been together. Just because I might be able to control you doesn't mean I would."
"You can't control me, Eric. You can't make me do a damn thing. You're delusional if you think you can," I said with a scowl. "Deeee-lusional." I was so angry at him. And I finally had gotten him to the point where he was starting to get really mad at me, too. I felt almost as if there was a red hot cord vibrating between us.
He set aside his book and sat up in bed next to me and his eyes glowed as they met mine.
"Hit me," he said quietly, with his jaws clenched.
"What?" I asked, looking at him like he was crazy.
"Hit me," he repeated staring at me with glowing eyes.
That was what he was going to compel me to do? He had to be kidding. Yeah, like I was really going to hit him. For sure.
"No. No way. I don't just hit people."
Suddenly he was grabbing me by the throat and saying in an entirely different voice,
"I said hit me."
His voice hit me like a sledgehammer. But if I felt tempted to hit him it was only because he was so in my face and had his hand at my throat. There was no way I'd hit Eric. Not the least of it was that it was foolhardy to think about hitting a thousand year old vampire, or really any vampire. But besides that, I loved him and couldn't envision hitting him even if he told me to. I guess that was why he was asking me to. He was trying to get me to do something I wouldn't ever normally do to prove a point? I felt vaguely like I was in a vise, but it was an odd, mental thing because even if his hand was suddenly at my throat his hold on me was actually gentle. My head ached vaguely with his echoing voice. Maybe it made me stop and think. It was certainly annoying. But it sure wasn't enough to make me act.
"No, I won't! Absolutely not happening."
And then, simply staring at me, he said it again, mentally, in a much subtler way. It was like a whisper, an internal voice that I could imagine one could easily mistake as one's own, if it hadn't been asking me to do something so totally out of character. I had to admit that it was a little chilling, however, to think that maybe if I hadn't known what he was doing, I might not have paid as much attention to whether that internal voice was really my voice. It was really just like a voice inside my head. I'd think about that later. Right now I was too pissed off to think about the finer details. And I was totally not going to do it.
"Screw you and your creepy whisper voice. Still no, Eric. I won't hit you. And let go of my throat."
Eric looked somewhat impressed as he regarded me with those cold, glowing eyes. He didn't let go of my throat, though. Suddenly he slammed me with some other internal voice that was much harsher and before I knew it I caught myself with my hand starting to rise involuntarily, ever so slightly out of my lap. What I really thought about, rather than hitting him, was pushing him away from me, because it was such an unpleasant sensation. I refocused my thoughts and relaxed my fingers, letting them rest flat on my thigh.
Now he looked at me with real surprise in his eyes. After another moment or two, I reached up and put my hand on his forearm.
"Just give it up, Eric. I'm so not going to hit you, although, right now I almost think you'd deserve it if I was that kind of person to dish it out. But forget about it and get your fucking hand off my throat. It's not scaring me if that's what you were going for. It's seriously pissing me off, and that's even further reducing your chance of getting me to do anything you want me to do, including sleeping in this bed with you if you don't cut it out right now. Let go of me this instant!"
He instantly released my throat and I also felt some sort of vague sensation in my head sort of evaporate as well. I touched my throat but it wasn't even tender. He'd been very careful not to hurt me… And yet I felt slightly weary from resisting him.
"Okay," he said nodding with his head at an angle and looking at me, eyes wide, as if quite puzzled. "More of a challenge than I thought, but the bond has more influence than you believe it does. You can hear me, after all, when I'm telling you to do it mentally."
"No. No, the bond doesn't have anything to do with it Eric. I can hear you because I'm a fucking telepath. And you were pretty much shouting your thoughts at maximum volume, especially that last time. You still couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do. Hitting you would offend all my sensibilities. There is nothing that you could do to make me do it if I didn't really want to. So much for the big, bad blood bond being the reason I wasn't interested in any other guys, okay? And that was before I'd had still more of your blood. And it's practically brand new again since the wedding. It should be as strong as you can get it, right? Give me a flipping break. You can't make me do anything with the bond. I ought to hit you for not telling me that you thought my having more of your blood might make you more able to control me. That's just beyond the pale. That was totally duplicitous of you."
"But I don't want to control you, Sookie. Certainly not for anything short of some desperate situation in which I would need you to do something to keep yourself safe." He gritted his teeth in a frown, his fangs down. "I should never even have said anything about it." He looked angry at himself and turned away.
I was feeling totally exasperated. So the upshot was that he was still saying that he really thought he could control me if he wanted to do so, even though he had implied in the past that the compulsion effects of the bond didn't work because I couldn't be glamoured? I suddenly felt this internal chill wondering if this was because I was close to being turned from having had too much of his blood. That was a scary thought. Sometimes during sex he would either ask me to bite him or he would bite his tongue when kissing me. I was always getting his blood even if it was small amounts of it. There often was no practical way to avoid having his blood if we had sex. And we had a lot of sex. Every day, sometimes multiple times a day. He not only liked having me have his blood, now I liked having his blood. All my worries about being turned that inadvertently had hovered in the back of my mind were edging their way back into prominence again. Suddenly though, I seized upon the thought that this was all just a great big distraction from the very real issue of what he'd done to my friend. I wasn't about to forget what we were really arguing about.
"You know… what the fuck does any of this have to do with what you did to Ahmed, Eric? Don't think for a minute that you're sidetracking me. Forget the vampire mind games. We'll come back to that later. Let's stay on track here- Ahmed was no threat to you. He did nothing to you, and nothing to me other than take care of me, talk to me like I was intelligent and teach me a lot about the world when I need to learn really fast. Why did you need to mess with him? It was a really lousy thing to do to my friend, who trusted you because of me. It's totally beneath you, and beneath what I think of you, to have done such a thing."
Though he wasn't looking directly at me, I saw some aspect in his face change at those words. And I pressed right on while I had the momentum.
"You know what I think? I think it's just like you were in June. You're jealous of Ahmed. Still. He made you jealous and you just acted out. And I guess, not surprisingly, you acted out like a vampire. But no matter who or what you are, it's still deplorable that you did that to my friend. Absolutely deplorable. You acted like a jealous man when you had no reason to be, as you yourself, acknowledge. But even more than that, when he was here you had an opportunity to fix it, to come clean with me, and you were still too jealous to do it, weren't you?"
In a whoosh he was off the bed and out the door into the library with his book. For once, instead of just going after him, I gave him some space without having to be told to do so. Jealousy was the only possible conclusion here as far as I was concerned. Ahmed and I did love each other, platonically. Really, he'd not even known what to do with his puzzling feelings for me, anyway. It had amazed him to find over time that he was attracted to me. I supposed in that, Eric had real insight. Ahmed might be gay but he was definitely attracted, but it wasn't really a sexual thing. I knew the attraction was mostly just because he so longed to have someone who really understood him. It was more emotional than anything physical. I could read his mind and respond, with needed space or humor or comfort or really whatever he needed. Who didn't dream of having someone who understood them without having to explain themselves? It was a fantasy on his part. But it was not anything more than that to him, and really ultimately, even Ahmed knew it wasn't more than that.
Still, it seemed so unlike Eric to even waste time on being jealous. It wasn't his style. Then I realized he hadn't wasted time- he'd acted on it in typical Eric fashion. He'd taken charge of the situation and eliminated the perceived competition. Very carefully. So carefully that I couldn't tell he'd glamoured Ahmed, even though I suspected it. One part of me was thoroughly outraged and disgusted. Another part of me knew that he'd done it precisely because of what he'd said to me- I would tell Ahmed things I wouldn't tell him. About my nightmares, for instance. Or my thoughts about quitting my job, which I wouldn't tell Eric because he'd hated my job a little too vocally. I might have been coming around to doing exactly what Eric wanted last August and September but I didn't not want to hear him say a thing further about it. So I could see now that the real issue was that my not telling Eric these things had hurt his feelings, though the chances of Eric ever admitting hurt feelings on this topic were down around nil. He could own up to being angry, but still only rarely to being hurt. Like maybe twice in all the time I'd known him. As he himself said, he didn't have any concerns about my being interested in anyone else. So he was hurt that I was telling Ahmed things I wouldn't tell him.
After about ten minutes I slipped on my robe and walked out into the library. He was reading while sitting at his desk. Since he didn't say anything, I figured it meant he'd cooled off. I put my arms around his shoulders and pressed my lips against his cheek as I hugged him from behind.
"I love you," I whispered.
As mad as I was, I didn't want him to feel jealous of my friend and I felt bad to think that maybe I'd really hurt his feelings by not telling him things.
"I will not apologize for doing it," he said in a stubborn tone.
"I didn't think you would," I replied. "But I'd hope that you wouldn't do anything like that again to anyone I know."
He turned to me and looked at me with cold eyes.
"I will get whatever information I want, from anyone I want, however I have to get it, in order to assure your welfare."
I felt a catch in my breath. Excuse me? Okay, fine. We were officially still arguing…
"How was that assuring my welfare Eric? It seems more wrapped up in your welfare than mine," I said quietly with my jaw clenched and arms crossed, after pulling away from him.
"I wish to be sure that your friends and associates will protect you as needed and yet that they are not a threat to my interests, either. And I will be sure."
"Giving high-handed new meaning, Eric…." I said bitterly. "I just… I can't even put it into words. I think it's wrong and distrustful of me. I think it incredibly intrusive and abusive to anyone to do such a thing and I think it's only because of your jealous and controlling nature that you can try to justify doing vampire mind surgery on my friend's mind. You did it because you didn't like how he felt about me and not for my welfare. Do you think I'm stupid enough to buy that line? Sometimes, no matter what you say, you act like you want to control everything. It's maddening! And in this case, it's morally wrong."
"I don't distrust you at all, Lover. The whole point is that I'm not trusting anyone else, at least not with you."
"That's still akin to saying you don't trust me, though, now isn't it? Since I can read Ahmed, or anyone else even remotely human, that you might be tempted to mess with on my account. You don't trust my judgment of them, their intentions or their feelings about me or us. That's what it means."
"You're much more trusting than I am, Sookie. You always have been."
"Has it occurred to you that I can be more trusting of humans whose minds I can read? Hmm? So have you messed with anyone else I know on account of me, Eric?"
He didn't respond. Omigod! I thought to myself. What has he been doing?
"Who else?"
Still no response.
"Eric?"
Nothing.
I walked around to stand in front of him and leaned on the desk. My robe fell open as I leaned forward.
"Who? Who else are you doing this to? I want to know."
He looked me over with glowing eyes and his pupils dilated slightly. Then, he cast his eyes around the desk, which was noticeably less cluttered these days. I couldn't say he didn't listen to some things that I say. Just not the ones that were important to me currently. He closed the book and started pushing some of his papers aside while smiling slightly to himself. He'd recently started keeping a pillow at the back of his desk chair and he shifted it onto his lap.
"No," I said. "Absolutely not happening. Don't you dare even suggest such a thing. We're having a conversation here. You're the man who loves to talk, right? So talk to me. Who else have you messed with Eric?"
"This conversation is over, Lover. I've said what I'm going to say. You're looking very attractive, though," he said, opening the drawer and putting a folder inside.
I simply walked away. As far as I was concerned this was not a discussion that would be bettered by sex. I went off to my dayroom and unless things improved, planned to be sleeping there. I was angrier than I'd ever been at him.
I grabbed my laptop from my desk and sat on my daybed next to Rosie, doing email and feeling totally furious. Eric came in wearing his robe and started to sit down and I said,
"To quote you, I'm still mad, leave me alone. And for the record, I won't have sex with a man I'm mad at, even if I love him. So don't even bother trying."
He sat right down on the couch anyway. He made me even madder by moving Rosie, so he could sit closer to me.
"It won't be dawn for a while," he said confidently. "I'll just sit with you and read until we go to bed." He opened his book.
"You are waiting in vain unless you tell me who else you've tampered with."
"No further discussion, Lover. I've said what I have to say. Subject closed."
"Get off my couch, then. I'm mad. I have to leave you alone when you're mad, so you should leave me alone when I'm mad. Fair is fair."
He sighed heavily.
"Sookie, I'm not doing this out of malice, I assure you. There was no malice in my intent, no harm done. I healed him, after all. But, I'm not discussing it further."
"Then you have no business sitting on my Gran's quilt. I mean it. Off."
He rose, putting his book on the coffee table. He picked up the quilt, folded it and draped it over the back of the couch. Then he went off to the kitchen and I heard him opening the refrigerator and then opening a bottle of True Blood. He started heating it in the microwave.
"Do you want anything?" he called out.
"An answer to my question and for you to leave my friends out of your agenda. How's that?"
"Milk? Ice cream? Chocolate? A very large gin and tonic?"
I ignored him.
He came back out and sat down with his warm bottle of True Blood and took up his book again. He was now no longer sitting on my grandmother's quilt. He looked me in the eye after sitting down and glancing back to make sure he wouldn't even lean on it. Maddening.
He read and then after a few minutes rested his arm behind my shoulders, across the top of the daybed. I ignored him and went on doing email. After another ten minutes, I said,
"I'm having dinner with Amelia and Bert on Tuesday. Amelia and I have to discuss the specifics of the job for Russell in Jackson and we need Bert's advice on something she wants to do for the grounds of his estate. Russell said we could start to discuss the Tunica job then with Salome's people. He says she's sending Alex, her second. I'll make sure that Jamie sets the date and…" I froze and drew a deep breath.
I made a sudden connection with things from the day I found out about Eric having given Ahmed his blood. Ahmed reporting to Eric about my dreams. Jamie reporting to Eric even something as trivial as Remy's nasty comments. Coincidence? Surely this whole thing was now going to drive me mad. I felt like I was going to start wondering if Eric had glamoured everyone around me. He hadn't done it to Amelia, but Pam could probably wheedle anything out of Amelia that Eric wanted to know. Maybe Amelia had even had Pam's blood for all I knew. He surely wouldn't mess with Bert. That might go over badly, for a vampire to start trying to glamour a sorcerer or whatever the heck Bert really was, if he even could. What could Eric glamour? Could he even glamour a Were? Hmmmm. Jamie, my personal bodyguard for the past two and a half months…
"What, Lover?"
"Can you glamour a Were?"
"Sookie, as Pam is so fond of saying, I could glamour a rock or the bricks in a wall. Other than other vampires, about the only people I've ever encountered that I can't glamour are you and a few fairies who have been close enough for me to try. Everyone else, I can glamour effortlessly. You simply have no idea how weak the average mind is. Weres are a little more challenging, I do admit. They put up more resistance. But if you get close enough quarters with one, it's really not a problem."
He sounded so insufferably proud of himself. I frowned at him and he smiled with the most annoying expression on his face,
"Any Weres you want me to glamour, just ask Lover. Don't be shy. I'm at your service."
Omigod! He was so infuriating! I didn't even want to give him the satisfaction of my asking about Jamie.
He'd made quick work of the bottle of True Blood. He leaned over and kissed my neck.
"You know, your resistance to being glamoured is part of what makes you truly extraordinary," he said, as his lips caressed my neck. "But it is only the smallest part of what I love about you. You're beautiful and truly unique."
Beautiful and unique? Was this like the pickup lines I'd heard long ago working at Merlotte's? Well, if he thought he was going to have sex with me when I was still mad, he had a different thing coming. Or maybe he was just still hungry? His lips were still at my neck. I held out my wrist.
"Go ahead. Help yourself."
He pulled back from me and looked at me wide-eyed, open-mouthed, fangs down as he took my hand and lowered my wrist. I felt this surge of anger. But he laced his fingers into mine, holding my hand in his lap and said with a cool, controlled voice,
"First, that would really hurt. Second, it's insulting. I have never treated you that way and you had better not treat me that way, either."
I could remember that it hurt because once he'd bitten my wrist when he'd been injured, after I offered it to him because Mickey threw a rock at his head. But I was so annoyed I didn't care if it would hurt. Better there than the usual places which were just not currently available. The way he looked at me though… Here I'd thought I was being generous offering my blood. Perhaps my manner was a little... Okay, so I was totally pissed off and probably being extremely rude. I made a face. I hadn't really intended to be so rude. I was just mad because I wondered if he'd glamoured Jamie. I glanced away, fuming. Finally, I couldn't restrain myself any longer.
"Have you glamoured Jamie Farren, Eric? He seems to be reporting awfully minor stuff to you, like Remy Savoy being rude to me that day I figured out about Ahmed. Or when I argued with that guy at our office building about the a/c repairs taking so long. Why does he even bother telling you that stuff? It's so minor, so trivial. Did you glamour him, too?"
Eric looked at me with his fangs now only half way down. He glowered at me as he said,
"Did I glamour the guy who is my wife's personal bodyguard, who watches over her while I am dead to the world during the day? Who travels with her out of New Orleans regularly and stays with her overnight in her friend's apartment or in hotels? Who I'm trusting to keep my wife safe from harm? What do you think, Sookie? You tell me."
I narrowed my eyes. That was a classic Eric Northman 'yes, but I'm going to answer your question with a question rather than actually saying yes' response. My God, he'd done it him, too? Poor Jamie…
"Do you have any idea how upsetting this whole thing is to me, Eric? Do you have a clue?" I tried to pull my hand away from his but he wouldn't let me.
"Do you have any idea how necessary it is? Do you have a clue? What do you think it's like trying to safeguard my fragile, oh so mortal, human wife, who could be exploited, kidnapped, or just killed outright for being associated with me, and with all of us? You just think about that. And then, after you've done some serious thinking, maybe you'll agree that I have the right to glamour whoever the hell I want into telling me everything they see around you and about you, in order to make sure you, and all of us, are safe. Most of the people that work for me think you are our biggest liability at this point, Sookie. The biggest potential bargaining chip someone could snatch and use against me and therefore against all of us because they'd be called on by me, to defend you. The greatest risk to someone gaining access to this compound. You want to be free to come and go and work all over the place? Well, this is the price. And let me tell you, it's a small price. I have to be sure that you are safe from harm and if you're traveling I'd want to know that you are safe even if your bodyguard slept in the same bed with you. You had better grow up and see things as they are on the matter, instead of seeing them in some idealistic, childish view of right and wrong. I'll keep you safe, and keep all of us safe, however I see fit to do so. I'll glamour everyone that is supposed to keep you safe if I have to and there is absolutely nothing you can say to me to make me think or do otherwise. You married me, you married the circumstances."
He looked at me stone-faced as if daring me to argue with him any further on the subject.
I was silent. It was infuriating, but, from his perspective, I knew it was all totally true. I was a liability and always had been. Look at what had happened to him, and to Bill, only four years before because of me. And his means for mitigating that liability? Eric was a much better and fairer person than Chuck Powell, my former boss's boss at the FBI. But in some ways he was a lot like Chuck. Eric would do whatever it took to keep things safe in his world. Without hesitation. Without apology.
I looked away and just stewed silently for a few minutes. Between the earful I'd gotten from Jamie back in December and now what I was hearing from Eric, there was little I could say to argue. As Jamie had said to me last month, it wasn't just about me. It was how I affected everyone else. There was basically no response I could offer because Eric was right, whether I liked it, or not. I'd married the circumstances in order to marry the man I loved. We were silent for several minutes and finally my mind drifted back to the other subject.
"So about the other thing. Why do think you could compel me when you used to say you couldn't?"
"You have had so much of my blood… I've never given so much of my blood to a human. To anyone, really. Your resistance is still absolutely incredible. It's simply extraordinary. If I really wanted to control you I guess it would take serious effort and really, now, after seeing you earlier, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know if I could or not. It's like dealing with a fairy, frankly. And you've got so little fairy blood. It's just unfathomable. But I definitely feel the bond differently from the way I did back in the very beginning or even back the way I did in June. But, after seeing how you still can resist, I really don't know what it means. Maybe it's just because you can get into my head. I honestly don't know. I still think the bond exerts more influence on both of us, and that we exert more influence on each other, than either of us would like to think. And no, I didn't think the bond was a 'magical chastity belt' even if maybe that's part of what I honestly wanted it to be. I didn't want you to be with anyone else. I didn't want to be with anyone else. My connectedness to you diminished any potential interest I had in anyone else. And I honestly think that it influenced our choices when we were apart. I wasn't telling you any of this to upset you, or to frighten you. I don't want to control you. Perhaps you're right and I really can't. But it doesn't even matter if I don't want to, now does it?"
Halfway through his speaking his mind on the issue, I'd felt an internal alarm and stiffened as his words really registered. You have had so much of my blood. I've never given so much... My whole throat went tight and I shivered. Maybe I really was close to being turned? Maybe that's why it felt different to him? Maybe I… My heart pounded as my mind raced.
He looked at me and could see exactly where my thoughts where going.
"You won't 'just turn', Sookie. Don't worry. I promise you. I am absolutely sure. I could tell if you were on the verge of turning. I have in the past and I told you no more blood for a time, as you recall. And I knew I couldn't give you blood right away when you were in Walter Reed, because you'd lost too much blood and giving you blood was too great a risk. Turning someone is something you feel as a sire and I don't feel it. I would not give you blood if I thought you could turn, unless you understood the possible consequence and agreed to it. I will never break my word to you in this. Ever."
I met his eyes and grasped the clear thought, Will she ever just let the idea go? along with some rather unpleasant visuals of what he thought of Bill having told me something that Eric thought was little more than folklore, evidently. He really meant what he said and was so frustrated by my lack of trust. I let out a breath I wasn't even aware I'd been holding and looked away. He was still holding my hand and he stroked it, reassuringly. We were silent for a few more minutes. My laptop had gone to the screensaver from sitting untouched in my lap. I glanced back up at him and he was shaking his head.
"What?" I asked softly.
"I just can't believe you just handing me your wrist like it was fast food. That was really incredibly crass. That's got to make the top ten list of the most insulting things you've ever said or done. Maybe top five. You say that I'm so obnoxious but you don't see how you are yourself sometimes. That was really offensive."
"Well, you were the one nuzzling my neck. Are you going to tell me that you didn't want blood? Like you say, I'll know if you lie, right?" I said making a face. He gave me a very dark look, so I added, "Okay, so maybe you didn't. I didn't mean it the way you took it, anyway. I guess it came out wrong. I didn't intend to be offensive."
"Oh, I am getting far too used to hearing that one. I had no idea that my kissing your neck was now reduced by arguing with you to little more than an attempt at feeding off you. Just charming. I have never treated you that way. You need a new apology. Maybe in this case, one that includes the words 'I'm sorry I was so offensive' would be good."
He stared at me, waiting for it.
I frowned and swallowed hard. Okay, fine. But let's remember how I got to be this mad and offensive, shall we? I thought to myself.
"I'm sorry that I offended you, but you star…"
He clapped his hand gently over my mouth and wore a gratingly annoying smile.
"Perfect. Simple, succinct. I like it. You should practice that one, Lover."
Why couldn't he ask me to hit him now I wondered to myself? I was sure that someplace, somewhere, there was a more obnoxious man on this planet, but I was having a really hard time envisioning it.
Before I could even respond he kissed me after removing his hand and then got up. He picked up the empty bottle and went back to the kitchen. I heard him run the tap as he rinsed the bottle out and then I heard it hit my recycling bin with a clink. He made himself a second bottle and drank it in the kitchen. After disposing of it, too, he came back out and put aside my laptop and pulled me up off the daybed.
"It's almost dawn. And you are going to bed, Mrs. Northman." He glanced back at me, sensing that I was resisting his forward pull. "I know. You're mad. But you're still getting in that bed. We will rest. You need to rest so you can go make your plans to work in dangerous locations under circumstances that I cannot yet fully control to my satisfaction," he said with a teasing expression on his face. "And I need to rest so I can cope with you.
He put his arm around my waist and we walked back across to the bedroom. He shut the door, peeled off my robe tossed it off toward the bed and gently smacked my bottom.
"Did I glamour her poor Were bodyguard… un-fucking-believable…." he muttered.
"I'm still pissed off, Eric."
"Spare me, Sunshine. We're going to sleep."
I glared at him and he shook his head and let out a low laugh as he chased me toward the bed.
We got into bed. I lay in bed on my side facing the door to the library. He wrapped himself around me and we listened to the rain. I was still stewing. I didn't like what he had done with Ahmed or Jamie or whomever else he'd been glamouring because of me. But at least in the case of Jamie, I had to say I had enough bad memories of four years before to appreciate the fact that in part he just wanted me to be safe, even if I wasn't too thrilled with his methods. But Ahmed… That was different. That was jealousy, not worry about my safety. Eric had never given me a reason to be jealous of anyone. He was actually, now that I thought about it, very careful about that. I realized I was probably too insecure to have taken his showing interest in anyone else. I might have just backed away and thought there was no point in even being with him. Maybe he just knew that about me. I'd never deliberately tried to make him jealous, either. But I guess I had made him jealous, whether it was my intention to do so or not. And whether he'd admit it or not, I realized I'd hurt him without ever intending to do so.
As I lay there, he pressed his face into my hair and quietly took my hand. Even mad at each other we could still keep it together and be affectionate. He really loves me, I thought to myself with amazement. I reflected on the long three years we'd been apart. It was definitely true that the commitment I'd made to him four years before had lasted over time and distance. I had never really even looked at anyone else while I was on my own. I knew in my heart that what was between us wasn't the bond itself. And he hadn't even committed to anything, other than by implication that one night, the way I had. I'd probably never have taken him seriously even if he had sworn his undying fidelity to me that night anyway. Even now I had trouble taking it seriously. But somehow, as I found out from Pam and later from Eric himself, he'd stuck by that implied commitment. Even though he had no way of knowing until Bill found me, or really until he had me in his lap that night in June and simply asked me, that I had, too. There really was some kind of magic between us, but it has nothing to do with any damn blood bond. Maybe it was just too much of a stretch for a vampire to believe that it wasn't a case of the vampire dictating things? As opposed to our emotions dictating things, for instance. How ironic was it that now I was the one saying the bond didn't make a difference, I thought to myself? And how ironic was it that Eric was the one being jealous of anyone, all things considered.
I rubbed my cheek on his biceps. "Eric, I'm not trying to go on fighting, but I really don't understand why you would be jealous of Ahmed." Jealous enough to get into his head and do who knows what there. Frankly, it still seemed almost unspeakably petty, though I'd only get him angry again by saying so. "You'd have to know if you spent any time with him that he's really gay, right? I mean, I just don't get it."
"I'm not jealous. He's annoying. Because of his ability to hang out with you during the day and do things with you that I can't. Because you tell him things that you don't tell me. I have no problem with his being your friend, mind you, but he annoys me."
"Well, um… frankly, that sounds like jealousy to me, Eric."
"I have nothing to be jealous of. You'll have a hard time finding anyone who will compete with me for your affections, Lover. Who can make you feel as I do?" he said close to my ear. His voice sent shivers up my spine. "And are you suggesting that I'd be jealous of a human? What was your word? Delusional? Yes, that will do nicely."
Sometimes I wondered if he really meant this bullshit he could come up with? Annoyed but not jealous? No reason to ever be jealous of a human? How could you even argue with someone like this?
"Eric, you are jealous. You're extremely possessive. And I just can't believe that you actually got into my gay friend's head even when you were totally confident of how I felt about you. I just… I just can't believe you!"
"Sookie," he said with his lips close to my ear. "I'm a vampire."
I jabbed my elbow back into his ribs.
"You're an obnoxious and controlling bullshitter is what you are. I don't care if 'you're a vampire' is the reason you are. Being a vampire is not like a 'Get out of Jail for Free' card with me, Eric. You better undo whatever you did the next time Ahmed is here, do you hear me? I am not kidding. He's coming to visit in the spring and you're fixing it."
"Do I have to fix all of them, or just Ahmed? This could be time-consuming."
I gasped. "Who else? Who else did you do this to besides Ahmed and Jamie?"
He chuckled softly.
"I really hope you will have recovered your sense of humor by sunset, Lover…" he murmured with a chuckle. "I'm really missing it terribly."
"Right," I murmured in reply. "Let's think about how I lost my sense of humor on this subject, shall we?"
We just lay there for several minutes and I said nothing more. Finally, Eric said,
"Okay, I am sorry I have upset you. The next time he visits, I give you my word that I will undo it. Not that I did much. I think you have blown the whole thing out of proportion for what it was, but I'll undo it. Will that satisfy you? But only Ahmed. Anyone that guards you is fair game. I know that you find my methods objectionable. Where Ahmed is concerned, the solution is for you to be more forthcoming and not leave me with the impression that you'll tell him important things that you won't tell me. It made me very unhappy, especially when I saw how you were… you are… very close to him. It is not exactly pleasant to find out you were telling him important things about yourself, about your life, that you would not share with me. And to find them out in the midst of being upset and worried about you, and having to put up with the charming hospital staff and your boss initially acting like maybe I didn't have the right to be there with you? And then again, three months later, the same thing with the nightmares. On the eve of our marriage, no less, I find out you're still doing it? Delightful. But I am sorry that I have upset you."
He was sorry he upset me, but not that he had done it? That was probably as close to an apology for having glamoured Ahmed as I was ever going to get. I sighed heavily. It was a little too close to what you say when you're a child and you are basically sorry you got caught. Maybe this was one of those times when his being a vampire was an important point to reflect upon. He was clearly not at all sorry that he had used his abilities to secure what was his, was basically the way I looked at it from his point of view. But he was sorry that his way of doing it had upset me.
"You promise me you'll undo what you did?" I asked softly.
He paused a moment. I could tell he wasn't exactly happy about it.
"Do you promise me?" he asked.
"Yes. I'll stop telling Ahmed… or anyone… things that I will not tell you."
"Sookie, that makes it sound like you're just planning to stop telling anyone things that bother you. That doesn't work for me either," he said sounding quite weary.
I groaned. "Fine. If I'm upset about anything, anything at all, and I feel like telling someone, I'll tell you first, okay? Will that satisfy you? Geez. Tell me you promise."
"I already promised you," he whispered. He kissed my shoulder. After a pause he said softly, "I love you."
I finally relaxed more in his arms. I was still upset. Not exactly appalled anymore. Dismayed, maybe. I was definitely thinking I didn't want him close enough to lock those eyes of his on any other male friends. Ever.
"I love you, too," I grumbled. "But you better not do anything like this ever again to any of my friends. You say I should ask you stuff instead of trying to read things from your mind and yet it turns out that you go and pull shit like this? You could have asked me if I was having the nightmares still at any time in the past few months and I would have told you I was. You never thought to ask. Because you always think that if I'm with you that everything has to be so perfect with me, or something along those lines. I'm really not kidding. You better never do it again, are we clear?"
There was no reply. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that he was already gone. I groaned, but pulled his arm closer to me and squeezed his hand.
I reflected on his words. Sookie, I'm a vampire. I shook my head. Yes indeedy, he sure was. And as long as he'd fix what he'd done to my friend, I hoped I could live with the ongoing compromise we had with each other about our differing philosophies.