Co-Stars

Chapter 3- Acting

Summery: Sookie Stackhouse is a big time actress, lost in the fame & fortune Eric Northman is her new co-star who hates her personality, they butt heads hard. Will spending almost a year with him change that? Could it change her? Rated M. E/S

I don't own the characters, just my own words and the 'movie' they're filming.

A/N: After chapter 7 those of you who reviewed on this story before should be able to review again! Also, do you want me to keep writing each chapter from Sookie's POV and then the same chapter from Eric's or just do each chapter from alternating POV's or just stop switching them? Let me know!

SPOV

The flight was hellish, once I woke up and couldn't fake sleep anymore; I had to sit up and try to ignore my flight buddies. I spent the flight reading over my script, reading another book I brought along or playing games on my phone.

When that didn't deter Pam from making snide comments to me it launched us into a fight. It took Eric twenty minutes to shut me up and another ten to make Pam close her stupid mouth.

After that the three of us sat silently in our spots, Pam silently fuming and giving me nasty looks every so often. According to her script, and a highlighted name I spotted on it, she was playing my love interests best friend. Eric was my love interest.

When we finally landed I practically ran off the plane, collected my bags and found the driver sent to me, he loaded my bags into the town car, opened the door for me and took me to the Hilton.

Once all my bags were in my suite, room number 1211, I found my bathroom bag, grabbed some bubble bath and filled up the tub. While I waited I brushed out my hair, stripped down and shut of the water and sunk in after docking my iPod and hitting play.

The water went cold all too fast and I found myself bored out of my brain after I'd got out, dried off, and flopped down on the bed. The bed was soft and so was the white robe that I had wrapped around me.

I curled up in the middle of my bed and scrolled through my contacts. I texted Claudine and told her I was at the hotel, checked my twitter and sent a quick tweet about how nice the hotel was, checked my Facebook, and then locked my phone and tossed it away to the end of the large bed.

I flipped through my script one more time and then got up and dug through my bags until I found a match set of black lace lingerie and a pair of jean shorts and a plaid tank top. The clock on the cable box told me it was quarter after 5 in the morning. I opened the curtains covering the balcony window and stepped out, looking over the ground and beach.

The sun was just rising, turning the sky various shades of pink and red. I leaned on the railing and watched it as it entered the sky, staring down at the people out on the basketball court, mini golf course, and around the pool area playing. It looked like they were relaxing. I guess since this was Orlando they were probably on vacation.

Inside the phone was ringing so I shuffled back inside and picked up the receiver, "hello?"

"Miss Stackhouse, this is your wake up call." A cheery voice bubbled through the phone. I see the studio had made sure I would be awake. Did they expect me to sleep? Thanks to the time difference it was only 2 in the morning back in California, and I was still on California time.

"Thank you." I mumbled back, hanging up almost instantly. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth, cleaned my face, brushed out my hair and grabbed my tote bag before going downstairs to find the car waiting to take me over to the studio for the table read; we stopped for a bagel and a coffee for me first.

When I got there I was greeted by a bright eyed bushy tailed Sarah who was talking a mile a minute, I hardly kept up with her but nodded. She mentioned 'hair' 'tattoo' 'sex' and 'wardrobe'.

I was pushed into a chair at a large table in front of my name, beside me was Thalia, and on the other side was Claude. Eric was across from me and Pam was beside him, with a name plate "William 'Bill' Compton" next to it. I glowered at the name and crossed my arms, leaning back in the chair.

After a few minutes minor actors began to stream in and so did Claude, Sarah was hot on his heels blabbing in his ear. He gave her a nasty glare, told her to screw off before he slumped down in the chair beside me. Sarah didn't seem to care as she simply smiled and walked away.

"Mornin' sunshine." I commented offhand in a teasing voice, he rolled his head toward me and narrowed his brown eyes, "I see we woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"I woke up on the floor with an ugly guy hogging my bed. So yeah, I'd say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed." He grumbled, "It's nice to see you, cousin." I nod my head in agreement, my eyes now glued to a dark head of hair I spotted outside on the head of a pasty faced actor.

Bill Compton, my ex-fiancé-almost-husband, sauntered in with a stupid smile on his face and dropped down into the seat across from Claude, who instantly leveled a glare at him. Bill simply smiled back at my cousin smugly.

"I see everyone is in a great mood today." Thalia snapped in her usual manner when she entered the room, also leveling a glare at Bill, she gave Claude a less disgusted look and a warm smile to me as she tucked her wavy black hair behind her ear and sat in her chair.

I smiled back.

She was small, but her confidence made her seem like the biggest person in the room. Bill was giving her a disapproving look, she responded by raising one of her perfectly done eyebrows as she stared down her nose at him. I almost chuckled at the shocked look on his face.

Pam and Eric walked in silently a few minutes later, taking their seats and setting down two coffees. Both looked at me and grimaced, they spotted Bill and looked angry and then they looked at each other and Pam dramatically let her head drop down onto her script.

"Alright everyone!" Sarah said, her cheery voice stung my ears and made me wince, "we're going to read through from start to finish. I assume you've all read the book?" everyone nods, "good, so Dylan, start us off."

I flip open my script as I take a gulp of my coffee, and scan the pages looking for my name. The first two pages don't have any of my lines, so I sort of half pay attention and then we get into my pages.

6 hours later we break for lunch, I'm standing outside the conference room sitting against the wall, a cup of water in my hand, my head on my knees. My back hurts from sitting in the chair and my eyes are aching from all the reading.

A body slumps down beside me, "hey Sookie, how have you been? I haven't talked to you since the movie two years ago." Thalia sounds tired.

I open my eyes and look over at Thalia, "Yeah, I've been kinda busy so I haven't really had much time to do anything. I've been…busy so I guess that kind of answers that question. How have you been?"

"Pretty busy. Sick and tired of seeing Eric's ugly mug." She grumbles, "I just finished filming with him." Her eyes cross the room to where Eric is standing with Pam, who is talking animatedly.

"Out of all the people they had to pick for his counter part, why her?" I mutter under my breath, "She still hates me for stealing the part from her for that movie. That, and she just generally has a stick up her ass."

"Yes, she does. Just feel lucky you don't have to act as her girl friend." She grumbled under her breath, "Sarah expects us to get along." Thalia's eyes locked on Pam, "and I don't see that happening."

"Nope, I have to act as Eric's." I mutter, "But I just need to get over it. Its better then being Bill's."

"True, that guy is a waste of space." my eyes find his frame leaning on a door on the other side of the studio, phone pressed to his ear. My heart still hurts somewhere, just a small pang now, for what could have been. I could be his wife. Thank goodness nobody else knew about our engagement.

"Sarah expects us to get along." Thalia's eyes locked on Pam, "and I don't see that happening."

"She's bad, I know, but she can be professional when it comes to work." I point out, Thalia shrugs and then we both fall silent.

All too soon Sarah is calling us back in to finish the table read. Once that's done I'm sent to see the hair and make-up artist. I drop down into a chair and peer around the small dressing room, the walls were white and peeling and the mirror was smoke stained. Clothes were packed onto racks that looked like they were about to bust or fall over and the small bathroom looked too disgusting to touch with a ten foot pole.

The small brown door opened and closed quickly, a woman with brown hair bustled in and started laying things out on the table, "sorry I'm late. Sarah didn't tell me she wanted me here until half an hour ago." She says in a rush, "I'm Amelia." She says, jutting her hand out for me to shake.

"Sookie." I answer, taking her hand and shaking it briefly. She then quickly starts to lay all of her stuff out, pulling out boxes and boxes of make-up and hair things.

"I need to put a tattoo on you somewhere to allergy test. Pick what you want and where you want it." I glanced at the sheet and picked a moon and stars. She quickly put it on my wrist and then started working on my hair. The character I was playing at hair down to her hips.

We don't talk much, mostly because she's focused and I'm extremely tired, and by the time she's done doing my hair I'm almost asleep in the chair. "Sorry about how long this took. I'm sure one of the cars is still waiting for you."

"It's okay. It's Sarah's fault." I mumble, standing up and stretching. My back pops loudly and I wince, "I'll see you tomorrow, it was nice to meet you Amelia."

"Bye." She waves packing up her stuff, I grab my tote bag and head out to where there is a car waiting, I reach the door at the same time as Eric. He frowns at me, but opens the door and motions for me to get in. I scowl but slid in, all the way over to the door, and Eric slid in beside me.

Neither of us talked, I stared pointedly out the window, watching the buildings and beach front as we rolled by it. I was ready to crawl in bed and found myself falling asleep on the window when something brushed against my leg. I turned to make sure it wasn't a hand when I spotted the spider.

The scream tore out of my throat and I jumped batting at the spider with my hand, Eric jumped alarm, found the spider on the floor and started laughing as he bent forward. The eight legged freak of nature crawled into his hand, he rolled the window down, and let the bug crawl away.

"I can't believe you're scared a little spider. You scared of snakes too? How about rats? Mice? Dogs?" Eric teased; my cheeks were quickly starting to heat up. I duck my head and feel the extensions tug. With a wince I sat up and pulled my hair over my shoulder so it fell into my lap, I glared out the window, "they're nothing to be scared of."

Eric's voice was right next to my head, I yelped and jumped away from him, my head smacking on the door I spun so my back was pressed to it and looked him in the eye. His face was a few inches from mine, smirking and looking into my eyes. "Damn, have you ever heard of personal space?" I shoved him away, trying to ignore the sensation in my stomach at how good he smelled and how amazing his eyes were.

He chuckled and sat back, shaking his head at how funny he seemed to think freaking me out what. I frowned and turned back in my seat, why was the studio so far away from the hotel?

"Quit pouting Princess." Eric laughed.

"I'm not pouting." I snapped angrily, uncrossing my arms and setting my hands in my lap. Why the hell was he bothering me so damn much? I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He was almost too tall to fit in the limo, he was slouched down on his butt was almost hanging off the seat, his long legs were stretched out in front of him, and he was texting. His hands seemed almost too large for the small red phone.

My own phone was buzzing angrily in my pocket; it had been for the past few hours. Every five minutes. Eric set down his phone, my pocket buzzed. I quickly pulled the phone out and checked through the lists, three from Claudine, two from Aurora Harold, and 35 from Twitter.

I scanned through, most were old cast mates from movies, and I usually followed the ones I was working with out of strange habit. A few were Sarah, Thalia tweeted twice, and the most recent was from Eric. It simply said, 'spiders are funny'. I glowered at my phone and then set it in my lap before staring angrily back out the window.

My phone buzzed again, I flipped it over and saw a message from Twitter rolling across my notification bar. I unlocked the phone, pulled down the notification bar and saw ENorthman on my screen. He retweeted something from Pam that I quickly cleared from my notifications. Then I went back and checked Claudine's messages.

"Oh great." I grumbled under my breath upon seeing that she was staying at my hotel now.

"What's wrong Princess?" Eric asked in a mocking tone.

"Nothing. And quit calling me Princess." He simply chuckled in response and sighed softly.

"You know, you can at least pretend you like me." he said, "I mean, I am playing your lover."

"Acting as. And on set I can act like you don't annoy the crap out of me." I replied.

"Do I annoy the shit out of you Sookie?" Eric keeps goading.

Ignore him, ignore him. I chant in my head, my hand fisting around my cell phone. The hotel doors are suddenly outside my window; I slam the door open, jump out and make a hasty bee-line for my room, managing to make it into an already occupied elevator just as Eric entered the hotel.

I flee to my room and lock myself inside, flopping down uselessly on my bed out of utter exhaustion. I thought we were never going to finish today. It was already 2 am, and we'd be expected to be at the studio at 7 tomorrow. I quickly changed clothes and crawled into bed, already dreading the wake up call that was due in a few hours.