Author's Note: psst, I will tell you a secret. I am not even supposed to be writing this story. I am supposed to be focusing on my other story, only every time I sit down to write it this is the one that comes out. Sometimes you cannot fight the muses, my friends, and so I present you with this forboden chapter. An actual note: Tara is a combination of SVM/True Blood/my own imagination because I think Rutina Wesley is awesome and hot and I just needed her character to be who I wanted not who she actually is. The End.

Disclaimer: not mine.


Chapter Seven: There Is No Modern Romance

Eric, I had learned from Amelia, didn't do anything. As the result of a series of complicated legal matters from his parents' deaths he was what Amelia had described peculiarly as "Quote, independently wealthy". He apparently took random jobs as the mood moved him, but there was no absolute necessity for him to work. I have to admit that that did not sit well with me at first. I had spent the majority of my life struggling, nothing ever came easy. Eric had seemingly never needed to work for anything; women, talent, money; everything that anyone could ever want just fell into his lap. And it made me bitter as hell. She had offered this information somewhat reluctantly as though it was not common knowledge and asked me not to mention it to anyone else. That wasn't an incredibly difficult request since we hadn't spoken to each other since the day he moved in. I suffered in silent resentment for a few weeks after Amelia had told me, but eventually I decided to let it go without mention. If we were going to live together we needed to get along and I resolved to let everything that I had held against Eric up until that point go.

That was until one morning when I had been standing in the kitchen pouring over the contents of my nearly empty fridge debating whether or not I was going to behave myself and eat healthy when I had been greeted by an entirely unwelcome sight. She was a little shorter than me with shoulder length copper red hair that looked like a sunset on fire. I am not even certain how I picked my jaw up off the floor and managed to offer her a cup of coffee as if strange women just randomly wandered into my kitchen every morning, half naked and hair tousled. I recognized her as the young girl that Eric had been talking to at Lou's on New Year's. I didn't speak to her, though as soon as she had taken her first sip of coffee she began rambling. On and on she went gushing about how "awesome" Eric was. I shit you not; this bimbo actually used the word "awesome". She couldn't have been more than nineteen with perfectly fair, unblemished, smooth skin. Her ridiculously long legs for her tiny frame seemed to go on forever peaking out from underneath one of Eric's giant t-shirts.

While, yes, I had made it very clear to Eric in no uncertain terms that he would never be sharing my bed as long as we lived together I couldn't deny the hurt that it caused my already fragile heart and even more fragile self esteem when I saw this graceful girl step out of Eric's room like she owned the fucking place. I was polite, ever the southern girl, but inside I was dying. I honestly have no clue what she said to me that morning, nor do I care. I silently gnawed on toast and feigned interest while I fantasized about marring that perfect skin with my butter knife. I hated her, I hated him. Fuck, I hated myself.

Eric walked out somewhere in the middle of her fiftieth "like"—and I had only begun counting roughly ten minutes into our conversation. He flashed that cocky bastard smile at her when he walked in the door, grabbed a coffee cup out of the cabinet and placed a sloppy kiss on her perfect little lips. My thoughts turned to stabbing him with my butter knife. It played out like a Tarantino movie in my mind. She would scream in horror as blood slashed across her pale face, mixing with her hair. I was a fucking cinematic genius of destruction in my head. And then the real kicker. He turns to me all casual, as if he knew I was there the entire time and just sort of says hello as if this type of thing is completely normal. God help me, I just played along. Everything was fine; I was cool as a fucking cucumber in a really cool time. I was the Fonz. I was James Dean.

Then he picked up his coffee, just like that and walked off towards his room. She flashed me a smile that made me think this girl thought I was her sorority sister and then trotted off behind him like a little dog. One of those yappy ones that you almost want to kick, but you would never because who could hit a cute, little defenseless animal? Cruella deVil, that's who.

And so we didn't speak. Part of it was because we lived opposite schedules, but part of it was the fact that neither of us knew what to say to the other. It wasn't as though we were fighting, but the silence was uncomfortable. We made our best attempts to be cautiously considerate. He left me coffee in the pot each morning before I woke up.

Eric, I had also discovered, was a runner. For someone who smoked like a fiend and stayed out at all hours of the night, it seemed somewhat laughable that he would wake up at the break of dawn every morning in order to exercise, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the appeal of running was more mental than physical.

We had established a routine, while a bit dysfunctional it was working. In fact, I do not think I ever had a more amicable roommate. Add to it that we never saw each other except in passing and I would dare to say that it was like living alone. Friendly, but not too friendly, we danced around like this for weeks.

The only kink in this nearly utopian existence? The girls. It was like a horrendous, never-ending parade serving as a reminder of my personal failings as a woman. Young, idiotic, beautiful girls who left my apartment most mornings of the week alone, no Eric in sight, after I had served them breakfast (or what they allowed themselves to eat of it) out of some fucked up sense of hospitality. The worst part was that the majority of them, while obviously not chosen for their intellectual offerings, were very sweet girls who only had nice things to say about the man who abandoned them presumably as soon as the condom was off. At first their presence in my life was deeply, deeply uncomfortable, but as with everything else eventually I got used to them and even somehow enjoyed their rotating presence at my breakfast table.

Only two of the girls made repeat performances. The first was the redhead, whose name was Sophie Ann. She was eighteen and had left her hometown of bumfuck, nowheresville to come to the big, bad city to pursue acting. Theater, not film—she was very certain to make that distinction. A little on the dim side, but extremely nice. I think she assumed that since I lived with Eric but was not sleeping with him that he was not interested in me (or that we were related). She never seemed to see me as a threat, as more than a few girls had, and was always more than anxious to meet me in the kitchen knowing I would be waiting there coffee in hand.

The other was a tall, slender, impossibly attractive black girl named Tara. She was different from the others in that she seemed to have more than half a brain in her head and quite the mouth to back it up. I never actually saw her and Eric together, but I heard them on more than one occasion. At first I hadn't been certain whether he was fucking her or murdering her, so I without a doubt knew what she was bringing to the relationship. A very big downside to living in New York was that space was relative. In Louisiana I would have never dared to call my boxy little closet a bedroom, but in New York it was an impressive size because it fit both a bed, a table and had a window seat. The overall size of the apartment wasn't much better and the close quarters lent themselves to disclosing far more about my new roommate than I really wanted to know.

Tara was a dancer, classically trained in ballet and apparently quite successful at her given profession. We got along good and I kind of thought that had we have met under different circumstances that we could have been friends. Alas, I knew exactly the sound she made at the moment she orgasmed and the obnoxious high-pitched squeal would always be in the back of my mind for the rest of my days.

In the meantime my personal life was in shambles. I was pursuing my career, trying desperately to establish a name fore myself in the competitive literary world while my social life fell by the wayside. At first I didn't even really notice it. From the moment I woke up in the morning until the moment I fell asleep at night my face was in front of my computer. The days passed without note and almost entire weeks had gone by when I hadn't even left the apartment. It wasn't until Amelia made a comment about me never being around anymore that I even thought other people would have been concerned. I didn't have a valid excuse for her other than work and when Pam started in on me I knew it was time for a personal appearance.

"And he just leaves them there?" Pam was sitting across from me at the small table in the trendy new restaurant where she insisted we eat diner.

"For the most part, I mean, yeah. Wham bam, whatever." I wasn't really in the mood to discuss the many loves of Eric Northman. I had enough of it on a day-to-day basis. Listening to Pam comment on it was sort of like rubbing it in.

"That's cold."

"You slept with him, didn't he do the same thing with you?"

"He was far too exhausted to go anywhere when I was finished with him, thank you very much. Men do not leave me, Sookie, I leave them."

"So sorry to have offended." Pam's eyes sparkled with mirth and I laughed quietly.

"Let's talk about something else okay?"

"Very well. I am dating someone." I merely raised an eyebrow at this. Pam saying she was dating was like Cher giving a farewell tour. Sure you wanted to believe them when they told you, but ultimately you knew that they knew that they didn't really mean it.

"And who is the lucky fellow?"

"His name is Andre. He's good on paper, alright in bed. He is in the hotel business, 42 and never married, no children, old money." Pam had just summed up her dream guy. I knew there was a 'but' coming soon. "It's just that…"

"Yes?" She was hesitant to tell me, so it must have been big.

"He's not really my type."

"How so?" He sounded like everything she had ever wanted in a man.

"I think I actually like him." Leave it to Pam to find the only undesirable trait in a man to be that she didn't think he was an asshole. In general I have always held the belief that women are slightly ass backwards about what they want in a man, but Pam always managed to astound me with her new and unique takes on neuroses.

"Maybe that's a good thing?"

"I don't know. Maybe." I hoped for her sake it was. Pam deserved to be happy after all the shit she had gone through in her life.

After lunch we parted ways with Pam promising to stop by and see me Saturday morning and off I went to visit Amelia at Bob's. I closed my eyes for the briefest second and raised my face to the sun. Although it was early April and still fairly cold the slightest notes of spring were in the air and it was such a wonderful reprieve from the harsh winter weather. The stirrings of new birth in the world always managed to bring me out of my winter funk. It was something about the birds chirping and the tiny green buds on trees that lifted my spirits considerably.

As I walked into Bob's I heard the light tinkling of the bell Amelia had hung in the door to alert her to customers. Instead of Amelia I saw Jess, a young redheaded college student who worked as a part time barista. She greeted me with a smile and a soy latte.

"Haven't seen you in a while," she said cheerfully and reached into the massive jar on the counter to produce biscotti which she handed over on a napkin.

"Thanks. I know, I've been busy with work lately. Is Amelia around?"

Jess was extremely nice and a little naïve, but in the most charming of ways. She reminded me of myself in that we were both sort of like fringe invaders of the close-knit group; there, but just somehow not really a part of the whole. She and her boyfriend Hoyt would often make appearances on Friday nights at Lou Pine's, or at least they had when I was still going. Not only had I given up normal outings with my friends I had also been avoiding anywhere that Eric would most likely be. I wasn't sure what it was I was avoiding exactly since we lived together and he was always around. I think in the back of my mind I liked Eric just a bit more when he was on stage and it was just a bit too painful to have to see him knowing the real Eric I lived with was a vastly different person.

"Amelia!" Jess screamed out loud and I furrowed my brow at her with a smile before looking around to see if the customers were disturbed. There was only an elderly couple and a chicly dressed young businessman sitting at the far end of the café and neither party even flinched at the high-pitched wail. Annoying as it was, it was effective because not seconds later Amelia emerged from the swinging back door of the kitchen with a hand towel in one hand and a spoon in the other.

"What? For chrissakes, Jess, how many times do I have to tell you not to yell for me? Is it too much to ask that you expend even a modicum of energy just to peek your head back and talk to me like a normal person? Sookie, oh my god, I thought you were dead and Eric was just smoking so much he couldn't smell the stench of your decomposing body!" She interrupted herself halfway through her rant to fling her arms around me and hold me tight in an embrace. I relaxed into her arms, realizing that I had missed her much more than I thought.

"I'm sorry," I said when she pulled away and added a pouty lower lip to my apology in hopes that she would take pity on me.

"As you should be. How's life?"

"Busy. Lonely. How have you been?"

"Still trying," she said getting quietly serious for a moment. She was referring to the fact that she and Tray were trying to get pregnant and had been unsuccessful thus far. I knew it was particularly painful and I felt very guilty all of a sudden for being an absent friend.

"How's Tray?"

"He's trying really hard to be strong for both of us. I know he isn't talking to anyone about it, though, so I'm a little concerned that he's just going to shut down completely once it all becomes too much."

"It'll happen for you, Ames. I know it will. You were born to be a mother." I gently rubbed Amelia's back as she tried to hold back tears. Placing a brave smile on her face she gave a short laugh through her sniffles and nodded as if she agreed. I wasn't certain she did at that moment, but who was I to force her to talk about things that were painful.

She exhaled shakily, "We have each other." She said this as if it were more for her own benefit than mine, but I nodded in agreement anyway.

"You guys are really lucky to have found one another. I feel like I'm going to be alone forever."

"Don't close yourself off to the possibility of love, Sookie."

I popped up onto the counter that I had been leaning against. Swinging my legs absentmindedly I watched as she wiped down the opposite counter and organized around the register. Jess pulled herself up onto the counter next to me and shook a near empty carafe at me as a way of asking if I wanted a cup. I shook my head and tipped my mug to show her that I still had latte left in it.

"And how are you and Hoyt?" As I asked this question her face broke into the widest grin I had ever seen. It was evident from her reaction that she was totally head over heels and my natural reaction was to feel intensely jealous. I wanted to chalk it up to young love, to not knowing any better than to be bitter about romantic relationships, but I knew that wasn't it. I was jealous because I didn't think I had ever felt true love. Infatuation, lust, those things I knew, but truthfully I had never made it far enough into a relationship to know what came after the newness wore off.

"Good," I replied with a smile and lightly nudged her with my elbow. She blushed and bit down on her lip in an effort to stop smiling, but it was useless, she was still gushing just at the thought of her boyfriend.

Suddenly I felt a sharp sting on my thigh as Amelia's hand came down with a loud 'thwack'. "Shit," I exclaimed, rubbing my thigh briskly.

"Don't be such a baby. I know what you are thinking, Susanna. Love does not just happen to you, you need to actually make an effort to leave your apartment every once and awhile and expose yourself to the outside world. No one is ever going to fall in love with you from the confines of your bedroom." I regretted telling her my full name. I should have known she would only use it against me.

"How do you know I don't leave? I don't tell you everything," I attempted weakly to make an argument for myself. Though we both knew that if I was going anywhere I only had a limited number of friends to go with and she knew them all.

"Do you forget that I talk to Pam?" Pam, of course. I decided I wasn't going to tell her anything ever again. "I only say these things because I love you and love is what it is all about. It is what every great writer has written about, what every great song has been sung about. The passion we find within ourselves is the passion that is awakened by others. If you chose to live your life putting off finding that true inspiration then you will find yourself alone at the end of your life with nothing to keep you warm but empty words."

I look over to see Jess nodding along. She made a good point, but that didn't mean that I had to accept it. I had wanted to cheekily respond that lots of people had found love over the years through internet dating. While I couldn't stastically confirm my hypothesis I could reasonably assume that a great majority of those people were at some point on their computer in their bedroom. I refrained, though, because I knew she was only saying it to try and encourage me, there was no need to be a smartass.

We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing decidedly less heavy subject matter and I headed home feeling a million pounds lighter.

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad," Amelia confessed to me as she was hugging me goodbye. "I just think you are a badass chick and I want to see you happy."

"I am happy," I answered feebly. She didn't say anything else.

Later that night I was wrapped in a blanket on the couch lazily drifting off to sleep while half watching a ridiculous sitcom that was more aggravating than entertaining. It wasn't terribly late, probably only about nine or so, but I was exhausted. Feeling a slight chill through the thin paned window next to me I pulled the blanket closer around me and heaved myself off the couch in an attempt to move to my room. Only I must have heaved a little too enthusiastically because I heaved myself right into the coffee table, tripped over my own legs and ended up sprawled on the floor. I was lying there thinking that it couldn't get any worse when I heard the door open. In the back of my mind I knew I should get up, but instead I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that Eric would merely not notice me on his way by. I heard the distinct heavy thud of his steel-toed boots as he made his way across the hardwood floors only to have my heart catch in my throat when they abruptly stopped.

Knowing he had discovered my pathetic state I looked up reluctantly and found myself staring into his beautiful blue eyes. He had crouched down over me, his tangled hair hung in his face as he looked down at me with a smirk. At least someone was enjoying this. I fought the urge to reach up and brush away his hair opting instead to push myself up.

"What happened?"

"I was admiring the ceiling," I snapped a little too harshly. Being so near to him was wreaking havoc on my stomach; it flipped and flopped in a very nausea inducing way.

"Sorry," he said, putting his hands up in a defensive motion.

"No, I'm sorry. I just fell." He was alone. God help me, but all I could think about was how good he looked. He wore a black wool coat that was at least a size too big over a dingy t-shirt that I imagine at one point had been white, but was now more of a yellow. His hair looked as though it had been washed recently, but due to his nervous habit of running his hands through it, it was tangled and wild. My body always had such a visceral reaction to his that it was almost a comfort that someone else was always around. If we weren't alone it was so much easier to control myself. I realized that the hollow feeling in my stomach weren't just random loneliness—I had missed Eric. We had come to form some weird friendship and then sex or lack thereof, just fucked it all up. I missed how he made me laugh, and the random stupid things he said to me. I spent so much time trying not to think of Eric sexually that I had just stopped thinking of him altogether.

But standing just a bit too closely in the quiet confines of our living room was setting ablaze the feelings I had fought to control. I wouldn't kiss him. I was stronger than that.

I abruptly turned and walked into my bedroom, stopping to shut off the TV acting like I wasn't running away but rather just continuing on the path I had started on before falling on my ass. I made it into my room and was about to turn and shut the door when I saw that Eric had followed me. Unsure of what was going on I simply left the door open and laid down on my bed, my blanket still wrapped firmly around my body.

"What's up?" I asked as casually as I could possibly manage.

He pulled my worn copy of The Hottest State from his back pocket. I hadn't expected that after all this time he would return it, but here he was placing it with almost reverence at the foot of my bed. Then without asking my permission he laid down next to me, completely parallel to my body not one inch of his being in contact with mine. My body hummed with the painful need to touch and be touched.

"I finished it," he offered after a brief silence. It was disconcerting the way he seemed so comfortable laying next to me, unaware of the deep anxiety it dredged up in me.

"Oh," I said cautiously, not really certain what type of reaction he was looking for. We both lay there for a few moments looking up at my ceiling. Eventually the silence was so thick I thought I might scream just to break it. Obviously he had something to say, otherwise he could just have easily left the book and gone on his way.

"What did you think?" I asked with slight trepidation. The way he was going about this was keeping me on edge and I just wished he would get on with it.

"I think you were wrong." Well what else was new?

"About?" I prompted.

"He wasn't an ass. He didn't portray her as some basket case to soften the blow of his insensitivity."

"I don't recall saying quite those words, but please, enlighten me."

"He was a young guy, inexperienced and kind of naïve who had had a bad run of things thus far with women and very few positive examples of functioning relationships growing up. He had finally found someone who fascinated him, an attractive, intelligent woman who couldn't be compartmentalized into any of his preconceived definitions of femininity."

I had the distinct urge to roll my eyes at where this was going; of course Eric sympathized with the Ethan Hawke character. But this was the most I had heard Eric say in weeks and I didn't want to stop him talking. It felt good and I didn't want to mess that up.

"Only, this kid is uncomfortable with how to deal with his feelings for the woman who only baffles him. He doesn't know who he is, isn't mature enough to enter into a meaningful adult relationship with her as evidenced by the fact that he is so consumed with the thought of having sex with her. Not to mention the fact that she holds so many cards over him, she's mature and smart, has experience and above all knowingly denies him the sex he so desperately craves even though it is clear the effect it is having on him."

"Wait, wait a minute. You think he is immature because he wants to have sex with her? No offense, but coming from you that's just funny."

"No, the sex isn't why he's immature. Sex is an equalizer; no matter who we are, how different we are everyone fucks the same. By having sex with her he will be able to bring her down off a pedestal in his mind and essentially take away some of what mystifies him."

"Interesting," I say softly. Sweet Jesus, who knew?

"So anyway, she essentially uses this knowledge to manipulate him in hopes that she can force him to mature under duress. In the end they knew they weren't right for one another and they chose the best possible route, which was to acknowledge that and prevent themselves from causing each other further pain."

"While I don't necessarily agree with all of that, I'm pretty impressed. How many times did you read it?" I almost wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. I was tired, far too tired to analyze the spiel that had just been relayed to me. Perhaps when I woke up I would consider what it all meant, but right at that very moment I just wanted to sleep.

"More than once," he answered vaguely.

My eyelids were drooping and I was having trouble keeping awake. I yawned big and curled up on my side into Eric's shoulder, inhaling his scent and burrowing my head into the soft warmth of his skin.

"We can talk about it tomorrow," I think I said, but I was already half gone. I felt his chest rumble with a silent laugh and he kissed my temple.

"Goodnight," he mumbled into my ear, but I was asleep.

I awoke alone the next morning, the smell of fresh coffee yanked me from my dreams. I had been dreaming that I was a telepathic barmaid in love with an ancient vampire who loosely resembled Eric. Pam had also been a vampire, which I doubted she would be pleased with. It was all very bizarre. I rolled out of bed and pulled on a worn pair of skinny jeans and an oversized red and black plaid shirt. Gathering my hair up into a loose bun, I was still securing the elastic when I walked into the kitchen.

I stopped short at the sight before me. Tara was sitting on the counter. I was hurt, overwhelmed with an emotion I couldn't adequately express.

"Hey," she greeted me with a smile and I had to fight the sudden urge I had to throw up. I hadn't felt Eric leave my bed last night, hadn't heard him leave or return home, but there was proof sitting in my kitchen smiling at me at that hadn't just returned to his room and gone to sleep. I didn't know what to say, I was feeling disoriented. The suffocation from invisible weight pushing down on my chest drove me back into my room. I shoved my feet into the ugliest but most comfortable pair of Ugg boots, grabbed my keys, a wad of cash and my ten-dollar plastic imitation wayfarers from my beside table where I had dumped them the day before and out the door I was walking. Down the stairs, out the door, down the street I walked. I walked and I walked. I didn't know where I was going, but when my heart finally ceased the double time rhythm that it had begun beating out from the second I saw Tara I stopped and slumped over in the middle of the street. Bracing my hands against my thighs I breathed deeply in and out and tried to think clearly about where I was going.

I could have easily gone to Pam's, but something told me she wasn't there alone and the last thing I felt like doing was making this particular first impression on a man she was getting serious about. And so I continued to walk aimlessly, not thinking of anything. Moving was a means to distract myself. If I just kept going then I had a purpose. The moment I found myself on the stoop of Tray and Amelia's apartment something inside me broke. I wasn't sure if I went there on purpose or if my feet had just subconsciously carried me there, but the second I rang the doorbell I began sobbing.

I couldn't clearly see through my tears, but I knew Tray had opened the door and was silently regarding me with confusion. He didn't say a word as I lifted the sunglasses from my face and placed them on top of my head. I could only imagine how pathetic I looked standing there sobbing uncontrollably, hair askew and no makeup. He didn't miss a beat though, as he pulled me into his large, strong arms and called out for his wife in the calmest voice I had ever heard. His kindness only made me cry harder still.

"What?" Amelia said as she walked into the scene, she had a towel on her head and I immediately regretting intruding on their morning. "Oh my god, what happened? Is everything okay?" When she saw the state I was in she rushed to my side. Obviously the sight of me had sent Amelia to panic mode and I waved my hands uselessly in an attempt to convey that everything was fine. "Take your time," she said soothingly as I began choking on air while I attempted to stifle my hysterical sobs.

After a few moments I was able to get it out. "I love him."

I will never be able to erase that look of pity that washed over Amelia's face from my memory.

"Who?" She asked obligingly as if she didn't have the answer.

"Eric. I love him." And I began crying again.


Additional Author's Note: Y'all I almost peed my pants in excitement. I'm in an effin' community.
Okay, so lots o' people have been saying that Eric is super confusing (which he is, but he is a man after all) so I hope we will slowly be unraveling the Northman mystery soon. Also, Cutiekins: sup? I read your review and I'm all 'oh they hook up a little and then run away from each other? well, then I won't do that this chapter'. I wrote the whole thing and then I realized that is exactly what I did yet again, lol.

Lastly, peppermintyrose: I have a crush on you too! *gushes and runs away*