You better think
(Think)
Think about what
You're trying to do to me

Mid 1998

"Have you seen Eric?" Sookie asked Lafayette as she entered the garage. She and Eric had been dating for the past year and a half, and so far everything had been fine. They fought of course, they were teenagers and human after all, but, like moons revolving around a planet, they seemed to gravitate towards each other.

"Can't say I have baby doll," Lafayette replied looking up from cleaning his drum kit. "Why, did y'all get into a fight again?"

Sookie sighed, biting her lip and nodding her head before flopping into the old familiar couch. While in the past their fights have been only once every couple of months; now it seemed like they would fight, make up, and then go right back to fighting.

"Yeah, we did," she said, bringing her knees to her chest and trying to blink back the tears that filled her eyes. Lafayette immediately abandoned his drums and hopped over the back of the couch and wrapped his arms around her comfortingly.

"Sweetie, tell Lafayette what happened," he crooned, rubbing her back in soothing circles.

"I don't know!" She wailed out, bursting into tears and sobbing into her hands violently. Lafayette withdrew his hand from her back and looked terrified, clearly regretting trying to comfort the poor girl. "I honestly don't know what happened," she choked out. "We were enjoying a perfectly nice dinner and date, and then he throws down his napkin, accuses the busboy of looking at my breasts, and me of flirting with him, and then he just storms out, and I haven't seen him since!" She dropped her face into her hands once more and sobbed even louder.

Alcide and Sam walked in, saw the sobbing Sookie, and promptly turned on their heels to walk back out the way they came.

"Oh, no no no boys," Lafayette called after them, "Get your fine asses back in here right now."

They came back in, dragging their feet and mumbling under their breath, but still gathered around the couch to be near to Sookie.

Alcide draped himself across the back of the couch, occupying himself by playing with Sookie's hair. "So what's the crisis?" He drawled out, while Sam situated himself at Sookie's feet, lightly strumming at his guitar, a tune that vaguely sounded like 'Smoke on the Water'.

Lafayette quickly filled them in on what happened, and their expressions of disdain changed into those of sympathy, and Alcide leaned forward to drop a kiss on the top of her head.

"I'm so sorry that happened chere. Do you want me to kick his ass?" He offered, and Sam punctuated it with a sharp strum on his guitar.

Sookie sniffled and shook her head pathetically.

"There's one thing that's bothering me though sweet thing," Lafayette began, leaning over to wrap his arm around her shoulder. "If you guys were out on a date, he must've picked you up; but if he left you half way through, how did you get home?"

Sookie lifted her head and simply said, "I walked home," and immediately, the three boys bodies stiffened.

Sam tightened his hold around his guitar's neck, so tight it was almost likely to break. "What?" He growled out in outrage. "You had to walk home? Sookie, you went to a restaurant in fucking Shreveport! Don't tell me you walked to Bon Temps from there?"

"Who walked to Bon Temps from where?" Bill asked, walking into the garage and only hearing the tail end of Sam's comment.

"Sookie walked home from Shreveport," Alcide replied helpfully, and Bill's face immediately darkened with rage.

"What? I thought Eric was with her," he stated, walking over to the couch, and sitting on the arm next to her.

Lafayette snorted disdainfully. "So did we."

Eric chose that moment to stumble into the garage, wearing rumpled clothes, and sporting a scruffy beard, and when he saw his band mates framing his girlfriend on the couch, a sneer formed on his face. "Well isn't this cozy," he spat out, before heading towards the fridge in the back, grabbing a beer and popping it open.

Sookie stood up abruptly the moment she sighted her boyfriend, causing Alcide to fall off the back of the couch with a resounding 'thump', but Sookie didn't even cast a glance in his direction. She only had eyes for Eric.

"Eric, where on Earth have you been?" She walked over to him, and gently traced his face with her hands, as if checking for injuries. "I've been so worried about you; I've been out looking for you all night!"

Eric jerked his face from her hands, ignoring the hurt look on her face, and the pang of guilt it caused on the inside. "Would you just give it a fucking rest Sookie?" He snapped, causing her to blanch back in shock and hurt. He had never spoken to her like that. "I'm sorry I left you at the restaurant, I am, but just let it go, alright?"

At his words, the rest of his band had scrambled to their feet, and were watching the couples' interaction with clenched fists.

Sookie stared deep into his eyes, more tears welling up into her own. "Eric," she whispered, looking down at the floor so she wouldn't have to see him. "I think we need a break."

She heard the muttered exclamations of her friends behind her, but ignored them and chanced a peek at Eric, who looked like he'd just been sucker punched.

"You're breaking up with me?" He whispered all his anger forgotten when shock overwhelmed him.

She shook her head furiously. "No! Just a break, we need some time apart, for the time being at least."

"Time apart? TIME APART?" He roared, breaking the silence the whispers had left, causing everyone to jump. "Fuck Sookie, that sounds like a break to me!"

"Well it's not!" She snapped back at him, her temper and pride getting the better of him. "This, right here?" She gestured between the two of them. "This is why we need a break. Eric, don't you get it? We spend more time fighting than we do happy, and I don't want to live like that anymore. So we need a break. A temporary break," she said firmly, her hands on her hips.

"Well, I don't want a break," he said stubbornly, crossing his arms across his chest, the beer bottle still dangling from his hand.

She glared at him. "Well you know what Eric? I'm past caring what you want," she said snippily, then turning and grabbing her purse from the couch and storming out of the garage.

"I'll give her a ride," Alcide muttered, and then chased her out.

Eric stared at the door, panting slightly, and clenching the bottle in his hand tightly, his eyes ablaze with rage. "FUCK!" He screamed, and threw the bottle at the wall where it shattered, spewing its contents, and causing it to run down the wall where it pooled at the floor.

He slid down the refrigerator, and gripped his hair with his hands. "Fuck," he muttered dejectedly.

Lafayette walked over and slid down the fridge to sit next to his friend, because pissed as he was at that moment, Eric looked truly broken hearted, and the flamboyant man's heart went out to him.

"I can't believe she broke up with me," Eric moaned, his voice muffled by his hands.

Bill walked over to him, with Sam trailing behind, still strumming on his guitar. "Did you not hear a word she said?" Bill asked savagely. He was pissed beyond all belief that Eric had fucked things up with Sookie so badly. He did not walk away from them just for her to get her heart stomped all over.

"Huh?" Eric asked, raising his head in a daze, but furiously rubbing at his eyes with his sleeve, trying desperately to hide the sight of his tears, even to his best friends.

"She didn't break up with you, you asshole," Sam bit out, for once stopping the strumming of his guitar. "She just wants a break, there's a difference, which you clearly fail to see. She just wants so time apart so you guys can think things over, give you both a chance to breathe."

Lafayette chuckled softly, causing the others to look at him as if he were insane. "See?" He choked out between laughs, "Even the stoner gets it." There was silence for a moment, before all of them burst out laughing, falling all over each other, trying to get the tension from the air, so they could talk freely.

After they had gotten all the laughter out of their system, they sat around in silence, just lost in their own thoughts until Sam pulled out a joint, lit it then asked, "Anyone want a puff?" Looking upon their pot smoking friend indulgently, as one would a child, they all declined, and he shrugged. "Suit yourselves." And he took a great big puff, exhaling in satisfaction.

"So what happened?" Bill asked Eric, still looking at his old friend with hard eyes. He was not one to quickly forgive. Never had been, and especially not when it came to Sookie.

Eric's head dropped back into his hands. "I don't fucking know," he muttered. "I wish I did, but I have no fucking clue when everything fell apart. For the first couple of months everything was great, we couldn't get enough of each other, always hanging around, she was coming to band practices, we were chilling at school, going on dates at night… and then it changed. Suddenly little things began to bother me, and irritate me, and I would point them out and she would get pissed. I would say something to her, and she disagreed, and we would fight about that. Suddenly hanging out with her constantly wasn't all that fun anymore, but what the fuck were we supposed to do? We're dating for God's sake!" He looked up at them with true panic in his eyes. "What if the break is only a lead up to the inevitable? The beginning of the end?"

The rest of them rolled their eyes at his melodramatics, while Lafayette snickered at his expression. "You're such a fuck up sometimes baby boy," he cooed, and Eric glared at him, not sure which he took offense to, being called a fuck up, or being called baby boy. "Shit, with Sookie, everything just came so naturally to you, I forget how little relationship experience you really have." His expression and tone changed to that of one speaking to a child. "Honey, what you and Sookie were going through is what is called the 'honeymoon period', the relationship is new and exciting, you always want to spend time together, learning new things about each other."

Eric nodded slowly in acceptance, and Lafayette continued. "Generally after that, the couple begins to experience what you described. They find more out about their significant other, and they find there are things about the other that bother them. It happens, it's natural. And when it does happen, generally couples kind of move apart from each other, spend time with their friend's a little more, they give each other space. You and Sookie, from the sound of it, didn't do that. Big mistake."

It was silent for a couple more minutes, while Eric took all of the information he had been given in, and processed it. Then out of nowhere, Sam said, "Yeah," and nodded his head emphatically, his eyes glassy and the joint still burning in his hand. His friends rolled their eyes and ignored him.

Finally, Eric heaved a great sigh and asked, "So how do I fix this?"

Bill and Lafayette exchanged sly glances, and Bill said with a mischievous grin. "You take a break."

A/N: The beginning of the end. Not of the story, just of their relationship. More from the past will come up; this is just one of the leading factors in their breakup. There were some minor references to two others, but I'll leave those for you to guess at. Honestly, the whole time I was writing this, I was thinking about Ross and Rachel from Friends. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!

I'm practicing my lemons, so look for a lemony one shot coming up within the next couple of days, hopefully tomorrow, entitled 'The Love Hotel'

I'm on twitter; you can find me there under this pen name if you wish to follow me for updates.

The Playlist

Think- Aretha Franklin