In The City by PersianFreak

Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Charlaine Harris, I'm just taking her toys out to play with.

Rating: M

A/N: Another EPOV. I actually really adore this chapter for intangible reasons, so please let me know how you like it because as of now, it is the last EPOV. Also, here be lemons.

Comments are, as always, more than welcome.


Remember those walls I built?

Well baby, they're tumbling down.

Didn't even put up a fight,

Didn't even make a sound.

"Halo" (cover), Sam Tsui


July 2011

"Can I come over?" Sookie's voice asks the moment I answer the call and it takes me a minute to figure out what time it is, what day it is, and if there is any reason I know of that would instigate this call and the edge in her voice. I rub my eyes and push my hair back from my face. It's 2 in the afternoon on Wednesday and I really should be out of bed, but last night some idiot with too much tequila decided Chuck was giving his girlfriend the eye and therefore needed to be taught a lesson. A mistake on the idiot's part because, A) Chuck is definitely gay and if he was giving a woman the eye it was probably followed up with 'Honey, that scarf is gorgeous!' and, B) Chuck is a black belt. I'd had to stay late at Eclipse to deal with the repercussions of having my bartender take down a patron, even if it was in self-defence, because the patron in question had chosen to press charges and I had found myself bailing out Chuck at an ungodly hour. Hence the sleep deprivation. But none of that explains why my girlfriend is asking me if she can come over, over the phone as opposed to through text and, on top of that, at a point in the day during which she should be working.

"Of course," I say, frowning. We've been together for months and even though she has a key to my apartment, she refuses to just barge into my place even though she has every right to, in my mind. "Are you okay? You sound-"

"I'm fine. Can I come over now?" She is so not okay but I'm willing to drop it until she actually gets here.

"Of course," I say again.

"Have you had lunch, 'cause I haven't and I was going to grab something on my way there."

"No, but I can make something." I offer quickly, running through all the ingredients presently in my fridge and the various meals I can fix with them. "Lasagne, burgers, some form of pasta? What do you want?"

She sighs as if relieved, "Can there be breakfast food? Greasy, artery-clogging breakfast food?" I can't help smiling because breakfast food is our thing, it's what we have when there is no tomato soup which is our first choice for a low-profile night. Or day, in this instance.

"Sure," I laugh lightly into the phone.

"Thank you."

"Anything for you." I can hear her exhaling happily into the phone and I smile with the knowledge that I've lightened her mood, if only a little. "How long will you be?" Shoving back the comforter, I get out of bed and waver, unsteady with the deep sleep I was roused from.

"Half an hour? Forty five minutes?" More time than I need.

"Sounds good," I say, trapping the phone between my shoulder and right ear as I head to my kitchen and pull out bacon and eggs, among other things. We say good-bye and I set to fixing the food so that by the time Sookie knocks at my door, I've prepared eggs, bacon, grilled cheese sandwiches, and chocolate-chip pancakes. The toast pops out of the toaster as I call out that the door is open and Sookie walks in, face lighting up as she takes in the feast on the kitchen island.

"Hey, tall, blonde and culinary genius," Sookie greets me and I laugh, grabbing the biggest plates I have and piling them with the food. I have coffee brewing and I pour us both orange juice as she takes a seat in a high chair. Setting the plate in front of her, I bend down and give her more than just a brief kiss and she smiles sweetly.

"Good afternoon, min älskade," I whisper and she rests her palms on my cheeks, pulling me close for another kiss.

"This looks amazing," she muses.

"Oh, this old thing, I've had it for- oh, you meant the food," I grin, brushing imaginary dust off of the sweatpants I'm wearing. "Dig in," I wave her on and she shoots me a grateful smile while I go to pour us the coffee, joining her a moment later. Eating in silence, we rinse the dishes together like we always do and load the dishwasher before settling on the couch. I flick on the TV so we can pretend to watch while she decides to tell me about what has upset her, and for the first time I realize that this isn't over a high-maintenance client or too much traffic. This is something major enough that she refuses to curl up at my side or sit close enough for me to put my arms around her.

"Were you still in bed?" Her eyes flick to my open bedroom door and for the first time she seems to really notice my sleep attire.

"Yeah, I got home late. Long story, I'll tell you later." I wave a dismissive hand but the look she shoots me says that she'd rather hear my story first, so I launch into the short version of last night's incident, falling silent once the story is over.

"Yesterday was the anniversary of my parents' death," she whispers at last, eyes trained on the claddagh ring I gave her when we first got together. When I reach out to take her hand, she retracts it and I continue to sit silently as I await the rest. "I got into a fight with Jason. He um, went to their grave yesterday and could tell I hadn't been there, so he called me today and told me that I'm a bad daughter for not visiting their grave, for never coming over to check on the house."

"Sookie, that's not true."

"But he's right. I never go to visit their grave. Or Gran's. I just don't, I can't handle it, it's too much."

"That doesn't make you a bad daughter," I try to interrupt but she cuts me off.

"How do you know? How can you just decide?"

"Sookie, being a good daughter is not about visiting the burial place of your parents. It's about living a good life and becoming a person they would have been proud of." She looks at me, her eyes practically swimming with tears.

"And how do I know I've done that?" Moving closer to her on the couch, I take her hand into mine. She doesn't retract it this time.

"You've done that," I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss it. "You're smart and kind and beautiful, and you're hard-working and loving. You're what every parent wants their child to become." The tears begin rolling down her face. "Don't let your brother get to you like that."

"But he's my brother, he's my family," she argues, voice thick with her tears and I pull her into my arms, her tendency to pull back be damned.

"Just because you're biologically related doesn't make you family, Sookie." I stroke her hair back. "Family is the people that take care of you, that love you, that really know you." You're my family. I'm your family. Why do you not see that?

"I'm going to Victoria tomorrow," she tells me quietly after a moment of considering my words. "Will you...?"

"I'd love to." She hasn't been to Victoria in all the months we've been together and everytime I bring up perhaps being introduced to her only remaining living relative, she dodges it by saying that Jason's too busy, that we'll meet at Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter. My own parents met her when they visited me over Christmas, and are already asking me when I'm going to propose. Of course, they don't know that I've been hiding an engagement ring in my closet for ages and that I am almost positive Sookie will say no when I ask her. The first time, anyway. Pam's money is on a 'yes' on the third time I ask, and Chuck's is on a fourth. Amelia pretended to be outraged that bets were being taken, but then put in a fifty on the first time, much to Pam's disbelief. Personally, I don't care when she says it, as long as the end result is her becoming Mrs Northman. "I wanted to visit an old friend too. I booked a hotel room before I left the office."

"Sounds good," I nod. She pauses, staring down at her lap still encircled in my arms and I let her figure out whatever it is she wants to figure out. I glance at the clock and look back to find her following my gaze. It's almost four.

"Oh, I should go. Let you get ready for work," she mutters and nudges my arms away.

"It's fine. I can stay in with you."

"You can't, don't you have to deal with crisis fallout over the Chuck thing?"

"It's fine," I repeat. "I already made sure there'll be three bouncers tonight and Chuck's bringing a friend from his tae kwon do class to tend the bar with him. There won't be any trouble."

"Oh, okay." Dropping her head, she tries to hide a smile but I'm having none of that.

"Hey. Hey." Nudging her head up, I nuzzle her and kiss the line of her jaw, lightly pressing my lips into the soft flesh under her ear. She shudders under my hands and I kiss her ear, unable to keep my lips off of her. Ten months of being with her, loving her, and it's still hard to not touch her when she's around me. It's still hard to be away from her for more than a day or so at a time, to not hear her voice every day. Ten months and every time she touches me, I still feel like I'm going to combust or break apart and I'm okay with it all as long as it gets to be in her hands, as long as she's the one that sets me on fire, that takes me apart and puts me back together.

"You missed a spot," my Sookie tells me, quite seriously and I pull back in confusion to see her tap a finger on her lips which turn up in a smile.

"Did I?" I grin, catching on. "You think I should rectify that? I can't have part of you feel neglected."

"Well there are other parts of me that are feeling neglected. Those can certainly use your attentions." I gasp in mock outrage.

"I should definitely fix that. Which part? Is it... this one?" I kiss her nose.

"Uh-uh."

"No? Hmm. How 'bout..." I take her shirt off and kiss her shoulder.

"Nope."

"Damn." I continue my way down, pressing my lips to the swell of her breasts while my fingers unhook her bra, urged on by her negative responses.

"Here?"

"Uh uh."

"Here."

"Nope." I graze my teeth around her belly button and smile at her sharp inhale. Sookie squirms restlessly when I unbutton her jeans and kiss the newly-revealed V of flesh, sucking at her skin. "Baby."

"Be patient with me, min älskade." I smile in mock apology and tap her hips in a signal for her to lift them so I can slide off the fabric. I hook my fingers under the elastic of her thong and slide it all off in one go. "My gorgeous girl," I muse, ducking down to kiss the inside of her thigh, trailing kisses right up to her core. She jolts when I latch onto her clit and I place two firm hands on her hips to keep her from moving.

"Eric, Eric, Eric," she chants when I give her a long lick and her slim fingers tangle in my hair; it's the most fucking erotic my name has ever sounded. She gets worked up quickly just as I expected her to. The mood she is in always determines how quickly I can push her to the edge. Vulnerable ranks pretty high on her orgasm-receptive list of emotions, so it isn't long before she's arching her neck back and letting out a long string of vulgarities with my name occasionally thrown into the mix. It's the hottest thing I have ever witnessed, the sounds she makes when she's close and the way her hands pull on my hair. She cries out and it's almost enough for me to come in my own pants and then she's shaking, jerking against my mouth. I kiss my way back up the length of her torso, mouthing at her abdomen still clenched with her orgasm.

Reaching her ear, I whisper, "I think I found it, Sook." Shooting me a quizzical look, her face still flushed with pleasure, Sookie bursts out laughing and pulls my mouth to hers, moaning at the taste of her own juices.

"Nicely done, Mr Northman."

"Well, thank you."

"I love you."

"Jag älskar dig, min älskare."

"I love you," she breaths again and tightens her arms around me. "Was the orgasm because you love me or because you wanted to cheer me up?" Ah, smart girl.

"Why can't it be both?" I smile enigmatically and take her hand to stand her up. Reaching to undress me, she places soft kisses on my chest and I groan at the sensation of her soft lips on my skin. My sweatpants are tugged off and kicked aside, and I can feel myself harden even more at the sound she makes when she takes note of my lack of underwear.

"Couch?" I ask, giving her the choice of being made love to on a soft bed or pleasured on the couch, and she nods in agreement with the latter. "Turn around, lover." I guide her to stand with one foot on the ground with the other leg bent, knee on the couch as she leans forward to hold onto the armrest. Kissing up her spine, I steady her hips and check to make sure she's ready and, when I find her more than so, I push in slowly. She arches into me and I wrap one arm around the front of her hips and drop the other to work her in syncopation with my thrusts. She reaches over her shoulder to tangle it in my hair, tugging a little harder than usual and I moan into her skin because no matter how many times we do this, she finds a way to drive me crazy, to make me crave her. Sookie whimpers and exhales roughly and I kiss her feverishly, my hips speeding up of their own accord.

"Fuck, Eric, I'm so close," she whispers, her voice breaking and I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling my own orgasm approaching me as my balls tighten. Grabbing my wrist, she moves the finger I was rubbing her with to her mouth and sucks roughly at the pad, making me come so hard that I can feel my spine extending. One more thrust and she's gone with me, crying out and curling into herself as I continue riding her through it the way she likes. The t-shirt I was wearing is on the couch and I pull out to sit on it and lean back against the other armrest, pulling her into my arms. Resting her head on my chest, she holds my hand against her stomach and we lay there wordlessly for quite a while.

"Thank you," she sighs, placing a kiss over my heart.

"For what, mitt hjärta?"

"Oh, you want me to spell it out?" She laughs and I smile at the feel of her body shaking in my arms. "For the food and the comfort and the orgasms." Her body shakes with amusement again at the last. "Oh and for loving me."

"It was my pleasure. And I do mean pleasure." I poke her playfully in the ribs and Sookie shakes her head and twists so that her back is against my chest. The hand I put to rest on her abdomen she takes up to her mouth and then proceeds to kiss every knuckle of my left hand.

"My Eric. My älskling," she murmurs and I let out a shocked laugh.

"Oh your Eric, huh? And who taught you Swedish?"

"Yes, my Eric. And I got Pam drunk so that she would be nice and teach me a bit." She sounds so proud of herself and I'm so pleased with her possession of me – something I've been working on by calling her mine for the past ten months – that I sit us both up and wrap my arms around her waist and bury my face in her hair. Giggling, she adds, "Oh, and thank you for coming to Victoria with me."

"You're very welcome, sötnos." I'm laying it on thick now and I grin because she has no clue what I'm saying. It's a game now, to see how much I can get away with before she starts somehow translating my words.

"You know what I like?" she asks suddenly and I make an inquisitive sound. "You're over six feet tall. And you're, what, two-hundred-and-something pounds. I mean, you're a big guy."

"You would know," I quip.

"Yeah, me and half the women in the Vancouver metropolis." She retorts calmly and continues. God, I love her. "My point is, you don't look like the kind of guy who would do cute. But you do cute. Not in English though, which I suppose is the point, you're cute in Swedish. Even though I don't know what you're saying half the time, I can tell it is. And it's just me that you're like this with; you tease Pam and act cutesy, but you're... sincere with me. And I like it. I like you, which in a lot of ways is a bigger compliment." This is the post-orgasm rambling, when Sookie just speaks her mind without worrying about whether or not she's losing her independence to me or if she's being too clingy or too lovey-dovey. I look forward to it every time because even if she shuts down for any of the hundred reasons, she pours out her heart after an orgasm or two. It's such a fucking relief to have her be the one to tell me things freely instead of me having to coax it out of her.

"How is it a bigger compliment, sweetheart?" I emphasize the English term of endearment and she shoots me a grin.

"I like that," she comments before continuing, "Because it's easy to fall in love. If you find the right person, even if you pretend that you're not and even if you try to not let yourself, you fall in love anyways when the person holds your hand or brings you soup after a car accident." Here she briefly smiles and I kiss her shoulder. "But to actually like someone, you need to have things in common, you need to only be occasionally annoyed by only a small percentage of the things they do."

"And you like me?"

"I like you. I like it when you call me cutesy Swedish things, when you make me breakfast at three in the afternoon and when you take the night off just so you can comfort me when I let silly things get to my head. And I like it when you act tough but I know at heart, you're just a big softy who's crazy in love with me." Hah. Yeah, I'm a tough guy, I want to tell her. You weren't there when I couldn't sleep because I loved you and you called me a cocky bastard. I'm a tough guy who gets giddy with happiness when you tell me you love me back.

From where my chin is still resting on her shoulder, I ask, "And what small percentage of the things I do occasionally annoy you?"

Laughing, she says, "When you're unjustifiably cocky."

"As opposed to justifiably."

"Of course."

"What else?"

"When you flirt with other women."

"Wha-" My mouth opens and closes several times without releasing a sound. "I don't flirt."

"You smile," she shrugs.

"Smiling is flirting."

"For regular-looking men it isn't. For you, every little smile makes women swoon." I consider her words carefully; I'm not blind, I notice the incessant flirting, lip-biting, eye-fucking that women utilize to attract my attention, and it usually works. Used to, anyways. But that part of my life is over. I can't help being charming but if it bothers her, maybe I can try to tone it down. Fucking with her to invoke jealousy that she doesn't need to be feeling is not something I am interested in, nor is it what she deserves after the way her ex fucked her over. And besides, I don't need jealousy to let me know that she is interested.

"I don't care who it makes swoon as long as it makes you swoon," I murmur seductively into her ear and she turns her head to shoot me an odd look.

"Does my smile make you swoon?"

"Your smile makes me feel things that you would not find cute," I promise her and she laughs.

"My smile? Really?"

"Depends on the smile," I smirk and she moves out of my arms to sprawl against the opposite armrest and taps her stomach.

"Lay down." Crawling towards her, I place kisses on her thigh and hip and stomach before lying with my head on her sternum.

"Sookie?"

"Yes."

"I want to get married." I can swear her heart skips several beats and she stops breathing in the time it takes her to prepare a response.

"And who were you thinking of marrying?" I smile; this is good, humour is good.

"Well, I was wondering if you were free. You know, for the rest of your life." My thumb is brushing back and forth over her ribs and her heartbeats are steady, if a little faster than usual. I spend enough time with my head resting on her chest to notice the speed of her heart.

"Eric?"

"Yes?"

"You just proposed to me."

"Yes."

"And you would like me to accept."

"Yes."

"So, I'm going to tell you that if you would like anything other than a whopping 'No', you better get off of me and propose like you're asking me to marry you and not like you're suggesting Chinese for dinner." Lifting my head, I try to gauge just how serious she is and then disentangle from her body to retrieve the small velvet box from where it's hidden in a pair of Salvatore Ferragamo dress boots in the back of my walk-in closet. Pam will be so unhappy, I can't help thinking, if she says yes to the first proposal. Returning to the living room, I push the coffee table aside to kneel in front of her where she is now sitting up, and pop the box open to meet her gaze with a smile.

"Miss Stackhouse, I love you. You know that, but what you don't know is that I'll love you for ever. Even when you're seventy and we bicker incessantly about what to have for dinner and who hogged the blankets last night to give the other a cold. I'll love you through every single fight we have, every single time you make me sleep on the couch and every single time you tell me to fuck off because you're too angry to even deal with me. We both know that's inevitable, but I'm also hoping that you love me enough to forgive me my cocky, insufferable self and spend the rest of your life with me, because I can no longer imagine mine without you in it, every morning that I wake up and every night when I fall asleep. So what do you say?" I pause and take in the fact that she has tears in her eyes and hurriedly add, "And before you say 'No', I'm going to tell you that I will keep asking. At least once every season, I'm going to ask you to marry me and in the meantime I'm going to tell you that I love you every single day, but that I'd love it if I could call you my wife instead of my girlfriend." There's a long moment of silence and then she cracks a smile.

"That was really good. You didn't practice that, did you?" I shake my head, amused at her reaction. "That was really good. It was really sweet. Do you think you can write it down for me?"

"I can try," I chuckle.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

"And I'd love to." I think it's my heart's turn to skip a beat because I can't form coherent sentences, but I desperately want her to repeat it, to word it in a more definite way because I don't think I can stand it if I think she's saying yes but she's only saying no in a vague, gentle way. A straight up 'No' I can handle, it shows me exactly what I'm dealing with and exactly what I need to do to convince her otherwise, but I can't handle getting my hopes up and then having them crushed. It turns out not to matter because she looks down at the ring and her eyes light up softly. "Is that mine?" she asks.

"Yeah. Yes." I take the ring out of the box and reach for the left hand she is holding out to me, and I must be reverting back to the pussy-whipped bitch I was when she was in the hospital after her car accident so many months ago because my own hands are shaking as I slide the engagement ring onto her finger. For a long moment she just stares at the ring, and then she meets my eyes and grins her gorgeous eye-squinting, teeth-baring, dimple-inducing smile and I surge forward to claim her lips to mutter that I love her, that I'm hers along with half a dozen other things that Pam would mock me for if she ever found out. She laughs freely, almost breathlessly, and her hands cup my face.

"What's 'fiance' in Swedish?"

"Fästman. I'm your fästman and you're my fästmö."

"Min fästman?" she tests the feel of the foreign terms and smiles at my nod. "Would I be din fästmo?"

"Yeah, 'your' is 'din'." I can't hide my pleasure at her words and she giggles again, leans into me and wraps her arms tightly around my shoulders.

"Love you."

"Love you." Sookie lets me hold her, holds me, for so long that I don't even remember what it is that breaks us out of our bubble and makes reality set in, but as I've learned in the past little while, reality isn't too bad anyways. When tucks her head under my chin as we fall asleep that night, I want to thank whatever force there is out there that decides who gets second chances, who falls in love with whom and just how happy they get to be together, because I owe that fucker a fruit basket.