'cause nothing's going right

and everything's a mess

and no one likes to be alone

The wait and the flight both passed in a blur of not-quite-sleeping but even so, when Elliot stepped off the small plane at Shreveport, she felt a lot better than she had leaving the Hotel Carmilla. Eric had long since gone to ground and her feelings were once again entirely her own - for the next few hours, at least. She intended to use those hours to get the hell away without the strange longing for the damn vampire that had ignited somewhere inside her messing things up and beckoning her back. It was difficult walking away even with him asleep; Elliot's own feelings were confused enough without Eric's adding to the mix.

No matter how many times she told herself, promised herself, that leaving now was the best option, the only option she could be sure would work, some part of Elliot, a part she was desperately trying to ignore, knew that it was a terrible mistake. Eric had worked his way under her skin despite her best intentions and seeing him so vulnerable to death had jolted that realisation firmly awake inside her and now she couldn't deny that it was there.

It scared her.

Eric was not Michael. "He's not," she muttered to herself, even as she yanked on her suitcase and flagged down a taxi outside, running her hand through her hair as she squinted against the glare of the sun. "Bon Temps, please," Elliot mentioned as she leaned down towards the driver's window. He nodded, popping the lever for the trunk so she could throw her case in the back before clambering inside and buckling her seatbelt. But while Eric wasn't Michael, Michael hadn't been Michael at first, either.

In fact, for three years Elliot had been hopelessly in love with him and it had still turned to shit. Eric was a vampire for the love of God - he was made to hurt people, that was nature's entire reason for him existing, so what the hell made her think he would never hurt her? Absently, Elliot's fingertips rubbed at the ring finger of her left hand, eyes narrowed at her own gesture as she stared down at her lap. Love. It was a fucking joke - life's greatest punchline and it had sure punched her.

Elliot almost flinched at her internal joke before she shook her head lightly, lips curling into a mirthless smirk. Never again. She was going to get her car from Sookie's, drive home and pack her stuff and then she was gone. No more excuses, no more maybes - she was leaving, she couldn't afford to look back, to regret, to think of Eric's hand in hers, to think of the way his presence beside her had kept the nightmares at bay while she slept. She couldn't think of the fact that for the first time in a long time her curse felt like it could almost be the gift she'd always wished it was, that for the first time in a long time she had a life and a job and people she cared enough about that it hurt to leave them behind. Even her house...it wasn't much, in fact it was barely anything at all, but it was hers and it was home.

She hadn't had a place to call home in too long, running from motel to short-term rental property to motel and back again. Bon Temps had become home even in the short time she'd been there and in truth that was starting to hurt more than the idea of saying goodbye to Eric. It had been so nice to think of going home after a day at work, after a day of teasing away Jason's terrible attempts at flirting with her and Hoyt's sweet but bumbling attempts to brush along well with everyone.

"What the fuck?" The driver was staring out the window at what Elliot came to realise several seconds after she probably should have was Bon Temps - the very home she'd been thinking of.

"That was-" she started to say, intending to finish the sentence with quick because she'd been too lost in thought to notice the time passing as they drove, but the sight of the town stole her breath in surprise until all she could manage was a lame repetition, eyes wide. "What the fuck," she concurred, sitting forward in her seat to stare out the window.

"Look, love, I ain't meanin' nothin' but I-"

"Don't worry," Elliot cut him off, grabbing in her purse for her wallet and handing him all the cash she had left on her. "I can walk from here." The place was utterly trashed; she could hardly blame him for not wanting to coax his car through the damage for fear that it would suffer the same fate.

The sun was hot overhead and Elliot blew a gust of breath across her face as she grabbed her case from the trunk and slapped the metal to signal to the driver that he could leave. He waved out the window before disappearing in a growl of engine and dust cloud that Elliot had to wave away so it wouldn't settle in her hair. She turned in a slow circle, eyes wider than ever as she took the place in.

The street was deserted, which was odd but not unheard of, but that didn't even remotely compare to the wreckage. Broken glass glittered like stars across the road from smashed windows, paint was slashed over walls and doors were hanging off their hinges, the shops behind them ransacked and broken. She started walking, glancing suspiciously over her shoulders with every step, staring around and feeling ten times more alert than she had two minutes ago.

"Whoa!" she bit out a startled cry, leaping back a step as a couple came staggering from behind a building, clinging to each other and giggling shrilly. "Hey - excuse me! Hey - what's going on here?" The couple didn't even notice her, stopping in their drunken sprint across the street to slam against the side of the building opposite Elliot, grabbing hungrily at each other, stripping their clothes off in the middle of the street without a care in the world. "What...the...fuck. HEY!"

That caught their attention, the two breaking apart and swinging around to stare about for the distraction. Two pairs of solid black eyes landed on Elliot and she swiftly regretted calling out because this was fucked up and those eyes were the flat sort of emotionless that drink awoke in Michael and she really didn't want to think about that right now. "Alright is this some sort of trick?" she asked, frowning and backing up a step, dragging her case. "Like Punk'd or something?" She was pretty sure that show had been cancelled but that was the only rational explanation for this.

"New girl!" the woman crowed, taking an unsteady step forwards with a cackle that gave Elliot goosebumps. The man was licking his lips, leering across at her as he was dragged along by his wrist, his jeans open at the fly and hanging half off his hips. "Newwww girl!"

"Why the fuck can't anything go right?" Elliot seethed under her breath, taking another step back and putting her suitcase between herself and the couple, not that it would do much good if they went for her. She flexed her fingers at her sides, wondering if she had enough control over herself to push them back with a wave of energy or if she'd end up deep-frying them. "What's going on here? Where is everyone?" she called out, figuring that if these two were here and leering she might as well get as much out of them as she could.

The couple stopped, both clinging to each other again as though they wouldn't be able to remain upright otherwise. "He's coming," the man stated with a giddy sort of breathlessness, giggling to himself. "He's gonna come - soon. Soon."

"He?" Elliot repeated, heart thumping a little more determinedly now because if this was a joke then it was pretty damn deep and it seemed a little too intricate right now to be anything other than reality. "Who's he? Coming where? Here? Why?"

"Questions," the woman huffed, rolling her head back as though her neck had simply lost the ability to hold it up. "Him. It's him, he's coming. God."

"Oh, good," Elliot nodded sarcastically. "There's a few things I've been meaning to ask him, actually."

The man nodded eagerly, and sunlight glinted off red blood on the side of his head, still bleeding sluggishly though he didn't seem in the least perturbed by it. "But we gotta get Sam first," he told her conspiratorially as the woman he was with threw her head back again and laughed raucously up at the sky.

"Sam?" Elliot questioned, shifting back as they moved a step closer. "Sam Merlotte?"

"Yesss! Sam!" The two caught each other's gaze and at once were joined again at the lips, their arms wrapping them into an embrace that probably couldn't have been broken by a hurricane and Elliot took the opportunity to back the hell away, more carrying her suitcase than dragging it as she jogged down the street.

After checking that she hadn't been followed, Elliot pressed her back against a wall and pushed the heels of her palms against her eyes. This was a dream. This could only be a dream because there was no other explanation for this unless someone had drugged the entire water supply and had managed to hit the whole town with it in the few days Elliot had been gone. For the first time since leaving the hotel, she wished she'd come back with Sookie or someone because being alone in the middle of this sucked.

"Car," Elliot said firmly, nodding to herself as she pushed herself upright. She'd get her car, go home, pack up and leave and forget this craziness like she'd been planning to do before. She didn't have time to deal with this - the hours until dark were steadily ticking away and Elliot couldn't afford to let Eric wake up while she was still here.

She started trudging across the road, keeping a wary eye on her surroundings. Twice she was almost ran down by people charging through the streets but they either didn't notice her or didn't care about her presence because she was ignored by them altogether, despite her frantically beating heart. Sookie's house wasn't exactly far away from the outskirts of town but it was certainly enough of a trek to be a bother when one factored in the heat, the heavy suitcase and oh, the weird, stoned residents of the town who cackled madly and often had blood running down their faces or hands and didn't seem in the least bothered by it.

And what the hell did they want with Sam? Elliot's tongue moved out to run along her bottom lip as she thought about it. They weren't going to hurt him...surely? He was Sam, everyone loved him - there was no reason to hurt him, but all of the people she'd seen so far had been headed in the direction of Merlotte's, without a doubt.

Elliot stopped walking, shaking her head to herself as she chewed on her lip. Just leave. That was her plan; that was her plan and she was sticking to it. But what if Sam had no idea? What if Morgan had caught whatever had the rest of the town acting so crazy? What if Sookie came home and walked right into it?

"Ugh, fuck," she cursed, kicking furiously at some loose rubble from the side of the road. She didn't have her cell but half the windows to the shops were smashed; it was easy enough to step through the openings and slip behind the counter of the nearest one to grab the phone. Elliot dialled Morgan first because she knew the number by heart, leaning against the wall as it rang, keeping a watchful eye on the street outside.

She picked up after three rings. "Hello?"

"Morgan!" Elliot gasped out, breathing out a sigh of relief that could have floored her.

"Oh my god, Elliot! Where are you, I've been trying to call you-"

"I lost my cell - listen, you need to get of town like, yesterday, some crazy sh-"

"Yeah, yeah I know - me and Jerry clocked out this morning, we've been inside all weekend but-" Morgan started to say and Elliot stood bolt upright.

"Jerry?" she asked worriedly. "Who's Jerry?"

"You know - Jerry. From that club. We uh...we kind of hit it off," Morgan admitted, though Elliot could hear the half-smile in her voice. She closed her eyes, shaking her head slowly. Morgan was a big girl now - she could take care of herself.

"Right, Jerry," she said. "Right. Where are you now?"

"Driving - where are you?"

"In town," Elliot told her, ducking back a little so a rack of shelves obscured her from view as somebody else went staggering past outside. "I'm getting the fuck out of here, though. I don't know what's going on but I don't plan on sticking around long enough to find out."

"Good," Morgan said, and then, "Wait, pull in here I need to pee."

"What?"

"I was just talking to Jerry - he has a place in Arizona, we're going to stay there for a while, then I'll probably hit the road again."

Elliot nodded, though Morgan couldn't see that. It was one of the reasons they'd fallen into an easy acquaintanceship, and after that friendship; neither could stay in one place too long. She knew what Morgan meant, knew that the other woman wouldn't look back towards Louisiana, only forwards. They'd both known that it would come to this sooner or later; it wasn't any painful kind of goodbye. They understood each other, the need to move on and keep moving, and Elliot wasn't about to shed tears over it. She'd miss the blonde's bouncy presence, but it wasn't like they were sisters. "Stay safe, okay?"

"You too," Morgan said at once, and Elliot heard the click of a car door opening. "Hey, are you seeing that hot blond giant from Fangtasia?"

"What? No!" Elliot replied instantly, her stomach dropping a little at the thought of Eric even as her heart clenched. "No, it's...it's not like that. We're not - I'm not...he's...it's uh, it's complicated," she managed to get out eventually, shaking her head to herself. "We're not, um. We're not together."

"Oh yeah, sure - sounds like it," Morgan said knowingly before giving a soft sigh. "I need to pee, and Elliot - you need to get out of there. Whatever was happening...it was weird. Like, sci-fi weird. Get out of there, and stay safe. And...call me, yeah?"

"Yeah," Elliot told her. "Yeah I will. Of course."

"See you around?"

"See you around." The phone clicked off and Elliot set it down in its holder, pinching the bridge of her nose as she let out a long breath. At least Morgan was safe, that was something. Sam, Elliot wasn't so sure of. She ducked beneath the counter, pulling open a few drawers and shifting aside boxes beneath it before she found what she was looking for; leaflets.

She began sifting through them, tossing them aside until she came across a small, somewhat faded advert for Merlotte's; it looked old, but everything in the place looked fairly old. Elliot could only hope that Sam had never changed the number. It rang...and rang...and rang. Then it went dead.

"Fuck." Elliot ran a hand through her hair, sighing angrily before punching in the number again. She pressed it so hard against her ear it was almost painful, the sound of each ring buzzing through her head. It clicked off again after about a minute. So, either Sam was not at Merlotte's and therefore hopefully safe, or he was dead. Elliot's hands went to her hair again and she gripped it for a second, silently demanding to know what the world thought it was doing, laying all this shit on her. Hadn't she been through enough?

Apparently not. Elliot jumped, startled, as something smashed terrifyingly close to her and somebody crowed gleefully. She got to her knees, peering over the counter and dropping back down again a nanosecond after she'd gotten a look. There were three men standing right outside the shop she was in, staring inside. Her heart was hammering, bile collecting somewhere at the base of her throat as she hoped to every single star in the sky that they hadn't seen her.

"Hey! Who's that?" one of them demanded and Elliot pressed the heels of her hands hard against her eyes.

"Who?" a different one asked. Please be talking about someone else, please be talking about so-

"Behind the fuckin' counter man, are you blind?"

Shit. Elliot didn't bother trying to think it through; she just grabbed her purse and burst out from behind the counter, throwing out one hand as she went. Energy flowed like a surging sheet of wind and shelves and products all went flying towards the window but Elliot didn't stop to check the damage, instead bolting through the door that led to the store room and from there disappearing through a door she hoped led to outside but no such luck; it was a bathroom. It did have a window, though, so she counted her blessings and yanked it open, hauling herself onto the edge and forcing her body through as yelling from inside the shop grew louder.

Obviously her act hadn't knocked them out, as she'd hoped; it had simply angered them. Typical. She dropped to the ground and took a moment to catch her breath, flighty from adrenaline, and then she took off towards Sookie's house; towards her car and then after that, freedom. She was done with crazy.

Elliot wasn't a pro runner by any stretch of the imagination but with adrenaline surging through her veins like fire and, on top of that, burning anger at the entire damned situation she'd managed to find herself in, she made good time. She'd covered enough ground walking before she'd made the phonecalls to be only about half a mile out so it was only a few minutes later she that found the trees surrounding Sookie's house coming into view.

Nobody appeared to be pursuing her so, with the house in shouting distance, Elliot let herself stop, leaning over to plant her hands on her knees to try and sort herself out, breathing hard as she took stock of the situation. She had her purse, which meant she had her keys and cards, so she could at least get away. She always kept a bag of overnight things in her trunk, and her car had had about half a tank of gas when she'd left it. As long as she could make it to the car, she was all set.

Only she did not, of course, make it to her car.

Elliot got close; painfully close. She'd made it all the way up the driveway, frowning in dismay at the vandalism that had become Sookie's house, mouth open in stunned surprise. "What the fuck," she muttered to herself, slowing to a halt as she took in the sight. The place was covered in dark, ropey vines, leaves spewing forth from the windows and the cracks around the door, the windows smashed, candles flickering through the broken glass despite the sun overhead, the wooden beams on the porch broken and twisted. The place was wrecked. But none of that was as weird as the massive fucking meat shrine sitting in the front yard, so tall its shadow cast over her car ten feet away, which looked about as wrecked as the house.

She took a hesitant step forwards, grip on her purse so tight her nails were digging crescent moons into her palm, and heard only the swish of air before something hit her hard on the back of the head. Elliot let out a slight gasp of pain before the world cut away and she slumped bonelessly to the ground.

AN: Woo, late again but an update is an update, right? No Eric in this chapter and probably not in the next one but don't worry; his and Elliot's confrontation will definitely be coming up soon, we've just got a maenad to deal with first because that's always fun!

Leave a review if you're feeling particularly friendly and lovely and wonderful (though you are all of those things for reading this, anyway) - I have a five day break coming up [three cheers for that WOOO] so I'm hoping to get the next two chapters posted on here over Easter.

The chapter title comes from Avril Lavigne's 'I'm With You' and it's a little lame but I end up spending ages looking for titles and I figured that this wasn't an important chapter that needed a super fitting title so...there. Thanks for reading!