I saw a beer bottle looming over Amelia's head, waved weakly, and suddenly it was gone. I was floating, I was—I was safe, I was in heaven, I was bleeding, I was with Eric… His blue eyes were the only anchor I had as the world swirled around me, as I heard Amelia ("out, out, let's go") and Pam ("I cannot kill anyone?"), and finally, him, leaning over me: "Hold on to me, Sookie."
And, so help me, I did.
It's weird to pass out—you just go, and then you're not quite sure when you're awake again. I drifted back to reality to discover the following surreal facts: 1.) I was in a moving vehicle—Pam's car, apparently. 2.) I was in pain. I moved my limbs experimentally and groaned. I had deep, stinging gouges all over my arms and chest, plus throbbing pain in my back and face, but none of that terrible, agonizing burn like when I'd been staked out at Club Dead. So, I guess I was better off than I'd been in that debacle.
The third fact threw me even more than the first two. 3.) I was being licked. By Eric, no less, who appeared to be making a comforting noise deep in his throat.
I blinked and tried to get a grip on my situation. I was curled like a doll across Eric's chest and lap, and he was apparently cleaning/healing me, like some big cat cleaning a kitten's fur. And of course, he was clearly enjoying the process, too, given that it required him to take in my blood. I couldn't begrudge him it—I wouldn't have done so if I were awake, and he was healing me—but it was an odd awakening. And not an unpleasant one, I thought, squirming a little, as his tongue swept purposefully across my collarbone.
"Ahhh, the princess awakes," he murmured. "How do you feel, Sookie?"
"You smell delicious," Pam said from the front. "This must be like when the humans go to those places that sell food to eat in the car. Care to share, Eric?"
"Go to hell, I'm not some French fry," I griped into Eric's chest. He shifted me slightly and I groaned.
"Easy," he said, then pressed a finger against my lips when I made to protest the obvious. I was not exactly feeling like jumping to my feet and doing Lord-knows-what just then. "I have cleaned almost all of your upper body wounds. They will heal soon. The rest—we will discuss when we get to your home." His jaw locked into place as he regarded me, and I wondered for the umpteenth time what he was thinking. Whatever it was, it didn't thrill him.
I closed my eyes and let myself drift while Eric stroked my hair and the tires of the Pacifica roared beneath us. I tried to ask about Amelia; Eric either understood my intention or guessed it, for he stopped my mouth again with his fingers and assured me that she was fine and on her way home, too.
I couldn't tell if she'd beaten us home; I'd forgotten to leave a light on, so the house was dark as we approached. Dark and very quiet—Pam opened the door for us, but after that, the only two beings in the place were myself and my quiet escort. Eric carried me silently through the house, maneuvering towards my bedroom. We crossed into the big bedroom and he lowered me to the bed with all the care you'd direct to a newborn. Which, compared to his muscles, I guess I was.
I opened my mouth to speak but he shook his head; feeling like I'd just been run over like one of those poor fellows in that Spanish bull run, I let my head fall back on the pillow, letting Eric take command.
He was still uncharacteristically silent. His hands moved quickly; I'd have thought they were a blur, but then again, my eyes were only half-open. His fingers unlaced and lifted away my top, his eyes scanning my chest for signs of further damage, I guess. Just as quickly, he'd peeled back my skin-tight pants, leaving me just the tiny scrap of fabric that was my underwear.
"Do you mind?" I drew my hands over my chest, and I saw the old Eric flash back into this intense stranger's face. He grinned at me quickly.
"Oh, I do." I stuck my tongue out at him and he just smirked further, suddenly reaching for his own collar. As I gawked, he tossed to the side his ripped jacket, the bloodied shirt and tie, and then he stepped right out of his pants, right in front of me. Even his boxers (with cute pink hearts on them, I noted), were down on the ground. Not that my eyes were there for very long. Some division of my body, entirely disconnected from my pain centers, had started paging every part of my skin it could: Eric Northman is naked and getting into your bed. All nerve centers promptly abandoned their bitching about my pain and had started rejoicing in anticipation of something else. What was it with me? I remember when we were looking for Bill at Stan's compound, and even though I'd just been actually staked, Eric had only to start kissing me and all of the pain went away. He was like Advil, or even vamp blood, only ten thousand times better.
Drugs like that can be dangerous. "What are you doing?" I stammered, grabbing at my sheet protectively. Goodness knows we had seen each other and then some, but still.
He didn't bother fighting me for the sheet; he just sat, perfectly naked, on the side of the bed next to me. He wasn't even smirking at me anymore, even when I angled my head to get a peek at that one little dimple on his tush. I glanced back at his face and saw no leer, no ready joke at my weakness for his backside. I knew this was a sign of trouble. A grinning Eric was one you could predict. Serious Eric wasn't.
"We must talk."
"You're not exactly dressed to talk," I retorted with a notable degree of suspicion.
In typical Eric style, he went straight for the point. "I want to give you blood." He held up a hand. "You will want to argue, and I can already anticipate what you will say. But you are injured and you will remain so for some days, unless we take prompt action. I can either take you to the human hospital—"—and here Eric wrinkled his nose, which I thought was funny; you'd think a hospital to vamps would be like visiting a bakery for humans—"—or I give you my blood. Those are your choices, Sookie."
"And what if I choose neither?"
"Not an option." Eric began to crawl over me, his face fierce and wild, and I shivered, although the thin sheet separated my skin from his. "You were injured for me." He kept staring at me, as if trying to figure out something puzzle. Finally, he blinked. "You must stop this."
"Stop what?" I was barely touching him, just resting my hands on the sides of his torso, which he held over mine.
He lowered his face so that our noses were almost touching. "Getting injured. I do not care for it." I nearly laughed, but the look on his face told me he was serious.
"Really, Eric, what else could I have done? I'm not Buffy, after all, and the chair was—well, it was coming at you."
"So?" His eyebrow was raised.
"So? So? You could've been ki—it could've staked you!" I felt myself start to tear up. It wasn't hard, given that I was running out of adrenaline, the pain in my body was starting to bubble up once more, and something in this conversation was just sitting wrong with me.
"So?" He asked again, his eyes slits focused on me.
"Don't even talk like that!" I said reflexively, and my arms, in full mutiny, slid around him of their own accord.
He stared at my teary face for one second more, nodded tightly, then kissed me quickly. "No more of this for now. I want to give you my blood."
"Fine." I was hardly pleased but I realized my options were limited. I shifted in the bed; it really hurt where Langdon had punched me in the back, and I knew my face was going to look like a Skittles rainbow tomorrow. "But just enough to heal, okay?"
"Very well." He rolled to the side of me, and before I could say anything else, he'd bit into his own wrist, offering it to me.
There's no etiquette for drinking from a vamp, no way of doing it in a tidy fashion. I took his wrist and pulled it to my lips, pushing myself to just get it started. This was always the hardest part, because frankly, how many humans actually want to drink blood? I had to steel myself to what I was doing, even though Eric was perfectly willing—and to be frank, would really enjoy the process.
Vamps (or at least male vamps, I've found) get a real kick out of distributing their blood. Eric pulled me back in his arms and I realized this is why he'd undressed us both. The first time he'd given me blood, I'd had on a nightgown and he wore his boxers (although I could feel very movement of his body against me). Now, with a lot more History between us, I guess he felt like there was no need for such barriers.
Eric's hips were rubbing his lower body against me with clear intention, and he was making distinctively pleased noises. I'd be lying if I said that didn't do something for me, or that I didn't start playing with my technique—pulling with my lips, licking with my tongue, toying with my teeth—just to work him up further. A lot further, I admit; whatever I was doing to him, his moans were driving me to distraction too.
"Sookie," he growled my name, and I felt a sudden shock of air as he kicked the sheets downward, to be closer to me. Empowered by his response, and suddenly feeling (thanks to the combined magic of vamp blood and Viking lover) more than a little bit sassy myself, I pushed myself back towards him.
"Oh!" My lips fell away from his wrist just as his other hand slipped down between my legs, cupping my center, then dipping within. I uttered another incoherent exclamation as his invading fingers started to light me on fire, now even more sure than the first time he touched me, back in Stan's compound. I felt like everything beneath my hips was molten lava, stirred beneath Eric's cool, silky fingers.
"Amazing, you are amazing," his rough voice, his soft lips, were at my ear, as his other hand came up around me to cup my breasts, which were on full alert for him. His fingers rubbed and then tweaked the flesh of my nipples, rising up for his attention. I cried out as now two of his fingers went all the way up in me, creating a very distinctive beat. My hips shifted frantically, rotating, grinding, following his lead.
"Eric, Eric," I said helplessly, gripping and pulling up the bedding, as our positioning made it difficult for me to grab him.
"No other shall have you." He lifted my leg and suddenly, in a burst of heat, he was there, in me, opening me, filling me, and we were moving together, our hands now interlocked against the mattress. With each thrust, I felt his hands tighten across mine, the rub of the sheet burning against the heel of my hands. I closed my eyes and listened to the words he was muttering as he moved against me, words of another language, punctuated with words of my own. "Lover, lover, lover," he breathed against my skin in almost a hiss at one point; if I didn't feel like I was going to erupt already, I would have. "Sookie, my Sookie." The words themselves came distantly to my consciousness, but, caught up in our loving, I barely registered them. His mouth was buried into my neck, the lips branding the words against my skin, pushed into me with each sharp swing of his hips. I could only exclaim wordlessly as I heard something that called back a bubble of heaven with this body, this man. "All mine will honor you." I was on the verge of bliss, as he turned my face urgently to his. If eyes ever spoke, his were roaring. "Now, lover." His clever hand moved between us, still surging together, his body thick within me. Before I could blink, he was rubbing me just-so, and he pushed me over that brink, my eyes still joined to his blazing blue ones.
I reeled, gasping, in his arms, listening to my own raw, sobbing exclamations of joy and something else. Alongside me, Eric was finishing, my name falling rapid-fire from his lips as his body crushed itself against me.
He moved to lift off me but I reached back to grab his thigh. "Stay." I eased my hand, rubbing it up and down the wall of flexing muscle there. I moved my hips still, savoring the intimate connection, relishing in the feel of him against me, in me.
"Of course." His lips brushed my ear as he spoke and I shivered. He shifted slightly to distribute the press of his body more evenly. I twisted to slip a hand around his neck, to hold him to me. Feeling his skin—almost heated from my body—against my palm, his hair drift over my fingers, made me think of those horrible moments when I saw the chair swinging towards him. I closed my eyes.
"Problem?" he murmured quietly to me.
"Eric," I said, and moved away from him carefully. He hissed in regret as I drew us apart, but made a growl of contentment when I fell back against the bed, drawing him over me. His eyes swept mine for a message, some message. "I don't want to talk tonight." His brows lowered in confusion and he began to shift his weight back, as if to go. I pulled him forward again, over me. Now his brows were rising in question.
"I said…I don't want to talk tonight," I whispered. His eyes glowed down at me.
"Done," he said simply, and lowered his mouth to mine.
I woke up the next morning more than a little tired and sore. Eric had taken his assignment very seriously, intending on keeping us occupied until dawn made him retreat to who-knows-where. I hoped he was in the old hidey-hole; something about the idea of having him near, even asleep, comforted me like an old blanket about my shoulders might.
I headed into the shower and cleaned up. We would still have to talk soon, of course. I had yet to tell him anything I'd heard at all during the expedition to Tracks. I was more than a little surprised he hadn't been insistent on getting that information from me first, to be honest, but it didn't seem a priority to him. My hand closed over the soap on the wall nervously. Other things had.
I sighed, enjoying the inexpensive pleasure of a hot shower. I had no idea what to make of last night. Sure, we hadn't talked, but hadn't we, in a way? Eric and I had been all over each other in every possible way in the past, yet something about last night seemed very different. I wiped my face of shower spray and stubbornly pushed that thought aside. I was probably just worked up from the bar fight, anyway, or having Eric's blood, which had always stirred my libido before. And if other parts of my body, other than my libido, had seemed to call for him, well, that was probably just my imagination.
I toweled off, tossed on some clothes, and headed out to the living room. I could hear the TV on, blaring some sports show. It could only me one thing.
"Jason," I sighed, walking in to find my brother on my couch.
"Oh, hey, Sook." He glanced up and over. "Thought I'd check in. Your roomie said it was okay yesterday?"
"Yeah, sure," I fumbled, not knowing what to say. Sure, Jason had seen a lot of Supe weirdness, but was he ready an answer that went like this: yes, Jason, I took a chair over the head and got beat up, but Eric gave me his blood and spent last night giving me some—well, a lot of--sexual healing?
I thought not.
I looked down at him again. He was punching the buttons on a red cell phone. "You get a new phone?"
"Nah," he shook his head. "Found your friend's cell here—guess she dropped it." His fingers were still moving on the keypad, I noticed.
My friend's—oh! The very Jason (that is, unethical) nature of the situation dawned on me. "Give that here—what are you doing? I hope you're not screwing up her address book or anything—"
"Nah, just looking at her pictures." Jason winked and held the phone up for better viewing.
And that's when I recognized the device in his hand, from a time another man held it. It was Eric's phone, and his last pictures were of—oh, my. Oh, no. Oh, Jesus.
"Wow! Nice rack!" Jason whistled. "Thank your friend for taking this…" He leaned in closer. "What size are those puppies? Like to get my hands on--"
"No, Jason, no!" I started to scream, just as he hit another button—to zoom in, zoom out? "It's not Amelia, it's—"
Amelia was suddenly in the room with us. "What's going on—"
She didn't have time to get it out, anymore than I had time to vault across the couch and pluck the phone out of his hands. Jason's bellow could've awakened the dead; I'm sure Bill, and Eric, if he were around, both heard it.
"OH, SWEET JESUS, SOOKIE! MY EYES!"
He threw the phone across the room, still screaming, and grabbed a cushion to put over his face, making gagging noises while still swearing. "JESUS, SHIT, FUCK!" He threw the cushion to the side, rubbing his eyes frantically, then looked up at us. "What the HELL were you doing like that and why the FUCK does she have your—oh, my SHIT, are you two—"
"NO!" Amelia and I yelled as one.
"Look, Stackhouse, just shut up," Amelia snarled, apparently not liking the assessing gaze Jason was turning to her. "That's Eric's phone, not mine."
"Eric? Eric? Oh, that big vamp? Ohhhh." Jason for once seemed relieved to hear I was consorting with vampires still. Then his eyes narrowed. "Wait a second! What the hell is he doing with your picture like—" He saw us glance at each other and shrug. Amelia actually giggled, then shot him a glare.
"You're the one who perved over your own sister!"
He pointed at her angrily. "Don't you even—even--even—I didn't know!" Jason flopped back with an angry sigh, holding his hands over his face. "This is just fucking SICK and I'm going to tell him so. Sook, can you delete that picture off his camera?"
"Why should I?" I said, just to annoy him. After all, he'd probably just broken Eric's phone in his fit of temper. "He liked that picture. He thought it was very sexy," I added, just to torture Jason some more.
"Jesus, I can't talk to you right now," Jason exclaimed, grabbing his jacket and storming out of the house.
Behind me, I heard Amelia giggle. I glanced back to see she was twirling a man's tie in her hands. "He thought it was very sexy, eh?"
I snatched the tie away. "Oh, hush. He must've forgotten that."
"He didn't forget the note." Amelia grinned. I looked down, startled, as my hands crossed over a piece of paper pinned to the tie.
"Save this for next time—yours, E."
AN: Thanks as always for your input!