A/N: Hey there. School's been crazy busy, and most of the time my brain is so pooped out from writing about other people's work that I'm finding it hard to write about my own. But here's the latest chapter, and to everyone that's stuck with this story for over a year now (OVER A YEAR? THAT'S INSANE!) I hope you like it.

BIG thank you to my beta chiisai-kitty. Can't believe you've been looking over my work for well over a year too, but it's been great and I can't (and don't want to) imagine it any other way. *long distance hug*

Eric had to go back to the floor, and while he did that I went ahead and took a shower in the storage room I was becoming increasingly familiar with. Though the turtleneck I had been wearing the last time I showered here, the night of the maenad attack, was damaged beyond repair, the jeans I had been wearing that same night were clean and completely not stained—which I found out when he took them out of a drawer in his office. I didn't have any clean underwear or a shirt, but Eric fixed that by giving me a thong that said, "Bite Me" on the ass and a promotional True Blood tee shirt in my size. Since I figured I wouldn't actually be going out in the club, I didn't bother putting my bra back on.

When I was done with my shower and found a spare plastic bag to put my dirty Merlotte's uniform in, I went back to Eric's office, but he wasn't there. So I lay down on the couch working on one of his crossword puzzle books he liked, which was how he found me when he walked in two mostly-completed puzzles later.

"Lem," he said, standing behind the couch headrest I was lying my head against, causing me to look up. He saw my startled, and confused expression, and explained, "Three letter word for space module that starts with an 'l;' it's what the scientists first referred to lunar modules as in the beginning of the Space Race."

"Oh. Thank you," I said, checking if he was right (which of course he was).

I saw a little smile on his face before he leaned over and gave me a slow Spiderman upside down kiss, something I'd wanted to try out ever since I saw the movie. Sure, Eric wasn't hanging upside down from a building and it wasn't raining, but Eric was so much better than silly little Tobey Maguire. It took a little while for us to find a rhythm, but once we did it was amazing. Somehow sometime later I ended up lying back down again with him on top of me, but all Eric and I did was engage in a hot-and-heavy make out session like we were two teenagers.

Though he was kissing me and his hands were freely roaming up and down my body—especially after he discovered I wasn't wearing a bra—Eric was letting me take the initiative. If I bit his lip, then he would bite mine—but only after I instigated it. If my hands slid up under his shirt or my fingers caressed the inside of the top of his jeans, then he would do the same to me, taking care so his hands didn't stray any farther than mine did. Which, in terms of what could happen, wasn't very far at all.

Though it wasn't publicly acknowledged by either of us, we both knew what he was doing, and why. I was very grateful for the way he was holding himself together with me, and I made sure to tell him that once we stopped.

"This was okay for you?" he asked, still lying on top of me but putting all of his weight on the foot he had rooted on the ground.

"Yeah, it was," I said, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear before tracing his jaw line with the same fingers.

"And you would tell me if it wasn't, yes?"

I craned my neck so our faces were on the same level. "Of course."

He leaned forward so our foreheads were pressed together, and we stayed like that, eyes closed, for a couple moments. Afterwards, he pulled back and got off the couch, extending a hand so I could do the same.

"Fangtasia's closed now," he informed me. "The last customer left not two minutes ago."

I nodded my head to show I understood. Sometimes it was unnerving, his vampire senses, when he pulled them out randomly like he just did.

"I'd like for you to come home with me," Eric said casually as he walked over to his desk. He started picking up notebooks and folders and put them in his laptop bag.

"Okay," I replied, watching him put his laptop in too. I kind of figured I'd be spending the night at his place anyway.

He zipped up the bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Are you able to drive, at this hour?"

"Yeah, no problem." I hadn't drunk anything and I wasn't incredibly sleepy. I'd be fine.

He nodded briefly, focused on texting something to someone. After a few more vampire-speed typing he looked up and said, "Chow will close tonight. We can go now."

"Where's Pam?" I asked as we walked through the secret exit.

"I told her she could leave early tonight, since she worked a lot of hours the last couple of days. You can follow me home, and then leave whenever you want tomorrow, since you'll have your car with you this time."

We both got in our cars and what seemed to be in no time at all, we were at Eric's neighborhood. He signed me in, and once it was my turn to stop at the security desk the night watchman gave me a pass to put on my dash board. After that, the next stop was Eric's house, where he parked in the garage and I parked in the driveway.

Eric was opening my door before I even shut my car off, helping me out. Though he was carrying his laptop bag, he still put his free arm around my shoulder and kissed the top of my head as we walked to the garage.

Once Eric turned off all of the security alarms and we were both inside, he went to change into comfier clothes while I made myself a cup of coffee. It took a little longer because he had one of those insanely high-tech coffee machines that look something like what scientists from the fifties would have thought coffee makers would look like in the future, but I got it to work and was soon happily sipping from a mug.

Eric emerged from downstairs wearing sweatpants and a white "Human-Lickin' Good" tee-shirt that had a mock-image of the KFC logo, except with a vampire instead of the Colonel.

"You're kidding me," is what I said when I stopped laughing.

He smiled devilishly and asked, "You like it?" Right after he said that he raised an eyebrow, and that was when I realized both of his hands were behind his back, like he was hiding something from me.

"No. Nuh-huh. You don't have what I think you have," I said, putting my cup of coffee on the counter and backing away from him, my hands out in front of me.

"That's where you're wrong," he replied, showing me a matching shirt, except it said, "Vampire-Lickin' Good" on it. He even wiggled it at me before turning it around so I could see that there was a Fangtasia logo on the back.

"Oh God," I muttered, but when Eric held the shirt out for me I took it. It was so big I could put it on over my shirt.

Eric whistled once it was on, and I rolled my eyes. "I can't believe you right now."

"What? It is funny," he said defensively.

"Yeah, funny looking."

He put his hands on my waist as he twirled me around. Then, Eric just looked at me for a second before he reached out and licked my cheek. "It's true," he said, his grip tightening as I squealed and put my hands up.

Wanting revenge, I pretended like I was going to hug him before I sneakily darted my tongue out and licked the corner of Eric's mouth that was creeping upwards in a smirk. "Yeah, but it's still funny looking." I punched him in the chest for good measure, too.

"I can't wait to show you the 'Got Blood?' ones, then," Eric teased.

I rolled my eyes, trying to hold in the giggles that were trying to escape. "You're insane."

"You're insane if you don't like this shirt," he replied, smiling down at me.

I reached up and kissed him on the lips. "I never said I didn't like this shirt."

We both ended up sleeping in those shirts after staying up as late as possible talking about things that weren't threatening to kill us or destroy our lives—something, we decided, that was happening all too frequently for our liking.

So that's how we ended up just talking, like what we did when Eric had amnesia. That was when we had time to lounge around with our bodies entwined; when Eric and I got together for the second time, we were kind of thrown into it, and spent most of our time with other people—Pam, Chow (ugh), Bill (double ugh), and Stan.

But now it was just me and Eric and we could talk in private about private topics that we really hadn't shared with anyone else before—topics like my admission that before Eric I hadn't really thought of my future, and what it could be like now that I didn't have Gran to take care of or Jason to look after. It never occurred to me that maybe I didn't have to work at Merlotte's all my life, growing old while watching the same old customers do the same. Of course, I loved my family farmhouse and the little piece of dirt it was on like Scarlett loved Tara and would never abandon it, but that didn't mean I could do something more meaningful with my life than fetch chicken baskets all day.

Eric was influencing me, all right; it'd be stupid not to admit it. Though he wasn't the biggest fan of Sam and his bar, he never came out right and said he didn't like me working there—he just listed all of the other, better opportunities I could take. Opportunities like becoming a professional telepath.

"Sookie, it's something you do all the time no matter what, like breathing. You should at least be paid for it, and paid well at that," Eric reasoned, lying on his back next to me, his arms crossed so his hands were cradling his head instead of his pillow.

"I agree with you on that, Eric, but," I said, and then stopped when I didn't quite know how to say what I was thinking.

"But what?" Eric prompted, looking over at me.

I rolled over on my side so I was facing him, and after a couple seconds he did the same. "But, I've always worked at Merlotte's, for all of the seven years it's been open. It's all I know how to do to make a living, save babysitting a few nights here and there for Arlene."

He smiled at me, showing his white teeth in the dim light from the tableside lamp. "That's not true. Firstly, you were paid for babysitting me—fifty thousand dollars worth of babysitting, I might add, and it will always be worth every penny."

I smiled warmly at Eric and reached over to hold his hand. He squeezed tightly before continuing, "Secondly, I haven't received the check for your troubles in Dallas, but that's another job you performed, and you were perfect at that too. And since I know you will soon be employed as the official telepath of Louisiana, surely you'd have to take so much time off from work Sam would be forced to hire someone to take your shifts. It might just be easier to quit … for you, for Sam, for whoever ends up working for him, and, yes I'll admit it, for me as well."

I blinked up at his ceiling, thinking over what he just said. "I'll think about it. Really think about it. But I won't ever move out of the farmhouse," I murmured, finally.

"I know you won't."

"Not even to let Jason move in and take my place."

"I know that too."

"That's Gran's house, and it always be, even if she entertained mean, beautiful, centuries-old fairy princes in her bed there. I may not like Bon Temps or its residents, but I love that house and won't ever give it up."

"You won't have to, Sookie. You don't have to live in the same town you work in. And, you can live in more than one place too. It's what I do, after all."

"Yeah, I know. And I'm sure by this time next week I'll really know."

"I must confess to you," Eric said delicately, "that I've been looking into buying property in New Orleans. Nothing big—maybe a penthouse or an apartment building. Somewhere we can stay when we visit the queen, so we're not stuck in her palace surrounded by her people obeying her every command; somewhere we can have our privacy and freedom. Just in case. Just to be safe."

Oh boy. "Is she really that bad?" I asked, barely above a whisper.

Eric propped his head up by leaning on his pillow with his elbow. "Sookie, she sent her own personal investigator to seduce you into revealing your telepathy. She has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in her attempt to secure you working for her. She wants you, but I want you more. It's just a safety precaution, really."

He looked down at me and saw the frightened expression on my face, and with his free arm he reached over and comfortingly rubbed up and down my arm as he joked, "And besides, if we had sex in her palace everyone would be able to hear and smell it, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"

I lowered my eyes. That was, of course, assuming I would be psychologically capable of having sex by the time I met the queen, which apparently is sometime next week.

I might have stopped the eye contact, but unfortunately that didn't mean Eric stopped watching me. "Oh, Sookie," he groaned, and I looked up in time to see him close his eyes briefly. "I apologize for the lack of insight while making that comment; it was tacky and inconsiderate and—"

"And something for me to strive for, whenever that is," I said softly, putting a finger to his lips to stop it.

He opened his eyes then, just gazing back at me.

"We don't have to have sex when we visit the queen, or when you're next to me, or anywhere else until you're absolutely ready for it. I want you to know that," he said after a moment. I moved my finger and stroked his cheek.

"I do know that, Eric, I do."

"Sookie, I've been meaning to ask this … should I help you find someone to talk to, someone who's had experience with it?" he asked hesitantly.

I sighed heavily. "I don't know."

"Because I can. I mean, I will."

"Oh, I don't doubt it, Eric. It's just … I don't know if I'd feel comfortable talking about it with someone who didn't know me. I'll think about it, though. Okay?"

"Okay."

"But so far, I haven't had any troubles. And I would have told you if I did."

"That's good."

"Maybe we can just take baby steps."

"Would that really solve the whole issue?" he asked carefully.

I bit my lip. "Eric, there's something you need to know about me."

He looked a little troubled, but he nodded his head against the trouble.

I inhaled, then exhaled, then told Eric something I maybe should have told him earlier, maybe. "Before this, before you, before any vampires, before I was even a teenager, I was … I was molested. By my Uncle Bartlett."

Eric's eyebrows shot into his hair and his Adam's apple bobbed dangerously as he unnecessarily swallowed, but he held his tongue and let me continue. I loved him for that. But, I could still tell he was starting to freak out a little.

"I guess I was six or seven," I said slowly, "and I know you can tell, he never actually, ah, went all the way, but he did other stuff. Stuff he shouldn't have done."

Eric's cool hand found my slightly shaky one, and he steadied it very comfortingly.

"And the worst thing, Eric, the worst thing is that every time he came to visit, I always knew what he was going to do because I could read his mind! And there wasn't anything I could do to stop it."

After a moment, he asked, in a hoarse voice, "Did you tell anyone? Your Gran, perhaps?"

My heart swelled just thinking about her. "Yeah, I told her. She believed me, when my parents didn't."

"Your own parents didn't believe you?" Eric asked incredulously, his eyebrows shooting up in disbelief. He noticed his volume and recovered by softly adding, "Why?"

"Well, my mom thought I learned about stuff like that from a book in the library, or someone on the school bus. And my dad, I didn't tell my dad about it after it happened because I was too embarrassed. I didn't want to talk about anything like that with my dad, or any man."

Eric didn't have anything to say, and I started talking just to cover up the silence.

"Gran got it right away, though. He's her brother, but she still cut him off once she found out. It was right after Jason and I went to live with Gran, after my parents died. And the first time Uncle

Bartlett came to her house I hid under the porch. I stayed under there the whole time he was here, reading all of his thoughts about me while forcing myself to be silent. When she found me and asked me why, I told her. And she believed me. I haven't seen him since then."

"You mean to say, Sookie, that he's still alive?"

"To the best of my knowledge. I try not to think about him whenever possible—before, before Gabe I hadn't really thought of him at all."

"And you didn't see anyone for that? No guidance counselor at school?"

"No," I answered immediately, "and I don't know if I would have then—or now. It was just something that wasn't ever discussed, ever. Jason doesn't even know about it."

"Maybe you could talk to me about it, about Gabe and Uncle Bartlett," Eric suggested. When I did my best to hide my doubt, he continued, "Sookie, I'm serious. You trust me, and I trust you. I wouldn't tell anyone, if that's what you're worried about. I wouldn't have to ask you how you feel after every time you said something, because I'd be able to feel what you feel, if we let down our shields. And … and I imagine I have a better idea of what you're going through, what you've been through, than the best psychologist out there."

"What?" Now it was my turn to be surprised, and I was doing it well.

"Tonight's the night for big secrets, I suppose," Eric said dryly.

He got that thousand-yard stare in his eyes for a few moments before he switched it off and looked at me again. "My maker, Appius Livius Ocella, did not treat me like I treat Pam; he treated me like I have never, and will never, treated anyone in my entire existence. He has different ideas about what it is like to be a maker, and one of them is that you must do whatever your maker tells you to do, whenever he tells you to do it, whether or not you want to do it, ever. He was very … forceful that way."

I breathed in and out very slowly. "Ohhhhh," I said, drawing out the word. Maybe Eric did have a good idea of what I'd been through.

"He's a fighter, like me, and he's very intelligent, like me, but a main difference between us is that he liked men, of course, and that took some getting used to. I had never done that. But when you're a new vampire, or someone who had limited sexual partners or experience, anything sexual seems exciting, so even that I enjoyed . . . eventually."

"Eventually," I repeated, adopting the same monotone Eric had. I was looking at Eric in a new light now, just like he was probably looking at me in a new light. I don't know if it was the same for him as it was for me, but I felt a little better putting everything out on the table and I hoped Eric did too.

"He was stronger then, as he is now. I was bigger—taller, longer arms, more muscular—but for a couple centuries that didn't matter. And even then, sometimes it didn't; I had to obey him. He was my sire, and if respect for him didn't cause me to obey, then his compulsion would. You have to obey your sire; it's impossible to resist."

A couple centuries. Centuries. Jesus Christ. No wonder Eric said he would have a better idea of what I was going through.

I couldn't imagine Eric doing something he didn't want to do, being in a subservient position. Of course, he had a boss now—I knew that very well, even though I'd never officially seen it in action. But he didn't have to bow and scrape, and he made most of his own decisions.

"I can't imagine it," I said finally.

"I wouldn't want you to." His mouth pulled down at one corner, a moody and wry expression I hadn't seen before. It didn't look right on him.

I don't know how long we laid there, silently weighed down in each other's revelations.

"Thank you for telling me yours," I said finally, snuggling closer to him and just plain old feeling closer to him, closer than I'd ever felt to anyone ever.

"Thank you for telling me yours," he murmured back to me, his arms circling around me like they had never been before.

We were silent again; he was so silent I was sure he was dead to the world. But he surprised me when he murmured, "Take all the time you need, dear one. Do what you have to do to get over it. I know I did."

"I will. But hopefully it won't be that long," I whispered back.

I could just barely make out Eric's small smile, which was the last thing I saw before falling asleep.

A/N: Now that the story's really winding down—less than five chapters, and I mean it this time—I've been putting some thought into what I want to do for the Eric POV companion story, Dead To Your World.

Now, as everyone here has noticed, my updates aren't anywhere near a normal or consistent cycle, so I don't think it would be fair to anyone to write an actual, fully drawn-out story. And to be honest, I don't think I have it in me to spend another year writing the same story but with different words.

That being said, I've been thinking of doing outtakes of Dead To My World, something I've seen other authors here do for some of their longer and more complex stories. I would take scenes or chapters that I feel are important to the story—like the one where Eric wakes up all alone in Sookie's house, or the one where Eric gets his memory back—and write it in Eric's POV. I would also be happy to do the same for any requested scenes as well. The way I see it, it's like having the story without any of the filler chapters.

Thoughts? Questions? Compliments or complaints? I want to hear them. Drop me a PM or add it in your review—anything to just let me know what you think of my plan. But as of right now, that's the direction I'll be heading in, and I'd love it if you guys were with me.