AN: Just a one-shot, I think. I hope you guys, no matter what you celebrate, had a good season. Be safe. Be happy. Please enjoy and let me know what you think.

During the year of No-Sookie

December 24th, 11:20 P.M.

Those who had no family, who had no friends or relationships that meant anything in any regard littered the floor of Fangtasia. Eric didn't complain, glad for the money.

Something about the holidays depressed humans. He assumed it had to do with facing their mortality, or the fact that they were shit-people the other eleven months of the year. Some seemed shocked others didn't fawn or offer gifts when they were deplorable year-round.

Sat atop his dais, sunk into his throne, a pile of gifts had been set up at his feet. There were flowers, cards, envelopes of money. He'd been given a few small boxes filled with things he didn't care about and had been given vials or bottles of bloods from vampires who swore it was the sweetest and best he'd ever taste. He doubted it.

Eric had been given multiple gifts by multiple people, be they vampire or human and he didn't understand why. It happened every year. Were they so desperate for someone to worship? Or did they fear him so completely?

Leaning to the side, he propped his elbow on the arm of his chair, burying his face in his hand. He swept his finger across his lip, thinking about a number of things. His keen eye danced across the floor, noting the customers, the employees and how often Ginger went to the till.

Pam had disappeared into the back some time ago with one of the dancers. If the groans and moans were any indication as to what was happening, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

Maria wasn't working that night. He didn't remember giving her the time off, but he may have. The truth was Eric didn't keep nearly as strong a hold on her as he once did. She was no longer a bird held firmly in his slender, vice-like fingers. Instead, she'd been given a cage, palatial and comfortable though it may have been.

Eric rose to his feet and crossed the bar, disappearing into the back hall. He entered his office. Pam and the dancer, a woman they'd hired some time ago to replace Yvetta, were on the leather couch. The dancer's face was buried between his Progeny's thighs.

Pam glanced up and spotted him. She smacked the dancer on the top of her head, shocking her enough to stop. Throwing her long leg over the dancer, Pam stood, shoving her dress back into place. Hands on her hips, she leveled a stared on him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, acting as though she'd been carrying a simple conversation when he'd entered the room.

"I'm leaving for the night," he said. "The club's in your hands."

Pam nodded. He turned and left. The noises from his office began again by the time he planted his hand against the front door and stepped into the darkness.

Protestors greeted him. Their cries became angrier, louder. They knew he owned the business, but they weren't stupid, either. The humans gave him a wide berth. Even the dumbest creatures know when the predator they're taunting is far stronger than them.

Eric grinned to himself at their rage. He found it amusing.

Standing just within the parking lot, surrounded by ten, perhaps fifteen angry rednecks, he tugged his jacket into place and, without warning, launched himself into the air. A few of the women below shrieked in shock. Some of the men cried out holy fuck. It made him smirk.

There'd been no need to show off, to show the humans that some vampires could fly, but he would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy their horror. In that moment, anyone who saw a vampire flying was forced to realize that death came from above, too.

He landed shortly after. The flight hadn't been necessary beyond frightening the protestors. He could've run the distance with ease.

Gravel crunched beneath his heel. He smoothed his hair back into place and adjusted his jacket once again as he approached the farmhouse. A lamppost had been set up, erected near the walkway that led to the house. The dim glow added a nice touch, though it seemed slightly out of place, as well.

Through the sheer curtains in each of the windows, pale light glittered. He couldn't discern if they were candles or soft bulbs in lamps, but they helped cast the farmhouse in a certain way, made it appear more wholesome than it should have.

He'd made it to the lip of the concrete walkway, where a tall gap separated it from the slightly eroded ground when he spotted her. A figure, slender and fuzzy through the curtains, glided across some of the windows and into the room to the far left of the door. It appeared wispy, inhuman. True sentiment, sure.

He finished his trek up onto the porch and rapped against the door with his knuckles. From inside, she told him to enter. Eric did and was met with the smell of burning wood. He hadn't bothered to notice whether or not smoke had poured from the chimney when he'd arrived, but the evidence was clear.

Closing the door behind him, Eric entered the drawing room to the left, where he'd seen Maria enter. He arched a brow at what he saw.

Knelt by the fire place, Maria poked at the logs with a poker until getting the results she wanted and returning the iron rod to its stand. The room itself, which had lacked any real purpose beyond a sitting area, had been decorated for the season.

Candles littered the mantle and the small side tables, their flickering light the thing he'd seen outside. Small paper streamers were twisted together and hung along the walls, up near the ceiling so they caught the eye, but didn't dominate attention. There was a nutcracker on the mantle as well, tall, regal and dressed in black, his white beard erratic. On the floor near the fireplace, not far from the stack of wood, was a wooden deer built with pieces of cut out of the element.

He arched a brow at the sight.

And yet, the most surprising of it all, had been the tree. Small, no doubt less than five-feet-tall, was a fir tree. The pine scent fought for dominance with the fire, but struggled to gain footing.

Her Christmas tree, though small, had been decorated elaborately. More paper streamers were wrapped around it, red and cream in color. A small string of lights flickered deep within the needles. There were no ornaments, however, no garish pieces of glittery plastic or glass that weighed down each and every branch they hung from. Instead, Maria had tied ribbons to it. Red, cream, green, blue and gold ribbons, some thin, some thick.

Eric felt as though he'd stepped into the past, into a holiday season being celebrated a century ago. Perhaps longer.

Maria rose to her feet and gave him her attention. She'd worn a nightgown, a surprising enough thing, with a long robe wrapped around her, too. She was dressed for weather far colder than it was. Louisiana had winters, but winters that kissed the low 40s, nothing like he and Maria were used to. That didn't seem to matter.

"I thought you were working," she said, guiding her long braid over her should where it could rest against her back. "Do you need me to go to Fangtasia?"

Her brow furrowed with disappointment. He smiled to himself and shook his head.

"No," he said. "No, I just…"

His words fell away. He hadn't known why he went in search of her, only that he wanted to.

Maria seemed as unsure. She lingered, waiting for what had brought him to her house until a kettle whistled in the kitchen. Without a word, she retreated to the backroom, her robe fluttering in her wake. The whistle died shortly after.

Left alone, Eric crossed the floor to one of the upholstered chairs she'd purchased some time ago. They hadn't been moved to accommodate the tree. There was little need given the amount of space in the room.

He took a seat and made himself comfortable in the chair to the left of the fire, the Christmas tree just to the side of his view. It was quaint in every sense of the word and unexpected. Of all the things he'd seen from Maria, of all the things she'd done and they'd done together, he hadn't thought she'd celebrate such a plain and commercial holiday.

Maria returned to the drawing room with a mug of steaming liquid. He couldn't tell if it was tea, coffee or some kind of cocoa. It couldn't compete with the fire, not with him so close.

She chose to sit on the floor instead of the other chair, the chair in which her back would have been to the tree. Instead, Maria sat so she could see both it and the fire. Eric watched her stare into the blaze, her face emotionless, but deep in thought. She sipped on her beverage.

His head lulled to the side while he examined her. Eric briefly wondered if she was one of the humans who became depressed during the holiday. While not human, it remained possible.

Minutes of silence passed and soon her drink had been emptied. When it had, Maria stood. He'd assumed she intended to get another, but instead set the empty cup on the small table within his arm's reach and approached the tree. Maria retrieved a small blue box tied with a thin white ribbon. She offered it to him. Eric's surprised nearly prevented him from taking it.

Eric took the box. Something inside jostled. Maria returned to her seat on the floor, shifting her robe around her until she was comfortable.

It took him a moment or two before he decided to open the gift. He'd been shocked to receive anything from Maria. They just didn't get each other things.

The white ribbon gave way and fell into his lap. He removed the lid and found a necklace inside. The chain was thin, long and silver in color, though logic told him it was likely white gold. He looped it around his fingers and lifted it from the box. The pendant swung under its own weight, a two-inch piece of ivory-white whale bone that had been carved in old Scandinavian runes. King it said.

He peered down at her. Maria continued to watch the fire.

"I got Pam something, too," she said, seemingly aware that he didn't know how to process the present.

Eric set the box on the side table next to her empty cup. The ribbon joined it soon after. Spreading the chain out, he slid it over his head with ease. The pendant fell to the middle of his chest and, while part of him thought it should have looked ridiculous, Eric was forced to realize how appropriate it seemed.

"Christmas used to be really important in my family," Maria said in a soft voice. "Every year, we'd have the largest tree erected in the main hall where it could be seen through the windows. It would be decorated with gold and red and a thousand lights, but it wasn't for us. It was for the people.

"My father would take us into the woods on the back of the property, all of us children wrapped up in our thickest furs. We would pick a tree and he'd cut it down, then take it back to the house. In our wing, the children's wing, he'd set it up and we'd decorate it with ribbons. Olga with cream, Alexei blue, Tatiana green, Anastasia gold and me with red."

His gaze drifted to the tree, noting each and every color accounted for.

"We'd sit around the fire and sing carols or old songs," she said. A hitch had formed in her throat, a rasp that told him she might near tears. Maria's outward expression remained stoic. "It was the only time we could be a normal family."

He looked to the fire, noting the way the orange bit at the wood, clawed across the surface before tinting it an irrevocable black. Eric thought back centuries.

"The hall would be filled with people," he said, his voice low and soft. "Half of the village, at least. The fire pit stretched nearly the length of it. There would be spits of goat and pig roasting over the flames."

The memory took life in his mind, transporting him to the time where he'd been alive, when his family and his people had been alive.

"There was mead and bread and songs and laughter. We would celebrate the Yule for days. Skalds would tell stories of the gods and warriors would talk about the coming spring's raids."

An itch formed at the back of his throat. His eyes prickled.

During his last Christmas, his mother had been bulbous, fat with his little sister and due to give birth any day. He remembered how her smile burned brighter than the fires and torches throughout the hall, how it had been powerful enough to melt the coldest winter.

Eric thought about his father, tall, broad and intimidating, sitting on his throne with his crown resting on his head. He smiled wide and sang loudly, badly, along with the others, waving a horn of mead and spilling some on his boots. His cheeks were pink with it and joy.

He remembered his friends and the people he'd grown up with. He remembered singing the old songs and celebrating the year they'd had, giving the gods offerings in order to secure another fruitful season.

Cold trickled down his cheek, a trail of blood he'd been unable to keep back. Warmth engulfed his leg. Out of the corner of his eye, Eric could see that Maria had closed the distance between them. She rested a hand on his knee, her cheek on her hand, while she wrapped the other around his shin.

Gaze still fixed to the flames, Eric reached down. He tenderly touched her exposed neck, gliding his fingers up the slope of it and beneath her jaw before back down and to her shoulder. He stroked the bit of skin, though didn't know if he did it to soothe her, or himself.

The silent room, once filled with the crackle and hiss of the fire, was soon joined by another sound. Eric sang a song, old even when he was a child. He might not have possessed the "voice of an angel", but had enough skill to carry a tune and do it well.

So there they sat, an ancient Viking singing a song from his past and a duchess sitting feet from a tree decorated for those long dead.

When he'd finished, the silence returned. Eric stopped stroking her neck and instead allowed his hand to rest there, though his thumb continued to caress her skin.

"Thank you," he said after some time.

Maria replied, "You're welcome."