I own nothing to do with True Blood, first. Which is obvious lol.
Thank you all so so much, time and time again for your support in this story. I know I say it a lot every update, I know words are most likely mever enough. But, wow, thank you all! You're all so inspiring and amazing, I'm truly touched!
I'm hoping you will enjoy this one? Would you like a moment to be shared between Godric and Sookie, maye some jealousy happening? Hehe, well it'll come very seen. Again, hope you will enjoy this one.
Love you all so much, thank you! :-) xxx
Chapter Nineteen
I had to fight against the foolish impulse I had to grab Eric scruff by his shirt and haul him back inside, safe and sound out of daylight's harmful way. Luckily, I managed to stop myself before the impulse made itself known; It would have been a major blow to my ego, as well as Eric's, if I had let my concern for him truly show. And, really, I'll be damned if I let him laugh in my face again.
I bit into my lower lip, once he at true last cross the distance and a light beam of sunlight panned in across his skin. Seemed like everything else in the entire world was holding their breath along with me, while I waited it out for the first sign and curl of smoke to rise from him. Everything was so hauntingly silent and still outside, with no birds soaring in the blue cloudless sky, or anything.
I tried to do nothing but observe him carefully, but my hammering heart going at it lethally in my ears interfered troublesomely with the process.
"You feel anything at all?" I asked, my voice coming out embarrassingly frightened for him.
He blinked heavily through the rays of sunlight shining down on us, like he was being blinded by a million fiery suns, and I think then, I got the answer I truly needed.
"Surprisingly... no," he breathed, in trembling wonder. "All I feel... is warmth. Heat of the sun greeting my skin. No pain. Just plain..." Dazed, he lifted a large hand and positioned it to where the sun was, directly shining underneath. Even then, wisps of smoke didn't curl off him at all, and I found myself mighty touched by the whole production. "...Warmth and heat. How... amazing."
I supposed, I could understand how he was feeling, if I put myself into a position of being a vampire who hadn't had the pleasure of being out in the sunlight in decades. I guess, it was so much easier to take something so simple for granted, when you were human like I was, and able to do it whenever you got the desire to. It was a humble pleasure forgotten by most humans, I guess.
"Godric," he called out loudly in excitement. "Come! Come see this!"
But like all good things, they never seemed to last.
I think I about noticed the young boy the instance Eric did. He almost seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and without a seconds of thought, he pulled something out from behind his back; Something long, and bulky.
A shotgun. Oh Lord.
Come to think of it, I did think there was something a bit fishy going on. In how in the perimeters of the vampire-hating cult, no one was anywhere within earshot. Now I knew why. And it wasn't for any reason all that good, either.
He rested the butt of the shotgun on his shoulder and, without any ounce of thought, pulled the trigger. A shot rang out, and everything was too fast. Everything was too... late.
Something smashed into my chest, and red paint, I think, burst from the side of my chest. But surprisingly, I didn't fall underneath the plummeting weight of the hit. Or stagger backwards on my feet much, either. I thanked God for knowing vampires then, when Eric steadied me by grabbing me from behind by the shoulders tightly, and then I saw the young boy's face turn into one of shock.
"Oh, hell!" He screamed, then broke down wailing. "She's a human, oh fuck!"
No shit Sherlock. Couldn't he see I wasn't burnin' in the sun?
He was scared at the prospect of fatally injuring a young girl, I could tell, because like the crap-for-brains he was, he let the shotgun clatter out of his hands onto the concrete and, before my eyes could manage to see it clearly through all the wetness and agony crippling me from somewhere in the center of my stomach, he bolted like his life depended on it.
One minute he was there, and the next he was fading off, scampering away into the distance.
The pain hit me next, and it came on so quickly, intensely, and unrelenting around my stomach area. I think I gathered as much next into why I was feeling so dreadful the way I was, and when my mind slowly took in the unnerving wet, sticky sensations of blood glueing my shirt to the side of my stomach, I felt my eyes roll back into my skull.
It was terrifying, feeling like I'd lost all total control of my body. I could hear someone breathing in my ears, fast and shallow, fast and shallow, and it only occurred to me several belated seconds later, that it was me breathing so loudly in panicked whinnies the way I was. If it wasn't for Eric holding me steadily the way he was, I would have lost my balance and knocked my skull against the concrete, subjecting myself to even worser pain and injuries.
His strong hands clutched at my waist for dear life, keeping me on the balls of my feet, and I heard such a scary sound come from behind me. I was positive it was from Eric, and it was such a hostile, rumbling sound, it made all the little hairs on the nape of my neck and along my arms stand on edge.
Too quick for my mind to take in all at once, my legs were being hoisted up a fraction into the air by a pair of pale, sinewy hands, and then I was being lowered slowly to the ground. I hissed loudly, waiting for the torturous moment by head smacked into the grainy concrete, but... luckily for me, it never came. Rather instead, there was a whole bunch of soft warm cloth underneath my head, padding me.
I lost total control of my arms next, and they flailed and flopped around me. My face felt completely and utterly wet, and I found myself beyond the threshold of hyperventilating, when my airways felt all clogged up and sounded all gurgled and bubbly from my set of lungs.
"Godric, what should I do?" Eric's voice came through my breathing, and to my utmost surprise, he sounded absolutely terrified. I couldn't even have the right frame of mindset then to acknowledge just how nice that was, for him to truly care over me and whatever state I was in, because everything was stinging far too much.
"You know what to do, my son. Save her." Godric sounded calm as ever.
Gritting my teeth, I managed to raise my head a millimeter to evaluate my bodies state. I realized my error the instance I did it; My eyes widened, and a wheezed, choke of air got wedged in my throat excruciatingly. Holy hell. There was a gaping hole in the side of my stomach. Everything looked all... gruesome and mangled, especially the fabric of my shirt, which looked it'd been half blown away with the shot. It only made the outcome look even worse, because I swear, along with the dark blood matting my stomach, I could see stringy red entrails of my flesh.
Oh my God. I was gonna die. A fifteen-year-old killed by a shotgun wound, her life blown away into smithereens so quickly. There were so many things I felt I still hadn't accomplished yet. Still many things I... wanted to do. It was so unfair.
Trying to face the fact as bravely as I possibly could, I said hysterically, really to no one in particular but my good, old self, "Shit, I'm dead." Well, more like halfway towards it.
"Quickly, broder," Godric said, with an urgency that sounded both comforting, and necessary.
Were they just going to let me bleed to death from a gunshot wound? Honestly, I couldn't even muster any sense within me to care right about then. Maybe it was better this way, anyhow. At least this way, Russell Edgington had no hope in hell of getting to my blood, ever. Not once I was dead, and Eric did whatever he did with my body. Who knows? Maybe he'll be kind enough to put me in with where he put Gran?
At least, Russell Edgington ruining my teenage life wasn't entirely a reckless and misguided feat, since it was all true. My blood did, in fact, give vampires the ability to walk into the daylight. I didn't know for how long, but Godric and Eric were pretty much miracles to be experiencing it at this point in time. Lucky them.
Unlucky me.
"Goodbye, it was nice knowing you two," I whispered out, in my funny sounding, gurgled voice. I tried to turn my face up to find Eric, but my vision was too dark and blotted. "And you, even though you're a real... thorn in my side... I liked you anyway." I tried to give a weak smile blindly, and yet I couldn't even have that. My face muscles were not working, they felt too tight and stiff. Darn it all.
Maybe dying wasn't so bad after all? At least, I couldn't embarrass myself anymore by having to admit some ego-crushing things that Eric would probably never let me ever live down, until I was truthfully dead and six feet under.
I heard a distant clicking noise, and then a grumble of pain. Someone was hurt... somewhere. And, oddly enough, it sounded like Eric. You could hear and distinguish those gruff moans from very nearly a mile off.
My eyebrows rose incidentally, and I felt myself floating off vacantly, when something wet and cold mashed into the line of my lips. Eww.
"Drink, Sookie, and do it quickly," Eric ordered, and I think I got the gist of it then. His wrist. Nasty.
Still, I could appreciate it all for what it's worth. Maybe I wasn't really gonna die, after all. Hope not, because really... I'm far too young. I tried to open my mouth as wide as it would possibly go, and I was without embarrassment, like I should have been, when I gagged and spluttered loudly when a few drops of his blood trickled down my throat, choking me.
"We may be damned. We may be creatures of death, but at least... our blood brings life into human's again, broder. That is a very marvellous thing. At least we have that on our side, that is the only blessing to our cursed nature." Godric's voice was little more than a speculative whisper. "What are your feelings for the girl?"
Boy, vampires sure did like to pretend they were alone, with no one to overhear them. It was so friggen... rude. I would have blushed, if I could have.
Eric's fingers curled and tangled roughly into the back of my hair, and that took me out of whatever I was feeling immediately. I grunted, pained, when he smothered his wrist even deeper into my mouth. I swallowed a big mouthful, and groaned, on the dangerous verge of vomiting. Gradually, I was starting to build strength in all my limbs again over the shock at being shot by a shotgun. It was so... unpleasant, especially when it made me feel I was almost being forced to do it out of my own free will. Which, I practically was. But still, I would have prefered the momentary illness of consuming Eric's blood and healing, than having to die a young fifteen-year-old any day of the week.
"I do not have feelings for humans, especially not irritating little ones, like her." At Eric's heated and ultra defensive words, I felt like my heart had been stabbed brutally by a knife, with what he spoke next twisting it all in for malicious benefit. He spoke the words as if they were truly sickening, something... immoral. "You taught me feelings were felt only by the weak, and by humans alone. Sookie is a mere means to an end in getting what you know I've wanted ever since I were still human. She's bringing me closer to it every single day."
"Have you learnt nothing over time? Forgiveness is divine."
"To you, perhaps. Not to me. Vengeance, is divine."
"Then, it stands to prove reason. I have taught you wrong, broder. It is my biggest crime of all, my biggest regret." Godric's voice was a low, resigned sigh, and even then, I had difficulty in understanding anything in my wretched state. "We may be cursed, and we may be damned for the lives we've lead. But we are not incapable of feeling. We are not incapable... of love. Love is what is here. Love is in these actions, whether you refuse to believe them or not."
"Love is for sappy dreamers. Unrealistic, foolish whims for humans."
"But it is here, and it makes everything all the more easier. And love... it will be your savior. When my time has rightfully come, you will not need me anymore. Because you will have her, in my place. This is truly a blissful thing to witness here today. You are not as cursed, as I believed, over my teachings from centuries ago. She will save you from them, when I can not. The damage... it has already been done beyond repair, all at my doing. But she will save you, broder. It is because of her... you retain your humanity."
So suddenly, his wrist was pulled away from my mouth. The generous flow of blood was cut off. And, slicing me whole, the pain started again. Crippling. Agonizing. Unbearable.
Eric's large fingers tightened in my hair, pulling, tugging. Pain shot through my scalp. My eyes squeezed shut, and I whimpered, wriggling all over. Goddamn it! When was the pain all gonna stop?
"I will kill her," Eric hissed, a blood-curdling sound that winded me. There was no reluctance in his words; No reassurence, or second guessing in his tone of voice. He could have done it, he could have truly gone and done it, I knew that then. "She means nothing to me. I will make her die now, I will let her die right here as we speak, and I will feel... nothing."
"And you think I would let you be so cruel?" Godric's voice was thick, yet, oddly calm considering the weight of Eric's threat. "Not only to the girl, but... to yourself, and your heart? You say you feel nothing now at the possibility, but afterwards... I know you will feel deep anguish. I know you well, broder. I've known you for centuries. You are my blood, we share it, and we feel much the same. You would be a traitor to yourself."
"I would feel no more than relief that she were dead!"
"No, you would not. Because, despite everything, at the end of the day... you are human. And so am I. And, despite what I have instilled in you throughout the centuries, you cannot fight what is natural. There is not anything as meaningful, anything more divine in all the world's greatness and equal unpleasantness, as being unconditionally loved and feeling loved in return, whether it be towards her kind... or our own. It is not weakness, or a genetic fault. It is simply in our nature, regardless of whether we be vampire or human. And it is the only thing I pray for, before I move on from this life, broder. Ah, indeed." Godric sounded full of wistful observing, once I started uncontrollably with my gagging again over the salty, vile taste of Eric's bloody wrist being pushed back forcefully in-between my teeth. I picked up on my drinking again, equally as unenthusiastic as before. It was so much damn easier, I found, to let vampires feed on me. But feeding off a vampire, and consuming their blood, I didn't think there would be about anything all the more arduous in the entire world. "There it is. There is love here, and what beauty it is to see it unfold."
"Are you finished with your crock of shit speech yet? I can feel myself burning now, and no doubt, you are starting to feel it, too."
"Oh, I am?" Godric sounded so crushingly surprised, and disinterested, that it just broke me into miniscule pieces, to the aching point where I felt I wanted to embrace him super tight, even in my weak state. "I do not feel much anymore, aside from what is weighing down my heart."
Before I could manage to gather my bearings, Eric's arms slipped underneath me, and he was lifting me up into his arms. I felt beyond afraid, and I screamed. But the pain of the shot I had endured didn't surface again, so I counted myself mighty lucky.