Chapter 55: Jerk of All Trades

"Hi Alcide, it's Jacklyn. Can you stop by the Rose Crown later? There's a pack meeting. Some vamps came by last night, and things have been kinda tense, ya know? I know you're new to the pack and all, and that you just lost Debbie and your job, but it's important that you come. Call me."

The house fell back to silent. But he knew it wouldn't be for long. The phone would ring again soon enough, for the millionth time. The tone was loud and annoying and he had memorized the rhythm and the melody of the ringing at this point. But he couldn't be bothered to get up from the couch and pull it off the hook. Six rings over 30 seconds before he could hear the tape click on the deck. A beep, then the message.

"Hey man, are you there? It's Marcus. Listen, I don't know if you heard but some fanger came to the Rose Crown last night and I think some shady shit is going down man. Some o' us are missin' so I guess I'm just checking up on you. I'll stop by later."

Most people didn't leave messages. They couldn't bother to sit still for the 30 seconds it took for the voicemail greeting, so they just kept calling over and over, incessantly, expecting a different result. The ringing had turned into background noise to his dreams at this point, he barely even noticed whenever he dozed off.

"Hey Alcide, I haven't heard from ya since Debbie's funeral. Hope you're doing okay man. Is Cole staying with you? No one's seen him. Text me back man."

His cellphone battery had been dead for days. Alcide spent the past week tossed on the couch, drinking beer and watching television with all the curtains drawn shut. Nights and days blurred together, he had no idea how long he'd been here, to be honest. He would only get up to piss and get food delivery from the door. That is when he even remembered to eat.

"Yo man, for reals, call me. There's wolves showing up dead left and right man, they're sayin' it's the vamps but like, I dropped off Marcus at work yesterday morning and he was dead by lunch. Jacob told me it was some kind of freak work accident, but nah man I ain't buyin' this shit. You're a cop, did you hear anything? Fucking do something man."

There was at least some comfort in the fact they weren't calling to give him their fucking condolences anymore. He could go the rest of his life without someone saying 'I'm so sorry for your loss'. Or maybe they had already forgotten her. They had gone through the pack ritual together, but the pack didn't know Debbie like Alcide did. No one on this Earth did. For better or worse, she was his soulmate, and she was taken from him.

Alcide knew he had lost Debbie years before she actually died. The woman he loved so deeply lost herself little by little along the way. But finding her body all alone in that dirty motel room had made it… Real. It made her sickness undeniable. His failure was indisputable. He had painfully come to terms with that. But on those final days Olivia Carson… Had cruelly given him hope that she would get better. That Debbie would stay clean. He had it so close, at the tip of his fingers. And it slipped away.

"Alcide, I can see your truck parked in the damn driveway. If you are home and you're just ignoring my knocking on the door it's not fucking funny. Just let me talk to you for five fucking minutes you selfish asshole."

Alcide had been initiated into the Long Tooth Pack as a compromise to Debbie's recovery and getting back together. She was not a lone wolf like he was, she needed people, connection, a community. Debbie told him she needed help from the pack to get clean and stay clean. Part of him never bought it. The Long Tooth pack especially - he had spent years looking the other way from all their illegal activities. He fucking knew they sold drugs, but his father had forbidden him from prosecuting them. It would be a betrayal to his own kind, and his father would be shunned by it, no doubt.

All of which made Alcide hate himself more and more. The silver lining of it all, the lie that he made himself believe, is that vampires were the real rot of this town and the world. They were the target of all his rage and anger, the distraction he used to do his job. He told himself that whatever bad Patrick Furnan and his pack had done, it was a drop in the bucket compared to all the murders, the torture, and kidnappings Eric Northman did for fun. Out of the two evils, Northman was by far the worse. That part, however, was not a lie.

"Alcide? Okay for fuck's sakes dude, Patrick and Libby had to go up to his brother's hunting lodge, they think he's the next target. Do you know anything about the Newlins? Apparently, Furnan struck a bad deal with them, and his followers are retaliating. But like, something's not adding up, you know? Call me back, I'm serious dude."

He had always known Debbie was deeply jealous. It was fucked up, but a part of him kind of liked that about her. He liked her ferocity, her anger, her possessiveness towards him. What he didn't know is that it would have been the cause of her relapse. Detox and withdrawal had been brutal, but he remembered she had been feeling better that day. He got distracted and left his phone on the dresser while he showered. For whatever reason, Debbie went through his phone and saw an 8 minute phone call with Olivia Carson.

What happened next was like watching his least favourite movie. He remembered their fight word for word because they had many like it before. He remembered watching her storming off and slamming the door on her way out, almost in a rehearsed fashion. He remembered driving all around town looking for her. He remembered how he called Olivia a thousand times and she did not pick up. He remembered finding her on the floor of her destroyed kitchen, frozen in fear, covered in blood.

Alcide hunted and scouted every dark alley, the river banks, and all her usual spots, the bar, friend's houses, following her scent. Her pattern was erratic. He remembered how much her essence had changed. She smelled of blood, sex and death. The first instinct, the first thought he had when he found her in that filthy motel room, wasn't deep sadness. It wasn't sorrow, shock, anguish, or grief. He wasn't destroyed or consumed by loss or self-hatred. The first thing that popped into his head was…. That Eric Northman had done this. That little rehearsed, habitual lie that he told himself every day became like a reflex to him. An instinct he had put first, before his feelings for Debbie.

And he hated himself for it. He hated that the first thing he thought of wasn't of the love of his life dying, but he thought of him.

"Hi, Alcide. Just checking on you again. Basim, Tray and I are skipping town. I don't know where to yet, this is kind of last minute. Meet us at Merlotte's at 8 AM, we're fueling up in Bon Temps before we go. If you're still there, please come. It's not safe for us to stay here anymore. We're gettin' picked off like sittin' ducks and we ain't stayin' to find out who it is."

Eric Northman had taken everything from him. Even the little shreds of good things he had in the past few months - his job, Olivia, Debbie, he took it. He took it all. He didn't even want it. He didn't seek it out of spite or revenge. He just did it because he could. That's just what vampires did - they were fucking blackholes. They swallowed everything, crushed and destroyed life all around them.

"Hello Alcide, it's Furnan. My boys told you you've been unreachable, and maybe you're dead too. But in the hopes that you're not, we need you. I need you. I need everything you got on Eric Northman,"

That name being spoken within the wall of his home made him turn his head and put his beer down.

"You were right about him, son. He needs to be put down."

And at those words, Alcide got up.

"Why… Are you doing this?" Her tiny voice cried between the sobs of pain and fear.

"Shh, be quiet darling," he whispered, caressing her blonde hair and smearing it red with her own blood.

The woman had asked him this question four times now, and each time he assured her it wasn't personal. But he lied. It kind of was.

"How- how-" she winced through the pain. "How are you out in the daylight?"

"It's kind of a long story," he smiled down at her. If she remained calm, she would live just long enough. "But I'm afraid you don't have that kind of time, Libby."

Eric had successfully hunted down the Furnans. Instead of facing him like a fucking man, Patrick took his wife and ran to a cabin in the woods two hours away leaving his whole pack high and dry. Eric knew the man lacked a spine, but that was a whole new level of cowardice. He thought the options he had given the pack leader were more than fair given the circumstances. His head, or the head of the wolves he recruited or allowed to help the Newlins. Eric's one act of generosity was wasted on a man who didn't deserve it. Go figure.

In the end, Eric chose for him - everyone's heads.

He took in the scents of pine, earth and leaves outside, blowing in through the open windows. There was even a creek nearby, making his safehouse quite a dreamy getaway. Eric was far from home. This was deep into Area 3, and he knew he wasn't supposed to be here without permission of his Queen, or without alerting the Sheriff in charge. But that was the beauty of all of this: it was daytime. Eric Northman did not answer to fucking nobody.

He answered to no one as he hunted and killed every wolf he could find. He answered to no one as he tortured men for intel and Furnan's whereabouts. He answered to no one as he drove across Louisiana and parked in a farm three miles away. He answered to no one as walked through the sunny woods, watching Libby Furnan put a pot of coffee on the stove from afar… He wasn't a vampire Sheriff right then. It was daytime. All vampires and everyone he answered to had gone to ground hours ago, and there were very few mortals awake right now who could even identify him. Eric was just himself. Free to do his own bidding.

It was bad luck really, that Patrick had gone to town for groceries and gas when Eric had reached the cabin. He didn't take particular joy in glamouring Libby Furnan to let him inside. He also did not like breaking her right knee, her forearm, left clavicle and many of her ribs. But he had been extremely clear in his threat at the parking lot of the Rose Crown, and he was here to collect his one pound of flesh. He was here to inflict the same suffering the Newlins had inflicted on Olivia. He didn't just watch Dr. Ludwig put Olivia back together, he memorized everything she had broken so he could doll out the same destruction to his enemies. Patrick was going to feel the same hopelessness he felt when he arrived. He was going to watch her die, and then join her - slowly and painfully.

If Patrick loved Libby at least half as much as Eric loved Olivia, his revenge and all the blood he had spilled would be worth it. He stroked the battered woman's hair gently, trying to calm her as she struggled to breathe, her lungs filling up with blood just like Olivia's had. He knew this time he wouldn't settle for poetic justice. Libby Furnan wouldn't just die and Eric couldn't only rejoice in the fact that Patrick would find his wife beaten to death in the cabin. No, he wasn't anything like Alcide Herveaux. Patrick didn't have one honourable bone in his body and it wasn't a punishment he was worthy of. He wasn't a man of his word and did not deserve an ounce of grace or mercy.

Eric would wait until Patrick Furnan came back from town. He wanted to see the look on his face. He wanted to tell him why he had done all of this and exactly how, in great detail. He wanted to watch his soul tearing in half, just like Patrick had almost succeeded in doing. No one crossed Eric Northman. And more importantly - no one, absolutely fucking no one hurt his Olivia and got to live to tell the story.

There was the sound of a car approaching, tires crunching gravel into the dirt outside. Steps, then the jangle of keys at the door. Eric was waiting for him, sitting on the brown leather couch by the fireplace with Libby's head resting on his lap. She had tears running down her face, wetting his pants soaked in her blood. Her breaths were quick and shallow now, she wouldn't have to hold on for much longer. And yes, she had aged better than her husband, in case you were wondering.

"Love?" His warm voice called out as he entered the quiet cabin.

A second later he walked into the room. Patrick froze by the kitchen door, immediately dropping his grocery paper bags on the ground. The two locked eyes. Eric's was filled with silent rage. Patrick's with loud fear.

"There you are," he smiled. "We've been patiently waiting, haven't we Libby?"

His fingers were covered in her warm viscous blood, running through her mangled blonde hair. She had put up a fight once Eric entered, he would credit her that much. But it was futile - the woman had the shakes now, afraid of what her husband would do next. Or of what she would see next, who was to say.

"It is you. It has been you the whole time," Patrick murmured, still in shock at the sight of who he encountered inside the cabin.

Maybe there was a little poetry to this after all. The weres were being picked off, one by one in broad daylight for the past four days, being violently murdered, torn apart and beaten without a trace of weapons, or witnesses. In the woods, back of parking lots, in their homes, in their cars on the side of the road, in alleyways, behind grocery stores and warehouses. How could a vampire be behind any of this? What hired assassin would be skilled enough to kill a werewolf with his bare hands?

"I told you I would come for her," his hand slid down to her neck, his fingers wrapping around her throat.

"Stop!" Patrick roared. "Stop! I'll give you money! I'll leave Shreveport and never come back, just let her go! Elizabeth has nothing to do with any of this!"

"See, this is where you're wrong," Eric's hands stopped, resting on her quivering neck. Her breathing was hoarse and slow now. Libby didn't scream or yell, she was just quietly fading on his lap. "Libby has everything to do with this."

"How?! It was me who wanted to get you after the Casino was given to you! I gave the orders for my men to help Steve and Sarah."

It was technically given to Pamela, but he wasn't going to argue semantics with this fool. "When the Newlins contacted you, I am assuming they told you who they were really after. And why."

"Yeah, some woman who works for you."

"Then you know why your Libby has everything to do with this," Eric's fingers squeezed Elizabeth's throat and she let out a strangled cry.

Patrick's back seemed to grow wider and his eyes changed from brown to a bright amber yellow. It would just be minutes before the feared alpha wolf of Louisiana would be standing in front of him. Only in wolf form he posed a threat. Eric for one, was looking forward to it.

"The Newlins wanted your accountant, and they guaranteed me they'd take you out with her. Now let Elizabeth go, Northman, and let's settle this like men!"

It was getting progressively more difficult to keep his own boiling red rage inside him. He had to fight the urge to shred this woman into confetti sized pieces, or to snap her neck like a twig.

Settle this like men? If he wanted to settle this like a man he would have challenged him to a duel for the Casino rights the night the papers were signed. He would have come to his house or his bar and killed him with a wooden bullet or stake. He would have burned Shreveport to the fucking ground rather than see vampires have what he wanted the most. But no. He was a spineless weasel then, just as he was a spineless weasel now, defecting his pack and hiding out in this cabin with his sweetheart.

Eric threw the woman off his lap and across the room like a rag doll, her body slid under the dining room table, crashing loudly into the wooden dining chairs like a bowling ball. She stopped moving after that. Standing tall in the middle of the cabin, Eric stared Patrick Furnan down. He was all anger now. Finally, his match.

"You want to be a man now?" Eric hissed, his fangs out and ready to tear into werewolf flesh.

Eric did not drink a single drop of werewolf blood from any kill he's done all week, including Libby. But for Patrick? He hungered for it. He ached for it.

"You wouldn't know what it takes to be one even if you died a hundred times. Walking in the day don't fuckin' change that."

"I'm not the one hiding out in the middle of the woods now, am I?"

Patrick's hands turned into long claws, and the skin around his neck started to thin and darken. He could feel the air all around him shake. "You really think you're gonna get away with murdering my boys? If I don't end you myself, the cops will. You're done, Northman. You're fucking done-"

"The cops? What a strange time to be telling jokes, Furnan," Eric leered, but he wasn't being funny.

"Sure, some of the wolves in my pack were low lives, known gang members and their deaths will just by be another statistic, but I'm just too fucking big to go away quietly. I'm a known businessman, a shareholder in Louisiana. I own a quarter of the properties in Hyde Park, and every commercial building in Greenwood, Bon Temps and Monroe. You kill me, and it will be the last nail in your fucking coffin."

That was just the thing, wasn't it? A coffin. He didn't need one anymore. He was invincible.

"You were done the second you involved Olivia in this. Nothing you try to say or do will change the outcome of what's about to happen."

His teeth had grown, and his face was starting to change. Once in werewolf form, it would be Patrick's only chance to kill him. "Don't tell me you've done all of this because of some woman."

"She's not some woman," Eric said, ready to sink his teeth and tear into his jugular. "She's everything."

A/N:

Ayooo a couple of days late but we made it!

That was a lot of testosterone to write lmao but in all seriousness, I wanted to write something a little different and it was more challenging than I thought it would be. The next chapter is in the 'favourites' category for me! It's written AND edited, and it will come this weekend I promise!

And who would have guessed Eric was SUCH a romantic, huh? lmao

xoxo

PS: The outline I have is getting shorter and shorter, which means the end is on the horizon. If you have any requests, suggestions and dreams, now it's the time to ask them.