Disclaimer: Characters belong to Charlaine Harris. I just like to blend their realities.
This little piece of Sookehverse lunacy was inspired by the Saint Eric Contest.
Pam had already been waiting for a few moments outside the office when her friend joined her.
"Hey Pam," Amelia smiled. "Did you knock?"
Pam gave Amelia a bemused look. Humans.
"Eric knows I am standing here. I was waiting on you to make our entrance."
"Oh!" Amelia was flustered. I always forget about the vamp hearing! "Well, let's do this then."
Pam nodded and swung open the door.
"Eric?"
"Pam." Eric glanced up from his desk.
"We are here to receive your appraisal of our fic."
"Yeah, Eric," Amelia nodded. "Thank you so much for agreeing to beta it for us. I just know with you on our team we'll ace grammar and language! What with that ESL class you took and all!"
Eric smiled benevolently. "Thank you Amelia. Both of you, please sit."
Amelia, wearing a big grin, settled herself on Eric's black leather couch while Pam sat on the chair across from her maker's desk.
"Well," Eric said. "Let's get down to this, shall we?"
Amelia and Pam both nodded excitedly.
"You use the term 'gracious plenty.'" Eric fixed a piercing gaze first on Pam and then on Amelia. "I assume Sookie put you up to this?"
Pam and Amelia exchanged a look of confusion. Finally, Pam responded to Eric's question.
"No. Amelia came up with it."
"Hmmm, is that right?"
"Yes," Pam nodded. "I wanted to call it broadsword."
"Broadsword?" A slow smile spread across the one-time Viking's face. "Yes, I like that. Add it. You must also add some mention of my bottom. I have been told it is my best part." Eric's eyes returned to the pages in front of him.
Amelia, surprised by Eric's request, managed to catch Pam's eye. "Add his bottom?" she mouthed.
Pam shrugged.
"This other vampire— Cookie's previous boyfriend. The duplicitous wretch who is constantly bemoaning his existence..."
"Phil..." Pam supplied.
"Yes, Phil." Eric paused. "I have made some revisions to his appearances. I have made it more descriptive. Made it more rich."
Amelia slanted her eyes at Pam, who chose to ignore her friend's glare. Lips pursed, Pam directed her next words to Eric.
"Eric, let me see what you've done."
Eric handed his child a page. Pam glanced at the sheet and read.
"You have crossed out Phil's name and replaced it with "the douche bag" every other time he is mentioned."
"He did what?" squawked Amelia. "Let me see!"
Horrified over what she was reading, Amelia's mouth fell open. She quickly recovered her voice.
"Pam! We can't leave it like that! It's supposed to be an omniscient narrator! You can't just stick an opinion in there! The judges will totally take off points if we have the omniscient narrator referring to one of the characters as a douche bag!"
Eric, meanwhile, was unmoved by Amelia's outburst. "It is not an opinion, Amelia. It is, actually, quite factual..."
"Pam!" Amelia hissed. "It's not even spelled right! He's got it as one word!" she said in a hushed tone. "Douche bag is two words!"
"Amelia," Pam was losing patience. "Even if Eric were not a vampire, he is sitting right there. He can hear you."
Amelia turned to look over at Eric who, she realized, was staring at her intently.
"Is there a problem with my beta'ing, Amelia?" Eric let his fangs drop.
Biting back the words that hovered on the tip of her tongue, Amelia shook her head. "Nope! We're good. Douchebag - one word- it is." Settling back onto the couch, Amelia glared at Pam.
"Good. I have also made some other changes."
"Like what?" Amelia shrieked before she had a chance to run it past her verbal filter.
Amused, Eric smiled again at Amelia. "Well, for one, I added to your lemons."
Eric passed another page to Pam. Reading the sheet, Pam's eyebrow went up. Done reading, she handed the page to Amelia.
"Not only has he added lemons, Amelia, he has added slash."
"Slash! The contest rules didn't say we could do slash!"
Pam threw a sullen look at Eric, who just smirked.
"Well, what the heck kind of slash did he add?" asked Amelia.
"Derek emasculates Phil by taunting him and forcing him to perform certain favors," Pam said simply.
Appalled, Amelia turned to Pam. "What? That's sick!"
"So says the woman whose sex play left her partner a cat for months." Eric replied with a raised eyebrow.
"Sookie told you that?" Amelia made an annoyed sound. "I'll kill her."
At Eric's fang-bared growl, Amelia modified her statement. "It's a figure of speech! I love Sook. Of course, I wouldn't hurt her."
"Of course," Eric nodded. "Now, I have taken the liberty to improve the names of several of the throwaway characters."
"What?" Amelia replied.
"Who?" Pam asked.
"The shifter who is Cookie's boss..."
"The one based on Sam...?" prompted Pam.
"Yes. His name was Dean. Now it is Ben."
Glancing at the paper Eric handed her, Pam made a face. "Ben Dover?"
Snorting with laughter, Eric nodded. "The one based on Alcide..."
"Alex?" Amelia piped in.
"Yes. I have changed Alex as well to something more befitting."
Amelia grabbed the page from Pam and quickly perused the words. "Alpo? You changed his name to Alpo?"
Eric nodded. "No need to thank me. It is my duty as your beta to improve the story as I see fit."
"What about the Quinn character?" asked Amelia. "Did you rename him?"
Eric's countenance took on a pensive look. "I am particularly pleased with that revision as I felt it was quite creative on my part. I decided to shift his metaphysical form into something else altogether."
"Oh," Amelia breathed.
Pam, in the meantime, continued to review the pages. Finally she found what she was looking for.
"Amelia," Pam glanced at the witch. "I think I found Quinn. Suddenly Cookie looked up. 'Pew! Does anyone else smell something really bad?' she asked. Wondering if it were possible for vampires to fart, she threw a look of disgust at Phil. There are all these mentions of a bad smell now in the spots where Quinn's character previously was introduced."
"What? No!" Appalled, Amelia struggled to understand the implications. "What did he do with Quinn's lines?"
"He deleted them."
"No! No! Heck, no! The story won't make any sense now! Geez! We should forget about the contest and just send it straight to HBO if it's that lame-brained and stupid!"
Eric cleared his throat prompting Amelia to look at him. Gradually she forced the corners of her lips upward into a fake smile. "Well, actually, when you think about it, I'm complimenting you, Eric. With your story-telling flair and technique, you could easily write for HBO."
Eric squinted his eyes, obviously pondering the witch's words. Finally he replied. "Thank you, Amelia."
Glancing away at the door, Amelia rolled her eyes.
"Eric," Pam decided to try to reason with her maker. "We must get the Quinn character back. We cannot just make Quinn an amorphous odor."
"Why not?"
"We need him for the plot!" Amelia pleaded.
"Amelia is right," Pam nodded. "How about if we let you rename him? As you did Dean?"
Eric nodded. "I will think on that."
"Did you change the Cookie character at all?"
"Slight improvements here and there. Mostly I divested her of extra clothing."
"What?" squawked Amelia.
Speed-reading through the pages, Pam quickly found an example of Eric's "improvements".
"Here it is: 'Won't you come in Mr. Southman?' Cookie asked as she opened the door. As Derek entered her home, he gave Cookie a panty-dropping smile. 'Excuse me,' she said as she quickly unzipped her slacks and allowed them to fall to the floor. Sighing happily at Derek, she stepped out of her panties.
"Wait a minute!" Amelia was livid. "Isn't that the first time they meet?"
"Yes..." Pam frowned as a suspicion formed in her mind. "Eric, did you have Cookie drop her panties every time we use the descriptor 'panty-dropping'?"
"Of course," he nodded. "Was this not your intention?"
"No! It wasn't our intention!" Amelia was aghast. "That's just a figure of speech. You weren't supposed to take it literally!"
"My apologies, Amelia. I did not know this."
"I can't believe he didn't get that, Pam," Amelia hissed to Pam. "I'm starting to get Sook's point about him pretending not to understand things."
"Amelia, again, he can hear you," Pam reminded her friend.
"I don't care if he can!" Amelia squeaked. "I think he's doing this on purpose! I think he doesn't want us to enter the contest!"
"Don't be silly, Amelia. If Eric didn't want us to enter the contest, he would command me and glamour you."
Startled by the reality posed by Pam, Amelia was momentarily at a loss for words. "Oh..."
"Yes, Amelia," Eric, arms folded, fixed his cold blue eyed stare on the witch. "Pam is right. If I wanted to undermine your efforts, there are other methods I could use that would be less time-consuming than my being your beta."
"Harrumph," Amelia responded.
"All things considered, you should be grateful I have decided to play along with your little amusement."
Deciding to ignore their beta for the moment, Amelia focused her attention on her co-author. "Pam, what're we gonna do? What about Quinn's lines? And Alpo? And Cookie dropping her panties every other chapter?"
"Well, Amelia, we must work to improve the story using Eric's feedback."
"No!" Amelia exclaimed. "I say to hell with Eric's feedback."
"Amelia…" Eric's voice was ice. "I spent the better part of an hour reading your story. I," he paused, "would appreciate…a little...courtesy."
"Oh…" Eyes wide, Amelia stared at Eric. Hmmm, this must be that high-handed thing Sook's always talking about…
"Come, Amelia," Pam stood and started towards the door. "We have much to do and not much time."
"Uh, yeah" replied Amelia as she followed Pam out of the office.
"Oh," Eric called out after them. "If you see Sookie out there, would you please let her know I am wearing my panty-dropping smile?"
Pam scowled at Eric before replying with a sarcastic smile. "Of course."
"Sure thing, Eric." Amelia replied with a roll of her eyes.
AN: Hmmm. Is it me or is Eric the beta from hell? I am reminded of Mr. Peterman from 'Seinfeld'. Chapter 3 is Pamelia's version of the fic, while Chapter 4 will be Eric's beta'd version of the fic. I won't say what Chapter 5 will be. LOL. *shakes head* Has anyone seen my meds? JK