AN: I apologize for the very long wait. RL has been crazy (and I got icky writer's block). However, now I'm back and will try to make regular updates. I would suggest you re-read the previous two chapters, to re-aquaint yourselves with the timeline, which is pretty pretty important. I think I've fixed that up on those chapters. I've been having problems with the formatting, so if you got multiple update alerts. Sorry! I'm still such a novice and this chappie is beta-free unfortunately.

Again, I own nothing (save for the one cutesy college boy). I just like to go flying with Eric, as he spins us around the moon and back.

Fangtasia. Two weeks prior to present day (approx. date: September 18th).

Dear Abby,

It started all so innocently-well as innocent as a vampire could be (which I guess IS saying something).

My master had been fawning over this one human for so long. Normally, I'd watch entranced when he played with his food. Everything I know, I owe to My Master. He has always had a wonderful joie-de-vivre, which incidentally is what attracted him to make me in his image. Like child, like maker.

I digress. However, back to his meals. . .this human wasn't like the other bloodbags; she was free-spirited, defiant and bold when it counted. Over time, the combination of her sweetness, wit and tenacity seemed to warm my icy exterior. She reminded me of another human from long ago-Me.

[What? Can't I reminisce? My master would not look upon it kindly. He has always taught me that closing the chapter on our previous human lives was essential to our survival.

I do understand. I would never want to be human again. I've always enjoyed being a vampire and having supremacy over others. They're just humans, after all.]

However, something about this particular human made me want to be such a girly girl. I wanted to cavort with her and do what girls do best: applying makeup on one another, braiding each other's hair and then delightfully suckling each other's bosoms. [That would do quite nicely. I tongued my right fang with a gleam in my eye]

"Wait," Pam said to herself and sighed internally. "This will not do!"

She crushed the papers within her hands and stuffed them in the nooks & crannies of her cleavage.

It was time to pull herself together emotionally, for this was not befitting someone of her stature. For the love of Sandman, she was Eric's child. She had a reputation to uphold!

Casually reaching into her right patent leather boot, she pulled out her tiny, metallic pink phone and typed a quick message and let the IM reach it's destination.

Unnervingly, ten feet away from where she stood, a group of oily college kids were oggling her frontal assets. She really disliked it when people abused that much product in their hair. Ugh. Get a life greasy vermin.

PamInWonderland: Find me Dear Abby scrapbooks A-Z. Might as well add the contact information as well.

Ten minutes later she received this reply:

MadHatter: Just waking up from a nap. Will arrange everything necessary for your perusal. What time may I expect you?

Good. He was available.

PamInWonderland: I'm tying up some loose ends here. . .Wait. A nap? Didn't you have a date tonight?

MadHatter: HAD being the operative word. She canceled on me.

PamInWonderland: If I find that wench, I will make mince meat out of her! :( Oh. Oh. The natives are getting restless. Time to show off the goods. We'll talk tonight, ok.

Pam closed her phone and took a stroll around the perimeter.

"MadHatter." How she loved the name. Thinking about it made her grin.

Thinking about the MadHatter made her internally smile, which filled her undead heart with a warmth she'd lost long, long ago.

He liked to tease her that she was "Alice in Wonderland 2.0", the vamp version, due to her eccentric taste in hobbies and natural disposition towards pinks and mauves. She silently giggled.

Snapping his phone shut, the Madhatter closed his eyes for a moment and tried to reach out with his senses in the direction of the club. Pam had been acting different lately. Distracted. Something was just plain off, which was enough to unsettle him this evening. He reopened his phone and IM'd:

MadHatter: G.P. Is needed. Will you share?

One minute later an answer filled his hand.

SweeTea: But I haven't had my fill all day. Get your own G.P.

Oh this was good.

Madhatter: Well You've Got Mine! And by the way, that's just gross. :P

SweeTea: :P

Madhatter: Don't stick your tongue out at me, sista. I don't know where it's been!

More giggling ensued.

Madhatter closed his phone and went to start a hot bath. No sense in waiting for something that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Thirty minutes later, his phone rang. A smooth, familiar voice slowly filled his ear, "I. Am. Here."

The voice added, "How was your evening? Did you have to invade mine?"

Madhatter swallowed. Eric hated getting interrupted.

"My apologies then. It's Saturday, I knew you'd be over there and..." He hastily added, "Please, give my regards to Sookie." There was silence.

"Aw, come on Eric. Sookie loves me. We IM all the time. Don't be upset, please."

Eric finally answered, "Don't you think you've exhausted the G.P. enough. It's one thing to have my lover use it. . .but you, too!" "Patterson, what am I going to have to do to you?" Eric bellowed.

Gulp. Even more silence. Patterson's face was losing color rather fast. Yelling would be easier to tolerate than this tormenting silence. Panic was setting in.

"Eric," he began to whisper. However, just after he heard his name, the Viking blurted over the receiver, "Gotcha!"

"Pat. Are you there? What is wrong? Did you not find it amusing?"

"Um. Yes." Color filled his face now that oxygen was fully returning to his body.

Eric could feel the change in Patterson's breath. "You look as if you did not enjoy it."

"Yes. Of course, I was excessively diverted," Patterson mumbled.

"Liar." Eric contorted his long, taut body toards the left to stretch out his massive shoulders, in a feline move. "What's up?"

Patterson, not wanting to appear weak was thinking of saying, "nothing." However, worry was overriding his faux-macho bravado. He admitted, "It's Pam. Have you noticed anything strange about her lately?"

Eric was adjusting his lapels when he declared, "This is Pam we're discussing. She reads Dear Abby, devotes hours upon hours to Martha Stewart television programs and ensconces herself in un-vampire pink colors. She's already strange." His golden strands flew around his neck a bit.

"Did you know that prior to making my child, I had no idea what a Martha Stewart was? I almost wish I was left in the dark. Did you know she even has the magazines coming to the club?" Eric's voice altered slightly higher, "The club, Patti!"

"The waitresses seem to be enjoying the bat and skeleton crafts during their breaks. It does keep them out of trouble, I suppose," he snorted aloud.

He smiled at the phone. This is why he loved talking to Eric. It seemed no matter what was happening in his life, Eric always had a way of grounding him and making him feel secure.

"Thanks, old man."

"Think nothing of it," Eric smiled back. "How was your date? Couldn't have been that good if you've been worrying about Miss-I-Love-Pink," he deadpanned.

"Is nothing ever quiet around here? Geesh." Looking embarrassed, Patterson covered his face with a small pillow next to him.

"Geesh?" You got that saying from my Sookie, did you not?" Eric chuckled.

"Well, I've pick up heaps of Americanism's and Southern colloquialisms from her. She is a good teacher. We spoke and texted several times a week when I was away at university, you know."

No, I didn't know. "I was aware that you were in contact with her. Yes." Eric mentally wondered why his lover had not disclosed this information before. He needed details.

"Does it feel strange to be back?" Eric inquired.

"I was only gone 5 years and I'm glad to be done with it, quite frankly," remarked Patterson. "Plus, I missed. . . You should know, England does not feel like home any longer," his thoughts trailed to the last few years without those closest to him.

"By the way, thanks again for FedExing that Fangtasia merchandise every couple of months. It was a huge hit on campus, especially with the fairer sex," he grinned.

"Anything to get you laid, my boy!" Eric returned his grin.

"Plus, it couldn't hurt business advertising overseas, correct?"

Eric's voice was smooth as the softest raw silk when he added, "After all, those UK co-eds have to come some time, don't they?"

Poor Patterson hadn't gotten much action sexually in quite a spell and hearing those words uttered just made his dangly bits tingle with need. That's when the bottle he was holding slipped through his hands and crashed onto the parquet wood floor.

"Fuck!" he cried.

"Is that any way to greet your G.P.?" Eric said as he was strutting through the front entrance.

Patterson Glover had just had the wind knock out of him. Poor fool, he should know by now.

"What? No hug? You wound me," Mr Tall-and-Blond placed his hand over his undead heart and then extended his arms out.

Left with no recourse, Patterson locked his feeble arms around Eric's wide back.

"Patti," Eric mumbled in his embrace.

"Yes, Eric?" he answered glancing up.

Overlooking his shoulder, Eric asked, "Why do I seem to be caught in a Dear Abby/Martha Stewart nightmare of epic proportions?"

There on both coffee tables sat about 50 folders labeled "Dear Abby". . .and alongside them were every Martha Stewart magazine since the start of the fall season. Put simply. Eric was in hell.

"Mum." He was feeling really badly for the unjolly blond giant. "She wanted them ALL out when she got home," he said with a small, sad smile.

Eric's pale blue indigo eyes started pinking up.

He quietly said, "Oh," then his beautiful, soft lips arranged into a straight, hard line.

AN: Poor Viking! Questions, anyone? BwaHaHa. What did you think about Patterson? I'm already crushing on him a wee bit. So who can tell me what "G.P." stands for when Patterson uses it for Eric? Raise your hands up high.

Please let me know what you think. Things will get much clearer next chappie. This one was pretty much filler. There will more of young Patterson and how he came about to be next chappie next week.