I want to belong to you

She believed him too. She was sure if she could just not be looking at his face, then she'd think clearly, she'd remember all those manipulative, creepy, evil things he'd ever said or done and she'd be able to see he was lying... Unfortunately none of that could happen while she was looking at his face. He hadn't moved, which made her itchy and uncomfortable, he just stood there, looking at her, like everything that'd gone wrong in his life was her fault somehow and yet he still couldn't hate her.

"I'm fucked," he said softly, then chuckled cynically to himself. "Godric would never have been caught like this..."

Sookie didn't know what to say, or think, or do. She was acutely aware of the fact that she was standing on a rooftop skanked up to the nines with stupid dark hair and fake tattoo's. She remembered when Godric stepped down as Sheriff, how fired up Eric had been then. Fight this, he'd demanded, don't let the bureaucrats treat you like this. Somehow, between then and now, he'd stopped being fired up, he didn't believe himself to be unconquerable any more.

"I can fly you back to Bon Temps, you shouldn't stay in Jackson, not now." He turned around and offered him her back to climb on.

"I can't just climb on your back, not after... not... God Damn it Eric you're such a shit!" She stomped her foot, the tears welled up in her eyes again as Eric turned to look at her. "Of course I'm gonna help you. You know I was always gonna help you so don't even pretend you thought I'd let you hang." She wiped angrily at her eyes, "You're just... You come over all sweet and fragile and then, just when I start thinkin' you might not be a complete bastard, you blind-side me with somethin' dirty or nasty or you do somethin' underhanded and just... crap. You think I don't WANT to be able to trust you? You think it wouldn't be nice for me to have someone around I could actually count on. You always turn up, right when I need you, you save the day hoooraa and then you're all 'oh lets fuck now' or 'here's proof I'm a big dick head'."

"You don't survive a thousand years by being a 'S.N.A.G' Sookie... I can't change what I am. Every underhanded thing I've done, I did to protect you. Compton is a child in Vampire terms, having him on your arm was the illusion of protection. I am hardly the oldest of my kind, and every Vampire with half a brain would want a telepath they could control. I am sorry I hurt you, but you're to valuable and to much of a danger magnet to be allowed to run around on your own!" Eric stopped, inches from her face, the growl in his voice truly dis-quietening and Sookie took a step back. "You can't help me Sookie, you wont give Compton up, and I wont give up Pam."

"Well we'll give up someone else then," she said defiantly, raising her chin in a desperate attempt to hide how scared she was, how rattled by all this. "You said yourself it wouldn't be that hard to frame someone, we just have to find someone who's a bigger ass than you."

"Are you actually suggesting you would help me set up an innocent person, to be executed in my place?" Eric's eyebrow nearly disappeared into his hair, surely not, he thought. He knew her better than that... surely?

"Course not!" Sookie exclaimed, "I'm suggestin' we frame a guilty someone."

"Who exactly did you have in mind?"

"Well... There are a couple of candidates I can think of off the top of my head." She checked off on her fingers, "There's the Fellowship of the Sun. I like the idea of them getting' in the shit, but at the same time I dunno if that'd backfire into more trouble. Then there's that werewolf pack down there. There was a vampire in there tonight handin' out his blood! They all drank it and... well they kinda went crazy, actually. Then there's whoever Bill's run off to work for... I mean, if Bill is the one who got you into trouble in the first place. I gotta tell you if that Vampire woman is behind all this, I might be able to find something to occupy myself with while you rip her arms off."

Eric laughed and scratched his forehead lightly, his eyes perplexed and impressed. "Do you contemplate this kind of thing often?"

"Course not! I'm a nice girl, I just... I don't..." She bit her bottom lip and twisted this way and that on her feet, trying not to look at him and in the end she caved, stomped once more and put her hands on her hips, "I don't want you to die, alright! There, are you happy?"

"More like, hopeful." He made to step towards her but she raised her hands.

"Don't. Just, don't. I am not swoonin' into your arms, I am not fallin' under your spell and I am not agreein' to sleep with you! I just... might not hate you. Completely. All the time." She stood firm, hands on her hips and her chin raised.

"You're beautiful when you're denying me," Eric grinned, deeply relieved, more so than he might ever admit, that she was willing to help him. "Alright, first I'll need you to look at some pictures for me," he grinned at her shocked look, "not that kind. Although... later. We need to identify the vampire who's been supplying the wolves. This is not a new pack, you remember what I told you before?"

"About the NAZIS?"

"That's right. Same pack, so we can safely assume same vampire, or at the very least, same line of vampires. That means conspiracy, that means a big enough storm of shit that whatever the Magister might believe I've done, he'll be too busy to follow up on. At least not until after I've had plenty of time to deal with whatever evidence might still be laying around." He smiled at her and held out his hand, "You really are an impressive woman."

Sookie glowed, she'd never been called that before. "You usually call me a 'human', is 'woman' better, or worse?" She asked archly.

"'Woman' is better than just about anything... except me, of course. Now, two day's is not long. How would you prefer to fly? I can put you on my back, carry you superman style, or you could wrap your arms and legs around me and..."

"Ok, Ok I get the picture... Umm... how fast do you go?" She looked a little worried.

"Fast. Much as I'd like your first time to be gentle, we don't have time. It will be fast, your hair will get messed."

Sookie took a deep breath and then put on her brave face, "Don't take this the wrong way but I'm gonna say 'front pack', so I can keep my face out of the wind. And I'm kinda scared of swallowin' a bug... or fifty."

Eric said nothing, though he did smirk as he opened his arms for her to step into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and jumped a little, wrapping her legs around his hips and ducking her head down so her cheek was against his chest and her face shielded by her body. "Ready?"

"You're smilin' aren't ya?" She said without bothering to look up.

"You find me a man who wouldn't smile in this situation..."

"Are you suggestin' you're normal?"

"Of course not, but lechery comes standard. You're a mind reader, you know that." He wrapped his arms around her more gently that she'd thought he would and gave her a little squeeze, "Look down."

Sookie popped her head out and saw that they were hovering over the building about three meter's up. "Oh my gosh..." she breathed.

Eric refrained from commenting. "We'll be going fast, hide your face again. Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes."

"Where are we goin'?"

"A safe house near Shreveport. Godric left it to me."

Sookie squeezed his neck gently. Strangely, though she'd only known him a day or two, Godric had made a huge impression on her. She often found herself remembering him sadly, and she felt robbed that she hadn't gotten the chance to know him better. Eric was both grateful for and irritated by her concern. She never looked down as the wind rushed past her ears, this whole flying business was totally unnatural and she was trembling violently by the time they landed.

In Eric's defence the landing was so light she didn't notice, she just kept clinging to his neck and pressing her face into his chest.

"Sookie, we're here." He said gently and smiled down when she looked up at him.

"Where is here?"

"One of Godric's houses. He's... he liked to travel, to watch people. If I looked into it I'd probably find he had a house almost everywhere."

"I'm really sorry Eric..." She let her legs drop and stepped back to look at the small, unassuming cottage. "It's lovely."

"I should have known he wasn't happy," Eric admitted softly, "the last five hundred years, he'd been getting less and less gregarious, less passionate. If I'd found you earlier, trusted you... I think you could have convinced him to stay..."

"Me? He hardly knew me at all!"

Eric laughed softly, "He thought you were sweet and courageous. There just wasn't enough time,"

Sookie reached out and gently took his hand. "We've got work to do. Come on." Eric nodded and led her to the front door.

"Everything we need should be here. With a small amount of computer fraud I should be able to access the images of every prominent vampire in North America. Let us hope he's one of them, it might take a very long time to identify him otherwise." Eric closed and locked the door behind them for all the good it'd do if any vampires showed up.

"Eric... does this all seem, well, kinda coincidental to you?" Sookie asked, sitting on a massive overstuffed couch which was covered in fur making it look like at any moment it might get up and waddle away.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, just that you said the Queen was in financial trouble and then Bill gets kidnapped by werewolves that are bein' controlled by another vampire and at the same time you're bein' ratted out to the vampire cops... I dunno. It just all seems so convenient. Or, you know, such a pain in the ass to all be happening at once." She looked up at him, "Am I makin' any sense?"

"You're trying to suggest this may be some sort of plot to destabilise Louisiana for a take-over?" He sat next to her and huffed out a breath. "Maybe. Besides the Queen I am the oldest vampire in this area, therefore the biggest threat seeing as she's... unstable. But why take Bill?" Eric stopped and looked at her carefully, "Unless they count you among my assets and hoped to remove you from the picture as well."

"But I can't read vampire minds, you all know that." She protested, "How could I be a threat to them?"

"It may be that they don't realise you can't read us." Eric said carefully, "Or it may simply be that like most vampire business these days, half of it is done during the day and that means by humans. We are most vulnerable when we sleep, and our business is most vulnerable while we're not the one's carrying it out."

"OK, that makes sense. Eric, with Bill gone... exactly how screwed am I?" Eric opened his mouth, his eyes twinkling but Sookie gave him a flat stare, "I mean it! This is my life too and if Bill's gone and dumped me flat I need to know how much shit I'm in!"

Eric sighed and lent back, flopping his arms over the back of the couch, "A lot." He said shortly. "But the truth of it is that Compton's protection was... traditional. Politeness among our kind would prevent random harassment but the reality is all someone would have to do to take you from him, is kill him. At two hundred years old, he is not what you'd call a great challenge for a power player."

"Could you have killed him?" She asked softly.

"Easily. But that wouldn't have gotten me anywhere... I told you. I don't want to control you, not like that."

"Well like what then?" She shifted away from him on the couch.

"I want you to scream in pleasure so loud that the neighbours stay up at night imagining what I'm doing to you. I want to watch you come apart in my hands until you can't move, can't think, can't argue with me." He lent closer and closer as he spoke and Sookie's blood pressure went higher and higher the closer he lent. "I suppose that's a kind of control... in fairness to me though, it's a kind of control I can only have by doing exactly what you want."