I own nothing to do with True Blood

Thank you all so much for inspiring me to write! Hoping you will enjoy this one, and that it isn't really horrible!

Chapter Five

"You know, when I first saw you, I assumed you were exactly like me. I thought we were one and the same."

"What? You assumed I was a Fairy?"

Eric and I were in my lounge room; Eric was lying long-ways on my faded couch, still naked, while I sat on the floor across from him. Since most vital parts of him were concealed in the fabric of the couch, I found holding a proper conversation with him wasn't as troubling as I thought it would be.

"Yes." He looked embarrassed to admit it. "Similar to when you see somebody, and you just automatically know they're special." The compliments were piling up from him by the hour.

"Well, I'm not a Fairy. Not that I know of, anyhow. Why'd you think that?"

"It was your hair at first." At this, he tentatively rolled over onto his side on my sofa, reached down to where I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, and touched my hair, spreading it across my shoulder blades with his fingers carefully. His eyes held mine intently while he did it, and I found I was holding my breath.

"My hair?" I repeated, baffled. "Are all Fairies blonde, or something?" I touched my hair self-consciously myself, without truly realizing I was.

"Mostly, yes." He smiled down at me and my heart skipped. "But I think it was more than that. Sometimes I would sit outside your place of work - occasionally concealed in a high branch of one of the trees that provided the best view - and I would observe you." I honestly didn't know how to take that confession; I suppose I felt both flattered and sceptical in equal measure. I didn't know what he could possibly find interesting in a young woman like me. "I would watch you interact with people in your world. You always seemed so friendly and open."

I shrugged, dismissing it all. "Only on a good day."

"No, there is something in you," he insisted gravely. It was disarming. The springs on my old couch squeaked as he reached down again. He touched my cheek this time, running his thumb in a circular motion. "Goodness inside of you. Light. It's beautiful."

I blushed at the intensity of his words and lowered my eyes. "Well, that's awfully sweet of you to say." I gulped and lifted my eyes back to his face; He was still staring at me with those magnetic eyes, his large hand stationary on my cheek. "How old are you?" I had to douse the tension I felt somehow.

Some men get uncomfortable over the topic; Bill certainly had. Only astoundingly, Eric looked very pleased I'd bothered to ask.

Slowly, he removed his hand from my cheek and sat up, propped up by an elbow on the couch and his hand resting palm-flat underneath his chin. "How old do I look to you, Sookie? I'm interested in knowing."

I judged him carefully for a few seconds, raking my eyes down his face. "I don't know. Thirty, probably, at the most."

He beamed down at me, very smug. "Wrong." He just loved declaring that, I could tell.

I was stunned. "I'm wrong? How old, then?"

"Guess again."

"I just did! C'mon, no more!"

"All right," he sighed reluctantly. "I am four-hundred-and-twenty years old."

Well shit. I certainly wasn't expecting that.

"Seriously?" I laughed out loud, incredulous. I didn't believe him. At all. "But you don't look that old! No goddamn way!"

"It happens in my dimension. We do not age physically above a certain year. We grow as a child, yes. But we just... cease and remain. My father and some of the elders are far older than I am, in age."

It seemed somehow more logical to digest then. "How old is your father and some of the elders then?" I couldn't deny I was impressed.

"My father is four-hundred and eighty, and is still going strong in controlling the land. We cannot age in our realm, but as far as I know, we cannot advance over the five-hundred mark."

"Wow," I murmured, breathless. "So, you never age? How lucky." Aging was my biggest fear; My Grandmother often assured me it wasn't so bad, though.

"To you, perhaps. After a millennium, you find you would not mind it. You naturally start to crave what you cannot have."

"Do you feel that old?"

"Not in my land. In my land, I feel as though I am in the days of my youth. But here... in yours, I feel a bit older. My bones ache, and my legs grow stiff, I find, after long periods of walking."

"Why'd you choose Merlotte's, of all places, to hang around?"

"Because, the morning that I woke on the grass banished to this expanse, first living-breathing being I saw, was you. You were walking to your workplace, as I continued to see you from that day onwards, Sookie. I felt I had to follow you, as though my life depended on it. I found I enjoyed being around you, if not in actual company, but at a close distance. Your aura is very... comforting, Sookie. I found that when the rushes of noise, and the chaos of an unfamiliar territory got me frightened, the only way to effectively slow it down, was being near you."

Since he was being completely honest here...

"Well, if it's any consolation at all, I find I like being around you too, Eric." I smiled shyly and touched his knuckles with the tips of my fingers. Usually I wasn't so forward with my feelings, but I was almost bursting inside with the utter sincerity and warmth I immediately felt for this naked man on my sofa. "You're a very strange and fascinating man."

He laughed at that. Then he went on, very softly and somewhat wistfully, "It may be odd to say, but I wish I had found you in my dimension. I believe then, I mightn't have been so disobedient in my father's orders to marry. It would have been far simpler." He was looking me dead-on in the eye, with the utmost honesty. "It is a shame; I would have asserted my position to you, and fought against all other competitors for you to be mine. You would have made an extraordinary Fairy Princess. You have all the necessary and vital components."

I waved a hand in front of me, emotional. "Oh, please. You're just saying that!"

"I am most sincere."

Where on earth had such a kind and decent man been hiding all my life? Oh, in another Fairy dimension I never knew even existed, of course.

"I wish you wouldn't say all that sweet stuff to me," I confessed, beyond moved.

"Why not?"

"Because... it makes things harder. I can't be feeling certain things for you, especially not when tomorrow or some other day, we'll be searching for this portal of yours so that you can get back home." I rubbed my eyelids, suddenly conflicted. "It'll only make me sad when the time does come for you to leave!" No man had ever been so sweet to me, and he'd only been in my house less than five hours. Already he was making a pretty good impression, and it wasn't only because I got to see him fully naked.

"I don't have to leave, just yet," he said quietly.

I didn't speak; I didn't know what to say.

But then he took one of my hands, brought it level to one of his, and pressed each tip of his large fingers squarely into the tips of mine. A staggering warmth and surge of energy crackled and coursed throughout my veins, spreading everywhere. When I dared to look up at him, his eyes were tightly closed. He was focusing, hard. Then he slowly reopened them, and looked at our hands; fingers still touching, resonating a mild, buzzing electricity. Strings of light were rising from his fingers to mine. Astonishingly, the same light was pushing through my fingers, creating a barrier from his light.

I did not know what it meant. But according to the expression on his face, neither did Eric.

Sorry, I will try to make chapters longer. It just might take me a bit longer to update. Sorry if this one was disappointing, I find I get so nervous to post chapters.