Summary: In a world where Uncle Bartlett went too far, Sookie Stackhouse decides to embrace herself rather than bend to the townfolk's perception of normal. Years later, she saves a dense vampire from two drainers. Slowburn Sookie/Eric.
I am a terrible person, remorselessly butchering Swedish with the help of an online translation site. Forgive me.
This chapter is much shorter than I intended to post but I wanted to see what you all thought of this Eric before going much further, and ruining the entire fic.
Bill stood still, clearly floundering for the right argument. Sookie waited politely for a few moments before realizing that Bill was grasping at straws. Those light blue eyes burned into her figure from across the room, sardonically amused at her actions but unyielding.
Smug bastard. Sookie wanted to defy him on principle alone by getting up and marching out of the club but she had a feeling he would come after her, and there was no way she was leaving without at least trying to find something to help Jason. The things she did for her idiot brother.
Besides Bill had brought her here. It would be terrible of her to just leave him hanging.
"I didn't think so," she murmured, mostly unsurprised by his lack of proper reason. With a sigh, Sookie pushed herself up from the table, downing her drink and gestured Bill ahead with a small smirk. "Ladies first."
Bill frowned at her, ready to protest, before conceding with a weak sigh of protest. It was a condescending sigh, a Grow-Up sigh. Sookie responsed with her sunniest, most sarcastic smile, tilting her head to the side. As instructed, Bill lead her through the crowd of barely-clad fangbangers.
There was a sharp rise in antitipation with each step closer to the man on the throne, Eric, until the feeling was almost painfully strong. Sookie let her eyes drift to the crowd, peeling back the weakest, smallest layer of her shields. The thoughts gushed through her ears, petty and cringeful, but easy enough to ignore - if anyone thought of Jason Stackhouse, Dawn Greene or Maudette Pickens, she would pick up on it.
Bill offered her a hand up the dais, but Sookie shook her head slightly, and climbed the stairs herself, coming to stand in front of Eric and Pam. Eric was silent for a moment, studying them with unreadable, mesmorising blue eyes, and Pam smirked at his side.
"Sookie Stackhouse," he said finally, rolling her name out in a slow, savouring tone. His voice was a dark rumble, seemingly designed to hit a girl low in the stomach. Lafayette would have called it a panties-melting voice, and he would not have been wrong. His accent was difficult to place, but certainly not American.
"Wow," she murmured flatly, raising her eyebrows, not buying his intimidation tricks. "Two seconds into a conversation, and I'm already totally freaked out."
"Sookie," Bill hissed, going to grab her, but Sookie moved her arm out of his grasp, delicately clasping her hands over her stomach.
"15 seconds ago, Bill," Sookie reminded him lowly but fiercely, referring to her warning about being grabbed.
"I like her," Pam purred suggestively, running her eyes lewdly over Sookie's form.
"Den här är min," Eric stated, a hard element of control in his voice though his posture remained laid-back. Sookie didn't have to understand his words to know she didn't approve of them, but it made Pam back off with an annoyed roll of her eyes. Bill, however, looked almost constipated.
If Eric noticed, he did not care. He was, infact, paying far more mind to Sookie than Bill, blue eyes burning remorselessly through her tight white dress, predatory and covetous. She hoped x-ray vision wasn't one of his talents.
"Would you be the same Sookie Stackhouse to subdue two drainers in Bon Temps?"
Sookie tilted her head to the side, trying not to feel too threatened by his unrelenting stare of apprasial. It made sense that a vampire shrieff would be aware of that. "Yes."
"How...interesting," Eric drawled. Another burst of light caught of his blonde hair, highlighting his face. He looked dangerous, big and bad, all clad in black. His eyes moved over her tiny stature, and fierce, dark eyes. "Well, aren't you full of surprises."
The glint in his light eyes suggested he wanted to learn every one of her surprises...extensively as the night wore on.
Sookie smiled at him, containing a playful edge of seduction and sex. There was no way it was going to happen, she and any man, period, but she knew how to play the game. Telepath. "Like you wouldn't believe."
Eric smiked at her in response, icy blue eyes hot in a way that made heat fizzle in her lower gut. "We'll see," he said promisingly.
"I'm betting we won't," Sookie retorted calmly but firmly, feeling Bill bristle at her side.
Eric made a small sound of amusement, too elegant to be called a snort, like he didn't quite believe her. "Well see," he repeated before growing serious. "I understand you have been asking questions about some of my customers."
"Do you mind if I ask you some questions?" Sookie turned the statement around on him, and he dipped his head in acquiescence. Turning her head away from him, she withdrew the two photos of Dawn and Maudette and showed them to him. "You recognize either one of these girls?"
Eric finally dropped his piercing eyes from her face and her body to the two photos. Bill edged closer to Sookie, making the hair on the back of her neck rise. An instinct urged her to shy away not from Eric, who was far more sexually aggressive and physically threatening, but Bill, who had done his best to help her.
Stubbornness made Sookie hold her ground, but she filled this away for later thought. To some degree, she had grown used to her discomfort with strong sexual natures, no longer freezing up, too startled to react, but this was different, somehow.
"This one offered herself to me," Eric said, pointing a long, pale finger at the smaller picture. Maudette. His lips pressed together briefly before his intense gaze swept back up to Sookie. "I found her too pathetic for my attentions."
Sookie was unimpressed by his callous words, arching her eyebrow to let him know this. Eric seemed amused by her disapproval. "Now, this one, however... I have tasted."
"I remember them both," Pam said, drawing Sookie's eyes from Eric. "Never had either of them, though. They weren't really my type."
For a moment, Sookie was tempted to ask what Pam's type was but she had a pretty good idea from how Pam had been looking at her. None of the three names had jumped out at her from the fangbangers thoughts but there was still a chance to help Jason, and that was more vital than bantering with Eric and Pam.
"Peachy," Sookie said cheerfully, stowing the photos away, and flipping back her long blonde hair. "It was nice meeting you both, and I'm real sorry for takin' up so much of your time."
Sookie made to leave, and Bill put a hand at the base of her spine, ready to follow. A sharp shock of unexplainable emotions jolted through Sookie, and she twisted gracefully around on her heel to face Bill, dark eyes wild, eyebrows high, an angry flush rising in her cheeks.
"Don't - " she spat furiously before closing her eyes, forcefully regaining her temper, clamping down on the urge to nail him in the soft spot.
"Two minutes ago, Bill. Two goddamn minutes ago. Unless vampires can develop alzheimers, we're going to have a big problem here," she said lightly with an unstable grin, eyes shooting sparks, gesturing with a forced edge of comedy between them.
Bill was staring at her in surprise, and she could already see him dismissing her actions. Her anger increased, bringing her blood to boiling point. Sookie could feel an undercurrent of energy charging through her, making her stance firm and steady, ready to haul off and swing for him at a moments notice.
A deep chuckle broke through the air between Sookie and Bill. With a start, Sookie's eyes landed on Eric, who beckoned her closer, pink lips curved in a smirk. "I'm not finished with you just yet, Miss Stackhouse. Please," he gestured to the bar stool beside his throne with a fluid wave of his hand. "Sit."
Eric tried to stare her down but Sookie held his gaze unflinchingly, just to prove she wasn't about to trip over her melting panties for him. "We can finish this conversation in the privacy of my office, if you would prefer."
There was no polite way to say no way in fucking hell, so Sookie took a step toward the bar stool, just as Bill opened his mouth. "Sookie is mine."
Sookie froze, every muscle in her body went ridgid, a storm of fiery rage and bone-deep disgust twisted from the pits of her stomach, filling every inch of her body with the urge to react, to lash out at this possessive tone - like she was a piece of fucking furniture, or a helpless child all over again.
There were certain subjects that hit Sookie hard, triggering an almost beserk level of fury in her. It terrified her, how angry certain things could make her. She had been raised to defend herself, the rape had simply pushed her vicious streak to the surface, not to attack people mindlessly, like some monster.
Bend, break or don't, the mantra passed through her mind obsessively. Was she going to break the few principles her Gran had managed to imprint on her, for Bill Compton? Not a chance in hell.
"Sookie," she hissed, head turning slowly to pin Bill with her wildly furious eyes, fists clenched painfully tight with barely restrained violence, "Is her own."
"I, for one, am glad to hear that," Eric mused, fangs snapping down with a small click.
Rage was swiftly replaced by wariness, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Bill looked frantically between the two blondes, Eric smirking and Sookie frowning, and interjected, "Sookie - "
"Not another word, Compton," Eric commanded forcefully, his voice easily silencing Bill. "While it may suit the AVL's purposes, it would be a shame to vampire's everywhere if one of us were seen being beaten to a bloody pulp by a young human woman in a public setting, and I am disinclined to stop her."
"Even one so delicious," Pam sighed.
"Sit down, Miss Stackhouse," ordered Eric, speaking less harshly to her than Bill but the commanding note never wavered in his voice.
Before Sookie could act on her urge to remain unyielding and fling a sarcastic comment the muscular blonde's way, a word snagged her attention - police. Her head jerked to the side, immediately locating the correct person.
Back-up was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago, I can't handle this whole place by myself -
"We have to leave," Sookie blurted, dark eyes widening in panic as her head whipped around to focus on Eric, who was looking at her oddly. "Eric, there's going to be a raid."
Eric arched an eyebrow at her, before suddenly his expression locked up, containing a hint of danger. "Tell me you are not an undercover cop."
"Because I would totally be warning you if I was," Sookie said with scalding sarcasm, temper heating up with her anxiety.
Eric conceded her point with a small movement of his head. "Even if you are right, we do nothing illegal here."
"Really?" she questioned doubtfully, dragging the word out. "You absolutely sure about that? Sure enough to risk gettin' silvered by a bunch of scrawny morons in uniform?"
"No vampire would be foolish enough to break bar-rules," Eric said stiffly, eyes drifting over the oblivious crowd.
"Except the woman named Taryn who is currently feedin' off the man you knocked across the room earlier in the bathrooms. But while we're on the subject of feeding, you might wanna retract your fangs. Now, would you please put the Paranoid Bastard get-up back in the closet and listen to me before we end up in a jail cell?"
Eric looked at her dangerously, patience clearly running thin with her sharp tongue, but before he could speak, the door to Fangtasia was flung open, and a SWAT team poured in. The customers burst into a panic, trying to flee, shouts echoing off the walls.
Eric was on his feet within an instant, and even in her shock, Sookie couldn't help but marvel at his towering height. "Follow me," he barked, darting to the side, where Sookie spotted the dark outline of a door.
Sookie followed after Pam with Bill at her back, matching the vampire woman's speed. Vampire or not, she had to admire how fast Pam moved in her four-inch heels.
"How did you know?" Pam demanded as Eric flung a door open ahead of them and burst out of the club.
The fact that she was surrounded by three incredibly strong vampires had been niggling at Sookie's instinct of self-preservation all night, but her motto had urged her to ignore how much of a dangerous situation she was in. In a way, Sookie had been child-proofing her usual behaviour until overhearing about the raid.
Now, her common sense was battling with her personality. It was too late to blend in (wearing a white dress to a vampire bar, bad idea) but not further pissing off the Dead Blonde Duo couldn't hurt.
"I can read minds," Sookie confessed sarcastically. Not a lie, but surely, they wouldn't believe her. No one else had, and that was when she actually tried to make them believe her. "But that really isn't the most important thing right now."
The second Sookie's heel hit the concrete outside, she looked back to check on Bill, who was a mere step behind her.
"I disagree," Eric said, smooth, intimate voice hitting her ears. Sookie's blonde head whipped around, just in time to see his form blurring, and then an arm made of pure muscle was sweeping her knees out from under her, and she was being lifted up, up, up into Eric's arms, head smacking into his broad chest.
The stab of pain, the unexpected touch, made Sookie spit out an instinctive curse. "Son of a bitch! Put me the hell down!"
Eric's chest rumbled under her ears with a silent laugh, and then his huge muscles were flexing, and Bill was screaming her name, and Eric took off. Into the air. Like a bird, like a plane, like an airborn, kidnapping son of a bitch vampire.
The air wooshed past them as Eric shot off into the sky, assaulting her ears. Gripped to his chest as she was, Sookie couldn't struggle or fight, and she wasn't plain stupid enough to bite him - God only knows what kind of instincts that would provoke - but she could swear.
And she did, as loudly and viciously as Jason had taught her when they were kids. It was more than she'd done with him, and it helped, like her Gran singing Hey Jude, or Jason's skinny arms wrapping around her in a misunderstood hug whenever he'd caught her crying after that night.
The air wasn't quite loud enough to drown out the faint, ringing sound of Eric's laughter. Somehow, that helped too.
What Eric is supposed to be saying is this - "This one is mine." But Hell knows what it actually says...
Remember to tell me how much I messed up Eric's character.