Eric leaned against the bar from his side, meeting the other man's gaze. "How often has that line ever worked for you?" he asked, amused.
"You'd be surprised, actually," the other man said. "Especially when it's your own bar and you know if they're lying."
"Have your own place, do you? Then what brings you here?" Eric's amusement was briefly lived as he narrowed his eyes at the man. "Come to steal our clientele?"
"Not at all!" The man held a hand out across the bar and Eric hesitantly took it. The grip was firm and the shake was confident. "I'm a bit far from home, at the moment. Lux is back in L.A." The man paused, giving Eric a saucy grin as if he still hoped the pickup line would work. "I'm Lucifer Morningstar." His accent made the name sound exotic.
"Lucifer," Eric said, appreciating the stage name. "A bit far from home, but I think you've missed your mark. Georgia is still three states to the east."
This actually got an eyeroll and sigh from Lucifer. "That story is completely fabricated, I'll have you know. I do not steal souls. I punish those who arrive completely on their own." An annoyed huff came from him. "Typical humans always blaming others for their faults."
Eric stopped wiping the counter to study the man. "Are you trying to claim you're the actual devil?"
"The original prodigal son, at your service," Lucifer confirmed with a bit of a hand flourish. "And you are?"
"Eric Northman," Eric replied, testing the air to smell the man. "I appreciate your creativity, but you can't possibly be the devil."
Lucifer sat up straight on the stool, hands going to tug on his suit jacket, a look of afront on his face. Eric actually found the expression endearing on the dark-haired man. "And why not? You're a vampire, are you not?"
Eric lifted a single eyebrow at Lucifer. "Of course. And this is a vampire bar. Vampires are an entire species."
"And there's only one devil, yes. And it's me. A fallen angel, if you will."
"You expect me to believe that?" Eric asked. But the man didn't smell human. And he certainly wasn't vampire—Eric could just barely hear the man's beating heart. It was hard to distinguish over the music, but it was there nonetheless. He smelled nothing like Sookie, either. Of course, there were plenty of supes out there and Eric couldn't possibly know what all of them were.
"I believe in you, don't I?" the other man question.
Eric didn't have an answer for that and when he didn't make an effort to say anything more, Lucifer pointed behind Eric to the rows of alcohol along the wall. "I'll have a whisky. Do I see an Oban back there?"
Eric turned and pulled the fourteen year old scotch whisky from the shelf and grabbed a dram from under the counter.
"On the rocks," Lucifer offered, and Eric tumbled a few cubes of ice into the glass before letting the burning gold liquid chatter in next. He slid it across the counter with a single napkin and Lucifer took it from him before he could let go. Lucifer's fingers were warm against his, and Eric knew he wasn't hallucinating as the other man let them trail slowly away as he took the drink. Was he—the devil, if Eric was to believe him—trying to flirt?
He looked up from the drink to find the rich, brown eyes gazing at him with a light in them. "Tell me Eric Northman, how long have you been a vampire?"
"Longer than you've been alive," Eric countered.
"Come now, I just told you who I am. I've been around far longer than the first vampire, I assure you."
Eric decided to let the man play his games. Why not? What was the harm? And besides, this was the most interesting thing to happen to him since he'd regained his memories and come back to Fangtasia. "I'm over a thousand years old," he told the devil, watching to see what would pass across his face.
He was expecting the man to be impressed, but Lucifer took a sip of his whisky, savouring it as he seemed to think. "With a last name like Northman and those pretty blue eyes, I can assume you're Viking, then?"
Eric gave a short nod, deciding it wasn't too surprising. Northman was a pretty obvious name.
"Norway?" Lucifer asked.
"Home would be Sweden today, actually," Eric said.
"Have you been back?" Lucifer asked.
"Not for a few years," Eric admitted, his mind wandering back to his homeland. Maybe it was time for a trip. It would probably improve his mood, at least. There'd be no reminders of Sookie there, anyway.
"It's not at all like it was back in your day," Lucifer said. "Much more excitement back then."
Eric snorted with laughter. "That it was," he agreed. "You were there?"
"Of course I was there. The devil loves debauchery, after all."
Eric was distracted from the conversation by Tara telling off another customer just down the bar. This one was human and she was turning pretty irate at the treatment. He went to move next to her and deal with it, but he found a strong hand on his wrist, keeping him where he was. When he moved to pull away, he was met with a strength he only associated with vampires.
Tara and her shitty attitude were completely forgotten as he studied Lucifer. He wasn't confident that if he pulled with his entire strength that he could actually escape the other man's grasp. It intrigued him. The fact that the man was interested in him also piqued his interest. Who was this handsome devil, as it were? And why had he walked into Eric's bar?
"I've never met a vampire before today," Lucifer told Eric. "I want to know everything. What does it taste like, the blood? What did you do before you came out of the coffin? How many lovers have you had?"
"Thousands," Eric replied to the last question, getting a saucy grin from Lucifer.
"Sounds familiar," the dark haired man said. "I've, on occasion, popped up to attend an orgy or two. You understand."
Eric actually did understand, but simply inclined his head. The idea of an orgy with this man stirred his blood, actually.
"Please, have a drink with me," Lucifer asked. "I hate drinking alone and you're the only one in this place that seems worth talking to." Not that Lucifer had even bothered to look at anyone else, as far as Eric could see. But there was a compliment in there without any of the typical fawning over the vampire. It was refreshing.
Eric acquiesced, grabbing himself a True Blood and popping it in the microwave to warm it up. It's not like it was his job to be bartender. Tara could do her damn job and Pam could break her in, not him. And he couldn't deny his own fascination with Lucifer. As he turned back to the bar, he decided Lucifer was a very good looking man, despite his not fitting in at Fangtasia at all. And he was certain that it hadn't been an accident when their fingers brushed.
When was the last time someone had been this bold with him? No fangbanger or hanger-on had ever just walked up to him and made a pass. They all stood in the shadows and stared at him with hope in their eyes and fear in their hearts. Sookie had been different; but she'd been indifferent. Until he'd lost his memories. Even then, she hadn't been bold. Their single night of lovemaking had so many strings attached to it, so much emotional baggage tied to it.
Lucifer seemed interested in Eric and wasn't above letting him know. Even if he seemed a bit deranged.
Eric lifted his bottle of True Blood and the two men drank in silence. His glass bottle clicked against the bar as he put it down and leaned forward across the bar. "Is that what the devil does when he visits Earth? Orgies?"
"Most of the time," Lucifer agreed. "There was this one orgy, back in the Hellenistic era in Greece. . ." Lucifer trailed off, his brown eyes unfocused as he clearly remembered something. Eric had a hard time believing he was reliving an orgy some three hundred years before Christ, but when Lucifer shivered and came out of his trance with a lascivious look on his face, Eric was certain he was remembering something carnal, anyway. He felt his own sexual response to the desire in Lucifer's eyes. "It's not just sex. There's plenty of other fun things humans enjoy doing, isn't there?"
"The seven deadly sins?" Eric asked, trying to pretend like he wasn't suddenly finding himself hard, hiding behind the bar.
"Not all of those are evil, by any standards," Lucifer intoned. "It really does depend on intent."
"So what brings you to Shreveport?" Eric asked, unsure how to reply to that. The man was strange, even if he was beginning to peg Eric's meter.
The joyful look on Lucifer's face disappeared, and clouds appeared behind the brown eyes. "I needed a break," he told Eric.
"Away from your bar?" Eric questioned.
Lucifer shook his head. "From life. It was getting complicated."
"Hell?" Eric was genuinely curious if that was what Lucifer meant.
But he got a shake of the head in response. "No, I've been in Los Angeles for the past few years."
"The devil lives in the City of Angels?" Eric asked, smiling at the man. "Seems an oxymoron."
Lucifer raised a finger and his eyebrows. "I might be fallen, but I'm still an angel, Viking."
"So what does the devil do in L.A.?" Eric asked, taking another sip from the bottle of True Blood. Honestly, it didn't taste any worse than Stacy had earlier. Nothing tasted good anymore. "Right, you own a night club."
"Indeed, I do," Lucifer said, light in his eyes again as he seemed to be back on a safer topic. "I run Lux, and during the day I help the police department solve crimes!"
Eric's bottle of True Blood halted halfway to his mouth as he regarded Lucifer. "The devil solves mysteries in his free time?" he asked, raising a single eyebrow in disbelief.
"It's no less believable than a Viking in the heat of Louisiana working at a club that peddles blood," Lucifer replied smoothly. "You don't see me scoffing at the possibility."
"I don't work here, I own the place," Eric corrected. "And we don't peddle in blood."
Lucifer raised his own eyebrow at that, mimicking Eric's look of disbelief. "My apologies. I must be mistaken." But his gaze slid to the Employees Only door as if he knew there was a stairwell that led down to a dungeon. "I just assumed a place like this might have something more dark beneath the surface. It's always been that way in the past."
"Well, it's not," Eric said, keeping his face carefully blank. The man claimed to be the devil, but he could be much more nefarious than that. He could have been sent here by the FBI, or worse yet, the Vampire Authority.
"I'm not saying it would be a bad thing," Lucifer said. "Simply that it's likely. You are a Viking, are you not? Every Viking I ever knew liked a good blood bath along with their sex."
"It's been a long time since I've gone a-viking," Eric said.
"Viking. Vampire. One has the rage of the ocean; the other the shadows of the night." Lucifer suddenly leaned over the bar, a hand slipping out to touching Eric's chest, strong fingers splayed above a heart that no longer beat. Eric stared down in surprise and then back up at Lucifer.
Those brown eyes seemed to become hypnotic as he stared into them. A rich, vibrant brown, they were nothing like Sookie's eyes, and it frustrated and hurt him that his thoughts strayed that way. Here was a strange man in his bar that was bouncing between arguing with him and flirting with him and Eric's immediate thoughts were about Sookie? But it was good, right? To notice that those eyes looked nothing like hers.
"You are hurting, Viking. Who hurt you?" Lucifer asked, a shared pain in his voice.
"It doesn't matter," Eric responded, the words flowing from him unhindered. "She doesn't want me and I will respect that."
"A Viking with morals. I like that," Lucifer said, his fingertips sliding up Eric's cotton t-shirt to touch skin, the touch more hot than Eric thought he could bare. The fingers slipped up his throat to catch against the stubble of his jaw. Not nearly as dark or thick as Lucifer's, it was still enough to hear the rasp of fingertips against it. The sound was eerily erotic just beneath the thump and bass of the club music, and Eric found himself captivated by the man touching him. "Do you want her back?"
Eric made a small noise in his throat. "No. Not if she can't accept me like I am."
"And do you accept yourself?" Lucifer asked, finally letting his fingers draw themselves down his jaw to his chin before finally letting go his touch on the vampire.
Eric's chest clenched at the question. "No. I used to."
Lucifer gave a silent laugh, his breath coming out silently. "Thanks to the woman, I assume?"
Eric blinked. "In part," he admitted. "But it's not her fault."
"What would make you happier?" Lucifer asked, and if Eric didn't know better, he'd say he was being glamoured. But the man wasn't a vampire. He simply wasn't.
"Sookie," he said, and then clenched his eyes shut, hating himself for saying it. "No, not Sookie."
Lucifer sighed, cleared his throat. His beautiful brown eyes—a vibrant brown with touches of red in it—were waiting for Eric's blue ones when he opened them again. "Tell me Eric Northman, what is it you truly desire?"
The moment he heard the words, the world finally stopped. It should have stopped when the man walked in, he thought to himself. Instead, it stopped as Lucifer's musical voice demanded of Eric his deepest desire. And against his will, it seemed to unravel from him, unclenching from his stilled heart to escape his lips in an admission that surprised even himself.
"I want to know if I still have a soul. I want to know if I'm damned or not."
Lucifer sat back on his stool, looking surprised. "Huh," the small sound came from him as Eric seemed to shiver. As if being released.
Eric stared in astonishment at the other man. Never in his entire vampiric existence had anyone controlled him that way. He hadn't even known what he was going to say, and if he'd thought about it beforehand he probably would have said something logical—being able to exist under the sun for instance. But as soon as the words had been said, he knew it to be true. If he'd been asked that question just a month or two before, the answer would certainly have been different.
But he'd changed recently. He'd spent a week with no recollection of his entire past—including all of the wrongdoings he'd done without an iota of remorse. In those few short days he'd learned to love again, and with love came the fear of the bad things he'd done and how each action had turned him a little bit darker. When the two combined, something had begun gnawing at his insides.
He'd done so many bad things. If he did have his soul, when it came time for the true death, he was certainly damned to hell for eternity, was he not? He needed to know, now that he'd been permanently changed. His heart had been broken open and now he wanted to know just how far he'd damned himself. If it even mattered.
He could have been damned the moment he was turned, for all he knew.
A thin thread of desperation coursed through him as he looked at Lucifer, wishing the man could actually tell him what he wished to know. In a moment of compassion, Lucifer gripped one of Eric's hands, squeezing tightly, the warmth of it giving Eric comfort more than the strength. "You, my dear Viking, are such a surprise."
He let go of Eric's hand and straightened again on his stool. "I don't know if you've retained your soul, but I can certainly see if you're down below. I'll just pop on down to hell and give a search for you."
Eric rolled his eyes, but before he could reply Pam was yelling at Tara, the impatience in her tone seeming to break Lucifer's spell over him. Eric turned to see what the commotion was. Tara had a sorry excuse for a fangbanger up against the wall, a pitcher of beer on the floor at their feet. Tara was losing a fight against her new vampire instincts to drain the guy right there and then, but Pam was ordering her to stand down.
If the fangbanger had knocked the pitcher over Eric couldn't quite blame the baby vamp. Humans were blundering, clumsy idiots, and vampires had spent millennia suffering their existence. If not for the fact they were food. . .
The sound of wings, so quiet that if he didn't have vampiric hearing Eric wouldn't have known it was there below the music, turned Eric back to the bar only to find that Lucifer was gone. Just disappeared. Eric looked toward the door of the club, but all he saw were a couple fangbangers entering.
Wherever Lucifer had gone, he'd done it with vampiric speed.
Eric was intrigued, if nothing else.
And that, at least, was something fresh and new from his brooding depression about that damned stupid waitress.