Eric laid on top of Sookie absently kissing the available skin he could reach in this position.
"That dress you were wearing, where as lovely, was certainly and interesting choice for times of war." He said.
"Yeah, that was all Amelia brought me and I was in a rush to go see the faries who arrived. She wanted me to look regal." She said scratching her nails up and down his back.
"You did look regal, you always do."
"Mmmmmm." She hummed.
She had just filled Eric in on most of her day and he agreed with her decisions.
"So, you rule the day and I rule the night?" He asked now giving her a winning grin.
"For now I guess, at least here. I dont think I want this much responsibility long term." She said in a serious tone.
"That is something we both agree upon. When this is over I dont think I will return to either my Sheriff post, nor a council seat. I dont lust for power and now I have more than I want. The idea of ruling realms with you is a lovely fantasy, but its a risky game I'd rather not play." He said sitting up
"Me neither, but what will you do?" Sookie asked, forgetting that he's immortal. Its not like when a human quits their job.
"Take a 100 year vacation, change my name, learn to knit, go live in a cave. My options are endless." Sookie giggled.
"I guess when you live forever you can quit your job without too much worry."
"I used to move and reestablish myself every 5-8 years so people wouldn't notice I didn't age, or as soon as someone got suspicious I was only out at night. Starting over is a specialty of mine. What will you do when this is over?" He asked, now getting up to get dressed, they had to be downstairs soon to get any new information before they held the meeting at midnight.
"I'm not sure, maybe go back to waitressing?" Sookie said with a giggle.
"You should join me on my 100 year vacation before you start your new job." He said waggling his eye brows.
"Maybe, if I live that long."
"Faries can live over a thousand years. Niall was older than my maker and still very vital until he died choking on a slice of humble pie." Eric said with a shrug.
"Thats just so difficult to wrap my head around. I know dont age like a human, but do you really think I'll get 1000 years?" She asked zipping her dress back up.
"Who knows, I do feel confident inviting you on a 100 year long vacation, if that counts for anything." He said with a shrug, grabbing his sword and slinging it over his back.
"You'll get sick of me long before a century is over." Sookie scoffed and grabbed her pouch.
"I doubt it, and if you get sick of me, you can always leave. Pam left me for 60 years once. You aren't my captive." He said opening the door for her like it weighed nothing.
"I know I'm not your captive, but what am I to you, in this moment?" She asked as they walked the hallway to the elevator.
"In this moment? We are lovers, friends, companions, coworkers, we are many things."
"Amelia called you my boyfriend." Sookie said as they walked into the elevator.
"Since we are not human that word doesn't seem accurate." He said as they walked in, he hesitated as the door shut. Not pressing the button to go yet.
"No, it really doesn't." Sookie said thoughtfully.
"Are we mates?" He asked her.
"No, because we can't have sex right now. That seems like its an Essential component of being mates." She said looking right at him, both trying to define the shift in their relationship.
"Yes, thats true. Soon though, Lover." He said and winked at her. "You can just be mine." He said simply.
"Can I?" She said pointedly.
"I want you to be." He said reaching out for her hand.
"Can you be mine in return?" She asked looking into his eyes.
"I probably already am, and have been for a long time. You know I value your existence."
"I know you do." She said chewing it over. "I think we know what we are and we dont need to make other people feel more comfortable with labels that dont completely fit. We are, just United." She said stroking his face.
"Yes, we are united. I like that we are just, operating on the same page." He leaned over and pushed the button to go downstairs.
"Introducing you as my girlfriend would be funny though." He said with mirth in his eyes.
"Watch your back, Amelia only took this dress out of my closet so she could marry us on the fly. She's crazy, watch out."
"HA!" He barked. "Why a white dress? We aren't human? Thats not even how either one of our weddings would work." He said confused.
"I said the exact same thing. I wouldn't put it past her to trick us into getting married though, binding or not." Sookie decided to keep the pledging set Amelia had in her possession to herself and bring it up at a better time.
"You just want me to buy you more jewelry." She said reaching for her hand and kissing the ring he had bought her.
"Stop it, you're terrible." She swatted at him and the doors opened. They strode out and there was a flurry of activity. There had been a lot more people who had arrived. There were several lines formed and folding tables as makeshift registration windows. Trey jogged over to meet them. Eric extended his hand to shake his. Wanting everyone to see him treating the were as an equal.
"How was your day?" Trey asked shaking his hand.
"I slept like the dead, you?" Eric said with a smile.
"Busy, lets go in an office and we can make a game plan with the new information." Trey directed them to a large conference room that was filled with boxes of ammo and other weapons. Papers were strewn on the table. "I have sort of claimed this as a security office, for now if thats okay." He said as they walked in.
"No, this is fine. Take the liberties you need to do your job correctly. Sookie told me you are going to organize all of the security for the compound. Thank you for taking that roll." Eric said politely. Sookie was beaming. Eric was actually committing to breaking down the walls of the hierarchy that created this war in the first place.
"We've had a lot of Vampires coming in since sundown. They all seem relieved you are running the show up here. We also heard from Stan, he has his own compound warded and pulling the marked. Its smaller with a lot less capacity than we have. He wants to know if he can send overflow here if they reach capacity?" Trey replied.
"He can, but what is our capacity and what is our current head count?" Eric said as he sat down and started looking at the papers on the desk that seemed to be the specs for the facility.
"We can hold 10,000 it would be tight, but we can. We could only sustain that population with our available supplies for 8 weeks. We have enough food and water to last us months, but the bagged blood is limited. Our current head count is 600. 110 of those are vampires." They said taking a seat across from him and sliding some of the more important documents to Eric.
"We could ask anyone who isn't a child or fae to donate, I know vampires won't like it…." Eric trailed off.
"They wouldn't, but beggars can't be choosers. I would insist all donations be bagged and voluntary." Trey said as he wrote some things down.
"Oh course, I would completely discourage, If not ban open feeding if I were you. We can't tell people not to pair off, but we can…" Sookie cut Eric off.
"Keep it classy."
"Yes, keep it classy. No open feeding, no open sex, no sexual harassment." Eric agreed
"Dang, well there goes my plans for the night." Trey said dramatically still taking notes. "I need you to assign me some trustworthy vampires to patrol and enforce rules on the night shift. Here is the list of who we currently have registered as of 10pm. There are more out there still checking in. Amelia is prioritizing getting the vamps checked in since we only have until sun up." Eric nodded and circled some names on the list, handing it back to him and he asked.
"Where is Pam?"
"She's enforcing order out in the main hall for Amelia." Trey said. "Here is who we have so far who has ever had leadership experience within the different power structures. It's not a long list, they really hit out power structures hard. Not all Were's, but at least the Werewolf power structure was decimated. They were either against us or dead. There isn't a single pack leader here, word is they were all killed first if they didn't line up with the fellowship."
"Thats unfortunate, you will be the pack leader within this compound." Eric said matter of factly.
"I… I can't, I haven't been in a pack for years. I was abjured." Trey said.
"Well, that doesn't seem relevant now since those who abjured you are now sleeping with our enemies, murdering their own kind and orphaning their young. Change the rules, you're in charge." Eric said standing up, leaving no room argument.
"Come Sookie, Rasul survived. Lets get word of New Orleans." Eric said grabbing Sookies hand and walking her out behind him, leaving Trey still sitting in his chair mouth hanging open at suddenly becoming a pack leader of a bunch of wolves from 30 or more different packs.
Octavia walked up and stopped them as they were moving across the room to get back to the elevators to get to Rasuls room.
"Mr. Northman." She breathed out, sort of out of breath, far too old to be running even short distances.
"Please, Call me Eric."
"Eric, we have determined the magic was blood magic that marked us. we have narrowed down its origin to a likely area." She said looking uneasy.
"Where?" He asked.
"Now, its just a best guess because it happened so far away…" she hesitated.
"Spit it out Octavia, I may have forever, but you dont." Eric said getting frustrated.
"The Pentagon." She breathed out in a whisper.
"Well shit." Eric said running his hands through his hair. "We're against zealots, power hungry weres, ambitious witches and at minimum the United States government."
"Thats a lot." Sookie said looking at him.
"It sure is, especially when I doubt that was the only government involved. Supernaturals are hardly invited to the United Nations. It's why we created the council, to try to help advocate for ourselves and negotiate peace. Humans didn't want to include us in the power structures." Eric said.
"And some thought the council was taking their power and autonomy." Sookie added.
"Enemy of my Enemy is my friend." Eric mused.
"Indeed." Octavia finished.
"Well, keep working on it. Do not execute a reversal spell if you find a way. For now, these markings are in our favor for identifying allies. Also, see if you can locate some of the holding facilities they are using. Maybe look for concentrations of magic that are in abnormal areas. I'm not sure, I'm not the expert, but see what you can do. I trust your skills." Eric said.
"I'll let you know what I find tomorrow." She said with a nod.
"Please be at the meeting at midnight. I know you have no interests in being in a coven, but you will likely need to lead the witches we get." Eric said.
"Some are natural borns with no training. They didn't even know they were witches until they were marked." Sookie added.
"Of course." She nodded and walked off.
Sookie and Eric headed to the elevators again. Occasionally, being stopped by people with questions for one or the other of them. They finally made it to the elevator and when it opened there stood Rasul and someone else, someone Sookie had been pushing out of her mind all day.
"JASON!" She screamed and jumped into his arms.
"Hey, Sook." He said looking a little a little worse for the wear.
"Oh my God, you're okay! I was so worried! How did you get here?" She asked checking him for more injuries.
"Jessica fought off some were's that were out trying to raze hotshot. I was there with Crystal. We were losin', but some young vamp named Jimmy and his sister rode in and turned the tide. This guy linked up with us when we were trying to get out of town. Sook…." He said with tears threatening to fall. Jason never cried, she hadn't seen him cry since their parents funeral.
"What is it, Jay?" She asked.
"Hoyt didn't make it, Jimmys sister Died holding them off to protect Gran until some faries got there. They took Gran, I dont know where, but sook…." He broke down. It looks like the battle on Bon Temps had as high of a cost of shreveport.
"Noooo." Was all she could muster. Hoyt had been his best friend, they were more like brothers. It was then that she noticed Jessica in the corner behind Rasul. Her eyes still crying red tears. Her shirt covered in the blood tracks from her tears. Eric motioned for her to come out and towards him.
"Jessica, you need blood." He said.
She started shaking and whimpered out.
"Hoyt is dead, my maker is dead, my parents house was burned to the ground…. I could smell their bodies." She started wailing and fell to the ground. Eric picked her up and said to Rasul.
"She needs blood, she's too stressed she's going to go into a frenzy."
The two men ran at vampire speed to the blood bank room to get her blood. Leaving Sookie and Jason to jog behind them, slower than sookie would have liked, but Jason was limping clearly injured from last night.
"You need medical attention." She said.
"I'm fine." He snarled at her.
"No you aren't, you're hurt and if you dont let me get you some help you're going to be useless when we have to fight again." She snapped.
"Fine" if looks could kill Sookie would be dead, but she understood. He had just lost the longest running, most stable relationship in his life. Sookie waved down Violet and introduced her to Jason and asked.
"Can you get him to the medic? I need you to stay with him too."
"Sure, C'mon." Violet answered.
"I dont need a damn keeper!" He screamed at her, causing the whole room to go quiet and every eye to turn to them. Sookie took in a deep breath and said.
"I know you dont, but you are still part fairy in a building with a lot of vampires who have had a hard couple of nights. You've been bleeding. We need to keep order for everyones safety. There is a floor full of kids above us." This softened Jason and he complied.
"Alright, sorry." The room started its activity again and Violet led him to the medic room. Sookie turned and continued to the blood bank to find Eric. She felt terrible for Jessica, she had lost everything in one night. When she walked in there were 3 empty blood bags on the floor and Jessica was sniffling sucking on a fourth like it was a capri sun.
"Is she gonna be alright?" Sookie asked as she walked to Eric wrapping an arm around his waist.
"In time, she is too young to be without a maker still so Rasul is going to bind to her." He said. Sookie looked up at Jessica and asked her.
"Honey, are you okay with that?" Jessica just shrugged and sniffled while she finished her blood. "It's fine. I'd be finally dead too if Rasul hadn't gotten me here."
"I have no other children bound to me." Rasul said trying to reassure Sookie.
"I need you to explain the context of why that would put me at ease? I care a lot about Jessica. She was turned because of me."
"Because she will be my only child. My focus, I will also not be in and out of silver like Bill was." Rasul clarified.
"Oh okay, how are you going to do it?" Sookie asked, but Eric put a hand on her shoulder to stop her and said.
"It will be done in private. It is…. An intimate process."
"Well, now I really need to know if she agrees." Sookie said looking at Eric.
"I agree, Sookie. I need this so I can fight for who I lost." Jessica said starting a fresh wave of tears.
Sookie nodded and went to give her a hug, leaving red blood stains from her tears all over her white dress. Rasul came and took her hand and said.
"I will take her to our room and we shall begin the process."
"We will see you in 2 nights." Eric said with a nod, more to just inform Sookie of how long it will take without her having to ask.
Sookie waited until she was sure they were out of ear shot and said.
"Bill Compton is finally dead." In and excited whisper and did a happy dance. "I'm so sorry for her, but yay."
"I know, I almost did a fist pump when she said her maker was dead." Eric said.
"Its almost midnight, we have to go to the mess hall or cafeteria, whatever they are calling it." Sookie said taking Erics hand.
"Lets go start a battle plan. We have a lot to fight to keep and a lot of people to avenge." He said with a fancy smile.
"Except bill Compton." Sookie said.
"Obviously, but thats out secret." He replied with a wink.