Creature of a New Kind

A Full House

Sookie couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"What do you mean you're leaving?!" She exclaimed, seeking clarification and watched as Eric placed a hand behind his neck, rubbing the newly acquired sweat that he had lived so many centuries without.
"I will only be gone for a couple of days. I need to go back to my motherland." He insisted, in rather vague terms.
"In all the time I have known you, you have never gone back to your motherland." She stated accusingly, sending him a sceptical look.
"Well, now is as good a time as any." He attempted to bluff and she felt her mouth fall agape at the suggestion that the brink of a vampire war was as good a time as any. However, in the end, she decided it was better to let him go than to beg him to stay.
"What if the vampires come?" She asked and he crossed his arms over his chest, anticipating her question.
"I have asked Bill to watch over the house. You are not to see him or go looking for him. If there is a threat, he will deal with it." His authoritarian tone seeped into his speech and Sookie felt the strange desire to follow him in what he was ordering.

She had never imagined that her kiss with Bill had affected him. She had been so swept up in her own horror and pain that she had never taken a moment to consider how she might have wounded him in her retaliation.

It was simply different with Bill, there were so many years of history and his touch was tender and patient, where Eric's was passionate and hot. She shook her head, as Eric left to pack his bag. Did she want tender? How tender had Bill been when he had drained her and buried her six feet under with him? Her mind kept interrupting her, what a mess it had all become.

She stood on the porch as Eric looked back at her. With his duffel over his shoulder and his jeans hugging his ass, it seemed as if he was more suited to a Calvin Klein advertisement than her front porch. God, she was lucky. If she could block out all of the dirty shit, all of the lying and cheating, if she could focus on Eric at the core of himself, the devotion and the man who stood before her, she was a lucky woman.

He smiled back at her, he felt nervous to be making such a commitment. But seeing Sookie, stood bathed in the sunlight, he knew it was worth it. He had never even had the hint of an inclination to get a woman's name tattooed in his ancient method. But Sookie had given him the sun, given him his freedom, his life and no one, no sexual fiend, no temptress could hold half of a candle to the saviour that she was.

There was a moment of tense silence as they gazed at one another. He wanted to pull her close and wrapped her up in his sorrow and guilt and repentance. He wanted her to feel the anguish his actions had caused in his soul. But instead, he simply smiled at her.
"I'll see you in two days time, wait for me." He bid her farewell and began to walk down to his car.
"Eric!" He heard Sookie blurt out and when he turned, she was at the bottom of the steps, gazing at him with a kind of pleading in her eyes. He paused and she came to him. She did not kiss him, instead she pressed her body against his, her torso laying flush against his abdomen and he felt in that moment a well of peace pool in his stomach.

After the moment of bliss, he caressed the back of her hair with his hand and smiled once again.
"I will be back soon, I promise." He placed his lips against her forehead in a tender fashion, one that he was not so accustomed to. But after he had seen the way Bill's hands gently touched her, with such respect and caution, he realised he had not fulfilled that need in Sookie and Eric had also lived through the gentile era, he could woo any southern belle that came his way.

Sookie watched as he climbed into his low car. She always wondered why he did not drive around in one of those big range rovers, or something that he wouldn't have to contort himself into to drive.

Once the sound of his tires faded out of hearing, Sookie sighed and turned back, wondering what she should cook for dinner. Her house was rather full now that Jessica and Pam were back staying with her. But Sookie was most certainly her grandmother's grandchild in the sense that she found great joy in feeding a house full of people.

She found Jessica and Pam painting their toenails in the bunker and sighed, what an unlikely pair they were.
"Jess, why don't you invite Hoyt over for dinner. I'm gonna cook up a chicken." She called down and heard the delighted squeal that could only come from someone as sweet as Jessica.

So that night, around Sookie's table sat Jessica, Pam, Jason - who had come back at the mention of chicken - and Hoyt, looking rather pale and sweaty simultaneously.

Sookie busied herself with the chicken and listened in to the chatter going on at the table.
"You know it is so much easier for us to date now that we can go out in the sun and eat and all." Hoyt declared sweetly and Jessica placed her hand on his arm and smiled over at him like a newly wed wife on her honeymoon.
"You got yourself a good one, I didn't know you had it in you in all honesty." Jason told him and Pam sniggered in response.
"Well, it seems Jess brings out the best in me." Hoyt spoke lovingly and Pam hissed in a pleased kind of way.
"It takes a vamp to bring the man out in some males." She theorised and Jason appeared as if he was about to salivate under her stare.
"Well, I think there is still some man left in me to discover." He drooled and just then, Sookie walked in with the chicken in her arms.
"Jason, go fetch the vegetables and potatoes." She ordered him and he jumped up with the vigour a man like Jason only gains from a woman teasing him.

They all ate and enjoyed the deliciousness of Sookie and Jason's grandma's recipe, even Pam offered a complement to Sookie, which left the table rather taken aback. At the end, Sookie and Jason took to the kitchen to wash the dishes.
"So what's going on then?" He asked and Sookie sighed, passing him a cleaned dish for him to dry.
"I did something stupid." She admitted.
"As we all do." He retorted and she huffed, wondering if she was now in the league of her brother, a systematic sleazeball with commitment issues. But no, it was just a one-off. She could never stand to see Eric, or anyone for that matter, hurt by her in such a way.
"I want to be with Eric, but I have to stay myself." She admitted and Jason chuckled and grinned over her in a knowing way.
"What?" She accused him and he shook his head, his smile unwavering.
"I could have told you that from the beginning." He admitted and she flicked the soap over at him, chuckling, wondering when she had become to blind that even her brother saw her situation with more clarity than her.

Her bed felt rather empty that night. She suddenly missed Tina, her beloved cat. She decided, as she lay there alone, she decided that when Eric returned, they would go and select a stray cat together. Together. The word spun around in her mind, she supposed that was her state now, the rest of her days would be together. And she found, to her surprise, that she did not mind the sound of that one bit.