chapter two
vampire bill
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Rory found herself interested in Sookie's rambling when she came back to the bar after saving that vampire's life. Normally, Rory could care less about circumstances revolving around vampires, but she had never actually met one and the feeling she got when she looked at the dead man earlier struck a cord in her. No one else had the same cold, dead feeling as she did and she couldn't help but wonder why.
Sookie was utterly invested with this vampire already and Rory began to feel as if he was going to become her obsession by the way she was describing their encounter. Tara and Sam kept quiet although the elder Stackhouse could tell they were both concerned and irritated by Sookie's new infatuation. Sookie was glad that Rory didn't share the same looks as the other two, her older sister listened in with interest as she went into depth.
Sookie began to feel exhausted, a yawn escaping her lips before she grabbed her stuff and left for the night. Rory stayed to help close the bar as did Tara who had been roped into bartender duties since Sam disappeared.
Rory was in the back stocking up when she heard her brother's voice near the entrance. She stuffed her apron into her cubby and grabbed her bag as she entered the bar area to see her brother leaning against the bar, talking to Tara who had hearts in her eyes that Jason had been oblivious to their whole life. Whenever Jason did something sweet for Tara, Rory would hear Tara's praises, and whenever he did something offensive, Rory would take the backlash of Tara's complaints.
"Hey Jason," Rory greeted her brother who took a large gulp of beer Tara handed to him. Jason, a sweaty mess, inclined his head up to peer at her as she approached. "Hey, Rors, you will never believe what I'm going to tell you."
Before Jason could explain further, Tara grunted as she tried to drag a large barrel from the back and over to the bar for the next shift tomorrow. Her grip slipped and she couldn't even lift it up from the floor, she even tried pushing it but the barrel went with to prevail. Sam came over to help but even he had trouble.
"Hey, I got it." Rory said as she dropped her bag onto the bar counter and moved over to them. Everyone's eyes widened as she hoisted the heavy barrel up and over her shoulder with ease, not breaking a sweat or holding in her breath. She walked over with perfect posture before gently laying it by the bar. She rose an eyebrow at the incredulous looks thrown her way. "What?"
"Damn girl, I forget you're super strong." Tara commented as she came over to start unloading the barrel. "Tell me, what's your workout routine? 'Cause I gotta get in one that!"
"Uh, Nothing?"
"Really? Than how you so strong?" Tara rose an unamused eyebrow, hand placed on her up. Rory shrugged innocently, "Genetics, I guess."
"Mhm." Tara hummed unconvincingly as she went back to unloading the barrel.
Rory turned to Jason with her eyebrows raised, responding to his earlier comment that got interrupted, "What were you saying —"
"Well, hello, stranger." Rory rolled her eyes as Dawn sauntered up to Jason from behind, seductively swaying her hair from side to side.
Jason turned around and smirked at the woman. "Hey. Dawn. Come here." Rory gagged lightly as Dawn wrapped her arms around his neck, his sliding around her waist. "Look at you. You look great. How you been?"
Dawn giggled. "Fine. Partyin."
"So you ain't mad at me?"
"Why would I be mad at you?"
"Well, for not calling. You know. The usual." Rory rolled her eyes as Tara stared in jealousy.
"Jason, baby, I ain't got no expectations of you. I'm not an idiot."
"Hey, what time do you get off work?"
"Well, I don't know." Dawn glanced at the watch on her wrist. "Oh, well, right now."
"You want to go somewhere?"
"Well, yeah, I do." Jason hummed, eyes on her lips. "I want to go home." Dawn giggled as she pushed herself away from him to walk out the bar. "Good night, Tara. Goodnight, Rory."
"Oh, my god." Rory laughed in disbelief, scrunching her nose up in disgust. "You are a giant parody of yourself and you don't even know it."
Jason flipped his head around to send his sister a grin. "I am what I am, little sis." He simply glanced at Tara before running out the bar to catch up with Dawn, the thing in his jeans doing the walking for him. "Good seeing you, Tara. Good luck."
"Good luck?" Tara questioned in disbelief. "Good luck with what? Jesus."
Rory clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth as she took a seat at the bar, eyeing her fingernails uninterestingly. "That boy makes me want to rip my hair out, he can't tell his dick from his mind. How did I get blessed with a brother like that?"
"Beats me." Tara scoffed as she grabbed a rag to wipe down the bar top. Rory knelt her head in her palm as her tired eyes blinked at the bartender. "He can't even tell there is an amazing gal stood in front of him, ripe for the picking." Rory commented.
Tara's neck craned up, meeting her eyes as another scoff left her lips. Rory felt the corner of her lips twitch up into a light smirk. "That is the last time I ever tell you about my teenage crush."
"You didn't have to tell me, Tara, I'd have done found out myself." Rory mused, enjoying the annoyed glare sent by her old friend who turned her back to the 27 year old blond. Rory let out an amused sigh, eyes floating down to the bar top.
She suddenly hissed as a piercing pain poked her inside of her head, free hand flying up to caress her forehead. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried focusing on minor noises around her like the distant fan whizzing instead of the appearing whispers.
Hearing winces of pain from behind her, Tara turned around to eye her friend warily. "Rory, you okay?"
Rory nodded her head, eyelids shut. "Yeah... Yeah, I'm good. It's just a headache. I'm gonna head home and get some aspirin, you good without me tonight?"
"Yeah, yeah, don't worry about it." Tara nodded eagerly, waving her off. "You get some rest, girl."
"Goodnight, Tara." Rory opened her eyes, grabbing her bag off the counter and exiting the bar and into the dimly lit parking lot. Tara watched her go with worry lines between her eyebrows.
Rory sighed as she walked to her car, the whispers bounding against the front of her skull. She rummaged through her bag to find her keys, but her throat began to close up and squeeze as if she were being choked and the siren never made it to her lungs. Rory let out a pained yell, as her bag dropped and she fell to her knees.
The blond's eyes widened as her hands flew to her throat, her fingernails clawing at it as if it were going to get her some air. She shakily pushed herself back up to her feet, stumbling her way closer to the woods to try and hide from coworkers about to exit the bar and see her in this state.
Rory basically crawled towards the edge of the woods, sitting on all fours under a tree as she yacked up saliva and spit it on the ground.
She grunted as her fingers clenched into the dirt beneath her to steady her body from falling. The unintelligible voices prodded around her head, filling her ears with whispers. They grew louder and louder as if chanting to keep the breath from entering her lungs.
When air was granted to re-enter her lungs, she loud out a loud gasp as if savoring and sucking up all the air possible. The voices didn't subside though, but they became more prominent to make out and what stood out the most was the sound of water trickling from a faucet and then the sound the of something hitting skin.
"Gah!" Rory winced as those two sounds flooded the mind until, they completely vanished and Rory was left with a rare silence, refugee for the first time. Her chest heaved up and down rapidly as she closed her eyes, breathing in through her nostrils. "Oh, God." The aftermath of her little spell hit her hard, the pain as if there was a bruise on the inside of her skull.
She sniffled as her shaking legs pushed her body onto it's feet, back tracking out of the forest, running a hand through her hair before going back to her car and unlocking it, entering it as if her spell had never happened.
Unaware of the eyes of a dead man with brown hair and a pale complexion watching from the shadows, the second eldest Stackhouse started her car and drove off towards her home.
The next morning, Rory trudged into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, purple bags hung under her eyes from the lack of sleep the previous night. A noise of water falling was constantly filling up her ears and blocking the bliss of sleep from her mind. She checked the bathroom at least four times to see if any taps were still running, but, none were and the noise never stopped until four in the morning when silence ruptured her ears and sleep was granted to her.
She slept in until the afternoon, taking for granted all the sleep she could. Gran was ecstatic to see her sense the old lady was in bed by the time Rory got home last night. Rory was welcomed with her insistent pestering when noticing the bags under her eyes, supplying ideas for remedies to help coax her to sleep.
The medication she was given when she was younger to dull the voices out had failed so she stopped taking them when she graduated high school.
Rory groaned in delight when the sausage links Gran made hit her taste buds.
"You gonna eat that?" Jason asked from his spot next to her at the table in the kitchen, not waiting for an answer as he stuck his fork into a sausage link. "Thank you."
Rory gasped as she tried to grab it back, only for him to stuff it into his mouth. "Jason!"
"You look nice, dear sister." Jason plastered on a charming smile as he chugged some orange juice to help the sausage link go down. Rory laughed lightly. Due to the Louisiana heat this day, she threw on a white blouse that was tucked into her white summer skirt, a pair of black converse on her feet. Her black sunglasses were pushing into the top of her head like a headband, keeping her curtain bangs from falling in front of her face.
Grab walked into the kitchen with the home phone still in grasp, lips a gape in horror. "That was Evalee Mason. Guess who was found strangled to death in her apartment. Maudette Pickens."
"Oh, my lord." Sookie gasped, eyes wide. Rory's movement to raise her coffee cup to her lips paused.
"She didn't show up for work. Wasn't answering her phone. And so her boss called Bud Dearborne , he rode over, got the manager to let him in, and they found her. The bathroom faucet was kept on all night and nearly flooded the place, they were soaked when going in." Gran explained as she took a seat at the table with them.
Goosebumps formed on Rory's skin, and not from any cold it was blazing with heat in the house. She disregarded her cup of coffee, placing it on the table beside her breakfast plate. "Did — Did you say the faucet was running? With Water?" She got a strange sense of deja vu.
Gran nodded glumly. "Yes, the water was up to your ankles in there."
Sookie shook her head in disbelief as Rory leaned back into her seat, frown pulling at her lips. "I went to high school with Maudette."
"Can you believe it? A murder in Bon Temps." Gran stated in disbelief. Bon Temps was a small town where everybody knew everyone, she couldn't fathom a murder taking place in their cozy town.
"Well, why are you surprised now that we got ourselves a vampire?" Jason spoke up for the first time since the news. Rory's eyes flickered over to him, taking in account the way his foot moved up and down.
Sookie snapped in defense on the vampire she saved, "Just because he's a vampire doesn't mean he's a murderer."
"Oh, come on. Fang-bangers go missing all the time in Shreveport, New Orleans." Jason threw his napkin on the table. "They never find them but everybody knows the vampires are killing them and then disposing of the bodies."
Gran's eyebrows furrowed. "What's a fang-banger?"
"A vampire groupie." Sookie answered her. Seeing the confusion still on her face, Rory explained it to their Gran more thoroughly, "Men and women who like to get bitten, Gran."
"My stars." She exclaimed in shock. Sookie's eyebrows immediately rose to look at her brother with a grin, "Maudette was a Fang-Banger?"
Rory cocked her head to the side, staring at her brother with analyzing eyes. "How do you know that?"
Jason quickly became offensive as he yelled, "I don't know, Rory! The way that you just knows things sometimes." Rory frowned at his hostility towards her as he stood up with his plate, dumping it into the sink. Gran offered the girl a smile, to ease Rory at her brother's snappiness. Jason sighed as he turned back around to face them. "There's also hookers who specialize in vampires. They drink Tru Blood to keep their supply up, and they keep a bodyguard there in case the vampire gets a little too frisky." The three women simply stared at him. Jason shrugged. "I read that in a magazine."
"Wonder how much one would charge for something like that." Gran said out loud.
"A thousand bucks."
Sookie curled her lips up in disgust. "See, now that just makes me sick."
"I know." Rory nodded, although her direction was going the other way, bringing her coffee cup to her lips. "It makes me sick that they're getting a thousand bucks to lay there and do nothing while I bust my ass for 10 bucks an hour plus tips."
"Rory!" Sookie scolded her older sister, shaking her head in disapproval. Rory simply shrugged.
Jason smirked. "Oh, I don't think they just lay there. I think they're expected to, you know, participate."
"Ew."
"Yeah." Rory frowned when seeing her brother's eyes shift from her to the ground uneasily. His shifty behavior made her sit up straighter in her seat, and she wasn't the only one, Sookie noticed it too. Jason cleared his throat. "Well, um, ahem, thanks for lunch, Gran."
He left the kitchen, Sookie getting up and following after him, leaving Rory and Gran at the table.
"A thousand bucks?" Gran repeated, still in disbelief women would do that.
Rory chuckled, but she hummed in agreement with her Gran. "I don't see the appeal, either."
Rory was sitting at her vanity doing her makeup later that evening, getting ready for her shift at Merlotte's. When a knock sounded at her bedroom door she let the person know they could come in. Sookie popped her head in, closing the door behind her.
"Hey, Sook, what's up?" Rory asked, applying some blush to her cheeks. Sookie took a seat on the edge of her bed, saying, "Gran wants to know if the vamp will speak to the Descendants of the Glorious Dead."
Rory quirked an eyebrow, but she wasn't surprised Gran was so eager to meet a vampire and talk about historical events like the Civil War, Gran was unquie that way. You could assume Sookie inherited that soft spot for Vampire's like her Gram, maybe even Rory, a little. But the 27 year old knew her limitations.
She wasn't gullible like Sookie. Yes, she vouched for Vampire's to have the same rights as them and some are not to be feared, they have a heart maybe, but Rory also wouldn't try to seek out a Vampire like entering a Vampire bar, basically asking to be one's snack. That's why Rory had to look out for her little sister, to protect her and steer her away from the possibility of becoming a Vampire's play toy or possible even bleed out because one couldn't stop themselves.
"She does know they can't walk in the sun, right?"
Sookie chuckled, nodding. "That's what I said. She wants to have one at night with everyone. Thing is, I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I don't want to get Gran's hopes up."
"Trust me, Sook, you didn't. She knows just as the best person that you shouldn't get your hopes up with Vampire's. They're unpredictable but calculated."
"So, like you?" Sookie mused, tilting her head. Rory released a dramatic gasp, mocking offense. She threw the first thing she could find at Sookie, her makeup brush.
During her Shift at Merlotte's, Dawn pulled Rory aside to tell her something important sense she couldn't find Sookie, the blond probably scurrying taking orders.
"Arrested? For what?" Rory questioned in surprise. This was certainly news, Jason being arrested during work, Andy and Bud making a scene out of it and Rory not even finding it through the police or Jason, merely a gossiping town.
"Hey, Rory. I just found, I'm sorry about your brother. "Lafayette said when he walked by towards the kitchen, bowing his head for his condolences. Rory's face scrunched in anger, exclaiming out, "How come everybody knew about this before Sookie and I?"
"Well, I was there, baby girl. I saw him get carted away." Lafayette said.
Dawn nodded. "And I was complaining to Arlene about Jason hanging up on me when we were making a date and not calling me back, and that's when she told me."
"Arlene? How does she know?"
"Well, I guess Rene told her." Rory sucked in an angry breath through her nostrils before turning to storm away. "Besides, we figured you'd just—"
Rory halted in her steps, flipping her body back around, sensing she may already know what Dawn was going to say before she cut herself off. "I just what?"
"Sweetie, didn't you just know already?"
Rory had to refrain herself from ripping her hair out as her fists clenched at her side and her voice raised. "I am not... psychic!" She glared at Dawn and Lafayette before storming away to go and find Rene.
Now, she was really getting irritated with people assuming she was psychic just because she knew things. She was basically the town psychic by now, that's what everyone thought of her apparently.
Rory stormed over to the pool table where Rene, Hoyt and Arlene — who was there on her night-off — sat, drinking and playing pool. "What happened to my brother, Rene?" She asked Arlene's boyfriend.
"H-Hey, Rory." Hoyt stuttered, shoulders tensing as she approached them.
The boy has been in love with Rory his whole life, and the whole town knew except the girl, who's been oblivious to his puppy stares and little sweet things he would do for her like pick her up, get her chocolate when it was that time of the month. The two oldest Stackhouse siblings had a way with making people infatuated with them and yet, having no idea that person had hearts in their eyes while looking at them.
"Hey, Hoyt." She nodded at the boy, glancing at him before her determined gaze went back to Rene.
"Aw-w-w-w, hell. I promised him I wasn't going to tell you or Sookie." Rene scratched the back of his head.
Rory pressed him with a hand on her hip, "What happened?"
Hoyt sat up straighter as he sent her a smile, telling her for his friend sense he wasn't going to and Hoyt could never lie to the woman. Rory's eyes flickered over to him. "Oh, uh, well, uh, Bud Dearborne and Andy Bellefleur, uh — They asked him some questions, and then they just threw him in the back of the squad car."
"So you don't even know for a fact that they arrested him?"
"Well, they — they didn't cuff him or nothin'."
"Rory, I'm am so sorry." Arlene rambled, obviously tipsy from the amount of drinks she's had. Rory arched her eyebrows, tone louder, "For what? Ya'll are already acting like Jason's been convicted of killing Maudette and we don't even know what they were talking to him about. Bud Dearborne just made a mistake. That's all."
"Yeah, yeah," Hoyt nodded along in agreement with her. "It has to be, because Jason's a real standup guy."
Rory sighed at the boy who was just trying to sweeten her up, shaking her head in denial. "No, he's not, Hoyt. He is selfish, egotistical, and a complete horndog, but he is not a killer!"
Hoyt glumly looked down. Rory furrowed her eyebrows, feeling a cold sensation sending shivers down her back from behind her. She turned her body slightly around to see it was that same Vampire from the night before sat at a table talking to Sookie who had a grin on her face. Hoyt, Rene and Arlene followed her gaze to see what had grabbed her attention.
Arlene gasped. "It's that vampire."
Rory watched as Sookie took a seat beside the Vampire, taking his hand. Rory waited by the pool table until the vampire got up and began to walk out the bar. Rory frowned, taken aback when the vampire stopped in front of her, and she could feel Hoyt's protective presence looking behind her.
"Hello, Miss Stackhouse, I'm Bill Compton." He extended his hand out for her to shake. Her eyes met his, and she could feel this ominous feeling wash over her as if he were attempting to do something to her. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
Rory hesitated for a moment before she shook his hand, his cold hand surprising her at first. "Yeah, sure, I'm Rory."
Rory let out a tiny wince when her head began to throb and the voice filled her ears when her skin made contact with Bill's. She hoped it was subtle enough for no one to see but by the way Bill's lip's faltered she could tell he had noticed.
Bill glanced over his shoulder, behind her, probably at Hoyt who thought he needed to stand close to Rory in order to help her, unaware Rory could help herself and Bill thought exactly that when he smelt her unique blood that wasn't human.
Bill's eyes shifted back onto her with a small goodbye smile, bowing his head slightly. "Good day, Aurora."
Before Rory could part her lips to ask how he knew her full name, Bill was out of the bar and the stares were now on her and Sookie. Rory was snapped back to reality when Sam roughly grabbed Sookie's arm and dragged her into the back and into his office, ignoring her grunts of protest.
Tara stepped into the field of vision with a hard stare. "How the hell did he know who you are, Rory?"
Rory's eyes fluttered up to meet Tara's worried ones. "I have no idea."