Thoughts in the Night

This started as a one-shot, but is now the opening to a Sookie/Eric series of stories. Please enjoy Taking Action, the next in the series, and see my profile for the sequence of additional stories. Takes place after Book 8. Rated: M – Romance/Angst – Chapters: 1 – Words: 792 – Published: 3-5-09

I do not own these characters. Charlaine Harris does, and I thank her for them.

Sookie

Alone, wrapped in Gran’s cocoon, I hug the soft sheets to me and tears melt into the yellow flowers that make this room mine now. I know I am no longer a child because my heart loves a man. I feel his pull even without the bond that connects us. I love him, or at least I loved him when he was mine for the short time he was not himself. Knowing it would be brief, I emptied my soul into the flames that burned us into one being. We could not get enough of each other, and just when I thought it was too much, we were friends wrapped in an ugly blanket giggling by the fire, fingers interlaced. He was all I ever needed and everything I’ve ever wanted and I was complete for one tiny window of time. And now, alone in the dark, I allow myself to return to that memory as a small reward for staying away and keeping silent. The hole in my heart reminds me what was once there—real love and joy with another soul—something I thought I’d never have, and so I am grateful for it, no matter how brief it was.

The moment I knew he was himself, I felt the first tiny tear of my heart. And now with every passing day, I grow more used to stuffing that pain into a place no one else can see. I hope he can’t see it. But now that he remembers, he may know what to look for, and so I stay away. His pity would break me further, and what else could I expect from him? He is no longer the sweet simple lover that was mine, but back to the brute feared by all who must surely hate me for exposing his softer self, even if it was only to us. I picture him in a dark cold room, fangs and face buried in an empty stranger on his lap, feeding and fucking like the monster he is, no trace of my sweet Eric in his body, which looks disturbingly like my love. This vision keeps me away. This knowledge that my true love was a ghost and the real Eric is a man I don’t want to know—this keeps me away. What else can I do but stay away?

Eric

Staring at the papers on my desk, I can feel her sadness through the bond. She is so alone and my undead heart breaks with the knowledge that I can’t go to her. I picture her crying into her soft pillow, completely unaware of how beautiful she is, how irresistibly human and fragile. She knows now that I remember everything and it strengthens my resolve to stay away. I see now how my teasing and leering must have hurt her, coming from a man who had shown her real love and tenderness and given her what was left of his tortured soul. She must have hated me after I returned to my cold monstrous self, and the thought of her hating me breaks me in a way I thought impossible after all this time. She found the tiny spark of humanity in my lost self running to her house in the night searching for the comfort of her face and her laugh and the warmth of her touch. And now I ache for those lost moments, knowing that they are gone for good.

I can no longer feed from the faceless fools who line up every night to win my attentions. I see beautiful women everywhere, but they only remind me of the one I can’t have, and so I storm into my office, slam the door, and stare at this desk night after night, reaching through the bond, stealing a glimpse into her feelings and longing for another time. But I know that I must stay away. She needs a loving human who can dance with her in the sunshine on a sandy beach, hold her through the night and make love to her as the sun rises every morning. I can never be that man and for the first time in a thousand years, I am sorry to be what I am. But I am this beast that can only keep her from her normal future and a real happiness, and so I stay away. What else can I do but stay away?

A/N: Taking Action is next.