Prompt:

TB/SVM-Eric & Sookie/AU/OOC/M

EPOV

“I wish vampires were real.”

I froze sitting beside Sookie as she lay next to me across the bed in her dorm room at NYU.  She had already drank half a bottle of wine when this quite tipsy unexpected wish fell from her lips, hitting me like a roundhouse to the gut.

We were celebrating our victory at the NYPA 2015 Dance Competition where we had just won the grand prize of $10,000.  Money that she assured me we would split and use to keep ourselves in cheap beer and Ramen noodles for the next two semesters, easily.

It was Christmas Eve, the snow coming down outside in large fluffy flakes and the power had gone out in her dorm about an hour before.  She had lit several candles which were unnecessary for me or so I had thought at first. However, once I saw her red sweater, now matching the color of blood bathed in the flickering golden light it was suddenly very necessary that I see her like this tonight.  Perhaps that I always see her like this because it made something inside me feel warm, alive and insatiable.

I had first seen her in the harsh unforgiving light of the NYU library almost two months before, her long blond hair pulled back and her nose buried in a book.  Her hair was the soft color of wheat, her form luscious as were her lips.  I could feel my body respond as she shifted in her chair, crossing and uncrossing her legs and wiping her eyes with her small delicately boned hands.  I had watched her from the stacks for almost an hour before she felt my gaze.  When she looked up I had moved away at vampire speed, leaving an empty space for her human eyes to see. Circling around I came up on the other side of her and resumed my perusal.  From this angle, I could see her soft pouty lips and her luminescent blue eyes that were a little bloodshot from hours of reading.  I was captivated when she had glanced at her watch and then took a drink of coffee from her travel letting out a sigh of pleasure that made me clasp the bookcase in dangerous tension.  I had released it when she placed the cup back on the table of dark synthetic wood and returned her full attention to her studies.

Three sugars and three creams my vampire senses told me as I caught a whiff of her coffee laced exhalation from over a dozen feet away. I had never tasted the beverage directly, but I was familiar with it on the tongues of those I invited to briefly dance with me in the shadows.  It was also always laced with the owner’s scent and flavor.  I forced myself to remain completely still as I wrestled with my desire to see what this beverage would taste like on her lips, but I won.  That night I only observed this strange woman who called to me in a language I had never known.

It was the next night that I followed her to the coffee shop that, I was soon to discover, was her second favorite refuge from  her life as a student at the university, the library being the first.  I had arranged to bump into her in line for coffee and introduce myself.  I let the impact of our meeting spill the coffee I could not drink on my shirt, and then I let her apologize to me as she frantically pressed napkins to my shirt offering to buy me another. I had agreed on the condition that she sit with me for a few moments.

I found out quickly that her name was Sookie and that she had been here for two years on scholarship.  She was studying psychology, planning to be a child therapist when she was done with school.  Before that conversation, where she looked at me with her sincere blue eyes and offered me the truths of her freely with no guile, I had been planning to take her will and her body for the night.  By the end of those precious few minutes and words I had no plan at all, just some formless wish that I could not face let alone embrace.

I used my vampire skills to find her schedule and was delighted to find that she had several classes at night. I was in New York on a sabbatical of sorts.  All vampires took them from time to time.   It was necessary to maintain our sanity as the weight of our lives and times closed in on us.  We would slip away and find someone else to be for a while.  I had been pretending to be a student here, enjoying the parties and the wide options of free range pleasure partners for sex and blood.  I was careful to never hurt them, and of course that they never retain anything other than the memory of an excellent time when I claimed them for a night.  It wasn’t that I was above killing for pleasure.  I had done it frequently in my long undead life.  I just didn’t want to spoil my sabbatical with unnecessary attention.  Being near the young always instilled something of that feeling into my old bones as well.  I wanted to stay here for a while.

I was fortunate that my visage allowed me to pass among them with ease.  I had been made young.  Of course, you could go to school at any age in this wondrous time, so it was even less of hardship than it might have been.

If I had found Sookie in my regular existence as the Sheriff of Area 5 I would likely have killed her immediately because she left me unsettled.   But here in this dream I was experiencing as Eric Northman college student she was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it.  There was meaning in that, but it was beyond me to determine it, at least now.  It would be something I would no doubt seek in the endless nights before me when I slipped back into my skin and resumed my post as Sheriff to a vampire Queen.  But for now I was here, and for this brief breath of time I could be someone else with her that my real life would never let me be.

Over the next few weeks we became friends, at least that is how she saw us, and I must admit that I did as well. She was smart and funny, strong and capable, and determined that she would achieve her goals going on to help children who had seen too much of this world at a young age to run and play with carefree thoughts. I was not able to understand why this was so important to her, but it was, and so it became important to me as well.

She might out like a brief candle compared to myself, but imagining the brightness and warmth of her in her brief time in turn warmed me.  When she asked me to partner with her for the dance competition I had immediately said yes.  I enjoyed dancing tremendously.  I looked forward to winning with her, especially when she told me she needed the prize money for groceries.

“Coffee, you mean?” I had teased her when she told me her plans for the cash, her blue eyes wide and earnest.

“That, too!” She assured me, taking my hands and dancing around me, jumping up and down outside the library in the cold November night air.  She had a scarf around her neck and her coat buttoned as high as it would go to keep the chill out, but right then she was so high on her excitement nothing could dampen her spirits.  Money was always a concern for her which made this something I could give her before I left New York to return to Louisiana at the beginning of the New Year. I couldn’t help but be pulled into her joy.

Over the next weeks we had practiced our routine countless times, in every available moment she had between classes.  She was a natural dancer, her body lithe and responsive to my slightest touch.  We had practiced just a few days when she told me that she had never had a partner as good as she was before.  “Not that I am that great, don’t get me wrong.” Actually, she was.  It was a shame she didn’t know it.  “In competition it’s the women who do most of the work.  The man can be barely mediocre but as long as he has a good female partner then they can still be a winning team.”

“You have done this before then?” I asked her as I pretended to stretch and warm up beside her.  We had been working on some ‘wow steps’ as she called them for the free style competition.  She was good at choreography, too, knowing how to play my height and her petite frame to advantage in every move we made. I offered suggestions here and there but this was her show, and it would be her full $10,000 as well when we won, she just didn’t know it yet.

“Yes.  I had dance for my PE credit the first year I was here.  My teacher recommended I compete.  I partnered with Sam Merlotte, the best guy in the dance class.  He’s a nice enough guy but not that great of a dancer.”  She stood then and held her hand out to me calling to mind the elegance of a prima ballerina that I had known once in France a long time ago.  Sookie was incredibly graceful.  It showed at the most unexpected times, leaving me in awe of her when she did something as simple as wrap her scarf around her neck before we headed out the of her dorm. I pushed past gawping like the college boy I was pretending to be, took her hand and pulled her to me, spinning her as I did, wrapping her in my arms so that she finished pressed tightly against my side with her back.

Caught up in the momentum I had leaned down and kissed her neck softly.  Her head fell back onto my shoulder as she pressed her hands down on my arms to bring me closer.  “You are so good, Eric you make this all so easy that I forgot sometimes that…” she stopped.

“What?” I asked her, reluctantly letting her go so she could step away and allow our practice to finally begin.  Away from me, she shrugged and dropped her head a moment before coming back up with a smile.

“Nothing,” she said shrugging and smiling her sweet Sookie smile.  “Let’s dance.”

Sabbaticals by their very nature were like dreams.  See things, do things, behave in ways that were contrary to our every day controlling natures.  I had taken many sabbaticals, none had been more like a dream than the time I spent with Sookie practicing for the dance competition.  I craved her touch on my skin, her laugh in my ears. I wanted my hands on her at all times and tried my best to get her to change her mind about the moves that broke our contact.  She always held her ground, using words of flattery about my strength to lift and toss her nearly effortlessly.

I pretended to let her flatter me to her will.  It felt nice when she complimented me.  I returned the same to her to see curious to see if she reacted in a similar fashion.  “You are quite easy to toss Miss Stackhouse, light as a feather.” She blushed at that, a pleasant rosy tone covered her skin from her head to the V of her cleavage.  I longed to find some gallant way to stick my head between her breasts and follow the rosy color further to verify it continuance.

“Hush, now!” She chastised me, her flush growing a deeper shade of rose.  “I know I could shed a few pounds. You don’t need to tease me about it.  I am sure I will be lighter the night of the dance with all this exercise we are getting.” Refusing to be seen in such an unflattering way I placed myself right in front of her, nearly touching her and brought hand up under her chin.

“You misunderstand, Sookie.  I meant it as a compliment.  I wanted to see if my saying something nice to you made you feel the same way it makes me feel when you do it to me.  I meant no disrespect or disparagement for that lovely backside.”  She swallowed.

“My lovely b-backside?” I smiled.

“Oh, yes.  I am very fond of it.  I like looking at it, and best of all I like it when one of our moves lets me rest my hand on it as it tightens and releases when you move.”  She wanted to be scandalized.  I saw it in her eyes for just a moment and then it gave way to giggles.  She rested her head on my chest a moment, perhaps too long because now I was starting to be offended. What exactly was so funny about me appreciating her physical beauty?

When she flung her arms around me pulling me full against her I forgot that I was starting to be offended. She was so soft, and warm and her laughter was rubbing her body against mine in the most delicious way.  “Oh, Eric, I do love the way you talk!”

“The way I tal-?” but before I could finish her hand gave me a rousing crack on my own backside, just as she pulled back from her a look of mischief in her eyes that delighted me immeasurably.

“Yers, ain’t so bad either,” she said with a wink, letting her hide and seek southern accent dominate her flirty words.  She flipped around and away as I stood there torn between grabbing her and kissing her mad and in continuing to build this flirtatious ember between us.  Instead, we danced.

I danced with her spinning, flipping and pulling her against me at every opportunity. I rubbed myself against her shamelessly until she was breathless.  I told myself it was more than the dancing that did that to her.  As we danced I thought of how until this woman I had never doubted my prowess, or that I could make anyone desire me.  She was different. Her rousing smack on my backside was the first time she had come close to letting herself indulge in me.

Did she not know?  Could she not tell I was hers for the asking?  Was she only interested in me for my dancing skills?  I had been with her in the library the night before last when she consumed something called chocolate.  I wanted her to experience me in that same hedonistic decadence she had spent on the candy.

Tonight, the dance behind us, the trophy shining in the candlelight on her small dresser, I had planned at long last to finish the real dance that had been happening since we met in the coffee shop. I had been just about to make my move when she trumped me with her unexpected holiday wish.

“I wish vampires were real,” she had said.

I opened my mouth, channeling Keaton in Batman, about to say ‘I’m a vampire’ when I shut it again.  The fact that I was about to reveal myself told me that I had sunk too deeply into this innocent college boy persona I had adapted to be near her.  When I said nothing she went on in the same mildly inebriated fashion.

“It would just be so neat if they were real. I mean, not like sparkly, ‘I can’t touch you because I might hurt you,’ but instead in the intense driving passionate way I imagine a dark immortal creature to be.” She turned toward me on the bed her face serious and open like it usually was.  “You know what I mean, right?  Or did I just embarrass myself to a level that you will be looking for your coat to leave?” Intense, driving, passionate…what?  I closed my mouth and cleared my throat, an unnecessary necessary human affectation to hide that I was indeed an intense driving passionate dark immortal creature.

“What do you mean, Sookie?  What if they were real, what then?”  She flopped back boneless on the bed, jarring me slightly.

“I dunno I just think it would be…the cat’s meow if they were.”

“The cat’s…meow?”

“Yes, as in awesome, wonderful, amazing, completely and totally incredible!”  I am…I am…I am.

“What would you do if they were real?”

“I would ask him out for coffee.”  I smiled in spite of myself.

“And if he couldn’t drink coffee?”  She frowned slightly.

“Then I would…ask him for a walk in the park and talk to him about his long life. I would offer to be his friend if he wanted one. I’m a good friend, don’t you think, Eric?”

“Yes,” I said and made myself stop there.

“See, the vampire would want to be my friend, you could recommend me.” She turned back to me then.  “You would give me a recommendation, right?”

“Yes,” I got out again, that and only that.  She giggled.

“Tell me, what would you say?”  Her blue eyes were wide open and staring at me in total innocent seriousness.

“I would tell him all the wonderful things about you that I know.”

“And then he would be my friend?” she pressed, her eyes starting to droop from the wine and the exhaustion of our performance.  She shivered then, having lost the heat with lights.  Quickly, I rearranged us on the bed, removing her shoes and tucking her into the covers.  I remained on the outside but folded my long frame around hers, pulling her back to my chest to snuggle my tipsy partner.

She snuggled back into me, making a sound that made me feel a bit like that erstwhile candy bar, and I was suddenly struck with the truth that if another vampire found her I would kill him just for being near her.  “I would not share you,” I said in the quiet room, unable to stop myself.  She turned her head to look at me.

“Silly, Eric.  You’re not a vampire!” As if tricks were just for kids and I hadn’t been pulling one here with her for weeks.  “But, and I will deny this if you bring it up again, I swear I will!” She paused before going on. “Sometimes I pretend you are.”  She pulled the covers over her head then.  I was uncertain what to say, so I said what I wanted to say for the first time since this unexpected conversation had started.

“What do you pretend, Sookie?” She moaned under the covers, it went straight to my pretentions of being made by Mars, where my label promised to melt in her mouth not in her hands.

“You’ll make fun of me!” she moaned again.

“No, you have my word, I will not make fun of you if you tell me, Sookie.  You can trust me.”  She pulled the covers down slowly.

“I can?” she asked me, clearly unsure.

“Yes, you can trust me with anything.”  She looked at me a long time, and then she settled the covers just under her neck.

“Get under here with me?”  I toed off my shoes and slipped under the covers.  She had already warmed the bed.  When I was wrapped around her again she turned in my arms to face me.  The candlelight danced on her golden hair like liquid moonlight and reflected back to me from the ponds of her eyes.

“Sometimes,” she started slowly, her palm coming up to rest on my chest.  “I imagine that you come into my room at night and float above my bed.”  I had thought of that, and was startled that she should be so close to the secret heart of me.

“What then?” I asked sounding strained and breathless.

“Then you wake me up with baby kisses on my face and neck.” I could so do that.  Did she want me to do that?  I could do that right now! “And then when I wake up, I pull back the covers,” she licked her lips slowly never looking away from my eyes.  “And then, I invite you in, Mr. Northman.”

“You do?” I asked sounding as dreamy as she did lost in that imagery.  “What then?”

“Then I get to put my hands and my…lips on that fabulous backside of yours until all you can say is my name.”

“Sookie,” I whispered, shaking with restraint from her provocative words.

“Just like that, ‘Sookie’,” she said imitating my gravelly tones of strung out desire.  “You say it all night while you show me what it is to be possessed by a creature of the dark as large and powerful as yourself.  Every time you say my name the only thing I say is yes, because I never want you to stop showing me. It’s your fault,” she told me in the same dreamy tone she used to describe our union.

“It is?” I asked.

“Yes, when we were dancing there was always a look on your face. It was like you claimed me in every touch in some primal way that I couldn’t shake when practice ended.  Even the first night I wanted to bring you back here and do unspeakable things to you.”

“Speak them.”

“I couldn’t, they are too…intimate.”

“Be intimate.”  Rather than speaking, she unbuttoned my dress shirt I had worn with my suit to the dance competition and kissed my chest with her soft lips.  “I start here, undressing you slowly,” she continued to unbutton me with her hands as her lips followed.  I fell back, letting her do as she would with me.  My hand came up to the back of her head cupping her gently as she burned me with her kisses. When she reached the waistband of my dress slacks she hesitated.  My hips moved restlessly to encourage her on, but she rested her head on my stomach and looked up at me.

“I really like you, Eric.  I really, really, do.”

“I really like you, too.  I really, really do, Sookie.” She closed her eyes and sighed.  Her breath hitting my skin was like a revelation.

“And that’s why this is wrong.  I’m sorry, Eric. I can’t do this.  It’s not fair to you.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I know how this sounds, believe me, I know, but the truth is you are just a man, and I want something…extraordinary.  I want a lover who more than just a man.  I want a lover who can show me things that no one else has or can. I want him to fly me away and love me all night.  I want to be the one who tames the savage beast inside him, the only one who can.”  She sat up then, putting her feet on the floor and her back to me as she rested her hands on her knees and her chin in her palms.

“I’m a psychology student, I know how messed up this is, but it’s the truth.  I want those things, all of those things.  You are a great guy, a fabulous dancer and the best friend I have had since grade school, so, no, I won’t use this you this way when you are not what my heart and soul tell me I truly want and need.  I’m sorry.”

“But, Sookie,” I said half undressed and totally undone in her bed, and then I stopped.  I could tell her vampires weren’t real, but that would be a lie.  I could tell her that I was the creature that she dreamed of, but I would have to take that memory from her come first light.  I could tell her that I loved her, because I knew now that I did, but it would change nothing.  She only wanted me to be what I was, and I could not do that.

I could not have her for one night and walk away with truths spoken and erased.  She would forget but the memory would slowly torture me to insanity.  I could not be her creature of the night and reveal the existence of supernaturals to her.  It would turn her entire world completely upside down and bring her into danger for the rest of her mortal existence.  I could not turn her and bring her to my side, even if she wanted that, and she hadn’t said she had, because I loved her just as she was.

Slowly, I stood and picked up my shoes and jacket.  She was still sitting on the bed with her head down when I rested my hand on the doorknob and hesitated.  “I’m glad I met you, Sookie Stackhouse.”  I went out the door but not before I heard her sob behind me. It almost covered the sound of my breaking heart.

I took two humanly slow steps down her hall and then I stopped.  I was not the college boy I had been pretending to be.  But I had sunk into the role so completely that I was thinking and feeling like I was.  I was Eric fucking Northman, the vampire Sheriff of Area 5 and I was not going to pass on this because I would be the only one who could remember it in a week.  I stood taller in the pitch black hall and turned around. Moving at vampire speed I blew through her door, slamming it back against the wall of her room only stopping when she was pinned to the bed beneath me.

Her face was covered in tears and her eyes were wide in surprise.  The thundering of her heart finished unleashing the part of my nature that I had nearly convinced myself didn’t exist while I had been on this year of sabbatical.  I shivered in pleasure as my fangs burst forth and I let them come all the way down to their full savage length.  Her mouth formed a perfect bee stung kiss of surprise as I growled above her.

“Merry Christmas, Miss Stackhouse.  Wish granted.”