I was starved… as hungry as a newborn upon first rising from the grave. The few bottles of TrueBlood I had downed before dawn had done little for my condition in the frosty prison, but I found myself thanking the gods my death a millennium ago ended the flowing of blood through my body or my wounds would have surely bled me dry. As it was, my open, raw, beaten, and burned flesh waited, adhering and freezing to the shredded clothing I wore, waiting for the sun to hide in order to haunt me with it’s ache once more.
My ancient eyes, so used to seeing more than a human mind could ever fathom were blurry, clouded with the impurity of the silver that had been sprayed so callously at them. It was as if a thick, impenetrable blanket of fog covered the world I found myself in. The darkness of my frozen surroundings was encompassing. I was capable of seeing no more than a few feet in front of me. Immediately, I reached for the case of synthetic blood beside me, downing icy bottle after bottle without objection, as if I needed the liquid shit to survive.
For once, I did.
The additional blood did nothing for me. The throbbing pain my body knew in the moment was unfathomable. I found the simple task of clearing the rubble I myself had laid in front of the door of the freezer to be an exhausting task. The very idea of breaking myself through the frozen box in order to escape it was enough to leave me feeling defeated before I had even made an attempt at it.
Everything was gone. Everything I am had been taken from me, made way with the previous night by two witches who knew no bounds. And for what? Why?
I would not surrender, not now. I had made it through the day, I would not give in to the pain now. I searched myself with all I could, wanting to feel something- anything- besides the pain and hopelessness I knew so clearly now.
And once more, there it was.
I felt her before I heard her, the sound of her footfalls barely reaching my ears through the thick insulation of the freezer in my present state. I had felt her when the sun pulled me into my icy grave of daytime death and here she was now, when the darkness of night had taken over the sky.
@BarmaidSookie.
A million thoughts ran through my mind. Had she been here all this time? I could feel her anxiety, her fear, her frustration. I could feel the echoes of the pain I felt now reflected in her and cursed myself for knowing I was the cause of it. I felt her concern, her worry, and her desperation. She knocked lightly upon the door of the freezer and I did the only thing I could think of. I echoed the knock back, allowing myself a fleeting, panged smile at how ridiculous the action was.
And then she opened the door.
It was as if I was being assaulted once more, an overwhelming wave of things struck me at once, my ancient mind finding it impossible to keep up. The smell of burned, rotting wood was heavy, the sight and smell of stagnant, standing water covered everything. Walls were burned away to expose the very structures of the building that was so familiar to me, glimpses of the outside world visible through the gaping holes everywhere. The very building creaked, making it clear just how instable the structure was at present.
The walls, the rooms, the furnishings of the back of Fangtasia were now nothing more than rubble and fragments. The ceiling hung low and heavy, as if it may collapse at any given moment. The back door was missing from it’s hinges, an empty metal frame the only thing separating the club from the world outside. I could smell the very sweat of the unfamiliar humans who must have extinguished the blaze hanging in the air. Even with my flawed eyes I could see everything was gone. Everything was black.
And then, there was Sookie.
She was the first and only thing I truly saw. She was there, truly there, and such a far cry from the blackness that surrounded her and that held me since the witches first found me in my office the night before.
Her eyes were red and inflamed, signs of tears shed already and full of tears yet unshed, tears that I knew were for me. Her hair was tousled, a sure sign she had ran her fingers through it more times than she could count throughout her frustrating day. Her clothes were the ones that had laid beside my bed when I had left her the previous night to attend to the club. The smell of smoke clung to her, making it clear she had stood there all day, a helpless victim as she watched the world burn around me. Her breathing was quick and frantic, her heart matched it’s panicked rhythm.
I stepped back and away from her, terrified for one of the first and only times in my long existence.
I wish I could explain my fear, but even now as I am left reflecting, I do not know that I can. A part of me was afraid I would drain her without a second thought. Even with the heavy tainting of smoke upon her, my Sookie smells extraordinary, and I was so unfathomably hungry. I wanted to shout to her to get back, to run and run quickly, but was just as afraid that the predator in me would enjoy the short-lived hunt. A part of me was afraid of my own appearance. I knew even in the darkness with her flawed human vision, she could see the agony that was written into my flesh like a story that never should have been told. I loathed the idea of Sookie seeing me in such a deplorable state, gaunt from my blood loss, matted blood frozen to all parts of my body, my skin charred where my clothes had burned away in the flames, my chest marred with the gaping wounds the stakes had created. I knew the image was haunting. I could see it on her face.
Yet still, more than anything, I believe I was afraid of just what she meant to me in that moment.
Here I was, bloody and broken, beaten and bruised, and only she was there. My progeny were absent. My bonds, some more solidified than the one I share with her, were not present. No vampire who owed me fealty came to the aid of their Sheriff.
It was just her, a human, who had let herself feel all my pain and share it with me. It was just her who had answered my call. It was just her who had risked everything by unleashing me from my prison. It was just her who had given me hope in my bleakest of moments. It was just her standing in the charred remnants of my world, beckoning me out, asking to care for me, asking to take me away from it all.
I was terrified of how much I needed her.
What little pride I had that wasn’t left burned on the floor of Fangtasia or drained away from me by the witches asked her for something to hide my condition with. Without second thought, my human shrugged her coat off and draped it around me, concealing me from the world around me.
And it was just what I needed.
I let her lead me from the building that was the center of everything Area Five was, the building that was nearly my final resting place, and to her car. She asked me where I wanted to go and for once, I honestly didn’t know.
I have always been decisive and definite in everything I do, but I was simply uncertain. I was uncertain of everything… of where I went wrong, of what I have done to deserve this, of what I had left, of who I had left, of where I went from here… the list was unending.
I was uncertain of what I had done to deserve her, but in that moment I knew I would not do without her. Wherever she took me, so long as she was with me, I would make do. I needed her more than I needed blood in my drained body. She was my healing.
I offered no word of protest as she drove me home, leaving me to sit in her car as she gathered some of my belongings along with the blood stocked in my refrigerator from within. I slunk low in the passenger seat, avoiding the grizzly sight of my tortured reflection in the tinted glass of her windows. I could not utter a word of protest as she took me out of Shreveport and to Bon Temps.
If it was where she was, it was where I needed to be.
She struggled to carry the cooler packed with blood and the bag of my belongings from her car to her home, but still offered me her arm bathed in goosebumps from having surrendered her coat to me in order to aid in my journey to her door.
I didn’t deserve this creature.
She sat me in her small kitchen in one of the wobbly, mismatched chairs that lines the scratched up table she keeps there. Bag after bag of blood was warmed in the microwave and offered to me, my telepath working on washing the layer of blood and filth that clung to me away from my marred skin as I drank. She cut away the stiff and burned remnants of clothes from my body to free me of the burden of struggling out of them.
I could see the question in her eyes. I could see the torment of not knowing what had caused everything she had felt and everything she now saw so clearly written into my flesh, but she waited for me to tell her the story I already longed to forget.
And as I told her, she cried tears for my pain. She grieved for my loss as if it had been her own.
As my vision became more clear with every mug of blood I drank, I saw just how deeply she had suffered for me. How much I meant to her was written in every expression she wore. She wanted nothing more than to soothe my pain now and erase every indentation upon me the witches had left, both the physical reminders and the ones locked eternally in the confines of my mind.
It nearly upset me to know she would never be able to do that when I wanted nothing more than to give her what she wanted.
When I drank as much blood as I could, she led me to her bathroom and bathed me, having to drain and refill the basin numerous times to rid it of the blood and charred flesh that flaked off of me. I don’t believe she wanted me to notice how much cleaning was necessary to rid me of my previous night’s torture, but I knew. It simply didn’t matter when her presence behind me, rinsing my body and washing my hair was more comfort than I deserved.
She asked me to tell her more of what I have been through recently, the witches aside, and asked me to feed from her by giving me her wrist. I ultimately did not want to when I knew the information would only further upset her and taking her blood would only leave her weaker, but how can I deny this woman anything when she has given me so much? When she alone was my saving grace in my moment of need?
At present, it feels as if she alone is my world. There is nothing I would not give her if asked of me.
I felt infantile asking her if she would stay with me in the confines of her light-secured bedroom once I was finally clean and she led me to her bed. If she thought such a thing of me, she didn’t let me know it, and even seemed relieved I had made such an uncustomary request. And, sure enough, when I was roused from my death at sundown the following evening, she was still in my arms, curled into me in nearly the exact position she had been when the sun had taken me at dawn.
Without commenting on how little of my flesh had improved as of yet, she led me to her kitchen once more and prepared more blood for me while making herself dinner. I felt her intense hunger then and realized my lover must not have eaten at all while I was taken from her. She had sacrificed herself completely for me. As long as I walk this earth, it will never be forgotten.
It felt so natural and right to be with her in that moment, though my own mind traveled back to a time and world in which Sookie didn’t yet exist, when I was nothing more than a mortal man. Even a thousand years later I can recall distantly yet clearly what it was like to return to my home after months spent raiding to my wife and children. My body would be sore and show signs of the battles I had seen, but there was an unspoken comfort in returning to my homeland and my home, to see and be with those I left home in order to provide for, to listen to their stories of what I had missed in my absence and to offer ones of my own.
Sookie, my human, my telepath, my lover, my dear one… feels more like home to me than anything ever has before.
It felt wrong in such a profound moment to think about the witches who had robbed me of my blood, but I did. They had taken a part of me that is sacred, something that defines who and what I am. The female had the audacity to drink it directly from the immortal vessel that is me. It was not theirs to take.
And I wanted Sookie to have it.
I have bonded in blood twice to my telepath already, but a third exchange will seal our tie completely. For as long as we walk the earth, we will feel one another, her existence a constant buzz in the back of my mind and my existence one in her own. Her feelings will be my feelings. My feelings will be her feelings. She will feel me and know me more deeply than she could imagine, and I will feel and know her more deeply as well. I will be giving her an undeniable, irreversible power over me, but could I ever trust another with such a thing more than I can trust her?
She has proven herself to me more than any other ever has. It is appropriate I have not made such a permanent bond to a human before. It should be Sookie who I experience and know such a thing with first.
When I told her as much, she agreed instantaneously and despite the lingering pain I feel, I could only smile genuinely. Still, I have insisted it should not be rushed. I do not want her agreeing to such a thing if she is only doing so because she fears losing me to a second death now, and I do not want her to think for even a moment that I may be extending her this offer without sound presence of mind when nothing could be further of the truth.
We did not have long to discuss or think on these things before the phone calls to my lover began and I found myself disheartened. My own phone was lost in the blaze of the nightclub, but can any really claim to be concerned when I am only sought with a phone call? I know Sookie is not the only one who felt my pain then. In fact, I know it is still being felt now. Is this the loyalty I am shown and worth?
I could not let myself think on those things then, and instead chose to let Sookie do the talking. It is unnatural for me to shy away from conducting my own business, especially business that my lover does not need to concern herself with, but at present, I find the idea of doing such a thing myself completely repulsive. In the brief conversation I had that night with @pamiravenscroft on Sookie’s phone, I left Fangtasia and it’s reconstruction in her hands. I do not want to so much as see the building until both it and my flesh resemble what they had been before the witches interference.
Sookie’s patience with my subordinates seemed to mimic my own and quickly we were foregoing any further work or discussion with others in lieu of time to ourselves. My body was still fragile and weak, but I took my telepath that night, desperate to reclaim a connection I believe both of us needed. It feels more right than ever.
The following night we were visited by @VampNiklas and @TaliaPerrault, both of whom had felt my pain clearly through our bonds. Innocently enough, Niklas inquired as to whether or not I had sought out @AppiusOcella for the healing his blood could supply me with, and my ever observant telepath caught and wondered on it. I had to tell her my Maker and the frequently referenced Appius Livius Ocella are one in the same. She wants to know why I am so reluctant to talk of my Maker and promises she would never put herself in danger because of what I might say, but I do not know how she would take the happenings either. She has insisted she wishes to know and once more, I find myself incapable of denying her what she desires, but I simply do not know how I will share such a thing with her.
At the same time, I feel I must. I know there are many walls of my own making built up around me for my own safety and precaution. I have created them and I have reinforced them for centuries. Sookie has repeatedly told me she wishes to know me, truly know me, but I have never given her more of myself than I believe she is capable of handling.
She has proven she can handle more than I give her credit for. She has handled more than even the vampires around me by sharing my recent pain, then taking me in and caring for me. I will have to find a way to tell her and simply hope she both keeps her promise and that it changes nothing between us, to hear of my weakest moments in a millennium’s time.
I have been visited by more in Bon Temps since Niklas and Talia stopped by. @BiancaNorthman and her human witch, @LiamDelancy visited with Sookie and I tonight at my request. Though I do not like the witch Bianca has bonded to, the human has agreed to work with @VampyJo’s father, another witch, on finding and joining the coven of @BrodyKeyes and @WereHallow. Knowing the two who drained me have access to such sensitive information as my laptop and @LaceyTB’s phone makes time something that is not on our side. Knowing the red-headed male had been in New York when we tracked drainers there and had been able to both sense Sookie's telepathy and successfully block it certainly makes this an uphill battle. We need Liam and Jorge's aid in order to locate and end these witches before they have the chance to do to another what was done to me.
I will need to have Liam and @JorgeJAlvarez use their magic to secure the resting places of numerous Area Five vampires and to protect the dwellings that belong to our sympathizers and humans. I have always frowned upon magic and its uses, but I have the sinking feeling Bianca’s human and JoAnna’s father may be invaluable to us now. I am prepared to pay them handsomely for their work, but given my own experience with the witches they will be trying to both stop and join, I fear for their safety. I do not know if Bianca would forgive me if something happened to her human and I am sure JoAnna is fond of her father.
Just getting through the dinner discussing the witches and countering them was enough to leave me tired of work and it’s demand on my far-from-healed body. The moments I spend alone with Sookie right now are my saving grace, they are the reason I open my eyes at nightfall with more enthusiasm than my regenerating body wishes to allow.
Sookie is home and all else fails to matter so long as I am with her.
She is my escape, and there is no turning back.
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