Chapter 4

4- Tin man tunes

 

Two for Tuesday’s at Sushi Sam’s ran heavy to the college crowd, with a smattering of up-and-coming young executives for good measure.  It was kind of a transitional gathering place, as I saw it.  Those learning to be, and those getting to be.  Tips were varied, but the heavy business more than made up for that fact.       Not that I’d be worrying about that much come two more weeks.

My boss hadn’t been real pleased on learning about my leaving, not that I could blame her.  She’d only just hired me two months back, and I’d worked extra shifts as needed without a fuss.  But when I’d dropped Godric’s name, she all but lit up like a vamp.  It seemed the local community was real familiar with Coffin Bait Productions, and wanting to keep the vamps happy.

Godric himself?  He was patiently waiting my two weeks final work with Sushi Sam’s.  He even called to say he had someone swinging by the restaurant to pick up my newly signed paperwork.

When I turned around in my section that very same night, I discovered just who he had designated the task to.  I walked over with resignation to the tall blond vamp with glowing blue eyes that was sitting at my table like a high-end dish.

“I kinda figured he’d be sending a gopher,” I said on coming to a halt at his side.

“The local pet store was fresh out.”

“There’s a ten-acre zoo ‘bout ten miles up on College Road,” I offered, sweetening my smile with an extra helping of Southern sugar.

“I’ll keep it in mind.”  He slid his eyes over me hungrily.  I smiled all the brighter as he started to speak.

“As you are now Godric’s personal assistant, I’ve decided you merit my… personal attention.”

“Of course you have,” I said over my sigh.  “True Blood?”

“For now,” he murmured, and I all but I fled towards the safety of the bar.

My co-waitress Carrie Ann Crawford was a one-time homecoming queen turned model-actress.  Her on-screen career so far had consisted of a 30 second spot for a local car dealership and a three-day stint as a decomposing extra on a low-budget zombie film.  I’d never paid much mind to her star chasing, but it seemed she’d certainly taken notice of my unexpected star climbing.

“Is that Eric Northman?”

“Yup.”

“As in, THE Eric Northman of Coffin Bait Productions?”

“Yup.”

“And you know him how?”

“I’m gonna be working with him.”

“I’m sorry…  could you maybe repeat that for the sake of my shock?”

I gave her a lifted eyebrow and slid the repeated words out slow as syrup on ice.

“I.  Am.  Gonna.  Be.  Working.  With.  Him.  No big deal.”

“No big deal?  Are you fucking kidding me?  Eric Northman has more star makin’ power in his pinkie than God before the big bang.”

I glanced over to find his glowing blue eyes fixed possessively on me, my very own clinger of a star maker.

“So I figured maybe you could talk to him for me?  Put in a good word?”

I glanced back at Carrie Ann and tried to focus on what she was asking me over my situational discomfort.

“I’ll try,” I promised vaguely, and she gave me a whopper of a smile.

I went back over to Eric and set his True Blood down gracefully on top a black napkin.

“So I have this friend that works with me-”

“No,” Eric said curtly.

“No?” I questioned archly.

“I’m making it a policy for you now, for your own benefit.  If you decide to recommend someone, it’s one thing.  But I will not have everyone and sundry making such requests of you.  Tell her to stop by the office, just as everyone else does.  And leave it at that.”

“Well,” I said a bit uncertainly.  “That makes sense, I guess.”

Just then the DJ started up with his Tuesday night karaoke intro.  I saw Eric’s glowing skin pulse briefly as he heard, and then his eyes were fixed happily on mine.

“Karaoke?”

“Eric!” I hissed, but he was already a flash in motion.

“This is so not happening,” I muttered darkly.

But he was already going full out on a most appropriate song.  It was all I could do to maintain my glare over my instinctive bellyful of laughter as the first notes came ringing out.

“When a man’s an empty kettle he should be on his mettle,
And yet I’m torn apart.
Just because I’m presumin’ that I could be kind-a-human,
If I only had heart.
I’d be tender – I’d be gentle and awful sentimental
Regarding Love and Art.
I’d be friends with the sparrows … and the boys who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.
Picture me – a balcony. Above a voice sings low.”

Eric dashed over to me with the microphone and thrust it into my glaring face.  I could hear the crowd going wicked with glee, my tables looking at me expectantly, so I sighed, gave an eye roll and squeaked out Dorothy’s line as poorly as it’s ever been sung.

“Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”

But Eric didn’t seem to notice my lack of singing ability.  Instead, he clasped a dramatic hand to his heart and sighed lovingly before singing out the rest of the song.

“I hear a beat….How sweet.
Just to register emotion, jealousy – devotion,
And really feel the part.
I could stay young and chipper and I’d lock it with a zipper,

If I only had a heart…”

Eric was beaming on finishing the song, and snatched me up in an embrace and kissed me full on the mouth.  I tried to struggle, I really did, but then my pesky hormones got in the way and I was smooching back, just long enough to have the crowd really rolling.  I finally jerked back to look up into Eric’s glowing face with a half-hearted scowl.

“I am not Dorothy.  I don’t do gingham.  I don’t wear pigtails.  I have a Tina the cat, not a Toto the dog.”

“I’ve got a werewolf on speed dial if you think a dog will help.”

I tried glaring at him, I really did.  I was all worked up for it, hands on my hips, scowl on my lips.  But then he fluttered his eye lashes at me like a beauty queen, and I lost it.

“Okay,” I told him on a giggle.  “You’re good.”

“I should say so.  But I also do bad very well,” he purred perversely.

I so wasn’t touching that, so I made a mad dash for my cheering tables, who didn’t seem to mind in the least their ice bottom drinks.  Carrie Ann was giving me hard looks as I came up to the bar, but I ignored her for my tables.  When I got back to Eric, he was still smiling and looking pinker for his True Blood.  I handed him the packet I’d gotten out of my purse and he slid his hand over mine on accepting.

“Eric,” I scolded gently.  “This can’t go anywhere.”

“Sookie,” he replied just as gently.  “It already has.”

And then he was gone.

“Always with the last word,” I muttered in half-hearted angst.

 

After my shift, I was walking out to my car when I felt the absence of a presence.  I turned, fully expecting Eric, but it was my bad ol’ buddy Grabby Hands Mott.

“If it isn’t the fabulous Sookie Stackhouse,” he said on flashing in front of me.  It took everything in me not to flinch.

“I’m Godric’s,” I told him flatly.  “And you need to be moving on now.”

“Not so much Godric’s that you’re above flirting with Northman,” he sneered viciously.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Uppity are you now?”

“I’m sure you were trash while you were alive, and now you’re just dead trash.  I’ve got no need to be talking to you and getting myself dirty for the effort.”

I went to move around him, but Mott wasn’t so easily deterred.  He grabbed me by my arm and swung me around to the wall in a heavy-handed slam.  I stared into his face darkly, daring him to do something.

He did something all right.  His fangs dropped like a flash show, and then he was tearing into my neck viciously, like a dog worrying at a bone.  I could hear myself screaming, and then his hand was slapped over my mouth, holding me silent.  I would have slid down the wall if it weren’t for his harsh grip.  In some distant part of myself, I became aware that I was dying.  It hurt a hell of a lot more than I had ever thought it would.

And then I wasn’t thinking, I was dropping, and the pain was gone, ripped away by some unknown angel.  I heard a scream and a tearing sound, seeing flashes of movement out of my graying vision.

I had never been so happy to see anyone as I was to see Eric Northman step into my dimming view.  At least I wouldn’t be dying alone now.  He was staring down at me with that strange hungry expression he always seemed to wear in my presence, but his fangs were tactfully put up.  I struggled blindly and grabbed for his hand when he leaned down.

“Eric?” I said.

“Yes, Sookie?”

“Thanks for… always looking at me like I’m beautiful.  Even when…”  I gasped sharply as his fingers shifted on my wound.

“Even when I’m halfway to a corpse.”

“You’re not going to die, Miss Stackhouse,” he said calmly enough that I almost believed him.

Everything was starting to get real hazy, like someone had slipped fog into the block.

“And Eric?”

“Yes Sookie?”

“I’m really gonna miss your butt.”

Then I slid to my death on the sound of chuckling Viking.

 

When I woke, it was to the taste of copper and the smell of rust.  My hands flew to my throat searchingly, but there was no mark, not even scar tissue to be felt.  My eyes flew open on that knowledge, and I found myself staring into the intimate blue eyes of my savior.

“I’m alive,” I murmured to him gratefully.

“You are,” he agreed easily.  His skin was glowing with happy light over that fact, I assumed.  I was in Godric’s office, I saw, but it was just the two of us.  I wanted to reach out and touch him so badly, just to assure myself this was all real, all happening.

“And Mott?” I asked perversely instead.

“Mott suffered the true death moments after touching you,” he said calmly, and I nodded my thanks.

“Bastard had it coming,” I said forcefully.

I licked my lips on more fully realizing the taste of blood.  I noticed that there was a pile of bloody wet naps at his feet, presumably from cleaning up my previously savaged neck.

“Eric…” I hesitated.  “How did you heal me?”

“With my blood,” he said gently.

“And what does that mean for us now?” I asked on some deep set instinct.

“We are bonded,” he told me neutrally, but his blue eyes were swimming with indecipherable emotion.  “I will be able to feel you, wherever you are.  If you are in danger, or hurt.  And you will always know where to find me.”

I considered him for a long dark moment.  I was reluctantly grateful to the fact.  I did not want this, to be so bound to another, but I realized that I had had very little choice.

“I wish I could hate you for this,” I said quietly on pushing myself up off the couch I was laid out on.

“A harsh truth, Miss Stackhouse,” he said on rising from his crouch.

And damn me if he didn’t feel hurt for it.

“Damn it, Eric.”

I used his elbow to sling myself around to his front, where I wrapped my reluctantly grateful arms around his waist.

“Thank you for my life,” I told him softly.  He didn’t say anything, merely accepted the embrace with neutral aplomb.

“You are welcome,” he said carefully.  I was beginning to discover Eric Northman hid a world behind his neutral front, and it made me all the more nervous.

“I best be getting home,” I told him uncertainly as I slid back from his arms.  “I need to call my grandmother.”

“She will not know what happened unless you tell her.”

“Oh, I know.  But I really…  I just want to hear her voice.”

“You love this woman?”

“She’s my best friend,” I told him simply, and his eyes studied me with increasing measure.

“I do not fully understand you, Sookie Stackhouse.  But I intend to.”

I swallowed harder than the hard promise in his voice.

“Well,” I said with artificial cheer.  “That makes two of us.”