(no subject)

It's as if her daily routine is stamped in rubber.  Try as she might to hold onto that strange starlit other place and the time she spent with John there, the form of her life slips back to normal -- or what passes as normal, these days -- in almost no time at all.

Partly her schedule is to blame: Merlotte's is threatening to overrun her with responsibilites and there just isn't time to moon over lost possibilities when she's trying to balance Bill's displeasure, her tables and half of Dawn's, Andy Bellefleur's suspicions, and the alarming statement he makes about Tara and Jason sneaking around with a secret romance of their own.  In her confusion, she can't cover the way she ought to, and she catches the smugly triumphant thoughts that Andy crows to himself and loses her temper.  Again.

Sam's been watching her, those ocean-colored eyes of his tracking her movements as they get more and more erratic despite all her attempts to keep only her thoughts inside her own head, and she's concerned he's going to pull her aside again when he out of the blue asks her to the DGD meeting instead, a move so unexpected and unprecedented she is actually speechless for a full ten seconds after the words come out of his mouth.

It starts out innocently enough as she stands on one side of the bar and he stacks glasses on the other, sneaking looks up at her from underneath his eyebrows.  Arlene's off somewhere spreading the news that Sookie won't be going out with Bill again and she's just about regretting telling her anything when Sam comes over from where he's been checking the taps.  "You, uh," he starts, and licks his lip thoughtfully as she glances up at him, curious.  "You hear from that, um, guy of yours, again?"

Her eyebrows climb so far she thinks they must be disappearing into her hairline, but she keeps filling the ketchup bottles in front of her, concentrating on not spilling any.  "It's only been a coupla days, Sam," is what she says, as easily as possible, trying not to think about how impossible it might be to ever get back to that place, how she can't just pick up a phone and call him, how much she wants to talk to him.  It aches.  "And he's not exactly mine."

"Oh.  That's, uh, too bad."  He fidgets a little, wiping the counter, and though the words and his voice are sympathetic she could swear he looks pleased, his mouth moving into a handsome little smile that she normally finds cute as a button but which rubs her the wrong way just now.  "I hope you aren't too flipped out to miss the Descendants of the Glorious Dead tonight."

"Nope."  She flicks a look at him through her eyelashes, wonders just why he's looking so shifty all of a sudden.  "I gotta go, Gran's spent all week on it."

"Good, cause I was gonna ask if you wanted to go with me."  When she looks up at him, bottle suspended and eyes widening, she sees the shy little smile tucking into the corner of his mouth, the way he looks at her with undisguised hope.  Where did this come from?  Why is he all of a sudden putting his heart on his sleeve and giving her that disarming smile, that expectant look?  Incredibly, he continues.  "Thought maybe we could go grab a cup of coffee or something after."

"Sam Merlotte," she says, finally, at a complete loss.  "Are you askin' me out?"

"Yeah," he says, and wets his lip again as if he's nervous.  "That's pretty much how I do it.  Sometimes they even say yes."

All around them the bar has grown utterly still: her face heats as she glances around, feeling cornered and unpleasantly surprised before leaning towards him, something tightening in her jaw.  "Everyone's lookin' at us."

'"I know," he says, a breathless little laugh in his voice.  He leans closer, but where she'd just been trying to keep her voice low, he seems to be giving into some long-restrained momentum, meeting her eyes levelly with his own shining bright and patient.  He's always so patient, Sam, and she swallows, trying to smooth out the frown that threatens to wrinkle her forehead.  "You better say yes."

This isn't fair, it isn't what she wanted at all; she feels blindsided and backed against a wall and no matter how much she likes Sam -- and she does, he's cute and solid as a rock and he's never been anything but good to her -- he's Sam and not John, and she feels bad for drawing that distinction but can't help herself.  Part of it is a flare of annoyance at his timing -- why the heck would he wait so long, just long enough to make it impossible, to make some kind of move?  She can't pretend she's never thought about Sam in that way before, but before is the applicable word there and things have changed so irrevocably it's hard to remember that even just a few weeks ago she would have been flattered by this exact scenario.  Still, it's hardly Sam's fault that he's not tall and dry-witted with irrepressible brown hair and clear hazel eyes; neither is it his fault she found herself in a party somewhere impossible and leaned over to introduce herself to her neighbor because he looked so tired and blue; it's not his fault she'd gotten caught up in John's smile, lost her head and gone tipping straight into infatuation somewhere over iced tea or in that moon-drenched garden.  It's not his fault she can't drum up the enthusiasm he deserves.

But maybe it's better like this: instead of always wondering if the next turn in the corridor is going to take her back to that strange place and -- maybe, only maybe -- to John, maybe it's better to just accept the impossibility of it, to concentrate on and enjoy the man standing in front of her instead of the one who only exists in her memory and in some far-off, unreachable place.  That would be the sensible thing to do: it's only been a few days but it might as well be weeks if she has no idea when she might be able to find her way back, and Sam is -- Sam is -- well, he isn't John, she doesn't get that electric spark when their eyes meet and she doesn't feel the need to touch him because she might spin right off the planet if she doesn't, but he's kind, and he's generous, and he cares about her.

No matter what she feels or thinks, though, there's only one thing to do with him waiting so expectantly and the whole room staring her down, so she tries a smile and shrugs as if this is anything but unusual for her.  "Shoot.  Why not?"

Just saying the words feels like a betrayal to John; they stick like peanut butter in her mouth and sink in her stomach, and she has to glance away again, no longer able to look at how lit up and satisfied Sam is without wanting to tell him she's changed her mind.

"Good," he says, and breathes out like a weight's been lifted, then shoots a glare around the bar.  "Eyes back on your food, people."

That's when she goes to take Andy's order, and in her fluster can't quite keep her walls up, is surprised when he tells her about Jason and Tara and has to flee with his half-full sweet tea like she's about to fall apart, pulled at from all directions, a kite that's been cut loose and is now being tossed and tangled in a violent wind.

The truth is that she never will be able to go with John to a DGD meeting, she'll never sit him in a booth and tell him to wait until she's off work, she'll never be able to introduce him to Gran or show him off to Tara.  She can't even prove he exists at all, except by the tie clip that was tangled in her curls and which could have belonged to anybody.  If she's ostracized for dating a vampire, what new humiliation will she endure if she insists on her connection to a man no one's ever met or will ever see?  Don't people already think she's crazy enough?  She's half-convinced Tara and Sam think she's making him up, out of what desperate fantasy she's not sure, but it stings.  She can't answer their questions with anything but evasive half-truths, and after all: a man who accepts her and thinks her disability isn't anything to be afraid of?  Even to her it sounds ludicrous.

One thing at a time: she can't worry about impossible parties and gardens and Air Force pilots with absurd hair and charming smiles when Andy's words burn in her ears; she asks Sam where Tara is and heads off almost before he's finished telling her.

Tara's in the ladies' room, and Sookie, her mind whirling, filled with longing and embarrassment and some indirect anger that she can't control, gets up in her face with almost no warning, only to be startled when Tara confronts her about her date with Sam: she had no idea Arlene could work so fast though in retrospect she shouldn't be so surprised.  "Why shouldn't I?" she says, temper rising, feeling like she has to justify her agreeing to go out with Sam but not knowing if she's really talking to Tara or to herself.  "He's perfectly nice, he's got a good job...and he's not a vampire, and...why do I have to justify this to you?"

Tara's taken aback, and she ought to know that means something, but she's too frustrated to care.

"I'm entitled to know what my girl's up to, ain't I?  And I thought you were seein' someone else anyhow."

She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek at that, and shakes her head, shaking off everything that comes surging up and allowing herself to only concentrate on Tara's defensiveness.  "Yeah, about that."  The door closes behind her like a sentence ending.

It turns out Tara's just trying to give Jason an alibi, and that sparks a fury Sookie hadn't even realized she was capable of.  Jason doesn't need an alibi, Jason didn't kill anybody, and she's so sick and tired of being attacked and her brother being accused that her temper flares before she can control it and she tries to find her way into Tara's mind without bothering to consider if she's welcome there, only to be shunted aside by a determined humming.  "What are you doin'?"  It bursts out of her in an angry flash, and Tara, hackles raised, flashes right back.

"Not every little detail of everyone's personal life is your business, okay?"

When she pushes by and slams the door open, Sookie doesn't stop her.  It's a full minute before she's controlled her defenses enough to go back out.