saturday night and the moon is out

[feel_human]

Tucked away off the road in Bon Temps, there's a road house. Warm light spills from its windows, and the sound of a jukebox playing drifts out into the muggy Louisiana night. The regular assortment of trucks and Hail-Mary-please-keep-this-lemon-goin'-just-a-little-longer cars sit in the dirt parking lot; what amounts to about half the town's small population... or, at least, of those of the 'drinking age and above' persuasion.

Inside, it's a bar of the type scattered all across the American South: homey, no-nonsense. Booths and tables. A man in a plaid flannel shirt wiping the bar; a crossdresser in the kitchen singing Gospel hymns and rolling his hips in time with the words just to scandalize the prep cook. A handful of waitresses, bustling about.

Sookie makes her way briskly through it all, a tray balanced on her palm and her eyes kept stubbornly front, as voices swarm around her. Aloud, and... less so.

...I’m just going to have one beer tonight Jesus one beer that’s all...

...better not gripe about me eating fries not after what I did for him last night...

...I cannot wait to get the hell out of this podunk town...

 

 "Well, make sure you do, and before it’s too late," she responds, thoughtless, to the young man. "Because every year you wait? You just get more and more stuck here. Believe me, I know."

He stares at her. So do his parents.

So does the other table. And she realizes, too little too late, that he hadn't said that out loud, not at all. She laughs, uncomfortable. "I’ll get y'all some ketchup," she says, brightly, and flees, ponytail swinging against the nape of her neck as she goes.

Stupid, Sookie, she chides herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

Comments

[gavemea_45]

He relocks the door and comes over to her. "What time do you have to be at work?"

[feel_human]

"Five-thirty."

She heads down the stairs, glancing at him as they head back to the walkway. "So there's plenty of time to take you into town, for a little bit."

[gavemea_45]

"If you want... I thought maybe you might still like to let me buy you that coffee?"

Sam looks over at her, smiling.

[feel_human]

"Really?"

There's honest surprise in her voice. "Even with... all of this, that's goin' on?"

[gavemea_45]

"Yes?" Sam suddenly looks uncertain. "Unless you don't want to? I mean, it's okay if you don't--"

[feel_human]

"No, I do," she says, quickly. "I mean... I'd been kinda thinkin'... but doesn't it feel a little weird, to go do somethin' so... normal?"

[gavemea_45]

"Is it?" He sounds hesitant. "I -- maybe I'm just used to it."

[feel_human]

"I don't know," she admits. "I don't exactly go on a lot of dates to begin with, and... well, it's my first time tryin' to figure out what's appropriate when we're dealin' with a vampire, too. I mean..."

She slips her hands into the pockets of her skirt. "Won't you be kinda... distracted?"

[gavemea_45]

Sam flushes a little. "You're pretty - er, pretty distracting," he amends, hastily, "but I'll try to keep my thoughts in line just in case you pick up anything."

[feel_human]

She flushes, too, despite the shade of the trees they're walking under. "That's not what I meant," she protests, before chancing a glance at him, sidelong.

"And you shouldn't have to worry about your thoughts for my sake. Those are your business, not mine."

[gavemea_45]

"Oh," he says, realizing. "You meant by the hunt. No, I won't. Sookie, your life, a normal life ... this kind of thing, this life? This is what's normal for me."

He shrugs a little. "I'm not worried. I just don't want to, um. Offend you."

[feel_human]

"Sam, I think I have heard just about every disgusting, nasty, offensive kinda thought possible."

She keeps her eyes on the path ahead of them, her braid swaying against her nape as they walk, and refuses to think of Uncle Bartlett. "Especially the kind a certain type of fella might think about a girl like me."

Her mouth is crooked and wry when she glances back up at him, but sweet all the same. "I don't think you're even capable of thinkin' anythin' like that."

[gavemea_45]

He's not so sure of that, but he's willing to trust her on it. Sam ducks his head with a shy smile.

"Okay. Well. Good. Anyway -- so, um, coffee?"

[feel_human]

"There's a nice little place in town," she says, by way of answer, her cheeks still rosy pink. "You know, yesterday, I was thinkin'..."

She laughs at herself, abashed. "No, it's silly."

[gavemea_45]

"Tell me?" he encourages.

[feel_human]

Sookie opens the graveyard gate with a creak of the iron hinge and steps through. "I was thinkin', yesterday, before everythin', that if you've been on the road so much, maybe you're kinda sick of gettin' everything at restaurants and coffee shops."

She casts a shy smile at him. "I decided when you called I was gonna ask if you'd want to spend the time out somewhere in the fresh air, with somethin' homemade, special."

[gavemea_45]

Sam smiles back, slow and sweet, utterly enchanted by the idea.

"I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

[feel_human]

"Well... alright, then."

His dimples give her the whammies. She smiles, pink-cheeked, at the ground. "Besides, it'll be nice to have a little peace and quiet before I go into work. Closin's always exhaustin'. People's thoughts get so messy when they get drunk."

[gavemea_45]

"I can imagine." They draw near the edge of the trees, winding along the little path.

"I hope it's okay with you that I come by the bar tonight."

[feel_human]

"I wouldn't expect anythin' different, circumstances bein' what they are," she assures him, then smiles. "And, anyhow, it's where most people in town go. So people'd expect you to be there, anyway."

[gavemea_45]

Sam grins at her. "Okay then."

[feel_human]

"Besides..."

That blush just isn't going anywhere at all. "It'll be nice, havin' you there."

[gavemea_45]

"I'm glad." He ducks his head, grinning shyly at the ground, and walks with her out of the trees into the bright Louisiana sunlight.

[feel_human]

The warm calm of the day is shattered just as they're starting to walk up the lawn toward the house, by a large black truck that comes speeding up the drive, radio blasting. Sookie sighs, and turns to look up at Sam.

"I am so sorry," she says. "Just let me handle him, okay?"

[gavemea_45]

"Okay," Sam says, dubiously. The guy in the truck's got hair almost as blonde as Sookie's, and looks about the same age. If he had to guess--

"Your brother?"