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

[feel_human]

Sam straightens and reaches for another glass to wipe. "Like you said," he points out. "This is my bar. It's my job to pay attention to who comes into it."

[gavemea_45]

“Mm-hm.” Sam draws an aimless pattern on the wood in front of him. “What’d you think of him?”

[feel_human]

Like hell is he going to tell this newcomer anything he thinks, and especially not about the thing that came in here the night before. No pulse. No breath. Smelling of graveyard dirt and blood. And –

His glance lifts from Sam and lands on the door, intent, just before it swings open to admit the dark-haired man himself. Bill, Sookie had called him, and all Sam's attention bends on him in the next second.

Bill's glance runs over them at the bar; there's a beat, and then he gives them a cordial nod and makes his way to an empty booth. In Sookie's section, Sam notes. "I think there are an awful lot of strangers showing up in town, all of a sudden."

[gavemea_45]

"Pretty bold," Sam mutters, ignoring Merlotte, his gaze on Bill. Every muscle in his body is tense. He sure as hell doesn't want to cause a confrontation here, not in the middle of so many people, and it's a sure bet the vampire knows and is taunting them. Him.

He tries to catch Sookie's eye, to see if she wants him to come be nearby.

[feel_human]

This is just perfect. Not only is everyone watching her, side-eyed, because of Jason, but first the Rattrays come back in, and then –

And then the cool bubble of Bill's silence falls over a booth in her section, and she turns to look at him, wide-eyed. He folds his hands on the table and meets her gaze evenly, calm.

She's not sure she's the one guiding her steps back over to him, though she knows he can't glamour her. All she knows is that when she gets close enough, the cacophony of the bar winks out into a silence so serene she closes her eyes for a second and just breathes.

A little more in control of herself, she opens her eyes and gives him a disbelieving look. "You got some nerve comin' back here, after last night."

"It was the only way I could think of to talk to you," Bill says, before his glance flicks toward the bar. "Alone."

[gavemea_45]

He's watching closely enough that he catches the vampire's glance in their direction. His jaw sets. "Make an excuse," Sam mutters to Merlotte. "Get her out of there."

[feel_human]

"Well, you better order somethin' if you wanna stay, though I don't there's anythin' we have on the menu you can have," Sookie tells him, with a flash of spirit.

Bill smiles, very faintly. "Red wine," he says, and she can't tell if she's more angry or scared or curious, but –

"Sookie!" She turns, startled, and sees Sam Merlotte gesturing to her over by the service alley. "Come give me a hand."

She glances back at Bill, who looks more resigned than surprised, then turns and heads for Sam, her ponytail swinging cheerily against the back of her neck.

[gavemea_45]

He stays where he is at the bar, waiting for Sookie to reach Merlotte so he can murmur a word to her next. Sam notes that the rude and annoying couple from last night's starting to talk to the vampire from their booth, and represses a sigh.

[feel_human]

Considering Sam doesn't have anything more he needs help with than just refilling the ice, which is plenty full, she can only suspect he'd wanted to keep her away from Bill, although what he thinks Bill will do in the middle of a crowded bar, she has no idea.

Finished with that, she comes back to the bar to pour that glass of red wine and a pitcher of beer for the Rattrays, glancing at Sam as she does. "I think he's tryin' to get under your skin."

[gavemea_45]

"Maybe. Doesn't matter," Sam tells her. He keeps his voice soft, barely audible. "You okay? What'd he say to you?"

[feel_human]

She doesn't have a good answer for his first question, so bypasses it entirely. "He said this was the only way he could think of to talk to me, alone."

[gavemea_45]

"Uh-huh." Sam reaches into a pocket and pulls out one of the thin plastic bags he'd prepared earlier. Metal glints as he palms it and passes it over to her. "Silver shavings," he murmurs. "Keep it handy. It'll break easy and give him something to think about, if you need it. Want me to come take up a table there?"

[feel_human]

She shakes her head as she pockets the bag. "Stay over here," she tells him. "If I talk to him, maybe we can find out a little more about what he's doin' here. And I kinda think he won't be so chatty with you."

[gavemea_45]

"You're probably right about that," he says, dryly. "Okay. If you're sure. Just be careful."

[feel_human]

Her expression softens, slightly. "Don't worry," she tells him. "It's gonna be fine."

But when she turns around, she finds that the Rattrays have invaded Bill's booth. Mack sits across from him, grinning like a fool, while Denise seems to be doing her best to seduce him... gross. She drops off the pitcher and the glass of wine, and doesn't think she imagines the exasperated expression in Bill's eyes before she goes on another round.

Ten minutes later, the Rats haven't left, though their pitcher is a good deal lower, while Bill's wine has remained at the same level. Sookie's on her way back from the corner table, when a series of thoughts from Mack and Denis almost stop her in her tracks –

big guy so he’s probably got eleven or twelve pints in him holy shit that’s almost two hundred ounces bet we could get five hundred an ounce in Dallas

– and a chill runs through her. "Bill, let me freshen that glass for you," she says, quick, and gives him a meaningful glance. "Don't you go anywhere."

[gavemea_45]

Sam's nursing his beer at the end of the bar, keeping an eye on the vampire's table and his unpleasant company. The man gives Sookie an ugly sneer as she stops to check in on them, and he can't help his own scowl at that.

[feel_human]

She hurries back to the bar, setting the tray down as she arrives. "Sam, we gotta do somethin'!"

Vampire or not, she can't just stand by and do nothing while the Rats murder him in cold blood. "The Rattrays, they know what he is, somehow – "

[gavemea_45]

"They do?" That gets his attention away from the table and completely on Sookie. He wouldn't have figured them for hunters, although come to think of it some of the crowd John knows is less pleasant than the ones they'd usually hung around.

"Well, okay, I guess, but if that's the case they probably don't need our help--"

[feel_human]

"Not them," she says, impatient. He could suck them dry, for all she cares, and the world would only be better off.

"Him! They're gonna drain his blood and sell it! We have to stop them!"

[gavemea_45]

"Sell it? What the hell," he mutters.

A very pained look crosses his face as she proposes rescuing the vampire. Dean's never going to believe this. However, one look at her's enough to make it clear that she's going to go off on her own if he doesn't help.

Sam sighs and slides from the barstool. "Okay, let's go."

[feel_human]

She allows a moment for a flash of gratitude, before turning around and realizing the booth where Bill had been sitting with the Rats is empty. "Shoot!" she swears, and scrabbles her apron off, dumping it on the bartop before breaking for the front door.

Outside, she pauses in the muggy night air and closes her eyes, listening hard.

– so thick like molasses damn this’ll bring a pretty penny –

"This way," she tells Sam, and makes for the far edge of the parking lot.

[gavemea_45]

He draws his gun from its holster at the small of his back and keeps pace at her side. As they get closer to the end of the lot, where it shifts into the narrow road, some odd rustling sounds can be heard, along with loud whispers.

"Hurry!" a man's voice hisses, to be answered by a woman's whine. "We should have taken him home."

[feel_human]

Her eye is caught by the glint of dull metal in a truck bed; she creeps closer and silently collect the length of chain there as Mack and Denise squabble.

Their soft footsteps bring them around the cars and toward a sheltered, shadowed section of the parking lot, where three figures come into view: Mack and Denise, huddled on either side of Bill's prone body. Silver gleams at his wrists and across his throat, and as his eyes catch hers she thinks she sees a glint of surprise amid the pain.

She lifts her finger in a silent gesture to shush him, then creeps up behind Mack, busily tying off a tourniquet, and brings the chain down hard on his head and back.

He stumbles and swears, then turns, vicious. "You crazy bitch!"

[gavemea_45]

"Get back." Sam steps up beside Sookie and levels the gun at the two of them. It's loaded with the silver shot rather than anything immediately deadly to humans, but it should still have stopping power - and they don't know what he's carrying, anyway. "Right the fuck now."

The vampire's sprawled flat on the ground, he sees, restrained by light silver chain. He'd have thought it'd have taken something heavier, but that it doesn't is good to know.

[feel_human]

"This is none of your business, you stupid bitch!" Denise spits at her, then glares at Sam. "Do you have any idea who you're messing with? You do not want to get on my bad side."

"I'm not sure you even have another side, you cheap backwoods trash," Sookie says, disgusted, then steps forward, threatening with the chain as Denise scrabbles for the vials of blood already drawn. "Uh-uh. That doesn't belong to you."