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]

Sam puts one in the dirt at the woman's feet and levels the gun back at her face. He splits his cold glare equally between her and the man, wheezing for breath on the ground. "I don't care. Last warning. Get gone, or else."

[feel_human]

"I will kill you for this," Denise promises, and leans forward to grab Mack, dragging him to his feet. "This isn't over!"

Still swearing, she hauls a stumbling Mack away. Sookie waits until they're gone, then drops the chain and rushes to Bill, crouching at his side. "What were you thinkin', goin' off with them?" she scolds, but her touch is gentle as she carefully peels the silver chain off his wrists and throat.

[gavemea_45]

"Sookie--" Sam swings around to keep the gun leveled at the vampire instead, covering her as she sets him free.

Through gritted teeth, he adds, "If you even think about hurting her, I'll finish what they started."

[feel_human]

"Sam, look at him. I don't think he could bite a kitten right now."

Sure enough, Bill's moving slow and sluggish, though the wounds from the silver begin to close almost instantly. He pushes himself laboriously up to sitting as the sound of the Rattrays' car squealing out of the lot ricochets through the trees. "He's right," he says, finally, his glance flicking from her to Sam and back again. "Vampires often turn on those who trust them."

His tone is utterly dry, and a little sarcastic. "We don’t have human values, you know."

"A lot of humans turn on those who trust them, too." She lifts the silver chain and wraps it around her throat. "I'm not a total fool."

[gavemea_45]

"You're not a fool." Trusting, generous, and just a bit reckless, but not a fool. "But I'm taking no chances." He doesn't meet Bill's eyes, keeping his glance around the vampire's chin and watching his shoulders and body for any sign of sudden movement.

"I've seen what can happen."

[feel_human]

Bill's glance slides from her to Sam before he returns it to her. "Oh, but you have other, very juicy arteries." His eyes track down along her body. "There’s one in the groin that’s a particular favorite of mine."

[gavemea_45]

The noise he makes at that is something very near an angry growl. Maybe the vampire himself'll break her kind sympathy for him.

"Are you trying to get me to blow your head off?"

[feel_human]

She could swear there's the faintest hint of amusement toying around the corners of Bill's mouth, and thinks he's just trying to get a rise out of them.

Well, maybe not just. For all she knows, he's telling the truth. "Watch it," she says, sharply. "You might be a vampire, but when you talk to me, you will talk to me like the lady that I am."

Bill watches them, silent. "Would you like to drink the blood they collected?"

She makes a disgusted face. "Ew. No."

[gavemea_45]

"Not a chance in hell." Sam eyes him. "Do you know what they wanted with it?"

[feel_human]

"There's quite an underground market for vampire blood, used as a recreational drug." Bill looks up at him. "I understand it make humans feel more healthy."

His glance flicks to Sookie, then back to Sam, cold and eloquent. "And improves their sex life."

[gavemea_45]

He's pretty sure he looks as weary and disgusted as he feels, at that. "Of course there is. Of all the stupid ideas I've ever heard, that's got to take the cake. Even worse than kids dressing up as Dracula."

[feel_human]

"Actually, we find that very flattering," Bill tells him.

Sookie startles at a scuffle of sound, then relaxes as the brown and white collie comes running up. It sets itself at her side and reaches up to lick her face until she giggles, then turns, stiff-legged, and barks warningly at Bill.

"He's checkin' up on you," the vampire observes.

[gavemea_45]

"You would," Sam mutters. He shifts to the side to have a better angle with less risk of hitting Sookie or the collie, just in case.

"He's a good dog."

[feel_human]

"Oh, no doubt," says Bill. He sounds amused.

The collie washes Sookie's face again, then runs off into the woods, tail waving like a flag and leaving the three of them in their stand-off. Sookie considers Bill, the way he's holding himself, the annoyance in his face. "I reckon you're not too happy about bein' rescued by a couple humans," she says, and he watches her with unblinking eyes.

"Oh," he says, softly. "I think you are somethin' more than human."

[gavemea_45]

"That why you're focused on her?" Sam says, sharp and intent. "Why you're stalking her?"

[feel_human]

"Why I've taken an interest in her, yes," Bill responds, without looking away from her. His voice leans a little on the word interest, almost insulted. He shifts forward, rapid, and Sookie swallows her instinct to back away.

"What are you?"

[gavemea_45]

"That's close enough." His voice cracks like a whip. "Any closer to her and I shoot. And just so you're clear, I'm loaded with silver ammo."

[feel_human]

Bill stops, then sits back again, keeping his gaze carefully on Sam. "I will not harm her. You have my word."

[gavemea_45]

He's not exactly sure why the vampire thinks he should trust his word, but whatever.

"What about anybody else? Were you the one who killed Maudette, for instance?"

[feel_human]

Bill scowls at him. "No."

A moment; he seems to be attempting to regain his composure. "I did not come here to hunt. Nor have I killed any human, in quite some time."

[gavemea_45]

"Then why are you here?" Sam demands.

[feel_human]

"Even vampires must have a place they call home, Mister Winchester."

He stares at Sam, apparently not caring that Sam won't meet his eyes. "Jesse Compton had no living heirs. I have come to claim the house and the land which were once mine."

[gavemea_45]

He can't believe what he's hearing. A vampire making a home across the field from Sookie and her grandmother? Or worse, not just one, but--

"For you and your nest?"

[feel_human]

"No." He says it so sharply Sookie almost jumps. For a second, she can't parse the expression on his face, but then his glance flickers down, almost ashamed. "No," he repeats, more calmly.

"When vampires live in nests they become more cruel, more vicious. They become laws unto themselves. If we live alone, we are much more likely to hang onto some semblance of our former humanity."

[gavemea_45]

"I'm aware of what vampires in nests are like." Sam's tone is absolutely expressionless. His hand tightens on the Taurus's grip as he sees once again in his mind's eye the horrors they'd found in that cabin in Kentucky, both there and in the cave nearby.

Nothing had remained but ash when they left. Ash, and memory.

"Very well aware."