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]

Tara glares harder. "Sure looked like you were," she snaps. "Hard to miss you following her across the room like that."

"For the love of -- I wasn't chasing her," Sam insists. "There was something she wanted to check on, and she asked me to come with her so she didn't have to go alone. That's all."

She snorts. "Why the hell would she ask you, and not, say, me?"

Sam shrugs. "You're working. I wasn't. Simple as that."

[feel_human]

It's late enough now that there aren't more than a handful of cars in the lot, and she finally has all the quiet she could want. Even the air's cooled down a bit, though it's still heavy with water from the bayou and the river. She walks through the lot, trying to get her thoughts under control, trying to ignore the undercurrent of guilt of being outside at night, alone.

But she just needs a moment. A few moments, of something like normalcy.

The cough of an engine startles her out of her reverie, and she turns to peer at a red sports car idling nearby, then squints at it. There's something familiar about i –

The blow hits her from behind, knocking her off her feet and onto the hard-packed dirt of the lot. Before she can catch her breath or get up, a foot kicks viciously into her stomach; another into her back, pummeling her from both sides.

[gavemea_45]

"Hmph." Tara crosses her arms and keeps glaring at him, but there's something more thoughtful about it now. "You remember what I told you last night about Sookie and trust?"

"Yeah. And what you said about yourself and trust, too," Sam says. "I figure time will tell."

[feel_human]

Dimly, she hears Mack and Denise swearing at her, but it's impossible to make out over the pain and the impacts of their kicks hitting her body. Her ribs crack; a sharp burst of pain lances through her side and she thinks they've destroyed a kidney. Mack's toe catches her in the small of her back, and after a white-hot explosion, she can't feel anything past her hips.

But she doesn't have time to think about it, because Denise catches her in the face, breaking her nose and pouring blood down her throat. She gurgles and chokes, her eyesight growing dim. There's just enough of her left to notice the sudden absence of Mack's kicks and to hear Denise's panicked shouts before she, too, vanishes. There's a cracking of tree branches, and Sookie sees Denise's crumpled body land on the hard-packed earth, just before everything sways and drops.

Someone's picked her up, holding her cradled to his chest, and she lays limp in his arms, unable to protest or to do much of anything at all aside from choke on her own blood.

[gavemea_45]

Merlotte returns from the back and takes up his previous position behind the bar at the other end, although he gives Tara an exasperated look as he does.

"What?" she demands. Sam doesn't think he's imagining the defensiveness in her tone. "I'm on break!"

Sam carefully hides a smile and glances around the room, looking for Sookie to get a sense of how she's doing after her boss had hauled her off, and doesn't spot her. A faint frown creases his forehead.

[feel_human]

Her labored breathing is all she can hear; all she can taste is blood as she tries not to choke on it. Finally, the person sets her down on a mossy bank by the bayou, and looks down at her, and she sees his face: Bill.

"Sookie," he says, his hands cradling her head with great gentleness. "Sookie!"

"I – " She chokes and coughs. "I can't feel my legs."

He lifts her up – and oh, the shock of pain as bones grind and torn muscles shout and her abused organs shift – and leans her against his knee. In the next second, his fangs flash into existence, and he tears open his own wrist, then lowers it toward her mouth. "Drink, quickly, before the wound closes."

Everything is fading, but she tries, weakly, to push him away. "I don't want to be a vampire."

"You won't be." He sounds almost desperate. "Goddamn it, Sookie, do you want to live or not?"

[gavemea_45]

He waits for a few minutes, watching the room, but Sookie doesn't reappear, and his frown grows stronger. Ignoring the suspicious way Tara's eyeing him, he leans over to get Merlotte's attention. "Where's Sookie?" he asks, point-blank.

"She's not here," Merlotte says, reaching for another glass and polishing it with deliberate attention.

"I can see that," Sam says, trying for patience. "Where is she? You took her off to talk to her, so where is she now?"

The glass hits the bar with a hard thump, and Merlotte gives him a level stare. "And just how is that any of your business?"

It's not, he has to admit. Not really. But. "Fine," he grits out. "None of my business. Just tell me this one thing. She didn't go outside, did she?"

Merlotte stares at him. Something flickers in his eyes, too fast for Sam to catch. "She went out to clear her head," he says, slowly.

"Fuck!" Heedless of anyone's stares and reactions, Sam's off the barstool and moving for the front door at top speed. He slams out into the parking lot and looks around, frantic.

There's a red car idling at the other end of the lot, and there, faintly illuminated by the headlights -- a fallen, crumpled body. Sam drops the knife into his hand and starts running.

[feel_human]

He presses his wrist against her mouth and she swallows despite herself, then pushes him away with the little strength she has left. "No!"

Bill ignores her and sets his wrist against her lips once more, holding her head so she has to drink or choke.

So she drinks.

Reluctantly at first, then more and more greedily. Her thoughts are static; she's just a body, trying to stay alive. She drinks until he pulls his wrist away, then slumps against his leg and slips into a dark haze of unconsciousness.

[gavemea_45]

The dead body's not Sookie; it's the woman from earlier, the one who'd attacked the vampire. Sam scans the trees and ground around them, and spots signs of some kind of scuffle.

His gut clenches when he realizes just how much blood he's seeing. There's a lot of it, splattered and pooled in the dirt and dust and dripped off to one side. A closer look at those sideways drips shows him that someone was moving, bleeding and moving away from the bar.

Sam follows the trail, swapping the knife for the gun and taking light steps across the grass as he tracks whoever it is.

[feel_human]

Bill lays her back on the soft moss of the bank, careful not to disturb her too much. She'll heal, but it will still take a little time.

In the meantime, he considers what he knows, and what he's managed so far, but after a moment even his self-control frays and he allows himself to lean down and delicately lick some of the blood from her forehead.

[gavemea_45]

The moonlight helps. The blood's almost black against the silvery-green shade of the grass under the moon. Sam's moving a little faster than he should, he knows it, but desperation's driving him.

Light gleams off the bayou in the distance as he reaches the top of the grassy rise - and illuminates with pitiless harshness the two figures on the bank. Sookie, lying far too still on the ground, with the vampire crouched over her and feeding from her--

He's fired the first shot almost before he knows it.

[feel_human]

Bill's up in a blaze of motion, too fast for the human eye to track, his fangs dropping as he whirls to face the intruder, snarling, setting himself between the newcomer and the girl.

Moonlight paints over the strained face of Sam Winchester, and Bill grimaces, then lifts his hands and deliberately retracts his fangs, stepping back before he glares at the pocked hole in the bank where the bullet hit. "I did not hurt her," he says, exasperated. "I healed her."

[gavemea_45]

"You were feeding on her!" Absolute fury paints each word. Sam moves closer, hyperalert for the next blur of motion as he takes up the tension on the trigger. He may die here tonight, but he won't go down alone.

"Get back. All the way back," he orders. "Sookie? Sookie, can you hear me?"

[feel_human]

Bill steps back, almost to the water's edge, without argument. "You are incorrect," he says. "I gave her my blood. Without it, she would have surely perished."

On the bank, Sookie stirs, frowning. Her clothing is liberally spattered with her blood; it's drying in her hair, but her nose has straightened and her split lip has healed, along with the fractured cheekbone. "Sam?" she murmurs. She sounds tired.

[gavemea_45]

"I'm here. I'm right here, Sookie." She's come so close to death tonight he can taste it, and the chill of terror mixed with pure rage races through his veins with every beat of his heart. Sam goes down on one knee beside her, watching the vampire with near-feral intensity.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

[feel_human]

She blinks her eyes open and looks up at him, lightly bewildered by how clearly she can see, how easily she can breathe. "The Rattrays jumped me," she murmurs, and frowns, thinking back. "They got me down and... kicked me... and then Bill was there."

A thrill of fear shudders through her, and she tries to push herself up with a burst of adrenaline, only realizing as she does so that she can feel her legs, she can move them, she's healed. Or healing, anyway. She stares at Bill. "You gave me your blood."

"I had to." His expression is impossible to read, standing as he is with the moonshine behind him. "You were dyin'."

[gavemea_45]

Like hell is he going to feel grateful to a vampire, and yet--

Sam grits his teeth and makes himself lower the gun, aiming it at the ground between them instead as he relaxes the pressure on the trigger. Besides, if Bill goes for the gun first he can use that instant for his backup options, but Sam's beginning to think the other's angling for a different approach here.

"They won't cause you any more trouble," he murmurs, watching Bill's face. He'd be flatly surprised if either of them had survived. "Let me take you home."

[feel_human]

She nods and gets shakily to her feet, then meets Bill's eyes. "I guess we're even," she says, unsteady, and he nods, once.

"Get some rest," he tells her. "I'll call on you tomorrow, as we discussed."

He gives Sam a curt nod, then blurs into motion and is gone, leaving Sookie shivering with strain and reaction at the edge of the calm bayou.

[gavemea_45]

Sam moves to wrap his left arm around her shoulders and draw her to his side, keeping his right hand free just in case.

"Come on," he murmurs. "I'll drive."

[feel_human]

She's trembling lightly beneath his arm, but it's from shock and reaction, only. The pain has gone as if it never existed, and she feels completely healed. "Your bike," she points out.

"You better not leave it here. I'm okay, Sam, I can drive."

[gavemea_45]

She's shivering against him and he wants nothing more right now than to see her safe in her own house, lights on and full of warmth.

"Are you sure? I can hide it in the bushes, it'll be fine," he insists.

[feel_human]

"It'll be more trouble for you to come back and get it," she says, hanging on to her practicality with both hands. "It's not that far. I'll be fine."

[gavemea_45]

He doesn't like it at all, but he has to admit she's not wrong. "You pull over if you have even an instant's trouble," he insists. "If you feel shaky at all. I'll follow right behind you. Okay?"

Even with that grudging agreement, he sticks right by her side as they head to her car.

[feel_human]

He hates it, she can tell, but he agrees anyhow and so she nods to his request. "Promise," she says. "I just want to get home."

And she better hope Gran's asleep already. What she'll do with this blood-soaked and spattered shirt, she has no idea. There's certainly no saving it.

[gavemea_45]

There's no one in the parking lot, at least; no one living, anyway. Sam carefully doesn't look in the direction of where at least one Rattray had fallen, not wanting to draw Sookie's attention to it.

"Here," he says, as they reach her car. Her shorts are dark enough to hide it, but the blood on her shirt is shockingly visible, and if her grandmother's awake it won't go well at all. Sam strips down to his T-shirt and hands her his long-sleeved outer layer. "Wear this."