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]

The drive seems to take so much longer than usual, because her senses feel so heightened. It seems like she can feel the car burning gasoline, the combustions running, the road beneath her tires.

But it keeps her from panicking, at least, and she's careful to stay at the speed limit, to drive as cautiously as she ever has, until at last the tires are crunching over the gravel of her driveway and she can shut the engine off and get out.

[gavemea_45]

He pulls up beside her car and shuts off the bike, dismounting and hurrying to her in the next instant. Sam scans the house, then looks down at her.

"It doesn't look like she's awake," he murmurs. "Want to go up and get a shower and change, and I'll make some coffee or something?"

[feel_human]

She nods, but... "Tea, maybe?" she requests, soft. "There's some... some mint in the cupboard."

She'll have enough trouble sleeping tonight as it is. Adding coffee to the mix just sounds like a bad idea.

[gavemea_45]

"I can do that."

Sam looks down at her, then gives in to instinct and steps forward to wrap both arms around her and draw her in for a moment.

"You're okay," he murmurs. "Just take a second."

[feel_human]

He draws her in and she goes willingly, folding herself against his chest and closing her eyes. Up close, his scent is even more intoxicating, and she breathes deep, letting him soothe her.

She allows herself a long moment of just being held, then looks up at him. "We better get inside."

[gavemea_45]

"Okay." He loosens his embrace and lets her go, then reaches for her hand to walk with her across the yard and up the steps to the porch.

[feel_human]

She keeps her fingers laced with his until they've entered the kitchen through the back door, then lets him go with a promise to be right back down and takes the back stairs as quietly as possible up to the second floor.

In the bathroom, she runs the water as hot as she can stand it, then undresses as steam fills the air. His shirt, she sets carefully aside, before she stares at her reflection in the mirror. She might be healed, but there's blood crusted in her hair and beneath her nose, and her shirt is ruined.

She strips down and takes stock, running her fingers over smooth, unblemished skin, feeling her unbroken bones beneath, before she steps into the shower and lets the water wash over her.

[gavemea_45]

Mint in the cupboard, she'd said. Sam finds it, stares at the coffee maker with increasing dubiousness, then sighs and finds a saucepan instead. He fills it with water and sets it to boil, the mint tea waiting to the side, and takes down a couple of mugs.

It's all he can do not to pace the floor. She'd nearly died, and he hadn't been there. Why had she even gone outside alone in the first place? He can't yell about it - she'd nearly paid with her life - but he wants to hit something. Maybe he'll take it out on Merlotte instead. After all, the man saw her go, for all his claims that 'his staff' are safe.

God, he wishes Dean were here.

[feel_human]

She comes down, barefoot, wearing her light robe over soft shorts and tank top, hair hair damp over her shoulders, his shirt folded in her hands. The saucepan on the stovetop gets a quick, uncertain glance, before she holds out the borrowed shirt.

"Thanks."

[gavemea_45]

"Sure." Sam takes it, drapes it over the back of a chair, and immediately forgets about it.

"Tea'll be ready in just a couple of minutes." The water in the pan's boiling merrily now. Sam dumps the mint tea into it to brew and turns back to Sookie. "Want to sit down?"

[feel_human]

She looks askance at his tea-making, but opts not to say anything. It's nice of him just to do it at all.

Pulling out a chair, she takes a seat and looks up at him, unsure where or how to start.

[gavemea_45]

Sam pulls out a chair of his own and sits, so that she doesn't have to crane her neck to look at him. He holds out both hands, offering to hold hers.

"First things first. I'm so glad you're okay," he murmurs. "When I realized where you'd gone--"

He breaks off there and shakes his head.

[feel_human]

She takes his hands and curls her fingers around them, holding on. "I'm so sorry," she murmurs. "I know you said not to go out alone. I wasn't thinkin', I was so mad. I'm just so used to bein' able to take a minute in the parking lot, and I thought – since I had the silver – "

But it hadn't been a vampire that attacked her at all. "I'm sorry, Sam. That I made you worry."

[gavemea_45]

He squeezes her hands, gently, and holds on in turn. "You don't have to apologize. I'm just glad you're okay." Or alive, rather, not to put too fine a point on it.

"I know all of this is different for you." Something she'd said strikes him, and he backtracks to it. "Mad? Did Merlotte do something?"

[feel_human]

She glances down, feeling sore just at the memory. "He's never yelled at me like that before."

Sam has always been kind and considerate... maybe a little too considerate at times. "He brought me back to shout at me about goin' out to save Bill."

[gavemea_45]

"He did, did he?" Sam's jaw sets in hard lines before he shakes his head. "I'm sorry. He shouldn't have yelled at you."

[feel_human]

"It's not your fault."

If Sam hadn't been there, she really would have gone out alone. "He's been so edgy the last two nights, I... don't know what's goin' on with him."

[gavemea_45]

"He's not a fan of strangers," Sam says, dryly, then jerks as the pan on the stove hisses. He lets go of her and gets hastily to his feet. Sam moves the pan from the heat, eyes the tea, and wraps a towel around the handle as he picks up a mug and takes the whole thing over to the sink to pour tea for her.

"Milk and sugar? Or just plain?"

[feel_human]

"Plain."

She's not sure even sugar could save what he's done to the tea, but it'll still be hot and something to do with her hands. "Thanks."

[gavemea_45]

He fills the mug for her, a second for himself, and sets the pan back on a different burner and makes sure the stove's shut off before he brings her a mug.

"Here." Sam sets his own on the table beside them and sits back down.

[feel_human]

"Thanks, Sam."

She curls her fingers around the mug, glances at the tea, and decides to give it a minute to cool down. "How'd you figure out what happened, anyhow?"

[gavemea_45]

"Well, when Merlotte came back and you didn't, I asked him where you were." Sam grimaces a little. "I also probably caused a scene when he said you'd gone outside to clear your head. Your friend Tara might have some questions."

[feel_human]

"She'd have questions either way," Sookie points out. "But I'm glad you came out lookin'."

[gavemea_45]

"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner." Soft and low. "I found where - it must have been where they jumped you. And followed the trail across the grass from there to the bayou."

[feel_human]

She nods, watching the tea leaves float around in her mug.

"Bill killed them, didn't he?"