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]

She smiles at that and lets herself relax fully against him, enjoying the way he holds her, keeps touching her.

"Better not be," she murmurs. "I don't want to be dreamin' it."

[gavemea_45]

"That makes two of us. Honey," he adds, trying it out, and kisses her hair.

[feel_human]

That sweet little endearment, which rolls so easily off her tongue and which she's heard so many times in her life – from her parents, Gran, her friends, the ladies at church – sounds so strange and alien and deliberate from him that she almost laughs.

She doesn't – it'd be a hideously mean thing to do, and there's no doubting he means it – but she grins all the same, presses it into his skin so he doesn't think she's laughing at him. Because it sounds awkward, but there's so much sweetness and warmth behind it that it nestles into her chest anyway, tucking next to her heart.

Maybe she can get him to use cher, like Sam Merlotte and Rene do... but she's not going to bother thinking about them right now. "Good," she murmurs, and lifts her head to look up at him. "Thanks for bein' patient with me."

[gavemea_45]

"What? No," he protests, and leans in to give her a gentle kiss. "I should be thanking you. For trusting me to, to... to be with you like this."

[feel_human]

She kisses him back, light and delicate as a butterfly brushing his lips. "I never thought I could find someone I could be with," she says, soft but clear.

"And this was so, so perfect. I'm just so happy to be here with you."

[gavemea_45]

"I'm happy, too," he says, soft and low, and holds her a little closer.

He is, more than he thought he could be, in a way he'd never have dreamed of when he rolled off the road for a bite to eat at a roadside grill.

"Just so you know."

[feel_human]

Her eyes soften as she watches him, before she puts her head back down on his shoulder and cuddles close. "I'm so glad, honey."

Glad that he's here, glad that he's happy. "You changed my life, when you came into Merlotte's the other night."

[gavemea_45]

"I'm glad I did." She snuggles closer to him, and he tightens his arm around her. "Really glad."

Glad to have met her, glad to be here with her now. Maybe not so glad for all the trouble she's facing, but knowing he doesn't have to lie to her... well. It's a new and precious thing.

[feel_human]

"Me, too."

She wonders what would have happened if he hadn't, if there'd been no one to warn her off Bill or to tell her what she was so suddenly dealing with. "You're not like anyone I've ever known before. In all the best ways."

[gavemea_45]

"That's good, I guess?" He turns his face into her hair and just breathes for a few seconds.

[feel_human]

"It's good," she promises, and closes her eyes to enjoy the feeling of him beneath her, the bone-deep relaxation of her body. She's already sore, but there's something to enjoy in that, too.

[gavemea_45]

She's a limp, sweet bundle against him, and Sam stretches under her just a little, then curls her more comfortably into his embrace. "Rest a while," he suggests.

[feel_human]

"I am restin'," she protests, drowsily. Between the sun and the late night before and their activity, she could nap just like a cat in a window. "Besides, you might get hungry, soon."

[gavemea_45]

"You might, too," he points out. "But we're in no hurry."

[feel_human]

"You're right."

They have the whole day stretching out before them, and the evening, too, and the only thing on the schedule at all is that Bill had promised to come and talk to them tonight.

But that feels like a lifetime away, right now. "It's really nice just lyin' here with you."

[gavemea_45]

"And you're not even heavy," he teases. "You're such a tiny little thing."

[feel_human]

She laughs, mostly silent, just her body shaking against his. "You're just tall," she teases back. "Everybody's small to you."

[gavemea_45]

"There's that." He sounds a little wry about it, as the memory of the first time Dean had called him a 'freakin' Sasquatch' flits through his mind without him really thinking about it.

"Just means I can reach things down off high shelves."

[feel_human]

His tone shifts and a memory flashes through her mind. Sookie lifts her head, instantly contrite.

"I didn't mean to tease you so much, honey. I like how tall you are."

[gavemea_45]

“No, it’s okay.” Sam turns his head to look at her, then lifts one hand to touch her cheek.

“You didn’t say anything wrong. Dean always teases … always used to tease me about it, too. I don’t mind.”

[feel_human]

She turns her cheek into his touch, her eyes sympathetic.

"How long's it been since you talked to him?"

[gavemea_45]

“Since I left. A few weeks now, maybe a month.”

He cups his hand to her face and leans in to kiss her.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “I knew he’d be mad. Don’t worry about it.”

[feel_human]

She kisses him back, gentle and sweet.

"I bet he misses you, too," she murmurs. "Even if he's not done bein' mad about it yet."

[gavemea_45]

“Maybe.” Sam’s expression shifts from rueful to teasing as he smiles at her.

“But if he were here you’d probably never have looked twice at me, so I guess I lucked out there.”

[feel_human]

Her forehead crinkles up as she lifts her eyebrows and gives him a disbelieving glance. "I wouldn't have stopped lookin' at you," she says, primly. "Just like how it happened anyway. I'm sure he's perfectly nice -- "

She says it with extreme dubiousness, like she doesn't believe him at all but is too polite to say so out loud. "-- but you're the one I like."