feel_human | saturday night and the moon is out

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

feel_human

Sookie only gives him a mild, blandly innocent look back, even as she feels a small twist of triumph. "No trouble," Adele is assuring him. "It'll be nice to have some company, won't it, Sookie?"

"Sure," Sookie says, easily, and smiles at her grandmother. "Gran, why don't you show him up to the room? And then you oughta go to bed. I'm sorry to keep you up so late."

Adele pats her cheek, fondly, and looks at Sam. "I'll just show you where everything is," she says. "And then you should come down and have a bite to eat. My, but you're a tall thing! I imagine you have quite an appetite."

From:

gavemea_45

"Yes, ma'am," Sam murmurs. "Thank you. I really appreciate this. This is really kind of you."

He moves to follow Adele upstairs, but shoots a look over his shoulder at Sookie, trying to convey that she shouldn't go anywhere.

From:

feel_human

She leans against the kitchen doorway, arms crossed over her chest, and gives him a slight nod when he looks over at her, then pastes a bright smile onto her lips for Adele. "'Night, Gran," she says. "Sweet dreams."

Adele leads the young man up the staircase, still fairly spry, even for her age. "I hope this nastiness won't put you off our little town," she tells Sam. "Bon Temps really is a nice place, though I suppose we get our share of trouble, just like anywhere."

From:

gavemea_45

"No, ma'am," he tries to reassure her. "I just got into town this afternoon, but it seems real nice so far. Don't worry about that, please."

She's got a will of iron, it seems, and a sweet sort of kindness about her that's the kind of thing he used to dream about when he was a kid, trying to make up imaginary family members to fill in all their missing pieces, before he gave up.

From:

feel_human

Adele gives him a crinkle-eyed smile. He seems like a real nice young man, and his manners leave nothing to be desired. "This was Jason's room," she tells him, showing him up the second half-flight of stairs to where the guest room sits, neatly made up, windows open to the mild night air. "Before he moved out. There's a bathroom and a shower just there – "

She points, showing him. "And plenty of extra blankets in the chest just over by the wall.

The room isn't large, but like everything else in the house, it's sparklingly clean and arranged by someone with more of an eye for comfort than for style. The old wooden bed is spread with a handmade quilt, and the windows look out over the smooth expanse of lawn, fireflies visible at the edge of the woods beyond. Adele leads him into it, then beams warmly at him. "I hope you'll be comfortable."

From:

gavemea_45

"I couldn't be anything else. You've gone to so much trouble."

It's nothing at all like the motel rooms that are most of his lived experience. Was this anything like what their house looked like in Kansas, before, he wonders?

"Please don't worry about me, Mrs. Stackhouse. Thank you so much."

From:

feel_human

"Not a bit of it," she tuts, cheerful. "Trouble! The day it's a trouble to offer a little hospitality is the day they may as well put me in my grave."

She shuffles to the door and turns to give him a warm smile. "You have a good night, and rest up, now. Let Sookie know I've turned in, will you?"

From:

gavemea_45

"Yes ma'am, I will. Good night," he says. Sam waits until she leaves the room to go check the angle of view from the windows. He can't see the Compton place from here; oh well.

He gives it a couple of minutes, long enough for her to make her way down the hall, then backtracks downstairs to the kitchen, looking for Sookie.

From:

feel_human

She'd busied herself, washing the few dishes that were left in the sink, and she's drying them now as she hears the unfamiliar step on the stairs.

"Do you like sweet tea?" she asks, glancing at him as he comes in, but not stopping in her movements. She finishes drying the plates and carries them to the cabinet, then turns her attention to the silverware. "Or there's a couple beers in the fridge; we keep some for when Jason comes by."

It's nerves and reaction, she knows; if she stops, if she slows down, she's going to have to think about what happened and what it means. But as long as she's going about the familiar motions, her hands stay steady and sure, and her voice doesn't shake.

From:

gavemea_45

"Tea sounds good." He looks around, watching where she puts things... and watching just how much nervous energy she's throwing off.

"I can get it, if you tell me where the glasses are."

From:

feel_human

"Catch me makin' a guest get his own drink," she says, scornful, and nods to the table, which is spread with a slightly faded but clean and pressed tablecloth of ditsy blue floral. "Have a seat, Sam."

She goes to the cupboard and takes out a couple of glasses, then heads to the fridge to fill them with ice. "Are y'hungry at all? I could put together a sandwich, quick."

From:

gavemea_45

He sits down at the table and is quiet, watching her. "I'm okay. Sookie..."

He's not entirely sure where to go first, and starts with, "I'm sorry."

From:

feel_human

"For which part, exactly, Sam?"

She opens the fridge and retrieves the pitcher of sweet tea, then fills the glasses. Setting the tea back again, she picks up the glasses and brings them over, placing one on the table in front of him before she looks down into his face, her expression solemn. "You tell me which part was your fault, and I'll accept an apology. But I don't believe you can."

From:

gavemea_45

He curls one hand around the glass and holds her gaze, his own steady. "Mostly I'm sorry that you're having to deal with all this. I know it's hard to accept. And I'm sorry if I scared you, earlier."

From:

feel_human

She meets his gaze and extends her power as far as she can, trying to pick up any sort of lie, but there's nothing. From what she can tell, he's sincere.

After a moment, she nods, and comes to sit across from him, her hands around her own glass. "Seems like you know an awful lot about vampires, considering they're not supposed to exist."

But neither is... whatever she is, she's sure of that much. For the first time, she wonders whether or not he might consider her a monster, too.

From:

gavemea_45

"Not just vampires," he murmurs. It's harder to get the words out than he'd thought it would be, given how ingrained this secret's been for him and Dean for as long as he can remember.

This is different, he tells himself. She's being threatened by a vampire. She already knows the world isn't safe.

It still feels like he's ripping something away, from her and from himself, when he continues,

"There's a lot of other things out there, too. I grew up learning about them."

From:

feel_human

Her head hurts, from the combination of work and keeping her defenses up and the long night. She reaches up to undo her tight ponytail and lets her hair spill down over her shoulders, sighing as she scrubs her fingers through it to mitigate the ache. "Well, let's stick with vampires for the moment," she says, practical, one the initial ache's been rubbed away.

Folding her arms on the table, she looks over at him. "You were expectin' him to attack me. Why didn't he?"

From:

gavemea_45

She's really, really pretty. Sam catches himself staring as she runs her fingers through her hair and makes himself look down at his glass, quick, while he thinks about her question.

"I don't know." He looks back up at her. "I didn't know he'd -- I didn't know any of them were around, either. Not until I saw him, when he came in. I thought he'd spotted you as ... as prey. I don't know why he didn't. Unless..."

He cuts himself off there, cursing himself for a fool.

From:

feel_human

A sliver of his thoughts nudges into her mind – no words, just a feeling of shy appreciation, and her mouth rucks up at the corner before she hears the rest of what he's saying. "You didn't know he was here?"

So... maybe he really had just stopped in at Merlotte's, and decided to stick around for a few days.

She can't look at that thought too hard, not yet. "Unless what?"

From:

gavemea_45

Sam shakes his head. "No. I didn't. I didn't come here on a hunt. I really was just following the road."

He takes a swallow of the tea to wet his throat. It's sweet, all right, but it's really good. He takes another, then sets the glass carefully back on the table and makes himself meet her eyes again.

"Unless he wanted to - to recruit you. Turn you into one of them."

From:

feel_human

"Turn me? Into a..."

The thought is too horrifying to contemplate. She can feel the blood rushing out of her face. "But... he'd still have to... to bite me to make that happen, wouldn't he?"

From:

gavemea_45

"He would. And he didn't." Sam reaches out to cover her hand with his, impulsively trying to comfort.

"I'm not going to let him get you, Sookie."

From:

feel_human

His hand is large and warm and gentle, even though she'd seen him holding a gun and a knife earlier, even though there'd been the threat of violence in every line of him when he was defending her from Bill. And she can tell, from the brush of his thoughts she can hear, that he means every word.

Which means... he deserves the truth. She turns her hand and curls her fingers around his, allowing herself a brief moment of contact before she regretfully pulls her hand back to herself. "There's one other thing it could be," she says, her glance falling to the table.

It's covered in that cloth that she herself had laundered and ironed earlier in the week. Comfortingly everyday. Reliably normal.

Nothing like... whatever she is.

She takes a breath and meets his glance again. "You heard him. He kept asking what I am. Not who, Sam. What."

From:

gavemea_45

"I heard him. So?" Sam searches her face, trying to read her expression, not sure where she's going with this.

"You think you know what he meant by that?"

From:

feel_human

"I..."

Sookie folds her hands in her lap, tight, and looks down, not wanting to see the way his face will change when she tells him, not wanting to hear how his thoughts will change. "I have a... disability. It's why... why I get so distracted all the time. And why people here think I'm... why they call me crazy."

She wets her lips and forces herself to meet his eyes. To tear off the bandage. "I can hear people's thoughts," she says, low. "What I am... is a telepath."