Archive of Our Own

She finds Eric in his room.

She expects the bloody tears, the look of anguish etched into his features – but she doesn’t expect to see the vampire’s hands shaking as he clasps them together in front of his knees, doesn’t expect the way he turns his face away from her, as if to hide. Eric is proud, Sookie knows that, but to be so proud to hide even in this, his grief?

Carefully, she takes a seat on the ottoman across from him. “I’m so sorry,” she says quietly, and she can’t see his eyes, but she can see the tears that splatter, ruby-red, on the floor. “Oh, Eric. What can I do?”

She regrets the words almost as soon as they spill from her lips, because she knows what she can do, or what Eric will think to ask for, at least. She has enough memories of his easy smile pointed in her direction to last her a lifetime. But Eric doesn’t flash her a sharp grin and tell her how to make him feel better – he just shakes his head, and a few more tears drop to the floor.

“You should go,” he says, and his voice sounds like it’s been clawed to pieces, like someone took their fangs to his throat and weren’t all that gentle about it. But it’s the words that worry Sookie more than anything, the short dismissal that has her leaning forward and, cautiously, clasping one of Eric’s hands between her own.

Because of all the things she imagined Eric saying, she never imagined him trying to send her away.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says firmly. “I don’t feel right leaving you alone like this.”

Eric makes a sound, something that would be a laugh if it had any humor behind it. “My maker commanded me not to join him,” he says, still looking at the ground. “Your concern is charming, but unfounded.”

“I’m not just worried about you burning, and you know it.”

Sookie takes a breath, and then, with one hand, she reaches out and slips two fingers under Eric’s chin, gently tipping his face up. Something in her chest aches at the sight of him, at the blood drying on his face, at the sheer amount of it – she never thought Eric heartless, not exactly, but this is… new. And she hates that this is how she’s learning that it’s possible to make Eric Northman cry.

Without thinking, she brushes her thumb along the line of his jaw, and at the touch Eric’s eyelashes flutter. He leans into her palm, ever so slightly, and she… she doesn’t hate it. Bill’s words echo in the back of her head, reminding her that she might develop an attraction to Eric, but this… this isn’t that. This isn’t what she felt for Bill after drinking his blood. This is something else entirely.

“It’s daytime,” she says after a moment. “Don’t you need to rest?”

Eric meets her gaze, blue eyes lined with bloody tears, and shrugs one shoulder. “I’m not feeling particularly restful at the moment.”

Sookie shifts, and her hand falls away from Eric’s face to her own lap, smoothing out the skirt of her dress. Her palm smears blood on the red and white checks, but she’s used to blood stains at this point, and she doesn’t even think twice about it. She doesn’t think twice about patting her thigh either, and gently tugging Eric forward by the grip she still has on his hand. “Well, come here anyway. You still need to try.”

She expects him to resist. She expects him to raise an eyebrow, to make an over-the-top comment, to flash his fangs at her – but he just goes. He slides off the chair, and then down to his knees in front of her, and then just… sags, listing forward to lay his head in her lap. Her hands come up of their own accord and sink into his hair, and she feels the sound he makes, soft and content, deep in the back of his throat.

“Close your eyes,” she murmurs, carding her fingers through his hair. “I’ll be here when you wake up. I promise.”

There’s a moment of near silence, where all Sookie can hear is her own breathing, and then Eric sighs softly. “I don’t want to.”

His voice is heartbreaking, and Sookie feels her heart in her throat. She smoothes her hand down the back of his neck, between his shoulder blades, rubbing gently at his back, while the other hand plays with the strands of his hair, and it feels good and right in a way she didn’t expect. It still feels right, even when Eric goes to raise his head and Sookie fists her fingers in his hair, keeping him right where he is, right where he belongs.

She knows she couldn’t overpower Eric, not if he didn’t let her, but the fact that he does let her sends a rush up her spine, something liquid and hot. She looks down at him, but he doesn’t move again – just makes a soft little sound against her thigh and presses impossibly closer. Carefully, she loosens her grip, smoothing out the hair she twisted into her fist. “Sorry.”

“I’m not.”

Sookie pauses, and then, slowly, deliberately, she twists Eric’s hair around her fingers again. This time, she pulls, drawing his head back off her lap, until she can see his face – and this time, there aren’t tears in his eyes. They’re wide, and they’re red-rimmed like they usually are, but he’s not crying anymore. The tear tracks on his face are dry, and his mouth is open around a breathless little sigh.

“This?” she asks, tugging lightly on Eric’s hair. His eyelashes flutter again, like they did at her first touch to his cheek. “Somehow, I imagined you on the other side of this.”

A smile curves at the corner of Eric’s lips. “You imagined this, did you?”

Sookie pulls, hard, and Eric moans, soft and sweet, sweeter than she thought he could ever be. “Your blood’s in me,” she says. “You know the kind of dreams I’ve had. Don’t you play coy with me, Eric Northman, or I won’t play with you at all.”

A shiver tears through Eric’s frame, and he arches into her touch. “Bossy,” he says, far too breathy for someone who doesn’t need to breathe. ”Most humans wouldn’t dare touch me the way you’re touching me right now.”

“Most vampires wouldn’t have gotten on their knees for me so easily.”

Eric snarls, fangs dropping. “Careful,” he growls, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t even try to twitch out of her grasp. And after a moment, when the sound continues, Sookie realizes it isn’t a growl at all – it’s a purr, and it’s something she likes, something she wants to hear more of.

The knowledge that she wants to make Eric feel good, at least for a little while, settles over her, far easier than she thinks it should.

Curious, she drags her other hand back and traces the tip of a finger down one pearly white fang. Eric hums, opening his mouth a little farther for her, and he just looks… good, with one of her hands twisted in his hair and the other just barely touching his teeth.

He looks better when she dips two fingers into his mouth and pets them over his tongue, slow, soft. The look he gets in his eyes is wanting, almost pleading, but he still doesn’t move, almost like he’s waiting for her to let him, waiting for her to…

“Suck,” she says softly, and before the glint in Eric’s eyes can get too bright, she adds, “no biting, Eric.”

His lips close around her fingers, and she feels his tongue press against them, slick and cool. And he listens. He’s careful with his teeth – she doesn’t even feel the press of his human ones against her skin, nothing more than the plush, wet pressure of his mouth.

“Good boy.”

She barely recognizes her own voice. It’s gone soft and sultry, sexy, like she’s never heard it. Confident. She likes it, though, likes the way it makes Eric’s pupils dilate, likes the way it makes him press his tongue between her fingers, dextrous and willing.

Sookie’s the one who moves, who turns her hand so she can press the pad of her finger against one fang. And Eric anticipates the motion and tries to move, to obey her instruction, but she holds him in place by his hair and lets herself cut her finger right on the tip of his fang.

It’s just a drop or two, but Eric moans as her blood spills over his tongue, his fingers suddenly gripping her legs tight enough to bruise. She feels the pressure as he sucks at the little wound, easy at first, and then a little more desperately, like tasting her just makes him want more – and she lets him go for a few moments before she tugs on his hair to get him to stop, surprised when he immediately relents, licking gently at the wound before releasing her fingers from his mouth.

“Look at you,” she murmurs, and those eyelashes flutter again as Eric’s tongue darts out, licking a smear of blood from his lip.

“You taste…” he begins, and his voice has dropped even deeper than it was before. “You taste so fucking good, Sookie.”

He nuzzles into her palm, and she releases the grip she has on his hair to let him press close, to drag his mouth over her skin. “I’ll give you more,” she offers, and oh the way he shivers at that. His mind is empty, a blank, open space to her, but she can feel the want dripping off him all the same, like he’s screaming it instead of all but whimpering into her hand.

“You want me to beg?”

He looks up at her, and Lord is he a sight. His hair is a mess, and there’s blood on his face, and his fangs are still out, poking out just past his top lip. And he’s still on his knees, asking something like that – and the thing is, Sookie wants to say yes. She wants to hear Eric Northman say please, wants to hear him beg for something he wants, something she wants to give him.

But there’s something in his eyes, something past the want – something small and soft, something to be protected, not to be goaded out into the open. And Sookie knows Eric is a manipulator, knows he’s a liar, a crook, but that something is close enough to his heart that she knows it’s real. That it’s not a front.

She strokes the backs of her fingers down Eric’s cheek, offering him a smile. “No,” she says gently, and watches confusion spread over his face. “No, honey, I don’t need you to beg. And I don’t think you want to.”

“It’s not particularly appealing, no.”

Sookie cocks her head, pausing to draw her thumb over the vampire’s bottom lip. “And what is appealing?”

Eric laughs quietly, and his fangs retract. “We’re going to be here a while if that’s the list you want.”

It’s easy for Sookie to fist her fingers in Eric’s hair again, to drag him up, all the way back this time, until he’s upright on his knees, his hands braced in front of him on her thighs. His neck is arched in a pretty, pale curve, his face turned up towards the ceiling, and like this she can see how the tears have left blood trails down his neck, how they’ve soaked into his shirt. With the hand that isn’t twisted into Eric’s hair, she trails her fingers down the arch of his neck, smiling when his throat bobs under her fingertips.

“You like being on your knees,” she says, almost idly, and she feels the growl that tumbles out of Eric’s throat. “You like it when I manhandle you, even though we both know it’s just you letting me. But you like it when I touch you gently, too, like…” She pauses, thinking, and then leans in to press her lips to the jut of his Adam's apple, sweet and delicate. “Like this.”

Eric jerks under her mouth, and she tugs sharply on his hair, earning herself a ragged little sigh. “Be still,” she says firmly, and then, because she can, she bites at his jaw, just sharply enough to sting. Or, rather, just sharply enough that it would sting if Eric was human.

Eric, thousand-year-old vampire Eric, he whimpers at the bite. He strains at her grip, not trying to pull out of it, but trying to tip his head back farther, trying to arch his neck more, to give her more room. And that’s an offering that’s just impossible to refuse.

She drops kisses over the length of Eric’s neck, from his jaw down to the collar of his shirt, feeling him wind tighter with every brush of her lips. He’s nearly vibrating by the time she’s made her way back up to the line of his jaw, and she’s tempted to do it all again, but she wants to make him feel good, and the way he’s shaking under her hands seems to be all but toeing that line.

“Easy now,” she murmurs, and then she really bites him.

This one draws blood. She feels it flood her mouth, hot and thick and metallic and good, and Eric moans, leaning into her, like he’s trying to press her teeth farther into his neck. Like he wants her to tear at him – or maybe like that’s all he’s used to, anymore, and he doesn’t know how to ask for anything else.

She licks at the wound until it heals, until it’s not dripping blood anymore, and then she kisses that spot. Then she leans back, letting go of Eric’s hair, and smiling at him with teeth she knows are bloody.

“Strip,” she says.

For a moment, he looks like he’s going to protest. Then he just… goes, stands, takes a step back away from her and pulls his shirt off over his head. He tosses it aside, uncaring, but she isn’t concerned with his clothes – her focus is on the skin that’s been bared for her, on the sharp lines of muscle she can see.

Eric makes quick work of his belt, and his pants soon follow his shirt, kicked into a corner of the room. He’s not wearing anything underneath (and that, that makes her shiver, and she knows she’s going to wonder if he’s bare under his pants all the time, now, if there’s just one layer of fabric keeping her from reaching out, from touching, from…)

But right now there are no layers of fabric keeping her from doing anything.

She stands and crosses the short distance between them, and it’s impossible to miss the way Eric’s cock, already hard, jerks when she gets closer. His hands are curled into fists at his sides, like he’s having to dig his nails into his palms to stop himself from reaching out, and that just won’t do, so she takes one of his hands in her own and presses kisses over his knuckles, down the back of his hand, over his wrist, until some of the tension melts away and his fingers relax.

“You’re taking your sweet time,” Eric says, and he clearly means it as a jab, something meant to incite, but Sookie just smiles, rubbing her thumb over the backs of his knuckles.

“You’re worth taking the time for,” she says, and Eric blinks at her, eyebrows knitting together in a painfully human gesture. But he has a point, too. She wants him to feel good, not to be thinking too much. That’s the point of this.

She nods at the bed. “Lay down?”

It’s a question, but Eric goes, willing and obedient, laying himself out on his back. He makes himself comfortable, and for a moment Sookie just stands at the foot of the bed and looks at him, taking in the picture he makes, because he is so fucking pretty. All that bare skin, all that muscle – and his cock, flushed and hard and leaking against his stomach.

The red-and-white checkered dress joins Eric’s shirt on the floor before she moves to kneel between his thighs, and she sees the moment he realizes she isn’t straddling him, sees the moment he realizes what that means – and she also sees the way his cock spills precome over his stomach, wet and messy and eager. But she doesn’t touch him yet – not in the way he wants, at least. She leans up first, braces herself over him, kisses him, just to feel the soft sound of pleasure he makes against her mouth, the way he tries to arch up into her while still obeying, while staying where she put him.

“I need your fangs, sweetheart,” she says, and there’s no hesitation on Eric’s part. They drop instantly, and he parts his lips for her, offering them up. She nicks one of her fingers again, just enough that it will keep bleeding for a little while, and then draws it away from his mouth. He makes a sound of loss, soft and desperate, and she has to pause to lean in and kiss it from his lips. “I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “Don’t you worry.”

The first swipe of blood goes over his bottom lip, because Sookie’s not cruel, and Eric’s eyelashes flutter as his fingers flex in the sheets. His tongue darts out to lick it up, but she’s already smearing blood along the cut of his jaw, down his neck, across his collarbones. There’s no real pattern to where she’s painting him with it, no rhyme or reason – but she has something in mind, and the more of her blood decorates his skin, the better it will be.

She brushes her finger over a nipple, painting it red, and Eric sighs, those blue eyes opening to fix on her. But before whatever sass it is can spill from his lips, she leans down and kisses the crease of his hip, dragging her finger all the way down his chest. “Touch yourself,” she says against his skin, and before he can obey, she delicately traces her finger over the head of his cock, dipping it into the slit before dragging a red trail down the length of it.

Eric groans at her touch, grasping himself as soon as her hand falls away to bloody up his hips and thighs. He strokes himself, his grip loose, but Sookie sees the tendons straining in his arm, sees the tension in the arch of his neck. He’s playing at relaxation, but it’s only play. He’s wound, and he’s surprised that he’s wound, and she can’t blame him.

She leans back up, and this time, it’s her wrist she puts in front of his mouth. “Bite,” she says, and Eric’s eyes flash up to hers, curious and questioning, as he sets his teeth against her skin. “Just a bite,” she says, shifting so she can bring her other hand up to cup his cheek, just to watch the way his eyelashes flutter in pleasure. “You can lick it closed here in a minute.”

Eric sighs, but he obeys. He sinks his teeth into her wrist, and she can’t help the gasp that falls from her lips. It hurts, it always does, but it’s only for a moment. Eric doesn’t linger, not for more than a single swipe of his tongue, in any case, and when he pulls away she drags her wrist to where she wants it.

“You’re going to have to hold still,” she says, as her blood drips onto his stomach. “I don’t want this spilling all over the sheets, now.”

She’s not sure she’ll ever get used to the way Eric just listens, the way he makes his abdomen go motionless, even as he continues to stroke his cock. Her blood pools on his stomach, thick and red, and when there’s enough for her purposes she leans back up and holds the wound up to his mouth. “Just a little, because you’re good,” she murmurs, and Eric groans as he bites her again, this time pulling from the wound, throat bobbing as he swallows.

She knows how much she can lose before she starts getting dizzy, now, and she knows how much she can give and still have her wits about her and the energy to deal with a vampire like Eric Northman. After a few swallows, she taps his cheek gently, and almost immediately she feels his tongue swipe over the wounds, urging them to close.

Eric Northman, obedient.

No, she’s never going to get used to that.

She kisses him, when she takes her wrist away, because his lips are stained red with her blood and he looks like he wants. She feels the way his hand jerks on his cock as she traces one fang with her tongue, light and teasing, and feels the purr that rises in his chest when she drags her teeth over his lip.

Sookie dips her fingers in the pool of blood on his stomach and feels the muscles there jump, and she can’t help but smile against his mouth. But she doesn’t tell him to relax. She can’t, not when her next action is to lean back and slide her fingers in between his spread legs.

Eric quivers at her touch, the hand on his cock halting as the other grips the sheets, tight and violent. “Color me surprised,” he says, shakier and breathier than she expects. “You’re not quite as innocent as you look.”

“I learn fast,” she replies, and then shifts back to sit on her heels, the hand that isn’t smearing blood over Eric’s hole slipping past the hem of her own panties. Eric’s eyes follow the motion through the almost transparent lace, and he hisses when Sookie stops just shy of actually touching herself, baring his fangs as his lip pulls back.

“If you’re just going to tease –”

She cuts him off by plunging two fingers into him up to the second knuckle, slicked by her own blood and nothing more, and she’s not fool enough to think that’s anything new for Eric, that he’d really be taken by surprise by it. But at the same time, she touches herself, stroking her middle finger over her clit just hard enough to make heat sing in her blood.

All her blood.

If she pays attention, she can feel it – really feel it, the something else that she knows is inside her, part of her, bright and brilliant and heady. It lights her up from the inside, and even when nobody else can see it, she still knows it’s there.

And Eric, who has her blood on his tongue and his skin, pressed inside him on her fingers – he can feel it too. Bright, and brilliant, and heady. He groans, long and slow, tipping his head back against the pillow, and she watches as the hand that isn’t wrapped around his cock wanders over his chest, dragging lightly over the smears of blood she left.

“Fuck.” His voice is pitched low, harsh, and she can’t help but curl the fingers she has pressed inside him in response. She feels him tighten, sees him squeeze himself as precome drips from the head of his cock, bright and glistening. “Fuck,” he repeats, and this time he rocks his hips up into his hand, fucking his fist, and then fucking himself back down onto her fingers, all in one smooth, sinuous motion. The blood pooled on his stomach spills up over his ribs and then down onto the sheets, and every stray droplet seems to send a separate shiver up his spine, until he’s just moving, chasing sensation, bucking up into his own touch or grinding down against her fingers.

As she watches him, she touches herself slowly, almost idly, rocking into her own hand and letting the pleasure build in a slow burn. Beneath her, Eric bites out something sharp in a language she doesn’t understand, and then his hand is leaving his cock, reaching down to find hers, to urge her fingers deeper. And it’s easy to comply with a request made so prettily, so that’s what she does, fucking her fingers into him, making him gasp as he reaches for his cock again.

A small, tight circle around her clit has him whining, high and needy, and she feels him tighten, feels the way his body jerks, and she knows he’s close, knows he’s…

“Oh, shit.”

There’s a flash of movement, and then Eric’s fingers are around her wrist again, not stopping her from touching him, though, but stopping her from touching herself. When she looks up, his eyes are wide, his lips parted in surprise, and his chest is heaving with huge, panting breaths.

“Eric?” she asks gently, and he swallows, still holding her hand completely motionless.

“I just…” He pauses, and, for a moment, he almost looks abashed, a little lost and unsure. “I just need a minute.”

Sookie lets her fingers slip from his body, ignoring the soft, mournful little sound he makes. “Don’t worry about that,” she says, reaching up to place her palm on his chest, to push him back down. He goes, though his eyes don’t leave her face the entire time. “You don’t have anything to prove to me. Just let me make you feel good.”

He shivers as she swipes her fingers through what remains of the blood on his stomach, watches her until she slides them back into him, and only then does he drop his head back against the pillows, mouth open, fangs bared. It’s still easy, and he still opens for her, but this time he doesn’t wait for her to tell him. He starts to touch himself again, and she slips her other hand back between her own thighs and makes herself sigh with the sudden pressure against her clit.

When she curls her fingers inside him, just so, his voice breaks around a moan. And it’s a gorgeous sound, Eric falling apart, so she does it again, pressing a little harder, and this time he jerks his hips down into her hand, fucking himself on her fingers again. She lets him do that once, twice, before twisting her fingers sharply, making him keen.

On her own body, her fingers slide down farther, but he’s the one who jerks when she encounters warmth and slick, when she just barely dips a finger in. “Tell me what it feels like,” she says, her own voice gone breathy, gone sweet, and Eric groans, low and agonized, like she took silver to him instead of her own fingers.

The hand stroking his cock speeds up, just a little.

“It feels,” he begins, and his voice is enough to make her bite her lip, low and dark and dangerous. “It feels like you’ve got a fucking live wire pressed up against my –”

Eric’s words dissolve into a shattered moan as Sookie presses her fingers into herself, her own soft sigh of pleasure lost under his cries. She grinds down against her own palm, and normally she might try to drag it out, to let it build, to let the fire burn just a little brighter, but Eric is tight around her fingers and the sheets are already shreds under his hand.

She curls her fingers inside herself, pressing against that spot, and heat pools low in her belly, easy and familiar. This she knows, and she knows it well. It’s her body, and she knows exactly how to touch, to stroke, to thrust her fingers to bring herself pleasure. And it doesn’t hurt that, with every flick of her fingers, Eric writhes underneath her, desperate, aching, so close to the edge he’d have fallen three times over if it was up to him.

But it’s not.

“Now,” she says, and knows there’s no magic in her voice, no special command, no power, but she grinds down against the heel of her hand in the way that makes stars explode all over her skin, and that’s enough. She comes, slick and hot, pulsing around her own fingers, and Eric…

Eric fucks his fist as he comes, a shattered, wounded cry spilling from his lips as his release splatters on his stomach, mixing with the last of her tacky blood, white and red against pale skin, like some sort of obscene interpretation of the dress that’s somewhere on the floor behind her. It’s the sort of debauched picture she never thought she’d see, or never thought she’d see in real life – but here she is, and here he is, and all she can think about is the lazy pleasure still prickling up her spine.

Carefully, she crawls up to lay beside him, and when all that gets her is a tired arch of his eyebrow, she leans in and kisses both his cheeks, one after the other. “Eric,” she says gently, reaching up to push a lock of hair back from his forehead. “Eric, come here.”

It’s not an order, this time. And it takes him a moment of looking at her, blue eyes searching, but he does listen, doesn’t deny either of them what they want. He turns over, curling into her, his head tucked under her chin, and it should be awkward given how much taller he is than her, but instead it just feels right. His arm thrown around her waist, his lips against her collarbone, his fingers curled tightly around her hip – she feels settled, like she’s finally where she belongs.

“Please get some rest,” she murmurs, and she feels Eric’s fingers tighten around her hip. “And when the sun sets, we’ll both go home, all right? I’m not going to leave without you, Eric. I’m…” Oh, she realizes, and her heart twists in her chest with a pang of sympathy. Turning her head, she presses a kiss to his hair, and then wraps both her arms around him, holding him close, feeling the last vestiges of those tremors start to melt away. “I’m not going to leave.”

He nods against her chest, and he doesn’t say anything, but Sookie feels him relax, and, after a few long moments, she feels him go limp entirely as he slips into his deathly sleep.

And Sookie just closes her eyes and lets herself drift, because she meant it – Eric lost enough.

He’s not going to lose her.