A/N: Hello! So this will only be 3-4 chapters at most, and shouldn't interfere with my Sookie-turning story (Born to Die). In fact, I've actually had writer's block, so I worked on this little ditty instead – and suddenly writer's block gone! Funny how that works. Thanks for reading! And thanks to my betas, MrsKroy and Rachel Olsen-Williams, for putting up with my temperamental ass, editing, and keeping me on track.

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"Ahhh… my favorite breather," Pam said after I pushed past the bar's scowling bouncer, literally moving him by way of a hearty shove.

I was not quite so pleased to find myself once again inside Fangtasia, a business previously owned by my vampire boyfriend turned ex-bonded – long story – after his maker pensioned him off to the vampire Queen of another state.

Ooooooo-klahoma – like the songs says – where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains.

Fucking Oklahoma.

For the first couple of years, I'd been so angry with him, so sure he could've avoided it – avoided anything – if he had really wanted to put forth the effort. I'd never seen him as a quitter; in fact, I'd always imagined he could conquer the world in one weekend – if he'd ever wanted to. But he never did it, content to keep his little piece of Louisiana.

Because he wasn't enterprising like that – he really wasn't.

Although I'd still let little jealous bubbles pop up within me, telling me that he wanted to go to Oklahoma, wanted to marry a Queen and improve his station – grab the kind of power I'd seen him turn down time and time again. Now I knew that kind of reasoning was laughable, along with being pretty awful of me. Apparently at my worst, I was incapable of being anything but childish – and petty. But not all the time. I'd somehow only ever managed to summon the worst in me when it came to him. My hand was always firmly planted against his chest, metaphorically and sometimes physically, holding him at bay.

Because I'd never gotten over the deeply-rooted belief that he wasn't mine to keep.

I didn't want to be attached, have my happiness dependent on anyone or anything I was destined to lose. My self-defense mechanism protected me against the one person I didn't need to be protecting from – how fucked up is that? And, because sometimes your worst fears become self-fulfilling prophecies, I'd been proven right – he didn't belong to me at all. He wasn't mine to have or to hold. So instead of trying to grab him close, I'd pushed him away, tossing insults and snarky bullshit at his feet. Because I intended to burn every bridge that had ever been built between us.

No one ever accused me of being level-headed.

And with the way my night was already shaping up, nobody probably never would.

"Pam," I bit back, "Your office now… please."

I gritted my teeth as I rounded out my order by trying to reposition it as a request.

She raised a perfectly waxed eyebrow at me as she swept her arm out, shepherding me toward the back room. I huffed out my frustrations as I ambled towards Pam's office – his old office – with her hot on my heels. I wasn't mad, not really; I was wildly upset, my shattered heart railing against my ribcage. But being outwardly angry was closer to my wheelhouse, and I'd never processed my feelings for him – still hadn't. I was finding it increasingly more difficult to even refer to him by name.

My ex had become he or him.

These things were not progress.

But in fairness, his little song and dance maneuvers sent to me by way of glamoured humans hadn't done anything but thrown me into a tailspin over the past months. It had knocked me back at least ten steps from the five I'd managed to take forwards.

As always, I was losing ground, not gaining it.

Once the door had been opened and shut, Pam glided over to the desk, gingerly sat down, and steepled her fingers together – all business, this one.

"Miss Stackhouse…what brings you here today? I assume it's Area business or you wouldn't be here," she said, and I did not miss her meaning.

For one thing, it meant her office was probably bugged, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew who would do such a thing – and why.

I'd turned my back on the supernatural world, and by all accounts – thanks to him, and his second 100 years contracted away for my protections – it had turned its back on me. But that… freedom (?) – I didn't know what else to call it – came with conditions, like the loss of my friendship with Pam, among others. According to Felipe de Castro, the vampire king of several states, including mine, if I decided to straddle the fence between worlds, he would gain indisputable rights to push me over, make me pick a side once and for all. His side, bound to him as his vampire child, for eternity. It was a loophole he lorded over me, bragged to me about, before he finally left me alone. Because he was sure, just oh so sure, that I was addicted to the night, unable to stay away from vampires.

A desperate fangbanger, that's what he likened me to.

Frankly, Felipe figured he was simply biding his time until I slipped up. I knew because he'd told me so, inelegantly and through a fanged smile.

Cocky vampire son of a fucker.

But some of the contract's loopholes worked squarely in my favor – like the one I was exploiting right now – and for that I was grateful.

"Yes, Pam. Of course, it's Area business. I would never be here otherwise," My tone was flat, unaffected; I'd inexplicably managed to quickly steel my previously swirling emotions, "Unfortunately, I have a vampire problem, a contract dispute. As you know per the terms of the agreement, you are duty-bound to correct the issue post-haste. I would've sent my lawyer… but…"

But what?

I hadn't exactly been prepared for this little dog and pony show.

Damn him for putting me in this position.

No. More aptly, damn me for putting me – us – in this position.

All of us.

"… but… but, in all truth, I don't have the monies to throw around on something that isn't supposed to be my fucking problem!"

I intentionally cursed to punctuate my feigned irritations at having to interact with the supernatural world at all. Plus, it was true – I really didn't have the money for that kind of thing. Sam and I had broken up, almost a year ago, but he still couldn't afford to buy out my share of the bar. It was too awkward to work there – with him – after the break-up, so I'd been mostly unemployed, picking up odd jobs and temp work here and there to supplement my income, and tourniquet the bleed on my ever-dwindling savings account.

"And what exactly is the problem?"

Pam narrowed her eyes at me, as if daring me to say something. Had he told her? Did she know what he had been doing?

What I wanted to say was, "Your maker won't leave me alone; he's taunting and torturing me from a state away, despite the fact he willfully gave up that right."

Even though I wouldn't exactly call not wanting to slaughter an entire state's authoritative hierarchy to avoid an ironclad contract a 'willful act.'

Embittered, that word described me well.

But instead I said, "Someone glamoured a human to pester me, at my home, and she won't leave."

In truth, this bullshit had been going on for a month or so now, but the humans had never tarried before, never demanded me to do anything in return. They'd simply showed up at my house, at all hours of the night, belting out songs right and left at a volume I'd thought a human being incapable of. Sometimes they even brought boom boxes and microphones, just to be sure I couldn't miss even one word of their unwelcome serenades. No, a serenade might've been nice; this was more like tone deaf karaoke fueled by a quiet hate or rage.

Lucky me.

I guess I'd been putting up with it for the past months because on some level I figured I deserved it, that he had every right to be mad at me. Because I was mad at me too.

I hadn't been at first. At first, I'd thrown the weight of the blame squarely on his shoulders, decided he had failed me – failed us. But as time wore on, as I spent each passing day realizing I'd never again see him at night (or ever again) I was forced to face my own follies – the hand I had taken in the demise of our love story, the tragedy that could be described as an affront against Aphrodite.

If love really existed at all.

Maybe it didn't.

But broken hearts surely did, and apparently he needed me to know I had broken his. Or, at the very least, that he blamed me for emotions he wasn't too keen on experiencing. Because… he didn't like having feelings. Feelings for me. For anything probably, but definitely not for me.

I couldn't begrudge him the sentiment.

I'd felt the exact same way about him.

But, of course, I hadn't gotten drunk – which I assumed had something to do at least with the first of my sing-a-grams, thanks to Niall and his none-too-secret gift of fairy blood to my ex as a thank-you for divorcing me – and laid my heart out there, bared it for my ex to see. Although I guessed to some extent that's exactly what he expected me to do now – to respond.

To lay it all out there.

Like he had.

Because while it wasn't like the men or women came with calling cards or notes, I knew he had sent them. All of them. Including the black-leather clad woman, who I was sure, even in this moment, was knee deep in a songbird performance that had played on repeat for the better part of four hours. She must've been exhausted, and I almost felt bad for her. I'd say it's why I came to see Pam – so she could come glamour the woman to stop for her own sake, and not for mine. But that was an easy lie; I simply wasn't ready to face my own feelings – to respond.

Either way, no matter how I felt, he was lost to me.

Why shatter the final remnants of my broken heart through song?

Why was he doing it?

I knew he sent them; I mean, not at first, but I'd grown to understand he was the puppet master behind this little charade. At first blush, I'd assumed I was simply the target of a practical joke, a teenage prank.

When I heard someone singing Gives You Hell by All-American Rejects while drying out my hair, I didn't think 'gee, I bet my 1000 year old vampire ex-husband is trying to tell me how much he hates me.' No, instead, I slammed my windows shut, and called the local sheriff – human, not vampire. Bon Temps' finest, Bud Dearborn, hadn't had the easiest time pushing the glassy-eyed man into the back of a squad car, but he'd gone all the same – without more than a little fanfare. I'd waved off the police report. The whole scene hadn't been criminal so much as surprising, plus I knew the human had been glamoured – no gain in letting him be punished for what was a petty vampire crime at best.

At the time, I didn't know who was to blame – I only knew it wasn't Bill.

My other vampire ex.

Felipe's assumptions weren't entirely baseless.

Despite Bill's desire to mainstream, blend in with the human world, he'd never really embraced the music of the age. I think he thought it was too loud, and angry. So I imagined All-American Rejects wasn't a band he'd ever heard of – he probably would've assumed it was a name for deportees no longer welcomed or allowed in the United States. I laughed at the thought. That's probably exactly how Bill would've interpreted that band name – if no one told him they made music first.

So I brushed the whole thing off, again as a prank – a vampire prank.

Did vampires prank people?

Maybe.

But I realized it was his little ploy to get my attention, to punish me – or at least lash out at me – much later, when someone else came by singing, 'I hate everything about you, why do I love you!?' That had felt pretty pointed, venomous. And no one else had ever loved me enough to hate me that much.

Except for him.

Sam had been over that time, spending the night – he had come to same conclusion I had, all without my powers of deduction for help. I can safely say our relationship, already on shaky legs to begin with – built on a fuck-up foundation at best – began its downward descent the second I refused to call Felipe. Sam believed I should tell the vampire King that he had broken the contract. He wanted me to get him in trouble. It was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard in my entire life. I didn't place the call; I socked Sam in the jaw instead.

That was how our relationship ended.

The descent had been a sharp decline.

"Well?" Pam snapped at me, yanking me out of my internal musings, "Is that what you are asking of me as the Sheriff of Area Five or not?"

"Ummm…" I looked about the tidied office, fumbling with my hands, trying to signal to Pam I had no idea what she had said. But she just tapped her manicured finger on the desk in time with the click of her heel, "Yes…?"

I elongated the word, changing it from a statement to a question at the last minute.

If Pam noticed at all, her countenance betrayed none of it.

"Then let's go, breather," She swept her arm out towards the door as she raised from her seat behind the desk. "Get you back into your boring existence, and out of my hair. Lead the way."

"SO ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING OR NOT?"

I yelled over the din of the singing – Fall Out Boy's I Don't Care blaring out loudly, surely at the top of the fangbanger's lungs in the background.

"I. Don't. Care. Just. What. You. Think... as long as it's about me. The best of us can find happi-ness, in mis-zzzzzery…"

"NOT!" Pam screamed back, "IT'S NOT REALLY VAMPIRE BUSINESS. SOUNDS MORE LIKE A LOVER'S SPAT. I'D SAY YOU BETTER SEND A MESSAGE BACK IF YOU WANT HER TO GO."

"Said, I don't care just what you think… As long as it's about me, you said… I don't care just what you think, As long as it's about me, I said… I. Don't. Care…"

Of course, Pam would side with her maker, and refuse to help me.

Why the hell would I even fool myself into thinking otherwise? 'Cause I really didn't wanna put my heart on a platter and send it back to Ooooooo-klahoma (where the wind comes sweepin' down the plains…)

Fucking Oklahoma. Fucking Pam. Fucking him.

Fucking me.

"FINE!" I screeched back, more outta irritation than trying to be heard, "FAT LOTTA GOOD YOU ARE!"

Pam smiled a wicked smile before vamping away, leaving me alone with the songbird who seemed hell-bent on busting my eardrums.

I gave up almost instantly, no other tools at my disposal. I wasn't about to call Bud again – what if she just sang from the inside of a cell until her lungs gave out? It seemed like a real possibility. Damn him – preying on my human sensibilities, my moral code.

It was a mistake to respond, and not just because of the threat that Felipe posed. It was… just a mistake. I really didn't want to bare myself raw for him, but I just couldn't let the poor girl suffer any longer. I wasn't going to ignore her travails in an attempt to try to grab at my own comforts.

That just wasn't who I was.

And he knew that, was counting on it – I bet.

"HEY!"

I exclaimed desperately hoping she heard me over the sound of her own voice. I stalked slowly towards the exhausted woman whose song hadn't even halted at its finish, but instead had started again from the beginning. What a crock of bullshit, to do this to someone.

"All you need to be able to stop is a response?"

Crickets. Silence.

Oh, freaking God, glorious and sweet silence.

She nodded furiously, glassy-eyed but grateful for the reprieve – teetering on uneasy and tired legs. She glared at me, waiting for a command I truly had no power to give.

I placed my hands on her shoulders to steady her, and she offered me the smallest smile she could muster.

"You'll go away if I say something back, right? What if it's a song? Can you accept a song title?"

She bobbed her head 'yes', and she didn't stop agreeing to my question – damn this glamour was strong. Her head kept moving back and forth with an increasing force that had me worried and acting fast.

Somewhat fast.

"Alright… Alright…"

I scrambled quickly, a lightbulb pinging on immediately. Its light flooded my head along with the perfect lyrics – the ones I sincerely hoped he'd take at face value, understand the feelings it captured. I hadn't wanted to deal with this – deal with him – but it seemed I had no choice in the matter. I never did, the crux of our problems in my biased opinion.

"I want you to send back…" I leaned in and whispered the song's title and band into her ear, hoping that this would be the end of it – once and for all.

A/N: Characters belong to Charlaine Harris. Lyrics belong to their respective owners, Oklahoma to Rodgers and Hammerstein and I Don't Care to Fall Out Boy. Next chapter? We'll go join Eric over in Ooooooo-klahoma, and find out his motivations and reactions!