A/N: Hi everyone! I am back (I think). As the hiatus note said, my mother passed away over 6 months ago, in January, and I've been trying to start back up with GoB since about March, but I just hadn't been able to get going. I've been doing fic for other fandoms recently, and I finally felt relaxed and comfortable enough to return to GoB this week. I have a new chapter for you guys, and I feel like I should be able to get back to posting, and finally finish this story sometime in the future.
I'd like to thank the many people who sent me messages and reviews with love for me and condolences about my mother; Meg Parrier, the dark euphie, oz-angel1, vickay, don't use, odeepblue, teewhy1977, Ericsfae, treewitch703, yorushihe, skarsnix, sarcastic sweetheart, DarkAngel620, Deanns, Crazyarmywife, ShiloCoulter, MerryCain, sj61, Lokigodric, JodieA, tulle, maddielynn2730, whitestripes123, Kadilac99, EmoPanda522, jazzybca, Dewfs, Mandii114, ellimae71, Cinnebar, Welshebabe88, GabriellaBrigantRedfern, ., Luna14, je'wella19, Godric'sGrl01, and melissacl.
You are all wonderful.
A story/plot note: The canon for this story, as I have mentioned before, does not include Mary Ann, but I have also decided to make it so that neither Lafayette or Jason have ever been to Fangtasia. Sorry for confusion! And with that, we begin again!
XXXXXX
It was so late that night that no one was in the mood to do much talking. Sookie, Tara and Lafayette were exhausted from work, and Jason's pain meds were still affecting him, so they all decided to get some sleep and work things out in the morning.
It was a good thing they did, because the morning held the promise of quite a large discussion that no one was going to escape unscathed.
Everyone slept in the next morning, and when Sookie finally woke up around 11 to a still slumbering house, she decided to go ahead and make breakfast for everyone. Luckily she had gone shopping the day before and there was plenty of food to feed all four of them. The smell of bacon woke the guys, and Tara followed them into the kitchen, awake but still looking tired. The stress of the past day was had caught up to them all.
They ate in silence, no one wishing to dive headfirst into all of the things that needed to be discussed. It was Lafayette who spoke first, after he had crammed the last biscuit into his mouth and finished his second cup of coffee.
"Sook, thanks for letting me stay."
Before he could continue she interjected.
"Lafayette, what kind of friend would I be if I threw you out in the cold? You," she looked at Jason, "and Jason, are welcome to stay here for as long as you need. We're all family. No one's gonna be homeless. Not if I have anything to say about it ."
Lafayette smiled at Sookie, but then Tara spoke.
"Okay, now that that's all taken care of, we have some serious shit to discuss. Sookie Agatha Stackhouse, what the FUCK is going on with you? Who were the vampires who were here last night? What happened to Bill? Where have you been for a week? And what in holy hell is going on in this town?"
Sookie took a deep breath and started to answer before Jason could cut in.
"Those are a lot of questions Tara. I can't answer all of them. For example, I have no idea what is going on in Bon Temps. I don't know anything you don't know about those fires, and I want to find out what's going on just as bad as y'all.
As for the vampires; the vampire from Merlotte's is Godric, and the other one is Eric Northman. I met Eric through Bill; he owns the bar Fangtasia in Shreveport. I met Godric this past week when I was in Dallas. He's Eric's Maker; like his vampire father. I can't say much about what was going on in Dallas, but it involves me doing a favor for Eric and, obviously, meeting Godric. While I don't fully trust Eric and have kind of a strange relationship with him, I do trust Godric totally and completely."
Sookie took a breath here, but continued before any of the others could interrupt.
"As for Bill, well, I think it's over between me and him. For good. Some things happened in Dallas, and others have been happening for a long time, and I just can't deal with the shit that's going on with him right now. That's all I'm going to say on that subject for right now."
She let her words hang in the air, waiting for a response.
Tara looked at Lafayette, then Jason, and, as neither of them seemed to have anything to say, spoke first.
"Well. I can't say I'm happy about this nonsense with that Godric and Eric, but I am glad you're not with Bill anymore. You know how I felt; I never had a good feeling about him."
Sookie was a little hurt at Tara's comment about Bill. Not because she still wanted to defend him, but because she felt it was a comment on her choice in men as well as an assessment of Bill's character. But she let it go and attempted to direct the conversation away from her former boy friend.
"Jason, Lafayette, are you two satisfied?"
Jason looked her right in the eye as he said,
"Sook, you know that I would rather lock you up in the closet than have any man, vampire or human, hurt you, or, hell, even touch you, but since I can't do that I'm just gonna have to leave this stuff up to you. But you'd better figure out just what that Eric wants from you, because he seems like he's up to something."
Sookie rolled her eyes at her brother's protective stance.
"Jason Stackhouse you annoy me."
He simply smiled and said,
"That's my job Sook."
"Urrgh. Just keep your nose out of my business brother dearest. And as for Eric, I can handle him perfectly well."
It was Jason's turn to roll his eyes.
"Sookie, you realize that you're like, what, 5'2" and he's about 6'4", right? You couldn't handle him even if you were on stilts. And I'll keep my nose in your business all I want. You're my sister, and I'm not going to let some blonde mountain of a vamp walk all over you."
Sookie snorted.
"Jason, Eric's got a good 6 inches on you. You couldn't physically "handle him" any more than I could. But if it will make you feel better, you can come to Fangtasia with me tonight. I need to go to meet with Godric and Eric, and you won't be doing anything anyway since you're off for a week with that hand."
Lafayette butted in here,
"If we're making it a party, I want in. I'm not gonna let you get manhandled into any shenanigans any more than Jason is. You're my family too."
Sookie looked at Tara to see if she was going to hop on the bandwagon, but the dark haired girl just shook her head and said,
"Uh uh, I ain't going nowhere with y'all. Trouble follows you like a lost puppy. Besides, I have work, and Lafayette and Jason will be more than enough "protection" for you Sookie. Just have fun reigning those two in when they get near the booze."
Sookie smiled and stuck her tongue out at her friend.
XXXXX
Sookie spent the rest of her time before her 3 o'clock to 11 o'clock shift at Merlotte's spoiling herself in every way she could think of. She took a nice long bath in the antique clawed bathtub in her gran's old master bathroom; carefully shaving and scrubbing every inch of herself. She liked feeling fresh and smooth. There was clearly no other reason for her primping.
Clearly.
After her bath, she carefully did her makeup, and picked out a change of clothing to bring with her to work. A black denim skirt and red blouse was okay, right? That couldn't possibly get her into trouble.
XXXXX
It was a good thing Sookie had brought a change of clothes, because on her 8-hour shift, at least five customers had managed to spill things on her, and she looked just gross. Jason and Lafayette showed up at about 10:30 when she had half an hour left in her shift, and waited until she sorted out her remaining customers, and counted our her tips and reported in to Sam. Then she changed quickly in the bathroom and went out front to collect the boys. Jason didn't really look at her outfit, but Lafayette eyed her up and down and, when Jason was out of earshot, whispered in her ear,
"Sookie, you look like a fangbanger in that skirt and red blouse. You didn't have anything better to wear? Like a habit? Or maybe a haz-mat suit?"
Sookie rolled her eyes at her friend, and shot back,
"Lafayette, you are worse than Jason sometimes. I haven't had a chance to do a real wash, you know that. Stop being my mother."
Lafayette stuck his tongue out at her and patted her on the bum before running up to Jason and tackling his friend from behind. They wrestled for a minute and it ended up with Lafayette in Jason's merciless headlock, then Jason burst out laughing at the look on Lafayette's face and let him go.
Sookie smiled to see her two favorite men acting like teenagers again. It felt like they had all grown up too fast sometimes. Times like this she could almost forget how fucked up their lives had gotten.
Almost.
XXXXX
They ended up taking Lafayette's convertible, because Sookie's car was, as he put it,
"A tiny yellow 5 car pile-up waiting to happen."
Sookie took offense at this comment; she loved her little car. It had never done her any wrong. But she agreed to take Lafayette's; as long as she could drive.
That was how they ended up pulling up to Fangtasia at about 12 AM and parking in one of the reserved spaces out front. At first the doorman made a motion to yell at them for this, but then Pam appeared out of nowhere and gave him a look that could curdle milk.
"Sookie, Eric wasn't expecting you to come out here. He was going to drive to you. But I guess he'll be happier this way; he's been complaining all night."
Sookie gave Pam a look, and said,
"Because Eric's happiness is so important to me."
Pam smiled one of the completely unintelligible smiles that she seemed to reserve only for Sookie, and, putting her arm around the smaller blonde, said,
"I knew I liked you for some reason."
Lafayette rolled his eyes at Jason, and the two followed Sookie and the scary blonde vampire inside the club.
Once inside, both men looked around, and saw that the only difference from any other club they had been inside was the décor and the obvious presence of vampires. Other than that, it was just as dark, smoky, and alcohol-smelling as any other dance hall or nightclub. They both immediately relaxed a bit, as they had been extremely tense ever since they got out of the car.
As they watched how the people in the club, vampire and human, parted to let the tall female vamp and Sookie through the crowd, they realized that they wouldn't have any trouble from regular patrons of the club or most of the vampires. Obviously, the blonde vamp was someone important.
Jason and Lafayette could see that Sookie was relaxing a bit too, and was talking rather comfortably with the female vampire. If Sookie felt okay, then it must be all right.
Then they noticed the two male vampires from the night before. And they saw where they were sitting.
The two were up on a pedestal at the back of the club, with people waiting in line to approach them.
Lafayette bumped Jason with his shoulder and said, as low as possible,
"What the fuck is going on up there?"
Before Jason could even speculate, both vampires on the pedestal looked up at the exact same time and, within the blink of an eye, had moved all the way across the dance floor and appeared directly in front of the female vamp and Sookie.
Jason and Lafayette swore at the same time, and pushed their way through the closing crowd to get to Sookie and the vampires.
XXXXX
Sookie saw the exact second when Godric and Eric realized she was in Fangtasia. It was rather comical, actually. They were so synchronized in their actions. She couldn't help but giggle a bit. She happened to glance at Pam, and noticed that the usually sarcastic and unsmiling vampire was actually smirking and appeared to be trying to suppress laughter. Even Pam thought those two were ridiculous.
Sookie took a deep breath and pulled herself up to her full 5 feet and 2 inches, and opened her mouth to talk.
Only to be interrupted by her dumb brother.
"Alright you vampires, listen up. Sookie is my baby sister, and y'all aren't gonna hurt her while I'm here, so just… back off… okay?"
Pam glanced sideways at Jason and looked rather amused, Eric's eyes flashed dangerously, and Godric did nothing.
Sookie, on the other hand, smacked her brother upside the head.
"Jason Stackhouse, I do not need your help to deal with this. With your luck you'll just make everything worse. Why don't you just go get a beer?"
Jason glared at his sister, and shook his head.
"No, Sook, I'm staying right here. I'm not gonna—"
Pam stepped in front of Sookie and Jason, and said,
"Sookie, do you want me to… convince… your brother to go get a beer?"
At this point Sookie just wanted to get out of Fangtasia as quickly as possible, so she just nodded. If Pam could just glamour Jason and Lafayette into going and staying at the bar for 20 minutes, she was willing to take the offer.
But something went wrong.
Pam easily glamoured Lafayette into going and sitting at the bar, but Jason was completely resistant. Then Eric tried. Then Godric.
Apparently, Jason was just as resistant to Vampire glamours as Sookie was.
"Shit," said Sookie, totally fed up with how crappy this 'quick trip to Fangtasia' was going.
Jason, rather confused at this point, said to his sister,
"Sook, what the hell is going on here?"
"Nothing Jason."
Then, turning back to Eric, she asked,
"Eric, can we go back into your office or something, instead of standing in the middle of the fricken dance floor?"
Eric smiled, pleased that she had finally addressed him personally, and said
"Of course, Sookie, darling."
Sookie glared at Eric. Now he was just trying to piss her off. Eric, Godric, and Pam walked to the back of the club to enter Eric's personal office, but, before following them, Sookie turned to her brother,
"Jason, before we go talking with them, I just want to say, please, please, pay absolutely no attention to anything Eric says to me, no matter how inappropriate or lewd. That's just how he talks. I know it's obnoxious and offensive, but I'd rather just deal with them quickly and go home and sleep, okay?"
Jason crossed his arms and looked closely at his baby sister, before sighing and saying,
"Alright, fine. But, before we go, one question; where'd Lafayette go?"
"Oh, um, he wanted to go get a drink—" then Sookie got an idea, "maybe you should go make sure he doesn't drink too much. We don't want him getting into fights, or wandering off with some random guy, right?"
Jason eyed her suspiciously, and his duty to protect his little sister and duty to protect his friend were at war with each other, but in the end he definitely trusted Sookie to be able to handle herself better than Lafayette, especially because Lafayette had just lost his house. Jason grabbed Sookie in a big hug, and whispered,
"Text me every ten minutes. If you don't text me, I'm gonna come bursting in there. I am not even kidding."
Sookie whacked him on the shoulder, but she was definitely thankful for how much he cared about her. Then she turned to follow Eric, Godric, and Pam into Eric's office.
XXXX
Sorry that there wasn't much action, but I needed to get Sookie to Fangtasia! I'm gonna go work on the next chapter now (as me and my friend are currently sending each other encouraging/threatening messages to get each other to work on our respective stories. It's working rather well :] ).
Love, Knox