Pam really wanted Eric to feel better. Not only was his glumness being telegraphed to her through their shared blood, but she could see it in the tired slump of his shoulders, his sluggish movements, and the listless way he sipped at a bottle of TruBlood as he toweled the last bits of cement out of his hair.

He'd gotten his revenge on Russell, Sookie had kicked Bill out on his sorry ass, the Magister was dead, and both of them had come through relatively unscathed, and yet he still looked distinctly defeated.

Fangtasia was quiet except for the low, intermittent hum of the bar refrigerator and the relentless whoosh of air conditioning fighting its constant battle against the Louisiana heat as the two vampires sat in silence. Pam still wore her bathrobe, and worked her fingers methodically through her slowly drying hair. Eric had traded out his concrete-encrusted tracksuit for a pair of sweatpants and his favorite flip-flops. Pam wondered idly how many items of clothing had been ruined between the two of them over the past week.

"Do you want to open up again tomorrow night?" Pam broke the silence. "We've been losing a lot of revenue with all this drama."

Eric lifted his eyes to her tiredly. "I suppose."

"I wonder whether all the publicity fracas around the VRA and Russell will hurt business or help it. Help it, probably. Humans," she mused, lacking the energy to muster much contempt.

"Very likely."

Pam waited for him to say more, but his gaze had fallen back to the TruBlood bottle. He absently picked at the corner of its label. She heaved a sigh heavy with exasperation, and bit back something acidic and snarky that threatened to escape her mouth.

"Do you remember that first summer after you made me?" The memory struck her suddenly and the quiet question escaped her lips before she could censor it.

Eric's eyes didn't shift from the bottle, but one cheek creased in a gentle half-smile. "I do."

Pam felt herself being swept back through the years. "Everything was new and beautiful. The way the night smelled, the way blood tasted, it was bliss." She glanced at him sidelong, almost shyly. "I thought you were perfect."

Eric's face finally cracked into a full smile. "That's because I was, Pam."

Her own genuine laugh caught Pam by surprise. "The old landlady who rented us that townhouse in the West End thought you were a foreign, bank-robbing morphine addict and I was a disgraced duchess."

"Really?"

"Really. She told me as much before I ate her."

Eric chuckled, a welcome sound to Pam after the events of the past few weeks. "Well, let's see. As I recall, you spent a lot of time traipsing around town in outrageous dresses-"

"Which you bought me."

"-Which I bought you, and I spent a lot of time in our room, taking those dresses off you." The air filled with electricity as Eric's gaze suddenly turned predatory. "Why did that stop, anyway?"

Pam's expression mirrored his as she felt his lust seeping into her through their bond. "I started being more interested in eating landladies than landlords."

In a blur of movement, Eric pulled her onto his lap. "I'm no landlord," he growled.

Then his mouth was on hers, demanding and passionate, and Pam was back in that stuffy London bedroom one hundred summers ago, trying desperately to satiate her newfound vampire hunger for Eric's body.

Eric's large, clever hands slipped into her bathrobe and over her breasts in a practiced movement. Pam pressed into them with a growl of pleasure and nipped at Eric's lips, drawing blood. Their fangs descended almost simultaneously and collided uncomfortably as they clicked into place.

They drew away from each other for a moment. "We're both too used to humans, it seems." Eric smiled wryly.

Pam sucked lingeringly on sensitive spot under his jaw that she was certain she lay sole claim to. Eric's head fell back with a moan. "Good, that should make it more interesting."

Her hands blazed a trail down the smooth muscles of his torso which her mouth followed, stopping only to tug on a nipple and explore the contours of his navel. She grasped his dick firmly in one hand as it tested the limits of his sweatpants and marveled at how little some things changed. She moved to undo the tie on her bathrobe, but Eric grabbed her hand to stop her.

"Let me." Eric stood and eased her onto her back on the table, their blue eyes locked, pressing one thigh firmly between her legs. He spent an impossibly long time untying the knot in the robe's belt. He drew the belt out of the robe's loops in one long, smooth movement. His gaze promised wonderful, unspeakable things. Pam shuddered with delicious anticipation. He slipped the robe open and skimmed his hands across her chest and abdomen teasingly, just barely avoiding all the places he knew she wanted him to touch most. He lifted her left arm and slowly unsheathed it from its sleeve, nipping at her underarm and her elbow, placing a thorough kiss on her palm. He repeated the routine on her right arm.

Pam felt like she might drip right off the table, but she was irked that she'd ended up in such a thoroughly submissive, weak, human position. She wrapped her powerful legs around Eric's hips and pulled their groins together firmly, grinding them together with vampire strength. Eric groaned and fell forward onto his forearms, braced against the table on either side of her head. He kissed her neck lingeringly, where her jugular had once pulsed, the place where he'd taken her human life and given her another. But she knew that he wasn't thinking about that.

"I'm not her," she murmured. Sookie.

He stilled for a moment, then pressed his forehead briefly against the table. "I know." He reached between their legs and pushed his pants down. "I know," he repeated, roughly, as he entered her with a single, forceful thrust.

She hadn't been quite ready and it hurt a little, but she welcomed the pain, just as she welcomed the pleasure. Sex with Eric had always hurt a little at first. He was big, he was merciless, and he had no compunction about taking what he want when he wanted. That was what she loved about him, what she strived for herself.

Pam wrapped her arms and legs around him and met him thrust for thrust, working her inner muscles tight around him.

"Pam," Eric groaned, his rhythm halting and stuttering a little.

"That's me," she replied with a smirk.

Eric extended his arms straight and braced himself on the edge of the table, changing his angle and quickening his pace. He stared down at her from under hooded eyes, looking increasingly disheveled and downright delicious, his dirty blond locks falling boyishly across his forehead. "You've learned some new tricks since the last time we did this."

"You're exactly the same," she retorted. His thumb found her clit and she gasped his name and clutched at his back, her nails digging deep.

"You don't seem to be complaining."

Pam pulled him back down to her by the neck, claiming his mouth in a kiss that was all teeth and tongue and blood. "Bite me," she hissed, baring her neck.

He obliged eagerly, sinking his teeth in deep and pulling hard at her blood. She gasped and surged against him, swept up in her orgasm, shaking and clenching around him. She sank her teeth into his neck as well, reveling in being this close to her Maker, sharing the blood, sharing each other. A rumble started deep in his chest that vibrated through all the places they were connected. He thrust into her a few more times, hard and wild, as he came. The sensation of his pleasure radiating out through their bond extended her aftershocks for what seemed like an eternity.

A few minutes later, Pam finally came back to herself. Eric lay limply on top of her, his face still pressed to her neck. She caressed his back languorously.

"Pam," he murmured, oh-so-quietly.

"What?" She replied.

"I'm glad neither of us is dead."

"Me too."