Bonfire of the Vanities: Chapter 16 and the fixin’ outtake continues!

Next chapter of BOTV is here. Next fixin’s is here and below. For the new followers: I have been using the announcement posts to my chapters as quick fix it short stories post TB finale. This one is part of an original fixin’ that grew making it officially an outtake. To read from the beginning start here at #14 feel free to read the others as well from here, those can all be read as stand alone pieces.

 

 

 

Chapter 16 – My Prophet

 

 

A/N: See all those lovely semicolons, commas and lack of double words? That’s all thanks to msbuffy who was kind enough to beta this for me as I’m always just happy to churn these out and post only to later curse myself for all the lingering mistakes I’ve left. It’s a hazard of writing on the fly so thank you msbuffy for making it all legible again 😀

 

#19

 

“You ready?” Fairy Sookie asked of Eric before they descended the stairs to the cubby. He nodded confidently as he asked her the same with unspoken words through his gazing eyes. “Yeah, me too.”

 

Eric moved down the ladder first catching Sookie on the last steps earning him a glare that communicated she was perfectly capable herself. The room looked different than it had when they were both last here. The bed and books had been shoved to the side while Jessica and Willa’s slumped forms were attached to two of her wooden kitchen chairs. The heavy silver chains that had once saved Eric from meeting the sun cast by Marnie’s spell now bound them firmly and painfully in place. A trail of blood travelled from Jessica’s nostrils where Fairy Sookie had landed the hard blow while Willa’s throat was stained blue.

 

“Sis?” Jason asked carefully of Fairy Sookie from his leaning position against one of the utilitarian brick walls.

 

“Part of her,” Sookie offered holding her arms out to him.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ears while hugging her tightly, “we all just assumed that Bill’s blood had finally overcooked you.”

 

“Thanks Jase,” she returned with a small smile at the knowledge that everyone had not been as oblivious as she thought. Unlike when she had disappeared to Faerie and they had all simply continued on with their lives while she was considered dead. They didn’t know this time but at least they had noticed something was off.

 

“Who first?” Eric growled out, showing the full force of his thousand-year-old threat exciting Fairy Sookie to no end as her fingers buzzed with electrical excitement with the sight. Eric tossed her a grin as he scented the burnt static behind him running all the possible scenarios through his mind what to do with the little spark plugs.

 

“Tara’s the one that discovered it,” Jessica whispered.

 

Pam swept in holding the redhead’s jaw impossibly tight inducing hairline fractures, allowing only the supernaturals in the room to hear the tears ripping through the bone. “Choose your words carefully when speaking of my progeny,” Pam seethed, refusing to accept Tara to be the source of this blame. She knew better than to assume malicious intent when it came to the telepath and her best friends. “You’re awfully selective with the truth.”

 

“Tara told Sookie to leave her alone once and she was surprised when she actually did,” Willa explained evenly when Jessica only seemed to whimper in pain. “She didn’t think much of it until the next time she came across her and they had an argument. Tara made a derisive remark with quite a forceful will that she should just fuck the next random guy to walk into Bon Temps.”

 

“Warlow?” Niall discerned, his eyes narrowing to burning slits while he pulled Pam from her hold on Jessica as he feared any added damage would make it difficult for the vampire to speak further.

 

“Yes,” Jessica wheezed out as relief ran through her body from the reprieve. “She felt really bad about it; you have to believe me, Sookie.”

 

“And Alcide?” Sookie demanded, establishing a pattern.

 

“Tara liked him,” Willa supplied. “Thought he would be good for you. She thought it would set things right about the Warlow incident. Tara only encouraged you to give him a chance, and she never intervened since.”

 

“She just wanted a normal life for you,” Jessica whispered. “To open up your eyes to something beyond vampires.”

 

“She made him fall in love with the other Sookie!” Fairy Sookie yelled barely containing the rage she wished to unleash on them both. “Gave him hope for something he couldn’t ever get from her, and Alcide died for her idiot brain.”

 

Eric ran his hands down Sookie’s arms in an attempt to soothe her before the entire cubby would be ignited with her fairy light as the sound of it crackled through the small room. “When did you two become involved?” Eric commanded coolly.

 

“Tara told us both about it after Vamp Camp,” Jessica explained. “I started planting seeds about Bill when I noticed she wasn’t happy with Alcide.”

 

“Why?” Sookie demanded in the iciest voice she could possess in the situation.

 

“Bill loved you and he was your first love. He hurt so much without you,” Jessica said, tears falling in memory of her Maker. “You two belonged together. It was true love.”

 

The force of the slap that travelled across the milky skin of the baby vamp made a deafening sound, and the room fell to silence along with two of Jessica’s teeth. “You stupid bitch!” Sookie hissed. “Do you know anything of what happened between me and that sick Maker of yours?”

 

At the insult of her sire Jessica automatically dropped her fangs in an effort to express her outrage but instead the incisors fell miserably out of her mouth.

 

“Everything he told me and portrayed to me was a lie; he took my blood without asking, and cheated on me repeatedly. Bill had me beaten to an inch of my life so he could feed me his blood all to control me. Tell me, Jessica, does that sound like true love to you?” Mutely Jessica shook her head as bloody tears ran from her eyes. “Eric may be a bit of a bastard but at least he’s honest about it. But why even bother to ask you? Hoyt’s evidence enough you’re incapable of being an honest person yourself or understand what it is to love someone.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

 

“Not good enough,” Pam informed on behalf of everyone in the room. “You’re going in the meat locker with Sarah; there must be some demand for the blood of Billith’s progeny.”

 

“No,” Fairy Sookie informed with cold eyes. “I don’t know how but I’ll make it happen. Hoyt will remember everything you have done to him and you will know what it’s like to be abandoned by everything you held dear; to know devotion and to have it taken away from you only to be replaced with hate. Trust me, you’ll be begging to be staked rather than to live through that misery. Something tells me Pam over there will make sure you live long enough to keep feeling that pain over and over, never to be loved again.”

 

“Please don’t,” Jessica pleaded. “I love him.”

 

A maniacal laugh erupted from Sookie scaring Pam and Eric slightly as it reminded them of the echoes they had once heard in Fangtasia that signalled the end of Talbot’s remains, only now were they able to source its owner. “You’re just like your Maker,” she mocked. “You don’t have a fucking clue as to what love is and you never will. You’re not capable of it and that knowledge will continue to fester away your entire existence. Bill came this close to physically raping me,” Sookie demonstrated with a few millimetres of negative space between her two fingers. “He would have had Tara not stopped him, but he raped me in every other way by robbing me of my own choice and control in his constant manipulation of me. You’re no different from him. You’re pathetic.”

 

Pam’s eyes looked pained at the mention of Tara and it didn’t escape Fairy Sookie’s notice. Gently she nudged Jessica’s bruised face in her direction as she whispered to the redhead’s ear to alleviate Pam of public acknowledgement, “See that over there, that’s what love looks like. She hurts for Tara, not because of her. The only thing you’re concerned with when it comes to Hoyt is what you will be missing out on when he leaves you. If you cared anything about him you would have let him be like he asked never remembering you and the damage you caused his heart.”

 

As Jessica continued to sob, Sookie turned her gaze to Willa, “It’s why you did it, didn’t you? Can’t stand the thought of being left behind, to be alone.”

 

“Yes,” Willa confessed, her eyes seeking out the cold and indifferent glare of Eric’s. “All Sookie would talk about was you when she lost two supposed great loves of her life. I knew it was the real deal between you two and you don’t deserve her love if you’re just going to leave her behind like you did with me and Pam. You don’t deserve any of our devotion.”

 

“What did you do?” Eric requested not betraying a hint of emotion.

 

“I made her forget everything she knew of you so Sookie could move on,” she returned with unwavering eyes from the Maker who promised her a new life that she gained by betraying her own father, only to be rewarded with the same disregard, now to be condemned to an eternity of it.

 

“Because you couldn’t,” Eric spoke softly as he knelt in front of her. The steel facade that Willa had bravely kept up through the entire night, accepting punishment as if it were warranted, crumbled for the first time. Her bottom lip trembled against her blunt teeth as she tried desperately to contain the pain that marred her short existence as Eric’s child.

 

“Just do it already,” she spoke with the last of her courage. “Kill me, please?”

 

“No,” Eric returned strongly. “I should not have released you when I did, insisted you stayed by my side until you were truly ready to stand on your own. You are capable, you have proven this but I never factored in that you may not want this. I’ll give you a choice. I’m going to be a father soon and I’m desperately in need of the practice. Return to my side or use that strength that you have so valiantly displayed all night and simply walk into the sun.”

 

Eric looked toward Sookie to assure himself that she was okay with the offer. He knew the tenderhearted Sookie upstairs would have no qualms but Fairy Sookie was of the less forgiving kind. She regarded Willa carefully, “You’re not sorry at all, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

Fairy Sookie gave a brief nod of esteem as they connected over intent and a noble sense of empathy that spared others of pain. Her hands moved deftly to release Willa of the silver chains demanding the key to Jason’s handcuffs with a mere hard gaze that expressed there would be no discussion when it came to her decision.

 

“So what will it be?” Sookie asked when there was nothing to restrain the young vampire in place. “Hello or goodbye?”