Chapter 12 – For Better or for Worse

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“Do not be fooled by Mr. Clean over there,” he growled. “He’s anything but clean. The tiger’s always working an angle, he’s not to be trusted!”

 

“Leave.”

 

“Sookie!”

 

“I said, leave,” she warned. “Don’t make me repeat it a third time.”

 

“I’m sorry, okay,” he whispered, trying desperately to make her follow him to a secluded spot away from her bedroom and out of the were-tiger’s hearing range, which thankfully, she did. “I suddenly smelt him and lost it with the stench, I meant what I said. He’s not to be trusted.”

 

“I’m not an idiot,” she scowled, her voice equally low. “I know he works for de Castro and I know he’s been trying for a hostile takeover here for years.” He could only stare back dumbfounded. “You really have to stop undermining my telepathy.”

 

“You’re helping me? Why?”

 

“We’re family,” she shrugged. “We take care of our own. You were there for me in the hospital, I owe you.”

 

He grinned, “So we’re good?”

 

“Define good?” she returned sceptically, really not in the mood to be felt up in that moment. Her boobs were rather black and blue from the accident and she knew he’d bring it up eventually. Eric Northman never seemed to forget a debt or a promise.

 

“This good,” he whispered, taking her hand in his and brushing her knuckles with his lips, depositing a soft kiss.

 

“Yeah,” Sookie smiled back, failing miserably at staying mad, “We’re good. Now get out of here.”

 

---

 

Vampires and their scheming turned out to be epically boring. Sookie could barely recall the unimpressive details after delivering them all in a detailed and rather factual report to Eric’s address. Something with a fire and a vampire whose name sounded more like a brand of tea than anything genuinely scary, and an idiot named Victor was involved. Really what vampire would continue to call himself Victor post-turning? It was a miracle that vampires lived as long as they did considering their terrible attempts at scheming and intrigue. Well, de Castro wouldn’t live long, she knew that much, and Eric would be bitterly disappointed to find that Niall had finished the job for him, nifty little thing that teleporting thing was. Sending a were-tiger to seduce his favourite great-granddaughter by crashing into her with a car wasn’t any way to endear yourself to the Prince of the Fae, and Niall certainly wasn’t shy about letting the Supernatural world at large know about it in the most gruesome of ways. Apparently there was a viral video.

 

Sookie wasn’t quite sure, however, where to place the tiger skin rug Niall had gifted her with on his return. Maybe Eric would like it as a consolation prize? Or would it just infuriate him further… Well, that was his Christmas or Birthday present sorted.

 

Inevitably, in their shared absence, Sookie was the one left to deal with Jason and Pam, which was a nightmare, rather, they were a nightmare. The only upside to it was not having to deal with Gran and Godric, and whatever questionable thing they were up to now. Not that she asked those questions, mind you, let alone dared to ponder them.

 

Tonight’s complaints were no different than the ones she heard before, some variation of the following, Pam resented Jason for his severe lack of funds, he resented her for not even being able to boil water without setting fire to the kitchen. Sookie really didn’t want to know about their sex lives, but it appeared all was not going as well as it once had in that department either. After a week and a half into their marriage, they apparently had both swiped right on Tinder and got themselves a match, with each other…

 

While being able to coach them somewhat over the phone previously, tonight’s Tinder debacle required her actual physical presence. She could overhear Eric’s aggravated voice when she slipped into the Barbie Dream House, formerly known as solely Pam’s townhouse, to which Sookie now had a set of keys. Annoyingly, a set of cameras were instantly shoved in her face, no wonder Jason and Pam were going insane, Sookie could barely tolerate them for the brief moments she was there.

 

“Fidelity is part of the deal, Pam!” Eric reminded rather loudly, Sookie guessed, correctly, the lecture was directed at more than his current audience of one, however, judging from Jason’s uninterested and reclined position in front of the TV, the other half of the audience clearly wasn’t paying attention. “A deal you both agreed to. Our families are tied now, keep it in the family!”

 

“Does that mean I get to fuck Sookie?” Pam pleaded hopefully, eyeing the latest arrival with a lascivious smile. “Or better yet, Niall?”

 

“What?” the two Stackhouse siblings cried out in horror. “Niall?!”

 

“What can I say?” Pam grinned hungrily. “There’s something about that dishevelled state of his that makes me want to lick him head to toe.”

 

“Pamela,” Eric growled, ceasing all further taunting from the vampiress. “Don’t pout!”

 

“Will you buy me something?” she whimpered, sounding every bit the junkie in the midst of detox. “Please, I need it.”

 

“I can’t,” he replied rather sternly, putting a small smile on Sookie’s face. “You made your bed, now you must lay in it.”

 

“Sook!” her brother greeted more eagerly than she’d ever known before once realising she had arrived. “I’m starving! Cook for me, please?”

 

“Jas,” she sighed, “You can cook yourself.”

 

“It’s not the same,” he grumbled, then his voice rose exceptionally loud, “Pam won’t let me have pizza! I FUCKING love pizza! That has to be a crime against humanity or somethin`”

 

“It makes you fat,” Pam yelled back, “and flatulent! I married you with zero percent body fat and so help me Satan, I will divorce you with zero percent body fat! For better or for worse!”

 

“See what I have to live with?” he whimpered with puppy eyes, hoping to elicit some sympathy from his sister. “Make me a pie?”

 

“I can’t,” she replied in a whisper, catching Eric’s rather judging eyes when she nearly conceded. “You two have to figure this out yourselves. Don’t you pout, too!”

 

“But I’m hungry,” he whined, looking every bit the wounded little animal. Sookie rolled her eyes, checking on the stock of food in the ample kitchen.

 

“Jas,” she pointed out with a huff. “There’s plenty in here to eat!”

 

“It’s all green,” he scowled, “and healthy. She rubs me with creams every night!”

 

“Salad cream?” she asked with a frown, finding the untouched bottle in the fridge. That really was more Gran and Godric’s shtick. That inevitably made her think of Godric’s woolly covered ‘shtick,’ causing her to suddenly fully understand Jason’s lack of appetite with the site before her.

 

“Anti-age creams,” Eric clarified, appearing beside her and holding up an extortionate bill that made her mind boggle. Dr. Ludwig’s bill hadn’t come anywhere near that. “I don’t think Pam quite understands the concept of embalming. She makes him bathe in it to keep him ‘young’, well made. I’m not paying for that. It’s not essential.”

 

“Good,” she smiled up at him. “Ow! Will you stop following me!” Sookie scowled at the camera crew who appeared out of nowhere after she closed the fridge door.

 

“Just pretend we’re not here,” the soundman muttered in a poor show of apology for colliding into her rather brusquely.

 

“Leave,” Eric growled, noticing she was in genuine pain, the bruises of the accident not yet fully healed. Fortunately the threat was enough for them to comply, fangs remaining sheathed for now.

 

“Wish they’d listen to me like that,” Sookie grumbled, rubbing her sore spots. “Can we talk?” she whispered with a glance outdoors, adding a pointed look towards the camera crew that was filming from afar with an unusual amount of interest in the two of them.

 

“Sure,” he grinned with a waggle of his brows that made her head shake. “Let’s talk.”

 

She rolled her eyes, ignoring the hint of suggestion for now, “I’ll be right back, okay, Jas?”

 

“Are you getting me pizza?” he asked eagerly.

 

“DON’T GET HIM PIZZA!”

 

---

 

“Miss me?” Eric grinned while they walked along the nearby park’s edge until Sookie was assured the camera crews remained where they belonged.

 

“Hardly,” she snorted, her tone soon equally taunting, “Had a nice trip?”

 

“Hardly,” he gruffed. “It appears Las Vegas is more of a cocktease than a certain Faery Princess, if such a thing were possible.”

 

“Excuse me!” she fumed, stabbing his chest with an accusatory finger. “I am not a cocktease!”

 

“You really have no idea, do you?” he chuckled disbelievingly. “You make my cock so hard I forget I’m supposed to be soft.”

 

“Gross!” she cried out with a scrunched up face, her hands leaving his body instantly. “Why is it always about penises and boobs with you?”

 

“Speaking of boobs,” he grinned, eyelashes batting with feigned innocence, “I never did get in my fondle, it would certainly make up for Niall fucking Brigant having all the fun without me. Well, some.”

 

“You really should ask Jason for some help with that helpless puppy look,” she mocked. “Besides, they’re all black and blue right now. There will be no touchage whatsoever.”

 

“You know,” he voiced suggestively, “a vampire’s tongue has healing properties.”

 

Sookie returned the look, a small smirk hiding among it, “Thanks,” she quipped, watching the vampire’s eyed beside her grow wide with excitement. “I’ll be sure to ask Pam.”

 

Sookie couldn’t help but laugh as he fell into a string of foreign curse words, not that she understood them, but she certainly understood their sentiment, especially since he finished up with a, ‘Fuck Pam!’

 

“I don’t think I’d go that far,” Sookie mused aloud, unimpressed by his outburst, only adding more evidence to her title of Cocktease Supreme. “She’s offered though, and I can’t help but feel flattered. Maybe if she wasn’t married to my brother, there was that one time with Amelia…”

 

“Fucking hell, Sookie!”

 

“You’re so transparent,” she laughed. “No wonder Great-Granddaddy robbed you blind. All I have to do is get you riled up enough by offering something and then take it away, then you lose all sense. See I’m not a cocktease, I’m a mind tease.”

 

“You’re something alright,” he grumbled, the worst of his outrage tempered. “So talk,” he finally ground out, hoping to revert them to whatever had them out here.

 

“The production crew,” she started, pointing at her head as the source of her information. “They’re shitstirring again. Who do you think told Pam pizza is fattening and that he won’t be pretty anymore in a few years without some cosmetology, or that Jason can’t really be considered the man of the house if they’re living off Daddy’s money? Don’t get me started on the Tinder scheme, Pam didn’t even know what it was until one of the production assistants ‘showed’ her. Jason couldn’t even figure out how to text anything legible last week.”

 

“Fucking humans,” he growled. “Why did we agree to this again?”

 

“We didn’t,” Sookie pointed out with a tired sigh. “There’s only a week or so to go, but they seem intent on driving them apart. Makes for a more interesting show, I guess.”

 

“I can glamour them to stop, release my command that stops Pam from doing so, too.”

 

“There’s too many of them and they swap out shifts all the time, you know that. They document all that stuff and share the footage to who knows who at this point. You’d finish glamouring one and have to start all over again.”

 

She emitted another sigh and took a seat on a park bench, encouraging him to join her.

 

“You want them together?” he voiced sceptically, not sure how happy he truly was with this arrangement either. Sitting next to Sookie though, was nice, she’d need a different coat though, it was covering up far too much. Was he flaccid?

 

“They seemed to like each other at first, even Tinder thinks they’re a match, but it doesn’t really matter,” Sookie replied, wondering if he was even listening at this point, considering his fixed gaze at her chest. “They should be able to figure it out without the production crew casting doubt all the time. It’s one thing to document them, it’s another to softly script people’s lives when they’re looking for something real.”

 

“What are you proposing?”

 

“It’s nearly the weekend, I figured we’d give ‘em a little escape from Big Brother. I pop them away somewhere, but I seriously doubt Pam will be tolerable in Gran’s old farmstead.” One look at Jason’s house, quickly dubbed a windy shithole by the vampiress, and there had been no room for argument that they’d be living in her house for the duration of the social experiment.

 

“I know a place, it’s not too far,” he nodded in agreement, and giving her a sidelong look, he offered suggestively, “Does this mean we get to come along and supervise? You can have the top bunk, I do so enjoy a woman on top.”

 

“You wish!” she yelled out with mock disgust while he laughed at her. “Seriously though, Pam’s been surprisingly good with the feeding off him thing, I think they should be fine without us. A bit of trust will do them good.”

 

“So in a sense, you want to gift them with another honeymoon? Sounds an awful lot like indulgence.”

 

Her brow quirked up at him, “Who are you and what have you done to Eric Northman?”

 

“Could say the same for you,” he grinned. “You almost appear reasonable. Almost.”

 

The scowl on her face didn’t last long when she found her feet again, “Don’t get your hopes up, Buddy! Let’s head back and put out the latest of their little fires.”

 

“And pray tell, how do you propose we do that?”

 

“Simple,” she shrugged, “We pick up a pizza, get Pam something she really wants on the way back, it’s not like this city ever sleeps, and teach them the meaning of three little words that keep any relationship going, or maybe it’s two?”

 

“Which are?”

 

“Silly vampire,” she tittered. “What else? Make-up sex.”

 

And fuck if he wasn’t hard. Again.

 

 

   

>

 

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A/N: I hope you all enjoyed, depriving Jason of pizza surely is a crime against humanity… I’ll have to check with the UN. What can I say about Niall… poor Eric loses out again 😀 At least working together seems to be working for Eric and Sookie, well when she’s not being a tease. More next time, be sure to tell me what you thought!

 

Thanks to msbuffy as ever!