OOM - At Fangtasia with Eric

[lazy_but_loyal]

[Continued from here.]

Pam opens the Staff Only door onto the main room of Fangtasia. It's empty and quiet, though some of the lights are still on, illuminating the dance poles and the stage.

The stage glows a deep blood red, the throne stands without its sheriff.

Pam drifts toward the edge of the room. She keeps her distance from Eric, knowing that the smell of rotting flesh upsets him as much as it would anyone.

"This is your nightclub, Eric."

Comments

[onceaviking]

Eric steps through the door and takes a few steps.
Then he slowly turns, taking in the club and its decor.

"Woe," he says.
"It's a - A bit much, isn't it?"

Gaudy. Almost vulgar.
And really in your face. Especially the places where the red paint has been allowed to do. Blood-like.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"It's what the people want."

She moves slowly to the stage and looks up at the throne, draped with animal hide, framed by gnarled tree branches, flanked by two smaller, lesser chairs.

It's very dramatic.

"You sat up there every night."

[onceaviking]

It's a throne.
On a stage.

With hides on it.

"I did?"
He sounds dubious.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"You watched over everything that happened."

Like a king.

"Vampires feared and respected you. Humans groveled at your feet. You had your pick of them, but most weren't worth your time."

[onceaviking]

"The humans were afraid of me too?" he asks. Worried.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Of course," she says, matter-of-fact. "They liked being afraid. It turned them on. But like I said, they were just fangbangers."

She looks toward the stripper poles, the brass glinting in the lights.

"You usually preferred the hired talent."

[onceaviking]

He looks over at the poles.
Then he looks at Pam.

Blankly.

"We had singers?"

[lazy_but_loyal]

Oh, Eric. What did that witch do to him?

"No," Pam says slowly, incredulously. "We have exotic dancers and strippers."

She moves toward the center pole on a podium, situated in the middle of the floor with an unobstructed view from the throne.

"This is where you'd put your favorite. With the sexiest moves, the longest legs, the best tits. This is where they all want to be, dancing for you, Eric."

[onceaviking]

He stares at her, practically horrified.

And a little bit intrigued.
But mostly horrified.

And embarrassed.
(She said 'tits').

"Really?"
It's almost a squek.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam stares at him right back.

Because this is unreal.



"Do you want me to show you where you'd fuck them?"

[onceaviking]

He can tell she is not impressed.

So he tries to play it cool, shrugging a little. "It doesn't matter ..." he says, sounding, well, not all that cool really.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Okay, no, she's showing him.

"This way," she says almost cutting him off, and she glides past him to open the Staff Only door.

Sorry about following in her wake of death, but that can't be helped.

She leads him down a hallway, through a metal door, and down a short flight of metal steps before everything turns to concrete.

"Welcome to the dungeon."

And it's everything a dungeon should be. Dark, damp, cold. Chains hang from the walls. And in the center of the ceiling, a huge iron wheel with sharp spokes descending from it, chains and shackles attached each end.

[onceaviking]

He follows her, reluctantly, and not just because of the foreboding figure she cuts.
Or the smell.

The dungeon is - well.

He turns slowly, staring at the chains. And the wheel. And the spikes.

"It's a torture chamber," he whispers.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Basically," she says, wandering around the room.

"You fuck people here. And you keep people who've fucked with you here. It's also handy for people who you don't want running off."

She pauses, a black silhouette facing him from the other side of the wheel.

"Like Sookie."

[onceaviking]

"S-Sookie?"

Has Sookie been down here?
Has she seen this?

The very idea is terrifying.
Sickening.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"You chained her up as bait for Russell Edgington, who you let fry in the sun, bound with silver, and buried in a pit of concrete."

Just to name a few things.

"But yeah. Sookie. And others. Her friends, too."

She makes her way around the wheel, coming toward him.

"You are ruthless, Eric," she says, nothing but admiration in her voice, and a desperation to get him back. "This is who you are."

[onceaviking]

He stares at her as she enumerates all of the things he has done. All of the atrocities.

And then she says -

No.

He swallows and then it just - slips out.
"No."

[lazy_but_loyal]

The tiny word stops Pam in her tracks.

The veil draped over her wide-brimmed hat swishes to and fro when she shakes her head, not understanding him.

"No? What do you mean, no?"

[onceaviking]

"I'm not like that," he says. "I won't be."

He is terrified. She will probably kill him now. Or tear off - something.

But -

"I don't want to chain people up and - and -"

He can't say it. Either of it.

"Be - ruthless."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam stands stunned for a moment.

Well, this is just Eric's memory loss talking, she reasons. He just doesn't know any better.

"But it's your nature, Eric. I've been with you for a hundred years. I would know."

[onceaviking]

"I can chose to be different."

He'd have liked for that to have come out all self-assured and confident.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Why would you want to?"

Who is filling Eric's head with this bullshit?

[onceaviking]

He flounderes.

How do you answer a question like that?

"Because it is the right thing to do?"
That wasn't supposed to be a question.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam frowns. Though Eric can't see it.

(She can feel her skin sagging sluggishly over her brow. She was never big on facial expressions but moving her face sucks now.)

"Who told you that?"

Because that is not something Eric, the real Eric, would say unless he was being ironic. And this Eric doesn't seem to have an ironic bone in his body.

[onceaviking]

"Everyone?"

At least that he has spoken with. At Milliways.