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

[lazy_but_loyal]

Well, she can't kill everyone at Milliways.

"You have to stop listening to them. They are wrong about you."

[onceaviking]

"But - they're my friends ..."

He likes having friends.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Vampires don't have friends," she says slowly, driving the point home. "It's what you've always said. It's what you taught me. And it's our reality, Eric. Humans can't be trusted and they are not our friends."

[onceaviking]

That hurts.

the truth hurts

And he is suddenly angry at her. At everything.
The confusion.
The hunger.
The rules that he doesn't know.
The longings that he doesn't understand.

And so he snarls, his fangs slamming down. Hard.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Startled, Pam gasps and steps back.

But somehow...

...that anger...

She's torn between placating him and encouraging him to feel this anger because at least it's something from deep down inside him, something familiar, something inherently vampire.

[onceaviking]

He turns his back on her, abruptly, and retracts his fangs.

He shouldn't have done that.

The anger and confusion still churns inside him - But he shouldn't have done that.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam is suddenly overwhelmed by-- sadness.

She hadn't felt sadness since Eric was under threat of execution by the Authority. But he had found a way out of that. This Eric...doesn't seem to want to save the vampire that he once was.

"You are my Maker, Eric," she says softly. "I can't let this happen to you."

[onceaviking]

He looks back at her, eyes wide and haunted.

He doesn't know what to say.
What to do.

[lazy_but_loyal]

She doesn't know what to say or do either.

After a while, she finally says, "You can't stay. You're in danger here."

Another pause.

"Why are you wearing only a blanket?"

Not that it was ever truly odd for the old Eric to be wandering around the house in just a towel after a shower or something, he would've just skipped the towel altogether.

[onceaviking]

He gratefully accepts the change of topic.

"I left my clothes by the lake. When I went swimming," he says.
Which doesn't really explain it.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"You went swimming in a lake? By yourself?"

What is Pam paying Sookie for?

[onceaviking]

"Well, they said there were alligators there. But I didn't see any."

It had been sort of disappointing.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"Eric," she chides him, "please, you can't just go out like that in the middle of the night!"

Because it was at night, right?

[onceaviking]

"No, it was in the morning. Or like - There was this fairy? And I drank her." He frowns a little. "Which was bad because Sookie liked her. Anyway, I ran around for a bit. And then I went swimming."

A pause.

"The water was really nice."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Okay.

What.

Pam is past chiding now.

"--Eric, what the fuck? Didn't you burn??"

Also, really, Sookie?! She's going to get a pay cut if she keeps letting Eric run around like this.

[onceaviking]

"No..? I mean, a little bit. But then Sookie came with this."

He picks at the blanket. And then he dcowls.
"And a stupid werewolf."

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam would facepalm except her face would come off in her hand.

"Eric," she says very slowly, "this is why you have to stay hidden. If you're not going to listen to me...then listen to Sookie."

Eric has no idea how much it pains and irritates her to say that.

[onceaviking]

He sulks.

"I did go back," he says. "I'm not a child."

To be told what to do.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam is silent for a moment.

"No," she murmurs. "You are Eric fucking Northman."

And she wishes he'd act like it.

"You have to go back to Milliways now." She sweeps past him and starts up the stairs before she starts crying and her face melts.

[onceaviking]

"Why?" he asks, trailing after her.
Even though he is secretly relief.

He doesn't like it down here.
And she is making him nervous.

[lazy_but_loyal]

"This is your place, Eric. The King's been here to see me, looking for you. He's got spies everywhere. If they find you, they'll take you in."

She drifts down the hallway and pauses at Eric's office door.

Would it even matter to show it to him now?

"Wait. One more thing." She opens the door and pushes it open, standing aside outside the room. "This is your office."

[onceaviking]

He follows her and when she stops and opens the door, he hesitates.

More chains?

There aren't.
There's a desk and a chair. Shelves cluttered with books and papers. Cardboard boxes.

And something on one of the shelves. He steps closer, lured in by a faint glimmer.

[lazy_but_loyal]

Pam remains just outside the doorway, looking in.

She knows what he's found before he even sees what it is.

"Your father's crown," she says quietly.

"Your human father."

[onceaviking]

He reaches for it, letting a finger glide along the dark golden crown.

"I don't remember this," he murmurs.

[lazy_but_loyal]

It breaks her cold, dead heart.

If he can't remember his life as a vampire or a human, what is there left of him? But Pam isn't going to give up on him. Not by a long shot.

"You were-- are the son of a Viking chief. Russell Edgington killed your family and stole the crown, but you got your revenge. Russell deserved everything you did to him."

Revenge, Eric. Remember how that feels?