Those We Trust

Last time on FauX…

 “Alcide is on his way and we have a hit on both our locator spells.”

“Shreveport?” Eric guessed. She nodded tightly.

“As soon as Alcide arrives we headed there.”

“Agreed and that leaves us just enough time.”

“Just enough time to for what?” she snapped at him.

“For you to explain how you knew he planned to use that silver on me, and that the witch had come here for me last night.”

32XXXXXXXXXXX23

 

FauX-Those We Trust

 

“You never told me how you came to be at Crème, Eric.  Did Lafayette call you directly?  What was your side of that story?”

 

“I am the VBI undercover operative for Dallas Drug Operations.”

 

“And what does that mean exactly?”

 

“I investigate and infiltrate drug rings in and around the Dallas area to identify movers and users.  I report directly to Godric, the head of the VBI.”

 

“So, again, did Lafayette call you directly on your 1-800 Need Some V line?”

 

“No, I received word through an informant.”

 

“And the informant’s name?”

 

“William Compton.”

 

“And he would be?”

 

“Low level player.  I pay him to keep me in the know.”

 

“And does he know that you are VBI?”

 

“To my knowledge, no.”

 

“So, what does Compton know, that would interest the creator and peddler of FauX in you, Agent Northman?”

 

“Vampires can sense things about each other, you know this, right?”  She nodded.  “Well, I suppose the most interesting thing about me is my age, and vampires can sense when they are in the presence of one older than themselves.”

 

“And how old are you, Agent Northman?”

 

“Around two thousand years old.”

 

“When vampire’s age, their blood becomes more potent, right?”

 

“Yes, and they become stronger and faster as well.”

 

“What else?”

 

“We rest little, we heal faster, are more resistant to sunlight, though we still burn if directly exposed.  Silver has less impact, but again it still burns if directly exposed.  We require very little blood to survive and find that we control our instincts more than they control us.”  Something in that explanation touched a chord with Sookie.  There was a reason they wanted Eric Northman specifically.

 

“And all of this would have been something that Compton could have sensed on his own?  Do you think he gave you up to them, or that he was truly just the go between?”  Eric thought a moment and then shrugged.

 

“Could go either way.  On a good day he’s a weasel, on a bad day, a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur.”

 

“And you use him for an informant?”

 

“Well for some reason the good guys are never around when the bad shit goes down.  It’s a mystery.”  His sarcasm was not lost on Sookie and so she took this chance, possibly her last chance, to listen to his thoughts.

 

Compton could have betrayed me, sure I wouldn’t be surprised, but that doesn’t explain why they picked me, what makes me different?

 

Why is she so angry?  She’s completely come unglued twice now, and I have a feeling that the reason is pretty big and pretty buried. 

 

I wish she trusted me enough to share it with me.

 

I wish she trusted me enough to let me help her.

 

“There aren’t a lot of two thousand year old vampires are there, Eric?”

 

“No, not many at all.”

 

“I’m a telepath.”

 

“In fact there are only a few who-,” he stopped, looking at her a small smile on his lips.  She was listening to what he thought, and was not expecting him to say anything nearly interesting as what he might be thinking.

 

I know.

 

“I know.”

 

I wanted you to tell me.  I wanted you to trust me.

 

“I wanted you to tell me, I wanted you to trust me.”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” she asked him, sounding angry again.

 

“I know a lot has happened but we have barely known each other for twenty-four hours.  So, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that we don’t know everything about each other, yet.”

 

He’s so fucking reasonable and calm, she thought, though what he said made sense.  It was his ability to be so centered and calm that really worked her last fucking nerve.  She opened her mouth to clobber him again, and then shut it.

 

It was a fucked up situation and he had just as much, if not more, right to be angry as she did, but he was smiling at her.  That same sweet smile he had given her when he was standing in front of her on the stage at Crème.

 

Was that why his thoughts were perfect?  Because he knew I was listening?  Was he playing me?  Did he think I was playing him?

 

Fuck, I wish I had just told him first thing last night before the drive by kissing.  Or tonight before the briefing, or the questioning, or the flying or the fighting…he was right.  A lot of shit had gone down in the time brief time since we had met.

 

Trust is such a funny thing, isn’t it, Sookie?  We fight to keep ourselves, separate, to keep ourselves safe and act as though placing trust in each other is a choice that we actually get to make. 

 

I had not given you my trust when you saved me from Chow’s silver, but you did it anyway.

 

I never doubted for a second that I could trust you.

 

I hope you know you can count on me, that you can trust me as well.

 

His thoughts washed over her, calming her as well now and she knew that she had a decision to make.  Forget the philosophy about whether it was something she could really choose to do or not, once the decision was made she knew she would play it out to the end, be it bitter or sweet.

 

Looking at him now, considering everything that he had inspired her to feel in the short amount of time they had known each other, there really wasn’t much of a choice for her to actively make.  Perhaps he was right after all.

 

The choice had been made the moment she looked into his blue eyes and his beautiful mind.

 

“I want you,” she told him softly, taking a step closer, knowing that he had absolutely no way to know that she had never said that to anyone before because she had never felt that before.  She said that first, rather than explain because knowing all that history should not impact his choice in this.  He either wanted her, too, or he didn’t.  “From the moment I saw you, from the moment I heard you, from the moment you walked into my life, I just… wanted you.  Is that all right?”

 

“Better than all right,” he said, taking a step closer to her as well, focused completely on her.

 

“I understand what you mean about trust, and the illusion that it is ours to give, and I don’t disagree.  I would add that for me, when I want to trust someone I am already emotionally engaged with them, which makes it impossible for me to be rational about the decision.  And when I am rational, I don’t find myself able to trust.

 

“This means that if I trust someone I just close my eyes, and say ‘Geronimo’ as I dive in.”  She took a step closer to him now, and reached a hand out to him.  “Geronimo.”

 

Before either of them could move the sound of an approaching vehicle pulled their attention from each other.

 

“Alcide,” Sookie confirmed taking a step back further from Eric.

 

“He wants you, too, doesn’t he?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you?”

 

“I don’t feel that way about him.”

 

“Because of me?”

 

“No, I’ve never felt that way about him. I care for him and I respect him, but we will never be more than friends.” She smirked at him. “Has your ego always been so large?”

 

“Used to be worse, in my younger days.”

 

“How is that even possible?”

 

“I believe, Agent Stackhouse, that you will find all is possible when it comes to you and me.”

 

32XXXXXXXXXX23

 

No words were spoken between them while they waited for Alcide to collect Chow and head back to headquarters.  Sookie told Alcide they would be checking on a source in town before they left, but should be departing in the next hour.

 

“You’ll be at the safe house in Shreveport?” he asked her, cutting a sharp glance at Eric before turning his back on him, effectively shutting him out of the conversation.  Sookie confirmed that and then asked him if he had made up his mind.  “I’m staying.”

 

“I’m glad.” They watched him drive away, and once he turned the corner they turned back to each other.

 

“So, sounds like you decided we need to pay a visit to Compton before heading to Shreveport?”

 

“Yes, I want to read him.”

 

“So, we’ll be undercover?”

 

“Yes, until we can confirm that he knows you are VBI, it’s best to maintain your cover.”  She tilted her head then, a questioning looking in her eyes.  “What is your cover?”

 

“You saw my outfit the other night?”

 

“Definitely.”  He smirked and looked away from the humor in her eyes.

 

“Well, Compton thinks I am a cowboy obsessed rich playboy vamp with a taste for the dark side.  That I am bored, and looking for things that take me to the edge.”

 

“Things?”

 

“Yes, drugs, cars, games of chance, women.”

 

“Women?”

 

“The right woman is all those things, so naturally, I would be obsessed with those as well.”

 

“And are you really obsessed with women, Agent Northman?”

 

“You have a tell, you know?”  She blinked.

 

“Huh?”

 

“That’s what gave you away to me, you have a tell when you read people.”  This was news to her.

 

“Are you obsessed with women, Agent Northman?” she pressed again, sliding into his mind to seek her answer, explaining her action as habit rather than need and refusing to see the addict that was huddling inside her.

 

Woman, not women.  I am obsessed with a woman.

 

“Just before you read someone you get this look on your face.  It’s as though you know you are about to be told something that you are not going to like and you are bracing yourself for it.”

 

“Most people think some pretty terrible things, Eric.”

 

I want to kiss you.

 

“I am not most people, Sookie.”

 

“That’s for damned sure,” she said as she ghosted toward him, summoned by his thoughts and the images they brought to mind.  I want to kiss you, too, she thought wishing that he could hear her thoughts, and then she was glad he could not. They would have reminded him that they had Compton’s to question, witches and bitches to track down and that now was not the time to indulge in questionable partner practices.

 

This time, she was not going to be distracted.

 

She slid her arms up and around his neck, rising on her toes, and pulling gently to get his lips closer to hers.  His hands come to her sides, palms resting on her, but when her lips touched his they moved around her, one remaining on her mid-back while the other came up to tangle itself in her hair, holding her lips to his, as if he thought she would pull back.

 

He was unexpected sensory overload.

 

Rushing at her were a thousand snippets of images, moments from his long life, moments of blood and pain, moments of passion and love blew past her minds eyes in a long stream that was so fast she could barely process any of it.  As the string of images faded away, she found herself, alone standing in his mind.

 

I want you, too, Sookie.  I wanted you from the moment I saw you, too, from the moment you walked into my life.  Is that all right?

 

Her answer was to kiss him harder and tangle her fingers in the hair at the base of his neck.  The image in his mind shifted and he was there with her, and they were missing their clothes, and there was a bed, and there was time to do all the things they wanted to do.

 

Oh, beautiful, Sookie.  We have to go!

 

The sound of his anguish, the sheer weight of his not wanting to go was crushing.  It was also amazing and freeing.  She pulled back from his kisses, and looked up at him, forcing herself to focus.

 

“You promise me that we will pick this up later.  Swear it, or I’m not sure I’m going to be able to let you go right now.”

 

“I swear, Sookie. I swear!” he said passionately, his face open and impossibly innocent for one who had seen and done all the things that she had glimpsed in his mind.  She wanted to say so much, explain, and tell him all the things that she had never told anyone.  It was without doubt the dumbest thing that she could possibly do, and it was the only thing she wanted to do.

 

She wouldn’t even need to perch on Big Ben to do it.

 

He stepped back from her now, his fists clenched and his face clearly displaying his internal torment before she saw his mask slide back into place.  Following his lead, she reached deep inside and pulled the blanket that was Sookie Stackhouse tightly around her, and imagined her face was made of cold hard stone, just like his.

 

“Travel’s on me this time,” she said, all business once again.

 

“You fly?”

 

“Teleport.”  His mask cracked and pure delight covered his face.

 

“Really?  That’s amazing, Agent Stackhouse.”  She smiled back.

 

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.  Picture the place in your mind that you want to go to, see it clearly.”  She took his hand then, touch was enough, but she indulged in threading her fingers through his, squeezing gently.  “Got it! Hang on.”

 

This was Eric’s first teleportation.  His eyes were wide open and filled with wonder to see the process.  It was not unlike being suspended above the ground while it spun by you at the perceptible thousand miles per hour that it actually traveled at.

 

A blink and he was outside Crème.

 

A blink and he was outside Compton’s house in a Dallas suburb.

 

“How far can you teleport?”

 

“No limit as far as I know.  As long I can see where I am going I can get there.”  He opened his mouth to speak again, and then closed it.

 

Later, she heard him think, just before his lips crushed hers again, and he commenced rubbing himself all over her.  A few moments later he released her lips and looked down into her eyes, his dilated wide and his fangs fully extended.  “You are mine!” he told her.

 

Yes, yes I am yours.  Wait-

 

“If Compton touches you, I can kill him now.”

 

“Do you want to kill him?”  He shrugged, indicating he didn’t care either way.

 

“I will if he touches you.”  As she knew that she was supposed resent being on display at Crème, she knew that she was supposed to resent being claimed by an alpha male figure who wanted to make her his.

 

She did not resent it.  NOT. AT. ALL.  Her rise in SIN to command her own field team indicated her own alpha personality and status, which should put her at odds with the men in her world, but it didn’t.  It didn’t because if they were not able to bring her to submission she ignored them, and so far they had all been ignored.

 

But this one, this one was new.   He was all alpha male, and she responded not with submission but with alpha female.  Psychologically, it fascinated her.  Physically, it laid waste to her brand new need for self-control.  Emotionally, it was like riding a tornado.  In the space of ten seconds she could roll through wanting to kill him, fuck him senseless and then knitting him something.  This was all new unexplored territory for her.  She would have been having the best time ever if so many lives were not hanging in the balance and counting on them.

 

“You wanna go on vacation with me when this is over?” she asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Good.”

 

“Anyplace in particular?”

 

“The only thing new in this is world is you, Sookie.”

 

“So, someplace with a bed then?”  He chuckled and started toward the house.  She scanned it looking for thoughts.

 

“He’s not here.  What now?”

 

“On to Shreveport.  Would you like to lay odds that we find him there?”

 

“No. I like to win.”

 

“Another thing we share, Agent Stackhouse.”

 

32XXXXXXXXXX23

 

The address the locator spell led them to was only a few blocks away from Eric’s bar used to be.  She took them there, and then he flew them to the warehouse.  It was empty by the time they arrived, but he was able to sense that Compton had been there and Pamela Ravenscroft as well.

 

There was blood on the floor that she gathered a sample of and teleported back to SIN headquarters, texting Alcide to grab it off her desk and get to analysis as quickly as possible

 

“Smells odd,” he said kneeling in front of it and taking a deep breath.  “There is faint trace of werewolf, but it’s mostly human.”  She knelt beside him.

 

“You think they made a werewolf and turned it lose in Shreveport?”

 

“Possibly.”  He took another deep breath and moved with vampire speed to the far corner of the warehouse, jerking back a tarp that covered the desiccated corpse of a wolf.

 

“What is it?” she asked him as he eyed it with a cold expression.

 

“Werewolf,” he said sounding cold and grim.

 

“What?  I thought when a supe died they changed back to human form?”

 

“They do.”

 

“Then why is this one still in wolf form?”

 

“I think it was magic that held his shape while his fluids were drained from him.  Can we get it to your witch?”  She nodded and called Alcide to prep him for incoming before teleporting the corpse as she had the sample earlier.  Standing, Eric took another deep breath and told her that he thought he might be able to track Compton and Ravenscroft.

 

Moments later they were flying through the night, following something that only Eric could sense.  Too soon, he stopped over a car park, cursing softly under his breath.  “They took a car from here.  There is no longer a trail to follow.”  They landed long enough for Sookie to check in with Alcide and find out that there was nothing yet from the sample or the corpse.  She told him they were headed to the safe house before terminating the call.  She teleported them and immediately began to pace the room like a caged animal.

 

“We missed them,” Sookie said, throwing her phone on the safe house sofa.  He did not reply, or comment on her frustration.  Instead he followed her pacing with this cool, calm blue gaze.  Finally, as it often seemed to do, his calm piqued her passionate irritation.  “How can you always be so fucking calm?” she erupted, stopping to stare him down.

 

“Experience,” came his calm reply.

 

“Experience?” she repeated, sarcastically. “FauX is new as far as I know, so where does this experience come from?”

 

“FauX is new, yes.  This situation of chase and elude is not.  All we need to do is be patient and diligent in our pursuit and we will find and stop them.”

 

“Pffft!  That simple, huh?”

 

“Yes.”  She opened her mouth to make some smart comment and then she closed it again.  He was two thousand years old.  Perhaps he knew what he was talking about.  The wind left her sails now, and she found herself calmed, as she realized she often was in his presence. The realization hit her then like a welcomed freight train, taking her breath.  “Oh!” she said softly, her eyes growing wide.

“What is it, Sookie?” his voice was deep and gravelly and it made her take another quick breath.

 

“A thought just occurred to me.”  She started moving toward him, grabbing the bottom of her sweater and starting to pull slowly up over her head.

 

“A thought?” his voice growing deeper still as he watched her.   She dropped the sweater on the floor.

 

“It’s later now.”  She reached behind her back and unclasped the peach colored lace bra she was wearing.  He could see the clear outline of her nipples beneath the thin fabric.  A moment later the fabric was gone.

 

“Indeed it is,” her hands moved to hear jeans and slowly started to push them down, pausing to remove her cowboy boots and then taking the pants off the rest of the way.  She stood then and let him just stare at her.

 

He was riveted.  Her actions, her words, her body, her style just captivated him.  She had from the moment he had seen her.  Since then all he had done was remind himself that this wasn’t the time or this wasn’t the place.

 

He was old and not ruled by his desires, instincts and impulses, that was true, but little Sookie Stackhouse took him right out past the edge of his tolerances and then thumbed her nose at him.

 

I wish I knew the words…

 

“You could just show me, cowboy.”  He growled then, and vamped to her, standing so close he was almost touching her, but not quite.  “I want you to show me, Eric.  I need you to show me,” she added sliding her arms around his neck like she had done earlier in front of Crème.   For a moment she focused on his lips, licking her own in anticipation.

 

“You need…?” he repeated, tone distant and dreamy, now focusing on her lips, too, until her saw her eyes flick up to meet his when he spoke.

 

“I’ve never done this before,” she whispered, unconsciously showing her telepathy tell as she waited to see what he thought about those apples.

 

Geronimo.