Love Will Keep Us Together

Love Is All  3- Love Will Keep Us Together

SPOV

I was just going to close my eyes for a few minutes.  That was all I needed to get up and keep going.  Just a few minutes and I would be ready to tackle whatever came next.  I shifted in the bed next to Eric, his anger rousing me.

“I am not angry with you.”  Good.  That’s the only part that matters right now.  That and I hope I don’t fall off this piano.

The spotlight clicks on from above, not on me as I sit on the piano in front on him.  It’s not my turn yet, my dreaming brain told me and in that way that dream logic makes perfect sense at the time I just knew that was all right.  That was ok.  I focused on Godric.

He started playing slowly, a song I didn’t recognize at first, then as he picked up the tune, clearly getting into it he has closed his eyes and started rocking back and forth.  I recognized it as something Gran used to hum in the kitchen.  An old song by Captain and Tennille, when he started singing I felt my heart swell with the memory of her.

Love, love will keep us together

Think of me, babe, whenever
Some sweet talkin’ girl comes along
Singin’ his song, don’t mess around
You just got to be strong

Just stop, ’cause I really love you
Stop, I’ll be thinking of you
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together

I slid off the piano gracefully as though I were a beautiful actress in a movie and not just plain old Sookie Stackhouse who probably would have fallen down, or ripped her dress or both.  No, in my dream I was Ginger Rogers and nothing could stop me.

When the second spotlight came on out in the audience and I saw Eric sitting at table dressed in a white tuxedo I danced toward him and pulled him up to join me.  He was smiling the sweetest smile and Godric was tickling the ivories behind me like he was channeling Stevie Wonder.

I knew I was dreaming.  I knew it was all ridiculous, but it felt so amazing that I stopped fighting it and just went with it.  I started belting out the next verse without realizing what I was saying to Eric and to myself until I heard the words out loud.

You, you belong to me now
Ain’t gonna set you free now
When those girls start
Hanging around, talking me down
Hear with your heart and you won’t hear a sound

Just stop, ’cause I really love you
Stop, I’ll be thinkin’ of you
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together, whatever

His fangs snapped down when I claimed him and I felt a flash of heat blow throw me like a backdraft.  There will be time later he had promised me, but when, when would there even be enough time?

He was moving in time with the piano, and never one to be outdone he took the next verse and shined a light into the fears I thought I had hidden even from myself.

Young and beautiful
Someday your looks will be gone
When the others turn you off
Who’ll be turnin’ you on
I will, I will, I will

I will, be there to share forever
Love will keep us together
I said it before and I’ll say it again
While others pretend
I need you now and I need you then

I tripped then, Ginger Rogers replaced with just plain Sookie Stackhouse.  I wanted to run but he caught me and looked at me with so much love that I needed to run away.  It was impossible to be a human in love with an immortal god so handsome that the seasons slowed down around him just stay in his presence a little longer.

I couldn’t stay with him forever, and it broke my heart.  He looked at me, his face questioning as he wiped a tear from mine and then caressed me with the back of his hand.

I closed my eyes savoring all the ways he found to touch me that were unexpected.  It was like he wanted to rub himself all over me, every part and mark himself with something of me, or maybe it was marking me with something of him?  Maybe it didn’t matter, not in the end.

“I have to go,” I said pulling back from him and his touch that was unzipping me caress by caress.  He started singing again, holding my shoulders and shaking me a little to emphasize his words.  Godric slowed down on the piano and I had the sense that this was the important part.

Just stop, ’cause I really love you
Stop, I’ll be thinking of you
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together, whatever
I will, I will, I will, I will

The piano became faint then, and so slow that Eric was singing almost acapella.  He matched its slower beat, the passion of his words piercing the heart of me and my urge to run away melted into a need to hold him and make it all better, whatever it was that was wrong, I just wanted to make it all better.

You better stop, ’cause I really love you
Stop, I’ve been thinkin’ of you
Look in my heart
And let love keep us together, whatever

His last words were whispered as I felt him slip away from me.  I reached back and promised in the same language he had used. I finished the song, and sealed my vow to him as I watched him grow further in the distance.

I will, I will, I will, I will

At the same time, part of me, a part of me I didn’t like very much at all crossed her arms and said rather smugly, “Toldja so.”

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The water was cool on my feet.  “No one lives forever,” Godric said as though answering something I couldn’t remember asking.

“He will.”

“Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  It is not our place to know those things.”

“Who knows?  Get them down here! I want to find out just what the rules are before I start to play this game!”  I crossed my arms over my chest, determined that I would not move until I understood what all this was really about. Godric laughed at me.  I knew then there would no explanations forthcoming.  I uncrossed my arms and went back to moving my feet in the water.

I had seen this water before.  This pool was a doorway of some kind?  Immediately, I pulled my feet up and wrapped my arms around my legs, sure that a hand would come up and pull me into and under the water taking me away.

“Would it matter?  You plan to run away anyway,” Godric said sounding bored now.

“Of course it matters.  If I choose to leave that is different than being taken away.”

“You should remember that when you think of a life with my Child and whether you should stay or you should go.  I didn’t think you were a coward Sookie Stackhouse.”

“I’m not!”

“You were not, not when I met you, but now you would rather run away than run toward now.  Coward,” he snarled at me, bearing his fangs.

“Yer a fine one to talk, you bailed in Dallas!”

“After two thousand years!”

“Two seconds in Hell is no less painful than two hundred!”

“Hmph,” was the only answer I got to that. He was quiet for a time as I watched for hands rising out of the pool.  His feet were still it in unconcerned, but he was a ghost after all.  “If you trust him, you should just trust him.  If you love him, you should just love him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It could be! You will need it to be!  When everything else gets hard in ways you never dreamed he can be your touchstone, your constant!  What might you face and overcome if there was a place to put your back and stand tall?  How much can you accomplish if you welcome his strength instead of fighting and running?”

“I’ll probably get him killed.”  It was the second truth that I thought no one knew.  It fell out of me, clunking from my lips to the ground like a stone of immeasurable weight.  I saw him again burning in the sun to save me from Russell.

My two greatest fears.  First, I couldn’t stay with him forever and second, I would do something stupid and get him killed.  I took a deep breath feeling naked and free for at least a moment.  I knew I had to pick up that rock again, and carry that fear until I no longer noticed its weight but for the moment it was good to set it down.  “He’s better off without me,” I said to my knees, resting my forehead on them, refusing to look at Godric.

“Not your choice to make.”  I jumped up and turned to the voice behind me.  Eric, minus the tuxedo and back in his flowy linen garments had found me.  In a moment of clarity I knew this was not Eric but the bond between us that I was talking to, it just looked like Eric to my sleeping mind.

“Since you are not actually Eric, it’s not your choice either.”  He smirked at me, nodding his head in acknowledgement.

“True, but I am more in tune with his feelings and desires than you seem to be.”  The scene shifted then and I was on the ground with Eric on top of me.  This was what had happened right after we arrived here.  He was kissing me and I felt the flames of desire going through me again, only this time, because of the bond I could feel Eric’s as well.

Holy S! I am a drug to Eric Northman!  He was high on me as he moved, flexing between my thighs, needing to bury himself inside me just as much as I needed him to do it.  If the bond had been in place Godric would have gotten a show that was for sure because there is no way I would have been able to control and curtail all that emotion!

“Teach me,” he said in my neck between kisses.  “Teach me the meaning of love, Sookie.”  I gasped and pulled back my hands on his face, looking into his hazy eyes filled with desire and need.  “Make me understand that word the way you do.  Show me what it means when you say it and then please, say it to me!”  I gulped air, panting as I listened to him.

This Eric, the Bond in his form was like nothing I had imagined, worldly and innocent.  He was open with his feelings and his needs.  He made me feel like I was the only woman in the world.  “You are,” he said as he rubbed his face on my neck, his stubble tickling me and also reminding me that I was a couple of thin layers of cloth away from making some pretty serious fantasies come true.  He chuckled in my ear.

“Tell me these fantasies you have had of me,” he dared as he teased his tongue along the edge of my ear. I panted and grasped for something to say that would not leave me more naked than I already felt.

“You were a pastry chef who made me cakes and pies that had no calories and tasted like Heaven,” I teased him, his response was a long slow press of body between my thighs making me moan his name like I was the one addicted to him.  Two…thin…layers.

“No, Miss Stackhouse, tell me your fantasies of me,” he purred and I was pretty sure parts of me echoed that purr and added a shiver.

“You showed up on my doorstep with a giant check and told me I was a winner!”  He growled then, and took another slow hot almost dip into the Sookie pool.

“We could both be winners if you were less stubborn,” he said, thrusting twice quickly against me sending us both just a little closer to the edge.

“You tell me then,” I said trying to turn the tables and protect myself.

“I know only you, there is nothing else for me.  I was born when you bonded to him. I am yours utterly and completely.”

“Is he?” I asked, needing to understand the difference between me, the bond and the vampire that I shared it with.

“Only by believing in your love will you know.  He has given of himself to you, and you of yourself to him.  There is no going back to the before, only the now and the later.  Move, grow, live or you wither and die.  I will wither and die.”

“No!” I said folding my legs tighter around him and pressing him to my chest with my arms.

“Then teach me what it is to love, Sookie Stackhouse…”  He was fading from my arms and I cried out to lose him.

“Come back! Stay with me!” I cried out trying to hold on tighter to him as he continued to fade.

“Sookie,” Eric said, holding me close to him.  “You’re dreaming. It’s all right.”  I turned into him and pressed my face to his chest.  Then needing more of him I climbed on top of him and caged him with my body holding on tight with my eyes closed.  I never ever wanted to feel him leaving me again.

“What’s wrong?” he asked me, kissing the top of my head softly, his arms coming around me to me tight to his long body.

“Nothing…now.”  I squeezed him a long moment, then opened my eyes and rested my chin on his chest, looking into his serious blue eyes.  There was so much I wanted to say but while I struggled to find the words he trumped me.

“I met your great, great, great, great grandfather’s ghost while you were sleeping.”

    

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A/N- So, no joke, when my alarm clock went off this morning I was dreaming about Sookie sitting on piano singing Love Will Keep Us Together.  Even I don’t understand it, so I don’t expect you to.  Just letting you know, I may be behind the wheel, but I am not sure I am actually driving 🙂 .

Special thanks to Captain and Tennille for the 1975 blast from the past.  I really did love this song when I was a kid. I guess there is a little Sookie in all of us.  🙂