Yes, you heard that right – after a hiatus of HOW FREAKIN’ LONG I have managed to write A Thing. I know! Shocked me, too! I’ll add it to the site proper-like later…if I remember how. WP changed w/o my permission, y’all. There has been cussin’ involved.
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An Eric and Sookie Valentine Short
A/N: This one-shot is set in no particular time, no particular story/Universe – it’s just a one-off where there’s no Beehl, no Fellowship of the Ri…erm Sun, no Sams or Alcides or Fairies or whatever runnin’ around clouding the issue… It’s just Eric and Sookie spending time together getting to know each other without interference. (The way it should have been.)
This is probably dumb but it’s my first attempt at writing in HOW MANY YEARS NOW? *bangs head – THE FLM’S HEAD – on desk* Do hope y’all enjoy it anyway. It’s for you.
Enormous kudos go out to our lovely, patient, and absolutely amazing ○Kleannhouse○ for taking time out of her day to chisel and bang this mess into something readable. Naturally I then had to go mucking about in it again afterwards so ALL mistakes are entirely mine.
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Someone stomped into the kitchen.
That was Sookie’s first clue.
The second clue was that they’d apparently entered via the back door instead of making an entrance via the official front door.
The third clue was a soft thump as something landed somewhere in her kitchen.
Something was up.
What the hell is he doing, she muttered to herself with a glare toward the kitchen. The timing and the lack of readable thoughts told her the kitchen-invader was a vampire. The fact that they’d came in the back door meant they were either a regular visitor or at least felt at home there, so she wasn’t concerned about her safety…yet.
Wait a…
Eric.
She figured it had to be Eric.
Stomping around… Things thumping… Bad mood, maybe? Impatience? Something.
He’d better not break any of gran’s crockery.
She sighed. Here she was all wrapped up nice and warm and comfy on the sofa with a well read and reread book in her hands and an old movie playing on the possibly even older tv (the sound was down so she could concentrate on her book, of course; it was more for background noise than anything) and tall, blond, and handsome had to come stomping around in her kitchen of all places (why the kitchen?) and disturb her peace and quiet!
It wasn’t that unusual for Eric to stop by, though.
In fact, here lately he’d been dropping by oh-so-casually about every third night or so.
Sometimes they had lively discussions where it seemed he delighted in getting her riled up over this or that, but a lot of times they’d just sit and watch whatever was on late-night tv or maybe pop in a movie.
To date he’d somehow managed to increase her old-movie collection by about quadruple.
She had to admit it was kind of nice, sometimes…ok, usually, and he always acted differently to how he’d act in that silly club of his.
But what was he doing here now and in her kitchen at that?
With a begrudging huff she marked her place in her book and started to unwrap herself from her cozy throw-cocoon but then stubbornly decided to wait it out.
If he wanted to talk to her, he could come find her.
It wasn’t like he didn’t have manpire senses at his disposal.
Then she heard the freezer door, two cabinet doors, and the refrigerator door open and shut.
Then – was that…what did he need with…?
Book forgotten, Sookie dislodged her wrappings as she slowly sat up, her concentration focused on the odd noises coming from her kitchen.
When she heard what had to be eggs being cracked – she’d lived with her gran far too long to not know what that sound meant – she couldn’t stand it anymore and had to investigate.
Barefoot, in baggy sweatpants and a half-tucked t-shirt, she padded to the kitchen door and…stared.
Eric, tall blond Viking vampire that he was, was standing at the counter glaring at egg goo as it dripped from his hand.
Apparently he’d missed the bowl that looked like it had flour in it.
A subsequent glance about the kitchen told her that no, it wasn’t flour. On the table was an opened box of chocolate cake mix, three tubs of store-bought frosting, and a container of strawberries.
“Eric, what in the world are you doing?”
He looked up at her as she dashed to the kitchen sink and grabbed a paper towel and didn’t speak until she’d wiped the recalcitrant egg from his hand and the counter.
“Tonight starts Valentine’s Day,” he stated as though that clarified anything.
“Yeah, and?”
She pulled him over to the sink and pointed at the tap for him to wash his hands, then tossed away the paper towel’d bundle of squished egg.
“I have to oversee the club tomorrow night as it will be packed.”
He didn’t seem pleased by this fact, and Sookie had to snort. She knew exactly how some of Fangtasia’s Finest would dress and act.
To her surprise, he continued.
“Pam assures me this holiday is important especially to females who like to receive things that they like, so I have bought you a cake. You like cake.”
He nodded with purpose.
“Now I have to make it.” He glanced down at his now-clean hands.
“Somehow.”
Once he was back at the bowl, however, he stared down at said egg…then at the eggs already in the bowl, then back to the egg in his hand.
Shaking her head and trying to control the huge grin demanding face-space, Sookie walked over and held her hand out.
While Sookie stood there with her jaw dropped, Eric sped back to the refrigerator and withdrew another egg.
“Here, gimme that.”
With unashamed relief, Eric gladly placed the dratted egg into her hand.
No more was said as she expertly cracked the egg and added the remaining ingredients until she handed Eric a wire whisk.
“Here, give this a good stir,” she instructed the bemused blond giant while she dragged out cake pans and set the oven to pre-heat.
She figured his vampire whisking skills would be better than hers for a lighter, fluffier cake.
He did as instructed and watched with clear curiosity as she buttered the cake pans and then put flour in them…only to knock it right back out.
Humans, he thought for the billionth time, were weird. Why did she put flour in pans then dump it out? And what was with the butter?
This cake-making proposition was becoming more unfathomable by the minute.
And it had all started out so simple, too. Pam had remarked…remarkably casually for her… that human females liked receiving things on Valentine’s Day and that they liked receiving things that they actually liked.
Eric knew Sookie liked cake, and that she liked ice cream. The ice cream – butter pecan because he recognized the scent – was easy enough to procure and he had even remembered to place it in the freezer part of her refrigerator when he’d first arrived.
It was the cake that was proving…untrustworthy.
Sure, he had inspected the baked and decorated cakes available in the market but they were all garish and weird, and they smelled like acrid chemicals. When an elderly lady nearby had mentioned to her bedraggled cabbage-scented companion that cake mixes might be a better idea, he had silently followed them to that section of the store only to stare in dismay at the numerous offerings.
How many types of chocolate cake mix did humans need?
With an eeny meeny miny moe, catch the Loki by the toe he’d grabbed the chocolatiest looking mix only to then be confounded by the concept and vast number of cake frostings in small containers.
To err on the side of caution, he’d selected three of the blasted things in different flavors – dark chocolate, cherry vanilla, and butter pecan – then fled to the fresh fruits section of the store.
At least he recognized strawberries.
Sookie calling his name interrupted his musing.
“Eric, that’s enough. That cake’s gonna be ten feet tall if you don’t stop.”
With a laugh she took the bowl from his hands, placed the whisk on a plate that had mysteriously appeared on the counter, and proceeded to divide the cake mix between two of the weirdly floured pans.
Once everything was in the oven baking, she grabbed the whisk and he thoroughly enjoyed watching her clean the lucky thing with her tongue.
“Stop starin’,” she said with a blush as she turned away and walked to the sink.
(The tiniest of wee giggles came from the top back corner of the kitchen. The little spider had been watching since the Vampire had hurriedly stomped into the kitchen and then had the audacity to flip on the overhead lights.
Once fully and reluctantly awakened – spidering was hard and it’s not like the tastiest fliers were nocturnal, damn it – he’d settled in to watch the cold-blooded invader be beaten by…an egg.
An egg.
And now the blond giant was pouting at a kitchen tool.
It was proving to be an entertaining night.)
“So, what’s with all the cake frosting? And the strawberries?”
Sookie hoped he didn’t notice what had to be a cheeky grin – of course she knew the date. She had to give him credit, though, since he was definitely putting some effort into whatever it was he was doing. But three tubs of frostings? For one cake?
Eric shrugged.
“I purchased three of them hoping you would like at least one. And the strawberries… Well, you like them. There is also ice cream in the freezer,” he added proudly.
“Ice cream?”
He could almost see her ears perking up at that.
Sookie darted over to the freezer and, sure enough, there sat butter pecan ice cream in all its delicious glory.
With a squeal and Eric-pleasing haste, Sookie was soon sitting at the table with a bowl, a spoon, an ice cream scoop, and the all-important ice cream.
Knowing that people should be praised when they did a good job, she grinned at the Viking sitting at her table trying not to look too smug.
“Thank you, you did good!”
It wasn’t long before Eric was jealous of the spoon, too.
He sat quietly watching as she obviously enjoyed the treat, and pondered why it was important to him to do these things for her, to please her.
Sure, he easily acknowledged that he’d enjoyed her company more and more these past couple of months, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize he would rather visit with her at this old house than in the club he was enjoying less and less these nights.
A loud, malodorous all-you-can-drink buffet was handy and all, but at the end of the night he still had to shower off the smell as he did not want that miasma to follow him to bed.
Sookie’s house, though, smelled…pleasing. Yes, there were odors of “old lady” and baking and wood and so forth, but Sookie’s sweet scent overrode it all.
His eyes flicked around the kitchen as Sookie bit into whatever a butter pecan was. Perhaps it should be strange that he would be so oddly comfortable in the old farmhouse, but for whatever reason, he was. It was quiet and clean, and certainly much more intimate than the club where he had to maintain a false front before minions and dinner.
He found the differences pleasing.
Eric gave a mental shrug; nothing about this had to make sense, did it? Not really, no matter how often Pam would snicker at him as he left to visit “the little blonde fairy”.
His thoughts were interrupted when Sookie reached for the three cans of frosting.
“Why these three?”
Sookie thought Eric’s indignation was cute.
“Well, you made good choices. This one,” she held up the butter pecan cake frosting, “will be good on another cake but these two will be perfect. We can put some of the cherry vanilla between the layers and cover the whole thing in the dark chocolate. That’ll work out great.”
“Do you know how many different types of cake coverings there are? I barely narrowed it down to these!”
He quirked a brow. “Some of the cherry vanilla? What will you do with the rest?”
“Eat it on pancakes later,” she answered with a grin.
The ageless Viking nodded wisely. He had no clue what she meant but she was smiling and that was good.
They chatted while Sookie put away the ice cream and washed the few dishes now dirtied. Afterward she made herself some coffee and handed him a warmed blood beverage he tended to stock in her refrigerator.
Eventually the cake was baked and cooled and deemed ready to frost.
Absolutely out of his depth, Eric stared in confusion at the off-set knife-looking tool now in his hand.
“Here,” she said as she handed him the cherry vanilla frosting. “Grab up a bunch of frosting with the spreader then smear it around there,” she pointed to the top of the bottom layer of cake.
He hadn’t minded leveling off the cake – using knives was in his blood warm and cold both, after all – but…well…smearing?
“I would rather smear this on you,” he replied faux-seriously with a smirk.
“Eric, hush. Wait, hang on a sec, let me drizzle some of this Maraschino cherry juice on the cake first.”
He thought the red syrup smelled far too much of chemicals to be healthy but stood aside anyway.
Then, he slathered. After leveling the top layer of this convoluted cake and allowing Sookie to repeat the drizzling to her pleasure, he found himself covering the entire cake with the dark chocolate frosting.
He decided he was, in fact, quite good at it.
Naturally.
In short order and absolutely unwilling to wait, Sookie served herself a slice of the newly made cake and tossed a handful of hulled and rinsed strawberries on her plate.
The evening had felt pretty much like every other evening Eric had spent with her – fun, easy going, flirting both gentle and lurid, some teasing, lots of conversation about things that mattered and things that didn’t…but it was also a bit more, somehow.
Sure, there was unexpected cake.
The cake was delicious.
But…it was a Valentine cake, one that she’d had to help make at that, but still, he’d thought of her and brought it to her and had even tried to at least start making it.
For her.
She looked over at Eric and, yes, he looked a bit smug at his obvious success, but he mostly looked comfortable, relaxed – he looked right at home.
A glance at the clock showed it was a little after 1:00 am and so, with a soft smile and warm eyes, she reached over and covered his hand with hers.
“Thank you for a great Valentine’s Day, Eric. You did a great job and I loved it.”
Slowly a true, real smile graced his lips as he turned his hand to hold hers.
“I still want to smear the frosting on you.”
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(The spider tsked and shoved his weary head – hey, spidering was hard work! – into the corner of the wall. Great, the Viking had scored big with Ms. Landlady…great…wonderful…now if they’d just turn off that damn light and go watch a movie…in the other room already!)
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All tsking spider-creatures aside, that’s it, folks. It’s meant to be a brief “scene” showing This Eric and This Sookie takin’ the slow route toward getting to actually know each other. I hope it didn’t suck too badly – my writing fingers are incredibly rusty, but I wanted to give you guys something for you time and support. I’m incredibly lucky for being able to write for the best fandom in the fanfic Universe.
In other news, well, there ain’t none, so there’s that. Excepting the above, FLM is still being her aggravating self but I am dearly hoping that “this” calls her sweet li’l ass back home ’cause it truly aggravates and frustrates me that I’ve left stories unfinished. I know – it’s not like I ever planned for my life to go swirling down the cosmic toilet and that *waves hand vaguely* things happen, but still. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to the stories, either. (My bad, totally, for having more than one going at a time instead of holding them until they’re completed BEFORE posting, but I’m not that organized…or sane…)
Anyway, I hope you liked it and feel free to comment below. Hope you have a great Valentine’s/Galentine’s/Palentine’s/Pawentine’s Day! 💗❤️💗
~Mer
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