Who: Eric and Jill, perhaps a visit from Godric What: Just beyond the safety of Katherine's brothel When: Tonight Where: Just beyond the safety of Katherine's brothel Warnings: None
Eric often spent his time split between Katherine's brothel and Pam's Fangtasia. In truth, he considered both of these establishments and those inside to belong to him. Eric wasn't overly possessive, no more so than your average vampire but as the sole protector of both establishments he felt they were his. Pam was unmistakably his and through her, Tara as well. Katherine well, he didn't believe that she could ever really belong to any one person but in a certain way, she belonged to him too. A part of her did and now that he was severely policing her whorehouse he felt even more possessive of the place.
It had grown crowded however. Eric was used to the pathetic mewling of the whores inside, it was expected. They were whores. Beaten down and broken and begging for more abuse. They got off on the treatment, longed for the bite. They could be very irritating but it was part of the package and Eric expected it. Normal humans and other creatures he grew impatient with more easily than he did his whores. He found most of the people at the prison boorishly irritating and hard to ignore. This was one of the many reasons he did not live there nor had he ever crossed its gates, only lingering near the fence when he was to escort Natasha or Sookie or someone out. He never went in.
Now the brothel was growing crowded, so crowded that even his escape to his "hidey hole" hadn't been enough to block out the noise of them. They were a troubled crowd, being haunted by all sorts of former enemies and friends and family and lovers.
Eric did not feel for them. He was eternally haunted. At first as he made the trek out of the brothel to check in on Pam and Tara he feared that he would have to face his father or his mother. He was not ready for that and was sure that he never would be. There were countless others over the years, victims that he had ruthlessly slaughtered sometimes with Godric or Nora at his side, sometimes alone. But of all these old spooks, the only one who continued to follow Eric was Godric. It was debatable whether his maker was actually a ghost or a physical manifestation of Eric's own conscience. When Eric was a young vampire Godric had been all about the kill. He hated humans and loved bathing in their blood, listening to their screams, feeling that visceral flame as they snuffed the life out of easily hundreds of humans. But then something in him changed, it was as if he had given up. He hadn't even bothered to fight The Fellowship of the Sun when they kidnapped him and then he had committed suicide shortly thereafter.
He checked the borders of the brothel and then stepped just past them, past the part where Katherine's witch had set up the barriers where the spirits could not cross. The shadowy night fell like a cloak around him as he waited for his spirits to come to him. It only took a minute for Godric, his maker, his lover, his God stood in front of him. Strange to look upon him for any other. Godric had only been sixteen when he was turned and appeared as a boy but he had been already a thousand years old when he had first met Eric. Eric's views on age differed significantly from modern America anyway. He himself had been declared a man at age twelve.
"Has Sookie been caring for you as I asked?" Godric asked. Eric had to hold his tongue and mind himself in order not to roll his eyes. Sookie's "care" of him involved demanding that he share her with Bill, a thing he would never do. He had loved Sookie, really allowed himself to love her, to let someone in for the first time in a century. And he hadn't been enough for her. Eric knew it would be a very long time before he loved another the way he had loved Sookie Stackhouse.
"If you wished to see me cared for you could have stuck around to do it yourself," Eric said coldly. In all the times he had talked to Godric they had never spoken of this. They had never spoken of the abandonment Eric had felt when his maker burst into flames on that rooftop in Texas. Eric hadn't been enough for Godric in the end either.
Godric looked down before looking up at Eric's face again. "You were always difficult and willful. I suppose I have only myself to blame for that."
"Himinn bíðr oss bróðr." ["Heaven awaits us, brother." - in Old Norse.] Godric smiled sadly in Eric's direction. "It is a miracle, Eric. God does not punish. God forgives."
"I'll take your word for it," Eric said dryly. His senses perked when he felt a familiar presence behind him. He did not want to share this reunion with Godric so he stepped quickly back over the border into the safe zone.