I Write The Songs. CONTEST ENTRY

TITLE: Blood Like Lemonade (Morcheeba)

CHARACTERS: Eric, Sookie. Gran, Jason and Pam are mentioned.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters or anything else from the SVM-universe. Charlaine Harris does. I just twisted them around a bit. Also, I have no claim on the song, except the 20+ plays it has on my iPod list. The song is performed by Morcheeba.

PEN NAME: Girl of Chaos

BETA NAME: Sarifina85 (Who not only took me in on such short notice, but she cleaned this up fast. All remaining mistakes are mine.)

VIRGIN WRITER: NO

Blood Like Lemonade

I read somewhere that you can change your future with just one step. One small insignificant gesture that can alter everything you do from that point forward. Instead of going left, you go right. Instead of running the red light, you stop and wait. Instead of rushing home, you run late and meet your friends.

Instead.

Instead.

Unfortunately, life doesn't give you second chances, there is no one you can write to to complain about the unfairness of your story, to demand a refund or at least the chance to do it all again.

I could feel faint whispers at the corner of my mind; for once, my strange ability taking the smallest place in my brain. These were broken thoughts, evil whispers that I wanted to welcome, I wanted to embrace and focus on. They were better. Anything was better than what was about to happen. I wanted to eavesdrop into every tiny thought of every living, breathing creature that roamed this motel. I was starving for the noise, though I spend all my life hating it, blaming it for everything. It was all to compensate for his silence.

I felt my mind throb in despair as it settled on the immediate future. I grabbed fistfuls of the scratchy bedcover on each side of my legs, trying to mask the shake of my hands. My eyes darted from one fist to the other, instinctively clenching them tighter. I needed to focus on anything other than him.

He stuck out like a black hole amongst the bright whispers in my brain. I could feel him moving around the small room, I could see his silence sucking out the energy in the already cluttered space in me.

"Relax," came his whisper, almost blending in with the buzz in my brain. I could feel the simple word colliding with my body, running the length of my skin and getting lost somewhere in the space behind me, leaving me trembling in want.

I closed my eyes, and looked up, towards the blank space that dominated and dwarfed the motel room. I needed his touch.

"You make your bed and then you have to lay in it, Sookie," Gran used to say to me when I was little. She would be enjoying her peach ice tea on the porch of our family's old home, taking small sips from the glass thick with condensation, her eyes looking beyond the edge of the forest that had always been too close to the house for comfort. Each day after school, I would hurry Jason along, all the way trying to imagine what story I would hear next. Because that's what grandma did, she would settle on her chipped away white rocking chair, sip her ice tea, and recount old tales to our naive ears, tales filled with fantastic creatures, bloodied battles, brave knights and horrific monsters. Jason would soon get distracted by one thing or another, more than half of the evening's story being forgotten, but I couldn't.

I would watch her in her chair, study her profile, from the fizzy and thinning white hair kept together with a loose knot to her slightly crooked nose, tracing with my eyes the lines that defined the only adult figure I had left in the world. She would always sit, her chin slightly raised, almost in defiance to the fairytales she told. Her eyes would jump from spot to spot, restlessly watching the trees, almost ready for her characters to emerge from the forest. Vampires, ghouls, witches, princesses, werewolves, demons and fairies.

As I stood now, presenting myself to him, feeling my body hum with energy, almost eager for the intrusion it was going to suffer, I knew. Instead of watching her - my Gran, the embodiment of everything that was noble and true in my life, I should have followed her lead and looked closely into the dark abyss between the scattered forest trees. Maybe, I wouldn't have been so surprised. Maybe then, they would be alive.

Maybe I would have stayed home. I would have enjoyed my last evening with my grandmother. I would have been there when Jason came home from work. And I would have been there when they had come.

Instead of sitting in the car, idle in the driveway, watching them murder my family in cold blood, I could have fought. I could have gotten out and died trying to protect them so I wouldn't have to die to avenge them. All I could do at the time was chant over and over again that they were real. The monsters in my grandmother's tales were real. The fantastical creatures that transformed into wolves with each full moon were real.

Someone once said that fairytales don't tell children anything new about monsters. They already know monsters exist; they just learn that monsters can be defeated. I guess the knowledge is lost once you grow up because as I was sitting in that car, listening to my brother's screams for help and watching the mental images he unwillingly sent my way. I was frozen. Monsters weren't real. Werewolves were fictional.

Yet, when it was finally silent and I saw the hooded figure open the door and lead out of the house the pack of big gray wolves, I shifted into reverse and left as fast as my tiny car could take me. All the way out of the driveway, I could hear jumbled thoughts of the creatures that had been commanded to chase me, the panting and the snarls that were the result of a boost of energy the killings had supplied them with.

I never looked back.

If I had, maybe I wouldn't be here.

"There are a lot of maybes in your story, Sookie." His voice sounded harsh in the silent motel room. I shut my eyelids tighter, my eyes, restless under their lids, looking, searching for his void.

This wasn't the first time he said that to me. When I urged him to kill me, to put a stop to all the noises and the feelings that almost made me too sick to get up in the morning. "Maybe you should end my life," I remember whispering on that warm summer night, my naked knees sinking into the sand on the side of the road, looking up into his cold, icy eyes.

I can still see it behind my eyelashes, a movie projected by my too eager mind. I hated him then. I had just learned he was related to the creature that had killed my family. He shared with the cloaked figure one of the many characteristics that made him the feared creature that he was.

"I traded the sunrise for the sunset," he said as we lay naked in the backseat of his car. I didn't pay much attention then since I was still trying to wrap my mind around what we had just done, but the words registered with me nonetheless. I was playing with the fine blond hairs on his chest, trying to stay calm when inside, my blood was rushing with fear.

I had been foolish before, but as I lay there, pressed between the cold leather seat of the dusty black Charger and the hard muscles of my willing partner, I realized I might not get to finish my family's revenge. From the god-sent angel I had seen him as when the Dodge appeared at the edge of the badly lit parking lot and he urged me to get in, his wings were turning black as night, his body transforming to marble, and his shinning eyes turning hard under my stare.

"Who are you?" I sat up in the limited car space, using my hand on his chest as support. I felt him shake with suppressed laughter as he smiled. For the first time that night, I opened my mind, searching for his thoughts. I had learned by then that werewolves were very easily distinguished from humans when I listened. They were harder to hear, their thoughts running chaotic and unfinished through their minds. But there was never silence.

I shivered involuntarily, my skin rising in goose bumps, suddenly cold all over. I forced my gift harder, hoping to catch at least a whisper from him. Silence.

He repeated his sentence, and I could see he was enjoying my nervousness. He wasn't different from the men that had cornered me back in the parking lot, their thoughts giving away their animal nature and intentions, always eager for new game to play with. I dug my fingers into his flesh; trying to feel the warmth, seeking the beating rhythm of his heart. My mind and my fingers found silence.

"Where's your heart?"

I didn't pull back, my fear keeping me again frozen in place. Monsters exist, but they can be defeated. I repeated my mantra, returning my efforts tenfold to hear his mind. He couldn't be like them, like the pack that I had left horny and thirsty back in the parking lot. He had saved me.

"There's no heart, little girl. I'm the devil," he drawled, his voice suddenly raspier, running heavy over my naked skin, pulling me down against the backseat. He knelt over me, pushing me back against the door, and his smile got bigger, his supple lips turning upwards, exposing part of an elongated canine.

I remember the odd feeling that I shouldn't waste my time screaming as my mind connected him, this creature, with the hooded one that commanded the werewolves. I had heard them whisper about their leader. About the blood he demanded and offered them, about the power he had over them. I had seen quick mental slideshows of his deeds and it was bone chilling to know I was naked with one of them.

Vampire, was the word I picked up from hours of listening to the pack. A word that had come up often in my Gran's stories, a word that had as deep and rooted meaning in the folklore as werewolf had. Night, danger, unknown, and death were the words mostly associated with the creature and as much as I had learned about the pack ruler, they were the most important words to remember when you came across a vampire.

I had not only met one, I had proceeded to sleep with one. I remember that with trembling hands, I fumbled for the door handle, tugging it open and almost falling backwards in the dirt on the side of the deserted road we had stopped on. The air was hot outside, invading the chilling atmosphere inside the car, expanding the tall, naked vampire to the mythological proportions he deserved.

I stumbled outside, my nakedness forgotten, my virtuous attitude already ruined by my actions. As the warm, wet outside air surrounded me, I pushed away from the car, digging my heels in for better force, all the while watching the blond statue's eyes. They seemed to shine like two cold lights in the cavernous black of the car interior. I could feel his smile as if it was branded on my skin.

A fine sheen of sweat appeared on my body, and I could feel the strands of hair stick to the back of my neck. I shivered as I saw him move towards me, unfurling from the backseat as elegantly and as effortlessly as if he was a star at a red carpet event, straightening to his full height, towering over me.

I shivered and I felt my nipples tighten when I remembered the power he extruded then. The menace in his posture, the hardness in his eyes, all promising a quick and very painful death.

My mind was focused on his void outline in the room, as he was standing somewhere to my left. Didn't he hear my blood pumping faster and faster through my veins? What was he waiting for?

Those exact questions were running through my mind that night as I watched him stand next to the Charger's open door. A monster coming out of hiding. I remember the exact moment I decided that cowardice wasn't the way to go. I didn't want to wonder anymore what would have happened if I didn't manage to escape him. There was no instead for me. So I got on my knees and clenched my teeth as I invited him.

"Maybe I should..." he trailed off with mirth in his eyes. He tilted his head back for a moment, closing his eyes, seeming to savor the scents of the desert night as he inhaled the warm air, releasing it slowly with a whoosh. He took a step towards me, and opened his eyes to savor my fear.

He kept his steady gaze as he approached, never breaking eye contact. He was finally right in front of me, his nakedness taunting with its presence. I almost lost my resolve when I felt him suddenly at my ear, his movement too fast for my untrained eye.

"I should suck you dry, right here, naked and wearing my scent," he rasped then in my ear, making me tremble. I remember when I felt his fangs below my jaw, as he seemed to skim my skin with his teeth. The gesture seemed to contradict the harsh words he had spoken, almost like he wanted me to say no.

"Maybe you should..." I barely managed to respond, my body engulfed in flames that seemed to be fueled by his trailing teeth. I hated him for toying with his food, for making me want him even when I knew I shouldn't, want him despite what he was. That was the same attraction that had landed me naked right now, about to get sucked dry by one of the monsters I had wanted to see perish.

I let out a deep breath when I felt his tongue lick the side of my neck, tasting the sweat and fear on my skin. He moved forward, his tongue mapping out the flesh, searching for my pulse. I felt it the moment he found my carotid as my breath sped up and my knees shook.

He seemed to engulf the vein with his lips and suck it lightly in his mouth, never using teeth.

"Drink already," I found the will to speak, to finally reach a conclusion. I heard him chuckle with his mouth still attached to my skin, a moment before I felt the hard points of his canines poised over the moist spot. I inhaled, taking a deep breath that I thought was my last before taunting him, "Don't be like the others. Drink fast."

I opened my eyes then, my heart beating out of my chest, my fists almost ripping the bedspread to shreds when I recalled the sensation of his teeth barely clenching on my skin, only just breaking the surface before he pulled away like I had burned him. My eyes found him immediately, standing where my mind was showing me, leaning against the wall on the left of the bed, silently watching me.

"Eric," I whispered his name between two deep breaths, pleading with him to do it already. His eyes ignited into blue flames. He knew. He remembered also.

I unclenched my fist and beckoned him forward with just a simple flick of my finger against the skin of my neck. Tracing. Remapping. Caressing the vein. I saw him follow the movement a moment before he was in front of me, pushing me back, to lie on the bed, his mouth on that familiar spot, his tongue where my finger had been.

"I don't do partners," he says against my neck, his words traveling through my flesh.

My mind flashes back to the six months we've been traveling together since that night in the desert. He relented then. He is relenting tonight. I am his partner.

"You know as well as I do that you did and still do." I loved to goad him on just as I did that night and every other since. I could never show him how weak I really was. How that attraction that made me sleep with him then was still strong and ever present now.

He growled then, spurred on by my words just like six months ago. When he pushed me back in the sand, his fangs fully extended, almost glistening in the pale moonlight, seeming to drip with venom.

"I have roamed this earth long before you or those filthy creatures were even born," he had calmly stated. But his eyes never lied. He was furious then. Angry that I had dared to compare him. That I could fathom he had anything in common with the werewolves or their master.

"Probably as long as their master, right? I plan to kill him, so maybe you should kill me before I do it."

My jib didn't get the response I wanted. Instead of latching onto my throat and sucking the life force out of me, my fearless warrior changed his position with just a rise of an eyebrow.

'Really?' he seemed to challenge, looking down at me. 'I dare you, do it.'

He watched me sprawled naked on the ground, at his feet for a few silent moments before I found myself pressed tightly against his front, his cold flesh chilling my overheated one, his arm just above my ass, keeping me in place.

"Maybe I should keep you alive long enough to do it," the vampire joked before he dragged me back to the car.

It was on that road where I convinced myself I shouldn't run. That road where I found my partner in grief and revenge.

"You can never be her."

A whisper in my ear before he vanished to the other side of the bed, away from me. I turned around. Quick. Furious.

"Maybe," I started just to get him mad, "I don't want to be her." I looked at him from the tip of my nose. Regal. Cool. Mean. Masking the hurt I knew I shouldn't feel. I learned fast.

He keeps my stare. After all, he's a thousand year old Viking. I am just a human.

Weak.

I remember how the last captured werewolf almost killed me. Eric being as fast as he is was the only thing that saved me. We were on a dirt road, deep in the desert and I was listening to his thoughts, trying to pinpoint where his master was hiding. I only got a flash of another of the decrepit towns that were in abundance in these deserted parts. The warrior vampire, my partner, silenced his mind and drank his blood before he could spill mine.

"If you had waited a second longer, I would have been sure if he's there or not," I angrily told him. I was tired of always being saved. I wanted to save someone for a change.

"A second longer and you would have been dead," came his calm reply as he settled into the car seat, the engine coming alive with a roar in the now silent night.

"Maybe it was my time," I stubbornly refused to get inside the car, taking my time, watching the blond living statue search for his favorite music on the radio.

He sighed and looked at me through the side window. "I said I'll keep you alive, Sookie. Don't fight me on this." And although his voice didn't waver, his relaxed posture didn't change, his eyes seemed to plead with me not to make a fuss.

It might have started as a joke to him, keeping my heart still pumping in my chest, an amusement to have around during the boring hours he spent stalking his prey, but something had changed. It was becoming his second mission. And it was interfering with my goal.

Stubborn man. I felt my eyes narrow. Doesn't he tire already, I wondered as I watched him on the other side of the bed? Because I was. So tired. Of this argument. Of being weak.

Of living.

A plea almost broke free from my mouth, from deep in my body, but I silenced it fast. Tonight, it was my turn. Trading the sunrise for the sunset. Night becoming my playground.

His fangs popped out, his stare never breaking mine. It was a threat as well as an invitation. I didn't stop to think.

No time to waste.

"I had a child once, a partner," he declared one night, a few hours before dawn, as we lay under the stars. His hand pressed me tighter against his side, keeping me in place. I could feel my heart start beating faster. I didn't want to hear that particular story.

I raised myself over him, bracing my hands on his motionless chest, and opened my mouth to tell him to stop. But something stopped me before the words got out. It was a tradition, if such customs could have as reference just a few nights. We would meet under the moon's weak light, giving as much of each other as we could, making the other scream with pleasure, before we shared a part of our souls.

That night, I wiggled above him, his arousal almost giving me the perfect opportunity to distract him, but I ignored it. I folded my arms over his still heart, resting my chin on the back of my palm, giving him my undivided attention. I knew already the tale wasn't like the others he had told. It wouldn't be about conquering Vikings, fearless warriors or explorers. This story would echo my own.

His stories were as good as Gran's were. I would often find myself studying his profile, much like I did with her when I was younger. Taking in the blond locks, freshly tousled by my wandering hands, his straight nose, full lips and stubborn chin. His blue eyes looked almost black, mirrors reflecting the night sky, restlessly watching the dark starry abyss.

"They killed her," he whispered at the end of the story, a sad conclusion that had become the starting point of his current battle. For once, he wasn't looking at the sky, his eyes mirroring my blue ones. His sadness blending with my own.

That was the night the attraction transformed for me. It blossomed into something else I was still to this night, too afraid to even think about.

"I'm not Pam, Eric," I whisper, crawling into his lap.

He sighs. I moved closer still. Molding myself to his torso. Enjoying the rightness I felt when I was there. My arms around his neck, I skimmed his ear with my nose. He shifted against the bed's mattress, settling in. I smiled.

Silence.

I hugged myself to him. Closer. Pressing my face into his alabaster skin. Relishing in the strength of his body. I wanted it. Craved it. Badly.

"We work perfectly together," I rest my case. Borrowing deeper still into him.

I raked my fingers over his broad shoulders. Feeling his back expanding with deep breaths. Breathing. Tasting the air. Sampling the airborne aromas in the dusty motel room.

I moved in his lap, bringing my legs around his hips. Totally opened to him. Vulnerable. For the last time.

He seemed to come to life with the movement. He relaxed his pose. His forehead resting on my shoulder, his hands settled on my hips.

"You're cruel."

His words sounded hallow, but I shivered in response. I'm not cruel. I'm just focused.

"I'm cruel because I don't want you to fight this battle alone? I knew Vikings were brave, but never foolish."

It's a blow below the belt. Attacking his past. Just to show him what cruel means.

He forces out a humorless laugh. His unnecessary breath warms the skin of my breast as it washes over it.

"Her death forced me alone. I can't have anyone else die because of that vampire." His voice, for the first time, is filled with emotion. He regrets this battle. He's been alone for too long. He made Pam to fill a void left by the centuries. They took her from him.

A vampire and the limitless time.

His future. His sentence.

"How did she perish?" I remember asking him that night, from my position on top of his chest, the first time I ever interrupted him during one of his stories. I could see his gaze turning blurrier as he progressed into the story, and I needed to bring him back to earth, to me, to that night.

His answer was to the point, his voice calm like he was reciting the evening news. He had left his progeny alone and they had ambushed her. His eyes focused back on me as he told me that she died fighting. They had been too many. It was a proverbial slap in the face, my mind automatically flashing to my own confession of fleeing Bon Temps that I had made to him a night before.

"I don't want to run anymore." I was pleading. He needed to understand. To see the good that would come from this. He needed to grant me this wish.

I turned my head. My mouth touching his ear. "Please." A sacred whisper in this world. I never begged now.

His hands tightened, fingers digging into my soft skin. Bruising me. For the last time. His head turned towards mine, our noses bumping, eye to eye. The thousand year old vampire level with the 28 year old human. I recognized then the power I had over him. A power he didn't relinquish easily. Or admit it ever existed.

His lips formed words, touching mine with feather-like movements. "You'll hate me as much as you hate him."

His eyes betrayed his want. My untouched blood calling to him with each heartbeat. A delicacy that's been dangled in front of him for the last few months, never sampled. Not a drop spilled from that first night together, when he punctured my skin.

"It will be painful," he offers me the small detail in a last attempt to give me a way out.

This was his motto. Never spoken in this gentle tone, it had always been a warning, a signal that was supposed to make the captured creature's blood turn cold in his veins, make him tremble in fear and spill out all their spoken and unspoken secrets, before he spilled their blood. That first night, I was right about him. He loved to torment his victims, avenging Pam with each whispered threat, with each deadly accurate fist, with each lifeless body he left behind. Savoring the blood of his enemies.

"I couldn't stop drinking you," he told me after a particular death. The werewolf had managed to injure him, biting into his shoulder, turning his shoulder blade into a mass of white skin, torn tissue and dark blood.

As soon as he stepped away from the dead creature, I had rushed from the car, the sight shocking me only because it was him bleeding. He was moving his arm around, almost like trying to warm his muscles, testing the regenerating tissue. I went to touch him, almost reproachful that he could get injured.

I looked at his wound, the whispers I had heard in the Were's mind still fresh. "Maybe my blood will help." My words were too weak, almost nonexistent as they didn't seem to disturb the silence of the black night, but his hearing picked them up, each a hot needle poked violently in his flesh.

"Do not tempt me," I saw his calm facade fade for just a moment, before he moved away, with one last roll of his shoulder, opening the trunk of the car and pulling an immaculate white t-shirt. The cleanliness of the cloth contrasted harshly with the dirty Charger, more grey than black now, and the blood spatters I could see drying lower on his arm. His blood. He never spilled a drop from his victims, always a perfect eater.

"I read it in the wolf's mind." I moved towards him, gathering my hair in a messy knot. "He makes them hunt for humans, so he can drink the blood." I was in front of him and I could see his eyes turning fiery as he looked down at me. "It makes him stronger."

He had laughed then, succeeding in making me blush before he scooped down fast, his hands cupping my fiery cheeks, cooling them as his lips crashed to mine. His tongue demanded entrance, caressing mine and I could feel a remnant metallic taste on my sensitive taste buds. The thought made me shiver, raising a deep moan from within me, goose bumps on my skin. I pressed tighter to him, pushing up on my toes so I could reach his shoulders, my hands taking purchase on his still chest.

Finally my need to breath had become too much, my toes almost numb from the tense position. They tingled slightly as I lowered myself, breaking the contact with his bruising lips. His thumbs had caressed my face before he seemed to catch onto the tender gesture and stop.

"I enjoy the Were blood only for the taste of revenge it carries. Your blood would be like the nectar of the gods," he had whispered before he grabbed me from the ground, his hands right beneath my ass, moving me fast onto the Dodge's trunk. He was between my open legs, hard just where I needed him most before I could fully process the movement. I moaned loudly then, arching my body back, laying on the black metal, taking in his form so clearly defined against the dark sky.

Before I closed my eyes with pleasure, I saw the bloody mark I had left on the white shirt, marring the perfect color, making Eric more human. Reminding myself he wasn't the mythical, untouchable creature he seemed to be.

That same touchable creature seemed to be gazing at me, pushing my hips tighter against him as we held each other in the double bed. I kissed his lips. Once. Quickly.

"The pain will be worth it." I reassure us both, kissing him again, nudging his nose with my own. I smile, pulling my head back to find clarity. Just for a second before I get back, touching our lips softy again.

His eyes close. The blue vanishes, his thick blonde eyelashes obscuring. Hiding. I hold my breath. Waiting. This is it.

He opens his eyes. The blue becoming liquid pools. Overexposed, the colors too rich for such a badly lit room. His hands lift me up and quickly push me down on the bed, his body covering mine. He isn't soft or gentle, his hands moving along my sides, reaching my breasts and squeezing, my nipples becoming painfully sensitive from his attention.

I never thought how this would go. How he would treat me, where he would bite me. I just assumed he'd take me just like every other time, as I offer myself to him, the only difference being the favor I demand at the end. His eager bite marking the skin on my neck.

I arch up into him, moving my hips, searching for the relief of friction. His mouth is demanding, his tongue rough against my own as he pushes it in time with his squeezing hands.

I try to breathe through my nose, but it seems my lungs have lost their function, as I pant against his open mouth. Take me. Now. I want to shout into his mouth.

I can feel him hard against me, promising pleasure as he consumes me, possessing every part of my body, draining me of energy before he can drain my heart.

I move my hips faster as his hands trail down, grabbing my leg, roughly bringing it over his hip, changing the angle of our touching, bringing him right where I need him more.

Right there.

Harder.

I'm right at the edge, dangling from a very fine wire, keeping me from falling and never recovering. His bruising mouth breaks the endless kiss, never stopping his rhythm, moving down, on my neck as I pant a needed breath.

I can't help the shout when I feel his hair-tingling fangs extended from his mouth, caressing the sensitive vein. He seems to slow down. To back up. I snake my hands on his delicious ass, digging my fingers in his flesh, pulling him forward. On me. In me.

Don't stop.

Never.

He speeds up. Moving with a new purpose. Licking the veins on my neck. Mapping to see the strongest blood flow, the biggest river.

I stop on the edge.

Faster.

I turn towards the abyss.

Take a blind step.

Fall over.

I arch up, the force of my orgasm making my body tingle. Forcing my teeth to clench. I feel like I'm bursting. With pleasure. With force. Tears spring in my eyes.

My throat clenches over his name as I feel I'm coming down. I start to go down. Lay back.

I feel pain. Sharp jolt. Punctured skin. Open wound.

Blood.

I arch back. Into his mouth. Urging him to drink his full. He rocks with each pull. Still hard. Always demanding. Wanting.

I need you.

Take everything.