A/N: So I've written this as a one-shot for now. The idea came to me while I was on the bus one day and it has been eating away at me ever since to get it out.

This fic was inspired by the song Better Off Dead. Originally is was a punk song by Bad Religion but I prefer the doomier version by British band Anathema.

I highly recommend listening to the song before reading the fic (or after - or both) You can find it here: h t t p : / /www . youtube . com/watch?v=tyZCBMEcst4

For now the fic is complete. If I can think of an idea or a plot that interests me into continuing it, I may do so in the future. If people are interested in my continuing it, I'd love to hear from you!

Disclaimer: Characters belong to Charlaine Harris

And don't forget to check out the wordpress. Stories are posted there and all kinds of other SVM and True Blood ramblings. finiteanarchy . wordpress . com

My eyes focused in the dark. There were no lights on anywhere but I could see…everything.

No.

There was movement in the periphery to my left. I bolted upright as I felt his approach. I could feel him again. It was stronger than before. Deeper. I could feel what he felt all the more.

Hope. Anticipation. Relief. Each one was stronger than the last as they engulfed me. His blood was my blood. Our blood. I felt his blood singing to me, calling me to tell me I was home. I could practically see it darting around in his body.

No. No.

I darted out of the bed only to find myself against a wall, the bed between us.

"No." I said, finally out loud. "You promised." I picked up my hand to examine it. Even in the darkness I could see it, my tan visibly paler than it had been a few days ago.

"I know." He said. His relief was washed away by guilt.

"You promised me!" I screamed at him. "You promised me you wouldn't do it! You gave me your word!" How could he do this?

"I know what I promised. I'm sorry, Sookie." Even in the dark I could tell he looked defeated.

"Why did you do it?" I rocketed off the wall to stand in his personal space. It was closer to the door at least. His smell was so much strong now. Masculine and vampire and something else, deeper. It was something my own sense of smell was too weak to pick up as a human.

My anger ebbed and flowed through our new bond and I knew he could feel it. I felt a sharp movement as my fangs ran down. I covered my mouth with my hands and backed away until my backside collided with the dresser.

"I couldn't lose you," he stated flatly. He brought his hand to my face and touched my cheek.

I flinched back before launching myself at him – there was no way to control it. I punched him and kicked at him but for all the effect it had on him I might as well have still been human. "You couldn't lose me?

"Did it even cross your mind that maybe it was my time?" I yelled. He pulled me off and gripped my shoulders. I'd managed to split his lip at least. It healed by the time he dragged me off him.

"Of course it wasn't your time! Would you really rather be dead, Sookie?" He yelled right back. His fangs had run down. "You think dying today, in your thirties, in this century, is your time?" He snorted.

All this yelling was feeding my anger. I could feel the thirst raging inside me, wanting to break out. The new fangs throbbed.

"Would you rather me go visit your grave while you lay cold in the ground next to the rest of your line? While daises push up through the grass you lay under?" He asked, tightening the grip on my shoulders. "Is that what you want?"

"That's how it's supposed to be." I felt a heavy tear slide down my face.

Blood tears, I thought. He let me move out of his grip and I wiped the tear away with my hand.

"No. It. Is. Not." He said carefully. "You know full well the supernatural world works differently. Better off dead than finally dead."

"How can you say that?" I was on the verge of pummeling him again. "You've taken everything! You took my life!" My eyes moved down to trace his neck. My whole body was shaking with need. Hunger. No! I clamped my mouth shut and clenched my hands into fists to avoid attacking him again.

"You were dying, Sookie! You would have died." Now he was invading my personal space and towering over me. His eyes were dark and glowing.

"I gave you a new life," he growled. "Your human life was ending. I made the best choice I could to save you."

"Save me? With this half life?" I sputtered and pushed him back. He actually stumbled back a few feet. "A life without the sun? A life where I could burn if I step into daylight?"

If I didn't get out of there soon, I was going to bite him or fuck him. I didn't know which. Maybe both.

"A life where my existence is entrenched now in vampire hierarchy? Where you could do anything you wanted to me and no one would say anything? Where I have to pledge fealty to you? What life is that?

"Now I am truly yours," I said in defeat. As much as I love him, in this moment, I hate him. We would never be equals. We would always know what the other was feeling. He would always be able to control me.

"You are being irrational," he said, calmly. "You need to drink something. Then maybe we can discuss this with some civility."

That was when I noticed he wasn't in anything other than a pair of sleep shorts. I was clad in one of my night shirts that I have no memory of putting on. I also couldn't hear him and for a moment, I was thankful that it seemed like my telepathy, at the very least, didn't expand to reading vampires. I briefly wondered if I could beam my thoughts to him like Stan did to his nest mates. I wasn't about to test those waters now.

Eric turned his back to me and grabbed a bottle sitting on the night stand. I bolted from the room and out the front door. My new speed gave me something, at least. I ran out from his house and the gated community he lived in. I ran down the street and toward the highway.

I could feel his frustration and his anger and it was feeding my own. Did he think this would make me happy? He promised me he wouldn't do it. He promised me and he broke it. What other promises would he break now? He said he would never use our old bond to control me. And now? What about this bond?

I ran through the woods. I could hear everything. It was all so much…louder. So much clearer. Bugs crawling in the underbrush, birds overhead. The sounds of cars passing on the highway were more amplified than they should be at this distance. I could smell the fecal matter of nearby deer and decaying wood from fallen trees. I barely made a sound as I ran. No twigs snapped; no leaves crunched underfoot.

I wasn't breathing. I took in the air around me, filling my nostrils with the scents around me. The air was damp in the humidity.

The running was making me tire faster. The need for blood was rising and I could feel my throat dry in desperation. My stomach had never felt emptier. That was when I caught a sudden whiff.

Whatever it was, it smelled wonderful.

I ran toward the smell assaulting my senses, finding myself on the edge of some woods that surrounded a parking lot. A few feet away stood a large diner. There was nothing special about it particularly. It looked like any other off the highway diner.

Except now I could smell the residue of food all over the parking lot. The greasy smell of oil and salt stung my nose. The smell of grilled meat and eggs stuck to everything.

I would never eat a hamburger again. Or eggs. I also wouldn't have to worry about cholesterol or gaining weight.

I hoped it wouldn't always be like this. Every smell assailed my nose like it was the first time I ever really smelled it.

But that wasn't what drew me to the diner. A man exited the front and walked around to the parking lot on the side. He smelled like food and beer…and blood.

God help me, I could smell the blood in his body.

Unconsciously, I found myself moving toward him. He was of average height, maybe no taller than five foot ten and he had dark hair cropped short around his face. He was dressed in loose jeans and a flannel shirt with several buttons undone. He had a white undershirt on underneath. He couldn't have been more than thirty-five.

Opening my mind to his I found his thoughts still there but they were different. I was different now, so maybe reading human thoughts would be different. Now I was a void too. It was like there was a heavy curtain blocking his thoughts and once I pulled it back I was able to read him. Maybe from being human, this is how the telepathy transferred over. No one would need to know I was still a telepath. I put the curtain back in place.

My brain was telling me this was wrong. This was a human being and he probably had a wife or a girlfriend and maybe even a kid or two and a job. I didn't want to hurt him. But trying to rationalize away my hunger wasn't working. My body couldn't stop and I launched myself at him in a haze before he could reach his car.

I clamped my hand over his mouth and dragged him into the darkness of the surrounding woods, sinking my fangs into the soft flesh of his neck. The curtain hindered his thoughts.

His scream was muffled by my hand as I drank. The blood was freedom. Everything I had thought before drinking was washed away in the flavor of the man's blood. On some level I would hate myself for this as soon as I was done. I knew it. But right now, it was heaven.

Suddenly, I felt myself being ripped away from the man and thrown. Landing heavily in the brush, I became hyperaware very quickly as I shot to my feet. I could feel Eric nearby but I couldn't see him. My eyes scoured the surrounding woods for him.

I heard a car start in the distance.

Without warning, I found the ground taken out from under me and I landed with a hard thud. Eric was on top of me, sitting on my lower belly and legs. He had taken the time to change into jeans and a dark t-shirt. I was still in my night dress. If I were still human his weight would have hurt me. He grabbed my hands and held them on top of me.

He was staring at me, his fangs exposed over his lips and gleaming in the moonlight, his hair falling in curtains around him to frame his face. I could see him clearly in the dark. He was beautiful.

"Just what did you think you would accomplish by doing that?" He asked, smoothly. I could tell he was as mad as a hornets' nest that's been kicked but he didn't show it.

"I don't know," I said, as what I had done started to sink in. I had needed to get away, even for a moment. I turned away, unable to look at him and embarrassed at my own lack of control. A traitorous tear leaked out to betray me.

"Sookie, look at me." It wasn't a command and it took me a moment to gather myself.

I closed my eyes and took an unnecessary breath before opening them again and turning my face to him.

"I know this wasn't what you wanted," he said, leaning over me, "but this is what you are now. You're going to have to deal with it." There was an air of resolution in his voice.

"And if I don't?"

"You will." His voice brokered no argument.

"I can't do this." I attempted to get myself out from under him but he wasn't budging. "I can't kill the way you do."

"You have killed before. You would have killed that man, in the parking lot just now if I hadn't stopped you."

"In self-defense!" I screamed. "I hadn't meant to hurt that man. I couldn't control myself." My voice cracked as another traitorous tear slid down. I felt like such a hypocrite. Hadn't Bill said the exact same thing to me? "It makes me sick, what I did…I can't drink blood from people." God, what's wrong with me?

His eyes narrowed into an oppressive line. "You think the way I have survived all these years is sick?" He asked in a slow, graveled voice.

"That's not what I meant."

"No? It's what vampires need to live, Sookie. It's what you will need. You can drink blood. You will. You just have." He paused, and leaned into me until he was inches from my face. "And you look fucking beautiful doing it."

I shook my head. "No." I knew what it felt like having that man in my arms as his life slipped away to feed my own. It was ecstasy. Bliss. Contentment. It was also death. Could I so easily kill a person?

"Yes." He lifted his face back up so that he was still sitting on me but his back was straight. "You will learn. I will teach you everything you need to know to survive." Then he added quietly and almost sadly, "I may have taken the sun from you…but I have given you the moon. I am sorry you disapprove so much."

"I…I can't be a vampire, Eric. Your world…it's too much for me."

"Do you hate what I am that much?" He asked, venomously.

"No! I just…no one is free. I'm not free anymore; not that I was completely free before. And you will always have power over me. " My shoulders slumped as much as they could in my position.

Eric's face softened. He released my hands and moved to touch my cheek. "I am your maker. It is the way it is to have power over you but trust me in that I will give you as much freedom as I can in your young days. I would not control you unnecessarily."

I felt his sincerity and I wanted to believe him. I see how he is with Pam. But they've never spoken about her days as a baby vampire, except to say they were intimate for a few years. Pam was a ruthless vampire. She was cold and brutal when she needed to be…but funny. Eric had trained her but I can only imagine all the times he's punished her and what those punishments entailed.

"Sookie." I looked back up at him. "I would not treat you as Ocella did me. If that is what you are worried about."

"No. I don't believe you would treat me like that." And I didn't. Ocella was a cruel bastard. There was no way Pam could be the result of training under Ocella's influence. "But you told me…you said to me children never stay long with their makers. The relationships don't last." Eventually, that meant I'd leave him.

Eric said, "Most do, yes." Then he shrugged. "But most vampires aren't turned for the reason I turned you." That was Eric, ever practical.

"But how can we have anything real now? Anything normal? We'll always know what the other is feeling. I don't want to know what you're feeling." Eric's jaw clenched and his eyebrows drew together. "I mean…it's too much like reading your mind. And I like not being able to read your mind."

"I like knowing what you're feeling."

"Yeah, because it's so much easier than having to guess when you're tuned to the Sookie-meter reader."

He let out a low chortle. "You'll come to like it too." He said, and placed his hands above my shoulders on the ground, taking some of his weight off my lower body. His hair fell around our faces.

"I want to believe you."

"But you don't."

He was waiting for my answer but I didn't know what to tell him.

"You can feel that what I'm saying is true."

"I can. But I can't tell you something that I don't know if I'm going to feel months or years from now or never." I doubt that was the answer he was looking for, but it was a true one.

"You don't what to feel what I feel for you?" Eric looked astonished.

"I don't like feeling your anger. You're big with anger." He was big in other things too but I wasn't going to elaborate. "Or your rage. I don't want to know when you're annoyed over a fangbanger or pissed at one of your vamps or…enjoying torturing one of them.

"It's not all moonlight and roses…what I feel from you."

"It never will be," he said quite seriously, "but you can control it more now, as my child. We can block each other from some things."

This was certainly useful knowledge now. I braced my hands on his torso and shoved, pushing him back and onto his butt as I scrambled up. "Like you've always blocked me from all your anger and rage when I was human?"

Eric let out a long sound of frustration. "That was different."

I snorted. "Really? Enlighten me. I would love to know how my inability to block you as a human made it different."

Eric raised himself off the ground and glared at me. "I could never bring myself to block you. Something could have happened to you while you were blocked. It might have been too late when I realized it."

My mind flashed back to our old bond and my time with Thing One and Two. "Are you sure it wasn't just to keep tabs on me? You weren't always in time to help even when our old bond was in place." I knew he knew what I was talking about. "I could make a list of those times, if you like."

Suddenly I found myself pushed up against a large tree with Eric pressed against me and his large hand around my neck. "You don't need to remind me." Outrage played across his handsome face. "I remember perfectly well."

"Good." My own rage was starting to boil over. I was hungry again and my chest was heaving up and down and shaking with the need for more. More blood. More anger. More…everything. And Eric was the cause of all of it. And he wasn't letting me move.

So I punched him in the side.

He wasn't expecting it and I think I actually hurt him as he reacted to the punch and let go of me. I brought my arm back to get in another but Eric caught my wrist and landed his own blow square in my jaw.

It hurt. Boy, did it hurt. Ever been punched by a thousand year old vampire? "Excruciating" comes to mind.

I fell back, my side against the tree and blood trickled out of my mouth. I stood up fully, turned, and faced him.

Eric looked wild, mad and angrier than I'd seen him in over a year. I imagined I looked much the same.

"Your mouth is bloody." He said. Then he captured my lips with his and pressed himself against me in a movement so fast I didn't know what was happening until it was done. He sucked the blood off my lip and made a deep sound of satisfaction.

I wrapped my arms around his back and brought him against the tree with me. Everything about his kiss was passionate and fiery and deep. His tongue pushed it's way inside me and wrapped itself around my new fangs.

My hands ran up and down his sides and pulled the bottom of his t-shirt up at the hem. I tore it in half and Eric made a heavy growling sound. My hands mapped the planes of his body.

His mouth trailed down to my neck where he nipped, drawing small drops of blood. "You still taste magnificent." He licked where the punctures were. "Divine." He started to suck on the lobe of my ear and if I still had breath, I'd be panting. Such as it was, I still made a gasping sound.

Eric lifted me up against the tree and my legs wrapped around his waist. I ripped his belt buckle clean off his pants and tore the button from his jeans.

The tree bark was digging into me and I was sure it was scratching up my back and that my night dress would be in tatters. But I honestly couldn't care.

My mouth and his were fighting each other for dominance and right now we were both winning. I broke the kiss to move my mouth south – as far south as I could go in this position, anyway. And he made useful work of his fingers. They were long and very…articulate.

"Eric…now."

"Oh yes." He said. Eric pushed the dress up, bunching it around my waist and entered me swiftly.

I grunted at the forcefulness. Eric was a big man. There was nothing romantic about what we were doing now. It was primal. It was purely animal. Like monkeys mating in the wild. It needed to be.

"Go harder," I told him and dug my fingers into his back. I could smell the blood I'd drawn. It was intoxicating. Eric's blood had always tasted sweet. Now it smelled even more so.

Eric increased his thrusts and made noises that would rival any wild animal. "Is this hard enough?"

"Oh!" I shrieked at the sensations he was giving me and the feelings that mixed between us were completely pure in this moment. Love and lust were both there in equal measure and feeding off each other.

I could feel his energy building as my own did. That too seemed to easily feed off our blood connection. When our moments neared I sunk my teeth into his neck and drank.

Eric screamed, "Sookie!" before biting into my shoulder. His blood was unbelievable. Like spring water in the desert. Sweet and so full of life. I kept drinking as I came and we both had our moments.

"Sookie, you must stop." Part of my brain registered him speaking but the other part was too satisfied by his blood. I kept drinking.

"Sookie, stop." I felt his command inside me. There was something…not quite right about it. There was an urge for me to pull away; I felt it strongly. My fangs released themselves from Eric's neck and retracted. But there was a dash of demon blood inside me that gave me my telepathy. Maybe that same mental block the telepathy gave me against glamouring also blocked the maker-child command? Maybe I'd be able to test this theory later.

I looked up at his face, shining in the moonlight. He ensnared my lips in another masterful kiss. His tongue moved over my lips and fangs, taking his own blood back. I bit his lip and sucked. We went on like that for a while.

When we finally looked at each other again he had a very satisfied and cocky grin on his face. I gave a light smile in return. The sex was wonderful and just what I needed.

"You see," he said, "what the bond can do for us? It is not all bad."

"No, I suppose not." It wasn't bad when it was like this between us. When it was Eric and me and he was just Eric and not The Vampire Sheriff of Area Five. It wasn't bad as long as our lives weren't being threatened and someone was trying to use me as a political pawn.

But then I thought, Eric's lived with maker-child bonds for over a thousand years. He has to rationalize it. You'd be crazy not to.

"You are not satisfied." Then there was the intrusiveness.

"See! This is what I mean. My feelings are not my own." I threw my hands up. "I am satisfied. I like when it's just you and me and nothing interferes." I laid my head against his shoulder. "But something always does."

Boy that was bleak.

Eric must have had enough of my bi-polar shenanigans because he straightened up and pulled out of me. I picked my head up and he set me down on the ground. I set about fixing what was left of my night dress. Eric's clothes weren't in much better shape.

"We're going back to the house," he informed me. Then he proceeded to grab me around my waist and pull me to him before shooting up into the air.

I barely managed a shriek as we took off. Briefly, I wonder if someday I might be able to fly too. Then I dismissed it as irrelevant for the time being.

Eric didn't say a word as we flew back. We landed in the backyard and he held the door open for me to come inside.

"I'd like to stay out here for a while…if that's alright with you?" I asked him. I sat myself down on a bench and waited.

Finally a long moment, he nodded. "Suit yourself. Do not leave the backyard. I will be in my office if you need me." Then Eric left.

The woods were quiet, as they often were when a vampire drew near and I stared into the darkness.

Eric was my husband…but he would also now be my boss…and my maker. I would have to obey him or risk real – vampire – punishments. I would have to answer to other vampires now and swear fealty to the Queen.

Would she believe my telepathy was gone?

Eric hadn't asked yet but I'm sure he will. If I lost my telepathy I wouldn't be so valuable to the state. Maybe then they'd all leave me alone. That sounded like a pretty good plan.

As long as this new shield that's developed (is that from the demon blood too? Mr. C doesn't seem to have problems blocking people) stays in place, I won't have to act.

And what about the whole killing people thing? I almost drained a man tonight and I feel all kinds of sick about it. Vampires were big on the killing. Torture was like playing football for them. I couldn't just kill a person.

Nothing about being a vampire is safe. I would have to learn how to fight too.

I doubt I'll be able to go back to Merlotte's either. Even as the co-owner, I'd only ever be able to work there at night.

And then…Jason. I'd have to watch him and Sam and Tara, JB and their kids, all grow old and die. And then there was Hunter. He would have to be kept away from vampires altogether. That included me. At least, for now.

I hadn't noticed when Eric glided out of the house and sat down next to me. "We have to go in. Dawn will be coming soon."

"Oh…is that what that is?" I didn't know how much time had passed with me out here thinking and now I was feeling just faintly sluggish.

"Yes. We can feel the dawn approach well before it's time." He took my hand. "You must come inside."

I looked from my hand in his to his sculptured pale face and back to my hand. "I don't want to."

He let out a frustrated cry. "You need your rest. You will sleep longer while you are young."

I squeezed his hand and removed my own. "I don't feel that tired. I'd like to stay a little longer." It would be better like this.

Eric's mouth moved into a tight line. "What are you planning, Sookie?"

"Nothing." Truthfully, I'm doing the very opposite of planning.

"I don't believe you." Maybe he felt my resignation.

"Well it's true. I won't kill people Eric. I've only ever killed people to defend myself…or you and Pam." Or Bill, I thought

"Do you think vampires just kill for sport?"

"Of course not. Although…I imagine some do. But I can't bring myself to imagine myself doing it."

"You have to, Sookie. Your survival and maybe mine will depend on it someday. You will not be without skill. And you will not be alone." He added in that last part almost like it was an extra bonus. Hey, you're not alone! You've got me!

That was a pretty nice thing to say to someone who spent most of their time alone.

"I don't want to be part of such a violent world. And what about the Queen? Am I going to have to see her? I was afraid of what the Queen might do to make sure I wasn't telepathic.

"You will have to see the Queen eventually."

"What will she say about you turning me?"

"I don't know. You are still alive, where you otherwise wouldn't be." Better to ask for forgiveness, was the message I got.

"I'll be different," I said to him so quietly, if he were human he wouldn't have heard it.

"What do you mean?"

"In a few years or a few decades or maybe a century from now. After learning how to kill and fight and defend myself. After meeting other vampires like Andre or Mickey. I'll be a different person." Another damn tear fell down my face. "Will you still love me then? When I'm colder?"

Eric looked at me for a long moment before wiping the tear away from my cheek with his thumb and putting it in his mouth. "I can never stop loving you, Sookie," he said, brushing the hair back from my face. I smiled. "But I won't lie to you. There will be some times that are very difficult. There will be lessons you must learn, for your own safety…and things that I will have to remind you of, should you forget." That was ominous.

"But I will protect you from other vampires. Its true, females are often subject to harsher treatments from vampires. That is why you will learn to defend yourself. If you have the skill, even a vampire centuries older than you can lose."

"Will our relationship become like yours and Pam's?"

"I didn't turn Pam because I loved her," he stated calmly.

"You turned her because she is like you."

His face drew together in a thoughtful expression. "There was something similar in her, yes. She was not made for Victorian England." He got that far way look like he was remembering something big.

He said, "Pam was my companion for a time. We shared many things. But there was never anything else between us beside the maker-child relationship. You and I have more."

But would we still have more between us in a hundred years? Or two hundred? Would Eric still be a sheriff here? I couldn't stay by his side forever…could I?

There was too much uncertainty. And an eternity where I'd have to learn not to trust anyone, where torture was foreplay and you could get your tongue cut out for talking back? The only people I'd have to trust would be Eric and Pam.

As much as I loved Eric, his world was too much for me. "Better off dead than finally dead," he said to me. Well, better off dead, it's better than this. Eric's lived for over a thousand years. He would survive without me.

Eric took my silence as acquiescence and proceeded to stand. Dawn was fast approaching. "Come," he said, holding out his hand.

When I made no indication of moving, he grabbed my arm and pulled me up. "Let go of me!" I yelled and pulled myself away from him, stumbling back.

Suddenly he appeared behind me and wrapped his arms around me pinning mine to my sides tightly. I screamed. "Let go!" I kicked and struggled as he lifted me off the ground so that we were the same height. "Eric! Stop it! Let go of me!"

His mouth whispered in my ear, "You will not meet the sun, Sookie." He put the maker whammy on me. "You are better than that."

"No." I struggled harder but it was all in vein.

"You will adapt. I know you will, in time," he said, slowly moving us into the house. "It is only the first night." I felt him tell me to stop struggling and I slumped into him.

"Things will get better."

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