justsookie | heard it on the wire, you've been telling me lies

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nina pickering

heard it on the wire, you've been telling me lies

Somewhere between Mitchell's hut and Nina's, Sookie had dropped her heart.

The pounding in her ears was gone. The rush of blood to her head, halted. In some ways, she experienced greater clarity in those few minutes than she had in weeks, able to step forward, one foot in front of the other, her arms resting gently at her sides, although the occasional ball of one into a fist gave away the tension which still existed underneath, and had not yet had the opportunity to work itself out fully. Somewhere along the way, Sookie had lost the entire foundation she'd built herself on while living on Tabula Rasa, and she felt herself as though in a freefall, frantically grabbing for whatever she could hold onto, even as betrayal bled into confusion. She knew now, that Mitchell had played a direct hand in the massacre of humans. Knew that he'd been hiding it from her, from everyone, but instead of rushing around and spreading the news, she could only remember one thing then: the way Nina had looked upon discovering that Sookie was dating John Mitchell.

Had she known? Was there more that Sookie hadn't heard of, more that Mitchell had somehow managed to keep from her?

Before Sookie realized it, she was standing in front of Nina and Annie's hut, shifting her weight from one foot to the other before she raised her hand to knock. "Nina?" she called out, pausing. "Nina, it's Sookie. You home right now? I know this door's unlocked much of the time, so if it's too much trouble, I can let myself in, I just... I really need to talk to you."

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Whenever she sat, whenever she lay down, Nina felt increasingly like a turtle turned over onto its shell. Getting up took longer and longer, more energy, brought about more frequent bouts of vertigo, but she was pregnant, not a bloody invalid.

However, even through the door, Nina could hear the stress in Sookie's voice.

"I'm here," she called, levering herself up with a grunt of effort. She still had nearly two months to go. With the way things were going, she'd be bed ridden in no time. "Come in, Sookie, it's all right."

Any semblance of calm that Sookie had felt immediately vanished the moment that she walked through the door. The moment she closed it behind. And, most of all, in the moment she looked over her shoulder, as though expecting Mitchell to find her right then, to think of this as every bit of a betrayal as Lucy's had been. Leaning her weight back against the door, she took a shuddering breath, and descended quickly into sobs, the heel of a palm pressed stubbornly against her eye, as though that might help to stop any of it, the emotion which so strongly washed over her.

"Sorry," she managed in between gulps of air, still leaning against the door, unable to pick herself up and head to Nina just yet. "Sorry, I don't mean to drop all of this on you, but someone has to know, and I couldn't— I couldn't head to George and Annie, not now, not until I know... if he's been hiding more than what he told me, I—"

She paused then, stilling, mentally running back over her words, and upon realizing just how incoherent she'd sounded, reverted right back to a fresh wave of tears.

Nina was halfway to her before her words started filtering in, and in all their stuttering, stopping, jumbled nonsense, they made a horrible kind of sense. A kind of sense Nina had been hoping, despite her better judgement, to avoid.

Shutting her eyes, one hand against her belly, the other lifting to cover her mouth, giving herself a bit of time to get her thoughts in order before she spoke.

"All right," she said, taking another breath and closing the distance between them, her hand falling gently onto Sookie's arm. "Let's sit down, shall we?"

When she couldn't bring herself to say a word, Sookie nodded, vigorously, feeling her curls fall out of place and framing her face, though she quickly pushed them away, searching for any amount of control she could find. Short, shallow breaths passed between her teeth, in and out, in and out, but she managed just enough calm to blink away her tears and help Nina settle first, hands offered to lend her support. While Nina was certainly mobile enough, even in her third trimester, Sookie couldn't help offering anyway, already feeling the twinge of guilt for having interrupted what was probably otherwise a calm afternoon.

"I, um..." Sookie paused, brushing the back of her hand vigorously over her eyes, and trying to evening out her breathing, the sniffling that almost seemed like a jarring reflex. "I need to— to ask you about Mitchell. About what you know. 'Cause I just, just had a talk with him, and there's so much that I just found out, yet I'm still afraid that I don't know everything. I don't even know what to do with what I've learned today. I know that you and him don't get along all that well, but there's obviously a reason for that. So, I thought." She swallowed thickly, voice lost again as she shook her head.

Nina had known it come to this, eventually. Sookie wasn't, by any means, foolish, but women can do foolish things, when it comes to the men they love. Forgiving things they normally wouldn't, overlooking signs glaring them in the face, insisting that he's changed. That he's different. And while Nina had no doubt that John Mitchell had done everything in his power to appear as human as possible, that he was unusually loyal to his friends and had done a great deal for them, she was still very solid in her belief that there was a darkness in him that he could not entirely control.

A darkness which he would stop at nothing to keep hidden. And he could be oh, so charming.

Letting out a sigh, Nina was quiet for a long moment, her lips pressed together in an unhappy line. Finally, she said, "What would you like to know?"

A helpless exhale passed through Sookie's lips as soon as Nina asked a question she wasn't sure she knew how to answer. Were she to try and do so in the most honest of ways, she would have asked for redemption. For any excuse to forgive Mitchell his sins, for the shred of belief that burned stubborn in her chest, the one that wanted to believe that he'd only lashed out to get away from her. That all of the things that he'd hissed in her ear were lies, that the smile was only sculpted out of a need to build a wall, one which would keep all others out. Her eyes closed, hopeless, as a few more tears squeezed out and slid down her cheeks, a tiny gasp on the end to catch air, stop the burning of her lungs. She wanted to know that Mitchell was worth fighting for.

But she was twice as afraid to learn that he wasn't.

Although just the once already left her feeling raw, Sookie spoke up regardless, taking a soft breath. "Have you heard of the Box Tunnel 20? What do you know about it?"

"It was in all the papers. The news. It happened just before we fled Bristol, and I'd thought, at the time, that was only a coincidence, but..." she swallowed, thinking upon those weeks, the growing tension, the fear of the man living under their roof. However he might have cared for them, cared for George, in those days Nina had become increasingly convinced they were living with a monster.

Funny, though, considering they were monsters themselves.

"I became... suspicious of him. Of Mitchell. And in a moment of... fucking desperation, I called in to a tip line and gave them his name. I was never sure, and George was... He was so angry with me, for putting us all in danger that way. Exposing ourselves to the police, when as far as they knew, werewolves and vampires were still just stories."

Having Nina all but confirm Mitchell's involvement was the last straw. The one so desperately needed, the one that kept her from turning right around on her heel and walking back up to Mitchell's hut again, to check on him, to see how he was doing, to see if all of this was just a fight that could be smoothed over with a bit of distance and time. But in the time that she'd grown to know Nina, Sookie couldn't see her as anything but sensible, more so than the rest of the group even, and if she'd had reason to doubt Mitchell, then maybe his words rang truer than he wanted to admit.

"It was him," she said, her voice quiet, practically on an exhale. "He told me, after I... I found this scrapbook, with articles cut out and all this information about the victims, I just had to ask. He and this vampire named Daisy, ten victims each." She found herself struggling for breath by the time she finished, resting her forehead against the back of her hand.

"Christ, that bloody scrapbook," Nina said with a shaky sigh, her head dropping briefly into her hands.

"Well, at least he was honest with you. That's more than I got out of him." But she'd only been his best friend's girlfriend. He didn't owe her a thing. But George... George deserved more.

"Daisy. He threw that name around with the police. Tried to pin it all on her. I just... I started to believe him. And George had been so sure... My God, Sookie, I'm sorry."

Pressing her fingers against the corners of her eyes, Sookie quickly shook her head. "No, no," she corrected Nina quietly, her voice strained. "He only told me the truth because I had that fucking scrapbook in my hands, and I wouldn't— wouldn't let it go. He didn't want to tell me at all. Maybe it'd be better if he felt sorry about it, but it's like he still thinks that he was justified in killing all those people."

Burying her face in her hands again, Sookie shook her head vigorously from side to side. "That's just not the man I knew, Nina. God, I can't even imagine what George and Annie will think, and I— I told him that if he didn't tell them, I would. I don't know what to think. For a moment, before I left, I almost thought that he was gonna hurt someone." Taking a deep breath, Sookie waited until her breathing evened out to speak again. "But I'm hoping that I haven't been that blind. I don't know what I'd do."

"Let me tell George," Nina asked, her mouth set in a hard line, "If Mitchell doesn't. I'm not sure how he's going to take it, that I've... had these suspicions. I think he should hear it from me."

Tucking a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, she added, "I know he cares for George, and I have every reason to believe that he's always cared for you, as well. But... I've never been able to understand him. I don't know what he's capable of. I wish I did, but I don't."

A derisive laugh fell from Sookie's lips before she could stop it. As soon as it passed, she peered over at Nina with an apologetic look. Nina wasn't responsible for any of it, after all, and even just the slight burden raised from her shoulders, knowing that she wouldn't have to be the one to tell George, was more comforting than Sookie could express. But there was no comfort to be found in the fact that Mitchell cared, not falling from the lips of another person, not when she still couldn't decide whether or not she wanted him on her side at all, anymore.

Which of the two was more ideal?

"I thought I knew, until just now. But I guess... with someone who's lived that long, there's always gonna be another side that you don't see," she decided, between breaths. "I'm just so sorry I had to break the news. Sorry that I'm not really together enough to hold it on my own. But if it means anythin', I don't think he'll actually hurt anyone here. Not like that."

"No," Nina agreed, though she couldn't be sure. None of them could, but they'd all been given back a bit of their humanity, by the island. It was one gift they'd been given, after having so much taken away.

"I suppose it makes me sound like a bloody hypocrite," Nina admitted with a soft breath of laughter, "He was infected as much as George and I were. And I think he wants very much to... hold on to whatever scraps of goodness he can-- George. Annie. You. But I'm not sure he's prepared to give up the rest. He either doesn't know how, or he doesn't want to, but Sookie, it has nothing to do with you. You've done nothing wrong in wanting to see the good in him. Because it is there." But that made him no less dangerous. In fact, it did the very opposite.

"Let's not talk about that right now," Sookie murmured, shaking her head vigorously as soon as Nina went in precisely the opposite direction that she was expecting. Maybe it was true, and maybe Mitchell's good side was there, just as it'd been for every single day of their relationship, but Sookie didn't know how to access it anymore. Didn't know how sincere it was, or if it was just a desperate man's attempt at hiding a life that had no place on the island. Hiding desires that would only have him jailed. It would've been so much easier, she thought to herself, if all of it had been a lie, or all of it a truth too hastily buried. But the fact that everything was drawn in shades of gray just made it that much harder.

"I don't want to think about how much good there is in him, or bad, I just... I don't even know what I was lookin' for. Making sure that you knew, maybe, or hoping that he was just being an ass and lying to me because of how much I pushed," she sighed. "I'm sorry for dragging everyone in the mud. You had to know though, right? I couldn't have kept something like this all to myself."

"Don't apologize. You're not dragging anyone in the mud. Mitchell's done a right good job of it, all on his own. In no way are you to blame for that," Nina said, reaching out to splay a hand between Sookie's shoulder blades, her palm rubbing in slow, soothing circles.

Breathing out a weary laugh, Nina said, "Things are bloody complicated, aren't they?"

There was something familiar about the movement, the sort of action that gran would have taken, back in the day. Sookie allowed herself some amount of comfort over that, though it was difficult not to lose herself in it, to allow those tears to spiill over again and to remain the clueless little girl who needed to be protected by others. The want to simply buckle under the pressure was enormous.

"They always are," she answered instead, a touch of a wry smile upon her lips. "You think you've seen all there is, you think that you've been adequately warned of a person's past and know what to expect, and then something like this happens, and then you realize that you've underestimated life's ability to completely screw people over."

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heard it on the wire, you've been telling me lies

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