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

[justsookie]

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."

Comments

[justsookie]

"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."

[inch-high-pi.livejournal.com]

"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?"

[justsookie]

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."