justsookie | like killing cops and reading kerouac

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john mitchell

like killing cops and reading kerouac

Seventh. It was the seventh time that Sookie Stackhouse had decided to look in the folder of Bill's that the island had left for her. An exercise that would only be marginally beneficial at best, she'd thought to herself. But after the first few days, she had to admit that limiting herself to a look every other day had been helpful, giving her the time and space needed to focus on her job, her classes, and on her personal life, rather than asking after a man who wasn't even a ghost on Tabula Rasa. Halfway through the month, and she was hoping to limit herself even further, to take an active step away from everything that existed back in Bon Temps, if only because she was beginning to learn that it was hard, nearly impossible to keep a decent handle on both at once. And for all that she missed Tara, for all that she missed Sam, Lafayette, Arlene, and the rest of them, if given the choice right then of where to stay, Sookie couldn't have said for certain that she would have chosen to go back.

They were just two different places. And frankly, the island was starting to show her that a calmer way of life wasn't necessarily the inferior one, and that a job mostly involving paperwork left her in far better shape than waitressing in an establishment where vampires zoomed in and out without a care for her or passerby.

It was the seventh time that Sookie Stackhouse had decided to look in the folder of Bill's, only to find that Bon Temps wasn't the only place in the equation. That Bill's secrets weren't the only ones she had to deal with. Confusion set in her features at first, at the strange notebook stuffed away among the other papers, the folder itself struggling to hold everything inside. But from the very first article pasted within, the city of Bristol standing out to her eyes at once, she knew that the island was far from done in turning her life on its side. Half an hour, she'd allowed herself, poring through page after page of horrific details, stories about loved ones who'd died in a massacre, seemingly without rhyme or reason.

Thirty minutes after the first article, and Sookie stepped into his hut, for once glad that Annie had moved out, and that George kept such a precise schedule. The book remained held tightly in her hand, slightly obscured from view.

"Mitchell?" she called out, voice soft, but cold.

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He had been catching up on his comics, a hobby Mitchell had relegated to the privacy of his own home. A prudent measure, he thought, and thoughtful, so he mentally patted himself on the back every time he stretched out on his bed and cracked open another gripping chapter of someone else's life. At least the Fantastic Four weren't on the island or anything.

He was halfway through the issue when he heard the door open and shut and Sookie's voice rang out afterward. The tone passed his notice completely. "Yeah," Mitchell called back, sitting up even as he continued to scan the panel. "Hold on, I'm just-- Ah.." He was in the thick of it with no good place to leave off, so he just abandoned the effort and dropped the book onto his bed.

"You're timing's miserable," Mitchell joked as he left his room, walking into the main room where Sookie was. He stepped into the larger space and instantly, it was as if the temperature dropped by degrees. One glance at Sookie told him something wasn't quite right.

He stilled, the easy smile dropping away from his face. "..What's up?"

The notebook remained pinned closely to Sookie's side, and her stomach turned to think of how tightly she was tripping it, like a lifeline, the single source of truth to hold onto. Anyone could tell that the person who had pieced the scrapbook together was obsessed. Beyond reason. And for all that she tried, Sookie couldn't imagine Mitchell being the one to do it, refused to believe that she'd been a poor enough judge of character in that respect— but questioning his involvement in the massacre itself seemed like the very first thing to do. The timing was right. The reasons for anger were there, however thin they seemed when placed against the death of so many innocent people. She swallowed thickly, throat feeling dry, as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, waiting a few seconds, as though she might be able to communicate her thoughts through a look alone, as though Mitchell would figure it out, confess just in time.

(Just in time? No, it was... a bit late for that, wasn't it?)

Her heel dug into the floor as Sookie took a shaky breath, willing her suspicions to be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time she'd leapt to conclusions, it wouldn't be the first time she was quick to assume. "Does the Boxcar 20 Massacre mean anything to you?" she asked, words quavering even more than the slow exhale that followed.

The question sucked all the air out of the room, or maybe that was just Mitchell's lungs. He froze; not even the slight remnants of his fading smile moved, but clung there to his lips, forgotten. The only change, the sole change, was a hardening of something behind his eyes. Those familiar with desperation learn how to fight it, and the first step is to deny it. Deny that sinking feeling in his stomach, deny that impending sense of misery from his life shattering apart, deny what she was saying.

But it was easier as a vampire than it was a human. As a vampire, he truly stayed cool. But now Mitchell only had the outward facade. His heart shot to life, beating frantically in his chest, and it was distracting as well as terrifying.

"Where'd you hear about that?" he countered, sounding for all the world as though this were a casual conversation on his part.

It was all the confirmation she needed. Were Mitchell not involved, were the event simply some tragic event that took place in the area, he would have explained it all. He would have leapt at the first chance to, Sookie was sure. He would have reassured her, outlining every last detail, proving to her his innocence, in the way that he'd tried so many times before, whenever she pried, whenever she asked. But instead, he stood, rooted to the spot, and Sookie shook her head immediately. (What did it say that she was more bothered by this, by the deception, than even the horror of the deaths themselves?)

Slowly, she lowered her gaze, pulling the notebook up and turning it in Mitchell's direction, though she made no move to hand it over. "Found this in Bill's folder," she explained, her voice still tense, cold, contrasting with the flush she felt already rising to her cheeks. Lifting the cover, she began to flip through the pages. "It's obviously not mine. Not his. So why else would the island put it there?"

Her eyes flickered up to meet his gaze. "Just tell me what happened, Mitchell."

He couldn't answer her at first because he was too busy trying to figure out what she had gotten her hands on. "What the fuck is that?" It was honest confusion, a hint of betrayal, that sharpened his words. He had assumed she had seen a newspaper article, maybe the one George had had months ago, or some film reel maybe, but God only knew why there would have been a film reel about that. The point was that he had never seen that book before in his life, and more than Sookie finding out, he was troubled by how.

(All she had found out, he told himself, was that people had died. There had been a brutal killing in a subway car. Unsolved. Inexplicable. Horrible. But she didn't know it was him.)

Who the fuck was making scrapbooks of this shit?

"I can't tell you what happened, Sookie. I've got no clue what you've got." It was a dirty trick, but the best one, the most sure. Because there was nothing, nothing linking him to the crime. No one could have caught them. If there was one thing vampires did well, it was kill. And hide their tracks. "What, you find some... some twisted pervert's scrapbook of a murder and just assume I have something to do with it? Twenty people died in Bristol. Must be related to Mitchell?"

The sad thing was that the disgust in his voice wasn't entirely feigned. It wasn't all show. Maybe he had done those things, but maybe he hadn't. Maybe it had just been island trickery and she had marched right up to his door, expecting to hear one thing. "It's a big city, Sookie. Bad things happen all the time. And I don't always have explanations for them."

For a few seconds, she could only stare, stunned by his reaction. By the guilt which, in spite of her best efforts, washed right over her at his words. Yes, she told herself, she assumed that it'd been related to Mitchell. Because it was the right city. Because she knew, first-hand, she knew from the very sight of his Bristol when she'd been there in her dreams, how bloodthirsty vampires could get, what they looked like when they'd lost all sense of reason. And perhaps the most damning detail of all was the fact that Mitchell hadn't shied from it. Not in the beginning. Weighed by a guilt she couldn't understand, couldn't fathom, and that she'd tossed aside as well as she could from the start. Why couldn't he have simply told her, she wondered. Why couldn't she have asked, back then?

"Mitchell, I asked you if you'd heard about the Boxcar 20, Box Tunnel 20— god, how many names do they need— and your first response was 'where did you hear about that?'" she reminded him, trying her best not to buckle, feeling anger spark inside herself, denial, denial of the fact that she could be so misguided, denial of the fact that he was capable of all of this. Denial that everything was coming together right then, their worlds crumbling apart. "And you're seriously going to blame me for asking you about it, now?" Carefully, she measured her breathing, flipping through the pages, cringing at the sight of each victim, as many details as could be unearthed listed below each image.

"Besides, unless this is one huge hoax, vampires were at least involved. You told me about what happened to the vampires in Bristol." Her skin grew white, where she pressed her thumb to the page, feeling more and more of the details fall into place. Cautiously, she angled the book so that Mitchell could see, lips pressed tightly shut, eyes searching his expression. "You've at least heard of it."

Edited 2011-10-14 23:23 (UTC)

God, how many names did they need? Mitchell knew reporters had a tendency to milk a good story to its last drop and show off their supposed cleverness, but one article had made him hope this would have been a smaller reporting affair. Clearly not. What had he been thinking?

"I said that 'cause I hadn't even heard of it," Mitchell shot back. Flimsy, but true. He had never heard it called anything back home. Only because no one had had a chance to report on it before Mitchell left for the island. The blood had still been on his hands. And his clothes. "Not until a couple months ago. There was an article in that paper. You know, the one with the notice of George's dad's death? I read about it there."

Was his voice tight? Was that tell-tale panic of weaseling out of a lie or could it be annoyance, confusion, the panic of an innocent who was running out of ways to prove his innocence? Didn't matter. His voice changed as he continued, darkening to a low rumble, his gaze fixing on Sookie, the hurt of a sore subject kicked at making him defensive and angry, a simmering, quiet thing. "And yeah, you know what happened to all the vampires in Bristol," he said. "Every single one of them innocently killed, and you're still gonna try and pin this on them?"

Shaking her head, Sookie made her way over to the couch, sitting herself down, the scrapbook placed on her lap as she pressed her palms to her temples, refusing to look at him, weeding through as many details as she could and weaving them together as best as she knew how. "Jesus," she breathed, voice struck with realization. "That was when you started acting weird, Mitchell. When you started gettin' all jumpy, and—" A sigh passed through her lips, sharp and decisive. Maybe she was being unfair, maybe Bill's folder just had her suspicions leaping through the roof. Yet it didn't seem to matter which direction her thoughts headed in; everything was set, aligned, hinted at the likelihood of Mitchell's involvement.

You weren't killed, she wanted to say. Vampires in neighboring cities weren't all killed.

"If it wasn't a vampire, why are you actin' so nervous right now?" she asked, glancing up at him again, before she thumbed through the scrapbook again, feeling nauseated at the descriptions written within, defensive, worried. "The blast didn't kill all vampires. You really tellin' me that no one would've wanted to avenge them? Back in Bon Temps, they made a vampire out of an innocent seventeen-year-old, made Bill sire her or whatever, because he'd staked a vampire that was about to kill me. Doesn't seem like all vampires would let a whole city of them die without fighting back."

Edited 2011-10-15 20:38 (UTC)

"I'm not acting nervous!" He tried to get the words out with a laugh, a show of disbelief, but the thin laugh he did force out did little to disguise the anxious tremble in his voice.

Wheeling around the sofa, not about to let her hide through this, Mitchell pointed a finger at her as he continued. "You're trying to accuse me of something here, Sookie. Me or a bunch of vampires back home. I'm allowed to be nervous. I have a right to feel--"

No, wait, that wasn't coming out right. He'd just admitted to being nervous after saying that he wasn't. What was he trying to do now? She wasn't backing down, only rearranging the possible story. Mitchell wasn't sure it worked in his favor. He wasn't sure he could let it work in his favor. Might some other cover have risen up and done this? Truthfully, no. Herrick had burned a good number of bridges even as he tried to unite the vampires. The leader of London still hated him. But Sookie might believe it. And she might believe Mitchell had nothing to do with it, if that were the case. He had been distraught after losing them all, sickened by Lucy's betrayal, desperate to get George and Annie back. She'd believe it, wouldn't she? Prefer to believe the best of him, the most human part of him, now.

"We don't usually work like that, but maybe-- If they'd heard about Bristol, it could have been read as a threat." He said the words quietly, resting both hands on his hips, unconvinced by his own words. "Maybe. Or maybe it's just your run of the mill human serial killer. Vampires usually have the wisdom to clean up after themselves."

Why was he so nervous? Why was he so scared to admit to what he was, when humans were little better?

"Mitchell, you are makin' my head spin in circles right now," Sookie breathed, watching as he circled around her, keeping her gaze on him, even as he pointed in her direction, hurling accusations right back at her, with twice the vitriol. "If you could stand in my shoes, take a look at the way you're acting, it is not normal, it hasn't been normal in a long time. You go drinking more often, which, y'know, I don't take huge issue with, but I know that it's one of the ways that you use to avoid stress and... and talking about things. And now that you're telling me that you're not nervous, but you've got a right to act nervous, and maybe vampires would rise up if they sensed a threat from humans, but no, they'd usually clean up better? Which is it?"

Pressing her lips together, Sookie exhaled again, eyes falling shut. If vampires really did see the human attack as a threat, why didn't they just target the religious factions? Or, if they thought killing innocents would make a greater impact (but even then, Sookie thought that it was surely a dangerous move; humans always outnumbered vampires, and humans were capable of moving in droves, and nothing got them up in arms than getting to point a finger and villainize someone), then wouldn't it make sense for the display of violence to be left public, as a warning sign, to strike fear in the hearts of the populace?

"It still feels like you're covering something up."

"I'm covering something up?"

He was getting really, truly sick of this and in short order. For weeks, months he had been trying to keep himself in check, to make sure that his dark little secret didn't leak out and destroy the happy little lives they had all built for themselves here. For himself as much as anyone, but now that he stood here, feeling the weight of Sookie's look, the changes in his behavior listed out like guilty burdens he was supposed to carry, Mitchell had to wonder if this really was doing him any favors. He had enough guilt to contend with, to make amends for, to wrestle with without Sookie adding more to it.

He knew full well what he was and what that meant. He knew the life he had to lead, the constant atoning that would do no good, the constant fuck ups that only set him back further. He knew that this was terrible, yes, but just another drop in the bucket compared to all his other sins. Mitchell got it. It looked more and more like Sookie didn't.

Now he seemed calm, on the surface, a thin layer of coolness spread over not nervousness, but that low-bubbling anger hinted at before. Why did he have to justify himself? Why did he have to explain? Because Sookie couldn't do it her own self. "You came here for a reason, Sookie. You got a bunch of clippings that paint the picture of a murderer and you came here. So why can't you just say it?" The smile that spread over his face was far from warm and in no way meant to reassure her. "You want some straight talk? Why don't you start."

"Because I don't want it to be a lie," Sookie replied immediately, feeling the whole world spin around her, feeling nausea rising up to her chest, where it pressed against her heart, hammering soundly enough that it seemed to want to jump out of her very chest. No, she didn't always do the right thing. There wasn't a right way about this, there wasn't anything better about telling him straight that she suspected him, not with the way that the very words seemed to knot her stomach, not with the way she was still so desperately clinging to a thread of hope, or need. Everything that he pointed fingers at her for, Sookie could see the rationale behind, and that swept her under a shadow of guilt as well. All the promises she'd made him, that she could accept him for whatever harm he'd done, so long as he moved forward, so long as he'd changed.

She would never know what it was like to be a vampire, and so Sookie tried to understand that as well as she could. But this wasn't about that. It wasn't about the fact that he'd killed, so much as it was about trust, and the fact that there was less of it between them than she'd hoped. Than she'd imagined. And if he lied about this, if he was able to pull that over everyone, including a best friend that had known him for far longer, what else?

Did she need to know? (But she did, a voice protested in the back of her mind. She clearly did.)

Her expression began to falter, and her throat grew tight, constricted. "I want to be wrong. I want to believe that my boyfriend really means it when he says that he doesn't know what's going on, or I want him to just tell me if he does, not buckle down because I found a fucking scrapbook in my hut," she breathed, words shaking.

"Fine." The word came out sharp and clipped, like a gunshot. Fine. No lies. That what she wanted? That's what Mitchell would do. And then see if she could handle it.

"You don't get what you want," he said darkly. Folding his arms over his chest, he took a deep breath, never breaking his gaze away from Sookie, and answered her straight out. "I killed those people. My coven went off blood, stopped killing people full stop, and they bombed us. They killed every last one of us but me and Daisy. And when I tried to prove to Daisy that it was the police, trying to get back at me for refusing to do their dirty work, for refusing to feed criminals they couldn't keep behind bars to my people... I got spit in my face. I got told we deserved it. I got told it was Lucy. So I got angry. And I couldn't fathom why the fuck I was doing so much for people who couldn't give a damn. For people who would as soon murder their own for stupid pointless reasons before they'd look me in the eye. So I took some revenge. Twenty people. Well, technically, Daisy took ten and I took ten. But that's not the point, is it?"

"Jesus," she breathed again, expression immediately falling. Sookie dropped her forehead until it pressed against the heel of her palm, feeling all resistance snap inside her, feeling herself curl inward as jagged sobs threatened to punctuate her breathing. There was a warmth that slid down one cheek, then the other, and Sookie took another deep breath and held it there, willing herself to be calm, rational, willing herself to find some kind of way to feel anything other than the sudden snap of betrayal.

She tried to understand. She did. She tried to understand how it would feel to have all of one's family suddenly torn away, tried to justify everything that Mitchell had done with that, but even then, it seemed too thin. "Not even Eric," she breathed to herself, hardly even realizing that she'd said anything aloud, thinking of Dallas and the bombings there, thinking of how the Fellowship had taken so many innocents out with a single bomb. But the vampires had held their calm.

Even Eric, who Sookie had never gotten the impression from as caring about the lives of people, even he wouldn't turn around and do this.

"It was one fucking person, Mitchell. One fucking religious fanatic, that's not— that's not everyone. That's not enough to throw away your humanity for, killing innocent people, I— that's not you." She squeezed her eyes shut again, breaking eye contact, tears freshly trailing down her cheeks, and when she spoke again, it was soft, pleading, no longer a yell or a cry, but instead almost pleading. "You wouldn't have hidden it if you were proud, if you thought it was right."

"It was not one fucking person. It was more. It was a whole organization and the coroner and the police and the fucking people on our street and everyone, everyone, Sookie, everyone if they had known what I was would have taken the first fucking opportunity to kill me where I stood!"

All that vitriol, that hate that he kept locked inside, that was usually focused squarely on himself came spewing out now. In a better world, Sookie's tears would have stopped him. He would have answered with his own and agreed. He hadn't been proud, not even then. It had felt like justice, it had felt like the start of something. But pride didn't fit in with all the other emotions. But he saw Sookie crying and believed, genuinely believed, that she was crying for the loss of the lie that she had told herself.

Had she ever really loved him? How could she? He looked at himself and felt sick every single day. He swallowed it down and carried on, but the truth of it was that he was a monster. Who could love a monster? Not even someone like Sookie.

"I didn't have any humanity to throw away. I was a vampire," he growled. "It was me. Me, Sookie. I killed them and I've killed hundreds of others. You want to try and pin it on someone else? Say I was a different person?" Mitchell shook his head slowly. "It's who I am. It's more who I am than who I used to be."

Decades of killing. Blood-soaked nightmares. The face of every victim, crying for mercy. Even if he wanted to, Mitchell couldn't go back to the man he was, not ever.

"No," Sookie shook her head, her voice cracking with the very effort that it took to stand, the scrapbook slipping from her lap and falling to the floor, where it fell open to reveal a couple of victims, photos haphazardly pasted to the pages. She paid it no notice, instead keeping her gaze fixed on Mitchell, no matter how painful it was. "No, Mitchell, this isn't you, this isn't— you made a mistake. You were hurt, and you'd just lost so many people you cared about, it's not somethin' you would have done if she hadn't, if Lucy hadn't—"

Taking a step forward, Sookie held out a hand, as though to reach for Mitchell, as though a kiss could fix it, as though a simple touch to the back of his neck could bring him down from all that anger, all that bottled energy, help him to take a step back. But he only shook his head, stepping further away, and Sookie came to a sudden halt in the middle of the room, nothing to hold onto, only a chill which remained on her skin.

"You tried to save them. People, vampires, everyone. You tried to do a good thing, and— that's the kind of person you are, Mitchell, the person that I love, and I'm— I'm sorry, okay? Can't we just calm down? Let's not fight, let's just... figure out what to do."

It was what he wanted to hear. Sookie arguing for him, choosing to believe the best. His heartbeat felt painful in his own chest. Yes, that was it. Yes, he was hurt. Yes, he was lost. If things hadn't fallen out the way they had. If one thing had been different. Yes, he wanted to say. And I hid it from you because I love you, because I didn't want you to cry, because it was a mistake that I regret, every day, that I never want to think of again. Because I was ashamed.

But Lucy's voice cut through it all. How could he justify this? How could he let Sookie justify it? How could he let her twist her own definition of wrong and right to fit his needs? How could he take her forgiveness for this like it meant something, meant anything to those twenty people who had died, the hundreds before them, their families?

Had he really changed at all? Had he become human again? Or had he just traded in blood for love and forgiveness at any cost?

He shook his head and pulled away from her, feeling sick, pressing his lips together tightly to stop himself from crying. He wouldn't let her see him cry. She might think there was hope yet. Monsters didn't cry.

He kept shaking his head, looking at the floor, until he felt he could manage. Could get the words out that he needed to say. "No." Mitchell raised his head, every muscle tensed against something dying to be let out inside of him. "There's nothing to do. I can't take it back and I won't." He felt ready to fall apart inside, like he should be shaking like a leaf, and yet... The words took their sweet time to come out, but they did not falter. "I am a bad, bad man, Sookie. It's time we both faced up to that."

Her lips parted, but save for the sound of a gasp here and there for breath, no noise escaped. Blinking rapidly, Sookie's gaze travelled to the ceiling, lingering there as blood pounded through her ears, as her cheeks seemed to tingle for lack of air, lack of feeling, the whole world numbing to the touch. Or maybe it wasn't a lack, but instead an overload. Guilt at having dug too deep, as it seemed that Sookie was wont to do on a regular basis, and had she the distance, she would've realized that it was all part and parcel of protecting herself, after all that she'd seen. But right then, she had to wonder if there was something wrong with her, why she couldn't learn to content herself with what she had, rather than always trying to reach for more.

Destroying everything along the way. A year, just like that.

A voice sounded in the back of her mind, reminding her of what Mitchell had done, reminding her that she wouldn't be able to remain in a relationship without trust, that the lack thereof had always been the greatest burden between Bill and herself. That he'd gotten angry at her countless times before, for keeping secrets from him, that everything she'd held to herself paled in comparison to this. A lack of balance would never work.

But all reason fell apart at his words, Sookie shaking her head, stepping forward again, as quickly as she could manage with her heart pounding in her throat, with the world spinning. "You're just sayin' this now, you're just sayin' this because you think it's the better way out. It's not. Mitchell, I love you, we can work this out. Please, just don't tell me—"

Her lips pressed shut.

It didn't help that she was right. It made things worse. It made things harder. God, could he really let her drag herself down to his level? Let her tie herself to him and all his evil? There was so much sweetness in Sookie that he wanted to cling to, to cleanse himself in, but was that fair to her? Could it make any difference anyway?

And how much of it was for him? How much was she trying to save herself now, as much as Mitchell? She had chosen to turn a blind eye to it, forgive where she had no fucking right. She had chosen to demand honesty, but how much of a virtue was that, when she knew it would only hurt him? When she had no right to hurt him. She wasn't anywhere near as bad as Mitchell, no, but she'd committed her own crimes here as well.

"Look at what you're fighting for, Sookie," he said, voice cold, a bare hint of hysterical humor to it. It was all but done, in his mind. Just words to be said, final notes of a soundtrack played during the credits. "Do you even know? Me, Bill. Do you really want me to feel better, or do you just want to feel better about yourself? Do you really think you can make that much difference?"

There was a laugh which escaped from her lips, though it was drawn tight, thin, borne not of humor, but of sheer disbelief. That hit before the pain ever did, leaving her stunned in the wake of his words. It seemed like a remarkably human thing to say, something to say in a wash of hurt, a lack of faith in Sookie herself, in her motives. Casting doubt on the way that she felt, on her reasons for fighting, as though any of it was for her own selfish purposes, as though any of it was for the sake of validating herself.

She was fighting for the one she loved, Sookie wanted to say. The man that she'd come to know over the past year, the man who she couldn't honestly remember living without on the island, the man who had become her family in every way, her best friend, closest confidante. Was that selfish? Was it affected by a need to prove her point? A need to show the world that vampires weren't all that they seemed. It was easy, in the wash of guilt, to add other criticisms on, but the driving edge was none of that.

The last grain that tipped the scale was a lack of confidence that Mitchell had in her.

"Is that what you think?" she managed to ask, sounding defeated, rubbing the heel of her palm against her cheek, brushing trails of tears dry. "You think I'm doing this for myself."

Spoken as a statement, and not an accusation.

Mitchell took her statement as truth, because he really didn't know anymore. Things were happening so far. He didn't feel panicked. He didn't feel like he needed to slow down, stop, take a moment, reconsider. But he could feel his leaps in logic stretching out vast and supported behind him. They felt right; he'd felt some kind of thrill out of making them, finding a place to land at the end. But looking back, you had to wonder. Sookie supplied the words for him and he took it, took a foot down that path and didn't look back.

A year was shattering before his eyes. No, had shattered. His life was as good as in shambles, propped up for the moment only by Sookie's presence. Someone to take care of him. Someone to change for. He hadn't been wrong this time. Sookie was that. Mitchell was the one who didn't fit. He didn't deserve to change.

"Get out," he said. "Before you embarrass yourself." He needed to lick his wounds, crawl into bed, into a bottle and never come out. He couldn't do that with Sookie standing there, trying not to try.

For all the protest that suddenly rose in her brain, refusing to be embarrassed, and refusing to be shamed, a deep flush rose to her cheeks, and Sookie shook her head vigorously, feeling herself dig her heels as far into the ground as she could. Everything about Mitchell that she'd seen in the past few minutes jarred with the impression that she'd had of him over the past year. The worry in his eyes, when she'd returned from dinosaur territory. The way he'd tried to intervene when Caliban had draped himself over her at a party, before she and Mitchell had started dating in the first place. Lazy Sunday mornings spent rolling in bed, when even kisses pressed to his jaw couldn't wake him before his time. She knew that people could act, deceive, but the sudden slash of cruel words was still surreal to her, and seemed more the act than the other side she'd seen.

"No." Ultimately, her choice was only one half of it, but whether or not it was the selfish thing to do, she couldn't be the one to let go. Not then, not so soon. "No, Mitchell, I'm not goin' anywhere."

"Oh, just get the fuck out!" he snapped, voice rising to a full, booming shout. Why couldn't she just let him be? Leave him in peace. She had to make this harder, had to act like there was a way around this.

"What do you want to do with this, Sookie, huh?" he asked, rounding on her, stepping in now to fill that gap that he had created. "You want the truth? You want to forgive me my wrongs? You want to believe that as long as I felt bad after every kill, it's okay? Well I didn't. I enjoyed it. Not just back then, with Herrick. And oh, oh, I had fun with Herrick. I built a name for myself, and it felt fucking good. Even years after I'd left his side, tried to scramble onto the wagon, they still talked about me. And you know what else? The looks, the looks on their fucking faces when they saw us, when they really saw..."

It came rushing back to him then, like the memory of a hit after so long without, tingling along his skin, yearning for it burning low in his belly. "That's the best part. It's like a rush, better than anything else in the world. The screams, the tears, the way they fight." He flashed a cold smile, suddenly. "It's not use at all, but it's fun to watch them. And the blood. It tasted so sweet. We bathed in it, Daisy and I. We fucked after, our bodies slick with it, and licked it off each other's skin. And I didn't .. feel .. sorry .. at all."

Edited 2011-10-16 06:56 (UTC)

The thing was, it didn't sound like a lie. None of it sounded like a lie. No doubt that Eric Northman had also killed countless people in his time, that he'd made a name for himself, a sheriff among a group of creatures already so strong and terrifying in their own right. But there wasn't that edge to his voice, a sickening warmth that remained against her skin. There wasn't any of that to his words. And Bill had only ever expressed regret, even upon mentioning the way that he yearned for blood itself, the poor substitute that Tru Blood had been. Neither of them had ever summoned up such detail, and Sookie found herself unable to tear away for a single word, just watching the color change in Mitchell's eyes, the curve of his lips, with a disbelief that spread through her like ice.

But she had a line. And he'd crossed it. And it didn't take a moment's hesitation after his last admission before Sookie slapped him across the face, without a word, without warning, though she felt her breath immediately break after. Gaze falling, she turned around, her steps measured, regular in pace, before bending down to pick up the fallen scrapbook, letting it hang from her hand.

Casting a look over her shoulder, her lips pressed in a thin before she tossed it lightly on the couch. "That's yours," she said. "You decide how you want to tell the others. But don't take too long."

Because, she thought to herself as she stepped out the door, if he decided to keep silent about this with George, with Nina, with Annie even now, well. Sookie wasn't sure that she could do the same.

Edited 2011-10-16 07:09 (UTC)

The slap felt good, because it put an end to all this. Not just the argument but oh, he wanted that over. But the whole relationship, this whole apparent facade of acceptance and love and change, this lie they had told themselves, she had told him-- that was done too. She wanted to love the man he was becoming here, was trying to become, but he was only a pale projection compared to what Mitchell really was. He was an attempt to mask all the terrible things he had done. The terrible things were still there, though. That other man was still there, underneath his skin. And Sookie wanted nothing to do with him.

She shouldn't. It was only right. Who wanted to love a killer? Who in their right mind would want to be with a man like Mitchell?

Her words were what stung the most and for one fleeting second he really did want to hurt her. Destroy their relationship, fine. That was her choice. But the threat -- and he read it as a threat -- to his friends, to the family he had built, that he couldn't stand. (Even if, and this made it worse, a voice in his head said she was right.)

The door shut behind her and he let out a howl of rage, a half-formed curse spilling out of his lips as he took up the damn notebook and hurled it at the door. It fell with a dull sound to the ground and Mitchell retreated to his room, slamming the door behind him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

like killing cops and reading kerouac

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