like killing cops and reading kerouac

[justsookie]

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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[justsookie]

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.

[chasinghumanity]

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?"

[justsookie]

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.

[chasinghumanity]

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.

[justsookie]

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."

[chasinghumanity]

"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."

[justsookie]

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.

[chasinghumanity]

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.