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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[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.