Work Text:
“So then,” said Eric reasonably, gesturing with his hands persuasively. “I was like “well… how do expect me to kill him? ‘Cause he’s, like, three times my age’.”
“Mmm” said Iveta, disinterested as Eric wiped some of the blood from her inner thigh with his finger.
“And then …” Eric trailed off. “Iveta, are you listening?”
“Da,” she replied, not listening.
“Good,” said Eric with a kind of savage pleasure. “‘Cause you won’t believe this. She literally turns on her heel, marches towards me, calls me,”
Eric’s voice rose in indignation.
“A whiny little bitch and tells me it’s all my fault! Mine! Just because her government can’t manage to do the only thing it’s meant to do!”
“Careful Eric,” said Pam as she descended the steps into Fangtasia’s dun- er- storage area with Ginger in tow. “Wouldn’t want you insultin’ the Authority now. That’s a crime.”
Eric drew his fangs back out of Iveta’s thigh.
“Hah!” he laughed. “Well I have it from a very reliable source that the Authority isn’t quite as stable as we’ve been led to believe.”
“Really?” said Pam incredulously as she bit Ginger’s wrist, almost lazily.
“Yeah,” said Eric. “And there’s more. Okay, so Russell Edgington murders the news anchor and…”
Eric paused with his arms spread wide to display himself with pride.
“Can I just say…who’s the fucking oracle?”
Pam laughed.
“What I would have given,” she drawled but with a note of interest. “To have seen that bitch’s face when his heart hit the backdrop.”
She smirked.
“Then again,” she continued, in the silky tone she used exclusively for slagging-off other women. “At the time Flanagan was probably gums-deep in some-“
“Anyway,” interrupted Eric, seeing how desperate Iveta was to hear the story. “Soon after that, I get this call from Flanagan…”
He dropped the volume a little for the interest of his listeners.
“Now,” he said in a slightly condescending tone. “She could have apologised, said she was wrong and they needed my help. But no. It’s still aaaaaall my fault.”
Eric screwed up his face.
“‘I will have your fangs for this!’” he mimicked shrilly…and not entirely inaccurately. “As fucking if. That’s coming from a woman who needs five armed guards to hand me a piece of paper.”
“That was a really mean thing for her to say, Eric,” said Ginger kindly.
Eric held his hand out triumphantly.
“Yes!” he cried. “Thank you, Ginger. It is a mean thing to say.”
Pam rolled her eyes before returning to Ginger’s wrist.
He seemed to have lost his train of thought.
“You are saying?” asked Iveta.
At least if he was talking he wasn’t biting.
Eric looked a little distant. Then-
“Yeah!” he said. “So she’s giving me all this shit, like she’s got to go and save mainstreaming and ‘salvage equality for vampires in the US’ and I’m like…seriously.”
Eric rocked back from his knees to his heels to assess the small dinner-gathering.
“What is her fucking problem?”
“Her problem,” said Pam. “Is that she’s a mega-bitch and her brain can’t deal with it’s own bitchiness.”
“Maybe,” allowed Eric, though thoughtfully.
And now came the lull. Pam knew this from experience. In the eye of his storm, Eric seemed to droop a little. His hand dropped dejectedly on to Iveta’s leg with a slap.
“Just … sometimes…” began Eric, sadly. “It just makes you miss the old days.”
A nostalgic smile spread across his face.
“No mainstreaming…no taxes,” he said dreamily. “Travelling the world with nothing but the wind on your face and the clothes on your back…”
“Oh Eric,” said Pam without expression. “You’ll make me cry.”
Eric walked his fingers along Iveta’s milky thigh. And they were Eric, striding across the frozen lakes of his homeland. Doing whatever or whomever the fuck he wanted. With nobody telling him to fill out forms … or who to kill … or who not to kill. Fucking paradise.
“It’s sad, Pam,” Eric said in his ‘emotional’ voice. “It really is.”
Then his face clouded over. Back in the game.
“But now,” he said, voice raising in anger. “There is so much …. BULLSHIT IN THIS WORLD!”
Ginger jumped out of her skin, splashing a drop of her blood on Pam’s shirt. White shirt.
“Ginger!” shouted Pam angrily. “What the fuck! That was a new shirt!”
“Sorry!” she gushed. “Pam, ah’m so sorry.”
Pam wiped her mouth angrily.
“Sorry Eric,” she said lightly. “I believe you were just rudely interrupted.”
She glared at Ginger, who shrank back, terrified.
Now that was what being a vampire was all about, not 'mainstreaming'.
Eric was still breathing heavily, angry. Iveta started playing on her phone.
“I need my revenge,” he said suddenly. “And I will have it. But not for AVL and certainly not for Flanagan. And when Edgington is no more…”
He gave an indulgent shrug.
“Maybe I’ll find someone else to kill…”
A smile spread across his face.