linndechir | And another Godric/Eric fic!

Author:

linndechir
Fandom: True Blood
Pairing: Godric/Eric
Rating: PG
Words: 547
Author’s note: Written for the first challenge on

godriceric : “You’re slipping slowly from my reach.” The line reminded me very much of an idea I had a few days ago, when I wondered why Godric and Eric ever parted ways. I will definitely write a longer story about that, but I also wanted to use the idea for this ficlet. I hope it will make sense even without a more detailed background. This is set around the 1900s; Godric is getting depressed and doubtful, Eric doesn’t understand why.

"You’re slipping slowly from my reach.”

Eric stopped short when he entered their bedroom, confronted with a sight that had become painfully familiar. Godric was sitting cross-legged on the huge bed, looking small and lost, his shoulders slumped, his face thoughtful. The older vampire had always had occasional moments of introspection, but in the past weeks he had constantly seemed withdrawn, so lost in his thoughts that he sometimes hardly acknowledged Eric’s presence. Even now he didn’t even look up when his child came into the room.

Eric wasn’t sure what to do. For centuries he had always known how to behave around his maker, how to cheer him up when he was feeling gloomy, when to leave him alone … But in all these centuries he had never seen Godric like this. He had seen him brooding, distressed, irritable, but never listless, never apathetic. Godric had to know that Eric was in the room, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Are you sure you don’t want to feed?” Eric finally asked when he couldn‘t stand the silence anymore. “The girl has left, but I’m sure we could find somebody else …”

Usually it would have been the right thing to say. His maker had always wanted blood. But apparently nothing was the way it used to be anymore.

“I told you, I’m not hungry.” Godric sighed, and he sounded tired, almost annoyed by Eric’s persistence.

“How can you not be hungry? You haven’t fed in over a week.” Eric had kept himself from asking for months now, ever since Godric‘s strange behaviour had started. He was confused, almost scared: for the first time in centuries, he had no idea what was going on in his maker’s, his lover’s mind.

Godric simply sighed again, still not looking at Eric. He didn’t even bother to answer.

Anger surged up in Eric, outrage that anyone dared to ignore him like that. He had seen other makers treat their children either like subordinates or like ignorant infants, but Godric had never been like that. He had always shared even his darkest thoughts with Eric. Were it not for his boundless respect for his maker, Eric might have yelled at him and demanded an answer.

Instead he walked over to the bed and sank on his knees, gently taking Godric’s limp hand and kissing it.

“Why can‘t you just tell me what bothers you?” Eric whispered, and the genuine concern in his voice finally snapped Godric out of his brooding. Sad eyes met Eric’s, and the expression on Godric’s face was like a distorted echo of the radiant smile that should have been there.

The lack of blood had made him even paler than usual; and he would truly have looked like a lost little boy had it not been for the unspeakable, century-old pain and weariness in his eyes.

“My child,” he whispered. His voice was too soft, too resigned; the voice of someone who had lost faith in himself and in the world. He looked down at Eric’s hand on his own, as if he wondered how it had got there.

“Why?” Eric repeated when there was no answer, more forcefully this time. Godric looked up; their eyes met again.

“Because you wouldn’t understand.”