Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

Then he and Claude flowed out the back door and into the woods. “Walked” is simply too jerky a word to describe their progress.
    Dermot and I were left alone in my shabby living room. To my consternation, my great-uncle (who looked a tiny bit younger than me) began to weep. His knees crumpled, his whole body shook, and he pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
    I covered the few feet between us and sank to the floor beside him. I put my arm around him and said, “I sure didn’t expect any of that .” I surprised a laugh out of him. He hiccupped, raising reddened eyes to meet mine. I stretched my free arm to reach the box of tissues on the table by the recliner. I extracted one and used it to pat Dermot’s wet cheeks.
    “I can’t believe you’re being so nice to me,” he said. “It’s seemedincredible to me from the beginning, considering what Claude told you.”
    I had been a little surprised myself, to tell you the truth.
    I spoke from my heart. “I’m not convinced you were even there the night my parents died. If you were, I think you were under a compulsion. In my experience of you, you’ve been a total sweetie.”
    He leaned against me like a tired child. By now, a human guy would have made a huge effort to pull himself together. He’d be embarrassed at displaying vulnerability. Dermot seemed quite willing to let me comfort him.
    “Are you feeling better now?” I asked, after a couple of minutes.
    He inhaled deeply. I knew he was drawing in my fairy scent and that it would help him. “Yes,” he said. “Yes.”
    “You probably need to get a shower and have a good night’s sleep,” I advised him, floundering for something to say that wouldn’t sound totally lame, like I was coddling a toddler. “I bet Niall and Claude’ll be back in no time, and you’ll get to …” Then I had to trail off, since I didn’t know what it was Dermot truly wanted. Claude, who’d been desperate to find a way to enter Faery, had gotten his wish. I’d assumed that had been Dermot’s goal, too. After Claude and I had broken the spell on Dermot, I’d never asked him.
    As Dermot trudged off to the bathroom, I went around the house checking all the windows and doors, part of my nightly ritual. I washed and dried a couple of dishes while I tried to imagine what Claude and Niall might be doing at this moment. What could Faery look like? Like Oz, in the movie?
    “Sookie,” said Dermot, and I jerked myself into the here and now. He was standing in the kitchen wearing plaid sleep pants, his normal night gear. His golden hair was still damp from the shower.
    “Feeling better?” I smiled at him.
    “Yes. Could we sleep together tonight?”
    It was as though he’d asked, “Can we catch a camel and keep it as a pet?” Because of Niall’s questions about Claude and me, Dermot’s request struck me kind of weird. I just wasn’t in a fairy-loving mood, no matter how innocently he intended it. And truthfully, I wasn’t sure he hadn’t meant we should do more than sleep. “Ahhhhh … no.”
    Dermot looked so disappointed that I caught myself feeling guilty. I couldn’t stand it; I had to explain.
    “Listen, I understand that you don’t intend that we have sex together, and I know that a couple of times in the past we’ve all slept in the same bed and we all slept like rocks…. It was a good thing, a healing thing. But there are maybe ten reasons I don’t want to do that again. Number one, it’s just really peculiar, to a human. Two, I love Eric and I should only bunk down with him. Three, you’re related to me, so sleeping in the same bed should make me feel really squicky inside. Also , you look enough like my brother to pass for him, which makes any kind of vaguely sexual situation double squicky. I know that’s not ten, but I think that’s enough.”
    “You don’t find me attractive?”
    “Completely beside the point!” My voice was rising, and I paused to give myself a second. I continued in a quieter tone. “It doesn’t make any difference how attractive I find you. Of course you’re handsome. Just like my brother. But I have no sex feelings about you, and I kind of feel the sleeping-together thing is just odd. So we’re not doing the fairy sleep-athon of comfort anymore.”
    “I’m sorry I’ve upset you,” he said, even more miserably.
    I felt guilty again. But I made myself suppress the twinge. “I don’tthink anyone in the world has a great-uncle like you,” I said, but