thinking about how... eric cornered bill into telling sookie about his orders. he could have just spilled the beans himself. he could have decided it was none of his business. but he. he made her tell him
and his entire affect and all his actions during the scene being pretty much completely faultless from sookie's pov, signaling how much he cares to visibly adapt his behavior to her needs (as in, in a way that isn't underhanded. sookie can clearly follow and recognize the changes bc he wants her to be in on the way he values her comfort) and though he respects his own nature and will always be true to it, he isn't wrapped up in the pomp and costume of being a vampire to a fault
if "vampire" is practically a campy gender display for bill, one that he hides behind to be manipulative and coercive, it's merely a physical reality to eric, one that can be understood and, to a certain extent, controlled to achieve a compromise with human needs according to his moral principles
relevant Definitely Dead excerpts of this scene [bold formatting mine]:
"Eric, you're tiring her out," Bill said, his voice even colder than usual. "You should leave Sookie alone." There was a long moment of silence. It was fraught with some big emotion. My eyes opened and went from one face to another. For once, I wished I could read vampire minds. As much as I could read from his expression, Bill was deeply regretting his words, but why? Eric was looking at Bill with a complex expression compounded of resolve and something less definable; regret, maybe. "I quite understand why you want to keep Sookie isolated while she's in New Orleans," Eric said. His r's became more pronounced, as they did when he was angry. Bill looked away. Despite the pain pulsing in my arm, despite my general exasperation with the both of them, something inside me sat up and took notice. There was an unmistakable significance to Eric's tone. Bill's lack of response was curious … and ominous. "What?" I said, my eyes flicking from one to the other. I tried to prop myself up on my elbows and settled for one when the other arm, the bitten one, gave a big throb of pain. I pressed the button to raise the head of the bed. "What's all the big hinting about, Eric? Bill?" "Eric should not be agitating you when you've got a lot to handle already," Bill said, finally. Though never known for its expressiveness, Bill's face was what my grandmother would have described as "locked up tighter than a drum." Eric folded his arms across his chest and looked down at them. "Bill?" I said. "Ask him why he came back to Bon Temps, Sookie," Eric said very quietly. "Well, old Mr. Compton died, and he wanted to reclaim his … " I couldn't even describe the expression on Bill's face. My heart began to beat faster. Dread gathered in a knot in my stomach. "Bill?" Eric turned to face away from me, but not before I saw a shade of pity cross his face. Nothing could have scared me more. I might not be able to read a vampire's mind, but in this case his body language said it all. Eric was turning away because he didn't want to watch the knife sliding in. "Sookie, you would find out when you saw the queen … Maybe I could have kept it from you, because you won't understand … but Eric has taken care of that." Bill gave Eric's back a look that could have drilled a hole through Eric's heart. "When your cousin Hadley was becoming the queen's favorite … " [...] "Get out," I said, with a terrible effort. Whatever else happened, I could not bear for him to see the pain he had caused. He tried to look me straight in the eyes, but mine were too full. Whatever he wanted to convey, it was lost on me. "Please let me finish," he said. "I never want to see you again, ever in my life," I whispered. "Ever." He didn't speak. His lips moved, as if he were trying to form a word or phrase, but I shook my head. "Get out," I told him, in a voice so choked with hatred and anguish that it didn't sound like my own. Bill turned and walked past the curtain and out of the emergency room. Eric did not turn around to see my face, thank God. He reached back to pat me on the leg before he left, too. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands. I had to be by myself. I could not let anyone see me suffer this much.
that's some impressive paying attention to her needs in the past, and anticipating those needs in the present on his part, to know to turn away and not look at sookie, and stay not looking at sookie, before even the reader really understands just how much she doesn't want to be looked at
the rest of the chapter is her leaving the hospital on foot, barefoot, and wandering the completely unfamiliar-to-her new orleans in practically a fugue state until she made it back to the place she was staying at by sheer dumb luck. that's how much she didn't want to be looked at
and while bill is trying to double down on making eye contact with her bc he needs it, eric has turned his back to her, and even manages a gesture of comfort without breaking his willing blindness
✘✘✘✘✘✘✘
on the other hand, of course.... as was said earlier in the book, eric's no "softie." and when sookie was hiding from him what he'd experienced with her during his memory-wiped state, he gets her to spill the beans too, an experiencing she is literally recounting while talking to him mere moments before bill walks in and eric forces him to confess
"But I do." He had the gall to look surprised. "We have a bond. I've had your blood, when you needed strength to free Bill in Jackson. And we've made love often, according to you." "You made me tell you," I protested. And if I sounded a little on the whiny side, well, dammit, I thought it was okay to whine a little. Eric had agreed to save a friend of mine from danger if I'd spill the truth to him. Is that blackmail? Yes, I think so. But there wasn't any way to untell him. I sighed. "How'd you get here, anyway?"
idk what connection i'm trying to make, but i'm making it. eric... has a role in this series as a truth-unearther, perhaps. he didn't originally know about bill's mission for the queen, but he didn't wait long to make it come to light bc he believed sookie had a right to know. sookie had her own emotionally defensive reasons for hiding eric's past from him, but he found a way to dig it out bc he believed he had a right to know
and when we take into account that eric had been a victim of sexual assault... you know, he very much did have that right to know, specifically because the missing memories were of a sexual nature, even if completely consensual.
sookie was in the wrong in keeping those details from him, having been fully capable of refraining from sex with amnesia!eric, but choosing to go ahead with it. that's perfectly okay that she chose to do that, but he had a right to know about it afterward.
there's no telling just what depth of emotional difficulties with autonomy he has under the surface (and other vampires tbh, considering how common sexual assault appears to be between maker/child and superior/underling). and that's on top and beyond a person's normal right to know what their body was up to during a period that's missing from their memory
