Work Text:
The room he lives in now has no windows. Vampires burn in the sun; Shelby explained to him that it was like a really bad sunburn, not an actual puff of flames. Oakhurst is overcast most days anyways, but Avid guesses that Scott didn’t want to deal with the sun when it wasn’t.
When Scott had dragged him here, Avid had expected to be killed. To be locked in a room and used purely for his blood. Much to his surprise and benefit, he’s been allowed free range through the Castle. He can wander through the crypt in circles until his feet hurt. He can lie on the staircase down and watch the sky. He can explore the ancient library to his heart’s content.
He’s not allowed outside without supervision of one of the vampires. Shelby is the one who does it the most. She’s overjoyed to have him be ‘part of her family’, even if he was technically kidnapped and his capacity here is similar to the cattle, Shelby just brushes it off with a slight tightening of her eyes and a stress to her smile that she ignores. Shelby will sit with him for as long as he wants on the crumbling bridge, or as he explores the island that the castle is situated on. It’s very vertical, so more often than not Avid returns to his room with more bruises each night than the previous.
Scott is also decently pleasant company. Somehow. He might be pompous and ancient, but he knows so much about vampirism, and Avid wants to know it all. He wants to know exactly what bit Elle; if Oakhurst vampires are saner than regular vampires, and that it was maybe a vampire outside of Oakhurst bit her. He wants to know exactly how silver and garlic work.
Scott grimaces when he mentions this. “Well, I suppose it’s not dangerous information. Silver… I don’t know why, but it’s corrosive, makes you dizzy and your body just won’t go near it. Garlic, eh, just really, really nauseous. Not poisonous, but definitely disgusting.”
“What if I ate garlic before you fed from me?” Avid kicks a pebble off the crumbling bridge. It falls for a long, long time before it splashes in the slow-moving river below, ripples spreading out in shiny circles.
“Again, nausea, and if I tried to turn you, it wouldn’t work. You’d just die. So if you do want to accept the gift, make sure you don’t pick Italian for dinner.”
“I don’t think we even have pasta here.”
“It’s figurative.”
Avid sits down on the edge, swinging his legs over the void. It’s a good thirty metre drop. He would definitely break his legs if he fell. “You mentioned something about a coven bond yesterday.”
“I did?” Scott raises his eyebrows, leaning against the stone wall of the bridge, a human skull cemented into the stone behind his shoulder.
“You said you had to go help Pyro at the beacons, he was… you said ‘calling’?” Avid puts air quotes around the word.
“It’s a mental bond between coven-mates. I turned Pyro, and he turned Shelby, so we all have a sort of… emotional link between us. There’s enough to communicate locations and basic emotions.”
“What about Owen?” Avid asks.
“I didn’t turn him, and he didn’t turn me, so there’s less of a link there. But he’s coven, so we can still… get a gauge on him.” Scott picks at his nails, painted black by Shelby. “I don’t know why we have a link, before you ask. It’s never happened before to me.”
Avid goes silent, closing his eyes and trying to feel that place at the back of his brain where he felt Scott’s emotions—heard his voice. It’s cold, a calm pool of icy water, rippling with amusement.
“I know what you’re doing.” Scott says.
“You can feel that?” Avid imagines throwing a massive rock into the pool, and Scott laughs.
“I can feel that you’re curious, and trying to attack me. Not wise, Avid.”
“I was just testing.” He mumbles, a little embarrassed.
“It’s purely an emotional link, if it’s anything like enthralment. But, if it were, it should only be one way.” Scott pulls Avid’s head back by his hair, gently forcing Abid to look up at him. “You are an anomaly.”
“… thanks?”
“Go inside and read something. I’ve got to go actually do some work.” Scott dismisses him with a wave of his hand, and Avid obediently turns and walks back into the Castle. He’s pleased enough with the information he got from Scott today, (Mostly useless in a fight, he realises. Scott wouldn’t let him get a hand up on the coven if there’s a chance he would go back to the town.) to not push back against any orders.
He goes back to his windowless room, working by the light of countless candles as he lays out his notebook before him.
It’s a scientific dissertation on Vampires, to the best of his non-university educated abilities. It’s a rough draft, information grouped by vague concepts in unconnected chapters. He’s even tried to draw diagrams. Avid’s first attempts were little more than smudges on the paper, but as he works with charcoals, inks and chalks more and more, he’s been getting better.
He’s only been in the Castle a week (fed from twice in that timeframe), but if he’s going to be stuck here, he’s going to squeeze as much out of it as he can. It’s not like residing in a literal nest of blood-sucking vampires is conducive to a positive work environment, or he’s not constantly afraid, but Avid is determined to do this.
His drawings are not… great. He wouldn’t put them in a final dissertation, but he needs to have something to work off of. There’s a lot of drawings of Scott. It’s purely for science, Avid tells himself. Scott is the eldest vampire; if there are any changes to the physical features once someone becomes a vampire, Scott will be the most likely to display them.
There’s drawings of Scott’s face beside Avid’s (facilitated by using the flat silver back of his pocket-watch, yet to be taken from him), comparing differences. From his very limited sample pool, Avid concludes that vampires have slightly pointed ears, larger eyes, and a slightly wider mouth. From the glances he stole when Scott drunk from him, Avid tries to draw how the fangs work. They seem to retract into the gums, and are solid with a slight channel running up the back of them to facilitate the flow of blood.
Vampires seem to also have longer limbs than humans; Shelby had complained to him about growing pains. He had written that down in a bullet list of physical differences.
The messiest part of the book is what he deems the ‘bond chapter’. It’s everything he notices about his bond with Scott, about what the vampires mention about the coven bond, about what he remembers from his readings on enthralment.
The library is helpful and useless in equal measures. It had plenty of books, many of them about vampires, but a good portion of them are in Latin or Gaelic, limiting their usefulness to Avid. They are also clearly centuries old, and more than once Avid has had wafer-thin pages crumble under his touch.
What he wouldn’t give to have Doc here with him, researching this mystery together. A pang of loneliness tugs in Avid’s stomach. Even though he’s literally supervised every time he goes outside, even though Shelby is here, Avid is still a rat in a cage. He’s stuck here, and he’s surrounded by at least two people who want him gone. Owen, he’s sure about. Pyro, he’s pretty sure wants him gone. Scott, despite bringing him here, keeps reminding Avid that his life is in his hands. Shelby is the only one he is sure wouldn’t kill him.
It’s an isolating feeling.
The worst pages of his vampire handbook are the ones comparing what he observes in the vampires around him to… what Elle was. How she acted. It’s a venn diagram with one very empty side. Elle had only been back from Oakhurst for thirty minutes before she turned on him. It’s not like he had a chance to ask her symptoms and take measurements. The top bullet point is feral, with the opposing vampire side as calculating— conscious, intelligent predator. It makes his heart ache.
Was he wrong? Did she get bit by feral non-Oakhurst vampire? Was coming here a mistake?
Dinner is called; someone rings the bell in the main hall—brass, not silver—and they all congregate around the large, mahogany table. Avid sits next to Shelby, across the table from Pyro and as far from Owen as he can feasibly get without being outright rude. Their plates are nearly identical, the only difference being Avid’s steak is slightly cooked, and there’s potatoes on his plate, too. The glass in-front of him is red wine. For some reason, every dinner, without fail, Pyro offers Avid his own glass of blood. He seems to relish the way Avid flinches back and stutters out some variation of; “I’m human, that will make me sick.”
Shelby’s told him to knock it off, but Pyro says it’s a genuine offer. Avid apparently might change his mind about vampirism in the middle of dinner if he’s offered enough blood. When Avid tries to gauge Scott’s view on the whole song and dance, all he gets from the bond is that same pool of calm, that same mild amusement at everything.
There’s been a startling lack of any significant emotion since Scott bought him to the Castle. Avid has had to concentrate to feel it, and it’s never a hint of worry or anger, even when Scott returns from fighting the townsfolk—Avid wouldn’t know. It almost makes him doubt what he felt at the church—the worry and possessiveness. It could have all been a dream, considering he was pretty out of it by then.
Scott holds court over dinner— he talks about whatever he wants at length. He always goes over the events of the day, ensuring everyone is on the same page. The way he seems not to care about Avid hearing it all… it tugs at his stomach, a sense that Scott isn’t worried because Avid is going to die here—but then he thinks that maybe Scott is intending him to feel that way.
Pyro had drawn a makeshift map of the surrounding area, marking beacons and tombs and the invisible barrier that keeps them all tied here. Scott points at all the beacons the vampires have, all the beacons the town has, and what ones they’re planning to take the next day. He talks about what tactics each side has been using, and then complains about the ‘awful fashion choices’ of the townsfolk.
Avid has had to bite his tongue to stop himself from rolling his eyes so hard he breaks them. Shelby had caught his eye during one of these rants, and Avid almost burst out laughing. It took reminding himself that he could just be killed right then and there to wipe the smile off his face. That thought has slowly lost its edge over time, so he’s had to picture Doc’s and Drift’s horrified faces to keep his mouth shut.
“I do think we need a blood fountain in the ballroom.” Scott says, slicing through his steak. “But the problem is where we get such quantities of blood.”
“Horses?” Shelby suggests, frowning. “But I don’t want to kill the horses, really.”
“Townsfolk.” Owen stabs his own steak with his fork, aggressively tearing at it with his teeth. He stares at Avid as he does so, as if to say, I wish it were you I was stabbing.
“Not yet, dear Owen.” Scott says, “They’re aware, and very prepared for a fight.”
“And who gave us away?” Owen raises his brows, and Avid sinks further into his seat despite the question being addressed to Scott.
“Pah. It was coming sooner or later. You fledglings are no good at hiding.” Scott softens the words with a smile towards the rest of his coven, and Pyro preens under the gaze of his sire. It’s kind of sickening.
“I mean, you do stick out too.” Shelby says, waving a hand at Scott. “It’s only because no one else was like, a manor lord that you got away with pretending that all of your old man tendencies were just poshness.”
“I am as sprightly and springy as I was at twenty-five.” Scott grins, sipping at his wineglass of blood.
Dinner continues for another thirty minutes, stretching into telling tales of childhood stories; mostly Shelby and Scott carrying the conversation yet again. Pyro chimes in with a story about getting lost in a marketplace. Owen mentions that he was the one to plant the tall pine trees that shade the vampires today.
Avid even gets in on the action; telling a story about the time a travelling circus came to his town. He pretends that it’s just Shelby listening to him, and that makes it easier to talk.
When the moon can be seen through the red-stained glass window high above, Scott clears his throat and stands. “Shelby, escort Avid to bed. Pyro, Owen, come with me. We need to get more materials for the rebuild…” His voice trails off as he walks away.
Avid holds a torch in his hand as he and Shelby descend into the Crypt, where the rooms are. She doesn’t need the light to see, and so bounds ahead of Avid. He’s only half listening as she recounts her latest story idea.
When they reach the door of his room, Avid opens his mouth, but closes it just as quickly. He has to think more before he asks Shelby. She tilts her head to the side, but he just shakes a ‘no’. “I just thought of something, it’s okay.”
“Ask me tomorrow. I know you must be tired.”
Avid laughs, “I mean, I am more nocturnal now.”
“Get some sleep. Scott wants us to go mining tomorrow— he wants us to try and get all the silver in the caves underneath the castle so it isn’t affecting us.”
Avid frowns. “Can it do that in an impure form like that?”
“I mean, I’m not sure? But better safe than sorry.” Shelby hugs him briefly, and then shoves him gently into his room. “Bedtime for humans!”
Avid opens his notebook, flips to the page titled Fledglings, and scribbles down a note. Worse at hiding amongst humans than older vampires?
Most of his information bullet points are of a similar notion, random, question marked ideas.
With that, he blows out the various candles around his room, plunging it into pitch darkness, and curls up in his bed.
*
Shelby wakes him up. She barges into his room and throws a pickaxe on his bed, and then goes rooting through the closet in his room to try and find him some clothes suitable for mining. Avid rubs his eyes and yawns. “What time is it?”
“Uuuh, decently mid-morning? The townsfolk are all awake. I saw Apo at the top of the church earlier—and she shot an arrow at me! It was so rude.”
“Mmhm.” Avid groans, slowly getting himself ready.
His hair must look a mess, because when he walks up to the main castle with Shelby and into the main room, where Scott is perched on the desecrated beacon, he immediately sees Scott’s face take on a peculiar expression.
“You look like you were dragged backwards through a briar bush.” Scott says, walking up to Avid and picking at his hair. “Fighting vampires in your dreams?”
“Yeah. Staked you.” Avid raises his eyebrows trying for a reaction (an experiment), and Scott dismisses him with a wave of his hand. Hm.
“Go mine silver.”
Shelby leads him down to the mine, leaping across gaps and from ledge to ledge which takes Avid several minutes to navigate around. She waits patiently for him, talking about how he needs to let her paint his nails. Avid agrees; he wants to know where the hell she managed to find nail polish in Oakhurstof all places.
The caves they climb down into are large, cold, damp and full of regular bats hanging from the ceiling like Christmas lights. They squeak and chitter, and Shelby mimics them. Avid copies her, and they jump back and forth at each other, pretending to be bats. (Despite the fact that she can actually turn into one, Shelby’s playing along for him.)
“Can you actually mine silver?” Avid asks after finding his first ore vein.
“I mean, I think so? I haven’t tried since I gorged myself and got my new hair.” Shelby crouches next to him. She mines the silver, but can’t pick it up. She shrugs, and kicks it over to Avid, who pockets it. “Well that answers that.”
Avid lets the silence settle between them. It’s comfortable, as they both work to clear out the silver underneath the Castle. It’s not the worst thing Avid could be doing for the vampires, and it’s not like he as a choice, and at least it’s with the one vampire he’s sure doesn’t want him dead. Shelby leaves the silver she mines in neat little piles for him to pick up.
“Shelby…” Avid starts, thinking back to his question from the previous night.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Shelby stops mining, and comes to sit next to him, sensing a conversation about to start.
“Scott mentioned a coven bond to me… what does that mean?”
“Oh!” Shelby lights up, excited to explain. “Well, it’s like a mind link—not mind reading, it’s too vague to be called that, but like, if Scott needs me to help him convert a beacon or something, I just like, know. It was pretty overwhelming when I first turned, but I got used to it, and it’s pretty cool now.” She smiles at him. “If you do want to turn, I’ll help you with it.”
Avid nods, pressing his lips together. “I’ve… got some sort of emotional bond with Scott.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Shelby asks.
“Not like that!” Avid laughs at the absurdity. “It’s something like the coven bond— like, I felt his emotions, and he said that he wasn’t trying to enthral me, but it was sort of like that.”
“I’ve never tried to enthrall someone before… can I try on you?”
“No! Scott said it would make me into like, a blood-bag zombie. I’m quite happy just being a blood-bag.” Avid holds up his hands, and Shelby makes a joking biting motion at him. He flinches back, and she frowns.
“Sorry. And it must be pretty boring having an emotional link with Scott, so I pity you there.”
“Huh?”
“He doesn’t feel things. You know this, right?” Shelby looks at him like he’s just told her he doesn’t know his numbers. “It’s some sort of holdover from the magic that put him to sleep apparently. But I think he’s just a naturally aloof person.”
“He does feel things.” Avid says slowly.
“No he doesn’t.”
“Yes he does. I’m the one with the mysterious connection to his brain, and I know that he felt worried.”
Shelby gasps. “You’re so lying. What would even make him worried?”
“…When he, uh, bit me in the church, and everyone showed up… he was worried that they were going to get me and take me away from him.” Avid fiddled with his hands.
“Oh, yeah. I mean, I guess you are technically his meal, and vampires are pretty protective of our meals.” Shelby giggles. “But…”
“But what?”
“I mean, Scott always says he has a really good grasp on his instincts.” Shelby nudges him with her shoulder, winking.
It takes Avid a moment to piece together what she’s implying—that maybe Scott wasn’t worried (or whatever it was) about losing a meal, maybe he was worried about losing Avid. The thought causes his stomach to twist, and Avid shakes his head. “Tell me about that werewolf story you want to write.”
Shelby switches subject for him, and he really tries his best to listen, because she’s really excited to finally have a captive audience as she explains. Avid continues to mine, pocketing more and more silver. There’s a werewolf who is in love with a vampire, and the story is about their struggle to overcome the social stigma of their relationship.
It seems rather sweet, actually. “I’d love to read it, whenever you find the time to write it.” Avid says, smiling softly.
“Oh yeah, I mean, the whole ‘not-sleeping’ part of being a vampire has certainly given me more time, but I didn’t use to run around desecrating beacons all day and night, so I guess it balances out.” Shelby wiggles her hand side to side in a ‘so-so’ motion. “But when we get out of here, I’m going to write so much it’s not even funny.”
Shelby’s casual mention of ‘getting out of here’ like it’s inevitable for her—like her life and future are safe and secure—it sends a pang through Avid. Of all of them, Shelby is probably the most likely to survive this, even if it comes to blows. Despite how much she insists that she’ll protect the vampires, Avid knows that when the stake is at your throat, you’ll say or do whatever it takes to get it away. And, the townspeople still like Shelby; everyone still likes Shelby. As one of the kindest and bubbliest people Avid has ever met, they would be hard pressed not to like her.
The odds for him are vastly different. Avid is very likely to die here some time soon. He doesn’t see a future where Scott lets him escape, and if he is turned, he doesn’t see a future where Owen won’t try and get rid of him, or one where the townsfolk wouldn’t kill him. He had never been a social butterfly, and seeing him on the altar like that, with Scott drinking from him and him allowing it…
Plus, if Avid gets turned, he might stake himself. He’s been theorising that maybe Elle had a bad reaction to the vampire bite because of a past disease—like the opposite of inoculation. Instead of getting cowpox (the mystery disease) and building immunity to smallpox (vampirism), it made her more susceptible? If Elle had been infected by such a disease as a child, it’s very likely Avid was as well.
He doesn’t want to lose his mind. He doesn’t want to let the… whatever it is, vampirism, some dormant disease, he doesn’t want to let it win. If Avid is to die, he’d prefer it to be after a long life, but if he can’t have that, he wants to die as himself.
“Yeah.” Avid says to Shelby after a long moment, putting on a small smile, trying to banish his previous train of thought. “I look forward to reading them, if you’ll let me.”
“Of course.” Shelby assures him. “And I think we’ve done enough digging. I don’t even think this silver is affecting us all the way down here.”
Avid picks up the last of it, stashing it away in a bag he had brought with him. As Shelby leads him out of the cave system, Avid slips some of the silver out of his bag and up his sleeve, tucking it against the inside of his wrist and holding it there with the gathering of his sleeves.
He doesn’t want to hurt Shelby, and he’s not sure if he wants to hurt Scott anymore, but he can’t sit idle. Avid has to make some sort of plan to escape, he has to hold out hope that he can bring back his meagre findings to the town and prove himself useful to them. Avid has to hold out hope that there is a cure for vampirism, and that they can save Shelby and Pyro, that all the beacons can be consecrated, and that the humans can get out of here alive.
*
Holy water must be the key to the cure.
Despite Scott and the other vampires (minus Owen) often babysitting him, Avid spends a majority of his time alone in the castle. It gives him plenty of time to think.
His favourite spot for thinking is at the top of the castle’s tower, where he can lie down on the black stones of the balcony, warmed by the weak sun, and pretend that he can see far enough to catch a glimpse of Oakhurst. The pine trees are too tall, and Oakhurst too far away for him to see, but he pretends that he can. Avid pretends that if he had a spyglass, he could just hold it to his eye and see the humans going around their daily business. Cleo farming, Pearl helping her, Ren returning from the forest with wood, the Doctor collecting water from the well…
During these long hours where Avid has nothing to keep him company other than his thoughts, he tries to remember all of his experiments from when he was still in town.
The holy water had cleansed the withered rose, returning it to a soft, blush red bloom. It was the only real lead he had discovered through his frantic trial-and-error tests.
The problem with that is. He has no holy water. Avid does have the knowledge to create holy water, if he could find a holy beacon, but there’s a fat chance of that happening. The only beacon within his reach is the Castle’s beacon. Trying to convert it would surely get him killed, so all Avid can do is think.
The cure has to have something to do with holy water. From this, he extrapolates that the cure is incomplete; that there are other parts to it. It could be two, or five or ten, but Avid theorises that it’s three components total. In holy scripture, there’s a lot of groups of threes; the father, the son, the Holy Spirit, the three wise old men, the three bind mice— that’s not right. Avid giggles to himself out loud.
Three is his lucky number for this. Holy water is one part, he just has to figure out the rest of it.
Maybe feeding a vampire garlic, splashing them with holy water, and staking them? That seems very traditional, and almost too simple. Avid is beginning to learn that there’s a lot more grey areas to life than he had previously hoped, and the garlic-holy-water-stake route seems too easy. Vampires aren’t easy to kill.
But staking has to be part of it. He staked Elle, and that killed her. Maybe someone else had caught her on the way back, another vampire hunter had completed the other steps, and all that was left was for Avid to drive the final nail into the coffin of his first, and best friend.
Avid pulls out his vampire encyclopaedia (working title, vampire-hunter encyclopaedia would suggest he has advice on how to kill vampires, which he doesn’t) and flicks to the back, where there’s a hodgepodge list of ideas.
Avid’s theories go as follows;
- vampirism originated in Oakhurst(?), if so there must be a cure in Oakhurst (balance of life)
- holy water IS part of the cure
- cure has multiple parts (5, 3)
- holy water came from the books, the books hold abilities to fight the vampires, maybe also hold the cure?
- Beacon conversion also part of it? More holy beacons = weaker vampires
- garlic, stakes & holy artefacts? staking is definitely part of it, so is holy water (an artefact) so garlic must be consumed by either curer or curee??
It’s messy, sure, but Avid is pleased with himself. It’s not like he’s actually able to test his theories here in the castle, or go to the holy tombs which contain the tomes. Tombs, tomes… The straight and narrow of it all is that being a vampire’s blood-bag, trapped in their evil gothic castle is not his ideal workplace.
He misses the Doctor. At the start, Avid will admit that he took to irritating the older man on purpose. But when they weren’t arguing over if alchemy was a real branch of medicine and science (it was), they made a pretty good team. The Doctor was also a caring, selfless man who would never cause anyone pain. It’s that sort of simple human kindness that Avid misses the most.
He wishes the Doctor was here, because Legundo is so much older than him, so much more experienced. He has an actual degree from one of the military universities in the Capital, and at least twenty more years of knowledge of the world.
The Doctor would know what to do, or at least where to start. He’s say something so smart, and yet so obvious that Avid would wonder why he hadn’t thought of it himself. Something like—start with what you know… probably.
Avid suspects that the abilities granted to the humans by those holy books have some part to play. They’re a uniquely Oakhurst-ian phenomena, which lends to his ‘balance of life’ theory. From the different snatches around town, Avid thinks that there are about six different relevant abilities—something like ‘increased strength’ doesn’t seem like a part of the cure. Six abilities multiplied by three different steps, taking into account that repeating a step is probably useless… that gives him 120 different combinations.
Avid groans in defeat, lying back against the deepslate bricks of the tower’s floor and throwing an arm over his eyes. If it were five combinations, it would be hard, but not impossible. One-hundred-and-twenty, on the other hand?
Avid may as well just throw himself off the tower for all the good this knowledge does him.
If he’s to assume the last step is always staking, that cuts down the numbers a lot— from 120 to 30, far more manageable, but still impossible…
He wishes Elle were here, to bounce ideas off of, to theorise and conspiracise and work eachother up; jumping, holding hands, squealing when they had found something new. Avid wishes Elle were here, but if she were, none of this would ever have happened in the first place. She would have handled it all so, so much better than him.
He should have been the one to get bit, turn into that feral… thing, get staked, and die.
If Elle were in his position, she wouldn’t have stumbled into Oakhurst screaming her head off. She would have been devastated, of course, because they were all the other had, but Elle wouldn’t have made a stupid, stupid deal with the strongest, most cunning vampire in town, and then subsequently get kidnapped and turned into a blood farm. She would have done something wickedly smart, and the whole town would’ve been on their way home by now.
But instead the citizens of Oakhurst got stuck with the lesser option. And now, it’s more likely than not for them all to die here.
Avid pulls his knees up to his chest, hugging himself with his arms around his shins, and the edges of his shitty vampire encyclopedia dig into his skin through the fibers of his shirt.
He gazes listlessly off into the horizon. The hazy air is clearer than usual today, and somewhere, in the distance, he can see a flock of some sort of migratory bird winging their way through the sky.
The animals seem to be able to come and go as they please from Oakhurst, not tied to the acursed by some fault of their long-gone ancestors. Why is Avid so different from these beasts, that he is trapped under a glass bowl with predators designed to drain his life force? Both Avid and the fallow deer will meet the same fate—writhing on the forest floor, drowning in their own blood.
And then it comes to him. A starling glides on wings gifted from above, a doe is a pure as its chalky spots.
And Avid is a murderer, and imminently responsible for more deaths through his cowardice.
He scoots forwards, just until the edge of the tower’s slate tiles dig into the underside of his thighs, and his legs swing free over the void.
There’s no railings on the tower. Vampires don’t need railings. If they fall, they’ll turn into bats and fly away, or break their bones upon landing and just heal with the blood he provides them.
If Avid were to fall, he wouldn’t turn into a bird or a bat, he’d free-fall for maybe two seconds, and then end up a red mess on the courtyard cobbles.
Pyro would probably have to clean it up. The idea prompts sardonic joy in Avid, and the he feels guilty about it, deep in his gut. Pyro was the first one to be turned, the first to face the horrors of death and violent rebirth. He’s made no real effort to be kind to Avid, but Avid wouldn’t be all that kind to Avid either.
As the sun kisses the tops of the trees, Avid hears a flutter of leathery wings, and then the soft sound of boots on tiles behind him. He turns slowly, looking up to Scott.
In the past week or so, Scott had transformed from a peculiar, unnaturally pretty nobleman to an obvious Vampire Lord. His hair, once a vibrant turquoise, is now a snowy white, falling across his forehead and the nape of his neck in perfect curls. His cheeks had hollowed slightly, and his irises had obviously reddened. His clothes, although already fancier than anyone else’s, had been swapped out for some extravagant mess of black, red and white. Impractical heeled boots, flared charcoal pants, a crimson waistcoat, and a dramatic black cape.
He paints a rather imposing picture, towering over Avid as he does now.
“You look as if a stiff breeze might blow you right off this ledge.” Scott says, frowning down at him.
“I’m fine.” Avid drops his gaze, fingers tracing over the leather cover of his notebook. “I like the view from up here.”
“That’s exactly why I insisted on a tower. Owen was all, oh, it’s too much work, why do we need a tower,” Scott laughs airily, “But, I’ve always had a tower, and I was not going to give up my wonderful sunset views.”
“Can’t you just fly to see it?” Avid points out. “You probably could have gotten a better view from the air.”
“Mmmhm, but where’s the flair in that? No cape to flutter behind me, no humans to torment.” Scott winks at Avid, and slowly lowers himself down to sit alongside him on the ledge, brushing the tiles with his palm beforehand.
Avid doesn’t really have a response for that. Scott tilts his head to the side and sighs mournfully.
“You are aware you can become a vampire?” Scott asks him, “The whole, sulky, tortured soul environment has a very easy exit, you’re the one sticking to it.”
Avid squeezes his eyes shut momentarily, and his voice comes out far more emotional than he wanted it to. “I’m not becoming a feral, bloodsucking murderer.”
Scott shrugs. “It’s really not like that, Avid, but whatever makes you believe that your suffering is for some noble purpose. Shelby’s not like that— and even me, you can’t say I didn’t keep my promise not to hurt anyone.”
“Maybe in the last month, but what about before?” Avid presses his fingernails into his palms. “You’ve had how long— a millennium of vampirism? I don’t believe you were a saint throughout all those years.”
“Maybe not.” Scott reaches up to the ruffled collar of his shirt, and fishes out a necklace from underneath the white linen. Avid had never seen it before, and the sight of a golden cross around the Vampire’s neck drips ice into his stomach. Crosses… they have to harm Vampires—if he’s wrong about that—
Scott reads his expression easily. “It’s a Celtic cross, Avid. Entirely different thing.” He leans forwards, necklace charm held in his palm to display it to Avid. The golden surface has a bright, polished gleam from centuries of touch, and at the centre of the cross, a clear, glittering ruby is set. “This is the symbol of the Goldsmith coven.”
“…Goldsmith isn’t your last name?”
“Certainly not. We had no need for surnames, when I was human. Hardly anyone travelled so far and wide.” Scott tucks the necklace back under his shirt. “When my sire picked me, I had barely earned my apprenticeship, and so I had no professional identity either.”
Avid tilts his head to the side, curiosity burning in his mind. From conversations with Shelby, Scott always brushed over his past with a laugh and comments bereft of information. For the elder vampire to broach the topic himself…
“My sire chose me for my natural charisma, which was intensified after I accepted the gift. He was a well respected elder Vampire, far older than I am even now, and brought me up in his image. The Goldsmith name was not given to me lightly.” Scott turns out to watch the sunset. “He would be rather surprised at this conversation— that I keep you alive.”
“Did he not have human blood supply?” Avid frowns.
“Oh, of course he did. He would have just killed all of Oakhurst already. Under human morals, he was cruel, strict, and vindictive.” Scott fixes Avid in his gaze, eyes so much like the ruby on his necklace.
“I am telling you this, so that you perhaps understand when I tell you I have not been a saint, that I have murdered people, that I used to revel in suffering because that was what I was taught. I have served my time trapped in an underground cell, and now, I want to see the all world that I missed. We are all a product of our environment, and I hope you understand I am no different.” Scott finishes, dropping Avid’s gaze and fiddling with the hem of his sleeve.
Avid bites the inside of his cheek. To be honest, he had never thought of why exactly Scott was, well, Scott. Shelby was hunting Bigfoot not out of some mild interest with the unknown, but to prove that her Father had not abandoned her on a whim. Avid himself was skittish and accusatory because he had been attacked by the only person he had ever truly known. Was it so impossible that Scott suffered a similar fate?
It ached to humanise him. To transform his mental image of Scott from some sadistic, unfeeling puppeteer, to a person with reasons and why’s. To a person with feelings. He still might have been able to push it down, to villainise the man infront of him— showing him an heirloom of his past, fidgeting nervously with his sleeve —if it weren’t for the fact that he knew Scott felt. For all the others believed he was emotionless, Avid knew otherwise, and it hurt his head to hold all of these conflicting feelings in his mind.
“How… does it work? Getting turned, does it hurt?” Avid asks. “Did it hurt for you?”
“I don’t remember. It was so long ago now, and I was so pleased with my new abilities.” Scott presses his mouth into a line, “I mean, I suppose it hurts. You have to die, your heart has to stop. I can’t imagine it’s pleasant… And my sire wasn’t one to try to prevent pain.”
Damn it. God fucking damn it. Now Avid is feeling sorry for Scott— for a younger version of him at least.
“But enough of that.” Scott breaks Avid away from his thoughts with a wave of his hand and a small, picture perfect smile— as if he had practiced it in front of a mirror. (But Vampires can’t see themselves in mirrors, and therein lies the problem.) “What have you done today to occupy yourself?”
“Oh— uh…” Avid scrambles, trying to come up with something believable. He’s a nervous liar, and Scott can hear his heartbeat, which only makes him more nervous. “I’ve been, uhm, cataloguing the local flora. There’s some really interesting medicinal plants I didn’t expect to see this far north. Was there a herbalist here in your time?”
“What use would I have for an herbalist?”
“Right. Immunity to diseases.” Avid huffs, tracing his fingertip along the stitching of the leather cover of his vampire encyclopaedia. “You don’t have any interest in learning about the world around you, even if it doesn’t affect you?”
“Phrasing it like that makes me seem wilfully ignorant.” Scott raises a brow. “Which I am not. I have no interest in plants, because I rather have an interest in the animals that feed on them, which I can, in turn, feed on myself. Pray, tell me, oh herbalist, when do the white-tail deer start to migrate south?”
“Okay. I get your point.” Avid concedes. “But you’ve had a good, say, one-thousand-two-hundred more years to learn about the world than I have.”
Scott makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Okay, I get your point, but consider that the world was perhaps much less mobile when I was last conscious?”
Avid laughs despite himself. Scott is charismatic; every room the man walks into seems to reorient itself around him, waiting on his words, decided by his moods.
The sky is a beautiful mess of golds and oranges, made deeper and more vibrant by the rusty iron dust in the air. The wind blows gently, ruffling Avid’s ash-brown hair and moving the tops of the trees below them. Scott closes his eyes, tilting his head back and seeming to bathe in the warm light. Avid watches him, unable to tear away his gaze.
“I came here to bite you, you know.” Scott says, breaking the silence like ice on a pond. Avid tenses up, pulling his arms closer still to his chest.
“So… why haven’t you yet?” Avid asks the obvious question—the one Scott is waiting on him to ask.
“You’re… more interesting, when you’re not so afraid.” Scott settles on, after a moment of quiet. “I’m sorry to break the moment, but I truly am thirsty.”
He holds out a hand expectantly, waiting.
Avid calms his breathing, and places his hand in Scott’s. It’s transactional, he tells himself. He protects the town with his blood. He pays for information on Scott’s past, for a civil conversation, all with his blood.
Scott flips over Avid’s hand, and delicately lifts his wrist to his mouth. For a bizarre moment, Avid is struck by the mental picture of lord kissing the back of a lady’s hand in greeting. The humour fizzles out as Scott bites.
A twinge of familiar fear tugs at Avid’s stomach. He prefers when Scott drinks from his neck— it’s over faster, and despite his windpipe and carotid being so damn close to the vampire’s fangs, it instills less fear than the idea of the wire-thin nerves in his wrist being irreparably damaged. Avid’s life-work revolves around fine details; in his writings, drawings and tinctures. Without proper use of his hands, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
Being a vampire would solve all that. A small voice in the back of his head suggests.
Shut up. Avid suggests in return.
The feeding is over quickly. Scott seals the bite-mark with a soft lick, some compound in his saliva clotting Avid’s blood. What he would give to study that…
The bite mark is bloody and raised compared to the surrounding skin, but Avid knows that by the next morning, it will be cleanly scabbed over.
“Thank you, Avid.” Scott dips his head as he stands, in a motion that reminds Avid of a bow. “I do appreciate your blood.”
“Ah, it’s— you’re welcome?” Avid trails off into a whisper as Scott takes his leave, cape swishing after him in the cool breeze. In his wake, Scott leaves more confusion and internal conflict in Avid than one would believe possible in a ten minute conversation.
*
One of the activities Avid had taken to filling his day with was weeding and planting the small garden out the back of the Castle. There was decades of overgrowth for him to root though, but plenty of good base plants hidden beneath the vines and weeds.
There’s no wild garlic, he notes. It was abundant in the forests around the town of Oakhurst, and Avid even found little clumps of it growing inside the walls of the town, but none on the cliff-walled island which houses the Castle.
But apart from the lack of garlic, there actually appears to be a diverse set of plants. Wild onions, scraggly green tomatoes, mint, lavender, wood sorrel in bright green patches around the bases of larger plants, tangled rosebushes and wild blackberry thickets as prickly as Owen.
Scott had approached him the first time he started hanging about the messy remnants of what would have been grand gardens, once upon a time.
“Pretending to be a mole, dear Avid?” Scott had asked, a teasing lilt to his voice. He leant forwards from the waist, casting a shadow over Avid from where he had been digging around the base of a particularly stubborn weed. Diffused light from the sun behind the clouds silhouetted Scott like some sort of painting.
“No.” Avid bit at the inside of his cheek. “Why would I pretend to be a mole?
“Beats me. That’s why I’m asking you.” Scott smiled wide, humour twinkling in his eyes.
Avid rolled his own eyes. “I’m sorting out this mess of a garden for you. There’s some decent plants, but it looks like no one’s actually touched it forever.”
“What a gentleman.” Scott picked up one of Avid’s muddy hands with his own fine bones, porcelain ones. He pressed a close lipped kiss to the back of Avid’s hand, deftly avoiding the worst of the dirt.
Avid gaped.
“What? Am I not allowed to thank you for your services to me?” Scott tilted his head to the side, like a curious fox.
“I— it’s just— I’m muddy.” Avid stumbled over his words.
“Do you see mud on me?” Scott gestured gracefully towards his face. Avid shook his head, and Scott raised an eyebrow, as if to say, ‘see?’. “Just don’t track it into the castle. Because I’ll make you scrub it off the floors.”
Avid snorted. “I won’t.”
The garden had become one of his pet projects. His vampire-encyclopaedia had reached a point where Avid feels as though he’s learnt all he’s going to, and that if he really wanted to find a way to kill vampires he would have to get hands on with it.
Which would be a. suicidal, and b. kind of awful. The image of Shelby’s terrified face pops up in his head every time he thinks of it. And then Avid thinks of the way a stake sounds and feels as you have to really put some force behind it to get through the ribs and—
Avid presses the back of his hand to his mouth, breathing deeply to try and push away the wave of nausea. It’s fine. It’s fine.
He focuses in on his task— trying to untangle the thicket of tomato vines to string them up on a trellis. At least he thinks these ones are tomatoes. The leaves are thicker, wider and a lighter green. Whatever. Avid will find out what they are when they bloom and fruit. Which, whatever sort of plant they are, they will do better when they have a nice trellis to climb on.
He pulls out a little patch of some spiky weed trying to grow up from underneath the mystery vine plant. He has to dig his fingers underneath it to get to the root of the plant, to avoid stabbing himself.
Avid finally uproots the plant, and goes to throw it on his pile of weeds, before he realises that it’s grown slowly to nearly a foot tall. He sighs, and scoops up the mess of green plant matter.
Avid walks down one of the half-cleared pathes he had been working on, towards the back side of the island. He has to weave between a few thicker bushes and duck under a tree branch or two before he gets to where he wants to be.
The high, cliff ringed plateau on which the Castle sits drops off sharply at most of its sides, but at the back it would probably be feasible to scrabble your way down. Avid doesn’t try because he’s not particularly agile nor is he stupid. Instead, he throws the armful of plant parts off the edge. Dusting his hands, Avid turns back towards the castle.
Then he hears a sound. A scrabbling sound of rock on rock, and then something almost like—a voice. There’s people there. Avid’s heart drops into his stomach. It can’t be any of the vampires because why would they bother climbing a steep, rocky slope when they could just transform into bats and fly?
Oh god. It’s the townsfolk. Avid lurches towards the castle, and then back as he fights through a wave of panicked indecision.
In the end, the choice is made for him.
The Doctor scrambles up over the edge of the slope, face flushed from exertion, and then he freezes once he sees Avid standing in front of him. There’s five stakes tied to his belt, and he’s holding a short, silvery sword in his right hand.
Martyn, Cleo and Apo follow after him, all freezing in place when they see Avid, like a hare in the beam of a torch.
“Well, that saves us a lot of trouble.” Martyn says, stepping forwards and holding out a hand for Avid to take. “Let’s get out of here before those bloodsuckers find us out.”
Avid steps backwards, keeping the gap between them the same. “What—how—you—you can’t be here, you need to leave.”
“Yeah. We all do. Come on.” Apo jerks her head in the direction they had crawled up from.
“Avid. What’s going on?” Doc asks him, voice as calm and steady as it always is.
“You need to leave.” Avid says, voice firmer.
“You’re not— you’re still human?” Apo asks, frowning.
“Yeah?” Avid’s expression mirrors hers. Why would he not be? The whole point of his deal—to keep them safe—hinges on his ability to supply blood to Scott. If he were a vampire, he wouldn’t produce any more blood.
“Then let’s get out of here.” Martyn says, his tone taking on a sort of stressed inflection.
“No. I have to stay— that was the whole point— the whole point of the deal was for me to do this and you guys stay away and we all— we’re all fine.” Avid scrambles for the right words. “I’m fine, I’m fine here. Scott is… he’s not kind or anything but he’s not evil like you guys think he is.”
“He’s keeping you as a living blood bag. That’s pretty damn evil.” Cleo hisses. “Come on, Avid.”
“No.” He says, voice firmer. “You need to leave. Scott— Owen, you don’t want Owen to find you here. He will kill you.”
“I can deal with him.” Legundo says, expression dark. “Avid, come with us. You’ll be okay. We can get you out. I’m working on a cure and I’m getting close, your research—“
“Stop. Stop, stop, stop.” Avid holds up both his hands, shaking his head. “Doc. There is no way to cure a vampire.”
Legundo blinks in confusion. “What? But we found these texts—“
Avid shakes his head, sadness stirring deep in his chest. “Doc, I tried to make a cure, a long time ago, and— and it—“ He has to pause, closing his eyes to steady himself. This is the best thing he can do for them now.
“It doesn’t work. I got my best friend killed because it doesn’t work. What do those texts tell you to do?”
Martyn begins to list off the steps, counting on his fingers. He holds three of them up— his mistake. “Kill the Sire, splash the vampire with holy water, and then—“
“And then stake them?” Avid throws out his best guess from all his hours of theorising. (Martyn held up three fingers, so the third part must be staking, if he is correct about that.)
The townsfolk all wear similar expressions of shock.
“How do you know that?” Apo asks, eyes wide.
“Because my best friend found a vampire and got herself turned so we could prove we had found the cure—and— and it got her killed.”
Avid blinks away real tears. He’s lying to them, he’s taking away their hope to bring Shelby and Pyro back but— but what is it the Doc says? Cut off the leg, save the body? This is for their own good.
“There is no cure. Vampirism is final, and you all need to leave here. I’m doing this to keep you safe, so please just listen to me!”
Legundo drags a hand down his face. “If we have to kill them—“
“You can’t.” Avid cuts him off. “You can’t kill Shelby. And Scott is— he’s not hurting anyone.”
“He’s hurting you!” Apo says, exasperation obvious.
“I agreed to this!” Avid shouts back. “I want to be here— I like it here.” Oh god, he’s got to go for the killing blow, doesn’t he? The words taste like acid as he spits them out. “They might be vampires, but they actually listen to me. Scott doesn’t treat me like I’m some escaped asylum patient.”
“Avid, that’s not fair,” Doc says, genuine hurt in his voice and on his face. “I believed you.”
“Yeah, well it was too little, too late. Get out of here while you still can and enjoy the benefits of my sacrifices.” Avid hisses.
Before the humans can argue with him further, a cold wind brushes up against Avid’s back and shoulders. The shadows beside him almost seem to darken for a moment, before Scott materialises out of thin air.
“I’d suggest you listen to him.” Scott purrs, hand resting on Avid’s waist.
The humans all make sounds of surprise and horror, scrambling backwards a few steps.
“The rest of the coven is… hm, fifty seconds away? And you have so thoughtlessly interrupted their hunts.” Scott puts on a pout. “Run along.”
“We’ll get you out of here, Avid.” Doc says, backing away. “Just hang on.”
“I don’t want that! Will you just listen to me for once?!” Avid shouts, “Go back to town and leave us alone!”
“You heard him!” Scott calls out after the fleeing townsfolk, a musical lilt to his voice. “What bothersome people.” He says to Avid.
Avid slumps, dropping his head down as some weird mix of negative emotions washes over him.
Scott tuts. “Oh Avid, don’t be a downer. I’m quite proud of you.”
“What?” Underneath the reflexive surprise, Avid feels a strange warmth in his chest.
“Well, you just had the perfect opportunity to turn on me, and make it a five on one battle. Of course, the rest of the coven would get here soon after, but then it would be five on three. You could have left.” Scott raises his eyebrows.
Avid shrugs. “I give you my blood, and they stay in town and no one gets hurt. If I leave that all goes out the window. I just don’t want anyone to die.”
Scott smiles down at him, amusement and pity playing across his face. “Oh, Avid. You’re far too selfless for your own good.”
Warmth flushes Avid’s cheeks, in stark contrast to the cold air around him. “I don’t—… I’m not. I don’t even mind the whole… blood thing. And, and the castle is cool…”
Scott cups Avid’s jaw, tilting his face upwards as if to get a better look at him. His lips pull up at the corners until the tips of his sharp, bone white fangs peek out. “You’re far smarter than the rest of them, aren’t you? Get on the winning side, hm? Well then, I should reward you for your loyalty.”
Avid’s heart skips a beat, and a feeling seeps through the back of his head, sticky and warm. “I— uh, there’s no— I didn’t do it for a—“
Scott leans forwards, pressing his lips to Avid’s forehead. Avid’s brain seems to get stuck on the sensation— smooth, cool flesh against his skin—like there’s nothing else he can focus on in the world. His breathing barely seems to matter to his brain, all focus instead on the points of contact where Scott touches him. Lips on his forehead, gloved hand on his jaw, free arm loosely resting against his side. Those points hold him in place as if he is one of those butterflies in a museum, limbs stretched out and held in place by a thousand pins. Avid feels like he’s about to burst into flames at any moment, like a simmering pot of water on the stove.
Scott pulls away, expression the same as moments before— like he doesn’t even realise what he’s doing. Avid blinks dumbly up at him.
In the next moment, the other vampires arrive, breaking whatever spell Avid fell under. He flinches away as Owen, Pyro and Shelby seem to drop out of the sky one after the other.
“Did we miss the action, Sire?” Pyro asks, eyes wide with anticipation of a fight. His expression drops for infinitesimal moment as he takes in the scene before him before he fixes it back into place. “Oh.”
“Don’t stress, Pyro. Avid was doing a good job warning them off before I even showed up!” Scott, who had stepped back half a step from Avid, rests a hand on his shoulder.
Owen deadpans at them, and makes a frustrated huff. “I was about to finish my hunt, and you interrupted me for no reason?”
“Don’t be a sourpuss.” Shelby playfully elbows Owen, and then prances over to Avid to crush him with a hug. “Oh Avid, I knew you’d come around and understand!”
After a moment, Avid wraps his arms around Shelby in return. She squeezes the breath out of him, and he has to wheeze “too tight!”.
“Sorry!” Shelby giggles, pulling away and pinching Avid’s cheeks. “I’m just sooo happy!!”
Scott turns towards the castle, one hand on Avid’s shoulder and one on Shelby’s. “Come on, everyone. I’ll break out one of my old bottles.”
“Yay!! Party!!” Shelby jumps up and down as they walk, and her excitement is so infectious Avid can’t help but smile. He pushes down the uncomfortable knot of conflicted emotions twisting around in his insides. This is good. They’re happy. They’re going to go inside the Castle and eat something yummy and drink wine older than any of them but Scott.
It’s good. It’s fine. Avid is happy.
*
The one thing that is consistent in life is change—be it slow and steady, like the undulating course of a river as it brings sediment downstream, shaping the environment around it, or be it fast and furious, like a forest-fire consuming everything in it’s wake.
Avid had mostly settled in to life at the Castle. He had accepted the reality of his situation and was determined to make the best of it.
It was that foolish optimism which fucked him over. He got complacent, he got sloppy.
And then Scott found his book.
The evening started like any other—a cool breeze flows under grey clouds as the Vampires of the Castle begin to wake. Avid wakes with them, stretching out his limbs as he clambers from his bed.
Something had, quite literally, come to him in a dream. In subconscious mind never seemed to slow down, and while he slept it continued to muse on vampires.
Avid had a nightmare where he was turned painfully, and then went on to kill the townsfolk. It clicks in his head— the pain of being turned, the fear of the being so much stronger than you who just killed you, it doesn’t go away. It festers and strengthens into violence towards others.
It’s another idea, with nothing but conspiracy behind it, but he pulls out his book to jot it down on one of the many, many ‘spaghetti’ pages, where he throws ideas at the page and sees which ones seem to stick.
Avid gets halfway through writing down his idea when he hears two footsteps—from one person, but they fade in so quickly he flinches—and the turning of the doorknob of his room. Adrenaline pumps through his blood, and Avid frantically stuffs his vampire-encyclopaedia under one of the pillows on his bed.
And not a moment too soon, Scott breezes into Avid’s room.
“Good evening, Avid.” He says, tone light and even. His gaze stays focused on Avid’s face, and the lack of suspicion on Scott’s face calms Avid somewhat.
“Uh— G-Good evening, Scott.” He says, unable to fully stamp out the quaver in his voice. “Converting any beacons today?”
“Hm. I don’t mind having three out of the seven—four would be preferable, as any less puts us on the defensive, and any more would provoke the humans to do the same.” Scott sits down on the edge of Avid’s bed, smoothing out the sheets as he does so.
“That’s… strategic.”
“Mhm. Most things are better done strategically. Speaking of, may I have a sip? It’s better to start the day on a full stomach.”
“Uh— o-okay!” Avid arranges himself into a reclined sitting position in the mountain of pillows on his bed. Scott slides an arm behind Avid’s upper back to brace him, and Avid has to squeeze his eyes shut, momentarily stuck back in Oakhurst’s church, pressed up against the beacon while he was sure Scott would kill him.
Scott leans in, and Avid complies by tilting his head to the side, stretching out the pale expanse of his neck. One second goes by, then two, then five. Avid begins to feel a sinking sensation in his stomach.
“What’s this, Avid?” The cool shape of Scott’s breath brushes over Avid’s neck, and he shivers. Avid glances down at Scott’s hand, the one not splayed against his upper back, and utter horror rushes through him.
Scott has his encyclopedia clutched in one dainty, clawed hand. He sits back on his haunches, knees on either side of Avid’s thighs, trapping him in place. There’s no need to. Like any other prey animal, Avid freezes in the torch-beam. His heart pounds uselessly, as if running or fighting could help him.
Avid remains motionless on the bed as Scott begins to flick through the pages of his book. He pauses frequently, slowing down to read different passages of Avid’s frantic scribbles. Instead of the expected rage building on Scott’s face, there’s only growing amusement.
Avid should know better by now than to try and predict any of Scott’s moods.
“You’re quite the artist, and the dreamer.” Scott purrs, flipping around the book to show Avid the page he had landed on—the one with the annotated drawings comparing Scott’s vampire features to Avid’s human ones. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to look at my own face, I should thank you for that.”
If he were not so terrified, the utter confusion of the situation would send Avid into a laughing fit.
Scott reads further. He finds the pages with Avid’s musings about the cure—about how to kill a vampire. Scott laughs, delicate and clear like a mountain brook.
“You never know when to give up, Avid. Did you think I would let you deliver these ideas to the town? Did you really think any of them work?”
The mild bewilderment in Scott’s tone breaks Avid out of his silence. “St-Staking. Staking kills vampires. I— I’ve done it. It works.” Guilt tears at the inside of his chest like a wildcat in a cage.
Scott laughs. Really laughs. He laughs like Avid had just delivered a stand-up comedy routine. “Oh, Avid. I had an entire town of resourceful, intelligent, powerful people set upon killing me. Do you really believe you came up with something they didn’t try? Something that I didn’t account for?”
Scott sighs, “Your enduring determination is admirable, but useless. Think about it—why would I be sentenced to six-hundred years of sleep if they could have simply staked me instead?”
Avid feels every beat of his heart, against his ribs, in his fingertips, he feels the ache of his muscles, tensed for a hopeless fight. “Why?”
Scott produces a stake from his belt. A beautifully carved spike of the darkest wood Avid has ever seen, encrusted with a golden handle embedded with blood-red rubies. Avid shies away, but Scott pries open his clenched fist, and forces Avid to take the stake with both hands.
“I want you to drive this stake into me as painfully as possible.”
Avid’s breath hitches in his throat, but he doesn’t move. It would be so fucking suicidal to do so. This has to be some sort of test— to test if Avid’s research was borne from pure curiosity, or genuine belief that he could make a difference to the fates of the townsfolk, that he could kill another vampire.
Scott uses his grip on Avid’s hands to roll the two of them over, reversing their positions so now Scott is the one trapped against the pillows, and Avid is looming over him, stake in hand.
“Don’t be afraid, Avid. Do you really think I’d let you kill me?” Scott smiles at him, face and tone deceptively gentle. With his hands over Avid’s on the stake, he slowly forces the sharp point closer and closer to the clean white linen of his shirt.
Avid’s breathing speeds up—he’s almost panting like a dog, and Scott’s face morphs underneath him. The room darkens, and he’s back in their cabin, stake in shaking hands as he knows he has to do this this isn’t her this is some monster that’s been stalking them their entire lives and he has to kill it it’s wearing her face—
“Avid.” His vision clears. Scott is below him, with the point of the stake pressing against his skin. “Trust my vanity, that I wouldn’t deprive the world of my beauty.”
The most beautiful stake Avid has ever held sinks into the skin of the most beautiful man he has ever seen. Blood bubbles up around the wound as Scott forces Avid to press down, inch by inch. It’s probably Avid’s blood, in some sick way, taken from him and liberated by him.
Scott gasps, the sudden sound breaking the silent trace the pair of them had fallen into. His lips redden as blood trickles out of the corner of his mouth. Scott coughs, splattering cool droplets of crimson across Avid’s face.
He doesn’t flinch.
Scott stills, eyes focusing somewhere far beyond Avid. His hands drop from around Avid’s, and he’s left alone, a stake in someone’s chest while his head buzzes empty.
Did he kill him? Did Avid actually just kill a centuries old Vampire? Did said centuries old vampire just commit suicide by Avid’s hands? Oh god. The other vampires are going to kill him. Shelby is going to kill him. Oh god.
Scott’s fingertips twitch. The sight causes Avid to jump. His eyes refocus on Avid’s face, and his lips split into a stained smile. Scott’s hands tremble involuntarily as he returns them to their previous position, cupping Avid’s hands. He guides Avid to pull out the stake, and as he does so, more blood spills out from the dark wound and drips onto the sheets below.
“Darling Avid,” Scott’s voice is raw, “There’s no way to kill me. I made a deal for immortality. Trueimmortality. There is nothing in this world that will ever be able to kill me. No matter how fast or skilled the vampire-hunter, no matter their weapons, no matter how powerful a witch— I am unkillable. The only thing people far more prepared than yourself could do was to put me to sleep, and to pray I stayed that way.”
Scott props himself up on his elbows, leaning forwards to close the gap between himself and Avid. His smile is dazzling, with red staining his teeth.
“You’re stuck with me, Avid.”
Avid gasps a breath in, the iron-rich scent of blood thick on his tongue. His chest had been still the entire time Scott had been still. Like some sort of macabre mirror of the elder vampire.
You’re stuck with me, Avid. stuck with me, Avid, stuck with me, stuck with me. You’re stuck with me, Avid.
Avid has bitten off far, far more than he could ever hope to chew. He chokes on it. Scott’s hand brushes up the side of his arm to cup Avid’s jaw. His long, delicate fingers brush against Avid’s warm skin.
Scott is stronger, smarter, and more prepared than any of them could ever hope to match.
The only way any of them are getting out of here— the only way Avid can save people, is to make the same sacrifice Elle made. He has to face the music, the flawless monster.
Avid has to die.
Scott sighs softly, and leans forward to place a gentle kiss against the underside of Avid’s jaw. “I knew you would make the right choice. You are very smart, dear Avid, and maybe, if it weren’t I that was your opponent, you might have won.”
Avid closes his eyes, and tears slip down his cheeks. It’s over. It’s over. His fight is over.
“Are you going to kill me?” Avid surprises himself with how steady his voice is.
“I could. I should. You’ve used the hospitality I have shown you to spy on my coven.” Scott frowns. “But I can’t fault you for trying to survive.”
“So you won’t?”
“It’s my fault for not making the situation here clear enough for you.” Scott softly rubs his thumb against the corner of Avid’s mouth. “Your capacity here, as a human, is to provide me with blood. You are housed, clothed, fed and watered, in return for your placidity.”
Scott pauses, giving him time to absorb his words.
“You do have another option, however.” Scott sighs heavily as he continues, voice quieting, “For some stupid reason, I am fond of you, meaning you may join the coven, if you wish. But I cannot allow you to continue this.” He picks up the book with his free hand, holding it to emphasise his point.
“I… I understand.”
Scott drops the book, and it tumbles off the bed, falling open and crumpling it’s pages under its own weight. With his new available hand, he holds Avid’s face. Scott’s expression softens.
“This might be difficult, but you are doing the right thing. The town doesn’t care for you, Avid, when will you see that?” Scott’s eyebrows furrow. “They don’t deserve your loyalty. They took advantage of your kindness and then left you to die.”
The words hurt. Avid closes his eyes again, bottom lip wobbling ever so slightly. “I just… wanted to protect them.”
“They don’t deserve it.” Scott brushes away the tears that cling to Avid’s lash line. “I can give you safety, protection, whether you become a vampire or not. You can take your time to decide, but I’m not letting you go back to them— I’m not letting them use you again.”
A foreign warmth begins to fill Avid’s chest. He doesn’t want to acknowledge it, but the emotion in Scott’s voice— the genuine care, the concern for Avid. It… it gets to him, alright? He chokes up, a new wave of tears filling his vision. Someone cares about him, not the sort of pity-care the humans showed him.
Scott doesn’t want people to hurt Avid.
He might be one of only two people who ever thought that.
Avid leans into Scott’s palm, eyes still closed, and whispers, “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
With Avid’s eyes closed, he misses the way Scott’s smile changes from something soft and comforting, to that of a general presiding over a battlefield as it falls to his soldiers. Scott, as an immortal, is an expert in playing the long game. Two weeks is nary a blip on his timeline, and yet that was all it took to break Avid’s resolve.
“And you never will be. I’ll make sure of it.” Scott whispers against Avid’s neck, guiding the human’s head back as he takes his last breaths. There is no resistance.
Avid has his hands fisted in the front of Scott’s shirt, but his body is not tense, and his heart rate is barely elevated.
As Scott’s fangs sink into Avid’s skin, a final, lone tear escapes the corner of his eye. By the time it falls off of his chin, Avid’s heart has stilled and his blood has begun to cool.
Avid opens his eyes, now a vibrant crimson red, and shudders the last warm breath out of his lungs.
*
The next morning—after Shelby had fawned over his new look, and Pyro had looked at him with some unreadable mix of awkwardness and frustration, and Owen had looked at him like a animal which had tracked mud in—Avid ends up on the ruined bridge.
He thinks back to the conversation he had with Scott here. Back then, Avid had been trying to kill the elder vampire. Gosh. The memory causes a giggle to bubble up in his chest. He had asked about silver, what it did to the vampire body, and if garlic could really kill one of them. Then, he had poked at that strange bond that connects both him and Scott.
It’s stronger now that he’s a vampire, and instead of feeling like cold metal on a misty morning, the thoughts and feelings that filter through to him from Scott feel almost just like his own. It might have scared him, a long time ago, but the Avid of today—the new, better Avid—simply smiles when he feels Scott tracing a mental finger down that wire, checking in on his fledgling, inquiring about the pain that must be filtering through to him.
Avid reassures Scott, and Scott backs away, leaving him to his own devices. Avid lifts his hand, opening his palm to reveal the chunk of silver that he had mined with Shelby, and hidden away in his room to try and create a weapon with. He had found it after he had accepted the gift, some part of his body recoiling instinctively from the metal. Now, it sizzles weakly against his palm, pain prickling up his wrist and into his arm.
Avid, ever the masochist, holds the metal against his bare skin and stares. It fascinates him, the way the skin looks as if it is bruising, colouring a cold, muddy purple colour.
A breeze blows past him, ruffling his hair and pulling at the wine-red cape fastened around his shoulders. Avid steps closer to the edge of the crumbling bridge, and looks down at the water of the river below. It shimmers in a rare moment of sunlight.
Avid reels back his arm, and throws the chunk of silver into the water with all his new strength. It splashes a good eighty metres downstream, ripples quickly absorbed by the natural flow of the dark body of water. Avid watches until he can no longer picture where the metal fell into the water.
As he turns back to the castle, clouds pass over the sun, sending a colder wash of air over Avid’s dove-grey skin. If he were human, he might have shivered and pulled his cape tighter around himself, to shield his soft body from the weather.
As a vampire, Avid tilts his head back and revels in it.
*
Two days later, the humans attack the Castle. It starts as a coordinated, well prepared push, but dissolves as soon as they see Avid. Drift physically crumples, Apo’s face steels, and Cleo glares at Scott.
The attack ends in bloodshed—Martyn falling off the bridge with Abolish diving after him, Drift and Ren running for their lives, and two hearts stopping cold.
When the dust had settled, and Pyro had started to right the chairs that had been knocked over and scattered across the hall, Apo pulled Avid aside. Their voice was low, quiet, like they were trying to stop anyone overhearing. Avid feels a manic giggle bubble up in his chest. If only Apo knew that he would broadcast anything suspicious she said straight to Scott.
“Avid. What’s going on here?” Apo hisses. “We’ve tried to get you out of here twice. Has Scott gotten to you or something? Does he— is he threatening you?”
Avid blinks a few times, a confused grin pulling at his lips. “Why would he do that?”
“You’re the last person here who would willingly become a vampire. Did he hurt you? Did he force you?” Apo glances over their shoulder to where Scott is talking to the others, anger filling her features.
The mere idea that Scott would force this on him— that the gift of vampirism was something that could be forced— “No!” Avid snaps. “I wanted this. I want to be a vampire. This is so, so much better— I’m stronger, I’m braver, I’m not afraid anymore.”
Avid squares his shoulders and puffs out his chest. He tries to look down his nose at Apo, to imitate the way Scott can strip away someone’s defences with a single look. But he’s a good few inches shorter than Apo, so it sort of falls apart. It’s the thought that counts.
Apo looks at him like he’s swapped faces with a wolf, but she keeps pushing. “We can cure you. I know you don’t think there is a cure, but Doc’s been working hard. He’s getting close to a breakthrough.”
“You need to kill the Sire to cure the fledgling, right?” Avid asks, hand slipping under his cloak to run his fingers over the smooth, cold wood tied at his hip.
“That’s what the books say.” Apo side eyes him. “What, Avid? Spit it out.”
Avid unsheaths the stake at his hip, holding it up for Apo to see. Dark wood, accents of gold and rubies red like blood. There’s dried smears of thick, sticky black blood dried along the pointed end. APO’s face twists through a dozen emotions in half a second.
“Why— why do you have that?”
“Scott gave it to me.” Avid smiles fondly, tracing a fingertip down one of the gilded decorations on the handle of the stake. “Before he turned me, he let me stab him with this.”
“He… he let you?” Apo seems to pale, despite the fact that Vampires have to blood to pale from.
“Guided my hands. There’s still blood on it, see?” Avis holds out the stake for Apo to inspect, but when they don’t move, Avid just hugs the stake to his chest. “You can’t kill him— no one can. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Avid smiles so wide his cheeks ache, and Apo looks at him in abject horror.