Archive of Our Own ^beta

The crypt yawns open in front of him, wide and gaping. A maw into the depths of the earth that threatens to swallow him whole, if he would only let it. Avid stares at it, down the throat to hell, and it stares right back at him, mocking with its gap-toothed smile, leering at him from the ragged hillside.

Only yesterday he'd bounded into that place with a reckless abandon he can no longer summon, lost laughter bubbling in his chest. A high that had buoyed him along and kept him firmly on the top of the world.

He sits at the bottom of the world now, shoes scraping through the gravedirt underfoot as he scuffs his way along, firmly grounded and left to rot as others take to the skies on skin-thin wings.

Where the blood had once sung, its melody falls flat. Dull when he attempts to recreate it, an absence where before it had thrummed in him, promising power and delights beyond his comprehension. His veins have been hollowed out, carved open by the Doctor's blade and ripped loose with the aid of Apo's claws.

It is…lonely without it.

Abruptly, Avid wishes he had stayed behind. Ignored how Pyro and Owen cajoled and cornered him, pushed him out into the sunlight when all he wanted to do was hide away in the crypt where it was safe. He could have curled up in Scott's coffin, as Shelby suggested, and hoped that the elder vampire would take pity on him upon his return, rather than being angry at his audacity.

The pit stretches before him, cavernous and open where the memory of the coffin is small and cosy. Comforting. He feels dizzy, stood on the edge here and unable to see the bottom of the pit with his weakened eyesight; even before this, he had struggled to discern shadows from his companions. And yet. And yet he cannot step back, trapped between the wish that only exists behind his eyes and the reality staring him in the face, threatening to draw him in and never release him from its clutches.

What had once been a human-trap, designed to leave them broken and bloodied were they stupid enough to stumble in, has now becoming something equally willing to snap him up in its jaws were bold enough to make the same mistake; it would spit him out, broken and bloodied, the same as a human. Where the humans had scrabbled and scraped at the walls, scoring marks into the walls in their desperation to find purchase in the rock and dirt, he would then be forced to join their ranks.

Owen steps past him, shoulder nudging against Avid's own hard enough to shake him free of his daydreaming and back into the present moment. It forces him to blink, and for the overwhelming depth of the pit to retreat and shrink in upon itself. Smaller than before.

Still not small enough for him to jump so easily over its yawning mouth as Owen and Pyro do. Their movements are still graceful, unhindered by the gravity that drags at the rest of them.

Avid cannot help the jealousy that curls low in his stomach, hot and thick with anger when they both look back upon him, indifferent to his plight. The emotions tangle fiercely, coiling together like a pair of seething snakes.

He takes a step back, away from the inviting ledge and all that lies beneath it. Nothing but humiliation at the hands of Owen and Pyro if he makes the mistake of falling in, of that he is certain.

"How about I keep an eye out?" He tries, backing up another step. "Do lookout?" The sun doesn't sizzle against his skin anymore, bathing him in a gentle warmth now that he is not so offensive to the realm of the living; but he's hardly a creature of the night either, caught in a strange in-between where neither camp seems to want him.

He's halfway into the sunlight before Owen calls him back, breathing in slowly as the warmth swallows him whole, draws him back into its careful hold. It hardly even stings.

"We need to be quicker," Pyro adds, backing the older vampire up. The both of them stand in the arched doorway to the crypt, balanced on the last step in the shadows, eerie spectres that he can hardly see. Only the glint of their eyes give them away. "The work will go faster with three of us rather than just two. Besides," Pyro steps further forward, edging out into the sunlight as far as he can bear. It means Avid can see how his eyes soften, though the rest of his face remains hard. "You'd be a target out here in the open. A sitting duck with nothing to protect you."

I wouldn't have been an easy target if you just left me behind, he doesn't say. He keeps that thought locked away with a clenched jaw and tight-pressed lips. Hopes the anger doesn't boil up behind his eyes. Feels guilty for it with how Pyro looks at him, pity and sadness a strange swirl in his eyes.

Owen looks at him like he can pluck Avid's thoughts from his mind. Looks at him with disgust, as though he has been evaluated and found wanting.

"Do you have an axe?" Owen asks, out of the blue.

"No…" Avid answers, slow. He glances at the rickety struts the humans had placed over the gap. They dip in the middle, and he's certain that placing any further weight on their thin beams would only snap them beneath his feet. He's certainly not willing to try; not willing to see if Pyro and Owen would reach to break his fall or allow him to plummet.

It's nothing that needs an axe to be removed. A little bit of strain, and they're giving way without another thought. The question is strange, with this in mind.

Something flashes in Owen's eyes when he meets them again. There and gone a moment later, like fish breaching the surface of a pond. It's too quick for him to grasp what it was, and he's left puzzling over it as Owen retreats back into the shadows of the crypt. Pyro follows close behind, loyal dog that he is.

Owen hums, considering. "You, uh, do you have your pickaxe?" he asks, after a moment.

"…I do," Avid answers, still slow. Still watching the two vampires as they watch him. A silent stand-off as both parties attempt to size one another up. If he was so desperate for an axe, he could use the one at his belt, the one he always carries with him, not get Avid to do…whatever it is he wants with the wood and his pickaxe.

"How about you start hollowing the pit out then?" Owen says. His hand rests on the knob of his axe, clawed fingers settling into grooves that he'd previously carved there. Avid swallows and looks back into the pit.

"But…I can't jump out of there." He could fly out, has just enough blood in him for a short transformation. Which Scott had said to only use in a worst-case-you're-going-to-die-if-you-don't scenario.

"It's not deep enough to kill you," Owen scoffs, unsympathetic. Pyro has disappeared behind him, retreating further into the crypt and the shadows it boasts. "Just-" a harsh breath. "I made an escape path on the left-hand side. Can you see all the divots in the wall there?"

Avid follows where he's pointing, ignoring how a flush crawls over his chest and up the back of his neck with his embarrassment at needing to be coddled. He squints against the darkness as Owen gets increasingly more frustrated at his inability, before he just about manages to make out the faintest impressions against the rock of the cave wall.

Handholds. Roughly hewn, but enough for him to dig the tips of his fingers into. Enough to balance the edge of his boots against so that he might climb out rather than exhaust the last of his blood supply.

He leans further over the edge as he considers them- too far, because a moment later he's tumbling in, rock loose beneath the heel of one boot and taking the rest of him with it into the base of the pit with a cut-off squeal.

His foot catches on something as he plummets, flipping him midair. He lands hard a moment later. Hard enough that he just lies there for a moment, struggling to process the rest of the world around him, dazed and hurting all over. Aching in a way that he though he had left behind.

"Are you hurt?" Owen calls. When Avid looks up, he can hardly see past the darkness that has so quickly swallowed him, blotting out the last of the light with how deep in the earth he sits now. He swears under his breath and fumbles for a torch, stares at the unlit wick for a long moment, before rifling through his pockets for a match to light it with.

It's soft as it flares into life, crackling with flame and woodsmoke as Avid casts about. The rock walls around him are thrown into a sharper focus, shadows deep in the grooves and making it seem as though they close in another inch with each flicker of fire. When he looks up, Owen's squinting against the light, face twisted and sharp.

"Only a little," Avid lies, when he realises Owen is still waiting for his answer. The ringing in his ears has already begun to fade, allowing the world to chirp at him again, but the aches persist. Everything about him is bruised. Everything hurts. But he's only just managed to drag himself across no-man's land and into Owen's good graces. He's not about to let a mistake like this ruin his chances at ever getting in the man's good books. "Not much, though. I'm…okay."

Owen hums in response, no words joining the small acknowledgement, even as Avid waits, staring up at him. The way Owen watches is…unsettling. He lurks behind another person where he can, lingers in corners whenever he cannot, eyes fixed on those surrounding him as though they're all potential meals. As though he's just waiting for someone to show weakness before he pounces.

"Are we making this deeper?" Avid asks. Hopes beyond hope that it breaks Owen from his reverie, pulls him loose from whatever thoughts he's found himself lost in.

Owen blinks. His eyes reflect the torchlight back, silvered and unnatural in a human face. "Yeah." He says, slow and considering. Then, lighter, "Yeah, 'cause right now it's not enough to kill them."

"Okay." He nods, gripping the handle of his pickaxe tighter, then loosening up. "You got it." Tries to hype himself up to move, sitting up further, rock at his back, digging into his spine and adding to the aches. Pushes himself into a crouch a moment later.

The sudden motion sends a new kind of agony through his side, radiating out through his limbs and tingling at the ends of his fingers. He pauses for a moment to gasp and try not to jostle anything as he breathes, a mechanical in and out that his body has not yet forgotten. He blinks the tears back, refusing to let them catch in his eyelashes as his hand tightens around the pickaxe handle.

"I don't like being in a hole…" he murmurs to himself. Speaking it into the dark corners of the pit, pushing it gently out into the world as though someone might hear of his agony. Feel sorry for this pitiful form and what he has done to himself. Show sadness for the small creature burying itself within the dirt.

There is no divine intervention. No holy chorus to buoy him up, to bring him relief and rejuvenate him at his lowest moment. No angels swoop from the heavens to pull him from this grave and carry him back to the castle. Maybe back to Scott, wherever he may be.

Perhaps it is for the best that no such intervention arrived. An angel's touch would be too holy for a creature such as him, just as likely to harm as it was to help.

"Pyro?" He glances up at Owen's call, watching as the vampire turns away from his silent vigil over the edge of the pit, speaking to the other just out of view. Quiet enough that he cannot pick up on what they're saying, ears uselessly straining to pick up even a snippet of conversation. He can only tell that words are being spoken, not what is being said. It is all gibberish to him, weakened as he is. "Are you- are you coming? We need your help digging."

"I've got this," Avid snorts, quiet and mocking beneath his breath. We need your help. As though Owen had lifted a single finger to help since Avid stumbled his way down here. His words are just as much a mockery as a reassurance, though.

A reassurance breathed into the flame of his torch, just to watch how it flickers. It's soft glow has quickly become grating, something he is coming to resent. It leans back towards him as his breath stills again; he takes the small comfort. Uses it to smother the unease he feels in his chest. The roiling of nausea and anxiety beginning to twist in his gut.

He jumps at a harsh sound right beside his ear, hand tightening on the handle of his pickaxe as he looks up. Owen looks down at him, head tilted and one eyebrow raised, harsh in its questioning. He stands nearly a full head above Avid, maybe more — more than he usually would, at least. It's a novelty to see his chin for once.

Avid looks away, blunt nails biting into the skin of his palms.

"Listen." Owen's eyes glow in the dark, a sheen of disconcerting reflection. His pupils swell, eating up the darkened, bloodied iris around them. In that moment, Avid can feel how his heart defies all the odds, giving a trembling little beat in his chest, a weak battering against his ribcage. A disconcerting pulse in his chest of stop-start motion that leaves him off-kilter and uncertain. "I, uh, I meant what I said earlier, you know. With people being unable to escape from the person they once were."

Those pupils constrict, slimming down to slits of darkness so suddenly that it leaves Owen's eyes glowing as he leans in. He's light on his feet as he slips forward, entirely purposeful with how he looms over him, perched on a slab of rock Avid had not yet broken down to rubble.

It is an incredibly purposeful choice. One made deliberately. One chosen so that he might feel small.

"I think that applies to you too," Owen continues, voice low. As though he's sharing some secret. It means Avid jumps again as Pyro lands at his back, light on his feet. Avid turns, stepping back into a corner so that he might keep both of them in his line of sight. Some buried prey-instinct kicking into overdrive.

The handholds taunt him from over Owen's head, just out of reach. He longs for them now, even half-reaches for where the bat lingers in his chest before he glances up.

The ceiling has lowered.

He can feel his breath in his throat. Thick and stale. Unwanted breath that both of the predators in front of him hone in on, beasts drawn to an animal in a trap. Avid is just about ready to gnaw his own leg off and throw it to the wolves so the rest of him might escape.

"I think," Owen says, stepping off the ledge. It lowers him a whole head and then some, but Avid can't find it in him to laugh at his stunted height, like he might usually with such a dramatic shift. A man that hardly reaches his chin has him cowering in fear, limbs locked and shaking like a newborn fawn. "That though you claim to be a vampire, deep down, in truth, I don't think you really believe that. I don't think you have what it takes."

"You tried to slay me," Pyro says, stepping forward. Stepping closer. There's a snarl beneath their words, a gravitas to their voice that has his stomach dropping, phantom heartbeat thrumming in his ears.

"You guys…" he says. Tries to laugh it off, even as tears well up in his eyes, as though this might be some prank. A hazing ritual to initiate the new vampires and ensure that there is some mettle to those being inducted into the flock. Only, as Pyro draws closer, draws a stake from the depths of their cloak, does the last of Avid's hope dissipate.

"You tried to cut me up on that tree," Pyro growls. Avid watches his hand more than his face, sees how his claws dig deep into the splintered, scarred wood. "You thought it was funny."

"You guys, you- you wouldn't," he laughs, feels how the tears bubble up and spill over. He continues to laugh, even as his eyes blur and even though it isn't funny. Not when the point of that stake draws dangerously close, poised to sink into him while there's nothing he can do.

Maybe the universe really had heard his plea earlier, listened to his pitiful whimperings for home and safety and wishes for the warmth of another body beside his own with an apathetic ear. Perhaps it had found it wanting — found him wanting — just as Pyro has. As Owen has. They have all looked into his person, and he had pulled his ribcage apart to help them peer at his tender insides, hoping that they might trust him. Might find the truth within and decide that he was worth keeping around.

Instead, they have dug their claws in and begun to rip him apart. Pulled him open further until his skin is splitting at the seams he is nothing more than a pile of blood and viscera and regrets.

"Wait!" He flinches away from the first blow, though it does nothing to spare him from the cut of Pyro's claws. He mourns, for a moment, how they rend through Scott's cloak with ease, leaving the ends of it in tatters, broken beyond repair. He mourns and mourns, then mourns a little more that this might be his death shroud. "Please!"

He begs, uncaring of how pitiful he might sound. How his tears force his words to thicken as he sobs, shaking and shivering as he backs himself into a corner, not an animal willing to lash out but one bowing in submission, hoping that he might be spared.

"Well," another voice joins the conversation, cutting through Avid's whining, sharp and so, so familiar. Achingly so, and Avid cries a new wave of tears as he takes in Scott's blurred form. They're hardly noticeable amongst the tears already running down his face. "This certainly wasn't what I expected to find."

His legs give up on him then, and he slides to the ground. The rock scrapes at his back as he does so, sharp and cutting even through the thick fabric of his waistcoat. Owen and Pyro have looked away from him, swivelling towards Scott as though pulled on strings.

A pit opens in his stomach as Scott continues to stare at him, a strange blankness covering his face. The idea that this could all be some elaborate ruse takes root in his mind, that Scott has entered late to offer a false hope to a dying man solely to watch him suffer after the reveal.

"The three of you have certainly been…busy." Scott looks away from him, eyeing the bottom of the pit with disdain, lip curling. Avid curls himself smaller, tucking his knees in close as though he might be able to disappear into the rock if only he tried a little harder.

"Scott," Owen says, a faint note of surprise in his voice. Nothing else slips past, no hints of what Avid had just narrowly escaped. The stake had disappeared back into the depths of Pyro's cloak. Nothing more than a waking nightmare, all evidence wiped clean. "I wasn't aware you would be…joining us."

Owen's voice strains more the longer he speaks, the forced apathy crumbling in the face of his own frustration. One that bubbles beneath the surface, which he dare not express in front of the elder vampire. Scott catches it too, if the subtle flick of his ears and disdainful glance are anything, and then he's looking at him.

Avid retreats further, feels how the craggy edges dig into his spine and sides. He's abruptly glad that Pyro and Owen are stood between him and the force of the elder vampire's fury, blocking the majority of him from view. It may not hide his face, a flushed, ugly mess, only made uglier with the hot tears still rolling over his cheeks, drying in sticky trails that make his face itch.

He doesn't dare raise a hand — doesn't dare move — to scrub the tears away and relieve the awful sensation for fear that Scott might notice the state of his clothes. How they're tattered and bloodied, dirtied by his scrambling to escape the inevitable.

Clothes he had pulled from a dusty wardrobe just that morning. Tried them on with a strange glee that had bubbled in his chest, had expanded and left him gasping for breath when Scott looked at him, both bemused and endeared, fondly disgusted by the chant he'd pushed them all into. He had spun and laughed and giggled with his friends, pleased by the swish of his cloak and how Drift and Shelby admired him, complimented him; how it made Scott look at him, a quiet approval behind his eyes.

"Well," Scott says, snapping him back to the present moment and all the awfulness that entails. His eyes slide away from Avid, towards Owen. There's something cutting there, biting deep into the other vampire. "I was under the impression that you were one short. I thought I might assist."

Pyro shifts on his feet, rocking back and forth as though they might take a step forward, towards Scott. Toward their sire. Always, always towards their sire. They halt the half-formed motion just as quickly when Scott's ears flatten completely, pinned back to the sides of his skull, furious eyes turning on his fledgling.

"We needed the numbers," Owen says, drawing Scott's ire back towards himself, however inadvertently. "Without him, this would have taken much longer."

"Why not bring someone else? Someone other than Avid." Scott steps forward then, closes that carefully maintained distance between him and Owen. His heels click against the stone, the slow tap-tap-tapping more akin to a gunshot with how it shoots through Avid. He can't help the low whine he lets out, snapping his jaw shut tighter when it pulls the attention of the entire room back to him.

"Please," Scott bites, low and dangerous, a snarl curling around the edge of his words. A low bark the only forewarning of the vicious bite to follow. "Enlighten me on why you brought the one person I instructed you to leave behind. To allow him to remain at the castle where it was safe."

…Scott had wanted him to remain behind? It casts that conversation into a new, awful light. Throwing everything into a sharper relief, revealing details that hadn't been obvious in the moment, blurred by both his panic and the very real tears that had filled his eyes at the time.

How Pyro had lingered in the doorway, cast himself in shadow as he remained halfway in the hall. Avid had assumed it was an attempt not to crowd him in, try not to overwhelm him any further as he left Owen to do the talking. Now, it's nothing more than sentry duty. Make sure no-one else was coming along to interrupt their carefully laid plans.

"We needed the numbers," Pyro parrots, looking towards Owen for guidance. Avid finds himself surprised at the sudden backbone Pyro seems to have grown, refusing to bow beneath the weight of his sire's disapproval when it swings over to him. The Pyro of only a day prior would have crumpled under such a burden, unable to resist the pull Scott had over him. Now, his resolve only seems to strengthen with the renewed attention. "He made it easier."

"Oh, I'm sure he did." Scott's smile turns tight, the outline of his fangs visible through the skin as his mouth strains. "Awfully difficult to kill him somewhere we might hear, right?"

Avid swallows down another small, pathetic sound when those eyes swing back over to him, only able to take a small comfort from how they seem to soften. Still, something small and desperate strains deep in his chest, behind his ribcage, rebelling at the thought of being trapped in such a confined space with an outwardly hostile vampire.

Scott laughs, sudden and harsh and not at all amused, barking it right into Owen's face. "Did you really," Scott punctuates his words by taking a step forward, caging Owen in another corner. "Seriously think that I wouldn't realise? That I wouldn't figure out what you two were planning?"

Owen sighs. "I was hoping it would take a little longer, honestly."

There's no remorse in his voice, no longer bothering to feign it, not even to save his own skin. His shoulders roll back and he's snarling right back at Scott, fangs flashing. Owen might have no ties to Scott, no direct coven linkages to bind them together, but surely he can feel the fury that crashes over them all, taste it in the air for how thick it is.

If he does, he shows no sign of it. He simply stares back at Scott, stubborn as a mule while Avid can't help but feel as though he's going to shake apart if this continues on any longer.

"Long enough for us to go through with it, at least," Owen says, a satisfied smile curling around the words as he smirks at Scott, unphased by how the emotion in the air swirls, a miasma coalescing around the two of them.

Scott snarls properly then, low and furious. It rattles through all of Avid's bones and has his muscles locking up, holding him perfectly still. Even the small, trembling creature infesting his chest cavity and huddling where his heart once beat stills. Its frantic calls for escape die out, and Avid can do nothing but watch as Scott lunges forward.

One hand slams Owen's shoulder back into the rock, the motion fast enough that Avid can hardly track it. The other throat seizes at Owen's throat, uncaring of how the man claws at his forearm, tearing through his shirtsleeves and digging into the skin below and ripping.

Both he and Pyro make twin sounds of distress at that, united only for a singular moment before they diverge again.

Scott slams Owen back into the wall by the grip on his throat, head cracking against the stone sickeningly, enough that Avid finds himself cringing away from the scene, but unable to tear his eyes away from how Scott pushes him back and holds him there, feet dangling off the ground and the toes of his boots only barely managing to scrape against rock.

Like this, it only makes it more obvious how uneven the two are. How much Scott dwarfs Owen. How he has to lean down to even try and put them at the same eyeline. Avid sees how his hand flexes, fingers crooking around Owen's neck until his claws begin to press into the delicate flesh there.

He doesn't break skin yet, but the indentations he's making are obvious, and Owen can feel it too. Maybe he can sense the anger now, sensing it in the heavy air of the pit. Whatever it is, he's silent, eyes wide as he swallows shallowly, cautious of the claws that threaten to split his throat open.

No lifeblood remains in the vessels, no pulsing drumbeat to echo out his distress, or whatever it is that he feels as his eyes harden, steeling against the pressure against his throat and the threat that lingers there.

"We are a coven," Scott says. His voice has lost most of its snarl, but a dangerous rumbling continues to underscore his voice. "Your sire may have chosen not to give a damn and leave you at the wayside to learn the ropes on your own, but you should have learned by now. Your sire doesn't hand-hold you through the rest of your forsaken life, either those lessons are taught or they are instilled with force."

Owen makes an awful, rasping sound that might have been words if it weren't for Scott's hand pressing into his throat. The self-satisfied smirk of before has vanished, replaced with a scowl fierce enough to light a lesser person on fire.

"How dare you speak of him," Owen chokes out, speaking despite all odds working against him, none in his favour as Scott's hand flexes, temptation overriding reason for a moment before he stills the treacherous limb again. Owen grins, obviously gearing up for more.

Scott cuts him off before he can continue, tightening his grip from harsh to crushing. The other vampire makes a cut-off, pained noise before he falls silent again, head dipping low. The breath in their lungs may be artificial, unnecessary in this unlife, but it is still a comfort to have that weight in your chest.

"I dare when you dare to bring harm to my coven." Scott spits. "You were a nothing before, just some sad, half-vampire that buried itself because you couldn't stand to live in a world you desired. I chose to bring you into this coven out of the goodness of my heart, perhaps some twisted sense of sympathy that you didn't have one of your own to return to."

The rattle of rock underfoot distracts Avid from the verbal lashing Owen's receiving, pulling his eyes away from the disaster for just a moment. Pyro has begun to shift forward again, taking the opportunity now that Scott's back is turned and his focus is wholly on Owen.

They use the distraction to slide around Scott's back, positioning themself directly behind their sire, hand slipping into the dark inner folds of their coat. It makes Avid's gut twist and his tongue heavy in his mouth, leaving him mute and unable to do anything as Pyro stares at the back of Scott's head.

They crouch low to the ground, hesitating for now, but with all the bunched-up muscle of a predator just waiting to pounce. Pausing to watch for a moment of weakness, a final evaluation before that fatal burst of energy.

Avid sniffles, swallowing around the lump in his throat and the lead in his mouth, feeling weighed down, pinned into this corner by nothing but his own indecision and fear; unable to even warn Scott of the threat that lurks at his back.

"I had trusted that you would take to it," Scott continues. "That the intrinsic desire to protect the fledglings would take root and bloom. Form into something a little softer." Scott sighs, a sharp burst of an exhale, and shakes his head. "And yet, you never sanded down your edges, remaining standoffish and cold, mildly warmer towards me than the others, but cold all the same.

"And then you set your sights on my fledgling. You dug your claws in and pulled."

Scott's hand tightens abruptly, claws digging in as he drags them down. It comes away bloody, Owen's eyes wide as he stares up at Scott. His mouth gapes open, and below that his throat hangs wide, bloody and torn, teeth of cartilage gnawing at the edges of the wound as it splits itself open further, stolen blood flowing forth and staining the front of his shirt.

Avid gasps. Pyro does too. The stake clatters to the ground at their feet, ringing out like a death knell as Scott turns, head tilted as he considers his first fledgling. He holds his hand gingerly out, blood and flesh alike caught beneath his claws, dripping onto the floor.

Behind him, Owen gasps in a breath, loose skin fluttering over the gaping wound as he does so. For one horrible moment one of the bloody strips of flesh sticks to an intact part of his throat, twisting muscle and sinew around itself as Owen's head wobbles, before sliding away and leaving a trail of blood behind it.

Avid's certain he's going to vomit.

Scott watches Pyro carefully, uncaring or unaware of the splatter of gore splashed across the side of his face, trailing up into his hairline. Avid doesn't mention it, and neither does Pyro, both of them fearing where those claws might find purchase next.

"Pyro," Scott purrs, stepping forward. He leaves Owen to slide down the wall, hand fumbling for his throat, as though that might close the wound over faster. Avid makes the mistake of catching his eye during those fruitless attempts, flinching backwards into the rock at the burning hatred glaring back at him. "That wasn't a stake I heard you drop, was it?"

Owen continues to stare at Avid, even when he looks away, back to the unfolding disaster playing out in front of him. He'll come back, he tells himself. Repeating it over and over like a mantra when the first iteration doesn't do anything to alleviate the awful feeling in his chest.

Scott and Pyro continue to watch each other carefully, their head-on collision going through the motions right in front of Avid, eye-catchingly grotesque, addictive with how he can't bear to tear his eyes away from it for fear that he might miss something.

"No, no," Pyro backtracks, lying through his teeth even as the evidence of his betrayal rolls towards Scott's boots.

Scott hums. Nudges at the stake with the toe of his boot.

It rolls across the floor with an awful rattling sound, hollow wood echoing around the enclosed pit, amplifying within the small space until it's all Avid can hear. It continues to echo in his ears even after it has stilled.

He can't look away from it. The stake meant for him, the one that Pyro had pulled from his coat, brandished not as a threat but as a promise. Had he carved it himself? Loving sheared the rough edges off, stripped the bark away until it was sharpened into a neat point?

Had he and Owen sat together, talking as one held the knife and whittled away at the wood? Had they laughed and conversed, as though nothing was wrong in the world and they weren't planning a murder? Had neither of them worried that, at the end of it all, they would both turn on each other? Or had the thought not even crossed their minds, both too focused on the target they had begun painting on his back?

Avid feels sick. An all-consuming, all-encompassing kind of nausea that dwarfs any of his previous queasy feelings, makes them feel inconsequential in comparison. It's one that settles deep in his flesh, clawing its way through his skin and into his organs, wrapping tight and squeezing. He's more than certain he's going to vomit, throw up whatever blood remains in his stomach and then some.

That stake had been meant for him. It really, genuinely had been. They had intended to lure him out here and stake him. Put him down like he was some sick animal; did they think it was some kindess? A way to put him out of his misery, spare him any further suffering? Would they have been gentle as they went through with it? A slow, gentle easing of the stake between his ribs, a soft touch before he drifted away?

Could they bear to show mercy to a dying man in his final moments, offer him some last comforts, or would they have been cruel? Would they have struck him harsh and fast, hammered it in unrelentingly until he breathed his last?

…They would have been cruel. He knows it.

"Were you going to use that on me?" Scott asks, still speaking in that slow, smooth way of his that usually pulls Avid in, draws him close. Now, it only sets him on edge. Makes him all the more aware of the dangerous anger that lingers beneath that saccharine sweetness. Pyro seems to recognise it too, cringing backwards and away from his sire as some long-buried part of his brain kicks into gear.

"No." Pyro says. It's quieter than his previous denial, more hesitant. He even looks away as he speaks, refusing to meet Scott's eye as though that would inspire confidence. As though Avid hadn't watched him circle around in Scott's blind spot, hand poised for the fatal strike.

"No?" Scott's voice lilts, dangerous. A slow smile stretches over his lips in the silence that follows, eyes tracking the way Pyro begins to tremble. Avid holds his breath, fearful that any small noise might draw this predator towards him instead; allow him to set his sights on a weaker, easier prey. "Do you think I didn't hear you? Couldn't hear you scurrying around behind my back like a little rat?"

Pyro's face flushes, bright with all his stolen blood. Despite his obvious embarrassment, he remains straight-backed as Scott sidles closer. Doesn't yield even as the air grows heavier. Thick enough with tension that it makes Avid want to scramble past them, out of the pit, consequences of it be damned.

"I wouldn't use it on you, Scott."

Avid blinks. Scott blinks too. Even Pyro seems a little taken aback, though they were the one to utter it. They double down just as quickly, face shuttering and drawing all emotion back under the surface.

In all his time in the castle, in all his time around Pyro after the vampires' dramatic reveal…he doesn't think he's heard Pyro utter Scott's name a single time. To hear it now…uttered into the deadened, still air of this accursed pit, it makes something uncomfortable take root in Avid's chest.

A small spike of fear. Frissoning through his being with a sharp jolt.

Despite it all, he's worried for Pyro.

"Little vampire grew some fangs, huh?" Scott grins, though the shock of Pyro's disrespect has clearly shaken him, left him wrong-footed and unbalanced in a conversation where he had once held all the power. "Tell me, was this some desperate attempt to get back in my good books? Some kind of ploy to get me to reaffirm your status as the favourite?"

Pyro scowls, the farce of neutrality disappearing in a blink. "Why would you choose him?" Pyro cries, bursting into motion so sharp and sudden that Avid can do nothing but stare as Pyro gestures at him. He's too tired to flinch back or startle at it anymore, energy slowly draining out of him the longer this confrontation drags on. "The one person we said we wouldn't turn, that we didn't want to turn. The person you didn't like up until a few days is suddenly the best thing since sliced bread! Because, what, he's sweet and naive and affectionate?"

Pyro snarls the last word like it's a slur, spitting it out at Scott's feet and glaring at him reproachfully.

Avid swallows, feeling incredibly awkward as he's caught in what seems to be the last moments of…their relationship? Partnership? Something falls apart right in front of him. Pyro looks ready to rip his hair out or lunge at Avid again and be done with it while Scott remains entirely unaffected, cold and indifferent in the face of Pyro's distress.

"You!" Pyro turns on him, looking manic and unhinged, claws curved and eyes wild. "You- you don't understand, you're taking all this for granted! You've swanned your way in here and claimed the top spot without doing a single lick of work!"

"Pyro," Scott says, calm and measured as always. Pyro whirls back towards him, shoulders hiked high and hair spiked from where he's run his hands through it. Avid can't help but feel a little sorry for him, sympathy worming its way through him and spreading, infecting more and more of him as he watches Pyro fall to pieces.

"What?" They snap. It makes Scott's mouth flatten into a disapproving line, eyes flicking over Pyro's face, as though searching for something.

"Please, dearest, do not misunderstand me. I have never had, and will never have favourites." He sighs, sounding really, genuinely torn up about it. " I have those I hold in a higher regard than others, those that receive my favour. I had held you in high regard Pyro, and that did not change when Avid joined us."

Avid jumps as, between one moment and the next, Scott has made his way across the room to loom over Pyro. Pyro doesn't flinch at the sudden movement, though his ears tilt backwards, a disgusted tilt coming to his lips as he snarls at Scott. He doesn't shrink beneath the attention as Scott raises his bloodied hand, bits of Owen's cartilage and skin still caught on the claws there, and settles it against Pyro's cheek.

It's a tender gesture. One that Pyro leans into even as it smears the viscera over his pale cheek. Leaning in even as that claw creeps dangerously close to his eye. For a moment, it's tender, and Avid really, really feels like he's interrupting something. Peering in on a moment not meant to be witnessed by others. As though he's tainting it with his mere presence.

"That changed," Scott says, gentle, breathing it into the small gap between his face and Pyro's. Avid wants to look away — should look away — but he cannot bring himself to do it. Cannot bear to close his eyes against the predator lurking in the same corner as him. "Five minutes ago. When I came here and found two of my covenmates attempting to execute a third. Owen, I can almost understand, but you? The eldest of my fledglings, the first to stand at my side?"

Pyro blinks, slow and soft, and Avid's surprised to see a tear trickle down their face. The way their mouth downturns and shakes, how they seem to lean into Scott's contact heavily as though they're only barely restraining themself from clinging tight and refusing to let go.

"Do you know what my sire would have done if he found anyone attempting something like that?"

"Your practices are archaic," Pyro says, but his heart isn't in it. It lacks the heat of before, a hollowness taking root and twisting through Pyro's whole being. It's as though he's been carved out between this moment and the last, leaving nothing but this empty shell behind. "We've modernised."

"Hm." Scott tilts his head to the side, still regarding Pyro with that sad fondness. A grief mixed in amongst the affection. "If you were anyone else I wouldn't hesitate to rip your jaw from your skull and leave you to rot. A fitting punishment for such a betrayal…one that didn't succeed, certainly, but an attempt nonetheless."

Pyro pales at the threat in Scott's words, the soft, growling undertone of his voice, present even in these gentle moment between them. Despite his ignited fear, he doesn't pull back from the hold, curling around the contact even closer, closing his eyes sleepily even as Scott reaches within his cloak—

Avid cries out when Scott drives the stake into Pyro, breath caught, choking, in his throat as he stares at the pair. Scott cradles Pyro close, forehead presses into his shoulder, hand curled around the back of his head and grief in his eyes as he leaves him pinned against the wall, stake buried deep within the dirt there.

When Scott turns to him, Avid finds that there are still tears left for him to cry. They flow freely now, hot and awful and terrible, dripping down his chin, soaking the front of his shirt as he stares up at the bloodied figure which now towers over him.

Normally, if he were standing and standing up straight, he would have a few inches of height on Scott. Nothing to write home about, but enough that he has to hunch in on himself a little bit to see the elder vampire eye-to-eye.

That height disappears now. In that moment, Avid feels as small as a bug, staring up at Scott with the fear that he may be crushed beneath the heel of his boot, tossed aside as nothing worth keeping around when he's putting on such a pathetic display.

"Avid," Scott breathes, voice cracking. None of the quiet anger from before is present, though the grief still intertwines itself with his words, present in every molecule of his being. Instead, he speaks to Avid with affection and softness. Softness that Avid doesn't deserve, not when his own failings have brought Owen low and…worse for Pyro. He doesn't want to look at Pyro, doesn't want to see how his body might crumble, falling in on itself until there's nothing left but a pile of ash. That too, would be lost amongst the dust and rubble of the pit. Not even a footnote, forgotten even in death.

"Why'd you do it?" He asks, voice shaking. He refuses to meet Scott's eyes, refuses to look into them and be lured in with the affection. He will not go out the same way as Pyro, coaxed into the afterlife with a careful hand and sweetened words. "Why- why kill him when he didn't kill me?"

Scott's silent then, and Avid's almost certain that he's searching for another stake. One for Avid this time.

Only, there's a swish of fabric and a sudden weight against his shoulder, then a pull and he's being embraced, swaddled in the darkness of Scott's cloak even as he continues to cry, impossible tears slipping down his face as he tries to smother the small, pathetic sounds that the creature in his chest is so desperate to make.

"He isn't dead," Scott says. But that can't be true, he has to be lying, because Avid watched Scott stake Pyro with his own two eyes, and God, what's he going to tell Shelby? Yeah, hi, your sire tried to kill me so Scott killed him instead. He's never going to be able to face her again, isn't sure he could cope with the quiet sadness that would overtake her. "Avid," Scott says, calling out as though he's trying to pull Avid back towards himself. "Avid, hey, look at me, yeah?"

Avid looks at him, helpless in the face of Scott's voice. He's like a siren, always pulling Avid in even when he knows better. Knows that there is nothing waiting for him in the depths of the waters.

Scott looks back at him, eyes crinkled at the corners and mouth downturned. He looks…stressed. Stressed is the kindest way Avid can put it.

Scott's hand, the clean, unbloodied one this time, settles against his face, cupping his jaw until Avid leans the weight of his head into his palm. He tries to pull back when Scott slowly turns his face towards Pyro — Pyro's final resting place — but Scott's grip is firm, unyielding but still gentle.

"Not dead," he repeats, still speaking gently.

Avid isn't sure how to respond, staring at Pyro's limp form with a mixture of confusion and morbid hope. Elle had always said vampires disappeared instantaneously, wisping away into the wind as their evil souls were sucked down into the pits of Hell. But Pyro continues to persist despite it all, fingertips twitching and eyelids fluttering.

"…How?"

"I'm not stupid enough to put us at a disadvantage," Scott says. "Both of them will return to the castle, Pyro quicker than Owen if he can manage to pull the stake from his shoulder when he wakes. This was merely a lesson in…etiquette."

Avid scoffs a laugh and keeps the harsh lesson comment to himself. There's some small, vengeful part of himself that thinks they deserved it. That they deserved worse for what they put him through, for what they were going to do.

He shudders, and turns further into Scott's hold. Not quite clinging, not certain if he's allowed to do so, but holding fast and tight. Fearful that he might be pulled away at any moment and savouring this while it lasts.

A hand presses onto the top of his head, stroking a palm gently over it. It's enough to wreck the floodgates. The final critical failure in the stone before it all comes crashing down.

Avid heaves out a sob. Dry at first, but the tears quickly bubble up faster than he can control, thickening the breath in his throat with emotion, enough that he chokes on it. He heaves for another breath without thinking about it and looks up, eyes blurring as he struggles to take in the lines of Scott’s face.

"I'm sorry," he gasps out. Feels how it drags itself up from the depths of his body, barbed and sharp, cutting all the sensitive flesh during its cursed ascent, leaving his throat aching and raw. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

He apologises until he doesn't know what he's apologising for anymore. Does he apologise for dying? For allowing himself to be caught unawares at the beacon, walking into such an obvious trap that all the other vampires had steered clear? Or does he apologise for leaving the castle, when Scott had told him to remain — had instructed him so that he might remain safe, only to disobey and nearly reap the rewards for his mistake.

Or, does he apologise for what Scott had done? What Scott did for him, on Avid’s behalf, that which he couldn't do. Should he ask for forgiveness for how he had forced Scott’s hand, turned on his own fledgling and covenmate, all for his ridiculous self.

His eyes track over to Pyro, half squinted as he stares at the other vampire. He can see, now, how the stake has been driven through his shoulder. Through flesh and bone with nothing but sheer determination on Scott’s side. Can see how Pyro’s chest still moves, an unconscious breath here and there as he recovers, flesh reknitting around the stake.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs again, though it's weaker than those before.

Scott hushes him, draws him in, pulls him into the comforting darkness of his cloak; surrounds him entirely with that tang of frost and blood which heralds his arrival long before he appears.

Avid inhales, chokes down another sob and feels sick to his stomach, frame shuddering as he cries and heaves and tries not to vomit from the stress of it all. He has so little blood remaining in his stomach that there'd be nothing to throw up, and it'd only push Scott back to that carefully maintained distance of before.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for," Scott says, tucking Avid impossibly closer. He feels awful. Feels like some horrible and terrible and disgusting creature for how he's pulled Scott to his side, insisted that Scott comfort and pander to his sensitivities while Owen and Pyro lie half-dead on the floor nearby.

None of this makes sense. He feels sick and dizzy and awful, like he's the worst person in the world. Scott had remained impassive when Avid kissed him earlier, not a single feeling cracking that stone façade, telling Avid exactly how Scott viewed their relationship with no amount of wiggle room. But now…now Scott holds him close and holds him tight like he's the most precious thing in this world and Avid doesn't know what to make of anything anymore.

Everything is just too much. Nothing about this day makes sense and it makes even less sense that Scott is comforting him, speaking to him like Avid is some spooked wild animal that he's trying to soothe with affection and kind words.

The worst part is that it's working. He's allowing himself to be comforted like this, allowing that small and desperate part of himself to be appeased, to be coaxed into a kind of calm that draws the guilt out, bleeding it dry until nothing but a weird haze remains. One that leaves him feeling so very small.

"Oh, Avid," Scott says, a quiet devastation hidden behind those two words. Avid snuffles, sad and quiet as Scott gathers him closer.

He only realises he's a bat rather than a person when Scott manages to pick him up, holding him in the palm of his hand, cradling him carefully against his chest, pressed close to the silky fabric of his waistcoat. Avid should feel panicked, trapped, by the fingers that slowly curl over and around him, keeping him caged in place, but it's done so gently that he can't even find it in himself to care.

The tender care only makes him feel more awful, but his tears have dried, abandoned him in this new form. It makes his eyes feel hot and a pressure builds behind them, but bats possess no tear ducts, so all he can do is snuffle pathetically as Scott carries him from the crypt and back to the castle.

Avid’s surprised when they return to the castle and Scott doesn't immediately find another vampire to push him off onto. He may have chosen to comfort Avid in the moment, but that was only because there wasn't anyone else around to do it for him, and even Scott’s patience must have its limits.

He doesn't even dump Avid in his small, half-finished bedroom that's more a hole in the wall than any kind of living space.

Instead, they begin heading towards the one staircase that Avid had been warned away from. Only Scott went up there, Shelby had told him, no-one else. It wasn't a hard and fast rule that was written anywhere, but none had ventured beyond the first step, wary of what Scott might be secreting away up there.

Now, Avid gets to be the first of the coven to find out.

He's almost surprised at his own surprise when the heavy door at the top swings open to reveal nothing more than a bedroom. One that's dated in its decor, but one that is obviously well-cared for, with soft silks and plush blankets covering a large four-poster bed, tucked away against the far wall of the room.

Opposite it, a writing desk sits, dark wood polished to a perfect dark shine and all the writing utensils neatly lined up along the edge. Not a single thing out of place, as though it's never been used before.

Avid clings to Scott’s fingers as the man pauses, small claws digging in as he realises, oh, this is the moment he's returned downstairs; this is the moment where Scott leaves him to fend for himself.

Instead, Scott only pauses to lean down and unlace his boots, working quickly even with one hand out of commission, fingers deft as first one boot, then the second is slipped off and neatly lined up beside the door. Only then does Scott venture further into the room, footsteps softened by the thick carpet beneath his feet.

He feels a flush settle over his whole body when he realises Scott is headed for the bed, beginning to feel dizzy as Scott settles down against the pillows at the head of it with a satisfied sigh. Avid’s convinced it can't get any worse than this, but it's as though the gods above heard him as Scott deposits Avid on his chest rather than continuing to cradle him in a hand. One remains just behind him, a tangible presence even as it doesn't touch him. It means he's forced to cling to the front of Scott’s shirt, claws curled tight into the fabric of his cravat.

His embarrassment dissipates slightly as Scott smooths a finger over the top of his head, replacing it with a warm contentedness when the motion brushes the fur back into its proper place. He leans into the contact as Scott repeats the motion, attempting to release the lingering dregs of his embarrassment.

The gentle ministrations continue for long enough that Avid allows himself to get lost in them, completely soothed by the repetitive nature of it until everything else melts away. It's easier to be a bat than a human, he realises; nothing awful or human happens to a bat.

"Avid," Scott says, the rumbling of his chest beneath his small form working more to draw Avid back to the present than his words did. It's strange and pleasant and embarrassing as he's reminded of just where he is, and how Scott could so easily cradle him in a single hand. The realisation leaves him feeling warmer than he has been since he turned, as though all the blood in his body has begun to boil, heating him from the inside out. "As sweet as you are like this, I need you to turn back."

Avid snuffles and tries to ignore him. Scott’s cravat is soft when he tucks his face into the fabric, burrowing downwards to try and ignore Scott better. He finds the edge of one of the ruffles, reaching forward to drag himself further in there, maybe cocoon himself under the soft fabric—

He squeaks when a hand flattens itself over his wings and begins t pull him back out. It's gentle but unrelenting, keeping him firmly immobilised as Scott draws him back out, cradled in both hands this time as he sits up to look down at him.

"Avid." Scott sounds far more stern now, though he remains as careful as before when raising Avid to eye level. It puts him uncomfortably close to Scott’s face, memories of their short kiss floating to the surface of his mind again. Scott stares at him as though he knows what Avid’s thinking, and Avid stares right back. Takes in all the different hues of red in his eyes, how they seem to shift and melt into one another the longer he stares. There's even flecks of gold buried deep, nearly hidden by the red and forming a thin ring around his pupil.

He doesn't realise he's leaning closer, searching for more of those little specks of gold, until Scott’s laughing. Nothing like the laughter in that pit, that cold, harsh mockery of elation. Rather, this is a quiet kind of amusement; the soft kind that brushes up against his sides and warms him from the inside out.

It tugs Avid in again, looking at the way he smiles and how his nose scrunches up, wrinkling th bridge of his nose. None of that delicate laughter he'd feign at the grand table downstairs, impossibly polite and so high society that it would set Avid’s teeth on edge. His fangs press against his bottom lip, the very points of them poking out from his mouth.

"Please," the vampire says, and though the world falls easy from his lips, slipping off his tongue delicately, Avid can see in his eyes how he's not used to saying it. Can see how his brows wrinkle and his mouth briefly dips downwards that it's not something he enjoys, but he's asking anyway. Asking, not demanding. "Avid, I need you to turn back for me."

It's like everything slams back into Avid at once. That comforting blanket has been ripped away, leaving nothing but the biting cold in its wake.

As a bat, everything is simple. Everything is small and digestible for his small body, his tiny mind. The world is larger around him, and it's like everything else inside him is dampened down so that he doesn't have to experience the overwhelming stress of how large the world suddenly is.

Scott's plea is that wake up call. Pushes him back into his body. Makes him aware of his thin bones and fragile heart. How it only takes one of Scott’s hands to cradle him close. How Scott is cradling him close. How Scott holds him carefully, likes he's something delicate — because he is. There's no other way around it. He is something delicate and fragile and very, very breakable, held gently in the palm of an elder vampire's hand.

How embarrassing.

Avid feels the urge to cry again. Maybe not the complete breakdown, full-one sobbing extravaganza of earlier, but a decent amount of tears. Maybe a skywards look as though that would provide him any solution to the situation he's landed himself in.

He shifts back abruptly, Scott’s eyes still on him as everything stretches and snaps back into place. He doesn't slip from one form to the next like Scott and Owen do, is not comfortable enough in his own skin for that; instead, he tumbles back into a human shape, with all its gangly limbs and awkward expressions fixed in place.

Only, this doesn't help his embarrassment at all. Before, he had been cradled in Scott’s hand, held close and pressed to his chest; mortifying to think back on without the comfortable haze blanketing everything else. Now, his knees dig into the plush mattress on either side of Scott’s hips, firmly planted in his lap. Held even closer when Scott loops an arm around his waist to keep him steady.

"Hi," Avid squeaks. And then immediately wants to die. Maybe the stake wouldn't have been so bad. Sure, he'd have been dead, but at least it wouldn't have been this.

Scott smiles at him, the same softness from before still present. Like he's endeared by Avid. Only, this time, he has to tilt his head back and look up at him, even with Avid so close that their foreheads could rest against each other if he leaned in just a fraction more.

"Hello, dearest," he says, smooth and silky. That hand slides back, trailing over his lower back before it comes to rest just above his hip, fingers dancing over the soft flesh of his side before softly squeezing. It doesn’t hurt. Quite the opposite, actually, but Avid finds himself squirming away from the contact anyway. It tickles.

More than that, though, Scott’s looking at him from beneath thick lashes, a self-satisfied smirk on his lips that he isn't even attempting to hide. A smirk that Avid absolutely cannot deal with while caught so thoroughly in this situation.

Avid swallows and nods jerkily, unsure of how to respond to the petname. Especially not when it's said so…tenderly. Rolling off Scott’s tongue with an easy familiarity; how many others have received such compliments from him? Who has fallen prey to his honeyed tongue and sweetened voice? Ten? A hundred? A man of Scott’s lifespan would have all the time in the world for a thousand conquests, if he so wished.

Perhaps he even called Pyro dearest. Perhaps it isn't as special as Avid’s brain is making it out to be.

A cold hand cups the side of his face, tilting it back towards Scott. Avid feels his breath catch and stutter when Scott’s thumb begins to stroke back and forth, sweeping over the skin of his cheek in small arcs. It's soothing, and something that Avid finds himself leaning into before long, helpless in the face of this new, softer version of Scott he seems to have uncovered today.

His eyes begin to slip shut, slowly being nudged back to the border of sleep he was pulled back from only a minute ago, drifting into that space between waking and unconsciousness, the closest state to true rest that a vampire can achieve.

"How are you feeling?"

"Hm?" Avid blinks his eyes open again, mortification blooming bright and full again when he realises that, in his relaxation, he had slipped, going loose-limbed and lax in Scott’s lap, content to curl up like a content cat and uncaring of how it had trapped the man in place.

He lurches backwards, only saved from an unpleasant introduction to the floor of Scott’s room by the man's tight grip around his waist, forearm first against the small of his back.

"Careful now," Scott teases, eyes glimmering with barely concealed amusement. That glimmer only lasts a moment before Scott sobers again, the little quirk to his mouth flattening back out. "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

The sudden tension in the air leaves Avid's throat thick, a lump quickly solidifying there. He's certain any noise he might make would be strangled and pathetic, but he ekes out a quiet, "sorry," anyway.

He can feel how the shame warms him from the inside out, his pathetic reserves of blood turning traitor and stirring to bring the flush to the surface where Scott can see it.

Scott tuts. "None of that. It was…awful of them to do something like that to you. Something that I will be speaking about with them, once they manage to pull themselves from that pit."

Avid swallows and thinks of the fury on Owen’s face before Scott had brutalised him. Of the promise and the threat aimed towards him as Owen held his throat together, a fire rekindled already, even with the dregs of life leaving his body.

Thinks of the way Pyro had leaned into Scott’s kindness so quickly, the anger that had morphed into something else; something sadder and deeper, older than Oakhurst. Thinks of how Scott had turned on him anyway, staked him through the shoulder in warning.

Their injuries may heal and the skin may reknit itself, but those slights will nt be forgotten. And Avid knows where the blame will settle, for it won't be Scott under scrutiny. It won't be Scott that risks losing his standing amongst the coven, risks losing his life.

Anyone that turns against Scott Goldsmith would not survive the encounter.

"Did they injure you before?"

"No." Avid stills his shakiness enough to respond. His voice comes out surprisingly level. He's proud of how little his voice wavers, actually. "They…we were just expanding the pitfall. So that it might kill the humans rather than just incapacitate them."

Scott hums, and the hand on his cheek shifts, threading through his hair instead. Everything inside of Avid demands that he melt back into the touch, that he lean into the way Scott's claws scrape at his scalp just right. He doesn't give in. Barely. He resists through pure stubbornness, refusing to deride himself any further when he's already sat in Scott's lap.

"I'm glad." Scott says, and he seems to really mean it. When Avid looks at his face, looks into his eyes again, there is nothing but open honesty there. None of the guardedness of their usual interactions. "I…found myself worrying for you."

Such a notion seems to upset Scott, cause him some kind of low-level distress that shines through clearly when Avid’s this close to his face. The idea that he might worry for another seems to cause more distress than the actual worry. Though, for a vampire like that, Avid imagines he'd have banished such human feelings long ago. Distanced himself from pedestrian concepts like worry.

Avid frowns, something in Scott’s words pulling forth the question that had been bubbling in the back of his mind since…everything that happened.

"How did you know to come to the crypt?"

Scott looks back at him, distress wiped clean and tucked neatly away. His confidence has returned alongside his control over the situation, eyelids slipping back to half-mast. A contented creature looking upon its meal, confident in the catch. "A feeling"

Avid blanks, unable to help how Scott's answer brings him to a screeching halt. "A feeling?" He asks, no longer caring for how harsh his voice might be, nor how Scott might interpret them. A feeling had been all that saved him from certain death? A feeling was all that kept the snapping jaws of death at bay, that had kept them from closing around his body and swallowing him down?

He certainly hadn't been saving himself in that moment, too frightened and disbelieving that his covenmates would seek to harm him, that they had lured him out with kind words and reassurances, nothing more than a trail of sweetened breadcrumbs to keep him preoccupied until he reached his journey's end.

Without Scott's intervention it would have — could have — only ended one way: a stake buried between his ribs while Owen and Pyro emerged victorious, nothing more serious than a scratch on either of them. Perhaps they would have crowed about the glory of their kill to any who might listen.

"Yes," Scott smiles. "When you reach my age the world…well, it becomes fond of you. You've made your mark on it just as it has made its mark on you; you have made it so that you are so intertwined with the goings on that Fate cannot help but like you. It means, sometimes, she sends a little hint my way on the breeze."

"Right." Avid isnt sure why he thought he'd get an actual answer out of Scott. Recent softness aside, he's still the same cryptic bastard he's always been.

"You don't seem to believe my, my dear," Scott says. "Why, I'd go so far as to say you're doubting me right now."

Avid laughs, nervous at the sudden glint that's appeared in Scott's eye. "No, no. It's just strange to think about it. How old you are, I mean. I forget…sometimes."

"Mm, yes," Avid's answer seems to satisfy Scott, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he looks up at Avid, amusement clear as day. "What was it…I'm positively glowing? Hardly look a day over twenty?"

Avid feels his face growing impossibly warmer at the reminder of his own loose tongue before, can sense how a laugh begins to bubble in his chest, pushing up his throat and emerging as a nervous giggle before he can clamp down on it. The reminder of how easily he had complimented the elder vampire, being so bold as to do it in the middle of town with so many witnesses, is enough to bring the flush back in full force.

"Something like that," me mutters, unable to meet Scott's eyes as the man continues to look at him with such- such fondness. It's awful and affectionate and Avid can't even tell if it's real or fake at this point; can't tell if he care if there's any truth behind that smile. He thinks he'd be content even with falsified affection.

Scott hums. Low and deep in his throat, rumbling close enough to a purr that Avid leans in again, sways forward without thinking, drawn in by the hypnotising swirl of Scott's eyes and the melody of his voice.

He's embarrassed himself already today, wrecked whatever reputation and respect Scott might have had for him by snivelling in a corner for far too long. So…what's the harm in embarrassing himself a little more?

Avid allows himself the indulgence. To give into what his heart has been asking for, twitching and twisting in the cavity of his chest for, straining the deadened, atrophied muscles in an attempt to push him forward, push him closer.

"I like you like this," Scott tells him. That hand in his hair tightens, not enough to hurt but enough to draw a small sound from behind Avid's lips, gasped out into the space between them. A space that is rapidly shrinking as Scott reels Avid in and Avid responds, allows himself to be pulled closer, pulled downwards.

"Like what?" Avid asks. His voice cracks in the middle of it, but Scott doesn't seem to mind. Seems to like him like this, with how his eyes remain crinkled at the corners; his mouth might remain unmoving, smile restrained, but Avid can see how the true amusement shines in his eyes, gold flecks within glowing brighter than before. This close, he can feel how his breaths reflect off of Scott's face, how Scott doesn't breathe at all. No mingling of it in the space between their mouths.

His eyes are a lighthouse, flickering in the gloom of fog and mist, calling him home. Returning him safely to shore.

Scott's smile widens. Slow and sly, teeth peeking out over his bottom lip again. "Lovesick," he says. "So…devoted to me."

"You have devotion from the others," Avid says, only a little acidic. Pyro had been more than eager to lick Scott's boots before; following his every whim, no matter the cost to their own person. It had been a little pathetic to watch, a little sickening at times. But, Scott had seemed content with the attention.

"That wasn't devotion." Scott sighs. Avid feels the hand leave his side, coming instead to cradle his face and draw him closer, holding him oh-so gently. "That was…self-preservation. Finding the biggest dog in the room and sticking beside it, to make yourself appear scarier."

Avid makes a doubting noise.

"Oh, he was affectionate, don't get me wrong. But it was the same as you…you are so sweet with it, do you know that?" Scott's thumb presses into his cheekbone, a

Avid laughs, nervous and still a little stressed. "Um. No?"

"Hm." Scott considers him for a moment, pupils dilating. "Would you allow me to repay your affections?"

"Um." Avid says, intelligently. His eyes dip lower when Scott licks his lips, only to shoot back up immediately afterwards. Scott's amusement with Avid's slip-up is clear, but he isn't cruel, doesn't dislodge Avid from his admittedly comfortable, if mortifying, perch. He summons the last of his confidence, forms it into something actionable as he leans forward, eyes lowering once again. "Please?"

"Oh," Scott says, soft. They're close enough that Avid can feel Scott's lips against his own as they shape around the word. "How can I deny you when you ask so nicely?"

When Scott kisses him, it's slow and insistent. A firm press of lips that promises to develop into something more, should he let it. Avid sinks into the sensation, allows Scott to draw him in closer with the hand on the back of his neck, curled there possessively.

He can feel how Scott's lips curl with amusement, pressed against his own, and he can't help but mimic it, smiling into the kiss as Scott pulls him in, holds him there with a careful hand, the other so tangled in his hair that Avid fears it might become a part of him. Something he will continue to ache for even after this moment has passed.

Avid pushes forward, feels his heart give a little jump as he raises his own hands, curling them at Scott's sides, claws digging in as though to hold Scott in place. As though the other vampire is giving any indication that he wants to be anywhere else. Pulls them closer, binds them together until they're as close as can be.

The kiss becomes more relaxed, messier, the longer they go on. Seconds tick by and his lungs begin to burn, aching for a breath he no longer needs. Demanding a moment of relief, a pause in his pursuit.

Avid ignores their demand, growing more insistent as he presses closer, lips parting around a gasp before he's diving back into Scott and his sharp frost-blood-iron taste.

His hands dig in deeper, hard enough that he can feel the edge of Scott's hipbones beneath his fingers. He can feel how Scott shivers beneath him, a pleased noise slipping free before he can stop it, sending a similar frisson of delight up Avid's spine in response. He had assumed that Scott would be silent — a quiet, passionate kisser, sure, but one that wouldn't vocalise anything, no matter how good his partner might be.

He grins into the kiss, emboldened by Scott's obvious enjoyment of this; his delight matching Avid's own only spurs him on further. No matter how Scott grumbles, low in his throat and mildly threatening. The threat doesn't carry over when Scott refuses to loosen his grip, still holding Avid tight to himself.

Scott bites him a moment later.

Avid can't help how he gasps, great panting breaths as the blood spills from his lip, tracing lines down his chin. He can feel how it warms his skin, staring at Scott in shock as the other looks back, smug satisfaction written over every inch of his face.

"Come back," Scott murmurs. Already reaching to draw him back in, eyes half-lidded and dark as he looks up at Avid.

He draws the bitten lip into his mouth slowly, swiping his tongue over the injury before he begins to nibble at his lip again, siphoning from Avid. It makes him feel weak all over, trembling enough that he's certain he won't be able to stand for the next few hours.

Avid waits for Scott to pause his siphoning, laving his tongue over the injury one last time before he presses a close-mouthed kiss to his lips. When he draws back, his mouth has been painted red, a deep cherry colour matching that which is popular in the Capital.

"Scott," he whines, uncaring of how pathetic he might sound, head thumping down onto the man's shoulder.

He'd had little blood in him before, and Scott's small indulgence had only drained him further, leaving his head fuzzy and swirling, enough that he's worried he might pass out. That's the last thing he wants right now, not when Scott sits beneath him, stretched out and content, watching him with affection and fondness colouring his face.

"Yes, dearest?" Scott asks, fingers resuming their combing through his hair.

"I'm thirsty." His stomach cramps at that moment, as if in agreement. It makes his middle seize with a strange agony, clenching tight around nothing. "You took the last of my reserves."

"Hm. So I did." There's…something in Scott's voice that makes suspicion raise its wary head in his brain, but everything is too fuzzy for him to think about it properly. "Well, I'm sure there's some to spare around here…"

Scott looks away for a moment, turning his head to the side. Presumably searching for a bottle of blood that might sate Avid's thirst. Unfortunately for him, the motion also exposes the pale column of Scott's neck, reveals how his cravat has slipped loose in the last several minutes.

It's temptingly close to Avid's face, close enough that he can see how the fresh, siphoned blood has begun to trickle through the veins there. How it pulses bright and bold and attractive beneath the thin flesh.

It's the work of a moment to shift to the side, trapping Scott more thoroughly beneath his weight, hands re-tightening around his waist as he leans in.

He pauses, feels how Scott has gone still beneath him, every sinew and tendon containing a strange tension. An anticipation, as Avid's breath ghosts over the sensitive skin of Scott's neck, only mildly disappointed when it doesn't raise into gooseflesh

He settles for pressing a kiss there, a light brush of lips against where Scott's pulsepoint might have been were he still alive before he sinks his fangs in. The flesh parts easily, splitting open beneath the sharp points of his teeth.

"I…suppose that works as well," Scott sighs, though his voice sounds strange and faraway. Avid pays little mind to it, more focused on the warmth of the blood in his mouth, the heaviness of it on his tongue as it slips down his throat.

Avid makes a contented sound as a hand resumes stroking his hair, holding him close to the source of the blood as it does so. He's equally startled when something rumbles in his chest, only to abruptly cut off as he leans back, leaving blood dripping down the side of Scott's neck and staining his collar.

He pants, breathing heavily as he stares at Scott. His faculties begin to return to him, though the return is not pleasant. Not only has he forced Scott to rescue him from a situation he shouldn't have gotten himself into in the first place, he's now also half-drained the man that was kind enough to show him mercy where his companions would not.

"Did you startle yourself?" Scott asks, voice thick. A little more blood dribbles down his neck as he speaks, still spilling from the open wound there. The pit in Avid's stomach only deepens.

He leans back in, pressing a kiss to the injury and then pressing his tongue flat over it. He swallows the mouthful of blood that rewards, and then continues to wipe the blood away. He dips his head low, shame burning through his veins, as his tongue makes contact with the base of Scott's neck, chasing the drying blood over the muscle connecting his neck to his shoulder.

He pulls back, only barely resisting the urge to bite down into that muscle, to draw more blood into his body. To pull flesh from bone and savour it as some delicacy.

"So good to me," Scott says, the thickness in his voice still present, curling his accent soft around the words, colouring it with fondness. He raises his hands, cupping Avid's face in his palms as though he were something precious. "Shelby made a good choice with you."

Avid doesn't get a moment to process that, nor come up with a response. Scott simply pulls him back in, blood-slick mouths pressing to one another, sliding over each other until Scott's tongue pushes its way into his mouth, pressing against his own for a moment before retreating again.

Avid can taste his own blood, mixing with Scott's blood in a strange, pleasant blend.

He whines as Scott pulls back, missing the sensation, the comfort of another body pressing against his own already. How the two of them ceased to exist as separate beings and had emerged, however temporarily, as one conjoined creature.

Scott laughs, low and gentle, and presses a hand against Avid's chest when he attempts to lean back in and pick up where they just left off. "As pleasant as this is, dearest, I do believe Shelby wishes to come in."

That shocks Avid right out of the pleasant haze that the kiss and blood had lulled him into. Like a bucket of icewater upturned over his head, cascading down his back and rooting him firmly in reality. "Shelby?"

"Mm, yes. She's been stood outside for about a minute now, no doubt feeling too awkward to enter." Scott laughs, as though this is no bother at all, as though this isnt one of the most mortifying moments of Avid's life, before raising his voice to call out. "You can come in now!"

Avid groans, slumping forwards and then to the side, slipping off of Scott's lap just as the door of Scott's bedroom clicks open and Shelby bursts in, a whirlwind of energy.

"Why didn't you come get me?" She demands, striding up to the bed so that she can poke an accusatory finger into Scott's chest. Despite how she leans over him, Scott remains unbothered, leaning back further into the bed as though there's nowhere he'd rather be right now. He's so unbothered that it's actually a little concerning. "Why did I have to find out from Pyro that his apparent murder attempt on my fledgling failed?"

"Ah, Pyro made it back?" Scott asks, aiming for neutral and apathetic, and landing firmly in the guilty camp.

"Miserable and whining, but whole, yes," Shelby gripes. "I had half a mind to put him right back into whatever hole he had just crawled out of, but he looked pathetic enough that I let him slink off to the crypt."

"That would be the crypt pit," Avid contributes. He keeps half his face buried in the mattress, not trusting that his face won't betray him in this moment. "The pit he crawled out of, I mean," he clarifies, though his mind remains elsewhere. Shelby, currently stood in this room, had just been…stood outside the door. While he and Scott kissed. Made out. Made out quite a lot, actually! And she just listened. Didn't she think to take a walk for five minutes and come back later?

And Scott let it happen! He knew she was there!

He can never recover. Maybe he should take a century-long nap, see if that fixes all his problems. Or at least make them disappear.

"What." Shelby says, voice perfectly flat. It's a little scary, actually, hearing how much her normally bubbly voice has flattened out. Avid doesn't answer. "Scott," Shelby says. "Scott what does he mean?"

"Pyro and Owen decided that it'd be a wonderful idea to take Avid to the crypt and try to stake him. Thankfully, my intervention stopped them from going through with it."

"And you didn't come and find me as soon as you returned?" Shelby demands. Avid peeks open an eye, watching how she reaches out and grabs both of Scott's shoulders, beginning to shake him back and forth as her voice raises. "He's my fledgling, and you wanted me to find out from Pyro?"

Scott sighs, and reaches up to clasp a hand over one of Shelby's, halting the shaking, at least for a moment. "I had it handled."

"I don't care if you had it handled," Shelby snaps. "He's my fledgling, I don't even care about whatever weird thing you two have going on, I want to know!"

"You're barely a fledged vampire, Shelbs," Scott says, obviously attempting calm her frayed nerves but doing the exact opposite. "I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily when I could take care of it."

"Well, I worried anyway!"

"And I'm sorry for that," Scott says. "But there were…other matters I wished to attend to before coming to fetch you." Something dark passes over Scott's face before it disappears, there and gone again like a fleeting dark cloud. "I…hadn't expected Pyro to return so soon. He is resilient, I will give him that, but I had anticipated having more time before the news would spread. I apologise, but I suppose it cannot be helped at this point.

Avid watches as Shelby gears herself up again, unwilling to let it go no matter what Scott says. Which…Avid can understand that. A little bit.

He groans, shoving his face further into the plush duvet, inhaling the frost scent of Scott as he exhales his frustration just as harshly. It brings all conversation and budding arguments to a grinding halt, just as he had hoped it would. He loves them both — still a strange thought to verbalise, even within the privacy of his own mind because…Scott? Really? — but he just can't do this right now. At this moment.

A hand threads through his hair, smoothing it back into place as another attempts to roll him over and away from his attempted suffocation at the hands of the blankets. "Avid?" Scott questions, voice muffled as Avid continues to thwart his attempts to move him by becoming dead weight and shoving his hands away.

It's comfortable here. And he's not just talking about the clearly expensive sheets that Scott has indulged in. It's warm and cosy in a way that anywhere else in the manor — anywhere else in Oakhurst — just isn't. It's soft and comforting enough that he finds himself slipping easily back into that sleepy state of before, only helped along by Shelby's presence.

"Shush," he says.

"Shush?" He feels how Scott rears back, how the mattress shifts with the motion. "Did you just shush me?"

"Yes." Avid raises his head an inch, just to thump it back into the mattress again. His head bounces a little with the motion. "I don't want to listen to you two argue, I just want to sleep."

"Vampires can't sleep," Shelby starts.

"Yes, I know." Avid groans. "Just, I wanna sleep. Rest. Doze. Whatever you want to call it, I want to do it."

"Of course, dearest," Scott's leaning back over him again, a comforting weight at his side. His claws scratch nicely over his skull, teasing apart the strands that had become tangled during their kiss. "You've had a long day."

"And I want Shelby to stay."

A longer pause this time. A silent conversation probably happening over his head, where he can't see it. He's too tired to care, exhaustion hitting him with the force of a thousand horses, all of them stampeding over his chest and leaving him far too deflated to care what they're saying about him where he can't see it.

"If that's what you want," Scott says, his hand resuming the idle petting.

"Mm." Is Avid's intelligent response, his brain feeling soupy and like it might start pouring out of his ears if he isn't careful. Or like some content cat, resting in a sunbeam. Warm and cosy and unable to resist the alluring call of the darkness at the edge of his consciousness.

Another weight settles beside him, this one lying down while the first — Scott, he intrinsically knows — remains sat up. Standing guard at the head of the bed.

He grips back, just as tight, when Shelby slips a hand into his own. Allows them to tuck themself close, hands awkwardly trapped between their chests as they curl together. He can forgive them the crushing grip, how they hold him as though he might still disappear if they don't.

He holds her back just as tight, breathes slow and deep when he feels Scott's watchful eye land on him and his white-knuckled grip. A hand settles against the top of his head, claws scratching slow over his scalp, soothing patterns of nothing in particular that ground him in the moment, give him and anchor with which to guide himself, even as he drifts.

Something to return to when he wakes.