Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It hadn’t seemed like a stupid idea until it was too late. In hindsight, things were a lot clearer, but refection had never been Avid’s strong suit—it had been hers (don’t think about her, don’t think about her, don’t imagine how disappointed she would be in him now—).

He’d been alone in the woods. That was mistake number one. It was just—he’d been so sure nothing would happen. Owen apparently wanted him to watch Oakhurst burn before he died, Scott seemed repulsed at the mere thought of dealing with him for longer than he had to, Pyro didn’t seem like much of a threat, and Shelby (don’t think about Shelby either, the bright smile and easy acceptance that was all too familiar and just as fleeting—)… well… Shelby had clearly decided where her loyalties laid. And that was fine! So what if she didn’t want to come back? The real Shelby, the one he knew, would have wanted to stay in town with her friends. But that Shelby was dead now, just like her.

The point was, the vampires were thoroughly uninterested in him, and besides, it was daytime! Everyone knew vampires didn’t go out during the day, and even if they did before, everyone had heard Pyro’s muffled hiss of pain and watched red bloom across his newly pale skin when he was posturing at them from the treetops. The vampires were getting stronger, sure, but they were getting weaker at the same time. There was no reason for any of them to be out in the daytime, not in the insignificant corner of the forest Avid had stormed off to so he could calm down after glancing across town and catching sight of the burnt-out husk of Shelby’s home one of the vampires’ former houses.

There was mistake number two: he hadn’t kept a clear head—but how was he meant to, when friends turned on friends and vampires stalked through the town square like they owned the place? He hadn’t had a clear head since he’d killed her come to Oakhurst, and weeks of derision and disbelief certainly hadn’t helped his fraying nerves. Neither had the flat, cold voice that rung out from behind a pale oak tree just when Avid had finally begun to rein in his emotions.

“Well well well, look who’s out in the woods all alone. That a bit suspicious, isn’t it?”

Owen’s big, blank eyes were even more unsettling now that they’d turned a dark crimson that stood out starkly against his white hair and marbled skin. The other vampires were pale, especially now that they’d given up on playing human and going out under the sunlight, but only he looked truly undead. Combined with his slightly over-large clothes and the frail limbs that had raised eyebrows when he’d claimed to be a lumberjack, he looked one wrong step away from falling back into the grave.

Mistake number three was the worst one of all. Looking down on Owen from the vantage point offered to him by virtue of the sloped ground and his extra inch of height, Avid couldn’t help but see someone weak. A lone vampire, separated from his coven in the middle of the day. Not someone he could kill—he’d heard Martyn’s story, how Scott had taken an axe to the chest and done nothing but grin—but an easy target to take out his anger on. It was mistake number three that pushed him over the edge.

“Says the vampire,” Avid snapped back without thinking, any semblance of peace washed away in an instant. “I bet you think you’re so funny, sneaking around and scaring people! I have a stake on me, you know, I carry one everywhere. Go away or I’ll make you regret it.”

Owen raised his hands in surrender, but a mocking grin had already stretched itself unnaturally across his face, teeth flashing in the sunlight.

“You people are all the same. So certain that we’re the problem, yet so willing to resort to violence. I warned you, didn’t I? We make monsters of ourselves, and you’ve been barreling down a path you can’t come back from.”

“I’m the monster?” Avid scoffed as he gripped the stake in his hands and ignored the phantom chill of blood, freshly spilled but already cold, coating his hands. “You vampires are the ones who started drinking blood and killing people! You’re pure evil, every one of you, and you just keep spreading your curse instead of dying like you should! I can’t wait until the day we can trap one of you in the sun and watch you burn.”

Something about the half thought-out taunt cut deeper than Avid had anticipated, and before he could react, Owen’s hands were around his neck and his face was far too close for comfort. He was filled with a desperate urge to run, but rough bark dug into his back, and despite being shorter, Owen had lifted him slightly off the ground and was staring up at him with a wild, unbridled hatred in his eyes. Suddenly, Avid had the slightly horrifying realization that this was the first time he’d ever really seen Owen angry.

“Take that back.”

For some reason, even though his breaths were ragged and his words echoed with an unnatural hiss, Owen hadn’t cut his throat open and walked away. For a moment, it seemed like a foregone conclusion—until Avid remembered his earlier promise to kill the rest of town first. Clearly, he just didn’t want his little scheme cut short, and that was unacceptable.

“No.” Avid retorted, summoning up every ounce of false bravado he had. “You’re all rotten, every one of you, and the day you die, the world will be a better place!”

Owen’s eyes narrowed, and his claws (since when had he had those?) dug deeper into Avid’s neck. Too deep—just enough that one hit a vein, and a single drop of blood stained the torn bandages he kept wrapped around his neck. Owen’s eyes widened at that, pupils dilating like a cat’s until the red was nearly swallowed up by pitch-black, and he dropped Avid abruptly to the ground.

In that moment, he should’ve run, but the uneven terrain made for a difficult landing. His foot slipped out from under him, and Avid crashed to the ground, his head knocking painfully against the tree behind him. Owen, who’d hugged his arms to his sides was was muttering something while taking deep, exaggerated breaths, jolted at the noise, and as his head snapped up unnaturally quickly, the last hint of color in his eyes winked out.

Avid reached sluggishly up towards his scalp and felt for the center of the pain. His hands came away red. That was bad, he knew it was, but his head was spinning, his vision was so disorienting his eyes squeezed shut on their own, and there was someone nearby—she was next to him, and she would help him, she always did when he bit off more than he could chew. Arms wrapped around him, a head fell onto the crook of his neck, and—everything hurt.

Without his prompting, Avid’s eyes flew open, and even through the pain warping his vision, he could make out Owen’s body pressed against his, red dripping from his mouth and to the ground as Avid panted and tried desperately not to pass out on the spot. He needed to get up, to shove Owen away, to do anything, but there was an agony he’d never felt before coursing through his veins, propelled through his body with every frantic beat of his heart, and it was impossible to even think of moving as, between one blink and the next, his vision became crystal-clear, every rustle of the leaves felt suddenly and overwhelmingly loud, and his nose filled with the heady, intoxicating scent of blood.

The pain was gone—all of it. The throbbing of his head, the ache in his legs, the persistent prickle of the bloody splinter he’d never mustered up the willpower to dig out of his hand. Avid felt better than he had in years, and it was sickening. He couldn’t breathe, and it didn’t matter, he didn’t need to anymore, but he felt lightheaded regardless as he stared at Owen. Owen, who was staring back, face stained as red as his wide, guilty eyes. He’d opened his mouth again, to bite or to say who-knows-what, but it didn’t matter. Avid had already forced himself to his feet and run.

Chapter Text

The rush back to town was a blur. That was a lie—everything was sickeningly clear, from the old tracks scuffed in the soil to the tantalizing smell of meat that seemed to permeate the forest. Avid could hear leaves crunch under the feet of every animal wandering through the forest, sense the warmth of life far beyond his sight, and feel that same warmth bleeding slowly out of his own limbs as the forest air leeched it away. There was an empty, nauseating pit in his stomach, where some intrinsic part of him (his life, his humanity, his soul) had been leeched away, and he found himself missing it so intensely it hurt.

It was the hunger, he realized—and suddenly he almost understood why the vampires were so desperate to feed. Almost. Reason caught up to the curse soon enough, and Avid forced down the monstrous thoughts, but the nausea that came with clarity wouldn’t fade. He ran faster, desperate to make it to town, but the moment he stepped through the gate, only to be hit with another, stronger, wave of hunger, he stopped.

He couldn’t go home. Drift wouldn’t be safe, not when the thought of her was making his mouth water even as his mind recoiled at the idea. He had to leave, but now that he’d stepped foot in town, Avid couldn’t force himself to turn around. Eyes darting from one building to another ignore the burnt-out shells, would Drift do that to their home once she found out, he spotted his salvation: the vampire awareness clinic.

Doing his best to ignore the beacon’s holy light beaming into his back even through the stone walls enclosing it, he pushed open the clinic’s heavy silver door with a wince and beelined for the cell at its back. It really wasn’t fooling anyone—even as he’d built it, Avid had known he wouldn’t be able to trick a vampire into going in. He’d let the others believe he just hadn’t thought it through, but it was made with a specific purpose in mind from the start—it was just serving it sooner than he’d hoped. Before he could second-guess himself, Avid stepped onto the pressure plate and let the door swing shut behind him.

Inside, the cell was nothing special. Slightly cramped, outfitted with only the bare essentials, the silver door and bars just close enough at all times to be uncomfortable. Immediately, Avid wanted back out, but there was no opening it from inside. It’d never been his first choice—he carried a stake on him at all times for a reason—but in the rush of his death, he’d dropped it and run without thinking. It was too late to go back for it now, and he doubted Owen would’ve let him anyway, but if he was lucky, the lack of food would do him in eventually.

At first, it seemed possible. Avid settled in as well as he could, cross-legged in one corner with the door at his back and the back wall in view. From his position, he could watch dust motes swirl in the lone ray of light that slipped through the bars—the only source of illumination he had, since he’d apparently forgotten to place a torch in the cell. Avid justified this to himself as a tactical decision, because after three and a half hours of doing absolutely nothing (apparently he could add “freakishly good internal clock” to the list of curses vampirism had given him) his mind had slipped into fantasizing about burning the cell down with him inside as a break from the monotony.

Would that even kill him? Would anything? Martyn had confirmed that silver tools weren’t enough, but stakes were—he knew that much, had confirmed their effectiveness first-hand. It seemed stupid now, how hard he’d fought. How desperate he’d been to remain human, to honor her memory, only to betray it a few months later. No one even knew where she’d been buried—he hadn’t had the money for a headstone, not when holy water and silver crossbow bolts were so expensive—and now he wouldn’t be able to join her in the small, sunlit clearing like he’d promised.

It turned out he had a talent for breaking their pacts. They’d sworn years ago, still high off the excitement of a night chasing shadows, never to leave the other alone, but that hadn’t stopped him from running her through the moment she leapt at him—even though they’d been working on a cure, and she’d been sure they were so close. If he hadn’t—if he hadn’t let her take the fall, face the danger and suffer the consequences just like he always did—maybe they would’ve figured it out. Or, maybe they’d have died together that night. It was traitorous, against everything they’d promised each other and themselves, but he wouldn’t have minded being a monster if they were monsters together.

Now, he had no one. The vampires hated him for warning their prey, trying to protect everyone, and the people hated him for the same reason. He’d tried to tell them, and when they hadn’t listened, he’d tried to defend them. It wasn’t enough—not to save Pyro, or Shelby, or, if the rumors were true, Cleo. Not to save himself.

Muffled voices sounded through the walls, and the presence of life somewhere nearby made Avid’s stomach twinge painfully. They rose slightly in volume, the warmth grew closer, and he wondered for a moment if someone was going to come into the clinic and save him see him. Instead, the footsteps faded away, presences swallowed by the holy light that burned perpetually at the edge of his senses, and the night (he knew it was night, could taste the stars in the bloody sky and the power it held) returned to quiet. With a whispered prayer to the holy spirits for a lonely quiet second death, he closed his eyes and drifted.

Unfortunately, the spirits must have decided they hated him, as Avid woke from a fitful sleep to a derisive scoff echoing from outside. He didn’t even bother getting up to check—only vampires could summon that kind of scorn. When Owen’s cold voice echoed through the bars, he fixed his eyes on the ceiling and resolved to ignore him.

“Have you been in here since yesterday? That’s a little pathetic, isn’t it?”

Avid refused to justify himself. It wasn’t pathetic, it was responsible—but monsters didn’t understand morals, so there was no point in trying.

“What, are you just going to sit in there and pout?”

A silence. Clearly, Owen was expecting something. Probably yelling. If it’d been any other day, Avid might have been willing to take him up on that, but his legs were stiff, his stomach hurt, and the silver door at his back was making his head ache. Vampires couldn’t handle offenses to their egos, so if he ignored Owen long enough, he’d probably storm off fuming. He ignored the tiny, fragile part of him that heard Owen’s voice and wanted to respond.

“You are, aren’t you? That’s not very mature.”

Owen was not going away. There was only a single moment of blessed silence before a little brown bat blinked empty red eyes at Avid from the lip of the cell’s window, shoving its fuzzy head through a gap in the bars and pulling itself through wing over claw. A puff of smoke consumed its body and cleared to reveal a human form standing over him, the sparse light reflecting off of unnaturally white hair and teeth. From this perspective, with Owen looming over him and looking every bit as terrifying and immortal as he was, Avid couldn’t have explained why he’d ever thought taunting a vampire was a good idea.

For a moment, Owen said nothing, and Avid hoped stupidly that he’d change his mind and leave instead of having a conversation that neither of them really wanted. He didn’t, of course, because fate was mean and vampires were evil creatures whose entire existence was a slight against Avid, specifically.

“This is sad to look at, you know. I give you a gift, free you from mortality, and you decide to spend the rest of eternity in a little silver cage? Aren’t you bored? Hungry? You must be, by now.”

Avid followed the whorls of wood making up the cell’s back wall with his eyes and pretended he was alone. It didn’t work, but he gave no indication of that. If he could bother Owen enough, get him to leave, then he wouldn’t ask—

“You shouldn’t have turned.”

Fuck.

“I wasn’t trying to turn you. That’s pretty much the last thing I’d try to do anyway—having to deal with you forever would be miserable—but especially not then. I wasn’t thinking straight, and the moment I smelled blood, I tried to drain you dry. You should have died, not— not this.”

Wasn’t the ceiling interesting? Avid thought the ceiling was interesting. It was so cool how it looked— well, now it looked distinctly like Owen was looming directly over him and blocking the very interesting view he’d been admiring. Worse, he looked mad.

“You don’t deserve this.”

He was still going? Avid was decidedly not listening at this point, trying not to think of his own bad decisions (there were too many to ignore—he’d never stopped thinking about them, not since they’d come back to bite him), but Owen kept monologuing, even as it descended into rambling.

“You of all people, who embodies all the worst aspects of humanity— why did the gift save you? You aren’t worthy of being a vampire. Why didn’t you just die?”

And something in him, something that had been building slowly since he’d arrived in Oakhurst (something that had been building since he’d taken that stupid potion, convinced he could save himself and it would all be worth it), that fed off the venom coursing through his veins and sang with hunger, heard Owen’s questions and begged him to answer. It whispered that Owen was older, stronger, that he could help them—they just had to confess, and he would know what to do.

Unfortunately for the curse, Avid knew not to trust himself anymore. He steeled himself and glared up at the older vampire, ready to give him the anger he’d expected from the start, only for the eyes staring down at him to widen even more.

“Why are your eyes already red?”

Chapter Text

Avid didn’t remember well what had happened after Owen’s final question. He’d blinked awake later to the cell’s floor speckled with clumps of soft brown fur and thin scratches running down his arms. He poked and pulled at them to see if they would bleed, pushing aside the pain in the name of science, and found that they didn’t.

After accidentally ripping one scratch into something closer to a gash, Avid decided he should probably stop before he accidentally tore his arm in two. If vampires were immortal, could they regrow limbs? He couldn’t exactly run a test, considering he had no food to replenish his energy spirits he was so hungry but if they could shrug off death, it wasn’t impossible. He poked again at the dry, gaping wound now stretching halfway down his forearm, just out of curiosity. It didn’t seem like it was healing, but he hadn’t eaten in days don’t think about food don’t think about food and the constant presence of silver probably wasn’t helping.

Searching for a distraction, Avid pushed himself to his feet, staggering a bit at the jarring lack of pins and needles rushing down his legs. He’d been sitting in the same position for just over two days at that point, but the tingling of circulation returning to his limbs, the sensation almost comforting after long nights of potion-making, was absent. Just one more small comfort vampirism had taken from him.

Avid tried to pace the cell, but his limbs were too weak. It was only a few steps across, but by the time he’d crossed its length, he had to lean against the wall for support was he stared longingly through his one window into the vampire awareness center. He’d been in the cell for nearly three days at that point, could point out every uneven bump on his shoddily crafted wall and recite every person who’d entered the clinic based on how stale and faded their lingering scent was. He was bored and hungry, his throat was so dry and had no easy way to ignore it. There was nothing to do in the cell but wait for something to change.

As if in response to Avid’s thoughts, the door groaned on its hinges as it was pushed open, and suddenly, a new scent drifted through the bars, flesh and sweat and weariness and fear. It was intoxicating, and Avid bit down on his tongue so hard that his fangs (how had he not realized he had fangs now?) pierced straight through it. His stomach felt like it was eating itself in its chest, his throat was dry, and he needed to feed.

The scent grew stronger, a heartbeat steady somewhere right outside his cell, and every bit of weakness felt as if it’d left his body. With a manic energy he hadn’t had moment before, Avid pressed himself against the small window, uncaring of how bright red irritation bloomed across the skin of his hands when he grasped the bars tightly. His food was so close his vision blurred, and if he could muster up the strength to access that bat form he’d seen Owen use, he could sink his teeth into the tantalizing meal—

"Avid?"

The voice— Drift. His food was— that was Drift— he’d been on the verge of—

Just as quickly as he’d surged to the bars, Avid threw himself backwards, trying to disappear into the shadows as he wrapped his arms securely around himself. Claws (none of the vampires had had claws until they’d started feeding on people, he was such an idiot) carved divots into his upper arms, shredding his dirty sleeves, but it didn’t matter, none of that mattered as long as he didn’t hurt Drift. Drift, who’d come for him, who smelled so good, who was about to step on the pressure plate no no no—

“Wait, Drift, stop, don’t come in!”

She was still moving, what was she doing, why did she never listen to him? There was only one way Avid could think of to stop her before she walked in, and it would would ruin everything, but better that than Drift dead on the floor stake in her heart blood on his hands always his fault or worse, Drift cursed to feel the same all-consuming hunger begging him even now to let her in so he could finally eat.

There was only ever one option. Avid forced himself towards the bars and met Drift’s eyes, wide and brown but still full of life in a way Owen’s had never been. He watched the disbelief dawn in them, watched it shift to horror, understanding, and, badly hidden, fear. It hurt, how she took an unconscious step away from the cell, from him, but he was glad too. Glad she was cautious enough to be wary, and glad she was far enough away he couldn’t make out the veins just below her skin, barely out of reach. Glad that for the moment, even with the curse whispering food, food, food insistently in his head, he could pretend it was wrong.

“…Avid.”

Drift didn’t know what to say. Of course she didn’t—in her shoes, Avid wouldn’t either, though he knew what he’d do, had done. What he deserved. Here he was, self-proclaimed monster hunter, one of the creatures he swore he would end. It was about as ridiculous as Drift going home to the capital and becoming a serial killer—which suddenly didn’t seem quite as ridiculous, watching her expression darken.

“Avid, who…”

She trailed off, but he knew what she was asking, and he was happy to lay the blame at someone else’s feet.

“Owen. I… forgot to take garlic with me when I went out to cool off. But I’m not— I haven’t gone evil, at least not yet, don’t worry. I’m safe, I’m contained—“

“That’s not what I meant.” Drift cut him off with a shake of her head, gazing towards the clinic door, away from his face. “Avid, your eyes are red. That— that doesn’t just happen. It didn’t to Shelby, or Pyro, or even the older vampires. Not until they turned someone.”

He was shaking his head before she’d finished speaking, words forcing their way out in a frantic, jumbled mess.

“Drift, that’s not— I didn’t— I’m not a danger, I would never hurt you—“ She didn’t believe him. She was backing away, pushing the door open with one absentminded hand, staring through him like he was a stranger. And he wanted to prove her wrong, somehow, but the open door let in a breeze that carried the scent of life towards him, and Avid couldn’t stop the desperate, inhuman noise that left his mouth.

He needed to prove himself, say something to convince her he was still her friend, but his fangs were bared on instinct, his face pressed against the bars, and all he could think was—

“Drift, please, I’m so hungry—“

It sounded, he realized far too late, like a confession. It would have been better to say nothing, (even though there was nothing that could have salvaged this conversation, not really) but instead, he’d let the curse slip out, showed her how it’d ruined him but he’d been ruined, monstrous, since he’d cursed himself and killed her instead of letting her see that some of him was left (had there been some of her left too, enough for it to hurt when he’d stabbed her?) and Drift was already gone, the door slamming shut with a kind of finality Avid couldn’t ignore, but he couldn’t even process the loss of another partner sister friend, not when he could barely think through the guilt and the hunger he couldn’t ignore churning in his gut, too painful to hold in.

Avid fell to his knees, unsure if it was his mental or physical strength that failed him first, and retched into the corner. Nothing came up—anything he’d eaten as a human was long gone and he hadn’t even tasted blood since dying his throat was so dry, which he tried to be grateful for—at least he didn’t have to worry about trying to clean up with his extremely limited resources.

It was an empty relief, tempered by the expression on Drift’s face as she’d left and the scent that still lingered outside the cell, mingled fear and disgust already going stale. Alone, again, Avid dragged himself back against the silver door, letting his head rest on it and relishing the prickling burn of it pressing against the back of his neck, where his bandages had been before Owen’s fangs had shredded them beyond use. The thought of Owen made him ache all over again—after losing Drift, even his taunting would be better than the silence. The part of him he was resolutely ignoring, the one that kept reminding him of the emptiness in his stomach, absolutely did not force a tiny, pathetic sound from his mouth at the thought of Owen, and there was no one around him to disprove that.

It felt colder in the cell than he remembered. Maybe it was all in his head, or maybe it was yet another side effect of his slow starvation. Either way, Avid wrapped his arms around himself in a futile effort to stop the shudders wracking his body, and, tucked away in the corner farthest from the window, finally let himself cry.

Chapter Text

Avid wasn’t sure how long it’d been when he heard the footsteps. Long enough that the scant few tears he’d been hydrated enough to cry had made their way down his cheeks, but not long enough for their tracks to dry. So, probably not that long at all. It’d been seventeen minutes and thirty-three seconds. He was painfully aware of every passing moment, no matter how hard he tried to block them out.

Instinctively, Avid perked up when he realized the steps outside had no heartbeat to accompany them. He knew without needing to check that it was Owen—Owen, who had murdered thousands, Owen, who had murdered Avid, Owen, who had come back even though the flesh under Avid’s nails wasn’t all his own—Owen, who didn’t care that Avid was a monster because he was too.

Owen was outside, but more importantly, Owen was outside with food. It wasn’t alive, thank the holy spirits—it smelled too strongly of blood, and the fear that ran through it was faint enough that it could only be lingering remnants. It wasn’t human either, if the stray feather wafting into the cell on a wayward draft was any clue. That was more than enough for Avid. Taking food from the enemy was worth it if it meant not having to harm his former friends.

He waited, expecting to see Owen’s bat form poke its head through the bars, but nothing happened. Without the sound of footsteps or a heartbeat, it was like Avid was alone again. He didn’t want Owen to leave, not again. The inexplicable spike of fear at the thought gave him the strength to stagger to the bars, and as he slumped against the wall for support, Avid surveyed the room. There wasn’t much to see—the awareness center hadn’t exactly been finished before everything fell apart—and Owen stuck out like a sore thumb, cradling a butchered chicken in his arms.

He hadn’t left. Avid wasn’t alone again. The relief took what energy he’d had, and he swayed in place, vision blurring. When it steadied, it was to Owen’s face, now right outside the bars, staring at him with that same infuriatingly blank look (did he not feel the pull too? Or was he just better at ignoring it?). Soon enough, it scrunched up into a kind of exasperated disappointment, like someone who’d found their troublesome pet digging through the garbage again. Up close, there were claw marks across his face, looking long-healed but clearly newly obtained. The guilt welled up, even though he tried to convince himself the older vampire had deserved it. It was patronizing, and Avid already knew he wouldn’t like what he heard next.

“I can’t tell if your stupidity is more annoying or disturbing.”

…Was this a lecture? Was he being lectured?

“One feeding isn’t near enough reason to starve yourself, you fool. You’ll fall into a slumber to preserve energy long before you actually die, and then you’ll just wake up later, still hungry, and be in the exact same situation as you are now.”

He was being lectured, and the most infuriating part wasn’t even the clear derision in Owen’s tone—it was that the information was actually quite helpful. Knowing his hunger strike was doomed to fail from the start would have— well, maybe it wouldn’t have changed anything. The cell was still the safest course of action, unless he’d just carved a new stake and saved himself the trouble.

Owen was still talking, but Avid couldn’t understand the words anymore. His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, his weight entirely supported by the wall, and all that kept him from collapsing where he stood was the rise and fall of Owen’s voice (though it was more rise than fall—it seemed like he was only getting more worked up). Avid took a deep, shuddering breath to fill his empty lungs when had he stopped breathing on instinct, when had he lost another part of his humanity and tried to raise up a hand to stop Owen’s ranting, but it shook too badly, took too much effort, and it fell limply back to his side.

“…supposed to fend for themselves, not sit pretty in their own cages and wait for someone to come along and show them mercy! Vampires don’t do mercy! You’re lucky I’m willing to waste time on someone as ungrateful as y— Avid? Are you ignoring me? Wait— Avid—“

The last thing Avid heard as his eyes slid shut was the click of a pressure plate and the groan of metal. The first thing he felt as his senses returned to him were fangs in his wrist and a rush of emotion that wasn’t his—annoyance, impatience, and, poorly smothered, concern.

It was the concern that made Avid crack open his eyes, expecting her—he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t Owen, who’d already removed his fangs from his wrist and was now staring down at it with a slightly disturbed air. When he looked over to see Avid blinking sleepily at him, the expression vanished behind the same blank facade and Owen began to lecture him again.

“What were you thinking tearing your arm open this badly? You’ve locked yourself away from any source of food, and then you decide to injure yourself further? Do you have any form of survival instinct at all?”

Avid glared balefully at the older vampire, ignoring the fact that he was, admittedly, right. Yeah, it’d been stupid to poke at an already open wound—that was basic first aid knowledge—but in his defense, he’d had no real way to know how it would affect him considering he’d died days before and come back physically fine. He didn’t want to sit there and listen to all the ways he’d been a fool, not when Owen was there in the cell next to him he hadn’t felt another person’s touch in nearly a week and didn’t want to admit how comforting the grip Owen still had on his wrist was, and, despite all odds, seemed open to conversation. Also, he still had the chicken with him, and if he hadn’t brought it planning to eat it in front of Avid (which was absolutely something a vampire would do, spiteful creatures they were) then it would be really great if he could actually hand it over.

As if Owen could read his mind, he shut his mouth with a sigh and grabbed the corpse from where it’d been laid on the floor of the cell behind him, offering it to Avid unconcernedly, as if it didn’t smell like blood and sinew and life and power. Before he could process, Avid was pressed into the corner of the cell with his fangs deep in the cool flesh, the feathers around his teeth turning red as excess blood dripped out of his mouth. He was vaguely aware of Owen, and the silver surrounding them, and the beacon’s holy light lingering on the edge of his senses as always, but all that mattered was the taste of iron coating his throat, the way the emptiness in him clamored for more, how the fragile bones snapped in his mouth as the blood ran dry and he began to tear chunks of meat away with his fangs.

When Avid felt in control of himself again, all that remained of the chicken were a few bloody feathers, particularly large bones, and a red stain on his hands. The sight was nauseating, and worse, he was still hungry. It didn’t echo in his skull and claw at his chest anymore, but the pit in his stomach hadn’t gone away, and there was already a smaller, more insidious whisper telling him just how much better something bigger than a chicken could have tasted.

He shoved the thoughts out of his mind and turned to face Owen. Owen, who’d lectured him like a child, who’d brought him food, who’d told him not long ago that he would kill everyone he loved one by one. Owen, who was still there, sitting willingly beside the silver door in the cramped cell, so close that Avid could reach out and touch him. It didn’t make sense.

“Why are you here?” His voice cracked slightly, throat still tender from his desperate pleas for Drift to listen and dry from his voluntary hunger strike. “Why— you hate me, you said it yourself, and I’ve never done anything for you.” Why had Owen stayed, Owen of all people, when no one else did?

Owen frowned at him, confusion clear in his eyes.

“You called for me.”

And Avid bristled instinctively at the words, the implication that he would ever do something so ridiculous— but he had, hadn’t he? Cold and hungry and all by himself, Drift’s fear hanging rancid in the air, he’d been desperate for someone to see him, to save him—and for some spirits-damned reason, Owen had come to mind. It was the curse, the inhumanity rearing its ugly head, but it was Avid too, a blight on every inch of him he couldn’t cut out, eating him up and twisting him, but it was still him. But that didn’t explain Owen.

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” it wasn’t like Avid would admit to it, even if Owen was technically correct, “but you didn’t have to come. You could have left me here and— I don’t know, staked me through the heart whenever I went into vampire hibernation.”

Owen actually hissed at that, something sharp and jarring that surprised him as much as Avid if his expression was any clue. He shook it off quickly, but still responded with an uncharacteristic vehemence.

“I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t want to turn you, but it happened, and coven doesn’t kill coven. We’re the closest a vampire can get to a family, and you never break that bond.”

It made sense, and Avid could feel Owen’s sincerity, the deep, aching hurt that accompanied it, as clearly as his own emotions—but the part of him that splayed his fingers across the bars to watch his hands blister when they met silver, the part that had snapped a chicken bone in half and wondered if it would work as a stake, despised the thought of calling a vampire, any vampire, something other than enemy, let alone family. It raged at the thought that they’d dare to try and play human after they’d taken her from him—but had that really been them? A vampire had turned her, but she hadn’t died, not really, until he’d buried the stake in her heart.

Still the anger flared up, white-hot despite his conflict, and before he could think better of it, venomous words slipped out unbidden.

“Well, in that case, I suppose I should humbly thank you for your gracious protection of my foolish self, Sire.”

It was meant to be a jab, a dismissal of whatever stupid notion Owen seemed to have somehow formed that they could ever get along, but when the title escaped, it felt so unnaturally normal that Avid shuddered and his next words died on his tongue. He looked over, expecting to see Owen just as disturbed by what had slipped unthinkingly from his mouth, but the older vampire seemed more taken aback than anything.

There were feelings twisting in his chest again, ones he was sure weren’t his, so complicated and quickly-shifting that Avid couldn’t make them out. They vanished abruptly, leaving his heart empty in a way he couldn’t quite articulate, as Owen’s wide eyes fell back into emotionless neutrality, and before Avid could say a word, Owen had slipped through the bars in his bat form and emerged on the other side. He was gone as suddenly as he came, the door falling shut without a sound and leaving no hint of his presence behind. Avid was alone again.

Chapter Text

Avid was alone again, and clarity crashed over him like a wave. What was he doing? Playing nice with a vampire, eating raw flesh without a second thought, indulging all his worst instincts instead of trying to preserve his humanity—how far gone was he?

It was Owen’s fault. It had to be. Before Owen had shown up, Avid was fine. A little shaken, a little disturbed, both entirely human emotions to feel. He felt them now, stronger than ever despite how his heart refused to beat, but that didn’t mean a thing. A little hungry, but he was still, despite his best efforts, a vampire. Unfortunately, hunger was to be expected. But he’d been ignoring it. He’d been normal, as normal as a vampire could get.

And then—Owen. Owen had shown up, with his prying questions and empty eyes, and made Avid realize just how alone he was, how wrong things had already gone. He’d acted so calm, acted as if this hadn’t been his idea at all, but what if it was? This had to be revenge—stealing his humanity away from him, bringing him closer and closer to the mindless beast that had lurked beneath her skin, the one he knew was hiding inside every vampire. The one that Owen had coaxed out of him at the end of his first visit, that had torn gashes through his bat form’s leathery wings and couldn’t form words through its overwhelming emotions but it was all grief, always had been—grief for her, grief for him, grief for everything he lost the moment he’d swallowed her blood believing it would all work out.

Owen had poisoned him, helped the curse sink its teeth deeper into Avid than it ever could have by itself, by playing human one last time. Calling them coven, bringing him food, acting as if he could still care for anything or anyone—all to push Avid deeper into the grasp of vampirism. That had to be what he’d wanted the whole time. To trick him, make him into a monster without him ever knowing, to turn him into exactly what he’d always hated.

It couldn’t happen. Avid wouldn’t let it. The only way to stop the vampires from getting what they wanted was to end their plan now, when he still had the clarity to see through it, before Owen returned and lured him back in with that cursed bond that stretched taut between them even now. He had to act.

The chicken bones were still lying on the floor. The largest one gleamed in the torchlight streaming through the bars, snapped cleanly in half where the marrow had been sucked out. The jagged edges and hollow center made Avid sick to look at, and the bits of meat still clinging to one end certainly didn’t help. Though it was big for a chicken bone, it was still barely the length of his hand, small and unassuming—but it would do.

Avid turned it over in his hands, wishing distantly that he had access to a book and quill. He still wanted to apologize to Drift, and to Legs. He’d hoped before that he could hold out until the Doctor’s mysterious cure could be finished, but by now it was clear that wasn’t an option. There was more he wanted to say, too—to thank Cleo for being such a steady presence, Apo for their expertise in fortifying the town, Ren and Martyn for taking the initiative to form a militia to defend them all. He missed Shelby, too, her outlandish stories and willingness to listen, even after she’d been twisted beyond return.

He was stalling. There was only so much time before someone came back—Drift with a mob, ready to finish his job for him, or Owen and his plying words. Avid had to act quickly. Taking a deep breath in, one hand pressed over his chest to feel it rise for the very last time, he moved the other one directly over his heart. Before he could stop and think, talk himself out of it, entirely on instinct, just like the last time he’d wielded a stake, he shoved the sharp edge of the bone directly into his chest.

It hurt. If turning had been like fire in his veins a shot of energy, something jagged and half-formed finally complete, then this was ice. It was so painful it felt numbing, a creeping sense of nothing spreading slowly from the bone lodged through his heart. For all Avid could feel, he no longer had lungs, or a stomach, or a heart—only screaming, spreading agony, as if his flesh was rotting off of his bones like it should have the day he died. He couldn’t breathe, hadn’t been for days, but suddenly he needed to, just to prove his lungs were still there, but they weren’t, there was nothing but the pain and the bone at the center of it all.

There was screaming, shrill in his ears as it echoed off the walls and reflected back towards him. Avid knew, distantly, that it was him—it was perfectly in tune with the waves of pain eating up more and more of his body, creeping up his breastbone and down his legs as if to stifle his pleading cries and stop his escape. There was no escaping, though. His frantic hands had scrabbled uselessly at the swathe of pain where his chest used to be, but in his panic the fragile bone had snapped in half, still buried deeply in his flesh. There was nothing to do, and he was going to die again, and the beacon’s holy light sang with joy as the darkness in his body was torn into weak, weeping pieces that clung to Avid’s body, still trying futilely to sustain his undead soul.

His scream petered out as the pain reached his throat, ripping the sound away from him as it was dissolved into the agonizing mass that had once been his body. There was commotion outside the cell walls, he realized—only dimly aware of anything besides the pain—distant concern and fear drifting on the air. It didn’t matter. No one would find him before the pain was over, before the spirits could claim him or tear his consciousness to shreds. Avid had wanted, once, to see her again in whatever afterlife existed. If this was what it took to get there, he hoped she’d never made the journey.

The pain was starting to dull. Avid knew that was probably a bad sign—he couldn’t feel his legs or arms, was only sure his eyes were open because he still stared up at the same stone ceiling as before—but even the slightest bit of comfort was bliss compared to moment before. If he’d still been in control of himself he would have shut his eyes then, to let himself bask in the absence of agony growing more noticeable every second and fade slowly, without care. Unfortunately, he wasn’t, and so, distantly, he heard the empty wooden click of the pressure plate, saw a shadow fall over him with wide, blood-red eyes, felt horror and fear and overwhelming sorrow course through the frayed, barely-there connection clinging to the edge of his mind.

Owen was there. As his eyes finally, blessedly, slipped closed, Avid couldn’t bring himself to care.

Chapter Text

Something was wrong. The moment Avid’s senses began to filter in, warning signs began to pile up. The ground below him was soft, and when he shifted one hand slightly to feel for its texture, it slid across his skin like silk. Avid had felt silk exactly once in his life, when Elle brought back a red-stained cravat as a trophy after a hunt, but its texture had been marred by the blood soaked deep into the fabric. This felt even and clean, likely perfectly smooth if not for the creases and folds where it was bunched up beneath him. It wasn’t just one piece of silk, either—a vague feeling pressed against his left side, indicative of more fabrics, and his small, careful motions as he grasped the fabric found one edge laid out over yet another blanket.

His explorations had to be cautious for two reasons. First, his body felt weak, drained and aching and protesting even his tiny movements. The second probably tied into the first, since Avid clearly wasn’t fully dead despite his best efforts, and he suspected the presence to his right had something to do with that. It was silent and still, nearly unnoticeable—especially since it had no heart beating in its chest to give it away—but some part of him recognized it anyway.

“I know you’re awake.” Owen murmured into the silence, a pale shadow of amusement lingering in his voice. Avid debated for a moment whether to play along, but realized quickly that even if he wanted to answer, his mouth was too dry and his jaw too heavy to move. He cracked his eyes open—a major concession, really—and turned his gaze towards the elder vampire expectantly.

Owen—looking oddly more human than usual with color somehow returned to his white hair—appeared surprised at even the small acknowledgement, lips turning slightly upwards to reveal the barest hint of fangs. It faded into as he leaned over Avid, surveying him closely as his frown became more and more pronounced. A gusty sigh escaped seemingly on instinct, the gesture oddly human, but the strangeness of the action was quickly forgotten as his eyes began fighting to slip shut again.

Somehow Owen seemed to sense the weight pressing down on Avid’s mind, beckoning him back towards sleep, because he reached behind him and grabbed a bottle that sloshed with a thick red liquid, pressing it to Avid’s lips. He wanted to protest as the metallic smell hit him, but Owen’s gaze sharpened into a glare, menace radiating off of him in a way it hadn’t since the day Avid was turned.

“You are going to drink this, or I am going to pour it down your throat. Do not make this harder than it needs to be.”

Avid opened his mouth to protest, fighting the mental fog overtaking his brain, but was met with blood coating the inside of his throat instead. He gagged slightly at the texture, trying valiantly not to spit it back out—because now that he’d tasted it, Avid was reminded that he was starving. This wasn’t one bony chicken, mostly fear-soured flesh and feathers; it was an entire bottle of blood, pure and fresh and given to him freely without the need to expend energy by sinking his fangs into some poor, struggling animal. Even though he couldn’t be sure of its source, the part of him that still felt the phantom burn of his makeshift stake buried in his chest swallowed it down without remorse.

The worst part was, Avid could feel it working. The air laid a little less heavily over his body, his senses felt a bit sharper, and the prospect of sleep wasn’t quite as tantalizing as it had been moments before. That didn’t mean he wanted to stay awake, though, especially if it meant talking to Owen. With his head a little clearer, he could admit that he’d been… a little overly emotional before, but that didn’t mean he had to play nice with the one who’d turned him. Clearly, dealing with his vampirism wouldn’t be possible, especially since those red eyes were still fixed on him, but at the very least he could go back to pretending nothing was happening.

Step one of ignoring his present problems was still go back to sleep. Unfortunately, that was impossible. Although Avid was tired enough that even the cell’s stone floor sounded appealing, with Owen’s eyes tracking his every move, he didn’t feel safe enough to let his eyes close again. What was he supposed to do about the older vampire, though? It didn’t seem like he’d be leaving any time soon, based on his relaxed posture and the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a mockery of Scott’s high-collared cloak, but he didn’t seem particularly concerned with carrying on a conversation, either. If Avid wanted answers, he supposed he would have to ask.

“Why are you here?”

Owen startled slightly, his vaguely vacant stare snapping back into focus as he met Avid’s eyes. His head tilted just slightly too much to look natural, waves of confusion and a weird amount of concern practically radiating off of him. Avid didn’t think what he’d said was particularly strange, but Owen was now staring into the half-healed hole in his stomach as if it had killed his family—and Avid didn’t use that comparison lightly.

“We already had this conversation. Do you not remember that? Does anything else seem off?”

Avid blinked dumbly for a moment before it clicked. They had kind of had this conversation, but— this was different. This was far more than a bit of company and a singular chicken.

“That’s— well, you’re right, but that’s not what I meant. I remember that conversation! I do, don’t look at me like that!”

Owen was squinting dubiously at him now, and Avid sputtered under the doubtful gaze before re-collecting his words.

“What I meant was, why am I still here? Sure, you had some kind of responsibility to deal with me since you’re the one who turned me, but— this was your chance to get out of it.” His voice was not wavering, and if Owen pointed it out he would probably die on the spot, fresh blood in his system be damned. “Why did you—“ save me died in his throat. Avid didn’t feel saved. Owen’s careful watch made it clear this was only another cell.

Still, the older vampire seemed to understand without the extra elaboration. HIs shoulders slumped under an invisible weight, eyes filled with indecision as he stared down at Avid. Sensing that the conversation was going to last longer than he’d expected, Avid tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his hands sunk into the plush fabrics surrounding him, and the effort made his head spin. Between one moment and the next, there were hands on his shoulders, cold fingers positioning him to lean against the wall of blankets and wrapping one around him in a mirror of the fabric that’d slipped off Owen’s back in his haste.

Only when Avid was positioned to his liking, half-sunk into the silks around him, did Owen lean back to fix his own blanket cloak. The hesitance was gone, replaced with a bone-deep weariness that made his own body ache more in empathy, but it lessened abruptly as Owen closed his eyes and fell still for a moment before he began to speak.

“I have… told you and the humans about how I massacred Oakhurst, two hundred years ago. I have not told you why.”

Avid nodded mutely. Owen didn’t seem to notice, faraway gaze fixed somewhere over Avid’s shoulder as he continued.

“For as long as I could remember, I was… sick. I didn’t know what it was—not even the doctors did. But it was incurable. Terminal. And it was contagious, horribly so, and the town shunned me for it. I lived at the edge of the woods, as far from them as they could get me, and most days saw no sign of another person save the carts being driven through the gates. I did everything I could on the days I had to go into town to sell my lumber—wrapped my arms in bandages so no one could see the weeping sores, kept a careful distance to protect them, made my visits quick so they had to suffer me for as little time as possible. I don’t think it mattered. They feared me regardless, believed me beyond saving from the moment the first rash began to mar my skin.”

With a sinking feeling, Avid realized where the story was going—though he still wasn’t sure how it connected to Owen saving him from his attempt to purge the curse from his heart.

“One day,” Owen continued, “I met with the mayor. I expected the same treatment I had received thus far, but instead, he welcomed me in, shook my hand, invited me to stay and chat even after my business was done. It was… novel. I liked it. I sought his company again the next day, and the day after that, until it became so commonplace that I could not imagine a life where we weren’t intertwined. He was the only one who treated me like a human rather than a bad omen, the only one who could stand my presence and enjoy my company.

“Eventually, he asked me if I would accept a cure, even if it meant being shunned by everyone around me. I told him it didn’t matter—I was already alone, and he was the only one whose presence I could ever imagine wanting. It was then that he revealed to me his true self, an immortal creature of the night, and offered to turn me.”

“You accepted.”

“I accepted. He warned me that I would likely sleep for a while as the gift healed my wounds, then led me to the basement, where I offered him my wrist. When I woke up three days later, he wasn’t there. I stepped outside only for the townspeople to turn to me and tell me they’d noticed I was gone, that they’d worried he’d killed me, that they’d found evidence of the occult when they searched him and had decided to end him in my honor.

“I felt him burn. They’d tired him to a pyre, lit it up before I’d come outside, but the flames didn’t reach him until I was there to see it happen. I stood there and watched as his skin melted from his bones, his hair dissolved into ash on the wind, and I believed it was all a terrible dream. We were meant to be immortal, he had promised me we were, and I sat by and did nothing as he died. Do you know how long it takes a vampire to burn?”

He continued before Avid could respond, eyes alight with an anger so raw it seemed fresh and hot, not the old, tempered flame of wrath he’d expected.

“For two hours I listened to him scream. He felt every moment of it, I know he did, because I felt it too. I felt the flames tear through him, the smoke fill his lungs, I felt the relief when his spirit finally began to fade. I felt our bond shatter in my chest, and the pain lingered until I buried myself and waited to die. When I woke weeks ago thanks to humans traipsing through the ruins of Oakhurst, I swore never to turn a human, that none of them deserved Louis’s final gift to me. And yet, here I am, your sire. Now, imagine my shock last night when I felt that same pain through the new bond as the old.”

The malice was back, hanging thick in the air as Owen’s cold red gaze bored into Avid’s nervous eyes. There was no trace of the rueful warmth that’d colored his tone when he spoke about his sire, or the hurt that’d seemed burned into his soul. All Avid could see as Owen stared at him was fury.

“So, fledgling, care to explain why exactly I found you with a makeshift stake lodged in your chest, plainly attempting to squander the gift that you of all people mistakenly received?”

Chapter Text

Even if Avid had wanted to respond to the accusation—which he absolutely didn’t—he was stopped by a convenient wave of pain shooting through his body from the half-healed hole in his chest. He tried not to react, biting through his tongue again to stop any sound from escaping, but somehow, Owen still seemed to know. It had to be the bond he’d talked about, and now that he had a name to put to it, Avid could sense the odd, intangible thread that seemed to be leaking drops of concern into his mind. As soon as he recognized it, however, it shifted abruptly to sternness, somehow conveying lie down and rest without a single word.

Avid’s eyes cracked open (when had he closed them?) at a return of the metallic scent, and with the aftershocks of the pain still running through his body along with the bond’s silent coaxing, didn’t think twice about taking taking the bottle of blood and draining it. Unlike the last, this one didn’t give him more energy, instead spreading a soothing numbness across his aching torso, and without his input, his thoughts began to slow. One moment, he felt cool hands guiding him gently back down onto his back, and the next, he knew nothing.

When he woke again, Avid was all too aware. Enough so to bat away Owen’s reaching hands, suppress an inhuman hiss at the sight of the blood bottle he was being offered, and turn his back on the vampire despite how it made waves of pain stab through his chest. Unfortunately, Owen didn’t seem to take the hint—Avid staunchly ignored the brief moment of hurt that clearly wasn’t his own—and reached out again, uncorking the bottle to let the tantalizing smell waft through the air. Unfortunately for him, Avid was awake enough to ignore the monstrous temptation it posed, and he turned his head away again. This had the unwanted side effect of turning him around just enough to be able to see Owen’s face again, and the startled confusion on it was almost enough to make him feel bad. Almost.

“You want to know why I hate your gift so much? I know what it does to people. I’ve seen how it twists your mind so badly you can’t even recognize your closest friend, how people become nothing in your eyes but their flesh and blood.”

“That’s not true—” Owen retorted, but Avid kept talking over him, incensed.

“Yes it is! If it weren’t for the cell I had to lock myself into after you got too mad and sunk your fangs into me, I would have killed Drift, or worse, turned her into a monster like you!”

“Your experiences after actively starving yourself are a terrible representation of vampires! Look at Shelby, who’s never even tasted human blood, look at Pyro, who refuses to eat the pig he and Apo keep in their house, look at—“

“Shelby doesn’t want to come home, Pyro would lick Scott’s boots if he asked, but all I need to look at is you, who slaughtered nearly three thousand people, to know that all vampires are irredeemable.”

“You’re not.”

And all at once Avid hated whatever connection linked the two of them, despised the way Owen had peeled back the bitterness and anger to find the tiny, flickering ember of grief at its center. Hated how simple it was for him to parse through all the layers of complicated emotion churning in Avid’s gut, and yet still be utterly wrong. Because Avid wasn’t redeemable, hadn’t been since the day he’d stained his hands with blood and had the sickening urge to lick it off his fingers. But, he realized abruptly, Owen didn’t know that. It was the one thing no vampire could ever take from him, the greatest reminder of just why he had to cling to his humanity.

But it hadn’t helped. Not when he’d been turned, not when he’d stared down Drift and seen nothing but the veins standing out against her neck. And maybe, if Owen knew, he could… Avid didn’t know what he could do. But Owen had offered him some amount of trust, and something in him, something deeper and more central than the sire-bond, asked him to reciprocate.

“…you drained one cow on your way back to town after turning doesn’t mean you’re an unfixable monster. You were hungry, and new vampires have more trouble controlling themselves. Ask Pyro—“

Oh, Owen had been talking the entire time. Useless reassurances, it sounded like. He still didn’t understand. How could he? Even when he’d slaughtered Oakhurst, it’d been in the grips of the emotional high that came after death and undeath, fueled by righteous anger at watching someone he clearly cared for suffer. Even the man the entire town agreed was irredeemable, beyond saving, was better than Avid in that way. And he didn’t even know it.

“Not a cow.” Avid cut him off. He tried not to let the guilt rising up to choke him slip through the bond, but based on Owen’s concerned look he wasn’t successful. He wanted to stop, but the words were flowing without his consent—the secret had weighed him down for so long that at the prospect of release, it was practically giddy.

“I killed her. Elle. My—“ the words caught in his throat. What— his best friend? His partner? None of those were enough to explain her. He settled, eventually, on something close enough. “My Louis.”

He felt the jolt from the bond, pain and shock and horror all at once, as Owen’s eyes widened. Avid knew he should stop, that he was going to regret spilling his secrets later, but he couldn’t, not when Owen needed to understand the depths of his betrayal.

“We were partners. She hunted monsters, I made her gear and did the research. She— she trusted me. I was supposed to have her back.

“The cure was my idea. I had… this wound, one that wouldn’t heal no matter what I did, one she’d been there to see me get. I think she felt responsible, even though she was just as young as I was, and there was nothing she could’ve done. We were never quite sure what did it, but it had side effects, and bad ones. It was like an infection, something periodic, that got worse every time it came back. Vampirism is one of the few afflictions said to heal all wounds. And— well— there had been talk of a cure for almost as long as there had been talk of vampires. When I’d run out of all other options, I figured… if I could find a way to infect myself, and then a way to cure it, maybe… I could live a real life.”

A new wave of surprise flowed through the bond, carrying with it an empathy that ached. Avid pushed it forcefully to the back of his mind. It wouldn’t last.

“All my stupid attempts to make some— vampirism in a bottle, or something, or sit out in the woods and wait for something to take the bait didn’t work, and… I was getting worse. Every cycle of infection got longer, with less time between them, and… she got sloppy. Started returning from vampire-related commissions with more and more injuries, and I thought she was trying to get more information from them, but when she came home one day with fang marks on her palm, I realized she’d been trying to get infected. For me. And I was so excited, and she told me she’d ridden her horse into the ground trying to get back to me, and I mixed some of her blood into another draught instead of checking on her and I took it without thinking and it hurt so badly that I wasn’t prepared when she opened the door—“

“Avid—“ Owen tried to cut in, but he couldn’t stop, not now, not when he was so close to admitting it all.

“I thought she’d come to check on me. I fainted last time she was home, and she fussed over me until she had to leave again, but I looked up and saw her lunge and— I had a stake I was whittling, for her next hunt, and all I saw were her fangs— and I buried it in her heart. I watched her body fall to the floor, her blood on my hands, and I felt powerful.”

Owen opened his mouth again, but Avid wouldn’t let him cut in, wouldn’t let the disgust and dismay flow through the bond he was blocking desperately out of his mind.

“My eyes used to be blue, you know. They haven’t been the same since that day. I walked away fine, watched my spirits-damned neck bandages come away without blood for the first time I can remember, and she died for it. And all I could think, when I buried her body out back, was that it almost felt like a waste when her blood was still warm.”

He was wheezing, Avid realized, breaths quick and short, head light as if he still needed oxygen to function at all. His chest ached, and at first he thought it was the same dull pain that’d lurked there since she’d died, since he’d had that first taste of blood and food began to feel like ashes in his mouth, but it grew sharper and more piercing, spreading further with every agonized expansion of his atrophied lungs. Black spots bled into one another, consuming his blurry vision, and he passed out without another word.

When awareness gradually returned, fuzzy and faraway, Avid registered only one thing: He was alone.

Chapter Text

Alone. The thought hurt. All his thoughts did, at the moment. Avid opened his mouth to draw in a deep breath on some vestigial human instinct, but only choked on the dust that hung persistently in the air. He coughed violently, trying to force the particles out of his lungs, but they refused to budge. All his efforts yielded were stabbing pains through his chest, emanating in waves through his body, and he curled up in a pointless attempt to protect the already-wounded area without thinking. Stupid. The movements just hurt more, and Avid made a sound so pathetic he would have hated for anymore to hear. Luckily—unluckily—the other half of the blanket pile was empty and cold.

He’d done something to make Owen leave. It was important, but he couldn’t remember why. It was hard to think through the pain, and there were two kinds of it now—one felt like he’d just stabbed himself all over again, sharp and violent, while the other thrummed dully where his heart once beat. That one lingered, and it felt familiar. He recognized it, dimly, as hunger. There was food nearby, Avid remembered that much, but he was cold, and everything ached, and when he thought about raising his head to look around, his traitorous stomach protested violently, making his head spin with nausea.

He shuddered and tried to fall back asleep, hoping something would change when he next woke, but everything hurt too much for true rest. When relief came it was more a loss of consciousness than anything, and his mind shut down slowly, so overwhelmed he almost convinced himself there was a hand running through his hair, tilting a bottle of cool blood carefully into his mouth. It couldn’t be real, though—even with his thoughts slipping away, he could feel the sire-bond’s thread trailing weakly out of the room. Owen was still gone.

Oddly, when he next woke, Avid felt much better. That shouldn’t have worked. Sleep was nice, sure, but it couldn’t cure the hunger he vaguely remembered feeling—which was admittedly still there, but small and contained, as if sated not long before. Instead, he felt more settled than he had since he was first turned, almost oddly content aside from the ever-present pain and the emptiness in the blanket nest that weighed down on his shoulders like a physical presence.

Unfortunately, that emptiness was impossible to ignore. The crypt felt a lot more crypt-like without another presence to draw Avid’s attention away from the crumbling stone walls and coffin in the corner. It was lighter than he expected, until he realized there were no torches at all—turned out well-fed vampires could see in the dark. Huh. Avid was learning a lot more about well-fed vampires recently. One thing he distinctly hadn’t wanted to learn was just how much it took to keep the thirst at bay. Even now, he caught himself eyeing the shelf cluttered with bottles and looked away as discomfort at the ease of the action nagged at him.

Vampirism, clearly, wasn’t the kind of thing that could be managed. It was disgustingly natural to find his thoughts drifting towards blood as if it were any normal, non-harmful food source—like it was as innocent as fresh berries or potatoes. The crypt, with its stone ceilings blocking out the light and easy access to food, was messing with his head. It all felt suffocating, and with the pain in his chest no longer debilitating, Avid was hit by a sudden need to move.

That resolve was almost squashed when he forced himself onto his feet and the motion shot spikes of pain through his torso. But it was fine! They subsided quickly, and even though the stab wound hurt a little more after, he could still walk. Probably. Definitely. He made it a grand total of one step before nearly tripping on the raised edges of the blanket nest, but it was fine, he didn’t need to breathe, so who cared if the habitual gasp he let out jolted his ribcage in uncomfortable ways? It was fine.

Everything continued to be fine as Avid made his way slowly and painfully towards the stone archway connecting this particular crypt to the rest of the catacombs that made up the manor’s underbelly. His legs were not shaking, he was not leaning on the wall for stability, and his vision was perfectly clear, not at all beginning to blur from the pain that certainly did not exist. He grabbed onto one supportive pillar and stepped out into the doorway, only for a bored voice to echo out from right behind him.

“You’re awfully determined to leave for someone who won’t make it up the stairs, you know.”

He did not scream at that, and Scott’s smirk when Avid spun around to face him meant nothing. Besides, there were more concerning things to worry about, things such as—

“Have you been there the whole time?”

Scott just grinned, an unsettling glint in his eyes.

“Long enough to see you make a fool of yourself—though I suppose that doesn’t narrow it down much, does it?”

Barely two sentences in, and Avid already remembered why he hated Scott. This was his second piece of evidence that vampirism was a curse—normal people just didn’t have the time or the means to become so detached from their humanity. When he wasn’t pretending—badly—to be human, his mannerisms were always just slightly too exaggerated to seem natural, and the only thing that seemed to bring him true delight was fear. Case in point, he seemed to be enjoying the shivers running down Avid’s spine at his presence, and he stepped closer even as Avid leaned slightly back.

Not slightly enough, it turned out, as his hand slipped from the stone pillar and Avid felt himself fall. It was shorter than he expected, his landing softer—but what air remained was knocked from his lungs regardless, because as it turned out, Scott had caught him in midair. The elder vampire’s smile only grew as he stared down at Avid’s shocked face, pure white hair framing his ruby eyes and marble skin, and Avid realized far too late that with Scott’s hand supporting the small of his back, leaned over Avid as he was, they were positioned in a picture-perfect dip. He was suddenly very, very glad for the lack of blood flow all vampires shared, since it was the only thing stopping an embarrassed blush from spreading across his face, and he didn’t even want to think of how Scott would take that moment and run with it.

Instead, Avid very elegantly and not at all clumsily extricated himself from Scott’s grip and went back to leaning against the pillar, taking some amount of joy in the small pout that crossed the other vampire’s face at the added distance. It disappeared quickly, however, as Scott looked pointedly down at where Avid was clutching at the crumbling wall in a way that could, potentially, be thought of as using it for balance, quirking an unimpressed eyebrow at the sight.

“Perhaps it would be better if you sat down.”

Avid didn’t need mockery or patronization, so he shook his head, ignoring how it made his vision blur slightly. Scott looked almost displeased at that, letting out a sharp, annoyed breath that somehow conveyed both disappointment and resignation, before his face settled easily back into a vaguely disdainful neutrality.

“Well, if you’d rather scratch up my fine silks on the stone, then be my guest I suppose. It’s not like I planned to use those pajamas again regardless.”

The words weren’t necessarily inflammatory, but something about Scott’s constant, casually cruel indifference grated at Avid’s already shot nerves, and he couldn’t stop the bitterness from spilling out.

“Is there a reason you’re here, or did you just come to laugh at me stumbling around?”

“Well,” Scott drawled, “I wouldn’t have phrased it that way—I do have some sense of how to handle fragile egos—but if you’re admitting it, I won’t deny that it’s part of the fun. To answer your question, however, I’m actually here on babysitting duty while Owen takes a break from the crypt. It’s too dreary and drab to be down here all the time, even if the atmosphere is excellent. I’m sure he’ll be back to hovering by your side soon enough, though. He’s quite attached to you, fledgling.”

A part of Avid he wouldn’t admit to if pressed preened at Scott’s words. Owen hadn’t left him? He hadn’t been chased off by learning the depth of Avid’s mistakes? It was relieving in a way he couldn’t explain.

“Admittedly,” Scott continued, “I’m also here to satisfy a bit of personal curiosity. Your story was quite fascinating—artificial vampirism? A wound that never heals? It almost sounds fantastical, and I’ve seen quite a lot.”

Avid tensed involuntarily as Scott leaned towards him again, a bright, intense interest the bordered on hunger burning in his gaze. Despite his own immortality, Avid couldn’t help feeling incredibly vulnerable under the elder vampire’s scrutiny, shrinking back slightly.

“How do you know about that?” His voice was embarrassingly small, and he hated how Scott’s smile grew the slightest bit at the waver he couldn’t quite suppress.

“This is my home, as I hope you remember. The walls have ears.”

Before Avid could parse through whatever that meant, Scott had closed the distance between them and cupped Avid’s face with his hands. He couldn’t quite bite down the squeak that left his lips, and Scott chucked at the noise, pausing to shoot a smirk at Avid before tilting his head to the side to scrutinize the marks left behind on his neck. It really wasn’t pretty, and Avid was almost distantly ashamed at the disorderly way the scars dotted his skin. On his right side were the two fang marks, so faded they were near-invisible, but carving a swathe across the front of his neck and trailing vaguely off to the left were messy, thick claw marks, edges pinched and skin tinged with a slightly inflamed pink hue even months after it’d finally closed up. Scott squinted at them for a moment, poking at one raised edge, before giving a satisfied nod.

“Looks like a werewolf scratch to me. Even if they don’t turn you, those overgrown dogs have all sorts of bacteria on their claws. Frankly, I’m impressed you survived as long as you did. I had a suspicion from the moment I heard it, but it’s always good to know I’m right.”

Even seemingly finished with his inspection of the claw marks, Scott still didn’t let go of Avid’s face. Instead, he tilted it back to face him, and, staring into Avid’s eyes, hummed something that sounded vaguely approving.

“Really, I was far more interested in your attempts to recreate the gift. I’d never considered that a vampire’s blood would be enough to make a weaker version of it, especially since most of the newly-turned are drained dry of any excess beforehand, but when combined with a vampire’s life? Well, that makes much more sense. Taking in lifeblood is always more of a boon to our own energies, and killing her must have given your bastardized creation just enough power to stop whatever blight that wound was infected with. How fascinating.”

Finally, Scott released Avid’s head, and he slumped a little, not realizing how much the elder vampire had been supporting his weight. Scott surveyed Avid one more time, face pulling into a slight frown, and he instead wound an arm around Avid’s waist, guiding him deftly back to the pile of blankets before he could protest. Avid put up a token resistance, but as he sunk back into the silks, he realized just how exhausted just walking the length of the room and standing for a bit had been. Scott was right—he’d never have made it up the stairs in this state.

“Of course,” Scott continued in the same smooth voice, “your own half-successful attempt seems to be fighting the bite Owen gave you. I suspect that’s why you’re having such a hard time with the gift at the moment, though of course starving yourself couldn’t have helped.”

Was every vampire going to be just as annoying about that as Owen? Avid shuddered at the thought. Scott dropped a blanket over his head a moment later, catching Avid off guard. Had he… assumed Avid was cold? And moved to help? That didn’t fit with his clear lack of empathy.

“Don’t look so confused,” Scott sighed, “I’m a vampire, not a monster. No good vampire would let a childe in need struggle, especially one with the potential to be so interesting. Besides, my own fledglings have been rather enjoyable to have around, and I imagine Owen wouldn’t be happy if he returned to find I’d shirked my duties.”

As he spoke, Scott grabbed a bottle of blood from off the shelf in the back and placed it into Avid’s hands, curling his fingers around it.

“Sip on that, it should help your strength return. Also, when Owen gets back, have him bite you again. It may help with your little… issue. I would do it myself, but I doubt he’d be happy about it.”

With a put-upon sigh, Scott adjusted the blanket around Avid’s shoulders and pushed him gently to rest against the raised edge of the nest of silks.

“If only I’d gotten to you first…” He murmured to himself as he began to step away, before looking over his shoulder and offering casually, as if he’d almost forgotten, “oh, and tell Owen you’re formally invited to the next family dinner. Use those exact words, if you would. He hates it when Shelby calls them that.”

With a last flourish of his cloak, Scott vanished into the hallway, leaving Avid alone once again. This emptiness was more welcome, however, after Scott’s… everything. Avid turned the conversation over in his mind as he took an absentminded drink of the blood in his hands, melting into the blankets as it began to ease the persistent ache in his chest, and considered. Before, Scott had always seemed so uninterested in anything but his own gain. He was the perfect vampire, cold and manipulative, emotionless and cruel. But there had been real concern in his gaze as he’d guided Avid back to the nest, care in his voice when he’d talked about his own fledglings, mirth in his tone when he’d mentioned their family dinners. Family dinners, which he apparently participated in and even actively encouraged.

Avid found himself staring into the crimson depths of his bottle, mind more clouded than ever despite his slow but steady recovery. None of his understanding of vampires had held true since he’d been turned. Even what he thought was certain—that he’d killed Elle on selfish, monstrous instinct, that if she hadn’t been turned they would have both been better off—wasn’t certain anymore. He didn’t know what to do with that. He didn’t know what to do with anything.

Suddenly, the silence became suffocating again. He didn’t want to be alone anymore. Avid reached mentally towards the sire-bond, feeling vague echoes of Owen’s distant confusion and conflict on the other end, and tugged.