Chapter Text
“I heard you died!” Cleo squealed with glee.
“It’s all right,” Shelby soothed.
It was most definitely not all right. Beacons were consecrating all around them. All of the Coven vampires had known the beacon on the lake was a trap except one fledgeling with absolutely no survival sense.
Avid stood before them, stripped of powers, tears streaming down his face. “I want to go home,” he whimpered.
“You are home,” Scott said.
“No,” Avid whimpered. “No I’m not.”
What had Shelby been thinking? This kid couldn't handle his own breakfast cereal, much less defend himself. Avid needed constant supervision to keep him from staking himself, maybe literally, and the Coven couldn't possibly spare anyone to do it. The war with the humans was on. They needed to counterattack before they were overwhelmed.
While the others coddled the kid and got him to stop whimpering, Scott Goldsmith’s mind was turning, turning on what their next move should be. This distraction played right into the enemy’s hands. It had to be resolved as fast as possible. “Come on,” he snapped, waving Avid to follow him down into the catacombs. To his relief, no one followed. He indulged a brief flash of pride. It might take a lot of cat herding, but when the going got tough, the Coven could be a well oiled machine. The humans still didn't guess what they were capable of.
So.The kid would have to look after himself. Show him the castle's escape hatch, get him a sword, find him a room with supplies where he could hide until they could return. Someplace defensible if the worst happened… assuming Avid could figure out which end of the sword was the business end.
“You'll stay here,” he said, pulling Avid into a store room and checking over its contents. No diamonds. He'd have to settle for a stone sword.
“Scott,” Avid said. “I was stupid. I tried to take the town beacon. Alone.”
“You tried to do what?” Scott gasped. He knew it had been stupid, but the magnitude stunned him. With instincts like that, how could this kid possibly survive?
The garbled story tumbled out of Avid in a single breath. He might not be able to fight, but he could definitely talk.
Scott sighed. “Ah, Avid.” He laid a hand on Avid’s shoulder to get him to stop talking. “Sweet innocent Avid.” This poor kid. He was in so far over his head.
He was unprepared when Avid threw his arms around Scott, burying his still-wet cheeks in the velvet waistcoat. “I'm safe with you,” Avid said. “I'm always safe with you.”
This just kept getting worse. Scott gently pushed Avid back to disentangle himself. He was not going to be able to stick around as protection, and the reason should be obvious.
Instead, Avid kissed him.
This wasn’t the first time Avid had done that. Scott had been completely blindsided at the pale oak forest beacon when they turned it alone. No one had ever spontaneously done something so intimate to him. It could have been an attack, and he should have reacted that way, but he hadn’t. He’d had no idea why. But this time he knew… he definitely did not want to rip Avid’s throat out. Damn impulsive kid. He didn’t have time to sort this. The humans were coming.
Scott pushed Avid back again, laying a finger on his lips. “This is a very, very bad idea,” he growled.
Avid caught Scott’s hand. “This might be my last chance,” he pleaded. “I want you to know how I feel.”
The whole Coven knows how you feel, Scott thought. All of Oakhurst. You’d be lucky to find a chicken who didn't notice. All he said was, “I know.”
“Scott,” Avid said. And then they were kissing again. Scott knew better, knew much too well, but this time he let it happen.
Avid kissed the way he did everything else - brash, overeager, trying much too hard. The earnest artlessness touched Scott somewhere smooth seduction would never reach. No kiss like this could have an ulterior motive. Scott was drawn in in spite of himself, allowing the kiss to deepen, trying fruitlessly to slow Avid down. How long had it been since he’d kissed anyone? Setting aside the terrible timing, this was cradle-robbing twice over – a 19-year-old kid and a fledgeling of only a few weeks. Scott had flexible standards, to be sure, but a thousand-year age gap was a bit much. He said all this to himself, but he didn’t do anything to stop it.
Then Avid's tongue grazed a fang, and the taste of blood flooded Scott's mouth. Scott froze.
Avid drew back. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I just-.” He stopped, staring into Scott's face. “My blood,” Avid said slowly. “Does it make you stronger?”
Scott sheepishly wiped his hand across his mouth. “Not like human blood,” he said.
“But it does, doesn't it?” Avid insisted. “It helps just a little bit?”
“A little bit,” Scott admitted cautiously.
Avid offered up his wrist. “Take it then,” he said. His voice had lost its trembling.
“Avid,” Scott said. “You can't afford to get any weaker.”
“Look,” Avid said bitterly. “I'm not stupid. I just proved to the whole Coven how useless I am. I'm a burden now, and when I get my powers back, I'll still be a burden. We're fighting for our lives here, and there's nothing else I can do to help.”
Scott said gently, “You stole their supply of holy water. That's not nothing. You don't have to fight to be useful.”
Avid slashed the air with his hand. “That was a one shot, and you know it,” he cried. “I burned my bridges at Oakhurst. I'll never be able to do anything like that again. The best way I can help anybody. Please. Let me do something.” He offered his wrist again. His eyes, violet again from weakness, were wide and earnest and somehow compelling.
Scott hesitated. It wasn’t a completely absurd idea, but Avid hadn’t recovered from the pain and terror of an hour ago. Heck, he had brought fresh pain and terror with him when he arrived at Oakhurst, and he clearly wasn’t over that either. Scott found himself reluctant to add more to Avid’s laundry list of pain.
And therein lay the danger. If anyone knew he had a soft spot for a self-destructive fledgeling, Avid became the best way to strike against Scott. Or, maybe worse, Scott would get some other vampire staked by dashing off to rescue this kid instead of doing something more important. Caring about one vampire was putting that vampire above the fate of the Coven. He couldn’t afford to let that happen, not with the humans practically on their doorstep.
And even if they made it through, what then? Avid, for all his self-proclaimed bloodlust, was too gentle to be a vampire. How long could he really last? When he was gone, the pain would linger so much longer than any pleasure.
Scott took Avid’s offered hand and lowered it. “All right,” he said slowly. “We’re doing this, but we’ll do it proper.” He drew Avid into an embrace, nuzzled against the soft flesh of the throat, and sank in his fangs.
Avid gasped, just once. He was past whimpers now.
The blood tasted rancid the way vampire blood always did. It was nothing like the refreshment of human blood, but it was nourishing. Scott drank cautiously. He had drunk from countless humans but very few vampires. Wouldn’t it be an ironic end to this whole sordid affair if he killed Avid now, by accident? But wait… there was something else here, a flavor he didn’t recognize… something sour, something old and dark….
Elle, no! What happened to you! Why are you doing this?
Elle! Don’t make me–
Scott broke away and jumped back. He stared at Avid in astonishment. Blood ran down his chin and dripped onto his waistcoat. Luckily, it was already red. Scott had chosen that color for a reason.
“Scott! What’s wrong?” Avid reflexively pressed his hand against the wound on his neck, already closing. His voice was shrill with panic. “What did I do?”
“What are you?” Scott hissed.
“What? I– I’m me! I’m Avid!”
“Not that,” Scott said. “You’re more than just human or vampire.” He narrowed his eyes, thinking. “You said something about being sick?”
Realization dawned on Avid’s face, then horror, then shame. “My hunting partner Elle,” he said quietly. “We were both sick. She came home one day changed into something wild and feral. She attacked me. I thought she was a vampire because I didn’t know any better. I… killed her… with a stake through the heart.”
Scott’s lips twisted sardonically. “A stake through the heart is a very messy way to kill almost anything,” he observed.
“I know that now,” Avid said. “We both had injuries from a childhood attack that never healed. After I came to Oakhurst, mine got worse. When Shelby turned me, that was supposed to make it go away.”
Scott drew a red silk scarf from his sleeve and dabbed the blood from his face. Well, this explained a lot. It just didn’t explain the right things. “I hate to be the one to break it to you,” he said. “That wound may have healed, but whatever it was is still in you,” he said.
“Do you know what it is?” Avid almost whispered the words.
Scott shook his head. He’d never tasted anything like it, not even enough to offer a guess. He knew it was powerful, though, and old. Shelby must have tasted it. Why didn’t she say anything? Then again, she’d been keeping herself strictly on animal blood. She wouldn’t have known what a human was supposed to taste like.
“Does this mean… does it mean my blood is useless to you too?”
Scott blinked. That wasn’t where his thoughts had been going at all. Now that one mentioned it, though…. “No, actually. I think the opposite. I think it was more effective.” Avid’s face lit up.
Then it hit both of them like a clap to the chest. The crypt beacon had changed to neutral. That’s where the humans were striking now.
“You have to go,” Avid said.
Scott should have already been gone. He was absurdly lucky that no one had come to find him in this compromising conversation. He hoped that meant the Coven was preparing for the next assault well enough on their own.
Scott took both Avid’s hands, leaned forward, and kissed him gently. “Stay here,” he said. “Stay safe.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Avid said.
No, Scott wanted to say, not like that. But he stayed silent and closed the door behind him as he left.
Avid slid to the floor and hugged his knees. “Stay here,” he echoed. “Scott can keep me safe.”