Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The forests and valleys surrounding Oakhurst sat in the chilled space between stillness and mist. A mist that hung low in the fading daylight, winding between trees, settling over rivers, and twisting around the buildings in town, an unstoppable force that the wooden, protective walls couldn't stop. While it was unstoppable, it was also incapable of stopping the sounds of heavy, booted footsteps moving along dirt paths and over fallen sticks. The crunch of the cold, hard paths and the snaps of twigs betrayed the townsfolk as they moved, outsiders to these lands given away by the lands themselves, that held no loyalty to anyone.

Upon reaching a fork in the path, they split evenly into two groups. One group made their way up and around, looking to bring strength to their numbers with the use of beacons. The other group travelled further down the path, towards the broken bridge that held remains of past attempts to cross it; hints of past journeys now destroyed.

The second group paused at the beginning of the bridge, making plans amongst themselves in hushed tones, with furtive glances to the mists beyond their reach, looking for figures in the dimly lit distance. It wasn't a complex plan, cut short by impatience as the seeming leader of this group began moving. He led the way across the bridge, the four of them jogging when they could and jumping gaps when they had to, avoiding potential plummets, fuelled by determination.

"Are you sure it'll work?" asked one, flowers in their hair and gaze on the stone below the groups' feet, hand on the crumbling railings that seemed to silently threaten to disappear under the pressure of anyone using them for their intended purpose.

"Yes!" said the leader, tone hushed but full of insistence; this flimsy plan working wasn't an option, it was a requirement. "We have everything we need." He hopped a gap as he finished speaking, almost losing his footing with the limp that he'd gained from his last trip to this bridge, to this area, and to the ground below. A hand on his back helped him stay up, and a grateful glance was shot behind him, too quick to truly register the person that'd lent a helping hand.

"You don't think we might be out-gunned, then, laddies?"

The rest of the group looked to the fourth, then to each other. He pushed his glasses up his nose, hand resting on the pommel of his sword as he considered the other three, giving the impression that he was in some way judging them for the choices that'd gotten the four of them there.

"I-… I did wonder that," said the previously silent member of the group, crouching a little as if she could be hidden while stood in the middle of the bridge, with no options of cover to duck behind in the event that someone did see the group. The leader sighed in frustration, forceful as he looked ahead darkly, the barest hint of the ruins now visible in the mist and growing darkness.

"We were so close last time." The frustration was still there, enveloped in the statement, surrounded by finality; there was no room to argue with him, especially not here and especially not now, not when they were so close to their destination.

"And then you fell off." The one with flowers in their hair placed a hand on his arm gently, almost comfortingly, movement full of warmth while their hand was cold against the thinner fabric of his shirt. He glanced to their hand in mild concern before meeting their gaze. "We're just trying to make sure no one else dies. We can't lose more people." He hesitated for a moment too long, thoughts interrupted by a louder voice that was, by no means, a part of their group.

"No one's died. Not yet."

The quartet startled and backed up, the new addition--standing tall with a hint of a smile on his almost porcelain face--having taken them by surprise from his spot just barely closer to them than the ruins. His hands were hidden behind his back, his entire being holding an air of pure amusement regarding their reactions.

The leader of the group opened his mouth to argue, to speak, his expression turning harsh and angry at the mere sight of the man, but he didn't get the chance.

"We're all still walking around," the man glanced to the one wearing glasses, a hint of mischief tinting the smile on his face, swimming through the red depths of his eyes like a fish in a particularly dark pond; glimpsed at rarely when it was close enough to the surface, "don'tcha know?" While the energy from him was friendly and welcoming, like they'd known each other for years and he was wholly fond of them, there was no real sign that this wasn't an attempt to irritate or taunt the man. The leader stood up straight, keeping his balance forgotten about as he took a small step forward and drew his sword.

"Now, Martyn, we both know that won't work." Was the man at the end of the bridge teasing them all? Playing with his food, so to speak? Definitely. That was obvious in the warmth of his tone, the amusement in his voice, the hints of a child holding a treat just out of reach of a sibling or pet, as if there were no bad intentions, just him having fun. "Apo does, too. Don't you, Apo?"

His tone was sickeningly sweet, all sugar and cinnamon, and it did nothing to stop the quiet Apo from glaring daggers at the man. He giggled with glee, the sound infested with impish joy at her reaction.

"Where are the others?" Martyn took another step forward, though his attention was drawn away from the man by another voice.

"That's quite a demand, given that this isn't your land." The words came from the peak of the hill they were stood on, drawing attention away from the figure as he took three steps back. "None of you have a right to be here."

"We have more right than you." It was a quick, argumentative little reply, said so quickly that it almost seemed like Martyn hadn't thought about it. The man near the ruins gave a noise somewhere between disgust and irritation, rolling his eyes as he did so.

"This is my home, actually." The sword was brought up by Martyn, pointed at the man's chest as a silent threat, a step taken towards the man with the other being temporarily ignored. "I'm… sure I have the paperwork around here, somewhere…" He acted like the sword didn't exist, like it was meaningless, far less important than proof of ownership, looking around them all as if the papers would be lying out in the open, perhaps placed neatly on the ruined railings of the bridge or somewhere on the ground.

Martyn took another step forward, raising the tip to the man's neck, just pressing it against the man's neck with enough pressure that he could feel the movement of the man's Adam's apple when he swallowed, a movement that Martyn wouldn't have even realised was happening if he hadn't felt it.

"Is this… actually your home?" The one with flowers in their hair frowned in questioning, potentially too casual in that moment but evidently feeling safe enough to ask.

"Do you really think I'd lie about that?" The man was pulling an expression of sheer distaste towards the implication, or maybe the mere idea of the implication. "I don't lie about things…" He paused, gaze flicking to the quietest member of the group. "Unlike Apo." His eyes narrowed as he asked, "did you tell them you were discharged yet?"

"That doesn't matter," said the one with glasses, stepping forward to block Apo from view while drawing his own sword. "You don't have to answer him."

"Back down, Ren. We don't want to hurt you."

A scoff sounded from the man in front of Martyn.

"Owen's being kind," he said, a hand moving to gently push Martyn's blade away from his throat, tilting his head slightly to one side. "I don't have the same hesitance."

"You're not helping your case." Ren shifted slightly, alternating between looking at the man and looking at Owen.

"He's killed me once,--" a gesture to Martyn, "--she's killed me four times,--" a gesture to Apo, "--and I have yet to do a murder." He was eyeing Ren, a look of pure intent, not wanting him to mistake the man for passive or bluffing. "I really think I should get an opportunity…"

"What about Shelby?" Again, Martyn was speaking quickly, like he was trying to buy time or distract, like they weren't the aggressors in this moment. The man rolled his eyes.

"She's moving around, getting food, living her best life," he said, waving a hand dismissively, deeming things like 'breathing' as unimportant obviously enough that it was hard to miss. "In fact, she's moving around so much that none of you should have looted our house."

The four froze, and the man smiled. It wasn't an expression of an expensive doll, perfect in its subtlety and neutral in its shape, but full of cruelty and malice.

"I heard you. None of your little group were quiet," his gaze hit Ren again, "don'tcha know." Somehow, the malice, the cruelty, the heated indifference towards the group burned brighter through his little head movement, the teasing face scrunch that squinted his eyes for only a second. The group seemed uncomfortable, but stayed silent. They didn't need to speak; Owen made up for them.

"You looted the house of a woman that you thought was dead?" He moved towards the group, voice full of judgement as he spoke. "Why would you do that?"

"It wasn't us." Apo spoke quickly, like Martyn had before, but where Martyn's tone was full of anger, of hatred towards the men now both stood in front of them, Apo's held guilt. It wasn't a lot, but it was there.

"She isn't going to use any of it," Martyn snapped, potentially irritated by how long this conversation was going; the plan hadn't included talking.

"She might have," the man said, "but you wouldn't know. You all just thought she was crazy." He looked over to Owen, who'd decidedly joined them, stood at the edge between grass and stone, between the hill and the bridge. "They thought Avid was, too, didn't they?" There was no denying the way that the man sounded like he was seconds from pulling legs from insects and burning ants with a magnifying glass and the Sun, if it'd been out; playing with them like a maniacal child played with the lives of whatever they could find.

"Don't you dare talk about him." Apo stepped forward, seemingly kept back by a hand on her arm from the one with flowers in their hair. "He was right about you. Everything he said, and you both did whatever you could to-!"

"I didn't do anything. I didn't need to do anything." The man straightened his collar, seemingly at ease despite his unblinking gaze flicking between Martyn, Apo, and Ren. "He did it all by himself." Though his tone was sinking back into maliciousness, back into the tides of cruelty, a casual shrug accompanied the statement. "Besides, Shelby hasn't died. Are you going to kill her?"

"If we must," Martyn said grimly, not particularly wanting to, even while his desire to strike the man in front of him down where he stood was obvious to anyone or anything that could see.

"I… don't want to." The one with flowers in their hair looked between the others in their group, frowning gently in uncertainty about how necessarily that, particular action may be. "She hasn't hurt anyone."

"She's a monster," Ren said, quiet but firm in this belief.

"Cleo-…"

"She's a monster?!" It was the man in front of them, seemingly unable to hold back the bubble of emotion that'd popped in that one question. "What does that make you? All of you?!" An air of murder joined the mist curling around their ankles, depositing a cold damp on all of them while they stood, waiting for each other to make the first move. "You've all been so wrapped up in witch hunts and trying to murder me, but we haven't done anything to any of you. We have been trying to survive."

"You pushed me off of this bridge." Martyn's sword was forgotten, his empty hand curling into a fist, as if he were about to start brawling for the right to turn up at the castle ruins whenever he wanted to. The man narrowed his eyes at Martyn.

"You fell off this bridge. I wasn't close enough to push you, and I didn't have any need to push you." The man suddenly surged forward, all but lunging at Martyn, too fast for him to raise his weapon. His hands were balled into the fabric of Martyn's shirt, holding it tightly and securely. "I don't need to do it now, either, but I could." He leaned into Martyn's space, relishing in the mild fear that pulsed through his expression in waves. "Do you want me to?"

"Scott," Owen said, stepping closer and holding out a hand with the intent of grabbing his shoulder, though he was too far to do it immediately and had to keep an eye on Ren, "be careful. There's four of them."

"Let him go, laddie."

"I think he should learn how to swim. The water's great." The glee was back, filling Scott's tone until it was fit to burst, like he was thinking of how best to torment a small animal--or Avid--and was only settling with Martyn until he could get to his actual target. As if to prove that Martyn meant nothing, Scott pushed the pair of them closer to the nearest gap in the bridge, both of them looking into the other's eyes, blue meeting red and searching for something. Mercy, perhaps? A hint that he wouldn't actually throw Martyn from the bridge at the first opportunity?

He found nothing of the sort hidden in those depths, and maybe that scared him more than the feeling that he was seconds from falling.

"Let him go." Ren's sword found the back of Scott's neck, laying against it as a warning. Scott's actions halted in their entirety, frozen in a staring contest with Martyn, holding on tightly enough that there was no risk of the other man actually going anywhere.

"We just want peace," Owen tried, expression suggesting that he was harmless and gentle as he edged closer to Scott to either grab him or back him up. "Humans have done so much harm, and we-"

"That won't work on us, don'tcha know."

"Oh, aye. Don'tcha know, Owen?" Scott's tone was full of levity, using his words to barely stop himself from laughing. Owen ground his teeth.

"You're not helping," he hissed, finally getting a hand on Scott's arm and gripping it firmly.

"I'm not trying." A devious little laugh escaped Scott, suggesting that the real plaything here was Owen, and not the townsfolk.

"We can tell," Cleo supplied, as if they thought they were being helpful. Scott's eyes flicked to their face before he made sure Martyn was stood up properly and let go of him, hands raised to show that he wasn't going to just grab him again. Ren withdrew his sword from the back of Scott's neck, allowing the man to take a step back and put space between the pair and the group.

"Maybe we should have a liaison," Scott suggested, suddenly full of light-hearted enthusiasm, face lighting up with a smile. "Do you want the job, Cleo?"

"No, they don't." Martyn stepped forward again, apparently finding a new sense of bravery now that he wasn't being threatened with the plummet, with the ground and cold water below. The bravery faltered slightly when both Scott and Owen eyed him for a moment, looked at each other, and rolled their eyes in unison. Somewhat taken aback by the reaction, Martyn frowned. "What?!"

"It's a bit… old fashioned," Scott began, pulling a face and squinting as if he were pained by the idea of something being old fashioned. "Speaking for other people."

"It was old fashioned two hundred years ago," Owen mumbled next to him, leaning in as if he were trying to stop the group from hearing him, but especially Martyn. Scott shot him a look out of the corners of his eyes.

"What do you mean? It was old fashioned six hundred years ago." If Owen was trying to stop Martyn from hearing, then Scott was seemingly trying to force Martyn to hear; his own mutter being particularly loud and holding a significant amount of judgement. When Owen met his gaze again, there was a look as if they knew exactly what the other was thinking before they pulled their attention away from each other. The entire exchange made Martyn bristle, though it wasn't clear whether it was impatience or the judgement that was being thrown at him.

They might have found out when Martyn opened his mouth to speak, but Cleo got there first and forced him not to say a word.

"We get the picture," they said, shifting their weight behind Martyn and Ren, looking between the pair of vampires with just a hint of fondness despite the current situation, "you don't approve."

"It's not about approval," said Scott, like it should have been obvious, "it's about making him feel bad." He shot another, mischievous little look Ren's way. "Don'tcha know."

"Stop! We're not friends," Apo said despite Owen's undignified snort behind Scott, and Scott was more than a little confused by this statement, frowning and glancing around like the forests behind the group might give him the answers as to where, exactly, that sentence had come from.

"Of course we're not friends," he said like she was silly for saying exactly that. "You tried to kill me. Four times. And you failed, every single time." Owen, apparently deciding to play up the idea that the group were going to be judged for everything they did, pulled an expression and then shook his head in disapproval. "The least you could've done was put some effort in. Make it an event."

"We won't fail again." Martyn raised his sword back up, murder in his eyes and determination in his stance. Admittedly, the determination and accompanying confidence was knocked somewhat when a voice came from behind them, like a ghost finally choosing to reveal itself at the worst possible moment.

"I think you might."

Apo spun on the spot sharply, coming face-to-face with her ex-roommate. For a moment, she looked over him before their gazes met.

"You don't have to be here, Pyro," she said, almost sounding like she was pleading with him to turn around and leave the six of them to their business. He stared back, impassive in his neutrality towards the four of them and their weapons.

"I live here." It was a simple statement, said as he lingered on the edge of the gap behind Martyn, letting his gaze settle on Apo. She had a difficult to read expression, somewhere between hesitance and determination of what this would mean. "If you're all going to continue being a problem, I think I have no choice but to be here," Pyro said, not moving at all, as if to ease them into a sense of security, though whether it was a false sense of security or not was currently unknown. "You've forced our hand, somewhat."

"We didn't do anything," Martyn said, risking a glance at Pyro for only a second before looking back to Scott. The man hadn't moved, staying back where they were both safe from the other and their company.

"You didn't?" Scott seemed to come alive at the opportunity to start spilling everything he knew and all of his opinions, like he'd been waiting for a millennia for this, specific moment. "You didn't decide to believe in vampires for forty-eight hours to humour Avid? You didn't turn up here a few days ago to kill as many of us as you could?" His tone was casual with hints of seething scorn for the four of them, but especially for Martyn. "We just need food. If we stopped you from eating, that'd be a problem, wouldn't it?"

"We don't kill to eat."

"Oh, so the cows were… what? Decoration?" Scott asked, innocent curiosity woven through his tone in a way that almost made it seem rude when Martyn didn't answer, when he didn't even try to answer, when he settled for glaring at Scott as if he could burn the other man to death with only his glare if he just tried hard enough.

"We really could have been peaceful," Owen said, taking up the space provided by Scott and Martyn's new silence, his tone sitting on the edge of mournful, soft in its delivery but harsh in its intent. "We were willing to try."

"'Were'?" Ren questioned, eyeing him for a moment. Owen looked to him.

"Do we have the option anymore?" The melancholy was back, forcing Owen's eyebrows into gentle concern and his tone into a protective attempt at appeasement.

"You said you wanted to murder us all," Ren reminded him, firmly confident in the face of Owen's delicate and morose certainty.

"I was… angry," he said, seemingly searching for the correct words to soothe everyone and avoid things going worse than they were already threatening to go. "Some of you had tried to murder my friends," he gestured first to Scott--who was still staring unblinkingly and unmovingly into Martyn's glare, both holding the same amount of murderous intent in their joint silence--and then to Pyro, "and I… didn't want to lose another person to humans." Owen paused in his potential mourning for those lost before, casting a glance over all of them. "You're all so…" His gaze fell on Apo, then Martyn, "dangerous, when you want to be."

"And you do want to be a lot," said Pyro from behind them, as if to remind them that they were somewhat surrounded, that they weren't only facing two of them. Cleo took a breath.

"If we leave now-…" they began, looking between Ren, Owen, Scott, and Martyn.

"No!" Martyn finally tore his eyes from Scott's, looking to Cleo. "We have an opportunity!"

"We have an opportunity to leave."

Martyn could only shake his head wordlessly, almost seeming desperate for them to follow the plan that they'd made before.

"You can go, if you want to." He looked back to Scott, who exchanged glances with Owen. "I'm going to finish this." Martyn pulled a lantern from his waist as the pair pulled swords and swept it in the largest circle around him that he could manage. Flames spewed from his spot, engulfing the entire group in seconds. Cleo and Apo were tugged harshly from the fight, Apo battling to be let go of before she was properly back on her feet and Cleo stumbling to stand upright, nodding to let Pyro know that they weren't going to fall, all three barely avoiding the flames. Owen ducked behind Scott, who took the brunt of the ability while drawing his arms up to protect his torso and face, sword turned to run the length of his forearm, flat of the blade facing the flames.

Ren darted forward as Martyn charged for Scott, the older of the pair instantly blocked by Owen's sword; he'd seen Ren moving in the heat waves from the fire and moved as soon as he was safe to.

Scott danced away from Martyn, clothes smouldering everywhere the flames had touched, sword held tightly as he blocked Martyn's attacked, quickly swinging in an attempt to catch him off-guard. It worked; Scott's blade sliced into Martyn's arm, a shallow but painful wound, precise but sadistic.

Beside them, Owen was struggling; Ren was more skilled with the sword, Owen with his claws. It was by no means an easy fight for Ren, despite the difference in experience. Silver hit silver harshly, clanging as the edges met and scraped with each strike and parry. Ren pushed Owen back, towards the ruins of the castle and inside, Owen's boots hitting the rotting wood floor first, then the ruined rug as he backed around the remaining furniture.

On the bridge, Scott was succeeding where Owen was struggling, driving Martyn back towards the gap with each movement. There was a noise of panic, followed by hurried and then halted footsteps as Cleo and Apo both moved to help and were stopped by Pyro and his own silver sword.

"Don't," he said simply, an easy warning as he looked between them. Behind him, Scott had grabbed the fabric around one of the clasps on Martyn's cloak, moving with enough speed to catch him off-guard again, sword seemingly forgotten about as the arm holding it hung at his side.

"Scott," Cleo began, their voice as calm as they could manage as they watched Scott stare into Martyn's eyes again, that cruel smile curving his lips once more while Martyn had an essence of terror about him, too close to not notice every perfect, inhuman detail about his face, "you don't have to do anything to him."

"No," said Scott, sounding distinctly distracted and entranced by Martyn's gaze. "No, I think I do." There was a gentle wave of maliciousness in his voice, lapping at the edges of his words, in the moments before he yanked Martyn towards him, quickly and easily sinking his teeth into the side of Martyn's neck. Martyn's jaw dropped in pain, expression frozen in that wide-eyed terror and surprise, his sword hitting the bridge and falling down to the river bank below. Scott pulled away after only a few seconds, apathetic smile back on his face, almost ethereal in its neutrality. "I've always wanted to do this," he said to Martyn with a tone somewhere between warm fondness and loathing teasing while Pyro tried to stop both Apo and Cleo from getting past him.

It felt like an eternity; the fall. Scott shoved him backwards hard, that smile turning into a harsh and contempt-filled expression. He lost his footing instantly, falling from the bridge like his sword had moments before, hearing a mixture of voices and seeing Scott stare down at him with a complete lack of pity or remorse on his features, back straight and head high, every bit the perfect portrait of nobility.

Chapter Text

Cheek pressed against the damp dirt and mud of the bank, Martyn swam between consciousness and unconsciousness, between distant pain and a blissful nothing. He couldn't have told anyone when, exactly, Scott had jumped down. He might have jumped immediately after Martyn, ready to finish his target, or he might have fought everyone before managing to scramble down. Martyn was only vaguely aware of the man even getting to him, Scott's steps a multitude of noises in his ears, each louder and yet quieter than the previous one.

He couldn't have explained how he heard the warning, drifting sweetly into his brain from the figure moving to crouch above him, a lullaby in the voice of what he would have considered the devil if he'd been awake for long enough to have thoughts. That quiet little statement of 'they won't care about you now' winding its way into his brain, coiling like a snake, ready to strike at anything that threatened to disagree.

He couldn't have stated how long it was between that sentence and Scott's cloak being set on fire, the flames quickly dragging their way towards his upper body. The now glowing figure seeming to dance away in Martyn's blurred and bleary-eyed vision, shrinking in what there was of his sight, as a rough pair of hands landed on Martyn's injured arm. He whimpered into the dirt, seeing the glow moving quickly to the water and jumping in, still graceful despite the urgency.

Bright blue emerged from the mirror-like, almost black water immediately. While he couldn't see any features, he somehow knew that he was being stared at--scolded at?--before the blue began moving towards the opposite shore.

"Martyn?!"

"We'll get you home, lad. Get his sword! Now!"

"I-I don't know where it is!"

There was a frustrated exhale, sounding so very far away and yet so very nearby, not quite a sigh and not quite a normal breath.

"We'll find it later," the second voice said, the owner of the forceful exhale. "We need to get him to the doctor. He'll sort him out, alright."

The voice, the darkness of the night, the venom that'd wormed its way into his brain when Scott'd spoken it into existence, faded as that blissful nothingness washed over him again.

When he next woke, disorientated and struggling with even the fact of his own existence, the first thing he truly registered was the bright orange hair of his companion. He couldn't see details--not their facial features, not the purple flowers that he knew was settled in their hair, not even their choker--but he recognised them regardless of how many blobs they were made of.

Their voice helped, though he didn't understand anything they were saying. He was just grateful to hear them speak, to have a friend so close while captured in the memory of pain. It confused him; there was no ache, no sharp stab when he dragged in breath in a way that felt unnecessary, but his brain was convinced there should have been. He'd fallen from the bridge, avoiding most of the stone but hitting… something. A rock? His ribs should have hurt, ached, cracked and bruised from his landing.

There was nothing.

"-and he said that you're lucky to be alive," Cleo was saying, words becoming clearer, like he was very quickly re-learning English. All the while, he was watching them with the same sort of inspired awe that a favourite teacher might get, full of sentiment and happiness. They seemed to realise something in the silence and paused. "You have no idea what I'm saying, do you?"

"Not a clue."

Cleo laughed gently before shaking their head, earning a dopey smile back, and rested a hand on his arm in an attempt at grounding him in this moment, giving him something else to notice and another way for him to fully wake into consciousness.

"Are you okay, at least?" they asked, gazing down at him with hidden concern. It was a difficult question to answer; he knew that he shouldn't have been, that there should have been broken bones and concussion and pain all over his body, but the absence made him obliviously anxious. He had no idea how he'd gotten there, nor why he was so anxious about the lack of injury and presumed--by him--lack of lasting damage despite his dazed state. He didn't understand any of it.

"I… think so." He settled on the answer after potentially too long thinking about it, sounding confident, hiding that uncertainty behind bravado. Someone, somewhere behind Cleo, gave a doubtful noise. He couldn't tell who it was, or where they were, due to the shadows that were cast across the wall of Cleo and Pearl's house, but Cleo didn't seem to notice and, if they did, they weren't paying whoever it was any mind. It seemed like a good idea to Martyn, so he followed in suit with the decision that focusing on too many things at once was probably not going to help him.

"You're thinking," they said, their words swimming in a joking tone, a pool of amusement. "I'll take it." Martyn tried to laugh, but the sound wouldn't come out; no air in his lungs, like he'd forgotten to breathe while listening. Cleo's features, now almost in focus, held a small but sad smile.

The back door rattled slightly when a knock sounded on it. It was delicate, respectfully gentle despite how much the door had moved; a tap more than a knock. A request, not a demand.

"Come in!" Cleo's attention was, perhaps, divided. It was a benefit to their visitor, though, who swept through the door with an air of enthusiasm about him.

"Oh! How's the patient?" That voice. That damned voice. So unforgettable and full of glee, perhaps? Cruel joy? Excitement about what may have happened since he'd swam to shore? Whatever it was, it made Martyn finally realise that he wasn't in his own home, and he was suddenly very awake.

He sat up at a speed that felt like it should have been too quick, and he winced in anticipation of that sharp, stabbing pain that he'd expected earlier. It remained absent, his movement unhindered as he shifted on the bed.

"Isn't this dangerous?" Cleo asked, gaze on the smiling, porcelain face of their visitor. Scott waved a hand dismissively as Martyn looked up at him, entirely at ease about whatever Cleo thought could happen.

"No one's here," he said casually, his voice light as he moved around Cleo to glance out of the window.

"How do you know?"

"Because they're all at the castle," he was smiling as his gaze fell on Cleo, but he was by no means happy, evident in the almost seething tone that built so quickly around his words, "so I decided to come here. If they want to mess with my home, I can mess with their home." His tone was still full of hatred, scathing and harsh, but also nonchalant in the strangest, most contradictory way that Martyn had ever experienced. It was almost as disorientating for him as the fall had been, to the point that he was too confused by that to even bother thinking about it.

"They'll notice." Apo finally spoke up from the corner, lurking in the darkness that was now so clear to Martyn. Scott turned and eyed her before shrugging.

"They'll leave my home, then." He seemed more than satisfied with this idea, bordering on pleased. "Besides," he said, drawing the word out with familiarity that consistently grinded Martyn's gears, and seemed to do the same to Apo, since she appeared to be fighting the urge to curl her top lip and bare her teeth, "I wouldn't be complaining, if I were you."

"And why not?" Martyn asked, aware of how weak his voice sounded, how out of breath he seemed. Cleo nodded encouragingly.

"Breathe, Martyn. You need to think about it." They shot Scott a look out of the corner of their eye. "It's very inconvenient," they said, just barely catching Scott rolling his eyes, giving the impression that he'd heard the complaint before and hadn't been particularly impressed the first time.

"It's not my fault," he said before addressing the previously posed question by opening the satchel that was slung across his body. The smell hit the trio before the sight did, making Martyn's mouth water like he was being presented with a full banquet. In Scott's hand, held up for all three to see it easily, was a single whole, fresh chicken. They watched it move in Scott's grasp, eyes fixated on it, even while he laughed at the sight of them. "So, who first?"

He was, very clearly, having the time of his unlife.

"We're not zoo animals," Apo said, trying to sound angrier than she was; her voice betrayed that the complaint was less important to her than what he was holding. Scott merely shrugged, unbothered by her entirely.

"Not you, then? You're so kind to let Cleo go first." He smiled at Apo, challenging her to say something. She stayed silent, watching him like a hawk as he handed the food to Cleo, who immediately began tearing into it animalistically, turning away from Scott as if trying to stop him from taking it away from them. He was busy, though, already reaching into his bag for something else.

It wasn't as easily identifiable, just raw and meat and smelling delicious. When he held it out to Apo, she hesitated.

"What… is it?" she asked, making Scott frown in confusion.

"Not Avid?" he said, not understanding the question. His confusion only grew when her eyes narrowed at him, with her seeing malice where there was only obliviousness. He very quickly realised what she'd actually meant and said, "lamb. Not pork."

Apo's doubt was obvious, but she took it gently--with her hunger forcing her to trust him--and retreated back into shadows to eat, eyes trained on him while she did so.

"And for you," Scott said, leaning in like he was playing Santa Claus and Martyn was a small child, full of hope and whimsy, who was about to be handed some fantastical gift, instead of him actually grinning down at an irritable adult who was hungry and slowly returning to being mildly disorientated the longer he was awake. "this." He produced another chicken from the bag, holding it just barely out of reach. Martyn's gaze never left the food that was dangling in front of him, expression full of longing for the meat. Cleo was eyeing the pair of them, picking through their own meal.

"Stop teasing him," they said, watching closely. A delighted giggle escaped Scott, the sound small but bursting with mischief.

"Say 'thank you', Martyn." The giggle had made room for a wide grin, the sort that told Martyn that Scott was very aware of his current limitations and was very aware that he was more safe than Martyn wanted him to be. Martyn could only glare at him, desperately hungry but trying to build the motivation to tackle him instead. Unable to do so, he relented.

"Thank you." He spoke through gritted teeth, very clearly not happy about it, but it got another giggle out of Scott and he handed the chicken over without another word. Martyn took it quickly, immediately eating like he'd been starving and had only just gotten even a glimpse of food.

While he ate, Cleo was eyeing Scott. They'd finished already, bones discarded, and shifted in their seat with the sort of collected calm that everyone had grown to expect from them.

"Why did you come here?" they asked, considering Scott like there was a lot to learn from him. He could only shrug. "Besides, 'I want to mess with their home', because I doubt you're that petty."

Almost as soon as they finished speaking, another laugh escaped him.

"Firstly, I am that petty. Let's not forget who you're talking to," he said, behaviour and tone full of pride in the idea that he was petty enough to just turn up at random, "and secondly, everyone else is away, so I'm safer here." He paused before adding, "also, people keep turning at my home to kill me," he looked pointedly at Apo, who only stared him down, "or burn it down," he looked pointedly at Martyn, who glanced his way before turning his attention back to the chicken, "so I think I'm entitled to turn up unannounced if I want to."

"But this is also our home," Cleo said, getting another shrug in return.

"That's your choice," he said, judgemental and dismissive, "I wouldn't do it…"

"Clearly." The pair stared at each other for a moment, Cleo now impassive and casual and Scott holding an expression that made him seem like he was fighting not to enjoy Cleo's company or their back-and-forths. They stayed in their silence for a moment before Cleo considered something. "So, you weren't lying?" they asked. "Those ruins actually are your home?"

Scott's stare somehow intensified in its complete lack of emotion, the emptiness of his expression more empty than ever before. The porcelain doll comparisons were no less accurate for their overuse in Martyn's brain.

"Yes. I live there." He paused. "Unlive there?" A dismissive wave of the hand followed, the emptiness turning to temporary annoyance with his own uncertainty. "It's been in my family for centuries, and it used to be more impressive."

"What about the crypt?"

"Oh, that? Family crypt." Scott smiled, thriving on the attention even if he was unwilling to fully show it. "The skull was Derek." He'd said it so casually that Apo frowned while Martyn paused his eating to look at Scott--both of them trying to figure out if he was being serious--and a spluttering laugh escaped Cleo.

"'Derek'?!" they repeated, watching him, waiting for the perfect mask of an expression to break with a grin and confirm that he was joking.

"Ancestor," was what they got instead. A now surprised, jerky laugh sounded from Cleo, and Scott shrugged, eternally the most dismissive person in any given room if his past behaviours were any example. "He wasn't important enough to get a real tomb."

"So," Cleo took a moment, calming themself enough to speak and clearing their throat to help them, "whose was it? The empty one?" Confusion had washed over Scott's face, replaced quickly with understanding before he nodded.

"Mine."

"Oh."

"Shame you came out of it," Martyn muttered under his breath, thoroughly ignored by Scott with an air about him that he was both utterly disinterested and potentially bored of Martyn's consistent little comments. He was not, however, ignored by Cleo. They shot him a warning look, which he caught a glimpse of and fought not to pull a face or otherwise antagonise Scott; the urge to repeat himself or say something else was being held back only by Cleo staring him down.

Any conversation that could have started anew, as Scott opened his mouth to say something, was interrupted before it could even start by a voice outside.

"We should move," said the voice through the door, "quickly." Owen, sounding like he was pressed against the crack between the door and its frame. He'd clearly joined Scott on this endeavour and either refused or wasn't quite brave enough to even attempt to enter Cleo and Pearl's house. Scott sighed softly, told them that he was sorry to cut this visit short, and turned on his heels to leave the way he'd come in with a comment about there being no rest for the wicked.

When the door opened, the small smile on Owen's face was visible next to the door frame, full of amusement at the sound of Scott's inconvenienced tone.

The trio inside watched the door close behind Scott, listening to their voices and footsteps as they moved quickly over stone and dirt, fading into silence as the pair moved further from the house and into the centre of town.

Chapter Text

"Do you think we'll have time?" Owen asked as they walked together, avoiding the path for a more direct route to the tower in the middle of town, where a low thrum was sounding from the beacon. He didn't sound particularly concerned, but the question was enough to betray him, reveal his thoughts. Scott eyed him for a moment before choosing to speak, taking long enough that Owen glanced his way out of the corner of his eye.

"No one else is here." A hand was thrown out as if to prove his point; not a single voice besides Cleo's, travelling from their house on the passing breeze, and not a single footstep besides their own. "They're all probably ruining my rug."

Owen scoffed, earning a sharp look from Scott.

"It's probably been ruined for a while," he said as explanation for the noise. "You said 'six hundred years'. That's at least two hundred years of rainfall."

There was a dismissive noise as Scott rolled his eyes and opened the door to the tower, stepping aside to let Owen in first. Hesitation hit Owen for only a moment before he entered, followed quickly but casually by Scott, who shut the heavy, silver door behind them as quietly as he could manage. While he was doing that, Owen had already started circling around the beacon, running a finger tip across one of the edges of the beacon as if he were testing how sharp it might be. Scott soon joined him, hand resting gently on the top of the beacon, only his finger tips touching it.

A strange warmth radiated from the beacon as Owen placed his hand on it, too. It felt like a long forgotten Spring day, when the Sun shone brightly and a pleasant breeze kept things gentle; a misplaced nostalgia for an experience that Owen'd never had, and Scott had never cherished.

"They're going to come running," Owen said, almost breathed out, while they stared down at it. The yellow light of the beacon shone up at them, erasing most of the shadows on their faces, giving Owen a glimpse of a time gone by and Scott a vision of a past that never existed; a time when they were both younger, more alive. "Do we have a plan?"

"Bats."

Owen looked a little tired of Scott, finally tearing his gaze from the beacon to stare him down. Scott was smiling at him, proud of himself, either for coming up with what he considered to be a fool-proof plan, or for getting a new expression out of Owen. "That isn't a plan."

Scott laughed softly.

"If one of us goes first," he began, "we can get out. I think." He was musing aloud, running his fingers over the beacon, the pad of his index finger pressing just slightly on one of the corners. Owen gave a small noise of doubt, making Scott frown at him before he forced out a sigh. "Listen; one of us becomes a bat, and leaves out of that door," he pointed to the one behind him, turning to make it more clear, "the other leaves out of that door," he pointed to the one they'd just come in through, "and changes outside. There'll be bats in here, which they hate, and we can go unnoticed."

"You don't think that, maybe, you're hinging all this on something uncertain?" Owen asked, watching Scott's expression turn from exasperated at Owen's lack of confidence in his plan to slightly irritated by the question. "What if we don't get time to change?" he added while leaning on the beacon, using his finger tips to hold his weight. Scott rolled his eyes.

"We'll hear them coming. They're not that sneaky."

"They've snuck up on us before," Owen pointed out, unconvinced by Scott's determination that they could definitely do this without issue, before he glanced away. His gaze was on the door opposite Scott, considering things for a moment. "Are we sure they're not here?" He looked back to Scott to raise an eyebrow, earning a flat look in response.

"We'll find out." As he spoke, Scott pressed the palm of his hand to the beacon, leaning on it a little more due to its height compared to him. Owen, still doubtful about their chances of success, did the same; they hadn't come this far today to only come this far.

The yellow light, buttery and warm under their hands, began to fade. It was slow, gradual, like a contained sunset, like they were watching the Sun burying itself behind the horizon. The warmth ebbed away, the light turned cool and dim, and there was a gentle noise as it turned cream. It was neutralised, still glowing but lukewarm and hollow, empty of divine light but beautiful in its own way. It was the moon on a cool autumn night, so near to both the Sun and the darkness of the skies above and yet so far from both, lacking in the human safety that'd been held before in the same space.

It was just barely turning a soft pink when footsteps sounded on the stones outside. A single person, moving fast towards the tower, and both men frowned at each other in confusion before a voice sounded, too close for comfort but far enough away that the owner couldn't see anything.

"Cleo!" The voice carried, loud and regimented. "There's someone in there!"

"Who?!" Cleo's voice paused as they seemed to realise that the man wouldn't know without entering. "Why would any of them-?"

"The others aren't here." The doctor's voice halted, letting Cleo register what he'd meant. "We're alone."

He was getting closer with every word, slowed by his conversation with Cleo but still too close for them to easily leave. Owen set his jaw in frustration and grabbed Scott harshly by the shoulder, shoving him down and forcing him to the floor, causing an expression of pure shock and surprise to be visible in the seconds before Scott disappeared behind the beacon, dragging his hand down to the side as part of the movement.

"Stay down," Owen hissed, moving to push Scott's head down further but the other man beat him to it, tucking himself into as tight of a ball as he could behind the beacon, head just barely hidden behind the light that glowed from within. Owen moved slightly closer to the door as the doctor opened it and walked inside with speed and force that almost made Owen back away. "Doctor."

The doctor froze on the spot before quickly shutting the door behind him, gaze fixated on Owen's face as Owen shifted forward a little more, trying to keep the doctor's attention from the hints of blue that were visible despite both of their best efforts, unsure about exactly how hidden Scott was and unwilling to test it by letting the doctor's gaze wander. Luckily, the doctor only had eyes for him.

They were full of confusion, bordering on concern, but they weren't leaving Owen's face.

"What are you doing here? Especially alone."

Owen's eyes narrowed ever so slightly, as if he were moments away from spitting out a scoff and leaving. He couldn't, though he wanted to; the doctor needed the distraction.

"I missed you, obviously." It was said dryly, empty of any genuine emotion or care, but it caught the doctor by surprise. Multiple expressions covered his face in quick succession; blinks of surprise, a furrowed frown of confusion, and finally realisation as the sarcasm became clearer to him than the words themselves. A small, soft laugh escaped Owen. "Sorry, doctor. I couldn't resist."

"It's…" The doctor eyed him for a moment. "It's fine." He seemed frustrated, like he'd been hoping that it might be true, or that Owen had changed his mind. It was while he was glancing away, considering the entire situation as he knew it in that moment, that he noticed Owen's hand still on the beacon. Owen shifted his weight again, stepping slightly between the doctor and the beacon to draw his attention away from it again, trying to appear like he was only hiding his own actions. The doctor didn't think twice about it, just watching him as he said, "they'll be coming back. I don't think they're far from here."

"Oh, don't worry, doctor," Owen said, smiling as he did so, fangs obvious and some amount of malice in his expression and voice. "I have a plan for that." Even as he said it, he was sure that he could hear Scott arguing that it wasn't his plan, it was Scott's plan that Owen hadn't believed in. Scott was, thankfully, silent and unnoticed by the doctor, who took a breath.

"Is your plan to massacre everyone when they arrive?" the doctor asked, making Owen pull a face of displeasure.

"No." Owen paused, trying to look like he was conflicted about how much he should share with the doctor before he continued. "Not yet. It's… not the right time." He held his tongue for a moment, watching the doctor's brows draw inward in confusion and questioning. "We need more."

"More what, Owen?" The doctor's voice was so calm, so gentle, so kind, so warm. He was so patient, and Owen almost felt bad for lying to him. Almost.

"Vampires." He rolled his eyes. "Scott wants a big family, I suppose," he was saying, and it took all of Scott's self-control from where he was tucked down to not snort loudly. They were essentially behind enemy lines, and he had to remind himself of this; revealing himself before the beacon was turned would not be a good idea, no matter how funny the lie was. "I don't care, personally. I'm not really… attached to anyone here."

"And he is?" A laugh of disbelief punctuated the doctor's words, his eyebrows drawing up towards his hairline, both expressions of doubt making Owen laugh. It was a cold noise, empty and hollow and everything that he was sure the doctor had been trying to convince himself that Owen wasn't.

"I don't know. Probably not?" Owen fell silent, feigning thought for only a moment. "Maybe he just wants Avid to be alone." The doctor winced back at that, as if the words had burned him.

"That's cruel," he said, a simple little comment that made Owen quirk an eyebrow at him.

"You seem to think that we need to play nicely, doctor," he commented, his voice the epitome of calm, holding a venomous undercurrent that the doctor was sure had the potential to sweep him away and pull him down, drown him in Owen's hatred for humanity. "While they kill us, set fire to us, isolate us from any friends that we may have made while living here," he began, "we're supposed to be kind? We're supposed to feel anything but loathing for these… creatures?" His eyes were narrowing at the doctor in a way that made him take half a step back cautiously.

"We take their punishments, the loneliness that they will always force on us, the exile from a town that we were helping to recreate in the image of its former self, that was so familiar to us," he continued, each word filled with more anger, more sadness, more hatred, more desire to watch the residents suffer for the scars that they chose to reopen, "and they're allowed to continue? Do whatever they want to us?" he questioned, expression suggesting that he was hurt by the idea that the doctor might think that. "That is far more cruel than anything we could ever achieve."

"You want Avid to be alone, Owen."

"Scott might want Avid to be alone but alive. I want him to suffer like we have." He was closer than before, hand falling from the surface of the beacon. "I want him to see what I've seen, to understand the line of monsters that he's following in the footsteps of." He fell silent, seemingly searching the doctor's face for something, but didn't find it and shook his head. "I was a fool, doctor. I… thought that you might understand. You don't. You can't."

"Understand what?" The doctor stepped closer, his want to help so obvious and earnest in his eyes, in his expression, in his voice when he spoke. "I can try. You need to tell me, though."

"It doesn't matter," Owen said quickly and dismissively, shaking his head again as if to rid himself of any thought that the doctor might be someone that he could talk to or have any connection to.

Behind him, unnoticed during the conversation, the beacon had turned a deep, dark red. The accompanying noise drew the doctor's attention as Owen turned and walked back to where he'd started, and he realised that Owen had stopped touching it at some point but it had continued to turn. He finally realised that they weren't alone.

"I don't think I can do it," Owen was saying as he moved, turning once he reached his starting position and letting his gaze slowly drift from the floor to the doctor's face. "I don't think I can turn you." There was sorrow in his voice, so loud and so present that it almost made the doctor's heart ache.

"You don't have to. I can-"

"No. We do have to." Scott stood from his spot on the opposite side of the beacon, having been inching around it while Owen was moving, while the doctor was focused on Owen and that sorrow. Scott smiled, raising his hand in a coy little wave. "Hi, Legs."

The doctor's expression faltered into fear as he realised the distraction, looking between the two of them, from Scott's smiling face to Owen's conflicted expression.

"Was any of it true?"

"Some of it." He looked over to Scott, and Scott looked over to him. "I can't. He's…"

"Oh, don't worry; I can." He was still smiling; perfect and neutral and false, polite but horrifying in what it hid. The doctor stepped back as Scott stalked forward silently, reminding the man of all those supposedly fictional stories of vampires and their soft footsteps, making him think about the times that Scott had appeared without his approach being heard, how he'd seemingly thrived on making people jump.

He'd thought it was just a skill, honed by someone with too much free time and too much boredom to do anything else. He couldn't figure out if he was happy to be proven wrong or not.

"I won't tell anyone."

"We've heard that before," Scott said, and when Legundo moved to open the door behind him, Scott rushed forward and grabbed the handle, forcing it closed, forcing the doctor to abandon the attempt. "No, doctor. We need you."

"They need me."

"They'll be fine," Scott said while rolling his eyes. "Illness and injury doesn't exist when you're a vampire. Look at Martyn! He's fine. I checked."

"You-!" The doctor paused in his anger, registering what'd been said fully and frowning up at him. "Why do you need me?" A hint of hope was daring to make an appearance in his expression. "Why do you need me?" he repeated when his question wasn't answered. He wanted to hear what he was thinking the answer could be, but he was met with silence.

"It's not the reason you think, doctor." It was Owen's soft voice that broke the stalemate, settling over the low hum from the beacon. "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

Scott seemed completely confused, lost beyond belief. It took him a moment longer than he would ever admit to realise what was going on. There'd been mentions of the conversation, but he'd disregarded them quickly with the thought that the doctor had been lying, trying to manipulate Owen and Pyro into breaking away from the group, certain that it couldn't have been a genuine desire; humans didn't help vampires, they hunted them, they feared them, but they didn't help. That spark of hope that'd struck like lightning across the doctor's face, the need to hear it from one of them, had made it very clear that this was a genuine desire and that the doctor would ignore his survival instincts over it.

"Oh. You want me to say the word, don't you?" Scott was smiling again, cruel and cold as he played with his food, for all intent and purpose, hearing the way the doctor's heartbeat quickened with the belief that he'd say it. Scott giggled, demented and devious and still unable to kill the doctor's conviction that one of them would ask for it.

"Don't," Owen requested quietly, watching Scott's every move. "He doesn't deserve this."

Scott glanced in his direction, blank-faced and empty of emotion until he rolled his eyes with an 'ugh'.

"Fine." He looked back at the doctor. "I don't care about a cure. I was asleep for six hundred years, so I don't think I would survive becoming a human again," he said, aware that the doctor would, potentially, consider this unimportant ramblings. The doctor was hooked on his every word, however. "So, there's a chance I'd turn to dust and I don't want to make these clothes dusty, if I can help it."

"I do want your medicine, though. It's so useful." He'd stepped forward while speaking, once again unnoticed by the doctor until he realised just how tall Scott was and the fact that he hadn't been this tall a minute or two ago. "It works on us, too." He paused. "I mean, it made me retch, but it helped."

"'Helped'?"

"The fight with Martyn and Cleo. When he fell off the bridge?" There was a moment before he realised that the doctor might not know which time he was talking about. "Okay, not the last time. The time before that." Scott gave a very small 'huh' of thought, grinding everything to a halt to look very contemplative before he said, "he falls off of that bridge a lot, doesn't he? Maybe he needs a harness to stop him…"

"Wait," the doctor requested, frowning. "It… healed you?"

"Yup!" Scott's smile had returned, pleasant and almost kind. "And I do like the idea of taking resources from these people." He pulled a face. "I don't have a choice about calling them people, but I do want to note that they keep breaking into my house to kill me. I'd call them monsters but that's a little dramatic." Owen shot him a look, eyes narrowed and jaw clenched.

"And you're not a monster?" the doctor asked, producing an insulted little splutter from Scott.

"Who have I killed?! Pyro didn't die. Shelby… wasn't me, but she didn't die." He was gesturing vaguely in the right direction for the castle. "I haven't killed anyone, but I have died five times since waking up. Five. Can you imagine-?!"

"Are vampires not dead, then?"

Owen and Scott glanced at each other. Owen's expression was concern, either knowing exactly what the reply was going to be or understanding that they'd wasted a significant amount of time talking to the doctor and not actively doing anything. Scott, on the other hand, looked like he'd been given the opportunity of a very long lifetime and was excited to grasp it with both hands.

"You tell me," he said easily while looking back to the doctor, smile back on his face as he let the doctor work through the meaning of what he'd said. He was waiting. Waiting for the realisation to widen the doctor's eyes and make his face drop any emotion other than fear or dread, before he lunged.

He'd moved with too much momentum. The doctor stumbled, his back hitting the wall behind him as Scott latched onto his neck, teeth sinking in as the doctor's face froze in pained surprise. While Scott drank, Legundo's eyes met Owen's silently and he found nothing. No emotion, no remorse, no sympathy. His expression was empty, face imperfectly inhuman with the scars of his past, looking so much like a porcelain doll that'd been set out for display, with the feeling that they were nothing but strangers meeting in the night.

It was only thanks to Scott's arms under Legundo's that he didn't immediately collapse into a heap on the floor when the vampire pulled away. Only now did Owen step forward. Only now did he seemingly come to life, staring down Legundo as the pair of him and Scott sank to the floor.

"It's better this way," Owen said eventually, voice quiet and barely disturbing the silence that'd held in the moments prior. "You'll have the time for anything you want." There was something else to his tone, detached and peaceful as it was. Legundo, struggling to fully process anything that was happening, wouldn't have been able to describe it but there was something swaddled around Owen's words, something that he couldn't place.

"Sorry to interrupt," Scott said once Legundo was on the floor and propped against the wall, freeing him up to crouch in front of the doctor as he used a single, sharp nail to pierce his own skin, "but I need an invite into your house. I'm going to give you food." He was there, crouched and leaning into the doctor's space for far longer than the doctor would have liked if he was fully or even partially aware of what was happening around him. "Can I go into your house?"

After another few, precious moments, the doctor found his voice.

"Yes."

"Thank you." Scott smiled again, this time genuine and warm and charming in a way that should have disgusted him, but the doctor was too dazed to truly notice and could only stare at him before he felt blood on his tongue; Scott was pressing his wrist against the doctor's mouth, the smile replaced with an expression of professionalism that suggested he'd done this a thousand times before. Distantly, the doctor wondered if Pyro had experienced the same, like the single thought of a dying brain.

Except, he was still alive. As far as he was aware.

It didn't take long for Scott to stand, open the door to the tower, and sweep out of it in a single, graceful and fluid movement, leaving the doctor alone with Owen. Owen, for all his faults, had the decency to look conflicted while the doctor tried to re-orient himself in this moment, figure out which way was up, and why his head was spinning. He gave the man silence until the doctor looked up at him.

"If you hadn't shown," he began, "I wouldn't have let him. If we'd come across you, you'd have been fine, and we wouldn't have even done that. We weren't trying to find you!" He pushed out a sigh. "Why did you come in here?" he asked, gaining no answers; the doctor was internally floating between his life as a human and his undeath as a vampire, his voice lost to the taste of blood in his mouth and the memory of smoke in his nose. "Why? Were you hoping for it to be me?" The doctor's gaze trailed to the floor in front of him, and Owen shook his head silently.

"The hunger will drive you, doctor. We'll be at the castle, if you need us. We can…" A humourless breath of laughter escaped him. "Help, if you'll believe it." He waited for the doctor to look up at him again, to acknowledge that he'd been speaking. Their eyes met, and for a split second, Owen saw in that expression what Louis must have seen those centuries before. His voice caught in his throat, having been seconds from giving another tip or saying goodbye; he couldn't remember, now. Instead of trying, he left silently out of the door that Scott had pointed to earlier, part of his master plan for escape.

The door had barely shut behind him before the sound of bats filled the air.

It wasn't long before loud voices approached from somewhere outside of these four walls, and the doctor felt hands on him. They gripped his shoulders, trying to move him enough for him to see them; the new mayor, concern etched into their too-perfect features, and the fact that he'd only just noticed made him feel like a fool. Or, would, later, when he could recognise his own existence again.

"Doctor?" Their voice cut through the fog in his brain, a lighthouse in a storm. "The others are here," they were saying, "you'll be fine."

"He-… He let-…"

"Don't tell them."

Their voice was gentle, warm, a cosy blanket wrapped around his shoulders with the intent of helping, but their expression was harsh and knowing. He'd thought there was something different about them, but hadn't been able to place what, exactly, it was. Now, with the haze clearing and the fog dispersing, he knew. He was also realising that, perhaps, Scott had not been entirely honest when he'd asked who could have died to him; there was at least one person missing from the list he'd been given.

"You? When?"

"It doesn't matter. Don't tell them. Don't even hint at it." It was survival advice, practical and blunt and everything he'd come to expect and respect from Cleo. He could recognise that it was good, that it was useful, but it didn't feel good to be receiving. It didn't feel good to suddenly understand their longing glances at the cattle or the way that something had been just slightly off about them. "Trust me." It wasn't an order, it wasn't advice, it was a request and one that he could easily fulfil. He gave a single nod before the door that Scott had left through burst open, pushed inwards with more force than was necessary, and Avid was the first inside the tower.

He took in the scene; the deep red beacon, Cleo on the floor and staring intensely into Legundo's eyes, and then the doctor, himself, still propped against the wall.

"What..? What happened?!"

"There were two of them," Cleo said, almost sounding rehearsed, their gaze refusing to break from Legundo's until they found what they were looking for; confirmation that he knew he had to go along with whatever they said. "I don't know who. I saw them through the door." They looked over their shoulder, indicating to the one that the pair had walked through earlier. "If only I'd known you were in here," they said to the doctor, "I would've come in sooner. I thought they were alone."

"This isn't your fault," Ren said from behind Avid, a reassuring and strong presence in this moment and a welcome alternative to Avid's panicked expression. "Do you know who it was, doctor?"

"I-…" He sighed. "Only one." His gaze found Ren, though he could see Cleo still watching him carefully in his peripheral vision. "Owen. We spoke. Someone else attacked me."

"What do you mean 'attacked?" Avid's panic had seemingly grown and showed no signs of calming down, especially when Legundo looked up at him. "Do you mean..?"

"I mean 'hit', Avid." He shifted, trying to sit up now that he was feeling a little more aware and collected. "They hit me."

"Are ye sure it wasn't a bite, doctor?" Ren spoke up, frowning in confusion. Legundo nodded with a certainty that he probably shouldn't have had, though it brought the dizziness back in a way that had him swallowing down a gag. To cover any discomfort that had bled through his expression, he rubbed the back of his head and scrunched his face just enough to sell the idea that he was in some amount of pain, but not too much.

"I'm sure that I would have noticed a bite." His voice was kind but curt, like he was tired of this 'vampire' nonsense. "Owen. He told them not to hurt me 'too badly'," he said. "I think killing me would be 'too badly'."

"But, why would they hit you?" Avid was looking between Ren, Cleo, and Legundo, eyebrows drawn inwards with concern.

"I don't know." He paused, like he was trying to find a missing memory. "I think I interrupted them?" Cleo was nodding along with his words, turning enough to be able to look up at Avid and Ren.

"I did hear someone say something about leaving him alone," they said, watching Avid relax significantly with the confirmation. Ren was looking around, like either of the vampires were going to appear directly in front of him and admit to doing the attack.

"It'll be a while until we can do anything about this, don'tcha know," he said, being a little louder to talk over a commotion outside; there were bats in the air, according to Sausage, who'd loudly exclaimed it after a gasp and caused everyone to duck away in case they were anywhere near the bats. "Are ye okay, at least?" Ren continued, looking at Cleo and placing a hand on their shoulder gently. Something about his determination to not even acknowledge the bats almost made them laugh, but somehow, they managed to keep a straight face and nodded.

"I just… didn't know he was here," they said about Legundo before looking at him. "If I'd known…"

"It's… It's fine. I don't think there's any serious harm done." Cleo shot him a small, grateful smile with his reassurances and he gave them a nod in return before they helped him stand. He wasn't stable on his feet--wobbling slightly once he was upright--but the wall and Cleo's arm were both very useful for steadying himself. Once he was sure he wouldn't fall, he said, "I think that I need some rest."

"A good idea, doctor," Ren said, watching him carefully. "Avid, maybe ye should escort him?" It was a gentle suggestion, but Cleo was already pulling Legundo's arm across their shoulders.

"I'll do it. I'm already here and it'll be easier for us to get out than having all of us have to dance around this thing," they kicked the side of the beacon gently enough to make it clear what they were talking about but hard enough to cause a thud when the side of the sole of their boot hit it, "just to get into position."

"The less I need to move, the better I'll feel, I think," Legundo said while nodding, trying to back them up in whatever way might benefit the pair of them the most. Ren nodded and moved to hold the door open, waving Avid out so that the way was clear as they began moving.

"Is Pearl back, by the way?" Cleo asked while they hobbled their way through the door with some difficulty, followed out by Ren who was telling people to get out of the way and let them through.

"We don't know where she is," Sausage said, sounding almost mournful. "She wasn't at the castle." He paused. "You don't think..?"

"No," Cleo said sharply, shoot him a look as if they were angry at him for even considering the idea that Pearl had become another victim. "No, I don't think…"

As Cleo and Legundo moved away, Avid and the other townsfolk broke away from the tower while Ren stayed inside, stood next to the beacon. His eyes were trained on it as he began circling it slowly, like he was hoping that he could force it to return to the divine if he just stared at it for long enough and with enough intent. His concentration was broken when he heard footsteps approaching, and looked to the door as it opened. Martyn entered first with Apo's help.

"You're back," Apo said, a hint of a smile coming to her face.

"Ah! We are!" His tone was full of joy at seeing the pair of them, taking a small step towards them both. "Are ye both okay? Evil came to our town, don'tcha know." Apo nodded, telling him that they were both fine and hadn't even thought about leaving Cleo's house until they'd heard the townsfolk talking about bats. Martyn, however, was paralysed with the most intense, deep-seated hunger he had ever experienced. Or, maybe it was thirst? He felt both famished and parched in equal measure, but had only noticed now, staring at Ren.

The urge to bite, the thought of sinking his teeth into Ren's throat, the need for blood. It all stunned him, temporarily, into unblinking stillness and silence. Ren was looking at him, though, waiting for an answer, and he couldn't find one. All he could find was a dryness that felt so strangely unfamiliar, like it was someone else's and he'd gained ownership over it. He longed to rip and tear and feast.

It felt like it lasted for hours, but could only have been a few seconds of Ren expecting him to say something, or nod, or give a sign that he'd heard the question. Once he had control of himself again, he nodded.

"Not great," he said, "but I've been worse." He paused before jokingly added, "recently, in fact." He'd been hoping for at least a chuckle from Ren, but only got a solemn and sincere nod.

"Aye. We've all been suffering recently…"

Chapter Text

While the town settled into unease around the beacon, doing what they could to continue their normal business, the Sun held itself high in the sky like a reminder of what they'd temporarily lost. It was bright and shining and warm, fighting the natural chill of Oakhurst and the surrounding forests, not winning and not losing, a constant battle that could only ever be felt.

Those surrounding, quiet forests were, in that moment, being flown over by two bats. They were fast and they were silent besides the flapping of their wings. After a short time, one swooped down at a sharp angle and landed as a humanoid. Owen's feet touched the ground smoothly, moving in a faster paced walk out of the treeline before he looked skywards for his companion. The other bat didn't lower itself at all, transforming in mid-air and accepting the drop. Scott landed a few steps ahead of Owen, dropping low when he hit the ground but standing up straight seconds later, graceful and stable as he turned to watch the other vampire, waiting for him to catch up. Owen did so quickly and took the lead, making his way over mismatched, improvised bridges that the humans had been using to visit them, while Scott picked his way across like all of this was just a hassle that he didn't want to deal with; it was a lot of manual labour.

"I warned him," Owen said while balancing on a log that'd been felled only to bridge a gap, "about the hunger." He stepped off of the log, glancing back as Scott made a noise of interest or thought from halfway across the log. "What?"

"I left him a note in his house."

"Oh?" Owen moved to stand against the nearest stone wall that barely played the part of railings, giving Scott enough room to hop off of the end of the log and straight out his clothing. "What did it say?"

"I told him to pace himself." There was an air of dry amusement about him as he spoke, causing Owen to snort loudly and shake his head like it was a ridiculous idea; he hadn't spent much time in vampire society, but he was certain that a significant part of it involved new fledglings being very bad at pacing themselves.

"That won't happen," he said as the pair began to move again, jumping across a smaller gap one after the other, careful with their choices even while their movements were free and unconcerned about the plummet below. "How much food did you give him?" Casual interest held in Owen's tone, as if he weren't truly bothered about being answered and his intent was conversation.

"Half."

Owen paused his movements on the edge of a gap to look back at Scott as he hopped over a tiny hole in the stone. His eyebrows raised until Scott realised he was being watched, at which point Owen's expression gave the impression that he was trying to read the other man. Maybe he was, but Scott was a particularly difficult book in an unfamiliar language, one that he could almost understand but not quite. Scott merely shrugged.

"He'd struggle, and it was a good trade."

"For medicine?" Owen questioned, just to make sure he was understanding things correctly. Scott gave a single nod of confirmation before continuing their journey, more focused on his foot placement than on Owen. "The others struggled." It was a simple statement, said almost innocently while he watched the other man.

"The others, I didn't have spare food for, I had spare food this time." Scott said, distinctly distracted by their journey and sounding so casual the entire time he was speaking. Deciding not to push it, Owen declined to say anything else as he took the lead again. Instead, relative silence fell over the pair.

Full silence was an impossibility; their footsteps, though quiet, still sounded as they walked on the stone of the bridge--in addition to whatever materials had been used by their consistent and irritating visitors--and the water lapped gently at the banks below, calm but audible, even on the bridge.

"Are you sure you aren't getting sentimental?" Owen asked eventually, giving the impression that he'd been thinking long and hard about asking the question and immediately earning a sharp, warning look cast in his direction. He didn't noticed, focused on getting across a particularly unstable looking patch of the bridge. Not noticing the look didn't stop him from talking, though. "He was your buddy, after all…"

Somewhere behind him again, Scott made a noise of disgust and rolled his eyes.

"Sentiment." His tone was full of loathing towards the very idea that he could be sentimental, word spat out like he was worried that it could poison him. "The only person I'd be sentimental for is Shelby, and only because she was my roommate." He paused, looking at Owen after a short time with the smallest hint of a smile on his face, somehow both full of impish intent and complete neutrality. "You didn't want to turn him," he said, watching Owen snap round to look at him almost instantly. "Are you sure you're not getting sentimental…?" The very suggestion seemed to make Owen bristle with indignation.

"I don't do sentiment," he said quickly, dismissively, as they stepped up the dirty stone steps and walked around the wooden blockade that Scott had previously put in place. "None of them deserve it. Not a single one." The indignation had turned his voice harsh and cold, but Scott ignored the warning signs, enjoying himself too much in that moment.

"Not even him?" His tone was mostly teasing, with just a hint of knowing, the smile from before growing with mischief and glee while he watched Owen. "You know that it's fine if he is the exception…" He drew it out, taunting and teasing and highly entertained by the way every cell in Owen's body seemed to be simmering with rage over the subject. Owen stopped walking and whirled around to stare Scott down, eyes narrowing and lips tight with irritation.

"He is not the exception," he said, voice low and barely holding any kind of calm, burying a currently silent fury. "No human could ever be the exception." There was a hint of snarl as he spoke, and Scott didn't speak for a moment, waiting for Owen to turn back around, first. Only once he was no longer being stared down and Owen was trying to relax his shoulders, did Scott say four words.

"He's not a human."

It was so petty, so small, and he couldn't resist. He was thriving, knowing that Owen was still irritated, even as the man started walking again, his face relaxing but the rest of him not quite getting the same message.

"You're infuriating."

"I know. It's fun." Scott jogged to catch up to him, smiling in a way that would have told Owen that he was very proud of himself, if Owen had looked at him. As it was, Scott was beaming away to himself as he said, "and it means that no one could tell if I was wearing a skull to hide my eyes or bother Avid."

Owen let out a puff of laughter at that, though it wasn't a laugh of amusement or happiness that Scott could be right, and the entire thought process was silenced quickly when they both looked towards the old great hall. "Oh! They've been busy…"

The pair slowed as stepped into the space more. The cobbled walls were now mixed with other types in a way that felt artful and built up the height of them just enough to provide some amount of shelter from the elements. Within those less broken walls, sat a completed wood floor that only had a few burn marks here and there. Owen seemed mildly impressed, while Scott's face lit up as he moved forwards quickly, quicker than Owen, to get a better look at the floor. His face dropped somewhat when he noticed that it was mismatched, and he took a moment to stare down at it before a voice sounded.

"Sire! Do you like it?" Pyro was moving quickly and carefully down the hill next to the castle, Shelby trailing after him with a soft smile on her face.

"It's not the same," she said as they reached the pair, wringing her hands together while also looking down at the floor, a conflicted expression passing over her features, "but we tried our best." She was more bothered by it than Scott was, though; he'd been watching them arrive, and glanced back to the floor before giving a dismissive noise.

"Once blood is spilt on it a few times, it'll probably match," he said, waving a hand as if to brush the concern away. "And Martyn probably won't be burning it down anymore…"

"Only probably?" Owen asked, standing a little further from the group and leaning on the back of the nearest chair to him. "Do you really think there's still a chance?" he continued, eyebrows drawing up in doubtful concern.

Scott paused to consider his answer and eventually settled on one; "he's not… happy."

"What? Why?" Pyro was frowning, seeming genuinely confused by this information. All he got in response was a shrug from Scott, though Shelby seemed to be sharing his confusion. "We've got immortality, strength…"

"… no skin care routines needed anymore…"

"… we confirm the existence of the supernatural…"

"… we can fly and fall from heights without dying…"

"I don't understand peoples' problem," Scott said, shaking his head like it was an unfortunate fact of life that some of the fledglings weren't happy to be undead, or living dead, or whatever they counted as now; he'd never had a full grasp on which was more accurate. "Apo and Martyn…"

"Cleo doesn't seem to hate it," Owen offered as a contrast. "Legundo, though… we'll have to see about him."

"Wait," Pyro spoke up, frowning and taking a careful step towards the pair, "Legundo's turned? So, there's… eight of us, now?" he asked, every bit of his body language and voice holding the air of uncertainty about him. Owen nodded silently while Scott smiled.

"Eight of us," he said, expression and tone turning pleased as he spoke the confirmation, "and they don't know about any of those four."

"Oh." Pyro gave a surprised laugh. "They don't suspect a thing."

"That's… wild," Shelby said quietly, almost sounding in awe of the four of them before there was a sudden gasp as she looked at the three others around her. "We're not alone anymore!" Her smile was full of hope at the idea, joy seemingly spilling out of her as Pyro smiled down at her.

"We were never alone, though. We had each other." Almost as soon as Scott finished speaking, Owen shot him a difficult to read look while he smiled at the other two, all warm and kind and gentle. Shelby's own smile grew as she started bouncing on the spot with excitement, talking quickly about how they would have to have a meeting of all the vampires--especially since the floor was fixed--and they could share their resources since there were four of them and four of the others and the others had cows, but-

"Oh!" She interrupted herself, looking up at Scott. "We have a celebration drink, too! Pyro's really good at finding things." Pyro gave a small head tilted of appreciation towards, her, but she barely noticed with her excitement nearing dangerously high levels as she turned to run off and collect the surprise.

Pyro glanced to Scott, seemingly ignoring Owen as he said, "she's too kind." He paused while Scott laughed softly and Owen quirked an eyebrow from his spot, before glancing off the way she'd gone, then looking back to Scott. "I'll, uh. I'll help her, Sire." He moved away at a brisk walk to join her, leaving Scott and Owen to watch them leave before Owen walked up to be along-side Scott and spoke.

"You're playing them, aren't you?"

"Am I?" Scott sounded genuinely clueless as he turned to look at Owen, eyes wide with innocent obliviousness, but Owen had witnessed the same tone with the townsfolk, denying everything as if he didn't know anything about any subject. They looked at each other for a moment or so before Scott spoke again. "I like them. I'm convincing them that we should stay together because I like them. I'm not pretending in order to convince them." He paused again. "I play games with my enemies, Owen, not my allies. I don't need to play games with my allies anymore."

"'Anymore'?" Owen repeated, a tilt of curiosity to his tone. Scott considered, for a moment, whether he should explain what he meant or not before deciding to just do it; a sign of trust, perhaps, since they were allies.

"As a noble," and Owen almost rolled his eyes harder than he'd ever rolled his eyes before, "everyone's playing some kind of social game. No one's a friend unless you're useful." Scott was watching him carefully for his reaction, though found nothing; Owen was just listening, expression holding the most vague hints of interest. "Being enjoyable to know isn't enough for some humans. You need to give them a reason to like you."

"And you… gave them reasons?"

"Of course. 'Friends', townsfolk… they reacted well to a reason, back in the day." There it was again, the words like he was trying to prove that he was genuinely an old man. Owen hesitated to ask questions, but he wanted to know. This was an experience he'd never had--he'd never had the opportunity or need to play social games or give people a reason that he was useful--and he was curious.

"'Friends', I can imagine the 'reason'. The townsfolk?" he asked, frowning in confusion. "What reason?" His imagination was, somewhat, running away from him; he thought it might be something impressive or unexpected, something that he wouldn't dream of giving to the current residents of Oakhurst. When Scott's lips split into a grin, when a devious little giggle escaped him, Owen realised that it was going to be a significantly more straight-forward answer.

"I didn't kill them, just their neighbours."

It was significantly more straight-forward.

Chapter Text

The day felt like it was going faster than before, as Legundo leaned on the wall next to his furnaces, watching his neighbours out of the window. They were moving around, doing whatever they needed to be doing while they still had daylight to work in, making plans, discussing their 'vampire problem' quietly in tight-knit groups where they thought there was no risk of eavesdroppers, and he felt so violently alone.

Physically, he was alone; Cleo had left shortly after getting him into the house with his permission, and no one had checked in on him since then. He understood it--he'd said that he needed rest and they were respecting that--but with the conversation with Owen and Scott, with Cleo's advice, he realised how unwelcoming this town was to any vampire, regardless of whether they were a threat or not. He realised fully how severe the divide between humans and vampires was.

That divide was deemed necessary, and he knew that from the human perspective, from the idea that it was a step towards safety, but it meant isolation. It meant hiding in the shadows of his house and hiding things from those around him. His goal, his desire, was to help others and this loneliness, this forced anti-social behaviour, was antithetical to that goal. How could he help others if he couldn't rely on their trusting him? How could they trust him if he was hiding this? How could he tell them when the others had been forced out of town by mere rumours of their being vampires? They'd been true, but Shelby hadn't done anything to deserve this treatment and yet she was in the pile with the others. What hope did he truly have if even she had been discarded so quickly by the residents?

It wasn't as though everyone had implicitly and inherently trusted him from the first moment any of them met. Sometimes, it'd seemed that Owen had been the only one to do so. He'd assumed that he was wrong, that surely the others believed that he was safe and had everyone's best interests at heart, but now he wasn't so certain. Now that he was on the other side of the line, as it were, he was unconvinced by how close they all were, by how long he could stay before they'd turn against him, too. Scott hadn't been giving anyone reason to believe his innocence, but Owen hadn't done anything, Pyro hadn't, either, as far as he knew, and Shelby was assigned a tragedy by the townsfolk.

It was, unfortunately, an attitude he'd come across before, and he hadn't liked it much in the past, either. This felt different, though. It used to be those that would send young men to die who would later assign them monster or tragedy based on how sympathetic their stories were and whether or not they'd actually died, but now it wasn't. Now it was just the townsfolk, each certain that they were right and none of them realising the pattern that occurred.

Just thinking about it always turned his memories bitter and harsh, biting at his patience even while he held onto it with every fibre of his being, every inch of determination that he had. He hated it. He hated the effect that it had on him. He hated that it would, seemingly, always happen. It didn't matter when or where they were, the circumstances around it, it was as inevitable as a sunrise.

He hated that it could happen to him, like it could have in the past. It hadn't, but it could have. Something that felt like an important distinction in his brain, but would likely not have been to anyone else if they were at all aware of it.

His thoughts were halted by voices outside. They weren't loud, but he was quickly learning that they didn't have to be; enhanced senses, overstimulating but potentially useful for his work. Or, in this case, for hearing his neighbours going about their business and potentially making terrible decisions that could end in misery. There'd been a fair amount of bad decisions in the short while they'd all been living in Oakhurst, and if the doctor was a superstitious man, he might've started believing in curses cast over the land or something similar.

As it was, he believed in people sometimes doing questionable things for a wide variety of reasons. He would have been charitable and assumed they were all good, but he knew better than that; sometimes, people made very questionable choices for very questionable reasons and everyone else just had to deal with that. They weren't necessarily bad, but just not the smartest ideas.

"I just want to talk to them," Martyn was saying loudly, storming through the town centre like he was on some kind of mission to raise the dead with nothing but his footsteps and the determination that if he couldn't have a peaceful time, then they couldn't, either. There were quieter, faster footsteps trailing after him, so Legundo moved to his front door and opened it, peering out but lingering in his door frame and not hiding his interest in the conversation at all.

The second set of footsteps belonged to Cleo, walking too fast to be comfortable while they kept pace with Martyn's stride. There was an expression of gentle exasperation on their features as they glanced down to ensure they wouldn't trip, then looked back up at Martyn's face before they replied to him.

"Okay, but do you actually want to talk to them or are you going to try to kill him, again?" they asked, double stepping to stay in step with him a little better. "It didn't work last time. It didn't work the time before. You're lucky that you…" They paused their speech, considering their next word carefully before, seemingly, deciding that there wasn't a better option and just going for it. "survived," they said with an almost grimace, earning a look from Martyn--that they responded to with an apologetic little head tilt--before he stopped walking.

"I know," he said as he stopped, conflicted and sighing out a breath in frustration, either at himself or the situation. Legundo could empathise with that frustration, though his own was aimed directly at the situation. Cleo was staring at Martyn with an expression that bordered on confusion, though, and there was a moment before Legundo realised why they would be so confused; he didn't know when he'd stopped breathing, but he finally noticed that he had stopped and that meant that Martyn had also stopped at some point, presumably. "I just… I need to do something. We can't just stay here."

"Why? Why can't we?" Cleo asked as Legundo took two steps forward, closing his door quietly behind him, and then continued moving towards them with silent steps that would've given him heart palpitations if it was still beating; memories of the way Scott had moved were fresh in his mind. Martyn was mulling it over as Legundo got close enough for them to hear him without him having to shout or otherwise raise his voice.

"Would you like company on your journey?" Legundo asked, watching them both turn quickly in surprise of the new arrival. "A doctor could be helpful, given what you've been through recently."

"You weren't much help the last time you joined us," Martyn said, tone full of suspicion and doubt. Legundo tilted his head, an admission that Martyn was correct for once. He didn't think it happened often, necessarily, but he could take the small hit to his pride for this one time.

"I think he should join us," Cleo said, looking between them. Martyn was looking at them like he was questioning their sanity, but they very quickly explained it with a small, "earlier." Legundo frowned in confusion, as did Martyn until he realised what they'd meant and his expression evaporated into understanding. While he was glad that Martyn knew, Legundo wished he did, too. He didn't ask, though; they were going to the castle, if he was guessing correctly, and there'd be time to ask then.

"A group would be helpful." All three turned in much the same way that Cleo and Martyn had when Legundo arrived, finding Apo having walked silently over at some point to join them. "There's a lot of… creatures."

"Monsters. Specifically four of them," Martyn corrected, giving Legundo a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach, the same feeling he'd gotten a dozen times before, when he'd known that things would end up going badly and yet there was no choice. Out of habit more than an expectation of it actually working, he took a breath to calm himself, to push away unwelcome memories of young men being sent to certain death for the benefit of those who'd never fight, and refocus on the conversation he was currently a part of instead of events that'd long since passed.

He wasn't a part of them anymore, but they would eternally be a part of him.

"Stop," Cleo said sternly to Martyn before nodding to Apo and Legundo. "Four of us is a good idea, and I'm sure you have questions, doctor." They were looking at him expectantly, and he gave a breath of laughter in response.

"I… always have questions, Cleo," he said with some amount of amusement about him. "Despite everything, I am a man of science."

"Still?" Where Cleo had declined to comment, Martyn had decided to not hold back. An eyebrow was quirked and he had an air about him that he, somehow, expected something different from the man. The two of them eyed each other for a moment, both seemingly trying to puzzle out if the other was being serious, before Legundo drew in another breath exclusively to sigh it out heavily.

"Still," he confirmed, continuing to look at Martyn before looking to the other two in turn; first Cleo, and then Apo. "There is always an explanation, and they may have answers."

Cleo and Apo glanced at each other with some amount of uncertainty about his belief in both there always being answers and the other vampires having any of those answers. Cleo wouldn't say it out loud, but they were also doubtful that any of them would actually give those answers, even if they had them; Scott and Owen seemed the most comfortable, but also the least forthcoming with information, in their opinion. There was a chance that'd change, though, since they were all vampires. Maybe there was loyalty among murderers?

Or maybe they were being optimistic, hoping that the elder vampires would take pity on the four of them and actually explain anything and help them.

"Then," Cleo began, seeming like they were trying to prepare themself for the journey or their destination, and Legundo couldn't truly blame them for it, "let's go."

Chapter Text

Drinks were flowing around the table in the castle, blood poured from bottles into antique glasses that Shelby and Pyro had found and cleaned while they'd been replacing the burned and destroyed patches of floor. Scott recognised them immediately when they were placed onto the table; family heirlooms that he'd stored under the floorboards of the podium along with wine and tools and he couldn't remember what else, but he was sure there'd been something. Shelby had been immediately interested in the history of the glasses, though the story regarding them was admittedly limited to only the fact that they'd been in his family for generations, often used for special occasions and otherwise kept safe and hidden to prevent theft since they were so expensive.

Rebuilding the castle felt like a special occasion, they'd decided as a group once Owen had rejoined them, and so their use was justified.

They'd taken some time in the hours since Owen and Scott had returned to restore more of the walls for privacy, relative shelter, and to support the archway that had been put into place where a door had once been. The archway gave a mediocre view of the bridge, with the wooden blockade removed and one of the skulls on spikes just barely in view. There was no roof on the room, but the old wood floor was rotting anyway and it'd been deemed a pointless endeavour until they could replace the entire floor, especially given the lack of rain recently and the fact that only Scott was burning under the glare of the Sun, and he'd already labelled his burning as a minor irritation at worst due to healing any burns he got almost immediately.

So, in celebration of their work on the castle, they were drinking well and sharing stories around the end of the table that was furthest from the new archway in case of intruders. Owen and Pyro were sat on one side, and Shelby and Scott were opposite them, with bottles in between them and cut glass patterns on the glasses shining with the light of the setting Sun.

"I can't believe it," Owen was saying through giggles, speaking over Shelby and Pyro's laughter while Scott took a sip of blood, shaking his head and leaning on the table. He'd always been taught not to lean on the table, not to put his elbows on the table, to sit up and be proper, and he was breaking every single one of those rules; it wasn't like he was going to be scolded for it.

"I swear," he said, leaning forward as if that would somehow convince Owen that he was telling the truth. "Humans have no idea what's going on. They never have!" He placed the glass down gently, watching it to make sure it wasn't going to spill, while Pyro shook his head in amusement opposite him. "No awareness. No understandings of the world. They just don't know anything."

"They really just… believed you?" Shelby asked, looking at Scott in sheer bewilderment, hand on the base of her glass, finger tracing the simple yet beautiful patterns that laid there.

"Yes!" Scott's eyes were wide, desperate for one of these three to understand that he wasn't lying or joking or exaggerating. Pyro laughed behind his glass, sipping at his own drink while Shelby was seemingly praying silently to the universe for Scott's story to not be true.

"Why?!" Her voice was hushed, a whispered question that none of them had the answer to, proven by Scott shaking his head, wordless with his ignorance on the why of the matter and potentially as stunned as Shelby.

"Humans are just like that," was all he could say as an explanation. Pyro gave a small noise of agreement while Owen drank, watching the conversation like it was a particularly entertaining play and he was the sole audience member.

"They do seem to be," Pyro mused, looking vaguely skyward in thought before his gaze fell on Scott. "For example; your skull."

"My skull?" Scott suddenly sounded concerned, frowning at him before the realisation hit. "Oh! Derek?" Pyro nodded quickly, and Scott laughed with some amount of fondness for Derek, or for the entire time he'd spent using Derek as a mask. "Yes!" He moved to sit up properly, his excitement to talk giving him too much energy for him to stay slouching. "Humans are the epitome of 'monkey see, monkey do'," he said, before deciding to expand on that idea.

"I wear a skull, everyone else wears a skull. I say I'm trying to scare Avid, everyone else tries to scare Avid." His voice was exclusively filled with joy, with no room for anything else. "I love it. They just follow any passing trend and don't question it."

"Yes, well. It's all great until the trend is hunting us," Owen said, borderline judgemental and sipping his drink again, but Scott shook his head in response. Owen quirked an eyebrow while Shelby's brows furrowed behind her glasses, confusion plastered across her features. Pyro glanced between them, interested in Scott's reasoning but silent in his interest.

"You're… okay with that?" she asked, voice tinged with… something. It may have been fear, or concern; it was sometimes difficult to separate one from the other. "I don't… like being hunted," she said with a hint of laughter, like she felt silly for saying it. Owen nodded along.

"It's not my favourite past-time," he agreed, eyeing Scott with something like suspicion. "There's definitely better ones."

"No, think about it," Scott said, shifting to lean on the table again, looking between the three of them. "We're strong. We're always stronger than them," he continued, attention more focused on Shelby while the other two listened, Owen looking unconvinced while he leaned back in his chair and got comfortable, "and we feed on them. They're basically delivering food if they come to kill us, and then they wonder why it doesn't work."

"Oh!" Shelby lit up like she now understood the secrets of the universe. "Fast food." It was a joke, said with another hint of laughter and spreading her amusement to the others easily.

"Not that fast," Owen commented with a small head tilt as Scott sipped his blood while forcing himself not to snort with laughter. Pyro had no such issues and laughed gently.

"That's very true," he said. "We do seem to be faster than them."

"Not yet." Owen glanced at Scott, earning a look of pure innocence from the older man and staring him down to communicate that the act wasn't convincing. "Not all of us."

"You were this strong," Scott said, making a small move to lean in temporarily for emphasis before he sat up straight. "You can't blame me…"

"I was that strong," Owen said like he was conceding a point, "but then I got hungry."

"Okay? The doctor was right there. You had first dibs." Scott look a long sip of his drink, eyebrows raised in apparent judgement of Owen while Shelby and Pyro looked between them, every bit the image of two people watching a couple fight.

"I kinda feel like we should leave," Shelby muttered jokingly to Pyro across the table, both of them unable to keep the smiles from their faces. Scott laughed while Owen rolled his eyes with amusement that he was very much trying to hide behind the impression that he was annoyed by this entire thing.

While he was rolling his eyes, his gaze fell on someone past the entrance and he paused, sitting up properly as he said, "the doctor was there, and now he's here."

The other three had been laughing and giggling, but turned immediately at Owen's words. Scott stood first, followed quickly by Pyro, while Owen and Shelby took their sweet time with it. Owen rose slowly and began walking around the head of the table while Shelby stood quickly and stayed behind Scott, peering at the visitors with an air of cautious distrust about her.

The four newest fledglings had stopped just outside the archway, where the wooden barricade used to be. Martyn, as was apparently habit for him, was stood in front with Cleo. Behind them was Apo, standing with the impression that she would have rather been anywhere but here. Some distance away from all three of them, disconnected from the core of the group, was Legundo.

"Ah," Owen began, "you all came." He looked behind them, stepping forward a little to hopefully see further. "Did anyone else?"

"No." Cleo shifted their weight with discomfort, drawing Owen's attention back to the group and standing a little straighter, like he was a bear and they were trying to scare him off. "I don't think so."

"No one noticed us leave." Where Cleo had been uncertain, Apo was not. She spoke with the sort of certainty that suggested she'd been checking for a trail. "It's just us. And you." There was an air of distaste about her as her gaze fell on Scott, and he smiled at her before sipping at his drink.

"So," he said conversationally while taking steps towards the group, ignoring Martyn reflexively placing a hand on the pommel of his sword, "why are you here?" Scott swirled his glass like he was holding onto some expensive alcohol. Apo's expression turned disgusted, top lip curling, as she eyed the glass.

"What… is that?" she asked, decidedly unimpressed by this entire situation but curious all the same.

"Cow's blood." Pyro smiled at her. "We're very adept at hunting." There was a hint of pride in his words despite his determination to keep it completely subdued, at least around these four. Apo squinted at him while Legundo frowned gently in interest. "We do have spare-"

"No! They need to answer before we start sharing." Scott had turned to Pyro to stop him, before his attention turned back to the four standing just outside of the castle entrance way's ruined walls. "I've shared quite a lot today and only gotten a single 'thank you', and I had to force it."

"You forced them to say 'thank you'?" Owen asked, frowning and trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the idea. Scott pulled a face, tilting his head back and forth as if he were trying to decide on whether or not to correct him. He eventually decided to.

"No. I forced Martyn to say 'thank you'."

A wholly undignified snort escaped from Owen with the correction, and he turned away to compose himself.

"Why do we owe you any thanks?" Apo asked. "You did this to us. All of us! We didn't-!" She was stepping forward, and Scott pulled a face before interrupting.

"Actually," and he made sure to use as annoying of a voice as he could, possibly hoping to make Apo regret having turned up, though he was late if he was trying to because she'd been regretting it since they stepped out of the town's borders, "we talked about it. I've only turned three of you. Pyro turned Cleo." He smiled like it made anything better that only three of them were sired by him, while Pyro gave a very small wave to Cleo as if he were reminding them of who he was. "He also turned Shelby," Scott turned to him, "which I still haven't forgiven you for, by the way."

Pyro ducked his head guiltily, shoulders drawing up like he was truly ashamed of himself for it. Cleo glanced Martyn's way, both sharing a look somewhere between judgemental and uncomfortable before looking back to them as Owen spoke.

"How long are you going to hold this grudge for?" he asked, and Scott shrugged casually, like he wasn't making a big deal out of it and it'd come up naturally in the conversation.

"Until I get bored of it, I guess." Scott pushed out a sigh, truly inconvenienced by Owen asking questions that sounded--to Scott--very similar to 'exactly how petty are you?' He looked back to Pyro. "This grudge will disappear before my grudge against Avid disappears for him thinking that I would kill Shelby." He backed up enough to put an arm around her shoulders, and she smiled up at him like he was her favourite person in the world at that moment.

"I knew you would never kill me."

"Are you not dead?" Martyn asked, frowning at them both. Shelby frowned back, seemingly hurt by the implication.

"No. Even though you tried."

"He's so rude," Scott said to her gently, tugging her in as close as possible. "I would never have killed you. I wanted to turn you, but that's different and that's because I like you," he added, ignoring the way that Martyn was glaring with an intense hatred that could probably have powered a small city if it could be converted into some kind of energy, while squeezing her shoulders, a one-armed hug that she pressed into with a wide, warm grin.

"And us?" Cleo asked, raising an eyebrow. "I doubt you like Martyn." His hatred was dropped in favour of an insulted look as he glanced to Cleo as if to silently ask them whose side they were on. They shrugged at him.

"Oh! God, no." There was some amount of disgust in his tone, making Pyro sip his drink very quickly while trying not to laugh. "I like some of you." His gaze trailed from Cleo to Legundo, and Owen watched him questioningly before rolling his eyes. "Martyn was revenge, and Apo was a deal." He smiled, watching Martyn and Legundo both frown in confusion, though Martyn was the only one to turn to Apo.

"A 'deal'?" He appeared to be searching her face for her reasoning, only seeing guilt and a little bit of panic. She took a step back, shaking her head.

"It's not… He's making it sound…" She paused, forcing down a breath as Cleo moved to hold her hand and give it a small squeeze to give her something external to focus on. "They told me to bring someone or I'd die, but I couldn't do it." She looked between her three companions. "I couldn't… betray any of you. Not like that."

"I wouldn't call it betrayal," Scott said breezily, swirling the blood that was still in his glass, him and Shelby both watching it move. "I was happy to be turned into a vampire, to get to live the rest of my days doing whatever I want…" He took a sip from the glass as Shelby ducked away to grab her own glass and then stand slightly further from the table in order to see everyone and everything, Scott moving to lean on the chair that he'd previously been sat in before the others had shown up.

"And how's that working for you?" Martyn asked, turning to Scott. Scott merely shrugged at him, giving a small noise of thought.

"I have good company," he looked to the three others that were stood near him, Pyro standing a little taller with the compliment and Shelby smiling behind her glass as she took a sip, "and good food," he helped up his glass, "and a great view," he threw out a hand to gesture to the land around them, where the night was drawing in and the blood moon was rising over the forests that surrounded them, most of this view hidden but the movement getting the point across, "and I only need to deal with a handful of very annoying people who think they're entitled to enter my house whenever they want."

Martyn rolled his eyes with dismissive irritation, making a small comment that this was pointless. Legundo, however, took a small step forward, evidently seeing the benefit of being able to talk to the others.

"I… have a question," the doctor said, getting a hand movement from Scott as permission to ask it, like he was opening the floor to him. "How do you deal with this… hunger?" he asked, taking another step forward and drawing level with Martyn. "I've been pacing myself, but…"

"It's constant, unfortunately," Owen said quickly, watching him unblinkingly as he stepped up behind Shelby and paused there. Her head snapped round for her to look his way--the sudden movement almost causing blood to spill from her glass and onto the floor, though it only just managed to stay in the glass--surprised by his voice being so close when it hadn't been before. When she realised that it was Owen and he'd moved, she looked back to the others with an almost nervous giggle. "Get food," he said like she hadn't had any reaction to him, "eat what you can, when you can,"

"and lure unsuspecting neighbours into the woods to explore a crypt that said neighbour wants to go to," Scott added as a suggestion, smiling like he was helping in some way. Legundo stared at him, concerned, while Apo glared daggers at him, seemingly hoping that she'd be able to kill him through only her desire for him to drop dead where he was stood. It didn't work, and he remained standing with a particularly proud smile on his face.

That was… worryingly specific," said the doctor, watching Scott give a dismissive little wave of his hand.

"Maybe I'm talking from experience, or maybe I have a vivid imagination." He avoided looking at Apo while she was using all of her self-control to not try fighting him. The temptation was high, and the chances for any of them actually blaming her for it was low, but she also doubted that it was a good idea. Martyn and Cleo would probably have helped her if she decided to, but three newer and more inexperienced vampires fighting even two older ones seemed like they would just be asking for trouble, and she wasn't going to cause more problems for Martyn or Cleo than they were already experiencing.

Even so, she seemed to finally catch Scott's attention. "Do we have a problem, Apo?" he asked with a tilt to his tone, suggesting that he knew exactly what she'd been thinking about and was jut waiting for her to act on it. She straightened up, feeling Cleo squeeze her hand again as a reminder to not take the bait.

"No. We don't."

Martyn, evidently, disagreed with this answer. He looked at her sharply before shaking his head and turning back to the four stood next to the table.

"Yes. We do. We all do. You-!" He took a step forward, entirely ready for violence, but was stopped when Owen gave a small, 'again?'

"I know what he's going to say!" Scott was smiling, though it was by no means a happy smile, and that was proven when he spoke again. "You're going to tell me that I turned you all--even though I didn't--and it's my fault that three of you came here to kill me at different times and none of you could actually manage it," he said, seemingly bored of this conversation but only willing to show this through turning his voice mildly whiny instead of what Martyn had deemed to be insufferably dismissive. When Martyn didn't say anything and just glared at him, Scott smiled. "So, you were going to say that?"

Legundo frowned, looking between Scott and Martyn before choosing to speak up.

"Three of us," he said. "I didn't."

"No…" Scott said, drawing it out thoughtfully, staring him down as he toyed with the idea of saying more and eventually deciding that he simply lacked the ability to stay silent. "You just want us to stop being vampires," he said, expression decidedly lacking in any sort of emotion, re-awakening the comparison between him and porcelain dolls in Martyn's mind. "It's not much better, really. What's the difference between death and not being what we are?"

"Death is what you deserve," Martyn spoke up, once again seeming like he was talking without really thinking about it.

"That's… not helpful," Legundo commented, gaze flicking to Martyn before he turned his attention back to Scott. "You could be human." Behind Scott and Shelby, a scoff escaped Owen.

"Who would want to be human? Illness, death, the never-ending urge to kill anyone who isn't like you," he listed off from his spot.

"The need to label everyone as murderers and monsters, even if we haven't done anything," Pyro added, hand on the back of the chair he'd been sat in as he watched Legundo's expression turn from disappointed in Owen to sympathetic towards Pyro.

"Humans aren't… known for acceptance," Shelby said with a hint of laughter in her tone, like she was nervous and afraid of speaking up, looking between the four of them as she moved to hold around the frame of her glasses and reposition them further up her nose.

"Okay, but a lot of us want to be human," Apo said, tone firm while her words shook with anger or desperation for them to fully understand that vampirism was a curse to her, a punishment for daring to be sent to Oakhurst. "We have people to go home to."

"Then go home to them," Owen said like she just hadn't thought of that solution. "Being a vampire isn't going to keep you here. We're fairly certain it's the beacons doing that." Apo laughed in frustrated disbelief.

"You have no idea what it's like to lose someone, do you?" Apo stepped forward, thinking of the fact that her person would die, eventually, while she stayed young, blatantly putting down a challenge to Owen. Owen stepped forward, accepting that challenge with that rage against humanity burning in his expression, in his eyes, and in his voice when he spoke.

"To vampires?" He paused, seemingly catching onto what she'd meant with her challenge. "To time?" While his rage was hot, an inferno in his very existence, his voice was cold and sharp; an icicle that made Apo freeze with the sudden realisation that she may have overstepped and may have forgotten who she was talking to. "No. You're right. I haven't, but you have no idea what it's like to see someone hunted by… humans." He spat the last word out like it was a poison that he was trying to rid himself of, and maybe that wasn't too far from his view of them.

Sensing that this wasn't a productive topic of conversation, Legundo stepped in to draw attention to himself and potentially derail this entire topic of conversation before it could get worse.

"We all know loss, of some kind," he said, looking at the floor to avoid potentially causing more problems by looking at anyone in particular; he didn't want to make this seem like an attack, and his tone was carefully calm to highlight his attempted neutrality while he tried to play peacekeeper. As if to pay him back for the sympathy earlier, Pyro moved around the table to help with the peacekeeping, placing a hand against Owen's shoulder to draw his attention away from Apo and force him to take a step back. It worked to force the step, but he was still staring her down as if wanting her to say just one more thing and give him an excuse to act. "There's no reason for us to fight."

"Um, actually? I disagree." Scott waved his empty hand to draw everyone's attention to him while moving to sip from his glass with the other. "I think they should fight. I think Apo needs to learn how to respect her elders."

"Please don't." It was an almost tired sounding request from the doctor that caused Scott's mouth to curve into a highly amused but mischievous smile. Apo, however, was shaking her head.

"I will never-"

"Shelby does. Pyro does. Cleo hasn't tried to kill us again," Scott pointed out, raising his eyebrows at Apo. "It's just you and Martyn. You two are the problem children." His expression was judgemental, but his tone was scathing, eyes narrowing to match while he spoke.

"Calling adults 'problem children' isn't… exactly a good idea…" Legundo was trying, very hard, to keep everything from going down hill fast, and his current attempt was not helped by Owen barking out a laugh in an uncharacteristic show of his complete lack of amusement with everything, even this sound holding that rage, that burning hatred that he'd become somewhat infamous for within the town.

"It is accurate," he said. "Even his father thought so."

Whatever reactions he thought he would get, they probably were not the ones he actually got. Luckily for Scott, he'd just taken a sip of drink and the glass was close enough to his mouth that he didn't spit blood on the floor with surprised laughter. Instead, it dribbled back into the glass as he silently shook with that laughter. Next to him, Shelby had her empty hand over her mouth in stunned silence, staring at Owen with wide eyes, and Pyro hid his own silent laughter behind Scott, keeping his hand on Owen's shoulder like the man was the only thing keeping him upright in that moment.

Cleo and Martyn were significantly less entertained than Scott and less passive than Shelby; both of them held murder in their eyes, staring at Owen like they'd just witnessed him drop-kick a puppy into a volcano.

"Owen, please." It was a borderline beg from the doctor, who didn't seem to be particularly angry about the comment, more interested in just keeping the peace than being offended on Martyn's behalf; the man was old enough to be offended for himself.

"You-!" Apo took a step forward despite Legundo moving to stop her, not noticing her hand falling from Cleo's grasp, though her own anger was interrupted by Scott's complete awe in Owen's… bravery? Determination to feed into the idea that he could be the worst of them? Scott wasn't sure what Owen's motivations were, but he was having fun witnessing it.

For once, he wasn't the one causing problems.

"Just kill the man next time! My God." He was still laughing, voice higher pitched as he leaned on the chair next to him.

"Don't."

"I don't think any of this is helping," Pyro said, finally managing to stop his own laughter but unable to wipe all hints of it from his features; they would have to accept his relatively collected voice. "Why did you all come here?" he asked kindly, trying to get them back on track and getting an appreciative look from the doctor.

"We came to speak," he said, looking to the others as Cleo tugged Apo back behind Martyn with a small comment about how she knew it was tempting to turn to violence, but they couldn't. "Cleo?"

Cleo opened their mouth to explain, but they were immediately interrupted by a loud, "I don't think we can negotiate with these… people," from Martyn. He sounded distinctly doubtful about whether or not he could even count any of them as people, and Owen rolled his eyes, scoffing in dismissive disbelief.

"You know-!"

"Shut up." Scott, having finally calmed himself enough to speak, held a hand out to Owen almost kindly while speaking, trying to make him fall silent and succeeding, if only by confusing him with the hand. "Negotiations? I love negotiating." He gestured to the table, to the chairs settled in their places, and placed his glass at the head of the table to mark his spot. As soon as it was down, he moved to guide Owen back to his seat while telling the others to sit down.

"You love negotiating?" Cleo asked, distracted enough to be able to ignore Owen, edging towards the table and leaning on one of the chairs. They were every bit as doubtful as they'd been before, but in a new and more incredulous way. Scott paused while gesturing for Shelby to sit, staring at Cleo for a moment.

"I'm a noble," he said. "Half of my human life was spent negotiating." He rolled his eyes with an air about him that it should have been obvious, while Shelby finally sat down, exchanging an uncertain look with Pyro as he moved around the table to sit back down next to Owen. Cleo glanced to the others, who were now being gestured to sit by Scott.

He sat before any of them did, though Cleo led the way with the Oakhurst residents finally taking up spots at the table. "Now, what's your offer?" There was something about the way that he leaned on the table, something about his tone, that suggested he viewed this as less of a negotiation and more of a gossip session. "And, what do you want in return?"

Cleo sighed, clearly not comfortable as the others sat around them, Martyn closest to Shelby but leaving a space between them for both of their comfort, Apo next to him, Cleo next to her, and Legundo at the end. He seemed both incredibly out of place and in over his head.

"We can provide meat. We have cows that we are willing to give you supplies from," Cleo said, all business and professionalism, not taking their eyes off of Scott as if they were worried that if they did, they may turn to violence. Next to Scott, Owen squinted at Cleo due to their offer.

"What about safety?" Owen asked, not getting a reply from Cleo but instead getting a potentially frustrated, and somewhat rude 'sh!' from Scott. He frowned in Scott's direction, insulted and taken aback by how quickly he'd been shushed, but soon realised that trying to voice or show his complaints was currently pointless; they'd found Scott's second favourite thing after being complimented, and he would just have to wait.

"So," Scott sat up, pulling his chair in under the table a little more and forcing himself to have proper posture with the action, "meat? Useful. We can get it ourselves but that's a lot of manual labour," he was saying, as if nothing else had happened during this meeting and successfully forcing the others to all stay silent and stop bickering. "Despite his…" Scott shot Owen a look--which Owen returned without a moment of hesitation--before turning his attention back to Cleo, "rudeness, Owen is right. Safety is more valuable."

"Your safety?! You're perfectly safe!" Martyn said loudly, frowning like they were both being ridiculous and Cleo was a fool if they were considering the subject. Cleo was visibly frustrated with the interruption, but they resisted the urge to snap. Scott was not as good at controlling his impulses.

"You've broken into my house twice to kill me and fallen off of my bridge both times when you couldn't. Be quiet." Scott paused to take a drink, and Shelby followed in suit. "Besides, we discuss safety or we discuss what else you'd give us." Scott paused, sensing an opportunity. "I do like a show with my meals." He was smiling now, an impish expression that could have been cruel if it wasn't so full of mischief.

The newer fledglings didn't have to say a word, though all of them seemed to be going through various stages of grief at the mere mention of a show. They were saved, somewhat, by Owen.

"A show?" His tone was on the edge of amused incredulousness. "Next you'll be asking for a dinner party…" he said before he moved to take a sip of drink from his glass, and he really shouldn't have.

"I wouldn't say 'no'," Scott said, drawing it out almost coyly. Owen choked on his drink, having taken in a breath to start laughing. While he was coughing, with Pyro hitting him on the back with the hopes of helping him, Scott continued talking. "Why do you all think this room is so big?"

"Because," Owen was still coughing, but was determined to speak, "it used to be a community building." Scott pulled a face, decidedly unimpressed with his answer.

"It was big before then," he all but hissed at Owen, who was finally managing to stop coughing. "We used to hold events. Dinner parties, and galas, and everything that you," he stared Owen down while Owen frowned, insulted already, "wouldn't know about." While Martyn chuckled softly to himself, Owen's jaw had dropped before he managed to regain his composure somewhat.

"No one holds dinner parties anymore," he said dismissively, scrunching his face in disbelief, watching as Scott shook his head in disappointment and not noticing that Pyro was doing the exact same thing.

"No, peasants don't hold dinner parties anymore." Scott gave a long-suffering sigh and sipped from his glass again. "Back in my day--" he ignored Owen's quiet, 'oh, here we go,' "--they did, because I made them."

"I'm sure they had so much fun," Apo said dryly, watching him through half-lidded eyes, and now it was Scott's turn to bristle for the first time that Apo had seen; so many of his reactions were sharp or dismissive or outright cruel that seeing him silently sip his drink again like it was the only thing helping him hold his tongue was a strange sight.

"Actually, they did." It took him a moment or two to fight back the urge to make some snide little comment, but he managed it. "They'd perform poetry or music or a dance," he said, eyes narrowed in Apo's direction, "and one time they did a play." While he'd been speaking, his tone was fond and wistful, but there was an edge to that last word, and Owen quirked an eyebrow while leaning back in his chair, drinking from his own glass against lazily while Pyro spoke next to him.

"What was the play?" he asked, leaning in like this was the most enchanting story he would ever hear. Scott paused, trying to remember.

"Little Red Riding Hood?" He squinted with uncertainty before nodding, suddenly sure of his answer. "It was. They said I couldn't eat until the end," he told them, pausing before adding, "it was beef. They brought a cow. A whole… cow." He shrugged and continue telling his story. "Anyway, I was apparently playing the wolf, but only at the end."

"Wait, at the end?" Shelby asked, immensely confused and struggling to connect the dots of where this story could be going. "But…?"

"The wolf dies at the end."

"What?!" Cleo asked, spluttering out laughter. Martyn had snorted, seemingly approving of the idea, while Owen just stopped. He froze completely, blinking in surprise, though even he wasn't sure if he was surprised by the abrupt casualness of Scott's tone or the words that the tone had been used on. Both were very likely candidates.

"Oh. So, they tried to… kill you?" Shelby asked, deeply concerned in both her voice and facial expression. Scott pushed her glass towards her as if it was filled with wine and it would somehow help her nerves. She pulled it closer, but didn't drink from it, too enthralled by this tale to even think of it.

"Yes." He paused again. "So, I killed them. No one gets to just try to kill me. We've all learned that, haven't we?" He directed the question at Martyn and Apo while pointedly looking at them both, and they shared the same expression of being a little put out by being called on in this situation. Taking their silence as confirmation that they had, in fact, learned that trying to kill him did not end well for the person trying it, he continued. "They learned, too." Both his tone and his smile were full of smug satisfaction.

"Of course you killed them." Apo said it with a sigh, disappointed by this conclusion. Meanwhile, Shelby was hanging on Scott's every word, almost cuddling her glass of blood while leaning forward, all negotiations apparently forgotten about by both parties as Pyro got out another of the glasses and poured a glass of blood for Cleo before pushing it across the table for them. They gave a nod of gratitude and took a sip before asking him quietly if the others could have one. Owen immediately began bickering with Pyro about whether or not Martyn deserved one.

Apo's attention was, somehow, still on Scott as he said, "my waiters tried to kill me. Why wouldn't I kill them?" He frowned at her before smiling gently. "The cow survived. I liked her more than the humans and she didn't seem to mind me."

The bickering about who deserved a glass of blood was quickly forgotten by Owen, because he started laughing and had to put his glass down, having been about to take another sip with some amount of caution in his movements. Cleo was looking at their own glass before a question occurred to them.

"Is that… normal?" they asked, looking to Scott for his reaction and finding only confusion. "I've been getting suspicious looks from the cattle in town…" Even to them, even with the context that they had, it felt like a ridiculous sentence. They felt a little better about it when Pyro shook his head while sliding half a glass of blood over to Martyn, a compromise between a full glass and nothing at all that he felt was fair.

"It doesn't seem to be," he mused aloud. "I'd suppose the cow was used to you, Sire?" he asked, looking to Scott for confirmation. Scott shrugged, but couldn't expand on that shrug, because Martyn decided to pipe up at that, exact, moment.

"'Sire'?!" he repeated with a laugh. "Oh, you'll be begging for treats next. Maybe a belly rub?"

"You're more of a dog than he is," Scott commented casually, eyeing Martyn while moving to sip his drink. Martyn jutted his bottom jaw forward, suddenly less entertained than he had been a moment ago.

"Right down to being abandoned on the side of the road," Owen followed up, equally as casual and sipping from his own glass like he didn't have a care in the world, like all was right and he was just enjoying the night.

"Okay, we're going to stop making jokes like that," Cleo said, looking over at him, and Owen paused in blatant confusion while placing his glass back down.

"Who said it was a joke?"

There was a snort from Pyro while Shelby sipped her drink to stop herself from getting involved; as much as she felt bad for Martyn, he had tried to kill her and her sympathies only extended so far.

"I think," Pyro said, trying to get ahead of anything that might start bubbling over between Cleo, Martyn, and Owen, "we need to play a little nicer? Perhaps?" He was looking to Scott for approval or agreement, and got nothing from him. Legundo was nodding along, though, very obviously grateful that someone else was helping to mediate.

There was a reason for Scott's lack of reaction, though. He was a little distracted by a figure on the bridge. A figure that caused him to give a noise of distaste towards the new arrival.

Chapter Text

Apo had been wrong; the group's absence had been noticed.

Pearl had been the first their absence had been brought up to, with some amount of nervous energy making him wring his hands together as he suggested that they go looking for them; two of them would probably be enough, and nothing bad happened around Pearl. She'd shrugged him off, saying that they'd probably gone out for resources and dragged the doctor along in case they ran into trouble. She reasoned that Martyn had just been thrown from a bridge, and having the medical man on stand-by was a good idea, if he could avoid suggesting unnecessary procedures for long enough that Martyn would consider trusting him.

Despite their talk, he couldn't shake the feeling that it was something else. A resource run at sunset didn't make any sense, and especially didn't when there'd been two vampires within the town's borders only hours before, ensuring that the town's beacon wouldn't be protecting any of them. There was a chance that they believed in safety in numbers, but then, why wouldn't they stay with the rest of the residents? Ten was a bigger number than six.

When he thought he could get away unnoticed, as his neighbours began bidding each other goodnight and retiring to their homes, he slipped out of the town and jogged to try finding them. He knew that he was, potentially, making a mistake--he was on his own, running through the forest at night, having not told anyone where he was going--but he needed to try. He hadn't been there to help Pyro. He hadn't been there to help Shelby. He hadn't been there to help Martyn not be thrown off of the bridge.

He had to find them.

There were so many options of where they might have gone. There were beacons that weren't holding divine light. There were crypts that could be searched for tomes and books to help their joint survival. There was also one location that was stuck in his head. The first place he'd thought about as soon as he'd noticed their departure. A place that he kept returning to so that he could watch from a distance as the vampires went about their business.

The journey was a beeline straight to the bridge before he moved quickly and quietly across it, careful to avoid the gaps and trying desperately to go unnoticed for long enough that he could hear what was happening. It worked, to an extent; he could just barely see well enough to watch Pyro pouring out glasses of liquid and distributing them among the residents of Oakhurst, and was just close enough to hear the louder parts of their conversation.

Most of what he caught was, admittedly, arguing. He couldn't even pretend to be surprised, but didn't have to pretend when he heard a very loud question posed in his direction.

"What are you doing here?!"

Scott had noticed him, gaining everyone's attention and causing them all to look at him. He stood up straight, a deer in the headlights, and backed away just a little as Owen and Scott looked at each other.

"Paper, rock, scissors to decide who deals with him?" Owen suggested, earning a squint from Scott.

"I'd have thought you'd jump at the chance," Pyro commented, frowning at Owen. "All that blood-lust."

"If I go, there's no guarantee he survives, and I'd like him to see their downfall," Owen explained, his tone beyond casual but his words holding enough threat to have Apo narrowing her eyes at him.

"There won't be a downfall," she said before looking to Cleo. "Maybe we should…? For Avid's sake…" Cleo didn't get the opportunity to answer--though their answer would've probably been a 'no' if the look they gave Apo was anything to go by--because Scott was already on his feet, complaining about how he was already doing everything around here that required socialising and he may as well deal with this annoyance, too.

"I mean… I.. I could…" Shelby offered quietly, not loud enough for Scott to hear over his own complaining but very quickly given an answer by Owen; a shake of his head as he sipped his drink, and she followed his lead by drinking from her own glass in a very small movement.

"You didn't answer my question," he said loudly as he approached the visitor. Avid backed away by another few steps, clearly trying to stay within some kind of range of the group but also trying to get far enough away from Scott to feel safe. He was decidedly too slow, ending up with the vampire closer to him than he was necessarily comfortable with. "Well?"

"I'm looking after my friends." There was an attempt at some bravado in his voice, but his nerves were louder. Scott merely frowned in confusion that may have been an act; he gave the impression that he was very happy to humiliate whoever he could in whatever way he could. Looking at Avid like he wasn't quite the sharpest tool in the shed was, by far, the easiest way he could manage it.

"From the bridge?" he questioned, frown still in place before his expression relaxed. "Yes. You're doing an excellent job. It's only, what? A short marathon to get inside?" His tone was all dry, biting sarcasm as he glanced behind him and threw out a hand to gesture to the distance between the end of the bridge and the start of the table. Avid shifted, cheeks burning with embarrassment, as Scott moved to lean on the archway, watching Avid unblinkingly. "Tell the truth."

Somehow, the almost soft tone was worse than the sarcasm, and Avid hesitated before looking to the four that'd come from town as they watched the conversation. Cleo and Legundo seemed to be fully at ease, but Avid felt a little better with how closely Apo and Martyn were watching.

"I was worried about you." He looked back up to Scott's face, frowning and mildly more confident with the thought that if anything went wrong, he could rely on at least two of them to help him. "What are you doing?"

"Oh. We're trying diplomacy." He was either sarcastically thrilled by the idea, or genuinely enjoying the inherent politics of diplomacy. Avid couldn't truly tell either way, and the mixture of uncharacteristic enthusiasm drowning his words and his large, seemingly genuine smile was not helping him figure it out. Regardless, he didn't want to think too hard about it; he was fairly certain that Scott wasn't one for negotiations or deals, and trying to imagine him as potentially reasonable felt wrong in some wholly unspecific way.

In the face of Avid's confused and doubtful silence, Scott dropped any sense of enjoyment in the seconds before he said, "now go away."

"No! I'm…" He paused, trying to work out the chances of him getting immediately slaughtered before deciding that the maths behind figuring out probabilities was too difficult to do on the spot and he had at least two people willing to stop Scott. "I'm allowed to be here."

Avid took a single step forward and immediately reconsidered the decision to do so when Scott didn't step back, not even a little bit. Behind the other man, the others had gone back to talking quietly and Avid was certain that he heard Pyro state that peace negotiations may be 'unsolvable due to the humans' aggression'.

"I didn't give you permission," Scott said, drawing his eyebrows together in an expression settled somewhere in the region of judgemental bewilderment about the audacity that Avid had somehow gained access to. "You're not allowed here. Leave."

"I'm allowed here. These are ruins."

"This archway isn't a ruin, it's new," Scott said, pointing to it as if Avid wouldn't be able to tell which of the singular archways he was talking about if he didn't make it obvious. It wasn't appreciated, but Scott either couldn't read Avid's expression or didn't care. "So's the floor." Another gesture in the right direction, highlighting specifically the opposite end of the room. "Shelby and Pyro did a wonderful job with it." There was a warmth and fondness to his tone with the praise, which made Pyro glance in their direction before he shared a look with Shelby, her grin filled with excited glee.

"We did a good job!" she said quietly to Pyro, barely audible at the distance Scott and Avid were from the group.

"Anyway." Scott drew Avid's attention back to him, the sweetest possible smile now plastered onto his face in a way that felt so wrong, so wildly out of place, like a mask to hide the murderous intent, smothering it in something so sickly sweet that no one would want to look further under the surface. It made the hairs on the back of Avid's neck stand on end, every nerve in his body screaming at him to run. "This is private property, and you're trespassing. Leave."

Avid scoffed at him.

"This isn't private property," he said like it was a ridiculous excuse, fighting back the urge to wring his hands and bow his head and make his excuses to do exactly what Scott wanted. "I don't have to go anywhere." As he said that, Scott rolled his eyes and gave an inconvenienced 'ugh'.

"Everyone moved here, and no one looked up the history…" It was another small complaint, said quietly before he stopped leaning, made sure his clothing was presentable and properly straightened out to look prim and professional, and forced the most polite smile onto his face that Avid had ever witnessed on another person. He somehow managed to suppress a shudder that he couldn't have explained the reason for while watching Scott. "This," Scott threw a hand up to gesture vaguely to the ruins around them, "is the Goldsmith Estate, and I am your history teacher, Scott Goldsmith."

Avid's expression very quickly turned from determined and disbelieving to panicked with the realisation that, maybe, this actually was private property.

"This manor--castle--has been in the Goldsmith family for generations and under the ownership of one Scott Goldsmith," he placed a hand against his own chest to signal that the 'Scott Goldsmith' in question was himself, causing Avid to notice his claws, his eyes widening as he took a small step back, "for centuries."

"Except when the town took it over," Owen supplied, the conversation between Scott and Avid very clearly being considered more interesting than the conversation at the table.

"They stole from me. I didn't sign a deed," Scott said, turning to look at Owen as he fought not to laugh and sipped his drink.

"So… So how many centuries?" Avid asked, desperately trying to make it sound like a confident challenge against him, but only managing to sound somewhat fearful of exactly how old Scott actually was. Scott was unbothered by both the attempt and the reality, mouthing numbers and squinting at the forest behind Avid like the trees were going to bend and twist to tell him the answer. When they didn't, he shrugged.

"I don't remember," he said, dismissive about the gap in his knowledge. "I wasn't made for maths." There was an expression like expecting him to be able to do maths was ridiculous and a fool's belief, if ever there was one. "I was made to slay." He was very much expecting a reaction besides being stared at blankly by Avid and got nothing instead. When it was obvious that he was waiting for no reason, he forced out a sigh. "Get it? Slay? Like… Like, 'slay," he struck a pose that was worthy of a photo, "but also like, slay." Another pose, this time to show off his claws as his top lip tugged up on the left side to show one of his fangs, nose and left eye scrunching to accommodate the expression.

Once again, Avid gave him absolutely nothing. Shelby, on the other hand, had moved over silently to hear their conversation better and giggled from slightly behind Scott. He turned with a hint of surprise before giving her a look of sincere appreciation for her reaction.

"Honestly," Scott said to her, seemingly insulted by the fact that Avid had exclusively stared at him this entire time, "I'm wasted on humans. None of them understand a good joke. None of them."

"Tell me one and I'd react," Avid said, immediately opening himself up for the home-run that Owen gratefully and graciously took the opportunity to bat from the other end of the table, the conversation that he was supposed to be a part of having died at some point to allow them all to be witness to this conversation instead.

"I have a joke, Avid," he called over to Avid, having made himself very comfortable in his seat. "You."

Scott completely corpsed on the spot, frozen to stop himself from laughing while everyone else had a mixture of reactions. Avid was glaring at the ground under his feet while trying to ignore the burning in his cheeks, a couple of those sat at the table were surprised, Apo was scowling at Owen, Shelby was stunned into silence behind Scott, and Legundo was not resisting the small chuckle that escaped him before telling Owen that he shouldn't be saying things like that as it could derail their negotiations. Owen frowned at him.

"I think we've been plenty derailed by Avid, frankly, doctor," he said with a hint of laughter mixed into his words, sipping out of his glass as emphasis for how casual he was. Avid had glanced up in the hopes of some kind of defence from the doctor, but he caught sight of the liquid in Owen's glass and fixated on it instantly.

"Perhaps, but we shouldn't encourage-"

"What is that?!" He made the mistake of taking a step forward, into the doorway of the castle, barely noticing when Scott put a hand against his chest to stop him, the very tips of his nails almost noticeable through his clothing.

"Excuse me? No. You're not allowed in." Scott sounded almost scandalised by Avid's rudeness of trying to walk into a place he wasn't invited into, and Avid stared up at him for a moment before pulling a face.

"These are ruins," he said, his tone surprisingly harsh but not harsh enough to stop Scott from pushing him back out of the boundaries of the castle.

"This is mahogany." He almost sounded like he was scolding Avid, pointing down at the rotting floor while leaning into his personal space just a little bit. "Ruins don't have hardwood floors."

"They're rotten floors."

"They're still hardwood. They don't change to a different type of wood because of the rain."

Somehow, Avid not caring about the floor being the thing that bothered Scott the most in that moment was the least surprising thing that Avid had witnessed since arriving in Oakhurst. He wasn't sure if it was a little bit funny or incredibly worrying that he felt he'd gotten to know Scott enough to expect this reaction.

"What is he drinking?"

"It's cows' blood," Pyro supplied, throwing in a 'cheers' before drinking from his own glass, as if to taunt Avid. Owen laughed next to him, his laugh sounding a little bit malicious but not enough to be of any concern. Avid squinted at Pyro, ignoring Owen completely.

"I don't believe that…"

"You don't need to," Scott said, standing between Avid and Pyro to cut off his line of sight and draw attention from those sat at the table. "You shouldn't even be here." He placed both hands on Avid's shoulders before moving to turn him around gently, like Avid was an annoying child and Scott was trying to keep enough patience to not be rough while handling him. "Just go home. They are safe. You might suffer from the terrors of the nigh-" His light-hearted words were cut off by Avid turning back around, sword out and currently pressed into Scott's stomach.

Both of them froze in the same moment, Scott in surprise and Avid in instant regret. Behind Scott, everyone was on their feet. Shelby had jumped and uttered a small scream when she saw just the very tip of Avid's blade poking out of Scott's back, which had most of them standing in unison while Martyn and Apo had stood in response to Owen and Pyro standing.

"I think we all need to calm down," Martyn tried, for once not making the situation worse. If Cleo hadn't been eyeing everyone else to figure out who they might need to cut off, they would have looked proud of him. As it was, they didn't have the opportunity between trying to figure out if Owen or Pyro were about to run forward to kill Avid and trying to figure out if Apo was going to try fighting both of them to allow Avid an escape.

An escape that, in that moment at least, he would not have taken; neither he nor Scott had moved even a little bit. The singular change between them was the rise and fall of Avid's chest as he breathed, trying to quiet the panic that was shooting through him in waves, an alarm in his body that he couldn't turn off.

"I… I didn't… I didn't…" He was stumbling over his words, watching Scott as he looked down at the sword, still held in Avid's hand.

"Ow."

His gaze turned up to Avid's face, finding only pure terror and regret. Particularly regret. He was petrified beyond all belief, unable to move for fear of what Scott might do if he wasn't skewered, but the regret was a far stronger feeling and fuelling his inaction more than the fear.

"I… I didn't mean-"

"No, you did." Scott's tone was almost poisonous, a snarl that smoothly slithered into Avid's ears, quietly harsh and full of promises of all the potential cruelty that he could provide. Avid could only breathe in response, shakily drawn in breaths that perfectly complimented his heart palpitations. "You know," now his tone was almost conversational, but still holding the promises of cruelty, hidden under the almost friendly tilt like a bear trap under a soft blanket, "if you really want to do harm," he was saying as he leaned in, decidedly enjoying the way that Avid's eyes were widening more and more with each passing second, "you need to put in effort."

The harshness that hadn't quite left his voice had turned, twisting into contempt and quiet fury, the grace inherent to vampires tuned into a more wildly aggressive wavelength in the seconds before he stepped close to Avid, forcing the sword further out through his own back and closing the already small distance between them.

As if their close proximity had made Avid truly realise how much danger he was in, his survival instincts turned on and he let go of the sword while scrambling to get away, stumbling over his feet as he moved backwards and almost falling into the nearest gap. He grabbed the railings of the bridge to keep himself upright, trying to get an apology out but lacking the ability to voice even a single sound.

Legundo, possibly forgetting where he was and who he was with, darted forward to help Scott, seeing 'injured man' and not thinking even once about whether or not he needed to do his job. He had a hand on Scott's shoulder, moving to look at the stab wound with almost professional concern in the seconds before Scott was pulling the sword out by himself, tossing to the side and letting it land on the stone of the bridge while watching Avid.

"Scott," it was Legundo, tone careful but calm, having evidently remembered the situation that he was in. He was fully interrupted by Scott, whose tone sounded like the eye of the storm; too calm, too still, and too close to destruction.

"I'm fine," he said, before calling back to the others, "keep talking."

With that, he stalked forward quickly and silently, his footsteps not making a single noise on the stone of the bridge as he abandoned both the negotiations and Legundo in the archway to hunt Avid. Apo made to run after the pair, moving around the chairs next to her, but stopped when Owen spoke.

"They'll be fine," he said, though his tone suggested that if Avid was fine, then Owen would ensure he wasn't for very long, full of unspecified threats while he refused to move from where he'd gotten to when himself and Pyro had initially moved to help Scott.

Finally, after a moment too long for Apo, Owen looked at her with an oddly hollow expression. "We've talked."

Chapter Text

Every stumbled step, every tiny movement, held desperation. He had to get off of this bridge, away from the castle, away from danger. He had to find the path through the forest. He had to keep running, to not stop until he got back to town. If he could see Ren's cabin, he'd know that he was safe. He was sure the walls and gates of the town wouldn't do anything to help him, but who would invite Scott into their homes? Not Ren. He was certain of that much, at least.

He just needed to get to Ren's cabin.

While Scott had been distracted with the sword--though 'distracted' wasn't accurate; his gaze had yet to drift from Avid onto something else that could hold his attention--Avid had turned and ran. He was thinking too quickly, though; his limbs were reacting to things that his brain had already abandoned as potentially helpful to him in that situation, making him uncoordinated and causing problems for himself.

He wasn't bad at hunting, though he wasn't experienced with the physicality of it all, but he also wasn't used to that. He wasn't used to stabbing something and that something moving along the sword to prove a point. Elle hadn't done it. Nothing he'd ever seen had done it, even in his research. And what was the point? Was it that he wasn't safe, even with weapons? Was it that he, specifically, would always be in danger if Scott could reach him?

Was it that he'd made a mistake? Because he'd heard that point loud and clear in only the other man's 'ow'. He was very aware that he'd made a mistake. There didn't need to be any follow up to that, because he'd known from the moment he'd done it.

Clearly, he wasn't aware enough for Scott. The man was moving quicker and with more coordination in his fluid movements than Avid was even capable of in his panicked state. Where Avid stumbled and struggled to cleanly get across the amateur bridge building of the townsfolk, Scott was almost gliding across silently, moving with ease over mismatched beams of wood and crumbling pillars of stone.

And he knew. He knew that Scott was having an easier time of it. In the moments that he could hear anything over his heart beating and his blood rushing in his ears, there was the sounds of stones moving and wood creaking behind him, and every noise was closer,

and closer,

and closer,

until a hand grabbed him by the back of his collar. Claws punctured through the fabric of his shirt as he was tugged backwards and turned around roughly, the sound of tearing fabric being one of the loudest audible things in the stillness and suffocating silence of the night. The only other noises were Avid's panting and shallow breaths, and his scrambling footsteps as he tried to regain his balance.

"No! Please." It was a cry, followed by a whimper as he looked up at Scott's face, trying to fight his grip. He froze upon registering the emptiness of Scott's expression. He'd been expecting something. Rage, or blood-lust, or even disappointment. Something, but there was nothing. No emotion. No intent. A death mask on perfect, porcelain skin, staring down at him, unblinking and still, lifeless and lacking in human warmth, inhuman in every way except appearance,

and it chilled him.

It made dread plummet into the pit of his stomach, icy and solid and tearing through every organ to reach deeper, find depths that Avid hadn't known could exist inside his body. It gave him a certainty, convinced him that he would die this night, with Apo being warned not to interfere and Cleo hesitating between staying out of it entirely and charging at Scott's back. He knew that it would take too long for either of them to reach the pair, and he grasped at Scott's arms.

"Please. I'll go. I'll go back to town. I won't… I'll-!"

"I gave you the chance."

Why did his tone hold familiarity? Why did his words curve like they were written in cursive? Why did he sound so calm? It would have driven Avid insane if he hadn't realised that Scott didn't sound calm. Not really. There was a cover of calm, teasing familiarity, but it weren't strong enough to hide the shake. He knew it wasn't fear--what would Scott have to be afraid of?--but instinct couldn't tell him what it was.

There was no anger or irritation, no annoyance, no hint of determination that Avid would suffer a fate worse than death for acting against him. It was sharp, so sharp that he was temporarily scared of being cut by anything Scott said. It was so controlled and so hollow, yet burning through every sound, every letter, and made Avid wish he could disappear or turn back time, reconsider even coming to Oakhurst in the first place.

It was rage, tinted with contempt. A controlled wrath that bubbled under the surface of Scott's words. A rushing torrent of malice that threatened to pull him apart and scatter him across the land.

"I'm sorry."

This tiny apology, this quiet plead for mercy, made Scott pause. There was still nothing in his eyes, no sign of life in his face, no hint that he'd even heard Avid except for his pause, until he smiled. A horrific expression, full of fangs and venom, splitting across Scott's face only inches from Avid's, making him consider crying to see if that might help him.

He was out of ideas for how to survive; fight had gotten him here, freeze hadn't helped, flight hadn't worked, fawn had only made him show his teeth. Maybe openly weeping would benefit Avid, or at least make him seem so pathetic that Scott would feel bad for him and let him go.

It felt like a long shot, but long shots were his only available option now.

"You're sorry because it didn't work." His voice was hushed with fury, with how much he seemed to absolutely despise Avid in that moment, and that dread had found another level to drop into. "You know," and again his words were curling around Avid, twisting around him too tightly, making it difficult for him to breathe through his fear, "you're lucky. Owen wants you to survive." He didn't feel lucky, staring at those sharp teeth as they let each letter out of the cavern that was Scott in his entirety. "I would be happy to just tear your throat out, make it quick," he said, like that would be a kindness that Avid hadn't earned, "but he wants you alive." The teeth were gone, hidden from view behind a coy little smile, like they were friends and he wasn't talking about his desire to slaughter Avid on this bridge, in front of his friends, an example of what not to do for peace.

"I can give him that. I'm not adverse to you suffering the deaths of all your neighbours." The smile was turning sadistic as he continued speaking. "I think it'd be worse if you were one of us, fighting off the hunger while we slaughter them. Think about it; smelling the blood and knowing its source, and all you can feel is thirst." He gave a small giggle, entertained by the horror in Avid's expression, the terror that was tearing through him at a breakneck speed, keeping him paralysed in Scott's vice-like grip on the front of his collar, holding him off-balance above the nearest gap in the bridge with nothing to break his potential fall than the water below.

"But, I'm not adverse to giving Owen what he wants, and he wants you alive."

He stopped before he finished the sentence, but Avid could hear it. He could hear the buildup in Scott's voice, the anticipation, waiting for the reveal that Scott wouldn't say. Avid tried to breathe through the tightness in his chest, past the way his heart seemed to be bouncing off of his lungs, avoiding thinking about his sudden hyper awareness of his own body.

"… b-but?"

"But, I still get to have my fun. You only need to be alive, not uninjured. Two very different states of being." The sadism in his smile had grown, the curve of his lips full of pure glee for the possibilities that were open to him. "I could bring you to the brink of death, let you feel it reaching for you, and so long as you survive then Owen would be happy." A protective warmth spread through his very existence like sunlight on a Spring day in the same moment that Scott's gaze finally left his face, Scott's eyes closing in a single blink as he looked past him, down to the water below.

"I wonder how many bones will survive."

Scott's tone was innocently curious despite how hollow his words were, but Avid's eyes widened in realisation; Scott wasn't even going to bite him. He wasn't going to hurt him directly. He didn't need to. The water would do that. The surface would feel like concrete and paving slabs, solid and unyielding from this height. If he survived, it'd be agony.

Bordering on hyperventilating, Avid shook his head.

"No! No. I-! Please!" He thought he was going to break down crying, begging for Scott to just stop, to have mercy on him, to be playing with him and suddenly declare that it was all a cruel joke, a trick to teach him a lesson. The lesson was learned--more than learned, now a part of his very being--but he didn't stop. He just laughed, Avid's pleads like music to his ears, while his laughter was a dagger against Avid's throat, a potent threat. "I'll do anything! I-… anything!"

"Lovely." His tone was so warm, but so empty; an abyss hidden by the sunrise. An abyss that Avid was staring into, praying to find something alive in there that would have pity for him, that would decide he could walk away from this. There wasn't hope alive in Avid so much as pure desperation, searching for some way out of this, trying to claw his way back to being a minor annoyance at worst. "I don't want anything from you, Avid. There's nothing you can do."

"Please."

"No. You don't get it." He somehow pulled Avid closer, the warmth and smile and laughter becoming only a memory in Avid's head, setting up camp so he wouldn't forget, fitting comfortably into the space next to Elle's body. "I don't care."

His voice was deathly calm as he spoke, viciously gentle in the seconds before he let go. It was such a simple, small, and sudden movement, and Avid couldn't hold on. His arms were tired of being so tense with no hint of relief, and gravity felt so strong that there was no resistance to be found.

He just fell.

While Avid's eyes were wide, full of panic and terror and the absolute belief that this would kill him, Scott's face was empty but beautiful, a blank mask hiding the pure disdain he held for Avid as he watched him fall. There was no reaction to be found, no sense of satisfaction nor remorse, a perfect statue on the bridge, gazing down upon the water below.

Chapter Text

The others had been watching from afar, and the moment that Avid left the bridge, avoiding every piece of support that could have--even painfully--slowed his decent thanks to the angle of his fall, there was only silence. No footsteps sounded on the bridge, and there wasn't a breath to be had within the boundaries of the castle. Even nature, in its limited form, seemed to hold itself still; no breeze blew, no leaves ruffled or rustled, no animals made themselves known among the treeline of the forests surrounding the area. The moon continued its journey across the sky, but so slowly that one would be forgiven for thinking that even time had paused.

When there was movement, it was the doctor breaking into a run to reach the edge of the bridge, to look over the railings and try to find where Avid had plunged into the cold waters below. There were ripples, sparkling in the moonlight like the stars above, a flawed mirror of the sky, but nothing concrete to prove that he'd survived. Not at first, anyway.

Eventually, after far longer than Legundo was necessarily comfortable with, he saw him. Every tiny reach or push to climb the shoreline was pained and slow, but Avid was alive and seemingly without any broken bones if he had both gotten out of the water and started climbing the hill that the castle stood on. It hadn't been a soft landing, by any means, but something had helped him. The doctor relaxed against the railings, deciding that he didn't need to head down; despite their differences, despite the ways that Avid had make a joke out of the medicine and everything that Legundo had worked towards, he'd sworn to do no harm and inaction was not acceptable.

Behind him, Shelby had crept forward to speak quietly.

"Is he okay?"

Legundo looked to her with surprise before nodding.

"I think so." He turned back to watch Avid, who'd noticed he was being watched and lay amongst the grass and stones, either to blend in or to rest. Legundo couldn't tell which one was more likely and didn't want to point him out and start asking. "He's alive."

"Shame." Owen had also snuck over, making Shelby jump when she heard him before she scolded at him.

"Stop doing that." The events of the night had taken enough of a toll that any anger she could have held in her voice was completely lacking. He stared at her in mild confusion before revealing that he'd brought his drink with him, sipping it judgementally while holding her gaze. She won the impromptu staring contest when he downed the rest of his drink and turned to walk back to his seat, moving silently past Pyro to sit down, who was very much giving the impression that he hadn't been fully aware of his own existence until that moment and wasn't particularly appreciative of the realisation.

"If you want to get him," Scott said as he reached the doctor, moving casually to pick up Avid's sword from the other side of the bridge to where Legundo and Shelby were stood, "you're welcome to, so long as you take him home. I don't want to deal with him."

"You tried to kill him and you don't want to deal with him?!" Apo asked, marching towards Scott. Behind her, Martyn was being forced to sit by Cleo, who had a hand on his shoulder and a stern expression on their face. They had, very clearly, had a word with him that had potentially included the words, 'do you want to fall off of it again?' because he had an air about him of a child who'd just been grounded, arms crossed as he slumped in his seat.

"I tried to kill him?! He stabbed me." Scott was pointing at the side of the bridge. "Do you want to join him, since you've tried to kill me in the past, too? We'll make it a tradition; if you try to kill me, you go for a swim."

"Martyn didn't hit the water."

"You don't have to, either."

The pair were glaring at each other, both on the edge of violence but only one of them holding a weapon. Eventually, after ensuring that Martyn would stay in his seat, Cleo appeared next to the pair.

"Enough," they said, and when Apo opened her mouth to argue, they added, "both of you."

"I think they should fight…" Owen commented under his breath while moving to find a bottle of blood to refill his glass with. "Did you plan to kill him, by the way? Because you did a terrible job of it."

"I-?!" Scott pulled his lips into a tight, irritated purse before kissing his teeth. "Right." He gently gestured for Cleo to step aside, which they did with a sweep of their hand as if approving of his attention being directed solely at Owen, and he walked to the table before leaning on an empty chair. "You are not going to lecture me about killing anyone."

"He's alive."

"You wanted him alive! I can go down there and finish him off, if you want. Or you can do it so you can learn how to kill people."

"I massacred a village!"

"People survived your 'massacre'!" Scott paused. "By the way, why am I getting stabbed?! I haven't done anything. Owen keeps threatening to do things, how am I the biggest danger?"

"You're a monster," Apo stated, words thick with disgust and distaste for him. Scott glanced her way before giving an inconvenienced, 'ugh.'

"It's always 'you're a monster' 'you threw someone off of a bridge' 'you killed an entire family' but never 'you got stabbed? That must have hurt'." He rolled his eyes and shook his head, pulling a face that suggested he was distinctly put out by Apo's reaction. "It did hurt, by the way."

"No one asked," Martyn mumbled, being immediately ignored by Scott while Cleo seemed to be considering the pros and cons of telling him off, because they had just managed to break up Apo and Scott and Martyn wasn't making keeping the peace into an easy task.

"Are you okay, though? You're not going to…" Shelby paused, realising that what she'd been about to say may have sounded ridiculous but being unable to figure out what else she could supplement it with. "Bleed out?" She narrowed her eyes at herself, staring at the table blankly for a moment while the others looked at her questioningly.

"Yeah, Scott. Are you going to bleed out?" Owen repeated, having been the first to recover from the surprise of a vampire being asked if he would bleed out. Scott shot him a look before turning his back on Owen.

"She cares more than you do," he said while turning his attention to Shelby. "I'm not going to bleed out, but I do have this temporary new hole that I don't know what to do with." He paused while considering something. "I mean, I know some things you can do with a hole, but not this kind of hole."

Pyro had finally caught up from his awareness that he existed and frowned. "Sire? I thought vampires couldn't…?"

"Don't… do that with any new holes," Legundo said somewhat awkwardly, "you might… get an infection."

Silence fell again, except for Martyn laughing quietly at the table, hand over his mouth to stop himself making any jokes. Several had come to mind very quickly and he was struggling to resist every urge to speak.

"Excuse me?" Owen looked to Scott, who was biting his lips together in pure confusion about what Legundo had said, eyebrows drawn together to fully complete the look. "This is all your fault."

"This is Avid's fault; he stabbed me," Scott said briskly before moving to sweep his way through the banquet hall, past Martyn who was still trying not to make any jokes, to place the sword against one of the walls. Shelby followed him close behind, moving to sit in her seat silently while he was moving the sword along the wall to pick the perfect spot for it.

"Did you… know he wouldn't die?" she asked as she sat, tone making it obvious that this subject had been gnawing at her, and she was momentarily glanced at by Scott before he nodded and went back to positioning the sword.

"They got a beacon. Felt it go…" There was an undeniably high amount of disappointment in his voice. "Thought it might do some damage, though." He gave a small noise of thought before musing aloud. "Maybe I forgot how durable humans are…"

Silence fell again as Cleo gestured to Apo and the doctor that they should probably sit down. Legundo cast another look over the edge of the bridge, down to where Avid was picking his way up the hill, because he had not learned his lesson as much as he thought he had.

"What's this in aid of?" Owen asked with a point towards the sword, watching Scott until the moment that Pyro placed a bottle of blood on the table next to him, at which point he set to work refilling his glass.

"I'm going to make a collection. 'Weapons that people have tried to kill me with'." Scott said with a smile, leaning back to see if he liked its current position as Apo, Legundo, and Cleo returned to the table. "Do any of you have your ones?" Scott asked, glancing in the vague direction of Apo, Martyn, and Cleo so that they knew who he was talking to.

While Apo shook her head silently, Cleo and Martyn simple stared for a moment before Cleo sat down next to Martyn again.

"I am never giving you mine," Martyn said, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Immediately after he finished speaking, Cleo spoke.

"I'm still using mine." They eyed Scott carefully, cautiously, like they were wary of even answering in case he decided that their denial was a good enough reason to throw them off, next. Instead of a negative reaction, the pair of them got a distracted nod and a noise of understanding, because not wanting to give something away either out of spite or it still being useful both made sense to him and he couldn't really complain about it. He was tempted to try, but he couldn't justify it to himself.

"That's a shame." He didn't sound like it was, words light and easily spoken as he turned on his heels and moved to sit back down. "It's so lonely, just sat there…"

"Oh, just like him!" Owen said brightly, finally placing the bottle he was using in the middle of the table.

"Harsh," Cleo commented, gaining only a simple shrug from Owen.

"It's harsh to stab someone, too," he said, swirling the blood around in his glass. "I do think, though, that Pyro may have been right, earlier; peace negotiations can't happen while the townsfolk are so…" He paused to look directly at Martyn. "bloodthirsty." Even that was enough to have Martyn bristling, on the edge of anger within seconds.

"Us?! You're the one literally drinking blood."

"You have a glass. Pyro gave you one." Owen glanced at Pyro out of the corner of his eye, displeased with Martyn having anything. "For some reason…"

"I don't want your blood."

"It's not ours, it's a cow's, and you're the ones who keep trying to kill people," Scott countered, staring at him as Martyn glared back at him, Scott leaning back in his seat comfortably while Martyn refused to even consider being comfortable during this conversation, leaning on the table and seemingly seconds from getting out of his seat. He was only stopped by Cleo, placing a hand on his shoulder again to remind him that they could stop him. "Even tonight!"

"You deserve it," Martyn snapped quickly, making Pyro shift uncomfortably within the topic of conversation while Shelby eyed him for a moment, hesitating before choosing to speak up.

"So… do we… all deserve it?" she asked, words small and timid, looking at the table in front of her like she was afraid of the reaction she'd get from Martyn if she looked back in his direction. "I… I haven't even bitten anyone…" Her voice only got smaller, quieter, and slightly heartbroken in a way that made Scott move a hand to hold hers, squeezing her hand gently and getting a grateful smile as she looked at his face.

"No." Cleo looked around at them all, gaze lingering on Owen, who was just watching them with glass in hand. "We can still make peace. We can make a deal."

"I don't think we can." Martyn was on his feet, since Cleo had taken their hand off of his shoulder in order to place them both on the table.

"Martyn-" Cleo's voice was a warning that Martyn did not heed while Owen rolled his eyes and drank from his glass.

"No!" He drew his sword while moving around Shelby to place the tip of the blade under Scott's chin, ignoring Pyro tensing and saying that this seemed like a bad idea. Shelby, however, had moved quickly away from Martyn and pulled her drink along with her to avoid the glass being broken or the blood spilling all over the table. "You and him--" he jerked his head in Owen's direction, ignoring the confused and mildly insulted little frown that appeared on Owen's face as he touched a hand to his chest as if to question if Martyn was talking about him, "--are dangerous. You both deserve everything you get."

"I deserve another hole?!" Scott asked, jokingly distressed by the idea and potentially making Martyn angrier with the lack of serious consideration about the current situation. "Another one."

"Please stop," Cleo requested in Scott's direction before rising to their feet, gently placing a hand on Shelby's shoulder to reassure her. "Martyn. We need to be able to talk it out with them," they were saying, but Martyn was shaking his head.

"Not with him. He came into our town-"

"I did what?!" Scott's eyes were widened at Martyn, who clenched his jaw in response. "I agree, actually. I don't think I can talk to him." His tone was full of amusement, like this was just a segment in a comedy show and he was having a whale of a time. This attitude only served to bother Martyn even more, somehow; the fact that he wasn't being taken seriously, that Scott didn't seem to register him as a threat at all. "Especially in these conditions…"

"Stop," Legundo said to him--fighting back any amusement of his own in order to help Cleo, sensing that things could very quickly dissolve into pure chaos if they weren't careful--before turning his attention to Martyn. "Talking will save people. That's our goal. That's one of the reasons we're here."

"Killing him will save more."

"Wait, one of the reasons?" Owen asked, frowning at Cleo and Legundo in confusion about what the other reasons could have been.

"The doctor had questions," Cleo said quickly, and an expression of understand faded over Owen's features before he nodded. Meanwhile, Scott was catching up to the idea that killing him would save more people than making a deal would, more than a little lost.

"What are you saving people from?" he asked Martyn, a hint of a laugh dancing along his tone, mixing with his bemusement and potentially not helping the situation, though it was clear that he wasn't necessarily trying to help the situation. "Immortality? Strength? Flight?" Any confusion had disappeared, its space soon filled by thick and heavy sarcasm as he said, "you're right. It's a cursed existence. Getting to turn into a bat and go wherever I want? Terrible. Awful. No one wants to fly…"

"We died. Pyro, Shelby, Apo, Cleo, me, Legundo. We all died. Because of you." Martyn squared his shoulders, holding the blade close enough to be a threat to Scott's skin but not quite cutting into his neck.

"I… feel very much alive…" Pyro muttered under his breath, looking down like he was fact-checking himself and trying to figure out if he might have been a ghost or something similar. He was thoroughly ignored by Martyn, though Owen had snorted in amusement.

"You are the only one who's really angry about it," Scott pointed out to Martyn. "Even Apo-"

"Don't involved me. I hate you." Apo sat back, mimicking Scott's posture, just watching the pair, watching how Scott's eyes flicked to her with a general lack of appreciation about him before his gaze went back to Martyn's face. Scott forced out a sigh.

"Okay, two of you are angry about it."

Scott had an air of amusement about him, which was decidedly not what Martyn had been hoping for.

"God, you're insufferable," he said after a few moments of silence, his features having twisted into something between pity and disgust for the man in front of him, the man who seemingly didn't care about whether or not he'd ruined anyone's lives with his actions. Scott laughed softly.

"Thank you!" he said, seemingly basking in the attention despite it being distinctly bad attention. "I've spent so long trying to be insufferable. I'm glad all that effort is working." His words were drowning in affectionate gratitude, like he believed that Martyn was trying to compliment him despite everything suggesting otherwise. "So, like… what do you think happens if you kill me, Martyn?" he asked coyly, as if they were flirting on a date and he didn't have a sword held to his throat.

"You die," Martyn said, voice heavy with irritation.

"Right. Obviously," Scott said, rolling his eyes. "But what do you think happens to the rest of you?"

"Everyone else is cured." This answer earned a scoff from Owen.

"There is no cure," he said dismissively, though his distaste for the very idea of a cure was blatant in his tone, blatant in the way he almost spat out the word 'cure', in the slight scrunch of his nose and top lip. "We're like this until we die for good, and I don't want that happening for a while."

"But also, what if that just… doesn't work?" Scott asked, hint of a smile on his face. "What if everyone I've turned dies? What if everyone they've turned dies?" He paused for a moment, the space provided holding expectation of an answer from Martyn. When an answer wasn't provided, because Martyn hadn't considered it, Scott continued. "What if the only person who survives this meeting is Owen? And with all you've done to anger him?" Scott sucked in air through clenched teeth while pulling a face of uncertainty. "Do you think Oakhurst survives? All those people you're trying to save?"

Realistically, it was about six people, but he wasn't going to point that out.

"It didn't last time," Owen added, sipping from his glass to punctuate his sentence, like he was helping the situation at all.

"Martyn, back down," Cleo said firmly, though Martyn didn't even so much as acknowledge their existence. His gaze was exclusively fixated on Scott, hand tight around the handle of the sword until he knew there would be an imprint of the sword's grip on his palm. "Martyn."

"See, here's the thing; I like having humans around. They're so useful. They can breed livestock, and provide us with animals for food, and if you give them a reason to keep you happy then you don't even need their blood." He paused again, pacing himself, giving himself time. "And you don't need to kill to drink blood. You can just skim a little bit off the top. No one really notices." He couldn't resist the urge to poke Martyn just a little bit. Just a tiny bit. "No one notices if you turn people, either."

That may have been a push too far, because Martyn set his jaw, kept his shoulders square, and stared into Scott's eyes as he said, "I'm done with this."

Chapter Text

As soon as the word 'this' left Martyn's mouth, with some amount of snarl to it, Shelby backed away from the potential fight and almost knocked Cleo into Apo's lap. The only reason that they stayed standing, was because both Pyro and Apo stood to defend different people in the same moment that Shelby moved, with Pyro focused on Scott's survival and Apo focused on Pyro's movements.

At the head of the table, Scott had grabbed the blade of Martyn's sword and forced it away from his neck, barely noticing it slicing into his hands as he moved to jam the pommel against Martyn's ribs as harshly as the limited space provided would allow him to. It didn't hurt Martyn, but did make him back away, and Scott took the opportunity to stand and jab the pommel at the same spot again. This time, with more space and better leverage, it forced Martyn into an awkward half-double over and he stumbled back by two steps, empty hand moving to his ribs, as Scott tore the sword from his grip.

While there was some distance between them--not a lot, but enough that he could get in between the pair of them--Legundo stood and moved around Apo, Cleo, and then Shelby quickly.

"That's enough!" He held a hand out to Scott, trying to settle the situation as his other hand wrapped around Martyn's upper arm. "I'm sure he's learned his lesson." He wasn't looking at Martyn, keeping his attention on Scott while Scott stared at Martyn with an air about him that he had only started with what he wanted to do to the other man.

Owen had decided to be no help at all to anyone and swung his legs up to put his feet on the table, crossed at the ankle, as he said, "I'd sit back down and enjoy the show, doctor." He shifted in his seat to get comfortable, smiling at Legundo as the doctor eyed him for a moment before turning his attention back to the situation at hand, ignoring Martyn looking up at Scott with an expression full of spite and anger.

"He didn't last time." Scott hadn't even blinked, now watching Martyn's lips curl into an almost snarl of distaste for the other man. "He hasn't this time."

"I'm sure he has. He's just in pain."

Only now did Scott's gaze leave Martyn's face, while Pyro edged around Owen to stand at Scott's side while giving him enough room that he'd be able to defend himself if necessary. He glanced at Legundo before looking back to Martyn, still unblinking, still seeming like he had a mental list of things he would like to do to Martyn.

"I disagree," he said after enough time in silence that the doctor had, mistakenly, thought Scott might back out. He didn't get the time to react before Scott let the sword slide across his fingers, gripped it where the handle and blade met the guard, and backhanded Martyn across the face with the handle, the pommel striking him on the cheekbone with enough force to snap his head to the side and send him sprawling. Shelby jumped, uttering a small scream of surprise, now half-sitting on the table from trying to evacuate the space that the two were… fighting in.

It was an attempt to fight, at any rate, with Martyn now lying on the floor and Scott flicking hair from in front of his eyes while tilting his head back, still holding the sword too tightly.

"And you're fine with this?!" Apo asked Pyro as Legundo moved to check over Martyn on the floor. "Your sire," Pyro shot her a warning look at her tone, but didn't otherwise move, "beating people."

"There was a sword to his throat," Pyro stated almost curtly, shifting towards Scott so subtly that Apo almost didn't notice, though Owen quirked an eyebrow at him while watching. "I did say it was a bad idea. Maybe he should have listened."

"Do not act like this was entirely Martyn's fault," Cleo snapped, having been only barely restraining themself from biting Scott's head off about his actions and deciding that they were not putting up with anything from Pyro.

"Maybe," Scott began, looking to Cleo, "you need to keep your dog on a leash." His tone was heated but his expression was empty.

"He's not a dog."

"His bark is worse than his bite…" Pyro commented quietly, glancing away as if that would stop anyone from hearing him. Owen fought back a laugh as he turned his gaze to Cleo, whose own glare was on Pyro.

"And he's on the floor like a dog." Scott looked down at Legundo and Martyn. "Can you pick him up? He's making everything look untidy." He spoke snidely, top lip tugging up to match his tone.

"You could have broken something," Legundo stated, otherwise ignoring Scott while feeling Martyn's ribs gently for a break. "I'm not moving him until I'm sure he's okay."

"Some of us-"

"I don't care," Scott said simply, cutting Cleo off as he moved to place Martyn's now bloodied sword next to Avid's against the wall. When he turned back to return to his seat, with Pyro having now placed a hand on the back like he was posing for a family portrait, Scott paused. "Shelby," he said gently as he stepped over to her, his voice full of warmth and softness towards her, "the table's for food."

A split second of confusion flickered over her features before she realised, gasped quietly, apologised, and shifted back to her seat while being careful not to cause any problems for the doctor as he now checked over Martyn's face. Scott was significantly less gentle when he noticed Owen.

"Get your feet off the table." There was a snap to his tone, and Owen contemplated not doing so before he swung his feet back down to the floor, sitting up properly as he did so. Scott smiled, sarcastically saccharine, and sat gracefully in his seat.

"You do need to stop trying to kill us," Shelby said to Martyn, watching Legundo find no breaks nor fractures under the skin.

"This is… what? Three attempts on Scott? One on Shelby?" Owen asked, smiling despite Legundo's look of disapproval. "You're really bad at this." Shelby opened her mouth to ask Owen to maybe not encourage attempts on their unlives, but Cleo was faster to speak.

"Can you control the peanut gallery?" they asked Scott, leaning on their chair while pointedly not looking at Owen, who was drinking again. Scott shook his head.

"I've tried."

"Liar," Owen all but breathed into his glass, eyeing Scott in amusement. Scott narrowed his eyes.

"Causes nothing but problems…" It wasn't a true complaint, just something to make Owen look insulted and put his glass down like he was trying to decide between making some little comment back or just leaving it. He chose to just leave it, not saying another word.

Now that he was certain there were no serious injuries, Legundo moved to help Martyn to his feet, the pair being watched by Cleo, Apo, and Pyro. Shelby only glanced around to make sure her chair wasn't in the way when they walked past her, and Scott was busy smiling at Owen, who was busy looking particularly unimpressed at Scott.

"Next time, we need to break you two up," Cleo mused aloud, not bothering to sit and attempt more negotiations.

"Leave him at home. You'll save him from a lot more bruises," Scott commented casually, smiling at Cleo instead of Owen before he drank from his own glass. As he put it down, his gaze turned to his empty hand, at the cuts scored into his palm by the blade of Martyn's sword. It was impressively sharp; it hadn't hurt at all while the cuts were being made, but the burns of the silver and the movements of his hand since then had made them sting.

Legundo noticed while helping Martyn lean on a chair. "Do you need a professional look at those?" he asked, indicating to Scott's hands. Scott shook his head.

"I'll heal. Thank you, doctor. " His words were drowning in honey and cinnamon, said in a way that made Owen look at him sharply, contemplating kicking him under the table but somehow resisting the urge. Legundo cleared his throat with a nod of acceptance.

"Shame." While Scott's tone had been sweet and warm, Martyn's only held quiet venom. He was loud enough for everyone to hear, though, and Cleo had hit the limit of their patience.

"Enough." They looked his way, tired of their seemingly never-ending feud which, unless one of them died or got away from the area, was now actually a never-ending feud. "We'll need to come to an arrangement. You need to stop."

"A good plan for the future." Pyro was smiling, having spoken before Martyn could respond, stepping forward just a single step and refusing to remove his hand from Scott's chair. Scott didn't seem to notice, and if he did, then he didn't seem to mind. "Once everyone's… calmer. Maybe with less people?"

"Yeah. I'm… pretty sure Avid's listening to all of this…" Shelby said, seemingly trying to shrink in her seat as she spoke, moving to drag her glass back towards her so that she could take a sip.

"Oh! Good! He'll have heard Martyn trying to kill me, again!" There wasn't an ounce of genuine happiness or joy in Scott's tone when he spoke, the words wading through a syrup of sickeningly sweet sarcasm and overt enthusiasm that carried an uncharacteristic amount of energy for Scott.

"It's fine," Owen said, swirling the blood in his glass again while watching it. "He won't have heard anything bad, anyway. The worst would've been us talking kindly to each other." He paused to look at everyone, only to see them all looking back at him with some amount of doubt or incredulousness in their expression, the odd-one-out being Scott, who just looked concerned. "We've spoken nicely tonight. Some of us, anyway." The judgement in his tone was thick enough to be cut with Martyn's sword in the moments before he took another little sip of blood.

Cleo and Scott exchanged a look before they shook their head.

"Okay. Sure." They moved to address Apo, Martyn, and Legundo. "We should leave before sunrise. The others'll be worried."

"Yeah, and I don't think anything productive is going to happen tonight," Shelby added, more than a little amused by the idea that anyone thought that something productive could happen with Martyn and Scott in the same area. "It was nice seeing you again, though. I'm still… emotionally hurt by you burning me, Martyn, but it was only one attempt on my life so I'm not gonna hold it against you…" There was a hint of laughter to her words, though the humour of her laugh was questionable.

"He's only tried to kill you once?" Scott asked, leaning away from Shelby in his seat with that entertained sarcasm rearing its head against in his tone. "That's cute. I remember when he'd only tried to kill me once…" There was a wistful sigh as he rested his chin on his hand and his elbow on the table, the other hand gently holding the stem of his glass.

"Oh…" There was a tone of understanding from Shelby. "Enemies-to-lovers." She nodded knowingly and was immediately stared at by both Owen and Pyro. Owen's expression was pure confusion, understanding precisely nothing about what she'd said and having several questions that would need to be answered. Pyro, however, seemed like he wished he could be surprised by her comment. He was not surprised by her comment.

Scott had snorted loudly. He didn't understand it fully, but the words and who said them meant that he could understand enough based on exclusively context clues; this had to be a fanfic thing.

"No!" Martyn was staring at her, somewhere between entertained and horrified by the idea. "We are not enemies-to-lovers."

A mischievous smile came to Pyro's face as he looked to Shelby. "Enemies-to-soulmates." The pair of them nodded at each other.

"No!"

"Oh! I get why he's saying 'no'!" Scott had decided to join in, already gaining a giggle from Shelby. "Because lovers and soulmates die eventually, and we won't." He was grinning from ear to ear at Martyn, while Martyn was scowling at Scott, clearly not happy about him deciding to join in and clearly wishing he hadn't. "We'll be together forever."

"We're going," Cleo said to Apo, Martyn, and Legundo, trying not to laugh while also moving to help Martyn; he was able to stand a little straighter, but they were worried about him trying to get across the bridge. As the trio of Cleo, Apo, and Martyn made their attempts to move, Legundo cleared his throat again.

"I'll be staying for a little while; I have more questions," Legundo said, glancing to Owen for a split second before looking back to Cleo.

"We'll wait for you?"

"You don't have to," he said, his tone grateful but impossible to argue with. "I'm sure I'll be safe." There was a hint of doubt on Cleo's face, but they nodded.

"We'll see you back at town, then," they said, leading the way to the bridge.

"Thanks for visiting!" Scott called as the group moved, standing and walking over to the archway as if he were seeing them out. "Don't forget to pick up Avid on the way!" He gestured to the side of the bridge, where Avid was clambering up to join the rest of them, eyeing Scott with blatant but understandable distrust the entire time. Scott did not move from the archway.

"This was fun!" Owen called after them as he moved around to Legundo, smiling as Avid checked that they weren't following. Legundo shook his head, trying not to show any amusement at Owen's behaviour.

"I hope we see each other again!" Shelby had also stood, possibly just trying to be seen over Scott's shoulder as he leaned on the doorframe.

Pyro had moved over to watch them leave, taking up space next to Scott. He glanced to the other man as Scott gave a noise of thought and frowned in questioning. "What?"

"He was spying… I thought he would be…"

"Why?"

Scott glanced at him. "I'd do the same thing. I keep doing the same thing."

Pyro eyed him for only a moment, contemplating saying something as the pair of them watched Cleo and Apo help Martyn over the wonky patchwork and beams of the bridge. They stayed silent for some time, until Pyro finally spoke. "You're very similar…" It was an idle comment, said without much thought, and it got an unimpressed stare from Scott until Pyro noticed and looked at him. His eyes widened with the realisation that he'd said that out loud. "I-… Sire-"

"You should tell him that in view of this castle," Scott interrupted. "It'd be a new form of entertainment. Who needs dinner parties and poetry? Just tell Avid he's the same as a vampire." He was clearly entertained by just the idea of it, and Pyro laughed in something between his own amusement and relief that Scott hadn't had a bad reaction.

"I didn't say 'the same', I said 'similar'."

"Semantics."

"He'd still take it as an insult," Owen had approached the pair after talking quietly with Legundo for a few moments, while they weren't paying attention to him, glass in hand as the trio--soon joined by Shelby--watched Avid repeatedly look over his shoulder. He was bothered by something, but none of them could figure out what at that moment.

"So… were you all trying to avoid him knowing about them, too?" Shelby asked, looking at the other three for their answer. Owen nodded. "Because I saw him climbing..."

"And you didn't tell us?" Scott asked, frowning at her. She shrugged.

"I didn't know if he was trying to spy or not…"

"It's not like it matters," Owen said, looking between Scott and Shelby. "I'm not convinced he's actually left for the past few days. He keeps coming back." Shelby nodded, looking up at Scott with wide, hopeful eyes. Scott rolled his own eyes and looked back to the bridge, only to spot…

"Speaking of him coming back…" It was a mumbled little comment from Scott, followed up by Pyro squinting at Avid with an expression like he wasn't entirely sure whether or not Avid was being serious. "Do you want some time with your doctor?" There was a hint of something in Scott's tone that made Owen look at him sharply, his expression almost accusatory, before Owen forced out a sigh.

"Yes."

Scott smiled at him, too smug and too pleased with himself, before he said, "I'll distract Avid."

"After what happened before, sire?" Pyro questioned, quirking an eyebrow his way cautiously, though Scott didn't see the expression as he was too busy watching a very nervous Avid.

"Of course! It's the perfect choice." Scott turned to grin at the other three, the grin faltering just a little when he noticed that Legundo had moved over to the rest of them. Owen, Shelby, and Pyro hadn't noticed, though. Owen was shaking his head at the idea that Scott distracting Avid would be a good idea, while Shelby and Pyro exchanged concerned glances.

"You enjoy not helping your case, don't you?" Legundo asked Scott, making Owen jump before he told Shelby that he'd stop doing exactly what Legundo had just done.

"It's a hobby," Scott said casually with a shrug, "and it gives you two privacy." Owen seemed to be seconds away from committing acts of violence, fuelled only by Scott's verbal implications, but he either decided that violence against Scott wasn't a good idea tonight or didn't get the chance to do anything, because Scott was already on the move. He strode forward, towards Avid as he hesitated in deciding where to go or what to do, and moved to link arms with him once he reached Avid, successfully turning him to drag him back along the bridge and towards Cleo, Martyn, and Apo at the other end.

Chapter Text

Back at the castle, the four remaining vampires watched from the archway as Scott and Avid met up and, when neither of them appeared to be in any danger despite Avid's very blatant discomfort and Scott's very blatant attempts to make that discomfort worse, they turned their attention to each other.

More specifically, Legundo turned to Shelby.

"You said that Martyn tried to kill you…?" he asked, his voice gentle and cosy, comfortable, inviting in a way that made her instinctively want to clam up and not reveal anything; it was a subject that they would deal with, the four that lived there, not outsiders. He seemed to genuinely care, to want to give them someone else to rely on, but she still hesitated before nodding.

"But I-"

"When?"

She'd been about to make excuses, say that she'd gotten over it and there were no problems or issues, but she froze at the question. Her voice was small again when she finally answered, staring at him the entire time. "When you all found out about us…" She shifted her weight, looking between the others as if waiting for one of them to react badly, but they were just waiting, listening. "He… set us all on fire. Pyro and Scott were fighting, Owen escaped, but I couldn't… get away."

"I didn't realise…" Owen said quietly, almost guiltily, looking at her with a difficult to read expression. Legundo glanced his way as if to check in on him before turning his attention back to Shelby.

"I was there. I should have help."

"It's fine. I'm… fine." She smiled at Legundo, then Owen as if to reassure them both that she didn't hold anything against them, that she didn't blame them, and it wasn't their faults. Owen wasn't convinced, but he nodded to her regardless. "It just… confirmed some things that I think I already knew; they won't let us be. Even if we went fully pacifist, they'd hunt us." She paused, glancing to her hands before saying, "they make it hard to be mad at Scott and Pyro when they're violent, because turning people is sort of self-preservation."

"And Cleo was an accident," Pyro added, looking to Legundo to confirm whether or not he was believed. Legundo's face was giving nothing away, though; warmly neutral, comfortable with listening and clearly trying to learn more while not throwing out judgements. All were things that they'd been severely lacking with the townsfolk being how they were.

"I suspect Martyn was, too. I think Scott was hoping he'd die, not turn," Owen said, looking between them. "I'm surprised he did turn. I didn't think they were alone for long enough; Ren got down very quickly…"

Upon noticing Legundo frowning in questioning at Owen's word, Shelby said with a hint of laughter dancing along her words, "don't worry; we don't talk like every time. We're usually more casual, but Martyn's a weird case."

"Is he?" Pyro looked to her for an explanation, clearly confused.

"After he… burned everything down, I was hoping he wouldn't… y'know?" She wasn't sure she was making the most sense, but Pyro's expression turned to realisation and understanding. "And he didn't only kill me that day. He did get Scott, too. Turning him feels like a bad idea…"

"So, definitely an accident. Interesting that those two were both accidents…" Pyro mused aloud before he frowned at Legundo. "What about him?"

"Scott's an opportunist," Owen said dismissively, making Legundo stare at him with a borderline disapproving look on his face. Owen shrugged at him. "I told you; if you hadn't turned up…"

"I was supposed to… what? Stay in my home while you took the beacon?"

"For safety? Yes."

Pyro and Shelby glanced at each other, exchanging a look that Owen couldn't read, before Shelby hooked an arm around Pyro's like Scott had done to Avid.

"I think we should go and tidy up, leave you two to… talk." She smiled brightly at them both while Pyro nodded along.

"You have a lot to discuss."

With that, the two of them moved to start putting unopened bottles and still-full glasses of blood away, doing whatever they could to look busy and stay at a distance, where they couldn't hear what Owen and Legundo might talk about.

At the same time as their conversations, on the bridge, Avid was trying to tug himself out of Scott's grip while being dragged. He'd intended to provide backup for Legundo, to stay just slightly out of sight in case something went badly wrong for the doctor and step in if necessary. He'd hoped that if any of them came over to him, it would be Shelby; they hadn't spoken as much as he would have liked and he'd wanted the chance to know if she was the same as before. Neither of his plans had gone the way he wanted them to.

"I don't want to-"

"Listen, Avid, it's very important to give them space," Scott said, tugging him closer and glancing his way, still striding along the stone and wood while Avid took three steps per stride just to stay on his feet. "The doctor is completely safe. None of us will hurt him." Despite Scott's words, Avid eyed him with suspicion, stumbling a little on uneven ground while they walked and looking down into the gaps that they passed over with wide eyes.

"Why not?" Avid asked, trying to hide his nerves and failing miserably. Scott either didn't notice or didn't care, though, because he didn't react to those nerves being obvious in Avid's voice.

"The same reason we won't kill you." Scott smiled at him, making sure to keep his fangs hidden behind his lips while looking at Avid fondly. Avid's expression was significantly less positive, though not particularly negative, either; he seemed very much like he'd have rather been anywhere that wasn't pinned to Scott's side, between him and the edge of the bridge. "Not fully the same; Owen's got a weird thing going on with the doctor and the doctor's encouraging it." Scott rolled his eyes as Avid just slightly lost his footing next to him, and they paused on a stable chunk of the bridge. "Are you okay?"

"I'm… fine." Avid seemed unconvinced by Scott's question, like he was waiting for the trick to be revealed. When he was only stared at, he pushed out a breath. "Someone made this bridge worse."

"To stop you all coming over it," Scott said, confused frown tugging his brows together. "It didn't work, obviously."

"It's really easy to lose your footing on here." His words were said quickly, trying to force them out before Scott could go on a tangent about the bridge or how rude they all were for coming over it when they weren't wanted or some other related subject that Avid was certain had been next in Scott's brain.

"Is it?" Scott glanced down in a way that made Avid think he was waiting for the entire thing to start crumbling under their feet. When it didn't, Scott frowned at him again before understanding hit his face. "Do you want me to… I'll just go that side." He edged around Avid before looping their arms again with a satisfied smile. "Better?"

"A little…" It was a mumble, with Avid almost embarrassed by how easily Scott had decided to just fix the immediate issue. He was decidedly getting mixed signals, but he was still on the bridge so it seemed like a win.

"I could have just held onto you better than last time…"

"You threw me off."

"I lost my grip. It's hard to fight against gravity."

Avid squinted at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being serious or not. Deciding that he was, and that Avid didn't appreciate this, he fought hard not to start glaring.

"You threw me off. You can't gaslight me about my own traumatic event," he said, face starting to scrunch in dislike and irritation. Scott glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm not gaslighting," he began, "I'm being pedantic. I didn't shove you or push you, I let go of you. Gravity did the work, not me."

"You were holding me so that I would fall."

"So I was holding you, not pushing you."

"Is this how you've survived? By being so annoying that no one wants to be around you long enough to kill you?"

"No. I survived by pushing people off of this bridge when they annoyed me." Scott smiled at him before giggling as Avid looked at him, clearly panicking and potentially trying to find an escape from Scott's grasp. "I'm joking. I made deals, because people like deals if it means they won't die."

"So… you'd make a deal with us?" Avid asked, tone just vaguely hitting hopeful. Scott shrugged.

"We tried but then Martyn tried to kill me and negotiations… broke down after that…" He took a breath exclusively to sigh it back out. "It's a shame; Cleo's probably good at negotiating."

"That's why we made them mayor. They're a good talker." Avid shrugged as Scott pulled a face. "What?"

"Don't tell Owen. I don't know what his deal is, but there's… he needs a therapist. So do you, but in a different way. You need like, a tight jacket and a comfortable room, Owen needs to talk to someone." Scott glanced over his shoulder, to where Owen and Legundo were sat with glasses next to them on the table. "He's not a therapist, is he?"

"Legundo? I'm not convinced he's a doctor."

"I wasn't either, but he checked Martyn for broken bones and I don't think people without medical knowledge would do that." When Avid frowned at him, Scott gave him an 'eh' expression in return before continuing, "you risk like, puncturing a lung if you do it wrong? I think? I don't know. I didn't learn biology. I was busy."

"Doing what?"

"Looking great and being turned into a vampire." Scott smiled, beyond pleased with his answer. Avid, however, looked horrified.

"Why would anyone choose that?" he asked, and Scott shrugged.

"Immortality. No sickness. No weakness of any kind…" He glanced Avid's way, watching the way his expression changed from horrified to curious and then back to horrified, as if he'd just remembered that he was supposed to hate vampires. "You should ask some people. There's so many options."

"I don't think Owen's going to have a conversation with me…"

"Others might."

"What others?" Avid narrowed his eyes at Scott, who looked at him before letting a look of realisation wash over his features.

"Oh. You…" He paused. "Don't worry about it." Scott smiled, innocent and sweet and decidedly worthy of distrust in Avid's mind, but he was also intensely curious. "I did think it was weird. There's been no news of you accusing anyone else, but I suppose you didn't notice."

"Didn't notice what?!" Scott's tone had been so casual, almost conversational, but Avid's was a demand. He needed to know what Scott was talking about, needed to be able to decide for himself if he could be holding important information.

"Don't worry about it."

"Tell me. I'll stop Martyn from visiting."

"Cleo's going to stop Martyn visiting because we can't negotiate with him around." Scott said breezily, looking over to the group as they drew nearer to them; despite Legundo saying that they shouldn't wait for him, they were clearly waiting for someone.

"Please tell me."

The pair stopped, just out of ear-shot of the group, and Scott sighed heavily.

"There's other vampires and no one noticed. It's not like they're trying to hide it. I mean, Pearl keeps disappearing into crypts and not coming back overnight. Apo's… always weird…"

"Apo would tell me if she was a vampire," Avid stated, certain in that much, at least. Scott eyed him for a moment longer than he was comfortable with, looking like he was reading Avid's every secret, like they were written across his face in the neatest handwriting to exist, so clear and so easy to pick through.

"You didn't say anything about Pearl."

"I don't… need to." While he'd been certain about Apo, he sounded like he'd very much considered the possibility that Pearl could be a vampire. Scott didn't choose to point that out; he was more subtle than that, sometimes.

"It's weird not to suspect her, though…" He sounded like he was just thinking aloud, like this was a conversation that Avid wasn't needed for, and that bothered Avid for a moment before Scott's eyes focused on him, making Avid squirm under his gaze. Scott smiled again. It was a simple little movement of his lips, a small curve that suggested he knew too much. "Oh."

"What?!" It was an instant question, not even a second passing before it burst out of Avid.

"Cleo. They threatened you, didn't they? I mean, they are attached to each other…"

"No! Cleo didn't threaten me," Avid said while trying to tug his arm from Scott's, testing if he could actually manage it. He couldn't; it wasn't a tight grip, but it was enough to stop him. "We're just… all friends without you."

"And without Shelby, and Pyro, and Owen." Scott wasn't looking at him anymore, preparing to get moving again, but Avid stood firm and glared at him. Scott didn't notice, too busy talking. "I mean, I would've thought you'd still want to know Shelby, at least…" Avid could tell what he was trying to do, but the tone like Scott was just musing on the relationship politics of the town was annoying him.

"We're still friends."

"You haven't even defended her, by the sounds of it. I wouldn't just let someone try to kill my friend…"

"I didn't-…" Avid stopped, staring up at Scott. "You don't even have friends." Avid's tone was surprisingly scathing, considering both who he was and who he was talking to, and Scott looked taken aback by the tone before he seemingly relaxed into it.

"Shelby is my friend. I like Shelby. She's fun and she was so excited when we turned her." Avid was frowning as Scott spoke, and he took this as an opportunity to lean in and say under his breath; "it was a group effort."

It took all of Avid's self-restraint to avoid him turning to violence. As tempting of an option as it was for him to just try fighting Scott, he'd experienced that once tonight and he wasn't planning on hitting the water again. Instead, he reminded himself that Cleo had been talking about wanting to negotiate, and he had heard Pyro's suggestion that they try again in the future. He thought about how trying to fight Scott could cause problems for Cleo in the future, and might have caused problems tonight. Cleo would probably say otherwise, say that it wasn't his fault that they'd come away from the castle without a deal, but that was why he wasn't going to mention it; they couldn't deny it if he didn't bring it up.

"She's only your friend because she doesn't think she has a choice," Avid mumbled, instantly regretting it and only regretting it more when he noticed Scott seemingly perk up at that.

"Does she?"

His head snapped round for him to glare at Scott properly, but found that he was being watched with an expression of knowing, of understanding; the face of someone who'd seen it all, maybe experienced it all, and thought he knew the truth. He opened his mouth to argue that she did have a choice, that they would welcome her back if given the chance, but he was immediately cut off by Scott.

"Martyn killed her. You chased us out. Ren hate us. Apo hates us." Scott paused to let just those small statements sink in before he said, "none of you are safe." He didn't let that one sit for too long, instead moving to drag Avid towards the small group at the end of the bridge.

As they drew closer, reaching the others, Cleo took a step forward to position themself a little closer than Martyn and Apo, both of whom were sitting down.

"Bad news, Avid," Scott said while staring at Martyn, "I think we need to kill that guy."

"What?!" Both Avid and Apo spoke at once, but while Avid just stared at him with wide, panicked eyes and a hyper awareness that his only weapon was a relatively fragile stake, Apo stepped forward while putting a hand on her axe, where it hung at her side. Scott giggled.

"Are you okay?" Cleo asked Avid. "Why are you two… together?" They were looking between them with some amount of distrust in Scott, while Scott leaned into Avid, hugging his arm like they weren't borderline enemies and hadn't consistently been at odds with each other since the second they'd met.

"Owen and the doctor needed to talk, so I thought I'd take Avid for a walk," Scott said, watching Cleo unblinkingly while Avid seemed to be trying to plead with them using only his eyes. "We haven't had any quality time together, and this is the perfect opportunity." He was all charming smiles and warm tones, but he wasn't convincing; Cleo raised an eyebrow, but Apo spoke.

"Absolutely not. Not alone." She stepped towards them both while Scott loosened the hug, keeping his grip on Avid's arm and moving to hold his hand, making Avid jump and look at their hands, surprised by how cold he was.

"I don't mind a group of us. It could be fun," Scott said, eyeing Apo as if daring her to argue with him before he smiled at Avid. "Do you mind?"

"I'd… prefer company." He avoided looking at Scott, now almost pleading with Apo to go with them. She nodded at him, understanding it entirely and refusing to let Scott do anything with Avid on his own.

"Then I'm coming, too."

"Perfect! We can talk." Scott paused for a moment, staring at Apo. "We haven't talked in a while. I think the last time we had a full conversation before you tried to kill me--still rude, by the way--was when you said I was a 'rich weirdo'…"

"You are," Martyn spoke up from his spot, watching them all closely. Scott rolled his eyes.

"You're rich and here, too. You're just as much of a rich weirdo as I am."

"I'm not like you."

"Oh." A look of pure disgust covered Scott's features. "You're just a commoner with money? That's embarrassing for you."

"I'm not embarrassed." He sounded insulted before pausing. "And I am a noble, I'm just not like you."

"I would be embarrassed…" Scott pulled a judgemental expression out of somewhere, having possibly been saving it for a moment like this. "Who pretends to be a noble?"

"I'm not pretending!" Martyn could not see the sheer glee in Scott's eyes at exactly how bothered he was, he couldn't see the effort that Scott was putting in to not start laughing, but Cleo could.

"Enough! We're not doing this again." They stepped in front of Martyn, like they thought that blocking them both from seeing each other would stop either of them. It worked, mostly because Scott wanted to imply respect for them; it was a tool that could help him later. "Would you be okay with these two?" they asked Apo, who nodded.

"I think we'll be fine." She looked at Scott darkly, her gaze holding a blatant threat within it. Scott returned an innocently confused look, playing like he didn't understand her hostility and hadn't been a fairly constant threat towards Avid.

"Then I will take him home," Cleo gestured to Martyn, "so he can rest."

"Great idea," Scott said, smiling again while he clung to Avid's arm, placing his previously unused hand against Avid's bicep to really force home the idea that they were friendly in any way. It was a lie that no one believed, but it seemed to entertain Cleo. "We'll be fine. We're friends."

"… Sure." The single word was full of amusement. "Don't hesitate to kill him if you need to," they said to Apo and Avid, but it was Scott who replied.

"I won't hesitate!"

"Not you!"

They both had the same sweet tone that was tinged with weaponised civility. While Cleo eyed him like they were on the very edge of pushing him off of the side and into the water below, Scott giggled, devious and very pleased by their joining in.

"See? Fun." He leaned into Avid's personal space more, somehow, before Avid and Apo said their goodbyes to Cleo and Martyn and Scott dragged the pair of them to start walking along the treeline, within full view of the castle and of Pyro and Shelby, who'd finished tidying up and were now stood as far from the banquet hall as they could, watching Scott and his company.

Chapter Text

They were only just out of ear-shot when Apo spoke, just far enough away that Cleo arguing with Martyn to let them help him to his feet wasn't noticeable to Avid. It was still clear and audible to Scott and Apo, but both of them had better things to focus on than Martyn's stubbornness in relation to standing up on his own and Cleo's determination when faced with a friend in need.

"Why are we out here?"

Scott glanced her way, saw the frown on her features, and pushed out a sigh. The trio walked a little further, with Scott glancing over his shoulder to make sure they were alone, before he stopped the walk and turned, not letting go of Avid's hand and taking Apo's with his empty hand, grip gentle but movement forceful as he moved to look into both of their eyes, alternating between them and bending over just slightly like he was talking to a child and wanted to be on their level. Apo's frown deepened, confusion becoming more obvious while Avid tried to tug his hand out of Scott's now strangely warm grip; the heat from Avid's hand had warmed Scott's in a way that felt just so wrong.

"One day, you two will have someone you care about and want to talk to," his gaze flicked to Apo's face, watching her expression turn from confusion to an irritated glare, "and you won't want your neighbours or friends to hear what you're saying." He was making sure to keep his words slow spoken and clear, even while it seemed to bother Apo more than everything else he'd been doing.

"Also, we need to rebuild trust." He paused, reconsidering his wording. "We need to build trust, because I always just used human for trade. They gave me cows, I didn't kill them, we were all happy." He ignored the disbelief on Apo's face, focused on Avid as he squinted in questioning. "Building trust with you two, not hurting either of you, builds trust with Cleo, and Cleo wants negotiations."

"So you're manipulating them." Apo's tone was flat, expression decidedly unimpressed as she stared Scott down. Scott rolled his eyes at her with an 'ugh' of annoyance, giving the impression that she was being a mild inconvenience and he wasn't sure if he should do something about her or not.

"It's not manipulation. It's how the world works." He met her gaze as Avid tried to pull his hand back from Scott's grip and failed again. "If we trust each other, we can make deals," Scott said, tilting his head just slightly as if he were judging Apo for not thinking of this, "and if we can't make deals, we're just stuck in an endless loop of you attacking, getting beaten, and then wondering why we fight back." Apo opened her mouth to argue against his summary of events, but was immediately cut off by Scott saying, "I know which one I prefer."

Silence fell for a moment, though it was broken by Apo, who still gave the impression that she was particularly unimpressed by every single part of this conversation.

"Because you're a noble, right?" she asked, and Scott smiled at her.

"No! That's silly." His smile grew with amusement, "I just like deals."

Avid glanced at Apo, who was rolling her eyes so hard that there was half a chance of them popping out and falling down the hill. Scott didn't notice; his gaze was on the castle, watching out for Owen and Legundo. They weren't on the move yet, though, so Scott decided to switch topics completely, like he'd been trying to find a way to slip into it but hadn't been able to figure out anything subtle.

"Avid?" he asked, waiting for a noise of acknowledgement from Avid before he continued. "Why didn't you… properly doubt me about Pearl?" His tone suggested innocent curiosity, but the glint in his eye suggested that he was causing problems on purpose. Apo looked between them with a frown, gaze lingering on Avid as he looked somewhat guilty.

"Pearl?"

"I did." Avid paused, glancing away before lowering his head to look at the ground. "I do."

"But you're not willing to defend her?" Something about the tone that Scott used made Avid squirm with discomfort and guilt, and made Apo shift her weight to draw Scott's attention and give Avid a little bit of reprieve. She didn't know the full context, but she could take over regardless.

"Pearl doesn't need defending," she said, and Scott ever so slightly quirked an eyebrow at her, somewhere between doubt and impish glee.

"Right. Like Shelby?" And she saw it. She saw the glint of malice in his eyes. She saw what was coming like a premonition, like she knew this man too well despite not wanting to know him at all. She could tell what he was going to say before he said it, and she knew there was no way to stop him. "Like you?" He tossed a careless glance to Avid. "She disappears a lot, too. We see her just walking around sometimes..."

"I told you, she'd tell me." There was conviction in Avid's voice, absolute belief in Apo, and perhaps a little hatred towards Scott. The hatred was so close to making him grin, but he needed to stay on track; he couldn't get distracted by unintentional entertainment.

"Would she?" Scott looked at Apo, whose expression was positively murderous towards him, before having to tear his gaze from her to stop himself laughing. "We all know what you think of vampires, Avid."

"I'd tell him," Apo said, and while she seemed to be trying to fight Scott with only her tone, Avid's own conviction in his belief that she'd tell him seemed to fade a little, though his stance didn't falter as he nodded. Scott gave a small noise of thought, almost sounding innocent despite the feeling that he was curling around Avid's entire being, trying to convince him that he was alone.

"No one else did." Scott said, seemingly just thinking aloud for the moment. "You're not the most trustworthy person…" His tone was still full of innocence, but it was also somehow scathing, judgemental and harsh in the undertow. Apo moved to tug Avid away.

"That's enough." She stepped forward, attempting to get between them but failing; Scott's grip on Avid's hand wasn't so tight that it hurt, but was distinctly stronger than it seemed. "He was right about you."

"Without evidence. And I haven't done anything."

"You turned Shelby."

"Pyro turned Shelby." He was smiling now, cold and cruel and very slightly smug. "I haven't done anything."

"Who turned Pyro?" Apo sounded desperate, searching for something to grasp at, something that would knock Scott metaphorically off-balance and trip him up. She was failing to find it, though; Scott simply shrugged casually.

"Group effort."

"You said Shelby was a group effort," Avid said, speaking up from just behind Apo while eyeing Scott cautiously. Scott shrugged.

"There's a lot of group efforts." He paused. "Do you two want to be one?"

"It doesn't matter. None of this matters," Apo said, frustrated with how at ease Scott was while they were talking and how tense she knew the pair of them were. "You're old enough to have done something, and you're a danger." It sounded like a challenge to Scott, so he accepted it.

"Are you in danger right now, Avid?" he asked, tone casual as he stared at Avid, leaning into his space and avoiding Apo as best he could. "Are you sure she's not like me?" His words felt heavy, his tone like the abyss; deep, easy to get lost in, and hiding some kind of threat just beyond what could be perceived. It made Avid's breath hitch in his throat and his gaze jump to Apo for a split second in obvious unease before he focused on Scott, on that cruel smile that'd returned to Scott's face.

It took every hint of self-restraint for him to not back away, to not pull his hand out of Scott's bizarre grasp and just start running like he'd done on the bridge, holding Scott's gaze like it was a test between them to see what the other would do. He could feel the anticipation from Scott, the expectation of… something. Fleeing? A chase? He wasn't sure. He didn't know if he wanted to be sure.

He didn't get the chance to figure that one out; the moment passed, and Scott stood up straight, suddenly seeming lighter and friendlier, like a shadow had temporarily passed over him. Avid could only watch in pure confusion, his brows pulled inwards as Scott glanced away from the pair, first at the castle, and then at the moon, and then, finally, back to the pair in front of him.

"It'll be sunrise soon," he mused, "we should go. Your neighbours will be so worried about you." There was a taunt to his tone, a mischievous little tilt to it that almost sounded friendly, almost sounded like they'd known each other for years and were attending a reunion, too familiar for Avid or Apo to be truly comfortable. Their discomfort was proven right when he spoke again. "The ones that aren't pretending to believe you, I mean."

"No one's pretending," Avid all but spat, making Scott laugh at his attempted contempt.

"Of course they aren't." He smiled at Avid, trying not to laugh, and looped his arms around both Avid and Apo's elbows like he'd already done to Avid on the bridge, turning them both back towards the path so that he could start striding towards the dirt. Both stumbled while trying to keep up, dragged along despite their best attempts at not being dragged across the mud and grass of the treeline.

"So," Avid began, tripping just enough to struggle but not enough to actually fall over, "is this all you do? Sow discourse?"

"Sometimes. It's fun." He paused. "This time it's true, which is even better."

"It's not true," Avid said with a scoff, shaking his head while looking away from Scott. Scott forced out another sigh.

"'We'll believe in vampires for forty-eight hours,'" he said, clearly quoting someone but not trying to mimic anyone's voice in particular. Avid looked up at him sharply, trying to search his face for any hint that this was another taunt, another tease, another little comment that was manufactured by the man just to make him doubt those around him. He found nothing of the sort, just the feeling that Scott was bored of not being believed.

"Do you remember that conversation, Apo?" Scott asked, not looking at either of them. "You, Martyn, Pyro, in your house, talking about 'too many red flags' and paranoia and 'I have to be like Avid?'" Only now did he glance in Apo's direction, smiling a little more at the fact that she was looking straight ahead with some amount of determination about her, like she didn't want to see either of their expressions. Next to Scott, Avid was trying not to look betrayed. "Did you think you were being quiet? Abolish heard you all, too. We hung out and listened."

"And… when was this?" Avid was glancing between them, trying not to sound or otherwise seem like he thought Scott might actually be telling the truth about something. Scott looked thoughtful, barely paying attention to where they were walking, instead looking at the sky as if it'd give him the exact date, time, longitude, and latitude.

"The day we went fishing with Shelby," he answered finally, "because Abolish said that he thought I was as crazy as the rest of you for wearing a skull." He nodded to himself before deciding to only direct his words to Avid as he said, "I heard them through the wall, Abolish listened with me, we talked about group psychosis, and then I talked to… Shelby, Cleo, Pearl, Drift, and Ren." He spoke like he was counting them off on his fingers and smiled at Avid, who simply stared at him while they walked, somewhere between disbelief and distress. "You can ask Abolish. I'd recommend asking Abolish, actually. He's the only one with any sense out of all of you."

"We said that we'd do an investigation," Apo said, quiet while speaking up. Scott rolled his eyes again.

"'We'll do an investigation then stop.'" He looked her way, smile on his face again. "I have a not terrible memory for important things."

"How is this important?" Avid was trying, so hard, to sound unbothered but his tone was a mixture of being upset at the idea that this entire time, they'd all been pretending to believe him at all and nerves. Scott sighed again heavily, forcing the breath out in such a way that it sounded almost painful.

"Look at what just knowing has done," he said, staring Avid down again. Avid tried to pull away, uncomfortable and unhappy, with the town in sight, but Scott held onto him tighter. "It's still dangerous out here. If you're not with me, I can't protect you from the walking dead," he was saying, not noticing a figure moving across the grass towards them, walking from the cabin on the outskirts of town.

"Avid! Apo! The others said ye might be along shortly." It was Ren, slowing to a stop next to the path and watching them closely, silver sword in hand. "Ye best be off, vampire, into the darkness ye belong to."

"I was keeping them safe," he said while finally letting go of them both, watching Ren's apparent doubt with some amount of amusement in his expression as the pair began walking to town, Avid moving a little faster than Apo. Realising that he had limited time to say anything, he called out to Avid, "don't forget to ask Abolish about what we heard!"

"Enough of that, now." Ren took a step forward, and Scott raised an eyebrow questioningly towards him.

"I've only been telling him the truth, Ren. No one else wants to be honest with him."

"Ye whisper evil into everyone's ears. Ye cannot be trusted."

Scott paused for a moment before a thought seemingly came to him, and he pulled a face, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips in fake thought before he said, "so… I don't suppose I'm still allowed round for tea, am I…?" He was back to taunting, back to having a little bit of fun with people. Ren eyed him before shaking his head.

"No. I have to rescind that invitation, don'tcha know."

"Oh." For a moment, he seemed genuinely disappointed about it, like he'd been actually quite looking forward to sitting down for tea with the other man, maybe talking about… something or another. In truth, he wouldn't have known how to be normal in a situation like that, and it potentially became obvious when he smiled, unable to hold it back.

"It's a shame that it doesn't work like that, don'tcha know?"

His tone was teasing, his smile turning into a grin of amusement, having too much fun while watching Ren clench his jaw. It was a little bit entertaining to him, more so when he spoke again with an air of innocent ignorance about him. "I really don't know where all of this hostility comes from; I haven't killed anyone. Pyro's a vampire, but he's very much walking around. Shelby wasn't even me, and nor was Owen." He paused. "And speaking of Owen; you know that I'm more willing to work with you all than he is, right? How do you think I survived for so long?"

"I'm not who ye should be negotiating with," Ren told him, stabbing the tip of his sword into the dirt on the edge of the path so that he could rest his hands on the pommel casually while they spoke.

"Oh, I know, but Martyn tried to kill me and it was just this whole thing." Scott pulled a face, seeming inconvenienced by the entire event. "So, why don't you put in a good word, and I won't come round for tea?" There was a hopeful little smile on his face as he held his hand out to shake on it, a show of goodwill that Ren chose not to return. He eyed Scott's hand for a moment before his attention was pulled from the man in front of him and to the space behind Scott, where two pairs of footsteps were sounding.

Legundo joined them first, walking just slightly ahead of Scott and Ren before he stopped and watched Owen pull up next to Scott a few seconds later, clearly curious about what he'd just walked into. With them having joined himself and Ren, and Ren's hesitance to agree or shake his hand noted, Scott lowered his own hand back to his side as the doctor eyed Ren.

"Ren? Is everything okay?"

"It is, doctor." Ren looked to Owen and Scott as he said, "it's time for ye to leave and take yer darkness with ye. We don't need it in our town."

"I think this is a little dramatic. They're just standing here." Legundo said kindly, ignoring Scott as he pulled the most innocent expression he could and placed a hand under his own chin to accentuate the look. It was decidedly fooling no one, but he was having fun.

"They're evil, doctor. We'd be better without them here," Ren said, eyeing the pair of them. "If ye don't mind?"

The pair glanced at each other, and while Owen's was calm and collected, a small movement to figure out if Scott was thinking what he had been, Scott's was over dramatic, full of 'eugh, this is such a bother'. It dropped rather quickly when Ren spoke again.

"I won't be violent this time if ye leave right now."

"I don't think violence is ever necessary…" Legundo commented quietly, but Owen shook his head at the doctor, trying to tell him not to bother; the chances of him being able to convince Ren that they weren't a threat while they were just standing there were low at best and he didn't want the man to waste his time.

"We're leaving," but Scott truly lacked the ability to resist a little teasing, a little taunting, a little bit of fun that was most likely only for himself, and he added on just a small, "don'tcha know." Ren was less than impressed, and Legundo was shaking his head like he could be in any way surprised by Scott's actions, while Owen simply rolled his eyes next to him, fighting not to smile or show any emotion more positive than neutral.

The pair bid both Ren and the doctor farewell--with Owen giving a small nod to the pair of them and Scott, noticing Avid watching from the gate into town, making sure to wave with a big enough movement to make it blatantly obvious at a distance as he said the words, 'bye Ren! Bye doctor!' with some amount of fondness in his tone for both them--before they turned and began walking back into the forests beyond the town, disappearing into the darkness of the trees.

Chapter Text

Dirt crunched underfoot as the pair reached the shadows of the trees, the moon just barely giving them a source of light through the canopy of the forest, filtering down between clouds and leaves and branches, painting the forest's ferny floor in faint, pink-tinted silver ahead of them. It was only once the town was no longer easy to see, once Avid was only a shadow at the gate, once they could only barely see Ren making his way back to his cabin, that either of them spoke.

"So," Owen began, watching the floor as they walked to ensure he wouldn't trip, "why were you so close to town?"

"Why were you?"

Owen looked to Scott quickly, his expression almost completely neutral, but holding just a hint of something. It was a difficult to read kind of something, but there was something.

"Making sure Legundo got back safely." He paused. "Are you going to tell me what you were doing there, now?"

"Talking to Avid, talking to Ren." He tossed a glance over his shoulder, just barely spotting light beyond the trees that was settled on the porch of Ren's cabin and the grass in front of it, shrank, and then disappeared; Ren had gone inside and closed his front door. "He's still strange," Scott said, sounding conflicted, like either of them were needing to worry that Ren might be something other than human. Owen scoffed with laughter, his gaze back on the floor, on the dry dirt from a lack of rain recently, and Scott looked in the direction they were walking as he said, "I wouldn't trust him, if I were them."

"Why not?" There was gentle curiosity on Owen's tone, the sort that seemed to be reserved for very specific people, and Scott watched him out of the corner of his eye like he was expecting something before deciding that he might need a push in the right direction.

"Who hears the stories and lives outside of the town? Who chooses danger over safety?" He eyed Owen as he spoke, waiting for realisation to hit. When it didn't, and Owen looked at him with that same gentle curiosity that'd been wrapped around his words, Scott gave an air of being laboured by all sorts of hardships, taking his time with saying the answer. "Someone who can't be trusted."

Owen seemed to age at least a few decades in that moment, though his disappointment with the answer disappeared quickly when Scott spoke again. "Besides, it's fun."

"Talking to Avid is fun?" There was blatant doubt in Owen's tone, and Scott smiled. "I don't think I would call it 'fun'…"

"Of course it's fun!" He couldn't hold back an impish little giggle, couldn't resist the same urge that had him taunting and teasing people so often, the edge of chaos that seemed to be alight in his very being. "I implied that Pearl was turned…" Scott's smile turned into a large grin, an almost beaming expression of malicious joy, while Owen gave a breath of surprised laughter.

"There's no way he believed you," he said, frowning in amused disbelief, a hint of a smile on his lips. "That's ridiculous." When Scott gave a small noise that roughly translated into 'don't be so sure', Owen's expression dropped while he watched the other vampire. "No…"

"He's… not convinced of Pearl's innocence, I think…" The words, by themselves, were enough for Owen's lack of expression to turn into shocked, wide-eyed incredulousness while Scott look thoughtfully towards the glimpses of sky that were visible between the leaves, like it'd help him in some way. "And I told him about the conversation I heard…"

"What conversation?" Owen was watching him with a clueless, blank look on his face, making Scott move closer like he was about to reveal some great secret and not something he'd recently been spreading around as much as he could to sow seeds of doubt.

"Do you remember on the bridge with Martyn, Ren, Cleo, and Apo, I said about him deciding to believe in vampires?"

"Oh! Yes."

"That. I told Avid about that conversation." He paused to step over a particularly large stick, almost a branch in size, before continuing. "It was Apo, Martyn, and Pyro saying that they'd believe in vampires, entertaining his…" Scott snorted loudly, "delusions."

"Ah." Owen fell silent for a moment before asking, "was Pyro…?"

"Yep!" Scott was smiling again, trying not to laugh. In his own attempt to not laugh, Owen fought back even a smile, forcing himself to keep a straight face.

"Oh." It was all he could manage without even slightly giggling about it. Scott nodded, refusing to look anywhere but the floor in case anything made him start giggling.

"Yeah." He was still trying to collect himself, eventually speaking again once he was certain that he could get sentences out without any interruptions. "Well, I told Avid and let him know that Abolish also heard what I heard."

"Is that… wise?"

Scott eyed him for a moment, frowning in confusion. "Of course." He was very clearly waiting for Owen to ask for an explanation, and Owen rolled his eyes with the realisation that Scott wasn't going to just tell him anything.

"How so?"

"I like games. I like playing games," Scott began, quickly being interrupted by Owen.

"You like playing, you don't like being played." Owen paused while being watched, Scott seemingly taken aback by the almost exact repetition of what Scott had said to Apo. "I remember."

"Aw. You remembered…" Everything about him, from his tone to the small smile to the way that he seemed to shrink a little, gave the impression that he was genuinely touched by the idea that he remembered, that someone remembering something he'd said--even something said mostly in passing--was the sweetest thing he'd ever experienced. The moment was ruined, somewhat, for Owen; he couldn't figure out if this was a teasing act to make fun of him for it or not.

"Yes…?" Owen's confusion was obvious, but Scott refused to elaborate or explain anything.

"Aw." He seemed to cherish the thought--or, perhaps, the sentimentality--before he continued with what he was saying. "Well, anyway. I like playing games, and Avid's a very easy game to play." His tone was purely casual now, like this was something so obvious, so simple, that there shouldn't have been any confusion. Owen, however, was frowning; he was somewhat lost as to where this was going. Scott glanced over, realising that this was not as simple as he'd thought, and took pity on Owen. "He wants two things; he wants people to believe him, and he wants everyone around him to be human," Scott was saying, stepping on a twist as they walked and glancing down at the snap that sounded. "If you suggest either of those aren't true, he gets uneasy and starts throwing out wild accusations," he explained, "and in a town like that? Wild accusations have two possible outcomes."

"One; Avid gets thrown out, again, for randomly accusing humans of being vampires. He's easier to torment and scare, and the town don't know it's happening because he's not there, they can't witness it. Option two; they're all so paranoid that they believe him, and they turn on each other." He paused to let it settle into Owen's brain, only speaking again when Owen stopped looking ahead blankly, with the only sign of emotion being slightly narrowed eyes. His gaze hit Scott's face, and Scott continued to speak. "The beauty of picking Pearl is that she's already kind of suspicious--she keeps spending nights out of the town, she goes around crypts alone--but she's also linked to Cleo, and Cleo will defend her with their life. Unlife. Whatever."

"So…?"

"So, if Cleo does something and no one sees them, Avid may blame Pearl because he's already thinking about her being a vampire and he's not thinking about Cleo being a vampire," he said. "Pearl gets blamed, and either Cleo gets angry at Avid or Pearl becomes isolated and one of them gets pushed out of the town. If it's Pearl, she becomes easy pickings, and the cycle continues. Plus, she's got skills, so she would be nice to have around…"

It had very quickly become very obvious that Scott had perfected the act of ignorance and had managed to fool Owen as well as, potentially, some members of the town. He could only stare, and Scott glanced his way before giving a very fake little 'aha' before his tone turned malicious. "You don't need to kill to destroy that town. You can just wind Avid up and let him loose. He can tear them apart. Hell, he can do more damage than all four of us put together, and we just need to play innocent." He tilted his head from side to side as if he were conceding a point. "It does mean no more threatening them all, but who needs to threaten when Avid's busy calling everyone a vampire and irritating people?"

Silence fell over them, and it took a moment before Scott realised why silence had fallen; Owen was stunned beyond words and Scott seemed to be preening over it, every bit the poster boy of smugness. Eventually, Owen found his voice again.

"You really do like games."

Scott laughed, the only noise in the forest besides their footsteps as they walked home.