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Something had happened to Scott.
He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but he knew when it had happened.
It had started with the pit in his stomach that had made itself known the second he’d felt his fledgeling die.
It continued with this odd numbness- taking a certain mechanic spur to his next actions, moving without much thought or feeling. It came with a ringing in his ears and a pounding in his head that was just as stubborn and relentless as Avid had proven himself to be.
It ended with a clarity Scott had never wanted to find.
The realization that he would never feel the same way about anyone else as long as he lived.
A part of him wanted to see the body, but he spared himself the scene.
He opted instead to dig a grave at the top of a hill, without the corpse. He stuck a sign into a scarce patch of topsoil and etched a final goodbye into the wood.
In front of that, he planted a single withered, black rose. It reminded Scott of him- beautiful and pure, corrupted until it had been rendered dark and ruined in all sorts of wonderful ways.
It was peaceful on the hill. The fires below had not reached these trees yet, and the screaming from Oakhurst couldn’t reach this height. The air was thin, but it didn’t matter to Scott, who hadn’t been able to breathe quite right since Avid's death anyways.
He sat by the rough stone, staring off towards the rising moon.
He’d experienced loss before. It wasn’t anything abnormal. That pain had dulled over the last few centuries. This was different. This was sharp. Relentless. And it hurt.
He could still feel the buzz of where Avid’s lips had pressed into his- rushed and clumsy, but so like him.
Scott raised a hand to his mouth, tracing his fingers around the foreign sensation like it was something physical he could hold.
Scott knew what had happened then. He finally understood the bite in his chest, though there was nothing he could do to act upon it now. If he’d known the outcome- if in all his scheming he had been able to predict losing him, he would never have touched that skull mask from so long ago.
He might not have woken up at all.
Because Scott wanted. He had never wanted anything so badly. He wasn’t used to being denied so irrefutably, much less in such an abrupt and foreign way.
He started to laugh, breaking the silence of the sanctuary surrounding him- slowly growing louder as he watched birds and squirrels scatter away.
Maybe Avid would have liked his final resting place, maybe not.
He wasn’t there to contest it.
He’d been killed and buried just as he’d lived.
Alone.
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“Shelby, I need to ask you a favor.”
“Of course! What can I do?”
Her chipper attitude is completely false. It’s nothing more than a desperate attempt to cling onto a version of herself that she still recognizes- one that would get to see her best friend come home at the end of the day.
Scott sets a hand on her shoulder, the fatigue in his eyes reflecting her own.
He raises his hand and points towards the mountain peak.
“If I die, bury me beside him. He wouldn’t want to be left by himself.”
Shelby stills, holding his empty gaze despite the overwhelming urge to look away. She doesn’t argue that he won’t die- doesn’t scream that she can’t lose another piece of her family- of herself.
Instead she says
“Okay,”
Willing her voice not to crack at the request.
Nothing more needed to be said.