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Scott plopped down unceremoniously on the gray soil, staring blankly at the monument in front of him. He’d spent hours on it, dragging various materials to the top of the hill for a little memorial. As he’d worked, he had been able to distract himself from any reflection; the physical labor enough to prevent his thoughts from spiralling totally out of his own control.
Now, though, that he’d said a few words for his late… friend? Fledgling felt too familial, but ‘lover’ or ‘partner’ felt presumptuous. Scott didn’t know what Avid was to him. He couldn’t help the way his mind wandered. To a time before now, a time he hadn’t thought about in millenia. How could he have forgotten?
Avid’s laugh, his smile, his capricious enthusiasm, the way he’d traipsed around like there was nothing in all the world that could take him down. It was too familiar—they were too similar. Scott couldn’t take it, he didn’t have any tears left, much less tears for a man centuries dead.
A man who had smelled of wildflowers and sun-warmed soil. Who had been sunlight personified. Whose chocolate brown eyes had lit up with merriment as he smiled so, so gently at Scott. A man that had been shot through the neck and left to bleed out in the sand. A man whose body Scott had never been able to hold for the last time. Whose body was never buried.
Scott picked at the dirt under his fingernails.
Jimmy hadn’t gotten more than a hastily dug, empty grave on a hill with perennial seeds scattered around and a singular red poppy lain on the freshly disturbed soil. It had been frantic and grief-stricken, perfectly unworthy of a man so full of joy and life as his husband. Scott had made sure that Avid would not receive the same treatment. Though Scott still did not—much to his chagrin—have a body to bury, he had put effort into it this time around. Scott had spent the last few hours chiseling out a few simple words on a large river stone he’d retrieved from the base of the castle.
Here lies Avid.
Scott hadn’t been a craftsman in many years; he’d been more than comfortable to let the mortals who served him worry about things like gravestones or remembrance. Nowadays, crypts and tombs adorned with riches and precious things are far more in fashion. After all, no self-respecting vampire would be so silly as to die. Scott chuckled, a little wetly.
He’d plucked a singular wither rose from the outskirts of the castle yards, which he set gently at the foot of the grave. He’d properly planted some alliums and red and white poppies around the site. The alliums a jab at Avid’s beginnings as a hunter obsessed with garlic; the poppies an homage to Scott’s lost love. It was imperfect, but Scott thought they both would have liked it. It was… charming. Sweet, and simple. Like them.
Scott was a silly, silly man. He knew not to get attached. But he had anyway. To Avid, to Shelby, to Pyro, even to Owen. But this was what happened, every time he formed connections. Someone betrayed him, someone died. He hoped it had been a quick death.
He knew it hadn’t.
Scott had failed his husband wholly and completely, in a way that he knew he could never rectify, never return from. But Scott was not the same man he had been a millennium ago. He was stronger now, smarter. He wouldn’t crack, and he wouldn’t break down. He wouldn’t rage against those who had wronged him—not in the way that he had before. He would pick himself up out of the aftermath of this… temporary lapse, and he would strike back, strategic and detached.
He’d said as much when Pyro had committed his first betrayal, by turning Shelby: Scott had brought the fledgling into immortality, he could take him right back out. Scott wasn’t stupid, he couldn’t have lived for thousands of years as a vampire before this otherwise. He had most definitely noticed the way his spawn looked at him with disdain, now, not fear. How Pyro had stood higher and straighter than Scott and peered down at his sire as he’d proudly proclaimed responsibility for Avid’s murder. Pyro had, curiously, not referred to Scott as ‘Sire,’ since, either. In fact, where they had formerly stood at Scott’s side, they now stood at Owen’s.
Well.
“I’ll make sure to kill them for you,” Scott said lightly, standing up and peering down his nose at the gravestone.
No, Scott was not the same man who had settled in that flower valley with the love of his life and every intent to live out the rest of his days in gentle quietude. That Scott had lost everything, lifetimes ago. Unable to handle his lover’s death, he had raged against Dogwarts and its soldiers with a recklessness that had nearly gotten him killed. It should’ve gotten him killed—it was only by the grace of the Watchers that he had lived and been given this gift of eternity. He had learned in his many years not to squander it.
After Scott slaughtered every last townsperson who did not accept the salvation which he had been so generous as to share, he would turn his attention to the coven. He had given the fledglings too many chances. Pyro had squandered them all. Owen, well… Scott would have to see. He did not know who exactly had turned Owen, but he could feel his own influence strong in the fledgling. He was likely only second or third generation spawn. This was just another lesson in self-dependency. You could never trust anyone with anything, regardless of how “loyal” you thought them to be. He knows now not to trust any of his fledglings alone with one another, especially Owen and Pyro. In fact, he needs to have a longer conversation with Shelby about this, very soon.
Yes, his spawn would pay for crossing him. With their lives, if need be.