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Scott Goldsmith smiled and nodded. In his early years, this had been a well-honed skill, a way to keep rich idiots blabbing while he pretended not to peel them apart in his mind. People said so much if you just let them. Vampires were no different.
So he let Pyro and Owen just — talk, so flippantly about how and where they ended Avid’s short and terrible life, and the moment he got the opportunity, he slipped into the crypt to find the body.
Even Avid deserved a burial, right? Had this happened before his turning, it might have been funny, ironic given the silver torture chamber he’d built for them all in the center of town. Or had Avid said the prison was meant for himself? Scott’s brow pinched as he tried to recall and make sense of the unhinged ramblings he’d bothered committing to memory. He’d mentioned he was sick, right? Sick and a danger to others? That’s what the gift of vampirism had offered him — a way out of that inevitable fate.
Hmm. Scott failed to find a funny angle to this after all.
He tried to stop this from worrying his perfect brow as he descended the crypt steps. He stopped at the pit, one shoe hovering, before dropping elegantly down. His landing was silent, as all his landings were, but the grit of freshly extricated stone crunched under his heels regardless.
They’d buried Avid in a place no one would ever tread again. No grass or flowers would sprout from this place, no breeze would pass carrying a breath of a future spring, and no muffled voices would ever breach the stone to keep him company. Such a desperate, lonely man Avid was, and they’d left his corpse even lonelier.
Scott knelt in the gravel and began to dig.
When he finally pried away the last rock, his palms raw and his claws ragged from the labor, he found a rather shocking sight. Scott was no stranger to dead bodies — he’d seen, and created, many of them throughout his long life — so he was not shocked to find Avid’s body broken and limp like a dead pigeon, his skin waxy and gray, a crudely carved stake jutting out from between the gorey mess in his chest. This didn’t startled him at all. What actually gave Scott pause was the fact that, despite all this, Avid’s chest was still moving.
A spark of hope rose in his chest, but he knew better than to kindle such a thing. He tamped it down and took inventory of the scene. The stake was where it was supposed to be if you wanted to kill a vampire, but Owen and Pyro must have grazed an artery instead of the heart proper, if he were to hazard a guess. Based on how torn up the poor fellow’s chest was, he assumed they’d gotten sloppy, too busy torturing him to do it correctly. So much for the “liability” excuse. Nonetheless, the wound was still fatal. Avid was suffering and alive, but still equally dead. Scott gently kicked dirt over the spark and knelt down to deal with his coven’s mess.
His claws were a hair’s breadth from Avid’s heart when the man’s eyes fluttered open. They were wet, gritty, unfocused from pain, but they widened slightly when he saw him. There was no fear in those eyes. God — the poor guy looked relieved. Ah well. Might as well give a dog a bone before you put it down.
“Easy, Avid,” Scott crooned. He placed one hand on the fledgling’s sternum and another behind his neck, gently easing him into a more dignified position. Avid flinched, but didn’t seem to be a stranger to pain. Either that, or his soul was beyond pain. It was a cruel miracle he was even alive.
“Owen,” Avid rasped, “Pyro, they—”
“I know.” Scott wiped his face with a silk handkerchief to clear some of the grime. “I took care of it. How are you feeling?”
It was a dumb question, but Scott hoped it would make Avid feel like his condition looked better than it did.
“Thirsty,” he replied, hand reaching toward the stake. “It hurts. If I could just…”
Scott grabbed his hand to stop him. A vampire’s instinct to stay alive was strong, and he really didn’t want to deal with the rabid adrenaline-spiked mess Avid might become should he try to touch that stake. He gave that same hand a squeeze, tried to seem less frantic, more nonchalant.
Bless the poor creature. He gulped and shied at the touch.
Scott wasn’t sure what compelled him, but he kept hold of that hand and shifted so that Avid rested in the crook of his other arm, like an infant. Once he had him fully cradled, raised his wrist to his lips, encouraging him to drink.
“Sire blood,” he reassured Avid. Nevermind that he was neither Avid nor Shelby’s sire. Hopefully Avid was too young a vampire to understand that three sires removed meant basically nothing. It was going to be a lie all the same. “It’ll get your strength up.”
Avid drank greedily without hesitation, and Scott let him, even knowing resources were scarce. Cosseting was the only bone he could offer this dog. It was the least he could do for a dying vampire who hadn’t even tasted a full week of eternal life.
Once finished, Avid closed his eyes and sighed, savoring the blood that stained the cracks in his lips. His complexion didn’t look any better, but Scott told him he was looking livelier anyway. Or maybe he said “lovelier”. Avid somehow had the strength to be bashful and tucked his head into Scott’s arm.
“Where’s Shelby?” the dying man asked.
“On her way,” Scott lied.
“The humans…”
“Don’t worry about them.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Owen went on this big spooky killing spree. Turned a few, killed a lot. It’s a non-issue.” He knew mentioning Avid’s murderer wouldn’t bring him any comfort, but it made the lie more convincing. Scott sensed him relax in his arms, some of his awful trembling finally subsiding. He was cold, so much colder than Scott thought possible for a vampire. He impulsively bundled the man closer for warmth, forgetting he had none to give.
He could have stopped there, closed Avid’s eyes, and finished the job. He could have had his grave built and done with before supper. But another strange impulse took over Scott, and he found himself lying far beyond the point he would have normally stopped for fear of overplaying his hand. Words prattled from his mouth as he combed Avid’s hair with his claws and adjusted his vest to hide how bad the wound was.
“There’s really no rush anymore, so we’re gonna wait for you to get back on your feet before we turn the beacons. We have literally an eternity, after all.”
“Heh, yeah,” said Avid with a tiny, wet cough. He wasn’t trembling at all anymore, but those shallow breaths weren’t getting any stronger. He had moments left, if even. “Can I ask you a question?”
Surprised, Scott said, “Sure?”
“Just something I read somewhere…”
“Go on.”
“Since I drank your blood,” said Avid, “does that mean we’re… bonded?”
“What.”
“Mated,” he clarified. “Or… married?” Another weak cough rattled his chest, and a thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Scott took a moment to dab it away while he processed the question.
Damn Shelby and her fanfiction. It didn’t even make sense! If Scott had to marry every damn vampire that accidentally took a sip, he’d have a polycule that could blot out the sun. Scott from a few weeks ago wouldn’t have been afraid to correct Avid. He wouldn’t have even hesitated to be mean. He might have dropped Avid’s body right then and flew off to shake off the ick he felt. At his nicest he might have said, ’You wish.’
But current Scott was somehow even nicer than that, or infinitely crueler. Instead he shrugged and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
That brought a bit of life back to Avid. He squirmed, babbled, tried to find a way to respond. Scott found it it in himself to chuckle, squeezing Avid’s hand to settle him down. He smiled down at him and let his hair fall into his face, casting a dashing shadow for his half-lidded eyes to glow under, a classic maneuver for distraction and charm. He didn’t want him to start feeling the stake and panic.
“It’s fine,” he reassured him. “You wouldn’t be the worst husband I’ve ever had.”
“Should I get a ring?” Avid’s voice was a whisper again. Looks like his second wind was spent. “Do vampires… do rings…”
“I wouldn’t say no to another ring.” Keep your voice steady, Scott coached himself. Don’t choke. “What will you get me that I don’t already have? There is a wrong answer, my love.”
Scott figured the Doctor would be quite proud of him in this moment, because just like a patient going under, Avid’s mind distracted itself trying to remember what rings he’d seen Scott wearing, and forgot to stay awake. He went away easy, then, gone between one feathery breath and another. Scott finished combing his hair and cleaning up his face, then hoisted him up in one smooth motion to carry him out of the crypt. He moved quickly and efficiently to avoid prying eyes, no longer afraid of hurting him as he climbed. He endeavored to find somewhere high, an antithesis to the pit Pyro and Owen had seemed content to leave him. Somewhere his spirit might feel air and see stars, to watch rain and snow and erosion and change as the world moved on without him. And never lonely again, because there would always be vampires alive to visit him, so long as Scott was alive to ensure it.
One might call it a wedding gift.
As the decades passed, widow began to have a delightful ring to it. Scott never told anyone, not even Shelby. It was a vain, personal, selfish thing he kept close to his chest, a ring on a chain, picked on a whim from his own endless supply and retroactively assigned meaning. When the aching got too painful, he reached his fingers behind his jabot and felt the impression under his shirt.
It calmed him, for a time, thinking how flustered this would have made Avid. Perhaps it was easier to think of him this way when he wasn’t right in front of him. They’d never had the luxury of discussing what if. Scott had enjoyed the romantic attention, but he didn’t know if he would have wanted anything more than that. He’d never find out.
He was still finding a way to be content with that.