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Returning to Oakhurst every year was always bittersweet.
Scott enjoyed the travel aspect of it. It satisfied some small itch in the back of his mind to return to what had been his home for centuries before he finally left that small, decrepit town at the end of it all. Shelby and Drift always seemed more excited than he was about it, since it gave them a chance to catch up with Cleo and Pearl. Every once in a while, Shelby managed to track down and convince both Sausage and Abolish to tag along with them. One year, he remembered that Apo had been sent an invitation to join them, and he pretended he didn’t see his not quite fledgling roommate grow more disappointed when she received no reply from their former… friend.
But as much as the journey to Oakhurst was a social call, as well as to see how the town had grown through the years, it served a much larger purpose that Scott always managed to forget about until they arrived back in town.
The visit to Avid’s little grave Scott had made all those years ago was tradition now, one that was reverently maintained to ensure that it was still there - that he was still there.
It was odd, the feelings in Scott that always managed to resurface every time he was faced with the little pile of carefully placed rocks and carved sign. Here Lies Avid, scrawled in Scott’s own curved handwriting above a single wither rose that no matter how much time had passed, refused to live up to its name and wither away.
Fitting, the flower was much like the feelings that Scott managed to ignore throughout the years that passed up until he was face to face with the little gravesite.
He wasn’t entirely sure what the specific feelings were, a jumbled mess of something that always settled in his chest uncomfortably. But despite it, Scott felt drawn to the site, and the current trip, like all others in the past, left him restless.
Oakhurst had grown slightly, the forest around the once deserted town had been converted at some point into a small town, lined with brick buildings and little homes. The actual town, what had once been the cobbled together rebuilding of a long forgotten village, was marked as a historical site along with the castle.
The castle was closed to the public, and Scott always felt some sort of satisfaction at seeing his old home so carefully preserved by the current inhabitants. Cleo and Pearl were always happy to see them, letting them stay in their old rooms in the castle like nothing had changed. Except so much had changed, and they all knew it.
Scott was hoping that this trip would be like all the others. He and the two younger vampires would stay in Oakhurst for about a week before they headed back to New York. The three of them would visit Avid’s grave together, Scott would let Shelby and Drift talk for hours while they cleaned up the gravestone and carefully left more flowers to bring more color around the rose Scott had planted centuries ago. Then, Scott would hang back as the girls both left as the sun rose to sit and talk at the grave to let that uncomfortable feeling in his chest dissipate for another year.
He should have expected something would be wrong.
Just as Scott was getting ready to leave with Shelby and Drift, he felt a clawed hand grab his arm to pull him aside. Startled, he turned to see Cleo leading him away from the other two vampires.
“Right, so what’s going on?” He asked as soon as they were out of earshot from the other girls.
Cleo scoffed a little as she let go of his arm, tucking her hands into the pockets of her sweater. “Nothing, I just,” they paused for a moment to sigh, intently holding Scott’s gaze, “wanted to warn you before you headed out.”
Scott blinked, frowning with confusion. “Warn me? About what? I think we’re far past the point of worrying about something going on in the woods around here.”
“It’s not like that,” Cleo rolled their eyes, “There’s just been some rumors going on in town. People have been talking about seeing something… strange, in the woods lately.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment between them, and Scott tried to ignore the oddly familiar feelings mixing with the restless tension that sat in his chest. “Strange… how?”
“Strange like whatever curse this place is under might be affecting it again.” Cleo deadpanned, and Scott didn’t need any more information to know what that meant.
“So far it’s just been like, people saying they feel like they’re being watched or feel a presence there that isn’t.” They continued, tone serious as they did, “I don’t think it means anything just yet, I just wanted to warn you.”
“If it doesn’t mean anything,” Scott said slowly, “then why bring it up to me at all? You know we’re only here for a few days, Oakhurst’s protection is yours and Pearl’s responsibility now, not mine. You both made that very clear.”
If it was possible for Cleo’s gaze to get colder, it did at that moment. “Scott, don’t tell me you don’t feel it too.” They lowered their voice, darkened by the low whisper that Scott felt like he could hear clear as day.
Scott scowled a little, crossing his arms over his chest. “Feel what? Like you’re wasting my time?”
“This isn’t just any presence, Scott.” Cleo hissed, the glint of her fangs showing a little out of instinct. “And I know you can feel it too because of who this feels like.”
The tightness in Scott’s chest increased as he ignored the odd pull he always felt whenever they returned to Oakhurst. “Cleo. He’s dead-”
“I know that,” They snapped, “But you know something strange happens to this place. All I’m saying is that it might be nothing. But it’s also not worth just ignoring for another year, especially since it’s been as long as it has been.”
The implication isn’t lost on Scott. Two hundred years, almost exactly. Just like before.
Scott just shrugged Cleo off, turning to go and catch up with Shelby and Drift. “Thanks for the heads up, Cleo, but again. It’s not my problem anymore.”
They didn’t try to stop him as he walked off.
The walk up to Avid’s grave is familiar. They could all fly there, if they wanted. They don’t. Scott liked the feeling of fresh air and getting to walk through the path faded with time through the forest and across the little cobbled together bridge over the river that the humans had built at some point in order to reach the other side.
Like normal, Shelby laid out a little blanket across the soft grass at the top of the hill where the gravestone sat, smoothing out the fabric before she sat down, dragging Drift down with her as they sat close to the headstone. Scott tucked his legs underneath him as he sat down on the other side of the blanket, tangling his fingers in the blades of grass beside him.
Hours passed, the other two vampires just chatted away gently as Scott watched, occasionally chiming in. They both treated the visit like Avid was still there, and they were just catching him up on what had been going on in the year since they were last there.
When they first started doing this, Shelby and Drift would cry. At a certain point, talking to the empty air like their friend was still there brought on an overwhelming amount of feelings in the two fledglings, and they’d sit together in each other's arms to comfort the other as they both sobbed.
Nowadays, they don’t cry as much. At least, neither of them were reduced to tears like they used to.
Scott never cried over the grave in front of them.
Eventually, as the moon began to set beyond the treeline of the forest below them, Drift got up from her spot on the blanket, and waited for Shelby to place the little flower crown she’d been making across the top of the headstone before she helped her to her feet.
“You gonna hang back here for a bit?” Shelby asked as she smoothed the fabric of her skirt out, looking at Scott as she did.
He just nodded. “Yeah, if you both don’t mind.” Scott got up, mimicking his friend’s movements as he brushed off his pants and helped to fold up the blanket from the ground. Drift took the folded blanket from him as she tucked it under her arm as Shelby wordlessly squeezed him in a gentle hug.
As the pair walked off, Scott watched them for a while as they moved down the hillside and the quiet of the night crept in.
The silence stretched as he stared down at the grave, his own handwriting staring back at him. That odd ache in his chest was still there, persistent but not hard to ignore. Scott stayed that way in front of Avid’s grave for what felt like forever.
Gingerly, Scott brushed his fingers against the top of the grave as he gripped the stone for a moment. He gave a small nod, readjusting Shelby’s little flowercrown a bit so it wouldn’t sit crookedly against the stone before he turned around to walk away from the gravesite.
He meant to head back to the castle, but he let his feet carry him aimlessly. Despite the centuries that had passed, Scott felt at peace in the forest, the surroundings being still eerily familiar. Though now, he wasn’t constantly running around or worried that he would walk into a fight or come across a hostile human. He could simply just be.
Maybe that was how he ended up back at the lake.
Scott wasn’t sure how long had passed, but the moment he saw the familiar landscape around the lake, he knew he’d been walking for a while. He knew exactly where he was when he saw the little pile of rocks tucked away near the edge of the water. He didn’t stop walking until he was right in front of it.
Pyro. He could have been better but couldn’t we all.
Unmistakably written in Shelby’s handwriting despite being faded with so much time and no care taken to preserve the grave compared to the others Scott knew were scattered around Oakhurst.
“We really could have.” Scott muttered under his breath as he stared at the words on the hastily made grave, if you could even call it that. His voice sounded tight, like he was holding back as he finally spoke for the first time since he left the castle.
Sighing, Scott glanced around until he spotted a patch of wild flowers further into the forest. It just felt wrong, seeing the cobbled together grave marker for his old fledgling. Despite the years it had been since it happened, he couldn’t just leave the grave the way it was.
Walking away from it, Scott hiked further into the forest to the flower patch he’d spotted before. They were nothing special, darkened from the dead wood on the other side of the lake, but it made the odd feeling in his chest lighten a bit as he did. Maybe he could even clean up the actual gravesite itself, make the marker a bit more visible and clean up the writing.
What he wasn’t expecting when he turned around to head back to the grave was to see something off to the side of Pyro’s grave that made him stop in his tracks.
A wispy form of a vaguely human-shaped figure, shining in hues of whitish blue in the fading light of the moon that flickered as the dawn broke out over the lake, its eyes practically glaring at Scott with an intensity that was achingly familiar.
The spirit was dressed in tattered clothes, long coat over their shoulders and a partially opened dress shirt that did nothing to hide the gaping open wound in their chest, a hole right over their heart.
A vision of the past that no matter what Scott did, he would never forget.
Pyro.
“Could you?” The ghost spoke, their voice echoing somewhat in the small space around them that Scott could hear clear as day as it brought a shiver down his spine. It had been nearly two centuries, and the voice of his long dead fledgling sounded as though no time had passed at all.
Scott steeled himself, taking a breath. “Could I what?”
“Have done better,” Pyro hissed out, his form flickering a bit as he did. The ghost’s gaze dropped down to the grave, motioning down towards it with a slight jerk of their head. “Avid gets a nice little grave at the top of the hill behind the castle the day he died and I don’t get anything until Shelby felt guilty about it a few years after she killed me?”
That ache in Scott’s chest tightened as he frowned, his eyes never leaving the ghost of his fledgling. “That’s not fair.”
“None of what happened was fair, Goldsmith.” Pyro snapped, his gaze returning to Scott with venom in his voice. “You didn’t care about me, you didn’t care about anyone other than yourself. I was just a useful tool for you to use, a hunting dog you were more than happy to put down the moment it became a burden to keep around.”
Taking a few tentative steps towards the grave where the ghost stood, Scott tried to soften his expression. “You don’t honestly believe that-”
“What did Avid have that I didn’t?” The ghost wasn’t done, it seemed, continuing to shout angrily as their voice echoed through the space. The fledgling’s fangs were bared, as if snarling at Scott in a way that he recognized as defensive despite their being dead. “Was I not loyal? Did I mean nothing to you? What was the point of it all if you were going to side with the humans in the end anyway?”
When Scott stopped in his tracks, standing on the other side of the sad little grave between him and Pyro’s ghost, he could see a darkened trail of tears that stained their cheeks. He didn’t know if ghosts could cry, and Scott was painfully aware that likely meant that in their last moments before Shelby drove the stake through their heart, they’d left undeath the same way they’d entered it.
“Pyro,” Scott said tentatively, his voice quiet compared to the angry shouts of the spirit. He lifted his hand to try and cup the side of his fledgling’s face, hanging in the air where their cheek should have been so that it wouldn’t pass through their misty form that flickered as he did.
That angry expression on Pyro’s face didn’t lessen, and despite the fact that they were a ghost, Scott could see the fight in their eyes to keep from trying to lean into the touch.
“I’m sorry. For everything we did to you- that I did to you. It’s long overdue that I tell you that,” Scott murmured, watching as the ghost’s form flickered more intensely as a mix of emotions flashed across their face. “I meant what I said. We could have done better. I certainly could have done better by you as your sire. You were my first fledgling, after all, that will always be special.”
“You don’t mean that,” Pyro hissed, but the ghost didn’t move away from where Scott’s hand essentially hovered in the space against his cheek. “Because if it was, I wouldn’t have had to beg for your attention every year you’ve come back to visit Avid’s grave.”
Which was… an entirely fair point, and explained in an instant both Cleo’s warning from earlier and the odd feelings he always felt when they came back to Oakhurst. Scott fell silent as the ghost stared back at him, their expression hardening the longer the silence stretched.
“That’s what I thought,” Finally tearing away from the touch of the elder vampire, Pyro took a few steps back, their ghostly form flickering again as the sky grew lighter with the rising sun. “I’m nothing but a distant memory to you now.”
“Pyro-”
“It’s too fucking late,” The ghost of his fledgling was all but snarling as they stood at the edge of the water. There was an edge in their voice that sounded nearly choked with tears that made Scott’s undead heart shatter in his chest. “For all of it- your apology or your sad little attempt to fix up Shelby’s pathetic grave.”
The ghost was trying to lash out the way he might have while they were still alive, claws out at their side and fangs bared. Scott wanted to wrap them up and hold them tight to comfort them - and wasn’t that a strange little thought. The sire bond with his fledgling was still there in spite of them being an angry spirit.
“That doesn’t make it any less true.” Scott replied, his gaze never leaving Pyro’s. “For what it’s worth.”
The ghost scoffed, their stance dropping its aggressive nature though the tension never left their form. “I’ll see you next year, Sire.” There was something light in Pyro’s tone, still hardened with the weight of simmering anger but was mixed with something that Scott thought sounded a bit hopeful.
Scott watched as the ghost’s form flickered again before Pyro fizzled out of existence all together, as if consumed by the rising sun as its beams hit the lake behind them.
The sun’s rays stung Scott’s skin, a faint sizzling sound reaching his ears. And for a moment, he let it, standing at the back of the grave for his fledgling as he looked down at the little collection of flowers still clutched in his hand.
Gingerly, Scott leaned down to set the picked flowers down in front of the little pile of rocks that signified Pyro’s resting place- if you could really call it that. Before he pulled back entirely, he brushed off some of the dirt and overgrown grass from the gravestone in a small attempt to clean it up like he had wanted to earlier.
“I hope you get the rest you deserve, my fledgeling.” Scott murmured as he stood upright, glancing over to stare at the space Pyro’s ghost had occupied for a moment longer before he turned to walk back into the cover of shade that the forest brought.