Chapter Text
Only after he dragged an unconscious Pyro out of the water onto the shore did Scott remember the consequences of turning a new vampire.
Six centuries asleep, followed by days of gnawing hunger and surrounded by humans had made him hasty, forgetting why he’d been so particular regarding those he chose to turn.
Clearly Pyro was not.
Scott stepped away from the body as they began to stir, allowing Owen to take over answering any questions they may have as he silently berated himself for acting without caution, still taking care to keep up a facade of indifference.
His thoughts raced. Something had changed, and he couldn’t place what. He couldn’t figure it out. It was wrong. Something in him was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to happen- What’s going-
Wait.
No-
No it couldn’t be.
How-
They did this to him.
He should have seen that Pyro was a spineless coward and nothing like the aristocratic quality of their clothing suggested.
Pyro was motivated by nothing but fear.
And now? That baseless anxiety had infected Scott as well.
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Scott’s sire gave him very few guidelines to follow upon turning him. Avoid silver and garlic. Keep out of the sun. Don’t let anyone holding a stake near you. Take care who you choose to sire.
They mostly made sense. Silver was uncomfortable to touch already and even the smell of garlic made him nauseous. The sun was hotter and brighter than it had been before. And given stakes were the one thing that could supposedly kill him, this newfound eternal life would be useless if someone holding one got too close.
The last one he didn’t really care about. A peasant didn’t deserve this gift anyway. Those with status did. Those who wanted power. And there’s nothing more powerful than someone with wealth, immortality, and the ability to easily dispose of those who would oppose them.
So of course Scott only turned those who were like him.
For centuries, only those he found worthy were given this opportunity.
Until Pyro.
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While he did respond to the questions Owen and Pyro asked, his mind was focused on handling the complications that had arisen.
Owen had been fairly quick to remind him that consuming so much blood had already caused physical changes to him, which would be hard to hide from the humans.
Disguising both issues would require some creativity, so when it was proposed they all return to the town, Scott informed the others he would head to the castle for the time being to find a solution. He could do with a mask, and hopefully, his crypt would provide him with options.
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The house contest was… interesting. Elle had suggested it as a bonding experience for the town, and even though not all the buildings were finished, most of the humans enjoyed seeing what the others had chosen to build. In the end, it was less of a contest and more of a tour of the town.
But the self-proclaimed hunter’s eyes followed him closely, as though watching for something, and the foreign terror that buzzed beneath his skin made it difficult to act as though nothing was amiss.
Thankfully, when the town had seen him with his skull-like mask, many of them chose to create and wear masks of their own, hoping to spook those who didn’t.
Elle proved to be annoyingly unfazed by most of it however. Ever since he’d accidentally interrupted the “consecration” of the town beacon when they were all getting to know each other, she’d been watching him. As though she had reason to suspect him of something. Even when others managed to startle her with their sudden, masked appearance around her and he knew she couldn’t have seen or heard his approach, his attempts failed.
To make his paranoia worse, her first comment upon spotting him in his mask was a joke about him looking even more like a vampire now.
This wasn’t the first time she’d joked about vampires around town either. It started not long after the moment with the beacon, like an unspoken accusation that she knew what he was.
All said, he was grateful for the mask in the end, as it not only hid his changed eyes, but also his involuntary reactions to the silver tools the villagers used and the sudden loud noises that happened throughout the day. He wasn’t used to trying to disguise the anxiety he felt because of the buzzing beneath his skin, and it would have been frustratingly evident without his face being mostly covered.
The only reaction he struggled to hide was when Ren walked too close to him with a silver ax while Drift and Elle were talking about their house during the tour. He was lucky to have been at the back of the group and everyone, including Elle, was focused on Drift’s speech when he instinctually turned into a bat to escape the silver weapon. While he turned back as soon as he realized, playing off the swarm of illusory bats was difficult, and the hunter’s knowing look when she caught his eye was infuriating.
The moment he could leave these humans behind, he’d never come back. All this acting was beneath him, and the sooner he could bury this unnatural fear, the better.
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While he agreed to adventure out of town with a group, he didn’t exactly plan on helping Martyn and Legundo “consecrate” one of these strange beacons with Owen. It wasn’t as though the vampires were actually helping, but they also didn’t seem to be preventing whatever the humans were doing, like he had on the first day. And he was all for working with Owen to hear some of the humans’ thoughts about the town. Hearing Martyn mention that Elle claimed to know the most about the area outside of Owen himself was quite interesting. Even if no one had mentioned knowing anything about the area within the last couple centuries.
Scott didn’t know what to make of these beacons, however. They didn’t exist here before he was put to sleep, and it seemed Owen was in the dark about them as well. So, either Owen was less informed about the area than he believes, or they were placed here within the last 200 years. It could go either way honestly. Based on the strange variety of people they had here now, he wouldn’t be surprised if other humans came and tried to cleanse whatever they thought “cursed” the land.
Which was ridiculous. The land wasn’t cursed. It was just him thinning his herd every couple of centuries. Those he turned probably just continued in his footsteps after he was put to sleep. If Owen was turned here, one of them had to have been around anyway. Those insufferable religious zealots couldn’t have gotten them all.
A pulse of pain brought him out of his thoughts, followed by an intense dread. He recognized this magic. He knew this magic. It wasn’t the same signature, but it was the same source.
Those fucking clerics.
If he didn’t believe that the beacons were real before, he did now. That magic was unfortunately not a joke, and his new, maddening anxiety wanted him far out of range of it, as quickly as possible. Which was impossible if he didn’t want to seem suspicious, given his current company.
He had no idea what Owen and Martyn were planning at this point, but he was grateful they didn’t need much input from him. His lungs weren’t responding after all, and try as one might, it was impossible to speak without air.
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Scott didn’t enjoy doing this to Shelby. At least, not like this. They were someone he wouldn’t mind turning, even under normal circumstances. But he needed food. And her curiosity would do wonders to temper Pyro’s fear.
Though he was also genuinely interested in testing if fish could be a useable food source, considering all of them were getting desperate for an easy food source. It was truly unfortunate to discover that fish blood was completely useless. Which left Shelby as their only option.
Waiting out Martyn and his sudden paranoia was tedious. Had he known the boy was going to follow him when he stepped away from the group, Scott may have considered turning him while they were out of sight of everyone. Martyn wasn’t the worst choice. His impulsiveness could be an issue, but it would certainly combat fear well. If only they had actually encountered each other while alone….
At least he could appreciate Martyn’s panicked reaction when Scott returned to their fishing spot and informed him that his friends followed him out and were looking for him.
Shelby was a gem for not fully questioning when they moved farther away from the main path. She didn’t even notice Owen falling back to keep watch.
As Scott walked beside her, he slipped his hand into theirs, having seen them do so with Drift when they left to search for crypts with Cleo and Pearl before. Her grin at him as they continued their conversation proved that she approved of the gesture. Which only left them more vulnerable to what came next.
She turned towards Pyro for a moment, just to see his response to something, and Scott brought their wrist to his mouth, taking the opportunity as soon as they weren’t paying attention. The sudden pain startled her, causing her to turn back to look at him. Even with the sight of his fangs in their wrist, with small drops of blood escaping to roll down her arm, they were frozen in clear disbelief.
With the moment presented to him, Pyro leaned in as well and latched onto their neck, hands moving to gently hold her arms in place.
“You’re joking.”
His fingers tightened around hers as he pulled away enough to answer them.
“It just helps with the hunger.” His fangs were on full display as he grinned, shining crimson with her blood in the moonlight.
Her arm pulled as they began to struggle, doing nothing against his hold. Pyro seemed to bite down harder and tightened their own grip in response, signet ring glinting in the moonlight as it pressed into already pale skin.
“You’re not going to make it a problem, right Shelby?” Scott’s eyes were as much on Pyro as they were on her. They were drinking quickly, mind lost to predatorial instinct as he consumed his first true meal. If Scott wasn’t careful...
Shelby’s struggling continued, and one of Pyro’s arms wrapped around her to hold them more securely.
Upon realizing she was trapped, her begging began, panic and adrenaline leaving them unable to form full sentences.
“Come on now, Shelby,” Owen’s voice groaned in from the background. “There’s no getting out of this now.”
Scott leaned in again, fangs close to the wounds he left on her wrist. “It’ll hurt less if you stop struggling. You’re still my roommate after all. I detest making you feel pain, especially when you could be with me for eternity.”
Gasping, they froze once more, staring at him as his fangs grazed across the thin skin of her wrist. Their arm twitched away from him, enough for him to need to reposition.
Just as he found his bite mark once more, she went slack.
No new blood met his lips.
Scott released her.
Pyro loosened his grip on them, fangs sliding free, mouth covered in blood.
Blood that should have been his.
He had miscalculated.
In an attempt to save face and maintain her passion that entertained him so, he had miscalculated.
And a newly turned stole his prize.
Shelby’s voice filtered through his rage-induced haze, and he took a moment to comfort her and answer her immediate questions before letting Owen take over explanations once more. With their focus now elsewhere, Scott turned to the source of his problems. Pyro’s eyes had shifted, now a pale imitation of his own. More proof of what had occurred.
Faster than this child could react, Scott’s hand was crushing around their throat, pulling them close, the sheer wrath within him causing claws to form and puncture the skin beneath them.
“If you ever steal from me again, it will be the last thing you take.”
Pyro’s terror was obvious, and Scott tightened his grip just enough to feel cartilage creak before releasing him, point driven home.
If nothing else, the fury was a fantastic way to obscure fear. And while he may not have experience with fear, anger came naturally to him.