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Sire sat at the head of the table, carelessly thumbing through a crumbling tome as he sipped on a blood-filled goblet.
Pyro watched from above. Sticking to the rafters in bat-form. He wasn’t sneaking of course. He was certain that sire knew they were there, his most recent punishment over the conversation he’d had with the townsfolk was more than enough of a reminder. Scott was always watching. But Pyro wasn’t about to get any closer. Wasn’t going to test sire’s patience or risk asking for food while the Owen and Shelby were out of the castle.
Unfortunately, it seemed like others didn’t appreciate the danger Scott posed.
BAM!
The door to the dining hall bursts open, revealing… a stranger? A scarred man wearing a heavy winter coat and carrying a bow in one hand. And Scott… Scott chokes. Dropping his goblet and spilling blood all over the tome, effectively destroying it. Scott hisses and pushes away from the table, chair collapsing behind him as he glares at the strange man standing in the doorway.
Pyro flinches and cowers in on themselves, covering his snout with his wings.
This stranger is going to die.
He’s going to die and—
“Scott! You are here!”
“Scar?!?!”
What.
“Oh my gosh, Scott! I’ve just had the weirdest day,” the not so strange stranger said. Out of breath, but relieved, as he closed the door and began skipping across the hall. He must know sire, but how? “So, I was on a mining trip with that funny doctor guy, I don’t know where Abolish had wandered off too, I know you told me to keep an eye on both of them, but he disappeared at some point while we were underground and we just couldn’t find our way back, when I suddenly got an alert that eight people had died! Eight! A whole octo-kill! And then there was a whole bunch of shouting and accusations going around and somehow, I was getting blamed for everyone’s murder before we’d even gotten back to the surface. I still don’t know how they died, no one was explaining anything, and when Bdubs finally found me and managed to get us out of the ground Skizz was there and oh boy was he angry. I swear, there was no reasoning with the man! He just started shooting—”
Pyro is struggling to make sense of what Scar is saying, he’s hardly taken a breath sense he started rambling. Even Scott looks perplexed, with Scar now standing directly in front of him, waving his hands around and bouncing energetically on the balls of his feet as he recounts how Abolish of all people reappeared and stabbed Skizz to keep him from killing Scar.
…It seems the butler might be more dangerous than Pyro first thought, but how did any of this even happen in the first place? And in only a day?
“Then there was this bright flash of light! And suddenly the three of us were in the middle of some ruined village and surrounded by a bunch of people.”
An ability…
Of course, it had to be. Pyro didn’t even know why that hadn't occurred to him immediately. At this point, nothing the books could do should surprise them.
“I don’t really remember much of what happened next. Apparently, I fainted from blood loss? Which is weird. I’ve never fainted before and I’ve lost plenty of blood! But anyway, I woke up locked up in a room in the doctor’s house, like lock-locked, with a key-hole on the door and everything! The doctor was saying that I should stay in bed, but I’d only taken like three arrows to the chest so I just knew something else was going on, so I pretended to be asleep and those meanies! They were talking about putting me in a cell so I couldn’t run off! I mean… I know they were strange ever since they showed up, but I wasn’t expecting it to turn out to be some sort of kidnapping plot!”
Three arrows to the chest?
Scar must be on a serious dose of pain killers to be moving around the way he is. Or… looking at all the other scars marring his exposed skin, used to the pain. Perhaps a mixture of both, given the doctor’s nature. Legundo would certainly have the medicine to spare. And it would explain Scar’s erratic behavior.
Now that he’s focusing on it, Pyro can smell the fresh human blood over the sheep blood sire had been enjoying. Not sickly or rotted, but mouthwateringly fresh. Pyro has to sink their claws further into the wood to keep from dropping from the rafters and pouncing on Scar. Swallowing his saliva, he doesn’t know how sire has so much self-control. Being to close to wounded prey and not taking a bite.
That thought has Pyro shivering. Mind warring between guilt and hunger. Scar hasn’t done anything to them and he seem nice, if confused. He’s a friend of sire’s, but he’s also painfully human.
Food.
“So then the doctor started badmouthing you! While I was in the room! Which, rude. Especially when you were nice enough to not kill them when they showed up in our cabin. But he was really really adamant about ‘not letting Scar go back to Scott’ which meant you were here too! So, yeah, after I broke through the wall and ran into the woods I sorta got lost for a little bit, and robbed a few skeletons, but then I saw this castle and I just knew you had to be here— oh my gosh Scott you're a vAmpire!”
Pyro blinks. Had Scar really gone through that entire rambling, standing face to face with Scott and not realize that he’s a vampire? Moreover, did that mean that Scar knew Scott before he’d been turned?
Pyro had already guessed he was from the past, ridiculous considering a mere few months ago he didn’t even believe in the supernatural, but just how far into the past had the book’s ability reached?
What knowledge could Scar hold from that time?
Still fresh in his mind, not worn and faded from centuries of life. Coming from someone who seemed born with the gift of gab.
Pyro starts picking at the wood as a new kind of hunger began eating away at them. Almost completely overriding the need for blood.
Once sire is done with him. Once Scar is part of the coven. Pyro will take him to their room for an interview. It’s always the most mundane things that are forgotten to time and just from this short moment of watching him, Pyro was certain he could keep Scar talking for hours about his daily life. If he could narrow down the century and compare Scar’s word to records of that time, who knows what gaps could be filled.
“Did Mumbo bite you? Do you suddenly have the urge to do crazy redstone?”
To Pyro’s surprise there was no running, no screaming. Scar didn’t freeze in fear or cry.
No.
He stepped closer.
And starts reaching for Scott’s neck.
“Mumbo’s bit me a few times. When I’m just trying to be a good neighbor and get him into shelter. The man keeps going AFK outside in the middle of the day and catching fire! I swear it’s like he forgets he’s a vamp—"
CLAP—
There’s a solid sound of flesh meeting flesh that has Pyro flinching. Face retreating back behind his wings.
Silence.
Pyro waits a beat, then peeks over his wings.
Scott isn’t sinking his fangs into Scar’s neck. No, he’d just caught Scar’s wrist, inches away from his neck.
It appears that sire is done humoring Scar, but somehow Scar still doesn’t seem afraid. Even with the painfully tight grip on his wrist and claws digging into his skin, Scar only looks confused. Head tilted to the side innocently as he stares back at Scott.
“… no, Mumbo is not my sire.”
“Tango then,” Scar nods, as if it makes the most sense in the world. Starting up another ramble, completely unbothered by Scott’s immovable grip on his wrist. “For all the years he spends cooped up in the mountains you’d think—”
“No. I wasn’t bitten by Tango either, neither of those men are my sire.”
Pyro has never heard his sire speak so cautiously before.
“Huh… that’s weird. They’re the only two vampires around, even if Mumbo isn’t supposed to be, and you weren’t a vampire yesterday.”
“I assure you Scar, I’ve been a vampire far longer than that.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Yes I have!”
“Nu-uh.”
“Scar!” Scott yanks him closer and catches Scar’s chin when he stumbles, forcing Scar to look up and tilting his head ever so slightly to the left. “You burst into my castle, interrupt my meal, and go on a rant without letting me get a word in edgewise. I’m irritated, I’m hungry, and I have no patience to deal with your nonsense right now!”
A few different emotions flick across Scar’s face. He opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times. It still doesn’t seem like fear. More, uncertainty.
“Hey, I’m sorry about that. We can talk later. I’m still really confused! But sorry for interrupting your meal,” Scar says. Then he does the unthinkable. Tilting his head further to the left himself, offering his blood to sire. Pyro could never, would never, have done that as a mortal. He’d ran like a coward the second Scott looked at them with slitted eyes and extended claws. Screamed and cried and begged when Owen caught their arm an threw them to the ground. But Scar— “You can have a bitta my blood for now. Just don’t drain me dry. Dying would suck.”
Scar giggles.
As if he just told some kind of joke. Let’s Scott sink his fangs in to his throat wordlessly.
Pyro starts picking at the wooden beam again. They’re sure at this point that sire isn’t going to drain Scar completely, but watching someone get turned, not in the heat of battle or when they’re being hunted like a lamb trying to escape slaughter. It makes their skin itch.
Splinters fall.
Scar notices.
Green eyes meet glowing red.
And Pyro slips.
They don’t know why.
One moment they were sticking easily to the wooden beam, the next, Pyro’s claws just failed to function and he was falling.
Pyro closed his eyes, waiting to hit the ground, but instead calloused hands catch them.
“Whoa! That was a bit of a doozy, you okay little buddy?” Scar is kneeling on the ground, holding Pyro’s bat-form in his cupped hands. Scott glaring at both of them over Scar’s shoulder, blood still on his lips.
Scar must've shoved Scott off of him while he was feeding.
“Sire! I’m sorry, it was not my intent to—”
“It’s fine,” Scott cuts Pyro off, but the caution in sire’s posture was gone now. He seemed almost relaxed after drinking from Scar. Leaning against the grand table and folding his arms across his chest, looking down at them with a glint in his eyes that Pyro can’t place. It scares them. “Scar’s never been one to bother with manners, and it’s not like we can expect him to understand modern ones anyway.”
Scar either ignores the jab or is completely oblivious to it.
“Sire? Oh my gosh Scott, you have a fledgling??” Scar squeals like a child that’s just caught a tadpole and collapses against the wall into a more comfortable position.
Careful not to close his cupped hands around Pyro as he moves, but Pyro can smell even more fresh blood though Scar’s coat. Wings shaking in hunger.
It’s so tempting.
It would be so easy to bite Scar’s hand. Sink their fangs in and drink whatever’s left.
But sire would never forgive them for stealing food again. Not after Shelby. And especially not this food—
“Baby cousin!”
Pyro’s panicked thoughts grind to a halt at Scar’s exclamation.
“Pyro is not a baby,” Scott sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He’s easily older than you by at least a few years.”
Excuse me, what? Is sire not going to address the cousin part of that statement? And younger? Scar can’t be younger than them. He looks like he’s been chewed up by war and put back together with bandages alone. He can’t be younger than twenty.
“Oh, come on Scott, you of all people know that age doesn’t really matter when it comes to vampire fledglings. Mumbo was like forty years old when he was turned and Grian still makes jokes about how clumsy and emotional he was the first decade. I heard the prank wars got intense. Not even mentioning the power boost his magic got—" Scar starts absentmindedly scratching between Pyro’s ears, and as much as they hated to admit it, it was soothing. “Started leveling mountains left and right without even lifting his pickaxe.”
Aaaand the fear was back again. Whatever kind of monster this Mumbo character was, Pyro hopes they never meet him.
But Scott’s eye’s light up at the mention of magic and he grins. Fangs poking between his lips.
“Actually~ now that you mention magic, aren’t you a wizard yourself Scar?”
“Well of course! But you already know that, so why do you ask?”
“For the benefit of my fledgling, of course,” Scott says in a mocking tone, something that Scar still doesn’t seem to pick up on. “Pyro here has a bit of an affinity for magic, but I haven’t had the time to teach them anything. Why don’t you take him on?”
What?
“Are you serious?” Scar gasps. “You're giving me an apprentice? Really??”
No no no. Sire wouldn’t do that. Pyro knows that Scott is still angry at them for lying but he wouldn’t just—
“Of course,” Scott says it with a cruel smirk on his lips, and Pyro feels like an extra puppy that’s about to be given away.
They don’t understand.
Humans are inferior. Prey. Food.
Scott and Owen have been reminding Pyro of that ever since their turning.
Why would sire decide to put them under the power of one?
“Thank you, Scott! Thank You! I promise to teach him everything I know. And I’ll be super safe about it. No exploding apprentices! This time…”
That’s a possibility?!?
Pyro can’t even find their words. He doesn’t know how to respond to any of what was just said.
And it seems like they won't have to. Scar’s hands go limp and Pyro tumbles to the floor at the unexpected loss of his footing. Returning to human form shortly after hitting the cobblestone.
“Well, that took longer than expected,” Scott hummed, not even acknowledging Pyro as he stepped away from the table and leaned over Scar’s unconscious body. Opening the winter coat and… oh Holy Spirits— Scar isn’t wearing a shirt under his coat, but his entire chest is wrapped in bandages and padding soaked through with blood. Scott isn’t phased at all, even smiling as he reaches into a hidden pocket within the coat, pulling out a single glass vial. “Just where he always keeps it. Never thinks to use it on himself.”
“We’re not turning him sire?” Pyro manages to ask. They can’t see any other way that Scar doesn’t die, but Scott seems to be in no rush to do so.
“Mm, no, not yet at least. Magic can be unpredictable and changes after someone turns. We’ll wait until right before desecrating the last beacon,” Scott pops the cork off the vial and presses it to Scar’s lips. The boy drinks the purple liquid easily, but doesn’t wake up like Pyro expected once it’s gone. Instead he collapses further, whatever stiffness kept him upright finally easing and he slumps to the floor. Scott doesn’t bother trying to catch him so neither does Pyro. Unbelievably, Pyro can smell Scar’s wounds closing and hear his breath even out. Something they didn’t even realize was off until Scar’s lungs were healed. “Take him down to the crypt and remove the bandages. Once Scar wakes up go through my closet and find him something more appropriate to wear. I don’t want anyone, human or vampire, mistaking just who Scar belongs to.”
“Understood sire,” Pyro bows lowly and grabs Scar’s arm, carefully lifting him off the floor, but… they hesitate. Pyro isn’t sure they’ll be able to control themselves once they’re out of sire’s sight. Just dumping Scar in a coffin and then running to the forest to hunt might work—
“Oh, and one more thing,” Scott straightens, the vile disappears from his hand and is replaced with two bottles of crimson. Bottle necks held delicately between his fingers. A black swirl twisting inside the red liquid shows that it’s not simply animal blood but has some of sire’s mixed in with it. The good stuff, usually only gifted to Shelby when Scott was in a generous mood. “Eat this. Don’t take a single drop from Scar, and don’t let anyone else either. Not Owen or Shelby or any of the fledglings still clinging to town. Scar’s blood is mine.”
“Ye— yes! Understood sire, thank you,” Pyro fumbles, Scar slipping from their grip a bit as they quickly accept the bottles from Scott, far too desperate for the blood to care about appearances and not wanting to give Scott a chance to change his mind. The bottles disappear into Pyro’s inventory and they don’t drop Scar, lifting him into a full princess carry. They can control themself for a little longer, now that a meal is guaranteed, but… “Does this mean…?”
“Yes yes,” Scott sighs. “You can have access to the blood stores again, so long as you promise to behave from now on. But you're still restricted to the castle with Scar until I say otherwise.”
Pyro bows and instinctively sends his deepest gratitude through their bond, forgetting for a moment that they’re not supposed to do that, but surprisingly sire doesn’t strike them. Mentally or physically. It feels almost like acceptance brushes against their awareness.
They aren’t going to spoil sire’s good mood by asking questions. No matter how much they want to know what Scott meant by giving them to Scar as an apprentice.
It had to be some kind of cruel joke.
Yes, a joke. Scott isn’t trying to get rid of them. It’s fine. Everything is going to be fine.
Scott watches Pyro carry Scar out of the dining hall. Wiping the last of Scar’s blood off his lips, Scott licks it off his thumb and contemplates what exactly just happened. He doesn’t show it on his face or in his posture, but Scott is relieved to have them both out of the room.
There was a part of Scott, nagging at the back of his mind, that wanted to go after them. Sink his teeth back into Scar’s throat and turn him immediately. Damn all the reasons he gave Pyro for not turning Scar yet, and make a nest for all his fledglings to be tucked away in.
Safe.
But that was just his pesky instincts rearing up again and Scott couldn’t afford to indulge in such things while they’re still confined to Oakhurst. He’d been doing well so far to suppress them, thought he’d even managed to completely avoid growing attached to Pyro. The little rat. Now Scott was questioning his decision to starve the fledgling as punishment for their misbehavior.
Which is quite silly. What was he supposed to do? Seal Pyro in a coffin for a week? The coven needed to stay ahead of the humans and hold the beacons and there was no one to guard the crypt. That pesky hunter had it out for the scholar more than anyone else in the coven, surprising, given that Scott and Owen were the one’s making all the threats against the town. Pyro would have been staked within a day of their punishment if they couldn’t run from danger.
But Scar had a point about fledglings. They were clumsy and easily confused, especially if they weren’t bonded with their sire before turning. Starvation wouldn’t help with that, but maybe tethering them to Scar would keep Pyro from being tempted by the other humans again.
At least for now.
And thinking of… Why did Scar’s opinion matter so much?
Scott had no solid memory of him.
At least not his own, but he’d known the boy’s name the instant he saw him and had been nearly overcome with the desire to hug Scar and scold him all at once. Scott had restrained himself, at first certain that this was some kind of trick. His enemies had sunk so low as to try and charm him in the past before driving a stake through his ribs.
This time was different.
In Scar’s memories, his hair was still brown, not blonde like the witch who’d tried manipulating Scott’s memories before. Wearing ridiculous rabbit-themed garments, he’d stood between Scar and the pair from Oakhurst. Sword drawn, ready to cut them down if they’d prove themselves a threat. Only allowing them to stay in the cabin at Scar’s begging.
More importantly, Scar had introduced Scott to Legs and Abolish as his over protective uncle.
There was an unwavering certainty in Scar’s memories. Complete trust that Scott would never hurt him.
It was strange feeling that second hand.
Closing his eyes Scott sees himself in a large tub with three others. Scar, Bdubs, and Etho. Fully clothed and somehow not soaking wet, they laugh together. Joking about stealing bread and avoiding death traps left outside of people’s homes.
Family.
There are other names and faces mixed in with that word. Vaguely familiar, like Mumbo and Tango, but Scott doesn’t linger on them. Letting those memories fade from his mind completely. He knows they’re dead, part of Scott is convinced he even watched them die, and there’s no need to open old wounds over friends passed millennium ago.
Next time he feeds on Scar he’ll have to be careful to avoid seeing more of his nephew’s memories and the pain that could come with them.
Scott wasn’t sure he could call what he felt affection, at least not yet, but it was something precious.
And he refused to give it up again.
BONUS:
Scar: hey, so these beacon things are keeping us trapped right?
Scott: yes
Scar: why don’t we just break them to get outta here?
Scott, sighing: we can’t, they're indestructible as far as we can tell
Scar: indestructible? Maybe. But are they Scar proof?
Scott:…
Scott: let’s go find out