Chapter Text
Despite a widespread belief to the contrary that he had taken years to cultivate, Scott was nowhere near as ditzy and airheaded as he appeared. When he followed Pyro and Owen into the woods at night without any weapons on him, he was doing so while being fully aware of his cicerones’ lack of humanity. It just so happened that he liked his odds with them better than with those peasants back in the village who’d accused him of murder after he’d lost sight of Shelby for a couple of hours.
That said, he would have preferred it if they hurried along their little fang-measuring contest, because with the sun still buried deep beyond the horizon, the air was incredibly chilly. It didn’t help that they were on a small island in the middle of a lake, so he was wet as well.
Where was Abolish when he needed a handsome butler to roughly wrap a jacket around his shoulders and complain that he’d lose his job if he died?
He sighed dramatically at the great misfortune he was being subjected to.
“Two hundred years” he heard Owen boast. He was not being quiet. Not one bit. And neither of them had their eyes on Scott. Did they not know how to hunt? Had they never been taken out into the woods of their family’s estate with all the best dogs money could afford? Wasn’t Pyro some kind of old, dusty manor lord?
“Baby numbers” Pyro answered back, no more discreet than their companion of lower birth. Neither of them would have known manners if they slapped them in the face.
Had Scott ever behaved like that in front of a peer, he wouldn’t have gotten so far in his battle for his parents’ inheritance. Maybe Pyro was an only child. And, he supposed, lumberjacks weren’t generally known for their subtlety. Mainly for being roguish, muscly, and holding their alcohol rather well. All things dear Owen, the youngest-looking two-hundred-wannabe-forty-years-old guy on the planet, was failing at. Well, he hadn’t seen him drinking yet, technically. They’d found no grapes or honey to distill some liquor from, nor had they had the time in the few days since their arrival in Oakhurst. But if those two were what he assumed they were, there was only one liquid they’d be able to hold down, according to the novels he’d read, and it wasn’t wine or mead.
“What do you mean?” Owen hissed, a mix of anger and fear. Personally, Scott thought that the implication behind Pyro’s taunt had been pretty obvious. Then again, he supposed that lumberjacks two hundred years prior likely hadn’t had much access to any form of education beyond what they could generally gather from their masters. Poor guy probably was illiterate as well as really bad at lying. No wonder he was still single despite having been alive so long; deceit was the foundation of any healthy relationship.
Some could have tried to turn that around on Scott himself, bachelor that he was, but, truth be told, he simply had more fun stringing along several different problems for Abolish to valiantly and grumpily deal with. He was a considerate lord like that.
“Try six hundred” Pyro boasted, most likely puffing out their chest like a proud cock. Rich noblemen always did that, and it was always a far less impressive display than they’d been led to believe. “And those are just the years I spent asleep. I’m older than you could possibly comprehend”.
Scott yawned. The night was silent enough despite the chatter of the two supernatural creatures behind him that the sound carried over, shutting them up. A win was a win. It hadn’t been the most tactful of strategies, but he could never keep his boredom in check very well. It was the bane of Abolish’s existence. Among many others of his delightfully charming quirks.
“We’re almost done” Pyro had shed all of his cockiness with him. He addressed him with forced politeness, another indicator of his nobility. He wasn’t great at it, however. Scott had managed to get a glimpse of his face by throwing a glance behind his shoulders while readjusting his hair. There was something ugly about his smile. It was crooked, and he made no effort to get his eyes to match it, either. Plus, his pearly white teeth were poking out a bit, and they looked oddly sharp.
Of course, one such as them couldn’t be expected to practice before a mirror, Scott understood that. But they should have, at the very least, gotten one brutally honest companion to give them some pointers. A woman, preferably. They were far more perceptive toward signs of danger.
“Are you now?”. Scott brought a finger up to his cheek and then leaned on it to give them a full theatrical display of curious uncertainty they couldn’t misinterpret if they tried. It was for Owen’s benefit, mainly. He was still rather certain that the poor fellow had low situational awareness. He never noticed when something he said seemed off to those around him, even when they gave him the most wide-eyed stares ever. “Because I’ve been standing here, soaked, cold, and listening to you two chums having your senior citizens show-off for longer than I would have liked. And you’re nowhere near figuring out whose snack I am” that last part elicited twin gasps of shock that he noted down for later as he barreled on. He was nowhere near done complaining. That was his favorite hobby and he’d earned a bit of indulgence. “And you don’t seem to understand that every minute that passes is one more chance for my butler to find us. After everything I’ve done to ditch him, if he tracks us down and you end up going home on an empty stomach, that is on you”. He concluded his even-tone rant with a huff and his arms crossed. Hopefully, that had been enough for him to get across his seriousness.
It wasn’t as if Abolish was actually all that scary. For him, that was.
He always got the feeling that his butler could and likely had killed in the past. Abolish wasn’t all that subtle about it. He headed out late at night, oddly often, always packing spare white gloves, and he was a tad too knowledgeable about how to avoid stains. He had never discouraged Scott’s interest in the occult, nor had he shared in it. However, he never denied that all the silver jewelry he insisted on wearing was connected to it, either. If he kept all of that in mind, he was left with two reasonable options: either the guy was a serial killer suffering from odd delusions, or a vampire hunter. Or possibly both at once, since they weren’t mutually exclusive.
But who was Scott to come to any such conclusions? He was just the son of some rich jewelers.
Owen stepped down from the elevated platform of the obelisk. Now that his secret had been revealed, he didn’t bother to hide his fangs or the hunger in his eyes as he approached Scott. Although his stride progressively lost its confidence as his target refused to move, because like Hell was he getting in the water again. Once their chests were basically touching, he awkwardly cleared his throat. “… this is usually the part where they start running and pleading for their life” he muttered uncertainly.
Scott raised an eyebrow at him. “You want to see me pleading? My, how forward of you”.
The lumberjack’s sputtering gave him the distinct impression that he would have been blushing had he had any blood in him. Honestly, Scott wasn’t averse to the idea of feeding him some of his just to see that. A blush may have looked good on him. It certainly would have lightened up his whole somber and mysterious deal, as well as possibly reinvigorating his sickly complexion.
“Am I right in assuming that you’d like to join our side then, Mr. Goldsmith?” Pyro was a lot more formal than Owen. Their words left no space for double entendres or playfulness. For the first time since Scott had met them, they sounded like a proper businessman. Their smile, however, was still as jagged and untrustworthy as earlier. Hopefully, they didn’t pull it out for all of their dealings; otherwise, he knew what to attribute the ruined state of the old manor nearby to. “This life comes with some caveats. You do understand that, right?”.
He made a vaguely dismissive gesture with one of his hands. “Yes, yes, I’ll be able to drink only blood. No silver accessories for me. I’ll only be able to enter a house if I’m invited, much like any person with common sense. Sunlight will make me weak or sparkle, according to some sources. No touching garlic, holy water, and possibly also no stepping foot inside a church? That may also just be for demons, however. All research I’ve tried to do in the matter was inconclusive” he prattled off what he knew without interruption from the two men. So they did have some manners after all.
Either that, or, as Owen’s confused frown and muttered: “We can’t enter churches?” implied, they knew about as much as him on their own condition. Which was ridiculous, because the first thing he would likely do after getting turned was testing all of his limits.
Unlike his associate, Pyro seemed less baffled by his statements and more amused by the brash manner in which he had spoken. “The sparkling is not quite accurate. And we can enter churches just fine, after all, everyone’s invited into the House of God and all that” he explained, good-naturedly. He’d relaxed marginally as they spoke. Enough so that some of his good humor had finally reached his eyes. That had to be some kind of accomplishment to be proud of. Had Scott been at all desperate for approval, he might have swooned. Fortunately, he was quite satisfied with his own appreciation for himself, and he had standards, so he wasn’t affected. “You also won’t be able to tell anyone about this gift. The life of a vampire is a lonely one”.
With a purposeful lack of subtlety, Scott looked between Owen and Pyro and hummed.
Neither of the two much older beings in front of him picked up on his clues. Oh well. Perhaps there was some kind of body language barrier there. Or maybe they were both slightly dull. At least Owen had that wonderfully foul scowl of his to make up for it.
“I understand” he lied, just to move the conversation along. If he were lucky, their words would be turning into actions sooner rather than later. He’d heard some rustling from some bushes near the shore, and, while there was no reason to think it was anything but a wild beast, he feared it was a sign that their time was soon gonna be running out.
Pyro must have picked up on his subtle glances toward the beach, because he stopped dilly-dallying then and covered the distance between them. Owen stepped aside with a grumbled complaint about how he couldn’t believe he wouldn’t even get a bite after going all the way out there. And then Scott had fangs piercing his neck, and he couldn’t quite focus on his surroundings and all of his companions’ oddities and faux pas anymore.
His vision quickly darkened. His heartbeat sped up before slowing to a stop. His skin lost what little warmth the night air had still afforded it. And his knees almost buckled. There was no more pain to his turning than that of a bee sting. The discomfort was another story. Nausea hit him hard, and the desperate hunger that followed after it was almost enough for him to regret his latest life choices.
It wasn’t until his vision cleared and he was greeted with the most vivid view of the night sky he’d ever had that he regained his bearings and remembered that it was all part of the plan. Sure, it was odd not to feel the need to breathe; even weirder was the silence in his chest, but those were details he’d surely get used to over time. What mattered was that he’d retained his sense of self. He knew what he was about as a vampire just as much as he had as a human. Even more so, actually. Whatever fog seemed to sometimes linger at the edges of his mind was gone. His head was clear. He felt sharper.
“I’m your Sire now, and you shall address me as such”. Scott’s rapid-fire series of epiphanies was rudely interrupted by Pyro’s boasting. The cocky grin on their face was the expression that suited them best so far, and yet it was nonetheless insufferable.
Scott communicated as much with the unimpressed stare he leveled at the elder. “Yeah, no. Not doing that” he answered flatly, before turning his own expression into something sweet, flirtatious even. Condescendingly, he patted Pyro’s cheek. “Better luck next time, handsome”. And, with a wink, he was off in a flurry of wings and little bat squeals. He hadn’t even been aware he could do that until that very moment, and yet that transformation had come as instinctively to him as breathing once had.
The last thing he heard before flying out of earshot was Owen’s laughing. There was some hope for the grumpy lumberjack to live a little, then, huh? Maybe he could add that to his list of objectives. Right after getting home and telling Shelby all about what he’d just been through. He knew his current roommate would have been ecstatic to have at least one of her theories confirmed.