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The lights of the capital was shimmering in the distance, vague and shattered against an overcast sky. They were too far away from it for any noise or obvious movement of life to make itself clear, but Pyro could still imagine it. Late shift workers switching off to their night colleagues, former fellow students of the university stumbling home after a late night studying, youth who had avoided the sharp eyes of their parents sneaking out under the cover of night.
The longing of that life that he expected to find in his heart, was strangely absent. The realisation of that, was far more unsettling than the feeling itself.
The carriage slowing down shook him from his reminiscence, and he tore his eyes to glance towards his companion.
Scott was on the opposite side of the carriage, his pose suggesting that he as well had been gazing out towards the capital, face turned towards the window. As Pyro glanced towards him, the gaze that the elder vampire shot from the corner of his eye stopped him cold. The elder cracked a smile at his fledgling’s attention, finally landing on him.
Pyro had no idea how long Scott had been watching him.
”So, this is it?” Scott asked, gesturing out as the carriage finally pulled to a gentle stop beside stone steps, leading up to towering doors. There was a single light shining through frosted glass.
Pyro cleared his throat, pushing through a false start as they stepped out and down onto a neatly laid path. The air was crisp and cool against his skin, where it should have been freezing. ”Yes, well, this is it. This is my family’s home.”
”Huh.” Scott lightly said, and the single neutral utterance sent anxiety rushing up his spine, no time to decipher the tone as Scott had already turned to the driver. Sending him him off after exchanging words and coins, the cheery and sweet tone doing nothing to quell that burst of unease that had started to build in Pyro's chest.
As the carriage continued out through the gates, and down towards the road that would not take the driver back home ever again, a thought, unbidden and fermented in jealously, passed through him. The others, waiting, would take care of the driver. Pyro swallowed, parched.
Lucky them.
”Pyro, come on now.” Scott said, a soft reminder tinged in fraying patience.
Pyro’s knuckles hit the door, hard and disorderly and definitely not in the dignified and composed way he had been planning to do it. Scott’s light scoff did not make it better, nor did the door creaking open almost immediately, the old maid on the other side not even bothering to pretended she hadn’t been waiting right next to the door. She had always been like that.
”Young master Pyro,” she breathed, her voice warm and polite with just a little smidge of exhaustion, as the low light spilled out over them. The lines in her face were slightly deeper, and there was a smidge more gray in her hair than when he had last seen her. Though maybe he was noticing it more now, the same way he could see the veins on her neck move. ”You’ve arrived.”
Pyro nodded, and gave her a probing half-pressed smile. ”Did the letter arrive in time?”
”It arrived by dawn, caused quite a stir, I must say.” She glanced behind them, likely noting the lack of luggage from them both, before the same gaze studied his face. He hoped that the protection of darkness shielded him enough from scrutiny. ”When you wrote of an emergency, we quite suspected the worst.”
”Nothing of that sort,” Pyro’s voice broke, the lie pieced by his own suddenly screaming thoughts.
He died. He went out on his own, and died. He never proved himself, he never came home, he was standing on the threshold but he never came home. The worst happened.
And he was now bringing it to them.
”May we come in?” Scott interrupted, a disarming lilt to his voice that perfectly matched the one of the maid had carried in her greeting, and his hand was suddenly at Pyro’s arm. A make-believe of support. ”It’s a bit chilly, and it’s been… a heavy couple of days.”
Pyro cursed himself as she answered in affirmative, swiftly moving out of the way to let them in. Now he would never know he would have been able to cross the boundary of his former home without an invitation.
He took an unnecessary breath, following closely behind Scott into the light. Maybe the hesitance to enter had been proof by itself, or he could check the theory at the university dorms instead, if the rules of invitation applied there as well.
The maid took a light from the wall, resting above a temporarily misplaced chair, before turning around to lead them further in.
She was so close. Unsuspecting and trusting.
They hadn’t been able to keep any fresh food in the carriage, the anticipation keeping the hunger at bay during the travel.
The hunger hurt.
He couldn’t be blamed for it.
Pyro took a quick and quiet step forward.
A notion of pinpricks at the nape of his neck, and he reacted instinctively, old fear flaring up as he tried to move away only to have the touch turn sharp, nails digging down as Scott grabbed onto his collar and pulled him back.
A flurry of apologies choked in his throat. Scott’s hand wrapping around his neck and digging in, a scolding sharp look all Pyro needed to have any hunger and instinct cower far, far down.
It was gone a split second before the maid looked behind her, alerted by the moment of scuffle and while a look of concern flashed across her face Pyro found himself plastering a confused smile on his face. Whatever she might have asked, was never said.
”The master and mistress took to bed early,” she mentioned instead, cautiously and careful and it took a second for him to understand the hesitance. They couldn’t be bothered to stay up, not for you, he heard the pity beneath her words. ”but your brother is in the reading room, expecting you. I could take your… friend to one of the guest-rooms while you speak.”
”No, no, it’s all my fault we arrived so late.” Scott apologised, dragging his words in false modesty, even before Pyro could send him a panicked look. ”It would be impolite to not give my gratitude in person immediately.”
”…if you insist,”
”I very much do.” Scott assured her. ”Now, Pyro told me your daughter works here too?” he swiftly continued, smiling as he stepped up in line with her, almost guiding her along. ”Really, what a wonderful family commitment! And I heard your wife…”
The conversation faded into the background as they moved. Pyro intentionally shifting his attention away from her, and her life, and blood. Trying to look at anything else did curb the hunger, allowed him to take a steadying breath.
It left space for other things to creep in.
Something felt off.
He was a stranger in these halls. The floors he had taken his very first steps on was now unbroken ground. While he recognised his surroundings the memories of what he had in his mind and what he was now seeing didn’t match, and it was not only the time of day causing the broken remembrance.
Ironically, it was passing a mirror that finally allowed him to make the connection as they finally took a left towards the doors of the reading-room. As he entered into the mirror’s view and nothing other than the silent walls around him greeted his back, faced with his lack of reflection, he found what was missing.
There were no pictures of him. Framed photographs had been replaced with new ones, and even the portrait of his childhood self had been taken down and removed. Hopefully just stuffed into some place where visiting company couldn’t be tempted to ask any prying question about the son who was never good enough.
The maid left them by the doors, and not wanting to annoy his Sire yet again, Pyro didn’t hesitate to open the doors this time.
Pyro’s brother was sitting in a sofa, too formally dressed than what should have been expected at such a late night. As Pyro entered, carpet softening his steps, his brother looked up, and slowly put down the book he had been reading, closing it with a decisive snap.
He made no move to stand, made no move to invite them to join him.
”Pyro. You look…” his brother trailed off, pausing far longer than Pyro knew he needed to find polite words, ”…well travelled. I assume this is about you not finishing your studies, again.”
”I’ve actually changed my subject.” Pyro said, defensiveness born from a dozen similar conversations flaring up. ”My world have been… expanded and I am going to record it.”
”How much do you need.”
Pyro blinked. ”…what?”
”Just tell me how much you need, and I’ll send you an allowance to whatever hovel you’re staying at.” His brother removed his glasses, massaging the bridge of his nose. ”Just promise me you won’t be back within the year.”
”That’s not why I’m here.” Pyro said, stuttering in incredulity. ”I’ve never asked for anything. You know this!”
”So why are you here?”
Pyro froze, the question he hadn’t been able to face in his own mind finally quite literally sitting right in front of him.
He was here because he offered Scott. Because Oakhurst needed to be fed in a way they couldn’t provide, just yet.
He was here to make his Sire proud.
He was here to prove himself.
His brother took his silence as proof with a soft sigh. ”That’s what I thought.”
”Interesting!” Pyro flinched, the delight in Scott’s voice far from the polite cover he had held earlier. His Sire was looking at him, had somehow moved around the room to be closer to his brother, while neither of them had even noticed him shifting. Still, Scott’s attention was firmly on Pyro, and he couldn’t help but to drink it in. ”For someone who was fine to disobey me, you’re actually just allowing him to talk over you? Pyro, you don’t need to explain yourself.”
”And you are?” As if he hadn’t bothered to even notice the danger in the room, Pyro’s brother finally turned to look at the true danger in the room with nothing but an unimpressed, unassuming sneer.
There had been a brief period, around the younger teenage years, where they had looked similar to one another. Then different path of life, and different maps of genetics had set them to different appearances.
It had been ages since he recognized himself within his brother, but now as he watched him fill with fear, and confusion, and he was too slow on the uptake, so terribly slow even with the conversation happening right before him---
Pyro, at the very least, had tried to run.
Scott’s fangs were in his brother’s neck, digging deep down. A hand covering his mouth to stop him from screaming and pushing his head down back towards the back of the sofa, keeping him pinned against soft cushions of the sofa where Pyro once had learned to read. They both had.
Pyro moved forward, but for what purpose, even his body did not know if it was to join, or to pull the elder away from his brother.
His knees hit the carpet, one hand falling down too late to stop the fall and now instead grasping at the threads.
”Please, please.” He begged, staring up into the mirror of his own face. Terror, pain, and a brief desperate hope reflected back at him, from below the elder’s grip. ”Sire!”
”Hmm?” The elder was effortlessly holding his brother back down against the sofa, unbothered by the hands trying to pry his off, finger tapping against the tearstained cheek as he considered his fledging pleadings. The smile on his face told Pyro that he the decision had already been made, but he made sure to keep his knees down on the floor. He would not move. Could not move. Would not. ”Ah well, sure. Here you go.”
The moment that Scott released his brother, Pyro could no longer pretend that this would have ended any other way, could not entertain the idea that he could have warned them, protected them.
His fangs drove down in the same spot as his Sire had opened, the blood hitting him like a rush, warmth and strength washing away any doubt or worry. He didn’t even notice when the body beneath finally fell completely limp.
Scrambling back, Pyro fell down onto the carpet, leaving bloody trails of his deed along the fabric as he pushed himself back. The body slumped down after him, and in the corpse's face Pyro could no longer see himself.
He looked up, the last bit of blood dribbling down his chin.
Scott was leaning over the back of the sofa, and there, finally, Pyro found a polluted pride reflected back at him.