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When Shelby mentions that it’s already been a year since everything that happened in Oakhurst, Scott simply shrugs at first and returns to reading. He has a newfound goal of getting through his ever-growing collection of novels that have been written over the past six-hundred years, and he doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
He pretends not to notice Drift giving him a look for as long as possible before she coughs irritatingly loud and, once again, breaks his focus. He huffs. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am busy. Unlike you two, I am in dire need of catching up with the times.”
“There’s no need,” Shelby says brusquely. “Look at you, if anything you’re a trendsetter.”
“Any other time I’d agree with you,” Scott replies, burying the incredibly powerful urge to preen at the compliment. “But I think you two are up to something and therefore, I will not be accepting any flattery until you stop it.”
“It’s been a year since Oakhurst,” Drift repeats. Scott blinks.
“Yes, I know. Shelby said that like, two nanoseconds ago. I might be old, but my hearing is still fantastic.”
“Scott, we’re planning on travelling there for a visit.”
Scott perks up at that. “Really?”
He can’t for the life of him remember why they want to or what purpose it even serves for them. He racks his brain for a moment to try to find a reason why they’d return there so soon – he knows they all agreed to visit Pearl and Cleo sometime within a few hundred or so years, which is completely reasonable in vampire-time. And while one year is reasonable for humans, who have to deal with the fact that their tomorrows are never guaranteed, it’s basically the equivalent of the blink of an eye to Scott.
Maybe Shelby and Drift still retain more human qualities than he’d thought.
“I thought we agreed on meeting up with Pearl in two-hundred or so years.”
Shelby looks at him, confused. “We’re not meeting up with Pearl.”
Scott raises a brow at her. “What are you possibly wanting to do in Oakhurst? It’s not exactly known for its abundance in tourist attractions.”
Drift takes a long pause, never once breaking eye contact with him. “Well, Avid’s buried there. We wanted to pay a visit to his grave. We thought… You know, we thought you might too.”
Oh.
Oh.
Scott suddenly finds his throat painfully dry, which is quite odd considering the fact that he’s not thirsty for blood – in fact, he’s quite content. And yet he can’t help but lick his lips and subtly clutch at his stomach, which feels as though it is actively twisting into knots as Shelby and Drift’s eyes bore holes into his non-existent soul. “…Oh.”
Shelby tilts their head. “Oh?”
“Oh,” Scott confirms, priding himself on the fact that his voice hadn’t trembled as he’d said it.
“Are we taking that to mean that… You’d like to come?” Drift asks him carefully. Scott stands up and brushes himself off despite the fact that everyone in the room knows it’s far from necessary – if living with him in Oakhurst and travelling the world these past few months has taught them anything, it’s that Scott is an absolute clean-freak. Dirt and grime never touches him.
But the movement gives him some time to stall and prevents his hands from noticeably shaking – and why it’s doing that, he has no idea – so Scott does it once more for good measure. “I guess I probably should.”
Drift snorts. “Which is Scott for ‘yes’.”
“If you want to take it that way, I will not stop you,” Scott tells her, mostly because it’s true. He wants to go almost as badly as he doesn’t, and he really can’t figure out why that need to see Avid’s grave has somehow overpowered the latter of his wants, even though it makes him feel in ways he’s never felt before – almost sickly. A stupid comparison given that Scott has not been able to physically get sick for many, many centuries, but it’s the most sensical one he can think of. Maybe vampire colds do exist and they’re just incredibly rare?
Scott almost laughs out loud at himself for that one. If he heard another vampire say that, he’d be willing to bet they’re a fledgling. He can’t believe he even considered it for a moment.
“Great!” Shelby smiles at him softly. Scott thinks it’s slightly… Odd of her. “Me and Drift–”
“Drift and I.”
“–Me and Drift are ready to turn into bats and head over there the moment the moon rises, so we can head to Oakhurst in a few hours if you’re ready?”
Scott tries to say yeah okay, but the words get caught in his throat and his ears begin to ring loudly – he hears nothing but the sound of his name being called distantly and he can’t even– he doesn’t understand what’s happening. And why can’t he gain his bearings? Why does it suddenly feel as though he is weightless and nothing around him truly, properly exists?
Shelby taps him lightly on the cheek. His vision swims. “Scott?”
“Okay,” he finally manages to say. He swallows and tastes bile. Bile. If he were a lesser being, it would scare him. “Yep. I’ll be ready.”
“If you’re not ready to visit him yet, that’s okay too,” Drift whispers softly. Scott stands up and begins to rapidly search for something to keep him busy, so that he won’t have to look her in the eye and hear an explanation for what’s happening to him that he absolutely, without a doubt in his mind, does not need to know.
“That’s nice,” he says a bit too quickly. He thinks he sees Drift’s jaw drop when he rushes to the kitchen to wash some of the dishes. “But I am ready to visit his grave. It’s not like I’m preparing for another war or anything. It’s not even really Avid. It’s stone and a sign placed on grass. His body’s not even buried underneath it.”
“It can be upsetting to visit the grave of someone important to you,” Shelby points out.
“I barely knew Avid,” Scott protests. “And I wanted him gone for longer than I appreciated his presence.”
What he neglects to say is that although he did not know him well, he thinks of him almost every day anyway – whenever he stumbles across something new or interesting, he catches his train of thought often wandering to hypotheticals of how Avid would’ve reacted to it. Or perhaps, how Avid would’ve reacted to him. Would he have laughed? Would he have been fond of Scott’s cluelessness to the technological advancements of the human race? Sometimes when Shelby and Drift are off doing their own thing and Scott has the house all to himself, he walks around and trails his fingertips over every trim, over every corner and indent and imagines a world in which Avid was here to live with them. And then damningly, he thinks: would I have gotten to better know the taste of him on my lips?
“Anyways,” Scott waves his hand at them dismissively. “I’ll be ready to leave. Don’t worry.”
“...Okay,” Drift says. Scott hates how she sounds so hesitant to believe him. Honestly, have she and Shelby only just met him? He’s not remotely upset about Avid. That would be a ridiculous accusation to make about him.
…
Crossing the threshold into Oakhurst causes a stiff air to linger about the three of them. The wind howls loudly in Scott’s ears and tussles his neatly combed hair into something akin to what it would’ve looked like when he lived here. Perhaps it is fitting, but all it does is make him feel that much worse.
Scott is typically above placing meaning onto things that don’t need to have meaning, but it’s nearly impossible to do with Oakhurst and the memories it brings to the forefront of his mind, barraging him with visions of blood and death and worst of all, Avid.
The stench of smoke and burning still lingers in the air even now.
“It should be just over here,” Shelby murmurs solemnly. Scott and Drift follow just slightly behind her, and he just can’t get over how weird it is to see them so somber. Scott notices that the further away they get from the outskirts of Oakhurst and the closer they get to Avid’s final resting place, the tighter Drift grips the bundle of flowers in her fist.
He offers her a pat on the shoulder as a rare attempt at comfort. It’s the closest to a hug he’ll ever get, even though Shelby insists he’ll grow comfortable enough for it one day. Drift, although often equally as affectionate as Shelby, has always seemed to better understand that Scott will never be quite as adept at it as them, and so she looks at him wide-eyed, understanding the gratitude of his gesture.
Thank you, she mouths. Scott nods stiffly in acknowledgement.
When Shelby stops walking, Scott nearly runs straight into her. They take a deep, shuddering breath before cautiously taking another step forward, closer to the headstone Scott remembers making far too well for his own good. Drift joins her, and it doesn’t take long for the two of them to start sniffling. And then just like that, Shelby is wailing, with great heaving sobs escaping her lips. It’s ugly. It’s guttural. If Scott had a heart, he’s sure it would have twinged at the sight.
He doesn’t like it when Shelby is upset. He especially doesn’t like it when Shelby is upset at something he cannot fix.
“He was my fledgling!” She cries into Drift’s shoulder. “My responsibility! I failed him! I failed him so badly–!”
Drift shushes her and begins to rock the two of them back and forth, and Scott finds himself hovering above them in quite an awkward predicament. He’s never been good with comforting others, not even back when he was a mortal. Needing to comfort someone who’s crying makes him that much worse at it. He thinks it’s likely for the best if he just… lets them grieve Avid first, and then he’ll sit down with them once the tears have dried up and– he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do after that.
Last time he visited Avid’s grave, it was to promise vengeance against his killers. But now Pyro and Owen are dead, and there’s really nothing else for him to promise. Nothing else for him to say. What’s the point, when there will never be a response? It’ll only make the silence more prominent, because silence was simply not something one was afforded in Avid’s presence.
Avid followed him everywhere, even when they hated each other – long before Shelby turned him and Scott grew to experience something other than animosity towards him. All coming back to Oakhurst has done is make it blatantly obvious how quiet and dreary the world is without him. As the leaves from the bushes surrounding them rustle restlessly, Scott finds himself hoping that Avid will appear as he pushes his way through them. He thirsts for the chance to get to hear his laughter one more time as he hurries over to tell Scott about his recent escapades.
But he doesn’t. Because he’s dead. He’s gone. He’s never going to come back. And Scott will never learn how he truly felt about him; will never get to be seen for who he is – both the good and bad – and cared for despite all of it by someone like that again.
A drop of liquid runs down Scott’s cheek, and his hand flies up to wipe it away in confusion. He looks up to the sky briefly. It’s not even remotely cloudy, but–
“It’s raining,” he blurts out, and watches as Shelby and Drift’s heads whip around to face him. Immediately, both of their eyes soften.
“Oh, Scott,” Shelby whispers quietly. “It’s not raining.”
“Pretty sure it is,” Scott retorts defensively – part of him knows what’s happening, knows where the liquid is coming from, but the other half of him doesn’t believe it. He hasn’t… Done that in forever.
It’s Drift who stands up first, but Shelby is close behind her. “Scott, you’re crying.”
“I don’t cry,” Scott says, even though there’s a burning lump in his throat and his vision is becoming blurrier by the second. He takes a moment to breathe because if he doesn’t, his voice will crack and he will stutter and then he won’t ever be able to show his face in their presence again. “I don’t remember the last time I cried.”
When Shelby gently cups his face to swipe a thumb over his cheek, Scott flinches backward so violently that it scares them.
“I don’t cry,” he nearly hisses. “I’m. Not. Crying.”
“Okay,” Drift says placatingly. “Okay. You don’t cry. Would you like us to give you some privacy with Avid, though?”
Scott knows what she’s doing, but he doesn’t have the energy in him to find it offensive. If anything, he’s grateful for the fact that she’s capable of recognising that he needs a moment alone so that he can breathe and recollect himself. Not to cry, though. Absolutely not. That’s not what he’s doing. His eyes are just… A bit wetter than usual today.
“Yes,” he practically croaks. “I just… Five minutes.”
He quickly finds that while the silence is greatly welcomed, it only causes his wet-eye situation to get worse. In fact, by the time Scott has managed to convince himself to sit down on the grass, he finds that there are sounds he can’t quite control leaving his mouth. He’s embarrassed to find that they remind him quite a bit of Shelby just moments ago.
“I– I hate you,” Scott chokes, recognising himself that the words lose their meaning as he gently places a hand on the stone, right on top of Avid’s name. “Look at what you’ve done to me.”
There’s no response, because of course there isn’t, but it genuinely hurts – the sharp pain reminiscent of what he imagines it’s like to receive a stake to the heart. It causes him to keel over, and loathe as he is to admit it, he cannot calm himself down enough to appear presentable for when Shelby and Drift inevitably return. He distantly feels a hesitant hand on his shoulder blade and a voice in his ear. Shelby’s.
“Is it okay if I touch you?”
Scott can’t trust himself to speak yet, but he nods. He tries to tell himself that it’s to help Shelby, because Shelby still has tears pouring from her eyes, but it’s truthfully because for just a moment, a visceral need to be able to touch and feel someone alive – someone who can still think and hold and interact – rushes through his entire being. Without uttering another word, Shelby pulls him up and into her embrace, and if Scott were capable of being level-headed, he’d immediately pull away, but–
It’s not… Warm, per-say, because Shelby will never be warm again, but it’s not as barren as it was to be out here all alone.
“I know you miss him,” Shelby whispers. ‘That’s okay, you know. We don’t think of you as any less for feeling sad. I actually think it’s pretty cool of you that you’re learning to… You know, have emotions.”
“But I don’t know emotions, Shelby,” Scott croaks. “I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what I’m…” he scrunches his nose up in minor disgust. “Feeling.”
“That’s okay too,” they say sadly. Her voice trembles, like she’s holding back her own cries. “It’s only been a year since Avid died. It’s natural to still not know how to deal with it.”
“I don’t want to deal with it,” and oh god, there’s those sounds again. If it wasn’t coming from him, he’d call them sobs, but they are, so they’re just sounds. “And I’m hugging you, and I swore I’d never do that.”
Shelby’s lips twitch even through her despair. “I’ll pretend this never happened afterward.”
“That would be great.”
Scott isn’t sure how long the two of them stay there, but he knows that it’s not long until Drift joins them to huddle around Avid’s grave in each other’s light, tentative embrace. It’s odd for him to be included in such a thing, but when they stand up to leave and neither of them look at him as though he is somehow weaker than before they came here, he wonders if maybe feeling emotions isn’t as bad as he initially thought.
And even, god forbid, showing affection.
And so they make it a tradition, visiting Avid’s grave. Every year, the same time. No matter where they are or what they’re doing. And Scott doesn’t know how he feels about it yet.
But one day, he will.
He promises.