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Orion: He reached for the heavens and was struck down for it. They say his scars became stars — as if pain needed the sky to be remembered. But he never stopped bleeding light.
The room Scott had given him hardly felt like a room at all.
It felt like not even ghosts had touched it in millenia. The air was stale, heavy with dust, and the curtains had long since surrendered their color to the moonlight that leaked through the torn seams. When Avid opened the window—even just a crack—the hinges groaned like something ancient remembering pain.
He didn’t open it often. The cold reminded him too much of the earth.
The manor itself hummed faintly, the way great houses do when they have outlived everyone who should have filled them. Somewhere far below, a clock ticked; somewhere above, a shutter beat softly against the wind. But here—inside these four walls—the silence was whole.
Down the halls, the others lived in their own shades of quiet. Shelby tried to make light of it all, laughing too brightly, setting flowers where sunlight would never touch. Pyro burned through rooms like a storm in search of calm, restless, brilliant, and terrifyingly alive for someone who should have been long past warmth. Owen kept to the music room, where the piano keys stayed slick with dust; sometimes the notes he played sounded almost like mourning. And poor Apo—Apo drifted like smoke through the corridors, eyes sunken, voice thin, as if they hadn’t yet decided whether they wanted to stay among the living or fade into the walls themselves.
Avid could hear them sometimes, faint traces of their lives bleeding through the old stone: laughter that didn’t quite reach joy, footsteps that ended too suddenly. But none of it reached his room.
He sat on the narrow bed, a candle guttering beside him, turning the locket over and over between his fingers. Each pass of metal against his thumb sent a tremor up his arm. Silver. He had known better. He had always known better.
Still, he could not put it down.
The chain had eaten a small mark into the skin of his throat—an angry crescent of red that refused to fade. He told himself it didn’t matter. The sting meant he could still feel, still remember.
When he pressed his palm over the spot, he could almost hear her voice again. Not clear, not full—just a faint echo of laughter that might have been wind through glass. It hurt to think of her that way: all brightness turned to static. He imagined her face the moment before the world went dark—how her eyes had gone wild, her fangs bared not in hunger but in terror. He had called her name. She hadn’t answered.
The locket was all he had left. Silver, cursed, unwearable—and still, he wore it.
He didn’t hear the footsteps until the floorboard sighed.
“Avid.”
Scott’s voice was soft but certain, carrying easily through the still air. Avid froze, thumb pressed against the locket’s clasp.
“I knocked,” Scott said. “You didn’t answer.”
“I didn’t hear.”
“Liar.”
Avid looked up.
Scott stood framed in the doorway, every inch of him poised like a figure carved from moonlight and fire. His pale hair fell in soft waves over one shoulder, almost glowing against the dim candlelight, catching tiny glimmers where stray strands brushed against his jaw. His eyes burned a deep, liquid red, the color of embers held too long in the hearth, watching Avid with a heat that was both alarming and mesmerizing.
Gold shimmered along his skin wherever the light touched him—delicate chains draped across his collarbones, thin bands wrapping fingers that were impossibly long and elegant, the sweep of earrings catching the candle’s breath like tiny stars.
Rings adorned each knuckle, glinting faintly with every subtle movement, like constellations in a crimson sky. His pale skin was flawless, flawless enough to make shadows jealous, and the faint curve of his lips hinted at both amusement and secret knowledge, soft and cruelly beautiful all at once.
Even standing still, he seemed to shimmer with life—too radiant, too vivid, too breathtaking to be contained in the manor’s quiet gloom. Every inch of him drew the eye, held it, promised something untouchable, and yet there he was, watching Avid with a patience that felt like fire tempered to warmth.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Avid said, turning away. “It’s late.”
“For us, it’s early.” Scott stepped inside, closing the door with a sound softer than sighing. “And you’re burning yourself again.”
Avid flinched as the vampire’s gaze flicked to his throat. The mark must have darkened; he felt it pulse when he swallowed.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered. “I can handle it.”
Scott moved closer, the faint clink of his jewelry marking each step. “You shouldn’t have to handle pain that doesn’t serve you.”
“It does serve me.” His hand tightened around the locket. “It reminds me I’m still—”
“Human?”
The word struck like a pin driven through glass.
Scott stopped beside the bed. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he sank gracefully to a knee so their eyes were level. The candlelight found his cheekbones, traced the edge of his jaw. He looked carved out of moonstone and old fire. He looked beautiful.
“Darling,” he said, the endearment quiet but unyielding. “You are still what you choose to be. But you can’t bleed yourself into remembrance.”
Avid wanted to laugh. Instead, his throat closed. “You wouldn’t understand.”
Scott tilted his head. “Wouldn’t I?”
He reached out—not quite touching, only letting his hand hover in the space between them. Avid could feel the warmth radiating off him, unnatural for one of their kind. “You think I don’t know what it means to cling to something that hurts? I made you this way so you could live, allium. Not to watch you burn yourself from the inside out.”
The petname, as always, landed somewhere between mockery and affection. Avid couldn’t tell which hurt worse.
He said, hoarse, “It’s hers.”
“I know.”
Scott’s gaze dropped to the chain, then rose again. “May I?”
Avid hesitated. The instinct to pull away warred with the ache that had been eating at him since the night he’d woken with fangs. He nodded.
Scott’s fingers were deft, steady. The clasp released with a faint click. He caught the pendant before it could fall, cradling it in his palm as though it were made of glass. A curl of smoke rose where the silver brushed his skin; he didn’t flinch.
“You shouldn’t—”
Scott smiled faintly. “I’m old enough to manage a little pain.”
He slipped a hand into the pocket of his coat and drew out a chain of gold, fine as spider silk. The links shimmered like sun trapped in metal.
Avid watched, unable to speak, as Scott threaded the locket onto it. The new chain sang softly when it moved, a sound almost alive.
When he looked up, Scott’s expression had gentled. “It’s still hers,” he said, echoing the words he had spoken once before, “but it won’t hurt you anymore.”
He rose, and for an instant the candle’s flame threw his shadow long across the wall—tall, winged, almost monstrous. Then he stepped forward and the darkness folded back into him.
Avid felt the brush of warm fingers at his collar. The weight of gold replaced the bite of silver, cool at first, then warming as it settled against his skin.
“Better?”
He nodded, though his throat ached. “I don’t deserve—”
Scott’s thumb rested lightly against the mark the silver had left. “Deserve has nothing to do with it.”
The touch lingered, not demanding, just steady. The scent of him—something like amber and rain on stone—filled the space between them.
Avid exhaled. For the first time since he had come to this cursed, gilded place, he let his shoulders drop.
Scott leaned closer, his breath a whisper of warmth. “Hold still,” he murmured.
Avid did.
The kiss was light—barely pressure, barely contact—but it stole the breath from him. Scott’s lips touched the burn, a promise without words. It hurt for a heartbeat, then didn’t. A blush coated Avid’s cheeks, a remembrance of when he was alive, of when he felt warm. The kiss was sweet, too sweet.
When Scott drew back, his voice was quiet enough to almost disappear. “There. Now it can heal.”
Avid blinked, disoriented by the sudden emptiness where that warmth had been. He looked down at the locket—its gold chain catching the candlelight like a thread of dawn—and felt something inside him shift, small but irrevocable.
He swallowed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to.” Scott’s eyes, when they met his, were softer than he had ever seen them. “We take care of our own, allium.”
Outside, the wind moaned against the stone. Dust swirled through the faint beam of light like the ghosts of everything the room had forgotten.
Avid reached up, touched the locket, and for the first time it didn’t burn.
He looked at Scott. “Thank you.”
Scott smiled—a rare, almost shy curve of his mouth. “Anything for you, darling.”
The candle guttered. The shadows lengthened. And though the room still felt hollow, it no longer felt entirely unlived in.
Slowly, Avid leaned into the vampire, his forehead finding Scott’s shoulder with ease. Scott hesitated for a heartbeat, then let one hand card through Avid’s sable hair, the other settling gently on his back.
The gesture was quiet, steady—nothing forced, nothing loud—just enough to anchor him. Avid closed his eyes, letting himself feel the warmth, the rhythm of Scott’s calm breathing, the faint glint of gold catching the candlelight across his shoulder. And let himself cry.
Small little gasps let his mouth, a mix of pain and guilt wrapped together in pretty ribbon. Tears dewdropped down his strangely pale face, gathering at his chin before falling. Scott stayed silent through his sobs, hands holding him as if he was a glass doll, full of grace and gentleness. His lips found the crown of Avid's head, kissing in softly.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, still, hugging each other. The faint sounds of the manor drifted past the walls: Owen’s soft piano, Shelby’s brittle laugh, Pyro moving like a storm through the corridors, Apo drifting like smoke. Life existed elsewhere, but here, in this small room, it was just them.
Avid tilted his head slightly, still pressed to Scott, and felt a careful exhale of patience, of reassurance. Scott’s eyes softened when they met his.
“Thank you…” Avid whispered, voice fragile but steady, carrying everything he couldn’t say before.
Scott gave the smallest, almost shy smile, letting the warmth linger in the quiet room. And for the first time in what felt like forever, Avid let himself rest.
“Of course, allium…”