Chapter Text
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
July, 1944
They walked through Ajaccio in the early evening. The cobblestone streets were still filled with the townsfolk, chattering amongst themselves as they went about their business: picking up bread to have with dinner, on their way to visit friends, or going on a stroll to enjoy the warmth of the short summer evenings. Red liked these walks with William, even though the need for privacy kept them standing apart from one another, kept their conversations a bit more short and clipped. It was better than nothing.
Red had been looking forward to showing William the school, so he could see all Red had accomplished in his short time as the groundskeeper. He thought William would be impressed by the freshly swept paths, the neatly trimmed trees, and the roses that were beginning to take on new life after being treated with mulch and fertiliser.
There was garbage along one side of the street, piles of rags and paper and the smell of something rotting. There was a man there, too, outfitted in ratty clothes, his wrinkled, leathery skin stretched tight over bony hands that clutched the remnants of a cigarette. The other people in the street didn’t notice him, or at least pretended not to, as they walked past.
“It took three weeks to find the right type of fertiliser for the roses, you wouldn’t believe—sorry, just a moment.” Red stopped to pull some coins out of his pocket. “Bonsoir, Jérôme,” he said softly, crouching slightly to place the money in the beggar’s empty hand.
“Merci, monsieur.” Jérôme’s voice was rough and crackly. He gave Red a smile, full of black gaps in between his yellow teeth.
When he looked up, Red realised that William hadn’t so much as broken his stride. Red had to hurry to catch up to him.
“What were you doing?” William asked.
“Helping someone out.” Red shrugged. “What? Have… your people moved beyond charity?”
“Your people have, too,” he said, pointedly. “Nobody else bothered to look at him.”
“Oh.” Red glanced back at Jérôme, thinking. “You know, back in Rome, before I got the job at the hotel, things were… not great. I didn’t eat unless someone helped.” He hesitated, remembering that he didn’t have his own money now so much as an allowance from William. “I know my money comes from you now, but…” He let the question hang.
“Use it as you wish.” William smiled, and touched Red gently between the shoulderblades, lingering long enough for Red to feel the warmth of his hand. William pulled his hand away quickly, so quickly that most people wouldn’t have noticed that he had touched Red to begin with.
His gaze, however, stayed locked on Red.
William reached out to to take his coat off its hook.
“So… you’re going out… for food?” Red asked, after finally drawing the courage to inquire about William’s unexplained outings.
William pulled his hand back, instead taking a pair of gloves out of the small cabinet in the entryway. A question like that was best answered with one’s gloves on. “Yes. I will be about an hour.”
“So…” He didn’t feel right saying it, bringing this up. Mostly because he was afraid of the answer. “Do you… kill people?”
“No.” William wished Red had chosen a better time to voice his curiosity: his lungs had begun to strain, anticipating his impending meal.
“So they’re all… like me? You only need a little blood?”
William pulled his left glove on, slowly and deliberately. “Yes, I require only a small amount if I have it often.”
“And if you have a lot?”
William frowned, quickly pulling the right glove on. “I don’t. It’s far easier to maintain janissaries than it is to kill a human whenever one feels the urge.”
“Janissaries?” Red asked, wondering, not for the first time, how much more there was to vampires that he didn’t know.
“It’s the word for humans with whom we have a feeding relationship.”
“Ah. And they, what, do it because they like it?”
“Yes. And because of the increased alertness. It is not hard to find people; back at home, there are families I have been feeding from for generations.”
Red nodded; that made sense, that a father who found success by the grace of a vampire’s support might draw his son into the fold. “So why are the stories all about vampires killing people?”
William shrugged. “Why are your human books and films all about humans killing one another?”
Red smiled. “Point taken.”
“Not that there aren’t those of us who find killing more expedient, but janissaries are so convenient, presenting themselves at one’s home on their feeding schedule.”
“Wait, will they start coming here?” Red frowned; even though William had assured him it wasn’t anything like what they had, the thought of him eating from other people made him uncomfortable. He certainly wouldn’t want to see them.
William smiled and quickly pulled off his left glove to cup Red’s jaw in his hand. “Not if you don’t wish them to.”
Red pulled William closer to kiss him.
July, 1944
Red was bored: he’d thought that going to see the school play with William would be fun, that he’d be able to follow the story well enough with tones of voice and body language. Besides, it was being performed by 11 year olds: how complicated could the plot possibly be?
Turned out: extremely.
He knew that someone was dead, someone was angry about it. Or they were angry that the wrong person was killed. Or angry that they themselves didn’t do the killing? Even the odd French word he knew didn’t help much. The actors seemed to speak in sentences that were made from joining the words together, the end of one flowing seamlessly into the start of the next, all spoken in one breath. It was very different to the slow, clear speech that people used when they spoke to him.
And since he was in public with William, there was the subterfuge. He hated the subterfuge. That they had to keep themselves apart and play at being employer and employee rather than lovers when all he wanted to do was touch and flirt and laugh and be close.
The theatre was dark.
William put his hand in Red’s lap and held it open for him.
Red took it, gave it a squeeze, and smiled.
“Demain, je… vais en la ville pour… acheter du pain et… envoyer tes lettres.” Red spoke slowly, hesitating between each part of the sentence as he tried to string the words he knew together. Even though he’d asked William to practise French with him an hour each night, he still felt embarrassed, vulnerable, and extremely stupid as the words often failed to come to him.
“You should use ‘à’ for cities, towns; ‘en’ is only for countries, states, and other things of that nature.”
Red suppressed a groan. “It’s bad enough I have to learn so many different words, without them all meaning practically the same thing!”
William placed his hand on Red’s thigh, smiling. “People will understand you regardless, and with experience, you will master it. Et qu’est-ce que tu as fait aujourd’hui? ”
Red smiled, and bit his bottom lip in concentration. What was the word for ‘sweep’, again?
August, 1944
They sat on a hill, Red’s head in William’s lap as William stroked his hair. It was getting too long again; long enough to get in Red’s eyes when he bent over. It was probably time to go through the ordeal of asking for a haircut in French.
They were staring at the stars, discussing constellations and astronomy. It had been a long time since William had seen the stars like this, had actually looked at them, had reason to remember the astrologers he knew a dozen lifetimes ago, back when portents of a bad harvest had meaning to him.
“When I was a kid, I used to think about how neat it was that we could see the whole universe,” Red mused, staring at the thousands of points of light. “I remember learning about telescopes at school, and all I wanted was to see Saturn. Never did. Saw the pictures, though.”
“We can find you a telescope, if you’d like.” William smiled, enjoying the smell of the dewey air of the early morning and the dirt and Red’s sweat from the walk.
“May as well. Considering we’ll be out at night a lot.” Red sat up just enough to grab William’s head and pull him down to kiss him.
When William left his study, he followed the rich, sharp smell of coffee to where Red was sitting in the dining room, a steaming mug in his hands. He was wearing navy blue slacks that he had definitely worn yesterday and a white undershirt; it made William uncomfortable, and that discomfort unsettled him in a way he couldn’t quite place.
William had come to learn that although sometimes Red would put together an outfit with meaning, most of the time he didn’t think twice about his clothing. And sometimes did not even bother to get fully dressed. It had started as an occasional thing, but as the weather grew hotter it now seemed he didn’t wear a proper shirt unless they planned to leave the house. Clothing was important to William, of course, but only on other vampires. It felt strange and foreign that he’d care so much about a human’s attire, even a human who had a strange, subconscious talent in that area. Now was the time to say something.
“Is your letter finished?” Red asked, gesturing at the chair beside him to invite William to sit.
“Yes, I have put it on the table by the door for you to put in the post tomorrow.” William nodded, but stood across from Red, on the other side of the dining table. He looked at the thin, white fabric of Red’s undershirt and considered what to say.
“You okay?” Red gave him that look again, the look of thinly veiled confusion that he liked to employ whenever he wanted to indicate that he thought William was about to be over-dramatic.
“Why aren’t you dressed properly, these days?”
Red looked at William’s outfit: trousers and a long-sleeved shirt that were perfectly pressed. Shiny black shoes, and a belt that matched.
“Just because I’m not in my Sunday best every day like you are doesn’t mean I’m not properly dressed.” Red always felt underdressed around William, no matter what he wore, and it made him self-conscious to find out that William cared about it enough to even bring it up.
William frowned, sitting opposite Red. “I’m not talking about that. I don’t think I’ve seen you wear a proper shirt all week.”
Red pulled at the thin white fabric of his undershirt between two fingers. “This is a proper shirt.”
“You know it isn’t.”
Red frowned and sipped his coffee. “Fine, it’s not, but this is my—our—home, and it’s comfortable, and nobody’s going to see it.”
“I’m going to see it.”
Red grinned. “Oh? I could not wear a shirt if you preferred." Red found himself hoping that this was just one of William’s clumsier attempts at flirting.
“You know that’s not what I was trying to say.” William placed his hands on the table, intertwining his fingers. “It’s disrespectful.”
“What? How?”
“I suppose it’s a vampire thing,” he admitted.
“How?” Red considered this.
“We place a lot of emphasis on the way one attires oneself.”
“So. You want me to wear two layers of shirts in this heat in the middle of nowhere where nobody can see me, except you, a person who regularly sees me naked, because vampires think it’s disrespectful?”
“Yes.”
Red pushed his mug to the side, exasperated. “William, I live here. This is my home. I can wear what I want.”
“Does what I want not matter to you?”
Red squeezed his fingers together and pressed them onto the centre of his forehead. “Of course it does, but I’m not going to dress up and be uncomfortable where I live. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s ridiculous to ask for some basic respect?”
Red frowned, placing his hand back on the table. “Why is this about respect? It’s a shirt. You know that I respect you.”
“I put effort into my clothing every day, for you. And you don’t afford me the same respect.”
“I never asked you to! I know you like choosing your outfit and making sure your cufflinks match it and all, but I really don’t care. You’re doing it for yourself, not for me. You could wear slacks with holes in them and an undershirt with no sleeves and I’d be just as happy.”
“You really don’t care?” He knew humans didn’t place much importance on clothing, but this seemed a bit much.
“No!” Red sighed, rubbing his face with the heels of his hands. “Is it really that important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Why? If you know how I feel, then why does it matter?”
William sighed, and picked up Red’s mug of coffee. He inhaled deeply, feeling the earthy aromas of the drink in his body, filling his lungs with the warmth of the steam. It was soothing: the heat and the condensation eased his slight hunger in a small way. “It’s hard to explain.” He placed the mug back down.
“But it’s a vampire thing, like how you were always adjusting my clothes in Rome.”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m not a vampire, right?” Red picked up his mug of coffee again, and took a sip of warm, bitter liquid.
“Of course.”
“So you should know that I’m not going to do vampire things like obsess over special outfits or give you vague, confusing gifts or write you long fancy letters.”
“I’m simply asking you not to walk around the house in your underwear.”
“No, you’re asking me not to walk around my house dressed the way I want. My clothes are clean, William. I’m comfortable. It’s hot out and did I mention there are no windows?”
“Not since yesterday.” William smiled and placed his hand on one of Red’s.
“Look,” Red forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke. “I’m not exactly thrilled with all the vampire things. It was bad enough when I was coming to terms with the fact I had romantic intentions towards a man without you being being my boss and then a vampire on top of all of it. But I—I do really care about you. I do. And I want to do right by you, but you can’t keep telling me what to do all the time. Like last week, when you said my shoes were too old. They’re comfortable, and I didn’t throw them out like you suggested.”
“I know.”
“And I’m going to keep wearing them. And the undershirts. Because they’re comfortable.” Red put his other hand on top of William’s and squeezed it. “But, I won’t go out like this. And I’ll wear a proper shirt once it’s colder. And if we ever have visitors, I’ll wear whatever uncomfortable shoes you pick out.”
William considered this. “Very well. I suppose you’re right.”
Red couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?”
William’s fingers put pressure on the point where his fangs had left the soft skin of Red’s thigh.
Red breathed in sharply, unsure of how long he had been holding his breath for. “You’re finished?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Red’s hand let go of the blanket that he’d been squeezing, and moved to take over from William. Not that the wound needed help clotting. “Could you…” His thoughts wouldn’t gather. He took the moment to breathe, to relax. There was something about the feeding process, doing it in bed, knowing what was going to happen, that made it more intense in many ways. “Could you do it for longer?”
“If you want to do it every month, I can only take a minute or two. To go for five minutes…” William considered it. “We would have to do it every three months.”
Red tried to not let his disappointment show. He knew William wouldn’t withhold from him if he didn’t need to. “That’s all?”
William cupped Red’s jaw with his hand, smiling gently. “You need it more than I do, my dear.”
The next time William went out to feed, he brought a package of new undershirts back with him.
Red grinned. “You shouldn’t have!”
“Yes, I should have.” William smiled. “You needed new ones. Please remember to replace them when they begin to wear out.”
“If it makes you happy, I’d be glad to.” Red knew his standards about the acceptable age for undershirts were a lot more lax than William’s were. But he realised he’d come to love his strange quirks. He wouldn’t be the same without his strange, strict standards in so many banal things.
September, 1944
Red ate spaghetti on the settee, watching William as he rifled through the pile of letters he’d received that day. One of them had an ordinary-looking outer envelope, but when Red opened it to put the inner envelope on the table William liked his letters to be on, he was surprised to find a delicate powder-blue inner envelope. William’s name was written in harsh, dark letters on the front and the back was decorated with elaborate cursive and pictures of vines.
When William saw it as he went through the small stack of letters, his hands slowed and he scrutinised the front. Red felt proud to have noticed it—whatever it was.
“Someone important?” he asked, curious now.
William nodded. “Yes, very.”
“You must be excited to hear from them. If they’re special.”
“No, she’s not fond of me at all.”
Red raised an eyebrow. “Why? What did you do?”
William waved his arm outwards. “That isn’t important. It was a long time ago.”
“Ah. Secret vampire thing, then?”
William smiled. “I’m afraid so.”
“So, what, if she doesn’t like you, what does that mean?” Red paused, trying to think of what he knew about vampires so far. “Will her next letter only have one envelope? It would make your fingers dirty!”
William laughed. “No, I think all her designs on me have more stabbing involved.”
“Stabbing?”
“It’s not the same as it is for a human to get stabbed.”
Red stared at him. “But it’s not great.”
William smiled. “Don’t worry about me, my dear. She’s hated me for a very, very long time. I’m sure it’s out of habit as much as anything else, now.”
Red had never been a very sentimental person, but for what he wanted to do, what he wanted to say, he wanted everything to be just right. He might never find the courage otherwise. The fact that vampires followed a staunchly regulated set of social rules did not help his nerves.
So he’d told William that he wanted to prepare some firewood for the school, before winter came, and it was much nicer to chop wood in the evening than under the heat of the sun. But really, he thought it would impress William to see him doing something kind and to see his strength. And if he got hot and had to take his shirt off, well, that wouldn’t hurt either.
So William sat on a bench by the school’s woodshed, reading a thick book in the feeble moonlight. Red collected a few dozen unsplit logs into a pile, decided he’d worked up enough of a sweat, and peeled his shirt off, folding it neatly on the floor (this was not something he’d have done before, but several months of living with William had made him develop several new habits). Red pulled his undershirt over his head, used it to wipe at the sweat on his chest and sides, and folded it beside his shirt.
He finally picked up the axe, ready to begin chopping. He glanced at William, who for the first time since he’d started, was watching with interest. Red tried not to grin. He swung the axe high into the air, and let it come crashing down onto the wood. The log didn’t split, but that was normal: it would take a few more strikes.
William put his book down. Red tried to think what he’d say, how the conversation would go. William stood up and walked over to him.
“Are you alright, my dear?”
“Of course,” Red replied, trying not to sound nervous.
“May I have your hands?”
Red couldn’t suppress his grin this time, glad his plan was working so perfectly. He put the axe down to reach for William’s hands. William smiled and shook his head.
“No…” William picked up the axe, and put it back in Red’s hands. He adjusted Red’s grip. “You should hold it like so; it will give you more control.”
Red nodded, embarrassed.
“And when you chop, it is best if you do not make such a large swing. You won’t be as likely to injure your back.”
Red smiled tightly. “Thank you.”
October, 1944
William had received many packages since July—small ones, mostly. They contained little statues, paintings, even a few small tapestries (ones that didn’t feature dogs). He was always so happy to get them, opening them up and scrutinising each gift, sometimes muttering to himself. They always ended up in the storeroom next to the bedroom. Red didn’t like going in there, where the contents of William’s trunks and all his new gifts had been laid out neatly in long rows and tall stacks. It was so carefully organised and all seemed so fragile that he was terrified of knocking something over.
This package was a heavy wooden box, about three feet square. It was packed with less care than the vampire packages normally were: was this some slight? Was William in trouble? Red was still worried about the rival he’d mentioned a few weeks earlier.
But when William saw it, he grinned. “Ah, it finally arrived.”
“What do you think it is, this time?”
William smiled. “It’s for you. Open it.”
Red unhinged the cold metal clasp, pulling the box open. It was divided into twelve long square compartments, each containing a wine bottle. He grinned, pulling one of them out to examine it.
“This looks like good wine,” he said, though he didn’t really know anything about wine. But the bottle looked old, and he knew old was good, and he knew there was no way William would get him a gift that wasn’t of good quality.
“I thought you would enjoy it.”
Red grinned. “Oh, I will.”
He poured himself a glass while William made dinner.
He had another glass with his meal. He and William went through the newspaper together, discussing its contents as Red picked up new vocabulary. He had trouble pronouncing some of the words, and giggled as William tried to explain the finer points between different ‘u’ sounds.
Red poured himself a third glass as William cleaned the dining table and dealt cards for the night’s poker game. The alcohol was having its effect on him: his whole body felt warm and pleasant and his face was turning pink. It had been a long time since he’d had wine, and this one was strong as wines went.
“Would you like to set the rest aside, for you to finish tomorrow?” William asked.
Red waved his hand. “Nah, I’m alright. It’s good wine!”
Even though he was sure Red wasn’t appreciating the quality of the wine at this point, William decided to leave Red to drink the rest of the bottle. It was a harmless enough indulgence, after all.
Well, maybe not entirely harmless: Red’s poker game suffered immensely, particularly because he couldn’t be bothered to ensure William couldn’t see his cards. And it was punctuated by his over-the-top attempts at flirting, as Red stared blatantly at William instead of looking at his cards, or touched him while making a mumbled comment about flies.
As Red finished his fourth and final glass, he put his cards down. “I’m bored. Let’s do something else.”
“What do you have in mind?”
Red stood up. “First, I’m gonna grab another bottle—”
William stood up, too, and went into the front entryway where the box of wine was. Red ran after him, but he knew there was no hope of him outpacing William when he didn’t want to be caught. But he felt it would be fun to chase him, and it was. When Red reached the front of the house he saw William sliding the heavy crate on top of one of the bookshelves in the sitting room, touching it only with his fingertips.
“Wow, you’re strong.” He’d noticed it before, but the wine had made it funnier and more impressive—made him more willing to comment on it.
“Thank you.”
“No, you’ve got… super strength!” Red grinned. “Hey, can you lift that couch?” He pointed at the settee, which was made of dark, heavy wood and was long enough that Red could lie down on it without his feet sticking over the edge.
“Yes, I could.”
“Come on! Do it. Please?”
William sighed. “Very well.” He crouched beside the settee, lifting it with his knees. He held it up at waist height for a few seconds and put it back down.
“Oh! You can do better than that. Put it over your head! Throw it fifty feet!”
“No. Let’s get you some sleep.” He approached Red and grabbed his hand.
“I’m not tired!” Red pulled his hand away. “Can you lift me over your head? Oh! Can you throw me onto the roof? Do you want to race? I’ll see if I can borrow an automobile, maybe I’ll even beat you!”
William sat on the settee. “Come here,” he said kindly, petting the cushion beside him. Red obliged, sliding into the couch and scooting against William’s side. William placed a hand firmly on Red’s thigh and kissed his forehead. “Now, my dear, let me tell you the story of how I once saved a fox kit from a badger.”
“I haven’t heard that one yet.” Red smiled, and closed his eyes.
William was staring at his wardrobe, trying to pick out a shirt. It was taking him longer than usual. Nothing seemed right, today.
“I finished the ironing, by the way.” Red remarked from the spot he was lounging on the bed.
That explained why nothing seemed right: the shirt he wanted wasn’t there. “Perfect. Can you get me that brown striped shirt I wore two days ago?”
“What are you doing, wearing something twice in the same week?” Red asked with mock horror.
“I must be going mad.” William grinned.
Red went to the laundry room, and came back with the brown striped shirt. William turned around to take it from him, but started at what he saw.
Red was holding the shirt in his left hand, thumb held over the collar. The shirt had been unevenly folded in quarters, skewed to the right. The angle of the stripes relative to William was slightly off centre.
It was beautiful. It was sincere. It was a declaration at once of love and devotion and of a regret that life was not more simple.
William didn’t know what to say.
“Is this the right one?” Red asked, wondering what had made William go all stiff.
“It’s perfect,” William replied. He started for the shirt but grabbed Red in a tight hug instead.
William had planned the visit for weeks: he would travel to a nearby town for two days, to meet with Elodia, the vampire whose cottage that they had been living in.
Red was worried about being away from William for the first time since they’d arrived in Corsica, but he had plenty of books, and his French had almost grown good enough that he could stop picking the shelves of the bookshop for the few in English that remained (or enduring the children’s picture books) and instead start to peruse the French books.
A few days before William was meant to go, Red had felt a scratch in the back of his throat, a weakness in his legs. It had gotten worse as the week wore on and his muscles grew sore and tired, and the night before William was due to leave, it was clear to anyone that Red was in bad shape.
“Do you think you’ll be alright while I’m gone?” William asked, as Red let loose a flurry of heavy, dry coughs.
“Yeah, just a little cold. I’ll be a lot better tomorrow, I think,” he said, his voice hoarse and scratchy as his throat burned to produce each syllable.
“Are you sure?” William frowned. He wondered if he should be feeding from Red more often; he knew his most favoured janissaries seemed to rarely fall ill. But he didn’t want to risk going too far. Red was too important to him, and he didn’t trust his self control.
“Promise.” Red smiled, taking a sip of water that did nothing to calm the redness in his throat.
When William awoke the next evening, Red’s warm body was in bed with him, his eyes half-closed and distant and his pyjamas damp from the sweat. William would have to get them washed.
“How are you, my dear?”
Red’s response was mumbled, as though he was trying to swallow the words immediately after speaking them. “Fine. Jus’ a little nap. Have fun on your trip.”
Despite Red’s obvious discomfort, William couldn’t help but smile. “No, you’re not fine.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m going to remain here tonight. I can postpone the meeting.”
“No! You said it’s important. You have to go!”
William smiled and stroked Red’s hair. “Someone has to make sure you have something to eat, my dear.”
Red spent the rest of the night in bed, feeling himself freezing under the pile of warm blankets in the moments of consciousness between his long bouts of sleep. During some of that wakefulness, William fed him hearty soups and warm water, when Red would accept them despite the fever that made him feel he was on fire at the same time that he froze. His head was pounding, and he felt as though he’d soiled every handkerchief in the house.
William sat there for hours in between preparing the soup and fetching spare blankets, holding Red’s hand.
After a very long time, William lay down beside Red, stroking the smooth skin on his forehead. “I must rest now, my dear. I hope you will be all right.”
Red smiled. “I’ll manage.” He took a deep breath through his mouth, the cool morning air irritating his throat and lungs. “I know your… trip was important. Thank you for staying and looking after me.”
“Of course.” William kissed Red. “I love you,” he found himself saying. That was a shock. Why would he say such a thing, to a human, and admittedly one he had found himself uncharacteristically fond of, but surely not that fond, not so fond that he’d say something like that, when he was normally so careful with his words, and besides, his own thoughts in that direction had just been dalliances, anthropomorphising the human into something he wasn’t, putting—
The sun rose.
William fell limp.
“Love you too,” Red replied, and then started coughing.
November, 1944
William woke with Red lying next to him. Red lay on his own arm, eyes closed, gently stroking William’s hair. Red smelled of coffee and congealed blood and strong soap.
“Good evening,” William said softly as he woke, rolling onto his side to face Red. He placed a hand on his hip, feeling the soft movements of his breathing.
“Evening,” Red mumbled back.
“How has your day been?”
Red smiled, putting his arm around William’s ribcage. He rested his nose against William’s cheek, feeling William’s cool breath on his skin. “I missed you. I chopped wood for the school. I bought extra hazelnuts. I went to the library.”
“Did you read anything interesting?”
“I’ve finished all their books in English, not that they had that many. I’m reading an encyclopedia, and I use a French dictionary for the harder words. It’s fine.” He cracked open his eyes to put his chin on William’s shoulder. “You know there’s a math thing for how people sit around a table? If you want to make sure it’s all women flanking the men?”
“Where would be the fun in that?” he said, smiling.
“The French are into it.” Red grinned back. “The only thing I’m getting out of the encyclopedia is that people overcomplicate things, and a headache.”
“It is an ambitious thing for you to read.” He pulled Red closer, so their chests were touching; his body had started to warm up, and was now merely cool rather than disturbingly cold as it always was when he first woke up.
“I should be practicing my French anyway.” Red wrapped his arms around him. “I still sound like a six year old.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, my dear. I think your French is very good.” He kissed Red’s neck, just below his ear.
“That’s because you don’t see me in town. I’m embarrassing you constantly.”
William laughed. “Now, now. Your gaffes cannot be worse than the confusion it caused when an Italian nobleman’s valet spoke hardly any Italian.”
“I thought we were just pretending I took a bad blow to the head in my teens,” he muttered, shifting in between William’s legs and gently kneading his thighs.
“That would also explain your French.” William grinned. He gently rolled onto his back and pulled Red on top of him. Red laughed. They did not get out of bed for a while longer.
It was lonely when the sun was up. The days were mercifully growing shorter, and Red’s regular trips into town and his work at the school helped to make him feel less isolated. It was especially difficult on days like today, when William had fed from him recently and he felt no desire to sleep, leaving him with a full day of sunlight to fill.
He’d made a habit of reading the paper and drinking coffee at the local coffeehouse each morning. Even when he felt he needed to sleep a full eight hours, he would find himself awake before lunchtime, regardless of how late into the morning had stayed awake. He wondered if he would grow out of it. Perhaps, after enough time, he would be a creature of the night, though in a less literal sense than William was.
That line of thinking drew his mind to the future. If he had a future with William... would his life be like it had been the past six months? A couple of glasses of coffee, pleasantries with some villager with whom he couldn’t begin to dream of sharing the details of his life, a day’s work at the school, and then returning home to read until sunset…
He was grateful that he was safe. He had never felt so secure, even back at home. His boss at the steel mill was certainly not as worried about Red’s health as William was. And all the dates he’d been on with Janet, all the time they’d spent together, they had been nice, but there was something about the easy relationship he’d had with William: watching him cook, going on long walks, the French lessons, the card games and William’s futile attempts to teach Red to play chess. Red was too sore a loser, and William’s attempts to play poorly too transparent, for that to have worked out. But it had been fun to find that out about each other.
Red was grateful for his relationship with William. But he felt there was something missing in his life. He didn’t know what it was, and he felt ungrateful for noticing it at all.
He was walking by the sea on this cool autumn morning. It was beautiful, the sort of place he daydreamed about visiting before the war began. It was hard to believe that the war was still happening, now that there was little reason for Red to think of it anymore. Palm trees grew opposite from tall, golden buildings and the sea was a pure blue and seemed to go on forever on this mercifully clear day.
Columbus seemed so distant, now. Yet he had been there only a year ago, with Janet and his mother and his sister waving goodbye to him at the train station. He imagined how they must feel now. Had he been reported as a deserter, or was his name camouflaged among the dead? They’d remember him as a hero. A sacrifice worth making to take Rome from Hitler. His name would be carved onto a memorial somewhere, like his great-grandfather’s. It would be better to be a martyr than a coward.
He shook his head; it wasn’t helpful to think about those things. It just made him feel worse. He diverted his attention back to the road, to the buildings he was walking past. After several minutes he noticed something moving in the alleyway, out of the corner of his eye.
His head snapped over to look. But it wasn’t a threat. No pickpocket sizing him up, not even a peddler trying to sell him something of questionable provenance.
Just a dog.
She was fairly plain, with the muscular lean look—it was probably a Cursinu, a type of dog that was popular with the local farmers. She was dark brown brindled with tan, but some of that may have been dirt. Her ears were long and floppy and caked with mud. But he mostly noticed her eyes, wet and glittering and watching him as he stopped to look at her. Those eyes reminded him of Jack, the dog his family had when he was a boy. He felt a pang of something deep in his chest.
“Hey there,” he said quietly. She flinched when he spoke, but didn’t look away.
She stepped back when he crouched, even though he was still several yards from her. She gave him one cautious wag of her tail.
He took a step towards her.
And she bolted.
The next day, she was in the same alleyway. This time she didn’t run, but Red didn’t approach. Instead, he left his sandwich near the opening of the alley and left.
When he looked back, he saw a snout cautiously come around the corner, enough to grab the sandwich and dart back into the darkness.
He smiled.
On the fourth day, he sat down with a book and set two sandwiches down beside him, and read while the cautious brown eyes watched him from the shadows.
Passing strangers gave him scornful looks, when they didn’t just look straight through him. Maybe they thought he was a vagrant. He didn’t mind.
He didn’t look up when she came up to him. She cautiously sniffed at the hem of his pants, took a sandwich, and ran.
On the seventh day, she allowed him to pet her. Red could feel the bunched muscles in her neck. She leaned into him when he scratched her behind the ear. She ran when he attempted to examine the strange hairless patch over her leg.
On the ninth day, she let him scratch her while she ate. A strange smell was coming from her leg: it was sickly sweet, like sugar syrup. He looked at the wound: it didn’t look like it should have smelled sweet. It was a pale-yellow green, swollen, and had raised red edges. Bolts of black ran through it.
It was definitely infected.
Red sighed. She looked at him, still cautious.
“Sorry, sweetheart. You’re not going to like this,” he whispered, and grabbed her around the middle.
She yelped in terror and squirmed in his arms, snapping at him in panic. She squealed again as he wrapped her in his jacket, covering her head and binding her limbs to her body, and carried her through the streets to his home.
William woke up, alone in the bedroom. This was slightly unusual; Red was often there to greet him at sunset. More unusual still was the smell of dog that seemed to fill the house.
And not a particularly clean dog, either.
He sat up, and could hear the rustle of the page of a book turning coming from the bathroom at the other end of the house. Ah, of course—Red had human needs, after all. William climbed out of bed, got dressed, and walked through the sitting room and past the kitchen.
He could hear Red reading, and his calm, regular breaths. He could also hear another creature, not human, not calm. He could smell it, too. A wet dog. What had possessed him to...
William sighed, and gently opened the bathroom door. Red was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, a detective novel in his lap. He grinned at William and inclined his head to the cardboard box that was on its side in the centre of the room, which was now quivering from the force of the animal that was trembling inside.
William hunched to peer inside the box and examine the dog. Her ears were damp, she was quivering, and her big wet eyes were so vivid that they seemed to be the only thing in the box. Red’s jacket was lying underneath the wretched creature.
“What are you doing?” William asked.
“I’ve been sitting with the dog,” Red replied softly, hesitant. “Her leg looked really bad, so I brought her here and cleaned her up, and I don’t want to leave her alone while she’s so scared.”
“Why?” William lowered his voice.
“I think she’s a stray. Her leg was definitely going to get worse out there, especially since she’d not been eating,” he paused, giving the box a plaintive look before speaking again. “Do you... do you like dogs?”
William thought back to the forests of Gaul, to horseback rides, to battles fought beside loyal soldiers and war hounds. He thought back to the mutts that begged for scraps in the kitchens of Spain. He sat on the floor beside Red. “I have not had one in quite some time.”
Red nodded, relaxing a little. “We could keep her, maybe. I don’t think... I mean, she won’t get in the way.”
“What use do you have for it?” William asked; he tried to dredge up memories of his past. What did he think of the war dogs, all those years ago? Did he like dogs? He must have.
“Use?” Red repeated, confused. He looked back to the dog. “Uh. She’s... well, maybe, if we kept her, she would probably be a good guard dog. If someone tried to break in, she could wake us, well, me, up. I’m sure she could learn. She looks... she seems like a smart dog.”
“We will have to get a kennel for it to sleep in.”
Red’s eyes lit up. “You’re okay with us keeping her? She can stay?”
“If you wish it. I suppose it can keep you company whilst I sleep, as well.”
Red considered this. He felt that hole inside him, that thing that was missing... maybe...
“Do, I mean…” Red hesitated, then moved to give William a hug. “I would love to keep her. Thank you.” He broke the hug to shuffle in front of the box. He offered the dog his hand, since it now smelled of William as well. “Do you want to name her?”
William shook his head, watching as the dog gave Red’s hand a tentative sniff. “You should name it.”
“I’m going to call her Chestnut,” he said immediately. He had decided on a name days ago.