Chapter Text
Helleborus flickr photo by CALLEJERO ERRANTE shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
December, 1944
Two figures walked along the beach by the moonlight. The short one adjusted his heavy coat and pulled his hat down further over his ears as a cold wind blew in from the sea. The taller man wore a light dinner jacket and relatively thin trousers. They stood too close together, except when the short one threw a ball for the brindled dog that splashed after it in the shadows.
Red never threw it too far, worried about her leg and that she might run off in the dark. He knew, logically, that he shouldn’t worry, that his companion would be able to chase the animal down, probably even sniff her out of any hiding place. But he couldn’t help it. He gave it a throw, about fifty yards away, at the place where the waves met the sand.
“Do you think her leg is holding up?” Red asked as he watched Chestnut bound after the ball.
“That patch of hair may never regrow, but I don’t think it’s painful.”
“Poor thing.” He threw the ball again. “Maybe she should swim. It might be good for her.”
“Perhaps, though she may catch a chill.”
Red nodded, feeling guilty that he didn’t think of that. It was freezing; he wouldn’t want to swim right now, either. Though, as Chestnut walked through the sand with the waves lapping at her paws, he wondered whether it bothered her. She dropped the ball and wagged her tail, looking at him expectantly.
“Wait, can you swim?” Red asked. “I could always teach you?” He smiled, teasing as he threw the ball again, farther this time.
“While I appreciate your generous offer, do you believe that I have not had occasion to learn?”
“I don’t know, maybe the ‘can’t cross water’ part extends to swimming.” He looked up at the stars, thoughtfully. “Wait, we’ve crossed water, haven’t we? So where does that one come from?”
“I don’t know. It must be related to your myths about holy water,” he said. Red could sense the sarcasm in ‘holy’.
“Would you like to swim?” he asked, taking the ball from Chestnut. He didn’t want to discuss religion with William; when he’d tried in the past, it had consisted mostly of rants about blasphemy, schisms, apostasy and words he didn’t understand, which just gave him a headache.
“One of your heretic priests may have blessed it! I shall be turned to ash!”
Red laughed. The dog sat, wagging her tail, begging for the ball. “There’s probably a rule against blessing the entire ocean.”
“As I said, heretics.”
Red smiled. “But, if it was a heretic, it wouldn’t really be blessed, would it?”
William laughed; it was rare that a human surprised him like this. “You are willing to take that chance with my life?” He asked, his tone deadly serious as he grinned at Red.
“I am afraid so,” he replied with mock sincerity, throwing the ball as hard as he could into the ocean. The dog paddled after it. Red pulled off his shirt and shoes and took several steps backwards into the freezing cold foam of the waves. “The call of the sea is too strong for me.”
William frowned, reluctant to get his clothes wet. Red grinned through his chattering teeth; William’s fastidiousness might just have been part of the plan.
With all the speed William’s vampire faculties allowed him, he removed his jacket, he pulled off his gloves, loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, removed his undershirt, untied his shoes, removed his socks, trousers, and then finally his drawers. He folded them neatly on the dry sand, and approached the water’s edge. He felt the sand transition from soft and easily shaken off his feet, to wet and persistent, and wondered if he really wanted to put his feet into the ocean and thereby doom himself to walk home in sandy socks.
Red was standing with the water up to his shoulders, clearly suffering far more from the cold than William would from the sand. Moreover, he had gotten his pants wet.
William grinned at Red. “And alas, like Butes, I am drawn towards the charms of the siren.”
After everyone had returned to the house and been rinsed of seawater and sand, William cooked. It was Red’s last meal before the sun rose, before it was time for bed. The rich smells of tomato and basil filled the air. It was routine. It was pleasant.
These were the moments that made him happier than anything else. Not the big moments, the little ones.
Red carefully buttoned his shirt, deep in thought.
“I never thought about it, but that’s a vampire thing, isn’t it? The holy water?”
“Do you honestly believe any of those heretics could do anything?” William asked, glowering at the sauce as he stirred it.
“I don’t know. These days I’m trying to keep an open mind.” He hugged William from behind, kissing the nape of his neck. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” he added softly, pressing his forehead against William’s back, as though being as close as possible could protect him somehow.
“Do not worry yourself.”
He let go of William with a small squeeze, grabbing a beer from the icebox. He folded his arms, leaning on the counter while he opened the bottle. “Can you indulge me something?”
“Always.” William smelled the bright green sauce; there was something missing. After a moment’s thought, he retrieved a small container of dried oregano and added some of it to the thick liquid. William had noticed that Red liked oregano the previous month, when he’d devoured a bowl of pasta at a restaurant which had positively reeked of the stuff.
Red took a sip of his drink, trying to think of where to start, and how to phrase it. “How much of what peop—humans know is true?”
“A few things are right, a few are close, and most are very wrong.” William set a bag of flour and a mixing bowl onto the table.
“I know the basics aren’t right. The white skin and animal teeth was definitely off the mark.”
“Not entirely. Surely you have seen my teeth grow when I feed on you?” he grinned.
“Stop that, you’ll give me ideas.” Red smiled in return, and took a step forward to touch William’s shoulder for a moment. “So the sunlight is true, the running water isn’t… what about counting? I’ve never seen you count anything, but maybe you do it when you’re in the study.”
“No, I’ve never heard of anything to do with counting,” William replied, measuring out flour.
“And the garlic thing can’t be true, unless you’re making even greater sacrifices to look after me than I thought?” Red asked, meaning it to be a joke but the words came out with a pang of regret. He still felt guilty about all that William had done for him.
William put down the flour and moved to stand next to Red, and placed a hand on his back. “Being with you has been my greatest pleasure in years.” His arm moved around Red’s shoulders to pull him close, to reassure him that he was wanted, and he rested his head against Red’s.
Red wrapped an arm around William’s back and placed his drink down. He didn’t say anything in reply; there wasn’t anything he could say to encapsulate how he felt.
“Thank you,” Red said, softly. Leaving a final kiss on William’s forehead, he withdrew so William could continue cooking. Red took another sip of his beer as William began to make the dough.
“What else… I know it doesn’t rain every time you bathe, otherwise we’d be facing a flood. What about werewolves?”
“What about them?” He added flour to the sticky dough. Red liked how much William seemed to focus on cooking, so much so that he seemed to ignore the faint flecks of flour that had started to colour his black coat.
“Do vampires turn into werewolves when they die? Or the other way around? I’ve heard that one before. Do werewolves exist?”
“There are many secrets I may yet keep,” William recited, the way he always did when he didn’t want to answer Red’s questions.
Red sighed. “Okay. Well. God forbid, if anything does happen and you turn into a wolf, I’ll look after you.”
“You are full of questions this evening, my dear.” William smiled, and, satisfied with its consistency, started kneading his dough.
“I was worried it would be rude to ask, when you told me what you were,” Red admitted. “And then it never seemed like a good time, but the water thing got me thinking about it again.”
“I am surprised at how you came to many of the questions.”
“Well, those are just the ones I’m not sure about. There are a lot I already know if they’re true or not,” Red smiled, thinking about what he’d learned over the past few months. “Being unable to be seen in mirrors I know is untrue. You don’t have to sleep in your coffin. But the part about being incredibly enchanting is true.”
William laughed as he rolled the dough out. “You don’t know the half of it, my dear.” He wondered how Red would feel when he discovered the extent of his powers over humans. However, it was better to keep some things hidden than to risk losing him.
“The fun part is finding out, right?” Red smiled, but it faded quickly. There was another thing he had been meaning to ask. “So. There’s something else. Not vampire-related.”
“You were just saying how dashing I was?” William grinned, trying to allay Red’s discomfort.
“That too.” Red paused. “What did you want to do for Christmas?”
“What is your custom?” William replied immediately, cutting the dough into noodles.
Red hesitated, not expecting that answer. “Uh. Family lunch, usually. My mother and her brother take turns hosting. Mom does a dinner Christmas Eve, too, just for Dorothy and me.” He took a long gulp of his beer, suddenly uncomfortable, a pricking in his neck muscles he didn’t like. “Or, now just for Dorothy, I guess.” Or maybe they wouldn’t be able to bear to celebrate without him. “What do you do?”
“Nothing, usually. Sometimes someone may throw a party, but those have been out of fashion recently.” William gently dropped the noodles into a boiling pot of water.
“Oh.” There was a comfortable pause as William watched the pot. He stared at it. He always stared.
“Regrettably, I cannot prepare a lunch. But I would be delighted to cook you dinner, on Christmas Eve, if you wish.”
Red smiled, some of the tension going out of his shoulders. “That would be great. Thank you.”
“You must miss your family a great deal.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted. He started picking at the label of the bottle. “It will be strange. Not being there for Christmas.”
“What about it is so important?” William asked, wondering what he could do to ensure Red’s happiness. It was perfectly normal, he reasoned, to care about the emotional well-being of a human in one’s employ. He was sure many other vampires had such concerns.
“The actual holiday?” Red wondered whether he’d have to fumble through a poorly-remembered rendition of the tale of the star and the three magi.
“To you.”
Red sighed, thinking. “I guess I’ve… always been with my family for the holidays. We don’t see our cousins much, so it’s good to see them, but I always liked dinner with Mom and Dorothy. It seems strange not being there. I missed one Christmas with them already, and… I don’t know. I hadn’t realised I would miss another one.”
William started fishing the now-cooked noodles out of the pot with his fingers and placed them into a bowl. “Would you like to send them a letter?”
Red sighed; he’d thought about it too many times, always coming to the same decision. “They probably think I’m dead. That might be easier to deal with.”
“I’m sure they’d be very happy to hear you’re alive.” William replied, pouring the green sauce over the noodles. He handed the dish to Red.
Red didn’t say anything for a while, taking his meal into the dining room and sitting down, staring at the table. “I don’t want them to know I deserted.”
“You would rather they thought you dead?” William sat opposite him, imagining how worried he would be if he hadn’t heard from Red in months.
“Maybe.” Red thought about it, feeling the air go out of him. “Thank you for dinner. You are always looking after me.”
William hesitated, knowing Red needed to have his mind taken off the subject, to be distracted so the hurt wasn’t felt as strongly. “I think Chestnut enjoyed the beach. And I know I did,” he said, kind rather than flirtatious. He placed his hand on the table.
“Me too.” Red patted William’s hand and started eating.
“Did I ever tell you about the time, when I was very young, that I sent a queen a platinum goblet when I was meant to send a pewter chalice?”
Red smiled, the anecdote having its intended effect. “And what happens when you send a queen a platinum goblet instead of a pewter chalice?”
“A misunderstanding that takes a small herd of quagga to straighten out.”
“And what’s a quagga?” Red chuckled a little.
“A type of small zebra.”
Red smiled. There was no thank you, no acknowledgement, but he felt better.
There had always been an odd understanding between Red and William concerning William’s feeding habits: Red had made no attempt to become acquainted with the details apart from verifying that William wasn’t murdering someone every time he went out, and William never offered anything. By now, a routine was well-established: every three days, William would wake up, cook Red’s dinner, and leave him to eat alone. William almost always came back within an hour; on rare cases, it would take him two.
One day, William came back after three hours., Red had originally been reading but had ultimately ended up anxiously turning between pages without ever managing to read them around hour two. He sprang to his feet to open the door once he heard William’s familiar knock.
“Come on in,” Red offered automatically.
“Thank you, my dear.” William stepped inside.
“It seems nice out…” Although it had been six months, Red never knew what to say to him when he got back. Asking whether he ate well, or saw anyone interesting, seemed inappropriate.
“Yes. No sign of rain, despite the clouds.” William took off his long, heavy coat and placed it on the coat rack along with his hat. He removed his black gloves and placed them in the small cabinet at the doorway.
Red moved towards William, pulling him close. He knew it was silly, knew William’s comings and goings were probably related to routine vampire business just as often as they were to feeding, but he worried whenever he was gone for a long time. Red kissed him, long and hard, gripping his chin with one hand and sliding his other hand all the way up William’s back from waist to shoulder. It was at once a simple embrace of affection and a declaration that Red did not want to think of anything coming to harm him. William was his; he didn’t want anything taking that away.
There was something rough on William’s back. Red broke the kiss, eyebrows narrowed slightly as he focused on what he felt, slipping his right hand under William’s shirt. It felt as though William had some sort of awful rash. With the sharpened senses that were nature’s payment for allowing a vampire to feed from him, he could smell something was off: a faint, burned smell. He brought his right hand to his nose and he could smell it, stronger. The smell of a campfire, burning pine. And a rank smell that could only be burned flesh.
“What…” He gently pulled out of William’s arms, and nudged at his shoulder, turning him. William let him; there was no point in hiding; Red would see it sooner or later. Red pulled up his shirt to get a good look. “Oh, Jesus.”
A gaping wound six inches wide and as much as two inches deep in places snaked down William’s back. The flesh had been burned so dark that it appeared almost black, except for glistening, moist, purple-red lumps and glints of white that Red didn’t believe could possibly be bone. The wound started at the base of his right shoulder blade, where Red had first felt it, and ran towards the top of his left shoulder. The jagged edges of the injury were bright red, and swollen blisters dotted the area where the dry skin met the black void.
Red had never seen anything like this before, not even during combat. He certainly hadn’t seen anything like this happen to William. He knew an injury like this should have healed within a few hours. And it looked fresh, minutes or seconds old. Red felt the familiar, long-suppressed fear well up in his throat.
William stood there, silent, allowing Red to gingerly pull his shirt back down, careful not to touch the wound. William’s demeanour was different than usual: his head wasn’t held in the self-assured way it always was. He flinched away from Red’s touch, but out of shame, not pain.
“What happened? How did this happen?”
“Pay it no mind.” William turned around to face Red, looking almost bored.
“No, what happened?” Red insisted. “Why aren’t you… have you run it under water? It needs to be run under water.”
William smiled at Red’s earnestness. “All I can do is wait, my dear.”
“What happened?”
“I fed near a fireplace,” William replied tersely. He knew that Red wouldn’t believe him: he was well acquainted with William’s paranoia around fires. On some level, he still expected Red to be like the others: to only care about his welfare insofar as it allowed them to feed him. Others would have gladly accepted this explanation.
“What happened, William?” Red repeated gently, an edge of pleading in his voice. “I need you to tell me.”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, my dear.”
“You’re kidding,” Red said flatly. “This is obviously something bad. If this is an accident I might be able to help next time. If this wasn’t an accident… do we need to go? I can pack now. We can leave tonight.”
“No. There’s no danger.”
“You weren’t eating near a fireplace. You won’t even let me light a candle!”
“I was.” William’s voice was harsher, firmer, but not louder.
“Tell me what happened. I—can I help? At all?”
“There are some secrets I may yet keep.”
“This isn’t one of them. This isn’t—this isn’t whether you can transform into a bat like in Dracula, this is whether somebody’s out to get you!”
“Nobody is out to get me, my dear. Please, trust me.” William felt an odd tightness in his chest. Why was he so uncomfortable speaking to Red like this? It was for his own good, after all. The truth would worry him too much.
“Fine.” Red sighed, realising he was not going to get anywhere; he knew William well enough to have learned that there was no chance of him letting go of this stubbornness.
When it was next time for William to feed, Red held him for an unreasonably long time before he gave him a final kiss goodbye and allowed him to leave. When he returned, the lounge room was drenched in the thick smell of coffee and littered with a pile of books that Red had tried, and failed, to start reading.
Over the next few days, Red had been behaving differently. When William slept, instead of his relatively leisurely suite of activities (volunteering at the school, studying French, and visiting the library), he had been pushing himself. There were blisters on his ankles from sprinting in heavy boots and ripped calluses on his hands from chin ups. They were minor injuries, but they were noticeable. At first, William attributed it to boredom, to a desire for more physical activity. But they persisted too long to be the results of a change of routine: Red was pushing his limits, and William worried it would become unsustainable.
After one hard day, Red sat on the couch while William kneeled on the slate tile floor. William had a small jar of scented oil, a bowl of water, and some clean towels on the ground beside him. William rubbing Red’s feet had been a normal enough part of their routine, but not the half hour every night that William had insisted on lately.
“Your feet are getting worse. You should rest for a few days.” William had nearly finished the massage; he was firmly kneading on Red’s calf muscles. The warm, earthy smell of the oil hung in the air.
“It’s fine.” Red smiled. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on him. This extremely powerful man was rubbing his feet and worrying about him. He didn’t hate it. “It’s just my boots rubbing wrong. It happens.”
“Not before, not as badly as this,” William muttered, focusing on Red’s tired calf muscles. “And your shoes are not new.” Red heard the hint of judgement in William’s voice: he might no longer be insisting that Red replace his clothing the second it began to show the slightest signs of wear, but he was incapable of hiding his distaste.
“I’ve just been trying to do more while you sleep.” He cringed a little when William’s fingers found a sore spot. “Stay in something like fighting shape.”
“Did you not tell me that the Americans would put you in prison if they found you, rather than put you to war?”
“Well, yes.”
“Then you need not push yourself like this. Besides, you are safe here.” He picked up one of the towels and started gently cleaning the oil from Red’s calves, working down towards his toes.
“Am I? If you can… feed in front of a fireplace and get burned like that, how am I safe?”
“You don’t need to worry about fireplaces like I do. And I can protect you from them.” William stared at Red, making his displeasure of having the fireplace mentioned known.
“Well, I wanted to pull my weight more,” he replied. He hesitated for a moment, considering whether he really wanted what he was about to ask for. “I would like to come with you, tomorrow. When you eat.” He still wasn’t sure he wanted to witness William feeding from someone else, but he wanted to see that William wasn’t in danger when he fed.
William paused in surprise, the towel resting on Red’s foot. “Why?”
“I worry,” he said. “If you don’t want me to, it’s fine, but… I want to be there for you.”
“You will not enjoy it.”
“Probably. But I still want to go,” he replied, leaning forward to gently touch William’s shoulder above where the burn was. It had been almost a week and it was only half healed.
William took the towel off Red’s foot, leaving Red’s right toes and entire left foot coated in a thin coat of oil. “You could not have stopped it from happening, my dear.” His gaze was fixed on Red’s and his body completely still.
Red ran his hand up William’s neck, tracing fingers over his jaw. “What if something happens and I could?”
“What if something happens to you?” He picked the towel up again, and resumed the task of wiping up the excess oil, trying not to dwell on what he thought was the more likely consequence of Red following him on his excursions. “I have been beaten, stabbed, even trampled by horses. These things are only a mild inconvenience for me, but not so for you.”
“I don’t know. I worry.” Red sighed.
William softened. “You’re welcome to come tomorrow, if you wish to. But you must understand that it will be for your satisfaction rather than for my protection.”
“Okay.” Red leaned forward to kiss William’s forehead. “Thank you.”
The next day, Red was waiting in the sitting room at sundown, nursing a mug of coffee. He wore clothing that was darkly coloured and more Corsican than his usual, more functional style, following William’s instructions to appear as ordinary and invisible as possible.
When William entered the room, his expression was sombre. He was, as always, overdressed: black pants, a blue shirt, suspenders and his thick black gloves. Apparently it was not necessary that he blend in.
“Are you absolutely sure you wish to come with me, my dear?” he asked, his businesslike tone reminding Red of the way he’d spoken to Paola when she had driven them out of Rome.
Red got to his feet to squeeze William’s gloved hand. “I’m sure.”
William gently pulled his hand away and took a small step away from Red. “You will not find it enjoyable. It does not look as pleasurable as it feels.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Then let’s go,” he replied, choosing a heavy black winter coat from the rack by the door. Red shrugged his own coat on, fastening the buttons as he walked out of the front door. In the cold December air, he wished he’d thought to wear gloves as well, but didn’t bother trying to go back for a pair: He half expected that if he did, William would use the opportunity to go without him.
They reached the centre of town after a silent fifteen minute walk. The uneven cobblestone streets made a maze of alleyways which Red sometimes had trouble navigating, even in daylight. William ducked into the entrance of a particularly cold, dark laneway, and Red followed close behind him.
Red scanned his surroundings, his hands buried in his jacket pockets for warmth. The buildings were showing their age: window shutters that were missing pieces of wood, front doors that were in bad need of varnish and a coat of paint. Piles of wood and debris leaned against the buildings, so that there was barely enough room for people to pick their way through on the path. The stale air was full of a sour smell from the water that pooled on the edges of the narrow cobblestone road, with bits of dust and scraps of food floating in it. A bony rat was gnawing on something at the edge of the water, and scarpered into one of the piles of wood when it heard Red’s footsteps. He could hear the chittering and movement of several of its brethren coming from somewhere nearby.
At the end of the alley, a man leaned against the wall, fidgeting. He was advanced in age, probably a grandfather many times over. He wore an old but well-kept heavy grey coat and a black hat with white trim. He kept on moving his hand to his breast pocket where the outline of a pack of cigarettes was visible.
“Is that... him?”
William nodded. “Yes, it is.” He stared at Red, waiting to see if he would change his mind now that the reality was before them. He found himself hoping.
Red stood in silence, not knowing that William was waiting for his approval. He realised with a start, and then gestured with one hand and nodded. He felt uncomfortable and unsure about what he should do, like he was at one of his sister’s parties.
William smiled and clasped Red’s hand, giving it a firm squeeze. He walked deeper into the alley with deliberate steps, treading loudly enough that the old man could hear him. To Red, these exaggerated movements seemed almost comical on William.
Red’s amusement was short lived. The old man saw William and gave what looked to Red to be a lecherous grin. It gave him a sour feeling to his stomach. He tried to ignore it.
William walked right up to the man, standing very close, their chests almost touching. They spoke a few words to one another, quieter than Red could hope to hear. He found he was glad for it.
William grabbed the old man, pushing his head aside and burying his face in the wrinkled neck. The man cried out and gave a low, pained moan. Red knew that he made noises when William fed from him, but he never imagined that they sounded like that. William roughly placed his hand over the old man’s mouth, to silence his screams, in a gesture that had seemed tender and loving when he’d done it to Red during times when silence had been necessary, but from Red’s vantagepoint it looked as if William was suffocating him. As the man stood there, moaning into William’s glove, Red could see his bright eyes begin to go glassy as he struggled for breath. Finally, able to bear it no longer, Red looked away.
The ordeal lasted another two minutes—longer than Red had ever been fed from—and then Red heard the dull moan stop as William let the man go and walked away. The man sank to the floor, grinning stupidly. Once William was back at the entrance of the alley, the old man reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, struck a match, and lit it. His movements seemed more fluid, more comfortable.
William took a step forward and hugged Red. After a moment, Red pulled away, giving William a small, slightly strained smile.
They began the walk home in silence.
“You need not come again,” William said, finally.
Red considered it, this time being the one to draw out the silence. “How often do you get hurt? When you go out?”
“As badly as this? Not since Venice.” William replied too fluidly, too comfortably, without thinking.
“When were you in Venice?”
“Oh,” William hesitated, and Red wondered why he seemed rattled, the hardness in his mouth and the slight wideness of his eyes. “A few hundred years ago.”
Red thought that over. “You said you had been stabbed and run over by horses?”
“Those are minor inconveniences.”
“Hm.” Red paused, moving to take William’s hand. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
“You know where I keep the money and travel papers. You can do as you will with those, if it came to that.”
Red frowned, trying to figure out whether William was making a joke. When he realised that he was serious, Red continued. “The money wouldn’t matter to me. I would… miss you,” he said, aware how the words weren’t quite enough.
“Better you miss me living in comfort than miss me working dangerous jobs for enough bread to get by.” To William, the thought of Red outliving him was fanciful.
“You are maddening, sometimes.” Red said, his voice full of affection.
“And you are too sentimental, my dear.” William squeezed Red’s hand.
William awoke alone, to the sound of heavy breathing and the smell of sweat coming from the sitting room, and to Chestnut whining and scratching at the back door. If Red was not there to greet him at sunset, he was usually caught up in a book or in a radio programme; or perhaps he’d lost track of time and was still in town. But there was no sound of pages turning, no buzz of the radio. Just Red’s heavy and uneven breathing.
He climbed out of bed and dressed, quickly even by his standards, wearing only an undershirt and drawers. He appeared in the doorway of the sitting room; his shoulders tensed slightly and his legs stiffened when he saw Red.
Red was sitting on the settee, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the floor, whiskey that William knew had been unopened that morning. Red’s left shoulder was lower than the right. Not by a lot, but more than it should have been. His right hand rested on his left elbow. His face was held in a stiff grimace, the kind that gave the impression that Red had long since accepted the pain.
“What the devil are you doing?”
“Trying to get my shoulder back in,” Red muttered through gritted teeth. There are a few scratches on his bare arms, and on his left shoulder. Some were deep but congealed.
William paused, evaluating the situation. What was this injury? It looked like ones he had seen before. “What did you do to yourself?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Red grumbled, his voice harsher than usual. He picked up the bottle in his right hand and took another swig. He didn’t flinch at the taste, even though the acrid smell of the whiskey filled the room as he spoke. “It was an accident.”
William gently took the whiskey out of Red’s grasp. “This is not going to help.” He sat next to Red on the settee. “What happened?”
Red narrowed his eyes a little. “I just need to numb the pain a little, to get it back in. It’s beginning to swell. Can I have that back please?” He knew William was just trying to help, so he tried not to sound harsh—but the pain in his shoulder was intense, and the whiskey was helping. Or, at least, made it easier to ignore.
William set it on the table, out of Red’s reach. “What happened?”
“I was climbing a tree and I fell and I tried to grab a branch and it—” He got to his feet with a pained grunt. “It yanked my arm out.”
“Why on earth would you…” William shook his head and stood up.
“Training.” He leaned over and retrieved the bottle. William didn’t try to take the bottle away, this time; he knew it made Red feel weak and small when he did such things. Red took a swig. “God, this is awful. Why did I buy this?”
William sighed. “May I help you?”
Red nodded. William picked up the settee, the coffee table, and the armchair and stacked each in the corner in turn. He gestured to the now-cleared floor.
Red lay with his back on the hard slate tiles. They were cold, but that soothed the pain in his shoulder better than the whiskey had. William knelt beside him, carefully reviewing what he was about to do in his mind. It had been a long time since he had dealt with an injury like this.
“You must stop this training business,” he said, gently pulling Red’s left arm away from his side. “It is not necessary.”
“Yes it is,” Red replied. “Have to do something while you…. Ow ow ow OW!” The pain stabbed at his shoulder, and he squeezed the neck of the whiskey bottle.
“Would you like something to bite down on?”
“Bite you.” He chuckled at his own joke.
Satisfied with the angle of Red’s arm, William pulled it outwards. He was gentle but very, very firm. “When I sleep, you can do anything but this. You could have been killed,” he scolded, though Red could only hear the worry in his voice.
“I didn’t think. It won’t happen again.”
“It will! You have been injured before this. Not so badly, but still,” he muttered, thinking of the week before when the human had come home with deep cuts from climbing over a barbed-wire fence. William hadn’t brought it up before, but it was clear that this was becoming a pattern. “There is no advantage to you doing this. No matter how hard you train, there is nothing you can do to protect me.” William placed a foot against Red’s hip to hold him in place as he pulled Red’s arm.
“Wow. You sure know how to make a guy feel special.” Red breathed in sharply as he felt the muscles in his shoulder give way, allowing the joint to softly pop back into place. The pain was suddenly gone, though the muscles were still tender. William made a small, satisfied noise.
“I am trying to keep you from hurting yourself,” William got to his feet. He stood straight for a moment, before bending to offer Red his arm. It was the sort of thing he wouldn’t have done a year ago, the sort of tiny human gesture that most would take for granted. Red hadn’t noticed the change.
Red sighed and set down the whiskey to take William’s arm. “Thank you,” he replied, pulling himself to his feet. “But… I have to do something. I can’t just sit around.” He rubbed his tender shoulder.
“What do you expect to accomplish, doing all this?” William walked towards the kitchen.
“It’s not about expecting, it’s just…” Red sighed, scooping up the bottle of whiskey. He followed William into the kitchen. “You couldn’t understand.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“What exactly?” William asked, leaning on the kitchen table.
Red frowned, setting the whiskey on the table. “You’re already as strong as you could be. It’s different.”
William laughed. “You will not believe that if you see me fight one of my elders.”
Red paused, his train of thought completely derailed. “Is that something you’re planning on?” he asked. William made remarks like this, sometimes, that made Red realise he didn’t understand the first thing about his culture and filled his head with a thousand new questions.
“Of course not. I know my limits. And so should you.”
Red took a swig of the whiskey. “I’m not planning on stopping.”
“Why?”
Red considered his words. “I know I’m not as strong as you. I know that. But if something… if something did happen, if you were asleep, or… I don’t know.” He gestured, opening and closing his fist, as though he was trying to gather his thoughts out of the air. “And I could have done something but I wasn’t good enough? And I could have been. It’d kill me.” He took another sip of the whiskey. “It’d fucking kill me.”
“If someone wants me dead, there is nothing you can do to prevent it. I have lived longer than you can imagine. Longer than I could have ever imagined. In all that time, I have taken every precaution. I still do. I always will. The longer I live, the less it seems like enough.” William took a breath. He didn’t need air to live, but talking took lungfuls of the stuff. “I don't need you to worry for my sake. You are only human. Every one of us has their routine for taming the sun. The only thing that brings fear into my heart is that another vampire wishes me ill, and there is nothing you could do to protect me from that.”
“I can try.”
“Anyone who could hurt me would be stronger than me. Do you think you could stop me, if I wished you harm?”
“Nope.” Red shrugged, taking another small sip of whiskey. He was starting to smile, enjoying William’s ranting.
“Then please, I beg you, stop putting yourself at risk. Spend more time helping at the school, collect rare plants, take up sculpting. Anything else at all.”
Red sidled up to him, cupping the back of his head to pull him down a little, enough for him to kiss his forehead. He was so earnest, even with all his paranoia.
“I take that as a yes?” William murmured, placing a hand on Red’s face, pleased that he seemed to have cooled down a little.
“I’ll be more careful.”
He put his other arm around Red’s waist. “I would never have forgiven myself, if you had fallen, hit your head, and been dispatched by the wolves.” He was surprised to realise that he meant it.
Red licked his dry lips. “Wolves?”
“They would find you soon enough, my dear.”
“There aren’t any wolves here,” Red repeated, his face tightening as he tried not to laugh. “They have foxes. And tiny weasels.”
“Wolves would be a far more dignified way to go.”
“I think I can take the tiny weasels in a fight.” Red grinned, leaning heavily against William, the whiskey hitting him properly now that the pain was gone.
“Not if that fall had made you insensible.” He pulled Red close and kissed the top of his head. The thought of Red being seriously injured had seriously hit him. He didn’t like it.
“Yep, that’s how I’ll end up going. Eaten by weasels.” He grinned into William’s chest. “Put that on my tombstone.”
“I don’t intend to do that for a while, yet.”
Christmas Eve, 1944
There hadn’t been much in the way of decoration, but that was fairly typical across all of Europe right now. People made do.
Red had relocated a small pine tree into the living room and decorated it sparsely. There had been more decorations before, handmade, but Red had thrown them away, embarrassed at their imperfections. William had noticed them, crumpled in the rubbish bin, and retrieved them, straightened them out and hung them throughout the house. Red didn’t mention it.
When William woke at sunset on Christmas Eve, Red was reading in the bed beside him.
William looked up at him and smiled. “Good evening, my dear.”
Red set his book on his lap so he could stroke William’s hair. “Did you sleep well?”
“I did.” This nightly exchange was part of their ritual now.
Red pulled something from the drawer of the bedside table. It was a package about six inches by three inches, wrapped in paper that was decorated in drawings of spindle flowers. Simple graphite on plain paper. It was obviously not something Red drew; perhaps he had asked one of the teachers at the school to do it for him. “I got you something.” Red tried to hide his nerves, knowing how important gifts were to William, and how fussy he was. He’d almost been too scared to get him a gift at all.
“Oh? Thank you.” William took the package, examining the paper as he untied the string. Under the paper there was a vase, six inches in height, porcelain covered in a dazzling glaze that shone in green, black and silver. Pewter leaves encircled the mouth and base of the vase.
His mind automatically interrogated each part of it for meaning: the colours (the shade of green: respect and affection; the proportion of black: something new; the hint of silver: something highly valued), the shape (a slight teardrop: matters of the heart), and even the size (proportional to a hand in height and width: a desire to work). Everything about it came together to tell of a young romance that the giver wished to pursue to its fullest extent. The angle of the leaves was even appropriately chosen for a gift given in recognition of the winter solstice.
To Red, William was studying the vase closely, with the same care he looked over anything else he picked up on a shopping trip, or with the same keen eye he studied the array of letters and packages other vampires sent him. It was routine, but of the most nerve-wracking kind.
“This is absolutely exquisite. Thank you,” William said. From the way he held it as though it was a precious thing, the way he seemed to mutter silently to himself as he turned it around to examine it, Red knew that he was sincere.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you like it.”
William paused. “If you don’t mind getting out of bed, I can give you your gift, as well.” In truth, he’d not realised that Red would want to exchange gifts; he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it, but giving gifts to human attendants just wasn’t done. But he knew he had to have something that would be suitable.
“Sure. Did you want me to get changed?” Red asked: William had a demeaning habit of making major or minute adjustments to his clothing on anything that William deemed an important occasion. But Red was happy to oblige from time to time, especially when he could do it on his own terms.
William glanced at the extensive creases on Red’s shirt; he’d probably been wearing it all day at the school. It certainly smelled as though he had. “If you could change your shirt. The striped blue one, if it is pressed,” he said, climbing out of bed and pulling on a pair of navy pants.
“It is” Red nodded, unbuttoning his shirt.
“Good.” William pulled his own shirt on and selected a belt. Despite the cold weather, he wore short sleeves.
Red pulled the new shirt on. “How do I look?” Red grinned, placing his hands on his hips and thrusting his chest out.
“Perfect.”
When they had finished dressing, William led Red to the store room, where he kept his trunks, vampire gifts, and the dozens of little things Red had bought for him. He knelt beside one of the trunks, unlocked it carefully, and fished out what looked like a full Encyclopaedia Britannica. He pulled out five or six volumes at a time, stacking them neatly on top of another trunk.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t think to wrap them.” He was glad he’d remembered Red had wanted an encyclopaedia; it would have been humiliating not to have anything for him. After all, whatever the other vampires would think of him exchanging gifts with a human, he couldn’t very well not present his paramour with a gift. He expected better of himself than that.
Red was silent, one arm folded across his chest and the other pressed gently against his mouth. “How could you have? How many are there?”
“Twenty-nine volumes in all.”
Red walked up to William, and kissed him on the cheek. “I love it. Thank you.”
William had been lucky this time; he resolved to be more attentive in the future.