Chapter 12

Cassian was not the type of man to lose his temper. Beowulf realised he had never really seen the officer angry before. Usually, his response to his men acting up was groans of weary disappointment and then quickly but calmly telling them off. And most of the time that would work, as the men liked Cassian, looked up to him and didn’t want to disappoint him.

But this was something entirely different. Cassian was actually yelling at them for once, had them all lined up and was walking up and down the line, pointing at them and shouting. But when Beowulf looked at his face, the training officer didn’t even look that angry. He looked tired and disappointed still, but even more than usual. There seemed to be dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep.

Cassian was however being quite cruel with his words. He was going on about why this was the reason they had been held back from the main armed force and given castle guard duties, because they couldn’t be trusted and couldn’t work properly as a team. That this is why he had been stuck trying to train them, because they were all stupid and useless, as evidenced by the fact that the whole group of them couldn’t take down an unarmed Beowulf together.

Beowulf was lined up with the rest of them, but on the end, and Cassian wasn’t looking at him while yelling except when he gestured to him for emphasis for a point he was making to the others. Near the end, Cassian pulled Emil out of the group and started yelling at him individually, and Beowulf noticed his expression had changed. Now he really was mad, and Emil seemed to feel it too as he cowered under his superior officer’s screaming.

Then Cassian outlined to them that for the next few days, outside of their guard duties and sleeping hours, they would all be running drills non-stop. Except for Emil, who he had taken off guard duty all together and outside of running drills would be washing dishes in the kitchen. Beowulf thought he might have been kicked out of the army all together, but perhaps Cassian couldn’t do so due to his family’s wealth and influence. Though if they had sent their spoilt brat son into the army to be straightened out, it wasn’t working so far.

The main drill Cassian liked to use as punishment was doing laps of the castle in full armour carrying weapons and shields. He sent the soldiers to begin, then turned to Beowulf and said, “and you too,” with a nod of his head.

Beowulf looked at him in surprise, and then pointed to himself. “But I didn’t do anything wrong sir… they attacked us…” he protested quietly.

Cassian sighed wearily. “I know, I’m sorry Beowulf, but if I had you watching them all get punished from the sidelines that would probably only make them hate you more. Group punishment is a good way to build camaraderie. They’ll see me as the bad guy rather than you, since I’m the one punishing you all,” the officer explained apologetically.

Beowulf let out a sigh of defeat. “I understand, sir,” he said reluctantly.

Cassian gestured for him to get moving. “Come on, let's go,” he said, taking off running after his men. Cassian was not the type to make his men run drills without doing at least some of it with them to set a good example. Beowulf started jogging after him, his larger stride allowing him to quickly catch up until he was running beside the officer.

“Look, I know I told you to stay away from Thedrick but… now I am kind of glad you didn’t,” Cassian said as they ran together behind the rest of the group, Beowulf keeping his pace steady with the older man. “If you hadn’t, and they had hurt or gods forbid killed him, Balthasar would have torn me to shreds.”

“Why does he care so much about Thedrick?” Beowulf asked.

Cassian shrugged while jogging. “Hell if I know. Why do you?” the officer threw the question back at Beowulf.

“I… I just mean, Balthasar doesn’t really seem the type to care about anyone… it’s like he sees everyone as an annoyance,” Beowulf responded, tactfully ignoring Cassian’s question.

“I think you aren’t wrong about that, and I think he is annoyed by Thedrick as well, but for some reason he’s gotten attached,” Cassian mused. “Of course, I wonder why, but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I’ve known Balthasar since we were young, but I’ve never been able to understand him.”

“He’s kind of scary… much scarier than you,” Beowulf said half-jokingly. “Should have gotten him to yell at them.”

“I offered him to, but he said they were my problem and I needed to deal with them,” Cassian explained with a half smirk. “Besides, he probably already did when they visited the infirmary last night. After he finished with them, he came and woke me up in the middle of the night to bite my head off about it.”

“So, you two, are you…?” Beowulf didn’t fully finish the question, smirking to himself.

Cassian shot him a glare. “Don’t make me order you to run double time, soldier,” he threatened through grit teeth.

“Sorry sir,” Beowulf apologised, though continued smiling under his helmet.

They continued running in slightly awkward silence for a moment before Beowulf decided to ask another question. “Did you really mean everything you said back there? That they’re all useless and that’s why they were put on castle guard duty?”

Cassian looked hesitant to answer that. “Yes, well… they all lack discipline and have ego issues, especially Emil, and he’s a terrible influence on the rest of them. Their combat skills are also shoddy, and if they were sent out on the battlefield right now they would be more a liability than anything,” he explained carefully, looking at the group of soldiers running in front of them.

“What about me?” Beowulf asked quietly.

“Oh, no, none of that applies to you. Except your skills with weapons does leave something to be desired, which is why you still train with us. Though you proved last night you don’t need that to be effective in combat. No, you’re the one who listens and follows orders the best, you have no ego, you’re loyal and kind,” Cassian praised with a smile, which made Beowulf’s chest swell with delight. “The foremost reason you weren’t sent to the main host was the king specifically requested you for the royal guard, to intimidate visitors. Though without your helmet you’d probably struggle to intimidate anything,” he finished with a chuckle.

The officer was quiet for a moment, his expression changing to thoughtful. “Though, this is possibly why the others dislike you, you’re too different from them. You’re so obedient, you don’t get in trouble like them, which makes them look bad in comparison. Perhaps you’d actually be relatable to them if you did something wrong once in a while,” Cassian continued.

“My superior officer is instructing me to disobey orders? An interesting tactic,” Beowulf joked. “Though you seem to understand them very well. How do you know all this?”

“Because I’ve been dealing with disobedient soldiers for years, Beowulf. You eventually figure out how they think. And it’s not that hard, they’re a bunch of idiots after all, as Balthasar would say,” Cassian explained with another smirk.

Beowulf noticed that the officer’s expression suddenly changed again, and he was focusing on something ahead of him. Beowulf followed Cassian’s gaze to see he was staring at Emil, who was flagging towards the back of the group of soldiers.

“Hey, Emil!” Cassian barked out loudly. The soldier seemed to startle, and quickly turned his head to look behind him. Though when he did, he quickly lost his footing and tripped, falling face first into the grass. The soldier made a sound as the air was knocked out of his lungs by the sudden contact with the ground.

Beowulf ran over to his side, stopping to stand over him as Emil tried to lift himself off the ground. Beowulf glanced at Cassian as he ran past, the officer giving him a smile and a wink. When he looked back down at Emil, the soldier had managed to raise himself into a sitting position and was looking up at Beowulf confusion. Beowulf bent over, offering his hand out to the other soldier to help him up.

Emil looked between the offered hand and Beowulf’s helmet with surprise. He then made a brief expression of disgust, before grabbing the large soldier’s hand and allowing himself to be easily pulled to his feet. Once he was steady Beowulf let go of his hand and clapped him on the back in encouragement, though he did it slightly harder than he had meant to and nearly caused the soldier to fall over again.

Emil caught his balance and then scowled up at Beowulf before taking off after the others without saying a word. Beowulf took off again as well, following the rest of the group which now had Cassian in the middle of them telling them all to pick up the pace.

****

After a full morning of drills and an afternoon of standing around on guard duty, followed by more drills in the evening, Beowulf was feeling exhausted, just like all the other soldiers were. On the positive side, apart from Emil, most of the other soldiers hadn’t been giving him as many glares, saving most of their ire to direct towards their superior, who seemed to only bask in it.

Cassian had also run them through a lot of team-based exercises, and the soldiers hadn’t seemed to begrudge working with Beowulf too much, though they did seem a little apprehensive around him. So, Beowulf had decided to remove his helmet for the rest of the drills, which seemed to relax the others' attitude towards him quite a lot.

When Beowulf finally got back to his small room in the barracks it was all he could do to strip off his armour and fall into the large bed they had sourced specially for him. He was trying to relax his aching muscles when he heard a knock at the door and groaned loudly in frustration.

The door opened slightly and the sound of jingling bells filled the room as the jester slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He then skipped over to the bed and looked down at Beowulf with consideration, lips pursed and fingers cupping his chin.

“What happened to you?” Thedrick asked as Beowulf pressed the back of his wrist against his own forehead.

“Cassian made me run all the punishment drills with everybody else,” Beowulf bemoaned, looking up at Thedrick wearily. “I’m sorry if you wanted to spend time together, but I’m exhausted, and I need to rest.”

“Hey, no worries. Mind if I join you?” Thedrick asked cheekily, smiling down at Beowulf now.

“Sure,” Beowulf nodded as he removed his arm from his forehead, smiling back at the jester. Soon Thedrick was climbing up on the bed and then up onto Beowulf’s chest, laying down on it and resting his chin on his folded hands in front of him. Beowulf reached up and placed his hands on the jester’s thin waist.

Beowulf then proceeded to ask Thedrick about how his day went, and the jester started to describe it all in detail while Beowulf listened contentedly. Eventually the soldier couldn’t keep his eyes open, closing them and holding Thedrick close as he slipped away into sleep to the sound of the jester’s voice.

Beowulf was eventually dragged from the depths of sleep by a pain in his shoulder. At first, he thought it must have been his wound from the previous night, but soon he had regained enough sense to realise that it was on the wrong side. This realisation hastened Beowulf’s awakening, and soon he was blinking open his eyes and trying to focus them.

He noticed Thedrick’s form still lying on top of him but couldn’t see his face. Then Beowulf slowly looked down at his shoulder which had the stabbing pain and saw that the jester had his mouth pressed against it, and it must have been his fangs piercing the flesh that Beowulf could feel. The vampire had his eyes closed as he fed, unaware that Beowulf had woken up.

Beowulf let out a groan of exasperation, and saw Thedrick’s eyes fly open, trying to look up at the soldier’s face while his fangs remained buried in Beowulf’s shoulder. Beowulf scowled at the jester, and Thedrick’s expression changed from surprise to guilt. But he didn’t let go, just kept drinking.

“Thedrick…” Beowulf growled warningly, which made the jester suddenly look nervous, though he still didn’t let go.

“Thedrick, let go,” Beowulf ordered firmly, but Thedrick just gave him a pleading look instead while he kept drinking. Beowulf grabbed the jester under the arms and started trying to pull him off gently, but Thedrick clung onto his shoulders as tightly as he could, until Beowulf gave up with a huff.

“You can’t just do this you know…” Beowulf said with a sigh as Thedrick continued to look at him guiltily while drinking his blood.

Thedrick finally extracted his fangs and started licking gently at the puncture marks while whining. “I’m sorry Wulfy… I just couldn’t help myself. After tasting it last night, I needed more…” Thedrick sounded very apologetic and remorseful.

“You could have at least asked me…” Beowulf grumbled while Thedrick finished cleaning up the tiny wounds.

“But you always say no…” Thedrick whimpered, frowning at Beowulf now.

“So what, you thought you could just help yourself while I was sleeping?” Beowulf retorted. “You didn’t think I might be a little upset about that?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t think straight, I didn’t want to hurt you, but I was so hungry,” Thedrick tried to defend himself, pulling away from Beowulf’s shoulder.

“You’re always hungry,” Beowulf pointed out.

“Yes! I am!” Thedrick almost snapped, voice suddenly raised. “A few hours after feeding and the blood cravings start again! My instincts are constantly screaming at me to feed!” The jester sounded very upset now, like he was about to cry, looking completely miserable. “Keeping myself under control all the time is hard, but necessary to survive. I’m sorry that I slipped up… your blood just tastes so good…”

“I thought Balthasar feeds you?” Beowulf asked in confusion, unable to help but feel a bit sorry for the little vampire.

Thedrick grimaced. “Baz can only give me so much before he starts to feel faint… but you’re big and strong and you have so much blood…”

“When you talk about me like I’m a juicy piece of meat it doesn’t really help your case Thedrick,” Beowulf explained carefully. “You can’t just steal my blood without asking, you promised you would be good, remember?”

Thedrick’s eyes widened in alarm. “Yes, I remember, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again, please don’t hurt me!” the jester pleaded, backing away and sitting up on Beowulf's chest, looking down at him apprehensively.

“Woah, woah! I’m not going to hurt you, Thedrick!” Beowulf assured as he felt the small wounds with his fingers, finding blood on them as he pulled them away. “Why are they still bleeding?” he wondered quietly.

“Ah… that would be the uh, what Baz calls an anticoagulant my fangs inject to keep the blood flowing… sorry about that…” Thedrick explained awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head and averting his eyes ashamedly.

Beowulf sighed deeply and let his head fall back against the pillow again. “Fantastic,” he mused, then noticed Thedrick was staring at his shoulder hungrily. “I can see what you are thinking,” Beowulf said wearily to the jester.

“Huh, what? No, I’m not thinking, I don’t have any, uh, thoughts,” Thedrick said awkwardly, ripping his eyes away from the wound and staring off into the distance.

“You want to clean this up, don’t you?” Beowulf couldn’t help but smile a little when saying that, as he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the conversation.

Thedrick’s eyes immediately locked on to Beowulf’s face. “Please, can I?” he begged, his eyes going large and pleading.

Beowulf rolled his eyes and sighed in defeat. “Okay, fine, just don’t bite again,” he grumbled, and quickly Thedrick surged towards his shoulder and started sucking the blood off his skin.

After a few moments Beowulf felt the sharp pain of the fangs sinking in. “Son of a bitch I said don’t bite again!” he swore loudly, giving Thedrick a smack on the back of the head.

Thedrick gave muffled apologies against Beowulf’s flesh as he fed. Beowulf decided to just give up and try to relax and ignore the stabbing pain in his shoulder as much as he was able to. He wrapped his arms around Thedrick to hold him close, still feeling so weary and wanting to go back to sleep as soon as possible.

Somehow the exhaustion must have overcome him, because before he knew it Beowulf was waking up to the morning light. He had no memory of Thedrick finishing feeding before he fell asleep, so he must have still been going at it when Beowulf passed out. Beowulf felt all his muscles still aching, plus pain in both his shoulders now, along with the almost insignificant weight of Thedrick curled up on top of his chest.

Beowulf focused his eyes to see Thedrick’s face close to his own, looking rather peaceful in sleep apart from his mouth being covered in blood. Beowulf reached up and gently pulled off Thedrick’s hat so he could stroke his messy white hair. As Beowulf’s hand brushed past the tip of Thedrick’s ear he suddenly stopped in surprise. He gently touched the ear tip with his fingers again, feeling up and around it and realising it was pointed.

Then Beowulf realised he had never actually seen Thedrick’s ears before, they were always either hidden under his hat or under his unruly mess of pale hair. Beowulf gently parted the hair and took a look at the sleeping vampire’s ear. It was certainly pointed, and quite long too, with a notch halfway up the lower edge. Though if anyone saw Thedrick’s ears, they would probably just assume he was an elf, though a very strangely pale one at that. He certainly was as small as one though.

Beowulf gently ran his fingers up and down the pointed ear for a moment, before returning to stroking Thedrick’s hair. The jester stirred, making a small sound as he moved slightly. Then his eyes fluttered open, and he gazed at Beowulf with those pools of intense red which matched the colour around his mouth. Thedrick smiled at him.