Chapter 14
Balthasar’s head shot up to look over at the door he had just heard open, his eyes going wide. It was very late in the evening, he certainly hadn’t been expecting anyone to come and see him at this hour, plus he thought he had locked the door. Now he had been caught in a rather compromising situation. As he stared over at the door he saw Cassian looking back at him, equally as wide eyed with shock. At the same time, Thedrick yanked his fangs out of Balthasar’s shoulder in surprise at the sound of someone entering the room, causing Balthasar to wince in pain.
Balthasar quickly reached up and smacked the jester gently on the back of the head in retaliation. He then quickly pulled the little vampire's head in close against his shoulder to hide both Thedrick’s blood covered mouth and the bite marks on Balthasar’s flesh. Thedrick struggled in his grip, trying to turn his head to see who it was, but the chirurgeon held him firmly in place.
“What in the name of the gods is going on here?” Cassian exclaimed, taking a few more steps into the room towards Balthasar, who was seated at his desk.
“What do you think is going on?” Balthasar retorted blithely, scowling at the soldier.
That left Cassian looking completely stupefied for a moment, his mouth falling open. Then he seemed to pull himself together for a moment to return Balthasar’s angry look.
“Is that the court jester?” Cassian snapped, glaring at the back of Thedrick’s head.
“Do you know anyone else who dresses like this?” Balthasar shot back, frowning at the stupidity of the question. He felt Thedrick trembling in his arms, and squeezed him close against his chest.
“Was he… biting you?” Cassian asked in confusion.
“So what if he was? What business of yours is that?” Balthasar asked in return.
“But… I mean… I thought…” Cassian stumbled over his words, looking anxious.
“Spit it out already, you’re interrupting a rather private moment and embarrassing yourself,” Balthasar snapped in irritation.
“I thought we had something?” Cassian said forlornly, gesturing between himself and Balthasar.
“What, you and I?” Balthasar scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Or have you forgotten how much I hate you?” He tried to make his words as biting as possible. The more Cassian got upset, the more distracted he would be, and the less likely he would see what the truth of the situation was. Balthasar had to do whatever he could to protect Thedrick.
“You… you do?” The pain in Cassian’s voice cut into Balthasar, but he didn’t let it show on his face, just kept looking at the soldier with stern annoyance. “I mean… of course you do…” Cassian answered his own question, shoulders slumping. “Sorry I… I don’t know why I thought any differently…”
Balthasar made a noise of annoyance and disgust. “Can you cut the dramatics and leave us alone?” he asked with a cutting edge to his tone as he continued to glare at Cassian, internally praying for him to just leave already.
“Right… sorry…” Cassian muttered, looking like he was about to cry, then turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Balthasar waited a couple of moments, then let out a sigh of relief and finally let go of Thedrick, allowing the jester to pull away from his shoulder. The vampire blinked up at him with large, fearful eyes.
“Don’t worry, I don’t think he realised,” Balthasar said casually, grabbing up a nearby cloth and began cleaning up the wound on his shoulder.
“But, Baz… you like Cass, right?” Thedrick asked with confusion, watching the chirurgeon’s expression carefully. “Why would you say such horrible things to him?”
“To protect you!” Balthasar snapped, before grabbing Thedrick by the chin and cleaning up the blood on his face while scowling at him. “I thought I had locked the damn door,” he mumbled in addition.
“You’d sabotage your own relationship to protect me?” Thedrick asked in disbelief, pale eyebrows knitting together.
Balthasar made a dismissive sound. “He’ll come crawling back, I’m sure,” he said blithely as he finished cleaning up, the stains now removed from Thedrick’s pale skin. “Off now,” he instructed firmly, and the jester started crawling down off his lap.
“I’m sorry…” Thedrick apologised as he stood up, looking at Balthasar guiltily.
Balthasar shook his head. “Not your fault. Beowulf is away with the king and you’re hungry, as always. It’s really my fault for forgetting to lock the door. If Cass asks any more questions I will deal with it. If he asks you about it, just let him keep thinking we are romantically involved,” Balthasar instructed.
Thedrick made a face of disgust. “Ew!” he exclaimed, sticking out his tongue to exaggerate his point.
“Gee, thanks,” Balthasar quipped sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
“You know what I mean!” Thedrick said defensively with a pout.
“I love you too, Thedrick,” Balthasar said with the smallest of smiles, reaching out to ruffle the jester's hat, the bells jingling. “Now run along, and we will do our best to make sure this kind of slip up doesn’t happen again.”
As the jester skipped out of the room, leaving Balthasar alone, the chirurgeon suddenly felt very tired. The feeling was somewhat familiar, probably caused by the blood loss, as he often felt faint quite quickly when feeding Thedrick. But he was also simply weary from that uncomfortable exchange after a long day of work. He needed some rest.
As Balthasar started to tidy everything up before retiring to his room, he started to think back to when he had first found out Thedrick was a vampire, and how they had become friends.
****
Something had been hurting Balthasar’s cats. He assumed it was some sort of creature, due to the strange puncture wounds that looked like bite marks he would find on his feline friends when they returned to him seemingly dizzy, lethargic, and distressed. Or there was the chance it could be a witch, draining the blood of black cats for their potions, but from the wounds it didn’t seem like it.
Balthasar was going to get to the bottom of this, to keep his little inky friends safe from harm. They had always been the best company for him since coming to live in this strange country. They had been nice to him, unlike the people. It wasn’t like he needed to learn another language to understand the cats, and for them to understand him.
Seeing the perpetrator was likely another animal of some kind, Balthasar decided to start by setting up a simple trap first, in the area where he thought his cats were most likely being attacked. He sourced a cage big enough for a large dog from the keeper of the hounds and set it up with a simple trigger mechanism to shut and latch the doors. Balthasar wasn’t expecting it to work so quickly, and he also could never have expected what he would find he had caught.
The first thing Balthasar noticed as he approached the trap was the pair of red eyes glowing in the dark. But as he drew his torch closer, he found that they belonged to a person rather than an animal, someone he recognised. It was the court jester, the small, thin man with pale skin and hair who was usually gallivanting around in some ridiculous outfit.
Though here the jester was dressed in plain, bloodstained clothing, sitting on the floor of the low cage. He looked through the bars of the cage at the chirurgeon with wide, fearful eyes. There were bloodstains all around his mouth as well. When Balthasar stepped even closer, the small man flinched away slightly, looking panicked.
“You are the one who has been hurting my cats?” Balthasar asked in confusion, looking down at the jester in disbelief.
The small man smiled up at Balthasar nervously, and the chirurgeon could see two long fangs protruding from the jester’s lower jaw, and one from the right side of his upper jaw. Then he suddenly understood what was going on.
“A vampire?” Balthasar muttered under his breath, and the jester’s eyes went wide.
“Please! Please don’t hurt me!” he begged quickly, grabbing onto the bars and giving Balthasar a pleading look. “I- I promise I won’t hurt your cats anymore, but please don’t tell anyone!”
Balthasar was still staring at the vampire with shock. And though he knew such beings were dangerous, his scientific curiosity was already getting the better of him. Vampires were a very mysterious race, and Balthasar had never had the chance to meet one before.
“Why are you going after my cats? Why not drink human blood?” the chirurgeon asked with suspicion.
The jester let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Because they’d kill me, of course!” he exclaimed incredulously. “Look at me, you think I could overpower anyone?” he gestured down to his small thin body.
Balthasar scowled in confusion. “Don’t vampires charm their victims, rather than just attacking them?” he asked with uncertainty.
The vampire shrugged. “I sure can’t. L-Look, I’m sorry about your cats, they were just so friendly and came up to me, so it was so easy… for a while. I’ll just find another food source, but I promise, I’m no threat to anyone,” he raised his hands in surrender, smiling anxiously up at Balthasar once again.
Balthasar remained silent, looking down at the little vampire pensively as he weighed up his options.
“P-Please! I’ll even leave the kingdom if you want me to, and you’ll never see me again! Just please d-don’t kill me,” the jester implored, getting onto his knees to beg for his life, eyes full of fear once again.
“I hope I don’t regret this…” Balthasar said as he undid the latch on the cage and opened the door. A look of relief washed over the vampire’s features, and he made to crawl out of the cage. But as soon as he did Balthasar grabbed him by the shirt collar and started dragging him into the castle.
“W-Wait! P-Please, let me go!” the jester cried out in protest, trying to squirm out of Balthasar’s grip, but to no avail. The chirurgeon dragged him to the infirmary, and once inside pushed the vampire onto one of the sick beds, before quickly stepping over to his desk to grab a notebook. Before the jester could recover and stand up properly Balthasar was back over at the bed, pushing him down into a sitting position and then pulling up a chair to sit in front of him.
“Tell me everything about being a vampire,” Balthasar demanded, staring at the small man intensely.
****
Balthasar was not surprised to have Cassian visit him in the infirmary the next day. He had known the soldier wouldn’t be able to stay away for long, and after a probably restless night of sleep would have more questions for Balthasar about his ‘relationship’ with Thedrick.
Cassian was trying to play it cool, despite looking exhausted and apprehensive. Balthasar had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the small talk the soldier was making as a preamble for what Balthasar knew was coming. So, he just grit his teeth as Cassian went on about how much of a nice day it was.
“That’s great and all Cassian, but why are you here?” Balthasar finally cut off the soldier’s rambling to try and force him to get to the point.
“Oh, ah, yes,” Cassian looked embarrassed, “well I was, uh, n-needing something to help me sleep. Been having a couple of restless nights, you know how it is…”
“Uh huh,” Balthasar responded, unconvinced. He walked over to a cabinet to fetch out a bottle of sleeping tonic he had made up with herbs used to relax the body.
“L-Look, Balthasar, I’m sorry about last night, I… it was rather rude of me to barge in and all,” Cassian stuttered anxiously.
“Apology accepted, if that’s what you want,” Balthasar said curtly, holding out the small bottle towards Cassian.
Cassian looked like he was battling his emotions while he reached out and took the bottle. “You know, I was just wondering… and my apologies again if this is out of line but…” he trailed off awkwardly.
Balthasar gave a long-suffering sigh. “What is it?” he asked with annoyance.
“Well… why him?” Cassian finally asked, looking up at Balthasar imploringly. “He’s like, almost half your age! Unless… are you into younger men, is that it?”
Now Balthasar did really roll his eyes, and he wanted to slap his hand against his forehead and drag it down his face.
“I mean, what does he have that I don’t? How did I lose out to… him?” Cassian’s voice was rising slightly in register, and he sounded a little outraged.
“He didn’t bully me for years,” Balthasar pointed out with a small amount of satisfaction.
Cassian winced. “Look, I’m sorry about that, okay? We’ve been over this, I was an idiot, and I regret doing that!” He sounded slightly distraught. “Did you do this just to get revenge on me, for how I treated you?”
“We were just having a little fun,” Balthasar mumbled out the line, feeling a little weird about having to say it. He had to keep the cover story intact, had to keep Cassian believing that’s what was going on.
“We had a little fun!” Cassian exclaimed unhappily, gesturing between himself and Balthasar. “Wasn’t that good enough for you?”
“Cass, you’re embarrassing yourself again,” Balthasar pointed out with a frown.
“I don’t care!” Cassian continued, throwing his hands up in front of him. “Because… Because I…”
“Oh gods don’t say it…” Balthasar groaned heavily.
“I love you!”
Now Balthasar really did smack his hand against his forehead, dragging it down until it covered his eyes while he continued to groan. When he finally uncovered his eyes, he found Cassian was looking up at him expectantly.
“But… why?” Balthasar asked wearily, deflating a little.
Cassian’s expression changed to embarrassment. “Because… you're good looking, and smart… and you saved my life?” he suggested hesitantly.
Balthasar sighed in defeat. “I believe your affections may be… misplaced.”
Cassian frowned, then looked down, before turning and starting to walk away. After a few steps though he stopped and glanced back at Balthasar with a sad smile.
“I could bite you too, if that’s what you’re into?” Cassian joked gently.
Balthasar’s scowl returned. “Try it and I’ll pull out all your teeth while you are sleeping,” he threatened.
Cassian smirked then turned back away, trudging out of the infirmary, Balthasar watching him as he left.
Balthasar was left reeling from Cassian’s confession. The man was in love with him? Balthasar found that rather hard to believe, considering the soldier had tormented him daily throughout his formative years. Balthasar was always trying to leave the memories of those times behind him, but even though Cassian appeared to have changed his ways since his brush with death, he still served as a reminder to Balthasar of his miserable childhood.
****
The children were all swimming in the lake, playing and having fun in the cool water under the summer sun while supervised by the priestesses and a few of the town guards. That was, all of the children except for Balthasar.
The orphan sat on a log by the lakeside, reading his favourite book, his keepsake from his homeland. He had no desire to join the others in the water, especially considering Cassian and his friends might try to drown him as a prank.
Since when he had first arrived he was unable to understand the language they spoke, the boys had turned to physical tricks to torment Balthasar instead. They would trip him, push him in puddles or down stairs, or throw things at him.
When Balthasar had finally learned enough of their language to communicate this to the priestesses, they had advised him to simply ignore the bullies, and report what they did so they could be punished. Only Balthasar soon found out that if they were punished for bullying him, they would punish him twofold in return, so he didn't do it many times.
Balthasar's body stiffened up as he saw the boys come out of the water and towards him, led by the fair haired Cassian, who was smirking at him in a threatening manner. Balthasar buried his head in his book, trying not to look at them, praying that they would leave him alone. Though he knew the gods never granted that wish for him.
"What are you reading, weirdo?" Cassian sneered at him, peering down at his book. Balthasar didn't reply. Even though he could speak the common tongue now well enough, he didn't want to give the bullies the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of him.
He wasn't expecting Cassian to reach down and suddenly snatch the book out of his hands. Balthasar flinched, and then looked up wide eyed as Cassian’s hazel eyes peered down at the page with confusion.
"Is this your language? The stupid sounding one?" Cassian asked, his expression changing to disgust. Balthasar jumped to his feet to try and snatch the book back, but Cassian stepped back a couple of paces, pulling it out of reach.
Balthasar asked in his own language for Cassian to give it back, anxiously watching the way Cassian was holding the book.
Cassian sighed dramatically. "How are you ever supposed to learn to speak normally if you are always reading this?" he asked with a smug grin. "Here, let us help you get rid of this trash," he offered as he grabbed some of the pages.
Balthasar cried out and rushed forward to try and stop him, but one of the other boys grabbed him. Cassian grinned at him, then started ripping out the pages from the book while laughing. Balthasar cried out in distress, struggling to try and free himself, but the other boy held him firmly, grinning at him malevolently.
Tears welled in Balthasar's eyes as Cassian dropped the book on the ground, then carried the torn out pages over to the water's edge. Balthasar screamed as the bully dropped the pages into the water, the paper soaking through instantly. The other boy let go of Balthasar, who fell to his knees and wept.
Cassian strolled back over and loomed over Balthasar, who looked up at him through tears. "Why are you so upset? It's just a stupid book," Cassian scoffed.
Balthasar reached out and picked up what remained of the book, bringing it close to his chest and holding it tightly. Then he suddenly jumped to his feet, and took off towards the woods, stumbling and crying as he went. He could hear the boys laughing behind him as he ran.