Chapter Twenty-Seven
JULIAN
When I wake up, I yelp.
It’s… not the manliest of noises I’ve made, but it’s like I was immediately jump scared just by opening my eyes.
“I wasn’t staring at you,” Casimir says, like he could have possibly been looking elsewhere while leaning over me, face so close that when I awoke, it was all that I saw.
I grab my chest as I roll onto my side. “What… the hell was that?” I ask.
“I was just seeing if you were still sleeping. I really felt like you should be awake by now and started to question if I should be more worried.”
My heart is still running off as Casimir seems to find no issue with anything that just happened. “How long were you… you know… just checking to see if I was sleeping?”
“Only like… three hours.”
“Oh my god, Casimir. You were staring at me for three hours ?” Is that romantic or creepy? I’m not sure…
“I wanted to make sure something didn’t happen.
You’re so fragile. What if you just like keeled over!
I stopped at one point to remind Gustov that he was the cutest dog alive, and that all other dogs are significantly inferior to him.
And that world-kind suffers because his balls were snipped off, otherwise he could have brought on a wave of superior dogs. ”
I stare at him for a long moment. “I’ve clearly ended up in a coma.
I’m dreaming that an alien is talking to me and speaking absolute nonsense.
Excuse me while I go back to sleep.” I close my eyes, but I have the sinking feeling that Casimir is still staring down at me and am proven quite right when I peek up at him.
“Can you explain this? Because it’s a bit creepy. ”
“Every time I look away from you, you run off and nearly die, so I am prepared to watch you at all times.”
“I’m… not nearly dead. I’m fine,” I assure him before hesitating. “Hold on a minute… You… kind of care, don’t you?”
“No.”
I sigh, wondering why I’d even bothered to try.
“I very much care,” he says before sitting down on the bed next to me. “I have come… partly… to my senses.”
“Oh?” I’m trying my hardest not to get my hopes up. He’s so strange that “him coming to his senses” could mean that he plans for nothing between us to change beyond him staring at me for longer periods of time. “Can you… explain that a bit more?”
“No.”
I sigh again as I sink back down on the bed. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m perfectly fine, okay? I… just miscalculated when I needed to chew on my favorite chew toy so I could suck blood out of him. It was a simple mix-up; I promise it won’t happen again.”
Casimir watches me closely, like he’s trying to read into every word I say. “Were you lying when you said you’d like me no matter what?”
“I mean… it’s true for the most part. I do draw the line at some things, like… more than ten artworks of Gustov per room is too much.”
He stares at me for a while, leaving me unsure if I’m about to get a speech about how one could never have too many paintings of Gustov, when he looks away and says, “I’ve killed countless people, Julian.
I was born and raised to be a killer. I don’t know if they were good or bad people; I killed anyone I was pointed at without remorse. ”
He’s refusing to meet my eyes and I can’t fathom how much he’s blamed himself over this for so many years. “Casimir, I don’t believe you did it without remorse or you wouldn’t still be beating yourself up about it,” I say.
Casimir’s quiet for a long moment. “I know it was hundreds of years ago, but… I was never taught how to care for someone. I wasn’t raised with love, so I never learned how to love.
We weren’t allowed to show affection. We weren’t allowed to show emotion.
Crying was weakness, sadness was weakness…
all I knew how to do for so many years was to kill.
Once I was free of that life, I didn’t know how to actually be free of it.
I kept my distance, and as the years changed, I did acquire people I cared for, but I kept them as far away as I could.
I never expected to have someone like you…
to deserve someone like you. I still don’t believe I deserve you. ”
“I… don’t think it’s about deserving to have me, Casimir. I think it’s because you care for me, and I care for you. I love spending time with you, and you… hopefully feel the same.”
He shakes his head. “What if I fuck it up?”
“So? Every one of us fucks something up once in a while. If you make a mistake, we figure it out and move on. I don’t need your whole heart right now, Casimir.
You can take as long as you need… I just want to be able to like you for real .
I want you to actually be mine.” I would love to know everything about him someday, but I know he’s not ready for that. He might never be.
“I… just don’t think I deserve someone like you,” he says.
“What do you deserve, then? To live sad and alone for the rest of your life?” I ask in disbelief.
“Correct.”
“Not correct! I guess if that’s the case, I’ll take Gustov.”
Casimir gives me a stoic look. “Fine, then take him.”
“You are so stubborn.”
He smiles at me, and the softness of it tells me I’m winning, even if it’s just a little bit. “Maybe. I just don’t want you to hate me when you learn who I was.”
“I promise I won’t. And I know it’s hard to trust my promise, but please do. So are we going to do this or what?” I ask as I sit up and grab his wrists.
His eyes flicker down to my hands. “I might run away.”
“That’s… not ideal but we can work with it.”
“You could hate me the more you learn about me.”
“You could hate me when you see my spare bedroom and realize it looks like I’ve never organized a day in my life. What if we share with each other some musts? Would that make you feel better? Here’s mine. If you are feeling upset and getting down on yourself, you must talk to me first.”
Casimir just “Hmmms” like he doesn’t love the idea.
“Your turn,” I urge. “Tell me what you want.”
“You must never move Gustov if he claims the couch. You must sit on the floor if he looks cute, and since he’s always looking cute?—”
My skeptical look seems to stop him. “Cas.”
He sighs before caving. “Fine. I… will promise to maybe talk to you instead of keeping everything to myself.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Casimir seems to think of another. “You must not run off into danger and make me… feel things again.”
“Well, if it gets me a sexy and funny boyfriend, I’m not sure I can agree to that one. I might have to pay Ivo to send more people after me like ‘Oh no, Casimir, come save me. I need a big strong vampire!’”
He stares at me. “It’s not funny.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Tonight, I am going to tear Ivo’s head off from his body as soon as the sun goes down.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Sounds… gruesome.”
“Yes. And you’re going to stay here.”
Bullshit. “No. No I’m not.”
“Yes, yes you are.”
He doesn’t seem to even notice the look I’m giving him.
“Oh yes, giving the big evil vampire the opportunity to control the strongest vampire I’ve ever met sounds like a phenomenal idea.
You know, so he can just be like, ‘Yo, bro. Thanks for coming, now go kill all the good guys for me.’ And you can be all, ‘Fantastic idea! Let me start hacking!’”
“So you’re saying to send weaker vampires so when they come, I can kill them. I shall send Steve.”
“What has Steve ever done to you?” I ask.
“He’s Steve,” he says, like that answers it.
I sigh. “So… are we doing this? Are we dating for real?”
His eyes narrow. “Yes?”
“Why did that sound like a question? And why are your eyes telling me that this exchange is suspicious?”
“Because you often make me question everything.”
“Okay… you promise you’ll be good? This is what you want? I’m not pressuring you into something?”
Casimir raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. “Do you honestly think I’d let Toto pressure me into something? I promise I want to be with you.”
“Pinky promise,” I say as I hold my pinky up.
He stares at it for a long moment before fist bumping it.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask.
Casimir gives me a look like I’m the odd one here. “I don’t know what the hell a pinky promise is! You wolves have the strangest ways of making contracts.”
“It’s not a contract! You are just ridiculous. Give me your pinky.”
“Now I don’t want to! Gustov, the wolf is making me feel uncomfortable.”
Gustov seems to think that this is an extreme issue as he comes bounding over to check out my finger. He must deem it safe because he licks it before leaping off the bed to check out his chew toy.
Casimir presses the tip of his pinky to mine. “Better?”
“Immensely,” I say, not quite sure how this qualifies as a pinky promise either, but we’re getting closer. “Now how long was I out for?”
“A few hours. We thought it’d be much safer to bring you back here because if we were in that house and Ivo wanted something to happen to it, there’s nothing we could have done to escape quickly.”
“I kind of have an idea of how we could pass some time while waiting for night…” I give him a waggle of my eyebrows.
“Hmm?” he asks, but the way he leans in tells me he might know.
Just before he kisses me, I lean back. “Wait! I… should probably take a shower or something first, right?”
“What? You already got one.”
“I did?”
“You don’t remember that you asked Ezio to help bathe you to make me jealous?
You literally woke up and went, ‘I’m a dirty boy who needs a bath.
Since Casimir’s head’s so far up his ass, Ezio, bathe me!
’ Then you yanked off the blanket I’d wrapped you up in, climbed in the tub butt naked, and then fell asleep.
So Ezio rinsed you down before I put you in my bed since you were very filthy from rolling around in the field, and I was afraid you’d have a wound under the dirt. ”
“I asked… Ezio to wash me. Oh my god… I vaguely remember this. Why didn’t you?”