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Nandor sat restrained to a chair by silver rope, atop the theatre stage. The heat of the lights brought an unfamiliar warmth to the vampire’s face, and he sat stock still, so as to avoid the scalding burns of silver on his skin, but he also sat still in shock. Nandor gazed down at the shape of the man who was once his familiar, flanked by death with blood painted upon his face and clothes.
The slayer was glaring. The livid stare came in the wake of Nandor’s ill-timed comment about their laundry, of all things.
Even despite the glare from the spotlights that restricted his vision of the theatre beyond the stage, he could still clearly see the smaller man's fiery gaze from atop the pile of slain vampires, and suddenly Nandor’s mouth felt dry.
The vampire felt something like fear, but it was hard for him to tell--his palms felt sweaty, his undead heart felt as though it could stir to life in that moment, and his stomach felt like someone had twisted it into knots. He felt human for the first time in centuries. Everything he’d known about that little guy had suddenly been flipped on its head, and he could only sit and watch it while it happened.
He’d watched as Guillermo silently approached, his ex-familiar seemingly snapping from his bloodlust-induced reverie as he stepped over the carnage he’d wrought.
As Guillermo carefully made his way towards the stage, he made sure to note Nandor’s expression; the vampire was looking at him with an unreadable expression. Nandor’s stoic visage was something that unnerved Guillermo-- He’d always been able to read his face, and not being able to do so felt like unfamiliar territory. He wasn’t ready to face that yet though, so he went over to Laszlo first, untying the knots in the silver rope which bound them.
Once Laszlo was untied, the vampire immediately went to his wife, who was currently commenting about how kinky this might’ve been in a different circumstance. Untying Colin was also easy, as the energy vampire wasn’t affected by silver in the same way. Once his hands were freed, Guillermo left him to free his legs on his own. Once Nadja was untied, the undead couple made themselves scarce, sensing the tension between the vampire and his ex familiar.
The slayer came to face Nandor directly, standing in front of his chair, towering over the vampire in a way that the vampire definitely did not find sexy.
“I can’t believe you. I’m gone for one week, and by day seven you almost get your head removed from your fucking shoulders!”
He runs a bloody hand through his hair, and makes a face--he had briefly forgotten what coated his hands in the first place.
Guillermo sighed deeply, his hackles falling and the fight draining out of him like blood from an artery. The man simply felt defeated, despite the triumphant rampage that just occurred.
“No puedo creer que te amo,” Guillermo looked at Nandor with an exasperated yet fond expression, and he had a relieved smile gracing his lips. Nandor shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Nandor hissed, “Did those vampires hit you in the head? Why are you speaking in tongues again, Guillermo?”
The slayer merely glared at him in return, slowly sinking to his knees to untie the knots which restrained his former master.
“Ah--” Nandor stuttered, disliking the position that Guillermo was currently in.
“I can just leave you here, if you like, Nandor.” Guillermo met unflinching, intense eye contact with the vampire, and only served to make the twisting in his stomach and the stirring in his chest worse.
“Okay--okay! Fine. Fucking--”
Nandor’s legs were suddenly made free, and Guillermo stood up, moving to untie his hands, next. The slayer had to lean near Nandor to focus on his bindings.
“Guillermo,” Nandor spoke quietly, and his ex-familiar met his eyes once again. They weren’t that far apart, and Nandor realized he never truly appreciated how expressive Guillermo’s eyes were.
“Thank you, for saving me--us,”
Guillermo’s eyes lit up, and he flashes a small, proud smile, “Let's get out of here, Nandor,” and the slayer offers his hand for the vampire to take.
****
Shopping at the corner store with Nandor never held a dull moment. Usually, Guillermo did these things by himself. Lately, after the theatre massacre, the vampire had been accompanying him outside the house more and more. Guillermo liked to think it was because the vampire cared about him, but he could never be truly sure.
At present, Nandor was fawning over the small stuffed horses that they carried en masse at stores like these.
“Guillermo, look! I’ve found a mini plush horse! It’s so soft, come feel it!”
The smaller man was currently trying to find the right snacks that fit his mood, and he looked down the aisle to find Nandor approaching, excitedly pointing at a small, brown plush horse that did indeed look quite soft. Guillermo found himself smiling softly at the bright excitement that took over Nandors face.
Though, the only thing dampening his mood currently being the pair of eyes trained on the side of his head from across the main aisle. Guillermo decided to ignore it and enjoy this moment.
“Can I get it? Please, Guillermo?” Nandor was grinning at him, anticipation on his face, a bright golden warmth coloring his dark eyes, and the lines of his crows feet smushing together on his face. Guillermo adored him.
”mi corazón,” Guillermo breathes, unthinking.
Recovering, he quickly said, “Of course, Nandor,” he smiles nervously, and offers the basket to Nandor to place his toy alongside Guillermo’s groceries.
“What was that you said just now?” Nandor narrows his eyes towards Guillermo, “Are you talking shit?”
“What? No--no!” Guillermo backtracks, raising his hands defensively, “don’t worry about it, Mas--Nandor.”
“Okay then. On with the trading of the goods.”
Guillermo leads Nandor towards the front of the store, where they run into a white woman that Guillermo realized had been the source of the glaring he’d felt. He’d ignored her, of course, but when they went into the line at checkout, she made her way towards the two men, her child in tow.
“Excuse me--sir,” her voice was tinny and high pitched, it grated on Guillermo’s ears in the worst way. He knew she was talking to him, but he looked resolutely forward, ignoring her.
The woman grew more annoyed, “Hey, you--” she stepped closer.
“I’m talking to you--” she barked.
“What is it, ma’am.” Guillermo snapped, turning to her.
“You and your partner are going to hell, you know.”
Nandor whips towards the woman at the mention of the religious reference, hissing lowly.
“Excuse me?” Guillermo exclaimed, taken aback, but not even realizing the reference she had made to their relationship.
“What the fuck did you just say, stupid white lady?” Nandor loudly snapped, “Guillermo, do you want me to eat her for her transgressions?” the vampire said in a much quieter, lower voice.
“Nandor, no- I--”
“Excuse me, bitch. He is not just my partner, he is my protector, and he’s been by my side for ten years. Longer than your little human--” he gestures vaguely to the child, “has been alive.” Nandor growled at the woman, moving in front of the smaller man slightly.
The rude woman went to move closer to Guillermo (whose face was now thoroughly on fire, partly embarrassed, and mostly buzzing with an emotion he'd refused a name) almost invading his space, when a large bulk moved between him and the rude woman. Said large mass was Nandor, and he was puffing his chest out like a big turkey.
“You will leave him the fuck alone,” Nandor was waving a hand in front of the woman’s face.
She squawked in indignation, glaring at Nandor through the hateful, blue slits that were her eyes. She then huffed and dragged her child away, of whom was looking at Nandor with an expression of awe.
When she was gone, Nandor turned around from his position in front of Guillermo, and that left them suddenly very close.
Guillermo smiled, “Thank you, Na--”
“Yes, yes, I only want to purchase my horse, John, before someone steals it from your plastic basket.”
“Oh, okay.” Guillermo’s voice lowered in slight disappointment, the hope that had uselessly taken root in his heart withered from where it had just grown moments before.
“Let us go to the cashier lady.” Nandor declared with finality, grabbing his ex-familiar’s free hand and dragging him to the front of the store.
***
Of all the familiar duties that Guillermo had shucked, brushing Nandor’s hair had been the one thing that Guillermo insisted he wanted to continue. Nandor had, of course, left it up to him as to whether or not he could continue. Guillermo loved the ritual too much to let it go.
The smell of eucalyptus, sandalwood, and various other musky yet refreshing scents filled the room while Guillermo carefully ran his hands through the soft strands of Nandor’s hair, nimbly applying the hair oil to the mass of black, silky hair that slipped through his fingers.
Guillermo’s blunt nails had accidentally scraped the nape of Nandor’s neck, and it delighted the smaller man to practically feel the corresponding shiver that traveled through the vampire's body. Guillermo grinned slightly, his heart pounding slightly over the thrill of power he suddenly felt.
That was new.
Nandor hummed low in the back of his throat, as he’d done for years while Guillermo brushed his hair, almost as if to implicitly brush off his previous unprecedented reaction.
Guillermo was having none of it.
Raising an eyebrow in challenge, despite knowing that Nandor couldn’t see him from this angle, Guillermo’s grin turned sly. Upon combing his fingers through a second time, Guillermo made sure to coax that reaction from him a second time, intentionally using the blunt of his fingers to scrape the nape of his neck firmly.
Nandor practically purred, and Guillermo felt like he was falling.
“Dios mío,” he breathed reverently, continuing to mindlessly stroke the silken strands.
“There it is with your babbling again, what are you even saying?” Nandor tilted his head towards Guillermo.
“Uh--Nandor, it’s uh--”
“It’s your mother language, yes, yes-” he waves a hand somewhat dismissively.
While Nandor appeared to have no interest, he was still fully intending to remediate this lack of understanding he had.
The vampire had decided: he wanted to decode his former familiar’s words.
***
“Colin Robinson, is there any way I can learn a language on this light box machine?”
“Well-- Nandor, there’s this program called Duolingo--”
**
Guillermo was currently out patrolling the grounds around their house, stake in hand, cross draped upon his collar, and a silver switchblade in his pocket. The darkness was thick tonight, the moon offered no extra light, covered by a swathe of clouds.
Fog had rolled in dense and heavy, obscuring his surroundings. The moisture cloyed at his skin, dampening his trenchcoat, the cold cutting to the bone. He shivered for more than one reason, the obscurity of his surroundings put him on edge, and the signature Staten Island cold was doing him no favors.
The Vampiric Council hadn’t attacked in weeks, and Guillermo was beginning to feel apprehensive in the weary sense of safety that their relative silence had provided. The weeks following his massacre at the Theatre were quiet in a way that Guillermo could only describe as unsettling.
The pervading sense of unease and chill was why the slayer couldn’t feel the significant drop in temperature that always occurs to him when a vampire is near, it was the very sense that had saved his life on more than one occasion.
Now, it was the very thing that failed him, when a vampire launched over the walls surrounding their house. Guillermo only felt a burst of energy break the stillness in the air behind him.
That was the last thing he experienced, before he felt the trappings of a root halting his foot, the rest of his body stuttering forward from the momentum of his fall. His ankle twisted violently, and he heard a sickening crack before he hit the ground hard.
The next time he opened his eyes, he was on his back, and there was a screaming pain in his ankle. He had a feeling he didn’t want to know what his foot looked like at the moment.
The sky was soon replaced with a new, more disturbing sight quickly enough, as the assassin who toppled him was now prowling towards him, like a lion to its prey. It grinned, jaws snapping, to reveal long, deadly incisors, and their hands were sharp like claws.
For the first time in a truly long time, Guillermo felt truly helpless and scared near another vampire.
He edged up onto his haunches and scrambled away on his forearms. The vampire seemed to take a sick joy in the way he retreated, as the haunting grimace grew animalistic in nature. Guillermo wrapped his right hand firmly around the cross on his neck, and fumbled for the switchblade with his left. He was too slow, though, and the vampire was suddenly looming over him.
The figure pressed their leather clad boot down upon him, grinding it into his left wrist until he cried out under the overwhelming pressure and let go of his blade.
The assassin quickly disarmed Guillermo’s right side in tandem with the left, using a longsword to slice the delicate chain from his neck, leaving a crimson smile of red along the soft skin of his neck in its wake. His assailant used the shock of the attack to quickly bury their claws into his right arm, leaving the slayer pinned and unarmed.
Guillermo knew this day was a long time coming. What truly upset him about dying though, was that he’d never get to tell Nandor what he truly meant to him--he’d never get to say all the things he wanted to say without language barriers.
The casual endearments, the small displays of affection, he felt robbed that he would never at least get the chance of experiencing any of it with the man he’d loved for so long--
“Nobody bites Guillermo but me!” a familiar voice roared.
Guillermo felt the sudden and abrupt absence of weight on top of him, and opened his eyes, of which he never realized he’d shut. The first thing he saw was the giant silhouette that used to be his attacker flying through the air violently.
Another larger and more imposing figure took its place in front of Guillermo, who lay prone on the dirt. That figure, Guillermo quickly realized, was Nandor.
The vampire knelt before him, gently wrapping his arm under Guillermo’s upper back and shoulders, so as to cradle him from the dirt.
“Mas--Nandor--” Guillermo grunted out, scrunching his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows together, still in a great deal of pain, “I never got to tell you--”
Guillermo’s eyes shot open suddenly, as if preternaturally sensing danger, eyes full of fear. Nandor couldn’t gather why this was, until he himself felt the danger from directly behind him.
“Master, look out!--”
Nandor quickly swiveled towards the danger, angling his body and luckily dodging the potentially fatal swipe that the assassin levied at him with Guillermo’s forgotten silver switchblade.
Unluckily, however, the assassin ended up plunging the blade deep in Nandor’s shoulder, blood immediately blooming from the injured spot, despite his overall lack of it as a vampire.
The screech that ripped from Nandor’s throat brought a shiver skittering across Guillermo’s skin, and it felt like he himself had been stabbed directly with the guttural sound.
Everything became a blur. Nandor lunged at their attacker, snarling and animalistic. Their assailant, however, was faster than they looked, easily dodging and managing to pin the large vampire to the ground, twisting the blade deeper into flesh, eliciting another shriek of pain and fear from Nandor.
The assassin ripping the knife from its home in Nandor’s flesh made the larger vampire’s shrieks louder and more irate, but the injured slayer could only barely pay attention to the scene unfolding.
He still felt hazy from the pain of a severely dislocated ankle, but out of the corner of his blurry vision, he watched Nandor’s attacker brandish the silver blade they’d stolen from him, raising it while Nandor struggled under them.
The knife glinted wickedly in the now-bright moonlight, and suddenly the rest of the world fell away.
Guillermo didn’t know when he’d gotten to his feet, or why he didn’t feel any pain. All he saw was the sharp edge of silver pressing up against Nandor’s throat, and the small sizzle of smoking flesh, winding and twisting to the air above.
Guillermo had somehow found a stake along the way, and stumbled desperately towards the scene.
He couldn’t be too late, he couldn’t be too late. He couldn’t be too goddamn late, not before he told him--
Guillermo shrieked and tackled the vampire from an angle, knocking him off Nandor, and receiving the sharp end of Guillermo’s stake directly into their chest. The slayer could feel the way the vampire squirmed and twitched with the last vestiges of unlife, before finally going limp.
”Hijo de puta,” he spat upon their body, before rolling off the dead vampire.
He scrambled to his feet, before his body remembered that it wasn’t invincible, and he collapsed once again.
Getting to his knees, Guillermo crawled to a fallen Nandor who was still laying on the ground, eyes wrenched closed, mouth twisted in a grimace.
“Nandor--” Guillermo felt choked up upon seeing the prideful and fierce man he knew being reduced to something so truly vulnerable.
Nandor’s eyes were screwed shut in pain, and Guillermo unthinkingly took his face into his hands, softly cupping his sallow cheeks. There were tears in his eyes, now, simply thinking about how vulnerable Nandor truly was, even as a vampire.
“Lo siento mucho, estoy tan feliz de que sigas aquí, te amo, te amo, te amo--” Guillermo was fully crying now, his thumbs slowly moved across his cheekbones gently.
Nandor opened his eyes, fully intending to interrupt Guillermo’s frantic rambling, his voice being hoarse and raspy from yelling and misuse;
“--Te quiero--yo también te amo, Memo.” Nandor smiled, his fangs peeking out from behind his lips in small points, it was a dopey, happy smile, and Guillermo couldn’t have loved him and his terrible Spanish more.
Love makes you stupid. If it’s stupidity that makes Guillermo de la Cruz surge forward to capture those lips on his own, then he’d gladly be called a fool anyday.
Because those lips were surprisingly soft and pliant and oh dear God he was kissing back--Guillermo felt dizzy, and he couldn’t tell if it was from his injury and the adrenaline, or the kiss, or both.
All he knew is that he didn’t want it to stop. Nandor slowly brought up a hand to bury his thick fingers into Guillermo’s curls, scraping the base of his neck with the blunts of his nails, just as Guillermo had done to him earlier this week.
He hummed into the kiss, bringing his hand to Nandor’s hip and squeezing the soft flesh there, smiling into his lips all the while.
Guillermo de la Cruz could now at least die a fulfilled man.