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“Sometimes I think about opening your curtains,” Guillermo says, softly, “and waking you up at noon.”
He learned years ago that he can say anything he wants unless Nandor is choosing to pay attention to him—and he typically isn’t. He can say things like I’m going to lock you in your coffin until you agree to turn me and I want you to do things to my body that I don’t even understand yet and I’ve never been in love before and it’s weird that it’s like this and Nandor won’t even flinch, won’t do more than say, “Hush with the muttering, Guillermo, I’m thinking about things that are far more important than you,” which has always felt like he took a page directly from what Guillermo assumes everyone thinks about him.
“. . .rude, Guillermo,” Nandor says, this time, turning to aim a sad look at him.
“. . .you heard that?” Guillermo asks, dropping the brush and taking a slow step back.
“Your horrible threats on my life, you mean?” Nandor asks. “I always hear them.”
“Oh, no,” Guillermo breathes. “Oh—why have you never said anything? I’ve said—yes, I’ve said horrible things because I thought you weren’t paying attention to me.”
“Sometimes, I wasn’t or I charitably assumed you just needed to feel your little feelings,” Nandor says, crossing his arms over his chest and fully pouting at this point, which is not something that Guillermo is immune to. Sometimes, it hits him when Nandor is all height and dark looks and fangs and sometimes it’s when he’s acting like a brat and sometimes it’s all of the time. That last one comes and goes.
“But?” he prompts.
“But now that I know you’ve gone behind my back and become a scary bloodthirsty killer,” Nandor says, “I have my eyes on you. And my ears. And my very strong hands if you. . .try something.”
“You’re not allowed to call me bloodthirsty, vampire,” Guillermo murmurs, covering his face with his hands and attempting to block out the last part entirely.
If Nandor heard the threats, he must have heard the stupid devoted lovesick garbage he’s been sighing out in his ear like some kind of swooning teenager. Which he kind of was at the start but he’s grown up a lot since he followed Nandor home and left what little life he had behind on the shaky promise that the hot guy who claimed to be a vampire was actually a vampire and not just a very hot guy.
He’s a bodyguard now.
It kind of seems like his old job with the dangerous parts said out loud but it’s cool that they’re all scared of him, at least.
“. . .have you heard anything. . .else that you’re concerned about?” he asks, looking at Nandor through his fingers.
“We don’t need to talk any more about your idle fantasies, Guillermo,” Nandor says, stiffly. “Now that you know they’ve wounded me deeply.”
“Okay,” Guillermo says, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “Do you want me to finish your hair, Master?”
“Yes,” Nandor says, then, a moment later, “Please.”
He likes the fact that Nandor’s at least pretending to respect him sometimes. And he hasn’t tried to stop Guillermo from calling him master which he should probably stop doing and is definitely not going to stop doing.
It’s comforting.
*
“I don’t know who I would be without you, Master,” Guillermo says, a couple of days later, tracing his fingers through Nandor’s hair before following it with the brush. Everything about this is impulsive.
“You would still be living in that Panera Bread,” Nandor says, huffing softly. “Miserable and boring.”
“I didn’t live there,” Guillermo says, smiling, “but probably.”
“. . .do you have regrets?” Nandor asks.
Guillermo can barely remember what it was like to not be Nandor’s Familiar. To not be his. He might have gone on to live a normal life, to become a manager and find a normal guy who would actually want him and probably—LARP or something to take out the dormant vampire hunter vibes.
Jesus—he never confirmed whether or not losing your virginity can exclusively involve bad handjobs but he probably just would’ve gotten eaten if he hadn’t taken a chance that night. He’s definitely easy to lure.
“No regrets,” he says, dropping a hand to squeeze Nandor’s shoulder before pulling it away immediately and going back to his hair. Nandor gracefully doesn’t mention it, just tilts his head when Guillermo gently moves it where he needs it to be.
*
“I would kill for you,” Guillermo says, almost absentmindedly, working out a tangle.
“Of course you would,” Nandor says, like he’s confused. “You slaughtered a room full of vampires for me, you maniac.”
“. . .oh, right,” Guillermo says, laughing. “I guess that used to feel more meaningful when it was hypothetical.”
He’s directly responsible for a lot of murders because he’s so non-threatening at first sight that people will just follow him to a creepy house and come inside to meet their doom. He stopped trying to morally justify it after the first time he did it, a nice girl around his age he met at the library and got to know too much before he brought her back. He wants to be here and he wants to be a vampire and sometimes bad things have to happen to people who don’t deserve it and usually you can manage to dispose of their bodies without looking at their faces again.
It’s not okay but he’s going to be the one doing the eating someday, anyway. Might as well get used to it.
He thinks about telling Nandor that he’d die for him, too, but throwing your body into a crowd of vampires for somebody probably implies that.
*
“You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen but the fact that you already know that makes you unbearable,” Guillermo says, a little too quickly, less sure-footed.
“I am choosing to only hear the first part of that sentence, Guillermo,” Nandor says, calmly, but Guillermo steps just enough to the side that he can see Nandor smiling, something that still kind of makes him dizzy if he looks for too long—especially if he’s the reason.
“That was the most important part, anyway,” he says.
When Guillermo is putting the brush away later, Nandor catches his wrist and he turns around slowly.
“You,” Nandor says, like every word is slightly more painful, “are also a very beautiful man.”
“. . .thanks, Master,” Guillermo says, laughing and pulling away. “That’s nice.”
*
“I’m pretty sure that I could beat you in a fight,” Guillermo says, after a string of days where he would really enjoy fighting any of his housemates and possibly staking at least one of them, “and I kind of hope that scares you, Master.”
Nandor turns his head around so fast that the brush flies out of Guillermo’s hand.
“Your honesty hour thing is not cute, Guillermo,” he says.
“Can’t you just keep ignoring me?” Guillermo asks.
“No,” Nandor says. “You keep saying things that I like and then saying shit like that which I also kind of like in ways that I don’t enjoy exploring!”
“What does that mean?” Guillermo asks.
“It means—it means, Guillermo, that I told you that you were very beautiful and you laughed as if I’d said a joke and not just confessed that I have very complicated feelings for you, you terrifying little man,” Nandor says, almost in one breath, standing up and towering over Guillermo in a way that would be intimidating if he didn’t look like he was about to cry.
“. . .so you are scared of me?” Guillermo asks.
Nandor hisses and shows the fangs and everything but it all falls away when Guillermo surges forward to kiss him, making a sharp pleased noise when the fangs break skin and Nandor just kisses him deeper, lifting him off his feet.
“Do you plan to kill me, little Guillermo?” Nandor asks, when they eventually break apart.
“I daydream, Master,” Guillermo says, smiling, “but no. I want to keep you safe. I want you near me.”
Nandor looks kind of dazed when he leans down to kiss Guillermo on the nose.
“You know, I don’t mind hearing ways that you could kill me,” he says, “knowing that you, of course, would never do so.”
“I have things that could kill you hidden in every room in this house,” Guillermo says, nodding. "I won't tell you where but I can tell you what I can do with them. Sit down, I'll finish your hair."
"Gently," Nandor says.
"Yes, Master," Guillermo replies, happily.