Work Text:
The rain wasn’t letting up in Staten Island—the dirt in the front yard had started turning to a thick, pasty mud, and the rain slammed against the roof, racing down the covered window in thick drops. It had been raining all day and continued into the night, Nandor had heard it raining when he jolted awake from a nightmare, a bad memory, any of the typical things that woke him during the day.
Despite the downpour, the vampires decided to roam the city once the sun set, they’d been cooped up for so long. Guillermo went along with them, specifically at Nandor’s request that he was going to go insane if he was trapped inside any longer, and an insane familiar was a useless familiar. He begrudgingly went on their little outing.
He’d been upset since Nandor’s old familiar returned and promptly left. The whole situation, searching for other vampires who needed a familiar, it got some angry spark out of him that he quickly subsided. His old familiar was back, he shouldn’t have been upset that Guillermo was leaving him. But, when Guillermo returned, standing at the doorway with his suitcase in hand, Nandor lit from within. He tried to repress how glad he was to see him again, but it was noticed by Colin Robinson.
“Get a room, you two.” He chuckled, and Nandor hissed at him for making such a joke. Though, it did make him refrain from hugging Guillermo, which he’d prepared to do before Colin Robinson butted in. Laszlo and Nadja berated him for saying something like that to a vampire and his familiar, that Colin Robinson didn’t understand what it was like. Though, Nandor thought a bit about that little comment, and it had coloured his interactions with Guillermo ever since. It shouldn’t have, it was just a playful comment, but he’d thought about it frequently since the day Guillermo returned.
They walked through the streets, hunkered underneath frilled parasols and trying in vain to keep their clothes dry. Colin Robinson, however, had opted for a rain poncho and a hat, which he was apparently quite content with. Laszlo and Nadja were trying to share an umbrella and struggling, and Nandor’s was getting caught by a growing wind. Guillermo was getting soaked, occasionally ducking beneath his master’s when it wasn’t being pulled at by a gust.
As they were making a turn to the other side of the street, Nandor’s umbrella was pulled back, and it flew from his grasp. He could hear it bouncing against the concrete, but he couldn’t see it as it was swallowed up by the night.
“This fucking wind! Let’s go home, my darling, lest we be blown back to the Stone Age!” Laszlo yelled over the wind, and Nadja yelled something back that Nandor couldn’t hear. He simply stared into the dark street behind them, before he turned back, finding that the three had started walking on without him, all while Guillermo stayed at his side.
“Guillermo, you’re not a vampire, you’ll freeze to death if you keep standing out here.” He started walking, and his familiar followed, not saying anything. He wished he’d said something in response, confirmed that he was listening to him.
Nandor looked through his peripheral to make sure Guillermo wasn’t trailing behind, though he didn’t like seeing him shudder as the cold weather got to him. His hair was beginning to go limp, it began to drip and hang in his face, and his glasses were doused with rain. Could he see? Maybe he was starting to see in compound vision like a fly, multiple frames of the same view. He hunched over, shivering in an unconscious attempt to warm his body.
He could feel Guillermo’s veins constricting and hear his pulse race. The thudding in his ears was overwhelming, but he could keep his composure. He couldn’t think of anything he could do to warm Guillermo up, stop the thudding and pulsing. The most he could think to do was walk faster, which he was able to keep up with. He pulled his jacket tightly round his body, tilting his head down and relying on Nandor to lead him down the street. They were fast approaching the house, light was pouring out of the windows and he could hear music playing in the living room.
When they reached the porch’s steps, Nandor stopped and exhaled quietly. something he didn’t need to do, but he felt some nonexistent tension growing between them both, and he hoped it would get Guillermo’s attention. Thankfully, it worked, as he was stopped right behind him.
“Are you alright, master?” He asked, his voice quivering slightly.
He stood in silence, unable to conjure up the words he’d already rehearsed that morning when he was unable to sleep. They sat on the back of his tongue, refusing to leave his mouth.
“I, ngh …Guillermo, you’d tell me if you didn’t like being my familiar, wouldn’t you?” He watched his familiar furrow his eyebrows, a discouraging expression. Nevertheless, the question was out there, and he couldn’t retract it no matter what he did. Just because he had impressive vampiric powers didn’t mean he could pull words out of midair and make them unsaid.
He took his glasses and wiped them off on his lightly damp sweater, at least being able to see a less blurry Nandor standing before him. His eyes light up as he thinks, though a look crosses his face that makes him less confident in Guillermo’s answer.
“I would…” he trailed off, and it made him feel something he rarely felt. It scalded him a little. Nandor grimaced, nodding to himself before he decided to actually say what was streaming through his brain.
“Well if you don’t like being my familiar why are you still here? Because you’re waiting for me to turn you into a vampire?” His voice became harsher, reflecting a hint of sorrow that was akin to buckets in his head. “Do you not actually like me, Guillermo?”
His eyes widened, and he shook his head furiously, but it didn’t make a difference. Nandor turned away, heading to the door with something hurting in his chest. He pushed it down, these feelings were utterly useless to him. Thunder rumbled far from them, but Nandor hadn’t seen any lightning yet.
The overwhelming scent of salt flitted past his nostrils, before he breathed it in and was consumed by it. He wondered if Nadja was pouring a salt circle for whatever reason she’d come up with, or if Colin Robinson was demonstrating how to cook something as a new method of energy harvesting, but the smell wasn’t coming from the house. He turned around, Guillermo’s ruddy cheeks and racing heart indicating that the scent was coming from him—that he was crying.
Nandor had never seen him cry, even when he was hurt. He seemed too accepting of hardships to ever get upset over them, but here he was, actually crying over something. No noise came from him, it was nearly impossible to tell what were tears and what was rain, but it was unmistakable.
“Mast— Nandor, I do like you. Even when you disregard me and treat me like a pet, I still like you. You’re my best friend, despite everything.” He said softly, looking up at him with a serious expression. He meant all of it.
He stared at Guillermo, his eyebrows lowering. He could only imagine what he would have felt, if John could understand English and spoke to him the way Nandor spoke to Guillermo. He didn’t understand why he’d put up with it, why he’d like him after everything he’d said, when he cared so much that being told he didn’t care brought him to tears. After ten years of this treatment.
Nandor hadn’t noticed he was soaked, hadn’t noticed that his hair was sopping wet and dripping cold water down his back, he couldn’t have noticed it even if he was paying attention. He stepped closer to Guillermo when the lightning finally struck. It was a bright white bolt down the street, but it lit his face. Nandor saw the bags under his eyes, the exhaustion colouring his face, yet his eyes glimmered as he looked over his master. He frowned slightly, though he could feel Guillermo’s heart racing as he saw Nandor realise it himself.
“You’re not joking, Guillermo?” He knew it was true, but he needed to hear it from him. He didn’t want any ambiguity, he wanted to know it was undoubtedly a fact.
“No. I may not always like being your familiar, but you’re my friend. I wouldn’t save you from the…I wouldn’t do what I do if I didn’t like you.” He said, smiling slightly.
Nandor reached his hand out, and took Guillermo’s. It was clammy in his, yet still significantly warmer than his own hands. He held it softly, he didn’t press or grasp it, and Guillermo didn’t know how to respond to the gesture. For a moment, it looked like he was standing up on the tips of his toes, yet he sank down when that raised Nandor’s eyebrow.
He brushed his thumb across Guillermo’s knuckles, the skin still warm against his. Guillermo’s heart didn’t slow.
“I like you too, Guillermo. You’re the only familiar I’ve had who I’d consider a true friend.” He smiled bitterly, after the massive mistake he’d made Guillermo deserved a proper apology. His thumb slipped into Guillermo’s grasp, and he held it, watching their hands entwine for a moment. “I’d like to give you something.”
Guillermo from two or three years ago would have tipped his head to the side and pushed his collar down, squeezing his eyes shut to prepare for his vampiric transformation. Though, he stood still, which made it easier and infinitely harder for Nandor to step forward. He hesitated, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It didn’t feel right.
So, he was baffled when Guillermo wrapped his arms around his middle and pulled him in, resting his chin on his soaked shoulder. Nandor’s hands hung out in the middle of space for a moment, he wondered if he’d read his mind somehow, but he had to return the gesture. It was nice he hadn’t had to make the move himself, after all.
Nandor slipped his arms round Guillermo, liking how soft he felt underneath his grasp. He tipped his head forward, his own wet hair falling into his face in thick tendrils when he pressed his mouth to his hairline. He hadn’t hugged anyone in years, maybe decades. Nadja and Laszlo weren’t touchy-feels, thankfully, and he had too much dignity to willingly touch a living Colin Robinson. The last time he had a lover was probably the last time he’d touched anyone like this. He couldn’t even pretend to remember when that was.
Guillermo’s smell was dampened by the rain, but Nandor could still smell him—he reeked of old dust, yellowed books, and floral fabric softener. This was where he belonged, he belonged in their old dusty house with their innumerable paintings and the Stairmaster and the book pages pasted to the windows, with Nandor. This was his home.
But, he didn’t say it. He pulled away from Guillermo, hearing footsteps approaching the front door, ready to catch them. He couldn’t bear what any of his housemates would say if they found Nandor in his familiar’s arms. The look on Guillermo’s face when he looked back up at him, it broke a seam, but he couldn’t say anything.
He pushed past Nadja and Laszlo, leaving Guillermo in the rain. He just stood, removing his foggy glasses and wiping them again before he walked into the house, sopping wet. Nandor felt him shudder as he breathed, utterly disappointed in what had just transpired. But, he wasn’t disappointed in Nandor. He was disappointed in himself.
If they were still alone, he’d confirm that there was no reason he should have been so disappointed with himself. He should have been disappointed in Nandor, he absolutely should have. But, when he came to Nandor’s room at dawn, their typical ritual, he didn’t seem bitter.
They didn’t speak, but after the lid of his coffin closed, Guillermo lingered. He sat there for thirty minutes before he left, and Nandor tried to reason why he’d stay, even after how pathetic he’d been. He couldn’t read his mind, he could simply speculate. His only thought was that his liking of Nandor ran deeper than “like,” but he hadn’t said that.
He didn’t want to obsess over himself, but he could read his own thoughts—he knew that “like” was a bit too soft a word to describe what he felt. He could only hope Guillermo felt the same, but did he want him to feel the same? Nandor didn’t know if he could reasonably love someone who he used to see as beneath him. Or if he could love someone who killed his own kind, a criminal in the eyes of the Vampiric Council.