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Guillermo woke up that afternoon with expectations of a nondescript evening. Since the theatre, Laszlo and Nadja usually left the house as soon as possible to avoid him, despite his warnings that he couldn't protect them if they left.
Nandor had been acting even more irrational, as if he wanted Guillermo by his side but also didn’t. He often drifted through the house like a lost puppy, as if he didn’t know where to go, but often found himself bumping into the human as he patrolled the house, like he was magnetized to the man.
After the theatre, Guillermo had put his foot down. He recalled Nandor begging him to stay, in a rare display of vulnerability for the vampire. As he looked into his dark, inky eyes, he asserted;
“I won’t come back,” His words sounded stronger than he felt in that moment. But it worked, and Nandor had looked like he could cry.
“Not as a familiar, at least.” The smile Guillermo had received that day could’ve powered a million lights.
So now Guillermo spent his nights, mostly alone, with a stake in hand and a large, dark bloodhound at his side, walking through the halls of their home.
There was one vestige of his old way of life in this house that Nandor had insisted upon, which positively baffled Guillermo—given his hesitance towards him in every other pretext—and that was his nightly routine.
Every night, after Nandor had finished doing whatever he did with his time nowadays, (besides poaching on Nadja and Laszlo’s leftovers and moping around the house) he would go to his crypt to find Guillermo waiting patiently, as he had for 11 years. Gently, Guillermo would pluck the cloak from Nandor’s shoulders with practiced, deft fingers, and carefully hang the ancient fabric over the chaise.
The little human went through these very same motions now, the taller vampire tracking his movements, regarding him with a deep look, there was something in those eyes that Guillermo couldn’t quite decipher.
He used to be more talkative in these moments, Guillermo remembers when he used to do this just a few months ago, Nandor would prattle on about his conquests as a mighty human conquerer.
Now, and the many days since the theatre, he was silent. Regarding him closely with a heavy look that weighed on Guillermo’s mind, prickled the hairs on his neck in a way that wasn’t completely unpleasant, and brought a blush to his cheeks.
With the outer layers of his garb removed, Nandor moved to sit down in a chair, so that Guillermo could comb his hair. He always loved this. When he was still a familiar, the tenderness and pure vulnerability of these moments, where it was just him and Nandor, warmed his chest.
Today was no different, he carefully and intentionally grazed his fingers over the nape of his neck to gather the thick inky mass into his hands. The resulting shiver from Nandor wasn’t lost on him, and he smirked. Another thing he loved about this, especially now, was the control that Nandor willingly submitted to him, that power sometimes made him dizzy, especially when Nandor didn’t remind him of his place, as he used to be so quick to do.
His hair wasn’t particularly knotted tonight, he hadn’t gone out and gotten himself into any trouble, as he was prone to do. So instead of using a brush, Guillermo just ran his hands through his hair, and savored the feeling of the soft strands filtering through his fingers in vantablack lines.
When he was satisfied with the smoothness and the lack of kinks in his hair, Guillermo reached for his hair oil, as he always did. When he reached past Nandors shoulder and towards the counter in front of both of them, he was stopped by a large, cold hand encasing his wrist without warning. The cool touch startled him, and he jumped slightly, the grip loosened slightly but felt no less determined.
“Nandor?” He was glad he didn’t slip into the honorific, this moment felt fragile.
“Your hands,” He said thoughtfully, he sounded far away, like he was thinking important things. But Guillermo was just confused. He was holding his breath.
“Uh— what about my hands, Nandor?”
His hand began to trail up from his wrist, fully encasing the human’s, he flipped his palm skyward, as if to inspect it. Guillermo held his breath, his heart beating faster with the tender way the vampire cradled his small hand in his own, larger ones.
“They’re so…” Guillermo felt like he could explode. Was Nandor about to compliment his hands?
“--Scratchy.” He concluded, and Guillermo didn’t know why he expected anything different. But then, the vampire trailed a thumb against the lifeline in his palm, and
Guillermo completely forgot about the insult, the tender touch absolutely undoing his brain function.
“These little human scars, they are from serving me, aren’t they?” He sounded so sad as he quietly traced the scarred callouses in Guillermo’s hands with a feather light touch.
Guillermo answered honestly, “Yes.” He could see his vampires shoulders sag, but they quickly perked up again—he knew if he could see Nandor’s face, his eyes would be glinting with a newfound idea.
The vampire quickly dropped his hand, and Guillermo felt a stab of disappointment at the loss of touch. He watched as Nandor popped up from his stool and quickly went to his dresser, where he began fumbling around clumsily with the self care products there.
After presumably finding the instrument of what Guillermo could only guess was some sort of grand plan, he turned around to face Guillermo, the implement of his plan hidden behind his back. As he went to sit down on the stool again, he brought another chair with him in his other hand, and set it down in front of his stool.
“Sit, Guillermo,” He said dismissively, his old voice that he used for commanding his ex familiar slipping into his tone.
Hesitantly, the man sat, looking at Nandor warily as he clambered atop the stool to face him.
“Now,” he huffed proudly, settling into his seat, “give me your hands,”
“O-okay,” This was the most direct that Nandor had been with him in weeks, and he didn’t even know what he intended to do. He figured he wouldn’t question it. Nandor’s moods were so incredibly fickle.
It was then that Nandor revealed the object he had hidden behind his back—
“Hand lotion?” Guillermo questioned incredulously, with slight amusement— he had a feeling he knew what Nandor was thinking.
Nandor grinned widely, spitting the syllables through his fangs, “Yesss,”
Guillermo let out a delirious laugh, he learned not to question Nandor’s ministrations long ago—despite no longer being a familiar, now was no exception. Guillermo surrendered his hands, and the vampire took them gently, cradling them both close to his chest, and then turning them skyward as he had done before.
The vampire then unceremoniously squirt a mountain of lotion into the palms of his hands, and Guillermo could only watch in both abject amusement and horror. Yet still the smaller man said nothing, instead opting to look up at the man whose gaze was transfixed on his task.
Rhythmically, Nandor rubbed the palms of his hands slowly, tenderly grazing the calloused and rough skin, tracing the lines of his palm carefully and, Guillermo might’ve even dared to call it, lovingly. What surprised him most is that it actually felt good. The gentle pressure and the flutter in his stomach wasn’t altogether unpleasant, was in fact quite the opposite.
Guillermo was now transfixed on Nandor’s ministrations, as he felt his gaze on him, burning a hole in his head, bringing blood to his cheeks, as if his kind touches hadn’t summoned enough already.
The tension in the space was building and Guillermo could feel it through Nandor’s unrelenting stare (he really did live to his name) he felt he had to say something, so the first word that came to him, one that he’d been thinking this whole time, sprung from his lips unbidden.
“Why?” Guillermo met his eyes. They were intense and bright with an emotion he could not place.
The lotion was well rubbed in by now, Nandor was simply tracing patterns on the healing skin of Guillermo’s knuckles.
Nandor brought Guillermo’s hand up to his lips, and he stopped breathing. Cool breath ghosted over the back of his hand, and then he felt a lukewarm press of lips to his knuckle. It was brief, but it sent shockwaves through his system, he shuddered from the pleasant sensation.
Nandor looked up from his hand, meeting Guillermo’s eyes through his lashes.
“Because you have given so much,” He lowers his head to his hand again, pressing a kiss to the knuckle next in line.
“And you have taken so little,” Another kiss, another knuckle. Guillermo struggled to breathe.
“It is time I give a small fraction,” Another kiss, he lingers.
“of all the things I’ve taken from you.” He presses an openmouthed kiss to the center of the back of Guillermo’s hand, and his breath hitches loudly.
When Nandor sits back, he regards his human with such tender open affection. Seeing him so openly bare his heart like this has stolen Guillermo’s breath away in a different way entirely.
This dense, bullheaded man harbored all these mushy feelings behind that facade for all these years, and it only took Guillermo killing a theatre-full of vampires for Nandor to realize this.
Guillermo burst into laughter at the stupidity of it all. Nandor’s face fell, that moony expression now completely gone from his eyes. Guillermo missed that look already, but the expression which replaced It was so much funnier— shock and complete confusion. Nandor knew how Guillermo felt about him, so why was he reacting this way? Guillermo laughed even harder, clutching his stomach.
“Hey…” Nandor whined, “what are you doing that for?? Fucking guy. I give you the rubby rubby on your hands and this is how you treat—“ Guillermo stood up violently from his chair, knocking it over and he then barreled into Nandor, sending them both tumbling to the floor.
Nandor landed on his back with a soft “oof” and Guillermo landed on top of him, knocking the unneeded breath out of him. Before Nandor could open his mouth to complain further, Guillermo caught his lips in an insistent kiss.
For a brief moment, Nandor lay in shock and admiration of his ex familiars tenacity, but then quickly reciprocated. Nandor’s hands moved to card through the curls at the base of his human’s neck, and Guillermo let out a pleased noise.
Pulling back, Guillermo regarded the vampire beneath him with what he imagined as something akin to the lovestruck expression Nandor gave him not just a few minutes ago, and breathlessly managed, “You’re so dense,” and dipped down once again to capture a grinning Nandor’s lips.