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“You are the light that is blinding me
You’re the anchor that I tied to my brain
‘Cause when it feels like I’m lost at sea
You’re the song I sing again and again
All the time, all the time
I think of you all the time.”
-The Anchor, Bastille
.
.
Nandor presses closer, something like a purr emanating from his chest as he listens to Guillermo’s heart.
A wry, knowing smile flits across the human’s face. Lounging in Nandor’s crypt had become a nightly ritual, the chaise lounge the perfect size to hold them both—so long as Nandor took to draping himself over Guillermo.
“Time for coffin?” Guillermo asks, giving a prolonged, exaggerated yawn.
Nandor watches with keen interest, dark eyes mapping the soft, lovely features of his once-familiar. He’s drawn instinctively to the pulse at Guillermo’s throat, to the blood that pools just below the skin. He feels something in his jaw ache at the sight, but it is not out of a desire for blood.
Guillermo’s heart thrums steady underneath him. Lub-dub, Lub-dub.
Nandor lets the sound anchor him gently to the present. He was here with Guillermo. There was no reason to be thinking of silly things, things like how he was going to eventually sink his teeth into Guillermo’s neck, watch as the blood drained from his body, and listen to his heart give its final, stuttering beat.
Fucking shit! Nandor thinks, biting his own tongue at the errant, mood-killing thought.
Guillermo yawns again and it is enough to steal Nandor’s attention for a moment, gaze flickering to his mouth.
Nandor falls into the ocean of his thoughts yet again, but this time, he reaches for Guillermo’s hand.
He didn’t have fangs. Not yet. One day, Guillermo would open his mouth and there would no longer be a line of flat, white teeth. He would have fangs and he would still be Guillermo, the Guillermo Nandor loved, but he would also be a vampire.
It is something Nandor has struggled with for years now. Even before this—back when Guillermo was a familiar, a friend, and confidant in spite of how Nandor treated him—it occupied a dark corner of his mind. Getting close enough to a human to love them.. only to kill them? There was a reason vampires did not let their attachments fester; Nadja had turned Laszlo shortly after meeting him and she had done the same with her other vampiric child, the sad, invisible one that Guillermo harbored a very obvious grudge against for some indiscernible reason.
“Nandor?” Guillermo asks softly, squeezing Nandor’s hand. “Are you alright?”
When Nandor drifts back to the present, he finds that he is partially mist, a vapor that swirled tumultuously around Guillermo. It was only the upper portion of his body that was still solid, he realizes, the warmth and feeling of Guillermo’s hand in his own more stabilizing than he could ever put into words.
With a muttered curse, Nandor will his body to coalesce, the shadows seemingly gathering towards him, the candles flickering ominously as he returns to a full corporeal form.
“Wow,” Guillermo breathes, letting out a slight groan of pain as Nandor, more or less, collapses back on top of him. “I’ve never seen you reform this close-up before.”
The vampire flashes a fanged grin, returning to resting his head against Guillermo’s chest. “We vampires have dominion over many things… animals, humans, even the very shadows themselves.”
At this, Guillermo rolls his eyes fondly, but begins to run his fingers through the vampire’s long, dark hair. “Yes, you’re terrifying .”
Nandor purrs at the ministrations, tightening his grip on Guillermo’s free hand. “Thank you.”
“As terrifying as a housecat,” Guillermo finishes, looking down at Nandor with a teasing smile.
“I like kitty cats, Guillermo, so I will take that as a compliment. Kitties are very fearsome warriors—just ask Laszlo.”
They both chuckle at the memory.
“So… you’re sure you’re okay, right?” Guillermo clarifies, peering at Nandor through his round eyeglasses, eyes lidded in a mix of adoration and concern.
Fear, anger, these were the emotions that Nandor could recognize in humans from scent alone; Guillermo was rarely fearful of him or even, truthfully, angry. He did not have as much experience with positive emotions. Up until Guillermo, it had been centuries since someone looked at him like he was more than a priceless relic gathering dust on a shelf. More than the remnants of a forgotten warlord, a piece of rotting driftwood split from a capsized vessel in the unforgiving seas of immortality.
There had been many familiars throughout his unlife, sure, but none had cared about him like Guillermo did. Likewise, Nandor thinks, there hadn’t been a familiar that inspired as much intrigue or protectiveness as Guillermo had within mere days of working for the vampire. It had bothered Nandor back then, how quickly he found himself longing for the domestic intimacies of his hair being brushed or his cravat being untied so long as it was done by Guillermo’s gentle, anchoring hands.
“I am okay. I was just having… serious thoughts,” Nandor admits, tangling their limbs further. He let himself inch closer to Guillermo’s face, nuzzling the sensitive skin at the midline of Guillermo’s throat. “I am glad to be hearing your heart.”
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Guillermo’s heart sings, following an age-old rhythm that echoed through the intricate network of his veins and arteries. Blood had bloomed deliciously in Guillermo’s cheeks and Nandor, through his own veil of dark hair, trails kisses up the human’s neck until he reaches the apex of his left cheek. He knows Guillermo can feel him grinning into each cold kiss even if he can’t see his mouth, can feel the gentle brush of his fangs against skin.
“Do you want to… talk about it?” Guillermo says, clearly struggling to gather his thoughts in the face of Nandor’s affection. “The serious thoughts, I mean.”
“Hmm?” Nandor replies lazily, still relishing in the warmth of the human lying so pliably beneath him. “Perhaps at another time. For now, can we just stay like this? For a little while longer?”
“Of course.” Guillermo’s hand drifts from his hair to rub Nandor’s upper back in soothing circles.
Nandor vows to commit the moment to memory, to have the sound of Guillermo’s heart as ingrained as the sound of his voice. To preserve it, enshrine it in glass, protect it from the relentless march of time so that even when hundreds—no, even when thousands of years had passed, when Guillermo was as cold as him, when his body was as silent as a sepulcher, Nandor could still remember the human he had once been. He would cherish the simple, the unremarkably ordinary days of their life together, the ones that ended with him listening to the sound of Guillermo’s heart as he fell into a deep, peaceful slumber.
Because that was the truth of it: one day, Guillermo would become a vampire, born into the fold of the undead by Nandor’s teeth. But today, Guillermo was human and alive and that was more than enough for Nandor.