Work Text:
Objectively, the square footage is a harsh downgrade from the Staten Island mansion.
“Are you sure there’s only one bedroom?” Guillermo had asked the agent on the phone on the drive over here, no less than three times. “There’s no mistake with the MLS listing?”
“Yeah, no, there’s no mistake. But definitely the one bedroom is super big. Like, almost the entire space of the loft,” Marcus had assured him. Plus--as he pointed out in that super chipper way of his that marked his excellent real estate broker training in redirecting the conversation to the positives of every property--the basement was semi-finished and ready to be converted into extra bedrooms if the need arose. “All you need is a bit of sheetrock on the rafters. The wiring is just about set up, dude,” he’d said enthusiastically (and perhaps a little conspiratorially).
Now Guillermo and Nandor are standing in the driveway of the place, waiting in the slightly damp breeze of the September evening while their agent Marcus supposedly makes his way uptown from another appointment in the heart of the city.
The outside of the house seems normal enough. There hadn’t been many pictures of the inside, save some necessary shots of the bathroom with a black linen shower curtain and some strangely narrow takes of the updated kitchen (Guillermo had definitely not ogled the granite countertops and silver cabinet handles with drool in his mouth, shut up, Nandor), and a copious number of photos of the almost empty basement with light black carpet on the stairs and floor and two leather recliners in front of a sole flatscreen TV on the wall. Guillermo had been a bit apprehensive, based on his past experience from the last two months or so of house-hunting with Nandor, because few pictures of the upper levels usually meant a host of disasters to be repaired. Still, the ridiculously low price of this one-bed, one-bath number couldn’t be beaten.
And besides, Guillermo had seen much, much worse within the four walls of the Staten Island home. He thinks he’ll survive seeing some miswiring or torn-up floorboards.
“He is very late,” Nandor grumbles.
Guillermo checks his phone. “It’s only three minutes past. Knowing traffic at this time, it’s reasonable.”
“Yes, but he was the one that had you having me getting out of coffin so early in the evening.”
“Yes, well, not all of us can fly around the city and make our appointments on the dot, Nandor,” Guillermo says with a wry smile.
Nandor rolls his eyes at his human’s cheekiness. “Yeesh. The sun could have still been up when we opened the door!”
“I’d never let that happen,” says Guillermo, his smile widening. “I’d protect you from the big, bad flaming ball of UV rays.”
Nandor gives him a look like you think this is funny, Guillermo?--which, for the record, Guillermo does indeed find this totally hilarious--but he concedes by taking a step closer to his human and flicking the pom-pom at the crown of Memo’s beanie.
Marcus’s Beamer glides up the street behind them then, and their agent steps out looking both harried and suave at once with his dreads undone from their usual ponytail and his arms laden with violently yellow folders of MLS listings for both of them.
“Right, right this way, please. I promise this one’s a charmer.”
There’s a brief debacle with the lockbox, during which Nandor just barely refrains from loudly suggesting the windows (as he is wont to do on these trips--Guillermo suspects it’s a habit that contributed to the previous four agents bailing on them). Up close, Guillermo gets a chance to admire the solid painting job on the stone exterior, with variegated shades of gray to complement the black paint on the brick porch. He thinks the windows could use some of those narrow vintage-looking shutters to look more complete, though.
Marcus finally gets the door open, and Guillermo says, “Oh.” And then he steps on through with Nandor and swivels his head and looks around, and says again, “Oh.”
“It is a very washed-out gray,” Nandor complains at once.
Guillermo rolls his eyes behind his vampire boyfriend’s back. Of course Nandor would fixate on the walls--painted the lightest shade of millennial gray, sure enough--and not the rich black carpet or the black leather couches or the black-framed art on the walls. Or, God forbid, the actual freaking life-sized coffin leaning against the corner of the living room.
“As you can see, the living room has an open plan, very spacious for any arrangement of furniture, really,” Marcus starts off into his spiel. “Updated pin lights all throughout--they’re in the kitchen, too, I’m super excited to show it to you once we’re through here--oh, and the TV mount is pretty much in the right spot, away from the window to avoid the glare from the sunlight when you’re watching during the daytime. Oh! Before I forget! This carpet is newly installed. I know the color isn’t exactly to everyone’s taste, but let me tell you, it is plush and of the best grade I’ve seen out there. The owner really made an investment in his upgrades. And personally, I think dark carpet is pretty much making its comeback in the next couple of years.”
Guillermo is staring at Marcus with a herculean effort not to burst out laughing at how the poor guy is practically breaking a sweat explaining away the very visible goth tendencies of the previous owner of this place. Nandor’s gaze is fixed on the agent, too, with his characteristic cross between pensive and empty-headed, and it never fails to unnerve Marcus.
Predictably, the agent misinterprets the intensity of their twin stares and stammers, “I-if you prefer hardwood, I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s something underneath. Carpet’s easily ripped up to replace the flooring.” And he knocks his heel against the edge of the carpet to illustrate his point, for good measure.
Nandor lifts his finger to point at the array of prints on the wall ahead. “Those artworks. Do they come with the dwelling?”
Marcus’s eyes widen as he follows the direction of Nandor’s hand. Against the opposite side is a series of canvas prints: photos of a guillotine, twin girls hanging by their necks from the branch of an oak tree, a blurry capture of Frankenstein’s monster thrown into stark chiascuro.
“Oh, no, no, no no no no,” Marcus says with a nervous laugh. “I assure you, they do not. The owner will be taking them right out.”
Nandor grimaces. “Oh. So you mean to say I will have to be purchasing them separately from this guy?”
Marcus glances over at Guillermo with a stricken look in his eyes. Help me.
“Clearly, we have a--very particular taste,” Guillermo wheezes out over an awkward chuckle, coming up to steer Nandor by the arm toward the kitchen. “We’re not at all turned off by, uh, the more macabre bits and bobbles. Right, babe? Okay, uh, you said the kitchen’s that way, right?”
And, okay, Guillermo was completely right with his partially informed assessment of the kitchen from the MLS listing. The moment they enter the kitchen and dining area, he practically swoons.
“Granite countertop. And stainless steel cabinet handles,” he says to no one in particular. No, he does not whimper.
“Well, you’ll be very pleased to know the owner is willing to leave the dining set to match the kitchen,” Marcus says proudly. Ever the real estate agent thinking on his feet, he digs into his suit pocket for a business card and adds it to the arc of cards already splayed out on the glass table. Guillermo appraises the combination of black wood and stainless steel legs on the dining chairs and gives a noncommittal shrug.
“The glass is so very breakable,” Nandor observes.
Guillermo flexes his jaw and glances away, fighting to keep his face straight. He knows exactly which tabletop-breaking incident involving blood drinking and...compromised positions Nandor is referring to.
Marcus shrugs to say I suppose. “I can check back with him and see if he’s willing to throw it in without any extra charge. At any rate, we can mention it in the ‘Other’ section when we write up the offer.”
“And this?” Nandor steps closer to the granite countertop and points to the contraption by the sink. “This delightful-looking instrument of torture. Does the house come with this?”
Marcus bites his lip.
Guillermo hears the question from where he’s opened the absolutely gigantic refrigerator and has his head stuck inside to assess its measurements. For very normal, non-nefarious purposes, of course. He pops his head back out. “Oh, that’s the banana keeper, babe,” he says.
Nandor looks nonplussed.
“For bananas,” Guillermo clarifies. “Human food.”
Nandor steps back as if burned. “Yeesh.”
“Hey, I eat bananas from time to time,” Memo admonishes him.
“Love your sense of humor,” Marcus interjects with finger guns in Nandor’s direction. “Potassium! One of the best things on earth, am I right? Gotta keep that healthy blood pressure.” (Nandor looks far too interested at the mention of this factoid.) “And, hey, I can ask about the banana keeper.”
“No, no, that’s--it’s literally fine. I’ll get one from Home Goods or something and paint it black myself,” says Guillermo.
The staircase up to the loft is an absolute treat. In place of the usual black metal railings one might find in a house of this age, the owner installed a spiderweb design, tastefully asymmetrical and painted a classy matte black.
Upstairs, Guillermo has no idea where to look first. The walls are covered with crosses--pewter crosses, black crosses, some wood crosses burnished to the shade of deep java--and Guillermo notes from the corner of his eye how Nandor hangs back with a grimace at the top of the staircase, giving the crosses a wide berth. The carpet is a very dark gray, not quite black, but complementary to the flooring on the first floor. The king-sized bed in front of them has a pretty basic-looking polyester duvet in dusty grape, though it does have the black metal four-poster thing going for it. Guillermo sees the owner doesn’t have as exquisite a taste in lamps as Nadja and Laszlo do. No matter.
What does matter, and what makes Nandor’s face light up a moment later in the most devilish smile to date, is the three-paneled arrangement of mirrors covering the entire ceiling of the loft over the bed.
“Oh,” says Guillermo. “Hm.”
If Marcus looked a bit shiny before, for sure by now he’s broken into a sweat. “Listen, I talked with the owner on the phone the other day, and he assures me that the mounting on these mirrors is completely removable. No permanent damage done to the ceiling.”
“No damage to the ceiling, no,” Nandor muses softly. The tips of Guillermo’s ears are suddenly flaming.
“Honestly,” Marcus goes on with a high-pitched laugh, “I think mirrors are great at making the space look bigger. Double the size, you know? Some people really take that interior designing to heart!”
Guillermo almost pities Marcus in that moment. The shit he has to say to sell houses these days.
Of an impulse, Guillermo walks over to the bed and turns around so he’s leaning back against the metal footboard and facing Nandor at the top of the staircase. Nandor glances up at the slightly warped reflection of his human in the mirror above, and then flits his gaze back down and locks eyes with Guillermo.
And if Guillermo was all flushed with secondhand embarrassment before--well, now the way Nandor is raking his eyes over his body is just filling his brain with positively filthy images involving them and a certain three-paneled mirror on the ceiling above them.
“This property is excellent,” Nandor declares, breaking through Guillermo’s fantasies. “We shall take it.”
Guillermo splutters. “We haven’t even seen the bath--”
Nandor’s hand emerges from his cape and waves dismissively. “Who even uses the bathroom?” he scoffs (earning him a rather flat and unimpressed stare from his boyfriend). “This is perfectly up to our standards, Marcus. Communicate our offer to the proprietor at once.”
Marcus looks like he’s about to faint, either from the miracle of this weird-ass couple finally making an offer after viewing fifty-three houses, or from the mere implication that he’s standing in the presence of two kinky fuckers. Or both.
“R-right away, yes, yup! Great!” he says. “So--are we going for five percent off the list price, or--”
“Full price,” says Nandor. “And whatever else it will cost us to procure the magnificent collection of artworks downstairs.”
Marcus’s eyes are the size of saucers.
“Hey, more commission for you!” Guillermo tells him, taking pity on him in this whole situation. “You earned it, man.”
The guy has nothing to say to that except a whistle and an awkward clap of his hands. He gets out of there in a rush, practically stumbling over the curb back into his Beamer, with the promise to send them the electronic copy of the offer as soon as he gets back to the office.
And, well--Guillermo’s pretty glad Marcus jetted out of there when he did, because the absolutely feral look that overcomes Nandor’s face when they get to the backyard and see the bottomless black well in the center of the property is a precious sight for his eyes and his eyes alone to see.
(“No more sinkholes for the mushy skeletons, Guillermo!”)