Work Text:
Guillermo had always been so careful. Always cooked during the day, for example. Not that he ever had mishaps anymore. Now he was standing in the entryway in front of the coven and those damn producers with blood dripping from slashes— well, everywhere.
They erupted into a zoo-like ruckus of hissing and screaming and fussing. Nadja was asking why the hell he was getting his smelly Virgin blood all over the carpets while her ghost doll shrieked furiously in some lost Ancient Greek dialect. Laszlo had started talking about blood-as-lube to no one while Colin Robinson remarked on the difficulties of cleaning blood out of carpets. Nandor, however…
Nandor was just staring at him. Staring in a way that felt like a groom looking at his bride on her wedding night— one of Nandor’s brides. It made Guillermo want turn in on himself or close his eyes. And then Nandor fled in a flurry of ancient silks and furs leaving everyone to stare after him rather than at Guillermo.
Nadja tucked Doll Nadja under her arm and waved at the mess.
“Just, clean it up Guillermo,” she sighed. She left with Laszlo in a swish of silk taffeta.
Guillermo practically shoved a producer to get to Nandor’s room. It was satisfying to slam the door in the poor guy’s face.
“What the fuck was that?”
Nandor looked at him sheepishly from the far side of the room. His pale face had gone ashen.
He raised a shaky finger to point at Guillermo. “You’re still bleeding.”
It was less of a statement and more of a pitiful whine which Nandor was sometimes capable of when he didn’t get what he wanted.
“What— oh, shit, I’m sorry, I’ll go— Jesus-fucking-CHRIST, god sorry, oh sorry,” Guillermo fumbled his words while shaking the pain from his hand.
Nandor had basically set the doorknob on fire and locked the door (though locking it didn’t matter now) with his powers. Guillermo now resisted laughing at having made his former master recoil at the Lord’s name (even if Guillermo had taken it in vain).
“Please don’t leave,” Nandor forced out. “Let me help you. Tell me who did this.”
Guillermo set his jaw. Swallowed. Could Nandor hear his pulse quicken?
“I won’t kill you,” he whispered, “promise.”
Maybe this death wouldn’t be so bad, if it was by Nandor’s hand?
“You’ll need bandages, first aid kit.” Guillermo deadpanned. “It’s in my room.”
Nandor’s dark eyes darted back and forth, searching his face from afar. He nodded and silently left Guillermo to wait.
He heard muffled conversation with a producer outside the door and then he remembered: his mic. He was seconds from ripping it off when Nandor came in again, first aid kit as old as Guillermo himself in hand.
“Master— Nandor—”
Nandor paused, roll of gauze in hand, gaze expectant.
“Your— your mic-microphone,” Guillermo pointed to their packs. “It’s still on and there are no cameras in here so they’re probably listening…”
“Ah yes,” Nandor smiled, discarding his mic pack with Guillermo’s on a side table. “Thank you, Guillermo.”
Nandor presented a chair for Guillermo. “Now tell me what happened.”
“It’s nothing, really, just an accident—”
Nandor’s thumb dug into a slash he had been dabbing at on Guillermo’s temple.
“Nandor, I don’t know!” Guillermo hissed. “It was some thing by the Council headquarters! Please!”
Nandor gasped. “Guillermo, I’m sorry.”
He fell silent and began cleaning the cuts, slashes, and scrapes. It had looked far worse than it really was. At last he came to the worst of them, a small cut on Guillermo’s cheekbone, the worst because Nandor was forced to practically look into his ex-familiar’s eyes. Eyes so like his own, eyes that had seen so many supernatural horrors in such a short time in his service…
“How can you control yourself?” Guillermo’s whispered question snapped Nandor out of his philosophical trance. He felt Guillermo’s pulse quicken, imagining it to be his own.
“What?” it was practically a croak.
“The blood,” Guillermo looked at him as if it were obvious. It should be, with blood streaking Nandor’s dead-ashen fingers and soaking the antiseptic-damp gauze.
“Because it is you.”
Nandor’s hand was numbingly cold on Guillermo’s cheek, but his eyes burned. Guillermo would chalk it up to adrenaline, a trick of the mind, whatever that creature had done to him. Had that even happened? The attack was fuzzy.
“Do it,” Guillermo challenged.
Nandor swallowed. He couldn’t really be asking for that? Guillermo’s expression was as pointed as any stake, driving horribly slowly into Nandor’s gut.
Guillermo smelled incense and marjoram and dust as Nandor closed the gap. He closed his eyes to prepare for eventual death. Nandor must have done it quickly, for Guillermo felt no pain. He felt Nandor’s lips on his own, remarkably soft and pleading. Guillermo must be dead.
A bit of gauze fell from Nandor’s hand and fluttered past them to the floor. It was enough to jolt Guillermo to the present. He could only stare at Nandor, eyes blown wide and glassy as if on drug blood. Guillermo could get lost in those eyes in the same way one stared into their cup of coffee, black eyebrows and high cheekbones framing them. The blood on Nandor’s cheek grounded him again.
“You have…” he reached out and swiped his thumb across Nandor’s cheek.
Nandor caught Guillermo’s wrist like a viper does prey and held his gaze as he licked the blood from Guillermo’s thumb.
Nandor blinked several times; Guillermo stopped breathing.
“What the fuck, Nandor!”
Nandor could only stare, could only move his jaw up and down and feel the pinch of his fangs in his lower lip— something he rarely (if ever) felt. Guillermo shot up to leave, but he was too slow. Nandor was wrapping him up in his arms, practically crushing him against his chest into the mass of brocaded silk and fur.
“Guillermo,” he inhaled, toying with a ring older than the United States, toying with the idea of his fingers in the human’s hair. “I have… feelings… for you.”
“Besides the obvious bloodlust?”
Nandor’s brow furrowed and he pulled back. “Hey! That is from the Twilight motion picture film!”
Guillermo chuckled, pleased with himself until— “Wait, how do you? Nevermind.”
He looked up at the vampire in front of him, pale face full of almost childlike worry and fear. “You’re serious?”
Nandor’s rings were colder than his palm on Guillermo’s cheek. His great brown eyes shined with unshed tears as he searched desperately for any sign he had not been foolish.
“Oh, Nandor.” Guillermo buried his face in the warm, heavy amber-scented folds of silk, leather, and fur, delighted when Nandor didn’t merely put his arms around him, but embraced him. He felt cool touches on his collar and the strangely comforting sensation of Nandor’s cool-dry breath tickling his ear.
They sat back, Nandor running his hands along Guillermo’s arms and down to clasp his hands. He refused to let go as he spoke, voice shaking and struggling to force words out.
“I have ignored my desire for you, Guillermo.” Nandor’s thumbs were rubbing anxious circles into the backs of Guillermo’s hands. “I thought perhaps it was for something, or someone, else…”
Guillermo opened his mouth, but Nandor silenced him with a nervous look. “I have cared about you for a very long time, even when you were my familiar. But it was not until Nadja and I rescued her Ghost Doll from the giant inflatable rat that I realized I was ignoring my emotions.”
Nandor took in a breath, licked his lips. Guillermo stayed silent in spite of it all.
“I like you very much Guillermo,” Nandor exhaled. “Please do not ask to become a vampire right now. I would like to… like you as a human for a little while longer.”
Guillermo swallowed back tears. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind for months, if he was being honest. Did Nandor think that was all he cared about?
“No, no, I won’t ask,” Guillermo smiled, almost bitterly. “I’m just happy you’re saying this.”
Nandor took up the gauze and antiseptics again. Guillermo decided not to think about where or when he learned modern first aid.
“Really though, Guillermo,” he paused, “what happened?”
His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. Honestly, Nandor, I don’t remember.”
“Did the documentary people see?”
Guillermo shook his head, at least he didn’t think any producers had been with him. He had just been stopping to get paperwork for Nandor, but now the Staten Island coven had enemies under the new regime.
“Nevermind now,” Nandor smiled, sweetly, genuinely. “You are home.”
Home.
Guillermo sat in stunned silence while Nandor placed bandages on him with astute precision. When he finished, he placed a delicate, princely kiss on one of the cuts. Guillermo’s heart picked up seeing Nandor lift his head to move to the next cut, one at his temple. Nandor’s other hand was in his hair. This close, Guillermo could smell the frankincense, sandalwood and other oils Nandor still applied to his hair and even his skin.
“Are you gonna do that to all of them,” Guillermo whispered, struggling to level his voice.
“Of course,” Nandor replied, as deadly serious and indignant as ever. “How are they going to get better?”
“It’s just that…” Guillermo swallowed, raising his eyebrows. “some of them are awfully close to my mouth?”
“Yes, obviously, but— ” Nandor broke into a wide, fang-bearing smile. “Fucking guy! Why didn’t you just say so!”
He pulled Guillermo in, closing his eyes as their foreheads met. “I must admit, I am not very good at the mushy-ushy-gushy romantic things.”
Guillermo huffed a laugh, opening his eyes to Nandor, full of child-like wonder and chocolate bar-sweetness. “It’s alright, Nandor. You can keep kissing things better.”
“Yes of course, Guillermo.”
Nandor leaned forward, placing one strong hand on Guillermo’s waist and another in his hair, and hastily kissed the last cut.
“One more,” he smiled mischievously.
Then, Nandor pulled Guillermo in for a final kiss, somehow even softer than the first and full of the longing each had held back for so long. Guillermo suddenly thought about how he couldn’t feel Nandor’s fangs at all, and then he thought of the great care Nandor must be taking to be gentle. The next thought that occurred to him was how Nandor tasted— surprisingly not-dead, as he would have thought.
Focus, Guillermo.
Nandor’s hands were holding his waist and cheek so gently, as if Guillermo were fragile and prized or might slip away. The sharp scent of drying blood was impossible to ignore under the antiseptic, but if both of them were being honest, they enjoyed it a little.
Separating from Nandor was like leaving bed in the evening.
“I will let you go rest, and perhaps sometime later this week when you are feeling better we can go out, the two of us?”
“Are you asking me out, Nandor?” Guillermo couldn’t help the sly smile on his face.
“Er, yes?”
Guillermo looked at his watch while Nandor fussed. “Hm, I don’t know I’ll have to check my schedule— yes of course I’ll go on a date with you, Nandor! Saturday night at seven?”
Nandor smiled, and was about to reply, when Guillermo gave him a short— though still deep— kiss and let himself out, leaving Nandor stunned in his room, brushing his fingers across the fading phantom of the sensation.