Archive of Our Own ^beta

Lie #1: You meet him at the train station.

It’s chilly, almost biting through the down layer of your winter coat, and you flex your hand a few times after letting go of the handle of your bag. The leather has made imprints into your skin, stark and red against the paler, colder flesh. You set it next to your suitcase, sat next to his suitcase, and look up at him.

“You came,” Nandor says, voice startlingly soft. You blink.

“Yeah, of course. I mean, traffic was really bad, but the cab driver was Russian, I think? Or Ukrainian? Either way, he drove like a crazy person and we got here with like, ten minutes to spare.”

Nandor raises his eyebrows at this. “And you are unharmed?”

“Besides a few more grey hairs,” you snort. You realize he’s still looking at you, or more specifically, the area around your temples. Your hand comes up to brush the fine, soft hairs growing just above your ears. You don’t mind them; they make you feel sort of distinguished. Of course, the whole “thirty-one year old virgin” thing sort of puts a sting in that.

Maybe, the tiniest, most stubbornly hopeful part of you wonders, this trip will change that.

“They suit you,” he says suddenly, making you jump. You don’t know whether to be startled by the sudden statement, the unexpected compliment, or the fact that he’s apparently considered your appearance enough to form this conclusion. Heat prickles in the apples of your cheeks. You pull your hand down and shove it into the pocket of your overcoat.

The doors of the stopped train finally screech open, making Nandor wince heavily. You feel a pang of sympathy that would have felt alien a few days ago. The longest, most breathless minutes of your life spent trying to beat the shit out of him, and now you want to squeeze his hand because of a loud noise. You suppose this is how it will be when you’re immortal together: you can’t keep the peace with someone forever, but then again, you can’t stay mad at them either.

Immortal. Together. God, it’s really happening, isn’t it?

A line begins to form, but before you can move to join it, there’s a hand at your elbow. You turn, mouth askew in confusion.

Nandor looks at you (you get the feeling he has not stopped looking at you since you arrived) for a long, tremulous moment, eyes darting back and forth. He’s waiting for you to run, you realize. To leave.

You smile in a way that on the surface is excited, but a layer down holds reassurance. “Hey, c’mon. We’re gonna miss the train.” You move your elbow forward, not to yank it away, but to beckon him along. “I call dibs on the window seat.”

He gives you a half-hearted snarl, but there’s relief in his eyes. Something else, too, but it’s hidden among the glare of the overhead lights. Regardless, you lead and he follows.

You get on the train.

Guillermo breaks it down into a series of manageable little pieces, and follows the steps to not going insane, and suffocating, and dying in a soup of his own excrement. Here it goes:

He allows himself a very reasonable twenty minutes to scream-cry at the top of his lungs, because he hasn’t had one of those moments in a while, and it seems best to just get it all out in one burst. The tears pool in the corners of his eyes until they build up into a steady stream, rushing down the sides of his burning cheeks and curling around his ears. He feels phlegm bubble in the back of his throat, snot clotting his nostrils, but there isn’t enough space above him to wipe it away. The whole situation adds to his unquenchable desire for pathetic misery, really.

Once his face feels disgustingly crusted-over enough, Guillermo reaches for one of the nutritional drinks and begins to feel along the walls of the coffin. There’s a spot, he knows, where the wood has needed refinishing and painting for sometime, but he’s never gotten around to it because Laszlo’s coffin is, quite frankly, fucking disgusting. It’s going to take every scrap of self-control in his body to not dive into the ocean when he gets out of here.

He finds the spot, chipping even more with the rough handling of the loading crew, and begins to slam the half-frozen nutritional drink against it. Crunching thud after splintering, scattered crack, chips of wood flying into his face, stinging his skin, but he doesn’t care; it’s therapeutic; it’s the closest thing in front of him to bone.

A thunderous roar against his ear of wood crumpling in on itself. Guillermo blinks. Licks his lips. Tastes blood.

Lie #2: You sit next to him.

Oh God oh Christ these seats were definitely not made for a jacked motherfucker in full traveling ceremonial garb-whatever and a slightly less motherfucker-y guy who’s the furthest thing from skinny what the fuck what the fuck is my leg touching his leg? Or is that just the cloak? Can he feel it? Is he just not saying anything about it because he doesn’t see it as a big deal, and I’m just making a mountain out of two guys’ legs touching on a train, or is he embarrassed and I’m actively making it worse in an entirely different capacity? I want my mom. Why do I want my mom? Oh, right, a five-foot-two Mexican lady yelling at me to get over myself would actually be really helpful right now. Kind of a mood-killer, though– a tad Oedipal. God, when is this thing gonna get moving so I’m not just sitting here awkwardly when I could definitely get up and find a different seat in a different car? Or would he take that as me being annoyed? Or having second thoughts? I don’t want him to think I’d rather spend this thing not talking. That’s kind of the whole point. Like, I’m eighty per-cent sure he’s bullshitting about the whole “turn me into a vampire” thing, and just wants someone to save his ass so he can focus on “finding himself” or what the fuck ever. Why! Isn’t This! Train! Moving! Why am I freaking out– I literally saw his dick two nights ago when helping him change, and yeah, this is definitely overanalyzing things to the fullest extent, but what else am I supposed to do while we– wait.

“Did I leave the oven on?”

He lets Nadja out at night and they stand on the top deck of the watchtower, looking out at the sea. Nadja killed the guard a few weeks ago, and the frigid cold of the Atlantic has sort of preserved his body. Like a milkshake, she’d said delightedly, smile a little too bright. Guillermo, in what he supposes is the first real act of solidarity they’ve ever shared, brought her a curly straw from the mess hall the next night, and looks away pointedly whenever he sees her hunched quietly over the railing.

It’s somewhat a cousin of fun. He never had any real female friends in high school, contrary to the gay kid rule book. Miles away from light pollution and cities, Nadja points out constellations he’s only ever seen in textbooks, and he tries to explain the proper science behind them before eventually giving up.

They talk regardless. There’s not much else to do.

“I don’t care if you try and stop me,” Guillermo says, “but I’m probably going to kill your husband.”

Nadja smirks. “You can kill him a little bit, and I’ll help.”

“Deal.”

Lie #3: You put your head on his shoulder, which does not have to have any ulterior meaning behind it, really, unless either of you happen to assign one to it, which of course, the both of you do.

Featuring a love shack tracklist including hits SUCH AS:
You’ve Got A Friend- Carole King
Someone To Watch Over Me- Ella Fitzgerald
Peach- The Front Bottoms
Autumn In New York- Billie Holiday
I Could Fall In Love- Selena
That’s Where You Take Me- Britney Spears
Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You- Stevie Nicks
Old Friend- Mitski
AND MANY EMOTIONALLY PATHETIC MORE!!!

Nadja sort of, almost, barely a scratch, really– crashes the boat into Lebanon.

“Well how the fuck else are we supposed to get there?” she snaps, off Guillermo’s horrified–honestly sort of touched, look. “Come on, you mentioned all those bloody checkpoints.”

Her hypnosis is miles better than Nandor’s (which no, he is not thinking about him outside of this utterly epic hail mary play) and gets them through the various borders, sub-borders, et cetera, with relative ease. There is a God, and He did tie Spanish and Arabic together by several similarities, which saves his ass once or twice. Very few vampires in the area, though. Too much sun– duh.

They stop in a 24-hour cafe one night, Guillermo sipping his almost unbearably black coffee while Nadja pokes with annoyance at the paper map. She redraws their route with a pencil, balks at a turn, then erases it so hard the paper tears under the rubber nub. Guillermo quickly sets his cup down and grabs both from her.

“Okay, okay,” he says placatingly, “so, that’s enough of that. Calm down.”

Nadja slumps back in her seat and folds her arms over her chest. “All these new buildings and borders and regulations; it’s bullshit, frankly.”

Guillermo makes a note that, if he ever wants to get revenge for something, he can get Colin Robinson a book on the history of inter-relational politics in the middle east– except then he remembers that Colin Robinson is dead, and his jaw tightens a fraction. He really shouldn’t have left his night guard at home.

“We’re only a few hours drive from the river; maybe half a day if we have to walk,” he reassures her. “It’s the best thing we have to a guaranteed spot.”

She nods curtly, not moving from her compact position, and Guillermo lets the silence settle into something truly uncomfortable. There’s a question that’s been on his mind ever since Nadja declared they were going to the Tigris, but emotional minefields and his vampires have never meshed well.

Musing that his life cannot possibly get any more batshit unbearable than this, he goes for it. “So… are you ever gonna tell me why you’re doing this?”

Nadja blinks slowly at him, one eyelid after the other. “Doing what?”

Guillermo tries for a nonchalant shrug. “Helping me look for Nandor. Not fucking off to go… I dunno, girlboss in London.” She looks even more confused at that, so he shakes his head. “Nevermind. It just seems like a weird reverse heel, is all.”

“You need to stop knowing languages I do not, Guillermo. One is bad enough.” He chuckles at this, and her frown deepens. “I do not need to explain myself to you. You think you’re the only one that’s been fucked over?” Nadja violently flicks a piece of hair behind her ear. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Laszlo has been trying to reach me for weeks with some bullshit little apology. Fuck him! If he wants to be so bloody sure I can’t handle myself, he can see me taking charge of things for once.”

“To find… my person,” Guillermo clarifies, then winces at the word choice. Nadja doesn’t appear to notice.

“Yes. It is not all about him, you know. What he wants, what he thinks is best for me. You cannot find Nandor all by yourself, so tada: I get to lug around the little human and Laszlo can have his fucking front-row seat.” She gives an errant middle finger to the void. “If he wants to be mister martyr, poor Laszlo staying behind to do whatever it is he wants to do, then okay! I love him, but I don’t need him. I didn’t turn him because I was so desperately, horribly lonely, you know.”

Guillermo nods. “I think Nandor’s the opposite. He’ll just–” he lets out a breath through his teeth, “bitch about how nobody really cares about him, and everyone is gonna leave him one day, and then tell said everyone to fuck off! It’s like he thinks if you kick all your dogs enough, the ones that come back really love you, which…” He trails off, the fucked-up-ed-ness of that sentiment already clear. “That’s not how this works.”

“Hm,” says Nadja quietly. “You have changed quite a bit these few years.”

“Twelve is actually a lot in a human lifespan, but yeah, sure,” Guillermo mutters in reply. Nadja snorts.

“They won’t seem so after he turns you.” At the raise of an eyebrow, she says, “Oh please, he was serious. You’ve got him all lovey-dovey whining ever since you kicked his arse. He likes a challenge.” Nadja unfolds her arms and adjusts her skirts, stubbing the toe of one boot on the gravel. “You weren’t at first, but now you’ve got your big boy tools and your overgrown splinters, and look at mister hot-shot. Brava.”

“I thought about it sometimes,” he confesses, scratching at the space under his shirt where his crucifix rests. “Just… opening the window and chucking him into the sunlight. Only when he really, really pissed me off, but it never clicked that I actually could until my genealogy had to up and tell me.”

“Lucky for him,” Nadja drawls. “He’s deserved it a time or two.”

“Yeah.” A beat of cool night air, then, “I guess you’d kinda have to be a little messed up to love a vampire. Psychologically speaking.”

“Blegh. Subjective.”

The thought refuses to dissipate, burrowing into his brain and holding up a little orange sign reading “YOU WILL CERTAINLY COME BACK TO THIS AT SOME INCONVENIENT POINT”, which of course happens to be the moment they arrive at a dock in Tikrit overlooking the Tigris, perpendicular from the airport Guillermo had noted so optimistically in his travel planner, only to see not Nandor on the other side but Laszlo, who immediately makes the horrible mistake of shouting, “Bat!” and hurling himself across the river.

“Convenient dumping ground,” muses Nadja.

“Yep,” says Guillermo, watching the tiny black speck flit in and out of view against the moonless sky. “I’m definitely a horrible person for what I’m about to do to this guy.”

Lie #4: He kisses you in the moonlight. Which, to be honest, is the kind of cliche you deserve at this fucking point.

Once upon a time there was a tall, tall tower in the middle of the forest, choked on all sides by twisting thorns and vines. Inside the tower, legend told, lived a handsome prince with beautiful long raven hair, and deep, dark eyes, and tits you could break pasta on. None had ever seen him, for the tower was so expertly protected, but it was said whoever could scale its walls would win his hand for eternity.

While embarking on his travels, a young knight by the name of Señor Guillermo de la Cruz came upon a large stone cliff. He spied atop it an even taller structure, nearly green from the tendrils that cloaked it, and surmised that this must be the home of the fabled prince. As he was currently unwed, and getting really tired of his amá and tías and sisters and one brother, which was honestly kind of the worst of all, asking when he was going to meet a nice boy and settle down, he decided to scale it and ask the prince to be his groom.

The cliff was steep and sharp, providing few handholds for him to climb. Señor Guillermo cut his hands on the sharp rocks, and sucked in lungfuls of grit and dust, and generally just had a really shit time, thanks. When he reached the top, he pulled himself over the ledge and sighed with relief. Then, he noticed the moat.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” said he.

Taking a deep breath, Señor Guillermo dove into the freezing waters. The raging current, seemingly coming from nowhere but rushing against him all the same, tossed him about this way and that. Icy waves filled his mouth, nose, and ears. He even felt a little bit of lakeweed brush against his bare leg, and that was really gross.

Finally, after much struggling, he reached the other side and thrashed onto the banks. Señor Guillermo collected himself, squeezed the water from his clothes, and circled the tower to search for a set of stairs. A ladder. Anything, please.

When none appeared, Señor Guillermo very tactfully screamed into his helmet and began his second climb of the day. This one was even steeper and more perilous than the last, made all the more difficult by the large rocks that tumbled down from the single window just above him.

Some doorstep, thought he. That’s gotta be several centuries under repair.

Señor Guillermo heaved a final ho and hoisted himself through the window. He tumbled onto the dusty stone floor, took a brief fifteen minute rest, then got to his feet and combed his hair back with his fingers.

“Hello?” he called out, “Fair prince? I have forged your moat, scaled your cliff and tower walls, and traveled far and yonder to ask thee: would you want to maybe grab dinner sometime? Or coffee, if that’s, like, too formal too fast. No pressure.”

From the shadows surged a dark shape, lightning-fast in it’s quickness. A man threw himself at Señor Guillermo, wielding a scintar of gleaming blade and wicked point. Señor Guillermo drew his own sword in a flash, blocking the man’s blow and throwing himself into this final challenge. For hours, days it seemed, they danced around the tower in perfect stalemate, blades swinging in harmony as equals in battle. Señor Guillermo was weary from his trials, but determined to see his journey through, in accordance with the sunk-cost fallacy as first proposed by Richard Thaler.

As both men’s strength began to give out, Señor Guillermo saw an opening. With a flick of his wrist and a swish of his sword, he pinned the other man to the floor and set the point at his throat.

It was only then did he realize that this was the most beautiful person he had ever seen.

“Hooray!” said his assailant, grinning like a loon. “You solved my tower puzzle! Do you have a ride, or will we need to go see if my horse has been slaughtered by the locals?”

“What the fuck?” queried Señor Guilermo. He set his sword aside and sat down, putting his head between his knees and taking deep, soothing breaths. “You were the one who set up all those death traps? You threw rocks at me?”

“Yes!” The prince clapped his hands together delightedly. Señor Guillermo threw up a little in his mouth, but was very brave about it.

“Do you not even want to get married?!”

“But of course!” exclaimed the prince. “I simply had to ensure that whoever won my hand truly desired it!”

“By trying to make sure that nobody ever even gets to your front yard?”

The prince nodded. “Yes. Now I know you will truly love me, for even as I bid you away time and time again, you still persisted and pursued me! Isn’t it romantic?”

Señor Guillermo rubbed his hands over his face and longed with much heartiness for a beer. “Right. Okay. I’m taking you home with me, but before we even look at wedding rings, you’re going to therapy.”

Guillermo figures there are a lot of ways this could go. He could put Laszlo in a coffin and fill it with cement. He could bind the vampire in blessed chains of rosary beads (although unfortunately, he would probably enjoy that a little too much). He could kick him in the dick a billion and one times, then sic Sir Babygirl (the hellhound) on him.

In the end, classic was key, and a good stake shoved down the gullet and out the cervix never goes out of style.

Guillermo drives the heel currently holding Laszlo down to the ground harder into his back. His stake’s point is mere centimeters away from the man’s wincing lips, hand deadly steady. His free hand is wrapped in a chunky rosary, wooden beads burning into the flesh of Laszlo’s wrists. The air smells like burning rot. Guillermo leans in close and snarls.

“Give me one reason not to shove this down your throat. C’mon, I know you’ve been thinking of them. One reason.”

Laszlo takes a risk and grits out, “Gizmo–” but Guillermo presses the rosary further until he hears a wheeze of pain.

From several feet away, Nadja calls out, “Remember! You promised to only kill him a little bit! Red means stop, Guillermo!”

She’s not calling colors just yet, so he continues, voice high and a little hysterical, “Now I’m gonna need two reasons! Ten. Nine. Eight–”

He never finishes, though, because there are wingbeats and a twinge in the back of his mind, and Guillermo sees a tall, dark figure appear at the foot of the dock. The rot is suddenly mixed with a sweeter tang; decay and incense to cover it up. He lets the rosary fall from his slack hand.

“Guillermo,” says Nandor, like there is no city behind them, no other eyes widening in shock, just two people in the dark on the banks of a river that was supposed to be theirs.

“Oh good,” says Laszlo, “it all worked out, then. Would you please remove that very troubling phallic object from the vicinity of my mouth?”

“Shut the fuck up,” breathes Guillermo, hardly listening. He lets go of Laszlo completely, rising to walk towards the wood’s edge. It’s Nandor. Hair a mess, cloak covered in dust, eyes two pinpricks as if he hasn’t fed in ages.

“I’m so sorry,” Guillermo begins, “I was there– I was gonna meet you, but Laszlo trapped me in his coffin, and Nadja had to hijack the boat, and we crashed into Lebanon–” just as Nandor says in a small, neat little voice, “Hi.”

Guillermo freezes. “Uh. Hi. Long time no see.”

“I didn’t think– I had hoped you would realize–” A speck of the tenderness on Nandor’s face falls away, and he huffs. “Good. I see you are not a complete imbecile when it comes to tracking your target.”

“Yeah, no,” says Guillermo. “You had my planner.”

Nandor looks away, palor flickering, and Guillermo realizes the correct term is actually have. He feels a funny surge of something in his chest.

“You came,” he says, a continuation of confounding facts. “I thought you thought I left you.” More silence. “You did. Why?”

Nandor shuffles his feet, a dog accused of sleeping on the couch while you were away. He keeps looking at Guillermo’s face, his neck, his eyes and chest and shoes. Like this is suddenly real, a real thing he’s done that he didn’t think he’d get to reap the rewards of.

“Oh,” says Guillermo, “oh wow. Okay. Big moment. Not expecting that.”

A smile pulls at one corner of Nandor’s mouth. “A fatal mistake. Always assume your enemy carries the element of surprise.”

Guillermo snorts; an ugly laugh, “Your move, Master,” and winds the front of Nandor’s cloak in one hand before pulling him down and kissing him. It’s a little weird, with the fangs. Thank God. Imagine if, after all this, anything about it was normal?

Lie #5: He didn’t wait for you. Because he did. At least, in the way that matters.