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For the third time this week, the house meeting has devolved into a shouting match between Nandor and Guillermo on issues of the vampire’s safety.
“You can’t keep going out on Council errands without me!” Guillermo repeats for what must be the tenth time that evening.
“You cannot dictate what I can and cannot do!” snaps Nandor in return. “I am the leader—“
“—co-leader,” interrupts Nadja.
“Co-leader of the vampiric council, as well as your master, and all will tremble in my wake!”
“And is that why I got a panicked ether message last night about a strange creature following you because you went out alone—“
“It was a potential serious threat!”
“IT WAS A PLASTIC BAG!” Guillermo throws his arms up in exasperation. “And you would have known that if you had taken me with you!”
“Come on, roomies,” Colin Robinson interjects before Nandor can retort. “You’re just gonna keep having this argument over and over again — and believe me, I don’t really mind for now, it’s delicious, but eventually it will start to go stale. You really gotta get to the root of the problem.”
Every face in the room turns to him.
“And what is that, Colin Robinson?” asks Nandor.
“You two just need to bone,” he says as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Nadja’s doll immediately offers a disgusted “Ew” from her spot on the couch next to Nadja.
Guillermo flushes and squeaks. “Wh—what did you just say?”
“I said you two need to bone.” Colin Robinson shrugs. “Get it all out of your systems.”
Guillermo remains wide-eyed and silent, but Nandor seems to swell to nearly twice his size with his rage.
“HOW DARE YOU, COLIN ROBINSON!” he roars. “I AM THE LEADER OF THIS HOUSEHOLD.”
“There might actually be something to that, my good man,” Laszlo offers. “The sexual tension between the two of you is thick enough to cut with a knife these days.”
“Where I may or may not stick my penis is none of your business!” Nandor barks before turning back to Colin Robinson. “BONE!?!?”
Guillermo is still struggling to form a full sentence, stray words coming out in Spanish, but it’s Nandor’s thundering that has everyone’s full attention, all about how Colin Robinson has no right to make such statements, while Colin Robinson’s eyes begin to glow a more and more intense blue.
It shouldn’t be a surprise when Nandor passes out and hits the library couch, but Nadja cries out, and Guillermo’s slayer instincts lead him to whip a stake in the direction of the threat — that is, Colin Robinson.
“Not cool!” Colin Robinson exclaims, looking at the wall behind him where the stake has lodged itself.
When he turns back to the rest of the room, he has a much too-bushy mustache.
“Fucking hell, Colin,” says Laszlo with a touch of fascination. “You got that much energy from Nandor ?”
“He was really mad.” Colin Robinson grins widely, the mustache hiding his top row of teeth. “Thank him for me when he wakes up.”
“And when will that be?” asks Guillermo with a hint of danger to his voice.
“Oh, a couple hours, tops.” Colin Robinson hops up from his chair and heads to the doorway. “After that meal, I need a nap. And a shave. Later, gators!”
When Colin Robinson is gone, Guillermo turns to the other two vampires and the doll.
“Will you guys help me get Nandor to his crypt?” he asks.
“Fuck no,” scoffs Laszlo. “Not to his crypt, at least. You two are going to the basement.”
“We’re what !?” Guillermo asks, incredulous.
“Colin Robinson does have a point with what he said. The two of you need to take care of whatever this is—“ He gestures vaguely to the space between Nador and Guillermo. “—before you drive us ‘round the twist.”
“If you think I’m going to willingly take Nandor downstairs into the cage and stay there with him—“
“You will submit to my dark power, Gizmo.” Laszlo’s voice has dropped and he’s waggling his fingers. “You will move Nandor into the basement, and you will not be a whiny little shit about it.”
Guillermo clenches his jaw for a moment, but his shoulders sag in defeat when he realizes that now is not the time to tell the vampires that hypnosis doesn’t work on him, not if he doesn’t want to end up in the cage alone.
He reaches down and heaves Nandor’s body over his shoulder.
Once they’re in the cage with the door securely fastened and Nandor sprawled unconscious on the camp bed, Laszlo waves his hand again and says, “End hypnosis.”
Guillermo puts on a show of being shocked that he’s in the cage.
“Wait a minute,” Nadja’s doll says. “You’re not going to make them bone?”
Laszlo looks positively scandalized.
“I say!” he exclaims. “What kind of household do you think we run here!?”
“It was just a question,” replies the doll, equally affronted.
“To her point,” Laszlo continues, looking at Guillermo. “I don’t give a fuck what you choose to do down here, but by the time you ring that bell, you had both better be either well-fought or well-fucked. Or dead.”
“You will be in private down here, away from all of us so we don’t have to hear any disgusting sex noises,” Nadja adds. “It’s your chance to show that big stupid donkey who’s really the boss.”
“Gross, but she’s not wrong,” says the doll.
“Please get out,” Guillermo says, pinching the bridge of his nose under his glasses.
“If you want my advice,” Laszlo begins.
“I’ll start reciting the rosary if I have to.”
The conscious vampires all hiss.
“No need to bring out the profanity! Let us depart to our own boudoir, my good lady wife.”
“Leave me in the library, please,” Nadja’s doll says as they head up the stairs.
Guillermo sighs and sits on the floor of the cage, grateful that he cleaned it with bleach recently, and pulls out his phone. Maybe he can fit in a couple episodes of Bake-Off before Nandor wakes up.
Nandor awakens on the camp bed three hours later, and his yell of “BONE!?!?” is so loud that the cage walls rattle.
“Guillermo?” he asks, sitting up and looking around. He finds his bodyguard sitting in a nearby corner, hurriedly stuffing his cellular telephone machine into his pocket. “What the fuck are we doing in here?”
“Laszlo and Nadja have decided that we need to stay in here until we work out our differences — whatever that may look like.”
Nandor’s lip curls up in a sneer. “They want us to… bone ?” He grimaces at the word.
“Or kill each other. They’re not fussy which one it is.”
“And you didn’t fight them on this?”
“I was…compelled to come down here,” Guillermo grits out. There’s a flash of understanding in Nandor’s eyes as he remembers the quadruple hypnosis. “We can get out, though — I checked and the hole that I have in here is still good, no one has found it yet and I never fixed it, so we can sneak back upstairs and —“
“We will do no such thing,” Nandor says firmly.
Guillermo blinks.
“We…won’t? You want to stay down here?”
“I do not approve of Colin Robinson’s language, but he is not wrong that there are things we must resolve between us.”
“Fine.” Guillermo stands and pulls a stake from his bandolier and holds it out in one hand. With the other hand, he unbuttons the top button of his vest. “You pick how we’re gonna fix it.”
Nandor jumps up from the bed, eyes going wide in panic.
“I…I didn’t say we should do either of those!”
“Should we talk about our feelings instead, then?”
“I would rather not.”
“Then what ?”
Guillermo begins to step towards Nandor slowly. When they’re less than a foot apart, Nandor reaches for the stake in Guillermo’s hand. Guillermo’s breath catches as Nandor takes it, looks at it, and drops it to the floor.
“I do not want to fight you, Guillermo,” he says, voice low.
“I don’t want to fight you either, Nandor.” Guillermo resumes moving towards the vampire, who backs up until his knees hit the edge of the camp bed and he falls back into a sitting position, back against the cage. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“I know.” When Guillermo cups the side of his head and pushes his fingers into Nandor’s hair, he sighs and leans into the touch. “I will try to be better at letting you do it.”
“Thank you.”
Now straddling Nandor’s lap, Guillermo tightens the fingers already in the vampire’s hair and kisses him hard.
Two days later, the documentary crew has Guillermo and Nandor in the fancy room together for a talking head. Guillermo sits politely upright on the couch, while Nandor lounges next to him like an extremely satisfied cat.
“Yeah. Um.” Guillermo blushes slightly as Nandor’s fingers play with the curls at the base of his neck. “It worked.”