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The dog days of summer were well and truly here. Guillermo couldn’t say that out loud without being yelled at for encouraging werewolves, but whether he said it or not, it was true. And like every year before, it was awful.
The vampires hated being stuck in their coffins during the long summer days, and when they finally got out they were grumpy and overtired. It was normal for them to spend the whole night lazing around, draped across the furniture, moaning and groaning.
As much as Guillermo loved dressing Nandor, he liked it a little less in the summer. Nandor stayed bundled up in practically the same clothes year-round, perhaps forgoing a fur-trimmed cloak for something slightly lighter in summer - a heavy velvet with no trim. Looking at Nandor made him feel hot - more so than usual, anyway.
They never even seemed to want to go out and hunt. The only thing that saved Guillermo was that it seemed to be so much easier to convince people to make bad decisions when the weather wasn’t freezing.
Guillermo couldn’t quite understand their reluctance to leave in the summer. With the windows all sealed up tight, the air inside the house was always still and dead. The summer just made it even hotter, like someone had locked them in an oven. Plus, on a humid night like tonight you could practically swim through the halls.
The last few nights he had found excuses to leave, to take advantage of the tiny breeze in the streets of Staten Island. But tonight Nandor insisted he dig around in the basement, looking for one specific dagger that he wanted to…wear, maybe? He honestly hadn’t been very clear.
No matter what, after extracting a very vague description of the lost object (“it has a jeweled hilt, Guillermo, extra jewel-y”) he loyally trudged down to the basement to see what he could find. Somehow, despite being underground, it felt even warmer down here
As he wiped the sweat from his brow, Guillermo dug through yet another box labeled with Nandor’s name. This one didn’t contain any weapons, but a jumble of clackety old fans. They were made of something fancy, but the smooth sheen didn’t feel like any wood he knew. When he unfolded one to examine it further, he saw that the whole surface was covered in an elaborate work of art, like a little painting. People in robes and dresses in front of a series of columns and statues. He was surprised that the colours were still so bright after all this time. Maybe it wasn’t as old as it looked?
The heavy material and elaborate art told him it was old and fancy. Like most of the things the vampires couldn’t get rid of, it was probably worth thousands of dollars by now. But also it had been abandoned in a box for decades along with dozens of others. Sliding it open carefully, Guillermo waved it in the direction of his face, and the woosh of the air sliding over his skin made him sigh.
Hey, if he collapsed from heat stroke down here, the vampires would have a whole new set of problems. They probably wouldn’t begrudge him one fan, no matter how valuable it might be.
—
A few hours later, Guillermo was sitting on the edge of his cot, trying to take advantage of his break to cool down a bit. By the time he had come back upstairs with a few possible knives, Nandor had apparently forgotten why he had needed the dagger in the first place, taking Guillermo’s options with a vague air of confusion.
Fifteen minutes wasn’t really enough time to take a cool shower; that would come when Nandor was tucked away to coffin. For the moment, Guillermo had undone the top few buttons of the short-sleeve shirt he wore in deference to the heat. Head hanging low between his knees, he desperately fanned himself. He had an odd flashback to making paper fans with his classmates in 2nd grade, only to be told by Mr. Wilson that the effort they expended waving them made them hotter than the fans could cool them down. He was pretty sure that was bullshit, though - the teacher probably just didn’t want the rustling of 30 pieces of paper.
More importantly, he kinda felt like dying, so the temporary relief was worth it.
The alarm indicating his break was up went off on his phone and he quickly silenced it, needing to just sit here for another moment. He folded up the fan, fiddling with it in his hands, before dropping his head again, resting the handle against his lips. He would get up in a second; he just needed to gather some energy.
“Guillermo!
The curtain came flying back with Nandor’s petulant whine. But when Guillermo found the strength to tip his head back, Nandor didn’t look annoyed. If he was being honest, Nandor looked like someone had slapped him across the face. Hard.
After a moment, Nandor schooled his features into a more typical glower.
“What are you doing with that, Guillermo? That is not a toy for naughty familiars to play with!” Stepping closer, Nandor snatched the fan out of Guillermo’s hands. “This is very special, given to me by the Queen of Laszlo’s homeland.” He clutched it close to his chest, cradling it carefully. Shit it must have been worth more than Guillermo thought.
Sighing as the oppressively warm air made itself known again, Guillermo struggled to his feet.
“I’m sorry, Master. I shouldn’t have touched it.” Cut off for a moment by Nandor’s harumph, Guillermo continued, “What did you need my help with?”
Nandor seemed shell-shocked for a moment. “Oh! Yes. I would like to have a cooling bath. Come attend me.”
“Of course, Master.”
—
Unfortunately, the heatwave still hadn’t broken by the next night, and Guillermo was stuck inside again. He’d been avoiding the dusting for too long while trying to escape to the cooler air, and Nadja had fake sneezed pointedly a few times last night. It just wasn’t worth the lecture.
The shelves in the library were such a task, and the cloud of dust the work kicked up was always awful. Which was why he was so shocked when Nandor flounced into the room and threw himself down on one of the couches. If it wasn’t a dusting task that required his help, like the chandelier, he never liked to be around. He said sneezing was beneath him, and that he didn’t appreciate the assault on his royal nasal passages.
He turned to look at Nandor, to see if he needed anything, but the vampire was studiously ignoring him, so Guillermo shrugged and continued with his work. Hopefully Nandor wasn’t just in there to criticize him, but if he was, Guillermo would deal with that too.
Pulling each book out to wipe the top surface before replacing it, he kept working his way down one shelf at a time. A lot of newbie familiars didn’t realize dust could accumulate in the shelf too.
After a while, he realized could feel Nandor’s eyes boring into the back of his head. It was silent, too - he must be holding his breath to avoid the dust. Guillermo let himself finish the bottom of the shelf, before struggling back to his feet, knees aching.
“Master, is there something I can help you with?” He turned around to find Nandor laying on the couch in a way that he could only describe as posed. Laid out like some fainting maiden, Nandor was holding that fancy fan from yesterday. He had it in his left hand, as his right was draped out on his forehead as if overcome. Spread out to show off that painting, Nandor was delicately fluttering the fan with practiced little motions.
At Guillermo’s words, Nandor finally flicked his eyes from where they had been fixed in the middle distance to Guillermo’s face. But rather than responding, he shifted, looking significantly at the fan, then back up at Guillermo.
“Oh, sorry Master, are you too warm? I could go get one of the box fans - that will help, right?” It would kick up the dust terribly, but it would probably be better than a whiny Nandor.
Instead of sending him off on the task, Nandor merely huffed, and raised the fan to cover his face, ducking under it.
Guillermo waited a moment to see if Nandor would give him any other clue, but no. He just laid there hidden. “So…no box fan? Would you rather have another bath?”
At Guillermo’s words, Nandor finally resurfaced. He looked frustrated, but Guillermo couldn’t figure out why.
“Or is there something else I can do for you, Master? We could maybe take off some of your layers?” Guillermo gestured to Nandor’s shoulders, where he was wearing the heavy velvet cloak he had had Guillermo dress him in that evening.
“No, Guillermo, that will not be needed.” The tone of annoyance was worrying, but he also got up and headed towards the door. “You finish your dusty-dusting. Make sure not to disturb any of the spider houses.” At that, he swept out of the room and was gone.
Guillermo wondered if he should follow after Nandor, but really, Nandor would let him know if he was mad. The vampire didn’t exactly keep his feelings close to his chest. With so much to do in the house, Guillermo really had to pick his battles.
Sighing, he turned back to the shelves to finish his dusting.
—
With the dusting finished last night, Guillermo figured he could escape outside again and not feel too bad about it. The heat of the night air was still oppressive, but there was a brisk breeze making it pretty nice for this time of year. Guillermo had decided to pre-dig a couple of graves. If he could get them all done while the breeze was blowing, he wouldn’t have to when it was boiling.
He was halfway through the second one, waist-deep in the dirt when he heard Nandor calling him from the porch. Guillermo looked down at himself - god, he was gross . Covered in dirt, with sweat sticking his t-shirt to his back and belly. But there really wasn’t much to be done about it at this point.
“I’m in the yard, Master!” he yelled for Nandor to hear. “Just doing some….gardening!”
He probably should be going to Nandor, but it was just so much effort to crawl out of the hole. If Nandor really wanted something, he was perfectly capable of making his needs known. He paused for a moment, listening carefully, but after no reply from Nandor, he shrugged and returned to his digging.
It was when he turned around to pull himself out of the finished grave (he’d learned long ago that digging a six foot hole when you were under that height yourself was way too much trouble. And four and a half feet worked just as well with no coffin) that he realized Nandor had snuck his way out and was perched carefully on the edge of the well. Legs crossed daintily, he had that ridiculous fan with him again.
He seemed to be struggling to control it in the brisk wind, but when Guillermo made eye contact, Nandor redoubled his efforts. He had it in his left hand again, which was odd, because he usually led with his right hand. He took a moment to fan himself with it, staring at Guillermo intensely the entire time. Then, as if he was trying to communicate something important, he slid the fan closed and tapped one thick finger to the top of the closed fan.
Guillermo had no idea what was going on, but he finished hauling himself out of the grave, dusting his hands on his pants.
“Is there something you needed, Master? I’m sorry I didn’t come when you called.”
“No, that is okay-a, Guillermo.” Nandor’s eyes darted away for a moment, almost as if he were shy. “I was just wondering…”
As he trailed off, he looked down at the fan in his hands. Slowly he slid it open to show off the art again, and then snapped it closed with a snick . He was still sitting, so as Guillermo walked closer, Nandor was actually looking up at him for once.
“Just wondering, if perhaps….you…..” His words trailing off, he presented the shut fan to Guillermo, handing it up to him. Guillermo paused for a moment, waiting to see if Nandor would finish his sentence, but it seemed like nothing more was forthcoming.
“Did you want me to clean your fan, Master? I could give it a polish, if you like?” Guillermo had no idea what was going through Nandor’s head the last few days, but it was rare he handed something to Guillermo that he didn’t want polished.
With a sigh, Nandor’s shoulders dropped. “Very well, Guillermo. Please ensure you polish it carefully. Mother-of-pearl is very delicate.” Guillermo grasped the closed fan, but Nandor didn’t let go yet. Still holding the other end of the fan, Nandor stood up to his full height, once more looking down at Guillermo. It connected them for a moment, Guillermo wishing he could understand what was going on in that head.
But the moment broke and Nandor turned away. By the time Guillermo’s eyes followed him, the tail end of his cape was flicking around the edge of the fence.
—
Guillermo appreciated that Nandor had clarified the mother-of-pearl surface, because it let him know what to Google for the appropriate care. He ran out during the day to an uncomfortably fancy jewelers to get some pearl cleaner. Somehow on a random Tuesday afternoon there were three couples ring shopping.
As he waited to be cashed out, he couldn’t help overhear one pair whispering sweet nothings to each other.
“This is too much, Ramin. You’re being ridiculous.”
“David, baby. It took so long for us to find each other, but it’s forever. This ring is worth forever .”
People being romantic around him always made Guillermo feel weird, so he dashed out as quickly as he could.
Despite how much he had to do that day, he spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning the fan, working in the pearl cleaner carefully, before wiping it away with the soft cloth the jeweler had sold him as well. He even dug up a clean toothbrush to carefully dust the painting and all the crevices.
Weirdly proud of his efforts, he left it on a velvet cloth on Nandor’s dresser, for him to find later.
—
Guillermo had spent so much time on the fan during the day that he had to finish up scrubbing the cell that evening. Nandor had barely glanced at the fan as Guillermo woke and dressed him, so he wrote it off as a loss, just another weird attachment Nandor periodically developed to his old stuff. Guillermo must have been imagining the significance.
He was on hands and knees, humming along to the Carly Rae Jepsen blaring through his headphones and scrubbing a particularly caked-in blood stain on the bottom of the cell, when SLAM! The door to the dungeon burst open, and a very inebriated Laszlo and Nadja fell through.
Guillermo’s heart leapt into his throat at the shock, and his reflexes kicked into action, throwing him to face the door in a low fighting stance, a stake appearing in his hand from God-only-knew. Nadja and Laszlo were equally frozen, likely with the terror of a murderous vampire slayer where they only expected a late-night snack.
But in facing each other, they all incidentally were facing Nandor, who, unbeknownst to Guillermo had snuck into the cell behind him, and was standing halfway down the stairs. He, too, was frozen. But somehow his pose seemed even odder. He had the closed fan back in his hand, the tip of it against his cheek.
They all stared at each other for a moment in shock, until finally Laszlo and Nadja dissolved into giggles.
Guillermo’s body came off of high alert, and he dropped the stake, before it ended up somewhere dangerous. Nandor seemingly finished the motion he had been in the middle of, drawing the fan across his cheek, and then dropping his hand down to his side, almost hiding the fan underneath his cape.
“My good man!” Laszlo’s voice boomed out, far louder than it needed to be. “Did you just say what I think you said?”
Nandor jumped again, turning to face Nadja and Laszlo, looking for all the world like a dog who had been caught doing something naughty.
“He did!” Nadja’s cackle echoed around the small space. “What secrets are you telling sweet little Guillermo down here?”
Nandor didn’t even speak, throwing Laszlo and Nadja a glowering look. He lifted his hand out from where it had hid in his cape and tapped his left ear with the fan.
“Oh really? That’s all you have to say to your dear friends?” In Laszlo’s drunken state he practically stumbled off his feet at his aghast reaction. “We almost brought you home someone drunk on an excellent tequila. I am so very happy we didn’t!”
With the tone of a threat, Nandor dropped the fan to rest in his empty palm, curling it closed and drawing the fan through his hand.
Nadja reacted as if she’d been slapped, gasping dramatically. “ Άι γαμήσου how dare you?!” She flew forward, claws raised, and Guillermo lunged, out of the cell and halfway across the dungeon in the second it took for Laszlo to loop an arm around her waist to hold her back.
“Come my darling, you know I promised to do that thing you like with my tongue and I want to do it while we’re still buzzed.” Laszlo’s purr was disgusting to listen to, but it seemed to be working to calm Nadja’s ire. “We’ll leave this bellend to his pining.”
With that, the two swept back up the stairs, leaving Guillermo incredibly confused. Had they been talking through the ether? That didn’t make sense. Why would Nadja and Laszlo have spoken out loud? It’s not like they ever wanted to include him if they could help it. He turned to Nandor, who was looking down at his hands, now both clasped around the fan, shoulders raised as if he were caught out.
“Master, what was that all about? Were you all talking somehow?”
“Don’t listen to those drunkards. Laszlo always talks shit on alcohol blood. Not that much of what he says sober is useful either.” Nandor sounded frustrated, but he finally looked up from his hands, making eye contact with Guillermo.
“Was there something you wanted me to know?” Guillermo felt off-kilter from the oddness of the interaction, and the strangely earnest look on Nandor’s face.
“Guillermo, you- you did a good job cleaning my fan.” With a resolved nod, Nandor skittered out of the dungeon himself, clearly trying to escape the conversation.
More confused than ever, Guillermo trudged back inside the cell. That stain wouldn’t scrub itself, and at least Carly made sense.
—
Guillermo had been trying to sleep for hours, but he found himself tossing and turning on his tiny cot. The space between him and Nandor had felt so charged the last few days. He had mostly been able to brush it off as an unholy combination of his overactive imagination and the heat. But tonight ruined that. Now Nadja and Laszlo seemed to think something was happening too.
Their words echoed in his head - “secrets” and “pining.” He laughed at his own ridiculousness. Who would Nandor be pining over? Him ? They were probably ether-talking about some old girlfriend.
And yet, he still couldn’t sleep, so he slipped his glasses on and pulled his phone to his face, still plugged into the charger. All this weirdness had started the day he found the fan, so he tried ‘fan talking’ first, which turned up nothing. He felt ridiculous, but he wasn’t a quitter, and it's not like a google search was all that much effort. After a few more tries he stumbled on to ‘fan language.’ And that- that was something .
He rolled over so he could read properly, phone at the tip of his nose, desperately trying to remember what he had seen Nandor do over the last few days. As he read more and more, he felt like he was going insane. None of this could be right. But it made sense, and it even filled the gaps in Nandor’s conversation with Laszlo and Nadja.
Finally, he flopped back, dropping his phone. He wanted nothing more than to dash down the hallway and tear open Nandor’s coffin to insist he explain himself. But what if Guillermo had it wrong? It seemed ridiculous that after all these years Nandor could really have feelings for him. It was something out of Guillermo’s fantasies, not real life. He took his glasses off, rubbing his face and staring up at the ceiling, feeling like he was on the precipice of something completely unknown.
—
The alarm blared through Guillermo’s sleep-deprived mind, pulling him painfully to wakefulness. What a weird dream he had just had. As if Nandor would ever say- fuck . There, as he cleared the alarm, was the page he had read last night. And the words were still there, clear in the blue glow of his phone ‘Drawing across cheek……I love you.’
It was probably nothing, but if it wasn’t…
He had developed a crush on Nandor within about two minutes of meeting him in the alleyway behind Panera Bread. He’d nursed the flame since then, despite Nandor’s many many attempts to douse it with cruelty and idiocy and just plain apathy. It still flickered away in his chest, and really had only grown since then. Guillermo refused to call it love, because that was too depressing but- well, if Nandor’s fan language was true, perhaps it wasn’t as sad as Guillermo had thought?
Guillermo needed a way to test the waters back. He slipped off his bed to dig around for the sketchbook buried under his mattress. The vampires were snoopy, and he didn’t want them to find this one. The pages were a nice thick paper - it had been a Christmas gift from his mamá years ago. He flipped to the back, where he hadn’t yet filled the book with sketches of the members of the household (mostly Nandor, if he was honest) and carefully ripped out a page. After he slipped the book away, he folded it up, flashbacks to second grade be damned.
With the paper fan in hand, he grabbed his phone again, inspecting the list of translations and practicing the movements to try to memorize them. He wasn’t as smooth as Nandor had been, with his delicate mother-of-pearl antique, but after a while, he felt like he had the motions well in hand enough to make himself clear.
Just in time to go wake Nandor up, he slipped the fan in his back pocket, hoping it wasn’t too obvious. He would just have to find the right time to try and communicate back.
—
Finally, he found his chance just after he finished vacuuming the entire entrance hall, which was surprisingly sweaty work when it was still this hot. He left the vacuum in the hall, and slipped out onto the front porch to rest in the cooler air for a second, only to find Nandor standing in the yard near Nadja’s topiary. He was staring up at the moon, idly fanning himself. There was a rut in the dry lawn that looked like he’d been pacing for hours
As Guillermo sat down on the top stair, Nandor started from his reverie, and looked ready to give Guillermo shit (Nandor learning ‘if you have time to lean, you have time to clean’ was possibly the worst thing to ever happen to Guillermo). But when Guillermo slipped his fan out of his pocket, Nandor paused before he got a word out, mouth hanging open.
He folded it open to fan himself for a moment, just to make sure Nandor caught what it was, then carefully, obviously, folded it back up and brought his finger up to tap the end. For all that he felt like a ridiculous E.T., it seemed to be working. Nandor was stock still, watching his hands like a cat who’d spotted a bird. That one was supposed to be ‘I wish to speak to you ,’ if the random website Guillermo had found was correct. Nandor hadn’t said a word yet, but Guillermo certainly had his attention, so he decided to try the next of the phrases he had memorized.
Hand only shaking a little bit, Guillermo lifted the fan to his forehead and drew it across, hoping it wouldn’t get too gross from the sweat he could feel collecting on his brow; from the humidity of the night air and from Nandor’s burning gaze. That was ‘you have changed’ - Guillermo was desperately hoping Nandor understood it as a compliment, or at least an acknowledgement of Nandor’s recent behavior.
There! Nandor snapped his fan closed with a motion, but then ever so slowly, he raised it to his face to tap gently on his right cheek. YES! That meant yes! Guillermo could feel himself getting giddy.
Taking a deep breath, he stood up and walked closer to Nandor, stopping just in front of him on the lawn. He tried the next phrase he had learned, the one that scared him the most. He held out his paper fan, offering it to Nandor, as Nandor had done to him days before.
‘Do you love me?’
The paper wobbled gently in the air between them as Guillermo’s hand shook more than ever. He finally tore his eyes up to look at Nandor, but Nandor’s were downcast, fixed on the fan in Guillermo’s hand.
It felt like slow-motion when Nandor finally reached out to take the fan from Guillermo and raised it to his face. His eyes caught on Guillermo’s and a boom broke the quiet night air. It sounded like the world was coming apart, but Guillermo couldn’t care less as Nandor carefully drew the fan across his cheek.
‘I love you’
Static filled Guillermo’s ears, and it took a moment for him to realize it was rain. Finally the heat had snapped, and they were being pelted in a heavy summer storm. But Nandor wasn’t running, so neither would he. Getting more soaked by the second, Nandor tried to raise Guillermo’s fan, but even the heavy paper couldn’t withstand the rain. Dropping the mush with a look of disgust, Nandor lifted his own mother-of-pearl fan to his face. As Guillermo had unknowingly before, with both of them understanding this time, he tapped the fan to his lips. Once, twice.
Perhaps there would have been a third, but before it could happen Guillermo had gone up on tiptoes to wrap his arms around Nandor’s neck and pull him down into a kiss.
It was messy, noses clashing as the rain ran down their faces. And yet Guillermo couldn’t find any way to care. Nandor tipped his head, slotting them together better, his tongue darting out to brush the seam of Guillermo’s lips. As Guillermo opened them, a delicate little moan escaped from the back of his throat. This only served to invigorate Nandor, and he dove in hungrily, beard scratching at Guillermo’s face and hands coming up to grasp Guillermo’s hips through his soaking wet shirt. He pulled back only enough to nibble at Guillermo’s lips. There was a sharp pain as one of Nandor’s fangs broke the skin of Guillermo’s lip and he pulled back reflexively.
Nandor stood a hairsbreadth away, panting unnecessarily. His hair slicked to his cheeks and his drenched tunic plastered to his chest only made Guillermo want him more. But he also didn’t want any accidents swallowing the water that was still streaming down on them, so he grasped Nandor’s hand and pulled him safely under the overhang of the porch.
He should probably get them inside and dried off, but that would come soon enough. Right now Guillermo needed to see if he could make Nandor let out any fun noises of his own. Nandor sucked Guillermo’s lip into his mouth, tasting the little bit of blood from the cut and the low moan that rumbled up from his chest had Guillermo smiling, a smirk pulling up the corners of his mouth.
For the first time since Guillermo had stepped outside, Nandor spoke, lips just brushing Guillermo’s in a way that sent shivers dancing up his spine.
“I thought you were ignoring me, Guillermo. I could hardly bear the pain.”
Huffing, Guillermo pulled back to fix Nandor with a frustrated stare. “Maybe next time you want to talk about your feelings you can use your words. Instead of a 200 year old language? That needs accessories?”
Rolling his eyes, Nandor pulled Guillermo back in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Now you understand the strength of my feelings, yes?”
“Of course, Master.” Guillermo could barely fight the smile as he had the goofiest thought. “And you know I’ve always been your biggest fan.”