Work Text:
Guillermo was being watched.
Unseen eyes lurked in the shadows over the library, watching the human move back and forth from shelves to boxes. Nandor was sure that Guillermo knew—he was far too great a warrior not to be able to sense the presence of enemies—but the man continued on as if he was alone. As if there were not dozens of hungry, vampiric eyes watching him from the shadows.
Hungry was probably not the right word.
Not hungry for his blood, anyway.
Guillermo paused and wiped a hand across his forehead. He popped open his shirt cuffs and began to roll up the sleeves.
From the darkness came a soft, wistful sigh.
Nandor ground his teeth together. All these vampires were hovering in the shadows, watching Guillermo, yearning after him, and there was nothing Nandor could do about it. Nothing except sit up here and keep an eye on all of them, so that if anyone so much as dared attempt to make a move, he could squash it. And them.
It would have been better if they had just wanted to feast on Guillermo’s blood. At the very least it would justify snapping them in half. Whatever his actual connection to Nandor, by vampiric law Guillermo was Nandor’s familiar, which meant he could forbid other vampires from attempting to harm or eat him.
What Nandor could not do was forbid other vampires from lusting after, flirting with, or propositioning Guillermo.
Which was, in Nandor’s opinion, kind of bullshit.
But it had never been made into law—or cultural norm—because no one had ever wanted to lust after, flirt with, or proposition a familiar, by virtue of familiarhood automatically making you unattractive and uninteresting.
Until now.
Guillermo had changed over the last year. He exuded a quiet confidence, a surety of his own strength and a willingness to use it. He didn’t obey every order given, he didn’t hesitate to make eye contact with strange vampires, and he didn’t hover quietly in the corner waiting to be called on. Well, he did, but he hovered as a bodyguard, not a familiar, and exuded waves of danger and the air of a coiled spring.
Nandor had noticed. It was impossible not to notice. He had enjoyed noticing. It was just extremely frustrating that everyone else had also noticed.
Guillermo looked up into the darkness and Nandor heard a near-silent chorus of fluttering wings and rushing vapor as the hidden audience fled. Making eyes at someone from a distance was not very cool, and all vampires (apparently) wanted so desperately for Guillermo to think they were cool.
Nandor did not care. Guillermo already knew he was cool.
So he turned into a bat and dropped down to reform next to his familiar.
“Keeping an eye on me?” Guillermo said with a grin, not at all surprised to see him. “Or keeping an eye on my audience?”
“Both.”
“You really don’t have to; you know I can defend myself.”
“Yes,” Nandor said. If Guillermo did not know the true reason for all this attention, Nandor wasn’t going to tell him. For…reasons. Because Guillermo got upset about people making advances and Nandor didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable, that was why. “But if I am here, they will not try anything…untoward.”
Guillermo smiled.
“Thank you,” he said, in a voice that had just a hint of amusement—although buried so deeply down Nandor wasn’t sure if he was imagining it. Guillermo glanced at his watch. “Hey, could you grab my lunch? I left it in the fridge in the familiar room.”
Nandor wanted to ask if he was Guillermo’s familiar now, but didn’t want to risk it, so he shrugged instead.
“Sure.”
Nandor swept down the hallway to the familiar room, thinking grim and unhappy thoughts. Things were okay between them, now, but they weren’t one hundred percent back to where they were the night they’d…parted. Conversations with Guillermo had always been easy, like walking across a field. But someone had built invisible walls while they were apart, and it wasn’t easy anymore. Nandor would be ambling along, having a conversation, and then he’d make a joke or comment that he thought was perfectly normal and slam straight into one of those walls.
Guillermo would get angry or upset, and almost always walked away.
When he didn’t leave, he got quiet, and Nandor was left to fumble around, trying to find the wall’s edge so he could keep going and almost always making it worse.
He missed the days when it was easy.
Nandor found the familiar room empty, and the fridge had only one bottle of yoohoo and one wrapped up sandwich. All these vampires, and none of them had brought their familiars. How odd.
Still, Nandor thought, brightening up as he headed back down the hall, Guillermo had stayed—and for no other reason than because Nandor had asked him to. That was something.
“—a better offer,” oozed a voice from the library. Nandor stopped. He heard Guillermo’s voice, but not the words, and an answering scoff.
Nandor inched closer, careful to stay in the shadows, and peered around the corner. A vampire was leaning against the table. He was young in appearance, but Nandor could tell he was a few hundred years at least.
“I promise, whatever he’s paying, I can pay double.”
Ha! Joke is on you, idiot. Double nothing is just more nothing!
“You’d pay me six thousand dollars a month?” Guillermo asked, raising his eyebrows.
Shit. That was very clever of Guillermo.
“Easily,” the vampire said, dismissively. “Come on, Mr de la Cruz,” he wheedled. “Your talents are wasted banging around this dusty old place shelving books. Come work for me, and you’ll ride in style to exotic lands you could never even imagine.”
It was only the disinterested look on Guillermo’s face that kept Nandor from feeling any panic.
“No, thank you,” he said calmly. “I’m not looking for a new job right now. That’s my final answer,” he said, as the vampire opened his mouth.
Nandor smirked triumphantly as he watched the other vampire slink off. Ha! How do you like that Mr Familiar Poacher? Guillermo wanted to work for Nandor.
Nandor realized he had squeezed so hard the sandwich was now an hourglass shape. Each end bulged, the foil torn so squished food poked out. Nandor tried frantically to reshape it, like clay, but only made it worse. He looked around and, as casually as he could, dropped the tangled mass of food and foil into a nearby decorative urn. Subtly, he wiped his hand on the inside of his cloak where it wouldn’t show.
It’d be fine. He’d tell Guillermo that one of the wraiths ate it, and take him someplace nearby to eat.
That was not the last time someone tried to poach Guillermo.
The next was a lady vampire with a dress cut so low Guillermo spent most of the conversation talking to the ceiling. Then came a vampire who promised to make Guillermo a vampire in six months, guaranteed. And the one who offered to pay him in precious jewels. And the one who offered to give Guillermo his very own familiar. It seemed every day there was a new job offer, and every time Guillermo said no there was a little pause beforehand, like he was thinking about it.
There was nothing Nandor could do about it but hover in the background and glare. It was not against the rules to try and hire someone else’s bodyguard, it was just extremely rude—and apparently the allure of Guillermo was strong enough to override all politeness.
Which was probably why Nandor…overreacted.
It had started when Nandor was minding his own business organizing the floating orbs again, when he heard Guillermo laugh. It was rare to hear Guillermo laugh these days, so naturally Nandor was curious enough to abandon the orbs and hurry down the hall.
He slowed when he got close, because he heard another voice
“No, really,” a voice said, young, male, tinged with awe. “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You actually kicked Lord Malfonse in his actual ass.”
“He started it,” Guillermo said.
Nandor peered around the corner, his eyes narrowing. He did not like this person, whoever he was.
This vampire was leaning against the wall by Guillermo, who was…smiling. Slightly pink around the cheeks, but none of the irritation or stiffness he usually displayed when being offered a new job.
That was worrying.
“How did you even hear about that?”
“How could I not? It was all Georgie would talk about when she got back from London. I’m pretty sure the entire eastern seaboard knows by now.”
Guillermo grimaced.
“Oh boy.”
“Relax, I’ve known Malfonse for years. Now that you’ve shown you’re demonstrably better than him, he’ll pretend you don’t exist. Shit, I wish I could have seen the look on his face…promise me next time you decide to humiliate one of the most obnoxious vampires in the world that you’ll let me know beforehand.”
“Promise,” Guillermo said, dryly. “Is this why I’m getting so many job offers?”
“Oh absolutely. I’m not here to offer you a job though.”
Nandor relaxed slightly.
“I’m here to ask you out.”
Nandor’s heart froze in his chest.
Well, it was always frozen in his chest, but it felt even more frozen than usual as he and Guillermo both stared at the vampire—Guillermo in shock, Nandor in horror.
“What?” Guillermo said, quietly.
“You know, on a date. Maybe a—you don’t call them talkies anymore—”
“A movie?”
“Yeah.” The vampire took a step closer. He was too close to Guillermo now. He was just a few inches taller, so Guillermo didn’t need to crane his neck the way he would have if Nandor had been that close. The vampire was also very, very handsome.
“Oh,” Guillermo said. He blushed. He wasn’t saying no. He wasn’t looking disgusted at the idea.
Nandor did not remember deciding to interfere, he just found himself next to the vampire with his hand closing around his collar and yanking him backwards. He threw the vampire across the room, taking out two tables in the process.
The vampire tried to struggle to his feet, and then instead began to crab backwards as Nandor approached.
“Get away from him!” Nandor snapped.
“I was just—”
Nandor hissed. The vampire poofed into a bat and fluttered away with desperate speed. Nandor hmphed.
“Creep,” he muttered. To Guillermo, he said “You’re welcome.”
“For what?” Guillermo said. Nandor looked at him, and saw Guillermo was glaring at him.
“For rescuing you, obviously. He did not actually like you, Guillermo.”
“Really.”
“Yes, he liked the version of you he heard in that story, and when he actually got to know you, he would have been disappointed.”
The air rushed from Guillermo’s lungs. Nandor looked at the expression on Guillermo’s face and realized he had walked into one of those glass walls again. He mentally rewound the last sentence.
“Okay, now, when I said—"
“Wow.”
“I meant that vampires do not let people down kindly—”
“You are unbelievable.”
“I am trying to help!”
Guillermo turned on his heel and walked away. Nandor was suddenly struck by a certainty that Guillermo was going to find that vampire and tell him yes, he wanted to go on that date, and felt a rush of fear.
For Guillermo, obviously.
Guillermo barely had time to yelp in surprise when Nandor grabbed him before he was being dragged down the hall and through the first door Nandor found, which turned out to be a storage closet. Nandor pushed them both inside and locked the door.
Guillermo waved a hand around in the air until he found the little string for the light and pulled it. There was a click-click sound and the bare bulb in the ceiling turned on, bathing them in a harsh white light.
Nandor looked at Guillermo’s expression.
Nandor lifted a hand and pulled the little string, plunging them back into darkness again.
It didn’t matter to him, since he could see Guillermo’s expression just as easily in the dark, but it made him feel better that Guillermo could not see his expression.
“Nandor…” Guillermo said, warningly.
“Guillermo, I order you not to date that vampire.”
Guillermo pulled the string, turning the light back on with another click-click.
“You can’t order that!”
A click-click as Nandor turned it back off.
“I just did.”
Click-click
“But you can’t make me obey it. Let me out.”
Click-click
“No.”
Click-click
“Nandor.”
Click-click
“Not until you promise.”
Click-click
“Who I do and do not date is none of your business.”
Click-click
“There is too much to be done for you to allow yourself to be distracted!”
Click-click
“Nandor, I was going to turn him down—”
Click-click
“Oh good—”
“—because I already have a boyfriend.”
Nandor’s heart unstuck itself from its place behind his ribs and dropped all the way down to his feet. When Guillermo reached up to grab the string, Nandor caught his wrist and held it. There was a moment of stillness.
“I met Freddie while I was in England,” Guillermo said, quietly, answering the question Nandor had not been able to unstick his throat enough to ask.
“That is why Nadja shipped you back,” Nandor said. “Because you would not go willingly.”
“Yes,” Guillermo said, voice still low.
“And when you are done here, you will go back.”
Guillermo said nothing.
“You will take a job with one of these vampires, and go to England.”
Guillermo said nothing, again.
Nandor slowly lowered his hand, bringing Guillermo’s down. He turned away and unlocked the door, pushing it open a fraction. He kept his back to Guillermo, so Guillermo could not see his face in the light that spilled in from the hallway.
Guillermo reached around him, and pulled the door closed.
“Why does that bother you so much?”
“That is the stupidest question any one has ever fucking asked me,” Nandor said, with so much venom that Guillermo backed away a few steps before stopping himself. “Why does it bother me that you do not want to be here with me? Why does it bother me that you want to leave?”
“Why does it bother you that I have a boyfriend?”
It was Nandor’s turn to say nothing.
“Why do you care if I go on a date with that vampire?”
“That is why you are not jealous that I am getting married,” Nandor said, instead of answering.
“Why do you care if I’m jealous?”
“Because you were supposed to be!” Nandor exclaimed. “You were supposed to be jealous, and then we would fight, and then it would be like last time, and I would know everything was the way it was when we left, and then—"
He stopped.
“And then?” Guillermo asked.
Nandor turned to face him. He reached up a hand and pulled the little string. The light turned on. They both squinted a little in the sudden light, but Nandor saw Guillermo see his expression.
“Oh.”
Then,
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because now you don’t laugh at my jokes, and I make you mad when I’m not trying to! There are new rules, and I don’t know what they are. I don’t know how we work anymore.”
“You could have just asked me! You could have told me; you could have said anything!”
“You always know what I am thinking.”
“Not anymore,” Guillermo said, softly.
Too much had changed. It wasn’t that there were invisible walls—he was on a different road now, and refusing to notice where the turns were. How he must have looked to Guillermo, stubbornly kicking at fences like a donkey instead of going around. Ignoring all the signs, as if they didn't matter. As if Guillermo didn't matter.
“I missed you while we were apart,” Nandor said. “I worry that you didn’t miss me.”
Guillermo reached up and put his hand on the string. He took a deep breath.
“The second time I got shipped across the Atlantic, I spent five extra days in the box. It was still better than the first time, because the first time I was leaving you behind and there was nothing I could do about it.”
Click-click
The light did not turn back on again for quite some time.