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It was strange, actually, to talk to the neighbors all on his own. Guillermo wasn’t sure if he’d ever interacted with Sean and Charmaine without standing a half-step behind Nandor, and he felt almost naked there without him.
Charmaine didn’t really seem to know what to make of the situation, either, being honest, and he could sense the awkwardness there beneath her warm smile. “You’re Guillermo, right?” she asked, and there was something just shy of flustered there in her voice.
“Um. Yeah.” Guillermo glanced upward at the sky, really wishing Nandor hadn’t chosen tonight of all nights to try and prove something. “I’m Nandor’s…”
Charmaine looked at him expectantly, clearly curious about the answer to that herself, but Guillermo wasn’t sure he knew the answer any more than she did.
“We’re friends,” he finally finished, and her eyebrows went up.
“We always thought—” she paused, broke off. Gave him an awkward sort of smile. “Well, it doesn’t matter what we thought. Are you part of the—” She made a vague gesture with her hand towards all the rainbows. “The community, too?”
And it was still there, the brief tension. The little spark of fear. Guillermo still felt that old desire to brush things aside, to evade, to smile and laugh and say something empty. To hide.
But his hands went up to fidget with the scarf his grandmother had given him a few weeks ago and he remembered the way she’d smiled at him carefully, the warmth of a secret come to light there in her eyes.
This didn’t have to be a secret anymore. He didn’t have to be a secret anymore.
Guillermo nodded shyly, not quite trusting himself to speak. “Community” might have been a little too strong of a word, but these days he certainly felt like he was a part of something.
“Good! Good,” Charmaine said, and that smile of hers became a little truer. A little more friendly. “We support you, y’know. All of you.”
Guillermo looked at her, at the little rainbow bells on her head and the stupid pink sweatshirt she had tucked beneath her coat. This was all kind of absurd, honestly. A totally misguided attempt at Pride put on by people he didn’t trust at all to do it right.
But… they’d still done it, hadn’t they? And there was a peculiar warmth Guillermo felt behind his breast when he thought about it. The fact that they’d tried.
“Yeah,” he finally said softly. “I know.” He paused. Then, hesitantly, “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said, and he could see it, the way the edge of her smile had gone soft.
Maybe Charmaine understood things better than he’d given her credit for.
Then she shook her head briskly and gave him another bright smile. “Is that scarf all you brought with you? Come on, Guillermo, let me give you some of those — y’know the things, the stickers, the—”
“The temporary tattoos?”
“Yeah!” She grinned at him. “You’ll look great!”
He didn’t, actually. Just felt vaguely foolish as she pressed a wet paper towel to his face. But her hands were gentle where they applied the little rainbow right beneath his glasses, and for a moment, he felt it, warm and soft and unimaginably dear.
Community.
* * *
“What is that?” Nandor asked him later, as Guillermo pulled a pink t-shirt over his head and smoothed it down across his chest.
“What’s what?” Guillermo asked distantly. God. He was never going to get all these knots out of Nandor’s hair, and he didn’t even have a brush out here.
“This.” Nandor’s fingertips brushed against Guillermo’s cheek, and Guillermo felt something squeeze hot and cold and just on this side of pleasant in his stomach.
“What?” he asked again, hating the way it came out as a very non-slayer-like squeak, and brought his own hand up to feel at where Nandor was touching.
Oh.
Guillermo cleared his throat. “That’s just a temporary tattoo. Charmaine gave some to me.”
He’d put up with her applying one rainbow to his cheek, but he’d just shoved the rest of them in his coat pocket to throw away later. It had been a kind gesture, if a somewhat embarrassing one.
One would be enough.
Nandor’s lips were screwing up, though, and the way he wrinkled his nose had Guillermo sighing internally. “A what? Guillermo, you got a tattoo?”
From the look on Nandor’s face, he wasn’t quite sure what he thought about that. A spark of interest, maybe, a subtle and begrudging respect. Maybe a little bit of hurt that he’d been left out of the loop.
“A temporary tattoo, Master,” Guillermo corrected. “It’ll wash off in a few days.”
Nandor’s face instantly cleared, and his almost-scowl was replaced by childlike glee. “Like paint?”
“Sort of, yeah.” Guillermo hesitated, then sighed. “Do you want one, Master?”
“Yes,” Nandor said, not a trace of doubt in his voice.
Guillermo’s hand went to his pocket, but he didn’t have any water here and he could hear the thrum of motors as the cars took their places in their little impromptu “parade.”
“After the parade,” Guillermo promised. “I’ll give you as many as you want.”
And perhaps all this was silly, was absurd, was as much of a bad idea as every other part of his life, but — well, when Nandor smiled at him like that, bright and blinding like the sun, Guillermo couldn’t help but feel a little rosier about the situation.
* * *
“Okay,” Guillermo said, peeling the backing off a tiny little rainbow tattoo. “Sit still, Master.”
“Yes, Guillermo,” Nandor said, and it was strange the way he could sound like he was making fun of Guillermo and obeying him all at once. Like the very idea of him following Guillermo’s orders was absurd — but he was still doing it. Like maybe Nandor was humoring him, but being humored himself at the same time.
Guillermo wasn’t sure if he liked that tone or not.
He pressed the tattoo to the skin he’d dampened on the bridge of Nandor’s nose, then covered it with a wet paper towel.
Nandor’s eyes crossed for a second trying to look at it before closing altogether, and… Guillermo swallowed hard. For all his teasing, Nandor was sitting there before him, pliant and obedient and trusting, and it did something to Guillermo’s insides to see it.
It was an awkward position, like so many of theirs were, with Nandor sitting there in one of the Rinaldis’ old lawn chairs, his legs splayed like a ruler’s. Like a particularly dangerous cat’s.
Truthfully, Nandor was perilously close to flashing the entire crowd again, but Guillermo was hovering close, just barely there between his legs, and. Well. Hopefully he’d be able to block the worst of it with his body.
Ten… eleven… twelve… Guillermo counted silently as he held the towel to Nandor’s face, and Nandor…
He looked ridiculous, honestly. Hair only barely managed and a flag tied loosely around his waist and a too-small t-shirt that didn’t hide anything, not anything, and — fuck, Guillermo could feel him breathing there against his wrists and it wasn’t fair that such a ridiculous man could make him shiver like that.
“Are you cold, Guillermo?” Nandor asked, eyes still closed, and Guillermo felt his cheeks heat.
“No, Master, it’s—”
“It was very cold in space,” Nandor continued, ignoring his answer, and as obnoxious as that was, at least it prevented Guillermo from having to answer him. “Far too cold for a human.”
“I bet,” Guillermo said vaguely.
Nandor opened one eye, looking up at him. “Too cold for Laszlo, too,” he said, and Guillermo could hear that peculiar archness to his tone that told him that Nandor was very much trying to make a point.
Guillermo bit at his bottom lip. It had definitely been more than thirty seconds, but he didn’t move away. Not yet. “Oh?”
“Too cold for most vampires, I’d wager,” Nandor said, and yes, he was definitely trying to sound important. He was doing that thing again, where he sat like he was trying to take up space and spoke like he was trying to justify the space he’d claimed. He was trying to sound big.
But for once, that tone did not make Guillermo feel small. “But not for you,” he said, finally forcing himself to pull away from Nandor’s skin. To ready the next tattoo.
“No,” Nandor said, and his grin had gone wolfish. “Not for me.”
Guillermo remembered the slightly hunted look Nandor had given him when he’d asked if Nandor was trying to impress him, and his lips curved upward as well. “Very impressive, Master.”
Nandor’s lips parted slightly and his eyes widened, and Guillermo waited as that mind of his, quick and slow in turn, seemed to reboot itself. Then Nandor was clearing his throat, was sitting up just a little bit taller in his ratty old chair, and he looked ridiculously, stupidly pleased with himself.
“Yes,” Nandor finally said, sounding a little breathless with it. “It was, wasn’t it? The lightning bolt next, Guillermo.”
“This one?”
“Yes, Guillermo. It looks very cool, doesn’t it?”
And Guillermo could hear what Nandor wasn’t asking.
I’m cool, too, aren’t I?
“Very cool, Master,” was all Guillermo said, and well. He wasn’t laughing at Nandor, but his lips were certainly twitching upward. It was endearing, really, the way Nandor was looking up with him with the big brown eyes of a puppy who’d just been called a good boy.
Nandor wasn’t cool at all, really. At least, not how Guillermo had always expected him to be. Guillermo had signed up to bow at the feet of a dark liege, a man who had spilled blood for almost a thousand years and had left the earth to drink what he didn't finish. A man who had commanded armies, who’d designed wars, who’d ruled an entire country with an iron fist.
Guillermo had expected a mad fury, a cruel darkness. He’d expected the careless way Nandor had played with his feelings.
He never could have anticipated the bedtime stories, though, or the quiet nights at home or the way that Nandor would cling slightly, just slightly, when Guillermo would hold his hand. He never could have anticipated dark eyes and a sweet smile or the way it would make him feel when they were trained on him.
Guillermo never could have anticipated how starkly, desperately empty his master could feel inside, or the way it felt to fill him up bit by patient bit.
There was a peculiar softness to the vampires that Guillermo had faithfully served for all these years, and he knew that it was that more than anything else that had kept him at their feet.
Guillermo could withstand the coldness. The cruelty. But he was powerless against the quiet loneliness he could see sometimes in their eyes.
Nandor wasn’t the proud warlord that Guillermo had expected to serve, but he was cool all the same in his own way. When he stood up for what was right. When he defended those he loved with all the ferocity he’d once used to defend his country. When he’d protect Guillermo from forces that he barely understood and leave him breathless, breathless.
Nandor wasn’t cool and he was and the question was immaterial, really, because Guillermo couldn’t love him any more if he tried.
It was pathetic, he knew, but Guillermo had come to terms with his bad habits. So bad idea or no, he just brushed Nandor’s hair from his face, tucked it behind his ear, and smiled back helplessly when Nandor grinned up at him.
Then he pulled out another temporary tattoo.
Nandor chattered at him about space as he pressed shards of rainbow to his skin, how cold it had been and how dark. How lonely it had been up there and how — for a very brief moment, maybe, Nandor had felt small.
Nandor’s eyes had darted up to his then away as he’d admitted it, and Guillermo let the back of his fingers ghost against the dampness of Nandor’s cheek for a second, just one second, before he pulled away.
It could have been an accident. It could have. Guillermo was very skilled in the art of plausible deniability. But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been an accident at all, that shy caress, and the risk had paid off utterly when Nandor’s lashes had fluttered. Just a little.
Nandor always tried to seem biggest when he was feeling small.
Guillermo had a feeling that Nandor had been feeling small a lot lately. Despite what the others seemed to think, Guillermo was not stupid. He’d noticed the way Nandor had been following him and Laszlo around. He’d seen the way that Nandor had been trying increasingly desperately to get their attention.
Nandor hated it when he wasn’t getting enough attention. When he was no longer the loudest voice, the biggest personality in a room. He hated it when Laszlo wasn’t looking at him.
Hell. Maybe he even hated it when Guillermo wasn’t looking at him, too.
As if he ever fucking stopped.
Guillermo was looking at him now, at any rate, and Nandor was basking in the attention. He seemed to be drinking in Guillermo’s gaze, soaking up his touch. Reveling in being the center of attention once more, and feeling just a little bit larger.
Nandor wasn’t that complicated. Not really. But he did still occasionally surprise him.
Like when he looked up at Guillermo, pleased and almost bashful, and said, “Would you like me to put some on you, too?”
“I—” Guillermo gaped at him. That… wasn’t how the two of them usually did things. Usually it was Guillermo dressing him. Fixing his hair. Wiping away smudges that Nandor could no longer see in the mirror.
“We should be supporting Sean, don’t you think?” Nandor said quickly, almost nervously, and — god, Guillermo remembered it. The way Nandor had toweled him off, brisk and gentle, a few months ago. The way Nandor had smiled at him foolishly before giving him a surprisingly thoughtful birthday present.
The way Guillermo had woken up the day after a raucous wedding to find himself tucked under his own coat.
“Yeah,” Guillermo said softly. “Okay.”
Guillermo hadn’t been expecting Nandor to get up, had thought that he was probably going to have to lean down and in while Nandor sat imperiously on his throne of plastic, was already internally sighing at the thought of the crick he was probably going to get in his neck, but—
Well.
Nandor could be surprisingly thoughtful when he wanted to be. Surprisingly tender.
Maybe Guillermo shouldn’t have been surprised when Nandor got to his feet. When he tilted Guillermo’s face up in the moonlight and touched him — fuck, so fucking gently.
“You looked happy,” Nandor said quietly as he stuck a particularly garish rainbow to Guillermo’s cheek. “Before. On the float. Are you having a good time, Guillermo?”
Guillermo swallowed, feeling cold fingers against his skin, and he nodded. “I am, Master,” he said. He would have said it whether it was true or not, but strangely enough — he was having a good time, actually.
The parade had been pathetic and the rally kind of disturbing and the whole thing was just a thinly veiled campaign, wasn’t it? Was a big party put on by people who didn’t get it at all.
But, Guillermo was starting to understand, they wanted to. And they wanted to get him, too.
Guillermo breathed in slow as Nandor smoothed another tattoo against his skin. Sometimes these days he felt like Nandor wanted to understand him so badly.
Nandor wanted to understand him and the others wanted to understand him and Charmaine wanted to understand him, and his family — both families. God. Both families wanted to understand him.
And they wanted him to be happy.
For so long, Guillermo had felt shame, slick and shadowy, curling up beneath his skin. It had always felt like there was something everyone else could see when they looked at him, something as invisible to him in the mirror as his second family was, and whatever it was, it marked him as wrong. As lesser. As weak.
It had always felt like there was something fundamentally fragile in him, a subtle wrongness that he had to hide beneath lies and half truths and the desperate, terrible need to be different.
To be stronger.
To be more.
But… Guillermo didn’t see that in Nandor’s eyes when he looked at him now. That quiet, invisible layer of shame on his skin. Nandor’s eyes were just soft and pleased and a little bit needy.
Charmaine’s eyes had been a little awkward, a little nervous, but eager to get to know him all the same.
And his mother, his grandmother, oh. They’d stroked the hair from his eyes and smiled at him like they could see all the broken, fragile parts of him and loved him all the same.
Like Nandor, they were coming to accept and respect who he’d become.
And here, now, in this crowd of people who’d once felt lost and shameful and wrong, too…
Guillermo swallowed. Let himself listen, really listen, to dated disco music and the buzz of friends new and old mingling on their front lawn.
No one here was ashamed now.
Guillermo cleared his throat and watched the way Nandor’s eyes followed the movement of his throat. “I feel proud,” he admitted. Of who he was, of who he had become, of how far he’d come in such a short time.
Of the families who loved him, and the communities that were finally accepting him with open arms.
“I suppose that’s why they call it Pride,” Nandor mused as he laid his heart — a heart, as he laid a heart — against Guillermo’s skin.
His hands were gentle as they smoothed water over Guillermo’s skin. Sure as he left his mark on Guillermo’s cheek. His touch felt like a brand, like a claim, like a desperate bid for the attention that Nandor could never bear to relinquish.
It felt just right.
“Yeah,” Guillermo said, and he let himself lean into that touch for just a moment. Just one second. Two. “I guess it is.”