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Welcome to Tomb Raiders, where three sexy supernaturals discover that they’re not being chosen as a romantic partner because of their dark good looks or paranormal charms, but for the contents of their crypts!
Meet Laszlo (dapper, dashing, flashing a winning smile), Nandor (handsome, with a slightly goofy grin), and Colin Robinson (beige). Today, these three vampire roommates are being swept out of their Staten Island mansion with no warning so local single Guillermo can size them up! Better hope those familiars have been keeping up with their duties, boys!
“Hi,” Guillermo (average height, generously proportioned, nerdy in a sexy librarian sort of way) tells the camera, giving an awkward wave and a big grin. “I’m Guillermo. I’m 29, I work in customer service—“ An extended shot of Guillermo defending one of his employees at Panera Bread against a woman with the stereotypical ‘Karen’ haircut — “and in my free time I like playing video games, hanging out with friends, and just having a good time.” He gives a little shrug. “I’ve always been interested in vampires, ever since I caught Interview with the Vampire on TV at a, um, formative age, so when I was offered the chance to date one, I thought, why not?” He pauses thoughtfully. “I guess my worst habit is falling too hard and too fast? Especially if he looks like Armand. Do…any of the guys today look like Armand?”
That’s for us to know and him to find out…at the end! All portraits have been removed from the household to prevent him from being able to identify any potential suitors before the end, and the vampires are waiting in a van to watch Guillermo begin his adventure. But first, some prerecorded footage.
“My name,” a pompous voice declares as the camera cuts to its owner, “is Laszlo Cravensworth. I’m a vampire of science, the arts, and of every type of cockery you can imagine.” He grins wolfishly at the camera. “I’m also an accomplished pornographic ac-tor.”
Off camera, a female voice, too faint to hear.
“Yes, yes, my darling, whatever you say.” Laszlo turns back to the camera. “The cam-er-ah loves me, and I’m sure this little morsel will too. No, I have no negative traits, why do you ask?”
The camera cuts to Nandor, looking distinguished next to an overstuffed taxidermy bear, until he leans too hard on it and it starts to lean precariously.
“I am Nandor the Relentless,” the voiceover says over footage of Nandor struggling with the bear. “I am over 700 years old in vampire years, and in my human life, I was a formidable conqueror. Now I am formidable with my penis. Which I will prove if I am chosen today. Which I will be, I am sure.”
The bear falls onto Nandor. The camera moves to footage of Colin sitting and staring intently at the camera. He doesn’t blink for the whole segment.
“Yes, I’m Colin Robinson. I’m not a blood sucker like my roomies. I’m more of the classic daywalker variety, which definitely gives me an advantage for dates if I’m picked.” He grins. “I think I’d be a good choice because I really like…” Colin Robinson pauses in a way that seems deliberately long. “…to travel. Nothing gets me going like a really good road trip playlist. My favorites? I like the Plain White Ts, Chris Brown, Razzlekhan…you know, just high quality stuff. The hidden gems of Spotify, if you will. The neat thing about Spotify, actually, compared to other streaming media…”
Colin falls out of focus as the cameraman tips forward, having lost consciousness.
In the van, the three vampires are shifting uncomfortably in their shared bench seat, Nandor trying to elbow enough space to settle himself in the middle, as Laszlo cries out in protest against one wall of the van and Colin tries to stretch out his legs across the other two men’s laps. However, their irritated clamor stops when the television across from their seat flickers on, revealing Guillermo’s smiling visage.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m Guillermo, and I’m raiding your tombs today.”
“Oh, isn’t he a ripe little peach!” Laszlo leers, grinning widely and rubbing his hands together, the cramped space suddenly forgotten.
“Don’t be disgusting, Laszlo!” Nandor snaps, trying to ignore the way his heart would definitely flutter if it was capable of still beating. “I thought you weren’t allowed to do this show again anyway after you ate the last match you had!”
“Wasn’t me, old chap,” Laszlo says dismissively, pulling an old fashioned wooden toothpick out of his pocket and sticking it briefly in his mouth. “That was someone else entirely.”
“I wonder if he knows how to drive,” Colin begins, but Nandor is shushing them all as Guillermo continues to speak.
“—I’ll be going in with my spy kit—“ He opens a stainless steel, hard-sided briefcase “—with white gloves, to make sure your familiars are doing your dusting—“
“That’s me out,” Nandor grumbles. “Benjy’s art-rices have been acting up lately.”
“—black light in case you haven’t been cleaning up after your meals—“
“Or after all the fucking we’ve been doing!” Laszlo crows, offering his arm up for a high-five. Nandor ignores it, eyes rapt on the screen. Laszlo grudgingly accepts a limp slap from Colin.
“—because I don't want to date someone without table manners, and some tongs—“ Guillermo clicks them together for good measure. “—in case anything is, um, too hot to handle, if you catch my drift.”
“Lucky for our potential paramour Gizmo here I was halfway through the box of dildos when we were whisked away here,” smirks Laszlo. “Lots to choose from.”
“Yes, Laszlo, about that,” Nandor begins.
“What, are you afraid I’ll lure him in with my sexual sophistication and ruin him for the rest of you?”
“Less so that and more so, I was wondering if you could perhaps pull your pants up while we are in the van.”
With a grumble about ungrateful roommates, Laszlo adjusts his trousers as the Guillermo on the video screen ascends the stairs of the manor.
“This is exactly the kind of house I would expect a vampire to live in,” he tells the camera, “so I guess it makes sense that bachelor number one lives here. Staten Island is kind of a weird choice, but maybe this has been home base for like hundreds of years.” With a hand on the doorknob, he stops to survey the yard. “Those topiaries are…they’re kind of different, yeah? I wonder if he’s into gardening? I have kind of a black thumb—“
“It must be under his gloves,” Nandor notes as they all nod in agreement.
“—so maybe he can give me some tips!” As he opens the doorknob and steps inside, Guillermo’s eyes grow wide in wonder. “Oh yeah, this is definitely a vampire house. Look at all the old wood, the tapestries, the furniture…it’s beautiful!”
“Nadja will be delighted with the compliment!” notes Laszlo.
“I did most of the decorating before you even got here,” points out Colin.
“No one asked you, Colin Robinson,” Laszlo grumbles.
“Bachelor Number One’s crypt is the second door on the left…wow, I wonder how old these rugs are, they’re a little threadbare but you can still see the pattern…okay, so this crypt is…”
“Magnificent?” prompts Laszlo. “Stunning? Elegant? Enough to make you drop trou and beg to get fucked?”
“A little creepy,” Guillermo finishes, and Laszlo visibly deflates on all fronts. “The taxidermy isn’t my style—“
“How dare he! The cretin!”
“—but I like that he has two coffins. It shows that he’s planning for the future.”
“Wait until he finds out one of those already belongs to his wife…” Colin Robinson comments, eyes flashing blue.
“The decorating is a little minimalist, which is fine, I don’t have strong feelings on clutter one way or the other, so maybe let’s try the black light test.” Guillermo blows out the candles in the crypt carefully and turns on the black light provided in his spy kit.
As soon as it’s turned on, the entire room—every centimeter of available surface—turns a frighteningly 90s day-glo shade of blue, not unlike Colin’s eyes only a few minutes before.
And then it all goes black as Guillermo drops the light in shock and flees the room.
Laszlo chortles.
“Perhaps a bit more than his young cock was expecting!”
“Your familiar is doing a terrible job,” Nandor points out.
“That’s not what my lady wife and I keep Topher for,” Laszlo says meaningfully, waggling his eyebrows.
After a long pause, Colin chimes in, “He means they fuck him.”
“Yes, thank you, Colin Robinson,” Nandor says exasperatedly before turning back to the monitor, where Guillermo is pressed against the wall trying to reorient himself.
“Okay, so that wasn’t really what I was expecting,” he says. “Bachelor Number One, I’m just going to be honest, unless the other two vampires have some major red flags, I don’t think you’re going to be my final choice.”
“Well one of the other two choices is Colin Robinson, so don’t be too quick to discount me yet, boy,” Laszlo points out smugly.
“We’re going to go to Bachelor Number Two’s tomb next, which is…actually in the same house? I know vampires live together, but that’s kind of crazy that you guys are roommates and both on the show. And actually, the tomb is right next door, so I’m just gonna take a couple steps and…here we go.”
“It’s me!” Nandor exclaims as Guillermo opens the door to the crypt. “Oh, I hope he likes me. And that my room exhibits Big Penis Energy.”
“It’s Big Dick Energy, you cock,” Laszlo snaps.
“Did you know that the phrase Big Dick Energy, or Be-Dee-Eee for short, actually gained popularity in 2018 after the death of—“
“SHUT UP, COLIN ROBINSON!” Nandor and Laszlo both shout as Guillermo enters Nandor’s crypt on screen.
“This is beautiful,” Guillermo tells the camera in a marveling voice as he enters and looks around. “Even more beautiful than the rest of the house. I’d guess the vampire who lives in this room is either very old—“ Nandor harrumphs as if it’s an insult rather than a statement of fact. “—or a collector of old treasures. I don’t know which it is, but everything looks deliberately chosen, like it’s really special to the person who lives here.” He runs his hand over the top of Nandor’s coffin, and Nandor shivers in the van as if Guillermo has touched him directly. “The wood carving on this coffin is so ornate. I wonder if it’s his original coffin.”
“It is not, but it has been with me for hundreds of years,” Nandor says.
“He can’t hear you, you dimwit,” Laszlo says, elbowing him, “and don’t try to talk to him through the ether either, because that’s cheating.”
“And how would you know that?” Colin asks with great interest.
“Some of us read the documents we’re given before we sign them,” Laszlo replies haughtily.
(In reality, Laszlo learned this from one of his four previous appearances on the show, the one where he wore a very cool hat that was absolutely not cursed and absolutely no one died and Simon the Devious was not involved whatsoever, what are you talking about?)
When, with great effort, Guillermo pushes the lid of the coffin open, Nandor makes a strangled sound.
“The fur’s really nice,” Guillermo says, running the hand not holding the lid up over it. “I bet it keeps you warm at night. Might be a tight fit for two, but we could probably make it work.” He gives the camera an impish grin.
“What a little rascal!” Nandor exclaims, grinning widely.
“He gets spooked by a little stray sperm in my crypt, but look at him here, tarting it up all over your coffin,” Laszlo grumps.
Guillermo carefully closes the lid of the coffin and opens an armoire.
“Really nice wardrobe, too—broad shoulders, I like that in a guy…and more fur again—“ He strokes a hand over the trim of one sleeve. “—so it seems like you definitely need someone to keep you warm…” Guillermo smiles again, but it’s almost secretive now, like he has a thought he’s not sharing. “I left the black light in the first crypt, so I won’t test it here, but I will say, lots of promise, Bachelor Number Two. But I’ve still got one more to go.”
“Hear that? Don’t count your chickens just yet,” Colin tells Nandor. “You might have a fancy coffin, but I’ve got a bed.”
“This is not a dowry situation, Colin Robinson, there are no chickens,” Nandor says dismissively as Guillermo navigates to the basement stairs.
“So everyone’s living in the same house,” he tells the camera, “I hope that doesn’t make things awkward for the vampires I don’t pick!” He forces an equally awkward laugh as he reaches the final door. “Bachelor Number Three lives here. Seems kind of weird to choose to live in the basement, but maybe he just likes his privacy. I get that. I live with a roommate, and sometimes you just want to have time to yourself.”
As Guillermo pushes the door open, he reveals Colin Robinson’s barebones room, and tries not to look disappointed. “Okay, so this is…definitely a more modern vampire.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Laszlo snorts. “Relatively speaking, at least.”
“Apparently he’s not super into decor? Or maybe he only picks art he’s, uh, passionate about?” Guillermo gestures to the fruit bowl above the bed. “So…he likes fruit.”
“See, something we can talk about!” Colin exclaims.
“He’s got a bed instead of a coffin, too. Maybe he likes to stretch out. It’s what, a full? A queen?”
“It’s a special size I invented called an inverse double twin, actually. Everything for it is custom.”
“Whatever it is, it’s a good amount of space to sleep in. It’s bigger than my bed at home.” He sits down onto it, gives it an experimental bounce that Nandor watches extremely closely. “It’s really stiff. I guess he likes back support.”
“Everyone underestimates the importance of mattress firmness, which is why an inverse double twin is reinforced with—“
“Colin Robinson, shut up before you drain the cameraman again,” Laszlo barks as Guillermo continues.
“And he’s got a computer, which means he knows technology, which a lot of vampires definitely don’t—another tick in the ‘modern’ column, I guess?”
“You better believe it!”
“Anyway, these crypts have given me a lot to think about. I’ll see you guys soon with my final decision, okay?”
“Okay-a!” Nandor exclaims to the screen before it goes dark.
“He can’t hear you, you half wit!” Laszlo groans.
“I think you guys should pack it in now, it’s pretty clear that I’m coming out of this the winner,” Colin Robinson grins, adjusting his glasses and stretching out his legs. “Didn’t you hear him talk about how much he likes my bed?”
But we’re not done yet! Before Guillermo meets the vampires and picks his paramour, he’s going to get a taste of his own medicine as the vampires get to raid HIS tomb—err, room, since he’s not a vampire. Let’s follow the vampires as they inspect what our human friend has left behind.
The vampires tumble out of the van in front of an apartment building in the Bronx, where they’ve already been invited in by production.
“Not exactly living the high life, is he?” Laszlo asks in the elevator. “No wonder he wants to be on the show. Even shacking up with Colin Robinson would be a step up from this place. Barely big enough for a bird to spread its wings and blow a fart around.”
Inside Guillermo’s apartment, he immediately finds evidence to confirm his hypothesis.
“HA!” he exclaims triumphantly, brandishing a frame he scooped up from an end table in the small but cozy sitting room. “‘Roommate,’ he says!? Poppycock! The boy is living with his mother!”
Nandor studies the picture carefully.
“Are you sure his roommate is not just a very sexy older lady?” he asks, to a dramatic eyeroll from Laszlo.
“Multigenerational households are not uncommon in Latinx families,” Colin Robinson butts in, “especially in the current economic situation for millennials, where property ownership is a faraway dream due to years of stagnant wages and increased corporate—“
“No one fucking cares, Colin Robinson,” Laszlo tells him, adding, “Let’s go look through the lad’s unmentionables,” before Colin can begin to answer Nandor’s curious question of, “What is an ex-Latin?”
In Guillermo’s room (a tight fit with all three of them, especially after Laszlo had to pull Nandor by the sleeve from wandering into Guillermo’s mother’s room), Laszlo has made good on his promise and gone straight to the dresser against one wall. Colin, meanwhile, has made a beeline for the laptop sitting on a very small IKEA desk, leaving Nandor to take in the whole picture.
The room itself is small and relatively neat, with some dirty clothes hanging out of a hamper, as if they were launched from the bed after changing and did not fully hit their intended target. The bed itself is small for one, let alone two, Nandor thinks as he lets himself fall onto it; his feet dangle off. But two could fit if they were not sleeping. He lets himself imagine what it would be like to pin that soft, warm figure from the screen inside the van to this bed, peppering him with kisses, letting his teeth graze Guillermo’s neck just enough to coax a desperate moan…
…a moan that’s very different from the girly shriek that Laszlo is letting out from where he is at Guillermo’s human clothing bureau.
“FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!” Laszlo is yelling, hopping back, shaking a smoking hand. “He’s got fucking holy water in there!”
“He what?” Nandor asks, sitting up, alert.
“Ooooh, that might be more interesting than this,” Colin says, turning around in his desk chair. “I looked up his social media, and hi AO3 account is just Armand self-insert porn…the tagged kinks, though, hoo boy, I’m kind of hoping he does pick me for real now, not just to annoy you two.”
Nandor is momentarily distracted by this revelation before he turns back to Laszlo, who is continuing to moan about his (quickly healing) wounds. “Why does he have holy water with his undergarments, Laszlo?”
“It wasn’t his undergarments, Nandor—which were very boring, by the way, no peekaboo lace cocksleeves or easy back door entry panties or anything—it was in the drawer below, in this.” He gingerly holds up a box that’s labeled quite clearly VAMPIRES DO NOT OPEN.
“Why did you open it if it says ‘VAMPIRES DO NOT OPEN’ right there on the box!? It clearly is not meant for us!”
“It’s as if you’ve never heard of reverse psychology, Nandor. He clearly put it there because he wanted us to open it.”
“He wanted to scald one of us with holy water?”
“Maybe it’s as if Colin Robinson says and he is a bit kinky underneath that frumpy sweater of his, and he’s looking for someone to match it.”
“What else is in the box?” Nandor asks with sudden interest.
Carefully, they peek inside the box, and the meet the contents with a reflexive hiss.
“Stakes!” exclaims Nandor. “The beady necklaces with the Jeebus man!”
“He’s a bloody vampire slayer!”
And now Guillermo must meet his vampires and eliminate all but one…remember, though, he doesn’t know which one belongs to which room!
When Guillermo appears in the doorway. Laszlo and Nandor jump back into a battle stance.
“Hi guys!” he greets, waving just as awkwardly as he did in his first video. “It’s nice to meet you in person. It’s time for me to make my final choice.”
“Back, foul fiend!” commands Laszlo as Colin Robinson pops up from the back with a cheery “Hello!”
“Sorry, what?” Guillermo asks, momentarily confused, until he sees the box in Laszlo’s hand. “Oh. Um. I can explain.”
“Is this all an elaborate ruse?” Laszlo demands, letting the last word twist like it’s a foreign term made of far too many syllables. “Trick a group of vampires into your twisted lair so you can kill them?”
“What? No! The producers know all about it, it’s in my audition tape.” Guillermo takes a deep breath. “I have slayer lineage. But I’m not, like, a professional or anything. That stuff is just self-defense. You know, like how girls carry pepper spray.” A confused pause from the group. “Okay, obviously you don’t, because that’s a human thing and you probably eat them before they can get it out. But I don’t want to kill anyone. I really do want to…” He pauses, trying to find the words.
“Bone down to pound down?” Colin Robinson supplies, and Guillermo blushes in what Nandor considers the cutest way he has ever seen.
“I was going to say date, but yeah, something like that,” he mutters, flustered, and then clears his throat. The next words sound scripted. “Anyway, I can’t date all of you, and I have to narrow my choices down to two. I gave it a lot of thought, and…Bachelor Number One, based on your crypt, I just don’t think we’re going to be compatible. You’re not, um, I guess hygienic would be the right word? And honestly, all that taxidermy is a little creepy to me.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Laszlo says, tossing the box on the bed and stepping forward. “My wife would kill me if I brought a slayer home.”
Guillermo seems flabbergasted. “Your…wife? You’re married and you came on the show?”
“Uh, yeah?” He looks at Guillermo as if he’s a simpleton. “Read the paperwork next time, dipshit, there aren’t any rules against it.” He turns back to Nandor and Colin. “Good luck boys, I think you’ll need it with this one.” He gives Guillermo a sarcastic wave. “Ta ta and fuck off. If you see me at the house, no you didn’t.”
And with that, he’s out the door, leaving Guillermo with the other two.
“That was. Um. Weird.”
“That’s Laszlo,” Nandor agrees, and Colin nods.
When the vampire speaks, it’s as if Guillermo actually notices him for the first time, and he seems…starstruck isn’t quite the word. Struck dumb by the stupid stick, perhaps, because in Guillermo’s eyes, this bachelor is every filthy fantasy on his fanfiction account brought to life. But next to him there’s the living incarnation of Dilbert, and there is a fifty-fifty chance that he could really fuck this up.
He lets out a deep break before continuing. He practiced this speech with production. He knows which one he wants based on the crypt, and he hopes like hell the universe isn’t fucking with him today.
“It’s time for my final choice. Both of your rooms gave me a lot to think about ...Bachelor Number Two, you have a really classic sense of style—that includes your fashion sense, and I think we’d get along really well. Bachelor Number Three, you’re definitely a more…modern type of vampire, and I’m of course a modern human. In the end, though, I have to go with my heart, and my heart is leading me to Bachelor Number Two.”
Guillermo barely has time to register being swept up in huge, velvet-clad arms and twirled as a voice—definitely, definitely the Dilbert guy—says “Guess I’m taking the L on that. I’m out. Have fun with the rosary shibari, Nandor.”
When Bachelor Number Two—Nandor, his name is Nandor— sets him back down on the ground, they’re alone (other than the camera crew and the eventual television audience, who Guillermo is trying very hard not to think about).
“So your name is Nandor?” he asks, just to be sure.
“Nandor the Relentless,” the vampire confirms with a fanged grin. The fangs are very sharp and very, very attractive. As is the rest of him. “What was Colin Robinson saying about rosaries?”
“Oh. Um. That was just a story I wrote. It wasn’t. Um. Real.”
“You blush very prettily, Guillermo,” Nandor tells him, giving him a boop on the nose with a finger before leaning in to whisper closely in his ear—not too closely for production to hear, of course, because they’re vampires, but Guillermo doesn’t know that, “and I would not mind it being real.”
It only makes Guillermo blush harder, and bury his face into Nandor’s chest.
“Don’t get shy on me now,” Nandor chides him gently. “Not before I have had a chance to kiss you.”
When Guillermo looks up at him, wide-eyed, Nandor swoops down and presses their lips together before Guillermo can react any further. After a moment to adjust to the surprise, though, Guillermo presses up on his tip toes and wraps his arms around Nandor’s neck, deepening the kiss until he pulls back, a finger going to his lip.
“Sorry,” he says with an embarrassed laugh. “Not used to fangs.”
Nandor leans down and chases the trickle of blood, licking it away with his tongue, eyes nearly glowing with what Guillermo could swear is anticipation, as if all of his Christmases (if vampires could even say Christmas, let alone celebrate them) have come at once.
“Oh, sweet Guillermo,” he rumbles, “such a time we are going to have together.”
He points to the cameras.
“You, out. Episode over.”
As the door sweeps shut with a flick of Nandor’s hand, the camera crew catches a disappearing sliver of the newly-minted couple backing onto Guillermo’s bed, arms wrapped around each other.
“Fuck no, I’m not upset he didn’t pick me,” Laszlo tells the producers over footage of Guillermo and Nandor walking hand in hand in a park at night. “Some vampires may have ‘fuck a slayer’ on their bucket list, but for those vampires, that’s the last thing on their bucket list. And Nandor’s an idiot, so at least Gizmo picked easy prey.”
“I’m so happy I ended up with Nandor,” Guillermo tells the camera, a few puncture mark hickeys clear on his neck despite the high button of his shirt. He’s standing in the hallway of his apartment, outside his room. “Yeah, he does look like Armand, but he’s so much more than that. He’s funny, he’s sweet, he’s a good kisser…” He blushes and ducks his head. “Yeah, I’m really happy. He said he’s going to take me out flying for our first real date.”
“The slayer thing doesn’t really bother me,” Colin Robinson says. The background footage has changed to Guillermo and Nandor playing hide and seek in the same park from the previous footage, Nandor cheating by turning into a bat and Guillermo catching him with surprisingly fast reflexes. “What I really wanted to do was become the beta reader for his fanfiction. I have a real talent for constructive criticism. I’ve already started leaving him comments. He blocked the first few accounts, but I can just keep creating new ones. Eventually he’ll start to see the ways I can help him improve.”
“Guillermo is everything I have ever wanted in a partner,” Nandor says dreamily from atop Guillermo’s unmade bed. He is fully clothed, but his hair is rumpled. “I think he and I will be very happy together. Thank you, Tomb Raiders, for making our union possible!”