Work Text:
“Can you tell us about when you first met Nandor?”
Guillermo pauses for a moment, eyes flicking between the flat black lens of the camera, and the eyes of the director, Ana. This week actually hasn’t felt quiet by any means to Guillermo, but apparently they had enough footage of him scrubbing blood out of ancient carpets, and were fishing around for something a bit more interesting.
“You guys should probably ask Nandor, I’m sure he’ll want to be the one to tell you that story.”
“Oh, we’re definitely gonna, but we want to hear your side of it too.” She answers with a brightness that feels false. For some reason this all feels like a trap, but Guillermo can’t quite think of any reason why.
“Uhm, okay. That’s fine I guess. I mean, it’s just the facts of my life right? You have to give me a bit of slack. I was nineteen, and not making the best decisions. I mean, they got me here,” he gestures to the room around him and then pauses for a second, looking around at the array of vampiric mess the fancy room currently holds. “For better or for worse. Fuck- that sounds like a wedding. But you know what I mean.” Guillermo bites his lip, trying to stop himself from talking before he says anything even dumber.
The glimmer in Ana’s eye still has him nervous, but it’s usually easier to just go with what the crew wants. If they don’t get something interesting here, they’re liable to accidentally knock over something to cause a fuss, and this requires far less cleanup.
“Ok, amazing. We’re rolling. You know the drill, answer in a full sentence, incorporating the question, please.”
“Yeah- yeah.” Guillermo takes a steadying breath, trying to marshall his expression into something a bit more neutral. He has no idea why this question makes him so nervous. “I first met Nandor in the Panera Bread I worked at…”
—
Guillermo’s jaw hung open in shock. He had never thought of that as a real thing that people actually did. Apparently it was though, since his coworker, Tori was able to sidle up to where he stood at the front counter and sneak a finger under his chin to snap his mouth closed.
None of it was enough to shake his gaze from where it was locked, on the door to the restaurant. Well, on the man in the door. The looming, long-haired, man in the door. He was, possibly, the hottest man Guillermo had ever seen with his own eyes.
Hot enough that he was good looking even despite the strange behavior. It was very strange though, as he loomed in the doorway, completely unmoving. He still had one hand on the door where he had pulled it open, but he didn’t complete the motion to step inside the restaurant.
It was like all the air had left the room, and Guillermo felt like he couldn’t breathe. Every hair stood up on the back of his neck, as if something momentous was about to happen.
“Hey man, come in or go out, you’re letting in the cold!” Tori shouted past Guillermo’s shoulder, and all at once the tension broke.
Quite visibly in the man, as he slumped and slunk into the Panera.
Where the darkness outside had suited him, silhouetting him against the glow of the moon off the late January snow, the artificial lighting worked against him. His skin looked pale and his eyes sunken. His hair frizzed around his shoulders.
Nonetheless, he strode to the counter with such force that Guillermo found himself stepping backwards. His cape (was he wearing a cape?) billowed behind him, as he walked forward with all the presence of a king walking to his throne.
“I would like to purchase some human foodstuffs.” Guillermo’s eyes flicked sideways to Tori, who was the one actually working the register that night. He was in the kitchen, but it had just gotten so quiet he had come up to chat.
“Yeah, sure buddy, which human foodstuff can I get you?” Her finger hovered over the register expectantly and the man’s eyes widened in what looked like fear. Guillermo got the strange impression that he hadn’t really expected to make it this far.
The man turned to point at the menu, his entire body, rather than just his head, that cape swirling around his shoulders again. Guillermo had to admit, as weird of a choice as it was, it worked for him, making him look impossibly tall and broad.
“You want to get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? You know that’s for kids, right?”
“Yes. Of course I know that. Are you refusing my coin?”
“Nope, that’ll be $4.78. Do you want apple juice, regular milk or chocolate milk?”
Guillermo could hear the barely concealed laughter in her voice as he turned and trudged to the kitchen. His head was halfway in the fridge, grabbing the side of yogurt, when he heard Tori’s frustrated voice ring out again. “You can’t actually pay with a single coin, man.”
There was some more conversation as Guillermo slipped to the back, pulling the peanut butter from where it had been packed away at 6 o’clock, with the typical end of kids’ menu orders, but by the time the sandwich was made, it sounded like everything was settled.
He tossed everything in a bag, and went back up to the front, grabbing the chocolate milk Tori had left on a tray. For some reason, every second this guy was in the store, Guillermo felt more unsettled, and he hoped if they didn’t give him any reason to stick around, he might not.
“Have a nice night.” Guillermo held up the bag, a talisman against weirdos sitting in his shop. It didn’t work though, or certainly did not ward the guy off. He looked at Guillermo as if noticing him for the first time, sniffing the air oddly.
And if this was the first time he was noticing Guillermo, the way his face shifted - that sly smile quirking his lips, the tilt of his eyebrows - told a story of nothing but (Guillermo could barely think it) pleasure.
“Well, hello, bread man.” His voice had turned low and lascivious, but he made no move to take the bag Guillermo still held up.
“Where were they keeping you?” He drew himself up to his full height, and Guillermo had to tip his head up a little, could feel his own gulp in the stretch of his throat.
“Uhm- the kitchen?” Guillermo’s voice squeaked embarrassingly on the word, but the man threw back his head and laughed, as if he had said something hilarious.
“The kitchen! How apt! Well, bread man, I was hoping you might help carry this food to my care-” He cut himself off from a word that sounded far more like carriage than car. “To my car. Yes. Would you mind terribly helping me with my meal?”
The pit of Guillermo’s stomach dropped out in a way that felt less fight or flight than fight or fu- well. He’d just say that there were a few base instincts warring in his body.
Currently though, he was mostly just frozen, staring up, paper bag crinkling as his fingers squeezed it way too tight.
“Actually, he’s not allowed to-”
“Sure.” Tori’s fingers dug into his arm as he cut her off.
“We’re gonna need just one second, buddy. Have to uh- check the handbook.” She dragged Guillermo into the kitchen, far enough to be out of sight. Guillermo could feel his muscles releasing one by one from the tension the man’s dark eyes had wound through his body.
“Guillermo, what the fuck, man? You can’t just leave in the middle of your shift with some freak. He’s probably gonna like, murder you or something. He gives me a bad feeling.”
“It’s fine, I’m just gonna help him to his car. Customer service is everything, right?” Guillermo could hear how weak his false cheer sounded to his own ears. He knew following this man outside was insane, but there was this ringing in his ears that made him want to. Some weird combination of wanting to get him away from Tori and an unearned confidence that nothing bad could happen.
She looked at him one more time, eyes narrowed. “You’re back in here in five minutes or I am calling the cops.”
Guillermo plastered on a smile that was far more confident than he felt and nodded, brushing past her to slip out beyond the counter. He had barely taken a breath when the man stepped close, a heavy hand on Guillermo’s shoulder as he led them out the door, to the sound of Tori’s muttered, “Better be a good lay.”
Guillermo’s cheeks heated at that, but he still stepped faster, wanting to move quickly in the winter air. He hadn’t even stopped to grab his coat.
“So, where’s your car?” The man looked down at him, confused for a moment, before he smiled solicitously, hand sliding down to his wrist in a way that sent shivers through Guillermo, and then yanked him along the sidewalk.
The man’s thumb rested on the skin beneath Guillermo’s sleeve, far colder than it should have been, brushing back and forth in a horribly intimate way that had Guillermo following him in a daze. It wasn’t until he let go that Guillermo realized they had made it to the alleyway behind the restaurant, tucked in behind the dumpster and completely invisible from the street.
Guillermo’s back was against the wall, and the man stepped in, looming over him in a way that made his eyes look like they were glowing. Guillermo should have been scared, he knew. For some reason he wasn’t. A prickling in his skin, a twitch in his fingers. He felt on top of the world.
He inhaled lasciviously, savoring the moment. “You see, bread man, now that you are here, I find myself hungering for something different.” His head reared back, and in the dim light, something caught with a twinkle.
“Wait, are you a vampire?” The words burst out of Guillermo’s mouth, the delight impossible to hide. The man froze, head tilting like a confused golden retriever, mouth still wide open.
After a long pause he made a strange noise in his throat, like he was trying to talk with his jaw practically unhinged. He caught himself, closing his mouth enough to answer properly. “Yes?” He sounded confused. Stunned. “Yes, I thought that was becoming obvious.”
“Prove it.” Guillermo was running on autopilot, apparently, the words escaping before he had a chance to think about them yet again.
In the blink of an eye, the man was gone and Guillermo gasped, looking around frantically. It wasn’t until he noticed the bat fluttering in the air a few feet above him that he realized what had happened. He watched it as closely as he could, as it wheeled in a circle, and then dropped. In the same moment, the man reappeared in front of him, landing heavily as if he’d just jumped out of the sky.
Wait- fuck. That was what he’d done.
“You’re real. You’re really a vampire.”
“I am. Now may I get on with-” the man raised his hands, making weak little claws in the air, as his mouth opened in what was clearly supposed to be a threat but just looked like an awkward grimace.
“Can I be a vampire?” Every foolish dream he’d ever had was coming back to him. At thirteen, all he’d wanted was to be a vampire. At fifteen, be with a vampire. He’d thought, at the ripe old age of nineteen, that he was older and wiser than that. Had accepted the realities of the world.
But he’d never thought the world contained impossibly hot guys with razor sharp fangs that could turn into a bat in front of him.
So maybe, just maybe, some of his dreams could come true.
The man- the vampire looked taken aback. “Well, uh, you see- I was planning-”
“I know it’s quick, but I’ve thought about this for a long time, dreamed about it really, and I just think that I would be a really good vampire.” Fuck, he’s babbling. The vampire is looking less and less sure by the moment. “But if you need me to prove it-”
“Yes!” The vampire nearly shouted, sounding like he was grasping at straws. “Yes, you must prove yourself. You can be a vampire, but only after you serve me. You must act as my familiar, attending me hand and foot for many years. And only once you have earned it, truly proven your worth, shall I turn you into a vampire.”
“Okay!”
“Okay? You heard the part about the hand and the foot, and the many many years of servitude?”
“Sure! I mean, it can’t be much worse than Panera Bread, right?” Guillermo laughed, expecting the vampire to laugh along. He didn’t, just stared at him with a blank look. Right, vampires probably don’t know all that much about working modern customer service.
“Anyways, it’s probably been almost five minutes, and Tori really will call the cops. Do you mind if I finish my shift, and then I can meet you later? I live just around the corner.”
That stunned look really wasn’t leaving the vampire’s face, but Guillermo wasn’t really sure what he could do about it.
“We shall meet tomorrow, around this corner, as the light of day has faded. Goodbye.” He turns to leave, and Guillermo doesn’t want him to go, finds the words stumbling out of his mouth.
“Wait! What’s your- what’s your name?”
“My name?” The vampire only tips his head to peek back over his shoulder at Guillermo, silhouetted beautifully by the moon.
“Yeah, what should I call you? When I meet you?”
“My name is Nandor the Relentless.” He turns back a little bit more, just to fix Guillermo with a dark stare. “But you will call me master.”
Guillermo makes the mistake of blinking and he’s gone, not even the fluttering of a bat following him out. Only the kids meal, dropped at the mouth of the alleyway to prove he was ever there.
—
“So he flirted with you night one?”
“Well, I mean, now it’s pretty obvious he was trying to eat me, I guess I just got lucky….” Guillermo’s voice trails off, considering the horror for a second. “So that’s why we don’t follow guys into dark alleys at night, kids!” The false brightness and awkward chuckle sound wrong even to his own ears, so he lets his eyes slide to the floor.
“You say that, but I have to ask. What on earth were you thinking?” She leans forward, question piercing through some very soft self-delusion that has cushioned him for many years.
“Honestly, I have no idea. I spent the whole first 72 hours floating on this strange cloud of confidence. Recently, I’ve wondered if it was something to do with my slayer heritage? Like, it was turning on- becoming activated? Or something. But I couldn’t tell you.”
Guillermo hoped that would be enough, because he didn’t want to admit the answer he’d always felt, deep down. That it was something beyond reason that brought them together - something almost like fate.