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“I made you a fucking glitter portrait! Do you think that was easy? Do you know how bad I am at drawing?” Nandor screamed, hand planted against the table way too heavily.
Guillermo blinked about twice, and with a furrowed expression only replied “Are you serious?”
“Of course I am serious! Why would I not be serious!? I painted you with that outfit you liked so much. I went to your little room to look at that picture so I could paint it very similarly!” Then the slight waver of his voice was gone as fast as it came and his tone drastically changed. “And this is how you repay me!”
“Repay you?” Guillermo screamed back, and he was pacing furiously and slowly towards Nandor, who flinched, again, so slightly anyone would miss it. Except for Guillermo. “I have been loyal to you for fifteen years! I have nothing to repay you! All I did for all those years was look out for you! Be blindly loyal to you! Save your fucking life, do you even know how often?? If you think I have any debt to you, then it is pretty much paid!”
“We all have debts to one another, Guillermo.” Nandor replied calmly, voice coarse and low as he leaned forward over the table, eyes cast down and a deep breath. “And mine to you is…” (He was struggling with the word.) … “impossible to settle.” Guillermo was still standing in the same place and bearing the same facial expression. “Because it is very great.” Nandor added, to clarify.
And then Guillermo’s hard-set expression weakened. And Nandor’s voice had not faltered. And he was still avoiding looking Guillermo in the eye.
“What did you just say?”
“Do you only know how to ask questions today?” Nandor replied frustratedly, and his decisive gaze landed on Guillermo now, but his voice was…
Sweet?
Before Guillermo could give a snarky reply - and he almost did - Nandor continued. “I know you want me to say it to you. It may be because I haven’t told you this many times before. Or just because you like to torture my feelings.” A shrug. “Whatever is the case…: Thank you, Guillermo. That you… are you.” He was visibly uncomfortable, but at the same time so sure of what he was saying that his eyes had that decisive and piercing look that so often dazzled and fascinated Guillermo. He continued after a short pause, more articulate than usual because he allowed no room for hesitation. “I have had a very long life, but I cherish our time together, even though your life will be very short, so I hope you feel like you have not wasted your time with me.”
The fact he said all of this while looking Guillermo straight to his eyes broke a great bit of his heart and all entirety of his resolve. He had never heard anything like this from Nandor, who had never directly addressed the actually long time Guillermo had worked for him, and then lived with him, and how work had become sharing a space but never truly belonging, and then feeling like you belonged there more than anywhere else in your entire life, and then to feel like more than ten years of that were for nothing, and then the weight of collapsing expectations, and mind crushing demands, and physical distance, and mental distance, and then leaving, and then returning. And, one day, crossing a threshold and leaving for good while a thin thread still hangs, like two people tied at their wrists, never fully allowed to look at their hand without seeing and feeling the other’s presence.
Sometimes he felt like he had wasted almost fifteen years of his life.
And yet?
Fuck, no. He hadn’t. Fuck, no. It wasn’t a waste. They were the most adventurous, unique, thrilling years of his life. And these people were some of the most unique, compelling, and complicated, and interesting (and rather silly) people he had ever met in his life. And he learned so much. And this man was someone he l…
He loved so much.
“Wow. Nandor, I…” He started. But didn’t really know what to say in that moment.
And Nandor had a furrowed, worried, confused look in his face that was causing the words to get tangled in his throat.
No, not confused. He had a hopeful look. A lost look. A look of someone who just needed some type of guidance, of clarification, of reassurance. Someone who didn’t resemble in the slightest the person Guillermo met fifteen years ago and that didn’t care about absolutely anything. A hopeful look directed solely at him. Hands lightly placed on the table.
Guillermo had learned to read his body language almost to perfection, he believed. Which made him even more afraid of saying something unjust, and hurtful.
“I don’t…”
And yet he had. He had wasted years of his life, hadn’t he? Allowed himself to be treated as a servant even when he went out of his way for all of them, to be taken for granted even if they dared to call him a friend. He never had a real job since he was twenty and when he gets one they chase him down to the very office and enforce their presence with very openly selfish intentions and, still, a slight attempt at framing it as “looking out for him”. He couldn’t love anyone outside of those centuries old stone walls because there came the thundering all-consuming jealously of people who could actually be dangerous to anyone else outside of their close circle and fuck, that was selfish. That was cruel.
And yet he looked at this man - who was now, indeed, worried - that had taken a step back from the table and had no idea now what to do with his hands, and he couldn’t just say it like that.
So much for the weight and meaning of intentions.
“I don’t feel like I have wasted any moment of my life with you.” At this, Nandor clenched a fist. Why was he getting tense with something that was supposed to sound calming? But Guillermo continued. “I just wish you…”
“What is it you wish?”
Guillermo’s heart was glued to his chest. All the blood had rushed to his face and it made his head hurt acutely. “Honestly, I wish you’d just be direct about it. About everything. Stopped glossing over—-“ He noted Nandor’s dazed look. “Glossing over means you disregard the importance of something.” Nandor nodded. “It means you’re not honest about it. About… almost anything! You make all of this… excuses because you’re… because you’re fucking jealous! And the worst is that I’m not even sure you know it! But I wish you’d stop.”
Guillermo blinked, to make sure he had actually managed to say this. He took a deep breath. He felt like he was on the verge of tears.
“You are not making a lot of sense, Guillermo.”
“Ok, I know you’re hurt that I fired you. Hurt… you’re furious! But why did you even come to my work? Why did you get a job at my work? And… why did you clone Freddie and then force me to have to deal with that in the house? Do you see how fucked up that was? And it took you fifteen years to tell me you’re proud of me, with all the words, clearly, and not through some fucked up, cryptic, unclear…” He didn’t even know what word to use. … “behaviour!?”
Nandor took a couple steps towards Guillermo, - who didn’t know what to make of that - but averted his gaze all over the room. Maybe Guillermo wasn’t that great in reading his body language, he had been clueless for a couple of minutes now.
“This thing about Freddie was very wrong of me, I see that. I am sorry, Guillermo.” Another step closer and Guillermo felt like if he took a step back it would push him away forever. Also, frankly, he didn’t want to take a step back. “I am not very good with words. And I am not very good at being a friend. I am not very sensitive, too, I never was. And I…” He smiled faintly, with a grace and patience that he so rarely displayed but that when he did it made him look like the most powerfully kind person Guillermo ever met. “I have lived for more than seven hundred years. It is very hard for me to change now. Time is different for you and me. I was angry when you fired me because I would never do that to you. I thought you didn’t want me in your life anymore. And that is okay. I don’t wish to be a burden to you.”
Guillermo was not even sure how he really did that but in the split of a second his hands reached for Nandor’s arm. A wordless reply, a rather desperate attempt to physically restrain him and prevent him from leaving or turning around or walking back or walking away —-
And Nandor’s hand immediately wrapped around Guillermo’s arm in exactly the same intention.
So much for the weight and meaning of intentions.
And what was that on his arm? A caress?
Now it was Guillermo who took a small step towards him. They were so close their faces almost touched.
“You’re not a burden to me. It’s just that I am not devoted to you anymore. Now, it is a choice. I want you in my life. That’s it. You don’t take over it, but I want you in it. Am I being confusing?”
Guillermo expected a yes. Both for the English and Nandor’s general incapacity to interpret complicated feelings. But he just said
“No. It is clear.”
So close Guillermo would have been able to hear Nandor’s heartbeat if he had one. Then Nandor retreated his hand very gently from his grip and it brushed slightly against Guillermo’s, a touch that had never happened besides in their awkward handshakes. Nandor took a step back, not as a withdrawal, but rather formally.
Laszlo was standing at the door, looking at them with a piercing look, not daring to move an inch. Devil knows how long he had been there. Probably not long, Nandor thought, otherwise he’d make a Laszlo comment, or a Laszlo cough, and announce himself. This fucking guy, it ran through his head. But he didn’t really care that Laszlo was there for the last thing he was going to say now. And, besides, Guillermo hadn’t noticed him.
“I am going to say it again, Guillermo. I am very proud of you. It is clear why you are impressing this fucking idiot Jordan.” Guillermo widened his eyes in protest. “Sorry. It is because you are great at everything you do. You were a great familiar, and a great bodyguard, a great roommate… unlike some…”
(He braced himself for a Laszlo cough. None came.)
“You are a great friend and you will continue to be great at your human jobs. That is it. I am being direct”. He said proudly.
Guillermo couldn’t hold a smirk. No, a smile. With a proud (frankly both of himself and of Guillermo) and rather smug tap on his shoulder, Nandor walked out, past Laszlo, who shot him a look with a small, knowing, clever smirk.
After a few seconds of pondering on what had happened, Guillermo turned around to leave as well and got shit fucking scared as hell by Laszlo.
“JESUS fucking C—-“
“Uh - ow - sorry, old chap! I came to check if it would be absolutely necessary to drag Nandor, by force, into the truck of the car… but I see you have fixed the man!”
“Madre de Díos, qué —“
“Ow, Gizmo!”
“Sorry!!! Nandor’s fine. We can leave.”
“Oh, fine he isn’t.” Laszlo replied through his teeth, tilting his head with a smile as Guillermo walked past him, completely missing it.