Archive of Our Own ^beta

Re-integrating into life with the vampires after a month of imprisonment is a lot easier than Guillermo imagined it would be. On some fronts, at least.

The Vampiric Council serves as an excellent distraction from the events of the past month, even as Guillermo finds himself delegated largely back to familiar duties and crawling through vents like a subway rat, eavesdropping and being a nuisance whenever he gets the opportunity.

Nadja’s caught up in the power grab, Laszlo is up to his ears in pornography, and Nandor… 

Nandor is certainly distracted.

A receptionist at the gym. The gym that Guillermo now very much regrets buying Nandor a membership for. Obviously it’s not going to work out, especially since Nandor is for some reason sending people out disguised as himself to seduce this woman, but the rock hard weight of it settles in the pit of Guillermo’s stomach with a thud all the same. It somehow hurts more, that it’s a human. To know that’s never been the reason. 

He does as he’s asked, slips the cloak on and feels the heft and size of Nandor’s body envelope him. He tries not to lose himself too deeply in it. He talks to the receptionist. 

He tries not to think too hard about what she says.

He wears the cloak the whole way home. There’s certainly a novelty to seeing the world from Nandor’s perspective; he’s much higher up for one thing. But beneath the cloak and finery and long legs, Guillermo can’t fly, or transform into a mist, or bite the head off the guy at the bus stop who won’t quit tapping his foot and vaping. Under all of it, he still smells of his own body spray.

The moment he steps under the curtain into his closet, he tears the cloak from his shoulders and flings it onto the floor, then flops backwards onto his cramped little bed, eyes fixed on the low slope of the ceiling. 

Feelings.

Guillermo turns the word over in his brain, tests it, chews on it a little. He briefly becomes so overwhelmed with mortification that he clenches his teeth and bites his own tongue. He screams into his pillow, remembers exactly what that pillow has been used for, and then just screams. 

Nobody’s home to hear it anyway. 

God, what the fuck. 

It’s not that he’s been completely blind. He knows, obviously, that his devotion to Nandor is about far more than clinging to the dwindling, desperate hope that his master might someday turn him. There’s always been some dim awareness that he was going somewhere utterly over the edge of what was reasonable, what was expected, in the lengths he went to for Nandor. He killed for him. Even before he became a slayer, he killed for him.

But that’s just vampire shit. They get in your head, they fuck with you. What movie have you seen where a vampire and their familiar have a normal business relationship? Familiars are always some type of, like, weird little mole person, baring their throats and degrading themselves and burying the bodies and never saying no. 

Of course he admires Nandor. He’s an ancient vampire. He’s built like some kind of disgraced god and thus commands worship in turn. It’s not that he wants Nandor, it’s that he wants to become him. And as long as that remains impossible, he wants to sup on the closeness of him, to take whatever he can get. Is that so unnatural?

He lingers on each familiar excuse and feels the well-worn layers of them peel away until nothing remains but the cold stone of truth. Who did he ever think he was fucking kidding?

“Fuck,” he mutters, to the pressing walls of the empty, crumbling house. It doesn’t respond.

At some point he must tire himself out enough to fall asleep, yet when he wakes, it feels like only a moment has passed. Somebody is shaking him forcefully and Guillermo shoots backwards upon recognising the touch, eyes wide. His head collides with the wall with a thump. Even through the layers of his sweater and shirt he can feel how cold Nandor’s hand is. 

“Master…?” Guillermo mutters, confused. His head is pounding and he can feel a dent in his cheek where his glasses have been pushed in against his pillow. On reflection, he’s hard pressed to remember the last time he had a full day’s sleep.

“There he is,” Nandor huffs, clearly displeased. “Can you explain to me why I have returned home from my travels to find my bodyguard asleep on duty?”

“Sorry, I uh…” Guillermo blinks, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Laszlo asked me to --”

“And what’s this?” Nandor, ignoring him, picks up the discarded cloak of duplication from where it lies in a pile on the floor. “Did you steal this from Laszlo? I hope you weren’t doing anything disgusting with it, you little sicko.” 

“What? No, I was asked -- “ He cuts himself off, honing in on the distress knitted between Nandor’s eyebrows, the glossy, almost bleary look in his eyes. “Master, are you alright?”

It’s moments like these where Guillermo has the hardest time imagining his master as the fearsome warlord he was seven-hundred years ago. Nandor’s shoulders slump, his chin juts out, his lower lip wobbles precariously -- the accurate descriptor would be, by Guillermo’s standards at least, pathetic.

“No, I'm not alright!” Nandor throws the cloak down and kicks it as if it has personally affronted him. “Meg, the love of my life Meg, she rejected me! She said she’s only attracted to one gender and it’s not mine -- I had forgotten that was even an option!”

“Huh.” Guillermo frowns. “Okay, so this whole time you just assumed everyone you met was bisexual?” Good to know, he supposes.

“That’s not the point, Guillermo!” Nandor glares, fists balled. “My heart has been shattered!”

It’s a relief, really, but he still hates to see Nandor like this, wailing and feeling sorry for himself and making a fuss. Guillermo reaches out and sort of gestures at patting him on the arm without actually doing it, still less than eager to touch him.

“I’m sorry,” Guillermo says. “At least… At least it wasn’t anything to do with you as a person, right? She’s just not into guys.”

Nandor screws his face up like a little kid. “But I love her,” he complains.

“It hurts now but, uh… You know.” Guillermo sighs, running a hand through his hair. May as well say it. It’s not gonna make it real if he says it. “There’ll be someone else. Someone who... is into guys.”

“There will never be anyone else!” Nandor declares, and twirls on his heel, storming out from under the curtain.

As it turns out, there is someone else.

The moment Nandor starts pulling that fucking disappearing act, Guillermo knows. He knows because it's happened before. Twice, since he’s been Nandor’s familiar. 

Clearly, however, his new position as bodyguard has gotten to his head, because when Nadja and Laszlo start suggesting Nandor could be in danger, he panics, falls for it and allows them to lead him right into that hotel room. So he has them to thank for catching a full, vivid glimpse of his master balls deep in a sixty-year-old woman on a Thursday night. 

With a camera crew filming his reaction. Awesome!

It’s not like it’s his first time catching Nandor in flagrante with a partner (God, if only) but it still doesn’t exactly rule to witness. Even as he covers his ears, he can’t get the sounds out of his head, like they’ve already wormed their way in there, implanted themselves. 

As things go even further downhill, speeding like a colossal steam locomotive that stumbled off its tracks six hours ago and is now heading steadily towards a small mining town, it’s only the general certainty that Nandor is absolutely going to get his heart broken again that keeps Guillermo from flushing his own head down the toilet. Which is maybe a little callous of him but, hey, you have to shut off pretty much all of your empathy if you want to be successful at a job like this. 

And if he needs to take comfort in resting his head on the shoulder of a corpse dressed like Nandor, and watch Nandor’s favourite movie with said corpse, and become extremely invested in the plot of said movie when he’s never previously cared for it all that much? That’s Guillermo’s business, okay? Back off.

It all goes, to quote Laszlo, completely tits up anyway. Although not without a final sting. Nandor turns Gail without sparing a second thought. She never even wanted him to. It’s probably not even legal to turn a werewolf into a vampire -- like, seriously are there not gonna be severe consequences for that? -- but Nandor obviously doesn’t consider that. He doesn’t think of anything but keeping her alive.

If Guillermo died of a kickball to the head, he figures Nandor would just throw his corpse into the big sinkhole they bury all the other familiars in. 

But when Nandor smiles at him, he forgets all of that. 

He’s starting to think he might be fucked, actually.

The night passes, followed by the day. Nandor seems to get over it. 

Guillermo figures he should probably follow suit. It’s been a stressful couple of months. He got a little too candid in front of a stranger and let her get into his head; it is what it is. Obviously some normo human isn’t going to get the intricacies of the vampire-familiar relationship, that doesn’t mean he has to be misled by whatever nonsense she came up with to fill the gaps. 

He still has the cloak of duplication. It lies in wait under his bed, tormenting him whenever he gets a chance to sleep. Sometimes he thinks he hears it whispering his name. 

Lately, he’s spending a lot of time focusing on his chores.

The bulbs in the chandelier in the fancy room all flickered out at once earlier tonight, so he sets himself up on a precarious stool and replaces them one by one while Nadja and Laszlo drape themselves over a nearby chaise longue and discuss their plans for hiring themselves a new familiar, apparently unwilling to go and do that in literally any other room in the house.

“I know they keep dying, Laszlo my sweet, but I am just so busy with my duties on the council!” Nadja beams with the usual pride she exudes whenever she gets to reference her newfound station. “Besides, wouldn’t you rather a familiar die a little early than end up too attached.”

She glances up at Guillermo and gestures to him with a surreptitious little point of her thumb. He rolls his eyes. “You know I can hear you, right?”

“Oh, sometimes I forget the range on those sad human ears of yours,” Nadja replies, shameless. 

His hand stills on the lightbulb he’s screwing into place. “You guys think I’m... too attached?” 

Laszlo barks a laugh. “Bloody Hell, Gizmo. Attached is putting it lightly.”

“Seriously,” Nadja adds. “You’re just on Nandor all the time like you’re an extra part of his body. Like a boil or a second penis or something.”

“Indeed,” Laszlo remarks, smirking. “Perhaps if you spent a little less time in his undergarments, you’d be a bit less fucking incompetent, eh?” 

Guillermo drops the bulb. It shatters on the carpet in a small, sad bloom of glass. 

“See what I mean?” Laszlo says. 

Gripping the edge of the stool for safety, Guillermo lowers himself down and begins to pick up the shards of glass, careful not to cut himself in an effort to avoid Nadja and Laszlo making bizarre lewd comments about his blood. “You know I do stuff for all of you, right?” he says as he works. “Nandor’s my master, sure, but I really think of you guys as my family --”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“You really must stop kidding yourself, Guillermo,” Nadja sighs. “You reek even more of desperation than usual lately.”

The next piece of glass he picks up slices the pad of his thumb. Blood burbles out of the cut. They notice.

On Guillermo’s next day off, he makes it a priority to get out of the house. Clearly, this life is getting to him right now. For one thing, when was the last time he actually spent time with someone outside of his household who wasn’t a fucking goat? 

So, he calls Jeremy, who he’s been making an effort to avoid ever since he attempted to sacrifice him to the whims of his master and then watched him lose his virginity to a vampire in a gimp suit at the world’s lamest orgy. Some things just make it hard to look somebody in the eye for a while. 

They meet for dinner at a small place close to the village, and it becomes immediately apparent that Jeremy has undergone some changes. Namely, he has way too much gel in his pony-tailed hair and is wearing some kind of harness over his shirt. Guillermo privately thinks he looks ridiculous, self-consciously adjusting his own patterned cardigan when the server approaches them as if to signal his comparative respectability, but he supposes he’s glad that Jeremy figured out whatever it is he needed to.

It’s nice to see him. Surreal, almost. Guillermo certainly hasn’t been keeping up with any Fortnite matches these days and he’d kind of forgotten what it was like to just spend time with someone from the world he used to solely inhabit, a world populated entirely by weird shut-in losers, who nonetheless stuck together with the desperate kind of loyalty previously restricted to gladiators trapped in the fighting pits of ancient Rome. 

They chat aimlessly for a while, then Jeremy starts talking at length about how welcoming the burlesque community has been and Guillermo smiles tightly and tries to seem supportive. 

“I owe you a lot, you know,” Jeremy says, after describing the podcast-themed strip show he attended with his new boyfriend over the weekend in excruciating detail.

“Oh, I don’t think…”

“I’m serious.” Jeremy leans forward, earnest in a way Guillermo finds kind of distressing. “If you hadn’t invited me to that party I’d still be in my mom’s basement getting catfished on Discord.”

“Well, you know, it wasn’t even me who wanted to invite you, so…” Guillermo shrugs, clearing his throat. “I’m really happy for you, though, Jeremy.”

“Hey, I appreciate it.” Jeremy smiles, taking a sip of his beer. “So, what about you Guillermo? Now, I’m, you know, a gigachad, I have to ask. I honestly don’t even remember the last time you were dating anyone.”

Guillermo chews on a bite of his burger for way longer than is either necessary or socially acceptable and says, “The last time would be never, actually, yeah.” 

“What? Guillermo, that’s crazy! We need to get you out there.” Jeremy, the guy who was literally a virgin less than a year ago, raps his knuckles on the table. “Have you considered getting extremely into the BDSM scene? Because it is really, seriously a great place to meet people. Not even kidding, man.”

Guillermo releases a stilted little laugh. “Not interested, Jeremy,” he says.

“Come on, at least consider it!” Jeremy gets like this, a wolf with a bone, when a dumb idea strikes. Back in high school, Guillermo could always tell when he was thinking up something stupid because his nose would start bleeding even more than usual.

“I don’t want to consider it,” Guillermo says -- polite but firm, that’s the key. “I’m perfectly content with the way my life is going.” He’s been really into Instagram affirmation pages lately.

“Perfectly--? Guillermo, you are clearly not content.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure I have feelings for someone and they’re never gonna reciprocate so can you just drop it, maybe?” 

Fuck. Goddamnit, he is so on edge. This is what happens, he supposes, when you don’t speak to a fellow human being about anything longer than a fast food order in about three straight months. 

Thankfully, Jeremy is just as, if not more, socially incompetent. “Who is it?” he asks, wide-eyed but otherwise nonplussed.

Guillermo gnaws on the heel of his hand for a little bit, then mutters, “It’s my boss,” in the same tone you would admit to running down your neighbour's dog in a Kia Sorento.

“Your boss…” Jeremy pauses in thought. “The guy with the wooden penis?”

“He has a normal penis,” Guillermo replies, “Under that.”

“Well, if you’ve seen it that’s step one.”

Guillermo really does not want to get into how many times he’s seen it. 

“I don’t even know if that’s what my deal is,” Guillermo adds hurriedly. “Things have been weird lately. It’s kinda hard to figure out my feelings. Like, yeah, I’d do anything for him. Have… Done anything for him. But that’s just the job description, right? You don’t have to be, like, in love with someone to be prepared to kill for them, do you? Hypothetically, I mean.” He downs the rest of his drink and raises a hand to try and catch the closest server’s attention.

“You sound pretty smitten to me, dude,” Jeremy replies, laughing good-naturedly. 

The server approaches and Guillermo turns to them with wide eyes. “Could I please get a double vodka, neat?” 

Double vodka does its duty. He and Jeremy end up painting the town in a way neither of them have in… Well, their whole pitiful loser lives. Actually, Guillermo’s definitely projecting there. It seems like Jeremy’s been painting the town a whole lot lately, with a wide variety of fluids.

Even as the night goes on it’s already fading, which is probably a very bad sign. He’s the kind of wasted where, at one point, he finds himself already at a table in a bar and thinks, for one vivid moment, “did I just fucking teleport?” 

But he hardly thinks of Nandor at all, so he figures he’s doing something right.

After a string of bars and way too many overpriced cocktails, Jeremy convinces Guillermo to follow him to his favourite club in the city. A hazy taxi ride later, Guillermo takes one look at the flickering neon red sign that reads, THE FUCKNASIUM in jagged bold, and has the presence of mind to think, yeah, he should probably go home.

He’s debating this point with Jeremy when, out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight a familiar black-clad figure slumping out of the crimson double-doors in a sleazy mass of brocade fabric -- the only person on earth who would wear a neckerchief to a fetish club.

Laszlo notices him before Guillermo gets chance to even think of absconding. He saunters over, a smirk taking up half his face. “Well, well, well,” he drawls. “Either I’m hallucinating, or you, Gizmo, are far more of a degenerate than I’ve ever given you credit for.”

Would Nadja and Nandor mind that much, if Guillermo gave Laszlo a push and impaled him on the nearby spiked fence? Could he make it look like an accident?

“Absolutely not,” he says. “This isn’t -- No. No.” He makes himself stand a little taller, makes the word firm and clear like he’s addressing a dog shitting where it shouldn’t. “No!”

Laszlo just smiles wider. “I always suspected you were something of a reprobate but my goodness,” he says. “The shit that goes on inside that building… I wouldn’t have thought you had the stones for it.”

“I don’t,” Guillermo protests blearily. “I’m not --”

“I mean, the events that just took place in and on my body? Frankly, even I feel a bit fucking violated,” Laszlo continues. “I’ve been on this earth a damn long time, and I’ve still never had anything stuck up there.” He returns from the fog of memory and gives Guillermo a sharp look. “You know, I’ve never held even a smidge of respect for you, but if this is the shit you’re getting up to…”

“I’m not, okay?” Guillermo exclaims. “I’m just here with my friend.” He looks around for Jeremy and finds himself coming up short. God fucking damn it could that guy not wait five minutes before running off to get chained to a board and sounded or whatever the fuck?! “Well, he’s gone now but --”

The look of delight on Laszlo’s face could sink a second Titanic. Seriously, fuck this guy.

“Please don’t tell Nandor about this,” Guillermo says weakly. 

“Your secret’s safe with me, old chap,” Laszlo replies, winking before he heads into the closest alleyway and yells out, “Bat!”, disappearing into the night sky.

Because getting street harassed by Laszlo is apparently not a sobering enough experience on its own, Guillermo stops off to eat at a kebab place on his journey back and ends up getting home dangerously close to dawn. 

In the hallway mirror, a very tired-looking, untidy man covered in glitter looks back at him. He doesn’t remember where the glitter came from. 

Some distant voice in the back of his head reminds him he should probably still go and help Nandor into his coffin tonight. It’s an important duty. He takes it seriously. It’s the one job that allows him to hold Nandor’s hand.

So, there he goes, staggering up the rotting wooden stairs and struggling to keep from tripping on the ridiculous assortment of old rugs that line every inch of floor, or at least enough floor that it doesn’t make much difference. When he reaches Nandor’s bedchamber his master is waiting for him, relaxing on the corner settee with a book. There’s a bloodstain on his collar. Guillermo will have to get that out in the morning.

“At last!” Nandor exclaims, as Guillermo slumps into the doorway. “Tonight’s victims were so feisty, Guillermo, I’m exhausted!”

“Alright,” Guillermo says, his voice slurred and wavering. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Nandor stops short of taking Guillermo’s extended hand, his nose wrinkling. He reaches out and touches the smear of glitter across Guillermo’s neck, the place where his shirt has come unbuttoned over the course of the night. “You’re drunk,” he says. It’s absurd, the way he says it like a judgement, like he wasn’t talking about the innocent people he just murdered and drained mere moments ago.

“That’s right,” Guillermo replies, too dazed to say much more. What more is there to say? His heart is hammering. He’s certain Nandor must be able to feel it, the way his touch lingers over the pulse point.

“So, it’s true.” Nandor sighs his disappointment, pulling his hand back. “Laszlo told me he saw you at The Fucknasium.”

First of all, god fucking damn it Laszlo. Second of all, why does Nandor know what The Fucknasium is? What, actually, is a Fucknasium? Guillermo is really dying to know, at this point.

“He was mistaken,” Guillermo says, too sleepy to put up any kind of real fight. “I was just passing by.”

Nandor squints at him for a moment before seeming to decide he doesn’t detect a lie. “Good,” he declares, taking Guillermo’s hand and stepping up into the coffin. He settles into it, resting against the fur-lined pillow at the head. “I don’t like the thought of all those perverts touching my fami -- “ He catches himself, smiling a little. “My bodyguard.”

Guillermo snorts, rolling his eyes. “Why?” he asks. “Are you gonna touch me?”

When he glances at Nandor’s face, he finds him looking back at Guillermo as if he’s been struck; eyes wide, mouth slack and open. Something in Guillermo stills. A long moment passes, dusty and suffocating.

Finally, Nandor asks softly, “Is that what you want, Guillermo?”

The humiliation burns in Guillermo’s chest like something white hot and searing. He feels, quite suddenly, aglow with shame. 

“Ignore me,” he says, trying to turn his tone into something breezy, something light. It doesn’t work. He sounds hollowed out, wrecked. “I’m drunk. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

Nandor frowns and it’s really just too awful. Guillermo reaches out blindly for the lid of the coffin and his hand slips on the latch, causing him to accidentally slam it down way too fast in a great crash of splintering wood. “Guillermo!” Nandor cries out, muffled. “My fucking nose!”

“Goodnight Master,” Guillermo replies, darting from the room.

His vision swims, every neuron in his brain sparking fierce neon to remind him what a dumbass he is, and as he twists through the hallways he catches Colin Robinson ambling away, grinning with his eyes glowing blue.

It is very, very difficult not to push him down the stairs.

They don’t talk about it.

The evening routine goes as usual. He wakes Nandor with a smile, albeit one that’s a little frayed from the combination of exhaustion and a killer hangover, assists him in dressing and spritzes him with his favourite scents. Nandor is quieter than usual throughout the process, a silence that feels eerie and wrong, coming from him.

He only speaks once Guillermo begins to brush his hair. It’s a duty Guillermo takes seriously -- he pushes the comb through slowly, chasing each pull with his fingers, carding them softly so that he doesn’t tug at Nandor’s scalp. 

“You’re very good at that,” Nandor says, voice low. 

For a moment, Guillermo’s sure he’s misheard. His hand stills and falls into the space between Nandor’s shoulder blades. “What?” he asks.

Nandor huffs. “It’s a compliment, do you want to take it or not?”

“I’ll take it,” Guillermo says, chuckling. “Thank you.”

There’s a breath where it feels like Nandor’s going to say something more, and Guillermo’s throat feels so blocked with anticipation that he’s almost relieved when Nandor simply grumbles, “Chop chop, get back to it.” 

Guillermo does as he’s told. It’s moments like these; this every day stillness, that he becomes aware of just how at his mercy Nandor really is. The power of it is a headrush, thrumming over his skin, and on his final comb through Nandor’s hair, he goes out of his way to make it hurt. Nandor releases a low hiss of pain as his head is yanked back and turns to Guillermo in shock, fangs instinctively bared.

“Sorry, Master,” Guillermo says, smiling. “My hand slipped.”

Under the glow of the half-moon, Guillermo catches a vampire lurking in the depths of the garden, shrouded in the shadow of one of Laszlo’s horrible erotic topiaries. He grabs the invader from behind, tussles with it on his way to force it down onto the lawn, and as he digs the stake into its heart, he closes his eyes and lets the cool spray of blood drench his face. 

There’s really no need to get into all that.

It’s the third one he’s caught in the past couple of weeks, which is enough to tell him something’s definitely up, but not enough to tell him why. They haven’t even been trying to get into the house, just lurking around the periphery, watching and waiting, and it’s meant that Guillermo has had to extend his bodyguard duties to a nightly patrol.

Thank god for chocolate covered espresso beans. 

He’s halfway dragged the body toward the outhouse when he gets jumpscared by Nandor exploding out of bat form beside him. 

“What are you doing Guillermo?” Nandor asks, peering down his nose suspiciously.

After he’s done shrieking like a moron, Guillermo stands to his full height, brushing off the front of his sweater. “Protecting you,” he says breathlessly. “As is my job.”

Nandor groans as he looks down at the corpse. “Damn it, Guillermo,” he complains. “Killing vampires again? What is this? Do you have an addiction of some kind?”

“What else am I supposed to do when they come sniffing around the house?” Guillermo retorts. “Politely ask them to leave?”

“Yes!”

“Well, I tried that on the last one and he nearly took a bite out of me.” He sighs, folding his arms. “Something is going on. I’m starting to think this whole Vampiric Council thing has been a trap the entire time.”

“How dare you!” Nandor erupts. “You don’t think we earned this position on our own merits?”

“Wouldn’t that be my merits?” Guillermo replies. “I’m the one who killed all those guys.”

“Is that what this is about? You don’t need to kill people for our approval, Guillermo.”

Guillermo digs his hands into his hair and tries to remember the grounding exercises his doctor taught him. “Whatever,” he manages, which is a lot more civilised than the majority of things he actually wants to say. “Are you gonna help me with the body?”

Nandor looks confused by the question, and Guillermo expects a standard ‘of course not, Guillermo, that’s your job’ response, but Nandor surprises him. “At least take the stake out of it first, it’s a fucking health hazard.”

Guillermo does as asked, planting one hand on the body’s shoulder for support as he dislodges the stake from its heart. He hears Nandor making retching sounds while he does so, but eventually he wiggles it out from between bone and cartilage, throwing his hand triumphantly up in the air.

“Got it!” he exclaims brightly. 

“Don’t point that thing at me!” Nandor hisses, launching himself backwards like a frightened cat. 

Guillermo looks between the bloody stake and the terror on Nandor’s face and grins. “My mistake,” he says, tossing it out of sight. 

“Yes,” Nandor huffs. “It is.” He stares at the body for a long moment, then asks, “What am I supposed to do with this?”

The incompetence really does astound Guillermo sometimes. He talks Nandor through the whole lengthy nightmare of the body disposal process, the hardest part of his job that has nonetheless become so commonplace that even saying it out loud doesn’t make it feel strange anymore. Nandor nods along while he talks but Guillermo isn’t so sure he’s actually listening.

Still, Nandor raises his eyebrows when Guillermo’s done talking, almost as if he’s impressed. “You do all that every time I eat someone?” he asks.

“I sure do,” Guillermo sighs. 

“You are a very strange little man, Guillermo.”

Yeah. He can’t really argue with that one. 

Getting rid of the corpse is a lot easier with Nandor’s supernatural strength involved, but it’s kind of negated by his general confusion and constant insistence that they should just “shove it in the incinerator” no matter how many times Guillermo explains that no, no, they should not. 

By the time they’re done, the pair of them are covered in a ridiculous amount of blood and dirt and Guillermo is already anticipating the lies he’s going to have to tell on his next visit to the dry cleaners, because even his patented Heavy Duty Blood Remover is not gonna be up to this task. He’s also thoroughly convinced himself to never invite Nandor to help him with any of his chores ever again, though something warm has curled up and made a home between his ribs at the very fact that Nandor did choose to help him.

Something has to go pretty wrong in your life, Guillermo supposes, for you to reach a point where you’re doing heavy mental calculus to determine whether there was romantic subtext behind your boss’s offer to help you dispose of a corpse.

To make matters worse, Nandor smiles at him with a smear of mud across his cheek and says, “Enough of this, it’s time you went and drew me a bath,” and like, after a certain point it does kind of feel like he’s doing this shit on purpose, as if this job doesn’t already involve enough psychological torment.

Guillermo runs the bath. Even as the steam fogs his glasses, his focus doesn’t shift from what he had to do tonight. Chances are, something is coming for them, and if that’s the case, Guillermo is going to stake it through the heart however many times it takes to kill it.

Until then, he’s going to spend, like, up to an hour around an extremely naked Nandor. Which actually makes the killing everyone who comes for him thing seem easy in comparison.

Guillermo is not surprised when he steps out of the bathroom (suds on his sweater, untold despair in his eyes) to find Colin Robinson lurking around with a smile on his face. 

“Hey, thanks for the feast, man,” he says. “I swear your sexual frustration’s gonna make me grow a whole new head of hair if you keep it up.”

“Will you shut up,” Guillermo hisses. 

Colin Robinson shrugs. “You keep cooking up this combo of seriously repressed horny loneliness, I’m gonna keep feeding off it,” he says. “Not much I can do about it, bud.”

“Great, well I’m glad you’re eating well.”

“And I’m gonna keep doing so as long as you don’t do anything about your feelings,” Colin Robinson continues. “So, like, for a long time I imagine. Possibly until you die, by my calculations.”

Guillermo’s eyes dart to a camera that isn’t there and he ends up just giving a disgruntled look to a painting of a particularly well-endowed Nosferatu. 

“Yummy, yummy in my tummy,” Colin Robinson says, smacking his lips before he walks away humming some Ed Sheeran song tunelessly beneath his breath.

Guillermo wishes he could prove him wrong, spite him in some way. But that’s just the problem isn’t it? He isn’t going to. He can’t.

He’s killed dozens of vampires (seriously, he thinks he’s gonna push one hundred on that front soon) but telling Nandor his feelings -- which are what, exactly? They seem to oscillate wildly between schoolboy yearning and something worryingly psychosexual -- seems utterly fucking insurmountable. 

It’s like if Everest was a vampire. That’d probably be pretty difficult to climb.

Yeah, it turns out the whole Vampiric Council thing was a trap the whole time. Who could’ve possibly seen that coming?

Their tactic, it seems, was to separate Nandor from Guillermo so he couldn’t slaughter, maim or otherwise brutalise the incoming attackers. Why now? Literally who fucking knows. What matters is that it doesn’t work. Obviously. Because vampires are idiots.

Okay, so it almost works. Guillermo is dashing through the city in a mad panic with stakes strapped to his chest because it kind of worked but it isn’t going to work. He’s going to save Nandor. Any other option is unthinkable. 

He dashes into the office building, sweat congealing on his forehead as he mashes the button down to the basement, and when Guillermo reaches Nandor in the underground depths of the council chambers, he finds his master attempting to hold off a dozen NPC-looking vampire assassins in the freaky long corridor while bleeding profusely from a wound in his side. 

He’s making a good go of it, all things considered. There’s a general cacophony of snarling teeth tearing flesh, but Guillermo doesn’t exactly take the time to admire the baroque composition of the scene before he rushes in screaming, “Watch out, Master!” and spritzes everyone present with holy water.

Ultimately, he makes pretty short work of the attacking onslaught. He’s been preparing for this for a long time now, but he’s hesitant to use some of his more destructive weapons out of fear of accidentally injuring Nandor, so he sticks to the classics -- a stake to the chest, a cross to the face, holy water shot through a water pistol right to the temple. 

By the time he’s done, his clothes, face, and hands are awash with dark blood, and every metal cross on his body is smoking. Nandor has fallen to the floor, his head propped up against an exposed pipe. He’s ashen-faced and grunting in pain and looking at Guillermo with his eyes wide and bloodshot, his pupils blown out like abysses. 

“It’s just me, Guillermo,” he says. “You can stop now.”

Guillermo frowns, glancing down, and realises the stake gripped in his hand is pointed directly at Nandor’s heart. He lets out a cry of shock and drops it with a clatter, chest heaving with exhaustion and adrenaline. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasps. He falls to his knees and takes Nandor’s face in his hands, running his thumbs over his cheeks like he’s looking for cracks in porcelain. When he’s certain he’s not going to turn into dust, he moves further down, touching the blood-spattered rip in Nandor’s silk tunic. His hand comes back glossy with red. “Shit,” Guillermo mutters. “Shit, are you gonna be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” Nandor retorts, but his voice is thin and reedy. “I just need…” It looks like it pains him to say it, like there’s cut glass lining the walls of his throat. “I need blood.”

Guillermo’s eyes widen. Nandor has never drank from him before, not once in eleven years. Even at his most ravenous, he’s always sent Guillermo out to drag some poor bastard back for him to feast on. Guillermo has never questioned it, because questioning it would betray how desperately he wants it, which would be. Awkward, probably. 

But he does. Want it.

“You mean… Master, are you sure?”

“What other option do I have?” Nandor spits. It’s obvious he hates it -- his vulnerability, admitting his weakness. Yet here Guillermo has him, splayed out and tender. 

Oh no, Guillermo thinks. This could go to his head.

“You’ve never… Before, I mean,” Guillermo says, and he really doesn’t mean to drag this out, to make Nandor beg for it. “Why?”

Nandor groans his frustration. “Because I was thinking that if I started to drink from you I would not be able to stop,” he says. “But now... I’m thinking that you can make me stop.”

I would not be able to stop. The words flood Guillermo’s ears. He feels himself heat up, a whole body flush that knocks the breath out of him, but there’s another matter here, one significantly more pressing.

“What if I don’t want you to stop?”

“Guillermo…” 

“No, go on,” Guillermo says. “Give me a good reason. ‘Cause I think right now, you could turn me. I could make you turn me.”

Nandor growls low in his chest. Under the flickering LED candles it seems like he’s getting even paler as the blood gurgles out of him. “Because I need you, alright?” he barks. He very obviously can’t bring himself to look Guillermo in the eye. “Well done, you made me say it. You are very manipulative recently.”

Guillermo lowers his head and nods once, a small smile curling across his mouth. He supposes it’s pathetic that that’s all he needs to hear. Only, being aware of that doesn’t change a thing. It never has.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll stop you.” 

He shuffles forward on his knees. The hallway is cramped and small and there are a lot of dead vampires slowly turning to ash around them, so he ends up stumbling awkwardly into Nandor’s lap, straddling him while trying not to press forward onto his injury. 

He’s never been this close to him before. He can feel the unnatural stillness of Nandor’s sturdy chest against him, can smell the wood-scented oil in his hair and the blood on his breath. Nandor’s hand is cold and heavy as marble, but when he grips the meat of Guillermo’s waist, Guillermo can feel it trembling. 

“Is this okay?” Nandor asks, nonsensically, as he pulls Guillermo closer to him. 

Guillermo hisses out a breath and nods shakily into Nandor’s shoulder. If Nandor can feel how hard he is, he doesn’t comment on it. Which, really, he by rights should, because it is so inappropriate for Guillermo to be hard under these circumstances.

“Alright,” Nandor says, somewhere faint and distant. “I’m going in.”

His fingers fumble as he tries to unbutton the collar of Guillermo’s blood-drenched shirt, so Guillermo reaches up to help him out, pushing the shirt further back to reveal more of his shoulder in a move that he will, upon later reflection, consider undeniably slutty. Nandor moans low in his throat as the flesh is revealed, hunger rumbling through his body, and the sensation of it goes straight to Guillermo’s cock.

Nandor’s teeth graze the tendon between shoulder and neck and Guillermo’s breathing gets short and desperate. It’s too much. It’s exactly like he imagined it. A decade he's wanted this, and finally, finally it's happening. And then Nandor’s fangs sink in, slow and purposeful and agonising, and everything goes white. 

The burning sensation blossoms out from Guillermo’s neck and slips into every vein in his body, a pressing hot-cold that feels as much like getting stabbed as it feels like getting fucked. Nandor's fangs are only in his neck but the sensation suggests that he is everywhere, consuming Guillermo from the inside out with every long swallow of his blood. He knows now, how people can get lost in this, how so many victims simply give into it with barely a fight. Who would fight this? He shudders all over, his hips stutter, he sobs against Nandor’s shoulder, and -- 

Fuck.

“Did you just…?” Nandor asks, his voice significantly muffled by the fact he still has his teeth in Guillermo’s neck.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Guillermo mutters, and if the aftershocks of pleasure weren’t still darting through his nervous system he might honestly fucking cry out of embarrassment. “Please don’t stop.”

Nandor doesn’t stop. He snarls deep in his chest and begins to bite at Guillermo in earnest, adjusting his angle to drink more freely while Guillermo’s blood spills into his open, desperate mouth. The harsh sting is counteracted by the warm venom sinking into his veins, pushing every shot of pain into the territory of heady, dizzying pleasure, and Guillermo feels more and more lightheaded with every sip Nandor takes. It’s hard to tell whether Nandor is going too far or if it’s because Guillermo just came all in his pants. 

It’s only when he feels close to the verge of collapse that Guillermo scrambles on the soiled floor around them for one of his crucifixes and half heartedly smushes it into the side of Nandor’s face. Nandor howls and shoots back at the sensation, tearing at a chunk of Guillermo’s flesh as he does so. 

“Ow,” Guillermo complains, while Nandor groans, “The face, really, Guillermo?” and rubs his smoking cheek. 

A moment passes. They make eye contact. Guillermo doesn’t know how he can feel so suddenly reticent in the presence of a man who just drained him of two-thirds of his vital fluid. And also some of his non-vital fluid but that’s really beside the point. His head is spinning.

“That was -- “ Guillermo begins, at the same time Nandor says, “Your blood is --”

“Oh, you go,” Guillermo says.

“No, it’s…” Nandor starts, then seems to remember himself, puffing his chest out. “I can’t believe you busted such a huge nut under these circumstances,” he chastises, instead of whatever else he was about to say.

“Oh my fucking--” Guillermo huffs, his voice sounding lost and hazy in his ears. “Do you really have to bring that up right now? Where did you even learn those words?”

“This is a serious situation, Guillermo,” Nandor retorts. “I could’ve died, and here you are just spilling your seed everywhere!”

Guillermo has to wonder just how bad it is that he’d completely forgotten about the near-fatal wound Nandor had sustained until that very moment. He glances at it now, trying to keep things subtle, and sees the flesh knit together clean and whole beneath the ripped, bloody clothing. He did that, he thinks with wonder.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” Guillermo mutters, way too fucked to think up a more convincing defense.

“I should bloody well hope not!” Nandor snaps, leaning his weight onto the brick wall behind him as he rises to full height. Despite it all, his tone is almost tender when he asks, “Can you stand?”

Guillermo attempts to push up from the concrete floor with one hand, but his legs are kitten-weak and he collapses under himself. “Doesn’t look like it,” he tells the ground. 

“Only one thing for it, I suppose,” Nandor declares, tinged with pride. “Let us fly!”

When Nandor wraps his arms around him from behind, Guillermo finds himself startlingly aware that he wasn’t the only one affected by Nandor’s enthusiastic bloodsucking. As in, he can feel Nandor’s erection rubbing against his ass. Which is quite a lot to take in after so much blood loss.

“No need to mention it, eh, Guillermo?” Nandor murmurs, right against his ear.

It’s probably a good thing that Nandor banging his head against the ceiling distracts Guillermo from answering.

By the time Nandor gently sets him down on the front steps outside the house, Guillermo feels ready to sleep for the next fifty years. It’s a satisfying exhaustion, however, the sensation of a hard job well done, because Nandor is standing tall and uninjured and looking down at him with an uncomfortable grimace of concern on his broad handsome face.

There is a bite of cold in the night air, and the edges of the dark sky are softening as day emerges to devour night, but neither of them are particularly eager to go inside. There’s something liminal hanging in the air, a feeling of being removed from reality that will be almost certainly dispelled the moment they step through the front door and return to themselves. 

“I am afraid I took too much from you,” Nandor says, wringing his hands together. “I’ve resisted your blood for so long…” He looks away. “It was quite the feast.”

“I tasted good?” Guillermo asks sleepily. 

“You are delicious,” Nandor replies, and if Guillermo wasn’t so wrecked that would be material for a full on mental breakdown, possibly several. As it is, he just hums his acknowledgement. “And you know, I could tell from the taste that you are a virgin so there’s really no need to be embarrassed about what happened.”

Guillermo stares up at the dwindling stars and murmurs, “That’s not why it happened.” 

“What?”

“I mean, it probably didn’t help,” he adds. “But. It’s because it was you.”

Nandor is quiet for a very long time, long enough that Guillermo feels himself begin to doze off. At last he says, “I think it’s time you went to bed,” and helps Guillermo to his feet, allowing him to drape himself over the wide pane of his shoulders as Nandor walks him steadily into the house.

It seems for a moment like they’re going to get away with it, until Nadja emerges from the parlour with Laszlo hanging off her arm. At first she opens her mouth to presumably question where they’ve been all night but she very quickly shuts it when she notices, in order: the wound on Guillermo’s neck, the mass of blood on his shirt and, finally, the very obvious stain on the front of his khakis. 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Nandor,” she says.

Laszlo cranes his neck around to get a look himself and guffaws. “What the bloody hell have you two been up to?” 

Guillermo can only see Nandor in profile, but even from this angle he can tell how badly he wants to get swallowed up by the ground, or possibly just point blank die. “I’ll tell you guys later,” Nandor mutters, hurrying Guillermo toward the closet.

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll be a great story,” Nadja calls after him. “I bet Guillermo’s neck fell into the open mouth of a passing banshee and her shrieks and wails made him piss himself a little bit, hmm? The bloody fucking state of you…” 

“Ignore her,” Nandor says. Frankly, Guillermo’s barely listening at this point, his attention mostly focused on remaining upright and not swooning in Nandor’s arms like a Victorian maiden. Although, now he’s thinking about it, that’s actually quite tempting. Why has he never thought of swooning into Nandor’s arms like a Victorian maiden? What has he been doing all these years?

He doesn’t swoon. Once Nandor maneuvers him into his pathetic excuse for a bedroom, he simply wilts forward onto his bed and decides he is not going to move anymore, muttering something that might, in some other world, sound like “good night” into his pillow.

The last thing he remembers before passing out completely is the remote feeling of a pair of hands clumsily removing his glasses.

Guillermo wakes up feeling the most refreshed he has in a long time.

His body is still unsteady and fragile, and when he raises his hand upward it is just-slightly shaking, but his mind is clear, free of haze, as if a weight that has been pulling him under the foggy surface has at last been cut free.

He’s also incredibly fucking thirsty.

On his bedside table: his folded glasses, a very stale looking glass of water, and his phone which, at four percent battery, informs him he has been asleep for two straight days. 

He takes a Yoohoo from his mini fridge and downs the whole bottle in one go. The inside of his mouth feels like the depths of a mausoleum being suddenly revived into bloom. His tongue still tastes like a mausoleum but, hey, at least it’s no longer about ready to break off.

The next step is obvious: washing the hard crust of blood that’s covering, like, half his body, and cleaning his teeth, oh God, cleaning his fucking teeth. Once inside the downstairs bathroom, he looks at himself in the mirror and notices for the first time that the cut on his neck has been bandaged up. 

That’s pretty cool. He feels normal about that.

He emerges transformed half an hour later, wearing an almost identical button up and sweater combo, his hair still wet. 

Meaning, he has no more excuses left to put off going to find Nandor. He really thought getting half drained by a vampire would have longer lasting effects. He kind of wishes it did, actually, because now nothing’s stopping him from marching up to his master’s room and saying, “hey, remember how I killed a bunch of guys for you and then bust one right in your lap while you drained me of, like, half my blood, that was pretty weird huh?” 

He should probably think of a better way to word it.

In the library, he finds Laszlo shelving tomes of pornography he’s stolen from the council chambers. He glances away from his collection at the sound of Guillermo’s entry, his expression unnecessarily arch. 

“Here he comes,” he says, more than a touch mocking. “You’ll be looking for Nandor, I expect.”

“Yes,” Guillermo replies. “Where is he?”

“In his room, I’d think,” Laszlo says. “He’s sulking. Hardly left his coffin since the pair of you got back from whatever den of iniquity you crawled out of the other night.”

“That’s what you think,” Nadja -- where the fuck did she come from? -- supplies, smirking as she leans decoratively over a desk. “He keeps turning into a mist and coming down to check on little Guillermo.” She snorts. “He thinks we don't notice.”

“Well spotted, my love,” Laszlo says, raising an impressed eyebrow. “Nandor’s cloaked in an absolute shame pall right now, and no bleeding wonder. Won’t tell us a thing about what happened except that we’re ‘in grave danger’, whatever that means.”

“You are in grave danger,” Guillermo replies. “I’m actually kind of shocked I didn’t wake up to find you guys dead. We should probably all be hiding in a bunker right now.”

“Not bloody likely,” Nadja exclaims. “With you and Nandor touching each other up in the corner the whole time? I’d rather just get murdered.”

Guillermo presses his lips together. “Okay,” he says. “Well, I’m gonna go find Nandor, and you guys can just give me a shout if any vampire assassins show up and try to kill you.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Laszlo retorts.

“See what happens when you let a familiar get too big for his boots?” Nadja grumbles. “You give him a little handy, suck his blood as a treat, and all of a sudden he thinks he’s Billy Big Cock, ordering everyone around.”

Guillermo stalks out of the room fast enough that he only barely hears the beginning of Laszlo’s lurid tale of the real Billy Big Cock, a very short man he once met in Venice. He’s already heard the story about five times anyway.

Irritation propels Guillermo forward right up until the point he reaches the door to Nandor’s bedchamber. It’s only there that the doubt begins to creep in, his finger falling still on the doorknob. 

He knocks lightly. “Master?” he calls out.

Nandor’s voice sounds slightly strained, undercut by panic, when he responds, “Ah, come in, Guillermo.”

Guillermo pushes the door forward and steps into the room. It’s darker, as though it’s become infected with shadows, having gone only two days without cleaning but already musty and smelling faintly of spiders. Nandor stands in greeting, arms awkwardly at his sides. He looks tired. His hair doesn’t look as silky as when Guillermo styles it for him.

“I didn’t know you had woken up,” Nandor says.

“I have,” Guillermo replies. “I’m awake.”

“I see that.”

Guillermo takes a deep breath and closes the door behind him. “We should probably talk,” he says.

It's the first time those words haven't elicited a terrified grimace from Nandor since Guillermo has known him. “Of course,” he replies, nodding tightly. “Please, take a seat.” 

They move in tandem towards the settee, arranging themselves so that a small car could safely park between them. For the first time today, Guillermo finds himself looking Nandor in the eye, and his hand moves instinctively to the bandaged wound on his neck. Nandor tracks the movement, licking his lips.

“I suppose,” Nandor begins, “That I should thank you.”

“You… should,” Guillermo replies, half agreement, half question. He can’t recall a time Nandor has ever made any real effort to show him gratitude. 

“You saved my life,” Nandor continues. “Again. You are a very good bodyguard.”

“Thank you.”

“Not only that, but you let me drink from you.” Nandor’s gaze flits to the pattern on the seat cushions. “Which isn’t even in your job description.”

Guillermo huffs a small laugh. “Master, I’ve wanted you to drink from me for a very long time,” he admits. 

Nandor’s eyes return to him then, looking faintly startled. “You said it was because of me that you…” 

“Yeah, that’s kind of the whole thing.” Guillermo steels himself. In for a penny and all that. "So, uh, have you ever wondered why I stay with you?" 

"Because you want me to turn you into a vampire." Nandor says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Right," Guillermo acquiesces. "And I still want that, more than anything. But after all the shit I've put up with? I mean, I already left twice, and that was before you guys locked me in a cage in the basement."

"You came back though."

"Yeah. Yeah I did."

Nandor reaches forward and takes Guillermo's hands between his own, which is new. "I'm glad you did," he says. "And. I have been trying to do what you asked." His thumb is running small circles into the heel of Guillermo's hand. It's a little distracting. "To make you feel more respected."

Guillermo can't help but smile at that. He supposes Nandor has, in his own way. "I appreciate that," he says. "But I don't want to be with you as your familiar. Or your bodyguard. Which is the same job, by the way. I did notice."

Nandor frowns, confused. "What are you saying?"

"I don't want to be here because I'm useful to you." The moment feels so brittle, moments from shattering, but Guillermo refuses to let it. "I just want to be here. With you."

For a moment there's quiet, as if Nandor's taking the time to preserve the words, like flowers pressed between pages of a diary, or a corpse being pumped full of formaldehyde. "I have not been good to you," he says.

"You've been awful," Guillermo agrees. "But I'm a fucking idiot, apparently, because the fact of the matter is, I'm yours."

Nandor’s grip tightens around Guillermo’s hands. He closes his eyes, swallowing deeply. “You’re mine,” he agrees. It's not a question.

An involuntary noise escapes Guillermo’s lips in response, some faint whimper, and Nandor’s eyes open at the sound, a plain and shameless hunger colouring his expression. In a quick, sharp movement Nandor closes in on him, and Guillermo’s hackles rise in anticipation of the coming bite -- which, what the fuck, man?

He doesn’t expect the kiss. Or the way Nandor possessively brackets his face with his ice cold hands as he presses his lips against him, so controlled as to be almost delicate. He gets used to it pretty fast, though, clutching at Nandor’s chest, unable to stifle a moan, and Nandor kisses him deeper in turn, tugging him forward onto his lap. 

All around him is Nandor, the smell and feel and breadth of him. In the council chambers it had been overwhelming, but without the sharpness of fear and adrenaline to distract him this is somehow more. Maybe it's the fact that Nandor is doing this out of want, not necessity, that makes all the difference. Nandor wants him. Guillermo really can't think about that for too long. Distraction comes pretty quickly besides, because Nandor grinds up against him, and Guillermo cries out like he's been wounded. He’s suddenly, strikingly aware that it's almost certainly his own drained blood filling his master’s straining cock. What a fucking concept.

It’s like being swallowed whole, the way Nandor kisses him. One of his fangs snags on Guillermo’s lower lip and leaves a small, weeping cut. He snarls, desperately lapping up the blood with his tongue and dragging Guillermo ever closer. His hips buck up and up and up , and he bites at Guillermo’s lips until all either of them can taste is the sharp tang of blood.

It’s suffocating; the smell and feel of him, his tongue and teeth. “Master,” Guillermo pants against Nandor’s mouth, his vision spotting. “Master, we have to stop. I can’t -- I’m not gonna last much longer.”

“So don’t last,” Nandor grunts.

“I don’t want it like this,” Guillermo breathes, forcing himself to pull away and stand unsteadily, stepping back from the seat. He knows Nandor could keep his rigor mortis hold on him, crush him close and use him, just as Nandor knows Guillermo could use the cross around his neck to force himself free. It doesn’t matter. Nandor lets him go easily, even as he growls low in his throat at the loss.

Nandor’s chest is heaving. His eyes are black pits as his head lolls backwards and he gazes up at Guillermo like he wants to gorge himself upon him. “Don’t make me beg for it, Guillermo,” he says, voice so low and frayed it’s practically a hiss.

Guillermo thinks of everyone he’s seen Nandor pine after, the desperate sort of yearning he afforded Meg and Gail and whoever came after, the way he’d do anything for them just to be ignored and turned away, whining like a child for a crumb of affection. He craves it for himself so badly he thinks the greed might devour him.

“Or what?” he asks quietly.

Nandor groans. “Please, Guillermo,” he says.

“Just like that, Master.” The power rushes through Guillermo, electric and hot like fresh blood. 

“Please, Guillermo,” Nandor repeats, moving to his knees on the settee. Guillermo would prefer him on the floor but there’s always next time. “Tell me how you want it.”

Guillermo takes a shuddering breath and leans down to kiss him softly. This whole thing is largely mortifying, but the unreality of the situation makes him bold. Nandor gasping against him like he’s forcibly restraining himself from rutting against the cushions makes him bold. “I want you to fuck me,” he mutters. “Make me yours.”

“Fucking hell, Guillermo,” Nandor breathes against his mouth.

“Too much?” Guillermo asks.

Nandor releases a short laugh, low and pained. “Not at all,” he manages, and kisses Guillermo like he'll choke if doesn't. “I suppose I should go and get the oil.”

Guillermo has a half-full bottle of KY Jelly in his nightstand, but the allure of being taken apart the same way Nandor must’ve fucked guys in the 1300s keeps him from speaking up about it. Instead he focuses on undressing, scrambling out of his layers as fast as he can while Nandor searches his cluttered dresser. He keeps the crucifix around his neck, just to make Nandor sweat a little.

That’s probably kinda sacreligious isn’t it?

Nandor returns to him with an ornate cut glass container full of oil that he very nearly drops when he catches sight of Guillermo’s nakedness. He pauses as if to drink in the view, and the way he looks at Guillermo is -- A lot. It’s just a lot. 

It doesn’t take long for Nandor to prepare him. He pushes Guillermo gently down onto the settee and opens him up nice and gentle, his fingers moving expertly in a way that lays bare his seven hundred years of experience. The thought of it makes Guillermo feel an odd shot of possessiveness, and he hooks a foot around Nandor’s back, gasping, "Are you gonna fuck me or what?"

“So impatient,” Nandor mutters, but he does as he’s told, pulling his fingers out so slow and soft that Guillermo forgets how to breathe.

Nandor removes his own clothes with such vampiric super speed that it makes him look like kind of an idiot. It’s hard to focus on that point, however, when Guillermo is faced with the full swollen length of him, hard and leaking. Guillermo’s seen it before but the circumstances are different now. That thing is pointed directly at him. Holy shit.

“I’ll be gentle,” Nandor says, following his gaze as he slicks himself up with a palmful of oil.

“Don’t be,” Guillermo replies. It's false bravado, he knows Nandor's more than capable of snapping him in half -- caution is a requirement. 

Nandor shakes his head slightly, a smile on his lips, and his grip against Guillermo’s thigh is close to crushing as he slowly pushes his cock into him, a testament to how much he’s restraining himself.

“Fuck,” Guillermo whimpers. “Oh my God.”

“Don’t say that,” Nandor rebukes him, but it doesn't stop him from sinking all the way to the hilt. He sighs deeply, like he's relieved, like he's finally poured salve on a burning wound. His voice is very tight when he asks, “Are you alright, Guillermo?”

“Yes, Master,” Guillermo manages, taking in a few heavy, laboured breaths. The fullness is dizzying, a searing pain that smooths itself, over time, into a pleasure that frightens him with its enormity. It’s a pleasure he’s spent a long time believing he doesn’t deserve, and he knows with some certainty that this isn’t going to last very long at all. “You can move,” he says, after a moment, the words tinged with command.

Nandor snaps his hips just once and it’s enough for Guillermo to see stars. The seat beneath them shudders under their combined weight and each slow, purposeful thrust from Nandor is followed by a low creak from the antique wood. Guillermo can’t believe this is really happening, and he’s pretty sure he’s babbling something to that effect as he clutches Nandor’s back, his nails digging into his cold hard skin. 

Nandor’s eyes are heavy lidded with want, and he can’t seem to look away from Guillermo’s face. Guillermo can’t imagine what he sees there. Nobody has ever looked at him like that. His ears ring with the depth and gravity of Nandor’s voice as he grunts rhythmically with every thrust, a low, throaty rumble that judders through their joined bodies with each movement of his hips. 

“Is it good?” Guillermo asks, his head tilted back so all he can see is the look on Nandor’s face.

Nandor nods tightly. “It’s perfect,” he croaks. “You’re perfect.”

Guillermo feels a sob bubble from his lips, entirely without his permission. “You can go harder,” he says.

Nandor, it turns out, follows instructions well in this particular environment. He pushes Guillermo’s thighs further apart and digs his hands into the soft flesh there as he fucks him harder and deeper. The sensation is maddening, addictive like nothing else, and Guillermo knows with certainty that this is it for him now. There will never be anything as good as this. He’s led himself right into ruin. 

It takes only a few short strokes of his cock before Guillermo is shuddering and sobbing in Nandor’s arms, and Nandor leans down to kiss him through his orgasm, soft and slow. Nandor shifts his grip to Guillermo's waist, and he holds him tight against him as he nears his own climax, keening into Guillermo’s mouth as his thrusts grow more and more irregular. Between them, the crucifix pendant rebounds against Nandor’s chest, leaving white hot scorch marks that seem only to drive him on further. 

At last, he comes with a groan, burying himself deep inside Guillermo and collapsing bodily onto him, his head falling into the juncture between Guillermo’s chin and shoulder.

They lie in silence for a long moment, Guillermo catching his breath, Nandor disturbingly still on account of being a stupid dead idiot. Guillermo’s brain is whirring into overdrive, thoughts bouncing from what the fuck did I just do? to holy shit, Nandor the Relentless just came inside me, to oh boy, vampires sure do ejaculate a lot, huh? He is utterly, utterly wrung out.

Finally, Nandor sags off of him. He tumbles gracelessly to the floor, rests his head against the slab his coffin lies atop of and grunts, “Who knew you were such a little freak.”

Guillermo laughs hazily. “You came while getting burned by a cross, man,” he retorts. “You are way more fucked than I am.”

Nandor’s eyes dart toward him, alight with some quiet laughter. “Maybe don’t tell the others about that.”

Later, Guillermo’s going to have to think long and hard about what this means for him. He’ll question if he should remain in service as Nandor’s bodyguard and if so, what that service might look like. He’ll take the time to try and get out of the habit of calling him ‘Master’, though honestly he’s been doing that for largely horny reasons for, like, the past year. He’ll muse on the best way to withhold sex from Nandor in order to manipulate him into turning him into a vampire, as a contingency plan.

Much later, there will be enemies to destroy, and the list of unspeakable acts he’s had to commit to protect Nandor will only grow and grow. He will stain his soul, and damn himself because, at this point, there is no place to go but further down. You know, if he’s feeling dramatic about it all.

But for now, he turns to Nandor and smiles. “Your secret’s safe with me,” he says, and means it.