Work Text:
You're in love
Your heart's a flutter and all day long
You only stutter
'Cause your poor tongue
Just won't utter the words
I love you
(Billie Holiday, “What A Little Moonlight Can Do”)
***
Guillermo has a headache.
He’s also awake all of a sudden. Ow.
It’s possible he needs to cool it a little with the raucous nights out with the work squad. They always sound like such a good idea at the time. Being around people who actually seem to like him is hard to resist, even if as the weeks go by he’s starting to wonder if ‘seem to’ is the operative part of that sentence. Finance bros are kind of douchebags. But hey, at least they aren’t undead serial killers. They’re less fun to be around than his undead serial killers, true, but that might just be the residual Stockholm Syndrome talking. The point is, Guillermo hasn’t had to Tide Pen a bloodstain out of his clothing in weeks.
But he’s not sure he can sustain this level of after-work partying for much longer.
Maybe he needs to buckle down, focus more. Concentrate on getting what’s his. Soon he’ll be able to afford rent that isn’t for the garden/masturbation shed in his ex-master’s yard.
He’s definitely moving on. He’s pretty sure he is, anyway. But sometimes it doesn’t feel like this is the right location to do it in. Sometimes, he thinks of Nandor in the house, tucked away in his coffin without anyone to tell him goodnight first, and it’s like a crimson thread is stretched out between them, tugging at Guillermo like an impatient dog. Trying to lure him back in.
You know. Normal stuff.
“Hello. Hello? Hellooooo??” There’s a frantic knock on the garden shed door. The source of his sudden awakeness.
He groans and sits up. The sky is still dark outside, but a glimpse at his phone confirms that sunrise isn’t far off.
The Guide is standing there, her blonde hair seriously mussed. She looks about five seconds away from a panic attack. Which is a little more intense than her usual ten seconds away.
At least she’s alone. The documentary crew’s been knocked out with a stomach virus, which means this weekend is going to be unusually quiet. Guillermo had hoped that it would also be unusually uneventful. No such luck.
“Um,” he says, wincing as he opens the door, “I’m not really accepting vampire problems right now–”
“You need to take care of your little friend.”
“Uh. What?”
“Nandor the Relentless. He is being very–well, relentless. I guess you can’t say I wasn’t warned. But come on now. Even for him, it’s too much.”
“What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“So, we might have had a little thing.”
Guillermo blinks, dazed. “What?”
“You know. A bang sesh. A midnighter. Rockin’ in the coffin.”
“Oh.”
The very center of Guillermo’s soul goes frigid.
No big deal.
“Just a one-time thing,” The Guide explains, making a ‘whatever’ face. “I just needed to blow off some steam. Once I might have liked to get serious with someone in this house, but I don’t know, I know you all too well now, I think? And so you’re sort of … disgusting to me?”
“That’s fair,” Guillermo mumbles tragically.
“But Jerry told me yesterday that he’s ‘not looking for anything serious.’ He’s ‘too focused on vampiric world domination’ and we are ‘way behind schedule.’ I mean, I get it – same! But that doesn’t mean you can string a girl along, you know?” Wow. That was a lot of air quotes.
“So, what? You were, like, trying to make him jealous … by …” He can’t say it. “... with Nandor?”
“Well, yeah,” says The Guide with a shrug, like it’s nothing. “Only it’s backfired, because when I sent Jerry a post-coitus selfie on my cellular telephone, he just said ‘Good, he needs cheering up. I think he might have clinical depression.’ And he hasn’t figured out texting yet, so he called me to say it and then just hung up. Guillermo, why are boys the worst?”
“Wish I fuckin’ knew,” he mumbles.
“Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on. Wouldn’t you be a little jealous of this??” She holds up an ancient Nokia flip phone; wow, the Vampiric Council is really getting high tech. On the tiny screen, there’s a pixelated photo of her and Nandor, shirtless and cuddling. The Guide is pouting into the camera in a way that’s supposed to be sexy, maybe, but mostly just comes off Debbie Downer. Nandor is beaming.
Guillermo’s stomach lurches.
Maybe he caught the camera crew’s bug.
God, he hopes so. He could use a good barf right about now.
“Right. So.” The Guide, oblivious to his reaction, waves toward the house. “Please come put some sense into your bestie. Remind him that he and I, we’re not crazy in love, and also, we don’t really know each other that well, so let’s not make it weird. You are his favorite. He’ll listen to you.”
Ordinarily, this would appease Guillermo.
Not just now, he discovers.
“Well–” He scratches his neck nonchalantly. “He’s not really my friend. He’s just my ex-master and my landlord. We don’t really have a personal connection. That’s your thing, it sounds like, so. Good luck.”
Through the air comes Nandor’s smitten voice. “Oh, The Guide? Where are you, my love?”
Fuck this. Guillermo reaches for the door.
“Wait.” The Guide’s eyes are wide with panic. “Will you at least tell him we’re not betrothed now?”
“Nope,” Guillermo says, and gives her a wiggly wave. “That’s on you. Bye bye!”
“Ughhh,” The Guide groans as he slams the door in her face. She dissolves into vapor and drifts off. Like having Nandor make heart-eyes at you is such a chore.
Guillermo sinks down onto his bed and stares at the ceiling. Even after he’s put on his noise-canceling headphones, he can still hear Nandor’s lovey-dovey voice in the distance. It’s probably coming from inside his own brain, and not in a vampire-powers way. Just good old-fashioned useless feelings that won’t die.
***
The only reason Guillermo goes into the house, after spending all day in a fitful attempt at sleep, is to take a long bath. He doesn’t want to drown himself or anything, but sometimes it’s just nice to know you have the option.
As he creeps inside, he keeps an eye out for Colin Robinson, who’s been filming them with his phone to make up for the camera crew’s absence. He keeps getting truly tedious footage, like Nadja sneezing for five minutes straight or Laszlo pretending to masturbate to Wuthering Heights but really just crying. He’s also recorded about eleventy billion hours of himself talking to the camera; actually, Guillermo should probably give the camera crew a heads up so they don’t get drained to death on the off-chance they actually want the footage. Colin asked Guillermo for a talking head when he got back last night – Guillermo vaguely remembers slurring out something about finally finding His People and also Crushing It, cringe – and then said, ‘Aw, would you look at that, I forgot to turn the darn thing on. Here, let’s try that again.’ Guillermo only fell for it two and a half times. Not bad for a drunk guy.
But he definitely can’t take it now.
Mercifully, he makes it to the bathroom without seeing anyone. Once he’s safely inside, he fills up the tub, bubblebath and all, and just hopes to God that Laszlo and Nadja aren’t in one of their toilet sex phases.
When someone knocks on the door five minutes into his soak, he figures it’s probably Colin Robinson, here to film him in the bath and tell him about all the kinds of flesh-eating bacteria you can catch from a tub.
“Go away,” he calls. Then he feels rude. It’s not his house; not anymore. “Please.”
“Must I?” comes the reply.
Not Colin Robinson. Nandor.
Guillermo thinks about insisting that he go. The wild thing is, these days Nandor would probably listen.
It’s that, maybe, that makes him say, “No, come in.”
Nandor sticks his head through the door. He radiates the energy of a ‘90s Julia Roberts character. “Guillermo! Look at you! Having a little soaky soak.”
“It’s just a bath.”
“You have bubbles! You silly little guy.”
“Wow,” says Guillermo as Nandor sits on the edge of the tub, “you’re in a good mood today, huh?”
In response, Nandor scoops a handful of bubbles from the tub and blows them at Guillermo. “Hee hee!”
“That’s great,” says Guillermo, wiping bubbles out of his eyes. “That’s really great.”
He sinks a little deeper into the water.
“Oh, Guillermo, don’t be shy. I have seen you naked dozens of times.”
“Uh. No you haven’t.”
“Agree to disagree.” Nandor leans in confidentially. “So,” he says, glowing, “have you heard?”
“Yes,” Guillermo says, sighing. “I heard.”
“I think it will be a spring wedding.” His fangs shine in a grin. “Cute, right?”
“Mas– Nandor?”
“Yes, Guillermo?”
For a second, Guillermo wonders whether it’s worth it. The Marwa thing should have been enough to make any sane person do some self-reflection. Hell, even Meg at the gym was a real ‘check yourself before you wreck yourself’. And then there was fucking Gail. And Freddie. Nope, nope, nope. Never thinking again about Freddie.
The point is, apparently Nandor won’t ever stop deciding that the only way to fix his life is to fall head over heels for someone who doesn’t even get him.
Laszlo and Nadja and Colin Robinson are all busy with their stuff. And Nandor deserves someone who’ll steer him right.
So Guillermo breaks his boundaries rule - Just this once, he promises himself - and says, “You’re doing it again.”
Nandor frowns. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t think you’re kind of … I don’t know, blowing things out of proportion, maybe?”
“What do you mean? Surely you have noticed all the years of tension. Our crazy will-they-won’t-they. Nandor and The Guide. What a comrom!”
“It’s romcom.”
“I’ve heard it both ways,” Nandor grumbles.
“It’s definitely romcom.”
“Romcum. If you know what I mean.”
“I – yep, I do.”
“Get it? Because–”
“Nope, yep, got it!”
“.. there was a lot of cum.”
“I said I got it.”
Nandor chortles to himself, pleased.
“So, it must’ve been … pretty great, huh?” Guillermo asks, even as he hates himself.
“What?”
“Your hookup. If you’re, you know, getting married now.”
“Sure. It was the best.”
“How, uh … how did it happen?”
“You want all the details, huh?” Nandor smirks. “Cheeky little perv.”
“No,” Guillermo says. He’s not blushing. The water’s hot. “I’m just curious. You two never really seemed all that … connected?”
“No,” agrees Nandor. “We didn’t know each other at all. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere – boom! Love at first one-thousandth sight. It was her, all along! That fuckin’ guy! Well. Gal. Can you believe it??”
It directly contradicts what he said about the will-they-won’t-they five seconds ago, but Guillermo is used to that about Nandor.
“It’s pretty wild,” he agrees. “What happened, exactly?”
“Well, she was sad, because Jerry has been playing hard to get. And I was … not sad about you firing me from my noble role as janitor, not at all, but maybe it helped me understand other people being sad. Just a little bit.”
Guillermo’s heart sinks. “Nandor–”
Nandor sits up taller, ignoring Guillermo’s soft tone. “And then we fucked each other’s brains out, vampire style. It’s every boy’s happily ever after!”
“It sounds like maybe it was, uh, good that you were there for each other in that moment.”
“Well, doy. We are MFEO. Mother Fucking Each Other’s.”
“That’s not the– that’s kind of sweet, actually.”
“Thank you.”
He looks so happy. It seems like a shame to ruin it.
But it would be worse to leave him to languish in this one-sided crush. When Nandor gets crushy, bad things happen, historically speaking. Best to nip it in the bud. That’s why Guillermo has to make him realize that this whole The Guide thing isn’t rooted in reality.
Yeah. That’s why.
“It’s funny that you went for The Guide, out of everybody here,” Guillermo observes, casual.
“Well, she got naked in front of me, so.”
“Oh. Yeah. That’ll do it.”
“Why? What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you were … uh, lonely ... in that way-"
"Horny," Nandor supplies with a sage nod.
"-you could have just had Laszlo – y’know, step in. You guys are tight like that.”
“He spends too much time touching dead body parts lately. It’s icky.”
“It is pretty icky,” Guillermo agrees.
Nandor gives him a small smile. Guillermo doesn’t mean to return it.
“You know the thing I love most about The Guide?” Nandor says then.
Guillermo steadies himself. “What’s that?”
“I don’t really know anything about her. Like, she is always around, sure, but what do we really know about her?”
“She did plan an elaborate ruse to imprison you guys for being jerks to her all the time,” Guillermo reminds him.
“Yeah, yes, totally.” Okay, so he’s definitely forgotten that happened. “But what lurks beneath her little blonde buzzkill exterior, hmm? She could be anybody. She could be everything I have been missing. My best friend, my soulmate. My number one cheerleader. She could be the one, you know?”
“Sure,” Guillermo says quietly. “I hope she is.”
“You do?”
No.
“Yeah. I want that for you.”
“And I want that for you,” Nandor echoes. “And me. Obviously. More me, but you a little bit.”
He boops Guillermo’s nose with a bubbly finger.
“Yep.” Guillermo swats him away impatiently. “Okay.”
For once, their hands catch in the right way, their fingers twining effortlessly. Nandor looks down at their joined hands, then up at Guillermo. His face is full of something that Guillermo reminds himself will never turn into realization.
“But, you know, I think it might not be The Guide, for you,” Guillermo forces himself to say.
“What?” Nandor drops his hand. “Why not?”
“Well, I think she was - and don’t take this the wrong way - mostly using you to make Jerry jealous?”
“What?”
“Well, yeah. You knew that, right? You said that she told you she was sad about Jerry.”
“Until she fell in love with me, and realized to stop wasting her time on that asshole!” Nandor almost rage-falls into the bathtub. “Should I kill him?”
“Um, no. Probably not.”
“Should I kill myself?”
“No! God, no. Why would you even say that?”
“I don’t know. I’m confused lately.”
Guillermo’s chest aches. “Well, don’t be. Not like that. We need you around here.”
Nandor looks up, hopeful. “Do you?”
The door bursts open.
“Oh so sorry, my chaps,” booms Laszlo. “Occupado, I see!”
“What?”
“We were gearing up for a bit of the old dirty toilet sex,” Nadja says, “but you two already beat us to it!”
“Mind you,” said Laszlo, “we could be quiet in the corner.”
“No we couldn’t, my shrieking randy banshee man!”
“That’s right. It’ll be a rather shrieky affair. Fortunately, the acoustics in here are sublimeeeee!”
“We aren’t doing anything,” Guillermo tells them impatiently. “We’re just talking.”
“Well, why aren’t you? Get to it, young bucks.”
“You might as well. You are already so obsessed with each other. Just grab each other’s peepees and make it normal already.”
“Can you guys not?” Guillermo begs. “Please?”
“Oh, fine,” Nadja says. Guillermo thinks he might spot a single flicker of something almost like compassion in her eyes. “Roof sex it is, my love!”
“Roof SEY-EX!!”
“I think that might be public indecency,” Guillermo says. “And maybe pretty dangerous.”
“It is the way we do it,” Nadja says with a waggish grin.
“And in general,” Guillermo mutters.
“And a jolly have-fun to you too, Gizmo!”
They disappear in a whirlwind of swooshing black clothes and laughter, closing the door behind them.
“That’s so funny,” Nandor says after a moment, “how they think we are each other’s lovers and beloved companions.”
“Right?” manages Guillermo. “Hilarious.”
They sit in melancholy silence.
“Say, uh, Guillermo,” comes Colin Robinson’s voice from the other side of the door, “heard you’re having a soak. That’s great. I hope you’re ready for your close-up. Now, I know you’re not in a hot tub, per se, but have you heard of hot tub folliculitis–”
“Fuck off, Colin Robinson!” Nandor hollers. “Let Guillermo do his self-care!”
“Fine,” spits Colin. “Asshole.”
Nandor looks back to Guillermo, his eyes gentle. “There you go.”
Guillermo lets himself bask. Just a little. “Thanks.”
“For you? Any time.”
Guillermo could get used to this.
He won't, he reminds himself.
But he could.
***
Jerry returns to the house the next night to ask The Guide to go on a bat flight to the cemetery with him.
“You mean, to inflict our vampiric dominion ever further upon this wretched world and blah blah blah?” The Guide says, unimpressed.
“No,” Jerry says, “I was thinking, like, a date.”
He produces a bouquet of red roses from behind his back. There’s a human heart artfully nestled inside, which is sort of charming, in a way.
The Guide cries out, delighted, and runs into Jerry’s arms. He doesn’t spin her around or anything – Jerry seems kind of emotionally constipated, if you ask Guillermo – but he looks happy.
It must be wild, to have it be that easy. Just a day or two of miscommunication, and then happily ever after.
“Sorry, Nandor,” Jerry says.
“Yes, sorry, Nandor,” The Guide says. “But hey, good orgasms, huh?”
Nandor accepts The Guide’s high five, looking a little bemused.
And with that, Jerry and The Guide fly off together into the night.
The rest of them are left standing on the front steps, staring after in awe.
“Wow,” Guillermo says. “She played that really well, actually.”
“My girlie’s got moves,” says Nadja. “I really should hang out with her one of these days, hmm?”
“Meh!" says Nadja Doll.
Guillermo turns to Nandor. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Nandor says stoically. His eyes glisten. “She was not the one after all. Who could have seen that coming?”
“All of us,” says Nadja.
“Yep!” agrees Nadja Doll.
“You know I think everyone should bump each and every ugly with everyone else’s uglies at all times,” Laszlo says, “but you two? Not the thing, old bean.”
“I think you’re cute together,” says Colin.
“Guys,” says Guillermo, “could we have a moment?”
“Ah, yes,” Laszlo says, “a moment.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Do help yourselves.”
“And make sure to kiss each other’s scrunkly little faces already,” Nadja adds.
“Nadja,” Guillermo chides.
“Or each other’s scrunkly anuses, I don’t know!”
“Yikes,” Guillermo mutters.
“I am a bloody good matchmaker. When I tell them to kiss each other’s anuses, they should listen! I know what I’m talking about!”
“I know it, my darling. I do say, speaking of–”
“Yeah,” mutters Colin, taking out his phone and pointing it at Guillermo and Nandor, “the documentary crew’s definitely gonna want this. It’s a classic God-I-hope-they-don’t-but-hey-you-do-you-I-guess.”
“Colin Robinson, come on, you donkey! Let them be!”
Colin lets himself be ushered inside by Nadja. Probably so he can film them from one of the windows or something, but still. It’s an improvement.
Nandor is staring at the sky, where The Guide and Jerry are just a couple of bats getting farther and farther away.
“Look at them,” he says. “So happy. Maybe I was stupid, Guillermo. To think anyone could be that happy with me.”
“Oh, come on.”
“Guillermo, I would never admit such weakness to anybody else. You pay money to live in the jerking-off shack, though, so you have no dignity.”
“Well, I don’t know about that–”
Nandor ignores him and heaves a heavy sigh. “The truth is, I am starting to think I might be a little desperate.”
“You?” Guillermo tries to sound convincing. “No!”
Nandor looks at him.
“Maybe a little,” Guillermo relents.
“I already booked the florist.”
“Okay.”
“And the caterer.”
“Like, a blood caterer?”
“No. A regular human one. I got caught up in the thrill of it all! They have petit fours!”
“That’s nice. Maybe not super practical.”
“Guillermo?”
“Yes, Nandor?”
“I also booked an ABBA cover band made of babies called DADA.”
“That’s – romantic.”
“What even is any of that?”
“It’s a long story. I think Nadja has Mamma Mia on DVD around here somewhere.” Off Nandor’s distressed look, he amends, “Another time.”
“I have a problem.” Nandor lowers his head sadly.
“We can cancel everything tomorrow.” Guillermo pats his arm.
Nandor covers his hand, just for a second. "Thank you, Guillermo."
Boundaries, Guillermo's brain reminds him. He thinks about listening for a second, then decides against it.
Weekends don't count, right? He'll get back to work on Monday.
“You know," he says, "there’s nothing wrong with taking it slow.”
Nandor's brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“When you’re … like, really into someone, you can just enjoy it. Be with them. You don’t have to worry about locking them down forever as soon as possible. Just trust that they like you too, and see how it all goes.”
“But what if I want forever?”
“Well, the right person will want that too.”
“You think so?” Nandor stares at his feet, uncommonly shy. “Lately, I’m not so sure.”
There’s a sudden lump in Guillermo’s throat. He thinks of Nandor in his janitor’s uniform, so happy to suck at cleaning every night, just to be where Guillermo was.
“I can’t believe I thought that maybe she was the one,” Nandor says, dragging Guillermo back to the present. “Finally, after all these years, the one.”
It’s the moonlight’s fault, maybe, or the absence of the camera crew. Right now, just the two of them, it feels easier than usual to be honest.
“I think when it’s the one,” Guillermo says, “maybe it's not a maybe. Maybe ... you just know.”
Nandor looks at him, eyes shining. “You really think that?”
“Yeah, I do.” He knows it, actually. Fifteen years and counting.
After a thoughtful pause, Nandor says, “Me too.”
They stand in silence, the night air cool around them. Guillermo decides he won’t move out of the garden shed. There’s no point in trying to find home when you’re already there. He doesn't want to pull the crimson thread until it snaps.
After a moment, Nandor reaches for Guillermo’s hand. Guillermo takes it, not sure what it means. His heart skips a beat, the way it used to when Nandor would get close enough that it felt like he might sink his fangs into Guillermo’s neck. You’d think that feeling would disappear now that Guillermo doesn’t want to be a vampire anymore. But it’s still here, stronger than ever.
Whatever the hand-holding means, Nandor doesn’t push it any further. He stares carefully forward, like if anyone asked him about it, he’d claim that he didn’t notice, that he tripped and fell and landed on Guillermo’s hand with his hand by accident.
But he doesn’t move, even as minutes slip by. He seems happy just to have Guillermo’s hand in his. Together, they watch the two bats dancing in the distant sky, illuminated by the bright moon.