#anyways I’m having a Nandor moment methinks

[taxonomicons]

Oh you like vampires? Is that because you are enticed by the idea someone could love you enough to share the burden of everlasting monstrosity? Haha HAHA no what? no

[diamondcitydarlin]

okay quarantine’s got me with a lot of free time and inspo, it seems so here is part two of this growing ficlet that I think will need to be posted to A03 at some point yes? Part one is linked above, I’m not sure this little installment will make much sense without it.

probably goes without saying that this story will have nandor x guillermo endgame eventually, but there’s a lot of interpersonal shit that needs to be dealt with first methinks. A lot. A veritable laundry list of issues.

It’s early, early morning, still very dark outside and the time of ‘day’ when Nandor retires to his slumber. He and Guillermo are going through their usual bedtime ritual, which consists of (some amount of) disrobing, hair brushing, and now, of course, Guillermo’s occasional, quickly stolen glances at his phone. Nandor pretends he doesn’t see, at least for his familiar’s sake, but he does continue to send knowing sideways looks to the camera. The producers know, after all. 

And maybe if there hadn’t been that absolutely uncomfortable conversation with the other roommates he might have said something by now. Made it about Guillermo’s inability to stay focused and on-task or something. 

“Master, can I ask you something?” Guillermo says after a time, to which Nandor startles a bit. “I feel like the others have been...kind of strange lately. There’s a lot of weird staring. Glaring, maybe. I’m a little confused. Did I do something wrong…?” 

The producers are also aware that Guillermo has a secret of his own, and so he shares a look with the camera that suggests he might already have an idea of why he’s been on the wrong-end of so many dirty glances. 

“Staring…?” Nandor repeats, trying his damndest to seem like he has no idea what any of this could be about. “At you? I don’t know. Maybe you’ve misplaced some of their things while cleaning.”  

“Well...see, I considered that too, but they’ve never been afraid to point it out before. Usually in raised voices…” 

Nandor shrugs and insists, “Well, I don’t know, I’m not a mind reader!” 

Guillermo sends a doubtful look to the camera, and pushes with his newfound backbone, “Okay so...you really have no idea why they’ve been doing things like,...watching me from the upper landing while I clean the floor?”  

They both send a look to the all-knowing camera then, simultaneously unaware of each other’s respective panic. Nandor seems to be weighing the pros and cons of just coming out with it, or maybe some revised version of the truth. 

“Uhm...well, it’s just…” he stumbles, to which Guillermo backs away for a moment and watches him with narrowed eyes. Does he know? 

“There was a conversation the other day. It was all very ridiculous.” Nandor sighs, rolls his eyes. “I...noticed that you seem more distracted by your little computer-phone machine lately. I asked them about it. That’s all.” 

He kind of skips over his words as if it’s all of no real consequence, but Guillermo’s eyebrows have risen in surprise. Undoubtedly this isn’t what he was expecting. 

“You...could have just asked me,” Guillermo scoffs a little. “What did they say?” 

Nandor looks like a petulant child being forced to clean up his toys. 

“They...seem to think you’ve-...taken a lover.” But he scoffs too, willing the idea to be ridiculous. Maybe if he pretends enough that it is, it will be. “So, you see, it’s all rather silly. They get carried away sometimes, it-” 

“They think I have a boyfriend,” Guillermo clarifies, flatly. “Well. They are...right. I do.” 

He releases this knowledge as if it’s a bit agonizing to do so, but not nearly as much for him as it is for Nandor to hear it, as the camera so aptly captures. The latter of them turns on his heel, staring down his familiar, open-mouthed, and so he gapes for a moment before releasing a weak, “....oh….!” and one can see the process he goes through of shock, to feigning that this revelation is fine. No big deal, even. “That’s….nice…for you…!” 

Nandor’s fake smile is less than convincing, and this is cemented in the pause of awkward silence that follows. 

This might have been the point in things that Guillermo from before would’ve let it be, moved his master to retiring to sleep, but this is the Guillermo of now. The Guillermo that has been practicing often with his stake-loaded crossbow. The Guillermo that has been making out on the sly with the leader of a den of vampire hunters. He is not the same.

“Okay,” Guillermo sighs, impatience growing. “But none of this explains why Laslzo and Nadja keep watching me. Like they’re planning something. Or...know something I don’t. Why do they care if I have a boyfriend? I haven’t slacked on my job, I’m still...doing all of the things I’m supposed to do.” 

He says this with some amount of distaste and a look of uncomfortable self-awareness at the producers. Some of the things he’s ‘supposed’ to do would seem pretty god-awful to others in his life…

Either way, Guillermo is clearly backing Nandor into a corner. He didn’t need a stake-loaded crossbow to do that, it seems. 

When the silence continues as Nandor hems and haws for something reasonable to say, Guillermo suggests, “Do...you have a problem with me having a boyfriend?” 

“No!!!” Nandor quickly exclaims, having found his voice all of a sudden. “Why would that be of any consequence to me?? Everyone seems to think I give half a shit when all I care about is your constant distraction with that phone...computer…! Why does he need your attention every second of the day anyway??” 

As has been shown, time and time again, Nandor does not have a gift for knowing when to stop talking. 

Guillermo’s got a glare of his own now, as well as a clenched jaw. 

“Oh yea, I can’t even imagine someone needing my attention every second of the day, that would be insane.” 

Nandor does a double-take. “Are you being sarcastic with me? I don’t care for this tone!” 

“Well, I’m not too fond of this constant prying into the one aspect of my life that’s my own, after years upon fucking years of you demanding everything from me with little to nothing in return, let alone the agreement we made!” 

Both voices are definitely rising in volume now. 

“Agreement…” Nandor scoffs with a roll of his eyes. “More like the only thing I could do to get you stop following me around, begging me like a peasant on the street.” 

It’s possible the producers have never, to this point, captured Guillermo more angry than he is in this moment. They don’t waste the shot. 

“If I was so annoying why didn’t you just kill me?” he rallies back. “Might have saved us both the trouble of ten fucking wasted years!” 

The tenor in volume is now such that the sound guy is likely going to suffer some time of hearing loss, such that this ‘conversation’ will be heard to all corners of the house. 

Meanwhile, Nandor has paused, because...he realizes, perhaps, he’s never really considered why he didn’t just do that. Guillermo has a point. It would’ve been easier. Killing him any time along the spanse of his 10 years of supposed annoying service would have been easier- that is, if anything he’s said in that time had been the truth. 

“I-...!” he starts, then stops again, then settles on the stupidest thing anyone could have said in that moment. “This is a useless conversation. I’m not going to be yelled at by a servant with pathetic dreams of being something more. That’s all you’ll ever be! It’s a mercy that I never turned you! You would have been even more of an embarrassment to the house, to vampires everywhere, for that matter!”    

Something in Guillermo seems to have snapped. He’s working his jaw and trying to fight an urge inside of him that goes unspoken. It’s successful. He instead manages a forced, satisfied smile. 

“That’s fine. That’s all fine, because...I don’t...want to be a vampire anymore.” 

Despite all that Nandor’s just said, the look they capture from him is one of shock. Maybe something else. 

“And what’s more,” Guillermo continues, his words carefully chosen. “I don’t see a point in doing this anymore either.” 

And he throws the brush he’d been using on Nandor’s hair to the floor. 

“Brush your own hair,” he says, looking a bit delirious from all the things he’s holding back from saying, doing. “I quit.” 

And before anything  else can be said or done, Guillermo’s made a sharp turn out the door of Nandor’s room. 

For Nandor, it’s as if the cameras don’t exist anymore. He’s looking at the door like the world’s just caved in from underneath him. 

From outside the door, however, Colin is seen having listened in to the whole thing, and is now very much sated from the looks of it. 

“That...was amazing,” Colin tells the audience. “You ever find a piece of cake in the fridge everyone forgot about? That was a whole cake. Man, I hope he comes back. Let me know if they squabble again, yeah?”