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“Mast - Nandor?”
Guillermo’s voice is low, timid in such a way that Nandor has not heard from him in years. Perhaps it is this that averts his protests at the use of his name and not that of his title. Perhaps they are beyond titles at this point. Perhaps they have been for a while if he looks at their situation honestly.
Usually, he tries to avoid looking at it at all, but on this day, he is too tired to put up the walls required to keep such thoughts at bay.
When Guillermo tentatively knocked and entered the room, Nandor had been getting ready to retire for the evening. He feels weary in a way he does not have the language to describe, and he wishes to put the day – night – whatever time it is – to rest. By himself, of course, with no help easing into his coffin to slumber. No one to do that for him anymore. Not that he would express this complaint aloud… not in this moment, at least.
He turns to face Guillermo, as his once familiar walks toward him.
“How did you know?”
Guillermo comes to a stop close to Nandor – yet not close enough to him, for Nandor’s liking. Guillermo’s eyes look bigger, once again magnified behind his wire-framed eyeglasses – large and pleading.
Nandor’s own eyes soften as he regards Guillermo. He does not have to ask what he speaks of, for he knows.
“I believe I told you before that I know you, perhaps better than anyone – did I not?”
Guillermo nods. It looks to Nandor as if Guillermo can no longer bring himself to look at him directly, but it is apparent to him that he has more on his mind to speak. Nandor waits.
“Why have you been so nice to me today?” Guillermo finally asks, voice still only a whisper of its usual strength.
“Nice?” A small smile flashes across Nandor’s face, fangs glinting in the candlelight. “You mistake centuries of knowledge with niceness, my dear Guillermo. Look at me.”
He waits as Guillermo lifts his eyes up to him. Nandor’s smile fades, but his eyes remain soft and fixed on Guillermo’s.
“When you have lived eternal life such as I have, you see what happens to those who regret their turning. I would not wish that for anyone, least of all you.”
“Did you - I’m sorry, that’s none of my -”
A scarlet red flush brightens Guillermo’s face and it takes Nandor all of the power within him not to groan at the sight. This vivid evidence of the lifeblood pumping through his veins again. He feels the spark-lit flame of bloodlust rising within him. Bloodlust, lust-lust – one and the same. Nandor licks his lips at the thought of it and steps closer to Guillermo instinctively.
“No, it is not, but since what time have such things stopped you?” Nandor chuckles, then searches Guillermo’s face for the understanding that his words are spoken in jest before proceeding.
“But this much I will tell you for now. While there are regrets that are mine about having been turned, there was not the same choice for me that was given to you.”
The pained look Guillermo gives him is too much, and he casts his eyes to the ceiling.
“There has been much time for me to reflect on my own turning. For all of my life, I was a warrior – and there was little change for many centuries of my afterlife. Warrior, vampire – it is much the same, these things… It is only in recent times that the - the loneliness of this way of life has become more tiresome. It is only very recently that I have come to believe that there may be more to this afterlife.”
“More?”
There is hope etched in the features of Guillermo’s face, and Nandor is grateful to see it after the day – the months – they have had. Even more grateful to know, with certainty, that the hope he sees is no longer the hope that his master will turn him. Nandor can perhaps allow himself to hope for the same thing that he has not dared to wish.
“There was never a question of me wanting to bite you,” Nandor reaches out to close the distance between himself and Guillermo, dragging his fingertips lightly across Guillermo’s neck. “You must know this.”
“I –I –” It is clear that Guillermo is taken aback, stumbling over his words. “I didn’t. Know that, that is. You never -”
Nandor can hear the defensiveness as it rises in Guillermo’s voice, but this is not a fight. There will be no more battle-lines drawn today.
“I have done a poor job of showing you what you mean to me.”
Nandor has been finding excuses to touch Guillermo all day. Perhaps the time has come to cease making excuses. His fingertips trail over Guillermo’s skin, the lightest of touches, as Nandor fears one false move on his part will break the spell.
Guillermo looks back at him with confusion, but he has not rejected his touch.
“You - Mean to you?”
Nandor’s hand trails up to cradle Guillermo’s jaw, thumb padding in little reassuring strokes.
“Laszlo was correct, you know. We vampires are not so skilled at expressing how we feel.”
“How you… feel?”
“But even without the words, I have failed to show you. I hope you will grant me the chance to absolve myself of this.”
“I - you – what -”
Nandor does not allow him the chance to finish whichever thought would have eventually won out. His hand rests on Guillermo’s jaw, and he uses it to turn Guillermo’s head and hold it so that they are face-to-face. Nandor’s eyes searching Guillermo’s face for any hint of objection.
Guillermo nods, eyes fluttering closed. Nandor leans in to close the gap, their lips brushing in a ghost of a touch.
Guillermo’s mouth moves against Nandor’s. Not to close that barest gap between them. No, he is speaking words that it takes moments for Nandor to process, to come back to world of words from that of unspoken sparks of passion.
“You can, you know,” Guillermo whispers. “I’d let you.”
Nandor huffs, the tiniest bit displeased to be given feedback on his actions before they have even begun.
“It was my intent to kiss you, but you have interrupted me just now and I’m noting it,” he says, keeping his voice light and teasing.
Nandor is taken by surprise, as he occasionally is by Guillermo, when Guillermo pushes him backwards with great force, twisting him around with arm trapped behind his back, pinned against his coffin. It is not a surprise that is unwelcome to him, though he is unsure of the rules of this engagement.
“You let me do this,” Guillermo states it matter-of-factly, as if the weather outside were their topic of discussion, but there is fire in his words that makes it clear that this is of importance to him for Nandor to understand. “Not intentionally – and I would beat you regardless –” He ignores the huff that Nandor lets out at the comment, “but you let me do this.”
“You enjoy this.”
It is a fact, entirely evident from their current entanglement, and there will be no attempt from Nandor, now or ever, to keep the smugness from his voice on this point now that he knows it to be true. The fact that he enjoys it also is irrelevant.
“I- well, yes, but that’s not -”
Nandor wishes to tease him more, and he does.
“This -” Nandor presses back against him, as Guillermo swallows down a low moan. “The fight.”
“We don’t usually fight like this.”
“No, usually you cheat, my dear friend.” He punctuates his point with another grind backwards against Guillermo. “Now is my time for cheating.”
“I’m the one who’s got you pinned, you know.” For all that Guillermo attempts to sound bored, exasperated, it is a useless façade in their current position.
“And I can feel you resolve slipping to more…. pressing matters.”
Nandor cannot bite back the groan of disappointment as Guillermo releases him.
“You’re missing the point.” With a small shake of his head and a real sigh of exasperation, Guillermo reaches up to guide Nandor’s hand from its place cupping his jaw back to that lower point - softer, warmer - the throbbing vein on his neck. “You let me do that.”
Nandor is unable to look away from Guillermo – he would believe himself hypnotized if he did not know better.
“I would let you,” Guillermo says again, holding Nandor’s hand in place as his pulse beats below it. “Do this.”
“This?” Nandor’s pupils are blown, the arousal of such an offer affecting him more than he would wish to show.
He feels the steady pulse thrumming beneath his touch, speeding up by the second. He can imagine the warm, tangy dark liquid pulsing below the surface. How many times has he imagined sinking his teeth into this very spot? How many ways has this scene played out in his mind? But never has it been like this - an offering in front of him not that of prey, nor one bidding him to grant the damning gift of eternal life.
No, this is offering of unabashed trust. That he, Nandor, could taste of Guillermo’s very life and know the limits - resist the temptation of his most basic nature to drink him dry. Guillermo is placing his life in Nandor’s hands – the thought knocks all others out of Nandor’s mind.
“If you want, that is –”
Nandor understands from the anxious tone of his voice that Guillermo has taken his unhurried response as one of rejection. He has no idea, but Nandor vows that he will understand.
“You think that there is anything I want less than to taste you?”
Any hesitation set aside for later reflection – to reminisce or regret – Nandor leans in.
Guillermo turns his head, allowing more of his neck to be laid bare before Nandor. The groan he had suppressed before escapes him. His mouth touches lightly to the pulsing spot below it. Savoring the moment, he flicks his tongue across the salt-sweet skin. He feels Guillermo moan beneath him, hand coming up to grasp tightly at his coat.
Nandor will grant him whatever steadiness he needs while he takes his time. This thing – this, he will do right.
He smiles at the sigh from Guillermo when he finally presses his fangs down to graze his skin. Not a drop of blood yet drawn, though his willpower to resist fades more by the second. He reminds himself there is no need to wait – this offering before him is given to him freely.
He sinks in and closes his mouth around the spot. He feels aflame all over his body as the warmth flows down his throat. Life giving eternal life.
To keep from forgetting himself, losing himself in Guillermo the way he is tempted to do, Nandor pauses to press gentle kisses to Guillermo’s throat every few moments. His fangs stay embedded – entombed, this their rightful resting place – as he marvels at the pleasure brought to him by the way Guillermo squirms beneath him with each kiss to his skin, pressing up to him to enjoin them deeper.
Nandor knows he could spend an eternity here – or at least the length of time it takes to drain a human, if he is not so careful now. There would be no Guillermo to clean up that mess. And he would much rather the possibility that this pleasure not be a one-time flash, gone away forever from him. That possibility has played out in his mind too often in recent memory.
He pulls back, reluctantly, lips reddened from pressure and smeared with Guillermo’s blood. He presses the pad of his thumb gently on the bite already sealing up, though it will leave its mark behind.
“That –” Nandor says quietly, eyes fixed on the bite mark, “That is how it should have been.”
Guillermo is silent but firm as reaches out to him. His hand comes up to thread through Nandor’s hair as he pulls him forward, crushing their lips together. No gentleness, just fire and something else –
It is beyond Nandor’s imagination what the metallic-tang of Guillermo’s own blood must be like for him, but he shows no sign of disgust. Nandor can barely focus on the thought, his attention on his own reaction to the mix of blood still on his tongue and the slight sweetness – a flat Pepsi? – he tastes of Guillermo. He has little time for other thoughts as Guillermo bites at Nandor lower lip gently and runs his teeth against it, tugging at it, sucking it in, and deepening the kiss.
For the second time, Guillermo is able to surprise him. Back pressed up against his coffin, just as he moves his hand up Guillermo’s back to pull him closer, he feels Guillermo pulling back from him.
Scarlet stains on the flat line of Guillermo’s mouth - not the evident satisfaction Nandor had expected to see.
He feels like the flame of a candle that has been snuffed out.
He does not need to know what is coming next to know that if he had any wishes left, Nandor would wish to stop time before another word could leave Guillermo’s mouth.
-----
“Hypnotize me.” Guillermo’s voice is flat. He can’t - won’t - look Nandor in his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to say the words if he did.
Nandor stands with one hand on his coffin, stone-faced and silent, then: “You have already let us all in on your little secret – I know that hypnosis no longer affects you. Beside that, why would I hypnotize you?”
“I know. It doesn’t.”
He will keep his voice steady. He’ll will it not to break. It’s better that he doesn’t look at Nandor. He wouldn’t like the glare he’s Nandor is giving him. He doesn’t look. He ignores Nandor’s question – he’s not sure he has an answer. He certainly doesn’t have one that he’d like.
“Do it anyway.”
Guillermo can feel the shift in the air. Nandor’s patience is being tested. Vampires do not have much patience, and Nandor does nothing to break the stereotype.
“I will not -”
Nandor reaches out to grasp Guillermo’s hand in his own, but Guillermo wrenches it away.
Guillermo raises his eyes to look directly at Nandor.
“You’re going to regret this in the morning.”
Nandor looks stricken and Guillermo feels sick, but he feels like he has to press on.
“You know me? Well, I know you,” Guillermo pauses to steady his voice. “You’re going to wish that things were back the way they were… before. And you’re out of wishes to make it things the way you want them.”
Nandor is holding his own hand, the one he had reached out to Guillermo with, looking like he’s been burned.
“And I think I’ve proven today that I don’t have a fucking clue what I want.”
Guillermo laughs – a hollow, joyless estimation of a laugh – as his eyes fill with tears. He looks down so in an attempt not to let Nandor see him cry. As if he could hide anything under Nandor’s unrelenting gaze.
“So - hypnotize me. Do it.”
“Guillermo - I -”
Nandor falls silent as Guillermo looks up at him with eyes brimming with tears.
“Okay, my dear Guillermo. I will hypnotize you.”
Guillermo isn’t used to the tenderness or solemnity he’s seen from Nandor throughout the day. His head spins when he tries to make sense of it – those are thoughts for another day.
“You will go to your bedroom now.”
Nandor’s voice is a low rumble, calming Guillermo who lets out his breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding. Nandor’s face stays blank, but his eyes betray a sadness that Guillermo doesn’t want to look too hard at, doesn’t want to have to think about.
“You will remember nothing from after you returned to your human state. You were very tired and wished to retire to bed early. You will arise in the morning, rested well..." Nandor pauses and sighs, before continuing, “and full of pride in yourself for the decision you have made. You will not allow doubt to creep into your thinking - not about the decision you have made, nor that of my belief in you that you have made the right one this day”
Guillermo tastes a bitter tang – regret, not blood – and swallows it back. It will be better this way. It will.
“You will go now.”
Dazed, Guillermo walks down the creaking staircase. He’s in his room underneath the stairs in what feels like a blink – or it could have been an hour.
He pulls the shredded remains of his pillow from his footlocker, stuffs a handful of feathers back into it, and tosses it to the ground.
Good enough, he thinks, curling up on the cold, stone floor.
With a sigh, he leans up to blow out the candle on his desk - the wax nearly burned down to the glass pillar it’s setting in.
He stops to watch the flame flicker in the darkness. Burned so far down, he knows that there’s a risk the glass could overheat and shatter. Letting it burn any longer would be a risk of setting the whole place on fire.
He shifts around to sit up, wrapping his arms around his knees, and watches it burn.