#yes Guillermo tell me all your feelings and revelations
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Ngl I'm gonna be thinking about "being a vampire's no different than being a human, the truth is we're all just hiding in plain sight" for basically the next hundred years.
#I'm a sucker for that kind of shit#yes Guillermo tell me all your feelings and revelations#fandom: wwdits
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A Change in Perspective ch 8/13--Revelation
Nandor goes to the witches for help with him vampire depression, and gets a potion that will help him figure out what he needs to be happy. It's not all smooth sailing--he may not like what the potion has to say, and everyone may not love the changes he's about to make, and no one can ever, ever find out that he went to the semen-stealing witches for help.
But hey. It's better than super slumber.
AO3 Link
Nandor made Guillermo promise twice that he was okay with the familiar-to-bodyguard change, and then sent him off to tell Nadja they would need a new familiar. Hopefully, they could find one who would survive a little longer than Nadja and Laszlo’s familiars usually managed. Nandor suspected he would be having to shoo Guillermo away from familiar work as long as the role was unfilled.
He just hoped the others wouldn’t give him grief about the change to Guillermo’s job description. It would be a bit difficult to explain, and even if he did tell them everything, he doubted they would understand.
Nandor settled down on the couch and began to sharpen one of his swords. He always thought better when he was doing something with his hands, and it was Time to Think About Guillermo.
It was undeniable that Guillermo was an attractive man, both physically and vampirically. There had been times in the early years where Nandor had seriously considered bedding Guillermo out of sheer practicality; hoping that ending his virginity might make him less enticing. Anything to abate that delectable smell, both for Nandor’s peace of mind and so he wouldn’t have to keep batting other vampires away from his familiar.
As time passed, he had learned to overcome the allurement, though had never become any less aware of it.
He had long had affection for his familiar, to a level far beyond what most vampires would consider appropriate, but it was not until the last year that he had considered anything more serious than that. It had been utterly impossible to look at Guillermo, bathed in the blood of Nandor’s enemies, and not feel something. Even then, it wasn’t until that dream kiss that it ever occurred to Nandor that that something might be more than friendship.
Well. There was the day after the slap, involving a masturbation session that might have been slightly less purely practical than Nandor had been insisting, maybe.
So it was not a completely new revelation that he wanted to kiss Guillermo. What was a revelation was that he might want to date Guillermo. It would certainly take some adjustment, mentally, for both of them. You couldn’t date your servants any more than you could be friends with them.
This was another thing that would be very difficult to walk back if he changed his mind. He could, but breaking up with Guillermo would complicate a lot of things. Still, that was a risk that came with dating any friend.
Nandor set aside the whetstone and admired his work. The sword was now razor-sharp, the edge gleaming in the light. He lifted it up to set it on the rack with the other swords. Many of them needed sharpening as well, but he left that for another day. He had made his decision about what to do about—
Guillermo erupted through the doorway, shouting "Master!"
Nandor jumped and yelped, nearly slicing his thumb off on the sword as it slipped in his grip.
"Fucking--Guillermo! Do not startle me like that!"
"Sorry, I--"
"And I have told you not to call me that anymore, that is what a fam--"
"Nadja said you quit the council, is it true?"
"What, did she do a big announcement?" he groused, thumping the sword down on the rack.
"Is it true?”
"Yes, I quit."
Guillermo opened and shut his mouth silently for several seconds. Nandor sighed and leaned against his coffin.
"Say something or do not say something! You look like one of Laszlo's singing fish."
"Why?"
Maybe Nandor should have done a big announcement. At least that way he would only have to answer all these questions once.
"I don't want to do it anymore."
"But you loved being on the council!"
"No, I loved the idea of having power. Actually being on the council wasn't so great. None of the stuff I liked doing was important enough to be council business, and all the important council business was stuff I didn't like."
"So you're just, you're just going to quit, just like that?"
"Why does it matter to you?"
"I'm worried about you!"
"I got new outfits and I quit my job. Why is that worrying you?"
"Because the last time you did that, it was when you ran off and joined a cult."
The room went very quiet. Guillermo closed his mouth and shifted uneasily. Nandor's lips pressed together very tightly. He began to move towards Guillermo, and Guillermo tensed--not the flinch of a nervous familiar, but a warrior readying himself for what might come next. Nandor strode past him and shut the door to his room.
"I am not running away," Nandor said. "I am doing the opposite of running away. I am building a life I want to live. I have done a lot of thinking, Guillermo. I realized that all I have been doing with my un-life has been trying to rebuild my human life. I was happy then, so I thought if I could have what I had then, I would be happy now. All it did was make me miserable. So now, I am making something new, and it is better because it is what I want now, not what I wanted centuries ago."
"But what if it doesn't make you happy?"
"Then I try something else. Do you see? Instead of trying doing the same things again and again, trying to force them to make me happy, I will let go of them and try something else until I find something that does make me happy. I am not running, Guillermo. It is just that the whole time you have known me, I have been standing still."
Guillermo wavered, but did not seem entirely convinced.
"I am not going to leave you again," Nandor said, quietly. Guillermo went stiff, his cheeks going red.
"That's not what this is about, this isn't about me--"
"Isn't it? You said I am quitting the council “just like that”, but you didn't even ask me how long I have been thinking about it!” Nandor did not think it relevant that it had only been a few days. He had magical assistance to back up his reasoning. “How long is long enough? Weeks? Months? Are you upset that I did it, or are you upset that I did not tell you first?"
“So now what?” Guillermo asked, gracelessly sidestepping the question as his cheeks went an even deeper red.
“Now what, what?”
“You quit the council, what are you going to do with yourself instead?”
“I have been considering other careers,” Nandor said, loftily. “And perhaps I will take up some new hobbies.”
“Hobbies.”
“Yes. Like…like…” Nandor trailed off. “I don’t know. What do you do for fun?”
Guillermo seemed thrown by the question.
“Um. I…I watch TV,” he said. Nandor waited patiently. “That’s kind of it. I don’t exactly have a lot of free time!”
“Well you do now,” Nandor said. “Maybe we could find some hobbies together, yes?”
The look on Guillermo’s face said ‘no’, because he was still clearly upset, but it was a shaky ‘no’, which meant it wasn’t entirely not a ‘yes’, and Nandor decided he would continue to be optimistic.
“What is something you have always wanted to try?” Nandor insisted.
“I don’t know,” Guillermo said. “Soap carving?”
“Soap carving?”
“I don’t know!” Guillermo burst out. “I’ve spent the last thirteen years doing nothing but be a familiar, all day every day 24/7! I don’t remember how to have hobbies!”
“We could ask Colin Robinson,” Nandor said, innocently. Guillermo stared at him. “I am sure he could give us a list of all hobbies that exist in the universe.”
Guillermo pressed his lips together, clearly fighting a smile.
“Or perhaps Laszlo could teach us topiary—”
Guillermo choked on a laugh and glared when Nandor grinned triumphantly.
“Stop being funny when I’m annoyed with you,” Guillermo said. Nandor tried not to look smug. Guillermo thought he was funny.
“No.”
Guillermo snorted, and Nandor knew he’d won the conversation, even if only for now.
“Come, Guillermo,” Nandor said, throwing an arm around his fam—his friend’s shoulders. “Let us worry about hobbies later. We can finish playing our chess game.”
He did not miss how startled Guillermo was at the sudden contact.
“Yeah,” Guillermo said. “Hey—that’s a hobby, right? Playing chess.”
“Hey, yes!” Nandor said. “See, we are finding hobbies left and right!”
He kept his arm around Guillermo’s shoulders all the way to the library.
#wwdits#nandermo#nandor the relentless#guillermo de la cruz#what we blog in the shadows#a change in perspective
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HIGHLIGHT TRANSLATION OF THE SPANISH DUB ACTOR GUILLERMO ROJAS
Guillermo Rojas - Spanish Dubbing actor for Dean since season 12 until 15x18 (he contracted Covid and was unable to record 15x19 or 15x20 - he has yet to record those)
INTERVIEWER: “Memo (nickname for Guillermo), I am not sure if you knew, but you broke the internet”
MEMO: “Yes, a lot of people sought me out when this happened. I am so sorry I wasn’t able to answer at length all of your questions, but I was right in the middle of dealing with Covid. I couldn’t speak without feeling like I was drowning. Right now I am going to (voice) therapy. While it is not too dreary, there are 2 continued effects, so I couldn’t answer everyone who contacted me through various ways - through FB, instagram and an old youtube channel that I haven’t used in years - with respect to the situation that occurred between Dean and his friend (Cas).
MEMO: “We try to follow (our lines) in what we see of the acting. Remember that dubbing is something where we must make a parallel alignment in our own language. Under the guidelines given to us by the client, we try to expand on all possibilities and all the alignments and - as actors - they permit us to give 100% of ourselves. So there isn’t a limit per se, so long as you don’t go off track (from what was requested from the client)”
INTERVIEWER: “What were the guidelines for the line that broke the internet”
MEMO: “It’s curious because neither the director nor us the actors knew much about the tendency that existed. Because we didn’t have much previous information that suggested that something like this would happen. To be honest when we recorded it, we were asking wait what’s happening? I mean we did it, but no one knew this was coming neither in the production studio nor amongst the actors.”
INTERVIEWER “I need to ask for a clarification here. I mean we are talking about the love declaration Cas made to Dean after 12 years of intense eye-contact. But the big question is Dean’s answer. Because EVERYONE heard in your voice that clear “And I you, Cas”
MEMO “And I you, yes.”
INTERVIEWER “Where does that “And I you” come from? Was it you? What happened there?”
“The adaptation came entirely from my director (Adrian Fogarty). He adapted it and gave us our acting guidelines, and I performed accordingly - I gave what he asked of me. We all loved it. We never saw it coming so overtly.... If you remember across all seasons, we rarely see Dean get involved with any women. It just didn’t happen, unlike his brother. He just never got involved. It wasn’t his thing, especially because we have his brother to compare him to. We saw (Sam) in a relationship in the past 2 seasons with Eileen which was a very intense relationship, and very painful in the end. Dean never had to suffer through that. They tied Dean’s pain to the loss of his mother since he lost her more than once.”
FB question: “So It wasn’t a rogue translator, it was a rogue director”
MEMO: “Look, Fogarty has some really intense abilities and one of them is to adapt the dialogue. When you see him translate a script, when he has the time to do it - even when he is not the one directing - and he leaves it in Spanish. The dialogue said, if I remember correctly, “me too” or something like that and then we switched it to “and I you” due to effects of lip movement, rhythm, etc... We don’t all have the ability that Fogarty has, that speed which he has, to think and translate immediately. We are a team and we work together, and pool our collective abilities, and of course Fogarty does his part. You need a Fogarty in every company.”
(The interviewer mentioned that her cat hates Sam Winchester and loves dubbed Dean’s voice).
INTERVIEWER “Do you know what Dean said in the original script before Fogarty got his hands on it?”
“Yes, of course. It made allusions to that. (Fogarty) made the right translation. It said and so do I or me too or something like that. It said it in the (original) script.”
INTERVIEWER: “When you heard the english version while you recorded yours, did you hear Dean say I love you too?”
MEMO: “No. If I would have, I would have taken the earphone out and gone what the fuck? *laughs*”
INTERVIEWER: “What was your favorite episode to film?”
MEMO: “With my short-term memory, I would say this last one (15x18), because it says so much. In one scene, it says it all. It was impressive, and so beautiful. I never saw it coming.”
Interviewer “Well you have broken tumblr again.”
MEMO: “Okay *Laughs*. Well, that’s good. Thank you very much.”
MEMO: “I think it’s clear to everyone that the fact that he (fogarty?) broke the internet, with this information was a surprise for everyone. Absolutely everyone. Because we all say that if someone wants to be a “real man” we have to be like Dean. In fact it’s something very beautiful for me because it has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with feelings. It was a play by the writers that was marvelous. You didn’t see it coming, but damn do you like it.”
MEMO: “Nothing was left out of the translation... No I was not called to re-record the “and I you”. I have not been asked to remake the dubbing. My director perfectly understood the texture of the text.”
INTERVIEWER “Do you know if Supernatural has a quality review for the dubbing through Warner Bros?”
MEMO: “I would be lying to you if I said yes, but I have been working for WB (LatAM) for many years as both an actor and director. And there is some specific material where they do have “filters”, but with something like supernatural I doubt it. I would assume the one left in charge of all decisions was our director (Fogarty).”
INTERVIEWER “Have you been interpreting Dean as in love with Castiel this entire time or was it a surprise for you?”
MEMO: “No, never, it was a surprise. In fact, to be entirely honest, to my closest friends - of the same gender - I do use the phrase “te amo”. I don’t have any issues with that. So I actually thought it went that way - but then I found out it was romantic.”
INTERVIEWER: “Guillermo, what is your opinion, of destiel now that you know the nature of their relationship.”
“Well it was a revelation for everyone - including me. I love how they handled it because we didn’t see it coming. And I think, of our understanding of the character’s traits and psychology, we know that if someone knows how to repress their feelings, it’s Dean Winchester. *laughs*”
INTERVIEWER: “What would you say to Cas if he came back from the empty?”
MEMO: “He came back?! (he hasn’t seen 15x19 or x20)
INTERVIEWER: “No I am saying what would he say IF he did”
MEMO: “Oh, okay. I was under the assumption that I said I loved him so long as he wasn’t planning on coming back! *laughs* Well if he returns I guess I would say “Hello, Cas”.
INTERVIEWER: *Tells MEMO about the not for nothing cas but the last person who looked at me like that I got laid”
MEMO: OKAAAAY *laughs* That was too much. *laughs*
INTERVIEWER: Would you be this fandom’s Godfather?
MEMO: But of course *smiles* This was a big thing, from what I see.
INTERVIEWER: “What message would you give to the fans who are descovering the spanish dub?”
“first, thanks a lot of being part of the mexican dubbing. We do this job with all the heart and all the passion that we have. And I think I speak for all involved in this industry. We are glad to note that there are so many people from other countries that are watching these new projects in another language. So I have no words but thanks a lot.”
INTERVIWER: “What would be your ideal ending for Dean Winchester”
MEMO “I think, for all of them, they have sacrificed their lives and that of their loved ones for the safety and well being of everyone else. I think if anyone deserves to be well, happy, and calm, at least it’s those three (Sam, Cas, and Dean).”
INTERVIEWER: “What about jack?”
MEMO “Jack did attach himself to them, but I think he could find happiness in another nest.” *laughs*
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I Think We Could Do It if We Tried - Guillermo x Nandor Fluffy One-shot
Summary: Guillermo comforts Nandor on his saddest night and revelations are made during bath time. (Takes place during S2 E2, Ghosts)
A/N: Some recovery fluff. P.S. I always associate this song with Nandermo thanks to this really sweet fancam.
Warnings: Fluff, Crack, First kiss, Yearning, Soft hours, Guillermo being compared to a horse, Nudity but no smut
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"You know I'll do anything you ask me to
But oh my God, I think I'm in love with you
Standing here alone now, think that we can drive around
I just wanna say how I love you with your hair down
Baby, you don't got to fight, I'll be here til the end of time
Wishing that you were mine, pull you in, it's alright" --"Sofia" by Clairo
Guillermo stands frozen in place, the phantom image of ghost Nandor and his steed still hangs in his field of vision like the imprint of a camera’s flash. His master looks stricken and utterly alone. He’s never seen him so vulnerable.
He approaches cautiously, ready for the cold rebuke that always comes whenever he attempts to connect with Nandor. Honestly, Guillermo doesn’t know why he keeps trying. He supposes it’s because every now and then, tonight for instance, the curtain parts and his master reveals a bit of the tender soul that he keeps so well guarded by bravado and arrogance.
“They’re at peace now, Master,” Guillermo says quietly, reaching out to pat Nandor’s arm.
Nandor is silent for a beat, his face tensed with emotion and anxiety. Finally, he turns to his familiar and speaks in a lost, trembling voice.
“Hug?”
Guillermo feels the breath rush out of his lungs and his lips curl into a quick, here-and-gone grin. He darts his eyes to the camera crew before looking back at Nandor and schooling his features into bland subservience.
“Of course, master,” he answers, opening his arms and calmly wrapping them around the hulking vampire, as if this isn’t a partial fulfillment of his most dearly held wish. “It’s alright, master.”
Eleven years of service. Nearly eleven years of pining and secretly loving his master. And this is the first time they’ve ever hugged. Nandor holds Guillermo tight to his chest, as if clinging to a life preserver. He buries his face into his familiar’s soft, sweater-clad shoulder and his breath hitches silently, tugging at the human’s heart strings. Guillermo’s face is squished into Nandor’s broad chest, his glasses are askew and a wide, blissed out smile spreads over his lips. He locks his hands together at the small of Nandor’s back and breathes in the earthy...slightly off scent of his master. Oh, right...the ectoplasm.
Guillermo doesn’t even care that his face is currently pressed up against dried ghost gloop. This is the best night of his life.
“Guillermo?” Nandor’s voice is still so small and fragile.
“Yes, master?”
“I’m covered in gunk. Will you draw me a bath?”
Oh.
--
Guillermo sits on the stool by the massive, claw foot tub, dipping a hand into the water to test the temperature. Hot but not scalding, just right for his sensitive master. He drops the glittery lavender bath bomb into the water and watches it fizz, releasing a pleasant, soothing aroma.
“Ready?” Nandor asks from the doorway. Guillermo turns to see his master standing there in his long, red silk robe. His hair is down, falling around his face in natural waves and drawing Guillermo’s eyes downward to the triangle of exposed chest hair at the robe’s open collar.
He takes a deep, steadying breath before answering, “Yes, master. I used the glitter bath bomb so you can look like Twilight after.”
Nandor grins and does a little happy two-step, “Yay! Good job, Guillermo!”
Guillermo’s heart swells at the praise and...just how adorable Nandor can be sometimes. This is how it happens. This is why he stays and cares for this man after years of neglect and disrespect.
Nandor steps forward and waits expectantly. No matter how many times they do this, Guillermo will never be immune to seeing his master entirely nude. His hands shake slightly as he reaches to untie the loose knot holding the robe in place. Nandor shrugs the thin material off his shoulders and Guillermo’s heart hammers as it falls into his hands. He turns away with a brilliant blush, folding the robe and setting it on top of the toilet, completely missing the way Nandor’s eyes follow him with a glint of amusement.
Nandor is still waiting next to the tub when Guillermo turns back around. His traitorous eyes roam up and down his master’s form. Nandor is impossibly tall and regal looking, even in the nude. His body is covered in a layer of soft, dark hair... his chest, his arms, his legs. If Guillermo looks close enough-- which, he has --there’s even a light layer of hair over the round globes of Nandor’s buttocks. Guillermo loves his master’s body. He loves that Nandor’s belly is soft and covered in a healthy layer of fat. He loves his thick, powerful thighs. He loves the broad expanse of his back and shoulders. Looking at Nandor, it’s easy to see him as the fierce, deadly warrior of his human life. Next to him Guillermo feels small and dull.
He walks over and takes Nandor’s hand, helping him balance as he steps into the water. Guillermo keeps his eyes carefully trained above the waist as Nandor sinks down into the steaming water. The vampire lets out a pleased sigh at the touch of the hot water on his cold skin.
“Shall I wash your hair first, master?” Guillermo asks, rolling up the sleeves of his white button down. His sweater is neatly folded with Nandor’s robe.
“That would be nice,” Nandor hums, his eyes closed in relaxation. He grimaces as he adds, “It’s all...sticky.”
Guillermo drags the stool over and picks up a bottle of shampoo.
“Do you wanna dunk for me?” He suggests. He watches as Nandor takes an unnecessary breath before dipping beneath the surface of the water, coming up a second later with his hair plastered to his head and his lips sputtering as he releases the air from his lungs.
Guillermo pours shampoo into his palm, lathering it up before sinking his fingers into Nandor’s hair and beginning the process of carefully massaging it through the long strands. Nandor groans and relaxes his neck, letting his familiar support his head in an act of casual trust that sends a tiny quiver through Guillermo’s soft heart. These quiet, intimate moments with his master are some of his most cherished memories. He purposely ignores how pathetic that makes him.
“Mmm,” Nandor groans, the sound doing uncomfortably fluttery things to Guillermo’s stomach. “That is very nice, Guillermo. You’re so gentle.”
Guillermo bites his lip and murmurs, “Thank you, master.”
They fall into a comfortable silence, Guillermo losing himself in the task of cleaning his master’s hair and Nandor falling into a trance under his human’s soft touch. The silence stretches until Nandor is disturbed by the sound of Guillermo trying to muffle a laugh.
“What’s so funny, Guillermo?” he prods, turning slightly and dumping water over the side of the tub and into Guillermo’s lap.
Guillermo’s used to being in the splash zone during Nandor’s baths and he barely reacts. Instead he gives in to his mirth and lets go of a clear little laugh that echoes oddly through the bathroom.
“Here, I’ll show you,” Guillermo answers, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.
He opens the camera app and flips it to selfie mode, leaning down until his face is next to Nandor’s and holding the phone at arm’s length to snap a picture. He shows it to Nandor and the vampire guffaws. On the screen Guillermo’s thousand watt smile is contrasted with Nandor’s look of blank confusion. His soapy hair is sculpted into a loose, goopy mohawk on top of his head.
“You have given me the punk hawk hair!” Nandor crows, reaching up and gingerly feeling his hair. He lets his hands drop back down beneath the surface of the water and he doesn’t look at Guillermo as he continues, “Thank you for that, Guillermo. I...needed to laugh tonight.”
Guillermo’s chest constricts but before he can answer, Nandor plunges down under the water, rinsing the shampoo from his hair before resurfacing. He turns to face Guillermo, his skin and hair glinting from the glitter bath bomb, “Do I look like Twilight , Guillermo?”
Guillermo nods with a fond smile and Nandor misquotes, “ Say it, Guillermo. Loudly .”
Guillermo laughs, “ Vampire! ”
Nandor giggles as his familiar moves on to conditioning his hair.
“After all these years, a moving picture that finally is worthy of telling the tale of the vampires,” Nandor muses.
Guillermo’s hands pause in Nandor’s hair and he squints his eyes in profound confusion before deciding to let that one go. It’s silent again for a few moments before Nandor suddenly addresses him in a more formal tone, “Guillermo...I want to say something to you. To put you on your ease…”
“...Yes, master?” Guillermo asks with a healthy dose of trepidation lacing his voice.
“I do not wish for you to be concerned after hearing the tale of my horse, John, and his demise. You know...because I ate him? Just because I ate John does not mean that I will eat you, Guillermo. I’ve grown ...I’ve changed ...I’m not the same maniac who used to go around lighting peasants on fire for fun.”
“I know that--” Guillermo starts to say and then a record scratch sounds in his brain, “--wait, are you comparing me to your horse?”
Nandor shrugs and casts a disbelieving glare over his shoulder, “Yes? You should take it as a compliment, Guillermo! I loved John--”
Nandor’s mouth snaps shut at once but the words are already out there, lingering in the humid air between them. Guillermo’s hands go still in Nandor’s hair for a split second as his mind stutters and reboots. He can see Nandor’s shoulders tightening up and can just imagine the anxious grimace he’s most likely wearing as he awaits Guillermo’s reaction.
Guillermo starts working his fingers through his master’s hair once more, giving himself a moment to compose a response. He knows, by now, that Nandor will withdraw ten steps after moving forward one if Guillermo makes too big a deal out of this...almost confession.
He finishes lathering the conditioner and dips his hands into the water at his master’s back, rinsing them and coming away with glitter dusting his skin. He laughs, holding his hands up to Nandor and joking, “Look, master! I’m a vampire!”
Nandor’s shoulders relax and he grins in delight, “It is funny because, of course, you aren’t!”
Guillermo rolls his eyes, but the light fluttery feeling in his chest is there to stay. His master loves him. Maybe it’s not the same kind of love that Guillermo feels. Maybe Guillermo should really take a hard look at the fact that he’s gushing over being compared to a horse. But for now he’s going to hold onto this moment like a candle flame glowing in his chest. His master loves him .
Later, while Guillermo is helping him to towel dry, Nandor makes a seemingly off handed comment that causes Guillermo’s mouth to go dry.
“Guillermo,” Nandor’s gaze is caught on his familiar’s cheek and the streak of ectoplasm drying on his skin. “The bath is still warm. Why don’t you wash as well. It’s been a long night…”
“I…” the idea of bathing in the same water that has so recently engulfed his beloved master is...an overwhelming powerful thought. “Th-thank you, master. I will…”
Nandor nods, “Good...good. And, thank you, Guillermo. For helping me on my saddest night.”
Guillermo blushes, smiling up at Nandor with devotion shining from his brown eyes, “Of course, master. I’m always...I’ll always be here for you.”
A shadow passes over Nandor’s eyes at Guillermo’s words but he simply nods and turns to leave.
Once the door closes shut behind him Guillermo takes a huge breath, turning to look at the murky water in the bath with a thrill that feels absolutely filthy. He’s going to bathe in Nandor’s...essence. Maybe he’ll smell like him afterwards? He turns the tap, adding some hot water to warm the bath back up and discarding his clothes in a little heap in the corner. Once he’s undressed, he turns off the water and steps cautiously over the rim of the tub, mindful of the pools of water on the tile floor from Nandor’s splashing. He’s just sinking down with a contented sigh when the door flies open and Nandor reappears.
“I have forgotten my...nail trimmers!” Nandor announces loudly, grabbing the first item he lays eyes on from the vanity.
“Oh, um…” Guillermo’s face is red hot and he slips down even further into the water, somehow incredibly shy about his nakedness despite having just spent an hour carefully cleaning his naked master.
Nandor lingers in the doorway, letting cold air creep into the room and causing Guillermo to shiver.
“Could you--um--shut the door, please? You’re letting in a draft…” Guillermo mutters.
Nandor jumps and quickly slams the door shut with him still inside the bathroom. They stare at each other in dumb silence for a moment before Nandor finally clears his throat, his eyes darting all over the place but always returning to land on the little bit of his familiar’s exposed flesh he can see above the water line.
“Would you...I could...help you. With your hair. If you like…” the words are halting and awkward.
Guillermo is frozen, he dares not even take a breath lest he somehow shatter the moment. His mind supplies him with the line, Keep absolutely still...its vision’s based on movement…
“Sure,” he answers, his eyes sparkling with barely restrained glee. “That would be very nice of you, master.”
“Of course it would be,” Nandor scoffs, rolling his eyes and striding forward with purpose. “I’m being nice to you on purpose so you don’t worry about the whole me eating you thing, remember?”
Nandor plops down behind him and squirts about half the bottle of shampoo into his hand.
“Oh, right. Thank you, master. I’m glad you’re not going to eat me,” Guillermo barely registers his own words, he’s too overwrought with the way this evening is going. Never in his wildest--
“You’re welcome,” Nandor answers and then places his hand atop Guillermo’s head, dunking him unceremoniously under the water.
Guillermo emerges a couple seconds later, gasping and sputtering, grabbing his glasses off his face and wiping at his eyes.
“Could you, uh--?” Guillermo hands his dripping spectacles to Nandor and the vampire takes them with his free hand and lovingly deposits them onto the side of the sink.
Nandor begins to paw his hands over Guillermo’s head, roughly lathering the shampoo into his short curls and privately delighting in the feel of his familiar’s hair under his fingers. Guillermo holds still, nervous about how much the cloudy water is actually hiding from the vampire’s eyes. Nandor jerks his head roughly, scrubbing behind Guillermo’s ears and down the back of his neck as well.
“Uh--master? Could you try to be a little more gentle?”
Nandor’s hands freeze, hovering in the air over Guillermo’s head, “I have hurt you? I will be more careful…”
The fingers return to Guillermo’s hair, softly and slowly massaging his scalp. Guillermo sighs, “That’s much better, thank you.
Nandor hums in acknowledgment before remarking, “I think I was still thinking about my sweet John. I used to wash him like this. Of course...I could be much rougher with him. Because he was a horse…”
“Of course…” Guillermo murmurs, his eyes falling shut as he leans his head back into his master’s palms. “This is so nice…”
“Good, I’m glad,” Nandor replies. “You deserve it! So loyal. Making me feel better about eating my dead horse friend… You’re a good familiar, Guillermo…”
Nandor lapses into silence, but there’s a new quality to it. As if he’s leaving something unsaid. Guillermo doesn’t know how, but he senses Nandor’s hesitance as the vampire continues stroking his fingers carefully, lovingly through his hair.
“Master?” Guillermo ventures, heart in his throat. “Is there something else?”
Nandor sighs, “Only that...John died without ever knowing how I felt...I mean, he was a horse so probably he would not have understood, but still.”
“Oh…” Guillermo’s eyes drift up the ceiling and he compresses his lips into a thin line before asking, “What would you have said to him?”
“I’m going to dunk you again, Guillermo,” Nandor gives him a second’s warning this time before pressing down on his head. Once Guillermo comes back up for air, the vampire answers the question, “Well...I suppose I would have said...you know, something along the lines of how he was the very best horse in all of the land. And that I really appreciated everything he did for me even though sometimes it was hard for me to show it… And how… how sad I sometimes felt thinking about yo--John ever leaving me to go and let some other warrior ride around on him… And...you know, the stuff about loving him…”
Guillermo clears his throat, tears misting his eyes as he speaks, “W-wow, master. I’m sure--I’m sure John would have been very happy to hear you say those things. And...if he could talk he’d tell you that you never have to feel sad about him leaving you because he--he loves you, too.”
Nandor scrubs conditioner through Guillermo’s hair and is quiet for a while before sniffing loudly and scoffing, “Well...pretty stupid, if you think about it, Guillermo. If John could have talked he would have said something about how much he loved oats and maybe about wanting to make sex with the fillys.”
Guillermo sighs, and forces a laugh, “You’re right, master.”
When it comes time to drain the tub, Guillermo finds himself nervously reluctant.
“You don’t have to help me dry off, master. I can handle it,” he blushes awfully and hugs his legs to his chest as Nandor stands to grab a fresh towel from the rack.
“Please stand up, Guillermo. I am making a gesture, here,” Nandor answers, unperturbed.
That is, until his familiar finally stands. Guillermo’s skin is hot and flushed from the bath. He’s studded liberally with sparkles from the bath bomb and Nandor’s eyes are drawn in at once. The familiar wraps his arms around himself, awkwardly trying to hide from his master’s seeking gaze. But Nandor steps forward and grabs Guillermo’s arms, pulling them out and away from his body so that he can look. Guillermo is perfectly soft, his body is all curves from the slope of his shoulders to his round belly and the wide, generous width of his hips. Nandor, feeling none of Guillermo’s shyness or reluctance, greedily drinks in the sight of the nest of curls between Guillermo’s legs and the soft, smooth length of his penis. His lips part to bare his fangs and his eyes light with hunger.
“Um...I’ll just…” Guillermo starts to scramble up and out of the tub and Nandor’s stupor is interrupted.
He tightens his hold on his familiar’s arms to stabilize him.
“Watch out for the slippy bits, Guillermo!” Nandor cautions. “Colin Robinson says most human deaths in your age range are due to accidents. I don’t want you to slip and snap your neck on the floor. Very inconvenient for me.”
Guillermo is silent, he doesn’t really have the brain function to answer at this point. He’s never been so exposed in front of Nandor before and while part of him recognizes the obvious interest on his master’s face, another part of him is deeply self-conscious and pretty certain that Nandor is just thinking about biting him.
Nandor begins toweling him off, and Guillermo tells himself that his master is certainly not letting his touch linger longer than necessary. This is just...a gesture. Once Guillermo is adequately dry, he takes the towel from Nandor and ties it around his waist with a sigh of relief. This is all...a lot.
“Thank you, master,” Guillermo finally says, preparing himself to be dismissed now that the moment is ending.
Nandor reaches over to the sink, plucking up Guillermo’s glasses and unfolding the arms, gently placing them on his familiar’s face with a little smile.
“You’re welcome, Guillermo. And… what I said about John?” Nandor sounds uncertain, hesitant. “About appreciating him and...other things...”
“Yes?” Guillermo asks, slightly breathless.
“I really meant it.”
Nandor steps forward and all at once he’s pulling Guillermo into his arms, stooping down and pressing his cool lips to his familiar’s warm, soft mouth. Guillermo squeaks in surprise, snapping his eyes shut and grabbing the flimsy silk fabric of Nandor’s robe as the vampire moves his lips over his, licking and suckling until Guillermo’s lips finally part, admitting his probing tongue. Nandor growls low in his chest, reaching one hand up to bury his fingers in Guillermo’s wet curls and letting the other rest over the small of his back.
Kissing. Guillermo is kissing Nandor. Nandor is kissing Guillermo! In one night he’s gone from hugging for the very first time to being held in his master’s arms and thoroughly, passionately, deliciously kissed. When Nandor’s lips fall away from his, Guillermo takes the opportunity to gulp air into his lungs. His master leans his forehead against his, holding him in place for a moment as they breathe each other’s air.
Finally, Nandor draws back, letting his hands fall away and asking, in a small voice, “Will you come tuck me into my coffin, Guillermo?”
Guillermo blinks, swallowing down the thousand and one questions currently crowding his brain. One step forward...please please please...no more steps back.
“Of course, master,” Guillermo answers. “I’ll always tuck you in at night. You know that.”
Nandor smiles, shyly locking eyes with Guillermo as he places his larger hand in his, pulling him along behind him on the way to his crypt.
Yeah... Guillermo muses with a dopey grin on his face as they pass by a gawping Laszlo in the hallway. Best night of my life.
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So, after that last episode (that mysteriously I also seemed to have predicted- the whole Guillermo finding a group of hunters thing) I’ve run away with my second theory that Guillermo may find himself in a relationship with Craig Robinson’s character, just complicating things further and putting certain things to light between him and Nandor that neither of them really explored before. Namely jealousy. But in talking about this with my husband we ended up writing/RPing a scene, following Nandor noticing that Guillermo’s been getting distracted by his phone a lot more, smiling and laughing at it in a way he didn’t before.
Nandor takes his confusion to the other vampires at some point, and they had this to say,
Nadja says definitively, “Well, I don't know how human phones work, but I'm telling you, he's got a bit of crumpet on the side.”
Nandor grimaces. “Nadja...I know Guillermo isn't...small but you didn’t have to go there. Also I don’t see what any of this has to do with human food.”
Nadja rolls her eyes. “NO. I mean he's fucking someone. Regularly, even. And probably sending lots of naughty little nudie pics to his new lover.”
A look of simultaneous horror and realization crosses Nandor’s face before he’s decided that is an impossibility. It must be. It has to be.
“....nooo....that's silly...” he laughs, albeit nervous. “That wouldn't happen...!” But his look at the camera seems searching, as if he needs more confirmation that what Nadja’s suggesting absolutely, definitely would never, ever, ever happen. Ever.
Laszlo meanwhile, pauses from nursing his pipe to add in no uncertain terms, “She's right, he's definitely getting it up the arse from someone.”
But this is more insult than Nandor can humor and he stomps his foot. “Ok that's enough! None of that is happening!!!”
“I actually agree with them,” Colin adds from his corner chair where everyone to this point had forgotten he was sitting. “All the signs are there.”
And Colin indisputably has more knowledge towards modern, human behavior than any of them present...but then, he is Colin.
“Do you ACTUALLY agree with them or are you just trying to infuriate me?” Nandor challenges, to which Colin replies flatly, “Yes.”
“What does it matter, anyway?” Nadja interjects with a sweep of her hands. “Has it affected his ability to serve?”
Nandor thinks for a moment, perhaps desperate, because he needs a logical reason to be consumed by this.
“Well, he-...! He gets distracted sometimes and it’s very irritating!”
Laszlo does a cursory look around the space of their library. “Seems to be the same mediocre work he’s always done.”
“He obviously still grooms you, as you don’t look like a complete cretin,” Nadja adds.
Having seen that this was a complete mistake to bring up with his roommates, Nandor backtracks. “Alright, let’s just forget it. There are other, more pressing matters to discuss-”
“Oh no, I think this is worth exploring,” Colin says, because of course, and then in his usual unassumingly ignorant tone of voice, “Why would it bother you that Guillermo has a private life if he’s still doing his job? I’m confused.”
To be sure, he isn’t.
Nadja’s eyes go wide in realization. “Wait, wait, wait!!! You-...!” She points to Nandor as if there was some confusion as to who she was talking about. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
“You haven’t gone soft for that little creep after all this time, have you?” Laslzo asks, though his tone is more grave and warning.
“I-...I haven’t-...! No, what-...I don’t even know what you’re talking about...!” Nandor attempts to deflect, but it’s less than convincing.
“Perhaps...” Colin suggests, once again in that grating, flat tone of voice. “Perhaps you wish...that you were the one...he was sending naughty pictures of himself to?”
“He does!” Nadja exclaims before Nandor can defend himself, and then she’s gripping to Laszlo’s arm in panic and remorse. “Oh, my darling...he’s fallen in love with his familiar...”
“That is very dangerous ground to tread, old chap.” Laszlo’s gaze is fixed firmly to Nandor’s; meanwhile the latter looks like a deer caught in the headlights.
Nadja, now overly sympathetic, has risen from her seat on the couch to give Nandor’s hands a patronizing pat. It’s somehow worse.
“Nandor, believe me when I say this...it’s never a good idea to entertain feelings for a mortal. It doesn’t end well.”
“Mainly in old age and death,” Colin needlessly adds.
Nandor once again attempts to assert his position as former warrior-conqueror, that this is not the case and he will not tolerate anymore suggestions of this nature, but Nadja has silenced him quickly with a maternal finger to his lips and a soft, “Hush now, you stupid, stupid, dumb little lovesick vampire. We will sort it all out.”
Then to (mainly) Laszlo, “We will have to sort this out.”
“You’re damn right we will,” he agrees. “We’ll have no truck with vampire that thinks there’s any kind of future with a bloodsack. Either you turn him or he goes.”
Nandor’s gone from aforementioned deer-in-headlights to little lost duck adrift on the ocean, shaking his head ‘no’ in a panic. “N-n-no...no, no, no, it doesn’t have to come to that-”
“It’s going to come to something!” Laszlo rallies back.
“Yes,” Nadja agrees, though softer. “We have few options left at this point. He must be turned and live as your eternal mate, or you must dismiss him, or-”
Then, Laszlo’s very helpful, demonstrative miming of a slice across the neck. “We -WHIIIEEECKK- him. Post-haste.”
Nandor’s shaking his head ‘no’ very violently at this point and trying to backpeddle the whole situation, but it seems the consensus has been made.
“Very well,” Nadja agrees, albeit with the same remorse as before. “Perhaps a month then? A month to make a decision. This can’t be easy.”
“Gizmo’s very lucky I cannot deny my good lady wife anything,” Laszlo says pointedly to Nandor. “A month seems generous...but so be it. Do something about this, or we will.”
Nandor’s companions begin to disperse then, and as he is still desperate and a bit disoriented from the whole confrontation he panics.
“Eh-!! Uhm-...wait!” And once he has their attention, “Listen to my wooords! You will forget eeeverythiiing I just saiiid...”
He must have known somewhere deep down this was going to be as embarrassing at it was futile. Laszlo’s glaring unimpressed, Colin gives him a judgmental eye-narrowing, and Nadja now pats him insultingly on the cheek.
“Poor, poor, stupid little vampire...” she sighs sadly to no one in particular, and then they’re all gone, leaving Nandor in the wake of this all-too-sudden, all-too-disturbing revelation.
#wwdits#wwdits tv#wwdits season 2#wwdits spoiler#spoilers#guillermo x nandor#nandor x guillermo#laszlo cravensworth#wwdits nadja#colin robinson#ficlet#guillermo de la cruz
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What We Do in the Shadows Season 3: What is an Energy Vampire Anyway?
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This article contains spoilers for What We Do in the Shadows season 3’s first two episodes.
Boredom, tedious, tiresome, flat. These are not the first words which jump to mind when thinking of vampires or comedy, but What We Do in the Shadows wields them like secret weapons without sacrificing a single laugh or scare. The FX horror farce, which is a series adaptation of the 2014 feature film created by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, follows four vampires. They have been roommates since, well, forever, but one is different from the rest.
Nandor the Relentless (Kayvan Novak), Nadja of Antipaxos, (Natasia Demetriou), and Laszlo Cravensworth (Matt Berry), are traditional vampires. They drink blood, a virgin’s if possible. This is usually supplied by their familiar-turned-bodyguard Guillermo (Harvey Guillén). A probable virgin himself, but off limits. Even vampires know not to feed on their own supplier, especially one who has taken down the entire local vampire hierarchy. The fourth vampire does not drink blood. He subsists on the lifeforce of others. He is an energy vampire, and no one is safe from his appetites. Familiars are fair game, and so are the other vampires.
Colin Robinson (Mark Proksch) looks like an office drone, talks like an automated menu, and has the presence of an interdepartmental meeting memo. A simple watercooler chat can drain a listener of the very will to live. It’s tasty. The Staten Island vampires have been named head of the entire Tri-State vampire community and Colin, who will be celebrating a major milestone this season, is undergoing a search for self.
You don’t have to look far from Colin to find Mark Proksch, the actor who plays him. In Better Call Saul, he played Daniel “Pryce” Wormald, the ineptly arrogant pharmaceutical connection who was very particular about his baseball cards. On The Office, he played Nate, a proven entity, but not without handicaps, like hearing, vision and cognition. With offbeat roles on This Is Us, Modern Family, Portlandia, Drunk History, Bob’s Burgers, and Adventure Time, Proksch has spent his career playing yo-yos, his first appearance was as a self-proclaimed master.
Proksch spoke with Den of Geek about vampire centennials, television perennials, and freezing his genitals playing kickball in the snow.
Den of Geek: Hello and thanks for doing this, and I wanted to wish Colin Robinson a happy birthday.
Mark Proksch: Well, it’s a little premature, but thank you.
I know the season is building to it, but will you be throwing a big celebration?
Yes. There will be some festivities, Colin Robinson style.
Do you know his sign?
I don’t know his sign. Gosh, that’s a good question. I don’t think he knows it, even.
Is there anything he wants for his birthday?
I think what he wants most is to know where he came from, and where he’s going. He’s in a bit of an existential funk right now. And he’s doing a lot of research about energy vampires. The problem is there’s not much out there on energy vampires because no one likes them. So, there aren’t many books about them. When he goes into the big Vampiric Council library, he can’t find a single word about energy vampires. And that’s probably because they’re so reviled within that community, that they don’t respect the energy vampires, or have any of their books.
You’ve been doing a lot of research on the history, and the nature, of energy vampires, as you said. What do you think, or, what do you call what he is feeding from? Is it Prana? Chi? Neurotransmissions?
Oh, yeah. We haven’t learned. He still doesn’t know. I think he’s feeding on the exhaustion of others. The everyday life exhaustion of others, I think, is what he feeds on.
Does Colin ever contemplate the carbon footprint of the energy vampire?
No, I think Colin’s in for it just for himself.
How come Colin can stand fire, he laughs it off, but he can’t deal with a cattle prod?
Yeah. Tony, you’re poking holes here. I don’t know. That’s, again, a very good question. Why doesn’t fire hurt him, but a cattle prod shocks him? Maybe, because one is energy? I mean, electrical energy, I should say. I guess heat is its own energy.
In the Cloak-of-Many-Nandors episode, how did it feel to hear Kayvan Novak do you? And did you give him pointers? Did he drain you in the process?
Yeah. Well, Kayvan has been doing all of us, since day one of shooting. So, it wasn’t a revelation to hear him do my voice. That said, we all sent recordings to him so he could perfect it. I haven’t seen the episode yet. The night we were filming my scene, it was about 4:00 a.m., it was one of the coldest nights in Toronto. So, I didn’t stick around to hear him do my voice. But I’m sure it’s as good as he was doing it on day one.
There’s a lot more location and exterior shooting this season. Is that more fun? Or is it just another day in a different cubicle?
I love our set. Kate Bunch, who is our set designer, is an absolute genius. And we film in the cold months, in Canada. So anytime we get to be on set, near the fireplace that actually works, is a plus. Filming on location has its limitations. We can’t film during the daytime, because the vampires will be burned up. So, we always film at night, when on location. And it looks like it’s 11:00 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., when in fact, it’s usually 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. And so, when we go on location, we’re usually shooting pretty unpleasant evenings. So, I’d much rather film on set. Filming on location can be fun though, because you have a lot more interaction with real people. And I think that’s one thing that makes the show really funny, is seeing these idiot vampires dealing in the real world. So, it’s kind of fifty-fifty for me.
Did you have fun in the snowball fights?
Yes. There are a lot of snowball fights, yes.
The last time I spoke with you, Colin had just gotten a promotion and it kind of went to his head. How is it for Colin now, to be in power at the Vampiric Council?
I think, as much as Colin loved having some power, I think his M.O. is really, just fading into the background. That way, he can prey a lot easier. Just trying to mix into the group. Be a spider with his web, in the background. I think that’s how he prefers to prey. And so, even when he becomes part of the Vampiric Council, he still allows others to exceed him in power. And so, this season, when Nandor and Nadja are the heads of the Vampiric Council, he’s more than happy to be the secretary. The most boring job you can have in a council setting, taking the notes.
Who do you think Colin would prefer on the throne, Nadja or Nandor?
That’s a great question. I think he would probably prefer Nandor, because Nandor is so stupid. Nandor is very, very dumb. And so, he, Colin, can get Nandor to do pretty much anything he wants. Whereas Nadja, I think Colin likes Nadja. And I also think that Nadja’s too smart to fall into Colin’s traps.
Does he get a jolt out of things like the heart ripping?
Yeah, I think so. I think he does enjoy that type of stuff. Yeah.
Can you feed off Nadja’s ghost in the Nadja doll?
I can’t. And I think I’ve tried to several times. I don’t remember what made it on air. But there’s been several times where I’ve tried to feed off of the doll, and it doesn’t go anywhere.
Will Colin’s research turn up any famous energy vampires? And have you come up with your own?
I’ll drop in names for energy vampires, every once in a while. I don’t think any of them have made it so far. I mean, I’ve done Andy Warhol, who seems, to me, to have been an energy vampire. Truman Capote. I would love to have Bob Newhart on as an energy vampire, because I think he’s brilliant, and he would absolutely kill it. Yeah, I’ve thrown in some of those names. David Crosby, I’ve thrown in. I mean, the more left field, the better. But I don’t think any of those have gotten in. I don’t think they want to insult people.
When you look back on your character’s past, do you find any trace of Les Nessman DNA?
Only in my acting. I loved WKRP, and Les Nessman was definitely a good energy vampire. Just a great character, and acted brilliantly. Yeah, I’m sure I stole from him. You know, it’s interesting, I mostly watch classic television. And I’ll see something, and I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s where I got that. That’s where I took that from.” I haven’t seen him since childhood, but it made an impression on me that, “Oh, okay. That’s why I do that.” And that becomes very eerie to me, when I realize I’m just a culmination of things I’ve been watching my whole life.
I’ve recently been watching it and was amazed by the physical comedy. Arthur Carlson was a genius. So, tell me about the physical comedy in What We Do in the Shadows. Because you’re using not just you, the actors, but you have the effects, and there’s a lot going on, especially, in the backgrounds.
Yeah. I personally love being able to do physical comedy. And Colin Robinson is so great for that, because he’s so at two with his body. He’s not a physical human being. He’s not athletic, to say the least. And I think it adds an extra layer to the character, when you actually see him physically emote, really. Whether it’s dancing, or playing kickball, he’s very unsettling in his movements. Then when you add in the ability to fly, once in a while, or throw people against a wall, it really becomes a playground that not a lot of shows let you get to do. Explore those extremes of physical comedy. And so, I love it for that reason.
You mentioned being free to emote. In the opening episode, you actually are peeved when you can’t feed off of Nadja and Laszlo, and when they shut you down. Does Colin get drained when the feedees don’t give with the Prana?
Yeah, I think he gets really frustrated. It’s almost like a dog that’s always promised a treat, but never is actually given the treat. I think he becomes furious. And he thinks it’s unfair, I would expect, and thinks that they’re not playing by the rules. His bizarre social rules, in which he should be allowed to feed on whenever he wants. Because he gets to do it all day long at work. Anytime he’s out of the house, he gets to do it. But when he’s in the mansion, they know what he’s up to, and they can shut him down pretty quickly. I think he gets frustrated.
Also, still with the first episode, your toilet duties. They only seemed designed to annoy you. So, when you’re actually annoying yourself, isn’t that like cannibalism?
I don’t know if he’s annoying himself. I think he’s really into what’s going on in those toilet buckets. That’s all. I think he’s curious.
You meet a big fan in the rogue vampire house, in Queens. Does Colin’s reputation precede him? And will we see a growth in his vampire community renown?
That’s a great question. I think his reputation does precede him. That said, I don’t know what the writers have in store in that story. I mean, it would be interesting to see him rise to a level of energy vampire stardom, and how he would handle that. But I don’t know.
Is that a little counterproductive?
It would be in his mind, absolutely. Again, it goes back to him being the spider with the spider web, and just, kind of, hanging out in the background.
Do you think the connection you make with energy vampires is different from the connection traditional vampires make? And might we be seeing something of an underground, within the underground?
I think with the traditional, bloodsucking vampires, I think it’s mostly sexual. For them, they just want to get their rocks off. I think with energy vampires, it’s much more subtle, and a little more complicated. And I don’t know if those relationships could last, the energy vampire relationships. What we saw with Vanessa Bayer’s character, Evie, I think that ran its natural course, as far as romantic liaisons with energy vampires.
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What We Do in the Shadows season 3 airs Thursdays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.
The post What We Do in the Shadows Season 3: What is an Energy Vampire Anyway? appeared first on Den of Geek.
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It’s Complicated Chapter 9: Aggravated Crimes
Source: @viennainspring
Chapters 1-5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Read Story on AO3
Barba was not happy. In fact, he was angry, confused, and frustrated. It hadn’t been a good couple of weeks, and there was no reason at all for that. It should have been a great couple of weeks. He’d gotten all the evidence in for the Fowler trial, even with Judge Paul “Evidence? What Evidence?” Ivanovitch. He’d practically made Trevor Langan cry when he got both Gonzalez brothers indicted. His Mami had finally given up the idea of a mother/son cruise without him having to actually admit he’d rather be eaten alive by a rabid wildebeest. And he’d finally gotten somewhere with Adrien St. George. Life was good. So why was he so out of sorts?
Well, he knew one reason. Something was off in the romance department. He’d taken Janice Edwards to dinner a couple weeks before, thinking he’d just have a nice, relaxing night with a woman who didn’t require a lot of effort, followed by some uninspired but guaranteed sex. She was certainly a lot less difficult than, for example, Francisca Rojas, with a much lower likelihood of fisticuffs breaking out between the appetizers and the entrée. And Janice hadn’t done anything wrong or different, except that Barba had found himself bored out of his mind and couldn’t face the idea of spending the night with her. So he hadn’t. Lunch with Bess Quinn had been just fine until he’d said something she didn’t like. He’d tried to get her to talk about it – hell, no doubt Francisca would have been perfectly happy to blast him right there at the table – but Bess had simply frozen him out for the rest of the meal. He tried to remember whether she’d always been like that, and had to admit that she had. He just hadn’t cared before. And his date with Adrien, who was the worst but sexiest court administrator he’d ever seen, had been – OK. She was interesting enough. Maybe not “arrested for murdering her ex-boyfriend” interesting, but that was a good thing, right? And speaking of Francisca, Adrien wasn’t nearly as difficult, and she actually seemed to like him. Everything with Adrien was just fine. She’d even invited herself back to his apartment after the opera. He didn’t understand what had happened, but what had happened was… nothing. They’d had a drink and he’d sent her home in a cab.
At first, he’d thought maybe he needed a vacation or something. But then he realized that what he needed was to stop comparing every woman to Francisca Rojas.
The more he thought about it, the angrier at her he became. She was just like the rest of her privileged ilk, swishing around in her Prada and pearls, positive that the moral high ground was her birthright and turning up her nose at the idea that sometimes life got messy. And where the hell did she get off bludgeoning him for using a common phrase like “spin a story”? People said that all the time, for fuck’s sake, it wasn’t intended as a moral indictment of her character. I can’t date you if you think I did something bad? What kind of bullshit was that? Fuck, he hated rich, entitled people like her.
*********
Her skirt was soft, brushed suede and fit her beautifully, modest and insanely sexy at the same time. Rafael could only imagine the price tag. Her silky fuchsia button-down blouse was a filmy, clingy cloud that exerted a draw on his eyes so powerful that he constantly had to refocus, tearing his gaze from the few buttons she’d casually left undone and the swell of her breasts. It physically hurt him, somewhere in the center of his chest, to look at her and want her as much as he did, to remember what it was like to work and argue and laugh with her, sick with the knowledge that, in truth, she was not who he’d briefly allowed himself to imagine she was. Instead, he had been right all along. She was everything he hated.
“I needed to talk to you about something. I’d really rather not discuss this here, and I’m sorry I had to ask Carmen to put me on your schedule, but I haven’t been able to connect with you.”
“What is it you need, Doctor?” Was Barba’s voice cold? Was he purposely continuing to focus on his computer screen rather than look at her? That was not what she’d come to expect from him. She had never seen him intentionally impolite, but he was now.
“May I close your door?”
He waved nonchalantly, still not looking at her.
“May I sit?” The edge that now crept into in her voice finally made him look up.
“Go ahead,” he said without inflection, flicking a hand in the direction of the chairs before his desk.
Maybe he thought she was still upset with him. Of course, she thought, that had to be it. He didn’t know why she was here. “I’ve learned some things that you deserve to know. And I owe you an apology.”
He didn’t respond. He stayed still, not a flicker of emotion crossing his closed features, and he said nothing. What the hell?
“I know why Juwon Jefferson came forward with his information about Alan Canady. I swear on my mother’s grave that I didn’t kill Alan, and I believe that every word Jefferson said was true. But you were right. He was… coerced.”
Still Barba said nothing. He kept his face completely neutral, but his breathing had become just a bit deeper and, consciously or not, he was clenching his jaw. Which didn’t look to Frankie like surprise. Well, she’d expected him to be mad. He was entitled to some righteous anger at her for taking such a holier-than-thou attitude with him when she left his apartment. She’d certainly expected a hefty ration of mocking for being so wrong. Except this looked like… disgust. Hate, almost.
“I needed to tell you that you were right, and I was wrong. And I apologize to you for the way I reacted.”
Frankie had said what she had to say, so she waited for him to respond. Maybe he was thinking about what he wanted to say? She tried to be patient and give him time to do that. It ended up taking a full minute.
“And what is it you want from me in return for this blinding revelation that I can, in fact, see what’s right in front of my nose and may perhaps not be an entirely soulless bottom-dweller after all? Or am I giving myself too much credit?”
Frankie recoiled as though he had struck her. She felt like he had.
“I think you once told me you like being on the receiving end of an apology.” She tried a small smile, which died as she looked into his eyes.
“I don’t particularly like anything about this conversation, Doctor. What is it you want?”
“Barba, I… I don’t want anything from you.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I don’t understand. What… We were starting to be friends before Jefferson, weren’t we? And I messed that up. I’m trying to fix that. I need you to know that I know you were right, but I’m having a hard time dealing with that, and I… just…”
“Ah. So that’s it. You want absolution. You want me to tell you that you’re still pure as the driven snow, even though somebody else had to get dirty to keep you that way, and I had the regrettably poor breeding to mention it.”
“What? No, I…”
“Apology accepted. Now, did you need anything else? Anything work-related?”
“What’s this about? Why are you talking to me like this? I said I was wrong, and I’m sorry…”
“I heard you. And I’ve accepted your apology. You’ll forgive me if I don’t give you a damn parade for it.”
“I don’t want-“
“What do you want? I’ve asked you that several times since you waltzed in here and I have yet to get an answer. I have things to do, even if you don’t.”
Frankie was blindsided and too wounded even to feel anger at this point. She was too appalled even to cry. This was far worse than when Alan had turned on her. With Alan, there had been some warning. It had come on gradually. Besides which, she had never had deep feelings for Alan. But this, with Barba… she had fallen in love with him, never having the first inkling this side of him existed. So he had been able to get right next to her heart before he struck.
She stumbled out of his office, her only instinct being to run. Just as it had been with Alan.
Unbelievable. It was exactly as he’d thought. Expressing all sorts of wonderment at having discovered – apparently all by herself, as though Barba hadn’t said it to her five minutes after it happened - that someone beat the tar out of Juwon Jefferson to make him come forward. And then she just sat there, all big eyes and expectation, as though he was going to – what? Thank her for sharing? Congratulate her on her wisdom and foresight in having friends who would put themselves in that kind of jeopardy for her? It had been all he could do not to throw her out of his office.
******************
The suspect was a notorious South American playboy, son of a diplomat, who appeared entirely uninterested in the severity of the aggravated rape charges pending against him. The entire Western Hemisphere knew that Guillermo Maduro could speak English if he chose, but he insisted on being interrogated in Spanish, which meant that Barba and Rojas were doing the questioning. They both hated Maduro on sight, as did everyone who had been involved in his arrest. That wasn’t going to get them any evidence they could use, however, which was why, at that moment, Frankie was laughing softly at his inappropriate joke and touching her hair.
Maduro was a pig. He kept aiming his hooded gaze at her breasts, then raising his eyebrows. She wanted to pull a garbage bag over herself to protect her body from his leer, but she swallowed her disgust and preened instead. Barba wanted to kill him. As he watched Maduro basically lick Francisca with his eyes, Barba had recurring fantasies of taking him out with a hatchet.
“Come on, Doctor, it’s different for people like us, yes?” Maduro’s voice, as he apparently tried to sound smooth, sounded instead like a cold lump of Vaseline.
Barba could feel his pulse throbbing in his temples. He remembered hearing someone say something like that, a long time ago, to differentiate themselves from him.
“Tell me,” Frankie said. Every instinct she had told her to punch Maduro in his drooling mug. Instead, she tried to look demure and interested instead. “What does that mean?”
“Those people, they have all these tired rules.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, come now, Doctor. This woman, she says I attacked her. I did not attack. A man like me, I do not need to attack. But your police pretend to believe her because of the news. They must look as though they believe that woman over me.”
“But they should believe you over her,” Frankie said.
“Well,” Maduro bestowed his wide, white, greasy smile on her. “Of course, we cannot say these things too loudly. You know how those kind of people are. People who do not understand, they will misinterpret.”
It came to Barba in that moment where he had last heard someone so shamelessly asserting that money and social standing came with different rules. It had been at Harvard, during a cocktail party that Rafael had attended as an officer of La Alianza, the Latino student association at the law school. He was standing close together with two other officers of the group, feeling small and wildly out of place. His little knot of overwhelmed students were standing just to the side of a large, well-lubricated group in which a tall, red-faced white man was holding forth about how admirable it was that Harvard allowed “those kinds of people” to attend so that they could return home and “fix their neighborhoods.” The talk went on to a discussion of how “people like that” simply had “different values,” “didn’t understand how we do things” and, after graduation would be happiest if they returned to where they were “comfortable.” From there, it had only gotten worse. By the time Rafael finally signaled that they should simply leave, the President of La Alianza, a young woman of Venezuelan descent who seemed mousy until she opened her mouth and blew you away with her rhetorical skills, actually had tears in her eyes. Maduro would have fit right in with that Harvard crowd except, of course, that he would not have been welcome.
“You can tell us,” Frankie purred. “We’ll understand.”
“Yes, I can see by your clothes, both of you, that you are not like the police. We are a different sort, aren’t we? We understand each other.”
For a moment, Frankie thought that Barba had exploded out of his chair in order to attack Maduro. She wouldn’t have blamed him, but she prepared to try to intervene.
“Dr. Rojas, a word, please.” His voice was low and tight.
In the squad room, Rafael poured himself a cup of coffee and drank half of it before he spoke.
¿Estas bien? ¿Cuál es el problema?[1] Frankie asked, concern evident on her face and in her posture as she stood and touched his arm. He roughly threw her hand from him. That stung, but she chose to ignore it.
“That man is… I can’t even think of words vile enough.”
“And you know all the good ones, too,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. “Good idea to take a break for a while.”
They walked slowly back toward the hallway where Benson, Dodds, and Carisi stood in front of the one-way window into the interrogation room, chatting together. Still speaking Spanish, Frankie and Rafael stayed to the side of that group as Frankie tried to understand what was happening with Barba. Of course, she had been trying to figure that out since he’d basically tossed her out of his office the other day, but that was a different matter.
“I find it incomprehensible that you can be so obsequious to him.”
“I’m not being obsequious. Maybe a lot more sympathetic than I really feel…”
“He doesn’t seem to bother you.”
That got under Frankie’s skin. “Well, I’m going to take that as a compliment to my rapport-building skills, because I detest that prick. When he’s gone, I’m gonna bleach my brain to get him out. This whole precinct. Maybe the entire city.”
“Really.” Rafael’s voice had a nasty edge.
Frankie was stunned. He could not be serious. He could not be saying that he thought she had any sympathy for that cretin. “Of course, really. I fucking hate that asshole.”
“Are you sure? Because that’s not what it looks like from here.”
“That’s not what it’s supposed to look like from here. You do understand what I’m trying to do here, right?”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with the basic concept of flirtation, Doctor.”
The hurt in her eyes was unmistakable, as was the shock at this fresh assault. She physically flinched. When she responded, there was no trace of challenge, vanity, or anything resembling humor in her voice. There was only a raw plea.
“Barba, can we be real for just a second? Please? This man is filth. I want to just brick in the windows and doors and leave him in there to rot. Yeah, I’m trying to build rapport with him by putting my gag reflex on hold and pretending to be sympathetic. Because that’s my job. I’m doing it to get him. Is that not clear to you? You and I are on the same side.”
“People like you and Maduro, are you ever really on any side, other than your own?”
She didn’t intend to do it. She didn’t even see it coming. If she had, she certainly would have stopped herself. But when she heard Barba, the man she loved, lump her together with the smarmy, hateful rapist in the box, Frankie emitted a loud, wordless yell as the last of her patience frayed and snapped. She reached back and slapped him across the face as hard as she possibly could. Which was pretty hard.
“You prejudiced snob asshole! I am nothing like him! And I will finish this interrogation on my own because I really, really need you to get the fuck out of my sight.”
There was no sound but the soft clunk of Rafael’s shoes as he walked out of the squad room.
Frankie turned a deep shade of red and stormed back into the interrogation room.
Standing next to the one-way glass, Dodds leaned in to Carisi, asking softly, “What do you suppose he said?”
“With Barba? It’s anyone’s guess. I’m just glad I got to be here to see that!”
“Neither of you saw that,” Olivia said severely.
Carisi blinked, innocence flowing down to cover his expression like a mask. “Saw what, Lieu?”
Olivia went into the box. She wasn’t exactly bilingual, but her Spanish would have to do. It was enough. By the time she and Rojas emerged again, Frankie had flirted Guillermo Maduro into a noose he was not going to escape. Olivia didn’t think some of the names she’d called him after his confession were particularly necessary, but then she didn’t think they were all really aimed at Maduro, either.
Rafael walked down the hall to the elevators, holding his cheek and smiling like an absolute lunatic. In one second, the bottom had dropped out of his carefully-constructed self-delusion at the same time a blinding ray of hope pierced the sky. That slap had hurt for sure. But now he understood, and he knew that he deserved it.
Francisca Rojas was nothing like the caricature he’d painted of her in his mind, and she’d done absolutely nothing to deserve the way he’d treated her. She had been nothing but her genuine self every moment he’d known her. It was all him. He was the asshole.
He had treated her like absolute garbage when they’d met, for no reason other than his own – well, she’d said it - snobbery and prejudice. But then, as soon as he could swoop in and protect her from Alan Canady, and be her stability when she’d been rocked to her core by her arrest, he had been perfectly happy to fall in love with her. Yes, Barba, admit it, you fell in love even before she did. Because when she was in need, he could feel superior to her. But the moment she’d begun to recover, to show signs of strength and self-sufficiency, he’d reverted to the scholarship kid from Harvard and rejected her before she could reject him. Or something like that. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had finally seen the truth of who she’d been all along, and it was so clear and obvious he marveled at his own disastrous ability to pretend otherwise for as long as he had.
Oh, he was a complete and utter dick; he had no illusions about that anymore. But he would make that up to her if it took him the rest of his life, and he would love every second of it. And she’d let him. No matter what he had to do, he would get her back, and he would make her let him apologize to her until she could no longer even remember what he was apologizing for. Rafael would never have imagined he could be so deliriously happy about getting smacked around by the woman he loved in front of a room full of cops.
What to do? Fill her apartment with roses. No, she was a little too pissed for that right now; she was likely to stuff them all in his apartment and take a flamethrower to them. Go to her on his knees with the biggest diamond ring he could find. No again, and for the same reason. If he put his chin in the neighborhood of her legs right now, she would boot him into New Jersey. Hold a boom box over his head outside her apartment window? Still no. She said she could shoot the eye out of… something small. The point was, that wasn’t going to work.
OK, he was going to have to find a way to get her to at least hear what he had to say. He smiled evilly. There was one sure-fire way to do that. And he knew some very clever people who would help him make it happen. By the time she figured out she’d been had, hopefully he would have at least talked her into not killing him. What was a little unlawful imprisonment after everything else he’d done to her?
For the rest of the day, Rafael felt really stupid wearing a dopey grin around all the time. But he couldn’t seem to get rid of it.
***************
“Carisi, I got an assignment for you.”
“Yeah, Sarge. What is it?”
“Well, it’s a little bit off the books. So feel free to say no. It’s kind of a personal favor for Barba.”
************
Sitting in the back seat of the squad car, Frankie thought this might be what an out-of-body experience felt like. She had been upset for days after Barba had basically thrown her out of his office, and she still had no idea what she’d done to deserve it. Then, today, the things he’d said… The things he’d accused her of… And then, as though she had never done the slightest bit of work on controlling her temper, as though she was a teenage drama queen or a big-haired siren on a telenovela, she’d slapped Barba across the face in front of the entire NYPD. Or at least, that’s how it had felt.
Now, as though she wasn’t unhinged enough, Dodds and Carisi were hustling her to some building somewhere, where there was a man who needed… something. It was all still confusing to her, but Dodds kept reassuring her that they just needed her psychiatric expertise to talk to this guy. He didn’t have a hostage. He didn’t have any weapons, there was no danger, he was just a guy who, for some reason unfathomable to Frankie, they needed her to talk to. It was ridiculous and doomed to failure, because she knew absolutely nothing about this man or what his issues were, but Frankie had worked for a federal bureaucracy for a long time. Sometimes the brass made decisions for reasons known only to them and God. And sometimes even God was a little iffy on the logic.
The car pulled up to a small, empty-looking unit in an industrial park. In the fading light of late afternoon, the unit appeared to be a few offices attached to a larger space that could be used for a small manufacturing or warehousing business. It was sort of a lonely-looking area since it was after business hours and at least half the units appeared to be untenanted.
“OK, so, Doc, you stay here. We’re gonna go in, do a little recon, talk to the guy and see if everything’s secure. Won’t take more than a minute or two. As long as everything’s kosher, we’ll come out and get you.”
“OK, whatever. I still say this is a jacked up way to be doing things.”
“Welcome to the NYPD,” Carisi grinned, unfolding his long legs from the vehicle.
The two walked toward the door of the unit, tried it and found it unlocked, then went in. In her tired irritation, Frankie nonetheless had a second to notice how good Dodds and Carisi looked together. She really hoped something nice would happen for them. Which kicked her mind back over into the track it had been stuck in. What the hell was the matter with Rafael Barba? And what was she going to do about it?
Only a few minutes later, Dodds and Carisi stepped out the front door of the office section of the unit, signaling her. Frankie sighed, looped her carryall over her shoulder, and got out of the car. She went to them.
“So? What’s the situation?”
“It’s all good. Come on in,” Dodds said. “Everything’s copacetic, we just need you to talk to this guy.”
Shaking her head slightly, Frankie walked through the door Carisi held open for her. She didn’t see the look that passed between him and Dodds behind her. She found herself in a small reception area empty of furniture, with a short hallway running toward a door that appeared to connect to the larger workroom/warehouse section of the unit. Two doors opened on each side of the hallway.
“He’s in the last office on the left,” Dodds said. “We’ll wait here in the lobby.”
Frankie walked uncertainly down the hallway to the door Dodds had indicated, then knocked.
“Come in,” a male voice said.
She opened the door and was stunned to see Barba sitting on the edge of a bare metal desk.
“What the hell…?” She said.
“Come on in. Have a seat,” he said, indicating two cheap stacking chairs with metal frames and torn fabric seats.
“What’s going on?” Frankie asked, scowling at Barba and considering backing up out of the room.
“I need to talk to you,” he answered, his voice softer and kinder than she’d heard it for months.
At that moment, she heard the front door of the unit close, and the sound of something metal.
“What...” She turned and rushed down the hall to see Dodds and Carisi just finishing padlocking the door on the outside. She yelled at them and pounded on the door, but they simply waved at her, smiling, and went to sit in their squad car.
She pulled her phone from her carryall and texted Dodds.
Frankie Rojas:
WTF
Mike Dodds:
Listen to him.
Frankie Rojas:
I will break the glass out of this door.
Mike Dodds:
Good luck with that. It’s unbreakable Hammerglass. Let him say what he has to say.
She tried Carisi.
Frankie Rojas:
Don’t be a party to this BS – you’re nicer than them.
Sonny Carisi:
Dodds is my boss, Barba’s helping me get hooked up with the D.A.’s office.
Frankie Rojas:
I am vengeful and creative and have a long memory.
Sonny Carisi:
He needs to talk to you. Let him.
Frankie blew out her breath in annoyance as she leaned her back against the wall of the lobby. From down the hall she heard Barba call, “I could have told you they’re on my side, but you would have tried anyway.”
“I could call other cops. Cops who don’t owe you favors,” she shouted to him.
“That’s why Dodds and Carisi are staying. Just in case they need to intervene.”
“I really hate you right now.”
“I know. But you’ll get over it.”
[1] Are you OK? What’s the problem?
@scarletsoldierrr thanks for asking to be tagged and liking "I get around” Barba!
#law & order svu#law & order: special victims unit#rafael barba#raul esparza#sonny carisi#mike dodds#olivia benson
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Not Entirely Unrequited - Nandor the Relentless x Guillermo de la Cruz Fanfic (One-Shot)
WWDITS Masterlist
Summary: An alternate ending to “Colin’s Promotion.” Featuring a smooch and some fluff.
A/N: I just love Nandor’s line from this episode (Come over here and put your neck in my mouth!)--and I can’t stop thinking...what if...?? [See end for more notes]
Warnings: Kissing, self-sacrifice/close call, Fluff, Feelings!
---
“Guillermo,” Nandor moans, barely picking up his head. “Come over here and put your neck in my mouth.”
Guillermo rolls off his chair, falling onto the floor in an exhausted puddle and painstakingly crawling forward with a subservient, “Yes, master.”
Nandor watches his familiar’s progress without an ounce of the bloodlust that normally clouds his mind at the prospect of a tasty, virgin meal. He’s a wilted flower dressed up as an Ottoman war lord. All thanks to fucking Colin Robinson’s fiendish machinations.
“Nandor! You’re not going to hog Gizmo all to yourself, are you?!” Nadja groans from the opposite couch where she’s collapsed in ennui.
“He’s my familiar, Nadja!” Nandor snaps testily, reaching a limp hand out as Guillermo scrambles up beside him. “It’s not my fault you and Laszlo can’t keep one alive for longer than a week!”
Guillermo sags into his master’s side. The little energy remaining to him after Colin’s mega-feed sapped by the journey from the chair to the couch. Even his thoughts are sluggish. Somewhere in the back of his mind a tiny voice calls out, telling him that he should run from this. But a louder compulsion to please his master--to take care of him--overrides the instinct for self-preservation.
He lets his head drop onto the vampire’s shoulder with a contented sigh, enjoying the rare chance to cuddle his irritable master. He buries his nose into the waves of soft, dark hair, breathing in Nandor’s spicy scent.
“You were a good familiar, Guillermo,” Nandor whispers, his mouth open in a hungry leer. He turns his body to face the smaller man, cradling him in his arms and running a gentle hand over his exposed neck. “This will be just like falling to sleeping…”
Guillermo shivers at the brush of wickedly sharp fangs against his tender skin. He takes a shaky breath, shutting his eyes as a fat tear rolls down his cheek.
“I love you, master,” he breathes just as Nandor closes his mouth over the beating pulse in his neck.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Colin Robinson’s nasal voice sounds from the doorway. “Looks like I’ve arrived in the nick of time.”
Nandor tightens his arms around Guillermo, squeezing him to his chest as he turns around with a petulant whine, “Haven’t you done enough, Colin Robinson? Can’t you leave me to murder my familiar in peace?!”
“Haven’t I done enough?” Colin scoffs. “It’s you all who treat me like a burden instead of a friend!”
He stalks forward and pulls Guillermo out of Nandor’s grip. Both men complain pitifully and Colin rolls his eyes.
“Quit whining, you walnut!” he gripes at Guillermo, depositing him back into the armchair. “I’m saving your pathetic life.”
“Guillermo!” Nandor wails. “Run away!”
Colin presses down on his shoulders as Guillermo makes a weak, aborted attempt to rise.
“Sorry, master…” Guillermo mumbles, half-asleep.
Colin strides across the room, holding forth as two dopplegangers split off from his body. The vampires and familiar writhe in pitiful agony as Colin spins out of control, the urge to feed turning against him and weakening him until he and his doubles fall down lifeless.
---
Later that evening, Guillermo stands under the hot spray in the upstairs shower. The water turns a muddy brown as it flows down the drain, rinsing away the remnants of tonight’s gravedigging. He groans as his aching muscles finally relax. His eyes fall shut and he recalls the feel of his master’s fangs against his skin. He finally allows himself to surrender, just a little, to the emotions brewing inside him. A choked sob escapes his throat, interrupted by the sound of a soft knock.
“Guillermo?” Nandor’s muffled voice comes through the door.
Guillermo sniffs, hastily wiping his eyes and sticking his head out of the shower curtain, “I-I’ll be out in a minute, master!”
He rushes through the rest of his shower, turning off the water and hastily drying himself before throwing on his soft, worn pajamas and terry cloth robe. His skin is still flushed and warm from the heat of the shower and his hair is wet when he steps out into the hallway and nearly collides with Nandor.
“Oh! Master, I didn’t think you’d still be here. Is--is there something you need?” Guillermo stammers. Nandor catches him before he can slam into his chest, holding him with his large, cool hands curled around Guillermo’s upper arms.
“No, my Guillermo,” Nandor murmurs. There’s a tender look in his large, dark eyes that Guillermo has never seen in all his eleven years of service. “I came to see if you are alright. That was a brave thing you did tonight…”
“Oh, it was nothing…” Guillermo automatically demurs, ducking his head and adjusting his glasses nervously
“No, it was not nothing!” Nandor insists, baring his fangs in annoyance. He pauses then, his face softening as he reaches out to tuck a stray curl behind his familiar’s ear.
Guillermo startles at the unexpected touch, his mouth falling open in shock. He looks up and falls into Nandor’s gaze. Those rich, dark brown eyes seem to emit their own gravity, pulling him in and dragging him under the influence of the vampire’s power. Is this hypnosis? Guillermo wonders frantically. Or...something else?
“It wasn’t nothing, my Guillermo,” Nandor repeats, his voice pitched lower. He brings both hands up to cup his familiar’s cheeks and he hisses in pleasure at the contrast of Guillermo’s shower-heated skin with his cold palms. “You were willing to sacrifice yourself for me and I...I appreciate it!”
A shiver runs through Guillermo’s body at his master’s touch. Rather than cringe away from it, though, he leans in, stepping closer and bringing his hands up to clutch the furred collar of Nandor’s jacket. What is happening? He’s either spectacularly misinterpreting Nandor’s signals or...
“Of course, master. I’d do anything for you…” And Guillermo flinches as he hears the words and realizes they’re true. He would do anything. He has, hasn’t he? He’s sacrificed, killed, thrown out his pride and given up his human life...all for Nandor. How long has he lied to himself, claiming to be in it for the payoff of becoming a vampire? For so long, for years, it’s been about something entirely different.
“And what you said?” Nandor continues, stroking his fingers along Guillermo’s cheeks, his jaw, up into his wet curls. “That you love me…?”
Guillermo sputters, trying to come up with an excuse, an explanation that will somehow protect the tender animal of his true feelings. Nandor hushes him, putting a finger to his lips and letting it stay there.
“Your feelings are not...entirely...unrequited…” Nandor admits, wincing against the indignity of voicing his own emotions. But the smile that lights up his familiar’s face is worth the momentary embarrassment.
Guillermo is resplendent. He gazes up at Nandor like he’s the moon, the stars and the eternal night he’s waited for his whole life. Nandor feels his cold, dead heart flood with warmth and in one swift motion he leans down and presses his mouth to Guillermo’s, capturing him in a kiss before he can think twice.
The vampire’s lips are surprisingly soft, and the kiss is infinitely gentle, as if he’s taking care not to hurt his beloved familiar. Guillermo moans, pressing harder into him and smirking in pleasure at the sharp cut of fangs against his plump lower lip. Their mouths fill with Guillermo’s hot, sweet blood and Nandor very nearly growls. He wraps his arms tight around his familiar and deepens the kiss, pressing his tongue into Guillermo’s mouth and lapping at the shallow wound on his lip.
Too soon, Nandor pulls back, panting with the intensity of the kiss. His mouth and beard are stained with blood and he looks wickedly debauched. Guillermo clings to him, catching his breath and trying to steady himself against the revelations of the last few minutes. Nandor feels Guillermo trembling and tightens his arms around him, pulling him to his chest and tucking him under his chin with a gentle squeeze.
He lowers his lips and presses a kiss into the damp curls at the crown of Guillermo’s head, just barely whispering, “I love you too, Guillermo.”
---
A/N: This was a bit of an exercise in writing something short (1300ish words) and not-very-explicit. I’ve never been in a fandom before where I was drawn to *so many* ships. Nadja x Laszlo! Jenna x Nadja!? Jenna x Nandor!!!??? Laszlo x Nandor... but Nandor x Guillermo is just so special. I had to write a little something for these babies. If you enjoyed this, please consider letting me know! It would really make my day!
#nandermo#nandor x guillermo#nandor the relentless x guillermo de la cruz#guillermo x nandor#guillermo de la cruz x nandor#wwdits fanfic#wwdits fanfiction#wwdits fluff#guillermo de la cruz#nandor the relentless
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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?”
#wwdits#wwdits season 2#nandor x guillermo#guillermo x nandor#guillermo de la cruz#nandor#what we do in the shadows tv show#what we do in the shadows
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