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Nandor sat down heavily in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. His throat hurt.
It had been a long day of council duties and, like most other days he and Nadja tried to work out the problems besieging their local vampire community, they had mostly just ended up screaming at each other with the Guide between them massaging her temples.
He was not a man accustomed to sharing power, and he was even less accustomed to bureaucracy. During his days of rule centuries before, when he'd wanted something done, it was achieved. Whether through demands or threats or brutal bloodshed, his will had been ironclad.
There were no bylaws nor forms he needed to fill out. No Guide clucking behind him as she viewed his work with poorly veiled contempt and certainly no Nadja putting her foot down and simply refusing to let him do as he liked.
Nandor did not care for modern forms of government.
He pinched at the bridge of his nose and sighed, trying to will the muscles in his shoulders to ease. He'd been far too sore of late, and he knew that it was largely due to stress.
"Master?"
Nandor did his very best to repress a groan, and even partway succeeded. Wonderful. Another irritation. "What is it, Guillermo?"
He looked over at the doorway to see his familiar — no, his bodyguard, Guillermo was his bodyguard now — hovering there, looking far more hesitant than a man so deadly had any right to. "Are you busy?" Guillermo asked, and honestly, when had that ever stopped him before?
Nandor considered saying yes. He really didn't want to hear about whatever harebrained thing Guillermo had going on today, nor did he want to talk about his feelings. Guillermo had been strangely concerned with those, these days.
Most of all, though, he really didn't want to be harangued about vampiric transformation. If he'd heard it once, he'd heard it a thousand times, and he was extremely tired of it.
He'd change Guillermo when he was good and ready, and not a moment before. As was his right.
But... Guillermo had been a good bodyguard lately. He'd served his master with loyalty and grace. There had been brutality, too, enough for Nandor to sit up and take notice. So perhaps he owed Guillermo his attention now, at least briefly.
So long as it didn't become a habit.
He shook his head. "No. You may come in, Guillermo."
A smile flashed over Guillermo's face that was — sweet. There was really no other word for it. It felt strange to see in this house, but Guillermo had always been good at surprising him.
Nandor ignored the way that his headache had already started to fade, and he sat up in his chair.
Guillermo slipped inside the room and closed the door behind him, the movement almost catlike in its grace, and Nandor wondered for the thousandth time how he'd never noticed it before. All that Guillermo had been hiding from them.
From him.
Perhaps he just had never paid close enough attention to him. That was not a mistake that he was planning on making again. He crooked a finger at Guillermo, beckoning him closer. "What is it?" he asked again, and found that he didn't even have to pretend at patience.
And this, this was exactly why Guillermo was an irritation. Nandor wasn't quite sure what to make of how he made him feel sometimes. Settled, almost, like Guillermo had reached out to calm the troubled steed that he was riding.
Nandor wasn't sure if he liked it or not.
Today, though, at least Guillermo didn't have that mousy, nervous look about him that didn't suit him at all. In fact, he looked almost excited. "Are you hungry, Master?" he asked.
Nandor cocked his head to the side. "I could eat." Had Guillermo procured some virgins for them? Or perhaps another do-gooder had come to the door to annoy them with their little clipboard?
"Then come outside with me," Guillermo said. "I want to show you something."
Nandor raised his eyebrows at him, but he had to admit that his curiosity was piqued. "What are you planning, you rascal?" he asked, even as he rose from his desk.
But Guillermo just grinned at him, a pretty little smile that seemed much more at home on his face than the perpetually troubled look he'd carried for the better part of a decade. "Come and see," he said, and that — that was even a little bit of sass in his voice.
"Hey now," Nandor said, but the chastisement was mild. It was nice, actually, to see Guillermo blossom a bit. He really had changed quite a bit in the last few months. They all had, he supposed.
He followed Guillermo to the front door, pausing only long enough for Guillermo to bring him his coat — Nandor noticed that Guillermo was already wearing his — before they went outside to the front steps, where... "What is this?"
There was genuine interest in his voice. He'd never seen anything quite like the colorful little cones that Guillermo had on their front porch.
"Well," Guillermo said, pushing his glasses up on his nose, and ugh, there was the old nervousness again. "I was looking through the minutes of old council meetings between you and Nadja--"
"Really?" Nandor asked, surprised. "Why?"
Guillermo just shrugged. "I like to keep up with what's happening around here," he said, and his voice was mild.
"Hmm," Nandor said, filing that one away for later. "Proceed."
"And I saw that idea you had a few weeks ago. You know, the blood ice cream?"
Nandor frowned and looked down at the cones. "This is not ice cream," he said.
"No," Guillermo admitted. "But you guys can't have cream, and I went on Google last night and it said that freezing blood is bad for it, so I... improvised?"
Nandor blinked at him. This was... this was good. Surprising, but good. Guillermo was constantly surprising him these days, with his confidence, with his initiative, with his... determination.
He'd found that he'd hardly been able to tear his eyes away from Guillermo the past year or so. Ever since, well, the obvious. It had felt like relearning the steps to an old dance. There were the same curves to him, the same boyish face and shy eyes, but Nandor could see the steel below it all now. The fire simmering just below the surface.
He knew the subtle set of Guillermo's shoulders when he was angry now. The glint in his eye when he had an idea. That cagey, dodgy look he got to him when he was trying to hide something from his master once again.
Nandor had enjoyed watching Guillermo, truth be told, even though the things it made him feel were... difficult. And he'd realized not so long ago that Guillermo watched him, too.
All the damn time.
There was being a good familiar and watching for your master's needs, and then there was whatever the hell Guillermo was doing. Watching with all the wary caution of a trained guard dog when Nandor dipped his fingertips into the waters of his past. Being ready with a steadying, comforting hand when things did not go according to plan. Studying his ideas and putting them into fruition just to...
Nandor looked at Guillermo, then, still learning him. All of him. He could see the nervous restlessness in him. The barely banked pride and pleasure in his eyes. The way he waited, waited.
Guillermo had done all this just to make him happy.
Nandor felt a small smile stealing its way across his lips as he looked back down at the treat that Guillermo had invented for him. "And so? What have you created, Guillermo?" he asked.
"It's called a snow cone, Master," he said. "You, um, you take shaved ice and you put a type of syrup over it to flavor it. I used blood for yours." He shot Nandor a shy little smile. "Mine's cherry. They're really popular in the summer."
Nandor glanced around at their yard. "It is not summer, Guillermo."
"No," Guillermo allowed. "That's true. But you seemed so excited about the idea and we had that snowstorm last night..."
"This is real snow?" Nandor asked, gesturing at the cones.
"Don't worry," Guillermo said, waving his hands in front of him. "It's not from our yard." He made a little face, clearly remembering the yard cleanup he'd had to to do the week before.
Yes, their own snow would not have been ideal.
"And where did you get the blood?" he asked. He didn't really mind if Guillermo had killed a passerby for their snack, but he had to admit that it seemed out of character for him.
Guillermo stared at him like he'd said something very stupid indeed. "Do you have any idea how many half-finished corpses you guys leave lying around this house?" he asked, and Nandor scowled. He didn't like it when Guillermo took that kind of tone with him.
"Easy," he said, letting the slightest bit of warning into his voice, and after a very brief moment, Guillermo shrugged his surrender. Brief as it had been, Nandor made a mental note of that moment.
"Try it," Guillermo said, not even bothering to hide the way he was changing the subject back to the one he'd chosen, and Nandor made a note of that, too.
And, well. Nandor wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth on this one. Or a gift snow cone, as the case may be.
Gingerly, Nandor removed the cone that seemed to be a darker, truer red, and Guillermo took the other. Then, even as Guillermo munched on his cherry-flavored snow, Nandor took a bite.
It was — oh. Oh. Nandor closed his eyes and savored it for a moment. The snow was rough against his tongue, and he'd almost forgotten what it was like to have a foreign texture in his mouth. The crystals crunched against his teeth only to submit to the heat of his tongue, and it was the same blood he always drank, perhaps even from the victim he'd abandoned earlier that day, but it felt wholly different.
"You know," he said, almost dreamily, "I haven't consumed anything but blood in over seven hundred years."
Blood was sustenance, and it was delicious. But it was hard not to watch the humans around him with their thousands of foods, millions of options, and wish for the feasts he had shared all those years ago. And this, this was not exactly a feast. Just one small snow cone.
But the novelty of it was a joy, and he could feel it bubbling there below his breastbone. He hadn't felt novelty in a very, very long time, and he savored each frozen bite as it went down.
This is what he'd been trying to tell Nadja all along, but as usual, she had refused to listen. Guillermo, though. Guillermo had listened.
Guillermo was always listening.
When he opened his eyes again, still licking his lips, Guillermo was looking at him with a look that was... well, honestly, he looked a little stupid. He was looking at Nandor like he'd ever seen him before, and a deep red was staining his cheeks. From the cold, Nandor supposed.
Nandor raised an eyebrow. "Guillermo?" he asked.
Guillermo blinked and shook himself. "I can make other things," he said quickly, his words all a rush. "There are a lot of recipes online. People make lots of things out of blood these days."
Nandor raised the other eyebrow, too. "That would be nice," he said.
"And I can get a shaved ice machine, if you want. So, like, then you can have this whenever you want. Not just when it snows."
Nandor looked down into his empty cone. "We can have this in the summertime?" he asked, and he could imagine that. Going out just after dusk to sit in grass still warm from the sleeping sun and feeling tangy red crystals cool his throat as the stars rose in the sky.
Nandor felt at his throat now, in the present moment. It didn't hurt anymore.
"Yeah," Guillermo said. "I'll order one online tonight. We can have it whenever we want." He shivered and stuck his hands in his pockets. "And maybe it'll be a little less cold in the summer."
Nandor looked at him, noting the minute shiver as Guillermo burrowed into his heavy coat, and he thought about that dusky summer evening. He thought about Guillermo sitting there opposite him, his own mouth stained an indeterminate red.
And then he sidled just a little bit closer to Guillermo, letting his own cloak drape around his shoulder. "Better?"
Vampires couldn't regulate their temperature as well as humans, who were always so gloriously warm, but he'd had a busy day and was full of blood. He had at least some body heat to share with his companion.
Guillermo looked up at him with wide, wide eyes, and then he smiled at him with a warmth that reminded him, just a bit, of the sun that he hadn't seen in centuries. "Yeah," Guillermo said, leaning in against him just a little bit. "Much."
Nandor's lips still burned with the memory of rough snow, but he felt them turning up into a smile all the same. He looked up at the sky, still wintertime cloudy, and thought about the day, one day very soon, when it would be full of stars once again.
For the first time in a while, those stars didn't seem quite so lonely.