Chapter Text
Laszlo has been doing a lot of lurking lately. More than usual. It’s odd, and annoying, and sort of surprising that Laszlo is always just…around whenever Guillermo is spending time with the baby–no, child, he’s not a baby anymore–but whatever. He’s kind of serious about being a dad, and better at it than Guillermo ever expected him to be.
Which isn’t to say he’s a capable or competent parent, but baby Colin isn’t dead yet, and Laszlo clearly cares about him, so that’s…something, surely.
Guillermo assumes, at first, that this is why Laszlo is hovering. That he’s being protective. Whenever Guillermo is attempting to coax Colin into eating something other than Count Chocula, Laszlo will be lingering in the foyer, right in front of the kitchen. If Guillermo takes Colin to the park, Laszlo will follow after them and watch from the other side of the fence; sometimes he’ll zoom in to push Colin on the swings, or catch him as he comes down the slide, but mostly he just stands there. He even follows them out on errands occasionally, sauntering along behind them at his own leisurely pace.
It’s irritating, and it grates at him, because Colin isn’t even technically Guillermo’s kid; he’s Laszlo’s, and Laszlo fucked up all of their lives for Colin, and he can’t even muster up any sort of appreciation or a simple “hey, thank you for making sure my kid doesn’t drown in dirty sewage water and taking him to the park and making sure he doesn’t starve or die during the day while I’m nice and cozy in my stupid coffin sleeping off a night spent sucking and fucking while I hang around my wife’s ridiculous nightclub”.
Still, Guillermo tries to ignore him, and does his absolute best to stick to a daily routine. It’s not incredibly detailed at the moment, but just having scheduled mealtimes and a set bedtime helps a lot. Whatever else is going on, at least Guillermo knows for sure that Colin is eating and sleeping.
Colin’s diet still consists mostly of Count Chocula, but Guillermo has managed to find a few other foods he’ll eat; red meat and chicken are still sort of a sore spot for him, but he likes butter noodles, plain white rice, and unsalted matzah. Sometimes Nutella. Guillermo isn’t sure if this is an energy vampire thing, or if Colin is just a picky eater, but he’s not going to push about it either way. He’s a child, he needs to eat, and he’s not feeding like energy vampires usually do–or at least, Guillermo doesn’t think that he is–so butter noodles it is.
The cooking is weird in general. Sure, he used to cook for himself, sometimes, but during his decade as Nandor’s familiar he mostly survived off of microwavable ramen and take-out. He never really had the energy for anything else. But Colin’s just a kid, even though he burst out of the corpse of one of the most insufferable people Guillermo has ever known, and he figures he should do this for him, since he’s available. Even weird little energy vampires should get to have dinner with their parents.
Guillermo knows he isn’t Colin’s parent, not really. But whatever. This isn’t something that Colin can share with Laszlo; he likes his food from the source and hasn’t ever been one for blood bags. The two of them having a meal together just isn’t something that’s likely to happen, not unless Laszlo drops a dead body down in the middle of the table and starts going to town on it while Colin eats his food.
Guillermo sighs. “He’s probably done that before, hasn’t he?” he murmurs to himself, just as the pot of water he set on the stove finally comes to a boil. If nothing else, Guillermo is sure that all this new childhood trauma will make Colin a notably different adult than he was before. Maybe Laszlo will get his wish after all.
“Done what?” Colin asks from his place at the table. He’s slumped over, resting his face against the cherrywood surface. Baby energy vampires–or whatever Colin is right now–apparently don’t need as much sleep as baby humans, but they do need more sleep than adult energy vampires, and now that Guillermo kind of has him on a set schedule, it’s a little late for him to be up. But it’s summer, so Laszlo is sleeping longer, and Colin won’t go to bed until he gets the chance to say goodnight to his dad.
Guillermo thinks it’s kind of cute, though he’ll never admit that out loud, even under threat of death.
“Gizmo,” Colin whines, irritated at being ignored, “done what?”
“Call me ‘Memo’,” Guillermo says, for what must be the thousandth time. “And, uh, nothing, don’t worry about it. Just…stupid vampire stuff. You want some crackers to munch on while you wait for your noodles?”
Colin nods and holds out one tiny hand. “Crackers, please,” he says. It’s not exactly a request so much as it is a demand, but table manners–manners in general, really–are still sort of a work in progress for them.
Guillermo moves to grab the box from the cupboard–which is somehow on the top shelf again, he has no idea how it keeps ending up there, Nandor must be doing it to fuck with him–when he feels a chill run up his spine, and, yeah, there’s Laszlo, right on time. And Guillermo knows, he just knows, that if he turns his head slightly to the right, Laszlo will be lurking in the hallway, watching him like a creep at a train station, wearing his stupid silk pajamas, the ones that Guillermo just had dry-cleaned for him. Something in him snaps at the audacity of it all.
He was a familiar for more than a decade. A bodyguard for a year. Twelve years in total, and he’s felt like Nandor’s neglected housewife for all of them. Like hell is he going to subject himself to the same treatment from Laszlo.
So Guillermo turns to look at him. “You’re taller than me,” he bites out, through gritted teeth. It’s only about two inches difference, sure, but that makes all the difference in the world when the crackers are towards the back of the cabinet, and asking for help is less embarrassing than struggling to grab them with Laszlo watching him.
Laszlo raises both eyebrows in a mocking show of surprise. “Oh, am I, Gizmo?”
Guillermo’s fingers itch with the need to grab the stake stashed under his shirt. He takes a breath. “Colin wants crackers. Get them down?”
He expects to be told ‘no’, or maybe ‘fuck off, you useless waste of flesh and blood’, but before he can even blink, there’s a rush of cold air, a hand on his back, and a box of crackers in front of him.
Guillermo takes it in hand, confused enough by this turn of events that he doesn’t immediately shove Laszlo off of him. “Thank…you?”
Laszlo hums, and with his other hand held at roughly forehead height, moves it back and forth between himself and Guillermo. “Hm. You’re right, I am taller. Fancy that. I simply assumed you were choosing to conduct yourself like a lazy sack of shit.”
That breaks Guillermo out of whatever daze he’s in real quick. He pushes Laszlo off of him and shoves the box of crackers at his chest. “Go sit with him. He has some YouTube videos he wants to show you, he’s been talking about them all day.”
Watching the light leave Laszlo’s eyes is incredibly satisfying. He clears his throat, and shakes his head. “You understand, I’m actually rather busy tonight. I’m needed at the club, to oversee some renovations for the backstage area–”
He attempts to rush away again, but Guillermo stops him with a punishing grip on his forearm. “Go sit with your son,” he hisses, in a voice low enough that Colin hopefully won’t hear him. “You wouldn’t still be in your pajamas if you were going to the club, Laszlo. Your plan was to hang around being useless while you watched me cook for thirty minutes, right? So how about you spend that time with Colin instead of being a creep?”
Laszlo has the audacity to look affronted at being called out on lurking, but he quickly schools his face into a mask of haughty indifference. “I’ll thank you to mind that nasty tongue of yours, Gizmo. I came here to supervise. I need to make sure you don’t accidentally poison the boy. This gruel you’re feeding him looks…suspect.”
Guillermo rolls his eyes. “They’re butter noodles, Laszlo. They’re so easy to make even you probably couldn’t fuck them up.” That’s almost definitely not true, Laszlo would probably burn down the house, but whatever. “Besides, Colin likes them.” He turns to face the boy in question, who’s now fully sitting up. Guillermo thinks for a split second that his eyes have a faint glow to them, but he’s sure he must be imagining it. “Right, Colin?”
Colin nods eagerly. “Yeah, butter noodles are great,” he insists. “Hi, Lazzo. Did you sleep good in your coffin?”
Laszlo softens almost immediately when Colin speaks up; the change is nearly imperceptible, but Guillermo has known Laszlo long enough he can spot the way the furrow of his brow smooths, how his frown evens out. “Eh,” he says, moving his hand in a so-so motion. He struts his way over to the table, and settles down into the chair next to Colin. “You remember the man from the park, boy? The one who yelled at you for running too fast near his bastard child? He tasted like ass; bloody indigestion kept me up half the day.”
Colin nods seriously. “I know what will help,” he says, and pulls out the phone Guillermo made Laszlo get for him; he starts playing a video that Guillermo knows is titled “TOP FIFTY LEGO STAR WARS PREQUEL TRILOGY MODS” just based on the sound of the intro. Colin had played it five times in a row that morning.
Guillermo frowns. “Someone yelled at Colin?” he asks, as he tests the give of the noodles with a spoon, and determines they’re sufficiently soft enough to be buttered. “When did this happen?”
“Last Thursday,” Laszlo says, distractedly. Maybe he doesn’t hate the video as much as he thought he would. “While you were out running some useless errand for Nandor, I’m sure. Just a cunt in a cheap suit with a loud mouth and an ugly dog who made the mistake of existing in our vicinity. I took care of it.”
Guillermo pours the noodles into a strainer in the sink, and shakes out the excess water. He wonders if Colin would mind if he added salt and pepper. “Well, bring me along next time.” He hums, considering, as he pours the noodles back into the pot and adds a stick of butter along with them. “When you said ‘bastard child’, did you mean the dog? Or were you calling his kid a dog? Or did he have a kid and a dog?”
“I don’t fucking know. Does it matter? There was an ugly, short thing hanging around his ankles. It was making an awful yipping nose while he yelled at the boy, that’s all I remember.”
“...Yeah, that was probably a dog.” Hopefully. “…On the off chance it wasn’t, was it, er—around while you fed from him?”
“Again, I have absolutely no fucking clue–”
“Lazzo,” Colin says, loud enough to be heard over the noise of both the video and Laszlo’s righteous indignation, “you’ll miss the best part! They’re about to start making pod-racers, and you won’t get to see any of it if you keep staring at Gizmo.”
“I was not–we were conversing with one another, boy; you know what that is, don’t you? When you speak to another person and they reply? Or have all of these little computer videos rotted your mind?”
“But you were staring at him–”
“No, no, I was not. I was not, just–how do you make this fucking thing restart itself?”
Guillermo frowns, because–what? But then he hears the sound of something furiously hitting the table, and he sighs. “Colin, please rewind the video for Laszlo before he breaks your phone.”
“You have to touch the screen,” he hears Colin start to explain, “and then you pull the little bar back to the left.” Then, the soft thunk of the phone being set back down on the table. Guillermo smiles to himself, because Colin can be so gentle when he wants to be, and it’s times like these Guillermo thinks maybe they’re doing alright at raising him, or at least that he is– “Gizmo says you can’t use phones because you’re cold and dead, though.”
Well, nevermind. “I didn’t phrase it like that,” Guillermo protests. “All I said is that vampires are different from us, that their bodies aren’t warm like yours and mine are.” He’s not sure why he’s trying to save face here. Laszlo wouldn’t do the same for him, and it’s not like he’s touchy about his vampirism; not like Nandor is. There’s no point in trying to spare his feelings. Guillermo doesn’t even want to, not really. He’d like nothing more than to watch Laszlo crash and burn, but…it’s better for Colin if he doesn’t.
And Colin is the one who matters here, in the end.
“Bloody witchcraft, this thing is,” Laszlo says. “None of those tiny plastic buttons, even. It’s shameful. Discriminatory, too, when you think about it.”
Guillermo snorts. Witchcraft, holy shit. “You can take the boy out of England…”
“Just what the fuck are you insinuating, Gizmo?”
“Nothing,” Guillermo sing-songs as he turns the stove off, and begins to spoon the butter noodles into two bowls. He doesn’t really want butter noodles, but he also doesn’t have the energy to cook himself anything else, so…butter noodles and crackers it is. “Here, Colin, I’ve got your food. Laszlo can watch the video while we eat, alright?”
For a moment, Laszlo looks as though he might protest. The furrow of his brow and the scowl on his face suggests he would rather be forced to eat the butter noodles than watch a video from some baby influencer assembling a set of Star Wars LEGOs, but he nods, and he finally, finally looks away from Guillermo, down at the small screen of the phone. “Fine, yes, I’ll watch this while you eat,” he agrees.
Guillermo wonders if maybe that fight they had earlier in the week got through to him at all. He was pissed about the musical theater thing when he took Colin out for what he called “a night on the town”–Guillermo still isn’t sure what they did and hopes it was only mildly illegal–but Laszlo came home from the club that night subdued, and calmly listened to Colin ramble about The Sound of Music while he carried him upstairs to bed.
Something must have happened.
Colin smiles. “Alright,” he chirps, and moves his phone to the middle of the table, clearing some space for Guillermo to set the bowl of butter noodles down in front of him. “The part with Darth Vader in a pod-racer is really cool, Lazzo, there are all sorts of lighting changes and sounds, like, pew-pew! And then, in the scene where Anakin gets his legs cut off, it’s just like Singin’ in the Rain–”
“What?” Guillermo asks, while Laszlo nods like he has any idea what the fuck Colin is talking about.
Laszlo rolls his eyes. “There are practical environmental effects used in the video, Gizmo, keep up,” he snaps, and snatches one of the bowls Guillermo is holding; he pops it down on the table, grabs Guillermo’s suddenly free hand, and forces him down into the seat beside him. It’s bewildering–fucking confusing, honestly–and Guillermo has no idea what to do with himself when the sudden chill from Laszlo’s hand gripping his own is gone almost immediately.
Guillermo stares at him, incredulous, but Laszlo has already turned his attention back to the video. His nose is scrunched up, and he looks like a disgruntled cat. He clearly hates this, but he’s at least trying to focus on it. Or attempting to try. He plays loosely with the collar of his pajama shirt, settling into an almost imperceptible slouch in the wooden kitchen chair. Relaxed, or trying to seem like he’s relaxed, like he didn’t just have his fingers dancing across Guillermo’s pulse; as if it’s of no consequence at all what he’s just done.
He can count on one hand all the times Laszlo has touched him. The Shipping Crate Incident, that must’ve been the first; the memory of it fills him with white hot rage, and he takes a breath, tries to move past it, because he needs to think. The shipping crate, and then a few weeks ago, when Laszlo took a much smaller Colin from Guillermo’s arms to put him to bed; their fingers had brushed. And just now, in the last thirty minutes, Laszlo has touched Guillermo twice. Casually, like it’s normal. Like that’s something he’s allowed to do.
Except he’s not, because Guillermo tolerates him at the best of times and it’s weird that he’s acting like this now. They’ve held little to no affection for each other in the past–Laszlo still barely even knows Guillermo’s real name isn’t actually ‘Gizmo’–so he doubts it’s genuine. It can’t be, can it?
He’s probably planning something, but Guillermo can’t think for the life of him what that might be. Lately, Laszlo hasn’t been interested in much of anything that doesn’t have to do with Nadja’s club, Colin, or sometimes Sean. He’s probably not scheming, right? Or is he trying to butter Guillermo up, trying to get him to let Colin perform more nights at the club? Or maybe–
No, Guillermo’s being paranoid. Probably. And even if he isn’t, especially if he isn’t, the last thing he needs to do is freak out about it.
He’ll keep a closer eye on Laszlo. It’ll be fine, he decides, as he starts to eat his own bowl of butter noodles. They don’t taste like much of anything, but they’re food, and having something to eat helps. He chews. He listens to Colin babble on about his LEGOs, nodding his head and making small sounds of approval while he watches Laszlo out of the corner of his eye.
Laszlo’s focus is still solely on the video. All of this is weird. Guillermo’s used to thinking of Laszlo as a s’more that got burnt and dropped on the ground more than once in front of a campfire; he’s got a gooey marshmallow center, but he’s so repressed and crispy on the outside that the fluff is nearly impossible to reach. Has Guillermo gotten a peak at that marshmallow center? Sure, but only ever as a voyeur. Experiencing that up close, having it directed at him, and at Colin too, is something different entirely. Unsettling, really.
But hadn’t Guillermo asked him to change? Told him time and time again he needed to be doing more for Colin, needed to be focusing less on what he wants and more on what Colin needs.
He just…never expected Laszlo to listen.
That’s new. Even Nandor sometimes listening to him is still new and that took thirteen years to achieve. Guillermo never had any expectation that Laszlo, who he holds very little affection for, and who Guillermo is sure feels the same about him, would ever take his advice.
But here they are, and he did. Laszlo listened. And maybe that wouldn’t be so odd if his behavior had changed towards Colin and Colin only; but this new, familiar way he’s treating Guillermo? That’s what doesn’t make sense. Because Guillermo is Guillermo, and Laszlo is who he is, and that’s…all there is to it, really.
Guillermo hears a thump; the sound nearly startles him out of his skin, and his hand flies to his chest where his crucifix rests on a chain beneath his shirt. But it’s just–oh, it’s just Colin. He’s slumped over in his chair, his eyes closed and his head resting in the cradle of his arms.
Oh. Right. That makes sense. There are no more assassins. Laszlo is right next to him. Laszlo is not dangerous. He’s a clown and an asshole, but he isn’t dangerous. Guillermo could kill him now, if he wanted to. But he won’t, he doesn’t have to.
They’re fine, all three of them.
Guillermo sighs. “I knew I shouldn’t have let him stay up so late,” he murmurs, once his heart has stopped beating at a jackrabbit pace. “He wanted to see you before bed, though.”
A few seconds pass after Guillermo speaks, and Laszlo finally turns his eyes away from the screen to stare straight at him. “I can’t very well control what time the blasted sun sets, can I?” He gestures towards Colin’s phone. “Turn this off.”
“Turn it off yourself.”
“Gizmo, I’m unsure if your brain turned to mush during your time in London–I wouldn’t be surprised, given the state of the water and all the dead rats in the pipes–but as the boy just fucking said not ten mere moments ago–”
Guillermo grits his teeth. “There’s a button on the top right side of the phone, Laszlo. Press it and the screen will go dark.”
Laszlo looks at the phone suspiciously, but he does pick it up; he fiddles with it for a few seconds in which Guillermo worries he might get fed up and throw it, but he finds the button eventually. “Hm. Witchcraft,” he says, decisively, as the screen turns black. He tosses it in Guillermo’s direction and promptly gets up from his seat to scoop Colin into his arms.
Colin makes a soft noise of discontent, but he doesn’t wake. He only burrows his face into Laszlo’s shoulder and goes limp in his embrace.
Guillermo allows himself a quick, small smile as he watches the two of them together. Colin’s a cuddler, and he’s always been especially clingy with Laszlo. Guillermo was surprised at first that Laszlo indulged him, but physical affection seems to be the one form of emotional connection Laszlo doesn’t struggle with.
They’re cute. Kind of. Laszlo ruins it a little.
“His bed’s already made,” Guillermo says. He collects the bowls, unsurprised to find that Colin only ate about half of his noodles. He never eats much at night, but he isn’t going hungry, so Guillermo considers that a win. “Oh, and careful when you step over the wet spot in the hallway in front of his room, I think it’s about to cave in.”
“Right.” Laszlo doesn’t move. “Well, come on.”
“What?”
Laszlo frowns. “Come with me. To put him to bed. Are you unwell? You’re not usually quite so dense.”
Coming from him, that almost sounds like it might be a compliment. “You want me to…come with you? To put him to bed?”
“Yeah, fucking obviously.” Laszlo rolls his eyes. “He’s started to fuss if you’re not there. Leave the washing up for later, it can wait.”
“Oh. Um, alright, yeah. I’ll just–” He hastily sets the bowls in the sink and makes his way over to where Laszlo is standing. “Yeah, let’s go.” They don’t usually put Colin to bed together, for various reasons; the one time they tried he had been much smaller, and so put off by the tension in the room that he started bawling. Laszlo took on bedtime responsibilities after that, for the most part; Colin loves it when Laszlo reads to him, even though Laszlo always bitches and moans about Colin’s “abysmal taste in literature” the whole time. He’s just happy to spend time with Laszlo, which is…well, that’s something, isn’t it? That’s good, in the grand scheme of things, of whatever all of this is.
Besides, Guillermo is grateful to have that extra hour to himself; sometimes he uses it to run an errand or two, or catch a quick nap, or talk with Freddie. It’s not much, but it’s something, especially when he now has even less time to himself than he did before they left for England.
But…he does enjoy tucking Colin into bed. And it’s kind of nice to know that Colin enjoys it, too.
“‘M not tired,” Colin, who has apparently woken up again, mumbles. “I wanna, um, finish the video.”
Guillermo smoothes a hand over his curls, baby soft and still a little damp from the shower Colin took earlier. “You can watch the rest of your video with Laszlo tomorrow night,” he promises, looking pointedly over at him as if to say, and you will, or you and I are going to have a problem.
“Yes, yes, we’ll finish your video tomorrow,” Laszlo agrees, with a quick roll of his eyes in Guillermo’s direction. “I’m very excited to see the little man made of plastic be set aflame.”
“Okay,” Colin yawns, and tightens his grip on Laszlo’s pajama shirt, his little fingers grasping onto the silk for dear life. “Jus’ remember you promised.”
Guillermo hums, surprised. “Huh. You’ve seen Star Wars?”
“Who the fuck hasn’t?” Laszlo wrinkles his nose. Guillermo thinks that if he wasn’t a vampire, he might be blushing. “Come on, move it. I’ve things to do tonight that, unlike you, are of actual consequence.” He turns away from Guillermo and sets off down the hallway at a brisk pace, a far cry from his usual lazy saunter.
Guillermo snorts. Maybe listening to Nandor talk endlessly about floral arrangements for his wedding isn’t the most important activity in the world, but neither is Laszlo’s job of playing botched, bawdy versions of Frank Sinatra songs at Nadja’s club, as if he’s working at a mob bar in Newark in the 1960s. Guillermo’s well aware that Nadja doesn’t actually read the financial overviews he sends her, but he’s starting to wonder when she’ll realize Colin is a much more popular act than Laszlo by himself. Their kid is talented, after all.
“Revenge of the Sith is ‘fine art’, huh?” he teases, as he follows after the two of them. Guillermo’s careful on the stairs, making sure to dodge all the shoddy steps and keep his hands clear of the thorns on the railing. Hm. Maybe he’ll start taking a house renovation fee out of Laszlo’s cut of the profits from the club. That would only be right, wouldn’t it?
Laszlo sniffs haughtily. “I’ll have you know I was dragged to a showing of that film under false pretenses.”
“What? How?”
They reach the-den-turned-Colin’s-room, and Laszlo, after expertly sidestepping the wet spot in the hallway, shoulders the door open, its hinges creaking loudly. Colin sleeps through it all, thankfully. “Nandor misread the title, he thought it was about Spock and that lot. It wasn’t. I expected Vulcans and instead there were swords that lit up like Christmas lights. It was upsetting.”
Guillermo has to clap a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter. “Yeah, no, that–that sounds upsetting, for sure. But you stayed until the end?”
“Nandor insisted, only to finish the night sniffling and too disturbed for our usual 1 a.m. brunch. He was rather distraught when that chap abandoned his lady love for a life of crime, or however it was that the film ended.”
“Oh. I mean, yeah, it was pretty sad,” Guillermo says, overcome by a sudden rush of fondness for his master–or former master, friend, whatever Nandor is to him now–without any of the bitterness or regret that tinges Guillermo’s regular musings about him these days. It’s strange to experience that again after so long, and to have it brought on by Laszlo of all people. “It’s sweet, though. That you stayed with him the whole time.”
Laszlo pauses in the middle of pulling the blankets back on Colin’s bed and turns to stare straight at Guillermo. Fuck, he can’t even compliment this guy without him being weird. Which Guillermo already knew, so why did he even bother to try?
“Right,” Laszlo says, finally, “well, it was more for Nadja and I’s sake than his own. You know the sort of utter strop he gets into when he can’t have his way.” Guillermo expects a following insult, either to himself or Nandor, but Laszlo doesn’t say anything more. Instead, he places a quick kiss to Colin’s forehead and lays him down on the bed. “Turn off the lights, will you?”
Now Guillermo is the one who’s staring. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to Laszlo’s casual brand of tenderness; Guillermo sees it so much more now when they’re with Colin, and he doesn’t like how it conflicts with the firm, well established perception of Laszlo as a person that Guillermo’s had for the last year or so.
“...Yeah, sure.” Guillermo switches off the overheard, first, and then he walks over to Laszlo’s side, leaning down to blow out the candle that rests on a small table by Colin’s bed. Laszlo used to have a tendency to leave it burning throughout the night, but one or two blow-out screaming matches thankfully rid him of that bad habit. The fairy lights that are strung across the wall stay on, though; Colin still isn’t entirely used to sleeping in dark, and if he wakes up in the middle of the night with the room pitch black, he always ends up scared enough that he’ll spend the rest of the night in Guillermo’s bed or Laszlo’s coffin.
Guillermo doesn’t mind when he does that, and he doesn’t think Laszlo does either, not really–especially considering Laszlo’s coffin was at some point in the last few weeks taken haphazardly off the wall so that Colin has easier access to it–but Guillermo wants him to feel safe in his own bed. After growing up in a veritable house of horrors, not much scares their kid; but there are a lot of ways he’s just like any other seven-year-old, and one of those is that he needs a nightlight.
Colin rouses a bit when Guillermo blows out the candle, bringing a hand up to rub at his eyes. “Night, Memo,” he murmurs, “night, Lazzo.”
Guillermo’s chest feels tight, suddenly, and he’s struck by a thought he has often these days–that he’s doing the right thing by staying and helping look after Colin. Things haven’t been easy lately, but having him around helps. “Night, buddy. Sleep well,” he whispers, as he brings the blankets up to cover the whole of Colin, and presses a kiss to his forehead, too.
He feels movement to the side of his body as he stands up straight, and suddenly, there’s Laszlo, leaning into him, reaching across the bed to grab a stuffed dragon and place it on Colin’s chest. He grabs it immediately, holding it in a death grip as his eyes fall shut again; his breathing evens out mere seconds later, and that’s it, he’s asleep. All accomplished with no screaming or bloodshed, even.
Laszlo hasn’t moved. Their arms are touching. Guillermo chances a glance at him, and their eyes meet. He looks…fond. Content, maybe. Guillermo has seen that expression on Laszlo’s face before; when he looks at Nadja, or Sean, or occasionally even Nandor. Never once has it been directed at him, though. It feels familiar, and Guillermo, for some unholy reason, finds it charming. Sweet, even. He thinks he likes it.
It’s terrifying.
Guillermo, without thinking about what he’s doing, reaches out a hand to grip Laszlo’s shoulder. His fingertips barely grace the fine silk of Laszlo’s pajama shirt before he’s jerking away, out of Guillermo’s reach.
Sure, Guillermo probably should’ve expected that. The utter sting of the rejection is a surprise, though.
Fuck, he’s so stupid. He doesn’t even like Laszlo, not really. But he’s been away from Freddie for months now, and he misses that easy affection. Nandor deals out something similar in small doses, sometimes, but it’s never often enough, and Laszlo had seemed willing enough before, and–
Fine, fuck it, whatever. Guillermo can play weird mind games, too. He hasn’t exactly figured out the rules of this just yet, but he will.
Laszlo clears his throat, and for a split second, he actually looks bashful in the low light of the room, but the expression is gone from his face so quickly that Guillermo thinks he may as well have imagined it. “Yes, well, I have to go,” he whispers, or attempts to, “I’m needed at the club in…what time is it?”
“Half past ten? Probably?” Guillermo tries to keep his tone level–he doesn’t want to wake Colin up again, especially not with an argument.
Laszlo winces. “Thirty minutes ago, fuck.” He looks down at Colin one last time, then back up at Guillermo. “Good job with the…noodles.” He waves a hand in the air with a flourish. “Fine work. Top notch. Try not to die of boredom listening to Nandor drone all night about the pros and cons of autumnal weddings.”
“Laszlo, what–” Guillermo starts, but Laszlo’s gone before he can even finish his sentence. The door begins creaking again after he shoves it open, loud in the enduring silence, the only other sound that of Colin’s soft snores and the drip, drip, drip coming from the broken pipes in the walls.
Guillermo feels off-kilter. Confused, too, and frustrated, yes, but his anger levels are at a low simmer instead of a boil. Laszlo was flustered when he left. Really, genuinely flustered. That doesn’t happen often. They’re both relatively calm people, he thinks–most of the time, anyway–but lately, they run hot whenever they interact with each other. Guillermo’s gotten Laszlo mad plenty of times before, sure, but he’s never seen him like that, his eyes flitting around nervously, looking like he’s going to twitch out of his own skin.
Maybe the problem wasn’t Guillermo at all. Maybe it was. Either way, he realizes that he wants to find out what’s going on, and he sort of hates that. His resolve when he moved back in was to not care about anyone but Colin, to leave the vampires to their own devices and watch them bury their own graves. But he’s already failed step one with Nandor, so…whatever, fine.
He sneaks one last glance at Colin, just to make sure he really is still asleep, and then he heads out of the room himself, taking care to make sure the door doesn’t creak quite so badly this time. Dishes, then wedding planning with Nandor, and after that, if it’s not too late, he’s going to start trying to figure out what, exactly, Laszlo is up to.