Chapter Text
700 and some years without a reflection, you begin to doubt what you look like. Photos and portraits especially seem a dull comparison. You couldn’t catch yourself at a certain angle. Your perception of yourself distorts, or in Nandor’s case, inflates.
Darius seemed more accurate than any portrait Nandor had seen in some time.
They were both at a stand-still, looking at each other in the entrance of the house, with Nadja, Laszlo and Guillermo stood round them, looking like they were watching performance piece.
“Guillermo,” Nandor said, “are you sure this isn’t a magic trick?"
Guillermo had said he was organizing a kind of family reunited moment, without any risk of possible death of said family member. Guillermo had been apparently planning, whilst texting this Darius constantly. Perhaps he had just organized this as an elaborate trick on Nandor.
Both Nandor and Darius both leant in the same direction, as if looking in a mirror, and flinched when the two completed the same action at the same time.
Nandor hissed, Darius laughed easily.
“You weren’t kidding, when you said we looked alike, Guillermo,” Darius said, smiling.
“Yeah, that’s kind of undercutting it,” Guillermo replied.
“You didn’t say Darius was a look-alikey, Guillermo,” Nandor complained.
“I did,” Guillermo said, “lots of times.”
“Oh,” said Nandor, “you did?”
“I must say,” Laszlo said, “I don’t like this, at all, it’s too fucking creepy.”
“Very creepy, very unsettling,” Nadja agreed, her lips curled.
“Don’t say that about my Grandson-”
“Cousin! He means cousin,” Guillermo he said to Darius; Nandor frowned.
Guillermo had taken him aside beforehand, and said Nandor should wait, a little while, before he said so, and that he was a vampire. Surely it had already been a little while since meeting him.
“For some reason, I’m getting déjà vu,” Laszlo continued, “though I can’t say exactly why.”
Nadja grimaced; an uncomfortable silence fell upon the room.
“Why is there a banner saying Happy Birthday?” Darius asked, trying to make conversation.
“I thought I missed out on a lot of your Birthdays,” Nandor said, as if that was a reasonable explanation, “also I thought the glitter banner was very cool.”
“Gizmo said you were a scrawny little orphan boy,” Nadja said, “you must be very poor, the orphans in my village were reared by the local goats and fed on their milk. Stronger than you’d expect. Of course, we are all orphans at one point or another.”
“That isn’t-” Guillermo tried to cut in.
“Well, that’s very thoughtful of you, Nandor,” Darius said.
Nandor felt very proud of himself.
“I really like the glitter on the floor, it’s a nice touch too.”
“You have excellent taste,” Nandor said, near beaming, “Darius, you remind me of myself, when I was your age.”
“Aren’t we around the same age?”
“You just remind me of myself- a year ago. I was very different then,” Nandor improvised, “come, look upon my collection. Guillermo tells me you like basketballs.”
*
Guillermo had tried to bribe Colin to leave Darius be. Guillermo had left him a leaflet for a new local knitting group (all the other groups in the area he had joined had either banned him or disbanded after one or two gatherings, after constantly critiquing different teachers on the technique. He had once managed to take over a class. That had been a meal.)
Colin, though, can’t help himself. He sees Darius wandering through the house alone, and he can’t help himself.
“Now, Darius, you wouldn’t happen to know what the difference is between these ancestry sites, as I can’t quite wrap my head around it. How could one be better than the other? More hidden relatives-”
It’s clear, after ten minutes or so, in which Darius’ eyes don’t seem to glaze over, or doesn’t even stifle a yawn, that Colin seemed to have no effect on him.
It’s like talking to a black hole.
“Nice talking to you, Colin.”
Darius patted him on the shoulder – seeming unaffected and walked away.
Odd.
*
“Congratulations, old chap,” Laszlo said, “your seed is stronger than we thought.”
Nandor watched, as Guillermo escorted Darius outside, from the upstairs window. Darius had suggested it; Nandor had then ordered Guillermo to. Irritatingly, they seemed- too friendly. He didn’t know what to think about that.
Nandor saw Guillermo seem to laugh, at something Darius had said, and something seemed to rise in Nandor’s chest, a twisting feeling, something close to irritation? Yes, that was probably it.
“Let’s just make sure this doesn’t happen, again,” Nadja grimaced, cutting Nandor. “I can withstand the sad little orphan man, but three, four Nandor’s? No. Not allowing it.”
“Hey!” Nandor objected, “what’s wrong with that?”
“I’d much prefer three Nadjas myself, or even better, perhaps three of myself,” Laszlo added.
“Oh, we’d have so much fun, my darling.”
“Even better than when we met that Shapeshifter in the summer of ‘53 in Nevada,” Laszlo reminisced. “that was a night I’ll never forget.”
“Are you sure that was a Shapeshifter?” Nadja frowned, “I thought that was Nandor in very poor, dim lighting.”
Nandor was thankful Colin Robinson walked in, for once.
“Wowzers, Nandor, that really was something. You know, after 11 generations you’re only supposed to share 0.05% of DNA, so after 30 plus generations you must only share 0.0016 recurring DNA. So buddy, it really is impressive.”
“Not even Genghis Khan has a looky-likey Grandson, I bet,” Nandor said.
“I’d say it’s more than likely,” Colin countered, with a shrug. “If you have one, I’d bet he most probably has enough for a small country. Maybe even the size of Lichtenstein.”
Nandor hissed.
“Shut up, Colin Robinson!”
“Are you sure he’s a genuine little orphan boy, Nandor? The Witches didn’t get their stinky, grabby little hands on your sperm?” Nadja asked. “He could be here to trick you.”
“Or, my darling,” Laszlo added, “he could be a clone of some kind? A creature of science. A baby of the test tube. A bottle baby.”
“Or, once, in my village, a goat keeper woman claimed that her baby had been snatched, and replaced with a baby with the same face,” Nadja suggested. “But she might have just wanted to get rid of the baby. It was very ugly.”
Nandor rolled his eyes.
“He’s my Grandson! He’s human, I heard his heartbeat.”
“You never know, he could have had a raven hidden under his jacket,” Nadja said, “I hear they have very similar heartbeats.”
*
Guillermo had stepped out, along with Darius, to say goodbye. Compared to the weather during day, the air was bitingly cold, Guillermo crossing his arms to keep warm.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Darius eventually said, sweeping back his hair with one hand. “You go from having no family one minute, to meeting an identical stranger the next. Strange as a word wouldn’t cover it.”
“Ha, yeah, I guess so,” Guillermo said, half-laughing, “you don’t know the half of it.”
“Oh, yeah, really?” Darius asked. “So, er, are you and Nandor a couple, then?”
Guillermo spluttered.
“What- no!” Guillermo said, flustered, “do we- do we seem like a couple?”
“You did call me Master when you thought I was Nandor,” Darius shrugged, “I just thought you two had some sort of kinky behind-the-scenes relationship.”
“Oh, yeah, no, Nandor’s just my boss. He’s just- old fashioned,” Guillermo said, “he’s not- he wouldn’t be interested in me.”
“Well, that’s good,” Darius smiled, “I don’t want to compete with my cousin.”
“What?” Guillermo asked. Sure, they’d be texting constantly since Guillermo had met him a couple of days ago. He didn’t really want to think about the ethical questions of dating Nandor’s great times thirty Grandson, though he normally avoided those kinds of thoughts anyway. Did it mean-
Darius brought a hand to Guillermo’s hair, cutting of his thoughts. For a moment, Guillermo wondered, Darius might brush the hair from his forehead. He just seemed to take something out of his hair.
“Leaf,” Darius said, holding up said leaf.
“Oh,” Guillermo said,
Guillermo faintly heard something crash in the distance.
“What was that?”