Chapter Text
Somewhere between the basement steps and the garden, your ribs gave a painful groan. The pain was sudden and surprising, making you drop the buckets of blood you’d been carrying so half the contents splashed out onto the grass and over your shoes. Fuck, you thought, clutching at your ribs, we’re gonna get vultures again. You tried to keep your breaths shallow, sneaking your fingers up under the hem of your shirt and pulling the sopping wet spandex away from your skin. It had been too long, you knew, the soreness having crept in hour by constricting hour. But it was a near Sisyphean task keeping track of both human and vampire schedules. Time simply seemed to slip by as you helped Guillermo dispose of body upon virginal body, arranged and rearranged Laszlo and Nadja’s shockingly full schedules, and occasionally managed to get a granola bar into your mouth.
The couple were far from demanding; this was apparently a relatively recent development, due to Guillermo’s continued reformation attempts to, in a manner of speaking, re-humanize the undead roommates.
”Don’t let them push you around,” he’d insisted that first day. “If they hiss at you, just hiss back. It works and it’s also really funny.”
But any worries you might’ve had were unfounded, as the couple were only occasionally snippy and usually only due to hunger and would apologize shortly after a snack. No, they weren’t the ones overworking you — you managed that just fine on your own. You willingly spent every last minute searching for —or, if need be, creating — tasks. Anything that kept your mind from roaming into parts not necessarily unknown but unloved.
It had been easier when you’d first been hired. The dysphoria hadn’t been so all-consuming then, allowing you to go without a binder for days at a time without causing an undue amount of distress. But, in an odd turn of events, the job was almost too freeing — the inhibition-free residents of the house living unabashedly hedonistic lives were intoxicating and threatening to a life you’d long ago settled for.
Your interview with Guillermo had been a breeze — you’d given him your chosen name and pronouns without consequence as, perhaps unsurprisingly, being a familiar did not come with much legal onboarding.
“Is there an NDA I have to sign or something?” You’d asked, pushing your hunk of baguette around the small table of the Main St Panera Bread.
Guillermo had laughed easily, jotting down a few notes. “No no, if you betray them they’ll just kill you.”
Nobody in the house was without their faults — or borderline neuroses — but they all had lived far too long to give a damn about what others might think of them. This was a siren song to the part of your brain that spent its time whispering in your ear: This is not who we are meant to be.
Things began to happen in rapid succession, as you began to yearn for your master and mistress as strongly as you yearned to become your own. There were innuendos and smirks and small touches to your shoulder and your waist. And soon you were forced to wear your binder for days on end or else face severe bouts of envy-induced dysphoria.
A regular part of your duties as a familiar was helping to dress and undress your master and mistress — a task that, due to the huge selection of items, excessive layers and matching color ways, took up a few hours a day. It was only a matter of time before Laszlo caught you averting your eyes, — having learned to perform this particular task without actually looking at the man. He caught your chin in his hand, drawing it gently upward so as to meet your eye.
”My dear, if this particular task makes you uncomfortable —,”
”No—,” you’d snapped, squeezing your eyes shut. “It’s alright — I like doing it.”
It was still the truth — too much of it, actually — but enough to put the conversation to rest. He had not looked too terribly convinced, but he only smiled his soft little smile that was becoming his habit with you and booped you, childlike, on the nose.
”If that should change at any time, you are to tell me at once. Capiche?”
”Yes, master.”
And you had thought about it — quite frequently, these past months — only because seeing him so confidently bare with his broad, furred chest proudly on display…. It was all rather maddening.
You took a few deep breaths, giving your ribs a well-needed reprieve. The pain was still bearable, but the panic was getting harder to push away — the feeling that you may be trapped, bound, by fabric or flesh, forever.
“Do you want some help with that?”
You jumped, turning to meet Guillermo’s gaze feeling like a kid with their hand in the cookie jar.
“Uh — no, no, I’m good —,” you stuttered, reaching for the buckets and suppressing a groan of pain. “Thanks, though, Guillermo.” He looked much the same as Laszlo had that night in the wardrobe, but before he could say anything more, you were slipping through the gate.