can u imagine retired vampire slayer silvia de la cruz seeing her baby boy grow up idolizing vampires and dressing up as one every halloween and watching all the vampire movies he could get his hands on. and she watches him do all this with this fond exasperated smile as if he’s interested in normal horror movies or something and not very real bloodthirsty unholy monsters. its probably something she tosses and turns at night over, whether or not she should tell him like her mother told her. he’s always been a sweet and quiet kid, always so kind and friendly. she tries to keep him away from looking into their family tree and lets him continue to idolize these fictional vampires because he’s just a kid. they aren’t real to him, and she hopes they never will be.
imagine her committing to letting guillermo have a normal life without the burden of knowing about vampires, only to watch him grow up and suddenly be all but off the grid at his fancy personal assistant job in staten island. he calls her every month and sends gifts for her birthday and they text sometimes and he shows up every christmas for the few hours during the day that he can spare to be away from whatever rich family he’s working for. she worries after him constantly, he’s so far and yet still so close to home, but he always reassures her that his job is important and he’s under an NDA so he can’t talk about it much, but he’s fed and taken care of well enough. she still always sends him back with enough meals to last him two weeks.
but then, ten years later, he comes home suddenly with a packed suitcase and asks if he can stay, just for a while, just until he can get back on his feet again. and of course he will always be welcome home, her guillermo will always have a place with her. he doesn’t talk about why he quit his job after so long. he’s quiet and withdrawn and says odd things about his friends being dead but not anymore. he brings in a camera crew and tells her they’ve been filming a documentary of his life while working for his ex employers and then he leaves to pick up a mini fridge he left behind only to just… not come back until days later.
and when he does come back, its to repack his suitcase as he tells her he decided to keep working for his employers because theyre a mess without him and she worries. she worries more intensely, especially with what he’s mentioned before about not being treated as well as he should be. but he promises he’ll be okay and that he’ll be safe and she triple checks that he has the silver crucifix around his neck that she had gifted him all those years ago, one that she’d used to keep herself safe in her prime as a slayer.
and then he disappears again, completely dissapears. no phone calls, no texts, no visits. he falls completely out of contact for weeks and she worries and worries until she remembers he gave her his employer’s number in case of emergencies. so she calls the number and someone picks up. a british man she’s never heard before answers the phone and when she asks about her son, he goes “who? oh, gizmo!“ and then feeds her lies about her son being halfway across the world. they have to be lies because she knows he would have told her. and there’s something about this man on the phone, something about the way he talks or the way he refers to her and guillermo in a specifically condescending way she knows all too well, a way that makes her scared of exactly what kind of personal assistant job her son has.
imagine silvia de la cruz taking a deep breath, pulling back her hair, putting on her old hunting gear, and making her way to staten island because she’s terrified that her allowance of her son‘s idolization of vampires may have just caused guillermo to get in far deeper water than she ever thought he could handle on his own.
