What We Do In the Shadows: "The Fiendish Plot of (human) Laszlo and Nadja Cravensworth"...
Summary: Back in the regular but sort of AU universe of WWDITS, you thought the season was about Guillermo. It wasn't. (Well, in this AU anyhow.)
Part II...
Laszlo, vampiral, to camera, in the, more or less, "living" room ...
"My heart is weighted with care regards what to do about Gizmo's glacier-like transformation. Clearly another bite from a second vampire, especially if not the original, would be fatal, if quite interesting for Science. Besides, I've rather enjoyed being able to venture out and about in daylight using Gizmo sweatscreen...Hmmn, a true marketing opportunity there, especially if it works as a sunscreen for humans as well. All right, fine, that is the main reason I've not mentioned the situation to Nandor...Though I do feel for the lad." Offhand wave.
"Caught betwixt two worlds, the dark comforting world of inky night and bloody slaughter, and the light, harshly bright...Though really I did enjoy my time in the sun...Oppressive world of blinding day and well, feasting on corpses of the dead...Animal and plant, and those other kingdoms, whatever they are. I mean consider it...You people feast on the dead, however well cooked; we, the living. And, on occasion, some of ours live to see another day...Your victims, sadly, are gone for good. Who's to say what the more horrible way to feed really is, eh? Anyway, my heart's somewhat troubled at least by the situation, though my spirits are lifted by the safe return of my dear wife Nadja from her dollish existence." Nod.
"Not to say the sex with Dolly human in Nadja wasn't terrific... Really it was perhaps the best we've ever had...Best not to mention that to Nadja, eh, folks?" winning smile.
"And speaking of my female devil-girl, here she is...Hello, my darling." As human Nadja in Nadja enters cautiously.
"Ah, hello...Well, don't let me interrupt..." she smiles, nervously.
"Wait, my dearest...I sense something is wrong." Laszlo eyes her.
"OH...No, no, no...There's nothing at all wrong, my dearest." She notes anxiously. "No, no, no...We are still all one big happy family, as always. No 'sunken place' for this evil spirit...No, no, no." brittle smile.
"Indeed?" Laszlo, hard stare.
"Yeah..." she tries nonchalant pose. "I'm just about off to go suck and drain the life out of some human being, because that's what I do to survive. Maybe some little child, innocent as the driven snow, because my demonic essence rejoices in such evil."
"It does?" Laszlo stared. "Well, yeah...I suppose. Anyway, I do sense something is wrong with you, dearest. And I know what it is." Eyes camera.
Close up on anxious Nadja...
"You can't find Dolly, can you? The damn thing's gone off sulking somewhere, hasn't she? And after all you've done for her..." Laszlo shakes head. "Terrible ingratitude. How sharper than a serpent's tooth, though indeed, those are sharp, is the ungrateful child, or soul. Am I right in my conjecture, dearest?"
"Uh...Yeah, absolutely." Nadja, fervent nodding. "Goddamn that ungrateful doll. Curses and I spit, spit, spit upon her. Goddamn her, yeah. Thank you, my dearest for perceiving the essence of my sorrow. Well, off to go suck, suck, suck...And joyfully murder. Bye." Waves.
The Guide suddenly appears in front of her, in her trademark black. "Hey, how's about we make it a twosome twofer?" she suggests. "Hit the streets and grab a couple of ripe young children who will never see the light of day. For we two vampiral sisters will drain the last drop of their virginal blood and leave their little corpses cold and pale on the streets or in some garbage can...Don't want to leave a bloody mess, I mean. They enforce the trash laws quite severely here on Staten Island."
"Sounds lovely..." Nadja nods. "But perhaps another time. I need to wander the streets myself, alone, contemplating the loss of my souled Dolly who could not bear to endure my hideously murderous presence even one more night. The brutality of my crimes weighing on her poor soul, crushed by such a burden while only her love for Laszlo holds her to this earthly plane."
"It does?" Laszlo stares. "She told you that?"
"Uh...Well...In a manner of speaking, yes." Nadja nods. "Anyway, I've got to go, but I will be back for our sex romp and a night of being sealed in our hideous dark coffins, trapped as if we were buried in our dank, lonely graves. Next time, for sure. I won't be too long, sweetheart." She notes to Laszlo and the disappointed, but resigned Guide, who stares after her.
"Bit of a bummer, at times, your wife." The Guide notes to Laszlo. "Say, why didn't she bat out of here?"
"What? That would a bit discourteous to our guests here." Laszlo notes.
"Oh...Right." Nod. "Sorry, guests."
...
Cut to human Nadja in Nadja...On the street in the growing darkness...
"God...Oh, I can say that now...Nice...That was a narrow escape." She gasps. "I gotta keep that looney tunes guide from hanging with me and trying to do a killfest on some poor folks. Plus I gotta find something to eat, I'm starved. You guys got a sandwich or something on you? Tic-tacs?" she asks, anxiously.
"How's it going, my darling?" the ghost of Laszlo appears.
"Oh, Laszlo, my angel..." she breathes.
"Mmmn...Sort of...I'm more a purgatory candidate." He notes.
"Even so..." she beams. "It's so good to see you."
"Sorry there's so little I can do but moral support." He sighs. "But soon as I can eject my counterpart from our body, you'll have my complete physical support."
"How are we going to do that, my sweetheart?" Nadja eyes the floating ghost. "You can't act physically and I, well...I could take him in a fair fight but he's sure to run and seek assistance from the others. Plus he is so good with hypnosis, I could see myself becoming his willing slave, under his dark power, helpless as he ravishes my now near-human body and..."
"Dear...Please?" Laszlo, frowning.
"Well, I want it to be you...But if it were him, it would sort of still be you." She notes, shrugging. "By the way, you don't by any chance have some way of providing for me? As in cash, or maybe barter...? I'm really dying for food here. I gotta get something in the old gullet. Not to mention after almost four hundred years I really need to get off the blood diet." Sniffs... "I smell, oh, God...Someone's barbequing...! Excuse me, I think it's time to say howdy to our neighbors!" hurries off... "Laszlo? Tell them the grand news! And sorry, I'm really dyin' here! Love you!" hurries over to Sean and Char's yard, hurrying up stairs to bang on front door.
"Guys! It's your good pal, Nadja Cravensworth!"
...
"Well, as to the grand news..." ghost Laszlo addresses camera. "As you know, I am a Cravensworth, the third son of the line in my day. And while vampiral Laszlo was never really in a position to do much familywise except kill familywise...He has kept tabs on the ole homestead... And in short, well...Seems the last of the, to date, living Cravensworths, sad to say, has just passed. Which of course means, if I can prove I am a living, breathing, long residing in the States, Cravensworth...And it just so happens, thanks to vampiral Laszlo being the same hoarder I always was, I can...Or can once I toss vampiral Laszlo out...I'm the heir to the Cravensworth estate. And thanks to strategic marrying of American heiresses during the late nineteenth century, though none was quite as lovely as Elisabeth McGovern in 'Downton'...In fact they were generally rather hideous...The Cravensworths are rich, wealthy, socially secure...Comfortably well off." arch nod. "And the Cravensworth estate, if I can get my claim in quickly, is quite an estate. The big manor house, the grounds...Perhaps the peasants aren't quite so docile and loyal these days, which as a social reformer is fine by me, indeed." Nod. "...But all-in-all...Very nice. Just a matter of tossing ole vamp Laszlo out on his demonic ear, reclaiming my body, becoming human again in a week or so, and filing the proper documents in merrie old England asap."
"Not of course that that had anything to do with Nadja and I planning to reclaim our rightful place among the living just now. The opportunity came quite unexpectedly when the Nadjas struck up a relationship and then I was drawn back to my soulmate and the rest as we shall say, soon enough if all goes well, will be history." Beam.
...
"Naj?" Sean peers at Nadja via his open door.
"Seany!" Nadja beams.
"Nadja!" Charl, just behind Sean.
"Girlfriend! I'm here to accept your oft-offered invite to dinner! Had some free time and the hubs is occupied doing his hubs things, and I smelled your delicious barbeque so..."
"Oh, that's Jerry next block over..." Sean notes. "But we was gonna have dinner in a bit...How's about I fire up the grill and slap a coupla steaks and..."
"I love ya, Seany!" Nadja, stepping in.
Cut to Nadja, human (almost) on couch later...
"You guys did notice I did not need to be invited in there. Though I suppose previous invites would allow for it. But to be safe the vampiral me and Laszlo always did ask for an invite, so yay! Human, almost!"
Return to present...
"Well, I was gonna make meatloaf..." Charl considers.
"Anything, literally, edible, is fine..." Nadja, anxiously.
"But, hey, if Sean wants to do the cooking...Though maybe you and I could make up some side stuff, Naj?"
"Cooking again? Like in my old days...Oh, yeah, baby! I mean my old days, uh, back before I hooked up with Laszlo and he got us a staff."
"You got a staff?"Sean stares.
"Well, you've seen him...Pasty-faced, cowardly assistant to unspeakable...Stuff...Gizmo, er...Whatever his name is."
"Oh...Right...Well, come on in and I'll get the grill goin'."
Cut to camera in present...
"Ooooh...My first human meal in over three hundred years. And it's steak! The red king! The one and only...You know as a poor gypsy we only got steak when scraps were thrown to or more often at us or that other Church...You know, viva Il Papa and all...Wanted to try and convert us. Must admit, we converted back and forth a number of times...The Catholics offering steak, the Greeks, lamb and chicken. When it came to food, we were ecumenical."
...
Laszlo, vampiral, in the old residence...
"My poor Nadja, lost and troubled in her...Essence...About that dratted doll. Heck, she even used the G-word in her oaths, she was that upset. Though I suppose when taken in vain as a foul insult it can be managed. Let me try...Go...OWWW. Damn. My, she was upset." Shakes head. "I must find that ungrateful little sack of cloth and sawdust and restore her to Nadja before I can rest. Well, I shall be on...The hunt." Nods.
...
The Guide, to camera...In previously unoccupied, remodeled (courtesy Simon the Devious during his "Go Flip Yourself"scheme) Nandor mancave room. Taken by the Guide as her residence, given none of the others seemed to remember it existed after Marwa's exitus.
"Oh...Guys, this is sooo nice, to finally be interviewed on my own. Makes me feel like part of the family/clan/whatever at last." Beams. "You folks comfy? Nice place I got here, eh? No need to mention I've taken up residence here, though, right? Live and I let live, right?"
"So, I am slowly settling in, though I must admit I am hurt that I can't seem to win a place in Nadja's affections. Not just for the lesbian sex or the chance to do a threesome with Laszlo... I do wish to have a girlfriend. I used to think other girls were...Phetuey." Spits... "Back when I slept with many of their men as would have me. And a number did, till inevitably I found my Mr. Goodvamp and the rest is herstory." Chuckles. "But Nadja did seem rather preoccupied, tonight. Though when I propose a girls' night of orgy and bloodfest, she usually has seemed preoccupied or claimed to be. But tonight, it seemed real. Strange. Perhaps Laszlo is right and it's something to do with that awful Doll. I don't know. Ah, well, what the heck, eh? Tomorrow night is another night. But I'd best take myself off and do some killing to live. Maybe, with luck, we'll run into each others as we dump corpses or something and have a laugh over it."