Chapter Text
Laura Hollis thought of her life in moments.
A flicker of images, rolling and flashing until one need simply to pluck them and throw them on a wall. To view and see. Live and breathe.
Moments, engrained.
Of joy or tears. Mirth and sorrow.
A girl, young and twirling in a field. Her parents blissfully beside her. A chocolate bar given for good grades. Secret whispers stolen in the night of forts and make believe.
A woman.
A kiss goodbye.
Never to be seen again.
Tears and emptiness and the thought that one could never be whole again. Such weight for any child to carry.
Camping trips with Dad. An abundance of which to simply disappear from the reality of the world. A frog hiding in her shoe.
A squeal of laughter as she falls into a creek.
Catching pneumonia after.
And smiling all the same.
A kiss from Stacey Anne behind the bleachers at homecoming.
The thought that life had suddenly been made whole and had ripped open all at once.
A Valedictorian, crying before going on stage. A wish that she should be there. But knowing that she had no right. That’d she’d never want her there ever, anywhere.
Dad crying as he drove away from school. Leaving her with a dorm and enough bear spray to last a lifetime.
Danny. And pie. And a goat statue that they should have let fall.
A Dean. Far too imposing and far too terrifying. A goal and a promise to never see her again.
The children of the Peace Corp. Loud and obnoxious and perfect in every way. Her hands dirty from work. Her body tired from the weight of the sun.
Her soul the lightest it had ever been.
A return to Silas. So strange and different and new.
But familiar all the same.
A boy with a blanket.
A mother with a wicked smile.
Waterparks and laughter.
Girlfriends. New friends. Old friends.
A boy with missing teeth and questions that never seemed to end.
Soccer and mud and never being able to clean it out of the carpet.
Eggs sunny side up.
A house. A home.
Camping and forts.
Mom.
The word somehow new and reclaimed. Given more meaning than ever before.
Wedding.
And wife.
The feel of a new born baby. So soft and small.
The most intoxicating smell.
Of family.
Moments. So simple and new. Quiet and big. Small and inviting. Never before had.
Never to be had again.
Moments.
A single and the plural.
Of a woman in a bar.
//
The bar is hot.
It always is, really. So she shouldn’t be surprised. But it’s unwelcome after a long day. And she really should have changed because with her pants and her shirt are already causing a sweat.
But, Laura knew, changing meant the risk of arriving after eleven.
And that was just plain wrong.
It hadn’t been on the agenda that morning. A night out.
Alone.
A single quest in mind.
But the day had turned with stress.
The hot water had been turned off in her building. She’d spilled the last of her coffee on the kitchen floor. Jessica had “accidentally” eaten her lunch. Which was complete an utter bologna because the woman grabbed at anything in the staff refrigerator that she could get her hands on.
And Benjamin had taken pleasure in tormenting sweet Jaime and his blanket and she’d had to run around half the day playing mediator. Which was rude and mean and Jaime deserved none of it.
But apparently telling a five-year-old that was frowned upon.
However true it may be.
She’d wanted nothing more than to go home and take a hot bath and finish The Hobbit.
But the water was still out. And the bar was often the only place to find the solace she was looking for.
To rid her body of tightness and strain.
So really, she supposed she couldn’t complain.
Danny often told her she needed to find a new stress relief.
Laura told her it was healthy. Cardio and endorphins and a lot of good stuff.
Sure, Danny always said, pointing her fork and pie at her, Until you catch the clap.
Which, whatever, okay fine.
Point valid. But she was safe.
So really, why not enjoy herself?
It’s the usual crowd. Uncomfortably familiar and Laura’s really not quite sure she likes the lack of anonymity.
Because familiar and more than once really wasn’t the point.
She spots Leslie, out of the corner of her eye, looking at her. A deciding look on her face. As if she, too, is weighing the options of what a familiar encounter would or could be.
When she sees her.
Tucked into the corner of the bar. Dressed in all black. She’s barely visible in the dark light. But her corset is tight. Her leather pants tighter. The angles of her face stark.
The frown on her face even more so.
The feeling that courses through Laura is so swift and fast and downright embarrassing, she’s surprised she finds it in her to move and walk at all, until she’s sliding onto the seat next to her and The Woman is doing her very best to ignore her.
“And what kind of girl do I strike you as?” Laura asks, when she’s gotten her attention enough.
And she hopes to every Hogwarts Founder that she can keep it.
“Virgin gin and juice.”
“Wouldn’t that just be juice?”
Laura’s drink slides before her and The Woman clinks them together. A single, simple toast, before she’s turning back to her phone.
“You know, if you’re trying to meet someone, it would be helpful to look around the bar instead of sulking at your phone,” Laura tries again. Because the Woman is definitely trying to ignore her. But her body has turned, just slightly. And she can see her shooting Laura a simple glance out of the corner of her eye.
She wonders if The Woman even notices that she’s doing it.
“Who says I’m here to meet someone?”
Laura smiles and she knows she must be obvious when her eyes roam up and down the Woman’s figure.
“Leather pants and eyeliner to die for? If you’re not here to meet someone, you’re wasting a perfectly good opportunity.”
She manages to say, her voice somehow steady and deep despite the fact that the Woman’s eyes are now roaming up her own body.
She sounds reserved as the conversation continues. Trying to brush Laura off, she thinks, even if she’s peeked her interest.
Of that, Laura knows.
Can tell. If there was one thing her mother had ever been right in telling her, it was that a woman could always tell.
Always.
And though she wasn’t particularly in the mood for a challenge—not that she ever viewed hitting on anyone as a challenge.
Because that was disgusting and gross and creepy.
But she’d really rather just chat and meet and get right down to it.
They all knew why everyone was here. The heat and the want and the need for sex palpable even outside the freaking building.
So why not expedite the process?
And, okay, so maybe Danny was right, she did do this often.
But she’d never push.
She wasn’t disrespectful.
But the Woman was turning to her, more and more. Even if her words were guarded. There was an openness to her that was hard to miss.
Though, Laura could tell, she was trying to hide it.
A reserve. And a hurt so palpable, Laura had to bit her lip to keep from asking about it.
She knew that and knew it well.
And if The Woman was anything like Laura in anyway, she’d hate it just as much as Laura did.
“All the good ones are gone,” Laura says when the woman asks about eleven. And she hopes the Woman can tell she is joking.
However of a half it may be.
Because it is true.
The Woman laughs and it’s the most intoxicating sound Laura has ever heard. Deep and throaty and rich.
Round.
Sexy as hell.
It’s incredible, Laura thinks, and horribly embarrassing. How quickly the blood coursing through her turns hot. How fast it makes her flush.
How heavy it pools. Deep and low.
And, Holy crap, Hollis, get a hold of yourself.
So, it might’ve been awhile.
Sue her.
//
“I don’t have a story.”
Laura’s face must betray her. The words hitting her harder than she thinks the Woman intended. And she almost looks victorious.
Like she thinks she’s caught Laura off guard and given her exactly the opposite of what she’s looking for.
It’s the bitterness, Laura knows, lining her words that catch her. Familiar in a way that Laura can’t even begin to understand or explain.
So how could she expect a stranger?
Because stories, as much as they were loved, could also mean heartache and sorrow.
And, Laura knows, adopting the story of another was so much easier than embracing your own.
Laura watches as The Woman’s smile actually turns into somewhat pleasure. As if she’s won a game Laura hadn’t even known they’d been playing.
An I told you so and a ha dancing at the tip of her lips.
It’s surprise, then, that happens next, when Laura raises her glass and tips it toward her.
“I’ll drink to that she says.”
The Woman’s eyes widen with something akin to almost relief.
As Laura does just that.
//
She’s the best sex Laura’s ever had.
And she’s had a lot of it.
And yeah, okay, okay, maybe Danny really did have a point.
But it’s not as if she didn’t have options to weigh it against.
It’s the truth.
Laura, can say, without question or contemplation.
The absolute best.
And she doesn’t even know her name.
Identities and stories long since left at the door.
But the Woman knows exactly what to do.
Where to touch. How to move.
Her talent far exceeding her tongue or her hands or the way she rolls her hips.
But, rather, her entire being. Everywhere.
All at once.
And, Laura thinks, the it’s been awhile has to be, must be, a lie.
The Woman’s hand moves between her legs, hitting a spot Laura hadn’t even known existed.
She moans.
The Woman smiles.
Wicked.
Absolutely wicked.
“Enjoying yourself?” She asks and moves her hand again.
Laura somehow manages to moan louder.
And wow, okay really didn’t think that was possible.
The Woman laughs.
“Shut up,” Laura somehow manages to pant. Her words stringy together in a jumbled mess. Slurring and blending in a way that not even alcohol could accomplish.
Just want and desire and—The Woman’s hand palms across her chest. Her lips dragging down Laura’s neck. Her hips rolling—-the absolute need for her to do that again.
“Shut up?” The Woman chuckles as she says it, her hand between Laura’s legs stilling. “Is that anyway to talk to a new acquaintance?”
“Is that what we are?’
The Woman moves her hand again. Slow and steady and somehow deeper and Laura is pretty sure she’s never blacked out during sex before but there was always a first time for everything.
“I don’t know that anything else really applies, do you?”
Laura huffs. Grabbing onto the Woman’s back and digging her fingers in. There’s a gasp above her. And yeah, serves her right
“I don’t know, I mean—.” The Woman kisses down her chest, slow and sloppy and deliciously intoxicating. “We already—.” The Woman’s hand moves again.
Laura makes a noise she can’t even describe.
It would be embarrassing.
If it didn’t feel so freaking good.
“You were saying?” She husks into Laura’s ear, her voice heavy and deep and not at all helpful.
Laura huffs. “Could you just like stop talking and go down on me or something?”
The Woman lets out a bark of a laugh. Her eyes twinkling with something Laura had yet to see.
A lightness that had been kept hidden in the dark of the bar.
She turns to Laura. Her eyes narrowing with something deliciously dangerous and she bends forward. Nipping at her ear. “Since you asked so nicely.”
Is whispered against her skin.
And then Laura’s head is rolling back into the pillow. The Woman’s unknown name ghosting across her lips like a prayer.
And, Laura, thinks, If this was it’s been awhile.
She really didn’t want to know what practice would mean.
//
When she wakes in the morning, the Woman is gone.
The bed cold and bare beside her.
Disappointing.
In a way that should be so.
And, when she recounts the experience to Danny, it’s the thought that Laura will never see her again that causes an uncomfortable displeasure to settle in her.
A night and a moment. So simple and brief.
Somehow lined with something.
That was ridiculous and raw and so incredibly real.
But brief and gone. And nothing really more.
Something to never be had again.
An opportunity, Laura thinks.
So perfectly wasted.
//
Laura Hollis thought of her life in moments.
Of first days of school. And dance recitals.
With nightmares and dreams and hot cocoa sipped beneath of the stars.
A young boy. Holding a baby girl. Pride broadening his shoulders.
Strength creasing his brow.
A promise to love and protect because no one would hurt his sister.
Of first steps. And first dances.
Dresses and clothes. Outgrown before they were barely worn.
Of school work and grades and trips to the principal’s office.
Laughter and tears and quiet nights with movies and forts.
The piling of home videos. Tape after tape. Picture after picture.
Kept with treasure and love in a box that was more a heart.
Of boyfriends and girlfriends.
Old friends and new.
Of wife.
And wedding.
Mama.
And Mom.
Of family.
A house.
Of home.
//
Jaime doesn’t stop fidgeting the entire ride home.
His leg bouncing and kicking as if on its own accord.
“You okay there, Bub?” Laura asks, checking on him in the review mirror.
She can see him look at her. His mouth opening slightly. Hanging, as if debating whether or not he should answer. Laura can see him look to Carmilla in the passenger’s seat.
“I’m okay, Mom.” He says, slowly. As if making sure he’s picking just the right words.
Carm sends him a wink, before she turns back to face front and places her hand atop Laura’s knee.
Jaime’s legs goes into overdrive and Laura’s certain he’s going to bounce out of his booster seat.
“Must have been all that sugar in the chocolate cake, huh Kid?” Carm says and Jaime nods his head so fast, Laura is certain it’s going to bounce off.
“There was lots of sugar in it,” he says, with far too much earnest in his voice.
“You think you and a sugar crash are going to survive Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?” She asks, turning into the driveway and shutting off the car.
“Yes!”
Jaime all but rips off his seatbelt. Scrambling to open the door. Running to the house.
Next to her, Carm snorts. “Guess we better get the movie started before he does crash.”
“Why don’t you go get your pjs on, hm?” Carm says to Jaime once they’re in the house.
And for the first time in months Jaime runs off to do so without a hiccup.
Laura feels it. A fleeting moment of suspicion. Pricking at the back of her neck. Because even the slightest mention of anything bed related and I’m a big boy, I can stay up was chanted up and down the halls.
But it’s brief and gone. Carm leaning close far too much of a distraction.
Even after two years.
“Find us the movie?” She says, placing a kiss on Laura’s cheek. “I think I’m going to go do the same.”
“And what if I want to put my pajamas on?”
“Please, if you did, you’d fall asleep faster than Jaime.” Carmilla snorts.
“And I don’t really feel like carrying both of you to bed,” she throws over her shoulder. An addendum for good measure that makes Laura scowl as she turns the corner.
“That so would not happen!” She yells and she can hear Carm laugh.
Laura huffs, though she’s smiling because it was really hard to do anything else lately, and turns towards their ever growing movie collection.
It had skyrocket shortly after Laura moved in. Carm had complained about the lack of space they had.
And it hadn’t stopped grown since.
She lets her fingers drag across the DVD spines, looking for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, an excitement bubbling at finally sharing one of her childhood favorites with her son.
Son.
It was still a word to get used to.
Even though her smile only grew.
“Mom?” Jaime asks, walking back into the room.
“Yeah, Bub?”
His pause causes Laura to turn. Ignoring the DVD’s.
The sight of Carmilla and Jaime greets her. Standing before her. Carm with a sly grin, her hands clasped behind her back.
Jaime, eyes wide.
He shifts and pauses. Fidgets slightly again. Rocks on his heels.
Once.
Twice.
And it only begins to register that neither are in their pajamas when:
“Will you marry us?!”
Jaime’s hands fly to his mouth after he yells it, his eyes going as wide as Laura feels her’s most definitely have.
She looks to Carmilla, who seems to be fighting back a laugh.
“What?” Laura somehow manages. Her breath caught.
The single question the only thing coming to her racing mind.
She’s faintly aware of her heart beat skyrocketing.
Because there’s no way she heard that right. Not that it would be bad or wrong or awful. But there’s no way she heard it right.
There’s no way she freakin’ heard that.
Carm chuckles quietly, placing one hand on Jaime’s shoulder and keeping the other tucked behind her back.
“We did have a bit of a speech prepared,” she says by way of explanation, moving them both forward until they stop right before her. Jaime smiles sheepishly but he bites his teeth with excitement.
“But yeah,” Carm continues. “What do you say?”
And then there’s a ring. Sitting sweetly in a black velvet box. An actual real ring. Of silver and diamonds and:
Holy.
Crap.
Laura watches as Carmilla holds the box before Jaime. Waiting for him to take it.
He does.
Cradling it. Extending it before her. Carmilla’s hands supporting his own.
“Marry us.”
It’s a whisper from Carm this time. Soft and sweet. And hopeful.
Two simple words filled with more than Laura could ever ask for.
Because they had already given so much. So much more than Laura had ever thought possible for this place and time.
For her life.
Moments full and generous and fleeting.
But engrained into the very center of who she was.
And yet, not. Here. Somehow. They were offering more.
A promise of something Laura hadn’t even known could be possible.
Carmilla’s brow quirks, her head turning slightly. A smile pulling at the corner of her lips. As if she finally, finally, got Laura just where she wanted her.
Caught and surprised and completely off guard.
It would be rude if it wasn’t so incredible.
“Well?”
She’s barely begun to nod when Jaime lunges forward. Tackling her to the ground in a hug.
She can see Carm catch the ring box as it flies through the air just before she and Jaime land on the ground, her body taking the full force of the impact.
Laura pulls Jaime close.
Not caring about the bruise that is certainly going to be on her shoulder in the morning. Or the way that he’s crushing her lungs. Making it hard to breathe.
Not that it wasn’t hard to breathe already.
Carm already successful in stealing her last breath.
She pulls him close and knows that nothing would ever be better than the imprint of his smile to her shoulder.
Not even the ring Carmilla places on her finger.
“I hope that’s a ‘Yes’,” she says, joining them on the ground and pulling on Jaime until both he and Laura can sit.
Laura smiles.
Bright and full and somehow complete.
And she hopes it can convey the overwhelming feeling coursing through her. A million things all at once and yet simple.
Happiness.
She places a kiss to the crown of Jaime’s head.
To Carmilla’s lips.
Simple.
Soft.
Sweet.
“Yes.”
//
The cabin is beautiful.
Large and grand. Far more space than any two people needed.
“Holy shit,” Carm says when they walk through the door. Dropping her bag with an unceremonious THUMP.
And Laura is glad she decided to put anything semi-breakable in her bag.
“Why are you surprised, you’re the one who booked it.”
“The pictures were shit.”
“You mean you weren’t trying to get me the very best money could offer?”
Carm glares, her brow turning down though her eyes twinkle, and slides her hands around Laura’s waist. “Don’t you try to pick a fight.”
“It’s my weekend, I can do whatever I want.”
Or so she had been told two hours before.
When Carmilla had arrived at the house sans Jaime. Explaining that LaF and Perry would be watching him for the weekend while they got away.
What for? Laura had asked, surprised to find that Carm had already packed her a suitcase.
Carmilla had shrugged. With a practiced nonchalance that meant she was nervous. Unsure if Laura would like what she was going to say. And shy. I just— She had sighed and huffed and yeah, Laura had to hide a smile because definitely nervous —I wanted Jaime to be a part of the proposal, you know? But I still want you to have your romance.
Laura had kissed her then. Pulling Carmilla close and trying to put to something what it was she couldn’t put to words.
And she’d only pulled away when Carmilla had pushed. Explaining that if they didn’t leave soon they would miss their check-in.
They ended up making it by one minute.
“This is my weekend, too, thank you very much. It takes two parties to get engaged.”
Engaged.
Yet another word to get used to.
No matter how much wider Laura’s smile already was for it.
“I suppose you want a thank you, then?”
“You can thank me later.”
Laura nods. Her eyes widening. “Ah. Now I get it,” she says, as her hands slide up Carmilla’s arms and around her neck. “You just wanted an excuse to have sex all weekend.”
“I don’t see how that is a problem for either of us.”
“No problem,” Laura says, stepping out of Carmilla’s embrace.
She begins to unbutton her shirt. Walking backwards towards where she can see the bedroom.
“Just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”
“Are we?” Carmilla asks, her gaze at watching Laura undress rooting her to the spot.
Laura can’t help her smirk. Because really, it was ridiculous easy.
“I suppose we’ll just have to see.”
Laura reaches the bedroom door and turns. Tilting her head to the side.
“Coming?”
Carmilla does.
//
“You know what Jaime asked me?”
The sun is bright on Sunday morning. Peaking through the heavy curtains of their room. The promise of a new day.
Basking them in warmth and light.
“Right after I told him I wanted to marry you?”
Laura hums, turning her head from it’s spot on Carmilla’s shoulder to look up. Her body far too relaxed and heavy to move.
They’d barely made it to the bed Friday night, before Carmilla had had her pinned beneath her.
They hadn’t left since.
Food and sustenance hardly remembered.
Menial.
All things considered.
“What?”
Laura can feel Carm’s hold tighten around her. Pulling her close. Their bodies becoming more one and less two. And she chuckles lightly when she says:
“‘When do I get to be a big brother?’”
Laura laughs. Loud. Full. Round.
Bright.
And Carmilla smiles.