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It’s strange to think that the big, scary monster under the Lustig is - maybe, quite possibly, most definitely - not the biggest of your problems.
//
You grew up learning about monsters. Your father - always so overprotecting, and at times even overbearing - had made sure that you knew they could come in all shapes and forms. ‘You never know what could be hiding just around the corner, Laura-bear’, he used to say. And it was the kind of advice you took to your heart, even if some ideas sounded ludicrous (at best) and downright insane (at worst).
You didn’t want to call your father crazy, but flesh-eating zombies? Really? You were never too fond of chemistry and biology but you knew enough of those to logically acknowledge that if your body was rotting it wasn’t very likely that you’d be running anywhere after human meat. Psycho virus-infected humans out on a cannibalistic rampage? Sure, you can accept that. But undead corpses who have no functioning organs left but still manage to have a keen sense of smell for human meat and somehow run faster than you ever could in your life? Yeah, thanks, but no thanks.
Logical thoughts aside, you still carry around the mace you’d father had given you for your fifteenth birthday and you’re sure you can find at least a couple bottles of rotten meat essence lying around in your room.
Misguided notions as they were, it’s still heartwarming to know that somebody cares about you enough to consider all the ways in which you could possibly get hurt. And if you’re being honest, after your mother died, you just didn’t have it in yourself to deny your father the knowledge that he was doing everything he could to protect you.
He already had to live with the guilt of not being able to save her life - if signing you up for krav maga classes and making you carry around bear spray eased his pain a little, then so be it. He would never ask it of you, never would want you to realize how hard it was to carry on without your mother, but you made it a point to unburden him in every way you could.
Maybe all those monsters out there weren’t real; would never be real. But you’d both had lost too much already.
And, really, it never hurt to be careful.
//
It’s during your freshman year at Silas that you realize your father’s fears might have not been as, you know, crazy as you thought.
Girls are disappearing, your roommate is a vampire, SJ is dead, there’s a Silas student living inside a flash drive, parasites are inhabiting people’s brains and you’re quite sure your Lit TA, who is also maybe-possibly-but-not-really-your-girlfriend, is a werewolf.
You have half a mind to call your father and demand that he explains how exactly he just ‘knew’ you’d ever need a stake in your life. That thought only lasts a second, however, until you realize that maybe doing so will result in him showing up at Silas and dragging you home, and the truth is, you just can’t leave.
Maybe that Lois Lane gig is doomed, as your roommate claims, but you were never one to back down from a fight. More importantly, you were never one to abandon people in the middle of their suffering.
Walking away would have been easy. You could leave, never look back and be safe forever. But you’d always been selfless, extremely so, maybe to the point of stupidity. Some would even call you an idiot - Carmilla, definitely - for not recognizing a losing battle when you’re fighting one.
And maybe you are an idiot. Jumping headfirst into what is, most likely, certain death, would probably count as the definition of an idiotic act, you’re sure.
You just can’t help but think, though, that maybe idiot is just another word for brave.
//
Danny is not shy about letting you know how much she disagrees with that definition.
You’re pretty sure that whatever you might have been before, you’re not anymore.
//
And that’s fine, it is.
It feels strange to lose something that seemed so certain in your life, but you just don’t have it in yourself anymore to justify your actions when they just seem so right to you.
You’ve never been a damsel in distress; in all honesty, you can’t even fully grasp the concept of it.
If there’s even an ounce of a possibility that you can make things better by throwing yourself into the fire, you will. It’s who you are and you can’t shake it off anymore than you can having two arms and two legs and if Danny can’t understand that - can’t understand that you’re fully capable of making your choices and dealing with the consequences of said choices - then maybe you were never meant to work out anyway.
It’s kind of ironic, really, that a girl who turns into a wolf every full moon is telling you to stay away from danger.
//
Or maybe, not really.
//
It’s only after you hear the story of Carmilla’s life that you begin to realize that the worst monsters probably aren’t the ones you’re currently fighting against.
You’d taken AP Psychology back in high school, in an attempt to earn college credits that would help you getting out of your godforsaken town in the middle of nowhere, and you’d never given much thought to the things you’ve learned, not really.
But once you’ve heard your roommate’s tale of suffering - though Carmilla would probably kill you for even thinking of it as that - things begin to snap into place. It’s as if your vision has broaden and things you didn’t notice before just suddenly make sense, except, you know, it’s not sudden at all.
You begin to notice the way LaFontaine flinches every time Perry slips and calls them Susan, the way their head hangs in disappointment and a sigh escape their lips just before a mask slips on and they’re going on about scientific experiments and newfound discoveries.
You realize that Perry, sweet Lola Perry, who always keeps your room clean and full of baked goods, has a hard time dealing with things that her mind can’t explain and tends to focus on things she can control instead. It begins to dawn on you that the measurements of a cupcake recipe and the motions of scrubbing a window clean are her way of keeping things normal in her life, much as they aren’t and probably never will be again.
It’s as if, in a flash of consciousness, all of Danny’s outbursts make sense. Her need to protect you at all times - much like your father’s - and it makes you feel stupid for not realizing earlier what it all meant. It makes you think back to all the times she just jumped to your rescue, no questions asked, and how you took it all for granted because you just thought she had a savior complex, or something.
But most of all, beyond LaFontaine, Perry and Danny, you see Carmilla.
//
In the beginning, you were annoyed.
Honestly, the girl was awful. She was egotistical, disorganized, messy and a downright self-serving jackass.
And then, between deaths and evils beyond your comprehension, things changed.
The girl who was the annoying roommate became the scary vampire. And then she wasn’t so scary anymore. The person you once thought was high and mighty was, in the end, just a girl. A girl who had been carrying so many demons for the past three-hundred-or-so years that you could barely understand how she still managed to smile.
In the little things, you began to notice.
//
“Do you think maybe you could just take your Justice League meeting somewhere else, cupcake? I can barely breathe in here without smelling the mediocrity leaking from your pores.”
//
“You know, sweetheart, though my senses do function better in the dark, I’d rather not have to do my assigned reading like that. Crack a light, would you?”
//
“I’m not an Architecture major, sunbeam, but even I can acknowledge the kind of blasphemy that it is to stick a metal box in a building that’s hundreds of years older. You have to respect history, or something like that, right?”
//
“No! Please! Mother, don’t! Mother!”
//
And then she died.
She died and you couldn’t save her and you thought you’d had always understood how your father felt, thought somehow you managed to make his pain better, but you hadn’t. Not really. Not even a tiny bit.
It’s only after Carmilla dies that you finally understand. No matter how many brownies Perry bakes you or how many jokes LaFontaine tells or even how many punching bags Danny and Kirsch hold for you, no one can help you bear the pain that it is to lose a part of yourself.
Because, in the end, that’s what Carmilla was.
She crept inside your heart like one of those freaky parasites LaFontaine were always talking about and you didn’t realize until it was too late that you just couldn’t pull her out, no matter how much you wanted to.
(And you didn’t. Not at all. Not even a single bit.)
//
“Do you realize how creepy it is to have you watching me sleep?”
Her voice shakes you out of that dark place you tend to slip into whenever you’re left to your own devices and you drop your gaze to her languid form, spread out on your bed like she’s the owner of it, which, in some ways, you suppose she is.
She’s the owner of your heart and maybe that gives her right to all of your other things as well.
“Sorry,” it slips out of your mouth automatically, but you’re not, not really. You could never be sorry, because she’s here, she’s alive and you want to watch her all the time to make sure that she’ll stay this way forever.
You may die and you may perish, but not Carmilla.
Never Carmilla.
“Cupcake--” she begins, but you cut her off with a shake of your head and a peck to her lips. They curl into a smile under yours and her tongue peaks out, trying to deepen things, you’re sure, but you pull back, pushes her bangs from her eyes and brushes your nose against hers.
“Sleep, now, love.”
She wants to argue, you know she does, but she just pulls you closer to her and does as you told.
You watch her for a few more minutes before you finally let sleep take over you.
//
“Come on, Hottie. It’s just a couple of days, I’m sure Red One and Red Two will be more than glad to keep an eye on Scary Hottie for you.”
Kirsch pulls his best puppy eyes and, were any other time they totally would’ve worked on you, but you’re not about to back down, not on this particular subject.
“I’m sorry, guys,” you say, looking from him to Danny, who is sitting on your bed with a dejected expression. You try to sound as honest as possible, but you’re not nearly as sorry as you could’ve been. “I just don’t think I would be of much help to the team, really. I mean, I’m tiny.”
“Come on, Laura,” Danny protests, running a hand through her hair. “You know it’s not about size. If anything, being tiny just makes it easier for you to use your opponent’s strength against them.”
She’s right, you know, because you’ve been taking krav maga classes for basically your entire life and you’re pretty good at hand to hand combat. In truth, the Silas wrestling team could probably benefit from a surprise card such as yourself, but you just can’t.
Not when it means four days - a whole ninety-six hours - away from Carmilla.
“L,” she calls from her bed and your eyes snap to hers expecting some snarky remark but it’s a full minute of intense gazing before she continues, “Just go with them.”
And you want to fight it, of course you do, because how can you? How can she honestly expect that you’ll just up and leave her after everything you’ve been through? You can’t. You won’t.
You turn to look at Kirsch and Danny and you just shake your head at them.
They let out a dejected sigh, but leave without a word.
//
You’re working on your homework when her voice reaches your ears, small and confident at the same time, “I’m scared of crowds.”
“What?” you ask. You’ve heard her well enough, but at the same time, you’re not sure you did.
“Crowds,” she repeats, closing the book she’s been reading. “I hate them.”
“I know,” you say, because you do. You’ve realized it a long time ago, long before she became so important to you, long before she died and came back and long before you had to realize what it felt like to live without her.
She continues, as if you hadn’t said anything, “I’m also scared of the dark, closed spaces and I have nightmares. Lots of them.”
“Carm, why--” you stop, biting your lip. You want to know where this is going, but you don’t want her to feel as if you’re questioning her. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
“Because you already know,” she replies, as if it’s obvious. It’s not, not really, so you furrow your eyebrows and she explains, “You already know and you make sure to always leave a light on. You never have more than two people over at any given time and you say you like to take the stairs whenever I pick you up from class at the Journalism building but we both know that you hate exercising.”
“I--”
“The point,” she continues. “Is that you know and you help. You don’t judge and you don’t try to force me and do things in some misguided attempt to help. But Laura,” she moves pulls your chair close to her bed, tangling your fingers together, “I can’t help you.”
“What-” you shake your head, blinking at her. “What do you mean?”
And she looks so broken when she looks at you, so helpless that it breaks your heart to even try to think of what put that look in her face. You let go of her hands and put yours around her face, pulling her closer and bringing your lips together in a sweet kiss. She sighs against your mouth and rests her forehead against yours, covering your hands with hers and holding you in place.
“Baby,” she whispers. “I’m not going anywhere.”
//
But the problem is, she can’t promise you that.
Because she did before. She died. She died and you couldn’t save her and you’re not sure you could recover if something were to happen to her again.
//
“I love you.”
It’s a monday and you’ve just come back from class and that’s how she greets you.
You’ve known for a while that she does. Known from the way she always answers your texts about her whereabouts, always makes sure to stick her schedule right next to yours and always lets you know when something happens to disturb your carefully constructed routine.
You’ve known it because Carmilla is a free spirit and yet she caged herself for you. You loathe to think you may be keeping her from leaving, from doing the things she wants to do with her life, but she always shakes her head when you tell her that - and you do, plenty of times, every month or so whenever you two have a fight.
“I belong with you, Cupcake. Don’t ever forget that.”
And you know that even if you do forget it, she’ll be there to remind you.
//
You grew up learning about monsters. Your father talked about real monsters - those with guns and perverse thoughts that sought to do harm to those around them and who got off on the sick feeling of bringing pain to others, pain which you had felt first hand when your mother left home in the morning and never came back.
There were the monsters nature held; creatures so big and so ferocious that you couldn’t even fathom surviving an encounter against them but that your father had made sure you were prepared anyway, those kinds that made you feel amazed that nature could create something so majestic and at the same time so terrifying.
He also talked about those monsters you thought could simply not be real. He talked of vampires and zombies and werewolves and other supernatural creatures that you’d only read about in those books he kept around merely for academic purposes - never leisure, as such things would not to be taken lightly.
But for all that your father talked about monsters, he failed to acknowledge the worst of them. He failed to acknowledge the ones you both knew so well - him more so than you, at the time.
It was only after you got into Silas and had the chance to meet monsters you never believed could be real that you realized the monsters who lived inside yourself were the worst you could possibly face because you could never win. You could never make them disappear completely, could never put an end to that battle, no matter how many fights you thought you won.
Your father thought he’d done everything to protect you, but he couldn’t.
No one did, not from that.
//
You’re lying in bed one night, curled up against your girlfriend in a mess of limbs and she’s tracing a scar on your back that you don’t even remember how you got and you’re telling her how glad you’ll be to get rid of it once she turns you - because that is happening, eventually, no matter how many times she tries to run from that conversation - when she turns to you, deep pools of darkness holding your gaze in such a powerful manner that you don’t think you’d ever be able to escape, even if you tried.
“It’s the scars we can’t see that mark us the most, Cupcake. And those never go away.”
And she’s right, they don’t.
But you realize now, after all that you’ve both been through, that living with monsters doesn’t mean you can’t have someone to help you fight them.