Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Laura," Carmilla starts, all sadness and twitchy defeat, "I told you it wouldn't -"

"Shut up," is all Laura can say between her panicked wheezes, "Shut up."

The train lurches underneath them and a bag falls at Carmilla's feet. Laura can pretend it's the sudden motion that causes the tremors through her frame and not screams and bloodied teeth and light and - and -

With a bag full of unwashed clothes and LaFontaine's name still ringing in her ears, Laura runs and runs and runs.

+

Dad, she types out three times before she deletes his name.

+

They ride all the way to Warsaw, until Carmilla is gently waking her and pulling their bags from their place at Laura's feet. "Come on," is all she says, avoiding Laura's gaze.

They don't talk after that.

Carmilla scans the horizon and jimmy's the door to someone's car with a wire she pulled from her bag and Laura looks at her dead phone and thinks maybe she shouldn't have thrown it against the wall. It flops limply in her hand, the screen dangling uselessly and the plastic casing shattered unevenly. Danny, why wouldn't you come with, she wants to text now, imagining her red hair and tall frame against the city light.

You know, she can picture the redhead saying, you know, don't pretend you don't. Laura's eyes shift to Carmilla and her heart feels heavy.

Carmilla starts the car then, eying Laura when she jumps nervously. Laura swallows and tries to rationalizes the twitch in her mind. Maybe the sudden noise was startling, or the night is too quiet and the air is far too cold - not because she can't control her own limbs and LaFontaine is screaming, no.

"Laura," the other girl says, impatiently, thumb taping against the steering wheel as she stares determinedly over the dashboard. Laura winces.

And it is only later, when she's slumped with her head against the seat and listening to the blinker as Carmilla merges onto the freeway, that she trembles and presses her fingers to her eyelids. She breathes, in and out, in and out, and presses until there are stars bursting across her vision, like the ones Carmilla very much loves. In and out, in and out, and Laura doesn't have to remember watching her hand move against her shouts and bloody red hair.

A sniffle, involuntary and pathetic escapes her throat. Her skin is still raw with LaFontaine's name.

Carmilla shifts when a second sniffle escapes Laura, and a third, saying, "It wasn't your fault."

Laura starts. She blinks, once, twice, and, "I should have - "

"Stop it." The car swerves a little, the other girls injured fingers pressed so tightly against the steering wheel Laura is afraid it might snap. She remembers the hunch in Carmilla's shoulders when the traitorous words of her mother left Laura's tongue and the hiss of burnt flesh when her cold fingers closed around that stupid, stupid necklace. "Don't you dare let Mother - You didn't do anything."

"I did, though," she says, bitterly.

Her hands still shake. Carmilla says nothing.

It's only when they pass Wyszków that Laura starts crying. Carmilla rolls down the window and pretends not to hear. Laura is grateful.

+

They drive until the world is waking around them, slow and sleepy. The drive until the screams aren't over their shoulders and instead just an echo in their minds repeating and repeating and repeating and -

+

"I'll, um, sleep on the floor," Carmilla says, the awkward silence stifling the air around them. The room is all kinds of grimy and gross but so completely Carmilla that Laura can't help but roll her eyes a little.

Laura shakes her head a little then, tired and sad and aching down to her bones. "It's fine. We can share."

Carmilla blinks and her hands tighten around the strap of her duffel bag. She's too tired to think about what it means when the other girl looks at her quietly, her eyes intent and of course I'm doing it for you -

A heavy, tired sigh escapes Laura, and she wonders how many times Carmilla has run with a bag full of wrinkled clothes and only a few euros to her name. How many girls has she dragged with her, fingers tangled and breathlessly looking over their shoulders into the unflinching stare of time? Laura wonders if maybe she's just the latest girl of this century who will take Carmilla's fingers and squeeze because she can only think about how heavy the years must be.

Laura wants to ask. But when she opens her mouth it sits there, cold and empty and the words die against her throat. Maybe it's not her place to know. Maybe she doesn't want to know, a heavy ball coiled in her gut when she thinks about it.

Laura shakes her head, swallowing the words deep, and wraps her fingers around her backpack, telling Carmilla she is going to go brush her teeth.

She takes one step, two steps, her shoulders hunched and heavy. The knob to the bathroom is cold under her fingers and she swallows deeply.

Laura can almost count it in her head, the minutes it takes from the bathroom door clicking closed behind her to the moment when she is propped up on trembling arms, the desperate pleas of her name so heavy against her teeth. The sink is cool under her fingertips as stupid, panicked human breaths rattle around her throat. Her head thrums.

She want to cry like she didn't get the chance to in the car but the image of poor LaFontaine keeps running through her mind. Their screams scratch the insides of her ears and Laura can't ease the tight pit in her chest with dry heavy coughs of LaF's name.

Laura chokes around a sob against the cool tile, and her head really hurts.

Carmilla knocks on the door then, once, twice, and says her name gently enough that Laura feels her heart pull painfully. She thinks she murmurs something back, the waver in her throat hardly noticeable because Carmilla goes away and Laura can listen to the screams in peace.

She washes her face and brushes her teeth, her fingers trembling so terribly. She dresses herself with a shirt that still has the coco stains from a week ago across the sleeves and a pair of plaid pants that have holes around the ankles. She looks awful. She feels awful.

The skin around her neck burns from when Carmilla pulled the necklace with a snap and hiss of pain. Her brain still feels sharp and full and screaming and she is back to pounding on the walls, the Dean saying her name so, so sweetly.

And if Laura closes her eyes she can see the warm of metal against her skin, her fingers cradled around the red ruby of the necklace. She can close her eyes and listen to the songs of LaF's blood spilling out across her hands and imagine the ruby sparkling, so incredibly pretty like the curve of Carmilla's smile.

Laura feels fear now, coiled heavy around her spine when she thinks about the gentle smile at her lips as the chain slid over her head and around her neck.

She blinks, looks in the mirror remembering blood on her tongue, and wonders who exactly might be looking back.

 +

"You should probably change those," Laura says when the light is beginning to fade and Carmilla is shoving clothes into their bags. Her hands are still wrapped in the shredded remnants of an old shirt of Laura's. She had forced her trembling hands to treat her roommates burnt fingers before they snuck onto the train. They were pink and oozing before but Carmilla has long stopped wincing with every tightening of hand. Laura wonders just how long it might take her dead flesh to knit back together, whole and cut like glass. 

"Vampires can't get infections, cutie," Carmilla says.

Laura pinks. "Oh."

Carmilla smirks.

(And, oh, it is so incredibly normal Laura just might cry.)

+

The sun is only just starting to peek over the horizon when they stop, its pink light illuminating the tops of trees that Laura admires with a yawn.

Carmilla spreads a worn map across the hood of their stolen Toyota and traces lines through Belarus and Lithuania, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like Russian under her breath. Laura watches from her place in the passengers seat, her knees pulled up under her chin, head throbbing painfully, and her thumb tapping irregular beats across her shins.

Carmilla rakes a hand through her hair and Laura drums out an old Beatles song that her father always hums when he's cooking.

Two cars pass by, three, four.

Julia plays out across her kneecaps.

Carmilla swears.

Laura tugs the door open quietly, her spine popping and pulling when she stretches and Carmilla glances up at her from beneath the fringes of her bangs. Laura pinks a little when her shirt rides halfway up her stomach, and there is a swooping there that she's been actively ignoring for the past three days.

Carmilla huffs.

"Everything okay?" Laura starts, stumbling beside Carmilla and squinting down at the barely visible map in the dying night. It is a confusing mess of Polish highway and towns that she wouldn't even know how to begin pronouncing.

The vampires hands move over the map in exasperation, hissing from between her teeth, "The twenty first century is the actual fucking worst."

Laura snorts, unexpectedly.

Her roommate glares at her with a frown and pulls at the map, beginning to fold it neatly. "Go ahead. Laugh it up, Laura. I don't think you'll be laughing too hard when you realize I have no idea where the fuck anything is anymore."

The laughter in her throat dries up a little, coming out as more a light squeak than anything. "But you're a vampire," Laura says, fingers fluttering through the morning air in a nervous mess, "Isn't it like required to know this kind of stuff?"

Carmilla rolls her eyes so hard Laura is surprised she doesn't strain them from the effort of it. "Gee, I guess my little vacation in the coffin didn't really keep me up to date with the current happenings at Vampire Club. I haven't been able to get my membership renewed yet, and you know that's where we all discuss the changes man has made to their imaginary borders. Although, I suppose I really should have spent my free time memorizing the backwaters of Fucktown Nowhere. Sorry, how idiotic of me."

Laura's lips twitch, her nose scrunching a little. "Carmilla - "

"No, really. Let me apologize for my terrible behavior," Carmilla continues, the map wrinkling in her grasp, "Honestly, I truly apologize. I guess I was just a little busy trying not to be flayed alive by my psychopathic mother, but next time I promise I'll really give it my all and try my best."

"You know that's not what I meant," Laura cuts. Her hands are fists against her thighs and agitation is swimming through her veins. Carmilla rolls her eyes again and Laura trembles a little at the sight of it.

"Whatever," is all Carmilla says, pulling at the map hard enough to tear along a crease, then, "Fuck."

Laura breathes heavily through her nose, trying to keep the angered annoyance tucked tight in her chest, and she says, "I - I'll drive. I'm sure there will be something recognizable soon enough."

She did get a 97 in her geography class, so that should at least count for something. Maybe.

A scoff comes from Carmilla but she shakes her head. Laura is certain the map is a lost cause when Carmilla manages to squish it into a somewhat square shape, at least three times thicker than it was orignially and ripped along an edge, but Laura very much doubts it would be of any use to them to begin with.

"Goddamn piece of shit," is all Carmilla mutters darkly when she shoves it in the glove box. Laura rolls her eyes.

+

It becomes apparent very quickly that Laura's one geography class in secondary can only get them so far. It becomes apparent very, very quickly.

"We are so lost," Carmilla moans when they pass a sign with so many foreign letters Laura can't be sure it's not something straight from The X Files. Laura's hold tightens around the steering wheel.

"No, we're not. I've got this," she says. Carmilla coughs something that sounds remarkably like a snort and slumps a little further in her seat. She has long since toed off her shoes, feet sprawled across the dashboard despite Laura's multiple protests.

Carmilla shrugs, "Sure thing, beefcake," she says and absently scratches at the growing rash up her left arm. Laura frowns a little at the sight of it, pink and angry and raw.

 "Are you okay?" she asks, "The light isn't hurting you, is it?"

"'S fine," Carmilla responds, "just a little tired." but she scratches at her arm again and Laura can see blood under her fingernails and welling up on her skin, and it is most definitely not fine.

Annoyed worry tugs at the back of her mind when Carmilla sinks lower in her seat after the sun glares against her skin. Laura isn't entirely sure about the effects of sunlight on vampires, but considering Carmilla isn't a giant ball of fire right now happens to bode well. But she suspects there must be something true to the myths about sunlight and vampires because Carmilla is even paler than Laura has ever seen her and her fingers are trembling.

It also doesn't help that she knows Carmilla hasn't eaten in nearly four days.

They drive another twenty miles before Laura manages to find a side road in a pocket of trees that turns into dirt after a few feet, giving them enough shade to chill the car. Carmilla blinks lazily and says Laura's name questioningly when she turns the ignition.

"Get in back," Laura says, turning in her seat to pull her bag up front. She digs through it, tugging out a Silas sweater and her floral blanket.

Carmilla's eyebrow raises a little and a smirk pulls across her lips. "I have to say, I didn't peg you as a backseat quickie kind of girl."

Laura chokes, stomach fluttering uncomfortably and a heavy blush crawling up her cheeks. She tries to pull the sweater over her head but ends up in even more of a flustered mess tangled in cotton. "You - I need to sleep, and you do too," she starts, swallowing, " - I mean - not together. Well I guess, we'll be sleeping at the same time technically, but not like together together."

"Mhm," Carmilla responds dryly before pulling open her door. There is a bubble of nerves trying to claw its way up her throat when Laura attempts to untangle herself from her sweater and ends with a mouthful of her hair and the Silas logo at her back. Whatever. She's just glad her headache has subsided to a dull pain and that Carmilla is actually listening to her rather than starting some stupid petty argument about sleeping arrangements.

Laura pulls her blanket across her knees and leans her seat back far enough that Carmilla's face is practically squished against her own, only the corner of Carmilla's bag that she is using as a pillow separating the two. Laura swallows a little, studying the roof of their car and trying to ignore her roommates hair tickling against her ear.

Carmilla groans. "What does a girl need to do to get a little leg room? Jesus."

Laura rolls her eyes and shifts onto her side. "Stop complaining," she hums and closes her eyes lightly. And she doesn't even need to see it to know that Carmilla rolls her eyes back at her with a sneer. It surprises her how painfully predictable Carmilla can be sometimes, thinking that maybe her years would give her an edge of surprise.

Carmilla shifts a little and she's fairly certain Carmilla can hear Laura's heartbeat when she feels warm puffs of breath across her face. She opens one eye curiously and greets Carmilla's questioning gaze. "So, you decided this of all places was the best place to stop why exactly?"

Laura coughs and tries not to notice the freckles across her roommates face, tries not to think about tracing them like constellations and deciphering all the secrets to Carmilla they might contain. She clears her throat with a tiny wince, saying, "I don't really know the next time we'll come across anything hospitable considering we are literally in the middle of nowhere. Figured we could just sleep now, you know?"

Carmilla blinks at her for a second before outright snorting. "Told you we were lost."

"Shut up."

+

"Carm? Where you goin'?" Laura mumbles sleepily when the sound of a car door opening wakes her. She shifts against the pull in her back from the uncomfortable seat and tries to open one eye blearily.

"Go back to sleep," Carmilla responds quietly, "I'll be right back."

Laura hums something in response, listening to the locks clicking, and letting the pull of Rose Tyler bring her back to sleep.

And when she wakes again later, her mouth stuffed with cotton and her hair plastered to her slick forehead, Carmilla is back and sitting with her. Her pinky is wrapped around a curl of Laura's hair and there is a strangle glint in her eyes that Laura doesn't know how to place. She looks away when Laura blinks the sleep from her eyes and shoves a small box of cookies into Laura's lap silently.

"Wha - "

"There's a town just a couple miles east. I didn't see any place to crash, but there was a few general stores so you can finally brush your teeth or whatever."

"I - thank you," Laura says, fingering the corner of her cookies, then, "When did you go there?"

Carmilla shrugs. "Earlier. You were sleeping and I was hungry."

"Oh. You didn't, um, eat anyone did you?"

"Relax, cutie," Carmilla says with a predictable eye roll, "Only a fox suffered from my evil ways."

Laura is quick to say, "You're not evil," her fingers finding the curve of Carmilla's wrist with a reassuring squeeze and a quirked smile.

And when Carmilla smiles back, earnest and true, Laura releases a heavy breath.

+

It becomes remarkably easy to Laura, the running.

They take turns driving, stopping when they can for a hot meal and a warm bed, but most times they end up camped in their car, cramped and cranky but that's nothing new. Most days they drive until they hit a border and drop their car on the side of the road and cross into the neighboring country on foot. Laura learns how easy it is to lose track of time and space when her days are filled with miles of empty road and music blaring from the shitty speakers of Carmilla's phone.

She still has nightmares though, terrible, terrible nightmares.

But it's strikingly new when she wakes to Carmilla's fingers through her hair and her name on the other woman's lips. She blinks through tears and tries to calm the shaking in her frame and listens to Carmilla whisper something nonsensical in French. It is so surprisingly sweet of Carmilla to do so that half of the time when Laura's mind catches up to Carmilla's actions her roommate is already curled up in her seat, thumbing through one of her few books.

They mostly don't talk about it, letting it settle and sink between them instead.

It's not hard for Laura to lose herself to the warmth blasting from the heaters and the gentle soothing of jazz and Carmilla's quirked lips when Laura sings along to a few of the pop songs she's managed to slip into Carmilla's playlist.

She misses regular showers though. So much. But their meager funds are dwindling and they can hardly afford food anymore, let alone a proper place to sleep, and, well, Laura's not proud to admit that she pockets a couple candy bars while Carmilla slips a package or two of chips into her bag.

But they manage and it's easier for Laura to lose herself to it more each day.

(And when she doesn't think of LaFontaine for three days, how she cries when she realizes. Carmilla doesn't say anything, hand tight around her own over the clutch and her mother heavy between.)

+

There are two things Laura still knows:

1. She misses her friends and father with an ache that radiates across her tiny frame. She misses her room and her computer and her yellow pillow and her cookies, and she misses everything that was normal. She hates walking down the road with a nervous glance over her shoulder, waiting for the Dean to appear with her ancient cruel words and sharp nails against Carmilla's face.

(There are nights when she cries and cries, when she has to force the air to her lungs because she is choking around the grief in her throat. Carmilla is helpless those nights, only able to hold Laura's hand tight to her chest and brush the hair from Laura's face, her old, sad eyes watching her worriedly as Laura tries to shake the sadness from her bones.)

2. Carmilla does not understand pop culture. At all. And she's fairly certain it is killing her slowly.

(Anaconda plays through Carmilla's phone for what is at least the third time today and Carmilla grunts something about the agonizing decay of music when Laura sings along. But Laura sees the tiny smile she tries to hide behind her book when Laura bobs her head enthusiastically to the beat and, honestly, Carmilla isn't fooling anyone.)

+

"Is it gross?" Laura blurts one time when they are huddled around a pathetic looking fire in what might be Russia, shivering against the crisp air that is quickly turning to winter. They were supposed to be in a car nearly a hundred miles away but someone overestimated just how far it was to the nearest town after their latest car ran out of gas and they ended halfway through the dense pack of trees freezing their asses off, rather than curled up on some scratchy seats with artificial warmth against their backs.

Carmilla shivers against a particularly brutal gust of wind, teeth chattering when she responds, "You're going to need to be more specific, snowflake."

"Snowflake?" Laura wrinkles her nose. "Really?"

"Shut up. I'm cold."

Laura laughs a little but it mostly ends up being a freezing grimace. She scoots closer to the fire, until she thinks her gloved fingers just might catch aflame. "Eating animals. Drinking. Whatever."

"Blood is blood," Carmilla shrugs after a pause, toeing the dirt intently, "But, yeah, it tastes a little weird."

Laura hums around a shiver. Blood is blood, she remembers it on her tongue.

"Why do you ask?" Carmilla asks, her bangs fluttering in the cold wind and her dead cheeks flushed with a stolen warmth.

"No reason," Laura says with a sudden breath. Her stomach gnaws painfully when Carmilla looks at her like that, like she might pull Laura open and kiss each and every one of her ribs with her old, dry lips. She lets the what about me? die against her tongue, what do I taste like?

She shakes her head twice, rubbing her gloved fingers against her multilayered legs when Carmilla pulls at Laura's shoulders. She is crushed to the other woman's chest, her chin against the cold material of Carmilla's jacket and Carmilla's cheek against the top of her head. Laura gasps a little at the sudden motion, but Carmilla does not comment on it, tugging her arms at Laura's hips until the girl is half-balanced in her lap.

Laura's head thrums, a tangled jumble of nerves this time rather than the usual sharp pain at her temples.

Carmilla grumbles something indistinguishable about heat and it radiates through her chest against Laura's flushed cheeks. She can't help the small pull of her lips as she burrows her head deeper against Carmilla's neck, where the other woman smells of sweat and pine and a heavy promise of tomorrow. She gulps a mouthful of shaky air and tightens her gloved hold around the seam of Carmilla's jacket, her lips pressed hotly against her roommates skin.

She can hardly feel her toes and Carmilla is shaking against her and, god, she's just so tired of running sometimes, content enough to sit on the cold ground with Carmilla and let the winter claim them. Laura imagines the snow covering them and carving their shapes in ice, solid and standing where the Dean cannot touch. Her heart kicks in her chest when she thinks of settling with the terror heavy in her gut.

Laura closes her lips across Carmilla's empty pulse point and thinks that maybe she can pull all the memories from the other girl, stuffing her own head until she can forget the Dean rising in her and LaFontaine's pleas.

Carmilla breathes her name in a short pant and Laura thinks of running from the weight of it.

+

Laura doesn't know where they are anymore. She only knows the feel of snow under the boots Carmilla stole three towns back and the cold kissing against the hollow of her throat. It has been days since they last saw anyone and they're down to two granola bars tucked in the back of Laura's bag.

Basically, Laura is convince she's going to die in the literal middle of nowhere and her maybe-but-probably-not girlfriend is going to have to bury her body deep under the snow so the wolves won't eat her, and she's going to have to find society again before contacting her father to let him know of Laura's untimely demise and -

"Laura," Carmilla laughs when she confesses this in a hurried breath, "If you think I'm going to let you die out here you are not as smart as I gave you credit for."

And while sweet, it does nothing to alleviate Laura's concerns. She wonders if historians will find her body hundreds of years in the future, giving her an obscure boring name like 'frozen Russian girl' when it should be something like 'idiot girl who ran away with her vampire roommate into the cold and died because she only packed one pair of long underwear and two jumpers'.

Maybe Carmilla will still be around, able to tell historians that her name was Laura Hollis and, yes, she was an idiot but she was my frozen idiot. She smiles a little, imagining Carmilla rolling her eyes at some stuffy doctorate grad trying to tell her about Laura and maybe what the color of her hair was and the four silver fillings found in her cramped molars.

She laughs a little at the thought, but mostly Laura thinks they should've run away in the summer, where at least then she wouldn't have to worry about hypothermia and frost bite before she dies.

Carmilla interrupts Laura's whine and takes to teaching Laura short phrases in Swedish with some excuse about introducing a little more culture into her life. Laura rolls her eyes at that, but she is thankful for the distraction from the continuous gnaw of her empty stomach, watching snow tangle in Carmilla's dark hair with foreign words on her tongue instead.

She thinks of the cold ground swallowing her up, and, well, maybe there are worse ways to go.

+

"Get on," Carmilla says when the wind is pelting them with snowflakes like tiny icy daggers to the face. Her jaw twitches in annoyance and she shifts her duffel bag across her chest. Laura hums in confusion before Carmilla crouches a little and gestures to her back.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"What?"

"Stop," Carmlla says with a huff. She glares at Laura a little over her shoulder and shifts impatiently. "Get. On."

Laura swallows, and Carmilla grows tired of the confusion shining from Laura's face. "Honestly," she mutters, head shaking, and walks until Laura is flush against her back and her hands are pulling at Laura's legs.

"I - um - what?"

"Jesus Christ, cupcake. I'm trying to be chivalrous and woo you. You look like you're about two feet from passing out and I'd much rather carry you on my back than in my arms."

Laura blinks. "I - "

Carmilla's palms are warm against the backs of Laura's thighs and she can't help the slight squeal when Carmilla straightens and her feet leave the ground. Carmilla shifts for a minute, trying to find a comfortable position with the duffel digging into her sternum and Laura wriggling across her back.

"Carm!"

"Don't be so dramatic," Carmilla says, taking a few steps forward, "Girls like you eat this shit up."

Laura blinks. It's not like she can deny it.

Carmilla shakes her head with a laugh and bounces Laura with a gentle squeeze of her thighs.

"I feel like Bella," Laura can't help but say after Carmilla sinks a little in the snow with each step, her nose tucked against the back of Carmilla's neck and her fingers knotted at the other woman's shoulders. "I guess that makes you my Edward then, huh. You know, without the awful relationship part."

Carmilla growls and shifts Laura further up her back.

"I will drop you."

+

Laura ignores the roll of Carmilla's eyes when a cry of excitement leaves her after they finally stumble on an old rusty pickup. She's fairly certain that her knees are trembling when Carmilla sets her down, from elation or exhaustion she honestly does not know. And when Laura presses her hand against the window of the drivers side, fingers stroking lightly, Carmilla actually groans.

"You are so fucking weird."

"There are worst things to be," Laura says.

Carmilla scrunches her nose. "Whatever."

Laura ignores the muttered, should have let the bear eat you, and works on the lock to the doors while Carmilla tosses their bags into the bed of the truck. She only feels a little guilty when it finally gives under her and hoists herself into the drivers seat. Carmilla is already rifling through the glove box for any spare change, scoffing when she comes up empty.

Laura wonders if she's a terrible person for enjoying the sound so much.

"Thank you for carrying me by the way," Laura says after a pause, the gentle nudge of affection in her voice betraying her fidgeting fingers.

"Don't mention it," Carmilla responds, pulling out one of her limited books and burrowing so deeply in it that Laura thinks her nose actually brushes against the pages. "Seriously. Don't. Like, ever."

Laura starts the car and giggles, much to the annoyance of Carmilla.

+

Carmilla shoves three candy bars into Laura's hand when they meet up in the parking lot outside of a little strip mall. She grumbles something Laura can't quite catch and determinedly looks over Laura's shoulder, her jaw tight and twitching and looking generally annoyed at her emotions.

Laura would laugh if it wasn't so incredibly sweet.

"Thank you," she says earnestly, leaning on her toes to place a dry kiss to Carmilla's cheek.

Carmilla rolls her eyes and says, "Yeah, well, you know." while Laura rips open the first bar, and - holy shit.

"Oh God," Laura moans around a mouthful of chocolate. She thinks she might have actually died out in the snow and this is now heaven - gooey, chocolatey delicious heaven. The candy is melting in her tight grasp and smearing along her fingers, but she honestly doesn't even care because it is so. good. "I've missed this so much."

Carmilla laughs in her throat and her head tilts a little to the left when she gives Laura that look. Usually, Laura would be a stuttering mess of nerves when Carmilla gives her the look, but right now she doesn't really care about anything in the world except for the chocolate on her tongue and smeared across her fingers.

It's embarrassing, really.

She manages to finish all three bars at an alarming rate and Carmilla is looking at her with something close to a mix of admiration and horror on her face. "I guess I should have seen that coming," she says.

Laura shrugs a little, licking the chocolate from her fingers when she moans, "It's just so good."

Carmilla's eyes widen a little and Laura spots a flush of red crawling up Carmilla's neck when she pulls her thumb from her mouth. Maybe.

Something startling close to a whine leaves Carmilla, which she looks immediately displeased at, and Laura can't stop the full blown grin flushed across her face.

And Laura kind of wants to give herself a high five because it's not often that she can surprise her three hundred year old roommate, much less reduce her to a flustered mess. That's mostly Carmilla's job.

Clearing her throat with a little wince, Carmilla shakes her head. "Laura Hollis you are going to be the death of me."

Laura grins. "You're already dead."

She rolls her eyes predictably with an amused smirk and her fingers catch the curve of Laura's elbow, pulling her close. "Idiot."

"Softie."

Her bangs flutter when Carmilla releases a shaking breath.

"You've got a little," Carmilla murmurs, trailing off when her head tilts down to Laura. Her eyelashes flicker and Carmilla's mouth look so round and red, and Laura inhales sharply before puckering her lips a little.

Carmilla doesn't kiss her.

Something embarrassing squeaks from Laura when she feels Carmilla's tongue probing a smudge of chocolate at the corner of her mouth, and this is so not what she had in mind but at the same time she is definitely okay with it because they're standing in the parking lot of some store and Carmilla is licking her way to Laura's mouth slowly. Laura thinks she grunts something when her fingers tighten around the sleeve of Carmilla's shirt, her mind stuttering as Carmilla's tongue finds its way along the bottom of her lip, tasting of chocolate and iron.

Carmilla pulls back, a little breathless but smug. "Got it," she finally says after a moment, smirking at Laura's dazed blinks.

A noise of displeasure leaves Laura before she finds the back of Carmilla's head and drags the other girl down to press their lips together. "Jerkface," she mumbles into the space of Carmilla's mouth and tugs on her dark curls.

Carmilla laughs.

+

They splurge and rent a room in a Kazakhstan that smells like wet dog and old cigarette smoke.

They don't leave for three days.

+

Laura makes another video when they are stopped at the side of some highway she doesn't remember, telling everyone that she is still alive and, no, Carmilla has not eaten her for lunch, and that she's just a little skinnier than before but in decent health all things considered. They record it on Carmilla's phone and she can't actually post it for a couple days until they manage to find someone's unprotected wifi. It's not the most ideal of communications to her friends and father, but it's all they can do at this point, even if Carmilla complains the entire time.

And Laura is proud of the fact she only cries a little when she sees Danny's comment.

[SumGirl1993]: Glad ur okay Hollis. Dead girl better feed u more.

+

"In brightest day, in blackest night," Laura says one time against warm leather at her cheek, fingers still trembling from her dreams of light and blood and little girls in white dresses, "apparently, I shall not escape evil's sight." and she laughs until there are tears at her cheeks.

Carmilla blinks, sleepy and confused, but wipes them anyways.

+

"You know we might be able to go back," Carmilla says offhanded. They are parked on a dirt road off a farm house that looks nearly as old as Carmilla and Laura has her fingers through Carmilla's hair. She looks at Laura seriously from beneath her, the stars against the curve of her cheeks.

Laura brushes her dark bangs from her forehead, and says, "I don't know if I want to."

(LaFontaine is still screaming back in Styria and Laura doesn't think she could go back to a life of stone, forever stuck in the same place, forever unchanging. Carmilla hums agreement and kisses the tears from Laura's cheeks.)

+

It is a new year and Laura thinks of her father spending it alone. She thinks of the year ripped from LaFontaine's veins and she thinks of it dragged across Carmilla's bones. Another tally against the marrow and blood that scar Carmilla. She thinks of her lovely Leyburn and tries to imagine Carmilla in it, pulling down holiday decorations with her father and slipping kisses to Laura's neck under her daisy pattern sheets as the new year bursts to life around them.

The picture sits heavy on her tongue, bitter and wrong.

And Laura is so far past her home limits by the time Carmilla pants her name in a breathless moan she can't even find it in her to feel guilty.

They celebrate the new year in the backseat of their car, Carmilla palming her through the cotton of her shirt and sucking at the point on her neck where her vein trembles terribly. Laura thinks she just might break from the weight of it.

"Jag älskar dig," Carmilla breathes then, her fingers cold at the angle of Laura's jaw and palm sliding against the curve of Laura's spine, tugging the material of her shirt up and up.

Laura moans. "No more Swedish lessons, please," she says, trying to find Carmilla's lips with her own.

Carmilla smiles.

+

Winter is starting to bleed into spring by the time they make it to India, their bags threadbare and ripped along the seams.

Carmilla promises to show Laura the Taj Mahal with a fluttering kiss to her jaw, and, there, Ayutthaya along the curve of Laura's nose and the Taktsang Monastery against the corner of her lips.

"Carmilla," Laura laughs, eyelashes flickering gently against her cheeks when she blinks.

Carmilla grins, and breathes a uselessly human breath, saying, "I'll show you everything." before tangling her fingers in Laura's hair at the base of her skull and leaning down to warm, alive lips.

Laura's heart thumps in her chest, her thumbs pressed to cold sharp hips, and Laura pulls Carmilla when she runs.