Work Text:
Unlike her sire, Laura only changes her name once.
It's necessary, in a kind of sad way, but she knows that she has to leave the name 'Hollis' behind – for all intents and purposes, that girl is dead, and she can't bring her former life into her new one.
Carmilla attends the funeral. Laura tells her she doesn't have to, but she does, standing alone in a black overcoat among those who had known Laura Hollis. Carmilla places a bouquet of flowers on the empty grave, and she cries silently for the girl she had killed. It's with an effort that she drags herself away after the ceremony, back to the quiet apartment she has rented temporarily.
Laura Hollis is gone. But Laura Karnstein waits at home for her.
They stay only a year on the outskirts of Silas, which might have seemed long to anyone but them. Because, as Carmilla whispers into Laura's hair repeatedly as the tiny newborn vampire shakes with the bloodlust, they have forever. Forever and ever.
With time Laura gets used to it, the feeling of wanting, always wanting. As she becomes accustomed to the cold, refrigerated blood, the bitterness of not being able to drink from the source fades. Vampiric compassion takes time, but she feels it eventually. And one day she wakes, the orange light of dusk peeking through the drawn curtains, and she pours herself a glass and drinks it, silent and calm. And it sates her.
They leave Silas shortly after that. Say their goodbyes to those few that knew they were still there, and truly begin their long journey together.
Carmilla and Laura Karnstein buy a house in a quiet town in Switzerland – nestled just below the alps, they see tourists come through, but not many settle, and that is perfect for them. It is not unusual to marry young, but at apparent ages of eighteen and twenty, it is better that there aren't many permanent neighbours to notice that neither girl ever gets any older.
For a while, they keep careful tabs on those they had left behind. When Laura's father dies, she cries for weeks, but they do not attend the funeral – there are still those who would recognize her. Carmilla holds her and calms her, and things get better. They give up on keeping track of people after that, though. They choose to start anew.
Carmilla has money – a lot of it, as three hundred plus years of life allowed her to acquire quite a bit. And for a while, Laura is content to live on that. She can interact with humans comfortably enough, but is not quite ready to work among them. What she is ready for though, she decides after fifty years, is for a family.
They adopt, obviously, neither one of their technically dead bodies able to bear a child. And because they know the consequences of having undead mothers, they adopt a boy from awful circumstances, a child who without them would have certainly perished. Better an abnormal life than no life at all, reasons Laura, as she holds the baby boy in her arms, captivated.
They love him, the child, and raise him with the utmost devotion. They name him Ben, and Laura teaches him to walk, and to ride a bicycle, and Carmilla reads to him at night, beautiful poems that lull him to sleep peacefully. They take him to school, and Laura teaches him to be kind, and Carmilla reminds him to stand up for himself. And when he is nine years old (young enough for a childish belief in monsters, but old enough to take them seriously), they sit him down, and tell him what they are. For in the decade they have raised him they have not aged a day, and they truly appear closer to older sisters than mothers, now. Ben loves them still, of course. He forgoes bringing friends home to protect his parents' secret, and with their love and gratefulness, he grows up.
When Ben is seventeen, they attend his high school graduation as his friends, for Carmilla is only a year off from his age in appearance, and even Laura looks almost younger than her son with her tiny stature and excited eyes.
Ben attends University and his parents visit occasionally, helping him with his studies and keeping him in check. They tell him stories of when they met, and they recount their adventures in their own dormitory. Laura brings him cookies and hot cocoa, and Carmilla brings him books. Laura recognizes some of the books from when she and Carmilla were just roommates, all those years ago at Silas. She watches her son fall asleep one night while reading. She is overwhelmed with love – he looks so much like his mother did, dozing off periodically in the middle of the afternoon, philosophy book open on his stomach, rising and falling with his breathing.
They attend his University graduation as his younger sisters, and Laura's joyful tears don't let up for the entire ceremony, Carmilla's arm around her shoulders, the older vampire beaming with pride.
The time passes quickly, so quickly. Ben never marries, but instead throws himself into his work. He has inherited Laura's kindness and Carmilla's passion, and he does so much good for the world, and when they visit him they can see the joy ever present on his tired face. When he falls asleep on the couch in between them they each hold his hand, and they look for all the world like two teenagers who stayed up past their father's bed time.
It can't last forever. Not this. They attend Ben's funeral as his distant great nieces. He had a good long human life, living to be a hundred and four, but human as he is, he expires. There are many, many people there to say goodbye, both his friends and people who simply admired him. Laura and Carmilla listen to people speak about what a great man he was, all the good he did for the world. And they watch as Benjamin Karnstein is buried, and they lay a bouquet on his grave.
Laura cries. In the coming years, she is awoken again and again by nightmares of her beautiful boy that she had to watch die, and she tells her wife quietly that she doesn't think she wants another child. Not for a long, long time at least.
As is inevitable for the two of them, they move on. Time passes. Laura begins to work as a journalist – she uses an alias and works only online or elsewhere, never in person, as she is still practically a child to most people's eyes. But she's making an honest living, no longer relying solely on Carmilla's small fortune. She throws herself into her work, into helping people, as her son did. And things get better. The nightmares stop, and when she lays flowers on Ben's grave every year, she knows he is at peace.
Laura Karnstein celebrates her two hundred and fiftieth birthday in Switzerland, in that little town below the alps. Carmilla kisses her as deeply and devotedly as she has done for two hundred and thirty one of those years, and Laura smiles into the kiss, and god, she is so unequivocally in love with this beautiful creature.
They agree to move. They have loved their little home, but it is time for something different.
And Canada is very different from what it was when Laura lived there with her father, so many years ago.
They buy a house in Quebec – away from the major cities, as they value their peace and quiet. It's almost farmland, which works for them. The closest neighbours are miles away, and although it's much easier to communicate across long distances in this day and age, Carmilla has retained the ability to not come across as very friendly, and so the two of them are left alone for the most part.
It isn't lonely, though. Laura had honestly thought she would miss the company of people other than her wife. But she honestly doesn't – she thinks that every day she wakes up next to Carmilla, she actually falls a bit more in love. She thinks that perhaps if she were human, her heart would have burst with all this love by now.
She stands up from bed after carefully kissing Carmilla's cheek, and vows to try to avoid voicing those incredibly cheesy thoughts. Carmilla may be almost six hundred years old, but she is definitely not above teasing.
They live in that house in Quebec for a hundred more years, and it is incredibly peaceful. The time is both eternally slow and breathtakingly fast. They are both utterly consumed in each other, and Laura can't believe she ever had any doubts about their forever.
When Laura is three hundred and fifty six, and Carmilla is six hundred and seventy one, they are awoken by something neither of them had thought of in a very long time.
Carmilla smells it first – like rain and wet earth, a fresh, woodsy smell. She thinks she is mistaken at first – it has been so long – but the smell only becomes stronger. Beside her, Laura's eyes fly open.
The two vampires stare at each other for a long moment. And then Carmilla whispers, "I think there's someone at the door."
There's no question now, both of them recognize that scent. And now they both hear it – footsteps. High heels clicking across their granite walkway. At first Laura is overcome with disbelief, but with every second it becomes harder and harder to dispute. There is definitely someone at the door.
And slowly, a smile of pure joy spreads across Laura's face. In a sudden flash of enthusiasm, she bolts out of bed and throws the first clothes she sees on. "How?" she asks over her shoulder at her wife. "It's been over three hundred years –"
Carmilla slides her own way out of bed, stretching like a cat. "Vampires aren't the only creatures with a long lifespan, cupcake." She shrugs into a black shirt. "I think I know what is going on here."
This is not a very detailed explanation, and Laura would ask, but she can't wait – just can't wait to see this face that she hasn't seen for centuries. The younger vampire flies down the winding staircase with supernatural speed, and throws open the front door.
The woman who stands there appears to be in her late fifties, although Laura knows that is definitely not the case. Her long hair is wound up in a bun behind her head, red with grey streaked pieces falling out elegantly. She wears glasses – she never did before – and a sharp blazer and pencil skirt. Her face is lined with age, and she doesn't look the exact same, but it's unquestionably and undeniably her.
Laura's voice is barely a breath. "Danny."
And Danny smiles, and Laura feels like it is three hundred years ago. "Hi Laura."
Laura is so overcome she can't even sputter out an invitation, but she backs in and beckons Danny inside. As the door shuts behind her, Laura hears a soft exhalation of breath from the stairs.
"Well, well, you've finally tracked us down."
Danny raises an eyebrow at Carmilla over Laura's shoulder. With her heels on and her height in general, the redhead towers over the pair of them. "Took some time. Didn't know where you went." She shakes her head gently when her gaze rests on Laura again. "God, you really haven't aged a day."
Carmilla shrugs at this when Laura can't muster up the words. "Vampire," she says simply, stepping forward and placing one hand on Laura's shoulder and the other around her waist from behind. And then she pauses, looking at Danny again. "And by the fact that you seem to have aged, but extremely slowly…"
And it is in that moment that Laura remembers something Carmilla had mentioned to her, hundreds of years ago when she was being taught about mythology. And her mouth drops open in realization. "Oh! You're a werewolf."
This elegant and older Danny gives her a small half smile. "Still a quick thinker, I see." And she nods, glancing quickly at Carmilla before turning to look around the Karnsteins' front hall, facing a window and peering out. Laura and Carmilla watch her silently, waiting.
Danny speaks again after only a short moment. "When I knew you two, I hadn't shifted yet. I actually didn't know what I was. The slowed aging only really starts once you turn for the first time." She looks back at the pair of them. "If I had known, I would have told you." She focuses a bit more on Carmilla for a second. "Well, maybe not you, bloodsucker."
Carmilla snorts derisively, and the banter is familiar, but Laura can sense that the heat that was once there is gone. Danny and Carmilla don't have anything to hate about each other anymore – Laura supposes with enough time even their deep seated dislike was able to cool. Which is good, because she really doesn't feel like having to break up a fight between her vampire wife and her apparently lycan former friend.
They move to the living room, and Carmilla pours Danny some coffee (somehow cocoa feels too juvenile for this distinguished aged version of her), and Laura and herself a glass of blood. Danny's eyes only linger for a moment when Laura takes a sip – it must look awfully strange. Danny only ever knew her as human.
It doesn't take long for the story to come out – however amazing it is to see her, there is a very large gap to fill between their last meeting and now.
"I shifted for the first time five years after your funeral," says Danny, stirring her coffee idly with a spoon. She sits in a large armchair across from Laura and Carmilla on the couch. "I was approaching my late twenties, a grad student. You two had been gone – wherever you went – for years. I was coping with that as best I could." She places the cup down on the table beside her. "I don't even remember the night it happened. I just remember waking up, alone, in the middle of the forest. I had scratches everywhere, and my body ached like I'd fallen down a flight of stairs."
Laura can't even imagine. At least she had willingly signed up for her supernatural identity. "You must have been terrified."
Danny smiles. "You don't know the half of it. I had no idea what was going on. I spent a full day in the library, armed to the teeth of course, just trying to figure it out." She exhales slowly. "I was about to give up when I got to 'W'."
Laura's voice is quiet. "Werewolf."
The red headed woman nods. "Werewolf. Apparently it's normal for the shifting to be delayed. Some don't do it for the first time until their human lives are almost over. I guess I'm glad that didn't happen to me. I’ve had a long, long life."
There's a moment of silence, and Danny's eyes unfocus a bit, and she smiles, lost in memory. "I met my husband when I was young – still actually young. We had two children. A boy and a girl. She inherited my wolf gene, while he did not." Her expression becomes carefully blank. "I lost my husband and my son years and years ago… they were human, and so they expired."
Carmilla squeezes Laura's hand as her face falls, and Laura feels a painful twinge deep in her chest. After a moment, she tries to speak. "I'm so sorry," she says, almost a whisper. "We had a boy…" But her voice breaks, and she does not go on.
Dropping her hand, Carmilla wraps a protective arm around her wife's shoulders, and clears her throat. Danny looks away from Laura, and the dark haired vampire and the werewolf lock eyes. "Your daughter?" asks Carmilla.
Danny blank look is replaced with a smile. "My daughter shifted when she was forty. Later than me – she lost time because of it – the longer you live as a werewolf, the longer your extended life. But she’s alive. Still alive.”
Carmilla nods slowly. “The aging. What’s the… timespan on that.”
Danny looks as though she has been expecting this question. “I was a hundred years old before I looked thirty. Two hundred before I looked fifty." She shakes her head, looking down at herself – an adult, fully grown, but so much more than that. "I'm three hundred and fifty nine now. Although I guess I've got nothing on you two." She looks up at them and laughs quietly. "It's unbelievable to see, really. You're… teenagers. Still."
Carmilla chuckles once, low. "I'm twice your age, Red."
Laura speaks up, confident her voice will now be steady. She is curious about something. “Danny. Your daughter – how old is she?”
The werewolf looks very unsurprised at this question, too. “My daughter shifted for the first time almost three hundred years ago.” Her voice is not expressive, grave and serious. “She… The werewolf lifespan varies, obviously, with the timing of your first shift. But she has about fifty years left.” And Danny’s eyes dart down to her feet, avoiding the gaze of both vampires. “As do I, actually.”
If Laura didn’t have Carmilla’s arm still securely around her shoulders, she would have leapt to her feet. As it is, she sits upright in her chair, eyes wild, mouth dropping open. “But you’re still young! Well – not old enough to die!” She gestures emphatically at Danny’s older, but still middle aged appearance. “It should be hundreds of years!”
Danny’s smile is sad. “If I was human, yes. But to be a wolf, it takes an incredible amount of strength. To shift at will, we need all the vitality of a human in their prime. Once we pass middle age, our bodies just can’t sustain themselves anymore.” The red haired woman lifts herself off the Karnstein’s armchair, and walks slowly to face the window, looking out. “For the last fifty years of a wolf’s life, it is customary to spend it as exactly that – a wolf. Soon I will shift. And I won’t shift back.”
Carmilla’s hand tightens on Laura’s shoulder. “And your daughter?”
Danny turns, to fix both of them with a long look. “She will be coming with me.”
The silence is long, and the reality of what Danny is saying sets in. Laura finds her voice. “So… you’re here to say goodbye.”
But Danny doesn’t answer right away, instead looking back and forth in between the two of them. She takes a long breath. “Laura,” she says. “When you became a vampire, did you gain the ability to shape shift? I know Carmilla…”
Despite everything about the situation, Laura smiles, turning her head to look at her wife. “Carmilla’s a giant black cat, yeah.” She sees the beautiful dark haired vampire roll her eyes, and Laura grins to herself before looking back to Danny. “But no. I didn’t get that ability. Not all vampires do, I guess.”
Danny nods solemnly. And her eyes meet Carmilla’s, and a very serious look makes its way onto her face. “In that case.” From across the room, Laura sees Danny swallow nervously. “I have to ask far, far too much of you.”
xxx
For the first time in three hundred and thirty six years, Laura is alone.
The emptiness of the house is all around her, enveloping and silent. She sits alone, in the dark, and drinks blood, and listens to nothing. She cannot even count her own heartbeats, because she does not have them.
She misses Carmilla more than anything she can even describe.
She tries not to cry, and she only breaks once. A month after Carmilla is gone, Laura is showering, and looks down to see that her beautiful, loyal, and incredibly lazy wife forgot to clean the shower drain. Again.
She cries for hours, and then pulls herself together. After that, there are no more tears.
Laura has a routine now. She will awaken in the late afternoon, at dusk. With the sun going down, she will head up to the roof, where the vantage point is best. Even with supernatural senses, Laura wants every advantage she can get. Maybe tonight, Carmilla will return.
She waits. For someone who has lived upwards of three hundred years, every single night seems almost impossibly long. But every night she waits on the roof in the dark until sunrise. Every night for six months, and Carmilla does not return.
And then one night, six months and eight days later, she does.
It is five a.m. It is almost winter and so it is dark, only the slight edges of dawn in the depths of the sky. And Laura is looking for a person, really, looking for Carmilla with her leather pants and her dark hair and her stupid self satisfied smirk. And she is looking for Carmilla, alone.
What she is not looking for is a large black panther, loping just over the brightening horizon, a very small… something, clutched in its mouth.
It takes Laura four seconds. Four seconds to realize what she is seeing. And then she is gone, off the roof, out of her house, racing with supernatural speed towards the large black cat, her every thought Carmilla, Carmilla, Carmilla.
As she gets closer, the panther speeds up, and then she is there, hugging the cat around its neck, sobbing into its fur. Laura pulls back after a second, about to demand Carmilla shift back so she can yell at her properly for being away so long.
But she is momentarily distracted from this by the forgotten ‘something’ still clutched in the giant cat’s mouth.
It is a very small, mewling and squirming, puppy.
As Laura’s mouth drops open in surprise, the large black panther leans its mouth to the ground, and very gently places the tiny creature down, where it flops over onto its side with a quiet yip. Laura can see its eyes are still shut, so freshly birthed it hasn’t even opened them yet.
There is a puff of black smoke, and Carmilla Karnstein stands there, leather pants and all. “Hey sweetheart,” she says, her voice husky and low.
Laura allows herself four seconds. Four seconds to absolutely lose herself in the kiss she catches Carmilla in, four seconds to embrace the one person she loves more than anything else. But then she pulls back, her eyes searching dark ones, trying to find an answer before it’s voiced. “Carmilla… the puppy?”
There is a very strange look in Carmilla’s eyes. She bites her lip, and then after a short pause she kneels to the ground, thin fingers wrapped around Laura’s wrist, pulling her down as well. The puppy is still mewling quietly, tiny body rolling over in the dirt, fresh fur a strange auburn, almost like a fox.
Laura is not getting it. “Carmilla?” she asks again.
The dark haired vampire meets her eyes very carefully. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you before we left – we didn’t know if it would work, if he would survive birth, if I would be able to bring him back. But… Danny’s daughter was pregnant.”
Laura’s mouth drops open. She looks at Carmilla, and down to the puppy, and up to Carmilla again. Her brain is on overdrive, connecting the pieces, slowly realizing… “This is…”
“Danny’s grandson.”
And then it is all so obvious. Laura breathes in, deep, and there’s that scent. Subtle, but noticeable; like the woods, like rain and wet earth. And Laura reaches down with shaking fingers to gently stroke the pup’s fur, and the colour is precisely the same shade of auburn…
She looks up at her wife, tears in her eyes. “But he’s… he’s shifted, already.”
Carmilla nods. “He was born that way – it’s very rare to be so early, but it happens. In time, could be days, could be months, he will shift into a human baby.” And the corners of Carmilla’s mouth twist up, just a little. “He’ll live a very long time, Laura. His entire life extended.”
Laura doesn’t speak. Instead she looks back down at the tiny puppy, at the tiny baby…
Carmilla moves a bit uncomfortably, unsure how to interpret Laura’s silence. “I mean, it won’t be forever, that he lives, but it will be a very long time. And I wasn’t sure if I should have said yes without you being there, because I know you said you didn’t really want children for a while and I don’t know if it’s been long enough but I figured – ”
Laura cuts off this adorable rambling with a kiss, and when Carmilla’s eyelids flutter back open in surprise, her wife is practically beaming, curled into her side, the wolf puppy cradled in her arms.
“So what are we going to call him?”
xxx
Danny Karnstein does live an incredibly long life, and he is loved more during it than either his mother or grandmother could have possibly wished. And when he does eventually pass, he does so knowing his bloodline – a long line of red headed wolves – will always have godparents who have been around since the beginning.
And they will never expire.