Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“For someone who came back from the dead to be with her girlfriend, maybe you should do your best to keep said girlfriend healthy,” Perry chastises.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes at her,” LaFontaine snaps. “This is your fault and you know it.”

“Guys, stop it,” Laura croaks out from her sleeping bag. “Running away from Silas through the mountains is tough enough without us all fighting.”

“Yeah, let’s all listen to Laura,” Carmilla asserts immediately.

Perry scoffs.  “Laura, if it wasn’t for Carmilla, you wouldn’t be sick.”

Laura sneezes and groans.  “If it wasn’t for Carmilla, I’d be dead, so let’s be fair.”

“Just because she almost-died for you doesn’t mean it’s okay for her to just endanger your life afterwards,” LaF points out.

Carmilla growls and Laura worms her way out of her sleeping bag, grabbing the vampire’s wrist when she steps forward.

Laura has a small coughing fit and Carmilla relents and sits back, worry flashing across her face before she adopts her usual apathetic look.

“Can you guys please go out and carefully find more firewood?” Laura asks gently when she’s done coughing.

Perry nods and nearly drags LaFontaine away behind her.

Laura sneezes again and crawls back over to her sleeping bag and flops on top of it.

Carmilla walks over and sits beside her. “Need help getting in, cupcake?”

Laura sniffles and shakes her head. She offers a small smile, noting that Carmilla’s tone has softened now that they’re alone.

“Why do you act so indifferent towards me when we’re not alone?” Laura asks.  She must sound more hurt than she intends, because Carmilla pouts a bit.

“I don’t mean to,” Carmilla says softly. “It just kinda… happens. Do you want me to work on that?”

Laura shrugs.  “I just think there’ll be less arguing if they aren’t under the impression you don’t care about me, that’s all.”

Carmilla bites her lip and gives a small and reluctant nod.

“Are you sure you don’t want help getting into the sleeping bag?”

“I’m warm already, I feel fine laying on top of it.”

Carmilla frowns and places a hand on Laura’s forehead. She pulls it back almost immediately.

“You’re burning up.”

Laura laughs and Carmilla regards her as if she’s delirious.

“I know.  I’ve been running a fever for most of tonight.”

Carmilla looks at her like she’s grown three extra heads.  “Why didn’t you say anything, hon?”

“I wasn’t about to complain,” Laura says. She sneezes again. “LaF and Perry were already on your case, I didn’t want to add to your guilt.”  She sits up and playfully nudges Carmilla.  “Knowing you, you’re probably already feeling plenty guilty enough.”

Carmilla narrows her eyes but smirks. “Is this you trying to ease my guilt?”

Laura shrugs.  “I dunno.  Is it working?” She coughs a few times.

Carmilla sighs and gathers some snow in her hands and holds it gently against Laura’s forehead. 

Laura giggles.

“What?”

“Imagine I survive your vampire mother and some giant light demon, just to die from pneumonia in the woods?”

Carmilla furrows her brows.  “That’s not very funny, buttercup.”

Laura grins.  “It’s kinda funny.”

“It really isn’t.”

“Oh, please, are you gonna lecture me on inappropriate laughter?”  Carmilla seems vaguely offended.  “Who, just a few hours ago, forgot to mention that the snow was too soft for their non-vampire, human girlfriend to walk on by the riverside, and then burst out laughing when said girlfriend slipped and fell into a freezing cold river?”

Carmilla actually looks guilty and averts her gaze.

“And then didn’t even bother to help their girlfriend out of the river until their friends starting yelling at them?” Laura sneezes again, this time with enough force she almost knocks herself over.

Carmilla pulls her into a hug.

“Carm, I’m going to get snot all over you,” Laura says, muffled into the vampire’s shirt.

Carmilla smiles and kisses the back of her head. “You called yourself my girlfriend.”

Laura gives an exasperated sigh. “That’s your takeaway from all of this?”  She pulls away and scowls.  “Besides, LaF calls us girlfriends all the time.”

“True,” she says, giving Laura a small peck on the cheek.  “But this is the first time you’ve said it.”

Laura turns her face to sneeze away from Carmilla. “You’re a terrible girlfriend,” Laura teases with a sniffle.

Carmilla chuckles and pulls Laura down onto the sleeping bag.  She grabs her own and rests it flush against Laura’s.  Laura is on her side, facing away from Carmilla.

“Let me make up for it,” Carmilla says softly, pulling Laura against her so her back is to Carmilla’s front.  She knows she was a bit of a jerk earlier, but she can’t quite muster the humility to apologize.  Not yet.

Laura coughs again and Carmilla gives her a gentle squeeze.

“You know I do, right?  Care about you?”  An apology may be too hard for her to do, but telling Laura she cares about her has become more natural.

“Yes, Carm, I do.  I think my days of being that oblivious are over.”

Carmilla lets out an overdramatic gasp. “Is that even possible?”

Laura giggles.  “Bite me.”

“Only if you actually do get pneumonia, sweetie.”

“Ha.  Ha.” Laura shimmies away a bit from Carmilla and sneezes hard again.  Carmilla reaches and pulls Laura back to her.

“I can deal with a recoiling creampuff after sneezing, Laura,” she whispers.  “Get some sleep, okay?”

“Mmhmm, okay, Carm.  Good night.”

“Good night.”

Carmilla listens as Laura’s breathing slowly evens out, interrupted once in a while with some small coughs and sniffles. Soon all that’s left is some light snoring.

LaFontaine and Perry return shortly after with firewood and smile at Carmilla.  Carmilla glares at them and mouths to remain quiet, which they do.

The two of them go to sleep after setting down the wood.

Carmilla eventually drifts off to sleep, curled up to her girlfriend.

Chapter Text

“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Carmilla grumbles.
“Oh, stop your griping, Grumpy Pants,” Laura snaps, grabbing her hand. “What’s wrong with celebrating the start of a new semester?”
Carmilla scoffs. “Uhm, because we still don’t know what’s going on with lophiiformes and the tremors?” She squeezes Laura’s hand. “I feel like we’re jinxing it or spitting in its face by celebrating.”
Laura giggles and kisses Carmilla’s cheek. “Look, Danny and Kirsch said they haven’t felt a tremor in weeks. Besides, aren’t I supposed to be the worrywart in this relationship?”
Carmilla sighs but doesn’t say anything further.

LaFontaine and Perry push through the crowd.
“I’m so glad you guys could make it,” Perry says, pulling Laura in for a hug. She gives Carmilla a small smile. “You came last year too, right, Laura?”
Laura nods. “I came here with Betty.”
“We can actually enjoy the fireworks this year,” LaF notes. “Since this year the floor dons aren’t in charge of them.”
Carmilla quirks an eyebrow.
“Yeah, there’s a new club on campus for pyrotechnics,” Perry says with a shrug. “The floor dons aren’t entirely happy about not having control over them, especially since––”
LaF elbows her lightly.
“––But I am happy to be able to just watch and enjoy the fireworks,” Perry quickly amends.
“Well, either way, we’re looking forward to them, and to starting off this semester,” Laura says with a bounce. Carmilla makes a gagging noise and Laura shoots her a look.
Perry laughs nervously and gives LaF a small glance. They smirk at her. “Do you want to go keep an eye on the pyrotechnics club, Per?”
Perry nods enthusiastically and seems relieved.
“See you guys later?”
Laura gives them a small wave as they leave.

Laura looks over to Carmilla. “Do you really not want to be here?”
Carmilla shrugs. “If you want to be here, then I don’t care.”
“That’s not the enthusiastic response I was looking for,” Laura says with a sigh.
Carmilla laughs dryly.
“Let’s just go,” Laura says, tugging Carmilla back towards their dorm.
“Aw, cupcake, c’mon, we don’t have to,” she says, pulling Laura to a stop. She spins Laura around and is afraid she’ll have to contend with her bunched up face––or worse, her pout. Instead, Laura just looks mildly resigned.
“Carm, I don’t want us to start off the semester with me dragging you to do things you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to be around all these young’uns, we can just go back to the room. I don’t mind.”
“And I don’t want us to start off the semester with me dragging you away from doing things you do want to do,” Carmilla says with a smile, kissing Laura softly on the lips.
Laura giggles and pulls away. “How about we compromise? I bet we can still see the fireworks from that hill, and we won’t be near everyone.”
Carmilla nods and they slowly make their way to a small hill. They sit down on a bench, still holding hands.

Laura leans her head on Carmilla’s shoulder. A sudden thought seems to pop into her head and she pulls away. “You’re not afraid of fireworks, are you?”
Carmilla chuckles. “What, just because a bunch of bombs were going off when I crawled out of that coffin?” Laura pouts at her and Carmilla kisses the protruding lower lip. “Sweetie, I dealt with as much of my PTSD as I could decades ago. It took a while, but swimming and loud noises aren’t major triggers for me, anymore. But it’s sweet of you to worry about them.”
“Oh.”
Carmilla pulls Laura back into her side. “Is there a reason you thought they’re still an issue?”
“I was trying to think of why you didn’t want to be here, that’s all,” Laura replies with a shrug.
The vampire gives a wry laugh. “I just wanted us to have some alone time. Who knows how often we’ll get a chance to be.”
Laura throws her head back in a laugh. “Are you a closet worrywart, Carmilla Karnstein?”
Carmilla rolls her eyes. “What can I say, creampuff? You bring out the worst in me.” Laura laughs again and playfully swats her.

The fireworks start and the two sit and watch. Carmilla glances over and sees a childlike wonder written all over Laura’s face and can’t fight the grin that forms on her own. She finds herself staring and, in spite of Laura’s protests of not being oblivious anymore, the smaller girl doesn’t seem to notice.
A few minutes pass before Laura’s phone rings. She gets up from the bench and pulls the phone out of her pocket. She covers one ear and answers the call.
“Oh, hey, LaF! … Oh, we’re on top of the hill. … Yeah, we just wanted to get away from the crowd. … What do you mean, they’re evacuating?”
Carmilla furrows her brows. Then she sees a huge flame hurtling for Laura.
She dives in front of it and a fireball hits her in the stomach before Laura even has a chance to realize what’s happening.
“Carm!” Laura screams out. “Uh, ah, I-I’ll call you later, LaF,” she rushes out, haphazardly hanging up the phone and dropping down on her knees next to Carmilla, who’s groaning in pain.
Laura’s hands hover over the vampire.
“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire,” Carmilla gasps out.
“Carm, what should I do?” Laura asks, ignoring the pun as her voice shakes and she tries to hold back tears. “Are you going to heal, or…?”
Carmilla is writhing and small sobs escape. “I should be healing, but I’m not.”
“LaF said something like they used weird chemicals in the fireworks and some nearby spirits that were living in the library used the combination to turn them into fireballs,” Laura explains, standing. She bites her lip. “Just stay here, okay?”
Carmilla sucks in a breath. “But I was totally planning to run a marathon.”
Laura doesn’t bother with a response and runs off.

She returns a little while later with a box in her hand. “There are emergency vehicles everywhere, so I just swiped a first aid box.” Laura kneels next to her girlfriend.
Carmilla is still moaning and looks like she’s been crying.
Laura scans over the burn, which is over most of Carmilla’s torso. It looks like it’s healed slightly, but there’s still a very raw look to it.
Laura brings out a small thermos with a thick tube sticking out. “It’s cold water,” Laura says. “Are you ready?”
“No,” Carmilla sneers.
Laura sighs and holds Carmilla’s hand in hers. “Now are you ready?” Carmilla nods and Laura gently squirts some water over the burn. Carmilla hisses in pain and squeezes Laura’s hand. Laura empties the thermos. “Do pain killers work on you? Like ibuprofen or acetaminophen?”
“Couldn’t hurt, cutie,” Carmilla replies through clenched teeth.
Laura hands her a couple of pills and a bottle of water to swallow them with. Afterwards, Laura pulls out a few tubes of cream and applies them on the burn gently.
“How’s it feeling?”
Carmilla gives her a grimaced smile. “Better.”
Laura carefully dresses the wound is inspecting her work when Carmilla slowly sits up.
Laura bites her lip. “Are you sure you should be sitting?”
“I think it’s healing faster, now.” She kisses Laura on the cheek. “All thanks to you.”
Laura gives her a small smile but a tear rolls down her face.

“Hey, hey, Laura,” Carmilla says softly, placing a hand on the tiny human’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”
“You’re hurt because of me,” Laura sobbed out.
Carmilla chuckles. “It was just a fireball, buttercup.”
Laura shakes her head. “But your burn––”
“––Is already healing.” Laura’s pout is reaching monumental proportions and Carmilla laughs and kisses it. “I’m fine.”
Laura’s crying now. “This wouldn’t have happened if we had just stayed in our damn room like you wanted, but no, I had to drag you out here for stupid fireworks, and now you’re hurt, and it was because you jumped in front of a fireball for me, and you could’ve died––”
Carmilla cuts her off with another kiss. “As much as I love interrupting your rambles with kisses, I’m going to assume there’s an underlying ramble.” She sighs. “Breathe. And then tell me what’s really going on.”
Laura takes a deep, shaky breath. “I already lost you once, and it almost killed me knowing it was because you were protecting me,” she said quietly. “And we have this whole thing with lophiiformes coming up, and… What if something bad happens to you? I can’t go through it again.”

Carmilla regards her and gives her a grave look. “Laura, this isn’t going to work.”
Laura’s eyes widen and she looks like she’s about to cry again.
Carmilla grins. “Laura, we can’t both be worrywarts.”
Laura glares at her vampire. “This isn’t funny.”
Carmilla bites her lip as it continues to curl into a smile.
“It’s not!”
Carmilla pulls her in for a hug, carefully avoiding irritating her injury. “Look, how about we save both of us a lot of time from worrying, and just take it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time?”
Laura gives a long exhale. “Fine,” she says, muffled against Carmilla’s shirt. She pulls away, wiping away the rest of her tears. “Are you sure you’re healing?”
Carmilla nods. “Slowly.”

Laura lets out a dry laugh.
“What?”
She shakes her head. “I cannot believe you said, ‘goodness gracious, great balls of fire,’ you dork.”
Carmilla blushes a bit. “I didn’t want to waste the opportunity.”
Laura throws her head back in a laugh.

She leans her head on Carmilla’s shoulder. “Thanks for not making me feel like crap about this, Carm.”
Carmilla kisses the top of her head. “Not really my style, cupcake. I’m more the ‘sarcasm’ than ‘guilt trip’ type.”
Laura giggles. “You mean you’re not really planning on running a marathon?”
Carmilla laughs quietly.

They sit in silence for a few minutes.
“Laura?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m looking forward to this semester. Weird occurrences and all.”
Laura snuggles closer. “Me, too, Carm. Me, too.”

Chapter Text

Laura tugs on the vampire’s arm. “Carm, as my last will and testament––”

“––Laura, I swear I will beat you until your teeth fall out just so you’ll shut up already.”

The tinier girl flashes a grin.

“Gosh, Carm, I was going to leave you my yellow pillow.  But, if you don’t want it…”

“I want it,” Carmilla says without hesitation, eliciting a giggle from her girlfriend.

LaFontaine, Perry, and Danny walk into the waiting room of the dentist’s office.

“We wanted to pop by before class and see you before you become toothless,” LaF teases.

Perry elbows them but gives Laura a reassuring look. “You’re going to be fine, Laura.”

“And we’ll have cartons and tubs of ice cream ready for you at the dorm,” Danny adds with a smile.

Laura giggles. “Thanks, guys.”

LaF sits down next to Laura and holds up the flash drive with J.P.  “How about some updates to take your mind off your impending doom?”

Laura rolls her eyes with a smile but nods.

“Now that the new dean has removed the Internet restrictions on campus, J.P. has more information to sift through. He’s been going through it since the semester started a couple weeks ago, but from what he’s been able to find, Carmilla’s mother being thrown into the pit with lophiiformes created a Hellmouth.”

“What’s a Hellmouth?” Carmilla asks.

LaF’s mouth drops open.  “Geez, Karnstein, didn’t you ever watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”

Carmilla narrows her eyes at her.

They hold up their hands in a ‘don’t shoot’ manner. “It’s basically this source of evil energy from Hell dimensions that causes weird things to happen in the region around it.”

“That’s why there are so much weird stuff happening at Silas?” Danny asks.

LaF nods.  “I guess all the sacrifices to lophiiformes over the years meant just some weird stuff happening but now it’s just going to get worse.”

Laura’s eyes widen.  “Worse?”

Carmilla sighs.  “The updates couldn’t have been good news?”

Perry looks at her phone. “Well, now that we’ve panicked Laura and made Carmilla angry, we should probably get going. Don't want to be late for class.”

Laura gives them all hugs, and Danny adds in an extra squeeze.

“Don’t worry, L.  I’ll ask J.P. to look up how to close the Hellmouth.” Laura gives LaF a thumbs-up.

The nurse calls Laura’s name and the others give her one last wave before Carmilla gives her a peck on the cheek and Laura leaves them.

The nurse leads Laura out into the waiting room about half an hour later, and her face is extra puffy with gauze. Her eyes are slightly droopy from being under but it seems to be wearing off.

“How'd she do?” Carmilla asks the nurse.

“Fine,” she replies with a smile. “We removed all the teeth with no problem.”

Laura waves a small box in Carmilla’s face.

Carmilla laughs. “I see it, sweetie.”

The nurse also laughs. “Yeah, so she gets to keep the teeth. Will you be driving her home? She should be okay enough by now to walk, though.”

Carmilla looks at Laura. “What do you want to do, hon? You wanna walk?”

Laura nods emphatically.

“Okay, don’t hurt yourself,” Carmilla teases.

“Yes, well, we already told you her diet restrictions and you have the prescriptions. And just make sure she doesn't sleep lying down and that the bleeding has stopped by then. Any questions?”

Carmilla shakes her head and thanks them on their way out.

The vampire holds her girlfriend’s hand and looks at her groggy face. “You feeling okay, cupcake?”

Laura looks back and nuzzles her nose into Carmilla’s shoulder.

Carmilla chuckles. “I'll take that as a ‘yes.’” She gently lets go of Laura’s hand and pulls out her phone. “I'm texting the others to let them know it went fine and we’re walking back.”

She finishes the message and sends it and looks up when she hears Laura’s footsteps hasten.

“LAURA!”

The tiny human is darting across the highway in zigzags, a car zooming by and missing her by an inch.

Carmilla runs after her and yanks her onto the sidewalk off the road.

“What the frilly hell are you doing, you suicidal creampuff?!”

Laura shrugs with a dopey look on her face.

Carmilla gives an exasperated sigh. “I'm teleporting you straight home.”

Laura giggles. “Poof?”

Carmilla rolls her eyes but smiles. “Yeah, yeah. ‘Poof.’ And no giggling, or you'll choke on a cotton ball or something.”

Laura nods gravely and Carmilla looks around to make sure they're alone before they disappear in a cloud of black smoke.

They reappear in their dorm room and Carmilla sits Laura down.  She gingerly removes the bloodied gauze and replaces it with some from a baggie. “I'll go out and get more later when I pick up your meds, okay?”

“Mmrph.”

Carmilla chuckles. “Don't worry, I'll either do it when you're sleeping or when the others get back from class.” She shakes her head. “When did removing four wisdom teeth require so much work afterwards? Back in my day, you just beat someone with a wooden plank until they fell out.” Laura’s eyes widen in alarm. “Kidding, cutie. No one wasted wooden planks on teeth. It's not like they grow on trees or anything.”

Laura rolls her eyes at the sarcasm.

“Brrnce.”

“This is me being nice. And you're lucky I speak chipmunk.”

Laura tries to pout but her mouth is still numb so she just settles for giving her girlfriend puppy eyes instead.

Carmilla laughs and sits down on the bed next to her, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.

There's a knock at the door and Danny opens it. LaF and Perry trail behind.

“How's she doing?” Danny asks.

“The knucklehead ran across a highway. But I think the drugs are wearing off.”  Carmilla rises from the bed.  “I’ll go get her prescriptions and the other stuff she needs.  Keep an eye on her?”

Before anyone can answer, Carmilla brushes past them and walks out the door.

“That was strange,” Perry remarks.

“That was Carmilla being Carmilla,” Danny retorts. The three redheads look at Laura, who’s looking very confused.  “You okay, Laura?”

Laura blinks slowly.  “Whur Carm go?”

“She went out to get your meds and all that jazz,” Danny answers, sitting down next to her.  “Oh.” Laura slowly keels over and Perry catches her and holds her up.

“Let’s prop you up against some pillows, okay?” The three of them collect the pillows from around the room and some from LaF and Perry’s room. Laura leans against the pile and looks up at her friends.

“You guyss arrrre da bes,” she says dopily.

“While I am loving this goofy grin on you, Laur,” LaF says with a laugh, “doesn’t it bother you that your girlfriend just up and ditched you?”

Laura scowls.  “She didn’t ditch me,” she says slowly.  She maneuvers gauze around her mouth to make her words come out more clearly. “Danny just said she went out to get my prescriptions.”

Perry shoots LaFontaine a look. “I don’t think that’s not what they meant, honey.  It’s just that… Well––”

“––Your vampire has a crappy bedside manner,” Danny interrupts.

Perry now shoots Danny a look.

Danny shrugs.  “What?  It’s true.”

“It’s not true.” Laura frowns.  “She just acts like that around you guys, because…  Well, I don’t know why, but she does care about me.  She just doesn’t like showing it in front of other people––”

Danny puts a hand on Laura’s shoulder. “Alright, calm down, Hollis.” She gives her a reassuring smile. “We believe you.”

There’s a small cloud of black smoke by the window and Carmilla appears with a couple plastic bags.  They rattle when she puts them down on her desk. She seems to realize she’s interrupted something and looks around.  “What? What’s going on?” She regards the three guests and then scans Laura’s face.  “Is Laura okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replies.

Carmilla walks over.  “You won’t be fine for very long if you don’t put the gauze back where it belongs, bonehead.  You’re still bleeding.”

She glares at Laura, who promptly and sheepishly rearranges them so they’re back in the correct place.  Carmilla rolls her eyes and tries to hide a smile while she goes back to get the bags.  “I got your meds and pain killers, and some ice packs.”

“Thrnks, Carm,” Laura mumbles gratefully.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to trust the dimwit squad with getting them,” she responds flippantly.  “I haven’t fed all day and if I’m going to be stuck with your bleeding mouth all night, I need to feed, so I’ll be back in a bit. See you later.” She disappears in another puff of smoke.

A couple hours later, Carmilla enter the dorm room. Danny and Laura are sitting on the bed next to each other, while Perry and LaFontaine are sitting on chairs, watching a show on a laptop.

Laura turns her head to look over. “Hey.”

Carmilla walks over and rests her hand on Laura’s shoulder. “Hey.  How are you feeling?”

Laura shrugs.  “I stopped bleeding about half an hour ago.  My face is starting to feel sore.”

Danny wriggles out from the bed and Perry and LaF get up from their chairs.  “Maybe you should get some sleep,” Danny says as Laura tries and fails to stifle a yawn.

“Sounds like a plan.  Thanks for staying with me tonight, guys,” Laura says.

Carmilla closes the door behind their guests, giving them a slightly grumbled “thanks.”  She gets the pills for Laura, who takes them and then lies back on the pile of pillows. Carmilla returns to her bed.

She pulls out a book and glances over at Laura, whose eyelids are already drooping.  “I’ll be awake all night, cutie.  Just let me know if you need anything.”

“Mmm, thanks Carm,” Laura mumbles.

Carmilla’s eyes return to the page in front of her when something flies across the room and lands in her lap. It’s Laura’s yellow pillow. She chuckles.  “What’s this for, cupcake?”

“For not beating me until my teeth fall out to shut me up,” Laura answers drowsily.  “Goodnight, Carm.”

“Goodnight, Laura.”

Chapter Text

Laura wakes up late the next day and rolls over to look at Carmilla’s bed, which is empty.  Footsteps come from the bathroom and the vampire walks out, yawning.

“Oh, you’re up, creampuff.”  She stretches.  “How are you feeling?”

Laura blinks groggily.  “Kinda out of it?”  Carmilla laughs and sits on Laura’s bed.  “Have you slept?”

“Not yet,” she says, placing a hand on Laura’s shoulder.  “Had to make sure someone didn’t try jumping out our third story window while high on painkillers.”

Laura giggles.  “Was I that bad?”  Her eyes widen. “Wait, did I run across a highway yesterday?”

Carmilla nods.  “Yes, you did.  I mean, I knew you were stupidly fearless, but this was a whole new level, babe.”

Laura blushes and looks sheepish.

“And then last night after you ‘went to sleep,’ you woke up and declared that you had actually turned into a cupcake and had to infiltrate an army of creampuffs.”

Laura swatted her girlfriend. “I did not.”

“You did. You asked me to lick off your frosting and fill you with cream so you could start your mission!” Carmilla chuckles. “And then later last night you woke up and started reciting some lines from Veronica Mars at me.  Something about our love being epic and spanning years and continents and ruining lives and shedding blood.”

Laura smacks herself in the forehead. “Oh my God, I thought that was a dream.”

“As much a dream as you waking up right before the sunrise to tell me that the Doctor’s TARDIS was parked outside and you had to go out to return his sonic screwdriver, cutie.”

Laura laughs too hard, and she winces and her hand shoots up to her face.  Carmilla clicks her tongue.  “Careful, buttercup.”

Laura nods and shimmies over so Carmilla can lie down next to her, which she does.

“How did you know what I was saying was from Veronica Mars?” Laura asks, leaning her head on Carmilla’s shoulder but avoiding contact with her jaw and cheek.

She can actually feel Carmilla roll her eyes. “I may have been griping about watching shows with you for the past couple weeks, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been paying attention.”

Laura chuckles.  “You think you’re sneaky, Carm.”  Her voice suddenly sounds more tired.  “You’re a softie.  You may have everyone fooled.  Except for meeeeee…”

Carmilla laughs dryly and pats her girlfriend gently. “Go to sleep, Laura.”

“Only if you do,” Laura murmurs.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

“You’re staring,” Carmilla grumbles sleepily without opening her eyes.  She is vaguely aware that she’s snuggled up against the tiny girl’s shoulder.

Laura giggles.    “And you drool when you sleep.”

Carmilla cracks open one eye to glare at her. “I do not.”

“Do, too!  You drooled all over my shirt.”

Carmilla sits up to look and sure enough Laura’s shoulder has a small drool spot.  There’s a vague look of shame as she stands up from the bed and walks to the fridge. “Sorry about that, hon.”

Laura scoffs with a smile and waves her hand dismissively.  “Don’t worry about it.”  She gets off the bed, slower than usual, and suddenly the room spins on her and she sits back on the bed.

Carmilla is at her side, holding her up. “Are you okay?”

Laura gives Carmilla a quick peck on the cheek. “Yeah.  I think I’ve just been lying down for too long. Can we go for a walk?”

Carmilla smiles and buries a kiss in her human’s hair. “Well, aren’t you a fast healer.” Laura giggles. “Fine.  First you take your meds.  Then we get some mashed potatoes and ice cream in you.  And then we can go for a walk.  Sound good?”

Laura nods.

Carmilla leads Laura into a small path off the campus. It’s narrow enough that most people pass by it every day and never notice it.

“It took me a few stays at Silas to even find it,” Carmilla says, holding Laura’s hand as she walks in front of her. “But it leads through the forest to this nice little clearing that you can’t really get to otherwise.”

They continue walking for a few minutes before Laura is noticeably walking slower.

Carmilla stops and turns to face her. It’s well into nighttime now, but she can see Laura just fine, and Laura’s eyes have adjusted well enough. “Do you need a break?”

Laura looks slightly ashamed and nods.

“Hey,” Carmilla says quietly, giving her a slight nudge.  “You had four wisdom teeth removed yesterday.  You’re still recovering, and pushing yourself won’t solve anything.”

“I know.”  Laura shrugs.  “It’s just… I don’t want to waste time I could be spending with you, y’know?”

Carmilla chuckles.  “I understand the sentiment.  I just don’t want to be reckless about it and––”

The ground begins shaking and they look around them. Suddenly Carmilla grabs Laura by the shoulders and pushes her against a nearby tree, just as another tree falls down and lands on the path right where they were standing.

“What the hell is going on?” Laura grunts.

Carmilla realizes she’s pinned Laura a bit too hard and lets her go.  “Sorry.” She begins scanning around them as the ground continues shaking.

“Are you okay?” Laura asks.

Carmilla nods, but another tree nearby is pushed over, narrowly missing them.  In the new clearing stands a beast, taller than the average person, and much more muscular than any human.

“It’s a troll,” Carmilla identifies in a whisper.

The ground is still shaking.

“Or, a bunch of trolls,” Laura replies, hushed.  “Can you teleport us out of here?”

Before Carmilla can answer, there’s a roar behind Laura, and a thick arm grabs her by the back of her neck and flings her sideways into another tree.

“Laura!”  Carmilla rushes over to her unconscious girlfriend and goes to lift her up, when two trolls approach.  One grabs the vampire and goes to throw her, but she ground herself and snaps her wrist up into the creature’s face.  It reels back and roars, and the other troll hits Carmilla square in the chest, sending her flying and landing on her back.

Another troll is nearby and picks Carmilla up by the throat and squeezes, growling in her face.  Carmilla gasps and struggles but can’t break free.

There’s a loud thwack and the troll drops Carmilla to the ground.  She scrambles to her feet and realizes Laura is standing there, branch in hand.  Did this girl just hit a troll over the head with a tree branch?

“We gotta go!” Laura yells.

Carmilla starts to reach out for her, but she sees a blur of movement in her periphery, and instead pushes Laura out of the way of a falling tree.

“Carm!” Laura kneels down next to her.

The vampire manages to push the tree off her, but her leg is definitely broken and won’t be healing any time soon. She already feels all her vampiric energy being diverted to healing the leg, though, and that doesn’t leave enough energy for her to teleport them out of the forest.

“No teleporting right now, cutie,” Carmilla groans.

Laura wastes no time in lifting the other girl off the ground, struggling to support her weight, but managing nonetheless. She starts walking with Carmilla, who’s doing her best to move on one foot.

“Cupcake, we’re going the wrong way,” Carmilla points out, wincing.

“Can you just trust me right now?”

Carmilla relents and lets Laura lead her away from campus.  They walk for a while before finally finding a large, flat rock, and sitting down for a rest.

“Why didn’t they follow us?” Carmilla asks. She glances down at her leg, which is almost done healing.

“They weren’t after us,” Laura says, breathing heavily and gasping for air.  “I think they were looking for something and we were just in their way.”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow.  “How do you figure?”

“I dunno.  It was kind of a hunch?  And it seemed like going the way they were coming would work better than just trying to run ahead of them in our condition.”

Carmilla laughs wryly and shakes her head. “You ran towards a bunch of trolls on a hunch?”

Laura’s breathing is still labored as she tries to smile at her girlfriend.

Carmilla furrows her eyebrows in concern. “Are you okay? You hit that tree pretty hard.”

She gingerly lifts Laura’s shirt, and the side that hit the tree is bruised.

Carmilla resists the urge to gasp. “I think you’ve got at least a broken rib, Laura.”

Laura chuckles lightly.  “Yeah, I know.”

Carmilla’s eyes widen.  “You knew you had a broken rib, and you still went all Mickey Mantle on a troll, and then carried me through the forest?”

“‘Mickey Mantle?’ Gosh, you are old,” Laura snickers.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.  “And you are stupidly fearless.”

Laura shrugs.  “Love makes you do the wacky.”

The vampire narrows her eyes but smirks. “If quoting Buffy the Vampire Slayer was your way of saying you wanted to watch more episodes when I get the strength to teleport us back to the room…”

Laura beams at Carmilla.

“…then I guess that’s what we’ll do.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, Carm, do you remember those trolls we bumped into in the forest like, a month ago?”

Carmilla glances up from her book. “You mean the ones who broke my leg and two of your ribs?”

“Yeah.”

Carmilla’s gaze returns to the page. “Nope.”  She smirks.

Laura rolls her eyes.  “Well, anyway, apparently they finally found what they were looking for and the campus has cleared the area for travel.”

“Oh?”

Laura sighs and gets up from her chair and walks over to her vampire. “Don’t ‘Oh?’ me, Carm.  I know you’ve been oh-so-eagerly waiting for this to happen so we can finally go on the camping trip you planned out.”

Carmilla bites her lip.  “Honestly, I had completely forgotten all about that, cupcake.”

Laura scoffs.  “Oh, well, in that case, I guess I can keep all those plans to hang out with my friends…”  She turns to walk back to her chair.

Carmilla chuckles and grabs Laura’s arm and spins her back to face her.  “Don’t you dare.”

Laura grins and kisses her on the cheek.

“Okay, maybe you should’ve kept those plans with your friends,” Carmilla says, frowning.

“Don’t be sil––”  Laura cuts herself off and turns around to vomit. She wipes her mouth with a towel and turns back around and gives her girlfriend a halfhearted smile. “Don’t be silly, I’m having a great time.”

Carmilla groans and covers her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I gave you food poisoning.”

Laura laughs and leans her head on her vampire’s shoulder.  “It’s fine. Just being alone with you out here is great.”

Carmilla removes her hands and gives Laura a small kiss on the temple.  She pulls back immediately.  “You’re hot.”

Laura does some finger guns, imitating firing bullets at Carmilla.  “Why, thank you,” she says. “Took you long enough to figure that out.”

Carmilla rolls her eyes and gives an exasperated sigh. “That’s it, we’re going back to the dorm.”  She reaches for Laura’s hand, but the smaller girl pulls away and rolls off the air mattress. “You planned out this trip, Carm. We’re not going anywhere just because of some undercooked meat.”

The vampire briefly looks like she’s about to cry but instead she just takes a breath.  “I just can't believe you got sick this quickly.  I really thought I cooked it all the way.”

Laura laughs, which seems to make Carmilla feel better, because a small smile makes its way to her face. “I’m pretty sure you did. You cooked for us plenty of times when we were fleeing from Silas during the winter, and no one got sick.” She shrugs.  “Maybe it’s from the Hellmouth?”  Carmilla gives her a skeptical look.

Laura suddenly clutches her stomach, spins away, and falls to her knees and throws up again.  When she’s done she crawls back towards Carmilla, who just sits there looking more miserable.  Laura sighs and lies down on the air mattress.

“Speaking of the Hellmouth, has the dipstick found anything?”

“Nope, J.P. hasn’t found anything yet. Just that the trolls were looking for this magic rock in the forest to protect themselves from lophiiformes, and that the spirits in the library that ruined the fireworks at the beginning of the semester were disturbed by the sudden increase in supernatural activity.”

Carmilla just nods but doesn’t say anything else.

Laura pats the air mattress next to her. “Wanna lie down?” Carmilla shakes her head. Before Laura can pester her further, her phone rings.  It’s LaFontaine, so she answers it.

“Hey, LaF.  What’s up?”

“Hey, Laura. Just thought I should warn you that J.P. is picking up some signs that there is some weird stuff happening right where you guys are hiking.”

Laura sits up and gets off the mattress to begin pacing. “What kind of weird stuff?”

“He’s not sure, but something in the air is changing the chemistry of animals drinking from the stream in the area.  There’s a strange shift in the properties, causing them to exhibit odd behavior.”

“Would it affect them, like… in a thermoregulatory sense?”

There’s a brief pause before they answer. “J.P. seems to think that could be a possibility.  Why? Is everything okay?”

Laura laughs.  “I think so.  Thanks for the heads up.” She hangs up and sits down next to her girlfriend. “Guess what?”

Carmilla bites her lip.  “What?”

“The food poisoning is because of the Hellmouth and lophiiformes.  LaF and J.P. say there’s some magical thingamajig happening in this area causing changes in the animals, including their thermoregulatory systems, which would totally affect whether they cook the same way as usual!” Laura nudges Carmilla. “You’re off the hook!” She offers a wink. “Not that I ever put you on the hook for this.”

Carmilla gets off the mattress and leans on a nearby tree, frowning.

Laura lies back down and lets out a long sigh. “Why the grump, Carm?”

Carmilla just shakes her head.

Laura pouts.  “Can’t you at least indulge your poor, sick, tiny girlfriend?” She bats her eyelashes.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.  “But that’s just it!  You’re sick.  And consoling me. And you weren’t supposed to be either of those things this weekend, because we were supposed to be having fun hiking, and it was going to be perfect, but instead––”

“––This is perfect, Carm,” Laura interrupts.  “Maybe it’s the fever talking, but I’m not having a horrible time. We had fun hiking today–– or at least I did–– but I know you definitely had a fun time watching me try to set up the tent and breaking it before we decided that just an air mattress is fine. Some stupid food poisoning didn’t ruin anything.”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes, you silly vampire.”

“You’re not just saying this to make me feel better?”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response.”

Carmilla grins.  “Just did, cutie.”

Laura harrumphs and crosses her arms.

Carmilla’s grin turns mischievous as she leaps onto the air mattress, landing with enough force that Laura literally flies off of it. She lands on the ground with a soft thud and a yelp.

Carmilla is laughing now, and Laura glares at her through a bunched up face that doesn’t last long, because Carmilla’s laughter is so pure and innocent.  Instead, Laura just picks up her pillow and hits her in the face with it.

When the pillow falls away, Carmilla looks utterly shocked, her mouth open.  “You crazy little human,” she breathes out, narrowing her eyes.  “How dare you.”

Laura giggles.  “Yes, this was so unprovoked,” she comments sarcastically with wide doe eyes.

Carmilla wastes no time in grabbing her own pillow and flicking it at Laura’s shoulder.

Laura gasps a “whyyouuuuu” and hits Carmilla in the chest, quickly blocking a shot from Carmilla’s pillow to her stomach.

Soon the two are in hysterics, looking quite disheveled.  Carmilla’s about to hit Laura in the arm with her pillow before Laura quickly throws down her pillow and holds up a finger before whirling away and vomiting again.

Carmilla drops her pillow and waits on the air mattress for Laura to finish.

Laura finally lies back down on the air mattress.

“How are you feeling, shortbread?” Carmilla asks gently.

“I think that was the last of it,” Laura groans. She tugs on the hem of her girlfriend’s shirt.  “Now will you lie down next to me?”

Carmilla chuckles and puts the pillows back in their rightful places, helping Laura put her head on hers. She joins Laura on the mattress and places a soft kiss against her forehead.

“You’re less warm, now,” she says quietly.

“But I’m still totally hot, right?” Laura asks, her eyelids drooping as tiredness creeps into her voice.

Carmilla laughs.  “Of course.”

Laura snuggles into Carmilla’s shoulder and presses a kiss into it.

“You’re getting vomit on my shirt,” Carmilla teases.

“Worth it.  I’ll do your laundry for you.  Like I always wind up doing,” she mumbles.

The vampire chuckles.  “You’re also amazing.  You know that, right?”

“Mmm, not as amazing as you,” Laura replies sleepily. “I’m just doing my part to be the best cupcake you deserve.”

“You’re way more than I deserve,” Carmilla whispers.

There’s no response, as Laura’s drifted off already.

Chapter Text

Laura opens the door and tiptoes into the room. Carmilla is lying on her bed with her back facing Laura.

“Carm?  Are you awake?” Laura whispers.

“I am now,” Carmilla grumbles.

Danny walks into the doorway. “Am I coming in, or not?” she asks when she sees Laura standing in her way.

“Carm’s in bed,” Laura replies.

Carmilla sneezes and then has a coughing fit. Laura winces.

“Why is Tall, Dark, and Red here?” the vampire croaks out.

Laura bites her lip and places a bag on her desk. “Uhh, I got you some more tissues. And some cough drops and cold medicine.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Carmilla rolls over and sneezes again.

“Jeez, cover your nose, Elvira,” Danny snaps as she walks into the room.  “No wonder you got Laura sick.”

Carmilla’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “I got you sick?”

Laura averts her gaze as she sits on her own bed. “That’s why Danny’s here. I didn’t feel well enough to run all the errands, so I hit up the pharmacy and she got me some soup.”

“Speaking of, here’s your soup.” Danny holds up a large shopping bag.

Laura goes to take it before turning her head to sneeze into her elbow, away from Danny.

“See?  That’s how a polite person sneezes,” the redhead quips.

“And that is why I choose not to be polite, Gumby,” Carmilla snaps back.

“Guys, cut it out,” Laura says tiredly. She takes the bag from Danny, her eyes widening.  “Oh gosh, did you just raid the entire shop?  There’s like a dozen containers of soup in here!”

Danny laughs.  “They were selling chicken noodle soup at half-price–– a special since it’s cold season.  Plus, only the best for Laura Hollis.”

“Well, thank goodness you’re the best,” Laura replies with a giggle.

The tall girl shrugs.  “It was nothing.”

Laura offers a huge smile.  “It’s not nothing.  Thank you.  Really.”

“Laura, it’s just soup.”

“No, it’s not.”  Laura sits down on her bed and sighs.  “And keeping my gratefulness in mind, try not to be offended that I’m kicking you out.  I just don’t want you to also catch this weird cold from Carmilla, too.”

“Hey.  Lying right here,” Carmilla rasps from under her covers.

Laura rolls her eyes.

“Well, whenever The Offended Lump in that bed stops giving people her weird centennial vampiric flu, you can stay longer?”

Danny gives her a warm smile. “That sounds great.” She turns to leave. “Feel better, Laura.”

Carmilla sneezes.  “What am I? Chopped liver?”

“No, you’re a pain in my ass,” Danny retorts before leaving a smirking Carmilla.

Laura slowly rises from her bed and makes her way over to the fridge.  She pulls out the bottle of blood – Laura had insisted that they replace the milk carton now that the ruse is over – and pours a glass before placing it on Carmilla’s headboard.

“Make sure you feed,” Laura says lightly, returning the bottle and going to take the containers of soup out of the bag. “Sickness is no reason to not feed!” She sneezes again into her elbow.

Carmilla sits up and frowns.  “Thanks for getting tissues and cough drops and cold medicine. And I’m sorry I got you sick, cupcake. Maybe you should’ve stayed over with one of the ginger twins, or something…”

Laura waves her hand dismissively. “Pfft.  Vampiric constitution may mean you get a weird centennial flu but that’s hardly gonna send me running.”  She turns and places her hands on her hips, adopting a motherly tone. “Now come on, young lady, finish your dinner.”

The vampire chuckles, does a mock salute, and takes a sip from the cup.

Laura smiles and turns back to sit down at her desk, turning on the computer.

“Hello, gentle viewers!”  Carmilla rolls her eyes and continues to sip from her cup. “I’m gonna make this a quick update because I’m a bit under the weather.”

“I can think of better things for you to be under,” Carmilla says with a smirk.

Now it’s Laura’s turn to roll her eyes. “Not while we’ve got colds, Carm.” She clears her throat. “As I said in my last update, Lophiiformes has opened a Hellmouth, which is why there are so many weird–– err, I mean, more weird–– things happening on campus this semester.  It’s what caused the debacle with the fireworks at the beginning of the semester, what attract the troll army, and what’s been making the wildlife around campus act strangely.  We’re still working on finding a way to close the Hellmouth and I’ll let you know if we find anything. That being said, there have been no students missing so far, so it’s not feeding on anything. At least there’s that!”

“Ever the optimist, huh, cutie?” Carmilla chuckles.

Laura smiles.  “Well, catch you guys later!”

She turns off the camera and opens a document to start working on an assignment.  A few minutes pass by before Laura has a coughing fit and groans.

“Honey,” Carmilla says.  “Why would you do work while sick?”

Laura throws her head back and laughs. “Sorry, Miss Celebrated-A-Bicentennial-And-Then-Some.  Some of us haven’t been to a college a zillion times.”

Carmilla narrows her eyes.  “Did you go to class while sick?”

“Yeah,” Laura replies.

The older girl scoffs.  “You’re insane, babe.”

“I’ve done it before.”

“When?”

Laura giggles.  “I got sick early last semester but still went to all my classes.”

“Was this when you were still roommates with Betty?” Carmila asks, taking another sip from her glass.  Laura shakes her head.  “I don’t remember you being sick.”

Laura spins around in her chair to face her girlfriend. “Ha, I didn’t think you would.” Carmilla raises her eyebrow quizzically. “That was during the period of time you were with all your ‘study buddies.’”

Carmilla looks sheepish and takes a sip from her cup, but starts to have a coughing fit, spitting the blood all over herself.

“Aw, does Carm need a bib?”  Laura laughs and rises, takes the cup from a blushing Carmilla, wets a paper towel, and hands it to her embarrassed girlfriend. “You’re a mess,” Laura teases.

Carmilla glares at her. 

Laura presses a light kiss to her cheek. “But you’re my mess.” She walks away, allowing Carmilla to blush properly in peace.

“I’m going to open the window so we’re not trapped in here with all of our germs.”  As if on cue, Laura sneezes and heads back to her desk.

Carmilla grabs her wrist lightly as she walks by and spins Laura to face her.  “I have an idea,” she says with a smirk.  “How about you forsake your work––”

Laura rolls her eyes with a grin. “––Carm, as much as I admire your persistence––”

“––And we curl up on the bed and watch Doctor Who or Veronica Mars or Buffy the Vampire Slayer together?”

Well, that shut Laura up.

Carmilla can’t hide the smile that breaks out on her face.

“W-What did you just say?” Laura stammers.

Carmilla lifts the blanket so Laura has room to get in. “Hurry up before I change my mind, honeybun.”

Laura wastes no time, grabs her laptop, and crawls under the covers.  If Carmilla didn’t know better, she’d say Laura moved with almost supernatural speed to find an episode, starting it before the vampire’s sick-addled brain even registers that it’s starting.

The tiny human snuggles up against Carmilla’s side and Carmilla rests her head on top of Laura’s.

A few minutes pass while they watch Buffy struggle in a park with a demon as her friends rifle through her bag to find her a weapon.

Carmilla looks over at her girlfriend, who seems perfectly at peace, even with the coughing and sneezing.  “Laura?”

“Hmm?”

“I really am sorry I got you sick.”

Laura turns her head and gives Carmilla a quick peck on the cheek.  “Don’t worry about it, Carm. If I’d known that’s what it takes to get you to want to sit here and watch shows with me, it’s too bad you only get sick once a century.”

Laura said it jokingly, but Carmilla can’t help but frown.  “I’ll try to work on that if you want me to, I guess,” she says quietly.

Laura pauses the episode and pulls away from the vampire.  “I don’t want you to change,” she says seriously.  “I know feelings aren’t totally your thing, and I’m fine with that. I know you care, and that’s more than enough for me, okay?”

Carmilla remains skeptical but nods anyway. “It might just be the sickness talking. Let’s just continue with the episode.” Laura doesn’t seem entirely satisfied with her response and hesitantly resumes the episode.

She leaves the show on until both of them fall asleep.

Chapter Text

“You’re sure your cold is gone?” Carmilla asks from her bed.

Laura pokes her head out from the bathroom. “If I had a cookie for every time you’ve asked me that, I would have diabetes,” she quips, before ducking back in.

“Oh, you have had a cookie for every time I’ve asked–– and then some.” She hears Laura laugh from inside the bathroom.  “Anyway, I just want to make sure we can go out without some huge disaster happening.”

Laura walks out and sits on Carmilla’s bed. She counts them off on her fingers. “Hmm, it was just vampire bait, you dying, fleeing from campus, the whole Mama Klaus fiasco, fireworks turning into fireballs, a troll army attacking us during a walk, food poisoning while camping…”  She wiggles her fingers in the vampire’s face. “Did I miss anything?”

Carmilla smirks.  “I think Silas University’s general apathy to weirdness is starting to rub off on you, cupcake.”

“Oh, thanks for reminding me!” Laura darts over to her computer and turns on the camera.  Carmilla lets out an exasperated sigh and returns to her book.

“Hey, guys!  So, J.P.’s been looking at ways to close the Hellmouth, but so far the ones that have opened up have never closed. With the exception of in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  And I have absolutely no intention of letting my vampire lover disappear into a big explosion of light to save everyone. Again.”  She looks over at Carmilla, who’s still hidden behind her book.

“I’d do it again,” Carmilla mumbles.

Laura turns back around and bites her lip. “Well, you’re not going to.” She sighs.  “Anyway, he’s still keeping tabs on the supernatural activity. There’s not much going on, but the energy signal is growing, so just be careful.”  She gives the camera a thumbs-up and turns off the camera.

Carmilla lowers her book.  “So, cutie?  Are you up for a walk?”

“Yeah, Carm!  Let’s get out of here!” Laura springs up from her chair.

Carmilla rolls her eyes but smiles. “Okay, Energizer Bunny.”

Laura fake pouts.  “That’s not an edible nickname.”

“You can eat a rabbit,” Carmilla remarks, kissing Laura on the cheek before walking out of the room.  Laura giggles and follows her.

They walk for a bit into the now troll-less forest, holding hands but not speaking.

“Am I going to have to pry from you what you’ve been thinking about since we left the room, or are you just going to blow up from keeping it in?”

Laura looks over at her girlfriend and smiles halfheartedly.  “It’s just… You’re not going to do that whole ‘martyr-savior’ thing, again, right?  I mean, I know now how much you care about me, and you don’t have to show me anymore or anything––”

Carmilla gives her a look and Laura cuts herself off and takes a deep breath.

“I just can’t lose you again, okay, Carm?” Her voice cracks a bit. “I get that it was a thing you felt like you had to do for me, but it almost killed me knowing you did it to save all of us, and I don’t think I could survive you doing it again.”

The vampire smiles–– not her usual smirk or grin, but a genuine smile.  “Laura, I promise, I will never leave you alone again.” 

Laura visibly relaxes and gives Carmilla a peck on the cheek.  She takes a few steps forward before there’s a loud crack and she lunges forward. Carmilla reaches out to grab her but gets pulled down with her.  They both tumble into a large hole that leads to a pit in the ground several feet down. Carmilla manages to land on her feet, but Laura is less lucky and lands with a grunt.

Carmilla quickly makes her way over to Laura, who tries to stand up but lets out a gasp of pain.  “I think I twisted my ankle,” she groans.

Carmilla maneuvers so Laura is leaning on her shoulder but bites her lip after a few seconds.  “I’m trying to teleport us out but I can’t.”

Laura’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Why not?”

Carmilla gently removes Laura from her side and leans her against the wall.  “I’m not sure, but just stay here.”

Carmilla tries and fails to jump more than a foot off the ground out of the pit.  “This is weird,” she murmurs.  She misses her footing in another attempt to leap out of the pit and lands on something that clicks, and an arrow shoots down and into Carmilla’s thigh.

Carmilla collapses to the ground with a yelp.

“Carm!”  Laura hobbles over and drops to her side.

Carmilla sucks in a breath.  “All my vampire abilities are gone,” she hisses.

Laura’s eyes open wide.  “How?”

Carmilla shrugs.  “It could be a variety of things.”

A rustling is heard above them.

“Well, I was just aiming for one vampire,” a tall man dressed in black leather, wielding a crossbow sneers down at them, “but a monster lover is just as guilty.”

Laura stands protectively in front of her vampire.

“Leave her alone,” Carmilla growls.

The hunter takes aim at Carmilla. “There’s been a huge spike in supernatural activity in this area in the past few months.  Tell me everything you know.”

“And you’ll let us go?” Laura asks hopefully.

He smirks and lowers his weapon. “No, but I’ll make your deaths quick…er.”

Laura shakes her head.  “Listen, I don’t know if you think The Matrix style is still in, Neo, but I do know that the supernatural activity is way more complicated than whatever you think it is, and if you want to stop it, you’re gonna need help.”

Carmilla clenches her jaw and remains silent.

“Just once, I wish you overgrown leeches would tell the truth.”  He laughs wryly and retrains his crossbow.  “Then again, if you did, I’d be out of a job.”

Laura’s eyes dart around the space around them. “You said a bunch of things could be hindering your vampire abilities,” she whispers to Carmilla. “Would a bat wing with a toothpick in it do the job?”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow at Laura. “Yes.  Why?”

Laura kneels and picks up a rock.

The hunter lets out a hearty laugh. “Hit me with your best shot, foolish girl.”

Laura winds up a pitch and lets the rock fly, but it flies way over her adversary’s head, hitting a branch behind him.

“You missed me, child,” he remarks.

“I wasn’t aiming for you, doofus,” Laura retorts, kneeling back down next to her girlfriend.  He turns around.  “Carm, teleport us out of here.”

Carmilla looks at her quizzically, but within seconds both disappear in a puff of smoke and reappear right outside of the hole.

Carmilla pulls out the arrow from her thigh with a sharp inhale and drops it to the ground.  The wound slowly begins to heal.

“You spotted my batwing ward,” the hunter notes, sounding impressed.  “And you knocked the toothpick right out of it with the rock.  I don’t even know where it went.”

Laura grins proudly.  “I played some softball and baseball in high school.”

The hunter nods approvingly.  “Too bad that just means I’m going to kill you first.” He aims his crossbow, but Carmilla rushes at him with inhuman speed and grabs him by the throat as he drops the weapon to the ground.  She picks him off the ground and is ready to do more.

“Carm, wait!  Don’t kill him!”  Laura yells out urgently.

Carmilla gnashes her teeth at him. “Are you serious right now?”

Laura hobbles over and winces from the pressure on her ankle and Carmilla’s face softens a bit, but she maintains her grip on the assailant’s throat.

“He’s not a bad person, he’s just… a misinformed idiot.”

Carmilla rolls her eyes.  “And what do you propose I do with this misinformed idiot?”

“I don’t know.”  Laura bites her lip.  “Maybe just take him somewhere far away from here so he won’t be a danger to us?”

Carmilla sighs and looks at the hunter. “You’re lucky I owe my girlfriend one after she caught my cold,” she bites out.

They disappear in a cloud of black smoke and Laura lets out a sigh of relief and sits down on a nearby rock.

Carmilla reappears a few moments later alone and lets out a long exhale as she plops herself down on the ground next to Laura.

“What’d you do with him?”

“I left him in some woods about a week’s walk away from the nearest village across the world,” Carmilla answers.

Laura nods and looks down at the vampire.

Carmilla has a somewhat incredulous look on her face.

“What is it?”

“You’re just trusting what I’m saying?”

“Yes?”

“How do you know I’m not lying and I didn’t just drop him into a volcano or something like that?”

Laura laughs.  “I mean I wasn’t about to comment on that singed smell coming from you,” she teases with a wink.

Carmilla stares at her in wonder for a few seconds before a smile creeps onto her face.  “You dork.”  She swats Laura playfully, but it’s on the leg with the injured ankle, leading the tiny human to let out a gasp.  Carmilla’s eyes widen.  “Dammit, I forgot, cupcake.  I’m sorry,” she says quickly.

“Don’t worry about it,” she says with a grimaced smile. “You did save me from a crazy monster hunter, after all.”

Carmilla presses a gentle kiss to Laura’s ankle. “Honey, if it wasn’t for you, we’d still be in that pit, probably dead by now.  Good lookin’ out before.  And good aim, too.” She stands up. “Plus, the only reason he came after us was because of me, the vampire.”

Laura shakes her head.  “He came here because of the Hellmouth lophiiformes opened. We have to figure this out, or there’ll be more like him on the way.”

“Agreed.  But first, let’s take care of your ankle.”  Carmilla helps Laura up to lean on her shoulder.

Laura gives Carmilla a quick squeeze. “At least there were no trolls on this walk?”

Carmilla lets out a laugh.  “Your optimism is unparalleled, buttercup.”

Chapter Text

Laura enters the room and turns on the camera, sitting down in her chair.

“Hello, viewers!  Today, I wanted to––”

There’s a knock at the door and Laura gets up to open it, revealing Danny in the doorway.

“Hey!” Laura greets, returning to her seat, while Danny sits on Laura’s bed.

“Hi,” she replies warmly.

“I was just about to update the viewers with what LaF and J.P., and I found out,” Laura says.

Danny looks across the room.  “And where’s Dead Girl?”

Laura frowns.  “I’m not sure.  I just came back from the library and she wasn’t here.”  She shrugs.  “She might’ve gone out for a walk last night and then just fell asleep somewhere else.”

“Does she do that a lot?”

Laura shakes her head.  “Not since last semester.”

“Hmm.”

Laura sighs.  “That can wait, I guess.”  She seems to be trying to convince herself more than anyone else.

“Right.  So what did you guys learn last night?”

Laura clears her breath.  She looks directly at the camera.  “Okay, so since our last update, Carmilla and I were attacked by a monster hunter who thought that all the supernatural activity was from a huge gathering of vampires.  Which is ironic if you think about how there was a large group of vampires here last semester and he did nothing about it…” Danny nudges her. “Ahem, anyway, so we all got together and decided that just waiting for lophiiformes to do something while J.P. does vague searches isn’t the best idea since it’s just drawing unwanted attention to Silas.  So LaF and I hit the books at the library last night––”

“––Which none of us knew about,” Perry says, entering the room and glaring at Laura.  “The two of them snuck out last night and told lies about studying in each others’ rooms.”

“Yeah, we only found out about an hour ago when LaF texted the group chat saying their hospital bill won’t be too high.”

Perry swats Laura.  “What is wrong with you?”

Laura gives a sheepish grin.  “To be fair, they didn’t get hurt until after we left the library.  LaF tripped over the bike rack and skinned their knee.”

Perry lets out an exasperated sigh and plops down on the bed next to Danny.

“But yeah, between J.P.’s new access to the entirety of the Internet, instead of just whatever Silas’s records had, and a new area of the stacks I had never seen before, we got some new information.” Laura pauses and looks around the room, shrugs, and continues.  “The Hellmouth that lophiiformes opened is linked to lophiiformes.”

Perry’s eyes widen as she slowly absorbs the information. “So… if we get rid of lophiiformes, the Hellmouth will close?”

Laura nods.  “Right now, lophiiformes is feeding off the energy it got from the Dean. But that’s only a finite amount of energy–– a lot of it–– but it’s going to eventually run out.”

“The plan is to wait it out?” Danny asks, crossing her arms and sighing.

Laura frowns again and scans the room.

“Are you okay, Hollis?  You’re being kinda twitchy…”

Laura bites her lip.  “I don’t know, it just feels like something is off.” She looks at Perry and Danny. “You guys don’t sense it?”

The two girls shake their heads at her.

Laura looks back at the camera but doesn’t seem satisfied with their answers.

Carmilla gets off her bed when Laura walks in, but something seems different.  Carmilla walks forward and reaches out to touch her arm, but her hand phases through it. Her eyes widen and go to meet Laura’s, but she looks right through the vampire, instead walking through her and going to her computer to turn it on.

“Laura,” Carmilla calls out, but Laura just starts talking to the computer.  Carmilla sits back down on her bed, racking her brain on what could possibly be happening. There’s a knock at the door and Laura goes over, opening it to reveal Danny.

“Confused?” an ethereal voice asks.

Carmilla looks around, more annoyed than surprised. “Who are you?”

The voice chuckles.  “An ancient evil, old as the ocean’s depths. The light that devours, the light that betrays.”

Carmilla clenches her jaw.  “Lophiiformes.”

Perry has now entered and is talking to Danny and Laura.

Carmilla looks around the room. “What is happening? What did you do?”

“A parallel plane, Mircalla,” it answered.

Perry swats Laura and Carmilla goes to tell Perry off before remembering her current predicament.  Laura seems to have taken the swat in stride, and Carmilla missed the context, so she decides to let it go–– for now.

“Why did you put me in a parallel plane?” Carmilla demands.

“I have an offer you shouldn’t refuse,” it replies.

Carmilla raises her eyebrow quizzically and rises from her bed, crossing her arms.  “What is it?”

“If you want to keep Laura safe, you will do my bidding. You will kidnap girls and feed them to me.”

Carmilla scoffs and walks through Danny, hovering next to Laura.  She looks down at her tiny human, talking excitedly.

“But yeah, between J.P.’s new access to the entirety of the Internet, instead of just whatever Silas’s records had, and a new area of the stacks I had never seen before, we got some new information.”

Laura pauses and looks around the room. Carmilla freezes when Laura’s eyes linger near her.  But then Laura just shrugs, and continues talking. “The Hellmouth that lophiiformes opened is linked to lophiiformes.”

Carmilla scans the room.  “Is this what you did to Mother?”  She narrows her eyes.  “You dangled someone she cared about like a carrot in front of her until she did your bidding?”

The voice laughed eerily.  “Did it never bother you why she stressed so strongly to you to keep away from attachments?  It didn’t take long, but she soon learned that there was no way for her to fight me when she had nothing to fight with.  I taught her that that’s just the way of the world, and that threats to the sacrifice cannot be tolerated.”

“You mean, sacrifices to you,” Carmilla growls.  “I will take no part in this, not after everything Laura has done to put a stop to them.” She instinctively leans closer to Laura.

“The plan is to wait it out?” Danny asks Laura, crossing her arms and sighing.

Laura frowns again and scans the room.

Danny and Carmilla notice her behavior at the same time.  “Are you okay, Hollis?  You’re being kinda twitchy…”

Laura bites her lip.  “I don’t know, it just feels like something is off.”  She looks at Perry and Danny.  “You guys don’t sense it?”

“It’s me, Laura!”  Laura doesn’t seem to hear Carmilla.

The two girls shake their heads at her.

Laura looks back at the camera but doesn’t seem satisfied with their answers.

“Is this your final answer?  You won’t help me?”

Carmilla hesitates and swallows hard. No. Laura wouldn’t want me to just give in and sacrifice others for her.  Not again. She shakes her head. “You’re on your own, Light Monster.”

There’s a pause and Carmilla looks warily around the room.

“Very well.”

Suddenly, a light wraps itself around Laura’s neck and lifts her off the ground.  Laura begins to sputter and gasp for air, while Carmilla’s head spins and she loses her balance and collapses against Laura’s desk.

“What the hell?” Danny screams, holding Laura but unsure of what to do.

Laura is struggling to breathe while Carmilla makes herself stand up.

“Stop!” Carmilla yells at the room. “Leave her alone!”

“Carm–– what––” Laura croaks out.

Carmilla fights the urge to beg lophiiformes to let Laura go, to agree to whatever lophiiformes wants her to do, because that look in Laura’s eyes when she found out about the agreement with the Dean still burns in her mind.

Perry gets up and runs from the room, calling LaFontaine’s name down the hall.

Danny’s eyes dart from Laura to Carmilla. “If you know what’s doing this or how to stop it, then for the love of God, Carmilla––”

Laura’s gasps are becoming more desperate as she clings to consciousness.  Her eyes go from pleading Carmilla, to a kind of acceptance that maybe Carmilla is letting this happen for a reason.

“Laura…”  Carmilla’s voice cracks.

LaFontaine bursts into the room with Perry not far behind.  “Hang on, L!” They run over to Laura while Danny backs out of the way so they can throw a necklace with a small vial on it over Laura’s head.  Immediately Laura inhales deeply and her legs give out, but Carmilla catches her and holds her up.

Laura nuzzles her face into Carmilla’s shoulder as she continues to gasp for air.

“You’re okay, cupcake,” Carmilla whispers soothingly, still holding Laura in her arms and kissing her hair.  “You’re fine.”

LaF lets out a relieved sigh and sits down on Laura’s bed.

“What is the thing you put around Laura’s neck?” Danny asks.

“It’s this concoction we found last night in one of the books Laura was poring through,” LaF explains.  “It’s got crushed black tourmaline, agate, bloodstone, emerald, labradorite, black onyx, peridot, emerald, some sage, acacia leaves, salt, iron, silver, quartz, sandalwood, patchouli, myrrh, and frankincense in it.”

“Where the frilly hell did you get all of that?” Carmilla asks, hesitantly letting Laura go so she can breathe better, since she is still wheezing.

“The chemistry and geology departments had some of it, which we picked up on the way back to the dorm,” LaF says. “After Laura left to record a video, I contacted the alchemy club for the rest.”  They run a hand through their hair.  “Laura told me to start making some vials in case they work for protection against lophiiformes.  Which, I guess they do.”

Laura gives them a half smile. “Thanks, LaF.  Good job,” she rasps.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” Perry asks, placing a hand gently on Laura’s shoulder.

“For a demon made of light, it has some major grip,” Laura says, her voice hoarse.  She looks at Carmilla.  “What happened to you?”

Carmilla sighs and sits down on her own bed. “It stuck me in some parallel plane so it could talk to me–– make me an offer.”  Everyone looks at her expectantly.  “It wanted me to take over for Mother.  It wanted me to sacrifice girls to it, and it threatened Laura to do it.  And then I called its bluff.”

“You turned down its offer, knowing it might try to hurt Laura?” Danny asks.  Carmilla expects an accusatory tone, but it sounds like a simple question.

“Yes.”

Danny doesn’t say anything further, but she doesn’t look at Carmilla with anything beyond neutrality.

“You made the right choice, Carm,” Laura says softly. “We can’t let it get any stronger. We have to starve it. That way, the Hellmouth will close, and this nightmare will be over.”

“What frosh said,” LaF nods.  “And since it’s now a waiting game, I’ll make more of these protection vials in case lophiiformes tries to come after any of us or use us against each other.”

Perry, LaF, and Danny start to leave before Laura calls out LaFontaine’s name.  “Make one for Kirsch too, okay?”  They nod and leave.

Laura sighs and sits next to Carmilla on her bed. “How are you feeling, babe?”

The tiny human leans her head against her girlfriend’s shoulder.  “Lightheaded.” She snickers.  “Get it?  Because––”

Carmilla rolls her eyes and nudges Laura with a smirk. “––Yes, I get it, you silly child.”

Laura giggles.  “How about you?  You’ve gotta be feeling a helluva jet lag right now.”

Carmilla shrugs.  “I think the worse part was just you not being able to see or hear me.”

“Yeah,” Laura says.  “But I felt you, y’know?  Like I knew you were there.”

Carmilla chuckles.  “I noticed.”

Laura shifts so she’s facing Carmilla and flashes a bright grin.  “How’s it feel, knowing you can’t get rid of me, even if we’re in different planes?”

Carmilla wraps her arm around Laura and pulls her back into an embrace.  “It feels pretty amazing, cutie.”

Chapter Text

Carmilla tries to sneak a peek at Laura’s throat. Even though lophiiformes hadn’t physically grabbed her in this plane, its grip had done some major damage, and she still slightly wheezed.  It wasn’t enough for humans to hear, but Carmilla caught it sometimes when Laura was concentrating on homework, or when she was asleep.

She’d asked Laura if her throat hurt, and she had said no, which Carmilla had figured would be the case–– it wasn’t a ‘crushed windpipe’ kind of wheezing, it was like lophiiformes had sucked some life force from Laura and it affected her ability to breathe.

That thought initially filled Carmilla with anger, but it soon turned to a feeling of helplessness to the point where she had half a mind to wander into the pit and tell lophiiformes she wanted to accept its offer.

But she wouldn’t.

“Carm?”

Carmilla blinks hard and snaps herself from her thoughts.  “Huh?”

 “Did I lose you there for a second?”  She giggles and gives the vampire a quick peck on the cheek.  “I guess you do have like, three hundred plus years of thoughts to get lost in.”

Carmilla gives her a half-smile. “Any thoughts worth getting lost in would be about you.”

Laura laughs.  “Okay, now I definitely know something’s up.  What’s on your mind?”

Carmilla shakes her head.  “Never mind.”

Laura had also seemed more tired or drained in the past week, and Carmilla had been caught plenty of times staring at Laura, only for Laura to insist that she’s fine.  Carmilla stands up from the bed and stretches, leaving a skeptical Laura behind. 

“If you keep pouting, your lip will get stuck that way, cutie,” Carmilla remarks with a grin.  “What were you talking to me about?”

Laura’s pout slowly turns back into her natural smile. “I was asking if you wanted me to bring anything else to our picnic?  I’ve got sandwiches, crackers, and grape soda.”

Carmilla smirks.  “What about cupcakes or cookies?”

“Oh, duh!  How could I forget––”

Carmilla can’t stop her eyes from widening. Laura? Laura, forgetting about packing dessert? Maybe lophiiformes did more damage than we thought––

Laura grins.  “I’m just teasing you, Carm.  I have a whole pack of each.”

“Oh.”

Laura grabs the basket from near the fridge and heads towards the door.  “I also have bear spray.  Just in case.”

Carmilla smiles and goes to follow her. “I prefer Cheez Whiz spray myself.”

Laura turns and rolls her eyes. “Ha. Ha.”

It’s a short walk to the hill Carmilla wants to have the picnic on.  She’s since taken the large basket from her tiny human, more out of chivalry than concern that Laura wouldn’t be able to handle it.

There’s a tree for some shade, and a small but deep lake nearby with some fish swimming in it.  The sun is shining nicely, and there is a gentle breeze. Laura sets down a blanket and begins unpacking the food.  She hands Carmilla a large black thermos with a wink.

The couple sits in silence, eating and enjoying the peace of merely being in each other’s presence.  Laura’s on her second sandwich before she decides to speak. “Were you thinking of lophiiformes’s offer?”

Carmilla bites into a cookie and chews slowly.

Laura waits a few seconds for a response but when it’s clear it won’t come, she continues.  “You know you made the right decision, right?  The decision to reject the offer?”

Carmilla sighs.  “I know you think I made the right decision.”

Laura shrugs and gestures for a cookie, which Carmilla hands her.  “Well, so far these vials that LaF made have been working, because it’s been a week and lophiiformes hasn’t tried to throttle anyone else.”

Carmilla doesn’t say anything and instead unwraps a cupcake and bites into it.

Laura frowns and stands up.  “Okay, Grumpy, I’m going to go closer to the water. Wanna come with?” Carmilla shakes her head. “Fine.  Suit yourself.”

Laura hops barefoot down the hill towards the lake, wading in enough for the water to reach her knees.  Carmilla closes her eyes and leans against the tree. She can hear Laura splashing around by herself and scaring some fish away.

Good going, Karnstein. It’s not like she’s trying to push Laura away on purpose.  Things feel more simple now that Mother is gone and pleasing Laura seems easy–– except it’s not. Laura could ask Carmilla to do anything, and she’d do it.

Carmilla could spend her accumulated wealth and buy Laura anything she wanted, she’d take her out on extravagant dates, she’d take her partying, and, hell, she’d even clean if Laura hadn’t stopped making such a fuss since they’d gotten together.  All things considered, Laura wasn’t a high maintenance girlfriend.

No, the things Laura asked Carmilla to do were things that went against every protective instinct Carmilla had developed. And yet, she had agreed–– agreed to not be a martyr in the name of heroic vampire crap, agreed to reject the offer from lophiiformes that would keep Laura safe, and agreed to attach herself to this tiny human who had no idea that Carmilla could be the monster under a child’s bed.

So what was it that was bothering her? Was it that she had agreed to all these things, was it who she had done it for, or was it for some other reason entirely?

Maybe she’d take back her promise. Maybe she would take that offer from lophiiformes.  Maybe she would be a martyr. Even if Laura hated her, at least she’d be alive.  For all she knew, Laura could already hate her from Carmilla constantly pushing her away.

“Carm, come join me,” Laura whines after a couple minutes. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk.”

So much for that.

Carmilla cracks one eye open. “You’re interrupting my catnap, cutie,” she grumbles before closing it again.

Laura giggles.  “I’m pretty sure you’ve had enough beauty sleep for a few lifetimes.”

Carmilla smiles.  Even with her general propensity for hysteria, Laura was the first thing in three centuries to calm the storm in her mind.

Before she can reply, her vampiric hearing picks up some strange sound.  It sounds like splashing or movement underwater, but it’s separate from whatever sounds Laura is making, and it’s too fast to be a fish swimming in the lake.

Wait. I’ve heard this before. Carmilla rapidly racks her brain to place it.  Her eyes widen. “Laura!  Get out of the water!”

Laura is too slow, still trying to understand the sudden change in her girlfriend’s demeanor.

Carmilla starts to rush over, but it’s too fast and snatches pulls Laura further into the lake.

“Let her go, Adella,” Carmila snarls at the woman who has Laura in a tight hold, one arm clamped over her chest and the other around Laura’s waist, holding her arms in place.

“What the heck do you want from me?” Laura demands, squirming.  “And where did you come from?  What are you?”

The woman snickers.  “You are a troublesome one, aren’t you?”  She tightens her grip to stop Laura’s wriggling.  “I’m a mermaid, sweetheart.  Now, let the adults talk.”

Carmilla starts to take a step towards them, but the mermaid squeezes Laura tight enough to elicit a pained gasp.

“Stay right where you are, vampire,” Adella warns. “If you move a muscle, your little fragile human will be at the bottom of this lake before she can draw her last breath.”

Carmilla clenches her fists but does as told and stands still.  “I’m listening.”

“Lophiiformes sent me and told me to persuade you to reconsider its offer. Or my previous threat stands.”

Carmilla’s eyes wander over to Laura, who shakes her head.  “Carm, don’t do it.”

“Oh, come now, Mircalla.  Are you seriously taking orders from this child?” The mermaid sneers. “Although you were puppet to that dreadful woman for, what?  Three centuries? I guess taking orders is what you do best.”

“I’m not giving her orders,” Laura growls.

“Oh, so you’re just condemning her to death of your own free will?”  Adella looks from Carmilla to Laura, and then back again.

“I’m not the one taking orders from a glorified light bulb,” Carmilla snaps.

Adella cackles.  “You got me there.  But orders are orders.”

With superhuman speed, the mermaid is suddenly holding Laura in the middle of the lake.  Without hesitation, she plunges Laura underwater, holding her down. Laura begins flailing her arms, trying to get a grip on Adella.  Mind racing, Carmilla goes to teleport into the lake, but winds up shy of their position and is nowhere near as fast in the water as a mermaid, who’s dragging Laura away from her.

Laura manages to drag her fingernails down one of Adella’s arms, leaving a long scratch.  The mermaid hisses in pain and momentarily allows Laura’s head to surface. Wasting no time, Laura whips her head back hard, smacking it into the woman’s nose.

By now, Carmilla’s reached them and grabs Laura and teleports them back to shore, several feet from the water.

Carmilla lets Laura go and backs away to give her air while she sputters and coughs up water, gasping for air.

The vampire stands and looks back into the lake, where Adella is once again near the shore.  “Give me back the toddler, Mircalla,” the mermaid hisses from the water.

“This toddler just broke your nose,” Laura retorts, slowly rising and leaning on Carmilla.

Before she else can say anything, a strange light begins to engulf Adella.

“Wait,” she wails, her menacing tone gone. “Wait, give me more time, please!” The light grows in intensity twice and a hum surrounds her.  “I tried my best––”

In an explosive flash, Adella implodes, and then the light disappears.  An uneasy quiet falls over the area.

Laura is still clutching onto Carmilla and coughs lightly.

“Are you okay, cupcake?” Carmilla asks softly.

Laura nods.

“Let’s go back to the tree,” Carmilla suggests.

“Yeah.  I want some more cookies,” Laura says as they slowly walk over.

Carmilla laughs.  “You don’t want to go back to the room?”

Laura’s eyes widen.  “Why?”

“Honey, you just got attacked by a mermaid. You really just want to sit here eating cookies?”

Laura sits down and nibbles into a cookie. “Carm, we’ve been planning this picnic for days.  One almost-drowning is not going to ruin it for us.” She reaches into the package and offers a cookie to Carmilla.  “Cookie?”

Carmilla looks down at her tiny girlfriend, stubbornly sitting and eating the cookie with her bunched-up face. She smiles and takes the cookie. “Cutie, you’re amazing and--” Carmilla cuts herself off.

Laura pats the spot next to her to gesture for Carmilla to sit.  “…And?”

And I love you.

Carmilla shakes her head and sits down. “Nothing.”

Chapter Text

“A mermaid can travel between planes.  That must have been how lophiiformes was able communicate with Adella.” Laura read from LaF’s screen.

LaF calls out from their bathroom. “Yeah, J.P. said earlier that they’re basically the mercenaries of the supernatural world.”

“I am so glad that you escaped that encounter relatively unscathed, Laura!”

Laura smiles.  “Thanks, J.P.”

“Oh, there you are, Laura,” Kirsch says from the hallway.  “Where’s Carmilla?”

Laura shrugs.  “Still in our room, I guess?”

LaF steps out from the bathroom. “Come on in, Kirsch.”

“Thanks, dude,” he says, stepping in. He’s wearing a vial around his neck, similar to the others.

“And thanks for the protection thingy.”

“No problem,” LaF responds.  They look over to Laura.  “Wasn’t it Carmilla’s idea for you two to go to the party tonight?”

Laura nods.  “She’s been oddly sentimental lately.”

Perry enters the room with a small chuckle. “I think she might want some semblance of normalcy, what with all the supernatural threats you’ve faced lately.”

“Sound familiar?”  LaF laughs.

Perry swats them playfully.  “Just stay safe tonight, Laura.”

Laura offers Perry a warm smile. “Are you sure you guys don’t wanna come?”

Kirsch nods eagerly.  “There’s more than enough room in my car if you want a lift.”

Perry and LaF shake their heads at the same time.

“Girls have been getting attacked by something when walking home alone.  Nothing too serious, but the floor dons are trying to tighten up security.”

“Oh, right, the Summer Society and Zetas are working on an escort service together,” Kirsch replies.  “Speaking of the Summer Society, Danny will also be there tonight, so if you two change your minds, she can also give you a ride if I’m not available.”

“Thanks, Kirsch, that’s really sweet,” Perry says.

“And I can’t go because I have a lab report to write,” LaF answers.

“What’s it about?” Laura asks. Sometimes the science goes over her head, but watching her friend excitedly talk with a twinkle in their eyes always makes her smile.

“Oh, it’s just on some research about crosslinking hydrogels with enzymes to stabilize them for biological use,” LaF says. The twinkle in their eyes was starting to form.  “It’s got a lot of potential use for drug delivery, implants, contact lenses, and artificial devices––”

Carmilla knocks on the doorframe. “Ready to go, babe?”

It’s a casual party, so they’re all in jeans and t-shirts.

“Stay safe, Laura!!”

Laura laughs.  “Thanks, J.P., I’ll try.”  She pats LaF’s shoulder.  “And good luck with your lab report.”

Kirsch and Laura join Carmilla in the hallway and wave goodbye to Perry and LaF.  They head to Kirsch’s car without much conversation.

Carmilla opens the door for Laura before going around and joining her in the backseat.  “You look great, cutie,” Carmilla whispers into Laura’s ear.

Laura blushes.  “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

Kirsch is walking in front of them and turns around with a grin.  “I’m such a lucky bro to have two gorgeous ladies escorting me.”

Laura laughs.  “You’re such a charmer, Kirsch.”

They pull up to the Zeta house and Kirsch waits until they’re both out of the car before saluting and driving off to his next pick-up.

The couple enters the house.  Laura is greeted warmly by the Zetas that know her, while Carmilla is generally regarded warily and hesitantly, which brings a proud smile to her face.

Laura talks to a couple members that she knows from her classes and Carmilla lounges quietly nearby on a couch. The party starts soon enough, and within an hour the house is filled.

Laura continues mingling while Carmilla is nearby. They’re a couple beers in before Danny approaches them.

“Hey, Laura,” Danny greets.

Laura gives her a warm smile. “Hi, Danny.”

Danny looks at Carmilla.  “Bagheera.”

Carmilla scoffs but gives a small wave. “Raggedy Ann.”

Danny rolls her eyes.  “Laura, can I talk to you?  Alone?”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow.

Laura looks at Carmilla cautiously. “I’m going to go talk to her alone, okay?  Just stay here?”

Carmilla sighs but doesn’t seem to be putting up a fight.

Danny leads Laura into another, more empty room, which seems to have been a kitchen at one point.  “You look pretty good for someone who almost drowned less than forty eight hours ago, Hollis.”

Laura laughs.  “It’d take more than that to get rid of me.”

Danny chuckles but then falls quiet.

“You called me in here to talk, right? But we, uh…  We seem to be doing the opposite of that,” Laura says, biting her lip.

Danny leans against a counter and lets out a long exhale. “LaF told me that it was Carmilla’s idea to come here tonight.”

Laura nods.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t let you go out to a party. Not when your life is in danger.” Laura starts to speak up, but Danny cuts her off.  “And that’s why we’re not together, I know.  I get it. We’re both too headstrong and not looking for the same thing in each other and we wouldn’t work out.” Danny sighs.  “It doesn’t change the fact that I care about you and worry about you, especially when this whole thing with lophiiformes is getting worse and seems to be increasingly targeted at you and Carmilla.”

“Yeah, I know.  And I care about you, too.”  Laura runs a hand through her hair.  “But I still don’t get why you picked here and now to have this conversation?”

Danny nervously fiddles with her belt loops as she replies. “I know I don’t spend any time around you if Carmilla’s there, so I’ve got a very biased point of view. But I’ve spoken to Perry and LaFontaine, and they agree with me.”

“About what?”

Danny hesitates before responding. “I know she basically sacrificed her life for you.  I know she cares about you…” She quickly places a reassuring hand on Laura’s shoulder.  “And I get she’s gone through a lot and she’s damaged.  And I understand that kind of stuff doesn’t go away just because you guys have been together for a few months.”  She takes a deep breath.  “We’re just concerned that because she’s emotionally repressed, she may not be the best person watching out for you right now.”

Laura blinks.  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

Danny sits down on a chair.  “Look, lophiiformes has been making offers for Carmilla to spare your life in return for her service in feeding it girls, right?” Laura nods.  “And you’ve been telling her not to accept them. And she hasn’t.”

“Yeah.”

Danny swallows hard.  “If it were the rest of us–– me, LaF, Perry–– hell, even Kirsch… We all would’ve accepted the offer. For your safety.”

Laura sits across from Danny. “I know you guys would, and I appreciate that.  But Carmilla––”

“––Is in love with you and because I don’t think she knows what else to do for someone she loves, she would do anything you ask of her.  Including keeping yourself in danger.”

Laura leans back into the seat. “Carmilla loves me?”

“You really are a little oblivious one, aren’t you?”  Danny laughs.  “Yes, knucklehead, she’s in love with you.  It’s obvious, even if she hasn’t said it.”  She shrugs. “You know how when you guys were hiking through the mountains after last semester, and that gingerbread lady came after you?  And then Carmilla attacked her?”

“She only attacked Mama Klaus because I asked her to,” Laura said.

“And then?”

“And then she didn’t even hesitate.”

“…Just like how she didn’t hesitate to reject lophiiformes’s offer?”

Laura nods slowly.

Danny smiles and gently nudges Laura’s knee. “Look, I’m not telling you this to give you a hard time.  We’re all just worried and concerned for you and just want you to realize that Carmilla’s not being the most objective party right now.”  Her smile widens.  “She won’t tell you if you’re being stupid.”

Laura laughs.  “I guess I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t doing something stupid, right?”

Carmilla stumbles into the room, a cup sloppily sloshing over in her hand.

“Whoa, Carm,” Laura jumps up and goes to her vampire. “Whatcha doin’ there?”

Carmilla has a dopey grin on her face stares at Laura with what can only be described as ‘heart eyes.’

“Hi, Laura,” she says warmly. “I was just looking for the cutest little cupcake in the whole house and here you are.”

Laura glances over at Danny, who shares her bewildered look.  “Carm, what have you been doing since we left you?”

Carmilla suddenly frowns, putting Laura’s pouts to shame.  “You left me.” She huffs.  “You left me.”

She leans her head on Laura’s shoulder.

“I got lonely out there.  I don’t like being lonely.”  Carmilla starts nuzzling her face into Laura’s shoulder.

Laura stifles a laugh.  “I know, Carm, I know.  But what did you do once you got lonely?”

Carmilla doesn’t remove her face as she waves a cup in Laura’s face.

“I drank this,” she answers, muffled.

Danny snatches the cup from her hand, which lead to Carmilla removing her face from Laura and scowling.  The tall redhead looks into the cup.

Kirsch enters the room.  “Wait!  Where did you get that cup?”

Danny shrugs and gestures at Carmilla. “It’s her drink.”

Laura gets Carmilla to sit down and Carmilla pulls Laura towards her so their faces are inches apart.

“Who’s a cute little creampuff? Who’s a cute little creampuff?”

Laura rolls her eyes.  “Carm, stop talking to me like I’m a dog.”

Carmilla pouts again.  “Sorry, Laura, I didn’t mean to.”

Kirsch approaches the vampire. “Carmilla, did you get this drink from the area near the fireplace?”

Carmilla nods.

“What’s going on?” Danny demands.

Kirsch takes the cup from her and throws it out. “Some not-cool dude from the Alchemy Club snuck in and dumped something in some of the drinks. Me and some of the bros got him to admit to it.  It’s sorta like, a lovesick potion or something?  It makes them feel all fuzzy inside.”

“I do feel fuzzy inside,” Carmilla whispers, tugging on the hem of Laura’s shirt.

Laura gently removes Carmilla’s hand and holds it. “Is there a way to cure it?”

Kirsch shakes his head.  “The guy just said it’s harmless and it’ll wear off in a few hours.”

Carmilla leans her head on Laura and yawns. “I’m gonna take her home,” Laura says to Danny.

Danny nods.  “Do you need a ride?”

Carmilla yawns again.  “I can just poof us,” she says tiredly.

Laura carefully steps away from Carmilla and offers Danny a warm smile.  “No ride, thank you. And I’ll think about what we talked about.”

Danny gives her a somewhat awkward hug and watches as they disappear in a small cloud of black smoke.

Laura laughs as Carmilla flops onto her bed. Laura goes to take her girlfriend’s boots off but Carmilla playfully pumps her legs so she can’t get a grip on them, causing Laura to giggle while Carmilla laughs.

“You silly vampire,” Laura says, still giggling and swatting at Carmilla’s legs.  “If you don’t let me take your boots off, I am not getting into that bed with you.”

Carmilla immediately stops kicking her legs.

Laura removes the boots and works on taking her own shoes off.

“I heard her, y’know,” Carmilla says quietly.

Laura looks over at the vampire. “Heard who?”

Carmilla bites her lip.  “I overheard Danny telling you I’m not the best thing for you.”

Laura sighs.  “She’s wrong.  You’re perfect for me.”

Carmilla frowns and for a second Laura thinks she might burst into tears.  “What if I’m not?”

Carmilla wriggles over so Laura can fit on the bed next to her.  Laura is barely in a comfortable position before Carmilla curls up against her side.

“Just sleep it off, okay, Carm?” She feels Carmilla nod. Laura chuckles. “Are you feeling okay?”

Carmilla gives Laura a quick peck on the cheek. “Yeah.  It’s like Kirsch said.  I feel fuzzy inside.  Like I just really wanna hug you and squeeze you because you’re so adorable.” As if suddenly realizing this was a great idea, Carmilla wraps her arms around Laura and squeezes her gently. “Cutie.”

Laura’s laugh turns into a yawn. “I kinda like this side of you, Carm.”

Carmilla stops hugging Laura and goes back to curling up against her.  “I like this side of me, too.”  Laura yawns again. “But if I always let it show, then––”

Laura turns to look at Carmilla after she cut herself off.  “––Then, what?”

Carmilla shrugs.  “Nothing, never mind.”

Laura thinks about pushing, but it seems like a morally gray thing to do when Carmilla isn’t in her right mind. “Okay.  Goodnight, Carm.”

Carmilla doesn’t say anything else for a while, so Laura starts to doze off.

She’s still awake when she hears Carmilla whisper, “I love you, Laura.”

Chapter Text

A few days have passed since the Zeta party incident. Neither addressed the evening’s events in detail, other than Carmilla saying she had a headache and insisting that she didn’t remember anything.  Laura was skeptical, but there were bigger issues to deal with.

The attacks on campus are increasing in frequency, and the floor dons, Summer Society, and Zetas are in agreement that until the attacker is caught, students should have ‘escorts.’  They are, however, accepting volunteers to go hunting with the Summer Society and Zetas.

“Absolutely not,” Carmilla says, opening the door to their room after a floor meeting with Perry.

“Why not?” Laura asks.

Carmilla sits down on her bed. “Cupcake,” she says softly but firmly. “Lophiiformes is after you. In the past semester, you’ve had a fireball lobbed at you, caught my centennial flu, got food poisoning from a magically altered animal, strangled by lophiiformes, and almost drowned by a mermaid.  You’re in enough danger, and now you’re going to purposely put yourself in more danger?”  She shakes her head.  “No.”

Laura pouts.  “Not even if you’re with me?”

Carmilla rolls her eyes.  “No amount of pouting and eyelash batting will get me to change my mind, babe,” she answers.  “I refuse to enable your weird hero complex this time.”

The tiny girl narrows her eyes. “Why the sudden change in your tune?”

Carmilla raises her eyebrow quizzically.

“If this had been like, a week ago, you wouldn’t be fighting me on this…”  A light bulb seemed to quite literally go off in her head.  “Is this because you overheard what Danny said to me at that party?”

Carmilla doesn’t answer.

“B-But you haven’t said that you remember anything from that night,” Laura stammers.

Carmilla scoffs.  “Just because I haven’t brought it up doesn’t mean I don’t remember it, cutie.”

Laura stands up.  “So, what?  You thought you could just tell me that I shouldn’t help find whatever’s attacking people, and that’s that?” She whirls away, waving her arms while her voice grows more shrill.  “Why couldn’t you tell me you remembered stuff from that night, and that you hear what Danny was saying to me?”

She starts pacing before another light bulb goes off.

“Is it because you said you love me?”

Carmilla averts her gaze and remains silent.

Laura sits back down on the bed. “Carm, is it because you said you love me before we fell asleep?  Because––”

“––I don’t want to talk about it.”

Laura looks like she’s about to continue pressing but thinks better of it.  “Do you at least want to talk about what Danny said?”

Carmilla sighs.  “She’s right.  I’ve been putting your life in danger and not thinking clearly because… Well, because it’s you.  And it’s going to get you killed.”  Laura’s eyes widen. “I’m not saying I’m going to just accept lophiiformes’s offer.  But I can’t keep saying yes to everything you want just because you’re the one asking.”

Laura mimics strangling Carmilla. “You’re not putting my life in danger.  None of you are responsible for what happens to me.  I’m responsible for what happens to me.”  She stands up and heads towards the door.

In a flash, Carmilla is in front of her. “Where are you going?” Carmilla asks sharply.

Laura gives a huff.  “I’m going to join the Summer Society and the Zetas and find whatever’s been attacking people,” she growls.  “Get out of my way.”

Laura takes a step forward and Carmilla grips her arm tightly.

Laura looks down at Carmilla’s hand and then meets her eyes with a steely gaze.  “Let. Go. Of. My. Arm.”

Carmilla takes a deep breath and lets her go. Laura clenches her jaw and brushes past Carmilla and leaves.

A few hours have gone by and Carmilla goes back and forth between feeling guilty for not going after Laura and feeling proud of herself for finally asserting herself.  She’s lounging on her bed, trying to concentrate on some book she grabbed off her shelf, but she can’t seem to focus.

There’s a knock at the door and it opens without waiting for an answer.

“Oh.  Here you are,” Danny says, followed by Perry and LaFontaine.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.  “Get out, Ginger Squad.”

Danny looks back at the other two, who shrug and don’t seem intent on leaving.  Danny turns to face the vampire.  “We, uhm, thought you would like to know that Laura went out with a few of the Zetas.”

Carmilla picks at her fingernail polish. “Is this the part where you tell me the sturdy beefcakes will keep her safe and I shouldn’t worry?”

The trio shares uneasy glances. “Actually, Laur and her squad missed the last check-in,” LaF says slowly.

“It was about half an hour ago,” Perry adds.

Carmilla tosses aside the book and sits up. “What?”

Danny swallows hard.  “About an hour ago they were in the engineering quad and then they said they heard something and were pursuing it and that was the last we heard. We sent a team of reinforcements after them but they lost their trail and we have no idea where they went.”

A few moments pass as Carmilla’s mind is filled with worst-case scenario thoughts.

Her phone rings, making her jump. She goes to look at the caller ID and her heart stops when she sees it’s Laura.  She swiftly answers it.

There’s some rustling before Laura’s voice comes through, faint and weak.  “Carm?”

“Laura,” Carmilla’s eyes widen. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?  Where are you?”

She chuckles weakly.  “Wow I must sound really bad if you’re using my actual name.” There’s a silence for a few painstakingly long seconds before Carmilla hears a cough.  “I know we’re fighting right now, but can you please come get me? I’m on the roof of the heavy engineering lab building.”

“Of course.  Be right there, hon.”  She wastes no time in teleporting out of the room, leaving the others behind.

Carmilla appears on the rooftop and quickly gets her bearings.  There’s a small groan behind her and she whirls around.  Her stomach lurches at the sight–– and the smell of blood.

Laura is lying on the ground with scratches on her face and what look like claw marks across her torso.  The wounds aren’t deep and there doesn’t seem to be severe blood loss, but they look painful and raw.

Carmilla drops to her side.  “Oh, Laura,” Carmilla whispers.

“No snacking on me, okay?” Laura gives her a halfhearted smile.

Carmilla laughs dryly.

Laura’s smile fades.  “You were right, Carm.  This was stupid.  The damn thing wiped out the Zetas.  The only reason I made it was because I got separated from them and it followed them instead of me.”

Carmilla swallows hard.  “Bad for them but good for us.”  She scans over Laura’s body.  “Are you okay enough for me to teleport you back?”

Laura nods and Carmilla carefully wraps one arm around Laura’s back and under her legs, causing Laura to wince. Carmilla gives her a quick peck on the cheek.  “Here we go.”

A few seconds later, they reappeared in their dorm room to a collection of gasps.  Their friends gape at them as Carmilla gently places Laura on the bed.

Perry is the first to snap out of it. “I’ll go get the first aid kid from the don office,” she says, darting out.

LaFontaine steps closer.  “Are you okay?  Did you see what’s been attacking people?”

Carmilla looks like she’s about to tell them to back off, but Laura places a hand on her arm and gives her a small shake of the head, so Carmilla remains silent.

“I’ll be fine, LaF.  And yes, I saw it, but I don’t know what it was. Maybe J.P. can help?”

“Glad you’re okay, L,” LaF says, with a nod in Carmilla’s direction.  “We can make it a quick description for him to start searching with so you can rest, okay?”

Laura nods and LaF rushes out.

Danny sits at Laura’s desk and turns the chair to face her.  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“As okay as I can be after getting swiped a few times by a big monster,” Laura says as Perry re-enters the room.

Perry begins handing Carmilla various alcohol pads, gauze, and bandages by Carmilla’s bed when LaF walks in, laptop in hand. “Let’s make this fast, okay, Laur?” They open their laptop and give a thumbs-up to indicate J.P. is ready.

Laura nods and shifts a bit, letting out a pained gasp. Danny rushes over and helps her sit up and then moves out of the way so Carmilla can start tending to her wounds.

“Thanks, Danny,” Laura says, receiving a warm smile from the tall red head.  “And yeah, let’s begin, LaF.” She sucks in a breath when Carmilla lightly dabs at the cuts.

“Sorry, cutie,” she murmurs.

“It’s fine,” she says through a groan. She looks over to LaFontaine. “Uhm, the thing was like, a human cannibal,” Laura begins through clenched teeth.  “Like, it was six feet tall and totally shaped like a regular person, but it ate the Zetas I was with.”  Her voice cracks a bit, so she clears her throat before continuing. Carmilla pauses from tending to her wounds and lightly strokes her arm and kisses her temple. Laura smiles at her and continues. “But it had these fingernails shaped like claws and really long, sharpened teeth.”

LaF looks down at their screen. “Okay, J.P. should have enough to work with for now.”  They turn to leave. “I’ll let you know as soon as he comes up with anything, okay?  Feel better, frosh.”

Perry goes to follow them.  “You guys hold onto the kit to change her dressings for as long as you need.  Which hopefully won’t be long.  Speedy recovery, Laura.”

“Thanks, guys.”

“And that’ll also be my cue to leave,” Danny remarks when she realizes she’s alone with the couple.  “I’ll call up the Summer Society and the Zetas and give them the update and have them all on standby.”  She hovers by Laura’s bed.  “Are we all in agreement that Laura’s done enough and we’ll be taking it from here?”

“Yes,” Carmilla answers without hesitation.

The two look at Laura, who smiles sheepishly. “Yes,” she replies quietly.

Danny gives a small laugh.  “Okay, good.  See you around, Hollis.”

After Danny leaves, Carmilla finishes cleaning out Laura’s wounds and is tenderly dressing them.  Neither speaks for a while until Carmilla is finished.

Carmilla sits down next to Laura on the bed. “How are you feeling, buttercup?”

“Like some man-beast tossed me around the engineering quad and tried to make ribbons out of my torso?” Laura says with a grin.

Carmilla chuckles and helps Laura lie down before turning off the light and lying down next to her.  They lie in silence for a bit before Carmilla looks over at Laura. “Did you want the bed to yourself tonight?”  Laura’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.  “I-I just wasn’t sure if we’re still fighting, or––”

Laura giggles.  “No, you silly vampire, you can sleep here tonight.”  She nuzzles her face into Carmilla’s shoulder. “And I’m fine with us not talking about the other night.  Life’s too short for us to be fighting.”

Carmilla kisses the top of her head. “One day, we will. I’m just not ready, yet.”

“I understand,” Laura mumbles sleepily.

Carmilla laughs softly.  “Go to sleep, my little heroic creampuff.”

“Mmhmm,” she grumbles, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “Love you, Carm.”

Carmilla feels her heart flutter. She tries to will herself to say it back, but the words won’t come.

A few seconds later, she hears Laura’s snoring.

Carmilla winds up settling for thinking it and hoping that’ll be enough.

Chapter Text

Laura turns on the camera and winces as she sits back in her chair.  The wounds are all dressed, but the cuts remain on her face, still looking very raw. She takes a deep breath. “Hi, viewers,” she says, slightly less peppy than usual.  “It’s been a couple days since my tiny butt got itself shredded by a beast, which J.P. has since figured out was a wendigo.  A wendigo basically possesses a person and turns them into this crazed cannibal, and eventually they wind up turning into this inhuman beast that has this insatiable hunger.  J.P. spent a day searching and everything he’s turned up says there’s nothing that can turn them back, so the Summer Society and Zetas are out hunting it down.”

She looks around the empty room.

“Carmilla’s out with them, too. I think I was starting to get that look like I wanted to join them, so she decided to stop that in its tracks and volunteered to go with them.”

There’s a puff of black smoke behind her and Carmilla appears in her leather pants and a black tank top. Laura turns around a little too fast, letting out a small pained gasp.

Carmilla rushes over to the chair and puts her hands on her hips.  “What are you doing out of bed?” she chides lightly.  Laura grins sheepishly and Carmilla rolls her eyes with a smile. “I leave you for a couple hours…”

Laura giggles.  “So?  How did it go?”

Carmilla sits on Laura’s bed. “One dead wendigo to go,” she says flippantly.  “I caught it and snapped its neck in the forest.  Red Gumby and her puppy are dealing with the remains.”  Carmilla looks down at her hands and frowns. “And now I have wendigo germs all over me.  Excuse me while I wash my hands, cutie.”  The vampire walks around her girlfriend.  “How are you feeling?” she asks from the bathroom as she turns the faucet on.

Laura carefully turns back to face the camera again. “Still sore and tired,” she answers. “But I’m better now that the thing has been captured.”

“Serves you right,” Carmilla snaps when the water turns off.

Laura frowns.  “I already apologized for just storming off.”

Carmilla re-enters the room.  “Yes, and that just makes up for all the worry and headache you give me,” she sneers.

Laura looks taken aback for a moment. “Carm, I can usually see through your snark and see you’re kidding, but right now it doesn’t seem like it.”

Carmilla narrows her eyes.  “Because I’m not, Laura.  The way you behave is not okay.  The way you think is not okay. You’re too naïve and stubborn and reckless.”

“Carm, what the hell is wrong with you?” Laura slowly rises from the chair and matches the vampire’s glare.

She scoffs.  “What’s the matter?  You search for the truth but can’t handle it?  Typical.”

“You want to talk about not being able to handle the truth?  The truth is you said you loved me but want to ignore it.  And I told you that I love you and you want to ignore that, too. Why are you so afraid of us saying we love each other?”

Carmilla laughs ruefully.  “Maybe because it’s not true.  Maybe because deep down I still just see you as my next meal. Maybe because your life will be over in the blink of an eye and mine spans centuries and you’re as insignificant to me as a dust mite.”  She steps closer to Laura so that their faces are inches apart.  “Does it ever bother you, Laura?  To know that when you’re gone, I’ll be moving on and after a while, all you’ll be to me is a crumbling rock in an overgrown field of grass?”

Laura’s jaw drops open and tears well up in her eyes. “You don’t mean any of this,” she says as her voice cracks.

“Oh, don’t you wish I would say so?” Carmilla steps away and heads towards the wardrobe.

Laura turns to face the camera, wipes some tears from her eyes, and then turns back around to face Carmilla’s back, ready to say something.  Then she sees it.

“Carm, what’s that on your neck?” Laura asks with a sniffle.

Carmilla lets out an exasperated sigh. “It’s just my neck, you insufferable child.”

Laura stands and walks over to get a better look at it. It’s a large, shiny black mass about the size of her hand.  She resists the urge to yank it off, even though it’s obviously very much attached to Carmilla, mostly because she has no idea if that’ll make things better or worse.

Carmilla is digging through the available tops and doesn’t seem to notice as Laura steps out of the room.

She knocks on Perry and LaFontaine’s door, and the former opens it.

“Oh, honey, are you okay?  You look like you’ve been crying.”

Laura’s hands fly to her wet cheeks, totally forgetting in the face of the newest mystery that they had been tear-stained barely minutes before.  “Uhm, can I come in?” she asks.

LaF is on their bed and looks up from their laptop, worry on their face.  “Did something happen with the vampire?  Because I didn’t think she was letting you out of the room in your current state.”

Perry gestures for Laura to sit on her bed while she joins LaF on the other.

Laura takes a deep breath.  “I was recording a video when Carmilla came back, saying she’d killed the wendigo,” she begins.  “And she was fine, but then she went to the bathroom and then she started saying these really mean things to me.”

LaF’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “What kind of mean things?”

Laura bites her lip.  “Like, saying she doesn’t love me and just thinks of me as this human meal and that I’m mortal and she won’t miss me when I’m gone.” She can feel herself getting upset and she fights back more tears.  She takes another deep breath before continuing.  “And then she turned around and I saw it.”

“Saw what, sweetie?” Perry asks gently.

Laura runs a hand through her hair. “It was like this huge leech, but it was huge.  And it was on her neck.  I wanted to pull it off, but I was afraid that might make things worse?” She sighs.  “So I figured, with the bio major expert right down the hall… Y’know?”

LaF looks down at their screen while Perry goes to give Laura a tissue.

“Hmm,” they mutter.

The two girls look at them.  “‘Hmm,’ what?” Laura asks, giving Perry a grateful smile for the tissue.

“J.P. wants to know what it looks like.”

Laura stands and throws out the tissue and walks over to LaF.  “Pull up my livestream,” she tells them.

Perry raises a quizzical eyebrow. “Your videos are all live again? Not edited?”

Laura shakes her head.  “The only reason I stopped last semester was because we were afraid the Dean or her vampire henchmen were watching them. I doubt lophiiformes or mermaids are doing that now.”  LaF hands Laura the laptop.  “Danny and I spoke about it, and if we have something less time-sensitive and more important or secretive, then I just wouldn’t broadcast that live.  The stream is basically just so viewers know if they’re in any immediate danger.”

Perry nods and joins LaF and Laura by the bed.

Carmilla is still on the screen, facing the camera, trying on one of Laura shirts before wrinkling her face in disdain, tossing it to the ground, and turning back to face the wardrobe.

Laura points at the screen.  “There!  See it?”

“I have a hunch, Laura,” J.P. says.  “Allow me a few minutes of searching before seeing if it is confirmed.”

“Okay.”  Laura looks around the room.  “Thanks, guys.”

“You are always welcome here, Laura.” Perry gives her a squeeze before getting off the bed and returning to her desk.

Laura closes the window to the livestream and hands LaF the laptop back.

Suddenly, the door slams open and Carmilla is standing in the doorway.

“You’re recording me?!” she bellows.

Laura lets out a yelp as Carmilla rushes at her with supernatural speed and pins her against the wall. LaF looks down at their laptop, while Perry seems to read their mind and jumps to action.

“Uhm, Carmilla, how about we calm down?” Perry is obviously staring at the large mass on the vampire’s neck.

LaF scans the laptop screen and gets off the bed and starts rummaging through boxes.

“How about all the stupid humans in this general vicinity stop trying to play adult when they’re nothing but senseless children?” Carmilla snaps back, pushing Laura further into the wall. Laura winces and a hand flies to one of her wounds.

“You’re hurting Laura,” Perry points out as gently as possible.

Carmilla blinks for a second, as if almost snapping out of a trance, but then the anger returns to her face and she holds Laura firmly. Her attention slowly wanders over to LaF and Laura’s eyes widen.

“Carm, I love you,” Laura says desperately.

Carmilla turns back to face Laura and scowls at her. “Not this again, you foolish toddler.”

Suddenly, LaF leaps at Carmilla from behind and touches something to the mass.  Carmilla screams out in pain and the black creature falls off her neck to the ground, screeches, and stops moving.

Carmilla looks at Laura, as if she was seeing her clearly for the first time in ages.  “Laura, you’re hurt…”  She collapses and Laura struggles to hold her up.  Perry and LaF rush over to help lay her down on the ground.

“Is she okay?” Laura asks, worried.

LaF nods.  “J.P. figured out that the thing on her neck was an iratus parasite. It was feeding off her energy by making her angry, so I just overloaded it with more energy than it could handle.” They gesture over to some jumper cables lying on the ground.  “Worked like a charm.”

Perry’s mouth drops open.  “I didn’t even know we had those in the room.”

Carmilla slowly wakes up in her bed, vaguely aware that someone else is in a chair next to it.

“Good mornin’, sleepyhead,” Laura greets brightly.

Carmilla groans.  “What happened?”

Laura is holding a glass with blood in it and waits for her girlfriend to sit up before handing it to her to drink.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Carmilla swallows and thinks hard. “I remember seeing the wendigo in the forest and…  It’s kinda hazy after that.” She groans again. “I feel like crap.”

Laura chuckles and takes the glass back from her. “Yeah, I’m not surprised. You were basically electrocuted.”

Carmilla frowns.  “What the frilly hell happened?”

Laura puts a hand on the vampire’s shoulder and gently eases her back down.  “I’ll tell you later.  Just rest for now, okay?”

Carmilla starts to protest but soon finds herself drifting off.

Laura smiles and kisses her on the cheek. “I love you, you silly vampire.”

Chapter Text

Laura enters the room and is shocked at what she finds. It’s been a couple days since the mishap with the parasite.  She had told Carmilla about the iratus parasite and gave her a vague description of how it had affected her.  J.P. surmised that it must’ve latched onto her when she was hunting the wendigo in the forest, since it prefers that kind of environment, and was probably only there because it was drawn to the power of the lophiiformes to begin with.

Carmilla seemed satisfied with Laura’s explanation, which is why she’s so surprised when she walks into the room to find Carmilla huddled over Laura’s desk and–– holy fish sticks, is she crying?

“Carm?  Are you okay?”  Laura rushes over to see that Carmilla is watching an archived video of the livestream from that day. It’s at the part right after Carmilla has realized that the camera was left on and her yelling is heard down the hall.  She pauses the video.

“I was so mean to you,” Carmilla says with a sniffle, her voice cracking.  “Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was?”

Laura shrugs.  “I didn’t see a point.  It’s not like you meant it, right?”  She feigns shock. “Unless you slipped up and I really am your next meal?” she teases.

Carmilla doesn’t laugh and just turns away and sniffles.

“Hey, Carm,” Laura says softly, gently making the vampire face her by her chin.  “Did you mean any of what you said?”

Carmilla shakes her head immediately. “God, no, Laura.”

“Then you have nothing to feel bad about.” Laura hugs her girlfriend, resting her chin on the top of her head.  She feels Carmilla let out a long, shaky sigh.  “Because if you don’t come visit my grave, I’ll haunt your grumpy butt for all eternity.”

Carmilla lets out a half-sob, half-laugh and squeezes Laura.  It’s a bit too hard because Laura flinches a bit, but doesn’t pull away.

Carmilla notices, however, and lets go. “Did I just hurt you?”

Laura laughs and sits down on her bed. “I think I’ll survive, Carm.”

“I never meant to hurt you.  Not now, and not the other day, either.”  Carmilla runs a hand through her hair.  “I don’t think of you as my next meal, or as a mortal I’m waiting to outlive.”  Her eyes widen. “Wait.  After LaF zapped me with the jumper cables, but before I passed out, I remember…”  She swallows hard. “I remember noting that you were hurt.” Her eyes struggle to meet Laura’s. “Was that me?”

Laura bites her lip.  “I mean, you came into their room angry that the camera was still recording.  And I was trying to divert your attention from LaF so they could do whatever they needed to do to get the parasite off you, and you had me pinned against the wall, and you kept pressing harder and harder.”  She clasps her hands nervously.  “And you may have reopened some of the wounds from the wendigo.”

Carmilla buries her face in her hands. “I’m a monster.”

“Hey, no,” Laura says immediately. “No, you’re not.”

Carmilla doesn’t move and Laura seems to be at a loss for words.

“Look, Carm, maybe you being stuck in here all day is messing with your mind.  How about we go out for a walk together?”

Carmilla removes her hands from her face and looks over to Laura, tears welling up in her eyes.

“We can see who’s slower–– me after a wendigo attack, or you after being electrocuted,” Laura says with a wink. Carmilla lets out a small chuckle and follows her out of the room.  They walk for almost ten minutes before the vampire visibly relaxes and takes a deep breath.

“Feel better?” Laura asks, taking Carmilla’s hand in hers.

Carmilla smiles and intertwines their fingers. “Much better, cutie.”

They sit down at a small bench on the side of the path. Laura rests her head on Carmilla’s shoulder. “How was class today?” Carmilla asks.

“I’m not sure.  I sorta dozed off in class,” she answers.

Carmilla’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “That’s not like you.”

When Laura doesn’t answer immediately, Carmilla gently nudges her.  Laura shrugs. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

Carmilla sighs.  “Why haven’t you been taking the pain killers the doctor gave you? I know he said that those wounds weren’t deep but if you’ve been in pain…”

Laura laughs lightly and kisses her on the cheek. “Carm, I am a tiny little creampuff. Pain killers hit me like a truck, and I’d rather be coherent with this whole lophiiformes thing going on.”

Laura’s phone rings and she answers it. “Hey, LaF, what’s up?” Laura’s eyes widen. “There’s a what?”

A loud roar echoes through the campus and the couple turn to face the sound coming from near their dorm.

Laura blinks hard.  “Uhh, yeah, okay, talk to you later?”  She hangs up and turns back to face Carmilla. “LaF says there’s a dragon flying around campus attacking people and that the Summer Society and the Zetas are handling it but they can’t capture it.”

Carmilla arches an eyebrow.  “A dragon?  That’s new.”

Laura slips her phone into her pocket. “LaF says they’re safe with Perry in the biology building, but there’s other residents over there.”

“Well, I’ve never seen a dragon before, so I have no idea what to do with Eragon over there.”

“Eragon’s the kid, Saphira is the dragon,” Laura corrects.

Carmilla narrows her eyes at her girlfriend. “Whatever.  Would you rather I called it Smaug?”

There’s a hard gust of wind as a large beast flies by overhead.  The winged creature, over two stories tall, perches itself atop the library and breathes out a large stream of fire before taking off and circles back towards the dorm again.

Laura jumps up from the bench. “We have to do something! The others are across campus and who knows how many people it’ll attack before they can get here!”

Carmilla grabs her arm and holds her in place. “Cupcake, you’re still hurt. And not for nothing, but you can’t do much against it.”  She lets her arm go and gestures towards the building nearest to them.  “Go into the fine arts building and stay there, and I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Laura bites her lip and shakes her head. “I’m not letting you go after this thing by yourself.”

Carmilla sighs, exasperated.  “And I’m not asking for your permission.” She grabs Laura again and they disappear in a puff of smoke.  Before Laura can get her bearings, Carmilla disappears again.

“I can’t believe you dropped me off in a locked room the middle of the top floor!” Laura yells in the empty classroom. “Stupid vampire.”

Carmilla reappears near the dorms and ducks as the dragon swoops by.  Her phone rings and she rolls her eyes when she sees it’s Danny.  She picks it up.  “What is it, gingersnap?”

“Carmilla, is Laura safe?”

“Yes, I put her in a locked room in the top floor of the fine arts building.”

“Good.”  There’s some rustling before she speaks again.  “We’re on our way over now.  But LaF just called and according to J.P., the dragon is probably here after receiving similar orders as the mermaid from lophiiformes, since dragons can also communicate on different planes.”  There’s a pause as she yells some unintelligible orders.  “So it’s probably going after you.”

Carmilla’s eyes widen.  “Those weren’t the mermaid’s orders.”

“Then what--”

There’s a loud whoosh and Carmilla’s head whips around to follow the noise, only to see that it’s coming near the fine arts building.

The dragon is right outside the window of the classroom Carmilla teleported Laura into and shoots a large fireball through it, shattering the glass.

“Oh, no,” she breathes.

Carmilla drops the phone and teleports back into the building.  The room is a charred mess, with enflamed papers floating around and small fires spread throughout the room.

“Laura!” Carmilla calls out.  She’s trying to find her scent and is straining to hear any movement, but her panic is slowly taking over.

Smoke is starting to fill the room, making the search even more difficult.  Carmilla takes a few steps forward and then sees a foot sticking out from a bookcase that’s fallen over.

She rushes over and drops to Laura’s side. There’s blood slowly oozing from a wound on her head and she’s covered in soot and scratches.

“Laura,” she says urgently, her voice cracking. “Laura?”

Get a hold of yourself, Karnstein.  She wills herself to calm down and then teleports them both out of the burning room.

Laura slowly blinks as she wakes up and turns her head to identify the other weight on the bed.

Carmilla is on a chair next to the bed, asleep with her head near Laura’s arm.  The vampire looks exhausted, yet peaceful.  Laura quickly scans the room, and her friends are scattered about, also sleeping.

Perry and LaF are on Laura’s bed, while Danny and Kirsch are both on the floor leaning against the wardrobe, with the latter’s head on the redhead’s shoulder.  Her eyes wander back to her girlfriend.

Laura starts to smile, but a pain shoots through her skull and her hand goes up to rub her temple as she lets out a small gasp.

Carmilla is awake immediately, her eyes filled with worry.  “You’re awake,” she says, relieved.  She gently sits on the bed next to her.  “Are you okay?”

Laura nods, but this just makes the pain worse and she winces.  “I think so?” The others slowly start waking up and approach the couple on Carmilla’s bed.  “What happened?”

Carmilla averts her gaze.

When it’s clear she won’t be answering, Danny takes her place in the chair and softly pats Laura’s knee. “The dragon was under orders from lophiiformes to go after you to coerce Carmilla to take the Dean’s place in feeding it sacrifices,” she explains.  “It blew a fireball through the window of the fine arts classroom you were in and something hit you in the head and knocked you out. You’ve been unconscious for the past day or so.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember the fireball. The blast blew me into this bookcase. Good thing I’m a bookworm.” Everyone gives weak chuckles except Carmilla. “What if I have a concussion, or something?”

Kirsch shakes his head.  “The Silas athletic department has this neat little device that can scan any bro and say whether they have a serious injury.”

“I used it on you and all it said you’d be unconscious for twenty-two hours and fifty-three minutes,” LaF adds.

“And that you’re going to get your period in a few days,” Perry whispers with a wink.

“Yeah, but you’re all good, Hollis.” Danny flashes a small grin. “You might be the sturdiest person I’ve ever met.”

“Way stronger than most dudes I know,” Kirsch says with a nod.

Laura laughs.  “And what happened with the dragon?”

“The Zetas and Summer Society warriors took it out! Oh, dude, it was so cool. Psycho Society leapt on its back when I distracted it and she just lopped its head right off! The Summer Society took the wings to put on display at their house while we took the head and put it in the Zeta living room!”

Laura stifles a laugh and looks over at Carmilla, who has remained quiet and is still looking away.  She turns her attention back to Danny and Kirsch. “Glad you guys got trophies out of it.” She suddenly lets out a small pained gasp and rubs her temple.

Perry hands Laura a pill and a glass of water. “I know you haven’t been taking the painkillers subscribed after that wendigo attack, sweetie, but here’s some regular Advil.  You may not have hit your head hard enough to give you a concussion, but there’s still a pretty nasty cut with a bruise around it.”

Laura swallows them and smiles. “Thanks, Perry.”

“Also, the whole fiery inferno broke the lophiiformes deterrent I made, but you were unconscious for so long that I managed to make you another one, so you’re all good,” LaFontaine adds.

“You guys are amazing,” Laura says before letting out a small yawn.

“Okay, okay, Laur, we get it,” LaF teases. “Geez, we’ll get outta your hair.”

Laura giggles and says goodbye to everyone while they leave the room.

Carmilla is still sitting on the bed next to Laura.

“Okay, Grumpy Puss,” Laura says, yawning again. “Last chance to break your vow of silence and say something before I fall back asleep.”  She moves over so Carmilla has more room on the bed.

Carmilla sighs and lies down. “I teleported you into that building against your will.”

“You did.”  Laura lies back down next to her and looks her in the eyes. “Which was really rotten of you.”

Carmilla doesn’t answer and looks away from her.

“Carm, talk to me.”

The vampire doesn’t answer for a bit and Laura holds her hand, waiting for a response.

Carmilla gives a half-smile down at their intertwined fingers.  “Why did you say me teleporting you into the classroom was rotten?”

The tinier girl shrugs.  “Because it wasn’t my choice and I don’t like people taking choices away from me, especially if it involves helping other people.”

Carmilla scoffs.  “You’re ridiculous, cupcake.”

“So you’ve told me.”  Laura lets out a laugh.  “Mind explaining to me what I did this time?”

Carmilla looks over at her human and smiles. It’s a smile that reaches her eyes.

“Laura,” she says softly.  “I teleported you into that building.  I put you in danger.  Just like I’m doing by not accepting the offer from lophiiformes.”

“Carm, you had no way of knowing the dragon was looking for me, or that it would find me in that building.”  Laura kisses Carmilla on the nose.  “As your tiny human, I feel it is my place to tell you, don't sweat the small stuff.”

Carmilla lets out a laugh and kisses Laura gently on the cheek.

They lie in silence for a bit as Laura begins drifting off to sleep.  “Carm?” she mumbles.

“Yes, cupcake?”

“I love you.”

Carmilla’s breath catches in her throat and she struggles to speak.

“And it’s fine if you can’t say it yet,” Laura continues sleepily.  “I just want you to know I love you, that’s all.”

A few seconds pass and Carmilla starts to drift off too.

“Carm?”

Carmilla smiles.  “Yes, cupcake?”

“I’ve had enough of dragons for a while, so let’s table that Hobbit marathon I was bugging you about.”

The vampire chuckles.  “Okay with me, cutie.”

Chapter Text

A few uneventful weeks pass before LaFontaine calls Laura and asks her to meet them after class in their room.

“You’re sure about this?” Laura asks as she sits on Perry’s bed.

LaF nods.  “J.P. has been measuring the energy that lophiiformes has been putting out all semester and it’s almost nonexistent right now.  If we keep starving it out, soon it won’t be a threat anymore.”

Laura does a little fist pump. “Any idea how long it’ll take?”

LaF looks down at their laptop screen. “J.P. doesn’t have an exact time frame, but he says soon.”

Laura laughs.  “Vague, but I’ll take it.  Need anything else?”

They shake their head.  “I’ve gotta run out to my lab now, so I’ll see you later.”

Laura waves goodbye and heads back down the hall to her room.  She opens the door to hear someone in the bathroom vomiting into the toilet.

“Carm?”  She closes the door behind her.  “You okay?”

The toilet flushes and the vampire walks out of the bathroom slowly, collapsing onto Laura’s bed.  “Ugh, I feel awful,” she groans.

Laura sits down next to her and places a hand on her forehead.  “You’re burning up,” she says with a frown.  “Has this ever happened to you before?”

Carmilla groans again.

“Carm, I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Laura goes to the bathroom to wet a washcloth and calls LaF.  “Hey, LaF,” she says, placing the wet towel on Carmilla’s forehead.

“What the frilly hell are you doing?” she growls.

Laura shushes her.  “It’s to help with the fever.”  She sits down at her desk.  “Yeah, sorry about that.  I know you’re busy, but Carm’s throwing up and she’s running a fever.  Any idea what could be happening?”  Laura stays silent for a bit.  “Food poisoning, huh?”  She looks over at Carmilla and giggles at the pitiful vampire lying on her bed. “Mmhmm, yeah, I can wait.”

Carmilla crosses her arms.  “Food poisoning?”

Laura gives her a sympathetic look. “Have any blood today?”

“Yeah, but it tasted fine.”

Laura starts to say something but cuts herself off. “Yup, I’m still here.” She doesn’t speak for a few seconds. “Hmm.  Okay, thanks.  Good luck with your experiment!” She hangs up the phone.

“What’s up, cupcake?”

Laura’s eyebrows furrow together. “LaF still had some blood test results from when that dragon knocked me out.  J.P. tested it on a hunch and found some weird stuff in it.”

Carmilla sits up.  “Are you okay?”

Laura nods and goes to sit on her bed. “Yeah, I’m fine, but whatever he found in it is–– this name I won’t even try to pronounce, and––” She checks a new text on her phone.  “––Apparently LaF has it in their blood, too.  J.P. says it makes human blood semi-toxic to vampires.”  She gently nudges the vampire’s shoulder so she’s lying down again. “Where did you get your blood from today?”

“Donations at the campus hospital,” she answers.

“Hmm,” Laura says, tapping her finger as she thinks. “The whole student body must be affected.”

Carmilla groans.  “Why?”

“Maybe it’s so lophiiformes can weaken you?” Laura shrugs.  “Either way, I’ll text LaF to see if they can get you blood from a source off-campus.”

Carmilla forces a smile.  “Thanks, cutie.”

Laura gives her a light kiss on the cheek. “Now get some rest. You look cute sick, but I’m not a fan of it being a permanent look.”

Laura is answering her phone in the hallway. “Yeah, Carm’s been napping for a few hours,” she says to Perry in a hushed whisper.  “No, she’s fine. I don’t think I need any help with her, but thanks.”

“You know I can still hear you, right?” Carmilla calls tiredly from the room.

Laura laughs.  “Talk to you later.  Bye, Perry.” She opens the door and puts her phone on the desk.  “How are you feeling, Carm?”

The vampire moans.  “Terrible.”

Laura frowns and walks over, placing a hand on her head.  She gasps and pulls her hand back.  “You’re burning up!”

She goes over to the fridge and pulls out an ice pack. “Kirsch dropped this off earlier. Apparently they have a bunch of extras for when the Zetas go to the beach—”

A rustle behind her cuts her off and Carmilla is up and standing inches away from Laura.

“––Uhm, hi, Carm.  Maybe you should lie down?”

There’s something in her eyes that Laura can’t quite place–– a sort of primal hunger and deranged madness that wasn’t there a second ago.

The vampire’s upper lip curls so that her fangs are visible and a snarl rumbles from her throat.  In a flash, she has her hand wrapped around Laura’s throat and tightens it.

Laura gasps for air and claws at the hand. “Carm, what are you doing?” she croaks out.  “It’s me, Laura.”

“Bitch!” Carmilla hisses.  “Do you know how long I spent paying for your betrayal? I was locked in darkness, dying over and over again for decades, because of you!”

Laura stops trying to pull away Carmilla’s hand and instead makes a quick decision and snaps her palm upward into her nose.

The vampire groans and lets go of Laura’s throat, backing away.

“I’m so sorry,” Laura sobs before running for the door.

Moving with vampiric speed, Carmilla winds up in front of the human and blocks the door.  “You were too much of a coward to give me a chance, and now you’re too much of a coward to deal with the consequences of your actions.  But you were fine having me deal with them,” she growls.

“I’m not Ell, I’m Laura,” she tries desperately. “Carm, you’re just hallucinating from your fever or something, please.”

She hears her cell phone ring behind her. Biting her lip, she dives for the phone, but the vampire reaches it first and smashes it to pieces against the wall, before returning to block the door.

“Carm, please, snap out of it,” Laura begs, not moving from the desk.

Carmilla rushes at the human again, but Laura quickly reaches under her desk and picks up a can of bear spray, spraying it all over the vampire’s eyes.  Carmilla yells in pain and anger, slapping the can from Laura’s hand and pushes forward, pinning her to the ground.

Laura tries to defend herself, but Carmilla scratches at her arms and hands, drawing blood and tearing the charm from Laura’s neck.

Carmilla lunges at the neck and Laura lets out a scream when the fangs pierce her skin.  Panic settles in as she feels blood leaving her body.

Suddenly, there’s a loud thwack and Carmilla crumples to the ground next to Laura. Danny stands over her with a large stick in her band, while Perry and LaFontaine peer around her.

“J.P. saw reports that some vampires with food poisoning have reported delirium from extreme fevers,” LaF explains. “I called to warn you while we were on our way over to see if you needed a hand and when you didn’t pick up we knew something was wrong.”

Danny puts the stick down on Laura’s bed. “Are you okay?”

Laura winces as she sits up.  “I think so.”  She touches her neck and looks at the blood on her hand when she pulls it back.

Carmilla groans next to her and slowly blinks, causing everyone in the room to freeze.  “Ow, my head,” she moans.

She picks her head off the floor and looks around at the redheads staring back at her.  “What is happening?”  She gradually turns to look at Laura and her eyes widen in horror.  “Oh no.”  She reaches for Laura’s neck but seems to think better of it.  “What have I done?” she asks in a hushed whisper.

Laura tries to laugh it off.  “Carm, it’s not your fault, okay?  You had a really bad fever and you started hallucinating, that’s all.”

Carmilla continues staring at her neck. “How much did I take?”

“Not much,” Laura says, trying to reassure her.

Carmilla doesn’t stop herself from reaching out this time, gently touching a bruise forming on Laura’s neck. “Did I do this, too?”

Laura holds the vampire’s hand in hers. “What can I say? I really made you work for your meal.”

Carmilla pulls her hand back and looks down at the ground.  “Laura, I am so sorry,” she says, almost inaudibly.

“Carm, I’m fine.  Really.  Don’t worry about it.”

The two stand, with Carmilla helping her girlfriend up.

Perry lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m just glad we got here when we did.”

“Yeah,” LaF agrees, removing the stick from the bed and placing it next to the wardrobe.  “Although this room looks like it saw quite a struggle.” They clear their throat after Perry elbows them when Carmilla looks even more upset at the prospect that she and Laura created the disheveled room before them.

Suddenly, Danny gasps.  “Laura, your protection… thingy!”

Laura looks down and begins to convulse, an unnaturally bright light emitting from her as she screams out. A force throws her backwards into the wall and a few seconds pass while she leans against it, her eyes closed.

“Laura?” Carmilla tries carefully. “Laura, can you hear me?”

Laura’s eyes open, but her eyeballs are glowing and an ethereal voice comes from her mouth. 

“Laura isn’t here right now.”

Chapter Text

“Lophiiformes,” Danny realizes.

Laura’s body shakes with laughter. “Yes.”

“Get out of Laura’s body,” Carmilla growls.

“And why would I do that, when you were considerate enough to remove the protection charm from her, allowing me to jump right in, just as I planned?” Laura-Lophiiformes sneers.

She walks across the room and sits on Carmilla’s bed. The others regard her cautiously.

“Now, last time I made you a proposal, you rejected me. And you’ve been rejecting me ever since.”

“I’d do it again,” Carmilla snaps.

“Yes, yes, quite right.  Which is why I’m glad I have others here who might be slightly less inclined to blindly follow Laura’s wishes in favor of her well-being.”

She quickly rummages through Carmilla’s headboard. She pulls out a knife and holds it to her wrist.  Everyone starts to move to stop her but she shoots all of them a warning look. 

“I will slit Laura’s wrist if any of you move a muscle,” she warns.  The group nods their understanding in unison.  She continues to hold the knife in place.  “You are all to allow me to proceed as I wish in Laura’s body. I will obtain a nice collection of sacrifices to feed on in the Lustig without any hindrance from you. Once I have done so, you can have Laura back and by then I will be strong enough to possess someone else to do my bidding.”

“No,” Carmilla says firmly.

Laura-Lophiiformes throws her head back and cackles. “The alternative is I slit Laura’s wrist and possess some other fool on campus.”

Carmilla raises any eyebrow.  “Then why haven’t you?  It’s because you’ve spent this whole time weakening Laura, isn’t it? All of these recent, grand-scale supernatural occurrences were meant to distract Laura so that when you finally got the charm off, she would be less likely to resist your weakening state than someone who’s been none the wiser.”  She scoffs. “She would never want me to let you do this.  I’m gonna have to call your bluff, you overgrown light bulb.”

Laura-Lophiiformes shrugs and starts dragging the knife across her wrist.  It’s not deep enough to do serious damage, but blood begins flowing from the cut.

“Stop!” Danny yells.  Laura-Lophiiformes obliges and grins.  Danny takes a deep breath. “Just, stop for a second.”

Perry shakes her head.  “This is madness!  You can’t expect us to choose between our friend and countless lives.”

“Oh, but I do,” Laura-Lophiiformes says with a smirk. “Tick-tock.  My wrist is starting to feel itchy again.”

“You can slit Laura’s wrist, but then what? You’re too weak to possess anyone else,” Carmilla points out.

“Maybe,” Laura-Lophiiformes replies. “But are you willing to take that chance?”

Her eyes flash for a couple seconds, and Laura’s voice returns.

“Carm, my wrist hurts,” Laura whimpers. “Make it stop.”

Danny, LaF, and Perry look uneasy.

Carmilla snarls.  “That’s not Laura,” she hisses.  “She wouldn’t use her one chance at getting a message through to me just to tell me she’s in pain.”

Laura-Lophiiformes gives an unsettling smile. “You caught me.”

She makes another cut with the knife, this time slightly deeper.  The smell of blood fills the room as it begins pouring out more quickly.  “I’m not terribly familiar with human mortality, but is light-headedness bad?”

Suddenly, the knife drops from her hand and her eyes flash for a couple seconds, before Laura’s usual color returns to them.

“Carm,” she rushes out while kicking the knife away from her.  “Whatever you do, don’t let it use me––”

Her eyes flash back to the previous glow and the voice echoes with lophiiformes’s anger.

“Wow.  A tough one, she is.”  She looks down at her hand and realizes the knife is no longer there.  “Ah, no matter.”  Laura-Lophiiformes rises from the bed and walks to the window.

“Everyone stay away from her. The last thing we need is for her to rip off someone else’s charm so lophiiformes can hop into their body,” Carmilla orders.

Before anyone can stop her, Laura smashes the window with her elbow and picks up a shard of glass.  “Now, where were we?”

Carmilla clenches her jaw.  “You were gonna get your glowing ass out of my girlfriend’s body.”

Laura’s body throws the glass shard out the window and she clutches her head.  Her eyes flicker between glowing and its regular color.  “Carm,” Laura says feebly.  “I can’t keep holding it off.”

The vampire rushes to her tiny human and holds her shoulders.  “Cupcake, you can. You’re strong enough, and it’s weak, and you can do this.” She looks around the room and the others give shouts of encouragement.

“Maybe I’d be stronger if you hadn’t fed from me,” Laura’s voice growls, taking Carmilla aback, while Laura’s eyes light up once more.  It quickly fades.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” she whispers.

“Shh,” Carmilla soothes.  “Just focus on my voice and forget about the rest.”

“Laur, right before we got here, J.P.’s readings showed that it would basically be rendered nonexistent after today. This is its last shot, its Hail Mary.”

Perry nods.  “Yeah, sweetie.  You’re stronger than it. We all know you can do it.”

“Kick its ass, Hollis,” Danny adds.

“Foolish children!” Laura-Lophiiformes booms. “I may be weak, but she is even weaker. Even if she did manage to beat me, it would be a quite the hefty cost.  What kind of terrible friends and lover want her to sacrifice her life?” She shoots Carmilla a scornful glare. “Especially a lover who’s so damaged she can’t even say she loves her?”

She picks up another shard of glass. “You told her that she’s an insignificant mortal.  Time to prove that.”

Carmilla snatches the glass shard from Laura’s hand. “Laura, if you can hear me, I never meant that.  Don’t listen to lophiiformes. Don’t let it take control of you.”

She shoves the vampire away.  “Tell us something, because she would never ask you, but I’m curious, too.”  Her eyes flare brighter with a malicious glee.  “Why haven’t you said you love her, yet?  Are you really so damaged that those three words can’t be uttered by you? Are you incapable of feeling love? Or is it possible that you really don’t love her?”

Laura’s eyes dim back to their regular hue and Laura’s voice comes out, stronger than it’s been.  “Holy cookies, shut up already.”

A giant blast of light explodes in the room, the intensity so blinding that everyone shields their eyes.  The room is filled with it and Laura’s pained screams for several seconds.

There’s a sudden silence and everyone stares at Laura, who promptly collapses.

“Laura!” Carmilla calls out, catching her before she hits the floor.  Her voice cracks. “Laura, please wake up…”

Chapter Text

Danny knocks on the door.

“Come in,” Carmilla calls.  It sounds like she’s been crying–– or maybe never stopped–– but both Danny and LaFontaine make a silent pact not to point it out.

“How’s our girl?” LaF asks when Danny opens the door.

“Same way she’s been for the past week,” Carmilla answers tiredly in a chair at Laura’s bedside.  “I swear if she wasn’t breathing, I’d think twice about that sentient flash drive’s assessment of her.”

Danny sits on Laura’s bed and looks at the tiny girl on the vampire’s bed.  “She looks so peaceful.”

Carmilla gives a rueful laugh. “So do the dead.”

“Oh, hush,” Perry says, entering the room with Kirsch. He quietly places a box of tissues on the desk without drawing attention to it.  Perry removes the empty box and throws it out with similar nonchalance.  “Laura will wake up soon.”

“You don’t know that,” Carmilla snaps, her voice cracking. LaF looks like they’re about to tell Carmilla off for answering rudely to Perry, but Perry grabs their hand and gives a shake of the head.

Carmilla gives Perry a small apologetic smile but it quickly fades. “J.P. said that by all rights, Laura should’ve died in that internal battle with lophiiformes.  How do we know that won’t still happen?”

“Because the little dude hasn’t died,” Kirsch replies.  “She’s strong and she’ll wake up.”

The vampire sniffles.  “So stupid.”

Danny raises an eyebrow.  “Who are you calling stupid?”

“Me!” Carmilla snaps.  She sighs and runs a hand through her hair, holds Laura hand with the other.  “I’m stupid.”

Perry gives her shoulder a quick warm squeeze. “Oh, honey, why do you think you’re stupid?”

Carmilla bites her lip, hesitant to speak. To hell with it.  “Why didn’t I tell her how I felt about her?”

Everyone shifts uncomfortably.

“Not to, uhm, make you feel worse than you probably already do…  But why haven’t you told her, yet?”  Carmilla shoots LaFontaine a look.  “Look, sorry,” they say, holding their hands up.  “I was just curious.”

“I think we all are,” Perry offers lightly.

Carmilla doesn’t say anything for a while, so the others are ready to drop the subject.

“I didn’t want to make it real,” she finally says softly.

The others don’t press further.

“I didn’t plan to fall for her, but I did. From the moment she told me I deserved better, she was the first person to see me as someone in my whole existence, and I knew I was a goner.  But I never planned for it, which means I never planned to deal with her damn mortal life.”  She takes Laura’s hand in both of her hands.  “I haven’t brought up the topic and I’m not even sure it’s occurred to her. But what am I supposed to do? Watch her grow old and die? Turn her into a vampire and condemn her to an immortal life?”  She shakes her head.  “Telling her that I love her would’ve made everything seem too real.”

She lets go of Laura’s hand and wipes some tears away. “But I should’ve told her. If she hadn’t survived the fight with lophiiformes, she would’ve died never knowing.”

“She knew,” Danny says gently. “You didn’t have to say it to her for her to know.”

“She deserved to hear it.”  Carmilla stands from the chair.  “She deserves so much more than this.” She gestures at Laura’s unconscious body.

Carmilla takes a step away and sighs. “I should’ve done what I do after every sacrifice year–– left Silas and not come back.”

“You don’t mean that, bro,” Kirsch says immediately.

“I do.  I love her so much, but she would’ve been better off if I had just disappeared from her life a long time ago.”

She turns towards the door.  “It’ll be tough for her to understand at first, but it’ll hurt me a lot more and longer than it’ll hurt her.  Try to make her understand why I––”

There’s a small groan and the entire room looks down at Laura, whose eyes are slowly blinking open.

“What did I say about being a martyr, Carm?” she asks weakly.

Carmilla lets out a half-sob, half-laugh and immediately rushes to the bedside.

Laura gives a weak smile to her and at her friends around the room.  “What happened?”

“You beat it, cupcake.  You beat lophiiformes.  It used the last of its energy possessing you and you overpowered it.” Tears well up in Carmilla’s eyes. “You’ve been unconscious for a week.”

“Explains the wedgie,” Laura remarks, leading to laughs from everyone.

“Well, I’m sorry you’ve had to experience such hardship,” Carmilla replies with a grin.  “It somehow got lost in the panic of me not knowing if you were okay for a week.”

Laura giggles.  “Gee, I wonder what that’s like.  Imagine what it’d be like if someone was just lying MIA at the bottom of a pit for a week.  No way of knowing if they’re even alive, no postcard…”

“Yeah, yeah.  Call it even?”  Carmilla smiles and kisses Laura lightly on the cheek and hesitates for a moment.

“I love you,” Carmilla blurts out. “I love your laugh. I love your drive. I love your stubbornness. I love your weirdness. I love that face you make when you’re annoyed or angry. I love your loyalty and compassion.  I love that fire you get in your eyes that just spreads through your whole body.  I love you, Laura Hollis.”

Laura beams at her girlfriend. “Who knew it would just take me being in a magically-induced coma for you to finally say it?”

Carmilla laughs.  “You’re such a dork.”

“Yeah, but you love this dork.” Laura pulls Carmilla in for a kiss but eventually pulls away and plops her head back onto the pillow.

“The girl just woke up from a coma. Damn, woman, give her some space,” LaF retorts with a grin.

Carmilla rolls her eyes.

“Let’s get her some food,” Perry suggests. She shoos everyone out of the room.

“That might be her new role in the group,” Carmilla comments.  “Kicking everyone out of the room when we have our epic reunions.”

Laura laughs.

They sit in a comfortable silence for a few moments.

“Carm?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not really planning on running one day, are you?”

Carmilla swallows hard but shakes her head. “No, cupcake.  It’s kind of a knee-jerk reaction, but I won’t do that to you.”

Laura lets out a sigh of relief. “Now that it’s real? That’s what you really meant, isn’t it?”  Carmilla raises an eyebrow.

“I heard more than just the ‘running away’ part of what you said.  I heard you saying that you were afraid admitting your feelings would make this whole thing real–– make the fear of losing me real.  But you were also afraid that saying you love me would also mean it’d make this relationship real and that you wouldn’t be able to just leave when things got tough, weren’t you?”

Carmilla chuckles.  “For a tiny oblivious gay human, you’re not so oblivious.”

“Should I go back to saying things like ‘I know you’re not doing this for me, but…?’” Laura asks with a giggle.

“Oh, hell no.”

Laura takes her hand in hers. “So you’ll stay.”

“Yes, I’ll stay,” Carmilla answers without hesitation. “I’ll stay, and I love you. Any questions?”

“Yeah.”  Laura’s smile turns mischievous.  “Is the door locked?”

Carmilla smirks.  “Buttercup, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to love you anymore than I did, but I was wrong.”