Work Text:
Carmilla’s cat strutted across her living room floor and curled up on her lap. With a lazy swish of his tail, he covered her cell phone with the furry appendage. Looking up, Carmilla rolled her eyes and scratched his head, “Well don’t you look extremely self satisfied today?”
Bagheera inclined his head to side, allowing her better access to his ears.
Her fingers danced across the silky black fur, “So what was it today? Chatting up the ladies? Outsmart a dog? Bite the ginger giant?”
He yawned in her face and slunk off of her lap.
“Fine then,” Carmilla said to Bagheera’s retreating back, “but if I find another dead mouse in my bed then you’re only getting dry food for a week.”
#
“Come on Bags, I was kidding about the dry food,” days later Carmilla was on her hands and knees peering under her couch and talking to an empty apartment. Bagheera was gone and while she wasn’t the sort to post cutesy ‘missing cat’ posters on every street corner, she was getting worried. The longest he’d ever been gone was a few hours.
Carmilla squirmed forward to check behind the curtains, again, when a hard knock at the door interrupted her search. She groaned and slowly got to her feet, wondering what pesky person was demanding her attention now. The knock came again - a rapid double tap that told Carmilla they wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.
She opened the door and was immediately accosted by a ball of black fur. Grasping at the warm mass, she hauled it off her face to look into the tiny green eyes of her cat. He stared at her, unblinking, before his pink tongue flicked out at her.
“Don’t give me that,” she said sternly, “you’re the one who disappeared.”
“Excellent,” a voice said, “that’s your cat?”
Carmilla looked up, trying to pretend that she hadn’t just been having a conversation with an animal. The girl standing at her door was disheveled. Really cute. But not exactly put together. Her brown hair was sticking up all over the place and there were definite dark circles under her eyes. She was dressed in a three sizes too big baggy cupcake shirt that hung almost down to her knees, a pair of fraying blue jeans, and socked feet.
Bright yellow fluffy socks.
The whole thing was kind of adorable.
Carmilla tossed Bagheera lightly behind her into the apartment, “Yeah. That son of a gun is mine. He’s been missing for a few days.” She could be appreciative when she needed to be, “Thanks for bringing him back.” Bagheera was back by her side in an instant, trying to streak past her leg and out the door. Carmilla tried to block him in with her foot.
“I’m Laura. I just live down on the first floor,” the girl said, “I was really glad to see he had a collar.”
Bagheera was still trying to push past her, Carmilla shoved him back again, “Look sorry. I can’t really give you a reward or anything. Broke college student. But this guy clearly wants to run again so thanks and bye.”
She went to close the door when Laura slammed into the door and came barrelling into her apartment, “Oh no you don’t.”
Carmilla stared at the stranger in shock.
“We need to talk about what YOUR cat did.” Laura said.
Carmilla crossed her arms and scowled, “Or we can talk about how you’re barging into people’s homes. I’m pretty sure trespassing is a bigger crime that whatever my cat may have shredded with his claws or knocked over.”
The girl froze for a moment, then straightened her spine, “Yeah. Well. I’ll chance it.”
Carmilla interrupted, “That’s ballsy, cupcake. For all you know I could be a serial killer with a couple of girls trussed up in my bedroom.”
“At this point I’m so tired, I wouldn’t even get you arrested until the next two weeks are up,” Laura said, “I am running on literally 2 hours of sleep. And that’s not 2 hours of continuous sleep. That’s 2 hours of fragmented literal catnaps in the last 36 hours. And I have a midterm tomorrow that I haven’t even started to study for,” Laura threw her hands in the air, “and it’s all the fault of your cat so you’re going to help me fix it.”
Carmilla plopped onto her couch and rolled her eyes, “Your sleep schedule is firstly, not my problem, and secondly, highly unlikely to be related to my cat. What’s he been doing? Banging on your window at night? Sorry, cupcake.” Carmilla let the sarcasm roll off her tongue, “I’ll try and keep him locked up in a cage like some sort of slave instead of letting him enjoy his freedom.”
Laura swayed slightly on her feet but there was fire in her eyes, “My name is Laura. Of all the people who could have owned cats. You would be a raging bad person.”
“Oh cupcake,” Carmilla drawled, “you wound me. A raging bad person? Oh no. How ever will I survive such a grievous insult to my character?”
“I don’t really care if you survive it or not,” Laura snapped, “so long as you suffer on for the next 24 hours while we fix this.”
Carmilla fought to turn her smile at the raging cupcake into a melodramatic smirk, “Right. Because I so want to help you out after being insulted in such a magnificent fashion.”
“Oh, you’re going to,” Laura stomped closer to the couch, “because they’re half your responsibility too and it’s your fault I’ve got a canoe in my apartment.”
Shaking her head to clear it, Carmilla sat up, “Alright Cupcake, you’re going to have to explain that one.”
“Explain?” Laura reached forward and grabbed Carmilla’s wrist, hauling her off the couch with surprisingly strength, “Broody McLeatherpants, I can show you.”
#
There was in fact canoe in Laura’s apartment. Carmilla had nearly tripped over the thing as Laura had dragged her through the door. It ran the entire length of the apartment from directly in front of the door, past the tv, up against the couch, to where it stuck out of the open window on the other side. Basically, the apartment was 20% canoe.
Laura hopped over the canoe and flopped onto the couch, gesturing for Carmilla to look inside.
The canoe was full of kittens. Tiny black and white, barely a few days old kittens who were twaddling and falling over each other in the bottom of the canoe in an effort to get closest to the adult white cat curled up in the bottom.
There were adorable but Carmilla felt a sickening punch to her gut as she stared at them. It was easy to see what had happened.
Her eyes drifted up to Laura’s and she found the girl staring at her intently, “I don’t suppose,” Laura said innocently, “that you ever had Bagheera neutered?”
Carmilla swallowed and shook her head, “The white cat’s yours?”
“That’s Buffy.” Laura reached down to softly stroke the white cat’s head,
Now Carmilla was smirking, “the vampire slayer?”
“It’s a perfectly good name!” Laura insisted, “besides, you named your cat Bagheera? Someone is clearly a little too in love with the Jungle Book.”
“It’s from a quote,” Carmilla lied. She’d actually come across that quote after she’d gotten Bags.
“Suuuuuuure,” Laura giggled, “clearly you’ve got an image to maintain.” Then, she rolled off the couch, hopped back over the canoe, snatched up a cardboard box from the table and shoved it into Carmilla’s arms. “That should have everything you need.”
Carmilla took one look in the box and dropped it on the floor, “No way.” She took a step back, “this is not my problem.”
Something was glinting in Laura’s eye. The tiny girl stepped forward, backing Carmilla against the wall until their noses almost met. “3 days ago I was helping my cat give birth. It was messy and disgusting and she made the most awful noises and I am a journalist, not a vet. I only got through it because my friends Laf and Perry were here and Laf’s in vet school. And then suddenly, I went from 1 cat to 6 cats.” Laura’s breath was warm on Carmilla’s face as she spoke, “And I was going to take them to shelter but they said that they’re really full and if they don’t get adopted right away then they’ll have to put them down and I couldn’t let them get put down. So now I’m stuck with 6 cats and the kittens need to be fed like all the time and I’ve hardly slept and then we had to wrangle this stupid canoe into my apartment because the kittens can kind of wobble and they kept escaping and we couldn’t think of anything else to put them because no-one had a big enough box and we were panicking. And Laf just happened to have a canoe on hand that nobody wanted anyway.”
Carmilla reached up and slowly wiped away one of the tear tracks sneaking down Laura’s face. Laura leaned into the touch, closing her eyes as she continued, “And I’ve hardly slept and I’m so tired and I’ve got a midterm that I’m so not ready for but I can’t just let the kittens die right? Cause there’s something wrong with Buffy and she can’t give milk properly so I’ve got to feed them like every hour and it seems like just when you finish feeding the last one you’ve got to start all over again.”
“Cupcake,” Carmilla said softly. From this distance it was easy to see the deep dark rings under Laura’s eyes. The redness surrounding the chocolate brown of her iris.
Laura kept going, “And then I saw your cat and I knew that I’d seen your cat in my apartment before but I hadn’t really minded because I worry that Buffy gets lonely, you know? And I didn’t even think that kittens might happen. But then they did and I saw your cat again this morning and I’m just so desperate that I went stomping up to your apartment, which was rude. And I don’t even have proof that it was your cat that knocked up my cat. I mean, it looks like it because of the colours and the proximity but I don’t really know. I mean, I could totally have a promiscuous cat. I don’t know. And,” Laura frowned, forming a tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows, “I think that when I started this speech I’d intended to go somewhere else entirely and I’ve lost my point but-”
“Laura,” Carmilla was sharper this time, grasping the girl by her arms. Her soft, muscled arms. Laura closed her mouth and looked down, chin to chest. Carmilla sighed and bent down to pick up the box, “Go take a shower. I can do this for at least twenty minutes.”
#
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Carmilla tore frantically through Laura’s apartment. She never should have taken the kitten out of the blasted canoe. But it had been the black one with little white fur patches that looked exactly socks and the kitten was so small and wobbly and, fine, maybe it had been really cute and she’d wanted to play with it. She hadn’t expected it to disappear when she’d turned around for two seconds because one of the other kittens had started crying.
The white kitten with the black face and tail was apparently a bit of a butthole.
Laura was going to murder her. And then she was going to get staked by Buffy the Vampire Slayer Cat.
Carmilla kept searching. She rifled through Laura’s collection of Doctor Who DVDs, dug through her couch cushions to find nothing but cookie crumbs, and even checked the refrigerator where she’d found only grape soda and some kind of sugar-cake concoction. No kitten. But an excellent insight into Laura Hollis.
Straight A student according to the transcript Carmilla had accidently come across.
When the shower clicked off Carmilla got desperate. She swung in wild circles around the apartment. Then her eyes brightened. With a quick check on the kittens, she sprinted from the apartment and clambered up the stairs to her apartment. Snatching Bagheera, she hauled her lazy cat down the stairs and plopped him into the middle of Laura’s apartment, tripping over the canoe with a curse as she forgot it was there.
Bagheera just stared at her and licked his paw.
“One of your offspring is missing,” she informed him, making a shooing motions with her hands “go be paternal or something.” Carmilla gave herself an internal thumbs up as Bagheera wandered over to the couch. Her cat circled the room, sniffing at furniture. He started headbutting the Firefly blanket piled on the floor.
Carmilla ran over, kneeling to gently pulling the blanket back. No kitten.
She looked at Bagheera. He looked back up at her and gave a pathetic mew.
Carmilla let her head fall into her hands, “So, wow we are such great parents, eh?”
Something soft poked at her bare ankle, “Go find your baby, Bags,” Carmilla mumbled, “don’t bother me until you do. At least we both stink at this.”
“Oh you’re not so bad,” Carmilla’s head shot up at Laura’s voice. Her eyes widened as she took in the girl. Laura was wrapped up in a towel, certainly modest but... Carmilla found herself swallowing hard. Laura’s hair was still wet and drips of water were slowly sliding from the ends of her hair down her shoulders. A few of the braver drops continued on, sliding between the swell of her breasts that just peeked above the towel.
When Laura fidgeted slightly and gave her a small smile Carmilla knew that she’d been caught staring. So she decided to enjoy it, letting her eyes lazily run over the girl’s body and a smirk bloom on her lips. She finished with a wink.
Laura’s voice came out husky, “You got to be careful though,” Laura breathed, “it’s easy to lose them.” Then she disappeared into what Carmilla had to assume was the bedroom.
Looking down, Carmilla saw a tiny ball of fluff poking at her ankle as Bagheera leaned forward and sniffed the kitten. She snatched the little guy up, “Don’t you dare do that again.” She scolded.
Bagheera followed as she placed the kitten gently back in the canoe. He lifted himself up on his back paws and stared down into boat. Immediately Buffy hissed at him and Bagheera jumped straight into the air, landing a few feet back.
Carmilla let herself openly laugh. “Never mess with a momma,” she chuckled.
Laura walked back into the room, a light smile on her face, “You should laugh more. It’s pretty.”
Carmilla started fiddling with the edge of her shirt, worrying the fabric between her fingers.
“Don’t worry,” Laura continued, “I won’t tell anyone.” She dropped to the floor beside Carmilla, fat textbook in hand and looking at the ground, “I guess you can go now. I can’t really keep you captive any longer. Water cleared my head.”
Carmilla looked over at the ridiculous canoe and then back to the girl in front of her, “You know,” she said, “maybe I could stay a little longer.”
#
1 hour later she was trying to feed the kitten with boots as the the white butthole kitten clawed at her leg for attention. Laura laughed from where she was cuddling her own two kittens. Carmilla swatted gently at the cat at her feet and lifted the kitten in her arms to her face and felt his little nose touch lightly against her chin.”You can trust me little guy,” she said.
2 hours later Laura was studying from a textbook with a kitten sitting on her head while Carmilla tried to sew a patch in a pair of Laura’s pants that Bagheera had just shredded. Trying was the operative word. Laura grinned and told her not to bother. Carmilla persisted anyway. When Laura wasn’t looking, Carmilla snapped a shot of Laura with her phone. The kitten was yawning as it snuggled into Laura’s brown locks.
4 hours later Carmilla was feeding kittens again while Laura lay curled up asleep on the floor. She covered the cupcake with the blanket. It was drafty in the apartment with the canoe sticking out the window.
6 hours later Laura was tripping over her words and apologizing profusely for falling asleep. The cupcake raced around her kitchen, trying to pull together some kind of edible food from the extremely meager supply in her kitchen. Carmilla found herself laughing and ordering a pizza. She met the pizza boy at the door so that Laura couldn’t even try to pay.
8 hours later Carmilla was curled up on the couch with a pile of sleeping kittens in a canoe at her feet and sharing a blanket with Laura as they argued over who was the best character in Frozen. She was hyperaware of her knee. Laura’s was touching it.
10 hours later Laura was pacing the width of her apartment rattling off the answers to questions that Carmilla was asking from the textbook. Both girls were feeding kittens as they shot questions and answers back and forth. Every time Laura got a question right, her smile shone like the stars twinkling out the window. Carmilla felt it wouldn’t be right not to smile back.
12 hours later Carmilla was sitting on the couch listening to Laura bounce from topic to topic. How they’d gotten the canoe in the door and now she was pretty sure it was stuck. Why she wanted to be a journalist. The death of her mother. Maybe it was the just the late hour but Carmilla found herself sharing too. The time her brother had thrown her a surprise party. Her overbearing mother. Her ex-girlfriend.
14 hours later Carmilla let herself reach out and take Laura’s hand. Laura smiled and linked their fingers closer together.
#
16 hours later Carmilla heard someone call her name. She opened her eyes slowly, realizing that she must have fallen asleep on Laura’s couch. There was something tickling her chin.
“Carm, don’t move,” Laura’s voice was filled with laughter.
Carmilla froze but let her eyes bounce to Laura’s. The girl was basically shaking from barely suppressed mirth. Carmilla raised an eyebrow, “Why can’t I move, cupcake?”
“Because you’re covered in kittens,” Laura said, raising her phone to snap a photo of Carmilla. She held out the phone where Carmilla could see it. Covered in kittens wasn’t an exaggeration. There were sleeping kittens sprawled out across her body. Curled under her neck. Sprawled over her ankle. Hugging her knee. There was even one that had somehow buried into her cleavage with it’s butt sticking out the top of her shirt. And the coup de gras, curled up on her stomach were both Bagheera and Buffy.
“Shit,” Carmilla swore, “You’ve got to help me move them.”
Laura’s grin only grew, “Who do you think took them out of the canoe?”
Carmilla’s eyes widened.
Laura continued, “Now I’ve got to get to my exam but I’m sure you’ll be fine here.” She started backing towards the door. Carmilla wanted to be mad but a giggling Laura was hard to not smile at.
“Laura,” she whined, “You can’t leave me like this?”
“No?” Laura asked.
Carmilla forced a scowl, “No.”
The cupcake nodded, thoughtfully bobbing her head, “No, I suppose I should do something before I go.” Laura walked back towards the couch. Carmilla’s stomach tightened as Laura bent down to remove the kitten from her chin, her nose filling with the scent of chocolate and pizza.
But the bundle of fluff stayed put on her neck. Laura’s finger slipping off the cat to graze down her neck. Then Laura’s lips were lightly brushing against her own, just the faintest whisper of a touch. Soft and subtle. The kiss of a kitten.
Laura’s exit would have left Carmilla in a bit of a daze if the cupcake hadn’t smashed her foot into the canoe and gone sprawling out the door to slam into the opposite wall.
The kitten on her chest started to purr as Carmilla let out the laugh.