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She dreamed of colors, blurring down into some darkness. But in it she heard a breathing, like the stir of bird wings. She followed it, and the dark inside her own eyes opened, pouring shadows out and letting them in, the sweep of tides under a clouded night, and then she could see--
Chocolate.
Her nose snatched the smell and rubbed it under her eyelids until they slid open, honing in on the double chocolate muffin hairs away from her lip.
And the lotion on the hand holding it, some artificial rendering of pomegranate, the girl both belonged to smiling down from where she sat besides her on the bed.
“Hey you,” Laura greeted warmly. “I brought you something.”
“Oh,” Carmilla muttered. She took the muffin and groggily tossed out a “Thanks.”
She was hungry. She bit into it laying down, her hips moving back into a comfortable position as she contently crushed semi melted chips between her teeth.
Laura shifted closer, her now free hands wandering under the comforter to the soft gray t shirt she had worn to bed. They slipped under that, too, and her chewing slowed as they splayed over her stomach.
“Are my hands cold?” Hollis asked. “I wore mittens.”
“No. They're fine.”
Well, this was nice. The fingers tracing up her ribs and down her sternum, the palms lightly dragging behind, the muffin. Her eyes nearly closed again when the younger girl quietly asked another question.
“Are you really as black as the pit and terrible as the night?”
A very specific and irrelevant question. It had nothing to do with rubs. Or the muffin.
She paused, an eye opening.
“You saw for yourself.”
“Yeah...” said Laura, and was that slyly? Her brown eyes sure seemed studious. Concentrated. Like she was up to something.
“What.”
“Oh. Nothing,” the younger girl shrugged. Her ministrations deepened, a soothing massage down her abs, working the grooves of her hips. “Are you going to sleep all day?”
“Maybe.”
That came out more breathy than she wanted it to.
“Did you have any dreams?” The hands slid up her sides, nails lightly curving down her flanks. Laura was leaning over her now.
Usually, she hated it when she ate in her bed. However, any suspicions that would've pounced were sort of being flattened. What she was doing felt so good that the vampire melted back into the yellow pillow, the crumbs spilling off her shirt.
She had never really been...whatever this was. Spoiled came close.
Then again, she had never let anyone spoil her either.
Kindness was flattery from the fox to the crow. She would know, she used it as a tool often enough.
But it was Laura. Innocent, sweet, labradoodle puppy Laura. Even if she was just being buttered up for something, the worst it would be was annoying.
Her eyes fell shut. Her morning treat was nearly gone. And Hollis was rubbing these circles across her belly her hands are so soft and warm.
“No. Just. Slept,” she said blissfully. Her toes were curling now.
“Did you miss me,” whispered Laura. Her fingers scrunched down a little and...blah. Hm. Her brain was falling quieter by the minute.
“Sure...mmm,” Karnstein sighed, the word fading into a comfy sound.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm,” she moaned, the noise deepening.
Hollis just kept on going, Carmilla barely keeping up with her little murmurs.
“It's nice.”
so nice
“Knowing I can come back here. To you. Keeping my bed warm.”
warm
“Your beautiful face.”
nah that's you
“You just make me so happy.”
happy. I'm...happy.
Her blood was buzzing. So was her throat, a tittering vibration rolling out with every exhale, emanating from her chest--
A giggle. Hollis was giggling.
Her eyes opened, the sound dying off her lightly chocolate smudged lips.
Laura was grinning down at her, her eyes squinting in some delighted smugness.
“What.”
“I got you to purr,” Laura beamed triumphantly.
Carmilla gripped the muffin's wrapper to her chest, the betrayal quickly turning into something any self respecting night demon could never know the wrath of.
Humiliation
And Laura laughed and laughed until Carmilla dramatically grabbed the sheet and purposefully used it as a napkin, in which she was vengefully expelled to her own bed.
She spent the rest of the day catering to her ego, though if anyone asked, the likes of some mere mortal could never scratch it.
Because she hadn't.
Karnstein was not some adorable little ball of fur to be cuddled between classes. Nor was she a wisecracking sidekick in a show pertaining to teenage witches.
She was a vampire, for Christ's sake. She could turn into a panther the size of a tiger with eyes as green as the river of Styx. She mauled people like that a helluva lot better than she did with her teeth and fingers alone. She was the blackest night incarnate. She was darkness. She was death--
The door opened and something slid across the floor, touching her heel. She simpered with a bounce of her fine brow and turned to greet Hollis with some baked goods moniker when she saw what tapped her foot.
“Jesus FUCK!” she hollered, her feet scrambling before she leaped back and up onto her bed, staring down at the--
Cucumber.
Laura was barely holding herself up in the doorway, doubled over with shaking laughter.
“What are you laughing about,” she snapped oh good god my pride.
“I put.” Laura tried to begin. She could hardly get the words out between her cackling. “That cucumber behind you. Because. Because I heard it startles.”
“Cats.” Karnstein spat well now I'm going to have to eviscerate someone in front of her.
“Yes! You were. So scared.”
“Where did you even get this thing it's like a foot long. They shouldn't be that long, it would've startled anyone.”
It only made Laura lose it further. If that was even possible.
“No. It wouldn't.”
Till this day, she could still hear her laughing.
Well, maybe not today.
It was more of a sobbing.
“I know. I know I said earlier I was fine. I. I think I was just really grateful to be alive and not turned into a gingerbread person by a cannibalistic witch and Christmas is about being grateful. I just miss my dad and I don't know where we're going and...”
As she had stated earlier that evening, she wasn't good with emotions. And Laura had been cheerful for a little bit, but now she wasn't. Maybe she hadn't been at all. Maybe it had just been a show to make Perry and LaF content.
Always optimistic, never surrender, lion hearted Laura. And she was crushed, sitting in the back room of a once haunted bakery on her favorite time of the year.
If anything, this was why she wasn't a fan of the world. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt anything remotely as appreciative about it as Hollis.
Life didn't care. There was no right or wrong or rewarded or punished. You get lucky here and there, but otherwise it was just being ground down into dust.
...But she cared.
She rolled her eyes. God, she did she care.
And so she did shift once more into a six hundred pound death machine. She padded over to the girl hiding her beautiful face in the knees she had curled up to her chest.
She nudged her shoulder, then her temple, her whiskers flaring out as she nuzzled and huffed.
“What,” sniffled Laura, lifting her head. Surprise pounced her sad expression.
She took the opportunity to tuck her flat skull under her chin, pushing herself into the girl's arms with a growling tut.
“Oh,” Laura chuckled despite herself, her bleary eyes crinkling. Carm rolled, pushing her legs down so she could lay across them, bringing heavy paws up to lightly swat her tear stricken face.
And then she was giggling, her fingers raking through Karnstein's fur, batting at her snout and head and wiggling her circular ears. She spread her hands across the huge pads of her paws and reached back to playfully tug at the long tail snaking back and forth.
She hugged her thick neck and rode on her back in trotting circles.
Being the inherit dork that she was, she stuck her head inside her yawning jaws like it was the circus.
And finally she lay tucked inside the curl of her long body, using her shoulders as a pillow, Karnstein's massive head at her chest.
She purred loudly for her with every exhale, the noise reverberating all around Hollis as her petting slowed and her breathing deepened. The smile hadn't left her face once.
They drifted off together and dreamed of colors.