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It started out innocently enough.
She in her giraffe shirt and navy blue leggings.
She in that black shirt that draped over dark skinny jeans.
Laura put on a little number called Red Shoes by a little artist named Bowie and danced dramatically towards the dark eyed, dark haired girl watching her on the chaise with an amused expression.
She pulled out the ol' pistol hands and Carmilla's eyes closed over a smile, her head shaking. Hollis liked to think that there was a secret pride in that look.
She spun around and cast out with an imaginary pole and starting reeling her in.
And the dark eyed, dark haired girl got up and shimmied towards her like the sexiest fish in the world.
They danced like punch drunk kids at prom, they danced like they were new kids on the block, they danced like they were just a couple of normal girls bored on a normal Saturday night. Under the skulls on the bookshelves and the spider that claimed the chandelier, they cut that rug.
They punched the air and did the twist and the next '80's hit rolled on through-- because really, what better decade to just dance to-- and Carm was twirling her and then she was twirling Carm.
All the while she laughed until she was sure her cheeks were going to split.
Her eyes teared any time the vampire mocked her and broke into the robot or the lawn mower or any other terrible move despite the centuries of ones she had cataloged somewhere in that aged brain.
It went on and it was like champagne, light and bubbling and sweet and intoxicating.
It started out innocently enough.
But then the hands on the clock were cradling eleven, and she was starting to tire, and a drum was kick starting and the guitar riff of Space Age Love was coming to them on a Flock of Seagulls.
It was just a joke. Stepping close to slow dance to such a quick beat, like they were in some auditorium decorated with cheap streamers and balloons.
She hadn't swayed with anyone during the Homecomings and Proms and such. Back then, boys were odd things she tried to piece herself together with but didn't fit. Her friends and she would dance with another instead. And if she had realized it then, she may have held the moment a little closer.
So she made up for lost time, and she wrapped her arms around Carm's neck. And Karnstein played along, hands folded together on the small of her back, and they swayed instead to the singer's slower, soft worded ballad.
It was just to humor herself. Just the vampire obliging her. Just Laura trying to get her to roll her eyes.
But they hadn't broken eye contact yet. And her dorky grin was starting to fade, and Carmilla's wry expression was slowly melting into something else.
There had been warning signs for days now.
The kisses that lingered a little longer.
Carm's hand suddenly appearing in hers, their fingers lacing no matter what they were up to. Or Laura simply walking up and hugging her from behind, her head resting between her shoulder blades as she picked out a book from the shelves.
The vampire actually doing dishes.
Laura actually eating cake or pop tarts or some other sweet with her in bed.
The moon was shining brighter. There were more stars in the sky.
The colors of the trees and long grass were vibrant and humming with so much life.
And though they still eagerly unwrapped each other when they found themselves alone, Laura couldn't seem to stop kissing her.
Karnstein couldn't seem to let Hollis's head fall back against the pillows without her hand cradling it.
They would entangle themselves without a slip of air between, getting high just feeling each others skin, running their fingers through the others hair, nuzzling and gazing.
The corniest, most dated and cliche songs in the word suddenly made perfect sense, this one not exempt--
Oh no.
A sudden fear skirted under her heart.
A thousand tiny birds whirled around her stomach.
Like someone would feel the shark coming seconds before it bit them. Like how the ground warms before lighting strikes.
She realized they had stopped. They were standing, eye to eye, Carmilla's fine brows furrowed with a hard line between, gaze solemn and lips a straight line.
She gazed up at her, eyes wide. Expression practically frightened. Breath held.
“...I love you,” said Carmilla, the slow epiphany piecing itself together mid tumble from her lips and sailing up into Laura's ringing ears.
She blinked. She had imagined saying it on some roof top overlooking the twinkling city lights. She had imagined saying it crowded underneath Carm's leather jacket, the vampire holding it over them as a shield from the pelting rain.
She had imagined saying it first, some terrifying leap into water she couldn't see the bottom of.
There was stiffness in Carm's shoulders now, her entire body frozen. Posed stone still like an animal listening to something in the woods.
And startled, she realized it had been just as terrifying of a leap for her.
“I love you too,” Laura whispered. “...I think I have since...”
The kiss wasn't unlike their first. The sudden dip of Carmilla's head, the fireworks that exploded in Laura's brain at the electrifying contact. The both of them only confirming what the other felt.
The singer might as well have been hammering it over the both of their whirling heads.
I was falling in love.