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After the torment of looking at nearly every crummy-apartment in the city, Laura stared at the coffee shop door and tried to decide if she wanted to add a second type of torment to her day. Her hand went to the doorknob. Who was she kidding? Of course she did.
Some forms of torment were sweeter than others.
At the coffee shop, torment had started greeting her at the door. “You’re late cupcake. I was worried you’d died from the lack of sugar in your system.”
Laura took a deep breath, “Hey, Carmilla.”
She’d been coming to this coffee shop for nearly 6 months and the beautiful barista still knocked the breath out of her every single time. Laura had accidentally stumbled upon the shop when the wifi in her apartment had gotten cut off and she’d needed somewhere to write her article before the deadline. Most of the coffee shops in the city required people to buy something before they let anyone use the wifi and when Laura had trudged to the counter to try and buy the cheapest thing on the menu she’d discovered that her wallet was embarrassingly empty. She’d tried to walk away blushing but the shop’s owner, Perry, had taken pity on Laura’s empty wallet and had let her use the shop for free.
Laura had only realized that there was a payment when Carmilla had started her shift an hour later: Carmilla’s snarky comments. When Carmilla had first walked in, Laura might have spent a little too long staring at her face. Unfortunately, Carmilla had noticed, winked and then spent the entire shift bothering Laura as much as she could get away with, saying that she only had to respect ‘the paying customers’.
Never one to turnt down a challenge, Laura had scooped together a few toonies the next day and stormed into the cafe to buy a cupcake.
That didn’t seem to stop Carmilla.
For months the comments had kept coming and Laura just kept showing up, giving Carmilla as good as she got. However, in all that time spent together it was impossible to not start noticing things.
The philosophy textbook for her Masters class that Carmilla had hidden behind the whipped cream even as she let loose a sarcastic comment.
The cookies she slipped to a couple of kids who couldn’t stop staring at the treats while their mother counted pennies to pay for a single small square even as she’d rolled her eyes at the kid’s antics and said it was on the house.
The way she took money from her tip drawer and dropped it into register.
The way she dropped an entire pot lukewarm coffee on a couple of guys who would not stop harassing every woman in the cafe even though Laura had never seen her so much as spill a drop before.
The way she never forgot Laura’s order. The way she asked about her writing. The way that Laura’s first big article had somehow appeared on the cafe bulletin board before Laura could even tell Perry it was out. The way that Carmilla had pretended not to read it but then accidently slipped when she quoted it directly.
The way she ate whipped cream right out of the can when she took her break on the back step and thought no-one was looking. The way she sang softly behind the counter when she thought no-one was listening.
In short, Laura had managed to develop a crush on the most infuriating woman in the world who happened to be both gorgeous and a secret softie. Which was a problem considering that all they were to each were enemies. Maybe friends. Frenemies?
“While I don’t mind being paid to do nothing,” Carmilla’s voice broke her thoughts, “You might not want to stop right in front of the door. Someone might step on you.”
Laura rolled her eyes, took a breath, and moved towards the counter, “Hardy har har,” she said, “Laura’s so short. You need new material, Carm.”
Carmilla shrugged, “Not until your face stops doing that adorable nose crinkle, I don’t.”
“Probably just out of material, “Laura said and tried to straighten out her face. “After all, it must be so much work to be broody every second of the day.”
Already moving to the cupcake case, Carmilla scoffed, “Not nearly as much as your sunshine disposition seems to take. We don’t all need to run on sugar.”
“Just coffee?” Laura teased.
Carmilla plucked a cupcake from the case and Laura tried to squish the urge to stand on her tiptoes to see what kind Carmilla had chosen that day. She failed and almost squealed at the peanut butter chocolate cupcake that had appeared. For a moment, she almost thought Carmilla smiled. Carefully, Carmilla put the cupcake on the counter and held her hand out to Laura, “Pay up, cupcake. Everybody only gets one freebie and you used yours on day one.”
“Are you ever going to let that go?” Laura said but she’d lost interest in the conversation. This was the best part. It was sad that this was the highlight of her day but Laura didn’t care. She put the coins carefully in Carmilla’s waiting hand, letting her fingers softly touch Carmilla’s skin a little longer than was strictly necessary.
Then she retreated.
Carmilla’s hand hovered a second longer before returning to the register. “Hanging around today?” she asked.
Laura nodded, “I’ve finally got the go ahead to write that piece I was working on. You know the one on-”
“The sales of undisclosed fish that Vordenberg Industries claimed was tuna,” Carmilla finished, “I remember.”
Laura grinned, fingers playing with the cupcake in her hand.
Carmilla coughed and ducked her head, “Well, go find your seat, cupcake. I’ve got to find the straws. Perry hide them after I hit you in the eye with the wrapper last time. Can’t miss the chance to hit the other one.”
“I look forward to it,” Laura said drily. Still, she managed to find a seat with a perfect view of the counter. Definitely not so she could watch Carmilla work. There was a mastery to it that Laura hadn’t appreciated before she’d started staring at Carmilla for embarrassingly long periods of time. Carmilla seemed to know exactly when to move mugs from coffee to steam to foam, a whole series of strange whistles, pipes, and levers that seemed like a science experiment gone wrong instead of a coffee shop.
Perry had once told her that Perry’s partner, Lafontaine, had made the system and that Carmilla was one of the few who actually understood how to use it.
As if summoned by the thought, a large mass of red curls suddenly cut off Laura’s view of Carmilla’s pale hands moving quickly between the levers. “I didn’t think we’d see you today, Laura,” Perry said, “Did the apartment hunt not go well?”
Laura groaned, letting her head fall to the table, “I think I might be better just living on the subway.”
“Now, surely it can’t be that bad,” Perry started poking at Laura’s stack of apartment papers, “there must be something available.”
“Sure,” Laura agreed, “If I want to live somewhere with no windows, where there’s at least a half dozen other safety violations, limited electricity, and a creepy roommate inevitably named Dave or Kevin who is ‘totally psyched about living with a chick’ and hasn’t showered in a week because the water is brown.”
Perry winced as she opened the folder, shuffling past the images.
“Face it,” Laura continued, “At my price point, I’m just going to have to settle for somewhere with wifi and buy myself a really good lock for the bedroom door. Maybe two. Or three.”
Perry thumbed through the rest of the folder and then slowly put the pile down. She looked at Laura for a moment then turned to counter and called, “Carmilla. Come here a minute, would you?”
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to interact with the customers anymore,” Carmilla said. From what Laura could tell, she was doodling on one of the napkins. Laura super casually hide the straw wrappers that Carmilla had tried to hit her with from Perry’s view.
“Just come here,” Perry said.
Groaning, Carmilla slid out from behind the counter and plopped herself in one of the chairs, “This is not coming out of my break.”
Perry ignored her, “Laura here. Has been having some trouble finding an adequate apartment.”
Carmilla gazed down at the stack of paper’s under Perry’s hand. Her eyebrows shot up, “Cupcake. You didn’t tell me that you wanted to live in a literal hell hole.”
“Well, I’ve grown so use to your company that I figured it couldn’t get worse,” Laura shot back.
Perry kept talking, “Laura’s accommodation choices leaves something to be desired and I know that you have that spare room in your apartment. The one you were talking about renting out a few months ago? Perhaps you might be able to come to some sort of arrangement?”
Laura froze. In her peripheral, she saw Carmilla’s hand stop moving.
“After all,” Perry continued, “You did say that a little extra money would be helpful and while Laura’s income for rent is less than one might hope for long term growth, it would certainly be a benefit to you for some supplemental income. Maybe buy that guitar you keep talking to Lafontaine about?”
“You want Carmilla and I to move in together?” Laura squeaked.
Perry folded her hands in front of her, “Well it just seems like a mutually beneficial situation. Especially with your issues with your current residence, this could just be temporary until you find alternative arrangements.”
Carmilla’s head whipped towards her, “What’s wrong with your current place, cupcake?”
“I’m, uh, getting evicted,” Laura said. She looked down at the table, cheeks red. “I may have gotten the building manager arrested for running a money laundering business out of the laundry room. His son’s not happy. He’s been kind of threateny anyway so I wouldn’t want to stay.” She smiled weakly, “Story breaks tomorrow. Laundering in the Laundry.”
Carmilla stared at her.
Laura bit her lip and busied herself gathering up all of the rental places, her hands moving in a flurry, “It’s okay, Carmilla. I’ll be fine. You don’t need to take me in or anything, I’ve still got options and I don’t want to put you out. I know you like your privacy. I’ll just. Um. My ex moved to the city a few months ago and maybe she’ll let me crash on her couch. I think we’re still kind of friends so she might-”
“The ginger sasquatch?” Carmilla cut in.
Laura nodded. “Yeah. She’s moved in with this total bro and their place kind of smells like gym socks all of the time but Kirsch is pretty nice and I’m sure I can handle Danny for a few weeks. My Dad said that I could move back home if I needed to and with the whole freelance gig not really working out money wise I might have to. He’s got these friends who think they can get me a job in one of the offices which isn’t great but you do what you got to do, you know. So-”
“Move in with me.”
Laura froze, “Wh-what?”
Carmilla rolled her eyes, “I don’t beg, cupcake. Move in with me. Like ginger here said, I’ve got the empty room and I wouldn’t mind the cash. Not even your cute little butt should be stuck with the pair of trees you call an ex or the pathetically tiny town you call home. Butt like that needs to be admired in the big city.”
“Are you,” Laura said, “asking me to live with you so that you can stare at my butt?”
Carmilla winked, “You got a better offer?”
Move in with her crush. Her big gay lesbian crushes on baristas, huge cliche crush. That would most definitely be a mistake.
“I’m in.” Laura said.
She was always a sucker for tormenting herself.
#
The torment was worse than she thought it was going to be. She went from a daily dose of Carmilla to a full ongoing onslaught of Carmilla Karnstein. Her tiny heart was going to explode from the sheer Carmilla of it all. Everything she’d seen in the coffee shop was only magnified.
If she had to go, what a way to do it.
The very first day she’s moved in, Laura had discovered that not only did Carmilla study philosophy and make insightful comments about literally any literary text that Laura could think of, she was also a musician. There were guitars of various size everywhere, a piano in the corner, and a violin of all things sitting on the coffee table. When she’d walked to the apartment, Laura had just found it odd that Carmilla liked classical music. Then her new roommate had opened the door holding the violin, music stopped.
Laura had frozen. Again.
Smirking, Carmilla had said, “I had a feeling you might be a violin girl. Maybe I’ll give you a private concert sometime, cupcake.” Then she’d grabbed Laura’s bag and disappeared.
The charm was broken when she’d found Carmilla rummaging through the bag and cracking open the box of cookies.
Definitely a crush on a secret softy asshole.
On day two she walked into the apartment to find Carmilla with an acoustic guitar around her neck. She stopped the moment Laura walked in.
On day three, Laura had fallen asleep on the couch trying to write her article and had woken up with her bedroom blanket draped over her shoulders. When she went to Carmilla to thank you, she found that Carmilla had stolen her yellow pillow.
It took her two days to steal it back. Carmilla had pouted on the couch and asked Laura what it would take to get it back.
“I don’t take bribes,” Laura said.
The next day, a cupcake appeared on her desk while she was out. Every day after, the cupcake appeared. Chocolate. Vanilla. Red velvet. Everything. She was eating the remains of a sprinkle covered cupcake when she saw Carmilla get out of bed for the first time. Laura froze, cupcake half in her mouth at the sleepy, bedhead version of Carmilla and images of waking up to that yawning face popped into her head.
It was quickly overshadowed by the fact that Carmilla wasn’t wearing any pants. Torment was real and had really great legs.
Laura squealed and ran.
Only the next day did Laura hear Carmilla sing for the first time, the piano softly accompanying her. Laura listened by the door, wondering if Carmilla touched an instrument with the same grace she did the coffee machine.
That night, Carmilla plunked down on the couch next to her as Laura was writing and pulled out her own laptop to work on her thesis. The two just sat, typing next to each other, but somehow gravitated to the center so that their legs would brush if they moved.
Laura was oddly fidgety that night.
She tried to relieve it by doing yoga the next day. However, she hadn’t counted on Carmilla walking into the room while she was in the middle of a downward dog. With ocean noses in her earphones, Laura couldn’t have said how long she was there for. Laura bolted upright, cheeks flaming at the thought of Carmilla seeing her a sweaty mess before scampering off to the shower.
She noticed the cupcake squashed on the floor and tried to remember when she might have dropped it.
The shower was the cause of further problems when, two nights later, they ended up heading to the bathroom at the same time. As it was Carmilla’s apartment, Laura tried to back away. She waved her hand saying, “i can get soapy and naked some other time.”
Carmilla snorted and grinned.
Laura’s eyes went wide and she shouted, “I bathe soapless and with my clothes on!”
After that humiliation she’d planned on never leaving her room again. Succeeding for nearly two days, she was drawn out of her room by the sound of a guitar. A loud guitar. She threw open the door to find an electric guitar amp set out right in front of her door and Carmilla doing her best impression of a rock star to make it sing.
The sound died as soon as Laura emerged and Carmilla switched to a simple pattern, “Thought you might had died,” Carmilla said casually, “Couldn’t be bothered to check. Figured this would wake the dead and I needed the practice.”
Even though Laura stayed in the living room, Carmilla didn’t stop playing the quiet melody. She picked out each note like it was fragile as Laura pulled out her laptop and started typing to the beat of Carmilla’s fingers.
She was as careful with the instruments as the coffee shop.
The cupcakes just kept coming.
Laura forced Carmilla to share one with her after she’d found Carmilla just staring at her laptop, thesis blinking on the screen before her. Chopping it in half with a fork, she’d stuffed the whole thing in Carmilla’s mouth to break her from her stupor.
Carmilla had blinked and then licked the icing off her lips.
Laura almost died.
They’d somehow ended up on the couch watching silly Disney movies. When Laura woke up, the Lion King was on and Carmilla’s fingers were gently running through her hair. They froze when her eyes fluttered open but Laura just snuggled closer, curious. They picked up again.
So Laura’s heart dared to hope.
It hoped when movie nights became a weekly occurrence and they somehow always ended up on top of each other in a cuddle that wasn’t quite willing to admit it was one.
It hoped with every teasing comment delivered with a smile that Laura no longer had to fight to see on Carmilla’s face.
It hoped when Laura realized that she’d grown accustomed to bringing home two piles of take-out and that Carmilla already had the dining room table set.
It hoped when she realized her nose was buried in Carmilla’s pillow since her own had gone missing again, the smell of coffee and dusty book pages somehow becoming her favourite smell in the world.
It hoped when she yelled at Carmilla about leaving too much hair in the shower drain and Carmilla’s just rolled her eyes and told her to deal with it. It hoped when the hair was gone the next day.
It hoped when Carmilla saw Laura staring at her acoustic guitar and put it in Laura’s arms, arranging her fingers perfectly on the fretboard. It hoped when Carmilla laughed as Laura worked her way through a simple set of chords but pulled out a second guitar to show her the pattern. It hoped when Carmilla pressed herself up behind Laura, put her own fingers on the fretboard and let Laura strum. It hoped when Carmilla’s raspy voice started singing in her ear.
Hope was the best kind of torture.
#
Laura was done with torture. She walked down to the coffee shop with shaking hands, trying to keep herself from dropping the small box in her grasp or the paper clenched in her fist. The walk seemed long despite the short distance and as the doorbell on the shop rang when she pushed in the door, she was suddenly struck with the thought that she’d forgotten to clean the kitchen.
But that thought soon vanished.
Her gaze on Carmilla as she worked behind the counter. Dark hair, pale skin, hands that gently coaxed coffee from the rumbling set of pipes but were now shoving her book away as though she thought Laura didn’t know she had it there.
Carmilla looked up at the bell and her face ran from a smile to surprise, “Cupcake,” she called, “I’m flattered that you couldn’t wait to see me.”
Laura rolled her eyes but smiled, “I feel like the person I see more than anyone is you and your smug face.”
“Maybe I’m okay with that,” Carmilla said softly. Then, “Needed an emergency cupcake?” Her hands were already moving, “We’ve got Lava Cake cupcakes today.”
Laura shook her head, “Not today, Carm.”
Carmilla frowned as Laura put the box and the paper on the counter and then slid the paper over to Carmilla. Pausing for Laura’s nod, Carmilla picked up the paper and skimmed it. Her breath caught, eyes hidden, “You got a job. Congrats, cutie.”
“Yeah. They just called this morning. The paper wants to bring me on full time!” Laura smiled at the memory, “So I’ve got a salary and everything now, no mooching cupcakes off of you all the time.”
Carmilla raised an eyebrow and busied herself cleaning the counter, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. Silly me.” Laura’s smile grew but she let Carmilla have it. They both knew who exactly had been leaving cupcakes around the apartment.
“Must have been a cupcake genie or something,” Carmilla said, still not meeting Laura’s eyes.
That alone had Laura hoping, “You know,” she said, “I thought you’d be happier. This means that I can get my own place cause I know that you didn’t really want me there in the first place. Perry just cornered you. So now you’ll have your room back. I can get a new place. Might be kind of lonely but you know. That’s where you were keeping all your instruments, wasn’t it? So now you have that back plus I’ve got a job. A real actual reporter job! Win for everyone. That’s like all I ever wanted.”
At that, Carmilla did look up, “Congratulations on the job. I really do mean it. You’re going to do great, Laura.” Carmilla’s smile was tight even as the words sounded true.
She nudged the box towards Carmilla, “I brought you a thank you present.”
Carmilla’s eyebrow went up but it was missing any of its usual vibrancy. She reached for it.
That’s when the nerves hit. “I probably need to apologize for the kitchen though,” Laura said, “Cause I’m not very good at baking and may have exploded something over the ceiling and I’m not really sure how that happened. It took like 3 tries to make you that and I think it’s edible but I’m not entirely sure.”
Carmilla opened the box and Laura’s voice practically tripled in speed, “I had a lot of trouble with the icing and then I couldn’t fit all the words on because cupcakes are tiny so i had to squish the rest in the bottom. Icing is actually really hard to write with and I just didn’t want to stay unless you wanted me too and I thought that maybe you might like having-”
Before Laura could realize what had happened, Carmilla was around the counter and stepping right into Laura’s space. She said nothing, just slowly lifted the cupcake Laura had brought to her mouth. Looking at it now, Laura winced. This had been a terrible idea. Now she was just tormenting herself. Carmilla was going to say no. The red icing seemed garishly bright and the loopy blue icing writing was a mess. Big letters on the top and the second part shoved on the bottom.
Move in with me?
& date me.
Carmilla took a huge bite of the cupcake, chewing slowly. Eyes giving away nothing.
“I just thought that maybe you liked living with me and I didn’t want to move away but I wanted to give you the option. Oh man. I was wrong. I thought there were signs but I was wrong and you just want to be friends and I’ll move out right away. I’m so sorry.” Laura had to pause for breath.
Carmilla took advantage of it, “If I were to move in with you,” Carmilla asked, “Would I actually have to move? Because I hate packing and I kind of like our apartment already. Nice view. Cute roommate.” She took another bite of the cupcake.
Laura’s eyes went wide, “Wait. You actually. You do. You want to-”
Carmilla smiled, rolled her eyes, and kissed her.
Torment never seemed so sweet. Torment smelled like coffee. Torment tasted like cupcakes.