Chapter Text
The kitchen smells of rosemary and nutmeg and olive bread and baking lasagne. It smells like home in all the best ways.
Laura’s dad is a pretty exceptional cook, which is something of a miracle considering that after her mother left, all he could manage were fish sticks and microwaved mac and cheese. Of course there was absolutely no nutritional value in either of those things, and he didn’t want his daughter developing scurvy before preschool, so he taught himself to cook and became pretty damn good at it. This is why Laura will never, ever let him know about the delicious, additive-laden contents of her mini fridge, for fear of breaking his heart and, or prompting an hour-long lecture on the dangerous effects of artificial food dyes.
Laura’s got a finger in the cherry pie filling when she hears “Caught red-handed.” She whirls around, and pops the finger in her mouth with a guilty expression and Carmilla tsks.
She’s all clean and pink-cheeked, most likely the result of her recent feed, dressed in her ripped jeans and an oversized burgundy sweater. Laura didn’t think Carmilla owned anything long-sleeved but she supposes it makes sense, for appearances sake. Still, her stomach does a little flip.
Laura licks the remaining mixture from her fingertip. “I was… testing it.”
Carmilla looks unconvinced. “And your findings?”
“It’s really good. Dad’s “lady friend”,” she uses big air quotes. “... Angela makes the filling from fresh cherries, and brings it out here around Christmas time.”
Wait,” Carmilla drawls. “Your dad has a girlfriend?” She sounds amused. “Go Mr Hollis.”
Laura pulls a face. “Ew. Don’t say it like that.”
Carmilla pushes herself up on the counter top besides the pie dish covered in still-doughy crust and Laura itches to tell her to get off, because “kitchen surfaces are for bowls, not bums”, but she resists, mostly because Carmilla’s knees are right next to her. Laura finds she likes Carmilla’s knees. She also likes her elbows and her earlobes and all the little parts of a person you never really think about.
“So where is ‘he of the impeccable timing’?”
“In the shed. Some of the lights fell down on the back porch and he’s restringing them before it gets dark.”
“Of course he is,” she says, but not unkindly.
Carmilla watches Laura scoop with pie filling into the dish, licking her thumb every time it gets covered in the sticky red mixture. Once she’s done, she lifts the thin sheet of pastry to cover it. She finishes by pushing a fork into the sides to keep it together. Carmilla watches all of this with a sort of bored fascination. The pie will go in the oven later, so Laura puts it aside and sticks the filling covered spoon in her mouth.
“That can’t be good for you,” Carmilla observes.
“But so delicious,” Laura replies, pulling out the spoon with a smack of her lips.
“Well, you know, it’s rude not to share.”
Laura looks at the mostly empty bowl. “Well, there’s not much le-” And then Carmilla leans forward and catches Laura’s sleeve before pulling her between her legs.
She bends and darts her tongue out to lick at the smear of sweet cherry pulp at the corner of Laura’s mouth.
“A little tart,” she whispers.
Laura grins and goes in for another kiss. It’s sweet and playful and she giggles when Carmilla nudges her nose in an eskimo kiss. She could do this all day. Or… until the front door rattles and her dad comes whistling in.
Carmilla groans and lets her head fall against Laura’s shoulder for a second before Laura pirouettes away and towards the dishes in the sink.
“This is ridiculous. I’m three hundred and thirty four years old. I shouldn’t have to censor my actions because of-”
“Carmilla,” Mr Hollis walks into the kitchen blowing air into this cold hands. “Kitchen surfaces are for bowls, not bums.”
She’s off in a flash.
______
“So Carmilla, Laura tells me you’re a philosophy student.”
Carmilla takes a sip of her water, as if hoping to delay the answer. “Sometimes.”
If Laura’s dad is confused, he doesn’t show it. “And you enjoy your studies?”
“It’s one of the more adequate courses.” Laura’s foot knocks against hers and she bares her teeth in what Laura thinks might be an attempt at a smile.
“Yes. I enjoy it very much, thank you.” Her voice goes unnaturally chipper and Laura thinks that maybe the indifferent monotone was better.
“I imagine you do a lot of reading then?”
“The usual amount.”
“Well, you’re clearly an intelligent young woman.” He smiles at her in a genuine, unaffected way. “Perhaps you can knock some sense into my daughter, who seems to think journalism-”
Laura stiffens. “Dad, come on.”
They’ve had this discussion before.
He puts down his fork and shakes his head. “Well, sweetheart, it’s just that investigative journalism has so many risks. Why willingly put yourself in situations that might lead you to harm?”
Laura says nothing. She feels her father’s eyes on her. She feels Carmilla’s eyes on her.
“I just want to make a difference,” she mutters softly, buttering her bread roll a bit more aggressively than necessary.
“And you can. Your writing is exceptional. That doesn’t mean you should go looking for-”
“Laura got an A minus.”
Both Laura and her father turn their heads to Carmilla, who looks as surprised as they do by her sudden outburst. “On her journalism project,” she says in a quieter voice, looking suddenly self-conscious. “It was… pretty extraordinary.”
Laura practically gapes at Carmilla, whose sudden interest in poking at her lasagne with her fork has intensified.
“You did?” Laura’s dad grins crookedly, proudly and Laura tears her eyes off of Carmilla long enough to shrug.
“It would have been an A, but... things got a bit crazy at the end. Deadline crazy, not end-of-the world crazy. Or anything.”
‘Well, honey that’s just… that’s brilliant.” He picks up his glass of water (because soda contains far too much carbonated sugar) and holds it up. “To surviving your first semester.”
Laura turns to Carmilla and they stare at each other for a second, and then Laura breaks into hysterical laughter, while Carmilla grins, pats her on the back and sips her water.
Later, as Laura clears the table and Carmilla stands analysing the various knick-knacks on the fridge door, including an ancient drawing of what might possibly be an elephant, Laura says, “So… exceptional, huh?”
It takes Carmilla a second to realise what she’s referring to and then she looks almost sheepish and rolls her eyes for good measure. “Shut up.”
Laura’s still smiling after Carmilla bounds up the stairs, leaving her alone in the kitchen with a pile of dirty dishes.
______
Carmilla stretches, making a satisfied sound deep in her throat and lazily raises an arm above her head. Unabashedly, she watches Laura flit about her room, digging through her suitcase for her pyjamas, which she sniffs and throws back into the pile.
She gets a tank top and a fresh pair of bottoms out of her drawer and tosses it over her shoulder before turning to Carmilla. “I won’t be long.”
Carmilla shrugs languidly. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
The image of Carmilla lounging on her covers fills her with a giddy sort of excitement.
It’s a day of firsts. Kisses, hugs, apocalypses.
Laura will go to the bathroom. She will take the briefest shower known to womankind, and then she will come back to Carmilla. In her bed.
It’s a heady thought.
The shower ends up being longer than she anticipated, because Laura decides to shave her legs. And pluck her eyebrows. And condition her hair instead of just shampooing it and leaving it to dry. It isn’t that she’s primping per se, but she wants to look pretty. She wants Carmilla to think she’s pretty, which is silly and redundant considering that Carmilla’s seen her at two am on a Wednesday morning, with greasy hair, two day old clothes, surviving off a diet of snack cakes and grape soda, and probably smelling like something that lived in an underground burrow.
But somehow it’s different now. And it feels important.
She checks reflection and nods. Okay, she thinks. Here we go.
She comes in, quietly, and finds Carmilla in much the same position as earlier. Except that Laura’s well-read copy of ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ open on her stomach.
And she’s asleep.
Laura’s disappointment is tempered only by the fact that Carmilla asleep is kind of adorable, which is another new development. It’s as if now that she’s given herself permission to feel all of her feelings, everything seems heightened. The everyday, mundane things that before were rote and uninteresting are now suffused with meaning and significance.
And so, very carefully, she crawls onto the bed. Carmilla lies unmoving, unbreathing, which would be totally alarming, if her eyelids weren’t flickering ever so slightly.
Laura wonders what vampires dream of and if Carmilla’s subconscious ever gets tired of everything it’s collected and retained in her centuries of living.
Gently, she removes the book and places it on the nightstand before manoeuvring her body to curl around Carmilla’s. She would get under the covers, but then she wouldn’t be able to lay her head on Carmilla’s chest, over the soundless hollow where her heart used to beat.
This is how she falls asleep.
____________
A low hooting flutters at the edge of her consciousness and Laura turns over with a groan, annoyed at whomever is in the dorm hallway making stupid owl noises at goddess knows what hour, until she realises that the mattress underneath her feels softer than usual, and the pillow beneath her head slightly fluffier and as lucidity takes hold, she remembers that she’s not in the dorm at all, but at home, in her own room, in her own bed… with Carmilla. Laura reaches out a sleep-heavy arm only to find the space next to her cold and empty. She sits up and blinks her eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the darkness.
“Carm?”
“Right here.”
She turns to see Carmilla at the window seat, her knees tucked under her chin, her head resting against the cold glass as she looks out into the darkness.
Laura rubs her eyes and realises she’s under her duvet.
“Did you tuck me in?”
Carmilla turns away from the window to look at her. “You were cold.”
“Thanks.”
Carmilla smiles at her. It’s that new, closed mouthed, almost shy smile that makes Laura feel all warm and fluttery and she throws off the blankets and walks to the window.
Carmilla scoots back a little and Laura sits next to her, her back to the glass, her face to Carmilla and as Carmilla watches the night, Laura watches her. She wonders absently how they got here, to this place where she feels filled up with all the letters that make up Carmilla’s name... all of them. It’s like a middle-school crush, where all she wants to do is draw hearts on windows. L 4 C. And it’s more than that too. It’s realer than anything she’s felt before, bigger, terrifying.
She knows Carmilla feels it as well. The weight of it, whatever this thing is between them. She knows because of the way Carmilla sighs against her mouth when they kiss, and the way she looks at Laura like she’s afraid she’ll disappear, or run away. And Laura wants to say, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” But it’s only been a day and she doesn’t want to make promises she doesn’t know she can keep.
Instead, she says, “What are you looking at?”
Carmilla presses a fingertip against the misty widow and slides it down, leaving a trail of clean glass.
“It’s snowing,” she says softly. And Laura looks. It’s bright outside, the half-moon reflected against a shimmery blanket of snow.
“It’s freezing,” Laura counters, wrapping her arms around herself. She can feel the chill coming off of the glass and she knows she should put on something warmer, while Carmilla sits there, in a black short-sleeved tee, and then she turns her head languidly.
“You should get back in bed.”
“I’d rather be here.” Laura scoots closer and Carmilla stretches out her legs, lays them over Laura’s lap and crosses her ankles.
She walks her fingers up Laura’s hipbone and takes the hem of her thin tank between her fingers, rubbing it absently. “I like you here.”
A moment of quiet, punctuated by the heavy falling snow.
“Hey, thanks for today,” Laura starts. “I know this isn’t exactly normal. Or, it is normal, which I guess isn’t your normal. What I’m trying to say is, thank for you know, trying. With my dad and everything. I know he can be a bit…” she wrinkles her nose. “Intense.”
“Family trait then.”
Laura gasps in mock outrage. “I’m not intense.”
“Sweetheart, I’ve seen you focused on something. It’s like watching a shark smell blood.”
“Says the vampire.”
Carmilla laughs. “Touché.” And Laura thinks she likes that laugh. She likes making Carmilla laugh.
They stare at each other for a long time, in that way that couples in rom-coms stare at each other, the way that Laura used to think was a bit silly, because why would you just look at someone when you could be talking to them or kissing them. But she gets it now. That breathless wonder at the fact that there’s this whole other person, who is completely separate, but also bound to you, also yours as you are theirs. And it’s corny and soppy, but it makes Laura’s heart feel heavy and full and she can’t stop herself from leaning in and pressing her lips softly against Carmilla’s mouth.
When she pulls back, Carmilla’s eyes are closed and her lips pouted, like she’s expecting more and Laura grins, because she’s adorable and sexy and hers and that knowledge makes Laura all mushy inside.
She’s about to lean back in when Carmilla cracks open her eyes, twitches her nose, and turns to the window.
She lifts it open suddenly, letting in a rush of icy air before kneeling on the seat and leaning out far enough that anyone standing on the back porch at three am would be able to look up and see a dark, disembodied head sticking out from the second floor. Laura shivers and moves forward with intention of pulling Carmilla back inside.
“Carm! It’s freez-”
“Shh,” Carmilla pulls Laura up to mirror her position. “Look.”
Out in the garden, between the snow covered swing set, are two copper-coloured foxes. They tumble over each other, jumping into the snow and coming up with white dusted ears and noses.
Laura laughs delightedly when one tackles the other and Carmilla says, “It’s strange.”
“What is?”
“Foxes don’t usually hunt or travel together. They’re solitary.”
Laura shoots a sidelong glance at Carmilla. “Maybe they were lonely?”
Carmilla watches the foxes with interest and softly concedes. “Maybe.”
They frolic around the swing set for a few more seconds and then scamper off into the treeline and disappear.
“You’re not gonna turn into a cat and chase after them, are you?”
“I’ll resist the urge,” Carmilla replies dryly and leans back to close the window. They’re still kneeling on the window seat, facing each other now.
Carmilla has snowflakes in her hair and on her cheeks and eyelashes. Laura imagines she does too, but against Carmilla, the contrast is striking. She wipes a melting snowflake off the tip of Carmilla’s nose. The cold clinging to her bare arms, making her shiver again and break out in goose bumps.
“You humans,” Carmilla brushes her fingers down Laura’s arm, where little hairs are standing on end, “-are such delicate things.” She trails her fingers up again, this time with her thumb brushing against the side of Laura’s breast. Laura isn’t wearing a bra and the cold has made her nipples strain against her tank top.
“A little snow,” Carmilla continues in that low, breathy voice, “and you’re all prickly and trembling.”
Laura wants to reply that the temperature isn’t why she’s trembling, but says instead, “You don’t feel it? The cold?”
“I experience the sensation of it, but not the discomfort.” Her fingers trail across Laura’s collar bone, and Carmilla watches their progress, fascinated, as if she is not the architect of her actions. “Conceptually, I understand it, remember it.” Her hand stops over Laura’s rapidly beating heart and she presses her palm against it, fingers splayed out like a starfish. “Like the memory of a heartbeat.”
Her eyes flicker between her hand and Laura’s face and slowly Carmilla trails her fingers down until she’s cupping Laura’s breast. Laura sucks in a breath when Carmilla’s thumb brushes over her nipple.
Carmilla’s eyes flit up to meet hers and her gaze is dark and heavy, but she looks tentative, like she’s asking permission and Laura, who at this point has long forgotten the cold and feels like she’s about to spontaneously combust (she wouldn’t be the first Silas student to go down that way), practically lunges forward to take Carmilla’s cheeks between her open palms before bringing their mouths together.
It’s a hard kiss – desperate and a little sloppy, and Laura’s moaning into it like her body’s trying to articulate something her mind hasn’t quite figured out. Carmilla wastes no time in tugging Laura’s top up and over her head, something Laura suspects she’s been wanting to do for a while, and Laura resents the interruption because it means a second of her not kissing Carmilla, which at this point, feels like not breathing – ironic, since her lungs are burning for want of oxygen.
This isn't a problem Carmilla seems to have as she captures Laura’s mouth again, tracing her tongue over Laura’s lips, slowing down until they’ve find a wet, lazy rhythm and Laura finds herself straddling Carmilla’s lap, arms around her neck as she arches into her, moving to a steady beat that thunders through her eardrums screaming more, more, more. Carmilla’s hands are on Laura’s back, her breasts, her waist, pulling her closer until Laura thinks, Oh god. I’m going to drown in her.
“Laura,” Carmilla says on a fragile breath. And Laura waits, but there is no more. Just her name. Her name from Carmilla’s intricate mouth. Laura. As if it has all the meaning in the world.
Laura finds herself unravelling at an alarming pace. She’s reduced a writhing, wanting, hungry body. It’s not something she’s really felt before, this level of naked, uncontrolled desire. Granted, she’s never been half naked on anyone’s lap before either, but somehow she doesn’t think it would be like this with anyone else.
Laura likes control. She likes knowing what’s going to come next and her part in it. She likes understanding the rules, even if she doesn’t always abide by them.
With Carmilla squirming and bucking under her, there are no definable rules. Her body is a quivering mess of hot, wet need. She’s a tagline on the cover of a cheesy romance novel. She’s every cliché she’s ever rolled her eyes at. And she doesn’t care.
Hands in Carmilla’s hair, on her neck, against her shoulders. She pulls at the loose collar of Carmilla’s t-shirt, wishing that she could somehow vanquish it without having to sever the kiss. She tugs the thin material up and over Carmilla’s head, and a tangle of dark hair that fall over bare shoulders. Laura reaches back and unhooks her bra, because it’s only fair that they’re both topless. Carmilla sits back, her naked chest thrust forward, her palms splayed out behind her as Laura bends to kiss her collar bone and then the hollow of her throat. Carmilla allows her head to sag back as Laura’s mouth closes over neck and then, spurred on by that greedy refrain, she bites down.
Carmilla cries out in surprise and Laura jerks up and looks at her in alarm. “Are you-” She’s breathing hard and forming words is difficult. “Was that okay?”
Carmilla swallows and parts her lips and Laura sees the pointed tips of her teeth protruding past her top lip. She wonders if it’s a reaction to the pain, the way a cat lets out its claws when you step on its tail. Carmilla’s eyes are a dark liquid brown, shining with a sort of recklessness that mirrors whatever it is that Laura’s feeling and in a ragged whisper, she says, “Do it again.”
Laura’s heart is beating so hard that she feels it behind her eyelids and at the roots of her hair. She leans forward and kisses Carmilla’s open mouth softly, then very gently, she traces the point of her tongue over those sharp protrusions and Carmilla sucks in a superfluous breath. The memory of a heartbeat, Laura thinks.
She presses her mouth against the side of Carmilla’s lips and then against her cheek. She scrapes her teeth across Carmilla’s jaw and her throat and then finds the sinewy place where her neck meets her shoulders. Lightly at first, Laura closes her teeth over it, but then Carmilla’s hips buck up and she bites down harder until she’s sure her teeth marks will be there in the morning. Carmilla’s making this breathless noise at the back of her throat. Stuttering, like she can’t get enough air, except she doesn’t need air, so it’s nice to know that all of this is the effect of Laura’s ministrations.
Laura sucks on the cool skin she’s just marked. And Carmilla threads her fingers through Laura’s hair tenderly, and then urges her chin up so that Laura looks down at her with unfocused eyes, confused as to why Carmilla’s staring at her with that soft, dopey expression, when they could be kissing. She doesn’t want to do the soulful rom-com stargazing thing right now. She mostly just wants Carmilla’s tongue back in her mouth. But Carmilla looks at her with that fond smile. “C’mon,” she says.
And then she sits forward and stands like Laura doesn’t weigh a thing, and in three steps they’re tumbling down onto the bed and Laura thinks, Oh.
Laura finds herself looking up at her ceiling and the constellations of stars she stuck there as a child. Then the stars go black and Carmilla’s leaning over her like some predatory jungle cat, considering its quarry.
Laura quite never imagined her first time would be in her childhood bedroom, with her stuffed animal collection in the distance and her vampire girlfriend (girlfriend?) looking like she can’t decide if she wants to bite her or fuck her. Laura imagines it a mixture of both, and finds herself wholly in favour of the idea, which is a little disturbing, but incredibly arousing, so she goes with the latter and reaches up impatiently to bring Carmilla down against her.
But Carmilla resists. “Wait.” And she moves down, tugging at the waistband of Laura’s pyjamas, just enough to expose her hipbone, against which she places a wet kiss. Laura shivers and thrusts up in an involuntary move. She knows what’s about to happen. She’s read the literature. But Carmilla takes her time. She peels off Laura’s bottoms with slow appreciation and vaguely Laura wonders if she should feel self-conscious. All she feels is impatient. Carmilla nuzzles against her inner thigh and makes this rich purring noise that causes Laura’s whole body to vibrate and she thinks, now. Do it now.
And then Carmilla's mouth is on her.
Laura cries out with a broken moan so loudly that Carmilla lifts her head, and with a slightly smug grin, whispers, “Shh!”
Laura immediately bites down on her lip and nods before canting her hips, urging Carmilla to continue. And continue she does.
Carmilla does things with her tongue and fingers, and Laura tries to distinguish what is happening where, but at this point, she’s a spiralling entity of want. Her senses are acute and focused only on the tiny bursts of sensation happening at Carmilla’s attentions, her language limited to a monosyllabic vocabulary with words like “yes” and “oh” and when Carmilla curves her finger just so, “fuck”.
Part of her wants to push Carmilla away, because it’s too much, and she can’t, she can’t and then Carmilla’s mouth closes around her in the most spectacular way and she sucks and Laura’s off careening into oblivion. The stars on her ceiling explode behind her eyelids and everywhere there is light and for the first time in days, the light is not terrifying.
The world gradually comes back into focus, first the darkness and then the high ceiling, the cold on her skin and then Carmilla’s shadow as she climbs up Laura’s body, wet-mouthed and trembling. Her hair sticks to her forehead and Laura reaches up to push it out of her eyes. Her skin is slick and salty.
Vampires sweat. The realisation shouldn’t be surprising, but it is and vaguely Laura thinks that she may have to read up on Lafontaine’s findings after all. Laura wants to know everything about Carmilla’s body.
When Carmilla kisses her this time, it isn’t with blood on her tongue. And so Laura kisses back urgently, wanting it all. She feels like Carmilla is absorbing her drop by drop. Blood, sex, heart. She wonders how much of herself will be left in the end.
She reaches down then, because she realises that Carmilla’s still in her jeans and together they fumble with the button until Carmilla sits up on her knees with a huff, her hair a wild mess around her shoulders. She gets her jeans past her butt, but then has to fall back down to kick them off her ankles with a grunt of annoyance and Laura laughs breathily, because Carmilla’s frustration is endearing.
When she finally turns to Laura and they’re lying face to face, almost nose to nose and Laura thinks if it weren’t so dark she might have been able to count Carmilla’s eyelashes.
“Hi,” Laura whispers, feeling prickles of shyness now that she’s actually looking at Carmilla.
“Hey.”
“So, this is happening.”
“Yeah.” Carmilla blinks slowly, studying Laura’s face for a long time before reaching out and tucking Laura’s hair behind her ear.
When Laura nudges forward, they kiss gently, unhurriedly and the throb in Laura’s belly is like a warm, dull ache that Carmilla’s fingers agitate as they skirt across her skin. She knows what she’s doing. She knows where to touch Laura, and where to tease.
Laura leans up on her elbow, her hair falling over Carmilla’s chest as she explores her way down.
One of the many discoveries this expedition south yields, is that it’s surprisingly easy to turn a centuries old badass into a cursing, sweaty mess.
So easy, that Laura decides that it might be her new favourite thing. Especially when Carmilla lets out that breathy moan that sounds like, “Oh god, Laura. Laura. Laura. Laura.” And the word starts to sound strange after a while, like Carmilla’s speaking another language entirely.
And when Laura uses her fingers the way Carmilla did, Carmilla arches off the bed and shudders and then she’s pulling Laura back up and kissing her fiercely, desperately, and Laura thinks her cheeks may be wet, but she can’t tell because their faces are so close. And Carmilla smells like her, or she smells like Carmilla, she’s not sure which.
She falls asleep without meaning to, with her body wrapped around Carmilla’s and Carmilla’s hair splashed out on the pillows and tickling her face, and when she wakes, the sun is high and bright against their naked bodies. The clock above her bookshelf ticks towards ten twenty-two and Laura pulls her arm out from under her. It goes from numb to tingly as she stretches.
Laura pushes herself up. Carmilla’s body in the daylight is different. She can see the little mole on Carmilla’s shoulder and the silvery scar on her breast and suddenly, out of nowhere, Laura thinks, Oh. So this is love.
Carmilla stirs against her, ever so subtly and Laura says, “It’s morning.”
With a whine of displeasure she turns away from the window and burrows into Laura’s chest, grumbling about diurnals. “It’s bed time.”
Laura laughs. “C’mon, it’s stocking day.”
Carmilla blinks up at her with a scowl. “What day?”
“We hang up our name stockings and Angela comes over and we drink nog.” When Carmilla looks personally offended by the entire concept Laura huffs, “It’s a tradition.”
“It’s not my tradition.” She scoots even closer until her face is entirely smooshed against Laura’s warm chest and for a long time, Carmilla just lies there and Laura can’t tell if she’s asleep or not, because there’s no tell-tale change to her breathing. So, she threads her fingers through Carmilla’s hair, pushing it back to see her face.
“Well, if you don’t hang up a stocking, how will you get any presents?” Laura asks, as if this is A plus logic.
And Carmilla sighs, then pulls back a little and looks up at Laura as if it were the most obvious thing. “Cupcake, what else in this whole, godforsaken world could I possibly want right now?”
Then she pulls Laura down into that cold winter sun and Laura thinks that maybe some traditions are worth breaking… or at least postponing for another hour or two.
______
It's not until much, much later, when Carmilla gets up to close the curtains (because there's only so much sun a vampire can take) that they notice the two pamphets, roughly shoved under Laura's bedroom door. Carmills lifts one, and with a curved eyebrow, reads the bold letters on the front.
Sex a Pain? Just Abstain!
She looks to Laura with a horrified expression and Laura discovers another biological oddity.
Apparently vampires blush.