Disclaimer: I own nothing, I'm just a fangirl who is forever indebted to the wonderful people who made Carmilla possible! Couldn't sleep, and had all the Danny Feels, so wrote something post-ep 24. Also, this is my first foray into fic writing! ….and is thus, a bit of a mess. Any reviews and comments very welcome, and thank you for reading!
Apologies….and Mushrooms
Never had there been a better time for the grounds of Silas University to be overrun by gigantic mushrooms intent on enslaving the student body. Danny Lawrence was heading back to her dorm and debating whether to give in and weep for days or find things to hit when the decision was made for her. She had left Laura's room confused and heartbroken. "I don't need a dad, I've got that one covered", the petite brunette had told her. Was that really how Laura saw her? On a par with her paranoid, smothering, catastrophizing father? As leader of the Summer Society, Danny was determined not to lose her composure before she reached the privacy of her room, but the strain of holding back tears was beginning to tell on her face. Their conversation replayed itself again and again – what was so wrong with wanting to keep someone safe? Someone who not only acknowledged their ingénue status, but was also adorably [if near portably] diminutive, and let's not forget the minor matter of her awful vampire roommate with a penchant for kidnapping young ladies. What was so bad about trying to make sure the person you adored didn't become another snack for that goddamned sarcas-
*bop*
Danny stopped mid-stride, her angry reverie broken. What the hell had just smacked her head? She ran a hand through her long red hair and pulled out what appeared to be a very large shitake mushroom. If possible, a rather angry looking shitake mushroom. Food falling from the sky was not uncommon at Silas U – only a fortnight ago the Alchemy Club's attempt to free nachos from the confines of gravity had resulted in several minor burns to the scalps of the passing cheerleaders – but as she dropped the mushroom and turned towards the quad, Danny realised this was no mere culinary cock up. The Alchemy Society's lab was covered in a massive fungal growth, and whatever this stuff was, it was spreading at an incredible rate. Toadstools were sprouting all across the courtyard while smaller mushrooms, pushed out of the building's skylights by the pressure were raining down. A hazy cloud was forming around the mouldy growth – Danny quickly saw that they were exploding out huge gusts of spores. All 6'1" of pissed off, hurt and emotionally tormented red head leapt into action as she saw two freshmen choking on the stuff.
"Guys! Are you okay?"
Danny grabbed the collar of her blue shirt and used it to cover her mouth and nose, wafting furiously with her other hand as she drew closer to the spluttering students. Eric and ….Percy? Patrick? Members of the 4th Dimensional Chess Club. They both had odd, glassy-eyed expressions and were somehow ignoring the approaching auburn giantess yelling at them.
"Hey! Guys!"
Without a word they pushed past her, and as she turned to watch them stagger off she noticed that things were, as was becoming an unwelcome trend for the day, steadily getting worse.
The mushrooms were spreading, and every new puff of spores meant a new gaggle of gormless goons – a title normally reserved for the Zetas. Thankfully, whenever chaos ensued [at least three times a week and sometimes twice on a Thursday], the Summer Society were quick to attend the scene, and this fungal freakshow was no exception. Most of Danny's sisters had been at a training session for the annual Kraken Hunt and ran from the boat house, kayak paddles in hand.
"Sister!"
Danny whirled at the voice of Alice, one of her most resourceful sisters. Somehow managing to sprint despite her wetsuit, Alice dashed towards her with a paddle in each hand and tossed one to the taller girl before taking a two-handed grip on her own paddle and delivering a rather spectacular spinning blow to a toadstool. This latest potentially fatal disaster was exactly what the TA needed to distract her from Laura's soul-tearingly painful words and her ridiculously beautiful face. Danny tightened her grip on the paddle and joined her sisters, shouting instructions and directing her comrades.
Minutes later, it became clear that herding giant funghi with aquatic implements was a harder challenge than had first been envisaged. Panting, growling, and near apoplectic with rage, Danny attacked a nearby chanterelle with a particularly deft blow and watched with satisfaction as the severed cap soared in the direction of the greenhouse. If good ideas were to manifest as lightbulbs, the one above Danny's head would have lit up the sky like Laura's smi- "Stop it!", she yelled, shaking her head. Process the World's Tiniest Journalist later, focus on the situation at hand. Her sisters were stopping the growth spreading, but it was a tough fight. She looked to her nearest companions.
"Lilith! Clara! With me! The rest of you keep fighting!", and the trio ran for the greenhouses.
Rushing past the truly questionable compost heap by the door, Danny quickly found what she was looking for. Stacked up against the rear wall were barrels of weedkiller, anti-matter and crucially for now, fungicide. She sent Clara to round up more help [the Zeta's experience with rolling kegs of beer was about to become invaluable – who knew that was a valid life skill?] and she and Lilith began to push the barrels to the door. On a return trip, something shiny caught her eye. Shiny and pointy. Kayak paddles were all well and good, but to take on massive malevolent mushrooms Danny Lawrence really needed...
"Two axes!"
"What!?", screamed the panicked tones of Perry, the motherly floor don. She and her girlfriend had rushed to the window when they realised the screams weren't part of the ululation yoga class as it was a Tuesday night, and were trying to make sense of the tableau of horror in the courtyard. Lafontaine handed her binoculars to Perry, pointing wildly towards Danny.
"Look! Right there, she's wielding two freaking axes."
The emotional stresses of the evening had already been quite enough for Perry, who had wanted nothing more than to pull on her pink bunny PJs, make a pot of chamomile tea and envelope herself in Lafontaine's arms. This was clearly not to be the case.
"We have to do something! One of the students might have a mushroom allergy!"
Lafontaine was already lacing up her Converse. She held her hand out to her girlfriend and together they bolted for the quad.
Two axes would make anyone a challenge. Two axes combined with Danny's impressive wingspan and dark frame of mind made her downright terrifying. She was spinning wildly, severing stalks left and right when Perry and Lafontaine arrived. Noticing the gathering group of zombified students at the Lustig Theatre building, Lafontaine squeezed her girlfriend's hand before heading over to investigate. Problems of the heart had always been a stronger suit of Perry's than horticulture, so she tentatively approached Danny. Keeping clear of the gyroscoping axeheads, she yelled "Did you want to discuss what happened with Laura? Relationships can be so complicated, and they all go throu-"
Teeth gritted, blood red hair flying, Danny punctuated her response with axe swings.
"I DON'T"
*chop*
"WANT"
*thwack*
"TO TALK"
*smack*
"ABOUT IT!"
Her last blow split apart a toadstool with such force that slime flew out and splattered all over her green jeans. Hovering nervously nearby, Perry cheerfully noted "at least you aren't wearing those nice orange trousers!" Her smile withered under Danny's incredulous glare. The tall girl spun one of her axes, adjusting her grip before loping off towards another clump of mouldy menace. Thankfully, Lafontaine reappeared, eager to discuss her latest brainwave.
"Where did Lizzie Borden go? We're going to need her." It turned out that the spore-programmed students were attempting to torch the theatre, but a handy consequence of arson turned out to be the terrible impact of a good roasting on the mushrooms.
Danny was lost to the act of chopping when she saw her. Laura. A handkerchief tied over her mouth and nose, and swatting at a mound of porcini mushrooms with a spatula. Danny's heart skipped a beat – it hurt all over again. She instinctively ran towards the shorter girl, then stopped. This was exactly what Laura was talking about, and if there was to be any chance of them working things out, Danny had to let her be more independent. Let her make terrible life choices like fend off things that should not be with kitchen accoutrements. Let her make her own mista- Laura was down. An oversized portobello had collapsed onto her, the gills full of spore. Danny's long strides were swallowing up the distance between them before she even realised she was moving, but the swift arrival of a certain undead menace brought her to a halt. Carmilla. Of course. The vampire ripped the mushroom from Laura and frisbeed it across the courtyard with such force that it took out several other clumps of funghi and sent a couple of Zetas sprawling. With one of her slender pale arms she reached down and gently pulled Laura to her feet, that infuriating smirk pulling at her lips. The injustice of Laura's grateful smile shook Danny to her core, and she turned away from Beauty and the Beast to resume the fight. She was ankle deep in slivers of mushroom when Perry and Lafontaine found her again, struggling with a heavy piece of gear.
"What the hell is that?"
The girls dumped the contraption at her feet. Lafontaine stood with her hands on her hips, struggling to get her breath back after the exertion of carrying it. "It *was* a leaf blower. I made some slight adjustments after seeing how these things react to fire, and it's now a far-too-heavy-for-me flamethrower."
Danny pulled the strap over her head and hoisted the contraption with ease. "Light it up".
Flames accomplished what canoe paddles and even axes had struggled with, and made short work of the remaining toadstools. The unaffected students had successfully wiped out the remainder of the growth with fungicide, and the spores slowly cleared from the systems of their zombified counterparts, leaving only temporary headaches, dizziness, and a lingering sense of guilt about the slightly singed theatre. Lafontaine joked that it now had more "CHARacter", and Perry silently led her back to their room.
Danny looked around the courtyard. A few students were still making their way through smouldering clumps of mush, but Laura wasn't among them. She must have returned to her room already. With a sigh, Danny realised how incredibly tired she was and headed towards her dorm, her head hanging low.
Ditching her new destroyed green jeans, she pulled on a long plaid shirt and shorts when there was a knock at the door. She sighed, heading towards it. "I'm tired, Perry. I really don't want to talk about" …Laura. Standing right there, in the corridor, looking all kinds of nervous and awkward and adorable. Danny stood dumbstruck, one hand still on the doorhandle.
"Hi", Laura managed.
"Hi! Are you okay? Do you want to come in?", the tall red head asked, hopefully. Laura smiled nervously and followed Danny into the room, parking herself in the swivel chair while her TA sat on the bed, long legs crossed in front of her. Laura pushed her hair behind her ears, fidgeting rather than looking at the other girl.
"I just…. I just wanted to tell you how amazing you were out there".
Danny frowned, "I didn't do anything, Laura". She looked down at her hands, worrying at a rough edge on her nail. "Everyone was there helping. Well, everyone who hadn't inhaled mind controlling mushroom dust, I guess".
Laura leapt out of the chair. "Danny! You sliced and diced a mushroom army almost single-handedly before destroying the remnants with a gigantic flamethrower!"
"And you told me earlier that's why you don't want me around! I'm tall and I'm strong, sure, but I've had hours of training in everything from kendo to capoeira with the Summer Society. I had my sisters with me. I'm not brave, I just did what I had to do. Brave, Laura, brave is what you are. You are absolutely teeny tiny and you rush into things without thinking them through, but you never run away from anything. You aren't afraid of living with a vampire, you aren't afraid of the dean, you aren't afraid of anything!" She dropped her head. "You're the brave one, Laura. I've always known that". The tears she had fought off all night were beginning to appear, and one silently slid down her face.
"Danny". Laura's soft voice broke the silence. "I really came here to apologise for earlier - the mushroom interlude just meant it took a little longer than I anticipated. I was a jerk, and I'm sorry. I'm not used to having someone care for me like you do, and it's amazing and wonderful and warm and perfect, and I got scared. How could I ever be good enough for you? I eat terribly, I have the worst ideas ever, and have I mentioned that I come complete with a super sarcastic vampire roommate who seems to exist solely to clog my drain with her predictably black hair?"
Despite herself, Danny laughed. She sniffed and looked up into Laura's anxious, slightly scrunched up face.
"I never meant to smother you. I was wrong, and I'm sorry. You just keep throwing yourself into danger, and I'm so scared I'll lose you. I only just found you." Her head dropped again, hair covering her face. "I'm scared all the time, Laura. This place lurches from one crisis to the next, and I can't stand the thought of anything hurting you".
Laura moved to the bed and took a seat next to Danny. She reached up and cupped Danny's beautiful face in her hand, gently brushing a stray tear away with her thumb. "You aren't my dad, okay? For one thing, he's a good 6 inches shorter, and I really should have thought that comparison through more, because now it's just plain weird. I was an idiot and I lashed out. I'm sorry. Danny, you are gorgeous, and kind, and noble….and I really hope you can forgive me and I haven't completely messed this up".
Danny smiled into Laura's face, tears in the eyes of both girls. "So long as you can forgive me too?" She slid her hand up Laura's arm to rest on the hand holding her face.
"For looking after me? I'm pretty sure I can manage that."
Danny's grin widened, and she pulled Laura closer, kissing her gently. "Deal", she whispered, resting their foreheads together. This close, Laura saw the bruises starting to form on Danny's neck where Carmilla had choked her.
"I'm sorry she did that to you", she murmured, trailing kisses along the taller girl's neck, lips gently brushing the tender skin.
"It's nothing", replied Danny, distracted from any pain by Laura's gentle touch. "Can't deny I still want to ram a sharpened stick through her chest, but I was leaning that way before we even found out she was a vampire."
Laura leaned back, and looked Danny in the face. "Okay, two new rules. First," she gently tapped a finger against Danny's thigh, "no staking Carmilla. She's harmless, just so very lonely and tortured. Which she seems to be compensating for by helping herself to any and all baked goods I happen to leave in the room."
Danny smiled, "It'll be a challenge, but I'll try. And the second rule?"
"The second rule is no more talking about Carmilla - can tonight just be you and me, no more fiendish goings on or occult activity?"
Danny's smile widened to a full on grin. "That, my dear Ms Hollis, sounds perfect." They stretched out on the bed together, Danny's long limbs holding Laura close, and the tall girl had never felt so safe.