"Carm! Hey, Carm! Check this out!"
Camilla turned her attention to the little blonde sitting in an office chair. She motioned widely to the computer, now lit with a home screen. Carm didn't even blink.
After a moment of this, Laura pouted. "Don't you see? I got it working."
"Oh, right." Carm looked down at her book again. She suppressed a yawn in her fist and blinked at the pages. As much as she loved ancient philosophy, the words were going straight through her today.
Laura started playing around with the computer again and Carmilla sat staring at the seemingly wordless pages. She couldn't think of a reason why she'd be so tired…
"Hey, Carm?" Laura said. The vampire looked up again. "Do you really like this place? I know it's not as fancy as your mom could have afforded…"
She forced a smile. "It's great, cupcake. Now play with your technology."
"Are you sure, though? You're acting broody."
Carm closed the book and directed her eyes at it's beautiful old cover. "Just tired is all."
"You must be! I am too. It's been a long week. First packing everything up, then traveling, then having to receive all our stuff from the mail, because for some reason it's more expensive to check bags in than to just mail them to yourself, and finally moving them all in and unpacking them. And I haven't even found my Austrian snack-cakes yet! I stored them away so I wouldn't have to import them."
As Laura rambled, Carmilla had thought of something, though. Had she fed at all in this crazy week? For the first time in… ever? she might have forgotten. That would explain the exhausted and even slightly sick feeling she had.
But they hadn't heard back from LaF yet about their connection with a local blood bank -god only knows why she has a connection with a blood bank in America. Had she packed any? LaF usually took care of blood bags, and Carm was used to just feeding off whatever -or whoever- was in the area when they were needed. Except this time, she had promised Laura. No more live prey.
"Carm?"
"Huh?"
"You're doing it again. Brooding. What's wrong?" Laura crawled onto the cheap mattress on the floor and placed her TARDIS mug on the box which held the Ikea bed frame. "Wanna talk about it?"
"Nah." Carm pulled Laura into her chest and closed her eyes.
"Hey, guess what."
Carm smirked. "Oh no. What surprise could you possibly have?"
"Wanna know why we had to move so quickly?"
"Because there was a portal to hell at school?"
Laura pouted.
"Okay, fine. What is it?"
"There's a meteor shower tomorrow night, and this is the best spot in the country to watch."
Carm blinked. "You really did your research, Creampuff."
"Of course I did! I heard there was a meteor shower, and I knew you'd love to see it."
Camilla laid her head on Laura's. "You're amazing."
They sat like this for a long time. Carm lost track of how long exactly. Laura, on the other hand, knew the exact time.
"It's almost two in the morning. We should sleep."
Carm hummed an agreement, her eyes closed. A lock of wavy brown-black hair fell from behind her jawbone and tickled her nose. Laura brushed it back. "Carm?"
Camilla opened her eyes. Laura was staring at her worriedly. "Are you sure that you're okay?"
She sat up. "Tired. Let's go."
"Yeah, okay."
.
A loud clatter of pots and pans woke Carmilla from her deep sleep. She groaned and looked at the clock, thinking it must be way too early for Laura to be getting into any trouble.
The clock read three PM. Carm mumbled a swear. She'd been doing well at waking up at human times for Laura, but she was just too exhausted for it today.
She forced herself out of bed and to the kitchen where Laura was fumbling about with cookware.
"Morning, cupcake."
Laura muttered something about cooking not being her job and how could Perry handle this stuff as a response.
Carm almost sat heavily in the kitchen chair, but she remembered the not-so-skillful job she'd done at putting it together and thought better of it. She sat gingerly on it, testing if it would hold her weight. Luckily, it did.
She watched Laura skittering about the kitchen. The movement was dizzying, but Carmilla loved watching Laura doing her human things.
It took a while, but Laura managed to make something that looked somewhat edible before sitting at the table and digging in. She stabbed the french toast covered in sweet syrup and sugar with her fork and held out a piece to her girlfriend.
"I'm fine," Carmilla said.
Laura shrugged and shoved the big piece in her mouth.
Camilla texted LaF about getting ahold of the blood bank, but the only reply she got was, "I'll call when they open."
.
"Hey Carm?" Laura called from the kitchen. "Can you help me out?"
Camilla heard the call but didn't move initially. She was curled up in a corner of the couch holding a book of poems, nearly asleep.
"Carm, C'mon!"
She blinked blearily and pushed herself up. A wave of dizziness nearly knocked her back again, but she managed to right herself and shuffle into the kitchen.
Laura was pushing all her weight against the fridge, apparently trying to move it?
Camilla sighed and leaned against the doorframe. "Cupcake, what on earth are you doing?"
"Moving the fridge! Perry said we should do a deep clean when we got here to make sure there wasn't anything nasty, especially since it's a pretty cheap place."
"So you want to clean behind the fridge."
"Yeah!"
Carm stood straight again. The slight change in angle gave her a sense of vertigo, but nothing too bad. She wasn't sure if she'd have the strength to move the fridge though… The only times she'd ever been without blood this long, she'd also been captive and didn't have to move much.
But Laura continued to try and move the giant appliance on her own, and Carm wasn't about to let the poor human hurt herself. So she braced against the fridge and helped.
By some miracle, it actually moved.
The got it moved so that Laura could slip behind it with her cleaning products, and Carm slowly moved away from the fridge.
Her head was spinning at this point, trying and failing to find a grounding point. There was a flash in her vision, and she grasped for the counter, only grabbing air.
Carm collapsed to the kitchen tiles, the air coming out of her in one whoosh. There was a strange sensation of water all around her and a loud noise. She blinked, trying to see, but it wasn't registering. She felt her heart pound in panic, trying to understand what was happening.
She had to be okay for Laura. Laura had gone through all this trouble of setting up a special night tonight. A stupid packing error shouldn't ruin it.
Her vision finally began to clear and she felt that she was laying limply against the counters. Her head hurt. How did she get against the counters?
"Carm!"
Laura was frantically squeezing herself through the thin gap between the fridge and a neighboring counter. She looked like she was struggling.
Though there was still a general numbness about her whole body, Carm grabbed the countertop and started to pull herself up.
Laura finally broke through, ran over, and pulled Carm back into a sitting position. "No, no, no! Sit down. What happened? Are you okay? I didn't even know vampires could faint."
"I didn't faint," Carm sneered. Her voice sounded like it wasn't hers, but at least she was back in control of her body.
"Then what was that?! Are you sick?" Laura felt for a fever. "What's going on?"
Carm shrugged her way out of Laura's grip and leaned against the cabinets again. "Nothing."
"Something. What is it?"
She shrugged and looked down at her hands. She was surprised to see them shaking a bit. She did feel shaky, she noticed now as the numbness was fading. Sitting felt so much better…
"Carm?"
Right. The question. She had a question. What was it? She wanted to say nothing, because she knew that's how she answered the first time. But Laura wouldn't accept that again.
"What?"
Laura looked really worried now. She leaned in to look Carm in the eyes. Carm found it difficult to keep her eyes focused on Laura's.
"Are you high or something?"
Carm raised her eyebrows.
"Right. Not high. Can vampires even get high? Okay, never mind. Question for another day. You look like you're either high or have a major fever, and you don't feel like you have a fever."
Another dizzy spell hit then. Carm licked her dry lips and squeezed her eyes shut. She just had to keep this going until LaF called back, but she had no idea when that would be.
They heard her phone chime. Carm went to grab it from her pocket, but found it missing. She opened her eyes and looked around in confusion. Laura was already picking it up off the floor. It must have fallen at some point.
"Laura-"
Laura looked at the screen, her eyes concentrated. She frowned and looked up again. In her mother voice, she said, "Have you fed?"
Carm looked down.
"Carmilla! Are you insane?! When was the last time you fed? Why would you do this to yourself?!"
"Laura, it's not that big of-"
"You could have died! Where's the blood bags?" She leapt to her feet and opened the fridge. After a moment, her mouth opened a little and then she pursed her lips together. She closed the fridge and closed her eyes. With hand motions for emphasis, Laura said, "Tell me there are blood bags in the fridge."
"Laura…"
"Tell me that you're not that stupid."
Camilla said nothing.
Laura sat on the floor where she was. Carm considered going over to her but decided moving was not her best option. Instead, she grabbed her phone off the floor and looked at the text.
"Bbank closes 5 nd friend drop off blood at 6 ok?"
If her phone's time was right, that meant almost six more hours…
Her chest felt tight now, like something heavy rested over her ribs, crushing her lungs so they couldn't take in enough air. She heard her breathing pick up and tried to stop it before Laura noticed, but when she looked up, Laura was already watching her with wide eyes.
"What can I do?"
Carm took a few deep breaths before answering. Laura crawled over and wrapped her arms around the vampire. She placed and hand on Carm's head and gently guided it to her shoulder. Carm leaned her weight into Laura.
"I'm sorry," Carm said.
"I know. i just wish you'd said something. We could've figured something out before it got this bad!"
"What else could we do? LaF's the only one with a connection around here."
Laura hesitated, but answered. "There is one person here who'd be willing-"
"Laura, no. Don't."
"But if you need-"
Carm pulled away. "Not that badly. I'm not going to keel over in the next couple hours."
"But you did it before!"
"When will you get it through your thick skull? That was for you. This? This would be for me."
"It'd make me happy to make you feel better."
"Don't pull that crap on me."
Laura stood and left the room. Carm blinked, surprised, and crawled over to a chair. She pulled herself up into it and sat heavily. It felt a little less secure up there, but she didn't feel like collapsing.
Then Laura came back. Camilla opened her eyes to see that she was holding a pink disposable razor, clear cover still over the blades.
"Laura, I said no."
"Just a little. I'm not going to let you be miserable all day."
"Laura."
"If you don't take it yourself, I'll- do it myself."
Carm closed her eyes tightly. She bit her lip so hard she could feel the skin beneath her teeth pulling and ripping.
Laura came over to Carm. She sat on her girlfriend's lap and waited for her to open her eyes.
When Carm did, Laura was staring at her.
"Please, Laura. I don't want to hurt you."
"I don't want you to hurt either. I love you."
Carm leaned in and kissed Laura's neck. She felt the pulse under her lips. She let her tongue trace Laura's collarbone and the girl shivered. Carm looked up, waiting for a cue to stop.
"Go ahead. It's okay."
Carm slowly put her lips against Laura's neck again, spread them, and began to bare her teeth. They brushed against Laura's soft skin lightly at first.
"It's okay," Laura said again. The vibration beneath her teeth felt familiar…
She bit down as softly as she could while still piercing the skin. The puncture was small but bled well, and Carm drank.
.
"You tired, Creampuff?"
Laura nodded and cuddled against Carmilla. She felt exhausted actually, but that was okay. They were finally seeing the stars together.
"Pass me a soda. I want to be awake when the shower starts," Laura said.
Carm handed her a bottle, and Laura glared at her. Carm laughed and uncapped the bottle herself. "What? You don't like blood?"
"Laura leaned over Carm's lap and grabbed a soda herself.
They would both be okay.