Hey loyal readers. I'm trying my hand at the immensely enjoyable Carmilla. I was going to do a longer and darker fic, but stuff went down that left me less than ready for that. Actually, anyone reading a fic in this category can probably guess what happened in early November that could leave you in a dark place.
Think about this: The Carmilla series ended and that happened within one month of each other. Too much to take people!
Anyway, here is some fluff. I didn't really have a concrete point, just Hollstein relationship fluff. No AU, though (SPOILER!) post series Vamp!Carm, so sorta?
P.S. The screen names are a reference to another KindaTV series "All for One". I forgot that most people probably wouldn't get that.
Laura flopped into her computer desk chair with a huff.
"Should I, shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I?" She mumbled to herself repetitively.
"To heck with it! I'm in." She grumbled. In a series of swift motions, perfectly memorized, she booted up her laptop's webcam and opened a livestream.
"Hello again viewers! All… none of you. Well, when you variously stumble on this video wondering why on earth I still record every minor mystery in my life—and why your watching it instead of rerunning your favorite episode of Supergirl for the hundredth time—you will get to see me solve the last mystery of Silas University."
Laura leaned back and silently let dramatic tension build.
"Carmilla's hair." She intoned with much dramatic emphasis.
"Do you remember when possibly my biggest complaint was Carmilla's hair clogging every conceivable device that could involve hair?"
*Cue montage*
"My shower drain. My brush. My bedding. It was, in fact, more annoying than having fish gods trying to kill my friends. Which might say something about my priorities, but oh you trust me viewers: It says much more about her. And we are about to find out exactly what that is." She leaned back with a self-satisfied smirk.
"I have installed a series of hidden cameras in our closet, bedroom, and, most importantly, shower. With this little remote" She held up a small, unassuming black remote. "I can begin recording anything and everything she does to our helpless drain."
Breton: That should be fun to watch.
Laura suddenly noticed one of her friends was viewing the stream. She wasn't entirely surprised one of them noticed, her computer displayed alerts for several of their streams. The comment displayed on the side of the screen.
"What? Oh my-! No! I'm not showing any of you that footage. Absolutely none of that. All of you already saw way too much back in the library." Laura still looked thoroughly embarrassed at that memory.
PrinceBettie: This is an invasion of privacy. Carmilla will kill you.
Laura rolled her eyes. "Oh come on. She's basically my wife. We've been living together for three years, I have seen every part of her body wet and naked alread-"
PrinceBettie: Please Stop!
Laura abruptly shut her mouth and blushed an even deeper red. "Sorry. Anyhow she won't have to know a thing, and I won't have to see anything I haven't already seen. The only thing that will change is me knowing how one human being—however dead—can possibly put that much hair in a drain."
Laura gave the camera a self satisfied smirk before her expression changed to one of confusion. "Wait a minute, Bettie? Why would you even be seeing this stream? I haven't heard from you since Silas."
PrinceBettie: I have my phone setup to alert me if you release a video across any of your usual outlets, plus several likely venues. You are depressingly incompetent without my help. This plan being an excellent example.
Laura smiled to herself. Despite her cripplingly annoying exterior Bettie Spielsdorf had still been watching over her tiny gay roommate all this time. Laura would tell her: Tell her that she didn't owe them anything for saving her. Tell her that even if she did it was long ago repaid by the advice she phoned in to the library. But she wasn't going to say anything.
Because it was comforting knowing that someone was still out their. And if she ever finds herself in trouble, real trouble, then there's just that tiny chance that a snide, holier-than-though blonde will phone in to fix it.
"Well you don't have to worry. I've got this covered. Just like the truth soon won't be." She paused a moment. "Okay, that made a lot more sense in my head."
Monochrome: Wait, is it Tuesgay already?
Laura scoffed in incredulity. "That is not even-! Just forget it."
She jabbed a key, shutting off the feed.
Intrepid journalism teacher/reporter (Okay, so maybe reporter in fantasy only. Retired reporter. The SNN broadcasts counted!) Laura Hollis performed on last check on her cameras. Satisfied everything was in order she retired to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on her meal. As expected, just minutes later the front door opened revealing her leather clad vampire lover.
As usual she didn't say anything. Laura had long ago had to acclimate to a life partner nearly, although not quite, incapable of casual conversation. Her habit of switching between snarky insults and lengthy brooding monologues was at least still charming. The diminutive girl also always enjoyed the opportunity to watch her taking of her motorcycle riding gear. A pleasure she was once again getting to partake of.
After Carmilla finished putting away her gear she joined Laura in the kitchen.
"I still don't get why you cook me a dinner every day. You know I don't actually need to eat anything other than blood." This was a frequent topic for Carmilla to bring up. She seemed guilty having Laura cook her meals for no reason.
"But you can eat. So it's a great way for us to sit down and spend time together." The smaller girl gave her usual response.
"I know. Why do you think I developed a taste for weird vegan food?" She chuckled. "It just seems like you could pour me a glass of blood, maybe a little champagne, and leave it at that. Come to think of it, why do you do the cooking at all? You're the one with an actual job."
Since settling down, Carmilla had essentially returned to her old lifestyle. The only difference being becoming a little more grounded and stable. That meant resuming her old ways of making a living: Odd jobs, (very) long-term investments, and possibly the occasional buried treasure.
"I actually like cooking." Laura offered. "You, on the other hand, set our microwave on fire." She laughed.
Carmilla softly joined in the laughter. "Okay, point taken. You probably would not enjoy my cuisine. I never actually had to cook, even when I was actually alive. In my defense though, I have no idea why you can't put metal in a microwave. It just seems stupid."
"Beats me." She shrugged. "Maybe I'll ask LaF about it sometime."
By this time she had largely finished her meal.
"Who's turn is it tonight?"
Carmilla looked to think about it for a moment.
"Mine."
"Really?" Laura looked curious.
"Yeah, cupcake. Yours is Orphan Black, Mine is American Horror Story right now. We watched OB yesterday. Remember the ending, that person shot that other person?"
Laura laughed again. "Really? 'Person shot other person'? You can't keep track of any of it can you?"
"How can I if everyone is the same person? It's just silly. If I actually tried to keep track I would be interrupting your viewing every two minutes to ask 'Creampuff, which Tatiana is holding that Tatiana captive? And which Tatiana is trying to save her?' Honestly, if I were not holding out hoping for the opportunity to laugh like a fool watching Tatiana make out with herself I would have vetoed your choice."
"Well you just keep on hoping. Come on, let's go watch some 'slightly less scary than our actual college days' horror." She dragged her lover to the couch.
The two watched TV for a while before retiring to bed. Laura made sure to pay close attention to Carm's routine.
Her shower was quite short, they nearly always were. Among all of her innumerable flaws as a roommate, long showers were perhaps one of the few she did not possess. Laura had always chalked it up to her undead body. Although Carmilla clearly had most of the same biology functioning, she figured the vampire still probably had less sweat, dead skin, etc to deal with.
Then again; where did all the hair come from?
Either way, Laura made certain to activate the cameras.
Her partner came out seemingly none the wiser. Laura smirked, certain that victory was hers. She planted a quick kiss on her lovers cheek and scurried into the bathroom.
"I forgot something, be right back."
The dark vampire raised a brow.
"That's hardly like you. You might not be Perry, but Ms. chore wheel and hygiene standards has never hopped back into the bathroom ever since insisting on showering first."
The tiny girl almost panicked before reminding herself this didn't mean the vampire knew a thing.
"Still, just to be safe…" She thought to herself.
She lifted her nightshirt off and dropped it to the ground.
"I just remembered I'd like to go for round two." She put on the most seductive voice she could manage. "Mid-terms are day after tomorrow. I'm going to be grading night and day soon, might as well have fun while I still can."
Suddenly it was both brows raised.
"Is the naïve girl trying to distract her paramour with promise of lovemaking? By all means." She waved Laura to the bathroom.
The short girl scuttled off, but took stock of her plan. Clearly Carmilla would now associate anything she came up with as having to do with this. She hadn't accounted on how sharp-witted the older woman was. Still, if she didn't know what was coming yet then the plan should still turn out fine.
She hurriedly began what she came for: to examine the shower. She had rarely ever tried closely examining the shower (for obvious reasons), and never immediately after Carmilla was done with it.
"Here we go. Let's see what clues we can find. Time to get my Lois on." She pulled the curtain aside gently.
Only for her next reaction to be a muffled gasp of shock.
The shower was clean.
Not impeccably clean, a few scattered hairs and bottles left out of place marred any suspicious perfection. But it was certainly nothing like a Carmilla shower.
"Just what the heck is going on?"
She quickly steeled her resolve. Not wanting to ruin any chance of solving this mystery, Laura made sure to freshen up, return to her room, and made love to her partner.
For the case, of course.
Before falling asleep she made sure to subtly set the cameras running.
The next day began as ordinary as any other. They woke up, cooked breakfast, and went about their days. The only change was Laura checking the bathroom.
"Of course…" The shower was clogged—practically encrusted—with hair.
In spite of her discovery however, only upon coming home from another hard day teaching journalism, occasionally still requiring avoiding the wrath of various unearthly forces, did Laura think to examine the tapes.
Okay, that was a lie. She was thinking about examining the tapes every waking moment of the day. However, she had no opportunity to do so until getting home.
Finally though, the time came. She sat down at her computer and opened up the tapes. Laura played the bedroom tapes first, figuring that if nothing came up there then she could skim the others. For the first hour and a half or so—obviously sped up considerably—it appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. Just the two of them lying down and going to sleep.
What happened next provoked a gasp.
"What the hell?"
The form of Carmilla lying in the bed simply faded into a puff of black smoke leaving only a single lone figure under the covers, and barely that by size.
"What could she possibly be doing?" Laura wondered to herself.
It simply seemed unfathomable. They weren't in any trouble. There was no one left from their college days Carmilla needed to hunt as far as she knew (as much as she would still be happy to kill Danny or Theo). But would the vampire really cheat on her? The very idea seemed highly suspect at best. It wasn't easy to get Carmilla to open up to on person even. So sneaking between two? It seemed hardly within her nature.
So why on earth was her partner smoke-teleporting –or whatever it was—out of their bed at night?
She looked to finishing the tapes for clues. Speeding up the tape further, she waited to see her vampire's inevitable return. It came in a bizarre, but not wholly unexpected form: Carmilla emerging naked from the bathroom.
That was all Laura needed to see from the bedroom cam. The answer was clearly to be found from the shower, so she switched video accordingly. As expected, the video of her first shower, though… visually stimulating, was useless. Carmilla acted completely normal. She skipped to thirty minutes before her partner's emergence on the bedroom cam. Sure enough, not long after a black cloud of smoke materialized in the bathroom. Ultimately revealing….
A giant black cat?
Of all things her lover's black cat form pretty much teleported into her shower. It did not stay for long though, as the form quickly proceeded to morph back into her human form. Although most of the hair simply followed the transformation and merged into her body, a fairly noticeable layer remained over her body and the shower floor.
"Just like rubbing a cat over your clothes. It makes sense: her cat form must shed hair naturally like a real cat, so she just washes down the tub. Okay, I've lived weird. Hell, I killed weird. But this? This is just freaky. My lover is teleporting away at night only to come back and wash her cat hair down our shower."
And sure enough that is exactly what happened. Carmilla took a second brief shower, leaving behind a healthy, inhuman layer of hair.
At this point Laura realized the only thing left to do was wait for Carmilla and confront the truth head on. So that is what she did.
The broody vampire arrived as usual. Without suspecting a thing she sat down for another dinner.
"Sooo… You're a giant black cat?" Laura asked much the same question she had all those years ago when her lover was dragged from the pit.
Carmilla just quirked an eyebrow. "I think we already covered this creampuff. Did you forget about it already?"
"No, but it seems I was left out of the loop about the fact you're a black cat every night! Didn't that seem important? Like something you should have told me? Your sneaking out of our bed." Laura tried to remain calm, but began to sound confused and pleading.
Carmilla for her part reacted as usual when confronted with emotional situations; that is, of course, annoyance. Still, she had gotten far better at dealing with her partners almost ineffable need for emotional support from a long dead, and very jaded, woman. Although she did not pretend to understand everything about Laura, she was more than willing to learn.
"Not every night. I don't understand. You knew about all those strange dreams with cats back at Silas. And you watched the tapes where I reappeared at your window. Surely after you learned I was a vampire you put two and two together, right? I can sleep, but it's unnecessary. So I often wander in my cat form, almost exactly like a human sleepwalking." Carmilla simply explained it.
"Of course I didn't put that together, it barely even makes sense now. You mean to say that haunting innocent virgin girls nightmares as a creature of darkness, a very sexual creature of darkness I might add, seemed like an activity not requiring disclosure?" Despite her words Laura seemed to have calmed down. Mostly she was curious as to why Carmilla never even mentioned this.
"Now I know how LaF felt. You never asked where I get my blood, or how many other vampires there are, or any number of other obvious questions. I just assumed you preferred I keep the details of my vampire life private. It tends to frighten most mortals."
"Aw." Laura offered a sympathetic hug. "I'm not frightened by your-" She thought about it a moment. "alternative lifestyle. Mildly unnerved and often surprised maybe, but not frightened. I love you, your blood drinking, your giant sexy panther form, and even your supernaturally bad homemaking skills. Now let's try to keep any other innocent, virginal girls from being stalked by that giant pussy in the night, alright?" She winked seductively at her lover.
Carm just laughed softly. "Very well Ms. Hollis. I will try to restrain my bestial urges to our bedroom. I don't know how well it will work, but I'll try."
"Why don't we give it a try right now…"
(The Next Day)
Laura switched on the cam. This time waiting for a time when her friends would likely see.
"So loyal viewers, the mystery is solved. I think I'll spare you the details-"
Breton: No. We love details. And shower vids.
"Fat chance. I already deleted the video. Anyway, I am still satisfied with my investigative prowess. Although, I may have possibly requested to be molested in my dreams by a giant cat? Sort of? I don't really know, it depends on how she took that."
Monochrome: TMI!
Emblue: TMI
Laura just laughed. "Sorry. I hope Betty didn't see this…"
She switched off the camera.
-End