"You invented the internet?!"
Laura's breathing heavily, bangs out of place and falling into her eyesight and a small stack of papers clutched in her hand. She door to her dorm, the ancient brass "307" shining brightly, is reverberating from its impact with the wall following her hasty entrance. She has that look in her eyes, the one she gets after hours of studying. It's a manic look, as though she's just solved some great mystery.
By contrast, her roommate is a picture of calm, collected and cool, lounging gracefully (that sort of poise should be criminal, Laura thinks with a huff) on her bed, with Laura's yellow pillow firmly planted in her lap. Carmilla's gaze slowly rises from the book she's currently skimming, one finger poised to flip the page, and her eyes meet Laura's. Dark irises take in the other girl's disheveled appearance and a smirk slowly finds its way onto her lips as one eyebrow quirks.
"I thought you decided you wouldn't be going back to the library," she observes, placing a bookmark between pages and closing the book softly before settling it on the pillow residing in her lap.
Laura's mouth opens to retort, then snaps shut, her brow furrowing in tired confusion at the deft sidestepping of her query before she sighs and holds up her other hand, showing a sheathed short sword hanging firmly in her grip.
"I brought protection!" She defends, shaking the sword as though to prove her point, "And besides, as much as I don't like to admit it, that library is just too good a resource to pass up, manticores in the religious fiction section aside. And!"
She stomps forward then, depositing the sword on her bed as she approaches Carmilla's. She halts just at the edge of her roommate's bed, slapping her stack of papers down on top of Carmilla's latest dry reading project.
"I known when you're trying to change the subject. Can't a girl just get a straight answer after a day of battling Lovecraftian horrors in the goddamn university library?"
Carmilla's smirk only intensifies as she takes in the sight before her. A snarky response is on her tongue, but is swallowed when she sees the imploring look being bored into her and instead she sighs (smirk still infuriatingly in place, Laura observes) and glances down at the papers in her lap. Splashed across the front in bold typeface is her name, or the name she was using in the last half of the 1970s. Her smirk, that infuriating up-quirk of her hips that Laura hates to love, intensifies (if that's even possible)
"Were you researching me?" Carmilla says, all silky ego and self-satisfaction.
Laura's face scrunches in frustration and she balls her fists up before letting out a frustrated "ugh" and stomping her foot. "Fine," she lets out, spinning around and grabbing her sword off her bed, "if you won't answer me, I'll just go back to the library and keep digging."
Carmilla rolls her eyes at her roommate-maybe-girlfriend's exasperation and sets the pillow (book and papers and all) aside before slinking to her feet and wrapping her arms around Laura's waist from behind, pulling the small girl against her.
"Hey, calm down," she finds herself saying, leaning her lips in close to the oddly attractive shell of Laura's ear, "I'd really rather I didn't have to come and rescue you again. Heroics are damaging to my reputation."
She loosens her grip slightly, stepping back toward the bed and tugging the brunette to follow her. It takes some arranging, but within moments Carmilla finds her back against the headboard, yellow pillow to her right and tiny brunette snuggled to her left. A smooth, pale hand is resting near her heart and gold-streaked brown strands are cascading down the arm she's using to hold Laura in place.
They're silent for a few moments, enjoying the feeling of closeness that they've only indulged in a few times since Carmilla's dramatic return from the jaws of true death.
"I didn't invent the internet, per se."
Carmilla's the first to break the silence, surprising both of them. She'd honestly planned on evading the question, and she's sure Laura intended to push until she either got an answer or made the snarky vampire poof away in frustration.
Laura's hand leaves her chest briefly, rummaging about on the pillow until her fingers close around the pages she'd brought with her.
" 'A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication'," she read aloud, " 'Authors Vint Cerf, Bob Kahn, Mircalla Karnstein'. And I'm not exactly an expert on internet history, but the paper sure makes it sound like you hand a hand in the internet as we know it."
Carmilla lets out a heavy breath, blowing a stray lock out of her eyes. She bites her lip in thought as she works out how much to reveal. And it's sometime between then and opening her mouth to answer that she realizes she's been caressing the other girl's arm with something resembling reverence and that, for the first time in a long time, she doesn't mind telling some of her more interesting stories.
"I was working on a degree in electical engineering at the time," she starts, though a sarcastic gasp cuts her off.
"You mean you haven't always been a philosopher?" Laura asks in mock surprise, craning her neck up to send the vampire her best impression of a Carmilla smirk.
"Do you want to hear this story or not, cupcake?"
Laura mimes zipping her lips before returning her head to the crook of Carmilla's shoulder, her hand resuming the small circles she's been drawing on Carmilla's clavicle.
"It was the summer before my scheduled Silas visit, and I was one paper away from graduating. Vint and Robert needed a third to verify the math and do some of the physical testing so they asked me to tag along. They really were the brains behind it. Compared to them, at least intellectually, I was just some kid who wanted another degree to hang on the wall."
She's quiet for a moment after that, remembering the feeling that even though her part had been minimal, she'd been a part of something big. She could count on one hand (okay, maybe two) the number of times she'd felt that.
"A part of me wishes I'd been able to stick around and see more of the work through. Who knows, maybe I wouldn't have picked up philosophy. Maybe I'd still be nerding it out in some lab in Silicon Valley."
The quiet following this is more final. Sharing, even this much, is such a foreign feeling for Carmilla. Like a weight being simultaneously lifted and dropped on her chest, and though she's always been so guarded, and the weight has always been comfortable, she knows that know that she's opened her mouth, she may not be able to stop.
"You said 'another degree'," comes the small, curious voice of her bedmate, "Just how many degrees do you have?"
Carmilla laughs then, because she knows the answer is going to sound liducrious, and she kind of can't wait to tell this story.
"Fourteen."
The reaction is instant as Laura bolts upright and looks down at her with shining eyes and an expression somewhere between disbelief and awe.
"Fourteen?" She breathes out, "That's… Well, impressive seems like too small a word."
Carmilla laughs lightly, almost a chuckle, and pulls the girl back into her.
"You've gotta remember, I've had a little over 300 years of study time, babe," Her mouth quirks a little, and the new nickname isn't lost on either of them. Nor is it particularly unpleasant. "Most of them are the broad subjects. Math, biology, chemistry. A couple doctorates from when I was feeling particularly ambitious."
"Doing one job for your whole life when you're mortal can be tedious, but fulfilling. You have to understand that my lifetime is made up of many mortal lives. I've been so many people, and so many things. In the end, Philosophy was the one thing I could turn inward, and keep to myself through my different lives. It helped keep me whole," she paused, looking down at the top of Laura's head. The kiss she places there, soft and tender, is a surprise to them both.
"So, you've been a doctor, and an engineer, and a philosopher. You've been a victim, and a villain, and a savior." Carmilla can hear the teasing lilt in Laura's increasingly sleepy voice, "Is there anything you haven't been?"
Carmilla's half sure that the question is meant in jest, and she gives a noncommittal hum in answer. Minutes later, she can feel the smaller girl relax against her, slipping into slumber. And though the day is just beginning for her, she knows Laura must be exhausted and so she lets her sleep, holding her book open with one hand while the other holds the small brunette against her. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't focus on the words as Laura's question rings in her skull.
In what seems like an instant, the sun is peeking through the curtains and she can feel a soft stirring beside her. As her bedmate slowly slips back into wakefulness, Carmilla finds that she's opening her mouth to answer.
"Good."
"Hmm?" Comes the groggy response as Laura sits up to face her, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"Last night, before you fell asleep, you asked me if there's anything I haven't been."
Curiosity paints Laura's face as she motions for Carmilla to continue. So she sighs and sits up further, taking one of Laura's hands.
"You said it yourself: I've been the villain. Everything I've done has been for myself. For my own curiosity or greed or ego. Even Elle... I've always been a monster. And I've never really known anything else. So yes, there's something I've never been: good."
She smiles then, a real one, not one filled with mirth or self I satisfaction, and kisses the hand that she's holding before looking into Laura's eyes with an honesty that her roommate can honestly say she's never seen from the closed in vampire.
"But with you, because of you, I want to be."