She found out by accident. Carmilla couldn't believe that she hadn't already known.
It was almost four in the afternoon and the vampire had only been awake for a few minutes, having rummaged in the fridge for something to eat. She was tearing open a package of cookies when she heard a knock on the door.
"Laura, are you in here?" Danny. Carmilla turned the chair so she was facing the door.
"Laura's working on a paper." Carmilla answered. She expected Danny to go away; she really, really wanted her to go away. Instead she opened the door and walked in.
"I told you, Laura's not-"
"Oh, that's okay. I actually wanted to talk to you. Without her."
They looked at each other awkwardly. Carmilla certainly didn't forget that Danny had, only a few months ago, been the leader of the 'let's stake Carmilla while we still can' club. Maybe even worse than that, she was Laura's sort-of kind-of pseudo ex. Things were understandably strained.
Still, for Laura's sake, Carmilla would play nice. She finally sighed, pulling her carton of blood out of the mini fridge and pouring it into a mug. "What do you want?"
"Well, we've been trying to figure out what to do for Laura on Friday."
"What's happening on Friday?" She took a cookie, dipping it into the blood as though it were milk.
Danny blurted out the next sentence with a mix of confusion and indignation.
"Carmilla, you remember that it's Laura's birthday on Friday?"
The cookie was just about to reach Carmilla's lips when she froze. Little red droplets were falling off of it onto the counter, but at the moment she didn't care.
Her girlfriend's birthday. In two days. And the ex-girlfriend knew it before her.
"Oh-oh uh, yeah. Of course I do." From Danny's look she didn't believe her, and the vampire switched tactics. "What, you implying I'm some sociopathic punk girl that doesn't care about Laura's birthday?"
She laid it on a little thick, but Danny got the message and backed off. "We wanted to decorate her room, throw her a little surprise party. LaFontaine and Perry have been working on getting all the decorations. I've volunteered to make the food...do you think you could take Laura somewhere for a few hours while we set everything up?"
"Sure," She answered. And, just to try and be more convincing, she added "I was planning to anyway."
"Great." Danny got up. "I'll go then. Well...good night?"
"Sure, whatever. I won't tell cupcake you stopped by."
Danny left, closing the door behind her. Carmilla stared at the wall, finally taking a bite of the cookie. She frowned as she felt it crunch between her teeth.
To a vampire birthdays no longer had any significance. She was immortal anyway. She couldn't even remember her birthday now. January, or July...June? Something with a J. Maybe.
But Carmilla knew to Laura it was a big deal. And something was wrong; there had to be something wrong. Laura was not the type to think birthdays weren't a big deal. Maybe she didn't know Laura as long as the others, but she knew her. Laura should have been getting excited in her dorky, adorable way. She should have been telling Carmilla about birthdays at home with her dad. She should have been asking Carmilla questions incessantly about what she was planning. And pouted when Carmilla answered teasingly, "Patience is a virtue, cupcake."
But instead she didn't do any of that. No, instead she stayed completely tightlipped about it. In fact, now that Carmilla thought about it, hadn't she been kind of quiet in the past week? Just a little, almost as if...as if she wasn't looking forward to her own birthday?
Something was wrong. And she was going to find out what.
Danny had made Laura promise that she would at least try and do her lit paper. She needed some leeway for the next inevitable supernatural crisis.
That had involved an unfortunate but necessary library trip. One advantage to dating a vampire that Laura found out; when she stumbled into the room at two in the morning, she didn't need to worry about waking Carmilla up.
"Carm…" Laura groaned, shuffling into the room and throwing her bag onto the floor, "I am so exhausted."
They were taking things slow; really slow. Carmilla held onto some of the traditional values from her mortal life. Laura didn't mind at all. When she eased onto Carmilla's bed, her head going to the crook of the vampire's shoulder and her arm resting on her stomach, there was nothing that seemed more perfect.
"Rough night, cupcake?"
"That stupid paper. At one point I just gave up actually knowing what I was writing. I either wrote a twenty page paper on Tolstoy or a ten page paper on Tolstoy and ten pages of me banging my head on the keyboard-"
She stopped when it looked like Carmilla wasn't listening. She had a book in her hands, and she looked like she was thinking about something else.
"Carm?"
"Hmm?"
"You're not mad because I didn't text you, are you? Because I'm really sorry, I realized I had forgotten and it was already so late I decided to just finish. I did text you when I was walking back."
"What? Laura, no, I'm not mad about-"
"-And it was kind of inconsiderate it I guess I mean, you must have been really worried when I didn't come back and there's a lot of stuff that could have happened-"
"Cupcake, that's not why I'm mad."
"So you are mad."
Mad wasn't the right word. If she was mad she wouldn't have let Laura sit next to her. If she was mad her hand wouldn't have gone to the top of Laura's head and starting running her fingers through her hair as soon as the girl had settled-something Carmilla had only just realized she was doing. She was hurt.
"What's wrong?" Laura asked. She moved so she was sitting across from her on the bed. "Come on Carmilla, tell me. I can't make it up to you if I don't even know what I did."
There was no point not saying anything.
"...Why didn't you…tell me it was your birthday on Friday?"
Laura's eyes widened ever so slightly, and she hugged her legs closer to her chest. "Oh, that. That was...I mean...you know, I just don't think it's a big deal. I like, never celebrate or anything."
"The others seemed to think it was a big deal. Danny, Perry, LaFontaine-all seemed to know except for me. You know how embarrassing it is when you're being told it's your girlfriend's birthday in two days by her ex?"
"She is not my ex, we weren't-"
"Not the point. Point is you didn't want to tell me and I want to know why."
"I don't have to tell you. Maybe I just didn't feel like it. Maybe I...maybe I just thought you should have figured it out yourself."
"Do not make this about me! If you didn't care Danny wouldn't be baking you a cake and Perry wouldn't be getting ready to decorate your room."
"They're...they're throwing me a party?"
Well shit.
"I was hoping they'd forget…" Laura mumbled.
"Why?"
By this point Laura had gotten off the bed. "I told you, I'm not telling you." She was avoiding the other woman's gaze, shaking her head. "I do not want a birthday, or a party, or cake, and I don't want it the year after that...or ten years...or ever again, not when you won't-"
She froze. In the dark Carmilla could see that her face was blushing scarlet.
"Sweetie…" She reached out to her. Laura pulled away.
"No. I...I think I better go. I'm exhausted and I'm not exactly up for an interrogation right now." As she said it she pulled a blanket and pillow off of her bed.
"You are not going anywhere," Carmilla snapped. She got up and yanked the blanket and pillow from her hand. "You are exhausted and I don't need to sleep at night. You keep the bed. You don't want me around? Fine."
The door slammed behind her, and Laura stared at it for a moment. When it became clear-Carmilla was really leaving for the night-Laura groaned and fell back onto her bed.
Laura thought a lot about the future.
She would never have admitted it to Carmilla, of course, not yet anyway. They were only together for a few weeks. But they had already saved the school from an evil cult of vampires and their monster. If they could go through all of that, then their relationship could stand anything.
And, at first, it was happy things. She thought about taking Carm to meet her dad. Thought about once school would end and they'd spend summer stargazing on the beach or camping. They would come to her when she was alone in class, or when she was in bed right before she fell asleep, and it would put a smile on her face.
That is, until she realized what the future meant.
That she was turning twenty, and Carmilla still looked eighteen. How in another year she'd be three years older, and then in another ten, or twenty...it made her stomach churn. Those sweet moments before she fell asleep now made her toss and turn all night. And on a particularly great day, when Carmilla was especially perfect and romantic (not that she wasn't perfect and romantic all the time, in her own way) Laura could only think:
Enjoy it while you can, Laura. This isn't going to last forever, it can't…
And then she'd leave Carmilla alone, again, and it'd be even worse than with Ell…
So no, Laura wasn't looking forward to her birthday, the yearly reminder that her relationship was a ticking timebomb of heartache.
Still, when she opened her eyes the morning of and Carmilla hadn't showed up, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.
The others, of course, noticed the distinct lack of vampire as well. Laura hadn't told them she knew about the party, only that they had a fight. When she left class she took a walk around campus first. She knew her friends had probably been planning on Carmilla keeping her preoccupied.
She came back to her room to find streamers strewn all over and her friends standing in the middle of it all holding a cake and a case of cheap beer. Laura smiled, hopefully look surprised enough, and celebrated. It was...nice. They all noticed that Laura's girlfriend was a no-show, but none of them said anything. It wasn't until the end that LaF stopped and said, "Still no word?"
Laura shrugged, tried not to look too upset. She wasn't good at it.
"I'm sorry Laura." they said, "Happy birthday...for like, the fiftieth time tonight."
Laura smiled and thanked her; they all left soon after. When she was finally alone, it really hit Laura. She'd had a pointless fight with Carmilla about something neither of them could control, and made her disappear. She fell onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
"I am the worst girlfriend ever." Laura moaned.
"You're lucky I put up with you then." A voice whispered.
Laura looked up and honestly thought she was dreaming.
Carmilla Karnstein was standing in the doorway of her room.
Holding (this was why she was sure she was dreaming) a bouquet. She bought her freakin' roses.
"Carm, what...what."
Carmilla smiled and took the woman's hand. "Don't say a word, just come with me. I don't want to alert the ginger squad."
It was hard to be silent when you were already slightly tipsy on Budlight. She giggled as Carmilla led her out of the dorms.
"Carmilla, where are you taking me?...Is it even smart to be out this late at night?"
"You'll see where we're going. And don't worry. Super powerful vampire, remember? Besides, we're here."
They stopped and Laura realized Carmilla led her to a grassy hill where she had set up a blanket. There was a basket full of who knows what and a bottle of ridiculously fancy champagne.
"Carm...this is...really nice."
Carmilla turned around to face her. "Sit."
Laura did what she told her. She couldn't wait to look in the basket and Carmilla wasn't stopping her, so she tore in. All the junk food she loved, box DVD sets of all her favorite nerd shows, a Doctor Who poster and an awesome new, better webcamera for her videos.
"There's one more surprise at the bottom of the basket cutie." Carmilla said with a smile, sitting next to her. Laura reached into the very bottom and pulled out...a jar of anti-aging wrinkle cream.
Carmilla smirked. "I thought you might like that. Supposed to take ten years off."
"Haha, Carm." She looked at the jar for a moment, placing it next to her. She took a deep breath.
"Carmilla, I'm so sorry for not telling you my birthday and getting mad at you and everything. I'm just...I'm just so scared Carm, about how long this can actually last, about how-"
She didn't realize that two cold arms were holding her face until she felt lips pressing against her forehead. "Cupcake, you listen and you listen carefully," She said, "I don't care."
"But...but you're immortal-"
"I don't care."
"And I'm not-"
"I don't care."
"And I'm going to have to hurt you one day."
"I don't care Laura."
Laura felt awful. Here was Carmilla, who described herself as 'romantic as bricks' doing this for her, and Laura was crying into her shoulder instead of just being happy. Since when did Laura Hollis have a problem just being happy?
"S-sorry Carm, I'm just...God, I don't even know. This is all so overwhelming I guess."
"Never imagined your first serious girlfriend was going to be a vampire?" Carmilla mused.
"Yeah. My birthday coming up it kind of just...hit me. I'm going to get older, and I just don't think I'll ever really be prepared for that? Not that I want to like, break up or anything-"
She was shut up by Carmilla kissing her, and she accepted it without anymore protest.
"You got to learn how to live in the present cutie," Carmilla murmured against Laura's lips, "If you freak out about what's going to happen in fifty years, you end up missing out on some things. Make some mistakes. Like forcing your hot vampire girlfriend to disappear for last minute birthday preparations. I may have only had two days, but I was determined to win for best present. Did I?"
"Absolutely! I don't even remember telling you I liked half this stuff."
Carmilla shrugged. Laura made enough stupid pop culture references that she could figure it out.
"Why didn't you come to the party though?"
"Didn't feel like dealing with them giving me the evil eye for leaving so long. Besides…" She placed a kiss to her neck. "I wanted you to myself."
Laura couldn't help blushing. "O-oh. Me too."
Carmilla poured champagne into two glasses and handed one to Laura, raising it jokingly. "Promise not to freak out anymore then? Because I'll still like you even when you're seventy and wrinkly. Honestly it'll be kind of weird but I don't care. Alright?"
Laura looked at the glass of champagne in her hand. At the awesome basket of gifts.
At Carmilla, who would still be with her when she was seventy and wrinkly and, in the moonlight, had never looked more beautiful. She beamed at her and raised her own glass.
"Alright." They clinked glasses, eliciting a chuckle from Carmilla. The vampire took a sip, but Laura put her glass down and leaned in. Ever since that first party, she wondered if the taste of champagne would be different on a vampire's lips.
It was better.