She hasn't slept.
She hasn't slept in days, her cheeks have grown paler than before, almost gaunt. There is a stirring in her stomach, a rot, like rats gnawing at her innards, and she shakes too much. Perry stays with her sometimes, through the night. Perry, with her soothing voice and her hand on Laura's hair, stroking, smoothing.
"It'll be okay," she tells her. "It'll get better."
It's a valiant effort, trying to comfort her, but the lilt of her voice seems rehearsed somehow, hollow. Like something she's seen on tv or read in a book. It isn't... it's not the wrong thing to say, but it doesn't help. It echoes against her ears like the sound of distant drums.
Nothing helps. Not Perry's voice, not the sleeping pills Danny left or the DVDs LaF left with the tagline "escapism works sometimes." Nothing.
This is a void that can't be filled right now, Laura thinks. She wonders if it ever will be.
Danny doesn't fare much better. Not... not in the same way, obviously, because god, she hated Carmilla, even if it was stupid and petty and jealous, she did. But... but it's strange, you know? Strange how someone so infuriating and sarcastic and alive can just... go. Just leave.
She has to hand it to the girl though, she certainly went out in a blaze of glory.
Kirsch comes over now, and with surprising frequency. The Summer Society girls eye her warily when she leaves with him, something about the ingrained rivalry and the fact that, hey, isn't she supposed to hate this guy? But she finds his company comforting somehow.
His cast comes off a few weeks later, and it's about this time when he asks her, in the softest voice she thinks she's ever heard him use, if they can go, you know, play some basketball, grab some beers? And of course she says yes, and of course she beats him because she isn't going to go easy on him just because they're friends now (Friends? She tastes the word on her tongue and it feels... it feels good).
"Shouldn't have expected anything else," he says, smirking, dribbling the ball away from the designated court. He, too, can see the curious eyes that fall upon them. Summer Psycho and a Zeta. He imagines it's a surprising sight to see.
"'Course," she laughs, but her smile is tinged with darkness, and he thinks he knows why.
"Little hottie'll pull through," he tells her, nudging her shoulder. "It'll take time, sure, but, you know, like that one movie says... keep going forward, y'know?"
"It's keep moving forward," she corrects, though not unkindly.
He shakes his head. "Yeah, that. Life... life is harsh sometimes, but we fought the good fight, you know, and we won, and that's what Carmilla would've wanted, right? I mean, it doesn't make things better, but it... kinda takes the edge off, I think?"
"Yeah," she says. And to her, it does, but then, to her, this isn't the same. Though she hates to admit it, Laura loves... loved Carmilla. It's different. The 'good fight' doesn't come into it at all.
"Life is way too short, even for a vampire."
At some point, they head over to the Zeta's, crack open what Kirsch affectionately calls the 'Tomb' (a forgotten room just left of the bathroom) and pull out a crate of beer.
Kirsch chugs his in one go. Never upstaged, Danny mirrors his actions.
"Woah." This, from a wirey Zeta at the top of the stairs, looking down on them in sheer awe. "Sorry, uh, do you guys want some privacy?"
Kirsch gives him a funny look. "Just grabbing a beer with a bro." It seems too defensive, the way he says it.
"Yeah, man, sure." The Zeta gives him a thumbs up and a raised eyebrow. Kirsch blushes red as the sun at dawn.
At some point, she falls into a disturbed slumber, more out of sheer exhaustion than anything else. She dreams of bright, hungry lights and the girl again... Ell, she remembers softly, the name whispered through her ear like a prayer. Perry watches over her, LaF sitting, a look of worry across their face, at the foot of her bed, as Laura shakes and tosses, her forehead slick with sweat.
More interactions like this, spread across the whole hour and thirty five minutes they linger there, prompt Kirsch to ask if she wants to leave. "Y'know, so they don't..."
"Sure," she says, cutting him off.
She wakes up screaming Carmilla's name and nothing, nothing can calm her for what feels like an eternity. Her eyes water of their own accord, her limbs attempting to flail but, oh, she can't move. She can't move.
"Sh, sh," Perry whispers. LaF clutches at her hand, eyebrows furrowed with concern.
At some point, the paralysis fades and she sits up, sips tentatively at the water LaF places in her hands. "Carmilla..." she says softly, more to herself than anyone else, as she realises this is the same glass (hopefully well-washed) she'd seen her former-roommate drink from. The dryness in her throat doesn't subside, even after the glass is emptied.
Later, they clink beer bottles and sit side by side on a beaten-up bench just off campus, and when he goes to hold her hand she doesn't flinch away, doesn't even protest, simply laces her fingers with his and lies her head against his shoulder, because, and she admits this begrudgingly, he's right.
Life is way too short. And Kirsch... he isn't so bad, really, after all.