This chapter is dedicated to charlieismyotherhalf from Tumblr. Thanks for being my texting buddy and fangirling over like everything with me! As promised, here's your chapter!
This fic already has established OT3. Because OT3 is awesome and that is apparently all I ever write.
Cheers!
"What the frilly hell is this?" Carmilla stared, dumbfounded at the package on her lap.
It was early Christmas morning, too early Christmas morning. The sun was barely even up yet, but Laura and soon after, Danny, had roused their slumbering vampire for presents. Wrapping paper was scattered all over the floor. Laura had been insistent on using wrapping paper instead of gift bags regardless of their shape or size. The tiny human had a love for the feeling of wrapping paper crinkling under her fingers and the crisp sound of said paper being torn.
So of course, Carmilla and Danny had wrapped their presents as well, despite all the complaints Carmilla made about how gift bags would be much more efficient.
This made for a very messy floor. Especially when Laura got to Danny's present, which had been wrapped, and then wrapped again, and again, and a few more times for good measure, until it looked like Danny had just used the entire roll of paper.
Carmilla had been content to sit on their makeshift double bed and watch her girlfriends tear sheets of paper apart. Their shrieks of joy and impromptu paper ball fights made the little dorm room feel more like home than any where Carmilla had ever been. She knew that the various trinkets and treasures that she accumulated over her journeys around the world would eventually be useful. Originally she had thought they might come in handy as a means to survive, quick money when times called for it, or bribery, a trade for something else that she actually wanted. Never in her long lifetime did she imagine that these baubles, thoughtlessly collected on a whim, would be traded (after careful deliberation because her girlfriends deserved nothing but the best) for a heartwarming grin and a more than brief peck on the lips.
She had never been much of a gift giver.
Or a gift receiver either.
The last 'gift' that she had gotten left her dead, or rather, undead. Since then, Carmilla hadn't taken well to gifts. She took, frequently and often without permission, but never received.
Her first real present in a long time was when she realized that these two girls. Two beautiful, amazing, wonder girls had given her their life, their love, themselves, completely and undyingly. That realization came upon her in the middle of the night, when she was sandwiched in between two heartbeats. Two hearts beating in sync with each other, so strongly that for a second, Carmilla thought that her own heart was beating too. To realize that these two hearts were truly beating for her, only her, that just broke her usual aloof facade down into sobs.
Her girlfriends woke up, startled, in the middle of the night. It was hard to sleep when your pillow/ blanket started shaking. They thought it was another nightmare. The dark haired girl still got them sometimes, less frequently now since she started sharing a bed (and a life) with her personal space heater and her teddy bear. But much their surprise, Carmilla started just blubbering about how much she loved them. That no matter what happened she would always love them, with all of her undead heart and soul.
Actually, surprise was an understatement. Danny and Laura had been carefully tiptoeing around the word, that word, for weeks now. They were terrified that they'd scare Carmilla off. It was common knowledge that commitments and Carmilla did not mix well. They were fortunate to get Carmilla to even admit out loud that they were officially in a relationship.
Since then, the three of them had been more open with everything. They knew that Carmilla still stumbled over that four letter word sometimes, that instead she said it other ways. "I miss you." "Hurry back." "Cupcake." A neck massage. A cup of cocoa. A walk to a morning class that started at seven in the morning, a time where most other people, mind you, forget vampires, would refuse to wake up at.
Sometimes she told them "I love you" but those moments were rare and far between. Usually after a horrific nightmare, when it took both Danny and Laura to console their terrified vampire. Those were the times where they saw the terror-stricken eighteen year old, forced to grow up all too fast. Those were the times when their presence meant more to Carmilla than they'd ever realize. Where everyone else saw a blood thirsty monster, all they saw was an eighteen year old girl, all alone, surrounded by the darkness, trying to find the light.
Carmilla could never thank them enough for being that light at the end of a very long tunnel. Yes, she had difficulties expressing herself and her thanks sometimes, but she made every effort. She could tell that Danny and Laura made every effort to make sure that she knew that she was wanted and loved, and that perhaps was the greatest present anybody could've given her.
Which was why when she asked the timeless question of "What do you want for Christmas?", Carmilla insisted that she didn't want anything. That their presence was a gift in itself. Being able to spend Christmas day with the two most important people in her life was enough. After so many holidays spent gazing at stars with a bottle of expensive champagne, the presence of another, or more accurately, two others, was a strange but pleasant surprise.
But of course, being the stubborn beings that they were, Carmilla had been handed a gift.
"Its an eBook Reader!" Laura grinned at Carmilla widely, excitement shining through her eyes. Carmilla nodded slowly, prying open the laminated cardboard box to reveal a black tablet in a matching black case. Gently, she pressed the power button on the top edge of the device, as if she might break it. The screen flashed to life and she stared at it, watching it load.
"We know that you love reading your super old first edition books that are basically destroyed because of how many times you've read it," Danny gestured at the pile of very well worn, battered, books on the shelf by the head of the bed. "And I've never seen you treat anything else in this world with more care because you're afraid you might damage the books more."
Carmilla's head shot up at that. She fixed her unwavering gaze on Danny. Something unspoken passed between the ginger and the vampire. They always had this instinctive bond, one that Laura did not quite possess in the same capacity. Maybe it stemmed from their need to protect. But Danny understood.
I would treat you more gently than I would treat any of my books because I am more afraid of damaging you.
"So we got you this eReader so that you can read the books whenever you want without having to worry about damaging them more. You can just enjoy the books!" Laura chirped in, her enthusiasm overcoming her and causing her to leap onto the bed next to Carmilla. "We even loaded them all onto there. Don't ask how we did it. I think the library is still recovering."
Carmilla selected one of her titles from the main screen and watched as the first place flashed onto the screen. The room was silent as Carmilla figured out the controls, swipe this way to turn the page, press this to highlight. There was a brief pause before Carmilla started swiping back and forth at the screen, brows furrowed.
"Carm? What's wrong? I knew this was a terrible idea! We should've gone with your idea Danny-" Danny clamped a hand over Laura's mouth to prevent her from rambling any further.
"Carm?" Danny asked, Carmilla didn't look unhappy, just slightly confused.
"It doesn't do the thing," Carmilla murmured softly, continuing to swipe back and forth, turning the pages.
"What thing?" Danny felt Laura relax under her hand, and lean back against Danny's hip.
"The flippy flippy thing, it doesn't do the flippy flippy thing" Carmilla explained sheepishly. Her girlfriends looked at her with extremely confused expressions. She sighed and picked up one of her leather bound books from the pile. Then she proceeded to open the book and flip a page back and forth repeatedly at them.
"I don't understand," Laura said finally. The eReader definitely was capable of turning the page.
"There's no noise. The sound a book makes when you turn the page." Carmilla flicked a page gently, producing the gently swish she was referring to.
Danny grinned, "I'm sure there's a setting that we can turn on for that." She flopped onto the bed, curling her long body around Carmilla and Laura's. "Now I'm fairly certain that Laura snuck a copy of Le Petit Prince on to this and she'd like nothing more than for her talented, multi-lingual girlfriend to read it to her in French.
"Lorsque j'avais six ans j'ai vu, une fois, une magnifique image, dans un livre sur la Forêt Vierge qui s'appelait Histoires Vécues"
Despite Carmilla's seeming inability to work the little tablet and her complaints that the thing was always dying (stop hogging the chargers, Xena!), she used it as often as she could, especially in front of her girlfriends. Sometimes though, Danny would come back to the dorm with lunch and find Carmilla, sprawled on the bed, the tablet next to her from where she had fallen asleep, reading. Other times, they would hear her faintly in the background, making little fwip fwip fwip noises under her breath as she turned the pages.
And when Laura joined Carmilla on the bed for another reading of her favourite childhood story in one of the romance languages, you could hear Laura make the fwip fwip fwip noises with Carmilla.
Maybe gifts weren't so bad after all.