Now Is Not The Time

The night was quiet for once.

The Zeta's had crashed not an hour earlier. The alchemy club had regrettably been comatose for the past week due to a failed experiment, freeing Silas from an onslaught of experiments. The Glee Club were on their annual 'Wake-the-Dead' celebrations: not a whisper could be heard beyond the distant, unmistakable yet not quite decipherable screaming resonating across campus.

Laura Hollis was in a deep slumber, bat-wing charm fastened securely around her wrist to ward away vampire-induced nightmares: she was for once sleeping soundly.

Carmilla silently clambered through the half open window, not wanting to risk the overly, almost clichéd squeaking door that was bound to wake Laura. Closing the window behind her, she walked over to the fridge and filled another container of soy milk, replenishing her dwindling stock. She had returned from the local hospital, swiping as much from the blood banks as she could without attracting too much notice: her small quarrel with the Dean had left her without a reliable source of blood and she figured someone might notice if dead girls started regularly appearing around campus.

Deciding that a shower was in order, Carmilla took off her shirt in the middle of the room before stalking to the bathroom: she hoped the shower wouldn't wake Laura though quite frankly she felt her need to wash her hair was far greater than Laura's apparent need to sleep.

The grating, cacophonous sound of the fire alarm jarred Laura awake not ten minutes later

'What the…?' she took a second to get her bearings, sitting up disoriented. There was a violent knock at the door

'WAKE UP LAURA! CARMILLA! FIRE ALARM! REMEMBER TRAINING: ASSEMBLE BY THE SELKIE LAKE IN 5 MINUTES PLEASE!' called Perry before running off to save unsuspecting first years from an untimely meeting with the Dean.

'Holy fireballs this is ridiculous' muttered Laura, finding some shoes and a sweater before walking briskly out of the room.

It wasn't until she was standing with Lafontaine by the lake that she wondered where the hell Carmilla was.

'Have you seen her?'

'No. My guess would be she's having an early morning snack on some unsuspecting girl though.'

'She wouldn't…'

'A girl's gotta eat Laura. Besides it's not that bad: I find it fascinating. Hey, think she'll let me watch so I can-'

'Don't get your hopes up Science Ginger, I'm not about to hold a viewing session' quipped Carmilla, emerging from the surrounding crowd.

'Carmilla! There you are: we thought you might've missed the alarm and…' Laura took a second to look at Carmilla and was stopped short; somewhat distracted by the lack of attire she was now wearing.

'I wish I had missed it. The fire alarm waits for no one.'

'Why are you dressed' Laura made a vague, distracted movement with her hand 'like that?'

'I came out of the shower sweet cheeks.'

Carmilla could, for all intents and purposes, be classed as naked: she was wearing ridiculously short shorts on bare legs, whilst her top half was covered by what Laura later recognized as their small brown bath mat that was doing a pretty poor job as a towel.

'Why…why our bath mat Carmilla? You know there's… there's a perfectly good towel' Laura was doing everything in her power to avoid looking at Carmilla's exposed skin but it was just everywhere. She couldn't help it. Or that's what she would later claim to Lafontaine.

'Like I said, not by choice. I forgot to bring a towel into the shower with me, which wouldn't have been a problem except some drunken dimwit decided it would be a good idea to burn toast at 3am in the morning and now we're all stuck here in the cold and with me half-naked. Fun.'

'I…yeah.'

'What Laura is trying to say since she seems to have lost the capacity to speak, is that she feared you'd gone out on a hunting spree. Or at least I did. Seriously though, we need to talk about this whole 'watching' thing'

'No.'

'Come on. How often do you get a real life-'

'La-F come on she said no'

'Oh, you can speak now to defend your girlfriend. Great. Welcome back. I just want to-'

'She's not my girlfriend!' denied Laura, looking down.

'Unfortunately, the creampuff's telling the truth. The answer's still no.'

'Unfortunately?'

'Hush Creampuff.'

'Carm…'

'Cupcake.' Carmilla looked her square in the eye, a smirk firmly in place. Laura broke the eye contact, too embarrassed by Carmilla's state of undress to continue. That and a burning desire to… nope. She wasn't going to think about that.

'Okaaay. Grade A for eye-sex there but back to the point in hand: why not?' Carmilla turned to LaFontaine, eyes narrowed.

'I'll tell you what: you can watch me eat when I feed on you. That's the deal.'

'Carmilla!' scolded Laura

'What, feeling jealous cutie? Don't want to share the experience?'

'No…I…just think it's unethical. I'm not allowing you to feed on LaFontaine Carm.'

'What's stopping me?'

'Me. And my… spatula.'

'Right.'

'Again. Back to the real world: I'm totally cool with this arrangement.'

'LaFontaine! No!'

'Laura it's one thing to ruin your basically-your-girlfriend's fun, but not mine'

'Come on La-F! What would Perry say?'

'She'd be fine with it.'

'No. Absolutely not; both of you no. This is insane. It's either a distance viewing or none at all although I don't really approve of that either.' Silence dwelled over the group with the finality of Laura's words, before Carmilla piped up

'So you're sure you're not jealous?'

'Carm!'

'I'm just asking. I am in a bath mat after all. I feel I have the right to know the reason why my boobs are so fascinating.'

This time Laura blushed furiously.

'It's not…I'm not…' Carmilla raised an eyebrow 'Stop it!'

'Stop what?'

'You know exactly what!'

'Which bit?'

'All of it!'

'Well I can't exactly take off the bath mat now can I cupcake, that would just make things worse. Or better. Maybe later.'

'Carmilla!' The girl in question grinned with barely concealed amusement. She was having way too much fun.

'You can't blame me for that one.'

'Shut up!'

'You need to think of better come backs'

'Well its sort of hard when your dressed like…' another vague hand movement 'like…like that!'

'So I'm the problem: I'm distracting you.'

'Yes. No.'

'Simple question.'

'Carmilla…'

'Yes?'

'Come on.'

'I'm just looking for answers here buttercup, you've got to tell me what you want'

'You know exactly what I want you annoying vampire…' At this point Laura had given up all pretenses of affording Carmilla some modesty and was openly staring at her, meeting Carmilla's gleeful gaze with defeated, yet challenging eyes.

'Not too loud: I'd rather not be staked by the student body.'

'I'm sure you'll be fine.'

'Are you hoping I won't be? I'm sensing some bitterness in your tone.'

'I'm hoping the ground might swallow me whole at this point so yes, there is some bitterness'

'Why sweet cheeks? What could possibly have you running for the hills?'

'Carmilla.'

'Laura.'

Perry's voice rose above the murmurs of the students, signaling the end of the fire alarm and that everyone could re-enter the building.

'Well that was…nice. Nice. You guys need some… time?' questioned a stunned and highly amused LaFontaine. Laura broke eye contact with Carmilla, glanced at LaFontaine before speeding off to her dorm in an attempt to flee the highly charged scene with some sense of dignity. Carmilla watched, smirking but anxious.

'I think we'll be fine.'

'You sure? I mean that was… I mean wow.'

'Goodbye Science Dimwit.' Carmilla turned to leave LaFontaine, hand securely tightened around the bath mat.

'Hey… wait! About the feeding thing!'