The curly-haired moppet had fallen asleep on top of her.
It wasn't really a surprise, Mattie reflected. They'd certainly had quite a bit of fun with the strawberries and melted chocolate. Not only had that required that the sheets be washed - Perry apparently unable to relax when there was cleaning to be done (and Mattie had to admit, she wouldn't have wanted to be laying on the sticky chocolate residue) - but they'd both needed a shower. And since there was a load of laundry going, naturally it only made sense to save water by showering together, right?
And if Perry had wanted to have her way with Mattie on top of the spinning dryer later, Mattie had been only too happy to oblige.
Besides, she enjoyed Perry the entire walk back to her bedroom... and for a while after they got there.
She hadn't bitten the girl. Not because she cared. She simply hadn't been hungry. That had been the entire point of drinking that glass of blood earlier, after all. And even if she wasn't overly concerned with what Perry thought of her, deliberately doing something she knew the girl didn't find arousing would only have served to dampen the mood.
She wasn't really all that tired, herself. So why was she just laying there, letting Perry use her as a body pillow? Admittedly, she didn't exactly have anything better to be doing, right then. And... Well, it wasn't exactly unpleasant. She was... warm. And comfortable. It was just... nice.
'Nice' wasn't exactly a word she was acquainted with very well - and certainly not one that would ever be used to describe her - but she was sure that was the best fit for the situation. Laying there with Perry felt really nice. So why shouldn't she enjoy it?
And really, it hardly hurt her ego to know that she'd satisfied Lola enough to use up all her energy.
Lola. Right. She hadn't exactly requested it, but Perry had said that, after their first intense night together, Mattie could use her first name. She was mildly curious why no one else did - Lola was hardly a strange or unusual name, particularly by Silas standards - but only mildly. Still, given how intimate they'd gotten, it would be a little silly to keep calling her by her last name. Likely, that had been her thinking, too.
She idly stroked Lola's hair, pausing briefly as Lola made an incomprehensible noise in her sleep and wriggled against her, apparently trying to get more comfortable. She stroked her hair again, but the motion wasn't repeated. Ah, well. She was perfectly content to let the girl sleep. She stared up at the ceiling, thinking.
Perhaps, she mused, she'd taken Maman's lessons about patience a bit too much to heart. The rapid pace of events over the past few months had caught her off guard and left her feeling horribly unbalanced, though she'd worked hard not to let it show. She hadn't liked the woman at all, really, but her 'mother' had been a solid, inescapable fact in her life for over twelve hundred years. (Rather like gravity, in a way... and just as unforgiving.) Then she was gone. She hadn't quite believed it, at first - and rightly so, as it turned out - but she'd been at a loss. Killing the Hollis girl for it had seemed like the appropriate response - it was the principle of the thing, really - but, for her sister's sake, she'd refrained. Then Hollis - Laura - had talked to her, opened up and revealed the ugly truth about her real motivation for killing Maman... and Mattie had known she would have reacted exactly the same way, in Laura's place. So she'd forgiven the life debt (which had turned out to be unwarranted, in any event, since Maman wasn't entirely dead, quite yet)... but that had left her without anything solid to cling to. She'd thrown herself into selling the school to Corvae, treating being the de facto administration of Silas University as an unwanted but unavoidable detail.
Yet, Laura began affecting that, too. Not that she'd ever really wanted to just blindly follow Maman's directives, but as she and Carmilla both knew, there was a difference between pushing the limits and open revolt. She didn't quite know if Maman had caught wind of what she planned to do - it was entirely possible, given her skill at Chess - but knowing what she did now, she couldn't be surprised at the "sudden and miraculous" find of the files with intimate details about her, and the rest of the Board. (Files that she was pretty sure Laura had kept, now that she thought about it. Good to see the new Board Chair wasn't quite as naïve and innocent as she'd once been.) She'd gone from being nigh-unkillable to having a glaring weakness that everyone knew about.
(Laura had asked her, afterward, why she kept her 'horcrux' - as Laura insisted on calling it - with her, rather than hiding it somewhere the way she now had. The simple truth was that she'd felt safer having it with her, where she knew exactly where it was, rather than having it be out of her sight for so long, where her mother could have gotten her hands on it. Having Maman permanently out of the picture, now, opened up a lot of new options.)
Then there had been the contamination of the blood supply. Again, she'd been forced to rely on Laura and her friends - and Laura's mother, as it turned out - and again, she'd been surprised to find that they didn't let her down. After that was everything with Vordenberg capturing her sister, her insane plan to try and steal power from the fish god, and Laura risking quite literally everything she had to save both of them.
She's stronger than you think, Carmilla had told her, which was proving to be a severe understatement. And applicable to more than just Laura.
Lola Perry, by all logic, should not have been able to resist Maman at all, let alone as long as she had, or to such a degree. True, she'd had the 'home court' advantage, she believed was the appropriate term, and Maman had needed time to settle in before she could work on gaining control. But once she had, a mere human should not have been able to resist an antediluvian vampire, and actually expelling her from her body should have been a mere fantasy. Yet, Lola had done both.
All of that, taken together, had forced Mattie to take some time and reevaluate some things, to reconsider certain attitudes. She still believed that age - and all the experiences that came with it - made a difference, but had to concede that maybe, just maybe, being a vampire didn't automatically make one superior to humans. (Though she might have an easier time deciding that when not surrounded by idiot schoolchildren. No one who actually needed to be told that starting riots and causing destruction and setting things on fire would do the opposite of protecting anyone as they claimed to be doing could ever even be close to being considered an equal.) It had also been a while since she'd found anyone worthy to take to her bed, and even then... Well, he hadn't been nearly as enjoyable as Lola Perry was proving to be. But just because they were both proving to be exceptionally good at finding exactly what the other liked, that didn't mean it was anything other than that - two people having really great sex. She'd only enjoyed watching Lola bustle about her kitchen in excitement because it had been adorable. That she found the girl so easy to talk to was only in comparison to the dull-witted, slack-jawed dudebros and shrill, vapid airheads that made up the bulk of the rest of the student body. (Really, there was a reason why Laura's group of friends was so comparatively small.)
It didn't mean she was getting attached to Lola, let alone be in any danger of developing feelings for her. She was just enjoyable, was all.
She was also watching her, Mattie realized. At some point during her musings, Lola had woken up and was studying her carefully. What, if anything, she was looking for, Mattie didn't know. She didn't look away upon her gaze being noticed, either, and for a long while they just lay there, Lola's chin resting on her sternum, looking into each other's eyes. It was like some kind of bizarre staring contest that didn't have any winners, any losers, or any point, yet she kept looking. Well, Lola did have lovely eyes, so there wasn't any particular reason to look elsewhere just then. "What are you thinking?" she eventually asked softly, if only because this wasn't typical behavior for Lola.
"You're beautiful," Lola whispered, which was probably an answer, but either way, she hardly felt bad about hearing. A vampire's heartbeat was a sporadic thing, when it happened at all, and sudden bursts of motion after being still were far from uncommon, so she didn't think anything of the flutter in her chest.
"Well," she murmured, "aren't you sweet?" Her hands gently cradled Lola's head, fingers entangling themselves in the mass of curls as she pulled the unresisting young women up into a kiss. Their previous kisses had been urgent, passionate, and very intense. This was slower, more tender... yet somehow, still every bit as intense.
Perry was trembling, just a little, when she finally pulled back, sitting up. Sweet Jesus, that had been... She shook her head, trying to clear it, as she stared at Mattie in shock. "That was... amazing," she finally managed to stammer out. She wasn't sure that was the proper term, but only because she didn't know if one even existed. It felt like she'd been guzzling triple espressos, her pulse was racing so fast. In an odd way, that was the most frightening thing Mattie had ever done to her. They both agreed that they had no interest in dating, or any kind of romance. But when Mattie kissed her like that... It made her start wondering.
"It was quite enjoyable, wasn't it?" Mattie agreed, seeming just a little surprised as she also sat up in bed. Perry refrained from looking down at her uncovered body through sheer force of will.
"It was certainly more... romantic... than I'm really used to," Perry added, allowing a slight note of warning to enter her tone. She couldn't tell Mattie not to do it again, because she'd enjoyed the hell out of that kiss, and would hardly have minded if it did happen again. But she could make it clear that Mattie might be sending the wrong message if she did, and essentially tell her not to do it again unless she actually meant it that way.
Fortunately, Mattie understood exactly what she wasn't saying. "I'll keep that in mind," she promised... then blurred into motion, and Perry suddenly found herself on her back, with Mattie on top of her, pinning her arms over her head with one hand while the other and her lips began to wander.
Perry was understandably surprised by her abrupt change in position. What Mattie was doing felt a little too good to complain, exactly, but... "What are you...? Come on, let me up."
"No."
She jerked as Mattie's right hand hit an especially ticklish spot on her side, giggling. "Mattie, come on, I have things to do."
"No, you don't."
"Okay, did you- Nngh, that's nice... Um, did you memorize my freaking schedule, or something?" Seriously, Mattie's lips were getting very distracting.
"Yes, but not for the reasons you think." She paused in what she was doing to give Perry a serious look. "When I first got here, it quickly became apparent that Laura and her friends - you included - were going to be a headache, so I looked up your schedules to have a better idea of where you'd be and when you'd be there, if only to better minimize any difficulties. When I learned who was possessing you, I made absolutely certain I knew where you were supposed to be at all times. Now that things have stabilized, here, you're sticking to that schedule all the more."
"Oh." That actually did make sense - and was something of a relief, truth be told. "Well, that's better than you being the huge stalker you were coming off as. Especially after that kitchen..."
"Heh. I suppose so." She still looked too serious, though; mention of her late (and unlamented) mother evidently killing whatever mood she'd been in. On the one hand, that might mean Mattie would be more inclined to release her. On the other...
She bit her lower lip thoughtfully.
Mattie, looking down at her, was somewhat distracted just then, but couldn't miss the suddenly contemplative expression on Lola's face, even if she didn't know the reason for it. "You want to get back down to the kitchen, don't you?" she guessed. "Hungry?"
Lola looked thoughtful for several moments longer, then seemed to come to a decision... and her expression became downright smoldering. "Well, I could certainly go for some dark chocolate," she purred.
That caught Mattie's full attention immediately. "Excuse me?" she blurted out. "What's gotten into you?"
Lola kept up the smolder. "Nothing." A deliberate pause. "Yet."
Mattie stared at her for another moment, surprised... then couldn't help but laugh.
A distinct note of satisfaction came into Lola's expression. "Much better," she murmured under her breath.
Which told Mattie that she'd been engaging in that not quite Lola-like behavior, making vaguely crude and suggestive comments that she typically would be embarrassed even to hear... just to make Mattie smile.
She wasn't quite sure how to react to that.
Perry could tell Mattie had figured out what she was doing, if not why. Of course, she didn't know why she was doing that, either, so that was hardly a surprise. Mattie looked down at her... and there was the blazing look of near-possessiveness she'd come to expect... and kind of like, truthfully. In that moment, she supposed she was Mattie's... just as much as Mattie was hers. It felt like more of a primal, physical impulse than anything else... which just fit in perfectly with whatever warped, twisted relationship they had.
"Hmm, I did get distracted, didn't I?" Mattie asked, that intent gaze burning into her. "My apologies. And to reiterate my point from before..." She leaned closer, the look in her eyes reaching a fever pitch. "...you're not going anywhere until I'm done with you."
Perry responded by wrapping her legs around Mattie's waist. "Neither are you."
"Always good to know we're on the same page."
The outside world... went away, for a while.
"Have you ever been here before?" Laura asked as she rang the doorbell on Mattie's house. It seemed like a small house, to her, but growing up where she had, she knew her standards weren't exactly the same as everyone else's. (Carmilla's house was technically a mansion, but after living most of her life within the sprawling Jarman Estate, she'd viewed it as either an apartment or maybe a house, until she'd actively started working on her sense of perspective.) Besides, Mattie lived there alone, and how much space did one person need?
"Once or twice, maybe," Carmilla replied after a moment's thought. "Mattie usually stayed with us, unless she was there on official Board business, and if I wasn't acting as bait for her little con game, Lilith insisted I stay with her, where she could keep an eye on me." She deliberately shook off the bad memories. "Never since she moved in full-time and redecorated, though."
"Did she say what she wanted at all?" Carmilla had been the one to take that call, and Laura - having nothing in particular better to do and curious as to just what Mattie had done with her new home - had been fully on board with a visit.
(She was pretty sure June would have rather Mattie come to them, as she usually did, since June had already secured their house, and had more control of the environment. Walking into a blind location, where who knew what manner of traps of threats could be waiting...? She did not like that. Laura had simply reminded her, patiently, that Mattie was family, and wasn't going to hurt her.)
"Not really," Carmilla said, shrugging. She hardly needed a reason to visit her sister, after all, so that lack of information didn't really bother her. "I think she found something she wanted us to see. She did sound a bit... tired, though."
Laura frowned. "You think she's sleeping alright?"
"I think she's keeping herself far too busy with Curly Sue for petty things like sleep."
She blinked. "Huh. And people call us bad?"
"Oh, you are," Mattie said as she opened the (clearly not soundproofed) door. "Big Red aside, none of us have a problem with it. We just don't want to see or hear it, is all." She stepped aside to let the three of them in. "I assure you, I'm fully capable of returning the courtesy."
Laura paused as she realized something. "Wait, is Perry still here?"
"She's been in the kitchen since mid-morning," Mattie confirmed. "Though given how bare the cupboards and pantry shelves are, I have no idea what she's been doing in there."
Laura chuckled quietly. "Lack of supplies has never stopped her before. Remember when I told you about what happened over the break, when we wound up in that barn while fleeing the mob?" At Mattie's nod, she continued, "While we were there, she made us waffles for breakfast. Completely edible, surprisingly good waffles. In an abandoned barn. With no eggs. Or flour. Or milk. Or prepackaged batter. Or a waffle iron." She shook her head. "I still have no idea how she did it. She's, like, the MacGyver of the kitchen."
"Hmm." Mattie looked quietly intrigued. "I've been staying out of her way while she worked, but now you've got me curious."
"Well, before we go see what she's been up to..." She trailed off and looked at Mattie expectantly.
"As direct and to-the-point as ever, I see." Her lips twitched into a smile.
Laura raised an eyebrow. "Well, someone has to be. You know, if only to remind the rest of you how that works."
Looking amused, Carmilla told her, "You've been going above and beyond on that, Cupcake."
"Yeah, well... Gotta make up for the beginning of the semester, too, right?"
Neither sister commented on that, knowing how the deception and acting thoughtless toward her loving girlfriend had worn at Laura. (Not that Carmilla had exactly enjoyed it, herself.) "She does raise a point, though, Sis," Carmilla said, turning back toward Mattie.
"True," Mattie conceded. "Come with me, please." She lead them into the living room, settling down on one end of the couch. Carmilla sat next to her, with Laura on her other side. (No one was terribly surprised that June remained standing, moving to a point behind the couch where she could see everything and still be close enough to put herself between Laura and any threats that sprang up.) On the coffee table lay an open manila folder with documents splayed across it. At first glance, they looked like some kind of official reports, though Carmilla couldn't tell of what. Looking closer...
"Oh, no," she decided. "No, no, no, a thousand times no."
Laura frowned at her. "What? What are you...? Wait..." Carmilla contemplated just gathering up the papers and shoving them into the nearest fire, but knew that wouldn't do any good. For one thing, Mattie could likely just print out more. For another, that would just further flame Laura's curiosity, only then she'd flat out refuse to even listen to Carmilla's warnings. Besides, she'd said herself she was done with secrets. She couldn't just go back on that now.
Even if the alternative was facing the prospect of another Epic Quest looming.
"I found this the other day when I was going through some of Vordenberg's belongings," Mattie explained. "He doesn't have any living relatives, so we're stuck with all the junk he accumulated over the years. Most of it's precisely that, though some things are old or rare enough to be valuable."
"Which I'm sure you've sold already," Carmilla interjected.
"Of course," Mattie admitted shamelessly, clearly not even caring if someone else might have wanted any of whatever she'd sold off. She and Carmilla really were sisters, Laura decided. "Imagine my surprise when I found a number of lab reports among his paperwork... and, even more, when they turned out to be genuine."
"The 'Ring of Gyges'?" Laura picked up a paper, frowning at it. "I... think I remember reading that story in school, once. Sort of like the One Ring, only without the corrupting influence?"
"Something like that, yes," Carmilla reluctantly agreed. "Not that the subject of the story wasn't corrupted, anyway." She paused. "You went to school? Given what you've said about your home life, I would have expected you to have just been assigned tutors."
"Private school." Laura's voice was clipped. "Where everyone found out fairly quickly just who my father was."
"And you consider your bodyguard over there to be your best friend from back home," Carmilla added. That didn't exactly speak highly of her classmates, though it did explain that look she'd had when telling her friends at Silas who her father was, like she knew there was another shoe just waiting to drop, and she wouldn't have friends who just liked her for who she was when it did. She also reacted rather negatively to people lying to her, didn't she? Add that all up...
"Yeah."
Carmilla paused, then said, "Well, if your school was giving you Plato as assigned reading, it couldn't have been all bad."
"Oh, no. Best education money could buy." The clipped tone wasn't going away.
Time to change the subject, Carmilla decided. They could talk more about Laura's past when they were alone. "If the Ring of Gyges is real, and Vordenberg had it, why didn't he ever use it?"
"The test reports say it is real," Mattie confirmed. "But he didn't use it because he didn't have it. He acquired the reports from the man who did: a private collector of all manner of rare and valuable items, 'mythical' or historical. Only in the time since then, the ring's disappeared-"
"Ha!" Laura interrupted, then winced. "Sorry. Just..."
"Oh, I'm not unaware of the irony," Mattie assured her. "The collector was actually one of the bidders for a few of the books we managed to get out of the Library before it... relocated, though, as you know, he was outbid."
Laura, knowing exactly who had managed to secure the stolen books, simply nodded. "So... No one knows where this ring is now?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Though his bidding on the books was the first time I'd ever come into contact with him. It is always possible the ring 'disappearing' was simply a fabricated story. If he does still possess it, and you manage to convince the Library to return... Well. Even if that isn't the case - and, it should be noted, there's absolutely no evidence that it's true - I thought it best to bring the matter to the Board Chair's attention."
"I'll have infrared sensors installed at all doors and windows of the Library, once we have access to it," June said when Laura shot her an inquisitive look.
"That should help," Laura decided. "If nothing else, the Library might be convinced we're sincerely trying to make sure nobody tries to steal any books again."
"I did not steal-"
"There was no Student Rep at the time, remember?" she interrupted. "The Board's decisions weren't binding? Thus, you had no authority to be selling anything? Thus, stealing." She looked at another of the papers. "He lives in Amsterdam? Hmm. Maybe we can swing by there sometime and ask a few questions." Knowing how much Carmilla didn't enjoy her quests, she added, "If only to make sure we don't have to worry about an invisible wacko running around. I'd never be allowed to leave the house again if there was."
Carmilla looked at June, paused, and realized Laura was probably right. "Maybe. But that's later."
"Sure," Laura agreed with a ready shrug. "No point in going out and antagonizing him, thus causing a problem in the process of trying to prevent one. We can discreetly keep an eye on... whatever his name is, in the meantime."
"Another name for the watch list?"
"Something like that. Oh, that reminds me..." She turned to look at June again.
"Walter Pierce, age thirty-seven, born in San Antonio, Texas. Employed with Corvae six years. He was placed on Medical Leave five months ago, though his file contains no details to explain what, if anything, is wrong with him. There are no records of him in any database I have access to past that point."
"The higher-ups have him killed?" Carmilla asked casually. It would hardly trouble her if they had, after all.
"Nothing in his file indicates he was liquidated."
"...is that a euphemism, or did they actually-?" Laura cut herself off, grimacing. "No, don't tell me. I'm pretty sure I'm happier not knowing what Corvae did to its ex-employees."
"As you wish."
"Well, since there's nothing to really be done about this right now," Carmilla began, perfectly happy to set the matter aside, "why don't we go see what Betty Crocker's been getting up to?"
None of the others disagreed with that line of reasoning, so Mattie proceeded to lead them to the kitchen. Upon getting her first sight of it, Laura stopped, blinked, and turned to Carmilla, saying, "Oh, we are never going to get her out of here." An amused Carmilla had to agree.
Mattie, meanwhile, was stunned to find that Perry had somehow managed to not only boil a pot of spaghetti noodles, but had evidently managed to cobble together a delicious-smelling sauce, seemingly from scratch... despite the fact that she knew that none of the necessary ingredients had been present in her house, and Perry hadn't left to go fetch them from elsewhere at any point. "But... But... How?!" she demanded, gesturing vaguely at the range.
Perry, who was stirring the sauce, didn't look at her, simply smiling slightly as she mysteriously replied, "I have my ways."
Laura made her way to the fridge, quietly humming what Mattie presumed was the MacGyver theme song. "Wow," Laura said upon opening it. "I think even the most dudebro of the Zetas has more in his fridge than this." She closed the door and turned to Mattie, who looked like she wasn't sure if she should be embarrassed or offended.
"There's a wine cellar," Perry told her, which, in a house with a kitchen that looked like that, made perfect sense. "I did actually make up a list of things to get, though. It's on the table."
Carmilla walked over to the table and picked up a spiral-bound notebook and started flipping through it, eyebrows rising as she saw how many pages had been filled up with items.
Perry didn't wait for her to comment. "This is a gourmet kitchen; it deserves to be stocked accordingly."
"You know," Laura interjected. "If this is what she can do with pretty much nothing to work with, I'm really curious to see what would result from her having access to a kitchen like this, with all the ingredients she could ask for, and without whatever restrictions her classes might place on her."
Considering that, Mattie had to admit, so was she.
Author's Note: Well, having had a week to let the muse recover from the rapid pace demanded by Greater Love, I've begun working out the details for my next Carmilla story. This one, I'm fairly confident, will be unlike anything anyone else has written (which will hopefully prove to be a good thing). It'll be taking the Thursday posting slot left empty when Summer Storm ended, and will be my first Carmilla crossover. (Which does mean that you'll have to look for it in the crossover section, yes, but it's going to have enough characters from both fandoms that I can't just post it here. But, being the only one of its kind, you'll be able to find it easily enough - or you could just follow me for updates on all of my stories, if you wanted.)
In this story, we'll be finding out what happens when you cross Carmilla... with Hellboy.
It promises to be lots of fun. ^_^