le 5 Octobre, 2018
Carmilla didn't want to be there. She didn't want to be anywhere that Laura wasn't and right now she was in the back of some dingy bar, sulking in the booth her brother sat her in with Laura's puppy friend that Will found an attachment to and Lafontaine, who Carmilla asked to be her best person. They weren't actually that bad to hang out with, if they didn't spend the entire night on their phone, like they were doing now - probably texting Perry - leaving Carmilla in the company of Kirsch who wouldn't shut up for five seconds about how excited he was. Will went to get them all drinks up at the bar the minute they all sat down. Lafontaine was put on 'Keep Carmilla in Sight' duty, considering she already tried to sneak off to pick up Laura twice in the last fifteen minutes that they had been there. Kirsch took her phone after the first five. She kept trying to subtly text Laura where they were.
At least there weren't strippers. Will, Kirsch, and Laf knew better than that. At least, Carmilla hoped. The night was still young and she wouldn't put it past them.
Laura was wine tasting at some fancy vineyard that Mattie managed to book a private tour of with Perry, Laura's maid of honor, and Danny who flew in from the states and took the week off from classes in her graduate program just for the wedding. Carmilla chose not to comment on the fact that Laura even invited the Jolly Red Giant, knowing it would just lead to a fight. Carmilla was the one marrying Laura after all and Laura swore up and down that Danny and her had been just friends for longer than they had even been in a relationship together, which was a disaster from the beginning, it sounded like. Carmilla still didn't really like her, she was too tall and who cares if she wasn't technically even a ginger anymore, Carmilla couldn't get the sight of her natural hair color out of her head. But she supposed she'd have to put up with her considering she was in Laura's bridal party and seemed to be as much a part of their little group as she was. She honestly wasn't that bad, but Carmilla would never admit to Danny ever growing on her. Especially in the last year, with how much they were forced into hanging out.
Will came back with a tray of shots for the four of them and a bottle of the bar's finest whiskey just for Carmilla. Except she didn't feel like drinking. She'd much rather have been in her own house with Laura and the two little devils that weren't that little anymore. In fact, they had grown to be nearly 140 pounds each and at their last vet appointment, the doctor told them they could grow up to be 150 pounds, easily, with their gene history. Carmilla nearly died with that news, while Laura of course, loved it, telling Carmilla there would be more "floof" to cuddle. They also found out Doc was almost completely blind in one eye and that he most likely had been from birth. The news only made Laura love him that much more. Carmilla had to shut down her suggestion of getting him a doggy monocle.
Carmilla was thinking about her mini family and how much she'd rather be with them, in bed, and cuddling under the covers than with her current company and not paying attention to what the lack wits were doing around the table in front of her. She was brought back to the present when a flash from Laf's phone went off in her face and her eyes snapped to Lafontaine's wide ones. She wasn't mad about the picture. She could care less about what the ginger did with it. What she was mad about was that they had dragged her to this shithole bar to get plastered on the night before her wedding. And it was only five o'clock. She didn't know why she agreed to let the three of them plan what was supposed to be her bachelorette party in the first place. The idea of having "one last night of freedom" was idiotic. She figured this night was more for them anyway, though, and that was the only reason she agreed to the whole ordeal.
She didn't realize she was in her head again until another flash broke her out of her thoughts, this time from Will's phone. Again, she wasn't mad about the picture, but she was beginning to get slightly pissed off at the fact that they found her discomfort amusing. When Will started begging her to take at least one of her shots, she did, hoping it would melt away some of her anger and help her have fun. If she was stuck there, she might as well participate in the free drinks. By the third shot, she wasn't any less pissed off. Will left her to her own devices after that and didn't bug her with any more shots.
When the sun started setting, Kirsch took out a box of Cuban cigars and offered one to everyone in their small group. Carmilla gladly took one, along with one of the two match books that Kirsch had and, without a word, stood up from her seat at the booth, grabbed another shot, and walked through the growing crowd of bar goers, and out the front door. She didn't care that Lafontaine had followed her or that there was a slight chill in the air that came with the absence of the sun in the sky. She was done.
When Laf finally caught up to her a few minutes later, she was on her third match, hunched over, trying to light the cigar in her mouth. She never did like matches. They always proved to be more of a pain than anything. Of course, she didn't really like cigars either, but she felt better being outside and she needed something to do with her hands or she was going to explode.
"Here." Laf pulled a match from the pocket of their vest and flicked it with their thumb, a flame immediately came to life on the red end of the stick. They cupped one of their hands around the flame and carefully brought it to the end of Carmilla's cigar. Carmilla inhaled, watching the end of the cigar start to burn away.
"Thanks," she mumbled, the end of the cigar hanging from her lips.
"No problem." Laf shrugged it off and went to lean with their back against the wall, next to Carmilla, their hands in the front pockets of their dress pants. There was silence between the two of them for what felt like hours before the buzz of Lafontaine's phone broke it. Carmilla watched as they took their phone out of their back pocket, smiled obnoxiously at their screen, to which Carmilla rolled her eyes at, and then typed out a quick message before turning to face Carmilla head on. Carmilla simply raised an eyebrow and took her cigar from her mouth, tapping the ashes away with her pointer finger as she blew out the smoke from her lungs and into the open night air. Still smiling, Laf said, excitedly, "We have a surprise for you."
Carmilla wasn't excited. In fact, she was probably even less excited than she was before, if that was possible. If it was anything like the first "surprise", she didn't want it. Laf went back inside to go get Will and Kirsch and call an Uber, and left Carmilla outside to wait for it in the company of her Cuban. Carmilla contemplated leaving on her own, but decided to give the idiots Laura called friends, the benefit of the doubt. When Laf came back with Will and Kirsch in tow, she just managed to finish off her cigar and stomp the butt out with the toe of her shoe before a black SUV pulled up to the curb in front of the bar. Carmilla was forced into the backseat by firm hands holding onto her forearm and another set placed gently over her eyes, effectively cutting off her vision.
"What the fuck, Kirsch!" Carmilla used every last bit of sanity to keep herself calm and not rip Kirsch's head off.
"Sorry, C-Dog! Laf said you couldn't look, but Will said we couldn't use a blindfold because you don't like the dark and you're not a fan of small spaces and we didn't want you to have a panic attack on the night before your wedding, so…" Carmilla felt him shrug next to her, his broad shoulders just barely brushing against hers. She held back a growl and chose to clench her hands into fists at her sides instead as she fought every urge to fight the man child in the seat next to her.
The ride to wherever they were headed wasn't more than 10 minutes and before she knew it, she was being lead from the backseat of the SUV and into a brightly lit building. She listened closely as Laf got multiple room keys from someone nearby and Will began leading her down a hall. He told her they'd have to ride in an elevator and she was less than thrilled about that, but Kirsch lowered his hands from her eyes until the elevator doors dinged open at the top floor of what she assumed was a hotel - a very swanky hotel, if the state of the floor was anything to go by, considering that was the only thing Carmilla could focus on. The second the elevator doors were open, Kirsch quickly replaced his hands and Will lead her down another hall until they reached the end. She heard a soft beep and the click of a lock and before she knew what was happening, she was being pushed into an empty hotel room, bigger than her current house, it looked like, with a view of the city skyline. She stumbled a step before turning around to a closed door.
"I swear, if there are strippers in here-" Carmilla mumbled as she took a step further into the room. There weren't any strippers that she could see, but there was a cheesy trail of rose petals that led to a large rose petal heart surrounding a small hot tub in the corner of the room. Candles were set up along the floor and at the corners of the hot tub and placed on the steps leading up to it. Carmilla rolled her eyes. This better not be one of those idiot's fucking-
"If you're room service, can you just leave it by the-" Carmilla smirked and turned toward the direction of her favorite voice. As Laura walked out of the bedroom to the left of the hot tub with her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head and a towel wrapped around her body, Carmilla's smirk turned into a full blown grin.
"Those idiots." Carmilla gently shook her head. Laura gasped and dropped her towel in favor of wrapping her arms around Carmilla's neck, leaving her in a black and white polka dot bikini.
"Carm?!" Carmilla chuckled as her hands instinctively landed on the small of Laura's back and she nuzzled her face into Laura's shoulder, inhaling contentedly. She smelled like vanilla and coconut and just a hint of the wine she had earlier.
"Looks like our friends had enough of our bullshit," Carmilla mumbled into Laura's skin. Laura laughed and leaned back, forcing Carmilla to raise her head, her eyes finding Laura's almost immediately, making a pit stop at her lips, she noticed Laura's smile matched hers in intensity.
"You didn't give them too much trouble, did you?" Carmilla smirked at the genuine concern in Laura's voice.
"If I did, I will deny it until my last breath." Laura rolled her eyes affectionately before leaning in and closing the gap between them with a gentle kiss placed to Carmilla's lips. They both sighed into the kiss.
"I missed you today," Laura whispered against Carmilla's lips. She leaned back in to continue the kiss, but Carmilla was smiling too widely to kiss back properly and she was met with mostly teeth.
"Good, 'cause I missed you too."
"Good." Laura's smile now matched Carmilla's and kissing soon became futile.
"At least they had the decency to get us our own suite," Carmilla smirked.
"Yeah, and it has a hot tub…" Laura let her arms fall to rest on Carmilla's hips, squeezing them lightly.
"I see that...too bad they forgot to mention that I would need a bathing suit for our outing." Laura simply smirked, devilish and entirely too knowing.
"Oh, darn. Looks like you'll just have to go in naked. What a shame." Carmilla chuckled before placing a kiss to Laura's nose and stepping out of her embrace. She slowly reached down and started to unbutton her dress shirt, undoing the one at her neck first and continuing down.
"What a shame, indeed." Laura couldn't take it anymore and decided that Carmilla was moving way too damn slow for her liking. To even up the playing field, Laura untucked Carmilla's shirt and shoved it off her shoulders, possibly popping a few of the remaining buttons off in her excitement, and letting it hastily drop to the ground before going straight for the zipper of Carmilla's leather pants, all the while backing her up, further into the room and closer to the hot tub.
It proved to be rather difficult to get Carmilla out of her leather pants on her own and Laura was forced to allow Carmilla to help after sliding her pants halfway down her thighs, but not being able to get much further. Carmilla managed to pull them the rest of the way down her legs, using Laura for balance, before kicking them off and towards where her shirt was ruined on the floor of the living room, while Laura pouted in front of her. She let Laura handle her bra and underwear though, as if she could've coherently handled that herself anyway with the shining excitement in Laura's eyes and the way she was biting her lip. As Carmilla let Laura lead her backwards until she was practically sitting on the edge of the hot tub, her only thought was that she was the luckiest woman in the world.