A/N- thank you to Friday Queen, The Last Poison Apple, umbrellaleg, Dwinouse and a guest for reviewing, I'm really glad that you guys liked it.
Also, I'm really sorry for the late update- I've been overseas and didn't get much writing done. Here's a long chapter filled with Hollstein as an apology!
Two o'clock Saturday sneaks up on you so abruptly that you actually miss it. When you check your watch you realise that it is already a quarter past two and that you are now officially running late for your date with Carmilla.
You and your best friend LaFontaine have spent the past few hours desperately trying to find the perfect outfit that will hopefully make Carmilla, in LaFontaine's words "pee her leather-clad pants."
(LaFontaine insisted on helping you get ready- you've been texting Carmilla frequently throughout the week and the inattention in your conversations with LaF have infuriated them to no end.)
After realising the time, you frantically dash past LaFontaine, grabbing your bag and rushing out of your apartment door, ignoring their faint outcry of:
"Laura, what about the eyeliner on your other ey-"
Of course I'm running late to a date with the most beautiful girl I have ever had the fortune to meet. You think despairingly, running down the stairs of your apartment and into the outside air.
What else could possibly make this day any worse? You no sooner have this thought when it a rumble of thunder rips across the sky.
Oh n-
You brain barely comprehends what is happening before it begins to rain, no surely it is a flash flood, such is the intensity of the rapid descent of water from above. Being in a rush, you had forgotten to bring an umbrella and so you grudgingly begin to accept that you will just have to show up to your date looking like a drowned sewer rat. Or possibly the Joker. (Your make-up isn't the waterproof kind so god knows what sort of clownish monstrosity you'll become due to this damned rain.)
You cover your head with your hands in futile attempt to preserve some small patch of dryness on your face as the rain continues to pelt down with unforgiving fury.
Eager to get into shelter you break into a run (please, please, please don't let me trip, don't let me trip, don't let m-). You've been to Steamy Indulgences once before and it isn't far from your apartment, perhaps a ten minute walk, if conditions are favourabl-
-twenty minutes later you arrive at Steamy Indulgences, looking like a reanimated corpse of a drowned pirate, and half an hour late for your date.
You angrily brush aside a wet strand of hair from where it clings to your forehead and begin to wring out your t-shirt, leaving a large puddle of water, just inside the door of the warm café.
A waitress glares at the puddle and rolls her eyes, but seeing the state of you decides not to comment.
You begin to look around nervously for Carmilla (in doing so you look out the window and notice that the sudden downpour has now stopped.)
Not immediately catching side of a dark haired, leather-clad girl you begin to panic.
Maybe she left. Maybe she never came. Carmilla did say that this was a date right? Or did you just imagine her saying those words? What if she just wants to be friends? What if she doesn't like you and what i-
You spot her in a secluded corner of the café, reading of course. You take a moment to appreciate her, to take her in before she notices you.
Her aristocratic features are as flawless as ever, dark hair swept into a high ponytail. She is not wearing leather today you realise with an uncomfortable lurch. Rather she is wearing a lacy top that hugs her body very snugly, so snugly in fact that your brain is beginning to have great difficulty in forming coherent thoughts.
Great so right now I'm probably looking even more the part of a zombie, I'm probably drooling and everything.
Feeling eyes watching her, Carmilla looks up from her book. Trying to subtly wipe saliva from your mouth, you smile weakly at her from across the room and you think you see her smirk back a little.
You make your way over to her and realise that she has resumed reading. As you sit down, she does not look up. Rather she raises a long finger (don't think about those fingers Laura…) and continues to read her book.
(1984 by George Orwell.)
You shift impatiently, waiting for her to stop being such a jerk, and taking the opportunity to desperately try and fix up your appearance with mixed success. Your t-shirt is still clinging to you like a wet rag, but you've managed to get rid of most of the make-up monstrosity using some wipes in your bag.
She continues to read for another minute before looking up and smirking at you, feigning a glance at a non-existent watch.
"Hmm…two o'clock sure happens later than I thought it did."
That voice momentarily stuns you again, but you've never been one to lie down and take passive aggressive comments and so you quickly rise to her bait.
"I'll have you know that I was stuck in a flash downpour of rain. It's not my fault that I'm a little late, and anyway it looks like you were having plenty of fun without me."
"Stuck in a flash downpour were you? I'd never have guessed. I thought you were just trying to rock the whole 'I just crawled out of a lake' look. Is that very in this season? I'm never sure."
She grins at you and you cannot help but burst out laughing.
"I'm glad you made it Cupcake." It's a very genuine, vulnerable comment and you realise that she probably thought that you'd stood her up.
"Yeah, I'm so sorry Carmilla, I didn't mean to be late, it's just I was trying to find a good outfit, and then my best friend told me that you were going to pee yourself and then it was really wet and I thought I'd turn up looking like a bedraggled Joker rat-
She merely raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at your antics and does not comment. Of course this only goes on to fuel your verbal diarrhoea
-And this is a date right? Because I really like you even though this is only our second meeting and also 1984 is a really good book what part are you up to? Also…"
You pause to take a breath and she quickly interjects.
"Cutie, it's fine. And you don't look like a 'bedraggled Joker rat' at all. I told you- you're totally rocking a 'just crawled out a lake look.' It's completely different."
Once again, she surprises you into laughter. You realise then that you like her, maybe even really like her.
"And I truly do mean that you're rocking the look creampuff. I really do want to pee myself right now, you look amazing."
"It's Laura, not creampuff."
She merely rolls her eyes in the manner of one indulging a small child.
"So you've read 1984 have you sundance?"
"Yeah, I thought it was amazing! It was a lot like Atwood's 'the Handmaid's Tale' actually, but so much more hopeles-"
So begins your date.
You realise that you love how passionate she is, how real fictional characters are to her, how she truly identifies with Winston and Julia, how she believes that Orwell's message is still relevant today, how interested she is in the psychology of totalitarianism.
Her rant about the hopelessness cycle of life and death within Oceania is abruptly interrupted by the appearance of a waitress, who brings with her much needed cookies and coffee after your ordeal in the rain.
Observing her interaction with the waitress, you realise that Carmilla doesn't like people as you do. She becomes awkward and aloof in her conversation with the stranger, characteristics that could easily be mistaken for being closed off or rude.
However, once the waitress leaves your conversation begins to pick up again. You realise that Carmilla has let down her barriers around you, that she just maybe likes you as much as you do her.
Her conversation with you never loses that passion, that fire, and she seems so interested in what you have to say, so animated in her replies to your queries.
(Even though some of them are barbed and sarcastic- she's a little bit of an asshole you realise. But somehow, that just makes you like her all the more. You really, really like trading insults with her …)
Even when she's talking about something as banal as her cat, Bagheera, her eyes are twinkling at you from amidst darkly lined lids, she's oh so alive and oh so amazing.
"Really Carm? Bagheera? You just had to have your sarcastic little joke didn't you? Let me guess…Bagheera is 'inky black all over?"
You barely notice the nickname "Carm" slipping out of your mouth like silk, but Carmilla surely does, as she jolts slightly, swallows a little.
"No actually. Bagheera is a fat, orange tom cat with an attitude almost as bad as mine."
"Wow almost as bad? This is one mean old tom we're talking about."
"Yes well, it is difficult for one to have as a refined sense of black humour as I do. I wouldn't expect you to understand buttercup."
"My. Name. Is. Laura."
She laughs again then. She doesn't smile, Carmilla doesn't seem the type to smile somehow, but the few faint smirks she throws your way throughout the date are enough to make your heart trip over a few thousand times.
And so your date goes on, and on, minutes slipping by in seconds, time rushing around the both of you, the two of you caught together in a small raft in the middle of a tumultuous stream, the two of you battling to preserve this golden moment, this small moment in which you both begin to fall in love with each other. Maybe it's insignificant in the great current of time, but perhaps, just perhaps, the two of you have managed to construct something a little more substantial than a raft in this river.
You are both falling so deeply in love that it is as if you are building a bridge towards each other, meeting one another in the centre. Time slips by beneath the both of you and loses its relevance.
Despite your poetic ruminations however, time has slid by quicker than you would both like. It's now five o'clock and the café is beginning to close.
As you both prepare to leave, Carmilla reaches forward and grasps your hand slightly.
"I-I'd like to see you again very much Laura." She stutters slightly and you are sure you are going to faint because she said your name for the second time.
"Of course Carm, there's actually this, um, club that I've been meaning to go to…"
(Clubs aren't your normally your forte, but perhaps a small part of you is hoping that this will be the perfect opportunity to get drunk with Carmilla and see where it leads.)
She nods at you to continue and you realise that you've trailed off.
"Um, I'll text you details? You're free Saturdays right?"
She nods again and you hesitate, taking in her beauty once more.
Before you lose your nerve you lean forward and kiss her briefly on the cheek. Your lips ignite at the brief instance of contact your lips have with her skin.
You smiles shakily at her, before grabbing your bag and beating a hasty retreat.
As you leave the café you glance back over your shoulder and see Carmilla sitting at the table, touching her cheek and smiling, a genuine, beautiful smile that lights up her entire face, rendering her even more exquisite.