A/N: Thanks to Sym, Holly, umbrellaleg, Espeon666, isaatiragram and a guest for their reviews and thanks to everyone who is currently reading my story :)
So the majority of you masochists want angst and I sort of delivered in this chapter (not really…the worst is yet to come…) Smut is definitely coming up pretty soon, I just wanted Laura and Carmilla to have a deeper relationship before doing the nasty.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy!
Ever since your first kiss, you haven't been able to get the taste of Carmilla's lips out of your mind. (Despite the fact that after kissing her for the first time, you promptly bolted to the bathroom and threw up in her toilet. Hangovers are not fun.)
From the moment you set eyes on her, surely you were lost. She bumped into you and bam, game over, you're spiralling you're getting deeper and deeper and it feels so right because she is there, in every breath, in every heartbeat, in every blink.
This is definitely apparent to your best friend LaFontaine. When the two of you met up for your Wednesday Starbucks (You're thinking of changing to Steamy Indulgences now though- the cookies were really good at that place) you'd barely paid them any attention, so fixated were you on Carmilla's latest text.
It was a picture of her. Licking a cupcake. (A Cupcake by any other name but not as sweet.)
You had been staring at it in shock for an age, unable to get that image of a dark-haired, pale beauty covered in white frosting out of your mind when LaFontaine had wrestled your ancient Nokia out of your hand.
After taking a moment to take in the site of Carmilla Karnstein licking a cupcake, they merely shake their head in amazement.
"Wow. Lucky you! You did well with this one, Hollis."
You find you have to agree with the sentiment, because how could you be so lucky?
It's so much more than just her looks though, you realise. Carmilla trusts you in a way that she does no one else- she doesn't hide behind that apathetic mask you see her showcasing for strangers. Sure, she'll smirk, she'll be rude to you, but sometimes she'll speak to you with such sincerity and look at you with such wonder in her eyes that you realise that you are just so goddamn lucky.
You'd begun to realise just how real this thing with Carmilla had become to you on your third date, if you could call it that.
Carmilla had called you at an obscene hour (probably in revenge for the Sober Dial of 6am), asking you to give her your address.
Blearily, you'd mumbled out your apartment block number before promptly falling back to sleep, Carmilla's voice but a dream.
And then you'd gotten another phone call, loud and insistent and Carmilla was outside your apartment. You went out to meet her in your pyjamas, grumbling irritably under your breath.
"Carmilla…what the hell?"
It was an unseasonably warm, clear night and Carmilla was staring at you, illuminated by the light of a lamppost, smoking a cigarette.
You'd frowned at the sight of the cigarette and she quickly discarded it, smiled at you and whispered:
"I want to show you something."
And you were rendered helpless by that voice as always and had allowed her to lead you, pyjamas and all a short distance to a nearby field, frequented in the daylight by suburban soccer mums and their offspring.
You balked.
"Oh no way, Carmilla. No. Hecking. Way. It is 3am in the morning and I don't want to get murdered."
"Creampuff. If anyone tries anything I'll give them a good whack with this."
In saying so she withdrew a large, cylindrical object that you recognised as a telescope out of the duffle bag draped over her shoulder.
"Plus, I'm a master in hand removal remember? C'mon cutie, rebel a little for once!"
You laughed, despite yourself because you could not help but fall a little deeper.
So, that is how you in your yummy sushi pyjamas and Carmilla in her trademark leather pants and jacket, ended up lying in the middle of a soccer field, gazing up at the stars above. (You realised that you were going to have to launder your cotton pjs severely in order to get the grass stains out once this was over.)
The two of you were silent for a while. You looked over at Carm and saw an infinite amount of galaxies reflected in the dark depths of her eyes.
Perhaps she looked at you and saw the same.
The telescope lay forgotten as you both watched the heavens in wonder, silence drifted in the air as you marvelled at the beauty of the speckled sky.
"Do you ever watch the stars and think of your own insignificance Laura? Do you ever look at those stars and realise that some of them were dead long before their light reached us?"
You looked over at her and found her watching you with an odd expression.
"Carm…"
She cut you off.
"I find it comforting somehow. To know, that even when those stars are dead, their light is still shining, still reaching something in the universe."
You remained silent, knowing that Carmilla had brought you out here for more than a make-out session under the Milky Way.
And then in a voice of broken glass:
"They're dead Laura. My brother and my mother. And I wish that I could believe that they were still shining somewhere, that the merest fraction of their light is still reaching out but…"
You reached across and grasped her hand tightly, trying to convey through that simple gesture that you were with her in this moment.
She must have understood because she sniffed slightly and continued shakily.
"Eternal reoccurrence means that somewhere, somehow, everything will happen again. And again.
And I want that to be true. I want my mother and my brother back and I want to be who I was before they died.
But I don't want them to die again. Because if Nietzsche was right, then Laura, they're just going to die over and over and-"
She let out a harsh breath and you knew that she had to go on, had to tell you. You ran your hands over her hair, her arms, her shoulders and something seemed to expand within her, releasing.
"It was so stupid Laura. A fucking drunk driver hit them at 100 kilometres an hour and then it was just me. Me all alone and I had to take care of me whereas before it was always mother a-and William and…I just miss them so much sometimes."
Another deep breath.
"Tonight marks four years since their death."
You rolled over and faced Carmilla, knowing that she was spent. She was not crying, but was looking at you with such vulnerability, such need that you wrapped your arms around her and hugged her close to you, wishing that it was enough.
"I'm sorry Carm. I'm so, so sorry."
"Everyone's always so FUCKING sorry, aren't they Laura?" Her voice rises suddenly in anger.
"But, they're gone and sorry isn't going to bring them back, because guess what, MY FAMILY IS FUCKING DEAD!"
You didn't respond to her anger for once, merely hugged her tighter to you and then finally, Carmilla allowed herself to cry, to let out the flood into your shoulder and you were there anchoring her, stopping her from drowning.
"God what am I doing?" Carmilla says thickly. "Confessing my sob story to a person I've known for a couple of weeks. You must think I'm a mess."
You merely shrugged. "We're all messes Carm. Some of us are just better at hiding it then others."
"Hey I thought I was the wise one and you were the pretty one?"
"Hmm…are the two mutually exclusive? Tad sexist there…"
And Carmilla giggled, actually giggled and you knew that she wasn't ok because her family was dead and she could never explain it. But you also knew that you could be there for her and get her through it. You wanted to do it for her, this stranger you'd known for the merest fraction of your life.
"I'm so glad you're here, Laura."
You gave her an unguarded smile and she pulled you closer into a kiss softer than a breath
The rest of the night was a hazy dream, Carmilla murmuring about her favourite constellations, pointing out the Southern Cross to you (You've never been able to see it before and it's so odd to look at the familiar sky and see something different.)
She eventually assembled her telescope and showed you Mars, Venus and the Moon, carefully positioning the telescope and then guiding you gently towards the eyepiece.
You were exhausted, but something about her operated like an infusion of caffeine because never had you been so aware of another person.
When you turned to Cam in wonder, amazed at the sight of Mars she had kissed you again, and you felt like you were soaring through the galaxies.
When you think back to that night, you can hardly believe it happened. But you touch your lips and taste her, and oh Lord almighty you know it was real.
You laugh to yourself quietly then, because LaFontaine is right. You are so, so lucky.