Kind of comes naturally when your dad is overprotective and a little paranoid.
Who: Carmilla and Laura What: Carm has nightmares When: Recent Where: Their dorm Status: Complete Rating: PG-13
Words can hurt. Words can wound and rend as well as any weapon, and Carmilla was wounded mortally. To have Elle turned against her, to hear those awful words come out of her mouth. To watch her taken away and then see just a brief, tiny moment of clarity in the young woman’s eyes. Only it was too late, too late. All her plans for naught and her unbeating heart ripped from her chest.
She thought that that would be the worse of it, and she looked forward to her death. But to be buried alive as punishment, she didn’t expect that, and she didn’t want that, and she had no choice but to pound on the wood and wail and nash her teeth.
A whole decade went by in silence. Another she screamed and screamed and screamed, but the only time anyone came was to pump more blood into her coffin. What poor girl was sacrificed each time? And there was that niggling thought.
Was the first blood in her coffin Elle’s?
That thought consumed her, it drove her mad. She bashed herself raw against the wood of the coffin. But then something interesting happened. The blood started to run out. No one came. Until the bombs.
Carmilla bolted upright, screaming her head off. Screaming Elle’s name, screaming curses at her ‘mother’, before flopping back against her pillow, uttering a pitiful plea for death to take her.
The first notes of a scream woke Laura. The fact that screaming didn’t stop sent her flailing and scrambling out of her bed. She only paused long enough to grab the baseball bat under her bed before turning on a lamp. A bleary-eyed, cursory examination of the room revealed only her room mate.
Heart still threatening to beat out of her chest, Laura put the bat down and nudged it back under her bed with one foot. She stood there awkwardly, squinting in the light at her still clearly distressed room mate.
“Carmilla? You okay?”
Carmilla pressed her palms to her eyes. There had been such a sense of doom in her dreams the past few nights, but also a note of hope. Hope that she could escape with Elle. That the dreams weren't so bad. That she wasn't actually a monster and she could make up for everything she'd done.
And now fucking Laura knew she had nightmares. Great. "Just peachy..." She peeked out from under her palms. "Batgirl."
“You were screaming, and none of what I heard of it sounded ‘peachy.’” It sounded like bloody murder and some swearing and possibly a name. It was loud. And she half expected people to come and pound on their door to see if they were, ya know, still alive.
Laura sighed. “It sounded like a nightmare. A really, really horrible nightmare.”
"Indigestion." Laura was so close she could smell her and it was disconcerting. It wasn't a bad smell. But then Laura really was cute. She reminded her of Elle.... Shit.
"Dreamed I was...buried alive."
Laura was about to roll her eyes at Carmilla’s remark, but then the dark-haired girl admitted that it had, indeed, been a nightmare. Laura frowned.
“That’s not a great thing to dream about,” she admitted.
Carmilla gave her one of those ‘no duh’ sort of looks, but kept any acerbic comments to herself. “I’m okay. Glad to know you’re on the case if someone ever breaks in here to steal your cookies.”
Laura shrugged and sat down on the edge of her bed. “Kind of comes naturally when your dad is overprotective and a little paranoid.”
"I wouldn't know." Carmilla wiped some drool off the corner of her mouth and eyedarted. "Did he give you the talk about boys? Watch out for those frat boys."
She felt oddly awkward and lonely, and just looking at Laura made her want to... get closer to her. She really was cute and more than once Carmilla had hidden a smile at something she'd done.
Laura nodded. “Yeah...I did kind of explain that me dating frat boys was not going to be an issue.” She eyedarted for a moment, then glanced at Carmilla. “So the he tried to give the same talk about girls, but really all he did was change the pronouns and it didn’t really work and was just...super awkward.”
"Now this I have to hear about." Carmilla sat up, glad for the dim light. She was sure her eyes were still a mess and for some damn reason they still wanted to leak. "What's his hard-on for safety anyway?"
“It...probably started after my mom died. She...died in some kind of freak accident or something when I was...four, almost five, I think. I’m not sure exactly what happened. Dad never really wanted to talk about it, and mostly I just missed her.” Laura looked down at her feet. “He kind of decided to start planning for everything from then on.”
"Gilded cages, little bird," Carmilla replied, complete with feline like smirk. She shifted into a cross legged position and rested her elbows on her knees. It flashed some thigh at Laura, but she could live with that. "That's all it really is."
Okay. There was some thigh showing. Carmilla did have nice legs, though Laura would never say that out loud. “He meant well. But you’re right about it pretty much being a cage. I still have to convince him not to send me bear spray.”
Carmilla kept her tone neutral. "I'm sure we could have fun with some bear spray. We just have to find a bear first and unleash it on the quad."
Laura cracked a grin. “I’d feel bad for the bear, though. Getting dumped in some strange and alien environment, which form its standpoint would probably be a wasteland with unfamilar and scary sounds and smells…”
"We'd want to keep it away from the cafe. It's not the bear's fault the coffee is poisonous." Carmilla got up, stretching so that her t-shirt rose up. She miraculously ended up in front of Laura, and rubbed the back of her neck. "Uhm. Thanks." Thanks for asking about my nightmare?
The coffee joke got another slight grin from Laura “The coffee could probably be used as a substitute for paint remover.”
Laura watched as Carmilla stretched, then found herself suddenly looking up at her room mate. The thanks was probably for asking about the nightmare, but also for not asking too much about it. And possibly for being alert enough to spring into action if real danger actually did rear its head. Or one of those, any way. “You’re welcome. Think you can get back to sleep okay?”
"Well I don't have a cuddly teddy bear, but I'll make do." Carmilla looked at the alarm clock. "It's an alarming amount of hours before I even need to get up..." The thought of going back to sleep and having that nightmare come back was frankly frightening. "But maybe I should... study."
Things were clearly bad if she was going to study.
Laura nodded thoughtfully. That had to be a petty intense nightmare to have Carmilla choosing study over sleep. "...I could made you some hot cocoa if you'd like."
Shouldn’t that be the other way around
“I can’t say no to cocoa.” She gave Laura a short smile. “But you should get your beauty sleep.”
Laura gave a lopsided smile. “It won’t take that long,” she said standing and making preparations to fix the cocoa. “And it’ll help me finish calming down.”
Carmilla licked her lips, eyes falling on Laura's neck. Then she caught herself, and quickly pulled on some pants. "I'm going to grab some donuts since they'll be fresh right now, want one?"
Wait. Carmilla was being nice? Laura was surprised. But hey, donuts were awesome. “Sure! Thanks.”
“Chocolate,” Carm added, before heading for the door. She might, however, bring Laura a raisin bagel too, just for the lulz.