#and if i make carmilla turn her then they can definitely drink each other's blood

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

also, about carmillas control of her vampirism, while it's hot to think about, i dont think fangs actually come out during sex. like in the s3 scenes where shes actually still a vampire that we dont get to see but i dont think that happens

based on my inferences that the losing control of the vampirism happens mostly bc of anger/threat and it basically never happens atlaura and i think one of her worst fears is hurting laura, i think during sex is the least likely time for any loss of control like that

+ theres the fact that laura is the bitey one during sex, even with human teeth

[theo-la-dora]

Gravity

Carmilla/ High School AU / Hollstein

Read here or on AO3

Every school has some sort of legend.

Be it the principal’s secret underground cult performing satanic rituals in the cellar below the theatre or the girl’s athletics team functioning as a cover for a pack of werewolves or just that corridor on the third floor where no light bulb seems to work fucking ever and even just thinking about it gives you the creeps.

Or you know, the library.

Carmilla Karnstein, for example, is Silas High’s very own legend – all dark and venom-tongued, scratchy voice and curse-laced poetry – and much like the third-floor corridor or the library, even thinking about her has students shiver with uneasiness. Perhaps her smile is too sharp, her teeth a little too gleaming. Perhaps her touch is too cool or her words too old. Or perhaps, just perhaps people simply like a good story.

So, when Laura Hollis shows up a few weeks into her senior year, people see a bright smile and a bubbly personality and immediately think good girl, think pink lips and lace collars, an ‘of course, Daddy’ and a curtsey. The Hollis girl, though, is a force to be reckoned with and she tells off Kirsch and Eisen for being pigs, comes out as gay, befriends half the school (and Kirsch after he apologizes) and joins the cheerleading team with an expressive backflip in less than a day and when she walks into her comparative literature class that same afternoon, every single person in the room knows her by name.

And when she walks up to the empty chair next to Karnstein’s desk and asks if the place is occupied, everyone seems to collectively stop moving.

Karnstein, though… The dark-haired girl looks up with a hooded gaze, tongue between her teeth and lets her eyes slowly assess the newcomer.

“Depends,” she says, “do you plan on being annoying? Because you look like it, sweetheart.”

“People tend to find me rather vexing,” Hollis replies cheerfully and holds up her lunchbox. “So… cupcakes?”

Taking a long, silent look from the offered pastries to the bright smile on the girl’s face during which the whole class quite possibly forgets to breathe, Karnstein finally picks one up, pink, glittery frosting coating black painted nails before she bites in.

“I guess you’ll do, creampuff,” she says after a full minute and removes her combat boot clad foot from the desired chair, still licking frosting from her lips.  

Hollis just smiles and sits down to the furious whispers of students around them that Cochrane tries to quieten rather unsuccessfully.

That day another legend is born.

+++

“What are you writing?”

The answering look she gets from Karnstein is probably supposed to be deadly, but Laura is unfazed. “You look like a cat when you do that,” she informs the dark-haired girl who doesn’t look like she appreciates the comment.

“I can scratch like one, too.”

“Really?” With absolutely no concept of personal boundaries Laura takes the hand currently not busy with scribbling in a worn notebook and inspects the splintered black nail polish. “Looks pretty tamed to me.”

Her new seatmate blinks slowly, the afternoon sun catching in her eyelashes. “Are you trying to tell me something, cupcake?”

“My nails are short, too.”

“Devastating revelation there, sweetheart.”

The blonde girl opens her Veronica Mars themed folder and, picking up a sharp pencil, subsequently pokes her seatmate in the side. “Laura. My name is Laura.”

“Well, that’s nice.” She sounds like it’s anything but, so Laura takes her pencil and pokes her again – this time with the sharp bit.

“Ouch – fuck, are you trying to stab me with that?” The girl looks an interesting mix between feral and deeply offended and her enraged hiss even garners Cochrane’s attention who opens her mouth to chastise them, but then recognizes Karnstein’s face and Laura’s flushed smile, gulps and turns away as if nothing happened.

“What was that for?”

“You were ignoring me,” Laura informs her primly and the other girl snorts. “Usually people reply with their own names in an introduction. It’s only polite.”

“So, I don’t conform to your socially crafted views on good and bad once and almost get killed for it?”

“Are you a vampire then?” Laura asks curiously.

“Would I really be sitting here, tied up in this godforsaken class if I was?” The girl’s smile is provocative before it melts into a more suggestive smirk. It makes Laura blush. “Could be though, if you wanted me to.”

She gets the pencil for that again and while she’s angrily muttering under her breath about murder sadly not being a socially accepted option, Laura just shakes her head disapprovingly.

“You could have just told me your name, you know? Less painful for everyone involved.”

Karnstein scowls at her, ready to say something decidedly rude when Laura raises the pencil again and it mellows into a glower. “Carmilla,” she finally spits out. “My name is Carmilla. And didn’t you say you were not annoying?”

“Nope.” Laura just grins proudly, satisfied with the results.

+++

No one knows how it happened.

One day the two girls are just sitting next to each other in comparative literature – a class that attracts a suspiciously large audience in the hallways betting on the possible bloody outcome expected yet never met each time, the next Hollis drags small, dark and broody across half the cafeteria to force her to sit down with her, Perry and Lafontaine and while even the teachers wait for Karnstein to pull out the knife rumored to be hidden in her right boot, the girl just growls a bit menacingly behind her sunglasses and Kipling textbook before stealing the cookies off Hollis’ tray.

The glasses are Hollis’ before the meal’s over.

+++

“You look ridiculous, cupcake.”

“Says the girl wearing leather pants and a matching jacket when it’s about thirty degrees outside.” Laura blinks at the other girl over the rim of the stolen sunglasses that cover half her face and threaten to slip off her nose. “Honestly, how are you even alive?”

“By drinking the blood of my enemies,” Carmilla quips without looking up from her textbook. They’re sitting below an old oak tree outside the school building while the last students are leaving, the sounds of distant laughter and cars rushing off dying down until only a faint breeze remains.

“Oh, I heard about that.” Laura lets her chin rest on her propped-up knees and peers up at Carmilla with a small smile on her face, the glasses still on. “Corn syrup and food coloring, right?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t real blood, cutie?”

“Well, was it?”

Carmilla stills for a second before turning a page in her book. “You’re a curious one.”

“Is that a statement or a question?”

“Are you bringing out the pencils again? Because in that case, yes it was real blood and if you keep being annoying, you’re next.”

Laura squints up at her through the oversized glasses as if she’s solving a complex math problem. “Liar,” she finally says and it sounds almost fond.

The other girl looks up, her eyes catching the way the small hairs at the nape of Laura’s neck curl due to the heat and then immediately back down. “Yeah,” she drawls. “You’re definitely next.”

“I still got your sunglasses though.”

“So, this is extortion rather than just plain robbery?”

Laura’s smile is impish and she bites her lip before she replies. “What, I thought you gave them to me out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Do I look like a good person to you, sweetheart?” Carmilla bares her teeth in the facsimile of a smile, her canines just that bit too sharp in the way they catch the sunlight to be human and it’s obvious from the wariness in her eyes that she’s expecting Laura to jump up and run away screaming.

Laura, however, leans in curiously, tongue peeking out as she focuses on Carmilla’s face and while the object of her interest visibly holds her breath, Laura pokes the sharp tooth with her index finger as if to test that it’s real.

“What the fuck?” The dark-haired girl reels back, utter bewilderment written plainly across her face. “Do you want to get bitten, cupcake?”

Laura just grins smugly. “Yeah,” she says, putting the sunglasses back on Carmilla’s nose where they promptly slip off and drop to her lips. “You’re very scary.”

“I am death,” Carmilla protests, sounding almost petulant while her eyes flicker from Laura to her book and back as if she’s unsure what to focus on.

“Well then death is going to give me a ride home,” Laura announces, jumping up before motioning for Carmilla to do the same.

The girl just blinks at her slowly. “I’m not going to give you a ride, cutie.”

“Sure you are,” Laura calls over her shoulder while marching down the sidewalk towards the parking lot where a black motorcycle is the only vehicle left behind. “I made cupcakes.”

“This is not-” Carmilla growls frustrated, but gets up anyway, all the while cursing under her breath about tiny, annoying High School girls, the pro and cons to murder and why extortion is only fun when you’re the one doing it. When she finally arrives at her own damn motorcycle, Laura’s smile is smug and threatens to melt off her face from the oppressing heat.

“One word,” Carmilla threatens as she pushes her helmet over the blonde’s head, knocking it a few times just for good measure.

“Scared you’ll lose your air of mystery?”

Carmilla glowers before climbing on the bike, Laura behind her and clinging to her back. “I’m afraid I already did.”

+++

In the ensuing weeks, Laura Hollis is the bright sun next to Karnstein’s perpetual rain cloud and she drags her everywhere from cheerleading practice to lunch to GSA meetings with a bright smile and a box of cookies. She even makes her attend the newspaper club once, which –

It’s a complete disaster.

According to other members, Karnstein shows up with a baseball bat of undefined origin, a tome of Sumerian legends under her arm and the girl’s mere presence has the whole club practically shaking in their shoes with one freshman girl jumping out of the window as if it’s Mushroom Apocalypse 2.0 and the rest hiding behind their desks.

Laura simply replaces the baseball bat with candy, steals a pen from between Karnstein’s fingers and with a fresh, new notebook opened on her desk, she glances expectantly at the cowering students.

It goes downhill from there.

Because when they try and get on with the meeting, Karnstein keeps interrupting them with crude jokes and inappropriate renditions of the Twilight Zone theme when Natalie starts talking about the dreams she’s been having as a pitch for an article on spiritual awakening and only stops when Laura signs them both up for research on missing freshmen students in the library.

The rest of the club hopes that at least one of them gets sucked into the online catalogue.

They don’t.

+++

“So… you’re aware that Karnstein’s sleeping in your bed, right?” Lafontaine phrases the question as if they expect Laura to be surprised by that fact, but the girl just looks up from her laptop where she’s furiously editing her lit class essay, shoots a fond look at the mess of dark hair that’s peeking out from underneath her Doctor Who themed blanket and turns back to her screen with a shake of her head.

“Laura?” Lafontaine asks worriedly, still standing in the doorway with their laptop under one arm and a bowl of snacks in the other. They were supposed to study for midterms, but having Silas unholy nightmare in their friend’s bedroom was not a good recipe for concentration. “Karnstein’s. In. Your bed.”

“Yeah,” Laura mutters, shoving a chocolate chip cookie into her mouth. “She just showed up a few nights ago, climbed in through the window and stole my pillow.”

“And you just what… let her?”

“Hit her with a spatula actually. Thought she was a vampire with all the window climbing, eyeliner and nocturnal sleep schedule, you know?”

“Yes!” Lafontaine’s voice sounds choked and on the verge of panic. “Vampire! Can we talk about that for a moment?”

“Talk about what?” Laura asks distractedly, a small frown line appearing between her brows as she peruses a particularly difficult passage – Beowulf has never been her friend, despite Kirsch’s enthusiasm for the book.

“Your roommate being a vampire?”

“What?”

“I mean the whole school has known that since the blood-in-the-milk-containers-cafeteria thing last year, but still…”

“That was just corn syrup and food coloring.”

“It wasn’t! I took samples, okay?”

Laura swivels around on her chair and looks Lafontaine dead in the eye. “Laf, the girl went to school with leftover cheerios in her hair yesterday because she has no idea how to eat properly. There’s no way she’s…”

The intro to My Chemical Romance’ ‘I Never Told You What I Do For A Living’ interrupts them and has both turn to look at the bed. First there’s some growling, then movement and then a pale hand sneaks out of the blanket’s confines, closely followed by a crunched-up nose and even more dark hair.

“Hello?” Carmilla croaks into her phone once she’s finally picked it up and Laura can’t help but smile at the way she stretches like a cat after a long nap. “Oh Hallo, Mattie. Was zur Hölle willst du denn jetzt schon wieder? Ich hab noch geschlafen – Nein, ich bin nicht zur Hause. Und nein, ich bin nicht auf einem Baum eingeschlafen. Das war einmal, okay? Hör auf mir das vorzuhalten.“ The girl flops back down on the bed with a groan while Laura and Lafontaine continue watching with interest. “Ne großartige Schwester bist du. Wirklich (1).”

“Is that German?” Lafontaine asks, curious despite their overwhelming fear.

Laura snorts and nods. “She thinks she’s being mysterious. One time I asked her what she told her sister because it sounded rather interesting and she just kept on turning up the volume on the stereo system.”

Carmilla glares at her at that and sticks out her tongue while listening to the other person on the line.

“Never should have allowed her to use her phone as a remote,” Laura mutters, chewing on yet another cookie. “With great power comes great responsibility. Remember that.”

“Was soll das heißen, die Pakete sind noch nicht angekommen? Die sollten doch schon vor zwei Wochen eintreffen. Ich hab Leute, die auf die Ware warten, Mattie…,” Carmilla slips out of the bed wearing only an oversized shirt that seems to be one of Laura’s and a pair of shorts. “Wie unglücklich. War es denn wirklich notwendig ihm alle Finger zu brechen? Zwei hätten nicht gereicht, oder wie? Nein… was soll das heißen? Ich werd nicht weich – und sie ist kein Spielzeug, Mattie. Ich lass nicht zu, dass du ihr wehtust.” The girl shoots Laura a look that turns from anxious to resolute in less than a second. “Darauf kannst du lange warten. Ja, wirklich. Sie ist was Besonderes, okay? Okay (2).”

She takes a deep breath before ending the call and marching out of the room, hesitating for just a second before she leaves for the bathroom. Lafontaine watches her go and then turns to Laura who is once again engrossed by her essay.

“What was that?” they ask, feeling like they��ve just stepped out of a rollercoaster ride with no idea how they got there.

“Carmilla in the morning,” Laura replies. “Or, you know, Wednesday afternoon.”

“So, this is a regular thing then?”

“She’s been here most nights. Usually she climbs in through the window around three a.m. and just kind of crashes. I told her to use the door, but she insists on being dramatic.”

“No, I just enjoy getting hit by a spatula,” a sleepy voice drawls and then Carmilla’s back, placing a steaming Tardis cup full of cocoa on Laura’s desk. “I have to take care of something. Try not do something stupid until I get back, okay?”

Occupied by the prospect of sugar and chocolate, Laura only nods, manages a grateful smile and blushes when Carmilla’s sleepy expression turns into a smirk as she pulls off the shirt she slept in to get dressed in something black, ripped or lace covered.

It takes Lafontaine a full five minutes to get Laura back into a functioning, talking mode after Carmilla takes off – through the open window – with a drawled ‘See you, cupcake’ and even then, she’s blushing like a fire engine for almost a full hour until Lafontaine finally has enough.

“It seems to me like it’s not the vampire part of the equation that we should discuss,” they sigh, closing the neurobiology textbook for now.

“Huh?” Laura looks up from whatever Carmilla-induced daze she’s been caught in. “I told you, Laf, she’s really not scary. She never cleans anything, she doesn’t know how to eat without making an honest to god mess and she drags in a lot of… freaky stuff. I mean, she once brought a full on medieval sword with her and wouldn’t tell me where she got it.” A pause. “You don’t think she stole it, do you?”

“Yeah, crushes on vampires.”

“I do not-”

“Oh, you so do.”

+++

The reality of this is:

Karnstein is just not a legend at Silas High because of her questionable human origins and her tendency to glare at anyone that’s not a five-foot tall blonde with a sugar addiction, but because she’s literally running an underground black market at the school for everything ranging from blackmail to drugs to more… questionable artifacts. And despite the collective knowledge, no one has ever been able to pin anything on her. Rumor has it that she’s got contacts to the higher ups in organized crime, that she’s being trained to take over as the red, right hand for her sister after graduation and when the girl smiles and plays the knife game with an actual knife while waiting on the bleachers for cheerleading practice to be over, no student has trouble believing it.

What proves to be more of a problem is understanding why on earth Karnstein’s morally reprehensive tendencies don’t seem to be much of a bother to Hollis. The knife game episode for example that has Lola Perry on the verge of a nervous meltdown – the last one involved her yelling at their history teacher, Vordenburg, for almost half an hour until the man was just a weeping mess barely held together by his suit – apparently only garners an eye roll from Hollis and the request to “stop stealing the kitchen knives, I’m making Thai Curry for dinner”. This then evolves into the two girls bickering about whether Karnstein should help her cut the vegetables, actually be present at said dinner and potentially meet Hollis’ father until most in the audience feel like they’ve stepped into an alternative universe and Danny Lawrence finally has enough and as Cheer Captain feels authorized enough to march halfway up the bleachers and yell at the Hollis girl to stop playing around with the enemy, because “she’s fucking dangerous, Laura, don’t you see that?”

The air around them freezes in that second and the world itself stops, tilts sideways and then comes crashing down in all its destructive glory.

It’s not Karnstein throwing the explosives, although the girl does grip the knife in her hands just that bit tighter, her expression making that infinitesimal transition from playfully to actually murderous, but Hollis herself who steps up in front of Danny threateningly, her back to Karnstein as if the girl needs protection of all things and continues to verbally eviscerate the redhead by pointing out how hypocritical, suffocating and downright patronizing she’s acting while the dark-haired girl behind her can’t help but smirk. Hollis then threatens to quit cheerleading altogether, because “I don’t need a Dad, Danny” before grabbing Karnstein’s hand and dragging her towards the parking lot with the whole damn school watching them.

No one dares to question their… relationship after that.

+++

“Come on, cupcake. Just stop there for a second before you run over even more freshmen. Not that I care, but, you know, you might regret it later.”

“I am. So. Angry,” Laura spits out and swivels around to face Carmilla who takes a quick inventory of an erratic heat beat, a flushed face and eyes that glint with fury before schooling her face back into apathy.  

“Yeah, I kind of took that from you blowing up in Xena’s face back there. I mean damn, Liebling, warn a girl before you go full on Peggy Carter on someone.”

“Would you’ve really kept me from yelling at Danny?” The fury is replaced with skepticism for a second and Carmilla can’t help but snort.

“God no, that was far too enjoyable. Did you see her face?”

Guilt twists Laura’s mouth, but it’s quickly overshadowed by her indignation. “She was way out of line,” she mutters, tugging uncomfortably on the hem of her uniform. It’s late October, almost November by now, but still warm enough that she doesn’t require a jacket. “Danny had no right to say all these awful things about you, Carm.”

“Well, she’s not wrong.” Carmilla meant to say it lightheartedly, but Laura’s having exactly none of that.

“You’re not dangerous,” she spits out and even in her cheerleading uniform, pompoms still clutched in one hand, she’s rather… intimidating.

“Is that so?” Carmilla asks, a lazy smile tugging on her lips. She puts the knife back into the heel of her boot and takes a step closer to Laura.

The girl looks flustered. “I… ah… yes!” Her eyes flicker between her left foot and the empty space a few inches above Carmilla’s head and don’t meet the other girl’s gaze. “You’re… you’re Carm. You quote pretentious philosophers from centuries ago whenever you try to be evasive and you sleep like a cat, always and everywhere, and sometimes when you angle your head just so, I could swear you really are one and you… you make fun of the shows I watch, but you still keep up with them and you,” determination slips into her voice as she curls her hands into fists, cheeks bright red, “you’re not dangerous, okay?”

When she finally does look up, Carmilla’s face is a strange mixture of utter bewilderment and delight, but mostly just an honest sort of confusion that suddenly makes her look very young and very, very vulnerable.

“O- Okay?” It’s the first time that Laura’s seen Carmilla anything but confident and when a telltale blush spreads on the pale girl’s cheeks, she can’t help the smile bubbling up inside of her.

“Great,” she squeaks and before she can think it over, she gets on her tip toes and presses a kiss to Carmilla’s partly opened lips. “So… does that mean you’ll have dinner with me and my Dad now?”

“I… what?”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like the two of you haven’t met yet. I know all about your little heart to hearts in the kitchen over cocoa and my Dad showing you all those embarrassing baby photos, don’t even try to deny it.” And with that Laura bounces off to the waiting motor cycle, leaving behind a flustered Carmilla who shakes her head with a small smile, fingers pressed to still tingling lips.

“You’re killing me, Hollis.”

+++

After that, they’re even more inseparable and everyone is left betting as to their relationship status until little freshman Sarah Jane catches them snogging behind the bleachers one day and is promptly scarred for life when Karnstein mimes chopping off her head with one finger.

Half the school then promptly decides that as disturbing as this revelation is, it’s also strangely fitting and possibly the cutest thing since unusual animal friendships and some poor sod even makes a fan page about them which –

He doesn’t survive very long.

The other half is even more concerned after said boy shows up to school one morning babbling about “knives, a whole room full of knives!” and needs to be forcefully sedated by the school nurse. Danny Lawrence who’s quietly resigned from the cheerleading team without naming a reason just grounds her teeth and glares daggers at Karnstein’s arm around Hollis’ shoulders, but refrains from speaking.

The newspaper club, however, does not.

They’re not quite as stupid as openly accusing Karnstein, but they’ve spent too many meetings in fear of the baseball bat that the girl keeps bringing around and so they assign Hollis to research embezzlement charges against the vice principal, knowing full well that Karnstein’s little underground market will pop up sooner or later.

And when a couple of days later, they do see Hollis marching down the school yard with a deep frown on her face and a stack of papers in hand to where Karnstein’s lounging around on a low wall, catching the first sun rays of spring, they grab a bunch of snacks and settle in to watch.

It does not go as planned.

+++

“Carmilla Karnstein!”

Laura’s voice is shrill and ringing as she marches towards her girlfriend who is being her usual cat-like self and the force behind her words startles the other girl so much that she almost falls off the wall.

“Have you been running an underground black market in this school?!”

Complete and utter disbelief colors her tone and she knows that she’s right when Carmilla looks sheepish for all of two seconds before a smirk splits her face in two.

“Took you long enough, cupcake,” she greets Laura with a raspy voice, the tip of her tongue poking out between her teeth. “You’re usually not that slow on the uptake.”

“You’ve been selling drugs to students and possibly even kidnapped a bunch of them!”

Carmilla shrugs, fingering her sunglasses. “Their fault for annoying me.” She sees that this answer doesn’t go over well with Laura and adds a bit defensively, “I did put them back, you know? In more or less sound condition.”

Laura’s right eyebrow twitches at that. “This is not – Drugs!”, she cries out. “You sell drugs!”

Another shrug. “Drugs, fake IDs, weird online hacking programs, even a kidney once. What?” she smiles, “I told you I’m a vampire.”

“That’s not even the point!”

“It’s not?” Carmilla asks with a slow arch of her brow behind her sunglasses. “So, you’re getting all pink and huffy about what – some low-level drug trafficking?”

“Kidnapping and organ trafficking are not low-level offenses!” Laura protests. “My Dad’s a police officer – What were you thinking?”

“That you’re cute and that your pillow smells nice?” She smirks again.

“Do not – Do not try to be charming right now,” Laura admonishes her. “I’m mad at you.”

“Okay,” Carmilla drawls and with a roundabout gesture at Laura asks, “Is there some kind of time frame involved or should I just check back in in a couple of days?”

“You do not get to run off whenever it gets difficult!” Laura almost yells. “We’re having an argument and I swear to god if you start quoting Foucault right now, you’re sleeping on the floor tonight.”

Carmilla blinks, the smirk slipping for a second. “You still let me spend the night?” she asks quietly. “Despite me being really as dangerous as they say?”

“You’re not dangerous,” Laura sighs, massaging her temples. “And it’s not like I could keep you from it. I mean, I even let you stay that one time you were completely wasted and smelled like the bottom of an abattoir.”

“Didn’t hear you complaining.”

“I’d be surprised if you heard anything at all,” Laura quips, before schooling her features back into the frown she wore earlier and starts hitting Carmilla with the stack of papers in her hands.

“You. Sell. Drugs. To. Minors.”

Carmilla leans back with a frown, trying to escape the airborne paperwork. “Hey, quit that before you hurt yourself, cutie.”

“You. Are. A criminal.” She stops using the papers as a weapon for a second when something dawns on her. “Oh crap, I slept with a criminal.”

“That you did, cupcake,” Carmilla smirks. “And it was good.”

Laura barely hears her. “And my Dad. What will my Dad say? He won’t survive this, he-”

“-probably already knows.”

“What?”

Carmilla looks up from where she’s examining her black painted nails. “As if anyone could fool your father, cupcake. I doubt he’s delighted, but he’s been his usual threatening and overbearing self. He’s trying to get me to eat more vegetables, can you believe that?”

Laura deflates at that. “What? But that means… I’m the only one who didn’t know?”

“Laura, Liebling,” Carmilla starts, reaching for Laura’s hands and drawing her in until they’re almost nose to nose. Laura refuses to meet her eyes. “Stop freaking out, okay? It’s not like I told anyone.”

“You’re a criminal,” Laura repeats, sullener this time and when she smacks Carmilla with the stack of papers again, it’s only halfhearted. “Do I get to visit you in prison?”

Carmilla huffs and plucks the papers out of Laura’s fingers before she can use them as a weapon again. “Between your Dad and Mattie there’s not a chance of me getting arrested.” She eyes Laura over the rim of her glasses before quickly pressing a kiss to the girl’s scrunched up nose. “So, quit frowning.”

“Ironic coming from you,” Laura mutters, burrowing her nose into Carmilla’s leather jacket. It smells like her – cinnamon and smoke and something so decidedly her that she can just let herself get drunk on it.

Carmilla laughs and then stiffens when she realizes what exactly the paperwork Laura’s been using as ammunition contains. “Are those-”

“College acceptance letters?” Mischief and determination mix together in Laura’s small, smug smile and she leans back to get a better look at her girlfriend. “It’s quite possible,” she says teasingly, “that I might have forged your applications using that stupid notebook you always carry around and some essays from lit class – you’re in for philosophy mostly.”

Carmilla just stares at her, glasses slipping down to reveal wide, brown eyes. “You applied to college for me?”

Laura nods, trying to hide her blush behind the determined jut of her jaw. “I thought you’d only do something stupid if I wasn’t around to keep you company. Not to mention,” she rears up again, indignation clear in her eyes, “that I’m not going to leave you to become your sister’s red right hand or whatever the fuck Betty called it.” She glares at Carmilla. “You’re seventeen, you’re going to college.”

“I’m a vampire.”

“Do you want to have that particular discussion with my father?”

Carmilla’s mouth twists a bit stubbornly at that, but her eyes keep flickering back to the letters, her fingers tracing and retracing the word ‘Congratulations’ as if she can’t quite grasp their meaning. “Never thought I’d go to college,” she says quietly, cheek pressed against Laura’s sleek, blonde hair.

The girl’s laugh tickles her neck when she moves in closer and mutters, “Well, you are now.”

“So, you make up all the rules now?”

“Well, someone has to when their significant other is an honest to Al Pacino criminal.”

When Carmilla doesn’t answer, Laura leans back to look at the girl who is hiding a smirk behind her glasses and her expression turns stern. “No hard drugs, no kidnapping or organ trafficking of any kind and heaven help you if I ever have to bail you out of jail!”

“So, I’m allowed to murder people?” Carmilla asks and snickers when Laura gives her a death glare.

“No murdering people,” she instructs, hands curling in Carmilla’s hair, the sternness morphing into fondness.

“I’ll give you that if you’re the one bailing me out jail,” Carmilla smirks. “And if you let me kidnap someone occasionally.”

Laura narrows her eyes, thinks and then decides that this is acceptable by pressing a kiss to the corner of Carmilla’s mouth. Only it would have been the corner if the girl in question hadn’t turned her head just a fraction to turn that half kiss into a real one.

“Knew you’d be annoying,” she whispers, smiling into the kiss and pulling her in closer by her hips.

“Told you I would be.”

+++

The newspaper club’s fate is labelled ‘unfortunate’ by most students attending Silas High in the weeks left before graduation. Perry finds a couple of empty snack boxes below an open two story window and despite how many times Lafontaine claims to have found traces of brain fluid on them, most people have enough sense of self-preservation to ignore that theory in favor of exam induced panic.

This is a High School after all.

And so Karnstein and Hollis graduate, inducing another flurry of rumors as to the how and why, because no one has ever seen the former paying attention in any of her classes and when they finally leave for college, every single teacher lets out a sigh of relief, thanking all the gods and heaven that their limbs are still intact.

After that, rumors keep flaring up every few months and wide-eyed freshmen listen to the stories told by upper years about the infamous couple’s basement full of body parts, their three-day elopement to Las Vegas involving a lot of glitter and a life-sized panther for some inexplicable reason or their pact with a pagan goddess to gain immortality in exchange for a human heart.

If asked about it, Sherman Hollis just shakes his head at all the wild fantasies running rampant and huffs something about how the girls should better be eating enough vegetables or he’ll have words with them on their next visit.

The legend, though. The legend remains.

 +++

Translation:

(1)    “Oh hello, Mattie. What the hell do you want now? I was just getting to sleep – No, I’m not home. And no, I didn’t fall asleep in a tree again. That was one time, okay? Stop holding that over me.” “You’re a great sister. Really.”

(2)    “What do you mean, the packages are not there yet? They should’ve arrive two weeks ago. I got people waiting for the goods, Mattie…” “How unfortunate. Was breaking all his fingers really necessary? Two were not enough, or what? No… What’s that supposed to mean? I’m not going soft – and she’s not a pet, Mattie. I won’t let you hurt her.” “ That’s not going to happen. Yes, really. She’s special, okay? Okay.”

(3)   Liebling = Darling