Poultrygeist

Carmilla felt like her heart was about to leap from her chest but she quickly swallowed her panic to face her mother head on.

“Yes mother you heard me right, Laura is my girlfriend.”

The table waited in silence as Lilita studied the two girls in front of them. Carmilla was perplexed by the reaction, she braced for the instant hate comments and judgments, but her mother just seemed to look curiously at the couple.

Lilita finally spoke. “That’s nice darling,” and went back to eating her perfectly cooked pasta.

“Well that was anticlimactic…” Will muttered under his breath, and Carmilla kicked his shin under the table.

Laura was focused less on the calm reaction from Carmilla’s mother, and more on the harsh reaction from Carmilla herself to Laura’ s touch. Even in heated arguments, Laura touching Carmilla was always something she could count on to be okay. When things would get rough between them or Carmilla was upset, usually a classic Hollis hug could fix it. But Carmilla acted as if repulsed by her. What had she done wrong?

Dinner passed pretty quickly after the big ole gay announcement and everyone went to their respective space; Lilita went to her office, Will and the girls to their rooms, and Mattie left with promise to see them all again when the extended family came around.

Laura was laying face up on her bed, wracking her brain for what she did wrong. She couldn’t stand this type of reaction from Carmilla, it made her chest hurt and her eyes sting. She had finally decided that she could live with Carmilla in her life in any way, even if that was just as friends. She loved this girl and she would- wait what?

Laura sat up with wide eyes. Yes, she was attracted to Carmilla and yes, she cared about her more than anyone else in her life. But she didn’t love her, that would be crazy talk. Right?

Laura’s heart beat rapidly in her chest and she went over the yesterday and todays events. She was possessive and defensive around Ell (very out of character for herself), she kissed Carmilla back eagerly when she had kissed her, she torn her heart in two to tell Carmilla that she- oh god. She was in love with Carmilla Karnstein.

Carmilla was lounging with her arms behind her head as she heard a soft knock on her bedroom door.

“Will, for the last time I’m not going to look at your wart, go see a doct-“ she was cut off as the door creaked open and a familiar set of brown eyes peered in. She dropped her head back onto her pillow and took a deep breath.

“Look Cupcake, I’m not really in the mood for braiding each others hair and swapping girl stories tonight,” she spat out coldly. Laura winced at her tone, but continued to come inside anyways, shutting the door behind her.

“Carmilla we need to talk,” Laura started softly, sitting cross legged at the foot on the bed.

“Ooo the big ‘we need to talk line,’ this must be riveting conversation.”

Laura sighed and rubbed her temple, Carmilla was deflecting because she was hurting, but Laura could take it.

“About last night”

Carmilla’s stopped her from continuing. “I got it Creampuff, don’t feel all weird about it now. We’re keeping it casual remember? Nice and light. So why don’t you just run off to your room and we can move on with our little lives in peace. One more day of this hell hole and we can go home and pretend none of this happened. Where little Laura Hollis and her prissy attitude can go and to be loved by the world and be disaffected by anything bad happening to her.”

“Don’t do that Carmilla,” Laura said lowly in warning.

“Don’t do what, call it as it is?” Carmilla sat up to make eye contact. “You do this with everyone Laura. You reel them in and make then love you but when someone show the slightest hint of that, you bolt.”

“Stop it,” she said, her voice getting louder. This is not how she thought the conversation would go.

“And what am I stopping exactly, huh? Telling you the truth of how every girl you’ve ever brought home has been heart broken by you bailing the second they get serious? Like mother like daughter I guess.”

Laura gasped, eyes wide at the mention of her mother.

Carmilla froze. “Laura, I didn’t mean that.” She reached out for her hand but Laura snatched it out of her reach.

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the moisture there to stay put before she spoke. “Yes, you did. Are you’re right.”

“Laura, please I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that,” Carmilla pleaded with her, she reached out for her again but this time Laura let her. Carmilla gripped her hands tightly and scooted herself to be seated directly in front of the honey haired girl she’d been torn up over for years sitting in front of her.

“I run when things get scary, just like she did. But I came here to change that, I owe you that much” Laura’s voice cracked and so did Carmilla’s heart.

“Cupcake, you don’t owe me anything. You came here to be with me for a week just because I asked you. You put up with my grumpy ass everyday when you could afford 12 of our apartments. We can stay the way we are, just light and casual and everything will be okay.”

“I don’t want things to be light and casual with you!” Laura practically shouted at her, her hands darted up to clutch the back of Carmilla’s neck. “I don’t want to pretend that what I feel about you is some stupid, frothy thing that doesn’t matter because it is like the axis that my world turns on. And yeah, we could talk ourselves out of this because this is scary and hard and maybe your mother will kill us in our sleep because we happen to love the same gender but…” Laura took a deep breath. “I love you.”

She could hear Carmilla’s breath hitch and she stared at her with this intensity that seemed to burn Laura from the inside out. She had about two seconds to process that look before Carmilla’s mouth crash onto hers.

The entire world around them could be burning that they wouldn’t know. Carmilla kissed her almost frantically, as if she would disappear at any moment. Laura tugged at the hair at the base of Carmilla’s skull and smiled into the kiss at the small noise Carmilla made in response, a noise that she would probably deny to her grave. After what felt far too soon, Carmilla broke her lips away, but stayed close enough that their noses brushed against each other.

“I have love you for so long Laura Hollis,” she said simply. Laura squealed and tackled her backwards onto the bed.

The next morning felt awfully familiar, Camrilla woke up to the light snore of the human furnace wrapped in her arms and the annoying beep of a phone. She nuzzled affectionately into Laura’s back and kissed her shoulder before dealing with the noise.

Carefully, Carmilla reached over Laura’s sleeping form to feel blindly for the device, when her fingers wrapped around a phone, she pulled it closer to her, blinking sleep out of her eyes and she checked her notifications.

Only when she unlocked it, it was a name she knew she didn’t have. It wasn’t until too late she realized it was Laura’s phone

JP: I have the file on Lilita Morgan you asked for. You may want to take a look at these. [download].