Sleepyhead
The beginning of school manages to immediately cut short their routine. Laura, for some inexplicable reason, decides to take a few AP classes, claiming she can handle the workload and that really, it’s not that different, despite the warnings of everyone she knows, including Danny, who’s the AP Lit TA. The amount of textbooks she had to check out should have been an indication of what she was in for, but Laura’s convinced everything will be fine.
After the fourth day, she calls Carmilla at one in the morning.
Carmilla wakes from the absence of dreams to the insistent vibrations of her phone on the desk, an angry, hornet-like reminder that her attention is being demanded. She pushes away the tattered copy of Dante’s Inferno she’d fallen asleep reading (for the third time that week; for a book about Hell, she's finding it surprisingly uninteresting) and glances blearily at the name on her screen, though she knows perfectly well who it is already.
Laura’s in tears when she answers, and before Carmilla can think of a sarcastic greeting, she’s babbling and it takes a few moments for her to understand Laura’s words. “-and I know it’s one AM and you were asleep and I should be asleep too but there was so much work and it’s all due tomorrow, oh my god it’s all due tomorrow, and I’ve been staring at the same page for half an hour and I’ve gone through two boxes of thin mints and-”
“Cupcake, cupcake,” Carmilla cuts her off. “First step- calm down. Take some deep breaths, make some of that fancy-ass tea you like so much, and for fuck’s sake, take a break. I’ll come over if you want.”
Laura sighs heavily. There comes the faint sound of a textbook hitting the ground. “Yeah, that sounds good.” A pregnant pause. “Oh, and if you can, bring more-”
“Sugary things? Yeah, that won’t help very much in the long run, creampuff. Best if you just stick to tea for now. I’ll be there in a bit.” She plucks a previously discarded shirt from where it hangs on the doorknob (though she has no recollection of throwing it) and tugs it on (because what’s the point of wearing clothes to sleep in California, honestly?)
It's raining out, because of course it is, and Carmilla is not prepared to once again brave the house, old and creaking and containing her lightly sleeping mother, just for a jacket. She crosses her arms over her chest with a huff and counts her blessings along with the raindrops.
She wonders briefly, lit by flickering streetlamps, clothes plastered to her skin (and not in the intentional, leather way), why she does these things. She’s supposed to be broody and distant and apathetic, and Laura’s the opposite: a bundle of borderline-dangerous curiosity and too much energy and honey-blonde hair. She’s not supposed to make grand gestures or be the doting best friend or do any of the things she always finds herself doing for Laura. On the surface, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
But you’re in love with her, idiot, her brain reminds her, and she doesn’t have anything sarcastic or witty for that, either.
Laura’s house looms in the darkness as Carmilla approaches, entirely dark but for the yellow glow of one second-floor window she knows to be Laura’s. She’s about to knock, pale knuckles hovering in a loose fist over the door, when she realizes that, charitable as Laura’s father usually is, he probably won’t take too kindly to Carmilla waking him up at one in the morning on a Friday (she sleepily acknowledges the humor in coming to a pastor’s home at an ungodly hour).
Instead, she wipes her rain-damp hands on her rain-damp jeans and pulls herself up to the window using the rain gutter like she’s done so many times before. It’s unlocked, and clambering through, she finds Laura curled in a ball and staring listlessly at the drywall. Her TARDIS mug sits nearby, swirls of English-Breakfast-steam curling and dissipating into the air. She sighs and wades through the papers littering the carpet, places her soaked shoes reverently out in the dark hallway. It’s going to be a long night.
And a long night it is. She sits patiently with a tissue box through several fits of tears, brought on by Gregor Mendel and Euller and Jane Austen and God knows what else, offering the rationale only someone used to long stretches of wakefulness has.
It’s by the soft yellow lamp-glow of the bedroom, huddled in Laura’s comforter, drinking an ungodly amount of tea, fueled by the promise of Netflix at the end and a few catnaps along the way, that Carmilla coaxes Laura through her first school-oriented all-nighter.
At around six in the morning, Laura curled against her on the floor, Carmilla accepts that wandering the streets past midnight will not be happening for at least sixteen more weeks, not when Laura is getting a minimum of five hours of homework a night. It marks the end of an era.
It’s no longer Carmilla and Laura against the world, it’s Carmilla and Laura surrounded by gingers, idiots, and ginger idiots. And that’s not the best feeling for someone who’s in love with their best friend and maybe just a little bit desperate to occupy their attention, but she’s going to make it work. She has for years.
In a few minutes she’ll have to get up and shower (having gotten over using Laura’s shower years ago after a certain incident involving LaFontaine and their exploding paint canisters), and steal back a few articles of her clothing Laura’s acquired over time, but for now she just sits, with the girl she was stupid enough to fall in love with curled in her lap and the blanket of said girl draped over them, watching Doctor Who (she didn’t dare argue with Laura’s choices in shows at this time of night) through half-lidded eyes.
It’s a good thing Laura falls asleep halfway through the third episode they watch, because these late nights tend to find Carmilla choked by the sort of vulnerability she doesn’t even let Laura see, and Spotify’s not being especially helpful. When PHOX begins their soft crooning, singing over and over, “Laura, Lauuuuura,” through tinny earbud speakers, it’s just about the cruelest form of humor.
She doesn’t have the heart (or maybe the courage) to rouse Laura until it’s nearing seven, shoving her, near-comatose, to the shower. The whole morning, the sounds of Laura whining fill her ears (and not in the good way (she’s quick to admonish herself for that thought)), and she’s just waiting for when Laura crashes, because she knows it’s going to happen (after all, caffeine can only do so much). Mentally, she hedges a bet for third period.
Surprisingly, Laura makes it to lunch that day, when she falls asleep with her head in Carmilla’s lap, much to the delight of LaFontaine, the motherly disappointment of Perry, and the veiled jealousy of Danny.
Not that Carmilla minds. In fact, Clifford’s expression prompts a good deal of self-satisfied smirking.
Laura awakes with a start nearly an hour later, after everyone else has dutifully filed into the halls for fourth period. “Whutime izzit?” She yawns, and when Carmilla calmly tells her, she begins to panic. “I can’t miss class, there’s so much homework to turn in, and-” Carmilla’s hand closes around her wrist and tugs her back down.
“Hush, cupcake. I took care of it. The gingers are turning in all your work, and they’re telling the teachers you went home sick. So really, you have no choice but to skip with me.” Laura keeps looking petulant, but says nothing.
“Come on, let’s go catch you up on your sleep. I’ll even watch Sherlock with you.” This seems to be enough for Laura, because despite her lack of sleep, she’s now the one tugging Carmilla along, saying something about Johnlock that she’s half-listening to. Nothing to distract a girl from the fact that she’s skipping class for probably the first time ever (Carmilla’s starting to see the effects of her influence on Laura) like the promise of British television.
Unsurprisingly, Laura manages to stay awake for about half of the first episode before she’s out for the next four hours. Carmilla really wishes she’d paid attention to that spiel about Johnlock, though, because damn.