Chapter Text
Laura is already asleep on her desk when Carmilla returns from the clothes scavenging. Her scrawled notes are stuck between her cheek and the surface of the desk, and a multi-color ballpoint lies loosely in her right hand. Carmilla sighs as she sees Laura’s back hunches in what will result in an uncomfortable crick later. She stoops over Laura, her front almost touching Laura’s back, and calls her name in a soft murmur. The lack of response doesn’t surprise her, really, with all the day’s work and the latest sanguinary happenstance.
She deposits the duvet bag that holds the treasure from her hunt on the leather couch and pulls the lone stool in the room to sit next to Laura. Quietly, she pushes the lid of Laura’s laptop down and lays her head on the desk, facing Laura. For a moment the only noise in the room is Laura’s breathing—gentle, soothing, alive. For a moment, Carmilla closes her eyes and allows herself to even out the tide of her deathless breathing with Laura’s.
She tucks a few strands of hair that have fallen onto Laura’s face behind her ear, and the end of the strands tickles Laura’s nose. Carmilla can’t help the faint throb in her chest as she watches Laura scrunch her nose.
“Laura,” she calls again.
“Mm. Carm?” Laura mumbles, voice heavy with sleep and exhaustion. “’What time is it?”
“Very late. C’mon. Let’s get you to bed.”
With a groan, Laura twists her neck and raises her head, blind fingers peeling the notes stuck to her cheek. “’I can’t.” She yawns. “So many things to do for tomorrow.” Carmilla reaches out to hold the notes against the desk, and Laura drops her forehead onto Carmilla’s shoulder. “So many.”
“Well, you know the wise men say don’t do today what you can do tomorrow.”
Laura’s small giggles shake both her and Carmilla’s shoulders, and Carmilla has to steal a peck from the corner of her mouth. Her arm around Laura’s waist keeps her on her feet as she leads Laura to the bedroom. Laura sinks onto the bed, the first real bed in two weeks, with a drawn-out sigh of satisfaction. She helps Laura change into a more comfortable, loose shirt before she follows and lies beside her. Tracing the beginning of a smile that appears on Laura’s face with her thumb, she lets Laura hold her hand against her cheek, turning slightly to press a kiss on the palm. At Carmilla’s low hum, she opens her eyes and meets Carmilla’s gaze.
“Aren’t you tired after raiding closets?”
Carmilla lies on her side with head propped on her hand. “I’m enjoying the view right now.”
“Mmm.” Laura laughs. “Would you like to have vacation here, then?”
“All the time.” She bends to kiss Laura’s temple, the skin where her jaw meets her ear, and her soft cheek, her lips unable to stay away from Laura’s warmth. Outside, the rain is still pouring and she can hear rolling thunders in the distance. Tomorrow will have Laura to itself, but tonight she’s all tender curves and hers.
Her lips meet Laura’s languidly, and Laura sighs into Carmilla's mouth as she parts her lips. Tilting her head, she nips Laura’s bottom lip before allowing Laura’s tongue an entry. Sweet wetness and trembling fire, she remembers Nabokov wrote once. Oh how she can spend a thousand years worshiping Laura with kisses and not get tired of any second of it. She’s the one who drinks from Laura, and yet she’s also the one who drowns.
It is not until Laura’s fingers slide down from her nape that she realizes Laura has, again, fallen asleep.
“Oh the nerves,” she groans, indecisively torn between mild amusement and long-suffering exasperation.
Still, her dead heart doesn’t have the will to chase away sleep from Laura. Resigned to the fact of yet another heedful night’s coming, she adjusts Laura’s head on her shoulder and rests her cheek on the crown of Laura’s head. With a kiss to the molten gold hair, Carmilla closes her eyes.
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