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#fives you absolute pest leave the cookie alone!
bibannana · 1 year
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Echo *shoves a cookie into the bottom of his bag for later*: A gift from me to future me.
*2 minutes later*
Fives *taking the cookie from Echo's bag*: A gift from you to me.
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silaslibraryclub · 5 years
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Discord Diamonds ep4
@ukulelekatie this is for you: The idea here was ‘Buzzfeed quiz results are so random. Maybe a dateability quiz is actually how compatible you are with the author.’ - @jg-firefly
“No one will know.”
Betty quirked an eyebrow, glancing over the top of her nail file at Laura. She had arrived much like she always did—unexpectedly, with bubblegum already smacking. Sometimes, Laura wondered when she had time to do her actual job, but, more often than not, she accepted that Betty was just going to be... Betty.
“I’ll know,” she scoffed, her fingers pausing their path across her keyboard. It was far from hard-hitting journalism, but she had an article on potted plants that looked like celebrities that she needed to turn in by that evening, and a How Dateable Are You quiz, of all things, was low on her radar.
Besides, that was generally Betty’s area.
“The quizzes are nonsense, anyway. How does picking a color determine which Doctor Who character I am?”
“Right, coming from Miss ‘Pottermore-says-I’m-a-Gryffindor.’”
Laura knew it was childish, but she was sorely tempted to stick out her tongue. She settled for rolling her eyes.
“Doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”
“You just said it yourself: it’s nonsense. So what’s the big deal?”
“It’s got to be some sort of... I don’t know, ethics violation.”
“Right. Because it’s against the Geneva Convention to skew an internet quiz.”
“What would be the point, though?” Laura gave up on her article entirely, waving her hands and letting them fall into her lap. She kicked out her desk chair and turned it to face Betty more solidly. Her neck had enough of a crick already, from where she’d been sleeping on Perry’s couch.
Damn termites. Damn shitty landlords.
“Fun, Laura. The point would be fun. Now c’mon, just answer a few questions!”
She glared, but it was without any real fight. Betty gave a little hiss of triumph, scooping up her notepad and running the eraser-end of her pencil down a list she had been careful to keep hidden.
“Alright. First date. What’s the worst possible thing they could order?”
///
“Hey, 52% is respectable, Perr,” Mel said. She tossed back another swig of Corona. “Better than LaF.”
“Broke my heart,” LaFontaine agreed, their voice dropping into somber, dramatized tones. They pressed a hand to their chest. “Only 11% compatibility... I’m not sure I can go on.”
“It’s because you answer every question with the worst response on purpose.”
“I still say diffusing a bomb would make for a memorable anniversary.”
“Hence the 11%.”
LaFontaine put on a pout, but it vanished immediately in the face of the cookies Perry set before them. Laura put three on her plate, watching the rest vanish in a flurry of grabby hands.
Only Perry would serve baked goods with drinks.
She really hadn’t expected the quiz to turn into anything more than a few laughs with Betty. But then Betty had reported results from across the office, each announcement rife with personal commentary, and Laura hadn’t been able to contain her amusement when LaFontaine had declared their offense at ‘not being dateable.’
So she had clued them in. And with them had come everyone they knew.
Which was how Laura knew that she should absolutely not date any of her friends.
“I can’t believe any of you would order seafood on a first date,” she complained. “It’s like you don’t want to have a goodnight kiss.”
“Oysters are hot,” shrugged Mel.
Laura made a face. “Not visually, they’re not.”
“Well, Charlotte thinks so. And, not that it matters, but we got the exact same score.” She raised her bottle to no one, smirking, and took another hearty swig.
The back door swung open without warning, the sound of suburb crickets wafting in as Carmilla clomped her boots over the threshold. She set a six-pack on the counter, offering only a nod in greeting.
“About time,” said LaF.
“Shoes,” declared Perry.
Laura busied herself with collecting the empty bottles and moving them into the recycling, pretending it was for Perry’s benefit and had nothing to do with the jump in her heart rate or the sudden heat behind her ears.
Carmilla was always in leather, but tonight she also had her helmet slung casually under one arm, her hair parting so easily as she swept a hand through the raven tresses. It would be impossibly easy for Laura to lose herself in the sharp cut of her eyeliner, let alone in the perfect curve of her jaw.
It was still bizarre to her that they were even in the same circles. Carmilla had been the nameless ‘hot bartender’ at Redd’s long before she had become ‘Mel’s friend Carmilla,’ and Laura was almost certain that Carmilla still had no idea they had met before, despite making her whiskey sours every weekend for the better part of three years.
Now, she was just... around.
All the time.
Quirking an eyebrow at Laura’s jokes, calling her all sorts of snarky, cutesy nicknames seemingly just to watch her babble and sputter in reply.
And it would have been a dream come true, were it not for the fact that Carmilla was certainly not interested in dating her. She didn’t appear to be interested in dating anyone, when it came down to it. She collected numbers with a graceful ease, barely even trying when they went out for drinks—the girls always just came to her, sliding numbers to her on napkins, letting their fingers brush on her thigh—but she never went out for coffee or bothered with dinner, as far as Laura could tell.
To her infinite relief, Carmilla did not ask what she had missed, and no one prompted her into answering quiz questions the moment she claimed a seat.
Instead, they dove into discussion about the fight at Redd’s the night prior, and how Carmilla had been forced into calling the cops to break it up. And, when the details there had been exhausted, it was on to a mishap with LaF’s intern at the lab, and before Laura knew it they had segued into a segue and she was telling the room—at LaF’s eager prompting—about the time she had worked fast food in college, when a particularly rowdy customer had bit her.
“He didn’t leave in a body bag?” Carmilla asked, her lip curled just slightly at the corner. The others were turned to LaFontaine, already giving their witness’s rendition of the events, but Carmilla’s eyes were locked on hers, glinting and warm. She had peeled half the label off of her beer with practiced fingers, and the way her elbows were splayed put her right nearly touching Laura’s left. “I imagine you don’t take well to biting.”
Laura’s cheeks were dusted pink before the words were even out, but it was easy, when she was on the dregs of her third glass of sav blanc.
“Not that kind of biting, no.”
Carmilla’s eyes widened. And then so did her grin.
But Perry was insisting that they start the movie, now that everyone was present, and so they allowed themselves to be herded into the sitting room and handed homemade popcorn in Perry’s cutesy little tins... and Laura tried not to sulk—at least not externally—when Carmilla wound up on one of the floor poufs while she was stuck on the couch between LaF and Mel.
It had been months, since they’d been properly introduced. She knew she should be over this, whatever this was... a crush, certainly, and nothing more... but the feeling persisted, despite her efforts. A nagging to just spend more time in her presence, if only to get more chances to see her laugh.
She was pathetic, really. And that was a fact hammered home by the amount of time she spent side-eyeing Carmilla rather than paying attention to what was on the screen.
It was just that she had seen Mamma Mia! before, and it was far more entertaining to watch Carmilla’s face contort into various grimaces, her annoyances kept at bay solely by the plates of food Perry nudged her way, every five minutes or so.
(Laura suspected this was the main reason she had attended, in the first place.)
Mel was already shouldering her coat, when the credits finally rolled. She offered a salute and a click of her tongue rather than a proper farewell before she ducked out the door, and Perry started tidying at once, collecting the blankets that Laura had been using to turn the couch into a bed for the past several evenings.
Carmilla hesitated, weighing her helmet in her hands, and then raised an eyebrow at Laura, almost expectantly, and tipped her head towards the exit.
“Need a ride, cupcake?”
Her ears were hot again, immediately, even before she was shaking her head. They lived on the same block, and they had gotten an Uber together, once—a ride of mostly silence as Laura attempted not to blurt out something along the lines of ‘you’re super pretty’—so it was hardly a reach for her to offer, now.
But termites.
Fucking termites.
“Uh, actually, no. I’m sort of... staying here.”
Carmilla frowned. LaF and Perry vanished to the kitchen, almost on purpose.
“Why?”
“Pest control. My apartment is sort of under a big blue tent at the moment.”
“Well that sucks.”
Laura laughed at the bluntness. “Yeah... like, a lot.”
Slowly, Carmilla surveyed the living room. Laura saw her eyes latch, for the first time, upon the various things that did not belong in the space—her suitcase, for one. Her brow furrowed even further as she noticed Perry’s started attempts at making her bed.
“Here like... on the couch?”
She grimaced. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not ideal, but you know Perry is renovating the guest room, and then LaF’s office doesn’t have space, and I’m just grateful for all the free food. And for not having to pay for a hotel.”
“You work on the other side of town.”
It was a statement, not a question, and a surprising one, at that. “I didn’t realize you... knew that.”
Carmilla’s lip quirked, but there was less of an air to it... there was something disappointed. Or maybe that was just in the way her eyes dropped, and her shoulders lifted.
“I pay attention,” she said, her tone unreadable. And then she cleared her throat, and played her fingers over the curve of her helmet like a drum solo. “I... happen to have a spare room.”
Laura stared, not comprehending.
Carmilla raised an eyebrow.
“Oh! Oh.” She blinked, her mouth abruptly going very dry. “That’s... are you offering..?”
“If you’re interested. I don’t promise to wake you up with a Michelin Star breakfast, of course. But you also wouldn’t need to catch three buses to get to the office.”
She opened her mouth, ready to say how sweet that was, but how she couldn’t reject Perry’s kindness—how it would only be another day or two, anyway—but she didn’t get the chance.
“Carmilla, that’s lovely of you!” Perry beamed, clasping her hands in the kitchen doorway. “I’ve felt so terrible that we could only offer a couch, and I hate inconveniencing Laura like this...”
“Perry, you’re doing me the favor—”
“And I’ve been a terrible host. You’re such a dear, Carmilla.”
///
Laura still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. One moment she had been ready to crash on Perry’s couch after a traditional movie night, and the next she was being herded out the door with only a backpack of her things and a promise that the rest would be delivered the next day.
And then she had been on the back of Carmilla’s motorcycle, her arms around Carmilla’s waist, and she had been certain that, yes, this must be a dream.
But it was not. Because they arrived at Carmilla’s place, and it was very real.
“It’s not as clean as Perry’s, I know.” Carmilla grinned sardonically, as she tossed her coat onto the back of a chair and turned to rest her elbows on the kitchen counter. “But it’s home.”
It was nicer than Laura’s place, certainly, and it raised a multitude of questions—most of them along the lines of ‘how much do bartenders make, exactly?’—but she asked none of them. Instead, she let herself roam in a small semi-circle through the main space, taking in the artwork on the walls, the stuffed bookcases, the artifacts and trinkets that looked to have come from all over the world.
She was right about it not being exactly clean, though.
Carmilla seemed to have trouble with putting things back where they came from. There were books littered on various surfaces, some with bits of paper stuffed in to the pages, others left spine-up where she had apparently last been reading them. There was a clear layer of dust on most of the horizontal surfaces. Her sole potted plant looked extremely dead.
Still, overall, it felt very... Carmilla.
“I like it,” she offered.
“Glad to have your approval,” Carmilla teased. “Did you want the grand tour? It costs extra.”
“Ha-ha.”
She showed her to the guest bedroom and the adjoining bathroom, and, despite her commentary earlier, she appeared to have a fully stocked kitchen with the makings of a Perry-style breakfast, after all.
“Are you a secret chef?” Laura questioned, eyebrow raised, when she had finished returning the water pitcher to its shelf, her glass in hand.
Carmilla had said to help herself, and she was usually good at that.
“What were you expecting? A takeout fortress?”
It was what she had at home, and she felt herself flush.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Nice to see you hold me in such high regard,” Carmilla said, but there was teasing in the words, her eyes sparkling that way that they did sometimes, and Laura’s grin in return was easy.
“Never said I didn’t. I just... didn’t exactly picture... all of this.” She gestured to the apartment, and then hurried to soften her words, panic jumping up her spine, “I mean, not that that’s a bad thing. I mean, when I say my place is under pest-control, that should... that should give you a pretty solid indication that I’m not... that—”
“Don’t hurt yourself, cutie.”
“I just mean that it’s surprising... in a good way.”
Carmilla’s smile was still in place, head tipped just slightly to the side, the way it only seemed to do when it was Laura she was talking to. She tried not to read into it.
“Surprising that I’m a slob? Or that I eat vegetables?”
Laura snorted. “The second one.”
“I’ll have you know,” Carmilla declared, reaching around her to get a glass of her own from the cupboard—and very much invading her personal space in the process—“That I am a perfect 50% omivore. Thank you very much.”
Laura swallowed, watching her every move as she reached into the fridge, fingers wrapping around the pitcher handle, back arching and her ass—
Nope, nope, don’t look! Bad Hollis...
“That’s... specific,” she forced out.
Carmilla bent again, to return the pitcher, and Laura suddenly found the dead plant on the counter of deep interest.
“Well, it was according to one of your little quizzes, so it’s clearly certifiable.”
“One of mine?”
“Buzzfeed.”
Laura’s eyes went wide, her mouth working but no sound coming out, and she clutched the cold of the glass a little tighter and took a forced sip.
“Right, yes. I work there.”
Carmilla chuckled. “Again, your opinion of me is dreadful, cutie. Amazed I don’t live in a cave, fascinated at the concept of me owning food... and surprised that I pay attention to where my friends work.”
Laura wanted to supply a retort, but she was fresh out of them. Carmilla wasn’t wrong.
But, then, it wasn’t like they had spent that much time together.
And she hardly thought Carmilla had noticed her, of all people. Even if they were friends with the same gingers.
“I’m teasing you,” Carmilla supplied, when Laura’s case of goldfish-face became much too apparent.
It did not help her blush. “Yes, right. I know.”
Carmilla flicked a switch to dim the lights, padding in the direction of her own bedroom with apparent intentions to get some sleep. But, before she stepped through the door, she turned back.
“Oh, and I’ll have you know I took another one of those little quizzes the other day, and you really shouldn’t be so surprised that I’m a functioning adult. Your company seems to think I’m 100% dateable.”
She pulled the door shut softly behind her, a cocky grin on her lips.
And no idea what she had just admitted to.
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