Chapter Text
Going into your first year as a full Professor (no more of this Assistant or Adjunct crap, but an actual Professor) you resolved to become The Hardass. After years of students not taking you seriously because of your petite stature and “cute” face you've decided that if you can develop the kind of reputation that strikes fear into the heart of every freshman then maybe, just maybe, you can get them to listen and actually learn something. All you have to do is channel your inner McGonagall. Easy enough. Strict, reserved, wise, a tough grader, but always there for a student in need. Or like your old Professor Cochrane, to use a more relevant example - you're teaching journalism, not transfiguration.
The only problem is you don't quite know how to interact with other faculty in that image. Reserved but helpful seems like a safe bet... Professional, but friendly. McGonagall made jokes and stuff with the other professors, right? She and Flitwick were friends. Anyway, you need to know everyone and what they're doing if you're going to have any kind of influence in the department.
Oh no, you'll have to volunteer for committees. You hate committees.
That could wait for another day, though. First you have to decide what to wear to the New Faculty Mixer tonight. It’s being held at a trendy bar on the edge of campus, and isn’t a strictly-speaking official event. The university has rented out the entire bar to keep out the general public (and thus the students) but there’s no agenda or official business planned to happen there - just an opportunity for everyone to meet. You’ve basically decided on a sundress-and-cardigan ensemble, casual enough for a bar environment and presentable enough for meeting the people you’re going to spend at least the next year in meetings with, but the problem has become which dress and which cardigan. Or maybe a shrug would work better, it'll probably be warm in the bar... This was the worst part of living by yourself, you didn't have anyone on hand to ask for an opinion. As you consider the growing pile of clothes you've tried on in the last thirty minutes, your phone chimes from the top of your dresser.
Perry: I think I like the yellow dress the best, can you show me it with the black sweater?
Thank god for Lola Perry. You'd sent her mirror selfies of four different combinations to ask her opinion, while she was getting ready for the same event on the other side of town. You change into the requested items and send her back a new picture, making a concerned face at the camera. Then you send her another without the cardigan, making a questioning face.
You: I don't think the necklines work together, do you?
You: See, it's got a jewel neckline so it's hard to put with anything rounded.
While you wait for a response you pick through your jewelry box to find a necklace to wear. Okay, one step down. Yellow dress for 90% sure.
Perry: It's so cute by itself! Just wear it without a sweater. It's supposed to be warm out tonight.
You: Ugh I am not aiming for cute! This is a professional function!
Perry: It's a party at a club, dear.
You: I know that but it's still with my future co-workers! I'm not trying to look cute I'm trying to look...
You frown at your phone, trying to think what you were aiming for. Professional? That would just make you seem like a square, and uptight was not part of the image you wanted. Serious and respectable yes, uptight no.
You: I'm trying to look serious. Intimidating!
Perry: Intimidating is not exactly your strong suit, sweetie.
Perry: Serious you could pull off, it's a nice cut. Very mature.
Perry: LaFontaine insists I tell you they say “you look seriously hot" I'm sorry.
You snort at the image of Perry heaving a belabored sigh as she typed that in her phone, LaFontaine grinning obnoxiously and reading over her shoulder. Well, that settles it. You'd already put your hair up, pulled your favorite silver locket out of the tangle that is your jewelry box, and now the dress has been decided. All that was left was shoes and makeup, and you had fewer choices and less analysis paralysis with those. Maybe you'll be on time to this thing after all.
You: Tell LaF I said thank you. ;)
You: You're the best!
---
You lean against the bar and try to look only half as bored as you feel. One of the sociology professors catches your eye and waves from a short distance away. What was her name again…? Ellen? Elise? Elsie! Yeah, Elsie. Eh. She was good, but not great. You nod and raise your drink at her without changing your bored expression. Thankfully she takes the hint and goes back to her conversation after a brief frown. You hadn’t called her once over the summer, you’d think she would have taken that hint as well.
It’s about an hour into the party, so everyone is here who will be here. Soon mingling time will be over, the music will get turned up, and you’ll be able to slip away without being noticed. You’ve already said hello to the head of the communications department, and all the other department heads you could find, so your official obligations have been met. So far you've successfully avoided talking to the handful of women here you’ve slept with. You scan the crowd again to see if there’s anyone worth adding to the list, but you’re not really in the mood. Then you notice a cluster of gingers at a tall table further down the room and can’t stop the smirk that slides onto your face. Maybe you can harass Clifford and the Bobsey Twins until it's late enough to make an exit. They're always fun to annoy.
As you make your way through the crowd you try to get a clearer look at their table. There's a head of light brown hair among the gingers that you don't recognize, so you change course to perch against the half wall between the seating area and the dance floor until you can get a better view. You're close enough to hear them, but there's too many people milling around to see anything other than a flash of ginger hair every so often. You settle in and pretend to watch the clusters of people scattered around the dance floor while you wait for a better opportunity.
"He's a sweetheart but a little easy to manipulate," Curly Sue is explaining to the newbie, "So you shouldn't tell him all your secrets, you know? But if you ever need help he'll come running."
"How do you guys know all these things about everyone?" The newbie sounds impressed by Curly's encyclopedic knowledge of the office gossip. "Isn't this a new faculty mixer?"
"Some of the people here are new, sure, but it's mostly people who've been here a few years like us," Clifford, ever helpful, chimes in. "It would be more accurate to call it the Faculty Without Tenure Mixer."
New Girl giggles at Clifford's lame joke and you roll your eyes. So she's into Amazons. You glance back over at their table and you catch sight of Clifford grinning like an idiot at Newbie (who is apparently wearing something with a yellow skirt) before someone walks into your view.
As you face forward again, an adjunct hipster tries to chat you up and rudely distracts you from your eavesdropping. It takes a few tries to convince him that you honestly couldn't care less about his photography or him. By the time he's accepted the fact he's barking up the wrong lesbian and gone away, the gingers have continued their guided tour of Silas faculty. You tune back in just in time to hear the end of a “Karnstein” and manage to not look their way.
"Yeah, there in the black top and purple jeans. She's in your department." Frankenstein is apparently taking point on this one, likely because they know you the best. You're not sure if that's a good thing. "Teaches rhetorical criticism and analysis. Almost never talks to people, almost always in her office, on all of the committees she can anyway because she doesn't have a choice."
"Doesn't have a choice?" Newbie sounds worried about what that could mean and you groan internally. Must they tell everyone about your family? You can practically feel the four sets of eyes on you, so you push off from your place on the wall to walk away. When you move, the eyes are suddenly gone and you put a clump of music professors between you and the dimwit squad to keep them off. You circle around the half-wall to approach their table, blending in with the crowd as best you can the whole way. You catch a high, offended squeak of "the Dean" from Suzie Homemaker, so presumably someone brought up Mother in a negative light. It's the only light she ever comes up in, really.
"Oh come on," Xena scoffs as you get back in earshot, "there's always at least one rumor going around about her and some girl from her classes. Or one of the other faculty. Or both! Having family so high up has to help keep her out of trouble."
"There's never been any proof about any of the student affairs! And there's no rules against faculty seeing each other so long as there's not a power imbalance." Aw, look at Curly Sue defending you. And probably only partially defending her own relationship with the mad scientist.
You emerge from the crowd directly behind Lawrence to find all four of them leaning together over the tabletop, completely oblivious to your appearance. "And anyway," you drawl with one hand on your hip and a glare at Xena, "only some of the rumors are true."
They all jump at the intrusion and look up at you with varying degrees of surprise and guilt. You shift your attention from Xena (unsurprisingly the least guilty) to New Girl (possibly the most guilty) across the table. You discover that in fact her entire dress is violently yellow, with tiny black polka dots, but you can't quite manage to be offended at it because oh shit she's hot. This was exactly why you wanted to scope out the terrain before you approached the table; it was much more difficult to get your eyes to focus on a girl's face the first time you see her, and not on how enticing her exposed collarbones are or how wonderfully her dress detailed the curve of her waist. That her chest was also emphasized by the gasp of surprise at your (perfect, by the way) entrance was not helping in any way, or that her open neckline was showing off a smooth, inviting field of lightly tanned skin interrupted only by a silver necklace.
No. No. Focus, Karnstein, her eyes are up there. We need to be an adult for a moment.
You offer your hand to shake and turn on the charm as best you can. Eye contact, smirk, focus. "I expect you have me at a disadvantage, sweetheart. No one's told me your rumors yet."
She stutters for a second before shaking your hand with some confidence. "I'm- uh- L-Laura. Laura Hollis. I don't think I have any rumors, I only just got here." She gives you a tight smile and looks to Curly for backup. "Unless you remember some from the last time we worked together?"
LaFontaine grins at her and raises their eyebrows. "I remember some good ones from when we were students here, do you want those?"
"I imagine those are a little outdated." You contain a snicker at the faintly terrified look on her face, and move to stand between her and LaFontaine. Maybe you can steal another stool from an adjacent table later.
"Also mostly untrue," she glares pointedly at LaFontaine. "As you should know."
"I didn't say they were true, I just said they were good." They grin at her and take a swig from their glass. You hum at that and give Newbie Hollis another appraising look. She seems too tightly wound to get up to much trouble, but you would love to be proven wrong. Although, with the smirking glare she’s giving LaFontaine right now she doesn’t look quite so innocent. You’ll have to ask them for stories later. True ones.
"If you want to keep not having rumors, Laura, you'll avoid Elvira." Clifford gets snippy amazingly fast, doesn't she? You're lucky she can't actually kill you with her glare because she's trying her best. "She's a rumor nexus."
"It is not my fault some people are desperate to pretend they know the first thing about me." Her scowl is unaffected by your icy tone, so you turn your attention back to the cupcake. "The Silas News Network here are at least useful if you want to keep an eye on what's going around, as you may have noticed. English department agent who's friends with half the athletics faculty, math and sciences liaison, and the heart of the nursing school who has the administrative staff on speed dial. You'd almost think they did it on purpose."
"If only we had someone in the business school we'd be all set," Curly chirps with a grin.
Frankenstein nudges you with their elbow. "And a better spy in communications couldn't hurt."
“I do my best,” you respond airily. They roll their eyes at you and Curly barely holds back a laugh. “You know how I feel about talking to people. Thankfully I have excellent hearing.”
“Laura? Do you think you can pick up her slack?” Curly winks at Newbie, ignoring Clifford’s newest scoff.
“I’ll try.” Oh no. Newbie's like a human ray of sunshine when she smiles. Your heart can't take it. “Although, I don’t know how well I can gossip if I’m going to be playing a McGonagall character.” Wait. A McGonagall? This tiny ball of sunshine?
“That would be an important part of the networking aspect, wouldn’t it? Talking to everyone?” Oh gods Curly is in on it. They're serious.
“Oh, you’re right!” Newbie grins directly at you then, and you're glad you've gotten so good at keeping a neutral expression because dear gods that smile. "Maybe you can introduce me to people."
"Hmm, I don't know. Being seen in public with someone as sunny as you might put a dent in my dark and mysterious image." Clifford scoffs again, and you shoot her a glare before going back to smirking at Hollis. You lay a hand on her shoulder just to make Big Red seethe, and don't miss the way Hollis's eyes flicker wider at the contact. "Speaking of which, I should go before Xena makes a scene. I'll see you around, cutie."
Before anyone can object to your exit, you slip between two tall men and weave your way back toward the bar to close your tab. No matter what time it might be, you need to get out of here. The last time you were stunned by a girl’s smile like that (gods you were actually physically stunned, what are you, twelve?) it didn’t end well for anyone. It takes a minute for the bartender to ring you up, and while you wait your phone chimes.
Science Ginger: someday you have to tell me how your teleportation power works.
You: Someday. Does Clifford have history with Newbie like you and Ginger Two?
Science Ginger: not as far as I know. why?
So Xena must be interested in her. Great. All the more reason to run away. You sign your receipt and turn to leave right as something loud and thumping comes over the sound system. Perfect timing.
You: Nothing. Give the missus my regards.
---
"How does she always vanish like that?" Perry wonders out loud as LaFontaine chuckles and picks up their phone, but you're still watching the spot where Carmilla disappeared.
"She's tiny and sneaky," Danny grumbles from behind you.
"She doesn't seem that tiny." You try to scan the crowd farther away, but you can't see very well past all the people. Maybe that's her over by the bar? That looks like the right hair, but you can't see much else. You probably should have paid attention to more than just her figure when LaFontaine first pointed her out to you. Looking for amazing hips with bright purple jeans isn't much help when all you can see is shoulders.
"Everyone forgets she's tiny because she acts so big and bad." Danny snorts and takes a sip of her drink. "A big brooding nuisance. But she's maybe two inches taller than you, tops."
"Are you calling me tiny?" You turn to Danny to give her an exaggerated offended look. She raises her eyebrows at you and tries not to laugh. You wouldn't really know if she succeeded because the background music changes to some remix with too much bass and the volume level in the room suddenly doubles.
"You are tiny, Hollis." LaFontaine rolls their eyes at you, then waves their phone toward Perry. "Carmilla sends her regards, Perr."
"Mm. Tell her I say good night." Perry has to raise her voice to be heard, but she’s still the image of polite etiquette.
"Wait, good night? Is she leaving?" You drop off your stool to your feet before you really think about it, and might have sounded a little too panicked.
"Probably... She usually does when the techno starts. Is that bad?" LaFontaine is looking at you like you've lost your mind.
"Oh no. Stop. Come back." Danny deadpans. You'll have to find out what the history is there for them to hate each other so much. It must be something terrible, Danny had seemed so sweet until Carmilla came up. You'd been getting along great and hadn't even embarrassed yourself once, despite the fact that Danny is brain-stoppingly gorgeous.
"No, no, she's like the perfect connection! Daughter of the Dean, on all the committees. I could get personal introductions to basically everyone with one move, guys. I have to go and... Danny, give me your phone." She does, with a suspicious look. You call yourself and hang up after the Doctor Who theme starts in your purse. "Text me later, okay? It was really great meeting you."
She's grinning at you again as you hand her phone back, any earlier malice forgotten. "I will." You lose your train of thought for a second and grin back at her. Wow, she's pretty. Perry coughs awkwardly to bring you back to reality.
"Right. Yes. I better go catch up to her. I, uh, I'll see you later, LaF. Perry." You pick up your jacket and purse and push your way through the crowd toward the exit, which requires a constant stream of excuse me and I'm sorry. How Carmilla could get from your table to the bar in just a few seconds is completely beyond you. Maybe Danny had a point about Carmilla being sneaky, but you actually were pretty tiny so this shouldn't be so hard. You should call Danny later and ask her if she has any more details about how exactly one sneaks, but she's super tall so it wouldn't really apply to her anywa--
Oh god you just exchanged numbers with a gorgeous Amazon you met an hour ago.
It was a split-second impulse and you didn't even think about the repercussions and oh god does she think you're a giant dork now but she seemed pretty happy about it at the time and you told her to text you so it's totally in her control now which might be a good thing because there's no pressure on you and might be a terrible thing because all you can do is wait but it's not like you can text her first to ask her if she thought you were too forward or if she even wanted to text you before you basically ordered her to like some cocky jerk but she said she would and if you then go and text her first after giving her all the agency in the exchange then she's going to think you're a giant overeager dork because you are a giant overeager dork and wait, wait, wait.
You take a deep breath and let it out through your nose. Okay. Let's deal with one unfairly attractive woman at a time. While the tall, sweet one has your number now the short, condescending, but well-connected one is getting away. You take stock of where you are and find that you've made it to the front doors of the club, hopefully without doing too much damage to yourself or others while you were internally freaking out. No one's yelling at least, that's a good sign.
The air outside is cooler than the air in the club, and you take another deep breath of the fresh air. The sun has only just gone behind the mountains, so there's plenty of light to see a small woman with black curls and purple jeans fidgeting with her phone by the bus stop on the corner. You straighten out your posture to remind yourself that you're here on business. Strictly business. As you approach, she looks up out of the corner of her eyes before putting on the same detached smirk from before.
“Cupcake.” She slips her phone into her back pocket and leans against the signpost, and you’re almost sure she just checked you out. “I’m surprised to see you left the party so soon. I bet there’s still people you hadn’t heard every sordid detail about.”
“Right…” You grimace a little at the edge in her tone. So, you haven’t left the best first impression. “I’m sorry you walked into that conversation, that was totally out of line. I actually came out here to try and connect with you. Or, uh, get to know you better. One on one. Personally. As a. Uh. Person.” She’s trying to not show how amused she is by your stuttering over how to make this not sound like a terrible pick-up line, but she’s not doing a very good job of it. “Not as, uh, the image LaF or Perry or Danny has of you. Especially Danny because well, wow.”
She snorts at that and nods, letting an actual smile crack through for a second. “Yeah. I'm not exactly on her good side. So, to make sure I understood all of... that. You want to find out more about me.” You nod, and there’s a sudden wickedness to her smirk. “Personally, or professionally?”
“Uh.” Part of your brain panics while the rest short-circuits. You’re fairly certain that responding to two women flirting with you in the same night is a bad idea. You have read that fanfic and it doesn’t end well. While getting to know Carmilla very personally might sound like a fantastic idea with her looking at you like that it’s still not what you came out here for. “Not. Uh. Not that personally. Professionally. Mostly. I mean.” You shake your head and she’s trying to not look amused again. So she’s winding you up on purpose. Great. Just great. “Ugh. We’re in the same department, right? Communications? So it would be nice if we could be friends.”
“There’s lots of faculty in our department, cutie. Some of them even like people, and get along with your new girlfriend.” New girlfriend? “You could make friends with any of them, have the same benefits, and avoid making Xena jealous.”
“Danny is not--” You roll your eyes before you remember that you are not, in fact, 19. “Look, LaF seems to like you and I trust their opinion over someone I just met. And you know everyone, so it would be a huge help to me to have your advice on how to navigate the campus politics.”
She tilts her head and raises her eyebrows at you. “So I would be useful to you. And this has nothing to do with my relationship to Dean Morgan?” You hope the flash of panic at being called out directly didn’t show, but her scoff tells you it must have. Her posture becomes more closed off and she crosses her arms over her chest. “Of course. This is precisely why I don’t talk about it, but damned LaFontaine seems physically incapable of not telling anyone who holds still long enough.”
“It’s not just about that!” It was mostly about that. The rest was her access to basically all of the important people on campus through various committees and the Dean’s influence. Not exactly the best defense.
“It’s fine, sweetheart, don’t hurt yourself.” Her tone, however, says exactly how fine it isn’t. There’s a mechanical hiss from up the street, and you both look up to see the bus stopped at a traffic light a block away. Carmilla waves to the driver and pulls her wallet out of a front pocket to find her pass. “It wouldn’t do you any good anyway, Maman and I don’t exactly… Get along. But I imagine they explained that as well.”
“They, uh. They did.” You fidget with your necklace and realize you’re acting like a toddler who was caught with their hand in the cookie jar, complete with staring at the ground. And you can’t even come up with anything to say for yourself. There’s an awkward silence and when the bus pulls up you think she’s about to climb on without saying anything more.
“Hey.” Her tone has lost the hard edge and you look up to see a sad half-smile. “It’s alright. Forget it ever happened. I’ll see you around campus?”
“Yeah.” You smile back at her. “See you around.” With a nod, she turns and goes up the few short steps. The driver gives you an expectant look, but when you shake your head he shrugs and closes the door.
As the bus pulls away, you realize he’d expected you to get on because you had taken his bus to get here. That was the route you needed to get home. You were so distracted by your… whatever that was with Carmilla that you didn’t even notice.
Perfect. Juuust perfect.
You sigh to yourself and sit on a nearby bench to wait for the next one.