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Laura skirted around the edge of the laundry room, only removing her eyes from her opponent to ensure that absolutely no-one was seeing what was going on. It was nearly 3 in the morning, the graveyard hours that came with being at the bottom of the journalistic totem pole giving her the oddest sleep schedule.
But that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t see.
And no-one could see this.
She took another step to her left, one step closer to the prize. Her laundry wasn’t even 10 minutes in the dryer but she was taking it and getting out anyway. Air drying in her apartment upstairs would have to do.
Laura grabbed the spray bottle of stain remover and advanced slowly towards the machine in a sideways shuffle. These things were crafty, you take your eye off them for a second and they’re gone. She inched sideways. Spray bottle held at the ready.
The spider scuttled forward across the central table.
She jumped back, whamming into the row of washing machines behind her with a resounding clunk. The crash echoed through the room, bouncing off the brick walls and metal machines. Laura’s eyes swept the table, searching for the spider.
Finding nothing, she panicked.
The room was immediately filled with a spray of stain remover.
Which she promptly inhaled.
Coughing, Laura scampered back to the safety of the corner of the room that maximized the space between herself and the table. Her lungs felt like they were on fire but she still held the spray bottle out in front of her, sweeping it back and forth.
She’d just leave. Come back in the morning. The clothes would be fine. Who would really want her tardis onesie anyway. It probably wouldn’t fit anyone else. She was pretty short.
Spider snack size.
“Problem, cutie?”
Laura jumped back with a shriek at the new voice, reflexively pulling the trigger on the spray bottle.
The voice cursed, coughing and waving away the fumes, “Frilly hell cupcake,” the girl said, “it’s too early in the morning for this.”
Wincing, Laura lowered the spray bottle, “you scared me.”
The girl kept coughing, “from the racket you were making, I think something scared you long before I walked in. Besides,” the girl gave one more hacking cough before straightening, “that’s not usually the reaction I get from beautiful women at 3 in the morning.”
Laura finally got a good view of the girl’s face. She swallowed. Hard. Fingers clenching at the spray bottle. She knew that face. 207. Carmilla Karnstein.
She hit her in the face again.
“Ack!” the sound burst from Laura’s throat. She leapt forward through the cloud, “Sorry, sorry.” She automatically reached out, placing a hand on Carmilla’s shoulder as Carmilla coughed again. When Carmilla looked up, her eyes were red, face covered in the spray.
Laura immediately scanned the room for towel. Her eyes narrowed in on the one across the room, she took a step forward then stopped. Eyes locked on the table as she once again established a sightline with the spider.
She shrank back slightly.
Carmilla reached up to wipe her face and Laura swatted her hand down, grabbing it in her own “That’ll only make it worse.”
She got a cough and a glare for a reply.
With no other options, Laura stripped off her tank top and put her free hand on Carmilla’s shoulder.
“Hold still,” she said. Using the tank top as a towel, Laura carefully wiped the chemical off Carmilla’s face. And what a face it was. No-one forgot seeing a face like that, never mind when it lived one floor down. Pale skin, black hair. Laura swiped the towel across some highly defined cheekbones, the thumb of her free hand somehow creeping up to lightly touch Carmilla’s jawline.
Laura’s towel hand finally slid back from Carmilla’s face and she suddenly found herself with a pair of deep brown eyes staring out at her. Carmilla’s brow was furrowed slightly, eyes boring into her own. Absently, Laura was aware that her thumb was still softly rubbing circles on Carmilla’s jaw.
She didn’t think to move it.
Carmilla didn’t take a step back.
Instead, Carmilla’s husky voice returned, “Care to explain, cupcake?”
The hand with the towel-tank top came down to rest on Carmilla’s shoulder, the tip of a curl of the girl’s hair tickling her knuckles. “There was a spider,” Laura whispered.
Carmilla turned immediately, taking a step back and breaking from her grip, “a what?”
Suddenly Laura realized what she’d just admitted, “A, um, spider. You know eight legged creature. Super crafty. Terrorizing innocent girls who just want to get their laundry done by flaunting all their legs and eyes and hairy bodies and just skittering around where they have no business skittering to make invisible ninja webs that people can walk into and then have spiders crawling all over their body.”
Laura couldn’t quite figure out the look that Carmilla shot her so her mouth just kept going, “and I was trying to do my laundry and the washing went fine but then i put it in the dryer and left for a minute and when I came back there was a spider on the table and I had to get at my clothes so I was going to spray it with the spray bottle but then,” Laura took a deep breath and squealed, “it moved.”
Her eyes were locked back on the spider now, the tiny beast much closer to their side of the table than she would have liked.
“A spider,” Carmilla said at last, “I got sprayed in the face, twice, because of a spider.”
Laura frowned, “technically you got sprayed in the face because you scared me.” She didn’t mention the cause of the second time.
“And,” Carmilla continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “the entire crash and flail routine I had the pleasure of viewing was because a spider moved?”
“They walk weird,” Laura fought the blush, “and they move so fast.”
“The tiny spider.” Carmilla repeated, “Seriously, cutie. Are you 12?”
“It’s a perfectly rational fear,” Laura spun to face Carmilla, temporarily forgetting about the menace on the table. Laf had prepped her for this, “Evolutionarily speaking it’s normal to be afraid of things that could kill humans. Like snakes. Or heights. There are lots of poisonous spiders. It’s literally hardwired into us.”
Carmilla arched an eyebrow at her and Laura had to wonder if that was legal, because it was doing strange things to her stomach, “And this was a poisonous spider.”
“I don’t know!” the words burst from Laura as she pointed, “it could be.”
Carmilla followed the gaze of her finger, eyes narrowing when she caught sight of the spider. She took a step back beside Laura and said, “That is the tiniest spider I have ever seen.”
“Still a spider,” Laura objected.
“Of course,” Carmilla said, “if I was as small as you are. I might have irrational fears too.”
“We are basically the same size!” Laura said
The tiny brown spider seemed to mock her from it’s perch on the table as it slowly crept towards them. Laura shrank back, using Carmilla as a body shield.
Her breath caught when something warm and soft touched her stomach. The back of Carmilla’s arm was brushing against her bare skin as Laura cowered behind her. Her stomach bare.
Laura wasn’t wearing a shirt. The tank top still a messy crumpled ball in her hand.
She let out a squeak and Carmilla turned her head to look at her. Laura knew there was no way she could miss the blush that had started in her face to spread rapidly across her chest. Her bare, bare chest. She chanced a quick glance down and almost groaned. And of course it was the lacy, slightly more revealing bra because everything else was in the laundry.
For moment she moved to throw the tank top back on, taking a step back from Carmilla. Then she realized it was covered in stain spray. Laura moved to grab a shirt from the dryer, barely making it a step before recalling the spider and shrinking back behind Carmilla.
Carmilla chuckled, “Problem, cupcake? Or did you just feel like doing the two-step?”
“I’m not wearing a shirt.” Laura mumbled.
Now Carmilla turned fully, facing her, “Now that,” she said as her eyes roamed Laura’s body, “Is the opposite of a problem.”
Fitting the impulse to hide behind the spray bottle, Laura put her hands on her hips, “You could be a gentleman about this and look away.”
“Not a man, cutie,” Carmilla said, still blatantly staring.
“The principle stands,” Laura hissed.
If anything, Carmilla stepped closer, “Maybe I just don’t want to look away. It’s not every day gorgeous woman blind me with cleaning product and then strip down to help me recover.”
Laura could feel the blush deepen, certain by this point that her entire face and chest resembled a tomato, “Please.”
“You could just put on a shirt.” Carmilla pointed out, “we are in a laundry room filled with laundry, late at night, alone.” Carmilla practically whispered the last word.
She froze. That word and the implications of the tone hitting her in all the right places. Her skin prickled, raising goosebumps along her blushing skin.
Carmilla apparently took her silence as an invitation to continue, “Or, is there some reason you can’t get a shirt, cupcake.” Her hand drifted up, a fleeting caress on Laura’s bare hip before it was gone again. “Perhaps, you don’t really want to? The spider just a convenient excuse.”
The spider.
Laura’s brain crashed. The spider was still out there, stalking the laundry room. It could have made it’s way across the floor by now. She hadn’t been watching, “Where’d it go?” She blurted, head spinning around the room.
Carmilla groaned and took a step back, “Way to kill the mood, cupcake.”
“There is a spider,” Laura said, “there is no time for that.”
“It’s just a spider,” Carmilla said.
An idea sparked, “Then you kill it.”
“What?” a grin bounced to Laura’s face as Carmilla took a step back at the words.
“I said, you kill it!” Laura repeated, “since it’s just a tiny little spider and it doesn’t bother you and it bothers me and now I’m going to worry that it’s in here every single time and please just kill it cause you said it was tiny.”
Carmilla stared at her for a moment, then squared her shoulders, “Fine.”
She reached over and grabbed a piece of paper towel from the roll on the counter. Then she turned to the table. For a moment the room was still, then Carmilla lunged forward. Slamming the paper towel down hard on the table. Laura jumped.
For a moment she felt relief, then Carmilla frowned and slammed her hand down on the table again.
Spider on the loose.
This time, Carmilla looked carefully down at the paper towel crumpled in her hand and then over at Laura. She looked back down at the paper towel. Finally, Carmilla shot Laura a smirk.
“Got it.”
Finally the tension in Laura’s shoulders relaxed. She took a deep breath, “thank you!” Happily, Laura skipped forward, going around Carmilla, and straight to the dryer. She pulled out her semi-dry clothes and dumped them in the waiting laundry basket. Grabbing the first shirt she found, Laura pulled it over her head.
“Don’t I get a reward?” Carmilla’s breath ghosted around Laura’s ear.
Laura took a moment to consider her options, then spun around, staying right in Carmilla’s space. Their noses ending inches apart.
Two could play that game, “And what,” she asked, “exactly did you have in mind?”
A glint shone in Carmilla’s eye that sent the blush rushing back up Laura’s chest, “Nothing that involved you putting the shirt back on, cupcake.”
“But then how could you take it off- oh my anglerfish,” Laura jumped back. She slammed her head against the washing machine. Again.
“What?” Carmilla’s eyes were wide.
Laura gathered her laundry basket as quickly as possible, “you’re still holding the paper towel.” She kept her eyes on the paper, as though a zombie spider was about to come out and accost her.
“I’ll throw it away,” Carmilla said immediately.
Laura shook her head, backing up, “You’ll still be covered in spider.”
Plus, the breathing space had returned her sanity. One does not just make out with their neighbours at 3 am in the laundry room. Even if they’re really hot. And even if she’d sort of been trying to finagle an introduction since she moved it.
Especially when there are spider zombies involved.
“Well, thanks for your help,” Laura said as Carmilla stared at her, shock written across her face, “with the whole spider thing. I’ve got my laundry now and there are no more spiders and sorry that I bothered you so early in the morning and sorry about your eyes again and i’d thank you for not staring at my chest but you were totally doing that. I’m flattered. I guess. Cause you’re pretty hot. Not that I’m objectifying or anything or wow, it’s really late. I’m just gonna go.”
She rationalized sprinting up the stairs as her cardio for the month.
#
This was a terrible idea.
Laura stood outside the door, staring at the little golden sign that said 207. It wasn’t as though she’d left a particularly good impression. And it was 11 am. And she was getting a blush just thinking about the laundry room.
But this was an emergency.
“Woman up, Hollis,” she muttered. Laura knocked on the door.
In the intervening 42 seconds, Laura almost ran for the stairwell twice. But the sight that greeted her at the door was worth it. Carmilla Karnstein peered out at her, in what could maybe be called pajamas. Tiny shorts, tank top and bedhead still firmly in place with a dopey look in her eyes.
The eyes narrowed, “Cupcake. Didn’t expect to be seeing you again.”
Laura winced and put her hand in her hair, flipping it over her head, “Sorry about that?”
“It’s too early for me to feel slighted,” Carmilla said, “you’ll have to come back after 2 for that.”
“You were still asleep?” Now Laura felt worse, “But it’s 11! I mean, that’s a normal time for people to be awake. And it’s a weekday. Don’t you have work or something? Maybe you work shifts. You work shifts don’t you. I bet you work shifts and I just woke you and sorry again because now I’ve run off and made you wake up before your shift when you probably needed the sleep because why else would you have been up at 3 am last week if you didn’t have a weird schedule like me and i so did not think this through and-”
“Cupcake,” Carilla cut her off, “Were you just here to babble or did this stop-in have a purpose?” Somehow even freshly awake, bedhead Carmilla managed to stir something in Laura’s stomach. Carmilla’s eyes bounced to the hand still in her hair, “i don’t suppose you’re here for an early morning booty call?”
“No,” Laura squeaked, “I would never… just.. do people actually do that?”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Carmilla sighed, leaning against the doorframe, “Well, that’s typically all I have to offer cutie. So what brings you to my door?”
As Carmilla leaned, a thin strip of skin showed itself between her tank top and shorts.
“I… um… well…” Laura stuttered, still slightly stuck on the booty call comment.
“Any day now,” Carmilla said.
Laura bit the bullet, “There’s another spider.” she said, gesturing wildly, “And i need you to come kill it.”
Again, that moment where Carmilla just stared at her, brow furrowed. Then the girl mumbled softly, “Are you for real, cupcake?”
“Sorry,” Laura said again, wondering if this was where the Canadian stereotype came from, “but there’s a spider and you know I’m scared of spiders and it’s really getting in the way and I tried to deal with it myself and I’ve trapped it under a bowl but now I’m scared to move the bowl and I tried to get back to work but I. know. it’s. there. And I don’t want to ask Danny because she’s bad enough already and you live in the building and I just thought.” Laura shrugged.
Carmilla shut the door in her face.
Laura gaped at it. The wooden barrier mocking her. She watched it for a few minutes, replaying everything that had happened in her mind, trying to figure out her mistake. And reassemble her slightly bruised pride.
Eventually she left, heading for the stairwell.
“Cupcake!” Laura turned to see Carmilla standing just outside her door, now dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a slight blush on her face. She strolled over to Laura and rolled her eyes, “Geez, have a little patience.”
Laura scowled at her, “you could've just told me you had to change first.”
Carmilla shrugged, “Slipped my mind.” She reached around Laura and opened the stairwell door, holding it so the shorter girl could pass through, “Shall we? I’d hate to see the laundry room overcome by ferocious beasts.”
“Actually,” Laura said, “it’s not the laundry room.”
#
Carmilla only made fun of Laura’s Doctor Who collection for five minutes before dealing with the spider. Slipping a piece of paper under the bowl, Carmilla took the whole thing and through it directly off Laura’s balcony. Laura stared at her, shocked as the bowl crashed 3 stories below. Carmilla grinned, shrugged, and said, “you didn’t specify how to get rid of it.
Two weeks later, Laura was back at Carmilla’s door. The older girl dutifully trudged after her, borrowing a broom to brutally attack the spider web behind the tv. As Laura watched her neighbour battle against the spider in the small space, small swears falling from her mouth as she tried to navigate the broom in such close quarters, Laura couldn’t help the giggle.
The third time, Laura felt so guilty that she forced Carmilla to stay for dinner. The fact that she already had dinner in the oven and had just happened to make too much completely incidental. Neither girl noticed as midnight slipped past and they were still talking across the table, plates long empty.
Carmilla wasn’t home the fourth time Laura came to call. Rather than face the bug in her bathroom upstairs alone, Laura curled up outside Carmilla’s door. Hours later, she was jostled awake by a set of brown eyes staring worriedly into her own and warm hand on her shoulder.
When Carmilla’s hand softly brushed some of Laura’s hair from her face, she couldn’t quite blame her sleepy state on the fact that she leaned into the touch.
The fifth time, Carmilla was already in Laura’s apartment when the spider emerged as Laura had convinced her neighbour to watch the entirety of Buffy with her. They were already deep into season 3 and several nights worth of viewing when Laura went flying into Carmilla’s lap. She found herself tightly encased in Carmilla’s arms, face to face. They spent a minute breathing each other’s air before Carmilla gently put Laura down and dealt with the arachnid. When Carmilla returned to the couch, it only took Laura a ten minute deliberation with herself before she was scooting over and curling up against Carmilla’s arm. A minute later the arm moved, encircling her and pulling her closer.
Location changed on the sixth time. Carmilla had dragged Laura out to some sort of bar, their hands linked the entire time as Carmilla pulled her from the bar to the dance floor and back again. When they’d gone to leave, a couple of drunks had gotten a little too handsy. Laura socked them in the windpipe. She’d turned to Carmilla and her neighbour was staring at her all over again, that same wondering look on her face. Even more than the grinding that Carmilla called dancing, it set a smile blooming across her face. Then she’d seen the spider on the wall behind Carmilla’s head and panicked, pulling the girl from the bar by their joined hands.
Enjoying Carmilla’s laugh from behind her.
They lost the spider on the seventh time. It lurked in the depths of Laura’s bedroom as Laura stood on the bed and yelled at Carmilla to just find the thing or it was definitely going to crawl in her nose while she slept. Carmilla rolled her eyes, sorting through Laura’s drawers and room like she knew where everything was supposed to go. Which, Laura realized, she did. They never found the spider and Carmilla insisted that Laura spend the night at her place until the spider had time to ‘clear the area’. They’d woken up the next morning a mix of 8 limbs.
On the eighth time she’d been ready to call Carmilla when the girl turned up on her doorstep. Laura had taken one look at the red eyes and mess of eyeliner on Carmilla’s face and pulled her into a hug. The older girl draping over her and clutching at her back like it was all she had.
Laura ensconced Carmilla in her ratty, favourite blanket, giving her the yellow pillow to hold, and promptly built a pillow fort around them. Then she’d snuggled in close with a bag full of marshmallows. The spider could wait. It was still waiting, two hours later, when Carmilla finally, in a broken quiet voice that tore at Laura’s heart, spoke of her family.
The ninth time, Laura lied. Carmilla was so busy with work and Laura had gone from seeing her daily to not seeing for three days. So she lured Carmilla to her apartment with the tale of a spider. It didn’t take much to get Carmilla to stay longer when the spider ‘just couldn’t be found’. In fact, it was Carmilla who suggested that she stay the night, just in case it came back. When the sun rose and Laura found herself wrapped around Carmilla in the ridiculous Doctor Who shirt she’d borrowed, she almost kissed her.
Except then she saw the actual spider and woke Carmilla up with shrieking instead of her lips.
And on the tenth time, Laura knew she was making no sense. Calling Carmilla in a drunken stupor. Still, Carmilla had come. Chest heaving wildly as she burst through the bathroom door to find Laura fully clothed, submerged in the bathtub, empty bottles on the floor and raging through the tears on her face about how her head was full of spiders.
She remember Carmilla crawling into the tub behind her, arms wrapping around her waist. When the haze lifted, Laura realized that she was somehow in dry clothes and lying on the couch with her head in Carmilla’s lap. Soft fingers running through her hair.
It was surprising how easy words of her mom floated off her tongue.
#
This was not good. This was very very very not good. Laura was backed into a corner of the laundry room, staring in horror. She’d already hit the speed dial for Carmilla. It would be fine. Carmilla could handle it.
“Laundry room! Now! So many spiders!” she shouted into the phone.
The three minutes it took for Carmilla to appear were the longest of her life. Laura pressed herself against the bay of dryers, eyes unmoving from what she couldn’t see but now knew existed. It kind of made her want to throw up. All the times she was in the laundry room and never knew.
“Well this looks familiar,” Carmilla’s voice was something of a balm, calming her brain even if her shoulders remained tense.
She held out a hand to Carmilla without taking her eyes off the enemy, “No time for jokes,” she said seriously, “heroics first. Now.”
Carmilla’s fingers smoothly interlocked with her own and, even though there was no way she was looking away from the problem, Laura could easily image the cocky, adorable look on Carmilla’s face.
“Alright cupcake,” she said, “where’s the itsy bitsy spider this time?”
Laura took a deep breath and pointed to the detergent bottle, still on the floor just beside the central table leg, “I bent down to grab that and looked under the table and,” she shuddered, “so many spiders, Carm.”
“Sure,” Carmilla said, “all two spiders.” Carmilla took a deep breath, “this will be easy.”
Laura shook her head. Trying to communicate the horror with words. There was literally a hoard of spiders under there. She didn’t know what the janitor was cleaning but it clearly wasn’t this room. It was as though one spider had given birth to a bunch of baby spiders and now an entire city of spiders lived under the table. The web stretching from end to end. Before Laura had time to warn her, Carmilla knelt down to peer under the table.
And immediately sprang with a swear. Carmilla’s back slammed against the dryers beside Laura.
“I can get the broom,” Laura offered.
Then Carmilla’s hand was back in her own and Laura was practically dragged from the laundry room. Her arm wrenching forward as Carmilla took off. They cleared the room and Carmilla leaned against the side of hallway, forehead on the cold brick.
“Um, Carm?” Laura said, maneuvering so that she could keep holding Carmilla’s hand while putting Carmilla between herself and the spider room, “What are you doingÉ
`That`s a lot of spiders,`Carmilla said weakly.
`Yeah, That's kind of why I called you.`Laura said, squeezing Carmilla's hand, `Remember. That's how this works? I find spiders and you kill them. Started in that very room in fact. Me panicking. Hitting you in the face with spray. You killing the spider.”
A small smile crossed Carmilla’s face, which Laura suddenly noticed was very pale, “As if I could forget the sight of you in just a bra, cupcake.”
Laura waited for a moment but Carmilla didn’t say anything. “So,” Laura tried again, playfully bumping Carmilla’s side, “if you could maybe offer a repeat performance and kill them. Because I’m definitely never going to be able to sleep again knowing that’s in the building. It looks like it’s been there for months.”
Carmilla mumbled something into the wall that Laura couldn’t make out.
“Sorry?” she pressed.
Carmilla sighed and turned, facing Laura but looking at her shoes, “Laura, I, um, hate spiders.”
Laura’s jaw fell slightly, she’d definitely misheard that, “What?”
Carmilla let go of her hand to play with the hem of her shirt, “I hate spiders. They terrify me,” Carmilla still didn’t look up, “I just. You asked me to kill the spider and you were just so cute with your big eyes and no shirt and ridiculous spray bottle. I wanted to impress you so I figured I could kill it but then I missed the first time.” She winced, “And it was right there staring at me with all those eyes so I just hit the table again and told you it was dead because I figured then you wouldn’t be scared and maybe we could hang out. But then you ran off”
If the admission hadn’t fried Laura’s brain then seeing Carmilla ramble definitely finished it off, “And when you showed up at my door talking about more spiders. I almost puked. But I figured it was my chance so I went with you and then I couldn’t just tell you that I was scared of spiders.” The little frown on Carmilla’s face brought Laura back, “I’m Carmilla Karnstein. I can’t be scared of spiders. Plus, you know.” A blushing Carmilla was perhaps the most beautiful thing Laura had seen, “I wanted to see you more.”
Finally Laura’s mouth agreed to cooperate, “You’re scared of spiders” she said softly.
Carmilla nodded. Eyes shut.
Laura couldn’t take it anymore, she reached out, catching Carmilla’s face mid-nod and pressing their lips together. She lightly grazed her lips across Carmilla’s, the somehow simultaneous roughness and softness causing a smile to curl across her face. For a moment Carmilla was frozen. Then arms encircled her back and Laura found herself warm all over as Carmilla’s lips started moving, pressing against her own like it was the only thing that mattered.
They broke back slowly, lips parting so their foreheads could come together.
Laura stared at her, smile still on her face, “So you’ve been killing spiders for months for me?”
Carmila winced and stepped back slightly, “Actually, I’ve been pretending to kill spiders for months.”
“All of them?” Laura kept her from moving too far.
“Except that one where I threw the whole bowl out the window,” Carmilla admitted, “I’m pretty sure that one died.”
Laura forced her face into a serious expression, “Well I suppose that worked out well for me.”
Carmilla raised an eyebrow, Laura suddenly finding herself hating that she could see it move rather than feel it against her forehead.
“It’s the same spider that’s been tormenting me for months then.” Laura said, “Giving me an excuse to see you. Who knows how long that would have taken if I had to wait for another spider to make it’s way into my apartment.”
She tugged Carmilla closer, pressing them chest to chest.
“So here’s what we do. Step 2,” Laura said, “is calling an exterminator to my apartment to hunt the spider down. Step 3 is getting the exterminator to deal with the offspring of the spider you failed to kill living in the laundry room. Step 4 is finding a temporary laundromat.”
“I think you missed a step, cupcake,” Carmilla said, a hint of worry at her admission still creasing her brow.
Laura let the smile out again, “Step 1 is ongoing.” She leaned forward and kissed Carmilla again.