Don't Forget To Remember Me

Quit Playing Games With My Heart

“Psst, Carm,” Laura whispered from the bedside.  “Carm?”

She poked the sleeping vampire, who grumbled some obscenities and then rolled over to face her but made no other movements. 

“Caaaaarm,” she called.  There was no further response, so she resorted to peeling back her eyelid.  “Waaaake uuuup,” she sang.

Carmilla squinted out of one eye.  “I knew if we slept together for one night that I’d regret it,” she mumbled sleepily.  “Leave me alone before I eat you.”  Laura giggled and Carmilla couldn’t help but chuckle too.  “What the hell do you want, hon?”

Laura placed a glass of blood on the nightstand.  “J.P. found out which coven the witch belonged to, and where they’re based.”

Carmilla sat up and started drinking the blood.

“How do you feel about a road trip?”

--- 

Laura left J.P. with LaFontaine since they didn’t trust them to be as careful with him.

“I don’t understand why they’re being so anal,” Carmilla commented from the passenger’s seat of Laura’s car.

Laura gave a nervous laugh.  “The last time they left him with us, your Mother possessed me and crushed him into dust.  Luckily, Laf had a back-up.”

Carmilla scoffed.  “I remember.  That doesn’t make any of this any less weird.”

The drive was estimated to take at least six hours.  The first couple of hours had been filled with small, random anecdotes about their past year together.

Carmilla wanted to take turns driving so Laura could nap, especially since the trip had now moved into nighttime, but she wasn’t sure how to work the GPS navigation system.  The compromise was for Carmilla to stay awake and keep her company –– a decision they were both regretting.

“Seriously?  You thought *NSYNC was better than the Backstreet Boys?”  Carmilla yelled with her arms crossed.

“I didn’t say ‘better,’ I said they were just as good as––”

“There’s no comparison!”

“How would you even know?  You barely remember their No Strings Attached album release, and you don’t remember their Celebrity album, at all!”

Carmilla slammed the dashboard with a fist, leaving a dent.  “I cannot believe this madness!”  She huffed.  “They had their self-titled album, and Backstreet’s Back, and Millennium, AND Black & Blue!  You’re telling me that stupid ‘Bye Bye Bye’ song holds a candle to ‘I Want It That Way,’ ‘Larger than Life,’ ‘Quit Playing Games (With My Heart),’ ‘The One,’ or ‘Shape of My Heart?!’”  Laura was half expecting the vampire to unbuckle her seatbelt and grab her by the throat until she agreed with her.

Laura let out an exasperated sigh.  “Gee, have a conniption, why don’t you, Carm?”  This had simply started because some One Direction song came on the radio and Carmilla made some remark about boy bands.  “I’m just saying, Justin Timberlake is still recording music and is overall awesome.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes.  “And I’m just saying that the Backstreet Boys had a better comeback and reunion than *NSYNC could ever hope for.”

Laura raised an eyebrow.

“I looked them up on Wikipedia,” Carmilla explained, an edge still obvious in a growl.

Laura laughed, which seemed to calm Carmilla down.

A comfortable silence followed, with Laura turning off the main highway onto some smaller road.

“How do you do that?” Carmilla asked.

Laura looked over, confused.  “Uhm, well, you see, Carm… You turn the circular wheel thingy in your hands, and it makes the four big circular wheel thingies under the car go where you want them to go…”

Carmilla glared at her.  “I didn’t mean driving, you idiot.”  Laura laughed.  “That!  How do you just… laugh and make me instantly feel…”  She struggled for a word.  “…calmer?”  Laura’s look of confusion returned.  Carmilla pulled a thermos out of her backpack under the glove compartment.  “You made me pack this before we left.”

“Yes,” Laura replied, not sure why it was significant.  “I didn’t want my amnesiac girlfriend to get hungry while we were in a car for six hours.”

Carmilla took a sip of blood and chuckled.  “See, that’s what I mean.  Anyone else would’ve said, ‘I didn’t want to be stuck in a car for six hours with a hungry vampire.’ But you… you don’t see me as a vampire, do you?”

Laura shrugged.  “I’m aware of it, but it’s not like it’s an all-encompassing term for you.  You’re more than just a vampire.”  She grinned.  “You’re Carmilla.”

Carmilla shook her head and smiled.  “Cupcake, your compassion is unparalleled.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the only reason you keep me around,” Laura teased.  “One time, the Alchemy club spiked the drinks at a party and anyone who drank from a certain punch bowl wound up sleep walking for a week.  But since you were a vampire, it had adverse effects, and the only way for you to wake up was to feed straight from the source.”  She rolled her eyes.  “You fed on people for the first two nights and I couldn’t take you hurting people anymore so for the rest of the week, when I felt you get out of the bed, I’d cut myself and let you feed from me.”

“You did what?”

“You had no idea for the entire week.”  Laura blushed.  “But one night you saw I had all these cuts on me and I finally told you.  You got so mad.”  Laura laughed.

Carmilla shook her head incredulously, taking a sip from the thermos.  “You’re psychotic!” she exclaimed.

Laura pouted.  “What happened to ‘Cupcake, you’re compassionate?’”  She imitated Carmilla.

“I do not sound like that.”

“‘Oh, my name is Carmilla Mircalla Millarca Arcillma Karnstein, watch me brood and mope and be snarky while I go around the apartment and light twenty million candles, one for every star I stare at while I brood and mope and snark,’” Laura joked.

Carmilla smiled and playfully swatted at the tiny girl.  “I have this strange feeling that you’re mocking me,” she said sarcastically, gulping down more blood.

“‘Backstreet Boys is way, way, way, way better than *NSYNC and I don’t know what a clothes hamper is for––’”

The car suddenly spun out of control, tires screeching as it drove straight off the road, rolling and tumbling down the hill, and landed upside down.