Chapter Text
“Okay, but I’m just saying,” Will starts, shoving a forkful of pasta into his mouth. He swallows it all without barely chewing and both of his sisters grimace at him. “It is a very interesting dating tool.”
Carmilla rolls her eyes. “It’s a hook-up app, Will. How is that remotely interesting?”
“That’s exactly it, though, darling sis.” He grins. “You find someone hot, you set up a place to meet them and you have sex. Everyone’s there for the same reason, so you don’t have to deal with the whole trouble of actually getting to know someone and going on dates with them.” He shrugs, leaning back on his seat as he takes a sip of his drink. “It’s easy relief.”
From her seat at the head of the table, Matska looks mortified.
“Oh, God,” she says, and Carmilla has to bite her lip as she pretends to shiver with the thought. “That is positively horrendous and the image of my little brother finding casual sex with strangers through a phone app is not what I was hoping to get from this dinner.”
Carmilla raises her glass, “I’m with you on that.” She then turns to her brother. “I am not signing up for Grindr. You can stop trying now.”
“Well,” Will smirks. “Grindr is a gay app, so I don’t think it would do you much good, anyway.” He leans forward on his seat, and the way his lips pull a little more to the left is enough for Carmilla to know she’s not gonna like what’s about to come out of his mouth. “You can always try Tinder, though. Plenty of ladies there for you.”
“I’m begging of you, William, please stop.” Matska says, the tips of her fingers pressed against her nose. “I will have nightmares from that.”
“You’re the one who said she needed to get laid.”
She presses her lips together, throwing him a glare. “I most certainly did not use those words.”
Will doesn’t seem fazed. Instead, he just picks up his fork and goes back to his food.
“You would have used those words if you weren’t so busy talking like those uppity bitches you work with.”
“William-”
Carmilla watches as they start to bicker back and forth and lets out a heavy sigh at the idea that this is what her night has descended into yet again. It's definitely not the first time her siblings have tried to find ways for her to get a girlfriend - Mattie has a special fondness for calling herself Carmilla's Best Wingwoman - but it definitely takes the cake as the most absurd idea she's ever heard.
As if she needs an app to help her get laid.
"Okay, you two-" she calls out, finally interrupting the other table occupants. "You need to stop. First, you," she turns to Mattie. "Stop telling me I need to find someone to date. Isn't that a bit hypocritical coming from the person who's currently single? And you," she rolls her eyes, turning to Will. "I'm glad this thing works for you, but I'm not doing it. So just let it go. And please get yourself tested as soon as possible."
Will glares at her. "That was rude and unnecessary seeing as I was only trying to help."
"Yeah, well, whatever."
They fall silent for a moment, focusing only on their food and Carmilla is momentarily glad that maybe they're finally letting this go, even if not willingly.
That is, until Mattie finishes her plate and takes her glass of wine in her hand.
"You do need to get laid, though," she says, right before she takes a sip.
From his seat, Will lets out a snort that quickly turns into a laugh and Carmilla can't quite believe her eyes when he lifts his hand for a high five and Mattie - ever-so-stoic Matska Belmonde - actually gives it to him, a self-satisfied smile on her face as she pulls her hand back to finish her wine.
"I hate you both." Carmilla groans. "I hate you both so fucking much."
Carmilla likes routine.
Dinner with her siblings is one routine she is proud to say she hasn’t strayed from despite their incredible ability to annoy her half to death every time one of them opens their mouth. Mattie, she is used to, living with her and all. William is an acquired taste though and Carmilla likes to think a day will come when she can stomach him without her eyes aching because of how much she rolls them in his presence, but that’s probably just her lying to herself.
Routines are routines, though. And her and Mattie spending time with their half-brother is one that Carmilla can’t really say she minds. It’s kind of just there. Like work and going up and down the steep escalators at the train station. Necessities.
Another necessity is the drone of the television as she’s trying to fall asleep. Carmilla finds it comforting to hear voices and laughter as she drifts off into slumber, especially since the neighborhood she and Mattie had moved into is far from the hustle and bustle of the city at night. Her program of choice is usually the ever popular Late Night with Laura Hollis that everyone and their grandmothers seem to watch. Carmilla usually falls asleep after the first interview - tonight it’s Blake Lively - letting Laura Hollis’ voice and laughter fall over her like a blanket.
Routine also means that Carmilla has to wake up and go to work everyday because the bills aren't going to pay themselves and she'll be damned if she lets Mattie handle all of their expenses without pulling her weight.
The job as an IT tech for one of the biggest newspapers in Vancouver isn't ideal, but Carmilla can't say she minds it half of the time. She's good at what she does - sometimes too good - and that means she can get away with not being the nicest employee if it means she gets the job done.
"IT, have you tried turning off and on again?" She drawls as she picks up the phone, the noise from the neighbouring gossip section fading to the background as the caller identifies themselves as one of the reporters who can't seem to get his internet connection to work.
Carmilla groans.
It isn't even ten in the morning yet.
"Is your Ethernet cable connected, Ethan?"
From his side of the line, Ethan is quiet for a moment. And then, "Uh, it wasn't. But now it is. Oh and it works!"
"Great," she says, but she isn't sure that Ethan picks up on the sarcasm dripping from her words. "How about you try that one next time you decide to bother me again?"
"Y-yes. Of course. Sorry, Carmilla. Have a good day!"
He hangs up and Carmilla lets her head fall to her hands, a heavy sigh escaping her.
"Was that Ethan again?" Kirsch, her fellow IT tech pipes up from his cubicle in front of hers, an annoying smirk on his lips. "You know he only calls you, right? I wonder why that is."
She flicks a pencil at him. "Don't start with this bullshit again, Wilson."
"I'm just saying." He shrugs. "You're not dating anyone. Maybe little Ethan thinks he has a chance to play on the big boy's playground."
The idea of even paying attention to one of the reporters - let alone one from the male sex - is enough to make Carmilla want to throw up, but the image that Kirsch is trying to paint makes it even worse, if such thing is possible.
"Will people stop talking about my dating life? What the fuck?"
"I'm just saying, bro. You're giving us a bad rep."
Carmilla levels him a glare. "We're IT techs, Kirsch. There's no way our reputation can ever be good."
He pouts in a ridiculously childish way, but it shuts him up, so Carmilla takes it as a win.
She tries to go back to work, but between the phone calls and the endless chatter about anything and everything going on in the lives of celebrities around the globe, she mostly just spaces out and tries her best not to let it all rot her brain.
It doesn't work.
By the time she leaves, she's actually considering the words of Kirsch and her siblings and that can only mean that she lost a few brain cells instead of preserving them.
God, she hates everything.
Three days later, Carmilla finally caves.
She’s woman enough to admit that Mattie and Will and Kirsch all have valid points. It has been a while since the last time she’d stumbled home stupidly drunk with a girl hanging off of her every word and even longer since she’d let someone not related to her sit down and keep her company during a meal.
And the premise of it all seems simple enough. Download the app, log into Facebook - Carmilla doesn’t bother changing her profile picture even if it is one of her wearing a balloon animal hat from when she and Mattie got high off of pot brownies in the middle of the day sometime last summer - and connect. What Carmilla doesn’t expect is how easy it is. It’s almost like a game. Once she figures out which way to swipe so that she can get rid of a profile she doesn’t like, she spends an embarrassing amount of time sitting on the train swiping left.
It’s almost as mindlessly entertaining as that stupid Candy Crush game William had introduced to her a few months ago. Carmilla even pulls up the app at work while she’s leaning back in her chair with her feet up on her desk during a particularly slow hour. If the brainless gossip columnists sitting in the neighbouring cubicles can spend their day yammering on about famous person this and famous person that, she figures she can waste a few minutes on Tinder.
It makes her laugh when she sees the profile of one of the receptionists from downstairs and she shudders when she finds several of the reporters who work the sports section staring back at her through the screen when their respective profiles pop up. Carmilla supposes it could be worse. At least Tinder was no longer showing her profiles of basic college boys - it isn’t very good at following her specifications at all - like it had been doing when she was on the train. There’s only so much swiping left someone can do before it gets boring, though, and Carmilla looks through a few more potential matches before concluding that Tinder is stupid and a waste of time and that there’s probably no one within the boundaries of this damn city worth swiping right for anyways.
She is about to text Will that his master plan has failed her before the phone on her desk rings and she is subject to another request of password retrieval for some idiot who seems to have the memory span of a pet fish.
Carmilla comes back from a call on the third floor about a broken keyboard - that turned out only to be set to a different language - to find the entire gossip section with their faces pressed to the glass on the far end of the floor, right where she knows to be the office of one of the newspaper editors.
Kirsch is standing up, his hands gripping the short wall that separates his cubicle from the one next to it, all wide-eyes and gaping mouth.
"What is going on?" Carmilla asks him, trying to figure out why it is that everyone just decided to quit working all of a sudden.
Kirsch doesn't turn to meet her eyes. "Laura Hollis is in there."
"Excuse me, what?" Carmilla squeaks, and then promptly clears her throat to get it back to normal. "Did you say Laura Hollis?"
He nods quickly. "I totally did, bro."
And suddenly Carmilla needs to sit down because holy shit.
Of course, she's heard about Laura's visits before. It had happened before Carmilla started working at the newspaper, but apparently The Vancouver Sun had been Laura's first job and she always visited whenever she was in town - which wasn't a lot, considering how big her talk show in Los Angeles had gotten.
So, yeah, she had heard all about that. But she'd never seen it happening right before her eyes.
Laura Hollis.
The girl who could charm the most embarrassing stories out of the people she interviewed. The girl who could have all of North America and probably half of the world lining up at her studio just so that they could spill her deepest secrets to her while she took it all with a sweet smile and a captivating gaze.
The girl who's voice lulled Carmilla to sleep everyday.
"Are you okay there, bro?" Kirsch calls out, and Carmilla realizes that she's been spacing out while thinking of Laura Hollis standing just a few meters away from her.
"What? Yeah, sure. Why wouldn't I be?"
Kirsch points to the door. "It's Laura Hollis." He says. "Natalie passed out the moment she saw her walking through the door."
"That girl is ridiculous." Carmilla scoffs, trying her best to hide the fact that seeing Laura would probably have her shaking on her legs as well. "So what if she's there? It's no big deal."
It looks as if she physically slapped Kirsch in the face. "Dude. How can you even say that?" He gestures to the door. "She's like the biggest thing to come out of this place!"
Carmilla rolls her eyes, still trying to play it cool even though - yeah, she totally is.
"Calm down, fanboy. You're gonna have a stroke before she walks out."
And it's as if Laura hears her, because the second she closes her mouth the door opens and out walks Laura Hollis, looking like she just stepped out of a freaking magazine editorial, all glowing hair and blinding smile.
Carmilla can feel her heart nearly beating out of her chest.
Kirsch widens his eyes as he leans over his cubicle to whisper-yell at Carmilla, "Look at her!"
And boy, is she looking. She watches as SJ - the editor for the gossip column - gets out of her office trailing behind Laura and walks her all the way over to the elevator doors that open right in front of Carmilla's cubicle. They have this sort of familiarity that Carmilla can tell isn't faked, and when they exchange hugs and say something about drinks on Friday night, Carmilla lets herself wonder just how exactly it feels to be actual friends with someone like Laura Hollis.
And then the doors are closing and Laura is gone and the whole thing suddenly feels like a far away dream that Carmilla can't quite fully remember, no matter how hard she tries.
Knowing that Laura Hollis is in town kind of ruins the illusion that her talk show is live from Los Angeles and so Carmilla spends Thursday night picking one of the countless other episodes she’d recorded to fall asleep to instead.
By Friday morning, she’s in an even worse mood than normal thanks to lack of sleep and Mattie comments on it after handing over a peace offering that consists of a brown paper bag that Carmilla knows contains a sandwich, a fruit, and probably a cookie.
“I could hear your television on all night,” Mattie says, sashaying over to where her purse is sitting on the counter. “There’s some make-up under the sink that could help hide your eye bags.”
Carmilla rolls her eyes at that, “We’re completely different skin tones.”
“Don’t say I didn’t offer, darling.” Mattie shrugs and gives Carmilla - still clad in flannel pyjama bottoms and a wool sweater - one last long look before heading for the door. “I’m off. Try not to faint of sleep deprivation at your desk today.”
Carmilla grumbles a thanks at the closing door before opening the bag in her hand and taking a bite of her sandwich. Once she’s finished that, she scrubs the exhaustion out of her eyes in the bathroom and gets ready for work.
Her day goes by relatively quickly seeing as it’s a Friday and no one is doing any real work that could lead to technological problems anyway. She’s about to text Mattie about maybe getting take-out tonight to celebrate making it another week when Kirsch materializes over her shoulder.
“What?”
“Did you want to walk together?” He asks, tightening the the knot of his scarf.
“You live the opposite direction from me.”
“Did you not check your e-mail?”
Carmilla squints up at him.
“Of course you didn’t.” Kirsch pushes at her chair. “The whole floor is having drinks together at The Pint tonight. They have a tab set up and they said there’d be food.” He lowers his face closer to hers and drops his voice into a whisper. “Word on the street is that Laura Hollis is going to be there, too.”
“Word on the street?” Carmilla repeats incredulously, trying to hide the part of her that’s cursing because she knew she should have taken the time to hide the goddamn eye bags. “Who says that these days?”
Kirsch raises his eyebrows and looks expectantly at her. “Come on. It’s not like you have anywhere to be.”
Carmilla grumbles, but admits defeat and texts Mattie that she won’t be home until late instead of asking for take-out. She lets Kirsch steer her to the elevator and then out onto the street below. It’s drizzling, but Carmilla doesn’t bother fumbling for her umbrella because the pub is only a few blocks away anyways.
She recognizes most of the faces once the host leads them to the big table that everyone else has congregated at. One face in particular stands out and Carmilla is both happy and disappointed Kirsch’s sources were reliable.
Laura looks different in real life compared to TV, Carmilla thinks, now that her brain has had ample time to process that she’s actually seeing Laura Hollis in the flesh. Probably because TV Laura looks like Los Angeles personified with her light brown hair and loud lipstick shining under bright lights. The Laura sitting at the same table as her looks younger in a simple button-up. Though her hair is tucked behind her ear in almost trademark fashion.
Carmilla doesn’t pin her hopes on having the chance to talk to Laura at all, not with the whole floor of admirers practically elbowing each other and falling over themselves trying to get a word in. Not to mention the other patrons of the pub who walk over periodically to their table each time one of them recognizes her. What would she even have to say to Laura Hollis anyway? Hi, I’ve been falling asleep to the sound of your voice for almost a year now? Yeah, it’s better she focus her energy elsewhere. Like on the free drinks and free food.
With that in mind, she and Kirsch order the most expensive things on the menu and go through several beers each, watching the baseball game on the big screen and occasionally making fun of whomever’s trying to get Laura Hollis’ attention. By the time she’s leaning against the brick wall outside, waiting for Kirsch to come out of the washroom so they can walk to the station together, Carmilla considers the night a success.
Her spirits are dampened a little by Kirsch’s washroom line is 2 long this is gonna take a while text, but she shrugs it off and pulls her jacket a little tighter around herself. At least there are a ton of people out on the streets and she’s not waiting in a dark alleyway somewhere.
Briefly, she entertains the idea of pulling up Tinder. Someone worth a swipe to the right has to be within Tinder radius of her right now. There’s simply no way that she can’t find herself a coffee date in the middle of this huge swarm of people, the odds are too great in her favour.
Carmilla swears under her breath and blames the beers before clicking on the monstrosity of an app. It takes a few left swipes before a too familiar face pops up on screen.
Holy shit.