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Fighting off her nightmares is not hard to do, especially when for a while, you played a part in the cause. You’ve lured hundreds of girls, and the nightmares are always the same: a mixture of typical gothic imagery and obvious but still chilling metaphors.
In your black cat form, you’re the perfect guardian. Even dreams have their superstitions. And you’ve been in these girls’ heads, in Laura’s head, often enough to know what you’re up against.
But sometimes it’s late at night and Laura is whimpering in her sleep, and you gently pad into her dreams, light on your paws, and you realise that you don’t recognise a thing.
You know it’s still a nightmare, as Laura’s reactions are still the same - people are the most honest in their sleep - but you can’t see or understand what it is that has her crying this way. And if you don’t know what you’re looking for, you have no way of protecting her from it.
On these nights, you retreat back into your human form and make your way over to her bed, stroke her hair, and whisper her name until she wakes up. And you never ask about it, and she never tells you.
You feel guilty enough being in her dreams without her knowledge anyway, even if it is to protect her.
But one day, you’re sitting on your bed, pretending to read, and she’s on hers, actually reading, and you have to ask.
“What do you dream about?” You actually wince as, for someone that’s been used to seduce and lure girls into traps for hundreds of years, you’re not that smooth. Laura looks up, surprised.
“Excuse me?” She asks, putting her book down.
“Your nightmares. What are they about?” You put down your book, too, and turn to give her your full attention. You know that it’s out of the blue for her, but it’s been eating at you for a while. You know when to respect other people’s privacy, but also, you really do hate to see her cry.
“Oh! I’ve told you already: black cats, lots of blood, your ex in a nightdress, yadda yadda yadda. Why? Are you actually doing research?” Laura’s face is halfway between a smile and a look of plain bemusement, and you can’t help but smile back in reflex.
“No, I know that. I meant the other nightmares. The ones we don’t talk about.”
You see Laura stiffen and you have the good grace to feel guilty, but you’ve decided now. It’s been bugging you for too long. You’ve generally never been a fan of what you can’t see.
“I hear you cry at night,” you continue, “and I always wake you up. And I know they’re not the same dreams because you laugh those ones off. But with these dreams, I don’t know what to do.” I don’t know how to protect you, is what you mean to say, but you’re still not totally comfortable with bearing all of your emotions out in front of her, even if it would help her open up to you in turn.
She doesn’t reply, but you see her eyes flick to a framed photograph of her and her dad. You’ve studied it before, and you know it must have been take recently, within the last year. You also know that she’s an only child; she told you that herself.
“Laura... Where’s your mother?” She’s gone truly quiet now, and the smile is long gone from her eyes, but she looks right up at you.
“She’s not in any of the photos you have out, and you never mention her-”
“Carmilla.” Laura says, suddenly, and you know immediately that it’s a warning.
"Fine, I’ll stop, cupcake. But... I’m worried, is all.” She raises an eyebrow at you.
“What? I’m allowed. You’ve grown on me.” And with that, that conversation is dropped.
It’s night again and as you “apparate” (Laura’s word) into your room, you see that Laura is wide awake, sitting up in her bed. However, the room is completely dark and the computer monitor is off, so you know that she hasn’t been recording.
“Hey,” she greets you as you walk over to your bed. She’s no longer shocked by your more tame abilities, and you admit, if only to yourself, that it makes you feel warm. To be accepted.
“Hey,” you echo back, beginning to take off your shoes. You shuffle around in silence, getting ready for bed, (getting ready for another night of guarding Laura’s dreams), as Laura continues to sit there in silence.
“When I was seventeen,” she begins, suddenly, quietly. You carefully stop what you’re doing, and turn to face her.
“When I was seventeen,” she starts again, “my mom got sick.”
“You don’t have to-”
“It happened so fast. At first we thought it was just exhaustion. At least, that’s what the doctor told us. But then she didn’t get any better.” Laura brings her knees up to her chest, and hugs them tightly, and you daren’t even breathe, as if it could distract her from her story.
“She just kept getting worse,” she continues, “and we didn’t know what to do.” You see tears begin to fall from her eyes, (and you do hate to see her cry), so you decide to make your way over to her bed. She seems surprised, but not displeased, as you sit down next to her.
“And then finally, after months, she got an X-Ray...” She stops again, and you’re not sure exactly where she’s going, but you have your guesses.
A little shyly (which you feel ridiculous about, as Laura is laying her emotions bare for you to see), you gently rest your hand on hers and start rubbing circles with your thumb. You feel a little awkward, but you’re trying.
“Cancer,” she almost whispers, and she fully takes your hand in hers, and you can feel them shake.
“She had cancer, and by the time we found out, it was too late.” Her whole body is shaking now, and you reposition yourself on her bed. Sitting up by her yellow pillow, you pull her into you, quietly, gently, so that her head is resting on your sternum. Had this been under different circumstances, you would have wondered if it was weird for her, not being being able to feel your heartbeat. Instead you just hold her, and carefully stroke her hair. You’d stroke away her tears too, but that still feels too intimate. (But you’re learning).
(You do hate to see her cry).
“She died just after my eighteenth birthday.” This is the last thing Laura manages to say, before she curles herself completely into you, tears overtaking her, albeit silently. But you can feel her body heaving. And you can almost remember how much it hurt, to cry like that. You can feel her tears wetting your shirt, and you can hear her heart beating so, so fast.
“Shh,” you whisper, trying to soothe her a little, though you have little desire for her to really stop. As much as you hate to see her cry, you know that sometimes it is necessary to, and you know she needs this.
“I bet she was beautiful,” you say instead. You’ve seen pictures of her dad, and aside from the smaller things - ears, mouth - you don’t see much in the way of physical resemblance. You can’t really think of much else to say, but she seems to appreciate it, sniffling a little, holding you tightly, as - finally - you timidly bring up a hand to wipe the tears away from her eyes.
This is how she falls asleep, and you delicately try and move the both of you so that you’re lying down on her bed.
Tonight, you don’t set foot in her dreams. Sometimes the stuff of nightmares isn’t vampires and demons and ghouls, but your own lived trauma, and you have no idea how to protect her from that. But you know that it’s not your place, not really. So instead you just hold her. She doesn’t have a nightmare that night, but you’ll guard her anyway.