Aftermath Part 2 With lauronica_mars

[countess_karnstein]

With everything that had happened that evening; the discovery of Laura’s small heart now appearing to grow in size, her super ability to heal, Carmilla’s strength becoming so out of control she not only broke a door frame and kitchen counter but her loves wrist, LaF having an eye regrow on its socket which happened to activate the cybernetic implant they were working on...

It was a lot to take in and Perry concluded they were no further into discovering what was going on than when they first started. A bit of a mood killer but it didn’t stop the gang from hauling up downstairs and taking it in turns to research any book they could find which might help understand Laura’s condition. They would work all through the night if need be. LaF was that determined. It also meant someone to be on watch in case anything else happened to Laura.

Carmilla on the other hand, was determined to distract Laura and herself from thinking about what was going on and possibly blank out the memory of her friends seeing her naked. Of course the distraction came easy while Laura was wearing her clothes. With all that leather Carm could barely keep her hands of her.

The following morning all books were off the bed. Clothes were tossed either side and black thread was hanging from the headboard. Carmilla was curled up behind Laura, her arm across her stomach and head resting softly next to hers. Laura had one hand on top of Carms and the other on the pillow, sheets ruffled and pulled up around them.

It would have been perfect had it not been for the tranquiliser dart sticking out of Carm’s arm, a heart rate monitor on the end of Laura’s finger and several pads stuck to her face and chest. LaF had hooked the readings up to the laptop and was trying to monitor Laura’s heart and symptoms. The best way to do this is when Laura was asleep so they could get accurate readings but that meant sneaking and making sure Carmilla didn’t wake up. Best way to do that? Tranquiliser darts. For some reason Callis had a handy supply. No one seemed to question where she got them.

With Laura left monitoring overnight eventually the gang downstairs had all passed out. Perry asleep on LaF who had a laptop stuck wide open on the monitor screen, head hanging down. Callis by herself on the couch, book resting on her chest. And finally Kirch who was surrounded by empty packets of food and the odd thin book.

Carmilla groaned and lifted her hand up to nurse her head. She felt like she had been hit by a train or on the worst hangover of her life. She hadn’t felt it this much since the break-up with Laura where Mattie took her out for the night. She rolled back, away from Laura and collapsed onto the pillow. Curled black hair falling around her face. “What the…” Carm mumbled, eyes becoming wide as she noticed the dark in her arm.

“Laura…”, She shook her back, trying to wake her. “Laura, wake up.”

Comments

[countess_karnstein]

Carmilla started to do up her boots. She wanted to argue the little spoon comment but couldn’t. She’ll take that for now and maybe prove Laura wrong on that later. “Not everyone. You being able to take care of yourself is one of the things I like about you. Danny couldn’t see you were capable of it and Callis has just been proven wrong. That’s two people. Three if we include how protective your father is but he’s just being your dad.”

Carmilla ran her hands through her hair and fluffed it up to give it more some volume. “If we go downstairs and LaF has found anything new about what’s going on with you I won’t hurt them. If they haven’t I’m removing their other eye.” She headed towards the door. An angry vampire annoyed at her girlfriends friends.

“If I were you’d stay up here. LaF might scream.”

[lauronica_mars]

"Carm. I'm coming down with you." Laura's voice and face were both set. "And you're not going to remove LaF's eye. You aren't going to do anything worse to her than stick her with a tranq dart." Laura held them out. "No maiming her. She's human and we don't recover from that. But I don't mind you discouraging her a bit from doing it again."

She blinked. "I'd just better get dressed first. And I'm going to have to borrow your clothes again."

[countess_karnstein]

Carmilla took the pack of darts half wondering how many a human could take as it would be nice to stick LaF with more than one. Obviously she didn’t want to kill her. Not without an explanation and maybe Laura’s permission depending on how much it annoyed her.

On the way out the room she paused only to look back with a wicked smile. “My clothes again huh? The more revealing ones are in that wardrobe.” She nodded just to the left of Laura then vanished down the stairs.

LaF and Perry must have been feeling guilty about earlier. Carm walked into the living room to find it had been not only cleaned spotless but a table was laid out with pancakes. How did they make pancakes in such a small amount of time? “Well this isn’t weird.” She blinked, taking in not only a few different types of pancakes and syrups but they even filled Carms cup with blood. She could smell near the edge of the table. It was hard to be mad at the two of them when they both sat opposite all this food waiting for her and Laura. “How long was I upstairs?”

“You’d be surprised what Perry can do when she puts her mind to it.” LaF said while Perry took the compliment with a proud beam of a smile.

“So…” Carm quickly hid the pack of tranq darts behind her back and took a seat. She thought about several ways to try and be delicate with approaching them but Carm in the end she gave up. “Look, I don’t know whose idea it was to stick me with a dart but you can’t come into our room and run tests on Laura.”

Perry sighed a little ashamed. “We know but LaF saw Laura’s heart is growing and we weren’t coming up with anything. It was a quick decision to get some fast results. We did disapprove of shooting you with dart though.”

LaF nodded. None of them touching their food till Laura turned up. “I don’t regret watching Laura kick her butt though.” They smiled but when Carm didn’t LaF snapped back into deadpan serious.

“Three days ago she had her heart ripped out and died. I’m lucky I got her back and you think I would want to hurt her?” Carm picked up a fork, playing with it to try and distract her temper.

It made Perry nervous.

“No.” LaF said. “But as we didn’t know the effects of her blood in your system other than the fact you are able to break her bones, Callis made the call to tranq you so we could get stable results. Not that we agree with that.”

Carm left the fork stabbed in a pancake. “Well you can explain that to her then. I’m done.”

And with that Carm sat back and waited for Laura to come down. The tone in her voice made LaF’s stopped churn. Annoying a vampire, she can just about handle but the thought of her friend mad at her. Even Perry looked nervous.

[lauronica_mars]

Laura rapidly picked clothes from Carmilla's wardrobe, wanting some dignity when talking with her friends. And nothing too distracting - just some of Carmilla's short shorts and a t-shirt. This took just long enough for her to hear the last exchange.

"You didn't agree with that, but you didn't do anything about it. Instead you just stood there and let Callis attack and drug Carmilla. I thought Carmilla was a friend of yours, LaF?"

She stepped forwards, too angry to pay attention to pancakes right now. "And then there's medical ethics. I know you've always had an uneasy relationships with them. But one reason to have them is you get more and more willing medical test subjects more easily."

She turned to Perry. "And you. You're normally the voice of common sense? Were you the deciding vote in shooting Carmilla? Because it wasn't Kirsch. And Callis is less scary than either of you."

[countess_karnstein]

Carm heard Laura coming down the stairs and gave a little pout of disappointment on the lack of revealing. She did however like seeing Laura with her legs out so pout quickly faded. And with how the morning went down she gathered Laura was too mad at her friends to care about what clothes she had on. The next minute of talking confirmed just that.

She stabbed a pancake a little harder that recommended and pulled it across to her plate. Combined with the fact Laura was laying into her friends, LaF and Perry clearly felt uncomfortable. Carm just kept quiet.

As if Carmilla wasn’t in the room LaF waited till Laura had finished before they spoke. “Laura sit down at let me explain.” Even if she was too mad to sit, LaF just carried on. “I’ve spent months trapped in a library with the two of you figuring out your issues. I’ve helped you every way I can and of all the outcomes of last night I didn’t want Carmilla to get shot. She is my friend.”

That surprised Carm to hear out loud. She stopped destroying her pancake to look at LaF who didn’t break eye contact with Laura.

“I admit my experiments can cross some lines and maybe I should have told you about monitoring you sleeping but we were running out of time and I wanted to make sure I could get accurate readings.”

Perry interjected. Her voice calm hoping Laura would listen to them. “None of us sided on Carmilla being shot. Callis felt doing it was for your own good but we didn’t back her.” Perry pushed some blueberry pancakes across the table towards Laura. “Please forgive us.”

Carmilla rolled her eyes. Half wanting Laura to ask her to kill one of them.

[lauronica_mars]

"So you didn't back her. You just watched Callis shoot her. And didn't do anything." Laura shrugged. "I'll know what to expect from her next time." Laura shrugged. "I wouldn't have minded the non-invasive testing. I mean you're LaF and you were looking out for me."

She frowned. "But watching over me doesn't include letting a wannabe Zeta Dudescort shoot my girlfriend while you're watching me sleep. That's the sort of thing I want people watching me to stop from happening."

She shrugged. "But that's not the final episode. You're friends even if Callis right now isn't." Laura then offered both the redheads a hug, confident they wouldn't let that happen again.

[countess_karnstein]

“Ugh.” Carm made vomit sound at the three of them hugging. “Well that’s one way to lose my appetite this morning.” She got up and headed to the kitchen, leaving the Scooby gang to have their moment of sunshine and rainbows.

Carmilla didn’t do hugs.

“We wanted to stop her but it was too late by the time we caught up with her. We did try.” Perry wanted Laura to know that.

When the hug ended LaF was about to sit down and eat when they felt a pain in their eye. Blinking a few times, they suddenly started to notice their vision was blurry. Blurry and getting worse. “Uh guys.” The implant that was allowing LaF to see through walls flickered and glitched before completely dying. If that wasn’t enough the eye denigrated in the socket and leaving the hole that was there before.

LaF deadpanned but was surprisingly calm. “I’ve lost my eye again haven’t I? Ha eye, I, get it?”

“This is hardly the time for jokes Susa…LaFontaine. Whatever Laura did it’s not permanent. She pulled LaF’s eyepatch from her pocket having kept it just in case this situation happened.

“Laura are you still super healing?” LaF asked but wasn’t staring at Laura. Their remaining good eye was getting used to doing all the work again.

[lauronica_mars]

Laura swallowed. "Only one way to find out? LaF? You've got a surgical scalpel? But my hair and nails don't regrow when I cut them?"

"Of course?" LaF pulled one out of her jacket. "Where do you want me to cut?"

"Back of my arm please?" Laura held her left arm out only to be gashed by LaF with a cut deeper than it needed to be. Laura winced, then brushed the blood off with her thumb. "Seems to be working still. So the question is whether it only heals me in a lasting way, whether there wasn't enough blood, or whether it's because eyes don't normally regrow? Or is it that you can't have the cyborg and the normal eye?"

She turned to Carmilla. "Vampires sometimes lose eyes, right, Carm?"

[countess_karnstein]

She has only gone to the kitchen to warm up a cup of blood which was then poured over a tower of pancakes like it wasn’t a big deal or gross for that matter.

“I’ve seen vampires recover from just about anything. An eye regenerating isn’t hard. Might take a few hours to grow.” Ironically for the one that didn’t need food to live she was the only one eating.

After a few bites Carm watched Perry look at her. An expression that made mortified look like an understatement. “What? What did I do now?”

“Type-O pancakes kinda freak her out.” LaF pulled a carton of orange juice across, trying to block Perry’s vision. As far as they were concerned Laura’s changes were far more important. “So we know you haven’t got vampire blood in you. That’s a good thing. We also know that your blood does crazy things but it’s only temporary.

Are you sure you’re not a vampire?” LaF was girly joking, trying to lighten the mood. “Open your mouth. I’m doing a fang check.”

[lauronica_mars]

Laura was too used to Carmilla's dietary habits by now to be seriously put off, and took a couple of pancakes of her own and took a bite. "Good pancakes, thank you, Perry. But I'll have sugar on mine. And no fangs." She smiled at LaF to demonstrate.

"The other obvious test is whether you have any physical scars you want to get rid of. Whether they get rid of them. Or whether the blood ran out before the healing was finished."

She turned to LaF. "What do the readings from your bionic eye say about what happened?"

[countess_karnstein]

“You mean mean my super cool bionic eye that now doesn’t work? LaF’s sarcasm was crystal. “Before it went the readings were strong around you and your blood. I could see your heart growing. I got the same readings when from Carmilla once she fed from you but overnight that seems to have faded.

My guess is you seem to have healing effects on yourself only but they are temporary on humans and from what happened to Carmilla I’m guess some sort of power boost for vampires.” LaF went to grab one of the books Perry had found. “If your healing factor keeps up there’s a good chance this means you won’t age. Technically you could be immortal until we figure out what’s going on. I say that…don’t go doing anything stupid. This is just a hunch.”

With that LaF handed a book to Laura with one of the pages marked. “Perry found this. There is some information on how having a heart magically returned to you can be a blessing or a curse. Maybe a bit of both. You should take a look.”

Carmilla left her fork stabbed into another pancake and sat back to look at LaF. “You think she is immortal?”

LaF waited for Laura to look at the pages Perry had marked. “I’m saying it’s a possibility. It’s not like this has happened many times before.”

[lauronica_mars]

"It's worth checking. And I don't want to age much more than I am." Laura shrugged. "But is the healing I can give temporary, or was it only trying to heal LaF's eye temporary?"

She took the book and frowned. "Which language was this book written in? Because I don't think they knew whether they meant cursed or blessed? Carmilla? You were telling me that something you read uses the same word for both blessed and cursed? It wasn't Sumerian? But possibly they used the same word because they meant it? I think it was Saucer? Sacer?"

[countess_karnstein]

Perry was surprised to hear Laura didn’t want to age much more than she was but when her girlfriend was a vampire it makes sense. She wanted to point out age isn’t a bad thing but felt she should bite her tongue. At least in those moments of thought it distracted her from Carmilla’s blood covered breakfast.

“I don’t know how it works. I could do with a sample of your blood at some point but for now I guess we just wait and see. Maybe your blood will cause permanent healing once it’s finished growing your heart.” LaF shrugged. “Who knows at this point. As long as you’re still you and feeling okay then that’s all we have to work on.” They tried to put on a positive face but the truth was both LaF and Perry were worried about what they found in that book. “I would read that book though. What happened to you is extremely rare.”

When Laura spoke Carmilla got out her chair. She quietly moved up behind Laura, resting her chin on her shoulder and pacing hand gently to waist. “Sacer. It does depend on how the words used but.” Carmilla read some more. “It doesn’t make it clear. Could be either blessing for one could be a curse for another or equally both blessing and curse for one person. I’m not sure.” Carmilla stopped reading and pulled away. “But you have to remember it’s all about perspective. Immortality could be considered a curse but some people have never wanted anything more.”

“I wouldn’t like it.” Perry chimed in. LaF just tilted their head thinking about how they would create the ultimate list of things to do.

Carmilla left the two of them in their train of thought, placed her hands over Laura’s and closed the book. “How do you feel, right now?” she asked feeling that LaF and Perry were going to spend ages researching this and no one had stopped to consider that Laura might feel fine.

[lauronica_mars]

"When was the last time a seal broke?" Laura shrugged. "Fifteen hundred years ago? As far as science is concerned I might as well be the first person ever to be like this." And she could see LaF trying not to react to that."

Laura shrugged. "And of course different people see immortality differently. I'm more Hob Gadling than Connor McCleod or Dorian Grey. And Angel broods eeven more than Carm."

And she smiled at Perry. "Pretty good. And a lot less exhausted than I was yesterday. I think I feel less tired as my heart grows to its normal size? And the weird thing is that physically I don't feel any more tired after doing things than before. So it's not quite tired?"

[countess_karnstein]

“Hey I don’t brood that much.”, Carm looked at LaF who gave a shrug and a nod that pretty much agreed with Laura. “Being put in the same sentence as Angel. A notable low point of the day.” She went to get her cup of blood from the table.

-------

Callis hadn’t lost a second of anger since Laura used permanent marker on her forehead. What made the situation worse was having Kirsch follow her around like some lost puppy and a bad reminder of that day. But while the four of them stayed in The Deans old house Mel hadn’t stopped thinking of a way to get her revenge. Not just on Laura but all of them. She was hurt her now ex friends couldn’t see that tranquilising the vampire who broke her wrists and also had super strength was actually an act of protecting her.

She thought they trusted her more than that.

Having had a day to try and cool down and scrub off the pen. Mel stared into the bathroom mirror mumbling something about hating annoying bloggers. Those mumbles quickly turned to anger.

“You know, you should really learn to control that rage. Someone might get hurt.” Mattie appeared in the reflection of the mirror standing behind Callis with a smile. Clearly knowing who she was she whipped around to see if Mattie was real.

She was.

Within seconds she had a blade out and paused at Mattie’s throat. “Give me one good reason.” She pushed the blade, forcing Mattie to raise her head higher. Mattie didn’t flinch. She didn’t even care.

“I’m already dead Cherie but I’m here to help. Wel helpl for my own amusement.” Mattie slowly pulled Callis’s hand down and the blade away. “You want your revenge don’t you? Why not have some fun while you’re at it.”

Mel folded her arms, unable to resist that offer. “Two minutes. I’m listening.”

“You know death has a plan for everything. You want revenge? Go to them, read these words out loud in their presence and both Carmilla and her…pet..will become vulnerable. You aren’t strong enough to kill them at the moment but at least this way you stand a chance.” At that Mattie held out her hand and old piece of parchment appeared. The words were magically shifting on the page, some of them even swapping places and making it hard to read.

Callis wasn’t buying any of this, she frowned at the scrape of parchment but took it anyway. “Why would you help me? I know you and Carmilla are friends.”

“Maybe it’s not me who wants it done. Maybe I’m just a mouth piece who has been told to give you hand. Never the less I have my reasons.” With that Mattie vanished in a cloud of black smoke.

A wicked smile spread across her face.

-------------

With breakfast out the way Carmila had left them all downstairs to take a shower. LaF and Perry would no doubt be researching or trying to conduct experiments. Laura probably recording her latest video. She eventually emerged, clothed and roughly drying her hair with a towel.

“Can I make them leave now?” Carm huffed at Laura, clearly talking about LaF and Perry who were thankfully in the other room and out of ear shot.

[lauronica_mars]

"Only because I'm getting better at distracting you, Carm." Laura smiled and gave her girlfriend a peck on the cheek. She might pay for her teasing later, but paying for teasing her girlfriend was never a bad thing.


-------

"Be nice, Carm." Laura frowned. "And is that Callis heading this way? She'd better be coming to apologise. Unless she wants round three." Laura cracked her knuckles, not spotting Kirsch appearing as well.

[countess_karnstein]

“I came to…Callis….help me close…” Kirsch had ran across the campus to warn his friends Callis was coming back. Unfortunately, that meant by the time he got there he was out of breath and suffering with cramp to his side. He put his back to the door and stayed there hoping to keep her out for long enough that everyone could get away.

Carmilla headed to the window. “Why would we run?” She chalked Kirsch’s statement up to him being stupid. Callis had no chance against her or Laura, let alone the two of them.

Perry and LaF had heard the noise of Kirsch’s big feet stamping in the house and came from the kitchen area over to join them.

“I’ve got to admit she must be pretty confident to take away the element of surprise. Here I was thinking she only attacked while the enemy was sleeping.” Carm’s sarcastic and cold side came out.

“No time. You have to run. You don’t..under..” Kirsch clutched his side again and in chancing his balance left the perfect opportunity for Callis. With a swift kick to the door it burst open and Kirsch went flying forward. Perry caught him like mother trying to stop a child falling over.

Callis entered. One hand pulling out the knife used to kill Danny and the other holding the parchment. “Oh look, you’re all here. What a surprise.” Out of all of them her attention was fixed on Laura. “You didn’t think I’d let yesterday go did you? When are you going to see I’m helping you?”

[lauronica_mars]

"I'm seeing you're trying to help me. But you're trying to help me in exactly the same way the Zeta Dudescorts did. Standing over me, getting in my way, and hurting people I don't want hurt while stirring up a hornet's nest. I already have an overprotective father. Now go away."

Laura slowly advanced, eyes locked on Callis. "Why did you come back here."

"Someone gave me a present." Callis smiled and suddenly could actually read the scroll. Laura's eyes widened but she wasn't quite fast enough to snatch it before everyone collapsed, the world going black."

[countess_karnstein]

When Carmilla awoke she was further from the front door than she remembered. Her head was a little fuzzy but still somehow managed to pull herself up from the floor. “What just happened?”, there was an instant shock that ran through her body when her voice didn’t sound the same as it normally did. That shocked caused panic and Carmilla felt her heart beating her chest for the first time in over three hundred years. It didn’t feel right.

She ran over to the closest reflective surface which happened to be one of her mother’s favourite mirrors just on the way to the kitchen. The face staring back at her wasn’t hers. Carmilla felt her face pale with horror of seeing Perry in her reflection. “This is a nightmare. My worst…” Carm’s temper was definitely rising. “And I’m ginger. Great.”

There was a noise beside her and when Carmilla looked down she saw herself staring back. Perry was a little taller than Carmilla so it was weird to look down at herself. “Callis if you have swapped us I’m going to..” Carm went to grab her throat, instantly believing that inside her body would be Mel. It wasn’t until a she screamed and looked terrorfied that Carm stopped.

“I’m not Callis, I’m not her. It’s me Perry and I want my body back!” She winced at the sound of her voice. Even her accent was different. In all that panic Perry clutched her stomach. “I don’t feel so good.”

“That’s because you’re dead.” Carmilla snapped, knowing full well that wasn’t true but angry at the moment. Both her and Perry ran over to LaF and Laura. Perry stuck in the body of Carm leaning over LaF and the opposite leaning over Laura.

“What if it’s happened to them?” Perry gasped and looked down at LaF hoping they would still be in there. “Please be LaFontaine, please be LaFontaine.”

[lauronica_mars]

Laura opened her eyes. "Carmilla? What happened? And why do I sound weird?"

Near Carmilla the actual LaFontaine pulled herself to her feet. "Hey! I'm Laura! Cool! Hey, Laura! Are you in my body?"

"Yes." Laura started standing up. "Silas is weird. So I'm now LaF. And just to check Carmilla, you're Perry and Perry Carmilla?" They were both standing completely wrongly for each other. "At least that means the couples are right? And it was Callis reading that freaky scroll? Think she's now Kirsch?"

LaF walked over to pluck it out of Callis' hand and read it. "Little Monster. You've got someone very mad at you here, and I though you'd enjoy seeing things from the other side. And she'd have to work out what to do with your blood lust. Don't worry, you're only stuck like this until the full moon. Have fun! Mattie"

[countess_karnstein]

Perry inside Carmilla’s body was blushing and awkwardly didn’t know where to put her hands when Laura said about couples. She would have shoved them in pockets had it not been for the fact Carmilla’s leather pants were so tight she didn’t know how she could breath. “We’re not a…”

LaF didn’t want Perry to finish that sentence. It was a subject everyone was aware of yet none of them, not even LaF and Perry spoke about. “Is anyone else loving this?” LaF spun around just to feel what it was like having long hair. “I never noticed before but you’re really short Laura.” They went up to Laura who was in their body and started poking their face. “So. Weird.”

Carmilla looked at LaF now knowing it was Laura inside. “Carmilla Perry”, she raised her hand. All body language being exactly like Carm. She was easy to spot.

Once LaF had their fun poking Laura in the face they read out the note and Carmilla had to sit down. Little Monster was a dig Mattie used to use to get under her skin. It was also a nickname Carm never wanted Laura to hear.

“Soooo.” LaF carried on, breaking the silence and getting used to having a different voice. “Positives out of all of this, we only have till the full moon then we go back to normal right? The whole blood lust thing shouldn’t be too bad. We just make sure Perry Carmilla has blood in her system then all should be fine…right?”

“Why would Mattie swap all our bodies to give Perry problems being trapped in a vampires body?” Carmilla’s tone was cold even through Perry’s voice.

While the rest of them spoke Perry was routing through all the draws in the house until she finally found some whitte labels and a marker pen. “Here!” She came into the room with a spring in her step that looked weird in Carmilla’s body. It even made Carm herself cringe. “Carmilla Perry” she wrote on the label, sticking it on Carms chest like a name tag. “I’m Perry Carmilla.” She stuck one on herself and then went over to Laura. “Laura LaF and finally LaF Laura.” Perry had to do this to stop her brain from having a meltdown. “Our names and the body’s we are trapped in.” There was an accomplished grin to her friends.

LaF nodded in approval and passed the scroll to Laura for a second opinion. “She’s clearly targeting Carmilla am I right?”

[lauronica_mars]

"I didn't mean what you do in bed, Perry. Just you're a lot closer to LaF than I was to my only high school boyfriend before I realised why that didn't work." Laura shrugged. "And stop pinching me?"

She frowned. "I don't think Mattie wanted to swap us all? She said something about me dealing with bloodlust? I think it was meant to be just for us and you two were caught by accident? Hardly the strangest thing Silas has done. And 'Little Monster', Carm?" Her voice promised that there would be a lot of teasing later.

On the ground 'Kirsch' groaned. "What did Mattie's spell do?" She rolled and started to look at her hands before patting herself down in shock.

[countess_karnstein]

Perry was still embarrassed but no one would tell as her pale skin covered exposing her embarrassment. A perk that came with body switching against a vampire. She looked at LaF who knew full well that Perry would have been a little sensitive to Laura’s comment. She was even sensitive to when LaF made a comment. It was still weird to try and work out their relationship, if either of them could call it that.

“Well that backfired but at least it can’t get worse right?” LaF had to try and put a positive spin on this. “I mean, this isn’t permanent.”

While the rest watched Kirsch, Callis pulled themselves up nurses their head. “Woah that was weird.” Callis frowned. “Why do I sound like a girl. This isn’t my dude voice.”

The next few minutes were spent with all of them watching Kirsch not only working out that he was tapped in Mel’s body but also coming to terms with the fact his anatomy had changed. In a typical fashion he stared at his chest. Carmilla rolled her eyes. “I’m not helping him if he can’t work out how to pee.”

LaF tried not to laugh. “I’m going to get some rope. Perry, you grab that chair and we’ll tie Callis up. At least until everyone’s back in their normal bodies and we can work out what to do.”

Carmilla crossed the room to stand near Laura. The two of them watching themselves move and tie up Krisch’s body to the chair. “It’s something Mattie used to call me.” Carm said flatly but obviously in Perry’s voice. “It’s a nickname that stuck with a lot of our kind. Even mother. A reminder of what Ell kept calling me when she found out what I was but also a reminder of how many victims I lured over the years. Mattie was proud of me when I was heartless.”

“Well at least Laura and Callis can talk now without fighting at one another.” LaF came towards them and Carm stopped talking about it.

In the chair Callis started to stir again. She groaned in the deep voice of Krisch and struggled to lift up their head. “You actually tied me up. Great.” Her eyes were now coming into focus. Perry sticking a label to her chest saying Callis Kisch. “Get off me.” She squirmed but it made no difference. “Well that scroll backfired. So much for getting revenge.

Why am I staring at you two idiots?” Callis looked blankly at Perry and LaF standing near to them, Laura just off to one side and not realising they had all swapped bodies.

[lauronica_mars]

Laura rolled her eyes at Kirsch's antics as she helped tie Callis up, her knots those of a perfectionist even if she had little idea of the best way to tie up a human. "Yes, you're a girl now Kirsch. Just hope it's not the wrong time of the month for Callis. And that's still cute, Carm. Could you get me the hand mirror from our dresser please?" It was of course Perry who went to get it.

She watched Callis wake up with a little satisfaction and decided to get a little more and to see how long the penny dropped. "You were told shooting Carmilla was a bad idea. So what did you do when someone objected?"

From her eyes Callis hadn't twigged even if Laura wasn't even bothering trying to disguise who she was. "You made a deal. Did no one ever tell you stories when you were a kid? Didn't you ever learn not to make a deal with one of the Fair Folk when you have a choice? Or to meddle not in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup?"

The disappointment dripped from her voice. "And if you are going to make yourself an errand girl for supernatural beings, try to follow the instructions unless you're doing things for science!" She didn't see the grin from LaF at that but knew it would be there.

"I'm going to guess, as current unofficial truthspeaker, that the herald of the underworld told you to read that scroll when you were alone with Laura and Carmilla. But you didn't. So instead of just affecting Laura and Carmilla, swapping their bodies, it affected everyone nearby. Carmilla swapped bodies with with Perry. I swapped bodies with LaFontaine. And, thank you Perry." She took the requested mirror from Perry and held it . "You are now Kirsch."

Laura didn't have much of a sadistic streak, especially not compared to Carmilla. But that didn't mean she didn't take schadenfreude in watching the horrified realisation cross Callis' face as to what she'd done and what had happened to her.

[countess_karnstein]

The look of horror on Callis’s face was something to be remembered for a life time. The blood drained from her face to the point Carmilla thought she was going to be sick. What was strange was an odd part of her wanting to grab a bucket just in case she was. Carm shrugged that thought away fast and worried where it came from.

“No..no..nooo” Callis muttered and tried to struggle free from the ropes with no luck at all. “This is what I get? All this because I wanted to protect my friend.” She still didn’t understand that shooting Carmilla was a bad thing. If she wanted to hurt her she would have staked the vampire in her sleep but she didn’t. A sleep dart didn’t seem like such a bad idea when the vampire was jacked up on super strength giving blood. “Why can’t you see that? If I wanted to hurt you I wouldn’t have..” Callis looked down at the floor, annoyed with herself but still fuelled with anger. Although most would admit that anger seemed to be her constant level of mood.

“Read the scroll again?”, LaF butted in. “Once swapped all our bodies right? So we can either wait till this reverses or see what happens if we switch again? Maybe we can get in our own bodies faster?” They took the mirror to stop Callis from staring at themselves and LaF was now looking at they reflection. Pulling faces of Laura that weren’t quite hers.

Carmilla kept her eyes on Perry who looked a little twitchy at this point and not so good. “I like the idea of speeding up the process. I don’t want to be stuck in this body a second longer.” That caused a mean glance from Perry. Carmilla finally knew what it was like when she gave someone an evil look. Perry didn’t like that at all.

The next person to walk through the door was last person anyone could have ever expected. Danny came in with her expression changing when she saw Kirsch tied to the chair. “What’s going on here? What have you done to him!”